Daily Update: Rey Misterio Sr., ratings, UFC

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The  new issue of the Observer is on the site today (after a snafu):

  • Full coverage of the lessons of Saturday Night’s Main Event, from ratings to execution
  • The Athletic story on Lee Fitting, plus our thoughts on the subject
  • B.J. Whitmer alleged victim Jaime Hawn comments on current and former AEW legal heads
  • Full coverage of New Japan’s show in Long Beach with the Mercedes Mone vs. Hazuki main event
  • Update on Worlds End and the Battle of Orlando
  • CMLL’s international based show on Friday and what went right and wrong
  • Dragon Gate’s lastest major show of the year
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the pro wrestling TV shows and UFC shows including segment ratings, standings for the week and night, demos, comparisons with last year and a lot more
  • Annnouncer leaves company after more than 30 years and why
  • Stardoms’ end of year show
  • Comedy wrestler retires
  • CyberFight (DDT, NOAH and TJPW) financials looked at
  • How sports ratings are doing
  • Notes on a movie on one of the most legendary woman wrestlers of all-time that will be out  in March
  • Chris Jericho and Matt Cardona angle in GCW and how it came about
  • Tessa Blanchard to TNA notes and the bigger picture
  • WWE, AEW and TNA PPV numbers updates
  • Notes on changes in WBD structure
  • More on AEW move to MAX
  • Ticket advanceds for WWE & AEW shows
  • UFC business updates
  • More on WWE to Netflix and international TV notes
  • Dwayne Johnson box office notes

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Monday Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking all the latest news as well as taking questions that you can send to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com
  • Raw tonight is a taped show from last week in Boston:
  • Alba Fyre vs. Natalya vs. Iyo Sky in the IC title tournament
  • Akira Tozawa vs. Chad Gable
  • Damien Priest vs. Dominik Mysterio
  • Dexter Lumis vs. The  Miz
  • Sami Zayn vs. Drew McIntyre
  • There is also a sitdown interview with Seth Rollins that wasn’t shown to the fans in Boston and there was a New Day angle with Wade Berrett and a Drew McIntyre promo that starts the show.
  • The football game is Green Bay vs. New Orleans and it will air on ABC and ESPN but not ESPN 2.
  • A correction on our story about the death of Rey Misterio Sr. on Friday.  We had reported that he was paralyzed due to a horseback riding accident but a friend of his told us that he had serious back issues from pro wrestling and ended up paralyzed when treatment of those injuries led to an infection.  He had been in rough shape for some time before his death and was said to have been in terrible pain.
  • Smackdown did 1.33 million and 0.37 in 18-49, down due to going against the Indiana vs. Notre Dame college football playoff game. It beat everything but college football.  Rampage did 227,000/0.06 is its next to last episode, also going against the game. Based on numbers we’ve seen, nothing aside from college football and Smackdown on cable topped an 0.13.
  • Bloomberg interviewed a number of media experts on who they think will end up with the UFC’s TV rights when the current deal expires in 2026. More experts said Netflix than anyone else, followed by Amazon Prince and ABC/Disney (ESPN) and WBD. It’s known that WBD was interested in it to replace the NBA that they are losing.
  • While everyone expects this, it was confirmed by someone who is a key player in WWE that Raw will be three hours come January to go along with Smackdown being three hours.
  • I was told that today’s main event of the final New Japan show of the year with Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Shota Umino & Tomohiro Ishii was great.
  • Wrestletix released that the advance for Elimination Chamber at the Rogers Centre in Toronto on 3/1 is 23,633. Because of ticket prices, this, just on the advance, is the largest gate in Canadian history breaking the record of the Hogan vs. Rock WrestleMania in 2002. The advance for AEW All in in Arlington, TX at Globe Life Field is 9,990. As noted, because of the price of tickets that have been sold, it’s already surpassed the largest gate in dollars outside of England in AEW history. TNA’s July PPV show at the UBS Arena in Long Island has 1,556 tickets out.
  • WWE, which has cut back main roster house shows to mostly overseas tours, will be doing both Raw & Smackdown brand house shows from 12/26 to 12/30. The tour opens Thursday with Raw in Madison Square Garden (10,592 advance) and Smackdown in Jacksonville (5,220).
  • Stemming from TNA’s new deal with Sportsnet in Canada, TNA+ in Canada, which  used to air the shows at the same time they aired on AXS in the U.S., now won’t have them up for 14 days, and The Fight Network won’t be able to broadcast them for 13 days. TNA sent a notice to subscribers on the change saying everything else including the ability to watch the monthly specials and PPV shows live remains with the subscription.  Xplosion will also be airing on Sportsnet and those shows that also aired on Fight Network and TNA+ are delayed 13 and 14 days after they first on Sportsnet.
  • Ric Flair had claimed in social media that he was going to bury Cary Silkin on Busted  Open radio  Silkin ended up on the show and Flair said  he was not going to say anything bad about him and said he just said that to get people to tune in. Boy was that weird. Silkin on social media that Flair has still not paid him back $41,000 that he paid Flair for a series of appearances on ROH shows that Flair basically did a few and walked out on the rest many years ago.
  • In a totally strange story, former UFC fighter Mateus Mendonca underwent emergency surgery in Sao Paulo, Brazil after suffering a fractured penis while grappling in the gym.  He will be out of training for two months. He said  he was training and his partner landed a knee on his penis “and I felt  absurd pain and went to the bathroom.” He said that later “my thing looked weird. It looked different.  It had a lump.” His girlfriend told him to go to the hospital and they did an ultrasound, and sent him to another hospital for emergency surgery.