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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

With the death of Ole Anderson this week, we have a giant issue of the Observer with a huge bio of Anderson, talking about his entire career in the business, as a wrestler, promoter, booker and later executive with WCW. We talk about the beginnings of Georgia wrestling on national television, the expansion, Dusty Rhodes vs. Ole Anderson, The Black Scorpion, The Four Horsemen, Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Black Saturday and so much more. This issue includes:

  • The life and times of Ole Anderson
  • A story on the death of Mike “Virgil” Jones
  • Update on WrestleMania
  • Coverage of Elimination Chamber
  • Rock on Smackdown
  • Updated Mania lineup
  • Business notes on Elimination Chamber
  • Update on WWE & UFC 2023 business, along with 2024 projections and why the stock price dropped
  • Sting’s last match and AEW Revolution preview
  • Secondary market notes
  • History of Greensboro sellouts
  • Darby Allin and Young Bucks talk Sting
  • New Japan after Okada looked at
  • What New Japan needs to do
  • How Matt Riddle and Nic Nemeth started in New Japan
  • New Japan Cup news
  • Rundowns of New Beginning in Sapporo
  • UFC from Mexico City rundown
  • 2023 Shad Gaspard/Jon Huber Award winners
  • Triple Crown winners of Wrestler of the Year, Most Outstanding and Match of the Year in the same year
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the shows, segment-by-segment, demos, competition and weekly placings as well as comparisons to one year ago
  • First ever all women’s Friday night show at Arena Mexico
  • Notes on the next CMLL tournament
  • Wrestlers leaving AAA
  • Stardom Cinderella tournament
  • Two major Stardom stars confirmed as staying with the promotion
  • Movie coming out on 70s star
  • More on MLW lawsuit settlement with WWE
  • More plans and changes at TNA
  • Shocking PPV number and trying to explain it
  • Tony Khan talks business and how many PPV shows per year is optimum
  • More on the visa situation with Mexican talent
  • More on Darby Allin climbing Mount Everest
  • Lots of injury updates
  • International TV ratings
  • Advance ticket sales for WWE & AEW shows
  • Biggest event in PFL history
  • More on the Nick Kiniski story
  • Dwayne Johnson gets ownership of all his IPs
  • WWE writer talks about Vince McMahon
  • WWE star in BJJ tournament

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio covering Raw, Paul Heyman, more fallout from Revolution and the rest of the wrestling and MMA news.

Vince McMahon today sold 5,350,000 shares of WWE stock, which is about 6.5 percent of the company, for $411.95 million. With the sale he now owns 8.3 percent of the company.

Raw is tonight in San Antonio. The show was sold out with 13,500 tickets out at the Frost Bank Center as of yesterday. This marks the fifth straight time WWE has sold that building out for television making San Antonio one of the best WWE cities in the world. Jey Uso vs. Drew McIntyre and Becky Lynch vs. Nia Jax are on the show.

We’re looking for reports on the show with anything off television like the Main Event matches to dave@wrestlingobserver.com We’re also looking for reports from the weekend WWE shows in Palm Desert, CA and Bakersfield, CA on Saturday and Sunday.

We’re looking for your thoughts on last night’s Revolution show, so you can leave a thumbs up, down or middle, best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

WWE announced Paul Heyman as the first inductee into its 2024 class of the Hall of Fame. A lot of people expected this with ECW having been based in Philadelphia and remembered best in Philadelphia. Obviously Heyman is a Hall of Famer just for his work as a manager as well as his creative work, as one can argue him as the best second in history. The obvious arguments would by Bobby Heenan, Jim Cornette and Gary Hart, and Heyman beats them all greatly in longevity and also has the creativity and booking aspect to be considered. 

For AEW Dynasty, there will be a presale on Wednesday and tickets go on sale o the public on Friday. Running the Chaifetz Arena so soon is a surprise as they were last in the building for a Collision taping on 1/20 and didn’t draw well at all. As good as last night was, turning around a house show business when you are No. 2 in the market is historically very difficult unless you’ve got a Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Bruno Sammartino type of level of a star. They are also putting ticets no sale for 4/10 in Charleston, WV. With last night’s show in the books, the only show with a big advance is next week in Boston for the expected Mercedes Mone debut.

AEW is taping Wednesday and Thursday (Collision airs Saturday but not live) in Duluth, GA. Tony Khan has been saying that something major will be happening. They are expected to announce details of the March tournament for the vacant tag team titles on Wednesday.

Sting called last night’s match against The Young Bucks one of the three best matches of his career. All four were thrilled how it turnedut with Nick Jackson saying it may have been the most fun he’s ever had in a match.

Another big thing noted to us was the reaction of the stars from the past to Will Ospreay, and the match with Konosuke Takeshita. Many people there who had been in the business for decades had never seen an Ospreay match although had heard of him. It was noted that they couldn’t believe how good he was. 

Another note is one of our readers who was live at the show said in his section there were fans who only cared about WWE talent on the show and kept calling them as Dean Ambrose, Cesaro or Daniel Bryan and said several were outright racist at the start of Ospreay vs. Takeshita with kung fu and talking in offensive dialect about Takeshita and even trying to get a “Take a Shit” chant going that thankfully never went anywhere.

Friday ratings saw Smackdown at 2.35 million viewers and 0.64, which is significantly lower than I’d have expected for a show with Dwayne Johnson. It’s a solid number for a normal show these days. It was the most-watched sports show in the country that night. Rampage did 344,000 viewers and an 0.10 for the show that featured Claudio Castagnoli vs. Rugido. Both shows went against NBA on ESPN and NASCAR Trucks Racing on FS1.

ESPN’s Pat McAfee show will broadcast live from the WWE fan fest in Philadelphia on 4/5, the day before the show. While not announced, another significant podcaster is likely to broadcast a show from there.

Jake Paul announced he will run a show on 4/26. It’s not official if he will fight on that show yet.

Former wrestling promoter Joel Goodhart last night on the Bay Ragni producast said he would be writing a book with Scott Teal, and is hoping to do a TWA Reunion show (thanks to Chuck Langerman)

Anatoly Malykhin became the first three-division world champion in MMA history on 3/3 in Doha, Qatar when he captured the ONE middleweight title from Reinier de Ridder. Malykhin also holds the ONE tietl at both heavyweight and light heavyweight. Malykhin won via strikes on the ground at 1:16 of the third round.

The CBS Sunday Morning show in talking about the major names who passed away over the past week, mentioned Ole Anderson.

I taped an episode of Talk is Jericho talking about Ole Anderson earlier today, which should be out relatively soon. The Dark Side of the Ring episode on Black Saturday coming out over the next month or two will also heavily talk about Anderson. I’m not sure if he was on that episode or not, but Gerald Brisco was among those interviewed 

NXT has a themed Roadblock episode tomorrow night. NXT themed shows usually do well above usual. The card has Asuka & Kairi Sane defending the tag titles against Lyra Valkyria & Tatum Paxley, Baron Corbin & Bron Breakker defending the NXT tag titles against Andre Chase & Duke Hudson, Tony D’Angelo vs. Carmelo Hayes with the winner facing Ilja Dragunov for the title at Stand & Deliver, Dijak vs. Joe Gacy in an asylum match plus Shawn Spears appears.

The new season of Dark Side of the ring debuts tomorrow night with an episode on Earthquake John Tenta.

GCW is running Saturday night in Atlantic City at the Showboat with names like Microman, Danhausen, Ryuji Ito vs. Nick Gage, Abdullah Kobayashi vs. Matt Tremont. They run the same building on Sunday with Tremont & Maki Itoh & Gage vs. Allie Katch & Dark Sheik & Effy.

CIW from Sunday night in Toledo, OH: Andy Chene b Chuck Wagon, Island Fury Taino b Ace Evans, Great Tiger won over Papa Dingo, Kenny Urban and Josh Morris, Kaiden Monohan b Barron Voodoo, Dishonorable Shotguns b Saint Brothers, Malice b Michael Elgin-DQ to keep the CIW title. Elgin said that he was planning on retiring but instead will wrestle exclusively for this group. (thanks to Paul Meade)

Lee Moriarty vs. Titus Alexander headlines UWN on 3/12 at the Irvine, CA Improv. The show also includes Bad Dude Tito facing Vinnie Massaro. AEW’s Peter Avalon is also not on the show.