Daily Update: AEW Full Gear fallout, Michael Hayes, Akira

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Sunday Update

Lee South Mercedes Mone vs Kris Statlander Newark, NJ AEW Full Gear November 23, 2024
  • Bryan and I were back last night covering Full Gear and all the news from the last few days. We’ll be back again tomorrow night after Raw.
  • No issue this past week due to my vacation but one of the two biggest issues of the year, and generally the most talked about, the Hall of Fame issue, is up on the site. It has a great story by Pat Laprade on Johnny Rougeau which tells you why he ended up voted in after several years, as well as rundowns on everyone voted in, everyone who came close, as well has how everyone figured in voting by specific groups of reporters, historians, active pros and retired pros so you can see who did well and who were the key people in voting them in.
  • We also did pieces on the deaths of Sandy Parker, the first woman of color to win a major women’s world title, Brian Maxine, a major star in the U.K. who lived a very interesting life, and small woman wrestler Darling Dagmar, who wrestled all over the world. Plus we have all the latest news.
  • My thoughts on Full Gear are pretty clear in the show from last night. Some positives as far as wrestling, like all major AEW PPV shows, but concern about the direction to be sure.
  • We’re looking for reports from these weekend shows:
    • NXT from Friday night in Lakeland, FL and last night in Jacksonville, FL.
    • Bloodsport tonight in Jersey City, NJ.
  • We’re looking for results, finishes and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com. We’re also looking for your thoughts on Full Gear, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for the show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.
  • Not a lot of major news coming out of Full Gear. A lot of people are speculating Worlds End will be headlined by Jon Moxley vs. Christian vs. Adam Page vs. Jay White coming off the show-closing angle, although Darby Allin was the featured guy when the show ended.  
  • Nothing was announced for Dynamite, which will be Continental Classic bouts plus Chris Jericho vs Tomohiro Ishii for the ROH title. They will be taping both Dynamite and Collision on Wednesday as Rampage for Friday was taped this past Wednesday. Rampage & Collision will be airing  4-7 p.m. on Saturday afternoon Eastern. Survivor Series starts at 6 p.m. so goes head-to-head with Rampage, which against a WWE PPV and outside its normal time slot would figure to be the lowest rating for the show in history, or at least close. The show will have a heavy Lucha feel to it. Mistico, Hechicero, Mascara Dorada and Atlantis Jr. are scheduled for Chicago on Wednesday.
  • The only thing announced for the Continental Classic is new TNT champion Daniel Garcia is one of the 12. More names will be announced later today on YouTube.
  • Reader Anthony Saunders who was at Full Gear noted that part of the reason the crowd was so tough is that they never showed the matches on the big screens at the top of the arena. They did use the big screens for entrances and the Mariah May/Mina Shirakawa segment, but not the matches. He said there were multiple “Turn the Screen on” chants from the upper deck, although I don’t recall hearing them on the broadcast. Others in the upper deck confirmed that as an issue.
  • Michael Hayes returned from being gone to take care of personal issues on Friday’s Smackdown show in Salt Lake City where they taped two shows. Bruce Prichard is not expected back until early 2025.
  • Bayley replaces Jade Cargill in the women’s WarGames match at Survivor Series in Vancouver. We did get confirmation that Cargill is injured but the severity wasn’t known internally past those involved in creative were told it will be a minimum of three months out, maybe longer, which is why they released the story of such severe injuries.
  • We don’t have a lot of details on this but a fighter who did what I believe was his first MMA fight last night in Enoch, Alberta, near Edmonton, went into cardiac arrest during the fight. He was in the third fight of an 18-fight show and they stopped the show at that point and the other 15 fights didn’t happen. The fight took place in Enoch to avoid regulations. Nothing has been reported about it past someone who attended the show told us what happened with the show being stopped. The promotion uses fighters with zero experience and eight weeks of training in many cases.
  • Akira, who was to face Charlie Dempsey at Bloodsport on Sunday, was injured last night working for Ruthless Pro Wrestling in Berwyn, IL.  He went to the hospital to get stitched up from a nasty wound to his abdomen (thanks to Leonard Brand)
  • It was announced shortly before Bloodsport that Tracy Williams would be replacing Akira.
  • MLW is doing an Eric Bischoff’s One Shot event on 12/5 with Matt Riddle vs Donovan Dijak, Mistico vs. Trevor Lee for the middleweight title, Satoshi Kojima vs. Ultimo Guerrero for the MLW title, Titan vs. Magnus, Minoru Suzuki vs. Akira. Averno was announced for the 1/11 show in North Richland Hills, TX.
  • James Gunn sent out a Tweet today saying that they’ve completed filming of Peacemaker season two, so John Cena is now available. He’s advertised for the 1/6 Raw on Netflix.
  • AEW was pushing the 1/1 Dynamite in Asheville, NC as the first simulcast on MAX. All AEW TV airs on Max starting after that show. Rampage finishes at the end of the year unless it gets a new home.
  • New Japan ran Korakuen Hall today for the tag team tournament. It was A block night as:
    • Jeff Cobb & Callum Newman (3-0) beat KENTA & Chase Owens (0a-3)
    • Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa (2-1) beat Alex Zayne & Ryusuke Taguchi (0-3)
    • Shota Umino & Tomoaki Honma (2-1) beat Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi (2-1)
    • Shingo Takagi & Yota Tsuji (2-1) beat Sanada & Gabe Kidd (1-2)
  • Best wishes to Chris Hero, who lost his mother earlier this past week.
  • We actually didn’t hear about any must-see matches this weekend besides on the AEW PPV show other than the UFC main event yesterday from Macau with Deiveson Figueiredo losing to Petr Yan via straight 50-45 scores. People said several of the rounds were close. Yan scored a third round knockdown and Figueiredo had a fourth round knockdown. Yan issued a challenge after the fight to bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili.
  • Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill was announced for the 1/18 UFC  PPV show at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
  • In something out of pro wrestling, Mike Perry promoted a show in Miami last night. Duane Crespo, a star in PowerSlap, but who lost his last four actual fights via knockout, faced a mystery opponent who wasn’t revealed until Friday night at weigh-ins as 47 year old former star and Olympian Yoel Romero. Romero destroyed Crespo via first round knockout.
  • GCW from last night in East Rutherford NJ:
    • Kurt Angle & Mick Foley did an interview. Blue Pain came out and went to chokeslam Angle, but Foley stopped him, used Mr. Socko on him and then Angle put Pain in the anklelock.
    • Tony Deppen b Marcus Mathers
    • Alec Price & Cole Radrick b Arez & Gringo Loco
    • Sidney Akeem (Reginald/Scrypts) b Mike Bailey
    • Ricky Starks appeared, traded barbs with Matt Cardona and then laid out Jimmy Lloyd with  a DDT.
    • Cardona b 1 Called Manders with help from John Layfield and Lloyd
    • Ricky Morton NC Little Guido due to interference by Griffin McCoy and Kerry Morton
    • Ricky Morton & Guido b Kerry Morton & McCoy
    • Kevin Ku & Dominic Garrini kept  the tag titles over Megan Bayne & Joey Janela
    • Price & Radrick challenged Kyu & Garrini but Ku & Garrini laid them out
    • Matt Tremont won a four-way over John Wayne Murdoch, Brandon Kirk and Drew Parker.  
    • Masha Slamovich b Santana Jackson to keep the JCW women’s title
    • Mance Waner NC Effy for the GCW title when Allie Katch laid both out with chair shots and also piledrove the referee.
  • Bloodsport tonight has:
    • MVP vs. Josh Barnett
    • Masha Slamovich vs. Lei Ying Lee
    • Dominic Garrini vs. Kevin Ku
    • Royce Isaacs vs. Myles Borne
    • Marina Shafir vs. Jody Threat
    • Karmen Patrovic vs. Sumie Sakai. So this show has two wrestlers under AEW contracts and two under WWE contracts.
  • As far as YouTube views go, the C.M. Punk reveal on SmackDown did 2.7 million views so far. Those in WWE have said through all forms of social media it has hit 50 million. The AEW segment with Big Boom AJ and QT Marshall was at 398,000 views on YouTube as of last week but in that company they said it was in the millions for everything combined.
  • The United Wrestling Coalition has its 30th Toys for Tots show on 12/7 at the McKaig-Test-Mullen American Legion Post 455 in New Egypt , NJ. There will be a  meet and greet at 6 p.m. and bell time is 7 p.m.