Daily Update: WWE Raw, Ricky Starks, Mideon

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This Week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• April 1, 2024 Observer Newsletter: Cody Rhodes & The Rock intensify the road to WrestleMania

Among the highlights in this issue:

• The Rock & Cody Rhodes angle, blading in WWE, then now and forever.
• What should be done in the night one main event
• More WrestleMania notes including ticket sales and secondary market
• A story on the career of Chigusa Nagayo, at one time the most popular women’s wrestler who ever lived
• We look at her retirement match in San Francisco
• We look at her breaking into wrestling at the age of 15, getting pushed at 17, and becoming part of the greatest tag team ever in women's wrestling at the age of 18.
• The first run of the Crush Gals
• Being the top singles star in women's wrestling, the decline of ratings and Nagayo’s first retirement
• Her second run with Asuka as the Crush Gals in Gaea Japan
• The end of Nagayo’s career including winning Japan's tag team of the year award at the age of 51
• Lots more Ronda Rousey talk on Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, Bruce Prichard, WWE, changing plans, Paul Levesque, the Holly Holm fight, concussion issues and Becky Lynch talking about McMahon
• WWE policy on dating within the company put together after the Board first heard Vince McMahon allegations
• Multiple Japanese companies join together for two charity shows
• NCAA wrestling tournament notes
• The most detailed look at the ratings for all the wrestling shows, including quarters, comparisons with one year ago, competition and more
• Biggest show of the year at Arena Mexico
• Former promotional hatred ends up with an angle
• Giulia and Utami Hayashishita finish with Stardom with two PPV shows this week
• Champion Carnival news
• Unique gimmick match in New Japan
• Dream match coming to DDT
• Bret Hart raves about a new book
• Tons of WrestleMania week big shows
• Sabin & Shelley leaving TNA
• Lots of contract news
• Kenny Omega news
• List of those unavailable this past week for AEW
• ROH Supercard of Honor notes
• Will Nigel McGuinness wrestle
• Advance ticket sales for WWE & AEW shows
• International ratings and streaming notes
• AEW stars in foreign countries
• UFC’s biggest match of the year may have a date
• Conor McGregor claims he broke a Dwayne Johnson record
• Dana White talks loyalty to Joe Rogan
• First Bellator show since purchase
• Contract status updates
• New A&E TV plans with WWE
• Barnett talks making deal to get Baszler on Bloodsport
• Becky Lynch talks Mercdes Mone's AEW deal
• Heyman puts together Reigns special
• Nick Aldis talks his situation
• Bron Breakker's college career, NFL combine numbers and what hampered him playing in the NFL even with his athletic ability

This Week's Retro Observer Newsletter

• December 6, 2006 Observer Newsletter: Pride, history of WCW

Sunday Update

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Easter.

Our weekend show was done last night rather than tonight due to the Arena Mexico show and Easter. Our week in review business show with Garrett Gonzales is also up and Bryan and I will be back tomorrow night talking about the go-home Raw show.

Ricky Starks said all was good after his injury scare last night. As noted on last night's show, backstage the belief was that he suffered a stinger, not a concussion. Starks & Big Bill were originally to win the match and face FTR, but they went right to a finish and it probably should have been stopped sooner with the injury scare. Starks said it was precautionary.

In Google searches for this week, nothing from boxing, MMA, or wrestling made the top 20 all week. The debut of the UFL, of which Dwayne Johnson is part-owner, was No. 12 yesterday with 100,000 searches. The league opened up yesterday, which is a combination of four teams from the XFL and four teams from the USFL merging and the other teams from both leagues being dropped.

Raw will have very tough competition tomorrow. Iowa with Caitlan Clark, the biggest name in women's basketball, faces LSU at 7:15 p.m. The Iowa game last week hurt the Raw overall number. Luckily it'll only probably go against maybe the first hour and change, but the second women's game, Connecticut vs. USC is also big. Raw will do fine, Rock is advertised and Roman Reigns will be there, but the game is real heavy competition, far more than the NBA would be. I still expect very good numbers. The first hour going against the Iowa game will be commercial-free.

Raw at the Barclays Center is officially sold out as of today. WrestleTix lists 13,345 tickets out. It was obvious it would be since all the shows are selling out, it's the New York market, and would have been even without The Rock on the show.

Rob Kaman, the Dutch kickboxing and Muay Thai legend, passed away today at the age of 63. Kaman was considered the best of the heavyweights in the 80s, before the days of K-1, and was known as the greatest low kick specialist of his era. He did a pro wrestling match in RINGS in the early days of that promotion. He also did several action movies.

We want to send our best to Tony Schiavone who worked last night on what was a horrible day for him due to the death of his dog. Best also to Jerry Lawler who is recovering from knee replacement surgery.

Dennis Knight, the former Mideon, noted that when going in for surgery, doctors found a shredded appendix and a hernia and his blood sugar skyrocketed. He said that he spent eight days in the hospital and almost died. He had stomach pain that he thought was a bowel obstruction and went in for surgery, and they found worse.

As noted earlier, Tamyra Mensah-Stock, the 2021 gold medalist in wrestling and one of the most dominant women wrestlers in the world, had her first match last night in Melbourne, FL, on the NXT show beating Breanna Covington. Internally we've heard nothing but good about her for months.

We talked on the show extensively about the Arena Mexico El Homenaje a Dos Leyendas show that featured Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Matt Sydal, and Willow Nightingale of AEW. The crowd heat was incredible. It wasn't just for the main event but up and down the show, really every match except maybe the minis mask match. Regarding the CMLL YouTube subscription page, as Bryan Alvarez noted, it is $35 a month which is very high. It should be noted that there is a $9 per month tier where you get the Friday night big shows on a two-week delay. So the show would be available at that price in two weeks.

We're looking for reports on these shows

• WWE Smackdown from Uncasville, CT with the dark matches
• WWE last night in Manchester, NH

We're looking for results, finishes, and highlights to dave@wrestlingobserver.com. We are doing a poll for those who did see the Arena Mexico show on Friday, thumbs up, down, or middle, best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserve.com

On A&E tonight, the Rivals show at 8 p.m. is Miz vs. Daniel Bryan and the 9 p.m. biography is on Roman Reigns, which is the one put together by Paul Heyman. Dark Side of the Ring on Tuesday looks to have a very interesting piece on Harley Race.

Miu Watanabe beat Miyu Yamashita to win the Princess of Princess title at Sumo Hall in Tokyo earlier today on the big Tokyo Joshi Pro show. Several people told us this was a women's match of the year candidate. I haven't seen it yet.

Yuma Anzai won the Triple Crown from Katsuhiko Nakajima yesterday at the Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo at 24 years old. The result was a huge upset. Jun & Rei Saito regained the world tag titles they had never lost over Suwama & Hideki Suzuki. They lost due to an injury and Suwama & Suzuki ended up as champions. Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura won the All-Asa tag titles from Atsushi Onita & To-y in a current blast match.

Stardom also had two title switches due to talent leaving for Rossy Ogawa's group. The main event saw Suzu Suzuki & Mei Seira win the Goddesses of Stardom tag titles over Utami Hayashishita & Saya Kamitani with Utami losing since she's leaving. With Mirai leaving, Syuri & Mirai & Ami Sohrei lost the Artist of Stardom belts to Maika & Mina Shirakawa & Xena.

Maiki defends the World of Stardom title against Megan Bayne on Thursday at the Stardom show at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. Seira defends the High Speed belt against Saki Kashima and Ram Kaochow. Stephanie Vaquer & Momo Watanabe & Starlight Kid face Kamitani & AZM & Camron Branae. Syuri & Konami vs. Willow Nightingale & Saki. Shirakawa & Mariah May & Xia Brookside face Mayu Iwatani & Tam Nakano & Momo Kohgo.

Shirakawa & Maika & Seira face Kamitani & Nakano & AZM on the ROH Supercard of Honor show from the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia as well, which also has Eddie Kingston vs. Mark Briscoe and Athena vs. Hikaru Shida.

In a UFL game this morning with San Antonio vs.DC, the quarterback was mic'd and the first play he called was "diamond cutter." The announcers immediately brought up Diamond Dallas Page (thanks to Barry Werner)

There was a weird UFC fight yesterday. Chris Weidman had won the first two rounds against Bruno Silva. There were eye pokes by Weidman in the second round and Silva couldn't see and Weidman was landing punches so it was stopped and at first, Weidman was declared the winner via ref stoppage. The commission decided after seeing the footage that because the eye pokes caused the finish, they would overrule the ref stoppage score the fight up to that point and had the judges score the second round. Weidman was up 20-18 on all three cards and ruled the winner. Silva is planning to appeal, saying that it should be a no contest. The eye pokes were ruled accidental by the referee. But yes, I think in that situation it should be a no contest as well.

A first-ever Nic Nemeth over Ultimo Dragon match took place in Indianapolis last night with Nemeth winning.

WWE Speed will debut on Wednesday on X at Noon Eastern time.

Countdown to WrestleMania will air from 5-7 p.m. on Peacock.

Brett Lauderdale of GCW talked about WWE/Bloodsport, returning to Japan, Hammerstein Ballroom & more, FITE+, international tours & OVW with John Poz and Lavie Margolin of PWPonderings. It will also be released soon by Creative Control Network in podcast format.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a story on ECW. (thanks to Chuck Langerman)