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In a genius piece of marketing, UFC ran advertising inside Madison Square Garden for this weekend's Brock Lesnar fight with the tagline "Back to Reality." They also purchased and ran a commercial on the digital screen outside MSG, which ran over and over as fans entered the building for the Royal Rumble. Whoever came with that idea should get a raise - you won't get better direct marketing than that.
Michael Hayes and CM Punk quietly slipped into the crowd to watch Ric Flair's promo before his match with MVP last night, then headed backstage once MVP came towards the ring. Thanks to Adam for that.
Matt Hardy, Hacksaw Duggan, Funaki, DH Smith, Brian Kendrick, Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool, Jillian Hall, Melina, Victoria, Mickie James, Matt Striker, Layla El, Armando, Kelly Kelly, William Regal and The Highlanders were all backstage last night in case they were needed for last minute duty at the Royal Rumble PPV.
Beyond the dark match for the Rumble, live in the building, Lilian Garcia sang the national anthem and WWE ran two music videos on the screens in the building - the first was an awesome tribute to Ric Flair, obviously to help with his pop (not that he needed it) coming out and the other was a video of highlights from Wrestlemania 23.
Beth Phoenix and Brian Kendrick's signing yesterday morning in New York City drew in the 350 range. WWE closed out their AXXESS event with an appearance by Ric Flair that was said to have drawn in the 600-800 area. Billy Krotchsen sent word that the place was packed to the gills and the former ECW Sign Guy Dudley was helping run things. Billy also said that Jimmy Hart and Hillbilly Jim were at all three days of access signing their lives away for anyone that asked.
Adam sent the following....I was watching both the Canadian Bell Expressvu and American Dish Network feeds of the Royal Rumble, and noticed a very interesting difference between the two feeds. Expressvu had the standard SD feed of the PPV, with the WWE logo in the corner and everything 4:3, yet on Dish Network it was the 16:9 WWE HD feed that was being shown to ALL customers. Those who were not watching on the HD station but rather the SD PPV station were getting a converted letterbox feed, with black bars on the bottom of the screen and the WWE HD logo even though they were not watching HD. It was actually a smart move by Dish Network in the end, because even though the black bars are annoying, the 4:3 feed on Expressvu was still having guys cut off on the sides when they would climb the ropes and such, the same issue many were complaining about on Monday. Not sure what other providers were doing, but figured I would pass that along.
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