Daily Update: Raw, AEW notes, Joe Maddon

DAILY UPDATE

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Raw is a loaded show featuring appearances by Brock Lesnar, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.  Hogan and Flair will be on Miz TV.  Lesnar will be there to push his Friday match with Kofi Kingston for the WWE title.  They have a PPV show a week from today that they have to shoot angles for as well.  Matches announced for tomorrow are A.J. Styles vs. Cedric Alexander for the U.S. title, Sasha Banks vs.; Alexa Bliss, and Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler vs. Heavy Machinery for the tag titles.

AEW DYNAMITE WEDNESDAY ON TNT AT 8 P.M. EASTERN

  • Cody vs. Sammy Guevara
  • MJF vs. Brandon Cutler
  • Pac vs. Adam Page
  • Riho vs. Nyla Rose for women’s title
  • Young Bucks & Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho & Mystery partners
  • SCU vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt dark match

WWE NXT WEDNESDAY ON USA AT 8 P.M. EASTERN

  • Johnny Gargano vs. Shane Thorne
  • Shayna Baszler vs. Candice LeRae for women’s title
  • Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Street Profits for tag titles
  • Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle for NXT title

F4W NEWSLETTER: NXT’s USA Network era starts strong Joseph Currier gives his thoughts on NXT’s live premiere. Plus, Vinny’s TV reviews.

NXT took advantage of their head start over AEW by hitting a home run with last week’s live premiere.

It wasn’t surprising that NXT’s first live episode was good — it would have been pretty shocking if it wasn’t. Even if there have been occasional peaks and valleys, NXT has always been a good show. Triple H and his team know what they’re doing and the roster is stacked with talent. But NXT was able to pass one of their most important tests: creating a show that feels must-see and different from what they were already offering viewers.

It’s become clear that NXT is going to be a place that features all of WWE’s non-main roster sub-brands. In addition to the regular NXT talent on display, the show featured an appearance by WWE United Kingdom Champion WALTER and his Imperium stablemates. There was also a Cruiserweight Championship number one contender’s match, with Lio Rush making his return and defeating Oney Lorcan.

Due to the final episodes of the USA Network series “Suits,” the first two live editions of NXT are being split across USA and the WWE Network. Last week’s USA Network hour featured a really good fatal four-way number one contender’s match that saw Candice LeRae defeat Mia Yim, Bianca Belair, and Io Shirai to become NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler’s next challenger. Cameron Grimes squashed Sean Maluta, and Roderick Strong became the new NXT North American Champion by defeating Velveteen Dream. The first NXT broadcast of the USA Network era ended with every member of Undisputed Era holding a title.

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WON NEWSLETTER: Everything changes next week, Impact moving to AXS

With perhaps the most important week for the U.S. industry in a decade coming up, a double issue this week:

Goes through details of the moves by WWE and AEW, what plans are, advertisers wants, promotion and much more. 

Includes an extensive look at Battle of Los Angeles, New Japan’s upcoming big shows and Tokyo Dome plans, what to learn from the NXT ratings and much more.

The lead story talks about WWE’s big week, the importance of the different shows, overdoing nostalgia, ticket sales, announcing changes,  205 Live’s future, plans for all the shows, what demos to look at, what happened with AEW and ITV, NXT, Smackdown and AEW on the West Coast, replays shows, Smackdown ad rates, as well as a look at Hell in a Cell.

Impact to AXS and what the plans are for specials leading to the regular show. 

The keys in week two’s NXT show and the audience change.

Brock Lesnar’s future, John Hennigan coming in, CM Punk, former UFC legend talks coming to WWE, Shayna Baszler talks her career, WWE injuries, WWE stock update, most-watched shows on WWE Network for the past week, as well as a look at every WWE & NXT arena event over the past week with results, highlights and business notes.

NJPW coverage of Destruction in Kobe, Tokyo Doe direction, King of Pro Wrestling, the Young Lions Cup and match-by-match coverage with star ratings.

Battle of Los Angeles, Bandido’s win, past winners, other PWG alumni, business notes, the good and the bad, the stars of the weekend, the stars of the future, Aramis, Alex Zayne, plus match-by-match coverage with star ratings.

Full coverage of the UFC from Mexico City along with business notes.

Full coverage of all the WWE television shows from the past week.

Results of all the major pro wrestling events around the world over the past week. 

Current subscribers click here to read.

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MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Raw as well as the latest pro wrestling and MMA news. You can send questions for the show to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

Today’s NFL game is Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals, both teams 0-3.  So Raw may not be hurt as badly as the past few weeks.  Most expect a higher than usual number just due to the hype of the week, and Brock Lesnar, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.  But Friday’s number is expected to dwarf every other show this week.

TNT will be airing a preview of Dynamite at 8 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.  It will also be replayed on Wednesday at 7 p.m.on Tru TV. TBS will air a 30 minute edited version of Dynamite at 10:30 p.m. Sunday night. Not sure how many weeks all these replays will be airing but I believe they are doing a few the next two weeks.

Impact has announced they have invited Joe Maddon, the former manager of the Chicago Cubs, who led to the team to the 2016 World Series championship, to be a guest at Bound for Glory on 10/20 in Chicago’s Odeum Expo Center. They said Maddon would be at ringside for a 20 person Rumble style match where the winner gets a future title match.  The idea is that Maddon will give advice to the winner on what title to cash in on.

WWE

  • Stephanie McMahon appears tomorrow on Fox & Friends on Fox News at 8:30 a.m.  She will also air on First Things First on FS 1 at 8:10 a.m.  Charlotte Flair airs on both shows Wednesday.  Roman Reigns airs on both shows Thursday.  Reigns is also booked for a promotional appearance on Thursday night’s NFL game on FOX.
  • Charlotte Flair did the voiceovers for Sunday’s NASCAR race in Charlotte on NBC.  Both she and Ric Flair were shown on video.
  • Cameron Grimes is booked for Evolve shows on 10/11 in Atlanta against Curt Stallion and 10/12 in Concord, NC against Eddie Kingston.  Kassius Ohno faces Josh Briggs on the 10/111 show in a lights out match.  Ohno faces Stallion on 10/12.
  • Evolve announced recruitment camps in front of WWE personnel for 10/11 in Atlanta with William Regal and they will be doing a three-day camp from 11/1 to 11/3 in Largo, FL with Terry Taylor, Johnny Moss, Norman Smiley, Sean Hayes, Jeremy Borash and Gabe Sapolsky.
  • Steve Corino of WWE will be doing a seminar on 11/17 at 10 a.m. at the CZW Academy in Voorhees Township, NJ.  The seminar is limited to 40 people and the price is $99.
  • Kairi Sane attended last night’s New Japan show in Philadelphia. 

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Nick Newell will be back with Bellator on the 10/26 show at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT, facing Manny Muro (10-6).
  • During the Lions-Chiefs game, one of the Lions players gave a Chiefs player something that looked like a suplex and one of the announcers said, “We’ll be seeing a lot of that on October 2.”
  • KSW announced a 12/7 show in Gliwice, Poland with a main event of Scott Askham (18-6) vs Mamed Khalidov (34-6-2) at 187 pounds, plus a battle of Olympic medalists at 202 pounds with Damian Janikowski (4-1) vs. Szymon Kolecki (7-1).
  • MLW announced A.J. Kirsch,  has joined its broadcast team.  Kirsch was on the 2011 version of Tough Enough as a wrestler but has mainly worked as a broadcaster in Northern California in recent years.  They also announced Dominic Garrini has signed a multi-year contract.
  • An article on the AAA show in New York.
  • An interview with Bret Hart.

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Kane wins WWE Intercontinental title

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