Daily Update: Big Show’s Rumble Spot, Rizin Fighting results

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WWE is also running two shows on Tuesday, with the Smackdown tapings in Washington, DC as well as a house show in Providence (John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio for U.S. title; Rusev vs. Ryback, Kane vs. Bray Wyatt, Charlotte vs. Paige for Divas title, Dolph Ziggler vs. Tyler Breeze).

Wednesday has a WWE show in Toronto at the Ricoh Coliseum (John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio, Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens) and Baltimore (Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus, Kane vs. Bray Wyatt, Brie Bella & Alicia Fox vs. Naomi & Sasha Banks).

RIZIN FROM THE SAITAMA SUPER ARENA (some matches air on U.S. TV on Spike Thursday morning at 10 a.m.)

Rena vs. Jlena Valentino – women’s match

Heavyweight tournament semifinals

Brennan Ward (Bellator) vs. Ken Hasegawa

Takeru vs. Yang Ming in K-1 rules

Soo Chul Kim vs. Maike Linhares

Gabrielle Garcia vs. Lei’d Tapa – women’s super heavyweight match

Akebono vs. Bob Sapp – Shoot boxing rules (boxing, kicking, takedowns, no ground work or submissions)

Andy Souwer vs. Yuichiro Nagashima

Peter Aerts vs. Baruto (sumo star)

Kron Gracie (Rickson’s son) vs. Asen Yamamoto (age group wrestling champion, son of former women’s world champion Miyu Yamamoto)

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Jaideep Singh

Heavyweight tournament finals

Figure Four Weekly

Figure Four Weekly (12/21/15): Hulk Hogan and Nelson Frazier Lawsuit Updates
Transcript gives new insight into the FBI/Gawker dispute, plus WWE gives us a peek at what their termination notices look like in the Nelson Frazier wrongful death lawsuit.

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

A look at the Slammy Awards, business of the show, who watched the show, suggestions made for improving the awards show idea, some history of where it came from and what happened at the show including injury updates.

We also have a story about both the California commission, doctors, and reps from the Association of Boxing Commissions talking about the problem of weight cutting in MMA as well as all the medical issues involved, win/loss records of bigger vs. small fighters, belief of how many fighters go into fights dehydrated, the dangers of fighting dehydrated, new weight class suggestions, the good and the bad of adding weight classes, the discussion of splitting up the heavyweight division and the ONE organization becomes the first promotion to take drastic steps in this subject with a look at their new regulations.

We also look at the life, career and significance of Lizmark, one of the biggest stars in the history of Lucha Libre, who passed away this past week.  We have his background, how he got into wrestling, his life before wrestling, why he first wore a mask, how he got the name Lizmark, his long run as a constant singles champion or top contender, his induction into the Hall of Fame, his run in the glory days of AAA, Lizmark Jr. and why he fell out of favor in WCW due to loyalty to his father, his biggest rivals, the wrestlers who emulated him and his title history.

We look at what is next for NXT, the upcoming tour dates, reaction to Roman Reigns internally, Notes on the video game, Mauro Ranallo updates, WWE injury updates, John Cena and Dwayne Johnson news, lots of WWE U.K. date business notes, Japan TV update, Two new wrestlers making main roster debut for one tour in January and why.  We also have notes from all the weekend house shows.

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The Latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter: December 28, 2015 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WWE Slammy Awards, MMA Weight cutting

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Jesse Ventura becomes the Governor of Minnesota, WCW begins trailing WWF, ECW November to Remember recap, plus tons of news.

TODAY’S DAILY UPDATE

For the record, according to WWE this morning the Big Show is NOT going to be the number-one entrant in the Royal Rumble.  Last night on Raw he made a confusing statement about being the first entrant which led to great confusion among fans and the announcers.  I would laugh if all of this all led to him actually being put in the Rumble in the number one spot.  Apparently Big Show will be shooting some segments clarifying what he apparently meant (he’s the first man to throw his hat into the ring for the Rumble).

Sakuraba looked all 46 of his years in a one sided loss against Shinya Aoki in the main event of Rizin’s debut show. Here are the full results from the first day of Rizin Fighting Federation.  

Ronda Rousey’s sister, Maria Burns Ortiz (who coauthored Rousey’s autobiography My Fight/Your Fight), wrote a retrospective on the rise to superstardom of her sister as part of a VICE Sports year in review series. The article includes candid family photos from the past year featuring Ronda.

Thomas Golianopoulos has a really good article at Playboy.com about the death of Perro Aguayo Jr. and its impact on the business.

WWE

  • Lemmy Kilmister, frontman of the band Motörhead, passed away Monday at age 70. In terms of pro wrestling, Motörhead provided entrance music for Triple H with such songs as “The Game” and “King of Kings” while also forming an apparent bond with Paul Levesque. In a story from this past summer, the band covered a Rolling Stones song on their last album at the request of Triple H. An English rock band that emerged in the 1970s, Motörhead became legendary in heavy metal and rock music. With Lemmy on lead vocals and bass guitar, they performed live at WrestleMania in both 2001 and 2005.
  • Based on the overnights (actual ratings not available until tomorrow), last nights game was the highest rated of the season with a 10.5 rating, although it peaked after Raw ended.
  • Heard the WWE Breaking Ground that aired on the WWE Network was very good.  The series wraps up with the final episode of the season next Monday after Raw.
  • Titus O’Neil is Coachman’s guest on Sportscenter tonight.

UFC/MMA

  • The first episode of UFC 195 Embedded is up on the UFC YouTube channel.
  • M-1 Challenge lightweight champion Mansour “Tarzan” Barnaoui will make his first title defense, February 19 at Olympic Stadium, against Artiom Damkovsky at M-1 Challenge 64 in Moscow, Russia.  M-1 Challenge 64 will be streamed live from Moscow in high definition on M1Global.TV. Viewers will be able to watch the preliminary fights and main card by logging on to register at www.M1Global.TV. Fans may watch all of the action on their computers, as well as on Android and Apple smart phones and tablets.
  • We will have Sean Wheelock, head of the ABC rules committee as a guest on Thursday and we’re looking for any questions, thoughts or suggestions regarding rules and regulations of MMA in North America, rules you think should be changed, etc. to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

MISC

  • A new promotion in India calling itself the Pro Wrestling League reportedly ran a stadium show in New Delhi. Basically the inaugural event featured what most would consider amateur wrestling matches except presented with the pageantry of contemporary pro wrestling or MMA. One article from The Times of India focuses on, of all things, trying to enter the stadium, while other coverage looks at the matches themselves.
  • Mike Mooneyham reflects on pro wrestlers who passed away this year in an article for The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC).
  • An article from Bloomberg related to the Concussion movie details new equipment designed to prevent concussions in contact sports. The creation of an anti-compression collar drew inspiration from woodpeckers. The article includes a quote from Chris Nowinski.
  • Newsday digs into wire service image archives to showcase some great classic black and white wrestling photos.
  • On this week’s Between the Sheets podcast, Kris Zellner and David Bixenspan are joined by Dylan Hales to go over the week that was December 22-28, 1989 including the famous of Blackjack Mulligan and Kendall Windham for passing counterfeit money, Paul Heyman’s plan to unite the major indies and remaining territories, a crazy week for the USWA, one of the worst weeks of Hulk Hogan’s life, and much more.
  • EVOLVE announced that WWN Supershow: Mercury Rising 2016 on April 2nd at the WWNLive Experience in Dallas, TX will be a Night Of Appreciation For Terry Funk. “We always strive to move the art of pro wrestling forward in the WWN Family. Sometimes the best way to do that is to pay homage to those that blazed the trail in the past. Mercury Rising 2016 will feature a ceremony honoring Mr. Funk. The legend will also be available for photos and autographs. Go to MoreThanMania.com for tickets and info.”
  • PWP runs tomorrow night, 12/30, at the Waiting Room Lounge in Omaha, NE with Michael Elgin headlining.
  • Kevin Doane talks to the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling. On the Spirit Squad gimmick and trying to make the main roster: “Eventually The Spirit Squad started coming about and they started liking it. They flew us into one of the Carolinas and they weren’t sure about it then. So we all came up with this idea that we are going to wait in Vince’s office and when he comes in we are going to blow the air horn in his face and do a cheer. We thought you either going to get fired or it will work. We don’t want to be in developmental so he was stuck in the production meeting for quite a while so we said let’s find him and break in. So we bust into the production meeting and blow the air horn, we did a big cheer and we just kind of stopped in our position and Vince looked up and he said ‘great, you will be on RAW next week.’”

Here is today’s FULL Daily Pro Wrestling History including International history: Daily pro wrestling history (12/29): Mankind wins the WWF World Title