Daily Update: CM Punk, Jake Paul, weekend preview

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • The new issue of the Wrestling Observer is up on the site right now:
  • Jon Jones announces his retirement, a look back at a remarkable career inside the cage and a story of problems and controversy outside the cage.  We look at his background, details on his latest arrest, and thoughts by others.
  • Preview to Night of Champions, the stories and the direction
  • Who is Aaron Wolf and why he’s starting his career under more pressure than almost anyone in recent history, his background as a fan, and as an Olympic gold medalist and world champion in judo.
  • A look at All In Texas and the largest attendance and biggest grossing non-WWE PPV shows in history.  What milestones has the show already broken with two weeks out, and what’s the final milestone that it’s touchy if it can break.  We look at money adjusted for inflation and AEW’s former biggest shows as  well as big shows from Crockett, WCW and the 114 year  milestone.
  • A look at the combined CMLL,  AEW,  NJPW and RevPro Fantastica Mania at Arena Mexico on Friday.  We look at moves CMLL should make to take advantage of its new exposure, popularity and  position in the wrestling ecosystem, the big tag team main event and the future booking direction.
  • The most detailed look at the television ratings for pro wrestling and MMA this past week, including how segments did, demos, did and comparisons to one year ago.  
  • A detailed look and discussion of how Raw on Netflix is doing and on AEW Dynamite on MAX.
  • More on CMLL’s big week at its other arenas
  • Next CMLL tournament
  • AAA booking direction and when WWE takes over the booking and state of current angles
  • One of the best matches of the year took place on Saturday
  • Dragon  Gate has its biggest event of the year
  • Lots of G-1 updates
  • Jun Kasai vs. Desperado looked at
  • Sabu funeral
  • Tom Lawlor physical issues discussed in detail
  • Ronda Rousey physical issues discussed as well
  • Real American Freestyle early ticket advance
  • Tetsuya Naito back in action and new name of his faction
  • Mistico and MJF angle in MLW
  • More on many AEW and WWE stars health updates
  • Which company has a higher injury rate by percentage, AEW or WWE, with the actual stats.
  • AEW ratings comparison between the end of 2024 and the current MAX era
  • Mortos on wrestling at  Arena Mexico after 15 years
  • Update on AEW performers who aren’t being used
  • More on  the Cung Le lawsuit settlement
  • Dana White goes into promoting boxing and BJJ
  • Internet personality arrested for threatening Joe Rogan
  • Crazy story about Sedriques Dumas and UFC signing him to fight this week and how bad a look that was, and the fight falling apart
  • Why the UFC main event this week is so big
  • Update on Ben Askren nd B Penn
  • Update on Janel Grant lawsuit against  Vince McMahon and TKO
  • How another sport’s move from TV to streaming compares with Raw and what we can learn from it as it relates to Raw
  • Boxing legend and former MMA champion both talk performing in WWE
  • Thoughts on Cody Rhodes saying his babyface run is almost over
  • WWE star doing a record album as a tribute to 1990s All Japan Pro  Wrestling

This Week’s Back Issue

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Friday Update

  • There is no show with Garrett Gonzales this week since he’s on vacation.  We will be back with a show on 7/4.  The weekend show with Bryan will be tomorrow night covering Night of  Champions and UFC.
  • We’re looking for your thoughts on Night of  Champions tomorrow, thumbs up, down or middle, along with a best and worst match. The issue has a preview.
    John  Cena vs. CM Punk for WWE title
    Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton King of the Ring finals
    Jade Cargill vs. Asuka Queen of the ring finals
    Jacob Fatu vs. Solo  Sikoa for the U.S. title
    Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Rodriguez street fight
    Sami Zayn vs. Karrion Kross
  • C.M. Punk apologized today for his tweet regarding Saudi Arabia, saying it wasn’t about Saudi Arabia.  He didn’t and wouldn’t address other comments made over the years about never going there.  He was going to get booed had he not.  Whether he was asked to do so, or wanted to do so isn’t clear, just as we don’t know if he was given a bonus for going, if it was part of the contract he signed, or if there were booking things such as this  match that he could only get on this date.  Either way, he comes off really bad, but because of his prior outspokenness, he was going to come off badly doing the show, and that was decided a long time ago.
  • Smackdown results are on the front page as the show was taped earlier today in Saudi Arabia and has aired in most of the world.  There was a technical issue which led to a 30 minute delay in the show, but that should be fixed in the U.S. airing.  Some of the matches were cut on time because of it.
    Jimmy Uso vs. JC Mateo
    Zelina Vega vs. Giulia for the U.S. title
    Andrade & Rey Fenix vs. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa
    Street Profits vs. Dexter Lumis & Joe Gacy for the tag titles
    Tiffany Stratton vs. Nia Jax last woman standing for  the WWE title
  • Jake Paul did an interview with Piers Morgan that aired yesterday which saw Morgan make fun of him and Paul walked off.   Morgan criticized him for taking advantage of a nearly 60-year-old Mike Tyson and showed clips of  Canelo Alvarez and Terrence Crawford doing so as well.  Paul said all three of them should go to a therapist and asked Paul if he thought he could really beat Alvarez and he said that if they were in the streets he’d beat him and that he’s a real killer.  Paul said he’s knocked out the best of the best and criticized old heads and boxers who think they know the sport for not respecting him.  Morgan then said Paul has only had  one fight with a real boxer which he lost.  Paul then brought up Tyson as his defense.  Paul said Alvarez was ducking him.  Paul said he wanted Alvarez and Anthony Joshua.  Paul lost his cool and said “I’m just taking your audience to sell PPVs.  I don’t give a f*** about your show you dumbass.  This is a f***ing business enterprise.,  Buy the PPV on Saturday, June 28 me vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr..  Then he logged off.
  • MVP promotions announced the show tomorrow has set the largest boxing gate record for the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA.
  • Oscar de la Hoya, who is working with him, said that he thinks Paul could win a world championship and acted like beting Chavez Jr., who recently lost to aging non-boxer Anderson Silva, would prove he was of championship caliber.
  • Chriopher Ewert, who was a late replacement for Sedriques Dumas (who didn’t have permission from the court due to  his having to wear an ankle bracelet from his arrest in April and had to pull out, as if he ever should have been booked in the first place), isn’t fighting on tomorrow’s UFC show.  He was ten pounds overweight and UFC fired him for missing by so much.  Jakckson McVey, after all that work of finding him three different opponents, is now off the show.
    UFC 317 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
    ESPN+ and  Disney+ at 6:30 p.m. Eastern
    Jhonata Diniz (257.5) vs. Alvin Hines (259.5)
    Niko Price (170.5) vs. Jacobe Smith (170.5)
    ESPN, ESPN+ and Disney+ at 8 p.m. Eastern
    Terrance McKinney (156) vs. Viachesla Borshchev (155)
    Viviane Araujo (125.5) vs. Tracy Cortez (126)
    Hyder Amil (145.5) vs. Jose Miguel Delgado (145.5)
    Jack Hermansson (185.5) vs. Gregory Rodrigues (186)
    PPV at 10 p.m.
    Payton Talbott (136) vs. Felipe Lima (135.5)
    Beneil Dariush (156) vs. Renato Moicano (156)
    Brandon Royval (125.5) vs. Joshua Van (125.5)
    Alexandre Pantoja (125) vs. Kai-Kara France (125) for the flyweight title
    Ilia Topuia (155) vs. Charles Oliveira (154.5) for the vacant lightweight title
  • Kevin Iole, who I worked with for many years at Yahoo!, and covered boxing and MMA for Yahoo! after a long career with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said that this show will be his last show that he covers and that he’s retiring as a sportswriter.  I could and will talk a lot about him in he days to come, but he had a very distinguished career including being induced into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, having been nominated for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, named the Outstanding Journalist in Nevada in 1999, won the Nat Fleischer Award in 2007 for career excellence in covering boxing, multi-time state sportswriter of the year awards in Nevada and Vermont as well as national awards from the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.  On a personal level, we are very good friends and I enjoyed the time we worked together immensely.    He was in the WWE WrestleMania documentary on the 1993 show that recently aired and did some coverage of pro wrestling.  He did extensive coverage of all major sports during his career.
    His farewell column.
  • Mistico vs. Bandido headlines tonight’s show at Arena Mexico.  Templario & TJP defend the New Japan Strong tag titles against CMLL tag champs Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja.  They expect another large crowd.  After drawing more than 53,000 to shows last week, one would expect another big crowd to take weeks to rebuild.  All of the foreign stars won’t be on the other shows this week.
  • The Leyenda de Plata at Arena Mexico will be a Cibernetico match on 7/18 with Max Star, Capitan Suicida, Explosivo, Titan  Templario, Mascara Dorada and Angel de Oro.  The final two have a singles match for the trophy on 7/25.
  • Salvador Lutteroth was on Informa this week thanking everyone for the CMLL success in the first six months of the year.  He thanked his wrestlers, his staff the fans, members of the Japanese, UK and US embassies for attending the show this past Friday night, thanked Tony Khan for bringing AEW to Arena Mexico, talked about record ticket sales and positive reaction from the fans and said the seal of authenticity of Mexican Wrestling is CMLL.  That line was directed at Rey Mysterio who said that WWE helping AAA gave AAA the seal of authenticity.
  • If you’re following this, Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes talked about a wrestler from WWE who started charging too much on the indies and hasn’t been booked in years.  The name was bleeped out.  Ryback threw a fit over it.  Then Ryback tweeted that Owens said he wasn’t talking about him.
  • Jinder Mahal was married recently.  Congratulations to him and his bride.  There was  a photo of Mahal, Heath  Slater and Drew McIntyre, who were together as 3MB as a WWE group and remained friends long after, in Indian garb at the wedding that he posted.
  • There was a sellout last night at Arena Queretaro for a  show with Atlantis, Atlantis Jr., Octagon, Templario, Rocky Romero, Angel de Oro and Bandido. Still no word on when Komander will return.
  • Mistico is teaming with Mascara Dorada against Volador Jr. & Hechicero in Pachuca.
  • Pat Mineo reported Olympic bronze medalist Aaron Brooks failed a USADA test for a banned substance.  The report is that his suspension would end prior to the 2028 Olympics.  This game one day after another Penn State wresler, five-time NCAA champion Carter Starocci was the subject of a story of major sexual misconduct in the Penn State school newspaper.
  • AEW Collision Thursday did 285,000 viewers and an 0.08 in 18-49.  Even with that number, it was third in the time slot on cable behind the NBA Draft on ESPN at 1,179,000/0.35 and  Watters at 3,737,000 and 0.19 and Hannity at 3.101,000 and 0.17.