THE ROUND-UP
The Latest from the F4W Staff
NEWS
Anthem’s Ed Nordholm on streaming service plans, commitment to GFW
Chris Jericho on WOR: Reinventing himself, Vince McMahon, more
Ronda Rousey to appear on WWE Mae Young Classic red carpet special
UFC 215 main event off due to illness
GFW Impact results: Eli Drake defends against Matt Sydal
NXT Rochester, NY, live results: McIntyre vs. Almas; Itami gets busted open
AUDIO
Wrestling Weekly: Jarrett and Anthem, BOLA, mailbag 9/8
WOL: Mae Young Classic, Lucha Underground, Dave Meltzer, more! 9/8
WOR: Ed Nordholm of Anthem and Global Force Wrestling 9/8
Big Audio Nightmare: MYC, NJPW Korakuen, 5 Star GP, TAKA, more! 9/8
B&V&G: NXT, Lucha Underground, Granny’s Wrestling Report, more! 9/7
We’re looking for reports tonight from the NXT house show in St. Catharines, ONT to [email protected].
We’ll be doing two polls this weekend, for the UFC 215 show in Edmonton and the New Japan Destruction in Fukushima, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected].
The WWE Raw & Smackdown crews are only doing television this weekend. Both crews have the weekend off since the Raw crew is going to Australia after the tapings and the Smackdown crew is going to Hawaii and Japan.
NEW JAPAN ON AXS TV AT 8 P.M. EASTERN TIME
Kenny Omega vs. Tama Tonga
Kazuchika Okada vs. Michael Elgin
LEGACY FIGHTING ALLIANCE ON AXS TV AT 9 P.M. EASTERN FROM DENVER
Mike Jones (5-3) vs. Adam Vigil (3-0)
Maycee Barber (1-0) vs. Mallory Martin (1-1)
Brandon Royval (5-3) vs. Demetrius Wilson (5-1)
Derek Brenon (4-0) vs. Boimah Karmo (4-2)
Chris Gutierrez (10-3-1) vs. Mario Israel (10-3)
Gilbert Smith (12-6) vs. Benjamin Smith (15-4) in Gilbert Smith’s retirement fight
Ian Heinisch (8-0) vs. Markus Perez (8-0) for the vacant middleweight title
CMLL FROM ARENA MEXICO TONIGHT AT 9:30 P.M. EASTERN
Astral & Oro Jr vs. Akuma & Canelo Casas
Guerrero Maya Jr. & Drone & Fuego vs. Virus & Tiger & Puma
Stuka Jr. & Rey Cometa & Soberano Jr. vs. Sam Adonis & Negro Casas & Cavernario
Titan vs. Rey Bucanero
Volador Jr. & Caristico & Valiente vs. Satoshi Kojima & Rush & Pierroth
Mistico & Dragon Lee & Marco Corleone vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero & Euforia
NEW JAPAN FROM KORAKUEN HALL ON SATURDAY MORNING AT 5:30 A.M. ON NEW JAPAN WORLD
Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Katsuya Kitamura & Shota Umino
Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi & Baretta & Jado vs. Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa
War Machine & Togi Makabe vs. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Taka Michinoku
Will Ospreay & Rocky Romero vs. Bushi & Hiromu Takahashi
Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Leo Tonga & Chase Owens
Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Tetsuya Naito & Evil & Seiya Sanada
Elimination match: Michael Elgin & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kushida & Ryusuke Taguchi & Ricochet vs. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka & Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi
We’re looking for reports on Saturday’s NXT show from Toronto to [email protected].
UFC 215 FROM EDMONTON ON SATURDAY
Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. Eastern
Kajan Johnson vs. Adriano Martins
Mitch Clarke vs. Alex White
FS 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern
Arjan Bhullar vs. Luis Henrique
Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker
Ashlee Evans-Smith vs. Sara Moras
Sara McMann vs. Ketlen Vieira
PPV at 10 p.m. Eastern
Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis
Gilbert Melendez vs. Jeremy Stephens
Ilir Latifi vs. Tyson Pedro
Rafael dos Anjos vs. Neil Magny
Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko for the women’s bantamweight title
NEW JAPAN DESTRUCTION IN FUKUSHIMA AT 3 A.M. EASTERN SUNDAY MORNING EASTERN TIME AND MIDNIGHT PACIFIC ON SATURDAY NIGHT ON NEW JAPAN WORLD
Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Shota Umino
Tomoyuki Oka & Katsuya Kitamura vs. Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi
Baretta & Jado vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe & Kushida & Ryusuke Taguchi & Ricochet vs. Takashi Iizuka & Taka Michinoku & Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi
War Machine vs. Killer Elite Squad vs Guerrillas of Destiny for IWGP tag team titles
Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Leo Tonga & Bad Luck Fale
Tomohiro Ishii & Will Ospreay vs. Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi
Evil & Seiya Sanada & Bushi vs. Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero & Toru Yano for six-man titles
Minoru Suzuki vs. Michael Elgin in a lumberjack match for Never open weight title
Raw will be Monday night in Anaheim at the Honda Center. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman return for the show.
NXT is scheduled for a television taping on Wednesday night at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL, although for obvious reasons related to the Hurricane Irma, there is a back-up plan in place.
There is a major Tuesday night taping in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. For Smackdown, there will be an Usos vs. New Day street fight for the tag titles, Natalya vs. Naomi for the women’s title and A.J. Styles vs. Tye Dillinger for the U.S. title. After that will be the Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane Mae Young Classic title, followed by 20-5 Live with TJP vs; Rich Swann.
FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY: Figure Four Weekly 9/4/2017: Women’s wrestling takes another step forward with Mae Young Classic
With everything but the final now having aired, the Mae Young Classic has again challenged whether women’s wrestling occupies enough of the current WWE landscape. The matches went about as well as could be expected. There were few bad ones, a handful of standouts, and a ton of pretty good matches. The 32-competitor field showcased female wrestlers of varying skill sets — from one participant having their literal first professional match (Xia Li) to veterans finally getting their first chance in a WWE ring after lengthy careers.
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WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: September 11, 2017 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Jeff Jarrett takes leave of absence from GFW, PWG BOLA reviewed, more
A look at GFW, the departure of Jeff Jarrett, and where things go from here with the company is the lead story in the new issue. Look at the talks of a sale, incidents that happened, future direction, the current television situation, why the tape library isn’t going to be sold, the new creative team, the current angles, Bound for Glory plans, Alberto El Patron, the future of Jim Cornette, Bruce Prichard and others and more.
Look at the Mayweather-McGregor business; looking at PPV in the U.S. and U.K., live gate, what mistakes were made, and the state of McGregor coming out of the fight.
Check out the next two WWE PPV shows, the Cena vs. Reigns program and Enzo Amore and the cruiserweight division.
Details on the Battle of Los Angeles tournament including the Keith Lee vs. Donovan Dijak match, the future of Ricochet and Matt Riddle and how the New Japan/WWE situation fits in, and why the usual rules of wrestling and crowds don’t seem to apply in PWG.
Get an update on John Layfield leaving Smackdown, The Mae Young Classic, how the Mae Young Classic did on the WWE Network, new WWE TV deal in Canada, Hurricane Irma and WWE events, what opposing lawyer in concussion suit asked for as part of a settlement, Samoa Joe injury update, Sami Zayn update, more on the situation with Baron Corbin, Nikki Bella on Dancing with the Stars, WWE running Christmas and New Year’s live shows, injury updates, Australia tour notes, and company value.
Full coverage of the UFC Fight Pass event from Rotterdam, Holland is in this issue.
Examine the real numbers when it comes to cord cutting, as well as how many people have access to the key stations wrestling and MMA are on.
Get details on the ratings for all the national shows over the past week, including breakdown of who was watching all of the WWE shows.
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WON BACK ISSUE: August 14, 2000 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WCW turmoil, Hall of Fame candidates, more
The turmoil regarding the future of World Championship Wrestling continues with what apparently is a shake-up leaving Brad Siegel backing Vince Russo in complete control of the company. At the same time, the losses continue to escalate, with July’s losses estimated at $7 million, the most, by far, of any month in the history of a company now on track to lose close to $80 million over the course of this year. The main stories going around, seem to involve the prospective merger of AOL and Time Warner, and getting the company’s losses under control.
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FRIDAY NEWS UPDATE
First want to send best wishes to everyone in Florida and the Southeast for the next several days. It sounds like things are going to be awful and it’s unavoidable, but hope things are the least disruptive to your lives as they can be in a horrible situation like this.
Much of the WWE-based Florida talent has left the state. All of the NXT events the next two weeks have been canceled except the TV tapings on Wednesday.
Regarding Tuesday, because the Raw crew leaves after the show for Australia, unless they make special arrangements and Sasha Banks misses the first night of the Australia tour, she won’t be able to be in Las Vegas on Tuesday for the expected Horsewoman vs. Horsewoman angle.
Ed Nordholm of Anthem Sports today announced more details of the Global Wrestling Network, a $7.99 per month service that will debut next week with 850 hours of archived Impact and TNA material. The first month will be available free. There will also be a free tier where Impact will air in North America ten days after it debuts on Pop TV. Nordholm also has confirmed what we had in this week’s issue regarding Alberto El Patron returning at Bound for Glory on 11/5.
UFC has offered full refunds to anyone who asks for them regarding tomorrow night’s show in Edmonton due to the Demetrious Johnson vs. Ray Borg main event falling through.
WWE
Not all of the women in the Mae Young Classic are being brought to Las Vegas on Tuesday. Many are, but some are not. They are pushing a red carpet ceremony with Ronda Rousey (who was asked about it last week), The Horsewomen except Sasha Banks, Olympic soccer star Hope Solo, The Bella Twins, HHH, Stephanie McMahon and the cast of the Netflix GLOW series.
Ric Flair announced today he is now being represented by Get Engaged for all business endeavors. Their contact info is [email protected].
T.J. Wilson (Tyson Kidd) has a seminar on 10/26 at the Create a Pro Wrestler Academy in Hicksville, NY at 7:30 p.m. for $50.
Natalya Neidhart wrote about 25 things people may not know about her.
UFC
The UFC Rotterdam show did 33,000 viewers on Fox Sports 1 in The Netherlands with 9,000 for the preshow and 13,000 for the postshow. Germaine de Randamie was among those on the panel, along with former pro wrestler Bob Schreiber, Marloes Coenen and many others. (thanks to Henk Mulder)
Tim Elliott vs. Justin Scoggins was added to the 12/16 show in Winnipeg.
Elias Theodorou vs. Daniel Kelly has been added to the 11/19 show in Sydney, Australia.
MISCELLANEOUS
ROH announced the Soaring Eagle Cup tournament to take place on 10/28 in Mt. Pleasant, MI at the Soaring Eagle Casino. Jay Lethal, Dalton Castle and Christopher Daniels will all be in the tournament.
More of the Sam Muchnick flies.
Future Stars of Wrestling on 9/24 at Sam’s Town in Las Vegas (the day after the second of two ROH shows in the building) has Jake & Dave Crist, Sami Callihan, Kevin Kross, Reno Scum, Jeff Cobb, Tommy Dreamer, Willie Mack, Matt Riddle, Keith Lee and Brian Cage.
There is a special Houston Wrestling show on the 6:05 Superpodcast with Peter Birkholz and Tom Prichard.
Pro Wrestling Phoenix on 10/5 in Omaha at the Waiting Room Lounge with Davey Richards.
Absolute Intense Wrestling on 9/15 in Cleveland at Our Lady of Mat Carmel featuring Dean Malenko as a guest, plus Colt Cabana, Grado, Joey Janela, Sonjay Dutt, Tom Lawlor, Laredo Kid, Matt Cross, Ethan Page, DJZ and more.
Gary Michael Cappetta, the former WWF, AWA and WCW ring announcer, is doing a Beyond Bodyslams speaking tour:
10/13 in Conyers, GA at the Center Street Arts Theater
10/14 in Tampa at the Greater Tampa Showmen’s Club
10/15 in Orlando at the Pro Wrestling 2.0 Training Center
10/28 in Asbury Park, NJ at The Lakehouse
11/4 in Louisville at The Alley Theater
11/11 in Queens, NY at the Queens Theater.
NWL Kansas City from 9/2 in Kansas City: Jet Royal b Ken Dharma, Devlin b Gil Rogers, Jeremy Wyatt b Anthony Gutierrez, Thor Theriot b Maverick-COR, Mike Outlaw b Niles Plonk, Best in the World b Howletts, Jack Foster b Michael Strider, Dak Draper b Blaine Meeks in a no DQ NWL title match. (thanks to Brian Hoops)
HPW from 9/2 in Columbus, IN: Kid Thunder won three-way over Scarecrow and Kenny Kage, Fireball b JC Bunyan, Ace Jackson b Drax O’Brien, Omega Pitbull b Lightning Bolt to win Tri-State title, Tom Van Zant b Dom Bambino, Flash Flanagan & Vic the Bruiser b Tank & JW1, Duke the Nuke b Vinnie Bambino, Shawn Cook b TJ Kemp (his father) in a loser must retire match for HPW title. Next show is 10/7 featuring Jimmy Valiant. (thanks to Jerry Wilson)
CZW tomorrow in Voorhees, NJ. At 4 p.m. is a WSU card at Flyers Skate Zone with a King & Queen tag team tournament. Among those appearing are Dave Crist, Leva Bates, Tim Donst, Veda Scott, Jason Cade, Su Yung, Mercedes Martinez and Brittany Blake and Anthony Bennett. CZW at 8 p.m. features Shane Strickland as well as the Chris Cash Memorial ladder match.
LFA on 9/22 in Bossier City, LA at the Horseshoe Casino & Hotel with Derrick Krantz defending his welterweight title against James Nakashima and Andrea Lee defends her flyweight title against Jamie Thorton.
Ricky Steamboat appears tonight for River City Wrestling in San Antonio at Turner Club in Kirby, TX. Abyss vs. Ethan Carter III will headline.
New England Championship Wrestling tomorrow night in Wakefield, MA at the Americal Civic Center headlined by Chris Escobar vs. Todo Loco.
Bellator will be giving out 5,000 Fedor Emelianenko bobble heads at the 9/23 show in San Jose. There will also be a Fedor meet and greet at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon. Fans are encouraged to arrive early for it.
Acclaim Pro Wrestling tomorrow night in Ottawa and the Dom Polski Hall.
Smash Wrestling Ring Talks on 9/13 at Rivoli in Toronto. There will be two talk panels, one with Sebastian Destranj, Alan Taylor and James Kee, who run Smash Wrestling, and another with Braxton Sutter, Jimmy Korderas, and Kevin Bennett. Jackie Redmond of Sportsnet will host.
Smash Wrestling runs 9/17 in Toronto at the Franklin Horner Community Center.
Evolve on 9/22 in Livonia, MI:
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Davey Richards for Evolve title
James Drake & Anthony Henry vs. Ethan Page & ACH
Matt Riddle & Keith Lee vs. Chris Dickinson & Jaka
Fred Yehi vs. DJZ
Evolve on 9/23 in Summit, IL
Matt Riddle vs. Tracy Williams anything goes for WWN title
Keith Lee vs. Davey Richards
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Fred Yehi
Darby Allin vs. DJZ
James Drake vs. Austin Theory
Anthony Henry vs. Jason Kincaid
The Fight Network in Canada has TKO 40 tonight from Montreal at 6 p.m. headlined by Todd Stoute (-3) vs. Marc-Andfre Barriault (7-1), followed by LFA from Denver tonight at 9 p.m. They also have Fight Night Medicine Hat tomorrow night at 10 p.m. headland by Jesse Arnett (12-4) vs. former UFC fighter Johnny Bedford (23-13-1), plus UFC stars from another generation square off with Shonie Carter (51-31-7) vs. Joe Riggs (45-17). They also have pre-fight and post-fight UFC coverage from Edmonton.
Innovative Wrestling tomorrow night in Bristol, TN at the VFW
There will be a screening of the movie “Signature Move” on 9/30 in Chicago at 2 p.m. at The Music Box Theater. It’s about a Muslim woman who takes care of her mom and falls in love with a Mexican-American woman wrestler. It will be followed by a women’s wrestling show at The Hangar in Chicago with Mercedes Martinez and Rachael Ellering.
Total Combat Wrestling from last night in Milano, Italy: Fenice Rossa b Antonino Bellavita for the Extreme title, Marieddu b II Marchese, Jacob b La Pasta, Scandalo b Sky Raptor, Darkness I b Carlo Birra. (thanks to Alessio Garbini)
Best in the West has a TV taping tomorrow in Merced, CA at 6 p.m.Pacific time at the American Legion Post. (thanks to Jon Southerland)
NFC runs on 9/22 at Center Stage in Atlanta with an MMA show featuring Jared Gooden vs. Eli Wynter for the NFC welterweight title.
Antonio “the Promise” Thomas welcomes former WWE tag team champion and Spirit Squad member Johnny Jeter for a rare chat! Antonio and Johnny talk while live drafting their fantasy football teams and talking football, their picks, and some GREAT stories from Jeter’s time in WWE and OVW. Sports, wrestling, and hip-hop rolled into one! Available on iTunes, Sticher, Google Play and Podbean.
A documentary featuring recent BOLA entrants & Progress Wrestling stars Flash Morgan Webster, Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, Mark Andrews, Zack Sabre Jr. & Mark Haskins as well as many other top names around the British wrestling scene.
The BBC covers women’s wrestling.
Today in Professional Wrestling History: Ric Flair stripped of NWA World title
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