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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Among the topics covered in this huge issue:
- The life and times of Sika Anoa’i, from moving to San Francisco, being a fan at the Cow Palace watching Peter Maivia, to running through territories, going all over the world, to being one of the most legendary tag team champions in WWF history, along with his role in the most famous modern pro wrestling family today as the father of Roman Reigns and uncle of the Usos, Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu. We look at the legends, realities and more.
- A look at WWE’s deal in Indiana and the news behind the scenes on it.
- We look at the life and career of Jamie Kellner and the death of WCW, including the last two months of WCW and the strange questions that to this day haven’t been answered.
- A detailed look at Forbidden Door, the unique match on the undercard, business notes, stories behind the matches and an update on how Double or Nothing ended up doing.
- A look at the final episode of Who Killed WCW, why it ultimately was such a major disappointment and a timeline of faulty memories
- An updated look at WWE coming to Toronto for Money in the Bank and NXT Heatwave, lineups and business.
- A look at the biggest Fantastica Mania show to date, last week’s show at Arena Mexico
- A look at the life and career of Taylor Wily, also known as Teila Tuli, the first man to walk the aisle at the first UFC PPV, and the fight that remains etched in history. We look at a life that includes sumo, and being a regular on Hawaii Five-O.
- The continued drop in homes that air WWE, AEW, and all pro wrestling and MMA programming.
- The most detailed look at the ratings over the past week, including how wrestling shows did in the weekly standings, how each show did and its placing, comparisons to last year, competition and audience makeup.
- Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hechicero and why it’s a must-see match.
- A look at one of the biggest weeks of the year in CMLL
- Notes on the last TripleMania show of the year
- Breakup of a legendary Stardom faction
- G1 qualifying tournament and who will miss G1 for the first time since 2007
- Former WCW wrestler and Japanese Lucha star about to retire
- One year celebration of the death of Terry Funk talked about for August
- Death of Louie Tillet, a well known wrestler and booker
- Very detailed look at the arrest of 2 Cold Scorpio
- Nick Bollea sentenced for drunk driving arrest last year
- MLW hiring new name people for production
- Tony Khan press conference and keys things he talked about
- Khan again discusses media rights talks
- Khan talks Shane McMahon
- Death of German announcer Gunter Zapf, the voice of WWE for a generation, AEW, Lucha Underground and the NFL with notes from those who worked with him.
- AEW’s first TV taping outside North America
- Details on AEW expenses broken down for a PPV as well as the percentage of revenue that the talent makes and how it compares with WWE, UFC and other sports.
- International TV ratings and streaming numbers
- Advanced ticket sales for WWE & AEW events
- Update on the Cung Le lawsuit
- Update on Conor McGregor’s fighting again
- Why UFC is only running one show and never again at The Sphere and why WWE & AEW are unlikely to ever run it.
- ONE financial breakdown
- A look at a number of people leaving WWE for different reasons
- New head writer for SmackDown
- Daughter of major WWE star trying to make the Olympic team this year
- WWE house show reports
This Week’s Wresting Observer Newsletter Back Issue
Monday Update
- Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about Raw and the latest news. We also have last night’s show covering Forbidden Door, UFC, Smackdown and other weekend news, plus a Saturday show where we talked at length with Tony Khan on a top of subjects.
- Raw is tonight at the TD Garden in Boston. It should do well as the key angles from last week remain strong. They had an advance of 10,400 so they could sell out with a good walk up but it’ll be a large and likely hot crowd. The main event tonight is an MITB qualifier with Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus vs. Ilja Dragunov. Liv Morgan vs Zelina Vega for the women’s title is the other key match. Other bouts include Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio, Dakota Kai vs. Ivy Nile vs. Zoey Stark in a MITB qualifying match and Karrion Kross vs. Xavier Woods. Obviously as the go-home Raw show for Saturday’s Money in the Bank, they’ll be heavily pushing Damian Priest vs. Seth Rolins and Chad Gable vs. Bron Breakker or Saturday’s MITB show as well as the two ladder matches with the last major angles.
- We’re looking for reports from the show as far as the Main Event matches or anything else not on the live show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
- We’re looking for your thoughts on last night’s Forbidden Door show. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
- Tony Khan at the press conference last night gave the impression the show did well on PPV. At that point he’d have streaming numbers but not television numbers, but streaming numbers usually give a good indication. But he didn’t give any kind of a number estimate. We’ll have prelim television numbers later in the week so have a better idea on everything.
- Nothing from the show cracked the Google top 20 yesterday, which went as far as 20,000. It’s weird because UFC stuff was 320,000 when I checked on Sunday, and all UFC stuff has since vanished from the list and it was a PPV show. The 320,000 felt very low for a show of that caliber.
- Smackdown on Friday did 2,256,000 viewers and an 0.66 in 18-49. It was down, likely due to the Olympic trials in 18-49, which did an 0.80 on NBC, on all of television. Being in MSG didn’t appear to spruce up the number. AEW Rampage did 303,000 viewers and 0.09, well down from the last two weeks.
- New Japan has a press conference on late Tuesday night U.S. time with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Stardom President Taro Okada to announce new major events together. The press conference will air free on the New Japan YouTube page.
- Shark week, hosted by John Cena, starts this coming Sunday. It’s the biggest week of the year for the Discovery Channel and will likely be heavily promoted on AEW shows in some form. Obviously there will be no crossover with Cena past him being in TV commercials that will air on the shows.
- CMLL is doing a special week dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Felino. He’s teaming with his son in tag matches against other father-and-son teams this week at their weekly arenas.
- Satoshi Kojima was announced for the BeinSports portion of the 7/12 MLW show in St. Petersburg, FL.
- The Brodie Lee sneakers that were promoted on last night’s PPV show are now out today through Reebook and Champs Sports.com. Brody Jr. under his negative One mask, and Amanda Huber, were on the PPV pre-game show last night and both seemed touched by the reaction of the fans for their autograph signings in New York. Several AEW talent did autograph signings in New York to push the release.
- PWInsider reported that Mercedes Mone and Shane McMahon were together at Laguardia Airport in New York. It was described as a chance meeting and not a planned meeting since both were catching flights elsewhere. There is probably nothing more to the story than a chance meeting but it’ll probably fuel some speculation about Shane and AEW. Tony Khan was not at all negative last week when asked about it but also noted he had not talked to him at all.
- OVW announced that its shows at the Danny Davis Arena in Louisville have been postponed for the time being. They said they have to upgrade the building and that they will reopen when the upgrades are finished. They noted if you have tickets to the shows, they will be sending refunds.
- CMLL hasn’t announced its Friday night card yet. The Chris Jericho being on next week’s show came from one of the announcers basically just questioning if he’d be back next week when he did the angle. As noted yesterday, he’s not on the show this week but at some point he’ll be there against Mistico.