Daily Update: Vince McMahon, TKO, CM Punk

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

One of the largest issues in the history of the Observer is out this week:

  • The Janel Grant lawsuit against Vince McMahon
  • Analysis of the lawsuit and different claims
  • Details of the claims
  • Comments from all sides
  • Just how vulgar some of the stories were
  • What the text messages show
  • The Netflix detail and full details
  • The economics of the deal
  • How much money WWE is guaranteed without selling one ticket or selling any merchandise or advertising or sponsorships
  • Background of the negotiations
  • Dwayne Johnson on the Board of Directors
  • More on 2025 plans
  • Nick Khan, Dwayne Johnson and other comments
  • How this affects AEW
  • Difference between AEW & WWE audience when it comes to college education and household earnings
  • Ratings going forward
  • Mark Shapiro’s new contract
  • AEW house show issues and what has to be done and changes expected to be made
  • Issues with the events
  • A look at the Royal Rumble
  • Full UFC 297 coverage
  • UFC signs Kayla Harrison and her biggest test
  • A look at the career of new UFC Hall of Famer Frankie Edgar
  • 2023 Awards ballot
  • A look at the life of Harold “Ice Train” Hoag
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the wrestling TV shows of the past week, segment highs and lows, comparisons with one year ago and competition
  • Friday night at Arena Mexico
  • TripleMania plans
  • AAA plans on using controversial names
  • More on AAA 2024 plans
  • Stardom awards
  • Why Shuji Ishikawa left All Japan
  • Three generations of the same family and Japanese major bouts
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi talks Kazuchika Okada leaving
  • Okada’s left match at Korakuen Hall
  • Update on Iron Claw movie
  • Puerto Rico show featuring major names
  • Notes on the next season of Dark Side of the Ring
  • Top indie star to come out of retirement
  • Updated AEW & TNA PPV numbers
  • Update on Kazuchika Okada and Mercedes Mone destinations
  • Peacock ads subscribers leading into RoyalRumble
  • WWE injury updates
  • Nick Khan talks about his introduction to WWE
  • Cena talks his future
  • International TV ratings
  • What three pro wrestlers are in the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back up tonight talking the fallout of the press conference, Royal Rumble injuries and the rest of the news of the week with Wrestling Observer radio tonight.

There has been a lot of mainstream press yesterday and today regarding Vince McMahon stepping down and questioning why Endeavor ever allowed him to stay, as well as the press conference stuff. Some stuff includes: New York Times, Deadline, CNN. 

We’ll be talking a lot more about this tonight.

We’re looking for your thoughts on the Royal Rumble, 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

WWE stock fell 4.4 percent today to $82.73. It’s now almost back to where it was before the Netflix announcement was made. The drop in this case is related to the lawsuit news and it leading to the departure of Vince McMahon as well as the handling of the situation with people questioning why, since this should have been known in a 2022 investigation, did all this come out now and why he was still in the company. Also, while Vince was not involved in running creative , the idea his Chairman position was figurehead is also not accurate and he was the guy who made the UFC’s deal in Saudi Arabia so he absolutely was one of the most powerful people in the company until this past week.

As noted earlier today, C.M. Punk suffered a torn right triceps in taking the Future shock DDT from Drew McIntyre in the Rumble. He worked several minutes on it. He will address the issue and it relating to WrestleMania on Raw tonight. If he can’t do WrestleMania, this heavily changes the show which was already changed due to the decision to not use Brock Lesnar any time soon. The torn triceps he suffered in 2022 in the match with Jon Moxley was the left triceps.

Raw tonight is from Tampa and they have a sellout of 12,500+ in the building. Bayley will be on the show. Damian Priest & Finn Balor defend the tag titles against Johnny Gargano & Tomasso Ciampa. Gunther defends the IC title against Kofi Kingston. Jey Uso faces Bronson Reed. The first hour is commercial free. The show is expected to draw the largest ratings in months, both because it’s the show after the Rumble (last year’s similar show did 2,114,000 viewers and 0.64 in 18-49. And all the WWE publicity from the Vince McMahon thing has always led in the past to big ratings increases for a week.

We’re looking for reports from Tampa, with Main Event matches and anything else from the live show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Jeff Hardy will be doing a concert on 4/5 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia after the Mark Hitchcock Memorial show.

Very sad to report the death of the mother of Nikola Bogojevic (Otis) over the weekend.

Dwayne Johnson is the Grand Marshal for the Daytona 500 on 2/18.

Thursday’s TNA show has Chris Bey & Ace Austin vs. Grizzled Young Veterans as part of a best of three series over the tag titles, plus Nic Nemeth vs. Trey Miguel.

NWA Powerrr debuts on the CW app on 2/9.

Alexa Bliss was backstage at the Rumble.

Today’s results from the Jericho Cruise:Nick Wayne b Colt Cabana, Gisele Shaw b Steph De Lander, Swerve Strickland & Toa Liona & Bishop Kaun b Action Andretti & Darius & Dante Martin, Michael Coku b Matt Cardona to win the Oceanic title

AEW Dynamite on Wednesday is Deonna Purrazzo vs. Taya Valkyrie, Adam Page vs. Toa Liona, Swerve Strickland vs. Rob VanDam, and Chris Jericho vs. Kyle Fletcher in a non-title match.

Pro Wrestling Eve Shevolution on 2/1 with Safire Reed and Eve champion Nina Samuels each picking their opponent, with Reed vs. Harley Hudson and Samuels vs. LA Taylor. The show is at the Penny Social in Walthamstow in London, UK.

Glory is bringing back the old heavyweight one-night man man kickboxing tournaments on 3/9 at the GeireDome football stadium in Annheim, the Netherlands. The winner gets $500,000. Rico Verhoevn, Levi Rigters, Tariq Osaro, Nordine Mahieddine, Solfan Laidouni, Uku Jurjendal, Bahram Rajabzadeh and Nabil Khachab are the eight men involved.