Daily Update
Latest News:
WWE Draft 2023: Full list of night two picksLeva Bates announces AEW departure after contract expiresWWE Raw live results: Draft night twoSmackDown draws big ratings for night one of WWE DraftAEW Rampage drops below 300,000 viewers in early time slot
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This Week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
May 1, 2023 Observer Newsletter: More on AEW Saturday show, WWE reveals new World Heavyweight Championship
Highlights include:
*Wrestler and Performer of the week
*Lots of new news regarding AEW plans, new television show, how this impacts AEW, who will be the stars of the different shows and more.
*WWE creates a new world championship belt, the story behind it, the draft and changes in draft plans, and what NXT talent is ready now and can be stars later
*Full coverage of Stardom's All-Star Grand Queendom, one of the biggest women's events of the past 25 years. We look at business, Mercedes Mone, creation of a new championship, PPV numbers, the count out finish with match-by-match coverage with star ratings.
*The lawsuit filed by former WWE writer Britney Abrahams against the company, including stereotyping wrestlers, comments by writers, and much more
*WWE and AEW major shows between now an the end of August, matches, tickets out, interest levels and top feuds
*The next TripleMania show with the El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Kenny Omega rematch
*UFC full coverage from Saturday, results, details, business and future prospects
*The most detailed look at al the television ratings this past week, including what competition means, how things compare to a year ago, and what major change this week in television and how that impacts prime time wrestling
*Dragon Gate's next major show
*All Japan Champion Carnival update
*Will Ospreay future
*New Japan Best of the Super Junior notes
*Notes on the New Japan shows this week
*Aaron Henare talks his greatest match with Shingo Takagi
*One of the greatest woman wrestlers of all-time, at 61 wins a tag team title
*The story of Don Luce, one of the most respected pro wrestling historians
*One of the all-time greats will have a statue put up in his home town
*Notes on the new season of Dark Side of the ring
*Devon Nicholson talks about the claims of Abdullah the Butcher
*New book deal about a gangland murder of a major 80s star
*Promotions piggybacking around AEW at Wembley Stadium
*MLW TV future notes
*Owen Hart Cup
*Kota Ibushi update
*Notes from All Access
*ticket advances for WWE & AEW shows
*Streaming and international TV numbers
*Two legendary wrestlers who later did MMA have documentaries out on them and finalists for Emmy Awards
*Bellator's return to Hawaii
*Business notes on Tank Davis vs Ryan Garcia and crossover with the pro wrestling audience
*All of what went down with Nate Diaz in New Orleans
*Peacock business number and what that means for WWE
*Changes in Raw
*Law firm investigating WWE merger
*Lots of WWE injuries and talent questioning some of the training
This Week's Retro Observer Newsletter:
March 13, 2006 Observer Newsletter: WWE quartely investor's call, UFC 58 recap
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Monday Update
Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Raw, the draft and the rest of the news as well as take your email questions that you can send to [email protected]
The draft did a monster TV number for Smackdown. While not the highest of the year, when you factor in the competition, it probably was the most impressive number. Similarly, one would expect a big number tonight for draft day two as you've still got Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and the Usos along with Brock Lesnar (who one would think with Roman Reigns on Smackdown that Lesnar would be on Raw as will as Seth Rollins for tonight's show. The show goes against 76ers-Celtics and Suns-Heat in the NBA playoffs and New Jersey Devils vs. New York Rangers in the NHL playoffs.
Raw is sold out in Fort Worth tonight with 10,405 tickets out. The only thing advertised besides the draft is that Brock Lesnar will be there, and no doubt shoot some kind of an angle with Cody Rhodes. Matt Riddle vs. Jimmy Uso is on the show plus Miz TV with Shinsuke Nakamura, meaning Miz will be on both USA and NBC tonight. This makes a legit four sellouts for WWE this week for WWE, between Belfast, Paris and Corpus Christi.
Besides the draft, the other big story for this week will be AEW ticket sales for Wembley Stadium. The best tickets will be available from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. to those who have FITE's AEW service in the country, the subscription service where you get Dynamite free and Rampage at the same time it airs in the U.S. At 11 a.m., those who got presale codes will have the opportunity to get tickets. Between those two groups, there are 60,000 people with individual codes. What that translates to in sales is a great unknown. But it would be a surprise if this doesn't end up being the second most tickets sold for a pro wrestling show in England in history (if they top 18,800 they will have that distinction. If they top 33,000 by Friday's public on sale it will be No. 2 in history in the U.K., behind the 1992 show at Wembley Stadium. But everything in wrestling is watching that number closely.
We're looking for reports from Raw tonight in Fort Worth with Main Event matches, any dark matches and anything else not on the live show to [email protected]
Leva Bates announced today that she is no longer with AEW as her four-year contract has expired.
WESH-TV in Orlando has reported that the city is making a bid to get the 2024 Royal Rumble. The Tourist Development Tax Sports incentive Committee has requested $850,000 from the Greater Orlando Sports Commission to bid for the event. The show will be on January 27, 2024. It will be at Camping World Stadium if they get the bid.
The New York Times is reporting that VICE is headed for bankruptcy. VICE produces among other things, Dark Side of the Ring. (thanks to Mike Kuzmuk)
Felipe Colares, 29, who fought in UFC from 2019 to 2022, died early today after being hit by a bus on his way back from the gym in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He died on the way to the hospital but there are not a lot of other details.
A lot of major league baseball players were at Friday night's Arena Mexico show. The San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres played the first two regular season games ever in Mexico City this weekend. Yesterday on the Giants radio broadcast they talked about how many of the players went out to the wrestling matches. The players were acknowledged during the show. WWE sent Rey Mysterio and he gave masks to the Padres players. Isaac Paredes and Randy Arozarena of Tampa Bay wore Mistico masks at one of their games.
The Miz and Alexa Bliss will be on "That's my Jam" tonight on NBC at 10 p.m., so they are performing head-to-head with Raw. Miz will perform "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" by Usher.
Rey Fenix, who had been banged up, returned to the ring last night at his own show in Pasadena, CA in the parking lot of the Republic of Lucha Store that he and Pentagon own. They run shows there with name stars every so often. Fenix beat Mike Bailey in what we heard was a great main event. It was also the 17th anniversary of Penta & Fenix in wrestling and there was a cake presented, and that led to a food fight. (thanks to Jeff Rosenfeld).
Fenix returns to Dynamite on Wednesday in a trios Battle Royal with Penta & Fenix & El Hijo del Vikingo, Butcher & Blade & Kip Sabian, Alex Reynolds & John Silver & Evil Uno, QT Marshall & Aaron Solo & Powerhouse Hobbs, Acclaimed & Billy Gunn and Josh Woods & Ari Daivari & Tony Nese
NXT tomorrow night has Wes Lee vs Drew Gulak for the North American title, Joe Gacy vs. Joe Coffey (If Gacy wins, the Dyad get a tag title shot at Gallus, if Coffey wins, the Dyad can't ever get a shot as long as Gallus is champions), Jacy Jayne vs. Gigi Dolin (whose brother will be introduced), Isla Dawn & Alba Fyre vs. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter for the women's tag title, Axiom vs. Scrypts and Dani Palmer debuts.
WWE last night in Bossier City, LA:
Shinsuke Nakamura b LA KnightOmos b EliasSolo Sikoa b SheamusRaquel Rodriguez & Liv Morgan b Sonya Deville & Chelsea Green to keep the tag titlesXavier Woods b Karrion KrossRicochet b IvarRhea Ripley b Shotzi to keep the Smackdown women's titleKevin Owens & Sami Zayn b Usos to keep the tag titles
New Japan Dontaku is at 4:30 a.m. Eastern early Wednesday morning from Fukuoka. It's an annual traditionally big show always this week with Sanada making his first IWGP title defense against Hiromu Takahashi in a battle of heavyweight champion vs. junior heavyweight champion, Tama Tonga vs. David Finlay for the Never title, KENTA vs. Hikuleo for the Strong title, Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Jeff Cobb for the TV title and Minoru Suzuki & Ren Narita & Desperado vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii for the trios titles. This would be one of the biggest trios title matches in New Japan history.
Just a note about a book I'm now reading which will be out in the fall. I mentioned it on last night's show and it's called "Ballyhoo! The Roughousers, Con Artists and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling by Jon Langmead, being published by the University of Missouri Press. It looks at the beginnings of pro wrestling, with a lot of the 1930s boom period when it got big and the decline in the late 30s, looking at the key wrestlers, promoters, how the promoters worked together and feuded and what fans bought and didn't buy. There are aspects totally different from the modern business, but in other aspects, as far as what draws and the conflict in fan bases, there are a surprising amount of similarities.
Roy "Big Country" Nelson, a former UFC favorite, will fight on Friday night in a Bare Knuckle MMA (not boxing) event in Fort Lauderdale, FL. It will be a three round fight with Nelson vs Dillon Clecker and will air free at 8 p.m. on Gamebred Promotions YouTube channel and Facebook page. They will use MMA rules but no gloves are allowed, which is actually similar to the original UFC events except with more modern rules.
Big E was shown on the sidelines during last night's Michigan Panthers vs. New Jersey Generals USFL game. Big E hosts the Panthers games this season. (thanks to Brian Henke)
Myself and a lot of people in wrestling got a scam letter from Bob Mulrenin, who was a photographer in wrestling who passed way last year. If you have it in your inbox , don't waste time with it.
Innovate Wrestling on 5/27 in Kingsport, TN at the Civic Auditorium.
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