Latest News

• Report: Nick Khan took over in new R-Truth WWE contract discussions
• John Cena, Seth Rollins announced for WWE Raw
• R-Truth thanks fans after WWE return: ‘We made history together’
• WWE Money in the Bank review: John Cena unable to handle the Truth
• R-Truth says WWE departure wasn’t a work
• Triple H on R-Truth’s departure & return: ‘All part of the show’
• Mark Kerr announced for UFC Hall of Fame, The Rock to attend ceremony

Latest Audio

• DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show: And now, they have swords
• WOR: WWE Money in the Bank, Worlds Collide, & UFC 316 recaps
• B&V: Money in the Bank, AAA/WWE Worlds Collide!
• WOL: Can WWE x AAA Worlds Collide compare to the 1994 version?
• WOL: More four-hour AEW shows, health updates, MITB
• WOR: Is WWE cooling down from their hot streak?

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• June 9, 2025 Observer Newsletter: Several WWE wrestlers not returning, Money in the Bank & Worlds Collide previews

• WWE cuts this past week, why and more details, lots of reaction to R-Truth and the story behind it
• Preview of the WWE Money in the Bank and Worlds Collide shows as well as updated ticket demand for the shows as well as odds
• New Japan Dominion and Kosei Fujita win Best of the Super Juniors in one of the year’s best matches
• The most detailed look at the ratings of all the pro wrestling TV shows this past week including competition, segments, demo and what things on the different shows boosted the audience
• Notes on one of the biggest Arena Mexico shows this year
• Major arena sells out seven weeks in a row
• Newcomers behind the scenes as WWE takes over AAA
• Stardom PPV notes
• Major signings for Hogan & Bischoff’s RAF company
• Who has won the most awards in specific categories in the 45 year history of the Observer awards
• Ratings for the past season of Dark Side of the Ring
• Notes on wrestlers recently cut by WWE
• AEW departures and details
• Advance ticket sales for WWE, AEW and TNA shows
• Lots more notes on AEW going to Arena Mexico
• Bryan Danielson says his career highlight
• Significance of the Phil Davis lawsuit and how it affects TKO and perhaps even WWE
• Promotion cutting prices to increase ticket buys
• Notes on MMA reporter Jordan Breen
• Update on WrestleMania in Las Vegas
• Nick Khan and Vince McMahon selling TKO stock
• How much are analysts expecting the WWE PLE right and UFC rights to end up at and what does this mean for the stock price
• Paul Levesque and Dwayne Johnson
• Notes on WWE counter programming AEW
• Bill Goldberg updates
• How much money has Dwayne Johnson made from WWE since his return 18 months ago
• Top YouTube viewing numbers this past week

This Week’s Back Issue

• October 29, 2007 Observer Newsletter: Syfy renews ECW, Brock Lesnar signs with UFC

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Sunday Update

— We had big shows on both Friday and last night. Friday we talked a ton of topics and had some great questions, whether WWE has past its peak and where it stands now, a great question of why the over 50 audience has grown for the remaining TV wrestling shows, Andre the Giant vs. Akira Maeda and other history.

Last night we focused on the major news and coverage of Worlds Collide, Money in the Bank, Exclusive updates on WrestleMania in Las Vegas and how it was finalized and a big key to that week, as well as R-Truth’s return, Mike Tenay announcing, Ben Askren, UFC and a lot more.

— I think everyone realizes by now that the return of R-Truth as Ron Killings was a late decision. It was very interesting as it ended up overshadowing the key points on the show, which were Cody Rhodes pinning John Cena, Seth Rollins winning MITB and the Jacob Fatu babyface turn on Solo Sikoa.  

Not sure why Paul Levesque gave the answer he did to that question basically saying it was part of the show. I’m not even sure why he didn’t just give the answer given it’s a question that was going to be asked. Cody Rhodes had the best answer pretty much thanking the fans for their input and they listened to the audience. Which they did. There are a lot of questions this opens up, but this is also far from the first time this has happened as we talked about on the show last night.

Given that, some probably aren’t happy as Christopher Killings, Ron’s son, in response to Levesque trying to intimate it was all a work (he didn’t say it but clearly he wanted you to believe that) said, in response “Stop the cap” (lying).

Ron Killings did ask for the name change to his real name as part of his new deal as many had suspected. The advantage is that when the new deal ends he will have had TV time as Ron Killings and can then go straight to using that name on indies and for personal appearances.

— Ben Askren is in very serious condition. His family has kept the situation under wraps to a degree. What has come out is he suffered a staph infection and pneumonia and those close to him have asked for prayers. Askren was one of the top college wrestlers of this generation, and then went into MMA, and even without  striking and being pure wrestling and submissions, won world titles in ONE and Bellator. He is currently signed to Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff’s RAF for  a comeback as a wrestler.

Wife Amy Askren wrote: “You may have heard that my husband Ben is going through something. He developed severe pneumonia, which came on very suddenly. He’s currently in the hospital and unable to respond to anything at this time. We welcome all prayers for healing and for peace. We are trying to keep life as normal as possible for our children currently and doing our best to support them thoughtfully so please refrain from discussing it with them for now.”

Pat Mineo, a wrestling insider had written, “Wrestling community, we need to pray for and rally around @BenAskren who is in critical condition and battling a severe staph infection. He is also battling severe pneumonia, prayers needed!”

We’ve heard from friends of his who don’t have full details but do now that the situation is very bad. We wish our best to him.

— Kayla Harrison’s women’s bantamweight title win over Julianna Pena, which was expected, sets up Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes. It’s the biggest fight other than Jon Jones vs.Tom Aspinall that UFC could put together. Nunes had not entered the UFC testing pool so in theory it would take six months until she does so before the fight could be booked, but UFC could also waive that. 

After the fight, Harrison, when talking about cutting to 135 said that it came very close to making her quit. She had Thursday night she was ready to just quit.  She looked so unhealthy to the point that I think they need to bring back a 145 division and that she and Nunes should fight there instead of at 135. Harrison is going to have to nearly kill herself getting to 135 and just the way she looked on the scale should cause a reaction instead of just ignoring it and hoping for the best.

— Dana White said that there were no issues with him and Turki Alashikh and that he is still promoting the Terrnce Crawford vs. Canelo Alvarez fight on 9/13. UFC officially is now running its 9/13 show as a Fight Night rather than PPV.  Originally UFC 320 was on 9/13 and last night they announced that UFC 320 will be on 10/4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. He acted like he paid no attention and there was no issue but I’m certain everyone that has a good relationship with him asked him for weeks and this was the first time he said anything on the subject.

Alalshikh just confirmed that today, saying “My brother Dana will promote this fight. It is the fight of Riyadh Season, and we have a deal with TKO to promote it and it will be the biggest fight in boxing, and tomorrow I think I will tell the details and the platform and the place for this fight, me and Dana.”

It appears the issues that had to do with running a PPV head-to-head have been cleared up.

— On Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall, White continued to talk like they’re doing the fight and it’s done but later said it’s up to Jones and you can’t make anyone fight. He shot down the idea of Jones vs. Francis Ngannou as a co-promotion of course and said if Jones fights it’ll be Aspinall.   When it was brought up about Jones saying that rather than be stripped he’d vacate the title, White said that he wasn’t aware Jones said that and doesn’t pay attention to things like that in social media.

— A memorial service for Sabu will take place on 6/21 at 3 p.m. at The Copper Moon Event Space, 247 Center St. in Lansing,  MI.  Rob Van Dam will deliver the eulogy.

I think overall Worlds Collide was a big success. More than 10,000 fans attendeed although clearly this was a WWE audience going to a show promoted by WWE and very different from an AAA audience.  I thought the idea of doing the angle on the afternoon show to lead to Dominik Mysterio vs. Octagon Jr.. was great when it was done, but after the match, I was baffled why they did it.  It seemed so counterproductive to rush through that match in that manner.

Undertaker was backstage at the Worlds Collide show.

— Money in the Bank yesterday was the No. 2 show of the day on Netflix in Canada and was No. 1 in Mexico. We’ll have all the weekly rankings in the Observer this coming Tuesday. We should have the rest of the world rankings tomorrow.  

— We talked about the Mike Tenay situation on the show last night but he was called to do the show but the two sides did not come to a financial agreement.  

— We talked extensively about Corey Graves’ work as the lead announcer on last night’s show. He did a great job and probably was the only announcer on the WWE’s staff who could have pulled that one off.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on both Money in the Bank and Worlds Collide. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to [email protected]. We’re also looking for reports from the TNA tapings last night in Tempe, AZ.  We’re looking for results, angles and other notes to [email protected]

— For Google searches, last night’s UFC show did about 1.3 million and was one of the two top numbers of the weekend along with Los Angeles. Money in the Bank did 250,000 and Worlds Collide did 60,000.  

— Today is the date of two of the biggest matches in Japanese wrestling history. June 8, 1990 was the date of the Mitsuharu Misawa win over Jumbo Tsuruta which established Misawa as a superstar and led All Japan to its great success over the next decade, really until the death of Giant Baba and Misawa forming NOAH. It was a tremendous match but the key was the Misawa upset win, and the crowd reaction was amazing. I was there live and I’d estimate 75 percent of the people in the crowd were crying seeing the emotion in the building. I was too, because if you were there, you pretty much couldn’t not do it.

The only thing comparable in the U.S that I was at was when Dustin vs. Cody at the first Double or Nothing as far as people crying, but it was far more prevalent in Misawa vs.Tsuruta and just very different. Dustin vs. Cody was a great match but it’s not like that match was responsible for a boom period or set up the biggest feud that skyrocketed the promotion for a few years and created a new No. 1 star of the promotion who stayed in that spot for a decade.  

— 2018 on this day was the famous Kenny Omega s. Kazuchika Okada 2/3 falls match at Dominion, which was the last match the two had. Many people, including myself, thought this was the best match that they had ever seen.

— The episode of  Smackdown on 6/27 will air live from Saudi Arabia from 1-4 p.m. Eastern on Netflix. So it will air everywhere in the world before the U.S. where it will air on a seven hour tape delay.

— While most didn’t know, because it was in Spanish and it was not predominantly a Spanish speaking audience, Dayra Barreca, who sang the Mexican national anthem, messed up the words of the song. Mediotiempo in Mexico ran an editorial about it. They did praise Lilian Garcia doing a great job with the U.S. national anthem.

— Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling from Friday night in Newark, CA. The show sold out. Alpha Zo b Alan Angels-DQ, Ray Rico b Jheri Jiggalo, Marcw Leis b KJ Oroso, QT Marshall b Bad Dude Tito, Jiah Jewel & Starboy Charlie b Elijah Drago & Brady Booker, Los Suavecitos b Live Danger, Aaron Solo b LJ Cleary, VertVixen b Sandra Moone to  win the BTW women’s title.  Bayley was in attendance at the show. The next show is 8/8 with Matt Cardona and Shotzi Blackheart.

— WWE has a ton of ID tournament matches in Deer Park, NY tonight at 7 p.m. and the NYWC Sportatorium:

• Kyie Rae vs.  Zara Zakher in a women’s tournament match
• Men’s tournament matches:
• Sean Legacy vs. Brad Baylor
• Aaron Rourke vs. Jackson Drake
• Ricky Smokes vs. Cappuccino Jones
• Jack Cartwheel vs.  Marcus Mathers
• Jordan Oasis vs. Bryce Donovan
• Ice Williams vs. It’s Gal