Daily Update: Don West, Sasha Banks, WWE SmackDown

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

The new issue of the Observer is up on the site with these stories:
*The life and times of Stephan Bonnar, a look at a person who was one of the key building blocks of the popularity of UFC, including the Forrest Griffin fight, his relationship with Griffin after the fight, season one of Ultimate Fighter and the building years, life after UFC, the feud with Tito Ortiz, his pro wrestling days and much more.
*Match of the week and performer of the week
*The WWE signing of Dragon Lee, full details of the deal, unique stipulations in the deal, how long WWE had been after him and what he told people he asked for decision making help
*How AAA, WWE and AEW had talent on the same show, including in the same match and the unique situation there
*Coverage of Wednesday’s AAA show in Acapulco, production issues, match to go out of your way to see
*What AEW knew about Dragon Lee
*Comparing his potential in AEW and WWE
*WWE talks using Lee to help expand
*A look at Stardom’s Sumo Hall show
*A look at a lot of Stardom plans going forward
*Dragon Gate’s Final Gate show
*WWE does its traditional Christmas week show in Madison Square Garden
*How the show did as compared with the last 13 years
*The life and times of Hall of Famer Johnny Doyle, one of the great promoters of all-time
*A detailed look at the ratings over the past week
*Streaming numbers and international TV numbers
*CMLL’s Jan. 1 cage match where somebody loses their mask
*Konnan talks about his health
*Cain Velasquez talks about his returning to wrestle and teaming with Daniel Cormier
*All Japan bringing in Minoru Suzuki
*NOAH’s Budokan Hall show
*Tokyo Dome preview
*Shibata vs. Tom Lawlor
*Ricky Steamboat talks why he didn’t wrestle Ric Flair
*Notes on the death of former WWE promoter Doc Holliday and why he was so well liked
*Anniversary of the first splash off the cage top
*AEW loses TV outlet in Canada and story behind it
*Tony Khan says AEW isn’t going anywhere
*Ticket sales for upcoming AEW & WWE shows
*Bellator signs former Olympic medalist
*WrestleMania updates
*Mysterio family angle
*Notes from all the WWE holiday house shows

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Friday Update

Before starting out I’d like to send sympathies to the family and friends of Don West, who passed away earlier today at 59. We talked a lot about him on today’s show. I’ll just say I barely knew him, but when I saw him, he treated me like he’d been my friend for 20 years. He came into this business with very little product knowledge and was thrown on national television because Jeff Jarrett I believe saw him selling merchandise on the Shop At Home Network on television. It was a ballsy move to put a guy like that on commentary but he also had the advantage of working with Mike Tenay, who has as great an understanding of wrestling as almost anyone. Don was not well received at first because of his over-the-top style and lack of product knowledge, but he wanted to learn, did learn, and he and Tenay jelled quickly. I thought they ended up as a tremendous pairing, with Tenay’s X’s and O’s product knowledge and West’s enthusiasm. Announcers can’t save a bad product, but announcers an enhance a good one and when new talent was trying to get over, or matches were exciting, Don’s ability to enhance the excitement of the audience was tremendous. At the end of the day, he was a great guy who was given a bad hand in recent years with his battles with cancer. After leaving Impact, he worked as a radio host at KPQ in Wenatchee, WA and as the General Manager for the Wenatchee Wild minor league hockey team. He and Tenay had remained close long after they were no longer working together.

The Friday show with Garrett Gonzales is up. We talked about a ton of subjects in the current issue and why 2023 will be such a interesting year for wrestling. 

Want to make a special thanks to Steve Yohe for all his work in researching the history of wrestling. The Johnny Doyle piece in the new issue is so fascinating, not just about Doyle but also the wrestling business in genera in the 40s, 50s and 60s, and the moves of Vince McMahon, Jim Barnett, Sam Muchnick, Fred Kohler, Jules Strongbow, Roy Shire and the other major players of the industry in that era.

In the closest thing to an acknowledgment she’ll be there, Bushiroad CEO Takaaki Kidani told Yahoo Sports today that there is a possibility she’ll (Sasha Banks) come to the Dome. In recent issues we’ve noted the agreed upon plans for her and the big show just announced yesterday that they expect her to be a major part of. There was also footage of Banks with Kalisto in Japan where she’s been for several days.

Tonight is one of the biggest Smackdowns of the year from Tampa, because John Cena & Kevin Owens face Roman Reigns & Sami Zayn. If not for the Orange Bowl, this would be expected to do the largest rating of the show this year, and still should be among the biggest. Ronda Rousey defends the women’s title against Raquel Rodriguez and Sheamus vs. Solo Sikoa are also on the show. The show will be a rare television legitimate sellout of nearly 13,000 fans.

WWE may have two sellouts tonight because as of this morning, the Toronto house show had 7,560 tickets out and just 495 remaining.

Rampage at 10 p.m. tonight on TNT has Orange Cassidy vs. Trent Beretta for the All Atlantic title (we were told this was a very good match), Jade Cargill vs. Kiera Hogan for the TBS title, Kip Sabian vs. Abita and Swerve Strickland vs. Wheeler Yuta. Sting will also be on the show.

We are doing two weekend polls, one for yesterday’s Stardom show at Sumo Hall and the other for Sunday’s NOAH show at Budokan Hall. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match from each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

We’re also looking for reports from tonight’s WWE shows in Toronto and Smackdown in Tampa. For Toronto we’re looking for results, finishes and highlights. For Smackdown we’re looking for dark matches, and any other notes from the live event that aren’t on television to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

A.J. Styles was injured last night in Hershey, PA during a six-person match with Styles & Karl Anderson & Mia Yim vs. Damien Priest & Finn Balor & Rhea Ripley. The description was that he fell out of the ring and got up like his ankle was injured. They changed the planned finish of the match with Styles planned to use the phenomenal forearm, and instead Anderson pinned Balor. Styles needed help getting to the back. No word on the severity of the injury or if he’ll be able to work Toronto tonight. There was another change in advertising for Toronto as they had advertised Austin Theory vs. Seth Rollins in a cage match as the main event, but other advertising has it as Rollins vs. Bobby Lashley in a cage match.

Bray Wyatt suffered a broken finger in last night’s match with Jinder Mahal in Miami

For AEW ratings, because network numbers for Wednesday weren’t in, the Holiday Bowl on FOX did 3,969,000 viewers and 0.93 and the other bowl game on ESPN did 3,914,000 viewers and 0.93 as well, so that was the reason the AEW numbers were lower than in prior weeks. We didn’t get the quarters in time for this week’s issue for AEW due to Christmas week delays. The audience was down from the start, likely due to going against two Bowl games. It held up well until 9:15 and dropped from there, but the Samoa Joe vs. Wardlow main event averaged 817,000 viewers and 329,000 in 18-49, which while lower than usual, did increase 72,000 in viewers and 25,000 in 18-49 over quarter seven.

Bellator vs. Rizin New Year’s Eve from the Saitama Super Arena airs at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on Showtime tomorrow night with a best of five:
Gadzhi Rabadanov (155.8) vs. Koji Takeda (156)
Juan Archuleta (134) vs. Soo Chul Kim (133.8)
Kyoji Horiguchi (124.8) vs. Hiromasa Ougikubo (125.4)
Patricio Pitbull Freire (145) vs. Kieber Koike (145.2)
AJ McKee (154.7) vs. Roberto de Souza (156)
The Bellator fighter is the one on the left. The fighters are in a ring under Rizin rules, which are closer to the old Pride rules for people who were fans of that era.

A note regarding NXT and Dragon Lee’s contract from the new issue. Apollo Crews is in NXT with his main roster contract so with Mandy Rose gone, Crews is likely the highest paid guy there right now.

Tatiana Suarez, who was one of the best women amateur wrestlers in the country until cancer derailed her, and is unbeaten as an MMA fighter, is looking to return in February. She hasn’t fought since the summer of 2019 due to neck and other injuries. She was a championship contender at strawweight where she dominated and submitted two-time champion Carla Esparza prior to her injuries.

Geoff Neal is out of his 1/14 bout with Shavkat Rakhmonov in the first UFC show of the year. Neal suffered an undisclosed injury according to MMA Fighting.

Other Notes

AAW tonight in Chicago at the Logan Square Auditorium and live on highspots.tv has Jake Something vs. Mance Warner for the AAW title, Christi Jaynes vs. Sierra for the AAW women’s title, Davey Vega vs. ? for the Heritage title, Jah C & Calvin Tankman vs. Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz for the tag titles, Fred Yehi vs Gar7 Jay an a Rumble match where the winner can challenge for any title at any time.

WAR Wrestling on 1/7 in Lima, OH at the Empowered Sports Center.

MCW tonight at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppatowne, MD

The Billington Brothers vs. Myron Reed & Mr. Thomas has been added to the 1/7 MLW taping at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.

Combat 1 Wrestling from Wednesday night in Waterford Township, MI: Gisele Shaw b Krystal Moon, Chinstrap Jesus b Ryan Matthias, Midwest Scum b Mason Dixon Line Jason Hotch won over Jack Price, Nate Bock and Jaden Newman, AJ Cazana b Karam Rhino b Mr. Anderson. Next show is 2/10 at the Elite Sportsplex in Waterford Township. (thanks to Leonard Brand)

The Premiere Streaming Network which launches in January announced that ECWA and World-1 will air live events on their network including the 3/25 Super 8 tournament.

PFL announced its Challenger series being taped at Universal in Orlando starts on 1/27 on Fubo Sports. The shows will be every Friday from 1/27 to 3/17. The most impressive fighters will get to enter the PFL tournaments for $1 million later this year.

AIW tonight in Akron, OH at the Tadmor Shrine has Brian Myers, Joey Janela, Matthew Justice and Tom Lawlor on the show.