Daily Update: Adam Copeland, Nathan Frazer, Zelina Vega

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• December 30, 2024 Observer Newsletter: WWE adding more TV hours, TNA signs new deal, AEW Worlds End preview

• A big new issue of the Observer up on the site.  Special note that we’ve had a lot of people contact us both about the Rey Misterio Sr. and Tijuana wrestling story and the breakdown of every PPV this year and how they did.  Highlights of the issue:
• WWE expanding television in 2025 and the biggest unanswered questions
• A look at international deals with WWE’s move to Netflix.  What countries will still have TV deals, where Raw won’t be on Netflix, and what this means to AEW and TNA and the scoreboard of who has gotten what. And what is potentially the biggest international deal and when it will be open.
• The Auditorio in Tijuana and Rey Misterio Sr., a look at the biggest matches in a building that should be on the list as a major wrestling arena that nobody ever talks about, plus how did Rey Mysterio, Konnan, Psicosis and others get their start and looking back at the biggest matches in Rey Misterio Sr.’s career
• Drawing money and a look at how every PPV show in 2024 did, to see what does and doesn’t work as far as being a PPV headliner, covering WWE, AEW and TNA and every show so far this year.
• The Battle of Orlando and where things stand for Worlds End.
• Full coverage of ROH Final Battle
• WWE’s holiday special in MSG and a look back at how the show has done since 2010.
• Death of Jax Dane
• The most detailed look at the TV ratings for all the major shows,including placings, competition, segment-by-segment and more.
• The Gran Alternative tournament and its history at picking future stars
• Stardom’s big show the week of the Tokyo Dome.
• NOAH preparing for Budokan Hall show.
• More news on the Tokyo Dome shows.
• New Japan notes for San Jose.
• St. Louis Wrestling Hall of Fame
• RevPro show notes
• Notes on upcoming North American stadium shows.
• Lots of thoughts on booking
• Upcoming ticket sales for WWE & AEW events
• More on Lee Fitting.
• Why there’s a very real chance the Janel Grant lawsuit will be thrown out and why, and what it will take for that not to happen.
• McIntyre makes fun of Punk

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Back Issue

• July 2, 2007 Observer Newsletter: Chris Benoit double murder-suicide

Tuesday Update

WWE

• The full face-to-face segment from last night’s Raw between Seth Rollins and CM Punk is now up in full on WWE’s YouTube page.
• Adam Pearce thanked the USA Network in a social media message during the last episode of Raw on the network.
• The link to this week’s NXT can be found here for international viewers who are unable to watch WWE due to TV deal changes ahead of the Netflix debut next week.
• Responding to a dig from Kofi Kingston on Raw regarding wearing large heels, Zelina Vega responded on social media: “They are 6 inches.. not that you know what that looks like.”
• Nathan Frazer wrote about his 2024 on social media: “2024… it’s been a year that neither of us could have ever predicted. Somehow we stumbled upon being one of, if not the best tag team in the world right now. And through it all, we’ve legitimately become brothers. Brothers argue. Brothers fight. But brothers always have each other’s back no matter what. ‘Fraxiom is fine’ isn’t just a funny little tagline, it’s real. Here’s to being fine for many more years, amigo.”
• New content added to WWE Vault in the last couple of days include Johnny Gargano introducing a Dragon Gate USA match between himself and Shingo Takagi from 2013, The Rock and Hulk Hogan agreeing to their WrestleMania X8 match on the February 18, 2002 edition of Raw, 45 minutes of John Cena matches on Velocity, and Goldberg spearing The Rock in his WWE debut on the March 31, 2003 episode of Raw.

AEW/Other Wrestling

• Adam Copeland spoke to Sports Illustrated on dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which hit Asheville, North Carolina hard: “It’s definitely eye opening when you’re at ground zero of something like that and how long it affects [your life] and how long everything takes to get back to some semblance of normalcy. To brush my teeth for the first time without bottled water, I was like, ‘Whoa! I can use the taps? This is awesome!’ You know, you take it for granted.”
• Former WWE talent Eva Marie has filed for divorce from her husband of ten years, Jonathan Coyle. The couple were featured on WWE’s Total Divas reality series.
• Stardom star Konami is out of action after suffering an injury on their December 29 show.
• NJPW has added new VTR videos hyping up the card for Wrestle Kingdom 19 on their YouTube channel.

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