Daily Update: Sonya Deville, WWE Raw, Roman Reigns

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

In this issue:

  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • Feds investigating Vince McMahon and more
  • AEW signings Kenny Omega, Young Bucks and Adam Page, lots behind it with comments from any going into details on the reason the decision was made, their pact to stay together and far more
  • WWE financials for quarter two, including why the next TV deal is taking longer to negotiate, how every sector of business is doing, USA Network with and without WWE and looks to the future
  • SummerSlam, why matches were changed, the huge Saturday night of events, ticket sales and more
  • Updating All In, where it stands on all-tie records, two straight weeks of PPV shows, the last time it happened and the history, rumored matches and more
  • G-1 Climax, what everyone needs to advance to the final eight, cards for the rest of the tournament and running down the shows from the past week
  • UFC 291 coverage, the stories behind the stories, what is next, business notes
  • NXT Great American Bash notes with full coverage
  • The life and times of Adrian Street, his death, his start, the famous photo, his U.K. heyday, why he came to the U.S., thinking wrestling was real, meeting Linda and his life after wrestling
  • The most detailed look at the television ratings for all the pro wrestling and MMA shows, including what the numbers mean, rankings, segment-by-segment and how shows are doing compared with one year ago.
  • Promotion shooting new star to the top
  • One of the best matches of the year in Mexico
  • Top pro wrestler worked as an Uber driver during the pandemic
  • Why Stardom is bringing back 80s and 90s legends
  • Wrestle Kingdom notes
  • Minoru Suzuki match in a unique location
  • Second generation star celebrates his 50th birthday on show this past week
  • Update on the number of homes and carriage rates for the shows that carry wrestling and MMA
  • More on a new television wrestling promotion starting in the fall
  • More matches on All In weekend in London
  • Who Giulia is likely defending her New Japan Strong title against next
  • Men’s All Japan Strong title match in Defy
  • Business of AEW and its value
  • Tony Khan talks business growth
  • Update on WBD business
  • Health updates on AEW & WWE wrestlers out of action
  • Paul Levesque and Tony Khan exchange words
  • International TV ratings
  • Streaming numbers
  • Ticket sales for upcoming WWE & AEW shows
  • Top merchandise sellers in WWE & AEW
  • UFC pushing Slap Fighting at commission meeting
  • Dwayne Johnson buys a house for a UFC fighter
  • Backstage fight at show in Japan
  • Notes on Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz
  • Crawford-Spence PPV numbers
  • WWE returns to India and details on that
  • Kevin Owens talks future
  • Former WWE personality working in TV news
  • WWE house show notes

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Raw, G-1, the cursed women’s tag titles, SummerSlam fallout, Kairi Sane and many other topics with Wrestling Observer radio.

Sonya Deville suffered a torn ACL on the 7/28 Smackdown show and will be undergoing reconstructive surgery in the morning. TMZ first reported this. The belief is the titles will be held up but the official word from WWE is that the title situation will be addressed on tonight’s show.

Raw is tonight from Minneapolis. No matches were announced as of this afternoon. No Brock Lesnar on the show tonight nor any time soon. There were 8,855 tickets out as of this morning. This is already up 40 percent from a Smackdown taping in the same building last year in the summer. Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods and Raquel Rodriguez are there. Rodriguez could face Rhea Ripley tonight or next week. Nick Aldis is backstage working as a producer in his first night with the company.

Roman Reigns will be on Smackdown Friday night.

The C block top place-winners in G-1 will be determined in a show that starts tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m. from the Yokohama Budokan. The standings are:

  • David Finlay 4-2
  • Evil 4-2
  • Eddie Kingston 4-2
  • Tama Tonga 3-2-1
  • Shingo Takagi 3-2-1
  • Mikey Nicholls 2-4
  • Aaron Henare 2-4
  • Tomohiro Ishii 1-5

The tournament matches are:

  • Ishii vs. Nicholls – both out of the running
  • Tonga vs. Henare – Tonga with a win is alive
  • Evil vs. Takagi – Winner is alive
  • Kingston vs Finlay – Winner is alive

The top two go to the playoffs. If Evil beats Takagi, he’s in the playoffs. If Finlay and Evil win, Finlay finishes first and Evil second. If Kingston and Evil win, then they both advance. If Kingston & Finlay draw and Evil loses, Takagi will make it in with Kingston. There are other options as well, but those are the most likely.

The former A.J. Lee, now A.J. Mendez, noted this week that she is leaving her role as Executive Producer at WOW.

Cory Sandhagen noted that he tore his triceps off the bone in the first round of his main event fight with Rob Font on Saturday’s UFC show in Nashville. He still won the fight doing four rounds with the injury. He will have surgery later this week. He said he wasn’t able to punch or elbow with the bad arm without it hurting like hell.

PWInsider reported Brian Pillman Jr. will be at the NXT tapings tomorrow night and that they believed he had signed with WWE. Those at NXT didn’t confirm or deny this. Pillman had hinted that he had something big happening shortly after he got a tryout at the Performance Center.

Impact on Thursday has:

  • Moose & Brian Myers & Bully Ray vs. Black Taurus & Laredo Kid & Samuray del Sol
  • Mike Bailey vs. Kushida
  • Chris Bey & Ace Austin vs. Sami Callihan & Rich Swann in a tournament for a tag title shot
  • Alisha Edwards vs. Jody Threat
  • Dirty Dango vs Bhupinder Gujjar

TBS sent out a release that last Wednesday’s episode of Dynamiet was viewed by 2.5 million viewers. That number is every single person who watched the show both live and on DVR through Saturday at midnight. It did a real 0.80 rating in 18-49 which was 0.68 live and 0.12 over the next three days. That was a 1.03 in men 18-49. 

Defy on Saturday night in Seattle at Washington Hall has Ninja Mack vs. Artemis Spencer, Clark Connors vs. Cody Chhun, Titus Alexander vs. Judas Icarus, Shigehiro Irie vs. Tom Lawlor, Nicole Matthews vs. Masha Slamovich and Travis Wlliams & Evan Rivers vs. Ricky Gibson & Eddie Pearl.

Jonathan Gresham suffered a training injury yesterday and is expected to be out of action four to six weeks.

Elon Musk claims that his potential fight with Mark Zuckerberg will air live on X with all proceeds going to charity for veterans. 

Our buddy Jay Dumont (Great Fowler) had heart ablation surgery earlier today. He said it’s not a cure for his issues but it may give him more energy and give him enough strength for a hernia surgery that he also needs. 

Season seven of Dana White’s Contender Series debuts on ESPN+ at 7 p.m. Eastern. The show will air live the next two Tuesdays at 7 p.m. from the Apex in Las Vegas. After that it will move to its regular 8 p.m. Eastern start time.