Daily Update: Tony Khan, All Out, Alex Hammerstone

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new issue of the Observer is out and it’s the biggest issue in terms of volume that we have ever done:

  • The life of Terry Funk with many different stories from many different places
  • The Ric Flair/Terry Funk 1989 feud
  • Terry Funk sees the death of the territories before anyone else
  • Paul Heyman on Terry Funk
  • The life and career of Bray Wyatt
  • The sad situation regarding his death
  • Career highlights
  • How COVID led to serious health issues
  • Him just being seen in the hospital a week before his death
  • Life before wrestling
  • Full coverage of AEW All In
  • Notes on attendance records
  • A rundown of the other four biggest shows in history
  • Every $10 million gate in pro wrestling history
  • Early PPV numbers
  • Crossover buys with SummerSlam
  • Thoughts on next year’s show at Wembley
  • Tony Khan’s thoughts after the show
  • A detailed look at the Punk-Jack Perry incident with different stories from people there
  • How it affected the show backstage
  • What happened with the show and to Punk and Perry after the incident
  • Rundown of the show
  • WrestleMania ticket sales as of this week
  • Last year’s Mania numbers and numbers from other years
  • How the secondary market is doing for WrestleMania
  • Saudi Arabia gets into business with the PFL and causes a WWE stock price drop
  • Preview of the next AEW & WWE PPV shows
  • Business notes on this week’s show
  • A look at the RevPro show with Ospreay vs. Takagi
  • The most detailed look at the ratings over the past two weeks
  • How each segment did, how the show compares with one year ago
  • A look at the best rated Smackdown show in almost three years
  • International TV numbers
  • CMLL matches at Denver Broncos game
  • CMLL Grand Prix show notes
  • Metalik done with CMLL and explanation as to why
  • Konnan health update
  • QT Marshall defends Latin American title in Europe
  • Notes on the last Stardom PPV show
  • Notes on Dragon Gate’s Dangerous Gate show
  • All Japan finishes tournament and legend challenges for Triple Crown out of it
  • N-1 tournament update
  • Talks of a New Japan expansion
  • Naito talks his future
  • The All-Star Junior show in Philadelphia
  • DDT has big show coming
  • Major former promoter in Mexico Carlos Elizondo passes away
  • New Netflix wrestling show
  • Impact changing taping schedule
  • Notes on upcoming Impact shows
  • Lots of talk from Tony Khan about new things with the company and deals
  • Punk gets Cauliflower Alley Club award
  • Update on Cung Le lawsuit against UFC
  • Update on Edge
  • John Cena’s return notes

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Ordering Info:

Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to dave@wrestlingobserver.com or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

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If you order by mail with a check, cash or money order to P.O. Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228, you can get $1 off in every price range.

Sunday Update

Bryan and I were up last night covering the C.M.Punk firing, Payback and Collision and tonight we’ll be covering All Out. If you have any questions on the Punk situation you can send them to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com as we’ll answer questions on that subject.

Obviously tonight’s show will be more interesting because of crowd reactions than anything else. Before Collision went on the air, Tony Khan spoke to the crowd in Chicago and it was very hostile as you can see. I will give him a lot of credit for this because regardless of arguments about how the situation was handled for the past 18 months, he easily could have just let it ride this weekend since everyone knew Punk was suspended and waited until after the PPV show to announce the firing, and just did the short taped prepared statement for television. But this was his speech and the reaction to it from the live audience: 

This is tonight’s card which will go from 7 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. Eastern:

  •  Athena & Mercedes Martinez & Diamante vs. Willow Nightingale & Hikaru Shida & Skye Blue
  • Over the Budget Battle Royal, the winner lists his favorite charity and AEW will make a $50,000 donation to that charity
  • Acclaimed & Billy Gunn defend the trios titles against Jeff Jarrett & Satnam Singh & Jay Lethal with Dennis Rodman in the Acclaimed corner and Sonjay Dutt in the Jarrett corner.
  • Samoa Joe vs. Shane Taylor for ROH TV title
  • Eddie Kingston & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta
  • Kris Statlander vs. Ruby Soho for the TBS title
  • FTR & Young Bucks vs. Jay White & Juice Robinson & Gunn Brothers
  • Miro vs. Powerhouse Hobbs
  • Adam Cole & MJF vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds for the ROH tag titles
  • Luchasaurus vs Darby Allin for the TNT title
  • Kenny Omega vs. Konosuke Takeshita
  • Bryan Danielson vs. Ricky Stars in a strap match
  • Orange Cassidy vs. Jon Moxley for the International title

I expect a lot of good action matches but I’m dumbfounded about some of the matches like the ROH tag title match (which may be very entertaining but I can’t understand why the hottest act in the company is wrestling the Dark Order on a major PPV show), and no Adam Page or Chris Jericho. The PPV numbers will be very interesting on this. But nobody is expecting a big number coming a week after All In, which should end up as one of the biggest PPV shows in company history. About 9,500 tickets were out for the show, so it won’t be close to sold out but it’s still a healthy crowd and Tony Khan last week said he was thinking it would top $1 million which is always a major success.

We’re looking for your thoughts on both WWE Payback from last night and All Out from today, you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

We’re also looking for reports on tonight’s MLW show in Philadelphia to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Alex Hammerstone is off today’s MLW show for family related reasons. MLW is planning its PPV version of the show on FITE+ from 6-8 p.m. so it will end before the start of the All Out PPV portion of the show.

The PPV version is:

  • Alex Kane vs. Willie Mack for the MLW title
  • Jacob Fatu vs. Rickey Shane Page in a weapons of mass destruction match for the National Openweight title
  • Maki Ioth vs, B3CCA
  • Kushida vs Tony Deppen
  • Matt Cardona vs. Mance Warner in a kiss my foot match
  • Akira vs. Jimmy Lloyd in a street fight
  • Ichiban vs. Tracy Williams

Go Shiozaki won the N-1 tournament from Pro Wrestling NOAH beating Kenoh in the finals today in Osaka. Their next major show is 9/17 with Will Ospreay vs. Naomichi Marufuji.

Grayson Waller complained that Jey Uso attacked him unprovoked on his own show on Twitter and then showed him holding a Pepsi can to his head like an ice pack, seemingly in reference to C.M. Punk.

Even with all the news this week, the only thing that cracked the Google searches this past week was Payback from yesterday which was No. 19 with 100,000 searches, which is lower than WWE PPV shows usually do. Punk did not crack the top 20. Yesterday’s UFC show had nothing that cracked the top 20. All In, believe it or not, didn’t crack the listings last Sunday either which basically tells you that the interest in the show was big enough among wrestling fans to do a big U.S. PPV number, but it did not break through outside of the wrestling fan base big enough to crack the top 230.

Wrestlecon has announced its activities for WrestleMania in Philadelphia will be at the Sheraton Downtown Hotel in Philadelphia.

Kevin Von Erich did a talk show Friday night in Dallas. Dan Cerquitella told us that he really enjoyed it and the crowd was into it. He said the drawback was the host didn’t know wrestling and that Kevin came off so likeable. But he said Kevin shined through.

People were raving to us about the Eddie Kingston and Toshiaki Kawada panel at Starrcast today saying Kawada was just awesome in answering questions. Kawada said that after the death of Mitsuharu Misawa, he just lost his passion for wrestling. He indicated he didn’t like Kenta Kobashi, saying he had a big head. He also said he didn’t like Kensuke Sasaki. He said he didn’t go to Pro Wrestling NOAH because he couldn’t leave the Baba family after all they had done for him.

Progress noted that Yoshiki Inamura of NOAH will debut for the promotion on 9/9 in Birmingham, England. Inamura will be facing Ricky Knight Jr. for the Atlas championship.

RevPro results from earlier today in London: Sha Samuels b Connor Mills to win the British cruiserweight title, JJ Gale b Robbie X, Bredan White & Danny Jones b Jude London & Paris De Silva, Luke Jacobs b Wild Boar, Ricky Knight Jr. & Zak Zodiac b Sunshine Machine, Alex Windor b Maya Matthew with the sharpshooter, Michael Oku b Cameron Khai in a non-title match, Gabe Kidd b Leon Slater (thanks to Shannon Walsh)

Stardom had a PPV show earlier today in Hiroshima, Japan: Ami Sohrei b Lady C, Maika & Megan Bayne b Mina Shirakawa & Mariah May, Utami Hayashishita b Momo Watanabe, Tam Nakano b Starlight Kid, Syuri b Mayu Iwatani, Saki Kashima b Momo Kohgo to keep the High Speed title, Natsupoi & Saori Anou b Suzu Suzuki & Mei Seira to retain the Goddesses of Stardom tag title, Mirai b Konami to retain the Wonder of Stardom title, Giulia b Risa Sera to retain the New Japan Strong women’s title. There will be a UWF rules match with Syuri vs. Mina Shirakawa soon. (thanks to Shannon Walsh)