Week in Wrestling - Sunday May 20, 2018
WWE NEWS
Money in the Bank Update
There is still plenty of time to finalize the angles for Money in the Bank, on 6/17 at the Allstate Arena in Chicago. But that didn't stop WWE from announcing at the NBC Upfronts that Nia Jax will defend the Raw women’s title against Ronda Rousey. The idea is that Jax approached Rousey and challenged her to a title match, but Rousey would turn it down claiming its not her time yet to jump the line. Nia Jax stressed the point that she’s challenging her, so Rousey would come off as the person not scared to accept the challenge. Charlotte Flair then told Rousey to accept it, which she did.
The big problem is that based on storytelling to make things have the most interest, this is way too soon. Rousey climbing the ladder to chase the title should culminate months from now, if not at WrestleMania next year. Anything quicker makes it both less anticipated and have less meaning when it happens.
So far the card is shaping up, with several weeks to go:
The big problem is that based on storytelling to make things have the most interest, this is way too soon. Rousey climbing the ladder to chase the title should culminate months from now, if not at WrestleMania next year. Anything quicker makes it both less anticipated and have less meaning when it happens.
So far the card is shaping up, with several weeks to go:
- A.J. Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the WWE title
- Carmella vs. Asuka for the Smackdown women’s title
- Money in the Bank men’s match - Bobby Roode, Braun Strowman, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Rusev, The Miz and the winner of Samoa Joe vs. Cass
- Money in the Bank women’s match - Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Ember Moon, the winner of a match next week with Billie Kay vs. Lana and three others.
WWE Is Making Big Money
After rumors surfaced Wednesday night that NBCUniversal wants to bring back Raw to USA Network at three times the current contract value, WWE's stock value hit record highs Thursday. The stock was trading at $50.21 a share, up from $43.60 at the close of business Wednesday and good for a near 15% increase. Earlier Thursday, they crested past $51 a share, their record high.
The company's TV contract is up next year and the Hollywood Reporter reported that NBCU wants to bring back Raw for nearly three times what they currently receive while choosing to not renew SmackDown. Fox has been rumored to also be a suitor for WWE programming, opening up the possibility of bringing the Tuesday night show to Fox Sports One. They could still be interested in Raw for the Fox network depending on the cost. WWE hasn't commented publicly on any of the news.
The company's TV contract is up next year and the Hollywood Reporter reported that NBCU wants to bring back Raw for nearly three times what they currently receive while choosing to not renew SmackDown. Fox has been rumored to also be a suitor for WWE programming, opening up the possibility of bringing the Tuesday night show to Fox Sports One. They could still be interested in Raw for the Fox network depending on the cost. WWE hasn't commented publicly on any of the news.
It's Officially a Work
John Cena was a guest on The Today Show on 5/14 and said his heart was broken when Nikki Bella broke up with him and said that reports going around that he’s taking advantage of being single are incorrect. He said he was ready to get married (they were supposed to get married on 5/5) and would be on his honeymoon right now, his first vacation in years. Cena said that he wants to have children with her and said for a long time he didn’t, but wants to get back with her and spend the rest of his life with her.
She was at the NBC Upfronts and the reporters asked her about the idea Cena wanted to have kids with her and she pretended to be surprised and had no idea what he said. That clearly tells you at this point this whole thing is a work because he was on national TV and even if they weren’t in regular communication and were fully broken up, she’d know what he said instantly. Watching those two interviews it was so painfully clear this was a work to build interest in the new season of Total Bellas.
The feeling is the breakup was legit but when the word started getting around that they probably would get back together, that from there you can see they are milking that aspect. It could be that this is all an elaborate storyline to rebuild ratings for the show, or a mix of two things.
She was at the NBC Upfronts and the reporters asked her about the idea Cena wanted to have kids with her and she pretended to be surprised and had no idea what he said. That clearly tells you at this point this whole thing is a work because he was on national TV and even if they weren’t in regular communication and were fully broken up, she’d know what he said instantly. Watching those two interviews it was so painfully clear this was a work to build interest in the new season of Total Bellas.
The feeling is the breakup was legit but when the word started getting around that they probably would get back together, that from there you can see they are milking that aspect. It could be that this is all an elaborate storyline to rebuild ratings for the show, or a mix of two things.
Big Dummy (Cass)
Cass has some heat on him for a segment on Smackdown a few weeks ago where they brought in the mini Daniel Bryan character. According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, Cass was told to kick him in the face and that’s it. He asked if he could beat the guy down after and was told no. He then got mad about being told no and went to Vince McMahon, who turned it down. The one kick got that shocked reaction and heat. The beatdown gives more of a visual of ugly bullying and while wrestling and bullying is a natural contradiction since bullying is a classic heel trait and WWE still has heels. But the beatdown did give you the gut reaction of more ugliness because of the prolonged nature of it. Cass then ignored what he was told and did the beatdown on the ground.
Enzo All Clear....
The Phoenix police department informed Eric Arndt (Enzo Amore) that they were no longer investigating him regarding the sexual assault charges brought by 19-year-old Philomena Shaheen claiming that she was drugged and raped by the wrestler. The WWE quickly fired Arndt even though they had built the cruiserweight division around him.
It was pretty clear based on too much conflicting evidence including text messages Shaheen had made to a friend which became public, where she was bragging about being in bed that night with a famous wrestler with no mention of it not being consensual, that it would be a difficult case to prosecute.
WWE had fired Arndt partially because he had never let them know of any investigation and they were blindsided when the case hit the media. Tom Cargill, who Arndt had hired as his attorney in Phoenix, claimed Arndt had no idea he was being investigated.
It was pretty clear based on too much conflicting evidence including text messages Shaheen had made to a friend which became public, where she was bragging about being in bed that night with a famous wrestler with no mention of it not being consensual, that it would be a difficult case to prosecute.
WWE had fired Arndt partially because he had never let them know of any investigation and they were blindsided when the case hit the media. Tom Cargill, who Arndt had hired as his attorney in Phoenix, claimed Arndt had no idea he was being investigated.
NXT NEWS
Updated Takeover: Chicago Card
After all the tapings for the build-up were completed last week, the 6/16 Takeover in Chicago officially has Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa in a street fight, Aleister Black vs. Lars Sullivan for the NXT title, Shayna Baszler vs. Nikki Cross for the women’s title and Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream. Other stuff teased, and most likely only one of these bouts will take place on that show although all will be taking place soon somewhere, is TM 61 vs. War Raiders, Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong defending the tag titles against Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch (the most likely match since they shot several angles) and Adam Cole vs. Pete Dunne.
New Japan Pro Wrestling News
Dominion Sold Out
The 6/9 Dominion show with the fourth Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega match as well as Chris Jericho vs. Tetsuya Naito is sold out, which would be in the range of 11,400 to 11,800 tickets sold. With the higher prices, it would also be the gate record for pro wrestling in the arena. This would make it their earliest advanced sellout for Osaka Jo Hall in history.
Best of the Super Juniors
The Best of the Super Juniors tournament started this past Friday was highlighted by the main event where Taiji Ishimori defeated Will Ospreay in an action packed match. If it lasted a few more minutes it would have been really fantastic. Still, this was a cool match with a lot of hot moves on Ospreay’s part. Ishimori more than held up his own. YOH defeated BUSHI in a really good match, particularly the final few minutes. ACH defeated Flip Gordon in a pretty good match. The highlight was some of Gordon’s incredible offense, and the match played off on both guys’ skills well. Also Tiger Mask defeated Yoshinobu Kanemaru.
The second show, which was the B block opener on Saturday at Korakuen Hall featured Hiromu Takahashi defeating Marty Scurll in a hell of a main event. Coming up on 5/22 at Korakuen Hall is another B block show with Sho vs. Sabin, Taguchi vs. Lee, Scurll vs. Kushida and Takahashi vs. Desperado.
The second show, which was the B block opener on Saturday at Korakuen Hall featured Hiromu Takahashi defeating Marty Scurll in a hell of a main event. Coming up on 5/22 at Korakuen Hall is another B block show with Sho vs. Sabin, Taguchi vs. Lee, Scurll vs. Kushida and Takahashi vs. Desperado.
Ring of Honor News
Best in the World in Baltimore
The next PPV show is Best in the World on 6/29 in Baltimore at the 5,000-seat UMBC Center. That’s going to be interesting to see how it does.The main event is Dalton Castle vs. Cody vs. Marty Scurll for the ROH title, so they are teasing issues with Cody and Scurll. They are also doing TV tapings at the Eaglebank Arena in Fairfax, VA the next day, which is a 10,000-seat building. Obviously that will be scaled way down because ROH usually doesn’t draw much over 1,000 for TV tapings.
IMPACT News
Impact News
The main focus of the TV was doing an angle where Sami Callihan destroyed Don Callis at a show in Mississauaga, ONT, complete with Callis doing juice. The story is that in the I Quit match with Eddie Edwards vs. Callihan over WrestleMania week in New Orleans, that Callihan was about to destroy Edwards again when Callis threw in the towel. So Callihan was mad that by throwing in the towel he protected Edwards and vowed to get back at him. They love the idea that Callihan has gotten so much social media heat for hurting Edwards with that errant baseball bat shot months back. They said there was an emergency meeting and they were about to fire Callihan, but in usual fashion for this kind of an angle, Edwards demanded they not fire him so he can get his own retribution.
The plan isn’t for Callis to be a character on television coming out of this, but more to try and put more steam of Callihan. It was the first time Callis had done a blade job in something like 21 years. The mentality is that Callihan vs. Edwards, something never planned to be a focal point of the promotion thing, is their Raven vs. Dreamer program that they are going to push with all kinds of angles and stories.
The plan isn’t for Callis to be a character on television coming out of this, but more to try and put more steam of Callihan. It was the first time Callis had done a blade job in something like 21 years. The mentality is that Callihan vs. Edwards, something never planned to be a focal point of the promotion thing, is their Raven vs. Dreamer program that they are going to push with all kinds of angles and stories.
INDEPENDENT NEWS
The entire original allotment of 9,164 tickets were sold in just under 30 minutes on 5/13 for the All In show on 9/1 at the Sears Center in Hoffman Estates, IL. In all the building was to be set up for roughly 10,200 fans and Cody Runnels noted after the first day that the number of tickets out were 10,145, beating the goal they stated of 10,000. About 7,500 of the 9,164 tickets were priced at either $28 or $53. There were another 1,100 priced at $78, with the rest at $103, $128 and $153. Based on that, the live gate would be in the range of $450,000. Tickets were also sold without the ticket broker community, since this event fell under the mainstream radar.
The show was sold out with only a series of names mentioned, a strong list to be sure, since it included The Young Bucks, Cody, Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega as well as the usual “Being the Elite” cast of Adam Page, Marty Scurll and the tease of some sort of an angle leading to a big match with Flip Gordon.
There is no way of knowing if the potential was 15,000 or 20,000, because tickets went too quickly and tons of people were turned away. So many fans tried to get tickets at the same time immediately that, like in Long Beach, they crashed the site. This meant people who went to get tickets as soon as they were put on sale had problems and even some of them were unable to get their tickets processed before they were all sold, although most were able to get something. The demand for the best seats was far greater than the supply, and most tickets on the secondary market are going for about seven times retail value.
The show was sold out with only a series of names mentioned, a strong list to be sure, since it included The Young Bucks, Cody, Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega as well as the usual “Being the Elite” cast of Adam Page, Marty Scurll and the tease of some sort of an angle leading to a big match with Flip Gordon.
There is no way of knowing if the potential was 15,000 or 20,000, because tickets went too quickly and tons of people were turned away. So many fans tried to get tickets at the same time immediately that, like in Long Beach, they crashed the site. This meant people who went to get tickets as soon as they were put on sale had problems and even some of them were unable to get their tickets processed before they were all sold, although most were able to get something. The demand for the best seats was far greater than the supply, and most tickets on the secondary market are going for about seven times retail value.
Starrcast
Tickets for the podcast event being held during All In weekend by Conrad Thompson, Starrcast, went on sale on 5/16 and those tickets went quickly as well. About 1,550 tickets were sold to Starrcast in the first hour or so they were put on sale. There were some remaining at the end of the first day, but they were gone quickly. Thompson, who put it together, noted he was stunned at how quickly tickets moved.
By: Larry Causion Jr. CausionCreations.com
Posted: Sunday, May 20, 2018
Credit: Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Posted: Sunday, May 20, 2018
Credit: Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter