DAILY UPDATE
Latest News
Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott official for WWE Elimination Chamber
Kenny Omega reveals AEW contract details, talks NJPW and WWE
Roman Reigns to guest star on Nickelodeon’s ‘Cousins for Life’
NJPW and CMLL sending teams to NWA-ROH Crockett Cup
AEW announces new talent for Double or Nothing
AEW Double or Nothing card begins to take shape
Kenny Omega signs with All Elite Wrestling
AEW Double or Nothing ticket onsale dates announced
All Elite Wrestling partnering with Lucha Libre AAA
Latest Audio
F4D: Raw, Smackdown, Becky, Mae Young hand, retro shows, women’s audience, more! 2/8
WOL: All Elite Wrestling all the time 2/8
WOR: Kenny Omega on AEW, his match with Tanahashi, WWE 2/8
Wrestling Weekly: AEW party, Les Thornton, WWE unhappiness 2/8
B&V: Retro Raw and Nitro from 19 years ago this week! 2/7
F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: WWE’s WrestleMania main event decision
While the first women’s WrestleMania main event is all but official at this point, WWE still has a huge decision to make about who will be in it.
In a sense, WWE is playing with house money. Both options that they have are good ones. Whether the main event is Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship or a triple threat between Rousey, Lynch, and Charlotte Flair for the title, it will be the most heated match on the card and fully deserving of its place in the spotlight on WWE’s most important day of the year.
WON NEWSLETTER: February 11, 2019: NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo review, more
I have no idea how this issue got done. I had surgery on my left little finger which was broken in three places on 1/30, and it seemingly went well.
NJPW – New Beginnings: The two nights together did 10,957 paid with one sellout up from 10,002 last year. Tanahashi & Okada as The Dream Team vs. Jay White & Bad Luck Fale did the same as Tanahashi vs. Suzuki did last year for the IC title but paid was much higher this year for Naito vs. Taichi in Taichi’s hometown than for Kenny Omega vs. Jay White for the U.S, title last year, although both were sellouts.
At Smackdown on Tuesday, several talents with contracts coming due were asked to sign new long-term deals after Dean Ambrose told the promotion he wasn’t going to sign a new contract.
Ian Riccaboni signed a new contract with ROH to continue as their play-by-play announcer.
UFC held a press conference today. The big heat seemed to be between Tyron Woodley and Kamaru Usman, building up their Welterweight Title fight at UFC 235 on March 2nd. Jon Jones is facing Anthony Smith on that show.
Conor McGregor will not be fighting Donald Cerrone in April. Khabib still claims he is not fighting for a year.
Jose Aldo defeated Renato Moicano, 44 seconds into the 2nd round. First round was very close. But it was the “old Aldo”, just destroyed him. Aldo is still talking about retiring at the end of this year.
Filthy Tom Lawlor is the new MLW champion defeating Low Ki at their super fight one hour Bein Sports TV special from the 2300 (ECW) Arena in Philadelphia.
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FRIDAY NEWS UPDATE
by Joseph Currier and Bryan Rose
WWE
From Dave Meltzer on this weekend’s WWE house shows: “For the weekend, no Rollins advertised anywhere including Raw. Rollins has been pulled from all advertising due to a back injury. Daniel Bryan & Rey Mysterio are scheduled for TV on Tuesday in Toledo but not for any house shows. AJ Styles, Randy Orton & Becky Lynch (even with the suspension angle) are still advertised for all SmackDown brand shows this week except Monday in Canton, which she was pulled from. That could mean she’s coming to Raw since it makes no sense for her to be on the road all week except Monday and then be scheduled Tuesday. Rousey is advertised for a Sunday house show in Saginaw and Raw Monday in Grand Rapids.”
WWE stock was up 2.78 percent today, closing the week at $85.82 per share.
The Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio is advertising Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe for the WWE Championship, Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair, and Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor for the Intercontinental title for Fastlane, which is taking place at the venue on March 10. Whether or not those matches will happen remains to be seen. Ronda Rousey is also being advertised for the PPV.
Today would have been Jim Neidhart’s 64th birthday. Sherri Martel was also born on this date in 1958 and Freddie Blassie was born on this date in 1918.
Natalya wished her father a happy birthday: “Happy birthday to my dad. What an amazing life he lived!!! So grateful we got so many wonderful years together”
Big Show turned 47 years old today.
Sports Illustrated has video of Roman Reigns’ appearance in Nickelodeon’s “Cousins for Life.” The episode will air at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, March 2.
Congrats to Big Boa from NXT, whose wife recently gave birth.
Ricochet tweeted that this year’s Halftime Heat is the most-watched match in NXT history.
Dean Ambrose talked about wrestling figures with Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins on the latest episode of the Major Wrestling Figure podcast. Seth Rollins was also the guest on today’s episode of the Edge & Christian podcast.
Stuber, a movie starring Kumail Nanjiani and Batista, will be played at the SXSW festival.
The WWE Performance Center’s YouTube account has a behind-the-scenes video from Eric Bugenhagen’s NXT TV debut.
Pro Wrestling
LAX and The Lucha Bros’ Tag Team title rematch will air on tonight’s episode of Impact. The match took place at Impact’s television tapings in Mexico City last month and was well-received. Tonight’s Impact airs on Twitch and the Pursuit Channel at 10 p.m. Eastern time and also features Kiera Hogan vs. Dark Allie, Sami Callihan vs. Puma King, Rich Swann & Willie Mack vs. Jake & Dave Crist, and Trey Miguel vs. Rohit Raju. Impact is advertising that they’ll be revealing the main event for their WrestleMania week United We Stand show.
AEW’s Nyla Rose is the first transgender wrestler to sign with a major promotion in the United States.
Cody Rhodes & Nick Jackson and Brandi Rhodes did media scrums after last night’s AEW Double or Nothing ticket announcement party.
Matt Jackson tweeted about Kenny Omega signing with AEW: “We were never not gonna do this without our best friend & co-founder of The Elite, @KennyOmegamanX. Welcome to the team, pal.”
Booker T wrote about Kylie Rae joining AEW: “One of my best students, proud of you @IamKylieRae! Make @TheOfficialROW proud! @AEWrestling you got a good one.”
NJPW will be holding a fan event called New Japan Matsuri at Japan Village in Brooklyn on Thursday, April 4 during WrestleMania week. It’s free to attend and will run from noon-6 p.m. Eastern.
The Briscoes defending their Tag Team titles against Villain Enterprises (PCO & Brody King) has been officially announced for ROH’s 17th Anniversary PPV at Sam’s Town Live in Las Vegas on Friday, March 15. PCO & King got the title shot by winning last month’s Tag Wars tournament.
The latest Ten Pounds of Gold has Billy Corgan doing media ahead of the Crockett Cup, as well as an interview with Jim Cornette.
Kenny Omega talked to Razer about his love for video games and pro wrestling and how they tie together for thim.
Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler appeared on today’s Talk is Jericho, which was recorded during last year’s Jericho cruise.
UFC/MMA
Dana White says that Tony Ferguson deserves the title match against Khabib Nurmagomedov next. He also said that he wants Conor McGregor back in the summer, and Donald Cerrone is the frontrunner for that fight.
White announced that the UFC has a one-show deal with DirecTV to air UFC 234 this weekend.
Alexander Volkov will fight Alistair Overeem on a UFC Fight Night card on 4/20 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Bellator announced a one-year deal with Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland.
The UFC uploaded episodes four and five of Embedded for tomorrow’s PPV.
Anderson Silva said he would like a fight at UFC 237 after facing Israel Adesanya this weekend.
Colby Covington is still upset about not getting the welterweight title shot, telling TSN: “I’m the biggest draw this in this division right now. I’m not fighting for anything less than I deserve and I don’t care what they say. I’ll stand up for what’s right and if that means never fighting again then that means never fighting again.”
Ed in San Antonio presents the WRESTLEMANIA Weekend Events (more to be added):
Sunday, April 6th, at 12:00 pm: Lunch (all you can eat) at Churrascaria Plataforma ($90 per person), located at 316 W. 49th street in Manhattan. Purchase tickets here~!
Luxury Bus to MetLife Stadium for Wrestlemania: We will depart from the Hilton Midtown (site of Wrestlecon) located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. Departure time is 4:00 pm and will return from MetLife approximately 30 mins after the event. Times are subject to change, and cost $67.00 per person for the round trip. Purchase tickets here~!
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