Daily Update: SmackDown, Rikishi, Rob Van Dam

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

In this issue:

  • Match of the Week and Wrestler of the Week
  • The big Saturday night with SummerSlam, UFC, Diaz vs. Paul, Collision and G-1 and who watched what
  • The departure of Brock Lesnar and his scheduled return, and departure of Ronda Rousey and her importance and the MMA rules attempt
  • The Bloodline angle
  • Business numbers including PPV, WWE buyers who bought Forbidden Door, Spence vs. Crawford and Diaz vs. Paul
  • What record did SummerSlam set and what record that it set will last only a few more weeks
  • The ruling in the Cung Le vs UFC lawsuit regarding it becoming a class action suit, what the judge said, the MLW suit against WWE, and how this lawsuit potentially affects WWE
  • Full coverage of the G-1 Climax tournament, with the storylines and match reviews from the past week
  • All In sets its own new record and update on the show
  • Full coverage of Saturday’s UFC show
  • CMLL anniversary show news
  • The most in depth look at the ratings of all national pro wrestling and MMA shows, including segment-by-segment and by different groups, as well as where the wrestling and MMA shows stood in the overall weekly cable and network standings
  • Lots of foreign stars coming to CMLL
  • TripleMania notes
  • Stardom Five Star Grand Prix tournament update
  • N-1 tournament update
  • NOAH sells out in seconds
  • New Japan’s All-Star Junior event in Philadelphia
  • Hulk Hogan and his new stories
  • Schedule of shows for London over All In weekend
  • Arenas trying to block their agreements with WWE from public view
  • Legendary tag team reunites
  • Young Bucks talk signing their new deals and current thoughts on wrestling
  • Full Gear 2023 update
  • Dynamite and Smackdown upcoming time changes for baseball playoffs
  • Lots of injury updates
  • Upcoming attendance numbers for WWE and AEW
  • International TV ratings and streaming numbers
  • Update on Forbidden Door PPV numbers
  • Dana White predicts a fight doing 10 million buys at $100 a view
  • New UFC main events
  • Bellator planning huge show
  • Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz
  • Logan Paul’s next fight and why it’s such a joke
  • Boxing superstar signs with MMA group
  • Vince McMahon’s ownership in the new UFC/WWE company
  • New Board of Directors
  • Plans for NXT
  • More on Kairi’s return
  • AEW star close to signing with WWE
  • WWE performer going for the real wrestling Triple Crown
  • How much is WWE currently worth

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Saturday Update

WWE

  • Paul “Triple H” Levesque congratulated Rey Mysterio on winning the United States title last night: “An all-time great who proves it every time he steps in the ring. Congratulations to the incomparable WWE Hall of Famer @reymysterio. #USTitle #SmackDown”
  • Mysterio, Damage CTRL, and The Brawling Brutes appeared on The SmackDown LowDown.
  • To further the storyline where Jey Uso said he’s “out of WWE” on SmackDown last night, Jey’s profile has been moved to the alumni section of WWE.com
  • Before losing to AJ Styles on SmackDown, Karrion Kross teased that he could be starting a new faction: “Some people lack the depth to see the vision. My plan has always been to destroy the plan. But now it’s time to take things to another level. As fate would have it, AJ Styles has shown me the importance of brotherhood. And after all, a prophet is absolutely nothing without his disciples. Soon, you’ll see.”
  • While advertising an autograph signing by Rikishi that’s taking place on August 26, NinjaXchange Collectible Expo wrote that fans could “come meet Rikishi before he referees at Payback.” The advertisement has since been changed to remove that. Rikishi wrote that it was a mistake by the promoter of the autograph signing.
  • Corey Graves thinks Ludwig Kaiser should end up being a main event player in WWE;
          • Ludwig Kaiser has been a piece of the Imperium machine. He has been the perfect set dressing on the main event that is Gunther. But after seeing what I saw on Monday, I’m gonna make a bold prediction right here, right now: Ludwig Kaiser, sooner rather than later, should be a main event player in WWE. I’m not expecting it to happen overnight. I’m not expecting him to be the one to knock off Gunther or anything of the sort, but he was so captivating, entertaining, eloquent, and all these other adjectives. But watching him interact with Maxxine, Ludwig Kaiser felt like a full-blown movie villain.
          • I expect big things out of Ludwig Kaiser in the not-too-distant future because, man, that dude can do it all. I do expect fun, entertaining segments from him now. I don’t think that’s out of the realm of possibility now to say, ‘Yeah, I expect that from him all the time,’ and then awesome in-ring matches. Because Kaiser is European wrestling royalty. Second-generation. Kaiser is as good as we say he is from bell to bell. From a technical skills aspect, he might be top 10 in WWE.
  • Sonya Deville thanked her fiancee Toni Cassano for helping her as she recovers from ACL surgery: “Rehab chronicles with my one and only @fit_tonicassano don’t know what I would do without this woman by my side. From making me laugh, to making sure I’m fed, to now literally helping me doing every single thing I can’t do on my own. You are the realest my Toni’s”
  • Deville noted earlier this week that surgery went great.
  • Chelsea Green was the guest on the latest episode of WWE After the Bell.

AEW/Other Wrestling

  • A video aired on Rampage last night with Eddie Kingston talking about competing in the G1. Kingston said he wants to defend his NJPW Strong Openweight Championship both in NJPW and in AEW.
  • Denise Salcedo has an interview with Hikaru Shida.
  • Shida tweeted about being more comfortable in English-language interviews than she used to be: “I know I still need to work hard with my English but I can more relax now during English interviews because I learned not to need to be perfect. I’d love to challenge everything what I couldn’t before!! I hope you all will enjoy it!”
  • Rob Van Dam addressed whether his AEW match against Jack Perry was a one-off appearance: “Well, was it talked about between me and Tony [Khan] about me coming back? Yeah. The details of that conversation? We’ll have to wait and see.”
  • RVD also spoke about how Tony Khan reacted to the match: “He was very thankful. Very thankful. He loved the match. He said, it was awesome and it was awesome having me there.”
  • Danielle Moinet (formerly known as Summer Rae in WWE) appeared on Insight with Chris Van Vliet.