Daily Update: AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door betting odds, Chris Jericho at Arena Mexico

Daily Update

Latest News

Latest Audio

Latest Free YouTube Video

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

Sunday Update:

–Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Forbidden Door, UFC, and Smackdown.  Garrett and I did our week-in-review news show on Friday and went into depth on the TV negotiations for AEW.  We had a very detailed show covering a ton of topics with Tony Khan yesterday on the site.

–Forbidden Door is a 14-match show that starts sometime after 6:30 p.m. (I tried and failed to get a start time for the first match).  What we know is this.  The pre-game show starts at 6:30 p.m.  We don’t know when the show will end, but likely just before midnight.  With four matches on the pre-show, if it doesn’t start well before 7 p.m. then those pre-show matches will be rushed.  
*Swerve Strickland vs. Will Ospreay for the  AEW title
*Jon Moxley vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP title
*Mercedes Mone vs. Stephanie Vaquer for the TBS & New Japan Strong women’s titles.
*Toni Storm  vs. Mina Shirakawa for the AEW women’s title
* Bryan Danielson vs. Shingo Takagi for the Owen Hart Cup
–TNT title ladder match with Dante Martin, Konosuke Takeshita, El Phantasmo, Jack Perry, Mark Briscoe, and Lio Rush 
*Young Bucks & Kazuchika Okada vs. The Acclaimed & Hiroshi Tanahashi
*Orange Cassidy vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
*MJF vs. Hechicero
*Chris Jericho & Big Bill & Jeff Cobb vs. Samoa Joe & Hook & Katsuyorhi Shibata
The pre-show bouts are:
*Mistico & Rey Fenix & Penta vs. Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji & Titan
*Mariah May vs. Saraya in the Owen Hart Cup
*Willow Nightingale & Tam Nakano vs. Kris Statlander & Momo Watanabe
*Tomohiro Ishii & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Malakai Black & Brody King vs. Private Party vs. Roderick Strong & Gabe Kidd

–If you look at this line-up,  you literally could and probably will have as many great matches on this show as any show in company history.  Like 11 of the 14 matches have a good chance of being excellent and 13 of the 14 have a shot at being excellent.  It will be a long show.    

–Almost all the key matches are very one-sided when it comes to the betting odds.  On the main card, the Jericho match had no odds last we saw as it was a late addition, but MJF, Storm, Mone, Danielson, Naito, Jack Perry, Sabre Jr., and Strickland were all very heavy favorites.  Naito was the smallest at -300.  Strickland was -800.  Mone was -2000 and Storm was -1500.    MJF was -6000.  Even Sabre was -400 and that match I could see going either way.

–We’re looking for your thoughts on the show so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the  middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

–That angle at the end of Smackdown was tremendous.  Obviously, this builds to the return of Roman Reigns and ultimately the Sikoa Bloodline vs. Reigns Bloodline.  

–Regarding all the sound and video edits on the show Friday night, which actually got annoying, FOX has decided to crack down on anything deemed offensive, whether it be fan chants or whatever.  There was a video edit during the Nia Jax walkout because a fan was on screen flipping her off. I usually don’t care about that stuff but it crossed the line to being annoying.  It appears TBS has cracked down on it as far as the language on promos of AEW but not as far as fan chants and such.

–Chris Jericho shot an angle Friday night at Arena Mexico.  After Mistico’s match, he was attacked by someone in a Mistico match.  The crowd had no idea who it was, even when he did the codebreaker, until he unmasked.   Jericho will be returning to Arena Mexico for a match with Mistico, but we don’t know the date of the match yet.  But it won’t be this coming Friday night.

–The billboard at MSG on Friday night honored Sika Anoa’i.  

–Terry Funk would have turned 80 today.  In my mind, Terry Funk was the single greatest instinctive and reactive wrestler of all-time as far as his ability to react and pivot on a dime based on the crowd and by studying the crowd.  Because of the number of places he went and headlined and the variety of the work he did over the course of decades, growing up as the son of a promoter, and being around the business  since he was born, he was very near the top of the smartest people ever when it came to understanding working.  Mike Tenay once told me that every conversation with Terry Funk you learned something.  He was one of the most copied wrestlers as well, but nobody could really copy him.  His long-term influence was gigantic because while Paul Heyman was the mastermind of ECW, much of that came from  studying things influenced by Terry Funk.  ECW changed American pro wrestling greatly with things that we literally see on every major pro wrestling show today in the U.S.     

–For Google trends for the week, yesterday’s UFC 303 show was at 320,000 searches, which was more than anything else over the weekend.  But that still would be a surprisingly low number for a major  PPV show.  The only other thing that cracked the top 20 this week related to pro wrestling, MMA or boxing was the death of Sika Anoa’i, which was No. 11 on Tuesday with 50,000 searches.

–Also want to thank people for the comments on the current issue and lead story on Sika Anoa’i.

–Some stuff from Dana White last night.  When asked if Saudi Arabia could convince him to do a fight with one of his heavyweights against Francis Ngannou, he said, “I respect what  Turki Alalshikh has done.  It is pretty incredible, so we’re talking about lots of different options with this guy. So we’ll see what the future holds.”  This is very different from UFC’s attitude toward these things over the past two decades.

–White said that “Inside the UFC’ is one and done.  It was supposed to show what happens backstage in putting together UFC events.  It ended up being one of those things where the real stuff and details they ended up editing off the show.

–He said that the show at The Sphere in September would not only be the largest gate in UFC history (and we don’t even have a card) but that it would be the greatest sporting event of all-time.  It should be noted this week he also said that PowerSlap would end up being bigger than UFC.

–He said this would be the last fight in the UFC of Andrei Arlovski.  Michelle Waterson-Gomez also announced her retirement.  Arlovski wants to continue fighting but his UFC contract expired.

–Karrion Kross vs. Xavier Woods has been added to tomorrow’s Raw in Boston.

–A&E Biography at 8 p.m. tonight covers Rick & Scott Steiner.

–Don’t read much into the World of Sport remake.  It’s a promotion looking at running shows, but there is no TV deal in play. 

–Donovan Dijak was announced for the 9/29 Prestige/West Coast Pro/Deadlock Pro wrestling show at the Roseland Theater in Portland, OR.