MJF will be making his return to CMLL next week in hopes of winning his first-ever CMLL championship.
Announced on Wednesday night, the former AEW International Champion will challenge Averno for the CMLL Light Heavyweight title as part of Viernes Espectacular, set for Friday, August 1st at Arena Mexico.
It will be MJF’s second-ever CMLL match following his August 2024 victory over Templario. He also battled Mistico at last month’s AEW Grand Slam Mexico, losing by DQ. He and Mistico have been at odds all summer with speculation they will square off one more time at this year’s CMLL Anniversary Show in September.
The 48-year-old Averno has been the champion for nearly 500 days, but has just four defenses of the gold he won in March 2024. His last defense came over the aforementioned Mistico this past May.
MJF is currently feuding with Mark Briscoe in AEW and still experiencing in-fighting within The Hurt Syndicate. He holds an anytime, anywhere AEW World title shot following his Casino Gauntlet win at this month’s All In.
MLW is set to play a part in NJPW x CMLL Fantasticamania 2025.
The tour is taking place this month and will conclude with two straight nights at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on February 27-28. It was announced today that MLW titles will be defended on both nights. The promotion has partnerships with both NJPW and CMLL.
– On night one, NJPW legend Satoshi Kojima and CMLL veteran OKUMURA will put their MLW Tag Team titles on the line against luchadores Rugido & Magnus. It’s a rematch from last year’s NJPW & CMLL Fantasticamania USA event, where Kojima & OKUMURA retained their belts.
That prior match between the teams happened during Kojima & OKUMURA’s first MLW Tag Team title reign. They are now two-time champs after regaining the belts from Minoru Suzuki & Ikuro Kwon in December.
– Night two at Korakuen Hall will be headlined by Mistico defending the MLW Middleweight Championship against Averno. Mistico has held the title since February 2024 and will reach one full year as champion if he wins this match.
“The first title that a young Mistico ever held was NWA’s World Middleweight Championship won from Averno back in January 2005,” NJPW wrote. “20 years removed, could it be Averno that ends a historic MLW title run?”
Both of the Korakuen Hall events will air live on NJPW World. Here are the full cards:
NJPW & CMLL Fantasticamania (Thursday, February 27) —
Volador Jr. vs. Templario
Ultimo Guerrero vs. Atlantis Jr.
Black Cat memorial: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Mistico, Mascara Dorada & Stigma vs. Taiji Ishimori, Averno, Soberano Jr. & Raider
Lightning match: Zandokan Jr. vs. Neon
MLW Tag Team Champions Satoshi Kojima & OKUMURA defend against Rugido & Magnus
Barbaro Cavernario & El Desperado vs. Hechicero & Ninja Mack
Xelhua & Max Star vs. Titan & KAMAITACHI
NJPW & CMLL Fantasticamania (Friday, February 28) —
MLW Middleweight Champion Mistico defends against Averno
Mascara Dorada vs. Soberano Jr.
Barbaro Cavernario vs. Hechicero
Templario, Neon & El Desperado vs. Volador Jr., Rugido & Magnus
Atlantis Jr., Stigma & Taiji Ishimori vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Satoshi Kojima & OKUMURA
The new Omicron variant of COVID-19 that became a major news story this week led to Japan closing its borders.
The announcement was made that as of 11/30, travelers could not come to the country, but it is not what it sounds like.
This will have some effect on the pro wrestling business. Basically wrestlers who have already obtained working visas will be able to return, and it’s been confirmed that Will Ospreay would be working the Tokyo Dome in the main event on 1/5 against the winner of the Shingo Takagi vs. Kazuchika Okada IWGP title match the night before. There was a one day period where New Japan officials were trying to get clearance for this and there was no answer regarding those leaving the country or those not in the country.
Those who have been in Japan over the past year, people like Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa, Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare, Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, KENTA and announcer Kevin Kelly (who will be staying in Japan from January through March and doing live English broadcasts of all the major shows until the end of the New Japan Cup) will all be allowed to come to Japan or in some cases stay in Japan.
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FRIDAY NEWS UPDATE
The schedule for this weekend is that we will be doing our Hall of Fame show with Garrett Gonzalez and Pat Laprade tomorrow, plus we’ll have a Saturday night show covering TripleMania Regia and a Sunday show covering NXT.
My new book, the 1999 Wrestling Observer Yearbook, was officially released yesterday and is available at amazon.com and amazon.ca. The book covers stories throughout the year as WCW implodes, the death of Owen Hart and aftermath, the death of Giant Baba and his legacy in Japan, Chris Jericho leaves WCW for WWF, Sable quits WWF at her star power peak, The WWF goes public, Beyond the Mat released as a movie and Vince McMahon is upset and Steve Austin at his peak needs neck surgery, plus the detailed coverage of the awards and Hall of Fame inductees that year. It is the largest book we’ve done to date on one of the biggest and most pivotal years in history.
The Thanksgiving edition of AEW Dynamite did 166,000 viewers in 18-49 watching via DVR, a 41 percent increase. Usually of late the show has done increases of about 19 percent over the original number. Basically the 11/24 show viewership ended up as the highest of the month. We won’t know if the reason for the low number this past Wednesday was similar until late next week.
We will be doing polls this weekend on AAA TripleMania Regia on Saturday and NXT War Games on Sunday, so you can leave a thumbs up, down or middle, best and worst matches to [email protected]. We are also looking for live reports from WWE tonight in San Antonio with any dark matches, as well as from the house shows tomorrow in Edinburgh, TX and Sunday in Corpus Christi, TX.
The weekend house show main events are Roman Reigns & Usos vs. New Day & Drew McIntyre, Big E vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens for the WWE title, Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair and Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks.
Smackdown from San Antonio tonight features the return of Brock Lesnar, Jey Uso vs. King Woods and Cesaro vs. Sheamus. 205 Live tonight has Ikemen Jiro & Kushida vs. Brutus & Julius Creed, Ivy Nile vs Erica Yan and Draco Anthony vs. Boa.
Rampage tonight on TNT has Sammy Guevara vs. Tony Nese for the TNT title, Jade Cargill vs. Jana Kai and FTR in a one fall match against Penta & Pac.
Bellator on Showtime tonight at 10 p.m:
Johnny Eblen (185) vs. Collin Huckbody (185)
Josh Hill (134.75) vs.; Jared Scoggins (140–missing weight by four pounds)
Emmanuel Sanchez (145.25) vs. Jeremy Kennedy (145.75)
Sergio Pettis (134) vs. Kyoji Horiguchi (134.5) for the Bellator bantamweight title
UFC runs from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern tomorrow with the entire show on ESPN:
Vince Morales (135.5) vs. Louis Smolka (135.5)
Chris Gruetzemacher (156) vs. Claudio Puelles (155)
The Azamat Murzakanov vs. Jared Vanderaaa heavyweight fight was canceled due to Vanderaa not being medically cleared.
New Japan tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. in Yamanashi with on New Japan World with the tag team tournament continuation:
Yuji Nagata & Tiger Mask vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens
Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Minoru Suzuki & Taka Michinoku
Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Great O’Khan & Aaron Henare
Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Tetsuya Naito & Sanada
Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Evil & Yujiro Takahashi
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toru Yano vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa
There will also be a shot at 1 a.m. late Saturday night from Shizuoka for the Best of the Super Juniors tournament.
Averno will return to Arena Mexico on the 12/10 show.
A correction in the new issue of the Observer on the Pat Barrett story and the Ron Starr lawsuit against Leroy McGuirk over the NWA world jr. heavyweight title. The lawsuit regarded Starr’s second run as champion in 1980, not in 1976 as we reported. There will be more on that in the next issue.
AEW
ROH Pure champion Josh Woods and Marina Shafir debuted at the Dark tapings today in Orlando. Both were in enhancement roles.
UFC
Former light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz faces Alexander Rakic on 3/26.
Jack Hermansson vs. Sean Strickland are scheduled to main event a 2/5 show according to ESPN.
Trevin Jones vs. Javid Basharat is set for a 3/12 show.
Guido Canneti vs Kris Moutinho is set for a 3/12 show as well.
OTHER NOTES
GCW on FITE tonight from Dallas:
Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Dante Leon & Ninja Mack for GCW tag titles
Thunder Rosa vs. Allie Katch
ASF vs. Joey Janela
Demonic Flamita vs. Tony Deppen
Jack Cartwheel vs. Blake Christian
They also run Houston tomorrow. Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. PCO & Brody King headlines the 12/17 show in Los Angeles.
Walter vs. Cara Noir will meet for the first time on the wXw anniversary show on 12/18. WWE also let Sha Samuels work the 11/21 ICW show.
Combate Global tonight on Paramount + and Univision at 11 p.m. is headlined by Jose Estrada (7-2) vs. Martin Bravo (12-3).
NFC tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. at District Atlanta has a full day of activity with the airing of the SEC championship game with food and drinks specials and then live NFC fights at 7 p.m.
Adam Scherr (formerly Braun Strowman) ad EC 3 announced they would be donating proceeds from their meet and greet at Dave Herro’s Great Lakes Championship Wrestling Blizzard Brawl show tomorrow in Waukesha, WI to victims of he Waukesha Christmas Parade tragedy a few weeks ago Scheer, in his first match since leaving WWE, teams with EC 3 against Jake Something & Rohit Raju. Also appearing are Jeff Jarrett, ODB, Maria Kanellis, Moose, Al Snow, Joe Doering, Kevin Fertig, Rebel, Debra McMichael, Billy Gunn, Serena Deeb, D-Lo Brown and Val Venis.
Eve Riot Grrls of Wrestling tomorrow live from London at 3 p.m. Eastern and 8 p.m. UK time on the Pro Wrestling Eve YouTube channel. The first half of the show will be free and the second half will be a PPV. It features some of the top women wrestlers in the U.K.
MCW tomorrow has a Toys for Tots promotion and show. Scarlett Bordeaux, Moses, Quinn McKay and Ray Lyn will be doing a meet and greet. Moses vs. Brian Johnson for the MCW title headlines Bordeaux will manage Action Andretti against James Ellsworth. Ray Lyn vs. Leila Grey wrestle for the women’s title and Dak Draper faces Eric Martin.
PWA tonight on FITE for its first show since the pandemic has Mick Moretti vs. Sam Osborne and Shazza McKenzie vs Cherry Stephens.
Pro Wrestling Phoenix from Tuesday night in Omaha: Kit Sackett b Logan Ocean, JC Slater b Purple, Omar Pachecco b Jack Darling in a bullrope match, Xander McIntosh b Mad Dog McDowell, Johnny Ruckus b Con Artiest, Tim Boston & Seto Kobara & Branden Juarez b Nino Hatchet & Paul Daniels & Joey Daniels, Pat Powers b Brett Bishop. Next show is 12/22 at the Waiting Room Lounge.
Those who attended the 11/21 IWA Mid South Wrestling show in New Albany, IN and feel that they were exposed to blood borne pathogens, please contact the Floyd County Health Department at 812-948-4726 for information on HIV and Hep-C testing.
Tickets for the 6/11 and 6/12 Expo Lucha In Philadelphia went on sale today. The two-day convention brings together Lucha Libre stars and matches featuring the original Psicosis, Super Crazy, Juventud Guerrera, Dragon Lee, Laredo Kid, Ultimo Dragon, Tinieblas Jr & Alushe, Octagon, Pirata Morgan, Solar, Black Taurus, Lady Maravilla, Keyra, Extreme Tiger, Damian 666, Super Astro Jr., Solar Jr., Arez, Aeroboy, Gringo Loco, Bestia 666 and Mecha Wolf. There will be Lee vs. Laredo Kid, Psicosis & ? vs. Damian 666 & Black Taurus, and Ultimo Dragon vs. Super Crazy matches.
Pure Pro Wrestling out of Flint, MI, specializes in teaching kids with major issues like autism, cancer survivors or those with severe disabilities to use training in pro wrestling to boost their self esteem.
A great historical piece by Becky Balboa on the very short lived relationship between WWE and Girls Gone Wild and a projection gone mad as WWE originally thought their joint PPV show would do 300,000 buys.
