Daily Update: Raw tonight, Rousey-Charlotte, Linda McMahon

DAILY UPDATE

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We’re doing polls on both NXT Takeover and Survivor Series. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

Raw is tonight from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. We’re looking for reports of the Main Event matches or any dark matches tonight to newstips@wrestlingobserver.com.

NEW JAPAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT TUESDAY IN TAKAOKA ON NEW JAPAN WORLD ON SAME DAY TAPE DELAY

  • Togi Makabe & Toa Henare vs. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi
  • Michael Elgin & Jeff Cobb vs. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.
  • Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka
  • Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Togi Makabe & Toa Henare

Smackdown, 205 Live and Mixed Match Challenge will be taped on Tuesday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles

NEW JAPAN TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT ON WEDNESDAY IN SHIBATA ON NEW JAPAN WORLD SAME DAY TAPE DELAY

  • Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino
  • Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi vs. Baretta & Chuckie T
  • Evil & Sanada vs. Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi

F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: Looking at the WWE-EVOLVE relationship

The evolution of WWE’s relationships with promotions they’re friendly with continued to take shape this past weekend. Five WWE-contracted wrestlers were in action for EVOLVE last Friday and Saturday: The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford), Fabian Aichner, Kassius Ohno, and Mustafa Ali. Killian Dain made a surprise appearance for ICW in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday, defeating Mikey Whiplash after it had been advertised that Whiplash would be facing a wrestler from WWE.

WON NEWSLETTER: November 19, 2018 Observer Newsletter: Survivor Series shake up, more

One week ago, the Survivor Series was to be headlined by Brock Lesnar vs. A.J. Styles and Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch in battles of the Raw and Smackdown brand champions.

But just days before the show, two unrelated incidents saw both main events that were heavily-looked forward to change.

And in doing so, one of the key matches at WrestleMania, possibly the main event, was also established.

Right now the plan is for Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch to headline WrestleMania. After the injury to Lynch on 11/12, a fractured nose and a concussion from a punch by Nia Jax during an in-ring Raw vs. Smackdown women’s brawl, she was out of the match that, due to the promos on both sides, was the most looked-forward to match on the show.

The next day, both Vince McMahon and Rousey decided that the best course of action was to do the match at WrestleMania. Rousey and Lynch immediately went at it hard on social media, even though Rousey’s new opponent on the PPV is Charlotte Flair.

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MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio. We have a lot more information on the fallout of Survivor Series as well as cover Raw.

A note regarding Raw tonight, the Smackdown crew is in Los Angeles for the tapings tomorrow. There is no Smackdown house show tonight which is unusual so everyone would be close by. 

Ronda Rousey will be on the show tonight, presumably cutting a promo regarding last night. The one thing is, since her next title match is expected to be with Nia Jax in San Jose, or at least that’s what was being teased last night and was what the word was locally, it will be interesting how everything goes down since Jax was so hated last night, although the crowd turned on Rousey in a big way.

Backstage, nobody of importance was unhappy with the crowd reaction with Rousey and Charlotte Flair. They understand that fans want to see news and significance and will pop huge for it. They knew the angle was a success. Would they have been happy if Rousey was cheered like crazy, of course. But we’re past a decade of Hardcore fans booing the top babyfaces who sell the most merchandise so if the crowd is sold out and enjoy the show, that’s more important than cheering and booing.

Raw tonight goes against the biggest Monday Night game of the season, with the Los Angeles Rams vs. Kansas City Chiefs. Both team are 9-1. However, Raw and Smackdown in theory should both be up this week from the PPV bump.

A correction from yesterday’s update. The Brock Lesnar vs. Daniel Bryan match was the original main event for the 2014 SummerSlam show, not 2015 as we had in the update.

Survivor Series last night did 500,000 Google searches, which would be right in the predicted range. As noted yesterday, neither Saturday’s UFC show nor Takeover generated 20,000.

Linda McMahon was on The Today Show this morning being interviewed by Al Roker about Small Business Saturday. 

WWE

  • No mew Total Divas episode this week. It will return on 11/28.
  • Carmella noted that performing at the Staples Center was cool because she had performed there years ago when she was one of he Lakers Girls.
  • Pete Dunne on Instagram noted the birth of his first child. 

UFC

  • Regarding the incident involving Rachel Ostovich, where she suffered a broken orbital bone and was hospitalized yesterday, she is out of the hospital and Honolulu police are investigating it as a domestic violence case.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Impact VIP packages for the 1/6 PPV from Nashville go on sale today through their web site.
  • World of Sport announced Will Ospreay vs. Rampage on its 1/27 show in Aberdeen, Scotland at the Beach Ballroom. The tour starts 1/18 in Southampton and includes champion Justin Sysum, women’s champion Kay Lee Ray, Grado, Crater, Joe Hendry, Adam Maxted, Nathan Cruz, Viper, Sha Samuels and Robbie X.
  • Northeast Wrestling from Saturday night in Bethany, CT: Private Party b Inzanly Rude, Karissa Rivera b Alisha Edwards, Christian Casanova b Hammer Tunis, Wrecking Ball Legrusky b Jimmy Preston, Mike Verna won three-way over JT Dunn and Josh Briggs, Keith Youngblood b Daniel Evans in a street fight, Ron Zombie & Chris Battle b Nick Delta & Brandon Watts, Brad Hollister b MJF to keep the NEW title.
  • Bret Hart did the coin toss yesterday before the Canadian Football League playoff game between the Calgary Stampeders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and also got on the mic to hype the crowd. (thanks to Mark Takada and Grant Zwarych)
  • WrestleCade announced Taya Valkyrie vs. Penelope Ford in a street fight for the 11/24 iPPV from Winston-Salem, NC. Nick Aldis vs. Jack Swagger for the NWA title is also on the show.
  • CWE from last night in Sault Ste. Marie, ONT: Shigehiro Irie b Robin Lekime, Matt Taven b Roy Gordon, Naomi Yoshimura won three-way over Rekka and Justin Lock, Tyler Colton b TK O’Ryan, Vinnie & Diego Davinci b Jacob Creed & Bobby Collins, Danny Duggan b Vinny Marseglia-DQ. (thanks to Leonard Brand)

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Bret Hart wins WWF title at Survivor Series 1995

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