Squared Circle Gazette

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 January 20, 2020



IMPACT HARD TO KILL POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 60 (70.6%)

Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)

In the middle 25 (29.4%)



BEST MATCH POLL

Tessa Blanchard vs. Sami Callihan 59

Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin 24



WORST MATCH POLL

Rob Van Dam vs. Brian Cage 55



NXT UK TAKEOVER POLL RESULTS

Thumbs up 59 (67.8%)

Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)

In the middle 28 (32.2%)



BEST MATCH POLL

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin 73



WORST MATCH POLL

Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven 54

Walter vs. Joe Coffey 25

Based on e-mails and phone calls to the Observer as of Tuesday, 1/14.



Rocky "Soulman" Johnson, the father of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and one of the biggest stars and most agile and acrobatic heavyweight wrestlers of the 70s, passed away on 1/15.

Brian Blair, the head of the Cauliflower Alley Club, and a friend of Johnson's, said that he had been ill over the last two weeks but no cause of death was stated.

“He had been sick a couple of weeks and thought he caught the flu,” said Blair. “I told him to go do the doctor or the hospital after he had it for a week.”

Johnson didn’t go the doctor and died in his home in Lutz, FL, an $800,000 home his son bought him last year, while he was resting. At press time the autopsy was not completed and there was no cause of death.

Johnson was reported as being 75, although he may have been three years older.

He was born Wayde Douglas Bowles. His listed birthday was August 24, 1944, in Amherst, Nova Scotia.

However, he may have been born in 1941. When he was wrestling in this area in 1972, there was a records listing of him that had his age at the time as being 30. In addition, the book “The Wrestler Best 1,000" published in Japan listed his birthday as August 24, 1941. While not every birthday in that book is accurate, Dwayne Johnson also told the story of when his father was kicked out of the house and said it was over Christmas in 1954, when his father was only 13, which would also point to a 1941 birthday.

His ancestors were Americans who escaped from slavery in a Southern plantation shorty after the Revolutionary War, and settled in Nova Scotia.

“My dad, Rocky Johnson, is a minimalist,” wrote Dwayne in a message about this father a few years ago around Christmas time. “Always has been. Never asks me for much and over the years his needs are always the barest.

“Crazy story. My dad’s dad died when he was 13 years old. That Christmas, my dad’s mon had her new boyfriend over for Christmas dinner. Her boyfriend got drunk and pissed on the turkey. My dad went outside, got a shovel, drew a line in the snow and said, `If you cross that line I’ll kill you.’ The drunk crossed it and my dad laid him out cold as a block of ice

“Cops were called. They told my dad’s mom that when her boyfriend regains consciousness, he’s gonna kill your son, so one of them has got to go. In front of the entire family, my dad’s mom looked at him and said, “Get out.” He was 13 years old and now homeless. That f***ed up story happened in Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1954. He needed the bare minimum then just like now.

“Over the years, I’ve moved him into a big home, got trucks for him to drive, which he’ll literally drive into the ground, until I get him something else. Hell, I’ll get him anything he wants, but the SOB just won’t ask. Every Christmas, I always think about that story and my dad having every odd stacked against him at 13, but he fought through it and made something of himself. Makes me appreciate his struggle and hard work. Also makes me appreciate the fun times he would beat my ass in the gym so bad when I was 13 and say, `If you’re gonna throw up, go outside, and if you’re gonna cry, then go home to your mother.’ I hated it then but I embrace it now. Made a man outta me. Without pissing on my turkey.”

As a teenager, Johnson trained in both boxing and wrestling while living in Toronto. He liked wrestling more, and while he never boxed professionally, he worked for years as a sparring partner for such stars as Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Henry Clark.

His boxing background was a major part of his pro wrestling persona. His comebacks, some of the best in the game, consisted of boxing combinations, a series of left jabs and a delayed right cross, a punch that would actually be completely fake within boxing but because of the delay, built anticipation for it landing so was a big crowd pleaser. This would set up his three straight dropkick combination that would lead to a head-butt and his Boston crab submission.

Johnson was the king of the dropkicks in the 70s. Even though he was built like a thick bodybuilder, 6 feet and 255 pounds, with the impressive shoulders, chest, arms and back, he had the highest dropkicks in the business at the time. While certainly not timed as impressively at the right time in the match, since nobody has ever matched that, the height matched the best of Kazuchika Okada’s today, or Jim Brunzell or Bob Holly in the 80s and 90s. But even more impressive in that he usually did them in a series of three, and the third, like the first, would be usually to the opponents forehead as opposed to the high chest like most dropkicks of the era. Even the most well-known flyer of the era, Red Bastien, could not match Johnson’s dropkicks. He also did some of the best flying head scissors, and would often land on his feet while taking high backdrops.

Johnson, while being based in California, began dating and married Ata Maivia, the daughter of Peter Maivia (whose actual name was Pita Fanene Anderson, and used the name Maivia because a U.K. promoter thought Anderson was a silly name for a Samoan, and the only Samoan name the promoter knew was that of Neff Maiava, the Hawaiian wrestling legend, and he misspelled that to come up with the name Maivia, which stuck), 1970.

Johnson & Maivia would end up being frequent tag team partners while working for Shire. It was his second marriage. On May 2, 1972, the couple, then living in Hayward, CA, while was working for Roy Shire as one of his big three babyfaces with Maivia and Pepper Gomez, gave birth to their only child, Dwayne. Johnson had two children from a prior marriage.

That summer, after a Pat Patterson babyface turn in a feud with Lars Anderson, a tag team match on television had Patterson & Johnson beating NWA world tag team champions Anderson & DeMarco via a title saving hit the referee DQ finish. This was generally considered the most exciting television match of the 70s on Shire’s television. This led to Patterson & Johnson being regarded as the territory’s top babyface tag team, with four runs as world tag team champions, until he moved from San Francisco to Georgia in October 1974.

The couple split up years ago and Johnson married Sheila Northern, a longtime wrestling fan.

He legally changed his name to Rocky Johnson during his career. He used that name for almost his entire career. He started wrestling in Nova Scotia in 1964 as Drew Glasteau, a name many thought was his birth name.

By 1965, he was Rocky Johnson. Wayde Bowles was hardly a good name and Drew Glasteau wasn’t much better. He took the name from his two childhood boxing heroes, Rocky Marciano and Jack Johnson.

By 1966 he was working the top circuits in Canada like Maple Leaf Wrestling, International Wrestling and Stampede Wrestling, and captured the Canadian Open tag team title with Don Leo Jonathan in 1967.

His combination of fire and agility, along with an impressive physique made him a headliner from 1966 on. He had a run as world tag team champion in Detroit in 1969 with Ben Justice, and then participated in the first-ever major tag team tournament in Japan, in late 1969 for JWA, where he and Ernie Ladd placed second on the foreign side behind Nick Bockwinkel & Big John Quinn. He arrived in Los Angeles at the end of 1969 during a wrestling boom.

Johnson won the first-ever major Los Angeles Battle Royal on January 16, 1970, before a sellout crowd at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, and then came back and won the Americas title from the Great Kojika on the same night. He was the top babyface in the territory until the turn of Fred Blassie, after the two had a big money singles program. His tenure on top sold out the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on a bi-weekly basis, in particular his program with Blassie, the area’s longtime top heel and biggest legend, who took the top singles babyface spot from him.

He lost the title to Blassie in March 6, 1970, but quickly won the TV title. He won the title back on May 15, 1970, from Blassie, and after a scientific draw in the rematch, Blassie had turned babyface, essentially taking Johnson’s top spot and then took the title on June 12, 1970. The Blassie vs. Johnson program drew multiple sellouts and led to the two being among the top drawing cards in the country that year. During 1970, until late in the year when he was being moved down since he was leaving for bigger money in San Francisco, he only lost singles matches to Blassie and John Tolos.

Johnson made a guest appearance in late 1969 at a Cow Palace show and got over instantly. But at the time he was being groomed for the top babyface spot in Southern California. But it was only a matter of time where he’d come North to work for Roy Shire, which was generally considered at the time, along with St. Louis, to have the best working pro wrestlers in the business, since people like Ray Stevens, a young Pepper Gomez, Wilbur Snyder, Nick Bockwinkel, Kinji Shibuya and later Patterson built the territory and raised its standards in the ring.

Johnson would make occasional Cow Palace appearances in 1970, usually teaming with Earl Maynard, a bodybuilder who had won the Mr. Universe title and placed third to Larry Scott and Harold Poole (who also became a pro wrestler) in the first two Mr. Olympia contests in 1965 and 1966. Johnson went full-time working for Shire in 1971, first as the star of a tag team with Antonio Parisi (Tony Parisi) and then switched to the returning Gomez. Gomez, who had helped build the territory as its biggest drawing pure babyface of the 60s, had a number of injuries and was older, so Johnson was used to carry the team. But make no mistake about it, as much of an area legend that Gomez was, Johnson, younger and more athletic, was portrayed as and was the star of the team.

But history somewhat repeated itself. When Stevens left San Francisco for the AWA that summer, Johnson became the area’s top babyface in most of the cities, although Maivia got more main events at the Cow Palace because of the larger number of Samoans that attended the shows there. Johnson had a short run as U.S. champion during this period. Business was strong with him on top, particularly a hot Sacramento program with Patterson. But like with Blassie, the promotion made the move to turn its top heel face, and in doing so, Patterson became the territory’s hottest babyface, although for years when there was a heel champion they would rotate Patterson, Johnson, Maivia or fly in Stevens as the challengers at the Cow Palace.

He had a long tenure in San Francisco, where he would be remembered as one of the biggest stars in the history of Roy Shire's Big Time Wrestling. Always a babyface, he was both a singles headliner at the Cow Palace, and tag team headliner with partners like Stevens, Patterson, Maivia and Gomez.

By then he was known as “The Soulman,” Rocky Johnson, because of the popular television show of the era, “Soul Train.”

He remained a headliner, being one of the biggest draws in the history of the Tennessee territory for his matches with Jerry Lawler, where he started out in 1976 with a storyline that he was a top-ten ranked boxer who had never wrestled, doing a boxer vs wrestler program with Lawler to take advantage of the topical Mohammed Ali vs. Antonio Inoki program.

It was one of Jerry Jarrett’s most successful programs, and one that could never be done today. Jarrett was looking for someone with experience in working who could play the role of a ranked boxer that he could pawn off as a title contender, for a feud with Lawler.

Johnson fit the bill perfectly. Even though Johnson had been featured in wrestling magazines prominently since his Los Angeles Battle Royal and Americas title win on the same night, Jarrett didn’t think magazines meant anything to his fan base.

There are clips of Johnson on the WMC-TV news in Memphis, being billed as a ranked heavyweight boxer who had never wrestled, and was vowing to knock Lawler out. They legitimately sold out the Mid South Coliseum for the first match of June 21, 1976, five days before Ali vs. Inoki, with 11,188 fans. It was double what most shows had been doing and the first sellout at the Mid South Coliseum in ten months. Shortly after that match, which Lawler won because Johnson wasn’t familiar with pro wrestling, the storyline changed to Johnson deciding to leave pro boxing to become a full-time pro wrestler.

Johnson returned on July 12, 1976, to knock out Lawler in a rematch before 10,138 fans. After Johnson “learned pro wrestling,” he beat Lawler to win the Southern title on November 1, 1976, and then beat him the next week in a title vs. crown match. As champion, Johnson drew well with or without Lawler, including crowds in the 9,000 range against the Mongolian Stomper and in tag matches with Johnson & Jackie Fargo vs. Lawler & Stomper. Johnson drew a sellout of 11,257 fans on March 1, 1977 for an NWA world title loss to Race, made more impressive since it was on a Tuesday rather than the regular Monday night. Johnson also had title defenses against Ernie Ladd.

He remained one of the most in-demand wrestlers in the country, working different territories, where he almost always won the top singles title, as well as the major markets like St. Louis, Houston and sometimes Tennessee or San Francisco as a fly-in star.

He wore a mask in the Carolinas and worked as Sweet Ebony Diamond, as a regular main eventer in the most talent-laden territory in the country.

He was a frequent opponent of Jack Brisco, Terry Funk and Harley Race as world champion and would be ranked as one of the bigger stars for Sam Muchnick of the 70s as well. He did babyface vs. babyface world title matches with Brisco, including two in St. Louis, one of which was a classic 60:00 draw. In the latter part of his career, he had multiple title shots at Ric Flair in the Pacific Northwest, including a few 60:00 draws.

He was a major star in every territory he appeared in, including being the first black wrestler to win the Georgia heavyweight title when he defeated Buddy Colt in 1974. He was also the first to win the Florida title, in 1975, when he beat King Curtis Iaukea.

He was also part of the first African American tag team champions and second overall to hold any title in the WWF (Sonny King held the WWWF tag team titles previously in a team with Chief Jay Strongbow), when he and Tony Atlas, called The Soul Patrol, beat The Wild Samoans, Afa & Sika, on November, 15, 1983 at the television tapings in Allentown, PA, to win the tag team titles. The team didn't get along outside the ring, and the team was broken up quickly, losing to Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis, also at TV tapings in Allentown on April 17, 1984.

By that point in time, the years of wrestling had taken their toll and he was in a lot of pain. He wound down his full-time career in 1987 although wrestled some for several years after that.

On the biggest night of pro wrestling in the 70s, the night of the Ali vs. Inoki closed circuit show, Johnson five days earlier pretending not to be a pro wrestler in Memphis, was chosen on one of the regional undercards broadcast in many NWA cities and territories to face Terry Funk in a Houston match for the NWA title.

He also worked under a mask as Sweet Ebony Diamond in the Carolinas.

His younger brother later became a pro wrestler as Ricky Johnson, and the two formed a tag team in Hawaii when Johnson was part-owner of the promotion. That period got Johnson into deep financial trouble due to the promotion being a big money loser. The Hawaii promotion was run by his mother-in-law Lia Maivia, who took over after Peter, who purchased the rights from Steve Rickard (who had purchased those rights from Ed Francis) passed away due to cancer in 1982 at the age of 45. That was the period Dwayne Johnson has talked of, when his mother broke down while he was a teenager when they came home to the apartment and it was locked shut due to being so far behind on rent.

“We were tag team champions together..we grew up together..we lived together..we traveled together..we worked out together...we argued and we disagreed about many things together,” wrote Ricky Johnson. “Now my brother has gone home. God, please take good care of him.”

Rocky Johnson is a member of the St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame, perhaps the most impressive due to its members and the few inductees, as well as the WWE Hall of Fame.

When Dwayne Johnson, a childhood wrestling fan who moved from territory to territory while growing up, was cut from the Canadian Football League, he asked his father to train him for pro wrestling. Rocky Johnson was very negative on his son becoming a wrestler, but eventually he and Ron Slinker trained Johnson, and through Rocky Johnson's longtime friendship with Pat Patterson, brought Patterson in on a session.

Patterson reported to Vince McMahon that Dwayne Johnson had more potential to be a pro wrestling star than anyone he had ever seen, and recommended they sign him.

Johnson worked a little with his son as a rookie, and later worked as a coach for WWE developmental in Louisville but had been out of pro wrestling.

In a deal that will make the company profitable in 2020 and beyond, TNT, Warner Media and AEW have renegotiated and signed a new four-year contract that would keep Dynamite on the station through the end of 2023.

The four-year deal is worth $175 million in rights fees, just under $45 million per year, and includes TNT having an option to keep the show through the end of 2024 at a significantly increased price. The deal has annual escalators built into the contract.

The move protects TNT because there can be no bidding war to increase the costs of Dynamite, like what happened with Raw and Smackdown in the last negotiation period. For AEW, the deal insures 2020 profitability and pretty much protects them for being taken off the air through the end of 2023 if ratings decrease. In television there are always ways to cancel programming or change time slots or move to a different station. But if the show gets hotter or the value of such a show changes as sports rights fees continue to increase, it takes AEW out of the negotiation game where its television value could greatly increase until the beginning of 2025.

The new deal is now similar in scope to the kind of deals WWE has for Raw, Smackdown and NXT, in that the cost of production, which in the old deal was $500,000 per week, is no longer covered by TNT.

The new deal will continue the ad split aspect of the original deal, and through adding a second show, a weekly one-hour taped show, it would increase the amount of ad time from what the company has been getting a percentage of. WWE does not have ad sharing in its television deals.

Essentially it is an increase of about $18 million per year in value, which is said to be more than the difference between making 2020 and beyond profitable. While AEW President and CEO Tony Khan was hopeful when the promotion debuted that it would be profitable by the end of 2020, with the old deal that was not likely to happen, saying it would have taken a miracle for 2020 to end up as a profitable year and we just got that miracle.

The deal came together quickly since the first of the year.

While the deal pales in comparison to the $265 million that USA pays for Raw and the $205 million that FOX pays for Smackdown, but it is more than the $30 million per year that USA currently pays for NXT.

The deal includes adding another weekly hour of television later this year, which would be taped on Wednesdays but air on another night, likely on TNT but could be on another Turner station. Full details of the new show have not been worked out past an agreement to eventually add a one hour second show. It will be interesting if WWE attempts to immediately counter that show.

TNT wanted essentially to move Dark to television, but AEW’s idea was to keep a weekly Internet show and try and do a second show as a brand name show. The announcement of Taz as signing a new multi-year contract has to do with him being one of the announcers set for the show. Taz was in Miami this past week announcing Dark. He will announce Dark more frequently, but the announcers spot on that show is expected to rotate like it has been the past few months.

AEW can easily produce enough content and angles for a third weekly hour with their roster, but adding more hours to the weekly television schedule only increases the potential of burnout, which would be made worse if WWE counters.

The second show will air on a WarnerMedia station, with TNT its most likely destination. It would not air on Sunday, Monday or Thursday, because Khan has an agreement to not air wrestling against the NFL since his family owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. Tuesday is out due to NBA commitments as far as TNT goes, although it is possible it could air on TBS. Saturday would be tough with UFC, Boxing and College Football, plus it’s the night AEW runs its PPV shows and the night UFC and boxing run their biggest events. But every night has something, as Friday has Smackdown.

For a second show, the big question would be if AEW can maintain most of its audience for a B show that is taped, and with a younger and more hardcore base, them knowing the results ahead of time would be more significant than for WWE in theory. WWE has usually shown little or no losses the few times a year when the show is taped, although the 12/23 Raw was a major exception to that rule. Bellator has run taped shows from Europe and the Middle East with no discernible ratings difference from similar star level shows held live in the U.S.

Also, if the second show goes without WWE opposition, which is a huge if, perhaps it could do similar or better numbers than the first show. But the one thing is, there is no public demand for additional television wrestling hours.

When the new show launches, the Wednesday tapings would expand and also include matches taped for the streaming show Dark, which would not be going away. This means there will be about four hours a week of the product being taped, which will be tough for the life audience, which up to this point has been a very enthusiastic audience.

Perhaps the show could increase the hype factor, with packages on the new talent, out of the ring vignettes, more promo time for the talent that isn’t getting any and more of the things that have been limited by two hours of television per week.

This will allow them more time to showcase more talent, which has been limited by the current format. That would be key because between key talent coming to the free agent market that is interested in AEW, most notably Matt Hardy, Jonathan Huber (Luke Harper/Brodie Lee) and The Revival, and the value of working out a deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling, the latter being complicated by New Japan running regularly on its own in the U.S. market and if AEW made a deal with New Japan, it could result in giving exposure to what would end up as its opposition.

Since the value of the new deal, when throwing in the ad revenue split, would be worth more money than New Japan grosses through all revenue streams over the course of a year, and will make AEW profitable, it would officially make AEW, as far as revenue goes, the No. 2 pro wrestling company in the world.

Khan noted that starting AEW was the biggest financial gamble he had ever taken and that the deal has resulted in it paying off far sooner than originally projected.

"When we launched AEW one year ago, we wanted to start a revolution that would disrupt the wrestling business, but everyone said it would take a strong weekly television partner to make AEW real in the eyes of everyone--above all the fans," said Khan. "What virtually no one realized at the time was Kevin Reilly and TNT were committed to this very same movement from Day One, and there belief in us made it possible for AEW to think and act big from the start. Here we are, only three months into Wednesday Night Dynamite and now we've been extended through 2023! We're now making the ultimate statement that the team of AEW and TNT is here to stay to bring fans more of the great wrestling that the fans demand and deserve."

"When Tony Khan first shared with me his idea of starting a new wrestling league, I was impressed with his audacity to go up against a contender that has been the only game in town for 20 years, and ultimately believed that together we could bring his vision of a new, authentic, gritty product to bear," said Reilly. "The fans have spoken and after only three months, we have seen AEW shake up the wrestling world and this will only continue as we build upon this momentum."

Since its inception in October, AEW has skewed the youngest of any pro wrestling show on television as well as the highest in viewers per home, meaning more family and friends watch the show in groups than any other show. AEW is also the leader in adding viewership via DVR numbers, particularly in the 18-49 demo where only 57 percent of their viewership watches live.

In using figures from the past week, and these are percentage numbers based on homes the stations are in, and not the misleading comparisons that would be made just using the base numbers, this would be the 18-49 live/same day numbers and what the stations would be paying per show.

Show 18-49 Episode value based on deal

1/6 Raw 1.00 $5,096,000 (three hours)

1/8 NXT 0.26 $577,000 (two hours)

1/8 AEW 0.49 $858,000 (two hours)

1/10 Smackdown 0.83 $3,942,000 (two hours)

1/13 Raw 0.82 Artificial low due to College Football championships

1/15 NXT 0.28

1/15 AEW 0.52

Based on the chart, TNT got tremendous value in the new deal. AEW got instant stability, basically shutting down any rumors that they are going to financially fail and go away, or that they made a bad business decision to try and run opposition, overpaid talent, or built around the wrong talent that couldn’t draw viable numbers with a weekly television product.

As far as overall viewership, even with a disadvantage when it comes to a television station wrestling fans are less familiar with, and opposition from a show from the larger company and promoted off the biggest shows, and with access to bigger name talent when they need it, AEW when it comes to overall viewership and 18-49 viewership has finished ahead overall every week but the week of 12/18.

Jesus Escoboza, who was one of the key faces of the AAA promotion for much of the last quarter-century as the second La Parka, passed away on 1/11 from internal organ failure.

He suffered from renal failure on 1/10 and then passed away from kidney and lung failure the next day at his home in Hermosillo surrounded by his family..

The internal organ failure was the latest complications from crashing and hitting his head on the floor and barricade when attempting to hit Rush with a tope, when his legs caught the middle rope on the way out, changing trajectory and causing the crash on the floor. This took place in a four-way match that also included L.A. Park and Murder Clown, on 10/20 in Monterrey for the Kaoz promotion.

The injuries, which included a broken neck and temporary paralysis, were so severe that it was touch-and-go whether he would survive the night. He underwent surgery the next morning that was said to be life-saving.

Born Jesus Alfonso Escoboza Huerta on January 4, 1966, his death came one week after his 54th birthday. His son, who had been wrestling as Karis La Momia Jr., since Escoboza was Karis La Momia prior to being given the La Parka gimmick, was being groomed to team with him as the new La Parka Jr. Those in AAA expect that at some point in time that will happen as they want La Parka to be a legacy character within the promotion.

While Adolfo Tapia, currently L.A. Park, one of Mexico’s all-time greats, made the La Parka gimmick come to life in AAA in 1992, it was Escoboza who had become one of Mexico’s most popular wrestlers with the gimmick.

When Tapia signed with WCW and left AAA for a rival promotion in Mexico, Promo Azteca, Antonio Pena, who had trademarked the name, decided to create a new wrestler in a black skeleton costume who would come out dancing to “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.

At first Pena called him La Parka Jr., and La Parka copies were being used a lot due to the popularity of the original Tapia’s uncle, the original Volador (the father of CMLL’s Volador Jr.), used a similar gimmick as Super Parka. That was also a takeoff on Tapia’s character as he had at times wore a Superman insignia on his Parka outfit and was referred to by announcers as Super Parka, until a Super Parka character was created. Another wrestler, El Sanguinario (the father of MLW’s Gino Medina) also did a Parka inspired character as La Calaca. So Escoboza was actually the fourth wrestler doing the gimmick, not the second. But to the television audience in Mexico, because of his longevity, he was the one remembered as La Parka.

Escoboza grew up as a sports fan. His earliest wrestling memory was gong to a live show and seeing Atlantis, Pirata Morgan and The Kiss. It was from that show that he decided he wanted to become a wrestler.

He was trained by America Salvaje and Resplandor. He started wrestling in 1987, using a variety of different names, mostly as an exotico using the name Bello Sexy, mostly in the Hermosillo area.

The original Volador, Remo Banda, saw him on a show and introduced him to Antonio Pena, who brought him in as a masked rudo, Maligno. At times during that period he teamed with Banda’s nephew, the first La Parka.

In a notable bit of trivia, on the first TripleMania show in 1993 at Plaza de Toros in Mexico City, he was there working security. He would go on to headline multiple TripleMania shows as the company’s trademark star, along with Octagon, during the late 90s through the early 2010s.

He also worked early on for AAA as Crater and as the exotico Santa Esmeralda. He then got a bigger push in 1995 as Karis La Momia. As the story goes, Karis was a gimmick Pena used during his own career. Karis did a lot of mannerisms that really didn’t fit a mummy, but that Pena was entertained by and thought he had natural charisma.

On May 15, 1996, Karis defeated Blue Demon Jr. to win the Mexican national cruiserweight title. He vacated the title in November after doing an injury angle ending the character. This was when Pena chose Escoboza to become La Parka Jr.

On November 9, 1996, at a show in Jalisco, Perro Aguayo Jr. laid out Karis with a martinete (tombstone piledriver, at the time pushed as the most devastating move in Mexico) and he never returned.

One week later, La Parka Jr. debuted. By this point the original La Parka had left AAA, working both for WCW and the rival Promo Azteca promotion. This Parka had a similar costume and came out to the same music, but in other ways was different. The first Parka was a super worker who could get over being both charismatic but also a dangerous tough guy. Parka Jr. was far more into the dancing and comedy aspects of the gimmick. He was more entertaining to children and being even more of a focal point of the promotion but was not taken as seriously as a wrestler. Still, he was a headliner and for years the most popular wrestler in the company.

While largely forgotten, there was a period in 1998 where he dropped the Parka gimmick as part of a tag team called Duro y Directo, him being Duro, which was the name of a popular tabloid television how in Mexico.

On August 12, 1999, as La Parka Jr., he regained the Mexican national cruiserweight title beating Kendo, although fans were never told he had held the title three years earlier.

In 2003, when Tapia went to CMLL as La Parka, Pena took legal action and christened La Parka Jr. as simply La Parka. Tapia was forced to change his name and became L.A. Park.

The two faces of AAA, Parka & Octagon won the Mexican national tag team titles from Chessman& Electroshock on June 20, 2003. The titles were basically forgotten about a few years later and more than 16 years later they were still the listed champions even though it has been years since they have teamed. Octagon left AAA in 2013 after a falling out with the promotion. Octagon’s leaving left Parka as the company’s major enduring babyface legend although Vampiro also fits into that category. But Vampiro was not an AAA creation, nor was he part of AAA as long as Parka, because with the gimmick, only Konnan, who is a heel manager, and the Parka character, which Tapia debuted for Pena when AAA was formed, date back to the promotion’s debut 28 years ago.

Parka’s gimmick was the ring entrance, the dancing and the comedy. He did never a lot physically in the ring and couldn’t do much after shoulder injuries from a 2007 auto accident.

He said that the car he was driving was completely demolished outside of the car seat he was in. At times he appeared to be wrestling matches using only one arm.

He had been wrestling less in recent years but remained on television as a regular, largely to endorse babyfaces the company was wanting to push like Myzteziz Jr., Golden Magic, Octagon Jr. and Laredo Kid.

His biggest feuds were in 2004 with Cibernetico, winning his mask at TripleMania, in 2006, winning the mask of Muerte Cibernetica (Mesias) and in 2010, with L.A. Park, when they did the natural feud over the name. All three feuds headlined major TripleMania shows.

The Park feud was a natural when AAA and Tapia made up after being at war for about 13 years. Tapia, as L.A. Park in storyline came to confront the impostor La Parka in one of AAA’s biggest programs in its history. This led to a match where the winner would get the rights to the name La Parka.

What was notable is that Park was the heel, as part of Dorian Roldan’s heel stable that was feuding with AAA. La Parka, Escoboza, had been one of AAA’s most popular characters. But the crowd got behind Park as the original even though they weren’t supposed to.

The match took place on June 6, 2010 at Los Palacio de lo Deportes in Mexico City, drawing 15,000 fans. Park scored the pin after a tombstone piledriver, a move at the time banned from Lucha Libre. In the finish, Park grabbed a chair at Joaquin Roldan, the President of AAA, tried to take the chair from him. When he went to hit Joaquin, Dorian went to protect his father that he hade been feuding with. Park hit Joaquin with a chair but then Dorian hit Park with a chair. After all this, rudos Halloween and Damian 666 put Park on top of Parka and heel ref El Hijo del Tirantes counted the pin. So in theory, Park won the name. It was at first announced that Tapia had won the rights to the La Parka name, but the Mexico City Box y Lucha commission overruled that, calling the match a no contest due to all the outside interference. Park had largely dominated the match, really working it in a way to show that he was the far superior actual wrestler. Park then said that Parka could keep the name, because he proved his point in the match and said he had already established the L.A. Park name.

Parka followed with another feud with Cibernetico, who had been his tag team partner and then turned on him. Part of that storyline was that Cibernetico had beaten up Parka’s three-year-old son.

This led to a heel turn in 2011 when Parka and Octagon both shockingly went heel, turning on Dr. Wagner Jr. at the October 9, 2011, Heroes Inmortales show. The idea was that it was the ultimate turn, as Antonio Pena’s two greatest gimmick creations would turn on AAA and its fans during a show that honored the memory of Pena, who passed away in 2005. Parka blamed the fans for booing him in his feuds with Park and Cibernetico after 15 years of doing everything for the fans. Park and Parka even teamed, but the turn was short-lived since his being a babyface was part of the fabric of the promotion and the fans didn’t want to boo either he or Octagon. In 2012, he turned back with Octagon.

After his death, Park noted that he would not go back to using the La Parka name, saying that Escoboza had established the name as his own for so many years.

As La Parka, he won the Rey de Reyes tournament in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014, as well as the Copa Antonio Pena tournament in 2013

His first appearance at a TripleMania show was in 1996, when the first of three TripleMania shows took place at the International Ampitheater in Chicago. He worked the opener on that show as Karis. In 1998, as La Parka Jr., he teamed with Latin Lover & Blue Demon Jr & the second Mascara Sagrada to beat Histeria & Maniaco & Cibernetico and the second Psicosis via DQ third from the top. He didn’t appear again until 2001, when he was second from the top teaming with Sagrada & Alebrije & Octagon to beat Mascara Maligna & Electroshock & Abismo Negro & Cibernetico.

His first TripleMania main event was June 15, 2003, at El Toreo in Naucalpan, when he teamed with Lizmark & Octagon & Super Calo to beat Abismo Negro & Cibernetico & The Head Hunters via DQ before 15,000 fans.

He then was the star of the show and the promotion for most of the next decade.

On June 20, 2004, he beat Cibernetico in a mask vs. mask match before a sellout of 19,000 fans at El Toreo in Naucalpan. On May 15, 2005, he teamed with Latin Lover & Octagon to beat Chessman & Cibernetico & Fuerza Guerrera on top before a sellout of 22,129 fans. On June 18, 2006, he beat Muerte Cibernetica at El Toreo before a sellout of 18,000 fans, unmasking him as Ricky Banderas, who became Mesias. He was second from the top in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, in a battle for control of AAA, he was on the AAA team with El Hijo del Santo & Jack Evans & Octagon & Vampiro to beat Konnan’s team of Chessman & Electroshock & Teddy Hart & Silver King & Kenzo Suzuki in a dome of death match. In 2010, he headlined with Park.

He was on most of the major AAA shows since that time, but with his age and injuries, notably from an auto accident, was used as entertainment in the middle of the major shows and not to carry them any longer.

Parka was such a big star that even CMLL acknowledged his death, which the company has never done in the past for someone who was never a part of their promotion.

Thanks to Fredo Esparza and Lucha World for some bio info.

Kazuo Sakurada, a Japanese wrestler with a street fighter reputation who was probably best known as the second Kendo Nagasaki, passed away on 1/12.

The death was attributed to a malfunction from the pacemaker which led to a heart attack. He was 71.

Sakurada had told friends recently that he needed a new pacemaker, but didn’t want to undergo another heart operation.

He had appeared at a Fan Fest in Japan just over a week ago.

Sakuraba was also, along with Katsuji Adachi (Mr. Hito), the original trainer of Bret Hart. He had worked under a number of names all over the world including The Black Ninja, The White Ninja, The Great Kendo, the masked Chan Chung billed from Singapore, The Dragon Master in WCW, Nagasaki, Mr. Sakurada, Rambo Sakurada and Dream Machine.

Sakurada worked for Leroy McGuirk & Bill Watts Tri-State Wrestling as well as in Texas in 1977, before coming to Stampede Wrestling in 1978 and joining with Hito as a tag team.

“They were an excellent tag team working a strong punishing style,” said Ross Hart, the family historian. “They, also, as a favor to Stu, trained Bret before he broke in for several months in the dungeon. When Hito left the territory, Sakurada became Bret’s sole coach. Bret always credited Sakurada and Hito for truly teaching him the essential basics ad helping him develop a strong work ethic and attention to detail.”

“Katsuji Adachi and Kazuo Sakurada kindly began instructing me in the dungeon at Hart house,” wrote Bret Hart in his autobiography Hitman Hart: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling. “I thought I could learn the wrestling stuff in a week or so, but they continued to show up every morning, week after week, putting me through basic training for three or four hours a day.

“My father taught me submission wrestling down there, but Hito and Sakurada taught me pro wrestling. I owe them everything. I learned to perfect my balance; how to lock up, which is when wrestlers first make contact during a match; how to throw and be thrown, how to make the desired sound when hitting the mat; and how to break my fall using my feet and hands, heads tucked. I knew that a good worker never makes contact with bone, never forces things. I learned to protect knees, shoulders, hips, teeth, and eyes.

“I ended each training session with Hito and Sakurada by taking fifty slams in a row. With everyone, I was taught simple things some wrestlers never learn, like how to get up from lying flat on my back by throwing out my leg and using my elbows to roll to my knees.”

His most well remembered name, Kendo Nagasaki, was created in February 1982, by Dusty Rhodes.

In late 1981, Rhodes had been on national television from Georgia working a program with Akihisa Mera, the Great Kabuki, the supposed master of the martial arts, managed by Gary Hart. He had attempted to bring the program to Florida, but Kabuki was the top heel for Fritz Von Erich in Dallas at the time, and leading opponent of the Von Erichs, where Hart was the booker. Hart would bring Kabuki in for major dates at the Omni and early morning television in Georgia, but his base was Dallas.

Rhodes decided to create is own Kabuki. Sakurada was already in Florida as Chan Chang, a masked man from Singapore, a gimmick he had used in 1981 previously in Texas and the Central States, as well as for a few shows in Georgia and St. Louis. While in Texas, Chan Chung was managed by Gary Hart and sometimes teamed with Kabuki or Killer Brooks against Bruiser Brody and The Von Erichs.

So he took the mask off him, gave him face paint, and had him copy Kabuki’s spinning around as well as the green mist gimmick. One day Chan Chung was gone from Florida, and the next day Kendo Nagasaki arrived.

The name Kendo Nagasaki came from the British wrestling legend, Peter Thornley. Rhodes had already copied the name Big Daddy with a heavy wrestler he started out but didn’t last long, breaking his ankle in a Battle Royal and then suing Rhodes and quitting the business.

Rhodes used him as a headliner against himself, and he also went to Tennessee with a brief run as the top heel, feuding with Jerry Lawler over the Southern title.

He used the Kendo Nagasaki name most of the rest of his career with the exception of a run in WCW as The Dragon Master and some dates late in his career as The Great Kendo in Japan.

Sakurada was born September 26, 1948, in Abashiri, a city on the island of Hokkaido in Japan.

Because he was very big for a Japanese kid, especially in that era, after ninth grade, when he was 14, he was recruited by the Tatsunami stable to become a sumo. He was barely 15 when he made his sumo debut under the name Sakurada. He was a contemporary in sumo of Genichiro Tenryu, who was a year-and-a-half younger, but Tenryu was a bigger name star in sumo.

When he turned 18, he changed his sumo name to Hiroshi Abashiri, after the city he grew up in. At 21, he changed his name again to Siuran, where he won a Makushita level tournament in 1966.

At the age of 22, he quit sumo and with his credibility from that sport, was recruited by the old JWA, the leading pro wrestling company in Japan at the time. After just three months of training, he debuted against another former sumo, huge Korean Masanori Toguchi, who later became a major star in Japan as Kim Duk and Tiger Toguchi, and later in his career he was Tiger Chung Lee during the early WWF expansion. It was during this period where he first developed a friendship with Adachi.

Because sumo was real, and because he picked up actual wrestling well in training, plus had a street fighter reputation, he was immediately pegged as somebody not to mess with.

There was an often told story about a March 8, 1973, match in JWA with Sakurada vs. Tsutomu Oshiro. The match got out of control and turned into a real fight, with Sakurada pummeling Oshiro, who got out of the ring and couldn’t get back in after the beating.

The story behind it was that JWA was on it last legs, and most of the talent was going to move to Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling. But some talent, influenced by Seiji Sakaguchi, was expected to go to New Japan Pro Wrestling, with Oshiro, Masao Kimura (who later became Kengo Kimura),Masashi Ozawa (who became Killer Khan) and Haruka Eigen. Sakurada and Oshiro had an issue over this.

“He had a reputation as a quiet tough guy who you didn’t take liberties with inside or outside the ring, and a company person very loyal to his bosses,” said Ross Hart. “At 6-foot-2 and 260 pounds, with a vast sumo and amateur background, he could be dangerous on the mat or in a street fight. Legitimately he was considered one of the toughest guys in Japan.”

But Sakurada wasn’t getting any push with All Japan. He was a main training partner when All Japan brought in Olympic judo gold medalist Anton Geesink. In 1976, when Tenryu left sumo for pro wrestling, but because he was a legitimate sumo star that the average fan knew, he was groomed for superstardom in pro wrestling. Baba sent Sakurada to the Amarillo territory, where Tenryu was starting his career.

After Tenryu was brought to San Francisco, and then back to Japan, Sakurada stayed in Amarillo. Baba told him to stay in the U.S. as long as he wanted to as there were no big plans for him in Japan.

He worked for both Texas promotions (the Dallas/Houston territory and Amarillo) as well as for Watts & McGuirk before he came to Stampede Wrestling in 1978 for his first career push.

Sakurada won the North American title from Leo Burke in Edmonton that May, as well as got two NWA world title matches with Harley Race in July in Edmonton. He dropped the title to Paddy Ryan in Calgary since he was leaving for the Hanover tournament in Germany in the fall.

He placed fourth, behind eventual winner Axel Dieter (the father of Marcel Barthel of WWE), Moose Morowski and Hito.

Dieter, who had a shooter reputation, tried to take liberties with Sakurada during that tour and Sakurada gave him a beating. A lot of the foreigners didn’t like Dieter, who was the booker, because he would push himself as the top star. The next night Dieter came to the dressing room with a gun and shot a round into the ceiling to try and scare everyone.

With Baba showing no interest in him, Sakurada made a break and after Germany, accepted a deal to join the IWE in their 1978 singles tournament. Baba and the IWE had a business relationship at the time where Baba would send some of his prelim and mid-carders to IWE shows where they would be showcased and help build a reputation.

Sakurada took second to Professor Toru Tanaka in the A block. Tanaka was a Hawaiian who at one time was, along with Kinji Shibuya, the biggest of the Hawaiian stars playing Japanese stereotypes in the U.S.

After the round-robin, they did a single elimination tournament where Tanaka beat Sakurada in the quarterfinals, and Tanaka also upset Jumbo Tsuruta in the semifinals before losing to the IWE’s top star, Rusher Kimura, in the finals. Baba would allow Tsuruta to lose to Tanaka, a U.S. main eventer for a decade, but not to Kimura, so that’s how it played out.

Sakurada returned to Stampede Wrestling at the end of 1978. In January, 1979, Hito & Sakurada won the International tag team titles from Bret & Keith Hart. In March, they lost the belts to Keith Hart & Leo Burke. In July, they won the titles back, this time from Dory Funk Jr. & Larry Lane (an All-American collegiate wrestler who was a rival of Jack Brisco when both were amateurs). They dropped the titles to Bret & Keith Hart in August in Edmonton.

“Sakurada and Hito were one of the best tag teams in the history of the promotion,” said Ross Hart. “They had memorable matches with Bruce & Keith Hart, George Welles & Jerry Morrow, Leo & Bobby Burke and The Kiwis (Sheepherders/Bushwhackers).”

Hito & Sakurada went to Texas, where they held that area’s version of the world tag team titles three times, and then to Florida, where they held the Florida tag team championship. In 1980, Sakurada & Kasavubu (Jo Jo Andrews) won the tag team titles from Bret & Keith Hart in August, and then dropped them in September to Jim Neidhart & Hercules Ayala.

With his building a name for himself in North America, Baba finally brought him back in October 1980, this time as a star. On his first night at Korakuen Hall, he was in the main event, teaming with Baba to go to a double disqualification with Abdullah the Butcher & Tor Kamata. He was protected, doing double count outs with the top foreign stars at the time like Wahoo McDaniel, Dick Murdoch and John Studd. He did drop falls in tag team matches where he and Tsuruta lost to McDaniel & Billy Robinson and Abdullah & Kamata.

In 1982 and 1983, he returned to All Japan under a mask as Dream Machine, working as a foreigner. He would win in prelims and lose falls in main events, usually teaming with Bruiser Brody against any tag team combination of the big three at the time, Baba, Tsuruta and Dory Funk Jr.

He worked for Mid South Wrestling in 1983, as the Black Ninja, Kendo Nagasaki, built for soma main events in the big markets with Junkyard Dog, before losing to the likes of Jim Duggan, Magnum T.A. and Mr. Wrestling II on the way out as well as to Mil Mascaras in Houston. Shorty before he was leaving, Watts put Tim Horner against him on television and had Horner pin Ninja, which was pushed as a huge upset with the idea that Horner was improving and that anyone could beat anyone.

When Riki Choshu and his army jumped from New Japan to All Japan at the end of 1984, New Japan was looking for retaliation. Sakurada hadn’t been brought back to All Japan since 1983, so Seiji Sakaguchi offered him a raise to jump to New Japan, where he started in October 1985 as Rambo Sakurada. But in November, in the annual year-end tag team tournament, he used the name Kendo Nagasaki for the first time in Japan forming a team with Mr. Pogo, who would go on to become his new regular partner. The two placed seventh in the eight team tournament.

He worked heavily in Florida in 1986, assigned by New Japan, to basically be the mentor of Super Black Ninja, who was Keiji Muto, who they had high hopes for as far as being a future guy to carry the promotion.

Pogo & Nagasaki were three-time WWC tag team champions in the late 80s. They feuded with the likes of the Invaders, Mark & Chris Youngblood and the Batten Twins.

Their most famous match was in 1988 against Bruiser Brody and a partner whose name has been lost in time. It was early in the year, and Pogo & Nagasaki were the world tag team champions. Brody was a babyface at the time and had just returned to All Japan Pro Wrestling, and his return got over gigantic, to where he had surpassed Stan Hansen as the most popular foreign star in the country.

When Brody came out, he saw Japanese photographers at ringside. Brody was the top star at the moment for All Japan, although in slotting Baba kept Brody, Tsuruta, Tenryu and Hansen pretty equal. Nagasaki & Pogo were a mid-card tag team for New Japan.

Brody felt that it would be bad for All Japan business if there were magazine and daily newspaper photos showing him selling for New Japan mid-carders, so he basically ate them up in the ring. While Nagasaki did have the rep, he tried nothing with Brody.

When it was over, there was a big shouting match in the dressing room between Brody and Carlos Colon, one of the co-owners, regarding his making their tag team champions look so bad. Brody made it clear that while he would work Puerto Rico, All Japan was his home and priority at this point and he would do nothing to compromise his standing there. The only person he would lose to while in Puerto Rico was Dory Funk Jr., an All Japan legend, and that was via count out.

That story was brought up many times after WWC booker Jose Gonzalez stabbed Brody to death in the dressing room in August in an attempt to answer the question as to why. It’s possible that had nothing to do with it, or everything to do with it, but it was always brought up as a theory.

In 1989, he went to WCW, where they changed his name to Dragon Master, and put him in Gary Hart’s stable that included Great Muta, Terry Funk, Buzz Sawyer and Dick Slater, as adversaries of the then babyface Four Horsemen.

He came back to Japan in 1990. While he worked at times out of Dallas for the Global promotion from 1991 to 1995, he was largely based in Japan for the next decade where his career wound down. He worked for the early FMW in 1990 as Dragon Master, feuding with Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto. He wrestled as Kendo Nagasaki for the old Super World Sports group, headed by Tenryu, from 1990-92. After that group folded, Nagasaki started his own independent group, Network of Wrestling (NOW), which ran from 1992 to 1995. He worked with Great Kojika in the formation of Big Japan Pro Wrestling in 1995 and stayed through 1998.

MMA was in its infancy in Japan, but the stories of Sakurada the tough guy and street fighter were well known within Japanese pro wrestling circles, and since the beginnings of MMA in Japan came from pro wrestling, the idea of Sakurada fighting for real was discussed.

“At the beginning of the MMA era, he was thought as a legit toughest guy in the dressing room, but at the age of 47, he did not live up to his myth reputation,” said Japanese historian Fumi Saito.

Fighting at that age was a bad idea. But he got a big money offer from Satoru Sayama’s Shooto promotion, looking for a name pro wrestler who could really fight.

On September 26, 1995, on his 47th birthday, he competed for the first time, against Zane Frazier, a kickboxer who was in the original UFC tournament in 1993. Frazier was listed at 29, although many claim he was actually several years older than that, but he was still at least 13 years younger than Sakurada. He had also been a high-level competition fighter for more than a decade.

He was a California and North American karate champion in the 80s, and won versions of kickboxing world titles in the 90s. Sakurada immediately went for a takedown, which is never pretty at that age, and got punched in the head so hard he was unconscious for 20 or 30 minutes. The match only lasted 36 seconds. He was out cold for so long in the ring, and even longer when carried out on a stretcher, that is was a situation where it was feared this could have been tragic. He never fought again.

Sakurada continued to wrestle on other independent promotions of the years, ending his career in 2000, working for Atsushi Onita. He only came back once, in 2009, for a tag team match for Satoru Sayama’s Real Japan Pro Wrestling group.

The Royal Rumble, with just one Raw left, still has only a few things announced.

The 1/25 show at Minute Maid Stadium in Houston is expected to draw about 36,000 fans and be packed. The advance was more than 30,000 a few weeks ago. There are tons of secondary market tickets out with a $34 get in price.

Unlike in the past when they would run four shows in the same market on big show weekends, this time the 1/23 Smackdown show will be from Dallas and the 1/26 Raw will be from San Antonio.

There are two shows in Houston, the Rumble, and the Worlds Collide show the night before at the Toyota Center. Worlds Collide ticket sales are very weak, basically ringside and most but not all of 100s as they haven’t sold out the side of the hard camera, and the rest of the building isn’t for sale. Similarly, the 2/16 Takeover show in Portland also has a weak advance. About 60 percent of the 100s that would normally be for sale are on sale, not including what you’d expect not for sale due to the stage. They are not opening up any other seats at this point for Worlds Collide. The secondary market get in price is $26 for lower level tickets.

Portland is a little better, with about 60 percent of the 100s and 60 percent of the 200s up for sale and a $38 get in price.

Announced for the Rumble, besides the two matches, are Bray Wyatt vs. Daniel Bryan for the Universal title, Becky Lynch vs. Asuka for the Raw women’s title and Roman Reigns vs. King Corbin. Reigns and Corbin are also scheduled for the Rumble, so they could do a thing where one of them loses but then comes back and wins the Rumble.

There’s no obvious Rumble winner this year, but Reigns winning to challenge Wyatt is a possibility. Brock Lesnar, the WWE champion, will be entering the Rumble at No. 1 and whoever he is to face at Mania, that would probably be a guy that either eliminates him or shoots an angle with him.

Names announced for the men’s rumble are Lesnar, Reigns, A.J. Styles, Erick Rowan, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre, Elias, Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, Otis, Tucker, Rusev, Bobby Lashley, Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy. Cain Velasquez has been told that he will be in. From that list, I only see Reigns and McIntyre as strong shots of winning with Corbin, Black or Orton as outside shots.

The only names announced for the women’s match are Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Sarah Logan and Nikki Cross.

Bayley vs. Lacey Evans for the Smackdown women’s title and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Braun Strowman for the IC title continue to be built up. Both were on the TLC schedule, but the decision was to move the former to Rumble, although it hasn’t been announced for Rumble. The latter didn’t happen due to Strowman’s injuries and not being cleared in time for TLC, but Strowman pinned him on television this past week.

Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo was being groomed for the U.S. title, but Andrade first has a ladder match for the title with Mysterio on Raw. Carrillo should be returning soon for that program but whether it’ll be on Rumble isn’t clear. Additionally, New Day vs. The Miz & John Morrison is the Smackdown title match they are starting to build.

World’s Collide at this point has five matches announced, and when it comes to Takeovers, that could be the entire show.

The bouts are Imperium (Walter & Alexander Wolfe & Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner) vs. Undisputed Era (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish), Rhea Ripley vs. Toni Storm for the women’s title, Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano vs. Tyler Bate & Trent Seven, Angel Garza defending the cruiserweight title in a four-way and Finn Balor vs. Ilja Dragunov.

On paper, all of those matches look very strong and there have been angles shot for all on television, but they are more thrown together with one angle and little follow-up in most cases aside from the eight-man tag.

In the cruiserweight match, one of Garza’s three opponents will be Isaiah Scott, while the other two will likely Jordan Devlin and Travis Banks. Devlin vs. El Ligero and Banks vs. Brian Kendrick are both being taped this coming weekend at the NXT U.K. tapings to determine the other two slots.

Tessa Blanchard was the center of controversy on 1/12 for her past on the day she was booked to become the first female pro wrestler to win a male world championship on a PPV show.

The Impact Hard to Kill show was to culminate a year-long storyline where Blanchard continued to wrestle men, in particular Sami Callihan, and came close but never beat Callihan (who later became world champion) nor won the X Division or world title.

The company made the call a long time back to make Blanchard. 24, its top star. The idea was to push her by having her come close and fail in multiple big matches against men, with the idea they could showcase the chase of a woman to the world heavyweight championship level as a calling card. It was a storyline that wouldn’t be duplicated since none of the other promotions that have national television in the U.S., WWE, New Japan, AEW, MLW or ROH were doing intergender singles matches, which Blanchard among others had made popular on independent shows the past few years.

Blanchard is the daughter of Tully Blanchard, but who was raised from childhood by Terry “Magnum T.A.” Allen, her father’s most famous career rival when Allen married Blanchard’s ex-wife.

Blanchard has been controversial for years, since she was a standout for WWE at the Mae Young Classic, but due to a number of issues, even with her looks, heritage and ability, they passed on signing her. There was always talk of attitude issues and other problems, including issues of not getting along with talent, that followed her career in its early years including in Japan.

It was those issues that in a sense also helped make her career, because she became the biggest female star on the independent scene, and popular in matches against men, including a notable bout with Brian Cage.

Although both Don Callis and Scott D’Amore at Impact have long tenures and have in the past had a more traditional view on wrestling, they felt from the start of their tenure running the creative end in late 2018 to make Blanchard into the top star, basically remove her from the women’s division and work with almost exclusively men, feeling that there could be a fan backlash of pushing a woman that hard and having her beat men.

It did seem to work as when she didn’t win the X Division title on PPV, there were fans complaining about how Impact would never let her hold a men’s title, which was the exact reaction they were looking for.

For whatever reason, the day before the PPV, Blanchard sent out a tweet saying, “Hey women, try supporting one another. Cool things happen.”

This touched a nerve with women who had worked with her in the past. Most notable was Allysin Kay, who was women’s champion in Impact as Sienna in 2016, who wrote, “Remember when you spat in a black woman’s face and called her the N word in Japan? Was that you `supporting women?’ The audacity of this tweet.”

The woman in question was La Black Rose of Puerto Rico, who later confirmed the story, as did Renee Michelle, the wife of James Curtin (Drake Maverick) who had a run on WWE television recently in her real-life role as the new bride, until it was dropped.

Blanchard responded saying, “Not true. That’s my statement and the most attention I’ll give it because of how actually ridiculous it is.”

Chelsea Green quickly joined in. Green, who currently works for WWE, but had a long tenure in Impact as Laurel Van Ness, and was among the most in demand independent women wrestlers at the same time as Blanchard including working with her, as well as Britt Baker and Madison Rayne, wrote, “You’ve consistently put down, bullied and belittled countless female coworkers, including me. Is that support?”

Blanchard wrote back, “I’ve never been anything but kind to u. I’ve dealt with mean girls since I started...not saying I’m a saint, hell I’ve had my ups and down as and I’ve made silly decisions...Such is life. U have zero merit in your comments. Instead putting me down here for a little clout...you’ve got my #.”

Then several in Impact tweeted or made comments defending her including Gail Kim, who was quickly jumped on because she had complained about racism in WWE, Moose, Melissa Santos and Tommy Dreamer.

Dreamer wrote, and several others who defended her, notably Santos, defended her in charges that she was racist.

There is different types of racism. There are outright prejudiced people and there are people who use racial slurs. Neither is defendable, but some will defend the latter because slur words against all kinds of minorities have been freely thrown around in wrestling and life since the beginning of time. It doesn’t make it right, but different people have different views on the word. Santos said that calling her a racist trivializes the word and real racism. Dreamer noted, as did other defenders of her on that charge, that her fiancé is Mexican and her prior boyfriend before that (Trevor Mann, Ricochet in WWE) was African-American.

Tanea Brooks, another former Impact wrestler as Rebel, then wrote, “I like to think people change over time. But I can confirm the bad behavior and non supportive attitude in Japan. I was there.”

Shanna, who works for AEW, wrote, “She did more nasty stuff in Japan. Never forget. Practice what you preach sweetheart. I stand by (Rosa Negra). She’s a fun loving person who would never disrespect anyone.”

Michelle wrote, “The day I got the call from my gf La Rose Negra of the incident, she made me promise to keep my mouth shut because she was afraid of being black ball (sic) by her. As promised, I did. So I helped her get into Marvelous, which is another Japanese promotion.”

Kay said she came out this past week, two plus years after the incident, because he also promised Rosa Negra to keep it quiet, but Negra gave her permission to talk about it.

For the most part, the complaints about Blanchard were several years ago. Aside from a number of people who noted how at times Blanchard and Daga were affectionate, perhaps overly so, in front of other talent, Blanchard has been largely praised during her Impact and AAA run with her working getting high marks. Most saw the Impact run, which included working in AAA, as temporary with people chalking up her past to being young and immature and that her long-term status would be as one of the top woman wrestlers with a major promotion. As far as pure in-ring talent and intensity, she is the best Non-Japanese woman wrestler today, better than Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch or Sasha Banks.

Still, Impact going so hard with her may have been based on the idea that because of her past, that the bigger companies may not go so heavily after her, and she was unique in having that level of ability and charisma and that they would have access to her for the long run.

So the day of the show, Callis and D’Amore had a couple of major issues. Would they go ahead with the plans to put the title on her and conclude the story? And as a company, how would they handle it and how would they have her publicly handle it?

Plus there were questions as how the live crowd would react. On social media there were predictions that the crowd would reject her and crap all over her winning. In actuality, as far as crowd reactions and the match itself went, it was about as good, if not better than could be expected. She was cheered and the crowd was with her. Perhaps some had to do with Callihan, who played as hateful and vile a heel constantly in the match, but even before, the sentiment among those there were that they came to see Blanchard win and ether didn’t know or didn’t care about the controversy going on.

From those there, there never seemed to be a serious consideration of not going through with the plans, but there was concern, very quickly alleviated regarding how the crowd would react. The question was more whether she should apologize in some form. She didn’t. Nor did the company make a statement. The decision, at least for the show, was to ignore it. After the show went off the air, Blanchard did a promo, more in storyline about overcoming all the hurdles thrown at her by Callihan and OVE, but there were allusions made to it.

“Nobody in this life is perfect. We’re all human. And it doesn’t matter what you say about me. It doesn’t matter what you call me. I’ve got one of the strongest minds that I’ve ever known. So whenever you come for me, you come for all these people!”

It should be noted this was part of a wrestling promo and perhaps should only be taken as part of that promo.

As far as the show went, it came the same day as a WWE UK Takeover show. Overall on balance, the wrestling was stronger on the WWE show. The pacing was much better on this show. This show had some worse bouts but nothing felt too long. Even though NXT had the best match, Impact’s main event generated the most emotion due to the heel work of Callihan, the selling of Blanchard and the best storytelling.

1. Ken Shamrock beat Mad Man Fulton in 9:19. Josh Matthews talked about Shamrock going into the UFC Hall of Fame with Royce Gracie, pronouncing it with a hard R. Almost mind boggling. Don Callis put over that Fulton was an All-American collegiate wrestler, which he was on the Division II level. The story is that Shamrock tore Fulton’s shoulder out of its shocker but that Fulton refused to let the ref stop the match. Shamrock put Fulton in a shoulder lock and he submitted. This wasn’t good. Shamrock physically looks amazing for 55. *

2. Ace Austin beat Trey Miguel to keep the X title in 12:54. The storyline is that Austin is hitting on Miguel’s mother. Austin hit a Fosbury Flop early, threw hard forearms and a suplex on the floor. Austin used a card to give Miguel a paper cut in between the fingers. Miguel was crotched on the top rope and Austin use a blockbuster for the pin. After the match, Austin went to ringside and started hitting on Miguel’s mother. Miguel came back out and attacked him and they had a pull-apart. **3/4

3. Taya Valkyrie retained the Knockouts title over ODB and Jordynne Grace in 11:37. This wasn’t good. Grace did a tope early. Valkyrie was biting Grace’s wrist. ODB’s ring outfit was falling off her. Grace used the Grace driver on ODB. John E. Bravo distracted the ref, Valkyrie threw Grace out of the ring and stole the pin. *1/4

4. Rob Van Dam beat Brian Cage in 5:00. Van Dam and girlfriend Katie Forbes in a bikini were making out before the match. Another woman at ringside, dressed up in an outfit with matching colors, grabbed Cage as he went around the ring and Van Dam attacked Cage. Cage’s left biceps was all taped up. Forbes distracted Cage and Van Dam hit the Van Daminator. Cage was bleeding from the mouth and soon he was bleeding all over the place. The ref just stopped it. *

5. Rob Van Dam beat Daga in 4:09. Daga came out after the previous match. Cage was taken out. Van Dam attacked Daga. They did a few spots. Evidently Van Dam forgot a lot of the match so it was never in gear. Van Dam won with the frog splash. Katie Forbes and the other woman, who they called Jennifer, were making out after the match, kissing and rubbing boobs while Van Dam watched. *

6. Eddie Edwards beat Michael Elgin in 19:53. Hard hitting high impact match. This was more like a Japanese match and the crowd reacted well to it. Edwards did a tope into a forearm by Elgin. Edwards suplexed Elgin and both went over the top. Edwards used an overhead suplex on the floor. Edwards used a tope while Elgin used a bad luck fall. They exchanged submissions until Elgin hit the buckle bomb. He tried the Elgin bomb, but when he had Edwards up, Edwards turned it into a Toyota roll for the pin. ****

7. Moose pinned Rhino in a no DQ match in 12:04. Moose hit the spear right away but Rhino rolled out of the ring. Rhino gave him a high backdrop on the ramp. Rhino used chair shots to the gut and back. Moose pulled out a table but Rhino power bombed him through the table. They fought with chairs and garbage can lids. Moose did an elbow off the top for a near fall as fans chanted Randy Savage. Rhino hit the ref with a gore which put the ref and Moose through a table in the corner. With the ref down, Moose used a low blow and hit the spear again for the pin. ***

8. Ethan Page & Josh Alexander retained the tag titles in a handicap match over Willie Mack in 10:32. It was supposed to be Mack & Rich Swann as a team, but Swann sprained his ankle two days earlier. They did a backstage vignette where Swann wanted to come out but the doctor would not let him go to ringside because he knew he’d get involved. Mack mostly sold and survived. He kicked out of a double choke slam and a double pedigree. Mack used a Canadian Destroyer off the top rope while on Page’s shoulders. Mack did a flip dive and actually overshot Page. Mack used a frog splash on Alexander. Page pulled the ref out of the ring to stop the count. Mack hit the stunner on Page. Page & Alexander did a double-team torture rack into a spinebuster for the pin. ***1/4

9. Tessa Blanchard pinned Sami Callihan to win the Impact title in 23:50. Callihan opened up doing a Cactus Jack style short piledriver on Blanchard right away. Blanchard hit the Magnum, which is her coming off the top rope into a codebreaker, named after her stepdad, but Callihan kicked out. Blanchard did two topes. Callihan caught her on the third, but she turned that into a huracanrana on the floor. Blanchard followed with a flip dive. Callihan threw a drink in her face. He blew his nose on her. It was gross and disgusting but Callihan was the one who called the match and his role was to make sure nobody booed Blanchard. Callihan used an Indian deathlock on Blanchard and had drool all over her face. It was sick. Then he started working on Blanchard’s left knee. Blanchard tried a cannonball off the apron but Callihan caught her and power bombed her through a table. Blanchard gave him a Magnum on the apron. She was literally crying on the floor. Blanchard came back with a Samoan drop while shaking her knee that Callihan had worked on. Blanchard used a codebreaker out of the corner. Callihan used a double arm shoulder breaker. Blanchard used a diamond cutter. Callihan used a power bomb and stretch muffler and Blanchard made the ropes. Callihan spit on the ref. The ref took the belt out of the ring and Callihan went to hit Blanchard with Brass Knux, but she hit him with a low blow. Blanchard used another Magnum, but it wasn’t the best and he kicked out. Blanchard used a crossface and Callihan started biting her hand and gave her another short piledriver and she kicked out. Callihan spit on her again. Blanchard won using two Canadian Destroyers, the second off the ropes, and then used a hammerlock DDT for the pin. Both were tremendous here and this was one of the best pure face/heel matches you’ll see. ****

A restructuring at Viacom and CBS has led to Bellator now being put under the control of Stephen Espinoza, the president of Showtime Sports.

Scott Coker will remain as the President of Bellator MMA, but he will now report to Espinoza.

Espinoza and Coker had worked together in the past when Showtime aired regular Strikeforce events. After the UFC purchased Strikeforce and merged it into the UFC a few years later, Showtime lost its MMA vehicle and made the decision not to go after a new promotion, focusing on boxing.

At this point that is all that is announced. There was no mention of Showtime possibly airing Bellator, or Bellator moving from Paramount.

But such a move wouldn’t be a surprise. When Paramount was Spike TV, they for years aimed at programming for men and MMA was a huge part and often the highest rated show on the station. Spike was the station that first put the UFC on television in 2005 and longtime president Kevin Kay saw it as one of his biggest career achievements.

After UFC left for a deal with FOX, Kay quickly moved to purchase the Bellator promotion from Bjorn Rebney, with the idea the network would own the company, meaning it would guarantee it staying with the station as opposed to having to get into regular bidding wars to keep its deal.

But things didn’t work out perfectly. Bellator had some early success but in recent years the ratings have fallen greatly. Kay is no longer with the station, and the station has moved away from guy’s programming and has no sports on the station other than Bellator, focusing on movies and new scripted programming.

Over the last 15 months, Bellator has moved most of its biggest events off Paramount and onto DAZN, which signed them in late 2018 to a three-year deal at $33.3 million per year. The influx of DAZN money has made Bellator more financially successful, but like with UFC and WWE, it has lost popularity with the public while generating more money due to greater interest from media companies in live combat sports and entertainment content.

In yet another example of a money losing company being able to raise more money due to the perception that MMA is a good long-term business to be in, the Pro Fighters League, which has multiple tournaments for $1 million each year, ending with the finals on New Year’s Eve, finished another funding around in December of $50 million.

New money came from Swan & Legend Venture Partners and Matterhorn Private Equity. Swan & Legend also has an ownership stake in the Washington Nationals, Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics. Matterhorn is a group of wealthy Italian families who have never invested in U.S. businesses previously. Others involved in the new funding include Ted Leonsis (a billionaire who is chairman of the Washington Capitals), David Blitzer (a minority owner of the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers), Mark Lerner, comedian Kevin Hart, Tony Robbins and TV reality show producer Mark Burnett.

The new cash will be used to continue multiple tournaments with the seven figures in cash to the winners for 2020, as well as sign Mike Tyson to be brand ambassador.

Tyson debuted on the New Year’s Eve show, shocking the company’s top star, two-time gold medal winning judoka Kayla Harrison, after she won her women’s 155 pound tournament and presented her with the $1 million check.

PFL cofounder Donn Davis told Forbes that Tyson will be there to help the fighters market themselves and how to avoid making the mistakes that plagued his career and life.

He will also host a 30 minute television show, “Mike Tyson’s New Fight Game,”that will air on ESPN 2 and ESPN+. The show will be based around Tyson previewing the company’s television and streaming shows.

Part of the expectation is the value of the PFL will increase due to legalized sports gambling which will lead to more interest in betting on fights and thus more interest in the fights with possibilities of a variety of pop bets.

PFL events averaged 236,000 viewers on ESPN 2 last year, peaking with the New Year’s Eve championships that did 395,000. The PFL’s television contract with ESPN, which puts shows on ESPN 2 and ESPN+, ends at the end of 2020 and part of what they are selling in value is that Bellator is locked into Paramount, or a Viacom television deal because they are owned by a network, while ESPN has UFC under contract through the end of 2025. The idea is that PFL would be the only major MMA league on U.S. television where television rights will be available until 2025.

WWE presented an NXT U.K. Takeover show on 1/12 at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England before an advanced sellout of 2,500 fans.

The U.K. brand will start having more exposure in the U.K. since the weekly television show will be airing as part of WWE’s new deal with BT Sports. Currently the Takeover shows are drawing better than any of the leading U.K. independent groups can do for major events. The television tapings, the next of which will be on 1/17 at 1/18 at the York Barbico, have not been drawing nearly as well in what is a struggling U.K. wrestling environment.

The show was presented like a Takeover, similarly booked, with a five match show that featured three long matches. This format usually works because these shows are loaded up with top workers and on paper matches. Here it was a mixed bag, more positive, not much overall negative, but a mixed bad to some of the matches.

Really, the key to how most viewed the show was about the main event, where Walter beat Joe Coffey to keep the NXT U.K. title. The match went 27:32. It was hard hitting and had a lot of near falls. The crowd was generally with it well, but not on fire or anything. To me, the match dragged badly. Going long when you have a great match is usually a good thing. But to me this was far from a great match. It was sluggish. Some stuff was off. If Walter hitting hard is your thing, you got it. And many liked it but it also got a lot of worst match votes and to me it was nothing compared to a usual Walter big show match.

The show ended with Imperium (Walter & Alexander Wolfe & Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner) in the ring celebrating when The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole & Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong) hitting the ring and taking them out. It ended up with all four UE members beating down Walter and Cole giving him the last shot. This builds to an eight-man tag on the 1/25 World’s Collide show at the Toyota Center in Houston.

The ladder match for the tag title was similar. Gallus of Mark Coffey & Wolfgang retained the tag titles over Barthel & Aichner, Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews and Zack Gibson & James Drake. It went 24:56. The match had the stunts but it dragged and felt long for the sake of filling time as opposed to a great match that built and got better the longer it went.

The flip side of Tyler Bate vs. James Devlin, who had a long match that would battle for the best match on most U.S. Takeover shows.

Essentially the issue here is booking a show like a U.S. Takeover with the idea that having the guys go long is the key. If the guys are great, it makes for a great show. But most pro wrestling matches with good-to-very-good wrestlers should be aimed for 13 minutes, with really good guys maybe 17 minutes and if there’s a classic you can go past 20 and super elite past 30. The idea that because so many long matches are so well reviewed, that the idea is by going past 20 it’ll be viewed well isn’t the case, and that actually would work against the vast majority of modern wrestlers. Essentially, yes, Walter with Tyler Bate could go 40 minutes and be one of WWE’s best bouts all year, but Joe Coffey is not that level and this match couldn’t match that level.

1. Joseph Conners beat A-Kid in 11:00 in a pre-show match. Said to be great with A-Kid looking like a star and getting some high flying in.

2. Dave Mastiff beat Kassius Ohno in 8:00 in a hard hitting match.

3. Eddie Dennis pinned Trent Seven in 8:17. Dennis returned after surgery for a torn pec. Seven used a snap dragon suplex, a tope and a dragon suplex on the floor. He missed a twisting splash off the top rope. Dennis power bombed Seven over the top rope onto a planted production person. Dennis then won after a neck stop driver. **½

4. Kay Lee Ray retained the women’s title over Toni Storm and Piper Niven in 13:09. Good match. Niven suffered an episode of Bell’s Palsy just a few weeks ago but you wouldn’t have noticed everything and she was on target on everything. Lots of big moves and saves by the third person. The idea was that Niven and Storm were friends outside the ring but both going for the same prize. Storm used a tope on Ray. Niven did a cannonball off the apron to Ray. Ray did a flip dive off the top onto both and caught her leg on the barricade. They should move the barricades back if they are going to do long dives like that or have one side of the ring without barricades because they are asking for leg injuries and they’ve already happened. Ray used a Gori especial bomb on Niven but Storm stopped the ref from counting three. Ray did a tope on Storm. The finish was your typical three-way finish. Storm splashed Niven off the top rope but Ray superkicked Storm and pinned Niven. ***1/4

5. Tyler Bate pinned Jordan Devlin in 22:21. Both of these guys are among the best in the WWE system. In the latter part of the match fans were chanting “Are you watching, Vince McMahon.” Bate is like a Johnny Gargano who is just incredible when given a showcase match and a good opponent. Tons of big moves. Bate’s airplane spin that goes forever always tears down the house. Devlin used two diamond cutters, the second on the apron and they teased Bate being counted out. They did the big punch exchange that Devlin and David Starr do a lot. Devlin used a Spanish fly off the top rope and a back suplex for near falls. Bate came off the top rope with a DDT, then used a Tyler driver, which Devlin kicked out of, being Bate won with a twisting splash ****½

6. Mark Coffey & Wolfgang retained the tag titles in a four-way ladder match over Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner, Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster and Zack Gibson and James Drake in 24:56. Tons of big spots and dives and craziness. But they were out too long and at times the crowd was quiet late. Andrews and Webster did a double flip dive on Imperium. As they were fighting over ladders, fans chanted for tables. Coffey choke slammed Gibson on a ladder and Coffey gave Drake a Samoan drop on a ladder. Andrews did a shooting star off a ladder onto Coffey. Aichner did a double springboard moonsault on Webster on a ladder. Drake did a 450 off a ladder bridge onto Andrews. Imperium pulled Drake off the ladder and took him out with a European bomb. Andrews & Webster did double slumdog millionaires on Gallus. Andrews & Webster did a forward flip senton off a high ladder putting Wolfgang through a table. Wolfgang speared Aichner through a ladder. Barthel was on top but Coffey knocked the ladder over onto everyone and Coffey climbed up and pulled down the belts. ***½

7. Walter beat Joe Coffey in 27:32 to retain the NXT UK title. Coffey was in the crowd and ran back toward the ringside area and dove over the barricade and hit Walter with a shoulderblock. He tried a belly-to-belly and nearly killed Walter as he didn’t turn him over. Coffey came off the top for a missile dropkick attempt but Walter stepped back, caught the legs and used a Boston crab and then an STF. Walter did stiff chops. There were lots of issues here with the match, basically it felt like Coffey was not at the level to do a style of match that they did and Walter couldn’t bring him up to that level. Walter accidentally dropkicked the ref. Coffey power bombed Walter and the crowd counted to three but no ref. Alexander Wolfe came out and kicked Coffey in the head. Ivan Dragunov ran in and hit the torpedo Mosque on Wolfe and Wolfe flew into Coffey’s left knee, taking it out. That was a cool spot. Walter power bombed Coffey on the apron and clotheslined him but still no ref. A second ref ran in and Coffey kicked out. It felt like every ref bump cliche. Dragunov and Wolfe started fighting. Coffey went to the top and slipped off, selling the knee. The story the announcers told was that Coffey had been working on his boxing because Walter doesn’t like being punched in the face and that’s his weakness. So at various times, Coffey started boxing, doing all body shots and never punching to the face. Walter kicked the knee. Walter went to the top rope, but stumbled on top, recovered and did the splash off the top for a near fall. Coffey missed a clothesline he was supposed to hit. Walter used a choke suplex, a power bomb, a hard chop and another power bomb before winning with a bulldog choke. While he was celebrating with Imperium after, the Undisputed Era attacked and laid out Imperium. **3/4



2019 WRESTLING OBSERVER AWARDS



Voting is now open for the 40th annual Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards.

Voting will close on February 22, 2020, with results published later in our annual double awards issue.

Voting is only open to Observer subscribers. With the addition of online subscriptions, to vote, you have to send your name, and whether you are subscribing by print or on-line so we can double-check. If you are an online subscriber, please send a receipt from your last order. You can submit ballots by mail, e-mail or fax.

These awards cover the period from January 1, 2019 through December 30, 2019.

If you've got any thoughts on the awards, you are encouraged to send them in to hsmeltzer@juno.com for publication on the Observer web site.

These awards every year get more mainstream coverage than any pro wrestling awards aside from the exclusively Japanese Tokyo Sports awards.

Just to clarify the major awards, the Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Wrestler of the Year award is open only to working pro wrestlers. The MMA MVP award is similar to the Thesz/Flair award in that it should combine importance to business and drawing power with success in the cage. For both MMA and pro wrestling, there is a separate award for the best in-ring performer, the Most Outstanding Wrestler and Most Outstanding MMA fighter. The MMA award is for purely who had the best year in the ring or the cage, throwing out business considerations, and the Most Outstanding is for who had the best matches over the past year and was the best in-ring wrestler, throwing out business considerations.

There are still some combined MMA/pro wrestling awards such as Best Promotion, Promoter of the Year, Feud of the Year, Best Show and Best Drawing card, because essentially business goals of both pro wrestling and MMA are the same–drawing money and putting on good shows.

In regard to actual competitive (non-worked) matches, the main categories are Most Outstanding MMA fighter and MMA Match of the year. They are open to all MMA rules promotions. Most Outstanding MMA fighter of the year should be based entirely on success in fights during the time period.

Both performance in the ring as well as drawing power, marketability, value to the promotion and significance during the year among both shoot and worked matches should be considered for the big two awards.

Most Outstanding Wrestler is purely the best in-ring, bell-to-bell performer. Anything that takes place in a legitimate match situation should not be considered.

Best Box Office Draw is self-explanatory. It's open to everyone whether participating in worked or legitimate matches. This is for the person who moves ticket sales, TV ratings and/or PPV sales.

Tag Team of the Year and Most Improved are both limited to worked promotions.

Feud of the Year is about drawing money, creating excitement and delivering in the ring. Shoot feuds and worked feuds are both eligible. Best on Interviews and Most Charismatic are also open to both worked and shoot promotions.

Best Promotion is open to worked and non-worked companies. Match of the Year is only for worked matches. Rookie of the Year is open to only pro wrestlers making a major promotion professional debut after September 1, 2016. Best and Worst TV announcer and Best and Worst Major show are also open to both worked and shoot promotions.

Because they’ve awards have gotten so big in recent years with so many responses, we’ve had to change things this year. Going forward we are very much limiting category A awards and far more awards will be Category B.



"CATEGORY A" AWARDS. PICK A FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD PLACE FINISHER IN EACH CATEGORY. POINTS WILL BE AWARDED ON A 5-3-2 BASIS. THE WINNER OF THE AWARD IS DETERMINED BY TOTAL POINTS.



1. LOU THESZ/RIC FLAIR AWARD - This is open to pro wrestlers, for a combination of everything, being both important and influential this year in a positive manner from a business perspective, combining both box office impact as well as strong match quality in worked matches. Last year's top three were Kenny Omega, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada.

2. MMA MOST VALUABLE FIGHTER: This is also for a combination of fighting inside the ring and importance outside in a positive manner from a business perspective as well. Last year’s top three were Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

3. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER: This is based on working ability in the ring only. Simply, the best workers in the world on a consistent basis over the past year. Drawing power, charisma and push shouldn't be considered. Last year's top three were Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi and Kazuchika Okada.

4. MOST OUTSTANDING FIGHTER: This should be based on in-ring ability and wins against the top level of competition during the calendar year. Last year's top three were Daniel Cormier, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Amanda Nunes.

5. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR - For the best working and most valuable tag team during the previous year. Last year's top three were The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi and Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong.

6. BEST ON INTERVIEWS - Who has given the best interviews on a consistent basis over the past year? Reputation from previous years shouldn't be taken into consideration. It should be based on work over the course of the year as opposed to one or two memorable interviews. Last year's top three were Daniel Bryan, Samoa Joe and Becky Lynch.

7. PROMOTION OF THE YEAR - Should be based on which group put together the best live and television product on a consistent basis, and secondarily, the ability to sell that product at a high level. This means box office and marketing combined with product quality. Theoretically, the top pick should be a company at or near the top on both categories. Last year's top three were New Japan Pro Wrestling, WWE and Ring of Honor.

8. BEST WEEKLY TV SHOW - Weekly television shows are the only ones eligible, not monthly shows, specials or individual episodes of a specific program. This is for the best consistent program. The shows have to be produced with the idea they are a weekly ongoing show and not a short-term mini-series. In other words, the Friday, Monday and Tuesday CMLL shows count as three different shows and are all eligible. NWA Powerrr, AEW Dark and Being the Elite is also eligible. Something like G-1 Climax are not eligible because they were not scheduled to be year-around continuing long-term shows. Last year's top three were WWE NXT, Being the Elite and New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS.

9. PRO WRESTLING MATCH OF THE YEAR - Pick the three best matches, in order, from the time period. Please list both the date and location of the match, because some matches were held many times during the year. Last year's top three were Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada on June 9 in Osaka, Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi on October 8 in Tokyo and Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade Cien Almas on January 27 in Philadelphia.

10. MMA MATCH OF THE YEAR - Pick the three best matches, in order, from the time period listed. Again, please list both the date and location of the match. Last year's top three were Justin Gaethje vs. Dustin Poirier from April 14 in Glendale, AZ, Yair Rodriguez vs. Chan Sung Jung from November 10 in Denver and Tony Ferguson vs. Anthony Pettis from October 6 in Las Vegas.



"CATEGORY B" AWARDS. PICK ONE IN EACH CATEGORY. WINNER CHOSEN ON THE BASIS OF FIRST PLACE VOTES.



1. UNITED STATES/CANADA PRO WRESTLING MVP - This is for the most valuable to their pro wrestling company in those two countries. Last year’s top three were A.J. Styles, Kenny Omega and Johnny Gargano.

2. JAPAN MVP - This is for who was the most valuable to their company in this country. Last year’s top three were Kenny Omega, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada.

3. MEXICO MVP - This is for who was the most valuable to their company in this country. Last year’s top three were L.A. Park, Pentagon Jr. and Rush.

4. EUROPEAN MVP - This is for wh was the most valuable on the continent. Last year’s top three were Walter, Zack Sabre Jr. And Will Ospreay.

5. NON-HEAVYWEIGHT MVP - This is for the most valuable of the lighter weight division wrestlers. Last year’s top three were Will Ospreay, Hiromu Takahashi and Kushida.

6. WOMAN WRESTLING MVP - This is for the most valuable woman wrestler of the past year. Last year’s top three were Becky Lynch, Ronda Rousey and Meiko Satomura.

7. WOMAN MMA MVP - This is for the most valuable woman fighter of the year. Last year’s top three were Amanda Nunes, Cris Cyborg and Valentina Shevchenko.

8. BEST BOX OFFICE DRAW - Based on drawing big houses (or for that matter selling tickets to small houses as the case may be), buy rates and/or television ratings. Ring work shouldn't even be considered. Last year's top three were Conor McGregor, Kenny Omega and L.A. Park.

9. FEUD OF THE YEAR - This should be based on a combination of having a compelling storyline along with having great matches that should strengthen the box office. Last year's top three were Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa, Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov and L.A. Park vs. Rush.

10. MOST IMPROVED - This is based on making the biggest strides in ring work during the previous year. This should not be for someone who was already good, but was given a bigger push. Last year's top three were Adam Page, Jay White and Velveteen Dream.

11. MOST CHARISMATIC - What person had to do the least to get the most out of it? Who do crowds naturally react to emotionally even before the person does anything? Last year's top three were Tetsuya Naito, Becky Lynch and Hiroshi Tanahashi.

12. BRYAN DANIELSON BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER AWARD - This is for having the ability to use high level technical wrestling moves within the context of building a great worked pro wrestling match. Last year's top three were Zack Sabre Jr., Daniel Bryan and Hideki Suzuki.

13. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL BEST BRAWLER AWARD - This is for the wrestler who uses brawling tactics to put together the best matches during the previous year. It's not for a guy who does brawling matches that aren't any good. Last year's top three were Tomohiro Ishii, Chris Jericho and L.A. Park.

14. BEST FLYING WRESTLER - This is for the wrestler who does the most innovative and solidly executed flying maneuvers within the context of putting together great wrestling matches. This is not for simply the hottest daredevil moves, which are sometimes hit and sometimes miss. Last year's top three were Will Ospreay, Ricochet and Rey Fenix.

15. MOST OVERRATED - The wrestler who gets the biggest push, despite lacking ring ability or charisma. Last year's top three were Baron Corbin, Nia Jax and Brock Lesnar.

16. MOST UNDERRATED - The wrestler with the most ability, who, for whatever reason, doesn't get a push commensurate with their ability. This should be based on this past year, and not a business reputation earned in prior years. Last year's top three were Finn Balor, Gran Metalik and Andrade.

17. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR - This is based on ring performance, not how someone is pushed or necessarily even long-term star potential. By the standards of the category, a rookie is someone who hasn't had a regular job with a full-time wrestling company before September 1, 2017. Last year's top three were Ronda Rousey, Utami Hayashishita and Brian Pillman Jr.

18. BEST NON-WRESTLER PERFORMER - For the best performer on a television show who isn't a traditional wrestler, whether they be a management figure, a woman who doesn't wrestle, or a traditional manager. Last year's top three were Paul Heyman, Zelina Vega and Salina de la Renta.

19. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER - Last year's top three were Kevin Kelly, Mauro Ranallo and Nigel McGuinness.

20. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER - Last year's top three were Jonathan Coachman, Michael Cole and Renee Young.

21. BEST MAJOR SHOW - This should be a major show, as opposed to a TV taping or house show. Last year's top three were New Japan Dominion on June 9 in Osaka, New Japan WrestleKingdom on January 4 in Tokyo and WWE NXT Takeover on April 7 in New Orleans.

22. WORST MAJOR SHOW OF THE YEAR - Last year's top three were WWE Crown Jewel on November 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, WWE Backlash on May 6 in Newark, NJ and AAA TripleMania on August 25 in Mexico City.

23. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER - Last year's top three were Kenny Omega’s one winged angel, Kazuchika Okada’s rainmaker and Will Ospreay’s storm breaker.

24. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC - Last year’s top three were WWE’s business ties with Saudi Arabia, USADA’s handling of the Jon Jones case and UFC using Conor McGregor’s criminal footage to sell the fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov.

25. WORST TELEVISION SHOW - Last year's top three were WWE Raw, Impact and Lucha Underground.

26. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR - Last year's top three were Undertaker & Kane vs. Shawn Michaels & HHH on November 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar on April 8 in New Orleans and Undertaker vs. HHH on October 16 in Melbourne, Australia.

27. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR - Last year's top three were Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, Sami Zayn vs. Bobby Lashley and Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar.

28. WORST PROMOTION - Last year's top three were WWE, AAA and Impact.

29. BEST BOOKER - Last year's top three were Gedo, Paul Levesque and Jun Akiyama.

30. PROMOTER OF THE YEAR - Last year's top three were Takaaki Kidani, Paul Levesque and Cody & The Young Bucks.

31. BEST GIMMICK - Last year's top three were Velveteen Dream, Becky Lynch and Daniel Bryan.

32. WORST GIMMICK - Last year's top three were Constable Corbin, Drake Maverick pissing in his pants and Lucha House Party.

33. BEST WRESTLING BOOK - Last year's top three were Eggshells: Pro Wrestling in the Tokyo Dome by Chris Charlton, Death of the Territories by Tim Hornbacker and Nitro by Guy Evans.

34. BEST PRO WRESTLING DVD/STREAMING DOCUMENTARY - Last year's top three were the Andre the Giant HBO documentary, the Showtime Mauro Ranallo Bipolar Rock & Roller documentary and WWE 24 on The Hardy Boys.

Those working on streaks this year of two years or more in a row winning are:

Tag Team of the Year - Young Bucks (five years in a row)

Promotion of the Year - New Japan Pro Wrestling (seven years in a row)

Best Box Office Draw - Conor McGregor (three years in a row)

Most Charismatic - Tetsuya Naito (two years in a row)

Bryan Danielson award for Best Technical Wrestler - Zack Sabre Jr. (five years in a row)

Best Flying Wrestler - Will Ospreay (three years in a row)

Best Wrestling Maneuver - Kenny Omega One Winged Angel (three years in a row)

Worst Television show - WWE Raw (five years in a row)

Best Booker - Gedo (three years in a row)

Promoter of the Year - Takaaki Kidani (three years in a row)

A quick note is there won’t be a new issue of the Observer next week due to Bryan Alvarez and I doing shows daily on the Jericho Cruise. That should be the last schedule interruption for this publication until maybe next January.

AEW on 1/15 did 940,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) and a 0.38 in the 18-49 demo to not just beat NXT, which did 700,000 viewers (1.28 viewers per home) and a 0.21 in 18-49, but also for the first time beat the NBA on ESPN head-to-head.

The first NBA game against the first 97 minutes of AEW and NXT did 934,000 viewers and a 0.34 in 18-34. The late game on ESPN did 1,128,000 viewers and a 0.44 in 18-49.

AEW won its time slot in Males 18-49 for the first 97 minutes although the NBA game did beat them in 12-34 and the second game beat AEW over the last 23 minutes..

AEW was fifth in 18-49 while NXT was No. 31.

We don’t have quarter hours at press time. In the different key demos, AEW won Women 18-34 70,000 to 39,000. AEW won Women 35-49 98,000 to 62,000. AEW won Men 18-34 101,000 to 56,000. AEW won Men 35-49 226,000 to 112,000, so more than a two-to-one margin. AEW more than doubled NXT with teenagers and NXT won slightly with viewers over 50, as it does every week.

AEW was down 0.7 percent in viewers while up 5.6 percent in 18-49. NXT was down 2.9 percent in total viewers but up 10.5 percent in 18-49.

AEW did a 0.20 in 12-17 (up 17.6 percent from last week), 0.24 in 18-34 (up 9.1 percent), 0.52 in 35-49 (up 4.0 percent) and 0.34 in 50+ (down 5.6 percent).

The show did 66.2 percent males in 18-49 and 52.0 percent males in 12-17. So they had a huge increase over usual numbers with teenage girls.

Because last week’s NXT show didn’t crack the top 50, we don’t have comparisons withe last week, but the show did a 0.08 in 12-17 (well under half of AEW), 0.14 in 18-34, 0.28 in 35-49 (barely half) and 0.35 in 50+, beating AEW only slightly in the demo NXT has won almost every week.

The show did 61.9 percent male in 18-49 and 57.3 percent male in 12-17.

WWE Backstage on 1/14 did 84,000 viewers and a 0.03 in the 18-49 demo. It was the second lowest rating for the show to date. It was down 32.3 percent from 1/7 show, which did 124,000 viewers.

Raw on 1/13 did 2,029,000 viewers (1.30 viewers per home), which would be the second lowest in modern history for a non-holiday show.

Really, you can throw the number out because it went against what would be the toughest competition of the year, the LSU vs. Clemson national championship football game that did 25,004,000 viewers on ESPN and 381,000 on ESPN 2.

It was down 12.7 percent from the 2,324,000 viewers against last year’s championship game. Last year’s game did 24,332,000 viewers on ESPN and 666,000 on ESPN 2.

The first-to-third hour drop was 15.6 percent in women 18-49, 15.1 percent in males 18-49, 37.8 percent with teenage girls, a nine percent increase in teenage boys and a 13.6 percent in over 50.

The show did 524,000 male 18-49 viewers and 263,000 female 18-49 viewers.

In the segment-by-segment, the show peaked at 2,384,000 viewers in the first segment which was the set up and the beginning of the Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre vs. A.J. Styles match.

The ending of the match and backstage promos lost 71,000 viewers. Ricochet vs. Mojo Rawley lost 237,000 viewers. The Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman and R-Truth promo segment gained 285,000 viewers to 2,382,000. The 24/7 title change with Rawley, interviews and beginning of Rusev vs. Bobby Lashley lost 422,000 viewers. The bulk of Lashley vs. Rusev gained 28,000 viewers. Viking Raiders vs. Singh Brothers and more interviews lost 81,000 viewers. The Asuka-Becky Lynch segment, plus interviews with Andrade & Zelina Vega and Rey Mysterio lost 48,000 viewers. Aleister Black vs. Buddy Murphy lost 83,000 viewers to a low of 1,776,000. The fist fight with Big Show & Kevin Owens & Samoa Joe vs. Seth Rollins & AOP gained 31,000 views to 1,807,000.

The first hour did 2,218,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,059,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,814,000 viewers.

Traditionally, Raw, down 14.9 percent from the prior week with no football competition, should bounce back next week and in theory stay at last week’s levels until the NBA playoffs, at which point record lows should be threatened again.

The record non-holiday low is 1,835,000 viewers for the taped 12/23 show, so this week’s was the lowest non-holiday live show i

NEW JAPAN: I saw most of the top Tokyo Dome matches again. I think it’s pretty much across the board that every match was 1/4* better watching the television version than the live version, which makes sense given the ringside scores I was getting were generally 1/4* up from what had. Naito vs. Jay White would be the exception. I had that the same. And Hirooki Goto vs. KENTA I had ****1/4 watching later. Because sound doesn’t travel well in that building, a match like that came off dull in much of the arena but those at ringside (which is also the sound you pick up) and the stiffness and realism of the fight made that match far better. I don’t think either show would crack the top five or ten of all-time, but Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi and Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi probably were the third and fourth best match in Dome history, and Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito was a candidate for top ten. Overall, it was a legendary two shows, a giant success as far as two live events on successive days go. With the exception of WWE for some of the WrestleManias, no company in history has ever sold more than 70,000 tickets in two days

As far as New Japan World went, I believe the increase was around 20,000 new subscribers, perhaps slightly more, roughly the same as last year. I don’t know what the figure was in December but that would traditionally be a lower month since we are now months removed from G-1, and it’s January and August when interest peaks. In hindsight, that Omega vs. Jericho year where they gained 40,000 is a ridiculous stat. What’s notable is that most of the growth was foreign. The reality is Japan isn’t big on paid streaming services. A lot of the growth was from the U.S

Reports from Australia were that Will Ospreay, just one week after fracturing his heel in the Tokyo Dome match, did a near ***** match against Dowie James for Melbourne City Wrestling in Australia. After the match Ospreay said that he probably needed a rest but really wanted to wrestle in Australia. The show drew a sellout of more than 700 fans. It was also the farewell to Slex, who is moving to the U.S. to start with ROH

The Bullet Club will be doing a Bullet Club Beach Party on 4/4 in Tampa as part of WrestleMania weekend

New Japan now is also doing a show on 4/2 in Tampa. It’ll be basically Hiroshi Tanahashi and the younger wrestlers like Ren Narita, Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors and Alex Coughlin

None of the upcoming U.S. events are scheduled for New Japan World. The schedule after FantasticaMania came out. They are airing the three major New Beginning shows on 2/1 and 2/2 in Sapporo and 2/9 in Osaka of course. They are also airing the Korakuen Hall shows which are three shows from 2/4 to 2/6 and the four Korakuen Hall shows from 2/19 to 2/22. The 2/19 to 2/22 shows will only be broadcast in Japanese but the 2/1 to 2/9 shows will have English announcing. The 2/19 show is the Tiger Hattori Retirement show and 2/22 is the Manabu Nakanishi retirement show.

FantasticaMania opened on 1/10 in Osaka before a sellout of 1,052 fans. It’s been basic entertaining Lucha Libre stuff with the CMLL stars and a some New Japan talent. Because Ultimo Guerrero vs. Satoshi Kojima for the CMLL world heavyweight title is the destination, Kojima has been in the main events while guys like Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi are not. It is funny Naito comes off winning both belts and is in semis every night. The first show saw Guerrero & Okumura & Cavernario beat Kojima & Caristico & Stuka Jr. on top when Okumura pinned Stuka. Naito & Takahashi & Bushi beat Tanahashi & Dulce Gardenia & Yota Tsuji when Takahashi beat Tsuji with a Boston crab

The second show on 1/11 in Ehime saw Guerrero & Euforia & Cavernario beat Kojima & Caristico & Soberano Jr. on top before a non-sellout of 931 fans when Guerrero pinned Soberano after a Guerrero special. Notable about this match is that New Japan broke CMLL’s rule about fathers never wrestling their sons, with Soberano and Euforia on opposite teams. Naito & Takahashi & Bushi beat Tanahashi & Gardenia & Yuya Uemura when Bushi beat Uemura with a Boston crab

The 1/12 show in Kyoto drew a sellout of 781 fans to KBS Hall with Guerrero & Euforia & Cavernario over Kojima & Caristico & Flyer when Cavernario pinned Flyer in 12:16. Naito & Takahashi & Bushi beat Tanahashi & Gardenia & Tsuji with Takahashi over Tsuji with a Boston crab

1/13 in Nagoya drew 1,534 with Kojima & Caristico & Soberano Jr. over Guerrero & Euforia & Cavernario in 13:01 when Caristico used La Mistica on Euforia. Naito & Takahashi & Bush beat Tanahashi & Gardenia & Uemura when Bushi beat Uemura with the Boston crab

There are three shows left, 1/17, 1/19 and 1/20, all at Korakuen Hall at 4:30 a.m. Eastern on New Japan World. 1/17 has the finals of the family tag team tournament. 1/19 has the Guerrero vs. Kojima title match plus a special Black Cat Memorial match with Tanahashi & Caristico & Tiger Mask vs. Casas & Euforia & Cavernario, and 1/20 has Caristico vs. Cavernario for the NWA middleweight title and Forastero & Sanson & Cuatrero defending the Mexican national trios belts against Niebla Roja & Angel de Oro & Titan.

OTHER JAPAN NOTES: Katsuhiko Nakajima beat Daiki Inaba to win the Wrestle-1 world title on 1/12 at Korakuen Hall before 913 fans. Nakajima scored the pin after a brainbuster in 13:48. Shigehiro Irie retained the OWE title over Koji Doi on that show

Stardom as part of its goal to attract women fans to shows, announced an experiment on 5/6. They will run both an afternoon and an evening show that day at Shin-kiba in Tokyo, their regular 300-400 seat arena. The afternoon show will only be open to women. That includes reporters and officials meaning women doing the production, camera work, etc. Then they will have an evening show only open to male spectators

Stardom ran two shows on 1/11 in Osaka. On the evening show, Kagetsu announced her last match in Stardom would be 1/26 in Osaka where she will team with Mayu Iwatani against Momo Watanabe & Jungle Kyona. She will then have a non-Stardom retirement show on 2/24. Given that both she and AZM are leaving over issues regarding running the locker room and such, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see them both wrestle and the retirement thing being more a Japanese way to handle them honorably leaving the promotion. On the 1/12 show in Shizuoka, Giulia walked out on partner Andras Miyagi and said she would be bringing in two mystery partners to face Hana Kimura & Death Yama-an & Leyla Hirsch on the 1/19 Korakuen Hall show.

HERE AND THERE: The movie “Crossface,” about Chris Benoit, that nobody has heard a thing about in years is apparently a dead project according to Matt Randazzo, Lexi Alexander and Chris’ son David Benoit. David Benoit told Chris Van Vliet in an interview that the filmmakers needed the permission of the family to do the movie but the family refused to give it to them. That’s the same reason attempts many years back to do screenplays on the Von Erichs fell through. David said that the family hired a lawyer to make sure it got shut down. David said the family would not be opposed to a documentary about Chris Benoit noting that he has a lot of home video footage. Alexander, who signed on to direct the screenplay in 2016, said the movie was dead but that story about why was made up. “They really just made up some stuff. I never sent anybody a script...but I did have a very nice and polite convo which I still have a copy of with Sandra Toffoloni (the sister of Nancy Benoit and who probably has the most understanding of what happened of anyone) who is lively and told me of her plans to bring the story to screen herself and I fully encouraged that.” Randazzo said that legal threats never happened. “After years of collecting option checks, I left because of repeated delays over casting, financing, etc., problems with the script and that Nancy’s sister was pursuing a movie. Never aware of any legal threat. Had no role.” The book “Ring of Hell” by Matt Randazzo was to be the template for the movie and Randazzo was one of the executive producers

Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr. and Shingo Takagi were announced for the WrestleCon Super Show and Joey Janela’s Spring Break show over WrestleMania weekend. The Janela show is expected to draw a record audience. Ospreay is also being talked with, although not yet announced, for the 4/4 ROH show in Lakeland, FL

Alex Karras, a former pro wrestler who was an NFL star and had a second career as a comedic actor and announcer, was announced as one of the inductees in the 2020 Class of the NFL Hall of Fame. Karras would join Leo Nomellini and Bronko Nagurski as regular pro wrestlers in the NFL Hall. Karras had previously been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Karras, who passed away from kidney failure at the age of 77, on October 10, 2002, later retreated from being a public celebrity as he battled dementia, believed to be from all the years as a football lineman. Karras was an outstanding football player, but someone who was a success in everything he ever tried both in the sports and entertainment world. But in his youth, he was hot-tempered, and had plenty of trouble with authority. At the University of Iowa, he was such a good player that he finished second in 1957 Heisman Trophy balloting to John David Crow. To understand the magnitude of that, he was up to that time the only defensive lineman in history ever to finish that high in the balloting. But he ended up being on and off the team several times due to behavioral issues. Many news stories from his death reported that after his senior year of college ended, he signed a $25,000 per year contract with Iowa area promoter Pinkie George to be a pro wrestler for six months a year, which would allow him the other six months to play pro football. It may have been reported like that at the time, but in 1957, nobody except international superstars were making that kind of money in wrestling. As Killer Karras, he worked regularly in early 1958, but he was by no means a major star. As a pro football player, he was a genuine superstar. He played from 1958 to 1970 with the Detroit Lions. He went to the Pro Bowl in his second season, and was an All-Pro every year from 1960 to 1969, with the exception of 1963, when commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended him for gambling. He was named to the NFL’s All-Decade team as a defensive tackle for the 60s. He was a name well known outside football circles at first from being a character in the best-selling book, “Paper Lion,” which was later a popular movie with Alan Alda in one of his first major leading roles. He frequently appeared on talk shows and was a natural comedian and story teller. He would joke about his wrestling days and his rendition of Dick the Bruiser, was at times side-splitting when he’d describe Bruiser as this teenage bully who would terrorize the streets of Indianapolis before going to and being kicked out of one college after another. He would joke about wrestling in the off-season and getting to know people by their armpits (side headlocks were a standard wrestling move of the era) and would credit pro wrestling for his learning to be an actor. At the time, that was meant as a comedy line. He ended up becoming a genuine actor, best known as the father in the TV series “Webster,” (1983-1987) and for the spot in the movie “Blazing Saddles (1974),” one of the funniest movies of its time. Karras played the stereotypical dumb jock powerhouse “Mongo,” who knocked out a horse with one punch. He was later part of a lawsuit against the NFL because of his suffering from dementia, believed to be from the hard hitting style he played. Karras was a three-sport star, baseball, football and basketball, at Emerson High School in Gary, IN, and was on the all-state team in football four years. He came from an athletic family. Older brother Louis Karras played for the Washington Redskins. His other older brother, Teddy Karras, played for the Chicago Bears.

Although considered one of the best defensive tackles in college football history, his tenure was rocky. He was one of those athletes who was so naturally athletically talented that it overcame poor disciplinary habits. He was 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, a big man in the late 50s (his listed NFL weight was usually 248 pounds), but with amazing natural agility. He trained on beer and cigars and even by the standards of the time, did not have an impressive physique with a thick torso and skinny legs, and he had notoriously terrible eyesight. He showed up during his sophomore year 20 pounds overweight and then broke his ankle. When he was benched late in the season, he threw his shoe at coach Forest Evashevski and quit the team. If he wasn’t so talented, that would have been it, but Evashevski promised to start him in his junior year if he would come back to the team, provided he would get his weight under control. But there were still problems, and he didn’t start the season opener against Indiana over disciplinary issues, and quit the team again. One of the issues is that in those days, the star players went both ways, offense and defense. But Karras hated playing offensive line, and it showed on the field. But he was the best defensive tackle in the country. He was talked into coming back, and had an outstanding season, becoming a consensus first team All American, leading Iowa to both the Big 10 title and a win over Oregon State in the Rose Bowl. In 1957, he won the Outland Trophy as the outstanding lineman in college football and got 128 first place votes for the Heisman Trophy, something unheard of for a defensive lineman, since the award was almost always the province of a quarterback or running back. During the off season, he was also one of the top shot putters in the country. Right after the final game of the season, he signed a contract to start pro wrestling, which got significant media attention given his college football stardom. He made his pro wrestling debut on January 29, 1958, in Des Moines, beating Al Montana, before 1,700 fans. He worked mostly second from the top in the Iowa circuit before starting his NFL career. He was drafted by the Lions as the tenth player picked in the 1958 NFL draft. During the first few years of his NFL career, he would wrestle some in the off season. He was not a major star in pro wrestling, but the feeling was that if he had dedicated himself to it, the potential was there with his size, personality and athleticism. Even Dick the Bruiser, his rival, said Karras would have been a big star as a wrestler had he dedicated himself to go full-time. While the Lions didn’t often have a good team in those years, the defensive line with Karras and Roger Brown anchoring, was among the most feared in the league. Karras had been All-Pro three of his first four seasons in the NFL when he was suspended by commissioner Pete Rozelle in April of 1963. Rozelle was trying to crack down on NFL players associating with gamblers and gambling for the obvious fear of gambling scandals that were major sports stories in that era. Karras had owned a partial interest in the Lindell Athletic Club, a popular Detroit night club that Karras would hang out and drink at, even tend bar some nights, and gamblers and sports fans in the city would hang out at. He was at first told by Rozelle to sell the place and stay away, which he refused. Later, when he and Paul Hornung, the Golden Boy running back of the Green Bay Packers, admitted to having gambled on football games, both were suspended. It was a huge news story at the time, as they were two of the league’s biggest stars. At the same time, Dick the Bruiser, who played in the NFL from 1952 to 1956 under his real name of William Richard Afflis, was the area’s top pro wrestling star for promoters Johnny Doyle and Jim Barnett. Business was solid, with shows every three weeks or so at Olympia Stadium (later renamed Joe Louis Arena) drawing between 6,000 and 10,000. With Karras having been such a big name in the news at that time and his background doing pro wrestling a few years earlier, a Bruiser vs. Karras match seemed a natural. They set it up for a show on April 27, 1963, and expecting the biggest crowd of the year, loaded the show up with a Lou Thesz vs. Big Bill Miller NWA world title match and brought in some of the era’s biggest stars like Ray Stevens from San Francisco, Argentina Rocca and Fritz Von Erich. Bruiser was a powerful 250-pounder who was one of the earliest athletes to be familiar with steroids. His reputation was that he was your classic bar fighter. Unlike his tag team partner, The Crusher, who was a powerful guy and had a reputation also as a bar fighter, Crusher would only fight when provoked. Bruiser would go out, drink, and look for trouble, something he had done dating back to high school. A few days before the match, Bruiser showed up, unknown to Karras, at the Lindell Athletic Club. Karras wrote about it in his autobiography, saying at first he thought Bruiser was there to cause a scene to garner some publicity and promote their match. But quickly he realized Bruiser was looking for a fight, as he was mad because allegedly Karras, in an interview a year earlier, had called him a “third-rate football player.” Bruiser used to hang out at the club and drink after matches when he worked Detroit, but stopped coming about a year earlier because he was mad at Karras for the remark. According to the Detroit Free Press story the next morning, on April 23, 1963, after midnight, Bruiser showed up at the club. Karras was there, hanging out with his friends. Bartender Jimmy Butsicaris, who was part-owner and a friend of Karras, saw that Bruiser was drunk and causing a scene and refused to serve him. Bruiser was looking for a real fight, and started swearing at both Butsicaris and Karras. Karras, when talking about the incident, said he didn’t want to fight and would have left immediately, but Bruiser was threatening his friend, who weighed all of 150 pounds. The situation calmed down briefly, and Karras left to avoid trouble. Charles Kelly then called police to tell them that Bruiser, who everyone in the city knew, was causing trouble. Bruiser then got mad at Butsicaris, grabbed him by the shirt, and threw one punch at him, which he ducked. He threw a second punch, that also missed, but his elbow cracked Butsicaris in the jaw. By this point people at the bar had told Karras what happened and he returned. A brawl started with Bruiser, Karras and several other people. Bruiser was more than holding his own, even being drunk and outnumbered. At that point police officers James Carolan and Andrew Meholic showed up and tried to subdue Bruiser. Bruiser threw both of them across the room, hard. Carolan ended up suffering a torn ligament in his right elbow, and Meholic suffered a broken wrist. Two more officers showed up, and Bruiser threw them around as well. It eventually took eight officers to finally wrestle Bruiser to the ground, where they handcuffed his hands behind his back and shackled his ankles, and took him to jail. He was later released when Karras and Butsicaris decided against pressing charges, given Karras had a big money date with Bruiser a few days later. During the brawl, a number of people were injured. Both Bruiser and Karras had to be treated at the hospital, with Bruiser receiving five stitches for a cut under his eye. A television set and vending machine at the bar were destroyed. While the timing of this incident, which got not only local publicity, but was carried in newspapers all over the country, would make some suspicious it was a clever angle, in this case it wasn’t. Karras was very open later in life about what wrestling was, and said he had no idea Bruiser was coming, and when he did, figured he was just there for a scene and not a fight. He said he very quickly realized Bruiser wasn’t doing a publicity stunt. Karras loved telling stories about Bruiser and that night, and in his 1978 autobiography, “Even Big Guys Cry,” devoted a chapter to him. This led to incredible publicity for the match, but the show drew a disappointing 8,000 fans. The match was said to be nothing special at all. Bruiser won. Karras never wrestled again as he was reinstated for the 1964 season. But Karras twice played a wrestler in movies. In the movie “Babe,” about Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the greatest female athlete in the U.S. prior to Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Karras played the role of George Zaharias, her husband. Zaharias was a major pro wrestling star who wrestled from 1928 to 1947, and best friends with Lou Thesz. Zacarais was only 24 when he sold out Maple Leaf Gardens for a match with Jim Londos, and his drawing a strong crowd in St. Louis against 21-year-old Thesz in 1937 was a factor in the decision to make Thesz the youngest world champion in history later that year as Tom Packs was looking to create a local superstar. He and Didrikson were married in 1938. Karras also played the lead role in a 1977 made for TV movie called “Mad Bull,” where he played a taunted and abused pro wrestling heel whose father was an amateur great and looked down upon him doing pro wrestling. He feuded with an arrogant babyface champion, flipped the script in a match that turned real and won the championship

With last week’s death of Pampero Firpo, there have been questions regarding the oldest living wrestler. Joe D’Orazio, a U.K. wrestler and referee is 97 and from all indications is the oldest. Former Texas announcer Bill Mercer is almost 94 and the oldest former U.S. wrestler is believed to be Carlos Rocha at almost 93, who was from Portugal. Rocha worked most of his career in Europe but had U.S. tours including 1976-77 in the WWWF where he rarely lost and even got a title shot at Superstar Billy Graham. Cowboy Bob Ellis would be the oldest living U.S. superstar wrestler at 91, with Len Rossi, Johnny DeFazio and Ricky Waldo being 89. Those who are 87 include Gene LeBell, Danny Hodge, Nick Kozak and Dominic DeNucci

Regarding the death of Andrea Hart, Bruce Hart’s wife dating back more than 30 years, at 52, she had shown some signs of heart issues that weren’t followed up on. She developed flu like symptoms around Christmas and on 12/27, failed to wake up from her sleep

Bobby Fulton, 59, announced that he will be starting radiation and chemotherapy to combat throat cancer

The next PWG show won’t be until 3/29 because of difficulties getting Friday or Saturday night dates at the Globe Theater. The problem is that date is a Sunday before WrestleMania. Since a large percentage of their audience will be flying to Tampa a few days later, and that date means unless you are local you are going to miss work on that Monday if you attend, although I guess the same could be said for the usual Friday night dates and they still get people from all over the world every time out. Unless PWG has an incredible can’t miss level of show, it’s hard to see a lot of regulars being there

A correction from last week regarding the Rocky Johnson autobiography, which has been pulled from circulation due to a falling out between Johnson and co-author Scott Teal. We reported the book wasn’t released due to the dispute, although we had gotten an advanced copy, which I found very interesting. However, the book was released briefly and then pulled

Dave Bautista has gotten a regular role in Apple TV’s new series “See” for season two. Jason Momoa stars in the show

Hugo Savinovich’s DemonMania, a tribute to Blue Demon, takes place on 6/13 in Puerto Rico. Names announced so far include L.A. Park, Ken Anderson, Pagano, Santino Marella and Renee Michelle

With Jim Ross having to bow out due to AEW commitments since the main banquet is on Wednesday, the M.C.’s for the 4/29 Cauliflower Alley Club banquet will be Terry Funk and J.J. Dillon. Due to health reasons, Funk, 75, has been pretty much absent from public appearances and has missed the banquets for the last several years. So hopefully this is a good sign

Jesus Aguilera, who wrestled as El Marquez and later Batman in CMLL and UWA in the 70s and 80s, passed away on 1/8. His major claim to fame was beating Karloff Lagarde to win the Mexican national welterweight title on August 11, 1973. Unlike most in that era, his reign was not long, as he dropped it to Fishman on October 3, 1973. He lost his mask as El Marquez in 1975 to Anibal. Then he started working under a mask as Batman. He lost that mask in 1982 to Enigma de Oro

In the better late than never department, the Los Angeles Times did have a fairly lengthy obit written by historian Steve Yohe on Dick Beyer. There was an obit talked about shortly after Beyer’s death when Houston Mitchell of the newspaper recognized his status as a headliner and major drawing card in the 60s in Los Angeles deserved it. But it wasn’t until this past week that it ran

. El Hijo del Santo & Octagon, who teamed regularly in AAA in the early and mid-90s, will face Fuerza Guerrera & Angel Blanco Jr. on the 2/2 show in Naucalpan

Great Sasuke has been signed for Pro Wrestling Revolution in San Francisco on 4/18

Former UFC fighter Mitch Clarke debuts for the CWE promotion in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan shortly

The 2/21 Qatar Pro Wrestling Super Slam I in Doha Qatar has announced Brian Pillman Jr. vs. nZo (Enzo Amore), White Eagle vs. Matt Sydal vs. Matt Cross, Caprice Coleman vs. PJ Black vs. Mil Muertes vs. Tristan Archer vs. Dos Caras (this has to be El Hijo de Dos Caras because Dos Caras isn’t wrestling any longer) vs. Rich Swann in a ladder match for the heavyweight title, Apolo & Apolo Jr. (from Puerto Rico) vs. Carlito & Chris Masters vs. Jody Fleisch & Jonny Storm for the tag titles, Brian Cage vs. Michael Elgin for the Middle East title plus other names announced but not wrestling include Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash, Road Warrior Animal, Mark Henry and Great Khali.

EUROPE: Updating the 16 Carat Gold tournament for 3/6 to 3/8 is that eight names are in, Eddie Kingston, Daniel Makabe, Black Taurus, Alexander James, Puma King, Shigehiro Irie, Mike Bailey and Chris Ridgeway. Alex Shelley will be a special attraction on 3/7. They also will be doing a Catch Grand Prix tournament 9/23 to 9/27.

MLW: MLW announced a deal with ICM Partners, who will be in charge of selling television and streaming rights to the television show as well as selling new scripted and unscripted shows related to the brand

MJF finished up with the promotion on the 1/11 show in Dallas and will now be exclusive to AEW. His contract expires in the spring and will appear on TV until that point

The 1/11 show drew a reported 1,387 paid at the NYTEX Sports Centre in North Richland Hills, TX, just outside of Dallas, which was a sellout and while not the largest attendance in MLW history, it was said to be the largest gate. The crowd is a mix between fans of the Von Erichs and fans of Lucha Libre. They also claimed their all-time merchandise record with about 40 percent of the merch sold being Von Erich related. They are returning on 5/2 but the plan is now to make Dallas with the Von Erichs and Chicago which draw due to the Mexican talent as the key markets

The next show is 2/1 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia with Jacob Fatu vs. Cima for the MLW title, Alex Hammerstone vs. T-Hawk for the National title, Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Erick Stevens, Tom Lawlor vs. Killer Kross and Brian Pillman Jr. vs. Jimmy Havoc

Court Bauer said he’s in talks to do a show in Hawaii in 2020

El Hijo de L.A. Park missed the show due to a visa renewal delay. He, L.A. Park and L.A. Park Jr., will all be back soon

Tom Lawlor is leading the heel group Team Filthy with Stevens and Dominic Garrini

Ikuro Kwon had surgery to repair his ACL and will e back I the spring. Court Bauer also pushed being high on Injustice and Jordan Oliver

In some of the key stuff, Myron Reed beat Drago to keep the middleweight title. Marshall Von Erich beat MJF with the iron claw. Tom Lawlor did a promo calling Ross & Marshall the discount store Von Erichs and not the Von Erichs everyone remembers. He wiped his ass with a Von Erich t-shirt and threw it into the crowd. He said Team Filthy were real fighters and not Botchmania lucha guys. Konnan was there managing Septimo Dragon but Gino Medina who they are pushing, beat him with a roll-up. Richard Holliday, MJF and Medina beat down Dragon until Konnan hit them with a loaded sock. Jacob Fatu beat Pillman Jr. to keep the MLW title. The Von Erichs beat Holliday & MJF to keep the tag titles with double iron claws. Erick Stevens debuted and beat Douglas James. Alex Hammerstone kept the National title over Aerostar. Aerostar had a foot injury but wasn’t hospitalized. Holliday beat Savio Vega with a neckbreaker. Ross Von Erich beat Lawler via DQ when he set up for the claw when Garrini interfered. Team Filthy laid out the Von Erichs an a fan threw a garbage can in the ring. King Mo Lawal beat Dr. Dax via choke submission. They seemed to be building Mo vs. Low Ki. Dan Lambert was there with Lawal and he cut a great promo. Smith Jr. beat Simon Gotch via ref stoppage after a series of suplexes ruling Gotch couldn’t continue. Main event saw Mance Warner over Havoc in a no rope barbed wire match. Priscilla Kelly was in Havoc’s corner. Warner kicked powder into Havoc’s face and gave him a piledriver on a chair, a piece of barbed wire and a door for the pin.

ROH: The company opened its checkbook big with major signings this past week of the two most in-demand talents that had become free agents, in Marty Scurll and Bandido. Both signed multi-year deals. Scurll got what was said to be the most lucrative contract in company history and will work in creative as a co-booker with Hunter Johnston (Delirious) and basically as things are working out will be the lead. The two are working together with Johnston still as the Executive Producer of television and he and Scurll listed as booker. Johnston didn’t disagree with any of Scurll’s ideas or directions this weekend so Scurll did get all his ideas through. Johnston had been full-time booker as well as run the wrestling school since 2010 and had booked since 2010 and been lead booker since 2012 when Jim Cornette left. There had been other people involved in booking in recent years as well but he was always the titled head booker. The plan right now is for Scurll to determine the direction and for Johnston to run the television shows using Scurll’s ideas and adding in details and formatting it for television. Johnston has said that he doesn’t want to get in the way of Scurll’s creative vision. Johnston was said to be thrilled by not having to be in full charge of creative and called it a new lease on life, and hoping that his level of pressure and anxiety would decrease. Essentially Scurll is getting WWE main roster money guaranteed for maybe 40+ dates per year, plus he can work just about anywhere else he wants without the restrictions that ROH talent had in the past. Scurll had been the first choice to be the leader of the Dark Order and AEW for the 12/18 show in Corpus Christi with the heavily criticized beatdown, there was an idea for the show to end with the Scurll reveal, until ROH made Scurll such a great offer to stay. Since he and Nick Aldis are in the top NWA program, they will be working with the NWA once again and Aldis appeared as a surprise on the weekend shows and it wouldn’t surprise me to have some ROH talent show up on the NWA PPV show which takes place 1/24 in Atlanta. They gave the impression and shot an angle for Aldis vs. Scurll as the PPV main event, but it looks like they may be dragging them out as Aldis vs. Flip Gordon was announced for 1/24. It’s notable because when he was not allowed to work the Super J Cup, the feeling was he was going to leave, but the offer was said to be significantly better than the big offer Matt Taven got. He also be working other shows that he wants to. We know the deal won’t allow him to work WWE, and WWE wouldn’t use a guy from another company anyway, and when negotiations were going on, we were told it may not exclude him from AEW although others have said the deal will only exclude AEW and WWE. Scurll’s role when it comes to office work will be to work as a liaison to New Japan, the NWA and other organizations including AEW, which ROH will try and get a working relationship with. That may be difficult because I don’t know what AEW has to gain at this time from an ROH relationship because you never know the twists and turns of the future. Scurll has a lot of friends in AEW so it makes sense to be guy to try and open up communications and boundaries. Those at New Japan love Scurll and they would want to send him more talent this year but they are running so many shows themselves in the U.S. and Japan that it’s hard

Bandido had similar options since pretty much everyone had at least some interest in him, and at one point he was looking to become a free agent this year thinking he could work as the top touring independent star. ROH made the best offer for him as well. It is notable that AEW did not make huge money offers for either. Some are saying AEW isn’t making big money offers right now because they have a full roster that they can’t give enough time in two hours of weekly television to focus on right now. There is a ton of good talent there that isn’t getting a lot of time although guys like Bandido, Scurll and Dragon Lee (who all signed with ROH in recent weeks) are potential big-time stars and Bandido and Lee are young and Mexican as well, since the Mexican-American demo can be huge for wrestling in the U.S. going forward. It also could be that AEW is saving since Matt Hardy, The Revival and Luke Harper will be free agents over the next few months and you have to pick and choose if you’re running a business at least until you get the kind of TV deals WWE has where you can afford anyone

There was New Japan involvement opened up for the 4/4 Supercard of Honor. As we noted last week, ROH was trying to get Will Ospreay for the show and it’s since been confirmed. Also confirmed are Jay White and El Phantasmo, and with the Bullet Club having a WrestleMania week party, several other members are expected to be on the show. That is a rarity since the key members of the Bullet Club were going to be in Tampa that week to being with for their own non-wrestling event and have the week off from New Japan

Aldis did a run-in on the 1/11 show in Atlanta, which drew a sellout 700 fans, but there were reports of papering and the advance was weak. Teddy Hart was in the crowd as well as his girlfriend is Maria Manic. Bandido & Flamita & Rey Horus beat Villain Enterprises of Scurll & Brody King & Flip Gordon to win the six-man titles

It opened with Beer City Bruiser & Brawler Milonas over P.J. Black & Brian Johnson when Bruiser pinned Johnson after a leg drop off the ropes. Vincent & Bateman, now called The Horror Kings, beat Sal Rinauro & Michael Stevens. Rhett Titus pinned Danhausen after a dropkick. The crowd was into Danhausen. Joe Hendry & Dalton Castle beat Master & Machine, who are Griff Garrison & Marcus Kross when Castle pinned Kross after the bangarang. Dragon Lee retained the TV title over Andrew Everett with a running knee. Lee looked great. Bully Ray came out. He knocked down ring announcer Bobby Cruise and called out Maria Manic. Manic speared Bully and gave him five chair shots. She went to power bomb him through a table when Angelina Love and Mandy Leon came out. They beat her down and Bully came off the ropes and splashed her through the table. Leon & Sakai beat Nicole Savoy & Sumie Sakai when Savoy kicked Sakai in the head. Savoy went to apologize but Sakai laid her out. Dak Draper beat Jason Cade. Jonathan Gresham beat Josh Woods via count out. Jay Lethal hit Woods with a belt shot to the knee and Woods couldn’t beat the 20 count back in. Mostly a technical match that was quite good which meant fans were pissed when in that kind of a match it ended with outside interference from a belt shot. Mark & Jay Briscoe beat Jeff Cobb & Dan Maff and Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins. Very good match. Mark pinned Haskins after Jay used the J driller on him. Shane Taylor is still around and the crowd gave him a rough time. He called out Joe Koff and they are running an angle. He said he would only stay with the promotion if he gives Taylor Enterprises a shot at the six-man titles, gives him a world title shot at PCO and makes him the highest paid wrestler in ROH history. He said Koff has 24 hours to make a decision. Bandido & Flamita & Horus beat Scurll & King & Gordon in 16:00 to win the titles. Scurll announced Gordon was replacing on the championship team. Match was said to be super. Scurll went for the chicken wing when Bandido rolled him up for the pin. PCO beat Rush in 11:16 via DQ to keep the title. Both men were cheered. Rush accidentally knocked out ref Todd Sinclair with a moonsault block. Dragon Lee, Kenny King and Amy Rose came out with a table. Scurll and Brody King ran in as well. PCO gave Rush a senton off the top. A second ref came in to count but Rush kicked out. PCO then hit the second ref. Sinclair then DQ’d Rush. Aldis ran in with a disguise as security and threw Gordon into the post and helped Rush’s Ingobernables and they beat down Brody King’s knee. Bandido did a double foot stomp putting PCO through a table so he’ll likely be getting a title shot. It ended with Rush’s Ingobernables as the last guys left in the ring

1/12 in Concord, NC, drew 500 fans, which is significantly lower than they’ve been doing in that building. The show opened with Aldis, Kamille and Thomas Latimer from NWA. Aldis cut a promo building his PPV match with Scurll. Brody King and Gordon came out and argued with them. Rey Horus beat Everett in a good match. Castle & Henry won a three-way over Briscoes and Brian Johnson & P.J. Black when Castle pinned Johnson after a reverse slingblade. Sakai beat Savoy in a grudge match off the day before. Crowd was dead. Dak Draper beat Danhausen in a comedy match. Alex Zayne beat Bandido. This wasn’t great. Was told Zayne showed potential and obviously they have to think something of him to put him over Bandido. But he looked green in between some great moves. He got caught in the ropes on a dive. He won with a pump handle driver. Those there got into him. The two shook hands and got a standing ovation. Haskins & Williams beat Vincent & Bateman via DQ when Chuckles hit Haskins over the head with a block of wood. Gresham & Lethal & Maff & Cobb beat Young & Woods & Bruiser & Milonas when Cobb pinned Bruiser after tour of the islands. After the match Cobb & Maff argued with Lethal & Gresham so they are setting up a tag title program. Bully Ray came out to apologize to Bobby Cruise. Then Ray turned on him and pie faced him to the ground. He bragged about putting Manic through a table and said she was in the hospital and wouldn’t be there. Of course she came out and speared him twice. Leon & Love attacked her and Ray hit Manic with a chair. Bully went to put her through a table but she gave him a low blow and put Bully through a table. Gordon beat Flamita with an STF and then unmasked him. Main event saw Rush & Lee & Kenny King over Scurll & PCO & Brody King. Scurll was triple teamed and pinned

The next show is the experimental free show on 2/9 in Baltimore.

IMPACT: The company will be taping TV 1/17 and 1/18 at the Fronton in Mexico City with help from AAA, the same building they’ve used in the past when taping there

Ken Shamrock noted that after the PPV he flew to Augusta, GA upon finding out that his birth father was in hospice care. Ken was born Ken Kilpatrick, but later became Ken Nance and Ken Shamrock after adoptions. The person he grew up with as his father, Bob Shamrock, who also helped raise Frank Shamrock (not blood related) passed away in 2010 from complications from diabetes.

AEW: It appears that Brian Cage has either signed here or is very close to doing so. Steve Bryant of the web site Southern California Uncensored (which is where Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky got their SCU name from) reported Cage signing here after the Impact PPV. Nobody in AEW has either confirmed or denied the story to us, but Bryant’s track record on stories like this is excellent, especially when it relates to California talent. What we were able to confirm independently is that Cage’s Impact contract has either just expired or is about to. He was not advertised for the tapings this coming weekend in Mexico City, and his name would mean more than most Impact stars given he’s worked as a top star for AAA for years. The way we were told the story is that he was planning to go to AEW but may not have actually signed but that unless something unforeseen happened, that is where he would end up. My gut says that AEW didn’t deny it because they don’t want to mislead, but didn’t confirm it because either pen isn’t on paper yet or because they had a surprise debut planned for him and didn’t want him confirmed by them prior to that. AEW wanted to use Cage in the first Battle Royal in Las Vegas but he was Impact world champion, and Impact wouldn’t allow it unless he was protected and portrayed as a world champion. AEW has always had him on their radar. What is interesting in his case is that he was always used well on Impact as one of their signature stars. To me it’s notable that Anthem was so strong on Impact that they literally bought a television station to make sure it had decent U.S. market penetration. But if you’re going to spend the money to buy a television station, one would think you’d also want to spend the money to keep one of your signature stars

Jon Moxley will headline Bloodsport III over Mania week on 4/2 in Ybor City, FL headlining against Josh Barnett. Moxley wanted to do that match last year but it didn’t happen because of the staph infection he got in his elbow

The 1/22 Dynamite from the Jericho Cruise has Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky defending the tag titles against Kenny Omega & Adam Page, Pac vs. Jon Moxley with the winner facing Chris Jericho (likely on 2/29 at Revolution in Chicago) for the title plus Marko Stunt & Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Jericho & Ortiz & Santana to further the Jericho vs. Jungle Boy story. There will be about three hours of wrestling each day on the cruise ship. Dynamite will be taped ahead of time rather than live, on the boat

They also announced the 2/19 show in Atlanta will have Cody vs. Wardlow in a cage match

Regarding the booking which has come together better over the last three weeks, Tony Khan took more control after the negativity from the Corpus Christi show and you can see more seeds of long-term planning and layers in storylines, like in the four team tag match and other angles. But that’s also related to all involved

The Wednesday shows are consistently doing 3,000 to 4,000, which is what Smackdown was doing on Tuesdays but Smackdown is way up since moving to Friday. I had expected Miami to sell out but there was a Heat game head-to-head. Tickets for 3/25 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, the first show in the New York market, go on sale 1/17 and that will be interesting. There was a time I figured a first New York show would be an instant sellout, but I don’t know if that’s a lock anymore. In this case, some will depend on the reselling community as if they buy like it’s a WWE major show in the New York market, it’ll sell out instantly. But if they avoid it, like not going in that big for the recent MSG shows, I’m not as sure. New York is the Mecca for ticket scalping but it’s possible the softness of the New Japan/ROH MSG sellout show may scare them off, and the quick Chicago sellout isn’t going to mean a lot with New York scalpers

Tony Khan wrote in response to a public thank you from Dave Brown that he’d be bringing him back to AEW in the future. Regarding the Tribute to Memphis Wrestling, I was disappointed it wasn’t on the main show after how much promotion it had gotten on social media. They aired it on Dark, but on the main show, they did talk about it, had Brown come out for the first match to announce with Jim Ross, Excalibur and Tony Schiavone, which looked crowded. Brown said very little and Ross twice made a reference to wishing Lance Russell was there with them. Brown owes his entire career to Russell and the two were best friends for more than 50 years. It was Khan’s idea and he was looking to get Brown on the show which led to Chris Harrington and Randy Hales, who worked for Jerry Jarrett as his General Manager in the 90s and later ran Power Pro Wrestling for several years after the Jarrett promotion folded, making contact. Hales sent contact information to AEW and made some suggestions. Brandon Baxter, who worked there as a manager, promoted the show as he’s a local radio host now. Everyone seemed happy with it as Hales said his dealings were friendly and professional and Brown thanked AEW after the event

Marko Stunt and Rey Fenix were both banged up and hurt in Dark matches taped on 1/15 in Miami. Stunt hurt his foot, but the next day we were told it didn’t look to be serious but it was bothering him and he may be getting it checked out this week. Fenix laid in the ring for a while after losing to Joey Janela and then called over the ref. The ref, as well as a second ref and the doctor came out and helped him out of the ring and backstage. He came in banged up and he’s been doing so much and working so many dates that it would be impossible not to be in pain at all times and it is going to catch up to him. But the next day we were told he’s okay

Notes from the 1/8 TV show. This had its hits and misses. The women’s segment looked amateurish. You really could see a few things, such as how great The Young Bucks and Pentagon & Fenix are, because even in with Kenny Omega & Adam Page, Private Party looked so much greener than when they were in with the other teams. And you could also see how great Hikaru Shida is, because Kris Statlander looked like a future superstar with her, while with Riho, it wasn’t good at all. Part of it also is there was way too much with the interference and stuff. The show drew 3,100 fans, about half of what Smackdown drew a few days earlier in a better location. The fans gave all the legends good reactions with the biggest for Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson and Dave Brown. Also there were Doug Gilbert (to also honor Eddie & Tommy Gilbert), Jimmy Valiant, Austin Idol, Lanny Poffo (to honor father Angelo and brother Randy Savage), Kevin Lawler (to honor brother Brian) and Shane Russell (to honor father Lance). I was a nice ten minute ceremony that I’d have loved to have see on TNT. In other sense, if it was on TV, it would have to be rushed and there they gave it time. Morton, Gibson and Brown got the biggest reactions. They pushed that Brown had announced thousands of matches and that late in the show he would announce his first match ever on national television. They had a ten bell salute for those who had passed away. Page & Omega beat Private Party in 12:25. Private Party did a lot of big moves. Marq Quen did four dives in a row on opposite sides of the ring. Page went for a buckshot lariat and nearly hit Omega, but held up just in time. Quen shoved Page into Omega. Page saved Omega when Private Party did the gin and juice on him. The finish saw Page hit Quen with a rabbit lariat and Omega pinned him with the One Winged Angel. Backstage Pac had Michael Nakazawa in the brutalizer and demanded a one-on-one match with Omega. Omega ran to the back while Page just stayed at ringside hanging out with fans drinking beer. Riho pinned Statlander in 9:20 to retain the women’s title. Shida and Britt Baker were at ringside. It looks like Baker is turning because she was out there looking annoyed. Statlander did some power moves. Awesome Kong and Melanie Cruise, whose name is just Mel, came out. Brandi Rhodes was doing commentary. She’s such an awesome babyface promo but clearly that’s not the role she wants. Mel attacked Riho. Statlander hit a tope on Mel. Then she hit a tope on Kong. Rhodes left the broadcast position to come to ringside. Dr. Luther (Len Olson), who was an FMW star in the early 90s and really one hell of a worker and is buddies with Chris Jericho, came from under the ring. Riho had the match won and did a plancha onto Luther and then missed a double foot stomp on Statlander. Statlander pressed Riho into a Samoan drop, but Riho cradled her. Riho kept kicking out of stuff. Statlander had Riho up for a tombstone piledriver but Kong tripped Statlander and Riho fell on top for the pin. Kong clotheslined Statlander and was throwing bad looking punches. Riho attacked Kong. Mel attacked Riho. Shida ran in to make the save while Baker just stayed there at ringside and never made any attempt to help. This reads better than it was. Really, the actual angle part of this with pushing Shida and Statlander as faces was good, starting a Baker turn, Riho does well in ratings, etc. But everything looked so bad. Swole and Sonny Kiss also came out. There was a Kip Sabian video. Sammy Guevara pinned Christopher Daniels in 5:49 with a kick to the back of the head after distraction from Pentagon. Excalibur mentioned the death of Johnny Ion here. The Dark Order then came out. Evil Uno praised Daniels, saying that if it wasn’t for him, that he and Stu Grayson wouldn’t be where they are. They cut down the entourage as it was Grayson, Uno, Alex Reynolds, John Silver and two other masked guys. Uno told Daniels that the fans don’t believe in you anymore but they do. Uno said he can make him the man he once was and offered him a mask, and told him SCU was a thing from the past. Daniels took the mask, but then threw it down. Then they all jumped Daniels. Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky and The Young Bucks all made the save. Scorpio Sky did a running flip dive on everyone. The Young Bucks did a double superkick on Reynolds and then Daniels hit the best moonsault ever on Reynolds. Dustin & Cody Rhodes beat Pentagon Jr. & Fenix in a first-time-ever match in 10:14. Arn Anderson was in the Rhodes corner. Good action. Anderson kicked a chair out of Fenix’s hand. Fenix did a tope on Dustin and Cody did a tope on Pentagon. Cody threw his weight belt into the crowd. Lots of near falls, ending with Dustin pinning Fenix with the final reckoning. Cody did an interview to address MJF’s stipulations for a match. Arn Anderson said the stipulations were stupid but Cody wants the match and they will discuss them this week and give an answer next week. Alex Marvez interviewed Lanny Poffo who talked about seeing Idol and Valiant backstage. MJF came out for a promo saying Cody was afraid to face him. He said he’d give Cody a ten count to come out. Cody never came out. We had just seen Cody and there was no storyline reason given for him not coming out. Granted, MJF did say if Cody touches him before their match that the match was off, but none of the announcers said it. It was like why isn’t Cody out. He insulted Cody until DDP came out. Fans started chanting “Yoga” at him. DDP went out there on a self-promotional tour, he promoted DDP Yoga, explained it’s now DDPY, gave his twitter and instagram numbers. I figure at this stage of the game, why not? Besides people love the older guys coming back as long as it’s not overdone and they aren’t there to be abused and make people mad. Plus, watching MJF acted bored out of his mind while DDP is plugging every form of contact you could have with him is great. The Butcher, Blade and Bunny came out. MJF noted that WCW was dead. He also said that dead is the average age of a DDP fan. He told DDP to either kiss his ring or he will send him right to hospice. He also said he’d take one of DDP’s daughters and basically jump their bones. DDP didn’t take kindly to that, so he gave a diamond cutter to Butcher and another to Blade. MJF gave Page a low blow when Wardlow distracted him. Dustin, limping and QT Marshall made the save. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt beat Chuck Taylor & Trent & Orange Cassidy in 10:42. This is one of those things that you know would get over to the live crowd but also know that a lot of the people watching at home are going to have an issue with. Stunt is fine in limited doses but this wasn’t that. Cassidy tagged in and the place went nuts and he did a hands in his pocket tope on Luchasaurus. The finish saw Luchasaurus throw Stunt over the top onto Trent and Cassidy and Jungle Boy pinned Taylor. During the break Guevara was doing the signs and sending messages to Selma Hayak. The last segment was the Jericho/Moxley recruiting segment. This was on what would have been Elvis’ 85th birthday. There were a ton of tourists in the area. Jericho said The Beatles were better than Elvis anyway. Jon Moxley came out. He said he was offered a $750,000 car, money, 49% ownership of the Inner Circle LLC and said that he can’t be bought. He said he came here to run roughshod over pro wrestling. But then he agreed to join the Inner Circle. This was done well because pretty much everyone thought it was a swerve and he’d turn on them, which he did, but they took so much time in doing it than people started thinking maybe he isn’t turning on them after all. He said Jericho was the greatest of all-time. He asked Jericho for the car keys. Fans were chanting “you sold out” at Moxley. Then Moxley said he was only kidding, he’d never join the Inner Circle and it’s a stupid group. He hit Jericho with a bottle of A Little Bit of the Bubbly and then gave Jericho and Sammy Guevara the paradigm shift and bailed when Jake Hager came after him. Guevara took the move so great and just laid there motionless until the show went off the air. People haven’t figured it out yet but Guevara is an incredible talent, far beyond just a guy who can do a lot of cool moves inside the ring. For Dark, Dave Brown called the show with Excalibur. He did well. He didn’t know everyone but was so smooth at it and Excalibur could fill in the blanks. Hopefully they can do this again. Darby Allin pinned Brandon Cutler with the coffin drop. Nyla Rose was to face Shanna. They brawled before the match started. Shanna tackled Rose through the ropes and they went through a table. The final match saw Billy & Austin Gunn over Peter Avalon & Shawn Spears. The gimmick is every week Spears tries out a new partner who always gets pinned. The crowd chanted “Ass Boy” at Billy’s son. Austin pinned Avalon with a swanton off the top. Cody then came out and announced they would return to the building and that they had just signed Austin Gunn to a contract

BTE this past week opened with a spoof on wrestling using landscaping. The short version is Nick spent the last year landscaping, putting in a lot of work (the idea of the last year all the work they’ve done with the company) and a lot of effort and then Matt said he liked it but then started saying all these things he could have done and Nick basically stormed off about the toxicity. They joked about Nick having a hard time taking criticism. Lanny Poffo and Jimmy Valiant appeared since this was taped in Memphis. Valiant still has more natural charisma than almost anyone as he did a vignette with Adam Page, who he helped train. He basically gave Page a pep talk telling him he’s like his son, and he’s got something he’s running from but he’s got a lot more that he should be running toward. Page was still drinking. Omega was mad at him that he didn’t run back to save Nakazawa with him at the show. Omega also acted like Page wreaked of alcohol. He gave Page water but Page said he already had water, Omega grabbed it, drank it and spit it out like he was putting alcohol in his water bottle. Nakazawa on his phone was on the Dark Order web site. There was also a Brandon Cutler Dark Order tease as the Young Bucks noted that Cutler kind of disappeared from them the past two days

Notes from the 1/15 tapings in Miami. This show was Bash at the Beach. They drew 3,900 fans. There were more fly-in fans than usual as many came who will be on the Jericho Cruise, which leaves from Miami. They did a long taping, likely taping two weeks worth of material for Dark. In trying to get over the beach name in the title, the announcers and ring announcer Justin Roberts all wore Hawaiian shirts. Excalibur and Taz came out as announcers. They opened the show with a moment of silence for Rocky Johnson. Later, when Dynamite started, Jim Ross immediately acknowledged the deaths of Johnson, Pampero Firpo, La Parka and Kendo Nagasaki. That was cool although my first thought was U.K. viewers watching thinking that their Kendo Nagasaki had passed away. Big Swole beat Diamante, who was the woman that was with LAX in Impact a few years back. Diamante went for the three amigos, which led to an easy Eddy chant, but stopped at two to get heat. Nyla Rose beat Shanna in a ladder match. Shanna dressed up as Goku from Dragon Ball Z, which led to chants regarding that during the match. Shanna had trouble with a table that kept falling down. At one point she got so frustrated she yelled “stay up.” Finally she got a different table. Shanna attempted to knock Rose off the apron into a table but Rose caught her and reversed it and choke slammed her through the table. Rose got more tables after the match when someone ran in. She was never identified, but she was blonde and did a space flying tiger drop, which indicates being Sadie Gibbs. She actually missed the move and Rose power bombed her through the table. Omega & Page won a four-way over the Young Bucks, Santana & Ortiz and Chuck Taylor & Trent in 16:34 in the Dynamite opener. A ****½ match. Just incredible. It never stopped. It was probably the most impressive I’ve seen from Santana & Ortiz (I won’t say it was their best performance because of the ladder match, but as far as wrestling goes they’ve never looked better) and it was Taylor & Trent’s best AEW performance as well. Page and Omega got along the entire match. At one point Omega did the “You can’t escape” on Taylor, and then went to the middle rope, but Page did a standing moonsault on Taylor and then Omega did the middle rope moonsault. It was set up to make you think there was going to be a disagreement, but there wasn’t. Page then did a top rope moonsault to the floor. Nick and Taylor did a double dive. With everyone fighting on the floor, Trent superplexed Matt off the top rope to the floor on everyone. There was also an eight-way suplex spot where Orange Cassidy joined in and led his team to get the edge. Trent & Taylor gave Omega the strong zero but the Bucks saved. Trent knocked Nick to the floor to break up the Meltzer driver. Omega hit the V trigger on Taylor and then Omega & Page did a combination V trigger and buckshot lariat on Taylor for the win. The announcers pushed the storyline that the Bucks did most of the work and were the most impressive but that Omega & Page won. Omega & Page and The Young Bucks argued after the match. This win sets up a tag title match next week on the Jericho Cruise, but they were also teasing a future Omega & Page vs. Young Bucks match. So you got all the crazy moves, a match the crowd loved, a story told, and two future big matches built up. Cody came out dressed like he was off the old TV show “Miami Vice.” He said that if Wardlow wrestles him, people will see how good Wardlow is and that maybe Wardlow shouldn’t be carrying Max’s (MJF) bags and that Max should be carrying his bags. Cody accepted all the stipulations, that he has to get whipped ten times with a belt, that he can’t touch or retaliate against MJF until after the match. He then talked about how old school wrestlers (clearly a knock at Jim Cornette) keep praising Max and saying how he’s a great old-school heel, and that less is more, but maybe less is more with Max because Max is incapable of more. Cody said that he’s accepted that he failed as a mentor to Max but he can teach him one final lesson, and that this is not Max’s story, and like with his father, Max is only going to be a chapter in Cody’s story. Joey Janela did an interview promoting a match with Fenix for next week, but they taped a Janela vs. Fenix match later. Most of the interview was about Penelope Ford, his ex-girlfriend, saying the only way she could ever get herself over is on his name. Janela said that he was one of the guys who is the backbone of AEW and that things would change. They were building more in Janela vs. Kip Sabian. Kris Statlander & Hikaru Shida beat Brandi Rhodes & Mel in 11:13. Rhodes was a late replacement for Awesome Kong, who was ill and wasn’t at the show. Dr. Luther was in the corner of Rhodes & Mel. A lot of miss spots and it was bad. Statlander pinned Mel with a spinning package tombstone piledriver. There was a Dark Order vignette. The guy who has been acting as the spokesperson of the group talked about wanting to recruit Michael Nakazawa, saying Nakazawa is close to coming and if they can get Nakazawa, then they have a better shot at getting his best friend, Omega. They also want Brandon Cutler, since he hasn’t won and is getting frustrated, and through him, they can get The Young Bucks. They also wanted Page. Jon Moxley pinned Sammy Guevara in 9:26. All action. The story is that the winner of this match and the winner of the later Pac vs. Darby Allin match would meet next week and the winner of that gets a title shot at Jericho. Moxley drove Shad Khan’s $750,000 Ford GT into the building which got a big pop. In storyline, Jericho gave Moxley the keys to the car with his own “MOX” license plate to entice him to join the Inner Circle. Guevara did a ton of acrobatic moves like a springboard Oscutter, a twisting dive, as well as coming off the top rope with a double foot stomp onto Moxley, who was standing on the apron. The finish saw Guevara come off the top rope with a moonsault but Moxley caught him in a choke and choked him out. I was surprised how much Moxley gave Guevara, as Guevara took most of the match. The lights then went out, and when they came on, Jericho, Jake Hager, Santana and Ortiz were all in the ring. They all attacked Moxley. Jericho hit him with shots with his title belt and Hager gave him a knee to the groin, a takeoff on what happened in Hager’s last Bellator fight and they’ve turned the spot into his gimmick. Guevara was slapping Moxley around. Jericho took a spike off his Road Warrior jacket and spiked Moxley in the eye. This angle would have been huge in another era when people took things more seriously. But today, nobody is going to take seriously the idea that somebody is going to try and take out the eye of an opponent with a spike. And Moxley was back at the end of the show. Backstage, Jenn Decker was doing a promo with the Inner Circle. Jericho pushed next week’s six-man tag and Jungle Boy. He told Moxley that “we’ll see you around even though you can’t see us.” After everyone left, Guevara hit on Decker, saying “hit me up” and she stormed off. MJF & The Butcher & The super tanned Blade beat Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall & 63-year-old Diamond Dallas Page in 10:32. This was so much better than it looked on paper. Rhodes has been good in every match he’s had in AEW. Marshall is a guy that may never be a star but he’s so much better than people think he is. And Page was amazing for his age. He never looked slow. He only looked slightly rusty. He worked without a shirt on, which is not recommenced for someone of that age, but he’s in great shape. His timing was very good and he did way more than anyone could imagine. MJF came out wearing a shirt that read, “I banged Dallas’ daughter.” MJF hit Rhodes with the ring. The Bunny slapped Rhodes and Wardlow kicked him. Most of the match was Rhodes selling. DDP hot tagged in at 8:00. MJF was totally overselling everything DDP did, but that’s kind of the idea. DDP hit the diamond cutter on Butcher. MJF gave DDP a low blow. Rhodes used a Canadian Destroyer on MJF. DDP finally hit the diamond cutter on MJF. Rhodes did a cannonball off the apron on Butcher & Blade. Marshall did a space flying Tiger drop on them. DDP then went to the top rope and did a plancha on a bunch of guys. MJF then rolled up Marshall out of nowhere and got the three count. Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky were backstage. Adam Page showed up and he’s been drinking and accidentally spilled his drink on Daniels. SCU was pissed. Omega showed up and tried to calm things down and Omega said they would have a gentleman’s title match. I hope that doesn’t mean they all dress up like Jack Gallagher and do Mary Poppins spots. Pac beat Darby Allin to earn the shot with Moxley in 11:45 of a **** match. These two were great. Allin did two topes. Pac power bombed Allin on the steps. While saying Allin was great, he’s not going to last long with a lot of the things he’s doing, although it does appear that is part of his attitude is to end up like that. He did a great crucifix bomb off the top rope and a coffin drop to the floor. Allin’s back was bruised up and bleeding all over the place from the shoulder. They traded all kinds of near falls until Pac used a German suplex, power bomb and black arrow to the back for the pin. Pac did a promo with Tony Schiavone. He said that Moxley is physically incapacitated which means a forfeit. They cut backstage to Moxley being put in the back of an ambulance and Dr. Michael Samson went with him. Then Moxley came out of the ambulance, came out in front of the crowd and cut a promo vowing he will be there next week and will kick Pac’s ass because the title shot belongs to him. For Dark, Stu Grayson & Evil Uno beat Sonny Kiss & Cutler. Cutler may have never tagged in. The entire match was Dark Order beating on Kiss. They used the Fatality on Kiss and Cutler never even attempted to break up the pin. The Dark Order tried to get Cutler to join them. He didn’t, but also never fought them. In what was said to be a ****+ match, Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Stunt beat Cima & T-Hawk & Lindaman. Crowd loved it. Jungle Boy scored the pin. Since it builds for the match with the Inner Circle, even though the Stronghearts are the better team, it was the Jurassic’s time to win. Similarly, Janela beat Fenix. I do think they are taking Fenix too much for granted as he may be the most impressive guy in the company. He can lose and he’s so good it’s fine, but he shouldn’t be like WCW would to with Juventud Guerrera in his prime where he’d look great every week but they beat him like a drum because in their minds that is what he’s there for. Fenix did more comedy and did seem off on some things, including losing his foot on the ropes a few times. His thumb was all bandaged up, as was his lower back. Janela dropped Fenix hard on the apron on his back. Janela won clean with the Randy Savage elbow. Fenix was in the ring after for a long time. Sabian, with Ford, beat Nakazawa in what ended up being the final match on the show. What was clear is that most of the people buying tickets now aren’t watching BTE because nobody really knew Nakazawa and his spots, since those spots haven’t been on Dynamite. He did the baby oil spots. They destroyed the set. Nakazawa dropped a surfboard on Sabian. Nakazawa pulled off his underwear and then used it for a claw to the face of Ford. Fans were chanting “Sucia” at Ford. After the match, Cody, Omega, The Bucks and Cutler came out. They told Nakazawa to stay. After throwing some T-shirts they said they wanted to make a “Marty” joke, but didn’t have the heart to. Matt then said they were talking about Marty Jannetty. They talked about how they were probably going to get sued for using the name Bash at the Beach and that a portion of the gate will probably be going toward their legal defense. They said they will be returning to Miami for a PPV, which they are saying almost every week. It’s an easy pop but after a while the fan base may start to see through it. They then wanted to have Cutler face Nakazawa in one last match. Nakazawa rolled up Cutler immediately. They restarted three or four times each Nakazawa would win and then they’d say it was a fast count and have to do it again. Nakazawa then thanked the fans for supporting him in his first main event, and challenged Alex Jebailey to a third match. Omega then said that Nakazawa and Jebailey got the lowest star ratings in AEW history

UFC: Conor McGregor was back this week hyping his fight with Donald Cerrone. He claimed he would be making $80 million for the fight and that he made $50 million for his fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov. Keep in mind that due to the lawsuit filed by Cung Le and others, real numbers have come out regarding main event fighter pay and while overall numbers are higher than a lot of people thought, through 2017 nobody including McGregor for the Nate Diaz fights, had ever topped $10 million and McGregor had claimed far more than that. McGregor probably topped $10 million for Nurmagomedov considering the show did 2.4 million PPV buys. McGregor can be an entertaining talker but you should never believe him regarding money. He’s also saying that he’ll be a billionaire soon. McGregor said he signed a one-year contract for this fight and will renegotiate a new deal. He talked about big money from PPV in Canada, Australia, England and Ireland, since U.S. numbers will be down due to it no longer being PPV through television. England and Ireland could be very strong but there’s no way of knowing since those countries have gotten the PPVs in the past as part of the BT package and not as PPVs

. People wondered when McGregor agreed to be interviewed by Ariel Helwani if Helwani would bring up the sexual assault charges that hit the New York Times. Helwani asked and McGregor asked for patience and time will reveal all

He also pushed for a boxing rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr., as well as boxing matches with Paulie Malignaggi and Manny Pacquiao. He claimed at one point talks were close for a boxing match with Pacquiao, that he would box again and that he will at some point win a world title in boxing. Like I said, you have to treat everything McGregor says like it’s Chael Sonnen hyping a fight, for entertainment purposes only but don’t take anything seriously

The title is at stake in every round of the tournament.

OTHER MMA: Demetrious Johnson will get his shot at the ONE flyweight champion Adriano Morales (18-3) on the 4/11 show in China.

WWE: It appears the next Saudi Arabia show will be on 2/27, a Thursday afternoon, with Smackdown being on 2/28 in Boston. It will be very interesting to see who goes and who doesn’t go. It’s both what happened last time combined with the situation in the Middle East. That situation in theory, since it doesn’t involve Saudi Arabia, may not play a part in some people’s thinking but you can imagine wives and family members right now thinking about celebrities going to the Middle East with the problems with the U.S. and Iran. And that doesn’t even take into account several guys were talking about not going back after the problems getting home from the last show. Being that close to WrestleMania and having to run a Mania level show isn’t the best timing, but the timing of these events is really up to Saudi Arabia since they are the ones paying for it

NBC and Dwayne Johnson are working together for a new prime time television show based around Johnson’s childhood as the son of a pro wrestling star moving from place to place. The show, tentatively called “Young Rock,” has been greenlit for 11 episodes for a first season. Johnson will be the Executive Producer and a cast member in some form. Obviously he can’t play a 15 year old, but he will be there to talk about the time period and about the stories being told. They are working with Nahnatchkas Khan and Jeff Ciang, who are part of the Fresh Off the Boat show as the creator, and Johnson’s usual team of himself, Dany Garcia (ex-wife and career business manager), Hiram Garcia (ex-brother in law), Jennifer Carreras and Brian Gewirtz (personal writer dating back to the WWE days) are also Executive Producers. It will probably air during the 2020-2021 television season. The idea is Johnson talking about his life experiences growing up as a teenager in different parts of the country and being the son of a pro wrestling star. This includes living in Honolulu, Nashville, Bethlehem, PA and Portland, OR among other places, college football at the University of Miami, getting into trouble and being arrested as a teenager and including his rookie year in pro wrestling so there will be Johnson talking about being Flex Kavana in Tennessee and his $40 payoffs working with Brian Lawler, which actually only lasted a few months, before his late 1996 main roster call-up

The USA Network announced it will be picking up eight more 30 minute episodes of “Straight Up Steve Austin.” Austin and Dave Barsky will be the Executive Producers. They are pushing that the show was the No. 1 new unscripted cable series of Men 18-49 of last year

WWE will be announcing its full 2019 earnings report on 2/6, which will update the WWE Network subscriber number as of 12/31 as well as fourth quarter attendance numbers, updates on who watches television live vs. DVR and other merchandise figures

The Revival have hired the same lawyer who does trademarks for Cody Rhodes and are looking and trademarking shatter machine. They’ve already trademarked FTR and Forever The Revival, so at worst if WWE claims rights to the name The Revival, they can go as Forever the Revival using the FTR name that the Young Bucks mocked years ago when building the feud in social media back when people would debate which of the two teams was the best in the world before The Revival was brought up to the main roster and people stopped talking abut them as much

The Big Show return is only planned to be temporary, as they needed a babyface to team with Joe & Owens for a brief period of time. Mysterio was supposed to be the third person in that feud but they are working the short-term Mysterio vs. Andrade program until they work their way out of it. Originally, and this doesn’t appear to have changed, the idea was for Andrade to have a longer very serious program over the title with Carrillo as a way to get both guys over as singles Latino stars. But now with Murphy being added to the Rollins group, they are again one short on the face side

Paul Levesque was subject of some criticism for an attempt at a joke which backfired. While in the U.K. for the Takeover show this past weekend, he was asked about Edge and Paige and if they may return to action. He said, “I’m a fan like everyone else. I would love to see (Edge and Paige) step into the ring and compete. More importantly than that, though, I would like to see them live long, healthy lives. You know, Edge has kids. Paige, maybe, she probably has some she doesn’t know of.” That remark turned into the idea that Levesque was slut shaming or words like that. It was an attempt at humor although the issues with it were magnified because Paige has had issues that don’t allow her to have children stemming from a miscarriage that she had when she was a teenager. He apologized three days later, saying, “I’ve reached out to Paige to apologize. I made a terrible joke and I’m sorry if it offended her or anyone else.” Paige had already commented publicly after hearing about the remark, by writing, “Even my boss jokes about me

No wonder you guys still do it too.” Paige’s boyfriend, Ronnie Radke wrote back “It’s f*** @HHH all 2020,” whatever that was supposed to mean but it sounded like he wasn’t happy at all. What was a surprise is that Renee Young and Nikki Bella publicly went against Levesque before his apology, which most in WWE, for obvious reasons, never will in a public forum and virtually everyone else stayed quiet on the subject. Young wrote, “Big love to Paige. She’s been to hell and back but still some people wanna make jokes. We need (and she deserves) real change.” Nikki Bella wrote from the Bella Twins account, “We will never see the true change in equality if we just see them as storylines. Change in the company starts from the top. Our leaders help set the example. For us women, we need all the help we can get. Help with respect from our co-workers and fans. We are all one.

It was announced on WWE Backstage that Elias has signed a new multi-year deal

Bret Hart goes to Los Angeles on 1/16 and will be filming an episode of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions. That will probably be a hell of an episode because Hart really pulls no punches when asked direct questions

The Miz will have yet another show on the USA Network. The network is becoming more-and-more reliant on its WWE relationship with two Miz shows, two weekly shows and the Austin show. The new show is called “Cannonball,” hosted to Miz, Rosci Diaz and Simon Gibson. The 10-episode series begins in the summer, likely following a WWE lead-in. It’s a sports competition with water obstacles based around a show that airs in Holland, created by John de Mol, who at one point expressed interest in buying WWE

At the end of every year, the USA Network always sends out a press release claiming they were No. 1. For years it was No. 1 in prime time, which obviously they are far from. Then it became No. 1 in entertainment, which was a way to exclude all the news channels as well as ESPN. Now they aren’t that either, so it’s No. 1 in entertainment (meaning not including ESPN or News Channels) in 18-49 and Raw is its star program, which they call the No. 1 cable entertainment show on Mondays and the most social series. The station doesn’t have much going for it anymore since the shows they push are Raw, Chrisley Knows Best, Straight Up Steve Austin, Temptation Island, Miz & Mrs., Treadstone, Queen of the South, The Biggest Loser, Briarpatch and The Sinner

WWE got some local publicity in Corbin, KY before a 1/12 house show in the city as they brought in a camera crew, collected signatures and gave away tickets attempting to get the city of 7,000 (metropolitan area, if that is the term that should be used, of 21,000) to be renamed King Corbin, KY. King Corbin met with the mayor the day of the show trying to get the city renamed. Mayor Suzie Razonus ended up declaring that for one day, 1/12, the day of the show, that for one day the city’s name would be changed to King Corbin, KY. They played this on the screens at the show as well

Lesnar made a guest appearance as the honorary coach at the University of Minnesota wrestling dual on 1/10 against Wisconsin. He was brought in to honor him on the 20th anniversary of his 2000 NCAA title win and Minnesota’s team national championship. They also filmed footage of him training with Gable Steveson, the heavyweight who took second in the nation last year as a freshman. Lesnar dwarfs Steveson and in the footage, as you’d expect, Steveson was taking Lesnar down and mounting him at will. The two have trained in the past and Lesnar is a big proponent of his

WWE filed for trademarks on names Bobby Lashley, Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman, Kayden Carter, The Usos, Lio Rush and AOP. There are likely merchandise reasons behind it as there would be nothing WWE could do to prevent Lesnar, Heyman and Lashley from using their real names outside of WWE

WWE had a BT Sports launch party on 1/15 bringing in Stephanie McMahon, Ric Flair, Angle, Paige and Cain Velasquez as guests and had three matches. The bouts at the party were Charlotte Flair over Cross, Sheamus over Andrade and Tyler Bate & Trent Sevens & Ilja Dragunov over Mark & Joe Coffey & Wolfgang

Chelsea Green did an interview with TV Insider and was asked about getting married. She’s engaged to Matt Cardona (Zack Ryder) and said they were talking about a new Year’s Eve wedding

Some update on German ratings. Raw on 12/25 (edited to two hours) did 170,000 viewers. On 1/1 they did 210,000 and 1/8 did 240,000. Smackdown was preempted in its usual 10 p.m. Saturday night slot due to NFL and college football. The 12/28 show aired at 1:45 a.m. and did 100,000 viewers. The 1/5 show at 2:20 a.m. did 80,000 viewers. The 1/11 show in its regular 10 p.m. Friday slot did 130,000 viewers. AEW on 1/3 and 1/10 both did 20,000 viewers on a much weaker statio

. Six new talents started this week full-time in Orlando, including Mercedes Martinez, one of the top American woman wrestlers, and Jake Atlas, who was probably the biggest new star on the 2019 independent scene. Martinez, real name Jazmin Benitez, 39, has been wrestling for 19 years and worked everywhere including some recent matches with AEW. Emily Andzulis, 27, was the first winner of the Titan Games, Dwayne Johnson’s competition show on NBC. She’s blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She had been training of late with Tom Prichard. Anthony “A.J.” Francis, 29, is a former NFL player. As a 6-foot-5 and 332 pound nose tackle, he played at the University of Maryland and bounced around NFL teams from 2013 to 2018. He was on a number of practice squads and played nine NFL games, one with the Miami Dolphins in 2015, two with the Seattle Seahawks in 2015 and six with the Washington Redskins in 2017. He was wrestling indies over the past year and was trained by the Dudleys at their school in Florida. Atlas (Ken Marquez, 25), was a lifelong fan who chose WWE even though many of his friends, including Jungle Boy, had pushed him to go to AEW. He is openly gay. Sidney Bateman, 27, worked for Cirque du Soleil. Zechariah Smith, 28, is a former college basketball player at Morgan State who toured in the past as a member of the Washington Generals, the opponent team of the Harlem Globetrotters. He’s 7-feet-tall and 310 pounds

While not signed yet, the betting line is that Kevin Kaser, 34 (Killer Kross) ends up here. There was thought to be interest in him across the board in wrestling due to his look. Multiple sources said Kaser and Paul Levesque were to have met this week. Besides Impact he had worked a lot on-and-off in AAA and Konnan was a huge proponent of him as far as potential. During his time in AAA, he was booked like a monster and never asked to lose. While it never went anywhere due to WWE signing Cain Velasquez, they were planning on a Velasquez vs. Kross program in AAA and started teasing it in Velasquez’s first match. Kross had been one of Impact’s most pushed stars until he was in a contract dispute with the promotion which led to him being iced for months and eventually released. His girlfriend, Elizabeth Chihaia, better known as Scarlett Bordeaux, is in NXT although has not been pushed on television although she did a quick cameo in an outdoor shot on one of the TV shows. Paul Levesque is said to be high on him

After being gone for months and considering retiring, Kacy Catanzaro, 30, has returned to the Performance Center to renew her career. Catanzaro suffered a back injury in July and there were rumors she had quit, and she was contemplating leaving wrestling but we were told at the time, and for the past few months, that she never made that final decision. She was never released from her contract and the company attempted to talk her into returning. Eventually she was removed from the active roster, but still remained under contract. She returned in the women’s Battle Royal on the 1/15 NXT show. She is also still the girlfriend of Ricochet

The current 3/22 Madison Square Garden main event is AOP & Rollins vs. Show & Owens & Joe plus Lynch vs. Asuka. The show got off to a slow start attendance wise and immediately they announced the return of DX after more than ten years, announcing HHH, Michaels, X-Pac and Road Dogg appearing as a group

Mahal, who has been out of action since a rupturing his patella tendon and having reconstructive surgery in June, has teased returning soon

On the 1/12 NXT show in Buffalo, at the end, Tommaso Ciampa announced that Dominik Dijakovic’s wife is expecting a baby

Angelo Dawkins also made public that his family is expecting a baby

Woods will be hosting the Crunchyroll anime awards

Tyson Fury has shown interest in doing WrestleMania although nothing is said to be locked down. There were rumors of Lesnar flying around and reported but we’re told that’s not in the plans

The taped 12/23 Raw show that did the record low 1,842,000 viewers, which was the taped show, did 480,000 additional viewers via DVR to 2,322,000, which wasn’t that far off from 12/16 which did 2,061,000 same day and 345,000 via DVR to 2,408,000. It also did 197,000 of those DVR viewers on 12/23 between 18-49 as compared with 151,000 the week before

Including DVR viewership, the Raw ratings were down 13.2 percent in 2019 from 2018 while 18-49 was down 15.8 percent

Even though the stock market is setting records, WWE stock has not benefitted from this, as it closed on 1/15 at $62.09 per share, giving the company a $4.878 billion market value

For TV, the 1/17 Smackdown in Greensboro has Reigns vs. Roode in a tables match. 1/20 Raw from Wichita has Lesnar back since it’s the Raw go-home show, Andrade vs. Mysterio in a ladder match for the U.S. title and Rusev & Morgan vs. Lashley & Lana

The most watched shows on the WWE Network for the past week: 1. WWE Takeover U.K.; 2. Broken Skull Sessions with Kane; 3. NXT from 1/8; 4. TLC 2019 PPV; 5. 2019 Royal Rumble; 6. Broken Skull Sessions with Bill Goldberg; 7. Broken Skull Sessions with Undertaker

Notes from the 1/8 NXT TV show. Kind of a basic show. Nothing memorable at all nor anything particularly bad. It clearly had nothing that appealed to the younger audience, though, no hype nor execution. Santana Garrett pinned Indi Hartwell in the first dark match. Mansoor pinned Brendan Vink in the other dark match. The show opened with Rhea Ripley out for her first appearance since winning the title. Fans chanted “You deserve it.” She barely got started talking when Toni Storm came out. Storm congratulated her and brought up that she holds two wins over Ripley. She said she would be winning the U.K. title this week and then at World’s Collide she would beat Ripley and become a double champion. Ripley accepted the challenge. Kay Lee Ray came out. Then Io Shirai came out, pointed to Ripley’s belt and said “mine.” Bianca Belair came out. She said she’s got 20/20 vision and she’s better than all of them. She needs her eyes examined if she thinks that. Candice LeRae came out. The key was the person who didn’t come out was Shayna Baszler, meaning her days her are just about over. Then everyone started fighting and Ripley, LeRae and Storm joined forces to run off the other three. It was then announced that William Regal was ordering a six-person tag match. LeRae & Storm & Ripley beat Belair & Shirai & Ray in 16:16. LeRae hit a tope on all of them right away. Shirai had Storm set up for the moonsault, but before she could hit her finisher, Belair tagged in. Belair put Storm up in the torture rack. Shirai then came off the top rope with a missile dropkick on Belair, her partner. Ripley then pinned Belair with the riptide. When it was over, LeRae was staring at the belt, so she’s getting a shot at some point soon. There was the first of two very good video packages on Tommaso Ciampa. Ciampa wants a shot at Adam Cole. The belt is his life. In the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament, Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner beat Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler in 5:28. Aichner was wearing a faceguard because he was working with a broken nose. Blake is one of those guys who is very good, very underrated but people don’t notice any of that. He’s always in the right spot and his stuff always looks good. The finish was a double-team European bomb on Blake. Matt Riddle cut a promo about his tag team with Pete Dunne. The fans laughed at everything he said. This was the perfect example of a guy whose promos aren’t good but they fit his character and they work. Austin Theory pinned Joaquim Wilde in 2:58 with a dropkick and a TKO. Theory was a good look and I feel like they are not going to have patience with him because they think he can be a star, and that could expose him because he’s not as advanced as most on the show. Obviously he has potential. In a battle of NXT tag champs vs. UK tag champs, in the Rhodes tournament, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly beat Gallus of Mark Coffey & Wolfgang in 12:23. The crowd was pretty dead. The UK guys (and women) who are legit charismatic like Dunne, Tyler Bate or Toni Storm get over huge at Full Sail, but these guys did not. Plus, Fish & O’Reilly can have a great match with most teams, and this was not a great match. Adam Cole interfered kicking Wolfgang in the head and Fish pinned Wolfgang. Johnny Gargano came out. He was building a match with Finn Balor, likely for the 2/16 Takeover show. He said that Balor helped build NXT, but when he got the call in 2016, he couldn’t wait to leave. Gargano said that he got the same call in August, and he stayed because when he said he loves this place he actually means it. Also, there’s a big difference. Balor came to WWE to be a main roster star, but was put in NXT so guys like he and Kevin Owens and Shinsuke Nakamura who everyone knew were going places could be labeled as NXT alumni. Gargano was brought in as a good worker to put over the guys and help the guys they thought could be stars, similar to Kassius Ohno. The difference is Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa started stealing the shows and getting over, were then signed full-time, but nobody earmarked them for main roster stardom. Gargano said he took NXT to outer space and new heights without Balor, and that they had left Balor behind and that eats Balor alive. Gargano said it eats Balor alive that NXT didn’t need him to succeed. Evidently Paul Levesque didn’t think that way since he called for him back the minute they got TV. Balor came out and said that maybe they should call Gargano “Johnny Promo” because that’s the only thing the doctors will clear him for. He said Gargano was soft and challenged him for Portland. Mia Yim beat Kayden Carter in 3:46 when Carter came off the ropes into protect ya neck. The announcers pushed how Carter was from Winter Park, FL. Then when she came out, the ring announcer said she was from The Philippines. After the match, Chelsea Green attacked both. The upside for her is that means she is likely to be a regular here. The downside is that it’s here and not on Raw, as she was brought to Raw to face Flair as something of a tryout for her. The rules right now is that Raw and Smackdown can’t take anyone that is on NXT television, but they can take people who are in developmental and not on television. They can take people with a long period of notice, but since so much in WWE is spur of the minute, aside from Baszler, which has probably even planned out for longer than anyone knows, nobody from NXT has been brought up since the television started. Robert Stone, who was Robbie E in TNA, came out and he’s going to be Green’s manager. He said that 2020 is the year he takes over. There was another Ciampa video package. Keith Lee won the main event, a four-way for a shot at Roderick Strong’s North American title. Lee won over Damien Priest, Cameron Grimes and Dominik Dijakovic in 14:05. Good match. Grimes to me was the star keeping everything together. It’s three big guys who are great athletically but Grimes is the only complete worker of the four. The other three have notable weaknesses at WWE style and are all being taught to work that style. Priest stepped on the middle rope and did a flip dive on all three. Lee did a power superplex on Priest. Dijakovic did a moonsault to the back of Lee for a near fall. Dijakovic used feast your eyes on Grimes. Lee used the pounce on Dijakovic. Priest used the crossroads on Lee, but Dijakovic broke up the pin. Dijakovic and Priest did kicks and spots that were a little awkward. Lee choke slammed Priest and Dijakovic. Lee charged at Grimes but Grimes turned hi over into a powerslam on Lee for a near fall. Grimes did a moonsault to the floor on Priest. Grimes did a double foot stomp on the apron onto Dijakovic. Grimes came off the top rope into a double chop by Lee and then Lee pinned Grimes after a spirit bomb

NXT ran its first shows of the new year over the weekend with two tours

Notes from the 1/10 Smackdown tapings in Evansville. They did a healthy near full house of 7,000 fans. Crowds are now significantly up for the show. It’s due to both the show being higher profile on FOX and Friday is a better night to draw than Tuesday. Ali pinned Gulak in the dark match. Smackdown opened with Miz out saying he was having a bad day, that everyone has bad days, that some days you don’t want to smile and said he was sorry. The crowd cheered Miz when he came out even though he turned last week and booed him when he said he was sorry. Then he said he’s had a tough month because The Fiend has threatened his 18-month-old daughter, and then he failed in his quest to get the opportunity to beat him. He didn’t mention that he failed completely in his PPV match a few weeks earlier. But he said the bright spot was the return of someone who is like family, Morrison. Both came out and at first acted like they were babyfaces. But then Morrison turned on the audience for chanting “You suck” at Miz after as hard as Miz has worked for so many years for them. New Day came out. Miz said he respected Kingston’s six months as champion but then he lost in six seconds and never went back after it again. Kingston said he was going from cool Miz to obnoxious annoying Miz. Kingston tried to get a “you suck” chant at Miz which got very weak traction. Miz pinned Kingston in 11:28. Kingston used a tope early. Morrison and Big E were both out. Morrison did a crazy flip off the steps to take out Big E and Miz hit the skull crushing finale to pin Kingston. Wyatt did another Firefly Fun House segment talking about Bryan. Deville was all enthusiastic talking to Rose. Rose said she had to take care of one thing and showed a box with a cake in it. Elias came out to sing about the Rumble. It wasn’t very good but the fans have figured out Elias is back as a babyface and were cheering him. Rose than came to Otis, apologized for not stopping Ziggler stomp the cake his mom made and offered her own home made cake to Otis as a present. Tucker was a little suspicious but overall they saw it as a nice gesture. Rose pinned Bliss in 4:00. Rose yelled at Bliss and told her “you will never look like me.” Bliss slapped her in the face. Heavy Machinery came out with the cake. Both were eating the cake with their fingers and seemed to enjoy it. Somehow this distracted Bliss and allowed Rose to schoolboy her. So Rose evidently owes Otis since he inadvertently helped her win. This is a modern remake of Elizabeth and George Steele from 1986-87. Evans was advertised to wrestle Banks. Bayley said it wasn’t happening since Banks is in Los Angeles. Evans talked about how she’[s not surprised and that she’s there to wrestle every week. Fans were chanting “USA” at her and she did a salute, so they are now marketing her as a former soldier and a mother. That was the idea for her push from the start but I guess they felt they had to start as a heel. She challenged Bayley to a title match that night but Bayley turned her down. Evans went backstage to come after Bayley. Bayley hit and was able to attack Evans from behind, and beat her down. She told Evans to put on her mom jeans and go back home. Evans then made a comeback. She went to throw the women’s right but Bayley fell to the ground. The idea is Bayley and Banks are afraid of the punch. Bayley rolled away and Evans was held back. Bryan did an interview. He said he knows that The Fiend knows he can be beat and The Fiend knows he can be hurt and he’s going to do it. The Rabbit from the Firefly Fun House was on screen from the fun house and said that Bryan was his favorite wrestler. He said he knew a secret on how Bryan can win the title. Wyatt then grabbed him and shut him up and told the rabbit that snitches get stitches and told Bryan with a mean face “let me in.” Strowman pinned Nakamura in a non-title match to obviously set up their title match. Cesaro interfered and threw Strowman into the post. Nakamura kicked him over the barricade. Strowman had a bloody nose. Zayn threw the belt to Nakamura. Do you realize how awkward it must be to announce when Zayn throws the belt to Nakamura and you can’t say the word “belt.” Strowman ducked the belt shot and powerslammed Nakamura for the pin in 9:31. Strowman grabbed the belt from the ground and held it up. Zayn jumped in the ring, grabbed the belt out of Strowman’s hands from behind and ran from the ring with it. Sheamus did an interview. They are doing a Sheamus vs. Shorty G feud. It’s at least something for both of them. Reigns did a promo. He said for most of his time in WWE he’s had backup. But of late he’s been outnumbered and embarrassed by Corbin and his crew. He said this time he didn’t need help from his friends, because he got help from his family. He said 2020 would be his year and he was going to win the Rumble and headline Mania for the fifth time. Reigns has been kept away from Wyatt all year and they’ve kept Wyatt strong for a babyface, so that all does add up. The Usos came out and talked bout Queen Corbin. Corbin & Ziggler came out. Corbin said he was going to win the Rumble. Reigns challenged him to a match at the Rumble and it was explained that they would do a singles match and both would also be in the Rumble. The Usos did a double dive on Corbin, Ziggler and the security guys. They announced Big E vs. Morrison for the 1/17 Smackdown show in Greensboro. Corbin & Ziggler beat Usos via DQ in 8:58. At first The Revival came out. Reigns then came out and just Superman punched both of them to lay them out. So it was just to embarrass them on the way out. Wonder if they’re doing the comedy gimmick since time is running out on their deals, although there are still about three months to go. Jey Uso has lost noticeable weight since his time away. Action was good. Reigns speared Corbin for the DQ. After the match Roode showed up and posted Reigns and gave him a glorious DDT on the floor. Corbin laid out Jimmy with deep six on the floor. Ziggler superkicked Jey. Roode gave Reigns a spinebuster on the announcers table, which didn’t break. Ziggler than elbow dropped Reigns through the table. They buried Reigns under the table, similar to what Reigns did to Roode before Roode did the injury angle to coincide with his 30 day suspension for a drug test violation. 205 Live opened with Lio Rush vs. Isaiah Swerve Scott. Scott did a big dive. The Singhs came out with a camera like they were filming a Bollywood movie. The match just ended. Rush challenged The Singhs to a tag match. The Singhs said they didn’t come to wrestle. But it was announced that Drake Maverick made the tag match official next. Rush & Scott beat The Singhs when Scott pinned one of them. Action was really good. Ariya Daivari beat Jeff Brooks with the rainmaker quickly. He gave Brooks a second rainmaker after the match. They announced that the suspension of Jack Gallagher from 205 Live is over. They talked about him being on a losing streak. Tyler Breeze debuted on 205 Live pinning Tony Nese with a cradle

Notes from the 1/13 Raw tapings in Lexington, KY. Just a normal show built around a fist fight which had a flat ending as it wasn’t so much a fist fight but an overdone weapons match. The show drew 6,000 fans. Alexander pinned Eric Young. Crowd recognized and liked Alexander but nobody seemed to know Young when he came out, but the crowd was into this as the first match. Alexander won with the neurolizer kick. Benjamin pinned Tozawa. The crowd cheered Benjamin here. Tozawa’s offense didn’t get much of a reaction. They messed up a spot and did it again and the crowd saw through it. Benjamin won clean with paydirt. Raw opened with Orton out. He welcomed all the lovely people to Raw. Yes, it sounded fake as well. He called out Styles. In the background on the air were two fans dressed up like the mid-80s tag team The Bruise Brothers, and had signs saying they were Porkchop Cash & Dream Machine. Styles said that last week he did the sweetest RKO ever, and it was phenomenal. McIntyre came out and said how the two guys were out there having an RKO measuring contest but his Claymore was bigger. Orton didn’t seem happy about that and threw his mic down. McIntyre wanted a three-way. McIntyre won the three-way over Orton and Styles in 10:20. Gallows & Anderson came out. Orton hit Anderson with an RKO. McIntyre hit Gallows with a Claymore kick. Orton set up a superplex on Styles but McIntyre was hanging upside down in the same corner, did a sit up and German suplexed both of them. The crowd liked that. Styles twice tried the RKO and Orton blocked it both times. Orton did hit a Styles clash on Styles for a near fall. The finish saw Orton miss an RKO, but hit a second one. McIntyre then hit a Claymore kick on Orton and pinned Styles. It was a good bout. Rollins and the AOP were backstage. Rollins said that he’s sacrificed more than anyone to mak sure his destiny remains in tact. Ricochet beat Rawley in 3:33 with a 630. The Street Profits were backstage. Ford said that he wants to rename Raw Monday Night Smoke. He asked Dawkins who he thinks will win the main event. Dawkins said he was working on his Oscars ballot. Flair beat Logan in 2:05 with the figure eight. They were out of the ring and the referee did the slowest ten count n history. Owens & Joe & Show were together talking about their fist fight match. Show said his fist was 7X. Owens said he was glad Show was on his team. Heyman & Lesnar were out. Heyman made fun of people in Kentucky. Then he called them stupid because he made fun of them and they still were repeating after him. So they chanted “you suck” at him. Heyman & Lesnar teased leaving. They came back and Heyman talked about Lesnar entering No. 1 and he’s going to go through everyone, and how that’s not a prediction, it’s a spoiler. Heyman brought up Lesnar ending Undertaker’s streak which always gets easy heat. Heyman said the new streak is his spoilers. Didn’t that streak end with the Rollins match? Heyman said how only the truth comes out of his mouth. So out came R-Truth who thought Heyman was calling him out. R-Truth said how his childhood hero, John Cena, told him to never give up. R-Truth declared himself for the Rumble. Lesnar seemed really entertained by R-Truth as eh was out there laughing through all of this. R-Truth said how Heyman is going over the top rope. Heyman called him bong hit and told him that he’s not in the match, but Lesnar is. R-Truth said he was pulling himself out of the match because he doesn’t want Lesnar to take him to Sioux Falls City. Heyman told R-Truth that nobody liked him. Lesnar ended this by clotheslining R-Truth and giving him an F-5. Lesnar picked up the 24/7 title belt and dropped it on him. One would have thought all the guys backstage chasing it would have a race to win it. After a break Rawley came out and pinned the still selling R-Truth to take the title. Lashley & Lana did a taped promo. Lana talked about how her ex, his ex, Liv Morgan and Rusev all ruined her wedding. Lana said that her two New Year’s Resolutions were that everyone is envious of their success and their lives, and their other resolution was to crush Rusev. Lashley beat Rusev in 14:18. After all these months of hype, they put the match in the ring and it didn’t get much reaction. It also wasn’t much of a match. They just didn’t click well. Lashley is a guy who doesn’t mix well with some opponents. When Rusev had prolonged offense the crowd did pick up. Rusev hit the Matchka kick and set up the Accolade. Lana distracted Rusev and Lashley gave Rusev a low blow. Morgan came out and Lana threw a drink from a planted fan in Morgan’s face. Lashley hit a spear on Rusev for the win. Lana & Lashley cut a backstage promo. Lana said that Morgan was obsessed with her and called her a stalker. She wanted a mixed tag next week. Lashley wasn’t happy with that, saying he had already beaten Rusev and now he has to do it again, plus he has to take care of Lana in the match as well. The Viking Raiders came out and dared any team to try and stop. This brought out The Singh Brothers. The Viking Raiders picked them up and threw them into each other shoulder first on the floor. Then the match started and it went :37 before the Vikings won with the Viking Experience. Rusev & Morgan were backstage. Morgan said to Lana that she was the embodiment of her karma and karma isn’t a Goddess, she’s a bitch. Bitch is the Heyman buzzword. Next was the Asuka-Lynch contract signing. At first nothing happ