Daily Update: The Rock, WWE SmackDown, AEW Rampage

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

With the death of Ole Anderson this week, we have a giant issue of the Observer with a huge bio of Anderson, talking about his entire career in the business, as a wrestler, promoter, booker and later executive with WCW. We talk about the beginnings of Georgia wrestling on national television, the expansion, Dusty Rhodes vs. Ole Anderson, The Black Scorpion, The Four Horsemen, Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Black Saturday and so much more. This issue includes:

  • The life and times of Ole Anderson
  • A story on the death of Mike “Virgil” Jones
  • Update on WrestleMania
  • Coverage of Elimination Chamber
  • Rock on Smackdown
  • Updated Mania lineup
  • Business notes on Elimination Chamber
  • Update on WWE & UFC 2023 business, along with 2024 projections and why the stock price dropped
  • Sting’s last match and AEW Revolution preview
  • Secondary market notes
  • History of Greensboro sellouts
  • Darby Allin and Young Bucks talk Sting
  • New Japan after Okada looked at
  • What New Japan needs to do
  • How Matt Riddle and Nic Nemeth started in New Japan
  • New Japan Cup news
  • Rundowns of New Beginning in Sapporo
  • UFC from Mexico City rundown
  • 2023 Shad Gaspard/Jon Huber Award winners
  • Triple Crown winners of Wrestler of the Year, Most Outstanding and Match of the Year in the same year
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the shows, segment-by-segment, demos, competition and weekly placings as well as comparisons to one year ago
  • First ever all women’s Friday night show at Arena Mexico
  • Notes on the next CMLL tournament
  • Wrestlers leaving AAA
  • Stardom Cinderella tournament
  • Two major Stardom stars confirmed as staying with the promotion
  • Movie coming out on 70s star
  • More on MLW lawsuit settlement with WWE
  • More plans and changes at TNA
  • Shocking PPV number and trying to explain it
  • Tony Khan talks business and how many PPV shows per year is optimum
  • More on the visa situation with Mexican talent
  • More on Darby Allin climbing Mount Everest
  • Lots of injury updates
  • International TV ratings
  • Advance ticket sales for WWE & AEW shows
  • Biggest event in PFL history
  • More on the Nick Kiniski story
  • Dwayne Johnson gets ownership of all his IPs
  • WWE writer talks about Vince McMahon
  • WWE star in BJJ tournament

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Friday Update

Garrett Gonzales and I did a long show today that’s really worth listening to. The first half was with Lance Storm, talking about Vince McMahon, Ashley Massaro, the cultural changes in the wrestling business and a lot more. It was very interesting as Storm really bridges the gap between the prior generation and the current generation since he’s still involved through working for TNA. The second half of the show was with Pat Laprade, talking the death of Paul “Butcher” Vachon, his friend, talking about The Vachon Family as well as the early days of Andre the Giant.

Paul “Butcher” Vachon, part of the legendary Vachon Brothers tag team, as well as a wrestling promoter in Quebec, passed away last night at the age of 86. We talked with his friend Pat Laprade on today’s show and will have a major story on him in next week’s issue. 

The promo on Twitter done by Dwayne Johnson that many would have seen was in general the promo that he wanted to do on Smackdown tonight. Basically after getting word that he wasn’t going to be getting a 21 minute promo, he decided to release his full length promo on social media first. It’s basically a heel promo on Cody Rhodes using a lot of real life stuff.

Smackdown tonight is from Glendale, AZ. It was sold out with more than 11,400 tickets as of yesterday. The Kabuki Warriors face Dakota Kai & Bayley in a non-title match plus Carlito vs Santos Escobar in a street fight. The biggest notes are that Rock, Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns are all scheduled so the show should be a monster rating.

AEW Rampage tonight at 10 pm. on TNT

  • Riho vs. Trish Adora
  • Claudio Castagnoli vs. Rugido
  • Lance Archer & The Righteous vs. Anaya & Luke Langley & CT Vaught
  • Magnus vs. Matt Sydal for a spot in the All-Star scramble match at Revolution

We’re looking for reports on these shows

  • Smackdown tonight from Glendale, AZ (dark matches and off TV stuff)
  • NXT tonight in Dade City, FL
  • WWE house show tomorrow in Palm Desert, CA
  • NXT tomorrow night in Jacksonville, FL
  • WWE house show Sunday in Bakersfield, CA
  • We’re looking for results, finishes and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

We’ll be doing our only weekend poll on AEW Revolution, so you can leave a thumbs up, down or middle, best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

TNA announced the signing of Alex Hammerstone to an exclusive “length” contract and he’ll be on he 3/8 show in Windsor, ONT, against Josh Alexander.

Nic Nemeth, Matt Riddle, Shun Skywalker and Titan have been added to the Mark Hitchcock Memoria show on 4/4 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. They had already announced Mistico, Mascara Dorada, Dragon Kid, Hechicero, Little Guido, Tommy Rich, Savio Vega, Jose Estrada Jr., Huracan Castillo Jr. and Miguel Perez Jr. Dorada and Hechicero will not be on the show due to visa issues. They will be adding wrestlers from CMLL to the show to replace them that have visas. Dorada and Hechicero are on the list of those whose visas expired yesterday so I’ll try and get an update on their status.

RevPro will be starting to announce the wrestlers from CMLL coming to their Fantastica Mania in the U.K. show. 15 wrestlers are coming from CMLL.

Dwayne Johnson will be a presenter at the 2024 Academy Awards show.

Brandon Royval said that he was ready to face Alexandre Pantoja for the flyweight title at UFC 301 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There was a question as to whether Royval would be ready due to knee issues, but he said his knees are cleared.

UFC has an ESPN+ show tomorrow from the Apex in Las Vegas starting at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, which means it starts at 10:30 a.m. at the Apex:

  • Loik Rodzhabov (155.5) vs. Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady (156)
  • Ludovit Klein (156) vs. AJ Cunningham (155.5)
  • Christian Leroy Duncan (186) vs. Claudio Ribeiro (185.5)
  • Alemann Zahabi (135.5) vs. Javid Basharat (136)
  • Vinicius Oliveira (135.5) vs. Bernardo Sopal (135.5)
  • Eryk Anders (185.5) vs. Jamie Pickett (186)
  • Matt Schnell (126) vs. Steve Erceg (126)
  • Umar Nurmagomedov (136) vs. Bakzat Almakhan (136)
  • Alex Perez (125.5) vs,. Muhammad Mokaev (126)
  • Vitor Petrino (205.5) vs. Tyson Pedro (205.5)
  • Jairzinho Rozenstriuk (257) vs. Shamil Gaziev (261)

MCW tomorrow night in Galena, MD at the Galena Volunteer Fire Hall.

Pro Wrestling Eve runs Thursday and Friday night from the Big Penny Social in Walthamstow, London, England,. Friday is sold out while last word Thursday was almost sold out. Su Yung, Tae Honma and Risa Sera are in for the shows along with the U.K.