Daily Update: Super Bowl LVII, WWE Raw, Cody Rhodes

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

The new issue of the Observer is up on the site right now. Among the items covered are:

*Match of the week and performer of the week

*Jerry Lawler’s recovery and a look at the history of Lawler from his days as the King of Memphis wrestling, his run in the 80s, the high and low points of that company and his role as a WWE announcer

*Nick Khan and Tony Khan talk with WWE sale as well a how much money key people will make on the sale*Update on WrestleMania plans

*The 1977 Superstar Billy Graham vs. Dusty Rhodes feud and how that impacts the 2023 WrestleMania

*Behind the Paul Heyman/Cody Rhodes segment

*Key parts of the interview

*Paul Heyman’s history with Dusty Rhodes

*Elimination Chamber update

*Fedor Emelianenko’s farewell to MMA and where Bellator stands

*Keiji Muto with days left in his career talks about his final match and his condition

*Full coverage of NXT Vengeance

*MLW debuts on REELZ

*New Japan New Beginning in Sapporo

*UFC’s weekend show coverage*Stardom Supreme Fights coverage

*A look at the best matches of 2022

*How many homes are the cable stations that carry wrestling in

*The most detailed look at the ratings over the past week

*Four plus year title reign ends

*AAA planning for Triplemania

*How the Acapulco show led to issues with AAA and AEW

*Notes from Fantastica Mania

*Lots of Kota Ibushi news

*A look at the career of Charlie Norris

*The most watched television wrestling match of the 1970s

*Lots of WrestleMania week news

*Court Bauer talks WWE lawsuit

*AEW new deal in place

*International TV ratings and streaming numbers

*AEW & WWE upcoming show ticket sales

*Jericho Cruise notes

*Behind the MJF promo

*Interesting notes from Mark Hunt’s lawsuit against Brock Lesnar

*Previewing this week’s UFC show

*Cody Rhodes talks about learning pro wrestling

*WWE working with other groups

*Brett Favre sues Pat McAfee

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

Ordering Info:

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw, Cody Rhodes, Sami Zayn and the rest of the news with Wrestling Observer Radio tonight.

A number of wrestlers appeared in Super Bowl ads yesterday, which is really a huge thing for exposure. Among those were Dave Bautista for the upcoming Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3; John Cena for the movie Fast X; Undertaker for DraftKings; Tyrus for Fox News’ Gutfeld (he was carrying the NWA World title belt); Charlotte Flair for SmackDown; and The Miz for Logan Paul’s new energy drink. WWE didn’t spend the $7 million per ad, but Fox used their inventory of house ads to promote SmackDown.

Darren McCarty, a former NHL player who does a lot of indies in the Detroit area was on local Michigan ad. (thanks to Robert D’Andrea and others)

Tonight’s Raw is from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The only matches announced are The Miz vs. Rick Boogs, and Carmella, Asuka & Nikki Cross vs. Raquel Rodriguez, Natalya & Liv Morgan. Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley are doing a contract signing, Seth Rollins will be on Miz TV, and Sami Zayn is scheduled for the show. The show had just under 10,500 tickets out as of this morning. A usual Barclays Center sellout is about 15,000 distributed and 13,600 paid.

We’re looking for live reports from the show tonight from those in attendance with Main Event results, anything off camera or other observations to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

Cody Rhodes was on with Ariel Helwani today and talked about leaving AEW, only saying that Bruce Prichard called him and set up Vince McMahon flying in to meet him and that McMahon offered him Seth Rollins at WrestleMania . He was asked about the CM Punk press conference and said he was very disappointed watching it and very sad because even though he was gone, he didn’t want anything to hurt the company he helped build and said he thought it hurt the company. But, he said he wouldn’t take sides between the Young Bucks and Punk and was going to be Switzerland. He talked a lot about his father as well.

Rhodes also announced today that he would be appearing on the 3/12 WWE show in Madison Square Garden.

The Helwani show also included UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, who said he would smash UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at featherweight and upon watching Saturday’s fight back, he thinks he won three rounds and wants a rematch. 

Billy Two Rivers, who was an iconic figure in the Kahnawake First Nation community in Quebec as a wrestling star turned Council member, passed away yesterday. Two Rivers was a major star in the 60s in the U.K. to the point he was in movies and had a song named after him and had a race horse named after him. He worked all over the world, including as a tag team partner of major 50s star Don Eagle, who was his mentor. He was best known in Quebec in the 70s before retiring in 1977 and going into local politics. His death was covered by the CBC in Canada.

We’re looking for your thoughts on both UFC from Saturday and New Japan New Beginning in Osaka on Saturday. You can leave a thumbs up, down or middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

Friday’s AEW Rampage will be at 7 PM Eastern/4 PM Pacific prior to the NBA Slam Dunk competition. Dustin Rhodes vs. Swerve Strickland and Ricky Starks vs. Daniel Garcia are already scheduled.

Bellator fighter Poliana Botelho revealed she had surgery on Friday to remove a lymph node after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Botelho fought for UFC from 2017 to 2022.

There is still uncertainty regarding what is going on regarded OTT ScrapperMania and Jon Moxley. Moxley was announced for the 3/18 show some time back and tickets almost sold out immediately. Then, AEW announced him for a show in Troy, Ohio, the same night for its first house show as part of a tour. We’re told OTT didn’t know about this until AEW made the announcement on Twitter and in a press release. OTT didn’t make an announcement about it for two weeks although most figure that he’s working the Ohio show. But we have not gotten that confirmed either. Promoter Joey Cabray tweeted a few day ago, “We understand there is some confusion on Jon Moxley’s appearance at ScrapperMania. We are working with AEW and should have news coming soon.” Right now both companies are still selling tickets with Moxley as the top star on the same day. (thanks to Ciaran Dunphy).

Dax Harwood did a tease on purpose showing a photo of his table with a glass and bottle of tequila with a piece of paper on the table with a WWE logo. Clearly, this was done to get people talking like he’s going to WWE. I wouldn’t take it as anything more than him trying to get people talking at this stage. 

A documentary on former NOAH star Bison Smith which has gotten a lot of praise:

Another note that for this week only, AEW Dynamite on ITV 4 will air at 10 p.m. on Thursday night instead of the usual Friday night.

Other Notes

Kurt Angle was on the judging panel on Friday’s PFL show in Orlando. They are doing Challenger Series shows every Friday on Fubo and the judges vote for the most impressive fighter and they get a contract to compete in the $1 million tournament later this year. Abraham Bably was awarded a heavyweight contract with a TKO win over Hassan Graham and Angle, Vitor Belfort and Frank Mir voted him into the tournament.

MCW has three upcoming shows on 2/25 in Perryville, MD at 5th Company Brewing, 3/4 in Galena, MD at the Volunteer Fire Department and 4/22 at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppa, MD, which will be a women’s show.

Northeast Wrestling on Saturday night in Bethany, CT features Matt Taven vs. Brad Hollister plus Flip Gordon vs. JT Dunn.

Battleground Championship Wrestling runs the 2300 Arena on 3/18 with a title tournament with first round matches of Brian Kendrick vs. Rich Swann, Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Matt Cardona, Johnny Battleground (Hennigan) vs. Tony Nese and Bully Ray vs. TBA. NWA Women’s champion Kamille faces Vita VonStarr. Bully Ray & D-Von will be appearing at a convention before the show. There is a backstory to that as a few months ago they were to be reunited at a convention before the show and WWE blocked it the week of, saying that Devon, who said he had permission, didn’t go through correct protocol. He was pretty much threatened with being fired if he attended. He didn’t, but ended up being let go since then so now he’s doing it.