Daily Update: Steve McMichael, KAIRI, WWE SummerSlam aftermath

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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 McMahion 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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Sunday Update

Our weekend show covering SummerSlam. Collision, G-1 and more is up on the site now with Bryan. Our weekly Observer and news review with Garrett is also on the site right now. Bryan and I will be back tomorrow night after Raw.

Steve McMichael’s family said that the sepsis that hospitalized him is gone, but he’s still battling pneumonia. Best of luck to McMichael.

Kairi still has a few Japanese dates left to fulfill before she starts back with her new WWE contract.

WWE will be sending out a press release in the morning. I believe it will list the SummerSlam gate and whether it broke the domestic non-Mania gate record ($7.3 million) or the overall non-Mania gate record ($8.1 million at Clash of the Castle last year). Either way it was super successful and would be either 10th or 11th place all-time depending on if it beat the Clash of the Castle number.

Dakota Kai is not close to ready to return. She was brought in to congratulate Iyo Sky on winning the WWE women’s title.

We’re looking for your thoughts on SummerSlam, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Konnan said that the rules for the four-way with Rush, Psycho Clown, LA Park and Sam Adonis as the TripleMania main event for this coming Saturday in Mexico City at Arena Ciudad will be a first person getting pinned or submitted losing his hair or mask.

The one thing about the Paul Brothers is that their actual fights, as opposed to Logan’s pro wrestling matches, do garner a lot of interest. It doesn’t always translate to PPV buys but as far as curiosity goes, last night Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz fight was the biggest thing by far of the week as far as Google searches with five million. For a comparison, SummerSlam had 200,000 which on the surface sounds very low (it’s the usual number for a WWE major event) but with the way they’ve been tabulating it’s not as concerning. SummerSlam was sixth for the Friday/Saturday weekend. lBut it does tell you just how much more general public interest there was in the fight. The UFC show had Tatiana Suarez at No. 9 and Cory Sandhagen at No. 11 yesterday. The other pro wrestling, boxing or MMA related stuff that placed this ast week were Steve McMichael at No. 12 on Friday, Diaz vs. Paul at No. 4 on Thursday and Vince McMahon (for being investigated) at No. 6 on Wednesday.

Nick Diaz issued a challenge to either of the Paul Brothers after Nate’s loss to Paul. 

As mentioned on the show last night, Brock Lesnar will be off for a while. We’re not clear when he’s scheduled to return but that was not his farewell. For Ronda Rousey, that was her farewell at least for now. She’s not expected back at any specific date and that’s why she did that finish with Shayna Baszler where she got choked out.

Also looking for reports from the N-1 tournament earlier today in Yokohama. The first night of NOAH’s version of G-1 saw: 

  • Shuji Kondo & Seiki Yoshioka & Stallion Rogers b Anthony Greene & Yo-Hey & Tadasuke
  • Manabu Soya b Katsuhiko Nakajima
  • Jack Morris b Yoshiki Inamura
  • Lance Anoa’i b Yuma Anzai
  • Yuki Yoshioka b Masa Kitamiy
  • Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Kotoge & Hi 69 b Kazuyuki Fujita & Amakusa & Junta Miyawaki
  • El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. b Daiki Inaba
  • Adam Brooks b Kenoh
  • Go Shiozaki b Saxon Huxley
  • Jake Lee b Timothy Thatcher

The show aired live on Wrestle Universe and the first three bouts are on YouTube.

WrestleTix has the attendance for SummerSlam at 51,477. It was crazy to see that Nick Khan said 43,000 tickets were sold on Wednesday at the investors call and while they did move a few thousand in the last few days, then announcing the 59,000+ number a few days later.

All In’s ticket advance yesterday surpassed the final number of the famous Hogan vs. Andre WrestleMania III attendance at the Pontiac Silverdome. It is now fourth place on the all-time list of paid shows, six if you include the two shows in North Korea. 

The G-1 Climax tournament has the C block final day on Tuesday. The C block winner faces Will Ospreay in the first round of the playoffs on Thursday in Funabashi. The second place finisher in C block faces Sanada in the first round of the playoffs.

Because I was watching Collision and SummerSlam and then did a show, I haven’t watched G-1 yet this weekend, but we got a lot of feedback from people raving about Ospreay vs. El Phantasmo generally calling it the match of the weekend.

Dennis Condrey was at Collision yesterday in Greenville, SC, and after the show was over, FTR and C.M.Punk brought it up and they brought Condrey in the ring. Punk also put over Ricky Steamboat and Condrey. Dax Harwood said Condrey changed the course of tag team wrestling and how because Condrey worked 300 days a year to get tag team wrestling over, he can be home with his family five days a week. Condrey said that FTR was the best tag team in the world and thanked FTR for keeping their name alive and having the similar music.

Fast nationals for Collision were 388K/0.12. Actual numbers won’t be out until Tuesday but it does show that SummerSlam likely drew a very large percentage of the usual AEW audience. UFC and Paul vs. Diaz didn’t help, but it does look like AEW is going to be hurt once a month on Saturdays against WWE major events.

Tom Lawlor vs. Shigehiro Irie will be on Saturday’s Defy show at Washington Hall in Seattle.

LuFisto, who deleted her Twitter after negative feedback to her comments on the AEW women’s locker room, which saw a lot of the AEW women respond denying it, has pulled out of her next Sunday Americanrana show in Worcester, MA. They are looking for an opponent for Dan Barry, who she was scheduled to face.

A story in the New York Post on DDP Yoga having helped Butterbean drop from about 515 pounds to 303.8 pounds.

Adam Wilcox noted to us that he purchased both All In and All Out from FITE (which handles the overseas PPV) and didn’t get any FITE credits for early purchases. He asked and was told that FITE no longer offers FITE credits for those who buy PPVs in advance as they previously had.

Capital Championship Wrestling ran last night in Paulsboro, NJ at the Monster Factory. The Renegade Twins who were in a tournament pulled out because they were booked for last night’s ROH tapings and another wrestler pulled out to work the WOW tapings in Los Angeles: Harleen Lopez b Damaris Dawkins, JC Storm b Clara Carreras, Sara Leon b Miranda Vignette, Ultra Violette won four-way over champion Christina Marie, Delmi Exo and Jade to win the CCW women’s title. (thanks to Shannon Walsh)

DOA All Women’s show from last night in Portland, OR with Queen of Thorns tournament bouts: Amira b Bambi Hall, Nicole Matthews b Murphy Madsen, Abigail Warren b Tara Zep, Liiza Hall Izzy McQueen, Amira b Nicole Matthews, Abigail Warren b Liiza Hall, Rebel Kel b Shazzma McKenzie to keep the Grand championship, Nick Radford b Kel to win the title, Amira b Warren to win the tournament.

GCW on Friday night in Detroit: Jordan Oliver won over Adrian Alanis, Caleb Konley, Jimmy Lloyd, Shane Mercer and Rico Gonzalez, Masha Slamovich b Alec Price, Dominic Garrini & Kevin Ku b Ciclope Miedo Xtremo, Sawyer Wreck b Parrow, Komander b Joey Janela, John Wayne Murdoch & Reed Bentley b Mance Warner & andes, Cole Radrick b Crazy King, Effy & Allie Katch b Davey Bang & August Matthews, Blake Christian b Mike Bailey to retain the GCW title (thanks to Leonard Brand)