Daily Update: WWE WrestleMania Backlash, UFC 274, Google trends

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter: May 9, 2022 Observer Newsletter: WWE Q1 2022 financials, Forbidden Door presale sells out

  • Match and performer of the week
  • WWE business, profits, revenues
  • WrestleMania number releases and putting them into perspective
  • Elimination Chamber viewership and the obvious unsaid reason why it was up
  • Ticket demand for the Cardiff, Wales show
  • More on the WWE deal with A&E
  • Nick Khan talks multiple bidders for WWE rights deals including the next rights deal
  • Stephanie McMahon talks WrestleMania sponsorships
  • More on WWE recruiting and question on adding Performance Centers
  • Questions on doing a stadium show in India
  • What categories is business up and and what categories is it down
  • AEW Forbidden Door sellout and gate, ticket demand, the card, secondary market numbers
  • Full coverage of New Japan’s return to the former Fukuoka Dome and all the angles, returns and direction of the company
  • Business notes on the show
  • What matches had to be changed as well as endings
  • Notes on the Best of the Super Junior tournament and Dominion
  • Story behind the changes to the WrestleMania Backlash show
  • What is the planned stadium direction
  • Ticket updates for all the WWE PPV thought the summer
  • Details on AEW’s new television show
  • AAA Triplemania coverage
  • Story behind the Triplemania main event
  • Plans for the next Triplemania
  • More notes on the recent WWE cuts
  • Full coverage of Saturday’s UFC show
  • A look at both Stardom PPV shows and future direction
  • Dragon Gate Dead of Alive coverage
  • TV ratings including what category AEW beat both Smackdown and Raw in
  • How the different segments did
  • CMLL Universal tournament concludes
  • New tournaments coming to CMLL
  • Who Stardom is interested in from AEW
  • King of Gate tournament
  • Who is Jumbo Tsuruta and his Memorial show
  • What was the highest rated pro wrestling match on television in history
  • Champion Carnival coverage
  • NOAH Sumo Hall coverage
  • What American signed a new contract with NOAH
  • Freddy Prinze wants to start a promotion
  • PWG coverage
  • Update on a new pro wrestling cartoon show
  • AEW and Warner/Media
  • A look at what is the likely Double or Nothing show
  • WWE vs. AEW in Long Island this week
  • AEW stars on TV show Sunday
  • WWE & AEW ticket sales for all the upcoming major events
  • Streaming numbers
  • Dana White on boxers pay
  • More on Jorge Masvidal charges
  • Plans for July 2 UFC show head-to-head with Money in the Bank
  • UFC longtime stars in a must-win fight
  • WWE draft plans
  • Canadian TV numbers for AEW & WWE
  • WWE European tour coverage

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter: April 4, 2005 Observer Newsletter back issue: WrestleMania 21 preview, All Japan Women shuts down

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Sunday News Update

Bryan and I will be back talking WrestleMania Backlash and the rest of the latest wrestling and MMA news tonight on Wrestling Observer Radio. Garrett and I did our weekly show last night talking the UFC show, Forbidden Tour, the Canelo Alvarez fight, WWE financials, ratings, today’s show and more up on the site right now.

  • WrestleMania Backlash is tonight at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, RI:
  • Roman Reigns & Usos vs. Drew McIntyre & Randy Orton & Riddle – Nothing said B show, or even C show than having one world champion and him being booked on PPV in a six-man tag match. Obviously this is the prelude to Reigns vs. McIntyre. With that in mind, the logical finish is McIntyre beating Reigns with a Claymore kick. But they protect Reigns so much I don’t think that is what will happen. This should be an action-filled main event, but not substantially different from many Raw & Smackdown TV main events. The odds have McIntyre’s team as a -275 favorite. The over/under star rating for the main event on Kambi is 4.25, so they are predicting a strong main event.
  • Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey in an I Quit match for the Smackdown women’s title. Rousey is a whopping -800 favorite to win the title given the stipulation. This is the only title match advertised on the show at this point.
  • Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins. These two have been tearing it up at the house shows and had one of the best WWE maches of the year at WrestleMania. Logical booking would have Rhodes winning every match until he gets a title shot. WWE 50/50 booking would say this is Rollin’s turn. Rhodes is still listed as a -300 favorite.
  • Edge vs. A.J. Styles. Damian Priest is barred from ringside. That doesn’t mean he won’t be there because WWE doesn’t live up to stipulations much of the time Since Edge won the first match, one would think Styles would win this, but Edge is listed as a -155 favorite. They seem to be building Edge & Priest vs. Styles & Finn Balor.
  • Bobby Lashley vs. Omos. Another WrestleMania rematch with Lashley winning the first one. This figures to be short. People are predicting 50/50 booking here with Omos a strong -375 favorite. Lashley winning the arm wrestling clean probably led to these predictions.
  • Happy Corbin vs. Madcap Moss. This is a big match for Moss as his first big show match as as babyface. He ticks a lot of boxes, but his gimmick limits him from upward mobility as a babyface and he should at some point transition out of it. Moss at last look was a -190 favorite.
  • There was a lot to digest from yesterday’s UFC show which included Charles Oliveira losing the lightweight title by missing weight, but then beating Justin Gaethje. So Oliveira will battle for the title in his next fight. Carla Esparza scored a huge upset in a fight with Rose Namajunas. We discussed this extensively on our show.
  • Esparza vs. Namajunas scoring saw Eric Colon give Esparza rounds two and four so had 48-47 Namajunas, Brad Frank gave rounds one, two and four to Esparza and had her up 48-47 and Rick Winter gave Esparza one through four and had her up 49-46. Nothing happened in this fight until the fourth round. I had 49-48 for Esparza but judges are strongly told not to score 10-10, even in rounds that literally nothing happened in. Esparza got two takedowns in four and Namajunas landed one good punch. In five, Namajunas won the found. Four is probably Esparza, five is definitely Namajunas and the other three could have been scored either way. Namajunas gave away the title and her corner sabotaged her title. Media scores were 56 percent for Esparza 38 percent Namajunas and six percent even.
  • In Ovince Saint Preux vs. Shogun Rua, Eric Colon had OSP winning one and three, Junichiro Kamijo had OSP only winning three and Winter had OSP winning all three rounds. I had OSP winning two and three but almost nothing happened in the first two rounds and OSP clearly won three. Rare to have two really bad fights on the main card. Media scores were 88 percent for OSP.
  • In Randy Brown vs. Khaos Williams, Kamijo had rounds two and three for Brown Chis Lee and two and three for Brown and Winter had only round two for Brown. 89 percent of media scores went to Brown.
  • In Blagoy Ivanov vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima, Ivanov won rounds two three no all judges cards. Media scores were 50 percent for each.
  • For Google searches for the week, the Canelo Alvarez loss to Dmity Bivol was No. 1 for yesterday with 3 million searches. The UFC 274 show had 2 million searches. Donald Cerrone, who was taken off the UFC show due to food poisoning, had 100,000 searches while Tammy Sytch had 50,000 for her arrest. No other boxing, MMA or wrestling topics made the top 20 during the week.
  • We’re looking for your thoughts on UFC 274 last night and WWE WrestleMania Backlash tonight 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
  • We’re also looking for reports from tonight’s Impact TV tapings in Newport, KY.. Announced for the show is Josh Alexander & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Jay White & Chris Bey, a Gauntlet for the Gold, Kenny King vs. El Phantasmo and Mike Bennett & Matt Taven vs. Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson.
  • WWE from last night in Trenton, NJ:
  • Ronda Rousey & Sasha Banks & Naomi b Natalya & Charlotte Flair & Shayna Baszler
  • Veer Mahaan b Drew Gulak
  • Ricochet won three-way to keep IC title over Jinder Mahal and Sami Zayn
  • Austin Theory b Finn Balor to keep U.S. title
  • Cody Rhodes b Seth Rollins
  • Kevin Owens show with Riddle leading to:
  • Matt Riddle & Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods b Kevin Owens & Usos
  • Becky Lynch won three-way over Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley
  • Roman Reigns b Drew McIntyre to keep the Universal title
  • Reigns in his promo after the match left a cryptic message. The only thing we were told about it is that Reigns is not leaving the promotion right now for Hollywood, which is how a lot of fans took the message. He did say he was changing things up going forward and entering a new phrase. (thanks to Bernard Ozarowski)
  • Reelz is doing a WWE television marathon today:
  • 4 p.m. Hulk Hogan
  • 5 p.m. Rob Van Dam documentary
  • 6 p.m. Randy Savage autopsy
  • 7 p.m. Chyna autopsy
  • 8 p.m. Chris Benoit autopsy
  • 9 p.m. Andre the Giant autopsy
  • 10 p.m. Eddy Guerrero autopsy

WWE

UFC

  • Luke Rockhold vs. Paulo Costa is scheduled for a 7/30 PPV show. So UFC and WWE will be running PPV shows on both 7/2 and 7/30.

Other Notes

  • Warrior Wrestling has announced as 6/26 show in Chicago at Malcolm X College at 2 p.m. This is the day of the Forbidden Door show. There will also be a pre-show fan fest. We’ll have more details as the show approaches.
  • The 2018 Best of the Super Juniors final match with Hiromu Takahashi vs. Taiji Ishimori, one of the best junior heavyweight matches in New Japan history, was posted by New Japan on its YouTube channel.
  • John Smith has been nominated for voting for he U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame. Smith is one of three U.S. wrestlers, along with George Mehnert and Bruce Baumgartner, to win two gold medals. He also won four world title and his six total world championships from 1987-1992 is the most in U.S. history. Lou Thesz was once told me he considered Smith the greatest American wrestler of all-time.
  • AAA announcer Joe Dombrowski is producing a documentary at the Extreme Rising promotion, the attempt to revive the spirit of ECW promotion that ran a few successful events before petering out.
  • Former Glory middleweight champion Jason Wilnis has signed a multi-fight MMA deal with the KSW promotion and will debut on 5/28 in Lodz, Poland at the Atlas Arena. The 31-year-old has kickboxing wins over both Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira. he’s 2-0 in MMA.
  • Matt & Jeff Hardy return to MCW for a 5/15 show in Millesville,MD at the Benfield Sports Center. They face Matt Taven & Mike Bennett. The show also has Ken Dixon vs. Moses vs. Nick Aldis vs. Brian Johnson, Gia Scott vs. Mandy Leon for the women’s title and Mike Bailey vs. Joey Janela vs. Chris Bey.
  • NESN is still airing ROH shows over-and-over again, basically airing the last TV show with Jay Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal. (thanks to Aray Witner)
  • Invicta returns for a Wednesday night show in Kansas City featuring strawweight champion Emily Ducote (10-6) defending against Alesha Zappitella (9-3, 1 no contest).
  • Delirious is available for seminars, wrestling matches or appearances through Bill Behrens at showbis@aol.com
  • Ed Harris, who does the UFC show open narration did a bit for MLW on the originals of Octagon Jr. on this past week’s television show. MLW has said they are upgrading production and expanding the staff.
  • Insane Wrestling Revolution had a packed house on Thursday night in Monroe,MI: Ace Austin b Aiden Prince, Jackson Stone b Tanner Nix, Deaner b Jason Hotch, Trey Miguel b Jake Crist (said to be great), Sam Beale won three-way over Malcolm Monroe III and Kenny Urban, Big Kon b Dread King Logan when Shane Douglas turned on Logan so Kon kept the IWR title, Benjamin Boone b DBA-COR, Nate Bock & Kyle Barrett b Heath & Rhino-DQ. They were giving away free tickets to tonight’s Impact tapings in Newport KY, which was about four hours away, at this show. Next show is 6/9 with Kon vs. Erick Redbeard for the IWR title at the F.O.P. Hall in Monroe. (thanks to Paul Meade and Leonard Brand).
  • St. Louis Anarchy from Friday night in Alton, IL: Solomon Tupu & Mike Hartenblower b Orion Starlight & Jacques Kennedy, Sean Orleans b Nick King-DQ, Christian Rose b Jake Dirden in a lumberjack match, Billy Starkz Kody Lane, Camaro Jackson & the Kenway b Victor Analog & Anakin Murphy, Jeremy Wyatt b Chip Day, Davey Vega b Mike Bailey, Evan Gelistico won six-way over Adrian Surge, Moonshine Mantell, Campbell Myers, Chase Holliday and Jay Marston, Aaron Williams b Mat Fitchett, Derek Neal b Manders, Kenny Alfonso b Thomas Shire, Gary Jay b John Wayne Murdoch (thanks to Patrick Brandmeyer)
  • Northeast Wrestling from last night in Bethany, CT: Keith Youngblood b J He ru, Kerr b Bull Pittman & Lorenzo Vendetta in a handicap match, Chris Battle & Hunter Ta rca b Daniel Evans & Ray Jaz, Nikki Duke b Rebecca Scott, Wrecking Ball Legursky b Dutch, Brett Ryan Gosselin b RJ Rude, JT Dunn b KC Navarro (great match) to keep Live title), Dan Maff b Flip Gordon to keep NEW title, Jay Lethal & Jaylen Brandyn & Traevon Jordan b Channing Thomas & J Cruz & Victor Chase
  • Ruthless Pro Wrestling from last night in Detroit, MI: Kevin Blackwood b Alex Shelley (Shelly worked this date and missed the Impact show last night) Atticus Cogar b Matt Cross, Dominic Garrini b Schwartzy, Jake Something b Rickey Shane Page, Jake Crist b Kevin Giza, Justin Kyle b Josh Woods to keep title, Kevin Giza won Battle Royal, Randi West b Bobby Beverly to keep Rustbelt title, Atticus Cogar b Parrow & Hoodfoot to win the Underground belt, Eric Ryan won four-way over Masada, John Wayne Murdoch and Tommy Vendetta (thanks to Leonard Brand)