Daily Update: CM Punk, WrestleMania 40, WWE Raw

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

In this issue:

  • Match of the Week and Wrestler of the Week
  • The big Saturday night with SummerSlam, UFC, Diaz vs. Paul, Collision and G-1 and who watched what
  • The departure of Brock Lesnar and his scheduled return, and departure of Ronda Rousey and her importance and the MMA rules attempt
  • The Bloodline angle
  • Business numbers including PPV, WWE buyers who bought Forbidden Door, Spence vs. Crawford and Diaz vs. Paul
  • What record did SummerSlam set and what record that it set will last only a few more weeks
  • The ruling in the Cung Le vs UFC lawsuit regarding it becoming a class action suit, what the judge said, the MLW suit against WWE, and how this lawsuit potentially affects WWE
  • Full coverage of the G-1 Climax tournament, with the storylines and match reviews from the past week
  • All In sets its own new record and update on the show
  • Full coverage of Saturday’s UFC show
  • CMLL anniversary show news
  • The most in depth look at the ratings of all national pro wrestling and MMA shows, including segment-by-segment and by different groups, as well as where the wrestling and MMA shows stood in the overall weekly cable and network standings
  • Lots of foreign stars coming to CMLL
  • TripleMania notes
  • Stardom Five Star Grand Prix tournament update
  • N-1 tournament update
  • NOAH sells out in seconds
  • New Japan’s All-Star Junior event in Philadelphia
  • Hulk Hogan and his new stories
  • Schedule of shows for London over All In weekend
  • Arenas trying to block their agreements with WWE from public view
  • Legendary tag team reunites
  • Young Bucks talk signing their new deals and current thoughts on wrestling
  • Full Gear 2023 update
  • Dynamite and Smackdown upcoming time changes for baseball playoffs
  • Lots of injury updates
  • Upcoming attendance numbers for WWE and AEW
  • International TV ratings and streaming numbers
  • Update on Forbidden Door PPV numbers
  • Dana White predicts a fight doing 10 million buys at $100 a view
  • New UFC main events
  • Bellator planning huge show
  • Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz
  • Logan Paul’s next fight and why it’s such a joke
  • Boxing superstar signs with MMA group
  • Vince McMahon’s ownership in the new UFC/WWE company
  • New Board of Directors
  • Plans for NXT
  • More on Kairi’s return
  • AEW star close to signing with WWE
  • WWE performer going for the real wrestling Triple Crown
  • How much is WWE currently worth

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer radio covering the latest news. We will have a lot more on the AEW backstage stuff and also be answering questions on that subject that you can send to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

The C.M. Punk camp has claimed that they did not get Adam Page or Matt Hardy booted from recent Collision shows, but a number of reports said he did so with Christopher Daniels, who is head of talent relations. Others have claimed he did with Page and Hardy and much of the locker room believes that. One person claimed he didn’t even know Page was in Greensboro. There have been people who said he was responsible for Ryan Nemeth being out and that was a major cause of concern on Saturday night in the company, both from those in Greensboro and those not, but others have claimed that was a management call and not a Punk call although it related to two incidents with Punk, one on Saturday and one in June. 

WrestleMania tickets for next April in Philadelphia go on sale in a presale tomorrow. You can use the code WPGH. The two day combo package goes on sale tomorrow as well to the public. Individual show tickets go on sale to the public on Friday. (thanks to WrestleTix)

Raw tonight is in Winnipeg with Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus doing their planned for SummerSlam match. Shinsuke Nakamura will be doing a promo talking about his turn on Seth Rollins and they’ll be starting to build the 9/2 PPV show in Pittsburgh. There were more than 8,000 tickets out as of this morning.

We’re doing polls this week on these shows:

  • G-1 semifinals on Saturday night
  • G-1 finals on Sunday
  • TripleMania on Saturday
  • Stardom on Sunday
  • You can leave your thoughts with a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

A ton of New Japan major matches for shows like 10.9 at Sumo Hall and 10/14 at the Copper Box Arena in London should be announced over the next day or so. The Eddie Kingston vs. Aaron Henare New Japan Strong title match will headline a 10/28 show in Las Vegas.

For All In, the doors at Wembley Stadium are to open at 3:30 p.m. and the first match goes into the ring at 5 p.m. I’d say arrive early because they’ve topped the 80,000 mark.

Kevin Nash said that he pitched WWE on the idea of being a host or MC for SummerSlam. The show was in Detroit, where he grew up. He said he pitched it months ago but never heard back.

The Stardom Five Star Grand Prix is tomorrow at Korakuen Hall with these matches:

  • Red: Mayu Iwatani vs. Tam Nakano
  • Red: Syuri vs. Hazuki
  • Blue: Utami Hayashishita vs. AZM
  • Blue: Mom Watanabe vs. Saori Anou
  • Blue: Mariah May vs. Mina Shirakawa

Kevin Blackwood debuts for MLW on 9/3 in Philadelphia in a three-way against Alec Price and TJ Crawford. 

New Japan has announced Kenny King vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru for the Impact Digital Media title and Joe Hendry & Yuya Uemura & Heath vs. Rocky Romero & Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi for the 8/20 joint show with Impact in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena.

Masked Republic is talking about doing a Lucha Libre cruise in 2025.

SICW from Saturday night in Belleville, IL: Jayson Breed b Shawn Douglas, Billy McNeil b the Intern, Curtis Wylde b Waco, Gary Jackson b Kowalski-DQ, Gil Rogers b Payto Ayres, Ax Allwardt & Mike Masters b Brandon Bareretta & Joe Vinetti, Sean Vincent b Flash Flanagan-DQ . Tito Santana was a special guest at the show (thanks to Patrick Brandmeyer)

Ken Yasuda, a bodybuilder who worked with a number of Southern California fighters and pro wrestlers as a strength and conditioning coach, passed away. He had a long affiliation with Antonio Inoki and the IGF. He was 52. He was a bodybuilder and actor who coached the Tokyo Sabres of the International Fight League and helped train Mark McGwire, Don Frye, Tito Ortiz, Kazuyuki Fujita, Ichiro Suzuki and Shinsuke Nakamura. He was also a guest ambassador at the 2017 Wrestle Kingdom show.

Lucha Va Voom returns to the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles on Friday night. Taya Valkyrie and Peter Avalon are on the show.

Dwayne Johnson was on the CBS Morning show thanking Americans for helping out with the victims of the Maui fire.

NXT tomorrow has Dijak vs. Wes Lee, winner gets a title shot at Carmelo Hayes at Heat Wave on the 22nd, plus Tony D’Angelo & Stacks Lorenzo defend the tag titles against The Dyad, Dana Brooke vs. Blair Davenport and Drew Gulak vs. Trick Williams.

Thunder Rosa’s Mission Pro Wrestling on Saturday night in San Antonio, TX: Shay Karmichael b Denisse Dae, Queen Uju b Nova Phoenix, Maya World b JP Harlow, Joey Hyder b Tina Nixx, Joey Huder b Jael, Alejandra Quintanilla b Hyder, Casey Blackrose b Quintanilla, Boss Baines b Blackrose, Lady Bird b Baines to win the MPW Cup, Madi Wrenkowski & Rache Chanel b MJ Satana & Mia Friday, Jazmin Allure b Izzy Moreno, Tiffany Nieves b Janacide to win the MPW title. Moreno is Izzy the Bayley fan from the Full Sail University NXT tapings years ago. (thanks to Shannon Walsh)