Daily Update: WWE Raw, The Nine Lives of Vince McMahon, MJF

Daily Update

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

  • Notes on the backgrounds of everyone voted in
  • Huge historical stories on the two promoters voted in talking about wrestling history all over the world
  • Notes on a lot of the people who were not voted in and their candidacy
  • Performer and match of the week
  • Full coverage of Saturday’s UFC show
  • Cain Velasquez returns to pro wrestling as AAA comes to the U.S., background, future, attendance, audience drawn and more
  • The most detailed look at the TV ratings from the past week, looking at the whys, what can be learned, segment by segment of the main shows, competition and more
  • Major mask loss in a cage show coming on January 1 to Arena Mexico
  • A look at the finals of the Stardom tag team tournament as well as the big show at the end of the year
  • What Hall of Fame candidate returns to Dragon Gate on Christmas
  • Several stars leaving All Japan
  • First IWGP women’s title defense to be held in the U.S.
  • New Japan tag team tournaments notes
  • Battle of Los Angeles news
  • Another major movie being produced on a 90s star and his unique story
  • Impact has one of its best matches of the year
  • A detailed look at Tony Khan’s explanation of William Regal’s departure and why he allowed him to go
  • Khan talks about Rampage going forward
  • Dustin Rhodes talks retirement
  • Notes on ROH PPV show
  • Notes on WWE going to new markets and ticket advances
  • International TV ratings
  • AEW & WWE streaming numbers
  • More news on the Pro Slap league TV deal and time
  • Dana White talks Jiri Prochazka’s injury
  • Shawn Michaels talks NXT
  • Lots of WWE injury updates
  • Cena’s schedule for the next few months
  • Lots of WrestleMania news

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Hall of Fame, William Regal, Sasha Banks and the rest of the pro wrestling and MMA news with Wrestling Observer Radio. If you’ve got any questions on those three subjects you can send them to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

We’re looking for your thoughts on ROH Final Battle, UFC 282 and NXT Deadline 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

Raw tonight is from Milwaukee and has Bobby Lashley vs. Seth Rollins with the winner to get a shot at Austin Theory’s U.S. title, Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss with the winner to get a shot at Bianca Belair’s women’s title and Candice LeRae vs. Iyo Sky. The NFL game tonight is the New England Patriots vs. Arizona Cardinals. Raw is coming off one of its weakest performances in history so it will be very interesting to see how they respond this week. 

Malik Blade and Edris Enofe are at the show so they may be working Main Event tapings.

We’re looking for reports from last night’s WWE house show in Charleston, WV and from Raw today with Main Event matches, dark segments and any other notes on the show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

PWG has announced Konosuke Takeshita and El Hijo del Vikingo for the Battle of Los Angeles, which makes 17 people, which is a weird number for a tournament. Tickets to on sale Thursday night and will sell out instantly. The first round matches on 1/7 will be announced before Thursday. The final eight or nine will wrestle on 1/8.

Vice TV will be airing The Nine Lives of Vince McMahon documentary tomorrow night. The first airing is at 9 p.m. Eastern with a replay at midnight and again at 3 a.m. They are promoting it all over the station. Among the people on the documentary are myself, Vince Russo, Jim Cornette, Bryan Alvarez and Brandon Thurston.

New Japan’s finals of the heavyweight and junior heavyweight tag team tournaments plus Karl Anderson appearing will be on Wednesday morning a 4:30 a.m. from Sendai. The card has:
Ryohei Oiwa & Kosei Fujita vs. Alex Zayne & Lindaman
Kushida & Kevin Knight vs. Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste
Tiger Mask & Robbie Eagles & Alex Coughlin & Gabriel Kidd vs. Great O’Khan & Aaron Henare & TJP & Francesco Akira
Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki vs. Evil & Yujiro Takahashi & Sho & Dick Togo
Kazuchika Okada & Tama Tonga & Master Wato vs. Jay White & Taiji Ishimori & Gedo
Karl Anderson vs Hikuleo for the Never openweight title
Yoh & Lio Rush vs. Ace Austin & Chris Bey for the junior tag team finals
Aussie Open vs. Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi in the heavyweight tournament finals
Anderson is booked for the Tokyo Dome on 1/4 so one would expect him to win and his Tokyo Dome challenger to come out after the match. As the last major show of the year, if they are going to announce Mercedes Varnado (Sasha Banks) for the Tokyo Dome ahead of time, this would be the show to make that announcement.

Ricky Knight Jr., the British champion for RevPro, suffered a broken wrist and missed this past weekend and will be out for Saturday’s show at York Hall. RevPro will make an announcement regarding the show shortly.

AEW will be taping Dark on Saturday at Universal Studios Soundstage 19 in Orlando. They will be taping a ton of matches from 2-5 p.m. and again from 7-10 p.m. 

MJF did an interview with The Today Show’s web site.

MJF also did media surrounding UFC 282 cutting promos on Paddy Pimblett.

The St. Louis Blues announced a Wrestling Night at their 3/15 game against the Minnesota Wild. Ric Flair will be appearing at the game.