UPDATE ON DANIEL BRYAN, MORE ON COLE

Daniel Bryan wrote the following on Twitter this week regarding his match with Chris Jericho on WWE NXT: “Resting and allowing my ribs to heal… There’s a reason it’s called a “suicide dive.” Yikes!”

There are people within WWE right now who are trying to say that the interaction between Michael Cole and Josh Matthews on WWE NXT this week was a shoot but some are skeptical. Joey Styles backed this up on Twitter as he “assured us” that the commentating between Cole and Lawler was “very real.” Styles said that Cole “lives in the WWE bubble.”

MIZ GETTING RIBBED BACKSTAGE, SMACKDOWN RATINGS, UPDATE ON SMACKDOWN VS RAW 2011

The Miz was getting ribbed on backstage a lot by his co-workers about being picked to mentor Daniel Bryan on NXT. Sources say that after this week’s NXT premiere, Vince McMahon felt that they had already made Bryan into a star in one night with the Miz interaction and the main event with Chris Jericho.

The February 5th episode of WWE’s Friday Night SmackDown scored a 1.8 broadcast rating, it’s lowest number in a while. The show drew 3,159,000 viewers

Paul Bearer noted on Twitter this week that he was doing some work on the new RAW vs. SmackDown 2011 video game that will be released this Fall.

  

GAME TURNING HEEL??? ROLE OF ORTON IN NEW MOVIE

There is talk again within WWE about turning Triple H heel later this year. This was talked about last year but put on hold because of the most recent DX reunion.

WWE began filming the movie Big Red in New Orleans this week. It stars actors Ed Harris and Amy Madigan with RAW’s Randy Orton. The movie is based in the mid 1960’s and focuses on a smart 12-year-old boy whose teacher makes him work with a social outcast on a project and the outcast has an incident with a bully at school. Orton will star as the father of the bully who tries to get Harris fired him his job as teacher. Madigan will play the school’s principal.

WWE DIVA SET TO RETURN, DREW MOCKED BACKSTAGE, SAVANNAH TOPLESS

Melina is set to return to action some time in late spring after her surgery to repair a torn ACL in December.

WWE Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre’s new nickname backstage in WWE is Avatar, apparently because of the joke that his fiancee, WWE Diva Tiffany controls him.

As mentioned before, WWE Diva Savannah has a topless scene in the new movie Ratko: The Dictator’s Son, out now on DVD. Savannah actually filmed the role before signing with WWE, when she was still working as a cheerleader for the CFL’s British Columbia Lions. 

PRESS RELEASE FOR NXT RATINGS

The debut episode of WWE NXT on SyFy drew a 1.35 rating and averaged 1,704,000 viewers. WWE and SyFy sent this out today:

PREMIERE OF WWE NXT PINS 1.7 MILLION TOTAL VIEWERS DURING TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23 DEBUT ON SYFY, SOARING 32%

NXT Leaps 73% in Adults 18-34, 51% in Adults 18-49 and 35% in Adults 25-54

New York, NY — February 24, 2010 — The premiere of Syfy’s WWE NXT, a new hybrid live event/reality show featuring eight popular WWE Superstars (“Pros”) mentoring eight WWE “Rookies,” pinned 1.7 million total viewers during its Tuesday, February 23 debut, leaping 32% compared to the 1Q10 to-date delivery for the Tuesday 10PM (ET/PT) programming.

During the 10-11PM (ET/PT) telecast, NXT jumped 73% in Adults 18-34 (430,000), 51% in Adults 18-49 (787,000) and 35% in Adults 25-54 (767,000), along with a 1.3 household rating.

This is the best HH rating and Adults18-49 delivery for a WWE series telecast on Syfy since 9/1/09.

The median age for WWE NXT was 35.2, nearly eight years below the 42.9 average for the Tuesday 10PM programming in 1Q10.

In WWE NXT’s 10PM time period, Syfy was the #2 cable network for Men 18-49 and Men 25-54, and was in the top 5 cable entertainment networks in Adults 25-54 (#3), Men 18-34 (#4) and Adults 18-49 (#5).

NXT is a unique combination of heart-stopping entertainment and gritty behind-the-scenes reality. The Rookie stars of the series take the challenge of the Syfy tagline Imagine Greater’ to heart as they embark on their ultimate dream quest to join the next generation of WWE revered heroes and champions.