Ring of Honor is replacing their Women’s title with a new championship.
Following the departure of champion Kelly Klein at the end of last year, ROH has revealed how they’re handling their Women’s title situation. A tournament to crown a new champion will begin at Quest for Gold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Friday, April 24. The show is taking place at the 2300 Arena and will feature eight first-round matches in the tournament.
The winner of the tournament will receive the ROH Women’s World Championship, with that title replacing the Women of Honor World Championship.
The promotion hyped that the title “will take women’s wrestling in ROH to the highest level” and that the tournament “will feature talent from all over the world, including some new faces who have never competed in ROH.”
Tickets for Quest for Gold will go on sale to HonorClub members at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, February 19 and to the general public at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday, February 21.
Sumie Sakai was crowned as the inaugural Women of Honor Champion at Supercard of Honor XII in 2018. Klein held the title three times during its existence, with Mayu Iwatani and Angelina Love also having title reigns.
While it had become expected leading into the announcement, that doesn’t make Kenny Omega joining All Elite Wrestling any less of a vital move for the start-up company.
Omega signing with AEW was confirmed at last week’s Double or Nothing ticket announcement party in Las Vegas. Omega signed a four-year deal that allows him to still wrestle for New Japan Pro Wrestling if he wants to (and if NJPW will have him). And in addition to his in-ring role, Omega will serve alongside Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks as an executive vice president of the promotion.
I don’t expect more than a few more weeks of this format of Observers.
WWE grossed $930,160,000 and turned a $98,719,000 profit in 2018, both company records. Last year the company set a revenue record of $800,959,000 and turned a $32,116,000 profit.
Pedro Morales, best known for his three-year run as WWWF champion from 1971-73, passed away on 2/12 at Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, NJ, where he had been hospitalized for two weeks. He was 78 and had been battling Parkinson’s Disease for several years.
NJPW New Beginnings: As a legit shoot, while NJPW almost always sells out Edion Arena for big shows, they comped less and opened up more seats so this number was the highest since the 2015 show headlined by Hiroshi Tanhashi vs. A.J. Styles.
UFC 234 – Chaos erupted the day of UFC 234, the first UFC pay-per-view offering of 2019, at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia, causing dramatic change unheard of when it comes to UFC pay-per-view events.
It is now official that Kenny has signed with AEW.
Mustafa Ali’s eyeball got busted open and really messed up after a Garvin stomp by Randy Orton on SD Tuesday night.
Dwayne Johnson said he was the first choice to host the Oscars this year. But he said he couldn’t make it work due to the timing of shooting the Jumanji sequel.
Roman Reigns (Joe Anoa’i) will be making an appearance on a Nickelodeon series next month.
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MONDAY NEWS UPDATE
WWE
Kofi Kingston spoke backstage after being the last one eliminated in last night’s WWE title Elimination Chamber match.
Kingston tweeted after the match: “I wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the love and good vibes over the past week. Your support has been just overwhelming. Tonight didn’t go our way, but I believe that we are one step closer…”
Bayley and Sasha Banks also spoke backstage after becoming the new WWE Women’s tag team champions.
The Giant Baba Memorial show, with a main event featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi and Yoshitatsu taking on Kento Miyahara and Daisuke Sekimoto, will air on Samurai TV in Japan tomorrow morning starting at 4:30 a.m. eastern.
DDT wants your match ideas for a DDT Extreme Division Championship match between HARASHIMA and Muscle Sakai by March 10.
UFC/MMA
Nick Diaz made it clear he’s not interested in fighting anytime soon, writing on Instagram: “I’m no role model, I’m 35 years old, but I definitely wouldn’t advise anybody to take a fight for less than their worth or fight for free. Which is practically what I would be doing at this point in taking a fight with some of these guys that are not on my level. Nor would I be within my moral ethics to even do that aside from you not painting me as a role model. If there was an offer I couldn’t refuse, things would be different. Until they are – I’d like to continue to think I’ve been fighting to make the world a better place, but until I can continue to do that: ‘I don’t want to hurt nobody, I just want to party.’”
Audie Attar, Conor McGregor’s manager, has denied a story from Joe Rogan saying that a McGregor/Donald Cerrone fight was a “done deal”.
The Wrap reported that Sexy Star, real name Dulce Maria Garcia, will make her MMA debut for Combate Americas, the promotion backed by Alberto El Patron. She has a undefeated 5-0 record in boxing.
Following his loss last night (and also missing weight), Renan Barao’s coach said that this is his last fight at bantamweight.
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~!
Ring of Honor’s women’s division is finally getting its own championship.
After hyping that there would be an announcement concerning the division made at tonight’s Final Battle pay-per-view, ROH revealed that they would be crowning their first Women of Honor Champion in 2018. There will be a tournament to determine the inaugural title holder, with it set to kick off at ROH’s television tapings in Nashville, Tennessee on January 20th.
Ian Riccaboni announced the news and introduced Brandi Rhodes, Deonna Purrazzo, Jenny Rose, Jessie Brooks, Kelly Klein, Mandy Leon, Stella Grey, Sumie Sakai, and Stardom’s Mayu Iwatani. It was also noted that more wrestlers, including others from Stardom, would be involved in the tournament.
Ring of Honor television from this past week featured a special episode entirely devoted to women in ROH. Women of Honor was the theme for a show taped in Baltimore.
As reported in the latest issue of the Observer, the next year could see more emphasis on the Women of Honor brand as ROH offered contracts to several women wrestlers. Signing women talent was hardly ever a priority in the past with ROH. That is likely changing much like the landscape elsewhere in terms of women in wrestling.
This past week’s episode of TV could be a sign of the future direction with their women’s division. ROH also taped TV recently and spoilers indicate a greater emphasis on the women’s division including a no DQ match in the ongoing feud with Taeler Hendrix and Mandy Leon.
Episodes from that recent taping will begin airing this weekend in syndication with a new first-run show featuring fallout from Final Battle. The fresh episode becomes available throughout next week on various streaming platforms. The weeks ahead will indicate if several women’s matches taped most recently, like the no DQ match, will air on TV. Most of the matches from the WOH division are exclusive to the internet, with a new match released Wednesdays on their YouTube channel.
For this WOH special show though, it was all about the women’s division. Ian Riccaboni provided commentary alongside Nigel McGuinness. Of course, this was taped long before news broke that Nigel was leaving ROH for a job with WWE. Riccaboni is the regular commentator for Women of Honor matches, sharing the booth with various people at different tapings. Likely, this is his last time calling a match with Nigel.
Since the viewing audience would likely be unfamiliar with much of the women’s roster, sit-down interviews with the wrestlers were edited in before some matches to help establish their characters and storylines.
Deonna Purrazzo defeated Candice LeRae
They grappled at the outset with Purrazzo working an arm, which would play into the story of the match. LeRae fired up, leading to a tope to the outside. She followed that up with a near fall after a dropkick. Purrazzo cut her off by snapping her arm on the top rope.
Purrazzo continued to work an arm until LeRae made a comeback. LeRae jumped off the top rope with a double foot stomp. Purrazzo kicked out at two for another near fall. LeRae executed a groin suplex, but Purrazzo countered. Back to working the arm, Purrazzo applied a Fujiwara armbar and LeRae got a rope break.
Moments later, LeRae applied a submission hold using the Black Widow. Purrazzo escaped, countered a DDT, dodged some kicks, and finally applied a Fujiwara armbar in the middle of the ring. LeRae tapped out for the submission as she continued selling her arm afterwards.
Veda Scott & Kennadi Brink defeated Sumie Sakai & Faye Jackson (w/ Solo Darling)
The babyfaces, Sakai and Jackson, shined early on until Scott hit Sakai with a cheap shot. The heels then began to work over Sakai. When Scott made a blind tag, it irritated Brink. So she snatched Scott in a fireman’s carry and flung her into Sakai.
They continued to work over Sakai until a hot tag to Jackson. Solo Darling was at ringside with her magic sugar drink, which was apparently a PED she was giving to her friends in the match. Jackson cleaned house and got a near fall after using RVD’s Rolling Thunder. Jackson and Sakai later used The Quebecers old finisher, but the pin attempt was broken up. Brink then applied the Anaconda Vice and Jackson tapped out.
In a sit-down interview before the next match, Mandy Leon described her continuing feud with Taeler Hendrix and insisted Hendrix is sending Jessicka Havok to basically do her dirty work. Havok is tasked with eliminating the threat of Leon.
Mandy Leon defeated Jessicka Havok
Havok played the monster heel role and Leon was a female version of David battling Goliath. Havok pummeled Leon for some time before Leon applied a sleeper hold. Havok escaped and cut off the hope spot. Havok hoisted up Leon to execute her Beautiful Disaster finisher. Havok picked her up to break the count on Havok’s own pin attempt as she was not finished.
Havok wanted to deliver more punishment so she grabbed a chair. Deonna Purrazzo ran down to the ring and jumped on the apron to make the save. Leon rolled up a distracted Havok with a schoolgirl for the pin.
Afterwards, a livid Havok laid out both Leon and Purrazzo to get her heat back.
Kelly Klein defeated ODB
The action spilled outside the ring early on. ODB posted Klein and also whipped her into a guardrail. Klein tried to make a quick comeback but ODB cut her off. Back in the ring, Klein eventually gained the advantage and started working over ODB.
Soon thereafter, ODB fired up and ran wild. ODB would almost finish off Klein, but she would fight back and counter. On the last near fall, Klein kicked out after a spear. A moment later and Klein countered her way into applying a guillotine choke. ODB slowly faded and referee Todd Sinclair stopped the match. With the ref stoppage and the win, Klein remains undefeated in her run with ROH.
