Daily Update
Latest News
- Drew McIntyre shares images of head injury suffered at WWE Bad Blood
- Seth Rollins announced for WWE Raw
- Diamond Dallas Page signs WWE Legends deal
- The Rascalz win tag titles, Ricochet returns to Japan at GLEAT Ver. MEGA
- Triple H on Goldberg wrestling one more WWE match: ‘Never say never’
- WWE Bad Blood review: The Bloodline drama continues
Latest Audio
- Wrestling Observer Live: WWE Bad Blood fallout, new AEW TV deal & WrestleDream
- Wrestling Observer Radio: Bad Blood, UFC, AJ injury, Owens heel turn, more!
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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
- The new issue of the Observer is on the site today. Our lead story is the most detailed coverage of the new AEW TV deal, an analysis of what it means for business, profits losses, what the deal does and doesn’t cover, FOX rumors and analysis and much more. We also have a major history piece looking at the 2024 Hall of Fame and the candidates and their credentials.
- Value of the deal for each specific year
- What the deal does and doesn’t cover
- Update on the PPV business
- What AEW is losing in the deal
- How PPV will be distributed
- Quotes from Tony Khan and WBD
- MAX and cable distribution
- Breaking down expenses, revenue, profits and losses and the financial future of AEW
- Analysis of the potential FOX deal
- A look at the first NXT show on CW, business, ratings and how the segments did
- Update on Bad Blood and WrestleDream, including interest levels for both shows
- A look at the 2024 Hall of Fame voting, candidates and favorites in each category
- A rundown of the leading candidates, some of who you would know and wouldn’t.
- New Japan building King of Pro Wrestling–What business lesson was reinforced by CMLL Noche de Campeones this past week
- The most detailed look at the ratings for all the major television shows, competition, comparisons with a year ago, placings and segment-by-segment
- Woman wrestling star retiring to become a referee
- CMLL head gives stats on how many fans come to Arena Mexico from other countries
- What major celebrity was at Shinjuku Face for a pro wrestling show
- Hall of Famer having 40th anniversary show
- Major Japanese celebrity does two matches this week
- Notes on the deaths of Pete Rose and Kris Kristofferson and both men’s connections to pro wrestling
- Jimmy Hart prior to wrestling
- AEW and WWE current injury rates
- What percentage of fans watch shows live vs DVR
- AEW video game notes
- Major star opening up a gym for post-wrestling business
- International TV ratings
- Injury stats regarding PowerSlap
- What famous boxer turned down a two fight series with Conor Mcregor
- How many people watched the Mr. McMahon documentary and an approximation of how it would compare to a regular WWE TV show
- Martha Hart reacts to the documentary
This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue
Sunday Update
– Bryan and I did our weekend show with Paul Fontaine last night talking Bad Blood, UFC 307, Hall of Fame, and the WBD/AEW deal. Garrett Gonzales and I did our week in review show talking extensively about the WBD/AEW deal answering a lot of questions about what it is and what it means, problems that still face the company and the rest of the news.
- Jim Valley of our staff underwent a kidney transplant operation. This wasn’t planned. He was in Tennessee when he got the call about midnight late Friday night and he and his wife booked a flight back to Seattle at 7 a.m. yesterday. They got off the plane at 10:20 pm. and went right to the hospital and the surgery took place at 4:45 p.m. Jim is recovering from surgery and said to let all Observer staff and subscribers know how much their support means to him. He said that all the messages of encouragement have made a big difference in his recovery from very serious and multiple life-threatening situations.
- For the AEW/WBD deal, the most detailed look at the deal, the FOX deal in negotiations, and what all this means financially is the lead story in the new issue and it’s probably the most important news story this year other than Vince McMahon’s being pressured out of WWE.
- We’re looking for your thoughts on Bad Blood last night as you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
- From injury notes last night. The Bayley knee injury and Drew McIntyre back injury, which were done well, were works and planned part of the match stories. McIntyre’s blood was hardway from the toolbox shot by C.M. Punk. He needed 16 staples. There’s a lot of talk of double standards with people who were critical of some of the AEW chair shots being quiet on this. I’m not a fan of any of these head shots. Punk did a shot backward over the head but he didn’t do it full force, but it also was not a gimmicked toolbox. It sounded loud on impact. McIntyre and Punk were apparently both really feeling the match and it was what a feud-ending Hell in a Cell match should have been.
- The A.J. Styles injury on Friday was legit and not storyline. He’s getting an MRI done to see the severity of it. Braun Strowman also suffered a torn groin on Monday very early in the Bronson Reed match which is why he was having so much problem moving for most of the match.
- It certainly appeared that Gunther vs. Bill Goldberg is coming soon based on the angle last night. I don’t know when other than we were told at this point it is not planned for either WrestleMania or Survivor Series. I presume it’s Cody Rhodes vs. Gunther at Crown Jewel but if Gunther was to lose to Sami Zayn tomorrow that would change.
- There was some very controversial judging last night at the UFC show. Dana White ripped on the judging and in particular thought Jose Aldo was robbed. I thought that was a close fight that could go either way, although I did have Bautista winning 29-28.
- Marina Rodriguez vs. Iasmin Lucido was 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28 for Lucindo. 62 percent of the media scores went to Rodriguez. All judges gave Lucindo round two, but in round one, two had it for Rodriguez and one for Lucindo, and in round three, two had it for Rodriguez and one for Lucindo.
- Alexander Hernandez won a split 29-28, 27-30 and 29-28 over Austin Hubbard. Two judges had Hernandez winning the first two rounds to take it. Chris Lee gave Hubbard all three rounds. No media scorecard had that and 86 percent of media scores had Hernandez winning.
- In Jose Aldo vs. Mario Bautista, Michael Bell gave Bautista rounds one and three, Derek Clearly had the same, while Lee had Aldo winning two and three. Media scores were split down the middle with 50 percent to each. I had Bautista but Paul Fontaine had Aldo which shows the split. The idea of this being a robber no matter who won is silly.
- In the Julianna Pena vs. Raquel Pennington bantamweight title fight, Bell had Pena winning rounds one through three, Cleary had Pennington winning one, four, and five, and Sal D’Amato had Pena winning the first three. Both I and Fontaine had Pennington winning one, four, and five. In this one, 96 percent of media scores were for Pennington. Most were shocked when Pena was announced as the winner. Pena’s winning is better for UFC because she’s more marketable than Pennington and there will be better build and promotion for Pena vs. Kayla Harrison. I also think Harrison has a better shot to beat Pena.
- Last night, Paul Levesque was asked about running The Sphere and he said he watched the UFC show and would be very interested in trying. Dana White was asked if Levesque had talked to him and he said nobody from WWE has, but they are on the same team so he would give them whatever advice they’d need.
- Kyle Snyder, the 2016 Olympic wrestling gold medalist at 213 pounds, was inducted into the Ohio State Hall of Fame last night.
- Regarding searches, the UFC show last night did 500,000 and Bad Blood did 200,000. That would be about where I’d have expected both to be. Jose Aldo did 100,000. Kayla Harrison, Kevin Holland, Stephen Thompson, and The Rock did 50,000.
- Today would have been the 89th birthday of Bruno Sammartino, who a lot of people miss very much. Yesterday marked 27 years since the death of Brian Pillman.
- Announced for tomorrow’s first regular two-hour Raw in over a decade is Gunther vs. Zayn for the World title, Jey Uso vs. Xavier Woods for the IC title, Sheamus vs. Pete Dunne in a doneybook match, and Seth Rollins appears. It will be interesting to see if they cut a lot of the lower card stuff out tomorrow or if they cut back on everyone’s time as compared to three-hour shows.
- I didn’t get any major match recommendations from the weekend past many raving about the Mayu Iwatani vs. Toni Storm and Tam Nakano vs. Suzu Suzuki title matches on the Stardom PPV show yesterday. Clips are going around of today’s Ricochet & Cima vs. El Hijo del Vikingo & Soma Watanabe with some stuff like Ricochet did with Ospreay on Wednesday between Ricochet and Vikingo, including Ricochet winning with a 630 senton.
- The Kindle version of our new book on pro wrestling in 1984 is out. I was told it’s tricky to find as you have to go to www.amazon.com/ebooks to order it.
- Jay “Great Fowler” was in the ER today and had a rough go yesterday.
- Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham did an angle yesterday on Memphis Wrestling. Lethal said he wanted to be the head coach at their school (Gresham is) during a promo. They then did a beat-the-clock thing where Lethal beat Gio Savage in 6:45 and next week Gresham faces Draco and has to win in less than 6:45. They are taping three shows today that will feature Danhausen and Su Yung. (thanks to Brian Tramel)
- The TV show “Vinyl Obsession” about record collecting, hosted by Eric Young, debuts on AXS at 10:30 p.m. Eastern tonight.
