Daily Update: WWE title belts, NXT notes, Sammy Guevara & Tay Conti

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

In this issue:

  • The life and times of the Iron Sheik and Khosrow Vaziri, and how the two men were the same person but altogether different.
  • The short WWF title run
  • The Sgt. Slaughter feud
  • His two very different periods as a pop culture celebrity
  • How the Iron Sheik name and gimmick came around
  • Famous Iron Sheik shoot stories
  • The first WWF run
  • The hostage crisis changes his career
  • Did you know Iron Sheik competed in the predecessor to the G-1 in 1982
  • The feud with Angelo Mosca in Canada
  • The last angle with Killer Karl Kox in Florida
  • Growing up as an amateur wrestler in Iran
  • Why he left Iran and wound up in Minnesota
  • His U.S. amateur wrestling exploits
  • His being trained by Verne Gagne and Billy Robinson and altercations that came up
  • Why Gagne got so much heat when Sheik was injured
  • The angle to set up Sheik’s WWF tile run
  • Hulk Hogan comes to WWF
  • Sheik’s biggest matches during his biggest singles run with Hogan and Slaughter
  • His arrest in a feud with Jim Duggan
  • His teaming with Slaughter
  • His drug issues
  • The death of his daughter and what he wanted to do to the man who killed her
  • Longest reigning world champions in pro wrestling history
  • Stories behind the longest title reigns
  • Differences in how world champions were picked
  • New Japan Dominion, as well as build to Forbidden Door and the G-1 Climax tournament
  • Travel issues relating to getting the BCC into Japan for Dominion
  • Dominion match-by-match coverage
  • TripleMania news
  • UFC Saturday coverage
  • The most detailed look at the ratings for a huge week on television for pro wrestling
  • Where Raw, Smackdown and Dynamite rated among everything on cable and network, both sports and entertainment
  • Ratings breakdown, looking at competition for all the show
  • Perhaps the oldest living wrestling promoter passes away
  • Controversial angle in Stardom
  • Superstar Graham funeral notes
  • The career of Gary Albright
  • Pro wrestling documentary gets an Emmy nomination
  • The first-ever pro wrestling closed circuit show
  • Ticket sales for the upcoming AEW & WWE shows
  • International TV ratings and streaming numbers
  • What notable thing happened in ratings internationally this past week
  • Real WrestleMania attendance and gate figures for 2023 are released
  • Biggest gates in AEW history
  • Merch rankings
  • Dana White talks Tyson Fury vs. Jon Jones
  • MMA show draws 50,000 fans this past week
  • Update on Peacock
  • Notes on the Raw on Twitch show
  • Story behind Smackdown’s monster rating
  • Trends for AEW and WWE ratings
  • What Friday told us about television viewership of AEW and WWE

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter:

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Wednesday Update

WWE

  • Sports Illustrated reported that the reason WWE has recently introduced new title belts for Roman Reigns, Asuka, and Rhea Ripley is because Paul “Triple H” Levesque “wanted to freshen up all the titles and present a new look.”
  • A video aired on NXT last night hyping that Bronco Nima & Lucien Price will be debuting as a tag team soon. Both Nima and Price are former college football players who joined the WWE Performance Center in March 2022. They made their in-ring debuts on NXT Level Up last August.
  • There was also a segment on NXT where Elektra Lopez & Lola Vice agreed that they will be sticking together going forward. Vice is former MMA fighter Valerie Loureda.
  • WWE has a post-show interview with Nathan Frazer following his Heritage Cup Championship victory last night.
  • Frazer tweeted: “I remember a time where the vast majority of folks thought I would come to WWE and fail. Tonight, I proved every single one of those people wrong. The first of many.”
  • WWE sent the Denver Nuggets and Vegas Golden Knights custom title belts after their respective NBA and NHL championship wins.
  • Bayley and Shayna Baszler were guests on WWE’s The Bump this afternoon.
  • Raquel Rodriguez and Pretty Deadly will be on The Bump next Wednesday.
  • Cameron Grimes appeared on the latest episode of Out of Character.
  • WWE congratulated NIL athlete Turner Washington on winning his fifth NCAA national championship and earning his ninth All-American honor in track and field.
  • WWE’s YouTube channel uploaded the following matches: Kevin Owens vs. Finn Balor for the NXT Championship (Beast in the East 2015), Kane vs. Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship (Survivor Series 2010), and Great Khali vs. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship (Unforgiven 2007).

AEW/Other Wrestling

  • While appearing on Brian Hebner’s Refin’ It Up podcast, Tony Chimel explained what his role is working at AEW house shows:
          • Well, they (AEW) started running some live events so I was at one of those just the other day on Saturday. But I’ll help out. I’ll do numerous things. Rafael Morffi’s the one that got my foot in the door and he does like 20 different things. I kind of help him out. It’s kind of like (Steve) Rubin, do a little bit of (Mark) Carrano, a little bit of market rep stuff, a little bit of production stuff. I was helping this other girl, Lexy (Nair), who was ring announcing her first show the other day at Tupelo, Mississippi. She did a great job. You know, giving her pointers with announcing and stuff like that so, do a little bit of everything, you know? Which is nice and I’m not on the road 20 days a month so that’s a good thing as well and it still keeps me active and doing a little bit of that and working here at home. It’s a nice little mix right now.
  • Sammy Guevara and Tay Conti shared footage of Conti telling Guevara that he’s going to be a father for the first time.
  • AEW uploaded Fight Forever character reveal spotlights on Ricky Starks, Thunder Rosa, and Powerhouse Hobbs.
  • Last night’s Dark Side of the Ring episode on the Graham family averaged 197,000 viewers on Vice TV. The rating in the 18-49 demo was a 0.06. Both numbers are up from last week, which averaged 155,000 viewers and drew a 0.04 rating.
  • Ariel Helwani interviewed Eric Bischoff.
  • MLW has announced that B3CCA will perform live at Never Say Never on Saturday, July 8.