Daily Update: WWE injuries, Balor, Banks, Orton, SummerSlam fallout, UFC to MSG

Injuries Play Havoc at WWE’s SummerSlam

Finn Balor’s injury to his right arm may have been serious as the WWE stated he possibly suffered a torn labrum, in his right shoulder taking the power bomb into the barricade. That injury often requires surgery which would put him out of action for around six months. He did appear on Good Morning America without his arm in a sling or a brace. He was examined today and the first word is that it wasn’t good news. Because Balor is Universal champion, if the injury is significant enough for him to miss a few weeks, it’ll have to be addressed on television.

The finish of the main event last night was exactly as planned. They were not looking for so much blood, but the idea was definitely to do a hardway on Orton and stop the match due to the brutality. Orton needed 10 staples to close the cut. He is fine, or as fine as someone would be who just got elbows hard enough in the forehead to bust him open like that.

Sasha Banks has a back injury and will be off for at least the short term. The title change was due to the injury. The early injury news today wasn’t bad, as compared to Balor, as far as potential time off.

We’re looking for live reports from Brooklyn tonight with dark matches, Superstars matches and anything else that wouldn’t be evident for the live show. Brock Lesnar wasn’t scheduled to appear on tonight’s show. 

Smackdown will be Tuesday night from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT.  

THE ROUND-UP

Figure Four Weekly: August 17, 2016; Buff Bagwell sues WWE for unpaid Network royalties – When Rene Dupree’s lawsuit against WWE over WWE Network royalties was quickly dropped a few months ago, the question coming out of it was not if there would be another such lawsuit, but when and with whom as the next plaintiff would be. The answers? August 9th and Marcus “Buff” Bagwell… Subscribers click here to continue reading.

F4W YouTube Page: Tons of clips and full free audio shows that you can tell your friends about, and much more to come! Make sure you subscribe today!

Wrestling Observer Newsletter: August 22, 2016; WWE Summerslam/UFC 202/NXT Takeover previews, G1 Climax review, tons more – The biggest weekend of the summer, featuring one of UFC’s biggest fights in history, WWE’s third biggest show of the year, what theoretically is NXT’s biggest show of the year (although in reality it is its second biggest), as well as the sixth Super J Cup in history, runs from 8/19 to 8/21.

The big event is UFC 202 on 8/20 at the T Mobile Arena, featuring a rematch of the biggest money fight in company history–Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz. Their first fight, held on 3/5 in Las Vegas, did 1.6 million buys on PPV, the largest non-boxing PPV event in history. With Diaz winning, the feeling is a rematch would only be bigger. But for a number of reasons, there didn’t appear to be the excitement level expected… Subscribers click here to continue reading.

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Wrestling Observer Newsletter BACK ISSUE: July 12, 1999; Chris Jericho signs with WWF, ECW to air on TNN, tons more – Details on Chris Jericho signing with WWF, ECW programming to air on TNN, plus tons more… Subscribers click here to continue reading.

MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

There was a confrontation last night after the Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Orton match involving Lesnar and Chris Jericho. There was shoving involved and Vince McMahon and Paul Levesque had to break it up twice. We’ll have an article on the story up on the site shortly.

There will be a farewell to the Dudleys angle tonight on Raw. Given the storyline, I presume it ends up with Bubba turning on Devon but they are playing it up now like it’s the farewell to the promotion. 

There were a lot of major WWE references coming out of the show big on Google yesterday. SummerSlam had 1 million searches, which is as big as any show I can recall other than WrestleManias. Finn Balor had 200,000; Kyle Snyder had 50,000; Sasha Banks had 50,000, Kevin Ferguson Jr. (Kimbo Slice’s son who suffered a knee injury) and Nikki Bella had 20,000. Claressa Shields also had 20,000.

The Bellator debut of Baby Slice, or Kevin Ferguson Jr., the son of Kimbo Slice, scheduled for Friday’s Bellator show at the Honda Center in Anaheim,has been postponed due to an MCL injury according to Ariel Helwani at MMA Fighting. The injury will not require surgery. 

Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw and all the latest news. We’ve got audio shows up covering every big show of the weekend.  We will almost assuredly have time for questions tonight so you can send them to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com.

WWE

  • Kazuchika Okada was backstage at SummerSlam last night. He’s in New York for the week since he’s working the ROH show on Saturday night in Brooklyn. 
  • At the show last night, the WWE announced a 12/28 show at the Barclays Center and there is a presale going on. Use code term: HOLIDAYBK (thanks to Mike Omansky)
  • A story on Big Cass is here.

UFC

  • A major press conference is scheduled for September to announce the 11/12 show in Madison Square Garden. The UFC is looking at ending the year with two major events, the MSG show as well as the annual New Year’s show in Las Vegas. Tickets sound like they will be priced through the roof as UFC is looking at setting the all-time MSG gate record.

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Velvet Sky is taking indie bookings at bookvelvetsky@gmail.com.
  • The first live CHIKARA Network special from yesterday: Ophidian b Hermit Crab, Dustin b Zack Sabre Jr., Moustache Mountain won over Los Ice Creams, Devastation  Corporation and NRG in a double elimination four corners match, Big Deal (Hornswoggle) & Rick Roland & Sloan Caprice b Juan Francisco de Coronado & Prakash Sabar & Proletariat Bear of Moldova, Jakob Hammerstein b Eddie Kingston-DQ, Team Hallowicked b Team fire Ant, Heidi Lovelace b Kimber Lee to win the Grand championship. Told the main event was super and an overall fun show. (thanks to Annette Boyer)
  • The New York State Athletic Commission shut down an inter gender match at a show in Brooklyn promoted by Tier 1 Wrestling and Warriors of Wrestling. The match involved Jessie Brooks and Marc Hauss. Brooks regularly works matches against men in New York. But on Friday, as soon as the match started, the New York State Athletic Commission representative shut the match down claiming that men and women cannot compete in a wrestling match against each other in New York. Fans thought it was all part of the show but it wasn’t. There is a law on the books as it relates to combat sports that men and women can’t box against each other but there is no such law as it relates to pro wrestling. Apparently the New York State Athletic Commission has since said the rule was misinterpreted and it was a law regarding boxing. So they got that cleared up as the main event between Jeff Cobb and Daruis Carter was in the ring. The two were told to go longer than they had planned in order to give Brooks and Hauss more time to redo their match, which was put on last. Brooks won and all the wrestlers came out and banged on the mat when it was over. The promotion claimed the match was booked weeks in advance and the commission was told about it and they had time to review or make a ruling against the match. 
  • A story on Moose from TNA is here.
  • Here is a story on WWE going after twitter gifs.
  • Border City Wrestling from Saturday night in Tecumseh, ONT: Playboy Johnny b Jake O’Reilly, Joe Coleman b Mysterious Movado, Randy Reign b Mike Rollins, Phil Atlas & Brent Banks b Idris Abraham & Hakim Zane, Al & Bobby Sharp b John E. Bravo & Ray Steele, Aiden Prince won over Muscles Marinera, Tariq, Sebastian Suave, Toro Acero and N8 Mattson, Jennifer Blake b  Rosemary (TNA), Johnny Devine & Jon Bolen b Cody Deaner & Tyson Dux (managed by Dutch Mantell). (thanks to Steven Ashe)
  • Legacy on 10/14 on AXS from the Bomb Factory in Dallas features bantamweight champion Steven Peterson (14-4) vs. Mark De LA Rosa (7-0) and a featherweight title match with Kevin Aguilar (11-1) facing former champion Damon Jackson (9-1-1).
  • TNA wrestlers Allie vs. Rosemary in a cage match takes place on the Smash Wrestling show on 10/22 in Toronto at the Franklin Horner Community Centre.
  • The incident with the Mongolian wrestling coaches furious about the Dusty finish that cost them a match at the Olympics and then they channeled Ric Flair is here.
  • In honor of the stuff last night, here is a quiz of famous backstage brawls.

Big Time Wrestling has these upcoming dates:

  • 9/22 in Morganton, NC at the Collette Rec Center features a meet & greet at 6 p.m. before the live show. Appearing are Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Cody Rhodes, Magnum T.A. and Trevor Lee.
  • 9/23 in Raleigh, NC at  Dorton Arena features Flair and Steamboat together at Dorton Arena for the first time in 28 years, plus Jeff & Matt Hardy, Cody Rhodes, Nasty Boys, Sabu, Magnum T.A., Ivan Koloff, Jimmy Valiant, Gangrel and Shane Helms with the meet & greet at 6 and show at 8.
  • 9/24 in Spartanburg, SC at the Memorial  Auditorium with the meet and greet at 5:30 and show at 7:30 with Flair, Steamboat, Hardys, Rhodes, Nasty Boys, Sabu, Magnum T.A., Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Gangrel and Trevor Lee.

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