David Bridges
Daily Update
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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
- Match of the week and Performer of the Week
- How the hurricane has affected WWE and AEW for this week including changes to AEW programming
- Update on the Performance Center in Orlando
- Why Florida is so key to American pro wrestling right now
- The Bray Wyatt experiment and how it has done so far and what we can learn from it
- The update on the Wyatt situation
- TripleMania preview, what Americans are being brought in, lineup, and why some champions aren’t there
- The Five Star Grand Prix finals PPV show
- What to look out for on the PPV
- Update on Extreme Rules, matches not announced, and business updates on the next few WWE PPV shows
- Full coverage of New Japan’s major show of the month with Will Ospreay vs. David Finlay
- New Japan shows in England, U.S. and Japan updates
- The most detailed update on the ratings from the past week
- Death of Starman
- Frequency of recent CMLL deaths
- Major CMLL debut
- AAA announces show in the U.S
- Major international star to make his U.S. debut
- More on the Keiji Muto farewell tour
- Notes on Takeshita vs. Higuchi
- Ric Flair update
- Territories on Vice notes
- Young Rock notes
- Ted DiBiase case makes national news because of Brett Favre
- Women of Wrestling news
- Japanese stars headed t the U.S.
- More on the Von Erichs movie
- Inventor of the ladder match
- GCW in Japan
- Bound for Glory updates and Victory Road coverage
- Battle of the Belts news
- Notes on high profile real wrestling fights and how companies handled them
- Advance ticket sales for AEW & WWE and there i a lot of news regarding that
- Streaming numbers for AEW & WWE
- International TV ratings
- Crazy Dana White story and being told he had ten years left to live
- UFC signs Bo Nickal, one of the best prospects in years
- Strange USADA news
- Lots of new UFC fights
- Bo Nickal challenges Chimaev and Logan Paul
- Melvin Manhoef retirement
- Preview of the Bellator and UFC shows this week
- What sports entertainment company lost the most money
- Lots of notes about WWE developmental
- 25th anniversary of DX Raw notes
- What PPVs will the top stars be appearing on
- What was supposed to happen in Drew McIntyre segment on Smackdown
- Landmark lawsuit verdict coming
- Big E holds college record
- A look at all the WWE arena events of the past week and business notes
This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:
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Sunday News Update
Bryan and I will be back tonight talking the weekend news, from Antonio Inoki to Mark Zuckerberg to AEW in Latin America and Daniel Cormier to WWE. We have a big weekend show up with Garret Gonzales talking with Evan Husney, one of the key people behind the new Territories show on Vice that debuts on Tuesday, as well as our first reactions to the death of Inoki.
We’ll have a lot more tonight and in the issue about the AEW deal with Space in Latin America (except Brazil) ending on 9/30. The short version is it was the end of the contract year, and AEW was offered a new deal and turned the deal down. At this point AEW will be making all of its programming except the PPVs available in Latin America on AEW Plus.
In a crazy story, as noted this past week, UFC didn’t allow any fans or media at yesterday’s show. The word reported by us and others was it was because Mark Zuckerberg had reached a deal for the show to basically be a private party for him and his friends. The fighters talked about it as well. Dana White said it was a complete lie. Of course it turned out to be true. Why White would even bother doing so is beyond me when the truth was obviously coming out a day or two later.
For Google searches this week, yesterday’s UFC show again didn’t make the top 20. There has been less general public interest in late on the pure ESPN+ shows. The only thing to trend over the past week from this world was Antonio Inoki was the No. 10 searched item on Friday with more than 100,000.
The Antonio Inoki story was covered by every major news service. He was most famous for the match with Muhammad Ali, but there’s so much to him that it’s an overwhelming subject to discuss:
The two matches for the weekend I’ve heard are must see are FTR vs. Aussie Open from yesterday in London and the Stardom finals with Giulia vs. Tam Nakano from yesterday. Another match getting big reviews is Atsukii Aoyagi vs. Rising Hayato from today’s All Japan show for the PWF Jr. title. Will Ospreay wrote: “Five stars. That was the greatest tag team match I’ve ever seen. ”
Yesterday’s Royal Quest show was the first New Japan show since Inoki’s death and everyone on the card came out before the show started for a ten bell salute.
There was also an Inoki tribute on the Stardom PPV show yesterday. That entire show has gotten rave reviews, particularly Maika vs. Himeka, Mayu Iwatni vs Starlight Kid, Giulia vs. Suzu Suzuki, Utami Hayashishita vs. Koguma, Syuri vs. Risa Sera and the main event where Giulia beat Nakano to win the tournament.
Tournament award winners after 313 matches were:
- Best Technique: Mirai
- Fighting Spirit: AZM
- Outstanding Performance: Saki Kashima
- Best match Blue block: Suzu Suzuki vs. Saya Kamitani
- Best match Red block: Maika vs. Himeka, who were thrilled for this
Syuri vs. Giulia for the World of Starom title will headline 12/29 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo.
We’re looking for your thoughts on yesterday’s Stardom PPV show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
We’re also looking for reports from the WWE show yesterday in Bismarck, ND and today’s show in Saskatoon, SK, results, finishes and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
I don’t really worry about Fast Nationals because the actual number comes out tomorrow, but the Bray Wyatt monster impact on Smackdown ratings was apparently a one week thing as early indications are tomorrow’s numbers for the Friday show will be at normal levels after being up almost 400,000 from normal last week.
Thanks to Paul Fontanie and Niall McFadyen for the reports from Winnipeg.
WWE last night in Regina, Saskatchwean:
- Shinsuke Nakamura b Humberto
- Natalya b B-Fab
- Madcap Moss b Sami Zayn-DQ
- Sami Zayn & Solo Sikoa b Madcap Moss & Ricochet
- Hit Row b Maximum Male Models
- Liv Morgan b Sonya Deville
- Drew McIntyre & Sheamus b Ludvig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci
- (thanks to Creeden Martell)
Patrciio Pitbull dominated Adam Borics in the main event to keep Bellator’s featherweight title last night in Long Beach. If you watched the show, you saw the injury to Aaron Pico’s left shoulder. The shoulder came out of its socket in the first minute of his fight with Jeremy Kennedy. Fighting with one arm, while he took a lot of punishment, Pico survived the first round and wanted to fight in the second round. Quite frankly, his corner shouldn’t have allowed it but they were going to and he was screaming he wanted to continue. The ref called the doctor in. The doctor believed he had a broken clavicle and stopped the fight. Scott Coker after the fight said he was examined and there was no broken bone and he had a dislocated shoulder. Coker said he was willing to do a rematch if Kennedy was willing. Pico wanted the rematch. It was crazy watching Pico’s corner trying to snap his shoulder back into alignment.
AEW
Eddie Kingston, when he returned home after TV, found that both his home and his mother’s home had significant flooding damage from Hurricane Ian. He is missing today’s Warrior Wrestling show in Chicago Heights, IL but Jay Lethal will be taking his place on the show. We are wishing the best to Kingston and his mother.
Want to make mention of a Go Fund Me for Dennis Bowe, a tech with AEW whose home was destroyed stemming from Hurricane Ian. People have really come through here as over $52,000 has been donated at this moment
The three-year AEW anniversary show lineup has Darby Allin vs. Jay Lethal, Daniel Garcia & Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara, MJF vs. Wheeler Yuta, Toni Storm & Willow Nightingale & Athena (managed by Saraya) vs. Penelope Ford & Serena Deeb & Jamie Hayter, Rush vs. Adam Page, Luchasaurus vs. ? and National Scissoring Day. The show will go 15 minutes longer than usual.
Miro’s first appearance on the new CBS drama series East New York airs at 9:30 p.m. tonight. It’s a recurring role in the series and the reason he was out of action for months. He uses real name Miroslav Barnyashev in the credits.
Other Notes
MCW on 10/8 at the Hollywood, MD Fire Department
AAW has the Jim Lyman Memorial tournament on 10/14 and 10/15 at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago. Both shows will be streamed live on Highspots.TV. Some first round matches have Yamato (Dragon Gate) vs. Zachary Wentz, Schaff vs. Davey Richards, Fred Yehi vs. Calvin Tankman and Masha Slamovich vs. Dante Leon. Others in the tournament are Ace Austin, Mike Bennett, Davey Vega, Silas Young, Manders, Rich Swann, Mat Fitchett and Gnaris Garvin.
Sherri Shepherd had WOW wrestlers on her show this past week.
The family o the late Kirk White did a show in his memory Friday night in Newark, CA which sold out: Eddie Cuervo b Dominic Texeira, Truex b Matt Carlos, Shane Kody & Jinxx b Ka Ka Meng & El Guerrero, Chris Masters b Dave Dutra, Carlito b EOC, Pentagon Jr b Chupacabra (fans gave this a standing ovation and people were raving about it), Freaks b Honor Society in a weapons match which was also said to be a great match. Next show is 12/2 (thanks to Jim Davis).
The New Japan Capital Collision show from Washington, DC, was posted for free on YouTube and currently has had 214,000 views. (thanks to Suju Abraham).
Best wishes to longtime New England promoter and historian Sheldon Goldberg, who is hospitalized in Boston after getting sick coming back from this past week’s Cauliflower Alley Club event in Las Vegas.
