WWE: Liv Morgan Injury Update, Alicia Fox on Issues Faced During Her WWE Career, More on NXT Oct. 17, 2023 Viewership

Liv Morgan Injury Status Update

As noted before, Liv Morgan has been out of action for WWE since this past July due to a right shoulder injury.

The Dallas Morning News held a recent interview with Raquel Rodriguez. One of the topics discussed included Rodriguez providing an update on the status of Morgan’s recovery from her shoulder injury.

“Yeah, I’ve talked to Liv. She’s doing great. She’s really recovering well. She’s in very good spirits, and of course, she’s very, very anxious to come back. I don’t have a specific date of when she’ll be back. We’re all waiting for her. I know, I miss her terribly. So I’m very excited for that. But I feel like time has been flying, and she’s just been on it, on her recovery. So I would assume she’d be back sooner rather than later. And probably before any of us can really imagine.”

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Alicia Fox Comments on Backstage Issues She Faced During Her WWE Career

A recent episode of The Pope’s Point of View podcast featured former WWE talent Alicia Fox, real name Victoria Crawford, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Fox’s thoughts on how she now understands why WWE treated her the way they did during her time in the company.

“As long as that particular company has been doing blackface and our bosses have been doing these characters, it makes sense to me now why they were treating me like this because for me, I didn’t study the history of wrestling going forward. I lived that experience linearly. I did what they told me to do, I drove those hours. I was on a tour bus with my fiancé being driven around… I also wasn’t bringing camera crews in to exploit my friends on an already exploited agreement. There’s a whole ’nother thing. But then in the history of that particular, they got people on reality shows all day long but guess what? Since social media and everybody’s their independent brand. That was years ago, okay? Years ago.”

Fox also gave her thoughts about a past incident with Vince McMahon in 2015 over issues she had with the way NXT callups were being handled and main roster talent being told they would just become utility players to NXT talent.

“I kind of remember going into Vince’s office one day and he was always really nice and welcoming when I would knock. But I’ll tell you what… the thing I did not capitalize on is his invitation to say, ‘Knock on my door any time.’ He was so nice. He was like, ‘Who is it!?’ And I’m like, ‘Boss, can I?’ And he’s like, ‘Can you give me a minute?’ And this particular day, I was going in to ask him about seniority in the locker room, because I had an issue with the way some of the NXT talent who had already been comfortable and now at this point, established from the backs before, that you would know… I didn’t have the credentials as far as gold to look the part in any conversation and maybe it’s me self-manifesting misery. But it was just really tricky because most of our locker rooms were the glossy girls, you know? When NXT came in and I, again, started slowly being the last of the Mohicans here, I naturally gravitated to more of the enhancement talent even though it was very stated to us in a talent meeting that as NXT’s coming up, y’all are utility talent and the craziest thing about that is-is I remember walking out of that meeting with a lot of us from FCW, OVW, like us old school, our generation, and wondering if he was telling us the truth. There’s no way we’re gonna have to be these utility talent. I never even heard it put like that, and I think I even went to the one — I’m not even gonna mention his name — and I asked him, I go, ‘What do you mean?’ From the history we had from the first storyline, I thought that communication, in my mind, seemed decent. But, no, it was not. I just remember him being, ‘Doing business!’ Or something. It was such a flat — whatever. But, eventually, I saw a lot of spirits being broken. I saw a lot of people fall into their own situations. Whenever NXT came, it just really changed a lot for a lot of individuals and not just me and it was hard to see my friends suffer like that. I knew in my heart they were.”

Fox also gave her thoughts about not receiving any royalty checks from Team Bella merchandise sales after she had signed a new deal with WWE and expanded on her thoughts of being nothing more than just a utility player for Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Paige, and Team B.A.D.

“During the pandemic, everyone got new contracts because of like, whatever going on and I had signed a three-year under like… maybe developmental I made this. It was pretty whatever but I thought I was under a stipulation because they had paid for my 30-day recovery situation. Because I don’t know if you have to go to rehab, you automatically get fired. I mean, I don’t really know because they don’t tell you anything so these are all speculations. But what I lived was after I got out of my 30-day, I got the call that everyone’s getting new contracts because of the pandemic and everything. I got bumped to a developmental situation for three years which for me, I was almost still so… in such a state of being beaten by that, but just whatever. I don’t even know, I don’t care. Not that I don’t care but it was like, I don’t, right now, have the time to fight with you guys. Y’all wanna sign me a little contract? Fine. But, so I can’t use my name for three years? I kind of still have an issue with that. Because at the time, social media was going and all of the individuals that had popular social media presences because they had titleship opportunities, because they were able to create in the space… During that three years, I had never gotten a royalty check until I went on my Twitch and showed my emotions when one of the fans asked me what it was like to be on Team Bella and I went, ‘Actually, it f*cking sucked,’ and it made me get emotional because it’s true and it’s my truth and why it makes me emotional today is because I can’t pay my bills, you know what I’m saying? I’m not saying in a sense of… What I’m saying is I cannot build wealth. That is a problem if I’ve been in a company for 17 years. I don’t care about being rich, I don’t care about being poor… When I’m asked about something, I’m willing to tell the truth. It sucked to work with Team Bella. You wanna know why? Because I’m Alicia Fox and I was very clear that there were a lot of t-shirts in the audience and I was sure I won’t get a penny. So I went to the office and I asked them, I go, ‘Is this gonna help my bills? Because I think my royalty checks were so flat. I’m not seeing any money…’ So just a decent check, right? Especially because we’re paying for all our expenses and he goes, ‘Those girls make 50 cents. Those girls aren’t making any money’ and I believed it I guess but I went on, I continued my Total Bellas stuff, whatever it was and then when the pandemic hit and they gave me a developmental contract whereas, that’s before taxes. So there’s the tax, then I have my attorney because look at me. I’m not walking around this contract by myself no more. You better believe that. For eight, nine years, I’ve had the same council and she is a college degree, so excuse me and more importantly, the liquid wealth… Really, y’all are borrowing my body to put over your superstars. I am not an employee. I paid to go to work, I paid for that career so I don’t know. They should put more titles behind it because I paid for those too behind my name. The last thing I’ll just say on that is like, you know, so I went on Twitch when I could and I had mentioned after I had said it, I go, ‘You know, the thing is it makes me so mad looking at all that Team Bella stuff because I knew I was never gonna see a penny.’ I knew it from the day that they just randomly put us together so we could be utility talents for all NXT’s Charlotte (Flair), Becky (Lynch) and Paige and then the Team B.A.D., you know? So I wasn’t just a utility spare tire for them, I was also the damn push buggy for — all three of us were — for the rest of the generations to come to go ahead and get the title to quit at the end of the day, Moné… Give me money. So anyway, then, what I’ll say just last about the evolution thing, it’s really interesting to me because I think I get more pissed today looking at the girls’ podcasts talking about their experience, strength and hope and truth… and it’s crazy. It’s so crazy because you know why?… Some of ‘em have been flown to L.A. to get gear, some of them have been doing promiscuous things on-set, whatever going on. I never knew all that but now y’all on podcasts, post social media. So, who was the other character in the locker — it’s just bizarre because I wonder if they’re getting their royalties today because that’s all I wanna know.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestlung.com

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More on NXT Viewership for October 17, 2023

The October 17th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a very large decline in overall viewership, a large decline in key demographic rating, and a slight decline in key demographic ranking.

NXT drew 798,000 viewers and a 0.23 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic ranking for that night was 3rd place.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to stiff sports competition that night and the large declines from their younger male key demographic viewership and older female key demographic viewership groups, which were down 44.1% and 40.7% respectively compared to last week’s show. This reportedly offset the gains from their younger female key demographic viewership group, which was up 15.9% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of notable head-to-head competition, the 2023 MLB Playoffs NLCS Game 2 of Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies drew 5,129,000 viewers on TBS, the NHL game of Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Buffalo Sabres drew 552,000 viewers on EPSN, the United States vs. Ghana soccer game drew 378,000 viewers on TNT, the Mexico vs. Germany soccer game drew 390,000 viewers on TUDN, the NBA Pre-season game of New York Knicks vs. Boston Celtics drew 198,000 viewers on NBA TV, the College Football game of Southern Mississippi vs. South Alabama drew 236,000 viewers on ESPN2, My Big Fat Fabulous Lie drew 614,000 viewers on TLC and Catfish drew 412,000 viewers on MTV.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 302,000 viewers. NXT’s Males 18-34 was 62,000 viewers (down 44.1%), Females 18-34 was 51,000 viewers (up 15.9%), Males 35-49 was 137,000 viewers (down 11.6%), and Females 35-49 was 51,000 viewers (down 40.7%). Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership split was 199,000 male viewers and 102,000 female viewers for a split of 65.9% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 18% in overall viewership and up 25.6% in key demographic viewership. Meltzer reported that NXT’s 18-34 viewership was up 62.9% compared to the same week last year.