WWE: Bron Breakker Gives NXT Farewell Speech After Tuesday NXT Show, WWE Touts WrestleMania 40 Being Most Successful WWE Event, More News

Apr 10, 2024

Bron Breakker Gives NXT Farewell Speech After Tuesday’s NXT Show

Tuesday’s WWE NXT show featured Axiom & Nathan Frazer defeating the Wolf Dogs (Baron Corbin & Bron Breakker) to become the new NXT Champions.

Following the show, Corbin and Breakker gave a speech to the live crowd stating their farewells to WWE’s NXT brand.

During his portion of the speech, Corbin stated:

“We had to come out and tell each and every one of you thank you so much. Most importantly, I want to say thank you to Bron Breakker. This man helped reignite that fire, along with all of you, for me. Coming back here to NXT, it has been one hell of a ride. Bron got me my first gold in over six years. I bust my ass for this man right here because he’s an unbelievable competitor, he’s turned into one hell of a friend, and he’s gonna go off to SmackDown, and he’s gonna become WWE World Heavyweight Champion.”

Breakker responded stating:

“I love you, too. Look, we came out here tonight to really thank all of you. I got my start right here in this very building from day one, back in NXT 2.0. Right here in the WWE Performance Center, since day one, all of you guys have been on this journey, on this ride with me the whole time, so I cannot thank you enough. I want to thank Shawn Michaels for giving me the opportunity to come back here along with all of the Performance Center coaches that are here every single day working their butts off to create the future for WWE. I want to thank all the competitors who have pushed me along the way, but man, right now, I want to thank my tag team partner, Baron Corbin. Look, man. We’ve fought alongside each other, we fought against each other, we’ve kicked a lot of ass together. We became world tag team champions, one of, if not the best tag team in the world, in a short amount of time. I can’t thank you enough, man, for giving me the opportunity to work with you. Not only are you a phenomenal competitor, one of the best athletes that I’ve ever been around, but you are my friend. [Corbin hugs him] As far as what the future holds for the Wolf Dogs or Baron Corbin or Bron Breakker, right now, it’s not goodbye.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

WWE Touts WrestleMania 40 Being Most Successful Event in WWE History

WWE recently announced that this past weekend’s WrestleMania 40 event at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the most financially successful event in company history.

Official press release:

WRESTLEMANIA XL BECOMES MOST SUCCESSFUL EVENT IN WWE HISTORY
WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia Shatters All-Time Gate, Viewership, Merchandise, Fan Event & Social Records
STAMFORD, Conn., April 9, 2024 – WWE^®, part of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), today announced that WrestleMania XL became the most-successful and highest-grossing event in company history.
Highlights include:
GATE: WrestleMania XL broke the previous record set by WrestleMania 39 by 78 percent, with 145,298 in attendance at Lincoln Financial Field over two nights. The event drew fans from all 50 states and 64 countries worldwide.
VIEWERSHIP: WrestleMania XL viewership was up 41 percent across both nights versus last year’s record-setting audience.
MERCHANDISE: In partnership with Fanatics, merchandise sales were up more than 20 percent versus the previous record set at WrestleMania 39.
SPONSORSHIP: WrestleMania XL featured the first-ever ring mat sponsorship with PRIME Hydration.
FAN EVENT: WWE World at WrestleMania, in partnership with Fanatics Events, is now the highest-grossing and most-attended fan event in company history.
SOCIAL: WrestleMania XL became the most socially viewed WrestleMania of all-time, with over 660 million views consumed over the two days. WWE’s YouTube channel saw its most-viewed day in channel history on WrestleMania XL Sunday with more than 67 million views in 24 hours.
SMACKDOWN: Friday Night SmackDown at Wells Fargo Center drew the largest gate in SmackDown history.
RAW: Monday Night Raw at Wells Fargo Center drew the largest gate in Raw history.
NXT: Stand & Deliver was the most-attended NXT event ever with 16,545 in attendance at Wells Fargo Center.
The record-breaking event was highlighted by the highly anticipated in-ring return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes’ triumphant victory over Roman Reigns.

WWE News & Notes

Variety reported that their sources stated that Damian Priest recently signed a deal with talent agency Paradigm to “build his business across books, acting, marketing, unscripted and more.”

In a recent SEC filing, TKO Group announced that TKO Board of Directors member Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was awarded 96,558 shares of TKO stock, which would be worth over $9.4 million based on the close of Tuesday’s trading hours. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that if this was meant to be payment for Rock’s performances at WrestleMania 40, then it would be the biggest ever pay day for a person in WrestleMania history.

Variety also reported that their sources also stated that this past weekend’s WrestleMania 40 event broke the record for most streamed entertainment event ever in Peacock history. It was reported that the two night event generated around 1.3 billion minutes on the service with Night 1’s minutes viewership being up 26% and Night 2’s minutes viewership being up 30% compared to last year’s WrestleMania 39 two-night event. It was also reported that WrestleMania 40 was the second highest usage weekend in Peacock history, only behind this past January’s 2024 NFL Wild Card game on January 13th and following day’s viewership on January 14th on the service.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that WWE officials recently sent an internal memo stating that Cody Rhodes had sold over $1 million in merchandise throughout this past WrestleMania 40 weekend between their physical WWE World store and online WWEShop. It was reported that Rhodes’ merchandise sales broke his WrestleMania record from last year.

This past Saturday’s WrestleMania 40 Night 1 event in Philadelphia featured former Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce making a surprise appearance helping Rey Mysterio & Andrade defeat Dominik Mysterio & Santos Escobar. TMZ Sports reported that those spoken to within WWE stated that WWE officials are currently interested in the idea of Kelce making more potential appearances in the company in the future.

WWE recently announced that Paul Heyman’s induction speech at this past Friday’s WWE Hall of Fame 2024 event was the most ever socially viewed speech in WWE Hall of Fame history at over 27 million views across all of WWE’s digital and social media platforms.

WWE also recently announced that the combine attendances for their WrestleMania 40 Weekend events this past weekend in Philadelphia was 201,924.

Roman Reigns reflected on Twitter on Tuesday about his loss to Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 40 ending his reign as Undisputed WWE Universal Champion at 1,316 days. Reigns stated “Yesterday I mourned. Today is Day 1.“

This past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania featured Jade Cargill competing in her first ever singles match of her WWE career. Cargill defeating Chelsea Green in a match that went a little over 30 seconds. Cargill recently reflected on Twitter about her singles debut in WWE stating “Wait so…you guys thought that was going to be a long match??? I told you all I’m coming for the women’s division. One head at a time. I get paid per match. So let’s make it quick. 2-0.“

In a recent interview withThe Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast, Ronda Rousey gave her thoughts about her belief that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel needs to “clean house” to remove all of Vince McMahon’s remaining influence in WWE. Rousey stated “I mean supposedly, he’s out now because they paying company funds so he could shit on some girl’s head in the office and do a threesome with her and Johnny Laurinaitis. But his cronies are still there. So when that stuff started coming out and Vince was gone before, he was still basically calling it in and running the company. But Bruce Prichard, who’s there now, who’s like the head of creative or whatever title they gave him, is basically just taking orders from Vince and still running the company through him. So when Vince resigned formally because of all these sexual allegations and stuff that was coming out, he was still running the company informally, and I think he still is to this day. Steph and Triple H, I think they’re honestly doing their best. But I mean, I think that Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment, and I think if Ari Emanuel is gonna be able to actually make this multi-billion dollar dysfunctional organization into one that functions, he’s gotta clean out all of Vince’s cronies. He’s gotta completely clean house and remove Vince’s influence completely. No one’s asking me, but that’s just what I experienced when Vince was gone. He was still running the show through people that he’d hired in the past, Bruce Prichard being number one of them. Bruce Prichard, literally I never heard him say a single one of his own opinions. He’d only say, ‘Vince says this, Vince says that. Vince, Vince, Vince.’ So he’s literally just, I called him Vince’s avatar. That’s basically what he is.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)