Daily Update: Cash Wheeler, AEW All In, WWE WrestleMania

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • G-1 MVP and best match of G-1
  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • Behind the scenes of the last month of AEW. why stories were kept quiet, why people were not allowed to attend Collision, why this has gone on for 18 months
  • All of the recent incidents talked about from multiple sides
  • The promo by C.M. Punk and what happened at the Greensboro show which led to all of his getting out
  • Different reactions to the promo
  • The apology that did happen
  • All In and attendance records plus the updated card with new matches that have not yet been announced
  • Full coverage of the end of G-1 and the big fall shows for New Japan
  • Business notes on G-1
  • Naito has two of the best matches of the year
  • Koichi Yoshizawa and his role in Japanese wrestling coverage in the U.S.
  • Saturday’s UFC coverage and where the top stars go from here as well as the business notes
  • Coverage of the final TripleMania show of the year and storylines behind it
  • Tammy Sytch update
  • The most detailed look at ratings for all the wrestling and MMA shows, gains and losses with what groups and why, what segments did the best and worst
  • Another women’s champion out of action due to surgery
  • RevPro and CMLL working relationship notes
  • World Grand Prix notes
  • Stardom PPV coverage and upcoming tag team tournament
  • N-1 coverage
  • New Japan and Stardom business notes
  • Hiromu Takahashi talks junior heavyweight goals
  • New Japan PPV shows this weekend
  • One of the biggest women stars has major surgery and a look back at her career
  • How the television industry continues to change
  • Full PWG coverage of the first show since January including some of AEW’s top stars
  • Update on new promotion opening next month and what well known announcer is in talks to appear
  • RevPro anniversary show update
  • WWE & AEW upcoming ticket sales
  • WWE & AEW streaming numbers
  • WWE and AEW international ratings
  • Conor McGregor talks future
  • Former UFC legend officially retires
  • Update on Bellator sale
  • Update on PPV numbers for Diaz-Paul and SummerSlam
  • Former WWE wrestler wins MMA fight
  • Edge and possible retirement
  • Build to Payback show
  • ESPN exec talks interest in pro wrestling
  • Possible retirement of Lacey Evans
  • Women’s tag title update
  • Asuka talks Japanese wrestling and the back story
  • Logan Paul offers a $1 million bet
  • New WWE signing

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Friday Update

Garrett Gonzales and I did a show with Mike Tenay today talking about newsletters in the 70s and Koichi Yoshizawa, as well as updating some of the news in the current Observer. Garrett & I will be back tomorrow night covering Collision, UFC, Smackdown and the other weekend news as well as do our usual week in review stuff. Bryan and I will be back up on Monday.

The new issue of the Observer is up and we’ve gotten a lot of compliments regarding it as one of the best issues of the year, both the lead story on AEW and the story on Koichi Yoshizawa. 

There is still no update regarding the status of the FTR vs. Young Bucks match at All In. Daniel Wheeler is legally allowed to go to England. Tony Khan hasn’t said anything regarding the arrest of Wheeler that broke earlier today although it actually was from a few weeks ago. There is no word on when Khan first round out but talent that we know found out the same time everyone else did. I would expect if there is a change that it would be addressed on Collision tomorrow night. The idea that I’ve seen brought up by fans, ironically, is the same idea I had, which is basically hold up the titles if the decision is made not to use Wheeler at this time, and have Dax team with Mark Briscoe and go for the vacated titles against the Young Bucks. Now Briscoe was injured so that also may not be possible. But at this moment Young Bucks vs. FTR is still the match on the schedule.

All In was at 80,848 tickets out as of earlier today. The largest legit crowd ever at a pro wrestling event that the majority paid to attend was 80,709 at WrestleMania 32. So in a sense, that record appears to have been broken. It is possible that some people with tickets won’t attend, but it is unlikely that number would be higher than the number of tickets that will be sold over the next eight days. So this show probably sets the all-time record but that’s not official until the day of the show.

WWE released that WrestleMania for next year has sold 90,000 tickets for Philadelphia which is a combined number of two days or 45,000 each day. Pretty much all the tickets that were put on sale today were sold, and most tickets were already sold in the presale earlier in the week. Obviously more tickets will be released as the event approaches. For a WrestleMania set up, the show could put 62,000 in and obviously they are announcing a number larger than that.

WWE is claiming a gate record for Philadelphia. But that would be by adding the gate of two shows together. The claim is more than the record of $21.5 million set last year. However, the audited two date combined number from Los Angeles was really $19,749,071. To me, nobody combines two shows for gate records. New Japan doesn’t claim the two gates for Wrestle Kingdom beat the Inoki vs. Don Frye record. WWE had claimed $17.3 million for WrestleMania 2016 and neither show this year or next year will hit that mark, but of course adding up the two shows and comparing it to one would be a higher number. This isn’t to say the number isn’t impressive as it is. But it would be like baseball adding up the seven games of the World Series together and claiming they drew more than a single NFL game.

With Edge’s possible retirement match tonight, it was noted that the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which features Adam Copeland in a recurring role, will premiere on 12/20 on Disney+.

Rampage tonight at 10 p.m. on TNT has:

  • Rey Fenix vs. Komander – people who saw this live were raving about it
  • Ethan Page & Brother Zay vs. Aussie Open
  • Sammy Guevara vs. Jon Cruz
  • Hikaru Shida & Skye Blue vs. Toni Storm & Ruby Soho

We are looking for reports on these weekend shows:

  • Smackdown tonight in Toronto (dark matches only)
  • NXT tonight in Citrus Springs, FL
  • WWE house show tomorrow night in Ottawa, ONT
  • NXT tomorrow night in Tampa*WWE Sunday in Laval, Quebec
  • We’re looking for results, finishes and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

UFC 292 is tomorrow from the TD Garden in Boston:

ESPN+ at 6:30 p.m. Eastern

  • Karine Silva (125) vs. Maryna Moroz (125)
  • Andrea Lee (125) vs. Natalia Silva (125)
  • Andre Petroski (186) vs. Gerald Meerschaert (185)

ESPN 2 at 8 p.m. Eastern

  • Brad Katona (135) vs. Cody Gibson (135)
  • Austin Hubbard (155) vs. Kurt Holobaugh (155.5)
  • Gregory Rodrigues (186) vs. Denis Tiuliulin (185)
  • Chris Weidman (186) vs. Brad Tavares (185)

PPV at 10 p.m.

  • Marlon Vera (135) vs. Pedro Munhoz (135)
  • Da’Mon Blackshear (135.5) vs. Mario Bautista (136)
  • Ian Machado Garry (170.5) vs. Neil Magny (170.5)
  • Zhang Weili (115) vs. Amanda Lemos (114) for the strawweight title
  • Aljamain Sterling (135) vs. Sean O’Malley 135) for the bantamweight title

Chris Weidman was very upset about his return fight after a gruesome broken leg not being on the PPV. I don’t really understand that decision either, especially with the show on ESPN 2 rather than ESPN.

PFL on ESPN tonight at 9 p.m. from the Theater in Madison Square Garden:

  • Renan Ferreira vs. Maurice Greene in a heavyweight tournament semifinal
  • Larissa Pacheco vs. Olena Kolesnyk in a women’s featherweight tournament
  • Denis Goltsov vs. Jordan Heiderman in a heavyweight semifinal
  • Marina Makhnatkina vs. Amber Leibrook in a women’s featherweight semifinal

The semifinal winners go to a championship match later this year where the tournament winners get a $1 million bonus.

Pro Wrestling NOAH’s N-1 tournament has shows in Sapporo on Saturday and Sunday.

New Japan has two PPV shows this weekend,the All-Star Junior Festival on Saturday and the joint show with Impact on Sunday, both from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. Added to the Sunday show is TJP & Franesco Akira, one of the top tag teams in the world, facing Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita.

Gunther, Grayson Waller and Trck Williams were at Lincoln Financial Field last night promoting the WrestleMania on sale. Williams did a hype promo. Waller talked about Jordan Mallata of the Eagles, who is from Australia and Gunther was there with his belt. Eagles announcer Dave Spadaro called Gunther’s belt “the championship” and Gunther corrected him, but Spadaro was told that Gunther is about to break the Honky Tonk Man’s record. This led to a scripted moment where Gunther shoved him down hard. (thanks to Ken Raining)

The former HBO hit show “Ballers” that Dwayne Johnsonh was behind and starred in is now on Netflix.

The Pat McAfee show will debut on ESPN on 9/7. The show will air from Noon to 2 p.m. eastern on ESPN and ESPN+ with a third hour daily only on ESPN+

Combate Global runs tomorrow night on Univision and Paramount Plus with a lightweight main event of Ivan Castillo (22-17) vs. Santiago Guzman (7-3).

MLW tickets for 12/7 in New York at the Melrose Ballroom go on sale 8/25. It will be a PPV show plus a TV taping. 

Kurt Angle will be signing autographs before the 10/7 Border City Wrestling show in Windsor, ONT that also features a match with Kaito Kiyomiya. The show will be at St. Clair College’s Sportsplex.

The Chicago Cubs will host WWE Night on 8/28 at Wrigley Field in a game against the Milwaukee Brewers. 

This is actually happening this weekend, a boxing match featuring Jeff Monson against former UFC legend Oleg Taktarov.