Daily Update: WWE Night of Champions, weekend matches, Sabu memorial

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • AEW heads to Arena Mexico, reaction of talent, background and key facts about Arena Mexico and wrestling history, the rise, fall and comeback of Mistico, the quadruple crown of wrestlers and even announcers and full coverage of the Tuesday and Wednesday night shows as well as this past Friday’s show.
  • Where New Japan stands today with its reset at Dominion, full coverage of the show, plus news ands thoughts regarding the G-1 Climax tournament
  • WWE preparing many major shows over the next few weeks
  • Coverage of TripleMania Regia
  • Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and TKO make arguments to get out of the ringboys lawsuit and what statements made by McMahon and Gorilla Monsoon more than 30 years don’t look good regarding this case
  • A look at U.K. women’s wrestling pioneer and Scottish Hall of Famer Rusty Blair.
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the major shows
  • CMLL’s biggest show of the year announced
  • Konnan praises Corey Graves
  • A new television milestone reached this past month and an explanation of what it means
  • The U.S. team going to the world championships in Croatia
  • Hogan & Bischoff RAF promotion announces debut show and a very bad sign regarding their actual interest
  • Notes on two of the best attended indie shows of the year on the same night
  • El Hijo del Santo’s last match in Mexico as scheduled today
  • AEW women stars working in Europe
  • Advanced ticket sales for WWE, AEW and TNA shows
  • Tony Khan does interview, gets criticized regarding how he presented the info
  • More on Dana White and Nick Khan’s boxing project with Turki Alalshikh
  • What is the value of the UFC PPV shows?
  • Aaron Pico vs. Moovsar Evloev and what that says about UFC’s intentions
  • Reports on Vince McMahon getting back involved and what is and isn’t viable
  • Realities of AEW TV rating year-to-year
  • Gunther vs. Goldberg notes
  • Goldberg talks about why he’s coming back
  • Michelle McCool talks saving Undertaker’s life twice
  • Liv Morgan’s injury and changes that have to be made
  • Interesting note on WWE’s house shows in Mexico
  • WWE & AEW rivalry goes long past wrestling shows
  • Yet another WWE tournament

This Week’s Back Issue

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Sunday Update

dave@wrestlingobserver.com

— Bryan Alvarez and I will be back tonight talking about WWE Night of Champions, what we can learn from AEW in Mexico City, weekend shows, Jon Jones and the rest of the weekend news.

— Those in WWE have said that they are monitoring the situation, which is about all you can say, regarding the situation in the Middle East after the bombing in Iran by the U.S. yesterday. I know that a Vince McMahon-led WWE would be going unless being prohibited from going. But with this regime, we have to let it play out. It’s certainly something to be concerned about, but it is early to make a final decision on.

As of right now, the U.K. government has advised against travel in southern Saudi Arabia near the Yemen border and anything but essential travel in the same area. Riyadh is listed as a place to check on travel advice before traveling.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on Friday night’s Fantasticamania 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.

— The two weekend bouts I’ve been hearing about are the Sareee IWGP Women’s title win over Syuri at the Stardom show yesterday at the Yoyogi Gym in Tokyo, and the Bandido & Hologram win over Mistico & Mascara Dorada from Friday’s Fantasticamania which ended with Bandido pinning Mistico clean by reversing La Mistica into a cradle. There were post-match challenges for a singles match for next week but that is not a certainty if it will happen until the lineup gets announced. I did see the latter match and it was incredible.

— More than 53,000 fans attended the events at Arena Mexico from 6/13 to 6/20.

— A memorial funeral for Sabu took place yesterday in Lansing, MI, where he grew up. Many family members were there. A lot of area wrestlers were there including Scott D’Amore, Mickey Doyle and Monty Brown. Sabu’s classmates when he was trained by The Sheik, Rob Van Dam, Judge Dredd, Sampson and Tommy Starr were there. Sampson and Dredd shared many stories of their early days in training. Jimmy Jacobs talked about wrestling Sabu when he was 19. Referee Brian Gorie spoke. Joey Janela spoke about Sabu’s final match. JR Coates, the brother of Sabu’s longtime girlfriend the late Melissa Coates, gave an emotional speech about his sister, his own relationship with Sabu and their friendship. Van Dam gave a tearful eulogy and calling Sabu his best friend. (thanks to Leonard Brand)

— Looking for reports from last nights’ TNA tapings in Pittsburgh, results, finishes and highlights, to dave@wrestlingobserver.com. We’re also looking for reports on today’s RevPro show at York Hall in London.

— For Google searches this weekend, Jon Jones’ retirement had 200,000 searches. Dana White today basically confirmed what had been said about Jones agreeing on the money deal to face Tom Aspinall and that it would take place in November in Madison Square Garden. He said Jones backed out and he said you’d have to ask Jones why. Jones had another arrest in February that was just reported yesterday when White said he had called to say he was retiring which Jones corroborated. Aspinall is now officially the UFC world heavyweight champion and has no viable money contenders. White also indicated they are not interested in Francis Ngannou returning.

— The only other stuff to crack the top 20 for searches are last night’s UFC show at 155,000 and Claudio Castagnoli (he’s fine and should be back soon after missing the shows this week) with 20,000.  That’s probably also due to John Cena mentioning him in the promo on Friday and him not being on the AEW shows which are independent of each other.

— White also said that for 9/13, the UFC Noche show in San Antonio will end before Canelo Alvarez vs. Terrence Crawford starts.  He said you will be able to watch the UFC main event and then watch the Alvarez fight on Netflix.

— Fantasticamania U.K. joint shows with CMLL and RevPro take place on 10/18 at The Hangar in Wolverhampton. There will be both an afternoon and an evening show.

— Best wishes to Flash Morgan Webster who announced that he has undergone surgery for appendicitis.

— WWE LFG returns for its new season in its new time slot of 10 p.m. Eastern on A&E tonight. All the coaches (other than Michelle McCool replacing Mickie James) and some of the talent in season one is being brought back.

— At TNA’s Saturday TV taping in Pittsburgh, they announced the signings of Jada Stone and Mila Moore.

— 46-year-old Andrei Arlovski returned to action at last night’s Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship event in Fort Worth, TX, winning via stoppage at the end of the fourth round against Josh Copeland. Another former UFC star, Jessica Eye, won a five-round decision over Mariya Agapova. Eye trended on Google as well.

— Juggalo Championship Wrestling and GCW are doing a joint show from The Majestic Theater in Detroit on 7/17 called Showcase Showdown: The Violence is Right. It will air on Triller+.