Daily Update: WWE Raw, Gable Steveson, WrestleMania

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Triple H announces in-ring retirement, WrestleMania weekend

The new issue of the Wrestling Observer is out right now. Among the highlights are:

  • The far more important story regarding Paul Levesque than his retirement from wrestling, which is his health, what he went through, and how that impacts his future both in and out of wrestling
  • WWE weekend shows, cards, ticket sales, secondary market sales, comps, Saturday main event, key results regarding the main event scene, the Hall of Fame, Shad Gaspard, Undertaker and NXT Stand & Deliver.
  • 2021 Shad Gaspard/Jonathan Huber award winners
  • New Japan Cup final coverage, the angles building to Sumo Hall, MVP, best match poll and the final two shows.
  • Stardom’s two shows at Sumo Hall. A look at the key matches and what is next for the largest women’s wrestling company in the world.
  • Finances of UFC and WWE, including how they are so similar as businesses as well as where they are different. We also look at the key business deal each has that doesn’t involve TV rights and how WWE got so much of a better deal with a product that otherwise would have driven one-quarter the revenue and why
  • Full coverage of this week’s UFC show
  • Who was the best college heavyweight of all-time
  • More on the arrest of Chael Sonnen, why the felony charge was dropped and the lawsuit regarding the case
  • Ric Flair and Mark Madden
  • TV ratings and key points from those ratings for every show this week including peak segments, what type of viewers each show generates, who draws the youngest audience and how the shows rank with all of television and in the sports world.
  • The return of the Universal champion of champions tournament
  • More notes on the second Triplemania show this year
  • Notes on New Japan US shows
  • The wrestling career and post-wrestling life of the former Rocky King
  • Ticket sales for upcoming shows
  • Why UFC is running in Singapore in June
  • UFC star elected into wrestilng Hall of Fame
  • International wrestling TV ratings

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter: February 7, 2005 Observer Newsletter: Royal Rumble review, business year in review

Ordering Info: Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to dave@wrestlingobserver.com or by going to www.paypal.com directing funds to dave@wrestlingobserver.com.

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If you order by mail with a check, cash or money order to P.O. Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228, you can get $1 off in every price range.

Monday News Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw as well as the latest wrestling and MMA news. You can send questions for tonight’s show to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com
  • Raw tonight is the final show from Dallas. Not much has been announced. The big thing will be the Cody Rhodes promo. Rhodes is slated for the Raw brand going forward. The idea is for it to be memorable promo. Roman Reigns will be on the show and Veer is supposed to make his debut. The University of Kansas vs. North Carolina final of the NCAA tournament starts at 9:20 p.m. Eastern so the first hour plus won’t be going against the game. The game will hurt, but the Raw after Mania often goes against the NCAA finals and is still usually the highest or among the highest numbers of the year. In theory this should be the top number of the year coming off good numbers last Monday and Friday.
  • Gable Steveson will not be on Raw tonight as he flew back home to Minnesota according to PW Insider. He will be in as a regular after the college semester.
  • Our Sports Illustrated story on WrestleMania week is here.
  • As far as the attendance, WrestleTix has 131,772 as the combined number for the two shows. Of that, a minimum of 11,000 are comps since the comp number for each night was 5,500 as of Thursday and there would be more comps on the final days. WWE announced it was the biggest gate in the history of Mania and if you combine the two nights it would be easily. The company did not give a figure surprisingly as they have done every year for the past decade plus, even with the record. They would almost surely announce the combined gate at the end of the month if not earlier.
  • Total Google searches for the two days was 2 million. They’ve beaten that in the past for one show, although not in the last few years. It was 1.55 million on Friday & Saturday and 450,000 on Sunday. For yesterday, Roman Reigns was No. 6 for 200,000. Of the characters on the show, Steve Austin ended up being the most searched at 500,000 with Reigns and Cody Rhodes next at 200,000.
  • We will have more complete numbers by midweek for all the shows, but Supercard of Honor based on early reports was up 177.5% from the prior Supercard of Honor PPV show based on television cable. Early reports indicate maybe 10% of an AEW number, but this is early for anything in that kind of comparison. ROH had not done much for a few years in that realm.

Other Notes 

  • Bad Bunny’s alum El Ultimo Tour del Mundo, which featured the song Booker T, won a Grammy for Best Musica Urbana (Urban music Latino category) . The Grammy took place last night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (thanks to Brian Henke)
  • El Hijo del Vikingo said that he hurt himself on a show in Chiapas. He said that Dorian Roldan told him to be careful and because of that, he is taking time off now to make sure he’s ready for 4/30 for his TripleMania main event match in Monterrey where he and Rey Fenix face the Yong Bucks. Myzteziz Jr. replaced him on weekend shows (thanks to Rene Ochoa)
  • New Japan put up the Kazuchika Okada vs. Jay White match from Madison Square Garden on its YouTube page for free (thanks to Suju Abraham)
  • Combate Global will host an all-women’s show on Friday night on Paramount +. Claudia Diaz of Spain and Houston faces Maneula Marconetto of Italy in the main event. Diaz is the WBC World Muay Thai champion and will be fighting on her 27th birthday.
  • RGR Promotions in Los Angeles is advertising El Hijo del Santo and Psycho Clown on the same show this coming Sunday. This will be a political story to watch since AAA does not allow its wrestlers to work on shows with Santo, although that did happen in Dallas under the guise of two different shows by the same promoter. AAA and Crash had a falling out over this point.
  • Midwest AlL-Star Wrestling on 4/9 in Wilmar,MN at the Wilmar Auditorium.