WRESTLING NEWS
**Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics has a report on this past year’s attendance for the Royal Rumble at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. With it being a public venue, the city can accommodate requests for information, therefore, are be more transparent than most venues WWE runs. Thurston learned that actual attendance was 44,569 with a gate of $7.3 million with 2,662 comps among that figure. On the broadcast, WWE announced 51,388 and disclosed a gate of $7.7 million (often, WWE includes the service fees in their gate figure and would explain the $400,000 difference). Of the actual tickets to be scanned for those entering the building, the number was 42,928. Thurston also obtained correspondence between a member of the WWE live events staff and someone with the Alamodome regarding the number of people inside the building that WWE could cite as part of its attendance figure. When an initial estimate by the Alamodome was considered low, the WWE rep requested capacity figures for unused suites, the number of people that could fit in the press box (typically, media only gets usage of a designated press box at WrestleMania), and also requested the numbers working in concessions, parking, security, housekeeping, ops, and finally stating “anyone with a heartbeat.” They arrived at a figure of 2,422 they could tack onto the number, which still didn’t get to the amount WWE announced but may have added all the talent and staff backstage (or those with an active beating heart, which could be animals for all I know). Thurston also has data from the previous Rumble event at the Alamodome in 2017 and is well worth checking out for an idea of how WWE arrives at some of their inflated numbers and the degree of credibility one can assign those publicly released numbers.
**During an Instagram Live video, Nikki Garcia (formerly Nikki Bella) stated that her and her sister are not going to AEW. The twins revealed on Tuesday that were departing WWE and are now going by their own names instead of ‘Bella’. Nikki stated they were backstage at Revolution in San Francisco, but it was so Nikki’s son, Matteo, could watch her uncle wrestle in the main event. Nikki and Brie will be doing a live podcast on 4/19 at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco.
**The debut of AEW in Winnipeg has been long overdue given two of its premiere performers being attached to the company from the start-up period. Obviously, the pandemic slow-rolled many destinations for the promotion, which has yet to reach the U.K. and only branched into Canada last October with two events in Toronto. WrestleTix reports over 7,100 tickets out for tonight’s show, which was initially scheduled for last night before the TBS schedule allowed for AEW to remain on its normal night. The big events on the show include the Trios Championship Match involving the House of Black, The Elite, and J.A.S., which includes some of the top performers in the world and a chance to have one of the best television matches in recent memory. The other is MJF’s Re-Bar Mitzvah, which could be one of those segments that see a big increase based on the various directions it can go and having MJF as the centerpiece. AEW has many babyfaces in the on-deck circle from Adam Cole, Darby Allin, Kenny Omega, Jack Perry, Wardlow, and Konsouke Takeshita for future MJF programs on television, and later, Double or Nothing. It will also be interesting to see if this event generates a higher-than-usual audience in Canada as AEW numbers have stagnated in the country while WWE is red-hot with Raw and SmackDown on Sportsnet 360.
Here are the matches and segments for tonight’s show at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and TSN 2:
*Trios Championship: House of Black © vs. Kenny Omega & Young Bucks vs. Chris Jericho, Daniel Garcia & Sammy Guevara
*International Championship: Orange Cassidy © vs. Jeff Jarrett
*TBS Championship: Jade Cargill © vs. TBA
*Hangman Page, Evil Uno & Stu Grayson vs. Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta
*MJF’s Re-Bar Mitzvah
*The Outcasts will speak
*QTV with Powerhouse Hobbs & QT Marshall
**Lance Storm brought up an interesting point on Figure Four Daily regarding the WWE gambling story. If a deal were to be struck with DraftKings or any other betting entity and receive approval in state(s), it would be unlikely that talent would be cut into the deal with a percentage of the revenue. This would create a scenario where if you’re part of the “gambling match” on the day of a major event, it gives talent a lot of leverage if they are unwilling to go along with a finish. For instance, if this year’s major match for bettors was Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes, they would need to lock the finish in months prior without telling either party until the day of the show. What are WWE’s options if they inform Reigns that he is losing the title in five hours, and he balks at the finish? Presumably, betting would be paused once the finishes are disclosed to the performers and you have a giant pool of money that has been on a particular outcome that is sealed with Ernst & Young, and the performer in question refuses to lose. You would either have to cancel the match and possibly refund all the money bet or convince Reigns, with some exorbitant fee, to lose the match. If only the biggest match is being bet on, it’s the top performers that would have the most leverage to get away with that type of power play and there’s no way to broach the subject until that day when the result has to be a closely guarded secret.
**On his Grilling J.R. podcast, Jim Ross shared that he has the week off from traveling and will not be at tonight’s Rampage taping in Winnipeg. Ross cited the continued issues with his ankle from his radiation treatments as the source of many issues while traveling: (Transcribed by Colin Tessier at Fightful):
We had a lot of travel last couple of weeks. You and I were talking off-air that I was gone… ten days. Living here in Florida, part-time anyway, Florida to California is a haul. People can say what they want, but that’s a long-ass trip, and with my ankle as it is, the more I fly, the more painful it gets because it’s like any other flight, any other human, your feet swell, your hands swell, it’s just normal flying shit. But when you got a bad ankle, you’re trying to get this wound to close and not open, it’s challenging. So we don’t have any more of those bad trips right now. I did not make [Winnipeg], so therefore I won’t be on Rampage this Friday night. I’m enjoying this week off, so to speak.
**Chris Jericho spoke with the Canadian Press about the talent from Winnipeg and compares it with other major cities in Canada:
People always go to Calgary and I’m like ‘O.K. Bret Hart, Owen Hart, who else you got? Who else who actually grew up in Calgary and trained in Calgary, right? Toronto, you’ve got Edge and Christian, couple other guys, Sweet Daddy Siki, that don’t cut it
If you look at Winnipeg, the traditional wrestling history, with Roddy Piper, Don Callis, Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega, that’s a pretty influential group.
**Below are the matches set to air on IMPACT Wrestling on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on AXS TV:
*Ace Austin, Chris Bey & KENTA vs. Josh Alexander, Frankie Kazarian & Rich Swann
*Knockouts Tag Team Championship: Taya Valkyrie & Rosemary © vs. Taylor Wilde & KiLynn King
*Steve Maclin vs. Heath
*Jonathan Gresham & Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Taurus & Crazzy Steve
*Before the Impact: Zicky Dice vs. Champagne Singh
**The WWE stock grew over two percent on Wednesday and closed at $83.57.
**New Japan drew 1,298 in Okayama for Wednesday’s New Japan Cup card as the second round concluded. The tournament is down to the final eight with quarterfinal matches this Friday and Saturday in Tokyo and Hamamatsu. Friday’s show will include Tetsuya Naito vs. SANADA, and EVIL vs. Mark Davis (who is replacing the injured Will Ospreay). Saturday’s show will include Tama Tonga vs. Hirooki Goto, and David Finlay vs. Shota Umino.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH has a card at Yokohama Budokan this Sunday with Kaito Kiyomiya defending the GHC Heavyweight title against Jake Lee, Masa Kitamiya & Daiki Inaba vs. Kenoh & Manabu Soya for the GHC tag titles, and Yoshinari Ogawa & Eita vs. HAYATA & Chris Ridgeway for the GHC Jr. Heavyweight tag titles in the top matches.
**Lince Dorado will defend the MLW Middleweight Championship against Lio Rush on 4/6 at MLW’s War Chamber event at the Melrose Ballroom in New York City. Previously announced matches include John Hennigan vs. Jacob Fatu for the National Openweight title, Taya Valkyrie vs. Delmi Exo for the Featherweight title, Willie Mack vs. Real1, Alex Kane vs. Shigehiro Irie, and Billie Starkz vs. B3CCA.
*Kurt Angle will be appearing at the Sport Card Expo in Toronto on 4/22 at the International Centre in Mississauga on behalf of Cojo Sports.
**Conor McGregor was interviewed by Robbie Fox of Barstool Sports discussing his role coaching on the ongoing season of TUF with Michael Chandler, which premieres later this year. There is no date officially announced for their fight with McGregor last competing in July 2021 when he broke his leg against Dustin Poirier. McGregor removed himself from the USADA testing pool and there is no confirmation that he has re-entered the pool yet, which requires six months of testing before he can be cleared to compete again.
**Former UFC welterweight Dan Hardy has joined the PFL as its director of operations for Europe.
**The commentary team for UFC 286 this Saturday in London will consist of Jon Anik, Daniel Cormier, and Michael Bisping.
**Episode 3 of UFC Embedded for UFC 286.
POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite will be live at 10 p.m. ET with a breakdown of AEW’s debut in Winnipeg, Great Muta going into the WWE Hall of Fame, The Bellas leaving WWE, an injury to Will Ospreay, and a look at the top fights at UFC 286 this weekend.
**For POST Wrestling Café members, we have Rewind-A-Wai covering the Great American Bash from July 1988 in Baltimore, Maryland. This show was JCP’s attempt to do a full-fledged, nationally promoted pay-per-view without having their legs cut out from underneath. After Starrcade ’87 was offset by the debut of the Survivor Series and the Bunkhouse Stampede was countered with a free Royal Rumble special on the USA Network, the Bash had national clearance with Ric Flair defending the NWA World Championship against Lex Luger. It was also the show where they debuted the Tower of Doom (an ill-fated attempt to grow on the success of War Games), and the latest installment of the program between The Fantastics and Midnight Express. On the show, we have notes from that week’s Observer in 1988, Road Warrior Animal’s memories of the Tower of Doom, and lots more.
**On Thursday, we will release our latest Drive to Survive review covering episodes seven and eight from season five with guest Chris Elliot on the POST Wrestling Café.
**Due to Rampage being moved out of its normal time this week, Rewind-A-SmackDown will stream live at 10 p.m. ET this Friday for Café members.
**Our UFC 286 POST Show will be live on Saturday night following the pay-per-view on the POST YouTube channel.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from March 14th, 2023 headlined by a contract signing between Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #127: Great American Bash 1988
John Pollock & Wai Ting review The Great American Bash 1988: The Price for Freedom featuring Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger and the debut of the infamous Tower of Doom.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with a face-to-face between Brock Lesnar and Omos, a Street Fight, and Cody Rhodes facing LA Knight in Providence, Rhode Island.
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WRESTLENOMICS RADIO
Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo assess whether Roman Reigns is a draw through an analysis of relevant data. Plus, WWE and gambling, GCW vs AEW over the ‘Fight Forever’ trademark, and more.
*****
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