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5SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: CLASH OF CHAMPIONS PREVIEW, POTENTIAL NEW TEST TO DETERMINE DAMAGE CAUSED BY CONCUSSIONS, PLUS TONS OF NEWS
6BY OBSERVER STAFF | STAFF@WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM | @WONF4W
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8Wrestling Observer Newsletter
9
10PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 September 26, 2016
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12 
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14WWE CRUISERWEIGHT CLASSIC FINALS
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16Thumbs up 201 (100.0%)
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18Thumbs down 0 (00.0%)
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20In the middle 0 (00.0%)
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22 
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24BEST MATCH POLL
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26T.J. Perkins vs. Kota Ibushi 185
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28 
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30WORST MATCH POLL
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32Gargano & Ciampa vs. Alexander & Dar 41
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34T.J. Perkins vs. Gran Metalik 8
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38NEW JAPAN DESTRUCTION IN TOKYO
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40Thumbs up 2 (05.3%)
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42Thumbs down 4 (10.5%)
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44In the middle 32 (84.2%)
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46 
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48BEST MATCH POLL
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50Katsuyori Shibata vs. Bobby Fish 37
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52 
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54WORST MATCH POLL
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56Nagata & Nakanishi vs. Captain & Yoshitatsu 28
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58Based on e-mails and phone calls to the Observer as of Tuesday, 9/20.
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60 
61
62The first Raw brand exclusive PPV takes place on 9/25 in Indianapolis, headlined by Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins for the Universal title.
63
64There are two business aspects to look at immediately. The first is whether these PPVs lead to a ratings bump, although the Raw the next day is expected to be at near all-time record lows due to the Presidential debate.
65
66The second is how it draws. The Smackdown only PPV on 9/11 in Richmond, VA, only drew 7,000 fans, and they were papering heavily around town the night before. Before the brand split, WWE was routinely selling out its PPV shows.
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68Down the line, and this won’t be able to be fairly evaluated until the numbers come out in mid-February, is whether this is beneficial to network subscriptions. The next network number will be released in late October or early November, and it will cover September, but it may be too soon to really see a pattern. WWE officials were projecting 1.49 million worldwide subscribers as of 9/30, so if the number is meaningfully higher, it would indicate that the audience sees added value in getting seven more PPV shows per year at the same price. If there is no change in the network number, you are talking about more expense with little added revenue since traditional PPV revenue has almost dried up.
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70There are two aspects of the brand split that are positive for house show revenue. First, WWE has been running one more show each week, the Smackdown Monday house show. While those shows thus far have not drawn well, they have done about what would be expected, usually 2,000 to 3,500 people. In addition, one show per month in most months, in this case the 9/11 Richmond show, which would have been a house show, is now a PPV network special. One would expect that show to do about 4,000 fans, and instead it did 7,000, although papered, but also charging more for tickets. So one show per month will have a significantly bigger gross, although expenses are also significantly bigger. Again, it won’t be until mid-February when we see revenues and expenses that you can determine how cost-effective this is, but it’s likely a net positive.
71
72The negative is it does water down the big show concept from a psychological standpoint. It’s created a tier system where, instead of pushing 12 big shows, even though fans really only thought of three as really big, they now have 19 so-called big shows, with three as big (although trying to make that five) and the rest less important than before due to the star depth issue, particularly on the Smackdown side.
73
74This weekend’s show has Owens vs. Rollins for the Universal title, Rusev vs. Roman Reigns for the U.S. title, Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho, Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks vs. Bayley for the women’s title (the third change in the women’s match over the last three weeks), Cesaro vs. Sheamus in the final match of their best-of-seven series, New Day vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson for the tag titles, T.J. Perkins vs. Brian Kendrick for the cruiserweight title plus Alicia Fox vs. Nia Jax will be on the pre-show. Depending on the time layout, Enzo & Cass vs. The Shining Stars may be added.
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76For a first-ever new cruiserweight title defense on a PPV, it was set up poorly and may be a bad first impression. First, it’s a cold match, with no interviews on Raw (Perkins, who just won the title, wasn’t even on Raw even though he was there). If they did weeks of video packages and told a story, there could be something to Kendrick as the challenger, but they didn’t. It was clear to the Raw audience, they didn’t know any of the cruiserweights and didn’t care, past being impressed by the moves, but that was more Cedric Alexander and Gran Metalik. But the issue is that Kendrick is more of a WWE style wrestler, and he was in the WWE for years, was for the most part a job guy when he was there (he had a long tag title run but that was also when the tag title was not pushed at all, to the point he and London as a team once did a squash job for HHH).
77
78So instead of presenting something with potential meaning, and uniqueness, it’s essentially a enhancement level title, like the WWE cruiserweight title in the past was. The problem is that WWE has to overcome the taught idea that cruiserweights are secondary players to begin with, and instead, they opened up the new division by reinforcing that belief to the fan base. Plus, talented guys who should be in the division, Neville, Kalisto and Austin Aries have not been put in. In the case of Neville, why he has lost a lot on television, the crowd does see him as a real talent who doesn’t get pushed. Plus, if there is any value at all in Kendrick’s story, which did work on the Cruiserweight Classic television show, you’ve just squandered it completely by giving him a title match without adequately building up and telling the story.
79
80If anything, he’s the guy who should struggle and when he finally gets his opportunity, it should be pushed like it could be his last chance and thus you’ve got that drama. In addition, to get the title over, the first title match should be a blow-away, similar to when WCW got its division going using Jushin Liger vs. Brian Pillman, as they opened on PPV having the best PPV match in the company of the year. Of the guys they have under contract, Metalik would best fit as the challenger, but even with him it would be tough because it’s not one guy being introduced that people have no connection with, it’s both of them. The people would react to the acrobatics but wouldn’t care who wins.
81
82The Smackdown No Mercy show is two weeks later, on 10/9 in Sacramento.
83
84The main event has A.J. Styles vs. John Cena vs. Dean Ambrose in a three-way for the WWE title (Styles will defend against Ambrose in a singles match on Smackdown on 9/27 in Cleveland), Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. Usos for the tag titles and Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss for the women’s title. Other matches being pushed right now are The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler for the IC title (at one point this was to be a cage match), Carmella vs. Nikki Bella (Daniel Bryan teased on Talking Smack this match as a no DQ match), Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt and Jack Swagger vs. Baron Corbin.
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86In a story that could be very significant for both pro wrestling and combat sports, doctors may soon be able to use spinal fluid to measure brain damage in concussion patents.
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88A study that appeared this week in the publication JAMA Neurology found that people who are suffering from lingering effects from head injuries have different levels of certain proteins in their brain and spinal fluid.
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90The new research suggests that doctors may one day be able to use spinal fluid samples to determine whether athletes with concussions should stay on the sidelines longer, or at risk of more serious long-term neurological problems and should retire.
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92The Sweden-based study done compared 16 hockey players who have had concussion issues, ranging in age from 22 to 53 and a control group of 15 non-athletes with no concussion issues.
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94Of the athletes, nine had serious concussion issues that plagued them during their career for at least one year, with them being unable to return, while the other seven had concussion issues but issues that enabled them to return to play in less than one year.
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96There were significant differences in neurofilament light proteins in the brain between the players who had the more significant concussion problems. What was learned in the study is that the players who had concussions but were able to return in less than one year had light protein levels almost identical to that of the non-sports playing control group. However, the athletes who had the more serious concussions had double the range. But the study wasn’t perfect because there was one person in the control group whose numbers were more than the median numbers of the group with serious concussion issues. There was one at least person who had a serious concussion issue during their career whose numbers were identical to the range of the other groups, which also could be that he had the issues but has since fully recovered. But on average, there was a very significant discrepancy.
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98The study showed that increased cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light proteins and reduced amyloid B were observed in patients who had previous major concussion issues. The belief is that it’s possible measuring these biomarkers can be an objective tool to assess the degree of central nervous system injury in individuals who have suffered concussions and better assess when athletes should return, or if they should return.
99
100One of the most unique nights of the year, both heartwarming and sad, took place on 9/16 with CMLL’s Night of Legends at Arena Mexico in Mexico City.
101
102During the week, Fantasma, the head of the Box y Lucha commission in Mexico City (which notably, does not regulate UFC as it would be quite the spectacle to announce commissioners like Fantasma and Rambo), noted that it could be his last time wrestling in Arena Mexico, which is Mexico’s version of Madison Square Garden to aspiring Luchadores, and even if it wasn’t, it probably would be for some of the legends brought back.
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104A crowd of about 13,500 fans, almost as large as for the anniversary show two weeks earlier, was rabid, for a show that started at 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon on Mexican Independence Day. Being a national holiday, there were a ton of shows all over the country and crowds were stronger than usual almost everywhere, although nothing like this one.
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106From a traditional atmosphere standpoint, there is no major arena in the world that can match Arena Mexico. The tradition of CMLL and Arena Mexico is so strong in the culture that a national Lucha Libre holiday has already passed the Mexican senate and will likely be voted into law shortly.
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108The building is old, and very much a throwback. While owing to changes, Arena Mexico fans are probably similar to Toronto or Madison Square Garden fans of a decade plus ago, in the sense they are into the matches and personalities, but cheer and boo who they want regardless of who they are supposed to. But the audience reacts to the matches from start-to-finish, as opposed to trying to direct the matches and be the show with self-indulgent chants. When Mistico was doing houses like this every Friday night and was the biggest arena wrestling drawing card in the world, fans booed him heavily, before it became cool with John Cena. On a regular week, when they have the normal crowd of 4,000 to 5,000, and it’s more hardcore in nature, it’s even more extreme. They hated the pushed pretty boy Rush so much that he turned heel and headed up Los Ingobernables, a group that spread to Japan and revitalized the career of Tetsuya Naito. Rush became easily the top heel in the business. But the high flyers like the new Mistico, or people like Mascara Dorada and Dragon Lee, two of the most talented tecnico style workers in the country, still get the abuse. It’s also now a Friday night tourist hot spot, as buses from the major hotels on Friday nights take fans to and from the wrestling matches like it’s a part of the local culture, seeing the people in front of the building selling the masks.
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110It’s a virtual certainty, with its multiple shows per week and some major boom periods along the way, that there is no arena in the world that has ever existed that has drawn more spectators for pro wrestling over the course of its history than Arena Mexico. Due to the Internet, that atmosphere can be seen almost anywhere in the world. In the U.S., the shows on Friday, as well as the weekly Sunday show, stream for free. In Japan, some of the biggest Friday night shows stream on New Japan World, but only for Japanese subscribers. The wrestlers always have their working boots on for those shows. While the biggest stars now come to the U.S. for weekend shows as much as possible because of the strength of the American dollar to work indies, Japan tours are looked on as a badge of making it. Plus, wrestlers who go to Japan can make a killing in merchandise sales.
111
112While Arena Mexico, the look, and the feel, is a throwback, the last vestige of what American pro wrestling was like 40 years ago, things have changed and modernized. While they have been rivals of AAA for nearly a quarter of a century, they aren’t above copying them, between the big stage, the musical entrances and the dancing girls.
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114On this show, between matches, there were dancing numbers. and before the main event, the 58-year-old former superstar, Mascara Ano 2000, the middle of the three brothers who made up the original Los Hermanos Dinamita (The Dynamite Brothers) wearing the mask he lost before 50,000 fans at the first TripleMania at the nearby Plaza de Toros, sang his own entrance music, as opposed to Emerson, Lake & Powell’s Touch & Go, the song synonymous with he and his brothers when they were a hot act in the early years of AAA.
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116Arena Mexico is really the only place in the world you can do a show like this and draw a house like this. But even so, the lesson of this show is there are limitations.
117
118The crowd enjoyed the holds and counters on the mat provided by 59-year-old Negro Navarro and his regular opponent, 60-year-old Solar. Navarro came into prominence as part of the landmark Los Misioneros de la Muerte, with retired and crippled El Signo, and El Texano, the father of the Lucha Underground star fare nations. After working with El Santo, the John Wayne, Babe Ruth and Hulk Hogan all wrapped up into one of Mexican culture, where the aging Santo suffered a legitimate heart attack, they became incredibly hot heels. Navarro, who looks ancient and wrestles brilliantly, is still a fixture on the indie scene, although it’s been a long time since he last worked for CMLL and the Cathedral, as Arena Mexico is often called.
119
120But the place came unglued for 56-year-old Daniel Lopez, the Hall of Famer known as El Satanico. It’s hard to say what it was. Satanico was mostly a heel during his career, and he was still one of the top stars a decade ago. They also exploded for his tag team partners, Negro Casas, who works in the arena all the time at 55, and Fuerza Guerrera, now 62. Indeed, a six-man tag where Atlantis, at 53, was the youngest man in the match, got the best reaction of the night.
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122But there was sadness as well. Mascara Sagrada, the original creation of Antonio Pena, a moniker perhaps now more famous for the series of great flying minis that have worn the costume over the past 25 years, was heavily overweight and couldn’t do much. Super Astro, the 5-foot-tall powerhouse who was Mexico’s best little flyer in the 80s, before the emergence of Rey Misterio Jr., with his mask and big chest and arms, looks pretty much the same at 55. But that kind of style doesn’t do well with age. He slipped off the ropes and couldn’t do most of his traditional spots.
123
124Worse was the main event. Even though the Dinamita Brothers lost their masks, Cien Caras and Universo 2000 losing them in this very building, they were given special approval because of the show to put them back on again. While that could hide their ages facially, it didn’t help with the wrestling. Dos Caras, the father of Alberto Del Rio, and arguably the best worker of any Mexican heavyweight in history, was able to do a few things but covered from head-to-toe, there was barely a resemblance of the guy who wowed crowds all over the world in his heyday. And he was still mobile compared to Canek, the perennial UWA world heavyweight champion of the 70s, 80s and early 90s, the Ric Flair of Mexico. Rayo de Jalisco Jr., their partner, became a superstar based on the charisma of his father, a Dusty Rhodes type in Mexico, and that he was a pushed main eventer in the late 80s when wrestling returned to television. His 1990 mask vs. mask match with Cien Caras is one of the most legendary matches in Mexican history, and was as a big as almost any ever held in the cathedral. But he could barely get his feet off the ground for his father’s trademark jumping backwards head-butt spots.
125
126The crowd was quiet for the main event. While Canek did get a nice pop when he did a muscle pose, the crowd was dead here, as dead as you’ll ever see a crowd so large for a main event. Some said there was booing of the match (and there was some heckling), but if there was, it was minimal. Some people were leaving as it was going on, rare for a Mexican main event but not unheard of, but the place was still pretty packed when it was over. The crowd wasn’t going to be disrespectful, but it was also clear it was the guys on early like Satanico and Guerrera who they most wanted to see. Another issue is with so many at the show coming that are tourists who don’t know history and who these guys are, after seeing all that great action underneath, they couldn’t understand this match going on last. And really, while a lot of the fan base has the kid nostalgia for Satanico or Fuerza Guerrera (and granted, you’d think they would for the Dinamitas but they didn’t), only the oldest fans remember the heyday of Canek and Dos Caras. Clearly, with the turnout, this type of show will happen again. Some feel it’s best to put the modern stars in the main event and maybe keep the legends in a better mix, in the sense Canek or Dos Caras or Cien Caras would work with teammates who can still go and they’d just come in, and do a quick spot and still draw on their names.
127
128The show did have its modern elements. A match with Mascara Dorada and Cavernario Barbaro on paper looked spectacular. But Dorada sent word he couldn’t make it and was replaced by Valiente. They had a fun modern style Lucha match, marred by a botched finish.
129
130Rush, one of the modern Kings, teamed with his father, Pierroth, and Rey Escorpion, in a battle of heel trios against Ultimo Guerrero, & Euforia & ROH star Matt Taven. This match was done to set up a Rush vs. Taven single match on 9/23 and ended when Taven pinned Rush using the ropes in the third fall. This led to challenges back-and-forth. The match had great heat, as did pretty much everything on the show except the opener and main event.
131
1321. Estrellita & Marcela & Sanely beat Amapola & Jarochita & Metalica in a women’s opener. It was the CMLL debut of both Jarochita and Metalica, who used to work as Felina Metalica. Sanely, who has just started with the promotion, is the daughter of Mano Negra, who worked in the second match.
133
1342. Blue Panther & Kahoz &Negro Navarro beat Mano Negra & Solar & Super Astro in 17:15. Panther came out wearing his mask to a big reaction. But he worked without it. In hindsight, it was a huge mistake for Panther to lose his mask, particularly since it was done largely to swerve the audience since the feeling was too many people “knew” Villano V was losing that 2008 match so at the last minute, they changed the winner to show the fans they weren’t so smart. The problem is, for the next eight years, Panther has been working and looking like an old man when the mask would have hid that, while Villano V hasn’t been a player since shortly after that match. Because of his mat skill, the mask kept him ageless but he looks so much older than he is that he can only be the old man doing mat exchanges now. Navarro and Solar tore the house down when they were in together. Astro screwed up his finish in the first fall and was messing up trademark spots in the second. Astro did a tope in the third fall which ended when Navarro made Solar submit to an offshoot of a Kimura.
135
1363. Atlantis & Fantasma & Mascara Sagrada beat El Satanico & Negro Casas & Fuerza Guerrera in 18:26. Satanico almost had tears in his eyes when he came out to that reaction and to the pop when he won the first fall. He’s gone through major heartache since his son-in-law, Thunder, passed away from cancer just a few months ago. Satanico was one of those heels who was a great house show style worker, and the people just love Casas. Guerrera,for his age, is pretty amazing in the ring as well. The third fall finish was a triple win, with Atlantis putting Casas in the torture rack, Fantasma putting Guerrera in an upside down bearhug and Sagrado using an abdominal stretch on Satanico. Super heat and really fun. Aside from Sagrada, it was a well worked match that got super heat.
137
1384. Valiente beat Cavernario Barbaro in 7:08. The crowd was very into this as well. The finish killed what was otherwise very good, but short. Barbaro ran across the apron and dove through the ropes with a tope. He also crotched Valiente on the barricade. Valiente hurdled the top rope with Cavernario on the apron and arm dragged him to the floor. They did hard chops. Valiente did a tope of his own. The finish was bad. Valiente had Cavernario up for a tombstone piledriver and dropped him into a codebreaker and went for the pin. As Tirantes hit the mat for two, Valiente got up thinking it was three. Then he had to drop down and cover him again because of his screw up, and Tirantes only counted to one, acting like the previous two count still counted. Just killed the finish.
139
1405. Matt Taven & Ultimo Guerrero & Euforia beat Rush & Pierroth & Rey Escorpion in 15:04. This had great heat as well. There is nothing and nobody in wrestling like watching Rush and the crowd reactions to him at Arena Mexico. Taven, coming back from knee surgery, did a tope and later a running dive over the top. There was big heat for Taven vs. Rush, which is what they are building, but even more for Rush vs. Guerrero. In the third fall, Guerrero ran on the floor and jumped over the barricade with a knee on Escorpion. Taven got the pin with the ropes leading to the challenges for a singles match. Rush had amazing heat for his challenges.
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1426. Canek & Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco Jr. beat Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 in 17:54. This killed the crowd. Canek did the worst clothesline ever on Cien Caras. Rayo pinned Caras in the third fall with his jumping backward head-butt except he couldn’t get more than a few inches off the ground, and a few more head-butts on the ground. Well into the negative stars. And the thing is, given who these guys were, the crowd and probably everyone wanted to like it and just couldn’t. What’s the question is if it was the main event that drew the house, or if the people had come to see Satanico, Fuerza Guerrera, etc. who got the much bigger pops. The funny thing is, I’m not sure the house wasn’t really drawn by the guys who ended up getting far less reaction.
143
144The big story pushed by AXS this past week was a merger of two of what would be called the leading developmental promotions in MMA, but somewhat quietly, perhaps the biggest story is the end of the best MMA news television show.
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146Inside MMA, the weekly one hour news show is ending its run after nine years with the final show on 9/30. The show began with Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten at the helm on September 14, 2007 and I did the show a couple of times in its early years. Mauro Ranallo had just started on the show with the 3/25 episode, taking the place of Rice as the host.
147
148I’m sorry to see it go because it was the best show of its kind, and had improved with the addition of Ranallo as its voice. It covered all the leading MMA news regardless of promotion, would air highlights from smaller shows and you’d often learn for the first time about fighters on the way up from the show. But they also didn’t shy away from coverage of the real news stories, the ones that were really important but perhaps not as marketable to the general public, whether it be unionization of fighters, concussion research, regulation changes and the like. In addition, with Ranallo and Rutten, neither shied away from giving their opinions on things both right and wrong with the sport. They also interviewed the biggest names, including a number of pro wrestlers over the years appearing on the show.
149
150The show aired after the Friday night fights, usually around 12:30 a.m., since November 7, 2014, after airing in prime time since its inception. Obviously the time slot change hurt the audience. The cancellation was due to a number of things, including the fact that both live fights and New Japan Pro Wrestling drew better audiences and that the landscape of coverage of MMA has changed greatly.
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152When the show started, there was not a lot of mainstream coverage of MMA and Inside MMA, along with a few web sites were the places to go for news. But now, every major sports site has coverage and the MMA-specific web sites like MMA Junkie and MMA Fighting are far more prominent. The role had to change from breaking of news to analysis.
153
154The more pushed story is that two of the promotions that regularly appear on AXS TV, the Resurrection Fighting Alliance and Legacy Fighting Championships announced on 9/19 that they have merged to form a new company, the Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA).
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156The company also announced a five-year deal with AXS, covering 2017 to 2021, where they will be the most prominent promotion featured on the station. The new company will air 30 live Friday night cards every year on the station, in a regular time slot of 9 p.m. to midnight, meaning longer shows with a one hour earlier regular start time.
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158AXS will be doing 45 Friday night shows in 2017, meaning they will still feature a few other promotions, but they would have less time slots for those groups.
159
160The merger comes at the same time as Mick Maynard, who had been the owner and President of Legacy, taking a new job with UFC as Vice President of Talent Relations, or assistant booker and matchmaker.
161
162Maynard will try to fill the opening caused by the retirement of Joe Silva.
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164Ed Soares, the longtime manager of a number of Brazilian fighters, including Anderson Silva, who headed RFA, will be the CEO of the group. Sven Bean, who was one of the head people with Legacy, will be the COO.
165
166Soares said on MMA Fighting the deal was put together after six to eight months of talks, and the goal is to be the leading developmental brand for the sport. Both promotions have served as key developmental organizations for new UFC fighters. In 2016, Legacy did 14 shows on AXS and Resurrection did 13.
167
168Ron Kruck, who was the key news guy on Inside MMA, will be moved to the fight broadcast team for the Friday night fights with Michael Schiavello and Pat Miletich.
169
170In related news, UFC formally announced the retirement of Joe Silva on 9/20 in a release announcing that Mick Maynard had joined the promotion.
171
172As expected, Sean Shelby, who has been Silva’s assistant, and handled the 125, 135 and 145 pound divisions as well as the women’s divisions, was promoted to Senior Vice President of Talent Relations, the position Silva had filled with the company since the Fertitta Brothers purchased the company from Bob Meyrowitz in 2001.
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174The company officially announced Maynard as Vice President of Talent Relations and Silva as retiring as of the end of the year.
175
176It is expected that Maynard will handle certain divisions as will Shelby, although at this point it isn’t clear who will do what.
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178“Joe Silva’s contributions to the UFC over the last 20 years were huge, and he played a big role in helping make the sport as big as it is today,” said Dana White. “He left his mark on this sport and I wish him nothing but success in retirement.”
179
180Maynard started promoting shows on a regional basis in Texas in 2006, and was responsible for launching the careers in MMA of Holly Holm, Henry Cejudo and Sage Northcutt.
181
182Michael Johnson knocked out Dustin Poirier in 1:35 to headline UFC’s 9/17 show in Hidalgo, TX.
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184Johnson is a unique fighter in the division, good enough to have wins over both Edson Barboza and Tony Ferguson, who are currently among the top contenders for champion Eddie Alvarez. But he’s inconsistent enough that even with the win over Poirier, his career record is only 17-10.
185
186The show was just a normal show, a few highlights, some of the regulatory issues you almost always get in Texas, and a few boring fights thrown in.
187
188The show did 826,000 viewers on FS 1 for the main card and 637,000 for the prelims. The show went not only against a Canelo Alvarez boxing PPV, but also Saturday night college football which included games on FOX, ABC, NBC, ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPN U all head-to-head. On average, about 19 million viewers were watching the various football games including 5,804,000 watching Ohio State vs. Oklahoma and 4,987,000 watching Notre Dame vs. Michigan State. It was the highest rated live sports event that wasn’t football on television that night.
189
190The audience was fairly steady with a peak of 905,000 viewers for the Evan Dunham vs. Rick Glenn fight. The audience would have been higher but both the main event and co-main ended in less than two minutes, leaving both with limited time to build an audience. It also led to the show ending 18 minutes early.
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192The postfight show did 280,000 viewers and weigh-ins did 45,000 viewers the day before.
193
194For a comparison, the show last year in September headlined by Josh Barnett vs. Roy Nelson, significantly bigger names, which also went five rounds, did 841,000 viewers.
195
196The live crowd for the debut in Hidalgo was 5,624 paying $323,419. Hidalgo is WWE’s strong mid-level market and it beat the last WWE show by a little, but to me the numbers are disappointing for a UFC debut.
197
198Dunham and Glenn got $50,000 bonuses for the best fight, while the other performance bonuses went to Johnson and Chas Skelly.
199
200Skelly’s fight was the highlight of the night. He and opponent Maximo Blanco ran to the center and both tried flying kicks at the same time. Skelly’s landed, basically a one legged dropkick that would be a Shinsuke Nakamura type move, right to the jaw, which stunned Blanco so Skelly could get the Anaconda choke in 19 seconds. After the fight, Skelly said that his idea was to start with a flying dropkick, but he wasn’t athletic enough to do it, so said he had to settle for the Hulk Hogan boot, which this wasn’t quite either.
201
2021. Alejandro Perez (17-6-1) drew Albert Morales (6-0-1) on scores of 29-27 Morales, 28-28 and 28-28 in a bantamweight fight. So this was the latest Kerry Hately controversy. At the end of the first round, won by Morales, both guys threw punches late and were warned. At the end of the second round, which most thought Morales won, but was closer, again, both guys threw late punches which didn’t land solid. Hately then deducted one point from Perez. In the third round, Morales did a running knee to the jaw of Perez, who was down, in a vicious and totally illegal move. Hately didn’t deduct a point. Perez did win the third round. It ended with two of the three judges giving Perez round two, which made the fight a draw. But 81 percent of the media had the fight for Morales by 29-27 scores and the other 19 percent had it a draw. But if you eliminated the bogus foul point on Perez, and gave Morales the point deduction for what should have been an easy and flagrant call, it would change the score too 28-28 if Morales got the second round. So the draw wasn’t an unfair decision in the end.
203
2042. Randy Brown (8-1) beat Erick Montano (7-4) at :18 of the third round in a welterweight fight. Montano won the first two rounds, and then in the third round, he rushed in for a takedown and got caught in a guillotine for the submission. After the fight, Brown called out, of all people Bryan Barbarena (the guy who beat Sage Northcutt).
205
2063. Jose Quinonez (5-2) beat Joey Gomez (6-2) via decision on scores of 29-28, 30-27 and 30-27 in a bantamweight fight. Quinonez won the first round with three takedowns as well as knocking Gomez down with a body kick. In the second round, Quinonez got the takedown and scored some damage on the round. Gomez got up and dropped Quinonez with a left. In the third round, Quinonez got a knockdown with a knee, and was on top in full mount. Quinonez was looking for submissions before Gomez could get up.
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2084. Antonio Carlos Jr. (6-2, 1 no contest) beat Leonardo Augusto Leleco (11-3, 1 no contest at 4:46 of the third round in a middleweight fight. The first round didn’t have much except Carlos got a takedown. However, he threw a knee and it was a deal so close that even the replay couldn’t give you a definitive answer if Leleco would have been downed when the knee connected. Leleco had his hand down and Carlos threw the knee and Leleco’s hand came off the ground, meaning the move was legal, right at the moment he was struck. Then, the ref deducted a point from Carlos for the knee. In the second round, Carlos got a takedown and landed a number of punches before Leleco was able to get back up. Carlos got two more takedowns in the third round, even though Leleco was constantly grabbing the cage to avoid takedowns, which he did enough that they should have taken a point away. Carlos finally got behind him and finished him with a choke.
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2105. Belal Muhammad (10-1) beat Augusto Montano (15-3) at 4:19 of the third round in a welterweight fight. Montano is the brother of Erick Montano who was in the second fight. Muhammad won the first round landing a few good head kicks and a right. Montano was doing better in the second round until being taken down and got his back. Muhammad got a takedown in the third round and was working for a choke. Muhammad got another takedown and started landing a lot of punches and Herb Dean stopped it.
211
2126. Gabriel Benitez (19-5) beat Sam Sicilia (15-7) at 1:20 of the second round in a featherweight fight. Benitez used leg kicks as his primary weapon while Sicilia landed some strong punches. In the second round, Benitez dropped Sicilia with a left. Sicilia got back up and shot for the takedown, and was caught in a guillotine for the submission. This was a very impressive performance from Benitez here.
213
2147. Chas Skelly (16-2) beat Maximo Blanco (12-8-1, 1 no contest) in :19 in a featherweight fight. This was the fastest submission in UFC featherweight history. Skelly landed the running flying kick and immediately got the Anaconda choke.
215
2168. Islam Makhachev (13-1) beat Chris Wade (11-3) via decision on straight scores of 29-28 in a lightweight fight. This was a good grappling match. Makhachev got the first takedown. Wade reversed to the top and Makhachev went for a triangle from the bottom. Wade landed some punches from the top as the round ended. In the second round, Wade went for a guillotine. Makhachev escaped and got his back. Wade reversed and Makhachev reversed back into side control and got his back. Makhachev worked for a choke while Wade later went for a heel hook. In the third round, Wade went for a guillotine, but Makhachev escaped and got on top. He got Wade’s back again and Makhachev controlled him and landed punches. The crowd wasn’t much into this.
217
2189. Roan Carneiro (21-10) beat Kenny Robertson (15-5) via split decision on scores of 28-29, 30-27 and 29-28 in a welterweight fight. Boring fight. Carneiro got a takedown to win the first round where little happened. Carneiro got a takedown in the second round, but was reversed and Robertson landed punches and elbows. Carneiro reversed into mount and kept it until the round ended. In the third round, both were tired and landing punches and Carneiro had the edge most of the round.
219
22010. Evan Dunham (18-6) beat Rick Glenn (18-4-1) on straight 30-27 scores in a lightweight fight. Dunham dominated the fight but couldn’t put Glenn away. The first round wasn’t that exciting but the second round was great and third was also good. Dunham got a takedown and nearly finished him with a choke in the first round. Glenn looked done but got out. Dunham got another takedown and also connected with punches and knees as Glenn, who took the fight on late notice, got tired. Both landed good shots in the third round with Dunham getting the better of the standup, hurting Glenn with punches and a strong head kick.
221
22211. Derek Brunson (16-3) beat Uriah Hall (12-7) in 1:41 in a middleweight fight. Brunson dropped Hall with a left. Hall was knocked down hard and Brunson jumped on top and started throwing punches on the ground until it was stopped. Hall was furious at the stoppage, and the crowd was mad when the replay showed that Brunson’s knockdown punch was a killer, but the punches on the ground didn’t land. This was Brunson’s fourth straight first round win and he really needs to face the Gegard Mousasi vs. Vitor Belfort winner on 10/8 to determine the next guy entering the big five ranks in the division.
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22412. Michael Johnson (17-10) beat Dustin Poirier (20-5) at 1:35 in a lightweight fight. Both came out throwing. Johnson was quicker and cut Poirier, and then dropped him hard with a left and finished with punches on the ground.
225
226When New Japan first started its comeback using loaded monthly PPV shows the issue became that they either would give every key match time, in which case the shows would be close to five hours, or a lot of the secondary championship matches were kept short, and even then, because so much focus was on building drama to the key matches, the big shows were still well over four hours.
227
228So one of the changes was that they started doing two PPV shows in many months, where the title matches and big grudge matches were split over two shows. This gave all the key matches adequate time. This month, they went even farther, with the Destruction card split into three shows, a 9/17 show in Tokyo, a 9/22 show in Hiroshima and a 9/25 show in Kobe.
229
230The first show was the company’s weakest big show in recent memory. It was built around two matches, a Never Open weight title match where Katsuyori Shibata retained his title over Bobby Fish, and an IWGP jr. championship match where Bushi surprisingly won the title over Kushida.
231
232Kushida in particular had talked of the pressure on this show. He wanted to prove that a junior heavyweight title match could headline a major show, both when it came to drawing, and also he felt that in the main event, he needed a blow away match, similar or better than the usual great New Japan big show main event.
233
234Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. The Tokyo show drew 2,803 fans, well below a sellout at the Ota Ward Gym. The crowd was kind of dead most of the night. Kushida also had the handicap of working with Bushi, who is the hardest wrestler of all of New Japan’s regular junior heavyweights to get a great match out of. The match featured too much interference, although it did get good by the end, but was not at the level one would expect from a big show main event.
235
236Overall the show wasn’t bad, as it’s hard to have a bad show when most of the guys are good wrestlers and everything is fast paced. But it felt closer to a normal decent house show than a big event.
237
238Shibata was a key story. Shibata is suffering from a spinal injury and it was questionable if he’d be able to do the match, and it wasn’t confirmed the match was on until the day before. Then, after he did the match, as well as a post-match angle to set up a bout with Kyle O’Reilly (stemming from O’Reilly beating him in ROH), it was announced he would be off the rest of the tour.
239
240Shibata’s injury is serious and no timetable was given for him to be healed. The last word we had was that he would face O’Reilly, and then take more time off after that match. The date of that match hasn’t been announced yet but the next major show after this tour is the 10/10 King of Pro Wrestling show at Sumo Hall. Shibata was clearly not himself in the match with Fish, even though they had the best match on the show.
241
242The Hiroshima show starts at 4 a.m. Eastern time Thursday morning with Togi Makabe & Yoshitatsu & Captain New Japan & Teruaki Kanemitsu vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Matt Sydal & Ricochet, Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi & Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask vs. Fish & O’Reilly & Ryusuke Taguchi & David Finlay, Rocky Romero & Baretta vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa, Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin & Juice Robinson & Kushida vs. Tetsuya Naito & Seiya Sanada & Evil & Bushi, Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Young Bucks in a battle of tag team champions with only the IWGP heavyweight tag titles at stake, Adam Cole vs. Will Ospreay for the ROH title, Kazuchika Okada vs. Bad Luck Fale in a non-title match (since they are advertising Okada’s IWGP heavyweight title match with Naomichi Marufuji on the King of Pro Wrestling show on 10/10 already) and the main event has Kenny Omega defending his January 4th main event spot and IWGP title shot against Yoshi-Hashi.
243
244There are a couple of key notes to this show. The first is that New Japan’s annual tag team tournament will be from 11/18 at Korakuen Hall to 12/10 in Miyagi. Obviously they want the IWGP tag team champions for the tournament. The problem is ROH has Final Battle during the same period of time. New Japan wanted the Briscoes for the tour and ROH felt they needed the Briscoes as well for their shows. But the Young Bucks winning the tag titles and being in the tournament has the same issue, with the Bucks also under ROH contract and being key players in the company. Plus, there’s been talk of pushing the Bucks & Cole as the key trio going forward so having them hold the jr. titles, the heavyweight titles and the trios titles at the same time would sound like overkill, although it’s actually a good way to bring them to a much higher credibility level. Cole vs. Ospreay is a real big deal because it’s Cole’s first major singles match in Japan and Ospreay is obviously going to turn it on in his first shot at the ROH title.
245
246The Kobe show starts at 3 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday morning, or midnight Saturday night, with Finlay & Henare & Hirai Kawato vs. Ospreay & Romero & Baretta, Yoshitatsu & Captain New Japan vs. Takahashi & Owens, Makabe & Honma & Taguchi vs. Tenzan & Tiger Mask & Kanemitsu, Nakanishi & Nagata vs. Fish & O’Reilly, Kojima & Ricochet & Sydal defend the Never Open weight trios titles against Young Bucks & Cole, Goto & Ishii & Briscoes vs. Omega & Fale & Tonga & Roa, Tanahashi & Robinson & Kushida vs. Sanada & Evil & Bushi, Okada & Yoshi-Hashi & Gedo & Jado vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Toru Yano & Daisuke Harada & Atsushi Kotoge of NOAH, and a main event of Elgin vs. Naito for the IC title.
247
248Key stuff to watch here is that they are doing a knee injury storyline with Elgin. Plus, a lot of Tokyo Dome speculation involves the idea of a Naito vs. Tanahashi IC title match to go with Okada vs. Omega’s IWGP title match. Tanahashi never got his IC title rematch after losing it to Omega (who then lost to Elgin in the match that Tanahashi was scheduled in). The semi is there to build the Okada vs. Marufuji title match. Nagata & Nakanishi vs. Fish & O’Reilly is also interesting. On Japan shows, the tradition is the heavyweight tag team beats the jr. team, but Fish & O’Reilly are rising in the ranks and O’Reilly will be getting a Never title match, while Nagata & Nakanishi are entrenched in their undercard position.
249
250Results from the Ota Ward Gym show:
251
2521. Rocky Romero & Baretta beat David Finlay & Henare in 5:37. Good action but was rushed. Finlay looked good, as he “graduated” from young boy to a regular undercard guy and been given a new look. Baretta pinned Henare with the Dudebuster. **
253
2542. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi beat Yoshitatsu & Captain New Japan in 6:30. This wasn’t good. There were some bad timing issues and Nakanishi was so slow. A highlight was Nakanishi doing a vertical suplex on both guys at the same time. Nakanishi came off the top rope with a chop on Captain, and Nagata pinned him after an exploder. *1/4
255
2563. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Liger in 8:53. It kept moving. There was a hard chop exchange with Makabe and Kojima. Honma pinned Liger clean with a diving head-butt. **½
257
2584. Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto & Gedo beat Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa & Chase Owens in 11:05. Gedo sold early. Goto hot tagged in. The finish saw Goto used the ushigoroshi on Roa, and then Ishii used a hard lariat and a brainbuster to pin Roa. **1/4
259
2605. Kyle O’Reilly beat Juice Robinson in 12:59. O’Reilly looked very good here in building him for the Never title shot. It was almost an O’Reilly one man show early until Robinson had a spinebuster and did a pescado dive. O’Reilly did a suplex called the O’Reilly Factor. Robinson got a near fall with a power bomb, but when he tried another, O’Reilly got him in a triangle. O’Reilly first used a guillotine, and then a brainbuster for a near fall before winning via submission with an armbar. ***
261
2626. Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & Yoshi-Hashi beat Kenny Omega & Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi in 11:31. This was good stuff, particularly when Ospreay was in with Omega. Takahashi is now full WWF Godfather with the walking stick and chains as well as four women all dressed up as opposed to one woman in a bikini. Omega started doing muscle poses and talked about Kevin Levrone (Levrone is a well-known bodybuilder who competed in the Mr. Olympia from 1992 to 2003, placing second four times, and then retired, and just this past weekend made a comeback at 52 years old in the Olympia which was considered almost ridiculous at his age and with only five months of training, but finished 16th). A lot of focus was on Okada and Fale to build their singles match. Fale went for the grenade, but in mid-air, Okada hit the dropkick and bodyslammed Fale. Ospreay’s big spot was doing a high dropkick on Omega, and then landing on his feet like Doug Furnas and then doing a Fosbury Flop dive on Takahashi. Omega blocked the Oscutter and hit a fast dragon suplex. Omega and Ospreay are going to have a great singles match here someday, as they had a fantastic PWG match which was one of the best matches in that promotion all year. Yoshi-Hashi got out of the one winged angel into a backstabber. The finish saw Ospreay give Omega a shooting star press to the floor and Yoshi-Hashi pinned Takahashi with his power bomb like move called Karma. After the match, Okada and Fale had a pull-apart which included Fale running over Okada and trying to give him the Bad Luck Fall on the floor, but all the seconds pulled Okada off him to safety. Omega then left with one of the women and told her that they were going to celebrate a glorious defeat, and then said, that doesn’t make any sense but she doesn’t know that because she can’t speak English. Yoshi-Hashi then cut a promo on Omega. ***½
263
2647. Tetsuya Naito & Seiya Sanada & Evil beat Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi in 13:12. Elgin powerslammed Naito and Evil at the same time. He then pressed Sanada overhead and powerslammed him. Sanada took out Elgin’s left knee and most of the match was working over the knee to weaken him for his title defense against Naito. There were several near falls. Taguchi went for the hip attack on Sanada, who moved back and Taguchi ended up being crotched on Sanada’s knee. Sanada then won via submission with the skull end. ***1/4
265
2668. Katsuyori Shibata beat Bobby Fish to retain the Never Open weight title in 16:42. Shibata’s right shoulder was all taped up. Shibata didn’t do much early but sell. Fish worked the left leg, and then after an exploder, starting working on the neck. At one point Fish used a snap suplex and dropped Shibata on his head. Fish worked him over forever until Shibata fired up and told Fish to kick him as hard as he could. So Fish started kicking him as hard as he could. Shibata took it and came back with elbows and the abdominal stretch. Shibata hit a German suplex and the penalty kick, but then collapsed and couldn’t get the pin. They went back-and-forth until Shibata hit a sick head-butt. It was that skull on skull stuff that I hate, and worse, Shibata’s was bleeding all over the place. Shibata then put Fish in the choke, had him just about it, let it go and hit the penalty kick for the pin. After the match, O’Reilly came in for the challenge. O’Reilly pressed his head against Shibata’s and Shibata taunted O’Reilly by holding up the belt. ***3/4
267
2689. Bushi pinned Kushida in 21:03 to win the IWGP jr. title. The first part of this match wasn’t good, but it may be impossible for Kushida to have a bad match. Bushi started choking Kushida with his T-shirt until Kushida back suplexed him and threw the shirt away. There was a masked Ingobernable dressed up like Bushi used to be (he was never revealed) who interfered right in front of ref Red Shoes Unno. That stuff always looks bad. Kushida did a running flip dive onto both of them. Kushida went for a springboard dropkick, but Bushi threw Unno into the path and the ref was taken out. Bushi blew a ton of green mist in Kushida’s eyes. Naito then came out. Bushi hit a tope on Kushida as Naito held him. Naito and Bushi were double-teaming Kushida until Elgin made the save. Elgin was limping from the earlier match. He brawled with Naito up the ramp and threw him backstage. From there it got good. Kushida got a near fall after a German suplex, a low dropkick and a moonsault. Bushi used a low blow and bridging pin for a near fall. Bushi came off the top rope into a codebreaker by Kushida. But Bushi kicked out. They traded hard elbows and slaps before Kushida got the hoverboard lock. Bushi cradled Kushida from that position for a near fall. Bushi then won using a Canadian Destroyer, followed by Bushi doing his Midnight Express, which is coming off the top rope into a codebreaker, for a near fall. Bushi then did a second Midnight Express, this time off the top rope, for the pin. ***1/4
269
270Donald Welch, a journeyman wrestler who spent most of his career in the Southeast under the name Don Bass, passed away from cancer on 9/16 at the age of 70.
271
272Welch was no relation to the famous Welch (Fuller/Welch/Golden) wrestling family of Tennessee, nor related to the more famous Outlaw Ron Bass, (Ronald Heard) who he facially resembled greatly and teamed with. He had been battling serious health problems for years, but only learned that he was suffering from cancer a few weeks ago, and that it had spread throughout his body and that he wasn’t going to live much longer..
273
274He told nobody he had it. He collapsed at his home on 9/10 and was rushed to the hospital by his daughter, who then discovered how serious the cancer was. He was told he had four to six months left, but didn’t make it anther week. He passed away at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis. His funeral will be 9/24 at Roller-Citizens Funeral Home in Memphis.
275
276Don Bass was billed from being from Greasy Corners, AR, a great name for a city for a heel to come from, but lived most of his life in Jericho, AR, just outside West Memphis and near Jonesboro
277
278After being trained by the Galentos, he started wrestling in the late 60s on smaller shows, and his first career break came working for Phil Golden’s All-Star Wrestling promotion out of Paducah, KY in 1971, when he went from Don Welch to Don Bass. He formed a tag team with Bobby “No Class” Bass (Dennis Baldock of Nova Scotia) managed by their supposed mother, Maw Bass (50s woman wrestling star and glamour girl wrestler Mae Weston, real name Betty Garvey), a rare for the time female manager who used a loaded purse to interfere. He also worked some for Leroy McGuirk during this time period. The three moved on to the Gulf Coast territory where they won the United States tag team titles from Rip Tyler & Eddie Sullivan on August 26, 1973, in Pensacola, FL.
279
280The gimmick was that Donnie (as she called him) was a fat loudmouth momma’s boy, and was his mom’s favorite, while no matter what Bobby did, she would yell at him. If Donnie was selling, Maw would yell at Bobby for letting her baby boy get into this situation. She would punch Bobby or grab his ear.
281
282It was while working in the Gulf Coast that Heard joined the Bass family as Ron Bass. The dynamic changed as they became two badass brawlers from Texas with a mean witch of a mother, and all comedy was removed from the act. Maw Bass was now patterned after Ma Barker, a cultural figure representing evil mothers who headed a group of gangster sons in the early 20th century. Ron & Don Bass held the Gulf Coast and United States tag team titles in 1973 and 1974, and had a strong main event heel run. Maw Bass had so much heat that the promotion brought in the Fabulous Moolah as a babyface to counter her, and they even did Moolah vs. Maw Bass title matches as main events in all the cities at one point.
283
284Don later told friends that he learned more about working, the business, and being a heel from Mae Weston than anyone else, and would always refer to her as “Mammy.”
285
286Ron & Don next came to Tennessee, but without Maw. Instead, they were managed by Sam Bass (Fed, not Fred, White), who gained later fame as the manager of Jerry Lawler when Lawler exploded as a heel singles star and set the territory on fire. Maw was so hot in the Gulf Coast that remained a manager and booker Bob Kelly created new Bass sons for her, including Woodrow Bass (Jim White, who was Jerry Lawler’s first major tag team partner), Dutch Bass (Wayne Keown, now known as Zeb Coulter and before he was known as Dutch Mantell). Other Bass family members included Roy Bass (Roy Klein) and Percy Bass (Yorn Hyde).
287
288Ron & Don Bass held the Tennessee tag team titles twice in 1975, and worked with all of the territory’s top stars. Don was also pushed as a top level babyface for McGuirk in a late 70s feud with The Spoiler (Don Jardine).
289
290His best later success came as part of a tag team with Roger Smith. The two worked under a number of different names, including Don Bass & Roger Smith as well as The Masked Assassins, holding the Southern tag team titles under both guises. They also worked as The A Team, during a period when the television show of the same name was popular, as well as under masks as Fire & Flame.
291
292There was a controversial incident during this run as Smith and a friend did their own angle. This was when they were doing the Fire & Flame gimmick, where they used fire as part of their act. The friend of Smith’s, as he was brawling on the floor, threw a punch at him and Smith grabbed him and gave him a back suplex on the floor. Everyone assumed it was a fan, and Ch. 5, which aired the matches, were furious that a wrestler injured a fan. At first they were banned from television for a few weeks.
293
294Under the different names, the pair held the Southern tag team titles in 1984 and 1985, including being regular adversaries of The Fabulous Ones and the Rock & Roll Express.
295
296Don Bass also teamed with Troy “Dream Machine” Graham as a reincarnation of The Masked Interns.
297
298He also once held the Southern heavyweight title twice in 1987, doing a singles program with Jerry Lawler. His gimmick at the time was he was the singing cowboy, Don Bass. He claimed to be a recording artist and would push himself selling records like the late-night commercials that used to air for records in those days.
299
300Lance Russell called him a liar. They actually played Bobby Bare records (Bobby Bare was a country star of that era who was a wrestling fan and a friend of Jerry Jarrett’s) and Bass badly lip synched the song “Dropkick me Jesus.” Russell said it was obviously lip synched and told him to prove him wrong by singing right there, and Bass said that he had a big concert coming up and had to rest his voice. In some ways this was the persona that Jeff Jarrett later used in his first WWF run.
301
302His title win was actually in a tag team match with the singles title at stake, as Bass & Brickhouse Brown beat Lawler & Rocky Johnson on August 3, 1987 at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis. Lawler regained the title a week or two later, but Bass beat him again for the title on August 24, while Lawler won it back a week later.
303
304Earlier that year, Smith, who started using the name Dirty Rhodes, doing a Dusty Rhodes impersonation, teamed with Bass in a feud with Lawler & Tommy Rich, before Rich did his big heel turn. Bass also teamed with Carl Fergie, the cousin of Lawler, in matches with Lawler & Bill Dundee. He & Gary Young also held the tag team titles, by this point called the CWA tag titles, beating a young Scott Steiner & Billy Travis.
305
306He also trained a lot of wrestlers in the area including David Haskins (Davey Rich), Derrick King and Blade Boudreaux, and he would run his own shows using his trainers.
307
308Beau James compared Bass to Bobby Eaton, as a guy that almost everyone in the business liked. He remembered wrestling a small show in Mobile in recent years as a Bass brother, with Don as his manager and fans went to attack them including one fan who tried to hit Don with a chair.
309
310“When we got in the back, he said, `I’m too old to be getting heat like that, but man I miss it.’”
311
312He was a regular in 2007 during one of the revivals of Memphis wrestling. He stopped wrestling a few years ago after suffering a stroke.
313
314“He loved telling stories about his years in wrestling,” said James. “Not in a bitter `in my day’ kind of way. More like remembering his friends that were gone. He always had advice for young guys and tried to help. He loved the wrestling business.”
315
316Matt Riviera, who worked for Bass, noted that once when he got busted open pretty badly by accident in a match, and needed stitches, how Bass would call to check on him, and said Bass was different from most of the promoters he’d worked for at that level.
317
318“Bass was an unselfish man, giving to the boys and those in need when you could tell he didn’t have much to give,” said Riviera. “He had patience with all the boys, which most guys from his era didn’t have. He could have been a much bigger star, but didn’t like being too far away from home. I know he told me he did a tour of Japan, but only went once, because he was homesick.”
319
320Going against very highly rated premiers of NCIS and The Voice, Smackdown on 9/20 drew its smallest viewing audience since the brand split and going live, with a 1.70 rating and 2,292,000 viewers (1.46 viewers per home), with ratings down nine percent and viewers down 14 percent (once again based on fewer viewers per home) from the prior week. The number is about what the show was doing when it was on tape on Thursdays.
321
322The show was sixth for the night on cable.
323
324The show did a 0.63 in 12-17 (down 6.0 percent), 0.59 in 18-34 (down 19.2 percent), 0.87 in 35-49 (down 20.2 percent) and 0.90 in 50+ (down 11.8 percent). So the decline was the most severe in the most important demo.
325
326The audience was 55.8 percent male in 18-49 and 70.3 percent male in 12-17.
327
328There was more bad news in week two against the NFL, as Raw’s numbers on 9/19 were almost the same as the shockingly low first week. Raw did a 1.97 rating, averaging 2,681,000 viewers (1.48 viewers per home), almost identical to the 2,679,000 the prior week, although last week’s rating was a 1.87 due to more viewers per home.
329
330This was with a slightly lower-rated main football game against them. The Chicago Bears vs. Philadelphia Eagles game did 12,137,000 viewers, down from the 12,961,000 viewers for the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Washington Redskins game that went against Raw until 10:12 p.m. last week, although better than the late game did against the last 55 minutes.
331
332The show started out weaker than last week, but also was a better show overall and fell less in the third hour. The cage match with Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns, done specifically with the idea a cage match would keep the audience until the end, did perform better as far as keeping the existing audience than most Raw main events.
333
334Raw was seventh for the night on cable.
335
336The three hours saw the 8 p.m. house average 2,734,000 viewers; the 9 p.m. hour averaged 2,686,000 viewers and the 10 p.m. house averaged 2,633,000 viewers.
337
338Based on the audience demos being almost identical, down to the one-hundredths of a point, what this seems to show is that it was almost the exact same viewers (obviously there is some change, but probably not much) watching from week-to-week at this point.
339
340The show did a 0.71 in 12-17 (down 2.7 percent), 0.75 in 18-34 (identical to last week), 1.07 in 35-49 (identical to last week) and 1.05 in 50+ (identical to last week).
341
342The audience makeup was 61.2 percent male in 18-49 and 70.8 percent male in 12-17. About the only notable thing about the ratings is that whatever they were pushing for later in the show was a positive toward males and a negative toward women. In the 18-49 women’s demo, the audience dropped 16 percent between hour one and hour three, while in 18-49 men, the audience increased 8.3 percent. In the 12-17 demo, women dropped 20 percent from hour one to three while men increased 16 percent over that same time period. So that’s likely the lure, or lack thereof, of the cage and/or cruiserweights.
343
344The 9/26 show is expected to challenge the October 14, 1996, episode, which did a 1.78 rating, as the lowest rated episode of Raw ever in its regular time slot. There is both the NFL (Atlanta vs. New Orleans), but more importantly, the presidential debate, head-to-head. The only possible saving grace is Raw usually get a bump after a PPV show. Traditionally, the October numbers are the worst because you have both football and baseball playoffs, so the numbers are likely to fall for most of the next few weeks from what they are at now.
345
346Bellator on 9/16 did 686,000 viewers (plus 72,000 more via DVR over the next three days) for a show headlined by Cheick Kongo vs. Tony Johnson. The number is slightly above the Friday night average of 653,000 for this year, even though it went against college football on both ESPN and ESPN 2. The Bellator broadcast was the most-watched sports event other than football that night.
347
348The shoe peaked at 883,000 viewers (966,000 including DVR viewership) for the women’s fight with Anastasia Yankova (who is showing signs of becoming a legit ratings draw) vs. Veta Arteaga.
349
350TNA Impact on 9/15 did 366,000 viewers, which is a very good number considering the competition. It was up, probably because the football game wasn’t as strong this week, but New York Jets vs. Buffalo Bills game did 15,390,000 viewers on CBS and another 3,388,000 on the NFL Network. ESPN also had a Houston vs. Cincinnati college game that did 2,159,000 viewers. The average viewer age for Impact was 57 and the audience was 58 percent male.
351
352Lucha Underground on 9/14 also fell to 99,000 viewers for the second episode of the season for the 8 p.m. showing and 55,000 for the 9 p.m. airing. The average viewer age was 57 and the audience was 68 percent male. Basically they lost a lot of men from the first week, down from 100,000 male viewers last week for the 8 p.m. show to 67,000 this week. The thing is the entire third season has been taped so unlike with a regular wrestling show, where you can look and adjust, Lucha Underground has no such luxury.
353
354The UFC block on 9/14 did 103,000 viewers for UFC Tonight, 132,000 for the previous week’s episode of Ultimate Fighter, 441,000 for the new episode (best number of the season, and the show also did another 241,000 viewers via DVR through Saturday) and 113,000 for TUF Talk.
355
356For 9/12 and 9/13, the Raw viewership was 88.3% watching that night and 11.7% delayed, while Smackdown was 88.8% watching that night and 11.2% delayed).
357
358This is the first issue of the current set. If you’ve got a (1) on your address label, your subscription expires in two weeks with a single and double issue.
359
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361
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363
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367
368You can also get the Observer on the web at www.wrestlingobserver.com for $10.99 per month for a premium membership that includes daily audio updates, Figure Four Weekly, special articles and a message board. If you are a premium member and still want hard copies of the Observer, you can get them for $8 per set in the U.S., $9 per set in Canada and $11.50 per set for the rest of the world.
369
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371
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373
374We also have copies of our latest book, "Tributes II," a 293-page hardcover full color book which features biographies right out of the pages of the Observer. Those featured are Wahoo McDaniel, Lou Thesz, Miss Elizabeth, Freddie Blassie, Road Warrior Hawk, Andre the Giant, Curt Hennig, Johnny Valentine, Davey Boy Smith, Terry Gordy, Owen Hart, Stu Hart, Gorilla Monsoon, The Sheik and Tim Woods. The book is available for $12.95 plus $3.50 for postage and handling in the U.S., $20 for postage and handling in Canada and $25 for postage and handling for the rest of the world.
375
376This publication is copyright material and no portion of the Observer may be reprinted without the expressed consent of publisher/writer Dave Meltzer. The Observer is also produced by Derek Sabato.
377
378Fax messages can be sent to the Observer 24 hours a day at (408) 244-3402. Phone messages can be left 24 hours a day at (408) 244-2455. E-mails can be sent to Dave@wrestlingobserver.com
379
380CMLL: The declaring of 9/21 as a national holiday, the Day of Lucha Libre, is not yet official, although it was being celebrated this week. It passed 75-0 in the Mexican senate as noted last week, but still has to go through the House of Deputies (equivalent to the House of Representatives in the U.S.) before becoming law. But that is expected to happen. Just the fact this is happening tells you volumes about pro wrestling in the culture in Mexico as compared to other places in the world, even though Mexico is currently not a hotbed or having a boom
381
382The 9/23 show at Arena Mexico is a big one with Atlantis & Marco Corleone & Stuka Jr. vs. El Terrible & Ultimo Guerrero & Shocker, a singles match with Matt Taven vs. Rush and a Reyes del Aire (King of Flyers) Cibernetico (elimination match) with Dragon Lee, Mascara Dorada, Maximo Sexy, Mistico, Valiente, Volador Jr., Cavernario, Dragon Rojo Jr., Euforia, La Mascara, Mephisto and Negro Casas. CMLL Cibernetico matches are usually good and King of Flyers matches are usually a step up from that, but with Lee, Dorada, Mistico Valiente, Volador, Cavernario and Mephisto all in the same match it could be something really great
383
384On the 9/18 show at Arena Mexico, Taven teamed with Mephisto & Ephesto to beat Mistico & Valiente & Volador Jr., when Taven unmasked Mistico and pinned him
385
386There were two early in the week title matches. On 9/19 in Puebla, Negro Casas & Shocker retained the CMLL tag titles over Mistico & Volador Jr., while on 9/20 at Arena Mexico, Mephisto retained the CMLL welterweight title pinning Titan after a pedigree (super devil’s wings) off the top rope.
387
388ELITE: So now they are moving the weekly Wednesday show back to Friday in Naucalpan, with the TV taping on 9/23. The main event is for their Elite League tournament, which at this point seems to have no rhyme nor reason, with Extreme Tiger vs. Caristico plus Cibernetico vs. Rey Escorpion
389
390They packed the 2,500-seat Arena Naucalpan on 9/14 for a show headlined by Blue Demon Jr. & Golden Magic & Xtreme Tiger beating Cibernetico & Rey Escorpion & Sharly Rockstar. Escorpion is the only one of the six who regularly works for CMLL, and he hasn’t been around there of late. Demon Jr. seemed to turn heel last week, but that was forgotten this week, and it was probably just to stall the show. One of the reasons they were able to pack the place is because they cut way back on ticket prices. The problem with that is discount price shows when you lower ticket prices usually work the first time, and after the first time, attendance reverts back to what it was and then you’re just getting a smaller gate.
391
392AAA: The political situation with Alberto El Patron is that at least for now, he’s debuting in the main event of the 10/2 Heroes Inmortales show. AAA is apparently the only promotion in Mexico that was willing to pay $4,000 per appearance as CMLL simply isn’t going to pay anyone that much. Elite was paying bigger money to AAA guys to jump, but with the limited capacity of Arena Naucalpan, where they are now running, it just makes no sense to pay that much for one guy. The problem is that working here dooms Alberto for New Japan. New Japan made him an offer for a schedule similar to that of A.J. Styles when he was there, but he’d have to work CMLL in Mexico. He wasn’t interested in being in Japan that much anyway. Another political aspect of this is Alberto replaced Rey Mysterio Jr. as the headline star on the 9/24 Crash show in Tijuana because Paco Alonso refused to allow his wrestlers (Rush, La Mascara, Mascara Dorada and others) to work the show because he considered Mysterio an AAA wrestler. Now Alberto is headlining AAA’s next major show. .. Heroes Inmortales at Arena Monterrey is a seven match show which at this point there has been no talk of it being on iPPV. The show is their annual event honoring Antonio Pena. It opens with Aerostar & Drago defending the AAA tag titles in a four-way ladder match against Laredo Kid & Super Fly and Damian 666 & Nicho and Monsther & Murder Clown. Next is a 12-man elimination match for the Antonio Pena Cup. Zorro, Elegido, Pimpinela Escarlata and Nino Hamburguesa have been announced and there are eight more wrestlers to be announced. There will be a six-person match with Gran Apache teaming with daughters Faby & Mary against three guys, Chessman & Averno & Ricky Marvin, stemming from the TripleMania angle. There is a six-man tag with El Hijo del Fantasma & La Parka & El Texano Jr. facing Mesias and two mystery partners. Johnny Mundo, with Taya, defends the Latin American title against Garza Jr. Australian Suicide puts up his mask against the hair of Daga. The main event is Alberto El Patron & Psycho Clown vs Dr. Wagner Jr. & Pagano. No Pentagon Jr. on this show. He’s probably working the U.S., but this is one of the major shows of the year
393
394An interesting note is that the MDA Promotion in Monterrey is running a show head-to-head at Arena Coliseo featuring Alberto’s family on top. They have a strong “star power,” show, even if not strong in the ring, with Mil Mascaras & Dos Caras & El Hijo de Dos Caras (Alberto’s brother Guillermo) vs. Canek & Tinieblas Sr. (who is 77 years old now) & Tinieblas Jr., plus Caristico & L.A. Park & Ultimo Dragon vs. Rush & Xtreme Tiger & Antifaz del Norte
395
396They held a TV taping on 9/16 at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera in Playa de Carmen on 9/16. Dave the Clown replaced the departing El Hijo de Pirata Morgan. The main event saw Brian Cage & Johnny Mundo & Mesias beat Dr. Wagner Jr. & Rey Mysterio Jr. & El Texano Jr., when Wagner turned on Mysterio and Texano. The heels were beating up Mysterio & Texano 3-on-2 until Garza Jr. made the save. . A 10/14 TV taping was announced for Tlahuelilpan at the bullring with Psycho Clown & Texano Jr. & Parka vs. Pagano & Wagner Jr. & Pentagon Jr., El Hijo del Fantasma & Garza Jr. vs. Cage & Mesias, Zorro & Cuervo & Scoria vs. Averno & Chessman & Marvin and Jack Evans & Bengala & Argenis vs. Parka Negra & Superfly & Apache.
397
398ALL JAPAN: Suwama won the Oudou singles tournament to earn the next shot at Triple Crown champion Kento Miyahara, which will headline All Japan’s biggest show of the year on 11/27 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. The finals ere on 9/19 at Korakuen Hall before 1,183 fans, with Suwama winning in 25:36 with a last ride power bomb. Suwama was the one who eliminated Miyahara in the single-elimination tournament. The semifinals earlier in the show saw Zeus pin Jun Akiyama after a jackhammer slam in 10:33 and Suwama go over Kendo Ka Shin with the ankle lock submission in 8:10
399
400Also on the show they officially announced that the Real World Tag League tournament this year will go from 12/3 to 12/18. This will mark the 40th consecutive year that All Japan has ended its schedule with the tournament, which in the late 70s and early 80s was the biggest annual thing in wrestling and was a major thing through the 90s
401
402Also on the 9/19 show, Yohei Nakajima regained the TV title from Billy Ken Kid. Masao Inoue then issued a challenge for the title. Wrestle-1's Manabu Soya issued a challenge to Takao Omori for a match on 10/9 at Korakuen Hall. The two were former tag team partners but are now with different companies. Naoya Nomura and Yuma Aoyagi have joined Miyahara and Jake Lee in a new group called Nextream
403
404The quarterfinals of the tournament took place on 9/17 in Yokohama at the 330-seat Radiant Hall. Suwama pinned Taishi Takizawa in 14:06 with a last ride power bomb. Ka Shin pinned Atsushi Aoki in 9:59 with a small package. Akiyama pinned Mitsuya Nagai in 13:07 with a wrist clutch exploder suplex. This was pushed as two men who both started out in 1992 wrestling each other. Zeus pinned Ryoji Sai in 18:51 after a jackhammer slam. Zeus got a big reaction.
405
406NEW JAPAN: With AXS expanding its MMA coverage, the plans, not yet announced, are that when the live MMA fights move to a regular 9 p.m. start time and three hour shows, that New Japan Pro Wrestling will have a regular 8 p.m. Friday Eastern start time, and also be replayed at midnight, when the fights are over. The show has usually aired at 9 p.m., but some weeks at 8 p.m., based on the start time of the fights. This gives New Japan a consistent start time, and a better replay given the old replay was about 1:30 a.m. and it comes directly after the live fights, which are some of AXS’ highest rated content
407
408Talent has been told over the last week or so that New Japan is looking to expand into new international markets. This may lead to more of the foreigners getting contracts, similar to Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, Rocky Romero, Tama Tonga and Michael Elgin where they are New Japan as their home group. .. Expect Adam Cole & Young Bucks to work together as a trio more going forward as key players in the trios division.
409
410OTHER JAPAN NOTES: Kota Ibushi was announced as facing Kuishinbo Kamen, who is a character who dressed up like a clown and does comedy matches, on the 12/4 DDT show in Osaka at the Edion Arena. That’s the same building NXT is running the night before. The impression I have is that Ibushi doing the comedy match seems to indicate he’s not looking at doing a physically taxing schedule due to his neck and just how limited his appearances have been since his return in April
411
412Michinoku Pro ran a weekend masked tournament which ended on 9/19 in Yahaba (and shocker of shockers, drew 919 fans) with Caristico as the big outside star. Caristico beat Revolucion in the finals, who was unmasked as Dick Togo. Among the guys in the tournament included The Leprechaun, who is Sean Guiness, Maximus is Rionne Fujiwara and Samba Rio de Janeiro is Taro Nohashi, as well as Ultimo Dragon
413
414Kintaro Kanemura has what is billed as his final match in FMW on 9/26, using his old W*ING Kanemura name, teaming with Yoshihiro Takayama & Raijin Yaguchi & Nosawa against Atsushi Onita & Hideki Hosaka & Ricky Fuji & Gosaku Goshogawara
415
416Zero-One is under new management. Dream on Stage is now running the company taking over for First on stage. This is said not to be changing anything in the company
417
418Seiya Sanada is looking to face Masato Tanaka in a singles match in November, stemming from an angle at an 8/25 Nosawa show. It’ll be on Nosawa’s show featuring Mil Mascaras vs. Nosawa in a singles match
419
420Wrestle-1 drew 811 fans for its 9/18 show at Korakuen Hall. Manabu Soya came out and issued a challenge to All Japan’s Takao Omori, who he used to team with. Yusuke Kodama retained their cruiserweight title over Seiki Yoshioka. Kaz Hayashi & Kotaro Suzuki won the vacant tag titles in a match over Shuji Kondo & Yasshi when Hayashi pinned Yasshi. Daiki Inaba retained the Wrestle-1 title over Kai with a Tiger suplex in 21:57 in his first title defense. Wrestle-1 has a big show on 9/25 in Ishikawa which will include legends like Dump Matsumoto, Akebono, Ultimo Dragon and Great Kabuki, plus there will be an in-ring talk show with Keiji Muto talking with Kenta Kobashi which is the real draw. The next Korakuen Hall show is 10/9 with an elimination match with new stars vs. veterans having Inaba & Koji Doi & Jiro Kuroshio & Kumagoro & Kohei Fujimura vs. Masayuki Kono & Kondo & Jun Kasai & Nosawa & Yuji Hino.
421
422HERE AND THERE: There was a lot of talk over the weekend regarding Terry Funk, and health issues, stemming from Funk, 72, being in Philadelphia on 9/17 for Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore promotion at the 2300 Arena. Funk was supposed to be in Dreamer’s corner for his main event match against Matt Hardy, who would have Senor Benjamin in his corner. Funk was reportedly feeling light-headed, and he later told us he was just exhausted. In a sense he was crazy to make the trip as Funk had surgery on 9/12 in Texas for an inguinal hernia. He’d needed the surgery for months and was scheduled to get it several weeks ago. That was the reason he didn’t attend the Waterloo Hall of Fame ceremony in late July. We’d reported at the time that the morning of the surgery, Funk drank a large amount of milk when he woke up, forgetting that he was supposed to have an empty stomach for surgery. When they were preparing him, they asked if he’d eaten or drank anything and he told them he had rank milk. They canceled the surgery at the time, noting it could have been fatal, and rescheduled it, but the first date he could get was four days before his bookings for Dreamer in St. James, NY and Philadelphia. Those were bookings he wasn’t going to cancel even though he had canceled a few bookings this year, notably on the DDT major show. The hernia surgery was very painful and Funk was supposed to stay in bed for about two weeks and not to anything. So four days later, he woke up at 4 a.m. to fly from Amarillo to La Guardia Airport. He appeared at the New York show, and was driven to Philadelphia after, arriving at 4 a.m. He got up the next morning and signed autographs all day. By the time for the evening show, he was exhausted and asked Dreamer if he could just do an interview and leave early. Dreamer said that Funk was having medical issues, which led to people getting very concerned and even his daughter calling him up noting all the stuff on the Internet about him having a heart attack. He did the interview in the ring and mentioned at the end of the interview that he didn’t want to leave the ring because if he left the ring, it could be for the last time. He’s had various health issues over the last few years including a terrible case of pneumonia last summer. He joked to us that he’s got an appointment with his surgeon the middle of next week to get clearance to get out of bed and leave the house, as they have no idea he’s already flown to the Northeast
423
424.The first night of the House of Hardcore shows on 9/16 did about 650 people with a hot crowd. The match of the night was Ricochet beating Tony Nese in a very athletic and acrobatic match. Matt Hardy beat Aron Rex. The crowd was into both, but the biggest reactions came for Senor Benjamin. The main event was Dreamer vs. Rhyno in street fight. Rhyno said that his boss sent him to New York to shut down House of Hardcore. At that point, Shane McMahon’s music played, and out came Pete Gas (Pete Gasparino, a childhood friend and high school football teammate of McMahon’s who wrestled in the WWE from 1999-2001). He then said how the Mean Street Posse was the greatest faction in wrestling history, to easy heat. After the match started, Gas interfered and that led to Sandman coming out and destroying him with cane shots. Rhyno beat Dreamer, but it ended up with Rhyno turning face and hugging Dreamer. Dreamer talked about how the Islanders have left but House of Hardcore has a home. Torito worked under his old name of Mascarita Dorada doing a Wee LC match like he did on a WWE PPV, against Swoggle. Brian Myers worked one of his last matches on the indies before going to WWE as Curt Hawkins and getting “See you Tuesday” chants.. On 9/17, they had a convention that drew 1,100 fans and then sold out the Arena with about 1,000 fans. After Robbie E beat Lance Anoa’i, he was cutting a promo saying he was the most entertaining wrestler in the company, and then Santino Marella came out to his WWE music and used the cobra on him. Myers & Swoggle beat The Underground Luchador (Matt Striker under a mask) & Mascarita Dorada. Myers then got more “See you Tuesday” chants and then turned heel. First he talked about wrestling in the building that his heroes like Raven, Dreamer and Chris Candido worked in. But then he copied the 1993 Shane Douglas promo on the NWA title and told everyone they could kiss his as because he never has to come here again and he’s now going to be HHH’s best friend. This led to Ryback coming out and destroying him. Ryback isn’t doing matches yet because he’s recovering from ear, nose and throat surgeries in late June so he’s only doing limited work in the ring, but is expected to start taking matches and working a full schedule shortly on the indie scene being booked by Pat Buck. He’s been doing the limited appearances for in the range of $4,000. Ricochet beat Callihan in a great match with a 450. Several people were claiming after the show that this was the best match in the history of the building. Matt Hardy beat Dreamer in the main event. They did the old ECW style street fight type of match. Hardy was going to put Dreamer through a table when Joey Styles made the save and screamed “Oh My God.” Dreamer had the match won when Reby Hardy ran in for the save. This led to Beulah McGillicuddy (Dreamer’s wife) attacking her while Styles started screaming “Cat fight.” Dreamer gave Reby Hardy a piledriver. Raven then showed up and hit a DDT on Dreamer. Hardy and Raven hugged. Sandman then came out and started caning Hardy, Raven and Raven’s scribe. Hardy then lit some firecrackers and threw them at Dreamer twice and hardy won after a twist of fate. He then set he was setting Dreamer on fire until Bubba Ray Dudley made the save. Matt and Bubba made challenges back and forth. Bubba then issued a challenge for a Dreamer vs. Matt cage match on the return to Philadelphia on 12/16
425
426The Dudleys may not be doing a lot of indie stuff as there is talk of Devon taking a job as an agent with WWE while Bubba would continue to work as a single on the indies, and both would continue to co-own their Florida wrestling school
427
428Bill Carr was pinned in a loser leaves town match earlier because his regular job won’t let him take bookings with the promotion any longer. They’re back 10/14 in Cleveland with Rhino vs. EC 3 vs. Dreamer, Callihan vs. Bob Holly, Matt Cross vs. nese and Candice LaRae vs. Jessicka Havok. On 10/15 in Elizabeth, PA they had Callihan vs. Rhyno (Rhyno’s last match with the promotion), and Holly vs. EC 3
429
430Jennie Buss, the President of the Los Angeles Lakers, is working with David McLane again to get back into the wrestling business. McLane who started out working for Dick the Bruiser’s WWA territory and later produced Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW), worked with Buss years ago for a TV series called Women of Wrestling (WOW). They are bringing it back with a live show on 9/29 at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. They are looking for a television deal. For now, she’s funding the project. The goal is to make it a touring live event company with weekly national television. The idea here is getting actresses who are pretty or beastly (for a few heel spots) and teaching them some wrestling as opposed to getting good wrestlers and building around them
431
432The What Culture Pro Wrestling iPPV show on 10/6 from Newcastle, England at the Northumbria Student Union called “Refuse to Lose” has quite the payroll involved. You know there’s significant money since not only is Jim Ross coming in as the lead announcer, but Jim Cornette will reunite with him (the two worked together in both WCW and WWF in the 80s and 90s and were excellent together because each has a great comfort zone with the other) and Cornette’s hatred of flying is well-known, let alone flying to England (he did make the trip for some talk shows in the past). The lineup for the show has Kurt Angle vs. Joe Hendry, Joseph Connors defending the WCPW title against Martin Kirby, Alberto El Patron vs. El Ligero vs. Travis Banks to create the WCPW Internet championship, Nixon Newell vs. Kimber Lee for the WCPW women’s title, Rampage vs. Adam Blampied in a street fight and if Blampied (a local manager) loses he gets fired, Minoru Suzuki vs. Joe Coffey and Cody Rhodes vs. Doug Williams
433
434Ross will be doing his first talk show in Toronto on 11/20 at 2:30 p.m. the afternoon of Survivor Series. He’ll be at the Second City Theater
435
436Rico Costantino, 54, who worked as Rico in WWF in the 00s, has been battling health problems all year, including a collapsed lung and severe heart problems, and well as issues related to concussions and memory loss
437
438Tammy Sytch, 43, was hospitalized this past week and missed her weekend booking. PW Insider reported that local police and an ambulance came to her home and she was rushed to the hospital. The reports we had is that she was unconscious when they found her. She’s booked for a convention in Baltimore this coming weekend but it’s unknown whether she’ll be able to make it or not. She said they were issues related to her pancreas. She’s had pancreas issues previously which she said in her autobiography stemmed from heavy drinking and nearly killed her at one point
439
440Matt Riddle was recently offered $20,000 for a fight in China, likely from the One organization, but turned it down saying he doesn’t want to fight anymore and is concentrating on pro wrestling
441
442WWC announced that its biggest shows of the year, the Aniversario tour, will be 10/14 in Humacao, 10/15 in Bayamon (the big show which they are holding in the smaller Pepin Cestero Arena instead of the Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum where it has been in recent years) and 10/16 in Mayaguez. The Bayamon show will be headlined by Jeff Hardy challenging for the Universal title against either Carlito or Mr. 450 Hammet, whoever emerges as champion from their current feud. Hardy sent in a video challenging the winner of the 9/17 match in Bayamon for the title. The match ended in a controversial finish and with the title held up, pending a rematch. There will also be Ray Gonzalez vs. Alberto El Patron (the two had a big feud match last year) in a cage of death. They did a good video recapping the feud and teasing the rematch. They also announced that Primo & Epico would be returning on the show. Primo & Epico have it in their contracts that they can work a few big WWC shows every year
443
444There was a big Twitter feud going on between Octagon Jr. and Juventud Guerrera. It was absolutely not business, but down the line, it would make sense to become business since Octagon & Octagon Jr. vs. Fuerza & Juventud Guerrera does make sense as a program. Right now Fuerza and Juventud aren’t getting along apparently. Octagon Jr. pointed it out, since he’s been around with Octagon during the Octagon vs. Fuerza matches of late
445
446A few major Japan notes on Stan Mykietowich, better known as Moose Morowski, who passed away on 9/10. Morowski was actually a pretty significant name in his early years in Japan, and got a long run as a mid-level foreigner based on it. He debuted in Japan for the IWE promotion in 1969 as Stan the Moose, which was his AWA name. The IWE and Verne Gagne had a working agreement so that’s probably how he got there. But his big run was as the masked Dr. Death in the IWE in 1970-71. On October 8, 1970, at the Osaka Furitsu Gym (now Edion Arena), Dr. Death wrestled Rusher Kimura in the first-ever cage match in Japanese wrestling history, losing via ten count knockout in 17:22. During that run he had three other famous cage matches, losing to Thunder Sugiyama on April 20, 1971 in 40:18 in Tokyo, and losing a rematch at the Furitsu Gym in Osaka four days later when he was pinned in 26:19. On May 6, 1971, he lost another cage match to Kimura, submitting to a Boston crab in 31:20. These matches all aired on prime time network television so he was well known in that country for the rest of his career and regularly came for more than another decade. With the connection with The Funks, who were the foreign bookers of All Japan, he moved to that promotion as Moose Morowski. His most famous match was as the opponent of Jumbo Tsuruta on October 6, 1973, at Korakuen Hall, in Tsuruta’s first match in Japan, losing to the double-arm suplex that Billy Robinson had made famous in Japan. Tsuruta was a national collegiate champion wrestler who went to the 1972 Olympics and was trained by the Funks and worked in the Amarillo territory for seven months before his heavily promoted Japanese debut. He also once beat Giant Baba in a singles match by count out, and once you got past 1966, very few people scored singles wins over Baba. Terry Funk said that Mykietowich was a great guy and a big tough guy. He was about 6-foot-4, and 275 pounds and had an amateur background. He said he was the kind of guy who loved wrestling and always came to work with a smile on his face. He was also known as a great storyteller about a career that saw him headline all over the world
447
448The first Jeff Cobb vs. Matt Riddle match coming off their brief interaction in a ten-man tag at PWG, which tore down the house, took place on 9/16 in Chicago for AAW. The match was said to be incredible, a combination of Riddle’s mat wrestling and his submissions with Cobb’s mat wrestling and pro wrestling power spots. As soon as I saw their interaction I figured this was going to be a match that a lot of indie promoters (some of whom were there) would be putting together all over the country. The match was said to be great and the main event with Fenix beating Chris Hero was said to even better. Hero seemingly can work with anyone of any style these days. That promotion is doing the Jim Lynam Memorial tournament on 10/7 and 10/8 in Berwyn, IL, a 16-man tournament with Drew Gulak, Chuck Taylor, Silas Young, Kamaitachi, Josh Alexander, Brian Cage, Eddie Kingston, Mat Fitchett, Davey Vega, Colt Cabana, Chris Hero, Fenix, Zack Sabre Jr., Prince Ali, AR Fox and Cobb
449
450Pat Laprade (who did the great book on Montreal wrestling history as well as the Mad Dog Vachon biography in French that will be released soon in English) and Dan Murphy are doing a book on the history of women’s pro wrestling called “Sisterhood of the Squared Circle: The Rise and History of Women’s Wrestling.” Nattie Neidhart has agreed to write the foreword. ECW Press is doing the book and they are looking for it to be released in time for WrestleMania 33. Laprade is looking for anyone who has photos of women wrestlers from Japan and Mexico. The photos need to be high resolution (250-300 dpi or better) and either free of rights or not too expensive. You can contact Laprade at patric_laprade@videotron.c
451
452. Mascara Dorada is still booked as late as 10/15 because he’s on a show in Naucalpan with a four-way main event for the Copa Boom International trophy (Boom is the name of the promotion), an all-tecnico high flyer match with Caristico, Titan and Volador Jr. The Lucha Memes promotion runs the same arena on 9/25 with Volador Jr. vs. Rey Horus (Dragon Azteca Jr. in Lucha Underground) which is sort of an under the radar match with a CMLL guy against a Lucha Underground guy who was just on the TripleMania show
453
454The first wrestling matches ever at Yankee Stadium are scheduled for November 4, 2017. It’s actually a football and wrestling doubleheader with Rutgers vs. Maryland.
455
456LUCHA UNDERGROUND: Notes from the 9/14 TV show. So the big thing on the show is that we found out that there was a big war coming and it appears to be between Catrina and Captain Vazquez of the Los Angeles Police Department. What happened is that about 400 years ago, there was some big war and the father of one of them, or perhaps of both, was dying and right before he died he gave his daughter (we don’t know which of the two), an amulet. He said that with the amulet, which for some unexplained reason only works for women as it couldn’t help him, once you grow to adulthood, you will never grow old and you will never die. During the show we found out that both Catrina and Vazquez had half of the amulet. So I guess each needs the other half to live forever, although since both must be about 400 years old, they’re doing pretty well for themselves. It’s too bad neither of them were at all the famous matches with Gotch and Stecher and Lewis so we’d have better history. The show opened with Vazquez in her office with Sgt. Reyes (Cortez Castro/Ricky Reyes) and Sgt. Meehan (Joey Ryan/Joseph Meehan) who are listening to the tape of the wired Mr. Cisco, as Dario Cueto murdered him. Castro heard the tape of his best friend being murdered and wanted to bring Cueto in. Keep in mind we were told that this was months ago when this took place. Vazquez said no and that there is a war and Dario Cueto was a minor part of it and we need to have people inside the temple. Meehan and Reyes then did the worst worked fight scene ever. Dr. Wagner Jr. pinned Mascarita Sagrada in :53 with the Wagner driver. This was as stupid as it sounds. They went back to Vazquez and company and she explained that we need Cueto in the temple. Reyes wanted justice for his friend. She blew off how unimportant his friend was and told Reyes that he was suspended until he decides which side of the war he wants to be on. Mil Muertes pinned Argenis with a spear and downward spiral in 1:34. Catrina licked Argenis and then Prince Puma came out and hit a springboard crossbody on Muertes and a missile dropkick. Catrina then pulled Muertes away from the fight. Ryan came into Cueto’s office with a lollipop. I hope it’s not the same one he tried to get me to lick a few months ago. He told Cueto that he knows he killed Cisco and said he knows it because he’s a cop. But then he told Cueto that he’ll be on his side and glad to be a double agent, but he wants a payoff because he’s got child support. So Cueto gave him some money. He wanted more and Cueto gave him more. He said that he kept Cueto out of jail (actually it was Vazquez) unlike “my idiot partner.” He then told Cueto that Cortez Castro was a cop, so now Cueto knows about it. Then, in the Vazquez office, Reyes told Vazquez that he wanted to be on her side in the war. Next came a crazy match where Killshot beat Marty the Moth in an anything goes match in 22:21. This was brawling all over the place with all kinds of weapons. The match didn’t have any flow to it at all. It was just weapons shots and stunt bumps. Those kind of matches are best kept short so this dragged a lot, but just because of the number of stunts done, a lot of people would like it as well. There were a lot of highlights. At one point Marty grabbed Melissa Santos and put her in front of him. Marty was bleeding. Marty used a claw to the groin. Killshot did a flip bodyblock off the upper rises. Marty used a superplex onto some suitcases and a Death Valley bomb onto a ladder. Marty used a low blow and followed with a power bomb over the top rope through two tables. The match ended with both climbing up a ladder. Keep in mind it wasn’t like they were trying to retrieve anything. There was no reason to climb a ladder other than to set up crazy bumps to end the match. Marty put the mandible claw on Killshot while both were near the top of a 15 foot ladder. Mariposa (Marty’s sister, played by Cheerleader Melissa) climbed up the ladder. Killshot knocked her off the ladder and she fell from about 7 or 8 feet through a table. Killshot then used a claw to the groin and head-butts. He pulled the stolen dog tags off Marty and kicked him. Marty was hanging off the ladder like a Del Rio victim off the top rope. Killshot then jumped from about 13 feet in the air with a double foot stomp on Marty, who was hanging there, and they both flew through a table. That was a seriously insane spot where both could have gotten hurt badly. Killshot then got the pin. The show ended with Muertes backstage punching lockers and demanding Puma. Catrina told him that he’ll get Puma but patience is a virtue. The show ended with the revelation that Catrina has the other half of the amulet (Vazquez had pulled her half out of her desk earlier in the show).
457
458ROH: Two ROH wrestlers were married over the weekend and both missed the weekend shows. Donovan Dijak (Chris Dijak, 29) was married on 9/17. On the same day, Adam Page (Chris Woltz, 25) was married. Woltz is a small town school teacher as his regular job, or at least was. I don’t know if he’s teaching this year, as between ROH and New Japan, he’s getting regular work and you can only call in sick so many days a year
459
460Bull James, the former Bull Dempsey in NXT, made his debut on 9/17 as part of the Honor Rumble match
461
462The last show before the 9/30 All-Star Extravaganza PPV will be on 9/24 in Duluth, GA. The show is headlined by Colt Cabana vs. Jay Lethal in a ringmaster challenge, where the first fall can only be won via pin, the second fall can only be won via submission, and the third fall, if necessary, would be an Iron man match with the most falls within 30 minutes. Other matches are Jay White & Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin vs. Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian & Kamaitachi, Jushin Liger vs. Dalton Castle, Silas Young vs. Stevie Richards, War Machine vs. Rhett Titus & Kenny King, Caprice Coleman vs. Delirious and Lio Rush vs. Jonathan Gresham
463
464They had two shows over the weekend. The 9/16 show in Pittsburgh, debuting at a new venue, drew 700 fans. The next night in Lockport, NY, drew 800 fans
465
466In Pittsburgh,. Kelly Klein & Veda Scott & Britt Baker beat Mandy Leon & Crazy Mary Dobson & Faye Jackson when Klein beat Dobson using a guillotine. ACH pinned Will Ferrara with a 450 splash to the back. Gresham pinned Delirious with a crucifix pin. Kazarian pinned Sabin due to help from Kamaitachi, who held Sabin’s feet down after Kazarian suplexed him. Shelley pinned Kamaitachi with a cradle after a Russian leg sweep into the turnbuckles. Mark & Jay Briscoe won a four-way over Young & Beer City Bruiser, Ray Rowe & Hanson and King & Titus. Titus & King knelt during the Code of Honor as a protest to the way they are treated in ROH, doing a spoof of Colin Kaepernick. Mark pinned Bruiser after an elbow off the top rope. Cheeseburger pinned Chris LaRusso with a Jushin Liger shote. It’s well known that Cheeseburger is one of Liger’s favorite wrestlers and Liger helped get him on the Tokyo Dome show this year. B.J. Whitmer and others attacked both Cheeseburger and LaRusso after the match. Colby Corino tried to make the save and was beaten down. Steve Corino then ran in and had a confrontation. Lio Rush pinned Coleman. Coleman also took the knee during the Code of Honor at the beginning. White pinned Daniels so you can see they are really high on White having him get a clean pin on one of the top stars in the semi. Lethal & Cabana & Castle beat Young Bucks & Adam Cole when Nick Jackson took finishers from all three with Castle pinning him after the Bang a Rang
467
468In Lockport, the show was said to be excellent, a four hour house show with two nearly show-long storylines that led to an impromptu Cole vs. Lethal non-title match after the main event. Cole started the show, coming out in street clothes and cut a promo on Lethal. Cole said he’s the face of ROH and that he was booked on the show against a local wrestler (he was never advertised for a match) and felt disrespected so he said he would not wrestle. He said he back doing commentary for the Honor Rumble which was the main event. For the night, Lethal worked three matches, a singles match against Young that went 14 minutes, the Rumble, where he was there from start-to-finish (as was Young) and went 45 minutes, and then did a 10 minute singles non-title impromptu match with Cole, or 69 minutes in total. Young worked 59 minutes on the night. Kamaitachi pinned Gresham with a power bomb in a pretty good match. Gresham did three different shooting star presses, two in the ring and one to the floor, in the last 90 seconds of the match before losing. Daniels won a three-way over Sabin and Matt Jackson. Sabin used a springboard tornado DDT on Matt Jackson and Daniels then pinned Sabin with a roll-up. Lethal pinned Young after the Lethal injection in a very good match. Shelley won a three-way over Kazarian and Nick Jackson. Very entertaining match. There was a spot where Kazarian had Shelley in a tombstone and signaled for Nick to do the Meltzer driver, saying that he’s always wanted to do it, and then Nick instead superkicked Kazarian. Jessicka Havok & Taeler Hendrix beat Mandy Leon & Deonna Purrazzo when Havok pinned Leon after Hendrix hit her with a chair. The Cabinet (Titus & King & Coleman) beat ACH & White & Lio Rush. Rush ended up being pinned after King hit an elbow off the top rope, Titus followed with a splash off the top rope and Coleman then hit a 450 for the pin. Once again The Cabinet took the knee instead of doing the Code of Honor handshake. Pretty good match. Briscoes beat Cabana & Castle when Mark pinned Castle after a frog splash. Good comedy early, especially with Mark and Castle, and built into a great match. The main event was the 25 man Honor Rumble, won by Young, meaning Cole vs. Young for the title will be on the 10/22 show in Lakeland, FL. It was everyone on the show in the rumble plus Will Ferrara, Steve Corino (he was doing commentary for the undercard but Cole replaced him during this match and the place went nuts when he came out), Punisher Martinez, Beer City Bruiser, Cheeseburger, Bull James and Sean Carr (a local wrestler). Young and Lethal started the match and they ended up being the last two in. Lethal did a knee injury angle earlier in the night after a tope. So he came out injured and sold the injury the entire match, which allowed Young to eventually throw him out. The final four also included Bull James and Martinez, who went out together. After winning, Young told Lethal to come in the ring and shake his hand like a man. Lethal came in and Young blew him off. Cole then started cutting a promo on Lethal. Lethal then brought up that he still hasn’t gotten his title rematch and challenged Cole right there, even though he was hurt. Cole said that’s a PPV quality match and wouldn’t do it in Lockport, NY. Lethal than called him the women’s champion. This led to Cole accepting the match and attacking Lethal’s knee. Lethal did a great job of selling once again, and ended up winning the non-title match with a small package. So this sets up a Cole vs. Lethal title rematch as well. After the match, the Young Bucks and Cole destroyed Lethal until the Briscoes, Cabana & Castle made the save.
469
470TNA: There really isn’t much of an update on the future of the company in regards to a sale. Billy Corgan is the President as is running the company, and Dixie Carter is largely out of decision making power. She still owns about 70 percent of the company but is looking to sell because the company needs money to continue and she doesn’t have it, and the company is heavily in debt, which is a key. Corgan is said to be the most likely buyer. The New York Post ran a story with Corgan being interviewed, a few days after we’d already written a similar story about how Corgan was looking at buying the company and had the best chance to end up with it. Corgan has claimed that he is using his own money to buy it and not investor money, although sources close to the situation have said otherwise. The story mentioned Sinclair and WWE as being interested. Sinclair was definitely interested months ago and it’s possible they’ve come to the table again (although those close to the situation deny that to us), but the Sinclair talks were considered dead some time back. The positive for Sinclair is that they would get television contracts for India and England that pay and national exposure in the U.S. on Pop TV. While ROH does have syndication in a lot of markets, they have no national exposure. So there is a benefit. WWE has always been interested in the tape library. Usually WWE pays $500 per hour when it comes to buying tape libraries, which would be about $1 million or so here, but in this case the value, particularly since there’s a lot of footage of guys on their roster, would be greater. But WWE is likely to only get it if nobody else wants it in a fire sale. Corgan can easily outbid that number. The only chance that one has of happening is if WWE makes a ridiculous offer to shut the company down, which I don’t expect and there is no indication at all is in the offing. Corgan isn’t the only serious bidder. Another big is being kept under the radar but we’re aware of it, with an outside company looking at heavily getting into the pro wrestling business for content. If that company acquires TNA, I’d be almost certain they’d be doing regular live events and attempt to aggressively work with the major domestic (non-WWE) and international companies as far as talent would be concerned. That company would be looking at making a lot of different moves into wrestling with a TNA purchase being only one of them, but we don’t know how serious that is past the point this week they were asking a lot of questions about the TNA business. Arlouxe is still in the picture. They are the leading creditor that the company owes money to. The Arloxue side reportedly is they are still interested, but gave up their exclusive rights to pay (which ended on 9/1) because once they agree to a price, they’re on the hook for the entire amount they agreed to buy for. There are those involved who belief with all the debt, that the company may be forced into bankruptcy, and the key there is the person who buys in bankruptcy court wouldn’t be on the hook for all the debt. A Sinclair or WWE purchase would effectively end the company, which would not be in the best interest of wrestling, and I don’t expect either to happen and I’m guessing those names were in the Post story more to make the company look good than there’s anything serious going on. From all accounts, the most likely scenario would be Corgan buying, and Carter is said to be looking for $4 million to $6 million for her 70 percent. It’s not certain who floated the $40 million price tag which got picked up in a lot of places but it’s nowhere close to that. Carter has already sold 30 percent of the company in exchange for Aroluxe and Corgan financing a few tapings, or in the case of Arloxue, at least covering the production on the tapings while being owed money. Things have to move fast since they’ve got less than two weeks before the next tapings and someone has to agree to put the money up for them. Where Corgan has the best shot if he really wants it is because he’s there, while the outside company, which is working on the deal, would have to go through all the books and do the due diligence and that would be a rush job to get that completed in less than two more weeks. The problem remains that aside from the U.K. and India television deals, there is almost no income coming in, and obviously that money isn’t enough because they have to scramble for money, which lately has been financed by Corgan in exchange for an increased percentage, to do the tapings. Corgan would still have to find a way to establish new revenue streams or he’d have to continue having to fund $600,000 to $800,000 just to keep doing new television
471
472Brandi Runnels, the wife of Cody, who was ring announcer Eden Stiles in WWE, signed a contract to start here as a wrestler. We’d already reported that Cody & Brandi were interested in doing a program in TNA with Mike Bennett & Maria Kanellis, after working with them in Northeast Wrestling. She’s going to use the ring name Brandi Rhodes. This is notable because Cody can’t use the Rhodes name, particularly in TNA or ROH, at least as of right now. The difference is that WWE registered the name Cody Rhodes and he had no prior usage before WWE. WWE never registered Brandi Rhodes as a name, and she never used that name in WWE, so she can use it anywhere she wants. The clever aspect is that if she’s there as Brandi Rhodes and they do mixed tag feuds, they can bill it and the announcers can say Cody & Brandi Rhodes, with the idea that his ring name is just Cody (which he can obviously use as his real name). The last I’d heard, he was going to just use the name “Cody” when doing television
473
474Cody had said he wasn’t interested in signing with any promotion, and his situation is unique because he’s agreed to a number of dates with ROH starting with Final Battle, including a program with Adam Cole, and nobody has appeared for political reasons on TNA & ROH television at the same time. She’s been working with him on shows as his personal ring announcer. She’s very good in that role, doing all kinds of funny lines like calling him the grandson of a plumber, the star that left them in the dust, and wishing his former employer the best in all their future endeavors
475
476Matt Hardy has gotten feelers from intermediaries that HHH wants him when his contract expires, which would be next spring. The problem is that he’s got pretty much creative control of his character here, plus can make his own schedule and he does extremely well on the indie scene, particularly when you throw in merchandise. With WWE there’s the killer schedule which probably isn’t the best thing for him physically right now. Granted, if something happens to TNA, that equation changes because he’s loaded with ideas for his character and he would need television to get them over
477
478So in the two new things they are trying, the Broken Matt Hardy segments and the Grand Champion tournament, it’s a split. The Hardy thing is something I see that you’ll either like or hate. I like different on wrestling and it’s different from everything being done and it’s clearly getting over as much as anything in this promotion has in a long time. The Grand Champion thing to me is cold. I think for it to work, the matches have to be stylistically different. The guys work the exact same way, only do three minute rounds, which the audience clearly doesn’t like, and then the judging, which doesn’t work yet but may in time. Tapping out and top babyfaces tapping would have been against what was done in another era so tastes do change with education. In the Grand Champion matches, they do open scoring (announce it after every round) and have three judges scores combined. So instead of one judge doing 10-9, 9-10, 10-9 and he scores 29-28, it’s three judges round scores being combed, so each round would be a 29-28 or 28-29 or 30-27. They also haven’t done the dominant rounds because wrestling is booked give and take or near finishes and 10-8s, although one would think they will. But to me the breaks in the action after three minutes aren’t working
479
480Aron Rex did his first TV match within that tournament. After the great reaction he got for his debut interview where they went nuts, when he did his match, he was just a guy exchanging moves. There was nothing wrong with that he did, but the crowd reacted to him like just another guy. He got a nice reaction when he won, but it just felt like a guy at the Impact Zone. That was the likely end result, but I figured he’d at least keep a strong buzz for his first match.
481
482UFC: On UFC Tonight, they talked about Jon Jones saying he’s interested in challenging Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title. This led to Daniel Cormier saying that if anyone from light heavyweight should be getting a shot at Miocic, it’s him, saying he’d win the title but then vacate for Cain Velasquez. Velasquez was on the show and said it makes no sense for a guy who failed a drug test to get a title shot at heavyweight. Velasquez said he was told by UFC that he could get a title shot at Miocic but he may have to wait because Miocic wants to take some time off. Miocic, who has to be a leading contender for Fighter of the Year, wants to rest after he’s had three straight first round knockouts, over Andrei Arlovski, Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem. Velasquez said if Miocic wants time off for a while, that the only person he’d fight would be Werdum around December, because he’s looking to avenge his loss. There is a good chance that is happening, tentatively on the 12/30 show in Las Vegas
483
484UFC will announce the main event for Madison Square Garden on 9/27, if not earlier, with a press conference at 6 p.m. that day at the Theater in MSG with all the key participants on the show. Tickets are free to the press conference
485
486While not announced at press time, there were tons of rumors in the direction of McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez for the lightweight title as the MSG main event, but Dana White on Twitter said Alvarez would be defending next against Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Nurmagomedov on Twitter said he and White were just waiting for Alvarez to sign the contract. Alvarez is still pushing for the McGregor fight, for obvious reasons, because he’ll make life changing money if he can fight McGregor. If that’s the case, that would leave McGregor vs. Jose Aldo for the featherweight title and Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Thompson has already been announced for MSG. But they still need a big fight for Toronto on 12/10, where GSP should headline but that’s its own weird story. Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Wonderboy Thompson for the welterweight title was announced this week for UFC 205 on 11/12 in Madison Square Garden. This is the right match to make from a sports standpoint. The funny part of this is that Woodley wanted to face Georges St-Pierre and St-Pierre wanted to face Woodley. That fight would be far bigger and it didn’t happen. It’s very interesting and one has to think the GSP thing is a pure financial issue of him wanting more than they want to pay him. But one has to think the return of GSP would be worth a minimum $10 million in revenue and I can’t see the holdup being GSP asking for more than $10 million for a fight. But who knows what it is. Woodley had said he didn’t want to face Thompson, and instead wanted to fight someone he could draw with on PPV, suggesting GSP or Nick Diaz. Nick Diaz is still suspended because he’s yet to pay his Nevada commission fine, although it’s not like he couldn’t take care of that if he was offered title match money. Still, I’m glad because Diaz hasn’t even won a fight since 2011 and Thompson is coming off decisive wins over Rory MacDonald and Johny Hendricks and deserves the shot
487
488Luke Rockhold explained his change of heart from going from turning down the UFC offer to fight Ronaldo Jacare Souza to accepting the fight for the 11/26 show in Melbourne. Rockhold had signed a new contract before his fight with Lyoto Machida which called for a certain amount of money for title fights and a significantly lesser amount for non-title fights. After losing the title to Michael Bisping, he was back at the non-title level for Souza, and he decided that he wasn’t happy with it and he wasn’t going to fight at that level. On the Extra Rounds podcast, he said, “they restructure the deal for the time being, and so we got a new contract. We got a new contract upping the money, and we got the right fight so I think this will be the best fight for me right now to get me back to the title. I think we’re clearly the best two guys in the division, so this will solidify myself to going back and getting my gold back.” As noted, the likely scenario is that if Michael Bisping beats Dan Henderson, then the winner of Rockhold vs. Souza and Chris Weidman vs. Yoel Romero (not yet official but expected) that looks the most impressive is likely to get Bisping first, and the other winner gets the next shot. If Dan Henderson wins the title and is willing to defend it, the same scenario exists. If Henderson wins the title and retires, then the two winners of the Rockhold and Weidman fights are likely to meet to determine the new champion. At least that’s what seems to make the most sense across the board
489
490C.B. Dollaway was in so much pain after the elevator accident before the UFC 203 show in Cleveland that he was unable to leave the city and fly home all week. Dollaway was diagnosed with a compressed disc in the lower back and a wedged disc in the neck when the elevator he was in dropped several floors and came to a sudden stop. There were multiple issues with the elevator at the host hostel but I’d expect Dollaway, whose injuries prevented him from fighting, is going to have to take legal action
491
492This week’s show is an FS 1 card from Brasilia, Brazil at the Nileon Nelson Gymnasium. It starts at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time with Glaico Franca (13-4) vs. Gregor Gillespie (7-0), Vicente Luque (9-5-1) vs. Hector Urbina (17-9-1) and Alan Patrick (13-1) vs. Stevie Ray (19-5). From there it moves to FS 1 with Luan Chagas (14-1-1) vs. Erick Silva (18-7), Jussier Formiga da Silva (18-4) vs. Dustin Ortiz (15-5), Michinori Tanaka (11-1) vs. Rani Yahya (22-8), Mike De La Torre (14-5) vs. Godofredo Pepey ()12-4), Thiago Santos (12-3) vs. Eric Spicely (8-1), Paul Felder (12-2) vs. Francisco Trinaldo (20-4), Roy Nelson (21-13) vs. Antonio Silva (19-8-1), Renan Barao (33-4) vs. Philippe Nover (11-6-1) and a main event of Cristiane Cyborg Justino (16-1) vs. Lina Lansberg (6-1)
493
494As far as people cutting natural body weight so they don’t have to make the hard cuts in the past, well, Cyborg doesn’t fit that one at all. Cyborg was 168 pounds on 9/14 when she left her home in Orange County to fly to Brazil to start getting ready and promoting the fight locally. On 9/19, she was down to 165 and was hovering around 160 the next day. So needs to hit the scales on 9/23 at 141 pounds. I remember a few years ago, when they were trying to put her and Ronda Rousey together at 135 and she was doing the deal about how if she got that low she wouldn’t be able to have kids and it would ruin her health, she bulked up for a weigh-in for the press and weighed 160. So off-season trying to be heavy in 2013 she was 160 and now with ten days to go after a camp she’s now 168
495
496Dominick Cruz debuts as a color commentator on this week’s show in Brazil, working with Jon Anik. Daniel Cormier will get a similar shot for the 10/1 show in Portland, OR. This will be the first time as active champion does the color in the modern period. Usually that role is for Joe Rogan, Kenny Florian (who is out due to the death of his brother), Dan Hardy (for Europe) or Brian Stann. It’s notable because Cruz has been a critic of Cyborg and her weight issues, saying that Cyborg is not as big a star as Miesha Tate, Rousey or Holly Holm, and she needs to train and get to the weight rather than begging for catch-weight fights
497
498Mickey Gall has challenged Sage Northcutt to a hair vs. hair match. Hopefully they do it old school as opposed to when people like Jeff Jarrett or Jerry Lawler lost their hair matches
499
500The UFC has hired a third party law firm to investigate a domestic violence charge against fighter Alex Nicholson, which has been dropped by authorities. Nicholson was arrested in May, when a witness said that when they were at a 7-11, Nicholson picked up his fiancee, carried her outside the store and dropped her on the ground. The witness said that several bystanders pulled Nicholson off her and took her back into the 7-11, and then locked the front door to keep him from getting in. Another witness said Nicholson forced his fiancee physically out of the store. When police arrived, the fiancée refused to cooperate or answer questions, at first telling the police she didn’t know who Nicholson was. The police, who noticed a bruise near her temple, then told her that Nicholson had already said they were engaged, and then she admitted they had been together for three years. She was crying and said she didn’t want to go home because she was afraid to be around him and left with a friend but refused to press charges. Nicholson would not answer any questions to police but said he would never harm her. A trial was set for 8/3 but all charges were dropped when the fiancee never appeared. At first when told of the trial, the woman said she was busy and couldn’t make it, and then was told they would move the trial date for her to appear. They did so, and she didn’t appear. MMA Fighting was able to hear the 911 call made from inside the 7-11 by the store clerk who kept saying to Nicholson not to put his hands on her and Nicholson screamed back that he didn’t put his hands on anyone, and there was more yelling and screaming. The clerk then said one of the customers just committed domestic violence inside the store
501
502Al Iaquinta pulled out of his 11/12 fight in Madison Square Garden with Thiago Alves. A fight on the first-ever show in Madison Square Garden would be something under normal circumstances that Iaquinta would have on a bucket list, but this pull-out is financial. Iaquinta, who is ranked No. 13 at lightweight, said that with the Reebok deal and loss of sponsors, that if he was to lose to Alves, he’d essentially be fighting in MSG for free. He said after 17 months out, he wasn’t willing to risk injuries or health problems from fighting for the money he was being paid. He said on the deal he’s under, if he wins, after taxes and paying his trainers, he’ll still do okay. But if he loses, he’d go through a camp and fight, and when all was said and done, would break even. Iaquinta claimed he told his manager to contact UFC, feeling that with the Reebok deal, the old terms of his contract were no longer good enough. He said on the MMA Hour that UFC, notably Joe Silva, told him there was no interest in renegotiating the deal, which paid him $26,000 to fight with a $26,000 win bonus. It should be noted that Iaquinta signed that deal after the Reebok deal was put in place. So he said he was pulling out. I believe he was on the second fight of his contract. He also said that he wasn’t eligible for a win bonus, noting he was in trouble with the promotion for calling in sick and missing the Fighters Summit in Las Vegas (and then posting photos of himself at the beach, not realizing that could get him in trouble), trashing a hotel room the weekend of one of his fights, and swearing at the fans on live television. Well, he’s raging Al. Part of the issue was that Iaquinta suffered a knee injury, which kept him out of action for 17 months, so he had to find a full-time job and he’s been working in real estate. He said in training for a fight, he’d have to take time away from work. He said fighting in MSG is a goal for it wasn’t worth it to him if there was nothing financially to show for it. He also noted that he spent money for a full camp for a fight with Gilbert Melendez last year, and then Melendez was suspended right before the fight, so he ended up not having a fight nor getting paid
503
504It looks like Jim Miller will replace Iaquinta in the MSG fight with Thiago Alves, although UFC hasn’t confirmed that fight
505
506Another fight off the MSG show is Gian Villante vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima, as Villante has pulled out due to an injury
507
508Dana White is now saying there’s a good chance Ronda Rousey will face Amanda Nunes for the title before the end of the year. The company had always hoped to get a Conor McGregor fight at MSG on 11/12 and end the year with Rousey in Las Vegas on 12/30
509
510The problem with the Rousey fight on 12/30, is that it’s a Friday night, and the last time UFC ran on a Friday (Lesnar vs. Overeem), it probably cost them 200,000 buys because of it being on the unfamiliar date. They really should move the show to the first Saturday in January (it won’t happen at this late a date), or save Rousey for the Super Bowl weekend show, because why cost yourself as much as 30 percent of a well over 1 million buy show because you can’t run New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas (and you really can’t, I’ve been there for it and it just wouldn’t work). The funny thing is New Year’s Eve with a giant fight would probably do enormous business based on the history that holidays aren’t good for business for average shows, but they are fantastic for business when you have a big show and a Rousey return on New Year’s Eve becomes almost like a minor cultural event. But it’s not happening on New Year’s Eve for sure. Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson and Cain Velasquez vs. Fabricio Werdum are also looking like 12/30 right now
511
512Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Alexander Gustafsson is being talked about to headline an 11/19 show in Sao Paulo, Brazil. That is going to be another crazy weekend like SummerSlam weekend. Actually even crazier in the sense UFC has a morning/afternoon U.S. time show from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and after that ends, has the Sao Paulo show. Bellator has one of its biggest shows of the year in San Jose. NXT has the Takeover special from Toronto all on the same day. And the next day is Survivor Series
513
514On the Belfast show, Neil Seery, 37, announced that win or lose, he is retiring after his fight with Ian McCall
515
516There is an Invicta show on Fight Pass on 9/23 from Kansas City headlined by Jennifer Maia (13-4-1) vs. Roxanne Modafferi (19-12) for the interim flyweight title and Ayaka Hamasaki (13-1) vs. Jinh Yu Frey (5-1) for the atomweight title. Kickboxing Star Tiffany Van Soest faces Kalyn Schwartz underneath
517
518Liz Carmouche vs. Katlyn Chookagian looks also to be added to the Madison Square Garden show
519
520Sam Alvey, who has been asking to fight as much as possible and is coming off two quick wins, will face Alex Nicholson on 10/15 at the show in Pasay, The Philippines on Fight Pass
521
522Guido Cannetti vs. Marco Beltran has been added to the 11/5 show in Mexico City. Cannetti lost to Beltran when both were on The Ultimate Fighter Latin America show in season one, with the loss coming due to a docked point on Cannetti for an illegal kick
523
524Amanda Cooper vs. Anna Elmose has been added to the 11/19 show in Belfast, which is headlined by Dong Hyun Kim vs. Gunnar Nelson.
525
526BELLATOR: With his two-year suspension over, Chael Sonnen, 39, has signed a multi-year contract here. Sonnen said that he believed his contract was for three years and six fights, and Scott Coker indicated that was close for whatever that was worth. Sonnen was released from his UFC contract in 2013 after testing positive for a number of banned substances (some of which he should have been taking to kickstart his system after getting off testosterone that he was allowed to use, whether he should have been allowed to use it was a different issue) and they also found out he was using HGH and EPO which were banned PEDs that there’s no excuse for using and usually skate through testing. When his commission suspension ended, he was under the impression he’d be returning to UFC and had already been drug tested four times by USADA, but talks also started with Bellator. He claimed in three conversations with Scott Coker they went from hello to a signed contract and he’s hoping to start in November, perhaps at the big show in San Jose on 11/19. Sonnen said that he would fight at “Gangster weight,” noting he’d be agreeable too facing Rory MacDonald at 185 or Fedor Emelianenko (who he claimed Bellator was close to signing) at heavyweight. But his home division for now looks to be 205 since he talked about wanting to fight Tito Ortiz (who has said he wants to fight once more before retiring) and Liam McGeary (the light heavyweight champion). It was also brought up the idea of Sonnen facing Wanderlei Silva, who is expected to also sign with Bellator when his suspension is up. Silva returns and will be fighting in December with Rizin in Japan, which doesn’t have any regulation of their fights. Sonnen said that he would continue to announce for World Series of Fighting as well as do analysis for UFC events, as well as potentially Bellator events, for ESPN. He also claimed that in his contract, there was a clause that if he tested positive for drugs that not only would he lose his entire purse, but he’d be fined an additional $500,000. With Bellator, he would in most cases likely to be tested only the day of the show, but given his track record, I’d think if he was to fight in California, that there’s a good chance he’ll face unannounced testing before the fight. He himself said he expected Andy Foster (the head of the California commission) to test him out of competition if he fights in that state. Sonnen appeared in two interview segments on the 9/16 television show, doing complete 1970s pro wrestler, largely Superstar Billy Graham in particular with his regular Scott Hall schtick. It was funny that the best promo in pro wrestling was on Bellator. While he didn’t say this on Bellator TV, Sonnen was on the MMA Hour and noted that he and Punk have talked to each other daily and that Punk was back in the gym Monday and preparing for a second fight
527
528TMZ reported that Royce Gracie, 49, has filed for divorce from his wife of 22 years, Los Angeles podiatrist Marianne Cuttic Gracie. This is the latest in issues regarding the two of them which date back to reports of problems with the IRS. The couple currently owes more than $1 million in back taxes. In filing in Los Angeles Superior Court, Gracie cited irreconcilable differences, and he’s asking for spousal support and for her to pay all of his attorney fees. He’s requesting joint custody of three of their four children (the ones under the age of 18)
529
530King Mo issued a challenge to fight huge heavyweight Shane Carwin, who recently announced he was coming out of retirement. Carwin won’t be fighting in UFC, but it has yet to be announced that Carwin would fight in Bellator
531
532The company also announced a 12/10 combined kickboxing and MMA show in Florence, Italy at the Mandela Forum. Most likely, they will air as two separate shows, as opposed to one show. The MMA main event will be Italy’s Alessio Sakara (18-11, 2 no contests) vs. Joey Beltran (17-13, 1 no contest) and the kickboxing top bout announced was to determine the first Bellator kickboxing flyweight championship with Gloria Peritore (11-1-1) vs. Denise Kielholtz (45-3), and Giorgio Petrosyan (82-2-2, 1 no contest), who was considered the best all-around kickboxer in the world at the time the sport went down in Japan (and he’s still only lost one fight since January 2007) makes his Bellator debut
533
534The 9/16 show from Cedar Park TX, was quite good with the exception of the main event. Derek Campos (17-6) beat Djami Chan (12-3) on straight 29-28 scores. Campos was nearly finished in the first round, and it could have been stopped. But he came back to win the second and third rounds. Anastasia Yankova (4-0), the Russian kickboxer who was brought to Bellator because of her looks as well as her fighting, beat Veta Arteaga (2-1) via split decision on 28-29, 29-28 and 29-28 scores. Yankova was very lucky, and she knew it herself, saying that she wanted a rematch even though she was given the fight. I thought Arteaga won the first two rounds. This was a great fight, all action for three rounds. 39-year-old former two division champion Joe Warren (14-5) stopped Sirwan Kakai (12-5), hurting Kakai with a knee and finishing him with a guillotine in 1:04 of the third round in a good fight. Warren was vocal about how he couldn’t get any sponsors for the fight and that he’s in rough shape financially. The less said about the main event the better, but Cheick Kongo (25-10-2) beat Tony Johnson (10-3) on scores of 28-28, 29-28 and 29-28.
535
536OTHER MMA: Rizin runs on 9/25 at the Saitama Super Arena with an assortment of weird matches and the first round of the Grand Prix tournament. The event will air in prime time on the Fuji Network, so it’s going to be a significant event in Japan. Tournament matches have Mirko Cro Cop vs. Hyum Man Myung (a guy in there to lose most likely), Kazuyuki Fujita (pro wrestler far too old to be doing this) vs. Baruto Kaido (375 pound sumo powerhouse), Jiri Prochazka vs. Mark Tanios, Karl Albrektsson vs. Valentine Moldavsky, Amir Aliakbari vs. Joao Almeida and Teodoras Aukstuolis vs. Szymon Bajor. Other fights are Kron Gracie (Rickson’s son) vs. Hideo Tokoro (super entertaining grappler from the glory days of Japanese MMA), Miyu Yamamoto (mother in the first mother & son on the same show in MMA history, a three-time former world wrestling champion in the 90s and Kid Yamamoto’s older sister) vs. Rena Kubota (a marketable younger fighter expected to win), Andy Souwer (kickboxing star) vs. Daron Cruickshank (former UFC fighter), Kizeamon Saiga (kickboxing star whose wife is a famous actress and thus will be at the show) vs. Asen Yamamoto (third generation wrestler, Miyu’s son), Minoru Kimura (a top featherweight kickboxer) vs. Charles Bennett, Kanako Murata (a world class woman wrestler) vs. Kyra Batara and Gabi Garcia (the giant muscular woman) vs. Destanie Yarbrough (a large all-around athlete and women’s football star).
537
538WWE: Ryan Reeves (Ryback) did an interview with Sports Illustrated, and gave some clues as how he was able to keep his physique in a drug tested environment. For years several in WWE would bring up to me how guys weren’t happy because he was allowed to keep his physique, so to speak. I always thought that meant he just had access to stuff that you couldn’t catch, but in actuality he was given a testosterone use exemption because he had burned out his own system by taking steroids. He said that he had low testosterone, saying he used steroids when he was younger, his natural production was shut down and it never came back. He said he was given an allowance for TRT. WWE had banned usage of TRT for its talent in 2007 except for those who they had already given approval to before that time. In theory, that makes sense, because if you allow people usage of TRT, the theory is the body becomes dependent on it and won’t function well without it. The theory isn’t the case because, as we’ve seen with MMA fighters given that approval, that when it was banned, somehow they functioned just fine, although many couldn’t fight as well and went from being Vitor Belfort 2013 to Vitor Belfort 2015. And Ryback was Vitor 2013. One of the great misconceptions of testosterone replacement therapy is that it is not an enhancer in sports but simply gets someone whose body is damaged “back to normal.” In theory that’s the case and it’s been sold as being the case. But studies of athletes have shown that those with high testosterone, average or even a little low, does not really affect performance. In testing of MMA fighters, who are some of the hardest training athletes around, most of the fighters at the top tier had average or even lower than average testosterone levels, yet they had quality physiques and could perform at a world class level in a very intense sport. That’s the case with those who haven’t used steroids as well as those who have. If you’re serum testosterone natural level is 350, which is kind of low, that doesn’t mean you won’t do as well in sports or function as well as a guy who is at 800. However, if you boost yours to 800, still in the normal range, you are going to be enhanced as hell while your opponent, also at 800, will be normal and greatly disadvantaged head-to-head. That was the con of TRT in MMA and in wrestling and why the guys on it were able (and in some cases, you combined that with undetectable GH) to develop far more impressive physiques than everyone clean could, even though their reads were “normal.
539
540There is a significant change in WWE’s television situation in Germany. WWE in recent years, due to Raw being put on Tele 5 and Smackdown on Pro7 Maxx, has gotten far more popular and the live events are drawing better. Tele 5 made the decision this week not to renew the Raw contract when it expires in March. The ratings for the show were considered good. Stefan Kastenmuller, the General Manager and Vice President of WWE Europe said that the Smackdown deal, which also expires in March, may not be renewed, but said the WWE has interest throughout the broadcast, digital and paid subscription channels in the market and expects to sign a new deal
541
542From sources in Germany, Tele 5 had enough of WWE. WWE is attempting to set up a bidding war for rights since both Raw and Smackdown deals are about to expire. ProSieben told WWE that the shows produce adequate ratings but are net money losers due to them not being able to sell advertising inventory. In Germany, nobody except WWE licensees have showed a lot of interest in advertising on the shows, even German subsidiaries of companies that advertise on the USA Network. A lot of the deal was based on ProSieben getting PPV revenue from WWE shows, but with the PPV revenue dead, there was no economic incentive. The feeling is if WWE loses broadcast TV and goes back to Sky (pay TV) in Germany, they’ll be back to half houses. .. WWE purchased the real estate property they were bidding on a few months ago that they had been using in bankruptcy court. The company paid $23 million for the property after paying about $1.9 million to bring the payments owed up to date. They paid another $2 million to the seller. The loan they took was notable because it is only interest payments at 4.5 percent per annum through June 2018, and then $116,537.62 per month from then until July 2025, when they have a balloon payment due
543
544Orton was cleared this past week and worked regular safe matches, but full matches, with Wyatt at the weekend house shows
545
546The Washington Post ran a long story about the Donald J. Trump Foundation and the fact Trump actually never donates his own money to it, but acts like it’s his money when it’s doled out, including instances of using that money to pay for his own lawsuit settlements. It was noted that in 2010 Trump was given an award for philanthropy for donating $150,000 to the Palm Beach Police Foundation. But the $150,000 he donated was money a New Jersey charity, the Charles Evans foundation, donated to him after he asked for $150,000. And then, the Palm Beach Police Foundation for the award he got, rented out his Mara-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach for $276,463 for the ceremony. In fact, the last time Trump put of his own money into the Donald J. Trump Foundation was in 2008. Then he passes the money onto charities while claiming they are his own donations. Once, he spent $200,000 of the charity’s money to buy himself a six-foot painting of himself. The charity also had to pay a penalty for violating the law by giving money raised for charity for a political campaign in 2013. Vince and Linda McMahon have donated $5 million to the foundation, coinciding with times Trump has done angles on WWE television
547
548Johnny Gargano, 29, married Candice Dawson, 30, better known as Candice LeRae, on 9/15 in Orlando at Disney World. The two are next set to wrestle each other in Gargano’s last independent match for his home Absolute Intense Wrestling promotion in Cleveland
549
550A correction on the Chris Benoit movie note. The Executive Producer who wrote “Ring of Hell” Is Matthew Randazzo V (not IV)
551
552Newsweek did a story on Seven Bucks Entertainment, interviewing Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson’s business manager (and ex-wife). This is from Garcia, who said on Vince McMahon, “He taught me some amazing lessons that we use as far as taking care of the audience and being an audience-driven company. He’s helped raise the lion is how he looks at it.” Regarding Dwayne and WWE: “We have no legal agreements between us. With Vince McMahon, we’ve always been able to shake hands. That’s a very special relationship in this day and age, that we can operate with that level of trust.” While not reported in the story, Seven Bucks Entertainment is in pre-production on a movie collaboration with WWE, so Vince and Johnson will be working together on a movie for the first time shortly
553
554Bryan was on Talking Smack and started pushing for fans to get the WWE to release a documentary they did on him. WWE followed him everywhere for a time showing him training for his return, which was supposed to be at WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium, but then Dr. Joseph Maroon made the call of not letting him wrestle again. It includes clips of Bryan wrestling a bear
555
556Linda McMahon will co-host a PBS series called “Women in America,” looking at how women, focusing on minority women, have influenced the country in education, culture and economics. The series will be five 30 minute shows that will be airing on about 290 stations. McMahon will co-host with Burt Wolf, a well-known reporter
557
558This may not happen, especially since it would be months away if it does happen, but there’s been a pitch for Benjamin, Swagger and Ziggler as a Varsity Club/shooters type group on Smackdown. The thing is from an international standpoint, the most accomplished wrestler on Smackdown would be Gable, who went to the Olympics, although Benjamin, who placed third in the nation as a senior would be the most accomplished NCAA wrestler on the brand. Gable in NXT at one point headed up a shooters group and it was dropped because of the idea that Vince hates those kinds of gimmicks and it would hurt everyone involved
559
560Ricochet may not be going to WWE as soon as a lot of people expect. Right now he’s looking at staying with New Japan for the foreseeable future. Not sure how Lucha Underground fits in, as if he’s not going to WWE and Lucha Underground making him a good offer, it would make sense to return. The one thing Lucha Underground could always do is bring him back without a mask and as Ricochet, as he’s better without the mask anyway. He actually teased this on Twitter writing, “Think I just got some great news. 2017 may just be my best year to date! Not WWE.” This is in reference to new opportunities in New Japan. .. There is more on the death of 20-year-old Jonah Snyder, who was training at the Black and Brave Wrestling Academy owned by Colby Lopez (Rollins) in Moline, IL. The trainers called 911 when they realized something was wrong and an ambulance came and his heart rate slowly went down. The preliminary results of the autopsy was inconclusive. They will now be doing toxicology tests to see if they can determine the cause of death. The school put out a statement saying, “It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of our student, Jonah Snyder. Jonah attended the first night of our 7th Black and Brave class a week ago. After briefly participating in fitness drills with his classmates, he abruptly fell ill. Emergency personnel were called and Jonah was rushed to the hospital. He passed away en route. No cause of death has been determined. Jonah loved professional wrestling and in closing we wanted to leave you with his words. Below is an excerpt from the essay Jonah penned for his application to our school. All of our thoughts are with Jonah’s family and friends as they go through this incredibly difficult time. `I live, breath, sleep and eat wrestling. It’s in my blood. I want to learn it so I can travel the world putting a smile on people’s faces. I wanna give them hope or something to believe in.’
561
562The WWE movie “Killing Hasselhoff,” about an attempt to murder David Hasselhoff, will de debuting on 9/28 as the opening night film at the San Diego International Film Festival
563
564Emma (Tenille Dashwood, 27) was brought to television last week and went on the road this week as a referee on the Raw tour. I don’t know that makes it a lock she’s on the Raw brand or not, and wouldn’t be until she’s actually on television, but it does look likely. If that’s the case it would be splitting up of a couple since her boyfriend, Ryder, is on Smackdown. She’s been out of action since May with back surgery. She wasn’t expected to be back wrestling until around November but has been cleared to perform
565
566. Tamina (Sarona Snuka, 38) has been rehabbing after reconstructive knee surgery and posted a video saying she’s coming back. The timetable would be a couple of months from now
567
568Cena’s loss to Ambrose on Smackdown in Birmingham on 9/20 was the first pin or submission loss he’s had on television in a singles match since an October 19, 2009, match with HHH
569
570Steve Austin just finished filming the latest season of “Broken Skull Challenge,” which debuts on CMT in November
571
572Bill Goldberg was scheduled to be in Indianapolis on Sunday, the same city WWE is doing the Clash in. He had said it was purely a coincidence, which it was. He was to tape a podcast together with Eric Bischoff, but something happened involving the promoters of the event, and it ended up falling through, so neither are coming. Bischoff and Goldberg haven’t seen each other in almost 16 years. Goldberg said on Submission Radio that he has no business with WWE, and they’ll be in the same city purely by coincidence, but said he could always get a phone call this week, but made it clear he wasn’t expecting that to happen. He was asked if they had invited him to the show and he said that they haven’t, but he’s also got no issues with them anymore
573
574WWE promoted Riddick Moss for the NXT house show in Minneapolis on 9/18 because he played football at the University of Minnesota. Real name Mike Rallis, he was a starting linebacker, playing with the Golden Gophers from 2008 to 2012. His younger brother Nick is currently a linebacker on the team and is considered a much better player actually, which Mike readily admits to. He took his name because Randy Moss was one of his favorite football players. He said his journey to WWE came because he was in mini-camp with the Miami Dolphins, and there is a program with the NFL Players Association that helps football players who don’t make the NFL or get cut to get jobs. The WWE set up a working relationship with the NFLPA, which was a brainchild of Jim Ross, more than a decade ago
575
576A correction from last week regarding a Takeover show at the Theater in Madison Square Garden. In actuality, it was just the idea of an NXT show at the theater that was being discussed
577
578The stock closed at press time at $19.36 per share, leaving the company with a $1.48 billion market capitalization
579
580As of 9/20, the most watched WWE Network shows based on VOD requests were: 1. JBL interview with Kevin Nash & Scott Hall; 2. Backlash; 3. Cruiserweight Classic finals; 4. NXT from 9/14; 5. SummerSlam; 6. Night of Champions 2015; 7. WrestleMania 32; 8. NXT Takeover Brooklyn; 9. JBL interview with Sting; 10. Holy Foley episode 5
581
582The company did a great one hour documentary on Pat Patterson, which came out this week. Instead of putting it on the network, they put it on Youtube. The documentary was about Patterson’s life, showing him in Montreal in front of the place he grew up, talking about his childhood, filming him in Boston, where he lived there and where he met longtime boyfriend Louie Dondero (believe it or not, they even handled that subject with no exploitation at all), as well as having him in front of and inside the Cow Palace in San Francisco, where he had probably the best matches of his career, as well as in New York and other clips of him with different major stars. They also had a lot of performers being interviewed including Gerald Brisco, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Bob Backlund, Kevin Nash, Gene Okerlund and many others. His in-ring career was kind of rushed through in some ways, as you’d think he started in Boston, went to Oregon, spent 15 years in San Francisco (actually January 1965 through October 1976 as largely a full-timer although he had stints other places and Japan, Texas and Australia runs during that period) and then came to the WWF to wrestle Bob Backlund, leaving out Florida, Georgia (where Lillian Carter send him fan male when he worked there and told him he was her favorite wrestler), and the AWA. They talked about the creation of the Royal Rumble, how Vince McMahon thought it was a terrible idea, how he got behind pushing Hart and Michaels and other things. I mean, there’s a lot of whitewashed stuff but it was very good. The sad thing for me is in seeing the footage, there is so little of most of his career. The oldest stuff seemed to be the AWA years and that was the latter part of his career. His best stuff had to be mid-60s through mid-70s at the Cow Palace and Sacramento (where the best matches in the circuit took place). I can’t say I saw any Patterson match any better than the Alley fight with Sgt. Slaughter in Madison Square Garden, although I saw a ton, with singles matches with Ray Stevens and Don Muraco coming to mind, that were every bit as good in different ways. As far as the ability to work face or heel, like Ray Stevens, his sort of mentor, he was among the best at it. He was a better working babyface than Terry Funk, and almost as good a working heel. Bobby Heenan, who managed him late in his career ranked him behind Stevens and Ric Flair, but ahead of Nick Bockwinkel, so that tells you the caliber we’re talking about
583
584Add Summer Rae to the injury list. She’s out of action with a neck injury, as well as back and elbow issues and hasn’t worked in about a month. There’s no listed return date
585
586Regarding striking coach Seth Petruzelli and his wanting to get into pro wrestling, he appeared no 9/17 at the I Believe in Wrestling promotion show in Orlando and did an interview with MSL (who books the promotion) and said he was planning on making his pro wrestling debut soon. He’s currently training at their school. WWE hasn’t wanted him wrestling for them, because he’s hired as a coach and the age works against him as Petruzelli is almost 37. Petruzelli came from MMA, where he’s best known for knocking out Kimbo Slice in 14 seconds on CBS in one of the most-watched televised MMA fights of all-time. He was also a cast member of season two of the Ultimate Fighter and has a 2004 win over Dan Severn. A former all-state high school football player in Florida, he turned down offers for both college football and college wrestling to do MMA. He was 14-8 as a fighter, retiring three years ago after being knocked out by King Mo in Bellator
587
588Notes from the 9/19 Raw show in Memphis. A blah go-home show with a lot of strange finishes and a somewhat flat debut of the cruiserweights. The show drew 6,400 fans, which for a great wrestling market like Memphis for a Raw is a bad number. It may be early to say this, but the surprisingly low turnouts for Raw in recent weeks coincides with Cena no longer being advertised on the Raw shows. Smackdown has also been up with Cena on all the Smackdown shows. It’s already proven that the axiom it’s the brand that draws isn’t the case with the wide variety between Cena’s numbers and that of all the other headliners, and there are even differences in the other headliners as well. Some of the names backstage that weren’t used included Emma, Paige, Harper, T.J. Perkins and Jack Gallagher. Paige’s suspension is up but she’s still injured. I have no idea why Perkins didn’t appear on the show in some form given he was defending his title on the PPV, and Gallagher, for whatever reason, was the odd man out when they did the four-way match. At the very least he could have done commentary during the four-way match. Harper, who has been cleared, has been back in the ring in Florida getting ready for his return after major knee surgery. It opened with Superstars, as R-Truth & Goldust beat O’Neil & Mahal. Young pinned Axel in the other pre-Raw match. Raw opened with Reigns out. He was booed even heavier than usual. As he came out, fans were chanting “Delete, delete.” He got one or two words out before Stephanie came out to stop him from talking. But before Stephanie could say anything, Foley came out. Stephanie was so weird, because she’s a super heel one minute, but here she was leading the fans and cheerleading for Foley. She announced Rusev vs. Reigns for the U.S. title at Clash of Champions and guaranteed it would happen, since last time it didn’t happen. Foley then asked how the fans could boo Reigns. Poor guy having to be put in that position. Foley then said that all of us are part of the Raw family and we’re in a fight for survival against Smackdown. Why do they insult our intelligence to this degree and act like if Raw loses the ratings war to Smackdown that Raw will go out of business. It’s like the narrative of 1997 when they made a comeback is being used now, except everyone knows these aren’t two different companies at war. Foley said that no matter what happens that Stephanie will land on her feet, because she always does. But if business goes bad, Foley said, he’ll be back on the couch and out of a job. So evidently the ratings tanking during football season is to be blamed on Foley not being good looking enough as G.M. He said if Raw loses the ratings war, everything goes out the window. So last week Foley told Rollins he had better not interfere in the main event. He did. Foley said there would be repercussions. So this week, the repercussions were that Rollins was still in his title match and there were no repercussions. But to make good on Reigns being screwed by the interference, he was getting a cage match with Owens on the show tonight. But if he wins, it doesn’t matter, he’s still not in the title match. How does this make any sense? Stephanie wasn’t happy Foley made the match, evidently not worried by how low last week’s third hour went. Stephanie said he could do the cage match, but it has to be non-title. Rollins came out and teased a look at Reigns. Stephanie was mad at Foley for putting Owens, the champion, in a cage match six days before the PPV. Like booking the champion on television before a PPV doesn’t happen before every single PPV. Rusev showed up. He pushed the movie “Interrogation” starring Edge and Lana (as C.J. Perry) which was to be released on DVD the next day. He said Foley was jealous because his family is doing so well while Foley’s family is miserable and they all hate each other. Rollins went to a double count out with Rusev in 11:48. This match was flat. Part of it was the crowd, which wasn’t up for much all night. Part of it was that the match didn’t click as well as you’d think. Rollins did two tope’s near the end, but it ended with them brawling near the announcers position and both were counted out. After the match, Rollins knocked Rusev off the stage with a knee. He dove off the announcers table onto Rusev on the floor with a crossbody. They showed footage from last week. So during the week the decision was made to use the double pin story (which was unplanned and originally not to be talked about) as it was an idea to build more into the Charlotte/Brooke storyline which is right now the main long-term focus of the women’s division. Brooke said that since both Bayley and Banks had their shoulders down, that they should have a singles match with the winner facing Charlotte for the title. Actually she should have said both lost, so therefore I won, but that much logic didn’t fit into the long-term direction. But instead, Dana’s mouth gave Foley an idea, and that was to turn the title match at Clash into a three-way, thus lessening Charlotte’s odds, so the idea is Dana screwed up again. Charlotte slapped Dana down and she took it again. Jericho and Owens did their comedy routine. Jericho talked about how Foley had messed with Owens two weeks in a row. Jericho said that Foley has never liked him, and now he’s taking it out on Owens. He said he was going to make the list of Jericho, which is a list of all the things Foley has done wrong. No, he didn’t mention going to TNA and making a joke on Twitter after a house show that it was like the Funk-Lawler empty arena match. Strowman beat Sin Cara in 1:49 when he caught Sin Cara on a quebrada (lionsault) attempt and powerslammed him for the pin. Bayley and Banks were backstage. Bayley was all excited, saying a three-way with Charlotte was just like old times. Banks wasn’t nearly as happy and said that she beat Bayley last week. Bayley said that she beat Banks. Anyway, they agreed to fight each other on the PPV but work together as a team in their match. Charlotte & Brooke beat Bayley & Banks in 11:07. The match didn’t have much heat. Most of it was Charlotte working over Banks’ taped up back. The crowd was up for Bayley’s hot tag. If you watch Bayley work, she has some awesome conditioning. She’s like Cesaro, running all over the ring, jumping, flying and never breathing hard. She went for the belly-to-belly on Charlotte, but Brooke distracted Bayley by grabbing her leg. Bayley turned around into a kick to the face and was pinned. Why the champion beats the challenger, especially when the challenger is the one who is new, on television the week before the title match makes no sense. The worst part is that it doesn’t matter. But that’s the whole point of making wins and losses not matter is you lose a tool to help get people over. Fortunately the Bayley character can lose, but there’s no logical reason for her to be pinned before she’s the challenger in a title match. Rollins and Stephanie were backstage. Rollins asked her why she threw everything away to back Owens. Stephanie said that she was pulling for him to win. He wasn’t buying that at all. Then Stephanie turned on him saying that maybe Owens was right, because Rollins was the reason they lost the WWE title to Shane and Smackdown and then Rollins lost to Balor as well. She said that maybe her husband was right, and picked the wrong guy from The Shield to back and was tired of Rollins ruining his reputation. Rollins said that when he wins the title, maybe he’ll be Stephanie and HHH’s worst nightmare, a champion they can’t control because he knows every move they make before they make it. Stephanie told him to not threaten her. Stephanie said that she didn’t know what HHH was going to do but she wished she did, and said she thinks Owens is the right person as champion, and that replacing him with Owens as the man in the company was the right move. Rollins said that Stephanie is starting to crack, and said it started ever since the return of her brother and laughed at her. This is a key segment because the idea is Rollins is now a face and he was scripted to get the last word and last laugh in an argument with Stephanie. Dallas beat Gary Graham in 1:17. Graham had long hair and they called him the grandson of Michael Hayes. Dallas did poetry again before his match. The fans were chanting “Let’s go jobber.” Dallas won using the neckbreaker. Cesaro beat Sheamus in 9:37 to even the best-of-seven at three wins each. Best match on the show. Cesaro used an Okada dropkick to knock Sheamus to the floor and a running uppercut on the floor. Sheamus used the White noise on the apron for a near fall. They traded near finishes until Sheamus went for a pin using the ropes, like Cesaro did last week. But the ref caught him. After a missed Brogue kick, Cesaro hit the neutralizer for the pin. Foley then announced the seventh match would be at the Clash. Jericho was mad at Foley. He told Foley he’s been doing a terrible job and that you’ve never liked me. Foley said that wasn’t true, that in fact he did like him when he met him at Budokan Hall when he wrestled Ultimo Dragon and recommended him to Paul Heyman. Wow, not only is Foley got it in for Jericho and Owens, but he’s stealing my stories. When Jericho and Ultimo Dragon worked for WAR in Japan, Heyman had heard about Dragon and wanted to bring him to ECW. So he asked me for some tape on Dragon so he could figure out what to do with him. So the tape I sent was a Dragon vs. Jericho match (July 7, 1995 at Sumo Hall, not Budokan Hall), which was probably the best match of Jericho’s career up to that point in time (and one of Dragon’s as well). So Heyman saw it and decided he wanted both guys. For whatever reason, he never did make the deal with Dragon, but brought in Jericho as a regular. Anyway, Foley said that he doesn’t like Jericho but saying he never liked him is an exaggeration. Jericho started reason from the list of Jericho staying Foley steals catch phrases, and has terrible fashion sense. Foley made fun of Jericho wearing no shirt and a scarf and having no right to tell anyone about fashion sense. Jericho said what he was wearing was trendy in Luxembourg and Foley said it looks ridiculous in Memphis. Jericho then came out in front of the crowd to read from the List of Jericho. He said that Foley has been doing a terrible job for the last two months and has been screwing him over, and screwing over his friend Owens and the entire show. He read some items from his list, like Foley was screwing him and Owens over the entire show. He said he was trying to drive a wedge between him and his best friend Owens. He said Foley has terrible fashion sense and looks ridiculous. Fans were giving him the “What” treatment. He also said Foley was favoring Zayn. Enzo & Cass came out first. Enzo said that he wasn’t best friends with Owens because a real best friend would never let their best friend come to the ring wearing that best and scarf. Then the Shining Stars came out. The New Day followed, as did Anderson & Gallows. Anderson said that last week they beat the New Day in the middle of the ring and instead of talking about it, their response is to talk about their YouTube channel. Zayn showed up in here as well. Jericho said he had enough of this, and that he was making a new list, that of stupid idiots, and all of them are on it. Then everyone started fighting. This turned into a ten-man where Big E & Kingston & Enzo & Cass & Zayn beat Jericho & Anderson & Gallows & The Shining Stars in 5:29. Everyone knocked everyone else out of the ring. E threw Kingston over the top onto Gallows & Anderson. The finish saw Zayn hit the Helluva kick on Primo and then Enzo & Cass did the rocket launcher and Enzo pinned Primo. They pushed Hispanic Heritage month and did a video feature on Eddy Guerrero. They unfortunately in that piece talked about how Guerrero’s heart was as big as a mountain. In the video package, Guerrero came across with more charisma and star power than anyone on either roster. Fans were chanting “Eddy” when it was over. Foley came out to do the ring introductions for the cruiserweight match. He was supposed to quote Mark Twain and say, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.” You mean it wasn’t Low Ki who came up with that? So Foley introduced Swann, Metalik, Kendrick and Alexander. He then said they would have a four-way where the winner faced Perkins for the title at Clash. There was virtually no character development here at all. It’s four unknown guys doing a match and the place was silent. To their credit, they worked hard and some of the stuff was cool enough to get a response. The key take from this is even though the audience is down to mostly hardcores at this point, it’s a very different audience than in the past. In the 90s, you could take unknown guys or guys not pushed and put them on Nitro or in front of a WCW crowd and if they worked well enough, they’d tear the house down. But it was never the same with a WWE crowd. I remember once watching a Miguel Perez Jr. vs. Bill DeMott (then Crash the Terminator) dark match at a taping and it was incredible, believe it or not. And nobody reacted because they were there to see stars and to them, it didn’t matter what they did, they weren’t stars. There were some into it in the sense there was a light “This is awesome” chant late in the match. But the crowd was only reacting to moves and not big. After dives and near falls, Kendrick used the bully choke, which they’ve changed the name to the captain’s hook, for the submission on Metalik after Alexander had hit Metalik with the lumber check in 15:01. From a presentation standpoint, they did a poor job in the first impression. Reigns beat Owens in the cage match in 14:37. Owens went for his first power bomb, but in mid-air, Reigns turned it into a Superman punch. Reigns went for a spear but ran into a superkick. Owens hit the power bomb but Reigns kicked out. Both were climbing over. With both standing on the top rope, Owens rammed Reigns head over-and-over into the cage. But Reigns hit the Superman punch while standing on the top rope, and both fell into the ring. Owens started crawling for the door. The cameras focused on Owens which is how they wanted to shoot it, because the idea was a surprise. So Owens was out the door and about to hit the floor, but Reigns, who climbed over the top of the cage at the same time, dropped and landed first, so he won. After the match, Owens kicked the door into Reigns’ face. Rusev then came out with a chain and got into the cage and chained the door locked. Rusev and Owens were beating on Reigns. Rusev put Reigns in the Accolade until Rollins ran to the ring. Rollins climbed up to the top of the cage. Rollins hit a crossbody off the top of the cage onto both Rusev and Owens to save Reigns, so they are starting the tease for The Shield being together in some form
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590Notes from the 9/20 Smackdown tapings in Birmingham, AL. The show drew 5,000 fans. They opened with Kane quickly pinning Kevin Zion in what may have been a dark match. An interesting note is that they had Rich Swann beating Lince Dorado for Main Event. Well, the cruiserweights being exclusive to Raw lasted all of one day. In a non-title match, Slater & Rhyno beat Breeze & Fandango. Smackdown opened with a contract signing for the Lynch vs. Bliss women’s title match. Bliss said that Lynch didn’t fit the role of a champion, and said Lynch’s role was being the loveable superstar who never quite gets to the top. She said everyone knows Lynch is going to lose because her whole thing is coming close and losing and she wasn’t born to be a champion but born to be a loser. Lynch said she wasn’t born to be a champion, she was born to work at a regular job in Dublin but she fought to be a champion. Bliss said she’ll be exposed as a one-hit wonder and then hit Lynch with a vicious show with a paper contract. Lynch did a great job selling the ridiculous shot and Bliss then turned the table over on her. Lynch came back and attacked Bliss, who ran off. So evidently the storyline all week about Miz wanting his contract renegotiated by Bryan played out before the show started as they announced Miz had gotten a new contract. Bryan said he’d defend the IC title against Ziggler on the show. Miz said he didn’t want to wrestle Ziggler. Bryan said that was fine, but based on the terms of the contract, then the contract is canceled. Bryan asked if he’d read his contract or his lawyers had read it. He said Miz doesn’t have to wrestle, but then the contract is off if he doesn’t wrestle. Usos beat Jordan & Gable in a match to determine who gets the next tag title shot at Rhyno & Slater. They showed Rhyno & Slater watching the match eating crackers with cheese whiz. Most of the match was working over the “injured” left knee of Gable. Jordan finally got the hot tag. Jimmy splashed Jordan off the top rope but Gable saved. Jordan got to the corner but then saw how bad Gable’s knee was so decided not to tag out. So Jordan worked on his own. The Usos gave him a double superkick and Jey pinned him after a splash off the top rope in 10:32. This was a good match and told a story. Losing this early on TV and in the first match back for Jordan & Gable didn’t feel right. Slater & Rhyno were backstage after the match. Slater called the team “Beauty and The Man Beast.” Rhyno didn’t seem amused by that name. Slater’s gimmick is that he’s a geek, saying he wanted to get the crowd more behind them by starting a chant which said, “When we say “Rhy” so you “No,” copying the old Usos chant. The Usos then showed up and got in their faces. Rhyno stepped in from of Slater and the Usos backed off. There was a video of Roberto Clemente (a baseball star with the Pittsburgh Pirates who died doing a relief mission) as part of Hispanic Heritage week. That was weird in so many ways. Corbin pinned Crews in 2:44 with the End of Days. Swagger was on commentary. Swagger was talking about how Corbin was the toughest guy on Smackdown until he arrived and now Corbin is No. 2. It’s so weird that you’ve got these superstars like Cena and Styles fighting in main events but then push the idea that Swagger, who has done nothing but lose for years, is the toughest guy on the brand. It’s like you’re watching a movie and they hire Cain Velasquez to be one of the thugs who the star beats up, and then during the movie after he’s been beaten up over and over, they say in the movie how Velasquez is the toughest guy. I mean, after the movie, cool. Corbin confronted Swagger after the match. I never thought I’d see the day where Crews is the set up guy to get someone ready for a program with Swagger. Naomi & Nikki did a promo. A funny spot was Nikki calling her “Trin” instead of Naomi (her real first name is Trinity). Ziggler did an interview. He said Miz was a coward, a cheater, a scumbag, obnoxious, a slimy worm whose desperate. Then Ziggler said he was desperate as well because he knows he keeps losing and he’s desperate to prove he belongs here. Then he brought up he was just inducted into the Kent State University Hall of Fame (actually that happened on Saturday which is why he missed the first hour show of the weekend). Miz beat Ziggler to keep the IC title in 16:01. Miz is now doing a lot of Daniel Bryan spots. About the only thing that accomplished, because the fans live don’t pick up on that aspect, is to show that the stuff Bryan looked good in doing, Miz looks bad in doing. His kicks look so slow and weak, but in copying Bryan, you have to do the yes kicks. So the early part wasn’t too good. Once Miz got that out of the way and started being himself, the match got a lot better. Ziggler was very good. He went for the Zig Zag but Miz held onto the ropes and Ziggler took the bump himself. Maryse went to use the hair spray on Ziggler, but the ref saw it and made her stop. Maryse was then kicked out of the match. Ziggler hit the Zig Zag but Miz kicked out. Miz then acted like he wanted to leave, but when Maryse was thrown out, she left her spray. So Miz sprayed Ziggler in the face and hit the skull crushing finale for the pin. Orton pinned Rowan in a quick squash in 2:20. Wyatt did an interview saying that his program with Orton was unholy matrimony because it will continue until death do us part. But he said that Orton is just a man who can die at any given moment. But Wyatt said he was a God and a God can never die. Nikki & Naomi beat Carmella & Natalya via DQ in :33. Natalya immediately got Nikki in the sharpshooter. But Carmella pulled Nikki out of the ring and attacked Nikki. Carmella threw her into the barricade for the DQ. Natalya was mad because she had the match won and her partner screwed it up. So there should be follow-up tension her next week. I’m not saying there will be, just in logical storyline progression there should be. Carmella kept beating on Nikki after the match. Naomi laid out Natalya with a high kick and then saved Nikki by going after Carmella, who bailed. Styles did a promo and was asked about his rivalry with Cena and Ambrose. Styles said he’s beaten both of them so there’s no rivalry because he’s far ahead of both of them and called himself the face that runs the place, the champ that runs the camp and said he was superior to Cena and Ambrose in every way. Ambrose pinned Cena in the main event in 10:10. There was something noticeable here. For the first time, Cena in the match didn’t feel like a superstar. He was moving like an old guy. His face and lack of fire looked like a guy playing out the string. He always works hard and is often clumsy with his moves, but always has the star aura. Maybe the last two years of trying to make him secondary to Reigns while keeping him around as hurt. But he’s supposed to be the post-title Bruno or Hogan, and it wasn’t there. The match was fine. They did the story where Ambrose kicked out of the Attitude Adjustment and Cena kicked out of Dirty Deeds. Cena went for a second Attitude Adjustment, but Ambrose reversed it into a sunset flip for the clean pin. That didn’t help the feeling. Styles then came out and attacked Cena. Styles hit the Pele kick on Ambrose. Bryan then announced that on next week’s Smackdown from Cleveland (where Miz and Ziggler grew up), that Styles would defend the WWE title against Ambrose in a singles match before the three-way with Cena at No Mercy. Ambrose then laid out Styles with the Dirty Deeds as the show went off the air
591
592Notes from the 9/14 NXT TV show. The main thing on the show was the first segment, a hardcore angle to build up the Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Samoa Joe match on Takeover. Joe came out doing a humble interview, but not humble enough to contradict his character. It’s a fine line and he walked it well. He said the entire time he was champion, he was a disgrace, and that he choked out his enemies and destroyed all of his friendships. He said that he wouldn’t apologize for it because he wanted to be the champion of the hottest brand in sports entertainment. He called out Nakamura and said he wouldn’t leave the ring until Nakamura came out. Nakamura came out. Joe talked about how they went to war and how he told Nakamura he was an undeserving contender. But Joe said that he now realizes Nakamura was a deserving contender and a worthy champion. Joe asked for a rematch. Nakamura, who is the best I’ve seen at not being able to speak English well and get promos over this side of Pentagon, has this way of pausing and saying nothing, to where you’re waiting for any word, and all he said was, “You’re on,” and the place went nuts. The two then shook hands, but once again, it was a slow, reluctant and heavily teased handshake that got a big pop. Everyone can learn from that aspect of the segment. Joe then jumped Nakamura. It meant so much more because of the handshake and because Joe did it the way he did. So often they do that and it comes across like a fake swerve cliche. The big spot was Joe giving Nakamura a uranage on the ring steps. That made a sick thud and they carried Nakamura out on a stretcher. Regal went to confront Joe but Joe had already gotten in his car and sped away. Liv Morgan beat Rachel Fozio in 1:52. Rachel Fozio is Rachel Ellering, but they didn’t want to use the Ellering name since Paul, her father, was on the show later. Crowd was dead. Morgan won via submission with a guillotine. Morgan was doing a heavy New Jersey accent. She challenged Asuka for the title. Nobody bought it and fans were chanting “Asuka’s gonna kill you.” Morgan can be a star, but if they try pushing her now, it’ll work badly against her. Hideo Itami pinned Drew Gulak in 4:54 with the GTS. The crowd popped big for the finish. This wasn’t as good as it sounds no paper, too short and Itami just comes across like a guy whose head is all messed up. He’s completely different from Japan where he carried himself like he owned the place. The Authors of Pain beat Doug Sessa & Chris Pain in 1:50. Just a Road Warriors squash except these guys don’t have the charisma of the Road Warriors. Tye Dillinger did an interview. He brought up losing matches in the past but now he’s starting to win and things are changing. Bobby Roode beat No Way Jose with an implant DDT in the main event in 8:28. So they gave Roode a new finisher. Roode is the living embodiment of how music can make a superstar. People love the song and were singing the song at two different times during the match. Roode didn’t look as good as he did in TNA, but part of that may be Jose, and Roode was solid in everything he did. But aside from the singing, the match lacked heat. Roode kicked out of Jose’s TKO, said the word “glorious,” and hit the DDT for the pin
593
594Notes from the 9/15 NXT TV tapings. The show opened with Jack Gallagher beating Noam Dar in a dark match. Mostly a comedy match with Gallagher winning with a running dropkick. For the first week of tapings which would be 9/21, Samoa Joe came out. He said he had Shinsuke Nakamura’s medical report and that Nakamura would be out of action six to 12 weeks. He said he wanted Nakamura to either face him or be stripped of the title. William Regal came out and said he hasn’t spoken to Nakamura but he’ll take care of the problem. Joe said that he’ll do what he did to Nakamura to the rest of the roster. They appear to be setting up Joe vs. Nakamura for the 11/19 Takeover show in Toronto. Austin Aries beat Oney Lorcan with the last chancery. Aries said he wanted Hideo Itami to come out and called him a coward. Itami came out and Aries bailed. Billie Kay beat Aliyah with a kick to the face. Cedric Alexander beat Andrade Cien Almas. Interesting that Alexander is being used here instead of Raw. They had a great match with Alexander winning with the lumbar check. There was no turn yet as the two embraced after the match. The second show, airing 9/28, opened with Regal announcing the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Tournament. The tournament was on, then off, then on all in the space of about a week. The finals will be on the Takeover show in Toronto. Regal announced the tournament starts “this week.” Tye Dillinger beat Angelo Dawkins with the Tye breaker. As Dillinger was leaving, Bobby Roode came out and said that he needed a perfect partner. He named the team Perfectly Glorious. The match scheduled with the Ealy Brothers, Gabriel & Uriel, who are two 6-foot-9 twin brothers, facing the Revival. Joe came out and destroyed both twins as The Revival just stood and watched from the ramp. Joe said he would keep destroying people until Regal brought him Nakamura. Ember Moon pinned Mandy Rose. The Authors of Pain beat two guys who were never announced in about one minute. Paul Ellering did an interview after the match. Asuka beat Liv Morgan in about a minute with an armbar. Asuka then said there was nobody ready to challenge her for her title. Itami pinned Lince Dorado with the GTS. Aries then attacked Itami but Itami made a comeback and Aries ran off. For the third week, which would be 10/5, they had the first match in the Rhodes tournament, with The Authors of Pain beating the Bollywood Boys, Garv & Hirv Sihra. This was a quick destruction of the GFW tag team champions. Rich Swann pinned Patrick Clark with a handspring elbow moonsault. Swann was really over. Peyton Royce pinned Danielle Kamela with a fisherman suplex. Dan Matha came out for his debut match, but Joe destroyed him. Joe demanded that if Nakamura isn’t ready by next week, that Regal give the title back to him. Dawson & Wilder beat Alexander & Almas in the tag team tournament. Said to be a great match. After the match, Almas turned on Alexander and left him laying. The final show, for 10/12, opened with a tag team tournament match with Sawyer Fulton & Alexander Wolfe beating Dillinger & Roode when Roode refused to tag in and left Dillinger to be destroyed. Fulton & Wolfe are part of the new group called Sanity, with Eric Young and Nikki Glencross as the other two members. Kay pinned Morgan. Royce, who is being put together as a tag team with Kay, tripped Morgan and Kay hit the kick to the face for the pin. TM 61 beat Riddick Moss & Tino Sabbatelli in the tag team tournament. The fans were into Sabbatelli’s TV debut. Sabbatelli was pinned after the Thunder Valley bomb. The TV main event was supposed to be Buddy Murphy vs. Wesley Blake. They started wrestling and then Joe came out and destroyed both guys. He demanded Nakamura come out. Nakamura came out in a neck brace, took it off and then attacked Joe. Nakamura hit a security guard as well as Joe with the Kinshasa to end the tapings
595
596NXT did a Midwest tour, opening on 9/16 in Des Moines before 1,500 fans. Rich Swann pinned Tino Sabbatelli. Swann got big reaction coming off the cruiserweight classic. Daria Berenato beat Peyton Royce. Tye Dillinger pinned Riddick Moss. The Dillinger gimmick was over. Hideo Itami pinned Austin Aries with the GTS. The finish got a big reaction. Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder retained the tag titles over TM 61. Great match with lots of near falls. Asuka retained the women’s title beating Ember Moon with the Asuka lock. Both women hugged. Good match. Main event saw Nakamura & No Way Jose beat Joe & Roode. The crowd was into all four. It’s notable that on television they were did the big injury angle where Nakamura went out on a stretcher and he’ll be off television for a few weeks, and it was at least acknowledged on the St. Paul show (and may have been elsewhere although we didn’t get that in reports). But it seems the rule is that if there’s an injury angle on Raw or Smackdown, they keep the talent off the house shows, but NXT, I guess figuring it draws a more hardcore audience, they will have the talent work the house shows while they are “injured” in storylines
597
598The 9/17 show in Omaha drew 1,000 fans opening with Swann pinning Moss. Swann was shaken up at the end of the match and holding his stomach and his side. Dillinger pinned Sabbatelli. Moon pinned Royce with the stunner off te top rope. Aries pinned Itami with a low blow. After the match, Itami laid out Aries with the GTS. Roode pinned Jose. Crowd was split 50/50 on that one. Asuka beat Berenato to keep the women’s title using the Asuka lock submission. Main event saw Nakamura & TM 61 beating Joe & Dawson & Wilder when Nakamura pinned Wilder after the Kinshasa. Nakamura was over like crazy
599
600The final show of the tour was 9/18 in St. Paul, MN, before 1,700 fans. Swann pinned Sabbatelli in 9:15 with a somersault into a senton. Lots of posing, which the crowd was into. Sabbatelli’s personality got over but he needs more time in the ring. Swann showed no signs of being hurt. Royce beat Berenato in 10:07 after a knee to the head and a fisherman suplex. Itami pinned Aries in 10:45. Aries got easy heat in the Twin Cities by coming out wearing Green Bay Packers Zubaz. The Vikings played the Packers that same day. Itami pulled down Aries’ Zubaz pants and then hit him with the GTS. Roode pinned Dillinger in 14:45 with an eye rake, a low blow and an implant DDT. Roode attacked Dillinger after the match, but Dillinger made a comeback and hit the Tye Breaker. The crowd was hot for both guys with chants of “10" and “Glorious.” Shane Thorne pinned Dash Wilder in 11:20. The crowd was quiet during the match and it was hard for Miller to win them over. This was the deadest match on the show. Dawson came out on crutches so they couldn’t do the tag match like the night before. Timing was off at times during the match and the crowd was dead silent most of the way. Dawson interfered. Thorne won after a standing huracanrana after Dawson accidentally had hit Wilder. Asuka beat Moon in 10:50 with the flying armbar that she turned into the Asuka lock to keep the women’s title. Very good match. Asuka played a heel champion and the crow was split. Even though Moon has had little television, they worked them match for her to get underdog support and it worked. Moon did a crossbody to the floor. Unlike with the other promotions sold on workrate, they limit the dives in NXT on house shows as there were two this show, one by Thorne and the one here. The two got a standing ovation and hugged when it was over and was told this was easily the best match on the show. Fans booed the hell out of the WrestleMania video because many knew they were at one point to get WrestleMania in the Twin Cities in 2017 but it went to Orlando. Nakamura & Jose beat Joe & Moss in 17:30. Moss played heel even though he did a lot of the pre-show promotional work and played football at the University of Minnesota. Moss got easy heat saying his favorite part of being from Minnesota was leaving. He got heat for the promo but not a lot of heat when he was in the ring. Joe and Nakamura were cheered like crazy and Jose got a very good reaction as well. Nakamura came out wearing a neck brace from his TV angle and threw the neck brace on the ground. Jose worked most of the way so Nakamura wasn’t in match. Nakamura pinned Moss after the Kinshasa
601
602The first of the show Florida tour shows this weekend was 9/16 in Cocoa Beach, which drew 200 fans. Kishin Raftar beat Patrick Clark with a form of armbar submission. Mandy Rose beat Liv Morgan with a move similar to a pedigree. Alexander Wolfe & Sawyer Fulton beat Niko Bogojevic & Tucker Knight with a Magic killer into a back slam. Nikki Cross was in their corner and she attacked Bogojevic & Knight after the match. Oney Lorcan beat Wesley Blake with a half crab. Authors of Pain beat Kenneth Crawford & Angelo Dawkins. Paul Ellering doesn’t work the Florida house shows with them. Dan Matha did a promo. He said he doesn’t understand why the cruiserweights get so much attention when they look just like the fans in the crowd. He issued an open challenge and then nobody came out. Fans booed him heartily. Billie Kay beat Aliyah with the kick to the face. Main event saw Cedric Alexander beat Andrade Cien Almas in a great match. Almas worked as the heel from the start. Alexander moved when Almas went for the double knees and hit the lumber check for the pin
603
604The 9/17 show in Tampa before 300 fans opened with Noah Potjes pinning Patrick Clark after the playmaker. Aliyah pinned Mandy Rose with a Northern Lights suplex. Kenneth Crawford & Angelo Dawkins beat Gabriel & Uriel Ealy when Crawford used a standing shooting star press for the pin. Alexander pinned Almas again with the lumbar check. Kay beat Morgan via submission with the torture rack. Wesley Blake did a promo trying to get over his Beautiful Blonde Blake persona. Fulton & Wolfe, again with Nikki Cross in the corner, beat Adrian Jaoude & Cezar Bononi with their version of a Magic killer ending in a suplex. In the main event, Lorcan beat Buddy Murphy using a submission via headlock
605
606This was the first weekend since the split where you actually had legit brand exclusive tours. What’s notable is that to get around the past when the Smackdown crew didn’t draw as well as the Raw crew, they are not advertising the shows as Raw shows or Smackdown shows, and just as WWE shows. So they
607
608did learn from the last split. The Raw crew opened on 9/16 in Louisville before 5,000 fans. 9/17 in Evansville drew 3,200. 9/18 in Huntsville, AL drew 5,000 fans
609
610The Smackdown crew opened on 9/17 in Springfield, MO, drawing 4,300, which was very healthy for that market. 9/18 in North Little Rock drew 3,700. 9/19 in Tupelo, MS drew 3,500
611
612In Louisville, the opener saw Bayley & Banks & Fox beating Charlotte & Brooke & Jax when Banks beat Brooke with the Bank statement. Emma returned as the referee of the match. She’s been out of action since May due to back surgery. Young pinned O’Neil. Backlund was in Young’s corner. Strowman beat Sin Cara with the head-and-arm choke. R-Truth & Goldust beat Dallas & Axel . Reigns beat Rusev via DQ in a U.S. title match when Rusev hit him with the ring bell. After the match, Reigns laid Rusev out with a spear. Reigns got a bigger reaction than anyone on the show, so this was not your TV crowd. New Day, being E & Woods, retained the tag titles over the Shining Stars and Enzo & Cass. Cesaro beat Karl Anderson with the sharpshooter. Main event saw Owens retain the Universal title over Rollins and Zayn when he pinned Zayn after a pop up power bomb. Rollins gave Owens a pedigree after the match
613
614Evansville the next night was the same show. Once again Reigns got big babyface reaction against Rusev. The fans seemed confused, with a lot not knowing that Ambrose was still a babyface when going against Styles since he’s been heeling on television
615
616Huntsville on the third night was also the same show. Main event with Owens vs. Zayn vs. Rollins was said to be a great match
617
618Smackdown in Springfield, MO, opened with Ryder & Rawley beating The Ascension with the Hype Ryder. Jordan pinned English with a Northern Lights suplex. Gable had the weekend off selling the injury so the rule seems to be that injuries on NXT television don’t count, but injuries on WWE television do count. Gotch interfered and it was essentially a handicap match. Corbin pinned Swagger with a thumb to the eye and a roll-up holding the tights. After the big push on television for the “new” Swagger, this seems like they really don’t have big plans for him since faces almost always win at the house shows unless they’re non-pushed faces or a title match with heel champions. That said, this match was better than it sounds, and Swagger even kicked out of the End of Days. Slater & Rhyno retained the tag titles over Usos and Breeze & Fandango when Rhyno gored Breeze. Rhyno & Slater were very over. Fans were chanting “ECW” when Rhyno was in. Orton pinned Wyatt with the RKO, reversing out of Sister Abigail. Said to be a basic safe match. It was back-and-forth but clearly holding back from Orton’s usual level. Before the finish, Orton also hit the RKO on Rowan, who tried to interfere. Lynch & Naomi & Nikki Bella beat Natalya & Bliss & Carmella when Lynch beat Natalya with the disarmer. Crews pinned Miz in a non-title match. The storyline is that Miz is having contract problems with Bryan and Miz came out on the mic and said that because of those contract issues he is refusing to defend the title. Maryse interfered and got kicked out. This led to Miz being mad about her being booted and Crews used it to hit the power bomb for the win. Styles beat Ambrose to retain the WWE title on top in 25:00. Great match. Styles undid the padding on the turnbuckle and late in the match ran Ambrose into the exposed metal, and then pinned him after the Styles clash. After the match, Styles went for the phenomenal forearm, but Ambrose nailed him on the way down and hit the Dirty Deeds to end the show
619
620North Little Rock was the same show with the exception that it was Gotch who worked and lost to Jordan, and that Ziggler was added to the main event, so it was a three-way with Styles and Ambrose for the title. They did the standard heel win three-way finish as Ambrose hit Dirty Deeds on Ziggler and had him pinned, but Styles threw Ambrose off him and out of the ring and got the pin. After the match, Styles went to attack Ambrose, but Ambrose laid him out with Dirty Deeds
621
622Tupelo was the same show as North Little Rock.
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