Daily Update: UFC 313 fallout, AEW Revolution, Queen of the Ring

Daily Update

Latest News

Latest Audio

Latest Free YouTube Video

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Among the highlights:

  • The background of the John Cena angle and different versions of the story
  • What changed on the day of Elimination Chamber and different versions as to why
  • The turn itself
  • Travis Scott injures Rhodes
  • Comparisons with other turns
  • Art imitating real life
  • WrestleMania lineup
  • Elimination Chamber business and how it performed around the world
  • Pat McAfee controversy
  • TKO getting into boxing, what has and hasn’t been talked about and what we know about the details on how Nick Khan and Dana White are involved as well as why this is no risk for TKO
  • Linda McMahon confirmed for Secretary of Education, and then to wipe it all out
  • AEW Revolution preview, business numbers and interest level
  • Why the March 6, 1972 match with Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch is still talked about 53 years after it happened
  • New Japan anniversary show notes, early New Japan Cup news
  • Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano becomes a classic match, as well as a controversial one
  • Fantastica Mania final day coverage
  • Coverage of the deaths of Ciclon Ramirez and Australian Suicide
  • How did SmackDown and Dynamite place in the weekly standings
  • The unique Dynamite rating pattern
  • Full weekly ratings notes including what milestone did Raw on Netflix fall below
  • Notes on the high SmackDown number
  • Takeshita goes to Arena Mexico
  • Arguably the greatest freestyle wrestler of all-time passes away
  • Queen of the Ring notes
  • Giant mask match of legends being teased
  • Tony Khan changes philosophy
  • Forbidden Door title match tease
  • Tony Khan talks Wembley Stadium attendance record
  • Ospreay talks difference between New Japan and AEW
  • Mark Shapiro talks a lot of the future WWE and UFC business deals
  • A look at what level of value UFC PPVs could bring to Netflix and the value WWE brings to Netflix
  • Tom Aspinall vs. Jon Jones update
  • Freak show fight between two of the strongest men who ever lived
  • Big Tokyo Dome event planned
  • WWE in talks for a unique PPV event including date and place it is tentative for
  • Evolve notes
  • Sonya Deville and Carmella talk being dropped by WWE

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Sunday Update

— We have a number of weekend shows on the site today. Friday Garrett and I were with Scott D’Amore talking about his days with TNA, owning the Tunney tape library, goals for Maple Leaf Wrestling, stars to watch out for, relationship with New Japan and more. Plus we talked a lot of the news of the week.

We also did a show last night talking about UFC, Queen of the Ring, Jade Cargill (more detailed than in the Observer), and why tonight ‘s AEW numbers are so important to learn from. Bryan and I will be back tonight talking AEW and the rest of the weekend news.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on AEW Revolution, 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

— ESPN+ will be putting up last night’s UFC for free due to all the issues with people having trouble ordering and viewing the show. There have been issues for years but this is the first time they were so bad ESPN made this decision.

— AEW Revolution starts at just before 4 p.m. Eastern with a 13 match show from the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles. More than 11,000 tickets are out and the gate was almost $1 million as of last night. This is an amazingly deep show.

Zero Hour starting at maybe 6:45 p.m.Eastern:

  • Komander & Hologram vs. Lee Johnson & Blake Christian
  • Daniel Garcia & Adam Cole & Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Shane Taylor & The Infantry & Lee Moriarty
  • Chris Jericho vs Gravity for the ROH title
  • Big Boom AJ & Orange Cassidy & Mark Briscoe vs. Johnny TV & MxM Collection

PPV at 8 p.m. Eastern

  • Bobby Lashley & Shelton Benjamin vs. Outrunners for tag titles (The Hurt Syndicate are -3000 favorites)
  • Kazuchika Okada vs. Brody King for the Continental title (Okada is a -3000 favorite)
  • Mercedes Mone vs. Momo Watanabe for TBS title (Mone is a -3000 favorite)
  • Swerve Strickland vs. Ricochet for an AEW title shot (Strickland is a -1000 favorite)
  • MJF vs. Adam Page (MJF is a -200 favorite)
  • Will Ospreay vs. Kyle Fletcher cage match (Ospreay is a -1000 favorite)
  • Toni Storm vs. Mariah May falls count anywhere Hollywood ending match for AEW women’s title (Storm is a -2500 favorite)
  • Konosuke Takesita vs. Kenny Omega for the International title (Omega is a -1000 favorite)
  • Jon Moxley vs. Adam Copeland for the AEW title (Moxley is a -220 favorite)

— I saw something was sent out in the market which listed the doors opening at 6 p.m. and the first match at 7 p.m. Of course that’s Eastern time, but the show is Pacific time so the doors are to open at 3 p.m.

— Jim Ross had a health issue earlier this week but we were told yesterday that he flew in for the show.

— Both Raw in Madison Square Garden and NXT at the Hulu Theater in MSG will be sold out this week. They are doing limited staging for both shows. So the crowds will be larger than usual for pro wrestling in those arenas. There are 16,600 tickets out at this point for MSG and 4,500 for the Hulu Theater. Fightful reported Meiko Satomura would be at Tuesday’s show. Undertaker, Bully Ray and Mickie James will be there as well.

— SmackDown numbers won’t be out until tomorrow afternoon, but we were told that on Netflix, every significant country was up from last week which I think comes from the interest level in the Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena match since Rhodes wasn’t on Raw to address it. The ratings have been very strong the past two weeks. 

— The UFC main event last night where Magomed Ankalaev won the light heavyweight title from Alex Pereira was a very close call. Pretty much everyone had rounds one and five for Pereira and two and four for Ankalaev. It came down to round three. That round was very close although Pereira did have a 22-14 edge in strikes landed. If I was to judge the fight, I gave round three to Pereira and had him winning 48-47, but this was not a robbery and could have gone either way. If I could have given a 10-10 round I’d have had it a draw, but if judging the fight as a whole, which I think is the best way, I’d go with Ankalaev since his round two win was the strongest round win and also the only time the fight was in danger of finishing. Basically the best way to judge a fight is who do you think should have won–that’s Ankalaev. Once you start putting numbers in, the numbers don’t always reflect who should have won. Usually they do, this fight was the exception. I’ve always said Pride style scoring is the best and that will never be used in the U.S. 

— Judge Michael Bell and Derek Cleary both gave round three to Ankalaev, while Sal D’Amto gave both three and five to Ankalaev. Of media scores, every single one had it 48-47 depending on round three. Media scores on MMA Decisions, which didn’t include mine, were 52 percent for Ankalaev, 43 percent for Pereira and five percent a draw. Fan scores were 58 percent for Pereira, 37 percent for Ankalaev and five percent even.

— Dana White said after the fight that because of how close it was that they would probably rematch them next. White said the fight wasn’t what he expected and that he expected more action, that the decision wasn’t a robbery (either way it was close). White said he thought Anaklaev won.

— It also should be noted Justin Gaethje vs. Rafael Fiziev had a hell of a fight.

— We talked quite a bit last night on the site about the history of Mildred Burke and the movie Queen of the Ring and what was and wasn’t accurate (it was more accurate than I expected but obviously it’s a Hollywood movie and some liberties were taken). At press time for reasons I don’t know, the movie wasn’t even listed in the Friday rankings and they had 22 movies listed including one that grossed $377 for the week. The Saturday numbers are usually in by now but they aren’t either. We should have numbers tonight. Between hearing from people who saw it at empty theaters and our lack of feedback, I don’t expect major numbers.

— I heard today’s Saito Brothers vs. Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi match where Miyahara & Aoyagi won the All Japan world tag titles was an excellent match.

— Robbie Lawler was announced as the latest inductee into the UFC Hall of Fame. Very deserved. Also want to mention Lex Luger, which for all the obvious reasons, I was very happy to see being announced for the WWE Hall of Fame.

— Google searches for last night’s UFC show were about 1.4 million. An interesting one is that the Big 10 wrestling championships had 70,000 searches and the finals aren’t even until today.

–The Big 10 finals are tonight at 5:30 p.m. Eastern on the Big 10 network. The main event is the biggest match in college wrestling so far this season with Gable Steveson of Minnesota (11-0, with 63 wins in a row in college), the 2021 gold medalist, facing Greg Kerkvliet of Penn State (16-0 and the 2023 NCAA champion). This is expected to be a preview of the NCAA championship match at heavyweight in two weeks as they are by far the class of the division this year. The two wrestled in high school in 2018 and Steveson won 3-2 in his most competitive match in his high school career. Steveson beat him 9-4 in 2021 and 8-3 in 2022 in the NCAA tournament but Kerkvliet has improved significantly since that point. 

— Logan Paul participated in a celebrity soccer game at Wembley Stadium yesterday before almost 90,000 fans. Paul scored a goal on a header and also suplexed Joe Weller and pinned him in a goal celebration for the YouTube All Stars who played Sidemen FC. The game included KSI, IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat.

–The New Japan Cup matches held earlier today in Amagasaki saw Oleg Boltin over Bad Luck Fale, Great O’Khan over TV champion El Phantasmo, Drilla Moloney pinned Tomohiro Ishii (people were raving about this one), and Tetsuya Naito over Callum Newman.

— As far as next matches, you’ve got Evil vs David Finlay on Tuesday, Yuya Uemura vs. Yoshi-Hashi on Tuesday, Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ryohei Oiwa (both TMDK members) on Tuesday, Gabe Kidd vs. Taichi on Wednesday, O’Khan vs. Shota Umino on Wednesday, Naito vs. Jeff Cobb on Friday, Moloney vs. TJP on Friday and Boltin vs. Shingo Takagi on Friday.

— A&E has LFG tonight with Eric Bischoff and Sean Waltman as guests, Rivals at 9:30 is about HHH vs. Shawn Michaels and the Greatest Moments show is about the Emergence of the NWO.

— Defy announced Streets of Rage on 4/13 at 4 p.m. at Washington Hall in Seattle with Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Timothy Thatcher.

— The Patricio Pitbull Freire UFC debut against Yair Rodriguez on 4/12 is currently listed as being on the television prelims but Dana White said that positioning is not definite. A lot of people feel that the debut of Pitbull, generally considered the greatest Bellator fighter (although past his prime now) should be on the PPV, especially with an all action exciting fighter like Rodriguez.

— There will be a proclamation tomorrow in El Paso, TX to set up TNA Wrestling Day in El Paso County for this coming Friday, where TNA is running a big show. Tessa Blanchard will represent TNA tomorrow.

— The criminal charges against Thomas Wainsaw (Bear Boulder) from 1/13 were dropped. Wainsaw was charged with battery by strangulation. The alleged victim did not want the charges to go forward. She had not wanted him prosecuted from the start.