Daily Update: Wanderlei Silva gets 3 year suspension, Mauro Ranallo misses Smackdown

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By Josh Nason

The long legal ordeal of former UFC and PRIDE star Wanderlei Silva came to somewhat of a resolution Wednesday as the Nevada Athletic Commission reduced his lifetime suspension issued nearly a year and a half ago down to three years.

The catch is that the suspension is retroactive to the date of what caused his incident —- dodging a drug test before his never-did-happen fight against Chael Sonnen at UFC 175 — which was on May 24, 2014. Silva can apply to fight again on May 25, 2017, and must provide a clean drug test when he does so.

The 39-year-old’s lawyer Ross Goodman is expected to file an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court as he feels it wasn’t legal for the NAC to test Silva while he was unlicensed. 

Earlier Wednesday, Silva shared a poster of himself and Fedor Emelianenko for August 2016. While he’s ineligible to fight anywhere that recognizes licenses, that doesn’t completely put him out of the running to fight in Japan or another DGAF country if he wants to.

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Figure Four Weekly

Figure Four Weekly 2/1/2016: Weekly Hogan/Gawker update
A look at the past weeks developments in the Hulk Hogan and Gawker lawsuit.

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The Latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter: February 15, 2016 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Daniel Bryan retires

The newest issue of the Wrestling Observer is one of the best of the year.  A very detailed look at the end of Bryan Danielson’s career and retirement. Looking back at sports, pro wrestling and the ramifications that are and are not being talked about.  Danielson’s retirement is a big story, both his short and long term impact on pro wrestling.  How his story will act as a catalyst for change not only within pro wrestling but all contact sports.  If you are a wrestling fan, a sports fan or a science fan, this may be the most important issue of the year.

Bryan Danielson’s retirement speech, career highlights, home town, character both in and out of the ring, booking, the crazy way he ended up as champion for the first time, the birth of the “Yes” chant, the build to WrestleMania 30 & 31, the various exams, why he wanted to continue wrestling and WWE didn’t, his goals outside of WWE and why he changed his mind in the last few weeks.

The quandary he was in about continuing his career, how his career began, the formation of ROH and the changing landscape of independent wrestling, the changing ideas of what a pro wrestling headliner can look like, the first time I ever saw him wrestle while sitting with Red Bastien and Nick Bockwinkel

The suspension of Titus O’Neil, a longtime WWE star talking about going into another sport, another star looking at retiring soon, lots of WrestleMania plans including an early summer major match, Steve Austin’s WrestleMania status, update on promotion of Stephanie McMahon, star who may be interested in returning, Fast Lane, A.J. Styles talks his beginnings in WWE and how hard he tried to hide the Royal Rumble story, how DDP figured in Styles’ return, Linda McMahon forms a new company, Roman Reigns in Raw main events, WWE cuts five in developmental, new WWE books. New announcer hired, Update on many Tough Enough competitors from the past season, plans for a WWE show taped this summer, international star WWE has interest in, as well as a look at all the weekend house shows from WWE & NXT with business notes.

PLUS MUCH MORE! CLICK HERE FOR A FULL WRESTLING OBSERVER PREVIEW

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Check out the latest Online Wrestling Observer BACK ISSUE: Jan 11, 1999 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Finger Poke of Doom, Awards results, Sam Muchnick passes away
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WEDNESDAY UPDATE

The reason Mauro Ranallo missed Smackdown wasn’t because of some nefarious issue. Simply, he proved he is human and was sick.

WWE / Pro Wrestling

  • In case you missed the news, Jim Ross continues to get work everywhere and will do some boxing commentary for CBS Sports Network, likely for Premier Boxing Champions. No start date was announced.
  • It was officially announced today that WWE 2K16 is coming to Windows PCs on March 11th.
  • Here’s spoilers for this week’s Smackdown.  The full line-up for Fastlane after the show has Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Title, Charlotte vs. Brie Bella for the Divas title, Becky Lynch & Sasha Banks vs. Naomi & Tamina, Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler for the IC Title, Ryback & Big Show & Kane vs. Luke Harper & Erick Rowan & Braun Strowman, and AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho III.
  • Our Zach Dominello has a new column up about why The Miz focusing on being a mentor is best for, well, Mizness.
  • Our Bryan Alvarez and peers from other sites were featured in this Motherboard piece on why wrestling podcasts are popular.
  • Bryan and Mike are also giving away a copy of SUNNY SIDE UP on DVD on Wrestling Observer Live (Sports Byline was sent 5 copies to give away), and the contest is to try to guess who is getting the Vince McMahon Sr. Award of Excellence on Monday.  You can listen along and play every day on Sports Byline USA at noon Pacific/3 ET, and links to listen are on the front page of the website.
  • Here’s a column from reader Ian Hamilton on how WWE should handle the call-up of Baron Corbin.
  • Voices of Wrestling analyst Brandon Howard did some additional must-read analysis of the WWE Q4 financial call. Especially of note from Brandon:
    “The infograph WWE released on Thursday along with their press release seemed to claim their YouTube channel had received 8 billion views for the full year of 2015. Just by looking at their YouTube channel’s “About” page, which publicly lists all-time video views, you can see that’s not the case as the channel has accumulated about 7.5 billion video views all-time (since May 2007). Based on archived instances of that web page that I found, I estimate YouTube video views for WWE in 2015 at about 3.5 billion. I’m guessing they’re including in that total the views of all WWE videos on YouTube that are uploaded by other users, which WWE has made copyright claims on.”
  • Here’s a look at a new science fiction wrestling game called Champions of The Galaxy.
  • Fire Pro Podcast this week looks at the suspension of Titus O’Neil, the upcoming UR Fight card and the retirement of Daniel Bryan.
  • Here are details about Mark Nulty’s funeral this Saturday.

UFC / MMA

  • Lots of MMA media are making the mainstream sports media rounds talking about Ronda Rousey’s admission that she briefly contemplated suicide after her loss to Holly Holm. Friend of the site Ariel Helwani was on The Dan Patrick Show this morning talking about Rousey and more.
  • Gleison Tibau has agreed to drop his appeal and accept the two year suspension handed down by the USADA for his drug test failure last month.  He actually said in an interview that he’d used the substance (EPO) out of competition and “we thought (it) wouldn’t be anything”.  So whoever WE is, presumably his team, they figured EPO was perfectly fine to use outside of competition.  He claims his conscience is clear because he took it “without imagining I was doing something wrong.”  
  • Recently re-signed UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem says that he’ll be headlining the UFC Sunday, May 8th show in Rotterdam in his home country of the Netherlands. No opponent has been announced.
  • Invicta FC announced its next show will be on March 11 in Las Vegas’ Tropicana, headlined by an atomweight (105 lb) title fight between champion Ayaka Hamasaki vs Amber Brown. Former UFCers Jessamyn Duke and Roxanne Modaferri will also fight on the show in separate bouts.
  • ONE Championships announced its next show will be on March 18 in Myanmar. Teenage sensation Christian Lee will be featured on the card after he’s finished each of his first two pro opponents in under two minutes.

ON THIS DAY IN WORLD PRO WRESTLING HISTORY: Bret Hart wins the WWF World Title