Daily Update: Bill Dundee, AEW Dynamite, Jade Cargill

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new Observer is up now:

  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • Adam Copeland comes to AEW, analysis of he deal, surprises, comments by Copeland, and the positives and negative of it
  • Full rundown of WrestleDream, including business notes
  • Updates on the last three AEW PPV shows including one major surprise
  • What to learn from AEW doing three PPV shows so closely
  • Full coverage of WWE NXT No Mercy
  • AEW vs. NXT this coming Tuesday as both load up, and what to expect given how things went last year
  • Notes on WWE Fastlane
  • Russ Francis, the aspects of his pro wrestling career that few know, growing up as the son of a wrestler and promoter, NFL and other sports background, the Francis family in Hawaiian rings, the last big house drawn by the AWA, WrestleMania 2 and 31, his playing in the Super Bowl and the wrestling connection in that game, politics, broadcasting and more.
  • Story on Joyce Grable, who passed away this past week.
  • AEW & WWE attendance for quarter three
  • Matt Riddle update
  • The Infernos tag team history
  • How many homes are the stations that carry wrestling and MMA programming in
  • The most detailed look at the ratings from the past week, comparisons with one year ago, segment numbers, placings, star power and competition to provide information as to the ups and downs
  • CMLL Night of Champions as fans pick the card
  • Women’s tournaments coming
  • A show honoring 45 years of Blue Panther in the ring
  • AAA Heroes Inmortales
  • Stardom Five-Star Grand Prix notes
  • Stardom tag team tournament update
  • Notes on New Japan U.S dates
  • Crush Gals anniversary show
  • New pro wrestling documentary notes
  • Impact gears up for its biggest show of the year
  • Update on AEW and WBD
  • Adam Cole on his injury
  • Tony Khan talks Jade Cargill
  • Why AEW announced 81,305 instead of 85,228 for All In
  • Problems AEW had with its last TV show
  • Streaming numbers for AEW & WWE
  • Ticket sales for upcoming AEW & WWE shows
  • International TV ratings
  • Star returns from injury
  • UFC & Bellator updates
  • Canelo Alvarez PPV notes and how many buys came from AEW & WWE fans
  • Two wrestlers being inducted into Louisiana Hall of Fame
  • C.M. Punk notes
  • Why WWE stock is down
  • WWE in Japan update

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Friday Update

Today is our show with Garrett Gonzales covering this week’s issue and the news of the past week when it comes to wrestling, MMA and boxing.

Very sad news as Jamie Dundee on Dutch Mantell’s Story Time with Dutch Mantell podcast revealed that his father, Bill Dundee, is suffering from dementia. He said his father was at stage three dementia where he just smiles all day.

At press time for the issue, we didn’t get this official, but AEW Dynamite was sixth on Wednesday behind five baseball wild card series related shows including both games that went head-to-head with the show. So it was third on cable in the time slot. The next highest non-baseball related show, Real Housewives of Orange County, head-to-head, did 833,000 viewers and 0.20 in 18-49, compared to Dynamite at 800,000 viewers and 0.28, and that’s with the DVR snafu.

Jade Cargill was reported by PW Insider as being in Indianapolis, where the WWE PPV is tomorrow night. It reported that she will be at the show as well as at Raw on Monday and Smackdown next Friday. Her debut should be imminent.

Those who are in St. Louis today for Smackdown, besides the names already announced,include Chad Gable, Otis, Maxxine, Dominik Mysterio, JD McDonagh and Drew McIntyre. Damian Priest, Finn Balor, Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso were all announced on Monday. Matches announced are Rey Mysterio vs. Bobby Lashley, Charlotte Flair & Asuka vs. Iyo Sky & Bayley and Austin Theory vs. Dragon Lee. There were about 9,500 tickets out as of yesterday so this may end up as John Cena’s first non-sellout since his return. But it’s still going to probably be 10,000 plus.

MJF responded to a post from Alan Counihan criticizing him for trying to get the chant against Juice Robinson and The Gunn Brothers on Wednesday which came off very forced. He wrote back, “I could sit here and tell you I’ve consistently been the biggest ratings draw in my company for some time. I can say that I’ve also been universally praised. But the fact is I dropped the ball this week. There’s a lot of eyes on me. I can’t afford to do that. Look forward to picking the ball back up on Wednesday.” He later clarified that he meant Tuesday. He has been the biggest ratings mover in the company of late.

We’re told Thunder Rosa is now expected back very shortly.

Rampage tonight at 10 p.m. on TNT

  • Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta vs. Levi Shapiro & Colt Stevens
  • Hardys & Best Friends vs. Jake Hager & Daniel Garcia & Angelo Parker & Matt Menard
  • Hikaru Shida & Kris Statlander vs. Nyla Rose & Marina Shafir
  • Lince Dorado (debut) vs. Penta vs. Komander vs Johnny TV for the next ROH title shot at Eddie Kingston

Ilima-lei Macfarlane, who has talked retirement, missed weight earlier today for her Bellator flyweight title challenge to Liz Carmouche. Macfarlane weighed 127.4 pounds on the first try, cut down to 126.6, and needed to make 125. She had more time and tried again and ended up at 128.2. It’s rare that someone cutting weight gains weight but her body was basically not allowing her to get to 125. This is weird Carmouche is still putting up the title and if Macfarlane wins, the title will be vacant. This has happened before, including recently with Carmouche and in UFC as well, but a champion should not be putting the title at stake in a fight with somebody who missed weight. The show starts at 10 p.m. tomorrow night on Showtime, and is expected to be one of Bellator’s last shows:

  • Liz Carmouche (124.8) vs. Ilima-Lei Macfarlne (126.6)
  • Cris Cyborg (144.8) vs. Cat Zingano (144.6) for the featherweight title
  • Usman Nurmagomedov (154.8) vs. Brent Primus (154.8) for the lightweight title –Cain Velasquez will be in the corner of Nurmagomedov.

UFC lineup for tomorrow with an ESPN+ show from 4-10 p.m.

  • Montana De La Rosa (126) vs. JJ Aldrich (125.5)
  • Aorqileng (136) vs. Johnny Munoz (136)
  • Vanessa Demopoulos (116) vs. Kanako Murata (115.5)
  • Nate Maness (126) vs, Matheus Mendonca (125.5)
  • Karolina Kowalkiewicz (116) vs. Diana Belbita (115.5)
  • Philipe Lins (204) vs. Ion Cutelaba (205.5)
  • Alexander Hernandez (145.5) vs. Bill Algeo (146)
  • Drew Dober (155.5) vs. Ricky Glenn (155.5)
  • Alex Morono (170.5) vs. Joaquin Buckley (170)
  • Joe Pyfer (185) vs,. Abdul Razak Alhassan (184.5)
  • Bobby Green (156) vs. Grant Dawson (156)

Adam Cole and FTR have pulled out of next week’s New York Comic Con. Some of the names scheduled include Jamie Hayter, Mercedes Mone, Matt Hardy Sting, MJF, Britt Baker, Mick Foley, Demolition, Jake Roberts, Team 3-D, Lex Luger, Ted DiBiase, Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell.

The trailer for the movie about the Von Erichs that is coming out on 12/20, is going to be released this coming week. The movie is built around the life of Kevin Von Erich. 

There are no WWE house shows this weekend due to the show in Indianapolis tomorrow. NXT is also off this weekend.

We’re looking for reports from these weekend shows:

  • Smackdown tonight in St. Louis (dark matches and anything after the show)
  • Collision tomorrow night in Salt Lake City (anything not on Collision)
  • We’re looking for results, finishes, angles and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

We’ll be doing polls this weekend on Fastlane tomorrow night and Monday’s New Japan Destruction in Ryogoku shows, so you can leave a thumbs up, down or middle, along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Jeopardy on Monday night had a category about fighters, with questions that related to Ronda Rousey, Oleksandr Usyk, Henry Cejudo, Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler (thanks to Grant Zwarych)

My friend Brian Tramel has a show Shooting The Shiznit talking with Downtown Bruno about Brian Hildebrand, trade taping, Corey Moclin, The Coffees and Giant Gonzalez.

FITE + will be releasing 20 of the greatest shows in the history of Impact. They will be releasing two shows every week for the next ten weeks. This week they released the first-ever TNA show from Huntsville, AL, the first show Mike Tenay did with Don West, and the first television show with Sting’s debut. Next week will be a two event tribute to Sting, and they will also be releasing Kurt Angle’s debut and Cody Rhodes’ debut.

Love, Doug vs. Ichiban has been added to the 10/14 MLW show in Philadelphia. It will be part of the Fusion tapings and not the live PPV show.

Bad Bunny will be hosting the 10/21 episode of Saturday Night Live.