Daily Update: WrestleMania 34 fallout, WWE Network, John Cena

THE ROUND-UP

THE LATEST NEWS

THE LATEST AUDIO

We’re looking for reports from Raw tonight in New Orleans with the non-Raw matches and anything not on television to newstips@wrestlingobserver.com

LION’S GATE ON NEW JAPAN WORLD AT 6 A.M. EASTERN TOMORROW MORNING

  • Ren Narita vs. Yuya Uemura
  • Tomoyuki Oka vs. Tsuji Yota
  • Tiger Mask & Tetsuhiro Yagi vs.. Hiro Saito & Gedo
  • Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Mangjimaru & Ken45
  • Yuji Nagata & Shota Umino vs. Ayato Yoshida & Go Asakawa

Smackdown will be taped tomorrow night in New Orleans.

​F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: Looking ahead to Wrestlemania 34

Though there will always be some complications when putting a big show together, things have pretty much fallen perfectly into place for WWE heading into WrestleMania 34 on Sunday. The 14-match card was scheduled to be finalized heading into this week’s television, with John Cena vs. The Undertaker left as the last thing to be confirmed. In a different era, it would have been insane to not announce such a big match before the go-home episode of Raw. But selling WWE Network subscriptions is a bit different than pay-per-views, and the match almost feels unnecessary on such a loaded event.

WON NEWSLETTER: April 9, 2018 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Massive Wrestlemania 34 weekend, more

The final words before WrestleMania, the change in UFC’s PPV this week, coverage of Sakura Genesis and a look at the Andre the Giant documentary are the lead stories in the new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Read the update on WrestleMania and the week regarding the matches, the questions and ticket sales. Look at what WWE Fan Axxess has scheduled and notes on who will be appearing on the different shows.

Go through the background of UFC making Max Holloway vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov as Saturday’s PPV main event, including how Tony Ferguson was injured, who else was asked to face Nurmagomedov, challenges for Holloway, examining the risk/reward for Holloway and what Dana White says about how it all went down. 

Find out about the crazy risks that Will Ospreay has been taking, his match with Marty Scurll at Sakura Genesis as well as the Kazuchika Okada vs. Zack Sabre Jr. match, go through the upcoming matches, the lineups for the next month of new Japan major shows, business notes on the show, as well as the huge controversy Sabre got into based on a promo he did in Japan making mainstream media in Mexico.

Examine the life and times of Andre the Giant, and review the upcoming HBO documentary on Andre, how it got done, myths about Andre, Andre’s early days, where the name came from, behind his confrontations with Akira Maeda, Blackjack Mulligan and Badnews Allen, the famous Andre vs. The Monster story, the build to Andre vs. Hogan and the sad end of his career and life.

There is more on Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman and their WWE futures, who WWE says won’t be at Mania, notes to look for when WWE announces its new number, more on Greatest Royal Rumble, thoughts on WWE, injuries, health of Daniel Bryan, who else was talked with about teaming with Ronda Rousey, the next planned Roman Reigns program, Cena and Dwayne Johnson have new movies out, most watched shows on WWE Network, as well as results and highlights from every WWE and NXT show this past week with business notes.

Check out the new promotion that Josh Barnett and Kazushi Sakuraba are debuting next week in Japan at Sumo Hall, with the unique rules plus Sakuraba comments on it, and so much more.

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MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

The WWE had a conference call to announce the network numbers and current guidance. Business is the best it has ever been after years of building to this. There was a lot of talk about Ronda Rousey with the idea that sports fans ordered the network at the last minute because of all the promotion she got in the sports media world. George Barrios also said the much-talked about new tiers for the network will be launched “sooner rather than later.” They said that Rousey was a fierce competitor and is focused on becoming the best WWE superstar they’ve ever had, and is focusing on perfecting what they do in the ring and delivered in a big way.

Regarding Google numbers for the weekend, WrestleMania did 2.45 million searches, which is way up from what I recall from the past. Ronda Rousey is the queen of mainstream searches. Others heavily searched for included Undertaker, Nia Jax, Charlotte Flair, Braun Strowman, Andre the Giant and Finn Balor (largely due to his ring entrance)

They’ve managed to crack down on the betting since the closing favorites were Reigns, Nakamura, Rollins, Jax, Rusev, Bludgeon Brothers, Angle & Rousey, Owens & Zayn and Alexander.

For UFC, Conor McGregor got 2 million searches on Thursday so that’s the equivalent of a major news story to the mainstream. The PPV got 500,000, which is what the normal 175,000 to 250,000 buy shows usually do. Even with all the publicity UFC got during the week, this indicates that didn’t drive new interest to the PPV itself. It’s not a sure thing, but it appears the big PPV number they were expecting for Khabib Nurmagomedov against Tony Ferguson, and still expecting for Max Holloway, did not do that well with the constant main event changes and Al Iaquinta headlining.

“Blockers,” with John Cena as one of the major stars, opened this past weekend at $21.44 million, which was considered a good showing for a relatively low budget film ($21 million total budget). Cena got good reviews for the movie, which was third for the weekend behind “A Quiet Place” and “Ready Player One.”

Tons of New Japan people including Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Red Shoes Unno and Tiger Hattori were at WrestleMania. Rey Mysterio was at the post-WrestleMania party, as was Mickey Gall, the UFC fighter who beat C.M. Punk.

WWE

  • Don’t forget the Andre the Giant documentary at 10 p.m. Eastern tomorrow night. If you have any questions after the movie is over, send them to us because we can probably answer and we’ll also be doing a show with Pat Laprade, who was part of the crew that did the documentary sometime next week.
  • Kid Rock wasn’t at WrestleMania because he had to get ready for a Kid Rock cruise that leaves tomorrow.
  • For those who keep track of such things, Nicholas (the son of referee John Cone) in winning the tag title with Braun Strowman last night, broke Rene Dupree’s record for the youngest title holder in WWE history.

UFC

  • Tickets for the 6/9 UFC show in Chicago go on sale to the public on Friday priced at $303 down to $63. Robert Whittaker vs. Yoel Romero for the middleweight title is the main event, plus Rafael dos Anjos vs. Colby Covington for the interim welterweight title. Fight Club members can get tickets on Wednesday. It’s notable that in the press release sent out, they do not list C.M. Punk vs. Mike Jackson, so that fight must not be finalized yet. 

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Melissa Santos was booked for the World Series Wrestling group’s June Australia tour (thanks to Kevin Chiat) 
  • Ric Flair and Sting will headline for a Legends of Wrestling convention on 4/21 in Fraser, MI. Jimmy Hart is another name appearing.
  • United Wrestling Coalition on 4/14 in Wrightstown, NJ at Kelly’s Banquet Hall.
  • Ryan Nemeth, the younger brother of Dolph Ziggler and a former WWE developmental wrestler, has a movie short that made the list for the Cleveland International Film Festival that is going on right now. The movie is called “Daddy’s Boys” and it’s a seven minute short flick that Nemeth produced and that Ziggler is in the cast. (thanks to Jake Koch)
  • AWS on 6/30 in South Gate, CA with a women’s tournament for the No. 1 contender with Shotzi Blackheart vs. Nicole Mathews, Shazza McKenzie vs. Madison Eagles, Miranda vs. Aerial Monroe and Willow Nightingale vs. Jordynne Grace. Mia Yim also faces Nicole Savoy. There will also be a five vs. five men vs. women’s match.
  • I Believe in Wrestling on 5/4 at the Team Vision Dojo in Orlando.
  • On this week’s episode of “The Goldbergs” on ABC, one of the main characters was wearing a Macho Man Randy Savage T-shirt from the 80s (thanks to Joe Puccio)
  • The Detroit Free Press Film Festival will be screening the 1985 movie “I Like to Hurt People,” which was based on footage of The Sheik after his heyday in the later 70s and his aura and attempts to revitalize wrestling. It’ll be on 4/15 at 6:30 p.m. at Cinema Detroit. Bryan Greenberg, the producer, will be doing a Q&A after the showing.
  • A.J. Mendez, the former A.J. Lee, will be part of the Define American Film Festival on 4/22 in Chicago. She talks heavily about mental illness.
  • Kevin Harvey announced that Bull Nakano will be off his show this Friday in Berwyn, IL and is being replaced as a team captain by Gail Kim. Kim will captain a team of women against a team captained by Madusa. 
  • Earl Hebner will be doing a seminar on 6/2 at 11 a.m. at the Ring Wars Carolina Wrestling Academy in Hope Mills, NC.
  • Jim Duggan performs at Absolute Comedy in Toronto on 4/15,
  • One announced a partnership with AbemaTV in Japan. All their live events will be broadcast to AbemaTv subscribers covering more than 20 live shows as well as the reality TV show.
  • The ECWA Super 8 tournament will have Ty Awesome, Bolt Brady,. Richard Holliday, Chase Owens,Anthony Greene, Mike Law, Smiley and Cheeseburger. It takes place at the United Asbury Methodist Church in New Castle, DE.
  • On “The Walking Dead” TV show last night, before a big fight scene one of villains said, “In order to b the man, you gotta beat the man.” (thanks to Joe Puccio)
  • The first sanctioned Bare Knuckle boxing match in the U.S. since the 1800s will take place on 6/2 in Cheyenne, WY and air on PPV from a new promotion called the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. Among the names at the media call tomorrow are Ricco Rodriguez, the former UFC heavyweight champion, and Sean Wheelock, the former Bellator announcer.
  • All Star Wrestling on 5/26 in Surrey,BC features Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer will also headline for the group on a 5/25 show at the Wise Hall and Lounge in Vancouver.
  • Hoosier Pro Wrestling on 4/7 in Columbus, IN at the 4-H Fairgrounds.
  • The New York Times has a Lucha Libre story.
  • The NWA has their latest video with champion Nick Aldis.
  • Defy Wrestling on 4/13 in Seattle at Washington Hall features Shane Strickland vs. Austin Aries i a champion vs. champion match plus Tommy Dreamer vs. Randy Myers and Brody King vs. Schaff, along with Tom Lawlor vs. Mike Santiago vs. Matt Cross in a three-way. This is a 21-and-over show with only standing room tickets available.

Daily Professional Wrestling History: Jim Crockett Promotions buys the UWF

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