Daily Update: Vince McMahon, Forbidden Door, John Cena

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

  • Among the highlights:
  • Match and performer of the week
  • How Stephanie McMahon went from leaving the company to CEO in a few weeks
  • Who they say put her in charge
  • Update on the Vince McMahon story
  • The departure of John Laurinaitis
  • Talent on Laurinaitis and Bruce Prichard
  • Settling the Oliver Luck lawsuit
  • Law firms looking into WWE and what to look for in that story
  • Preview of Forbidden Door
  • Forbidden Door ticket demand
  • Comparisons with a WCW show and how that show did
  • Upcoming WWE PPV and injury news
  • A look back at the 20 year history of Impact Wrestling
  • Business notes on Slammiversary
  • The crossover among WWE and AEW fans to those who ordered Slammiversary
  • Why this year’s G1 tournament looks very different from the past
  • Full coverage of Triplemania including business notes
  • UFC coverage for this week’s show
  • A look at the late Tim White and his memories of his time with Andre the Giant
  • A look at the career of the late Dave Hebner
  • Ratings for all the shows as well as how the segments did
  • Stardom PPV card this week
  • Last week’s major All Japan show
  • The last matches of Keiji Muto
  • Yet another thing negatively impacts New Japan financially
  • This past week’s NJPW shows and the next and return of Kushida
  • Upcoming US dates and lineups
  • AEW champion working on big New Japan show in July
  • Update on the health of Jim Duggan
  • More on Ric Flair retirement match
  • Japanese star writes English language book
  • Daughter of 90s star debuts
  • A look at Will Ospreay vs. Nick Wayne
  • Impact TV notes
  • More on Blood & Guts
  • Ticket sales for AEW & WWE shows coming up
  • Story behind what was supposed to happen in the Hardy match
  • More AEW injuries
  • Streaming numbers
  • Dana White talks about Nate Diaz
  • Lots of new UFC fights
  • John Cena’s drawing power
  • NXT UK taping note
  • Weekend house show reports
  • Streaming numbers
  • International ratings notes

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Monday News Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw, more on Forbidden Door, Rita Chatterton and much more. if you have any questions about the New Yorker story you can send them to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com
  • On the front page they note the Rita Chatterton story regarding Vince McMahon in New York Magazine by Abraham Riesman, who is doing a book on McMahon. Early in the day people were freaking out considering Vince McMahon just got all that coverage, but I have not seen anything past wrestling sites mention it and McMahon is not on the Google search list today. I think part of it is that Chatterton would call McMahon names but would not talk about the incident itself. The next issue will have a detailed story about what was going on then regarding the story. We’ll talk about it some tonight. Neither WWE nor Jerry McDevitt have responded to any questions regarding the story. But with the media not picking up on it, and I can see why, the story doesn’t appear to be harmful to McMahon’s position right now.
  • ROH’s next show, the Death Before Dishonor PPV, takes place on 7/23 at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, MA. 
  • Some stuff off last night’s show. Jon Moxley is fine and said he probably shouldn’t have said he might have a concussion in the post-match interview and said it was just something he said but he’s fine and he’s having so much fun in the ring with his new angle. He heavily praised Tanahashi. Adam Cole looks like he suffered a concussion last night which is why the finish was awkward. As we have noted, he’s been working with a torn labrum. Sting said last night’s match was the most fun he’s had in the ring in years. Backstage people were going crazy with the quality of Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy. 
  • Raw tonight is the John Cena 20th anniversary special. It is expected to do another big rating for Cena’s first time back on WWE television in months. The show is a complete sellout of 8,200 fans in Laredo, TX, and they were probably going to do around 4,500 if Cena was not on the show based on ticket sales (3,700) at the time of the announcement of Cena. It was noted it could have grown even more if they were running in a larger arena. It’s expected that they will start the ball rolling on Cena vs. Theory at SummerSlam, and it will inter sting to see how much tickets for that show start moving if he’s announced. For tonight, it’s Ezekiel (or someone from the family) vs. Kevin Owens in a MITB qualifying match.
  • We’re looking for reports from tonight in Laredo, as well as for the WWE show yesterday in Hidalgo, TX and Saturday in Amarillo and Abilene to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
  • We’re also doing polls on Forbidden Door and the Stardom PPV show from Nagoya so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match from each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
  • AEW was the No. 10 most searched topic on Google today. On Saturday night, Forbidden Door was No. 9, at 50,000, but now it’s disappeared from the listings. I have no idea how that’s possible But that is well down from the 200,000 for Double or Nothing and the recent PPV shows, which is an early indicator of how the show did.
  • The Miesha Tate vs. Lauren Murphy fight that was scheduled for Saturday’s PPV show has been moved to 7/16 at the UBS Arena in Long Island, which will air on ABC. 
  • AEW has still only announced the 12-man Blood & Guts match with Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston & Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta & Santana & Ortiz vs. Chris Jericho & Jake Hager & Sammy Guevara & Daniel Garcia & Matt Menard & Angelo Parker for the Wednesday night show.
  • NXT tomorrow has Katana Chance & Kayden Carter vs. Roxanne Perez & Cora Jade with the winners getting a tag title shot, Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen appear as the new NXT UK tag champions, Sanga vs. Xyon Quinn, Indi Hartwell vs. Kiana James, a face-to-face with Bron Breakker and Cameron Grimes to build to their title match at the 7/2 Great American Bash and Nikkita Lyons returns. Lyons did work over the weekend.
  • Liv Morgan and Kofi Kingston will be the first guests on WWE x G4 Arena show on 7/6 at 7 p.m.
  • Liv Morgan also announced that she will donate every dollar she earns on Cameo in July to the National Network of Abortion Funds, an organization to help people who need financial help to get abortions whether they are poor or live in the wrong state. She’s charging $555 per cameo video next month to raise the money.
  • The Tam Nakano vs. Natsupoi match tomorrow at Korakuen Hall was asked for by Natsupoi because she had never main evented Korakuen Hall as a single. We had reported she asked for it as a result of how well the cage match got over, and Rossy Ogawa agreed. She had asked for it but it was weeks ago. That was the reason they did a cage match and two days later did a regular non-stipulation singles match.
  • Jade Cargill threw out the first pitch at a Chicago White Sox vs. Baltimore Orioles game over the weekend.

UFC

  • Tanner Boser vs. Rodrigo Nascimento is being looked at for 9/17 according to MMA Fighting.

Other Notes

  • Defy from Saturday night for another sold out show at Washington Hall in Seattle: Nick Wayne b Dante Martin, Daniel Garcia b Trey Miguel (I was told best match), Christopher Daniels b Lee Moriarty to keep the Defy interim title, Bollywood Boyz b Sebastian Wolfe & Miles Deville to keep the tag titles, Viva Van b Danika Della Rouge in a street fight to keep the PCW Ultra women’s title, Davey Richards b Adam Ryder, Cody Chhun & Guillermo Rosas b Ethan HD & STeve Miga, Eli Surge won three-way over Jordan Oliver and Sonico. The are running 7/16 and 7/17 back at Washington Hall.
  • UAE Warriors has MMA shows on 7/2 and 7/3 from the Etihad Arena in Yas Island. Both shows will air on Fight Pass live. Ali Alqaisi (12-5) defends his featherweight title against Jesse Arnett (19-8) and bantamweight champion Vinicius de Oliveira (17-2) defends against Ali Taleb (6-0). The 7/3 show is headlined by the Arabia bantamweight title with Xavier Alaoui (12-4) vs. Fabricio Sarraf (29-10) to crown a champion, plus the Arabia middleweight title is crated with Eslam Syahra (12-2) vs. Laid Zerhouni (9-7) and the Arabia flyweight tie is created with Nawras Abzakh (9-4) vs. Sami Yahia (10-4).
  • Mistico is off tonight’s CMLL show in Puebla due to an ankle injury and Soberano Jr is being sent as a replacement. (thanks to Rene Ochoa)
  • Warrior Wrestling from yesterday in Chicago: Miranda Alize b Heather Reckless, Mike Bennett b Beastman, Gringo Loco won over Alpha Wolf, ASF, Dragon Bane, Golden Dragon and Ninja Mack, Davey Richards b Tom Lawlor, Zachary Wentz & Myron Reed & Dante Leon b Blake Christian & Fuego del Sol & Nick Wayne, KC Navarro b Brian Pillman Jr to keep Warrior title. Pillman subbed for Mike Bailey, who had transportation issues (thanks to Leonard Brand)
  • LFA has announced an 8/5 show in Shawnee, OK at the Grand Casino Hotel and Resort, an 8/19 show in Niagara Falls, NY at the Seneca Niagara Resort and 8/26 in New Town, ND at he 4 Bears Casino and Lodge. The top matches in Shawnee are Ary Farias (11-3) vs. Michinori Tanaka (14-3) and Askar Askar (13-2) vs. Diego Silva (14-7).
  • New Japan posted the 2019 Dallas match with Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
  • Tom Breese retained the LFL middleweight title over Ahmed Sami (7-2) via guillotine in round two in Amsterdam, Holland last night. Akonne Wanliss (6-2) became the company’s first lightweight champion beating Manuel Gaxhja (7-1).