Daily Update: Raw fallout, Jericho/Batista, Cyborg

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F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: WWE’s WrestleMania main event decision

While the first women’s WrestleMania main event is all but official at this point, WWE still has a huge decision to make about who will be in it.

In a sense, WWE is playing with house money. Both options that they have are good ones. Whether the main event is Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship or a triple threat between Rousey, Lynch, and Charlotte Flair for the title, it will be the most heated match on the card and fully deserving of its place in the spotlight on WWE’s most important day of the year. 

WON NEWSLETTER: February 11, 2019: NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo review, more

I have no idea how this issue got done. I had surgery on my left little finger which was broken in three places on 1/30, and it seemingly went well.

NJPW – New Beginnings: The two nights together did 10,957 paid with one sellout up from 10,002 last year. Tanahashi & Okada as The Dream Team vs. Jay White & Bad Luck Fale did the same as Tanahashi vs. Suzuki did last year for the IC title but paid was much higher this year for Naito vs. Taichi in Taichi’s hometown than for Kenny Omega vs. Jay White for the U.S, title last year, although both were sellouts.

At Smackdown on Tuesday, several talents with contracts coming due were asked to sign new long-term deals after Dean Ambrose told the promotion he wasn’t going to sign a new contract. 

Ian Riccaboni signed a new contract with ROH to continue as their play-by-play announcer.

UFC held a press conference today. The big heat seemed to be between Tyron Woodley and Kamaru Usman, building up their Welterweight Title fight at UFC 235 on March 2nd. Jon Jones is facing Anthony Smith on that show.

Conor McGregor will not be fighting Donald Cerrone in April. Khabib still claims he is not fighting for a year.

Jose Aldo defeated Renato Moicano, 44 seconds into the 2nd round. First round was very close. But it was the “old Aldo”, just destroyed him. Aldo is still talking about retiring at the end of this year. 

Filthy Tom Lawlor is the new MLW champion defeating Low Ki at their super fight one hour Bein Sports TV special from the 2300 (ECW) Arena in Philadelphia.

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TUESDAY NEWS UPDATE

by Bryan Rose and Joseph Currier

WWE

  • SmackDown tonight will be held at the Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio. It will be headlined by a gauntlet match between all six men competing in the Elimination Chamber to determine who will enter the match last. The Usos will also be on “McMiz TV.”
  • Tonight’s 205 Live has Noam Dar vs. Tony Nese in a no DQ match.
  • WWE put a number of videos on their YouTube page featuring Pedro Morales, who passed away today.
  • Sasha Banks & Bayley will be the first team to enter Sunday’s Women’s Tag Team Championship Elimination Chamber match after losing to Nia Jax & Tamina and Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan on last night’s Raw.
  • Ronda Rousey furthered her storyline with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair via a post on Instagram about Vince McMahon claiming on Raw that Charlotte is replacing Becky at WrestleMania: “This isn’t what’s best for business. This isn’t what’s in demand. I have no idea what the hell this is. Vince McMahon doesn’t even believe in his own girl @charlottewwe – If he didn’t make us the main event of #SurvivorSeries he’s sure as hell not making us the main event of #WrestleMania. The #WomensEvolution was robbed tonight.”
  • Scott Dawson following the Revival’s tag team title win last night on Raw: “We’re changing it from the inside, out. Here’s to two best friends’ life long dream. Here’s to the people that wrote us off. Here’s to Tag Teams around the globe. Here’s to the sport of PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING”
  • Total Bellas on Sunday scored 396,000 viewers on the E! Network, a series low.
  • Booker T has filed a lawsuit against game publisher Activision, saying that the video game character Prophet from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 bears a similar likeness to his GI Bro character.
  • NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa will be appearing at Chaotic Wrestling’s Cold Fury show in Haverhill, Massachusetts on Friday, March 15.
  • Daniel Bryan mentioned on Total Divas this week that his new contract with the WWE runs through 2021.

Pro Wrestling

  • Chris Jericho posted a photo with Dave Bautista on Instagram today: “Killer hang with my bro @davebautista today! Had a great chat and some amazing @4riverssmokehouse! #AnimalAndGOAT #alphahouse #lionsden”
  • Brandi Rhodes on Twitter mentioned that there will be more news involving the women’s division of AEW on the next episode of Road to Double or Nothing, which will drop at 7 p.m. Eastern.
  • PCO tweeted that he isn’t on NJPW and ROH’s Honor Rising shows later this month because he couldn’t get his visa for Japan in time.
  • The NWA uploaded video of the angle where Marty Scurll challenged Nick Aldis to an NWA title match at April’s Crockett Cup.
  • Jimmy Havoc will be a part of Starrcast II.

UFC/MMA

  • Cris Cyborg spoke to ESPN about the UFC removing the Featherweight division rankings off their website, saying that she wants to continue fighting. “This [elimination of the UFC’s female featherweight rankings] may try to erase my category, but it does not erase who I am,” she told them. People are with me wherever I go. Wherever I’m fighting, my star will shine like it has throughout my career.”
  • Cain Velasquez spoke to TMZ Sports, saying that he could beat Jon Jones.
  • Kelvin Gastelum’s agent Ali Abdelaziz says that Gastelum has been “taken care of” monetary wise following the UFC 234 title fight cancellation.
  • The UFC 234 prelims officially scored 1.339 million viewers on Saturday, placing it third for the night in the 18-49 demo.
  • Unless anything changes before showtime, the Alex Caceres/Kron Gracie bout that will take place on this weekend’s UFC on ESPN card will be the 5,000th fight UFC has put on.
  • Johnny Walker will face Misha Cirkunov at UFC 235, replacing Ovince Saint Preux.
  • Tyrell Fortune will face Ryan Pokryfky at Bellator 216 this Saturday.
  • Bobby Green has suggested he should face Lando Vannata after their split draw back in 2017.

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Kazuchika Okada wins his first IWGP Heavyweight title

Ed in San Antonio presents the WRESTLEMANIAWeekend Events (more to be added):

  • Sunday, April 6th, at 12:00 pm: Lunch (all you can eat) at Churrascaria Plataforma ($90 per person), located at 316 W. 49th street in Manhattan. Purchase tickets here~!
  • Luxury Bus to MetLife Stadium for Wrestlemania: We will depart from the Hilton Midtown (site of Wrestlecon) located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. Departure time is 4:00 pm and will return from MetLife approximately 30 mins after the event. Times are subject to change, and cost $67.00 per person for the round trip. Purchase tickets here~!

CONTACT INFORMATION

Cyborg Justino to face Leslie Smith at UFC 198 in Brazil

After years of rumors and offers, UFC officially announced today that Cris “Cyborg” Justino will make her debut at UFC 198, set for Saturday, May 14th at the 42,000 seat Arena de Baixada in Curitiba, Brazil.

The Invicta featherweight champion will face Leslie Smith in a 140 pound catchweight fight. Justino usually walks around in excess of 170 pounds.

Up until Holly Holm defeated Ronda Rousey in November for the UFC women’s bantamweight title, a Rousey vs. Justino fight may have been the biggest fight for PPV business that could have been done in MMA.

UFC has attempted to make the fight since the end of 2012, and was looking at it for the debut of women’s MMA with the promotion, but Justino wouldn’t sign the eight-fight deal offered because she believed it was not as good as the deal UFC had offered Rousey.

Since that time, attempts to make that fight have been futile because Rousey has been insistent on fighting her at 135 pounds only, consistenly pointing to Justino’s prior failure of steroid tests. Justino has talked about dropping weight slowly to where she’d finally get to 135, and even hired well-known nutritionist George Lockhart to help. However, those plans to fight at 140 or 135 never materialized, and when Rousey lost to Holm, Justino said that she would no longer attempt to make 135.

Smith is coming off a win over Rin Nakai on last week’s show in Brisbane, Australia.

Cat Zingano, who had been rumored for the fight, confirmed on Friday’s Inside MMA show that she wasn’t going to be the opponent. She said she had a big fight scheduled that she was excited about, but had to wait for UFC to announce it, but teased it would be about the time of her birthday (July 1) which happens to be eight days before UFC 200.  She also said it would not be a title fight with Miesha Tate, who she has previously beaten.