Daily Update: Jeff Jarrett joins WWE creative team

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NEW JAPAN CUP OPENS AT 5:30 A.M. FRIDAY MORNING FROM KORAKUEN HALL IN TOKYO ON NEW JAPAN WORLD

  • Rocky Romero & Mikey Nicholls & Will Ospreay vs. Taiji Ishimori & Hikuleo & Bad Luck Fale
  • Toru Yano & Toa Henare & Satoshi Kojima vs. Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.
  • Bushi & Evil vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Taka Michinoku
  • Kota Ibushi & Hirooki Goto & Sho vs. Tetsuya Naito & Sanada & Shingo Takagi
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Togi Makabe vs. Shota Umino & Colt Cabana & Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi
  • Manabu Nakanishi vs. Yoshi-Hashi
  • Tomoaki Honma vs. Taichi
  • Chase Owens vs. Juice Robinson
  • Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yuji Nagata

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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THURSDAY NEWS UPDATE

Jim Valley and Fumi Saito have a podcast up right now covering Dick Beyer’s career in Japan where he was a household name. To show how big the Rikidozan vs. Destroyer match in Japan was, the final minute of the 61 minute draw, with the audience growing from start to finish, was a 72.6 rating. Not hare, but rating,which meant that 72.6 percent of the homes that had television sets in Japan in 1963 watched the ending of that match live. It is believed to be the single most-viewed live pro wrestling match in history.

Mike Tenay, who was a close personal friend of Beyer said, “They say that you never should meet your idols because you will be disappointed, but whoever said that never met Dick Beyer.” Beyer was the first wrestler Tenay saw on television in 1962 and also was in the main event of the first live event he ever attended.

As first reported by PW Insider, Jeff Jarrett is officially on the WWE creative team. The current Observer noted that was expected to happen. Bruce Prichard is officially a Senior Vice President as part of creative although not head writer of any of the shows.

With the WrestleMania press conference today, there is a reason only WrestleMania was announced. At this point they haven’t figured out the schedule for the other shows because of the move to FOX and a live Friday night show. Stephanie McMahon told the Observer “We’re still figuring that out right now. So we don’t even know. Everything is to be determined.”

For what it’s worth, the name Kairi Sane came up several times regarding NXT wrestlers likely to perform on next year’s Mania show.

Tampa got the show because of a relationship with WWE over the new XFL, which I guess shows the idea they were two completely separate entities is a little overblown. 

Raw, Smackdown, Hall of Fame and Takeover will all take place at the Amalie Arena, but the dates for all those events aside from Raw being on Monday and Smackdown probably being on Friday is not determined yet.

WWN announced that they would be running shows April 2-4, 2020 in Tampa for WrestleMania week at the Bryan Glazer Family Jewish Community Center. That is the building that used to be the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory, which was the Tuesday night home of Championship Wrestling from Florida in the 60s,70s and 80s. During the 70s, virtually every name wrestler worked in that arena and it hosted some of the most loaded shows anywhere in the world.

There will be a WaleMania show this year over WrestleMania weekend. It will be a new team behind it since Court Bauer’s group will be running two MLW shows that week. 

WWE

  • The fourth annual WrestleMania tailgate party will take place at Lot 27 of MetLife Stadium from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. the day of the show. It will be the only tailgate party allowed on the grounds. It will include all you can drink alcohol for those over the age of 21, as well as food, music, raffles and prizes. Tickets are at Eventbrite.com.
  • Current odds for Sunday’s Fastlane from betonline.aq are:
    Daniel Bryan -400
    Kevin Owens +250
    Charlotte Flair +400
    Becky Lynch -700
    The Shield -300
    Baron Corbin & Drew McIntyre & Bobby Lashley +200
    Asuka -800
    Mandy Rose +425
    The Revival -275
    Aleister Black & Ricochet +225
    Chad Gable & Bobby Roode +500
    Usos -900
    Miz & Shane McMahon +500
    Sasha Banks & Bayley -400
    Nia Jax & Tamina +250
    Rey Mysterio +110
    Andrade -150

UFC

  • Donald Cerrone said that his proposed main event on 7/6 against Conor McGregor has fallen through. He said that McGregor refused to fight unless it was the main event. Well, it should not have been an issue to begin with because how can McGregor not be the main event?

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Championship Wrestling returns to Memphis television on Saturdays at Noon on 4/6 on Ch. 30 with a show hosted by Dustin and Maria Starr.
  • Kevin Nash, Koko B. Ware and Madison Rayne headline Saturday for MCW at the Hollywood Volunteer Fire Department with a meet and greet at 6 p.m. and matches at 7:30 p.m.
  • There was a question asked about Mitsuharu Misawa’s matches in the U.S. He did two matches with ROH in 2007, AWA Wrestlerock in 1986, two Crockett Cup matches in 1986 a WLW match for Harley Race in 2004, an indie match in Northern California and he may have done one Central States match as well, although I’m not sure on that one.
  • Defy Wrestling returns to Seattle tomorrow night featuring Ultimo Dragon vs. Matt Cross plus Artemis Spencer puts his Defy title up against Ethan HD and Shane Strickland faces Darby Allin.
  • NFC MMA has 16 fights in the cage tomorrow night at Center Stage in Atlanta.
  • Elliott Russell vs. Jordan Kage headlines for MoTown Mania on 4/6 in Morristown, TN at the Tally Ward Rec Center, which was the old home of Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
  • ECCW on Saturday night has the 19th annual Pacific Cup tournament with Jeff Cobb, Nicole Matthews, Ravenous Randy and Brutal Bob Evans.
  • Divine Women’s Pro Wrestling tomorrow night at Rocky’s Pub in Riverview MI headlined by an one-night eight-woman tournament.
  • Pro Wrestling Yeg and Prairie Wrestling are doing a Cancer Society benefit show on 4/13 in Edmonton at the NAI Main Campus Gymnasium. All ticket sale money goes to the Cancer Society. 
  • WSW from earlier today in Adelaide, Australia: Marty Scurll & Brody King b Flamita & Bandido to keep the tag titles, Jordynne Grace b Savannah Summers, Brodie Marshall & Viking Grimm b Abyss & Zak Sabbath, Tyler Daniels b Nick Armstrong, Joey Ryan b Gabriel Aeros, Frankie Kazarian & Christopher Daniels & Scorpio Sky b Robbie Eagles & Brian Cage & Austin Aries. Ryan got a gigantic reaction. Flip Gordon was there but he’s not medically cleared to wrestle. (thanks to Kevin Chiat)
  • Kenny King was the most recent guest on the Comedy Suplex Podcart. 

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Giant Baba vs. Bruno Sammartino

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

  • Sunday, 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~!

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