Daily Update: The Rock, Black Bart, Kenny Omega

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • The end of Raw on cable television and a look back at the show, Prime Time Wrestling, where it stands among the longest running wrestling shows on television, what to expect from the Netflix audience, the first show, how much WWE was getting for Raw at its ratings peak plus the year that USA nearly canceled Raw.
  • 2024 live attendance numbers for WWE and AEW and comparisons with this past year and historical.
  • Full coverage of Worlds End, including historical notes on aspects of the show, questions on the show, the decision to cut back on matches and what was left on the cutting floor, the best multiple match days in history, best openers in history, returns, PPV numbers and other business notes.
  • A look at both Tokyo Dome shows
  • A look at the career of Sweet Daddy Siki
  • President Jimmy Carter and he and his family’s connections with pro wrestling and Jim Barnett
  • Pro Wrestling NOAH Budokan Hall coverage and attempt to make a superstar in one night
  • Stardom’s big year-end show with one of the best women’s bouts of the year
  • Janel Grant’s attorneys looking at rewriting the lawsuit against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE and the key reason why
  • 2024 Observer Awards ballot, detailed descriptions of the categories, the criteria and who placed top three in each category last year
  • Notes from the funeral of Rey Misterio Sr.
  • The most detailed look at the ratings from the past week
  • International TV ratings
  • Advanced ticket sales for all the major upcoming U.S. events including All In Texas, WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and more
  • CMLL huge business week
  • What promotion is spending January rematching the best matches as voted by fans for 2024
  • Major Japanese title changes as the year ends and starts
  • Two major companies losing U.S. TV this week and details of what happened
  • Shooting at independent wrestling arena
  • Deaths of two British stars of the ITV era, Tally Ho Kaye and their version of Blackjack Mulligan
  • Lots of notes on discussion points of Tony Khan’s press conferences this past week
  • What AEW idea got bounced because NXT did it first
  • Debut of Sakuraba’s son
  • Updates on WrestleMania
  • Updates of archival content on Netflix internationally and MAX in the U.S.
  • New WWE TV or streaming show being talked about
  • Survivor Series PPV number makes significant change and why
  • Notes on the must-read Inside the Ropes story on the late Axl Rotten’s days backstage regarding WWE and Mel Phillips
  • New WWE business deal
  • Full coverage of WWE holiday tour and how it compared with those the past few years

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Sunday Update

— Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about the latest news including Raw on Netflix and the Japan shows this past week.

— Dwayne Johnson on Twitter said he was going to be at Raw tomorrow and dedicated it to his grandfather, Peter Maivia, his grandmother, Lia Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson. Of course this leads to the WrestleMania speculation. We haven’t heard anything since the last issue where the belief was he was on the show but it wasn’t confirmed as a deal. I expect the biggest audience of the year for  Raw is tomorrow since historically WWE does its biggest number the first time on a new platform. So it makes sense to shoot the key Mania angles.  

— John Cena is on the show. There is certainly speculation that Rey Mysterio’s mystery partner against New Day will be Penta. Los Angeles is the right city to debut him. The show is sold out at just over 15,800, but they will be opening up some seats when production is done so the final number will be a little higher. That would also indicate a much smaller stage than usual because with the usual staging they would max out at closer to 13,000. UFC will also be selling out that building on 1/18 for its first PPV show of the year.

— Rick Harris aka Black Bart, has gone into hospice. Very sad news. He has been battling live cancer and made the decision recently to no longer do chemotherapy. The decision was basically that whatever time he had left he didn’t want to suffer so greatly.

— Regarding the AEW ratings on New Year’s Day (584,000/0.16 in 18-49), obviously the MAX debut number would be expected higher than usual since it’s first time. Like most streaming services, MAX does not want its numbers out. Most are like that because they don’t want people to realize the individual show numbers are usually not that big. For New Year’s Day, and with the start of the show going against a college football game did 21.1 million viewers (Ohio State vs. Oregon) which peaked at 24.3 million viewers. Given that competition, it’s not that far down from usual. The show didn’t have a Big Bang Theory lead-in this week.

— Kenny Omega did a very different classic performance than usual last night, very bloody, some scary stuff, very different from usual pro wrestling selling, far more believable in that regard. I’m never a fan of chairs to the head and wish it wasn’t there. I also could watch the match and see the presentation was based around making you uncomfortable at times with the brutality (unless you just love any form of brutality). He actually looked unbelievable for a first match back.  

— We’re looking for your thoughts on both WrestleKingdom and WrestleDynasty. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

— We’re also looking for reports from AEW in Charlotte, NC, last night with any dark matches or ROH Matches to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

— Regarding Konosuke Takeshita signing with New Japan, he has dual contracts similar to Kushida last year with TNA and New Japan. The two companies work together and I don’t sense there are any issues. Rocky Romero also had two contracts as an executive with both companies and they’ll collaborate on Takeshita’s usage. Besides Kushida, who Takeshita will face in San Jose on 1/11, there will also be a Takeshita vs Oleg Boltin rematch coming soon off the great match they did during the G-1 tournament.

— New Year’s Dash is tomorrow and there will be a lot of angles shot at that show for the next series of shows. It’s crazy that most of the San Jose show lineup this coming Saturday won’t be out until after Dash.

— The Raw post-game show with Joe Tessitore, Wade Barrett and Biog E will air on the Netflix YouTube channel after Raw.

— AEW was told that the Christmas Dynamite show with the final day of the Continental Classic did the third highest number of the year on ITV when it aired on 12/27.

— TNA debuted at 36,000 viewers and 16,000 in 25-54 on SportsNet 360 in Canada this past Thursday night.

— The Young Bucks did a promo after winning the IWGP tag titles earlier today saying that they may be bringing the belts to AEW soon and talked about appearing on MAX. They said to their critics that between the two of  them they are worth $20 million and each have four homes paid in full. They said they owe that to how hard they’ve worked in wrestling.  The Bucks being tag team champions and New Japan booking the Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA on 5/9 is interesting because it would make sense for them to be on that show.

— Was told the Mizuki Princess of Princess title win over Miu Watanabe on yesterday’s TJPW Korakuen Hall show was great. Miyu Yamashita & Maki Itoh kept the tag titles over Masha Slamovich & Zara Zakher (a WWE ID wrestler)

— Awesome Championship Wrestling from yesterday in Poughkeepsie, NY: Alex Taylor b Real 1 (Enzo) and GKM to retain the NWA jr. title, Little Guido & Ray Jaz & Zack Clayton (J-Woww’s Fiance) b Danny Doring & Landon Hale & Dante Casanova, Crowbar b Anthony Greene, Kelly Maden b Tiara James, Tommy Dreamer b Thom Latimer-DQ for  Latimer’s NWA title (The Sandman did a run-in helping Dreamer after the match), Vik Dalishus & Hale Collins b Dan Maff & Shawn Donovan in a tables match, Richard Holiday won a Rumble match to become the first ACW champion, Nic Nemeth b Matt Riddle to keep the TNA title. Matt Cardona will challenge Holiday for the title on 5/17 in Poughkeepsie. Joel Gertner managed Dalishus & Collins. The Patriot (Tom Brandi), Tony DeVito and Brian Myers were all in the Rumble match.

— UWC on 1/11 in New Egypt, NJ at the American Legion.

— Innovate Wrestling on 1/18 in Kingsport, TN at the Beautiful Bobby Eaton Arena.