Daily Update: Montreal Screwjob, Dynamite, Cain Velasquez

Daily Update

Latest News:

Latest Audio:

Latest Free YouTube Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtK5YLJd9pA

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

*Match and performer of the week
*WWE business in detail, explanations and comments from Nick Khan, Paul Levesque and Stephanie McMahon
*Where revenue increased
*Numbers after the first nine months of the year
*WWE current value
*Lots of talk on the Bray Wyatt angle and how it performed
*Levesque talks the Wyatt angle
*Levesque talks future booking
*Notes on how the major events performed
*New TV shows WWE is producing
*Nick Khan talks sports rights
*Vince McMahon investigation notes
*How Raw and Smackdown are dong compared to the rest of television
*Why the USA Network needs Raw or it will become an also-ran station
*Khan talks future of television
*WWE attendance
*Nick Khan’s contract
*Jeff Jarrett, Colt Cabana, Katsuyori Shibata and Mike Tyson in AEW
*Jarrett’s planned role
*Why Cabana was brought back
*The back story on Shibata
*WWE Crown Jewel note
*The first pro wrestling show at the new Ariake Arena
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Great Muta and how it was set up
*New Japan’s Rumble on 44th Street coverage
*UFC weekend coverage
*The most detailed look at TV numbers over the past week
*Streaming and international TV numbers
*Wrestler gets heat from the family of the originator of his gimmick’
*Stardom PPV coverage
*Popular wrestling TV show being revived in 2023
*Vikingo debuts outside Mexico
*MLW recent hires from ROH
*Dynamite ratings for the year as compared to last year
*AEW stars in England
*Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva PPV numbers
*WWE PPV updates
*WWE returns
*WWE injury notes
*Story behind recent WWE cuts
*Sheamus wedding
*Ticket sales for upcoming shows

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

September 21, 2005 Observer Newsletter: Spike & WWE counterprogram one another, TNA Unbreakable

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Wednesday News Update

WWE

  • With today being the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Screwjob, Bret Hart spoke to Sports Illustrated about what would have happened in his match against Shawn Michaels if the double cross didn’t take place:
          • We had another 25 minutes. The match was already good, and we hadn’t even hit our stride.
          • Even when we didn’t get along, Shawn and I always had great chemistry together in the ring. When we worked together, we wanted to be flawless, and we didn’t get along, and that added to the intensity.
          • When I clothesline Shawn over the top rope and we brawl and fight outside the ring, I could tell it was going to be a really special match. It was very competitive.
          • That match was just starting. All the brawling was done just to set up the actual match. It was going to really get going after I reversed his sharpshooter. We pictured the crowd standing up and going crazy. That was going to be the moment when it took off.
  • WWE Shop has released new merchandise to mark the Montreal Screwjob’s anniversary.
  • On his Oh You Didn’t Know podcast, Road Dogg said he thinks he was a better sports entertainer than Bret Hart:
          • For me, personally, and that’s all you’re gonna get from me ever is because that’s all I got. It’s my only reference point. I never saw what the big deal was with Bret Hart as a performer. I never understood it. He was a great worker, and I thought about saying good, but he was a great worker. He worked better than me, 10-fold. Worked circles around me. Don’t ever think that I’ve told anybody I was a good wrestler, because I haven’t, and if you’ve listened to my podcast, you know that’s true. I don’t think I was a good wrestler. I don’t think Bret was a great wrestler. I think I was a better sports entertainer than Bret was and I think that’s where the money is.
          • So I always thought that he should have done business and done what was right. You know what I mean? But I never looked at him like if we lose this guy, we lose the war. I never thought that for one moment. Now I can understand people who are huge Bret Hart fans going, screw you Road Dog. You suck. Okay, screw me and I suck. Okay, like now what? We still get to my feelings, which is I never thought he was that great to begin with so it wasn’t that great a loss when we lost him for me personally. That’s professionally, really, not personally, because I didn’t have any personal feelings about it one way or the other. I just didn’t think we were sunk because he left. I thought we got a lot more to offer than that. I didn’t think we were sunk. I thought now we can catch our breath and move forward.
  • Ric Flair tweeted about his upcoming Peacock documentary: “I Don’t Know How, At The Age Of 73, @peacock Chose Me To Do A Documentary On. This Time Everything That I Got To Say Is Real, Unedited, And Unfiltered. There Is So Much More To Come. 1 Hour & 30 Minutes Of Me Letting The World Know WTF. I’m Telling My Story. The REAL Story!”
  • WWE has filed multiple trademarks for the term “Ucey.”
  • Elias and Bobby Lashley made appearances on today’s episode of WWE’s The Bump.
  • Baron Corbin and JBL will be in-studio guests on The Bump next Wednesday.
  • The Ten Count has an interview with Gunther.
  • The following free matches have been uploaded to WWE’s YouTube channel: AJ Styles vs. Edge (WrestleMania Backlash 2022), Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton steel cage match for the WWE Championship (Extreme Rules 2015), and Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton & Seth Rollins (March 9, 2015 Raw).

AEW/Other Wrestling

  • In a tweet ahead of tonight’s Dynamite, Tony Khan promised that it will be “an exciting newsworthy show.”
  • During an appearance on Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, Dustin Rhodes said he has less than a year left on his AEW contract:
          • Right now, I feel good. Yes, I am getting older so yeah, that [my future] kind of weighs on my mind a little bit.
          • Well, I’ve had a lot of cleanings. I never had an ACL surgery so a lot of cleanings but this is 14 surgeries all together. I was feeling a little old because my knee, it was taking me a little longer to recuperate from it but now it’s like, once it went over the hill, it’s like, great. Now I got it, it’s good to go. But I am getting older and they’re getting younger and faster and I know my time is short so, I’m just trying, you know? I still have a year under contract or a little less than a year and I’m just gonna try to do the best I can and entertain as much as I can because I still love it, you know? And [I’m] still pretty passionate about it but it is a young man’s game, as everybody finds out, as The Undertaker found out, as Bret Hart found out, Stone Cold found out. All the greats that end up getting out and you know, Jeff Jarrett just came aboard and he called himself ‘The Last Outlaw’ and I kind of have a little beef with him because of that because I consider myself — because I’m still working and still working at a high capacity. ‘The Last Outlaw,’ like the last of my kind, from back in the day and that’s like a badge of honor to me and he called himself that and I kind of got pissed, and I like Jeff.
  • Today is Chris Jericho’s 52nd birthday.
  • Jericho was a guest on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast.
  • Tony Khan appeared on the Gresh & Keefe Show on WEEI in Boston.
  • Cain Velasquez made his first statement since being released from jail after posting his $1 million bail: “Just feel blessed. Ready to go home, be with the loved ones, family, friends and make something positive of this whole situation. Just thank you to everybody who had my support. I love all of you. Just always continue to be better as a person, always do good things and just make something positive of this terrible situation. My family and I, we’re going to do that.”
  • La Estrella will be in action at MLW Blood & Thunder in Philadelphia on Saturday, January 7, 2023.