The latest WWE and AEW News and Results
It’s Friday and that means a new edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In this week’s issue, Dave Meltzer provides thoughts, recaps and his star ratings from a full weekend of wrestling including AEW All Out, WWE Wrestlepalooza and CMLL’s 92nd Anniversary Show.
He also goes into the news of the wrestling and MMA week and looks ahead to next week.
Click here to read, because reading is your friend.
It’s a historic day. For the first time in 38 years, two competing pro wrestling PPVs are going head to head on the same day: AEW All Out and WWE Wrestlepalooza.
Jim Valley previews both on Saturday’s Wrestling Observer Live.
Plus, Jim talks an incredible CMLL Aniversario show from Friday, and a new champ in Defy Wrestling.
Plus, Wrestlepalooza sounds so 90s and why does Drew McIntyre always have to carry his feuds all by himself only to lose in the end?
Jim is back and it’s a packed show. Check it out.
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Dave Meltzer and I are back with the Friday edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, talking about all the big news from today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Here were some of the things we discussed:
Click here to listen (sub needed) or watch on YouTube
CMLL has officially set a date for its biggest event of the year.
The promotion will hold its 92nd Aniversario at Arena Mexico on Friday, September 19. The announcement was made on Thursday night during CMLL’s weekly Informa news show. No matches have been booked for the event yet.
CMLL is the oldest wrestling promotion still in existence, with its history dating back to 1933 when it was founded as EMLL.
Last year’s Aniversario was headlined by Mistico defeating Chris Jericho in what was Jericho’s first match in a CMLL ring in nearly 30 years.
This week, Arena Mexico hosted AEW Dynamite for the first time ever and was also the location for a CMLL/ROH Global Wars event. The collaboration between CMLL and AEW continues at Arena Mexico tonight with a Fantastica Mania show also featuring NJPW talent. CMLL director Salvador Lutteroth Lomeli and AEW’s Tony Khan reaffirmed the collaborative ties between their companies during a meeting on Wednesday.
CMLL broadcasts shows live on its YouTube channel for paying members with the highest tier being $35 per month.
Dave Meltzer and I are back with our second podcast in two nights. Ryan Frederick joined us for the first segment to recap UFC 306 from The Sphere.
Then, we covered some wrestling news before recapping SmackDown which is back on the USA Network.
Here are some of the topics we covered:
Click here to listen (sub needed) or watch on YouTube (video sub needed)
Dave Meltzer and I are back with Wrestling Observer Radio going over the big stories in the latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Click here to listen (sub needed) or watch on YouTube (video sub needed)
Here are some of the topics we covered:
Click here to listen (sub needed) or watch on YouTube (video sub needed)
Chris Jericho will face Mistico at CMLL’s 91st Anniversary event in September, the promotion officially announced Wednesday.
In a two-part video promo posted to CMLL’s X account late Wednesday, Jericho announced that he is returning to Arena Mexico on Friday, September 13 for CMLL’s 91st Anniversary event, where he will challenge Mistico.
In the promo, Jericho called the bout the biggest of Mistico’s career, and one of the biggest of Jericho’s:
Jericho made a surprise appearance at CMLL’s traditional Friday night Arena Mexico event on June 28, attacking Mistico in a reprise of an angle Jericho has done in the past — wearing a mask, making the surprise attack, then unmasking as Jericho — to set up the Anniversary event contest.
The match against Mistico on September 13 will be Jericho’s first for CMLL in Mexico since 1995.
Jericho regularly worked for the promotion from 1993 to 1995 in the early stages of his Hall of Fame career.
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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
The new issue of the Observer is out, and it’s a big one:
This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter
Ordering Info:
Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to [email protected] or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to [email protected].
Rates in the United States are $14.50 for 4 issues, $35.50 for 12, $70 for 24, $116 for 40 and $149.50 for 52.
In Canada and Mexico, the rates are $16 for 4, $27 for 8, $38.50 for 12, $76 for 24, $126 for 40 and $162.50 for 52.
For the rest of the world, rates are $18 for 4, $48.50 for 12, $93 for 24, $155 for 40 and $201.50 for 52.
If you order by mail with a check, cash or money order to P.O. Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228, you can get $1 off in every price range.
Garrett Gonzales and I talk the news of the week and going forward with Wrestling Observer Radio today. The show was just recorded and we go into depth on the stories in the Observer, including the Dwayne Johnson at WrestleMania story, the merger, the layoffs, AEW attendance at Wembley, the history of promotional wars and how things have and haven’t turned around, and so much more. From a business standpoint this is probably one of our best discussions as we talked the Charter Cable vs. Disney/ESPN situation, AEW on MAX and potential for 12 PPVs a year and break down the business reasons, Bryan Danielson, and more. Our weekend show with Bryan Alvarez will be on Sunday night.
Lots of office layoffs today in WWE but nothing related to talent or the production team. This is consistent with the Endeavor purchase of UFC in 2016. Our lead article in the new issue goes through the lessons from that purchase and how things would be expected to go with the merger. There were about 100 layoffs in the company which would be more than 12 percent of the workforce. A lot were upset the way it happened as they were not even allowed to say goodbyes. All employees were told not to come to work and to work remotely, and then those let go were informed. People were told that this is it for the merger layoffs and everyone else is safe, but UFC employees were told the same thing in 2016 and there were still more rounds of layoffs.
Nobody in talent or production was let go. The people let go were those mostly where there was duplication of jobs within UFC, so it was the business side and not the talent side.
Regarding the laying off of Dana Warrior and people being surprised, this is the exact type of layoff the new owners would do. When Endeavor purchased UFC, they quickly laid out Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes, who were promised lifetime employment by the previous regime. There are no sacred cows to the new group, or legacy employees.
They gutted the analytics department, which is notable because a few years ago that was considered such an important department when learning about trends and what fans wanted. They also cut back on marketing, graphic design and live events, but that was expected since there was duplication with UFC having similar departments. One would expect UFC cuts as well in departments with duplication with WWE. They also cut people from the WWE Network division since UFC had people working at Fight Pass which is a similar business and the podcasting division.
The biggest names let go were Jamie Horowitz, the EVP of Development and Digital who was one of Nick Khan’s first major hires, Catherine Newman the EVP of Head of Marketing since that division was gutted, who came highly toured last year from being CMO at Manchester United Media (famous U.K. soccer team), Andy Levine, Vice President of International & Platform Strategy, Amanda Bloom, Director of Enterprise Master Data & Governance. Horowitz came from DAZN, but was a major player at ESPN. There was a lot of controversy over his hiring. Horowitz was a major player at ESPN behind the scenes as well as with Fox Sports, where he was let go over a sexual harassment investigation. When he was hired by WWE, because of that investigation, there were a lot of unhappy people who contacted us about the decision to hire him, but we never heard of any issues while he was in WWE.
Nick Khan announced a mandatory staff meeting at the offices on Tuesday.
TKO Holdings had a huge SEC release that went out today. The key is that for the first six months of this year, WWE generated $707.9 million and ended up with $88.7 million in profits. UFC generated $611.9 million but had $169.8 million in profits. UFC would have been even more profitable but because of the varying interest rate in some of their loans, the interest charges this year were way up.
Smackdown tonight is from Denver and it sold out with 12,700 tickets out as of a few hours ago. Lots of rumors about Dwayne Johnson only because we know he was in Boulder, CO for the Pat McAfee show and openly talked about possibly facing Roman Reigns at this year’s WrestleMania. We have a lot and covered the proposed Rock vs. Reigns planned match for SoFi Stadium extensively last year, and talked about it on today’s Observer radio as to what happened and why it didn’t happen. I don’t know why those close to Johnson like Brian Gewirtz kept claiming that there was nothing to the story and all made up when obviously we’d seen documentation regarding it, but there you go.
Tonight’s show has John Cena on the Grayson Waller Effect, Asuka vs. Bayley, Finn Balor vs A.J. Styles and L.A. Knight vs. The Miz.
Rampage tonight on TNT at 10 p.m. features the likely farewell of Jade Cargill, who faces Kris Statlander for the TBS title. Other matches are Lucha Bros & Hardys vs. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal & Butcher & Blade, Matt Taven & Mike Benett vs Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels and Acclaimed & Billy Gunn vs. Peter Avalon & The Outrunners in a non-title match.
This weekend we’ll be doing a poll on the CMLL Anniversary show, thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
For this weekend, we’re looking for reports on these shows:
We’re looking for results, finishes and angles to [email protected]
CMLL, the oldest wrestling promotion in the world, has its 90th anniversary show tomorrow night at Arena Mexico with Templario vs. Dragon Rojo Jr. in a mask vs. mask match on top, plus there will be a hair vs. hair match with either Ultimo Guerrero vs. Averno or Volador Jr. vs. Angel de Oro. Guerrero & Averno face Volador & Angel and the winning team will then face each other in a hair match. There is nothing in wrestling like the atmosphere at a sold out Arena Mexico, so this will be one of the highlight shows in wrestling of the year.
Paul Levesque appears on this week’s episode of “Billions” on Showtime. He plays himself. Chuck Roades, the US attorney character on the show asks Levesque for advice on how to execute a double turn, making a babyface a heel and a heel a babyface at the same time. He calls him Hunter and the conversation takes place in an empty arena with the Raw graphic prominently displayed (thanks to Joe Puccio)
Ticket sales have picked up for AEW Grand Slam on Wednesday. Yesterday sold more tickets for the show than any day since the first day. There were ticket price reductions that helped as a lot of early complaints were about the high prices. We’ve noted many times the new philosophy through the live events industry and early high pricing. Fact is when an act is hot, this strategy works, as it does for WWE which is still raising prices. It doesn’t work as well for volume of sales if an act isn’t hot although it may be an effective total gate strategy.
The final episode of the second season of Heels on STARZ is tonight at 10 p.m.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle in the movie review section gave the movie Cassandro their highest possible rating (thanks to Derek Sousa)
Some matches were announced for the RevPro FantasticaMania shows. 9/23 at 2p.m. has Trent Seven & Hechicero & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Atlantis Jr. & Michael Oku & Guerrero Maya Jr., Titan vs Robbie X (if they gel this one could be great), Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews vs. Okumura & Zandokan Jr. and Capitan Suicida vs. Wild Boar.
UFC Noche takes place tomorrow from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. I believe it’s the first T Mobile show since the pandemic which is far from a sellout. The show airs on ESPN+ starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time:
MCW presents Bruiser Strong on 9/16 at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppa, MD with an 11 man Bruiser Rumble.
Defy on 9/23 in Seattle at Washington Hall features Eddie Kingston vs. Rocky Romero for the New Japan Strong title, plus Christopher Daniels & Sinner & Saint & Soul vs The Bollywood Boyz & Curry Man & Guillermo Rosas, Artemis Spencer vs Starboy Charlie, Amira vs Bambi Hall, Galeno del Mal (son of Dr. Wagner Jr.) vs. Miles Deville and Cody Chhun vs KC Navarro. You must be 16 to attend. They also have a 10/13 show at the Yakima Valley Sundome features El Hijo del Vikingo
Combate Global runs Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. on Univision and Pramount+ with Estefania Rodriguez (4-0) vs. Stephanie Hernandez (3-1) in a women’s atomweight main event. Ivan Nunes Miranda, a former Mexican national boxing and kickboxing champion debuts in the semi against Loxbey Montalvan.
AIW’s annual JT Lightning Invitational tournament is this weekend, with a show tonight, Saturday at 3 p.m. and the final on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Temple Live in Cleveland. Tom Lawlor, Eric Taylor, Joseline Navarro Alec Price, Paul London, Colin Delaney, Mance Warner, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Joshua Bishop, Masato Tanaka and Dominic Garrini are among those appearing. Eddie Kingston appears Saturday night as do Matt Cardona and Steph De Lander.
Lucha Va Voom will be doing a tribute show for Cassandro on 9/22 at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. That’s the same day the Cassandro movie gets released on Amazon Prime Video. Rey Misterio El Heredero, Misterioso Jr., Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura (not the governor), Pimpinela Escarlata, Bestia 666, Magno, Ll Cholo and others are all scheduled to appear.
The all-women’s Invicta promotion debuts in Boston on 10/27 at Citizens House with strawweight champion Danni McCormack (7-2) facing Karolina Wojcik (11-3) as the main event.
Latest News
Latest Audio
Latest Free YouTube Video
This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
The new issue of the Observer is out with the following covered:
This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter
Ordering Info:
Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to [email protected] or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to [email protected].
Rates in the United States are $14.50 for 4 issues, $35.50 for 12, $70 for 24, $116 for 40 and $149.50 for 52.
In Canada and Mexico, the rates are $16 for 4, $27 for 8, $38.50 for 12, $76 for 24, $126 for 40 and $162.50 for 52.
For the rest of the world, rates are $18 for 4, $48.50 for 12, $93 for 24, $155 for 40 and $201.50 for 52.
If you order by mail with a check, cash or money order to P.O. Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228, you can get $1 off in every price range.
Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer radio talking a ton of news from wrestling and MMA as well as tonight’s Raw coverage.
Today is the last day of WWE as a separate company as the merger with UFC to form TKO goes into effect tomorrow. So tonight will be the last Raw where the McMahon family has been the owners of WWE although Vince still is a major shareholder in the new company and will still be running WWE for the new company once he’s back from medical leave.
Matt Riddle is not at Raw. WWE hasn’t responded today as far as questions regarding Riddle coming off the incident at the JFK Airport coming back from India. But the fact he’s not at the show is noteworthy.
The CMLL Anniversary show is Saturday night, not Friday at Arena Mexico and it is sold out.
Raw tonight is from Norfolk, VA at the Scope Arena. Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Rodriguez with Dominik Mysterio banned from ringside for the women’s title has been announced. There is also an Imperium celebration of Gunther breaking Honky Tonk Man’s record for the longest reign as IC champion. That should lead to an angle to create a new top contender. Cody Rhodes is also advertised on the show, although he’s there every week except last week. Buffalo vs. New England opens up the Monday Night Football season tonight against Raw. They haven’t loaded up the show and don’t have the benefit they had last week of going right after a PPV show. Most years the rating drops noticeably this week. There were 7,007 tickets out as of this morning with a big last week of sales.
The Disney-Charter dispute was settled today so the 20 percent of the country not getting access to the game on ABC and ESPN issue is over, and not having access to Disney stations is over. As part of the deal, Charter subscribers in certain tiers will get free access to ESPN+, Disney + and the ESPN channel streaming when they start doing the streaming channel. Charter is also dropping eight Disney channels that aren’t watched much from its regular tier. A lot of people see this deal as the prototype major companies will have. Disney was upping its price to carry its stations and Charter refused to pay the new price because of the feeling that they were paying for non-exclusive stuff that subscribers could get elsewhere. The new deal means they will have the rights to market the streaming services themselves.
AEW had less than 2,200 tickets out for Wednesday’s Dynamite in Cincinnati as of last count. The last time in the market drew 4,740.
Gail Kim noted that she was okay. She hit her head on the floor when she was pulled out of the ring by Velvet Sky at the Impact 1,000 tapings on Saturday night in White Plains, NY. She wrote, “I’m OK,just so everyone knows and is updated. I woke up to a lot of people concerned. So yes, I got rattled but I’m ok.”
Paul Levesque was spotted at New York Fashion Week yesterday with both Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and Ari Emanuel. As noted in the current Observer, Amazon is expected to be a player in the bidding for Smackdown.
The Cassandro movie will have a limited theatrical release starting on Friday. It premieres on Amazon Prime video on 9/22. The story is about the well known gay wrestler from El Paso who played an exotico and became a star. Gael Garcie Bernal stars as Casssandro.
The Will Ospreay vs. Tetsuya Naito match, which is expected to be among the top contenders for match of the year, will air on television for the first time in the U.S. on Thursday’s New Japan show on AXS.
West Coast Pro from last night in Los Angeles: Royce Isaacs & Jorel Nelson b Alan Angels & Kevin Blackwood, Kidd Bandit & Ishmael Vaughn & Kubes & Viento b Wicked Wickett & Koto Hiro & Lucas Riley & Dom Kubrick, Kevin Knight b Vinnie Massaro, Robert Martyr & Jiah Jewel & JT Thorme b Adrian Quest & Danny Rose & Ricky G, Lee Moriarty b Alpha Zo, Starboy Charlie b Shun Skywalker to earn a shot at the West Coast Pro title, Bryan Keith b Francesco Akira (this was a surprise match and heard it was great), Iron Kid won three-way over Aramis and Black Taurus. It started as a singles match and then Taurus (who was late arriving from Mexico) ran to the ring mid-match. Fans threw a ton of money in the ring after and people raved about this match., Takuma Iroha b Johnnie Robbie to retain the West Coast Pro women’s title, Titus Alexander retained the West Coast Pro title with a 30:00 draw with Daniel Garcia. Charlie gave Alexander a Gotch piledriver after to set up their title match. Chriis Hero is the booker for this group. Manami Toyota was the special guest. She handed Iroha the title after she retained it. Chigusa Nagayo was also at the show with Iroha and Toyota so you had two of the greatest women wrestlers of all-time at this event (thanks to Shannon Walsh)
Another match I’ve heard from several on as far as a great match over the weekend was El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Arez vs. Aramis vs. Gringo Loco from the First Wrestling promotion’s show in Minneapolis’ Mall of America.
C.M. Punk will make a return as the announcer for CFFC, an MMA promotion, for its next show on 10/13 from Tampa’s Florida State Fairgrounds. He is the regular announcer for the promotion and has been for years. The promotion noted that it has sold out its prior building six straight times in Tampa so is moving to a larger location.
CPW Fairplay Wrestling on 10/11 and Thanksgiving Eve in Boonsboro, MD.
Lucero Acosta of Combate Global will appear this week on Enamorandonos, a dating show that airs on Unimas at 8 p.m. all week. In the show, viewers of the show can vie for dates with Acosta by calling the show or posing on social media for a chance to be brought to the studio live to meet her. The show would then follow whatever relationship does or doesn’t develop.
