Who Came Up With The Colter Gimmick?, Y2J Ratings

– WWE’s ongoing xenophobic storyline with “Dirty” Dutch Mantel as Jack Swagger’s manager Zeb Colter was reportedly brainstormed by Kevin Eck, a former writer for Baltimore Sun who joined the sports-entertainment organization in 2011.

– Diamond Dallas Page is today’s featured Superstar on WWE.com.

– Tuesday’s premiere episode of Robot Combat League on Syfy featuring Chris Jericho as host drew over 1.3 million viewers. The television network issued the following press release touting the episode as the best “unscripted series premiere in over two years among viewers 18-49.”

“ROBOT COMBAT LEAGUE” KICKS BOT AS SYFY’S BEST PREMIERE FOR A NEW UNSCRIPTED SERIES AMONG ADULTS 18-49 IN OVER TWO YEARS

PREMIERE OF NEW COMPETITION SERIES ATTRACTED OVER 1.3 MILLION TOTAL VIEWERS AND 748,000 VIEWERS 18-49

NEW YORK – February 27, 2013 – Last night’s 10 p.m. (ET/PT) premiere of Syfy’s new competition series, Robot Combat League, geared up more than 1.3 million total viewers and 748,000 Adults 18-49 for a season of non-stop mechanical carnage. This marks Syfy’s best unscripted series premiere in over two years among viewers 18-49. The episode also had an additional 200,000 views pre-premiere on multiple platforms including Syfy.com, VOD, Xbox 360, Roku and Hulu.

The premiere, in which 24 contestants and 12 state-of-the-art robots were introduced and ranked for the season’s fight tournament, also scored for Syfy.com as the site’s best unscripted series premiere ever across all key traffic metrics and as Syfy’s best unscripted series premiere day ever for Twitter activity.

Robot Combat League continues with an all-new, one-hour episode next Tuesday, March 5 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. The episode features preliminary Fights 2 and 3 in the Robot Combat League tournament. The first battle will pit second-ranked Team Commander, piloted by Apache helicopter pilot Jeffrey Fellin and NASA/JPL engineer Paulo Younse, against 11th-ranked Team Scorpio, controlled by college student Diana Yang and toymaker Chris Hadouin. In the second fight of the episode, former All-American athlete Devonric Johnson and mechanical engineer Russell Tait lead third-ranked Team Brimstone against tenth-ranked Team Thunder Skull, made up of race car driver Heather Williams and I.T. specialist Brandon Lewis.

Each week Robot Combat League, hosted by Chris Jericho, the wildly popular WWE superstar, features tournament-style battles between eight-foot tall humanoid robots controlled by a human fighter (“robo-jockey”) and an engineer (“robo-tech”). The robots were designed and created by robotics expert, Mark Setrakian (Hellboy, Men in Black), a leader in the sport of robotic combat.

Robot Combat League is produced by Smart Dog Media, with Craig Plestis serving as executive producer.