MAY 27, 2019 OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: DEATH OF ASHLEY MASSARO, D

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Seth Rollins vs. A.J. Styles 244

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Based on phone calls and e-mails to the Observer as of Tuesday, 5/21.



Ashley Massaro, the winner of the 2005 WWE Diva Search, passed away on 5/16 after hanging herself.

Massaro, who had battled depression for years, was 39. In a 2017 affidavit when being party to a lawsuit against the company, she claimed she was raped and sodomized while doing a public relations tour of military bases while working for WWE in 2007, which she was told to keep quiet about, a charge WWE has denied in the past and did again this past week..

Depression is a much larger issue in society than most truly understand. For a number of reasons, it is very strong in pro wrestling, as well as other forms of entertainment, due to the extreme highs involved in performing and fleeting nature of fame and the pressure on performing. Concussions likely exacerbate such issues, but it is a major part of society and entertainment in places where head trauma doesn’t exist. Most don’t talk about it publicly, due to the stigma, but many, such as Mauro Ranallo and A.J. Mendez (A.J. Lee) have been very outspoken on the subject.

Massaro was ten days away from her 40th birthday. She was working as a DJ for WWSK 94.3 FM The Shark in Long Island, working as a disc jockey and on-air host. She had called in sick prior to her suicide. She was discovered unconscious in her home in Smithtown, NY, which led to a phone call to 911 at about 5 a.m. She died while being transported to the hospital while emergency crews attempted life-resuscitating measures on her.

Massaro was extremely well liked among those who knew her in pro wrestling. She was also known for appearing on “Survivor: China,” a gig she was approached for after appearing on the cover of the April 2007 issue of Playboy at a time WWE was heavily marketing her after her Diva Search win. She also at the time appeared on covers of Flex and Maxim.

She had worked as a Fitness Model prior to WWE. Most recently she had worked with Paul Heyman’s Heyman Hustle web site doing modeling and ad campaigns, including a campaign for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

“I have no words,” wrote Maria Kanellis Bennett. “Ashley was my tag partner at WrestleMania, my sometimes road wife. We did countless photo shoots and press days together. It seems like yesterday Ashley was a major part of my life and then our world’s changed and now she is gone. I’m heartbroken for her family.”

“I can’t even begin to explain how devastated I am to hear about Ashley Massaro, legit one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known,” wrote Torrie Wilson. “When we fall into a dark place, it can seem like it will never change, but if you are there please keep hope and reach out for help.”

“She lived in the same town as me,” wrote Mick Foley. “I loved seeing her around. She was always so nice...and now she’s gone.”

“No one, absolutely no one, should hurt so bad they want to take their own life,” said Joe “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis, who was part of the lawsuit with Massaro against WWE. “Ashley Massaro was a sweet little girl, maybe 115 pounds at the most, with a past history of concussions that were overlooked and ignored. Now her child is motherless. Well, it should not ever be overlooked again. Life is too precious. As a multi-HOF inductee that has CTE, I was let for felt pressured to perform night-after-night, like Ashley. Someone at WWE was turning a blind eye, well someone is responsible. Wrestlers are pressured to perform under duress. We need a union or governing body to protect the performers. Now. This needs to end.”

“We are part of the problem too,” said former WCW performer April Hunter. “You get the love you feel you deserve. We allow ourselves to be mistreated and taken advantage of. That’s our normal. We’re just `happy to be here.’ We need to stop–for the good of everyone. All of us, to keep ourselves and others alive. We aren’t a big part of the problem, but we’re a cog in that wheel. Can we at least start a support network (Private FB?) where we can talk with each other about anything, day or night? A no judgment/it goes no further than her place? Like a suicide hotline thing, but for workers? Something? Can we learn anything from Ashley and do something to make it better?”

A number of women who worked with her, including Lilian Garcia, Trish Stratus, Torrie Wilson, Christy Hemme, Lisa Marie Varon, Maria Kanellis Bennett, Katarina Waters, Mickie James-Aldis, Amy “Lita” Dumas, Gail Kim, Candice Michelle, Eve Marie Torres-Gracie, Taryn Terrell and others put together a Go Fund Me to raise money for Massaro’s daughter, Alexa, for a college fund, or to use for a technical or vocational school and future education. The fund had raised more than $19,000 in the first 16 hours. Kim also said she would auction off her ring gear for her last match with Tessa Blanchard and donate the money to the fund.

“Darling Ashley Massaro, my heart hurts so much with this news,” wrote Stratus. “I remember being off with an injury and watching this beautiful, charismatic, athletic girl crowned Diva Search winner. Once I got cleared, they ran the idea by me to come back and work with Ashley against Vince’s Devils, Torrie Wilson, Candice Michelle and Lisa Marie (Victoria). I didn’t know what to expect. What I met was a driven, hungry girl who was eager and all in. She was enthusiastic from the start, excited about the opportunity to prove she was more than just a model.

I was her first suplex. I stood alongside her as she took her first steps of her wrestling career. What a sport, a total pro and she loved every minute in the ring–and I loved living it with her, through her wide-eyes of the newness of it all.

When you work with someone in this business, there is a bond that is forever formed. Even if the work/partnership is for only a brief time of your life, it is still a piece of your life that makes up your being. I’m thankful we kept in touch every so often touching on those moments that we shared. I’m having a hard time processing this news of my friend, a fellow worker, a fellow mom. I’m both sad and mad.”

Massaro had won WWE’s second televised version of the Diva Search, which guaranteed her a $250,000 per year contract. Christy Hemme won the first televised version. Massaro was picked ahead of Leyla Milani, a model from the TV show “Deal or No Deal,” and Kristal Marshall, who later became a television performer for WWE and at one time was married to Bobby Lashley. Trenesha Biggers, a former college volleyball player and model who didn’t make the top ten that season, was signed by WWE, released and later signed by TNA, where she was featured as Rhaka Khan, and was linked for a time with Kurt Angle.

Massaro was recruited by WWE into the contest when someone casting for Diva Search saw her in a bikini contest. She already had an entertainment background, winning the Miss Hawaiian Tropic USA bikini contest in 2002 and Miss Hawaiian Tropic Canada contest in 2004, and had two Playboy photo spreads and had done some television before becoming something of a celebrity with WWE. She attended SUNY-Albany where she graduated with a degree in Communications.

Massaro worked for WWE from 2005 to 2008. She was heavily pushed coming off the contest winning and was a favorite early on of both Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn. But she was injured several times, and the company seemed to lose interest in her when the feeling was she didn’t represent them well on Survivor. She also had a relationship at one point with Matt Hardy. At the 2007 WrestleMania, she faced Melina (Perez) for the WWE women’s championship in a Lumberjills match, where the other women on the main roster were around the ring.

In 2008 she was also linked to the Bella (no relation to Nikki and Brie) Models escort service in Los Angeles from an FBI investigation showing e-mails and travel arrangements between the service and Massaro that was the subject of a May 15, 2008, article on the escort service in Rolling Stone. There was a web page for her with the company that listed a $25,000 travel fee for her. Later she denied any involvement.

In July, she asked for her release from the company, citing that her daughter, Alexa, who was seven at the time, was ill.

She had recently been training been training at Mikey Whipwreck’s wrestling school on Long Island, looking for a comeback in wrestling. She also had been in contact with the Orlando-based Team Vision Dojo about a comeback. Whether this shows the intoxicating nature of the business, or simply the mentality that this was the best way for her to earn a living, when she vividly described all of her injuries from a relatively short career that left her in pain, with pain killer addictions and multiple surgeries, as well as the horrible description of her career in her affidavit, to an outsider it would be shocking that at her age, she was looking to get back in.

She was one of 60 wrestlers who sued WWE in 2016 regarding problems related to concussions. The suit was thrown out this past September, but attorney Konstantine Kyros claimed to have a 7/8 court date for an appeal.

The WWE contacted several media sources and claimed that a few weeks after the case was thrown out, in October, that she had apologized to the WWE in an e-mail for taking part in the lawsuit, claiming Kyros poached her and the situation got out-of-hand.

WWE claimed Massaro, in the e-mail, said, “I accept my part of the responsibility and just want to formally apologize and express my regret, You all changed my life and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

Kyros responded to the news of that e-mail saying he was unaware of it, and that he was still representing her in the appeal.

“She was being represented by me. She never withdrew from the case. She never stopped being my client, and her case is currently pending. It’s not a credible statement that she sent an e-mail refuting the case.”

“It was an apology she wrote at a point in time that came after the judge not only dismissed the cases but also ordered Kyros to send a copy of her (Judge Vanessa Bryant) opinion sanctioning him for his dishonest conduct (to all the client involved in the case) among other things,” said WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt. “So Ashley would have read that opinion castigating him before she reached out. I might add, she isn’t the only one who has done so.”

Kyros said that her family may provide her brain for a CTE examination and has pushed that case in the media, where it’s become a story that her brain will be examined. Massaro is believed to have done about 63 WWE matches over the four years she was with the company as well as some independent matches over the years, the most recent being in 2016. Of the wrestlers diagnosed with CTE, most did far more matches but they were also in every case, far more trained when starting out.

Kyros responded to the claim he poached her and roped her into the case, releasing what he claimed was the first correspondence between the two in an e-mail from her contacting him on August 23, 2016.

“I am a former WWE Diva/wrestler with multiple long term injuries. I was working for WWE from 2005-2008 and was on the road as a main event wrestler working TV’s AND house shows at least 4 days a week for my entire career.

I was thrown in the ring after winning the 2005 diva search with absolutely no training which ultimately caused many injuries. I’ve had multiple documented concussions during my career. I was treated by WWE doctors and after leaving the company I continued to see my own personal doctors for treatment. I found out about this lawsuit through others who are on it.

I believe I am exactly who you are looking to help. I more than fit the conditions listed on your website. I’ve been plagued by these injuries my entire life after leaving the company. I believe WWE has caused major problems, life altering problems and wish more than anything that I never worked for them.

Aside from the times I was knocked unconscious and out cold for 5 minutes, I also have a fractured spine, a 5 inch metal plate inserted in my ankle for a spiral fracture that happened at a match on PPV where on camera I was rushed out by EMTs to go to the hospital for treatment. I suffered debilitating back injuries while working for them overseas in the UK and have hospital records for that as well. Vince McMahon himself ordered a cast to be sawed off of my right hand/wrist moments before I was thrown back out into the ring to wrestle on tv even though my cast was not scheduled to come off for another 2 or 3 weeks.

I was beat down, broken, and being almost forced to perform. Since then I see pain management doctors on a monthly basis for 10 years because of the pain and problems that came from my time there. Please feel free to call me or if you get a moment to please google my name and you can at least see some of the injuries I sustained that WWE posted on their official website. I hope to hear back from you soon. Thank you for your time and consideration.”

McDevitt noted that in that correspondence there was so mention of any sexual assault.

Pushed as a hot tomboy type, she was wrestling with limited training, making her television debut on Raw just two weeks after winning the contest, losing to Victoria. She was quickly put into a tag team with Stratus and feuding with heels Wilson, Michelle and Victoria during the bra and panties match era. She was hardly a natural in the ring, which wasn’t helped by her inexperience. On February 20, 2006, she suffered a broken left leg while being eliminated from a Battle Royal. She underwent surgery two days later, needing a five-inch metal plate and eight screws put into her leg. While still in a cast, she did a storyline at ringside where Stratus fell on her accidentally which caused more damage to her leg.

The problems from these injuries led to another leg surgery after she left WWE in 2008, an ankle operation in 2010 and another ankle operation in 2016, which she had to rely on New York’s Medicaid to take care of.

She said that she had to see a pain management doctor monthly since leaving WWE due to pain from her various injuries. In September, 2010, she went through WWE-sponsored rehab, working with Ann Russo-Gordon and went through a 42 day rehab program.

In a 2017 affidavit, she said that she had needed knee surgery due to a torn meniscus for a year. She said she hadn’t gotten it because it would cause financial hardship and she was afraid to take pain medication after surgery because of her prior issues with pain pills.

She claimed that while wrestling, she took pain pills to perform while injured, which only led to worsening of the injuries.

“The quantity of pills we were given and the strengths of the dosages were so high that even after the injuries healed, our bodies were addicted to the medication itself and would be in pain without it.

She returned to television for angles in June but didn’t wrestle until July. Two weeks later she broke her hand and was made the manager of Paul London & Brian Kendrick. Her hand was put in a cast and she was told to keep the cast on four for weeks. She said that two weeks later, Vince McMahon wanted her back in the ring and ordered her cast sawed off so she could wrestle.

At the 2007 WrestleMania, she faced Melina (Perez) for the WWE women’s championship.

She suffered another left leg injury which loosened a screw from the surgery and was out for another two months. Then they shot an angle where Vince McMahon suspended her which was a storyline reason for her departing to do the “Survivor” season.

She actually only lasted six days on the show before she was voted off.

After her death, Kyros released a long affidavit she had given Judge Bryant regarding her time in WWE. She had given the affidavit in 2017 and a version of the story was reported at the time in the Boston Globe and denied by WWE.

The WWE was not aware of the affidavit and its contents until Kyros released it this past week.

She said that in 2007, she was one of four performers sent to visit troops in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on a two-week tour with Maria Kanellis, Ron Simmons and Jimmy Hart.

She said that in Saudi Arabia, even though she was wearing a burqa, she was treated badly by men. She said that while in Kuwait, she suffered from menstrual cramps. She said U.S. Army soldiers said she was suffering from dehydration. It should be noted that it has been confirmed she was treated at the time for dehydration and she was taken to a military base in Kuwait and hooked up to an IV.

She claimed another man showed up in an orange T-shirt and cargo shorts and put an IV of another substance in her other arm. She said the man and another woman took her to another room that didn’t appear to be a treatment room, and placed her on a table. She said the woman guarded the door and the man injected her with a drug that left her unable to move, and claimed at that point she was raped and sodomized. She said the drug made her temporarily paralyzed and unable to defend herself, but she was completely conscious. She gave a harrowing description of this, and said that she told the story to Kanellis, and that Kanellis told the story to Jimmy Hart, Gary Hart (actually Gary Davis, the WWE agent who accompanied the wrestlers on the tour) and Simmons.

She said that later she told the four of them to not tell anyone what happened.

She said that Dr. Rios from WWE set up a meeting with her and asked her what happened. She said she didn’t know how he knew and she said she told him the story but told him not to tell it to anyone. She said Rios then told Vince McMahon, who told Dunn, Laurinaitis and other executives who were all at a meeting with her later. She said Vince asked her at the meeting with all the key people to recount what happened to her. She said Vince then told her it was not in the best interest of WWE for her to make the information public.

“I was completely traumatized at that point and I just agreed. It was clear that there had already been a conversation and that they had reached a decision on their own prior to consulting with me as this was not a debate but rather Vince instructing me to keep this confidential.”

She said Vince apologized to her, but stressed to her that if she told anyone, it would ruin the relationship between WWE and the U.S. military.

“He told me not to let one bad experience ruin the good work they were doing. His lack of sensitively in referring to my ordeal as `one bad experience’ left me speechless. Vince went on to say that I would not be required to travel to the Middle East ever again and that the WWE would institute a new policy where any time a female WWE performer went to the Middle East, she would have a female WWE escort with her 24/7 to ensure this did not happen again. This did not make me feel better about the situation. It had already happened to me and the damage was already done.”

She said she then asked Vince and the others in the room to keep the incident quiet because she was uncomfortable with the thought of all the other wrestlers finding out and they agreed.

She said she was never able to have a rape kit administered and wasn’t in the right mental state to determine how to report a crime that happened on a military base in Kuwait and was committed by someone who she didn’t know.

She said the incident haunted her to that day, and she can’t count the number of times she has relived the incident in her head. She said that obviously she should have received counseling or therapy but neither Rios nor Vince suggested it.

“WWE is saddened by the death of Ashley Massaro, and we reiterate our condolences to her family,” said WWE in a statement to the Observer. “However, we regret that her attorney, Konstantine Kyros, who filed multiple cases against WWE, lost all of them, and was sanctioned multiple times by the Court for repeated misconduct and false allegations, is using Ashley’s death to further his malicious campaign against WWE by releasing an affidavit that she submitted to the Court and later apologized to WWE for being involved with, so we wish to make certain things crystal clear.

1) At no time was Vince McMahon or the management of WWE ever informed by Ashley Massaro or anybody else that she had been sexually assaulted, drugged, raped or sodomized by a military doctor with a nurse standing guard while on a goodwill tour in 2007 to U.S. military bases in Kuwait. In fact, if she ever articulated such a claim to WWE, we would have reported it immediately to the Base Commander.

2) At no time was there ever a meeting with Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, John Laurinaitis or other company executives in which she told them of such a claim and was instructed to keep it quiet.”

McDevitt said that nobody has been able to corroborate the story, and that the idea there was such a meeting that she described with McMahon, Dunn and Laurinaitis was complete bullshit. He said those named as knowing, Hart, Davis and Simmons who she said were told by Kanellis, have all denied knowing anything or being told anything. He said that when Kanellis was asked, she said she didn’t recall the story.

“If she was told something like that, there is no way she wouldn’t recall it,” he said. “If somebody told you that, you would remember it for the rest of your life.”

The only thing confirmed is that the part of the story that she was treated for dehydration on that tour is accurate.

John Pollock unearthed the diary of Davis on-line and there was a passage that referenced her being hospitalized.

“We are all starting to feel the effects of the heat, in order to deal with the hot climate, we are told to keep drinking water constantly. Even then, sometimes the heat can overcome you. At the next autograph session, Ashley begins to swoon. Our base escorts demand she be taken to the Medical Center, despite her protests to the contrary. While doctors checked her out, we proceeded to our next destination, Camp LSA Mess Hall where we meed the base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Eichorn, for lunch.”

Massaro said that when she had been injured, Rios administered cortisone shots or prescribed pain medication and muscle relaxers, but said those would allow her to perform over the short-term. She said Rios told her at one point she needed a break given all her injuries in such a short period of time, but that his advice was ignored by WWE.

She claimed that when she entered the Divas Search, she was under the impression that the winning prize was a $250,000 one-year contract to work for WWE as a promotional spokesmodel rather than as a wrestler.

She then claimed Vince McMahon insisted on her being represented by someone named Rich from Marina del Rey, who tried to force her to pay him $50,000 as her agent. She refused to pay it, because she had already earned the contract and claimed he never represented her, and that she almost lost her contract over it.

“This was my introduction to the coercive and unscrupulous tactics employed by the WWE to take advantage of its performers.”

She said that while she was told that she wasn’t going to be a wrestler if she won, she was immediately thrown into pro wrestling matches with zero training.

“I did not know how to safely execute any moves or be on the receiving end of any moves.”

She said that started a cycle of constant injuries. She said that she was given a backbreaker, but her opponent not only neglected to show her how to take the move, and she suffered a severe back injury.

She said that after her second week, she asked Stephanie McMahon if she could get proper wrestling training. She said that Stephanie told her no because going to OVW (WWE’s developmental system at the time) would mean she would be off the main roster and Stephanie said she would then lose her fan base, her spot, and WWE wouldn’t give her back the level of spot that she had later.

She noted she was able to walk into WWE with a strong fan base due to her popularity in winning the Diva Search, but that was a double-edged sword.

She said during her period with WWE she sustained multiple concussions and didn’t receive appropriate treatment, or in many cases any treatment. It should be noted that prior to a period many months after Chris Benoit murdered his wife, son and killed himself, that concussions in pro wrestling were almost considered a rite of passage and most of the time not taken all that seriously. Bret Hart, in particular, whose career ended because of a series of concussions during a short period of time because he came back very quickly after a major concussion, was criticized for not returning to the ring even though his doctors told him he shouldn’t be wrestling.

She said on September 5, 2005, in a match with Wilson, during a rehearsal of the match, Wilson gave her a neckbreaker, a move she didn’t know how to take, and was knocked unconscious for five minutes. She said she received no treatment for the concussion. She said that nobody even said anything to her about it besides Stratus, who advised her to shake it off. She said Stratus said that because she knew from experience she would get in trouble if she complained about it. She did her match later that day but asked that Wilson not do a neckbreaker on her, and said that request wasn’t well received, but was granted.

After this match, she again came to Stephanie, this time with a suggestion, asking if she could take wrestling classes at a school in Deer Park, NY, on her days off. She said that Stephanie turned that down as well.

She said that she was afraid she would keep getting injured, so she started taking wrestling classes on her days off, Stephanie found out, and told her to stop. She said WWE didn’t know anything about the gym she was training at and it could become a corporate liability if she was hurt while training and not able to perform.

She also claimed to have suffered a hairline fracture of her spine, several back injuries and had a herniated disc in her cervical vertebrae.

In 2015, she was trolled by someone on Twitter pretending to be Stephanie McMahon inviting her to Raw and she responded very excited about the prospects.

In 2017, she said she was taking medication for depression, suffered migraine headaches and severe short-term memory loss. .

In her affidavit, she also complained about being labeled an independent contractor.

“It is also unfathomable that John Laurinaitis would be able to just negotiate a deal for me to appear on the cover of Playboy if I was truly an independent contractor. To this day, I don’t even know whether I received full compensation for the cover because everything was handled by the WWE and its lawyers. If the WWE could tell me I had to pose nude for a magazine and handle all aspects of the transaction, this suggests it exerted some level of control over me that is more akin to an employee.”

She claimed to have spent $55,000 per year on travel expenses while working for WWE, between rental cars and hotels.

All Elite Wrestling presents the biggest first show for any pro wrestling promotion dating back at least 57 years, “Double or Nothing” on 5/25 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

The only show comparable, in a very different time, was the debut of Roy Shire’s Big Time Wrestling promotion on March 4, 1961, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. After getting television for six weeks on KTVU, Ch. 2, Shire promoted a card with a triple main event, Bill Melby vs. Mitsu Arakawa, Don Leo Jonathan vs. Argentina Rocca and Ray Stevens vs. Cowboy Bob Ellis, with Verne Gagne and Bruno Sammartino working underneath, drew a turnaway crowd of 16,553 fans, which included 1,500 standing room tickets..

Double or Nothing had no television. But it had the power of the Internet, with former WWE star Chris Jericho as the key draws along with the country’s biggest independent draw, Kenny Omega, coming off three years as the top foreign star of New Japan Pro Wrestling, and the self-made stars of The Young Bucks and Cody. The Cow Palace sold most of its tickets that night. Double or Nothing sold all of its tickets in about 30 minutes, months ahead, after a rally where fans could apply for a code to where they could purchase tickets a few days later.

More than 22,000 codes were asked for. When tickets were put on sale, the 12,000 seats put on went to the first 4,100 people who signed in. At the time the ticket sales were closed, there were another 11,000 people waiting to order. Had the building been big enough, they would have been able to sell 43,500 ticket that day.

Still, it was a one-day frenzy. Most of the sales came from outside Las Vegas, which is actually a relatively small metropolitan area and a city that is known for supporting boxing and MMA, but has never been a big pro wrestling market. WrestleMania in 1993 couldn’t sell out at Caesar’s Palace. WCW couldn’t sell out with frequent major PPV shows in the market.

Because it was about people flying in, and making arrangements early, the secondary market wasn’t strong. As compared with All In, its spiritual predecessor, which also sold out instantly but, being in a huge wrestling market, Chicago, also did big on the secondary market, this didn’t. At press time, the price for the lowest ticket was $28.42. Talks of closed circuit showings for the overflow weren’t necessary because the people who couldn’t get tickets for the most part didn’t come to Las Vegas, and it wasn’t a big local show.

Also, in truth, All In was the stronger card, with people like Kazuchika Okada, Kota Ibushi and Rey Mysterio. And Double or Nothing as a lineup was seemingly hurt by the loss of the Hangman Page vs. Pac match, generally considered the No. 3 or No. 4 bout on the show.

Still, to categorize a show without television selling out a building that size that quickly, with only a few tickets held back for a public on sale that went instantly, as anything but a gigantic success would be a disingenuous stretch.

This show is important in the sense that AEW has changed the scene. Some people hate change. There is a generation of fans who have grown up with WWE as the only serious game in town, and while this group can’t beat WWE, they’ve already disrupted the status quo. Some are mad about changes. Some are threatened. Some welcome it. But whether this show is great, good, or even average, the most important show will really be in October, when the television on TNT, and like ITV and a possible Canadian outlet start. A weekly two-hour television show going from market-to-market and needing to draw a few thousand fans to look good is a very different animal to a huge first show.

The fact AEW looks to be very different from any other U.S. promotion in history was exemplified this past week when the Page vs. Pac match fell through.

Essentially, AEW is built on winning and losing meaning something. They want to do win/loss records and stats. Many are skeptical that this can work in pro wrestling, since win/loss records have rarely been done and analytics on matches, like what is sometimes done with boxing and MMA, has never been done.

Pac (Benjamin Slattery, 32), was scheduled to face Page since a confrontation in February right before tickets were put on sale. Slattery signed a per-date deal rather than a full-time deal, to allow him to continue to work for Dragon Gate, where he held the Open the Dream Gate championship, that company’s top belt. He even brought the belt to the rally in Jacksonville and the title was talked about.

Pac was scheduled to beat Page, which with the win, was to lead to bigger matches. His next big match was to be on the Fyter Fest show on 6/27 in Daytona Beach, in the main event, where he would team with Pentagon Jr. & Fenix against The Young Bucks & Omega. It appeared this would eventually lead to Omega vs. Pac on a major show later this year.

The plan for that was for Omega to win. But with Pac holding the Open the Dream Gate title, he made it known that as long as he had the title, to respect that title, he couldn’t lose. While nobody outright said this to me, it seemed like AEW figured the match was months away, and that nobody in Dragon Gate would fret much over their champion losing to Omega, the biggest foreign star in Japan of the last decade, if Pac was even champion by the time that match was to come around. That wasn’t the case. Ultimately, they found out in the last week or so that Dragon Gate had no plans to take the title off Pac, and Pac wouldn’t lose until he was no longer champion.

They still could have done the match. Every other promotion in history would have, because the mentality of wins and losses would be different. The feeling here is that beating Page had to be a big deal and lead to a major main event, because they are positioning Page as a big star. If it’s not to set up a match with Omega, Jericho or Cody, nobody should be beating Page.

You could do a DQ, and many would, or a draw. They made the decision that they wanted winners and losers when you pay for a PPV. To not adhere to that concept on the first show basically ruins the concept they are pushing right out of the gate. They were not going to sacrifice the entire concept of what they were building to get out of a match.

As far as the draw idea goes, that had problems as well. They could have done it, but there were a number of reasons why they didn’t. First, Tony Khan was at the Revolution Pro show where Pac and Will Ospreay did a 30:00 draw in what was an easy ****3/4 match. But as great as the match was, the fans booed the draw. Khan didn’t want that reaction on his show, and also noted it wasn’t just that match, but other Pac draws in the U.K. had gotten similar reactions, noting another great match with Zack Sabre Jr. The fact that in the 70s, or in New Japan, a long classic match ending in a draw would be viewed one way didn’t matter, because it’s neither the 70s nor Japan. He didn’t want a negative reaction like that on the debut show.

Second, it didn’t work out. If they did a 20:00 draw, they’d have to cut time from other matches to make it work. Plus, if in the future, they wanted a non-main event to go more than 20:00, the precedent would be set that a third from the top match has that time limit. If they went 30:00, they’d have to cut more time out of perhaps multiple matches. It was noted that with the show they have laid out, even with a very long five-hour window, that they simply didn’t have the time to sacrifice on this show by taking away from other matches to fit that when you had a hard midnight Eastern ending because the event is on a television PPV show.

Even if that wasn’t the case, as noted, they didn’t want a draw.

The word is that with surprises and changes made, that the new scenario is better. That’s a tall order to fill, because Page vs. Pac figured to be a great match.

As far as Pac goes, for right now he will not be working for the promotion. He won’t be at Fyter Fest, and likely angles or match announcements will be made coming off the show to make sense for however that main event is to be changed. He is not expected to be back until he loses the Dream Gate belt, because with the style of booking they are doing, they can’t do business with somebody who can’t ever lose. If they want to book someone to a long winning streak, they may, but he wasn’t the guy at this time. It is not a lock he’ll be back after he loses the title, but we’re told that everyone likes him personally and they don’t consider him unprofessional or any of the negative terms he’s gotten from this ordeal, but his situation doesn’t allow them to use him right now.

As an attempt at a make-good of sorts, they made arraignments to deliver the advertised match and shoot a storyline angle to explain everything.

Pac was scheduled for a three-way on 5/18 for the WrestleGate promotion in Nottingham, England, against Robbie X and Jody Fleisch. At the show, they announced that X was injured and Fleisch had transportation problems.

Pac cut a promo basically making an open challenge. Page showed up, looking noticeably bigger than ever after a storyline that had been doing on for months on BTE with the idea that he would both gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, because management didn’t like his physique, which even included a secret formula placebo angle out of the 1996 basketball movie Space Jam with Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny. Later, Cody revealed of course that it was just a way to motivate him to train harder.

The two did 13-and-a-half minute match in a small ring, doing all of their signature spots. That match would have torn the house down, and the DQ finish that they did do, would have been received terribly, as Pac gave the referee a low blow to end it.

They let Pac get heat, doing an angle where he attacked Page after the match with a chair, put his leg in the chair and Pillmanized the leg. The idea is Page is injured. Pac then did an interview saying that his goal was to hurt Page, and he had accomplished it, so there was no need to go to Las Vegas. He said that he wasn’t going to be in Double or Nothing and wasn’t going to work for AEW. The idea is that if and when he does come to AEW, he has a ready-made program with Page.

I’d give the match ***3/4, and it would have been probably ½* higher if it had built to a better finish. AEW released the match on 5/21 for free on YouTube and financed the match, paying both wrestlers. In their mind, they did pay off the hyping by giving the match, but not hurting the concept of what they want their PPVs to be, all clean finishes, opening up a new angle and direction for the PPV and still being able to bring back Pac vs. Page on a PPV at a time when they can book Pac within their parameters.

I believe the storyline will be that Page is hurt, but obviously Page will be on the show. Whether he does a match with a mystery opponent or an angle remains to be seen.

On 5/22, AEW announced that its world championship will be determined in a singles match, likely happening on the 8/31 show at the Sears Center in Chicago, where the winner of Jericho vs. Omega on 5/25 faces the winner of the Casino Battle Royale match on the pre-show. The exact date of the match is expected to be announced after the completion of the Jericho vs. Omega match.

The Casino Battle Royal has five guys entering based on a card draw, every three minutes. After nine minutes, 20 men will be in. The wild card holder enters 12 minutes in and is the 21st and final entrant. They’ve announced 17 names, Sonny Kiss, Brandon Cutler, Ace Romero, Glacier (from 90s WCW), Brian Pillman Jr., Sunny Daze, MJF, Joey Janela, Dustin Thomas (who was born with no legs), Billy Gunn, Jimmy Havoc, Michael Nakazawa, Jungle Boy, Isiah Kassidy, Marq Quen (the latter two are the very green but super athletic Private Party tag team), Luchasaurus and Shawn Spears (who was Tye Dillinger in WWE). Looking at that list, not one name stands out to where you would have him main event your next PPV against ether Omega or Jericho, so one would think the winner would be one of the four mystery guys.

Regarding the most talked about mystery guys, Joey Ryan is booked on that night for AIW in Cleveland. C.M. Punk is doing play-by-play of an MMA show in Southern California. Jon Moxley (Dean Ambrose) is doing an MMA movie, although it is possible he could get a day off.

What is notable is that Cody outright said that the demographic they are looking at is the lapsed wrestling fan. There were probably nine million fans in the U.S. who consistently were watching wrestling on Monday nights 20 years ago, and now that number is around 2.5 million. But the question is if those millions have grown up and are willing to come back, or even if they would accept younger and newer stars, regardless of their ability to deliver in the ring.

My belief is that the success or failure of AEW revolves around whether or not a weekly time slot on TNT, which is a great platform, will lead to fans finding the show, and then accepting the idea that the product is a major league group and the stars are equal to, or really, are better than, the WWE. It’s a tall order. Even if WWE has turned off millions of fans in recent years, and they have, that doesn’t mean those people who have lived for decades with WWE as the only main brand in wrestling, are willing to accept something else. In the late 80s, WCW clearly outworked WWF in the ring, and with the exception of a very small percentage of the audience, it didn’t matter. And JCP in the 80s drew sometimes just as good, and at times better ratings. But in the majority of the markets, WWF was No. 1. The other guys could come in, draw a big house the first time, have their wrestlers tear down the house, and the crowds would still fade because the public did not see them as the major leagues.

In markets JCP won, with some exceptions like Baltimore, it’s because they were established first and Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were the established local legends, and thus, being with them allowed the Road Warriors and Midnight Express and Rock & Roll Express to be viewed as major league legends. But in New York, didn’t matter what they did or how good they were, they could get one huge crowd every now and then, but could never sustain.

History is something to learn from. But times also change. Match quality does mean far more than it ever has historically. There is more interest and access to the non-major league group than ever before. There could never be an All In or Double or Nothing type of event five years ago, let alone before that, without television backing. There could never be an NXT drawing like it does for big shows either.

When WCW briefly surpassed WWF, it was through usage of stars from the prior generation and a few newly made stars. That luxury isn’t here now. One Chris Jericho doesn’t equal Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Randy Savage, Roddy Piper, Bret Hart and so many others all on the same roster. But that concept had a few big years and collapsed from a lot of reasons, basically not being in touch with the viewers.

This group skews much younger, is far more open minded, but they are also a group of a dozen battling an army of hundreds when it comes to working and how much work can be done. Of course, they also don’t have to beat WWE to be a success. They just need to be able to tap into television money to go with the exposure. But if being on TNT can’t make new stars, and if the public sees them as a secondary group, like the XFL of wrestling, it’s not going to work. They have to be elevated to where the public sees them as a separate but equal, and really they have to have a niche and be superior in that niche, and have enough people realizing that, or they won’t be appointment viewing.

The 30-year relationship between WWE and Sky Sports in the U.K. appears to be finished as it is expected the company will announce shortly that it is moving to BT Sports in January.

The move will come three months after what is expected to be AEW’s debut on ITV 4 in October with a regular live television show. The AEW deal is not official, but Cody strongly hinted at it on Being the Elite and Chris Jericho has talked about it on his podcast. ITV 4 will be airing both a Countdown like show for Double or Nothing on 5/24 and the one-hour Buy In show, as well as handle the PPV show in the U.K. market on ITV Box Office. The final deal is said to be not official until TNA decides whether to run the weekly two-hour live show on Tuesday or Wednesday nights. The hope is for ITV 4 to run the show live.

The two moves have major repercussions because AEW would have a far superior television outlet as far as reach goes in what has been the second biggest revenue producing country for WWE behind the U.S. There is talk that WWE will be getting a huge rights fee increase from India, and if so, even with very little live event, network or merchandise revenue in India, the television revenue alone is expected to make India the No. 2 market starting in 2020.

Still, for actually running live events and selling merchandise, the U.K. has been the No. 2 overseas market for many years.

It should also be noted that just because, if the deal happens, that AEW would have more television viewers, that doesn’t mean they will replace WWE as the No. 1 promotion in the country as there is more to that than TV viewers. TNA, because of greater clearance, often had more viewers than either Raw or Smackdown in the U.K., but WWE greatly outperformed them in every other category. WWE still has the largest company, a larger number of U.K. stars, decades of history and has been so established for so long as the major league brand that another company getting more viewers is not going to change the balance of power.

The Telegraph in the U.K. was the first to report the story on 5/16. But this does weaken the WWE’s television situation, since Sky is currently in 8.56 million homes and BT is in 2.19 million homes. ITV 4 would be available in nearly 27 million homes.

Between first-run shows and replays, Sky was airing about 60 hours per week of WWE content. Sky and WWE parting ways was not unexpected ever since WWE started the WWE Network without informing Sky ahead of time, right after cutting a deal where Sky Box Office would market all WWE PPV shows.

The key items were that ratings for all WWE programming had dropped greatly in recent years, with declines far more severe than in the U.S. and Canada; the WWE starting the WWE Network without informing Sky, and then leading to a delay in launching the network in the U.K., and an issue where Sky objected to WWE airing WWE Main Event live on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern on the WWE Network, which meant it aired on the network before it aired on Sky, thus undercutting Sky’s television deal. This story ended with WWE not airing Main Event live.

BT had just lost key FA Cup soccer rights to ITV starting in 2021. They also aired 42 Premier League games per season, but starting in August, they only secured the rights to 32 games based on a new contract signed in February.

While BT is a step down from Sky in terms of visibility, if WWE becomes the flagship programming on BT, which it wasn’t on Sky, it could work out in their favor. But BT, which also owns the rights to UFC, has traditionally never pushed anything but soccer, even when they had rights to Conor McGregor fights. BT does have exclusive rights to the Champions League and Europa League, and with the success of British teams of late, it’s probably as good a time as any to make the move.

ITV 4, while available in nearly every British home free-to-air, is not nearly as big a deal as ITV, which aired World of Sport to diminishing returns over a ten-week cycle last year. One person in the U.K. wrestling business said the positive of such a deal is that every AEW fan will have easy access to the show. But ITV 4 isn’t a channel that will grab channel surfers in great numbers that aren’t already interested in the product.

It was noted that if AEW does catch on, due to accessibility, it does have the potential to be a far bigger deal on television than WWE. Another key aspect to the deal is that with ITV likely partnering with AEW on PPV shows, including AEW’s plan for doing live PPVs in the U.K. in local prime time, that other events ITV puts on PPV are given coverage and advertising on the main ITV channel. The main ITV channel is the No. 2 channel in the country, behind the BBC. If ITV does similar promotion for AEW’s major shows as it has for other events it puts on ITV Box Office, then from a publicity standpoint, they will be more visible in the U.K. market than WWE has been mainstream in many years.

Still, even with WWE’s live attendance being down in most of the larger arenas on the last two tours, just the value of the name, the history, and perceived star power and depth of the roster still will keep it viewed as the major league brand, even if less visible. For a similar situation, Bellator has had some of its bigger shows and U.K. shows on far wider-reaching platforms than BT Sports, and even runs far more often in the U.K. But UFC events at the O2 Arena in London and other venues are usually instant sellouts, and Bellator events are not. UFC is still considered by MMA fans as the major league group, even if, due to time slots and channel penetration, more television viewers watch Bellator.

Ric Flair, 70, underwent heart surgery on 5/20, which was deemed a success after significant health issues led to him being rushed to the hospital for days earlier.

Flair was first diagnosed with heart issues in 2002, at the age of 53, which at the time his doctor attributed to his drinking and steroid use. He himself has publicly attributed it to the drinking but said it was not due to steroids, which while he admitted usage of, said he was never a heavy user. After several months off, he was cleared and returned to in-ring action and continued to wrestle regularly for years.

Flair had a major health scare in August 2017, when he was placed in an medically induced coma for 11 days after rupturing his intestine. He underwent emergency surgery and was given a 20 percent chance of surviving the surgery, because of the complications he had that included his kidneys shutting down, heart issues and pneumonia. He needed dialysis for a period of time after surgery and has had multiple surgeries related to issues from that time period.

Flair was scheduled to undergo heart surgery last week, with the idea he would recover in time to appear at Starrcast this coming weekend in Las Vegas. But he ended up with a health scare that rushed him to the Gwinnett Medical Center in Duluth, GA, just outside of Atlanta, where he lives. Complications delayed his surgery until 5/20.

The family reported that the surgery went well. However, due to the timing, he was unable to go to Las Vegas this weekend. Son-in-law Conrad Thompson had promoted Flair as probably the biggest name for Starrcast, held in conjunction with AEW’s debut show, once WWE pulled Undertaker off the event.

Flair was back home on 5/22.

Her was scheduled for a panel discussion with Ricky Steamboat covering their feud, and in particular the 30th anniversary of a series of four different five-star matches the two had in a program over the NWA world heavyweight championship in 1989. The two, who wrestled regularly starting in the late 70s, had what is generally considered the greatest in-ring rivalry of that era.

He was also scheduled for a celebrity roast, which was going to appear as a television pay-per-view event as well as was the key event as part of the Starrcast iPPV package on Fite TV.

It was announced that the roast was being postponed and would take place at a later date.

Flair has said he hopes to be back on the road doing appearances in ten to 14 days.

Brock Lesnar and Bayley were the winners of the Money in the Bank matches on a generally well regarded WWE PPV show on 5/19.

The show featured a Seth Rollins Universal title defense over A.J. Styles that may have been WWE’s best main roster match so far this year. The show featured a lot of short matches, most by design, one not by design, and a show-long angle culminating with the Lesnar win.

Lesnar, who was not advertised for the show, was kept away from everyone. There were people in the company aware Lesnar was there and would be part of the show, but most were not. Backstage, those who needed to know, were told that Ali was winning the Money in the Bank match, a change from Drew McIntyre, who had been said was the planned winner earlier in the week.

As noted last week, the angle where Sami Zayn defeated Braun Strowman to take his spot in the match was part of the storyline that paid off during the show. Zayn appeared early, going to HHH and fearing an attack by Strowman that night. HHH said that Strowman would be banned from the building. Later, Strowman was shown throwing things around backstage and looking for Zayn. After that, Zayn was found attacked, injured, and hung upside down. After the next match, HHH confronted Strowman, who denied doing it. HHH said that he wouldn’t allow Strowman in the match for taking out Zayn and told him to leave the building. HHH said he wasn’t going to call the police and just asked him to leave. He then said he was leaving. They said Zayn was injured and taken to a local medical facility.

The wrestlers in the match were all told that Ali was not winning, but that Ali would be on top when an eighth wrestler would arrive and he’d knock Ali off and be the winner. They were not told who the wrestler would be, but the idea was that they would believe it to be Strowman.

Right before the match started, Ali was told it was Lesnar, but told to keep it quiet.

The timing was silly, but it kind of had to be. Ali was at the top of the ladder. Everyone else was taken out. He was about to take down the briefcase when Lesnar’s music played. Ali had plenty of time at this point to unhook the briefcase and win. Instead, he just froze. Lesnar came down fast, with no care about human life, taking two cameramen out in the process. He then got in the ring, climbed the ladder, destroyed Ali and pulled the briefcase down to win. Ali was bleeding badly although the cameras were instructed not to shoot him.

The heat was that seven guys destroyed their bodies in a long match and then Lesnar just walked in and won. The entire scripting of that was designed to get the reaction that Lesnar was handed another thing again without working for it while the rest of the roster is out there killing themselves.

The finish was a great surprise pop, and the crowd went crazy for it, even with Lesnar as a heel, because they want surprises and happenings.

On the flip side, it was all about a momentary pop and surprise, as well as two weeks of television ratings. The feeling was that the Lesnar surprise would help ratings based on curiosity the next night, which it did. It was also used in an attempt to keep the audience into the third hour, by teasing Lesnar would cash in against either Rollins or Kofi Kingston. Lesnar came out, teased cashing in, backed out, but Paul Heyman said that next week on Raw, from Kansas City (what a weird coincidence that the Raw 20 years to the week of Owen Hart’s death in Kemper Arena would be booked for Kansas City, which is probably something that won’t be addressed on the show), Lesnar would say who he is cashing it in against.

At first, I thought the surprise of Lesnar winning made for a cool moment and it did get a huge reaction and helped the TV ratings. One could argue that it could have been used for a longer cash-in story given Rollins vs. Lesnar, if that’s the direction, was logically going to happen in Saudi Arabia anyway and didn’t need the briefcase to take place. The idea is it could have been used to help someone get over. However, with the nature of Vince McMahon’s booking, it was noted that if someone like Andrade or Ricochet or Ali would have won, Vince McMahon would see it as having done something for them and then would have beaten them regularly on television, thinking he could at that point having given them that big win, and it would within weeks negate the win and perhaps end up hurting them more than helping, particularly if McMahon decided against them winning the title.

It had been the plan since before WrestleMania for Lesnar to get his rematch with Rollins at the May Saudi Arabia show, which, of course, was then moved to 6/7. But on 5/21, they shot an angle to set up Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler on that show, so in theory that would mean Lesnar’s decision almost has to be Rollins. There’s always the possibility of a swerve.

Ziggler was a late change from Kevin Owens, who refused to go to Saudi Arabia. The feeling is that they had nobody ready, since they didn’t want a Raw wrestler in the spot and since HHH vs. Randy Orton was already booked on the show, as was Finn Balor vs. Andrade, the only names were Owens, Elias, or Daniel Bryan (who has been moved into a tag team program and also isn’t going to Saudi Arabia). The decision was just made, since Ziggler was booked by WWE to be in Australia that weekend. WWE just pulled him from that appearance and is sending Carmella to Australia in his place.

Bayley cashed in her briefcase immediately and ended up as Smackdown champion. It was a scenario that started when Becky Lynch retained her Raw women’s title over Lacey Evans. Evans then punched Ly ch to set up Charlotte Flair winning the Smackdown over Lynch. Flair and Evans were beating down Lynch when Bayley made the save. In the brawl, Bayley threw Flair into the turnbuckles which stunned her. Bayley cashed it in and used an elbow drop off the top rope to beat Flair and win the title in 20 seconds. In doing so, Flair captured her ninth world title in the quest for 17. The crowd went nuts for Bayley winning.

Rey Mysterio won the U.S. title from Samoa Joe. Joe seemed to have broken his nose in the first minute from a Thesz press with Mysterio landing on his face. Joe was bleeding badly and they were told to go home. So Joe went for a power bomb and Mysterio reversed it and got the pin. Whether this was planned or not, Joe’s left shoulder was way off the mat when the ref counted three. They called attention to it like it was a planned spot. After the match, Joe gave Mysterio two uranages and Mysterio legit separated his shoulder.

On the 5/28 Smackdown show they will make an announcement regarding the U.S. title with Mysterio ‘s injury. Mysterio was examined this week in Birmingham, AL, about possible surgery. Probably based on the diagnosis and how long he’ll be out will determine the next step with the championship.

The show at the XL Center in Hartford drew a sellout of 10,500 fans.

The next WWE PPV is Super Showdown on 6/7 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There is less controversy because time has passed since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

At press time, it has been confirmed that four performers will not be appearing on the show, Owens, Bryan, Aleister Black and Sami Zayn. It is believed they are the only four. John Cena refused to do the last show and to the best of our knowledge isn’t booked on this show. There were reports that Roman Reigns was not going to do the last show, but it never came out because he was diagnosed with a form of leukemia before the show and was out of action. Whether that was accurate at the time, Reigns, in fact, is both billed for the show and nobody internally, who knew of the other names out, were aware that anything is going to change to keep the Reigns vs. Shane McMahon match from happening.

The reason for Bryan not going are likely the same reasons why he didn’t go to the second show, after going the first time, a decision he had made before the Khashoggi killing based on what happened at the first show.

With Owens, company sources have said he was asked by his family not to go. Others have said there are a number of reasons, and all of the reasons speculated on were accurate. The only reason I’ve seen speculated on had to do with his close friend Sami Zayn not being allowed to go. We were told Owens asked off the show and that when he did so, they never even asked him why, gave him the show off and indicated there was no pressure on him to change his mind.

Zayn won’t be appearing, like on the first show (he was injured for the second show), because of his Syrian ancestry, as the Saudis hate Syrians. Black not going, like with Zayn, was not his decision. We were told it had to do with tattoos he had that were religious in nature. It wasn’t made clear where the Saudis told WWE he couldn’t appear due to those tattoos, or WWE made the decision thinking the tattoos would offend the hosts.

WWE did promote the show coming from Jeddah’s King Abdullah International Stadium, the 62,000 capacity stadium that the first major Saudi Arabia show took place in. In promoting the PPV show in the U.S., they have banned any mention of the word Saudi Arabia. Still, when the commercial for the show have aired live, they are booed.

They are promoting the show by constantly saying it will be as big or bigger than WrestleMania.

There are seven matches announced, which are Undertaker vs. Bill Goldberg in what is being pushed as the biggest match on the show, HHH vs. Randy Orton in a non-sanctioned match, which got a long video package this week promoting based on their long background with Evolution and various feuds in the years after, Kingston vs. Ziggler for the WWE title, Reigns vs. Shane McMahon, The Demon Finn Balor vs. Andrade for the IC title, Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley and a 50 man Battle Royal. Rollins vs. Lesnar is expected to be announced next week.

1. The Usos beat Smackdown tag champs Daniel Bryan & Rowan in a non-title match in 11:10. A good pre-show match. The finish saw Jimmy and then Jey both hit topes on Rowan. Then they started giving Rowan superkicks. Then they did a double tope on Rowan. Bryan went for a tope on all of them, but ended up hit as he went to dive by a double superkick. Then both Usos came off opposite corner with a double splash to pin Bryan. The impression was that this would lead to a title match, but with Bryan not going to the next PPV, that will likely be on television or on the Stomping Grounds show in Tacoma, where Bryan & Rowan would likely be cheered. ***1/4

2. Bayley won the Women’s Money in the Bank match over Naomi, Carmella, Natalya, Ember Moon, Mandy Rose, Nikki Cross and Dana Brooke in 13:50. Cross was a late sub for Alexa Bliss, who was pulled from the match for medical reasons. Bliss’ injury was officially not listed. Officially not listed these days usually means concussion and there have been reports that was the case. The symptoms described, having thrown up after taking a bump, is consistent with concussions. What’s concerning is that it’s at least the second one she’s had in a short period of time. This did get out as there was a late betting rush on Bayley to win. The match was sloppy and choreographed but not in a smooth choreographed way. All the women were brought back from Europe early to practice this match. Some of the stunts got over big and the second half of the match was good. The biggest spot was Moon coming off a ladder on the floor, jumping into the ring and hitting Natalya with the eclipse. Carmella did a knee injury angle early working with Mandy Rose. Carmella then came back out for the finish. Carmella seemingly had it won, climbing slowly to sell her knee, but Sonya Deville came out and pulled her down and Carmella was selling the knee again. Deville then speared Carmella. Deville put Rose on her shoulders and was climbing to the top of the ladder. When they got to the top, Bayley recovered, ran up the ladder, knocked Deville and Rose off the grabbed the briefcase to win. ***1/4

Bayley, in her interview, brought up Sasha Banks and Banks being no Raw. Still, there’s no sign of Banks.

The first Sami Zayn segment, with HHH was here.

3. Rey Mysterio pinned Samoa Joe in 1:33 to win the U.S. title. Joe had the bloody nose and a black eye from the Thesz press. They went right to the finish. Mysterio and Dominick celebrated after the match. Joe attacked Mysterio, threw him in the ring and gave him two uranages to lay him out. Joe then dared Dominick to enter the ring. Joe then gave Mysterio a senton. Fans were expecting Dominick to jump in, and if Rey isn’t out for any length of time and they don’t drop the angle, that seems to be the end result of a slow build. Dominick helped his father to the back after. *

4. Shane McMahon beat The Miz in a cage match in 13:08. McMahon mostly played chickenshit heel, trying to run away, beg off and climb out. Miz used chair shots and then did the skull crushing finale on a chair but McMahon got his foot on the ropes before the count of three and the ref held up the count. Then the announcers said that in a cage match, you can’t stop a pin with a rope break and the ref should have counted three, but he was afraid to because it was on Shane. But then the ref never did another heel spot. Putting all this heat in two straight matches on the ref comes across so minor league in booking. Miz teased a skull crushing finale off the top rope but McMahon flipped him off the top. McMahon tried to climb and Miz hit his leg with a chair. They both were sitting on the top trading punches doing the Rivera-Gordman spot. Miz threw McMahon off the cage. Miz did one of the clumsiest splashes off the top you’ll ever see for a near fall. McMahon used a triangle but Miz bridged into a pin so McMahon let go. There were several AEW chants during this match. The match ended with both climbing to the top. Shane climbed over and Miz was holding him by his shirt. Shane slipped out of his shirt and fell to the floor to win. **1/4

5. Tony Nese pinned Ariya Daivari to keep the cruiserweight title in 9:20. The idea is the previous match was supposed to be so hot that this match was the buffer to take it down. The previous match wasn’t hot, but with 205 Live being purgatory, nobody cared about this. Technically it was quite good. There was nothing these guys could do as the fans chanted boring. Nese used a Fosbury Fo dive and a 450 for a near fall. Why in a match like this somebody kicks out of a 450 is beyond me. Daivari did a high fly flow and rainmaker (which tells you what he’s been studying) but Nese kicked out. Nese did a top rope huracanrana and running knees in the corner for the pin. ***

6. Becky Lynch beat Lacey Evans in 8:37 to keep the Raw women’s title. Fans were singing Lynch’s entrance music. Evans came out with a t-shirt gun and shot out Evans dollar bills like Okada does in New Japan. Early on Evans, threw a right-handed punch. It’s supposed to be her finisher and they didn’t use it as a near fall nor did the announcers call it. Evans pulled out a handkerchief to wipe sweat off her face and underarms and then put it in Lynch’s mouth. Lynch did a missile dropkick that didn’t look good. Evans did a clumsy diamond cutter and a knee. Overall there was nothing bad about the match but the crowd wasn’t that into it. Evans used a chop block and went for the pin. For some reason the ref didn’t count, but Lynch reversed into the disarm her for the submission. It looked like they were using the ref not counting for a point of controversy for Evans, but it was never followed up with. **

7. Charlotte Flair beat Becky Lynch to win the Smackdown women’s title in 6:11. Flair came out right after Evans lost and wanted the match right away. Lynch agreed to it. The crowd was more into this match but they didn’t give them much time. Flair went for natural selection off the apron, but Lynch held on and Flair took a bump to the floor. Evans came out and hit Lynch with the punch. Lynch then went for a surprise inside cradle, but Flair kicked out, hit a kick to the head and got the pin. **3/4

Lynch went after Evans after the match. Flair helped out Evans and they were working together to beat down Lynch. Bayley made the save, running down with the briefcase. The crowd exploded because the cash-in is like a happening and the crowd, more than anything, is into happenings. Bayley clotheslined Flair and attacked Evans. Bayley gave Evans a Sato suplex and Flair then attacked Bayley. The crowd was way into Bayley and wanting to see the cash-in. Bayley threw Flair into the turnbuckles and then told the ref she was cashing in.

8. Bayley pinned Charlotte Flair to win the Smackdown women’s title in :20. Bayley hit the Randy Savage elbow right away to win the title. It got a big pop. As far as a scenario went, this was easily the best thing on the show thus far.

Roman Reigns was to face Elias next. He was backstage and Elias hit Reigns from behind with a guitar shot. Elias came out and did his singing routine. He went to leave. Reigns came through the curtain and gave him a Superman punch.

9. Roman Reigns pinned Elias in :09. Reigns hit a spear. This was really the best way to do this. There were too many matches on the show to begin with. By this point in the show, an Elias match lasting 10:00 would have likely struggled so the crowd got to see their big move and Reigns got an explosive win.

10. Seth Rollins retained the Universal title over A.J. Styles in 19:50. Both guys looked in slightly better shape than usual. You could really see it with Styles. There were dueling chants. Rollins did a tope knocking Styles into the announces table. Then he did a second tope. Rollins did a buckle bomb and frog splash for a near fall. The frog splash looked awesome in slow motion. It was one big spot after another. Styles used a torture rack into a power bomb for a near fall. Rollins used a reverse superplex, the move Ultimo Guerrero uses, for a near fall. Styles did the moonsault into reverse DDT for a near fall. The crowd got really hot. Rollins went for a curb stomp but Styles reversed it into a Styles clash for a near fall. Styles went for the phenomenal forearm but Rollins moved out of the way. Rollins used a ripcord knee, a superkick and got the pin with a curb stomp. Styles confronted him after the match like he wanted to fight him. Styles then offered his hand. Some fans booed, but when they shook hands, the people cheered. ****½

The Lucha House Party came out for a six-man tag. Then Lars Sullivan came out. Sullivan destroyed all three. Kalisto nailed Sullivan on the top of the head with an elbow and Sullivan was bleeding all over the place. It actually made him look more like a monster. Kalisto actually made a tweet saying basically that he did it on purpose, but then took it down. Sullivan cleaned house and was standing there with his head split open and blood everywhere.

11. Kofi Kingston pinned Kevin Owens to retain the WWE title in 14:56. This was good, but they made a mistake in that the crowd was more into Rollins vs. Styles and after seeing that, they only wanted the men’s MITB match, so this match fell flat. Kingston did a twisting double sledge off the to rope to the floor. Owens threw Kingston into the post and gave him a splash on the apron. Kingston did a double foot stomp on the apron. Kingston did a corkscrew plancha into a superkick. Kingston at one point had Owens’ back and delivered elbow after elbow tot the back of the head. Kingston kicked out of the pop up power bomb. Kingston hit the Trouble in Paradise and Owens was knocked out of the ring. Owens came back and hit a stunner, but Kingston got his hand on the ropes. Owens pulled Kingston’s shoes off. Owens came off the top rope with a swanton, but Kingston got his knees up. Kingston then hit Trouble in Paradise for the pin. ***½

12. Brock Lesnar won the Men’s Money in the Bank match over Drew McIntyre, Ricochet, Andrade, Finn Balor, Baron Corbin, Ali and Randy Orton in 19:02. This was filled with crazy spots. Orton back suplexed Ali, Balor and Ricochet on the table. Ricochet did a springboard flip dive. Fans were cheering for Orton as he climbed but Andrade did a springboard knocking the ladder over. Ali did a tope on McIntyre. Ricochet backdropped Andrade over the top rope. Corbin threw in a ladder. McIntyre gave Ricochet an overhead throw into a ladder. Balor did a double foot stomp on a ladder on Corbin. Balor was at the top of the ladder when Andrade used a ladder to knock him off. Andrade made a ladder bridge and did a sunset flip power bomb off the top of the ladder onto the ladder bridge on Balor. Balor actually bounced when hitting the ladder, and fell on it a second time. The spot tore the house down. Ali did a reverse huracanrana on Ricochet. Ali used a Spanish fly on Andrade from almost the top of the ladder. Corbin choke slammed Ali through the Spanish announcers table. Fans were chanting “You still suck” at Corbin as he was cleaning house. Corbin turned on McIntyre. Corbin choke slammed Balor on the ladder legs which had to have sucked. Ricochet went for a tope on Corbin who caught him and laid him out with a Deep Six on the floor. McIntyre hit the Claymore kick on Corbin on the floor. McIntyre suplexed Balor on the ladder and threw Ricochet over the top rope ont a ladder bridge. Orton his the RKO on McIntyre and Corbin threw Orton into the post. Corbin was climbing and Ali climbed up. Ali flipped Corbin over the top rope. Ali climbed up and had it won when Lesnar’s music played. Lesnar destroyed Ali and pulled the briefcase down to win. ****½

Now that we are at nearly the halfway point in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, you can see a completely different philosophy from the past few years.

The concentration is on longer and more psychological matches, where you work a slow building match, setting the stage for the last few minutes where the crowd explodes.

Perhaps the most notable examples of the matches I’ve seen were Rocky Romero vs. Will Ospreay and Dragon Lee vs. Sho. In the past, Dragon Lee means nonstop high spots and oohs and aahs. But with Sho, they did a match on 5/15 that started slow. They did some big flying spots but the crowd was quiet with Sho working on the arm, but the last ten minutes the place exploded. Then they teased the idea of a 30:00 draw before Lee hit the desnucadora, his finisher, at the 27:10 mark.

Ospreay vs. Romero, the semifinal on 5/16, was similar. It actually felt slow in spots, even with Romero doing a tope and Ospreay doing a space flying tiger drop early. But it was mostly Romero working on the neck. But the last eight minutes or so again were incredible.

The best matches I’ve seen this week were the 5/22 Ospreay vs. Phantasmo match, which unlike the previous two matches, started out incredible and for the most part stayed there. I’d go ****3/4 and it easily could be higher. The one thing about every Ospreay match is that he works so much smarter and is so much better at being versatile, essentially working with a variety of styles and making every match seem spectacular. And he’s doing it night-after-night. Phantasmo, playing major heel to Ospreay’s babyface, won in 26:40 after both guys kicked out of everything imaginable, including Ospreay surviving a low blow and a torture rack airplane spin neckbreaker, before his version of an Angel’s wings, the CR 2, gave Ospreay his first tournament loss. I’d go ****½ for Sho vs. Lee and Ospreay vs,. Romero.

Shingo Takagi and Phantasmo both remained unbeaten in New Japan rings, with Phantasmo in his debut full tour while Takagi remains not having lost a fall himself in his nearly eight months with the promotion.

Going into the 5/23 show at Korakuen Hall, here are the standings:

A block: 1. Shingo Takagi and Taiji Ishimori 4-0; 3. Dragon Lee 3-1; 4. Tiger Mask, Marty Scurll and Jonathan Gresham 2-2; 7. Sho, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Titan 1-3; 10. Taka Michinoku 0-4.

B block: 1. El Phantasmo 4-0; 2. Ospreay and Ryusuke Taguchi 3-1; 4. Robbie Eagles, Bandido and Yoh 2-2; 7. Douki, Rocky Romero and Bush 1-3; 10.Ren Narita 0-4.

Results for the week:

MAY 16 - AOMORI INDUSTRIAL HAL - 1,403 - B BLOCK

1. Eagles beat Narita in 9:18 with a Turbo backpack.

2. Yoh beat Bandido in 13:56 with a dragon suplex.

3. Phantasmo beat Bushi in 10:31 with the CR 2.

4. Ospreay beat Romero in 25:45 with the storm breaker.

5. Taguchi beat Douki in 21:22 with the ankle lock.



MAY 18 - YAMAGATA BIG WING - 1,213 - A BLOCK

1. Sho beat Michinoku in 10:06 with shock arrow

2. Scurll beat Tiger MAS in 13:01 with the black plague.

3. Ishimori beat Titan in 11:42 with the bloody cross.

4. Lee beat Gresham in 9:42 with the desnucadora

5. Takagi beat Kanemaru in 15:24 with last of the dragon.



MAY 19 - YAMAGATA BIG WING - 1,101 - B BLOCK

1. Romero beat Narita in 12:28 with an armbar.

2. Bandido beat Douki in 9:55 with the 21 plex.

3. Phantasmo beat Eagles in 10:20 with the CR 2.

4. Ospreay beat Yoh in 24:43 with the Storm breaker.

5. Taguchi beat Bushi in 14:56 with the ankle lock.



MAY 22 - TOKYO KORAKUEN HALL - 1,679 SELLOUT - A & B BLOCK

1. Ishimori beat Michinoku in 4:56 with the bloody cross.

2. Bandido beat Narita in 6:19 with the 21 plex. This was a tremendous short match. One of the best you’ll see with that kind of time constraint.

3. Gresham beat Titan in 10:55 with the Octopus clutch.

4. Yoh beat Romero in 13:29 with stargazer.

5. Lee beat Tiger Mask in 8:59 with the desnucadora.

6. Bushi beat Douki in 7:13 with the MX.

7. Kanemaru beat Sho in 4:21 via count out.

8. Eagles beat Taguchi in 11:13 with the seat belt.

9. Takagi beat Scurll in 14:07 withy last of the dragon.

10. Phantasmo beat Ospreay in 26:40 for the CR 2.

Coming up this week:

5/24 at Korakuen Hall at 5:30 a.m.: A block has Tiger Mask vs. Sho, Scurll vs. Kanemaru, Takagi vs. Michinoku, Gresham vs. Ishimori and Lee vs. Titan. B block has Eagles vs. Douki, Taguchi vs. Bandido, Yoh vs. Bushi, Romero vs. Phantasmo and Ospreay vs. Narita.

5/26 in Chiba at 5:30 a.m: A block has Gresham vs. Kanemaru, Titan vs. Scurll, Tiger Mask vs. Takagi, Lee vs. Michinoku and Sho vs. Ishimori. B block has Romero vs. Douki, Bandido vs. Bushi, Yoh vs. Phantasmo, Taguchi vs. Narita and Ospreay vs. Eagles.

5/29 in Nagoya at 5 a.m. for A block has Scurll vs. Michinoku, Sho vs. Titan, Tiger Mask vs. Ishimori, Gresham vs. Takagi and Lee vs. Kanemaru.

5/30 in Osaka at 5:30 a.m. for B block has Bandido vs. Eagles, Yoh vs. Narita, Romero vs. Bushi, Taguchi vs. Phantasmo and Ospreay vs. Douki.

UFC from Rochester on 5/18

By Ryan Frederick

With both men finding themselves in what would seemingly be called a crossroads fight, Rafael Dos Anjos took home the win over Kevin Lee in the main event of UFC On ESPN+ 10 on 5/18, the company’s debut in Rochester, NY

It capped off a night in which nine fights on the card ended with a finish, including some highlight-reel knockouts and impressive UFC debuts.

Dos Anjos and Lee had a good, grueling and tense main event that went back-and-forth and was very close. The story was Lee gassed out while Dos Anjos, who has an incredible gas tank, came on strong. The finish saw Dos Anjos reverse position on a takedown from Lee, get the mount, which set up an arm-triangle choke and got Lee to tap at the 3:47 mark of the fourth round.

That ended a two-fight losing skid for Dos Anjos and put him right back into the title picture at welterweight. His two losses came to the current champion, Kamaru Usman, and the top contender, Colby Covington, so Dos Anjos seemingly would maybe be only one more win away from another title shot. A fight next against Santiago Ponzinibbio makes a whole lot of sense, or if Ponzinibbio gets the fight against Robbie Lawler, perhaps Leon Edwards could be next for him.

Lee was making the move up to 170 pounds in search of a fresh start after losing two of his last three. Physically, he looked the same but was giving up a little size to Dos Anjos, who isn’t a very large welterweight. Lee’s conditioning seemed off at the higher weight. He is someone who would be among those who would benefit the most with the UFC adding a 165-pound weight class. However, that continues to look unlikely.

Lee has a real hard time making the lightweight limit, but making 170 was a breeze. He only had to cut one pound the morning of weigh-ins as opposed to the usual 12-pound cut. A decision whether he stays at welterweight or goes back to lightweight hasn’t been made. He is going to have some trouble with bigger guys at welterweight unless he gains some size, which may hurt him in other areas.

The show, airing entirely on ESPN+, was an easy watch, even at a six-hour length. It started off strong with Julio Arce knocking Julian Erosa our cold with a head kick in the opener, and continued with strong finishes throughout.

Arguably the most impressive fighter on the show was Michel Pereira, who was making his UFC debut. At just 25, he already had 33 pro fights under his belt. He was emotional during his walkout as he was crying, but then started breakdancing once inside the Octagon. During the fight, he was throwing lots of flashy kicks & punches, and using the cage to throw strikes as well. He finished Danny Roberts in the first round after landing a flying knee then putting Roberts out cold with a straight right hand. If he’s able to continue to fight like that, he may be the welterweight version of Johnny Walker.

Another newcomer scoring a big win was women’s featherweight Felicia Spencer, upsetting Megan Anderson. Spencer was a +175 underdog and gave up six inches, but submitted Anderson in the first with a rear-naked choke, and made it look easy. The company had pegged Anderson as a potential star as she is a tall, good-looking woman with a good look, but she has now gone 1-2 in the UFC.

Two veterans scoring wins were Vicente Luque and Charles Oliveira. Luque beat short-notice replacement Derrick Krantz, while Oliveira fought Nik Lentz for the third time. Oliveira looked very impressive in knocking Lentz out in the second round, now having two wins over him to go with a no contest in their three fights. Amazingly, in Oliveira’s 15th UFC win, it was his first by knockout as he has scored a UFC record 13 submission wins. It was also Oliveira’s fifth straight win, setting him in position for a big fight.

Luque finished Krantz with punches in the first round. Krantz took the fight on five days’ notice as a replacement for Neil Magny. Magny publicly announced that he was pulled from the fight for a USADA violation, which is now going through the investigation process. They no longer publicly announce failures until the process is completed.

Krantz had a great story. He was featured on the most recent episode of Dana White’s Looking For A Fight. He scored a big win in front of White, who wasn’t even there to scout him, at a LFA event in March. He got on the mic and pleaded for White to give him a chance. White said that despite him being 31 and having a 24-10 record, he would put him on the Contender Series this summer. When Magny was pulled, he campaigned hard for the fight on social media, and got the call. He had Luque in trouble early before Luque settled in and finished him.

The event at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester drew 8,132 fans for a gate of $643,840.

The $50,000 bonuses went to Aspen Ladd and Sijara Eubanks for Fight Of The Night, while Performance Of The Night went to Michel Pereira and Grant Dawson. There were lots of contenders for the performance bonuses.
1. Julio Arce (16-3) beat Julian Erosa (22-8) in 1:49 in the third round in a featherweight fight. Arce was controlling the pace in the first round and landed more and got a takedown at the end of the round. Erosa was pushing more in the second and both men were landing but Arce was landing harder. Both men had takedowns stuffed. It was close after two and I had it even. Both were landing in the third and Arce landed a right hand and then followed it with a head kick that knocked Erosa out cold. Good finish by Arce.
2. Zak Cummings (23-6) beat Trevin Giles (11-1) in 4:01 in the third round in a middleweight fight. Giles was fighting for the first time since December 2017. Cummings was landing body kicks in the first but Giles was landing the jab and cut Cummings open, and he landed a hard knee at the end. I gave the first to Giles. Giles was loading up on his punches in the second but Cummings was keeping him away with kicks. Giles was more active in the second and I had it for him but it was close. Cummings was being more aggressive in the third and dropped Giles with a right hand and then locked in a tight guillotine choke and got Giles to tap. Real good finish by Cummings.
3. Ed Herman (24-14 1 NC) beat Patrick Cummins (10-7) in 3:39 in a light heavyweight fight. Both were landing hard punches. Cummins took Herman down and then rocked him with a right hand. Herman landed a big knee that wobbled Cummins and Cummins fell to the mat and Herman landed big punches to finish the fight. Great finish by Herman, who won first the first time since January 2016. He was pleading to be put into the UFC video game during his post-fight interview.
4. Grant Dawson (14-1) beat Michael Trizano (8-1) in 2:29 in the second round in a featherweight fight. Dawson was immediately coming out looking to take Trizano down to the mat. Dawson went for eight takedowns in the first round, but only got two, and at one point Trizano hurt him with a punch but Dawson took him right down. Dawson got the first. Dawson got a takedown in the first minute in the second round and got to mount and was landing punches before Trizano gave up his back. Dawson was able to get the rear-naked choke locked in to get Trizano to submit, handing Trizano his first career loss. It was a great showing for Dawson and he looks like a real threat. I'm not sure it was worthy of a bonus on this show but he got it.
5. Michel Pereira (23-9 2 NC) beat Danny Roberts (16-5) in 1:47 in a welterweight fight. Pereira came in with a lot of hype, known for his exciting fights. He was crying and dancing during his walkout and introduction. He was throwing all kinds of kicks and punches, including rolling kick attempts. Pereira was also using the fence to throw Superman punches and other attacks. The crowd was really into him and loving everything he was doing. Roberts looked confused and was rocked early. The finish came when Pereira landed a flying knee and a straight right hand knocked Roberts out cold. It was a hell of a finish and this was a real star-making showing, and Roberts is a very tough fighter, so it was extremely impressive. Pereira is still young at 25-years-old, though he does have a lot of mileage on him with 34 fights already. He's got a chance to produce exciting fights and I could see the UFC pushing him sooner rather than later.
6. Desmond Green (23-8) beat Charles Jourdain (9-2) via unanimous decision on scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 in a lightweight fight. Green is from Rochester and was begging to be on the show even though he just fought on 3/31. Jourdain was signed as a two-division champion from the TKO promotion, but has fought mainly at featherweight. Green had the crowd behind him big time. Green won the first round based on landing more punches and scoring a takedown while avoiding flying knees from Jourdain. The second round was close as Jourdain was landing leg kicks and Green was being more patient. I had it for Jourdain. Third round was again close as Jourdain was doing damage on the feet but Green got three takedowns late in the round and that looked to be the difference. I had it 29-28 for Green. All but one media scores were for Green.
7. Aspen Ladd (8-0) beat Sijara Eubanks (4-3) via unanimous decision on scores of 30-26, 29-27 and 29-28 in a women's bantamweight fight. These two had fought before in Invicta. Eubanks made weight easily as this was her first fight since moving up from flyweight, where she had lots of trouble making weight. This was one of the most exciting fights on the show. Both ladies got takedowns in the first and had advantages on the ground, but Eubanks rocked Ladd late and got a late knockdown, and if there had been more time, she could have finished it, so Eubanks got the first. The second round was complete domination by Ladd. Ladd got a takedown and was in mount and in control of Eubanks the entire round, including having two submission attempts and ending the round landing big from the top. It was a clear 10-8 round. Third round was real close. Both were tiring and landing punches. Ladd was advancing position more but Eubanks was landing with more volume. Ladd was mixing her strikes more and had clinch control more. Eubanks outlanded her 54-43 in the third. It could have gone either way. I had it 29-27 for Ladd. All three judges had it for her. Two gave her a 10-8 second, but one judge gave her all three rounds, and that was a bad scorecard. Media scores were 61% for Ladd, 17% for Eubanks, and 22% for a draw. Real good fight that got the best fight bonus, and they deserved it.
8. Davi Ramos (10-2) beat Austin Hubbard (10-3) via unanimous decision on scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 30-27 in a lightweight fight. Ramos is a submission wizard while Hubbard was making his UFC debut. Ramos looked a bit off in the fight as it wasn't his usual dominant showing. First round was both landing punches but Ramos got a takedown and was working for a choke. Second round was more of the same with both landing and Ramos getting a late takedown. Third round was Ramos being aggressive and he got a takedown. Ramos was landing punches from the top with Hubbard covering up and Ramos almost had a finish, but the referee inexplicably stood them up while Ramos was landing punches. That was one of the worst stand-ups ever. It could have almost cost Ramos the fight as Hubbard started landing but the fight went the distance. Keith Peterson was the referee, and he is a really good referee, but that stand-up was not a fine moment for him. I had it 30-27 for Ramos as did all media scores. It was probably the most boring fight on the show, but still alright, so that says a lot for the quality of this show.
9. Charles Oliveira (27-8 1 NC) beat Nik Lentz (30-10-2 1 NC) in 2:11 in the second round in a lightweight fight. This was their third time fighting each other, and the fourth time they were scheduled to fight. Their first fight in June 2011 ended in a no contest after Oliveira landed an illegal knee. They were to fight again in September 2014, but Oliveira missed weight and pulled out of the fight on fight day. They fought again in May 2015, which Oliveira won by submission. Oliveira has greatly improved since then. He was being aggressive in the first, cutting Lentz open and reversing positions on a Lentz takedown, and landed late elbows. The second round saw Oliveira get a guillotine locked in tight off a Lentz takedown which almost got Lentz to tap. Oliveira did land an illegal upkick but didn't lose a point. They got up and Lentz threw a kick which Oliveira caught, and Oliveira sent him to the mat with a hard right hand that landed flush on the draw, and finished Lentz off with more punches on the ground. It was Oliveira's fifth straight win, and he is still only 28-years-old despite being around seemingly forever. It is time for him to get a big fight at lightweight and this may have been the best he has ever looked.
10. Vicente Luque (16-6-1) beat Derrick Krantz (24-11) in 3:32 in a welterweight fight. Krantz took the fight on Tuesday of fight week. Krantz hurt Luque early with big punches and was threatening with submissions. Luque escaped those and got to his feet and quickly took over. Luque stumbled Krantz with a hard left hand and then knocked him down with a punch and then started landing punches on the ground until it was stopped. That was Luque's fifth straight win, all of them coming by stoppage. He was calling out Santiago Ponzinibbio for a fight in the UFC's debut in Uruguay later this year. He deserves a high-profile fight.
11. Felicia Spencer (7-0) beat Megan Anderson (9-4) in 3:24 in a women's featherweight fight. This was a battle of the last two Invicta 145-pound champions. Anderson was a crowd favorite here. This fight was all Spencer, though. Spencer was able to get the back early on and dragged Anderson to the ground and softened her up with punches. Spencer was able to flatten Anderson out to find the rear-naked choke and get Anderson to submit. This was a huge win for Spencer in her UFC debut. There aren't many featherweights in the UFC and Cris Cyborg was angling to fight Spencer, but that is because Cyborg wants to fight and there are very few options. Spencer was at least open to the idea.
12. Ian Heinisch (13-1) beat Antonio Carlos Junior (10-3 1 NC) via unanimous decision on scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 29-28 in a middleweight fight. Carlos Junior looked huge in there. It was all his round in the first as he got three takedowns and Heinisch barely landed anything in the round. Junior had the back late and was working for a choke. It was close to a 10-8 round. Heinisch came on better to start the second but accidentally landed a head-butt, which hurt Junior and took him out of the round as Heinisch was in total control. Junior got a takedown but Heinisch ended up on top and was landing and got close to a finish. It was 1-1 after two. Junior was tired in the third and Heinisch got a takedown and landed a knee that almost knocked Junior out. Heinisch was also stuffing takedowns and landing big punches, especially to close out the round. I had it 29-28 for Heinisch as did all but one media score. It was a big win for Heinisch as Carlos Junior had looked really good in his recent outings, and Heinisch is now a name to be watched beating a ranked opponent. Heinisch called out both Derek Brunson and Jack Hermansson.
13. Rafael Dos Anjos (29-11) beat Kevin Lee (17-5) in 3:47 in the fourth round in a welterweight fight. Both men looked good early on here. It was a very tense fight from the onset. Both men got takedowns in the first, but Lee got the first one very early on and did more with his. Lee also landed better punches and was in control of the clinch a lot in the round. I had the first for Lee. Lee got an early takedown in the second but they got to their feet and Dos Anjos rocked him with a head kick and was controlling the back. The action then started to slow in the round and both landed hard punches, but the volume belonged to Dos Anjos as he tied it up. The third round was the most interesting round in the fight. Dos Anjos got two takedowns while Lee got three. Dos Anjos landed way more punches but Lee seemed to have more control in the round, though he didn't do a whole lot. It seemed like the takedowns Lee were getting were starting to take their toll on him, but I thought he did enough to take a 2-1 lead into the fourth. Lee was tired coming out for the round and Dos Anjos looked as fresh as ever. They both landed hard punches and then Dos Anjos hurt Lee with a body kick. That took Lee out of it. Lee was going for a takedown but Dos Anjos started to take him down. It ended up with Dos Anjos on top of Lee and moving right into the mount. Lee was trapped and wasn't really defending and Dos Anjos quickly found an opening for the arm-triangle choke, locked it in and got Lee to tap. It wasn't the most exciting main event, but still a good fight and a good way to end the show.

Smackdown on 5/21 drew 1,983,000 viewers, up 8.2 percent from the record-low for a live show of 1,833,000 the previous week.

Smackdown beat the St. Louis Blues vs. San Jose Sharks series final that did 1,807,000 viewers.

It finished eighth for the night on cable. It was down only 9.7 percent from the same week last year.

The show did a 0.40 in 12-17 (identical to last week), 0.42 in 18-34 (up 16.7 percent), 0.80 in 35-49 (up 5.3 percent) and 0.87 in 50+ (up 8.8 percent).

The audience was 65.6 percent male in 18-49 and 69.4 percent male in 12-17.

Miz & Mrs., for the final episode of this season, did 1,037,000 viewers, it second best mark of the season.

The audience retention from Smackdown was 74 percent in women 18-49, 55 percent in men 18-49, 74 percent in girls 12-17, 65 percent in boys 12-17 and 41 percent over 50. Essentially all those commercials of Miz saying he doesn’t have a Dad bod intrigued the WWE audience more than usual to stick around.

The combination of being the day after a PPV show that built a strong curiosity ending with Brock Lesnar winning Money in the Bank, combined with a show-long tease of Lesnar cashing in, led to Raw on 5/20 doing its best numbers since 4/15 with a 1.73 rating and 2,521,000 viewers (1.64 viewers per home, an unusually large number meaning that this show had more cross-over in home appeal than usual shows).

This came even going against the Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers game that did 7,788,000 viewers. Raw finished seventh for the night on cable, trailing only NBA and news related programming.

The show was down only 5.2 percent from the 2,659,000 viewers from the same week last year, which also went against NBA playoffs. It was the lowest year-to-year decline of Raw since the 9/3 episode, which was the week before football season.

The rating was up 3.0 percent but viewership was up 7.3 percent from last week’s show due to the usually large viewers per home. Last week’s show also didn’t have NBA competition. Even though the show was heavily geared, between putting both Kofi Kingston & Seth Rollins in the main event and teasing that Lesnar was going to cash in, plus the creation of the 24/7 title, there was still a 14 percent first-to-third hour decline. It wasn’t as bad as most third hours, but still wouldn’t be good.

In the decline, it was 17 percent with women 18-49, 11 percent with men 18-49, only one percent with girls 12-17 (this audience stayed better than in a long time as usually this is a major declining audience as the show goes on) and 19 percent with boys 12-17, plus 14 percent among those over 50.

The first hour did 2,681,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,583,000 viewers. The third hour did 2,299,000 viewers.

The audience that increased was over the age of 35, so that’s who MITB and Lesnar seemed to appeal to, although it was also strongly up with teenage girls, but not with teenage boys.

The show did a 0.54 in 12-17 (up 1.9 percent from last week), 0.63 in 18-34 (up 3.3 percent), 1.13 in 35-49 (up 12.4 percent) and 1.00 in 50+ (up 6.4 percent).

The audience was 63.4 percent male in 18-49 and 56.6 percent male in 12-17.

The final episode of the Dark Side of the Ring series on 5/15 no Fabulous Moolah did 200,000 viewers, which was down from the three highest which were the Texas related shows on Bruiser Brody, Kevin Von Erich and Gino Hernandez. Interesting that the three World Class shows beat the three WWE shows (Randy Savage, which was the lowest but also the first week, the Montreal screwjob and Moolah).

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CMLL: CMLL announced that they are now going to peak for a major show every month rather than the current deal where they just run regular shows most weeks and maybe three big ones a year. The first show will be 5/31 called Juicio Final (Final Justice) and be built around Ultimo Guerrero vs. Mascara Ano 2000 in a hair vs. hair match. This bout has been built up for weeks and given Mascara is 61 years old, it’s probably not going to be that good, but these are legit Mexican wrestling legends. They will also have a women’s hair vs. hair match with Amapola vs. Kaho Kobayashi, and a CMLL tag team title match with Diamante Azul & Valiente defending against Gran Guerrero & Euforia. The rest of the show has Caristico & Mistico & Volador Jr. against Cavernario & Mr. Niebla & Negro Casas, Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja & Soberano Jr. vs. Mephisto & Ephesto & Luciferno, and opening with Black Panther & Blue Panther Jr. & Rey Cometa vs. Kawato San & Misterioso Jr.; & Virus.

The company got a new television deal on TV Mexiquense, a public broadcasting channel in Mexico, airing every Sunday at Noon starting on 6/2. The plan is to air the weekly Sunday shows at Arena Mexico, which are the only ones currently not streaming, on a one week delay

They also announced a three-week Copa Dinastia tournament. This will be an eight-week tag team tournament for shows on 6/7, 6/14 and the finals on 6/21

The 5/17 show at Arena Mexico was said to be a nothing card. The main event went two falls and only 8:00, so the show ended much earlier than usual. Cavernario, who replaced Matt Taven who was originally set for a tour here and it was canceled, teamed with Cuatrero & Sanson, to beat Mistico & Caristico & Valiente (replacing Volador Jr.) with Cavernario unmasking Mistico and pinning him in the second fall to set up a singles match. The Ultimo Guerrero vs. Mascara Ano 2000 match continued being built as Ultimo & Gran Guerrero & Euforia got a DQ win over Mascara & Mephisto & Ephesto when Mascara gain gave Ultimo a low blow, but this time was caught doing so. Negro Casas pinned Soberano Jr., in a singles match with a Canadian Destroyer (Casas at 59 learning new moves) and his Casita cradle. Hechicero suffered a hand injury in a trios match earlier in the card where as soon as he was hurt, they rushed right to the finish

Volador Jr. missed events this week due to an injury. There was no explanation past an injury

5/24 will be the last angles built for 5/31, with a Mistico vs. Cavernario singles match with no stips, Ultimo Guerrero & Casas & Felino vs. Mascara Ano 2000 & Cuatrero & Forastero, Soberano Jr. & Stuka Jr. & Valiente vs. Gran Guerrero & Euforia & Templario plus Kobayashi and Amapola in a trios match.

AAA: The company’s next major event is Verano de Escandalo, their version of SummerSlam, which takes place on 6/16 in Merida. The eight-match card was announced as headlined by Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown vs. Blue Demon Jr. & Taurus, which will be designed to add more heat to the Wagner vs Demon hair vs. mask match at TripleMania. The Young Bucks return to defend the AAA tag team titles against Pentagon Jr. & Fenix. Obviously if the titles change hands at Double or Nothing, this would be the rematch. But it sort of feels like, if the Young Bucks were to win in Las Vegas, that would be two wins in a row, so this would be the loss. I’d have thought that rematch would have been saved for TripleMania. The rest of the show has El Hijo del Vikingo & La Parka & Myzteziz Jr. vs. La Hiedra & Rey Escorpion & El Texano Jr., Aerostar & Pagano & Puma King vs. Chessman & Killer Kross & Monsther Clown, Laredo Kid & Taya Valkyrie v. Daga & Tessa Blanchard (almost surely leading to Taya vs. Blanchard in a singles program, perhaps for TripleMania or Madison Square Garden), Maximo & Mamba vs. Australian Suicide & Sammy Guevara, Faby Apache vs. El Hijo del Tirantes, and opening with Keyra vs. Lady Shani vs. Chik Tormenta. Notable is no follow-up here on the Cody vs. Taurus angle shot at Rey de Reyes

Forbes Magazine listed Marisela Pena, the owner of the promotion, as one of the 100 most powerful women in Mexican business

Blue Demon Jr., is in a Burger King marketing campaign in Mexico

They did two TV tapings over the weekend. The first was 5/18 in Tuxtla Gutierrez. It opened noting that Silver King had just passed away and that Dr. Wagner Jr. wouldn’t be on the show. The entire roster came out and surrounded the ring and they played a Silver King video. Psycho Clown then spoke about Silver King. Puma King did an interview calling Killer Kross a coward and said this has been the best year of his career, wrestling in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Daga came out and said he’s been wrestling in the same places and he’s only here in AAA to win gold. They went at it when Chessman & Villano III Jr. helped Daga. Puma King was still holding his own until Kross laid out Puma. Finally Vikingo and Laredo Kid came out, but they were also laid out. Pagano made the save. In a match with woman wrestler Chik Tormenta teaming with Australian Suicide against Mytzeziz Jr.& Nino Hamburguesa, Myzteziz went for a 450 on Suicide but landed with his foot on Tormenta’s face. They immediately held up the “X” sign and she was taken out of the ring. It was scary, but she ended up being okay and was able to wrestle the next night. They are teasing problems with Big Mami and Nino Hamburguesa, an undercard comedy pairing. Lady Maravilla has been flirting with Nino and Mami is mad. Mami warned Nino she was using him, but he didn’t listen and walked to the back holding hands with Maravilla. Tessa Blanchard debuted, teaming with Hiedra vs. Faby Apache & Lady Shani. She pinned Apache with a DDT with a fast count by El Hijo del Tirantes. At one point Apache had Blanchard in a submission move and Tirantes physically broke it up. Apache attacked Tirantes after the match since they’ve got a big angle. Daga & Chessman & Villano III Jr. beat Flamita & Vikingo & Laredo Kid when Daga pinned Vikingo after a pedigree into a codebreaker. Lots of dangerous moves here. Laredo did a dive to Chessman and Chessman landed back first on a chair. Villano was limping after an apparent knee injury while medics were checking on Chessman’s back. Main event has Kross & Texano Jr. & Escorpion over Puma King & Pagano & Psycho. La Hiedra was helping the Kross team. Texano pinned Pagano when Chessman helped out and sprayed Mist in Pagano’s eyes. Puma cleaned house with a chain when it was over

5/19 in Villahermosa opened with a video of The Young Bucks talking about all the championships they’ve won to build up their match with the Lucha Brothers. The show was at an outdoor venue but it was 100 degrees out. A lot of people arrived late. They noted Dr. Wagner Jr. not being there with his brother’s death. They continued the Big Mami, Lady Maravilla and Nino Hamburguesa storyline where Mami wanted to apologize to Hamburguesa but Maravilla and El Halcon 78 Jr. attacked her. There was a trios match with Astrolux & Faby Apache & Hamburguesa vs. Chik Tormenta & El Hijo del Tirantes & Blanchard when Blanchard pinned Astrolux after a DDT. Hamburguesa at one point splashed off the top on both Tormenta and Tirantes. Maravilla came out to distract him and Mami again tried to warn Hamburguesa about Maravilla. But Hamburguesa left the ring with Maravilla. A five-way for a shot at the Latin American title saw Australian Suicide pin Villano III Jr. with a shooting star press. Others in the match were Flamita, Golden Magic and Myzteziz Jr. Killer Kross then destroyed everyone in the match until Puma King ran him off with a chair. Pagano pinned Chessman in a bloodbath TLC match. Escorpion & Texano Jr. & Hiedra beat Vikingo & Laredo Kid & Lady Shani when Shani was pinned after a triple team power bomb and Hiedra unmasked her. In the main event, Blue Demon Jr. & Daga & Kross beat Puma King & La Parka & Psycho Clown when Demon pinned Parka after a low blow with a fast count by El Hijo del Tirantes. Kross power bombed Puma King into a table, which didn’t break much. Psycho gave Daga the Psycho driver through the announcers table.

DRAGON GATE: The group did a two-show tour of Hong Kong this week. They drew 279 and 306 fans for the two events so it was clearly not that big of a deal. They worked with the local promotion that former WWE performer Ho Ho Lun is a part of. They used Hong Kong wrestler mixed with their guys underneath and the top matches were Dragon Gate

Point standings for the King of Gate tournament as of 5/23 are: A: Kazma Sakamoto 6, Naruki Doi 2, Kzy 2, U-T 2, Punch Tominaga 0, Ryo Saito 0; B: Eita 4, Susumu Yokosuka 4, Yosuke Santa Maria 2 and Yasushi Kanda 0; C: Takashi Yoshida 4, Genki Horiguchi 4,Ben K 2, Kagetora 2, Kaito Ishida 0 and Yamato 0; D: Shun Skywalker 4, Masaaki Mochizuki 4, Jason Lee 2, Kai 2, Big R Shimizu 2,and Dragon Kid 0

The 5/9 show at Korakuen Hall opened the King of Gate tournament with the first night all about the younger guys beating the established stars. (B) Eita beat Masato Yoshino in just 4:07 with a crucifix. (D) Shun Skywalker beat mentor Masaaki Mochizuki in 11:28. (A) Kzy pinned Naruki Doi with a schoolboy in 14:06 and © Ben K beat Yamato in 17:01

5/11 in Osaka before 825 saw © Takashi Yoshida over Genki Horiguchi with a Cyber bomb; (D) Mochizuki over Kai with a crucifix; (A) Doi over Kazma Sakamoto; and (B) Eita over Susumu Yokosuka

5/12 in Kobe saw (B) Yokosuka over Yuki Yoshioka; © Horiguchi pinned Yamato with a backslide, (D) Skywalker over Big R Shimizu and (A) Kazma Sakamoto over Kzy

5/15 in Hong Kong saw (B) Yokosuka over Yoshino in 14:30

5/16 in Hong Kong saw (D) Lee over Mochizuki in 17:00

5/18 back in Japan in Kariya before 468 fans saw (A) U-T over Tominaga in 8:39; © Yoshida over Kagetora with the pineapple bomber in 9:12, (B) Yoshino over Yoshioka in 9:56 with Sol Nasciente and (D) Shimizu over Dragon Kid in 12:50 with the shot put slam

5/19 in Yokkaichi before 509 saw (B) Yoshioka over Santa Maria in 9:52; © Kagetora over Horiguchi in 7:54, (A) Sakamoto over Saito in 10:45 with a package piledriver and (D) Kai over Lee in 11:01

5/22 in Yokohama saw Santa Maria (B) beat Kanda in 9:52 with a Japanese rolling crotch hold; © Horiguchi pinned Ishida in 7:08 with a backslide; (A) Sakamoto pinned Tominaga in 7:13 with a half package piledriver and (D) Mochizuki beat Shimizu in 11:24 with a German suplex.

ALL JAPAN: They were back in action on 5/20 at Korakuen Hall where a sellout 1,566 fans saw Kento Miyahara retain the Triple Crown title over Shuji Ishikawa (who beat him during the Champion Carnival) in 27:41 with the shutdown German suplex. I was told this was an awesome show. Ishikawa was on fire in this one and I was told this was the best of their bouts so far and was told this was ****½, with one exceptional near fall. Nobody came out to challenge Miyahara after the match. Atsushi Aoki won the jr. title from Koji Iwamoto in 14:26 with the Nagata lock. Was told this was a **** match, a great technical match. Iwamoto works reminiscent of early 90s Chris Benoit and the submission at the end looked great. Big Japan’s Ryuichi Kawakami & Kazumi Kikuta retained the All-Asia tag titles over Zeus & Atsushi Maruyama in 17:00 when Kawakami pinned Maruyama after a hurricane driver. Told this was ****1/4. Maruyama usually does a lot of comedy which hides how good he is but this match showed it. Very good great heat. Nobe Bryant, the long-time Dallas area independent wrestler started this week here. He was the most impressive guy at the San Jose tryout in March that Jun Akiyama scouted. He worked in a six-man tag and was said to have shown a lot of charisma and great athletic ability.

NEW JAPAN: The 7/6 Dallas show at last report had sold about 2,800 tickets. They are hoping for a big late buy, and they did get that in San Francisco once the card was announced, but late buys are going to be local and New Japan doesn’t have that many fans in Dallas. Lance Archer has been heavily promoting the show including going to indie cards in the area and selling tickets. Jushin Liger has been added to the show. London on 8/30 is at 6,100 tickets sold at this point, so it will sell out

New Japan World subscribers have hit 122,000 with good gains coming with the start of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. An interesting note is that the two most-watched matches thus far have been Rocky Romero’s matches with Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagles. Some of that is because Australia and the U.K. are in more favorable time slots than the U.S., but still, you’d think the Japanese bouts would dominate since Japan has the most subscribers. This has helped Eagles in the eyes of management. The new people who have signed up in the last week are mostly from Europe, not the U.S., or Japan, so there’s a feeling Ospreay being in a key position has helped a lot. Eagles was said to be the most popular newcomer this year, with part of the reason believed that the fans are comfortable with him because he’s half-Asian. His new Bullet Club T-shirt is the best selling Bullet Club shirt in Japan since the Young Bucks were taken out of the group. It was noted he’s also getting over with women and children, similar to Juice Robinson, and women are a key demographic they are after

Dallas was chosen for the first night of G-1 because of Mark Cuban running the arena. There has been talk for years regarding Cuban getting involved in a larger role. He himself has done some pub for New Japan shows that are specials on AXS

On the positive side, the last three nights of G-1 at Budokan Hall from 8/10 to 8/12 haven’t had tickets put on sale yet, but the Fan Club has been able to get tickets before being put on sale and the demand surpassed last year, which were the most successful last three nights of G-1 since 1999 when they sold out Sumo Hall three times in a row. Last year sold out the larger Budokan Hall for the Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi finals although that was sold out long before anyone knew what was in the finals, just as this year’s finals are a sure thing as far as selling out goes. What made last year so successful was the B block finals with Kenny Omega vs. Ibushi also sold out ahead of time based on that match. The A block finals with Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada drew a half house of 6,180. As noted before, Dominion is almost sold out for 6/9 at Osaka Jo Hall with three matches announced, which are Okada vs. Chris Jericho for the IWGP title, Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IC title (which Ibushi having beaten Naito at both the New Japan Cup and in MSG, and with Naito doing a storyline of wanting to be the first person to hold the IC and IWGP titles at the same time, one would think Naito is the favorite here) and Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the Never title. When all seats are sold out they will add some standing room tickets

The 6/5 Best of the Super Juniors finals at Sumo Hall is not close to sold out

The current tour isn’t knocking them dead. They are doing low 1,000s for the junior tourney nights and not selling out

Omega was very quietly deleted this past week from the New Japan roster page. We were told that the company hopes he will return in the future and they are still wanting to work with him

You can cross Chris Brookes off the list as far as who the mystery opponent for Juice Robinson that will be announced on 6/5 will be. DDT put out a video which was a total spoof of the New Japan video with the mystery British wrestler, and revealed in their video that Brookes is coming to DDT starting on 6/15. Because of the hint of it being someone from the U.K., the speculation is that it’ll be ROH’s Mark Haskins

Tanahashi was officially announced for the 6/29 and 6/30 shows in Sydney and Melbourne

Tama Tonga won’t be in this year’s G-1 Climax tournament. He’s booked on Defy shows on 7/26 and 7/27 in Seattle, which is in the middle of the tournament. He asked to be off the tournament this year

Australia and New Zealand grapplers Liam Fury, Tome Filip & Stevie Filip will be coming here to train at the dojo through a connection with Bad Luck Fale.

OTHER JAPAN NOTES: Fujita Junior Hayato, 32, underwent surgery on 5/13 to remove a malignant tumor on his spine. In doing the surgery, they found another tumor

Katsuya Kitamura, the former three-time Japanese national amateur champion at heavyweight who was all jacked and had all that fire who turned down a contract offer from New Japan with the idea of working elsewhere, still hasn’t wrestled anywhere. Kitamura smashed his leg and there was some concern if he could wrestle again. New Japan offered him a deal for this year but wasn’t quick on clearing him. But he had other medical issues having nothing to do with the leg and hasn’t signed with anyone else

In a big surprise, Arisa Hoshiki stopped the record-setting Wonder of Stardom title reign of Momo Watanabe on the 5/16 show at Korakuen Hall which drew 783 fans. Hoshiki won with a Brazilian kick in 12:57. Watanabe had just set the record for most title defenses. World of Stardom champion Bea Priestley pinned Hazuki with the Queen’s Landing (Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex) in 8:58 to keep the World of Stardom title. This was the bout originally to be Priestley vs. Toni Storm, but WWE forced that match not to happen because it would be WWE talent losing to AEW talent. Hana Kimura & Jungle Kyona & Konami won the Artist of Stardom trios titles from Mayu Iwatani & Tam Nakano & Saki Kashima when Konami tapped out Kashima with the triangle lancer in 16:49. Toni Storm, who was originally scheduled to lose to Priestley, except WWE nixed that finish, went to a 15:00 draw with Kagetsu. This was Storm’s last night on the tour

DDT ran on 5/19 at Korakuen Hall before 979 fans. In the semifinals of the King of DDT tournament, Konosuke Takeshita beat Kazusada Higuchi with a lariat and Soma Takao beat Harashima with a reverse Gori especial comb. Takeshita beat Takao in 21:11 in the finals to make him the top contender for the KO-D open weight championship. Tetsuya Endo, the champion, retained on the card beating Keisuke Ishii in 18:14 with a shooting star press. Sanshiro Takagi also won the right to challenge for the title at any time in winning a five-way over Yuki Ueno, Mao, Kota Umeda and Naomi Yoshimura.

HERE AND THERE: The medical examiner’s office in London confirmed the early reports that the death of Cesar Gonzalez, better known as Silver King, on 5/11 in the ring in London, was due to a heart attack. It was noted that his father, the legendary Dr. Wagner, died the same way at the age of 68

One thing notable about his death is that, as noted last week, there has been a movement throughout wrestling for referees to get CPR training, which is only a good thing. Daniel Lopez, better known as El Satanico, who runs the commission out of Zapopan, which is the Guadalajara region, has now mandated that shows need two ambulances on site and one paramedic, who will be assigned by the commission, will be on every show along with a doctor and that at least one referee on every show will need to have had CPR training. Lopez said that he wants all referees to have that training

Ulises Gonzalez, the son of Silver King, denied the story Juventud Guerrera said about how his father had a medical issue they didn’t know about at the time. Gonzalez held a press conference on 5/19 and said his father was healthy and 100 percent clean. Normally I’d say to dismiss what Juventud Guerrera says, but this would be the exception to that rule. Gonzalez said that all the paperwork backs that up. His brother, Dr. Wagner Jr., said that Silver King had no vice, that he did no drugs. His son said that his believes his father would still be alive if people had acted faster. The truth is, we’ll never know. He said his father would have needed a pacemaker after the heart attack and would have had to have retired from wrestling

Next week’s issue will probably be late because of me being out of town most of the week for Starrcast in Las Vegas. Bryan Alvarez and I will be doing multiple shows, both regular shows for the site and two live shows. There will be a live wrestling show at Noon on 5/24 with Bryan Alvarez vs. Logan Stunt as the main event. We have a ton of stuff planned for 5/24. At 5 p.m. Bryan and I will do a Q&A show at Caesar’s Palace as part of Starrcast. There will be a dinner at Texas de Brazil steak house for readers at 8:30 p.m. that night as well as a party for readers as the Cosmopolitan at 10 p.m. and we may be taping stuff there as well. Details on tickets for the wrestling show, the dinner and the party are at https://poder.brownpapertickets.com/ Bryan and I will be doing a readers exclusive Q&A session with a meet and greet/autograph signing/pictures starting at 10 a.m. Saturday morning as the Tuscany Suites and the actual show starting at about 11 a.m.. Details for attending that are at https://f4wvegas2019.brownpapertickets.com/ There is also a readers party on Saturday night after the AEW show. I would go with the idea that Bryan and I won’t be there for that as we’ll be doing post-show work and recording a show, but if it’s possible we’ll drop by

On Sunday, I’ll be part of a Brian Pillman panel at Starrcast at 10 a.m. Sunday morning and at 4 p.m. Sunday I’ll be at the screening of the Kenny Omega documentary that aired on TSN in Canada (there will be new scenes added in this screening) and be part of a panel with Omega which both take place at Caesar’s Palace. I will probably attend a Bret Hart panel at 10 a.m. Saturday morning at Caesar’s although I’m not part of that, which will include Tom Magee. We’ll be doing a lot of radio over the weekend

Starrcast events will be on Fite TV from 5/23 to 5/26. The complete package for all events is $59.99, or there are single day plans where 5/23, 5/25 and 5/26 are $14.99 per day and 5/24 is $39.99 per day

Joey Janela’s Spring Break 4 is going to be the most ambitious WrestleMania week opposition show in history. It’s one thing to book Madison Square Garden with ROH & New Japan when fans think they’re getting The Young Bucks, Omega, Cody, Tanahashi, Okada and Ibushi. It’s quite another to book a 5,000 seat concert Hall, the Cuban Club in Ybor City, FL, on April 3, 2020, book it head-to-head with a live Smackdown show in Tampa, and to outright promote that they are going to sell it out as soon as they put tickets on sale. That’s likely without even announcing a show. The Janela shows have been selling out and been one of the hotter ticket items the last three years, but this is a big increase in size and going head-up with WWE. Game Changer Wrestling, the promotion behind it, will have three days of activities at the Cuban Club and in the area, including live events, theater and stage shows, live music, parties and seminar. Game Changer Wrestling has also announced shows on 8/22 and 8/23 in Tokyo, as well as 8/9 in Los Angeles

The National Wrestling Hall of Fame announced its 2019 induction ceremony weekend will be 7/25 to 7/27 in Waterloo, IA. The Tragos/Thesz pro wrestling Hall of Fame inductees will be Beth Phoenix and Bruno Sammartino. They like to induct people who have had amateur wrestling backgrounds that went on to pro wrestling success, because Tragos was an Olympic champion and Thesz was a high-caliber wrestler for his era and that was a key reason he was kept champion for so long. Phoenix did amateur wrestling before getting into pro wrestling, winning some tournaments and competing on the wrestling team in high school, and had been honored with the Gotch Award in the past. Sammartino trained in amateur wrestling while he was competing as a weightlifter and bodybuilder. They will also honor Thunderbolt Patterson with the Lou Thesz Award, which is for work outside of wrestling, Sgt. Slaughter with the Frank Gotch Award, which is for someone who brought a higher level of respect for pro wrestling inside and outside the ring, Brian Shields with the Jim Melby Award (for reporting on wrestling) and Daniel Cormier with the Tragos Award (which goes to a high-caliber amateur wrestler who excels in MMA). Cormier will not be attending because of the proximity to his 8/17 UFC heavyweight title defense against Stipe Miocic. The others will be attending with the exception, obviously, of Sammartino. Shields has written a number of WWE books including “Second Nature: The Legacy of Ric Flair and the Rise of Charlotte,” “30 Years of WretleMania,” “The WWE Encyclopedia,” and “Main Event: WWE in the Raging 80s” and books with John Cena, HHH and Hulk Hogan. The weekend includes a pro wrestling evaluation and training camp headed by Gerald Brisco, an afternoon and evening live pro wrestling show, a Wade Keller live podcast, an autograph session and other activities. Announced as being there for the weekend are Sheamus, Natalya, Brisco, Jim Ross, J.J . Dillon, Brian Blair, Victoria, Ultimo Dragon, Brian Pillman Jr., Tony Garea and Lou Thesz’s widow, Charlie Thesz

A statue of Jack Veneno, the wrestling hero in the Dominican Republic, was unveiled last month.

MLW: Adam Brooks vs. Austin Aries was added to the 6/1 show in Milwaukee.

ROH: They are trying to push the 8/9 Toronto show over SummerSlam weekend as a major event, pushing it will have talent from ROH, New Japan, CMLL and the NWA

Shane Taylor defends the TV title against Bandido on the 6/28 PPV show from Baltimore. This stems from Bandido pinning Taylor in the four-way on the 5/5 show in Toronto

The next shows are 6/1 in Kent, WA for a TV taping and 6/2 in Portland, OR. The Kent show has announced Matt Taven vs. Tracy Williams for the ROH title, Jay Lethal vs. Kenny King in the second bout of their best-of-three series, Colt Cabana vs. Mark Briscoe for the NWA National title, PCO vs. Jay Briscoe, Mark Haskins vs. Jeff Cobb and Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan vs. Brawler Milonas & Beer City Bruiser

The Portland show has Taven vs. PCO vs. Flip Gordon vs. Haskins and if anyone pins Taven in the match they will get a title match that night, plus a tag team gauntlet match with the winner getting a title shot

The main event for 7/20 in Manhattan at the Hammerstein Ballroom is Taven vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH title

The wrestler who used the name The Squid at the TV tapings was Brian Johnson.

IMPACT: Add Scarlett Bordeaux (Elizabeth Chihaia, 28) to Killer Kross as far as asking for her release. Bordeaux has appeared in some of the Joey Ryan BTE videos although not as a major character. Bordeaux and Killer Kross are a couple so her asking for her release at the same time he did wasn’t a shock

Jordynne Grace (Patricia Parker, 23), who was in the Battle Royal at Double or Nothing, which is really where she kind of got over, was also noted by PW Insider that she is not under contract. She was offered a contract and has been pushed but never actually signed the contract, making her a free agent. But she was given an ultimatum to sign or not be used anytime further so she agreed to sign and posted a photo with an Impact T-shirt saying the place would be here home for the next several years. It was noted that there are places she likes going such as Eve in London and Sendai Girls, and with Impact, she gets U.S. exposure, as minimal as that may be, gets a push, builds her name and can work where she wants. In WWE, they’d probably hire her but she’d be lost in the shuffle and AEW would push her but she may not be able to work other places

Bordeaux has some incredible YouTube numbers for some of her stuff with AAA in Mexico. She can legit be called the No. 1 YouTube draw active in pro wrestling right now. What that means, I’m not sure but that’s also not a secret

The 5/17 television show was a mess for a number of reasons. The first and main thing is that in the much-lauded Michael Elgin vs. Rich Swann, in the television version on Pursuit, after Swann did three dives and a top rope move, they went to a commercial break. This was 96 minutes into a two-hour show. The next 24 minutes were nothing but commercials and they never came back. It wasn’t a problem with the tape, because they air the show at the same time on Twitch and they showed the complete match. The worst part of all this is that so few people watch Impact now (the last rating we heard for the show on Pursuit was around 10,000 viewers) that there was almost no talk about the miscue anywhere. I had zero e-mails or questions about it when I went to watch the show myself to see that specific match and saw the problem. Aside from that it was mostly a good show

Gursinder Singh, who had asked for his release, was granted it this past week.

AEW: I don’t know the details but the full-time contracts the talent signed does include a drug testing provision and there are plans to implement a drug testing program

Nick Jackson said the company’s philosophies on titles is there will be very few, and they will all be booked to be meaningful. The idea is that every title change should be a significant story

Cody announced that they would be doing a PPV from the U.K., which we had already reported. He also strongly hinted ITV would be airing the weekly television show. He didn’t say it, told people to call he station, and then winked, and told everyone he was winking. As noted last week, there are obviously talks in that direction but until TNT finalizes the day, at that point then they can go to stations in the U.K. and Canada and try to finalize those deals

On the 5/20 BTE show, they opened with a tear-jerker segment where they offered Brandon Cutler a full-time contract to both wrestle and help produce the BTE show. They showed him breaking down and calling his wife, which sounded like she was as well. They showed Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus picking cards for the Casino Battle Royale. They acted like Luchasaurus wasn’t entered in it but since he was there Matt said he could take Michael Elgin’s spot. Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus did their characters where neither could talk, and then Luchasaurus started talking perfect English and said he had a Master’s Degree and Jungle Boy talked as well. Sammy Guevara was talking with Fuego del Sol and admitting he’s been a dick in the past and Fuego thought maybe he was a nice guy. MJF wanted to kill Dustin Rhodes in front of a gym with a sword from behind but Dustin turned around, thought he was MJF, but he denied he was. Cody gave Page a speech about how he was always full gear ready and then they showed him heading to England to face Pac to build for the release of the match. They also had some clips of going to the TNT upfronts but actually had very little about it

In an interesting move, the Double or Nothing show is treating media like they are covering a sports event. They sent out a list of things that a real sport would send out to media with details, credentials, areas to file stories, backstage interviews for stories after the show and much more. WWE does do a media room in the suites for WrestleMania and Takeovers do have a post-show press conference with Paul Levesque, but not with the talent, but this likely comes from the sports background of Tony Khan and with the guys involved learning from their days working New Japan major shows.

UFC: Arnold Berdon, the husband of Rachael Ostovich, was sentenced to four years probation but no jail time in his beating of his wife in November. Berdon had pleaded no contest n 3/14 to second degree assault. Ostovich in court on 5/16 said she had forgiven him and did not ask for him to be put in jail. Prosecuting attorney Robert Rawson was looking at five years in prison, noting that this wasn’t one punch, but a ten minute brutal assault, where she begged him to stop and had to escape going off the balcony and ran to her sister-in-law’s house. She had claimed he had punched her repeatedly in the head, face and ribs, that she suffered a cracked orbital bone and coughed up blood. Both had been drinking prior to the incident. Ostovich had been granted a divorce on 5/15 and full custody of her six-year-old daughter. Berdon was to be allowed supervised visits and possibility of some custody after completing anger management and domestic violence intervention courses

Tyron Woodley pulled out of his 6/29 main event in Minneapolis against Robbie Lawler. Woodley cited a right hand injury, saying it was hurting and he had to be able to use it to fight

They announced an 8/31 show in Shenzhen, China at the Univeriade Sports Centre. They also announced the opening of the UFC Performance Institute in Shanghai next month. Like so many other companies, UFC is spending big hoping to be able to develop championship fighters from China which would lead to building a fan base there. WWE has the same idea. The plan is to open a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art facility and in particular is pushing Zhang Weili, a strawweight who is now ranked as the No. 6 contender for Jessica Andrade as perhaps their first Chinese superstars

. The planned Junior Dos Santos vs. Francis Ngannou fight that was scheduled for the 7/6 PPV show in Las Vegas is being moved up a week to be the main event on the 6/29 show in Minneapolis. It takes the spot of the planned Tyron Woodley vs. Robby Lawler main event, since Woodley’s hand wasn’t in good enough shape to fight

UFC’s Emmy-nominated short films called “UFC 25 years in Short,” which first aired on Fight Pass, is being released on YouTube with a new short being released each weekday from 5/20 to 6/21. There were stories, many of which were produced by people who had produced ESPN 30 for 30 specials. The UFC 25 Years in Short series was nominated for a Sports Emmy in the category of Outstanding Edited Sports Special or Series. The first three episodes should be up at this writing, which were the story of the origin of the UFC Octagon, The story of the first MMA team the Lion’s Den headed by Ken Shamrock and The Story of the UFC Championship belt. Pieces to be released are: The Story of the Political Crusade to ban UFC from PPV (5/23), The Story of UFC getting run out of Niagara Falls, NY for a 1997 show at the last time (5/24), The Story of Chuck Liddell, the first major superstar (5/27), The Story of Matt Hughes and his battle for survival (5/28), Donald Trump’s history with UFC (5/29), The Story of the Fertitta Brothers and Dana White (5/30), Kevin Lynch’s Iconic UFC photos (5/31), The UFC vs. Pride rivalry (6/3), The Story of Georges St-Pierre (6/4), The Reunion of the first season of Ultimate Fighter cast (6/5), The Octagon Girls (6/6), The Story of Forrest Griffin (6/7), The UFC’s connection with the Armed Forces (6/10), The story of Daniel Cormier (6/11), The UFC Live Event experience (6/12), The Fight for Legalization in New York (6/13), Junior Dos Santos bringing a nine-year old boy from the Favela to the UFC (6/14), The Story of Ronda Rousey and the rise of women fighters (6/17), Biggest Feuds in UFC history (6/18), The Story of UFC’s drug testing (6/19), The sale of UFC to WME IMG (6/20) and The Story of Conor McGregor (6/21). I’m part of the 6/18 released documentary

ESPN E 60 is working on a special for this summer on Daniel Cormier

The Nevada Athletic Commission on 5/22 announced it was cutting 35 days off the one-year suspensions of Abubakar Nurmagomedov and Zubaira Tukhugov, who were both suspended related to the brawl after the Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov fight. Both argued that since Nurmagomedov was able to get a three month suspension reduction for community service, they should get the same opportunity. The commission agreed, and in exchange for ten hours of community service work they will get 35 days taken off their suspension. Abubakar is with PFL, and since their tournaments have started, he wouldn’t be able to compete this year. Tukhugov fights for UFC. Nurmagomedov had previously said he wouldn’t fight until both of his teammates were off suspension. UFC wants him to fight Dustin Poirier for the title on 9/7 in Abu Dhabi. With the 35 days off, both will be off suspension by that date. They would not have been off by that date without the 35 day reduction. .. There’s no UFC show this week. They return on 6/1 with a show from Stockholm. That will be a 10 a.m. Eastern show in ESPN 2 with the main card at 1 p.m. Eastern on ESPN+ with Alexander Gustafsson vs. Anthony Smith and Volkan Oezdemir vs. Ilir Latifi

With Markus Perez pulling out of the 6/22 show in Greenville, SC, Deron Winn, who got his contract for beating Tom Lawlor on the Oscar de la Hoya show, will now debut against Bruno Santos

Currently listed for the 7/20 show in San Antonio are Andrei Arlovski vs. Ben Rothwell, Liz Carmouche vs. Roxanne Modafferi, Raquel Pennington vs. Irene Aldana, Aleksei Oleinik vs. Walt Harris, Alex Caceres vs.. Steven Peterson, Domingo Pilarte vs. Felipe Colares, Mario Bautista vs. Jin Soo Son and Sam Alvey vs. Klidson Abreu. Arlovski vs. Rothwell is a rematch of a 2008 fight in Bellator that Arlovski won via knockout

Alexis Davis vs. Viviane Araujo and Alexandre Pantoja vs. Deiveson Figueredo have been added to the 7/27 PPV show from Edmonton

Greg Hardy is expected to return against Juan Adams on 7/20 in San Antonio, although the contracts have not yet been signed

Corey Sandhagen vs. Raphael Assuncao in a battle of ranked bantamweights has been added to the 8/17 show in Anaheim.

BELLATOR: MidiaResearch.com ran a story on DAZN’s financials, after the company announced it had passed the four million worldwide subscriber number. Unlike WWE Network or Fight Pass which are available all over the world, DAZN is more akin to a series of television stations in getting rights fees onto its specific stations. For example, it has the rights to Canelo Alvarez fights, but only in specific markets, or has its major league baseball deal for specific markets. DAZN runs in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Japan and Germany. For the Canelo Alvarez fight which had 1.2 million viewers and 700,000 in the U.S., that would be an indication that 58 percent of those four million subscribers are American, but that wouldn’t be the case since an Alvarez fight would skew American. Total revenue in 2018 was $277.6 million. Of that, $77.2 million was advertising income leaving $200.4 million as subscriber income. Of that $277.6 million, $14.3 million came from the U.S. and Canada, but DAZN was only in operation a few months in those markets and a start upoperat3.DAZN launched last week in a new market, Brazil, with a channel based heavily on soccer. They listed 42 percent of revenue coming from Asia and 44 percent of streaming sales from Europe. Over the next five years, they have $6.1 billion alone in sports rights commitments, and that doesn’t include any new acquisitions, just on the books already. So that’s $1.2 billion per year. To cover those costs at $100 million average subscription, they would need 12 million subscribers but really throwing in advertising and all other costs, the reality is they’d probably need far more, perhaps multiples of that. WWE actually profits $2 to $3 of its $9.99 and while it pays production costs for its own programming out of that, it’s not paying any rights fees to anyone, nor advertising at the level of DAZN

Reina Kubota, a kickboxer who is the biggest TV ratings draw of the Rizin promotion in Japan, will be fighting on the 6/14 Madison Square Garden show against Lindsey Vanzandt.

OTHER MMA: Sage Northcutt followed in the lead of Eddie Alvarez to become highly-paid UFC signees who suffered devastating losses in their ONE FC debuts. Northcutt debuted on 5/17 at Singapore Indoor Stadium against Brazilian kickboxer Cosmo Alexandre. A notable thing is that the newcomers that come in and fight one weight class above what they had fought in UFC at, because ONE claims they don’t allow weight cutting, in this case Northcutt looked easily 20 pounds lighter than Alexandre, who didn’t appear to have followed the same guidelines. It’s basically the reason everyone cuts weight, because if you don’t, you go in so much smaller and that can be a big disadvantage. Alexander knocked Northcutt out in 29 seconds with a punch that did so much damage Northcutt had eight difference fractures in his head and needed nine hours of surgery. The main event on the show, which drew a sellout of 12,000 fans (keep in mind that ONE heavily papers its shows to give the idea to outsiders they are a flourishing company even though they actually drive shockingly little revenue and spend a ton) saw 20-year-old Christian Lee stop Shinya Aoki at :51 of the second round to win the lightweight title. Lee is being billed as the youngest MMA world champion in history. Aoki, 36, who just had won the title from Eduard Folayang on 3/31 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo, was one of Japan’s biggest MMA stars of the post-Sakuraba period, and at times the country’s biggest star. Aoki was doubled as a pro wrestler for the former IGF, and most recently with DDT, where he’s one of the company’s pushed stars and the current DDT Extreme champion

Yoshihiro Akiyama, 43, who was a major superstar on the Japanese MMA scene and fought for years in UFC, who had super charisma and the best ring entrance in the game, will debut for ONE on 6/20 on a show in Shanghai, China. Akiyama had retired after losing to Alberto Mina in a 2015 UFC fight. Akiyama will face Aguilan Thani of Malaysia. Josh Copeland, a former UFC, WSOF and PFL heavyweight, accepted a plea agreement on 5/21 from a domestic violence assault charge in February related to an fight with his wife. Copeland. 36, who went 0-2 with UFC in 2014 and 2015 and has an 18-6 overall record, plea bargained to felony second-degree assault with serious bodily injury and misdemeanor third degree assault. By pleading, he was not facing jail time and sentenced to two years probation. If he stays out of trouble for two years, he charges will be expunged from his record. He’s also required to undergo evaluation and treatment for both domestic violence and substance abuse, and well as pay restitution to his wife. The plea bargain allowed him to travel for work. According to the arrest report, Copeland’s wife told police that she took her son upstairs and then the two argued, pushed each other, and she claimed he punched her in the face and threw her on the bed. According to her, the child aw the incident. Copeland’s version of the story was that she attacked him by slapping him twice first. He was taken into custody by police and released on $1,500 bond. The PFL suspended him in February when learning about the charge and he has since been released. Copeland went to the finals of last season’s PFL $1 million heavyweight tournament, losing to Philipe Lins via fourth round knockout

Lins will be unable to go for a second tournament win this year as he’s been ruled out for the tournament due to an injury

The PFL’s second season opened on 5/9 at NYCB Live (the Nassau Coliseum) with a show built around Kayla Harrison. Harrison didn’t get the finish, but dominated Larissa Pacheco in the man event on scores of 30-25, 30-27 and 30-27. Harrison controlled the positioning in the first round and had a choke but couldn’t finisher her. In the second round, Pacheco got Harrison’s back and was working for a choke but Harrison reversed and stayed on top for the rest of the round. Harrison got a takedown and ground and pound in the third. Sarah Kaufman, moving up two weight classes, who looks to be Harrison’s toughest competition in the battle for the $1 million tournament first prize, got an arm triangle submission on Morgan Frier in 2:22. Lilian Garcia debuted here as the group’s full-time ring announcer and everyone was raving about her work. The next show will be 5/23, also from NYCB Live, which is the only major televised MMA show of this week. They’ll have four fights on ESPN 2 at 7 p.m. and then the top of the card will air live on ESPN+ at 9 p.m. Lance Palmer vs. Alex Gilpin, Nate Andrews vs. Chris Wade and former UFC fighters Ronys Torres vs. Ramsey Nijem are among the live card fights.

WWE: Styles, who turns 42 on 6/2, said in an interview with Newsweek that the most recent WWE contract he signed would be his last pro wrestling contract. “I can tell you that this contract that I’ve signed is my last. This is the perfect place for me to be. It’s family-oriented. I have no problem taking my family to the shows. It’ a PG product which I enjoy. I’m in the best place I can be for my career.” As noted when his contract was expiring, even though he was friends with the Young Bucks, to the level that they discussed their own WWE negotiations with him, he didn’t express any real interest in AEW

The last thing WWE needed was another championship, but largely due to the USA Network, one was created. Mick Foley on Raw on 5/20 announced the new 24/7 championship, a takeoff on the old Hardcore title that was a comedy belt that was around from 1998 to 2002. The idea was copied by the DDT promotion in Japan who took it an even farther step, with blow up dolls and inanimate objects at times holding the championship. The idea is that the champion must be ready 24/7 and can be beaten at any time as long as there is a referee to make the count or call for the submission. They will be filming people trying to win the title away from the arenas, as they did with the old title. The belt was immediately made a joke. The fans booed Foley’s announcement of the title. Then, he announced the first champion would be determined by whoever could grab the belt when it was put in the ring. Only guys who were rarely used on Raw, and never pushed, attempted to win it, immediately making it a jobber belt. By the end of the first night, it went from first champion O’Neil, to Roode to R-Truth. Foley noted that everyone on Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live, NXT and NXT U.K. are eligible, as well as legends from the past. The back story is that the USA Network has been complaining for some time about the declining ratings, in particular the third hour. They have continually pushed Vince McMahon to try and fix the third hour, since historically, the 10-11 p.m. hour was always the highest rated on Raw until recent years. And even in the early period of a three-hour Raws, it was the highest rated. But years of three hour shows have burned out the audience. In recent weeks, the ratings for Raw’s third hour got bad enough that WWE recognized they had to do something. The big move was basically to allow the top stars from Smackdown to appear on Raw, and to make sure Smackdown doesn’t become a secondary show while it’s getting ready to move to FOX, to do the same. USA Network of late was sending in all kinds of ideas to WWE to bring up the third hour ratings. One person with knowledge of the story said the ideas were all terrible, but the 24/7 idea was the best one and McMahon knew he had to take one of them. While the idea is 24/7, Foley in announcing it said that it would be there for the third hour of Raw, which made no sense if it can be defended at any time. But that’s the reason he said it. I guess it’ll be mostly part of the third hour even though the idea is can be defended at any time

Johnny Gargano has been for the most part out of action with a knee injury. That’s why of late he’s been helping produce some of the Florida NXT house shows. The injury is apparently okay now but not sure when he’ll be back in action past the 6/1 Bridgeport, CT Takeover match with Adam Cole for the title isn’t in jeopardy. The injury must have happened in March, since Gargano’s last house show was 3/8. Since then he worked Takeover with Cole, which was one of the best matches in company history, and then did two television matches, a 4/10 singles match with Roderick Strong and a 5/1 tag match with Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Gargano & Matt Riddle, where Riddle worked much of the match

The company got some good news with the on-sale for the Bridgeport Takeover show. While not sold out, the advance for the 7,000 seat set up is strong and it look like it will either sell out or come very close. This would be the first Takeover in a major arena that wasn’t the day before a major WWE PPV show. It’s selling ahead of the pace of the AEW show in Jacksonville and the New Japan show in Dallas. While AEW Jacksonville isn’t a major PPV-level show, it is still the biggest show that the company has tickets on sale for. AEW also doesn’t have the whole card. New Japan hasn’t announced a card for Dallas, but it is G-1 so you know you’re getting at least five major singles matches and every major star in the heavyweight division

Ruby Riott had surgery on 5/21 to repair a bilateral tear of her right shoulder. At some point soon she will have a similar surgery on her left shoulder. There is not time frame listed for her return. She was wrestling on the European tour

Fish was injured on the 5/17 show in Philadelphia. The most recent word we got on this was that it wasn’t serious but he was kept off the rest of the shows on the tour. Fish & O’Reilly were facing Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. Lorcan kicked Fish in the head and he was knocked silly. Even though he looked woozy and the ref seemed to act like he wanted to stop it, Fish did several more spots. He looked woozy doing so and the ref threw up the “X.” Fish then went to the corner. Instead of stopping the match, they had Fish tag O’Reilly and forced Fish outside the ring and the trainers checked on him. O’Reilly then did a suplex into an armbar on Lorcan and the match was over. O’Reilly hit the moves as soon as he tagged in so it appeared to be getting the guys over they wanted to but getting the match over ASAP. They quickly got Fish to the back. Fish was at the show the next night in Belair, MD, but didn’t wrestle. He came out with his arm in a sling and they said he was injured

The Monday night house show on 5/20 in Lowell, MA, at the Paul Tsongas Center was canceled three days in advance. This was crazy. The advance wasn’t strong, but they had just sent out at least two e-mail blasts that morning literally hours before the announcement of the cancellation, which likely come off the TV meeting the night before and the decision that they were pulling so many people off the show for Raw that they decided to pull the show. That makes two Monday cancellations at the last minute in three weeks, and with the idea of having the top guys work both Monday and Tuesday as the band-aid to keep ratings from falling, this could become a regular thing. It sucks for the audience because the Monday Smackdown shows, which are expected to be the weakest selling of the week, are usually held in smaller markets that don’t get live shows very often. It’s also tough on the talent because they are on the road an extra day with road expenses, but aren’t getting paid extra those days

Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak will headline Evolve’s 10th anniversary show that takes place on 7/13 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. Challenges were issued on 5/17 during the NXT house show in Philadelphia

Nakamura is in a national TV ad in Japan for Nissin, the biggest noodle company in the country. While it has led to speculation in Japan of Nakamura returning to New Japan, this commercial had nothing to do with New Japan

Bray Wyatt (Windham Rotunda, 31), and girlfriend Joseanne “Jo Jo” Offerman, 25, had their first child together on 5/18. It was a boy, named Knash Sixx Rotunda, after Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman so I guess he grew up as an NOW fan. His father would have been in the NWO as VK Wallstreet, a spoof of Vince McMahon and Mike Rotunda’s old IRS character, when Wyatt was a young child

Even though Primo Colon has been working in Puerto Rico a lot as of late, he is still under contract here. Both Colons have it in their deal that because of the longstanding WWE relationship with Carlos Colon, that they are allowed to work shows for WWC. It’s not like they are missing WWE main event bookings by going there. Primo is one of those guys who was a good worker since he was a teenager and he’s made a living here with his downside and all, and Puerto Rico is so dead that it was the best thing for him in the big picture, but he’s also a guy who nobody realizes how good he is who has never been able to show it

Scott Armstrong, 60, underwent lower back surgery for a herniated disc between his L-4 and L-5 vertebrae. His back went helping his friend move a recliner

The plan right now is for the Cole vs. Gargano winner to defend against Riddle on the Takeover show in Toronto

The lawsuit filed by cameraman Donald Anderson against WWE and Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O’Neil) in U.S. District Court was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Anderson claimed WWE put him in an unsafe work environment, claiming he was injured by Bullard during a prank segment that aired on the “Swerved” show on the WWE Network. Anderson was backstage filming at a taping where he alleged Bullard was given an electrical shock by Saraya Jade-Bevis (Paige) and was enraged, and alleged Bullard charged and kicked the camera out of his hands and injured him. Bullard denied those allegations. Anderson claimed after the incident that WWE told him to leave the premises because it wasn’t safe and that Bullard couldn’t be controlled and would be an ongoing threat. He claimed Bullard was known by WWE for having anger Management issues and that Anderson’s hands, wrist and fingers were injured to where he couldn’t work for six months

Bellator has been in talks with Jack Gallagher (Oliver Claffey) about fighting on one of its U.K. shows

Ali said it was Bryan who got him moved to the main roster. Bryan made the suggestion to bring in Ali for a program, which ended up being the spot that Kingston got when Ali was hurt. Ali was scheduled to get a title match with Bryan on the March PPV but it was Owens, not Ali, scheduled to face him at Mania

Roderick Strong will be on the Evolve shows on 6/29 in Queens, NY and 6/30 in Brooklyn. WWN announced Stephen Wolf had signed a contract and would be on every Evolve show going forward. Adrian Jaoude and Babatunde Aiyegbusi from NXT will be on future Evolve shows

With the stock market down this past week, WWE stock closed on 5/22 at $77.46 per share, its lowest price in a long time. The company was threatening to fall below the $6 billion mark, closing at $6.045 billion in market value. So it’s actually down considerably from the day after the last quarterly report came out even when analysts were targeting the stock at more than $100 per share. That last report was the first loss of confidence report with how the company is doing and that hasn’t really changed. .. We only got a listing for the top eight most watched shows on the WWE Network last week, so don’t know how shows like WWE U.K. or 205 Live did. Also, last week the listing ended up tabulated before Monday, earlier than usual. The actual top two most-watched shows last week ended up being the Bret Hart-Tom Magee match and documentary at No. 1, and the HBO Andre the Giant documentary at No. 2, beating NXT that week. The Magee-Hart documentary beating NXT and all the other shows and it beating the Andre doc debut which the company heavily promoted really speaks volumes about the interest in the legend of the Hart-Magee match. It pretty much shocks me, but tells you that the number of viewers of WWE network programming individual shows past the PPV shows probably isn’t that high (also notable because of the lack of recognition to NXT wrestlers on main roster shows unless they are traveling fan shows) and that the Internet legend of Hart vs. Magee was far bigger than most believed

This week’s top eight were: 1. Money in the Bank; 2. WWE 24: Becky Lynch (airing right after MITB); 3. WWE Chronicle: Ali; 4. Money in the Bank pre-show; 5. Bret Hart-Tom Magee documentary; 6. Andre the Giant documentary; 7. WrestleMania 2019; 8. NXT from 5/15. It is notable to me that the week after its release, that both the Hart-Magee doc and the Andre doc beat out NXT and all the weekly wrestling show

Notes from the 5/20 Raw show in Albany. Really, aside from the curiosity over Lesnar being around for the entire three hours, and perhaps a one-time curiosity over the new 24/7 title which they literally killed in seconds as being anything but a joke belt, which worked as something different as a curiosity piece but booked this way will run out of steam quickly. Other than that this was a normal show. They drew 7,000 fans which is weak for Raw in the market. One person noted this was another week where all the plans were changing as the show was going on, with matches scrapped and such and said it was more chaotic than usual. Another told us that it was the normal chaos and while a lot was changed at the last minute, in this case, the changes were for the better. For Main Event, Natalya beat Tamina with a sharpshooter. Basic match with a lot of near falls. The crowd was very into Natalya. Alexander beat EC 3 with the lumbar check. It was said to be okay. After Raw went off the air, Raw opened with Lesnar & Heyman out. Heyman talked about theories, basically trying to get over the idea without saying it that he’s been around the arena in Hartford since his childhood and knew how to sneak in (“someone from the old days to sneak in”), the idea they attacked Zayn and beat him up and hung him upside down, and then did a last minute negotiation with Vince to get the final spot in the match. He said it and then denied it and said you might as well blame Lesnar for killing JFK. He noted Lesnar could beat Rollins or Kingston. Rollins came out and said he was just in the fight of his life with Styles, but he won, but he’s not in a great mood having to come out and see this. Rollins said that he’s trying to be the champion Lesnar never had the guts to be. Rollins said he wanted to get this over with and challenged Lesnar tonight. Heyman said that Rollins had to wait seven hours at WrestleMania to wait for his girlfriend (Lynch) to main event the show that you dreamed of main eventing. It should be noted that Rollins was working with Lesnar on that. Heyman then said they could cash it in with Kingston. This brought out Kingston. He also challenged Lesnar. Heyman said that both the WWE and Universal champions are auditioning to have a match with Lesnar, who he called the undisputed WWE and Universal champion of the box office. He strongly teased a cash in would take place at the end of the show since Rollins and Kingston have a main event match. They, of course, didn’t know this. Basically this was an angle to see if the promise of a cash in would keep viewers from going to sleep or tuning into the NBA game. Foley showed up and saw Hawkins, Ryder and O’Neil. Zayn was with Lashley. Zayn asked Lashley for help with his match with Strowman. Lashley, who had feuded with Zayn last year in that terrible program, said he wasn’t going t help him. It should be noted that last night Zayn was in the hospital, and today he was fine and booked in a match. Rollins and Kingston saw HHH backstage and he confirmed they have a tag match against Lashley & Corbin. Strowman pinned Zayn in :45 with a powerslam. They claimed Zayn had a rib injury, but he wasn’t taped up, and he ran away and didn’t run away like he was hurt. In very short spurts, Strowman running is impressive because he can move for his size, but longer, he runs very labored once it goes past a certain length. Since people see real athletes run constantly in other sports, you don’t want to put wrestlers who run unathletically past the distance it’s exposed and that happened here in particular as he was chasing Zayn. While Strowman was backstage chasing Zayn, he ran into Lashley. They looked like they told Lashley to pump up for the scene because his arms looked even more ridiculous than usual standing there with Strowman. Strowman told Lashley he’d deal with him later. Sullivan was in the ring with Charly Caruso to do an interview. The gimmick is he doesn’t talk. She asked him what his goals were. All I could think of was then killing the gimmick by saying his goal is become a more tolerant person and learn from my mistakes. But before he could do such a thing, the Lucha House Party came out. They attacked him three-on-one and even knocked him out of the ring. Kalisto did a pescado and Sullivan caught him and dropped him on the apron. Dorado and Metalik hit a double tope on him but Sullivan destroyed them, and gave Dorado the freak accident. He went to power bomb Dorado but the other two pulled Dorado to safety. So first those guys, as babyfaces, were doing 2 on 3, now it’s 1 on 3 and getting their asses kicked. Next thing you know Janela will book them in a 0 on 3 handicap match with an invisible man and they’ll get their asses kicked as well. Ricochet was selling being all banged up from the MITB match the night before with an ice bag on his back. Cesaro came in and called him part of the bubble wrap generation. This led to a match. Cesaro had a new entrance video without Sheamus, and had new music. Sheamus is out after a concussion and right now it appears they’ve broken them up and may be doing something with Cesaro. Cesaro pinned Ricochet in 6:45 with a press slam into a backbreaker and the neutralizer. I never thought they’d squander Ricochet to this degree and here we are. He was selling his back, which was all taped up. The story they were telling was that he was inexperienced, jumped at doing a match when he was hurt, and then got beat. They’ve created a patterned match where his big move is the same moonsault off the middle rope. He did a pescado, but Cesaro caught him and threw him on the apron. He jumped on Cesaro’s shoulder and did a backflip spot and then did a spin around head scissors that even with not being pushed got a big reaction. He also did a Fosbury Flop dive which took place during a commercial inset, which was just terrible timing on somebody’ part. The crowd went nuts for that move and then they beat him. Styles did a promo, saying he’s got to go back to square one and has a lot of hard work ahead of him. He said he knows he can beat Rollins, just not last night. He lost, and there’s no shame in that. Corbin showed up. He said that he pinned Rollins on Raw, something that Styles didn’t do, and said that proved Styles never deserved the match and it was a slap in the face to him that Styles got that title match ahead of him. Styles said that wasn’t a slap in the face, this is, and slapped Corbin in the face. Corbin said, “you’ll pay for that.” Reigns came out. Shane came out as well and said that after beating Miz again, he’s done with Miz and said his sights are set on Reigns, for punching his father. He said that his father was a global treasure and Reigns cowardly struck him down. One thing is that Reigns feuding with the McMahons doesn’t get booed anymore. Reigns said that he hated spoiled rich kids. Reigns said that he was done with Elias. Reigns wanted a match with Shane tonight. Out came McIntyre. Shane said they would do the match at Super Showdown. Miz showed up and McIntyre was with Shane and they exchanged words to lead to a match. Miz told Shane that you now have others fighting your battles. The Revival beat The Usos on 10:41. They had a good match and the crowd got into the near falls. Wilder did a really cool tornado DDT off the barricade. Jimmy did a tope on Wilder but Dawson pinned Jimmy holding the trunks. It’s amazing that when building the Usos for a tag title shot with Bryan & Rowan that they lose here, but obviously they want them to do a program with The Revival and after all the angles so far, The Revival needed a win. Bliss was backstage with Cross, berating Cross for not winning the MITB match. While they were talking, The Revival came out and celebrated, saying they beat the Usos, and thus should be the next guests on A Moment With Bliss. Wilder kind of frothed at the mouth on her and she was grossed out by them. Bliss & Cross were out with Lynch on A Moment of Bliss. The Iiconics came out. They were making fun of Lynch losing and only having one belt. Lynch said she’d beat both of them by herself and get three belts. Evans came out and took credit for Lynch losing the Smackdown title. Lynch talked about Lynch wearing her grandma’s clothes and that she tapped out the night before. Lynch said she beat Evans when Evans only had half her attention, imagine how easily she’d beat her when she had her full attention. Lynch challenged all three to a match. They said she needed a partner. Cross volunteered. They wanted her to get a third partner and she chose Bliss. Bliss isn’t cleared so they did a deal where Bliss came to ringside, was drinking coffee not even on the apron, but the idea was she was the third person. She never touched anyone or was touched. Lynch & Cross & Bliss beat Evans & Kay & Royce in 5:40. At one point when Royce was supposed to take a near fall, her shoulders weren’t down so the ref held up the count. This was pretty bad as a match. Lynch at one point was yelling at Kay to get into position for a move. Lynch hit a missile dropkick on Kay and then pinned her after a leg drop off the top rope. This is the weirdest booking. The Iiconics are tag champs on two brands, appear on both, always lose, and never defend the titles against the people who beat them. Foley came out to announce the new 24/7 title. He also said, “Let’s make WWE Raw again,” to copy Trump’s catch phrase. Fans booed the title announcement a lot. He first talked about how the title would be up in the third hour, but also that every Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live, NXT and UK roster member, as well as legends can win the title. They decided on a title match to decide the first champion. It was under capture the flag rules. There was a belt in the ring and whoever got the belt would become the champion. That’s how you decide a title. It was different, but it’s one of those segments where you have to turn your brain off. And then, the guys wh came out were Alexander (just to remind us after all his great work in 205 Live, that he’s on Raw and they do nothing with him), Gallows, Anderson, Rawley, EC 3, Eric Young (who I don’t think anyone even remembered he’s with Raw), No Way Jose and O’Neil came out. The belt is sitting there and somehow they were able to stretch this to 2:13. There was a comedy spot where finally Anderson and Gallows both grabbed it, but then EC 3 knocked them both down. Drake Maverick then showed up and tried to get it, but O’Neil threw him over the top rope and grabbed it. As he was leaving, Roode came from the back and gave O’Neil a schoolboy to become the second champion. McIntyre beat Miz in 13:07. McMahon punched Miz to set up a spinebuster, but Miz kicked out. Miz chased Shane who ran nit the stands. Another time Shane attacked Miz from behind and threw him into the ring where McIntyre hit the Claymore kick on him. After the match, Shane set up doing the coast-to-coast dropkick on Miz, but Reigns jumped in and hit the Superman punch on McIntyre. Shane went to attack Reigns from behind, but he turned around and Shane ran away again. All the guys involved in the scramble were running backstage looking for Roode, who had hidden. Roode bumped into Lashley and Corbin, who could have cared less about him, to quickly establish that real stars couldn’t even be bothered caring about that title. Kingston & Rollins did an interview. Rollins said that nobody in all of space and time like Corbin. Joe did a taped promo noting that his shoulders weren’t down but Mysterio got the title. Joe told Mysterio to do the right thing and give him back the championship since he didn’t win it fairly. He asked what kind of a message would he be sending to Dominick if he kept the title he never earned. Joe said that if Mysterio doesn’t just imagine the message I’ll be sending on you. R-Truth had a car and for some reason was there. Roode wanted R-Truth to drive him away from the arena with the Attack of the Job Guys movie being filmed. But R-Truth opened the door, there was a referee, and then R-Truth rammed Roode into the car, pinned him, grabbed the belt and they drove off. Rollins & Kingston beat Lashley & Corbin in ano DQ match in 10:27. At one point Corbin & Lashley were going to give Kingston a double superplex, but Rollins broke it up with chair shots. There was a botched spot where Lashley was supposed to go over the top rope, except he didn’t get over. Rollins did a tope on Corbin & Lashley. Kingston came off the top falling backwards onto Corbin & Lashley. Kingston did a falling backwards move off the top rope to the floor on Corbin & Lashley. Kingston pinned Corbin with Trouble in Paradise. Since Corbin is being groomed for Rollins, I would have thought they wouldn’t beat him on the way, unless they’ve changed their mind about that. After the match, Lashley speared both Kingston and Rollins. Lashley got the chair but Rollins superkicked the chair into him. Lesnar came out. Lesnar teased cashing in, but then backed off and left. Heyman said that next week they would announce who Lesnar would be cashing it in against. After the show went off the air, Rollins said that Lesnar was a bitch. McIntyre came out to attack Rollins & Kingston, but Kingston hit him with Trouble in Paradise and then Rollins gave McIntyre the curb stomp to end the show

Notes from the 5/21 Smackdown tapings in Providence. The show drew 5,500 fans. It opened with Heavy Machinery over Benjamin & Mahal with Benjamin being pinned. Smackdown opened with Shane backstage with Elias. Elias said that at MITB, the crowd bothered him when they booed his singing and it caused him to lose focus and he got Superman punched. Then he said he didn’t even know the bell had rang for his match with Reigns and got pinned. He said he felt he let Shane down. He wanted to be in Shane’s corner at Super Showdown against Reigns. Shane said that he doesn’t need Elias’ help, but Elias needs his help, so he’ll be in Elias’ corner for a Reigns vs. Elias rematch tonight. Kingston & Woods came out. They had promoted this show around Big E returning after arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. They brought out a guy under a blanket, but it wasn’t Big E. They kicked the fake Big E out. The real Big E came out. They started talking about Big E on Twitter, and brought up that Big E had the hots for Lynch’s mother. Owens & Zayn came out. Zayn complained that Big E was out six weeks and they are doing a big celebration (they had the ring filled with fake presents although they were never opened and nothing became of them) while he was out nine months and got no celebration or presents. Owens ended up walking off. Zayn said that Owens lost to Kingston at MITB because he was distracted during the mach because his friend got beaten down and hung upside down. Zayn said the celebration was disgusting. Backstage, Carmella was with R-Truth, who had this terrible looking blond wig on to disguise himself. But he was still holding the 24/7 belt. Carmella told him that everyone was looking for him but he said he was disguised but asked Carmella for help in hiding. Ali pinned Andrade in 11:02. This was really good. Ali did great reverse huracanrana and a flip dive. Ali sold his lower back as being injured in the MITB match. Andrade did a crazy hip toss on Ali ver the barricade into the timekeeper area. Ali kicked out of running double knees and then won with a cradle. Carmella was dressing R-Truth up as Ru Paul. Really, he didn’t look any different and still had the belt. Rose vs. Carmella ended at 1:33 as a no contest. R-Truth with his wig and belt was at ringside when a number of prelim guys, notably The B Team and Maverick, as well as a lot of the 205 Live guys, all chased R-Truth into the ring. Then he ran away with everyone, including a referee, chasing him. Drake Maverick, who isn’t even on the brand, is this comedy figure in all this, like he’s this little guy who always runs out of breath running after R-Truth and can’t keep up. Bayley did an interview. She’s the champ now. She’s no longer a hugger and has evolved. The fans didn’t know this since she came out with all the hugger little signs passed out at ringside. Kingston pinned Zayn in 9:44 with Trouble in Paradise. During the match they talked about how there was an attack on Big E by Owens, and that Woods had gone to the hospital with Big E. They needed that since the angle they were doing after the match would have made no sense if Big E or Woods were there. Too much of the match was during the commercial break so we never really got the flow of it. After the match, Heyman came out with the briefcase. This distracted Kingston and allowed Ziggler to attack Kingston from behind. Ziggler was scratching Kingston’s eyeballs and put a chair over Kingston’s head and stomped n the chair. He Pillmanized Kingston’s neck. They brought in EMT’s and put Kingston on a stretcher. But just before he got to the back, Kingston got off the stretcher with the idea he wasn’t going to give Ziggler the satisfaction and was helped to the back. Reigns was doing a promo in the parking lot. Elias was standing on the top of one of the WWE production trucks and yelling at him. Lynch and Bayley did a promo. Lynch said that once she and Bayley were doing with Flair and Evans, that she was coming after Bayley and the title. Bayley & Lynch beat Flair & Evans in 6:09. The match was all action fast-paced good stuff. The finish saw Evans give Bayley the woman’s right and Charlotte went for the figure four, but Bayley used the inside cradle off the figure four to get the three count. Reading logical booking into this may be huge mistake No. 1, but usually if you do the two champs against top challengers, the challengers would win to set up a title match. Not doing that here and Bayley scoring the pin makes sense they’d do Lynch vs. Bayley, which may be at Stomping Grounds on 6/23 in Tacoma. After all this time, of R-Truth and Carmella trying to run out of the building about a half hour ago, well, they somehow were still in the building and still running. So those two must have cardio for days and absolutely the worst sense of direction if after 30 minutes while the show is going on they can’t find the exit door. I think all the other job guys chasing them got bored, or probably tuned in the hockey game or something. The B Team was still chasing and attacked R-Truth. Dallas went to pin him but Axel pulled Dallas off because he wanted to pin him. R-Truth threw Axel and Dallas together and ran off. This was funny in that totally preposterous kind of way. Ziggler cut a promo. He basically talked about what a fluke the whole R-Truth thing was. He said that Ali got hurt and R-Truth was put in his spot and Kingston then knocked it out of the park but “it should have been me.” He then recounted Kingston being in the Chamber, getting into the Mania match and winning the title while always saying, “It should have been me.” He said that’s why he did what he did, because he had no other choice, and he’s going to win the title. Reigns pinned Elias in 9:28. Elias nearly got a pin with a power bomb. Reigns hit the Superman punch but Shane put Elias’ foot on he ropes. Reigns hit the drive by on Shane. Elias threw Reigns into the post. Elias undid the turnbuckle. The ref tried to fix the turnbuckle and Shane threw a guitar into the ring. Elias went to use it but Reigns speared him for the pin. Shane then grabbed the guitar and went to use it but Reigns nailed Shane with a Superman punch. McIntyre then hit the ring and laid out Reigns with a Claymore kick and the show went off the air. So it looks like, if they do the handicap match program, it’ll be McIntyre & Shane vs. Reigns rather than the original Shane & Elias. But we’re obviously headed back to Reigns vs. McIntyre sooner than later. 205 Live opened with the Singh Brothers in the ring. Originally the Singhs vs. Lucha House Party was scheduled, but you know how that goes. Someone actually broke down for us that 41 percent of what is scheduled actually happens and the rest is changed, based on thing the company itself advertises. That’s a little skewed because some of what changes, like often with PPV matches and some TV stuff is they advertise something they don’t intend on doing and it either plays into an angle (like Strowman in the MITB match) or is just to sell tickets but late pulling out but never planned (like Lesnar vs. Strowman at the Rumble being in a stadium). It was said that Sullivan destroyed all three members of the Lucha House Party, so they weren’t there. The Singhs demanded that they be awarded the win via forfeit. Maverick came out and said they would have new opponents. Jack Gallagher & Humberto Carrillo beat the Singhs when Carrillo pinned Sunil with the Aztec press. Main event was a five-way with Akira Tozawa winning over Brian Kendrick, Ariya Daivari, Mike Kanellis and Oney Lorcan. All kinds of trading of big moves. They showed Nese watching with the idea the winner would probably be in line for a title shot. Daivari was bleeding from the left ear. They kept trading finishing moves until Daivari hit the rainmaker on Lorcan, but Tozawa cradled Daivari. The show ended with Nese looking on like he was happy to defend against Tozawa next. The dark match main saw Sane & Asuka beat Royce & Kay via DQ. This was a mess of a finish. It was 10:58 p.m. and they had a hard union deadline to end the show at 11 p.m. Kay was being pinned, Royce saved her and they called for the bell and made it a DQ. Nobody in the crowd understood why that would be a DQ. Very flat show ending. Something else off TV is Buddy Murphy came out to cut a promo but it was during a commercial break. Almost nobody in the crowd seemed to have any idea who he was

Notes from the 5/15 NXT TV show. This was the show built around the farewell of the Viking Raiders. This was one where NXT had their hands tied because of the call-up happening when it did and I guess Vince and WWE didn’t want them losing a match and dropping the title, so they could do the multiple-team match on 6/1 in Bridgeport. The show opened with the Viking Raiders, having to use their names Ivar & Erik instead of Rowe & Hanson, coming out to relinquish the tag team titles. The Street Profits came out. They noted that they lost the last time they challenged for the titles but that all the fans know the Street Profits can beat the Viking Raiders. The Raiders told “Mr. Regal” to make the match. There was an interview outside the building with Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole. Cole said he was always the leader of the Undisputed Era. They teased the idea that they were about to give Roderick Strong the boot. Strong then showed up and just said that they were stronger asa unit when we’re on the same page. He then showed a flip flop with blood on it. So the idea was that he had just taken out Matt Riddle, one of Cole’s big rivals. Fish & O’Reilly were really excited about it. Keith Lee pinned Cezar Bononi in 2:28 with a pounce and a power bomb. When I first saw Bononi, with his size, agility and wrestling ability and he’s a good bump taker, I thought he’d be something. And he didn’t have time here, but he really didn’t show much past that he’s really tall and has a good physique. Cathy Kelly was with Io Shirai. The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler & Jaxson Ryker) showed up and wanted to talk with Regal. They were mad that The Street Profits were getting the tag title shot and not them. Kushida beat Kona Reeves with the hoverboard lock in 5:04. Drew Gulak was watching the match as they are preparing for a program with those two given they were doing submission rules matches every night on this past weekend’s tour. People reacted to Kushida as a star. He’s one of the best in the world as far as technical wrestling goes. He pointed at Gulak after the match. Bianca Belair and Mia Yim were backstage setting up a match. Belair won the first meeting and Yim wanted a rematch. Riddle was backstage and his ribs were all taped up like he had been jumped. He was wearing one flip flop, playing into the idea that Strong had taken the other one. Johnny Gargano was in the trainer’s room with im. Gargano said that he knows they’re coming after him and the NXT title and said he knew it would be him and Cole one more time. Vanessa Borne beat Jessie in 2:49 with a neckbreaker. So Jessie has no last name on television. Aliyah was in Borne’s corner as they’re making them a tag team. Borne is a former dancer and cheerleader with a great look. Jessie is a tall former college volleyball player who has the fit athlete look. Borne does have charisma but both are still learning as wrestlers. The Raiders vs. Street Profits tag title main event only went 2:13 before The Forgotten Sons interfered. Ford did a great frog splash, super high, that Ivar kicked out of. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch also got involved. Ivar did a cannonball on all three of the Forgotten Sons. Ford used a blockbuster off the top on Erik and covered him and Dawkins counted to three so they at least got the visionary fall deal, which is all they were allowed to get. The Raiders took out Burch & Lorcan. They did a double press on Lorcan and threw him over the top onto the Street Profit, which took out Blake as well. The whole thing is to set up Fish & O’Reilly, The Street Profits, Burch & Lorcan and The Forgotten Sons in a four-way for the vacant tag titles on 6/1

The out-of-state NXT tour opened 5/16 in Bethlehem, PA before 550 fans. The Street Profits beat The Outliers, who are Riddick Moss & Dan Matha, managed by Robert Strauss. Kushida beat Drew Gulak in a submission match. The crowd loved Kushida. Match was said to be very good technically but it was a style a lot of the crowd didn’t react to. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly beat Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. Great match. Candice LeRae & Io Shirai b Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir. Shirai pinned Duke after a moonsault. Shirai made motions about winning the title. Matt Riddle beat Roderick Strong. Riddick lived in the area at one time so the crowd treated him like a local star. The crowd was going nuts for him the entire match with “Welcome home” chants. Riddle won with the bromission and got a standing ovation after the match. Punishment Martinez pinned Keith Lee with a choke slam. The crowd treated Lee like a star but Martinez pinned him. The two hugged when it was over. Shayna Baszler retained the title over Kacy Catanzaro. Catanzaro got over strong. Baszler won with a choke. Fish came out and pointed out his uncle Bill, who is 90 in the stands and noted he was a Korean War vet. Fans were chanting Uncle Bill at him and USA. Velveteen Dream beat Adam Cole to keep the North American title in the main event. The fans loved both guys. Dream just worked the crowd for about five minutes. Crowd was hot and this was the best match on the show. It ended with Dream winning with an elbow drop off the top rope. Cole got a significantly bigger reaction than Dream

The 5/17 show was in Philadelphia at the Fillmore before 1,500 fans. It was all the same results as Bethlehem but the matches were in a different order. Fans didn’t know the Outliers but Matha got heat. Baic match. Martinez vs. Lee in a face match saw a split crowd. Lee missed a moonsault at 320 pounds and Martinez used the Crossroads for the pin. Fish & O’Reilly over Lorcan & Burch had the injury to Fish. Kushida beat Gulak in a submission match that was described as incredibly good. The crowd loved Gulak, since he’s from Philadelphia. Still, Kushida got about 40m percent support. The crowd was into everything. Gulak then cut a promo after losing saying he was glad to bring his style of wrestling to Philadelphia, and said how he trained at the 2300 Arena and came up in Evolve. He then announced that Evolve’s 10th anniversary show would be on 7/13 in Philadelphia and he issued an open challenge to anyone. On the screen, Riddle accepted the challenge. Catanzaro got in a lot of offense on Baszler before losing. The one difference on the show from the prior night is that Strong didn’t wrestle. He was there, but was only in the corner of Fish & O’Reilly. So Riddle was added to the main event, making it a three-way with Dream and Cole. All three got a big reaction but Dream’s was the biggest of the three and bigger than anyone else on the show. Super match. At one point each superkicked the other for an all fall down “this is awesome” chant spot. Cole did a flip piledriver with Riddle on the second rope in an apparently crazy move. Cole went for the pin but Dream came off the second rope with a purple rainmaker on Cole and pinned him

5/18 in Belair MD, drew 750 fans. They had a television set-up and it looked like they were taping three matches, which were Kushida vs. Gulak, Lorcan & Burch vs. O’Reilly & Strong and Shirai & LeRae vs. Duke & Shafir. It was mostly the same matches. The crowd was into everything. Martinez vs. Lee was very good. Ths finish was different as both knocked the other out at the same time with punches, and both fell down with Martinez on top in 15:00. The crowd gave both men a standing ovation when it was over. Baszler vs. Catanzaro was also really good. Baszler really made Catanzaro look good on her comeback after Baszler dominated most of the way. Kushida vs. Gulak was really good again. Lorcan & Burch beat O’reilly & Strong. Fish came out with his arm in a cast. He shook hands and walked to the back. Jaxson Ryker distracted Strong and Lorcan then pinned O’Reilly. This was taped to get a Forgotten Sons vs. Undisputed Era thing going. Shirai & LeRae vs. Duke & Shafir was a no contest. This time Baszler came out and pulled Duke out of the way when Shirai went for the moonsault. It turned into a big brawl with Baszler and Shirai. Crowd hated the non-finish but was really into the brawl. Main event had the same finish as the night before

The final show of the tour was 5/19 in Asbury Park, NJ, drawing 1,100 fans even though it went head-to-head with the PPV. It was pretty much the same show as the night before. Catanzaro is from New Jersey so she got a big reaction. It’s interesting because in the past when they go on the road they mix up the matches to keep talent garnering new experience and learning rather than running the same match in most cases every night

The Florida swing opened on 5/15 in Tampa before 250 fans. Eric Bugenhagen beat Nick Comoroto. Comoroto is a heel who seems to act like Ultimate Warrior. MJ Jenkins came out and sang her entrance music and danced to the ring. The crowd got behind her until she heeled on them saying that they smelled. Jessie Elaban pinned Jenkins. There were issues with the new ref being out of position and some botched stuff. Brennan Williams & Brandon Vink beat Matt Lee & Jeff Parker. Vink & Williams tried to play the gay heel act putting Lee & Parker as faces./ this didn’t work. Mansoor beat Cezar Bononi with a roll-up. Stokely Hathaway, who had been called Court Moore, came out but now his name is Malcom Bivens. He talked about how great Jermaine Haley was. This led to Killian Dain returning and pinning Haley. Dain has lost weight. Kassius Ohno after the match attacked Dain and cut a promo on him, saying he wanted him the next night in St. Petersburg.

Ohno laid him out with an elbow. Garza Jr., debuted and was called Roberto Garza Jr. He beat Boa. Garza worked as the heel but the crowd cheered him anyway. He won with a quebrada. Mia Yim beat Reina Gonzalez via guillotine submission. The main event saw Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner beating Albert Hardie Jr. & Humberto Carrillo. Barthel came off the ropes with an uppercut while Aichner had picked Carrillo of the mat for the pin

5/17 in St. Petersburg drew 200 fans. Hardie Jr. beat Cezar Bononi. Adrian Jaoude pinned Cal Bloom. Rinku Singh beat Mansoor. Vanessa Borne & Aliyah beat Xia Li & Karen Q. Humberto Carrillo pinned Trevor Lee. Brennan Williams & Brendan Vink beat Eric Bugenhagen & Denzel Dejournette. Mia Yim pinned Bianca Belair. Isn’t she un-de-feat-ed? Killian Dain pinned Ohno in the main event stemming from the angle the night before

5/18 in Sanford, FL, drew 350 fans. Bugenhagen pinned Comoroto with a pump handle slam. Gonzalez & Jenkins beat Li & Q when Gonzalez used a Stan Hansen lariat for the win. Carrillo pinned Samuel Shaw after a double springboard senton. Jaoude beat Daniel Vidot with a leglock submission. Hardie Jr. beat Bononi with a delayed German suplex. Shane Thorne beat Jermaine Haley via submission. Belair beat Jessie Elaban with a torture rack slam. Main event saw Matt Lee & Jeff Parker & Babatunde Aiyegbusi beat the heel trio of Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner & Trevor Lee

5/17 in Cardiff ended the tour and drew a sellout 3,500

We didn’t get a crowd for the 5/16 Smackdown show in Hamburg. The 5/17 Smackdown show in Berlin drew 11,000 fans, which was the biggest Smackdown crowd of the tour

Sheffield opened with the same Lynch over Tamina and Evans three-way with Evans over Tamina with the disarm her. Roode pinned Gable using the tights. The Lucha House Party beat Mahal & The Singhs when Kalisto pinned one of the Singhs with the Salida del Sol. Riott & Morgan came out while the Singhs were still in the ring. All four started dancing together but then Riott and Morgan turned on them and threw him out of the ring. This led to Bayley & Moon beat Riott & Morgan when Bayley pinned Morgan with the Randy Savage elbow. This will be interesting since Bayley is on Smackdown and that’s Sane’s finisher. In fact, because Bayley did the top rope elbow, that was the reason Sane was at first told to get a new finisher, until people saw Sane’s finisher and realized it was so spectacular it would get her over. Elias came out. He and Balor sang “Wonderwall” together and Elias attacked him. This led to a short IC title match with Balor winning with the coup de grace. Walter pinned Dunne to keep the U.K. title after a splash. Said to be decent. Hawkins & Ryder beat The Revival in the tag title match wen Hawkins pinned Dawson with a cradle. Reigns & Rollins & Strowman beat Lashley & Corbin & McIntyre when Strowman pinned Corbin with a powerslam. Reigns was the most over guy in the main event

Cardiff was mostly the same show. The only change is there was no Bayley & Moon vs. Riott & Morgan match. Not sure what happened but no Bayley, Moon or Morgan. Riott was moved into the title match which ended up as Lynch over Riott, Tamina and Evans. Lynch beat Riott with the disarm her. Lynch was super popular. The fans liked Riott as well since she was signing for everyone before the show. The Lucha House Party also got a big reaction. Roode vs. Gable had no heat. Fans had no idea why they were wrestling each other since they never had a tag team breakup. Roode was cheered by the few who cared. Gable got very little reaction except from the ringside fans and got a polite applause after. Gable has also cut his hair. Hawkins & Ryder vs. Revival also didn’t get much reaction. They did mic work noting it was Wilder 32nd birthday and then turned on the crowd. Walter vs. Dunne was said to be the best match. Most of the crowd didn’t know either guy but got into it as the match progressed. Lots of fans had no clue who either guy was. Reigns ended up getting the biggest face reactions on the show in the six-man tag and the crowd loved the match. Rollins did dives. People hated Corbin. They went nuts every time Rollins or Reigns tagged in. Reigns pinned Lashley after a spear

Hamburg opened with Matt Hardy & Crews over Rusev & Nakamura. After the match, Sullivan laid out both Hardy & Crews. Woods pinned Cesaro in 15 seconds. The Iiconics retained the tag titles in a three-way over Rose & Deville and Asuka & Sane. Styles pinned Orton after the phenomenal forearm. Rowan pinned Ali. The Miz did a Miz TV episode which saw Joe and then Andrade come out. It turned into a three-way for the U.S. title where Joe won over Miz and Andrade. Kingston pinned Owens with Trouble in Paradise. Cesaro tried to interfere like on the other shows, but this time Woods threw Cesaro into the post so he couldn’t interfere and Kingston won clean

Berlin had a few changes because Rose, Deville Owens and Joe were off the show. Matt Hardy pinned Rusev in 11:00 with a twist of fate. Lars Sullivan destroyed Hardy after the match. Crews pinned Cesaro in 15:00 with a frog splash. The Iiconics beat Asuka & Sane in 12:00 when Royce pinned Sane with a roll-up to keep the tag titles. Styles pinned Nakamura in 16:00 with the Styles clash. This match was much harder hitting than you usually see at a house show. Rowan pinned Ali in 8:00 with a uranage. Miz TV was next with Andrade & Vega as guests. This led to a singles match where Miz pinned Andrade in 10:00 with a skull crushing finale. Main event saw Kingston, with Woods in his corner, pin Orton with Trouble in Paradise.