Daily Update: TKO stock, TNA departures, KUSHIDA

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • The notes of just how much of the young audience AEW has lost
  • All In at Globe Life Field both realities and perception
  • History of famous promotional wars and how they turned out and why
  • Why the few incumbents that lost did
  • The rise and fall of WCW
  • The finances of AEW
  • The issue with all non-Raw and Smackdown shows in the U.S. market right now not involving AEW
  • History of Saturday Night’s Main Event
  • High water marks for the show in the 80s
  • The Hogan vs. Andre match
  • Why SNME went away and its return and why that didn’t work as well
  • Preview of tomorrow’s show and betting odds
  • AEW Worlds End notes and WWE’s head-to-head show in Orlando
  • Full coverage of NXT Deadline
  • Full coverage of UFC 310
  • Tokyo Sports Awards, including unique things Zack Sabre Jr. has done and the history of all 51 MVP winners since 1974
  • More on the new Global Fight League, which features tons of post-40 UFC champions and major stars, to be debuting soon
  • For those outside the U.S. where the WWE Network moves to Netflix, what non-live shows will Netflix be airing and how little it is as compared to the WWE Network
  • Preview of both Tokyo Dome shows in January
  • The death of Karloff Lagarde Jr.
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the U.S. TV shows, comparisons to one year ago, segment-by-segment and rankings for the night and week.
  • What CMLL star trained with the Olympic team only a few years ago
  • Pentagon Jr. update
  • Tag team tournament finals in Japan
  • Top star in Japanese group gets suspended
  • Another top star cutting down his schedule
  • International TV ratings
  • Ticket sales for upcoming WWE & AEW shows
  • Tag team getting a non-wrestling national television show
  • Wrestling legend getting a non-wrestling TV show
  • Notes on the new season of Dark Side of the Ring
  • Willie Mack situation in GCW
  • What wrestler was GCW hoping to get for the Hammerstein Ballroom
  • Tessa Blanchard update
  • Lots of notes about the AEW on sale in Texas
  • Update on Rey Fenix situation
  • Most viewed streaming segments of AEW & WWE this past month
  • Steroids in BJJ
  • MMA Awards
  • Mark Shapiro talks future in WWE, UFC and even boxing ideas*WWE injury updates
  • Lots of notes about WWE shows on A&E in 2025
  • Son of sports legend makes quiet WWE debut
  • Janel Grant case updates
  • Dwayne Johnson movie updates

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Monday Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight to talk about Raw, Raw next week, a huge week of shows, weekend notes and more with a loaded Wrestling Observer Radio.
  • TKO stock closed today at $147.05 per share. This comes after several analysts upgraded it last week.
  • There have been lots of TNA departures in the past few days, including Rhino, Jade Chung, Kushida and Trent Seven. Some of the departures have to do with people asked to take pay cuts, but that may not be the case for all  of them.  Chung is the wife of Josh Alexander, who is expected to leave early next year when his contract expires.
  • Kushida had two contracts, one with New Japan and one with TNA, as part of a deal Scott D’Amore and Naoki Sugabayashi put together. At the time both sides were looking at doing that for a few people with the idea that with two contracts they’d be able to keep people busy and that they wouldn’t leave so easily for WWE or AEW. It appears formal relations with TNA and New Japan may also be done. Relations were said to have cooled when D’Amore was gone. But since both are on the same channel, one owned by TNA’s parent company, there are political reasons for a relationship for both sides.
  • WWE will be doing two episodes of Raw tonight in Boston.  Unless CM Punk can pull the ratings rabbit out of his hat again, it’s going to be very tough for Raw. The traditional Chicago  Bears vs. The Minnesota Vikings rivalry will be on ABC tonight, while the Atlanta Falcons vs. Las Vegas Raiders are on ESPN tonight, both head-to-head with Raw.  Raw has announced Punk kicking off the show, Finn Balor & JD McDonagh vs. War Raiders for the tag titles, Bron Breakker vs. Ludwig Kaiser for the IC title, Raquel Rodrugiez vs. Kayden Carter vs. Zoey Stark in the women’s IC title tournament plus Seth Rollins on the show. Rollins and Punk will be building their 1/6 match on Netflix which is likely to be announced tonight, or at least that was the plan a few days ago. There were 10,700 tickets out for the TD Garden so it should either end up sold out, if not come very close.
  • AEW has made a TV deal for Collision in Canada. It will be on Canada’s version of the USA Network, airing live on Saturday night’s starting on 1/4. The USA Network is a rebranding of the Discovery Channel in Canada.
  • Tessa Blanchard did an interview in Puerto Rico where she wrestled yesterday. She said she was thankful to CMLL for what they did for her but said she has not signed a contract with TNA at this point.  
  • Jared Cannonier vs. Gregory Rodrigues was announced as the main event for a 2/15 UFC show in Las Vegas.
  • We don’t have the full ratings report but did get word that Smackdown did 1,530,000 viewers and an 0.47 in 18-49 and was first for the  night on cable. Rampage on Friday did 279,000 viewers and 0.08 in 18-49, which is way up from recent weeks.  
  • Two more matches from the weekend to add to bouts worth going out of your way to see are Mercedes Mone vs.  Hazuki from last night’s New Japan show and Yamato vs. Dragon Dia from the Dragon Gate final major show of the year. Other bouts this weekend include Flip Gordon vs. Rocky Romero from Arena Mexico, Sareee vs. Nanae Takahashi from the Margold show for their title, and Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe on Collision.
  • KENTA vs. Dijak was added to the 1/11 MLW show in  North Richland Hills, TX.
  • Boca Raton Championship Wrestling from yesterday afternoon:  Ariel Levy won over  Cha Cha Charlie, Steve Maclin, Tito Lincoln and Lakaya, Mad Man Fulton b Chris Masters, Neil the Heel b Alan Martinez, Dutch & Vincent b Better Together in a spin the dreidel match, in a hardcore match Colt Cabana b Bull James, Deonna Purrazzo b Chelsea Durden, Matt Riddle & Stallion Rogers b Anthony Greene & Matt Taven, MJF b QT Marshall when Big Boom AJ ran in an laid out Marshall.  Marshall in character renounced his Jewish heritage. MJF worked the match as the face.