Daily Update: Vince McMahon, WWE SmackDown, AEW Collision

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • The new Observer is out right now. Among the key stuff covered:
  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • The plight of the recently fired WWE wrestlers and where many can or will wind up
  • What is a key point about wrestlers who come from WWE and their ability to adapt to other companies and what things need to be considered
  • XFL/USFL merger talks and why
  • More on Terry Funk including his career title history and biggest awards, some of the biggest and most notable title change matches of his career, the only HBO wrestling special and the only time Vince McMahon did a broadcast announcing with Gordon Solie, why Funk’s proposed lengthy reign with the biggest regional title in the countr6 ended in a few weeks, the amazing Funk Brothers legacy in Japan, Funk’s NWA title reign and booking behind his biggest matches
  • Preview of the NXT & AEW shows, lots of talk by Bryan Danielson about Zack Sabre and his retirement, strange things about the show, AEW PPV airing on free TV in the U.K., and early notes on WWE Fastlane
  • Destruction in Kobe and the next few NJPW shows
  • More on the All In attendance mark
  • The dismissal of the landmark Mark Hunt suit against Dana White, UFC and Brock Lesnar and the judges ruling
  • Full UFC weekend coverage
  • The most detailed look at the ratings for the past week, the segments, the competition and where audiences were up and down
  • The KeMonito story in Mexico that is mainstream news there regarding his retirement
  • Lots of injury updates
  • Stardom Grand Prix updates
  • Junior Battle of Glory
  • Katsuhiko Nakajima update
  • How Jericho vs Takeshtia was put together
  • Two former WWE stars talk their steroid use
  • wXw major tag team tournament weekend
  • FantasticaMania notes
  • More on MLW and its relationship with CMLL and NJPW
  • GCW continues to tour overseas
  • Imapct Bound for Glory notes
  • PCO talks his departure from Impact and who Impact is looking to sign
  • Lots of thoughts on Tony Khan’s recent press conference
  • FOX and AEW comments, streaming comments, more PPV, ownership talk
  • How Dynamite changed this week and why
  • Kyle O’Reilly update
  • Title Tuesday
  • Notes on AEW DVR numbers for Grand Slam
  • Ticket sales for upcoming WWE and AEW shows
  • Jade Cargill to WWE
  • WWE back broadcasting in Japan
  • Shawn Michaels talks lots of WWE subjects
  • International TV ratings and streaming notes
  • WWE market value

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Friday Update

Garrett Gonzales and I just did our week in review show. We talked about the big shows this weekend, Tony Khan’s press conference and upcoming AEW business, Terry Funk and Abdullah the Butcher in Japan, Destruction in Kobe, Roman Reigns and Jade Cargill and so much more. Bryan and I will be back Sunday night covering the big weekend shows.

Joyce Grable, who we’ve talked about a few times this week on shows, unfortunately passed away earlier today at the age of 70. Grable was part of the Fabulous Moolah’s stable and worked regularly during the 70s and into the early 80s and was world women’s tag team champions with both Wendi Richter and Vicki Williams.

Curtis Smith, who was part of The Infernos tag team, passed away on Monday at the age of 80. He was living in Carrollton, GA. His older brother was a pro wrestler, Rocky Smith, and they were The Infernos managed by J.C. Dykes. He had many other names including The Blue Inferno and the Blue Yankee. He ended up working in the fire department after his wrestling career was over. We’ll have a story on him in the next issue but the Infernos were a top tag team in many territories during the 60s and 70s.

Daniel Cormier, Kevin Jackson and Drew Brees were announced as 2024 inductees into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Cormier and Jackson are the first amateur wrestlers ever inducted into that Hall of Fame. Cormier was UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion. Kevin Jackson was an Olympic gold medalist who later went into MMA He fought Frank Shamrock for the first UFC middleweight championship, with Shamrock winning in 13 seconds.

Vince McMahon has agreed to personally pay $2 million to the plaintiffs’ attorneys as part of a lawsuit against himself and WWE. It was a stockholders lawsuit about changing of bylaws that allowed McMahon to return with more power. The bylaws that the company was sued on were changed back, thus making the lawsuit moot. The suit was also regarding money the company had paid for the investigation into Vince McMahon. Since McMahon paid the company the $17.4 million in investigation costs back, that was also moot and the suit was dropped. Because those things were not moot at the filling of the suit, the plaintiffs did get their legal fees reimbursed, not by the company but by Vince individually.

WWE Smackdown tonight is from Sacramento,CA. Rey Mysterio vs. Santos Escobar for the U.S. title and Charlotte Flair vs. Bayley have been announced , plus The Grayson Waller Effect with Bobby Lashley. The show is sold out with 12,648 tickets out as of earlier today. That’s three sellouts in the last four WWE TV shows and four in the last six shows period. These are all doing record gates in most cities.

We got actual match-by-match numbers for Collision on Friday. The big upswing in viewers was both the Julia Hart vs,. Kiera Hogan (601,000/265,000 18-49) and Andrade vs. Jay White (611,000/263,00 18-49) matches. It appears the growth was during halftime of the Ohio State vs. Notre Dame game, which explains it. The Bryan Danielson vs. Ricky Starks main event while the game was on did 577,000 viewers and 240,000 in 18-49. Another key is the change in the audience itself as the show went on. The Luchasaurus vs Chrsitian vs. Darby Allin match did 62.9 percent male fans, the highest percentage of women on the show. Males grew greatly, especially during halftime as White vs. Andrade was 79.5 percent male and the FTR vs Workhorsemen was 81.3 percent male. Danielson vs.Starks was 76.3 percent. Usually AEW is 67 to 70 percent male so this was well above usual.

Impact did well above usual 126,000 viewers and 0.03 in 18-49 last night. It was the most viewers for the show since 7/27.

CMLL has Noche de Campeones (Night of Champions) tonight at Arena Mexico with fans voting on who faces the different champions. The lineup is in the Observer but the big match is Titan defending the CMLL welterweight title against Mascara Dorda. This could be one of the best matches of the year in Mexico. 

AAA has Heroes Inmortales,one of its big events of the year, tomorrow night in Zapopan, which is in the Guadalaja region. In the Observer I mistakenly wrote it was in Ciudad Juarez. It’s at Arena Benito Juarez but that’s in Zapopan and I’ve been in that area, which is a 12,000 seater that resembles the old Sam Houston Coliseum. El Hjio del Vikingo & Myzteziz vs. Dralistico & Bestia del Ring and Alberto el Patron & Octagon Jr vs. QT Marshall & Sam Adonis are the headliners. I have no idea if Vikingo will actually be wrestling due to his hip injury.

In the Observer this week when mentioning the most popular foreign stars in Japan in reference to Terry Funk, we inadvertently left off The Destroyer, who would be near the top, particularly mainstream. Rikidozan vs. Destroyer did a 64.0 rating for theri 1963 match which is much bigger than a Super Bowl game in the U.S. Destroyer was also part of a very popular comedy television show in Japan during the 70s. As far as mainstream, he would have been more famous than people like Stan Hansen, Andre the Giant, The Funks and Bruiser Brody.

The long Five Star Grand Prix tournament from Stardom ends with the finals at 3 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning from the Yokohama Budokan. The show airs on PPV live and will be on Stardom World in a few days. The final night matches are Mina Shirakawa vs. Saori Aou, Mariah May vs. Hanan, AZM vs. Momo Watanabe, Mirai vs. Maika, Hazuki vs. Natsuko Tora, Syuri vs. Ami Sohrei, Tam Nakano vs. Natsupoi and Mayu Iwatani vs Starlight Kid.

Rey Mysterio will be on Kevin Hart’s Cold as Balls podcast on Tuesday. Mysterio will also be a presenter at the 2023 Latin Billboard Music Awards show on Thursday which airs on Telemundo.

Entertainment Weekly had a story on Heels and showrunner Mike O’Malley is looking to keep the show alive on another station after STARZ canceled it last week. He said that some of the cast is under contract so if the show continues they would be back.

Rampage tonight at 10 p.m. on TNT:

  • The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn defend the trios titles against Hardys & Brother Zay
  • Eddie Kingston vs. Rocky Romero for the New Japan Strong title – we were told this was a very good match
  • The Righteous vs. Gunner & Caleb Crush
  • Hikaru Shida vs. Ruby Soho – winner faces Saraya on 10/10 for the AEW women’s title

Tyson Fury and Olekandr Usyk have reached an agreement for a boxing heavyweight title unification match. The tentative but not finalized date for the PPV show is 12/23 in Saudi Arabia. Fury first faces Francis Ngannou of MMA fame on 10/28 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, one week before WWE goes to Riyadh.

HOLA listed the top 100 Latina powerhouses and Zelina Vega was featured on that list.

WWE announced they will have a Fastlane store in Indianapolis on Level 2 of the Circle Centre Mall. There will be merchandise and meet and greets next Friday at 4:30 p.m. with Shinsuke Nakamura, next Saturday at Noon with Santos Esobar and next Sunday at 11 a.m. with Iyo Sky. The store will be open Friday and Saturday as well as Sunday morning after the show.

There is no UFC show this weekend after 17 straight Saturdays with a show. UFC will return on 10/7, a night that will include WWE Fastlane and AEW Collision besides all the college football.

The biggest MMA show will be a PFL Europe playoff show on Saturday night in Paris, France. The show airs in Europe on DAZN but will not air on TV or be streamed in the U.S.

Impact will be doing a Gut Check for U.K. talent scouring them on 10/25 in Glasgow, Scotland and 10/29 in Coventry, England. You can register for the tryout here.

Stardom had a New Blood show today in Tokyo: Hanan won a three-way over Kizuna Tanaka and Hanako (Tanaka is the daughter of wrestlers Minoru Tanaka and Yumi Fukawa), Ruaka b Lady C , Thekla won three-way over Sexy Dynamite Princess (Mariah May under a mask) and Waka Tsukiyama, Tan Nakano b Yuna Mizumori, Nanae Takahashi b Mei Seira, Rina b Azusa Inba to keep the Future of Stardom title. The next New Blood show will be Christmas Day.

Combate Global runs at 7:30 pm. Saturday night from Miami on Paramount+ and later that night on Univision where it continues to draw very good numbers with younger viewers. The main event features Henry Beltran (1-0) vs. Anthony Jagel (0-0-) Jagel is an undefeated amateur who wrestled at Notre Dame College (not Notre Dame University).

Bobby Fulton is running a show Saturday at the OU-Shoemaker Center in Chillicothe, OH. There will be a fan fest from Noon to 5 p.m. with Bret Hart, Jim Duggan, Meng, Barbarian, Mark Henry, Godfather, D-Lo Brown, Ted DiBiase, Mike Rotunda, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham, Austin Idol, Tommy Rich, Downtown Bruno, Rikishi, Nick Aldis Victoria and more. There will also be a Q&A session with Duggan, Rich, Bill Eadie, Barry Darsow and Bobby Fulton. Plus at 7 p.m. there will be a show with Nick Aldis vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. as the main event.

MCW on 10/13 at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppa, MD

Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling presents Legends never Die on 10/6 in Newark, CA at the Pavilion featuring a meet and greet with Mick Foley, plus The Freaks vs. Too Fresh vs Honor Society, QT Marshall vs. Vinne Massaro, Aaron Solo & John Morrison vs Jacob Fatu & Starboy Charlie, Big Fonz vs JR Kratos, Su Yung vs. Viva Van and more.