Daily Update: Vince McMahon, Eric Priest, Mistico

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Some highlights:

  • A full look at AEW Grand Slam in Brisbane, Australia.  The mentality behind the show, a look at the card, ratings, booking, business and more
  • NXT Vengeance Day coverage
  • The life and times of Gran Hamada, great wrestler, influential in history, including the glory days of LLI at El Toreo and his biggest matches and feuds, booking to make a star, biggest feuds, multiple world titles and far more huge crowds than people would ever realize. Plus the Tiger Mask heyday, matches of the year candidates in his late 40s, and the start of multiple different companies
  • A look at the next WWE & AEW  PPV shows
  • The most detailed look at TV ratings and streaming for RAW, including how every show has compared with a year ago, the weekly standings, demos, quarters, every wrestling show on Netflix and more.
  • CMLL announces its second biggest show of the year
  • Valentine’s Day at Arena Mexico
  • Big head-to-head battle in Mexico City on Saturday
  • Fantastica Mania starts’
  • More on the awards issue including multiple category placers
  • Lots of AEW business notes
  • WWE & AEW ticket sales for upcoming show including multiple PPVs
  • Lots of new UFC main events announced
  • Topuria vacates featherweight title
  • Aaron Pico on leaving PFL
  • Notes on Mania plans
  • Notes on Dwayne Johnson being back
  • Michelle McCool Hall of Fame story
  • Notes on Hall of Fame update
  • Trauma of leaving WWE
  • Ricky Starks
  • Sonya Deville talks being let go
  • Michael Cole on the Corey Grave story

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Sunday Update

— Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about The Rock, the McMahon suit, the Ryan Nemeth suit, Mistico magic travels, SmackDown, and the rest of the weekend news. Our weekend show with Garrett Gonzales talked news of the past week including AEW/WWE ratings, Shane McMahon & Tony Khan, the incredible career of Gran Hamada and the heyday of UWA wrestling in Mexico and start of Lucharesu, the best wrestling schedule and WWE trauma and how it affects talent who are fired from the organization.

— Sad to report the death of Mike Boehne, who wrestled from about 2000 to 2018 in the Midwest as Eric “The Underwear Model” Priest. His death was from  a car accident at the age of 50. He started with  Ace Steel and Danny Dominion. He trained a lot of Chicago area guys. He was the world champion of the Dale Gagner (who used the name Dale Gagne claiming a relationship with the Gagne family) in the AWA after the more famous AWA had folded in the Midwest. Our longtime reader Steve Stone and Behne were talking about starting a podcast.  He had done some matches for WWE, TNA and ROH as an enhancement guy over the years.

— Lawyers for Vince McMahon in their response to the new Janel Grant lawsuit and in their argument for arbitration sent a 23-page filing saying that everything new in the lawsuit was known at the time of the original lawsuit and asked why it wasn’t in the original suit. They also argued that because Grant accepted the first $1 million payment that means she accepted the terms of the NDA and it has to be upheld, meaning the case has to go to arbitration rather than go to court. They are arguing that the SEC fine has no relevance to this case and that the allegations against Dr. Carlon Colker aren’t relevant to the case.

— SmackDown ratings will be out tomorrow for the U.S. For Netflix countries for the daily placings on the first day the show aired in the respective countries, it was down in Canada (second place last week; fifth this week), up in Mexico (fifth last four, fourth this week), down in the U.K. (second last week fourth this week), down in Australia (fourth last week, fifth this week) and up in New Zealand (fifth last week; fourth this week).

— It appears Mistico is going to work this coming Friday at Arena Mexico. So the idea is he’s working Friday night in Tokyo, flying to Mexico City and working Friday night there, then flying to San Francisco for the AEW show on Saturday night.  I guess it’s possible.  

— In last night’s UFC show, the main event saw Song Yadong get a technical decision when Henry Cejudo couldn’t continue after an eye poke. There is a lot of controversy because if Yadong was given a foul point as he should have for the eye poke, the fight would have been scored  a majority draw. Dana White was asked afterwards if he wanted to do a rematch and said, “Not at all.  Not even a little bit. I just don’t want to see it again.”

— Cejudo posted a photo today and said he suffered diplopia (double vision), soft tissue damage and a corneal abrasion. Cejudo was hospitalized after the show and said that he wanted a rematch.

— New Day vs. Joaquin Wilde & Cruz del Toro has been added to Raw tomorrow.

— For Google searches this weekend, SmackDown had 20,000 and usually it doesn’t rate. UFC’s show yesterday had 700,000, which is high for a fight night. Brendan Allen was evidently a big hit.

— For Raw tomorrow, they’ve pushed Seth Rollins, CM Punk and Logan Paul all on the show pushing the Men’s Chamber match.

— Regarding Clark Connors coming to AEW, he is still with New Japan but is working some dates in AEW.

— For some matches to check out, I haven’t seen it yet but I’ve been told to make sure to see the Komander vs. Lee Johnson and CMLL match on ROH over the weekend and the CMLL Mexico City vs. Guadalajara Torneo de Escuelas match from Friday night. Hologram vs. Mortos and Chris Jericho vs. Bandido on last night’s Collision were both excellent.  

— Pro Wrestling Revolucion sold out in San Jose last night with more than 1,000 fans for Ultimo Dragon vs. Negro Casas. I saw those two at a sold out Korakuen Hall live 25 years ago.

–There was a serious accident at a show in Aguascalientes last night at the El Hijo del Santo farewell show. The rope snapped in the opener when two guys were going for a Spanish fly.  The show was stopped and an ambulance was called for. Misterius suffered a fractured collarbone and  cervical sprain. The police were called. They did resume the show afterwards.

— Phaidra Knight made history last night as she is believed to be the oldest woman ever to win an MMA fight in the U.S. Knight fought at Flex Fights in Patchogue NY, and won her first pro fight at the age of 50. She went 6-0 as an amateur. She was an outstanding athlete, named U.S. Rugby Player of the decade of 2000-2009 and is in the World Rugby Hall of Fame.

— GFL has applied to run shows at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden for shows this spring and summer.

— Vickie Guerrero will appear on the 3/15 Memphis Wrestling TV tapings.