June 24, 2019 Observer Newsletter: AEW does another sell ou

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 June 24, 2019



SUPER JUNIORS TOURNAMENT MVP

Will Ospreay 148

Shingo Takagi 25

Rocky Romero 14

El Phantasmo 8



BEST MATCH OF SUPER JUNIORS TOURNAMENT

Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi 155

Rocky Romero vs. El Phantasmo 30

Will Ospreay vs. Bandido 17



It was not unexpected that All Elite Wrestling would sell out its next major event, All Out, on 8/31 at the Sears Center in suburban Chicago, or even that it would do so instantly.

But what happened was still stunning. With only two matches announced, a Chris Jericho vs. Hangman Page match to determine the first AEW champion and the strategically announced Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley match released the day before tickets would go on sale with the hope of sparking a ticket rush, the 10,400 seat building sold out in 15 minutes, the length of time it took to process that number of tickets. That was neither surprising, nor the story.

The story was, according to professionals in the ticket industry, was that the show had the most activity when tickets first went on sale of any ticket to a pro wrestling event in history by a wide margin.

This was known before the tickets went on sale because those who signed up before the on-sale were given a number. The numbers were astronomical. At the time sales were called off and the it was shut down, the number in line of individual orders waiting to be served was at least 72,500. There are reports of numbers as high as 75,000 people in line to order, the highest number we’ve been able to confirm was 72,500 and based on stats provided by ticket people who had the ability to monitor this, they had it at 73,500.

There are a lot of factors involved with this. The key factor is that unlike a WrestleMania, in a stadium, there wouldn’t necessary be this level of rush. There have been WrestleManias in the past in arenas that reported one minute sellouts (notably the last time they ran WrestleMania in Los Angeles), but those, like the four minute sellout that AEW reported for Double or Nothing, are misleading. In both case, they put tickets on sale in a pre-sale the day before. They held very few tickets back for the public sale, and of course, those tickets went instantly.

But also, unlike a WrestleMania, the show sold out with a four ticket minimum per order and little scalper activity. At press time there were 827 ticket on the secondary market with the cheapest price for a $30 ticket going for $133. For a normal event in that size of a building, the normal figure would be 2,000 and for a big event it would considerably above that.

The ticket industry was stunned. Based on an event with super high demand that sells out instantly, the number of people waiting for orders as a general rule will break down into 75 percent different individuals and 25 percent of the numbers are bots, scalpers, and assorted other ways to have a number that is actinically inflated with multiple browsers. One outlet monitoring it said that the figure for this show was well below usual in that regard, due to the lower level of ticket broker interest, which the lack of secondary market tickets also confirms. The number reported was 62,500 of “organic individual fans” and the percentage of inflated numbers was much lower than for major WWE, Hamilton, UFC or concert like events.

The ticket on-sale page wasn’t on any of the major ticket broker channels or chatter even with the Double or Nothing sellout, because wrestling isn’t monitored closely and AEW is an unknown and unproven product. The only people who were aware of the ticket demand going in were hardcore fans. The few who were aware from All In, which was a huge success, may have been turned off by the soft secondary market for Double or Nothing in Las Vegas. But the problem with Double or Nothing, which had a huge first-day demand, is that plane tickets and hotels were jacked up big-time for Memorial Day in Las Vegas. For people who didn’t get tickets early, it wasn’t so much the secondary market ticket price, but the expenses of traveling and the lack of local interest, as Las Vegas is not a good wrestling market, that led to a so-so secondary market.

Chicago is the opposite and the belief is the secondary market will stay strong. All In averaged $205 per ticket sold on the secondary market, with sold tickets averaging four times face value.

The biggest WrestleMania in history as far as actual ticket sales went, the Dallas show in 2016, legitimately sold 79,800 tickets. But it also wasn’t sold out until a week before the show. This past year’s event in the New York market, in East Rutherford, NJ, does not have actual ticket sales number available. The show legitimately sold out well in advance. The previous time WWE ran WrestleMania in the same stadium they sold 69,000 tickets, so the number, which is expected to be revealed in the WWE’s KPI report in late July or early August, would be very close to that figure. It sold out even farther in advance due to it being in the New York market, but it had nowhere close to that number of orders the first day, or month, let alone the first 15 minutes of the first day.

As far as what 62,500 individual orders means as far as ticket demand goes, the usual protocol is three tickets per order. Double or Nothing was slightly lower, at 2.9. Figures for this show are not yet available. There would be some duplication in theory, in the sense of the three people in the average order, it could be that two, or all three, were logging in trying to get their three ticket average. The usual method is numbers signing up (the number being 72,500 or more), minus 25 percent on average for duplicates, and then multiplied by three according to those in the industry. But in this case, based on what an expert in this industry said that the 25 percent in this case was for this event was in this case 15 percent.

However, the demand number would not be that high because the event would have sold out at a lower number. The 137,000 estimate we had after the on-sale was over based on the expectation of heavy scalper technology, later confirmed as something that didn’t happen, was told to us by industry pros to be very low. But that would be high, not low, based on how many were served. Realistically, the normal 62,500 times three number is ridiculous. But on the flip side, any number lower than 81,000 is equally implausible.

The key to this was it was all within 15 minutes. This doesn’t account for people who would have decided to buy tickets over the next two-and-a-half months, or those who weren’t so in tune and figured they could get tickets later or even if they logged in 30 minutes in.

While it wasn’t a duplicate method, Rogers Centre officials and ticket officials in Toronto in 2011 for the Georges St-Pierre vs. Jake Shields fight listed that there were orders in over a three day period that would have totaled 105,000 tickets sold for an event that sold out with just under 50,000 sold over the first weekend. There ended up being more than 55,000 between tickets not put on sale at first and later production opens.

There have been concerts with significantly more demand in recent years, as well as sports events. For combat sports, the number of orders for UFC 134 in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which sold 14,000 tickets in 74 minutes, had orders on hold that totaled 250,000 tickets that day.

In both case, it was the first event in that country, featuring a national hero defending their title. UFC 134 had Anderson Silva defending against Yushin Okami.

In every case, officials were blindsided by the demand. Dana White thought Toronto was a risk to run a stadium, and only set it up for 30,000 tickets. When they sold out instantly, they started releasing and more, until they got to 50,000, which is why it didn’t sell out instantly.

Nobody knew the demand in Brazil, although the feeling they would sell out an arena was strong, but not at that level.

It should also be noted that both countries have never come close to that demand for a show since. UFC’s second show in Rio de Janeiro did 10,605 people. UFC’s second show in Toronto did sell out the Air Canada Centre, but the third event did not. This type of demand historically is a one-time thing that isn’t duplicated again unless there is a ridiculous attraction. In eight years, UFC has never run another stadium event in North America, although they have run stadiums in Brazil and done well. And economially for North America, it doesn’t make sense because of the economics of running Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden and being able to jack up price, and with money they get benefits from by running Las Vegas, they will make more than running a stadium.

There are a few givens. The show, priced at $30 to $190, was ridiculously underpriced, particularly when the secondary market average price for All In was more than $200. The capacity was far too small. Even Soldier Field would have been far too small. WWE events with nowhere close to the demand generate far more money because of much higher pricing. WrestleMania never had this kind of a first day, week or month demand, let along first 15 minute demand, but WrestleManias can gross more than $15 million and this will probably be closer to $600,000. That’s not to say they would have sold as many tickets at a Mania price range, because that’s unproven. One would say there’s no way on the surface. But nothing about this ticket demand makes any sense.

Tony Khan gave the impression that there’s a reason they did the show at the building. He brought up Starrcade at the Greensboro Coliseum and the Thanksgiving tradition in that city. He’s looking to create that tradition with Labor Day in Chicago at the Sears Center, probably hearing since he was a kid what a big mistake Jim Crockett Promotions made by moving Starrcade to Chicago in 1987 and abandoning the Thanksgiving tradition that had been a part of Greensboro for 26 years. He made that analogy to us as far as why.

But they did leave a ridiculous amount of money on the table. It does create a buzz of a hot ticket, but it’s also never a good thing to turn away customers. People turned away become less invested not more. Zane Bresloff, who came from the concert world, always impressed on me that you wanted a sellout, but you never wanted to turn people away, because those people are less likely to even try for tickets and get frustrated and turned off.

It is notable that AEW has two shows, the 6/29 Fyter Fest in Daytona Beach and 7/13 Fight for the Fallen which are not sold out. It was the idea of this specific show being hot. AEW is doing extremely well for not having television, but whatever the reasons Chicago exploded like this didn’t carry over. It’s not like the announcement of Moxley for Daytona Beach saw tickets them immediately sell out.

And while this does indicate more positivity regarding the potential on television, and Google searches for Double or Nothing were also a positive sign, none of this is a predictor of television numbers, nor that six months from now they could fill a stadium.

But in this scenario, the first show, which would have been All In, was supposed to be the one with the peak demand. Instead, Double or Nothing appeared to top that, and this blew Double or Nothing away.

WWE returns to PPV on 6/22 with Stomping Grounds, a show hurt in promotion by a two-week build and with the major title bouts being rematches of pretty clean pinfall bouts from Saudi that were not even exciting matches.

The talk of the show has been the unusually low ticket sales at the Tacoma Dome. During the past week they were down at one point to offering two tickets for $27, although that offer wasn’t out for that many days. The building is far from sold out but the secondary market hasn’t crashed, with a $39.99 low price with a small amount of inventory.

The main event is Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin in a rematch for the Universal title. The added stipulation is that Corbin gets to pick the referee. They haven’t announced who that is with the idea that will be a big mystery until the night of the show.

Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler in a cage match is the WWE title match.

The rest of the announced matches are Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre, Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss for the Smackdown women’s title, Becky Lynch vs. Lacey Evans for the Raw women’s title, Samoa Joe vs. Ricochet for the U.S. title, Big E & Xavier Woods vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn, Tony Nese vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak for the cruiserweight title and Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. Heavy Machinery for the Smackdown tag team titles. A Revival vs. Usos match would make sense given the Usos beat The Revival at the last show in Saudi Arabia before The Revival won the tag team titles. It could be a late add although nine matches, even with one in the pre-show, is plenty.

On paper this isn’t what of the year’s stronger shows. Kingston vs. Ziggler should probably be a good match outside of the dead crowd in Saudi Arabia, but they’ve yet to prove to have a great match. Reigns vs. McIntyre was not that hot at WrestleMania, but on paper it should be a good match if given time. Both women’s title matchups have been done before, Lynch vs. Evans recently, Bayley vs. Bliss was a program some time back, and the latter had some bad matches and the former was just passable. Joe vs. Ricochet is on paper a great match and the cruiserweight match will be all action and historically, the PPV crowds don’t react to it.

Bryan’s match is interesting because crowds in Washington love Bryan. They may have Bryan try to turn the crowd against him, because I don’t think they want to put Heavy Machinery in a position of getting booed out of the building and thus, looking like uncool babyfaces.

The indicators are the interest level is down, although in the network era, a low crowd and low interest isn’t nearly as important as it once was. Ratings are down, but ratings don’t necessarily correlate to ticket and big show revenue because doing a great job of selling to a smaller audience is usually more effect than a bad job selling to a larger audience. But this show has hardly been promoted via great buildup. Really, two of the most pushed things are the tease that has been done so much it’s not going to mean a lot at this point of a Brock Lesnar cash-in, and who the referee will be for the main event.

WWE Super Showdown looks to have done 11,000 buys on PPV. It’s hard to get a read on what that means. The number would be lower than usual, but the show was also on a Friday afternoon. It was also promoted as equal or better than WrestleMania and had a Bill Goldberg vs. Undertaker dream match on top. Of those 11,000, those who also purchased the AEW show were roughly 284, although if there was a show you wouldn’t expect much of a crossover in, this would be it.

New Japan announced the G-1 Climax tournament lineups and bracketing this past week, with Will Ospreay, Kenta, Jeff Cobb, Shingo Takagi, Taichi and Jon Moxley as the new members.

With the Kenta, Moxley, Takagi and Ospreay interviews at Dominion last week, there were no real surprises, but there are some obvious notes coming from the lineups.

The first is that the A block is clearly the loaded block, featuring Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Zack Sabre Jr., Evil, Sanada, Bad Luck Fale, Lance Archer, Ospreay and KENTA.

The B block has Tetsuya Naito, Tomohiro Ishii, Juice Robinson, Toru Yano, Hirooki Goto, Jay White, Cobb, Taichi, Takagi and Moxley.

It should be noted that the 6/25 British heavyweight title match with Sabre Jr. defending against Yoshi-Hashi also has Sabre’s spot in G-1 on the line. If Yoshi-Hashi wins, he will replace Sabre.

The key guys not in the tournament are Chris Jericho, who did make a tease but between it not being cost-effective because of his price, and Jericho doesn’t want to be seen as a regular, it makes no sense; Minoru Suzuki, which appears to be an angle since he was cutting promos about being excluded on the current tour; Togi Makabe and Yoshi-Hashi. Since Suzuki is cutting promos, one would think there may be a match added for Suzuki to get a spot, but time is running out on that. Tama Tonga had already said he wasn’t in it this year, although he is working a tag team match on the first show of the tour.

As far as scouting it out, the A block finals will be on 8/10 at Budokan Hall, with the key matches being Tanahashi vs. Ospreay and Okada vs. Ibushi. It is likely all four will be alive for the final, but Okada and Ibushi look to be the favorites to be the championship match of the block. As IWGP champion, Okada doesn’t need to win. Ibushi, if he was to win the block and beat Okada, doesn’t have to win the tournament, although it would make a strong statement if he does so. Okada would likely lose a few matches in the tournament which would set up his title defenses over the second half of the year.

The B block main event looks to be Naito vs. White. The other match at second from the top is Robinson vs. Moxley. I could easily see Moxley going on a run in the tournament, and Robinson being the spoiler on the last day to leave it to Naito vs. White.

With Naito long talking of his goal to become the first person to hold the IC and IWGP titles at the same time, his winning the block, beating Ibushi and going to the Tokyo Dome and beating Okada is certainly a valid scenario. And keep in mind they have to have two big Tokyo Dome main events. There is no movement on Kenny Omega and relations between AEW and New Japan are clearly not good right now. Omega wasn’t at Dominion, nor has he been on a New Japan show this year. Omega vs. Ibushi would seem a natural for one of the Tokyo Dome shows, and there are months for the politics to play out.

The other big news is that for the first time in recent memory, someone in the tournament will not be at the press conference nor on the first show.

New Japan officially announced on 6/17 that Moxley would not be appearing on the 7/6 show in Dallas. Moxley’s AEW contract does allow him to work New Japan, but only for shows in Japan.

It’s notable that New Japan put its U.S. title on a guy who can’t even work for them in the U.S. It’s still up in the air whether Moxley will be recognized as champion or wear the belt at Fyter Fest, which, ultimately is both up to Tony Khan agreeing to it as well as New Japan agreeing to it. He did neither on his independent dates with Northeast Wrestling this past weekend.

This shows how much things have changed, and not for the better between the two sides. Earlier this year, when New Japan had the visa issues that kept all of their Japanese talent off an American tour, and AEW was just starting, it was noted that they could have saved the tour in the eyes of the fans by using Omega. Some of the dates were when Omega was under control so they could have used him no matter what. One or two dates would have been after the contract expired, at which point he may have signed with AEW, but AEW had no problems with allowing him to work the entire tour. Of course New Japan didn’t even think in that direction nor have they made a play for Omega so far this year. But it’s gone from wanting to build a relationship to that no longer being the case. Moxley won’t even be at the G-1 opening press conference on 7/5 in Arlington, TX, at the Bob Duncan Center.

The entire tournament will air live on New Japan World with Kevin Kelly and Rocky Romero announcing, and Chris Charlton doing many of the other shows with them.

AXS in the U.S. will televise every Saturday show on a same day tape delay from 9-11 p.m Eastern time, with the exception of Dallas, which will likely run 8 p.m. until around midnight and be live. In the U.S., the New Japan World feed for Dallas will be geoblocked, but it will be put up for the U.S. on a delay.

The opening night lineup at the American Airlines Center, has Sho & Yoh vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa, Ishii & Shota Umino vs. Cobb & Ren Narita, Goto & Yoshi-Hashi vs,. White & Chase Owens, Yano & Robinson & Jushin Liger vs Naito & Takagi & Bushi, and A block matches with Ospreay vs. Archer, Evil vs. Fale, Sanada vs. Sabre Jr., Ibushi vs. KENTA and Okada vs. Tanahashi.

The first night usually has some upsets. Archer over Ospreay seems like a good pick. It’s Dallas, and Archer is from the area and has been pushing ticket sales locally. Ospreay doing a tournament story of having to come from behind and finally still be in the running the last night sounds viable. KENTA beating Ibushi also makes sense to establish KENTA in New Japan. And how KENTA is viewed will largely be shaped on that fight night, since Ibushi is one of the best guys to have a great match with.

The A block final at Budokan Hall on 8/10 at 5 a.m. Eastern has Robinson & Narita vs. Moxley & Umino, Yano & Honma vs. Cobb & Henare, Goto & Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Suzuki & Taichi & Kanemaru, Naito & Takagi &Bushi vs. White & Yujiro Takahashi & Owens, plus Sanada vs. Fale, Evil vs. Archer,, KENTA vs. Sabre, Tanahashi vs. Ospreay and Okada vs. Ibushi.

The B block final at Budokan Hall on 8/11 at 5 a.m. Eastern has Umino & Narita vs. Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura, Evil & Sanada & Bushi vs. Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Owens, Ibushi & Honma & Henare vs. KENTA & Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks, Okada & Tanahashi & Ospreay & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Suzuki & Sabre & Archer & Kanemaru, plus Ishii vs. Taichi, Yano vs Cobb, Goto vs. Takagi, Robinson vs. Moxley and Naito vs. White.

The finals on 8/12 will start at 2 a.m. Eastern. In recent years, G-1 has always ended on a Sunday, but this year it’s on a Monday.

Tickets for the Budokan Hall shows were put on sale on 6/18 but we haven’t heard any word on how they did. Usually the final night sells out immediately. As best we can tell, that wasn’t the case this time.

For those looking at that weekend with WWE programming, the Saturday Takeover show will be at 7 p.m. and probably end around 10 p.m. Budokan is at 5 a.m., but on AXS at 9 p.m.

For Sunday, the live show on New Japan World will be at 5 a.m., SummerSlam is likely from about 5:30 p.m. until around midnight, and then the final Budokan follows two hours later at 2 a.m.

The other scary aspect is if there is an injury. These tournaments are booked very carefully and forfeits that change outcomes will throw everything out of whack. But this is the most physically grueling major league event of the year. As those how have participated like Omega have noted to us, as the tournament goes on, everyone ends up hurting, but at the same time, because of the nature of doing long, hard singles matches every other night, it builds your ring cardio up in a way that nothing in the gym can duplicate. That’s why, besides the pressure to do so and the big stage, that you usually end up getting the best matches at the end of the tour, even with a more battered body.

Suzuki, who is 51, Makabe, who is 46, and Kojima, who is 48, are out this year. The older wrestlers who do it most years end up being physically diminished by G-1 beatings usually until around November. Kojima did say that he wanted to be in it, but felt in storyline that his loss to Takagi was why he figured he wasn’t going to be chosen, but would like to be in next year.

As the schedule works out, most of the AXS TV shows will be in the A block. The only B block shows that will air will be the 7/13 show and a tape delayed 8/11 show airing on 8/17.

There are no restriction on Moxley’s matches not being on AXS. But New Japan was forced to put in the B block because he couldn’t work Dallas. It actually works out for the best, because that keeps him away from Okada, Tanahashi and Ibushi until they can book those matches as first-time bouts on bigger shows.

For those on the West Coast, most of the Sunday shows are late night Saturday starting at 11 p.m. or midnight. The B block finals are the exception, but the finals for the West Coast, will have SummerSlam ending at around 9 p.m. and the final show starting at 11 p.m. and ending around 3 a.m.

The rest of the tournament matches:

7/13 in Tokyo at Ota Ward Gym at 5:30 a.m. Eastern is the B block opening show, with Robinson vs. Takagi, Moxley vs. Taichi, Naito vs. Yano, Ishii vs. Cobb and Goto vs. White.

This show will be airing on AXS.

7/14 in Tokyo Ota Ward Gym at 2 a.m Eastern is A block with Archer vs,. Fale, Ospreay vs. Sanada, Okada vs. Sabre, Ibushi vs. Evil and Tanahashi vs. KENTA. The main event is a major first-time ever singles meeting between the long-time New Japan ace against the former top star in NOAH.

7/15 in Sapporo at the Hokkaido Sports Center at 5 a.m. is B block with Yano vs. Takagi, Robinson vs. Goto, Cobb vs Moxley, Ishii vs. White and Naito vs. Taichi.

7/18 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo at 5:30 a.m. is A block with KENTA vs. Archer, Evil vs. Sanada, Okada vs. Fale, Tanahashi vs. Sabre and Ibushi vs. Ospreay. The main event here is a Tokyo Dome rematch and on paper one of the best matches of the tournament, with the semi being a match that was a classic in the past, plus the long-time tag partners against each other in the Evil vs. Sanada battle.

7/19 at Korakuen Hall at 5:30 a.m. is B block with Takagi vs. Taichi, Robinson vs. Cobb, Yano vs. White, Goto vs. Naito and Ishii vs. Moxley.

7/20 at Korakuen Hall at 5:30 a.m. is A block with Sabre vs. Fale, Tanahashi vs. Archer, KENTA vs. Evil, Ibushi vs. Sanada and Okada vs. Ospreay. This will air on AXS and the last two bouts figure to be two of the best of the tournament.

7/24 in Hiroshima at Sun Plaza Hall at 5:30 a.m. for B block has Robinson vs. Yano, Goto vs. Taichi, Moxley vs. Takagi, Cobb vs. White and Naito vs. Ishii.

7/27 in Nagoya at Aiichi Gym at 5 a.m. for A block has Ibushi vs. Archer, Ospreay vs. Fale, Evil vs. Sabre, Tanahashi vs. Sanada and Okada vs. KENTA. This is also an AXS show.

7/28 in Nagoya at Aiichi Gym at 3 a.m. for B block has Goto vs. Yano, Robinson vs. Ishii, Cobb vs. Taichi, Takagi vs. White and Naito vs. Moxley. This is Moxley’s biggest match of the tournament.

7/30 in Takamatsu at 6 a.m. for A block has Ibushi vs. Fale, Ospreay vs. Sabre, Okada vs. Archer, KENTA vs. Sanada and Tanahashi vs. Evil.

8/1 in Fukuoka at the Citizens Gym at 5:30 a.m. for B block has Cobb vs. Takagi, Yano vs. Moxley, Robinson vs. Naito, Taichi vs. White and Ishii vs. Goto. Ishii and Goto usually have amazing chemistry together.

8/3 in Osaka at the Edion Arena for A block has KENTA vs. Fale, Sabre vs. Archer, Ospreay vs. Evil, Tanahashi vs. Ibushi and Okada vs. Sanada. This is another AXS show. Tanahashi vs. Ibushi in last year’s final is arguably one of the best matches in history and possibly the best G-1 match ever. Okada vs. Sanada have a history of great bouts. The Edion Arena fans and the Korakuen Hall fans are also usually the best fans to perform in front of.

8/4 in Osaka at the Edion Arena for B block ha Ishii vs. Yano, Robinson vs. Taichi, Goto vs. Cobb, Moxley vs. White and Naito vs. Takagi.

8/7 at the Hamamatsu Arena at 5:30 a.m. for A block has Sanada vs Archer, Tanahashi vs. Fale, Ospreay vs. KENTA, Ibushi vs. Sabre and Okada vs Evil.

The final tournament show before Budokan is 8/8 at the Yokohama Bunka Gym at 5:30 a.m. with B block bouts with Yano vs. Taichi, Naito vs. Cobb, Goto vs. Moxley, White vs. Robinson and Ishii vs. Takagi.

Adrian “Lionheart” McCallum, a U.K. wrestler who held championships in ICW and many other promotions, passed away on 6/18 from an apparent suicide. He was 36.

Right before taking his life, McCallum wrote a post on twitter clearly as almost his note, saying, “One day you will eat your last meal, you will smell your last flower, you will hug your friend for the last time. You might now know it’s the last time, that’s why you must do everything you love with passion.”

The quote was from the Netflix series “After Life.” when the character played by Ricky Gervais was mourning the death of his ex-wife.

McCallum wrestled as Lionheart, believed to be taken from Chris Jericho, who used the name Lion Heart, and it’s Spanish derivative, Corazon de Leon. Jericho and McCallum were friends.

McCallum had defeated Jackie Polo on 12/2 in Glasgow at ICW’s Fear and Loathing show, its biggest of the year, to win the ICW title in a match where he vowed to retire if he lost.

“We are heartbroken to learn of the tragic death of ICW World Heavyweight Champion, Adrian `Lionheart’ McCallum,” from a post on the company’s twitter account. “Adrian was a mainstay of ICW and British professional wrestling. Most importantly, he was our friend. His passing leaves a huge hole in the lives of those who knew him.”

McCallum, who started wrestling in 2002, was probably best known internationally by something terrible that happened to him that he later admitted was the best thing for his career.

In 2014, he took a Styles Clash from A.J. Styles wrong, and ended up with a broken neck in two places.

When promoting the relaunch of World of Sport, McCallum noted, “In all honestly, I was told at the time I should be dead. When they looked at photos of what actually happened and the physicality of the move they don’t know how I got up from that. I didn’t think I was dying but I couldn’t feel anything from the neck down and assumed it was all over–but at the hospital I slowly started to get feeling in my arms and legs again The doctors told me I’d broken my neck in two places so I asked if I’d walk again and they didn’t know. Over the following year I experienced every up and down. One day I was motivated and confident and the next day I’d cry and feel sorry for myself.”

McCallum, from Ayr, Scotland, originally, publicly begged Styles to stop doing the move at one point because of what he went through.

“In a funny way, from a professional standpoint, it’s one of the best things to ever happen to me. It catapulted my name into global wrestling. There was no one who didn’t know about my injury”

McCallum’s return after the injury in March 2015 after one year out was an incredibly emotional moment that got significant attention.

He held multiple championships in the U.K., including the world championships in 1PW, Preston City Wrestling and the Scottish Wrestling Alliance.

Bellator from Madison Square Garden

By Ryan Frederick

Bellator presented their biggest event thus far of 2019 in the promotion's return to Madison Square Garden on 6/14 for Bellator 222, which saw what looked to be the end for one of the sport's most colorful characters.

Chael Sonnen, 42, called it a day following a loss to Lyoto Machida. While it was put in the co-main event position, it was the biggest fight on the card and seen as the real main event to most. Sonnen never had anything for Machida as Machida knocked him down with a flying knee in the first round and was landing lots of punches and almost finished it in the first. A second knee from Machida sent Sonnen down in the second round and ended it.

Sonnen cut a great post-fight promo about having fun and laid his gloves in the center of the cage. He was more emotional during the post-fight press conference, and even talked about his late father and the promise he made to him about becoming a world champion before his father passed away. Sonnen was asked what he would tell his father as he ended his career.

"I'd just tell him I tried," said Sonnen, visibly shaken and holding nothing back.

Sonnen became one of the most beloved characters in the sport over the last decade with a gift for gab and the ability to deliver line after line of memorable quotes. He signed a five-fight deal with Bellator and the Machida fight marked the end of that deal. It is always a never-say-never deal in this sport, but Sonnen has a successful broadcasting gig with ESPN on their MMA coverage, so he won't be completely out of the sport. While he never reached the pinnacle of holding a major world championship, for his contributions both inside and outside of the cage, as well as being one of the biggest stars in the history of the sport, he is a surefire candidate to join the UFC Hall Of Fame in the future.

In the actual main event of the show, Rory MacDonald retained the Bellator Welterweight Championship by defeating Neiman Gracie in the semi-finals of the Bellator Welterweight World Grand Prix. MacDonald now advances to the finals where he will take on Douglas Lima. Those two fought in January 2018, where MacDonald defeated Lima to win the championship.

MacDonald and Gracie had a very competitive fight with both men trading takedowns and fighting for submissions. Gracie is a wizard on the mat, unsurprisingly so, but MacDonald was able to hang with him on the mat and was getting the better on the feet. It is the first career loss for Gracie and MacDonald remains unbeaten in welterweight fights since signing with Bellator. MacDonald got the unanimous decision on scorecards of 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47. All media scores had the fight scored for MacDonald.

There was a lot of concern with MacDonald coming into the fight. He had come off of a tough draw with Jon Fitch just six weeks ago, and his comments and actions after that fight got people to think he should , or might, not fight again, especially this soon. There was concern the fight was going to even happen, enough that Fitch was in town and weighed in as a potential backup for this fight. In the end, MacDonald showed up and looked much better than the Fitch fight, and after he got the win, it seemed like all of the past issues were behind him.

The company wants MacDonald vs. Lima to happen in September, but MacDonald wasn't too excited about it happening that soon. He had a hard five-round fight on 4/27, and then went another five hard rounds here on 6/14 and wants a good bit of a break before fighting again. He and his wife are also expecting their second child in August, and he was talking about wanting to wait until November or December to fight again. Lima and his camp are hoping for the September date as they think he would have the advantage being the fresher man, but I don't expect the fight to happen until November at the earliest.

History was also made when Kyoji Horiguchi became the new Bellator Bantamweight Champion, defeating Darrion Caldwell by unanimous decision. Horiguchi became the first fighter to hold championships in two major promotions at the same time, as Horiguchi is also the RIZIN Bantamweight Champion. He now has two wins over Caldwell, who was Bellator's big bantamweight star, and he will go on defending both titles. It remains to be seen which title he will defend next. Horiguchi now has 13 straight wins since a UFC flyweight title fight loss to Demetrious Johnson in April 2016.

Horiguchi and Caldwell didn't have the most exciting fight in the world. Caldwell was going for lots of takedowns, scoring on some, but Horiguchi was doing more work on the mat. They were stood up several times by the referee throughout the course of the fight. Horiguchi was doing better on the feet, even knocking Caldwell down in the fourth round. Horiguchi was the better fighter in this fight and won a unanimous decision on scores of 48-47, 49-46 and 49-46. Caldwell just didn't do enough to win rounds whereas Horiguchi did. Media scores were 85% for Horiguchi and 15% for Caldwell.

There were also four fighters being groomed for high-profile positions with the company featured on the card, with mixed results. Dillon Danis and Valerie Loureda both scored the second wins of their career, while Aaron Pico and Heather Hardy suffered further setbacks.

Danis was fighting for the first time since serving a suspension stemming from his involvement in the UFC 229 post-fight melee. He had an opponent brought in to lose, Max Humphrey, a 3-2 fighter. Danis was dominant in scoring a first-round submission win. They are clearly grooming him to be a superstar and are bringing him along slowly and finding him the right opponents.

Loureda fought debuting Larkyn Dasch, who got some attention via social media as she posted a picture of her signing her Bellator contract during her shift at Hooters. It was the second pro fight for both, and Loureda scored a convincing win by decision. Dasch was calling for a rematch saying she would be much better with a full training camp, and Loureda did have the benefit of a full camp as she knew for a long time she was fighting on this card.

Hardy was in her first MMA fight since February 2018. She had two boxing matches in between her MMA fights, which she won both. She was given an opponent designed to give her a win in Taylor Turner, who had a 3-5 record. However, Taylor dominated Hardy and finished her on the ground with punches in 3:53.

Pico, who had been heralded as the best young prospect in the sport, suffered yet another devastating knockout loss, this time to Adam Borics. Pico had moved to the Greg Jackson camp before this fight and showed a much better game plan in the first, being much more patient and using his wrestling. He was doing the same in the second round before getting dropped by a flying knee and finished on the ground.

Pico is still only 22 and there is still lots of room for growth and improvement, and he looked much better and more measured in this fight. But, that is now three bad knockout losses in his young career, and his chin may already be done. If his chin is already gone, he is going to have a tough time living up to all of the expectations. It should be noted that his career so far has been completely botched, whether by the company, his management, or a combination of all of those. He has been given tough opponent after tough opponent, and Borics was a 12-0 fighter known as a finisher. They threw Pico right to the wolves and now are having to pay for it, and that tough competition has only added to slowing down his growth.

In other main card fights, Juan Archuleta won his 18th straight fight when he knocked out Eduardo Dantas with just one second to go in the second round. They had a competitive fight until Archuleta took over in the second round and landed a hard right hand that put Dantas out cold. It was a very scary moment as Dantas was down for a good while, and they even brought out a stretcher, but he ended up leaving under his own power. Archuleta called for a title fight, saying he could challenge in three different divisions, but specifically mentioned wanting to fight Horiguchi.

Also, Patrick Mix threw his name into the mix of rising prospects when he submitted Ricky Bandejas in just 66 seconds, improving his undefeated record to 11-0. He quickly took the back standing and dragged Bandejas to the mat and got a rear-naked choke in. He called out James Gallagher as a potential opponent, and that would be a big fight for him.

There was no announced attendance or gate for the show. Bellator sometimes announces attendance, and sometimes they don't. They will announce it if it is good. That is telling that they didn't announce anything. The main card aired on DAZN, so we don't have viewership numbers. Google searches for the event for at around 100,000 searches. There didn't seem to be a lot of talk about the event outside of the hardcore fans, so I can't imagine viewership was very strong.

The biggest news coming out of the show, aside from the Sonnen retirement, was the announcement of Fedor Emelianenko signing a new multi-fight contract. He was teasing retirement after losing to Ryan Bader in January, but Scott Coker announced this new contract would be his farewell tour. No date for his next fight was announced, but Coker said it would be this year, possibly in November and December, and that they would be going to different locations all over the world for his final fights. No opponents were named though Josh Barnett and Rampage Jackson were mentioned as possible future opponents.

1. Kyoji Horiguchi (28-2) beat Darrion Caldwell (12-3) via unanimous decision on scores of 48-47, 49-46 and 49-46 to win the Bellator Bantamweight Championship. Horiguchi beat Caldwell in RIZIN on New Year's Eve 2018. Caldwell got an early takedown in the first and was landing hard elbows from the top and maintaining top control before a late stand-up by the ref. Caldwell got two takedowns in the second round but Horiguchi was landing harder punches on the ground and doing more damage while Caldwell did almost nothing. Horiguchi was landing harder in the third as Caldwell was trying to take him down but Horiguchi was able to avoid them. Horiguchi knocked Caldwell down in the fourth and went for a choke but gave up the top to Caldwell. He didn't do much on top as he was looking to get his wits back and Horiguchi was landing from the bottom. I had it 3-1 for Horiguchi heading into the fifth. Caldwell got a takedown in the fifth but was just laying on top of Horiguchi, who was landing soft punches from the bottom. The crowd was booing the fight in the fifth. It wasn't the most exciting fight. I had it 49-46 for Horiguchi.

2. Juan Archuleta (23-1) beat Eduardo Dantas (21-7) in 4:59 in the second round in a featherweight fight. Archuleta had TJ Dillashaw in his corner in his first real public appearance since his failed drug test and suspension announcement. It started off slow with both men feeling each other out. They both landed some and Archuleta got a takedown but they got up and he still had the back. Dantas grabbed the fence rather blatantly and the ref didn't see it. Archuleta landed late to get the first. Dantas came out more aggressive in the second but Archuleta was landing punches. Archuleta started to rock Dantas with combos and then knocked Dantas out cold with just one second in the round. It was a scary knockout as Dantas was down for a long time. That was Archuleta's 18th straight win and he looked very good and scary and called for a title shot.
3. Patrick Mix (11-0) beat Ricky Bandejas (11-3) in 1:06 in a bantamweight fight. This was Mix's first fight on a big stage and was doing so in front of a home crowd. He took the back of Bandejas early and got the body triangle. He was able to drag Bandejas to the mat with a rear-naked choke and got Bandejas to tap. It was a very impressive showing. Mix called out James Gallagher.
4. Dillon Danis (2-0) beat Max Humphrey (3-3) in 4:28 in a 175-pound catchweight fight. Danis got a quick takedown and was landing lots of punches on Humphrey looking to finish him. Danis had mount and was looking to set up all kinds of submissions while also looking for the TKO. Danis eventually got a belly down armbar locked in and Humphrey quickly tapped out. It was a complete mismatch but that was the whole point as they want to build Danis up. Danis plays a very good heel and is very easy to hate. He called himself the best fighter in the world and called out Rory MacDonald and Jon Jones. He has a great personality and people are going to pay to see him get beaten.
5. Lyoto Machida (26-8) beat Chael Sonnen (30-17-1) in :22 in the second round in a light heavyweight fight. Sonnen got a huge reaction and the crowd saw this as the main event. Sonnen was going right for the takedown and got it and took the back but Machida got up and shook him off. Machida then started landing hard kicks and then knocked Sonnen down with a flying knee. Sonnen was in all sorts of trouble as he was turtling up while Machida was landing all kinds of punches including big hammer fists. This could have easily been stopped but Sonnen somehow got to his feet and survived the round. Machida then knocked him down with a knee to open the second round and this time finished him off with punches on the ground. This was a vintage Machida performance. He thanked Sonnen for the fight. Sonnen then took his gloves off and set them in the middle of the cage.
6. Rory MacDonald (21-5-1) beat Neiman Gracie (9-1) via unanimous decision on scores of 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47 to retain the Bellator Welterweight Championship and advance to the finals of the Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix. They were both throwing kicks early in the round and Gracie's kicks were doing more damage. MacDonald was starting to find his range late in the first round, which was close but I gave to Gracie. Gracie got a quick takedown in the second and both went for leg locks to get to the feet. MacDonald was landing hard punches and Gracie got him down but MacDonald got the top position and was landing punches and elbows from the top at the end to win the round. MacDonald was landing punches in the third and got a takedown and was landing from the top but Gracie was able to sweep to the top and locked in an armbar late but MacDonald fought it off. I had it 2-1 MacDonald after three. Gracie was pressing the action in the fourth and got MacDonald to the mat but gave up top position to MacDonald, who was landing hard punches to the head. Gracie could have won the round but giving up position cost him, so it was 3-1 MacDonald. Gracie got a takedown in the third and was able to get to full mount position but didn't do a lot of damage. The crowd began to boo at this point. Gracie looked tired and wasn't able to take advantage of great positioning and rode out the round. I had it 48-47 for MacDonald. MacDonald needs some time off after these last two fights but now will face Douglas Lima in the finals, which should be a very good fight. This was not.

Willie Williams, a Kyokushin karate fighter who was involved in one of the biggest and memorable pro wrestling matches of its time, passed away on 6/8. He was 68.

Williams fought Antonio Inoki on February 27, 1980, at a sold out Tokyo Sumo Hall with 11,000 fans, in a match for Inoki’s WWF World Martial Arts championship. The match went to a double count out, ending in the fourth round.

The match became legendary in Japan, and was actually huge in the Japanese comic book world before it ever happened. A rematch 17 years later was a key match in a sold out Tokyo Dome and highly rated television show. The match itself was not a real fight, but was in fact, voted the greatest fight in Japan of the 20th century. And the story behind the match was even more interesting than the match itself.

This was during the period that Inoki was able to turn himself into a national sports hero with mostly worked matches that were billed as martial arts bouts, and in Japan, to this day they are considered the earliest MMA fights even though only three of them were real, two in India (one of which wasn’t really a shoot but a work that turned into a failed double-cross and not all that different from Inoki vs. Great Antonio) and the 1976 match with Muhammad Ali. The latter was supposed to be a work but it fell apart and they had a legitimate fight with a rule set that greatly favored Ali and ended as a 15 round draw.

The match itself has one of the most interesting back stories on record.

Williams became famous in Japan as the top foreigner of Mas Oyama’s Kyokushin Kaikan School of Karate. There was a very popular comic book in Japan based on Mas Oyama’s karate in the 70s called “Karate Baka Ichidai,” written by Ikki Kajiwara, a name famous to wrestling fans because he also created the pro wrestling Tiger Mask character in comic books, that led to a television series, which eventually led to Satoru Sayama popularizing that role as a pro wrestler to giant mainstream success.

While the idea of “Karate Baka Ichidai” was that the stories were real, it was more fantasy and great exaggerations. However the comic books were so popular they led to three movies. Williams appeared in one of the movies as himself, the deadly American karate star in a scene where he beat up a bear in a jungle and in Japan had the nickname “The Bear Killer.”

You have to remember that prior to 1993, when UFC and Pancrase began, both Americans and Japanese had no clue about real fighting. The mentality of a real fight consisted of people who thought boxing was a real fight, or people who thought Bruce Lee and martial arts movies or David Carradine and “Kung Fu” were real fights. People were taught from childhood with karate studios all over the country that the karate masters were the true real fighters. Usually the only people who thought different were those who actually studied fighting, which were rare, the wrestling community and the boxing community.

It was that mindset that led to the marketing of Inoki. In the 70s, Inoki and Giant Baba were fighting over dominance in a very popular and lucrative pro wrestling market. Baba provided an Americanized version of pro wrestling, with access to the biggest names in the U.S. Inoki had to create his own stars, whether they would be by bringing back older legends like Karl Gotch and Lou Thesz, or debuting independent wildmen like Tiger Jeet Singh.

The rivalry created unique booking, because wins and losses mattered and even if people didn’t think it was all real, Baba and Inoki were fighting over who was the national wrestling hero, and really, aside from the star of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team like Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh, really for the top spot as sports stars in the country in that era.

Baba could beat world champions like Jack Brisco and every top American, which Inoki couldn’t do. Inoki could beat Shozo Kobayashi, the top star from the rival IWE in the big dream match of the era. But then, after Inoki and Billy Robinson (who, from his time in the late 60s on television was considered the best “real” foreign wrestler at the time still in his prime) had their legendary 60:00 draw, Baba signed Robinson, offered him the biggest foreign contract to date, and then pinned Robinson in their first meeting.

Inoki and booker/manager Hisashi Shinma took a new approach, with the idea of promoting Inoki as not just a pro wrestling star, but the world’s greatest fighter. The key to the idea was to pay Muhammad Ali, the most famous boxer of that time, and probably of all-time, to lose to Inoki. Of course that fell through in the end, but conceptually, this led to the most memorable period of Inoki’s career. It started with his February 6, 1976, match at Budokan Hall where he beat Willem Ruska, an Olympic gold medalist in judo in 1972 and a guy who went to Brazil and cleaned up the toughest Vale Tudo guys, and perhaps was the toughest real fighter in the world at the time.

Inoki’s win over Ruska turned Inoki into Japan’s fighting hero. While the Ali fight was a dud, now remembered as legendary, the birth of major MMA and the biggest match in history in Japan because of the names involved, it was actually a terrible match for its time.

They continued to book Inoki in so-called martial arts bouts, with the idea without actually saying so, that these matches were shoots as opposed to the more questioned pro wrestling matches, under free fighting rules rather than pro wrestling. The idea in Japan is that when Inoki defended his NWF world title (the predecessor to today’s IWGP title), it was a big pro wrestling match. But when he defended the WWF World Martial Arts championship (which was created with the win over Ruska and retained in the Ali match), it was viewed as more real and drew a larger television audience because of the interest in mainstream fans.

Inoki had wins over Andre the Giant in 1976, Ruska in a rematch in 1976, Akram Pahalwan of India (a unique story of itself), karate champion Monster Man Eddie Everett, boxer Chuck Wepner (who once fought Ali for the heavyweight championship and was the person who the original movie “Rocky” in 1976 was based on), retired German boxer Karl Mildenberger (who once fought Ali for the championship in the 60s), bodybuilder/strongman personality Mike Dayton, and several others.

The Pahalwan match on December 12, 1976, was held at the outdoor Karachi National Stadium in Pakistan. Pahalwan was a pro wrestling legend in India and Pakistan, but by this point was older and in his 40s. He was a shooter in his youth, but Inoki, 13 years younger and still in his prime, was also trained in submissions and was a far more versatile fighter and better athlete. This was, like the others, supposed to be a pro wrestling match, but Pahalwan attempted a double-cross in the match, and it backfired, as Inoki, realizing the situation, got Pahalwan in an armbar and actually broke his arm.

This led to a match on June 16, 1979, in Lahaul, Pakistan, at Qadaffi Stadium, where Inoki faced Jhara Pahalwan (Zubiar Aslam), the 19-year-old Indian wrestling prodigy and nephew of Akram, who had been groomed for three years to gain revenge for the family against Inoki. What it was supposed to be going in is anyone’s guess since it would make no more sense in 1979 for Inoki to do a high profile shoot as it would be in 1986 for Hulk Hogan to do one. But it very clearly ended up as a real fight. There were no punches to the face, but there were body blows, head-butts and mostly wrestling. Pahalwan was clearly stronger and wearing Inoki out, who couldn’t get much offense, was mostly on his back, and never threatened with a submission. But Pahalwan had wrestling skill but no finishing skill. They went five five minute rounds before time expired.

In Japan it was reported as a draw, notable because in theory that would lead to a rematch that never happened. In actuality, Pahalwan was ruled the winner via decision and in Japan, it was like Backlund vs. Inoki was in the U.S., a match pretty much hidden from history.

Inoki continued his big martial arts matches with wins over Ruska in South Korea and Kim Klokeid in Japan.

At the same time, in the late 70s, a new comic book series came out in Japan called “Shikakui Jungle” (Squared Jungle). The comic book series was built to where it would end up with the real fight of the century between Inoki and Willie Williams. The comic book became so popular that there was a demand for this fight in real life.

“The match had to take place,” noted Japanese pro wrestling historian Fumi Saito. “It was not necessarily Inoki calling the shot.”

In 1979, there was a 160 man tournament with no weight classes in Japan under karate rules to find out who was the best karate fighter. Williams made it to the final four, losing in the semifinals.

But even though he didn’t win, Williams was still billed as the karate world champion.

Essentially, there were far too many people involved in putting this match together, as you had the karate side and the pro wrestling side, and the match was felt to be so big when it comes to interest, that both sides felt they had to go through with it. But neither side would agree to lose.

There was hope to go to a secret location and work out a match, like Inoki had done with the non-pro wrestlers he had worked with. But fear of double-cross of injury led to that not happening. If anything, it was the karate people who wanted to “prove” a karate guy could beat up Inoki, who was by far the more famous of the two, than the other way around. However, TV Asahi was the key money people, and Inoki was their guy, so he was not going to be put in a position to be shot on or lose. Kajiwara and his people, Inoki, Shinma, movie people and karate people were involved in a number of secret meetings trying to work out how to work out compromises and do the match.

Even so, on the night of the bout, Williams had a large group of badass Kyokushin karate guys as his bodyguards, and they were not involved in the negotiations, and they were very aggressive, believed to be looking for a fight. Inoki brought Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu and Haruka Eigen, three of the toughest guys from his stable, to be in his corner. His two believed to be New Japan’s toughest guys, retired trainer and legendary shooter Karl Gotch and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Gotch’s top student and the New Japan policeman at the time, were not available.

The match was not a shoot, but it was as tense as any non-shoot would be. Both were on their guard. Williams, who was 6-foot-6 ½ and 230 pounds, had a big reach edge and was also quicker. Not much happened but Williams was able to land punches. He hit jabs with enough force to look real but not in an attempt to knock Inoki out. Inoki got a few takedowns but Williams would always make the ropes quickly. They fell out of the ring a few times where the karate guys and the New Japan guys would rush over.

Both sides agreed to a double count out finish at 1:24 of the fourth round. Inoki at least got his takedowns and Williams had to scramble to the ropes, so it didn’t look so one-sided and Inoki saved face. But Williams didn’t lose and looked better against Inoki than anyone.

In the 80s in particular, the match was legendary, replayed all the time. I can’t remember how many different times on sports shows that I saw that double count out finish when there would be stories on Inoki. Its reputation grew and because of the interest and how much it felt like a real fight, and because Inoki was involved, in 2003 it was named the greatest fight of the 20th century in Japan.

He returned to Japan in 1984 for another World Karate Open, and won some fights, but didn’t fare we well. He retired from competition and taught Kyokushin Karate, as well as some kickboxing, Jiu Jitsu and Aikido in North Carolina.

He was brought in on June 4, 1991, when the karate organizations in Japan were trying to create a new heavyweight superstar in Masaaki Satake, who would later do pro wrestling with RINGS but became very well-known in the heyday of K-1 a few years later. With Williams being such a well-known cultural name, the expectation that the younger Satake would beat him, which he did via decision, helped build Satake’s reputation.

Akira Maeda was a big fan of the “Karate Baka Ichidai” and “Shikakui Jungle” comic books growing up, and he was 20 years old when the Inoki vs. Williams match took place. Of all Inoki’s martial arts and pro wrestling matches of his heyday, of course, the Ali match was the biggest, and the first Ruska match would be second and Williams would be third. But since the Williams match was considered easily the best of the three, it was considered as the peak of the genre.

In 1992, Maeda brought in a 40-year-old Williams for his RINGS promotion and signed him to a three-year-contract, with the idea of using him as a name to draw, having the credibility of being real from the Inoki match and the movie and comic books. The idea is he’d be mostly given wins, but in big matches would be there to put over the top stars.

RINGS was a largely worked pro wrestling promotion that purported to be a shoot, and many believed it. Years later, RINGS became a complete shoot, and fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Randy Couture, Renzo Gracie, Dan Henderson, Matt Hughes, Pat Miletich, Frank Shamrock and others fought there. Really, Emelianenko and Nogueira were first discovered and started in RINGS before they became bigger stars with Pride.

Because of that, Williams is listed as having a 9-4 MMA record, because for whatever reason, Sherdog and Wikipedia still to this day list many pro wrestling matches as real fights from the RINGS era.

Williams’ biggest matches in RINGS were his high profile losses to the top stars. Really, he was old, and his body was broken down from all the years of karate. The only thing really remembered about Williams from this period is he was tall and had the famous name from the past.

After scoring three fast knockout wins, they built up Maeda vs. Williams for July 16, 1992 at the Osaka Furitsu Gym (Edion Arena today).

Maeda vowed to retire if he lost. They drew a sellout crowd, with Maeda winning by submission at 2:03 of the third round.

His next big match was with Volk Han, Maeda’s foreign top star. This wasn’t planned. They had booked a big show for May 29, 1993 at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, a 12,000-seat arena. But Maeda, the top draw, was injured. Maeda was completely carrying the promotion from a box office perspective at the time, and the only idea they could come up with was Williams vs. Han. Han was the company’s second biggest star. It was enough to draw 8,700 fans, considered a huge success for a show without Maeda.

With his contract running out at the end of 1994, Maeda booked him to loss to himself one last time on May 17, 1994, in Sendai, where they drew a sellout of 4,856 fans. Maeda beat him in 2:38 since he was on his way out.

He was entered in the 1994 Battle Dimension tournament, and lasted until the third round where he was submitted again by Han on November 19, 1994 at the Ariake Coliseum as the No. 2 bout behind Maeda’s beating Tony Halme (a boxer who worked as Ludvig Borga in WWE and was also years earlier a top foreign star with New Japan, and later lost to Randy Couture in UFC).

He had three more RINGS matches, one in 1995, beating former Olympic wrestler Grom Zaza, and had two losses in 1996. His second, to Nikolai Zouev, a Russian freestyle and sambo champion was the main event on a Jekaterinburg, Russian show before 6,580 fans. There is a chance that match was legitimate, since the RINGS shows outside Japan were shoot shows. Williams fought one known legitimate MMA fight on September 14, 1996, in Mobile, AL, at 45 years old, losing to Ray Brooks. Given how badly his body was beaten up by that time, the idea of him doing shoots was not a good thing.

Inoki did finally get his win back. When Inoki announced his retirement tour, one of the themes was callback to his legendary matches from the past.

On January 4, 1997, Inoki vs. Williams was booked for the Tokyo Dome in New Japan’s biggest event of the year. It was fourth from the top on a show headlined by Shinya Hashimoto vs. Riki Choshu for the IWGP heavyweight title, which sold out with 52,500 fans. This was the description of the match in the Observer:

8. Antonio Inoki beat Willie Williams in 4:23. Satoru Sayama was in Inoki's corner for the match. Inoki used the octopus, then dropped to the mat with Williams, who tapped out. Awful. -* This was a rematch of their famous inconclusive mixed martial arts match in 1980, Antonio Inoki (who turns 54 in a few weeks) and Williams is 48.

Still, the show, which aired on a next day replay on a Sunday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., did an 11.3 rating and 12 million viewers. While it was Choshu vs. Hashimoto that drew the peak of nearly 18 million viewers, Inoki vs. Williams was the second highest rated match, which shows just how much people remembered the match from 17 years earlier.

Williams ended his pro wrestling career, working in 1998 and 1999 for FMW.

We got some information regarding boxing, wrestling and UFC crossover on PPV.

This is based on the September Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight.

This is the percentage of the PPV buyers of each specific company that purchased this show at $85.

UFC 10.40%

Average of all pro wrestling companies 6.03%

UFC/pro wrestling crossover fans 20.12%

WWE 6.30%

AEW 4.87%

What this basically means is that people who are fans of both pro wrestling and UFC are far more likely to have purchased this show than fans of either genre specifically. The average of all wrestling companies would be close to WWE’s average since WWE does the vast majority of the PPV buys in total.

WWE buyers were more likely to purchase the boxing match than AEW fans, but the difference isn’t that significant. WWE likely has a greater Hispanic fan base than AEW, really it almost certainly does.

Another interesting note is that over the course of the year there were 165,000 different U.S. homes that purchased WWE PPV events. Of course that number pales to the 1,297,000 U.S. homes that subscribed to the WWE Network on the day after WrestleMania, the year’s high point. But if we go with the idea there is no crossover (which is a ridiculous premise), than 11.3 percent are still using PPV during the course of the year. The real number is higher, but how much so is impossible to tell. But one would think if you are comparing a $65 or $75 purchase to one you can get for $9.99, than it would be far more than 88.7 percent choosing the latter.

The number of PPV buyers is considerably higher than I expected, for the obvious price disparity reasons, particularly since WrestleMania was purchased in 64,100. One would think that if people are still buying WWE shows, that WrestleMania would be the show they would all be buying.

For McGregor vs. Nurmagomedov, this is the percentage of buys of each of these shows that ordered the biggest UFC show on PPV in history.

Double or Nothing 10.3%

WrestleMania 6.7%

Alvarez-Golovkin 11.3%

This is the percentage of people who purchased each of those shows that also purchased UFC 229. So AEW PPV buyers are more likely by percentage to buy a major UFC show than WWE PPV buyers. Boxing fans are still more likely of the three.

Now these are percentages, in actual numbers of crossover fans, 11.3 percent of Alvarez-Golovkin buyers dwarfs 10.3 percent of the 36,000 or so AEW buyers. In actual crossover buys, About 3,790 of the AEW buyers purchased UFC 229 on PPV. About 3,961 WWE Mania PPV buyers did. For Alvarez-Golovkin, that total is nearly 166,000. What’s also notable is the crossover of UFC 229, Mania on PPV, and Double or Nothing, let alone all three and Alvarez-Golovkin is practically nil. If you throw out Mania, because the majority are ordering it in other fashion, the number of homes that purchased DON, Alvarez-Golovkin and UFC 229 was about 682 nationwide.

AAA ran one of its major events of the year, Verano de Escandalo, on 6/16 in Merida at the Poliforuma Zamma, before almost 6,000 fans.

There were about 14,000 Spanish language viewers and 7,000 English language at the peak on Twitch, which was during the Young Bucks match. It should be noted that Hugo Savinovich, who does the Spanish broadcasts, is tremendous. Even if you don’t know Spanish, he gets the excitement over to where it’s worth listening to. Of course if you’re a newcomer, the issue with the Spanish, like with the Japanese announcers, is if you don’t know the language, they can’t help you with storylines, match story and other issues. Still, when TripleMania comes, the Spanish broadcast is still the option to take.

There were some technical issues early, including video packages with no audio, bad crowd micing, entrance and ring mic issues. The show is the final major before TripleMania, so the key issue in the main event was building interest in the Blue Demon Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. mask vs. hair match which takes place on 8/3 at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City. Cain Velasquez makes his pro wrestling debut on that show.

They are working on a major international match for this show involving AEW talent.

AEW talent will not be appearing on the AAA shows on 9/15 in Madison Square Garden or 10/13 at the Forum in Los Angeles. The latter show was just announced this week. The funny thing is AAA held a press conference to announce the Los Angeles show on 6/19, but kept the press conference secret. Think about that for a second. The Los Angeles date goes head-to-head with a WWE show in Anaheim.

Announced for the show were Aerostar, Demon Jr., Daga, Dinastia, Drago, Wagner Jr., Fenix, Golden Magic, El Hijo del Tirantes, El Hijo del Vikingo, Konnan, La Parka, La Hiedra, La Parkita, Lady Maravilla, Lady Shani, Mamba, Maximo, Myzteziz Jr., Nino Hamburguesa, Pagano, Pentagon Jr., Piero, Pimpinela Escarlata, Puma King, Taya, Tessa Blanchard, El Texano Jr., and Villano III Jr.

Demon Jr. and Wagner Jr. were notable because both have said they will retire if they lose at TripleMania. But nobody believes either of them.

An angle was shot on 6/18 at Arena Aficion, where Wagner Jr. and two of his sons were doing a tribute to Silver King. Demon showed up and attacked Wagner, breaking a giant photo of Silver King over his head. This was not on an AAA show. No word if it’ll even air on AAA television. That said, while this angle sounds like great heat, that’s worse than WWE with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose and harkens back to exploiting the Eddy Guerrero death in 2005. It’s one thing for Wagner to wear a Silver King t-shirt in his match and bleed all over it, it’s another to do an angle at a Silver King ceremony this soon after the death.

The semi saw Pentagon Jr. & Fenix regain the AAA tag team titles from The Young Bucks in a rematch from Double or Nothing. The announcers pushed Double or Nothing big, noting it being a fast sellout and also talked about the AEW Chicago sellout. The match was very different from their previous match in Mexico which was a rushed match that the crowd didn’t get into that much. It was very different from Las Vegas, where it was about giving the fans a classic tag team match. This was very clear Mexican faces trying to regain the belts from American heels, who did show their talent, but still were strong heels. It worked because the last several minutes had super heat and you could see the crowd standing and reacting big. It featured ref bumps and low blows and all the stuff those fans react to in their faces vs. heel Lucha style.

AAA is usually about sloppy brawling and entertainment, and mostly stories. The demos are just barely over 50 percent male across the board, so it’s a higher female audience contingent than in the U.S. and they play to a younger women audience, but more overtly than, say Dallas with the Von Erichs 35 years ago. It’s Mexico, so high flying is part of it. Konnan was a gigantic ECW fan, and worked for the promotion and his entire view of wrestling was heavily influenced by Paul Heyman. So that element is all over the place although this product overall is completely different. It’s also very different from the CMLL product which is much more technical wrestling oriented and built around flying.

Of course AAA has always had great flyers and the most talked about part of the show was Aerostar’s fall. Aerostar teamed with Pagano & Puma King against Killer Kross (with Scarlett Bordeaux as his manager) & Monsther Clown & Chessman. He climbed to the top of the lighting grid, which looked to be 20 to 25 feet legitimately above the floor. He dropped down. Chessman and Monsther Clown were there to catch him. From what we were told, they both looked up to catch him and were blinded by the lights. This spot is not unusual. He did the same spot the day before at the TV tapings in Cancun. I’ve seen him do it before on big shows. He’s never been significantly hurt doing the spot, but there are spots with risks and there are spots that are tempting fate. ECW did big drops but they always had tables break the fall. Other big drops, like in scaffold matches, were in the ring. This spot done regularly is a tragedy waiting to happen. One person close to the scene noted that it’s become a thing in his head that he thinks if it’s a big show he should do it. He fell down like always, but in doing so, hit Chessman on the way down and it turned him and he landed badly on his neck and head. He was immediately taken out on a stretcher. AAA sent word that he was okay, but we heard he was hurting really badly. He had a lump on his head, so his head did hit the floor, but after going to the hospital he was said to be okay. He was talking and joking afterwards, but there were reports he did have a neck brace on later after going to the hospital. But he did appear at the press conference a few days later in Los Angeles without a neck brace. But these kind of stunts are pushing fate and his being okay shouldn’t be considered a reason that it’s okay to keep doing them.

Cody was announced the night before the show by the English announcers as being here. He wasn’t. The Spanish announcers never said it.

Here’s a report on the show by Patrick Tobin:

1. AAA Reina de Reinas championship: Keyra beat Chik Tormenta and Lady Shani © in a 3-way match in 8:30 with a power bomb and a jackknife pin on Shani. Hopefully Keyra gets a fair shake with the title. Shani's title reign has mostly been a dud. Not because of Shani herself, but because since winning Faby Apache's hair at Triplemania, Shani's mostly just been around filling out multi-person mixed tags, often the first match or two on a show. It's the same problem WWE has: having a title doesn't get someone over when you do nothing else to get over the person or the title. Anyway this was probably a really good match. Keyra and Shani have styles well suited for each other, and Chik Tormenta is green but not horribly so. The big problem was just that one, we didn't see five minutes of it, and two, there was no audio except the announcers. Post-match, Keyra and Chik Tormenta shook hands. I want to be generous and give this *** but it probably would have been ***½ without the issues.

Lucha Brothers came out for a promo. Konnan came out and got in their faces, saying that he had discovered the Brothers and now they'd turned their backs on him, and the LBs and Konnan had words until Konnan sucker punched Penta. The Young Bucks ran in and hit the Lucha Brothers with belt shots. The way AAA TV tapings work is that usually they're split into two actual airings. So when Verano de Escandalo airs on TV, the first week will probably have this in-ring encounter, and then the second will have the actual match. So that's why they do promos early in a taping to set up the same taping's main event.

2. Faby Apache beat El Hijo del Tirantes in 9:07 with a trash can assisted missile dropkick. Chik Tormenta came out as Hijo del Tirantes's second and got involved throughout. The Faby vs. Tirantes feud has been building and building and building and building for months now, and this gave people what they wanted to see: Faby beating the shit out of Tirantes with cookie sheets and trash cans and stuff. Unfortunately, after Faby got the clean win, Tirantes and Chik Tormenta came right back and left her laying with trash can shots for heat. No AAA feud ever seems to end, even when they book an ending. **

3. Australian Suicide & Sammy Guevara beat Maximo & Mamba in 12:46 when Guevara hit a shooting star press on Mamba. Speaking of more dumb stuff about AAA booking: 13-minute-long exotico matches. It would be one thing if Maximo and Mamba could compete with Suicide and Guevara in-ring, but this match was about 5 minutes of comedy and shtick stretched out to 13, and felt like 26. **

4. Laredo Kid & Taya beat Tessa Blanchard & Daga in 14:34 when Laredo Kid hit the Laredo Fly (top rope belly to belly into a Spanish fly into a pin) on Daga. The Laredo Fly has, whether intended or not, been one of the most protected moves in AAA for months: the only person to ever kick out of it in a long LONG time has been Vikingo during their big match the other week. This was the second best match on the show, and the audio problems seemed to be worked out by now: the crowd looked AND sounded hot, you could hear the bumps in the ring, and so on. Daga tried to use the brass knux again and accidentally got Tessa. On the one hand, if it came down to Laredo and Daga, Laredo should have won (he's a double champion). On the other hand, Daga's next big match is a title shot against Drago for the Latin American title on 7/6 in Zapopan, so now he's going into it having lost. (Though there's a 7/3 taping where he'll probably get some buildup.) Considering those factors, you'd think the finish would involve Tessa and Taya over the two guys. But if that's the worst thing about a match's booking, it's still doing pretty well by AAA standards... ***½

5. Puma King & Aerostar & Pagano b Killer Kross & Monsther Clown & Chessman in 10:33 when Puma King power bombed Chessman through a ladder. This was three singles feuds being lumped together in one match: Puma/Kross, Aero/Monsther, and Pagano/Chessman. So Aerostar did his 25-foot dive off the lighting rig, and that's what everyone talked about. Monsther Clown and Aerostar have been building to a mask match for months now, and who knows when it will ever get booked (though the rumor seemed to be it was slated for MSG in September, for a while). That was really the only noteworthy thing about the match. Kross has a body but his personality didn’t really get over. Konnan is a huge proponent of his and obviously Impact sees him as a big star since he’s one of their most-pushed guys. Pagano did a top-rope leg drop that looked like a serious attempt to shatter his own ankle, and also didn't look like a leg drop besides. Without Aerostar nearly killing himself this would have been a **½ match anyway. With Aerostar nearly killing himself, how do you even rate it? The rest of the match was just the circumstances surrounding a crazy stunt. And even Chessman and Monsther Clown, who are normally a good and a decent base for flyers, respectively, clearly could not be "good bases" for a guy free-falling 25 feet. Post-match, Kross beat up Puma for a while and took his mask. Knowing AAA, they want to do a mask vs. hair match with a bald guy. Or maybe Kross can borrow Wagner's weave.

6. Myzteziz Jr. & El Hijo del Vikingo & La Parka beat Los Mercenarios (El Texano Jr. & La Hiedra & Rey Escorpion) in 13:23 when Vikingo hit the imploding 450 splash on La Hiedra. The word on Twitter before the show was that Vikingo has been working with an intercostal injury, which has to suck. Los Mercenarios have new gear. They went from Wyatt Family boiler suits, to their old individual gear, to now having matching "what if the Shield were BDSM leather daddies" looks. La Parka did all of his classic grab-ass comedy bits. The funny thing about La Parka II is that even when he WAS able to move around without coming off like a crippled Frankenstein, his arsenal of moves was STILL just grabbing people's asses, taunting, and comedy anyway. So you can't even say he had to change his style all that much. Parka still did a tope to the outside, which he busts out on big shows. This was fine. Post-match, Los Mercenarios rallied and beat down the babyfaces. ***

7. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix won the AAA tag titles from the Young Bucks in 11:54. This was a better and more heated version of their last AAA match, but a different version of what they’d do in the U.S. The match had a lot of highlights. Matt did Northern Lights suplexes on both at the same time. Fenix did a diamond cutter on both his foes at the same time. Fenix did a crazy tope on Nick where he nailed him, flew over him and looked like he landed two or three rows deep. Pentagon did a Canadian Destroyer on Matt. Pentagon got a near fall with a package piledriver on Matt. Pentagon went for a second package piledriver and Fenix added a stuff with a double foot stomp, but Nick pulled ref El Hijo de Tirantes out of the ring to stop the count. Matt then used a low blow and unmasked Pentagon all when Tirantes was out of the ring. The Young Bucks hit the Meltzer driver on Pentagon when Tirantes was back in the ring, but Fenix then pulled Tirantes out of the ring. Fenix then hit Matt with a low blow and diamond cutter, but Matt kicked out. The crowd was really going nuts at this point with everyone standing. They did another Pentagon package piledriver with a Fenix double foot stomp stuff on the way down on Matt for the pin. ****

8. Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown beat Taurus & Blue Demon Jr. in 17:23 when Wagner pinned Demon with the Wagner driver. This was also fine. It was all brawling all over the place. The four are over as stars. Demon and Wagner are legends and Psycho is the most popular wrestler in the promotion, especially to little kids. Wagner and Demon showed so little chemistry together at the start of this long build to Triplemania that now every time they're opposite one another, they go for a bloodbath. And since they're both good at those, it's been the saving grace of the feud. Both juiced. Wagner tore off much of Demon’s mask before he juiced. All the blood and brawling did get heat. Wagner also worked the match wearing a Silver King T-shirt. There were chair shots to the head used. They weren’t sick but you wouldn’t see that in the U.S. in this day and age for good reason. Psycho broke a broomstick over Taurus’ back. Wagner backdropped Demon through a table at another point. Wagner still looks like an insane person with the bad weave. This was the usual AAA main event walk-and-brawl. Sometimes they're really good, sometimes they're not so good, and this one was right in the middle. ***

The family of former UFC fighter Tim Hague, who died two years ago after a boxing match in Edmonton, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in regards to the death.

Hague filed suit against the city of Edmonton, the Edmonton Combative Sports Commission, the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, Pat Reid (the former head of the commission), referee Len Koivisto, ringside physician Dr. Shelby Karpman and Dr. Shridi Nulliah, KO Boxing and others.

Hague had a 1-2 record as a pro boxer and faced former Canadian Football Leaguer Adam Braidwood, the WBU champion, on June 16, 2017, in Edmonton. The popular school teacher was knocked down over and over before the fight was stopped at 2:08 of the second round. The fight was clearly stopped late.

The suit was filed by his brother, Ian Hague in Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta. The family alleges gross negligence contributed to his death.

The fight itself was a mismatch. Hague was knocked down four times in the first round.

A key to the lawsuit is that after death, Hague was diagnosed with CTE. That wouldn’t be a surprise since he had 34 MMA fights between 2006 and 2016, and had been knocked out eight times in MMA and twice as a boxer.

He’s the first UFC fighter to be diagnosed with CTE. It’s simply common sense that UFC fighters with long careers are in danger of having CTE. The reason he’s only the first is because UFC is still a young enough sport to where few fighters have died and had their brains examined. There are fighters who are suffering problems from long careers already, but CTE can only be diagnosed at this point after someone passes away.

However, a more scary diagnosis was after the death of Jordan Parsons, who died at 25 when he was run over crossing the street, he was found with CTE. Parsons had only been knocked out once in his career of 13 pro fights.

Hague was knocked out on December 18, 2015, on an MMA show in Edmonton. In theory, that should require a 90 days suspension, but he was allowed to fight again on March 4, 2016, slightly before the suspension should have expired. He was knocked out again, and then fought again on April 15, 2016, although won that fight.

He was knocked out in four of his last five MMA fights and followed that being knocked out in a boxing match before the Braidwood fight.

They claimed the commission was negligent in ignoring six mandatory medical suspensions and also allowing him to fight while under suspension in other jurisdictions.

They are seeking $4,268,000 in the lawsuit.

Smackdown on 6/18 drew a 1.27 rating and 1,859,000 viewers, (1.65 viewers per home) which would be the fourth lowest live audience number. It was down 3.7 percent from last week and 19.7 percent down in viewers but a whopping 35.5 percent in ratings from last year.

The only shows in history that did lower viewer numbers since Smackdown went live were 2/5 (against Donald Trump’s state of the union address) and 4/30 and 5/14 against NBA playoff games. The 5/14 show holds the record low at 1,827,000, so for a show with no sports competition or major competition to nearly hit the all-time low is a bad sign.

As far as the rating goes, it was actually below all three of those shows, but did beat the Christmas night show in ratings that did a 1.24 rating and 1,904,000 viewers because more people get together for families on Christmas so homes were down and viewers per home were up. But still, having a lower rating than both Christmas night and New Year’s night on a random night in June is a terrible sign.

Smackdown was 10th for the night on cable.

The show did a 0.34 in 12-17 (down 5.6 percent from last week), 0.34 in 18-34 (down 20.9 percent), 0.78 in 35-49 (up 1.3 percent) and 0.84 in 50+ (down 1.2 percent).

The audience was 60.2 percent male in 18-49 and 54.6 percent male in 12-17.

Raw on 6/17 did a 1.63 rating and 2,235,000 viewers (1.54 viewers per home). The rating was up 5.8 percent from last week and viewers were up 5.2 percent from last week’s show, that went head-to-head with game five of the NBA finals which drew 18,217,000 U.S. viewers.

The bounce back was lower than expected, but the good news is the retention throughout the show was much better than usual. That’s an indication it was a good show to keep the existing viewers, which had to do with what was advertised for hour three, the Seth Rollins vs. Daniel Bryan match.

Raw was fifth for the night on cable, only trailing news shows.

The number was key this week because it’s the indicator, now that the NBA playoffs are over, what level of level the show is expected to do. Two weeks ago the show did 2,405,000 viewers without NBA competition, but that was a hot shot promising the Brock Lesnar cash-in.

The audience was down 22.8 percent from the same week last year, which sounds very bad, and it is, but last year’s show was unusually large coming the day after Money in the Bank.

Raw has been booking very much a cry wolf philosophy, and like in the fairy tale, crying wolf leads to diminishing returns. They’ve spent weeks telling you you’re getting the cash in as the main theme, only to not deliver. This week they didn’t promise a cash-in (Paul Heyman did tease it as a possibility, but it wasn’t pushed strongly), but the show was built on Baron Corbin announcing his referee for the title match during the show. Then the show ended without such an announcement after nothing but teases.

The first-to-third hour drop was stronger with men than women, which is against the normal pattern. The overall 10.6 percent drop is much better than in recent weeks.

Women 18-49 tuned out at a 7.4 percent clip, men 18-49 at a 10.5 percent clip, teenage girls at a 10.2 percent clip, teenage boys at a 17.5 percent clip and over 50 at a 11.5 percent clip.

The first hour did 2,325,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,303,000 viewers. The third hour did 2,078,000 viewers.

The show did a 0.37 in 12-17 (up 2.8 percent from last week’s non-holiday record low vs. NBA), 0.49 in 18-34 (up 11.4 percent), 0.93 in 35-49 (up 8.1 percent) and 1.00 in 50+ (up 8.7 percent)

The audience was 62.7 percent male in 18-49 and 60.5 percent male in 12-17.

Updating some ratings of MMA.

Combate Americas on Univision at midnight on late 7/7 did 421,000 viewers. It was the highest rated midnight show for the week on the station, which is impressive since Friday is a tough night for television. The prior Combate show on Univision in a late Friday night time slot did 390,000 viewers.

PFL on 7/6 did 115,000 viewers in a Thursday night at 7 p.m. time slot on ESPN 2.

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RESULTS



6/1 Lubbock, TX(WWE Raw): Usos b Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder, Ricochet won won four-way over Samoa Joe, Robert Roode and Cedric Alexander, Naomi b Tamina-DQ, Naomi & Dana Brooke b Tamina & Sarah Logan, Braun Strowman b Bobby Lashley, Kalisto b Eric Young, Viking Raiders b Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado, Lacy Evans b Natalya, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/2 San Angelo, TX (WWE Raw - 2,200): Usos b Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder, Ricochet won four-way over Samoa Joe, Robert Roode and Cedric Alexander, Naomi b Tamina-DQ, Naomi & Dana Brooke b Tamina & Sarah Logan, Braun Strowman b Bobby Lashley, Kalisto b Eric Young, Viking Raiders b Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado, Lacy Evans b Natalya, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/6 Largo, FL (WWE NXT- 400): Joaquin Wilde b Kona Reeves, M.J. Jenkins b Rachael Evers, Brennan Williams & Isaiah Scott b Brendan Vink & Jermaine Haley, Damien Priest b Cezar Bononi, Tag titles: Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins b Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler, Ridge Holland b Rik Bugez, Albert Hardie Jr. b Boa, Karen Q & Xia Li b Vanessa Borne & Aliyah, NXT title: Adam Cole b Keith Lee

6/6 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Dragon Gate - 1,638 sellout): K-Ness & Mondai Ryu & Dragon Dia & Draztick Boy b Yasshi & Punch Tominaga & Hiroshi Yamato & Jinny, A block championship: Kzy b Kazma Sakamoto, Strong Machines b Kaito Ishida & Hyo Watanabe & Kota Minoura, Masaaki Mochizuki & Yuki Yoshioka NC Shun Skywalker & Keisuke Okuda, Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid & Jason Lee b Kennichiro Arai & Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito, Yamato & Kagetora & Flamita & Yosuke Santa Maria, Kagetora & Flamita & Yosuke Santa Maria b Pac & Big R Shimizu & Yasushi Kanda & Takashi Yoshida, King of Gate semifinals: Eita b Kai, Ben K b Kzy

6/6 New York Melrose Ballroom (Impact Wrestling TV tapings - 350): Rohit Raju b Shawn Donovan, Michael Elgin b Willie Mack, Josh Alexander & Ethan Page b Sabu & Rob Van Dam, Havok b Marsha Slamovich, Raj Singh b Cody Deaner, Madison Rayne b Jordynne Grace, Killer Kross b The Sandman, Dezmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz won over Trey Miguel, Tessa Blanchard b Jake Crist, Sawyer Fulton b Eddie Edwards, Moose b Tommy Dreamer, Knockouts title: Taya Valkyrie b Su Yung, TJP b Ace Austin, Rich Swann won three-way over Johnny Impact and Michael Elgin

6/7 Tampa, FL (WWE NXT- 358): Kushida b Kona Reeves, Jessamyn Duke b Jessi Kamea, Dan Matha & Riddick Moss b Brennan Williams & Isaiah Scott, Babatunde Aiyegbusi b Nick Comoroto, Tag titles: Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford b Jermaine Haley & Brendan Vink, Albert Hardie Jr. b Boa, Rachael Evers & Mia Yim b Vanessa Borne & Aliyah, North American title: Velveteen Dream b Shane Thorne

6/7 New York Melrose Ballroom (Impact TV tapings - 500): Jordynne Grace b Marsha Slamovich, Mad Man Fulton b Charles Mason, Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel b LAX & Laredo Kid, Josh Alexander & Ethan Page b Cody Deaner & Cousin Jake, Rosemary & Taya Valkyrie NC Jessicka Havok & Su Yung, Sami Callihan b Fallah Bahh, TJP b Ace Austin, Keira Hogan b Madison Rayne, Jake Crist won three-way over Mantaquilla and J.T. Dunn, Sabu b Raj Singh, Rohit Raju b Laredo Kid, Rich Swann & Willie Mack b Johnny Impact & Jon E. Bravo

6/7 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Coyote & Grako b Electrico & Oro Jr., Black Panther & Blue Panther & Blue Panther Jr. b Disturbio & Kawato San & Virus, Audaz & Stuka Jr. & Valiente b Mephisto & Ephesto & Rey Bucanero, Cavernario b Templario, Gilbert El Boricua & Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero b Angel de Oro & Caristico & Niebla Roja, Copa Dinastia A block: Volador Jr. & Flyer b Negro Casas & Felino, Rush & Bestia del Ring b Euforia & Soberano Jr., Rush & Bestia del Ring b Volador Jr. & Flyer

6/8 Fort Pierce, FL (WWE NXT - 300): Joaquin Wilde b Humberto Garza Jr., Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir b Xia Li & Karen Q, Danny Burch b Samuel Shaw, Cameron Grimes b Isaiah Scott, Rik Bugez & Denzel Dejournette b Brandon Vink & Jermaine Haley, Rinku Singh b Jeff Parker, Io Shirai b M.J. Jenkins, Velveteen Dream & Kushida b Dan Matha & Riddick Moss

6/8 Philadelphia (House of Hardcore/Impact joint show - 800): Jay XT b Ace Romero, Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel b Mad Man Fulton & Jake & Dave Crist, Moose b Luchasaurus, Little Guido Maritato b Clayton Gainz, Knockouts title: Taya Valkyrie b Jordynne Grace, House of Hardcore TV title: Willie Mack won over Rich Swann and Teddy Hart, Street fight: Sami Callihan b Eddie Edwards, Great Muta & Tommy Dreamer b Michael Elgin & Johnny Impact

6/8 Fukuoka (Dragon Gate - 559): Mondai Ryu d Shachihoko Boy, Ryo Saito & Shun Skywalker & Keisuke Okuda b Masaaki Mochizuki & Don Fujii & Gamma, Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida b Draztick Boy & Jimmy, Masato Yoshino & Dragon Kid & Jason Lee b Flamita & Kai & Yosuke Santa Maria, Pac & Big R Shimizu b Yamato & Kagetora, Yasushi Kanda & Takashi Yoshida & Kazma Sakamoto b Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi, King of Gate finals: Ben K b Eita

6/8 Yokohama (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 360 sellout): Mitsuya Nagai & Kouki Iwasaki b Junta Miyawaki & Seiya Morohashi, Hajime Ohara & Nosawa b Daisuke Harada Tadasuke, Hayata & Yo-Hey b Hitoshi Kumano & Chris Ridgeway, Kenou & Masa Kitamiya & Atsushi Kotoge & Yoshiki Inamura b Akitoshi Saito & Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm & Masao Inoue, Minoru Tanaka & Hi69 b Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki, Takashi Sugiura & Naomichi Marufuji & Shuhei Taniguchi b Kaito Kiyomiya & Katsuhiko Nakajima & Go Shiozaki

6/9 Fresno, CA (WWE Raw - 4,500): Three-way for U.S. title: Samoa Joe won over Ricochet and Cesaro, Alexa Bliss b Natalya, No Way Jose b EC 3, Viking Raiders b Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado, Braun Strowman b Bobby Lashley, Three-way for tag titles: Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins won over Usos and Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, Women’s title: Becky Lynch b Lacey Evans, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/9 Stockton, CA (WWE Smackdown - 5,500): Three-way for IC title: Finn Balor won over Shinsuke Nakamura and Ali, Asuka & Kairi Sane b Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville, Tag titles: Daniel Bryan & Rowan b Apollo Crews & Chad Gable, Roman Reigns b Drew McIntyre, Three-way for women’s title: Bayley won over Liv Morgan and Ember Moon, Lars Sullivan b Matt Hardy, Aleister Black b Randy Orton, WWE title: Kofi Kingston b Dolph Ziggler

6/9 Monterrey (AAA TV tapings - 4,300 sellout): Baby Xtreme & Big Mami & Nino Hamburguesa b Aereo 2000 Jr.& La Hiedra & Lady Maravilla, Tessa Blanchard & Keyra b Faby Apache & Lady Shani, Golden Magic & Myzteziz Jr. b Australian Suicide & Villano III Jr., Cruiserweight title: Laredo Kid b El Hijo del Vikingo, Drago & Aerostar b Monsther Clown & Daga, El Texano Jr. & Rey Escorpion & Taurus b Puma King & Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown

6/9 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 1,710 sellout): Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm & Mitsuya Nagai b Akitoshi Saito & Shuhei Taniguchi & Masao Inoue, Junta Miyawaki & Seiya Morohashi b Hajime Ohara & Nosawa, Kenou & Masa Kitamiya & Akitoshi Saito & Yoshiki Inamura b Katsuhiko Nakajima & Shiro Koshinaka & Hitoshi Kumano & Chris Ridgeway, Hayata & Yo-Hey b Minoru Tanaka & Hi69, Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki b Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke, Go Shiozaki b Naomichi Marufuji, GHC wt title: Kaito Kiyomiya b Takashi Sugiura

6/9 Fukuoka (Dragon Gate - 667 sellout): Kzy & Genki Horiguchi & Shachihoko Boy & Mondai Ryu b Don Fujii & Keisuke Okuda & Draztick Boy & Jimmy, Masato Yoshino & Dragon Kid b Masaaki Mochizuki & Ryo Saito, Pac & Eita & Big R Shimizu & Kazma Sakamoto b Flamita & Kagetora & Yosuke Santa Maria & Ben K, Shun Skywalker b Takashi Yoshida, Open the Brave Gate title: Susumu Yokosuka b Jason Lee, Open the Twin Gate title: Yamato & Kai NC Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida, Yamato & Kai & Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida b Eita & Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida & Yasushi Kanda

6/9 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Fantasy & Shockercito b Pequeno Olimpico & Pierrothito, Akuma & Nitro & Sangre Azteca b Magia Blanca & Retro & Star Jr., Fuego & Guerrero Maya Jr. & Stigma b Dark Magic & El Hijo de Villano III & Misterioso Jr., Rey Cometa b Pegasso, Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja & Soberano Jr. b Cuatrero & Sanson & Forastero, Caristico & Kraneo & Volador Jr. b Gilbert El Boricua & El Terrible & Tiger

6/10 San Jose, CA (WWE Raw/Main Event TV tapings - 6,500): Viking Raiders b No Way Jose & Titus O’Neill, Natalya b Sarah Logan, Lars Sullivan b Kalisto, Lars Sullivan b Lince Dorado, Lars Sullivan b Gran Metalik, Braun Strowman & The Miz & Ricochet b Bobby Lashley & Cesaro & Samoa Joe, Alexa Bliss & Lacey Evans b Becky Lynch & Bayley, Non-title: Billie Kay & Peyton Royce b Lisa Lace & Aliyah Mia. Three-way for tag titles: Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder won titles over Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder and Usos, Non-title/Sami Zayn outside the ring referee: Kevin Owens b Seth Rollins-DQ, Women’s title: Becky Lynch b Lacey Evans

6/10 Reno, NV (WWE Smackdown - 2,700): Three-way for IC title: Finn Balor won over Ali and Shinsuke Nakamura, Matt Hardy b Buddy Murphy, Asuka & Kairi Sane b Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville, Tag titles: Daniel Bryan & Rowan b Apollo Crews & Chad Gable, Roman Reigns b Elias, Ember Moon b Liv Morgan, Aleister Black b Randy Orton, WWE title: Kofi Kingston b Dolph Ziggler

6/10 Oro (Dragon Gate - 285): Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka b Flamita & Yosuke Santa Maria, Dragon Kid & Jason Lee b Masaaki Mochizuki & Jimmy, Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida b Ryo Saito & Keisuke Okuda & Draztick Boy, Ben K & Shun Skywalker b Pac & Yasushi Kanda, Yamato & Kai & Kagetora b Eita & Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida

6/10 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (Fortune Dream - 1,200): Masa Kitamiya & Yuya Aoki b Yowa Iwasaki & Shoki Kitamura, Meiko Satomura d Nanae Takahashi 20:00, Yuji Okabayashi & Kazusada Higuchi b Go Shiozaki & Yoshiki Inamura, Satoshi Kojima & Shinjiro Otani b Daisuke Sekimoto & Hideyoshi Kamitani, Shuji Ishikawa & Jake Lee & Kohei Sato b Zeus & Yuji Hino & Taishi Takizawa

6/11 Sacramento, CA (WWE Smackdown/205 Live TV tapings - 5,000): Ember Moon b Liv Morgan, The Miz b Elias, Drew McIntyre b The Miz, Shane McMahon b The Miz, Heavy Machinery b Dave Dutra & A.J. Kirsch, Sonya Deville b Carmella, Non-title: Bayley b Nikki Cross, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods & Big E b Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn & Dolph Ziggler, Chad Gable b Jack Gallagher-COR, Akira Tozawa and Drew Gulak both won four-way over Humberto Carrillo and Oney Lorcan, IC title: Finn Balor b Shinsuke Nakamura

6/11 Nagasaki (Dragon Gate - 486 sellout): Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka b Masaaki Mochizuki & Draztick Boy, Masato Yoshino & Kaito Ishida b Kagetora & Flamita, Yamato & Kai & Yosuke Santa Maria b Ryo Saito & Keisuke Okuda & Jimmy, Ben K & Shun Skywalker b Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida, Pac & Eita & Yasushi Kanda b Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid & Jason Lee

6/11 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Pequeno Olimpico & Pequeno Violencia b Angelito & Kaligula, Cancerbero & Espiritu Negro & Raziel b Oro Jr. & Robin & Super Astro Jr., Virus b Drone, Dalys & Reyna Isis & Tiffany b Jarochita & Marcela & Sanely, Ephesto & Hechicero & Mephisto b Atlantis & Audaz & Kraneo, Forastero & El Terrible & Bestia del Ring b Soberano Jr. & Stuka Jr. & Titan

6/12 Winter Park, FL (WWE NXT TV tapings - 400 sellout): Rinku Singh b Sean Maluta, Damien Priest b Raul Mendoza, Xia Li b Taynara Conti, Adam Cole & Bobby Fish & Roderick Strong b Velveteen Dream & Tyler Breeze & Matt Riddle, Angel Garza b Joaquin Wilde, Tag titles: Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford b Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler-DQ, Keith Lee b Nykos Rikos, Mia Yim b Aliyah, Kushida b Jeff Parker, Cameron Grimes b Isaiah Scott, Bianca Belair b Priscilla Zuniga, Roderick Strong b Tyler Breeze, Jordan Myles b Boa, Damien Priest b Blanco Loco, Bronson Reed b Dexter Lumis, Cage match for women’s title: Shayna Baszler b Io Shirai

6/13 Winter Park, FL (WWE NXT TV tapings - 400 sellout): Matt Riddle b Arturo Ruas, Kushida b Apollo Crews, Tag titles: Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford b Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch, Jordan Myles b Angel Garza, Bianca Belair b Xia Li, Io Shirai b Kacy Catanzaro, Damien Priest b Keith Lee, Tyler Breeze b Jaxson Ryker, Cameron Grimes b Bronson Reed, Kushida b Jeff Parker, Shane Thorne b Joaquin Wilde, Pete Dunne b Roderick Strong

6/13 Osaka (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 885): Yoshiki Inamura b Kinya Okada, Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm b Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue, Minoru Tanaka & Hi69 & Hajime Ohara & Nosawa b Hitoshi Kumano & Chris Ridgeway & Junta Miyawaki & Seiya Morohashi, Kaito Kiyomiya & Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke b Kenou & Masa Kitamiya & Atsushi Kotoge, GHC jr. tag league finals: Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki b Hayata & Yo-Hey, Shuhei Taniguchi b Naomichi Marufuji, GHC tag titles: Takashi Sugiura & Kazma Sakamoto b Katsuhiko Nakajima & Go Shiozaki to win titles

6/14 Winnipeg (WWE Raw - 3,500): Kalisto b Robert Roode, Viking Raiders b Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado, Lacey Evans won three-way over Natalya and Alexa Bliss, U.S. title: Samoa Joe b Ricochet, Ricochet & Cedric Alexander b Samoa Joe & Cesaro, Nikki Cross b Tamina, Three-way for tag titles: Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder b Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows and Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/14 Ocala, FL (WWE NXT - 350): Joaquin Wilde b Angel Garza, Karen Q b Rachael Evers, Brennan Williams b Cezar Bononi, Jeff Parker & Matt Lee b Rocky & Boa, Keith Lee b Brendan Vink, Jordan Myles b Ridge Holland, Dexter Lumis b Denzel Dejournette, Bianca Belair b M.J. Jenkins, Bobby Fish & Roderick Strong b Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch

6/14 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Magia Blanca & Star Jr. b Akuma & Espanto Jr., Esfinge & Rey Cometa & Triton b Kawato San & Polvora & Tiger-DQ, Atlantis Jr. & Soberano Jr. & Valiente b Cuatrero & Forastero & El Hijo del Villano III, Euforia b Rey Bucanero, Block B in Copa Dinastia tournament: Angel de Oro & Niebla Roa b Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero, Dragon Lee & Mistico b Mascara Ano 2000 & Sanson, Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja b Dragon Lee & Mistico, Austin Theory & Caristico & Volador Jr. b Cavernario & Negro Casas & Rush

6/14 Numazu (New Japan - 1,260): Yota Tsuji b Yuya Uemura, Lance Archer & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru b Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Shota Umino, Sanada & Bushi b Togi Makabe & Ren Narita, Tetsuya Naito & Evil & Shingo Takagi b Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare, Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls & Sho & Yoh b Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi b Jay White & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens, Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi b Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. & Douki

6/14 Waterbury, CT (NEW - 1,000 sellout): Hale Collins b Chris Battle, Zane Bernardo & R.J. Rude won three-way over Marq Quen & Isaiah Kassidy and Tommy & JP Grayson, Thrillride & Ron Zombie b Dexter Loux & Mike Gamble, King Brian Anthony b Keith Youngblood, No DQ: Joey Janela b Brad Hollister, Penelope Ford b Alisha Edwards, NEW title: J.T. Dunn b Wrecking Ball Legursky, Jon Moxley b Darby Allin

6/15 Anaheim, CA (WWE Raw - 6,000): Three-way for U.S. title: Samoa Joe won over Ricochet and Cesaro, Robert Roode b Heath Slater, Cedric Alexander b Robert Roode, Viking Raiders b Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik, Nikki Cross b Tamina, Braun Strowman b Bobby Lashley, Four-way for tag titles: Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder won over Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins, Usos and Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, Three-way for women’s title: Becky Lynch won over Natalya and Lacey Evans, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/15 Denver (WWE Smackdown): IC title: Finn Balor b Shinsuke Nakamura, Ember Moon b Liv Morgan, Asuka & Kairi Sane b Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville, Ali b Jinder Mahal, Roman Reigns b Elias, Women’s title: Bayley b Alexa Bliss, Chad Gable & Apollo Crews b Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel, Three-way for WWE title: Kofi Kingston won over Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler

6/15 Orlando (WWE NXT - 350): Mia Yim b Reina Gonzalez, Isaiah Scott & Brennan Williams & Cal Bloom b Cezar Bononi & Jeff Parker & Matt Lee, Mansoor b Kona Reeves, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch b Riddick Moss & Dorian Mack, Jordan Myles b Ridge Holland, Keith Lee b Arturo Ruas, Vanessa Borne & Aliyah b Xia Li & Karen Q, North American title: Velveteen Dream b Roderick Strong

6/15 Machida (New Japan - 2,777): Yuya Uemura b Yota Tsuji, Lance Archer & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru b Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Ren Narita, Shingo Takagi & Bushi b Tomohiro Ishii & Shota Umino, Tetsuya Naito & Evil & Sanada b Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasm b Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls & Sho & Yoh, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe & Ryusuke Taguchi b Jay White & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens, Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano & Yoshi-Hashi b Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. & Douki,

6/15 Cancun, Mexico (AAA TV tapings - 4,000): Invencible Jr. & Tiger Fly b Corsario Jr. & Guerrero Galactico, Maximo & Mamba b El Hijo del Tirantes & Keyra, Chik Tormenta & La Hiedra & Tessa Blanchard b Lady Shani & Scarlett Bordeaux & Taya, Sammy Guevara won three-way over Myzteziz Jr. and Puma King, Daga b Laredo Kid, El Hijo del Vikingo & La Parka & Aerostar b Monster Clown & Chessman & Australian Suicide, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown & Pagano b Killer Kross & Rey Escorpion & El Texano Jr.-DQ

6/15 Jackson, NJ (Northeast Wrestling - 3,800 sellout/park grandstand show): Darby Allin won Battle Royal, Private Party won three-way over Inzanely Rude and Amazing Graysons, Karissa Rivera b Tasha Steelz, Wrecking Ball Legursky won three-way over Brad Hollister and Mike Verna, NEW title: Darby Allin b J.T. Dunn to win title, Big Cass b Thrillride, Jon Moxley b Big Cass

6/15 Tijuana, BC (The Crash - 3,300): Austin Theory b Mesias, Mecha Wolf 450 & Rey Fenix b Bestia 666 & Penta 0M, Deluxe & Dinamico & Lady Flammer b Black Danger & Miranda Alize & Tiago, El Hijo del Fantasma & Niebla Roja b Angel de Oro & Rey Horus, Sanson & Trauma I b Cuatrero & Trauma II, Bandido won four-way over Adam Books, Dragon Lee and Matt Taven

6/15 Tsuyuhashi (All Japan - 483): Koji Iwamoto b Hokuto Omori, Takao Omori & Black Menso-re & Dan Tamura b Jun Akiyama & Atsushi Aoyagi & Utamaro, Dylan James & Gianni Valletta b Zeus & Atsushi Maruyama, Taiji & Hikaru Sato b Takuya Wada & Ultimo Dragon, Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi b Yoshitatsu & Nobe Bryant, Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura & Ryoji Sai b Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa & Yusuke Okada

6/15 Okayama (Dragon Gate - 333): Yosuke Santa Maria & Draztick Boy b Hyo Watanabe & Kota Minoura, Jason Lee & Kaito Ishida b Keisuke Okada & Jimmy, Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka & Yasshi b Shachihoko Boy & Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid, Ben K & Shun Skywalker b Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida, Yamato & Kagetora & Flamita b Pac & Eita & Yasushi Kanda

6/16 San Diego (WWE Raw - 4,000): Four-way for U.S. title: Samoa Joe won over Ricochet, Cesaro and Bobby Roode, Sami Zayn b Heath Slater, Cedric Alexander b Sami Zayn, Viking Raiders b Kalisto & Lince Dorado, Nikki Cross b Tamina, Braun Strowman b Bobby Lashley, Four-way for tag titles: Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder won over Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows and Usos, Three-way for women’s title: Becky Lynch won over Lacey Evans and Natalya, Universal title: Seth Rollins b Baron Corbin

6/16 Salt Lake City (WWE Smackdown- 2,500): IC title: Finn Balor b Shinsuke Nakamura, Ember Moon b Liv Morgan, Asuka & Kairi Sane b Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville, Ali b Matt Hardy, Roman Reigns b Drew McIntyre, Apollo Crews & Chad Gable b Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel, Women’s title: Bayley b Alexa Bliss, WWE title: Kofi Kingston b Dolph Ziggler

6/16 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,713 sellout): Yota Tsuji b Yuya Uemura, Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki b Tomohiro Ishii & Tomoaki Honma & Ren Narita, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Jado b Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls & Ryusuke Taguchi, Tetsuya Naito & Evil & Sanada & Shingo Takagi & Bushi b Kota Ibushi & Yuji Nagata & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Shota Umino, Jay White & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe & Toru Yano, Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. & Lance Archer b Kazuchika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi & Toa Henare, IWGP Jr. Tag titles: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo b Sho & Yoh to win titles

6/16 Hiroshima (Dragon Gate - 630 sellout): Kzy & Yasshi b Keisuke Okada & Jimmy, Susumu Yokosuka b Shachihoko Boy, Eita & Big R Shimizu & Yasushi Kanda b Hyo Watanabe & Yuki Yoshioka & Draztick Boy, Ben K & Shun Skywalker b Pac & Takashi Yoshida, Naruki Doi & Dragon Kid & Jason Lee & Kaito Ishida b Yamato & Flamita & Kagetora & Yosuke Santa Maria

6/16 Chiba (All Japan - 183): Hikaru Sato & Hokuto Omori b Yusuke Okada & Atsuki Aoyagi, Nobe Bryant b Atsushi Maruyama, Jun Akiyama & Yuki Sato b Takao Omori & Black Menso-re, Jake Lee & Koji Iwamoto b Naoya Nomura & Dan Tamura, Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa b Dylan James & Gianni Valletta, Zeus & Yoshitatsu & Taishi Takizawa b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi & Ayato Yoshida

6/16 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Coyote & Inquisidor b Leono & Sonic, Disturbio & Nitro & Principe Odin Jr. b Electrico & Sangre Imperial & Stigma, Sangre Azteca b Halcon Suriano Jr., Amapola & Dalys & Comandante b Avispa Dorada & Maligna & Sanely, Luciferno & Mephisto & El Terrible b Flyer & Titan & Volcano, Caristico & Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr. b Cavernario & Euforia & Gran Guerrero-DQ

6/17 Los Angeles Staples Center (WWE Raw/Main Event TV tapings - 9,000): Dana Brooke NC Sarah Logan, Robert Roode b Cedric Alexander, Ricochet won elimination match over Braun Strowman, The Miz, Bobby Lashley and Cesaro, Viking Raiders b Russ & Randy Taylor, 2/3 falls: Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods & Big E b Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn & Baron Corbin, Usos b Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, Women’s tag titles: Billie Kay & Peyton Royce b Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss, Non-title: Seth Rollins b Daniel Bryan-DQ, Non-title: Seth Rollins b Daniel Bryan

6/17 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (New Japan - 1,713 sellout): Yuya Uemura b Yota Tsuji, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare b Yuji Nagata & Shota Umino, Tetsuya Naito & Evil & Sanada & Shingo Takagi & Bushi b Kota Ibushi & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask, Jay White & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Taiji Ishimori b Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls & Ren Narita, Never trios titles: Togi Makabe & Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi b Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens & El Phantasmo, Elimination match: Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Sho & Yoh b Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. & Lance Archer & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru

6/18 Ontario, CA (WWE Smackdown/205 Live TV tapings - 6,500): Ali b Buddy Murphy, Dolph Ziggler b Xavier Woods, Heavy Machinery b Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel, Elimination match: Drew McIntyre & Elias b R-Truth & The Miz, 24/7 title: Drake Maverick b R-Truth to win title, 2/3 falls: Kofi Kingston & Seth Rollins b Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn, Sunil & Samir Singh b Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik, Brian Kendrick b Russ Taylor, Oney Lorcan b Ariya Daivari-DQ, WWE title: Kofi Kingston b Dolph Ziggler

6/18 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (All Japan - 1,374): Hokuto Omori & Atsuki Aoyagi b Atsushi Maruyama & Dan Tamura, Jun Akiyama & Osamu Nishimura & Ultimo Dragon b Takao Omori & Masa Fuchi & Black Menso-re, Naoya Nomura & Ryoji Sai & Kotaro Suzuki b Zeus & Dylan James & Gianni Valletta, Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa & Super Tiger b Parrow & Odinson & Nobe Bryant, Yoshitatsu & Tajiri b Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi, All-Asia tag title: Jake Lee & Koji Iwamoto b Ryuichi Kawakami & Kazumi Kikuta to win titles, Hikaru Sato b Yusuke Okada

6/18 Mexico City Arena Mexico (CMLL): Cholo & Yago b Arkalis & Bengala, Magia Blanca & Oro Jr. & Retro b Akuma & Espanto Jr. & Nitro, Amapola & Comandante & Metalica b Avispa Dorada & Lluvia & Maligna, Vangellys b Esfinge, Black Panther & Blue Panther & Blue Panther Jr. b Ephesto & Luciferno & Mephisto, Mistico & Titan & Volador Jr. b Rey Bucanero & Mr. Niebla & Felino

6/19 Kuki (New Japan - 983): Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima b Yuji Nagata & Yuya Uemura, Lance Archer & Yoshinobu Kanemaru b Tiger Mask & Yota Tsuji, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Chase Owens b Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls & Ren Narita, Evil & Sanada & Bushi b Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma & Jushin Liger, Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi b Kota Ibushi & Shota Umino, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare & Ryusuke Taguchi & Sho & Yoh b Jay White & Yujiro Takahashi & El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori & Gedo, Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & Yoshi-Hashi b Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi & Douki

6/19 Aizuwakamatsu (Pro Wrestling NOAH - 376): Yoshiki Inamura b Kinya Okada, Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue b Mohammed Yone & Quiet Storm, Hi69 b Junta Miyawaki, Daisuke Harada & Tadasuke & Hayata & Yo-Hey b Naomichi Marufuji & Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki & Chris Ridgeway, Takashi Sugiura & Kazma Sakamoto & Hajime Ohara b Katsuhiko Nakajima & Go Shiozaki & Hitoshi Kumano, Kaito Kiyomiya & Shuhei Taniguchi & Minoru Tanaka b Kenou & Masa Kitamiya & Atsushi Kotoge



Special thanks to: Bryan Alvarez, Kevin Anderson, Michael Capriola, Jose Esquer, Jose Gonzalez, Russell Griffith, Jake Hamar, Chris Hendricks, Mike Kuzmuk, Roy Lucier, Nick Mahmood, Brandon Martin, Mori Ono, Blair Pacheco, Sergio Padilla, Paul Sosnowski, Patrick Tobin, Shannon Walsh, J.J. Williams

CMLL: Jushin Liger’s farewell to Arena Mexico will be on the 7/19 show

The 6/14 show at Arena Mexico had the B block of the Copa Dinastia, which, as most expected, was won by the Sanchez Brothers, Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja. The first round saw Oro & Roja over Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero. Dragon Lee & Mistico beat Mascara Ano 2000 & Sanson. This clinched it for the Sanchez Brothers beating Lee & Mistico in a match we heard was very good. They worked a face vs. face match but the crowd went for Lee & Mistico, which is funny because one of the hallmarks of a big crowd at Arena Mexico is that Mistico gets booed. With Rush & Bestia del Ring winning the A block last week, it meant Lee & Mistico couldn’t win because of the secret CMLL booking rule where a father (Bestia) can’t fight his sons (Lee & Mistico). The actual main event saw the debut of Austin Theory, who worked on the tecnico side and teamed with Volador Jr. & Caristico to beat Cavernario & Rush & Negro Casas.

Lee announced he was giving up his CMLL world lightweight title. He had three major singles titles last week with the IWGP jr., CMLL lightweight and CMLL welterweight. Now he only has the welterweight title. The lightweight title is going back to its old name, the Super Lightweight title. It looks like they are doing a two week title match. On 6/23 at Arena Mexico, they have a multi-person match with Flyer, Audaz, Super Astro Jr., El Hijo del Villano III, Star Jr., Electro, Kawato San, Principe Diamante, Halcon Suriano Jr. and Sonic. They will do the elimination match until they are down to two, and then those two have a singles match for the title on 6/30

Besides the Rush & Bestia vs. Oro & Roja Copa Dinastia, the 6/21 show features the return of Ciber the Main Man (formerly Cibernetico) who teams with The Chris (formerly Zorro) & Gilbert el Boricua in a battle of three AAA mainstay heels from many years ago, facing Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero & Euforia the CMLL trios champs, in a non-title match. Those guys have feuded in the past and it’s the first match with Ciber and Chris since March

Metalico, who just lost a retirement match to Virus on 5/31, started on 6/18 at Arena Mexico as a full-time referee. He’s now going by the name Tigre Infante.

AAA: So I watched Laredo Kid vs. Ultimo Vikingo with the Spanish announcing and based on that version, I still wouldn’t say it was the best match of the year, but it was the best of the matches Mexico that I’ve seen in a longtime and I’d go ****3/4. I could see where people would go higher because the moves were so great and they were innovative. The English commentary had the crowd sound so down so that hurt it, plus Hugo Savinovich is going to be better than any English language announcer at this. The thing was, this was two guys who aren’t headliners, third from the top, battling for the cruiserweight title, with 4,300 fans, and the crowd reacted like it was Bryan vs. Kingston at WrestleMania. And it wasn’t like the crowd was there at the start. It was purely their work that got them there

The day before Verano de Escandalo, they did television tapings in Cancun before 4,000 fans. Dr. Wagner Jr. came out to thank the fans for all their love and support after the death of his brother, Silver King. He said he will dedicate the upcoming hair vs. mask match with Blue Demon Jr., to his brother and to his father. Wow, because everyone expects him to lose. Rey Escorpion came out and said that nobody cares about him, or his family and pie faced Wagner. Wagner punched him. Taurus and La Hiedra attacked Wagner and Pagano made the save. Chik Tormenta & Tessa Blanchard & La Hiedra beat Scarlett Bordeaux & Lady Shani & Taya (Valkyrie) when Blanchard pinned Taya when Daga superkicked Taya and Blanchard won with the double arm DDT. After Bordeaux did a dive and hit the barricade, a male fan in the front rope pretty much groped her. She later said she was into the match she didn’t realize what happened, but when she did, she was understandably furious. Shani ran in and pulled her away. A three-way with Myzteziz Jr., Sammy Guevara and Puma King ended when Guevara pinned Myzteziz after a shooting star press on both guys at the same time. After the match, Killer Kross destroyed Puma King (who he is feuding with) and Myzteziz. Guevara went to celebrate with Kross, but Kross gave him a dirty look and Guevara ran way. Daga pinned Laredo Kid after a stomp off the top in a really good match. Kid at one point had Daga pinned after a powerslam off the middle rope but Blanchard jumped in to stop the count. They both beat up Kid and went for his mask after the match but Taya made the save and attacked both. Fans were pelting Blanchard and Daga with garbage. El Hijo del Vikingo & Aero Star & La Parka beat Australian Suicide & Monsther Clown & Chessman when Vikingo pinned Suicide after a 450. Vikingo looked like he was hyperventilating at one point. EMT’s came out. He was holding his throat. He was on his back for a few minutes but did walk to the back. Vikingo did work the next day, but he’s got an intercostal injury. Aero Star did a similar free fall off the platform here onto Clown and Chessman. Kross & Escorpion & Taurus beat Wagner & Pagano & Psycho in the main event. This is right out of WWE. Bordeaux was a tecnico when she wrestled earlier in the show but Kross is s rudo and she managed him. The announcer basically said that Bordeaux is a rudo with Kross and a tecnico as a wrestler. Escorpion gave Psycho a low blow and unmasked him for the DQ. The ref saw it even though La Hiedra, also in the rudos corner, had tried to distract the ref. Bordeaux and Hiedra, who wrestled against each other in the six-man earlier, were on the same side here and both interfering to help the rudos. Puma King ran out after but the rudo beat everyone down to end the show with heat

The next TV’s will be 7/3 in San Luis Potosi and 7/6 in Zapopan (outside of Guadalajara). San Luis Potosi has Dr. Wagner Jr. & Pagano & Psycho Clown vs. Blue Demon Jr. & Rey Escorpion & El Texano Jr., Laredo Kid & El Hijo del Vikingo & Myzteziz Jr. vs. Averno & Chessman & Super Fly. Puma King & Taya vs. Daga & Keyra and Drago vs. Jack Evans vs. Chik Tormenta. 7/6 in Zapopan has Aerostar & Pagano & Psycho vs. Averno & Chessman & Super Fly, La Parka & Murder Clown & Puma King vs. Dave the Clown & Escorpion & Texano and Daga vs. Drago for the Latin American title

A correction frm last week. Myzteziz Jr. is not the brother of Bandido. Bandido has nobody in his direct family who is a wrestler, although Magia Blanca is a cousin, but not a first cousin. Bandido and Myzteziz Jr., wrestled together as kids and somehow that led to people saying they were brothers

They’ve started together Updated ratings are 5/31 did a 1.8 rating, tied for the lowest since they got on TV Azteca, with a total reach of 3.8 million viewers, or 917,000 viewers the way it would be figured in the U.S. The audience was 53 percent men. 27 percent of the viewers were 4-12, 8 percent were 13-18, 11 percent were 19-29, 26 percent were 30-44, 10 percent were 49-54 and 18 percent were over 55. The median viewer was 31 years old

The 6/7 show did a 2.1 rating and a 3.9 million viewer reach, which would be 1,004,000 viewers the way it would be figured in the U.S. CMLL on 6/8 on Televisa did a 0.8 rating.

THE CRASH: They held another show on 6/15 in Tijuana with all kinds of weird things. The match lineup was different because the first two matches had big stars. The show drew 3,350 fans. Austin Theory pinned Mesias in the opener. Theory is usually a rudo but was a tecnico here since Mesias cut a promo insulting fans. Lots of brawling. Fans threw beer. There was a ref bump, Mesias tried a low blow but Theory blocked it, gave Mesias a low blow and pinned him. The second match saw Mecha Wolf 450 & Rey Fenix beat Penta 0M & Bestia 666 in the first of three parejas increibles matches, where wrestlers team with enemies against their usual partner and an enemy. They promoted that the show would be about matches like that. Fenix, who was the star of the match, pinned Bestia after a neckbreaker. El Hijo del Fantasma & Niebla Roja beat Angel de Oro & Rey Horus in one. Said to be a fun match. Horus wrestled in his regular pants as I guess he didn’t have his gear with him. He had to hand his phone to the ref before doing a move. Fun solid match, with Roja & Oro doing lots of submissions. Another had Sanson & Trauma I beat Cuatrero & Trauma II. Los Traumas fought each other but Sanson & Cuatrero refused to do anything to each other the entire match. Los Traumas were both eliminated so it was left with Sanson vs. Cuatrero. Then, instead of wrestling for the win, Cuatrero just laid down and told Sanson to cover him. The main event was a four-way where Bandido beat Adam Brooks, Dragon Lee and Matt Taven. Taven came out wearing his ROH title belt. Brooks and Taven worked as foreign heels. Bandido and Lee did all kinds of cool spots with each other. Bandido pinned Brooks with the 21 plex. Apparently this is Brooks’ last match with the promotion and fans were told and thanked him and he took photos with everyone. Bandido then asked Lee to his partner in the future

They announced for the next show on 7/5 Fenix vs. Horus vs. Bandido for the Crash title. The big surprise is that they announced Rey Mysterio would be at the next show, but not wrestling. They said he would be the guest host. They also said an angel was coming back, which people took to mean Garza Jr., who is wrestling as Angel Garza in NXT. They also announced Lacey Lane and Humberto Carrillo, who all work for WWE, would also be there..

DRAGON GATE: Ben K beat Eita on 6/8 in Fukuoka before 559 fans to win the King of Gate tournament. Ben K won in 20:13 with the Ben K bomb. The win gives him an Open the Dream Gate title shot at Pac which will headline the company’s biggest show of the year, the 7/21 Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival show

They drew a sellout of 667 in Fukuoka on 6/9 with two title bouts. Susumu Yokosuka retained the Open the Brave Gate title over Jason Lee in 14:40. The scheduled main event with Yamato & Kai defending the Open the Twin Gate titles against Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida ended in a no contest in 21:10 when R.E.D. (Eita & Big R Shimizu & Takashi Yoshida & Yasushi Kanda) attacked both teams. This led to an impromptu eight-man match where Yamato & Kai & Doi & Ishida beat Eita & Shimizu & Yoshida & Kanda in 2:28 when Yamato pinned Kanda after a Frankensteiner.

ALL JAPAN: Suwama has been given the position as the Head of Talent Relations for the company. Atsushi Aoki, who just passed away, held that position. It’s also an assistant booker type of spot as well

They ran 6/18 at Korakuen Hall and drew 1,374 fans with the main event being unique. It was Hikaru Sato, the regular tag team partner of Aoki, facing Yusuke Okada, who will be replacing Aoki as Sato’s regular tag team partner, starting with the upcoming Junior Battle of Glory. It was said to be a super emotional match. Kohei Wada, the ref, came out wearing all blue, the old All Japan ref colors. Both men were in tears coming to the ring and did a really good technical match, said to be around ***½, but the kind of match Aoki would have appreciated. After the match, they played a video of Dory Funk Jr., on the screen, talking about Aoki. All of Aoki’s Evolution stablemates were in the ring as Sato held up a photo of Aoki for the ten bell salute. Fans then filled the ring with blue streamers. The other key match saw Jake Lee & Koji Iwamoto win the All-Asia tag titles from Big Japan’s Ryuichi Kawakami & Kazumi Kikuta, so the company got its belts back. Lee pinned Kikuta with a back suplex in 15:37. The match was said to be ***3/4 and both teams shook hands after. They were teasing a third match because each team has a win over the other. But right now it looks like Tajiri & Kai will be getting the first shot. The other big match saw Yoshitatsu & Tajiri beat Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi when Miyahara passed out and the ref stopped it at 12:45. The stoppage was a big deal because Miyahara is the top star and he will only lose a fall for a storyline reason. In this case, it’s because Yoshitatsu is getting the next Triple Crown title shot

Ayato Yoshida, who had been working prelims with New Japan months back and looked to have great promise, started here but only worked one show this past week and wasn’t at Korakuen Hall. The back story is that Yoshida was with New Japan on loan from K Dojo, when Taka Michinoku was running K Dojo. When Michinoku was kicked out of K Dojo when it became public he had been having an affair for eight years, the company changed and the relationship with New Japan ended. It was too bad because people saw a lot in Yoshida. He was very good given his level of experience and had more size than most of the young guys in New Japan

With Okada replacing Aoki in the Junior Tag Battle of Glory, Akira Francesco, who was to team with Okada, is looking for a new partner.

PRO WRESTLING NOAH: Takashi Sugiura & Kazma Sakamoto won the GHC tag titles from Go Shiozaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima on 6/13 in Osaka before 885 fans at the smaller Edion Arena. It was the Osaka version of the Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial show, held on the 10th anniversary of his death. Sugiura used a guillotine on Nakajima in 28:00 and Nakajima passed out. The show also featured the finals of the junior heavyweight tag team tournament as Yoshinari Ogawa & Kotaro Suzuki beat Hayata & Yo-Hey in 24:16 when Suzuki pinned Yo-Hey with a Tiger driver. Of course you wanted one of Misawa’s proteges to win using a Tiger driver on this show. Akitoshi Saito, who is now 53, and was in the ring with Misawa and did a back suplex on him when he died, worked on this show which had to be a tough deal for him

They next have a Global junior singles tournament which starts on 6/27. The A block has Minoru Tanaka, Daisuke Harada, Yo-Hey, Ogawa, Tadasuke and Junta Miyawaki. The B block has Kotaro Suzuki, Hajime Ohara, Hitoshi Kumano, Hi69, Chris Ridgeway and Hayata. Opening night at Korakuen Hall has Harada vs. Yo-Hey, Tanaka vs. Ogawa and Ohara vs. Ridgeway. The tournament ends on 7/27 in Kawasaki with the A block winner facing the B block winner.

NEW JAPAN: Tickets aren’t on sale to the public yet, but fan club tickets to the Tokyo Dome shows on 1/4 and 1/5 had a ridiculous demand. There was a fan club lottery this week to get first tickets and people who were in the lottery noted to us that “nobody” even got floor seats for either show. Last the demand was high for great seats, but fan club members all could at least get the floor if they wanted it. Most people who wanted the floor ended up only getting the lower deck of the stadium. One ticket outlet with fan club memberships noted that for this to happen, the orders had to be up conservatively ten times the fan club ticket demand of last year. .. Kota Ibushi was back in action for the start of the new tour on 6/14 in Numazu. Aside from a black eye from the head-butt, there were no signs of anything different from usual. He’s been working the multiple-person matches so he can play it safe until G-1

AXS has confirmed that after airing shows same day taped delay (aside from live on 7/6 from Dallas) from 7/6 to 8/10, which is the A block finals, that the B block finals will air on 8/17 and the final night at Budokan on 8/12 will air on 8/24. All shows will be two hours, featuring not only the matches but also backstage interviews (with subtitles for the Japanese talent) will be a regular part of the new two hour weekly shows. They’ve been doing interviews from the start, but not as extensively as they will be doing with a two hour weekly block

Davey Boy Smith Jr., quit the promotion. He hasn’t been happy for some time. There were more a lot of small issues and frustration about not being used as well as things that build up from the past. There were issues because on the night before WrestleMania, he wanted to go to the WWE Hall of Fame because they were inducting Jim Neidhart, who is part of his family, as well as Bret Hart a second time. New Japan was running MSG and he kept asking whether he’s booked on the show so he could make plans either to do the Hall of Fame or not. Even as late as two weeks before the show he couldn’t get an answer. He also told them he’d rather go to the Hall of Fame for family reasons than be an afterthought on the show or used in a meaningless way. He ended up working multiple shows in the New York area that week but not the MSG show. New Japan let him work the Dynamite Kid tribute show that Satoru Sayama and Hisashi Shinma put on but there’s heat between Massao Hattori and Shinma. Several months back, Smith had pitched an idea of he and Lance Archer doing a tribute to Dynamite on a New Japan show where he’d score a pin after a Dynamite Kid style diving head-butt. Gedo turned him down and told him he was too big to do that move and instead wanted to do the angle where Chuckie T would go nuts and get DQ’d for a chair shot. The idea is that they wanted to turn Chuckie into a wrestler who at times would just snap, basing it off the Ken Shamrock WWF character. Of course that fell apart when Chuckie and Barreta didn’t sign new deals and instead signed with AEW. He had also asked for New Japan’s permission to work Impact and didn’t get permission. He asked what the problem was and they said “Fucking Jeff Jarrett and TNA,” and were still mad about how Okada was booked. Smith told them that Jarrett was long gone, and that he was going get a big push. The people at Impact were very high on him. New Japan told him he couldn’t go. Somehow this turned into a miscommunication because when Lance Archer asked about them getting more dates this year, or that the team would be focused on more, the office told him they thought Smith was going to Impact. Except they had just told him he couldn’t do so. The office said that’s what Gedo told them. He ended up signing with MLW where he’s supposed to be put in a title program with Tom Lawlor, although MLW knew that New Japan had first dibs on his dates. There were reports he was going to ROH, but that’s not the case. He’s working MLW. With him no longer working New Japan, that could, like what happened with Michael Elgin, open up the door for Impact, although we’re told there has been no recent discussions with him with that promotion. Impact did have big plans for him originally. Jim Ross has always been high on him and he’s with AEW. AEW has worked out deals with people like MJF, Jimmy Havoc and Brian Pillman Jr., who are under MLW deals. Ross, when he was working for World of Sport and ITV, wanted to build the entire franchise around Smith as the top star or at least one of the top stars. But Ross isn’t on the AEW booking team, but his ideas would almost surely be listened to. MLW doesn’t have issues with its talent working Impact, and I think they realize if they work AEW it is a double edge sword. It does up their stock as far as star power for MLW when MJF or Jimmy Havoc works AEW to at least a small degree, but on the flip side, if they get over and AEW wants them, the odds are when their MLW deal is up, it’ll be very difficult for MLW to get them to renew

KENTA did an interview with Weekly Fight Magazine that was translated to Post Wrestling. He said he and his family are going to live in the U.S. He said when he was called up to the 205 Live show that he was really excited, but things started to deteriorate. He felt his in-ring suffered because of being told what to do and what not to do, and he lost sight of his goals and described his time there as being “defanged.” He said he knew he could return to NOAH, but his goal was to succeed on the international level and that’s New Japan. He also said his in-ring style is in synch with New Japan’s basic style and thinks that’ a good thing

The new tour opened on 6/16 at Korakuen Hall. Because it was going to be the announcement of who was in what block at G-1, they drew an advanced sellout of 1,713 fans with the main event having El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori winning the IWGP jr. tag titles from Sho & Yoh in 23:00 when Phantasmo pinned Yoh with the CR 2. They did an in-ring ceremony on the show for Atsushi Aoki which is notable since Aoki’s career was with NOAH and All Japan. Aoki worked the 2009 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, where he tied Prince Devitt (Finn Balor) for first place in the A block with a 4-2 record. That year they did a final four so the top two place winners advanced. Aoki then lost to B block champion Koji Kanemoto, who ended up beating Devitt (who beat Kota Ibushi, the second place in A block) for the title. He also worked Super J Cup, which was a New Japan tournament. He lost in the first round to Devitt. He also worked two matches in New Japan vs. NOAH matches on New Japan turf in 2011. In a trivia note, in the second match of the show, where Tomohiro Ishii & Tomoaki Honma & Ren Narita lot to Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki, it was the first time Ishii & Honma had teamed together since 2009

6/17 at Korakuen Hall also drew an advanced sellout of 1,713 for an elimination match where the Chaos team of Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Sho & Yoh beat the Suzuki-gun team of Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Lance Archer & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr. Okada was eliminated when Archer threw him over. It ended with Yoshi-Hashi left with both Taichi and Sabre. Yoshi-Hashi threw both over the top to once again built Yoshi-Hashi for his challenge to Sabre on 6/25 for his British title. The sellout was as much to be there live when the main events for all the G-1 shows are announced. They also had a Never trios title match with Togi Makabe & Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Yujiro Takahashi (first match since been out for months with an injury) & Chase Owens & Phantasmo when Yano pinned Owens with a cradle in 15:41

This week’s only live show is 6/25 in Sendai at 5:30 a.m. Eastern with Kojima & Tenzan vs. Yuji Nagata & Yota Tsuji, Ren Narita & Shota Umino & Honma & Makabe & Ibushi vs. Naito & Evil & Sanada & Bushi & Takagi, Robinson & Mikey Nicholls vs. Tonga & Loa, Sho & Yoh & Henare & Tanahashi vs. White & Yujiro Takahashi & Owens & Ishimori, Tiger Mask & Liger & Yano & Ishii & Okada vs. Douki & Suzuki & Kanemaru & Archer & Taichi, plus Phantasmo vs. Ryusuke Taguchi for the British cruiserweight title and Sabre vs. Yoshi-Hashi for the British heavyweight title.

OTHER JAPAN NOTES: K-Dojo started back up with the new name of Action Advanced Pro Wrestling (2AW). They wanted to rebrand after Taka Michinoku’s affair became public and he was kicked out of the company. They debuted on 6/2 in Chiba. Ayato Yoshida is their current champion

. Pro Wrestling Basara, which has been a subset group to DDT (think NXT to WWE although it’s not exactly that either) will be breaking away and be a true independent promotion at the end of 2019. The final Basara show under the DDT banner will be at Korakuen Hall on 12/28. A new Pro Wrestling Basara independent company will be opening in October and running Basara shows starting in January, with a web site, ticket office, new office and more

The complete 7/15 DDT Peter Pan show at the Ota Ward Gym has been announced. The main event has Tetsuya Endo defending the KO-D title against King of DDT tournament winner Konosuke Takeshita. Daisuke Sasaki & Soma Takao defend the tag titles against Harashima & Yasu Urano of Basara. Akito defends the Extreme title against Asuka, the transgender woman getting a push here, who is not the same Asuka as WWE. They also have the crazy Danshoku Dino vs. Shinya Aoki singles match and Hideki Suzuki faces Yukio Naya, who is the grandson of sumo legend Taiho. Chris Brookes and Mike Bailey work underneath. There is also a Royal Rumble style match for their 24/7 title. Toru Owashi is the current champion. Among the names in the match are 80s star Yoshiaki Yatsu, Shiro Koshinaka, Joey Ryan, Yukio Sakaguchi, Antonio Honda and Hiroshi Yamato

At the 6/16 DDT house show in Nagoya, there was a mask vs. hair match with Ultraman Robin vs. Gota Ihashi with Yukio Sakaguchi as referee. Sakaguchi does a no-nonsense son of legend MMA persona, somewhat like Katsuyori Shibata had in New Japan. So when he does comedy it gets over big. The finish saw Sakaguchi get taken out. Then a second Ultraman Robin came ut and interfered and helped Ultraman Robin win, and the second one unmasked as Sakaguchi. Ihashi did get his head shaved

Kenta Kobashi promoted a show on 6/10 at Korakuen Hall for his Fortune Dream promotion. It drew 1,200 fans, which was his smallest crowd for a Fortune Dreams show to date. The big thing was a 20 minute interview segment with Kobashi and fellow Hall of Famer Akira Maeda which is probably the first pro wrestling show both were on together. Kobashi used wrestlers from a number of different promotions with a main event of Shuji Ishikawa & Jake Lee & Kohei Sato over Zeus & Yuji Hino & Taishi Takizawa. New Japan’s Satoshi Kojima teamed with Shinjiro Otani to beat Daisuke Sekimoto & Hideyoshi Kamitani of Big Japan. NOAH’s Go Shiozaki & Yoshiki Inamura lost to Big Japan’s Yuji Okabayashi & Dragon Gate’s Kazusada Higuchi. There was also a 20:00 draw with Meiko Satomura against Nanae Takahashi

Hours before New Japan was going t announce the G-1 Climax participants at Korakuen Hall on 6/16, Stardom announced its Five Star Grand Prix participants in the same building for its afternoon show. The names are Mayu Iwatani, Arisa Hoshiki, Saki Kashima, Tam Nakano, Hana Kimura, Konami, Jungle Kyona, Momo Watanabe, Utami Hayashishita, Bea Priestley, Kagetsu, Hazuki, Andras Miyagi, Natsu Sumire, Natsuko Tora, Jamie Hayter, Avary (from Australia) and Kasey Owens

On the 6/9 Stardom show in Sapporo, Hazuki retained her High Speed title over Saki Kashima in a quick match and Bea Priestley retained her World of Stardom title over Konami in 15:56 with the Queen’s Landing (Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex). Utami Hayashishita, who placed second to Ronda Rousey for Rookie of the Year and is being groomed for the top spot in Stardom because of her size and athletic look and how ridiculously quickly she caught on, returned this past weekend after a broken thumb. Mayu Iwatani and AZM also both returned this past weekend after a knee injuries

They ran Korakuen Hall on 6/16 and drew 880 fans. Hana Kimura & Jungle Kyona & Konami retained their Artist of Stardom titles beating Kagetsu & Andras Miyagi & Sumire Natsu. Momo Watanabe & Hayashishita kept the Goddesses of Stardom titles beating Hazuki & Natsuko Tora in 17:14 when Watanabe pinned Tora with the Peach Sunrise. Akira Hoshiki retained the Wonder of Stardom title in the main event beating Tam Nakano in 21:41 with a Brazilian kick. .. Saree beat Chihiro Hashimoto on 6/8 in Niigata to win the Sendai Girls title.

HERE AND THERE: Jon Moxley’s first independent match took place on 6/14 for Northeast Wrestling in Waterbury, CT, before a sellout of about 1,000 fans. The show sold out three days in advance and they increased ticket prices from usual. Moxley pinned Darby Allin with the Death Rider, which is the new name for Dirty Deeds. The match was said to be insane. Moxley tied Allin’s hands behind his back . Allin did a moonsault with his hands behind his back and a tope con giro. Both looked great. They went 20:00 and while it wasn’t announced as a no DQ, they worked the match like it was a no DQ. Moxley wasn’t announced as IWGP U.S. champion nor did he bring his belt. He worked heel but nobody booed him and while they both worked hard the crowd was also very easy for him. After the match, Moxley thanked the crowd and said that people who go to independent shows in places like this are the luckiest fans in the world because they get to see wrestlers who really care. He also said that Allin will be a very big name soon. Joey Janela beat Brad Hollister in a no DQ match. Janela took a power bomb on a ladder that cut up his back and left him badly bruised. Renee Young was there and she and Flip Gordon (unadvertised and didn’t wrestle) threw T-shirts into the crowd

Moxley also headlined 6/15 in Jackson, NJ, at Six Flags. The show drew 3,800 fans, although it was a grandstand show at the theme park and you could watch the wrestling with a park admission. However there were 500 fans who paid an extra $25 to sit ringside. Six Flags officials said that 1,000 fans were turned away once the building was filled. Mick Foley, Booker T, Boogeyman, Enzo, Cass and Renee Young also made appearances. Kurt Angle was also advertised but pulled out but pulled out due to a family commitment. Foley did a promo talking about appearing at the grand opening of the Nitro roller coaster at the park years ago, playing off the roller coaster having the same name as the WCW television show. Heels Baron Von Vito and Boogeyman came out and Foley put both in the socko claw. Boogeyman later beat up Daniel Evans and put worms all over him. The crowd of a lot of fair goers popped big seeing the old gimmicks. Later, heel manager Jared Silberkleit and Thrillride came out, doing a trust fund gimmick. Enzo as Nzo & Cass, as CaZXL came out to a face reaction. This set up CaZXL, pinning Thrillride and coke slamming Silberkleit in 2:00. Thrillride tried to runaway but nZo threw him back in and he gave the guy a big boot. CaZXL said he wanted tougher competition. This is when Moxley came out. Moxley won by hitting both CaZXL and nZO with Death Rider (Dirty Deeds) in 10:00. Moxley has three more dates after G-1 for NEW and that’s probably it for him in the promotion as once AEW starts TV, he’s probably done working U.S. indies. He will face Pentagon Jr. on 8/16 in Poughkeepsie

NEW is working with the Bruno and Carol Sammartino Foundation for a 7/19 show in Monroeville, PA, listing stars like Corey Graves, Billy Gunn, Christy Hemme, Brian Pillman Jr., Jerry Lawler, Sho Funaki and Sam Adonis

Gable Steveson, just one week after nearly making the U.S. national team at 19 years old, was arrested and temporarily suspended by the University of Minnesota. Steveson and teammate Dylan Martinez were arrested after an alleged incident at 1 a.m. late Friday night on a criminal sexual conduct charge. The two were released from jail on 6/18 with no charges filed. The Hennepin County attorney’s office released that “no charges can be brought at this time. However, the investigation remains active and prosecutors will continue to work closely with Minneapolis Police Department investigators and review all evidence that comes in over the next 90 days.” A victim had told police that they were penetrated with an object. The victim went to the hospital for treatment. No other details were released by police. The college suspended both men from all team-related activities after the news broke. Steveson, who was considered arguably the strongest WWE candidate on the college wrestling scene due to his physique and gymnastics ability at 260 pounds, to go along with wrestling skill that saw him place third in the NCAA tournament after being considered the greatest high school wrestler ever in the state of Minnesota, graduating with four state titles and a 210-3 record. The week before, on 6/8 he had competed in the U.S. freestyle championships in Piscataway, NJ., before 3,811 fans. He went to the finals of the tournament against Nick Gwiazdowski, who at last word was expected to try WWE after the 2020 Olympics. They had two bouts, both ending evenly, 4-4 in the first and 3-3 in the second. The rules in the tournament were, instead of overtime, the person who scores the last points is ruled the winner if it’s a draw, and Gwiazdowski scored last, to advance to the national team for the 2019 world championships. Steveson had worked with Brock Lesnar and was tight with Paul Heyman. He was also considered a strong MMA prospect, although his goal is to first compete in the 2020 Olympics and he may not be interested in either direction until after 2022 or 2023, based on when his college eligibility runs out. WWE generally doesn’t sign active college wrestlers before their eligibility is up because doing so would break what could be valuable relationships in the college wrestling community

Also on 6/8, in a very controversial series at 143 pounds, Zain Retherford won two straight over Yianni Diakhomilhalis. Another big one saw J’den Cox win 4-2 and 5-0 over Bo Nickal at 202 pounds in a battle of multi-time NCAA champions and two of the country’s best, regardless of weight. Cox won a bronze medal in the 2016 Olympics and won the 2018 world championship. Nickal was the 2019 Hodge Trophy winner as the best college wrestler, regardless of weight

Joey Ryan and Laura James filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, on 6/11. The two were married in November 2017 and split up this past October. It wasn’t a secret they split up and on BTE, where Ryan is a regular, at the time of the split they stopped the frequent references to “Joey’s hot-ass wife” and of late the storyline is switched to Joey and “that blonde girl” from his past (in reference to Candice LeRae, his longtime tag team partner). It’s not exactly a secret that the dick flipping gimmick has a shelf life and may be running on fumes but the mixed tag team gimmick has a longer shelf life. But LeRae is under contract with WWE and her husband works there. Unless she’s signed a renewal, she would be under contract through the end of 2020. I think what surprised me was the TMZ coverage, with the idea TMZ considers Joey Ryan a big enough star to report on his divorce filing

PWG announced its 7/26 show at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets will go on sale this week. What’s notable is that there is a ton of AEW talent on the show. The show features Flip Gordon vs. Trey Miguel, The Dark Order (formerly Super Smash Brothers) vs. Trent Baretta & Chuckie T (a match coming directly off the AEW PPV angle), MJF vs. Darby Allin, Puma King & Laredo Kid & Black Taurus vs. Flamita & Bandido & Rey Horus (a genuine top flight Lucha Libre trios match), Jungle Boy vs. Joey Janela, David Starr vs. Brody King and Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz defend the PWG tag titles against LAX in a ladder match. Eight of the wrestlers on this show are under AEW contract. Right now no decision has been made regarding whether they will be able to continue working PWG once television starts. The contracted talent won’t be allowed to work elsewhere, aside from Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley, who can work in Japan. For whatever reason, basically that PWG has a certain rep that elevates talent by being part of the shows, nobody except WWE bans its talent from PWG. Even ROH, whose full-time contracted talent can’t work anywhere else in the U.S., PWG is the exception. AEW hasn’t made a decision on this subject

Eddie Marlin, 88, was in ICU over the weekend in Hendersonville, TN. Marlin at press time was out of ICU, but still hospitalized. Marlin started wrestling in 1949 and was a star in Tennessee well into the 70s. He then became the road manager for Jarrett Promotions, and was the television authority figure as “Promoter Eddie Marlin,” always as a likeable babyface. On occasion, he’d be riled up to wrestle again, into the 90s. Jerry Jarrett married his daughter. He’s considered Jeff’s grandfather but actually Jeff’s mother was Jerry’s first wife. Pretty much everyone who grew up in Memphis during the 70s and 80s in particular, when the wrestling show did ratings that people today can’t conceive of (17 to 23 ratings, 70+ shares, 350,000 viewers in one metro area) would immediately know Marlin, most today as “Promoter Eddie Marlin,” and generations before as a wrestler, best known for his 70s tag team with Tommy Gilbert

Game Changer Wrestling has already sold out its two shows in Tokyo on 8/22 and 8/23 at Shinkiba First Ring, although a sellout in that building is probably around 350 fans

Tenille Dashwood has said she will start taking bookings again for a late July start. She’s right now a free agent

Mick Foley and a number of current and former women performers spearheaded a Go Fund Me for the college education of Alexa Massaro, the daughter of Ashley Massaro. The fund topped $100,000,which was the goal, with Foley raising $31,307 of it through his own promotional work and T-shirt sales

The 1990-91 Observer “Bowdren the Booker” features have been made into book form. The new book by “They Call Me Booker” by Jeff Bowdren reprints those columns that appeared in these pages as Bowdren started writing angles for WCW. It’s a fascinating slice of the times in wrestling. Scott Teal edited the book and I did the foreword. It’s available from Crowbar Press

Geena Davis, the famous actress, will have a guest role in season three of GLOW on Netflix, which is the season that will be released in August. She is set for five episodes this season playing the role of Sandy Devereaux St. Clair, the entertainment director of the hotel where the series supposedly lakes place at

Oriental Wrestling Enterprises out of China, the group with Cima, Lindaman and T-Hawk, will be running shows over SummerSlam week in Toronto, with shows at the Midtown Event Theater on 8/7 at 4 p.m. and 8/10 at 3 p.m. (before NXT). Other groups in town are Progress running 8/7 at 8 p.m. and 8/8 at 8 p.m. at the same Midtown Event Theater, wXw running 8/9 at 4 p.m. in the same building, Smash running on 8/9 at 6 p.m. at the building, a women’s shw on 8/10 at 11 a.m. at the building, and ROH at the Mattamy Athletic Center on 8/9

A correction from last week. El Hijo del Santo has worked in the U.S. more recently than 2017 that we listed last year. He worked one show in Brooklyn and he’s also booked for a show next month in The Bronx

This is the latest on Vampiro. He was at a press conference this week for the PALL promotion out of Naucalpan, Mexico. He talked about opening a wrestling school. He said he had the first stages of Alzmeimer’s and Parkinson’s, and that he would be risking injury or death if the wrestled again. A few weeks ago he was talking about another comeback. He said he was still a part of AAA but his focus is on his health. He is currently living in Las Vegas

There will be a Lucha Expo on 8/17 in San Diego at San Diego City College. It’s being pushed as former stars of Lucha Underground and Wrestling Society X are getting together with a main event of Pentagon Jr. & Fenix vs. Jack Evans & Teddy Hart, Juventud Guerrera vs. T.J. Perkins vs. Rey Horus vs. Flamita, Drago & Aerostar v. Aeroboy & Septimo Dragon, Psicosis & Black Taurus & Demus vs. Daga & Ryan Kidd & Tiago, plus Joey Ryan, Peter Avalon, La Mascara, Laredo Kid, Vinny Massaro and Human Tornado. The expo is two days on 8/17 and 8/18

Ross Hart noted that in a listing of The Destroyer’s record that a match we listed with Giant Baba & Destroyer beating Verne Gagne & Wahoo McDaniel was actually a win by Gagne & McDaniel and one of the fairly rare losses for the Baba & Destroyer main event top team in All Japan of the 70s.

EUROPE: Jim Breaks, 80, one of the biggest stars on the U.K. scene from the 60s through the 80s, was charged with murder in the death of former girlfriend, Donna Cowley. The allegation is Breaks beat Cowley, 47, to death in Gran Canaria in 2017. Breaks is alleged to have punched her in the face and body after hitting her over the head with a cup during an argument. She called emergency services after he had left. She was later taken to the hospital, where she passed away the next day. He’s facing 15 years in prison. Breaks had been held in prison since the death in June 2017. Cowley had worked at a pub that Breaks owned more than 20 years ago and the two became a couple after that, as she left her husband and left her two young children with her parents. Breaks and Cowley had broken up prior to the incident. After breaking up, she later moved back with him after she lost her job but they were not involved but he was taking care of her. Breaks was remembered by older U.K. fans, as well as a number of wrestlers who emulate him today, as one of the greatest technical wrestlers of all-time. He is believed to have had more longevity as a regular on ITV World of Sports of anyone with the exception of Mick McManus, as he did television matches for about 28 years

Drew McDonald (Charles Edward Wylie Shaw) was inducted on 6/17 into the Scotland Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. A ceremony was held at the offices of Perth and Kinross Council with daughter Debbie and wife and his partner, Monika Markwart. He was the fifth inductee into the Scotland Hall of Fame, after George Kidd, Andy Robin, Chic Cullen and Bill Ross. Shaw was born June 17, 1955 in Perth, Scotland. He got into pro wrestling in 1980 when one of his friends was working with wrestler Ian Law to put on a show to raise money for a school in Perth. One of the wrestlers was injured and his friend asked him to fill in, so he had a two week crash course before debuting against well known star Wild Angus. While he lost, his size and strength impressed the crowd. He then continued in wrestling and took the name Drew McDonald. He wrestled in Scotland through 1984 when he signed with Joint Promotions, where he became a regular on U.K. television. His first appearance on World of Sport was April 28, 1984. A few weeks later he was in a major match, teaming with Big Daddy against Giant Haystacks & Fit Finlay on May 19, 1984, the same day as the FA Cup final, which meant it probably drew the largest ratings of the year. He met Markwart in September, 1984, while wrestling in Germany, who eventually became his girlfriend and manager, Dr. Monika Kaiser. Over the years he wrestled in South Africa and India, and in the 80s wrestled as Ben Doon McDonald for Stampede Wrestling. After wrestling went down, McDonald and Jeff Kaye started a gym to train wrestlers. McDonald held the Scottish heavyweight title and two versions of the British heavyweight title between 2001 and 2006. He and Ulf Hermann held the FWA tag titles in 2002. He retired from the ring in 2012 and passed away on February 9, 2015, at the age of 59

.Shingo Takagi returns to RevPro on 6/29 in Manchester for a match with Michael Oku

wXw ran Drive of Champions on 6/14 in Hamburg before 500 fans. Bobby Gunns beat Absolute Andy, Emil Sitoci and Marius Al-Ani in a four-way to keep the wXw title in the main event. Gunns said his next defense would be against Lucky Kid. Gunns injured his shoulder during the match. Aussie Open kept the tag titles in a gauntlet match beating Jay Skillet & Francis Kaspin, Pete Bouncer & Ivan Kiev, Jurn Simmons & Alexander James (via DQ) and finally Julian Pace & Leon van Gastern. wXw announced they are no longer producing DVDs citing contractual issues on video rights. They announced Walter, Aussie Open, Timothy Thatcher, Yuki Ishikawa, Al-Ani, Sitoci and others for the 8/9 show in Toronto. They will also run Ambition, which is their UWFI style tournament show, on 8/8 with Walter, Ishikawa, Thatcher, Mike Bailey, Gunns, Veit Muller, Alexander James, Al-Ani, James Runyan and Daniel Makabe. The next major show is 8/3 in Oberhausen with Walter, Ilja Dragunov, Cima, Lindaman and T-Hawk

Swiss Wrestling Entertainment, one of only three promotions in Switzerland, canceled their 6/15 show and said they were closing up on 9/14,

MLW: Sami Callihan is done with MLW. On the TV that aired on 6/15, Callihan lost a loser leaves town match to Mance Warner. The idea around that is that he had to miss the 7/6 show because of commitments with Impact. So he’d be off television for well over a month. The idea was that he would come back under a mask on the 7/25 show in New York and feud with Promociones Dorado. He cut interviews to set up his return. However, according to MLW, Callihan did $2,700 in damages to the building in Waukesha, WI, where the match took place. Bauer said he broke a new $15,000 bleacher and other property at the venue, dinged a garage door pretty bad, and the company had to pay $2,700. He said that Callihan was legitimately fired over that. Callihan also spit in Jim Cornette’s face during the show. Everyone has a different story about this. One story is that it was an angle because they believed people would believe in heat between the two since Cornette went nuts on his podcast months ago on Callihan because of the angle that went awry where Callihan hit Eddie Edwards with a baseball bat. At least some if not all of what happened between the two of them dating back to April was meant as an insider angle, which is why it all aired on television because it if wasn’t, it would have ended immediately and would have been edited off television. Another version is that the spit thing wasn’t edited off but wasn’t planned either, but after, by playing up the Sonny Kiss thing, they thought he was shooting his own angle, played it off inside the company as a work nobody would overreact to it, and had talked to Cornette about using their internet heat to their advantage. But at this point everyone concedes whatever work they were doing turned into a shoot and right now the heat is real, because Callihan really believes Cornette got him fired and Cornette will always react to people trying to run him down publicly. Callihan’s return on 7/25 would have been on a show that Cornette was going to miss anyway. Cornette isn’t under contract and works on a show-by-show basis and didn’t want to work 7/25 in New York so it all made sense. It was also noted that the last date Cornette has agreed to work was 7/6. He may work after that date if he wants to, but hasn’t agreed to do any shows after that date. Tony Schiavone, who had commitments for other sports broadcasting on Saturday nights in Atlanta the last several months, which is the night they tape, will be returning later this summer. It was noted by one person that Cornette went backstage to check on Callihan after the match with Warner and they hugged but as far as what Cornette was really thinking only he knows. People who were around Cornette said he was fine, never brought up or acted mad about being spit on to anyone after, and the belief is that if he thought it was legit, he’d have reacted completely differently. Another person backstage said that as far as he knows, the spitting was a shoot, but Cornette brushed it off backstage and laughed about it, saying he thought it was good heat and smart for Callihan to do it. There were definitely people expecting Cornette to react differently and they had Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Low Ki there after the commotion to break it up if there were any problems, but there were no problems at all. Callihan was really mad when he got to the back after the match according to one person there. Both Callihan and Cornette did social media posts about the spit thing which the company had no issue with except Callihan bringing up Sonny Kiss. Callihan saying he spit in Cornette’s face and he did nothing about it, but also gave a hashtag “I stand with Sonny,” which didn’t make MLW happy because they didn’t want any association with the Cornette/Sonny Kiss stuff on social media and didn’t want that brought up, even in advancing an angle. Cornette’s response, which was clearly an angle, saying he didn’t do anything because Callihan was getting his ass kicked by Warner and how Rich Bocchini (who announces with Cornette) wasn’t happy about some of the spit getting on him. Those in the company said that Callihan really did believe Cornette got him fired and was upset about it, and didn’t believe he was fired over the building damages, even when those in the company insisted to him Cornette had nothing to do with it. Multiple people have said he was fired over the building damages. MLW officials indicated said they most likely lost the building because of the damages and that for sure they’d never get back in if Callihan would be on the show. MLW noted that Callihan was not just talent but also working as an agent and they lost one of their top stars and an agent over this

First day ticket sales for the Dallas debut on 9/7 with the War Chamber and Von Erichs set the company’s all-time record, breaking the mark of the previous Chicago shows

Tom Lawlor vs. Jacob Fatu for the MLW title was announced as the main event for of the 7/6 show in Chicago, which is expected to draw more than 2,000 fan and sell out. That match will air as part of the live show that night on Bein Sports, so they are going head-to-head with both G-1 and a UFC PPV show headlined by Jon Jones vs. Thiago Santos and Amanda Nunes vs. Holly Holm. They are still building toward a Lawlor vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. program for over the summer

WWE had expressed interest in Fatu. Everyone believes he’s going to be a superstar and both AEW and WWE are aware of it

Tessa Blanchard, the girlfriend of Daga, in response to MLW saying Daga wasn’t going to be used going forward because he pulled out of a date and they later found out he was working in Mexico, said that Daga informed MLW that he couldn’t work the 6/1 date in advance as he was going to be in Guadalajara for the christening of the son of Fenix. Daga said that since he and Blanchard were both in town for the christening, they worked a show the next day in Guadalajara as a favor to Fenix. She said Daga would like to continue working for MLW and she was afraid this news would lead U.S. promoters to think Daga can’t be trusted once he confirms dates because he likes working in the U.S.

Savio Vega and Timothy Thatcher start on the 7/25 show in New York, which also features the Von Erichs. They are pushing it as 66 years after their grandfather, Fritz Von Erich, had his first match in New York. The idea is that Vega will be like Fit Finlay was in his last run in WWE, as a player/coach. Court Bauer said that Steve Austin told him there wouldn’t be a better guy to help out because he’s booking a lot of young wrestlers who need help with brawling, comebacks and working the crowd which are things Vega was good at. Plus, a large percentage of the roster speaks Spanish so having another bilingual agent (Konnan being the other one) is helpful. He’s also wanting to bring in more of a Puerto Rican element because of running the New York and Florida markets and also do Mexico vs. Puerto Rico angles. Lawlor vs. Thatcher will be on that show

David Sahadi is taking a greater role in production.

ROH: The update on the Best in the World PPV on 6/28 from Baltimore has Matt Taven vs. Jeff Cobb for the ROH title, Shane Taylor vs. Bandido for the TV title, Marty Scurll & PCO & Brody King vs. Mark Haskins & Tracy Williams & P.J. Black for the six-man titles, Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Colt Cabana & Nick Aldis, Rush vs. Flip Gordon, Dragon Lee vs. Dalton Castle, Kelly Klein & Jenny Rose vs. Angelina Love & Mandy Leon (managed by Velvet Sky) and Jonathan Gresham vs. Silas Young. Gresham vs. Young is a pure rules match. There is a three rope break maximum. Close fists are illegal. Any rule violation will lead to a warning by the ref, and a second violation is an automatic DQ

The TV taping on 6/29 in Philadelphia has Briscoes vs. Rush & Lee, Cobb vs. Castle vs. Kenny King vs. Gresham, Scurll vs. Gordon and Krissy Rivera vs. Sumie Sakai

Here’s an interesting trivia note. In the history of U.S. and Canadian pro wrestling, there have only been two shows that weren’t main roster WWE events that have done $1 million live gates. And the two events came on consecutive days just miles apart, which were the NXT show at the Barclays Center on 4/5 (which is actually WWE but not main roster) and the NJPW/ROH show in Madison Square Garden the next day. WCW hit $900,000 but never cracked $1 million

Because Juice Robinson is moving to Japan, he not scheduled for any future shows. They are hopeful of bringing him fall in the fall but if he’s living in Japan, he’ll probably do every tour going forward in Japan. He told ROH officials he was very upset about reports that he didn’t like working there

Jonathan Gresham has signed a new deal here. He’ll be moving to Baltimore and working more extensively at the dojo besides wrestling here regularly

There’s been a lot of talk regarding Rush when his contract expires here at the end of the year. The two key points are that Andrade, who was not happy in NXT and WWE for a long time when not being used, is happy now, has a good relationship with Charlotte Flair, is getting a push and making money. So the attitude of being negative to his good friend about coming has changed. WWE has obviously wanted Rush for some time, but the second issue is he’s still under contract to CMLL until early 2021

Maria Manic is headed in.

IMPACT: Scarlett Bordeaux was released from her contract. She had requested it to explore offers elsewhere. She did appear on BTE in backstage scenes that I think were shot at Bar Wrestling, but it had to do with Joey Ryan angles.

Don Callis was at one point on 6/17 stuck in the basement with people scared to death at the Eaton Centre in Toronto where there were shootings and stabbings. People were there for the celebration of the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA title. He was trying on shoes in a store when the building started rumbling and hundreds of panicked people ran into the store and into the basement where he was at and said that a gunman had fired shots. It sounded like the building was shaking from the stampede of people trying to find sanctuary. Callis didn’t want to stay there for hours and security wasn’t allowing people to leave through the usual parts of the mall. He was able to find a hidden store exit into a parking lot and got out and was fine

Killer Kross did a podcast with Petey Williams to talk about his situation. He said he liked everyone at Impact and everyone has been professional, and said when he signed, he believed he had no other opportunities elsewhere. Now that he knows he has other opportunities and that he knows what others at Impact are getting paid, he wanted to either be paid at that level or be allowed to leave and make more money elsewhere. He said that he has family members he’s responsible for. Impact offered him a raise, but not at the level he was asking for, but won’t release him until the end of his deal. He said that girlfriend Bordeaux’s situation is not related to his, and her situation was worse, saying she’s living at home with her mother and needs a side job to support herself. This was before she was released. The situation is largely unchanged in the sense the company has him under contract and has had various meetings with him about getting a raise or even giving him a guarantee and the company helping him on booking indie dates, but he was asking for more. One point is that when he made a comment about how Impact told him to get another job while working there, the Impact side is that other job was encouraging him to work indie dates since he’s only obligated to 30 dates per year on his contract so that leaves him plenty of time to work other shows. Brian Cage, for example, didn’t want an exclusive contract because he didn’t want to give up his indie bookings, and the contracts most of the guys have allow them to work shows on their off dates as long as the shows aren’t for a television or PPV company

PW Insider reported that the company has made a rule that when talent appears on television, they can only wear T-shirts that the company produces and not their own non-company T-shirts. That rule isn’t unusual

They peaked at 4,718 viewers for the TV show on Twitch on 6/14. They are usually just under 10,000. The Sunday twitch house show combined with House of Hardcore peaked at 941 viewers live.

AEW: Regarding television, the date is still not finalized but we were told it is 100 percent it will be either Tuesday or Wednesday nights, which everyone pretty much knew but was never said officially. Right now Wednesday is in the lead but the reason nothing is said is that there are a lot of decisions on the TNT side that still have to be made. International TV deals can’t be finalized until TNT makes those decisions so that’s where all of that stands

Fyter Fest is now officially streaming on B/R Live in the U.S. and Canada. Fite TV will air it as a lower-priced iPPV in the rest of the world. Fight for the Fallen on 7/16 will likely be the same scenario. The U.K. situation as far as broadcasting isn’t finalized at press time but it will be available there in some form. At first Fite TV specifically wasn’t offering it in the U.K., but now they are. The main event is Pentagon Jr. & Fenix & Laredo Kid vs. Young Bucks & Kenny Omega. Laredo Kid already works in the U.S. and has a visa while El Hijo del Vikingo, the other guy in that super match last week that led to Laredo Kid getting the spot, doesn’t. The one thing they are is very fluid about bringing guys in who they think are good. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Vikingo here at some point. Vikingo will probably if not almost certainly have a visa by September, because AAA is getting everyone visas for their Madison Square Garden show. The only reason it wouldn’t happen is if that show is canceled, and with the weak advance, that is a possibility. Confirmed additions to the show are Christopher Daniels vs. Cima, which was pretty much known last week, and a three team bout with Private Party (Marq Quen & Isaiah Kassidy) vs,. Chuckie T & Trent Baretta vs. Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky. The winning team gets into the second round of the upcoming tag team title tournament which I believe will be held mostly on television later this year. .. Jericho had a big part in both getting Jon Moxley to come to AEW and in the creative end of the angle at the end of Double or Nothing

Besides a men’s tag team title, Tony Khan did say at some point they would have a women’s tag team championship in his podcast interview with Steve Austin. He gave the impression the women’s tag team title would be down the line. There will also be a women’s singles title. With the men singles and tag belts, that may be all there is because there seems to be an agreement across the board that less is more when it comes to championships

The women’s championship will be unveiled at the Chicago show

Jack Evans has officially signed

Arn Anderson is legally not allowed to talk with the promotion but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t wind up here. Right now he can’t legally talk as he is on a severance package from WWE for the next several months and also had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so he can’t talk about many aspects of his time there

At 50 years old, Dustin Rhodes was the oldest wrestler in history to do a ***** singles match. Giant Baba was 56, but it wasn’t in a singles match. The prior record was Chris Jericho at 47 against Kenny Omega at the Tokyo Dome and Terry Funk at 45 against Ric Flair in the I Quit match in Troy, NY

Shawn Spears did an interview with Chris Van Vliet. He was pretty diplomatic on a lot of things but said that the PPV match he had with Styles and Corbin at Hell in a Cell in 2017 only happened because both Styles and Corbin went to bat for him to Vince. Vince wanted a Styles vs. Corbin singles match even though Spears, as Tye Dillinger, was involved in the entire build up. He also said he felt at the peak of his NXT popularity that he thought he should have gotten a title win. He said that Bobby Roode and himself both suggested a title program to Paul Levesque but Levesque nixed it. He said that Peyton Royce (his girlfriend) told him that he should leave because he was so miserable with how he was being used. He said that NXT improved greatly when Bill DeMott was fired and replaced by Matt Bloom. He said he pitched the perfect 10 idea to DeMott and DeMott refused to let him even try out the gimmick on the Florida house shows. He said he was ready to quit but Bloom turned his career around when he let him try the gimmick out at house shows. He said he only found out he was going to be in the 2017 Royal Rumble when Levesque told him the night before. He said that in hindsight, he wished he would have stayed in NXT rather than been brought up. He said he did ask to go back but was told that he couldn’t. He also said that on three occasions they did offer him a job as a coach in NXT but he turned that down. Cody, when announcing they had signed him, positioned him as a guy who can still go but would be valuable as a player-coach to the younger talent and eventually as a coach later down the line. He also talked about one of his last conversation with Vince McMahon. He said,”I went into his office

I needed to say what I needed to say. The biggest difference between both companies is credibility. Talent needs credibility. They don’t necessarily need pushes but talent does need credibility. If you’re watching the product and two guys come out and you’re already able to tell the finish of the match based on entrances alone, that’s a problem. Because now we’re giving an audience the opportunity to change the channel, we’re giving them the opportunity to [text] on their phone

they don’t care. They’re not invested. And that’s what I said to the chairman. I said, `With all due respect, I think we’re insulting their intelligence.’ He just kinda looked at me and said, `oh shit,’ But I still stand by that sentiment today.

Regarding why Hikaru Shida isn’t on Fyter Fest, she is touring Japan and the date was in the middle of her final tour before moving to the U.S. Riho is also finishing up soon in Japan and moving to the U.S

On this week’s Being the Elite, it was based on the Young Bucks going to Mexico and losing the AAA tag titles. Christopher Daniels had a one-sided discussion with his dog on whether or not to accept the Cima match, which he accepted. They seemed to tease Sammy Guevara vs. Brandon Cutler. They talked when they were in Mexico and after Cutler left, Guevara called him a pussy for crying on camera when he got his contract. Guevara then went to the Young Bucks and said that Cutler was a good guy, but why would they ever given him a contract, and then he said, “Of course, every company needs a job guy.” Taya Valkyrie made a cameo talking with Sonny Kiss.

UFC: UFC officially announced what we’ve talked about, the opening of the UFC Apex Arena, a 130,000 square foot production facility, which will hold 1,500 fans. The eventual goal is to do live events from the arena on a daily basis, most of which would air on Fight Pass. Dana White confirmed our report that the goal would be to produce daily live events from different combat sports, as well as entertainment events. The plan is also to open up a hotel next door. UFC has claimed that even though ESPN+ is the destination for UFC live events and Fight Pass airs other content like different special series and tons of combat sports content whether it be boxing, MMA, kickboxing, Muay Thai, submission fighting, etc., that Fight Pass subscribers have increased since the ESPN deal. The first event in the new arena was the first episode of the new Dana White’s Contenders Series on 6/18. The idea is to do MMA, boxing, Muay Thai, kickboxing, submissions and other combat sports events in the arena. They won’t go daily at first. They will also use the arena for other sports competitions, concerts, stage shows and esports tournaments. There will also be an IP-based control room installed in 2020 that would allow UFC to produce live events anywhere in the world and broadcast them in 4K. They will continue to use T Mobile for their big PPV events and The Pearl at the Palms for lesser events on Saturday nights

The actual ownership split of UFC is that Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., owns 50.1 percent and majority interest in the company. The two other companies that helped finance the $3.995 billion deal, Silver Lake Partners and KKK and Company, each own 22.9 percent of the company

White said that he has just signed a new seven-year (or ten year, he’s said both numbers publicly, first saying ten, then saying seven on Twitter). I would suspect White will continue to be the front man for the UFC, but wouldn’t be surprised if the also assumes that mantle if Endeavor can buy Premiere Boxing. White has wanted to get into the boxing promoting business for 20 years. White did an interview with Kevin Iole where he wouldn’t confirm any talks with Premiere, but did say they were looking to get into the boxing business, both promoting shows at their new arena and being partners and bidding on the biggest fights out there. He talked extensively about boxing in a media conference for the grand opening of the new arena, and talked about matchmaking ideas for the four big heavyweights saying you could get two year worth of big events out of it and talked like he wanted in on promoting it. He said he’s looking at making a big boxing announcement in the fall. The landscape on promoting boxing has changed with DAZN, and probably ESPN+ as well, similar to when it changed with HBO. Before the big fights were about putting up money and hoping you did big PPV business to make money on them, with the top tier fighters sharing in PPV. Now it would be a promoter who has fighters under contract making a big-time fight, and using it to help get money from DAZN, ESPN+ or whoever else is in the game, so the promoter is the organizer and middle-man as opposed to the guy who takes a big risk. HBO did that for boxing to where they’d pay the promoters who no longer had to worry about making money selling tickets to the non-PPV fights. White and Lorenzo Fertitta had talked about starting a boxing promotion before they found out that UFC was for sale and they went in that direction instead. White also brought up Fertitta wanting to buy an NFL team. I was first told in 2015 that Fertitta was looking to sell UFC and use that money to help finance a football stadium in Las Vegas that would bring in the Raiders, but that he would never be able to buy a team and bring them to Las Vegas because of his ownership of casinos. Perhaps the rest of the NFL has softened on that stance. White brought up that he’s heard the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers may be up for sale. He said if the Fertitta were to buy a team, he would partner up with them. White said that he and the Fertitta Brothers had looked at buying an NBA team. When the Houston Rockets were brought up, he laughed and said “Might be.” Tillman Fertitta, Lorenzo’s cousin, bought the Rockets in 2017. White said he’d love to work daily with the brothers but that won’t happen for the next ten years.

The final addition to the 2019 Hall of Fame class is the Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida fight that took place on June 20, 2009 at the Palms in Las Vegas. I was at the show and it was one of the most memorable and amazing fights I’ve ever seen. To me, this was a no-brainer. They announced it on 6/8 in Chicago and had Guida and his brother at ringside to surprise them with it. A real big question regarding the UFC Hall of Fame is what happens next. The Hall of Fame for years has been the project of Ant Evans, doing everything but screening the candidates and pushing them. Dana White and UFC made the final choices but essentially most of the picks were his, and while non-voting Hall of Fames have inherent problems, and there is the obvious Frank Shamrock Elephant in the Room political omission, but he even tried with that one and it almost happened and that’s a story in itself. It was actually a done deal and then Shamrock did an interview like a week before it was going to be announced that was heavily anti-White and it fell apart. Once Bruno got into the WWE Hall of Fame, I knew that time will heal all wounds and one day, but probably not soon, that will be rectified. But he’s restructured it to where there are no jokes in, everyone is worthy and adding one fight is a way to make fights like this legendary. Plus, both Sanchez and Guida had long tenures with the company, were both really popular and are still active, but they aren’t quite at the level of Hall of Fame fighters. Sanchez won the decision in a fight that you could have argued with Guida. Sanchez hit Guida with so many shots and Guida never gave up including popping up like he was Ishii after a high kick. I remember seeing Guida after the fight and even though he lost and his face was pretty bruised up, he was in a great mood because the fight tore the house down. The first round saw a combined 114 significant strikes

. UFC opened its second Performance Institute on 6/17 in Shanghai, China, with the idea of trying to find and groom Chinese superstars. That’s obviously a major goal for both UFC and WWE which is to find a Chinese superstar with the idea that will open up the market for them like Yao Ming did for the NBA, which got the big jump in that market. It’s a 93,000 square foot facility

Daniel Cormier is hinting that his 8/17 fight with Stipe Miocic will be his last. Basically he’s saying that he was going to retire in March, on his 40th birthday, but due to a back injury, he couldn’t make that date. So in his mind he’s got one fight left. He told TMZ, “I always said that I would fight until I turn 40, which was a card on 3/2.” Cormier said. “I couldn’t make that one so if I hold true to what I was saying, then this would be the final one. I don’t anticipate fighting much past this. I just want to go out there and do my thing. Ultimately, I know what led to me having trouble in wrestling. There are so many differences in wrestling, I was like the last time I’m ever gonna weigh in, last time I’m ever gonna do this.’ I don’t need to be looking at it as if it’s a weight off my shoulders. I get the opportunity to prepare again. I get the opportunity to go chase another gold belt, a new gold belt. So I’ve got to really be living that and enjoy that.

UFC announced the schedule for its own activities over International Fight Week. A non-UFC activity the Fights Only MMA Awards show takes place on 7/3 at the Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas. The UFC Hall of Fame ceremony takes place 7/5 at the Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas. All tickets are $20 for the ceremony and will all be going to Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada. The official UFC concert will be with Godsmack at 10 p.m. at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The UFC will have a two-day Fan Experience at the Downtown Event Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on 7/5 and 7/6. And the PPV is 7/6 at the T Mobile Arena

Chris Weidman is joining Luke Rockhold in moving up from middleweight to light heavyweight

Dana White said that he wouldn’t be offering B.J. Penn anymore fights. Penn, 40, a Hall of Famer, set a UFC record with seven losses in a row and nine losses in his last 11 fights. Aside from a win over Matt Hughes, who was at the end of his career, in 2010, and a draw with Jon Fitch that he really should have lost the decision in, Penn’s latest win was beating Diego Sanchez in 2009

White over the weekend said that there would be a September show in Vancouver

Cris Cyborg said that after her next fight, the final fight on her contract, she will test the free agent market. She’s one of the few proven draws in the business, although we don’t know what the loss to Amanda Nunes means. Her drawing power was always based on being the Mike Tyson of women, but history has also shown in MMA that big draws retain drawing power after one loss. It’s the repeated losses that do them in. Cyborg is only 33, but has been doing this sport for 14 years. She’s facing Felicia Spencer on 7/27 in Edmonton (a show that has a ton of unsold tickets) in her first fight since losing the title. Just because nobody knows how Spencer is (she did look good in her debut beating Megan Anderson), I don’t feel Cyborg vs. Spencer as a fight. Dana White has outright said he wants to rematch Nunes vs. Cyborg for the featherweight title. I think that’s still the biggest fight in women’s MMA right now. Perhaps Nunes dropping to 125 against Valentina Shevchenko and going for three belts would be bigger, and for hardcore fans it would be, but casuals probably not. But Nunes also has beaten Shevchenko twice already. I could her with ONE. ONE is spending like crazy and taking in almost no money but very good at fund raising with the idea of their inroads in China and Asia make them primed for making money. To me, I still believe the best proof of ability to draw revenue is actually drawing revenue rather than propping it up by letting people into shows for free to make it look good on the outside. Bellator would probably be interesting since Cyborg and Scott Coker have a long working relationship and it was Coker who promoted the Cyborg vs. Gina Carano fight which proved women can draw on top with the right dynamic

Henry Cejudo underwent surgery on his left shoulder. It’ll be four to five months before he can even start training, so that meant probably seven months minimum before he can fight. I guess that means interim belt city at both flyweight and welterweight. Really, the Joseph Benavidez vs. Jussier Formiga match should be for a title shot on 6/29 in Minneapolis. I’d say Aljamain Sterling vs. either Petr Yan or Marlon Moraes should be the welterweight bout

Sara McMann, who was scheduled to return on the 7/13 show in Sacramento after giving birth, has pulled out of the show due to an injury in training. Julianna Pena, who gave birth in January 2018, and hasn’t fought since, is being looked at as the replacement in a bout with Nicco Montano. .. They are now working on a Valentina Shevchenko vs. Liz Carmouche flyweight title match for 8/10 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Carmouche was scheduled to face Roxanne Modafferi on 7/20 in San Antonio but has been pulled from the fight. Before either women had made a name in the sport, Carmouche beat Shevchenko in 2010 in Concho, OK, via doctor stoppage in a bantamweight fight. Modafferi is now scheduled to face Jennifer Maia

T.J. Dillashaw was on Chael Sonnen’s podcast and said the reason he used EPO was because his body started to shut down six weeks before his fight with Henry Cejudo. He said in trying to get his weight down his body started to crash, and his hematocrit levels were low. So he said he took Procit, which he knew was a banned substance. He said it was an anemia medication that would help him make weight. Anyway, I just can’t buy that story. There were too many people from his old team saying and hinting about his PED usage before he was caught

There’s a head-to-head battle on 6/22 with UFC on ESPN+ and ESPN 2 Bellator on Paramount and DAZN. UFC will be live while Bellator will air later in the evening on television on a several hour tape delay but live on DAZN. UFC is from Greenville, SC, starting at 4 p.m. Eastern on ESPN 2. Those fights are Anderson dos Santos (20-7) vs. Andre Ewell (14-5), Deron Winn (5-0) vs. Eric Spicely (12-4), Molly McCann (8-2) vs. Ariane Lipski (11-4), Jair Rozenstruik (7-0) vs. Allen Crowder (10-3), Matt Wiman (16-7) vs. Luis Pena (6-1) and Dan Ige (11-2) vs. Kevin Aguilar (17-1). The main card starts at 7 p.m. on ESPN+ with Syuri Kondo (6-2) vs. Ashley Yoder (6-4), Kevin Holland (14-4) vs. Alessio DiChirico (12-2), Andrea Lee (10-2) vs. Montana De La Rosa (10-4), Randy Brown (10-3) vs. Bryan Barbarena (14-6), John Lineker (31-9) vs. Rob Font and Chan Sung Jung (14-5) vs. Renato Moicano. This doesn’t feel like a show with much interest. Kondo was a pro wrestler, kickboxer and shoot boxer and held the world women’s title in CMLL, Reina and Wrestling New Classic and held the Sendai Girls tag team titles with AEW’s Hikaru Shida. Spicely, who has done pro wrestling in the New England area, was cut last summer after three straight losses. Since leaving UFC he’s scored two straight knockout wins and was brought back when Bruno Silva pulled out of the fight with Deron Winn. Winn got his UFC contract by beating Tom Lawlor on Oscar De La Hoya’s lone Golden Boy MMA show

After going through a few options that fell through, including the idea of moving some fights because they didn’t have a 7/20 main event for San Antonio, they put together Rafael dos Anjos vs. Leon Edwards in that spot. Alexander Hernandez vs. Francisco Trinaldo has also been added to the show.

The 6/29 Minneapolis fight with Sergio Pettis vs. Ricardo Ramos is out as Pettis pulled out for an undisclosed reason. Ramos will now face the debuting Journey Newson of Oregon, a four-year pro with a 7-1 record, and who has amateur bouts dating back to 2011. In addition, Chas Skelly pulled out of his fight with Jordan Griffin, and was replaced by Vince Murdock, who now fights out of Sacramento and has a 10-5 record in a career that dates back to IFL in 2012, and has fought twice in Bellator. . Melissa Gatti vs. Julia Avila in a bantamweight fight has been added to the 7/6 show in Las Vegas

Added to the 9/7 PPV show in Abu Dhabi is Curtis Blaydes vs. Shamil Abdurakhimov, Islam Makhachev vs. Davi Ramos and Mairbek Taisumov vs. Diego Ferreira

For the 8/17 Anaheim PPV show, the big three bouts focused on will be Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title, Anthony Pettis vs. Nate Diaz and Yoel Romero vs. Paulo Costa. Other official fights are Raphael Assuncao vs. Cory Sandhagen, Derek Brunson vs. Ian Heinisch, Gabriel Benitez vs. Sodiq Yusoff, Poliana Botelho vs. Maryna Moroz and Sabina Mazo vs. Shana Dobson

Rodolfo Vieira, a multi-time world champion in BJJ, has signed with UFC and will debut on the 8/10 show in Montevideo, Uruguay against Oskar Piechota. Vieira is 5-0 in MMA

With John Phillipa pulling out of the 7/13 show in Sacramento, his formerly scheduled opponent, Karl Robertson, will face the debuting Wellington Turman (15-2)

Karolline Rosa, a 11-3 fighter from Brazil, is scheduled to debut on the 8/31 show in Shenzhen, China according to MMA Fighting.

BELLATOR: Bellator signed Fedor Emelianenko to a new multi-fight contract. Emelianenko, 42, is probably still the biggest ticket seller for the promotion although at this stage it’s going to be diminishing returns. There was at least talk going around of him facing Rampage Jackson at some point. The idea is this is Fedor’s retirement tour, although he’s already entering into Terry Funk league with retirements

Scott Coker talked about sending double champion Patricky Pitbull Freire to Japan to be part of the Rizin lightweight Grand Prix tournament

They have a show on 6/22 from the SSE Arena in London. This is a unique show. The main thrust of the show is a live prime time event on U.K. television, airing on Ch. 5. There will be fights on Paramount and DAZN at 9 p.m. Eastern with Charlie Ward (6-3) vs. Justin Moore (7-3), Mike Shipman (13-1 vs. Costello van Steenis (11-1), Fabian Edwards (7-0) vs. Jonathan Bosuku (7-4), James Gallagher (8-1) vs. Jeremiah Labiano (12-6) and Paul Daley (40-17-2) vs. Erick Silva (20-10, 1 no contest). However, the major fights will air earlier, live at 5 p.m. Eastern on the Bellator app, as well as live on U.K. television in prime time at 10 p.m., which are Aaron Chalmers (4-1) vs. Fred Freeman (2-2), Melvin Manhoef (30-14-1 2 no contests) vs. Kent Kauppinen (11-4) and a middleweight title fight with Gegard Mousasi (45-6-2) vs. Rafael Lovato Jr. (9-0). Chalmers is a U.K. reality show star.

OTHER MMA: Forbes had its annual list of the 100 highest paid athletes in the world this week. Lionel Messi ($129 million), Ronaldo ($109 million) and Neymar ($105 million) topped the list. From combat sports, those making the top 100 for this year were No. 4 Canelo Alvarez ($94 million from the DAZN deal); No. 13 Anthony Joshua ($55 million largely due to the DAZN deal); No. 21 Conor McGregor ($47 million); No. 56 Deontay Wilder ($30.5 million No. 92 Manny Pacquiao ($26 million) and No. 95 Gennady Golovkin ($25.5 million). It’s notable that even with the amount of revenue that UFC and WWE bring in, aside from McGregor, nobody even cracked the top 100. Athletes in both of those companies, even though the top UFC stars make nice livings and most WWE full-timers do, are still grossly underpaid given the amount of revenue the company generate. If WWE upped the pay of every wrestler six times, they would still be paying less on revenue than the major sports do. With UFC, they’d have to triple or quadruple everyone’s pay for the pay to be at the level of the major team sports. As far as compared to the top boxers, that’s an even bigger disparity. With all the bragging on social media stats and how important they are, Alvarez made $94 million last year with 1.38 million Twitter followers so that speaks volumes on a number of levels. To be fair, Alvarez is overpaid for what he brings in because DAZN is spending like crazy trying to be a force, while UFC and WWE are avenues to make gigantic profits for the owners and greatly underpay the talent in doing so. The mentality is often different though. With UFC, they see what boxers with less popularity than them earn and believe they deserve that kind of money and are unhappy. With WWE, a large percentage (Lesnar being the exception) are fans who think it’s amazing they can pay for their house at 30 and make a nice living doing the job they grew up wanting to do. But even with UFC fighters, they haven’t been able to get a union going and it was gains by unions and free agency that led to the enormous rise in pay in the major team sports as those athletes were greatly underpaid prior to unionization as well

Eddie Alvarez and Demetrious Johnson are back with ONE on the 8/2 show in Manila. Alvarez will face former ONE champion Eduard Folayang. Johnson will face Tatsumitsu Wada in the semifinal of the eight-man flyweight tournament. The other semifinal has Kairat Akhmetov vs. Danny Kingad.

WWE: WWE sent out a marketing study regarding future WrestleManias. They were asking people who have traveled to WrestleMania in the past who are in their data base what cities they were most interested in going to, as well as how much money they estimate they spend in merchandise, transportation and tickets. The cities they listed as under consideration for future WrestleManias were London (notable that the city is under consideration), Chicago, Jacksonville, Las Vegas (those three cities listed in a row are interesting, if it was just Chicago and Las Vegas you wouldn’t think twice but a number of people who got the survey immediately saw Jacksonville lumped in and saw the unique coincidence), Santa Clara, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Toronto, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Tampa on the list is weird because they are going there next year and one would think you wouldn’t be thinking about going back for many years to come. One can also note cities like New Orleans and in particular, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, were not on the list. Los Angeles is expected to get a WrestleMania within the next few years with the building of the new stadium. It’s already public that they want the 2021 WrestleMania (and the city may not be on the list they sent out because it’s already decided). The last word we had heard, which is months old, that the new 70,240-seat Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park would either host in 2021 or 2022. The city wants it in 2021 because they are hosting the 2022 Super Bowl, and feel that WrestleMania, bringing a ton of tourists in, will be the best situation for them to learn issues and get all the kinks about before hosting the Super Bowl. WWE wants it in 2022, right after the Super Bowl, so they can announce an attendance number that beats the Super Bowl number

Regarding the WWE move to FOX, while I know a lot of people are using the current Smackdown ratings and feeling it will bomb as a network property and be moved to FS 1, and while nothing is impossible, FOX does not see it that way. FOX noted the value of a show is a combination of it value in retransmission rights (how much they can get carriers to pay for the station based on the product) and value to advertisers. Wrestling has virtually no value, in the sense nobody is paying more money to buy transmission rights to FOX stations because WWE is on the station. Their belief is they can get the ad rates up for wrestling based on the size of the audience and that wrestling still gets low CPMs (basically ad revenue based on size of audience) and that they can grow it. Another key is that wrestling is 52 weeks a year. While FOX’s fall lineup this past year will likely beat what Smackdown will do on Friday nights, that’s first run programming. The last few weeks with rerun programming, FOX has done numbers far lower than what Smackdown would do. On 6/14, FOX ran the U.S. Open golf tournament and did 2,601,000 viewers. But that’s a one-off. FOX feels wrestling will top that, but even if wrestling doubled it, golf ad rates are so much higher than wrestling that a U.S. Open broadcast is more valuable. But that’s not your typical Friday this time of the year. On 6/7, FOX averaged 1,337,000 viewers for rerun programming in that time slot. On 5/31, it was 1,510,000. On 5/24 it was 1,708,000

From a perception standpoint, WWE got a big positive with ESPN announcing a new ESPY award for Best WWE Moment. Notable that they got it Best WWE moment whereas in the UFC award it is called Best MMA and not UFC, even though at this point it’s only UFC. The nominees are Reigns’ return to Raw and announcing his leukemia was in remission, Lynch beating Rousey and Flair at WrestleMania, Kingston beating Bryan at WrestleMania and Rousey beating Bliss to win the women’s title. The Reigns thing should win but this is a sports fan vote and thus something with Rousey does have an edge. ESPN has also broken the former Best Fighter category into Best boxer and Best MMA fighter. Best boxer has Canelo Alvarez, Vasily Lomachenko, Olekandr Usyk and Terence Crawford and Best MMA Fighter has Israel Adesanya, Daniel Cormier, Henry Cejudo and Amanda Nunes. The ESPYs will air on ABC, not ESPN, on 7/10 from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. On the MMA thing, it’s hard not to put Ryan Bader on that list although all the other nominees did have big years

The lineup for the 8/10 Takeover show in Toronto will be Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano for the NXT title and not Matt Riddle. Riddle has a TV program with Killian Dain, who returned at the tapings this past week. It’s not on the Takeover show listed at this point. The feeling is that Riddle is going to be in NXT for a while so they don’t need to rush him into the championship picture. Plus, by doing a third national Cole vs. Gargano main event, they can make it this generation’s U.S. version of Flair-Steamboat 30 years later. Velveteen Dream defends the North American title in a three-way against both Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong. There is talk of Dunne being around more in NXT Florida. Shayna Baszler defends the women’s title against Mia Yim. The final match will be the finals of the Breakout Star tournament taking place at TV with Cameron Grimes (Trevor Lee) vs. Jordan Myles (ACH)

Vince McMahon is bringing Joe Cohen, 72, in for the XFL according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. We did a story on Cohen a few months back when WWE put him in their Hall of Fame legacy wing. According to the story, when the subject of Cohen came up (not sure this is regarding the legacy induction but it was when Cohen’s name came up), Paul Levesque asked Vince who Cohen was. Vince replied, “Without Joe Cohen, there’s no WWE. And quite frankly, without Joe Cohen, we’re not on this magnificent airplane. We’re riding on a bus.” McMahon told this story when Cohen was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2016. McMahon sent Cohen a ring last year that was inscribed, “No Joe. No WWE.” Cohen noted some changes from the usual McMahon protocol in that for the XFL, for what may be the first time in his career, McMahon is giving up control of production of the broadcasts to the television stations, similar to how a major sport would be produced. He also noted McMahon recently met with Jerry Jones and said the goal was to expand the football fan base and work with the NFL and not to be competition, the exact opposite of his goal in 2001 which was to take on the NFL. Cohen said the AAF did a very good job delivering a product that was attractive to television, but they didn’t have the money to carry it out, whereas Vince does. They are also heavily embracing every aspect of gambling to increase interest in games, with the idea that legalized gambling will make sports like football, the U.S. gambling king, even more popular. Cohen also noted they’ve already done mock games n stadiums to both experiment with new rules and experiment with on-field camera positions and dual sky-cams

ESPN did a great story on the AAF. Basically it was about the league having to fold so quickly. Charlie Ebersol had the idea in 2017 partially because the XFL was the one thing that his father very publicly failed at. When they launched, Reggie Fowler was supposed to fund $120 million in payments of $15 million at a time. Fowler had a questionable background. He announced in 2005 he had bought the Minnesota Vikings only to find out he had lied out his background and when his finances were examined, he was reduced to a minor partner. Still, $120 million isn’t enough to start a league like this, but it would last for a first season, so really they never should have started. But they did. And then Fowler’s checks were coming too slow. They were already $13 million short when it came time to start training camp. The U.S. government had frozen at least four of Fowler’s accounts as part of a forthcoming fraud indictment. Fowler was eventually arrested in April and charged with moving hundreds of millions of dollar through banks into cryptocurrency under the guise of it being real estate investments. He has pleaded not guilty. At this point they had no money and were going to have to shut down. This is where Vince McMahon comes in. Ebersol met with Vince. Ebersol had previously talked with Vince about starting up together but Vince turned him down. He asked again, noting he’d spent millions on staff and infrastructure and had it all in place. McMahon again turned him down. Eventually they got funding from Tom Dundon to stay alive until Dundon shut it down

. Not to take this seriously, but on Ariel Helwani’s ESPN+ MMA show, John Kavanagh, the coach of Conor McGregor, was asked about Becky Lynch. “If she was to say to me tomorrow, `You know, I’d like to give this MMA game a go,’ give me a year and I’d have her fighting at a high level. There’s no doubt because she has an engine and she’s tough as hell.” My only thought is that C.M. Punk ran a marathon, so he’s got an engine, and he could take great punishment in pro wrestling, but that didn’t translate into fighting without fighting skill. Lynch had trained BJJ that I know of and has been in fighting gyms so has probably trained some striking, but there is a world of difference between training and sports competition

Styles has not been cleared yet but he was back at TV because they expect him to be cleared very soon. He is at this point expected to be cleared in time to wrestle on the Sumo Hall shows at the end of the month

Melissa Morris-Zanoni, the former agent of Ric Flair and several other pro wrestlers, who booked his appearances from around 2008 to 2017, filed a lawsuit against him based on a videotape Flair put up last week saying he was going to sue her. Flair ended up taking down the videotape after legal threats. On 6/10, the agency wrote, "Today we have taken the first step and filed a Civil Lawsuit against Richard M. Fliehr a/k/a as Ric Flair and certain unnamed (for now) defendants for defamation per se and look forward to proving the falsity of every wrongful allegation contained in his video that was posted on YouTube on June 3, 2019. Ric Flair having taken down the video is not enough. We will vigorously use the court system to protect our good names and reputations, and obtain damages due to Ric Flair’s defamatory comments contained in the video. We intend to amend the lawsuit to include all involved parties and hold all involved accountable. We completely stand behind our client’s well known reputation for truthfulness, professionalism, honor, and integrity." Flair had sued the agency in 2017 after their split, claiming they never paid him $46,000 in royalties from the deal for the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary and another endorsement deal. At the time he claimed Zanoni left a threatening voicemail massage to his wife from a blocked number. The suit at the time went nowhere. In the video, Flair said that he had gotten a new heavy hitter as a lawyer and was coming after her

Flair was on Busted Open radio and when asked about his comments last week about Shawn Michaels, said that Michaels’ sound bite on the 30 for 30 special hurt his feelings. He said he also called up Jim Ross after the show aired and cussed him out, but he did say that Ross was telling the truth. He said that he also didn’t like what his kids (Megan and David) said on the piece, noting that any money that he had, it was theirs. He said he spared no money on them although when they were young, he was never around. I thought overall the piece was good but one point that did bother me was when it was brought up that he wasn’t there on Friday nights for their sports events (the first kids, not Reid and Ashley, who he was at their events constantly because his schedule was easier at that time of his life) that there wasn’t a major pro wrestling star in any significant territory who would have been able to attend their kids sports events regularly on a Friday night. It’s no different than athletes with grueling schedules in team sports at least during the season. It just goes with the territory. It’s like their comments were accurate but it was something of a cheap shot to be used on the piece because the son or daughter of any touring pro wrestler is going to have commitments on Friday nights

Chael Sonnen on his ESPN+ show with Ariel Helwani claimed that before his second fight with Anderson Silva he was called by WWE and offered $1 million to no-show the UFC 148 PPV and show up on Raw, and was later told that if he beat Silva in the fight (he didn’t), that he could get $5 million if he showed up on Raw with the belt and left UFC after winning the title. Keep in mind I don’t buy this for a second because UFC contracts that Sonnen signed specifically prohibited doing pro wrestling and while WWE may have contacted people under contract, they’ve never made big money offer to anyone to breach a contract, especially a company the size of UFC. Plus, it’s Chael, and he can lie with a straight face like nobody’s business. It is true that Mike Goldberg, who did not have a contract that precluded working for WWE, in 2005, was offered the job as lead announcer on Raw where he’d replace Jim Ross and offered a big bonus to go to the city where UFC had a live special (a Monday night show on Spike head-to-head with Raw on USA) and then fly out that morning, without leaving word, leaving UFC scrambling to find an announcer and then debut on Raw that night. Goldberg turned it down, thinking it wasn’t professional, and UFC ended up finding out, offering Goldberg a major raise, and Goldberg pulled out of the WWE deal before signing it. The funniest part of the story is that Goldberg had some qualms about doing WWE because he was doing real sports, like hockey and such, besides UFC, so wanted to use a different name in WWE. But he never broached the subject, because Vince told him when they offered the job that he didn’t want him using the name Mike Goldberg because at the time he hated Bill Goldberg. It’s the same reason Ken Anderson had to switch to Ken Kennedy, because even decades later, Vince still hated Ole Anderson

A note that hasn’t been brought up regarding the Saudi Arabia shows going forward is that Saudi Arabia has asked for date on Fridays, and WWE starting in October has FOX on Fridays. Right now for 11/1, the WWE has a listing for a FOX show from Newark, NJ and a show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and King Saad University Stadium. So that would either mean split crews or they’d have to change the Saudi date

FOX is promoting Smackdown in the fall around a big four of Reigns, Kingston, Bayley and Flair although some ads during baseball had Reigns, Cena, Flair and Lynch. The original big four when they started promotion was Cena, Reigns, Flair and Mysterio

WWE is promoting a PPV show using the old WCW moniker Clash of the Champions on 9/15 in Charlotte, advertising Kingston vs. Ziggler and Lynch vs. Evans as the top matches. While that will probably change, it is interesting that they believe that’s the best stuff they have to offer right now to sell tickets. They also push that all the champions would appear plus Charlotte Flair

WWE Studios is working with Netflix in a live action family movie “The Main Event.” Kingston, Miz, Keith Lee, Mauro Ranallo, Beth Phoenix and Sheamus are in the cast of a movie that stars Seth Carr of Black Panther, Tichina Arnold of The Neighborhood and Ken Marino of The Other Two. It’s about an 11-year-old who finds a magic mask and tries to become the next WWE superstar. The movie is currently filming in Vancouver. Ranallo, Phoenix and Lee are involved because as part of his journey to WWE, he has to start in NXT. Heedfully they don’t script it to where he gets over big in NXT and then gets botched on the main roster

WWE renewed its deals for Raw and Smackdown (both edited down to one hour), as well as NXT and Main Event for Fox Sports Latin America. The new deal also includes a 30 minute localized highlights show

Matt Hardy and wife Rebecca are expecting their third child

Dave Bautista did an interview with Pro Wrestling Sheet where he noted that he and HHH didn’t rehearse their match at all. For high-profile matches at Mania where non-wrestlers are involved, or Ronda Rousey matches, or complicated matches they fear sucking like a women’s MITB match or Rumble, they do rehearsals. Since Bautista hadn’t wrestled for years, and it was a big long match, under those circumstances you’d probably map it out. HHH didn’t want to, both because he and Bautista had wrestled tons of times, even if it was years in the past, and also because he was coming back pretty quick all things considered from the pec tear and surgery. Bautista said that HHH didn’t want to risk injury right before the match

Crews and Fandango also were at the NXT tapings. Crews may have only been in for one shot to put over Kushida. Because he came in just to lose. Fandango will be going back to teaming with Breeze for a program with The Forgotten Sons. It was noted here some time back that Dain was being sent back to NXT. He’s there first for a program with Matt Riddle

Mike and Maria Kanellis have both signed new five-year deals. No money figures are available but everyone we’ve heard from has gotten new offers significantly higher, as in like double in some cases, of what they were making on their prior deals. But the key take is that it looks like every deal is now five years instead of three, with the idea of locking down everyone for long periods of time so they can’t go anywhere. It makes perfect sense. Even if they double everyone, that’s still only 16 percent of 2018 revenue and with the new TV deals in place starting in the fall, it’s still 11 percent at the new rate which compares with 50 percent for the major sports and a lot higher than that for high level boxers. We’ve noted the psychological differences that allow this to happen to go along with the lack of a union (which is the key difference because in all sports those same people were similarly underpaid until they organized). The psychological differences are that in competitive sports, athletes who are good were usually good from being teenagers and it was inbred in them that at the top level they are worth a certain amount. With wrestling, while they do recruit some very good athletes, in most cases they were either washouts at the top level of their real sport, like with football players, or were guys who were very good at sports where you never expect to make a lot of money (wrestling, judo, powerlifting, bodybuilding). And most of your best wrestlers nowadays grew up just wanting to be wrestlers and will smile and have wonderful memories of beating themselves up before 100 or 200 people and making no money and driving considerable distances to do so. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people get into things that they love that take a lot of time and don’t make them money. But the point is, those people grew up with the idea WWE was the dream or Mania is the dream, they themselves believe they are lucky and beat the odds to get there as opposed to Stephen Curry who may feel he was lucky to have gifts but also knows full well he deserves $37.46 million a year or Conor McGregor who knows the amount of revenue he generates and wants a fair cut instead of smiling because he’s lucky he’s on a stage and feels happy the owner or decision maker chose him instead of that the owner or decision maker is lucky to have them making more for him

The city of San Diego made 6/18 Rey Mysterio Day. He was given a proclamation by the city for work giving back to the community. Mysterio, who signed an 18 month contract, also noted he’s talking about signing a new deal

Sullivan’s knee injury reported on last week was worse than anticipated but we don’t know more details than that. He underwent an MRI during the week. The only stuff we’ve heard is that the company believes he will be out six to nine months

Sheamus, who is currently out of action with injuries, has been using the time off to diet down and is down to 229 pounds and ripped like he’s Pac

One story that to me is just weird, is that Dana Warrior did a post in Ultimate Warrior make-up saying, “I stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and honor you with Pride this month. I believe in equality, education, awareness, and this simple fact. Love wins. Always.” I don’t believe in judging her based on her late husband’s very outspoken views on gays, which were beyond deplorable and got his career as a public speaker on college campuses derailed as soon as it got out of the gate. So while there is going to be the criticism of her doing this based on her husband, that’s not fair as she can have her own views. However, to do this while donning Ultimate Warrior make-up, that’s just weird and tone deaf and did and was guaranteed to both bring up criticism and bring back the things her husband said. Given WWE has tried to remake Ultimate Warrior’s image, I’m not sure doing things that leads to bringing back his very public views on that subject is a good thing

This was the report we got on Cena in his host role n “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.” I was told Cena was very good, and a much better host than Jeff Foxworthy was on the original show. Cena plays the goofy adult and is great interacting with the kids. He’s great with self-deprecating humor on the show

Riddle was outspoken in social media and in a TalkSport interview on Goldberg. It’s been noted that he’s been encouraged to do this and if that wasn’t the case, they’d tell him to stop. He said that when he was a kid everyone talked about how great Goldberg was, but he thought Goldberg was terrible and was hurting people and does three minute matches. He said when people ask him who his favorite wrestler was growing up, he said he didn’t have one, but just liked watching good matches and that’s why he tries to give that to the fans now. He also said that for his health, Goldberg probably shouldn’t be head-butting doors before his matches. Even though he knocks Lesnar, which is also encouraged, he said he has great respect for Lesnar for everything he’s done. He said that you don’t make it to the top in multiple industries and sports without working hard. He said he doesn’t like his work itself, that Lesnar is the complete opposite of him, but in other ways they’re the same

Rusev, who last performed on the Super Showdown event, hasn’t been around because he asked for time off. He’s expected back shortly. .. The WWE Network has a Performance Center combine show which is more than five hours long, which is mostly guys and women doing different strength and agility drills put together by Sean Hayes, who is the NXT strength and conditioning coach. What’s amazing is just how agile some of these huge guys are. Like you see Babatunde, who is a real-life 6-foot-9 and probably 360 pounds and you think he’s just a huge guy they are trying to teach, but he’s an amazing athlete. The other thing is, it’s very clear that they have an exceptional work ethic there when it comes to training. The thing is, these big ex-football player types are so much more athletic than even a guy like Matt Riddle, who is a very legit athlete. And they’re much bigger, but some guys take to pro wrestling and others are projects. Riddick Moss won the overall which is the second year he’s won it. The year he was injured, Tino Sabbatelli, who was a legit ex-NFL player and college star with a great look won it, but Sabbatelli is injured. Moss has size and a good look as a pro wrestler as well. The new project is putting he and Dan Matha, who is maybe 6-foot-7 or so and a former competitive bodybuilder and football player, who is also very clearly a great athlete but he’s been in the system for years. They were put together as a team managed by Robert Strauss (Robbie E) as the Outliers. They main evented them at the 6/8 show in Fort Pierce and brought them on the last non-Florida tour as an act

The Wrap listed Jaume Collet-Serra as the possible director for the upcoming “Black Adam” movie that Dwayne Johnson will star on for DC and New Line. Johnson and Collet-Serra have worked together on the movie “Jungle Cruise.

WWE has several nominations in Teen Choice Awards. Cena was nominated for Choice Action Movie Actor for his role in “Bumblebee.” The Bella Twins were nominated for Choice Female Athletes. I mean, did they even do anything in the last year past Nikki doing the build and match with Rousey, who wasn’t nominated, nor was Lynch? Styles was nominated for Choice Male Athlete. Bumblebee was nominated for Best Action Movie

Evolve announced a tag match with Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly facing J.D. Drake & Anthony Henry on 6/29 in Queens, NY at La Boom. They also announced Matt Riddle vs. Curt Stallion for 7/24 in Melrose, MA. Akira Tozawa will be on their 7/13 show in Philadelphia. Adrian Jaoude, with his new ring name of Arturo Ruas, faces Josh Briggs on the Queens show and Anthony Henry on 6/30 in Brooklyn. Sean Maluta is also starting with Evolve. Austin Theory vs. Roderick Strong and Ruas vs. Henry plus Tommaso Ciampa at a meet and greet was all announced for 6/30 in Brooklyn

WWE has signed Faisal Kkurdi and Hussain Aldagal, who were both from the recent tryouts in Saudi Arabia

Drake Maverick won the hardcore title in the parking lot in Ontario, CA on 6/18 Smackdown when he was dressed up as Carmella, R-Truth went to get into his uber which was driven by referee Dan Engler (or Rudy Charles). R-Truth thought Carmella had gotten smaller. He took off his wig but R-Truth attacked him. Maverick schoolboyed him and put his feet on the floor of the car for leverage and left, driving off in Engler’s car to his wedding. The idea is that R-Truth thinks it’s Carmella who is getting married this weekend and doesn’t know why he wasn’t invited. The plan seems to be that R-Truth will regain it from Maverick at Maverick’s wedding. At least that idea was broached and there has to be a reason they’ve brought up his wedding a few times on television

The stock closed on 6/19 at $76.93 per share giving the company at $6.004 billion market value. The increase over recent weeks is probably more because the market as a whole is gaining

The most-watched shows of the past week on WWE Network: 1. Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle talk about their street fight match; 2. Super Showdown; 3. NXT from 6/13; 4. Ride Along with Sheamus, Cesaro, R-Truth and Carmella; 5. WWE U.K. from 6/13; 6. NXT Takeover Bridgeport; 7. WrestleMania; 8. Table for 3 with Riott Squad; 9. WWE 24: Ronda Rousey; 10. Money in the Bank

205 on 6/12 was 11th for the week

Notes from the 6/17 Raw show in Los Angeles. The show was a lot easier to watch than it has been in a long time. It felt like a lot more work was done in writing. Because the show was better, it started this meme that Vince wasn’t at the show. He wasn’t in San Jose last week. He was in Los Angeles this week. He was in charge of the show. I’m not sure about beating Corbin in the tag match just days before his title match but the idea is he did get heat on Rollins at the end of the show. Rollins was pushed as an Austin-style babyface taking out one person after another throughout the show. Still, the entire show had been pushed for a week around Corbin announcing the special referee, and they spent three hours teasing it and went off the air without doing it. Coming on the heels of doing the same thing with the Lesnar cash-in for weeks, you really don’t want to long run be in the business of treating your customers like that. They even teased the Lesnar thing again during the show although in a way where nobody probably bought it and it was only in one segment by Heyman. The show drew 9,000 fans which would be disappointing for Raw at the Staples Center by normal standards, but after what San Jose did last week, that’s about what you’d expect. Main Event started with Brooke vs. Logan. Logan hit Brooke with a flying knee that connected too well. Brooke was all bloody and the referee called for the match to be stopped. Brooke was said to be okay after the match. The other main event match saw Roode pin Alexander. After how great Alexander was on 205 Live, it’s really a shame how he and Murphy are doing on the main roster. The enhancement guys Ryan & Randy Taylor who worked against the Viking Warriors, but Ryan Taylor’s real name is Russell Taylor and he’s an area indie guy. Erik Watts, who works a lot of Southern California indies, and was in the Steve Austin season of Tough Enough, was one of the guys shown as a security guy. Raw opened with Elias out. He talked about Anthony Davis and it seemed the theme of the heels all night was to run down the Lakers. It got a reaction, but not overwhelming. He said that Davis said he was a piece of garbage who needed to surround himself with other pieces of garbage and the only way to do this was move to a city where the people are more toxic than the air. This was pretty much a line Vince told Ambrose to say that Ambrose noted in one of his interviews when Ambrose was a heel working the city. So I guess Vince loved it so much he remembered it and had it done again. Elias said he was asked by Corbin to be the referee and was wearing a referee shirt. Rollins came out and gave him eight chair shots to the back. Rollins said after everything he went through with Lesnar, he’s done playing games and anyone considering refereeing and siding with Corbin should choose wisely because this is what awaits you no the other side. This was the theme for the show. Then Miz came out and gave Elias the skull crushing finale. Lashley speared him. Cesaro swung him. Ricochet gave him a codebreaker and it was notable, since the move was done more than once on the show, that codebreaker is banned. It’s the double knees even though double knees usually means running double knees into the corner. Strowman then powerslammed him. Next was an elimination match where Ricochet won a shot at the U.S. title in a five-way elimination match over Miz, Lashley, Cesaro and Strowman. Why they did an elimination match was beyond me, especially because of how they protect Strowman. It led to a completely ridiculous elimination that just made the match look stupid. Strowman powerslammed Cesaro in 1:18. Lashley was distracted by Ricochet and Strowman powerslammed him in 2:19. Ricochet ran wild, running over Miz and Ricochet, but Lashley speared Strowman. Of course Lashley was already eliminated. Cesaro, also eliminated, also attacked Strowman. So in WWE rules, in an elimination match, there are no DQ’s, even though Survivor Series matches have had DQ falls all the time when they want to protect people. So poor ref John Cone had to stand there and do nothing, while, right in front of him, Lashley and Cesaro were beating down Strowman. After the spear, Cesaro gave Strowman the neutralizer, which they called the Gotch neutralizer because JBL called it that even though Gotch never did that move. Ricochet hit a 630 on Strowman and then Ricochet, Lashley and Cesaro, two heels who were eliminated and one face, all covered Strowman and the ref counted three at 4:20. Ricochet and Miz had a long final fall, with a long figure four, Ricochet selling the leg. Ricochet did a springboard into the Jericho move that shall not be named, and then hit the 630 for the pin. Joe then attacked Ricochet from behind. Ricochet came back with a Fosbury flop dive. They showed Lynch and Rollins on the red carpet together. There is a big push to constantly put the two of them together to the point it feels like they are setting up an angle. Lynch now has a pony tail. Lynch came out and called out Evans. Evans talked about her background which they’ve really not pushed on the main roster. Lynch aid to do her performance. Evans said that they should make a movie about her life. She said she was a real marine and that they need a classy lady to set an example and not a nasty like Lynch. As she came into the ring Lynch gave her an exploder. They had Evans really made up. Like it’s Vince saying “All you people not reacting to her, don’t you know she’s like Marilyn Monroe” and viewers are like why does she look like some pin-up in grandfather’s scrapbook. Shane was having a party with McIntyre and The Revival. Don’t know about you, but when I want to go to a party, I try to avoid backstage at the local arena. Corbin did an interview. He said he’ll reveal the referee on the Kevin & Sami show. Let’s cry wolf. Stone Cold Seth then hit him with a chair. Bryan & Rowan were out. Bryan said Los Angeles sucked and it was the smog capital of America. The Viking Raiders came out and stared at them. Normally I’d say that means we’re going to have a program between these teams, which isn’t a bad idea. But the confidence quotient being so low, who knows that means. Viking Raiders beat Ross & Randy Taylor when Ivar pinned one of them with a pop up powerslam in :32. R-Truth & Carmella were at ringside in purposely awful costumes. Carmella was dressed as Charlie Chaplin. Yes, we had women in 2019 dressed as Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin. All of the guys who are flown in weekly and hang out backstage figured that out and all ran after them. R-Truth went under the ring to hide. A bunch of guys went under the ring and pulled a guy out. It was O’Neil. I guess he was sleeping under the ring. I guess we’re supposed to believe that he’s never come back from the slide in Saudi Arabia and has been under the ring for all that time. This allowed R-Truth and Carmella to run off. And no, we got no comedy whatsoever about R-Truth being delivered to the Staples Center in that crate. Slater came to Shane’s party. He wasn’t invited, but he’s got kids and he wanted a raise. He said money was tight. Shane turned him down. Slater left and was on the phone with a woman we are to assume was his wife. McIntyre then left the room to talk to Slater. We’re supposed to remember that they used to be tag team partners. McIntyre wanted to hand him cash but Slater was too proud to accept. McIntyre “accidentally” dropped a bunch of money on the ground. Slater went to pick it up and McIntyre slammed his head into some lockers and he was left laying. The Revival came out and pulled McIntyre off and told him to lay off, not out of sympathy to Slater, but they didn’t want him hurting his hands before his match with Reigns. Then, after McIntyre left, they grabbed all the bills on the ground and stuck them down their pants. That was at least funny. Next was the Kevin & Sammy show. Corbin announced EC 3 as the guest referee. He came out with a ref shirt and Rollins took him out with chair shots. Corbin complained Rollins was costing another superstar a big opportunity. EC 3 was laying there still knocked out. New Day came out. Owens told Kingston that if Ziggler doesn’t win the title Sunday, that he will the next chance he gets. Kingston noted Owens had a shot at Money in the Bank and lost. This led to a challenge for a six-man. EC 3 was knocked out but they picked him up and Kingston did a ventriloquist bit acting like EC 3 was the referee. Styles & Gallows & Anderson were backstage n the trainers room. Styles noted how Gallows & Anderson had debuted at the Staples Center. They talked about being friends from Japan. Styles was trying to motivate them by saying the Usos were the best tag team on the planet. He said that Gallows & Anderson got comfortable, were making too much money and then asked when was the last time they won a match and when was the last time they even had a match on Raw. He said they need to get serious. So with Slater, we’re told prelim guys who aren’t pushed and don’t even get TV time can’t make ends meet. In this skit, we’re told prelim guys who aren’t pushed and don’t even get TV time are so rich that they aren’t even motivated to improve. Anderson told Styles they’ll see how motivated they are when they beat the best tag team on the planet. There is an obvious joke here. Somehow this turned into New Day over Owens & Zayn & Corbin in a 2/3 fall match. Why this was 2/3 falls was never explained. Nobody challenged. Probably somebody in the challenge was supposed to bring it up but they forgot. Woods pinned Zayn in 3:39 with a schoolboy to win the first fall. This was the first 2/3 fall six man tag team match on WWE television since 1989. In the second fall, Owens accidentally superkicked Corbin. Owens & Zayn walked out, leaving Corbin alone. Kingston pinned Corbin in 12:14 with Trouble in Paradise. Please don’t ask me to explain why you have a weak challenger for a show that has a bad advance and you then pin the challenger going for the title in the main event at all, let alone by someone not involved in the match. Cross was backstage with Bliss. Bliss gave her a gift. Cross thought she gave her a coffee mug but it was a piece of paper in the mug about getting a tag title match later in the show. Bliss was manipulating Cross to hate Bayley saying how Bayley says bad things about her behind her back and Bayley really isn’t how she comes across on TV. Heyman came out. He ran down the Lakers and said the Lakers and Rollins both have traded away their balls. He said Rollins needed a chair as it was the only way he could fight Lesnar. He did admit Lesnar used a chair but Lesnar didn’t need to. He teased that with Rollins facing Bryan, that maybe Lesnar is here and is going to cash in, or maybe he’s not. He said maybe Lesnar will cash in on Sunday or Monday of this coming week, and maybe not. Corbin offered the ref spot to Eric Young. Young thanked him. Rollins showed up and Young claimed he had turned down Corbin because he would never compromise his friendship with Rollins. Rollins thanked him and left. Then Rollins destroyed Eric Young with chair shots. Usos beat Gallows & Anderson in 2:39 with a bunch of superkicks and then a double superkick on Gallows. The story is that Anderson has a chance to win but got to cocky. Styles was mad seeing Gallows & Anderson lose again. Hogan cut a taped promo about the U.S. women’s soccer team in the World Cup. Then Cole plugged their next game, even telling fans to watch it on FS 1. Wow, plugging something that has nothing to do with wrestling that’s on FS 1 during a show on USA. I don’t think WWE has ever plugged another sporting event that wasn’t theirs like that. But since Stephanie changed the face of America by making sure women could grow up and be able to not only play sports, but work for a company that encourages and enables all women to get company paid for breast enhancements, all women athletes owe so much to her, and not only that, WWE will plug their World Cup games. As long as it’s on the station paying them $4 million a week in October. Reigns came out. He called out Shane. Shane said that he was so hot in Saudi Arabia they called him Mr. Fahrenheit. Okay, the person who wrote that line deserves a gold star. Shane turned down coming out and said Reigns needs to worry about his match with McIntyre. McIntyre said he’d come down but Shane doesn’t want him to right now but he would assault Reigns on Sunday until it becomes very uncomfortable. McIntyre talked about Reigns’ kids seeing their father disfigured. Reigns dropped the mic and left the ring when McIntyre talked about his kids. He went backstage to the room they were all in. Reigns first destroyed The Revival in the hallway. He threw Wilder into the wall and Wilder took this great flying bump. Reigns threw Dawson into a bathroom. He went into Shane’s office and attacked both Shane and McIntyre. Reigns put McIntyre through a table. Shane started running away and got into the arena and into the ring. Reigns dove over the barricade and attacked Shane and hit him with a Superman punch and spear. This was good for getting Reigns over, but boy did it hurt interest in Reigns vs. McIntyre. Reigns blew him off like he was nobody. Reigns told McIntyre he was going to whoop his ass Sunday. Shane was bleeding slightly from the cheek. Bayley, Natalya and Naomi were backstage. Bayley was accused by Bliss for refusing to pose for a photo with a little girl in a Nikki Cross T-shirt. Bayley was mad at the lie saying she was going to shut Bliss up. Natalya then asked Naomi if she thinks Bayley would really refuse to take a picture with a fan. Royce & Kay retained the women’s tag titles over Bliss & Cross in 3:33. The Iiconics made more fun of the Lakers not making it to the playoffs. Bayley came out. Bliss shoved down Bayley. Cross was distracted by Royce and Kay pinned Cross to keep the titles with a schoolboy. Bliss & Cross were backstage. Cross blamed Bayley for them losing. Cross said that Bayley crushed her dreams so she wants to be in Bliss’ corner to see Bliss crush Bayley’s dreams. Next was the Firefly Fun House. The rabbit is back alive after being mashed last week. The segment was great. Wyatt was telling kids that people lie, saying people claim the Earth is round and that Dinosaurs are extinct, neither of which is true. The segment was creative as hell. He said, “Fear is power Follow the leader.” Wyatt came across as such a superstar. Bryan & Rowan did another promo. Bryan said that there wasn’t a better wrestler in WWE than he was. He said Rollins may be a badass while holding a chair, but he’s never beaten Daniel Bryan. They again showed Rollins & Lynch backstage. Rollins beat Bryan via DQ in a non-title match in 1:13. Rollins went for a tope on Rowan, who caught him and gave Rollins a claw slam on the apron for the DQ. Bryan laid out Rollins with a running knee. New Day came out and Kingston laid out Bryan with Trouble in Paradise. Owens, Zayn and The Revival all ran in. The Usos followed and Usos & Rollins & New Day cleaned house. Then the announcers just said they were starting the match over and everyone was banned from ringside. Rollins then pinned Bryan in 8:00 of the new match with a curb stomp. The action was very good. Really it was all you could ask for in an 8:00 match. I have no idea why they did he quick DQ, ran everyone in, which amounted to nothing and got nobody over nor advanced a storyline, to cut these guys down from 15 minutes where they would have had a match people would be talking about the next day, do a match that was good action but had no impact. The pin was weird because after the curb stomp, Rollins laid there and sold and then crawled over for the pin. Because he waited so long, everyone knew Bryan would kick out, which he didn’t. As Rollins was leaving, Corbin came from behind and hit him with three chair shots. Corbin beat Rollins into the ring, gave him the End of Days and grabbed the belt and stood over him. So the show at least ended with that after Corbin had been pinned earlier, so he came back to at least get some heat on Rollins

.Notes from the 6/18 Smackdown tapings in Ontario, CA. The positive is the writing of the show was much better this week. The negative is that it’s becoming even more about the writing. They also, like the night before, added match stips with multiple fall matches that added nothing positive and only served to have to make more people look bad without really elevating anyone. Ali pinned Murphy in the dark match. Smackdown opened with the New Day out. Ziggler came out and said that Kingston doesn’t deserve the title. What is this? The entire focus for weeks has been how Kingston worked hard and has deserved it but it “should have been me.” Now he’s doing the very undeserving champion direction than he was arguing against at first. He said that without the New Day, he’d be nothing. He said that next time Kingston goes back to Ghana, it won’t be a celebration, it’ll be an apology tour. This interview went way too long, but he said that all the inside jokes, all the pretending to be what you’re not (isn’t that the Bliss/Bayley angle) will come crumbling down. I’m watching this thinking that if Bryan hadn’t gotten hurt, we’d have never gotten Owens in the spot, and the only reason Ziggler got the Owens spot was because Owens wouldn’t go to Saudi Arabia. Ziggler pinned Woods in 11:31. The match started and Owens & Zayn came out and attacked E & Kingston at ringside. The ref kicked all of them out. They had a good match. They put Ziggler over strong, as they should have. He superkicked Woods to the floor, gave him a zig zag, tied him in the ropes and tried to wrench his arm. Then he gave him another superkick and pinned him and said “Message sent.” This was so much better than what they did with Corbin the night before. Dallas & Axel & Benjamin were all in line in front of an office. We were never told who they were waiting to see, but since it was established Shane wasn’t there yet, it was someone else. Axel & Dallas both talked about how great it would be to be picked by Corbin to referee the match and how it would boost their careers. Benjamin looked at them like they were stupid and said that Corbin just wants somebody to help him win the title. Dallas & Axel said that they don’t mind using Corbin to get the spotlight. Matt Hardy came out of the ring, looked at Benjamin and said “Senor Benjamin” which was a cute inside line. Benjamin told him he was Mr. Benjamin. Cross and Bliss were backstage. Bliss & Cross were then out for A Moment of Bliss. Bliss wanted coffee. Bayley came out and she had stolen Bliss’ coffee cup. Bayley told Cross that she’s never said anything bad about her, and said Bliss isn’t her friend and is just using you. Bayley then dared Bliss to say what she’s been telling Cross to her face. Bliss said that she came to NXT and nobody was nice to her except Charlotte. Bliss told her that Bayley plays this innocent act and this hugger act but it’s all a lie. Bayley said Bliss was making up scenarios and pretending to be friends and using people, just like with Jax and James, and Bayley said she’s never lied to her, but Bliss can’t handle the truth. Bayley said Bliss is an entitled little princess who doesn’t deserve a damn thing. Bliss said that Bayley was nothing but a place holder champion and will always be just a place holder. She said that Bayley’s career peaked in NXT. She said it kills Bayley because the person she thought was undeserving is the person who is living out her dreams of the career she always wanted. Bayley attacked her. Cross pulled Bayley off her and Cross started yelling at Bayley. Bliss then blindsided Bayley. This was a good segment. The lines had at least a thread of believability to them rather than the often shallow scripted stuff. Vega was in front of a mirror when Crews showed up. He wanted Andrade. Vega said Crews really just showed up to flirt with her. Then Vega started coming on to him and he blew her off. Andrade then attacked Crews from behind. While this was going on, Gable was in the background taking notes. Heavy Machinery beat B Team with the compactor in 3:07. Really this was just for Bryan to cut a promo on commentary. They pushed that Machinery just beat the former Raw tag champs. Bryan made fun of Machinery walking around like The Bushwhackers and how The Bushwhackers were never tag team champions. It was brought up that the Bushwhackers were Hall of Famers and Bryan said so is Koko B. Ware. He then said teams should aspire to be like The Sheepherders (the Bushwhackers previous name before WWE) and look them up on the network. Then came an inside joke about the guy who carried The Sheepherders flag and how he looked like he could go places. The flag guy for them in Florida was Johnny Ace, who is now John Laurinaitis. Rollins then came out and destroyed both B Team members with tons of chair shots in Austin-fashion. Shane showed up. Owens and Zayn met him outside the arena in the parking lot. They complained about how Rollins had attacked The B Team with chair shots from behind. Owens said that bad people attack people from behind. Owens said that Kingston was also a bad person. Shane said if they are bad people, why don’t we put them in a match with you guys two of three falls. Black did another backstage interview. He’s still waiting for somebody to pick a fight with him. Shane came out with Elias and McIntyre. Miz then came out and played a tape of Shane running away from Reigns and getting Superman punched and speared. Miz said that Shane even sweats fast in slow motion. Shane said that if anyone in he production truck shows any more footage they’ll be fired. Miz said that Shane is the kid in little league who gets to start only because his father is the coach. Miz said on Monday he’ll host Miz TV with clips of Reigns knocking Shane out. Shane said that his father is a billionaire while Miz’s father is a baked potato. Miz said that Shane sucks up all the air time on Raw and Smackdown to feed his ego and he’s sick of it. The crowd popped for that line. Miz said he was sick of it and blamed himself for starting Shane’s ego trip and he’s going to be the one to end it. Shane then said he’d give Miz a tag match against Elias & McIntyre. Miz said Shane wants another handicap match. Shane said that Miz can have a partner provided he shows up in ten seconds. Just then, R-Truth came from under the ring to run away and Miz picked him as a partner. Shane then made it an elimination match. So, given they went two falls and the 2/3 didn’t give either faces any shine since they were losing, essentially they beat R-Truth like a joke and a prelim guy for no upside at all, while they build a ton of TV around him. It’s like they do stip matches to make sure more guys get under. AOP was backstage. The Iiconics saw them. Paige was with Asuka & Sane. Paige talked about how there will be an Iiconics match in Tokyo against Asuka & Sane, and if Asuka & Sane win, they get a tag title match. That’s probably for July. McIntyre & Elias beat Miz & R-Truth. Evidently the 24/7 title isn’t up during actual matches. Elias pinned Truth in 3:59. Once Truth was eliminated, a ton of prelim guys, Kendrick, The Singhs, Benjamin, Matt Hardy and Jack Gallagher were chasing Truth who ran away. McIntyre pinned Miz to make it two straight in 10:10. McIntyre gave Miz two more Claymore kicks after the match. Backstage, Rose & Deville were eating donuts. They were talking about how they can eat donuts and look as good as they do. Moon showed up. They offered her a donut. She attacked them and the donuts were sent flying. Moon and Deville had a pull-apart so they’ll probably have a match next week. Next was the R-Truth title loss to Maverick in the parking lot. Main event was a 2/3 fall match with Kingston & Rollins over Zayn & Owens. This was another one where they went two straight so the 2/3 didn’t add drama but just beat both heels when they could have beaten one. R-Truth pinned Zayn in :07 with Trouble in Paradise in the first fall. They had a 4:00 rest period between falls. Second fall saw Rollins pin Owens after the curb stomp. The show ended with Kingston & Rollins holding up their belts. 205 Live opened with Maverick announcing that after last week’s match, Gulak and Tozawa would both be in a three-way with Nese over the cruiserweight title. Singh Brothers beat Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik with Sunil pinning Dorado holding the tights. Noam Dar did a heel promo. He said he was on vacation in Magaluf and wants better working conditions on 205 Live before returning. Then Kendrick showed up and said Dar was lying about where he was. I guess Dar was in Ontario, CA. Kendrick pinned Rus Taylor with the sliced bread. Gallagher did an interview and wants a rematch with Gable. Mike Kanellis called Gallagher a loser. Gallagher challenged Kanellis for next week. Oney Lorcan beat Ariya Diavari via DQ. Lorcan did a tope on Daivari, but Daivari picked up a chair and hit Lorcan with it for the DQ. Daivari worked him over after the match. Daivari gave Lorcan a rainmaker on the ramp. The show ended with Gulak, Nese and Tozawa all saying how they would win on the PPV show. Main event dark match saw Kingston retain the title over Ziggler with Trouble in Paradise

Notes from the 6/13 NXT tapings. These would be the final shows leading to Takeover Toronto. The first show opened with Io Shirai out. She has new music and a new entrance. She wears all black for her new heel role, which looks to be a program with Candice LeRae, although at this point no match is scheduled for Takeover and since they usually do five bouts and have five bouts already, it may not be added. She pretty much said she doesn’t need any friends and doesn’t need any fans. Matt Riddle beat Arturo Ruas, who is the former Adrian Jaoude. They worked a UWF style match since both have legit backgrounds. They tried to work it realistic with Riddle landing a knee and winning via stoppage from punches from the mount. It’ll be interesting if they break from WWE style to try more styles here and how well fans react to it. Killian Dain returned for a feud with Riddle. He attacked Riddle and put him through the stage. Kushida beat Apollo Crews. Of course the crowd went nuts for Crews. It doesn’t matter how you are positioned on the main roster, the Full Sail crowd goes crazy for anyone from the main roster. Match was said to have great action and you figure it would. Kushida won with the hoverboard lock. Adam Cole came out and said he would be defending his title against the next guy who shows up on the tron. Then he showed footage of Johnny Gargano giving a replica belt to a man named Twan Tucker. Cole then brought Tucker out. Tucker said he wasn’t alone and Gargano came out and brawled with Cole all over the building. The Street Profits beat Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch to keep the tag titles with their usual finish of Angelo Dawkins using a spinebuster and Montez Ford using the frog splash. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly came out to set up their upcoming title match. Gargano and Cole came out from the back and were brawling some more. Gargano got Cole in the Gargano escape before the referees broke it up. Gargano still hasn’t worked any house shows nor had a match over eight weeks of television being taped since the last Takeover. In fact, he’s only had two TV bouts since March and four bouts total with the Brooklyn and Bridgeport Takeovers. In the first semifinal of the Breakout star tournament, Jordan Myles (ACH) beat Angel Garza (Garza Jr.). This was after Garza Jr. had what was said to be the show stealing performance the night before. Myles won with a German suplex. Bianca Belair beat Xia Li with the kiss of death. Velveteen Dream came out for an interview. Roderick Strong came out and they went back-and-forth. Pete Dunne attacked Strong and tried to break his fingers. This built to the three-way program. Io Shirai was facing Kacy Catanzaro. Shirai won via DQ when LeRae came out with a chair and attacked Shirai. Damien Priest pinned Keith Lee clean. For whatever reason, even he gets a top star reaction, they aren’t pushing Lee at the top level. Priest is given a top star ring entrance. You know they are high on him since they pushed him to Sports Business Journal as a future star. Tyler Breeze pinned Jaxson Ryker. After the match, Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler attacked Breeze. Fandango came out to make the save. Of course the first appearance of Fandango saw the crowd go crazy, so that looks to be starting a new program. Cameron Grimes, the former Trevor Lee, beat Bronson Reed, the former Jonah Rock and Jermaine Haley, in the other tournament semifinal with a double foot stomp. Malcolm Bivens was scouting this match at ringside. Shayna Baszler and Mia Yim did an interview segment to push their women’s title match. Riddle came out for a match and Dain attacked him. Kushida beat Jeff Parker with the hoverboard lock. William Regal came out for a contract signing for Street Profits vs. Fish & O’Reilly at Takeover. Shane Thorne pinned Joaquin Wilde (DJZ) with a running kick. Dunne beat Strong in the TV main event. Good match that was given time. Dunne won via submission for joint manipulations of the hand. Dream tried to attack Dunne after the match

The first NXT house show of the weekend was 6/14 in Ocala, FL, before 350 fans. Wilde beat Garza. Karen Q beat Rachael Evers. Brennan Williams pinned Cezar Bononi. Jeff Parker & Matt Lee beat Boa & Rocky. Keith Lee pinned Brendan Vink. Myles pinned Ridge Holland (Luke Menzies). Dexter Lumis (formerly Samuel Shaw) beat Denzel Dejournette. Belair beat M.J. Jenkins. Main event was Fish & Strong over Lorcan & Burch

6/16 in Orlando drew 350 fans. It opened with Kushida over Thorne with the hoverboard lock. Yim pinned Gonzalez with protect ya neck. Williams & Scott & Cal Bloom beat Bononi & Parker & Lee when Scott scored the pin after a DDT. Mansoor, in his first match since winning a PPV Battle Royal, pinned Kona Reeves after a version of a neckbreaker. Lorcan & Burch beat Moss & Dorian Mack (the new name for Dan Matha). Myles pinned Holland with a German suplex. Lee pinned Ruas after a pounce. Aliyah & Vanessa Borne beat Xia Li & Karen Q. Main event

saw Dream pin Strong to keep the North American title after a Death Valley bomb. Good match that the crowd was into

Raw opened on 6/14 in Winnipeg before 3,500 fans. 6/15 in Anaheim drew 6,000. 6/16 in San Diego drew 4,000 fans

Smackdown opened on 6/15 in Denver. We didn’t get a crowd for that event. 6/16 in Salt Lake City drew 2,500

Winnipeg featured Kalisto, with Dorado & Metalik in his corner, pinning Roode. The Viking Raiders came out and they beat Dorado & Metalik quickly. Evans won a three-way over Natalya and Bliss in a match where they said the winner would get a women’s tag title. Cross then arrived and Bliss confronted her and started yelling at her because she didn’t help her or come out with her. Joe beat Ricochet to keep the U.S. title due to distraction from Cesaro. The two were beating down Ricochet until Cedric Alexander made the save. This turned into a tag match with Ricochet & Alexander beat Cesaro & Joe when Ricochet pinned Cesaro. Cross pinned Tamina. Bliss, who had been a heel was seconding Cross in this match. The Revival kept the tag titles winning a three-way over Gallows & Anderson and Ryder & Hawkins. Main event saw Rolling pin Cesaro to keep the Universal title

Anaheim was a little different. Joe retained the U.S. title in a three-way over Cesaro and Ricochet. The finish saw Joe choke out Ricochet after Ricochet and Cesaro did a double knockout spot. Roode pinned Slater with the Glorious DDT in a very short match. Roode then got on the mic and said he wanted real competition. Alexander came out and pinned Roode with the lumbar check almost immediately. The Viking Raiders came out and attacked Alexander and were beating him down. The Lucha House Party made the save. This turned into Viking Raiders vs. Dorado & Metalik match which the Viking Raiders won. Cross pinned Tamina. Fans treated this as the concession stand match. Zayn came out and run down Anaheim until Strowman came out. This led to Lashley coming out. They did the same Strowman over Lashley with Zayn in the corner house show match they’ve been doing. It ends with a powerslam pin on Lashley and then a powerslam on Zayn. The Revival kept the tag titles over Usos, Gallows & Anderson and Ryder & Hawkins. Short match. Lynch retained the women’s title over Natalya and Evans when Lynch used the disarm her on Evans. Decent match. Main event was Rollins over Corbin with the curb stomp to keep the Universal title

San Diego was mostly the same show. Roode was moved to the U.S. title match so it was a four-way with Joe, Cesaro, Ricochet and Roode. Mysterio, since he lives in San Diego and had the weekend off, came to the show and came out and wished everyone a Happy Father’s Day. You’d think they’d have booked him since it was his home market and tickets weren’t selling anything special. Zayn pinned Slater in 2:00 with the helluva kick. Zayn then said he wanted real competition. Alexander came out and pinned him with the lumbar check in 2:00. Same post-match with Viking Raiders attacking Alexander, leading t the match with Dorado & Metalik, which the Raiders won. Cross pinned Tamina. Zayn came out again and did the same angle with Strowman and Lashley leading to Strowman over Lashley. Same four-way tag title match which went 9:00 with Dawson pinning an Uso. Really surprised they pin an Uso rather than Gallows or Anderson. Women’s and Universal title bouts were the same as Anaheim

Smackdown in Denver opened with Balor keeping the IC title over Nakamura. This was said to be a decent but nothing special match. Moon pinned Morgan. After the match, Rose & Deville attacked and beat down Moon until Asuka & Sane made the save. That turned into Asuka & Sane beating Rose & Deville. Ali pinned Mahal. Reigns pinned Elias with a spear. Bayley pinned Bliss to retain the Smackdown title. Bliss was originally advertised on the Raw shows but was pulled here to practice her match with Bayley. They worked really hard. Gable & Crews beat The B Team. R-Truth showed up here and Ali and the four guys from this match chased him around trying to get the title but he escaped. Main event was Kingston over Owens and Ziggler in a three-way for WWE title

Salt Lake City was mostly the same. The two differences were that Matt Hardy and McIntyre were added to the show. Hardy worked with and lost to Ali. They had a great long match. Fans cheered both guys and they worked face vs. face, veteran vs. upcoming star style. At first the crowd cheered Hardy and booed Ali but they were able to get the crowd to cheer both of them. Ali cut a super promo after the match. He talked about growing up and idolizing the Hardys and told the crowd that he is the proof that if you work hard, you can meet your heroes and work with them some day. Hardy then did an interview and said the future of wrestling is in good hands with people like Ali. McIntyre worked against Reigns and lost. Elias was in his corner. Elias came out before the match and insulted the Utah Jazz and called Rudy Gobert a crybaby. He then introduced McIntyre as “The Sexy Scotsman.”