Daily Update: WWE SmackDown number, Raw, AEW executive promoted

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • What people thought of Worlds End and Stardom Queendom
  • Roman Reigns vs. The Rock
  • All the AEW news and controversies from the past week
  • Worlds End rundown
  • MJF future
  • AEW departures
  • Business numbers
  • Full coverage of New Japan at the Tokyo Dome
  • Kevin Dunn’s WWE departure
  • Breakdown of WWE and AEW attendance in 2023 and how it compares to other companies historically
  • 2023 WWE Iron Man award winner
  • Pro Wrestling NOAH’s big show
  • Stardom show at Sumo Hall rundown
  • Giulia future
  • Nakajima vs. Miyahara II
  • The most detailed look at the TV ratings of all the shows, rankings, demos, competition and comparisons with one year ago
  • What AEW may have done this past week for the first time in its history
  • What Japanese wrestler drew more major crowds in the U.S. than anyone in history
  • Andrade’s last match at Arena Mexico draws a sellout
  • The unique show this week at Arena Mexico
  • Lots of international groups coming to Philadelphia for WrestleMania
  • Story behind the departures and changes in All Japan
  • Annual New Year’s Eve trio tournament coverage
  • Takeshita comes to All Japan
  • Surprise as far as popularity of Iron Claw in week two
  • The story of World Class in Israel
  • Mil Mascaras and Hulk Hogan speak
  • Thoughts on Mad Kurt
  • Grandfather of NJPW star will be honored by the King Charles
  • Danielson talks his future
  • International TV deals for WWE and AEW
  • International TV ratings
  • Streaming numbers for the past week
  • UFC PPV experiment
  • Lots of newcomers to WWE
  • Advanced tickets for upcoming WWE & AEW & NJPW shows

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about Raw, ratings, Houston wrestling, and the rest of the news tonight on Wrestling Observer radio.

Smackdown did its best ratings since September and Rampage since October. No college football was part of it. That’s not the only reason, particularly for Smackdown. But it’s certainly part of it. The Smackdown number was likely a combination of Dwayne Johnson on Raw and people expecting a Roman Reigns response, the three-way for the Rumble main event match and Logan Paul on the show.

Raw tonight is from Portland, OR. It goes head-to-head with the college football national championship game, Michigan vs Washington, on ESPN. For whatever reason, Raw usually doesn’t do badly against this game most years as compared to how it does against the NFL, even though the audience for this game beats most NFL audiences. The expectation is that ESPN will do one of the largest audiences in the history of cable television tonight for the game. C.M. Punk will be on the show and there will likely be curiosity from The Rock being on last week. Matches announced are Kayden Carter & Katana Chance defending the women’s tag title against Piper Niven & Chelsea Green, Cody Rhodes vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, Finn Balor vs. Tommaso Ciampa, Kofi Kingston vs. Ludvig Kaiser and The Miz vs. JD McDonagh. There will also be an R-Truth interview. R-Truth segments have done well on YouTube. More than 10,000 tickets were out and it was close to sold out. Next week is the final week of Raw going against football, as it will be against an NFL playoff game, so the “bounce back” show is 1/22.

Shane Emerson was promoted to AEW’s Vice President of Global Programming and Partnerships.

The Kenoh vs. Go Shiozaki GHC title match this coming Saturday will be the first time that title has been defended at Korakuen Hall in 14 months. For those keeping track, Saturday has the return of UFC, Collision & Battle of the Belts, the return of TNA on PPV, New Japan on PPV and all going against Miami vs. Kansas City in the NFL playoffs.

In an interview in Tokyo Sports, Katsuyori Shibata said he wished he had been able to thank New Japan fans befoe leaving, said he expects to finish his career in AEW, has trained with Bryan Danielson and said he still wants matches with Danielson and Hiroshi Tanahashi.

Dana White announced two major UFC fights last night. For UFC 299 on 3/9 in Miami it’s Dustin Poirier vs. Benoit Saint-Denis and for UFC 300 on 4/13 in Las Vegas it’s Charles Oliveira vs Arman Tsarukyan with the winner getting a shot at lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. Sportsbetting.ag lists the bigger names as the underdog in both, as Benoit Saint-Denis is a -150 favorite and Tsarukyan is a -200 favorite.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal predicted that Raw will wind up on Amazon Prime, but also listed FX as a possibility. He didn’t even bring up WBD. He also predicted that UFC and ESPN renew their deal. That deal makes sense for both of them. There is no better place for UFC than ESPN, and ESPN+ and in particular ESPN+ PPV has almost a need for UFC because nobody else produces regular PPV numbers streaming at the level of UFC. 

Pat McAfee said that he doesn’t take back anything he said about ESPN exec Norby Williamson.

MLW announced tickets on sale for 2/3 in Philadelphia featuring the debut of Mistico, plus Saoshi Kojima, Jacob Fatu, Sami Callihan and Alex Kane. Matt Riddle will be in Japan on that date.