Daily Update: Rampage, SmackDown, Bellator

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Shinjiro Otani seriously injured, WWE announces UK stadium show

  • Update on Shinjiro Otani, what happened, a review of his career and a look at Zero-1’s biggest show in years.
  • WWE officially announces its Principality Stadium show in Cardiff, Wales, a look back at the biggest UK events for WWE and the ticket demand.
  • Coverage of UFC 273 featuring a potential Hall of Fame fight with Khamzat Chimaev vs. Gilbert Burns, plus the judging in Sterling-Yan, the dominance of Alexander Volkanovski, business notes on the show and match-by-match coverage.
  • Full coverage of NJPW Hyper Battle and the angles leading to the return of New Japan to the Fukuoka Dome, a look back at the first show in that building, plus G1 and Best of the Super Juniors updates
  • Update on WrestleMania Backlash, ticket demand, matches being built, false advertising of Brock Lesnar and more
  • Ratings including rankings, oldest and youngest audience, affect of NBA playoffs, segment-by-segment numbers and comparisons with last year.
  • CMLL Champion of Champions tournament continuing
  • AEW star announces return from major injury
  • Hall of Famer announces the relaunch of his former promotion
  • All Japan Champion Carnival update
  • NOAH Sumo Hall lineups
  • NJPW star finishes up this week and background
  • Scott Hall funeral
  • New wrestling books
  • Biggest indie crowds of the year
  • The Strangler Lewis headlock machine
  • Discovery/Warner merger and AEW
  • NJPW & AEW deal
  • Story behind the debut of Satnam Singh
  • Ticket sales for upcoming AEW & WWE shows
  • International TV ratings
  • Streaming numbers for the major stuff of the past week
  • Cain Velasquez case update
  • UFC adds 2016 Fight of the Year to Hall of Fame
  • How much the top executives at WWE earn
  • Update on Vince McMahon vs. Oliver Luck
  • Update on all the name changes of WWE talent and why

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter: February 7, 2005 Observer Newsletter: Royal Rumble review, business year in review

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Friday News Update

  • Garrett and I will be back tonight doing a show covering the news of the week late tonight.
  • Best wishes to Bill Laster (Billy Anderson), 65, a 70s and 80s star who was hospitalized after chest pains with an irregular heartbeat. Anderson was based in Southern California for much of his career and helped train a ton of wrestlers including Sting and Ultimate Warrior and is a regular at the Cauliflower Alley Club.
  • Rampage starts three hours early tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern on TNT, due to NBA basketball and features one of the biggest matches in the history of the show with Adam Page vs. Adam Cole for the AEW title in a Texas death match. The show also has Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta vs. Billy & Austin & Colten Gunn and Ruby Soho vs. Robyn Renegade in an Owen Hart tournament qualifier. They are also taping Battle of the Belts tonight which will be Thunder Rosa vs. Nyla Rose for the women’s title, Jonathan Gresham vs. Dalton Castle for the ROH title and Scorpio Sky vs. Sammy Guevara for the TNT title.
  • Smackdown tonight on FOX has announced Ricochet vs. Jinder Mahal for the IC title and Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn in a rematch. Randy Orton & Riddle will be on the show to confront the Usos.
  • NXT Level Up on Peacock has Roxanne Perez (formerly Rok-C) vs. Sloane Jacobs, Damon Kemp (Bobby Steveson) vs. Tony Donovan and Tatum Paxley vs. Kiana James.
  • As of earlier today, there were 6,500 tickets out for Worcester for WWE and 4,600 for AEW in Garland, TX.
  • Bellator has its biggest show of the year tonight in San Jose, CA. It will air at 10 p.m. Eastern and 7 p.m. Pacific on Showtime as well as on the Bellator YouTube Channel and Showtime Sports YouTube Channel with prelims starting at 7 p.m. Eastern.
  • The main card fights:
  • Tim Johnson (260) vs. Linton Vasell (239.6)
  • Aaron Pico (149.4) vs. Adli Edwards (149.6)
  • Vadim Nemkov (204.4) vs. Corey Anderson (205) for the Bellator Light heavyweight title & Grand Prix finals – winner gets $1 million
  • A.J. McKee (144.4) vs. Patricio Pitbull Freire (144.6) for the featherweight title
  • UFC runs tomorrow night from the Apex in Las Vegas
  • ESPN+ at 5:30 p.m. Eastern
  • Heili Alateng (135.5) vs. Kevin Croom (136)
  • Sam Hughes (115.5) vs. Istela Nunes (114)
  • Jordan Leavitt (155.5) vs. Trey Ogden (156)
  • Chris Barnett (263.5) vs. Martin Buday (264.5)
  • Rafa Garcia (155) vs. Jesse Ronson (155.5)
  • Brandon Jenkins (155.5) vs. Drakkar Klose (156)
  • Pannie Kianzad (136) vs. Lina Lansberg (135.5)
  • Devin Clark (223) vs. Williams Knight (251)
  • ESPN and ESPN+ at 8:30 p.m.
  • Mounir Lazzez (171) vs. Ange Loosa (171)
  • TJ Laramie (145.5) vs. Pat Sabatini (146)
  • Mayra Bueno Sliva (136) vs. Wu Yanan (136)
  • Miguel Baeza (171) vs. Andre Fialho (171)
  • Caio Borralho (186) vs. Gadzi Omargadzhiev (186)
  • Vicente Luque (171) vs. Belal Muhammad (170.5)
  • We are looking for reports on all the major shows this week including
  • AEW tonight in Garland, TX (Battle of the Belts, Dark & Dark Elevation needed)
  • WWE tonight in Worcester, MA (anything not on the live TV show)
  • West Coast Pro tonight in South San Francisco, CA
  • WWE house shows tomorrow in Erie, PA and Sunday in Syracuse, NY
  • You can send reports to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
  • We are also doing weekend polls for the NJPW show in Chicago headlined by Jon Moxley vs. Will Ospreay. You can leave a thumbs up, down or middle plus a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
  • While not a wrestling story, the USFL returns tomorrow night with the New Jersey Generals vs. Birmingham Stallions game on both FOX and NBC live. It is the first sports event to run live on two competing sports networks since 1967. FOX owns the league and NBC and FOX will both be broadcasting games and 67% of the games will be on network TV. This will also be the main competition for Dwayne Johnson’s XFL when he and his team hope to relaunch the league in 2023. A key for this is that while Vince McMahon’s XFL failed a second time, partially because while he was able to get TV, nobody would pay rights fees. In this league, both NBC and FOX are paying rights fees. While they hope to greatly top this number this week, the goal is when things get to normal by the third or fourth week, to get two million viewers per game as a success.

WWE

  • The Hell in a Cell PPV on 6/5 in Chicago is off to a solid start as they’ve topped 8,000 tickets out.

AEW

  • Tickets for the 6/15 show in St. Louis at the Chaifetz Center and 6/22 show in Milwaukee at Panther Arena went on sale today.

UFC

  • Alexander Volkov vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik in a battle of ranked heavyweights will be the main event on the 6/4 show.
  • Neil Magny vs. Shavkat Rakmonov, who is 15-0 with three straight finishes in UFC, face on the 6/25 show.

Other Notes

  • Impact has announced a deal with the Hudson Valley Renegades minor league baseball team that plays at Dutchess Stadium in Wappingers Falls, NY (near Poughkeepsie). On 4/21, Jordynne Grace, Rosemary, Scott D’Amore and Gail Kim will be at the team’s home game On 4/22, Moose and Tasha Steelz will be at the home game to throw out the first pitch. Members of the Renegades will be at the 4/24 Impact tapings at the Mid Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie.
  • Dave Bautista is opening up a tattoo place in Tampa.
  • Invicta announced its full card for 5/11 at Memorial Hall in Kansas City with the top bouts of Emily Ducote vs. Alesha Zappitella, Courtney King vs. Chelsea Chandler and Lindsey VanZandt vs. Jillian DeCoursey. The show will air live on the Invicta YouTube Channel.
  • NFC on 4/30 at The District in midtown Atlanta with an MMA show.
  • Tokyo Joshi Pro Princess of Princess champion Shoko Nakajima faces Alex Windsor in the main event for EVE on 4/23 in London.
  • CWE has announced shows on 5/26 in Prince Albert, SK, 5/27 in Yorkton, SK, 5/28 in Regina, SK and 5/29 in Carnduff, SK.