The Rock vs. Roman Reigns may finally be happening.
WWE rang in the new year with a special Day 1 edition of Raw last night. On the show, The Rock made a surprise appearance and took part in a segment with Jinder Mahal. Rock had a promo battle with Mahal and laid him out with a People’s Elbow, but what was most noteworthy was how The Rock ended the segment. Rock made a clear reference to Roman Reigns, teasing that he wants to take Reigns’ spot at the Head of the Table.
San Diego, I love you. Happy New Year. Oh, by the way, one more thing — tonight, after all this ass kicking, The Rock is going to go out in San Diego. I’m a little hungry. I’m going to go get something to eat. When The Rock goes out to get something to eat tonight in San Diego, should The Rock sit in a booth? Or should The Rock sit at the bar? Yeah, The Rock loves the bar too. Or should The Rock sit at the Head of the Table?
Rock vs. Reigns was planned for WrestleMania 39 at one point but didn’t end up happening. Elimination Chamber in Perth, Australia or WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia would appear to be the most likely destination for Rock vs. Reigns if the match is imminent.
It had been hyped going into last night’s Raw that a former WWE Champion would be returning. Mahal claimed that he was that former champion, but The Rock interrupted him.
Last night was The Rock’s first appearance for WWE since showing up on SmackDown last September. Before that, he hadn’t appeared on WWE programming since 2019.
The most detailed look at the New Japan decision to make Hiroshi Tanahashi president and comments from many in the industry about it
Full details on the WWE’s biggest grossing U.S. house show in history on Tuesday in Madison Square Garden plus past history from the event
The Iron Claw, history of the Von Erichs, in a long detailed article regarding the rise and fall and the making of the movie
Preview of the Tokyo Dome show, advance ticket sales and Stardom PPV
How many tickets are comped at the usual AEW and WWE shows
2023 Awards ballot
Dragon Gate’s Final Gate show
The most detailed look at the ratings from the past week, placings for the night and week, competition, segment-by-segment, gains and losses from one year ago and more
Andrade heads to Mexico and a big business week
Another two Vikingo vs. Taurus matches
New Japan bodybuilding contest notes
Major shows for New Japan in the first three months of he year
One of the best trios matches in a long time
DDT tournament finals set
Notes on a book on wrestling history
New Scottish wrestling Hall of Famer
Chris Jericho and Stephen New
Tony Khan’s recent press call
Dynamite headed for tougher competition
Advance ticket sales for WWE & AEW shows
Streaming numbers for AEW & WWE
Amanda Huber talks anniversary of Jon Huber’s death
Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio covering Raw and the rest of the news. We also did our show after Worlds End on Saturday night.
Raw is tonight in San Diego, as the Day 1 specially themed show. Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre headlines for the world title, plus Rhea Ripley vs. Ivy Nile for the women’s title, Becky Lynch vs. Nia Jax and Tegan Nox & Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark have a match with the winners getting a shot at the women’s tag titles. The big thing is that a former WWE champion is supposed to appear on the show. It goes up against the ending of the Rose Bowl game most likely with No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 5 Alabama and then from about 8:45 p.m. on goes against the Sugar Bowl with No. 3 Texas vs No. 2 Washington. These are the college football semifinals with the finals next Monday against Raw. While these are major games, they won’t be doing NFL numbers and Raw should bounce back strong tonight in theory.
Dwayne Johnson and Nick Khan were both at the Rose Bowl game. They’ve been teasing a former WWE champion showing up tonight. The expectation was that Andrade, as a free agent, would be there tonight, but obviously Johnson could be as well. C.M. Punk is backstage so that would make him a favorite. He wasn’t advertised to return until next week’s show. Pasadena isn’t too far from San Diego, although if Johnson is staying for the entire game, probably the earliest he could be there would be late in the show. If he’s left at this point he’ll make it, and they could take a private flight and it’s a quick turnaround. It’s 135 miles and a two-and-a-half hour drive in rush hour traffic.
Big changes as well tonight as they are cutting back to two announcers on each show and obviously no Kevin Dunn directing and we’ll see what that means. No word on the announcing assignments. In the past when they’ve made changes they’ve given them ahead of time to some trades for press but have not as of this writing.
We’re looking for reports from San Diego tonight with any Main Event matches or stuff that happened after the show went off the air to [email protected]
We’re doing weekend polls on AEW Worlds End, as well as the Stardom Queendom show from Friday at Sumo Hall and yesterday’s All Japan show at Yoyogi Gym, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with the best and worst match on each of these shows to [email protected]
The 7.6 earthquake in Japan’s West Coast earlier today was felt in the Ishikawa and Nagano prefectures. The epicenter was 365 miles from Tokyo. It should not affect the wrestling shows in Tokyo all this week.
Keiji Muto said today, “I will say this though, even if it gets me heat–Sanada was at a certain end of year party I was at the other day and he was dead drunk…I’ll be honest, I’ve had some of my best matches hung over. Maybe not at The Dome though.” Sanada defends the IWGP world title against Tetsuya Naito late Wednesday night U.S. time at Wrestle Kingdom at the Tokyo Dome.
Fios has dropped AXS from its basic cable lineup which means that TNA and New Japan’s audience will probably drop by a considerable amount this year.
In catching up on the Wednesday numbers, the AEW show’s 0.31 was not only its biggest number since the Grand Slam show but it was even more impressive going against highly-rated college bowl games on both ABC and ESPN. It’s not close to NFL competition that the Saturday show has been going against, but it was by far the toughest Wednesday competition since the World Series. NBA is tough but that’s usually one game on national TV (granted you have lots of local games) and this was two games that each did much larger than NBA numbers. AEW was fourth for the day on cable, behind three bowl games and beat everything else. Currently the ratings are out through 12/28 and from Raw on 12/18 through at least 12/28, Dynamite was the highest rated entertainment show on cable. That will end tonight as the Raw number, even with the competition and the holiday, is expected to be very strong and way up for the first Raw not against the NFL.
For those interested in the 2023 Observer awards, the ballot is in the current issue up on the site this week.
John Cena’s movie “Freelance” was destroyed by critics with seven percent positive reviews, making it one of the worst reviewed movies of the past few years, but the audience scores are 77 percent positive.
People continue to rave about yesterday’s Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Kento Miyahara match on the All Japan show as the last match of the year candidate of 2023.
Brian Blair, 66, had emergency surgery on his lower back a few days ago. We want to send our best wishes to Brian, who does the thankless job of being President of the Cauliflower Alley Club and who keeps in touch with so many of the stars of the 70s and 80s. Brian had been a friend for decades.
Glory Pro Wrestling from Saturday night in St. Louis: Rohit Raju b Allie Katch-DQ to keep the Zero Gravity title, Tootie Lynn b Nixi XS, Mason St Goods b ATM, Camaro Jackson b Jabari King, Rahim de la Suede b Eff, Xavier Walker b Mike Outlaw, Campbell Myers & SK Bishop b Jake Bosche & Scott Stanley, Dak Draper won four-way over Dan the Dad, Kody Lane and Laynie Luck, tag champs Moses & Ethan Price d Philly C & Martino T (double pin draw) to keep the titles, Warhorse b Jake Something in a three stages of hell match (regular match, tables match and dog collar match) to win the Crown of Glory title (thanks to Patrick Brandmeyer)
Triple H is teasing a âformer WWE Championâ appearing on this Mondayâs Raw.
On X Friday evening, Triple H wrote: âNot going to confirm or deny the rumors of a former @WWE Champion appearing at #WWERaw Day One⌠but I will say to stay tuned.â
Not going to confirm or deny the rumors of a former @WWE Champion appearing at #WWERaw Day One⌠but I will say to stay tuned.
Fightful earlier on Friday reported that WWE was âon the one yard lineâ in regards to landing a former WWE Champion to appear on the show, and were confident in securing the deal. According to Fightful, the person in question is someone not currently on the roster.
WWE Raw Day 1 will be the first event to kick off WWEâs New Yearâs Knockout week, celebrating the first week of 2024. Scheduled for the New Year’s Day show is Seth Rollins defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Drew McIntyre and Womenâs World Champion Rhea Ripley defending against Ivy Nile.
In addition of NXTâs New Yearâs Evil event next Tuesday, next Friday will see WWE SmackDown New Yearâs Revolution. That show will be headlined by a three way match between AJ Styles, LA Knight, and Randy Orton where the winner will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WWE Royal Rumble on January 27.
Three new matches have been added to the lineup for WWE Raw Day 1 set for January 1, 2024.
It was revealed during Monday’s episode that Rhea Ripley will put the Women’s World Championship on the line against Ivy Nile on the Day 1 episode. Nile laid out a challenge in a backstage promo on this week’s show, and Ripley later confirmed that not only was she accepting the challenge, but that she had gone to on-screen authority figure Adam Pearce to make it a title defense.
Also set for the show, Becky Lynch will go one-on-one with Nia Jax for the first time. Lynch interrupted a Jax promo segment on this week’s Raw, leading to a physical angle between the two with Jax standing tall at the end.
A number one contenders match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship has also been added to Day 1. Natalya & Tegan Nox will face Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark with the winners next in line to challenge new Tag Team Champions Katana Chance & Kayden Carter. Chance & Carter defeated Piper Niven & Chelsea Green on this week’s Raw to win the titles.
Already set for Day 1, Seth Rollins will defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Drew McIntyre.
WWE has not officially announced anything for next week’s Christmas Day edition of Raw, which is expected to be a best-of 2023 episode, as no taping is scheduled for the date.
The updated Raw Day 1 lineup for Monday, January 1, 2024:
World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins defends against Drew McIntyre
Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley defends against Ivy Nile
Becky Lynch vs. Nia Jax
Women’s Tag Team Championship number one contenders match: Natalya & Tegan Nox vs. Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark
