At press time, with ten days to go before the WWE TLC PPV show on 12/15 in Minneapolis, they are exactly zero matches officially announced on television.

WWE sent the Target Center three matches several weeks back to start advertising, which were Bobby Lashley vs. Rusev, Asuka & Kairi Sane vs. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch in a TLC match for the women’s tag team titles, and Roman Reigns vs. King Corbin. At the time, all three matches were actually scheduled for the show as opposed to just matches sent to give the arena something to advertise.

All three matches are still scheduled for the show, but one of the reasons nothing else has been advertised, and directions aren’t even clear from television, is because Vince McMahon hasn’t made final decisions.

McMahon’s new philosophy is that the PPV’s are all about network sign-ups, as opposed to the limited PPV business still being done. The belief based on patterns of sign-ups is that they are big the last day of the show, and not before. So unlike ticket sales, which come a month or more in advance, and PPV parties, which get arranged days if not a week plus out, the dynamic is completely different and there is no need to rush anything.

Granted, Survivor Series had key matches announced farther ahead, although the NXT teams weren’t announced until the last minute.

McMahon has also changed course several times. As of last word, Reigns vs. Corbin will be a stipulation match while Rusev vs. Lashley won’t, but that can all change.

Two other matches are right now on the books and unlikely to be changed, which are Aleister Black vs. Buddy Murphy and Viking Raiders defending the Raw tag team titles against Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson.

The main event right now looks to be The Fiend vs. Daniel Bryan. Bryan has heavy involvement in his storyline and Fiend vs. Bryan is a direction planned and is currently on the books for this show, but there is said to be a chance that match will be held off and run later, and if so, Fiend vs. Miz will be used to get through the Bryan story if the idea is to tell more of a story to set up a match than you can over the next two weeks. Of course Miz makes no sense since they just had him do a promo talking about why people shouldn’t face Fiend because it ruins them, this coming after Miz told Bryan the opposite because for their children The Fiend had to be stopped. Poor guy must dread the new scripts.

The New Day are at this point scheduled to defend the Smackdown tag titles against Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode, but that may change. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Braun Strowman for the IC title, Randy Orton vs. A.J. Styles and Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens are in various stages of talk but none of the four are a lock.

ROH’s pulling its contract offer from women’s champion Kelly Klein, saying she breached her existing deal by disseminating e-mails with that information to Adam Birch (Joey Mercury), led to a story in Newsweek two weeks ago.

For some clarifications on things sent out by Birch and B.J. Whitmer, Klein’s husband, who previously worked at ROH as a producer before taking a job with AEW, Klein had a $20,000 per year contract with ROH for 2019, which allowed her to work anywhere else but that ROH would get first dibs on her services. Klein, 33, had worked 19 dates before her in-ring year ended on 10/26 when suffering a concussion in a match with Lana Austin in Newport, Wales.

ROH and Klein had been in negotiations on a new deal. ROH had offered her $50,000 for 2020, but the new deal would be exclusive, in the sense she could not work any independent shows in the U.S. or in the province of Ontario.

ROH pulled the offer and Klein will remain under contract until 12/31. Given her concussion, and only two shows left, it is unlikely she will drop the title in the ring and no announcement has been made regarding it.

“What really surprised me is we’ve always had great dialogue with Kelly in the past,” said ROH COO Joe Koff. “Issues could have been addressed. For some reason she chose to disclose a private e-mail that tarnished our image and was a clear violation of the contract.”

Koff said that as of right now, Klein is still under contract and that if she was medically cleared, they would welcome having her defend the belt on shows between now and the end of the year. Of course that isn’t going to happen.

But the far bigger issue raised in Newsweek were claims by Klein and Birch, and three others who were not named, saying ROH only has medical personnel at shows when required by local commissions and that Klein herself was treated by a doctor who worked for the local venue. Klein told Sports Illustrated that no medical personnel were at ringside or backstage at the event.

ROH denied the story, with Joe Koff claiming that the doctor in question on the night Klein was concussed was provided by ROH, not the venue, and that inn commission states, they will use commission doctors, but for all other shows, they have medical professionals at the events. He claimed the company has protocol, that the doctors at the arena take the first look and the company monitors the situation. Koff noted that both he and Greg Gilleland, the ROH General Manager who has come under fire many times of the years, had texted Klein over the course of several days after the injury. And when her symptoms of a concussions started to occur, they booked Birch and Klein for an extra night in London before flying them back.

Koff claimed that they have a concussion protocol, which they told Newsweek dates back to 2016. The protocol is said to be turning it over to their medical professionals. They also allow talent to use their own doctors and they would not be allowed to perform until they are cleared. Birch and Klein claimed there was no policy and Klein asked to see the policy in a November meeting with Koff, who told her they had one but it was not written.

Klein said she wrestled another six minute after suffering the concussion and laid on the locker room floor for about an hour before getting any medical attention.

Koff said he was told Klein didn’t realize she had a serious injury until some time after the match and that when given the choice of going to the hospital, she declined. Koff said he texted her and she told him he was fine as soon as he heard she was injured.

ROH has paid for her medical treatment up to this point. Koff said told Sports Illustrated his intentions were to make sure she’s whole, which would indicate paying for medical treatment if she needs it after the end of the contract.

Koff noted that T.K. O’Ryan, who had been out of action for months but was believed to be the wrestler who suffered from post-concussion issues that were thought to be possibly career threatening, has not returned to the ring. He believed O’Ryan has been cleared because he has been wrestling for CWE in Canada.

O’Ryan, who was not named in the article, was furious because he believed he was described and with the description of his situation from Klein and Birch.

“It was very clear he had changed,” Klein said. “He was like a different person...he wasn’t taking as good care of himself.”

Klein met with Koff on 11/7 and said Koff told her that they had a concussion policy, although Klein said she has never seen it and that talent is not aware of it. She also said that the company is always aware when talent has had a concussion, but she said that wasn’t the case citing a concussion she suffered at the 2018 WrestleMania week show in New Orleans that she said nobody knew about. Koff said that Klein and him had a nice conversation and she made valid recommendations, but felt she never showed remorse for sharing private company e-mails to denigrate the company’s image.

She said that ROH never offered to pay for treatment for her recent concussion, but Koff said that ROH’s policy is to always pay for medical treatment of injured talent.

The story stated that another wrestler was told to invoice medical bills and while he was not told how to go about it, he paid for them out of pocket but ROH did reimburse him.

The story also noted a text message from Gilleland to Birch on 10/2 where Gilleland admitted he made a mistake in allowing the contract of Nicole Spiro (Maria Manic) to expire before renewing it. When her contract expired, she attended a WWE tryout, but ended up then signing with ROH.

Birch and Gilleland had a falling out on 10/25 while on the U.K. tour and Klein, who called Birch the best coach she ever had, backed Birch up when he started posting messages Gilleland had sent him.

With two shows left, the New Japan tag team tournament is down to three teams.

Evil & Sanada, the favorites going in, are now 12-2, with Juice Robinson & David Finlay and tag champions Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa at 11-2. The winning team will face Tonga & Loa for the IWGP tag team titles at one of the two Tokyo Dome shows.

The two remaining shows will both air live on New Japan World with English commentary.

The key matches on 12/6 from Kumamoto Grand Messe, which starts at 5 a.m. Eastern, Evil & Sanada vs. Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Tonga & Loa vs. Nagata & Nakanishi and Robinson & Finlay vs. KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi.

The tournament ends on 12/8 in Hiroshima at the Green Arena in a 2 a.m. start, meaning it starts at 11 p.m. Saturday night on the West Coast. The key matches are Tonga & Loa vs. Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi and Evil & Sanada vs. Robinson & Finlay, which has a good shot at being the bout to decide it all.

The remainder of the standings are: 4. Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi 9-4; 5. Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano and KENTA & Takahashi 8-5; 8. Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi 8-6; 9. Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls 7-7; 10. Shingo Takagi & El Terrible and Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens 6-7; 12. Kojima & Tenzan 4-9; 13. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma 3-11; 14. Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks 2-11; 15. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare 2-12; 16. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi 1-12.

Other matches on the Kumamoto show are Goto & Fredericks vs. Fale & Owens, Makabe & Honma vs. Takagi & Terrible, Nagata & Nakanishi vs. Tenzan & Kojima, Cabana & Yano vs. Sabre Jr. & Taichi, Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi vs Archer & Suzuki as well as a non-tournament bout with Kazuchika Okada & Sho & Yoh vs. Kota Ibushi & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask.

The Hiroshima show also has Cobb & Nicholls vs. Takagi & Terrible, Cabana & Yano vs. Fale & Owens, Tanahashi & Henare vs. Goto & Fredericks, Suzuki & Archer vs. KENTA & Takahashi and the same Okada & Sho & Yoh vs. Ibushi & Liger & Tiger Mask bout. Because Hiroshima is a major show and with two Tokyo Dome cards coming, I’d suspect a few undercard angles to be done on this card to build the Dome.

From the tournament matches this week:

11/29 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall drew 1,614 fans, which was a sellout but not turning people away and packing standing room. Cobb & Nicholls beat Goto & Fredericks in 10:19 when Nicholls pinned Fredericks with a power bomb. Cabana & Yano beat Nagata & Nakanishi in 10:33 when Cabana pinned Nakanishi with a Superman press. Sabre Jr & Taichi beat Tenzan & Kojima in 9:57 when Sabre beat Tenzan. Robinson & Finlay beat Fale & Owens in 9:48 when Finlay pinned Owens after a Granby roll. KENTA & Takahashi beat Tanahashi & Henare in 13:17 when KENTA pinned Henare after the GTS. Tonga & Loa beat Makabe & Honma in 13:47 when Loa pinned Honma. Main event saw Evil & Sanada over Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi in 18:28 when Sanada made Yoshi-Hashi tap out to skull end.

12/1 in Shiga drew 1,783 fans. Suzuki & Archer beat Goto & Fredericks in 10:29 when Suzuki pinned Fredericks with the Gotch piledriver. Sabre Jr. & Taichi beat Fale & Owens in 8:44 when Taichi pinned Owens using the Gedo clutch. Cobb & Nicholls beat Makabe & Honma in 9:49 when Cobb pinned Honma after tour of the islands. Cabana & Yano beat Takagi & Terrible in 9:15 when Cabana pinned Terrible with the Superman press. Evil & Sanada beat Tanahashi & Henare in 10:55 when Evil pinned Henare with It’s Evil. Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi beat KENTA & Takahashi in 12:46 when Ishii pinned Takahashi after a brainbuster. Tonga & Loa won the main event over Robinson & Finlay in 14:01 when Loa pinned Finlay.

12/2 in Osaka before 1,277 fans, Takagi & Terrible beat Nagata & Nakanishi in 9:56 when Takagi pinned Nakanishi with the pumping bomber, a running lariat. Fale & Owens beat Cobb & Nicholls when Owens pinned Nicholls with a package piledriver in 11:44. KENTA & Takahashi beat Cabana & Yano in 10:04 when KENTA cradled Cabana. Sabre Jr. & Taichi beat Goto & Fredericks in 10:43 when Taichi beat Fredericks. Tonga & Loa beat Tanahashi & Henare in 11:17 when Loa pinned Henare. Evil & Sanada beat Suzuki & Archer in 12:58 when Sanada pinned Suzuki with a Japanese leg rolling cradle. You really see the transition of Suzuki not being portrayed as an elite guy anymore in this tournament. Robinson & Finlay beat Ishii & Yoshi-hashi in 14:01 when Robinson pinned Yoshi-Hashi with pulp friction.

12/3 in Kochi drew 1,539 fans. Sabre Jr. & Taichi beat Nagata & Nakanishi in 9:27 when Taichi pinned Nakanishi. Robinson & Finlay beat Cabana & Yano in 8:42 when Robinson pinned Yano after pulp friction. KENTA & Takahashi beat Makabe & Honma in 11:33 when KENTA pinned Honma with the GTS. Suzuki & Archer beat Tanahashi & Henare in 12:34 when Archer pinned Henare with the claw. Fale & Owens beat Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi in 10:17 when Owens pinned Yoshi-Hashi after a package piledriver. Evil & Sanada beat Goto & Fredericks in 11:30 when Evil pinned Fredericks after the magic killer. Main event saw Tonga & Loa over Tenzan & Kojima in 14:50 when Loa pinned Kojima.

12/5 in Fukuoka drew 2,207 fans. Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi beat Goto & Fredericks in 12:51 when Yoshi-Hashi beat Fredericks with the butterfly lock. Fale & Owens beat Tenzan & Kojima in 9:22 when Owens pinned Kojima with a package piledriver. KENTA & Takahashi beat Cobb & Nicholls in 10:08 when KENTA pinned Nicholls after a GTS. Sabre Jr. & Taichi beat Tanahashi & Henare in 13:36 when Taichi beat Henare. Evil & Sanada beat Makabe & Honma in 11:11 when Sanada pinned Honma after the magic killer. Tonga & Loa beat Takagi & Terrible in 10:30 when Loa pinned Terrible. And Robinson & Finlay beat Suzuki & Archer in 12:46 when Finlay pinned Archer (Archer’ first pin fall loss of the tournament) with a schoolboy.

In one of the bigger moves in Mexico this year, L.A. Park and Rush, who had the hottest feud in the country, but one that was never able to be settled, are joining forces to evidently reform Los Ingobernables.

What makes that notable is that CMLL owns the Los Ingobernables name. The angle was the surprise highlight of TripleMania Regia, a 12/1 show at the baseball stadium in Monterrey, Mexico.

The owner of the local Mexican baseball league franchise, Los Sultanes de Monterrey, worked with AAA in putting on the show at Mobil Super Stadium, which holds 22,061 for baseball, making it the largest baseball stadium in the country.

The show drew 14,350 fans, which was nearly full for the setup. AAA announced the crowd as 15,000. The crowd was considered a big surprise because both soccer teams in Monterrey were in the playoffs on the same day and one of teams played next door and drew close to 40,000 fans.

In the main event, Monsther Clown was the last man left in a cage match with hairs or masks at stake that featured many of the biggest names in the promotion.

The two major stars that the company has built much of the year around, Dr. Wagner Jr., and Blue Demon Jr., were the first two to escape the cage. Psycho Clown, Chessman, El Texano Jr. and Rey Escorpion were next out. This left Aerostar and Monsther Clown, meaning a giant size difference as Monsther is the biggest regular in the promotion. Aerostar tried to get out but Escorpion came back and attacked him. This led to Psycho Clown returning and chasing off Escorpion. Aerostar then escaped.

Monsther Clown revealed his name as Rafael Ramirez, 43 years old and 23 years a pro. He started wrestling in1997 as the masked wrestler Highlander in the Tijuana area. He came to AAA in 2004 at Aliens, and then when the Psycho Circus trio was formed in 2007, he was Zombie Clown. Due to a copyright issue, he became Monsther Clown in 2009.

Exactly what happens with Monsther Clown without a clown mask is a question. He could wear clown face paint.

Both Bandido and Flamita no-showed the card. Bandido showed up two nights earlier on the CMLL card I Mexico City. The expectation is Flamita will join him.

The new Los Ingobernables group looks to be Rush, Park, Konnan and Bestia del Ring. There was no mention of Dragon Lee being part of that group with his brother and father. The plan is for them to be the top heel group, with the idea they are joining forces to take down AAA. Konnan has been part of heel groups trying to take down AAA regularly for nearly 15 years.

Kenny Omega came in and retained is his AAA Mega heavyweight title over Dragon Lee. There is no specific future date scheduled with Omega, but they are looking at using Omega & The Young Bucks as a trio on a future major show and also looking at using Jon Moxley.

The show was not on either PPV or streaming, but will air on television this coming week on Multimedios, a network based on Monterrey. It will also be put up on YouTube on the AAA page after it airs on television.

1. Cassandro & Dave the Clown & Demus & Lady Maravilla beat Dinastia & Pimpinela Escarlata & Mascarita Dorada & Big Mami when Maravilla pinned Mami. Both Mamba and Dulce Canela, who are both doing exotico gimmicks, interfered. Mamba attacked Pimpinela. Canela debuted on this show, and was said to be very charismatic. This was his first show but it helped that he was a Monterrey local wrestler.

2. El Hijo de L.A. Park & El Hijo de Volador & L.A. Park Jr. beat Carta Brava Jr. & Mocho Cota Jr. & Tito Santana via DQ when Carta Brava removed the mask of El Hijo de L.A. Park.

3. Taurus & Villano III Jr. won a four-way tag team match over Aramis & El Hijo del Vikingo, (Brian) Cage & Puma King and Dulce Canela & Octagon Jr. Octagon & Canela replaced Flamita & Bandido. Taurus pinned Vikingo to win. Konnan attacked Aramis and Vikingo after the match and then Vampiro made the save.

4. Nino Hamburguesa won a Cibernetico match for the Copa RegiaMania and was awarded a title belt. It came down to Hamburguesa beating La Hiedra, who was the only woman in the match. Also in the match were Mamba, Mr. Iguana, Abismo Negro Jr., Michael Nakazawa (making his AAA and Mexico debut, there as part of the deal to bring in Kenny Omega), Super Fly, Drago, Australian Suicide, Averno and Murder Clown.

5. In a Reina de Reinas title match, Taya Valkyrie retained the title in a five-way match over Faby Apache, Ayako Hamada, Keyra and Lady Shani. Taya pinned Keyra.

6. Kenny Omega retained the AAA Mega heavyweight title over Dragon Lee. The only thing we heard was that this match was really good, but that the Omega vs. Fenix match was better. Omega was far more popular here than he was in his previous matches in AAA. The first time nobody seemed to know how to react since they weren’t doing Lucha. With Fenix, they still weren’t doing Lucha but even so, it got over at a Lucha show. Here, it was like Omega was an international superstar who was over based on his name, and also had a good match, even if they weren’t doing Lucha. The story was that Lee kept escaping from the One Winged Angel before finally being put down with it. There was apparently an issue with the music. I believe the music person played the music three different times thinking it was the finish, but it didn’t ruin the match as the live crowd still reacted well. There were no challenges or angles shot with Omega as far as what is next and we don’t have a date for his next title defense in Mexico. AAA does like the idea of legitimizing their world title by having defenses on big shows in the U.S.

7. Rush won a three-way over L.A. Park and Pagano by beating Pagano. Bestia del Ring’s interference helped Rush win. Pagano had people help out. Konnan got involved as well. Rush asked Park to join Los Ingobernables to destroy AAA, and Park and Konnan both agreed to join.

8. In the last man left in the cage loses his hair or mask, Monsther Clown was the last man left in after Aero Star escaped. Most figured Escorpion, Texano or Chessman would lose, although we had heard predictions of Monsther Clown unmasking.

WWE put on its third annual Starrcade event, taking the name from what was at one point WCW’s biggest show of the year, and coming back to one of the cities that made it famous.

The 12/1 show, a 75 minute WWE Network special as part of a loaded up house show, was held at the Infinite Energy Center in Duluth, GA, just outside of Atlanta. Atlanta was co-host of Starrcade with Greensboro in 1985 and 1986, when it was Jim Crockett Promotions’ version of WrestleMania. It also was solo host in 1989 and 1992 for Turner Broadcasting’s World Championship Wrestling.

But unlike the first two years which drew well through use of the name and played to WCW nostalgia, this show, with the exception of an interview with Ric Flair, was basically a house show. It meant so little that on Raw the next night, there was no mention or recap of the show. We didn’t get a crowd number. They were very careful to shoot only in front of the hard camera and it was clear the upper part of he building was tarped off. From only shooting one area and the sound of the crowd feeling like an empty building, it would have appeared to have been a small crowd.

There was an issue with the transmission of the show as a large percentage of those viewing on the network were unable to access it. WWE never acknowledged it, but midway through the show it was put up on YouTube for free and ended up with 44,000 viewers at its peak.

The show was advertising the first televised match of Bobby Lashley vs. Rusev, in a last man standing match, in what has been the most heavily-pushed television angle of the last couple of months. As it turned out, the bout never happened. The storyline is that Lana got a restraining order against Rusev. Of course he did appear to cause a DQ in the Lashley vs. Kevin Owens match. For people on the network it’s one thing, but for the locals, and granted, there probably weren’t many tickets sold once that match was announced, it is still pretty arrogant to announce and publicize such a match with no intention of delivering it.

The match was largely average, with little heat even with mainline players.

The show opened with announcers Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton talking about how Starrcade dates back 36 years and WWE brought it back in 2017. They credited Dusty Rhodes with the birth of Starrcade which has become their history.

Dusty Rhodes named Starrcade from a videogame quiz show called Starcade that aired on TBS starting in 1982. In fact, the graphics of the game how *

STARRCADE MAIN EVENT HISTORY

1983 - Ric Flair def. Harley Race in a cage match with Gene Kiniski referee to win NWA title in Greensboro, NC (15,447 sellout; 32,400 closed circuit)

1984 - Ric Flair def. Dusty Rhodes via blood stoppage with Joe Frazier referee to retain NWA title in Greensboro, NC (15,821 sellout; 26,000 closed circuit)

1985 - Dusty Rhodes def. Ric Flair to win NWA title (decision later reversed after the show) in Greensboro (16,000 sellout) and Atlanta (16,000); 37,000 closed circuit.

1986 - Ric Flair beat Nikita Koloff via DQ to retain NWA title in Greensboro (16,000 sellout) and Atlanta (14,000 and 47,000 closed circuit)

1987 - Ric Flair def. Ron Garvin to win NWA title in cage match Chicago (8,000 sellout and 41,000 closed circuit)

1988 - Ric Flair def. Lex Luger to retain NWA title in Norfolk (10,000)

1989 - Sting def. Ric Flair to win Iron Man tournament in Atlanta (8,000)

1990 - Sting def. Black Scorpion (Ric Flair) in cage match with Dick the Bruiser referee to retain NWA title in St. Louis (7,200)

1991 - Sting won two-ring Battle Royal in Norfolk (9,000)

1992 - Masahiro Chono def. Great Muta to retain NWA title in Atlanta (8,000)

1993 - Ric Flair def. Vader to win WCW title in Charlotte (5,500)

1994 - Hulk Hogan def. The Butcher (Ed Leslie) to retain WCW title in Nashville (8,200 sellout)

1995 - Ric Flair def. Randy Savage to win WCW title in Nashville (8,200 sellout)

1996 - Roddy Piper def. WCW champion Hulk Hogan in non-title match in Nashville(9,030 sellout)

1997 - Sting def. Hulk Hogan to win WCW title in Washington, DC (17,500 sellout)

1998 - Kevin Nash def. Bill Goldberg to win WCW title in Washington, DC (16,066 sellout)

1999 - Bret Hart def. Bill Goldberg to retain WCW title in Washington, DC (8,582)

2000 - Scott Steiner def. Sid Vicious to retain WCW title in Washington, Dc (6,596)

and of the original wrestling shows were identical. Rhodes himself years earlier had given himself the nickname “Stardust” when he appeared in Georgia Championship Wrestling.

Starrcade itself came from a March 12, 1983, show at the Greensboro Coliseum where Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle defended the NWA world tag team titles against Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood, who had been the area’s top babyface team for years and while they have never gotten their due historically, I would call them the best working babyface tag team ever in the U.S. The stipulation was that if Steamboat & Youngblood lost, they could never team up again. The finality of that stip, at a time when fans believed in stipulations, led to the most anticipated wrestling show up to that point in time at the Greensboro Coliseum. Even today, if you talk to historians about the biggest match in the history of Jim Crockett Promotions, this match and the first Starrcade main event of Ric Flair vs. Harley Race would be the first pick.

The show sold out in advance and turned 6,000 away at the door, a number that has been exaggerated in time to 16,000 turned away, but such is pro wrestling. Normally in that era, if there was a big match, the promotion would hold it in every major city, Greensboro, Charlotte, Roanoke, Norfolk, Richmond and back then, even Toronto which had become the best drawing city on the circuit. But the hype for this match was specific that the match would only take place in Greensboro (it actually also took place in Toronto a couple of weeks later and they greatly oversold Maple Leaf Gardens with the largest wrestling crowd in the history of that building as well).

The mentality of what the promotion and most thought the maximum possible crowd for a big wrestling event was blown away. And the key was the match led to a horrible traffic jam on the highways headed to Greensboro as people from all over the Carolinas drove in for the show. Nobody, including the wrestlers driving in, had a clue the traffic was outsiders looking to come to the Coliseum, because in those days, virtually nobody drove more than an hour or so to go to wrestling. It was a local deal and you drew from the local market.

Jim Crockett Jr., was the guy who promoted the early Starrcades, which were held in Greensboro, and later Greensboro and Atlanta, and booked most of his regular arenas on Thanksgiving night to closed-circuit into. Dory Funk Jr., was the booker at the time. Rhodes was absolutely part of it. At the first Starrcade show, Rhodes was there but didn’t wrestle. Dory Jr., the booker, wasn’t there, since he and his brother Terry were in Japan for the World Tag League, which was the biggest annual event in wrestling at the time.

The first Starrcade was built around four matches, but mostly the main event where Ric Flair was to win the NWA world heavyweight title from Harley Race in a cage match with Gene Kiniski as referee.

Flair, who had been a top heel in the Carolinas from his debut in 1975, and eventually, the top heel and the biggest drawing card ever in that part of the country, had turned babyface and beat Race to win the title on September 17, 1981, in Kansas City.

During his first reign, Flair had become a major drawing card, with particular success in St. Louis, the Carolinas, Toronto and Texas. A decision was made to get the title back on Race, on June 10, 1983, in St. Louis. This was likely done to build to Starrcade on Thanksgiving night.

Race’s title defenses against Flair were big draws that summer, usually ending with DQ finishes. Then they stopped booking them in the Carolinas. The storyline was that Race refused Flair any more rematches. Then when it appeared the pressure would be on that he would have to, he put up a bounty to anyone who could take Flair out. There was a tease that Dick Slater and Bob Orton Jr. took Flair out with a stuff piledriver. Flair did a nearly tearful retirement speech on television in a neck brace, due to the injury. But he later returned with a baseball bat chasing Slater and Orton Jr., around the arena, and did one of the era’s most memorable interviews saying that “Nobody would take the greatest sport in the world away from me.”

But Flair had vowed to retire if he lost. The other key grudge match was a dog collar match with Roddy Piper vs. Greg Valentine, stemming off an angle where Valentine destroyed Piper with a chain, who was bleeding from his ear with the idea he became deaf in one ear. While Piper always maintained that was legit, even decades later, and many believed it, he actually had taken a lucrative Japanese tour during the period when he was supposedly out with the injury. Jack & Jerry Brisco, working as wrestling heels, were defending the NWA tag titles against Steamboat & Youngblood, while Jimmy Valiant, under the mask as “Charlie Brown from Outta Town,” as he had lost a loser leaves town match, was facing The Great Kabuki, managed by Gary Hart, for the NWA TV title.

In many ways the show was the end of an era. Rhodes came in and largely changed things. Youngblood had a number of personal issues and this would be the last time Steamboat & Youngblood held the title and after, they never teamed up again as Youngblood (Steve Romero, the son of Texas legend Ricky Romero) gained a lot of weight and passed away overseas in Australia, from pancreatitis, followed by kidney failure and a series of heart attacks at the age of 30, less than two years later. Piper and Valentine went to WWF shortly after the show as part of the McMahon national expansion. Steamboat would leave months later, when Rhodes kept beating him with the idea of making Magnum T.A. the young babyface star in the role Steamboat had been in for years. The Briscos, who were part owners of Georgia Championship Wrestling, got several of the other owners and sold a majority interest in the company to Vince McMahon, which allowed McMahon control of the SuperStation (although Crockett got it a year later after Ted Turner wanted McMahon off due to dwindling ratings).

But the show averted disaster at nearly the last minute. It wasn’t until a month later, when Hulk Hogan, Piper, Gene Okerlund, David Schultz and others debuted for WWF at a television taping in St. Louis that it became clear that a wrestling war was about to begin. But at this point, nobody was aware of it.

McMahon called for a meeting with Race in the days before the show. Such a thing wasn’t unusual as Race had worked WWF dates previously as NWA champion. And the idea of Race, if he was to drop the title, to come in for a round of matches with Bob Backlund, the WWF champion, made all the sense in the world.

But McMahon proposed something different. He offered Race big money to no-show Starrcade, and to not lose the NWA title and bring it to him. The idea was that Hogan would win the WWF title, and then beat Race for the NWA title, and be viewed as the real and true world champion at a time when that meant a lot. It would have devastated the NWA to have Flair as champion, having never beaten Race. It would have killed the Starrcade closed-circuit concept for a long time to have not delivered the advertised main event.

Race turned the deal down, telling McMahon that he wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the mirror by double-crossing the people who had given him the title so many times. It also should be noted that Race at the time was co-owner of both the Central States and St. Louis offices, and St. Louis had been one of the most successful wrestling cities in the country dating back to the 1920s. Race later said that many would think he was stupid for turning the deal down, but he never could have had any respect for himself if he had taken it.

McMahon was furious and attempted to surprise double leg Race in the bathroom, but Race quickly reversed on McMahon, hooked him in a guillotine before letting him go. Months later, after the war had started and Crockett ran his first show at the Meadowlands, with Flair vs. Race as the main event, the WWF tried to get the New Jersey commission to not allow Race to perform, as at the time the state had a regulation nobody over the age of 55 could wrestle. The problem is that Race was only 41 at the time, but in those days, nobody knew anyone’s real age.

Crockett replaced Dory Jr. as booker with Rhodes, and he put together all the Starrcade events from 1984 to 1987. During that period Crockett Promotions became the clear-cut No. 2 company in North America and business more than quadrupled from 1984 to 1985. The company followed WWF’s national expansion and did well in many markets, but also struggled in others.

Most Starrcade historians will list 1983, 1985 and 1986 as the real super shows of the series, the latter two with half the show in Greensboro and the other half at the Omni in Atlanta. Greensboro was the home and drew better than Atlanta even though Atlanta was the larger city and also had its own Thanksgiving wrestling tradition dating back to the 60s. In 1986, not only did the Coliseum sell out with nearly 16,000 fans, but another 3,000 fans watched in the adjacent Annex on closed-circuit. Closed-circuit for Starrcade was supposed to end in 1987, but due to manipulations by Vince McMahon that ended up playing a part in putting Crockett out of business, it remained a closed-circuit show that year. From 1988 to 2000, it was WCW’s annual final PPV event of the year.

But the key year that to many, killed the Thanksgiving Starrcade tradition, was in 1987.

Crockett and Rhodes made the call, because of the idea that WWF was the national group and they were Southern regional wrestling, to move Starrcade to Chicago’s UIC Pavilion and go to PPV. As far as a live crowd went, the Pavilion held barely half of what either Greensboro or Atlanta held, but the mentality was they needed to be in a big city, and New York wasn’t an option. Plus, Chicago had been drawing very well for Crockett Promotions, doing a string of sellouts behind the popularity of The Road Warriors tag team, who were from Minneapolis but billed from Chicago.

WWF was coming off the huge success on PPV of WrestleMania III, which did 400,000 buys on PPV for the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match at a time when only five million homes were addressable. To block Crockett’s first attempt at PPV, McMahon created the Survivor Series to run on Thanksgiving night, head-to-head.

At first, cable companies were thrilled. They asked Crockett to move his show to Thanksgiving afternoon, a huge risk because the whole idea of pro wrestling drawing so big on Thanksgiving was the idea families got together for dinner, and when it was over, they were all together and would want to do something. Movies were huge, but pro wrestling promoters in many markets made wrestling the local tradition. By 1987, Thanksgiving night was the biggest night for pro wrestling of the year aside from WrestleMania.

The companies told Crockett it would be to his benefit as the two shows would be marketed together. The idea is fans could see both companies put on their Thanksgiving shows, Starrcade first, followed by Survivor Series, and they would offer both shows combined for a discounted price. The idea is that fans who wanted one show would get the second show for only $10, and the idea is it would benefit both sides.

Obviously, the last thing WWF wanted to do was help Crockett’s first PPV be a success. McMahon went to the cable companies and not only nixed that deal, but told them that any company that aired Starrcade could not only not get Survivor Series, but also couldn’t get next year’s WrestleMania. WWF was the proven commodity in PPV. Crockett was the unknown in that world, with no track record. Even though Crockett was drawing strong television ratings on TBS and Starrcade had a prominent history in pro wrestling, to the media and cable world pro wrestling was WWF. With the exception of four major systems in the Carolinas, who felt they would do bigger business for Starrcade, and one system, in San Jose, CA, where they said they had made a verbal commitment to Crockett and didn’t want to be strong-armed, nobody carried Starrcade. The show did do well on closed-circuit, but the 1987 show in Chicago, even though it sold out immediately even with the afternoon handicap, did not have the feel of the prior shows.

Starrcade was projected to generate millions on PPV, and without that money, the Crockett budget was blown and by 1988, with them deep in debt, talks began which led to the sale to Turner Broadcasting for $9 million.

Fans in Greensboro never forgave Crockett for moving the show out. It’s that very lesson that led Tony Khan to try and create annual traditions, Memorial Day in Las Vegas, Labor Day and the night before Thanksgiving in Chicago, perhaps the first show of the year in Jacksonville.

Starrcade remained the biggest show of the year for Crockett and later WCW. It peaked with the biggest non-WWF/WWE PPV show in history, the 1997 Starrcade from Washington, DC with the botched Hulk Hogan vs. Sting main event. The show did about 625,000 buys on PPV, the biggest ever for a non-WWE event. The 1998 main event was memorable with Kevin Nash winning the WCW title from Bill Goldberg and ending the streak, and the company started its big decline after that.

1. Seth Rollins pinned Erick Rowan with a curb stomp.

2. Shinsuke Nakamura retained the IC title beating The Miz.

Owens interviewed Ric Flair. Owens put over interviewing Ric Flair as being the biggest thing he’s ever done. Flair looked so happy to be out there, said he was a huge fan of Owens and put over WWE as the greatest form of sports entertainment. Fans were chanting that they couldn’t hear him so Owens switched mic’s and basically said what Flair had to say was more important than what he had to say. He said that the wrestlers don’t always get along, but they are family. He said that nobody back there was even alive when he wrestled Race at the first Starrcade. That’s not actually true, as quite a few guys on the show were older than 36. He thanked Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes, and then talked about Sting, did his limousine riding, jet flying interview. Owens led Flair and the crowd in doing “Whoo” when Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson came out. They talked about how they should just shut the show down and air one hour of Gallows & Anderson highlights on the network. The Street Profits came out and this led to a match.

3. The Street Profits beat Gallows & Anderson in 8:44. Dawkins and Ford both did high dropkicks. Ric Flair was in the corner of the Street Profits. The crowd was pretty dead and there were timing issues. Ford is such a super athlete and has great natural charisma, but in this match you could really see how green he still is in some ways. Dawkins hit a spinebuster on Anderson and Ford frog splashed him. Yes, at least at the time of this match, Gallows & Anderson were scheduled to challenge for the tag titles on the next PPV show. **

4. Asuka & Kairi Sane retained the women’s tag titles over Bayley & Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch and Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross in 13:25. So, after being told no more brand intermingling after Survivor Series, that lasted exactly seven days. The crowd was into Flair vs. Asuka. Lynch got the biggest chants as expected. Sane looked like she was going to give Bayley a high-five, but then spinning back fisted her. Lynch got a hot tag and it was exploders on everyone. Lynch did DDT’s on Asuka and Sane at the same time. She did a leg drop off the middle rope on Sane, but Asuka saved. Cross used a neckbreaker on Asuka but Banks saved. Flair speared Asuka and Sane but then missed a charge and went into the buckles. Asuka made Cross submit to the Asuka lock. **½

Lana did an interview saying she’s so grateful she found someone who appreciates her and values her, unlike Rusev. She said there would be no main event because she filed a restraining order and the match was canceled. She told the ref to raise Lashley’s hand and announce him as the winner. Lashley was announced as winning via forfeit. Owens came out and made fun of Lana losing her accent and said he’d gotten approval to take the match.

5. Bobby Lashley beat Kevin Owens via DQ in 9:31. Lashley’s right arm, right shoulder and ribs were all taped up, selling the injury from the prior week’s Raw. They announced no last man standing, just a regular match. Owens got a near fall with a frog splash. Owens hit a stunner that was mistimed and Lana then distracted ref Dan Engler. Lana gave Lashley a chair but then Rusev ran in fr the DQ. Rusev and Lashley brawled in the crowd. Lashley threw Rusev into the steps and was hitting him with a kendo stick. Somewhere in all this, Owens disappeared. Rusev got the kendo stick, broke it and kicked a chair in Lashley’s face. **3/4

6. Aleister Black pinned Andrade with black mass. Zelina Vega complained afterwards and said that Andrade refuses to leave and wants another match.

7. Ricochet pinned Andrade in about one minute.

8. Randy Orton pinned A.J. Styles using the RKO. Lots of C.M. Punk chants during this match.

9. Roman Reigns pinned King Corbin after a spear.

10. The Fiend beat Braun Strowman to retain the Universal title in a cage match. This match was said to have been terrible, between the red tinting, lack of action and it being the shortest match on the show. Fiend escaped to win. He left. Gallows & Anderson then got into the cage and attacked Strowman. Strowman came back on both and ended the show with a powerslam on Anderson.

Aniah Blanchard, the stepdaughter of Walt Harris, was killed by a gunshot, with Ibrahim Yazeed, the first man arrested in the case, as the only man charged with murder.

Prosecutors in Lee County in Alabama said that they were charging Yazeed with first degree murder and are looking for the death penalty. Yazeed, who was out on parole for a kidnapping and attempted murder case, had been arrested for kidnapping in regard to the disappearance of Blanchard, before the body was found.

Lee County District Attorney Brandon Hughes said that their investigation has determined Yazeed to be the lone suspect in the murder, as well as the kidnapping. Antwain Fisher, who was arrested on kidnapping charges, is now thought to be involved only to the point officials believe he helped Yazeed dispose of Blanchard’s body. A third suspect, David Johnson Jr., has been charged with hindering prosecution.

Over the past year, Combate Americas has surpassed Bellator to become the No. 2 MMA promotion when it comes to television viewers, behind the UFC.

The promotion has its biggest event to date scheduled for 12/7, a PPV show from McAllen, TX, on the border, called “Tito vs. Alberto - What Side Are You On?,” headlined by Tito Ortiz vs. Alberto el Patron in a 210 pound weight limit fight. I’m not sure if what side means U.S. vs. Mexico, or MMA vs. pro wrestling.

Jorge Masvidal and Julianna Pena, who are both UFC fighters, will be calling the PPV show along with Max Bretos of soccer announcing fame.

In the pro wrestling/MMA landscape, they would trail only WWE, UFC and AEW. The reason has more to do with being on Univision, even with the handicap of most shows being Friday nights at midnight as compared to Friday’s at 9 p.m. as the usual start time for Bellator on the lower rated Paramount Network.

As far as ratings go, the shows seem to do well even though it’s largely presentation of fights with fighters without big names. It’s basically late night sports programming on Univision geared to an Hispanic audience. Most of the fighters have Hispanic surnames. Fights are held either in Hispanic markets in the U.S., or in Mexico, Tucson, Stockton, Fresno, Los Angeles, Chicago, Hidalgo, and they had one show this year in Peru.

The man in charge is Campbell McLaren, one of a few people who one can argue was a key to the creation of MMA. McLaren was the guy who greenlit the sport, such, as it was, the first UFC in 1993 as an executive with Semaphore Entertainment Group, taking an idea brought to him by Art Davie and Rorion Gracie, who had been turned down by everyone else in television and PPV.

This is McLaren’s third act with the sport. McLaren headed UFC for a few years before being moved out in place of David Isaacs. He and Isaacs later worked together with a second promotion, the Iron Ring on BET, which did ratings and demographics that almost any television station would kill for today in its mixing MMA with a team concept with fictitious celebrity owners like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Nelly and Ludacris. The idea was looking for an urban and heavily African American audience young audience. As far as viewers, it worked. Granted, 2008 television is very different, but it was the second highest rated show on the network when it first broke out, and after several weeks was averaging 900,000 viewers of which 52 percent were women and 50 percent were under the age of 24. Ratings did decline as the first season went going and there were changes at the station and the show wasn’t picked and died after 14 30-minute episodes.

McLaren came up with the Combate Americas concept in 2011 and started running regular live events in 2015. Originally, they went to hire Rey Mysterio as a brand ambassador but Mysterio and Combate were told by Lucha Underground that his contract would not allow him to appear regularly on what they considered a rival show. So McLaren ended up befriending Alberto Rodriguez.

The original idea was for Alberto to fight on a PPV against an opponent that he would be expected to beat, with a $500,000 offer. The sides talked for months. As the story goes, Alberto at the time started fight camp training, felt he didn’t have the hunger for it, and decided against returning. But Alberto did come aboard as the figurehead president of Combate. After some bad press, he is no longer El Presidente in title, but he’s still a face of the company, used front and center to do media and to appear on television, since he’s well spoken, understands how to promote, and is a celebrity in Mexico, a key market for the promotion. It’s allowed him to cut way back on doing pro wrestling, although he is also running NLL, a promotion on national television in Mexico that he also wrestles for. He noted after the fight he’ll go back to wrestling from time-to-time with the group.

Somewhere along the way, Alberto, who fought in MMA from 2001 to 2010, sometimes in Japan under a mask under his old ring name of Dos Caras Jr., got his hunger back. But Alberto made it clear that even though he’s enjoying the training, this is a one-and-done and he has no interest in a second fight, even though McLaren is pushing him to do so. Alberto noted he was 248 pounds when he started camp and at first. He was very worried about making 210, but he said the weight actually came off faster than expected. He recently after a workout was down to 216 pounds, well ahead of pace, so started adding more carbs to his diet. So he said making the weight isn’t going to be an issue.

Alberto was a strong Greco-Roman wrestler in his youth. He placed third in the juniors worlds (teenage) in 1997 and placed fourth once at the Pa American games, before following his father and uncles into pro wrestling.

He got into MMA somewhat by accident. While he was a star in Mexico as Dos Caras Jr., the pay was nothing compared to what Japanese promotes would pay him to fight. And in those days, because of his wrestling background, he had a leg up to start with. In Japan, it was more about the name, Dos Caras Jr., the nephew of Mil Mascaras and son of Dos Caras. He fought in Japan, Mexico, Spain and Honduras, and compiled a 9-5 record. His biggest fights were a decision loss to Kazuhiro Nakamura in Pride, and his most famous, by far, was a head kick knockout loss in 46 seconds on October 5, 2003, to Mirko Cro Cop.

That fight wasn’t a work. But he did enter the fight wearing a mask, as the promoters in Pride wanted. In a trivia note, K-1 wanted to bring him in for their show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum years later with the idea of the nephew of Mil Mascaras fighting in Los Angeles, and that Dos Caras would be in his corner. The California State Athletic Commission wouldn’t allow it. The commission saw the fight, and saw him wearing a mask, decided it must be pro wrestling, the Cro Cop fight must have been a work, and refused to sanction him.

Tito Ortiz (20-12-1) was at one point the biggest star in U.S. MMA, for the first few years after Lorenzo & Frank Fertitta and Dana White took control of UFC. The 205 pound weight class for light heavyweight was handpicked by Ortiz, who had fought at 199 but the cut was hard, so they basically created the 205 division as a weight he could cut to from walking around at 225 without weakening himself.

Alberto is 42 and Ortiz is 44. They are fighting on PPV on 12/7 from at the Payne Arena, in a $29.95 PPV show. The 210 pounds is because Alberto has fought all of his fights at heavyweight, while Ortiz has always fought at light heavyweight.

If it was a decade ago, there would be talk about the curiosity of a huge MMA name facing a major pro wrestling star who had a wrestling background would do as a curiosity buy. Today, there is no question. PPV is a much tougher business, and Ortiz’s last try, with Chuck Liddell, a far bigger name than Alberto, did about 40,000 buys. It was a disaster, and led to Oscar de la Hoya’s Golden Boy MMA closing down after one show.

It’s hard to believe this can do close to that number. Ortiz vs. Liddell had a ton of curiosity. It was also the third meeting in a grudge series so big it later became the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 series. It was one of the biggest rivalries in MMA history between the two biggest U.S. stars of that era. Liddell is still one of the biggest superstars in the history of the sport and he was doing a comeback fight. Alberto has a name from pro wrestling, but the novelty of a pro wrestler fighting in MMA isn’t there anymore to a degree, particularly one who did fight, is in his 40s, and hasn’t done so in a decade. Ortiz has had too many comeback fights after retirements to where that novelty isn’t there either, and if it was, the Liddell fight would have done much better.

Granted, nobody knew just how bad a condition Liddell was in, and how criminal it was that the fight was sanctioned. But people who did see it likely felt ripped off by it, and so of that audience is the audience this is aimed at.

Sanctioning wasn’t an issue here, since Texas is the place you go because the rep is they’ll sanction anything. At least Alberto can move, although he goes in as a heavy underdog. Ortiz has retired countless times over the last seven years, but has won four of his last five fights, with Liddell, Chael Sonnen, Alexander Shlemenko and Stephan Bonnar.

They’ve tried to raise the stakes in that Alberto puts up one of his WWE title belts that he held while Ortiz will put up one of his UFC belts. If this was put on Univision, it would easily draw their biggest number, but the cost is likely such that they needed to try PPV. But the era and game has changed, and people aren’t going to buy a PPV in MMA these days at any level of numbers unless it’s the UFC brand. The success of Logan Paul in boxing as a draw may say different, but neither of these guys is Logan Paul.

The undercard is largely filled with unknown names. The biggest name on the undercard is the former Sexy Star, doing her second MMA fight with Combate, as Sexy Dulce Garcia, facing Anali Lopez Hernandez of McAllen at 120 pounds. This will be Hernandez’s first pro fight.

Ortiz challenged Jon Jones this past week. Nobody took him seriously. He should win over Alberto. He’ll probably fight again somewhere, like Bellator. Ortiz did fine against Liam McGeary, when McGeary was Bellator’s light heavyweight champion, before making a mistake and being submitted. Alberto will get paid. And unless a shock happens and a major upset takes place, it’ll probably be an afterthought after the night it takes place.

A quick note here as a reminder that there will be two weeks in January without an issue.

The first week of the year I’ll be in Japan. For those who subscribe to the site we’ll re-issue the New Japan Tokyo Dome history issue while adding in a few more Tokyo Dome shows including some shows that weren’t on 1/4 but that issue will not be mailed because it would probably be like 80 pages or more. The week of 1/20 to 1/24 Bryan and I are going to be doing shows from the Jericho Cruise so I won’t be around to write the issue. I don’t anticipate any other interruptions of going weekly for the rest of 2020.

The Wednesday night race was very close on 12/4, with AEW winning with 851,000 viewers to 845,000 for NXT.

AEW won via a 0.32 margin to 0.29 in the 18-49 demo. If you factor out the overrun, NXT would have done 838,000 viewers head-to-head.

Those numbers say a few things. First, because the NXT audience is mostly over the age of 50, it was going to be hurt more by the impeachment hearings and would have easily won in total viewers without it. That said, because the AEW audience is younger and more apt to DVR the show, by the end of the week, they’d have won in overall viewers as they have done every week if you factor in DVR viewership.

However, the most concerning number was the 0.32 in 18-49 for AEW without an excuse like last week. After the early weeks, factoring out things like the World Series and night before Thanksgiving, they were consistently in the 0.39 to 0.46 range. Granted, NXT gaining momentum off the last few weeks shows, cut into that number, but they also did 0.39 against a three-branded show two weeks ago and fell to 0.32 with lesser competition.

AEW is still ahead and NXT only got one good week off Survivor Series before fading (810,000 for the night before Thanksgiving to 845,000 is actually fading significantly), but they are close enough, even winning slightly in 18-34, unheard of before (due to AEW doing poorly this week in 18-34 women, while having a solid lead with 18-34 men), that the race is neck-and-neck in categories AEW was doubling NXT in not that many weeks ago. Plus, NXT has booked stronger cards at this point for the next two weeks.

With losing older viewers due to those hearings, NXT’s median age fell to 51.4 years old, younger than usual. AEW’s was 45.3 years old, closing that gap to levels it has never been before.

Rather than compare the numbers with last week, in which case everything is up considerably as it should be up other than NXT being down in 50+ for obvious reasons (while AEW was not), you get more comparing this week’s numbers with those of 11/20.

For 12/4, AEW did a 0.17 in 12-17 (up 6.3 percent from two weeks ago), 0.19 in 18-34 (down 24.0 percent), 0.45 in 35-49 (down 17.8 percent) and 0.31 in 50+ (up 6.9 percent). So while the AEW audience was down 4.7 percent from two weeks ago, a normal shift, when it comes to the money numbers, they were down badly and are aging. Their big calling card was strength in 18-34, more people watching together than any other wrestling show, and being the youngest skewing sports property on television along with Major League Soccer. They are no longer that.

The audience was 65.1 percent male in 18-49 and 76.2 percent male in 12-17.

NXT was down 7.8 percent from two weeks ago, but that’s acceptable because they ended Raw with HHH telling people the main brand guys would be there and opened with Becky Lynch.

NXT did a 0.12 in 12-17 (down 7.7 percent from two weeks ago), 0.20 in 18-34 (up 5.3 percent), 0.38 in 35-49 (down 7.3 percent) and 0.38 in 50+ (down 5.0 percent). The audience was 63.2 percent male in 18-49 and 62.0 percent male in 12-17.

AEW won six of eight quarters overall, losing only the first two. Basically whether it was interest at first, or the sound issue (and I would dismiss that), NXT started strong and faded 30 minutes in. AEW won all eight quarters in 18-49 with only the fourth quarter (367,000 to 355,00) which with mostly Nyla Rose on one side and the Forgotten Sons on the other being close.

In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened with Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes vs. Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara, doing 893,000 viewers and 451,000 in18-49. That is with bad audio difficulties. NXT opened with Pete Dunne vs. Killian Dain, doing 944,000 viewers and 360,000 in 18-49. AEW also doubled with teenagers, and did six times the teenage male viewers as NXT (34,000 to 6,000) won women 18-34 handily (59,000 to 36,000), women 35-49 (121,000 to 95,000), NXT won in males 18-34 (85,000 to 74,000), AEW won males 35-49 (196,000 to 143,000), while NXT won 50+ (544,000 to 361,000). So this was the starting point.

The second segment saw AEW with Rey Fenix vs. Trent lose 76,000 viewers and 49,000 in 18-49. NXT with the end of Dain vs. Dunne and the angle with Undisputed Era and Keith Lee lost 52,000 overall viewers but gained 2,000 in 18-49.

The third segment saw AEW, with the Cody promo, gain 53,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49. NXT with a Kushida video and Shayna Baszler vs. Xia Li, lost 41,000 overall but gained 27,000 in 18-49.

The fourth segment saw AEW, with the Dark Order video, Nyla Rose vs. Leva Bates and the post-match, lost 76,000 viewers overall and 77,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Kassius Ohno interview and Forgotten Sons vs. Leon Ruff & Adrian Alanis lost 87,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49.

The fifth quarter saw AEW with the Chris Jericho promo and beginning of Kris Statlander vs. Hikaru Shida gain 115,000 viewers and 88,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Dakota Kai, Rhea Ripley and Mia Yim angle gained 110,000 viewers and 36,000 in 18-49.

The sixth quarter saw AEW with the rest of Statlander vs. Shida and the Kong & Brandi Rhodes angle lost 46,000 viewers overall and 59,000 in 18-49. NXT with Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno lost 66,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49.

The seventh quarter with AEW with Pentagon Jr. vs. Christopher Daniels lost 38,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49. NXT with the Horseman laying out Ripley and Kushida vs. Cameron Grimes gained 22,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49.

The main event battle had AEW with Joey Janela vs. Jon Moxley gained 11,000 overall but lost 1,000 in 18-49. NXT with Adam Cole & Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Keith Lee & Dominik Dijakovic & Tommaso Ciampa lost 88,000 viewers overall and lost 40,000 in 18-49.

In the head-to-head main events, NXT won 3,000 to 2,000 with teenager girls, NXT won 60,000 to 38,000 with 18-34 women, AEW won 88,000 to 70,000 with 35-49 women, AEW won 38,000 to 4,000 with teenage boys, AEW won 85,000 to 79,000 in men 18-34 and 175,000 to 119,000 in men 35-49. NXT won close, 370,000 to 363,000 in over 50, the closest of the night.

But after AEW ended, they handed NXT 212,000 viewers. The breakdown was 14,000 teenagers (8,000 boys, 6,000 girls), 23,000 18-34 (25,000 males, -2,000 females), 53,000 35-49 (29,000 men, 24,000 women) and 116,000 over the age of 50.

Teenage girls peaked for Dunne vs. Dain and AEW did terrible with them, winning only the Cody interview quarter.

18-34 women peaked with Ohno vs. Riddle. AEW’s peak was the Young Bucks six-man tag.

35-49 women peaked with the Young Bucks & Rhodes vs. Santana & Ortiz & Guevara. NXT’s peak was Baszler vs. Li.

Male teens peaked with the Jericho interview. NXT’s peak was the Undisputed Era and Keith Lee angle.

Males 18-34 peaked with the Jericho interview. NXT’s peak was Ohno vs. Riddle.

Males 35-49 peaked with the Jericho interview. NXT’s peak was with Kai, Yim and Ripley angle.

Over 50 peaked with Dain vs. Dunne with the AEW highlight being Statlander vs. Shida and the Brandi Rhodes/Kong segment.

The second to last episode of the season of Total Divas on 12/4 did 247,000 viewers. That would make it the second lowest viewer number in the history of the show.

WWE Backstage on 12/3 did 138,000 viewers for a show built around Seth Rollins, up 14.0 percent from the prior week.

Raw on 12/2 had more good than bad news with the show averaging 2,208,000 viewers, breaking the string of three weeks at record low levels, even against a monster football game.

The audience was up 4.8 percent from last week, and only down 3.4 percent from the same week last year, although the 2,286,000 viewers the show had last year was at the time the modern era record non-holiday low.

The Seattle Seahawks vs. Minnesota Vikings football game did 14,030,000 viewers, the second highest of the season. Given that number, combined with how Raw did the previous three weeks, and a show that didn’t include Raw’s biggest ratings mover, Becky Lynch, and a record low was probably to be expected.

The bad news is that the 18-49 number was down from last week, largely football related, and the gains were with the teenage and over 50 audience.

The 20.3 percent first-to-third hour drop was the 11th biggest in history. The first-to-third hour declines were 18.4 percent with women 18-49, 22.9 percent with men 18-49, 40.4 percent with teenage girls, 23.1 percent with teenage boys and 16.5 percent over 50. The heavier declines with males 18-49 are likely due to the closeness of the football game.

The high point with 2,510,000 viewers for the angle with Humberto Carrillo, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, Ricochet and The OC. The low point was the Rey Mysterio & Ricochet & Humberto Carrillo vs. OC main event at 1,739,000 viewers. So from the peak, they actually declined 771,000 viewers or 30.7 percent.

From start-to-finish, Males 18-34 dropped from 254,000 at the start to 159,000. Males 35-49 dropped from 465,000 to 312,000. Females 18-34 dropped from 145,000 to 92,000. Females 35-49 dropped from 200,000 to 144,000. teenagers started low at 73,000, grew to 104,000 for the Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, Ricochet angle, but were down to 63,000 for the main event. All of these drops are more football related.

The median viewer age was 49.8 years old.

The show opened strong with the Seth Rollins apology. For 18-49, at 1,064,000 viewers, the first segment was the high point of the show, and the gains later were from teens and over 50s. The Owens-Lana mic work and Lashley vs. Owens gained 30,000 viewers but lost 22,000 in 18-49. The Rusev run-in and beginning of Drew McIntyre vs. Akira Tozawa lost 201,000 viewers and 129,000 in18-49, but that was also with eight minutes of commercials in the 15 minutes. McIntyre vs. Tozawa’s finish and the beginning of the McIntyre/Randy Orton stuff gained 139,000 viewers and 56,000 in 18-49. The angle with the OC setting up the main event gained 81,000 viewers and 48,000 in 18-49. Tony Nese vs. Aleister Black, Andrade vs. Eric Young and the Kyle Busch 24/7 title win lost 225,000 viewers and 124,000 in 18-49. Erick Rowan vs. No Way Jose lost 120,000 viewers and 24,000 in 18-49. Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka & Kairi Sane lost 108,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49. And the main event lost 293,000 viewers and 125,000 in 18-49.

The first hour did 2,418,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,279,000 viewers. The third hour did 1.928,000 viewers.

The show did a 0.39 in 12-17 (up 5.4 percent), 0.45 in 18-34 (down 2.2 percent), 0.93 in 35-49 (down 3.1 percent) and 0.96 in 50+ (up 4.3 percent).

The audience was 67.6 percent male in 18-49 and 63.4 percent male in 12-17.

Smackdown on 11/29 did a 1.44 rating and 2,325,000 viewers (1.35 viewers per home), the second lowest since the move to FOX. Given it was part of Thanksgiving weekend, I wouldn’t read much into this number, which was down 8.6 percent from the prior week in viewers and 12.5 percent in the 18-49 demo.

Smackdown’s 0.7 in the key demo tied for the tops with a Frosty the Showman rerun. For overall viewers, FOX was in last place among the major networks and aside from “Fresh off the Boat” on ABC, was the least-watched network show of the night. It also should be noted that only ABC and FOX ran new programming, so the competition that beat Smackdown for viewers on CBS and NBC were all reruns.

FOX was down 43.0 percent in total viewers and 30.0 percent in 18-49 from the same Friday last year airing College Football.

College Football on ESPN head-to-head did 1,758,000 viewers.

Smackdown won the night among the networks in 18-34, tied for second in 25-54, won with men 18-49, tied for last with women 18-49 and finished last in 50+.

The high point of the show with 2,461,000 viewers was the Bayley, Sasha Banks and Lacey Evans angle and a Firefly Fun House segment. The low point, at 2,214,000 viewers was the Roman Reigns vs. Robert Roode match.

Reigns vs. Roode lost 204,000 viewers and 91,000 in 18-49. The Reigns/Roode post-match brawl and Firefly Fun House gained 213,000 viewers and 98,000 in 18-49. The Sheamus return and Mustafa Ali vs. Drew Gulak match lost 188,000 viewers and 94,000 in 18-49. The Bayley, Banks and Evans deal and another Fun House gained 222,000 viewers and 93,000 in 18-49. Nikki Cross vs. Sonya Deville, return of Alexa Bliss interviews and New Day entrance lost 144,000 viewers and 86,000 in 18-49. New Day vs. Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura for the tag titles lost 83,000 viewers and 69,000 in 18-49. The show-closing Daniel Bryan interview and attack by Bray Wyatt gained 55,000 viewers and 42,000 in 18-49.

The peak for teenagers was the New Day vs. Cesaro & Nakamura match. 18-34 peak was Bayley, Banks and Evans and low point was the final segment.

The median viewer age was 51.4 years old.

NXT scored a decisive win in viewers on 11/27 and came close to AEW in the 18-49 demo, more because of the decline by AEW than an increase in NXT.

Normally I would say to throw night before Thanksgiving numbers for comparisons with previous weeks out, although the NXT edge under any circumstances, pulling 810,000 viewers (1.31 viewers per home) to 663,000 for AEW (1.35 viewers per home), is a major story, and not at all for NXT, but very much for AEW.

Both shows drew lower numbers because of the holiday, but the gap is not affected in the sense both were on the same bad night. AEW has dropped the past two weeks notably in viewers per home from when they were highest of every show up until that point.

The key is that AEW had usually been second to the NBA in 18-49 in its time slot in the demo, and has now fallen behind War of the Worlds Challenge on MTV. This show’s 0.26, down from 0.39 the week before when they went head-to-head with stars from all three WWE brands, fell behind Real Housewives of New Jersey on Bravo, BlackInk Crew 8 on VH-1, A Hallmark movie on Hallmark, Forged in Fire on The History Channel and The Oval on BET. So going from No. 2 or No. 3 to No. 9 in the time slot is a decline vs. competition, meaning it’s a lot more significant than just a bad night for viewers in an age group.

In 18-34, AEW’s edge was 115,000 to 87,000 while in 35-49, NXT was ahead 221,000 to 218,000 which has never happened before. With numbers that close and USA being in more homes than TNT, that’s really a dead heat in a demo AEW had been dominating.

NXT gained a lot coming off being the focal point of the Survivor Series and the strong Takeover show. On a normal night both shows probably would have had more viewers and NXT would probably have been the same or up. But for AEW, it was not good and there are no excuses past NXT gained momentum and AEW has lost momentum, badly, with its PPV follow-up. But the story isn’t so much NXT getting hot, because they were down everywhere, but AEW losing viewers so heavily in what was its strongest demo.

NXT won in viewers in every quarter, with only the main event coming close with the beginning of Tommaso Ciampa vs. Finn Balor at 699,000 to 684,000 for Chris Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky. NXT, after AEW ended, gained 151,000 viewers for the last eight minutes, likely mostly being AEW viewers.

NXT’s median viewer age was 55.2 years old, among its oldest to date, while AEW’s was 45.6, its oldest to date. The night before Thanksgiving definitely impacted the younger audience more than the older audience and did hurt AEW more because it skews younger, but the closeness of the demo and the level of losses in that demo by AEW to that level is more than just it being the biggest bar night of the year except New Year’s Eve for those 18-49.

In the segment-by-segment, AEW opened with 730,000 viewers and 394,000 in 18-49 for the Chris Jericho celebration while NXT had 916,000 viewers and 349,000 in 18-49 for its quick celebration and the Roderick Strong (replacing Bobby Fish) & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Dominik Dijakovic & Keith Lee tag title match.

In quarter two, AEW lost 37,000 viewers over and 45,000 in 18-49 for Best Friends vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix. NXT lost 53,000 viewers and 34,000 in 18-49 for the continuation of the tag team match. So this wasn’t people switching shows as much as people switching off.

In quarter three, AEW lost 34,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for Bea Priestley & Emi Sakura vs. Hikaru Shida & Kris Statlander. NXT lost 11,000 viewers and gained 23,000 in 18-49 for the finish of the tag title match and Mansoor vs. Shane Thorne. This was the first quarter that NXT has ever won in 18-49, by a 338,000 to 317,000 margin.

In quarter four, AEW lost 43,000 viewers and lost 10,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Matt Knicks and the debut of The Butcher & The Blade. This was not good because it was a Cody quarter. NXT lost 67,000 viewers and 39,000 in 18-49 for Dakota Kai vs. Candice LeRae, so AEW was ahead 307,000 to 299,000 in the key demo.

In quarter five, AEW gained 40,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for Kenny Omega vs. Pac. NXT gained 27,000 and 7,000 in 18-49 viewers for the end of Kai vs. LeRae, the post-match, and start of Lio Rush vs. Akira Tozawa.

In quarter six, AEW lost 6,000 viewers but gained 11,000 in 18-49 for Adam Page vs. MJF in the battle for the diamond ring. NXT lost 66,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 for Rush vs. Tozawa.

In quarter seven, AEW lost 32,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for the Dustin Rhodes promo and the Inner Circle attack and Young Bucks save. NXT gained 26,000 viewers and 25,000 in 18-49 for Xia Li vs. Vanessa Borne. AEW had 305,000 viewers in 18-49 during the quarter with two commercial breaks while NXT had 303,000 with one commercial break.

In quarter eight, AEW gained 66,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 for Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky while NXT lost 84,000 and 37,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of Balor vs. Ciampa.

In the overrun, NXT gained 151,000 viewers broken down as 4,000 teenage boys, 4,000 teenage girls, 9,000 18-34 women, 15,000 18-34 men, 13,000 35-49 women, 46,000 35-49 men and 55,000 over 50 men.

As far as the show itself and who it appealed to, NXT came out much stronger with teenagers but it reversed as the show went on. NXT won the first 45 minutes and AEW won the last 75 minutes. With women 18-34, NXT won the first 45 minutes and it reversed from there and the Omega-Pac and Jericho-Scorpio matches doubled NXT with that demo.

With teenage boys, and this was a bad one for AEW which usually dominates, NXT won the first 45 minutes and AEW won from there, with NXT doubling in quarter two and AEW doubling in the main event.

Page vs. MJF was the peak with 18-34 men blowing away everything on both shows.

Over 50 it wasn’t close, with NXT having a 504,000 to 293,000 edge in the first quarter and a 405,000 to 292,000 edge in the battle of main events.

AEW was down 25.8 percent from the prior week in viewers and even worse, 33.3 percent in 18-49. It was down across the boards, but took the biggest hits where they used to be the strongest, under 50. Perhaps the AEW audience went more heavily into DVR mode because of the night, but again, that should have affected non-live shows in comparison as much or worse besides a Hallmark special movie.

My thought going into Wednesday was that AEW was coming in flat even with the great build-up skit for the Chris Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky title match and a Kenny Omega vs. Pac match. NXT came in with Adam Cole, Rhea Ripley, Keith Lee and the brand itself hot, which hurt. AEW had a weak first hour, with the Jericho skit feeling like something out of WWE, and while NXT opened with a celebration, they quickly moved to a tag title match while AEW had nothing that appeared big until the second hour.

AEW did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 31.3 percent), 0.16 in 18-34 (down 36.0 percent), 0.36 in 35-49 (down 36.8 percent), and 0.25 in 50+ (down 13.8 percent).

The audience was 63.5 percent male in 18-49 and 62.5 percent male in 12-17, so from a percentage basis in that regard, that was little change.

NXT was down 11.6 percent, staying steady in the over 50 age group and actually equaling AEW in the 35-49 demo, which AEW had been handily winning. The teenage audience was almost identical and AEW’s only winning group was 18-34.

NXT did a 0.10 in 12-17 (down 23.1 percent), 0.12 in 18-34 (down 36.8 percent), 0.36 in 35-49 (down 12.2 percent) and 0.40 in 50+ (staying the same as the prior week.

NXT viewers were 64.6 percent male in 18-49 and 71.8 percent male in 12-17.

The reality is that younger viewers were significantly down, especially those under 35 across the board, but NXT came closer to maintaining its 35-49 numbers while AEW did not.

The last Raw show we have DVR numbers was 11/11, which did the holiday record low of 2,066,000 viewers. It did another 357,000 viewers including DVR viewership and the 18-49 numbers were 839,000 same day and 179,000 via DVR .

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 RESULTS



11/21 Yamanashi (New Japan - 1,320): Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojika b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi, Tetsuya Naito & Bushi b Jay White & Gedo, Evil & Sanada b Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens, Shingo Takagi & El Terrible b Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi

11/21 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 965): Yusuke Okada & Hokuto Omori b Atsushi Maruyama & Dan Tamura, Takao Omori & Masa Fuchi & Great Kojika b Osamu Nishimura & Mitsuya Nagai & Mitsuo Momota. Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura & Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman b Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa & Zeus & Gianni Valletta, Hikaru Sato b Black Menso-re, Koji Iwamoto b Fuminori Abe, Joe Doering & Jun Akiyama b Parrow & Odinson, Daisuke Sekimoto & The Bodyguard b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi

11/22 Chicago (WWE Smackdown TV tapings - 7,800): Cesaro b Apollo Crews, Rhea Ripley won three-way over Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks, Adam Cole & Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong b Kofi Kingston & Big E & Heavy Machinery, The Miz NC Daniel Bryan, King Corbin & Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler b Roman Reigns & Mustafa Ali & Shorty G

11/22 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL - 5,000): Angelito & Ultimo Dragoncito b Pequeno Universo 2000 & Pierrothito-DQ, Kawato San & Okumura & Virus b Blue Panther Jr. & Drone & Stigma, Black Panther d Esfinge, Audaz & Kraneo & Star Jr. b Hechicero & Rey Bucanero & Templario, Cuatrero & Forastero & Sanson b Stuka Jr.& Titan & Valiente, Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero & Negro Casas b Mistico & Soberano Jr.& Volador Jr.

11/23 Kalamazoo, MI (WWE Super show - 3,800): Ricochet b Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre b Akira Tozawa, Humberto Carrillo b Andrade, Rusev b Bobby Lashley-DQ, Nikki Cross b Lacey Evans, Roman Reigns b King Corbin, IC title: Shinsuke Nakamura b The Miz, Charlotte Flair b Kairi Sane, Heavy Machinery b Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder, Cage match for Universal title: Bray Wyatt b Daniel Bryan

11/23 Kawasaki (New Japan - 1,833): Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima, Evil & Sanada b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma b Toru Yano & Colt Cabana, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi b Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Shingo Takagi & El Terrible, Tetsuya Naito & Bushi b Jay White & Gedo, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer

11/23 Tijuana, BC (The Crash - 3,000): Jr. Title: Terror Azteca won over Mascara Oriental and Baby Xtreme, Black Animal & Demencia & Silver Star b Anthar & Dinamico & Draego, Brazo de Oro Jr. & Emperador Azteca & Impossible b Arandu & Star Boy & Zarco, Bestia 666 b Jimmy Havoc, Penta 0M & Rey Fenix b Jack Evans & Angelico, Three-way for Crash heavyweight title: Bandido won over champion Rey Horus and Marty Scurll

11/24 Nagoya (New Japan - 3,536): Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima, Shingo Takagi & El Terrible b KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi, Jay White & Gedo b Tetsuya Naito & Bushi, Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls b Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi, Evil & Sanada b Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa

11/24 London York Hall (Revolution Pro Wrestling British J Cup tournament): El Phantasmo b Senza Volto, Robbie Eagles b Cavernario, Michael Oku b Rocky Romero, Pac b Amazing Red, Ren Narita b Brendan White, Tag titles: Rampage Brown & Great O’Kharn b Mike Bailey & Mao, Gisele Shaw b Tessa Blanchard, Michael Oku won four-way over Pac, El Phantasmo and Robbie Eagles to win J Cup

11/24 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Electrico & Robin b Apocalipsis & Yago, La Guerrera & Jarochita & Lluvia b Amapola & Seductora & Tiffany, Stuka Jr. b El Hijo del Villano III, Atlantis Jr. & Audaz & Blue Panther b Euforia & Negro Casas & Templario, Cuatrero & Forastero & Sanson b Caristico & Soberano Jr. & Valiente

11/24 London Electric Ballroom (Progress): Fabio Romano b Jordan Saeed, Eddie Dennis & Mark Andrews b Connor Mills & The OJMO, Lewis Howley & Sam Stoker b Charlie Carter & Oisin Delaney, Jinny b Millie McKenzie, No DQ: Travis Banks b TK Cooper, David Starr b Danny Duggan, Proteus title: Paul Robinson b Timothy Thatcher, Tag titles: Jordan Devlin & Scotty Davis b Danny Burch & Oney Lorcan

11/25 Komatsu (New Japan - 2,168): Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima b Toru Yano & Colt Cabana, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Shingo Takagi & El Terrible, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Tetsuya Naito & Bushi b Jay White & Gedo, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Evil & Sanada b KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi

11/26 Niigata (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 1,020): Hajime Ohara & Nosawa & Kinya Okada b H69 & Minoru Tanaka & Junta Miyawaki, Masa Kitamiya b Akitoshi Saito, Kenou & Yoshiki Inamura b Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm, Yoshinari Ogawa & Chris Ridgeway b Hayata & Yo-Hey, Jr. Tag titles: Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Kotoge b Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke to win titles, National title: Takashi Sugiura b Shuhei Taniguchi, Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hitoshi Kumano b Kaito Kiyomiya & Naomichi Marufuji & Masao Inoue

11/26 Fukuoka (All Japan - 542): Masayuki Mitomi & Utamaro b Koji Iwamoto & Hokuto Omori, Yusuke Okada & Hikaru Sato b Atsushi Maruyama & Atsuki Aoyagi, Gianni Valletta & Takao Omori & Black Menso-re b Jun Akiyama & Joe Doering & Dan Tamura, Parrow & Odinson & King b Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa & Koji Nizumi, Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman b Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura, Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi b Zeus & Ryoji Sai

11/26 Kobe (Dragon Gate - 699 sellout): Yuki Yoshioka & Ho Ho Lun b Problem Dragon & Jimmy, Masato Yoshino & Kaito Ishida b BxB Hulk & Kagetora, Keisuke Okuda b Yosuke Santa Maria, Big R Shimizu b Jason Lee, Takashi Yoshida & Diamante & Hyo b Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi, Masaaki Mochizuki & Ryo Saito & Yasushi kanda NC Strong Machines, Eita & Kazma Sakamoto b Yamato & Kai

11/26 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Fantasy & Ultimo Dragoncito b Pequeno Universo 2000 & Pierrothito, Akuma & Disturbio & El Hijo del Signo b Halcon Suriano Jr. & Sangre Imperial & Super Astro Jr., Principe Diamante DDQ Espiritu Negro, Black Panther & Drone & Guerrero Maya Jr. b Dark Magic & Okumura & Tiger, Ephesto & Kawato San & Luciferno b Dulce Gardenia & Audaz & Rey Cometa, Atlantis Jr. & Caristico & Mistico b Euforia & Mephisto & Rey Bucanero-DQ

11/27 Mexico City (AAA Lucha Capital): Carta Brava Jr. b Argenis, Villano III Jr. won three-way over Dave the Clown and Abismo Negro Jr., Lady Shani won three-way over Keyra and La Hiedra, Puma King won three-way over Aeroster and Pagano, Taurus won three-way over Psycho Clown and Mocho Cota Jr.

11/28 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,606): Colt Cabana & Toru Yano b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima, Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Shingo Takagi & El Terrible b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls, Evil & Sanada b Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi

11/28 Shunan (All Japan - 415): Yusuke Okada b Atsuki Aoyagi, Takao Omori & Atsushi Maruyama & Black Menso-re b Zeus & Dan Tamura & Utamaro, Hikaru Sato & Tsuchiya Crazy b Koji Iwamoto & Hokuto Omori, Joe Doering & Dylan James & Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi & Parrow & Odinson, Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta b Tajiri & Kai, Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa b Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura

11/29 Birmngham, AL (WWE Smackdown/205 Live TV tapings - 4,600): Roman Reigns b Robert Roode, Mustafa Ali b Drew Gulak, Nikki Cross b Sonya Deville, Tag titles: Kofi Kingston & Big E b Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura, Ariya Daivari b Raul Mendoza, Danny Burch b Greg Williams, Angel Garza b Jack Gallagher, Universal title: Bray Wyatt b The Miz

11/29 North Little Rock, AR (WWE Raw): Aleister Black b Buddy Murphy, Humberto Carrillo b Andrade, Women’s title: Becky Lynch NC Charlotte Flair, Non-title: Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch b Asuka & Kairi Sane, Drew McIntyre b Cedric Alexander, Three-way for tag titles: Viking Raiders won over Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson and Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford, Kevin Owens b Seth Rollins-DQ

11/29 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,614): Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Toru Yano & Colt Cabana b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Kazuchika Okada & Sho & Yoh b Kota Ibushi & Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Evil & Sanada b Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi

11/29 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Coyote & Espanto Jr. b Oro Jr. & Sonic, Chamuel & Microman & Perico Zakarias b Atomo & Gallito & Guapito, Dulce Gardenia & Star Jr. & Stuka Jr. b Kawato San & Vangellys & Virus, Sanson & Forastero & Cuatrero b Mistico & Titan & Valiente, Mexican national welterweight title: Soberano Jr. b Negro Casas, Caristico & Felino & Ultimo Guerrero b Angel de Oro & Cavernario & Volador Jr.

11/30 Mexico City Arena Ciudad (WWE Super show- 11,000): Randy Orton b Ricochet, Four-way for women’s tag titles: Asuka & Kairi Sane won over Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch, Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks & Bayley, Last man standing: Bobby Lashley b Rusev-COR, Humberto Carrillo & Cain Velasquez b Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, Street fight: Roman Reigns b King Corbin, Handicap match: Braun Strowman b Shinsuke Nakamura & Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens b Seth Rollins-DQ, Cage match for Universal title: Bray Wyatt b Rey Mysterio

11/30 Veracruz, Mexico (AAA TV tapings - 3,000): Australian Suicide & Lady Maravilla & Vanilla b Big Mami & Dinastia & Mr. Iguana, Carta Brava Jr. & Mocho Cota Jr. & Tito Santana b Bengala & Draztick Boy & Eclipse, Monsther Clown & Super Fly b Aerostar & Maximo, Dulce Canela & Faby Apache & Nino Hamburguesa b Abismo Negro Jr. & Keyra & Villano III Jr., Rey Escorpion & El Texano Jr. & La Hiedra b Drago & Octagon Jr. & El Hijo del Vikingo, Averno & Chessman & Taurus b Pagano & Psycho Clown & Puma King

11/30 Winston-Salem, NC (WrestleCade - 3,000): Shannon Moore b Kaz Hayashi, Zane & Dave Dawson b Shad Gaspard & JTG, Brian Cage b Crazzy Steve, Rich Swann & Willie Mack won three-way over Luke & P.J. Hawx and Timmy Lou Retton & White Mike, C.W. Anderson b Rhino, Matt Cross & Ethan Page & Jason Kincaid b Daga & Matt Justice & Andrew Everett, Great Muta b George South, Nick Aldis & Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson b Homicide & Hernandez & Thomas Latimer, Taya Valkyrie won over Rosemary, Jordynne Grace and Su Yung

11/30 Osaka (All Japan - 545): Hokuto Omori b Atsuki Aoyagi, Atsushi Maruyama & Utamaro b Takao Omori & Black Menso-re, Suwama& Shuji Ishikawa & Yusuke Okada & Hikaru Sato b Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura & Koji Iwamoto & Dan Tamura, Kai b Joel Redman, Joe Doering & Jun Akiyama & Tajiri b Yoshitatsu & Parrow & Odinson, Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi, Zeus & Ryoji Sai d Daisuke Sekimoto & the Bodyguard 30:00

11/30 Chicago, IL (AAW): Rory Storm b Reilly McGwire, Ace Austin & Clayton Gainz b Travis Titan & Jake Landers, Hakim Zane b Myron Reed, Killer Kross b Josh Briggs, Curt Stallion b Eddie Kingston, Good Brother #3 (Mance Warner) b Nick Gage, AAW title: Josh Alexander b Ace Romero, Heritage title: Paco b Jake Something to win title, ACH & Mat Fitchett & Davey Vega b Sami Callihan & Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz, Women’s title: Jessicka Havok b Kris Statlander

11/30 Dublin, Ireland (OTT): Terry Thatcher won five-way over Calum Black Kyle Fletcher, Mao and Omari, Aidan b Liam Royal, Bonesaw & Damien Corvin b Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf 450, Women’s title: Katey Harvey b Debbie Keitel, No Limits title: Scotty Davis b Ren Narita, Paddy M b B Cool, Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix & Rey Horus b Darren Kearney & LJ Cleary & Nathan Martin, OTT title: David Starr b Mike Bailey

12/1 Shiga (New Japan - 1,783): Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi b Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens, Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano b Shingo Takagi & El Terrible, Evil & Sanada b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Kota Ibushi & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask b Kazuchika Okada & Sho & Yoh, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi b KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Juice Robinson & David Finlay

12/1 Osaka (All Japan - 985): Hokuto Omori b Dan Tamura, Parrow & Atsuki Aoyagi & Utamaro b Takao Omori & Atsushi Maruyama & Black Menso-re, Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura & Koji Iwamoto b Yusuke Okada & Hikaru Sato & Shoichi Uchida, Zeus b Odinson, Tajiri & Kai b Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman, Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa b Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta, Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi b Joe Doering & Jun Akiyama

12/1 Sapporo (Dragon Gate - 707 sellout): Don Fujii & Ho Ho Lun b Masaaki Mochizuki & Keisuke Okuda, Kaito Ishida b Kota Minoura, Hyo DCOR Dragon Kid, Ultimo Dragon & Ryo Saito & Yasushi Kanda NC Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi & Jason Lee, Ben K & Shun Skywalker b Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka, Yamato & BxB Hulk& Yosuke Santa Maria b Eita & Big R Shimizu & Diamante

12/1 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Cholo & Yago b Bengala & Electrico, Grako & Nitro & Principe Odin Jr. b Retro & Robin & Super Astro Jr., Esfinge & Pegasso & Principe Diamante b Cancerbero & Espiritu Negro & Raziel-DQ, Atlantis Jr. & Black Panther & Blue Panther b Kawato San & Okumura & Polvora, Soberano Jr. & Titan co-won Cibernetico match for CMLL welterweight title over Negro Casas, Rey Cometa, Templario, Stigma, Audaz, Dulce Gardenia, Fugaz, Star Jr., Drone and Fuego, Caristico b Forastero

12/2 Nashville, TN (WWE Raw - 6,800): Natalya b Sarah Logan, Mojo Rawley b Cedric Alexander, Kevin Owens b Bobby Lashley-DQ, Drew McIntyre b Akira Tozawa, Aleister Black b Tony Nese, Andrade b Eric Young, 24/7 title: Kyle Busch b R-Truth to win title, Erick Rowan b No Way Jose, Handicap match: Kairi Sane & Asuka b Charlotte Flair, Viking Raiders b Mark Sterling & Mitchell Lyons, A.J. Styles & Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson b Rey Mysterio & Ricochet & Humberto Carrillo, Seth Rollins & Viking Raiders b A.J. Styles & Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, Women’s title: Becky Lynch b Kairi Sane

12/2 Osaka (New Japan - 1,277): Shingo Takagi & El Terrible b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens b Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi b Colt Cabana & Toru Yano, Zack Sabre Jr.& Taichi b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Kota Ibushi & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask b Kazuchika Okada & Sho & Yoh, Evil & Sanada b Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi

12/2 Nagoya (All Japan - 891): Koji Iwamoto & Kyouske Ikuho & Daimonji So b Yusuke Okada & Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura, Atsushi Maruyama & Kengo Takai b Takao Omori & Black Menso-re, Parrow & Odinson & Utamaro b Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura & Hokuto Omori, Tajiri & Kai b Daisuke Sekimoto & Akira Hyodo, Zeus & Ryoji Sai & Paul Tracy b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi & Atsuki Aoyagi, Joe Doering & Jun Akiyama DCOR Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta, Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman b Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa

12/3 Kochi (New Japan - 1,539): Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi b Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, Juice Robinson & David Finlay b Colt Cabana & Toru Yano, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare, Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens b Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi, Kota Ibushi & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask b Kazuchika Okada & Sho & Yoh, Evil & Sanada b Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa b Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima

12/3 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Pequeno Violencia & Pierrothito b Fantasy & Ultimo Dragoncito, Cancerbero & Espiritu Negro & Raziel b Electrico & Pegasso & Principe Diamante, Guerrero Maya Jr. won Copa Juniors A block over Blue Panther Jr., Drone, Sangre Imperial, Toro Bill Jr., Oro Jr., El Hijo del Signo, Leono, Tiger and Yago, Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja & Soberano Jr. b Mephisto & Luciferno & Ephesto, Euforia b Caristico

12/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 1,083): Hajime Ohara & Nosawa & Kinya Okada b Hi69 & Minoru Tanaka & Junta Miyawaki, Dragon Bane b El Hijo de Canis Lupus, Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Kotoge b Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke & Yo-Hey, Kaito Kiyomiya & Naomichi Marufuji & Shuhei Taniguchi & Hitoshi Kumano b Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm & Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue, Jr. title: Hayata b Chris Ridgeway, Takashi Sugiura & Kazuyuki Fujita & Hideki Suzuki b Kenou & Masa Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura, Go Shiozaki b Katsuhiko Nakajima

12/3 Takaoka (All Japan - 387): Koji Iwamoto b Atsuki Aoyagi, Jun Akiyama & Atsushi Maruyama & Carbell Ito b Takao Omori & Black Menso-re & Hokuto Omori, Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman b Daisuke Sekimoto & Atsushi Maruyama, Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa & Yusuke Okada & Hikaru Sato b Joe Doering & Dylan James & Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta, Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi b Zeus & Dan Tamura, Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura b Parrow & Odinson

12/4 Champaign, IL (AEW TV tapings - 4,100): Scorpio Sky won three-way over Peter Avalon and Jimmy Havoc, Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes b Ortiz & Santana & Sammy Guevara, Rey Fenix b Trent, Nyla Rose b Leva Bates, Kris Statlander b Hikaru Shida, Pentagon Jr. b Christopher Daniels, Jon Moxley b Joey Janela, Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt b John Silver & Alex Reynolds, Kenny Omega b Kip Sabian

12/4 Winter Park, FL (WWE NXT TV tapings - 400 sellout): Joaquin Wilde b Chase Parker, Kayden Carter b Jessi Kamea, Killian Dain b Pete Dunne, Non-title: Shayna Baszler b Xia Li, Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler b Leon Ruff & Adrian Alanis, Matt Riddle b Kassius Ohno, Kushida b Cameron Grimes, Keith Lee & Tommaso Ciampa & Dominik Dijakovic b Adam Cole & Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly

12/4 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Dragon Gate - 1,545): Yuki Yoshioka & Kota Minoura & Ho Ho Lun b Shachihoko Boy & Yosuke Santa Maria & Jimmy, Don Fujii & Gamma b Hiroshi Yamato & Mondai Ryu, Masaaki Mochizuki & Keisuke Okuda & Dragon Dia b Genki Horiguchi & Brother Yasshi & Punch Tominaga, Diamante & Kazma Sakamoto won three-way over Dragon Kid & Jason Lee, Yamato & BxB Hulk & Kai & Kagetora b Ryo Saito & Yasushi Kanada & Super Shisa & K-Ness, Ben K b Shun Skywalker, Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi & K-Ness DCOR Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida & Hyo, Ultimo Dragon b Eita-DQ, Eita & Red Mask & Green Mask b Ultimo Dragon & Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi

12/4 Mexico City (AAA Lucha Capital tapings): El Hijo del Vikingo won over Carta Brava Jr., Pagano and Psycho Clown, Puma King b Bengala, Taurus won three-way over Willie Mack and Rich Swann, Keyra won three-way over Big Mami and Lady Shani, El Hijo del Vikingo won three-way over Taurus and Puma King

CMLL: The big news on the 11/29 Arena Mexico show is that Bandido showed up, and then he and Flamita both no-showed the AAA baseball stadium show two days later. After the third match on the show, he came out and it was announced that he had signed with the promotion. We’ll see exactly what that means. After losing Dragon Lee and Rush, CMLL did need to make a new signing. That would seem to rule Bandido from going to WWE. We have the impression he has made up his mind for 2020, but if he signed here, that makes ROH the favorite, but he could work here and also work AEW, although there would be political issues in that one. From what we understand, it wasn’t a full-time deal or anything like that. I think some of that is that every young wrestler in Mexico at some point dreams of working Arena Mexico, and Bandido was brought in to be on top, and for whatever reason, the politics in AAA, because he’s not under a full-time deal, haven’t allowed he and Flamita to be higher on the shows even after Bandido made it to the top in PWG which has a higher level of talent and did well in New Japan. Coming in as a guest attraction, plus with CMLL looking for replacements with Rush and Dragon Lee gone, enabled him to walk in and feud with the company’s best young trio meaning high card positioning. He has a going rate for bookings and CMLL agreed to match it for a series of dates. A couple of the top guys pushed management to bring him in. He was going to do a program with Sanson, but that fell through because Sanson injured his ankle on the show and looks to be out of action for more than a month. The Dinamitas came out and confronted him with Bandido taking out Sanson with a tijera. The Dinamitas of Sanson & Cuatrero & Forastero then beat Mistico & Titan & Valiente in the bout where Sanson was injured and taken to the hospital. The show’s main event Caristico & Felino & Ultimo Guerrero beating Angel de Oro & Cavernario & Volador Jr. in a match focusing on the Angel de Oro vs. Felino program. Soberano Jr. retained the Mexican national welterweight title over Negro Casas. It makes the third time in this title reign that Soberano has turned back Casas. Soberano won the third fall with a moonsault off the middle rope on a draping Casas. The crowd wasn’t happy Soberano won, even though he’s the tecnico, but that’s expected because they love Casas, and at 59, it made no sense to put him over. Casas has aged a lot and is not the wrestler he was a few years back when he was great for almost any age. He’s still smooth in what he does but can’t do as much of it. Other feuds they are working on are Dulce Gardenia vs. Kawato San and Espiritu Negro vs,. Principe Diamante. Kawato gave Gardenia a low blow in a trios match and then Kawato challenged Gardenia to a hair vs. hair match. There was a micros match with Chamuel & Microman & Perico Zakarias over Atomo & Guapito & Gallito. The match was built around issues with Chamuel and Microman

The 12/6 show is a legends show so not much with the current feuds will be done. The lineup from the opener has Ricky Boy & Skayde & Super Muneco vs. Gallego & Mr. Condor & Rocky Santana, Atlantis Jr. & Audaz & Star Jr. vs. Misterioso & Sagrado & Tiger, Blue Panther & Negro Casas & Virus vs. Mano Negra & Negro Navarro & Super Astro, Solar vs. El Satanico, Bandido &Valiente & Volador Jr. vs. Forastero & Cuatrero & Ultimo Guerrero (replacing Sanson), and a main event of Rayo de Jalisco Jr.& Tinieblas Jr. & Villano IV vs. Canek & Fuerza Guerrera & Mascara Ano 2000. Most of the legends on the show are in their 60s. Tinieblas is bringing Alushe to the show

The CMLL welterweight title that was vacated when Dragon Lee was fired, will be decided on 12/8 at Arena Mexico in a singles match with Soberano Jr. vs. Titan in a battle of acrobatic tecnicos. So Soberano will be going for a rare double as both the world and Mexican national champion. They did a Cibernetico match on 12/1 that came down to those two. The order of elimination was Drone, Fugaz, Rey Cometa, Fuego, Templario, Dulce Gardenia, Audaz, Negro Casas, and finally Titan pinned Star Jr

The 12/3 show featured a Euforia singles win over Caristico with a low blow and unmasking behind the refs back and Caristico took the fall to protect his face. They also started a three-week Tuesday night Copa Juniors tournament. It’s for wrestlers whose father was a wrestler. The first block saw Guerrero Maya Jr. win by pinning Blue Panther Jr. Prior to that, the order of elimination was Leono, Sangre Imperial, Toro Bill Jr., Yago, El Hijo del Signo, Oro Jr. and, Drone.

AAA: The Cubs Fan and others reported that the three-way on 11/27 in Mexico City where Lady Shani won over Keyra and La Hiedra on the Lucha Capital show was the best women’s match in Mexico this year

The Lucha Capital season finals were on 12/4 on Facebook. It opened with a second chance match with four people who did well but were eliminated, as El Hijo del Vikingo won over Carta Brava Jr., Pagano and Psycho Clown when Vikingo pinned Brava after a reverse 450. A semifinal in the men’s tournament was supposed to be Bengala vs. Flamita vs. Puma King. But Flamita looks to have left the promotion for CMLL, so it was a singles match that Puma King won after a power bomb. Fast action good match. Black Taurus won the other semifinal in a three-way over Willie Mack and Rich Swann. Keyra took the women’s final in a three-way (the tournament was built around three-way matches) over Big Mami and Lady Shani when Keyra pinned Mami after a kick to the face. The men’s final saw Vikingo win over Puma King and Taurus when Vikingo pinned Taurus after a 450. Said to be a really hot main event. Taurus and King did hard power and collision spots while Vikingo did great high flying but I’m told it’s worth going out of your way to see

With the tournament ending the second season of Lucha Capital on Facebook on 12/4, there are already strong possibilities of a season three due to preliminary numbers for the shows being above the first season

The day before the Monterrey stadium show, on 11/30, they ran a TV taping in a different part of the country in Veracruz, and noted that it was in the same building that AAA ran its first-ever show in 1992. The show drew 3,000 fans. Blue Demon Jr. came out and talked about the show, and the show the next night, and said he has a friend with him that always watches his back, and pulled out a hammer. Demon didn’t wrestle on the show but did interfere. They’ve gotten the hammer over as his big weapon since he used it to beat Dr. Wagner Jr. at TripleMania in the mask vs. hair match. Australian Suicide & Lady Maravilla & Vanilla beat Dinastia & Mr. Iguana & Big Mami when Maravilla pinned Mami with a splash off the top rope. Vanilla and Suicide had given Mami a double-team superplex to set it up. Nino Hamburguesa made the save when the rudos continued t beat on Mami after the match. He gave Vanilla, Suicide and the ref cannonballs into the corner. Maravilla then kicked Hamburguesa low and then gave Mami the frog splash and a second ref, El Hijo del Tirantes, the heel ref, ran in to count the pin. Mami then shoved Hamburguesa after the match and told him that he didn’t need his help. Tito Santana & Mocho Cota Jr. & Carta Brava Jr. beat Draztick Boy & Bengala & Eclipse when Cota pinned Eclipse after a Spanish fly. Bengala gave Brava a huracanrana off the top to the floor (with the rest there to catch them). Superfly & Monsther Clown beat Maximo & Aerostar when Monsther pinned Aerostar after putting him through a table set up between chairs and the ring. He then pulled off Aerostar’s mask. Monsther himself was a bloody mess through his mask after taking several chair shots to the head. It’s still amazing to me that because CTE isn’t an issue in the newspapers in Mexico that they do brutal chair shots to the head like it’s still 20 years ago even after the lessons of Perro Aguayo, probably the most popular wrestler in the country of the last 30 years, who took them regularly and ended up with dementia at a young age. A new wrestler was introduced, Dulce Canela, as a new exotico. Nino Hamburguesa & Faby Apache & Canal beat Abismo Negro & Villano III Jr. & Keyra when Hamburguesa pinned Negro after a splash off the top rope. Villano actually got Hamburguesa up to his shoulders for a Death Valley bomb. Rey Escorpion & El Texan Jr. & La Hiedra beat Octagon Jr. & El Hijo del Vikingo & Drago when Hiedra pinned Drago with the code red after both Escorpion and Texano did finishers on him. The idea is they humiliated Drago by having a woman pin him. At one point Drago had Hiedra pinned when Blue Demon Jr. pulled the ref out of the ring. Demon hit Drago in the leg with the hammer and all the other rudos stomped the hell out of Drago until he went out on a stretcher. Main event saw Black Taurus & Averno & Chessman over Puma King & Psycho Clown & Pagano when Chessman pinned Pagano after a low blow that Tirantes didn’t see and then to compound things, Tirantes gave Pagano a fast count. Puma gave Taurus an overhead suplex into a wooden board and later Psycho speared Taurus through another board. The rudos crotched Psycho on the post and threw Pagano off the top rope through a table on the floor. There was a big brawl after the match.

DRAGON GATE: A correction from last week. While Larry Dallas and Lenny Leonard will be doing Final Gate live on 12/15 from Fukuoka, it will be Dallas solo on the 12/18 show in Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall as Leonard has to return home for his regular job

For most of its existence, Dragon Gate, like most Japanese groups, operated with the idea of winners and losers. They did rare DQ’s. But since Ultimo Dragon has returned, they were doing more no contest and double count out finishes. On 12/1 in Sapporo, they did a double count out and a no contest in consecutive matches

They ran Korakuen Hall on 12/4 and drew 1,545 fans. In the battle of tag team partners, Ben K won a non-title match over Shun Skywalker after a spear. Then they had two straight non-finishes. Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida went to a double count out with Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida & Hyo in 8:01. Then Ultimo Dragon beat Eita via DQ when Eita went to unmask him but Yoshino stopped Eita. The mask came off and Yoshino tossed it to Eita and the ref saw Eita with the mask for the DQ. This led to another match with Ultimo Dragon & Yoshino & Doi vs. Eita and two masked men. The green masked man hit Yoshino with a bag and pinned him in 4:52. He then unmasked as Kaito Ishida, meaning he betrayed MaxiMum and joined RED. Jason Lee, who was Ishida’s teammate, was furious at him and attacked him, to set up Ishida defending the Open the Brave Gate title against Lee on 12/15 in Fukuoka, which is the Final Gate show. Eita said he would reveal the guy in he red mask on the 12/18 Korakuen Hall show

The company at the show revealed their new logo that will be used for the product starting next year. It was designed by Yoshinori Nakai of the Yudetamango manga duo who are famous for the Kinnikuman series

The first major show of 2020 will be Memorial Gate on 3/20 in Wakayama.

ALL JAPAN: A torn quadrceps (thigh) injury to The Bodyguard on 11/30 in Osaka has taken he and Daisuke Sekimoto out of the tag team tournament and they will forfeit their final matches. Bodyguard suffered the injury in a match against Zeus & Ryoji Sai which was booked to be a 30:00 draw. Bodyguard worked several minutes with the torn quad, similar, but far longer than the famous HHH torn quad injury spot in 2001 in San Jose on Raw with HHH & Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho where he tore his quad, but that was at least near the finish, but he did everything planned in the match

Not sure if that screws up the original plans because of how intricately these tournaments are laid out, but Tajiri & Kai got a forfeit win over them on 12/2 in Nagoya, Yoshitatsu & Redman got one on 12/3 and Lee & Nomura (12/8) and Akiyama & Doering (12/9) will also get them. I could see the Akiyama & Doering one screwing up since they had Akiyama & Doering do a double count out, meaning neither team got points, against Yoshida & Valletta on 12/2 in Nagoya. So it could be Akiyama’s team was to win, but they needed no points so the final point total work out, and Yoshida’s team can’t get the win either

The standings going into 12/5 are: 1. Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa 5-2; 2. Jun Akiyama & Joe Doering 4-2, 1 double count out; Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura and Tajiri & Kai 4-3; 5. Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta 4-3, 1 double count out and Parrow & Odinson 4-4; 7. Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi and Yoshitatsu & Joel Redman 3-4; 9. Zeus & Ryoji Sai 2-4-1; 10. Daisuke Sekimoto & The Bodyguard 1-5. Keep in mind that the way points are tabulated, a double count out is equivalent to a loss (zero points) while a draw is a half-win (one point), so that’s why Akiyama & Doering are at the same level as Lee & Nomura and Tajiri & Kai

11/30 in Osaka before 545 fans saw Yoshida & Valletta beat Miyahara & Aoyagi in 13:26 when Valletta pinned Miyahara in a big surprise pin, and Zeus & Sai drew Sekimoto & Bodyguard over 30:00

12/1 in Osaka saw Tajiri & Kai over Yoshitatsu & Redman in 13:48 when Tajiri pinned Redman with a small package. Suwama & Ishikawa beat Yoshida & Valletta in 14:18 when Ishikawa beat Valletta with fire thunder. Miyahara & Aoyagi beat Doering & Akiyama in 19:48 when Miyahara pinned Doering after a shutdown German suplex

12/2 in Nagoya before a full house of 891 fans was Doering & Akiyama go to a double count out with Yoshida & Valletta and Yoshitatsu & Redman beat Suwama & Ishikawa in a big upset in 20:49 when Yoshitatsu had Suwama in a submission and the ref stopped the match

12/3 in Takaoka before 387 fans saw Lee & Nomura beat Parrow & Odinson in 13:56 when Lee pinned Odinson after a back suplex.

PRO WRESTLING NOAH: Announced for the 1/4 show at Korakuen Hall, which is an afternoon show prior to the Tokyo Dome card (tickets are selling very well for this since so many tourists will be in the area) has Kaito Kiyomiya defending the GHC title against Go Shiozaki, Hayata defending the jr. title against Yoshinari Ogawa and Takashi Sugiura defending the National title against Masa Kitamiya

Dragon Bane and El Hijo de Canis Lupus debuted on 12/3 at Korakuen Hall with Bane going over. They are two of the best young high flyers in Mexico. The IWRG promotion in Mexico, where they are two of the major stars, posted an edited version of the match and it was what you’d expect. The Japanese fans wanted to see two masked guys that they don’t know do cool stuff and that’s what they did. For first-times, the crowd reacted well to them but not overwhelming or anything, but liked the unique spots

The show drew 1,083 fans with Shiozaki beating Katsuhiko Nakajima in a 15th anniversary of each man’s debut. Shiozaki won in 29:20 with a moonsault in a match to determine the next challenger for Kaito Kiyomiya’s GHC heavyweight title. Hayata retained the GHC jr. title on that show beating Chris Ridgeway in 20:14 with the headache. Kazuyuki Fujita & Hideki Suzuki worked the show teaming with Sugiura over Kenou & Kitamiya & Yoshiki Inamura when Sugiura beat Kitamiya with a guillotine and ref stoppage.

NEW JAPAN: Tokyo Dome ticket sales on 12/3 were on both nights ahead of the pace of last year’s show, which sold out. The difference is over the last month there was one show to buy tickets to rather than two, but the pace may not reflect double sellouts. Last year’s show did just under 39,000 paid with 6,000 coming from overseas, up from 2,500 the year before and a couple of hundred the year before that. The overseas growth was attributed to Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho being in the top two bouts. The network numbers grew from about 60,000 to 100,000 before the 2018 Dome for Omega vs. Jericho, but the network didn’t show that level of growth in 2019. There was some thought that losing Omega, Cody and The Young Bucks would hurt overseas sales, but that appears to have been negated by the idea of seeing two Domes instead of one. Also, there has been a growth of interest in Australia, even though this year’s tour didn’t do the attendance at the level of the first tone. But network numbers are up because New Japan can be viewed live in a decent time slot. New Year’s Dash on 1/6, moved to the Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo, which holds probably just over 4,000, is not sold out, but is very close to being so and will

Harold Meij spoke to Fox Sports Australia regarding the expansion into the U.S. and the relationship with ROH. “I actually think it complements a lot of the relationships that we have, especially with ROH for example. As we do these shows and more fans fall in love with our product, as we do more joint matches with ROH - whether ROH comes to us or we go to them - the value of the total package increases. They would see that our wrestlers are very good and so are the ROH ones.” As far as if they will continue to send wrestlers to ROH, he said, “Oh yes. We’re here for the long run with partners we tie up with.” I should note that in talking this week to Joe Koff, he said that right now, due to New Japan booking its own shows in the U.S., there is nothing on the books for any New Japan talent to be working for ROH

Regarding AEW, Meij said, “We’re very open to working with anyone, we don’t exclude anyone. But it does take time to create that trust between companies. And right now AEW is still in the exploratory phase; they’re trying to establish themselves as a brand, what is that brand? They’re about one year in, and we’re starting to see what their brand is all about. Then we’ll have to see if that brand fits our brand of course. At this stage, they still have different styles than we do, and that’s the only thing. We’re looking at what their brand positioning is and whether it complements ours.

Regarding whether the nature of Cody, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks departure would affect New Japan working with AEW, he said, “No. It’s a business, at the end of the day. The wrestlers we hire, we work with on a contractual basis for a certain period of time. Obviously we would’ve loved to have kept having them here but I can understand that if there’s in their minds a bigger and better opportunity, well then that’s just a natural way for competition to move forward. It’s a natural thing. I do also believe the likes of AEW is good for the industry, because it puts a lot of new money into the industry, and a lot of people might be getting more interested in pro wrestling - people who might not have been interested if AEW hadn’t been established. So it can only be good for the industry.”

OTHER JAPAN NOTES: In what is hopefully the sign of great news, Michinoku Pro announced that Fujita Junior Hayato would be doing an exhibition match on 12/13 on their Korakuen Hall show. Hayato has been out of action for more than a year after they found a malignant tumor on his spine

DDT and Big Japan are doing their annual joint New Year’s Eve tag team tournament at Korakuen Hall. Each team has one guy from each group although this year there are also T-Hawk & Lindaman from OWE on different teams a well as Isami Kodaka of BASARA. I didn’t go last year (went to the Mayweather Rizin show) but everyone there raved about it. The idea is the show goes past midnight so the fans celebrate New Year’s Eve with each other. The show opens with quick comedy matches and then as they reach the final rounds you get hard hitting serious matches. They also give out the independent awards. The main story this year is that Konosuke Takeshita, DDT’s top star, who teams with Orca Uto this year, is going for his fourth straight win. The other teams are Isami Kodaka & Yuki Ishikawa, Yuki Ueno & Ryota Hama, Daisuke Sasaki & Yuki Miyamoto, Tetsuya Endo & Takuya Nomura, Ryuichi Kawakami & T-Hawk, Yukio Naya & Lindaman, Yuki Iino & Yasufumi Nakanoue, Soma Takao & Kota Sekifuda, Akito & Daichi Hashimoto, Antonio Honda & Yuji Okabayashi, Harashima & Yuya Aoki, Shunma Katsumata & Ryuji Ito, Yukio Sakaguchi & Kazuki Hashimoto, Chris Brookes & Daisuke Sekimoto and Naomi Yoshimura & Bahaman Brothers

With the injury to The Bodyguard, Daisuke Sekimoto & The Bodyguard had to vacate their Big Japan tag team titles. The belts will be decided on 12/18 with Big Japan’s traditional big year-end show at the Yokohama Bunka Gym. Sekimoto will now team with Kohei Sato against Ryuichi Kawakami & Kazumi Kikuta for the titles.

Real Japan Pro Wrestling ran Korakuen Hall on 12/5 and drew a sellout of 1,659 fans for a main event where legends champion Kazuyuki Fujita beat Masakatsu Funaki via choke in 9:26 of the main event

The current DDT D-Oh Grand Prix standings have Yuki Ueno, Yuki Iino and Chihiro Hashimoto in first place in the A block with four points, Konosuke Takeshita and Keisuke Ishii have two and Chris Brooks and Tetsuya Endo have one. The B block is headed by Masato Tanaka with six, Daisuke Sasaki has four, Harashima, Bull James, Soma Takao and Yukio Sakaguchi have two and Naomi Yoshimura is scoreless

There were no title matches in Stardom this weekend, but they did angles to set up Jungle Kyona & Konami defending the Goddesses of Stardom tag titles against Starlight Kid & Riho on 12/14 in Yokohama, and for Momo Watanabe & Utami Hayashishita & AZM defending the Artist of Stardom trios titles against Tam Nakano & Saki Kashima & Starlight Kid on 12/14 at Korakuen Hall

Before Hazuki’s retirement on 12/24, they are running on 12/15 at Shinkiba where she will do a one minute match against every wrestler on the roster

Giulia debuts against Hazuki on the 12/8 show in Tokyo at Shinkiba, which also includes a rookie of the year one-night tournament with first round matches of Saya Iida vs. Leo Onozaki and Itsuki Hoshino vs. Saya Kamitani

DDT opened its Grand Prix, which is its version of G-1, on 11/29 in Yokohama before 166 fans. Harashima beat Yukio Sakaguchi in the first show main event. Woman wrestler Chihiro Hashimoto beat Chris Brookes. Masato Tanaka beat Soma Takao. On 11/30 in Yokohama before 247 fans, Tanaka beat Daisuke Sasaki and Konosuke Takeshita lost his second match to Keisuke Ishii, while Brooks went to a 30:00 draw with Tetsuya Endo that was said to be great.

HERE AND THERE: Some of the highlights of the WrestleCade show on 11/30 in Winston-Salem, NC. The show drew 3,000 fans, which is tremendous for an indie event under any standards, even if it plays off the Greensboro Thanksgiving tradition that goes back nearly 50 years. Great Muta, managed by Sonny Onoo, pinned George South with a shining wizard. After the match, Nick Aldis confronted Muta and put the NWA title belt on the mat in front of him. It felt like an idea to set up a title match. We’re told the plan is for Aldis vs. Muta for the NWA title on a future PPV show. Aldis & Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson then beat Homicide & Hernandez & Thomas Latimer when Morton used a Canadian Destroyer for the pin. The main event was scheduled as Tessa Blanchard vs. Taya Valkyrie vs. Rosemary vs. Jordynne Grace. Blanchard had to pull out of the match due to the eye injury suffered last week on the RevPro show. Su Yung replaced her. Blanchard instead did the announcing. She then talked about how a former ECW star, without mentioning Sandman by name, said backstage that he didn’t think women could main event, even as they were in front of a significant crowd. He evidently said that the fans wouldn’t accept it. She said that all the women in the ring have been all over the world and have held titles everywhere. Su Yung replaced Blanchard. The finish saw Yung have both Grace and Valkyrie in the mandible claw. Rosemary speared Su Yung to break it up. Valkyrie then rolled-up Rosemary. Grace did a dive over the guard rail into the crowd on Yung and Valkyrie

Arn Anderson did a Q&A on the weekend and was more open than he was in the past. He noted that he felt Vince McMahon, even after 17 years with the company, still saw him as a WCW guy. He noted that he laid out 95 percent of Cena matches when he was there. Anderson was known as Cena’s guy and the guy who laid out Cena’s matches, but when Cena left for Hollywood, his days were known to be numbered because Vince McMahon didn’t like him, but he was somewhat untouchable because of Cena. When he was fired, talent was very defensive of him. He was fired for allowing Alicia Fox to go into a match while allegedly drunk, but talent in that match said there was no way Anderson could have known about that before the match started

The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame that is based in Wichita Falls, TX, announced 2020 inductions which will take place the weekend of 5/14 to 5/16. Dory Funk Sr. will be inducted as an executive. Dory Sr. ran the Amarillo territory during the 60s, until his death at the age of 54 of a heart attack after shooting with Les Thornton at a ranch barbecue. While Amarillo was not a major territory on a national basis, it was part of the West Texas culture and many of the biggest stars in history started out there. It was Sr.’s power that enabled his son, Dory Jr., to get the NWA world title in 1969 from Gene Kiniski. Jr.’s four-year reign as champion wasn’t due to Sr., since he was drawing very well and they didn’t see fit to make a change until 1973. He was able to manipulate Jr.’s title reign using the family. Terry Funk would go to territories to attempt to beat the local faces, only to lose and make them credible world title contenders. Sr. & Terry would also team with Jr. in tag matches where the local star would win to also set up title matches. The pre-television era inductees are Bobby Managoff (Robert Manoogian Jr.) and George Zaharias. They are starting to get thin. Managoff, a contemporary of Lou Thesz, was a former world champion (National Wrestling Association in 1942-43) and also booked in Montreal when that was a hotbed for pro wrestling, and held that area’s world title five times. Managoff was a close friend of Lou Thesz. In fact, the last conversation I ever had with Thesz, in April 2002, just as he was about to go in for open heart surgery which he did not survive, was a discussion about Managoff, who had just passed away that week. He was very high on him as both a wrestler and a friend, and even more as a booker. Zaharias was a solid pro wrestling star but far more famous as the husband of Babe Didrikson-Zaharias, considered by most as the greatest American female athlete pre-1980. Zaharias was also close with Thesz, as when Thesz was 21 and being pushed as the young rising star in St. Louis because he was good looking, good body and the top shooter at the local wrestling gym and they were looking to make a new star because business was weak, the big step in getting Thesz ready for his world title match with Everett Marshall, was beating Zaharias. The Great Kabuki (Akihisa Mera) is the international inductee. The Sheepherders/Bushwhackers/Kiwis of Luke Williams & Butch Miller are the tag team. Luna Vachon and Debbie Combs are women inductees. Territorial era inductees are King Curtis Iaukea and Killer Karl Kox. Killer Tim Brooks is listed as a Territory/Colleague division winner. Brooks is from the area and is battling cancer. The national promotion era inductees are Jake Roberts and Magnum T.A. Of those names, Dory Sr., and Iaukea are in the Observer Hall of Fame

Stu Bennett, the former Wade Barrett, will be replacing Jim Cornette working with Joe Galli on NWA Powerrr. On the 12/3 show, at the end (they used matches that Cornette announced on during the show as well as his post-match celebration when they showed The Rock & Roll Express winning he NWA tag titles), Galli thanked Cornette for his contributions to the relaunch. This was a no win. The way it was done and tone made it sound like Cornette had just passed away. The 12/14 PPV show from Atlanta at 6:05 p.m. has Nick Aldis vs. James Storm in a 2/3 fall match with two referees for the NWA title, Rock & Roll Express vs. The Wildcard (Royce Isaacs & Thomas Latimer) for the NWA tag titles, Colt Cabana vs. Aron Stevens vs. Ricky Starkes for the National title, Allysin Kay & Ashley Vox vs. two of the trio of Melina & Marti Belle & Thunder Rosa and Eli Drake vs. Ken Anderson

A correction from last week. The Pittsburgh media personality we listed as Larry Richert who was a key part of the Bruno Sammartino documentary is actually Larry Rickert of KDKA radio, who was friends with Sammartino. He was the Executive Producer. The movie opened this past week and the feedback we got wasn’t good on it, as far as accuracy elements. I haven’t seen it, but do know that Sammartino himself was as much of a stickler for accuracy in a movie of his life as anyone, as he turned down major offers from studios because they wanted to Hollywood-ize his life story and grew frustrated as the years went on because so many were so enthusiastic about a movie on his life, but they could never get the funding independently. A part of me is surprised WWE didn’t do something in that direction since they did work with HBO on the Andre documentary, which was considered a major success. But WWE has also found that doing anything pre-Hogan really hasn’t turned out to be marketable such as DVD’s and books with guys from the pre-Hogan era.

Names that have been announced for WrestleCon in Tampa over Mania week include Kevin Nash, Magnum T.A., Mick Foley, Tessa Blanchard, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Scott Steiner, Sid Vicious, Arn Anderson, Road Warrior Animal, Ted DiBiase, Honky Tonk Man, Luke Williams, Dean Malenko, Teddy Long, Fred Ottman, Boogeyman, Joey Ryan, Colt Cabana, Sami Callihan, Kelly Kelly, Candice Michelle, Tenille Dashwood, Alicia Atout, Ethan Page, Brooke Hogan, Taurus and Puma King. Most notable is nobody from AEW

Cuervo de Puerto Rico, the wrestler who was hit in the head with a brick by Angel o Demonio in one of the worst intentional things I’ve ever seen happen in a ring, has announced his retirement just as it appeared he was ready to return. He had been out of action for a year, and said he has been medically cleared, but felt he had sacrificed enough for wrestling and no longer wants to wrestle. Angel o Demonio actually became a bigger star due to his unprofessional actions and would taunt Cuervo on Facebook, likely with the idea of building a feud out of the incident

With them in the Mexico City area on 12/6 Arena Mexico show, Ray de Jalisco Jr. will face Mascara Sagrada and Canek in a three-way match on 12/15 at Arena Naucalpan for IWRG. The main event on the show will be L.A. Park vs. Blue Demon Jr

Defy did a weekend working with PCW Ultra and Progress with shows on 11/30 and 12/1 in Seattle. Meiko Satomura defended her Progress women’s title against Nicole Savoy. Jimmy Havoc, Jacob Fatu and Jake Atlas worked the show as well, with El Phantasmo winning the main event over Artemis Spencer

AAW was back in action on 11/30 in Chicago at the Logan Square Auditorium. Travis Titan, Jake Landers and Nick Gage debuted. Gage lost to Good Brother #3 (Mance Warner under a mask). Gage was as over as anyone in the building, getting a standing ovation and “Please come back” chants. The bout led t two doors being broken, lots of chair shots, a staple gun and a barbed wire bat. Josh Alexander beat Ace Romero via submission to keep the AAW title. Paco beat Jake Something to win the AAW Heritage title. ACH & The Besties in the World (Mat Fitchett & Davey Vega) beat Sami Callihan & Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz. Said to be like a Dragon Gate style main event with lots of brawling and insane moves. ACH did an interview where he said that billionaire companies can take all the talent they want, but indie wrestling will always survive and thrive. He then said you can take your contracts and show them and that he won’t sign another contract. He then said it’s us vs. The Machine, The Machine vs. indie wrestling. Jessicka Havok retained her women’s title in the main event over Kris Statlander. Alexander next defends his title against Jacob Fatu, Paco defends against Zane and David Starr returns to team with Eddie Kingston vs. Curt Stallion & Jake Something

Ken Mick, a manager in Ohio who started out with Bobby Fulton, passed away this past week. Mick started his career managing Fulton and later in his career managed against Fulton’s son.

EUROPE: Not sure of details but Julia Hamer, better known as Saraya Knight of the famous Knight Family, posted that her husband, Ricky Knight, the father of Paige and a key character in the “Fighting With My Family”movie, was hospitalized. She also said son Zak was in a Wales hospital and son Roy was rushed to the hospital last week

OTT ran on 11/30 in Dublin with David Starr over Mike Bailey to retain the OTT title, plus Pentagon Jr & Fenix & Rey Horus beat Darren Kearney & LJ Clearly & Nathan Martin of More than Hype. Ren Narita lost when wrestling No Limits champion Scotty Davis

RevPro on 12/15 at York Hall in London has Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Evil & Sanada plus Michael Oku vs. Pac

Black Taurus from AAA has been announced for the 2020 16 Carat Gold tournament from 3/6 to 3/8 in Oberhausen, Germany, joining Mike Bailey, Chris Ridgeway and Shigehiro Irie

wXw ran 11/29 in Hamburg selling out with 525 fans in a taping for their Internet TV shw and 532 fans on 11/30 n Aurich. The top matches the first night were Bobby Gunns over Alexander Wolfe an a world title match where Timothy Thatcher retained over David Starr. The second night had Thatcher & Julian Pace & Leon van Gasteren over Gunns & Maggot & Prince Ahura in the main event. Ahura suffered a concussion in that match

The update on the 19th anniversary of wXw show on 12/14 in Oberhausen has Thatcher vs. Starr vs. Gunns for the title, Kassius Ohno vs. Lucky Kid, Amale defends the women’s title against Meiko Satomura and Avalanche defends the Shotgun title against Veit Muller, Absolute Andy and Jay Skillet

Another U.K. promotion, Empire Wrestling, announced it had folded. They announced the planned 12/15 show has been canceled and they are not running again

Fight Club Pro on 11/29 in Wolverhampton headlined with Mike Quackenbush over Tyler Bate, along with Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf 450 over LJ Cleary & Nathan Martin, Jordan Devlin beat Trent Seven and Fenix & Pentagon over Mao & Mike Bailey.

ROH: ROH will has gotten and will be getting more new television clearances as part of Sinclair purchasing the local sports channels that used to be part of the FOX Sports Net package. The plan is for ROH to appear on all the channels in a Friday night at midnight time slot. That would be the first airing in most markets of the show. There are a few markets that air the shows on Friday earlier, but most television airings on Sinclair owned stations are on Saturdays or Sundays. Los Angeles and Phoenix are key new markets getting ROH for the first time. Chicago will start in February

Announced for the last show of the year, Final Battle Fallout in Philadelphia on 12/15, is Kenny King vs. Rhett Titus, Bateman vs. Tracy Williams, Alex Shelley vs. Jonathan Gresham, Rey Horus (debut) vs. Flip Gordon, Nicole Savoy (debut) vs. Sumie Sakai and Marty Scurll & PCO vs. Jeff Cobb & Dan Maff.

IMPACT: AXS will be airing Impact specials on 12/28 and 1/4 at 8 p.m. for their awards. Notable is that 1/4 would be in the New Japan time slot. AXS has totally downplayed New Japan since the purchase since they own Impact. There hasn’t been a new episode of the show in a few weeks and this coming weekend they are airing three hours of the July show in Dallas rather than anything new. And historically they have pushed hard the 1/4 show, which has historically set record ratings with a special show and this year nothing has been mentioned. Josh Matthews and Scott D’Amore will host the awards show. They have put awards up to fan voting with the key awards being Wrestler of the Year, with Brian Cage, Eddie Edwards, Michael Elgin, Moose, Rhino, Johnny Impact, Rich Swann, Rob Van Dam, Sami Callihan (last year’s winner) and Tessa Blanchard as candidates. Knockout of the Year, and notable Blanchard is not on this list, is Alisha Edwards, Havok, Jordynne Grace, Kiera Hogan, Madison Rayne, Rosemary, Su Yung, Taya Valkyrie and Tenille Dashwood. X Division Wrestler of the year is Ace Austin, Daga, Jake Crist, Petey Williams, Swann, TJP, and Trey Miguel. Tag Team is The North, The Deaners, The Rascalz, Desi Hit Squad, Willie Mack & Swann, OVE, LAX, Rayne & Hogan and TJP & Fallah Bahh

David Sahadi, who had been with MLW in production, has returned to Impact

The current announced lineup for the 1/12 PPV is Callihan vs. Blanchard for the Impact title, Ace Austin vs. Trey Miguel for the X title and Taya Valkyrie vs. Jordynne Grace for the Knockouts title. Josh Alexander, who holds the tag titles with Ethan Page, suffered a torn biceps, but we’re still not sure what he is doing for it and how it will be addressed

They have a live show on Twitch on 12/8 from Belleville, MI at the Diamondback Saloon with Callihan vs. Rhino for the title, Valkyrie vs. Havok vs. Rosemary vs. Rayne for the Knockouts title, Austin vs. Dezmond Xavier for the X title, Cage vs. Moose, Mack & Swann vs. Jake & Dave Crist, Mad Man Fulton vs. Eddie Edwards, Desi Hit Squad vs. Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel plus Elgin in a match. On 12/7 they will have a show from Dayton on their Impact Plus streaming service with Callihan vs. Swann for the title, Valkyrie vs. Havok and Rayne vs. Rosemary.

AEW: TNT started airing new AEW ads that specifically target NXT. To say the timing of this isn’t the best is an understatement. It listed four different quotes from media sources, “AEW Delivers on its Promises” from the New York Post, and then three other quotes, “AEW Crushes NXT.” “AEW trounces NXT” and AEW Buries NXT.” I suppose a few weeks ago you’d say they were fine since this is a war, but this was not the week to debut them

Shahid Khan talked with Forbes last week on a number of different subjects. When AEW came up, he made it clear he was skeptical at first, but was in the position of giving it a try and categorized it as doing far better than expectations. “This is one of those cases where, as a father, you don’t mind being wrong. Obviously my son Tony, who had passion for it, this was his idea and God’s blessed us, we have the financial means, and we’ll try it. You get to a stage in life where you can fail and it’s not life-threatening and this was one of those. I am as surprised as anybody.” He talked about what convinced him to get into wrestling and he said, “The golden age of wrestling would be in the late 90s when you had two competitive leagues, WCW and WWF, and we know wrestling is scripted but what was definitely unscripted, real, was the competition between the leagues. In those days you had 10 million hardcore wrestling fans, today there are probably 2 million or less. So there was an audience that was underserved.” Ironically, the fan base they are attracting is younger and are likely fans turned off more by the content in recent years than those who tuned out in 2001 and never came back

The company made an official announcement that they have signed with inDemand to do at least one television PPV per quarter. This announcement just confirms what Tony Khan has pretty much said from the beginning. The idea is February and because they go on Saturdays and not Sundays, the competition becomes more of an issue. The last show going against the Logan Paul vs. KSI fight was hurt. Right now Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury is scheduled for 2/22, and Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes is 2/8. That leaves 2/1, 2/15 and 2/29, although 2/15 is head-to-head with a UFC show headlined by Jan Blachowicz vs. Corey Anderson

Chris Jericho claimed that they had sold 12,000 bottles of “A Little Bit of the Bubbly” in the first week they were put on sale. They had hit 10,000 the first two days which was stunning in that world, since it was all from a push in a television wrestling interview and virtually no other marketing

The 12/11 show in Garland, TX has Young Bucks vs. Santana & Ortiz in a street fight and Cody & QT Marshall vs. Blade & Butcher. 12/18 in Corpus Christi has Chris Jericho vs. Jungle Boy which I believe is a 10:00 challenge

Jim Ross’ second autobiography, written with Paul O’Brien, and covering roughly the last 20 years (where the first book ended) is scheduled for a 3/30 release. He talked bout the rise of Dwayne Johnson, Steve Austin and John Cena, his relationship with Vince McMahon, the death of his wife, his various health issues and moving to AEW

On BTE, they did a skit where Leva Bates as The Librarian was reading books to Ortiz & Santana & Sammy Guevara. The idea was that she was the hot teacher and they were kids who were in detention. They would call her Miss Bates. She asked them the lesson they learned today and they said in unison, “Don’t kidnap people.” Guevara was trying to hit on her. She accidentally left her purse behind and Guevara gave it back to her but they stole her cell phone and then went to sell it. As it turned out, BTE was BTIC (Being the Inner Circle) and they even chanted it the same as “The Inner Circle, The The Inner Circle.” Jake Hager is really jealous of how close Jericho and Guevara are, staring into a life-size cardboard cutout of Jericho & Guevara and pounding on his laptop editing the episode. It ended with the lights flashing in the dressing room like there was a surprise run-in and it was Nick Jackson on the lockers saying “merch freak” doing his magic routine and Santana suddenly had a Young Bucks T-shirt on. It ended with Brandon Cutler finding his camera that he films the show on the floor, so the idea was the Inner Circle stole his camera but Nick scared them and they ran away, leaving the camera behind

In something that needed to be on the TV show, but instead was released that night on Twitter, MJF, who mentioned on Twitter (but not television) that he will never wrestle Cody, did cut a very good promo, also on Twitter but not television, saying that he was the one who paid for Butcher & Blade to come in and attack Cody. MJF is also playing a rich spoiled kid character and put over the $45,000 diamond ring he won last week. If there is one major problem right now, it is the assumption that the television audience is already aware of everyone, follows Dark, BTE and social media and television is about presenting matches and angles and that the storylines can be tied together elsewhere. There is also the mentality that the promotion is a smorgasbord, a little of this, a little of that, as opposed to have a certain style and theme. It comes from Eddie Graham, but the big difference is that when Eddie Graham was on his game, it was all about wrestling and being a sport, and granted, this is 45 years later and you can’t go back in time. But Eddie’s smorgasbord was technical matches with good workers underneath, a fun tag match, maybe a European style, good young guys, wily vets and both brawls and different gimmick matches and divergent storylines both with factions and blood feuds and rivalries over belts. It wasn’t about trying to appeal to different genres of hardcore fans, whether through great wrestling, silly gimmicks (which did come at the end in Florida when it was dying as attempted hotshots), comedy or irony. The attempt to appeal to everyone isn’t going to work as people want a WWE alternative. The last few weeks are coming across very much TNT, essentially WWE Lite, except with hotter fans, better in-ring in some but not all cases, and definitely a higher level of promos

.Notes from the 12/4 tapings in Champaign, IL. They taped at the University of Illinois campus, which is Tony Khan’s alma mater, which explains the Tony Khan chants during the show. There were some technical issues early. The most notable were sound problems, which was the second straight week with those issues. It was pretty bad for the first six minutes of the show. What was notable is that the issues were bad on television, but the Fite TV sound was perfect. It had to do with TNT, since all the live broadcasts for television go through TNT (which is why TNT and ITV 4 being unable to work things out to get things in synch is why the show airs on Fite live in the U.K. rather than ITV 4). The other was camera shots. They drew 4,100 fans, which is about what they draw in most markets. It’s about what Smackdown was doing on Tuesdays (things picked up for live drawing on Friday, just as this group would draw significantly better on Friday or Saturday, but the ratings would be worse) but Smackdown would run NBA arenas with 4,000 and only shoot where the fans were. They were doing shots all through the show which showed the empty upper deck. Even for Raw, in buildings like this, WWE isn’t shooting to where the viewer can see the empty upper deck. It opened with a dark match where Scorpio Sky beat Jimmy Havoc and Peter Avalon. Avalon tried to use a book as a foreign object and Havoc had his staple gun. Scorpio won with a diamond cutter. Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes beat Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara in 10:54. This was great. Matt did a plancha on all three. Nick did a twisting corkscrew dive to the floor. Rhodes did a cannonball off the apron. Matt did multiple Northern Lights suplexes, including one on two guys. He tried it on all three but couldn’t get it. Then they worked on Matt. Rhodes got a ht tag and did a crossbody on all three. Rhodes did a Canadian Destroyer. Ortiz hit Rhodes with the loaded sock. Guevara hit a 630 on Rhodes. The crowd was going nuts. This ended up as far as crowd reaction and action as being easily the best match of the night, although the NXT main event was very good in a different way. Matt pinned Guevara after Matt and Rhodes each had a guy in a tombstone position and Nick came off the top rope with a double foot stomp spike, similar to what Fenix does, except one foot on each guy. Rey Fenix beat Trent in 11:01. For whatever reason, whether following the prior match, the crowd wasn’t that hot, which is unusual since the crowd is always hot for AEW. Fenix ran on the top rope and kicked him. It was actually quite amazing. There was a double springboard double foot stop to the back. Fenix won with a spinning muscle buster. By the end, this match was pretty damn good as well. Cody came out for the promo he needed to do. That scar on his forehead isn’t going away. He talked about The Blade, The Butcher and The Bunny and how they beat him down last week and nobody helped him, since his brother and the Young Bucks are in a feud with Santana & Ortiz and his best friend, MJF, kicked him in the balls. He said he knew who The Blade & The Butcher were, said they were Pepper Parks & Andy Williams and knew about them from Beyond Wrestling and Bar Wrestling. Cody wanted a match with Blade & Butcher right now and said that he’ll even let them pick his partner. He ripped on MJF, saying his scarf is fake, he does the worst crossroads (it did look ugly last week) and people are now botching it on two channels (it’s being used in NXT as well). He called MJF a bush-league NWO version of Chris Jericho. He threw the keys to his truck on the ground saying MJF could have them since he’s always liked his truck. He threw his watch that Khan gave him, noting it’s the most expensive thing on his body, his red sole shoes and then brought in a suitcase with $50,000 in cash for MJF to take the match. He then took $100 from the top and had someone give it to a kid in the front row who was seemingly dressed like Cody (he looked more like El Hijo de Jack Gallagher). He said that he still thinks MJF is the future of the business but he was going to harm and lacerate him. Backstage, Joey Janela was doing a promo when Jon Moxley came out. Moxley is much bigger than Janela and they have to take it into account when shooting. They had Moxley closer to the camera, so it made the size difference look twice as bad rather than shoot it to where it looks better. There was another Dark Order vignette. I could handle one of these on the show, but before it was over, we had three heel segments that felt too similar. Had they played the MJF interview, I wouldn’t have had that feeling because then Blade & Butcher would feel different from Dark Order. They showed a skit backstage of Nyla Rose power bombing Shanna on a table. Rose beat Leva Bates with a power bomb in 1:35. Avalon got in the ring. With Avalon distracting, Bates hit Rose from behind with a book, but she no-sold it and destroyed Bates after choke slamming both at the same time. She gave Bates a second power bomb. Shanna came out. The quality of the work just wasn’t good in this brawl. Rose powerslammed Shanna and went to get a table. The tease was putting Shanna through a table again, but she put referee Rick Knox through the table. When she did that, they did a cutaway of Britt Baker in the first row looking concerned exactly how she looked when Adam Cole took that Air Raid Crash off the top of the cage through the table for the War Games finish. Then Rose put Shanna through a table as well. Much of this was on screen-in-screen, and to me, you should never do angles during screen-in-screen. Rose was suspended indefinitely for attacking a ref. Chris Jericho came out with Jake Hager in purple, I guess trying to cross Big Bubba Rogers with Barney the Dinosaur. Jericho said that nobody from Champaign, IL ever made a damn thing of themselves. People did chant Tony Khan’s name. He noted that he was under contract for one last match this year which would be on 12/18 in Corpus Christi. He had a list, but since he’d didn’t want to use the term a list, it was The Lexicon of Le Champion. He mentioned 12,000 bottles of wine being sold last week and plugged it again. He then did a list of guys he would not face. He mentioned Jon Moxley, Cody Rhodes (laughing that Rhodes isn’t allowed another title match), The Young Bucks, Papa Buck, Uncle Buck (an old movie starring John Candy), Buck Owens (country-western star of another generation), Moxley (who was his armbar go to line in a list of names that was similar to his 1,004 holds promo in the 90s), Hangman Page, Diamond Dallas Page, Paige, Scorpio Sky, Too Cold Scorpio, any member of the band The Scorpions, Moxley, Michael Nakazawa, Kenny Omega, Kenny Ortega(a film director best known for High School Musical), Kenny Shields (a Winnipeg rock star who was the lead singer of Streetheart), Kenny Chesney (country music star), Kenny from South Park, Moxley, some fans, Moxley, Darby Allin, Rick Allen (the one armed drummer from Def Leppard), Allen Jones (A.J. Styles’ real name), Evil Uno, Angry Dos, Hateful Tres, Moxley and Marty (presumably a hint of Marty Scurll). Out came Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt. Jericho then noted he wouldn’t face any dinosaurs or small children. Luchasaurus then did his BTE bit where you think he’s this dinosaur who can’t talk, but he actually speaks well and noted his Master’s Degree in Medieval Literature. Jericho knocked dinosaurs and Luchasaurus noted that we’ve been marginalized for 65 million years. This was funny. There were a few jokes about Stunt, and then Luchasaurus brought up he said nothing about Jungle Boy. Jericho noted he was Jack Perry and called him a Hollywood Golden Child and piece of shit. Jericho said that he didn’t think Jungle Boy could last ten minutes with him. Jungle Boy said he knew he could. A brawl broke out. They’ve been teasing Luchasaurus vs. Hager a few times as the two really tall guys, but with just seconds of brawling, it did not look good. Jungle Boy dropkicked Jericho out of the ring. There are many obvious ways you can go with the rookie small babyface ten minute gimmick with the main event heel, which is a storyline that goes back decades. Kris Statlander pinned Hikaru Shida in 8:27. This was really good and the crowd was strong into it. They pushed that Shida was the top contender for the women’s title and pushed like Statlander was a newcomer with size and athletic ability. The entire commentary made you think it would be competitive and Shida would win. Statlander connects with the crowd even though she’s green. It wasn’t as if they were all behind Statlander as there were chants for Shida as well. Statlander got the clean pin with a cradle tombstone. This was good because in one match they established Statlander as a title contender level wrestler. The lights went out and Brandi Rhodes & Awesome Kong came out. The idea you expected was for them to cut the hair of Statlander or Shida, but Statlander stood right up to Kong. A woman at ringside wanted to join their group called Nightmare Collective. It was independent woman wrestler Melanie Cruise, who is from Chicago and works for Shimmer and Rise as Raven Ash. As a pledge, she allowed Kong to cut her hair. The problem right now is that with two hours a week, they don’t have the time to give even their biggest stars weekly exposure or momentum, as this show had no Kenny Omega, Adam Page, MJF, Pac, Darby Allin, Scorpio Sky and they need to get people over as TV stars before continually introducing new people each week. Pentagon Jr. beat Christopher Daniels in 8:39. This was a big grudge match coming off Pentagon injuring Daniels with a package piledriver on the ramp. But it didn’t click at all. Daniels slipped on an Arabian moonsault attempt and fell on his face and they never recovered. Pentagon used a low blow and package piledriver after the ref was distracted by Daniels throwing the mic stand out of the ring that Fenix had thrown in. Moxley beat Janela in the main event in 9:31. Good match. The size difference was an issue and Moxley wouldn’t oversell for him because of it. But Janela did enough crazy stuff that the crowd was into it. He used a tope. They worked a Japanese style match. Janela German suplexed Moxley into the buckles. The cameras missed Janela coming off the top rope and you just saw this body fly at Moxley and put him through a table on the floor. Moxley won with a double arm suplex dropping Janela’s head on the top turnbuckle followed by the Paradigm shift. After the match, Jericho and the Inner Circle mocked Moxley’s ring entrance by coming down from the crowd as the show went off the air. It’s very clear the long-term is Jericho vs. Moxley as the probable next PPV main event, so they tease that, while filling time with Jericho vs. Jungle Boy. Similar to Cody with Blade & Butcher while getting to MJF. In that sense, the booking strategy is identical to that of NXT. Next was Stunt & Luchasaurus over Alex Reynolds & John Silver. Said to be entertaining. Stunt sold, Luchasaurus hot tagged in and choke slammed both and it ended with Stunt pinning Reynolds. The Dark main event saw Omega beat Kip Sabian. We were told this was great and possibly the match of the night. Penelope Ford kept getting involved and Sabian got a lot of near falls. The crowd was buying the near falls before Omega came back to win with the One Winged Angel. After the match, Cody, The Young Bucks, Omega, Khan and Brandon Cutler ended the show saying thank you to the audience.

UFC: Tony Ferguson agreed to terms, so barring injury or something unforeseen, he will challenge Khabib Nurmagomedov on 4/18 in Brooklyn. Thus far in the four times they’ve been booked, injury and something unforeseen has a perfect record

UFC is also looking at a 3/7 PPV show, location as yet unconfirmed, for a Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk strawweight title defense. Jedrzejczyk is still the division’s biggest star while Zhang took apart Jessica Andrade to win the title and is one of the company’s big hopes in the Chinese market. Rose Namajunas should be the fighter on deck to challenge whoever wins, since she’s got two wins over Jedrzejczyk and hasn’t gotten a rematch since losing the title. Namajunas looked spectacular in her last three fights, but was slammed on her head and knocked out by Andrade, who then dropped the title to Zhang

UFC is working on Corey Anderson vs. Jan Blachowicz for 2/15 in Rio Rancho, NM. In theory, the winner of this fight should face the winner of the Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes fight on 2/8 in Houston for the light heavyweight title

Georges St-Pierre’s long-time trainer, Firas Zahabi, said that St-Pierre is still a monster in the gym and trains all the time and believes he is still open to one more fight. I’m not so sure because when fighters pull out of drug testing is when you know they’ve given up on the idea. Lots of fighters, St-Pierre and Urijah Faber being the most notable, said they were retired but stayed in the testing pool because if you pull out, that means a six month period before you can agree to a fight before you can fight. Zahabi said the fight he would want is Khabib Nurmagomedov at 165 pounds, which that way wouldn’t be a title fight. Everyone knows UFC wouldn’t give St-Pierre a title fight after he won the middleweight title, had promised to defend it against Robert Whittaker had he won it, and then retired. I still don’t see how St-Pierre vs. Conor McGregor was never made, especially after McGregor lost the title. The only reason I can figure is UFC felt McGregor would lose that fight and they didn’t want him losing again, at least to someone where the win wouldn’t benefit the company since St-Pierre would likely retire on that win

Brian Ortega pulled out of his 12/21 main event against Chan Sung Jung in Busan, South Korea due to an undisclosed injury according to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. Frankie Edgar will be the replacement. Edgar was going to fight Cory Sandhagen on 1/25 in Raleigh. Sandhagen was not happy about losing his best shot in his career to make a name

Holly Holm vs. Raquel Pennington in a rematch of a fight Holm won a few years back has been added to the 1/18 show in Las Vegas. Also added to that show is Tim Elliot vs. undefeated Askar Askarav

Francis Ngannou has publicly issued a challenge for Alexander Volkov on the 1/18 PPV show

Junior Dos Santos was eliminated this past week from Brazil’s Dancing With The Stars show called Danca dos Famosos. He had missed a few weeks with the same injury that saw him drop out of the show in Moscow on 11/9. There were five couples left and he got the fewest votes. Now that he’s eliminated, he’s coming to Florida to start training for a 1/25 fight in Raleigh against Curtis Blaydes

. Johnny Walker vs. Nikita Krylov is being talked about for 3/14 and is likely to happen

Robert Whittaker’s return after losing the middleweight title is being talked about for 3/7 against Jared Cannonier. Since Cannonier and Yoel Romero were the two people being talked about for Israel Adesanya’s next middleweight title defense, process of elimination makes Romero the favorite at this point to get the shot and it is Romero, even coming off two losses, who was the one being talked about

This week’s show includes five hours on ESPN from 7 p.m. until midnight Eastern. The show starts with two fights on ESPN+ at 6 p.m. Eastern, with Trevor Smith (15-9) vs, Makmud Muradov (23-6) and Mallory Martin (6-2) vs. Virna Jandiroba (14-1). For ESPN, it’s Matt Wiman (16-8) vs. Joe Solecki (8-2), Matt Sayles (8-2) vs,. Bryce Mitchell (11-0), Billy Quarantillo (12-2) vs. Jacob Kilburn (8-2), Tim Means (28-11-1) vs. Thiago Alves (23-14), Ricky Simon (15-2) vs. Rob Font (16-4), Song Yadong (14-3) vs,. Cody Stamann (18-2), Aspen Ladd (8-1) vs. Yana Kunitskaya (12-4), Stefan Struve (29-11) vs. Ben Rothwell (36-12), Marina Rodriguez (12-0-1) vs. Cynthia Calvillo (8-1) and Alistair Overeem (45-17) vs. Jairzniho Rozenstruik (9-0); Stamann vs. Yadong is a notable bantamweight fight. Stamann has won 11 of his last 12, with his only loss to Aljamain Sterling over the last five years. Yadong is 4-0 in UFC with three finishes, and he’s actually a bigger star in China than women’s strawweight champion Weili Zhang. Struve vs. Rothwell are two name heavyweights but they are both in the pack these days. Rodriguez vs. Calvillo are No. 9 and No. 10 in the strawweight rankings, but the nature of who is ranked above them, the winner wouldn’t be far from a title shot. Overeem vs. Rozenstruik is big as Rozenstruik is 9-0 with eight knockouts, and is 3-0 in UFC with three knockouts in a total of 92, most recent being 29 seconds with Andrei Arlovski. UFC badly needs a new heavyweight star and a win here for Rozenstruik would make him that. This is the real test to see if he’s a guy who destroys underneath guys, but does he have what it takes against the real guys

After losing in his light heavyweight debut to Jan Blachowicz, Ronaldo Jacare Souza is thinking about moving back to middleweight

Nate Marquardt, 40, who retired two years ago, told MMA Junkie that he would be returning to fight in 2020. Marquardt had gone 3-8 from 2013 to 2017 before retiring and looked shot at the end. He said he would fight at welterweight rather than middleweight. He fought at welterweight in 2012 and 2013 and went 1-3 and then moved back to middleweight. Marquardt would be a free agent at this point since his UFC deal expired with his last fight

Jorge Masvidal said that he would rather face someone like Conor McGregor or Nick Diaz than get a title fight. That makes sense in this day and age when title fights don’t mean a lot, but Masvidal vs. Nate Diaz was one of the most talked about fights of the year

Brad Tavares vs. Antonio Carlos Jr., has been verbally agreed to for the 3/14 show in Brasilia, Brazil, which also include Paige VanZant vs. Amanda Ribas

Macy Chiasson vs. Nicco Montano has been added to the 2/25 show in Rio Rancho, NM

Molly McCann vs. Ashelee Evans-Smith has been targeted for a 3/21 show in London.

BELLATOR: Benson Henderson suffered an undisclosed injury, taking him out of the 12/29 show in Saitama, Japan, where he was to face Michael Chandler. Chandler will now face Sidney Outlaw, who has won nine fights in a row, including most recently beating Roger Huerta

Bellator announced a 2/21 show in Thackerville, OK on Paramount headlined by Ed Ruth (8-1) vs. Yaroslav Amosov (22-0) and Brandon Girtz (16-8) vs. Myles Jury (17-5).

OTHER MMA: Reports are that the Deontay Wilder vs. Luis Ortiz heavyweight boxing title fight did about 250,000 buys.

Another business lesson of repeated shows in the same market. The PFL ran playoff events at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on 10/11, 10/17 and 10/31. The first show drew 3,346 paid and $149,888 (with 3,004 comps), the second show drew 1,571 paid for $77,191 with 2,261 comps, and the third show drew 411 paid for $29,716 with 2,202 comps

C.B. Dollaway, who has fought for UFC since the early 2008 season of the Ultimate Fighter, where he lost in the finals to Amir Sadollah is now gone. Dollaway’s contract expired after his 9/15 loss to Khalid Murtazaliev in Moscow, is debuting with Rizin on its New Year’s Eve show at the Saitama Super Arena, and will face light heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka in a title bout

Combate Americas announced a one-night eight-man tournament for $100,000 from Lima, Peru that will air live on Univision and DAZN on 12/30. It will be a lightweight tournament with two fighters from the U.S., two from Argentina, and one from Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Brazil.

WWE: Brandon Thurston, who studies the economics of pro wrestling, on our show this past week noted that he had done research just a few weeks ago that showed that even after six years, that the costs and profits of the WWE Network were such that WWE would have been financially better off frm a profit margin sticking with PPV. He used Google trends to extrapolate how the PPV shows would have done, so that would figure in a decline. It’s been a given that they made less regarding major shows, but the idea is the monthly regular shows have done better with 1.5 million subscribers at $9.99 vs. 150,000 purchasers at $60. The problem is the profit margin on the network isn’t nearly so large. For a long time, the monthly profit on the network was less than $2 per month per subscriber, plus there is the cost of programming and the network itself. Also, a key is there were tremendous start-up costs that weren’t recouped. It’s notable that when the network was launched we were talking with people in WWE and any change in a company that was profitable, but not wildly so, of that magnitude is a concern. The idea was that the good thing was the television rights were going up a little so that increase could carry them until network revenues, which was thought to be the key in long-term growth, would catch up to what was lost in PPV. As it turned out, the network, which they were expecting to be at between three and four million subscribers by this point, never caught on at the level expected, but television rights exploded and that ended up being the key to business. Overall UFC, if you combine the streaming platform and PPV, was far more profitable for big shows than WWE, combining the network with whatever is left of its PPV business. But UFC had surpassed WWE in PPV in 2006 and it was rarely ever close again, even in bad UFC years. Ultimately, the decision to do the network was a good one for the long run. There is a mix of big shows better off on PPV that is probably something between UFC’s 12 or 13 PPV’s a year and WWE’s zero

Orange County in Florida (Orlando) has approved of $125,000 in funding in an attempt to bring more major WWE shows to the market. The commission voted to use tax dollars earmarked for tourism development to bring in either SummerSlam or Survivor Series. The approved funding $75,000 to get SummerSlam in either 2020, 2021 or 2022, and $50,000 to get Survivor Series over the same next three years. They estimated that SummerSlam would bring $6 million in total economic impact to the city and Survivor Series would bring $4 million

Tommaso Ciampa claimed that he told management that he would retire from wrestling if they made the call to move him to Raw or Smackdown. It would surprise people if you talk with talent how many really don’t look at money as their primary thing, because a top guy in NXT makes (a guy like Balor being the obvious exception), if they are lucky, one-fourth of a lower level guy on Raw or Smackdown or more likely one-sixth. But there are absolutely guys who don’t want to be called up. Some recognize the realities of it, and for Ciampa, another key is the schedule. He isn’t working any house shows so he’s just doing TV and Takeover right now, and Johnny Gargano has been doing that as well since March. That wouldn’t work on the main rosters. NXT has so many guys that need work so the guys whose bodies are breaking down but are great are being saved for big shows and to help with Wednesday ratings since NXT house shows are drawing the same no matter who is on them, and most of the guys in NXT need more house show work, not less, so this works for all concerned. He told Lilian Garcia on her Chasing Glory show, “Before, I just didn’t want to because I really believed in NXT and wanted to ride it. I wanted to see how far we could take it. Now it’s hit a whole different level of … there is that, but I have a little one at home and my schedule is better in NXT than it would be on the road. I had neck surgery and I’m not freaking stupid. I get that my window is smaller than it was and my bump card is ticking. I just look at like, if I’m doing 200 plus dates a year on the road with Raw or SmackDown OR I’m doing a manageable load of 30 to 50 matches with NXT – I can do 4 years of that in the time that I do 1 year on Raw or SmackDown. So how long can my career and portfolio grow here as opposed to going there.” “I legitimately vocalized to them, if I have to go to Raw or SmackDown then I’m gonna retire. I would love to produce or coach or be a part of it, but there’s no way I’m taking on that load and going, ‘Yeah, I’ll just have a six month run and then call it quits.’ I just won’t do that. It’s not worth it to me.

There were a couple of major changes with the WWE Network this past week. The first is that they launched the free tier on 12/5 with no fanfare. The idea has been to do a three-tiered network, with a free tier, the $9.99 tier and a $14.99 tier (which should be launched early next year and would feature content from Evolve, Progress, wXw and perhaps other promotions) for early next year. The other change is a crackdown on people from other countries who are getting the network in a manner they aren’t supposed to by using a U.S. proxy address. It appears this is aimed at Canada, where WWE has deals in place with the cable providers and fans are going around those deals. The WWE Network in Canada is a cable television station and there aren’t the options and archives like the U.S. version, just the live stream and limited VOD content. So Canadians have been using a VPN address to subscribe and get the full VOD content. They have found a way to crack down on this. What makes this notable is if there are a significant number of Canadians or people from other countries doing this, it would mean a significant drop in U.S. subs by 12/31, a number that was already feared would fall below 1 million for the first time in many years

In the Canadian ratings, AEW on 11/27 was once again not in the top ten for the night meaning less than 115,000 viewers. The prior week was the first time NXT, which airs on Fridays in a one hour edited form as the Smackdown lead-in, had beaten AEW or made the top ten in sports for the night. On 11/29, Smackdown did 198,300 viewers while NXT failed to break into the top ten. On 12/2, Raw did 244,700 viewers, second to only Monday Night Football in the sports category. AEW on 12/4 did 98,500 viewers. It wasn’t that many weeks ago it was dueling Smackdown evenly

For Germany, Raw on 11/27 did 260,000 viewers (edited to two hours), Smackdown on 11/30 did 190,000 and AEW on 11/29 did 20,000 on a much weaker station

Christopher DeJoseph, the former WWE and Lucha Underground writer, has left MLW to return here. DeJoseph worked with WWE from 2004 to 2010, and appeared on television at times as Big Dick Johnson, the overweight guy in a thong doing lewd dancing. He was hired as Executive Producer at the end of October by MLW, but it was very clear he was looking to get into WWE. In particular, he sent out tweets when the Wednesday Night Wars started heavily critical of AEW and how WWE wasn’t even concerned about them, which of course all actions by WWE have completely made that look ridiculous. The belief is he will wind up involved with Smackdown

Mauro Ranallo returned to announcing NXT on the 12/4 show. No mention was made whatsoever about him not being there the week before. He did appear to have lost weight but that also could be what he was wearing, but as far as his work went, he was good and there was no indication anything was different

Lawler (and Dutch Mantell, who was born on the same day), turned 70 on 11/29

WWE is marketing new Wyatt Fiend Universal title belts for $6,499.99. Each belt, made of latex skin and acrylic eyes, will be numbered and will include a certificate of authenticity hand-signed by Tom Savini, who created both the belt and The Fiend mask

The Sports Business Journal annual survey, if anything, how much UFC has declined in interest in the sports business world. UFC used to be all over the survey responses and now it was nil. There were a few WWE mentions. WWE was listed as the 10th hottest sports property, but also in 7th for the sports property trending in the wrong direction. When it came to the XFL, people were not bullish. 26 percent believed the league would last less than one season while another 66 percent felt it would last between two and five seasons. Only eight percent believed it would reach its sixth season. Neither WWE nor UFC were listed as companies you would want your company to sponsor, which, in order were NBA, MLB, minor league baseball, NFL, NCAA, MLS, PGA, NHL, EPL and Overwatch League. Neither UFC Fight Pass nor WWE Network were listed as streaming services subscribe to. ESPN+ was fifth and DAZN was tenth. Neither wrestling, MMA or boxing were listed in the sports streamed the most. As far as combat sports, the question is who will have the most success with them in 2020, DAZN was first (boxing, Bellator, Combate Americas), with ESPN+ second (UFC, PFL), followed by Fox (WWE, Boxing), ESPN (UFC, boxing) and Showtime (boxing). WWE was first in what company is best at producing a live event spectacle

Punk, playing smartass on Twitter, when John Hennigan Morrison noted he was coming back to stand opposite the most talented people in the business, Punk tweeted to him, “Will Ospreay is in New Japan.” Punk will return to WWE Backstage on 12/10

Rollins on WWE Backstage brought up the Hell in a Cell match and noted the red light and not being told about it in advance. Evidently it was very hard for both he and Wyatt to see outside the ring. Apparently both Rollins and Wyatt, and all the fans live and watching on television didn’t like it. So they keep doing it. They could add the red for people watching on television without screwing the wrestlers and live fans through production, although it’s a dumb idea either way. I’m still trying to grasp the idea that nobody likes it yet they keep doing it

NXT has done a good job of pushing the last two weeks of television. On 12/11, they have Keith Lee vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Finn Balor, with the winner facing Adam Cole for the title on 12/18. Also on 12/11 is Dakota Kai vs. Mia Yim, built with a direct angel, and Lio Rush vs. Angel Garza for the cruiserweight title. Also on 12/18 is Shayna Baszler vs. Rhea Ripley, which is their biggest women’s title match

Cena was announced as co-starring in a comedy called “Vacation Friends” with Meredith Hagner and Lil Rel Howery. The movie is about a straight-laced couple that hangs out with a rowdy couple on a Mexican vacation, and when they return home, they find that the crazy couple in Mexico has moved into their neighborhood

The reason Samoa Joe didn’t announce on the 11/25 Raw is that they had already booked him for the Backstage show on 11/26 in Los Angeles, and Raw was in Chicago. He was back on the show this week. This is only temporary. Dio Maddin, who was never brought back after taking the F-5 from Lesnar on the table weeks ago, is officially off the show. You get no chance to learn and improve on national TV and he started off very green at this, as he was going to do being he had never done it before. Maddin was a Heyman pick for new announcer. When asked about if Joe would be permanent in the role because he has been so strong in it, the reaction was that they consider him too valuable as a talent right now and he’s only there until his hand injury heals

Lance Storm started on the road at the Raw tapings in Nashville as a producer

Leah Van Dale (Carmella) has started her own Capo Cagna wine business, with the motto that it’s wine not for snobs

Sari Fujimura, 23 of the Pro Wrestling Diana promotion, who was believed to be one of the key people earmarked for NXT Japan, got coverage in Tokyo Sports this past week with a meeting with Masahiro Chono to get his blessing to use the STF when she goes to WWE

Matt Hardy, 45, and wife Rebecca, had their third boy on 12/3, named Bartholomew Kit Hardy. He joins two-year-old Wolfgang and four-year-old Maxel in the family

Arissa LeBrock, a model whose mother is Kelly LeBrock and father is Steven Segal, got a tryout this past week. Kelly LeBrock was a famous model and actress who was considered one of the hottest women in the world in the 80s, best known for her role in the movie “Weird Science”

Dave Bautista and Ashley Sebara (Dana Brooke) have been teasing the idea of a relationship in Twitter messages back-and-forth. It’s gotten to the point it has gotten mainstream newspaper coverage. Last I had heard is that after the death of Sebara’s boyfriend, competitive bodybuilder Dallas McCarver, in 2017, when he choked on food at the age of 26, she dated NBA star and big pro wrestling fan Enes Kanter.

. Jon Huber (Luke Harper) on 11/26 applied for a trademark for the name Brodie Lee. Huber has been trying to get his release and evidently has decided to use that name

In a more interesting note, Ashley Fliehr (Charlotte) has applied to trademark the name Ashley Flair and The Queen of Wrestling. Unlike with Huber who obviously is interested in leaving, I can’t see her leaving given she’s got a great contract and she actually is under contract for more money due to the times than Ric Flair was ever under contract for during his career. But I think she saw with her father’s situation with “The Man,” that it’s best be proactive just in case. So if she does leave and wants to do something, whether wrestling or entertainment, the WWE can’t claim ownership of the Flair name and she can market herself as the Queen. Her boyfriend, Andrade, is applying for trademarks for La Sombra, his name in Mexico, and El Idolo. Basically that’s guarding against CMLL somehow claiming the rights to his old name in case he may want to use it later

Reigns vs. Ziggler was announced for the 12/6 Smackdown show

Stephen Amell was booked on WWE Backstage on 12/3 to plug his new wrestling series “Heels” on Starz, pulled out due to a pinched nerve in his neck

Brendan Vink will be starting with Evolve this coming weekend, with his debut against Colby Corino on 12/6 in Livonia, MI. Evolve also announced plans for Mania weekend. WWE affiliated groups like Evolve, wXw and Progress are all running this year in Tampa. There will be a tournament with wrestlers from all the promotions on 4/2 with Noon and 4 p.m. shows called Accelerate. Progress runs 4/2, the Thursday, at 8 p.m. and there will be the WWN Supershow at 11:55 p.m. Evolve runs Noon on 4/3 and Shimmer at 4 p.m. On 4/4, Evolve runs at noon and wXw at 4 p.m

With the stock market down this past week from record-levels, WWE stock fell slightly to $61.74 per share, giving the company a market value of $4.850 billion

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network over the past week were: 1. Starrcade 2019; 2. Survivor Series 2019; 3. WWE 24: Trish Stratus; 4. Starrcade 2018; 5. Steve Austin interviews Undertaker; 6. NXT from 11/28; 7. NXT Takeover War Games 2019

Notes on the 11/29 Smackdown tapings in Birmingham. So the “yes” chants are back and even though Bryan got beat clean, he’s being set up for another match with Wyatt. He may also not have hair or a beard. The show drew 4,600 fans, which is similar to what AEW draws for TV. If there is a silver lining, the crowd was much hotter than usual, also like an AEW crowd. The show opened with Reigns out to loud cheers, one of his best TV reactions in a long time. He wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and came across like a top babyface. He told everyone that Thanksgiving means family, good health and happiness. At this point a small NXT chant got started and the live fans started booing the chant. Reigns acknowledged it, said the NXT guys were bad ass but that Smackdown kicked their ass. Well, in his match. He also noted that one year ago at Thanksgiving of those three things, family, good health and happiness, he only had one of them, which was family. He thanked Ali and Shorty G and Strowman, but said they had one dummy on the team. WWE seems to mean you never take responsibility for your actions, given Reigns was captain and he picked a guy who went right on television and said they wanted a big brawl where he wouldn’t help Reigns and Reigns would get hurt. Reigns called out the dummy. Corbin came out and claimed he was the reason Smackdown won that match. This was going to be an interesting rationale. He claimed that his leadership was the key. He also noted that he eliminated two guys before Reigns selfishly betrayed his team and got him eliminated. He said that Reigns’ ego couldn’t handle that he was going to be the one to win it for the team and be the sole survivor. He also noted while the rest of Birmingham, Reigns and wrestling fans were eating burned turkey for Thanksgiving, he was eating the biggest juiciest turkey, drank the finest wine and had servants cooking and cleaning after him. Servants? He said he was thankful he doesn’t live in this part of the country where the food is even worse than the football team. Reigns wanted a match with Corbin, but Corbin said he wanted Reigns to face Roode. Reigns beat Roode in 13:40. Corbin and Ziggler were at ringside. This was a good heated match. Ziggler interfered a few times. Reigns gave Ziggler a Superman punch off the steps. This allowed Roode to throw him into the post and steps. Corbin gave Roode the scepter and distracted the ref, but Reigns hit the Superman punch and spear on Roode for the win. After the match Ziggler attacked Reigns. He tried a superkick but Reigns gave Ziggler a Samoan drop. Corbin attacked but Reigns threw him into the post. Roode hit Reigns with the scepter and was beating him down. The crowd was really hot at this point. Reigns made a comeback and hit Roode with a Superman punch. Reigns speared Roode through the barricade. I’m surprised other companies never do that spot because it always works. Reigns threw chairs on top of the barricade Roode was buried under, and then turned the American announcers table onto the barricade covering Roode. The crowd was going wild for all of this. Roode went on a stretcher. As far as how to portray a lead babyface, this was it. You can’t do it every week, but you have to do it from time-to-time. Next was the Firefly Fun House No. 1, as there were several of them on this show. Wyatt asked people if they wanted to see him and Bryan play together again and offered him a rematch. Sheamus is back. He said that since he left, Smackdown has become a pathetic bunch of misfits and cowards. He mentioned The Fiend, Corbin and Shorty G and said that no one was hungry and nobody had a backbone. Was he trying to organize the talent or something? Ali pinned Gulak in 3:08 with a 450. Banks & Bayley came out. Banks said that she didn’t choose the women’s team because if she chose the team, Smackdown would have won. So who chooses these teams? Maybe it was the robot and execs in the war room that never change their clothes. Fans were chanting “you tapped out” at Bayley. Banks said that the weakest link on her team was the whole team. She said that Cross got on the team as a fluke, Brooke couldn’t flex her way out of a paper bag, that Carmella will never be as rich as me and ran downs Evans. Evans came out and she’s now a babyface. She talked about people in WWE who blame everyone but themselves for their failures. Well, isn’t that what having a podcast these days is all about. Fans started chanting for Evans. Evans made fun of Bayley tapping out under pressure. Evans decked Banks and Bayley wouldn’t make a move on Evans with the idea she was scared. Crowd was pretty hot for this segment. Bryan did an interview where he said nothing. Bryan was thinking about accepting the rematch. Rose said that Cross looks like a cold plate of Thanksgiving leftovers. Cross beat Deville in 1:38 with an inside cradle after Deville had slammed Cross off the top rope. Rose & Deville beat down Cross after the match. Rose laid her out with a running knee until Bliss made the save and DDT’d both Rose & Deville. Bryan and Miz were together. Miz was telling Bryan not to accept Wyatt’s challenge. He said to look at Balor and Rollins, that Wyatt changed both of them for the worst. Balor is actually the most interesting he’s been in a long time, so that wasn’t much of a comparison. Miz then said that Bryan wasn’t his friend, but Bryan needs to realize how important he is to Smackdown and how Smackdown can’t afford to lose Bryan. Bryan gave him a dirty look. This made a lot of sense to the live crowd with Miz, a babyface, saying that for his own good, Bryan needs to stay away from Wyatt, when Wyatt vs. Miz was the main event of this very show. Well wrestlers are often not the best in following advice that they give out. Brooke and Maverick were backstage. Maverick brought out mistletoe and tried to hit on Brooke. He went to kiss her and she brought up that he was married. He said that’s a very complicated issue. Elias was back. He’s also now a babyface. He played some music and Brooke seemed to like him. Graves brought up “Big Dave.” The New Day issued an open challenge to anyone for a tag title match. Nakamura & Cesaro & Zayn came out. Zayn said that Thanksgiving was a holiday for the gluttonous masses who celebrate imperialism. He said that black Friday is the epitome of all the evils of capitalism. New Day beat Cesaro & Nakamura in 11:10. Kingston pinned Cesaro with Trouble in Paradise. The final segment saw Bryan come out. He said that Miz gave him advice but maybe he needed a change. He said The Fiend changed Balor and Rollins and during his match with The Fiend, he felt a change. He said that he’s said that the “Yes movement” is dead on numerous occasions, but maybe you guys brought it back to life. Fans were chanting “Yes” and Bryan started leading the chants. Wyatt was on the screen and said that if Bryan accepts the match, The Fiend will remove Bryan’s mask and show everyone who he really is. The lights then went out. From under the ring Fiend came out and pulled Bryan under the ring. Hair was flying so the idea was that The Fiend was either pulling out all of Bryan’s hair and pulling all the hair off his beard. Bryan had to sneak out of there with a towel covering him so you couldn’t see if he had hair or not. For 205 Live, Ariya Daivari beat Raul Mendoza with the rainmaker lariat. Crowd was dead but the match was decently worked. Jack Gallagher did a promo saying that it’s no secret he’s been unlucky of late. He said that if he loses to Angel Garza that he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Garza did a promo and said he was going to beat Gallagher, and after he beats him, he wants another title shot with Lio Rush. Danny Burch pinned Greg Williams in a squash with a draping DDT. Garza pinned Gallagher after the wing clipper. Gallagher then freaked out over losing, destroying the announcers table. He threw water and chairs at the ref until security tried to calm him down. They he attacked security and threw one into the barricade. Maverick and three refs came out. Maverick told Gallagher he was going to suspend him. Gallagher than gave Maverick a head-butt, so something has to be followed up on. The dark match main event saw Fiend over Miz. It was mostly Fiend. Miz did come back and hit the skull crushing finale, but that couldn’t stop Fiend. Fiend put Miz in the mandible claw and got the pin

Notes from the 12/2 Raw tapings in Nashville. The first part of the show was built around Rollins apologizing, which got a lukewarm reaction, but he actually was back as a babyface after the show went off the air. McIntyre and Orton had a confrontation but by the end of the show it appeared the program was Orton with Styles. You got the impression Owens and Rollins was the top singles program with the AOP being affiliated with Rollins, which would make him a heel because he keeps denying the affiliation. NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, this year’s NASCAR Cup Series champion, won the 24/7 title when Michael Waltrip, another big NASCAR name, took off his sweatshirt and had a ref shirt underneath and counted the pin. The show ended with Busch as champion but after the show they posted a video of Busch cutting a promo backstage and R-Truth giving him a schoolboy pin from behind to take it back. Vince McMahon changed the main event at the producers meeting. I believe the idea was Orton & Ricochet & Carrillo were to beat Styles & Gallows & Anderson. The idea was Mysterio would help the faces win, perhaps countering McIntyre. Vince wanted it changed to Orton not wanting to team with those guys, so Mysterio was in the match, wanting Orton to hit the RKO out of nowhere on Styles, and to make that work, he wanted Styles to be coming off a pin, and Ricochet was the unlucky pick since he didn’t want to beat Mysterio. Joe was back on commentary and did a good job again. I’d go so far as to say he was one of the highlights of the show. The show drew 6,800 fans. It opened with Main Event. Natalya beat Logan with a cradle. Rawley pinned Alexander with an Alabama slam. Alexander got a good reaction. Raw opened with Charly Caruso outside with AOP. They spoke to her in Punjabi and Albanian. She didn’t know either language and asked them to speak in English. So one of them tried to hit on her. I wonder if her bosses would script the AOP to hit on a 53-year-old Telco worker? Lawler started defending Rollins, which he did all night on commentary. So you had the face announcer defending Rollins and the heel announcer saying that Raw’s bad showing at Survivor Series came under Rollins’ watch. Rollins said that last week he said that we sucked at Survivor Series. He said that was too harsh, but it came from his heart. He said the guys and girls in the locker room were his family. He apologized to the other wrestlers and the fans. The fans groaned at that. Then he apologized to Owens. He called Owens out. Owens asked if AOP were close members of his family. Rollins said he knew nothing about AOP attacking Owens. Owens said that he knows when Rollins is lying because his lips are moving and it smells like bullshit. AOP came out. Rollins wanted to team with Owens against them and Owens said he’s not stupid and knows that all three will jump him. Rollins said he was sorry but you’re on your own. Rollins walked off and they didn’t attack Rollins. Owens challenged them one at a time. Then they walked off. Owens challenged anyone to fight him. They teased it would be Lashley. Lana came out and started talking. Owens said that nobody cares about her. She said Rusev won’t be here tonight because if he shows up, he’s going to jail for a very long time. Owens said that Lana was beautiful on the outside but very repulsive on the inside. Lana said that her hot boyfriend is the only man she ever been with her entire life and he’s coming to finish Owens. Owens beat Lashley via DQ in 8:49. Lana came out with two police officers who were supposed to be there to make sure Rusev doesn’t attack. Owens gave Lashley a frog splash off the apron and a power bomb. The AOP came out and attacked Owens for the DQ. They were beating him down, threw him into the barricade and continued to beat him down. Nobody made the save. Lashley then said he knew nothing about AOP coming out and he was about to beat Owens. Lana said she was tired of people booing her. Rusev ran in and hit Lashley with a matchka kick. Rusev was beating Lashley down. The police officers just stood there. Finally they got in the ring and he ran into the crowd. They didn’t give chase. Lashley started yelling at them for not doing their job. One of the officers said it’s because he’s a WWE fan and we do things different down here. I think he was saying that we allow guys to violate restraining orders with no consequences after they’ve done it last week as well. Lashley kind of bumped into one of them and they arrested him. This came off worse than expected because of the line we do things different around here and then arresting Lashley for doing nothing as opposed to the white man who violated the order. Lana got mad and slapped one of the officers and they arrested her. Lana was great on this segment. Lana was taken out in a police car threatening to sue everyone. McIntyre pinned Tozawa in 4:11 with a Claymore kick. McIntyre gave Tozawa an overhead suplex that almost had to be seen. He nearly put Tozawa into orbit. Tozawa did a great job selling the finish. McIntyre talked about the locker room always complaining on social media because they’re a bunch of cowards. He challenged Orton and called him stupid. He said that Orton used to be the most ferocious man in the WWE. McIntyre said that now he’s the most ferocious on social media. McIntyre said he’s bigger, stronger and more ferocious. Orton said this isn’t an Orton vs. McIntyre problem, it’s a McIntyre vs. reality problem. Orton said he’s earned the right to do as he pleased in WWE and McIntyre hasn’t earned a damn thing. The OC came out. Gallows said that Orton was an unapologetic jerk who has ruined lives. He said that Orton ruined Uncle Allan’s life (Styles, real name Allan Jones) and it’s his fault Styles lost the U.S. title. Styles wanted Orton. McIntyre just bid us adieu, using those words. The OC all attacked Orton. Ricochet ran in. He got beat down. Carrillo ran in. He got beat down. Mysterio ran in. He cleaned house on everyone. Here he is, almost 45 years old and he’s the top babyface on the brand right now. Black pinned Tony Nese in 3:27 with black mas. Crowd heat was way down for this. Nese went for a moonsault and Black got his knees up, but the knees missed Nese. Joe, thinking on his feet said the knees caught the corner of the ribcage. Murphy did a promo and said he was still feeling the effects of the black mass Black gave him last week. He said he knocked on Black’s door last week to expose him as a guy who takes himself way too seriously. Andrade pinned Eric Young with a hammerlock DDT in 4:36. They mentioned that Young is from Nashville. He’s from Ontario but moved to Nashville when TNA was based there and never moved back. Young got way more offense than you’d expect here. This was good while it lasted. R-Truth than ran to the ring with his 24/7 belt. He went to the front row and hid in front of Michael Waltrip and Kyle Busch, both well-known NASCAR drivers. The creative has no ideas for you group like Ryder, Rawley, O’Neil, Alexander and others ran out but R-Truth lost them all by hiding. You could see this coming since Busch and Waltrip got out of their chairs and came into the ring side area. Waltrip took off his sweatshirt and had a ref shirt on. Busch then schoolboyed R-Truth and Waltrip counted three. Waltrip and Busch then ran to the back. Rollins was leaving the arena, which must have been weird later to the people in the arena when he came back and did a dark match. Caruso asked him why he didn’t help Owens. Rollins said that Owens didn’t want his help. Rowan, who still talks to the case he brings like it’s a baby in there, pinned No Way Jose in 2:07 after two claw slams. He picked Jose up after the first one. Jose had his Konga line with him. Sarah Schreiber asked Rowan what was in the case. He wouldn’t answer. Asuka & Sane beat Flair in a handicap match in 15:54. This was really good stuff. This was probably the best stuff for Flair as a face since she turned heel and got the big face reaction. She did a pescado on both. Flair kept having the edge and then the third person would save. Flair speared both at the same time but Asuka kicked out. Flair speared Asuka and put her in the figure eight, missing Asuka tagging to Sane. Flair had the move on and Sane came off the top rope with the elbow and pinned her. Flair was leaving and asked if she regretted challenging them to a handicap match and she said “No,” and walked off. Viking Raiders beat Mitchell Lyons & Mark Sterling in 1:35 with the Viking Experience on Lyons. Mysterio & Ricochet & Carrillo did a promo. Ricochet talked about what an honor it was to team with Mysterio. Mysterio said the honor is his to team with two of the future superstars of the industry. Gallows & Anderson & Styles beat Mysterio & Ricochet & Carrillo in 14:35. Another good match. Ricochet hit the recoil on Styles but Anderson saved. Carrillo used a Fosbury flop in Gallows. Styles vs. Ricochet was the highlight. Ricochet did a walk up moonsault off the middle rope to the floor on Anderson. Ricochet went for a top rope huracanrana on Styles, who blocked it. Styles then gave Ricochet a Styles clash off the middle rope for the pin Styles was celebrating when Orton ran in and hit Styles with an RKO to end the show. After the show went off the air, they had Rollins (who had supposedly left the building during the show) come out with the Viking Raiders to win a dark match over Gallows & Anderson & Styles. The OC didn’t want the match as Styles said the show was over and Anderson said he wanted to go back home to his hot Asian wife. Pretty much right away, Gallows got knocked out of the ring, they did the Viking Experience on Anderson and then Rollins hit the curb stomp on Styles and got the pin. A second dark match saw Lynch retain her title over Sane with the disarm her. Good reaction for Lynch, maybe the biggest of the night

Notes from the NXT tapings in Winter Park, FL. Good show. It was kind of the epitome of what you want a show to be. They built a number of direct matches for the short-term future, had teases for long-term builds, good video packages getting you to know talent and generally very good wrestling with a great main event that established Keith Lee as a title contender. They built up stuff for the next two weeks, with 12/11 having Mia Yim vs. Dakota Kai and a three-way with Lee vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Finn Balor with the winner getting a shot at Adam Cole for the NXT title on 12/18. Also on 12/18 is Baszler vs. Ripley for the title and Lio Rush vs. Angel Garza in a rematch for the cruiserweight title. Cole shouldn’t be losing the title until he’s gone through Lee, Balor and Ciampa. But Ripley really should take the women’s title as that move is ready. It’s not a necessity first time but it’s the right time for the move. I’m still wondering if Baszler goes to Raw because it’s very clear Baszler vs. Lynch from a promo battle standpoint is the right move. In a match, that’s less clear but they were strongly focused on it in the build to Survivor Series. The first dark match saw Joaquin Wilde beat Chase Parker. The other dark mach had Kayden Carter beating Jessi Kamea. They opened with the announcement that Damien Priest had injured ribs and wouldn’t be facing Killian Dain. Dain said Priest wasn’t man enough to face him. Pete Dunne came out and they had a match. Dunne sold a left knee injury. Dain used a tope and a cannonball into the ring steps. The finish saw Dunne get Dain in a sleeper while on the middle rope. Dain fell backward on top of Dunne off the middle rope and Dunne was pinned in 14:44. Dakota Kai did an interview about facing Rhea Ripley later n the show in a match that didn’t happen. The Undisputed Era came out. Fans were chanting for Lee. Adam Cole said that Balor turned his back on them. He wanted answers from Balor. Instead, Lee came out. Kyle O’Reilly said that Lee had gone toe-to-toe with Roman Reigns but he lost. Lee decked Cole and put down Strong & O’Reilly with a clothesline on both. He cleaned house on all three. Ciampa then attacked Cole and threw him in the ring. Lee went to power bomb Cole, and O’Reilly and Strong pulled Cole out of the ring. Xia Li wanted a match with Baszler. There was a video feature covering the return of Kushida after breaking his wrist. It was well done. His big thing was that he’s spent the last two months off with his young child and that he’s all about building a better life for his family and that’s why he came to the U.S. Baszler beat Li in 4:04 with a choke after Li had missed a kick. It was short, but Baszler doesn’t do well working with someone who is green and who she has to sell a lot for, so you could see her weaknesses here. Kassius Ohno did an interview outside the building putting himself over as the greatest British wrestler in the world and also called himself “The Wrestling Genius.” The idea is that he left NXT and is now part of NXT U.K., so he thinks he’s a British wrestler since his gimmick is that he does the old British style. Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler beat Leon Ruff & Adrian Alanis from Evolve in 1:26. Blake pinned Alanis after Cutler hit Alanis with the busaiku knee. After the match, Jaxson Ryker choke slammed Ruff over the top rope onto the apron. The Kai vs. Ripley match never got started. Ripley did a promo saying how Kai had a plan and set them up at Takeover, but others can have plans, and then Mia Yim attacked Kai. They brawled to the back and there was no match. Then Baszler, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir showed up. They all attacked Ripley. Ripley held her own at first but they got her down and Baszler choked her out. There were video promos on Balor and on Isaiah Scott. Matt Riddle pinned Ohno in 12:33. Very good stuff, particularly as it got longer. Riddle used a GTS, a power bomb, a knee strike and floating bro, only for Ohno to kick out. That was four finishers in a row. Ohno went for a Gotch piledriver but Riddle blocked it. Riddle then won with the Bro Derek, which starts as a Gotch piledriver but ends dropping him on his face. Kushida was to face Raul Mendoza. Cameron Grimes attacked Mendoza before the match. It was then announced that Mendoza was injured and couldn’t do the match, so Grimes issued a challenge. Kushida beat Grimes in 4:15 with a front cradle. This was a very well wrestled match for the time they were given. Main event saw Lee & Ciampa & Dominik Dijakovic over Cole & O’Reilly & Strong in 11:45. This was a very good all-action match. Dijakovic did a springboard tornillo. Balor interfered and dropkicked Cole into the ref, so the ref was down. Balor then did the 1916 DDT, the old Bloody Sunday DDT, on Ciampa. Lee took out Balor with a Spirit bomb. Cole then went for the last shot, but Lee turned it into a jackhammer and got the pin on Cole. After the match, Regal announced that Ciampa, Lee and Balor would meet in a three-way next week and that Cole would face the winner in a title match in two weeks

With it being Thanksgiving week, NXT had the weekend off and WWE did a limited house show schedule. It’s funny because historically Thanksgiving weekend was the best weekend of the year to draw, along with Christmas week, and the days before both holidays were death. Now it appears that with the lack of casual fans attending shows, the dates don’t seem to create much of a significant difference

There was a Raw show on 11/29 in North Little Rock, AR. It opened with Black pinning Murphy with black mass. Carrillo pinned Andrade after Vega was thrown out of the match. Lynch defended her title against Flair. It was a no contest when Asuka & Sane attacked both. This led to a non-title tag match where Flair & Lynch beat Asuka & Sane. McIntyre pinned Alexander with the Claymore kick. Viking Raiders kept the tag titles in a three-way over Gallows & Anderson and the Street Profits when they won with the Viking Experience on Anderson. A scheduled Lashley vs. Rusev match never took place. Lana & Lashley were doing a promo when Rusev came out and chased Lashley out of the ringside area. Owens beat Rollins via DQ. Rollins threw Owens into ref Darrick Moore for the DQ. After the match, Owens laid out Rollins with a stunner. Rollins was cheered about 50 percent so fans didn’t fully get the memo he turned heel. At one point during the match, Rollins threw a funnel cake at Owens. Owens then picked it up from the mat and ate it

11/30 was a dual branded super show in Mexico City at Arena Ciudad. The show drew 11,000 fans, which is great for a WWE show these days, largely attributed to Mysterio in the main event and Cain Velasquez wrestling on the undercard, plus they run so infrequently and wrestling is big there. Orton pinned Ricochet with an RKO. It’s best not to over analyze house show, but the rule of thumb outside the U.S. is faces go over unless it’s a title match or there is a huge gap between the perceived level of the two. So in this case, this does tell you something, if not a lot. They did a four-way for the women’s tag title to help get ready for the Starrcade show as Asuka & Sane won over Flair & Lynch, Cross & Bliss and Bayley & Banks. It ended when Asuka beat Cross with the Asuka lock. Black pinned Andrade after black mass. Next was supposed to be a last man standing match with Lashley and Rusev. They did the same thing as at Starrcade. Rusev never came out and was counted out of the ring for the count out ten so it was ruled that Lashley won the match as Rusev didn’t answer the bell at the count of two. Lashley and Lana began to celebrate and Lana yelled “Rusev is a fool.” Rusev came out and attacked Lashley. Lana hit Rusev with a chair and he no sold it. Rusev chased Lashley out of the ring. Reigns beat Corbin with a spear in a street fight. Corbin tried to hit Reigns with the scepter but Reigns ducked and speared him. Strowman won a handicap match over Nakamura & Zayn when he pinned Zayn after a powerslam. Owens beat Rollins via DQ in the same finish they did the night before. Wyatt beat Mysterio in a cage match to keep the Universal title. Wyatt laid him out using Sister Abigail and then walked out the cage to win. To end the show on a happy note, they had Nakamura and Zayn attack Mysterio in the cage after the match. Mysterio made a comeback and hit both of them with the 619 to end the show.