Daily Update: WWE Raw, Sting, Being The Elite

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

Highlights include:

  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • WrestleMania updates, including status of different matches that have been planned and not announced
  • Ticket sales notes and demand for tickets, plus notes on NXT Stand & Deliver
  • A study of the buying patterns of PPVs for AEW, including comparisons with one year ago, how many shows the average AEW PPV buyer purchases each year, the difference between satellite owners and others in the viewing patterns, update on Revolution numbers and how many different people bought an AEW PPV this past year
  • Letters from WWE to the Alamodome in San Antonio show how WWE counted Royal Rumble attendance, along with the actual numbers from the show
  • Richard Schaefer, the famed boxing promoter, heading Anthem’s wrestling, MMA and new boxing divisions and what are future plans for the divisions
  • New Japan Cup coverage with all the matches from the past week
  • Notes on AEW’s Canada tour
  • Mexican star taken to prison on domestic violence charges against another Mexican wrestling star
  • Full coverage of this past week’s major pro wrestling events and the UFC show
  • Update on the WWE Hall of Fame including stories on the careers of the inductees
  • Coverage of the WWE’s return to its most famous arena, Madison Square Garden
  • The life of former wrestler Jeff Gaylord and his very checkered life after wrestling and during wrestling
  • The most detailed look at the weekly television ratings, competition, how segments did, where shows are strong and weak.
  • Promotion adding a ton of new talent after young wrestlers impress in a special format
  • Mainstream angle being done in Mexico
  • Joint show announced in Japan for the Himeka retirement
  • A look at the Guerrero wrestling family
  • Legendary athlete passes away that a wrestling move done all over the world was named after including the person who actually named the move
  • New promotion starting taking the name of a legendary regional company
  • International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame 2023 inductions and ceremony
  • Ric Flair Twitter war of words
  • Lots of indie notes including some big crowds this week
  • 16 Carat Gold tournament in Germany news
  • Notes on recent Will Ospreay matches
  • Notes on major AEW negotiations
  • AEW cancels TV tapings and why
  • Update on social media abuse of Riho
  • Chris Jericho honored
  • Ticket sales for upcoming WWE & AEW shows
  • Streaming numbers for WWE & AEW this past week
  • International TV ratings updates including a company sets its all-time viewing record in Canada
  • Notes on AEW signees
  • UFC TV renewal talk even though it’s years away
  • Former UFC champion Benson Henderson retires
  • Update on WWE’s attempt to get legalized betting on its matches
  • Update on Jay White
  • Interest level mainstream of UFC, WWE and AEW big shows including geographical popularity split between AEW Revolution and WWE Elimination Chamber
  • Update on MLW lawsuit against WWE
  • What are the key new things in the suit
  • WWE injury updates and returns

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight covering all the latest news from WWE and the rest of the wrestling world plus building to the shows during the rest of the week.

Raw is in St. Louis tonight. Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, Logan Paul, The Usos, Rey Mysterio and Lita are all scheduled on the show. Charlie Dempsey is there as well, but he’ll likely be on Main Event because that’s where the NXT talent flown in usually works. Announced is a face to face with Reigns and Cody Rhodes, Austin Theory vs. Montez Ford non-title, Asuka & Bianca Belair vs. Chelsea Green & Carmella, plus Impaulsive TV with Logan Paul to likely shoot another angle with Seth Rollins. More than 12,000 tickets were out this morning so with walkup this will almost surely end up as a sellout. They will be up more than 64 percent from the last time they taped television in the building on 10/28, which tells you how hot things are compared to five months ago

Sting returns Wednesday night on Dynamite in a six-man tag with Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy vs. Kip Sabian & Butcher & Blade from Independence, MO. This is the show featuring the Kenny Omega vs. El Hijo del Vikingo match.

On Being the Elite, they did a phone chat gimmick with the Young Bucks, Adam Page and Kenny Omega but Omega bailed out of the chat, so the story is the Young Bucks are or have made amends with Page but Omega has yet to do so.

PW Insider reported that the fifth and final WWE Hall of Fame inductee this year is likely a referee who “someone the entire industry loved.” It would be the first referee ever inducted if that’s the case.

New Japan’s New Japan Cup finals are tomorrow at 4 a.m. Eastern from Niigata:

      • Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuto Nakashima vs. Taichi & Douki
      • Zack Sabre Jr. & Kosei Fujita vs. Ryohei Oiwa & Shota Umino
      • Tama Tonga & Tomohiro Ishii & Tomoaki Honma vs. KENTA & El Phantasmo & Chase Owens
      • Desperado & Ren Narita & Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Evil & Yujiro Takahashi & Sho & Dick Togo
      • Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi vs. Great O’Khan & Aaron Henare
      • Kazuchika Okada & Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Aussie Open & Jeff Cobb
      • Hiromu Takahashi vs. Lio Rush for the IWGP Jr. title
      • Sanada vs. David Finlay in the New Japan Cup final

Besides the two main events, the undercard will likely set up matches for the 4/8 show at Sumo Hall.

The New York Post has a story on massive layoffs coming to ESPN and that nobody is safe, which could affect those who cover UFC, plus that they are interested in Pat McAfee.

Popular Northeast referee Sean Patrick O’Brien, known as SPO, passed way. We don’t have any details other than he refereed for a number of promotions including ICW NHB and was said to be best friends with John Wayne Murdoch, noting they were traveling partners. On Saturday night’s ICW NHB show on IWTV, they had all the talent in the ring while the crowd chanted “SPO” to start the show. Danny Demanto then came out to dedicate the show to O’Brien (thanks to Ross Blair)

The 3/30 episode of ROH television, which hasn’t been taped yet, will be taped on 3/29 at the Dynamite tapings in St. Louis, so they’ll tape ROH, Dynamite and Rampage.

The Undertaker has a One Man Show on 3/24 at The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

The presale for Forbidden Door on 6/25 in Toronto takes place on Wednesday. 

AEW will be taping Dark matches at Universal in Orlando from 6-10 p.m. on Friday night.

WWE did a combo ticket presale for both the Smackdown and Backlash shows on 5/5 and 5/6 in San Juan, Puerto Rico today. We don’t have numbers but the queue was long and I expect sellouts for both shows almost immediately when they go on sale to the public.

Denise Salcedo will be joining Busted Open radio every Saturday starting this coming weekend from 9 a.m. to Noon Eastern time working with Mark Henry on Sirius XM.

Denzel Freeman, who scored a 27 second knockout on Friday night’s PFL show, earning him a contract for the heavyweight tournament, was formerly in WWE developmental. After being picked by Randy Couture, Kayla Harrison and Wiz Khalifa for a contract based on being the most impressive winner on the show, he asked if Liv Morgan would go out with him. Morgan is in a relationship with Taylor “Uncle Howdy” Rotunda.

The episode of NCIS: Los Angeles with Sheamus aired last night. In the story, star Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) goes undercover in an underground Bare Knuckle fight club to catch dirty cops involved in a Fentanyl drug ring. Sheamus played Odin the head of the drug gang. The two had a fight at the end of the episode. He was billed in the credits a “WWE Superstar Sheamus” as opposed to Stephen Farrelly. (thanks to Grant Zwarych)

A correction from yesterday (it was corrected last night in the daily update) is that the next TKW show in Taylor, MI is on 4/21. We had listed it was 4/2 (thanks to Leonard Brand)