Daily Update: Matt Cardona, Stardom notes, Linda McMahon claims

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Among the topics covered:

• Ryohei Oiwa wins the G-1, thoughts on the tournament, historical importance, best match, MVP, Tenzan retirement and more.
• Las Vegas Stadium Authority releases actual WrestleMania attendance numbers, how it compared with a year ago, locals vs, tourists and the biggest show of the year when it comes to actual paying customer interest this year was not WrestleMania after all.
• A look at the major U.S. wrestling shows between now and the end of November and how they are doing.
• Full coverage of UFC 330.
• Part three on Dory Funk Jr., history of the Funk brothers tag team both in Texas and elsewhere, the story of the International tag team titles and International heavyweight title, the last years of the Amarillo territory, the start of the All Japan tag team tournament and early years, plus how the Funks got over in Japan, and the story behind the song spinning toe hold,.
• How TV ratings will be changing onice again at the end of the month and why the few people who do know the changes are already not happy.
• A complete look at the ratings for all the major wrestling TV shows along with an apples-to-apples comparisons with one year ago
• Notes on major CMLL shows over the next few months.
• CMLL stars on a new Netflix TV show
• Rundown of the major Arena Mexico matches this past week including two can’t miss bouts
• Notes on the broadcast of many different AAA shows
• Stardom Grand Prix tournament coverage and reaching the final four
• Crazy RAF story regarding heat for running in Moscow.
• Dark Side of the Ring on Missy Hyatt
• Death of the prosecutor in the Snuka murder case
• Bandido and Daniel Garcia European results
• Update on Paramount/WBD takeover issues and suits
• Notes on Ilja Dragunov departure from WWE
• WWE house show notes

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Sunday Update

— Our week in review show with Garrett Gonzales on Friday was an interview with Andy Quildran about RevPro and their biggest undertaking in their history at Ovo Wembley Arena this coming Friday, the U.K. scene, his thoughts on the future of wrestling, plus we talked the Ospreay vs. Omega build, Oiwa vs Uemura, Atlantis & Blue Panther vs Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja, and the next change in television ratings. Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about all the weekend news, and there is a ton of it.

— Matt Cardona suffered a torn triceps on Friday night’s taping in Toronto during his match. Best of luck to him. If it needs surgery you’re talking seven or eight months out, maybe more.

— Smackdown on Netflix with the CM Punk vs Kevin Owens match did big numbers as compared to usual on Netflix. It finished first for the day among television shows in Bahrain, Bolivia, Canada, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, and the U.K.

— Linda McMahon was on CNN this morning and claimed that one in ten students will be sexually molested IN SCHOOL based on her statistics. Later she tried to claim that was Caliifornia, as to demonize the state. I mean, right away, you can figure that is ridiculous but in fact in California, the believed stat is one in 11,000, which is still too high. But my God, of all people, one of the people who oversaw WWF in the 80s and who was trying in the court case to publicly make the names of the victims in that case public (her lawyers already know the names but are not allowed to reveal them so as not to try to ruin their lives now that they are in their 50s, she wants the names made public, thus far her side was turned down in that request). As she wants to do what to alleviate this problem she exaggerated so much? Cut back on funding of schools.

— The Five Star Grand Prix ended today at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. In the semifinals, Starlight Kid beat World of Stardom champion Suzu Suzuki and Rina beat Maika. Rina beat Starlight Kid in what we were told was a match of the year candidate t o win the Grand Prix and likely face Suzuki for the title soon.

— This is the third anniversary of the death of Terry Funk, one of the greatest all-around performers in the history of the industry.

— It is also the 39th anniversary of the death of Macolm Kirk, a well known British heavyweight who had just finished a match in Great Yarmouth, England against Big Daddy and suffered a heart attack.

— 2026 NCAA champion Matt McEnelly beat Bo Nickal in last night’s RAF show in Cleveland. This was the biggest RAF show to date and Henry Cejudo gained revenge in the main event by pinning Merab Dvalishviil in :36. Dvaishvili had beaten Cejudo on points. Gable Steveson beat Tony Cassioppi 6-0, but he didn’t tech him like he would have in the past.

— Cris Cyborg beat Ketlen Vieira in last night’s PFL show in Tampa. Vieira weighed in at more than 152 pounds for a 145 pound fight. Cyborg on scores of 49-46, 48-47 and 49-46. Cyborg cut a promo telling Claressa Shields to eat less and meet her in a boxing match at 160, and also challenged Kayla Harrison. That’s a grandstand because Harrison is under contract to UFC so the fight isn’t happen.

— The 7/10 AEW Brawl in the Ballpark in Minneapolis at the Twins game will be airing at 6 p.m. Eastern tonight on MyAEW. This will be the first broadcast of the event.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on Friday’s ROH Death Before Dishonor and tonight’s TNA Lockdown, you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to [email protected]

— We’re looking for reports on the WWE shows last night in Edmonton and tonight in Calgary, results, finishes and highlights to [email protected]

— In Google trends from last night, the Rolly Romero vs. Teofimo Lopez has the most interest at 200,000. The UFC show in Sacramento was at 93,000. Cris Cyborg was at 20,000 for her PFL fight last night on ESPN. RAF, with its biggest U.S. show to date last night was at 20,000. Smackdown was at 5,000.

— AEW Dynamite on Wednesday from Glasgow, Scotland has Swerve Strickland vs. Jack Perry as well as the Continental Cup semifinals with Nigel McGuinness vs. Kyle O’Reilly and Jon Moxley vs. Claudio Castagnoli.

— The only international match this weekend I’ve been told to make sure and see is the Rina vs. Starlight Kid Five Star Grand Prix final earlier today. I’ll try and watch it before tonight’s show.

— Arena Mexico did sell out Friday night, making 15 Fridays in a row. This was the week, with Mistico & Mascara Dorada in Philadelphia, where I’d think they wouldn’t have been able to do so. The one thing it makes me think is how many of these weeks when they had the bigger shows would have done 20,000+ if the place was larger. I think every time it was sold out by Thursday, you probably could have hit close to 20,000.

— WWE on A&E tonight had Rivals with Reigns vs. Rollins at 8 plm. LFG at 9 p.m. and also at 10 p.m. while Rivals with Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage is at 11 p.m.

— So here’s a crazy story and hardly a surprise because they did the same thing here at a taping. After Collision ended, in the last match of the taping last night, they did a Bandido vs Mortos ROH title match. Two of the three people who contacted us live said it was the best match of the entire show. Fans in the building had no idea such a match was going to happen until just a few minutes before it did. I was told maybe 350 fans had stayed. Why they didn’t announce that if you stayed you’ll be seeing this match I have no idea. The worst that could have happened is more people would have stayed.

— All In Texas will air on ITV 4 this coming Thursday night from 9 p.m. to 3:45 a.m. (thanks to Stephen Lyon)

— Soberano Jr. basically said that the guy who rolls his eyes (Mark Calaway) and the guy who spits water (Paul Levesque) have made many calls to him but he’s not interested. He has always publicly claimed he’s not interested in leaving CMLL. So many guys with his level of success and drawing power, as well as cockiness, would be in the “it won’t happen that way to me and it’ll be different” club.

— Among the birthdays today are Anthony Greene (33) and Taru (62).