Daily Update: WBD, WWE, Dark Side of the Cage

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • The notes of just how much of the young audience AEW has lost
  • All In at Globe Life Field both realities and perception
  • History of famous promotional wars and how they turned out and why
  • Why the few incumbents that lost did
  • The rise and fall of WCW
  • The finances of AEW
  • The issue with all non-Raw and Smackdown shows in the U.S. market right now not involving AEW
  • History of Saturday Night’s Main Event
  • High water marks for the show in the 80s
  • The Hogan vs. Andre match
  • Why SNME went away and its return and why that didn’t work as well
  • Preview of tomorrow’s show and betting odds
  • AEW Worlds End notes and WWE’s head-to-head show in Orlando
  • Full coverage of NXT Deadline
  • Full coverage of UFC 310
  • Tokyo Sports Awards, including unique things Zack Sabre Jr. has done and the history of all 51 MVP winners since 1974
  • More on the new Global Fight League, which features tons of post-40 UFC champions and major stars, to be debuting soon
  • For those outside the U.S. where the WWE Network moves to Netflix, what non-live shows will Netflix be airing and how little it is as compared to the WWE Network
  • Preview of both Tokyo Dome shows in January
  • The death of Karloff Lagarde Jr.
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the U.S. TV shows, comparisons to one year ago, segment-by-segment and rankings for the night and week.
  • What CMLL star trained with the Olympic team only a few years ago
  • Pentagon Jr. update
  • Tag team tournament finals in Japan
  • Top star in Japanese group gets suspended
  • Another top star cutting down his schedule
  • International TV ratings
  • Ticket sales for upcoming WWE & AEW shows
  • Tag team getting a non-wrestling national television show
  • Wrestling legend getting a non-wrestling TV show
  • Notes on the new season of Dark Side of the Ring
  • Willie Mack situation in GCW
  • What wrestler was GCW hoping to get for the Hammerstein Ballroom
  • Tessa Blanchard update
  • Lots of notes about the AEW on sale in Texas
  • Update on Rey Fenix situation
  • Most viewed streaming segments of AEW & WWE this past month
  • Steroids in BJJ
  • MMA Awards
  • Mark Shapiro talks future in WWE, UFC and even boxing ideas*WWE injury updates
  • Lots of notes about WWE shows on A&E in 2025
  • Son of sports legend makes quiet WWE debut
  • Janel Grant case updates
  • Dwayne Johnson movie updates

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Friday Update

  • WBD is  looking at restructuring, with two new companies. One company will be the streaming & movie division and the other company will be the television division worldwide.
  • This is the week of double tapings for WWE.  They are taping two episodes of Smackdown tonight in Hartford,CT, two of Raw Monday in Boston and two of NXT in Lowell, MA. We’re obviously going to be looking for notes on everything that wasn’t on live television from these shows to dave@wrestlingobserver.com, such as results, angles, finishes and highlights.
  • Dark Side of the Cage on VICE will be airing on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m., right after AEW, starting on 1/8.  The new season topics will be Kimbo Slice, Evan Tanner, Diego Sanchez, The Ultimate Fighter TV show, Ronda Rousey, Nick Diaz, Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver, Matt Hughes and the Rise of Fall of the Pride Fighting Championships.  Amazing I wasn’t on the Pride show in particular.
  • CMLL announced today that  Tessa Blanchard is gone and that the CMLL women’s tag titles she held with Lluvia are now vacant. There will be a tournament for the titles in January.  Blanchard has signed with TNA and will be debuting likely tonight, if not tomorrow. We were told by people outside TNA that they were of the impression it would be an angle with Jordynne Grace. Blanchard was pulled from tonight’s Arena Mexico show on 11/27 so that’s likely when she told CMLL she was leaving.  We’ll have a lot more on this in next week’s issue.

They are taping two Smackdown episodes in Hartford, CT tonight.  The first show has:

  • Kevin Owens & Cody Rhodes face off
  • Carmelo Hayes vs. ? (Believed to be Braun Strowman)
  • Tiffany Stratton vs. Michin in the US title tournament semifinals
  • Bayley vs. Chelsea Green in the US title tournament semifinals

Saturday Night’s Main Event tomorrow night from the Nassau Coliseum on NBC 8-10 p.m. Eastern and 5-7 p.m. on the West Coast:

  • Rhodes vs. Owens for WWE title
  • Gunther vs. Finn Balor vs. Damian Priest for world title
  • Liv Morgan vs. Iyo Sky for world women’s title
  • Sami Zayn vs. Drew McIntyre
  • Finals of the women’s US title tournament
  • There will be a lot of nostalgia on the show.  We have a story on the history of Saturday Night’s Main event as well as a preview of the show in the current issue.
  • We’ll be doing a weekend poll on this show, 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
  • Jesse Ventura was on the Michael Kay show and said that his son negotiated the deal with WWE, and not Barry Bloom. He said that if Vince McMahon was running the company that the deal would not have happened.
  • JP Morgan has raised its price target for TKO stock to $158 per share while Bank of America has it at $165.

Arena Mexico tonight is a major show for international fans:

  • Zeuxis vs. Sanely vs. Persephone vs. Reyna Isis – winner represents CMLL at the 1/5 Tokyo Dome in the four promotion women’s match
  • Lluvia & Jarochita (replacing Blanchard ) vs. Red  Velvet & Viva Van
  • Flip Gordon vs. Rocky Romero for the Historic middleweight title
  • Deonna Purrazzo (replacing Toni Storm) vs  Catalina
  • Volador Jr. vs. Pac
  • Hechicero vs. Claudio Castagnoli

Rampage tonight:

  • Mark Davis & Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Lance ARcher
  • Toni Storm vs. Harley Cameron
  • Deonna Purrazzo vs. Shazza McKenzie
  • Matt Cardona  vs. Bryan Keith

TNA Final Resolution tonight at Center Stage in Atlanta:

  • Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz vs. Jake Something & Hammerstone vs. PCO & Sami Callihan
  • Ace Austin vs. Trent Seven
  • Leo Slater vs. Johnny Dango Curtis
  • Jonathan Gresham vs. Frankie Kazarian
  • Jordynne Grace vs. Rosemary
  • Joe Hendry vs. Steve Maclin vs. Josh Alexander vs. Mike Santana – winner faces the TNA champion at Genesis
  • Eddie Edwards & Brian Myers vs. Matt & Jeff Hardy for the tag titles in a tables match
  • Moose vs. Kushida for the X title
  • Masha Slamovich vs.  Tasha Steelz for the Knockouts title
  • Nic Nemeth vs. AJ Francis for the TNA title
  • Rhino said that his match tomorrow night with Ryan Nemeth at Center Stage will be most likely the last time he ever wrestles in a TNA ring.  He said he was not retiring from wrestling but he is done with TNA

UFC runs 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. from Tampa.  The entire show will air live on ESPN 2 and ESPN +

  • Joseline Knutsson (116) vs. Piera Rodriguez (116)
  • Davey Grant (136) vs. Ramon Tavares (135)
  • Miranda Maverick (126) vs. Jamey-Lyn Horth (126)
  • Miles Johns (146) vs. Felipe Lima (146)
  • Sean Woodson (145.5) vs. Fernando Padilla (145)
  • Joel Alvarez (156) vs. Drakkar Klose (156)
  • Michael Johnson (156) vs. Ottman Azaitar (156)
  • Navajo Stirling (206) vs. Tuco Tokkos (206)
  • Adrian Yanez (136) vs. Daniel Marcos (136)
  • Vitor Petrino (204.5) vs. Dustin Jacoby (205.5)
  • Manel Kape (125) vs. Bruno Silva (126)
  • Cub Swanson (146) vs. Billy Quarantillo (146)
  • Colby Covington (171) vs. Joaquin Buckley (171)
  • Covington came out today at weigh-ins with Chael Sonnen as his manager.  It should be noted that Covington is a pro wrestling fan, does a total 60s pro wrestler act , did angles with TNA and how one person described it to us was  he loved it and totally didn’t get it.  But it did make him money and Trump likes him, so there you go.
  • Curtis Blaydes vs.  Rizvan Kriev was announced for the 2/22 UFC show in Seattle.
  • After just six weeks of training, former Olympic wrestling gold medalist Helen Maroulis won five matches in a row to win a gold medal at the IBJJF world championships in submission grappling in the blue belt division.
  • I was told that today’s Marigold title match with Sareee vs. Nanae Takahashi at Shinjuku Face in Tokyo was awesome.
  • The other thing a number of people were raving about was last night’s Mark Briscoe vs.  Kyle Fletcher CC tournament match that airs tomorrow night on Collision. It should be noted that Collision starts when the NBA game ends, so set your DVR’s for early and staying late.  
  • Defy has announced it will be running shows as part of The Collective at the Pearl at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas during WrestleMania week. There will be a ton of events at that building that week.
  • KENTA vs. Schaff will headline the 12/29 Defy show at Washington Hall in Seattle.  It’s a 4 p.m. show with KENTA putting his Def title at stake, plus The Outrunners face Midnight Heat and Los Desperados defend the tag titles against Sinner & Saint.
  • Dave Bautista and Anne Hathaway will be starring in a movie about two undercover FBI agents who are completely different from each other being forced to cohabitate, even though they hate each other.
  • The Dudleys, Bubba Ray, Devon and Spike, will be reuniting on 1/3 at Wrestling Night at the Milwaukee Admirals hockey game.