Daily Update: WWE Raw, Queen of the Ring, BJ Penn

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Among the highlights:

  • The background of the John Cena angle and different versions of the story
  • What changed on the day of Elimination Chamber and different versions as to why
  • The turn itself
  • Travis Scott injures Rhodes
  • Comparisons with other turns
  • Art imitating real life
  • WrestleMania lineup
  • Elimination Chamber business and how it performed around the world
  • Pat McAfee controversy
  • TKO getting into boxing, what has and hasn’t been talked about and what we know about the details on how Nick Khan and Dana White are involved as well as why this is no risk for TKO
  • Linda McMahon confirmed for Secretary of Education, and then to wipe it all out
  • AEW Revolution preview, business numbers and interest level
  • Why the March 6, 1972 match with Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch is still talked about 53 years after it happened
  • New Japan anniversary show notes, early New Japan Cup news
  • Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano becomes a classic match, as well as a controversial one
  • Fantastica Mania final day coverage
  • Coverage of the deaths of Ciclon Ramirez and Australian Suicide
  • How did SmackDown and Dynamite place in the weekly standings
  • The unique Dynamite rating pattern
  • Full weekly ratings notes including what milestone did Raw on Netflix fall below
  • Notes on the high SmackDown number
  • Takeshita goes to Arena Mexico
  • Arguably the greatest freestyle wrestler of all-time passes away
  • Queen of the Ring notes
  • Giant mask match of legends being teased
  • Tony Khan changes philosophy
  • Forbidden Door title match tease
  • Tony Khan talks Wembley Stadium attendance record
  • Ospreay talks difference between New Japan and AEW
  • Mark Shapiro talks a lot of the future WWE and UFC business deals
  • A look at what level of value UFC PPVs could bring to Netflix and the value WWE brings to Netflix
  • Tom Aspinall vs. Jon Jones update
  • Freak show fight between two of the strongest men who ever lived
  • Big Tokyo Dome event planned
  • WWE in talks for a unique PPV event including date and place it is tentative for
  • Evolve notes
  • Sonya Deville and Carmella talk being dropped by WWE

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

Monday Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about Raw in MSG, fallout from Revolution, New Japan Cup and the rest of the news on Wrestling Observer Radio.
  • Raw is tonight in Madison Square Garden with a loaded show featuring CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins in a cage match, which should be huge numbers.  Also announced is Rey Mysterio & Dragon Lee vs New Day in a tornado match, Jey Uso vs. Grayson Waller, and appearances by Gunther, Iyo Sky, Cody Rhodes, Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan.  There were 17,500 tickets out as of earlier today and they should end up at near 18,000 and sold out since they aren’t doing the full staging.  
  • We’re looking for your thoughts on AEW Revolution, 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
  • Queen of the Ring was No. 16 at the box office doing about $380,000 in 825 theaters or $460 per sceen. That is not a strong performance at all.
  • We don’t have Smackdown ratings yet but as noted yesterday, in all the key markets that it aired on Netflix, the number was up from the past two weeks.
  • BJ Penn is having some issues and on Instagram he is claiming that his mother is a government clone who is pretending to be his real mother so that she can steal money from the family.
  • Collision for the weekend of 3/22 and 3/23 that is being taped on 3/19 in Omaha will be cut into two one hour shows rather than two hours as an experiment.  Both shows will air at about 11 p.m. and have direct NCAA basketball tournament lead-ins.  So rather than canceling the show due to the games, they are airing them late but after the games. They are going live on the West Coast so it’ll be at 8 p.m. or so both nights.
  • Chelsea Green will be the celebrity pace car driver at Sunday’s NASCAR Pennzoil 400 race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.,
  • We’ve gotten reports that two matches worth going out of your way to see from today were the Jun Kasai vs. El Desperado vs. Masashi Takeda death match on the Barb Sasaki show at Korakuen Hall and a 30:00 draw with Sareee vs. Syuri on Sareee’s show at Shinjuku Fae in Tokyo.
  • ESPN released a statement regarding the problems with ordering and viewing Saturday’s UFC 313 show.  “Unfortunately we experienced a technical issue that impacted purchases of the UFC PPV on ESPN+ shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time.  Our team identified  and resolved the issue restoring full functionality ahead of the main event. We apologize for the inconvenience and are taking steps to ensure a better experience in the future.” ESPN+ has put UFC 313 up on the site as a  free show rather than a PPV due to the problems.
  • CM Punk will appear on LFG at 8 p.m. Sunday. Rivals at 9:30 p.m. will be The Rock vs Mick Foley and Greatest Moments will be on Punk.
  • Cesar Duran was announced for the 4/5 MLW show in Los Angeles, his first time doing a pro wrestling show in the city since the Lucha Underground days when he was Dario Cueto.
  • PFL announced Paul Hughes will headline a 5/10 show at the SSE Arena in Belfast.
  • Liv Morgan was on today’s Kelly Clarkson show.
  • Ethan Page was on during last night’s New York Rangers hockey game at MSG after the first period plugging wrestling at the Garden (well the theater) after 18 years in the business tomorrow night.  Stephanie Vauqer was on after the second period plugging her match with her best friend Giulia. (thanks to Steve Khan and Burt Turelli).