Daily Update: Vince McMahon retires from WWE

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Friday News Update

Bryan and I will be doing a special show later tonight on Vince McMahon leaving. It should be noted that WWE waited until minutes after the market closed today to make the announcement so there would be no immediate shock value on the stock.

There isn’t much else to report on the Vince story and the Brock Lesnar story. Lesnar did quit after Vince quit. So they will have to come up with something on tonight’s show to cover for that since Lesnar was to be the main focus of tonight’s show in Boston. WWE actually sent out a mailer after Lesnar quit pushing the show and plugging it around Lesnar. Obviously this was a right hand not knowing the left hand. We were told 100% Lesnar is not on tonight’s show.

Talent we’ve been in contact knows little. It was a crazy day. The speculation around it is the same as everyone’s, with the idea that either they were aware of damaging media stories or aware of something the independent investigation revealed. But the main thrust is Vince announced his retirement, there was a meeting, the talent was told Vince retired, Brock Lesnar walked out and now we’ve got a live show in Boston to get through. About the only thing of note is that at Money in the Bank, talent was told that Vince was not going to be leaving creative under any circumstance, and here we are.

For tonight, Bruce Prichard and Ed Koskey are in charge of the show. Paul Levesque is the guy they are reporting to.

Those who have been around the business are skeptical this is for good, noting the proclamations in the 90s that Pat Patterson would never work in the company again. Vince still owns the most stock, has 80 percent of voting power unless there is a sale, and his daughter is listed as co-CEO. The big question regarding who is now in charge of creative has not been answered. There will likely be a lot of news coming over the next few days as far as creative goes, but the first hurdle is tonight’s show and how SummerSlam changes.

The announcement of Paul Levesque back as EVP of Talent Relations would appear to be an indication that John Laurinaitis isn’t coming back in that role. Talent was happy that somebody was put in the role with the belief Bruce Prichard already had too much on his plate. Basically there was a need to know who to go to if there were any issues and there was uncertainty about that until Levesque was announced back in the position he had held for many years.

G-1 at 5:30 a.m.tomorrow morning Eastern time has Tomohiro Ishii vs. Jay White, Yoshi-Hashi vs. Shingo Takagi, Kazuchika Okada vs.Toru Yano and Aaron Henare vs.Zack Sabre Jr.

The New York Mets are doing WWE Night tonight at Citifield in the game against the San Diego Padres. For a $175 ticket you get a WWE Night Party with merchandise plus Bianca Belair will be at tonight’s game.

BetOnline has your Ric Flair match odds:

  • Flair & Andrade to win -2000
  • Lethal & Jarrett to win +700
  • First to bleed:
  • Jarrett +125
  • Flair +175
  • Lethal +240
  • Andrade +400

WrestleMania 39 tickets and all-inclusive packages for next year at SoFi Stadium went on sale today via On Location. Five different ticket packages are being offered, which will include VIP entrance and VIP checkout for merchandise.

In the when WWE is going TV-14 story, we saw a Peacock ad listing SummerSlam as TV-14 and Hulu has Raw listed as that, but WWE officials said as of this morning SummerSlam was not TV-14 and there’s been nothing said about Raw or Smackdown.

The Undertaker made a surprise appearance at the WWE Panel yesterday at the San Diego Comic Con. Cody Rhodes was also there.

Bellator weigh-ins for the show tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern on Showtime from Tacoma, WA:

  • Davion Franklin (264.2) vs. Marcelo Golm (257.6)
  • Lorenz Larkin (170.8) vs. Mukhamed Berkhamov (171)
  • Usman Nurmagomedov (155.2) vs. Chris Gonzalez (156)
  • Sidney Outlaw (155.4) vs. Tofiq Musayev (155)
  • Douglas Lima (172.8) vs. Jason Jackson (171) – Lima missed weight and was fined
  • UFC tomorrow is on ESPN+ starting at Noon Eastern and 9 a.m. Pacific
  • Claudio Silva (170.5) vs. Nicolas Dalby (170)
  • Victoria Leonardo (125.5) vs. Mandy Bohm (125)
  • Jai Herbert (155) vs. Kyle Nelson (155)
  • Muhammad Mokaev (126) vs. Charles Johnson (125.5)
  • Makwan Amirkhani (145.5) vs. Jonathan Pearce (145)
  • Nathaniel Wood (145.5) vs. Charles Rosa (145)
  • Marc Diakese (156) vs. Damir Hadzovic (156)
  • Mason Jones (155.5) vs. Ludovit Klein (155
  • Paul Craig (206) vs. Volkhan Oezdemir (205.5)
  • Molly McCann (125.5) vs. Hannah Goldy (125)
  • Nikita Krylov (204) vs. Alexander Gustafsson (205)
  • Paddy Pimblett (156) vs. Jordan Leavitt (155)
  • Jack Hermansson (186) vs Chris Curtis (186)
  • Curtis Blaydes (260) vs. Tom Aspinall (251)

AIW tomorrow night in Akron, OH at the Tadmor Shrine with Matt Cardona appearing, Johnny Gargano appearing although neither are wrestling on the show.

The family of the late Kirk White is promoting Big Time Wrestling on 7/29 at the Newark, CA Pavilion with Frankie Kazarian, Chris Bey, Vinnie Massaro vs. JR Kratos, and more.

New Japan officially announced Jay White, Fred Rosser, Tomohiro Ishii, Alex Zayne and Mistico for the 9/11 show at Sam’s Town in Las Vegas.

Stardom announced a lot of people out of this weekend’s shows in Nagoya, which included an all gimmick match show tomorrow and a few title matches on Sunday. Waka Tsukiyama and Akane Fujita are injured. Utami Hayashishita, Natuspoi and Mochi Natsumi are out due to poor physical condition which means they are sick.

One of the characters on Love Island USA is given the name Tarzan Tyler, which older fans will remember as a Montreal-based wrestling star of the 60s and 70s. Tyler & Luke Graham were the first of what is this version of the WWWF world tag team champions in 1971.

NFC will be holding a watch UFC 277 party on 7/30 at Big Sky in Buckhead. For just $5 you can get a ticket online with the promo code NFC.