Daily Update: WON Hall of Fame, Eddy Guerrero, WWE Raw

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This Week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• November 13, 2023 Observer Newsletter: TKO earnings call, NXT to The CW

We've got a very heavy business issue of the Observer focusing on a lot of different breaking stories involving both WWE and AEW:

• Match of the week and performer of the week
• The changes in WWE business under TKO
• UFC & WWE quarterly business updates
• Behind Vince McMahon selling 8.4 million shares of TKO stock, what he got, what he still owns, what it did to the stock price and what other large sum of money he just received that fell under the radar
• Why WWE numbers were unexpectedly down, and why TKO actually losing money this quarter is nothing to be concerned over
• A look at WWE and AEW attendance and how it's changed over the past year
• Ari Emanuel talks about competition for WWE and UFC
• More departments where jobs will be lost
• Company goals for 2024
• Changes in the live arena experience
• Key that makes WWE and UFC attractive for television stations
• Issues with Vince McMahon
• The CW deal for NXT
• Changes for a WWE show next year and other changes talked about
• Who are the leaders for the Raw rights
• What are the rankings of the stations with pro wrestling and MMA product
• Billy Corgan gives comments about the cocaine angle
• A look at the TV deals that Tony Khan, Dwayne Johnson and Vince McMahon have been part of for wrestling and football
• Full coverage of Crown Jewel and the booking
• A look at the Ricochet injury and how it changed the IC title path slightly going into the Survivor Series
• Early notes on the Survivor Series
• PPV numbers and what did Crown Jewel buyers watch and not watch when it came to major PPV events this past month
• The future for Will Ospreay and Giulia
• Notes on the Tokyo Dome show
• Great matches and angles at Power Struggle
• Full Power Struggle coverage
• UFC from Brazil coverage
• The most detailed look at the TV ratings from the past week from all shows, including comparison to last year, competition, and how each segment did as well as Dynamite vs. NXT
• Major rudo turn on sold out Arena Mexico show
• AAA doing a talent search
• More injuries and health issues with Stardom
• Update on Stardom tag team tournament
• Controversy at Stardom event after changed start time of show
• All Japan has an incredible match this week and sets up another for New Year' Eve
• A look at All Japan's year end tag team and junior tournaments
• Lots of injury updates
• New Japan big events in early 2024
• DDT has major show this week
• More on the Von Erich movie
• Indie star says his indie career is over
• Indie promotion draws 5,000 fans
• Contract issues in MLW
• WBD stock falls
• Update on Full Gear
• Notes on Mariah May debut
• Stardom star under contract to AEW and details
• Ticket sales for upcoming WWE & AEW shows
• International TV ratings and streaming numbers
• UFC signs deal with new TV outlet to return from nearly a decade
• How Vince McMahon kept UFC off NBC
• Lots of new UFC title matches
• Unique facts about this weekend's UFC show
• More on Fury vs. Nganou PPV numbers
• WrestleMania week news
• CM Punk news
• YouTube numbers and WWE and TKO value at this point
• Reports from the WWE house shows

This Week's Retro Observer Newsletter

• August 23, 2006 Observer Newsletter: WWE Mexico tour, Diva Search

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back late tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio to talk the latest news, cover Raw, talk some of the other big weekend matches as well as talk more on Full Gear and Survivor Series.

This is a busy week here because it's the week of our Hall of Fame issue, one of our two biggest issues of the year and the issue most talked about. We can reveal today that there will be seven new members of the Observer Hall of Fame added from the voting of our panel of reporters, historians and industry professionals.

There have been a lot of Eddy Guerreo tributes today, being the 18th anniversary of his death of a heart attack at the age of 38. Eddy is a member of most wrestling Halls of Fame, and was one of the original guys who blended high-level Lucha, American and Japanese wrestling together and many top wrestlers, including Jushin Liger, who wrestled everyone, praised Guerrero at one point as the best wrestler he was ever in the ring with. We did a huge story on Guerrero in this issue.

Raw tonight is from Washington, DC and has Damien Priest & Finn Balor defending the tag titles against Cody Rhodes & Jey Uso, The Miz vs. Ivar, Otis vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, Tommaso Ciampa vs. Ludvig Kaiser, Xia Li vs. Indi Hartwell and Tegan Nox vs. Piper Niven. They get a break because the NFL game is Denver (3-5) vs. Buffalo (5-4) and the Raw rating greatly depends on the audience of the NFL game. They sold a lot of tickets over the weekend and had 9,816 tickets out as of this morning so with the walk should be well above 10,000.

A note to watch for. There has been talk all week regarding the men's War Games match changing from a four vs. four with Jey Uso & Sami Zayn & Seth Rollins & Cody Rhodes vs. Damian Priest & Finn Balor & Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh, to a five vs. five. With this week and next week to go, one would think if that's the case, and it was over the weekend, that storyline stuff to set that up would at least be started tonight if not finished. The fifth person on the heel side would be Drew McIntyre, or at least was in the plans as of a week ago.

AEW still hasn't had much movement in tickets for Wednesday's Dynamite. They'll need a strong last two days to hit 4,000 at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, which they sold out on the first day when they debuted in the building in 2022.

Chris Hero returns to action on Friday night in San Francisco for West Coast Pro Wrestling against former rival Timothy Thatcher. It's his first match in many years and he's had a lot of offers to wrestle since that time. Ironically the first time I saw the two wrestle would have been in 2015 during WrestleMania week in San Jose at the Fairgrounds when they tore the house down.

UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards said today to Sky Sports that he wants to face the winner of the upcoming Sean Strickland vs. Dricus De Plessis middleweight title match, moving up a division, at UFC 300. Edwards first has a title defense against Colby Covington on next month's UFC PPV show.

The UFC show on Saturday night drew the second biggest gate of any event in the history of Madison Square Garden, that means concerts, NBA and NHL games, boxing or anything else. UFC holds the record with $17.7 million for Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez. Saturday did $12.4 million with a main event of Alex Pereira winning the light heavyweight title against Jiro Prochazka. Of course the guys who deserve the credit are Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, since the tickets were sold to see him for the most part. It also speaks volumes about UFC when they've sold that many dollars worth of tickets, that instead of having Miocic fight for the title on that show, they pulled him off the show as well. As noted before, one of the things about TV rights being what carries these companies is that serving the fan is no longer as important because whether they do or not, their money is guaranteed.

Dwayne Johnson appears tonight on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on NBC.

Barmageddon debuts its second season tonight airing after Raw on the USA Network. Just because of the placing of the show, it should be among the higher rated shows on cable tonight. NBC will also be airing one episode of the show on at 10 p.m. on 12/4, head-to-head with Raw that night.

The much-talked about Will Ospreay vs. Josh Alexander match at the last Impact TV tapings will be airing on Thursday's show.

The Thursday night Wrestling Revolver show in Los Angeles with Ronda Rousey & Marina Shafir vs. Athena & Billie Starkz, which also features the first match ever of Paul Walter Hauser, the actor who did some stuff (no wrestling in the ring) wth AEW in the past, airs on FITE + live.

The WWE return to Atlanta on 1/19 for a Smackdown taping had a big first weekend of ticket sales. The show will likely sell out.

John Kavanagh was on The MMA Hour today and said that the Johnny Walker vs. Magomed Ankalaev rematch will be on 1/13. He also said that Conor McGregor was told that UFC won't be booking him in April as he had hoped for and now the plan is the summer. McGregor said he was told he would be fighting in April last month and wanted to fight sooner since he hasn't fought in well over two years. He will be eligible to fight on 4/8. Kavanagh said McGregor is very frustrated about this. It once again shows how everything changes when most of the revenue is guaranteed. The days of the star fighter having all the leverage like it was when PPV carried the day and the draws determined the PPV numbers, are clearly over.

Kevin Von Erich was introduced at yesterday's Dallas Cowboys game and got a nice reaction. Marshall Von Erich put it up on Twitter.

Tammy Sytch's sentencing on her DUI manslaughter charge will be on 11/27. She is facing four to just over 25 years in jail and up to $10,000 in fines. Prosecutors are arguing for the longest sentence possible.

Paul London is opening up a wrestling school in South Gate, CA. He is starting on 12/3 with a five-day intensive training program open to wrestles of all skill levels and will begin teaching regular classes in January. The school will be called the Kayfabe Academy.

The documentary "Out In The Ring" looking at the history of LGBTAIA+ participants in pro wrestling will air on FUSE on Wednesday night. It features stories on wrestlers Sonny Kiss, Dani Jordyn, Pollo Del Mar, Effy and 70s star Susan Green.

Dory Funk Jr., who is 82, will be making rare public appearances on 11/17 in Chicago for a Fan Fest and on 12/29 with Steve and Colby Corino for the PWF show in North Carolina.

Empire State Wrestling on Friday night in Buffalo, NY at the RiverWorks with Kevin Benett vs.; Vince Valor in a cage match. Heath (Slater) vs. Crazzy Seve is also on the show plus Chris Adonis (masters) vs. James Sayga for the Ilio DiPaolo Memorial Cup.