UFC 193 Ronda Rousey vs Holly Holm
Ronda Rousey did a last minute PPV sell job by getting in Holly Holm’s face and saying that she sees through her fake nice girl persona.
While I’m sure they will announce 70,000 as the attendance, the real number will not be close. But Etihad Stadium will be full or very close to it. There were thousands of lower priced tickets left as of yesterday. The gate right now is $8.5 million in Australian dollars which is $6 million plus in U.S. dollars, so it’ll be among the biggest gates in UFC history but not close to the Toronto record or that of the recent WrestleManias.
If you go back five years, it is completely ridiculous that a show headlined by two women’s fights will legit draw more than 45,000 fans live and whether it does or doesn’t, it is entirely possible can do 1 million buys on PPV. The very concept of that would have been unheard of to the point it would be ridiculous.
I guess because of the Rousey vs. Correia numbers, this is the first time for a Rousey headlined show that I haven’t seen tons of stuff about how the show will bomb and how the UFC blew it with putting her on top because nobody is going to buy it. Remember all those WNBA analogies on why this was going to flop?
Joanna Jedrzejczyk whispered to Valerie Letourneau at a media event that she was going to end her career. Most figure that the fighters who have the biggest chances to make themselves stars are Joanna, Holm (if she wins, however great the odds are) and perhaps Robert Whittaker for the Australian market.
There were about 9,000 fans at today’s weigh-in, the second largest number in UFC history.
Nothing from the show is trending on Google, unlike Rousey’s last fight where she started trending days before the fight and did totally ridiculous numbers.
UFC has brought Julianna Pena to Australia, which seems to indicate they may want to have something set up with her and Rousey if Rousey wins. Right now the plan is for Rousey, if she wins, to headline UFC 200 in July next, as she’ll take time off for movie commitments.
We’re looking for reports on today’s WWE show in Nottingham, England, NXT in Orlando, ROH in Milwaukee (A.J. Styles & Young Bucks vs. Jay Lethal & Donovan Dijak & Joey Daddiego, Michael Bennett & Matt Taven vs. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly for tag titles plus Survivor of the Fittest matches with Mark Briscoe vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Hanson vs. Kenny King, Jay Briscoe vs. Frankie Kazarian vs. Ray Rowe vs. Rhett Titus, Adam Cole vs. Michael Elgin vs. Moose, Dalton Castle vs. Silas Young vs. Adam Page and Roderick Strong vs. Cedric Alexander), NXT in Orlando and House of Hardcore in Philadelphia shows.
We’re also looking for reports on yesterday’s WWE shows in Newcastle, England and Bologna, Italy, yesterday’s NXT in Winter Haven, FL and Wednesday’s show in Rome at Dave Meltzer
We’ll be doing polls this weekend on both UFC 194 and the Tenryu retirement show.
WORLD PRO WRESTLING RETURNS ON AXS TV at 9 p.m.
Kenny Omega vs. Ryusuke Taguchi for IWGP jr. title
Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows vs. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata for IWGP tag titles
These matches are from the 1/4 show at the Tokyo Dome.
HOUSE OF HARDCORE AT 8 P.M. EASTERN AT WWW.RFVIDEONOW.COM
Tony Nese vs. Alex Reynolds vs. JT Dunn
Eddie Kingston vs. Tommaso Ciampa
Chris Hero vs. Lance Archer
Bobby Roode vs Austin Aries
Rhino vs. Abyss
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Tajiri & Tommy Dreamer vs. Ethan Carter III & Eric Young
LEGACY FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS TONIGHT AT 10 P.M. ON AXS TV
Brian Collete (206.6) vs. Manny Mancha (207) in a Legacy light heavyweight kickboxing tournament semifinal
Myron Dennis (208) vs. Andres Van Elgelen (206.7) in a Legacy light heavyweight kickboxing tournament semifinal
Trent Meaux (135) vs. Joel Scott (136)
Kolton Englund (159) vs. Gabe Duhon (163)
Sean Soriano (155) vs. Josh Quayhagen (156)
Ryan Spann (184.1) vs. Leonardo Cruz (184.6) for middleweight title
Winners of the light heavyweight tournament semifinals meet for championship in the main event
WWE finishes out the European tour on Saturday with shows in Minehead, England (Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt) and Stuttgart, Germany (Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose for the IC title). We’re looking for reports on those shows, as well as the Lucha Underground tapings which begin tomorrow night in Boyle Heights, CA, ROH in Hopkins, MN featuring the finals of the Survival of the Fittest tournament with the six winners from Friday night’s qualifying matches doing a six-way match, as well as NXT in Sebring, FL and the House of Hardcore show in Queens, NY at the Elmcor Center.
UFC SATURDAY NIGHT FROM ETIHAD STADIUM IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRAILA
Fight Pass at 6:15 p.m. Eastern time
Ryan Benoit vs. Ben Nguyen
Steven Kennedy vs. Richard Walsh
Steve Montgomery vs. Daniel Kelly
James Moontasri vs. Brendan O’Reilly
FS 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern
Richie Vacuik vs. Danny Martinez
Anthony Perosh vs. Gian Villante
Kyle Noke vs. Pete Sobotta
Jake Matthews vs.
PPV AT 10 p.m. Eastern
Jared Rosholt vs. Stefan Struve
Uriah Hall vs. Robert Whittaker
Mark Hunt vs. Antonio Bigfoot Silva
Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Valerie Letourneau for strawweight title
Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm for bantamweight title
TENRYU RETIREMENT SHOW FROM SUMO HALL IN TOKYO AT 1 A.M. EASTERN LATE SATURDAY/10 P.M. PACIFIC TIME
Jushin Liger & Ryota Chikuzen & Gurukun Mask & Shigeno Shima & Dragon Joker vs. Onryo & Kuuga & Taru & Minoru Fujita & Yasu Kubota
Great Kabuki (he famous one from the 80s) & Kai & Buki vs Great Kojika & Jun Kasai & Toru Sugiura
Shiro Koshinaka & Arashi vs. Taiyo Kea & Yuto Aijima
Ricky Fuji & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Kikutaro & The Winger
Meiko Satomura & Tomoka Miyagi vs. Dash Chisako & Sendai Sachiko
Yoshinari Ogawa & Kendo Ka Shin vs. Nosawa & Kennichri Arai
Koki Kitahara & Ryuji Hijikata & Kotaro Nasu vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima & Hikaru Sato & Kazuki Hashimoto
Riki Choshu & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Akitoshi Saito & Ryuichi Kawakami
Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Minoru Suzuki & Kazunari Murakami
Suwama & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Kazuyuki Fujita
Genichiro Tenryu vs. Kazuchika Okada
This show features world champions from three different offices, Big Japan (Okabayashi), NOAH (Suzuki) and New Japan (Okada).
Sunday has Insane Championship Wrestling in Glasgow, Scotland with Drew Galloway vs. Grado in what will be the most attended show from a UK based promotion in 33 years, as well as the second day of the Lucha Underground tapings in Boyle Heights, CA.
Raw will be live Monday night from Greenville, SC. The show will feature the quarterfinals of the WWE championship tournament. The quarterfinals have Roman Reigns vs. Cesaro Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto, Kevin Owens vs. Neville and Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler. It’s possible all of these matches will be on Raw, or that some may be taped for Smackdown.
Smackdown tapings are Tuesday night in Knoxville.
Figure Four Weekly:
Figure Four Weekly (10/2/15): WWE 2K16 Review
2K Sports and Yuke’s turnaround WWE video game series with a reinvigorated title boasting huge roster.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
Exclusive news on WrestleMania, how SummerSlam has changed due to the Seth Rollins injury, updates on Rollins, notes on the WWE title tournament and what key stars besides Rollins and Randy Orton are now unlikely to wrestle at WrestleMania is the lead story in the new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
We also look at the different potential finishes of the WWE title tournament, how it looks to be progressing, a look at the Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock fight and look back 20 years to their two previous fights, lots of notes on the fight, and the back story.
We also look at WrestleMania tickets, the Wayne Rooney angle, Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista update, More on Alberto Del Rio’s outside business and his angle in Puerto Rico, Undertaker week, WWE make more network predictions, notes from the next Madison Square Garden show, notes on Raw this week, Ronda Rousey talks WWE Divas division, what WWE star is ready to return from surgery, plus notes on all the WWE & NXT arena events of the past week and business note.
We also have our monthly business rundown of WWE and TNA, to see how both groups are doing as compared to the same period last year, as well as a breakdown on how every different WWE main event is drawing over the past month.
CLICK HERE FOR A FULL WRESTLING OBSERVER PREVIEW
The latest Wrestling Observer: November 16, 2015 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Seth Rollins injury, Wrestlekingdom 10 matches
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FRIDAY DAILY UPDATE
Today is the 10th anniversary of the death of Eddie Guerrero.
As noted earlier today, the Royal Rumble is sold out. Tickets went on sale to the public today although there have been a couple of pre-sales dating back to August.
The largest crowd ever in the U.S. for a legitimate wrestling match will be tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, IA for the Iowa vs. Oklahoma State dual meet. There were 34,000 tickets sold to the event as of Wednesday afternoon, doubling the all-time collegiate dual meet record. With good weather and tons of people expected coming to town for the Iowa vs. Minnesota football game tomorrow night, they are hopeful of a good walkup with talks of 37,000 to 40,000. The show will air on tape delay on the Big 10 Network (DirecTV 610, Dish 405) ion Sunday at about 6:15 p.m. The previous dual meet record was 15,996 fans for the Penn State vs. Pitt meet on December 8, 2013.
Today’s Ben Askren vs. Luis Santos ONE welterweight title fight never happened because Santos weighed in at 172 pounds. Askren then told Santos he would fight him in a non-title match as long as Santos agreed to be weighed in going into the cage at less than 190 pounds. Santos showed up gigantic to Singapore. Santos refused. Victor Cui, the president of ONE, was furious at Santos for turning down the fight. Santos then called Askren a pussy for not accepting the fight under any weight, since the title wasn’t going to be at stake. “If the fight is not for the belt, why does it matter? At this point he’s just scared. I’m ready to fight him, but it looks like he’s not.” Way to dig the hole deeper, buddy
After being fired by WWE today, Billy Gunn was announced as appearing on 2/5 and 2/6 for Preston City Wrestling in the U.K.
There will be a web site get together on Friday, 4/1, for WrestleMania weekend, at the Texas de Brazil Steak house in Dallas at 5 p.m. We’ll have more on that as time approaches
WWE
Brad Maddox was identified on the Tonight Show on Wednesday night. It was at the very end of the show, long after the skit, when everyone on the show was being thanked, they used the name Brad Maddox, even though that’s not his real name.
WWE stock didn’t move today, staying even and closing the weekend at $16.38 per share.
UFC
The Fight Network will be airing UFC 157 (Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche), UFC 175 (Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida; Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis) and UFC 190 (Ronda Rousey vs Bethe Correia) starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning until 7 p.m. to build to the Rousey vs. Holm fight.
UFC announced the launch of the UFC app on Amazon’s Appstore, available on all Amazon Fire streaming devices like Amazon Fire TV and the Fire TV Stick. It will have streaming access to all PPVs as well as Fight Pass.
Cain Velasquez interview from Australia
Uriah Hall talks tomorrow’s fight with Robert Whittaker
As story on how the Rousey vs. Holm promo came together
MISCELLANEOUS
Josh Nason talked with Michael Chiesa on this week’s PunchOut on the web site right now. They talked about his upcoming fight with Jim Miller.
The ESPN 30 for 30 special “The Prince of Pennsylvania,” which was great, is not airing on the U.S. version of Netflix (thanks to Shane Browne)
In the new episode of the Winter Palace podcast, Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated talks about the sports media, including his podcast with Paul Heyman, wrestling podcasts and the Observer column in the National and Frank Deford’s appreciation of it. Deitsch and second guest Leonard F Chikarason each also talk about old school Howard Stern show memories.
Northeast Wrestling tonight in Waterbury, CT at Wilby High School featuring Bret Hart, Velvet Sky, Rey Mysterio, and the Hardys.
There is a Go Fund Me campaign I want to mention for longtime subscriber Patrick Jones. Last May, his body shut down including his arms, and his arms up to his elbows and legs below his knees needed to be amputated. He was just released from the hospital two weeks ago, and still has many more procedures in front of him. There will also be a nine pin bowling tournament to benefit him in Moline, IL at Highland Park Bowl on 12/5 with prizes awarded as a fund raiser. https://www.gofundme.com/patrick_davis
Maryland Championship Wrestling was announced a streaming service called MCWRageTV.com for $4.99 per month to watch footage of all the latest events and new original content.
Lots of people noted that there was a Bullet Club shirt shown at the Jets-Bills game last night.
La Sombra vs. Rush headlines Arena Mexico tonight. It may or may not air at www.ClaroSports.com You never know until showtime whether it’ll air won’t air, or will air and be blocked in the U.S.
CMLL results from Tuesday night in Guadalajara: Nube Roja & Yaqui b Mr. Apolo & Chakal, Espanto Negro & Metalico & Sangre Azteca b Oro Jr. & Soberano & Stigma, Kraneo & Olimpico & Ripper b Angel de Oro & Diamante Azul & Maximo Sexy-DQ, Rey Bucanero b La Mascara to retain the NWA historic light heavyweight title, Euforia & Negro Casas & Mr. Niebla b Atlantis & Mistico & Volador Jr. They set up a main event for this coming Tuesday in the same building with Volador Jr. defending the NWA historic welterweight title against Casas. (thanks to Kris Zellner)
Sunday will be the first time the NWA women’s championship was defended in Japan since the last time Moolah defended there (around 1969). Santana Garrett defends the title at Korakuen Hall against Holidead. (thanks to Al Haft)
Tanner Saraceno from Tough Enough will be fighting tomorrow against Tommy Metzger in a amateur middleweight title fight for UWFFC that will be streaming at GFL.TV
Mecca Pro Wrestling on 11/21 in Cornwall, ONT at the Agora Center featuring Al Snow and Tommy Dreamer.
Hoosier Pro Wrestling on 12/5 in Columbus, IN at the 4-H Fairgrounds featuring Tommy Rich.
Vince Brent vs. Jordan Kage headlines Smoky Mountain Wrestling on 11/27 in Elziabethton, TN at the Evolution Sports Gym.
Pro Wrestling Phoenix tomorrow night in Council Bluffs, IA at the National Guard Armory.
ON THIS DAY IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY INTERNATIONAL (thanks to Graeme Cameron)
1967 – Mick McManus beat Clayton Thompson in London to win the British middleweight title
1976 – Jan Wilkens beat Seiji Sakaguchi in Johannesburg to win the EWU Super heavyweight title
1979 – Verne Gagne beat Rusher Kimura in Niigata to win the IWE title
1984 – Marty Jones beat Fit Finlay in Dartford to win the World mid-heavyweight title
1994 – Perro Aguayo Sr. beat Konnan in Ciudad Juarez to win the AAA heavyweight title
1995 – Karula (Harley Saito under a mask) beat Eagle Sawai in Tokyo to win the LLPW title
1995 – Kensuke Sasaki beat Sting in Tokyo to win the U.S. title
1998 – Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr. beat Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Satanico in Mexico City to win the vacant CMLL tag titles
2004 – Alex Shane beat Doug Williams in Coventry to win the British heavyweight title
2005 – Dragon Kid beat Naruki Doi in Nagoya to win the Open the Brave Gate title
2006 – Jeff Hardy beat Johnny Nitro (Johnny Mundo) in Manchester to win the WWE IC title
2010 – Tama Tonga & El Terrible beat Atlantis & Diamante Azul in Mexico City to win the CMLL tag titles
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