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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno). Gilbertti says that the decline in wrestling’s popular...
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).</p><p>Lane asks Russo and Gilbertti for their opinions on the rumours that <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/paige" title="Paige">Paige</a></strong> was sitting ringside at Slammiversary last weekend wearing a mask in order to protect her identity. Gilbertti says that he can’t lower his IQ enough to discuss this on an intellectual level. Russo says that if that was Paige, it’s easy to tell that this was a desperate move by her in order to get out of her contract.</p><p>Paige clearly <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/wants/" title="wants">wants</a></strong> to be with her boyfriend Del Rio in Global Force Wrestling, so Russo doesn’t understand why both parties can’t get on the same page here and make that release happen. WWE has actually referenced Paige’s leaked sex tape on WWE the last couple of weeks, but then they removed those references from the replays.</p><p></p><p>Gilbertti doesn’t understand this because the average age of their fans is 54, yet they’re still acting like they have to market to a young demographic. Russo says that if this was the attitude era, Del Rio would have been signed after Paige’s tape was released, and the storyline would have consisted of Del Rio and Paige accusing <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/xavier-woods" title="Xavier Woods">Xavier Woods</a></strong> of releasing that tape. This would have been a great storyline and everyone would have been talking about it.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno), and Konnan.</p><p>Russo opens today’s show by discussing the rise in viewership for Smackdown Live this past week. The blue brand’s viewership increased by 500,000 last week and he believes that was a direct result of the booking from Sunday’s Money in the Bank PPV, specifically the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.</p><p></p><p>Konnan agrees and although he thinks the finish could have been done better, it accomplished its goal of drawing attention to the brand. Russo points out that when you tell stories and <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/leave/" title="leave">leave</a></strong> viewers wondering, they will tune into the next show to see what happens.</p><p>Gilbertti says that the fan backlash over that finish was <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/silly/" title="silly">silly</a></strong> to <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/begin/" title="begin">begin</a></strong> with. He says the problem with the wrestling industry right now is that there are too few experts, and the actual experts are criticized and ridiculed by people who consider themselves experts simply because they’ve watched a lot of wrestling.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).</p><p>Russo opens today’s show speaking about the announced match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. Russo thinks that McGregor’s youth could play more of a factor in this bout than people think, but Gilbertti says that McGregor has no chance in this fight whatsoever. Mayweather might be 40 years old, but he’s still in terrific shape and his age will not be a factor in this fight.</p><p></p><p>Russo believes that since this fight is scheduled for August, the hype surrounding it will have a negative impact on WWE and their build towards this year’s SummerSlam. Gilbertti doesn’t believe WWE will be affected by that because they have their niche audience, and those people are going to watch the product anyways.</p><p>Even though WWE’s television ratings continue to decline, Gilbertti doesn’t think WWE really cares about the ratings at this point, as long as their WWE Network numbers are still strong. The Network is their new <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/major/" title="major">major</a></strong> revenue stream, and the television ratings have taken a back seat. Gilbertti mentions that it’ll be interesting to see what happens to WWE’s shrinking ratings once <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/brock-lesnar" title="Brock Lesnar">Brock Lesnar</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/johncena" title="John Cena">John Cena</a></strong> retire, because they’re WWE’s two biggest stars right now.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).</p><p>Russo comments on the growing speculation online, that WWE’s promotional image for the upcoming ‘Great Balls of Fire’ PPV resembles a penis and two testicles. <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/sasha-banks" title="Sasha Banks">Sasha Banks</a></strong> even tweeted this week that she actually agrees with the speculation and can see the resemblance. Russo doesn’t understand why WWE would blatantly do this <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/given/" title="given">given</a></strong> their ‘PG’ environment, and the fact that their target fanbase is mostly children.</p><p></p><p>Gilbertti points out that there was a recent study which concluded that the median age of WWE’s fanbase is 54. Russo is shocked by this news but it proves what he’s been saying for a long time now, that WWE isn’t making new fans. Gilbertti says that this number has nearly doubled from 28 in 2000, and today’s fans are mostly attitude era leftovers. He adds that WWE’s fans are literally dying off.</p><p>Russo says that wrestling isn’t ‘cool’ anymore, and teenagers aren’t watching today’s product. In turn, WWE is unable to generate and maintain new fans. Gilbertti says that WWE had the biggest increase of median fan age from 2000 to 2017 out of the 25 sports that were studied.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).</p><p>Russo asks Gilbertti about the ongoing criticism towards Jinder Mahal by some wrestling fans, who accuse him of taking steroids. Gilbertti informs that he has tried steroids in the past and from his experience, it’s entirely possible to look the way Mahal does without taking steroids. With a lot of hard work in the gym and a good diet you can achieve a physique such as Mahal’s.</p><p></p><p>Lane informs that IMPACT Wrestling and Ed Nordholm are discussing bringing <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/billy/" title="Billy">Billy</a></strong> Corgan back into the fold, to help mediate the discussions between the promotion and Matt Hardy. The thought is that Corgan can be of some <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/value/" title="value">value</a></strong> when it <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/comes/" title="comes">comes</a></strong> to bridging the gap between all the parties concerning the Broken Universe.</p><p>Russo says that Nordholm has far too many distractions right now, and his recent memo to wrestling media is a prime example of this. In this memo, Nordholm made public various private conversations between himself and Matt Hardy in an attempt to prove that he has been telling the truth. Russo says that Nordholm should be more focused on trying to revive IMPACT’s on-air product.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno)</p><p>Gilbertti discusses WWE’s steadily dropping ratings. He says that wrestling is a star-driven business, and until WWE finds another Austin or Rock, their business is going to suffer. It’s pretty incredible to think that the biggest star in Hollywood was actually a professional wrestler on WWE’s roster for a number of years. Since Rock left, they haven’t been able to fill that void.</p><p>Lane points out that WWE might be turning away the next Austin or Rock because they’re too busy looking for the best ‘workers’. Gilbertti says that today’s promos are all heavily scripted and none of the competitors are able to deliver the promos believably. He says it’s almost like all the talents are in a library because none of them even <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/raise/" title="raise">raise</a></strong> their voices while delivering a promo.</p><p></p><p>Lane informs that Al Snow was arrested late last week because of a typo in the police’s systems. Lane thinks it’s ridiculous that all the dirt sheets posted a picture of Snow’s mug shot, taking advantage of this unfortunate situation.</p><p>Gilbertti says that whenever anyone with any notoriety gets arrested their mug shot is going to be posted on the news and online. That’s simply the way it is. Russo says that he does <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/agree/" title="agree">agree</a></strong> with the <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/tag/heart/" title="heart">heart</a></strong> of Lane’s point, in that the dirt sheets continuously post these stories as ‘news’ when they’re nothing more than errors and lies most of the time.</p>
<p>Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).</p><p>Russo comments on the dynamic at the top of WWE between <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/vince-mcmahon" title="Vince McMahon">Vince McMahon</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/stephanie-mcmahon" title="Stephanie McMahon">Stephanie McMahon</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.ringsidenews.com/wrestler/triple-h" title="Triple H">Triple H</a></strong>. Russo says a fan wrote him a letter this past week suggesting that Triple H is ‘working’ his father-in-law, Vince McMahon, in an attempt to ascend to the top of the mountain that is WWE.</p><p></p><p>Russo truly believes that Triple H is working Vince McMahon, and although he had a lot of pleasurable experiences with Triple H in the past, he also remembers times when he wasn’t as easy to deal with. He recalls one time when Triple H refused to do the job for D-Lo Brown, who had put Triple H over for months upon months. This really aggravated Russo because the creative team wanted to keep D-Lo Brown strong and the one time they asked Triple H to return the favour, he refused to do so.</p><p>The fan who wrote Russo suggested that Triple H has convinced McMahon that social media is WWE’s most important statistic at this point, ahead of television ratings and things of the sort. Since social media is compiled mostly of hardcore fans, WWE’s product has skewed towards a niche fanbase in an attempt to get positive reinforcement from their social media target base.</p>