Weekend Roundup: WrestleMania 38 PPV Buys, Impact Ratings, NJPW Securing Work Visas, Shinjiro Otani Suffers Serious Injury, Indies

WWE

• Night 1 of WrestleMania 38 on April 2nd in Arlington, Texas featured an impromptu match between Kevin Owens and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that during rehearsals for the match, Austin was informed by WWE officials to not perform his trademark middle finger salute for his pose on the turnbuckles. Austin reportedly ignored the request and repeated the taunt during another rehearsal, which led to WWE officials informing him again to not do it during the live show. Austin promptly ignored WWE officials request again and still did his middle fingers salute to the crowd during his entrance and post-match celebrations on the show.
• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 65,719 for Night 1 of WrestleMania 38 on April 2nd and 65,653 for Night 2 of WrestleMania 38 on April 3rd in Arlington, Texas, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that the split is currently expected to be around 57,000 to 65,000 for paid and the rest as comp tickets. For some comparisons, WWE had announced an attendance of 101,763 for WrestleMania 32 in the same venue in 2016, which reportedly had a real attendance of 80,709 for both paid and comp tickets combined.
• WWE reportedly also generated an attendance of 12,011 (10,00 paid) for their April 1st SmackDown show in Dallas, 4,366 (3,400 paid) for their April 2nd NXT Stand & Deliver 2022 in Dallas, and 10,392 (8,700 paid) for their April 4th RAW show in Dallas, Texas, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 6,579 tickets for their April 8th SmackDown show in Milwaukee, WI, around 6,543 tickets for their April 11th RAW show in Detroit, MI, around 4,225 tickets for their April 15th SmackDown show in Worcester, MA, around 6,344 for their April 16th house show event in Erie, PA, around 2,497 tickets for their April 17th house show event in Syracuse, around 4,905 tickets for their April 18th RAW show in Buffalo, around 4,295 tickets for their April 22nd SmackDown show in Albany, NY, around 2,300 tickets for their April 23rd house show event in Montgomery, AL, around 2,593 tickets for their April 23rd house show event in Reading, PA, around 2,630 tickets for their April 24th house show event in Binghamton, NY, around 1,666 tickets for their April 24th house show event in Augusta, GA, around 3,283 tickets for their April 25th RAW show in Knoxville, TN, around 1,726 tickets for their April 30th house show event in Lakeland, FL, around 2,419 tickets for their May 1st house show event in Fairfax, VA, around 3,128 tickets for their May 2nd RAW show in Greensboro, NC, around 6,533 tickets for their WrestleMania Backlash 2022 event in Providence, RI, around 3,583 tickets for their May 13th SmackDown show in Wilkes-Bare, PA, around 1,079 tickets for their May 14th house show event in Florence, SC, around 2,993 tickets for their May 16th RAW show in Norfolk, VA, and around 3,467 tickets for their May 20th SmackDown show in Grand Rapids, MI as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• As noted before, WWE released Nash Carter this past Wednesday. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials were aware of the domestic abuse allegations against Carter prior to their NXT Stand & Deliver 2022 event this past weekend but decided to go ahead with their plans for MSK to win the NXT Tag Team Championship. Meltzer reported that the reason given to him was due to WWE officials believing that Carter’s wife Kimber Lee was not trust worthy due to her past bad reputation in the company and in the indies. WWE officials’ decision to release Carter reportedly was due to a photo Lee posted online of Carter wearing a Hitler mustache and doing the Nazi salute. Another reason for his release reportedly was due to him offering no response over the nature of the controversial photo of him.
• CNBC recently released a report speculating that Disney and Netflix likely would be very interested in the idea of purchasing WWE in the future due to the value WWE would bring to their streaming services. Their reasoning was it being cheaper for either company to outright purchase WWE than continue paying escalating rights fees for WWE programming. One example given was ESPN who reportedly is currently expected to pay more for the rights to UFC programming over the course of their current contract than it would cost them to just buy the company. NBC reportedly is currently paying around $1.3 billion just for the rights to WWE’s RAW programming and it was stated that they could save a lot of money in the long run by just purchasing WWE to get all of their programming and strengthen their Peacock streaming service in the process.
• WWE recently announced that they will be holding their next investors meeting on May 19th to discuss their fiscal first quarter 2022 report results.
• During a recent interview with WWE The Bump show, Cody Rhodes stated that he is currently planning for his dog Pharaoh to make an appearance in WWE at some point in the future. Rhodes stated “We had a mishap with Pharaoh once before where some genius fired some pyro off and scared Pharaoh pretty terribly. However, he really has not flinched since then. He has not held it against me. He’s not mad. He’s truly man’s best friend. Since you posed the question, he does have to show up in some capacity. I don’t want some sort of strange, wild, angle. Just his presence. He can be on The Bump. I’d love to have him here. We have multi-years to do it. We should go ahead and promise the audience that there will be some sort of Pharaoh interaction at some juncture. He’s a pretty lazy Husky though.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• WWE filed trademarks for “Thea Hail”, “Troy Donovan”, and “Channing Lauren” on March 5th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• WWE announced that they have recently hired Elisebeth Collins to be their new General Counsel & Corporate Secretary. It was announced that Collins will be replacing Samira Shah, who is departing from the company.
• Shane McMahon’s son Declan recently announced his commitment to play for Indiana University’s football team. During a recent interview with Indy Star, Declan McMahon gave his thoughts about a potential future career in wrestling. McMahon stated “I’ve tried it in my house. I have two younger brothers, so if we’re joking around I’ll pick them up and throw them on the couch. I’m going in with the mindset that I’ll cross that bridge when we get there. So right now no plans yet, but down the road, who knows? If I have to jump off a cage like my father, maybe that’s what I’ll do.“
• During a recent interview with TribLive.com, Duquesne University football player Roman Macek revealed that WWE recently offered him a three-year developmental deal. Macek stated “Immediately, I started tearing up. I threw my hands in the air. I said thank you probably 400 times in the span of 10 seconds. Accepted it immediately. It was an unbelievable feeling. It felt so surreal. …This is something I wanted my entire life.“

AEW

• Indie promotion Create A Pro NY recently announced that HOOK will be making an appearance for the company at their The Grand Stage event on May 14th in Melville, New York. This will be HOOK’s first appearance in the indies of his wrestling career.
• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 5,900 (5,600 paid) for their April 6th Dynamite show in Boston, MA, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 3,089 tickets for their April 13th Dynamite show in New Orleans, LA, around 3,551 for their April 15th Battle of the Belts II show in Garland, TX, around 4,672 tickets for their April 20th Dynamite show in Pittsburgh, around 5,135 tickets for their April 27th Dynamite show in Philadelphia, PA, around 3,572 tickets for their May 4th Dynamite show in Baltimore, MD, around 5,631 tickets for their May 11th Dynamite show in Long Island, NY, around 3,420 tickets for their May 18th Dynamite show in Houston, TX, around 4,374 tickets for their May 25th Dynamite show in Las Vegas, around 4,432 tickets for their May 27th Rampage show in Las Vegas, around 13,140 tickets for their Double or Nothing 2022 in Las Vegas, NV, around 13,005 tickets for their June 1st Dynamite show in Inglewood, around 7,276 tickets for their June 3rd Rampage show in Ontario, CA, and 8,803 tickets for their June 29th Dynamite show in Detroit, MI as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that former Chief Lifestyle Brands Officer Kathleen Finch is currently expected to become the new boss of TBS network as part of WarnerMedia’s merger with Discovery. Meltzer reported that Finch would become the main person responsible on Discovery’s side for new television contract talks with AEW in 2023. Meltzer reported that while AEW’s Dynamite series currently performs very well on TBS and generates the highest ratings outside of sports for the network, they will still have to deal with the negative stigma of wrestling in the television industry when it comes to talks for a new higher paying television contract and could face some changes to the content of their programming depending on Finch’s view of blood and swearing in wrestling.
• Jon Moxley reportedly is currently dealing with a hamstring injury he suffered during a recent training session, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• During a recent interview with ESPN, AEW CEO Tony Khan stated that he has been in talks with WarnerMedia over his plans for the growth of Ring of Honor. Khan stated “I’ve been having more conversations with WarnerMedia about what we can do together to grow Ring of Honor. I think it would make sense for Ring of Honor to continue as a weekly series and major events, like we just had with Supercard. I think the success of Supercard, critically and commercially, will bode very well for WarnerMedia really taking an interest in Ring of Honor, as well as AEW. I think there’s great potential to have a complementary wrestling brand.” Khan also stated that he used AEW resources to help produce ROH’s Supercard of Honor event earlier this month with WarnerMedia’s permission. Khan stated “I did utilize some resources from AEW with permission from Warner with the understanding from them that I was not going to make this an AEW show. It would be a Ring of Honor show. I was asking them to utilize some AEW resources to make this a great pay-per-view event.“
• During a recent interview with the AEW Unrestricted podcast, William Regal discussed the process of his signing with AEW and his original plans after being released by WWE this past January. Regal stated “Very quickly. I was checked out. As yu can get older, and you hear all these things when you’re younger about how ‘time flies when you get old,’ it may have only been a couple of months, but once I was no longer needed in my former line of work, I’ve done nothing but do this for a living since I was 16 full-time, apart from a couple of years off with different things that had gone on health-wise and a few injuries, I had done nothing but wrestling. That’s it, I had a great run and I’m going to take maybe a year off except for, I was thinking about this time, I would start looking for the odd things in the UK, just so I could go and see my family and go home for a bit. Then, I get a call from Bryan Danielson. It sounded very exciting, just to go back and be talent, basically. As soon as I walk in the door, everyone seems to be asking me to do other things. ‘You can do this.’ A lot of that, but for the last ten years, I’ve been doing a lot of everything. It’s been nice to just go out and be me. I’m going to do things anyway, I can’t help that. The reason I ended up with the job before is I know Bryan and all these people, is because I will always be at the ring showing people stuff and I got to know a lot of people over the years because people did that for me in Britain. Once they realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I couldn’t have any better wrestlers take me under their wing and teach me and show me and put me into places. I felt that was part of my…if I don’t do that, I’m not leaving this job in the right way.“
• Regal continued stating “I was checked out, Bryan called me, ‘that sounds like fun, exciting.’ I love being around young talent who want to do this. It turned into a job for me with my former employees. I had a great ten years being able to do that. A lot of other things, but that was the main thing, being around a group of talent. I would never like there to be a day where there isn’t a wrestling business. Although I’ve worked for other companies, ‘ve never worked for a company, I work for wrestling because I would help anybody who is interested. I wouldn’t force myself, but if you come to me, I would hate to be at a time like when I was younger because there was no way to get into the wrestling business when I started. I never heard of a wrestling school until I came to America and you had to find a wrestler to get you in somehow or you were an amateur wrestler. Then you have to find a way and stay in it. I want there to be a wrestling business.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• During a recent interview with the AEW Road To show, Toni Storm revealed that she had considered retiring from wrestling following her release from WWE this past December. Storm stated “Recently, I planned on retiring from the wrestling industry, which is something I never considered in my entire life. I’ve put my entire life into becoming the best professional wrestler I could be. I lost that part of myself and it brought on a lot of feelings of emptiness and sadness that I can’t even describe. I traveled the entire world to be good at this. Just like Owen Hart did. AEW is home to the best women’s division on the planet. I just qualified for the Owen Hart women’s tournament. For the first time ever, I can truly say that I am home.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• As noted before, Toni Storm made her official debut for AEW during the March 30th episode of AEW Dynamite. During a recent interview with the Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker podcast, AEW CEO Tony Khan gave his thoughts about Storm’s recent debut in the company. Khan stated “Toni Storm has come into AEW not just with a great track record and a lot of fans supporting her, but she said this has brought back her love of wrestling already. The way she reacted when she came through the curtain after the match (against The Bunny), I don’t know if I’ve ever seen somebody more relieved to have wrestled a match than Toni Storm after taking the 90 days off. She came back in great shape, she looks great, she is a great person, and I love having her in AEW. When she squared off with Jamie Hayter face-to-face, that was a big deal. So, having Toni Storm here is great.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Indies & Misc. Wrestling

• This past Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling’s Impact! drew 89,000 viewers, a 0.02 18-49 key demographic rating, and did not rank in the Top 150 shows for the night, according to Wrestlenomics. This was down compared to last week’s 149,000 viewers and 0.04 key demographic rating.
• New Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly is currently in the process of securing Japanese work visas for foreign-based talent, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that NJPW is currently planning to bring in some foreign talent for their upcoming Best of the Super Juniors 2022 tournament and other events over the course of the next few months.
• During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, NJPW talent Hiroshi Tanahashi reflected on Scott Hall’s passing last month and the impact Hall had on his career. Tanahashi stated “I felt very lonely. I wanted to meet and talk again. The match with Mr. Hall had a great influence on my life as a wrestler and my way of thinking about professional wrestling. I think Mr. Hall taught me the answer to the question, ‘What is a true professional?’ It is an important memory that Mr. Hall invited me to go out for a meal together. I will hold on to and cherish that memory.“
• This past Saturday’s NJPW Hyper Battle 2022 event featured the official debut of former All Japan Pro Wrestling talent Francesco Akira in the company. Following the IWGP Junior Heavyweight match, El Desperado and Taiji Ishimori held a promo segment setting up a future match between the two. During their promo, Akira interrupted and revealed himself as the newest member of Will Ospreay’s United Empire stable and as one of the competitors for this year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament.
• NJPW reportedly generated a paid attendance of 789 for their April 3rd Road to Hyper Battle 2022 event in Shizuoka, 526 for their April 4th Road to Hyper Battle 2022 event in Tokyo, 335 for their April 5th Road to Hyper Battle 2022 event in Tochigi, and 588 for their April 7th Road to Hyper Battle 2022 event in Saitama, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• NJPW recently announced that Hiroshi Tanahashi, Minoru Suzuki, and Tomohiro Ishii will be making an appearance at their NJPW Strong themed Collision in Philadelphia 2022 event on May 15th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• As noted before, the XFL recently revealed a new official logo for the company. Sports Illustrated reported that media company TOGETHXR recently issued a cease-and-desist legal notice to the XFL over issues with XFL’s new logo. TOGETHXR reportedly is claiming that the XFL’s new logo is too similar in design to their own logo, specifically in regards to the design and usage of the “X” part of the logo.
• This past Saturday’s Game Changer Wrestling’s Paranoid event in Los Angeles, California featured BUSSY (Allie Katch & EFFY) defeating The Briscoes for the GCW Tag Team Championship.
• GCW reportedly generated an attendance of 850 for their Joey Janela’s Spring Break Part 2 event on April 2nd in Dallas, Texas, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• As noted before, Ring of Honor is currently estimated to have generated around 20,000 pay-per-view buys for their Supercard of Honor event on April 1st in Garland, Texas. During a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, ROH owner Tony Khan stated that ROH’s event did around 15,000 buys just from FITE TV alone. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that ROH’s event is currently estimated to have generated around 3,500 to 4,300 buys from traditional cable PPV providers not including late purchases, which would push the total PPV buys to over 20,000. Meltzer also reported that the streaming numbers from HonorClub for the event are still not known, which would push the total PPV buys to an even higher number and largest ever in ROH history. In regards to non-WWE and AEW events, Meltzer reported that ROH’s Supercard of Honor 2022 event would only be the third wrestling event to top 20,000 buys in recent years. Meltzer reported that Impact Wrestling’s Rebellion 2021 event and Slammiversary 2020 event were the only other non-WWE and AEW events to top 20,000 PPV buys in recent years.
• Stardom reportedly generated a paid attendance of 928 for their April 3rd Cinderella Tournament 2022 Night 1 show in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Lucha Libre AAA talent LA Park reportedly is currently dealing with a knee injury, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. LA Park reportedly is holding off on having surgery until after his agreed upon dates for AAA’s upcoming Triplemania XXX events in Mexico.
• Major League Wrestling reportedly generated an attendance of 1,230 for their March 31st Intimidation Games 2022 event in Dallas and 1,230 for their April 1st Azteca Underground event in Dallas, Texas, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced that Michael Elgin will be making his return to the company at their Majestic 2022 event on April 30th in Tokyo, Japan. It was announced that Elgin will be facing off against Masa Kitamiya in a singles match at the event. This will be Elgin’s first appearance in Pro Wrestling NOAH since January of 2020.
• During a recent interview with the Wrestling Perspective podcast, wrestling announcer Ian Riccaboni stated that he has yet to hold talks with Tony Khan regarding his future in Ring of Honor. Riccaboni stated “I haven’t talked to the man himself, I will say that. I think there is one guy who knows what’s going on and aside from ‘how are you doing, nice to meet you, appreciate what you’re doing and excited to see where it’s going,’ I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down with him. One of the weird quirks to everything is I’m the last person ever to be under Ring of Honor contract with Sinclair Broadcast, and I still am. No one knows what comes with the sale. It hasn’t been established yet; if Sinclair is going to buy me out, if they’re going to cancel it, if Tony Khan gets it, if he wants to take it as is. To be very clear, it’s a contract that is performer friendly and it’s company friendly. There are some easy outs. I don’t anticipate getting money for nothing for too much longer. I’ve talked to folks in Tony Khan’s orbit and I’ve let them know my phone is on and that I’d love to be part of what’s going on. I’ve done my best to put that bug in their ear as much as I can without being annoying and a pain in the butt. I know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You have to make sure they know you’re out there and you want to do it and there are no weird feelings or anything like that. I’m keeping my voice and ears to what I think might be the right people and they told me to keep my phone on too. There seems to be some sort of mutual, at least on a small level, a mutual interest to see where it goes .” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Japanese wrestler Shinjiro Otani reportedly suffered a serious injury at Pro Wrestling ZERO1’s event earlier today in Tokyo, Japan, according to PostWrestling.com. Otani faced off against Takashi Sugiura in a match for the ZERO1 World Heavyweight Championship and suffered the injury following a spot involving him taking a German suplex into the corner. Otani reportedly was unable to move afterwards causing the match to be called off and him being rushed to the hospital. Ringside doctors reportedly believed that Otani had suffered a spinal-related injury. Following the event, the match referee stated in an interview with Tokyo Sports that “He was conscious. He could hear his voice and knew exactly where he was. However, he complained that he could not move his hands and body, and said that he could not move his body as he wished, saying, ‘I can’t feel my hands.’“