Xyon Quinn and Odyssey Jones are the new AJPW World Tag Team Champions.
Wrestling under the names Xyon and Odyssey, they defeated Hideki Suzuki and Kengo Mashimo on Tuesday’s event at Arena Tachikawa Tachihi in Tachikawa, Tokyo. Xyon scored the pin on Suzuki following a flying headbutt.
Odyssey Jones was removed from WWE’s roster in September 2024, with reports later attributing the release to domestic violence allegations made by a former girlfriend. At the time, Jones was part of a developing storyline with The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods. He made his All Japan debut last month as part of the 2025 Ōdō Tournament. Alongside Xyon and Shotaro Ashino, he is now part of the “Havoc” stable in the promotion.
Xyon Quinn (Daniel Vidot) signed with WWE in 2018 and remained with the company until his release in 2024. He is the former fiance of AEW’s Harley Cameron.
The most detailed look at the updated Janel Grant lawsuit against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE. We look at the new claims, the arguments in favor of the case not going to arbitration as McMahon, Laurinaitis and WWE have argued, who is the most in jeopardy, lots of notes on the legal strategy from both sides, more text messages released as well.
Tons of records set at the 2025 Royal Rumble, the direction going into WrestleMania, the fake record John Cena may break and who has always been planned to break it later, Dwayne Johnson, Jey Uso, Alexa Bliss, business records including a very noteworthy record set by the show. We have an apples-to-apples comparison between Rumble viewers on Netflix and Raw viewers which is very interesting.
The ringboys lawsuit goes forward against Vince & Linda McMahon and WWE, details of what the issues that put it on hold were as well as a very important note about the suit that hasn’t gotten much talk.
The most detailed look at TV ratings and streaming numbers for pro wrestling programming in the U.S., including segment-by-segment numbers, what countries Raw is strongest in, competition and more.
Unique tournament this month in Mexico City
A look at major international matches over the past week
Stardom PPV notes
Tag champ brothers release a new album and music video.
New Beginning in Osaka and Fantastica Mania upcoming shows.
Young Bucks talk their return to Japan
Why Hiroshi Tanahashi was in tears after Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd
Hall of Famer says his son has recently got a WWE offer
Ed Wiskowski’s time in Australia.
Lots of news on Grand Slam Australia.
International TV numbers and streaming numbers
Ticket sales to all the major upcoming WWE & AEW shows including WrestleMania, Elimination Chamber, Revolution and All In.
Jericho Cruise notes
Merch sale leaders from WWE & AEW
Story on the retirement of Dominick Cruz and his legacy in UFC
One of the key people in the pro wrestling business and the most important person in the MMA business are rumored to be working together to start a new sports franchise
How is ESPN+ doing
Another world champion wants release from his promotion.
All the craziness of the Canelo negotiations
TKO stock reaching record highs
Lots of news on Mania week
More on cancellation of Cena TV show
More on new Evolve TV show
Another lawsuit with Nick Khan’s name in it
How much WWE stock does Dwayne Johnson now own?
Lots of contract news
WWE & AEW injury stats – which company, on average, has more serious injuries.
This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue
— We have two weekend shows up on the site right now. Our Friday show with Garrett Gonzales talking about the news of the week, including AEW in Australia, Canelo Alvarez and tons of history. We also did our weekend show last night covering UFC, Collision, WWE releases, Smackdown and New Japan in Osaka with Garrett Gonzales and Paul Fontaine.
— Linda McMahon’s hearing regarding her nomination for Education Secretary under Donald Trump will be on Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern time.
— The Nielsen streaming ratings for the week of 1/6 to 1/12 came out and Raw, which was the first show on Netflix, was not in the top ten, meaning under 2,250,000 streaming views in the U.S. Basically if that week didn’t make the top ten, it tells us that we won’t be able to get Nielsen ratings for Raw even a month late.
— At last night’s UFC show, Israel Adesanya vs. Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 236 was announced as being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame this summer in Las Vegas. The show was a rare so-so at best UFC PPV show. Both champions, Dricus du Plessis and Zhang Weili, dominated challengers Sean Strickland and Tatiana Suarez in decision wins. Both champs looked good but the fights weren’t that exciting.
— The 45th annual Observer awards will be out in this coming Friday’s issue.
— For Google searches this weekend, last night’s UFC show did just over 1.15 million searches which is the normal number for a PPV show. WWE releases got 100,000 while Zhang Weili, Tallison Teixeira did 50,000 and Jimmy Crute and Jake Matthews, who fought on last night’s UFC show, did 20,000 each. Obviously the list is dominated by things related to the Super Bowl.
— The Von Erichs returned to AEW last night in a 12-man tag team match taped for ROH. Ross had been out of action for a long time due to injury. Hechicero & Soberano Jr & Cavernario, a rudo team, beat Sammy Guevara & Black Panther & Fuego as well. Abadon was also back (thanks to Trae Wisecarver and Joshua Starnes)
— As it turns out Canelo Alvarez will face William Scull for the IBF, WBA WBC and WBO super middleweight titles on 5/3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It’s a title unification match.
— The former Xyon Quinn (Daniel Vidot) from WWE will be in this year’s Champion Carnival tournament for All Japan. The A block has Kento Miyahara, Jun Saito, Hideki Suzuki, Shotaro Ashino, Kuma Arashi, Kengo Masimo Xyon, Cyrus and Davey Boy Smith Jr. The B block has Yuma Aoyagi, Rei Saito, Hokuto Omori, Yuma Anzai, Ryuki Honda, Ren Ayabe, Aigie Blanc from Europe, Mike D Vecchio from Europe and Madoka Kikuta from Dragon Gate.
— They did an angle on last night’s MLW show in Atlanta where Cesar Duran set up Mistico vs. Templario for the MLW middleweight title on 4/5 in Los Angeles.
— Samu Anoa’i, the first cousin of Roman Reigns and a very underrated wrestler in his day, is having open heart surgery tomorrow. He held the WWF and World Class tag titles with Fatu, who later became Rikishi, as the Samoan Swat Team.
— Dakota Kai was cleared after her concussion from the springboard dropkick by Zoey Stark a few weeks ago. Kai & Iyo Sky will wrestle Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez on Raw tomorrow.
— Shock Cinema has a story on Woody Strode, who wrested mostly in the 50s but was more famous for being one of the first black college football major stars and one of the first men of color to play in the NFL and later for being a Western movie star in a career that spanned from 1941 until his death in 1994.
— Bouts that we’ve heard raves about this weekend are the MLW match from last night with Mistico & Mascara Dorada vs. Esfinge & Templario from Atlanta and Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe from Collision last night. Collision was a great show, strong wrestling, strong angles and a super hot crowd. The show was there to heavily push this coming Saturday nights show from Brisbane, Australia.
— Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling from Friday night in Newark, CA: Will Hobbs b Alan Angels, Titus Alexander b Timothy Thatcher, Too Fresh b Los Ricos, Jheri Giggalow won over JT Thorne, Vinnie Massaro and Bret the Threat, Sandra Moore b Johnnie Robbie to win the women’s title, Starboy Charlie & Marcus Lewis & Jiah Jewell b Los Suavecitos & Dom Cirrus, Starboy Charlie won the annual Battle Royal (thanks to Jim Davis and Jonny Poon)
— Defy had a sellout for its 8th anniversary show last night in Seattle before a turn away crowd Judas Icarus & Travis Williams & Evan Rivers b Gringo Loco & Arez & Latigo in a ladder match, Nick Wayne b Marcus Mathers, Bollywood Boyz b C4, Marina Shafir b Zamaya to win the Defy women’s title, Amerikan Gunz b Midnight Heat, Ricky Starks b KENTA to win the Defy title. They aired the angle with Ricochet and Swerve Strickland for the show on Collision last night.
Veer and Sanga have also been released by WWE, according to Fightful.
The duo made up the Indus Sher tag team and were last seen on WWE programming in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal on the April 5 SmackDown.
Both originally signed with the company in 2018, and both made their WWE TV debuts on the NXT brand in 2020.
Veer, real name Rinku Singh Rajput, is also a former professional baseball player and one of the subjects of Disney’s 2014 movie Million Dollar Arm.
Original post —
Former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal, Xia Li, and Xyon Quinn have been released from the promotion, according to multiple outlets.
Mahal, who held the WWE title for 170 days in 2017, Li, and Quinn, were all released by WWE on Friday. News of the releases broke as Friday’s SmackDown episode was on the air, with Fightful and PWInsider confirming Mahal and Li’s releases, and Fightful reporting on Quinn.
Both outlets report that the released talent will be subject to 90-day non-compete clauses, but will be free agents after.
For his part, Mahal posted on social media that he quit WWE, but both Fightful and PWInsider report that he was in fact released:
Mahal was last on WWE television on the April 5 SmackDown, participating in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. He had been on the Raw roster.
Li was shown in an advertisement for a battle royal to crown a new Women’s World Champion on Monday’s Raw that aired during SmackDown, but obviously will not be in the match. Her last WWE appearance came on this week’s Main Event episode where she lost to Natalya in a match taped Monday in Montreal.
Quinn was moved to the main roster after the 2023 WWE Draft, but was given a free agent designation and rarely used. His last WWE match was a six-second loss to Bron Breakker on the March 1 SmackDown.
This week’s WWE Main Event was taped at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania before Monday’s Raw and featured two main roster debuts in NXT’s Wendy Choo and Xyon Quinn.
Wendy Choo defeated Tamina (4:19)
Choo won her debut with a roll up to cap off a fairly meager offering from this pair.
As much as Tamina has some real staying power in WWE, she’s not really the ideal person to make a debut against. As you can imagine, this was all about Choo trying to topple Tamina which doesn’t really make for much fun at the best of times.
Choo tried to avoid everything in the early going until Tamina stomped a mudhole in her and slapped on a headlock rest hold.
Choo rallied slightly and at least managed to take Tamina off her feet at one point. Tamina quickly recovered and only lost due to her own folly, missing a running splash to the corner so Choo could roll her up for the win.
After the bell, Tamina begrudgingly shook Choo’s hand.
– Between matches, Shelton Benjamin was backstage speaking to Dana Brooke which allowed them time to mention that Truth was injured on WWE NXT. Brooke seemed to set up a rematch at some point between her and Kiana James as James basically stole a win from her last week.
Xyon Quinn defeated Akira Tozawa (8:00)
This was pretty good and was given time. Unlike the opener, if you’re debuting on this show, Tozawa is the perfect opponent.
Quinn isn’t someone that we are used to seeing much of on WWE television, but has been on NXT Level Up as of late and on some of the live shows. Hailing from Australia and with a good look, he’s someone they could definitely do something with.
They did a fairly typical Tozawa match. He flipped all over the place for Quinn, because he’s a generous and talented performer, but also made sure to get plenty of his own stuff in there.
We went through the commercials with it looking fairly evenly split before Tozawa locked in his octopus submission hold. They teased that it might be over, but Quinn fought out and turned it into a near fall.
In the end, Tozawa missed an enzuigiri because Quinn ducked which allowed him to slam Tozawa to set up for his finisher which is akin to a Superman punch, but is more like a running punch to the face.
There were some nice signs here that Quinn has what it takes. The way that he set up the finish showed some poise and a good sense of in-ring psychology. We’ll see what they do with him.
Final Thoughts:
This was a decent show, all told, but the opener and the main event were really worlds apart in terms of quality. It’s just so refreshing to have Main Event feature backstage segments and running storylines, no matter how insignificant they may seem. It’s also been fun seeing some new faces over the last few months, so long as that may that continue.
This week’s episode of WWE Main Event will see two more NXT wrestlers in action.
Before Monday night’s Raw in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania went on the air, WWE taped two matches for this week’s edition of Main Event. NXT wrestlers were victorious in both matches. Wendy Choo defeated Tamina, while Xyon Quinn defeated Akira Tozawa.
This is the first time that either Choo or Quinn has worked Main Event. Quinn previously wrestled in a dark match before a SmackDown episode in July 2021 and lost to Sheamus on SmackDown during the pandemic era in April 2020.
NXT talent have been featured on Main Event in recent weeks. That’s included Josh Briggs, Brooks Jensen, Fallon Henley, Carmelo Hayes, Von Wagner, Cameron Grimes, Duke Hudson, and Kiana James wrestling matches on the show.
WWE Main Event premieres on Hulu each Thursday. The episodes are uploaded to Peacock on a two-week delay.
Shortly after Quinn was removed from the match, Robert Stone suggested that Von Wagner could serve as a replacement. Wagner had recently been suspended in storyline for attacking Ikemen Jiro.
“If Xyon isn’t man enough to step up and face Tony D, my guy will cause he’s not SOFT. I got Von’s suspension cut down. Now all I have to do is pay his fine which won’t be a problem,” Stone wrote on Twitter.
Wagner vs. Angelo has since been made official for Tuesday’s show.
Tony D’Angelo is set to face Xyon Quinn in singles action.
WWE announced the match will take place on Tuesday’s edition of NXT.
“‘The New Don of NXT’ looks to solidify his status in his first match since becoming a Made Man when he takes on Xyon Quinn,” reads a WWE.com preview.
This will be D’Angelo’s first match since defeating Tommaso Ciampa at Stand & Deliver on April 2. As for Quinn, he defeated Wes Lee on the April 19 edition of NXT and defeated Draco Anthony the week before that.
The updated lineup for the April 26 edition of NXT from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando is as follows:
Solo Sikoa vs. Trick Williams
Fallon Henley, Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen vs. Legado del Fantasma (Elektra Lopez, Cruz Del Toro & Joaquin Wilde)
Nikkita Lyons vs. Lash Legend
Nathan Frazer makes his NXT 2.0 debut
Katana Chance & Kayden Carter vs. Yulisa Leon & Valentina Feroz
Trick and Jiro opened the match with showy chain wrestling. A whip into the ropes ended the opening sequence and left Williams in a strong position. Trick used a straightjacket choke to keep Jiro on the ground for some time; Jiro flipped out of the hold, initiating a rally filled with jacket punches. Out of left field, Trick caught Jiro in the corner before landing a swinging neckbreaker. Trick then pinned Jiro for an abrupt end to this match.
Lash Legend defeated Erica Yan
This was pretty bad. The in-ring was either uninteresting or awkward.
Legend ended Yan’s early attempt at wrestling by using her strength advantage. A sit-down slam and an elbow drop left Legend with a near fall. After Legend held her on the mat for a while, Yan eventually began a rally, landing a crossbody to gain a lead late in the match. Legend caught Yan before she could follow up in a back-to-back stretch. Yan submitted.
Joe Gacy defeated Xyon Quinn
The match was unremarkable, but hey, what can you expect?
Joe Gacy cut a promo calling 205 Live exclusionary. According to Gacy, now that 205 Live no longer discriminates based on weight, everyone has the opportunity to “level up”, including his opponent Xyon Quinn.
This Gacy fellow is weird, but it’s nice that there is some kind of narrative on this show.
Quinn and Gacy opened the match with a playful exchange, but as things escalated, Quinn established control. Gacy fought into the match with a backdrop which he followed with some neck-focused groundwork. Gacy avoided Quinn’s attempts at offence for a while, but Quinn eventually caught him with a headbutt followed by multiple Irish whips. Quinn tried to follow up, but Harland at ringside grabbed Gacy, helping him overpower Quinn. Gacy then hit a handspring lariat to close the match.
On tonight’s show, it was confirmed that Santos Escobar would face Xyon Quinn next week on the post-WarGames episode of NXT. Elektra Lopez met Xyon Quinn in the WWE Performance Center parking lot as he was walking by and wished him luck next week, as he would need it.
Quinn and Escobar have been feuding in recent weeks. After he rejected an offer to join Legado Del Fantasma, Santos Escobar made his return to NXT and joined with the rest of the stable (Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza) in attacking Quinn following a match against Andre Chase. On this week’s NXT, Quinn appeared at ringside as he watched Wilde and Mendoza lose a number one contender’s match against the team of Kyle O’Reilly and Von Wagner.
NXT WarGames will take place this Sunday, with the top matches being the men’s and women’s WarGames matches, Roderick Strong vs. Joe Gacy for the NXT Cruiserweight title, Cameron Grimes vs. Duke Hudson in a hair vs. hair match, and Imperium vs. Kyle O’Reilly and Von Wagner for the NXT Tag Team titles.
Amari Miller and Valentina Feroz defeated Katrina Cortez and Yulisa Leon
This was, in fact, a wrestling match. There isn’t much more to say.
Feroz opened the match by taking Cortez to the mat, but Cortez gained control while grounded, tagging out soon after. Cortez and Leon traded tags, gaining significant match control.
Leon and Cortez maintained their control even as Miller entered the fray. This lasted until Feroz interrupted a pin attempt, giving Miller enough time to connect with a knee. A pin followed, leaving Miller and Feroz victorious.
Duke Hudson defeated Malik Blade
A video package played before the match that revealed Hudson likes to play poker. I’m not sure as to why. His graphic package also looked like a 2008 online poker website, so I guess it’s vital to his character.
The match itself was a typical “brains vs brawn” showcase. Nothing atypical about it; this was a by-the-numbers match.
From the beginning, Hudson took advantage of his size, tossing Blade every which way. Hudson forced Blade to wrestle his way into an advantage. Hudson’s power was able to overcome the wit of Blade, however. Hudson threw Blade face-first into the mat before pinning him to close the match.
Xyon Quinn defeated Jeet Rama
This match was fantastic. It was short and punctual but still allowed both men to shine– a truly terrific outing. It’s almost hard to believe this was on 205 Live.
Back and forth wrestling opened this match, with Rama coming out with a slight advantage. The opening sequence was great, full of great moments of grappling.
Rama avoided all of Quinn’s attempts at offence, leaving him with firm control as the match entered its midpoint. This all ended after Quinn finally powered out to slam Rama before using his power to toss him all over the ring. Quinn hoisted Rama onto his shoulders to deliver a Samoan drop that he followed with a leaping forearm. Quinn pinned Rama, marking an end to tonight’s main event.
Davey Boy Smith Jr. appeared in a dark match prior to tonight’s SmackDown.
Smith teamed with Austin Theory to take on Odyssey Jones and Xyon Quinn (formerly Daniel Vidot). Smith was billed under his real name, Harry Smith. In another dark match, Xia Li wrestled Aliyah.
WWE later posted a video on social media with Smith talking about his return to WWE.
Originally signed by WWE in 2006, Smith was released by WWE in 2011 and spent most of the last decade teaming with Lance Archer as the Killer Elite Squad in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where they won the IWGP Tag Team titles on three occasions. Smith left NJPW in 2019 and has worked dates with MLW since his departure. He also attended the WWE Hall of Fame indcution ceremony this year, where his father The British Bulldog was inducted.
Tonight’s SmackDown at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas is the first television taping to take place in front of fans since March of 2020. WrestleMania 36 in Tampa, Florida has been the only WWE event to be held with a live audience since then.
