Daily Update: MLW-WWE lawsuit, PFL-Bellator, WWE Raw

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

In this issue:

  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • The debut of Collision, AEW’s ratings decline and reasons and what the return of Punk will tell us
  • The problems Collision will have from the get go
  • Why the success of Collision is so important financially to AEW
  • The reaction as far as cheering and booing for Punk outside of Chicago and what is far more important than booing or cheering
  • Oversaturation of television in the marketplace
  • Ticket sales for Collision and all AEW & WWE events this summer
  • Update on WWE negotiations
  • Value of WWE to a new station with interest
  • The situation with WBD and potentially getting WWE
  • How many homes the key stations that could carry WWE & AEW are in right now
  • Conor McGregor sexual assault charge
  • Lawyer Eric Anderson breaks down the judges ruling to continue the MLW lawsuit against WWE, WWE’s arguments on antitrust, the judges reaction and what comes next
  • B.J. Whitmer fired
  • Full details on G-1 Climax tournament, the blocks, the favorites, the key matches and some storylines to look for going in
  • Update on the Forbidden Door show and business and key things to learn from about the business results
  • UFC 289 coverage including the retirement of Amanda Nunes, why, what about the titles she retires and other storyline notes from the most recent show and business notes as well
  • Updates on WWE Money in the Bank
  • Full coverage of All Together Now, the Japanese show with New Japan, All Japan and NOAH’s top talent and how it went down
  • Coverage of Final X
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of the wrestling and MMA shows this past week, with key breakdowns, segment-by-segment, who watches, rankings in sports and entertainment for the week
  • An attempt to make a superstar with a new character later this month
  • Update on Rush in AAA and TripleMania
  • New Japan Strong goes to Japan
  • More on the longest world title reigns in wrestling history
  • Movie on wrestling star to be released in September
  • Against All Odds results and Slammiversary notes
  • New AEW hires
  • What was Brock Lesnar’s biggest-ever one night payoff?
  • Jon Jones and Tyson Fury talk business
  • XFL business notes
  • Lots of injury updates

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight talking the latest wrestling news as well as covering Raw, Forbidden Door and more.

MLW sent out this press release regarding the antitrust lawsuit surviving WWE’s attempts to have it thrown out of court, writing:

NEW YORK, NY – Kasowitz Benson Torres, on behalf of professional wrestling promotion company MLW Media, has defeated a motion to dismiss MLW’s amended complaint asserting federal antitrust and state law unfair competition claims against World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) for monopolizing and attempting to monopolize the market for the sale or licensing of media rights to professional wrestling events in the United States. MLW’s claims will now proceed to discovery. In denying the motion, Judge Edward J. Davila, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, held that MLW had sufficiently alleged all four elements of its antitrust claims— relevant market, market power, anticompetitive conduct and antitrust injury-and declined to dismiss the state law claims. Marc E. Kasowitz stated “We are pleased with Judge Davila’s well-reasoned opinion and look forward to recovering the substantial damages that MLW has suffered as a result of WWE’s many years of egregious anticompetitive behavior.”The Kasowitz Benson Torres team representing MLW Media is led by partner Marc E. Kasowitz and includes partners Christine A. Montenegro, Nicholas A. Rendino and Jason S. Takenouchi.

One thing I want to mention MLW has a very strong legal team. Still, this is a very formidable case and it’s noteworthy that WWE and UFC are now both being sued for antitrust reasons.

Both Bellator and the PFL at their weekend shows saw the public faces of the company, Scott Coker and Ray Sefo, acknowledge the talks of PFL buying Bellator. It’s definitely not a done deal but it’s serious enough that both sides are now acknowledging it. Such a deal would conclusively make PFL the No. 2 promotion in the world. Whether they would be kept separate or merged is unknown but we had heard of late that ESPN was interested in expanding its MMA coverage as far as aside from UFC.

Raw tonight is from the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland. Seth Rollins has an open challenge for the World heavyweight title a day before his title defense with Bron Breakker so they are pushing him as a fighting champion. Logan Paul is also on the show tonight. Trish Stratus faces Raquel Rodriguez in the final MITB qualifying match. Other bouts are Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya non-title, Matt Riddle vs. Ludvig Kaiser and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bronson Reed. They had more than 10,000 tickets out as of earlier today and keep in mind the last time in the market they did 5,600 for a Raw in December. Breakker is in Cleveland so expect him on the show to build things up for tomorrow. Tommaso Ciampa is also backstage.

Naomichi Marufuji will be holding a press conference today. We don’t know past it is supposed to be something significant.

Because today is the Juneteenth holiday, Nielsen ratings are delayed this week. The Friday numbers, normally in today, will be out tomorrow. Fast Nationals do indicate a big number for Smackdown. The Collision debut ratings will be out Wednesday morning and the Raw rating will be out Wednesday at just after 4 p.m. Eastern.

Now that people know what Collision is and that C.M. Punk is on it, tickets have moved very well since Saturday in several markets. Toronto for this coming week has topped 3,000 which I wouldn’t call good, but was great considering where it was two weeks ago. Hamilton for next week moved more than 600 tickets since doing a low-price ticket offer and is near 1,500 which isn’t good considering it’s an NBA sized building, but it was only 800 a few days ago. But the cheap four pack is no longer available even though they’ve got a ton of tickets they can move.

Regarding TSN in Canada and airing AEW Rampage and Collision, Paul Fontaine noted that when Rampage was in Canada, it was aired on TSN television (usually it’s only streaming). So he suspects that could be why the 6/30 Rampage (taped in Hamilton) will air on TSN television and why Collision airs live from Toronto this coming Saturday on TSN 5.

Wednesday’s Dynamite show has a chance to sellout Wintrust Arena in Chicago. It may fall a little short but it is at the 6,000 mark and 7,000 is a sellout.

The C.M. Punk promo did 1.1 million views which would be the largest for an AEW segment in a long time, although the Chris Jericho-Sting faceoff did 888,000, also very large for that. 

WWE is pushing this week as 25 years of Edge, who made his debut match on Raw on June 22, 1998.

WWE’s Samantha Irvin sang the national anthem before the Red Sox vs. Yankees game last night in Boston. They noted you could see her every Monday night on Raw. She lives in New Bedford, MA. Correspondent Arya Witner said she showed an amazing singing voice.

The full card for tomorrow’s NXT Gold Rush is Seth Rollins vs. Bron Breakker for the NXT title, Edris Enofe & Malik Blade vs. Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen vs. Hank Walker & Tank Ledger for the tag title, Wes Lee vs. Tyler Bate for the North American title with Mustafa Ali as referee, Cora Jade vs Dana Brooke, Valentina Feroz & Yulisa Leon vs. Lash Legend & Jakara Jackson plus a Chase U pep rally for Thea Hail (who faces Tiffany Stratton for the women’s tile next week and Carmelo Hayes and Baron Corbin have a face-to-face to set up their match for next week.

A lot of notes on today in history. Today is the 21st anniversary of the first Impact event. It would have been the 85th birthday of Wahoo McDaniel. Yesterday would have been the 77th birthday of Bruiser Brody, who the Best Brawler award is named after.

New York State Senator Tim Kennedy has introduced a bill looking at reviewing the athletic commission bylaws for pro wrestling, and hoping to have it regulated differently than boxing and MMA.

Other Notes

Pro Wrestling Vision’s weekend shows in Sanford, DeBary and Orlando were canceled due to the arrest of Chasyn Rance, who runs the shows after being pulled over and it was serious enough that he was taken in. Team Vision Dojo sent a release claiming he was no driving under the influence but was driving aggressively to pass other drivers an there were no accidents and nobody was harmed. But they in the release said if Rance was drinking and driving it would be a strike on Rance and actions will be taken but that Rance messaged it was reckless driving and if that’s the case he will be back for teaching classes classes this week.

Defy runs Saturday in Portland, OR at the Wonder Ballroom with El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Komander, which basically means neither will be on the Collision/ROH tapings, plus Second Gear Crew vs. Bollywood Boyz in a street fight, Laredo Kid vs. Aramis vs. Gringo Loco and Vert Vixen & Viva Van vs Amira & Cat Power. they also run Saturday in Portland, OR with Bollywood Boyz vs. Juventud Guerrera & Matt Cross, Spike Trivet vs Artemis Spencer for the Progress world title and Vixen vs. Nicole Matthews vs. Session Moth Martina vs. Allie Katch for the women’s title,Charlie Crowley vs Gringo Loco and Schaff vs. Bryan Keith. They also run Sunday at 3 p.m. in Toronto before Forbidden Door.

MMA Mania reported that 58-year old Mark Coleman, who last fought in MMA 13 ears ago, will be fighting at a Celebrity Boxing show on 10/14 against Montell Griffin, 53, who was a very real boxer in his heyday with wins over James Toney and Roy Jones Jr (when beating Jones was a big thing still). As note is that both competed in the 1992 Olympics for the U.S., Coleman in wrestling and Griffin in boxing. As somebody who really likes Mark Coleman on a personal basis, this really saddens me.