Daily Update: Dean Ambrose, NJPW tickets, Dick Beyer

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We’re looking for your thoughts on last night’s Fastlane from Cleveland so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com” target=”_blank”>dave@wrestlingobserver.com

We’re also looking for reports tonight from Raw in Pittsburgh with anything that happened off Raw as well as reports from the Smackdown house show in Youngstown, OH to newstips@wrestlingobserver.com

Raw is Monday night from Pittsburgh. Ronda Rousey, Dave Bautista, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins are all scheduled.

Smackdown and 205 Live will be taped on Tuesday night in Dayton.  205 Live has the semifinals of the tournament for a WrestleMania shot at Buddy Murphy’s cruiserweight title with Tony Nese vs. Drew Gulak and Oney Lorcan vs. Cedric Alexander.

NEW JAPAN CUP ON WEDNESDAY MORNING AT 6 A.M. EASTERN FROM OKAYAMA ON NEW JAPAN WORLD

  • Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii
  • Yoshi-Hashi vs. Chase Owens

F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: Roman Reigns announces his leukemia is in remission

“When I made my announcement, I said that I was going to swing for the fences. We did better than that, y’all. We didn’t just swing for the fences, we hit a home run.”

The entire professional wrestling world breathed the sigh of relief they’ve been waiting four months for as Roman Reigns announced last Monday that his leukemia is in remission.

Reigns shared the positive update while appearing on WWE television for the first time since revealing his battle with leukemia, which had returned 11 years after he was first diagnosed with the disease.

WON NEWSLETTER: March 11, 2019 Observer Newsletter: Death of King Kong Bundy

Read the update on the situation with Roman Reigns as the lead story in the new issue of the Observer, talking about his leukemia diagnosis with more details as to the strain, his health situation and what he did in his four months away as well as other athletes with similar strains.

This issue has a major story on the career of Chris “King Kong Bundy” Pallies. Look at how he broke into wrestling, the irony of his very first match, his first role, his first push, where the King Kong Bundy name came from, where the five count came from, what pop culture characters he inspired, the story behind his famous WrestleMania matches including one that has rarely been talked about. 

Also look at Jushin Liger’s retirement announcement. Read about his background, how he got started in pro wrestling, his New Japan Dojo legendary class, who he idolized and copied, his first match with the gimmick and what the plans are for his retirement.

This issue has an update on Tommaso Ciampa regarding the nature of his surgery, and what decisions NXT has to make.

Look at the career of Harley Race, how he broke into wrestling, the run that made him a national star and how he got the NWA world title, and how close he came to being champion a second time before it happened more than a year later. 

Read full coverage of UFC 235, with all the highlights, business notes, and match-by-match coverage and poll results. Also look at contracted base pay for the show.

ORDERING INFO: Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to dave@wrestlingobserver.com or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

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If you order by mail with a check, cash or money order to P.O. Box 1228, Campbell,CA 95009-1228, you can get $1 off in every price range.

MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Raw and the rest of the wrestling news with Wrestling Observer Radio. You can send question to the show to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

Also want to mention the show Garrett and I did with Mike Tenay yesterday, that so many have enjoyed. Like I mentioned yesterday, this is a very different show than we’ve done before and it was only due to the closeness of Tenay with The Destroyer that the show happened.

Regarding Dean Ambrose, I think anyone who watched that PPV and heard that commentary would think Ambrose is staying. I was told last night it wasn’t the case, or at least that he hasn’t signed (and granted those are two different things). They are doing a Shield tribute tonight so I think that will all be answered in a few hours based on however the angle goes down. Roman Reigns had a WrestleMania match (obviously) that is being kept secret and given we’ve only got a few shows left, hints could be coming tonight.

Tickets for New Japan in London and Dallas go on sale Wednesday. Based on advance codes, London is expected to sell out. Dallas is something that right now there is no indication about, but will be very interesting, since it is a G-1 show and people won’t know the lineup this week. It’s the first attempt at a major NBA arena in the U.S., and without Kenny Omega, Cody and  The Young Bucks.

The funeral for Dick Beyer will be Saturday at 10 a.m. at One Church, 6 Scotland Road, Akron, NY 14001. Contributions can be made to either Hospice Buffalo or the Ilio DiPaolo Scholarship Fund. For those wanting to send message you can to www.mcandrewfuneralhomes.net

Regarding interest in the weekend shows. Fastlane had 200,000 searches yesterday, putting it in 10th place among every term in the U.S. on Google. Saturday’s UFC show on ESPN+ had 100,000 searches, putting it in 11th place for the day. 

WWE sent out a release today pushing that they now have 1 billion social media followers. That’s a number adding up every account combined, meaning there are likely fans counted 30 or 40 or even 100 times if they follow everyone through all the different platforms. They count this as 501 million on Facebook, 226 million on Instagram, 221 million on Twitter, and 46 million on YouTube.

WWE

  • The movie Changeland, “which Randy Orton is a co-star in, is scheduled for a theatrical release on 6/7.
  • Hopefully there is something approximating this Becky Lynch interview on Raw today

UFC

  • Valentina Shevchenko vs. Jessica Eye for the flyweight title looks to be happening on the 6/8 UFC PPV show in Chicago. Also announced for that show is Nina Ansaroff vs. Tatiana Suarez in a match which could determine a contender for the strawweight title.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Limitless Wrestling in front of 500 fans Saturday in Westbrook, ME: MJF became the company’s first champion in a fatal four-way over Ace Romero, Anthony Greene, and JT Dunn; Chris Dickinson defeated Tommy Dreamer in a hardcore match; Teddy Hart defeated Darby Allin; Jay Freddie and Put defeated The Butcher & The Blade; Ashley Vox defeated Brandon Kirk; Kris Statlander defeated Christian Casanova; Maine State Posse defeated The Shook Crew; The Platinum Hunnies defeated Brett Domino in a handicap match; Brad Hollister won a six-way over Josh Briggs, Pat Buck, Antoine Nicolas, Jake Something, and Donovan Danhausen. Next show on May 10 with Ethan Page.
  • Demand Lucha on 4/18 in Toronto with Joey Ryan, Rory Gulak, Phil Atlas and others.
  • Psicosis, Mentallo and Austrian MMA fighter Marin Pain headline for CWE on 3/26 in Rosau River First Nation, MB and the Ginew School Gym.
  • Tickets are on sale now for MLW on 6/1 in Waukesha, WI at the Expo Center. Announced on the show are Tom Lawlor, L.A. Park The Hart Foundation, Pentagon Jr., Rey Fenix, Low Ki, Salina de la Renta, El Hijo de L.A. Park, Simon Gotch, Jacob Fatu, Josef Samael, Ace Romero, Mance Warner and more.
  • The final night of the WSW tour of Australia from today in Sydney: Marty Scurll b Mick Moretti, Joey Ryan & Concrete Davidson b Matty Wahlberg & Carter Deams, Jack Bonza b Matt Diamond, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky b Mikey Broderick & Slex, Bandido b Flamita, Brian Cage b Christopher Daniels, Jordynne Grace b Shazza McKenzie in a women’s title match, Robbie Eagles b Austin Aries to keep the WSW title. The whole locker room paid tribute to Abyss, in his final appearance with the promotion since he’s now a producer with WWE.
  • Woman wrestler Leon apparently had her purse stolen in the U.K. Promoter Dan Read was super upset about it and feels that the U.K. will look bad to those in Japan because of it. A Go Fund Me for her regarding the losses which was close to being met at last word. It’s at https://www.gofundme.com/pro-wrestling-eve-fund-for-leon
  • All Star Wrestling on 3/22 in Chilliwack, BC at the Tzeachten Hall.
  • Matt Morgan will return to the ring on Saturday teaming with Deon James vs. Chico Adams & Braydon Knight at Team Vision Dojo in Orlando.
  • USA Championship Wrestlnig’s Tribute to Eddie Gilbert from Saturday in Jackson, TN: Chris Styles & Brandon White b Big Gravy & Alex May, Kevin Zion b Colorado Kid, Jimmy & Gary Valiant b Tony & LT Falk, Tom Prichard b Christian James, Jake Law & Matt Boyce b Starr Twins to win the tag titles, Jerry Lawler & Doug Gilbert b Tommy Rich &Matt Riviera. Bill Dundee was in the corner of Colorado Kid. Phil Hickerson was also there. Kevin Lawler was there as Freddie Gilbert. Riviera broke a beer bottle over Jerry Lawler’s head and Lawler came back to throw fire at Riviera.
  • MCW on 3/31 in Joppa, MD at the MCW Arena has Corey Graves and Renee Young appearing. The show will be at 2:30 p.m. that Sunday.
  • IWA East Coast on 3/16 in Nitro, WV at the King’s Way Outreach Center. 

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Sting wins WCW World title

Ed in San Antonio presents the WRESTLEMANIAWeekend Events (more to be added):

  • Saturday, April 6th, at 12:00 pm: Lunch (all you can eat) at Churrascaria Plataforma ($90 per person), located at 316 W. 49th street in Manhattan. Purchase tickets here~!
  • Luxury Bus to MetLife Stadium for Wrestlemania: We will depart from the Hilton Midtown (site of Wrestlecon) located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. Departure time is 4:00 pm and will return from MetLife approximately 30 mins after the event. Times are subject to change, and cost $67.00 per person for the round trip. Purchase tickets here~!

CONTACT INFORMATION