DECEMBER 16, 2019 WRESTLING

OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: 10 HALL

OF FAME INDUCTEES, MORE
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 December 16, 2019

The largest new class in more than two decades, with ten different wrestlers, was
inducted into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in the 2019 voting.

Leading the charge are Los Misioneros de la Muerte, sometimes known by the
English version of that term, The Death Missionaries. They were the original top
heel trio in Mexico from the 1980s, consisting of El Signo, El Texano and Negro
Navarro.

Joining them are three other wrestlers from Mexico, Ultimo Guerrero, the longtime
top rudo headliner for CMLL at Arena Mexico, Villano III, one of the top singles
stars of the UWA heyday in the late 70s and into the 80s and early 90s, and Dr.
Wagner Jr. The latter two are the eighth and ninth sons of Hall of Famers to be
inducted in history. Villano III is the son of Rey Mendoza while Wagner Jr.,
obviously, is the son of Dr. Wagner.

They join previous father-and-son combinations inducted, of Perro Aguayo and El

Hijo de Perro Aguayo, Dory Funk Sr. and sons Dory Jr. and Terry, Salvador “Gori”
Guerrero and son Eddy, Stu and Bret Hart, Vincent James McMahon and Vincent
Kennedy McMahon and El Santo and El Hijo del Santo.

Also voted in, was a first ballot Hall of Famer in Gedo, the current booker of
New Japan Pro Wrestling, who was the architect of the company’s return to
prominence and played a major part in the decision making that created huge stars
of Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, Jay White, Will Ospreay and Hiromu Takahashi. Of
all the names on this year’s list, he was probably the favorite and most obvious
because there’s really no argument you can make of any value against him.

“Big” Jim Crockett, later known as Jim Crockett Sr., who ran pro wrestling and
promoted other sports in the Carolinas from 1935 to his death in 1973 was also
voted in.

The final wrestler voted in was Edward “Bearcat” Wright Jr., the son of a notable
boxer, who was the first major world heavyweight champion of African-American
ethnicity, was the WWA world champion in California in 1963, and later had two
runs as IWA world champion in Australia when that was the biggest money promotion
in the world.

Also inducted this year is Paul Pons of France as an overlooked historical

figure.

To be inducted into the Hall of Fame via voting, one must get at least 60 percent
of the vote from the different regions, which are U.S. and Canada historical
(full-time careers ending 1989 or earlier), U.S. and Canada modern, Japan, Mexico
and the rest of the world.
Los Misioneros, Guerrero, Villano III and Wagner Jr. were on the Mexico ballot.
Gedo was on the non-wrestler ballot, chosen for his booking work, but in Japan.
Crockett Sr. and Wright were from the U.S. and Canada historical group, Wright as
a wrestler and Crockett as a non-wrestler.

There were also four very close calls this year. Don Owen, the longtime promoter
in the Pacific Northwest, came two votes shy. Stanley Weston, a wrestling
magazine publisher, also came two votes shy. Jun Akiyama, a pro wrestler with All
Japan Pro Wrestling and former President of the company, and one of the best
heavyweight technicians of the last 25 years, came three votes shy. Sputnik
Monroe, a journeyman wrestler whose main claim to fame is helping integrate
public buildings in Memphis, came four votes shy.

Wrestlers are supposed to be judged on four major criteria, positive historical

influence on the business, drawing power, in-ring ability as it pertains to
having outstanding matches, and longevity. A Hall of Famer should be strong in
all four of those categories, but if they were one of the dominant standouts of
their era in the ring, or as a draw, they should be voted regardless of the other
categories. Longevity without having any major positive historical impact,
significant drawing power or a career filled with great matches, should be viewed
as meaningless.

For non-wrestlers, they should be among the elite historically in their

respective roles.

Voters are generally broken down into categories of historians,

WRESTLING OBSERVER

HALL OF FAME BALLOTING RESULTS

Votes needed for induction into the Hall of Fame: U.S. and Canada modern 180;
U.S. and Canada historical 130; Japan 139; Mexico 103; Rest of the world 101

PERFORMER VOTES PCT 2018

LOS MISIONEROS DE LA MUERTE 122 71% 57%

ULTIMO GUERRERO 116 68% 55%

GEDO 155 67% ----

VILLANO III 109 64% 55%

DR. WAGNER JR. 108 63% 49%

JIM CROCKETT SR. 136 63% 50%

BEARCAT WRIGHT 132 61% 48%

Don Owen 178 59% 37%

Stanley Weston 128 59% 32%

Jun Akiyama 136 59% 55%

Sputnik Monroe 126 58% 47%

Kenny Omega 122 53% 49%

Sgt. Slaughter 152 51% 50%

Karloff Lagarde 86 50% 47%

Blanchard/Anderson w/Dillon 146 49% 43%

Johnny Saint 80 48% 44%

Ted Turner 143 48% ----

Larry Matysik 99 46% 35%

Junkyard Dog 135 45% 48%

Big Daddy 75 45% 35%

Enrique Torres 93 43% 37%

Edge 125 42% 50%

Kota Ibushi 98 42% 16%

Akira Taue 94 41% 52%

Tetsuya Naito 83 36% 21%

Los Brazos 61 36% 25%

Johnny Rougeau 75 35% 33%

Rollerball Mark Rocco 59 35% 27%

Jim Crockett Jr. 74 34% 29%

Grand Wizard/Abdullah Farouk 73 34% ----

James Melby 71 33% ----

Jackie Pallo 53 32% 25%

Dave Brown 94 31% 22%

Jim Johnston 93 31% ----

Morris Sigel 63 29% ----

June Byers 62 29% 26%

Ricki Starr 48 29% 12%

Yoshiaki Fujiwara 64 28% 38%

Randy Orton 80 27% 35%

Blackjack Mulligan 56 26% 13%

Cima 60 26% 24%

George Kidd 43 26% ----

Matt & Jeff Hardy 74 25% ----

Bob Caudle 76 25% ----

Caristico 41 24% 18%

Tomohiro Ishii 56 24% ----

Rocky Johnson 50 23% 17%

Hayabusa 53 23% 32%

Cowboy Bob Ellis 47 22% 18%

Bill Goldberg 67 22% 31%

Wild Bull Curry 46 21% 16%

Otto Wanz 35 21% 16%

Lord James Blears 44 20% 12%

Archie “Mongolian Stomper” Gouldie 44 20% 23%

C.M. Punk 59 20% 12%

George Scott 41 19% 30%

Von Brauners w/Weingeroff 41 19% 21%

Rick Martel 56 19% 15%

Huracan Ramirez 33 19% 16%

Chavo Guerrero Sr. 38 18% 19%

Kerry Von Erich 55 18% 19%

Spyros Arion 30 18% 11%

Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan 40 17% 17%

Billy Joyce 29 17% 15%

Killer Karl Kox 29 17% 22%

Dominic DeNucci 27 16% 15%

Kendo Nagasaki 27 16% 13%

Trish Stratus 46 15% 20%

Ultimate Warrior 42 14% 14%

Meiko Satomura 33 14% ----

Mario Milano 24 14% 12%

Jimmy & Johnny Valiant 25 12% ----

Stephanie McMahon 32 11% ----

Don Fargo 23 11% 11%

Less than 10% of all votes from region and dropped from next year’s ballot: Jose
Lothario, Dick Slater, George Steele, Volador Jr., Naoki Sugabayashi

Dropped from next year’s ballot due to the 15 year/50 percent rule: None

Will be dropped next year if not getting at least 50 percent: Don Owen, Jun
Akiyama, Sgt. Slaughter, Kerry Von Erich, Chavo Guerrero Sr.

Added to next year’s ballot: Ole Anderson, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Brian Pillman,
Joe Higuchi, Takaaki Kidani

reporters, those current working in the business, and those formerly in the
business.

Wrestlers are eligible for voting 15 years after their debut for a major
promotion, or if they are 35 years old and it has been more than ten years since
they started with a major promotion.

Wrestlers are removed from the ballot if they fail to get ten percent of the vote
within their category. They can be put on the ballot again two years later if
there are reasons to believe their situation has changed, or if 30 years had
passed since the end of their full-time major league careers.

If someone has been on the ballot for 15 years without being voted in, they will
be removed from the ballot unless they reach a 50 percent threshold in the
voting. They can also be put back on two years later, but only if there is a
meaningful change in their case.

With Los Misioneros, Gedo and Guerrero going in this year, the balloting is going
to get interesting because so many getting in means very much a dilution in the
quality going forward. Jun Akiyama is a solid candidate, but he’s also a guy who
has been on the ballot forever and never got voted in, and until recently wasn’t
even considered a strong candidate. Sputnik Monroe is unique, because he’s
clearly getting votes as a social issue because his career as a wrestler
shouldn’t even get him near the ballot since there are plenty of guys with
stronger actual careers that aren’t even candidates.

Aside from Ted Turner, the rest of the ballot are guys who in years past were not
even considered strong candidates. There are the modern New Japan candidates,
Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi and Tetsuya Naito who all have a strong shot down the
line. They are probably still held back based on reluctance, perhaps feeling it’s
too early, which for Omega and Naito it probably is. For Ibushi, there’s really
no reason, other than the reason mentioned before, he looks ten years younger
than he is and that makes people think he’s a young guy on he rise. Plus, most of
his career was in DDT, and the history of smaller promotion stars making it is
not good. It’s only been recent years where Ibushi started with New Japan. There
will be another run of guys who are stars now, but aren’t yet eligible, but the
only close to guaranteed person is Kazuchika Okada in his first ballot in 2021,
who it would be hard to see wouldn’t get near record numbers.

Whether that means people voted in over the next several years will be few, or
you can argue standards will decline because people will get votes, and people
not considered strong candidates when they actually were in their era, will
become strong candidates based on changing standards.

Plus, with so many scooped from the top, everyone who topped 50 percent looks
like they have a good shot next year.

Los Misioneros placed second with historians, 11th with reporters, 13th with
retired wrestlers and 9th with active wrestlers.

Guerrero placed 13th with historians, third with reporters, 18th with retired
wrestlers and third with active wrestlers.

Gedo placed sixth with historians, fifth with reporters, did not place with
retired wrestlers and was sixth with active wrestlers.

Villano III placed third with historians, 17th with reporters, but didn’t place
among wrestlers.

Wagner Jr. placed 17th with historians, sixth with reporters, 14th with retired
wrestlers and fourth with active wrestlers.

Crockett Sr. placed 21st with historians, first with reporters, seventh with
retired wrestlers and seventh with active wrestlers.

Wright placed first with historians, 16th with reporters, didn’t place with
retired wrestlers and placed 30th with active wrestlers.

Los Misioneros have had strong finishes on the ballot since 2015, including
reaching 57 percent the past two years. They drew the highest percentage of votes
last year without getting in and along with Gedo were the strongest favorites to
go in this year.

Lucha Libre had usually been based around tag team main events for several
decades, with such popular teams as El Santo & Gori Guerrero, Blue Demon & Black
Shadow, and later Rene Guajardo & Karloff Lagarde. But in the 70s came the
emergence of trios.
The UWA, headed by Francisco Flores, the most progressive promotion in Mexico at
the time, put together three young stars, Antonio Sanchez, known as El Signo,
Miguel Calderon, known as Negro Navarro (Navarro was his mother’s maiden name)
and Juan Aguilar, known as El Texano.

When they first got together in 1977, Signo was 23, Navarro was 20 and Texano was
19. Originally, they were programmed against Los Brazos, a trio of brothers from
the Alvarado family known as Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata (later Super Porky) and
El Brazo. The matches got so much attention that both teams, as trios, were
booked all over Mexico. Originally the teams were not used as main eventers,
since those were mostly tag team matches, but within a few years their reputation
for having great matches saw them used more and more as headliners, and both
teams became enduring superstars.

The three, as the Death Missionaries, came to the U.S. in 1981. In Mexico, one of
their biggest early matches was a three-way hair vs. hair match that they won
over Kuniaki Kobayashi & George Takano & Hiro Saito. In another major match, all
three Death Missionaries had to shave their heads in 1981 with a loss to the trio
of Hamada & Kobayashi & Enrique Vera.

But the match that made them into household names in Mexico came in 1982, when
they wrestled El Santo & Huracan Ramirez & Rayo de Jalisco, three aging legends,
at El Toreo in Naucalpan. Santo, 64, probably the most-beloved wrestler in any
culture in history, suffered a massive heart attack in the middle of the match
and collapsed. The story is that his life was saved by the quick responding
actions of Ramirez.

In an era where such an unfortunate turn of events would be thought of in ways to

capitalize, they played off the match with the idea that the Death Missionaries
nearly killed Santo. They immediately became the hottest heel act in the country,
and with their quick, synchronized heel work, were part of speeding up the style
of wrestling in Mexico. When Santo recovered, matches with Santo and various
legendary partners against Los Misioneros de la Muerte were the biggest draws in
the country. In one of the biggest matches in Mexican history, Los Misioneros
teamed with Perro Aguayo in what was the retirement match of both Santo & Gori
Guerrero, who teamed with Ramirez & El Solitario in what drew the biggest gate up
to that point in time at a sold out El Toreo. They also went to Japan as
undercard rivals in trios matches during the heyday of the original Tiger Mask.

In 1986, they went to CMLL, and beat Dandy & Talisman & Jerry Estrada in a
triple-hair match, to build for that year’s anniversary show where they lost
their hair to Ringo Mendoza & Americo Rocca & Tony Salazar.

The original trio lasted until a match with Los Villanos for the UWA trios
titles, where Texano threw in the towel to protect Signo, causing Signo and
Navarro to attack him after them match. The actual story behind it was that
Texano had given notice and was leaving the promotion. Texano later became part
of Mexico’s best tag team, and also one of the world’s beat at the time, with
Silver King in the 90s, where they held both the UWA and CMLL tag team titles as
well as tag titles in Japan.

Signo & Navarro joined with Black Power to keep the trio alive, and they had
success, including winning the UWA trios titles for more than one year in 1992
and 1993. Later Black Power was replaced by Rocky Santana and they held the UWA
trios titles in 1994 and they were champions when the promotion closed in 1995.
At that point the team broke up for the most part. They worked some in AAA and
Navarro & Signo occasionally teamed after that. Navarro, who is still active and
wrestled this past Friday at Arena Mexico. Navarro & Signo teamed up again in AAA
with El Texano Jr., the son of Texano, to form another version of the team. But
after the 2006 death of Texano, they agreed to never use the Misioneros de la
Muerte name again. Signo retired due to injuries in 2010, but did come back for
some matches in 2013. Navarro, now 62, suffered heart attack in recent years, but
came back and is still known as one of Mexico’s best technical wrestlers, and in
recent years would often work great legends matches with Solar.

All three members of the original trio now have sons in wrestling. Navarro’s two
sons are Los Traumas, who work for The Crash and a number of other groups.
Texano’s son, El Texano Jr., is one of the top stars with AAA and was also a
featured star with Lucha Underground. Signo’s son, El Hijo del Signo, is an
undercard CMLL wrestler.

Ultimo Guerrero, born Jose Gutierrez on March 1, 1972, has been a headliner for
20 years at Arena Mexico. He’s currently the CMLL world heavyweight champion for
a second time, and in the decade of 2000 to 2009, his team with Rey Bucanero got
more points than any other team during the decade in tag team of the year voting.
He’s the top rudo and one of the biggest decision makers in CMLL, and has been a
strong Hall of Fame candidate for a number of years.

Gutierrez, no relation to Rey Mysterio (Oscar Gutierrez), started his career in

1990 under the name Halcon Dorado. He worked for years on local shows in Durango
before becoming Ultimo Guerrero in 1996 while working for Promo Azteca, a
promotion that aired on TV Azteca. He and tag team partner Ultimo Rebelde were
set to lose a mask vs. mask match in late 1997, but before the bout, made the
move to CMLL, saving his mask loss until 17 years later when it set a record gate
for a Mexican promotion against Atlantis.

CMLL from the start showed they had plans for him. In 1998, he was chosen to win
the mask of Mr. Aguila on the Anniversary show. Aguila, who had signed with WWE
and they had told him to unmask and he worked in the U.S. without a mask so it
was just a question who the company would pick to beat him. In 1999, he teamed
with Blue Panther to win the Gran Alternative tournament, which, in theory meant
a move to main event status.

His next big break came when El Satanico wanted to remake Los Infernales, a major
heel trio of the 80s with MS 1 and Masakre. Satanico, as the veteran, chose two
younger wrestlers, Guerrero and Rey Bucanero. While Los Infernales as a trio
didn’t last long, Guerrero & Bucanero became the signature CMLL heel tag team,
holding their world tag team titles for most of a four-year period from 2000 to
2004, with their biggest program being with bouts against two of the company’s
most legendary wrestlers, former rivals El Hijo del Santo & Negro Casas. They
also feuded with Atlantis & Blue Panther, and even challenged Hiroshi Tanahashi &
Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP tag team titles.

Guerrero & Bucanero turned on Satanico in 2000, leading to matches with various
partners. This feud was blown off in a cage match at the 2001 Anniversary show
where Satanico’s side, with Averno & Mephisto, won the rights to the Infernales
name, while Guerrero & Bucanero & Tarzan Boy became Los Guerreros del Infierno.

Guerrero’s first major singles title win was in 2002, beating Shocker for the
CMLL light heavyweight title. He held the title for three-and-a-half years. When
wrestling in Mexico had its last true giant boom, about 14 year ago, Guerrero was
one of the key people. Mistico, now Caristico, was the signature star, but his
big rival was Guerrero, who helped carry him through main event matches. Crowds
of 10,000 to 17,000 fans every Friday night were a regular thing, with Mistico,
Santo, Guerrero, Wagner, Atlantis and later Perro Aguayo Jr. as the main
attractions.

Guerrero & Bucanero split up in 2006, after Atlantis turned rudo and Guerrero &
Atlantis became the headline team. Bucanero beat Guerrero in 2006 to end the long
light heavyweight title reign.

In 2007, Guerrero formed a tag team with Dr. Wagner Jr., and they beat Mistico &
Negro Casas to win the CMLL tag team titles, although they only held the title
for one week. The quick alliance and title win was to set up a feud, leading to
Wagner becoming a tecnico. The two were building challenges for a mask vs. mask
match, but Wagner left the promotion.

On December 22, 2008, Guerrero defeated Dos Caras Jr. (Alberto Rodriguez, later
to become Alberto Del Rio) to win the CMLL world heavyweight title for the first
time. In 2009, Guerrero defeated Villano V in a

mask vs. mask match. His first heavyweight title run lasted until August 12,
2011, nearly three years, before his loss to Hector Garza.

Guerrero and Atlantis split up in 2011, and feuded, spending much of 2013 as the
focal point of the promotion. Everyone expected this to culminate in a mask vs.
mask match. As part of the feud, Guerrero introduced a younger brother, Gran
Guerrero and they tore up Atlantis’ mask. It was rumored Gran Guerrero was
actually his son because in 2008, he had introduced Ultimo Guerrero Jr., as his
son, and the same person five years later was Gran Guerrero. But when he was Gran
Guerrero, it was claimed he was Ultimo’s younger brother and that is believed by
most today to be the case.

At the 2013 anniversary show, prices were jacked up for the first million dollar
gate in CMLL history, for one of the most anticipated matches ever in Mexico. But
it didn’t happen.

Instead, on September 13, 2013, it was announced that Atlantis & Guerrero would
team against another set of major rivals, Volador Jr. & La Sombra. The winning
team would then headline the biggest money show in company history.

While it was made clear it could be Atlantis vs. Guerrero in a mask vs. mask
match, or Volador Jr. vs. La Sombra (Manuel Andrade, now in WWE), because of
months of angles and an announcement of a match back in March, everyone expected
Atlantis vs. Guerrero. Evidently CMLL figured they could get two million dollar
gates out of the feud, as Volador & Sombra won.

Fans were furious. While Volador and Sombra had an absolutely spectacular match,
fans turned on it, chanted fraud and basically ruined it. Volador lost his mask.
One year later, on September 19, 2014, they advertised Atlantis vs. Guerrero
directly in a mask vs. mask match before another sellout and million dollar gate–
still the biggest gate in company history. Guerrero revealed his name as Jose
Gutierrez Hernandez.

Guerrero’s second CMLL world heavyweight title reign came when he defeated
Diamante Azul on October 16, 2018, and it’s now going on 14 months. He also holds
the CMLL world trios titles with Gran Guerrero & Euforia, the fifth time he’s
held those belts, to go along with six reigns as tag team champions, three with
Bucanero, as well as with Wagner, Atlantis and Dragon Rojo Jr. He also won CMLL’s
Universal title, the champion of champions tournament in both 2008 and 2014. He’s
also become something of an iron man, having been on 19 of the last 21
anniversary shows (missing only 2001 and 2011), a record unprecedented in CMLL
history, almost always in major matches. Those 19 shows include six championship
matches and four main events with either his hair or mask up, with nine sellouts
in those ten major shows.

In a sense, Gedo (Keiji Takayama, 50) is both a strange but obvious Hall of Fame
pick.

Gedo was a journeyman pro wrestler, best known as part of an undercard junior
heavyweight tag team with Jado. During his active career, he would be the last
person anyone would think of for the Hall of Fame. Yet, on this year’s ballot for
the first time, he was really a no-brainer for his work as the booker of New
Japan Pro Wrestling.

Gedo took over as booker of the company, struggling badly, largely because none
of the bigger stars wanted the position. The comeback of New Japan, to where it
revived the Japanese wrestling scene that was considered nearly dead, can be
traced to the promotional work of Bushiroad and Takaaki Kidani, the direction of
Gedo as the booker, and the star power of Hiroshi Tanahashi as the top star
during the comeback.

Gedo also masterminded the ascension of Kazuchika Okada, both as booker and as
his manager, as the replacement for Tanahashi, preparing for the change while
Tanahashi was still in his prime and arguably the best wrestler in the world,
rather than waiting until it was too late and having to scramble. He then moved,
with Okada firmly established as the top babyface, to Jay White as the new top
heel with the company. He was also the key in putting together Bullet Club, an
international merchandising phenomenon

Gedo & Jado, who handled the booking together, won Booker of the Year honors four
straight years from 2011 to 2014, and after not winning in 2015, came back to win
on his own from 2016 to 2018.

As a wrestler, Gedo & Jado won the Tokyo Sports tag team of the year award in
2001.

Gedo grew up as a huge fan of American territorial wrestling. Some of the more
criticized aspects of his booking, particularly the referee bumps and constant
heel interference, comes from that era. He grew up following it and studying the
newsletters of the era to learn territorial booking in different places, and then
had two decades as a pro wrestler in Japan with many different types of
promotions, to add to his knowledge. During his run, New Japan’s business has
grown nearly 500 percent to where it frequently sells out shows, sells out most
of its big shows, did the first Tokyo Dome sellout in nearly 20 years this past
January and brought the company to where they booked the Dome successive nights,
an attempt at something even industry leader WWE has never tried.

Gedo debuted on the Japanese independent scene in 1989, just after his
20th birthday. He started with a group that included Jado, Monkey Magic Wakita
(Super Delfin) and Masa Michinoku (Great Sasuke) as the Japanese rookies for the
Universal Wrestling Association group in Japan.

He and Jado were pushed together as a team, winning their first tag team title
for that promotion in 1991 over Silver King & El Texano. They went through
various Japanese indie groups, notably WAR where they joined with Lion Do (Chris
Jericho). The friendship from that period was a key aspect of Jericho now working
major shows for the company.

His biggest accomplishment as a wrestler was probably going to the finals of the
1995 Super J Cup, losing to Jushin Liger. He reached the final four of the 1994
Super J Cup, along with Liger, Sasuke and eventual winner Wild Pegasus (Chris
Benoit), when Pegasus beat him to reach the finals.

Gedo’s strengths as a booker was his ability to make distinctive stars, and
establish a pecking order of a big four. The key was in 2016, when his most
charismatic wrestler, Shinsuke Nakamura, and top foreigner, A.J. Styles, left
with his best foreign tag team, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson. But he immediately
moved Tetsuya Naito and Kenny Omega into top singles roles and after a few tough
months, business grew far stronger. Even with Omega leaving this year to form
AEW, he moved White into the Omega spot. While it definitely hurt the company in
its international expansion attempts losing Omega and The Young Bucks, business
has stayed strong in Japan. Before Gedo, it’s doubtful a New Japan show could
draw more than about 1,000 fans if they ran New York, but in 2019, they sold out
Madison Square Garden immediately, although a lot of that was Omega and they
couldn’t do it again, as evidenced by not even trying.

In addition, he strongly protected his world championship and created patterns to

teach fans importance. A champion losing a tag team match almost always leads to
the person beating him getting a title match. A champion losing in G-1 during the
tournament usually sets up fall challengers for all the belts as well as the G-1
briefcase. The G-1 winner goes to the Tokyo Dome with a main event in January
that fans expect dating back to August. Championship defenses are doled out
sparingly, although the flip side is that the company recognizes too many
secondary championships because they run so many more major shows with
expansions.

But one can argue that because of how it is booked and taken care of, and that
the champion is always the focal point of the company, that Gedo’s booking of the
IWGP title makes it the most prestigious and respected title in pro wrestling,
even though New Japan is far behind WWE as far as revenue, exposure and
popularity.

Over the last nine years, ever since Tanahashi beat Satoshi Kojima at the January
4, 2011, Tokyo Dome show, the only people who have held the title have been
Tanahashi, Okada, A.J. Styles, Tetsuya Naito, Kenny Omega and Jay White.

A ten year booking run with this kind of success has been rare in pro wrestling
history and for that, he’s clearly a strong inductee. But the inevitable burnout
that happens to bookers is something one has to look out for after so much time
in the spot.

Villano III, born Arturo Diaz Mendoza, grew up the son of wrestling legend Rey
Mendoza, who along with Perro Aguayo, was probably the biggest non-masked star in
Lucha Libre history.

He was the third of five sons of Mendoza to break into pro wrestling and
universally acknowledged as the best actual wrestler in the family.

He was born March 23, 1952. His two brothers started in 1969 and he started in
1970 as Ray Rosas. His brothers were a regular tag team, Villano I and Villano
II, under masks starting in 1971. Arturo wrestled under a ton of different names
for a few years, usually under a mask, to hide that he was Mendoza’s son. In
1973, Mendoza deemed him good enough to become Villano III, and live up to the
Mendoza name.

Frustrated with a number of things, including money and that his sons weren’t
getting the push he thought they deserved, Mendoza left CMLL and worked with
Francisco Flores and Benjamin Mora to form the UWA in 1975, as competition. His
brothers were usually a tag team, while Villano III became one of the top singles
stars during a boom period, along with the likes of Canek, Dos Caras, Aguayo,
Fishman and others. He won a tournament to become the UWA world welterweight
champion on December 14, 1975 and got high praise for his work.

In 1981, he moved to the light heavyweight division and held both the UWA and WWF
titles, and also made a tecnico turn as part of a huge feud where Los Tres
Caballeros (Villano III & El Solitario & Anibal) battled Los Misioneros de la
Muerte. During the 80s he had a huge singles feud with Aguayo over the WWF light
heavyweight title, a belt recognized mostly in Mexico but also in New Japan Pro
Wrestling, but never acknowledged in the WWF. Other major opponents for that
title included Gran Hamada, Sangre Chicana, Owen Hart and Pegasus Kid (Chris
Benoit).

From the mid-70s and through the 80s, El Toreo, the bullring in Naucalpan, was
the biggest drawing wrestling arena in the country. Canek and Aguayo were the
kings, and Mil Mascaras and El Solitario were legends who popped houses, but
Villano III was right there as one of the biggest drawing cards. There were years
where the two weekly shows at the building led to 1 million tickets sold, almost
surely a record no arena in history has ever come close to. Keep in mind that
today WWE running all over the world, with all its television, may draw 1.5
million paid customers over the course of a year. And the UWA did this before the
television boom, by providing technical, fast bloody and flying matches

HISTORIANS

1. Bearcat Wright

2. Los Misioneros

3. Villano III

4. Don Owen

5. Larry Matysik

6. Gedo

7. Jun Akiyama

8. Karloff Lagarde

9. Enrique Torres

10. Akira Taue

11. Sputnik Monroe

12. Stanley Weston

13. Sgt. Slaughter

14. Ted Turner

15. Ultimo Guerrero

16. Kota Ibushi

17. Dr. Wagner Jr.

18. Blanchard/Anderson

19. Junkyard Dog

20. Dave Brown

21. Jim Crockett Sr.

22. Morris Sigel

23. Grand Wizard/Farouk

24. Spyros Arion

25. Killer Karl Kox

26. Ricki Starr

27. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

28. Kenny Omega

29. Lord James Blears

30. James Melby

REPORTERS

1. Jim Crockett Sr.

2. Big Daddy

3. Ultimo Guerrero

4. Stanley Weston

5. Gedo

6. Dr. Wagner Jr.

7. Larry Matysik
8. Jun Akiyama

9. Rollerball Mark Rocco

10. Edge

11. Los Misioneros

12. Jackie Pallo

13. Sgt. Slaughter

14. Ted Turner

15. Sputnik Monroe

16. Bearcat Wright

17. Villano III

18. Kenny Omega

19. Don Owen

20. Johnny Rougeau

21. Akira Taue

22. Tetsuya Naito

23. Anderson/Blanchard

24. Johnny Saint

25. Jim Johnston

26. Enrique Torres

27. Karloff Lagarde

28. James Melby

29. Junkyard Dog

30. Grand Wizard/Farouk

RETIRED WRESTLERS

1. Blanchard/Anderson

2. Kota Ibushi

3. Kenny Omega
4. Don Owen

5. Rocky Johnson

6. Junkyard Dog

7. Jim Crockett Sr.

8. Sputnik Monroe

9. Sgt. Slaughter

10. Kerry Von Erich

11. Los Brazos

12. Karloff Lagarde

13. Los Misioneros

14. Dr. Wagner Jr.

15. Ted Turner

16. Grand Wizard/Farouk

17. Akira Taue

18. Ultimo Guerrero

19. Mario Milano

20. Kendo Nagasaki

21. Johnny Saint

22. Ricki Starr

23. James Melby

24. Rick Martel

25. Archie “Stomper” Gouldie

26. Blackjack Mulligan

27. Dave Brown

28. Bob Caudle

29. Stanley Weston

30. Johnny Rougeau

ACTIVE WRESTLERS

1. Johnny Saint

2. Los Brazos

3. Ultimo Guerrero

4. Dr. Wagner Jr.

5. Kenny Omega

6. Gedo

7. Jim Crockett Sr.

8. Kota Ibushi

9. Los Misioneros

10. Rollerball Mark Rocco

11. Jun Akiyama

12. Tetsuya Naito

13. Don Owen

14. Sputnik Monroe

15. Junkyard Dog

16. Sgt. Slaughter

17. George Kidd

18. Kendo Nagasaki

19. Kojima & Tenzan

20. Matt & Jeff Hardy

21. Randy Orton

22. June Byers

23. Archie “Stomper” Gouldie

24. Blackjack Mulligan

25. Blanchard/Anderson

26. Edge

27. Big Daddy

28. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

29. Johnny Rougeau

30. Bearcat Wright

with an all-star cast of characters and international stars.

Villano III’s career was never the same after the UWA went downhill. He was in
AAA from 1995 to 1998, but his body was not the same after 25 years of ring wars.
His last real hurrah came when he returned to CMLL in 1999.

On November 22, 1999, Villano III, back as a rudo, beat Atlantis to win the CMLL
world light heavyweight title. He followed on Christmas night beating Super Astro
for his mask.

On March 17, 2000, at Arena Mexico, Atlantis beat Villano III in a mask vs. mask
match. It is generally considered one of the dozen greatest matches in Lucha
Libre history and is the only match that took place in Mexico that won the
Observer’s Match of the Year award. It was probably the single most emotional
Match of the Year winner. Super Luchas magazine ten years later called it the
Match of the Decade.

Villano III dropped the light heavyweight title to Shocker on September 7, 2001,
and he cut back on his schedule. Due to problems with his knees and eyes, he
retired at the 2015 TripleMania match, but the Villanos vs. Psycho Circus match
was voted worst match of that year. Villano III did work after that, as late at
2017.

Diaz and wife Luz Velarde, who wrestled as La Infernal, had two sons that are
third generation wrestles, El Hijo del Villano III and Villano III Jr. El Hijo
del Villano III, 20, works for CMLL and they are already pushing him for a career
feud with Atlantis Jr., based on the legacy of the 1999-2000 feud of both men’s
fathers. That alone shows how nearly two decades later, in Mexico, the legacy of
that mask match. Villano III Jr., 21, who currently holds the AAA mixed tag team
title with Lady Maravilla, is one of the company’s craziest daredevils and is
expected to be a major star.

Villano III passed away on August 21, 2018 of a cerebral infarction from
complications from a stroke several months earlier, at the age of 66.

Dr. Wagner Jr. was born Juan Manuel Gonzalez on August 12, 1965, but is mostly
known as Manuel Gonzalez, the same name of his father, the original Dr. Wagner,
who was one of Mexico’s biggest stars of the 60s and 70s. He wore the trademark
white mask, the same as his father, for much of his career, taking a more
colorful mask later before finally losing his mask at TripleMania on August 26,
2017, to Psycho Clown at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City.

In that loss, Wagner Jr. got the biggest single event payoff in Lucha Libre
history, $250,000.

He started his career as El Invasor to get experience before his father would let
him use the Wagner name.
He never teamed with his father, which was a tragic story. On April 27, 1986, he
was scheduled to first use the Dr. Wagner Jr. name, and team with his father in a
tag team match against Angel Blanco, his father’s long-time tag team partner who
had turned on him, and Angel Blanco Jr. His father was driving to the show with
Blanco (Jose Vargas), Solar, Mano Negra and Jungla Negra. One of the tires of the
car exploded. Vargas was killed and Manuel Gonzalez Sr. suffered severe spinal
damage that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It’s notable that
it was huge news that Wagner and Blanco, in a bitter feud, were driving together,
but that never hurt the wrestling business in Mexico.

With their father’s career over, Wagner Jr. and Blanco Jr. took over their feud.
Wagner Jr. won his first singles title, the UWA world junior heavyweight
championship from Astro de Oro on July 22, 1990. His first CMLL title came when
he defeated Pierroth Jr. on April 2, 1993 to win the CMLL light heavyweight
title. In a tournament with both UWA and CMLL talent, the UWA duo of Canek &
Wagner Jr., became the first CMLL world tag team champions, beating Pierroth Jr.
& Vampiro in the finals

Wagner Jr. & Gran Markus Jr. & El Hijo del Gladiador became one of CMLL’s top
rudo trios, called La Nueva Ola Blanca, The new White Wave. The original White
Wave in the late 60s and through the 70s was Dr . Wagner & Angel Blanco & El
Solitario.

Long after the UWA folded, with Canek, the perennial heavyweight champion was
still defending the title. He finally dropped it on June 18, 2004, to Wagner,
within CMLL. Wagner defended the title for years and never lost it, but the title
has not been brought up in a long time.

After the death of his father, CMLL turned him tecnico based on the timing and
sympathy. The Atlantis rudo turn came partially because the Mexico City crowds
were so behind Wagner as a rudo that they were booing Atlantis heavily. He was
also a key figure in the Mistico boom period, both at times teaming with Mistico
and at other times feuding with him.

Wagner and L.A. Park had years of bloody brawls, across every promotion in
Mexico. For years they teased a mask vs. mask match, looking to have a promoter
book a stadium and a big payoff, but nobody would ever go for it.

He and Park would show up in CMLL, crowds would go up, and then they would bleed,
brawl in the crowd, and do something to get fired.

Wagner came to AAA in 2009, and defeated Mesias at that year’s TripleMania to win
the AAA heavyweight championship. He formed the Wagnermaniacos with his brother,
Silver King, Electroshock and Ultimo Gladiator. Eventually the Wagnermaniacos
turned on him, making him a tecnico, and Wagner beat Eletroshock at the 2010
TripleMania to win the heavyweight title a second time. Wagner also feuded with
his brother, Silver King, over the title. He lost that title to Zorro, and after
Jeff Jarrett got the title, he had a feud with Jarrett. He also beat Rob Van Dam
to became the first AAA Latin American champion, and feuded with Perro Aguayo Jr.
and Park.

Wagner Jr. was also a well known junior heavyweight star in Japan, working for
years as a regular with New Japan. His biggest and most famous match was in the
finals of the 1998 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, where he lost to Koji
Kanemoto.
Wagner had a falling out with AAA in 2013, returned to CMLL in 2015, drew big
crowds but only lasted a few weeks before he quit after CMLL had fired Park.

In 2016, Wagner, back in AAA, turned rudo on Rey Misterio Jr. and started his
feud with Psycho Clown. Over the past year, he returned and was a tecnico in a
feud with Blue Demon Jr. to lead to the main event of this year’s TripleMania on
August 3, 2019, also at Arena Ciudad. Demon won the mask vs. hair match, as
everyone expected, with Wagner getting his hair extensions cut off. He had
announced that if he lost he would retire, but they did an angle where the other
tecnicos talked him out of retiring and that was all forgotten.

Wagner Jr. also has two sons wrestling, both from his marriage with former woman
wrestling star Rossy Moreno. El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr., was doing a feud with him
with the son as a heel when Konnan came in as booker and nixed it, feeling he
wasn’t ready for that spot. The other, who is a teenager, but big for his age, is
known as Galeno del Mal.

“Big Jim” Crockett was the architect of the vast pro wrestling territory that
covered the Carolinas and the Virginias. As a childhood fan of Strangler Lewis
and Joe Stecher, he made the connections with those in the business. Crockett was
promoting concerts in North Carolina and owned both a movie theater and a
restaurant, and in 1935, at the age of 25, he opened Eastern States Championship
Wrestling.

Crockett built the territory and promoted many other activities other than pro
wrestling. Because of his work promoting all kinds of events, he was believed to
have been the most wealthy pro wrestling promoter in the country by the 1960s. He
once made a failed attempt to take on Vince McMahon Sr., using Argentina Rocca,
the biggest star in the Northeast, as his big drawing card after Rocca and
McMahon had their falling out. But it was barely a footnote in history.

Crockett always had a rule about being a promoter, and that is to keep talent
happy, never play big shot. He made sure to never drive a nicer car than the main
event talent, for example. Once tag team wrestling became big in the 1950s,
Eastern States Wrestling was known as a tag team territory, built first around
the Southern tag team titles and babyfaces George & Bobby Becker.

George Becker was the top star, and booker, and perennial babyface tag team
champion with partners like Jack Witzig, Dick Steinborn, Mike Clancy, Enrique
Torres and Sandy Scott, before his mid-60s partnership with Johnny Weaver. Almost
immediately, Weaver became his top babyface star.

But it was the tag teams who were headliners, from Kinji Shibuya & Mr. Moto, Leo
& Chick Garibaldi, Ernie & Emil Dusek, Moto & Duke Keomuka, Fritz & Waldo Von
Erich, Larry Hamilton & The Great Bolo, and Maurice & Paul Vachon as the big
stars of the 50s.

The 60s brought out that era’s top heel teams like the original Von Brauners,
John & Chris Tolos, The Bolos (who later became better known as The Masked
Assassins in Georgia), Bronko Lubich & Aldo Bogni, and the two most well-known
heel teams in that part of the country, Rip Hawk & Swede Hanson, and the
Minnesota Wrecking Crew, first Gene & Lars Anderson, and later adding Ole
Anderson to the mix.

They started featuring the Southern title in the mid-60s, for Weaver, who would
be the frequent opponent of world champions like Gene Kiniski and Dory Funk Jr.,
and then the Eastern States title in the early 70s, built around Jerry Brisco.
Under Crockett, the company usually ran in smaller arenas, but with multiple
touring crews, often three or four shows a night all over the region. There were
the big successes, such as The Kentuckian feud with the Bolos in the 60s,
Thanksgiving night every year at the Greensboro Coliseum, a tradition he started
in 1961 that ended up copied by numerous other promoters, and the Dory Funk Jr.
vs. Jack Brisco series in the early 70s. But they the territory really exploded
to become the best per-capita territory in the country, taking the name Mid
Atlantic Championship Wrestling, after his death and when his son took over and
George Scott came in as booker and started booking more international stars as
well as developed some of the best new talent in the business like Ric Flair and
Ricky Steamboat.

As Crockett got older, he began grooming son-in-law John Ringley, who married
daughter Frances, to run the business. Still, it was a shock when he passed away
on April 1, 1973, of a heart attack at the age of 63.

Marriage issues between Ringley and Frances led to his oldest son, Jim Crockett
Jr., who was 28 at the time of his father’s death, to takeover the company. A
second son, David, worked under the name David Finlay as a prelim wrestler
starting in 1971, but only did so for a few years. He became a television
personality calling matches in the 70s and 80s when it was acknowledged he was
David Crockett.

Crockett was honored after his death. The Southern Hockey League championship
trophy is called the Jim Crockett Cup. In 1976, when the family purchased a minor
league baseball team and brought it to Charlotte, and was successful enough that
Frances Crockett was named Minor League Baseball Executive of the Year, they
named their stadium Jim Crockett Memorial Park. In 1986, Jim Jr. created the
Crockett Cup, a tag team tournament, since his father’s promotion was built
around tag team matches.

We had previously done a look at the career of Bearcat Wright several weeks ago.

THE STORY OF PAUL PONS

By Patric Laprade

Pro wrestling has a long and rich history in France. It is believed to have
started around 1830, wrestlers formed troupes and in 1848.

One of them, Jean Exbroyat, who was a solider under Napoleon’s army, created and
named a new style called “flat hand wrestling”. That style of wrestling, also
called “lutte francaise” (French wrestling) differentiated itself from the other
forms in which closed fists were allowed. Exbroyat also created a set of rules,
one of them being no holds below the waist, which would become the primary rule
of the Greco-Roman style.

The biggest wrestling promoter at the time was an attorney from Lyon called
Claude-Eugène Rossignol-Rollin. From 1852 to his death in 1873, he would tour
with his troupes and this new style of wrestling. Therefore, in the late 19th and
early 20th century, Paris, France became the center of French wrestling. When the
style began to travel elsewhere in Europe, the name of that style changed to
Greco-Roman wrestling. As a matter of fact, the name Greco-Roman was an invention
from the rest of Europe who resented the French.
The very first French wrestler to make a name for himself was André Christol, who
started as a teenager in the 1860s. Nicknamed the “French Demon”, Christol
wrestled both in Europe and North America. He actually main evented the first
show held at the Gilmore’s Garden, before it was renamed Madison Square Garden,
in New York City in 1875.

Three years later, like many Frenchmen would do after him, he came to wrestle in
Montreal, the biggest French-speaking city in North America. Credited with
inventing the French hug, later dubbed the bear hug, the 5 foot 5, 150-pounder,
won the World Greco-Roman title in 1875.

Around the time he retired, a young wrestler emerged on the scene.

Paul Pons was born Hyacinthe Pont in 1864 in Sorgues, France, a small town 400
miles south of Paris. His exact birthdate is unsure, as various reports have
February 7, February 9, and June 23, 1864.

He grew up in a poor family, in a modest neighborhood. He started working as a

blacksmith at the age of 14. He was once offered a job in Avignon, only six miles
away from where he lived, but his mother, over-protective, didn’t let him go.
Around that same time, he started gaining interest in local feats of strength and
wrestling competitions. But again, his mother thought wrestling was fighting,
therefore barbaric, and that her son would get hurt, so she didn’t allow him to
perform in those, discouraging him every time he mentioned it.

As he got older, he finally entered a tournament in a town not too far from his
home. His mother didn’t oppose this time. He was now 6 foot 4, 260 pounds and the
years he spent working as a blacksmith helped him to bulk up and get stronger. Of
the 17 amateur wrestlers, three, including Pons, had never wrestled before. But
the level of competition was weak, and Pons finished second.

A short time after that, he entered and won a tournament, before going to
Jonquieres, 10 miles from Sorgues, where the competition was said to be tougher.
Before the wrestling event, Pons entered a feats of strength competition and won
it. Then, he went on to win the wrestling tournament as well. After the event, he
was approached by two men who wanted to train him: Pietro Dalmasso and Mr.
Bernard, whose son Felix was also a wrestler.

Dalmasso was a wrestler born in Italy, who lived in France for so long that he
was considered a local. In the early 1880s, he was wrestling regularly at the
famous venue Les Folies-Bergere, had a very good reputation in the wrestling
circles, and was considered by many as the best wrestler in Europe. The pair
wanted to bring Pons to Bordeaux, which was one of France’s wrestling strongholds
at the time, known to have the best wrestling facilities in the country.

But Pons had mixed feelings about leaving his parents alone, so he refused the
offer. Going back to work the next day, he was told the forge he was working at
was about to close. Seeing potential in Pons, Dalmasso and Bernard weren’t ready
to give up, and they surprisingly showed up the next day in Sorgues to see if he
had changed his mind.

He finally accepted the offer, but instead of telling his parents he was going to
train to become a wrestler in Bordeaux, which is 300 miles west of Sorgues, he
told them he would look for a forge in Marseilles, only 60 miles south of his
parents’ home. He joined Dalmasso and Bernard in Avignon and left for Bordeaux,
where Dalmasso took Pons under his wing.
His very first pro wrestling match was described by Pons himself, in a French
sports magazine called “La Vie au Grand Air” (life in the outdoors) in 1907 and
1908. To celebrate Pons’ 20-year career, the magazine published Pons’ memoirs, 22
articles in total, all about his life and career. The description of his first
professional match was very detailed, especially for that time.

In his memoirs, Pons went as far as writing that the outcome of the matches was
predetermined, with a time limit, and that wrestlers were playing characters.

About his first match, Pons wrote that he was in Bordeaux in 1888 for promoter
Mange-Matin. He was put in the crowd as a plant, with someone from the troupe to
give Pons the signal. Mange-Martin, who also acted as the master of ceremony, the
ring announcer if you will, was throwing gloves in the crowd to those who asked.
When you were asking for a glove, you could be chosen by the master of ceremony
and pick the wrestler you wanted to face. Pons was given the signal, raised his
hand and challenged a wrestler called Cadit. “A glove for Cadit” said Mange-
Martin. Pons put the more experienced wrestler over, explaining that when it was
time, Cadit called for the finish. He was paid 2 francs and 80, $16 in today’s
money.

The fans in attendance liked what Pons showed, and he got great reviews by
wrestlers on the troupe as well. Therefore, the promoter started using him
regularly. The following day, he was now one of the wrestlers being challenged by
people in the crowd. But like any wrestling in the carnival days, not everyone
was a plant. Pons’ opponent was well-known by the promoter and wasn’t an easy
one. He told Pons to be very careful, as he would hate to see one of his
wrestlers get beaten by that guy. Even if he was inexperienced, Pons won the
bout. It’s after that match that Pons considered himself a pro wrestler.

He started training with Dalmasso and Felix Bernard. Bernard was one the
Frenchmen who dominated the music halls scene.

Pons continued to wrestle in Bordeaux while working in a wine warehouse. In

August 1890 he met a wrestler who was part of a troupe going to Marseille, so
Pons joined them. In November, Pons and Auguste Robinet, who was already working
for that troupe, left Marseille for Paris by train. Paris is the capital of
France and the music halls scene was where the money was.

His first big break came soon after he arrived in Paris, when he wrestled twice
against British wrestler Tom Cannon, the first time at the Nouveau Theatre and
the second time at the Casino de Paris. Pons won the first encounter. Cannon was
considered one of the great champions of his era and held the World Greco-Roman
heavyweight title. Twelve years younger, Pons thought highly of Cannon, saying
that Cannon had the ability to elevate wrestlers he was working with. It was one
of Pons’ most important matches of his career.

Unfortunately for Pons, the timing was off, and the local scene had a down period
between 1891 and 1895. Both fans and directors of the music halls lost interest
in wrestling. It also marked a transition period between two generations of
wrestlers. Pons continued to wrestle in festivals and fairs but wasn’t making
much money.

He was getting tired of the road and wanted a more sedentary life. So, he managed
to buy a small gym in the Montmartre district that he renamed Gymnase Pons and he
started training young guys. His two best-known trainees became Constant Le
Boucher (Constant Lavaux) and Raoul le Boucher (Raoul Musson), the latter being
only 13 when he debuted with Pons.
It took the Turkish invasion to revive the local scene in France, when wrestler
and promoter Joseph Doublier brought to France Kara Osman, Nurullah Hasan, and
Yusuf Ismail, as well as Bulgarian wrestler Nikola Petroff. Pons’ feuded with the
three Turks over the next several years. In 1895, Pons also made his debut in the
U.K. He was billed at times as the World Greco-Roman champion, champion of France
and even champion of Great Britain, although none of these claims were valid.
Most probably, he was billing himself as such based on his win over Cannon from
five years prior.

Pons and Cannon challenged each other in England’s newspapers, with Pons saying
he threw Cannon twice in Paris, while Cannon stated that none of it was true.
Nevertheless, his name began to travel, as newspapers in New York, Los Angeles
and Montreal started to mention his name in their reports. Pons’ name was even
more mentioned when Ernest Roeber, who was the Greco-Roman champion at the time,
issued a challenge. However, the match didn’t materialize.

At the same time, another Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertain, lobbied to revive the
Olympic Games, inspired by the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In the inaugural
edition of the modern Olympics in 1896, Greco-Roman wrestling was one of the nine
sports selected. Stunningly, France, although inventing the genre, didn’t have
one single wrestler in the competition. Even more shocking, wrestling wasn’t part
of the 1900 Olympics in Paris.

Coubertain believed the Ancient Olympics were all about amateurs competing, thus,
not allowing professional into the mix. Therefore, Pons and his peers could not
participate in it. That said, the 1900 Olympics were held during the Universal
Exposition in Paris, where Pons wrestled against Petroff at the in a match fans
still remembered years later. In the 1904 Olympics, wrestling came back for good,
as freestyle wrestling and weight classes were added. It would still take the
1906 Intercalated Olympics in Greece to see France’s first wrestlers entered the
competition. Nevertheless, in the following years, both pro wrestling and the
Olympics contributed to make wrestling more popular in France and in Europe.

Two years after the first Olympics, another tournament was created, one that
changed the landscape of professional wrestling in Europe.

In 1898, Andre de Lucenski, the director of "Le Journal des Sports", a sports
newspaper, created the first World Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship
tournament at the Casino de Paris. At the time, the World Greco-Roman title was
mostly defended in North America. Also, Lucenski’s newspaper was in competition
with another sports newspaper, Le Vélo, and in order to spike interest for his
publication, Lucenski went to Pons’ gym and told him about his idea to have a
huge tournament at the Casino de Paris and to have Pons as the first wrestling
champion of France.

Pons happily accepted. Over 30 wrestlers participated in the 10-day tournament,

such as Favouet, Maurice Gambier, Robinet, and Constant le Boucher. In the
tournament final, on December 27, 1898, Pons defeated Polish wrestler Ladislaus
Pytlasinski. The event was so successful that they sold out the venue and turned
away fans.

While it wasn’t the first tournament held in France or in Europe for that matter,
it was the first one with that much publicity behind it and held in such a high-
quality venue.

That marked the beginning of Pons’ legacy.

He wrote that the publicity made by the press over his championship solidified
his reputation and changed his status. He started getting more offers to wrestle
internationally and was ultimately forced to sell his gym because he didn’t have
time for it anymore.

The year 1898 was his real first big one. Not only did he win the tournament in
December, but he had wrestled in Sweden and Russia earlier that year. In fact, in
April, he wrestled against a young George Hackenschmidt in St. Petersburg, in
what was said to be Hack’s first notable match. He also defeated Ivan Poddubny in
Russia as well. Pons had also wrestled in England, where he drew one of the
biggest wrestling attendances of the year. On July 30 in Liverpool, a match
against his long-time foe Tom Cannon drew 7,000 fans. Of the data available from
that era, it was the biggest wrestling crowd in Europe that year, the third
largest in the world. Only the Terrible Turk (Yusuf Ismail) drew more than that,
in New York against Ernest Roeber and in Chicago against Evan “Strangler” Lewis.

The “Journal des Sports” tournament became the precursor of what the European
wrestling scene would look like for the next two decades. During those years, the
stages of the Montesquieu Theater, Casino de Paris, the Apollo, the Hippodrome
and Les Follies-Bergère in France were the settings for some of the major
European tournaments, featuring the greatest stars of the Greco-Roman wrestling
world. Belgium, Italy, Russia, Poland, and Germany all had tournaments in 1899,
and many more would in the following years. Pons won the one held in Italy. On
October 1, 1899 Pons was defeated in Copenhagen, Denmark, by local champion
Magnus Bech-Olsen. But more important than the defeat, the best-of-three-falls
match, held at the Charlottenlund racecourse, drew a crowd between 10,000 and
12,000 fans, by far, the biggest crowd in wrestling that year.

A year after the biggest win of his career, Pons wasn’t part of the 1899 edition
of the tournament in Paris held by “Le Journal des Sports”, nursing a leg injury.
The tournament was won by Turkey’s Kara Ahmed, who was considered the best Greco-
Roman wrestler among Turkish wrestlers. George Hackenschmidt was part of that
tournament, as well as Pons’ trainer, Pietro Dalmasso.

A few days after Ahmed was proclaimed World Champion in Paris, a group of
wrestlers, including Pons, healed from his injury, challenged Ahmed for the World
Championship. “Le Journal des Sports” decided to start a second tournament on
December 12 at Les Folies-Bergere. However, after several matches between Pons
and Ahmed ended in draws, the tournament was stopped and cancelled, without any
winner coming out of it.

The New York Times reported that they “have been wrestling regularly for several
hours every day for the past week without arriving at any final result, and the
public is beginning to see that there is a good deal of “chiqué”, to use an
appropriate French slang word, in these international contests.” “Chiqué” means
fake and was the word Pons used in his articles to talk about the behind-the-
scenes aspect of pro wrestling.

At the same time, a third tournament was organized by “Le Journal des Sports”.
That one was a five-day tournament starting on Christmas’ Eve at the Casino de
Paris and included Pons, Pytlasinski, and Ahmed among others. Pons won that one.

At the end of 1899, it was reported that both Pons and Olsen would travel to
North America the following year, to challenge who the Americans considered as
the real World Greco-Roman champion, Ernest Roeber. However, only Olsen ended up
going. On March 21, 1900, Olsen defeated Roeber in front of 12,000 fans at the
Madison Square Garden in New York City to claim the title. Roeber was the
champion since 1891 when he was awarded the title by William Muldoon. He had lost
to Evan Lewis in 1893, in a mixed-style match, which saw Lewis solidifying his
Catch-as-catch can title. Catch-as-catch can was becoming the new hip style of
wrestling in North America, as opposed to Greco-Roman. But Roeber continued to be
billed as Greco-Roman champion, and Olsen was the first one to take away that
claim. The two had a rematch in Denmark in September 1900, which Roeber won to
get the title back.

The new century brought even more tournaments. At the beginning of the year, Pons
finished second in Paris behind Ahmed. In May, he won one in Germany. Then, on
July 25, he defeated Ahmed in Vienna, Austria, to win a tournament that also
featured Pytlasinski and Hackenschmidt. The following month, Pons finished second
to Ahmed in Hamburg, Germany, in what would be his last European tournament until
May 1901.

In the meantime, Hackenschmidt was beginning to be a household name in Europe,

winning four tournaments before the 1900 ended. In December, the third edition of
the big tournament in Paris was won by Laurent le Beaucairois, while Constant le
Boucher, Pons’ trainee, finished second.

Pons didn’t attend that tournament because after a year of rumors, he had finally
arrived in the United States in October 1900. He was accompanied by Emile
Regnier, a former wrestler, who had worked in the United States before, who
served as his manager and trainer. Pons was publicized a lot throughout the
country, being dubbed “The Colossal”, “The European Giant” and more frequently
“The French Giant”. He had a few warm-up bouts before finally getting a match
against Ernest Roeber. The match was scheduled for February 6, 1901, at the
Garden in New York.

It was the first wrestling match at the Garden since the Roeber-Olsen match of
March 1900. Boxers Terry McGovern and John L. Sullivan, the latter who was
considered the first lineal heavyweight boxing champion, served as timekeepers,
while British boxer Charley White was the referee. A crowd of 7,000 people saw
the match being stopped after a little over 60 minutes by the police inspector.
The reason given was that it couldn’t go past midnight. An educated guess would
be that they were building to a rematch, but that match never happened.
Nevertheless, the match, held in a roped ring, was said to be very good. It was
also the second biggest crowd of the year behind the match between Tom Jenkins
and Tom Sharkey in Cleveland.

While in North America, Pons trained boxing great James J. Jefferies. In the
story published, it was said that Jefferies wanted to learn how to wrestle.
Either it was just a good old publicity stunt or it was a serious thing, we’ll
never know, but professional boxing had been banned in Chicago a few weeks
before, so perhaps there was some truth to it. The presence of McGovern,
Sullivan, White, and Jefferies made Pons say years later that the Americans were
more into boxing than wrestling.

Being from France, a stop had to be made in Montreal. Therefore, on March 11,
Pons wrestled for the first time at Sohmer Park against George Little (Dan
McLeod). In front of 4,000 spectators, Pons got defeated in a handicap match.
Although he wasn’t pinned, he had agreed to throw his opponent five times in an
hour but failed to do it once. Nevertheless, up to that point, it was the biggest
wresting crowd in the history of Montreal. It would take Frank Gotch in 1904 to
do bigger numbers.
The Montreal Gazette even wrote that it was one of the best wrestling matches
ever held in Montreal. Strongmen Louis Cyr and giant Edouard Beaupre were among
the thousands of fans in attendance. Two weeks later, they wrestled each other in
the same venue, making Beaupre, at more than 8 feet, the tallest wrestler ever.
Unable to have another match with Roeber, Pons left for France on March 15. Pons
was disappointed and discouraged by the low payoffs he received in North America.
Although it was rumored several times, he would never be back. Roeber retired as
the World Greco-Roman champion on November 22, 1901. The title never had the same
importance after that.

Upon returning to Europe, Pons finished third in a tournament won by

Hackenschmidt in Vienna in May 1901. Pons lost against the “Russian Lion” in
Berlin, Germany on July 3, finishing in second place. Pons then participated in
smaller events throughout France, still winning six consecutive tournaments. His
winning streak continued in Luxembourg in October. When the annual tournament
started in December, Pons, for some reasons, continued his journey into France,
wrestling in three other tournaments. Hackenschmidt benefitted from that, winning
the biggest tournament in France for the first time, by defeating Constant le
Boucher, in a match that also made Le Boucher famous in France.

Pons continued his domination throughout France in 1902. He also helped trained a
young Emile Maupas, before the latter came to Montreal. After his career was
over, Maupas became one of the best trainers in Quebec, training among others the
greatest wrestler in the history of the province, Yvon Robert. In December, Pons
won a big tournament held at Les Folies-Bergere called the Gold Belt tournament,
and promoted by his old friend Auguste Robinet. The belt, who was in fact in
silver, was sponsored by Dubonnet, a popular wine-based aperitif.

Although most newspapers reported that Pons came back to the United States in
1903, it was in fact French-Canadian wrestler Antoine Gonthier, working under the
name of Carl Pons. In 1903, Pons continued to dominate in France. He was not
traveling as much, but wrestled in Switzerland near the end of the year. Pons won
for the second straight year the Gold Belt tournament in Paris in December. That
tournament had officially replaced the “Journal des Sports” tournament. Pons
finished ahead of Jess Pedersen, who had won a big tournament at the Casino de
Paris during the summer. In 1904, he started to travel again, winning tournaments
in Switzerland and Belgium, before finishing second in St. Petersburg, Russia in
May, behind Ivan Poddubny. In December, he won the Gold Belt tournament for the
third time.

Now 40 years old, Pons defeated his former student Raoul le Boucher to win the
tournament one last time. Le Boucher spent the next year wrestling Pons, even
going to Brazil with him, before he died from a flu in Nice, France, on February
13, 1907. He was only 24. Pons thought very highly of his protégé and thought he
would have become of the greats if he hadn’t died in his prime.

Between 1904 and the spring of 1907, Pons traveled a lot in Brazil and stayed
there for several months at the time, helping to develop wrestling in the
country. When he was back in Europe, he competed and usually won the tournaments
he was in, whether it was in France, Italy, Belgium, Romania or Portugal.

When he came back home for good in 1907, he won that year’s big December
tournament in Paris (not called Gold belt anymore). The final between Pons and
German champion and friend of Hackenschmidt, Jakob Koch, drew thousands and
thousands of fans. Both wrestlers got a standing ovation at the end of the match.
It was the last time Pons would win that tournament, almost 19 years after
winning his first one. In 1908, he finished second to Jess Pedersen.
His last year with a busy schedule was in 1909, as Pons wrestled in France,
Switzerland and Italy. His last tournament win happened that year, in Milan,
Italy. In 1910, now 46 years old, he slowed down his pace. He kept working, but
not because he needed the money. Pons had made enough money in his career, as
well as some real estate investment. He continued because he had a true passion
for wrestling.

He went back to South America, this time in Buenos Aires in Argentina, where he
wrestled and lost against Constant le Marin (Henri Herd), 20 years his junior, in
front of a reported crowd of 35,000 fans. That number was never proven though.
Nevertheless, it was one of the most important matches in Le Marin’s career.

Born in Belgium, Herd was inspired by Pons’ trainee and countryman Constant le
Boucher, who was also part of that tour, and that’s why he chose that name. Pons
last tournament was, rightfully so, the big December tournament at the Casino de
Paris. In the final, on December 4, he got defeated against Pedersen, his main
opponent of the last two years.

While he never went back to North America, his name was often mentioned in
newspapers, especially to establish the credibility of another wrestler. It still
meant something if you had beaten the French champion Paul Pons.

That said, Pons name was also mentioned for a whole other reason: his death, or
should we say, his fake death. In 1905, it was reported that Pons had died in
Berlin. Pons, well alive, was quoted saying he was surprised by those reports.
Seven years later, in 1912, he was again mistakenly reported dead, this time in
Paris, following an operation for his appendicitis.

In reality, he had retired in the country, in the town of Agen, France. After he
got married in 1901, he had bought a small house there.

In 1912, he published a 370-page book on the history of pro wrestling, including

how to apply wrestling holds as well as wrestler profiles. He was somewhat
critical of where wrestling was compared to his heyday. He was very high on
Hackenschmidt, Poddubny, Pedersen and Frenchman Raoul le Boucher. He thought
wrestlers had gained a lot from performing in music halls, but that the sport had
lost a lot.

He loved haunting and fishing and that’s why he chose Agen, lost in the country
and next to a river. One day, on April 14 (or April 13, depending on which report
you read), he was gone fishing with his boat on the Garonne river, close to his
home. Pons caught his fishing net on a rock and it dragged him from the boat.
Even if he was an expert swimmer, he had tied the cord attached to the net to his
wrist and even if he tried to escape, the current was too strong that day.

He was not able to free himself and drowned. He was 50 or 51 years old, depending
on his birthdate. In the different obituaries written about him, the match
mentioned the most was the 1898 tournament win in Paris.

Pons retired having won over 40 tournaments throughout Europe between 1898 and
1909. He won the December Paris tournament a record of six times. After his
retirement, Greco-Roman tournament kept happening sporadically in France and
through Europe until the end of the decade. However, by the early 1920’s, the
World War and the resulting high taxes almost killed wrestling as a major sport
in Paris. With Pons’ death in 1915, pro wrestling in France, more so the Greco-
Roman style, pretty much suffered the same fate.
It took France first wresting Olympic gold medalists to revive pro wrestling, or
catch as they started calling it, in France in 1933, when Henri Deglane came back
home after working for many years in North America. When it did, the press made
sure to mention that wrestling was becoming as popular as it once was when the
late great Paul Pons was dominating the scene.

Pons was considered by many as the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler at the end of
the 19th century. But more importantly, he was France first influential wrestler.
Between 1898 and 1901, he was among the best drawing cards in pro wrestling,
drawing thousands of fans in France at venues such as the Casino de Paris, but
also abroad, like in England, Denmark, United States, and Canada.

And although he didn’t have the impact of a George Hackenschmidt in North

America, he did fine in his two matches there.

In his native France, he gets some recognition still to this day. In 1928, a
plate was installed in front of the house where he was born in Sorgues, stating
that Paul Pons, world wrestling champion and owner of the Gold belt, was born
there. Every year, the Paul-Pons trophy is awarded to the best sports
organization in Sorgues. And finally, in 2003, more than a hundred years after
his wrestling debut, he was voted in the France sports hall of fame, capping a
tremendous career.

With the files of Jimmy Wheeler, Phil Lions, and Ronald Grobpietsch

New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the complete lineup for both its Tokyo Dome
shows after the completion of the tag team tournament over the weekend.

In a sense, the shows were what was expected on top. But as far as depth, there
is some disappointment in the sense that many of the biggest stars, like Hiroshi
Tanahashi, Chris Jericho, Will Ospreay, Shingo Takagi, Evil, Tomohiro Ishii,
Minoru Suzuki, Sho and Yoh are only on one show. Ospreay, Takagi and Ishii were
three of the best in-ring performers in the world of 2019 and this would be their
biggest showcase events and two of the three are only in multi-man filler
matches, as are Evil and Suzuki. They had appeared to be building Suzuki vs.
Takagi, but it’s possible that’s being saved for one of the big shows early in
the year.

On the flip side, with fewer matches, it should be different from last year. Last
year, with 13 matches in five hours, the show still felt rushed with only three
matches getting more than 15:00. So while there will be less diversity of talent
and far less total people booked, the big matches will likely have more time to
be better, particularly on night two.

The 1/4 show starts at 5 p.m. local time, which means 3 a.m. on a Saturday
morning on the East Coast. The 1/5 show starts at 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon,
meaning 1 a.m. late Saturday night on the East Coast and 10 p.m. on the West
Coast. One would expect the shows to be timed out at between four and five hours,
particularly Sunday as the idea of it ending at 7 p.m. sounds early.

The 1/4 show opens with a Jushin Liger legend match, as Liger teams with Tatsumi
Fujinami, 66, who was Liger’s childhood hero and headlined the Dome many times,
as well as Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask, to face Naoki Sano, Liger’s first major
rival, Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Ryusuke Taguchi. Otani and Takaiwa
were regular partners with Liger years ago in the New Japan junior division. El
Samurai, Liger’s regular tag team partner in the 90s, will be in his corner,
while Kuniaki Kobayashi, who was Liger’s opponent at the 1989 Tokyo Dome show
when Liger made his debut under the name, will be in the Sano corner.

From there, it’s Evil & Sanada & Takagi & Bushi vs. Suzuki & Zack

Sabre Jr. & Taichi & Desperado; Hirooki Goto & Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Toru Yano
vs. KENTA & Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens, Tama Tonga & Tanga
Loa defend the IWGP tag team titles against tournament winners Juice Robinson &
David Finlay, a Texas death match for the U.S. title with Lance Archer vs. Jon
Moxley, Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi for the IWGP jr. title, Jay White vs.
Tetsuya Naito for the IC title and Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP
title.

What the Texas death match rules will be are unknown. It is believed this is the
first Texas death match in New Japan, and the only major one I can recall in the
top Japanese promotion would date back to the early years of All Japan and Giant
Baba vs. Fritz Von Erich.

The 1/5 show opens with Liger’s final match, teaming with Sano against Ryu Lee
(formerly Dragon Lee) & Hiromu Takahashi. Yoshiaki Fujiwara will be in Liger’s
corner. Originally this was announced as a Liger singles match against a major
star he had never had a singles match with previously.

On the 12/8 show in Hiroshima, after Liger’s last match in his home city, a video
played of Lee, saying his name was now Ryu Lee. Ryu does mean Dragon in Japanese,
but that’s not the reason he took the name. When he was growing up, he and his
older brother, Mistico loved The Street Fighter videogame. Mistico’s favorite
character was Ken and Lee’s was Ryu.

Lee signed a one-year contract with New Japan after meeting with Naoki
Sugabayashi and Tiger Hattori in secret when they were in Mexico. CMLL wasn’t
aware of the meeting or that Lee was signed. CMLL has started informal talks
about bringing Rush, Lee and Bestia del Ring back, but it hasn’t gone anywhere
since Rush and Lee have no emotional ties to the people now running CMLL and both
have good contracts elsewhere so they don’t need CMLL, and can work as much as
they want for AAA and have more television exposure in Mexico.

Liger accepted the match, but then added he would like Takahashi in, so it
sounded like a three-way. But then it turned into a tag. There is the symbolism,
Liger team with Sano, who had he his first real Match of the Year contenders with
when he first broke out as the best junior heavyweight in the world, representing
the early 90s, against modern career rivals in Lee & Takahashi. But there is a
natural Lee vs. Takahashi storyline since Lee broke Takahashi’s neck at the Cow
Palace and they were already rivals. I see the concept of teaming them, but Sano
is 54, and he’s not a Jushin Liger 54 but a real 54, and will take the match down
a lot.

From there it’s Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo defending the IWGP jr. tag titles
against tournament winners Sho & Yoh. Sabre Jr. defends the British heavyweight
title against Sanada. The Archer/Moxley winner defends the U.S. title against
Robinson. KENTA defends the Never Open weight title against Goto. There was no
announcement regarding Katsuyori Shibata and if he will be in Goto’s corner.
Shibata has not been cleared and the angle they shot with Shibata was designed
not for KENTA vs. Shibata, but to make KENTA into a strong heel. Goto is KENTA’s
natural opponent, not just by beating him in a tag match a few weeks ago, but
because Goto and Shibata were best friends as kids when they were on the same
high school wrestling team, and Shibata, whose father worked for New Japan, was
able to get Goto’s foot in the door with New Japan.

The loser of the two major singles title matches the night before will have a
singles match. The winner is expected to go for the double championship soon, the
most likely date being 2/9 at Osaka Jo Hall.

After that is Jericho vs. Tanahashi, and the main event with the singles match
winners from the night before to crown the first ever double IWGP & IC champion.

New Japan has three more dates this year, running 12/19, 12/20 and 12/21 at
Korakuen Hall. Traditionally, you get the Super tag team match, such as last year
with Okada & Ospreay vs. Tanahashi & Ibushi. But we don’t have quite that this
year, with the dates built on 12/19 around Hiromu Takahashi’s first match back,
and 12/21 as Liger’s last Korakuen Hall match. The closest approximation is a
first-ever Tanahashi & Ibushi vs. Naito & Takagi match on 12/19.

All three shows are the usual 4:30 a.m. Eastern time.

12/19 has Liger & Tiger Mask & Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki
Honma & Taguchi & Rocky Romero, Robinson & Finlay & Toa Henare vs. Fale & Tonga &
Loa, Evil & Sanada vs. Sabre Jr.& Taichi, Goto & Ishii & Sho & Yoh vs. KENTA &
Yujiro Takahashi & Ishimori & Phantasmo, Tanahashi & Ibushi vs. Naito & Takagi,
Okada & Yoshi-Hashi vs. White & Owens and Hiromu Takahashi & Bushi vs. Ospreay &
Robbie Eagles.

12/20 has Henare vs. Tsuji, Makabe & Honma & Uemura vs. Fale & Ishimori &
Phantasmo, Liger & Sho & Yoh vs. Tiger Mask & Taguchi & Romero, Sanada & Takagi
vs. Sabre Jr. & Taichi, Goto & Ishii & Robinson & Finlay vs. KENTA & Yujiro
Takahashi & Tonga & Loa, Tanahashi & Ibushi vs. White & Owens and Okada & Yoshi-
Hashi & Ospreay & Eagles vs. Naito & Evil & Hiromu Takahashi & Bushi.

The final show has Makabe & Tiger Mask & Uemura vs. Honma & Taguchi & Tsuji, Sho
& Yoh & Eagles vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Ishimori & Phantasmo, Sanada & Bushi vs.
Sabre Jr. & Taichi, Goto & Robinson & Finlay Henare vs. KENTA & Fale & Tonga &
Loa, Ospreay & Ishii vs. Evil & Hiromu Takahashi, Naito & Takagi vs. White &
Owens and in Liger’s last ever match at Korakuen Hall, he teams with Tanahashi &
Ibushi vs. Okada & Yoshi-Hashi & Romero.

Kazuchika Okada, 32, captured both of the major awards, one as expected, the
other a surprise, in the 2019 Tokyo Sports awards.

The balloting of writers and photographers, always highly political, saw Okada,
32 become the fifth person to win four MVP awards. Okada had previously won in
2012, 2013 and 2015.

He joins Antonio Inoki (1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981), Genichiro Tenryu
(1986, 1987, 1988, 1993), Keiji Muto (1995,1999, 2001, 2008) and Hiroshi
Tanahashi (2009, 2011, 2014, 2018) if the four-time winners club.

The five nominees were Okada, Ibushi, Ospreay, White and Kento Miyahara, with the
22 votes breaking down as 15 for Okada, four for Miyahara and three for Ibushi.

Okada’s October 14 IWGP title defense against Sanada at Sumo Hall was named match
of the year. One of the keys is that the match always has to involve big names
and it’s usually based on name value and significance, although work rate is
thrown in. How this match figured in was the big question. Okada and Sanada
wrestled several times and that was the weakest match. There were probably 50
matches this year in Japan that were better, got over better, and even higher
profile, including many in the G-1 tournament, Tanahashi vs. Kenny Omega as the
Tokyo Dome main event (there are the obvious political reasons why that couldn’t
win) and the Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi Best of the Super Juniors tournament
winner.

Even if it had to be an Okada match, given this makes six straight years he’s won
and seventh in the last eight (2012 with Tanahashi, 2014 with Shinsuke Nakamura,
2015 with Tenryu, 2016 with Naomichi Marufuji and 2017 and 2018 with Omega, the
only year he missed winning was 2013 which was won by the Shinsuke Nakamura vs.
Kota Ibushi match), there are many others such as bouts with Ibushi, Tanahashi,
Jay White, other bouts with Sanada and Ospreay that were better and more
impactful based on quality, significance and location. Okada’s seven wins in this
category puts him behind Tenryu with nine and Kenta Kobashi with eight Other
multiple winners were Jumbo Tsuruta with seven, Mitsuharu Misawa with five, Inoki
with four, Giant Baba with four, Riki Choshu and Omega with three.

Suwama, 43, & Shuji Ishikawa, 44, the Violent Giants, coming off winning the All
Japan tag team tournament, won their third straight Best Tag Team of the year
award.

Kento Miyahara, 30, the Triple Crown champion from All Japan, won the Most
Outstanding Wrestler for the second time, having previously won in 2016. This
award is really for the MVP outside of New Japan and usually goes to second place
in that voting.

Kaito Kiyomiya, 23, the GHC champion from Pro Wrestling NOAH, won the Fighting
Spirit Award. Shingo Takagi was also under consideration.

Kota Ibushi, 37, won for Best Technique. Others considered were Ospreay, Sanada,
Ben K, Daichi Hashimoto and Konosuke Takeshita.

Strong Machine J, the son of Junji Hirata, the original Super Strong Machine,
part of Dragon Gate’s trios champions, the Strong Machines, captured the Rookie
of the Year award.

Mayu Iwatani, 26, of Stardom, was the Women’s pro wrestling MVP.

Atsushi Aoki, who passed away on 6/3 after a motorcycle accident at the age of
41, was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. Aoki was a high school national
champion in 2000, and an open national champion in 2005, and Wrestling Observer
Rookie of the Year in 2006. He held the All Japan world jr. championship four
times and was champion at the time of his death.

WWE’s final PPV of the year, Tables, Ladders and Chairs, which takes place on
12/15 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, has six matches official and four more
expected to be announced later this week.

In a show where nothing was announced until 11 days out, neither the Universal,
WWE, U.S., IC, or either women’s championship are on the show.
Brock Lesnar, the WWE champion, isn’t booked for a title defense until the Royal
Rumble at this point. Bray Wyatt as The Fiend, was to defend against Daniel
Bryan, but that’s been delayed for storyline reasons. The idea is to spend more
time and deepen the story before doing the Fiend vs. Bryan rematch. Wyatt, not as
The Fiend, is scheduled for a non-title match with The Miz.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Braun Strowman for the IC title was on the card last week.
Presumably the angle was to be shot on the 12/5 Smackdown show, but Strowman was
not medically cleared. The WWE’s official word was that it was a minor hip injury
but that he was expected to be cleared shortly. Because of that, it is unknown
whether an angle will be shot on 12/12 or if this will be added to the show.

The Smackdown women’s title with Bayley vs. Lacey Evans is also expected to be
added to the show as it was on the scheduled lineup last week. There was also an
angle involving the two on the 12/5 show, but the match hasn’t been announced
yet.

Raw women’s champion Becky Lynch will be a challenger in a women’s tag team title
match, teaming with Charlotte Flair to face Asuka & Kairi Sane. That will be one
of two TLC matches on the show.

The most pushed match thus far, also a TLC match, has Roman Reigns vs. King
Corbin.

Other matches officially announced at press time were Rusev vs. Bobby Lashley in
a tables match, New Day vs. The Revival for the Smackdown tag team titles and
Aleister Black vs. Buddy Murphy.

The Revival are replacing the originally planned Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler.
We’re not sure if this was switched because of Roode’s drug test failure and
suspension or not. Last week, before the suspension was announced, it was listed
on the schedule but even then we were told that it could change.

There was a tease for Viking Raiders vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson for the Raw
tag titles already. The match was on the schedule for the show last week, teased
on Raw, and indications we were given is that it is still on the card. What has
been announced is the Viking Raiders doing an open challenge for the titles, but
with that match not a secret and teased, who knows if they will go with the
original plans. A.J. Styles vs. Randy Orton, which also shot an angle on Raw on
12/9, was on last week’s lineup and logically it should be added.

Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens had an angle shot on Raw, and was a possibility last
week. As of 12/10, it was not scheduled and at that point in time it was not
expected to be added either. Rollins suffered a broken little finger in a 12/8
house show match with Erick Rowan, so he did not wrestle on Raw the next day. The
injury isn’t serious and he was expected to be cleared by Sunday. But they shot
an angle where Owens was beaten down by Rollins and AOP and he went out in an
ambulance, so returning six days later seems premature. As far as an angle on the
show or on Raw the next night, that would seem likely.

The advance for the show isn’t strong by current standards. Most of the upper
deck, except sections in front of the hard camera, aren’t being sold. There are
even sections in the lower bowl not being sold. There are 560 tickets on the
secondary market with a $43.48 get-in price.
With Christmas off, both AEW and NXT are gearing for major final shows of 2019,
with key matches on the 12/18 shows.

AEW, running out of Corpus Christi, is going with the 10:00 challenge where Chris
Jericho has to beat Jungle Boy in less than 10:00 as the most pushed match. In
addition, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky defend the tag titles against The Young
Bucks. It’s probably time to get the belts on The Young Bucks. They have so many
challengers around, including Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix, who beat them multiple
times including for the AAA tag titles and in a rematch under TLC rules; Private
Party, who beat them in the first round of the tournament, and Ortiz & Santana,
who they have split matches with. The third match is Pentagon Jr.& Fenix vs.
Kenny Omega & Adam Page, and they look like they are doing a slow tease of a feud
between the latter two. There is always the chance of Omega & Page winning, and
thus getting a title match, and then the split takes place in the title match.
Britt Baker vs. Kris Statlander was also announced.

NXT has really the biggest male and female match they can deliver as far as
ratings go. Adam Cole vs. Finn Balor for the NXT title matches the most well-
known wrestler on the roster with the long-time champion. Shayna Baszler vs. Rhea
Ripley is the biggest women’s title match they can put together, since Ripley has
gotten a gigantic push. There have been rumors for some time of Baszler losing to
Ripley and moving to the main roster for a feud with Becky Lynch, and what
happened leading to Survivor Series and at Survivor Series certainly build that.
The only question regards if they want to move top stars off NXT for the main
roster, because that tells people NXT is lesser, a message they’ve been trying to
tell the opposite of. Survivor Series itself was booked to tell people the
opposite. But Baszler moving to the main roster has been planned for some time.

The WWE announced early its main eventers for the 2020 Class of the Hall of Fame,
as well as officially confirmed the date.

As expected, the Hall of Fame ceremony will be on 4/2 at the Amalie Arena in
Tampa, the Thursday of WrestleMania week. With Smackdown on Friday and Takeover
on Saturday, the two choices were either Thursday or the following Tuesday, and
of the two choices, Thursday was clearly the better date.

It will be part of six straight nights of WWE action in the area that starts on
4/1 with the live NXT show. It is not known if that will be at Full Sail
University, or they will move to a larger building closer to Tampa since the
ticket demand for the show will be so high.

Announced are Dave Bautista, 50, known as Batista, along with the NWO, in this
case only the lead original foursome of Hulk Hogan, 66, Scott Hall, 61, Kevin
Nash, 60, and Sean Waltman, 47 as over the years there were dozens of members.

Bautista spent his entire career with WWE. He wasn't picked up after a WCW
tryout, which, given his look, tells you about their talent judgment, as he was
basically given the let’s bully and run this big bodybuilder off routine.

Originally trained by Afa of the Wild Samoans, he debuted on October 30, 1999,
and because of his size and look, was signed by WWF a few months later and sent
to Louisville. Bautista was one of the four cornerstones of that era of OVW which
developed arguably the four biggest stars of the next era at the same time,
Bautista, John Cena, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar.
He became an immediate favorite of Jim Cornette, who booked him as the monster
Leviathan, billing him as 6-foot-8 and 340 pounds. Obviously that was quite the
exaggeration. Batista is probably closer to 6-foot-3, but was always billed much
larger. He was a gigantic bodybuilder type early he was limited in the ring, but
later slimmed down and turned into a solid wrestler.

As it turned out, his WWE run was completely different from his Leviathan
character, and he heavily credited Fit Finlay for his success and was later
critical of OVW for making him a one-dimensional character that had nothing to do
with what was coming up later for him.

After a failed debut as Deacon Batista in May 2002, as the sidekick for Devon (of
the Dudleys) in a failed attempt to split up the team and play a minister, he was
brought into Evolution at the start of 2003.

He became "The Animal" Batista, handpicked to be part of the group with Ric
Flair, HHH and Orton. Mark Jindrak was planned to be in the group at first, at
one point instead of Batista, but plans changed. Batista suffered his first torn
triceps which led to surgery. He then tore it a second time while attempting to
recover and didn’t return until October.

Given the injury, the actual time of Evolution together was short. Orton was
already broken off after winning the WWF title from Chris Benoit at SummerSlam
2004. The tease for Batista going face started at the 2005 Royal Rumble.

The concept of Evolution was that Flair was a legend from the prior generation,
HHH was a current legend, and Batista and Orton were groomed to carry the company
in the future.

Batista always credited Flair and HHH over that period as his mentors. Batista
and HHH did the turn angle with Batista going face. Batista was far more
successful than Orton, and really, as far as a personal money drawing pro
wrestling program, the Batista vs. HHH program was the most successful with the
exception of John Cena vs. The Rock, and that was more due to two iconic figures
and Rock being a top movie star coming out of retirement.

The Batista vs. HHH WrestleMania match drew what was at the time the most money
of any pro wrestling event in history up to that point in time, and is still the
fourth biggest PPV event in pro wrestling history, doing 1,090,000 total buys.
Because of how the business has changed, as far as PPV goes, it would be the
fourth biggest of all-time, and almost surely will always be the fourth biggest.

The other three were not as much drawn by pro wrestling angles as much as
personalities, so this would have to be called the most successful pro wrestling
angle dating back at least the past 18 years and one of the biggest of all-time.

Batista once told us the funny part is that the WWE writers, after the original
turn, had booked he and HHH immediately for matches and HHH, who had power, was
able to get it overturned, convincing Vince McMahon that they build the first
match for months for WrestleMania. Had they have had a prior match or matches,
the WrestleMania number wouldn’t have been close to as big. Batista won the WWE
title for the first time at the April 3, 2005, WrestleMania.

The only shows historically that were bigger were the two Cena vs. The Rock
matches, and the show that was built around either Vince McMahon or Donald Trump
getting their heads shaved in the Battle of the Billionaires.
For several years, it was Batista and John Cena who were the top full-time stars,
carrying their respective brands. Batista was clearly the bigger star at first,
but Cena surpassed him.

Aside from periods out due to injury, Batista remained in that spot until
retiring at first in May, 2010, saying he was unhappy with the direction of the
company.

While he lived large and was making millions as a top WWE star, he gave it up for
a very uncertain future as an actor. He was hardly expected to make it there and
the feeling was he would come back.

He did a comeback run at the end of 2013, with the idea he would be a top
babyface and beat Orton for the WWE title at WrestleMania. That was the year
Daniel Bryan got hot and C.M. Punk walked out. Bryan was originally to wrestle
Sheamus underneath and Punk was to wrestle HHH. The fans completely rejected
Batista as a face, similar to Roman Reigns, largely because they wanted Bryan in
that spot. This led to the Bryan WrestleMania where he first beat HHH to get in
the title match, and then won the three-way over Batista and Orton to become
champion. Batista left two months after WrestleMania of 2014.

But the Drax the Destroyer character in the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy movie
made his career and he was nominated for a number of Best Ensemble cast awards at
various film festivals for the role. After that, he’s gotten regular work
including appearing as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Avengers: Infinity War
and Avengers: End Game, all gigantic hits.

There were teases of returns over the next few years until they set the build on
October 16, 2018 for his retirement match with HHH at this past year’s
WrestleMania. Batista did a tremendous job with the promos and they did a long
brawling style match that got mixed reviews.

The NWO were the key heel group that led to the hottest period in WCW history
from 1996-98. The Hogan heel character, with Hall & Nash with him, and later
Waltman as the actual best in-ring worker to carry the matches, led to a period
when WCW was the top pro wrestling company in the world.

The idea, copied from the type of stables New Japan did, with a twist of the
outsiders angle in the New Japan vs. UWFI feud a few years earlier, was at first
one of the most successful angles in history. The success wasn’t long-term and
many mistakes were made. But from basically the onset of the angle until mid-
1998, a two-year period, WCW was the most successful wrestling company in the
world.

I can recall talking to Eric Bischoff in Los Angeles in 1996 and it was clear the
angle, which was Bischoff turning the Billionaire Ted skits that McMahon put on
television to bury Hogan and Randy Savage, against him, and he said to me he
thought the angle could carry them through Starrcade 96. I thought it could carry
them through Starrcade 97 and figured that show should be the blow-off with WCW
beating the NWO and disbanding the group. In the end, there was never a blow-off
and the angle just kept going until it was watered down, burned out, turned
almost into a bad parody, and then would be brought back over-and-over until the
company died in 2001. It was even brought back briefly in WWF in 2002. The WWF
version was done all wrong since it was Vince McMahon bringing in the NWO, as
McMahon refused to do a true outsider angle. The key to the angle is it was the
fantasy that it was WWF stars banding together at first to take out WCW, but
eventually the coolness of the NWO in the feud made WCW uncool, and did
tremendous long-term damage since the WCW brand was the uncool brand booed on its
own television shows. No doubt the NWO was the major part of the glory period of
WCW, but the booking during that period also left the brand name tarnished and
was a key part of the decline that finished the company.

The NWO itself spread to New Japan Pro Wrestling with Masahiro

Chono and Keiji Muto as the top stars.

Hall, Nash and Hogan were the original members. Waltman is generally remembered
as the fourth, but Ted DiBiase, The Giant (Big Show) and NWO Sting (Jeff Farmer)
actually preceded him. The number of NWO members never ended but among the bigger
names also included Mike Jones as Vincent, a spoof on McMahon, Bischoff, which
made no sense since he headed WCW but Bischoff clearly loved being part of the
group and was a tremendous television performer in the role, Buff Bagwell, Scott
Norton, Randy Savage, Konnan, Curt Hennig, Rick Rude, Dusty Rhodes, Louis
Spicolli, Ed Leslie, Lex Luger, Sting, Torrie Wilson, Big Bubba Rogers (Ray
Traylor aka Big Bossman), Bret Hart, Jeff Jarrett, Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi
Tenzan, Brian Adams, Horace Hogan, Michael Wallstreet (Mike Rotunda) and even Ric
Flair, Shawn Michaels and Booker T briefly in the WWE versions.

The entire group becomes two-time Hall of Famers since Hogan, Hall and Nash went
in individually, and Waltman went in as part of DX.

Juice Robinson & David Finlay upset Evil & Sanada, who had gone 13-1 in the
round-robin tournament and had won the past two years, to capture New Japan’s
annual World Tag League on 12/8 at the Hiroshima Green Arena.

The show was easy to watch, but was hurt by a quiet crowd. One of the most
notable things was that Jushin Liger is from Hiroshima, and this was his last
show ever in his home city. Liger got a nice reaction, but it wasn’t even close
to the reaction he got for his last show in San Jose several weeks back. The card
drew 4,383 fans, the largest in the city in more than four years.

The tournament just didn’t have major interest this year, perhaps because there
were so many matches with 16 teams and one block that it was difficult to keep up
with.

In addition, so many teams were out of the running early in a 16-team tournament
so there were a lot more matches that felt like they had no meaning. It came down
to three teams, Robinson & Finlay and tag champions Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa both
went into the finals with 12-2 records. But Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi beat
Tonga & Loa, eliminating them and making Robinson & Finlay vs. Evil & Sanada into
the championship match. Evil & Sanada only needed a 30:00 draw, and they went
24:01 before Finlay surprised Evil, using the old Spike Dudley Acid drop for the
pin.

The big surprise was the appearance of Jon Moxley. After Lance Archer & Minoru
Suzuki had beaten KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi, a Moxley video played. Earlier in the
show, after Hiroshi Tanahashi’s match, a video had played of Chris Jericho. But
in this case, Moxley showed up and brawled around the arena with Archer before
issuing a challenge for a Texas death match.

The final tournament standings were: 1. Robinson & Finlay 13-2 (won based on
head-to-head match); 2. Evil & Sanada 13-2; 3. Tonga & Loa 12-3; 4. Ishii &
Yoshi-Hashi 10-5; 5. Suzuki & Archer, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi and Colt Cabana &
Toru Yano 9-6; 8. KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi and Jeff Cobb & Mikey Nicholls 8-7;
10. Shingo Takagi & El Terrible and Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens 6-9; 12. Togi
Makabe & Tomoaki Honma and Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan 4-11; 14. Hiroshi
Tanahashi & Toa Henare and Hirooki Goto & Karl Fredericks 3-12; 16. Yuji Nagata &
Manabu Nakanishi 2-13.

1. Nagata & Nakanishi beat Kojima & Tenzan in 9:49. Nakanishi was so slow. It kept
moving but wasn’t very good. Nagata used a crossface submission on Tenzan. *3/4

2. Cabana & Yano beat Fale & Owens in 9:56. It was all comedy. Cabana & Yano
attacked them with turnbuckle pads. Yano gave Owens a low blow and Cabana pinned
him with a Superman press. *1/4

3. Cobb & Nicholls beat Takagi & Terrible in 9:31. Cobb broke his tooth the night
before. Cobb was a highlight, with a leapfrog and dropkick spot and a great
overhead suplex on Takagi. Nicholls pinned Terrible after a power bomb. **

4. Tanahashi & Henare beat Goto & Fredericks in 10:16. Fredericks was the star of
the match. People have been raving about him the entire tour. He’s big, has a
good look, great timing, solid work and great athletic ability. The only question
is his level of charisma. Henare pinned Fredericks with a uranage called the Toa
bottom. ***1/4

Jericho, with a group of people with him wearing KISS makeup, was on a video
calling himself the Painmaker, the name he used when facing Okada, the rainmaker.
He said that 1/5 would be one of the greatest matches of Tanahashi’s career, but
would also be his last match. Tanahashi got the mic and said that he has no plans
of quitting, and it may be Jericho’s last match.

5. Suzuki & Archer beat KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi in 11:24. Takahashi did a tope on
Archer. Archer did a rope walk on two sides of the ring. Takahashi’s elbow was
busted open. KENTA vs. Suzuki battling back-and-forth was the highlight. Suzuki
had a cut on the jaw. Archer used the blackout on Takahashi, picked him up at
two, and then put the claw on for the pin. ***1/4

The Moxley video played and he showed up walking through the crowd. Moxley hit
Archer and Suzuki both with the death rider. Moxley grabbed the mic saying he
wanted his belt back and asked for a Texas death match on 1/4. He and Archer
continued to brawl afterwards all over the place.

6. Ibushi & Liger & Tiger Mask beat Okada & Sho & Yoh in 12:35. Ibushi attacked
Okada right away. Okada went heel by pulling Liger off the apron to keep him from
tagging in. Liger finally go the hot tag using the quebradora and Romero special
on Yoh. Ibushi and Okada traded hot action. Liger hit Okada with a shote and
Ibushi used a high kick and kamagoye to pin Sho. ***1/4

After the match, Okada rubbed the belt in Ibushi’s face. Ibushi then hit Okada
with his briefcase and beat on him. Ibushi chased Okada to the back. Liger was
left in the ring. Ryu Lee made the taped challenge and Liger said he also wanted
Hiromu Takahashi in that mach. He talked about how there are people in the
building who knew him from grade school and growing up and wanted to say goodbye.

7. Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi beat Tonga & Loa in 16:43. Tonga threw Ishii into the wall.
The crowd was dead early. Ishii’s hot tag got a reaction. Ishii has a bad knee
and you can really see the difference in him. But this was really good. Yoshi-
Hashi kicked out of Tonga & Loa coming off the top with a splash and diving head-
butt respectively. Yoshi-Hashi turned Loa’s super power bomb into a huracanrana.
Yoshi-Hashi pinned Tonga with an inside cradle ***½

8. Robinson & Finlay beat Evil & Sanada in 24:01 to win the tournament. Usual
spots like Sanada using the paradise lock on Finlay and Evil used the chair
baseball bart swing on him. Finlay used a brainbuster on Sanada and Robinson
splashed him off the top for a near fall. Sanada did the flip into the
turnbuckles, landed on his feet on the apron and hit a springboard dropkick .
Robinson tried pulp friction but Sanada turned it into skull end. Sanada tried a
moonsault but Robinson got his knees up. Finlay got several near falls on Evil.
Evil used the scorpion deathlock on Finlay and they used the magic killer on
Robinson. Great Granby roll by Finlay on Evil for a near fall. Evil & Sanada did
the magic killer on Finlay but Robinson saved. Sanada used a pescado on Robinson.
Finally used Evil’s own It’s Evil finisher on Evil for a near fall. Robinson did
the left hand punch on both and hit the pulp friction on Sanada while Finlay used
the Acid drop on Evil. After the match, Robinson told Tonga, Loa and Jado to come
out and challenged them for a title match. ****

UFC on ESPN 12/7 Washington, DC

By Ryan Frederick

If there was one thing Jair Rozenstruik proved, it was that he is still as
dangerous in the 24th minute as he is in the first minute.

Rozenstruik knocked out Alistair Overeem at the 4:56 mark of the fifth round in
the main event of the 12/7 UFC show in Washington, DC. It was a brutal knockout
that took a chunk of Overeem’s lip off in the process, and he had to have plastic
surgery right after the fight to fix it.

Rozenstruik was behind in the fight at the time of the finish. He was down 40-36,
39-37 and 39-37 on the judges’ scorecards after four rounds, and the fifth round
was still up in the air. The only way Rozenstruik was going to win was by finish,
and he did it in the most dramatic way possible. It was a vicious right hand that
put Overeem on his butt, and he did the walk-off thinking the fight was over. Dan
Miragliotta didn’t stop the fight immediately as Overeem was trying to get up,
but once he stood he stumbled and Miragliotta decided then to stop it. Had that
not happened, Overeem would have won the fight.

Rozenstruik did take this fight on short notice, coming just a little over a
month after his last fight. He had been finishing opponents quickly, as his two
fights before this lasted a combined 38 seconds. He didn’t look as sharp here as
he has but that could be contributed to the lack of preparation time. Overeem was
able to get him down a few times, and he isn't exactly an elite wrestler.

Overeem was much slower and more methodical than usual, and he was picking
Rozenstruik apart. If anything, the win may have given Rozenstruik more
confidence going forward, but there are lots of holes he will need to clear up.

Rozenstruik called for a fight against Francis Ngannou after the win. That may be
a fight the company ends up making sometime in the first few months of 2020 as
there really isn't much to do with Ngannou at the moment. He is in a holding
pattern since Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier are fighting again for the
heavyweight title. Ngannou has been looking for a fight and opponents aren't
exactly lining up to go against him. With Rozenstruik itching to fight him, that
is enough incentive for the company to book the fight. The one thing that may
prevent it from happening, though, is that the Rozenstruik who fought here would
get eaten alive by Ngannou and it would kill off a future contender.

Overeem, meanwhile, may be inching closer than ever towards retirement. This is
the 14th time he's been knocked out in his career. He turns 40 next year and this
loss may signal the end of any future chances at fighting for the title again. He
is still skilled despite losing some speed, but the beatings will add up quicker
now. He is still a name fighter who makes a lot of money and there will still be
fights for him to take. Time will tell where he goes from here.

This was the final UFC event with the main card to air on ESPN in 2019. It was
dubbed Fight Like Hell Night honoring late ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, who passed
away from cancer in 2015. Scott was a big UFC supporter and trained in MMA while
battling appendix cancer, and even did a lot of UFC-related content that aired on
ESPN well before the company was broadcast on the network.

The show featured video packages on, and interviews with, several fighters whose
lives have been affected by cancer, including Daniel Cormier, Tatiana Suarez, Joe
Lauzon, Anthony Rocco Martin, Paul Felder and Tracy Cortez. It was a real
emotional broadcast and was easily one of the better broadcasts the company has
put on in its history. I can speak for myself as someone who has battled cancer
and has a family history of it, the show got to me at several points and all of
the outside the Octagon stuff felt more important than what was actually going on
inside the Octagon.

There was a lot of action on the show with a lot of great finishes. Arguably the
most-talked about fighter coming out of the show, outside of Rozenstruik, was
featherweight Bryce Mitchell. Mitchell pulled off something that had only been
done once before in UFC history when he submitted Matt Sayles with a body Twister
in the first round. He was completely dominant in the quick fight before finding
the submission, which had only been done by Chan Sung Jung on Leonard Garcia in
2011. Mitchell then cut a great post-fight promo, as well as a backstage
interview and has a great charisma about him along with a perfect 12-0 record.

The show also had two draws on the night, something that has only happened twice
before. The co-main event between Marina Rodriguez and Cynthia Calvillo, and the
fight between Cody Stamann and Song Yadong were both ruled majority draws.

The Rodriguez and Calvillo fight had a lot going on surrounding it. Calvillo
missed weight by 4.5 pounds at weigh-ins. Rodriguez had absolutely every right to
turn down the fight because that is a huge miss, but she didn't. Rodriguez won
the first two rounds fairly easily, but got taken down in the third and pounded
on by Calvillo in what was scored a 10-8 round by two judges. Rodriguez said she
could feel Calvillo's extra weight on top and was having trouble dealing with it,
so there was a huge advantage for Calvillo by missing weight. Rodriguez and her
camp were not happy before and after the fight feeling they not only won, but got
taken advantage of the entire week. She also took the fight on short notice and
if it was known Calvillo was going to miss that badly, it easily could have been
made a catch weight fight.

In the Stamann and Yadong fight, Yadong had a point taken away in the first round
after delivering an illegal knee to Stamann's head on the ground. Stamann was
controlling a lot of the first on the mat but the striking was pretty even. The
second was a clear Yadong round and the third was an even more clear Stamann
round. The decision was met with a lot of raised eyebrows as most thought Stamann
won the fight, so you could definitely say he was screwed in that one. What made
it even worse is two of the judges, David Braslow and Steve Rados, had never
judged a UFC event before. There was talk of Stamann appealing the decision.

The heavyweight fight between Stefan Struve and Ben Rothwell also had some
craziness to it. Struve was hit with a hard low blow during the first and took
the full five minutes to recover. The crowd reactions to this were something else
as they would boo Struve every time he was taking his chances to recover, and
cheer every time he was looking ready to fight. The same thing happened in the
second round with Struve being kicked in the groin and going down again in pain.

The fight absolutely could have been stopped after the second groin strike.
Rothwell did get a point taken away. Referee Dan Miragliotta, while checking on
Struve, told him he thought he was winning both rounds, which is something a
referee should never tell a fighter. It likely played a factor in Struve
continuing when he really shouldn't have, because if he couldn't go on, it would
be a no contest. Instead, Struve, in thinking he would win the fight if he
continued, especially since Rothwell was docked a point, fought on. He ended up
doing some damage to his leg after Rothwell checked a kick, and then Rothwell
finished him late in the second with some big punches. Struve would have every
right to appeal the decision if he chose to do so.

Calvillo wasn't the only fighter to have trouble at the scale on Friday. Sayles
also missed weight for his bout against Mitchell, coming in at 148.5 pounds, 2.5
pounds over the featherweight limit. Both fighters were fined. Tim Means also had
initially missed by half-a-pound, but made it on a second attempt during the two-
hour window.

It was the second event the UFC held in Washington, DC, over eight years after
the first show held in the same Capital One Arena building. This show drew 10,816
fans for a gate of $932,593.20. Both numbers were better than the first event in
October 2011.

The main card and four preliminary card fights aired on ESPN against tough
competition with college football conference championship games as competition.
The main card was a long one, airing from 9 PM eastern until 1 AM and did
1,071,000 viewers. It peaked at 1,400,000 viewers for the main event. The prelims
got a late start due to college football running long and did 696,000 viewers
from 7:17 to 9 PM. The Ohio State vs. Wisconsin Big 10 championship game head-to-
head did more 13,550,000 viewers on FOX while the ACC championship game with
Virginia vs. Clemson on ABC did 3,970,000 viewers.

The main card was fourth on the day in the key demos and was the second-most
watched program on ESPN on Saturday, and the prelims actually drew more viewers
than the college football game that was the lead-in, though it was one of the
weaker games on Saturday.

It was the third-best of the seven main card ESPN events of the year. For the top
television markets, the show did a 0.7 in Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta, a 0.6
in Philadelphia, a 0.5 in Dallas and San Francisco, a 0.4 in Chicago, and a 0.3
in New York and Washington, DC, the host market, which shows how much local
interest there was. Google Searches for the event were just over 500,000 on the
night, which is around what lower-end pay-per-view events usually do.

The $50,000 bonuses went to Rob Font and Ricky Simon for Fight Of The Night,
while the Performance Of The Night bonuses went to Bryce Mitchell and Makhmud
Muradov.
1. Makhmud Muradov (24-6) beat Trevor Smith (15-10) in 4:09 in the third round in
a middleweight fight. The first round was slow early on and Muradov was landing
more and had a nice final minute where he landed a big right hand before the
round ended. Muradov had a controlling second round where he was landing more
punches but Smith was trying to make a comeback. Muradov was ahead everywhere and
got Smith down late and had the back and would have gotten a choke in but time
ran out. Muradov was landing hard body shots and then hurt Smith by attacking the
head with punches and kicks. Muradov landed a nice combo to the body and ended it
with a vicious right hand that put Smith out cold on the canvas. This was an
excellent showing for Muradov, who picked up his 13th straight win.
2. Virna Jandiroba (15-1) beat Mallory Martin (6-3) in 1:16 in the second round
in a women's strawweight fight. Martin was making her UFC debut as a short-notice
replacement. Jandiroba got a takedown in the first and had a deep arm-triangle
locked in but Martin was able to escape. Jandiroba got another takedown and
Martin went for a guillotine but it wasn't close and Jandiroba ended the round on
top. Jandiroba got a takedown in the second and got the back and found a deep
rear-naked choke and got Martin to tap.
3. Joe Solecki (9-2) beat Matt Wiman (16-9) via unanimous decision on scores of
30-26, 30-26 and 30-27 in a lightweight fight. Solecki was making his UFC debut.
He got Wiman down early on. He was landing vicious shots from the top but Wiman
was fighting through it. Solecki landed a lot of shots from the top and it could
have been stopped several times but Wiman survived the round. A completely
dominant first by Solecki. Solecki got a takedown to start the second and was
working from the top. His pace slowed as he seemed content to control from the
top but they got stood up. Solecki got another takedown before the second ended.
Solecki got another takedown in the third and landed more from the top. He got
the back of Wiman and was landing punches from the back. Wiman survived the
fight. He is too tough for his own good but it was even more evident between this
fight and his last one that over four years away from the sport was too much. I
had it 30-25 for Solecki by giving him a 10-8 score in rounds one and three. All
media scores were for Solecki.
4. Bryce Mitchell (12-0) beat Matt Sayles (8-3) in 4:20 in what was scheduled to
be a featherweight fight. Sayles missed weight for this fight. Mitchell got an
early takedown and was controlling the first from the top. Mitchell was making
lots of smooth transitions looking for submissions and then got a Twister
submission locked in and got Sayles to tap. That was only the second time in UFC
history the Twister has been pulled off and it got a great reaction from the
crowd.
5. Billy Quarantillo (13-2) beat Jacob Kilburn (8-3) in 3:18 in the second round
in a featherweight fight. Both men were making their UFC debuts, Kilburn took
this fight on short notice. Quarantillo had a deep D'arce choke locked on in the
first minute but Kilburn escaped. Quarantillo was on top and landing massive
punches and the fight could have been stopped a few times. Quarantillo had a deep
rear-naked choke locked in and Kilburn escaped. The first round was one-sided for
Quarantillo. Quarantillo got a takedown at the start of the second and was
landing more brutal ground-and-pound from the top. Quarantillo then started
hunting for submissions and finally locked in a triangle choke to get Kilburn to
submit. This was a complete domination by Quarantillo.
6. Tim Means (29-11-1 1 NC) beat Thiago Alves (23-15) in 2:38 in a welterweight
fight. Alves landed a hard body kick early that made a loud noise. They were
trading and Means dropped Alves with a straight left hand. He swarmed with
punches and then grabbed the neck and got a guillotine choke in to get Alves to
tap. This was a nice showing for Means. This was the last fight on Alves'
contract and he said he was going to test the market, so this may be the end for
him with the UFC.
7. Rob Font (17-4) beat Ricky Simon (15-3) via unanimous decision on scores of
29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 in a bantamweight fight. Font got an early takedown but
they got up and Font was landing some good punches. They were trading some good
shots and Simon got a big takedown. They got up and Font landed a good combo.
Simon got another late takedown. The first round was real fun. Font was landing
more in the second and really using the jab well. Font was landing some hard
punches as well as Simon kind of slowed down his pace. Simon got a late takedown
but Font was able to escape up and landed a late flurry in the second. They were
trading lots of punches in the third and Simon looked to hurt Font with some
punches before getting a takedown. Font was able to get up and then landed some
big punches on Simon. Font landed some good punches in the final minute. I had it
29-28 for Font with him winning the last two rounds. Media scores were 94% for
Font and 6% for Simon. This was an excellent fight.
8. Cody Stamann (18-2-1) vs. Song Yadong (14-4-1 1 NC) ended in a majority draw
on scores of 29-27, 28-28 and 28-28 in a bantamweight fight. They were feeling
each other out and Stamann got a takedown. Yadong was looking for a guillotine
choke and then landed a knee to Stamann's head while he had a knee on the ground,
which is illegal. A point was taken away. Stamann got a late takedown in the
first. Yadong was landing on his feet in the second and Stamann got a takedown
but Yadong scrambled up. Stamann got another takedown but Yadong reversed and
ended the round on top. Stamann got a takedown in the third and spent the
majority of the round on top and in control. Yadong looked tired and couldn't get
out from the bottom. Stamann got his back late and landed lots of punches late to
put a stamp on the fight. This was such a bad decision. Stamann got real screwed
there. I had the fight 29-27 for Stamann with him getting the 10-8 first with the
point deduction and winning the third. The first was close but I'm not sure you
could give it to Yadong. Yadong had a lot of momentum but showed he isn't quite
ready for ranked foes. He is still 21 so there's a lot of time to improve. Media
scores were 71% for Stamann and 29% scoring it a draw.
9. Aspen Ladd (9-1) beat Yana Kunitskaya (12-5 1 NC) in :33 in the third round in
a women's bantamweight fight. Ladd made weight after her issues in her last
fight. They clinched and were broken up after Kunitskaya grabbed the fence twice.
Ladd got a takedown and was teeing off with punches late in the first and making
lots of noise in doing so but Kunitskaya was never in much danger of being
finished. There was clinching early in the second with not much going on. Ladd
got a takedown and ended the round on top landing. Ladd dropped Kunitskaya with a
left hand right at the start of the third and grabbed the back and was landing
lots of punches and it was stopped. This was a statement win for Ladd and she
might be next for whoever comes out of UFC 245 as the champion.
10. Ben Rothwell (37-12) beat Stefan Struve (29-12) in 4:57 in the second round
in a heavyweight fight. Struve was returning from a brief retirement/break/rest
from the sport. He was attacking with leg kicks early on. Struve rocked Rothwell
with a head kick. Rothwell kicked Struve in the groin and he was down for a
while. The crowd reaction was weird. They were booing Struve while he was
recovering and would cheer when he would look recovered. He then wouldn't be
ready and they would boo, and then cheer when he looked ready. He fought on and
controlled the end of the first. The second was slow paced. Struve was outlanding
and Rothwell was trying to clinch but never did much with them. Rothwell then
kicked Struve in the groin again and Struve went down in even more pain. Rothwell
got a point taken away. They got back to action and Rothwell was landing big
punches. Struve landed a leg kick and Rothwell checked it and Struve's foot
looked like it broke. He was retreating and Rothwell landed some punches that
dropped him and then it was stopped. This was a real unfortunate loss for Struve
as he was clearly hurt from the groin strikes and maybe should have been given
the win after the second one. Dan Miragliotta did a bad job in telling Struve
that he thought he was up two rounds and it may have factored into Struve
continuing. This was Rothwell's first win since January 2016.
11. Marina Rodriguez (13-0-2) vs. Cynthia Calvillo (8-1-1) ended in a majority
draw on scores of 29-28, 28-28 and 28-28 in what was scheduled to be a women's
strawweight fight. Calvillo missed weight badly for this one. They traded early
and Calvillo got a takedown and was working from the top. They got up and
Rodriguez landed a flurry that hurt Calvillo. Rodriguez rocked Calvillo with some
knees and kicks and Calvillo got a late takedown and ended the round with a
flurry from the top. They were trading in the second and Rodriguez was getting
the better of it. She really put it on Calvillo in the last minute of the round.
Calvillo got a takedown in the third and was working for a guillotine choke. She
got the back and was landing lots of punches looking to finish it. Rodriguez was
covering up and made it to the end of the round but it was a big third round for
Calvillo. I had it 29-28 for Rodriguez and there was a strong case for a 10-8
third for Calvillo, but I wasn't totally convinced because Rodriguez was doing
well early in the third. Either way was how it really could have gone. Media
scores were 21% for Rodriguez, 7% for Calvillo and 72% scoring it a draw.
12. Jair Rozenstruik (10-0) beat Alistair Overeem (45-18 1 NC) in 4:56 in the
fifth round in a heavyweight fight. They were being patient early and Overeem got
a takedown. Overeem was landing some short elbows from the top and did good at
keeping Rozenstruik pinned to the mat. They clinched right up at the start of the
second and Overeem kept him pinned against the fence. They broke and Rozenstruik
landed a couple of good punches. They traded good late in the second. Overeem was
working for a takedown in the third but it was defended. He then tagged
Rozenstruik with a combo. Overeem got another takedown. He landed some big shots
from the top at the end of the third. They were patient in the fourth and
Rozenstruik landed a nice combo that had Overeem covering up but he didn't take
advantage of it. He landed another flurry but stopped when he saw Overeem
covering up again. The same thing happened in the last seconds of the fourth.
Overeem was fighting very cautiously from range in the fifth and exploded for a
takedown that he didn't complete. Rozenstruik wasn't doing much in the fifth. He
did some late and was defending Overeem takedown attempts. Just when it looked
like the fight was going to go to a disappointing decision Rozenstruik landed a
massive right hand that knocked Overeem down. He started celebrating like it was
over and Overeem got up and couldn't stand straight and Dan Miragliotta stopped
it with four seconds left. It was a crazy finish. Overeem's lip was falling off
of his face due to a nasty cut. It was the big finish many were expecting but
came at the end of a boring fight, but a big win for Rozenstruik.

Andy Robin, who was best known as the trainer of Hercules the Bear, a major
Scottish media personality, but was a champion pro wrestler during the 60s and
70s, passed away on 12/4 at the age of 84.

Robin’s heath had been in decline since suffering a stroke.

Robin, largely due to the fame of Hercules the Bear, was the biggest mainstream
pro wrestling star in Scotland along with George Kidd. He was the second inductee
in the Scottish Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, in 2016, after Kidd. He was
known for being able to get intense crowd reactions as a top babyface star, in a
career that went from 1956 until the 90s. Locally, his death was covered by the
BBC and ITV, and was a front page news story in Scotland.

Robin was a legitimate wrestler, competing in the Highland Games in Cumberland

style wrestling, and winning the championship in that form of wrestling in 1955.
He actually started training in boxing and gymnastics as a child, and switched to
wrestling upon meeting pro wrestler Willie Bell.
At one point, after starting his pro wrestling career in the U.K., he traveled to
North America as part of a Scottish team of athletes demonstrating traditional
Celtic sports as part of a touring show called “The Wonderful World of Sport.”

While in Toronto, he met Frank Tunney, the area’s wrestling promoter. He started
wrestling professionally in the U.K., including as a regular on World of Sport.
He won the British Commonwealth mid-heavyweight championship in 1964 and spent
two years based in Toronto, where he was a regular at Maple Leaf Gardens and
worked around Ontario. He worked against many of the top stars of that era, such
as The Tolos Brothers, Hans Schmidt, The Destroyer, Paul DeMarco and Johnny
Powers. During that period, he suffered only two losses, both via count out, at
Maple Leaf Gardens, both to Powers toward the end of his run. The highlight was
his winning he Oshawa Tournament of Champions on July 20, 1965, winning a
tournament over Sailor Art Thomas, The Destroyer, Duke Noble, Jerry London, Mike
Valentino (Baron Mikel Scicluna), the Beast and DeMarco.

He was a significant name pro wrestler in the 60s and 70s in the U.K. He was a
genuine draw as a babyface, particularly in Scotland. He played the role of a
powerful lumberjack, with solid mat skills and a high level of charisma. His
matches were, however, mostly brawls, and his finisher was The Power lock, a leg
hold that was made famous in North America by Powers. In 1972, he captured the
British Commonwealth middleweight title.

It was a 1965 match against Terrible Ted, the Wrestling Bear, in London, ONT,
that changed his life. After going to a 15:00 draw, which few were able to do
with bears, he became fascinated with them. With his active career seemingly
winding down at the age of 40, he and wife Maggie adopted Hercules the Bear, a
cub from the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie. The couple raised the bear as
if it was their son.

The bear became a local, and later an international celebrity of sorts and was
once named Scotland’s television personality of the year. He performed with Bob
Hope, as well as did a fight scene with Roger Moore in the 1983 James Bond movie
“Octopussy.

The Bond connection was notable since one of Robin’s biggest matches in Scotland
was with Harold Sakata, a former Olympic silver medalist in weightlifting who was
best known for playing Oddjob in the Sean Connery era of Bond movies.

The bear would attend elementary school birthday parties, do some pro wrestling,
and did a number of television commercials. In 1980, the bear escaped while
filming a toilet paper commercial for Kleenex, and it became an international
news story. He was later found more than three weeks later. The bear, who was the
subject of documentaries, passed away in 2001.

Robin was one of the key people used in a 1990 set of television tapings by the
Scottish ITV franchise in Aberdeen.

His Hall of Fame induction on December 23, 2016, was held at a ceremony at Perth
City Hall, the site of many of his biggest matches. It received television and
newspaper coverage throughout Scotland. In 2017, he was the host of the
148th Gathering of the Blackford Highland Games as the figurehead Chieftain. This
past summer he recorded interviews for an upcoming episode of The People’s
History Show for STV, which was set for broadcast early next year.

Thanks to Scottish historian Bradley Craig for help on this feature

The 12/11 ratings war saw a tie with viewers at 778,000 each while AEW won the
key demos for the 11th week in a row.

In the head-to-head two hours, NXT had 771,000 viewers.

AEW in the head-to-head won the first six quarters and the only reason it was
close was because of how strongly NXT won the main event segment with the three-
way with Finn Balor vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Keith Lee overwhelming the Young Bucks
vs. Santana & Ortiz street fight by a 756,000 to 685,000 overall number, and then
the overrun after AEW ended doing 881,000 viewers. Usually the overrun of late
has been gaining 150,000 to 200,000 viewers and this week it was only 125,000,
which says that people who normally would wait until AEW is over, switched over
early to see the main event.

It was the younger viewers as the NXT audience went from a 54.6 median age before
the main event to as low as 50.6 by the end of the main event. It’s basically a
lesson that it’s not the quality of the match, but the ability to make the match
seem important. The viewer switch occurred early so they didn’t even wait to
compare the matches, so an argument of style vs. style doesn’t wash, it was just
that enough of the AEW audience was interested in the NXT main event.

Even with that, AEW did win the main event battle head-to-head by a 342,000 to
316,000 margin in the 18-49 demo and took every quarter in that demo. NXT only
won the main event segment with teenagers, which AEW did terrible with all night
and women 18-34. AEW even won in 50-54, but NXT won big over 55.

Both shows opened with 17,000 teenagers, which is terrible, and a sign teenagers
have lost interest. NXT drew to 32,000 for the main event while AEW fell to
7,000. With teenagers, AEW peaked withe Jericho/Moxley and NXT peaked with the
main event.

In women 18-34, AEW opened with 47,000 and ended with 33,000. NXT opened with
27,000 and ended with 47,000. AEW peaked with the first quarter and NXT peaked
with the main event.

In women 35-49, AEW opened with 86,000 and ended with 59,000. NXT opened with
75,000 and ended with 44,000. Both shows peaked in the first quarter in this
demo.

In males 18-34, AEW opened with 84,000 and ended with 85,000. NXT opened with
61,000 and ended with 76,000. AEW peaked with the Omega & Page tag team match.
NXT peaked with Bianca Belair vs. Kayden Carter.

In male 35-49, AEW opened with 207,000 viewers and ended with 171,000. NXT opened
with 157,000 and ended with 149,000. Both shows peaked in this demo in the first
quarter.

AEW’s median viewer was 45.8 years old, its oldest to date. NXT’s median viewer
was 54.5 years old.

AEW averaged 1.40 viewers per home, the highest of any pro wrestling show of the
past week. NXT averaged 1.28 viewers per home.

The overall show demo numbers were closer but AEW still won in every key category
except teenagers and over 50, with males 18-34 at 83,000 to 67,000, women 18-34
by 40,000 to 33,000, males 35-49 at 176,000 to 151,000 and females 35-49 at
66,000 to 55,000. But given the declines with no excuses past they were there,
I’d consider it a loss for both sides.

The difference was such that AEW would have won without the Spectrum cable
blackout of TNT in many markets, but that wasn’t enough to make up the difference
when falling from last week.

But to view that as a positive for AEW is deluding yourself. AEW did a 0.28 in
18-49, the key number, down 12.5 percent from the prior week. NXT did a 0.24,
down 17.2 percent from the prior week. Overall saw AEW down 8.6 percent and NXT
down 7.9 percent with no explanation past viewer burnout and the reaction to last
week’s show.

Aside from big gains over usual numbers by FOX News, there wasn’t a lot when it
comes to competition to explain it. The NBA game on ESPN did 1,159,000 viewers
and 0.48 in 18-49, down from 1,537,000 and 0.54 for a college basketball game
ESPN had in the time slot the previous week.

So here are a few thoughts. I felt that neither show last week did a great job of
hyping this week. NXT did push a three-way for a title shot, which to me was the
strongest thing and in theory, with the push on Raw as well, gave them a slight
edge. Even though the match itself was really good, Cody & QT Marshall vs. The
Butcher & The Blade felt to me like a turnoff, and while Young Bucks vs. Ortiz &
Santana in a street fight sounded great, the Young Bucks are still guys over big
in the building but have yet to be made television stars. Even though NXT
continues to do worse, the continued decline in 18-49, which was 0.39 just two
weeks ago, for AEW, is a major concern. Generally the ratings are more a function
of where you start that when you have on, and AEW had a strong show, but where
you start is based on the hype for this week, which wasn’t strong, and the show
last week, which clearly to the casual viewer had more negatives as far as
similar heel group stories even with the strong in-ring. The declines for both
are probably more a function of last week.

Next week both groups have loaded shows, with NXT having essentially two matches
that would headline Takeovers, the biggest women’s match in a long time and the
biggest ratings men’s match they can put on. AEW has a strong lineup as well.
Both groups should show significant gains and in theory, NXT should win with
overall viewers based on Finn Balor going for the title, and AEW with key demos
because they always do and Balor’s match shouldn’t be enough to change that. But
as far as who wins, that’s far less important because next week it’s about
increasing in the key demos for each side, not winning. Another aspect is that
both sides are feeling the effect of the burnout that simply can’t be avoided and
will continue to hurt live gates and ratings. The declines will hit Wednesday
first because it is not an established date, and doesn’t have the prestige of
being on FOX and promoted so hard .

AEW went from bringing TNT the No. 2 or No. 3 slot in cable in 18-49, a huge
success, to falling behind ESPN, MTV, Bravo, Fox News and BET.

Both sides really took their hits from women as opposed to men, with both having
much lower skews for women than normal weeks.

AEW did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 35.3 percent from last week), 0.18 in 18-34 (down
5.3 percent), 0.38 in 35-49 (down 15.6 percent) and 0.29 in 50+ (down 6.5
percent).
The audience was 71.4 percent male in 18-49 and 66.4 percent male in 12-17.

NXT did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 8.3 percent from last week), 0.14 in 18-34 (down
30.0 percent), 0.34 in 35-49 (down 10.5 percent) and 0.38 in 50+ (identical to
last week).

The audience was 70.8 percent male in 18-49 and 66.2 percent male in 12-17.

The first quarter saw AEW with Jon Moxley vs. Alex Reynolds and Chris Jericho
recruiting Moxley doing 870,000 viewers and 424,000 in 18-49. NXT with Lio Rush
vs. Angel Garza for the cruiserweight title did 840,000 viewers and 320,000 in
18-49.

The second quarter with AEW with Cody & QT Marshall vs. Butcher & Blade lost
48,000 total viewers and 59,000 in 18-49. NXT with the ending of Rush vs.; Garza
and a Shayna Baszler video package lost 55,000 viewers overall and 24,000 in 18-
49.

The third quarter with AEW with the MJF promo and a Dark Order vignette lost
8,000 overall viewers and 15,000 in 18-49. NXT had the Garza proposal and Raul
Mendoza vs. Cameron Grimes and lost 26,000 overall viewers and 7,000 in 18-49.

The fourth quarter with AEW with Big Swole vs. Emi Sakura and a Pac promo lost
18,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49. NXT with Travis Banks vs. Jaxson Ryker and a
Mia Yim package lost 36,000 viewers and 7,000 in 18-49.

The fifth quarter with AEW with Kenny Omega & Adam Page vs. Joey Janela & Shawn
Spears lost 14,000 viewers but gained 3,000 in 18-49. NXT with Mia Yim vs. Dakota
Kai gained 59,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49.

The sixth quarter with AEW with the ending of the Omega tag match and Sammy
Guevara vs. Luchasaurus lost 10,000 overall viewers and gained 10,000 in 18-49.
NXT with Tyler Breeze & Fandango vs. The Singh Brothers lost 40,000 viewers and
lost 18,000 in 18-49.

The seventh quarter with AEW with the end of Guevara vs. Luchasaurus and the
Jericho/Jungle Boy post-match angle lost 87,000 viewers and lost 30,000 in 18-49.
NXT with Bianca Belair vs. Kayden Carter gained 41,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-
49. This looks to be people tuning out for the NXT main event.

The final quarter with AEW with Young Bucks vs. Santana & Ortiz lost 2,000
viewers and stayed even in 18-49, so as noted the viewers really left before this
match even started. NXT with the Lee vs. Ciampa vs. Balor match lost 27,000
viewers but gained 15,000 in 18-49.

The overrun gained 125,000 views and 69,000 in 18-49.

WWE did a documentary on the first NXT Brooklyn Takeover show with the Bayley vs.
Sasha Banks match that did 367,000 viewers and 0.09 in 18-49.

Total Divas on 12/10, for the season finale, drew 229,000 viewers, the second
lowest in the history of the show and down 7.3 percent from the previous second
lowest episode the prior week. This show was heavily promoted by the women in
both the regular media and social media and for weeks on television pushing it
around a Hawaii vacation and lots of bikini shots.
WWE Backstage on 12/10 with the second appearances of C.M. Punk did 127,000
viewers, down eight percent from the prior week’s show that didn’t have him and
was built around Seth Rollins.

Raw on 12/9 did 2,149,000 viewers (1.36 viewers per home), down 2.6 percent from
the prior week. The number was lower even though the NFL game between the New
York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles was down 19 percent to 11,360,000 viewers.

The show started out much lower, but the audience held up better. Raw was 15th for
the day in total viewers due to the impeachment hearings, but beat everything but
NFL-related programming in the 18-49 demo. The audience was only down 2.1 percent
from the same week last year, although at the time that week was the lowest
number in modern history.

The first hour did 2,255,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,201,000 viewers. The
third hour did 1,995,000 viewers.

The high pont of the show was the Lana/Rusev divorce which did 2,363,000 viewer.
The low point was the spoof on Saturday Night Live’s weekend update with The
Street Profits that did 1,864,000 viewers.

The median viewer age was 49.7 years old.

As far as the viewer swing, teenagers grew from 55,000 to 78,000 (35,000 to
52,000 boys) from the start of the show to the main event, but every other age
group fell greatly during the show. Under five fell from 49,000 to 32,000, 6-11
from 82,000 to 56,000, 18-34 from 375,000 to 242,000, 35-49 from 678,000 to
456,000 and over 50 from 1,154,000 to 981,000.

The end of Lana/Rusev and brawl with Bobby Lashley and the intros of Matt Hardy
vs. Drew McIntyre lost 171,000 viewers in a segment with two commercial breaks.
Hardy vs. McIntyre and the Kevin Owens/Mojo Rawley backstage gained 20,000
viewers. Viking Raiders vs. Street Profits and the beginning of the Seth
Rollins/Kevin Owens in-ring gained 41,000 viewers. The Owens/Sami Zayn/Rawley in-
ring and the beginning of Aleister Black vs. Akira Tozawa lost 2,000 viewers. The
end of Black vs. Tozawa and beginning of Humberto Carrillo vs. Andrade gained
21,000 viewers. Carrillo vs. Andrade lost 17,000 viewers. Zack Ryder vs. Buddy
Murphy and the Rollins reveal and in-ring heel turn promo gained 71,000 viewers.
Becky Lynch vs. Kabuki Warriors and post-match angles with the Kabuki Warriors
involving that lost 162,000 viewers. The Weekend Update segment lost 200,000
viewers. That’s the problem with doing Events Centers. They do help sell the
PPVs, but they hurt ratings. Rey Mysterio vs. A.J. Styles in the main event
segment gained 10,000 viewers.

The show did a 0.37 in 12-17 (down 5.1 percent from last week), 0.42 in 18-34
(down 6.7 percent), 0.96 in 35-49 (up 3.2 percent) and 0.93 in 50+ (down 3.2
percent).

The audience was 68.1 percent male in 18-49 and 68.7 percent male in 12-17, both
higher male skews than normal.

The 11/18 Raw show gained 19 percent in viewers and 23 percent in 18-49 viewers
when you include DVR viewership.

Smackdown on 12/6 did a 1.53 rating and 2,452,000 viewers (1.33 viewers per
home), up 5.5 percent from the prior week, and against tougher competition with
the Pac-12 football championships on ABC.
It should have been up over Thanksgiving weekend, but it shows Smackdown is very
steady and doing fine. It didn’t win in 18-49 as usual, doing a 0.7, behind the
1.5 in the demo and 5,856,000 viewers of the football game. It beat CBS (0.6) for
second place in the demo among the networks and was third overall behind the NBA
on ESPN, even with the big advantage of it being a network station and in 24
million more homes. It was also second in 18-34, tied for last with women 18-49,
was second in men 18-49 and finished last by a wide margin in over-50 among the
big four networks. Smackdown was the least watched show on the four major
networks and the second worst was 3,632,000 viewers, beating them by more than
one million.

Last year on the same weekend, FOX had 3,784,000 viewers and an 0.9 in 18-49, so
down 35.2 percent in ratings and 22.2 percent in the key demo.

The show did a 1.8 rating in New York, 0.8 in Los Angeles, 1.8 in Chicago, 1.5 in
Philadelphia, 2.8 in Dallas, 1.1 in San Francisco, 1.5 in DC, 1.3 in Houston and
1.8 in Atlanta.

In the segment-by-segment, based on the major markets, Alexa Bliss vs. Mandy Rose
and all the Dana Brooke, Drake Maverick and Elias stuff gained 3.4 percent in
viewers and 5.1 percent in 18-49. A Miz/Bray Wyatt angle, Tribute to the Troops
footage and the beginning of the four-way for a tag title shot lost 0.6 percent
in viewers and 10.7 percent in 18-49. The bulk of the four-way tag title match
lost 9.8 percent with viewers and gained 8.7 percent in 18-49. This again seems
to indicate the younger audience will grow for a hot match with guys not pushed
but the overall audience doesn’t. The Lacey Evans squash and beginning of an
angle with Bayley and Sasha Banks gained 2.9 percent in viewers and 14.0 percent
in 18-49. The Evans/Banks back-and-forth lost 1.4 percent in viewers but gained
5.3 percent in 18-49 and it was the peak in that demo. Roman Reigns vs. Dolph
Ziggler and the dog food angle after lost 0.7 percent with total viewers and 20.0
percent in 18-49.

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CMLL: There was a robbery on 12/10 when two people came to Arena Puebla, the
company’s weekly Monday night stop, and were able to talk their way win, and then
forced employees to hand then over the ticket revenue from the show the night
before, which was about 230,000 pesos (a little over $12,000). They left before
police arrived

Titan won the CMLL welterweight title that was vacated when Dragon Lee was fired,
winning over lightweight champion Soberano Jr. on the 12/8 Arena Mexico show.
Titan has been basically plugged into the position Lee was in

They have a special show on 1/1 at Arena Mexico which will have three singles
main events. Dulce Gardenia faces Kawato San in a hair vs. hair match. Espiritu
Negro faces Principe Diamante in a mask vs. mask match. And there will be a title
match announced as well.

They held the annual legends show on 12/6 at Arena Mexico and drew 12,000 fans.
As usual, the wrestling with so many guys in their 60s wasn’t good at all. The
main event was Rayo de Jalisco Jr. & Tinieblas Jr. & Villano IV over Canek &
Fuerza Guerrera & Mascara Ano 2000. It’s a weird thing because these legends main
events in the past have drawn big crowds, usually bigger than this, and then die
in front of the live crowd. Many of the legends they had been using like Dos
Caras and Cien Caras and really retired now. This match ended up doing okay for
the live crowd since Alushe, the tiny mascot of Tinieblas Jr., entertained the
casual fan and tourists with his comedy with Guerrera. We were told the match
would have been an embarrassment without those two. Canek gave Rayo a low blow
for cheap ending which is funny since it’s not like these guys are coming back
and you’re working a return. Canek was hurting so bad he used a child for
assistance to hold onto as he walked to the ring and was immobile. Rayo is way
overweight and can’t do much. El Satanico and Solar may have gotten a great
reaction when they did a singles match a couple of months ago, but this fan base
pretty much whistled and didn’t care. There were hardcore fans and older fans who
remember them that were polite but most were disinterested and you could see
people walking around during the match. Negro Navarro was said to have aged a lot
in recent years. The Blue Panther & Negro Casas & Virus won over Mano Negra &
Navarro & Super Astro was said to be said because the Casas team still works
regularly. Navarro and Astro couldn’t do anything and even the Panther/Navarro
matwork that would have been awesome a few years just wasn’t there as Panther was
tired and Navarro simply couldn’t do it anymore. Casas was fine, but there is a
big difference in him from a few years ago, but for 59, people still love him and
he can get by. There was a Mano Negra retirement ceremony after his match.
Satanico beat Solar via submission. The match with current guys in the semi saw
Bandido’s first appearance since early in his career taming with Volador Jr. &
Valiente to beat Ultimo Guerrero & Cuatrero & Forastero. Guerrero trained Bandido
originally but Bandido left CMLL figuring he’s be stuck in prelims forever so
decided to make a name on his own. Bandido isn’t back this week because of the
ROH PPV, but will be back later this month

The 12/13 show has Caristico & Negro Casas & Valiente vs. Soberano Jr. & Euforia
& Ultimo Guerrero. It’s mixed tecnicos and rudos with Soberano on the same side
as his father. Angel de Oro & Diamante Azul & Niebla Roja vs. Gran Guerrero &
Forastero & Cuatrero and Stuka Jr. vs. Felino

On the 12/7 show at Arena Coliseo, in a trios match, Caristico beat CMLL
middleweight champion Cuatrero in two straight falls to set up a title match on
12/14. Caristico is the current NWA middleweight champion so he’s going for
double world titles

Universo 2000 Jr. won the second block of the Copa Juniors on 12/10 at Arena
Mexico. The order of elimination was Principe Odin Jr., Bengala, Halcon Suriano
Jr., Magnus, Espanto Jr., Robin, Black Panther and Stigma. This left Universo and
Esfinge with Universo winning. Universo faces the A block winner, Guerrero Maya
Jr., on the 12/17 show.

AAA: This is Flamita’s explanation for being gone from AAA and not being on the
12/4 Mexico City final show of Lucha Capital. He said he missed TripleMania Regia
on 12/1 in Monterrey due to a family situation and he was unable to tell the
promotion all day. AAA believed he had left for CMLL. He said he was in Mexico
City for his match on 12/4, but was told he was no longer being booked and had
been taken off all future shows. He was offered a good contract by ROH and said
he hoped he and Bandido could go after the tag team titles. With his new
guaranteed money contract, his situation in Mexico isn’t as important, and this
would also take him away from the U.S. indie scene. He has been pulled from his
AAA bookings but he said that he wants to find a way to get back to AAA and that
he’s not going to CMLL

I saw the Kenny Omega vs. Dragon Lee match which aired on televison in Monterrey
over the weekend as apart of the deal for Multimedios to sponsor the show and
that it couldn’t stream live. The match was excellent. The thing is that they
were not doing Lucha Libre, but more an American or a little of a Japanese style
version. I think if that match was on an AEW PPV or a New Japan card people would
call it just below a match of the year, or maybe with the right crowd a match of
the year contender. It was hard to gauge the crowd. They weren’t quiet, but it
was an outdoor stadium and it wasn’t mic’d well, but it felt like a hot world
title match and the crowd was more into Omega as an international star in
Northern Mexico than in places farther from the border. Lee literally did
everything he’d do in a major New Japan title match. Lee’s first tope and the
only actual dive of the match believe it or not saw Omega do this great sell
flipping over backwards over the barricade into the crowd. Omega blocked the
first Lee fly over the top huracanrana to the floor and power bombed him on the
apron. There was a great spot where Lee ducked a lariat into a Canadian
Destroyer. The match story was Omega kept setting up the One Winged Angel and Lee
kept escaping. Omega also did the Croyt’s Wrath from that position until finally
hitting it on the sixth try for the pin in 19:24. I’d say ****½ on television but
it looked like a match you’d go slightly higher live but the same match on an AEW
PPV show based on how the crowd would react differently to the flow (non Lucha is
always tough in Mexico) and it would be higher. The problem previously with Lee
in AEW is that he was a New Japan/CMLL guy but that barrier isn’t there now, as I
don’t think New Japan would stop him, although it is possible they might, and AEW
works with AAA, so that channel should be open.

They did a show on 12/6 in Tijuana that drew about 2,000 fans built around the
idea of Rush and Psycho Clown being on opposite sides. That wasn’t a special
draw. Flamita was pulled as expected and Jake Atlas was advertised but not there.

DRAGON GATE: Final Gate, the company’s last major show, s 12/15, takes place at 3
a.m. Eastern from the Fukuoka International Center with the live English language
commentary. The Dragon Gate big shows can be daunting for people who don’t follow
the product, but I expect Larry Dallas and Lenny Leonard to give great
explanations of who people are and storyline and their big shows are filled with
good matches and great matches with charismatic characters, even if not
international names. The lineup from the opener is Kai & Kagetora vs. Yuki
Yoshioka & Keisuke Okuda, a 10 man Battle Royal, Kazma Sakamoto vs. Dragon Dia,
Naomichi Marufuji from NOAH vs. Hollywood Stalker Ichikawa (comedy jobber),
Ultimo Dragon & Ryo Saito & Yasushi Kanda vs. Masato Yoshino & Dragon Kid &
Masaaki Mochizuki, Kaito Ishida defends the Open the Brave Gate title against
Jason Lee, The Strong Machines defend the Open the Triangle Gate titles against
Hyo & Takashi Yoshida & Diamante and Kzy & Susumu Yokosuka & Genki Horiguchi,
Eita & Big R Shimizu defend the Open the Twin Gate titles against Yamato & BxB
Hulk and Ben K defends the Open the Dream Gate title against Naruki Doi

Lee challenged Ishida after Ishida turned on MaxiMuM to join R.E.D

Shun Skywalker has taken a leave of absence after his 12/4 loss to Ben K and has
been removed from the schedule

Kento Kobune and Taketo Kamei debut on12/22. Both have been in the ring at house
shows doing training matches before the shows start and Kamei is said to be a
standout

Dragon Gate expert Jae Church noted that the top candidates for Rookie of the
Year in the Observer award from here are Dia and Strong Machine J. J, who debuted
on 4/10, making him far more of a true rookie than most of this year’s
candidates, was pushed from the start since the Strong Machines are doing an
undefeated gimmick as trios champions, and he’s also said to already be one of
the best promos in the company

12/18 at Korakuen Hall at 4:15 a.m. also goes live in English with Dallas solo.
Main event is a four-way trios match with unusual partners drawn at random with
Eita & Kota Minoura & Kzy vs. Yamato & Gamma & Horiguchi vs. Kagetora & Hyo & ?
Vs. Ichikawa & Don Fujii & Yosuke Santa Maria.

ALL JAPAN: Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa won the 43rd year end Real World League
tournament, beating Jake Lee & Naoya Nomura in a final match. Ishikawa pinned
Nomura to win with a giant slam. They were the top two point getters, both going
6-3 in the round robin. The tournament ended on 12/9 at Korakuen Hall before a
non-sellout of 1,399 fans when Ishikawa pinned Nomura in 19:45 with a giant slam.
Lee & Nomura clinched the final spot beating Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi in
17:28 when Lee pinned Miyahara with a back suplex. They are really pushing the
idea that Lee is getting on Miyahara’s level and will be his big rival in 2020
after failing to beat him thus far in Triple Crown matches. Miyahara will defend
against Lee on 1/3 at Korakuen Hall. Lee is due for the big win and Miyahara is
chasing an all-time title defense record so this is about as big a match as the
company could put on right now, and Miyahara always delivers in these situations.
Suwama & Ishikawa, based on winning the tournament, will get a world tag title
shota at Zeus & Sai on Jan. 2 at Korakuen Hall. Going into the final day, Suwama
& Ishikawa and Tajiri & Kai both had ten points, so the winner advanced to the
finals, where Suwama had Tajiri in a choke and the ref stopped it only 2:24. So
the storyline was that Suwama & Ishikawa were fresh while Lee & Nomura went into
the finals after a war. The other tournament bouts on the show were Yoshitatsu &
Joel Redman over Takashi Yoshida & Gianni Valletta and Zeus & Ryoji Sai over
Parrow & Odinson

So after Suwama & Ishikawa had 7-3 with 14 points and Nomura & Lee at 6-4 and 12
points in the first two spots, the rest of the final standings were: 3. Tajiri &
Kai and Joe Doering & Jun Akiyama with ten points; 5. Zeus & Sai with nine; 6.
Yoshida & Valletta, Parrow & Odinson, Miyahara & Aoyagi and Yoshitatsu & Redman
with eight; and 10. Daisuke Sekimoto & the Bodyguard with three after having to
forfeit their last several bouts when Bodyguard tore his quadriceps

In the tournament, 12/7 in Kitamoto saw Tajiri & Kai beat Doering & Akiyama in
5:29 akiyama in 6:29 when Tajiri cradled Akiyama, and Zeus & Sai beat Suwama &
Ishikawa in 20:13 when Sai pinned Ishikawa

Besides the tag title match, the Jan. 2 Korakuen Hall show has a Battle Royal and
the semifinals of the jr. title tournament. 1/3 has Miyahara vs. Lee and the
finals of the jr. title tournament.

PRO WRESTLING NOAH: A correction from last week. The NOAH 1/4 show card listed is
an evening show that goes head-to-head with the Tokyo Dome card, and is still
selling well. NOAH does have an afternoon show on 1/5 at Korakuen Hall before the
Tokyo Dome show.

NEW JAPAN: They announced U.S. shows for 1/24 in St. Petersburg, 1/26 in
Nashville, 1/27 in Raleigh, 1/30 in Miami and 2/1 in Atlanta. They are running
800 to 3,000 seat concert theaters like the Coca Cola Roxy in Atlanta and St.
Petersburg Coliseum. No word on who will be there but these will be split crew
shows meaning much of the top talent won’t be there, since the Japanese New
Beginning tour stars 1/25

For Fantastica Mania, New Japan World will be running five live shows in 11 days.
They air the 1/10 show from Osaka, only in Japanese, and then 1/16, 1/17, 1/19
and 1/20 at Korakuen Hall, all shows with 4:30 a.m. Eastern time starts

New Japan is copying the CMLL tradition with the first-ever New Japan
bodybuilding contest on 12/20 before the show at Korakuen Hall. It’s funny with
Vince McMahon and Paul Levesque being such bodybuilding fans that WWE never did
it. They said Hiroshi Tanahashi, Taiji Ishimori, Sho, Yoh and Toa Henare would
enter. Ishimori has won actual contests in the past and Sho has been in fitness
contests where bodybuilding has been part of the contests, so in theory you’d
favor them for first and second respectively. Henare is not a guy you would
equate with bodybuilding, but he’s dropped weight on this tour and looks great
Many of the American Young Lions as well as Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Desperado, Taiji
Ishimori, El Phantasmo, Rocky Romero and Ryusuke Taguchi worked on shows as part
of the Chara Expo in Anaheim, CA on 12/7 and 12/8.

HERE AND THERE: Robert Bedard, who wrestled as Rene Goulet and Sgt. Jacques Goulet
of the French Legionaries tag team, passed away back on 5/25 at the age of 86,
but word just got out this past week after a report by Barry Rose, which was
later confirmed with a death notice from that date. The WWE, where he worked as a
road agent through 1997, was not even aware of this. Bedard started wrestling in
1957 in Quebec, but only had a few matches each year there. In 1962, he had one
of his rare matches with Mad Dog Vachon, who told him he should go to the U.S.
and start wrestling. He didn’t know where to go, so Vachon called up Wally Karbo
and he started in the AWA in 1963, and worked there on-and-off through 1969, and
again fairly regularly from 1972 through 1976, with the last few years as Sgt.
Jacques Goulet of the French Legionaries . He was billed from Nice, France and
worked all over the world. He worked mostly lower on cards or in the middle, but
was the surprising winner of the 1981 MSG Tag Team tournament in Japan with Andre
the Giant as his partner, beating Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami in the finals.
In a trivia note, he was in the first-ever WWF match on the USA Network, losing
to Tito Santana. In 1972, he had Ric Flair’s second match. In 1974, he went to
Indiana for Dick the Bruiser as part of the French Legionaries tag team with Sgt.
Don Fargo. Fargo ended up leaving and Zarnoff LeBeouff, a bodybuilder from
Quebec, replaced him. They held the tag titles there. He also held the WWWF world
tag team titles for two months at the end of 1971 into early 1972 with Karl Gotch
as his partner. They were the transition team between heels Luke Graham & Tarzan
Tyler, the first champions, and King Curtis Iaukea & Baron Mikel Scicluna. That
wasn’t the original plan, as when they beat Graham & Tyler, Vince McMahon Sr.,
told them they would be champions for one year. But Gotch then got an offer to
work for New Japan Pro Wrestling when they started up in early 1972, so he gave
notice. With the team broken up, Goulet stayed a few more months, but he was just
working prelims, and went back to the AWA. He wrestled regularly through 1986, by
which time he was being groomed for an agent position. He remained with the
company another 11 years in that role

Bobby Fulton (James Hines, 59), best known as part of the tag team The Fantastics
with Tommy Rogers, and later brother George (Jackie Fulton) in the 80s and 90s,
was diagnosed this past week with throat cancer. The Fantastics were the most
underrated working tag team of the era. In 1988, the feud between The Fantastics
vs. The Midnight Express in Jim Crockett Promotions won feud of the year. The
teams also feuded in Mid South and World Class. Fulton & Terry Taylor were
originally put together in Georgia for a short-lived run as The Fantastic Ones,
an attempted knock off of The Fabulous Ones, Stan Lane & Steve Keirn, who were
big draws in Tennessee, when Bill Dundee came in from Tennessee to book Georgia
cities when the Georgia main stars were touring other parts of the country. He
and Rogers became The Fantastics in Mid South to feud with the Midnight Express
after the Rock & Roll Express left the territory. While they were a great team,
they couldn’t follow the Rock & Roll Express. In Dallas, where The Fantastics
went before the Rock & Roll Express, they got over big and the Rock & Roll
Express never got over as big and didn’t stay. For Crockett, they reprised the
feud after Midnight vs. Rock & Roll. The Midnight vs. Rock & Roll feud did bigger
business, but the matches with the Fantastics were actually better, even though
by that point Stan Lane had replaced Dennis Condrey on the Midnight team

Britt McHenry, a FOX News personality, filed a lawsuit against both the network
and George Murdoch, the pro wrestler known as Brodus Clay and Tyrus, who she at
one time did a show with. She had claimed Murdoch sexually harassed her last
year, with text messages that included threats of dick picture and comments about
her butt and legs. Her story had gotten news play months ago, and Murdoch is
still with FOX Sports. It’s notable considering they dumped Bill O’Reilly, the
biggest drawing star in cable at the time. Murdoch does a streaming show which
FOX advertises regularly during Smackdown. McHenry claimed FOX refused to
investigate her claims, shunned, and refuse to allow her to appear as a guest on
other FOX News shows. She said she went to Human Resources and management, but
instead of getting rid of him, they gave him his own show. She said Murdoch
showed investigators photos and texts of her cleavage and nearly bare breasts and
text matches that showed her flirting with him but she said the photos and texts
were doctored and not really her. She had filed a complaint two months ago to the
New York State Division of Human Rights. Tom Clare, the lawyer for Murdoch said
he would be filing a defamation lawsuit against her, claiming she has waged a
smear campaign against him in the media. McHenry and Murdoch first met at a work
dinner in August 2018 and were then put together as co-hosts of a show on the Fox
Nation streaming platform called “Un-PC.” She claimed before the show started, in
October 2018, he began sending her explicit text messages and started making
inappropriate comments to her. One message was “I love pony tails and braids and
you look amazing and it’s a real turn on.” She claimed when she brought her
boyfriend to a taping on New Year’s Eve that Murdoch was hostile and aggressive
toward him. She claimed she complained three times to management about him, and
filed complaints about him to Executive Producer Jennifer Rauchet, including once
when she claimed he cursed at her on-set and made her cry. According to the
lawsuit, Rauchet did nothing and instead told McHenry to stop complaining and
walked out on her conversation, telling her that she was replaceable and that FOX
News had never wanted her to begin with. After a fourth complaint, Human
Resources got back to her and an investigator asked her what she had done to
provoke Murdoch, and that the text messages were not sexual harassment because
there was no clear intent in the messages to have sex with her. Murdoch was
pulled from the show and given her new show, “Nuff Said,” and he would get to
promote it on popular FOX News shows while they stopped promoting her show. FOX
hired an outside defense firm to investigate and they found no evidence of sexual
harassment. She claimed an investigator told her that she was leading him on and
said she had to realize she was really, really pretty. FOX lawyers found a text
message from her with “nearly bare breasts shown” and that she had withheld them
from FOX when she made the claims. She claimed the photos were doctored

Warrior Wrestling has one of the biggest independent shows of the year on 12/13
at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago with Brian Cage vs. El Phantasmo for
their championship, Minoru Suzuki vs. Tom Lawlor, Will Ospreay & Amazing Red &
Rocky Romero vs. Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel, Ace Austin vs.
Templario vs. Black Christian vs. Carlos Romo for the Impact X title, Aerostar
vs. Taurus vs. Drago vs. Rey Horus vs. Gringo Loco, Michael Elgin vs. Sam Adonis,
Lance Archer vs. Brian Pillman Jr., Holidead vs. Savanna Stone, Jake Atlas vs.
Robert Anthony and an appearance by Kurt Angle. It will air as an iPPV on FITE
TV.

MLW: There are meetings going on this week that they are saying could have a major
affect on the company’s future. We do know they’ve been in talks with a streaming
service. It would make sense that the sports streaming services out there would
consider pro wrestling, but with WWE having its own network and AEW with Turner,
and New Japan having its own network as well (plus there are time slot issues
with New Japan), nobody is big enough. Still, ESPN+ has PFL and DAZN has Combate
Americas and MLW has the potential to be as high on the food chain as they are

Teddy Hart was quietly released. It was said to be an accumulation of things

dating back to June, including a resistance to him wanting offered help and
conduct issues including no-shows and crashing other shows. They had planned a
Hart Foundation vs. Contra feud after a fireball angle with Hart scheduled to
return in January. He asked for his release just before Thanksgiving, and then
retracted the request. Then he asked for a release a second time. Ultimately the
company decided on 12/5 to release him. Hart did threaten to show up to the show
without being booked and evidently something happened with he and management
where there were things said that led to Bauer saying he’d call the police if
Hart came to the show because of concerns with what he had been saying. Hart
didn’t come. There were on-line allegations regarding Hart relating to the
disappearance of a women he once dated, although they had broken up and MLW
officials said they talked with authorities who told them Hart was not a person
of interest in the case so this wasn’t there issue and didn’t directly play into
the release. He had lost his middleweight title to Myron Reed and wasn’t booked
on the 12/5 show in New York to sell the fireball angle

With him gone, while there will be an affiliation when needed with Davey Boy
Smith Jr. and Brian Pillman Jr., they will be mostly pushed as singles

The Opera Cup, which Stu Hart owned and was donated by Smith and Teddy Hart and
the company paid to restore it using Betteridge Jewels of Greenwich, CT, will be
used for an annual tournament. Pillman and Richard Holliday look to have been
elevated coming off the 12/5 New York show

ACH started here on that show but has now announced his retirement from
wrestling. According to those there, he seemed in a great mood, left happy and
they were looking to push him because the guy does have real talent. Two days
later, first thing in the morning, Albert Hardie Jr., wrote on Twitter: “I hate
pro wrestling. I hae you shity (sic) fans that think you know it all! More
importantly I hate the snakes in this industry. None of y’ll would never say
anything about me to me. Al of y’all ca go screw yourselves. I’m canceling my
shows and I’m quitting pro wrestling.” Those in the promotion noted to us their
surprise, that it’s not an angle and that they are no longer booking him. WWE was
planning on giving him a big push on television as one of its rising NXT stars,
but a series of out-of-the ring incidents led to him being gone from Orlando.
Before he came back he went crazy on the company over the T-shirt incident. The
t-shirt complaint was very valid, never should have happened. The company did
respond. He had the right to be upset. But everything since then publicly has
been concerning and hopefully he can find his peace

Kevin Von Erich will be appearing regularly on the TV show next year. They shot
stuff from him and will use him to cut promos for his sons when needed

Matt Ryan is working backstage as a producer and in the office. He had worked
with ROH in the past

Cima, T-Hawk and Lindaman are scheduled for 2/1 in Philadelphia. L.A. Park will
also be back on that show

Ikuro Kwon is out with a knee injury

David Sahadi is still working here. We reported his going to Impact, which he
did, but he’s working for both companies right now.

MLW and Impact are going head-to-head in early January, with MLW doing a TV
taping with the Von Erichs on 1/11 and Impact doing a PPV show with Sami Callihan
vs. Tessa Blanchard the next night. MLW has announced Lawlor vs. Ross Von Erich
and Jimmy Havoc vs. Mance Warner in a no rope barbed wire match
They did the Opera Cup tournament as the big thing on the 12/5 show at the
Melrose Ballroom in New York before a sellout of 900 fans. Davey Boy Smith Jr.
beat Brian Pillman Jr. to win it. I believe the Opera Cup they used was owned by
Stu Hart. Dr. Tacks beat Maverick. Brian Pillman Jr. beat TJP in the first round
of the Opera Cup. Smith Jr. beat Low Ki in another Opera Cup match, which was
said to be the best match of the night. Timothy Thatcher advanced beating Richard
Holliday. The final first round match saw Alexander Hammerstone beat MJF. They
are usually tag partners in The Dynasty but Hammerstone was a big babyface to the
crowd. Tom Lawlor, now a heel, beat a wrestler he brought out called Rip Von
Erich. He ripped on both the fans and the Von Erichs. Lawlor claimed Rip was the
son of Lance Von Erich, who was the fake Von Erich in the 80s. Lawler beat him
quickly and then Ross & Marshall Von Erich came out to confront him. Mikey Mondo
& Kenny Doane of the former Spirit Squad them jumped the Von Erichs. They joined
with Lawlor and are now the Filthy Squad. Reed beat Lindaman to retain the
middleweight title in what was said to be a fun match. Reed, Kotto Brazil and
Jordan Oliver were in the ring. They’re called Injustice and played a video. They
refused to leave the ring. King Mo Lawal came out to have them leave. They
surrounded him until ACH ran in. This turned into a tag match with Lawal & ACH
over Brazil & Oliver. Lawal won with a double kneebar submission. Pillman Jr.
beat Thatcher in the first semifinal of the tournament. Smith Jr. beat
Hammerstone in the other. They did a segment where all the managers were trying
to recruit Gino Medina, who they are trying to make into a Gino Hernandez type
star. It’s a gimmick WWF did in the 80s for both Randy Savage and later Bam Bam
Bigelow. First Salina de la Renta came out. Konnan came out and accused de la
Renta of trying to use sex to recruit him. But he said that Medina’s father and
him had a relationship. Medina’s father was El Sanguinario who was a top heel in
AAA in the 90s. MJF, Holliday and Hammerstone came out to recruit him saying
they’re the only ones successful with MJF wearing his AEW diamond ring. Medina
shook hands with Konnan, and then attacked him and joined The Dynasty, which is
MJF”s group. Ross & Marshall Von Erich beat Mondo & Doane in a quick match. Jimmy
Havoc beat Mance Warner in a blindfold match. These matches used to suck but
today with fans into irony and silliness, this worked. Priscilla Kelly interfered
and kicked Warner low leading to the win. Havoc and Kelly left together. Medina
beat Savio Vega in a street fight due to distraction from the rest of The
Dynasty. The Contra Unit of Jacob Fatu & Simon Gotch & Josef Samael beat Cima &
Lindaman & Shigehiro Irie when Fatu pinned Cima after a moonsault in a short
match. The final match saw Smith Jr. beat Pillman Jr. to win the Opera Cup. It
was well wrestled but with two Hart Foundation guys facing each other it didn’t
have a lot of heat.

ROH: Final Battle will be starting two hours earlier than usual, at 7 p.m. Eastern
on 12/13. The first hour will air free and then the PPV portion will be from 8-11
p.m. Dalton Castle & Joe Hendry vs. Silas Young & Josh Woods and Kenny King vs.
Rhett Titus have been added to that show. The rest of the card is Rush vs. PCO
for the ROH title, Mark & Jay Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham for the
tag titles, Shane Taylor vs. Dragon Lee for the TV title, Matt Taven vs. Vincent,
Mark Haskins vs. Bully Ray street fight, Angelina Love vs. Maria Manic, Marty
Scurll & Flip Gordon vs. Flamita & Bandido and Dan Maff vs. Jeff Cobb. Ticket
sales are very weak for the event, only a few hundred were told at last look.
That’s been the case everywhere but it’s a different story when it involves the
biggest show of the year

They are in talks with Luke Guyett, better known as Slex on the Australian scene,
to come in

Devon “Crowbar” Storm, 45, will be on the 12/15 show in Philadelphia. The lineup
for that show is Cobb & Maff vs. PCO & Scurll, Kenny King vs. Rhett Titus, Alex
Shelley vs. Jonathan Gresham, Rey Horus vs. Gordon, Bateman vs. Tracy Williams,
Haskins vs. Hallowicked and Nicole Savoy vs. Sumie Sakai

Brody King, who suffered a knee injury in late October, is not expected to be
ready at this point for Bound for Glory or Philadelphia

Regarding Scurll, obviously from the BTE tease (and some would say the Jericho
tease although “Marty” in his list of guys he wouldn’t defend against could mean
a number of different things), the betting line would be AEW. What we do know is
that he’s agreed to at least one indie date that both sides have agreed to keep
secret for now, but that deal would indicate right now he’s not planning on
renewing here. He also posted a photo of himself with Luke Harper with the idea
of them being the Villain Club. Scurll owns the rights to the Villain Club name.
The indie group he’s working with would not be allowed generally speaking if he
signed a new ROH contract, but he’d probably be able to do it for now with an AEW
deal

Rush has a very ambitious travel schedule this week. He’s working 12/12 in Mexico
City, 12/13 in Baltimore, 12/14 in Ciudad Madero and then 12/15 in Philadelphia.
It’s going to be quite ambitious getting to Ciudad Madero and back to
Philadelphia for an early Sunday show

Brian Zane debuts on the broadcast team handling interviews this week.

IMPACT: Added to the 1/12 Hard to Kill PPV in Dallas is Ethan Page & Josh
Alexander defending the tag titles against Willie Mack & Rich Swann, and Michael
Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards. They join Sami Callihan vs. Tessa Blanchard for the
Impact title, Taya Valkyrie vs. Jordynne Grace vs. ODB for the Knockouts title,
Ace Austin vs. Trey Miguel for the X title (I think they are doing an angle where
Austin is trying to hit on Miguel’s mom) and RVD vs. Brian Cage

Larry D, an Ohio independent wrestler, has signed. Scott D’Amore offered D a

contract on their FITE TV show on 12/7 after he lost to Elgin. The 12/7 was
supposed to also air on the Impact Plus streaming service but there were
technical issues. In the top matches, Jessicka Havok beat Knockouts champion Taya
Valkyrie via DQ for a chair shot. Edwards beat X champion Ace Austin in a non-
title match with a neckbreaker on the legs of an upside down table. Their
storyline was based on Austin hitting on Edwards’ estranged wife Alisha, but
Alisha hearing Austin brag to other wrestlers that he already slept with her
(which he hadn’t) and was about to dump her, and her contacting her husband to
destroy him when they were in a hotel room together with the idea they were about
to have sex. This led to Eddie & Alisha getting back together. The main event saw
Sami Callihan beat Swann after several piledrivers to keep the title. Since the
show was in Ohio, Callihan was the big babyface

They had a Twitch show on 12/8 from Belleville, MI, where Austin pinned Dezmond
Xavier in an X title match that was described as slower paced then you’d expect
and heavy on the striking. Edwards beat Mad Man Fulton via DQ when The Crist
Brothers interfered. This led to Edwards & Swann & Willie Mack (who made the save
for Edwards) beating The Crist Brothers & Fulton when Edwards pinned Dave. Elgin
beat Brian Cage in a mach people were raving about. Tons of near falls. Elgin was
bleeding from the mouth. Cage wanted to shake hands after. I was told they really
should show this match on their TV show. Callihan beat Rhino to keep the title in
a street fight after throwing powder in his eyes and kicking him low. Lots of
weapon usage including Callihan stapling Rhino in the chest and leg and Rhino
stapling Callihan in the groin.
AEW: The next PPV will be 2/29, avoiding major competition, in Chicago at the
Wintrust Arena, the home of DePaul University basketball, which with a PPV set up
can probably hold about 8,000 fans. Chicago was chosen because much of the talent
was already going to be part of the C2E2 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo that
weekend. AEW will have a major presence at the Expo. They seem to be doing very
slow building top programs. Those are Chris Jericho vs. Jon Moxley for the AEW
title, MJF vs. Cody and Kenny Omega vs. Adam Page. Where they stand right now is
Jericho has asked Moxley to join the Inner Circle and on or around 1/1 Moxley
will have an answer. On 1/1, in Jacksonville, MJF will list his stips to accept a
match with Cody. Omega vs. Page has been very subtle with them now working as a
tag team but having small spots where there are problems

There will be no AEW or NXT on Christmas. On 1/1, AEW is running from

Jacksonville against major bowl games but NXT is taking the week off. Advance
ticket sales for most of the shows are solid, with probably mostly the same 3,500
to 5,000 type crowds each week going forward, aside from 12/18 in Corpus Christi,
1/8 in Southhaven, MS (Memphis, five days after WWE runs a Smackdown show there)
and Cleveland which are softer

Brandi Runnels will deliver a keynote speech at the NATPE convention on 1/22 in
Miami, where all the major television executives attend and where people shop
around their televison shows. Her speech is called “Building a Challenger Brand
from the Ground up: The Rise of AEW.” The speech will be about how AEW plans to
compete with WWE and will include a Q&A. Tony Schiavone will also be part of the
presentation..

Chris Jericho on his podcast this week talked about the forming of the Inner
Circle. He said Tony Khan came up with a name for the group that he didn’t like,
and he came up with then name FIST, thought it would make for cool merchandise,
but Khan didn’t like that name. Jericho had used the term inner circle in a BTE
episode so the Young Bucks came up with that name and Jericho liked it. They
wanted Pentagon & Fenix in he group but Jericho thought they were too much like
super heroes for Mexicans and wanted a more ruthless type of team, so Santana &
Ortiz fit better. The company suggested Anthony Agogo, an Olympic medalist in
boxing that they are training, for the enforcer role. Jericho said he wanted
somebody physically bigger which was where Jake Hager fit in

Kris Statlander and Big Swole have signed officially for the women’s division.
Swole (Heather Monroe) is the wife of Cedric Alexander

The top match on Dark this week, Omega vs. Kip Sabian, would be ****. This was
Sabian doing everything he could to have his best match possible and having the
advantage of working with Omega and his great timing of when to do what and a
live crowd that sees Omega as a major superstar. It is notable that while he
hasn’t done promos and while he had the great TV match with Pac, because Jericho
and Cody have been the focal points of television, Omega doesn’t feel like a
great TV star. But his in-building reactions are that of a major superstar

The reason the 12/11 show was booked in Dallas was because the NFL Owners meeting
was in Dallas on that same day and Tony Khan had to attend the meeting on a
Wednesday and still have a television show to run that same day

Alex Reynolds & John Silver have signed deals here. It looks like they are being
groomed to join the Dark Order, or at least Reynolds is

BTE this week opened with a ratings spoof. Actually it was making fun of
reporters who, after NXT had more viewers for two straight weeks (this was filmed
before the ratings for 12/4 came in) wrote AEW off as dead. There were people who
actually did that. Matt and Nick were racing and Matt was ahead and then he
collapsed, went down and acted like he was dying, saying he was winning for seven
straight laps and Nick passed him the last two and he was simply done and gave
up. Just before he was about to die, he said, “we’re still winning in the key
demos.” Kenny Omega then told him to get up, looked in the camera and said, this
is not a sprint, it’s a marathon (actually Paul Levesque was the first to use
that line) and said “This is a war.” Then as Matt got up to continue the race,
Omega said “We’re dead aren’t we. We’re so dead. Game over. What were we
thinking?” Jungle Boy was asked what hair care products he uses and he said
whatever you get at Costco. Luchasaurus said that you should get sponsored. The
Best Friends asked the Jurassic Experience not to hug anymore since that’s their
gimmick. MJF and Scorpio Sky were talking about their new favorite TV show, “90
Day Fiancé.” They were discussing if the show was real or worked. MJF wanted Sky
to kiss his ring. The show ended with Matt, Nick & Omega talking about how hot
the crowd was last week in Champaign, IL, but it didn’t come across. Nick said it
was a satellite issue in Atlanta. The feed that went to TNT, which TNT then sends
all over the world, had sound problems but the actual building sound from their
own production. Michael Nakazawa teased joining the Dark Order and then when the
show ended, somebody took the Dark Order’s number so a mystery guy is joining the
group. Earlier in the show, Nakazawa said he wanted to wrestle more on TV and
there was a mention of all the TV time the women get. Omega said we’re looking
for body guys so start lifting heavy. So he just started lifting and Hikaru Shida
came up and was curling more weight than he was

AEW announced TV tapings on 2/5 in Huntsville, AL and 2/12 in Austin, TX

AEW is attempting to trademark the phrase “Join the Revolution.

Notes from the 12/11 Dynamite show. This was a strong show, with a great main
event that almost didn’t happen. A big criticism has been seemingly unfocused
booking, but that was clearly not the case here. The show drew more than 4,700
with 4,500 paid. There was a technical issue as some Spectrum customers in the
Northeast were unable to access the show as the station went down in the early
part which will very slightly hurt the rating. The big story was the main event.
Nick Jackson had a bad case of the flu. He said that he went there, was shivering
and had body aches all day. Others noted to us that he was laying on the ground
really sick. Management told him to take the night off but he refused to do so
because the match was advertised and a key part of a long-term storyline. Santana
also had a jacked up back. You would have never had a clue as aside from looking
a little thinner, he performed at his best and they had a ****½ street fight
match doing nonstop big stuff that one person gave an NBA reference to it being
like the famous Michael Jordan flu game. The crowd was super hot live all the way
from the preshow match to the post show main event. The show started with a huge
pop as Vickie Guerrero came out to do commentary for Dark and did the “Excuse me”
to basically remind everyone who she was. The first match for Dark was Frankie
Kazarian & Scorpio Sky over Private Party. Both teams were over as faces and said
to be a fun all-action match with Kazarian the standout. Moxley pinned Alex
Reynolds to open the show with the idea of setting an AEW record with a :12 win
with the Paradigm shift. John Silver came in and he got the Paradigm Shift as
well. The Inner Circle all came out. The fans were swearing at Jericho so a lot
of this was cut out. Jericho told them to watch their language, which did get
more heat but also resulted in more sound edits. Jericho told Moxley they weren’t
going to jump him and talked about how Moxley is the other top guy here. He
talked about helping Moxley ten years ago when Moxley asked him for advice on how
to be a top star. He noted that they had beaten the hell out of each other in the
past, that Moxley had stolen his things and he hit Moxley with a potted plant. He
said he taught Moxley how to be a main event superstar. He said years later,
Moxley was unhappy about how things were and called Jericho and how he navigated
Moxley out of those waters and into AEW. He said Moxley repaid him by laying him
out at Double or Nothing which showed him he still had a chip on his shoulder,
but he’ll let that slide. He asked him to join the Inner Circle and not to make a
snap decision. He said he’ll wait until after the holidays and make the decision
then. He threw Moxley an Inner Circle T-shirt. He said with him in the Inner
Circle, they would control everything as the Purveyor (making fun of the word
Seth Rollins used) of Unscripted Violence and Le Champion together would be a
true paradigm shift. Fans were chanting “no” through all of this. Butcher (Andy
Williams) & Blade (Pepper Parks/Braxton Sutter) beat Cody & QT Marshall in 11:03.
This match was much better than it had any right to be. The story was that Cody
wanted them in a match so bad that he let them pick his partner. MJF did an inset
promo calling Cody an idiot and saying letting them pick his partner means he
picks the partner and he picked Marshall. The crowd was way into this match, and
in particular got way behind Marshall. Blade did a flip dive on him. Cody did a
moonsault block and an Oscutter on Blade. The Bunny (Allie) broke up Cody’s hot
tag with an eye rake. Marshall tagged himself in and did one of the ugliest
looking space flying tiger drops you’ll ever see, but the crowd loved just the
idea he’d try a move like that. He also did a crossroads on Blade and Cody did a
tope on Butcher. Butcher suplexed Marshall into a backstabber by Blade, called
the full deck, for the pin. Cody was still selling the beating on the floor when
Darby Allin came out and shook Cody’s hand, so it looks like Cody & Allin will
become a tag team for now and continue this program. Later interviews online were
pushing that Allin wanted to team with Cody in the tag match and also get a
singles rematch against Cody and Cody agreed to it. MJF came out for an interview
with Wardlow as his back-up. He called out one of the cable guys in production
for laughing at him when Cody made fun of him. He intimidated him and made him
kiss his ring. He did. Then MJF laid him out with crossroads. MJF then cut a
promo, first using a line from his hero Roddy Piper that you don’t throw rocks at
a man with a machine gun and when his mouth opens, his shots don’t miss. He said
Cody called him fake, but when he thinks of fake, he thinks of Cody, fake blonde
hair that looked like a cat pissed on it, shitty little lisp. He said he has a
few stipulations before he’ll wrestle Cody but he’s not telling anyone them in
Honkeyville, USA, and instead will in Jacksonville on 1/1. Alex Reynolds was
sitting on his bed in his hotel room and on the television screen was a Dark
Order recruiter telling him about hotel room service and stuff. The guy called
him a jobber. John Silver came in as well. So it looks like they’re joining the
Dark Order. Big Swole beat Emi Sakura in 10:31. This wasn’t good and went too
long. Hikaru Shida was at ringside so it looked like they were building Swole
(Heather Monroe) vs. Shida. To sell the power bomb from last week, ref Rick Knox
had kiniseo tape on his neck. Some of the early stuff when Sakura was doing her
moves like the rolling Romero special were good. When Swole was on offense, a lot
of it didn’t look good at all. She’s very green and this went long enough that we
could see it, but she also clearly has potential. Sakura brought in the mic
stand. She put Swole in an abdominal stretch and was singing into the mic stand
at the same time. Swole won with a forearm. Pac did an interview and wanted a
third match with Omega and would go to any lengths to get it. Omega & Page beat
Kip Sabian & Shawn Spears in 11:31. Tully Blanchard did a promo talking bout how
he’s testing out Sabian and looking for a partner for Spears to be like he and
Arn. Jim Ross then said that there’s never been a better tag team than Tully &
Arn. The match had a few signs of issues with Omega & Page. Omega went to high
ten him and Page wouldn’t do it. There was a funny spot where Sabian asked Justin
Roberts to open the ropes for him and then Sabian jumped over the top into the
ring instead. Blanchard wasn’t at ringside since they were doing an angle.
Penelope Ford was at ringside. She blocked Omega from doing the Terminator dive.
Ford did a huracanrana off the apron on Page and a handspring elbow. When she’s
just sticking to her spots she’s great, but it doesn’t come across when she has
to do a full match. But her stuff here was so good it’s almost like she’s a face.
It’s too bad Joey Janela won’t do the obvious program because playing off real
life is basic old school pro wrestling. The lights went out in the middle of the
match and Janela brought out Blanchard in a chair all tied up with his mouth
taped shut. Spears ran out of the match and attacked Janela so their program is
continuing. Omega hit the snap dragon on Sabian and blew a kiss at Ford. Sabian
was beaten but Page tagged himself in and hit the buckshot lariat for the pin.
Omega acted perplexed, but not mad, nor did he get mad Page got the pin since
they won the match. I always hate in these situations where you win and get mad
if you are a face, and he didn’t get mad. Omega went to hug Page for winning and
Page backed off. Brandi Rhodes did an interview. Melanie Cruise was with her with
her new haircut. She made remarks about Riho and also said they still want Kris
Statlander to join Nightmare Collective. Luchasaurus pinned Sammy Guevara in 6:27
with a tombstone pancake. Jericho was on commentary and put over his match with
Jungle Boy. He mentioned his name was Jack Perry and he was the son of the great
Luke Perry. Since that has never been said before, there must have been a lot of
viewers who aren’t hardcore fans doing a double take on that one. Jake Hager and
Chris Jericho came out to attack Luchasaurus. Jungle Boy made the save and used a
huracanrana on Jericho and Marko Stunt counted a three count pin. Jericho got his
mouth busted open in the brawl. Young Bucks beat Ortiz & Santana in 14:36 of a
wild street fight with the winners getting a title shot. It’s weird because
Private Party has beaten both of these teams. It would have made more sense if
the Dark match was a title match so that covered that base. It opened with a wild
brawl before the match with Guevara helping out Santana & Ortiz. Brandon Cutler
helped out the Young Bucks. They beat Cutler down and threw him through the
stage, the same bump Matt took a few weeks ago in his injury angle. Matt was
thrown off the stage but his fall was blocked by some guys. Santana used the
loaded sock on Nick. They did an Indy taker on the stage on Guevara to take him
out. Matt put Ortiz on a table and Nick came off the top of the set with an Arena
Mexico stage dive, but actually being a swanton through the table. Santana used
the loaded sock on both. Matt put on a Dallas Cowboys helmet for an easy pop and
speared both guys. Santana got the helmet, hit Matt with it and spit on the
Cowboys helmet for easy heat. Matt gave Santana two Northern Lights suplexes and
then did a third over the top rope and Santana went through a table. Ortiz then
backdropped Matt over the top rope and he went through a table. Ortiz did a tope
con giro on Nick and put him through a table. Matt did a plancha over the post on
Santana. Nick did a 450 on a garbage can on Ortiz. He went for the pin but Hager
pulled ref Rick Knox out of the ring. Given this was no DQ, this made more sense
than when they do this spot (it was a WWF favorite when Rock was young but they
dropped it except in no DQ matches because it made refs look stupid) usually here
or in New Japan. Nick went to kick Hager, who moved, and kicked Knox, so no ref.
Dustin Rhodes attacked Hager. Aubrey Edwards ran in to ref. They set up a Meltzer
driver on Ortiz, but Santana knocked Nick off the top rope and he flew backwards
and through another table. Matt’s triceps was all sliced up at this point. They
did the street sweeper on Matt but Nick pulled Edwards out of the ring to stop
the count. Ortiz hit Nick with four more shots with the sock. Matt pushed Santana
off the top rope when they went for another street sweeper and Santana went
through a table. Nick bulldogged Ortiz into two chairs. After a bunch of
superkicks, including Nick superkicking a chair into Ortiz’s face, they got the
pin with a Meltzer driver on a chair on Ortiz. The show ended with Kazarian &
Scorpio Sky with the belts in a face-off with the Bucks. Dark continued with
Britt Baker in a short match over local wrestler Machiko. They billed her from
Tulsa to make her a heel. Quick squash ending with the mandible claw. This had
the least reaction on the show. Statlander beat Bea Priestley with an axe kick.
The crowd at first was quiet but we’re told it was really good and the crowd was
doing the “This is awesome” chants. Statlander got over like a real star. Brandi,
Awesome Kong and Cruise were in the crowd trying to recruit Statlander, whose
gimmick is that she’s an alien. She does promos with the idea she’s from another
galaxy. Main event saw Pac & Jack Evans & Angelico over Chuck Taylor & Trent &
Orange Cassidy. Cassidy got one of the biggest reactions on the show. Everything
he did was over live. Pac made Taylor submit to the brutalizer. Cody then came
out with Taylor, Trent and Cassidy. They brought some kids into the ring. A kid
was dressed up like Cassidy and Cody let the kid pin him. Another kid said his
name was Brody. Cody said that Brody was now a free agent and “we should probably
sign that guy.” He probably meant Brodie Lee, but he could have meant Brody King.
And really, they should sign both. Cody spent 30 minutes after this taking photos
and talking to fans before security finally wanted to shut down the show.

UFC: In what came across as a classless move, UFC informed Liz Carmouche’s manager
on 12/5 that she was being released. Carmouche at the time was in Washington, DC,
promoting this weekend’s show capitalizing on her military background. Why she
was released is another question. Carmouche was ranked as the No. 4 contender in
the flyweight division. She was coming off a loss to champion Valentina
Shevchenko in what was a pretty bad fight, but she’s won four of her previous
five fights. The story is that the UFC matchmakers who made the call didn’t
realize she was doing P.R. work for the company at the time. Carmouche, who
served in the Marines during the Iraqi War, was brought in for a number of media
and promotional appearances along with a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington
National Ceremony. She told MMA Junkie that she was told she actually released
prior to coming but she didn’t know that. She was visiting people in the hospital
when she found out. She noted she took time off her regular job to do the
appearance for UFC and said she had paid her own way to go to Washington, DC.
What’s also tough for her is that normally a fighter like her would be able to
hook up with Bellator. Current champion in her weight class, Ilima-lei Macfarlane
said that her dream match would be against Carmouche. “I’m not planning on
fighting forever,” Macfarlane told MMA Junkie. “If I’m going to lose the belt I
want it to be to somebody who is my mentor and my main training partner and my
coach through this entire journey. That’s who I would want to lose to. But don’t
get me wrong, we would totally go out there to try to kill each other. It’s not
like I’m just going to hand it over. People always ask me my dream fight, I’m
like, `Liz. Hopefully she can come over.

Nothing is forever, but Carmouche also more than deserved the benefit of the
doubt in such decisions since she had worked so hard in promoting the first Ronda
Rousey fight which was no successful on PPV that it led to women being a regular
part of UFC. But that was under different management and anything pre-2016 means
nothing to this management. Carmouche was on Ariel Helwani’s show and said she
was in a car with UFC officials after having left a children’s hospital when she
was told she was cut. She said UFC told her that they are trying to make new
stars in the 125 pound division and that she’s beaten all the new stars they are
trying to make, so they said for the best of the division, they had to cut me
because that’s the only way she’d be able to get good fights. Okay, I do
understand you wouldn’t put Carmouche against someone being built for a title
shot, but she’s still a name who can be used to see if people who you aren’t sure
about have got it. There are people like that in every division and it’s not like
Carmouche is so dominant like say a Joseph Benavidez for all those years at
flyweight where he beats everyone but the champ and they don’t want to give him
another title shot. So, this still makes no sense

Former dominant bantamweight champion Renan Barao, who was never the same after
his title loss to T.J. Dillashaw, was cut this past week after his fifth straight
loss. Barao had an amazing 32 fight winning streak, which is pretty much unheard
of in this business, lasting from May 2005 until May 2014. At that point he was
considered an all-time great, and maybe the best pound-for-pound fighter in the
world. Dillashaw beating him at the time ranked with Matt Serra’s win over GSP
and Holly Holm’s win over Ronda Rousey as the biggest title upsets in history.
But he never recovered from it. He had issues making 135, but simply was too
small at 145. After losing his title, he went 2-7

After Mark Hunt’s lawsuit against the company was thrown out, UFC filed against
Hunt for reimbursement of expenses for a frivolous suit, claiming they had spent
$302,000 in legal costas and $86,000 in other costs to defend themselves in the
case

Dana White said, which is really kind of the obvious, that if Conor McGregor
beats Donald Cerrone on 1/18, and Khabib Nurmagomedov beats Tony Ferguson that
he’ll be trying to make a Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor lightweight title match next

The prelims before the 12/14 PPV show are on ESPN 2 rather than ESPN, because
ESPN will be airing the Heisman Trophy presentation against he first hour, and
Top Ranked boxing from Madison Square Garden, headlined by Terrence Crawford vs.
Mean Machine Egidijus Kavaliauskas for the WBO welterweight title against the
second hour

What is the deepest UFC show of the year is a PPV show on 12/14 from Las Vegas at
the T Mobile Arena. Tickets are not sold out, but the secondary market price to
get in is $123.50, so that’s a good demand price. The 13-fight show starts at
6:15 p.m. Eastern on ESPN+ with Punahele Soriano (6-0) vs. Oskar Piechota (11-2-
1), Viviane Araujo (8-1) vs. Jessica Eye (14-7), Brandon Moreno (15-5-1) vs. Ka
Kara France (20-7) and Chase Hooper (8-0-1) vs. Daniel Teymur (7-3). ESPN 2 will
have the prelims at 8 p.m., with Matt Brown (21-16) coming out of retirement
against Ben Saunders (22-12-2), Ian Henisch (13-2) vs. Omari Akhmedov (19-4-1),
Ketlen Vieira (10-0) vs. Irene Aldana (11-5) and Geoff Neal (12-2) vs. Mike Perry
(13-5). The PPV at 10 p.m has Petr Yan (13-1) vs. Urijah Faber (35-10), Marlon
Moraes (22-6-1) vs. Jose Aldo (28-5), Amanda Nunes (18-4) defends the women’s
bantamweight title against Germaine de Randamie (9-3), Max Holloway (21-4)
defends the featherweight title against Alexander Volkanovski (20-1) and Kamaru
Usman (15-1) defends he welterweight title against Colby Covington (15-1). There
are endless stories on this one. Usman vs. Covington matches two wrestlers with
fantastic cardio. Nobody, not even Tyron Woodley, has been able to stop Usman’s
wrestling. Covington is a big talker and this is a legit grudge match. Ultimately
it’ll come down to conditioning and probably will not end quickly. Holloway vs.
Volkanovski is a real top tier champion vs. legit No. 1 contender fight. Nunes is
pretty much now considered the greatest female fighter of all-time, given her
knockouts of Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, Holly Holm and Cris Cyborg, all in the
first round, and two wins over Valentina Shevchenko. She hasn’t lost in five
years and knocked out de Randamie in the first round in 2013. Aldo is moving to
135 and he used to have trouble cutting to 145. He looks very small and old in
photos, while Moraes is one of those guys who is a killer early in the fight, and
is the most dangerous finisher as a bantamweight. Yan would be heavily favored
against Faber, but this would be a fight that if somehow Faber could win, it’ll
turn his comeback into an amazing story. Neal vs. Perry is a fight that looks
great on paper. Vieira, if she beats Aldana, should be Nunes’ next opponent.
Araujo can be a player at 125 with a win over Eye. Brown, who is almost 39, comes
off a two-year retirement and he was one of the more popular undercard fighters
of several years back with his aggressive style and attitude

Diego Sanchez returns with a 2/15 fight against Michel Pereira, who has gone 1-1
in two UFC fights
Marlon Vera vs. Jimmie Rivera, Lauren Murphy vs. Andrea Lee (No. 6 vs. No. 8 at
women’s flyweight) and Mirsad Bektic vs. Dan Ige have has been added to the 2/8
show in Houston, which is the Jon Jones vs. Dominic Reyes PPV show

Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs. Yan Xiaonan has been added to the 2/22 show in
Auckland, New Zealand. Xiaonan has won her first four UFC fights while
Kowalkiewicz has lost her last three, but is the toughest test thus far for
Xiaonan of China.

OTHER MMA: DAZN reported that the Anthony Joshua vs. Eddie Ruiz rematch on 12/7
had 1.8 million streams out of their roughly eight million worldwide subscribers,
which is believed to be the all-time record for the service. They signed up
200,000 subscribers worldwide the day of, with the key market being in the U.S.
It also did 1.6 million PPV buys in the U.K., which is record levels for that
market, and this is come just a few weeks after the monster number Logan Paul vs.
KSI did in the U.K

Tito Ortiz beat Alberto El Patron in 3:10 in their PPV main event on the 12/7
Combate Americas show in McAllen, TX. It couldn’t have done any business and we
got virtually no feedback and even though Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell did 200,000
searches, they only did 40,000 buys and this didn’t even do 50,000 searches.
Ortiz took him down, got his back and choked him out. There were no significant
punches thrown. The match went almost exactly as you would think. The other pro
wrestler fighting on the show, Dulce Garcia, formerly Sexy Star, went to 2-0
beating Anmali Lopez with a guillotine in 2:47. It was Lopez’s first MMA fight.
The show aired on network television in Mexico so there is a chance it did big
television numbers in that country.

WWE: In a strange one, especially given no wellness test failures in seemingly

forever (none have been announced since 2016 but there have been failures in NXT
that were not announced since then), WWE announced on 12/10 that Robert Roode,
42, and Primo Colon, 36, were suspended for test failures. Colon hasn’t even
worked a show for the company since February and it wasn’t even clear if he was
still under contract as he’s been working for WWC in Puerto Rico. It’s possible
Roode’s failure was discovered a few weeks back, since they did the angle with
Reigns on the 11/29 Smackdown where he was injured and went out on a stretcher.
But Roode was still tentatively booked for TLC a week ago and I’m guessing that
changed because of the suspension being known. But it’s hard to say because when
it comes to failures and suspensions, even if management times them, literally
nobody is told about them besides the talent, Vince, maybe Paul Levesque but the
creative team has never known about them in advance in the past. Both are first
violations and are 30 day suspensions without pay. It is hard to believe that
nobody could fail on the main roster in more than three years and then two do
essentially at the same time, especially when we have so many failures in UFC,
where bodies aren’t nearly as important and when you face two year suspensions
and not 30 days on the first offense. A key difference is that in many real
sports, and UFC being one of them, TUE’s for testosterone are not allowed while
in WWE they are, so often when you see guys who you look at and think they have
to be on something (and there’s not a lock they are as there are people who have
the right genetics and are very disciplined) they may have TUE’s for
testosterone, essentially giving them free reign for at least testosterone use
and that’s the base of most cycles. At one point about a dozen years ago we were
told only a few were approved and nobody new would be, but talent there says
TUE’s are plentiful so that doctrine is no longer the case. Obviously WWE isn’t
completely serious with the policy as compared to UFC, and there’s an argument
that as not a real sport they don’t need to be. When Lesnar failed in UFC, it
came out that Lesnar’s contract specifically didn’t allow WWE to test him or
discipline him over test failures, and he’s arguably the biggest overall star and
the highest paid talent in the company. On the flip side, the reason Billy Gunn
got fired years ago, and he was just a coach, not a talent, was the company found
out he was suspended from the sport of powerlifting, which he was competing in at
the time, for failing a test for highly elevated testosterone levels

. In what was something of a surprise, and came out of nowhere with the parties
not knowing ahead of time it was happening, WWE released The Ascension, Harper
and Sin Cara on 12/8. Harper and Sin Cara had publicly asked to be released and
had been turned down. Harper asked back in April. We don’t know what the
situation was with The Ascension, but they haven’t worked a match since April.
Sin Cara came back from an injury, worked a few TV matches with Andrade, looked
really good in the first one, but then asked for his release. Harper wasn’t used
at all since April, but when the Bryan vs. Reigns program was dropped and turned
into Bryan & Reigns both feuding with Rowan, Harper was brought back for a tag
team match and build for such on PPV. But then Rowan was moved to Raw, ending
that program quickly and Harper stopped being used again. The Ascension, Konnor,
real name Ryan Parmeter, 39, was in WWE developmental from 2005 to 2007, then
released, but brought back in 2010. The first Ascension group was formed in 2011
in Florida, which was Parameter as Connor O’Brien, and later Konnor, along with
Kenneth Cameron (Thomas “Bram” Latimer), Orlando Colon and Raquel Diaz (Shaul
Guerrero, the wife of Aiden English and daughter of Eddy and Vickie). That group
had some starts and stops and changes. Eric Thompson, then known as Rick Victor,
39, and later Viktor, joined Konnor for this version of The Ascension in 2013,
and they went to the main roster in 2014. Parmeter’s thing he had going for him
was he was 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds, a big guy, in an era where just being big and
powerful didn’t get over. Viktor was the worker of the team, but never showed any
special charisma and they spent years on the main roster doing nothing. Sin Cara,
real name Jorge Arias, is 42. He wrestled as Mystico in Texas and Northern Mexico
before the more famous Mistico started in CMLL. He worked in TNA from 2004 to
2006 as Incognito, and came to WWF in 2009, and was called Hunico. When the
famous Mistico, who was the original Sin Cara, was fired, Hunico was given the
name and gimmick. Harper, real name Jonathan Huber, turns 40 next week. He’s a
talented big guy who signed in 2012 with WWE. He asked to leave and one would
think with his working ability that he’d be someone who would be a good fit for
AEW, but there has been no direct contact and can’t be for some time. His
situation is notable because his contract would have already expired, but they
added time to it because of the time he was out after wrist surgery. Huber’s deal
was up on 3/25, so even if not released, he was free to work anywhere after that
date. With the non-compete period, all four can’t work anywhere as far as
wrestling on televison until 3/8, but will continue to be paid their down side.
They probably can work certain independents, but nobody with television, prior to
that period and can do autograph signings prior to that period. But for Harper,
the release was basically almost like a formality since they can say they were
nice and released him early, but he was going to be a free agent anyway 17 days
later. He had already trademarked his old ring name Brodie Lee, and that is
believed the name he will go back to using. For Arias, he’s probably be a
different name, maybe Incognito. There was talk of him wanting to do MMA with
Combate Americas, but starting in that sport at 42, whether he’s a tough guy and
a real street fighter, is not the best of ideas. He was at the Combate show with
the Tito Ortiz vs. Alberto El Patron fight over the weekend

The next season of Miz & Mrs. on USA will debut on 1/29. It will air on
Wednesdays at 10 p.m., after NXT. That may mean an end to the overrun. Another
key is how the ratings hold up as Miz & Mrs. popularity was from following
Smackdown and a wrestling audience of 2.1 million, as opposed to NXT with an
audience of maybe 35 percent of that
Matt Hardy, whose contract is up in February, certainly gave hints of leaving. He
wrote on Twitter, “I needed to return to WWE to finish in the right way. I didn’t
want 2010 to be my finale. I returned in the most epic way and repaid my debt. I
waved the WWE flag with pride and worked hard to be a model employee. My
conscience is clear and I am at peace.” Hardy wanted to do his Broken character
but WWE watered it down and it didn’t really click. He personally owns the rights
to it and one would think he’d want to do that somewhere else. He and Ed Nordholm
left Impact with bad terms but it’s been years, while the Young Bucks vs. Broken
Hardys program in ROH was rushed and they had plans for a year which would have
included Bucks in Impact and Hardys in ROH before the Hardys went to WWE. But if
Matt leaves, that doesn’t mean Jeff will, although their contracts would expire
at the same time

In Canada, Raw on 12/9 did 215,400 viewers while Smackdown on12/6 did 152,400
viewers. NXT failed to crack the top ten, meaning less than 82,000 viewers

After attempting and failing to get a release and some digs at management, Chris
Girard, 33, (Oney Lorcan) has agreed to return to the company. Girard noted on
Twitter that he had signed a new deal. At the time he posted it, according to
those with knowledge of the situation, the contract had not been signed, but his
actual wording was he had agreed to a new deal, which was confirmed to us that
the WWE side was confident that they had an agreement and he was staying. Whether
WWE would have released him is unknown. He had stopped working for the company
and his contract had been frozen. Unless he came back, they could have frozen him
out pretty much forever. With Sin Cara and Harper, they were willing to work but
wanted to leave, so they couldn’t be frozen and with Harper, give the 90 days, it
all ended up the same either way. The other key, and this is a feather in
management’s cap and Paul Levesque in particular. A lot of managers, be it of
wrestling companies or sports teams, it’s one thing if a superstar complains
publicly, but if it’s a non-starter type, to go and renegotiate a deal to make
him happy after he publicly dissed you, that says a lot. If nothing else, you can
see Levesque has checked his ego at the door in this role and is just about
business and not personal. But I could see a ton of people in management just
having him sit with his old deal, and do nothing with him for dissing Levesque on
Twitter. The key is, and this happened with the Revival and Gallows & Anderson as
well, is that if you tell them you are unhappy, it may not make management happy
at all that it gets out, but they won’t release you for it. Not only that, but
they will change things, whether it’s money or push or allowing you to work
longer matches on house shows, to try and keep you happy while you are there,
although not in all cases as noted with the Harper and Sin Cara releases. The
difference is that both of them went public asking for their release while Girard
never went public on that subject, only said that Levesque’s comments that talent
shouldn’t be going public and that it isn’t good business to play that way also
meant Levesque never should have gone public in a media interview on that
subject. Although in the case of Levesque, he never mentioned anyone by name.
Another key is that while AEW is paying non-WWE guys far more than they were
making elsewhere for the most part, with the exception of the key people they
wanted as the nucleus, they are not sitting there trying to outbid WWE and offer
Orton $5 million a year the way WCW did (when money figures were a lot less) in
the last war

As noted, Mike Bennett has been doing everything asked of him, although it’s
still unclear where he’s going, but he did manage to kill dead that “who is the
father” angle on Raw. Then again, the last thing they needed was another angle
like that when Rusev and Lana has been such a major part of the television
Regarding releases, within the company the belief is that there are more coming.
But these things change rapidly, as for so long it was nobody getting released,
then it was if they aren’t happy let them go, and then still, nobody was getting
released. It is notable that everyone released was 39 or older except for Albert
Hardie Jr. (ACH/Jordan Myles)

The new Jumanji: The Next Level movie starring Dwayne Johnson is out this coming
weekend. The 2017 Jumanji movie grossed $962 million worldwide. In other Johnson
news, he and Dany Garcia, his business partner and ex-wife, have invested money
in a 20-location ice cream franchise called Salt & Straw, based in Portland, OR.
They will also be creative partners and strategic advisors for the brand. Johnson
pushed on instagram that his favorite cheat meal is a stack of pancakes and three
pints of Salt & Straw ice cream,. The company is also adding a Dwanta Claus
flavors inspired by Johnson

The annual Tribute to the Troops show took place on 12/7 at the Camp Lejeune
Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, NC, near Fayetteville where Smackdown ran that
night. Talent from both Raw and Smackdown appeared. It was just a local event and
there won’t be a television show this year and as far as I know it won’t be on
the network either as the talent was told it wasn’t being taped for that type of
use and the company confirmed that. I’m not sure why, but the plan is for more
and higher profile events like this down the line so it isn’t as if they were
giving up the concept. There were about 2,000 serviceman and families able to get
in. The first match was Owens & Carrillo vs. McIntyre & Andrade. They did another
Rusev & Lana & Lashley angle. They announced the Rusev vs. Lashley match was
canceled due to Lana getting a restraining order. Lana said that Lashley was
hotter and manlier than any Marines. For this angle, it made no sense to bring up
Lashley’s own military background. Rusev then came out of the crowd and attacked
Lashley which they loved. Natalya & Logan wrestled the Kabuki Warriors in a tag
title match that the Warriors went over in. Rollins beat Rowan in weapons style
main event

The NXT U.K. belt was stolen on 12/7 when a rental car that Walter and Timothy
Thatcher were using over the weekend working for Evolve was broken into. Walter’s
title belt, passport and some of his ring gear was stolen, and he ended up
working the show in Chicago bare-footed. Thatcher also had some of his things
stolen. There have been a rash of break-ins in the Logan Square section of
Chicago, where the auditorium the show was in took place

Austin’s second Broken Skull Sessions show on the WWE Network debuts on 12/15
after the TLC PPV show, with Goldberg as his guest

Catherine Joy Perry (Lana) told ComicBook.com that she’s gotten death threats
from fans on social media doing her current storyline. “I personally have
received a lot of death threats, I've gotten calls from like WWE and the FBI,
people actually threatening WWE. Having death threats on me and the FBI has had
to call me and protect me. And I get death threats on my comments on Instagram,
on Twitter. I mean, people are bullies. I mean today I opened my email account
and I had this death threat on my email.... But it was just like the names that
people call are just, it's just appalling. It's absolutely appalling. You know,
cyber-bullying is a big cause of suicide. And I just wanna speak out on it, as
like, that is really, really, really wrong. It's completely wrong. {eople really
need to think before they comment. Because all they're doing is they're hiding
behind a screen and they're just, they're being mean. And you know, do people
want to be responsible for people killing themselves? I'm going to continue to
strongly speak out about it because I think that there's a lot, a lot of people
that are victims of cyber-bullying and it really effects their entire life and
it's wrong and it needs to stop.

In promoting the final episode of the season of Total Divas to People, Rousey
said this about returning to wrestling. “I think I need to figure out a different
way of doing it. To be able to not have to choose career over family or family
over career and kind of find that happy medium. Right now, I think my family
needs my undivided attention. I’m happy to give them that. But I’m trying to
figure out a way or a system or somehow that I could give both my family and WWE
the best of me and not be half ass in both.” Rousey said she was leery about
doing Total Divas because she didn’t have a good experience in another reality
show (the season of Ultimate Fighter where she was a coach and she didn’t come
across well in a lot of ways) but was very happy she did this one

John Hennigan (Morrison) was at the Performance Center this past week being
filmed for things related to his return

In last week’s issue, covering the Mexico City show, we mentioned Velasquez
wrestling, but didn’t list his match in the news section (it was in the results).
Velasquez’s second WWE match saw him team with Carrillo to beat Anderson &
Gallows

A correction in the Starrcade piece. The September 17, 1981, Ric Flair NWA title
win, his first, was over Dusty Rhodes, not Harley Race as was listed

Jax is back in the ring training for a return

Lars Sullivan sent out an Instagram photo of himself training, but he’s still
around the midway point in recovery from his reconstructive knee surgery so he
has months left to go

The current card for 12/26 in Madison Square Garden is Rollins vs. Owens, Asuka &
Sane vs. Flair & Lynch in a cage match for the women’s tag titles, Mysterio vs.
Andrade for the U.S. title, Orton vs. Styles, Rusev vs. Lashley no holds barred
and more. That’s the basic framework for all the Raw post-Christmas holiday
shows. The Smackdown lineups are Wyatt vs. Bryan vs. Miz in the Universal title
match, Reigns vs. Corbin (cage match, street fight, basic weapons match),
Nakamura vs. Strowman for the IC title, and Bayley vs. Evans for the women’s
title (Bliss as referee in some cites

. Maria Menounos teased the idea of doing something with wrestling, thanking Sean
Waltman, Rikishi (who has a Southern California wrestling school) and Deville
(who worked for Menounos and that affiliation got her on Tough Enough which led
to her WWE signing) for the ring training

Some notes on the WWE tryouts this past week. While there are some independent
wrestlers, you can see with guys they are back to focusing on big guys, with a
lot of college football players. While their track record with the big football
players hasn’t been the best, the reality is they are loaded with smaller guys
who can work and the independents will continue to turn these guys out. On the
women’s side, there are some models but the focus, unlike years ago, is on higher
level legitimate athletes including legitimate top tier track, basketball and
volleyball players as well as the MMA and kickboxer types. I think the success of
Bianca Belair as a home grown star that the feeling is those type of people can
do well at this. Before it was always about looks first, the ability to pose in
bikinis and hopefully some athletic background to go with it
Besides Arissa LeBrock as mentioned last week, others at the WWE tryout this past
week included Zack Carpinello, who was in the gossip pages at the same time as
his tryout with the word he had gotten back together with J-Woww of Jersey Shore
fame. Carpinello was on the show as her boyfriend, but then the two broke up
after an episode aired that showed him hitting on Angelina Pivarnick, of the
show. But how they are back together. Also at the tryout was Will Brooks, the
former Bellator lightweight champion, in 2014 and 2015, who beat Michael Chandler
twice, but vacated the title in 2017 and then went to UFC where he was 1-3. He
fought in the PFL tournament for $1 million in 2018 but didn’t make the finals.
Brooks called the camp “one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life.” Steven
and brother Tome Filiposki from Australia, better known as Steve & Tome Filip,
are known independent stars in that country. They had impressed New Japan
officials so much after the Southern Showdown card that they were invited to
become Young Lions and move to Tokyo, and New Japan has a rep for not training a
lot of guys, but the ones they do take in, the track record of success is very
high. The number of people who get NJPW offer like that and turn them down is
very small. They were expected to go but then turned down the offer because their
childhood dream was WWE. We’re told Stevie has outstanding potential and has a
chance to be a big star as he’s acrobatic in the Will Ospreay way but needs more
ring time and polish. Khashayar Mizaei, better known as King Khash, a 20-year old
Iranian native who wrestles independently out of Washington and has worked for
Zero-1 in Japan as well as works for Defy and ECCW and once was in a squash on a
WWE televison in 2016 at 17; Others include: Anthony Henry, a regular pushed star
with Evolve; Brandon & Brent Tate, known as The Tate Twins, who are identical
twins who wrestled as The Boys with Dalton Castle in ROH; Michael Evans, 26, who
is 6-foot-5 and 247 pounds and was on season one of Dwayne Johnson’s Titan Games
TV show; Stephen Gerard, the Midwest independent wrestler known as Stephen Wolf;
Nicholas Harmon, who works as Nick Cutler; Gary Jones, who works as Ganon Jones
Jr; Lauren Jones, who wrestles indies as Palmer Cruise and did a 205 Live squash
once for Brian Kendrick; Irene Janjic, a protégé of Lance Storm who has wrestled
for Stardom and Sendai Girls in Japan; Rebeca Janjigian, the independent woman
wrestler better known as Christi Jaynes; Kara Lazauskas, who also competed on
Titan Games; Pierre Bouquiaux, a 6-foot-8, 265 pound bodybuilder from Belgium who
competed in the past two years in amateur competitions in Luxemburg and Portugal,
although didn’t place top five in either contest; Jessie Bush, a referee out of
Wisconsin; Anthony Catena of Florida of Chaotic Wrestling; Nigel Cawthorn, 25, a
6-foot-5, 295 pound starting defensive lineman at Hampton University who started
most games during his junior and senior years and was heavyweight state champion
in high school in Virginia in 2012, where at one point he was ranked No. 10 in
the nation; Michael Crandle, who played defensive end for Robert Morris
University and has wrestled independently as Duke Davis; Steve Felger from
Florida, who has been used as a referee on a number of Gabe Sapolsky WWN shows;
Clifford Fortune, a 270-pound former defensive lineman at Norfolk State
University who is also a powerlifter; Khambrell Gomez, who was listed at 6-foot-4
½ and 304 pounds as a lineman for Adams State University who holds the national
record in the shot put and discus for Belize. He competed in football and track
at Pasadena City College in California; Miles Grooms, 27, listed at 6-foot-3 and
250 pounds, who played college football at Hampton University and was a first-
team All-MEAC defensive lineman; Christopher Heyward III, a 354-pounder who
wrestled as Calvin Tankman; Matthew Knotts, a 300-pounder who trained under Billy
Gunn and the Dudleys; Ariel Levy, an independent wrestler from Chile; Pingi Moli,
30, a 6-foot-4, 280 pound former football player at the University of Nevada-Las
Vegas who has since worked as a stuntman in Hollywood best known for being in the
movie Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw; Olumide Ogunnake, a 250-pound bodybuilder
from Cleveland; Roman Rozell, 35, a former Green Beret who wrestled at Arizona
State; Victoria Andreola of New Jersey, who does independents in the New Jersey
area as Vicious Vicki; Jennifer Cantu, 23, an Olympic weightlifter from Mexico
who competed at 139 pounds in the Junior World championships; Chanice Chase-
Taylor, 26, who went to the Olympics in 2016 as a hurdler for Canada and was an
All-American in track in several events for Louisiana State; Lauren Dodds, 21, a
competition bikini fitness competitor from Qatar; Christine Hartman, who was an
honorable mention on the All-American team as a setter in volleyball for the
University of Kentucky; Anriel Howard, 22, a 5-foot-11 forward who holds the
Texas A&M career record for most rebounds and set an NCAA tournament record with
27 rebounds in one game, who also ran track and was the 24th pick in the WNBA
draft and played early season games before being cut; Alexandra Mozelski,25, a
bodybuilder who has worked as Alyx Sky in ndies; Lainey Nations an MMA fighter
with a 4-1 record as an amateur; Rachael O’Leary, who has competed in Muay Thai
and kickboxing; Ebony Payne, a firefighter; Jessica Roden, a model who has
trained for pro wrestling in Southern California; Elaine Simon, 32, a Florida
independent wrestler who has used the name Layne Rosario and Derby Doll and Aja
Smith, who works as Aja Perera

Evolve ran two shows this weekend. On 12/6 in Livonia, MI, Davey Vega & Mat
Fitchett beat Adrian Alanis & Liam Grey to become top contenders for the tag
titles. Brandan Vink of NXT beat Colby Corino. In a battle of NXT talent, Reina
Gonzalez beat Shotzi Blackheart via DQ for Blackheart hitting Gonzalez with her
own cowbell. Tag champs AR Fox & Leon Ruff beat Matt Sydal & Andrew Everett.
Babatunde & Arturo Ruas of NXT teamed with Anthony Gutierrez t lose to Eddie
Kingston & Sean Maluta & Joe Gacy. Evolve champ Josh Briggs beat JD Drake and
Walter beat Timothy Thatcher

In Chicago, it was Anthony Greene & Harlem Bravado over Briggs & Babatunde via
DQ. Vink beat Alanis. Ruas beat Thatcher via armbar submission. Gonzalez beat
Blackheart in a no DQ match. Curt Stallion pinned Sydal. Vega & Fitchett beat Fox
& Ruff to win the Evolve tag titles and Water beat Briggs in a non-title main
event

Another example of the struggle of what fans were encouraged to do in the past
being obnoxious in the present took place on the 12/8 show in Daytona Beach. Zayn
came out and cut a pro-Canada anti-America promo. He was talking around ringside
prior to a Wyatt vs. Nakamura cage match for the Universal title. A fan called
him a Canadian f*****, a homophobic slur. Zayn got in his face. The fan ended up
calling him that three times and asked Zayn if he wanted to fight. Ref Danilo
Anfibio came over to try and calm things down. Zayn dared the fan to touch him
and then Keith Burgdoff of WWE security came out to try and calm things down. The
fan used a gay slur again, Zayn called him a homophobic bitch, and security
ejected the fan. I will grant you wrestling encouraged that reaction for decades.
It was commonplace nightly but things like this are not acceptable today. Other
fans don’t want to attend shows with people acting like that and it is not
acceptable to most of the current wrestlers performing

WWE stock closed on 12/11 at $62.86 per share, giving the company a $4.900
billion market value

The most-watched shows of the past week on WWE Network were: 1. NXT on 12/5; 2.
WWE Day of: Survivor Series; 3. Survivor Series; 4. Starrcade from Atlanta; 5.
Table for 3 with Jeff Jarrett, A.J. Styles and Sting; 6. Steve Austin interviews
Undertaker; 7. NXT Takeover War Games

Notes from the 12/5 Smackdown tapings in Fayetteville. They had a hot sellout
crowd of 7,000 fans, which is the first sold out television taping for the main
roster in a long time. They even started setting up PPV matches which is a novel
approach more than a few days out. There are some changes made. Bryan is now
missing with the idea we don’t know if all his hair was pulled out or not, so Miz
was put in his place. Strowman was out of action so they didn’t do anything with
he and Nakamura. The big thing was the angle where Ziggler and Corbin poured dog
food all over Reigns. This has worked in the sense Reigns is getting completely
cheered now because Corbin is not a heel people like. The show opened with Miz
saying that it was supposed to be Miz TV with Bryan, but Bryan has disappeared.
Miz kept saying how he wasn’t friends with Bryan but that the WWE fans love Bryan
and he’s important to Smackdown so he would get to the bottom of this. Wyatt was
on the screen and hung a photo of Bryan on the wall behind him of Fiend’s
victims. Wyatt said Bryan won’t be at TLC and maybe Miz would like to play with
him at TLC. Wyatt said he used to have a family, with a quick clip of the Wyatt
Family, which Bryan was a member of for like two weeks. Then he showed a photo of
Miz’s family. Miz was furious and ran backstage. Next Miz was shown calling
Maryse. He told her to lock the doors and set the alarm and he’s flying home
right now. Didn’t we do this with Styles and Joe. Bliss beat Rose in 4:16. The
wrestling wasn’t good but the two have a dynamic that worked for the crowd. The
big angle was that Rose ripped off Bliss’ eye-lashes. Deville tried to distract
Bliss, but Cross came off the steps with a crossbody on her. Bliss did a move
that was supposed to be a DDT, and came close to being one, followed by twisted
bliss for the pin. The crowd was into this one. Next we had one of those segments
clearly written for Vince and not the audience. Maverick was hitting on Brooke
again. He brought up her going out with Batista and asked what Batista has that
he doesn’t have. Elias showed up and said that Batista was a millionaire and he’s
tall. The idea is that Maverick is too short to get a really hot girl like
Brooke, which is even funnier when you consider what the woman he married looked
like. They did the same thing with Bryan a few years ago with the Bellas, making
fun of the idea that he was dating a so-so attractive Gail Kim (imagine that
mentality) so the real hot girls (Bella Twins) were looking to steal him away
just for fun but not like they’d ever really go for him. It’s so weird how life
turns out. Elias started singing a song about how Maverick’s wife woke up in
Elias’ bed and said he was the best she’d ever had. Maverick slapped him. Then
Brooke asked if that was true, and Maverick admitted he made it up. In the
McMahon mind, that made him the babyface. Maverick was in the ring and said how
everyone thinks his life is a joke. He called out Elias. He wanted to fight
Elias. Elias came out with Brooke. They did some short guy comedy spots where
Maverick was not just too small to beat up Elias, but Elias with one hand held
him out of his reach while Maverick was throwing crazy punches that came nowhere
close. All the while, Brooke was laughing at him. I think I’ve seen 50 movies
based on this, but only in WWE is the hot girl and the bully making fun the
babyfaces. Now granted, this started when the married guy was hitting on Brooke.
Elias kicked his ass and he finally ran off like a baby, but Brooke then threw
him back in the ring where Elias hit draft away. Thank God it was over. Miz was
looking for Wyatt’s Fun House room. Evidently Miz knows where it is, because he
went in the room, but nobody was in there. However, the photo of Miz, Maryse and
his daughters was there. Wyatt then attacked Miz from behind in the dark, gave
him Sister Abigail and then put the photo on him and laughed. Then, in the best
match on Smackdown in sometime, The Revival earned a tag title shot in an
elimination match over Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik, Heavy Machinery and Shorty G
& Ali in 17:39. I’d go ****1/4 for this one. G looked great as always but he’s
even better when in with the Revival. Ali vs. Metalik had good spots. Dorado &
Metalik did simultaneous Asai moonsaults. But the Lucha House party was
eliminated when Machinery used the compact on Metalik and Tucker pinned him in
3:26. The crowd was really into Otis and he was running wild, taking his shirt
off, all those good or bad things. He did the caterpillar on Dawson. Wilder tried
a sunset flip but Otis blocked. Dawson then used an up-kick on Otis and Wilder
pinned him using the trunks in 9:44. This left G & Ali vs. The Revival, which is
a perfect style match-up. G did a German suplex on both at the same time. Then he
did a German suplex into a jackknife pin by Ali. Ali did a crossbody that Wilder
turned into a powerslam for a near fall. Ali did a tope but The Revival caught
him on the floor and threw him into the timekeepers area. G did a moonsault,
landed on his feet and grabbed an ankle lock on Dawson. It ended with the Shatter
Machine on G for the pin. Reigns did an interview and said Corbin will embarrass
himself at Hell in a Cell. Sheamus did an interview and said that you can go home
again. Evans beat Haley Jones with the women’s right in 1:11. Jones’ offense
didn’t look good at all even in this brief clip. Banks then came out and said she
was the leader of the women’s division. Then she said that Evans was a terrible
role model to her six-year-old. So Evans is now a babyface as a woman with a
daughter who served in the military. Of course Fayetteville is a military city
that it was a lock she’d get a big pop talking about being a former marine. She
even got the crowd to chant “nasties” at Banks. Evans wanted to fight. Banks got
in her face. Evans went for the punch and Banks ducked, cowered away and nearly
cried. So the idea they are trying to get over is that Banks and Bayley are
afraid of her. Evans was chasing Banks to the back when Bayley attacked Evans
from behind. Reigns pinned Ziggler in 17:42. This was a good match with a lot of
heat. Corbin was carried out in a throne by a bunch of extras. This entrance was
set up for several minutes in front of the crowd. He ended up at ringside. Reigns
hit Corbin with a Superman punch as he tried to interfere. Reigns got the pin on
Ziggler after a spear. The extras all attacked Reigns and of course he laid out
all of them. He gave one of them a really nasty looking kick that shook the guy
up legit. Corbin attacked Reigns and posted him. Reigns came back until he was
tripped by somebody from under the ring (this could turn out to be Maverick since
the plan was to make Maverick the manager of Corbin as the top heel pairing
starting in a few weeks) until all the extras swarmed and held him for Ziggler to
use a superkick. Ziggler, Corbin and the extras then got handcuffs on both of
Reigns’ hands and handcuffed his hands behind him while he was trapped on the
post. Corbin kept beating him down until Ziggler and Corbin poured several cans
of dog food all over him. For 205 Live, Angel Garza beat Raul Mendoza using the
wing clipper. Really good match. A lot of the crowd left during this show and
with the exception of Rush, nobody on the show got any real reaction. The Singh
Brothers played rock, paper, scissors on who got to face Trent Newman next. But
Tony Nese showed up and he wanted the match. Nese won quickly. The Singh Brothers
then laid out Newman after the match and started dancing. Lio Rush beat Danny
Burch via DQ. Slow match and the crowd wasn’t into it. Garza attacked Rush for
the DQ. He also attacked Burch and hit the wing clipper on Rush. He then grabbed
the cruiserweight belt to help build the Rush vs. Garza title match later in the
week. The dark match was Fiend over Miz to keep the Universal title. Miz did all
of his offensive moves and Fiend mostly no-sold them. Miz finally countered a
Sister Abigail into the skull crushing finale. Fiend got up, used the mandible
claw and Sister Abigail for the pin in less than 5:00. It was noted that fans
were sent out e-mails and the arena’s web site listed the show as having Reigns
vs. Corbin and Fiend vs. Bryan for the title, neither of which took place. There
was little reaction during a break when they announced Miz vs. Fiend as the main
event

Notes from the 12/9 Raw show from Greenville. The show finally set up several PPV
matches and completed the Rollins turn, linking him with the AOP. You can also
really see the attempt to get new people over this week with AOP, Black, Murphy
and Carrillo who are all Heyman projects as are The Street Profits and Vikings.
The other project, Ricochet, was on Main Event but he doesn’t have a PPV match.
The show had a couple of timing issues. The opening segment went way long as did
a few other things early. So they were cutting back on time and the make-up was
Vikings vs. Street Profits who were supposed to have a 15:00 competitive match
and were cut to 3:00 with no time to tell the story of the Street Profits hanging
with the tag champs, coming close and the respect endorsement from the champs at
the end. That match was not on the original schedule but was a replacement for a
planned Rollins vs. Alexander match that was pulled due to Rollins’ injury. The
end of the show was also an issue. Styles and Mysterio were having a great match,
well, as good as it was going to be because Greenville was such a tough crowd.
Styles was supposed to block a top rope huracanrana and turn it into the middle
rope Styles clash, playing off Styles beating Ricochet in the six-man tag with
that move. But they just botched it and fell off the ropes. There was little time
left and they had to rebuild the planned finish where Mysterio won via Orton
distraction and may have gone over by a few seconds and cut away right at the
three count. The show drew 5,500 fans. For Main Event, Eric Young pinned No Way
Jose and Ricochet beat Alexander. Raw opened with the divorce of Rusev and Lana.
Lawler presided over it and said he tried to push for a reconciliation but that
didn’t work out. Lana came out with a lawyer. She said she had waived the part of
the restraining order regarding him being able to come near her but not the other
stipulations. Rusev looked really happy wearing a Donald Duck T-shirt and tennis
shoes while she wore a dress that didn’t make it easy for her to get booed. She
played her role great, saying how Rusev thinks it’s all about him, with the idea
that we all know she’s acting like it’s all about her. She said when Rusev got
famous, it went to his head, when the idea is that when she got famous, it went
to her head. She said it was the fans fault for ruining their marriage. That was
the theme of the show. The fans ruin everything. She said she was the most
ravishing woman in the world and Rusev will never get anyone who compares with
her. Anyway, the segment went really long and got bad. She started crying. He was
all happy about signing. Then they argued over who got the dog. He claimed she
gave the dog to him as a present and you can’t take back presents. He said he
would sign but wanted a match with Lashley. I’m not sure if you can not request a
wrestling match as a stipulation for signing a divorce but wrestling writing has
creative liberties. Lashley came out and said that when they get divorced, he’s
going to ask Lana to marry him. Rusev said, “She’s all yours, take her, run away
to Las Vegas.” The tweaking of the character where it’s clear Rusev wants her
gone and doesn’t care has turned him back babyface because when this started, it
was death for him as this guy completely being mistreated by a hot girl and he
still wants her back. That is not a babyface to this audience. Lashley attacked
Rusev, but Rusev made a comeback and gave Lashley a belly-to-belly through a
table. Owens said that AOP attacked him because Rollins told them to. He said
Rollins can deny it, but everyone knows and he’s full of crap. He said he was
looking for AOP. As he went backstage, Mysterio told him he had his back. Owens
said he didn’t need the help. That was on the stupid end, you’re fighting two
guys and you don’t want help. Mysterio then handed him a pipe as an equalizer.
McIntyre pinned Matt Hardy in 2:15 with a Claymore kick. McIntyre first talked
about Hardy’s kids (his wife just gave birth) and said the kid was cross-eyed so
you know it was Matt’s. McIntyre said that Matt reproducing isn’t the best idea
because what if they follow in his footsteps. He told Matt he’ll allow him to
walk out of the ring with his tail between his legs to fight another day. Matt
attacked him and gave him a twist of fate. Then they started the match and
McIntyre quickly won. Flair was with Lynch. Flair noted that she didn’t like her
but asked her if she wanted to be Becky two belts again and have them face the
Kabuki Warriors. Lynch said she wanted to face both of them by herself instead.
Owens was looking for the AOP. He asked Rawley where they were. Rawley tried to
make fun of him pointing him in opposite directions. Owens slapped Rawley in the
face. The Viking Raiders were looking for opponents and Erik issued an open
challenge. The Street Profits came out. Ford did a flip dive on Ivar and a splash
off the top but didn’t get it done. Ford ended up pinned in 3:08 with the Viking
Experience. I was very surprised how this went down. They touched forearms to
show respect for The Street Profits after. Rollins came out. He wanted to talk
and wanted them to stick around. They acted like he was rude and all four left.
Rollins said he wanted to fight the AOP one-on-two. Owens came out and Rollins
didn’t want Owens hitting him with the pipe. Owens said there’s no need to use it
yet. He asked where they are and when they are coming, saying he knows they were
going to beat him up three-on-one. They arrived. Rollins said he had no
association with them. Owens didn’t believe him. Rollins left. Owens said when he
was done with AOP he was coming for Rollins. He again called out AOP. Zayn came
out with Rawley. Zayn said that he got a managers license and that means he can
be on both shows. So at least somebody tried to come up with a reason why a
Smackdown guy would be on the show. Zayn wanted Owens to apologize to Rawley.
Rawley made fun of Owens acting tough while holding a pipe. So Owens threw the
pipe to him, but then gave Rawley a stunner and started beating on him with the
pipe. Black pinned Tozawa in 3:33 with black mess. The highlight was Tozawa doing
a tope into a knee. Black won with black mass. Tozawa is great as an enhancement
guy. Charly Caruso pushed that Carrillo is a super rookie. That tells you Heyman
has big plans, because the previous two times he pushed that idea were Rhino in
ECW when he went to pushy him for the title and Cena after he called Cena up from
OVW. Vega and Andrade yelled at Carrillo in Spanish. It didn’t have great heat,
but nothing on this show did. Carrillo pinned Andrade in 11:00 with a victory
roll. This was really good, best match on the show. Lawler in passing mentioned
Liv Morgan was returning. Carrillo did a moonsault off the top of the post to the
floor. Andrade and Vega argued after the match. Mysterio did a promo and he noted
defending against Styles later. He said the U.S. title represents to him his
journey back to regain his confidence. Murphy pinned Ryder in 1:58 with a V
trigger and Murphy’s law. Owens used the pipe to destroy AOP’s van, busted up
with windows and the hood. AOP jumped him. They smashed the door of the trunk on
his head. They opened the back door and Rollins was in the back with a hood
covering his face. Rollins then curb stomped Owens on the ground. Rollins then
did his Bret Hart explanation. He blamed everything on the fans, just like Lana.
He claimed he had nothing to do with AOP attacking Owens last week, or even this
week. Of course that was as plausible as the 17 different Saudi Arabia stories.
He said he carried the company, worked hurt, beat Lesnar twice so they would have
a champion there every week, but it was never good enough. He said that the fans
naivete made his stand with AOP. They took Owens out in an ambulance. Lynch beat
Asuka & Sane via DQ in a handicap match in 12:53. This wasn’t as good, or as
heated as the same match with Flair lat week. Lynch got each in the disarm her
but the other would make the save. Asuka hit Lynch with a chair shot for the DQ.
Asuka pulled out a table, put Lynch on it, and Sane came off the top rope with an
elbow drop putting Lynch threw the table. It should be noted that we had months
of Lynch as Rollins girlfriend and it’s all been forgotten, he turns heel, the
very next thing we see is her acting unconcerned. Styles, Gallows & Anderson were
backstage. Styles said that Gallows & Anderson will get a tag title match sooner
than later. He also said that if Orton gets involved in his match with Mysterio,
maybe they’ll ed his career for ever, or for life. Lynch was in the trainers
room. She got put through a table from a woman flying off the top to the floor
and had one ice bag on her. Flair showed up. They didn’t agree to team. Flair
left the room and Asuka & Sane beat her down with multiple chair shots. Rowan
pinned Tracer X, whose name was never once mentioned, in 1:19. This was notable
because X grabbed Rowan’s bag and sprinted to the entrance area. He put it down
and then ran to the ring. Rowan got it. X told the ref to start his count since
the bell had already rung. Imagine how awkward it was to call all this when you
aren’t allowed to mention the guy’s name? Rowan realized he was a about to get
counted out and ran back in just beating the ten. He then gave Tracer two claw
slams. He went for a third, but the ref stopped the match. Rowan gave him another
one and then talked to the box and said “I took care of him.” Caruso talked to
Asuka & Sane. They cut a promo in Japanese. Caruso said she didn’t’ know Japanese
and to talk in English. Asuka & Sane challenged Flair & Lynch to a title match.
Flair & Lynch were together and agreed to it but Lynch wanted it a TLC match The
Street Profits did a spoof on the Saturday Night Live weekend update. It was
actually a way to run down the PPV card like an Events Center, but add in comedy
touches. Put they put in a laugh track which made it so uncool as they are doing
comedy, you’re hearing the most fake laugh track and nobody in the audience is
laughing. They made jokes about Baby Yoda, said they watch Disney Plus all day,
said the USA Network may have to do a new reality show called The Fiend & Mrs.
Dawkins said that he thought Corbin had a Napoleon complex. Ford said that he’s
bigger than both of them, but Dawkins said “not where it counts.” Mysterio pinned
Styles in 14:11 to keep the U.S. title in the main event. The match was real
good, but even this match lacked heat, until the botched finish. Mysterio did an
Asai moonsault. Gallows & Anderson came out. Mysterio was distracted and Styles
threw his shoulder into the spot. Mysterio did a dive out of the ring into a
sunset flip on Styles ont he floor into the barricade. They were finally able to
get the crowd into this. Mysterio went for the 619 but Gallows protected Styles.
Mysterio took out Gallows & Anderson but that allowed Styles to hit the
ushigoroshi on him. Next was the botched spot. So it ended with Styles hitting a
power bomb and Styles clash when Orton distracted him. Mysterio then got the pin
with a small package

Notes from the 12/11 NXT tapings. It opened with Roderick Strong retaining the
North American title over Austin Theory. This match may have been taped for a
later air date. Shane Thorne pinned Sean Maluta. The live show opened with Adam
Cole doing a promo saying that whoever wins the Triple Threat match punches a
ticket to lose to him next week, and that is undisputed. Angel Garza beat Lio
Rush in 15:16 to win the cruiserweight title. They had another great match, this
very different from the first one. It started out really fast and intense, trying
to get the real fight vibe. Then they did fast spots. They did a double Flair
flop and with both down, were going for the “This is awesome” chants but got
“NXT” chants. Rush used Garza’s wing clipper for a near fall. Rush bounced off
the ropes into a stunner for a near fall. Rush did a frog splash but Garza rolled
out of the ring. As he was getting out of the ring, Rush grabbed Garza’s pants.
He’d already loosened them earlier to tear them up but Rush stopped him. Rush did
a frog splash off the top rope to the floor but Garza got his knees up. Garza hit
the wing clipper but Rush kicked out. Garza then used a reverse full nelson and
Rush tapped out. I’d go **** for this. Shayna Baszler did a vignette comparing
herself to her car, which is a 1969 Mustang. I hope that isn’t to mean she just
turned 50. She said everyone else wants to be a Tesla, She talked about beating
Moon, Dakota Kai, Cross, Bianca Belair, Io Shirai, Mia Yim, Candice LeRae and
then Bayley and Lynch on the same night. After Garza won, he brought his
girlfriend, Zaide Lozano, into the ring and asked her to marry him. She said yes.
This aired on tape delay, I guess since they may not have scripted her
girlfriend’s reactions closely enough and maybe they didn’t want to risk this to
go wrong on live television. Not sure this fit his character. Well, it didn’t fit
last week’s character of an arrogant good looking guy who said he was the best
looking guy in the world and took his pants off in front of Rush’s wife. This
week he’s a total babyface young Mexican champion loyal to his girlfriend. I have
no idea what he’ll be next week. His mother was there and the story goes she flew
up to see him, and had no idea he was winning the title and no idea he was
proposing, and it was just a fluke she scheduled her trip and was there to see
both. Raul Mendoza pinned Cameron Grimes in 1:10. Mendoza did a springboard
tornillo. Kushida came out to distract Grimes and Mendoza used a huracanrana for
the pin. Kushida then took Grimes’ hat, put it on his head, and then left. Yes,
that does make him a thief. They aired a taped Travis Banks promo. Banks then
pinned Jaxson Ryker in 2:46 with a missile dropkick and an enzuigiri off the
middle ropes called a lice of heaven. Banks’ eye was busted open bad. Hopefully
Vince wasn’t watching or he’ll demand a name change pronto. Dakota Kai pinned Mia
Yim in 9:57. They tried hard and did a lot of stuff and it was a grudge match and
all, but it was weak in spots as well. Kai undid the turnbuckle pad and put Yim’s
head into it and pinned her with a schoolboy. Yim attacked Kai after the match
and they brawled onto the platform the announcers are on. Yim then gave Kai a
Saito suplex off the platform and through a table on he floor. Kai hit her head
on the other table and maybe on the floor as well. She wasn’t hurt badly but her
head was split open and she needed eight staples to close the cut. They put the
spot over big so at least it meant something. There was a Keith Lee video. Breeze
& Fandango beat the Singh Brothers in 4:16. Breeze & Fandango came out as doctors
with two women, Evolve’s Brandi Lauren (a frequent extra when a skit needs a hot
girl) and Avery Taylor was the other woman. There was a mention of Fandango being
trained by Killer Kowalski. Mauro Ranallo then made a reference to Fandango
treating one of the Singh Brothers like Yukon Eric’s ear. For everyone who didn’t
recognize that reference, in 1952, in Montreal Kowalski came off the top rope
with a kneedrop which sliced off Eric’s ear. He later visited Eric in the
hospital and there was a reporter there so Kowalski kayfabe’d and the reporter
was so mad at seeing Kowalski insult him in real life after kneedropping off his
ear that he called him Killer Kowalski. He may have been called that earlier, but
was generally Tarzan Kowalski before that. Kowalski vs. Eric ended up being a
legendary feud coming off that which drew all over North America. Fandango did a
sick power bomb on the apron and then did he old Demolition finish on he floor on
the other brother. Fandango pinned one of them with a leg drop off the top rope.
Fandango may have injured his left shoulder when he did the move to the floor. He
got up and it was hurting, and is was immobile for the next minute, but he was
moving it after the match. Belair beat Kayden Carter in 4:52 with a torture rack
into the KOD. Not much. Carter is a small woman who played college basketball,
and that would indicate she’s a hell of an athlete. But she’s still very green at
American style, as she learned Lucha. Belair did other generation finishers like
the Bruno backbreaker and Tully Blanchard slingshot suplex. Main event saw Balor
win over Lee and Tommaso Ciampa in 18:10. This was very good as well, at ***3/4.
Ciampa hit both with draping DDTs at the same time. Ciampa gave Balor an Air Raid
crash on tp of Lee but couldn’t pin either of them. Balor did double foot stomps
on both after takedowns. Lee did Northern Lights suplexes on both at the same
time with no bridge. Both did a double-team middle rope Russian leg sweep on Lee.
Ciampa tried an Air Raid crash on Balor off he middle rope, but Lee got
underneath them and gave them a double Samoan drop. Lee did jackhammers on both
but Balor cradled him for a near fall. Lee went for a spirit bomb but Balor
turned it into a double foot stomp for a near fall. After a few more near falls
Lee hit a spirit bomb on Ciampa but Balor came off the top rope on Lee just as he
landed with the coup de gras and pinned Lee. I thought with Lee’s momentum that
he should have won here since it was his time. But next week is a war and for
ratings for one week, the right opponent is Balor. He’s not the hottest to the
insiders, but he is the bigger name. Cole came out with the Undisputed Era
holding all their belts staring down Balor when it was over

The company’s first-ever all-women’s NXT brand show took place on 12/5 in
Jacksonville. They drew 400 fans, up from the usual crowd although they have at
times had bigger crowds and this was heavily promoted as a special event. Kayden
Carter beat Deonna Purrazzo with an inverted leglock submission. Vanessa Borne
pinned Samantha DeMartin from Australia, who was formerly Indi Hartwell. Io
Shirai beat Santana Garrett via submission. Taynara & Briana Brandy beat Catalina
Garcia & Rita Reis when Taynara pinned Garcia after a kick. Garcia was the
second, Carolina, that Sin Cara used for two weeks on Raw. Brandy and Reis were
making their WWE debuts. Brandy has trained in martial arts and done hip hop.
Reis has done judo and Jiu Jitsu and is from Brazil. Rhea Ripley & Candice LeRae
& Mia Yim beat Dakota Kai & Marina Shafir & Jessamyn Duke. Good match focused to
Ripley who won with the Riptide. Bianca Belair beat MJ Jenkins with the KOD.
Karen Q still in walking boot after suffering a broke leg, came out for a promo.
Jessi Kamea interrupted but Xia Li came out for the save. This led to a match
where Li, with Q in her corner, beat Kamea. Chelsea Green beat Shotzi Blackheart
with the unprettier. This was Blackheart’s WWE debut. Main event saw Shayna
Baszler retain the title over Reina Gonzalez with the kirafuda clutch. Baszler
wouldn’t release the choke after the match until Ripley ran in. Baszler ran off
and then Ripley and all the babyface women came out for a celebration after the
show

12/6 in Dade City, FL, drew 150 fans. This was said to be a bad crowd because it
went head-to-head with the city’s Christmas Parade and everyone in town went to
that, plus it shut down the main road and it was a nightmare getting to the
building or finding any parking. Isaiah Scott beat Ridge Holland with the
killshot kick. Scott got over to the crowd. Nicholas Ogarelli beat Rinku Singh in
a bad match. Catalina Garcia & Rita Reis beat Taynara & Briana Brandy when Garcia
rolled up Taynara in a surprise ending. Reis and Taynara traded super hard judo
throws and their offense with each other looked more realistic than most of what
you see in modern pro wrestling. Denzel Dejournette beat Daniel Vidot with a
belly-to-belly. Dejournette dropped his Fresh Prince of Bel-Air type gimmick and
is now playing serious amateur wrestler. He’s said to be an athletic freak making
great progress. Vidot has a great look, and they are looking for an Australian
star, but he’s got long way to go. Mansoor pinned Austin Theory. Theory was the
most over heel on the show and has a great look. If he gets the wrestling down,
he’ll be a superstar. Mansoor won with the neckbreaker from the apron into the
ring. Kushida beat Dexter Lumis with the hoverboard lock. Good mix of comedy and
wrestling, well above the level you usually see on these shows. Lumis got mad and
challenged anyone in the back. Jordan Omogbehin came out and gave Lumis a Khali
chop and left. Kayden Carter & Xia Li beat Chelsea Green & Deonna Purrazzo when
Li pinned Green with the Robinson special kick that Will Ospreay uses. Matt
Riddle & Keith Lee & Dominik Dijakovic beat Killian Dain & Cameron Grimes & Doran
Mak. Lots of stalling early. Riddle used the floating bro to pin Mak. Lots of
comedy but a fun main event

The other weekend NXT show was 12/7 in Tampa before 250 fans. Isaiah Scott &
Mansoor beat Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler. Dijakovic beat Jaxson Ryker. MJ Jenkins
beat Rita Reis. Pete Dunne beat Kona Reeves. Riddle & Ripley beat the husband-
and-wife team of Roderick Strong & Marina Shafir. WWE rarely does mixed tag
matches and this was WWE rules were no men on women physicality. Dexter Lumis
beat Omari. Keith Lee won a four-way over Ridge Holland, Marcel Barthel and Danny
Burch with it being announced that the winner would face Adam Cole for the title
on the 2/14 return to Tampa

On 12/7 they only had one house show, a Super show in Jacksonville, noteworthy
because they ran the all women’s show in the same city two days earlier. The show
drew 3,700 fans

The 12/8 Raw show in Augusta, GA drew 2,000

The 12/8 Smackdown show in Daytona Beach drew 2,000 fans

In Jacksonville, the show opened with Sarah Schreiber announcing that the Fiend
vs. Strowman cage match for the title wasn’t happening due to Strowman not being
medically cleared. McIntyre then came out to challenge The Fiend for the title in
his place. They opened with Rollins, as a babyface, pinning Rowan with a curb
stomp. Rollins was a complete babyface and nobody booed him at all. Lynch and
Flair were having a great match for the Raw women’s title. Flair had Lynch in the
figure eight when Asuka and Sane attacked both of them for a no contest. Lynch
said that she wanted a second belt anyway so it turned into a tag match. Based on
her interview, everyone assumed it was a title match and went crazy when Lynch
made Sane submit to the disarm her. But then it was not announced as a title
change and the crowd was confused. New Day retained the Smackdown tag titles over
The Revival. Lots of stalling and comedy early, but it ended up as the most
entertaining match on the show. Carrillo rolled-up Andrade in a short match. Vega
then cut a promo blaming the ref for screwing things up and challenged anyone in
the back. Owens came out. Owens and Vega went back-and-forth on the mic until
Owens hit the stunner on Andrade. Fiend beat McIntyre in the cage match in 10:00.
Fiend used the mandible claw and went to walk out. But then he came back in and
gave McIntyre a uranage through a table and then walked out to the floor to win.
Wyatt was cheered more than anyone on the show during his entrance and also after
the match. But the crowd didn’t react much during the match. Children were
freaked out by him and they were cheering McIntyre. Bayley & Banks beat Carmella
& Cross. Murphy came out and cut a promo on Black. Black came out and beat Murphy
with black mass. Ths was said to be the best worked match on the show. Ricochet &
Viking Raiders beat Styles & Gallows & Anderson when Ricochet pinned Styles clean
with the recoil. Ricochet was really over. Reigns pinned Corbin with a spear in
the main event. Corbin got lots of heat

In Augusta, it was a lot of the same Raw stuff as the night before. Same Lynch
vs. Flair singles title match leading into the tag team title match that ended up
not being a title match with Asuka & Sane. Black again pinned Murphy with black
mass. The Street Profits beat Hawkins & Ryder. Carrillo & Owens beat McIntyre &
andrade. R-Truth kept the 24/7 title over the Singh Brothers. Same Viking Raiders
& Ricochet over Styles & Gallows & Anderson match. Main event saw Rollins beat
Rowan in a street fight with the curb stomp

In Daytona Beach, the main event was also scheduled as Wyatt vs. Strowman in a
cage match for the title. Here there was no announcement about Strowman not being
there. The show opened with New Day retaining the tag titles in a three-way over
Heavy Machinery and The Revival. This was an elimination match. Lots of comedy.
Otis was very popular. Dawson pinned Tucker using the tights to eliminate them.
New Day then won with a Hart Attack and a trouble in paradise on Dawson. Cross
pinned Banks. The fans didn’t boo Banks. Ali pinned Cesaro with a spinning DDT.
The crowd didn’t really care about this. In a rare Universal champion defending
against the IC champion match, Wyatt pinned Nakamura in the cage after Sister
Abigail. Zayn ran into the cage after the match and Wyatt put him through a table
with a uranage. Wyatt’s ring entrance was over but the crowd was dead for the
match itself, but popped for Zayn being put through the table or whenever Zayn
would talk. Shorty G beat Gulak with the ankle lock. Crowd was dead. Bayley
pinned Carmella with her feet on the ropes to keep the women’s title. Bayley was
chanted for and cheered by the younger girls. Reigns pinned Corbin with a spear
in the main event. The same match they always do.