Daily Update: UFC 310 fallout, Dana White on Conor McGregor, Japan tag tournaments

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Sunday Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking UFC, AEW Continental Classic, NXT Deadline, Japanese tag team tournaments, and the rest of the news with Wrestling Observer Radio. I had a very in depth WOR on Friday with Garrett Gonzales talking about AEW, Terry Funk, Haystacks Calhoun, new wrestling books, WWE angles, and much more.
  • After the UFC PPV last night, Dana White was asked about his reaction to the Conor McGregor case by Kevin Iole and said, “What do you mean, what’s my reaction? If I had a comment, I would have put it out already. He also said, “He hasn’t been fighting here in I don’t know how long. Well, if he does fight, it’ll be sometime next year.” Yes, if that was Paul Levesque or Nick Khan, they’d be excoriated for that answer. If it was Tony Khan, it would be even worse than that.
  • Alexandre Pantoja, after his win over Kai Asakura in last night’s main event, challenged Demetrious Johnson to return for a title shot. Johnson basically responded saying he’s not fighting again and has already turned down a $2 million offer for a fight.
  • The UFC 312 show in Sydney, Australia, has Dricus du Plessis defending the middleweight title against Sean Strickland rather than Khamzat Chimaev, who I think would have been a much bigger draw but there may be other circumstances involved. Du Plessis beat Strickland for the title and it was a close decision. Also announced is Zhang Weili defending the strawweight title against Tatiana Suarez, a world class wrestler and fighter who has had a career filled with injuries and bad luck but has never lost an MMA fight.
  • Merab Dvalshvili claimed that the person who he said accosted him last night as he was going to the back and ended up in a fight with was a teammate and friend of next opponent Umar Nurmagomedov. That was his claim. Nurmagomedov has yet to address that claim.
  • The winners of Iron Survivor from last night’s Deadline, Oba Femi and Giulia, get their shots at Trick Williams and Roxanne Perez on the 1/7 NXT TV show from Los Angeles. The venue will be announced imminently.
  • Regarding people with DirecTV whose DVR didn’t record AEW Collision, I don’t know the issue but it was the same for me. I have been checking every week to manually record after it didn’t record about a month ago. This would be the fourth time in the last few weeks I had to manually do it and also that I heard from people saying the show didn’t record. If you have a season pass, the issue for many is that it shows no new recordings and I don’t know why. (thanks to many)
  • The NJPW tag tourney finals saw Naito & Hiromu Takahashi over Sanada & Gabe Kidd when Hiromu pinned Sanada in 27:12. With no tag champs, it’s going to be Hiromu’s dream match at the Tokyo Dome, a match he’s wanted for years: a singles bout with Naito on 1/4.
  • The Saito Brothers beat Kento Miyahara & Davey Boy Smith Jr. to win the Real World Tag League of All Japan, which sold out Korakuen Hall one day in advance. The semifinals saw Miyahara & Smith over Yuma Anzai & Rising Hayato and the Saitos over Ryuki Honda & Ren Ayabe.  Heard both were good and the finals were great (thanks to Gerard Di Trolio)
  • Tokyo Sports is expected to announce its 2024 awards for pro wrestling very shortly. They usually do the voting right after the conclusion of the tag team tournaments. Only one foreigner has ever won Wrestler of the Year: Bob Sapp. Zack Sabre Jr. should win, but probably won’t as Vader, Stan Hansen, Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay never did.
  • The Telegraph has a story on Fulham’s recent success and talked about analytics and Tony Khan.
  • Bill Goldberg has said that he’s currently filming a show about his car collection called “Goldberg’s Garage” for Paramount Plus.
  • Both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have had articles on Donald Trump’s connections with Ari Emanuel, Dana White, Vince & Linda McMahon.  
  • As far as matches to see, last night’s Nathan Frazer & Axiom vs. Myles Borne & Tavion Heights (this guy is going to be a top worker in a short period of time) match was really good. I haven’t seen Arena Mexico but was told the main event was very good. Also, I was told both tag team tournament finals in All Japan (Kento Miyahara & Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs Saito Brothers) and New Japan (Hiromu Takahashi  & Tetsuya Naito vs. Gabe Kidd & Sanada) were great.  
  • We’re looking for your thoughts on NXT Deadline, so 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 the matches not airing on live television from AEW last night in Columbus, OH, ROH stuff or any dark matches, results and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.
  • Last night’s UFC show did 500,000 Google searches which is more than I would have expected and more than double that of Survivor Series. Lots of UFC names also made the list. Neither NXT Deadline or anyone on the show made the list.
  • AEW will be doing an event at Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. Eastern and 9:30 a.m. local time to promote the onsale for tickets to All In: Texas. Appearing will be Tony Khan, Bobby Lashley, Big Boom AJ, Meredes Mone, Darby Allin, Thunder Rosa and Big Justice. The event will stream live on YouTube, Facebook and X.
  • William Morrissey (Big Bill) and AEW announcer and ROH character Lexy Nair, the stepdaughter of Diamond Dallas Page, were married over the weekend.
  • Pat Buck of AEW appeared as a Gladiator on a Saturday Night Live sketch last night spoofing the Gladiator 2 movie.
  • There were a number of decisions on last night’s UFC show talked about. The only fight that seemed like a robbery was Cyril Gane’s win over Alexander Volkov, who was furious about it. It came down to round two.  Everyone gave Gane round one and Volkov round three. Judges Adelaide and Junichiro Kamijo gave Gane the second round. Media scorers were 95 percent for Volkov.
  • In Bryan Battle’s win over Randy Brown, all three judges had round one for battle two for Brown and the third saw Byrd and Ron McCarthy judge it for Battle while Michael Bell had it for Brown. Media scores were 79 percent for Battle.
  • In the Movsar Evloev win over Aljamain Sterling, all three judges had rounds two and three for Evoloev and one for  Sterling. Media scores were 69 percent for Evloev.
  • Rob Van Dam was shown at the UFC show last night.  
  • David Crockett will be given the Gordon Solie Award at the Tragos/Thesz Hall of Fame ceremony on 7/17 to 7/19 in Waterloo, IA. The award is essentially a Hall of Fame for wrestling announcers.
  • WWE’s Joe Tessitore was announcing yesterday’s Big 12 football championship game and made a reference to the Usos. (thanks to Barry Werner)
  • MLW tickets go on sale Monday for the 4/5 Battle Riot VII show at the Commerce Casino & Hotel in Los Angeles.
  • Butterbean was on Memphis Wrestling yesterday.
  • Ricky Starks will be wrestling on House of Glory shows on 1/17 in Chicago against Mike Santana for the HOG title and on 1/25 in Jamaica, Queens, NY at Club Amazura.
  • Awesome Championship Wrestling on 1/4 at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie NY has  announced Thom Latimer vs. Tommy Dreamer for the NWA title, Nic Nemeth vs. Matt Riddle (who lost the AAA cruiserweight title to Laredo Kid last night in Mexico City) for the TNA title, and Real 1 (Enzo Amore), Little Guido and Crowbar appearing.