Daily Update: Cody Rhodes, NXT Vengeance Day, Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr.

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new issue of the Observer is an in-depth story on the fall of Vince McMahon. We go through all aspects of the story and have reactions from many people on subjects not talked about including feelings of different wrestlers, how this departure was different from the first McMahon departure, John Laurinaitis, Brock Lesnar, Stephanie McMahon, Ari Emanuel, Paul Levesque, Ann Callis and why she may end up a major figure in wrestling and this story going forward and much more. It’s a timeline in detail and what the timeline opens up.

  • The John Laurinaitis story
  • More questions on Ari Emanuel’s decision
  • Paul Levesque’s performance
  • Shawn Michaels reaction
  • Reaction from several in the business
  • Why Vince McMahon apparently stopped payments
  • Who is Ann Callis and why is she so important to this story
  • The insurance angle
  • The original investigation
  • The timeline of Stephanie McMahon
  • The various allegations and settlements
  • Members of the board leaving
  • Vince’s power play to return
  • Dwayne Johnson and Pat McAfee
  • Vince’s background
  • Full Royal Rumble coverage
  • Rumble surprises and debuts
  • WrestleMania original lineup and what is changing
  • Rumble records
  • Business numbers
  • Rock vs. Roman update
  • The most detailed look at the ratings over the past week
  • New streaming channel for a promotion that is getting criticized due to price
  • Okada and Mercedes updates
  • Anniversary show for one of the most important cultural matches in history
  • Top matches of 2023
  • TNA PPV update
  • AEW valuation
  • Upcoming ticket sales for the major WWE & AEW shows
  • International TV ratings and streaming numbers
  • Update on MJF
  • Which company has the highest current injury rate, AEW or WWE?
  • Jericho Cruise notes
  • Conor McGregor update
  • TV announcer talks his frustrations with social media
  • Documentary on MAX about a UFC fighter about to be released
  • Lots more on the Netflix deal
  • Best merchandise sellers
  • Notes from all the TV shows

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Sunday Update

Bryan and I will be doing a show after NXT Vengeance Day tonight talking the latest news on Vince McMahon and the other major stories and shows from the weekend.

I was on with Ashleigh Banfield on Friday night on NewsNation and she really went off on Vince McMahon and others associated with TKO.

Whatever it was at first, the Cody Rhodes situation is now an angle with Logan Paul and Ricochet both tweeting about it using the hashtag. Literally not one wrestler on the roster tweets a thing about Vince McMahon, who isn’t even with the company, but people are going to tweet negatively about “WWE booking?” Obviously the idea is to recreate the Daniel Bryan situation at this point. As far as what they can or will do, there are so many different possibilities it’s endless. Brian Gewirtz tweeted “You all have no idea.”

Interestingly the secondary market get-in price for day two of Mania was $293 before Smackdown started on Friday and it was $243 at this writing.

Vengeance Day at 8 p.m. Eastern on Peacock

  • Carmelo Hayes & Trick Williams vs. Bron Breakker & Baron Corbin in the Dusty Rhodes tournament final
  • Dijak vs. Joe Gacy no DQ
  • Lyra Valkyria vs. Roxanne Perez for the NXT women’s title
  • Oba Femi vs Dragon Lee for the North American title
  • Tony D’Angelo & Stacks Lorenzo & Adriana Rizzo vs. Bronco Nima & Lucien Price & Jaida Parker
  • Ilja Dragunov vs. Williams for the NXT title

On paper it doesn’t look like one of the better NXT shows but the Williams matches should be good and Dijak vs. Gacy could be a surprise. The show is from Clarksville, TN. They had 3,600 tickets out as of earlier today.

We’re looking for your thoughts on the show so you can leave a thumbs up, down or middle, along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

PWInsider reported that Thea Hail, Riley Osborne, Jacy Jayne and Tatum Paxley traveled to the show. The first three would be involved with something Chase U related and Paxley would be predicted to get involved in the Valkyria vs. Perez match.

We’re also looking for reports from the WWE show tonight in Corbin, KY, results, finishes and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Nothing this week, not new items relating to Vince McMahon nor anything related to Dwayne Johnson doing WrestleMania cracked the Google top 20s this week. Nor did anything related to yesterday’s UFC show. Joe Rogan was No. 16 Saturday regarding his signing a new contract with Spotify with 20,000 searches. The death of Carl Weathers on Friday was No. for the day with 2 million searches.

The movie “Argyle,” where John Cena is one of the stars, was No. 1 at the movie box office this weekend with a predicted total of $18 million. Nothing was close. Iron Claw has largely disappeared from theaters. Apple Original Films paid $200 million for the rights so this number was viewed very poorly.

WWE house show last night in Knoxville, TN:

  • LA Knight b Jimmy Uso after the BFT
  • AJ Styles b Austin Theory with the forearm
  • Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark b Ivy Nile & Maxxine Dupri when Baszler choked out Dupri
  • Omos b Akira Tozawa in the same match they always do
  • Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa b Giovanni Vinci & Ludvig Kaiser when Gargano pinned Kaiser
  • Bianca Belair & Shotzi & Zelina Vega b Iyo Sky & Asuka & Kair Sane when Belair pinned Asuka with the KOD. Belair grew up in Knoxville so got a huge reaction.
  • Ricochet b Jinder Mahal with a shooting star press
  • Gunther b Chad Gable to retain the IC title
  • Cody Rhodes b Shinsuke Nakamura in a street fight with Cross Rhodes. Rhodes did a promo after the show. He never mentioned Rock or Roman Reigns, just gave away a piece of the table broken and asked fans to please come back the next time they were in town. Backstage they shot an angle where Nakamura attacked Rhodes.

They did show clips before the show started from Smackdown and Rock was booed heavily in the clips.

Matches I’m told that are worth going out of your way to see this weekend are Hazuki vs. Mei Seira for the High Speed title on today’s Stardom show and the Gabe Kidd vs. Henare match from today’s New Japan show. Was also told the Will Ospreay-Michael Oku face-to-face today to build their 2/28 match was incredible. Said that Amira was awesome as well. Trent Seven vs. Conor Mills from that show was also great. (thanks to Doug Hunt and many others)

El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Kenoh today to win the GHC title. In the history of Japanese wrestling, no Mexican had ever won a world heavyweight title for a major Japanese company until Luis Mante just recently won the Dragon Gate Open the Dream Gate belt. Now we’ve got two.

Jeff Cobb was off today’s New Japan show where he was to face Alex Coughlin. He has a thigh injury. It’s serious enough to miss a show but he is hopeful of being able to be in the United Empire vs. Bullet Club War Dogs cage match this coming Sunday in Osaka.

Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney regained the IWGP Jr. tag titles from TJP & Francesco Akira on today’s Korakuen Hall show with the Kidd vs. Henar match. Moloney worked the show with a torn biceps he suffered two days ago.

Nikki Garcia (Bella) will be live at the Grammys after party.

Dorrell Dixon, one of the all-time legends of Lucha Libre who was also an early 60s star in the U.S. as a rival of world champion Buddy Rogers, celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this week. Wikipedia may have his date of birth wrong.

A documentary “This is Brodie Lee” put together by Joe Brandt of Classy Wolf Media premiered on Friday on Vimeo.com.

United Wrestling Coalition on 2/10 in New Egypt, NJ at the American Legion.