Weekend Roundup: Io Shirai Update, Cesaro, Ratings Note, MJF & AEW Update, Bryan Danielson Injury, JONAH, Dragon Gate, Indies

WWE

• During Saturday’s NXT In Your House 2022 event, WWE announced that this year’s Great American Bash special for their NXT brand will be taking place on June 5th and will air live on USA Network.
• Io Shirai reportedly has been out of action for the NXT brand for the past couple of months due to an injury, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that their sources stated that this was the reason for Shirai’s absence from NXT programming since this past April’s NXT Stand & Deliver 2022 event. The nature nor cause of Shirai’s injury is currently not known and WWE officials currently do not have any timetable for her return.
• A trademark for “WWE Rivals” was filed by WWE on July 10th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• A trademark for “SmackDown” was also filed by WWE on May 31st for merchandise-related reasons to the USPTO.
• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 5,960 (5,200 paid) for their May 27th SmackDown show in North Little Rock, AR and 5,908 (5,200 paid) for their May 30th RAW show in Des Moines, IA, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 12,777 tickets for their June 5th Hell in a Cell 2022 event in Chicago, IL, 4,817 tickets for their June 6th RAW show in Green Bay, WI, 3,464 tickets for their June 10th SmackDown show in Baton Rouge, LA, 3,551 tickets for their June 11th house shoe event in Las Cruces, NM, 2,033 tickets for their June 11th house show event in Cape Girardeau, MO, 2,909 tickets for their June 13th RAW show in Wichita, KS, 4,564 tickets for their June 20th RAW show in Lincoln, NC, 3,945 tickets for their June 24th SmackDown show in Austin, TX, and 9,533 tickets for their July 2nd Money in the Bank 2022 event in Las Vegas, NV as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• As noted before, this past Monday’s episode of WWE RAW drew 1,497,000 viewers and a 0.42 key demographic rating. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that this past week’s show drew the second lowest ever overall viewership for a RAW show on USA Network and third lowest ever in RAW history. Meltzer reported that only the July 5, 2021 episode drew a lower overall viewership of 1,472,000 viewers on USA Network while the February 7th episode on Syfy currently holds the lowest ever record at 1,367,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that this past week’s third hour viewership of 1,400,000 viewers was the third lowest third hour ever for a RAW show on USA Network in RAW history.
• As noted before, the May 27th episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown drew 1,878,000 viewers and a 0.43 key demographic rating. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that week’s show drew the lowest overall viewership since the July 2, 2021 episode. Meltzer reported that week’s show’s overall key demographic rating was the fourth lowest ever and the 18-34 key demographic rating was the second lowest ever for SmackDown show on FOX in SmackDown history.
• As noted before, Ceasro’s contract with WWE expired this past February after both sides failed to reach an agreement for a new deal. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the current belief is that Cesaro likely will be returning at some point in the future to WWE. These same sources stated that while its currently not known if AEW has made an offer to Cesaro, he is currently in talks for an appearance at Starrcast’s upcoming convention and is also considering other potential projects that would not be allowed if he decided to return to WWE.
• During a recent interview with SHAK Wrestling, Ricochet gave his thoughts about what WWE could do to help empower him as their current Intercontinental Champion. Ricochet stated “Give me time [is what WWE can do to empower me as Intercontinental Champion]. Just give me opportunities. Give me a chance to show what I do, give me — which there have been a lot recently, like a lot. They have given me that outlet to perform because that’s what Ricochet needs. He needs that outlet to show everybody that he literally is the best. When you step into that ring, when you step through those ropes in the 20 x 20 and those four corners, there’s nobody — and this right here [Intercontinental Title] proves it — there’s nobody who’s gonna outwork him, there’s nobody who’s going to outperform him, there’s literally nobody. I don’t care who you pick. I don’t care who your favorite is, who you like the best, that’s great but there’s nobody that’s gonna be better than me and I just need that one chance, one opportunity. It doesn’t matter if it’s two minutes, it doesn’t matter if it’s 20 minutes, it doesn’t matter. If Ricochet’s out there, he’s gonna be unforgettable and you’re going to remember him until the next time you see him do something else and so I just need that opportunity in which they have been — well I’ve been kind of taking myself to be honest with you. But that’s what I need. I just need the opportunity.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• WWE is currently selling a new set of Pride month themed merchandise at their official WWE Shop with all proceeds generated going towards GLAAD.
• WWE reportedly is currently expected to sign Bellator MMA fighter Valerie Loureda to an official contract with the company, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that WWE officials are currently hopeful that a deal will be signed soon and Loureda will be able to report to their Performance Center by mid-July.

AEW & ROH

• Thunder Rosa recently announced on Twitter that she is currently auctioning off the ring gear she wore at last week’s AEW Double or Nothing 2022 event with all proceeds going towards the families of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting attack this past May.
• Arn Anderson announced on Twitter that he recently secured the ownership of the 4 Horsemen trademark.
• Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling recently announced that AEW talent Riho will be making an appearance for the company at their Summer Sun Princess 2022 event on July 9th in Tokyo, Japan.
• As noted before, MJF was involved in an incident last weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada. This incident revolved around MJF no showing a scheduled AEW fan fest event in the city. MJF’s status for AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event was in doubt at the time but he ended up working at the event for his scheduled match against Wardlow. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that most of AEW’s talent currently believe that MJF’s recent incident in Las Vegas was just an elaborate work played by him and AEW CEO Tony Khan that had evolved from MJF’s real life issues regarding his pay status in the company. Meltzer reported that top officials within the company had been told nothing before and after the incident occurred in regards to if it was a legitimate walk out on MJF’s end. One talent spoken to stated that they were not happy if this whole thing was just a work from the start since they had hoped the company would never do such a thing and felt it was a sloppy work that would not benefit anyone in the long end. In regards to reports of a “red eye” flight being booked for MJF out of Las Vegas, Meltzer reported that none of his sources within AEW could confirm if that was actually true or not nor if MJF had actually bought a ticket to fly. In regards to AEW pulling and later putting back up the video advertising the MJF vs. Wardlow match at Double or Nothing 2022 on their official YouTube channel, Meltzer reported that one source spoken to stated that AEW officials had known that MJF would be working at the show as early as the night before it. Meltzer also reported that he got conflicted info from his sources whether or not MJF’s incident in Las Vegas was legit with key people close to the situation stating that it was legit and same for people being unable to contact MJF afterwards.
• In regards to reports of a ticket being purchased for MJF to fly out of Las Vegas following his no-show incident at a fan fest this past weekend, Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp stated that his source who stated that MJF had booked a flight was not someone within AEW, close to MJF, or MJF himself and instead was three sources within the travel industry. Sapp also stated that the reports of him confirming who had purchased the ticket are not true since that information was never provided to him by his source.
• Several AEW talent are currently considering leaving the company once their contracts expire to join WWE, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that his sources stated that several notable talent have taken a notice of WWE’s positive handling of Cody Rhodes since his return to the company. These same talents also are currently leaning more towards the idea of leaving AEW for WWE due to WWE currently being able to offer more money following the reports of Rhodes’ getting a higher paying deal from his new WWE contract.
• This past Sunday’s AEW Double or Nothing 2022 event reportedly generated around 200,000 searches on Google for that night, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 14,459 (13,800 paid) for their Double or Nothing 2022 event on May 29th in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that AEW’s live gate revenue was around $1.15 million and was the largest ever for a non-WWE pay-per-view event in the United States in wrestling history. The previous record reportedly was $1.1 million that was held by Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling for their G1 Supercard event at Madison Square Garden in 2019.
• AEW also reportedly generated an attendance of around 5,000 for their May 27th Rampage show in Las Vegas, Nevada and 15,471 (13,900 paid) for their June 1st Dynamite show in Inglewood, California, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that AEW drew a live gate revenue of around $860,000 for their June 1st Dynamite show. This reportedly was the third highest ever for a live gate in AEW history, only behind AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event ($1.15 million) and Grand Slam Dynamite show ($960,000) from September of 2021.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 3,956 tickets for their June 8th Dynamite show in Independence, MO, 3,746 tickets for their June 15th Dynamite show in St. Louis, MO, 4,052 tickets for their June 22nd Dynamite show in Milwaukee, WI, 15,372 tickets for their June 26th Forbidden Door event in Chicago, IL, 9,628 tickets for their June 29th Dynamite show in Detroit, MI, 4,019 tickets for their July 6th Dynamite show in Rochester, NY, 3,219 tickets for their July 13th Dynamite show in Savannah, GA, 2,488 tickets for their July 20th Dynamite show in Duluth, GA, and 4,550 tickets for their July 27th Dynamite show in Worcester, MA as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• This past Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite drew 969,000 viewers and a 0.40 key demographic rating. Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that AEW’s peak for overall viewership and key demographic viewership both occurred during MJF’s “pipebomb” promo segment on the show. AEW’s peak overall viewership was at 1,123,000 viewers and peak key demographic viewership was at 661,000 viewers and both took place during the same minute of the show at 8:27PM EST.
• Tony Khan reportedly is currently planning for Ring of Honor’s next pay-per-view event to take place this July, according to Fightful Select. It was reported that several AEW talent recently spoken to stated that they have been told of plans for this year’s ROH Death Before Dishonored event to take place next month during the weekend of July 23rd. These same people also stated that Lowell, Massachusetts is currently planned to be the location for this upcoming ROH event.
• During a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, host Matt Hardy revealed that his brother Jeff was almost knocked out cold during his match against The Young Bucks at AEW’s Double or Nothing 2022 event. Hardy stated “Yeah, I was happy with the match, especially considering very early on in the match Jeff was almost knocked out. So he got hurt pretty bad. That’s why he’s being pulled from the match in Los Angeles, obviously. So he was kind of running on fumes going through the match. He still held up his end of the bargain pretty good in the big scheme of things. We have a couple of ideas but we’re not sure. He has no recollection. He doesn’t remember the match at all after that happened, so thank God The Young Bucks are The Young Bucks and I’m me and we were — he was literally just a vessel being given directions throughout the match to kind of do what he was supposed to do. So considering he really got knocked loopy terribly at some point earlier in the match, he still did pretty good to go through and do everything he did. It’s so funny that he’s just still such a great athlete and so good at what he does. If you’re looking at the Swanton he does on the stairs, he still does it perfectly and he didn’t realize he was supposed to do it until he was told he was supposed to do it.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• As noted before, AEW and NJPW were rumored to be planning for a match between Hangman Adam Page and Kazuchika Okada to take place at their upcoming Forbidden Door event on June 26th in Chicago, Illinois. Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that his initial report of this match taking place was incorrect based on his sources. Meltzer reported that the match lineup he was given for the event was incorrect and the real lineup is currently being kept as a secret by AEW and NJPW officials.
• During a recent interview with The Corner podcast, AEW CEO Tony Khan provided an update on the current status and plans for AEW’s upcoming video game. Khan stated “I’m not going to put an exact date on it, but we’ve put a lot of time and effort into the development of this game. It’s going to be great, a lot of the great stars of AEW are in it and a number of people who have come in, even in the past year, will be featured. A lot of the big stars have come in, in the past year. We’ve added stars along the way that are important to get into the game for everybody. We’ll have a great roster when we launch and we’ll be able to add people through DLC as we go, but making sure we get the best possible roster when we start. We’ve signed so many wrestlers of the past year, especially in recent months, we may not be able to get every person in, but people who have signed recently, we’re trying to get some of the biggest names in because we think that’s the best chance for the launch of the game, to have some of the biggest stars in the world in the game. We already had a lot of them and we’re adding more.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• Bryan Danielson reportedly is currently rumored to be dealing with an injury, according to Fightful. It was reported that a venue for a fan meet & greet event today in New Bedford, Massachusetts had informed those who had purchased a ticket that Danielson would not be appearing due to him being unable to travel over injury-related issues.

Indies & Misc. Wrestling

• PROGRESS Wrestling recently announced that indies and AEW talent Nick Wayne will be making his official debut for the company at their Chapter 136: 24/7 event on July 24th in London, England.
• PROGRESS also recently announced that Konosuke Takeshita will be making his official debut for the company at their The Deadly Viper events on August 13th in Sheffield and August 14th in Newcastle, England.
• Impact Wrestling is currently selling a special Pride themed Impact shirt in honor of Pride month with a portion of all proceeds going towards the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA).
• As noted before, JONAH’s contract with Impact Wrestling expired this past May. During a recent virtual fan signing event for Asylum Wrestling Store, JONAH gave his reasons why he decided to leave Impact. JONAH stated “I liked working with IMPACT Wrestling a lot actually so, my time there at the moment is done but it’s sort of on a freeze. It’s not over. It’s just that I’m focusing more on New Japan Pro-Wrestling so I’ll be doing a lot more with them and their dates started clashing a little bit. But I really enjoyed my time in IMPACT Wrestling, particularly wrestling Josh Alexander. He was someone that I always wanted to wrestle and I was very happy I got to do it.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Kota Ibushi recently accused NJPW’s management of “power harassment” against him over the past year. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that those close to Ibushi stated that Ibushi currently feels that the company was not transparent enough over his issues and had purposely kept out important details during their press conference last month. In regards to Ibushi’s current status in NJPW, Meltzer reported that while it appears the two sides are trying to work things out, Ibushi has indicated that he is still not committed to returning to the company.
• NJPW reportedly generated a paid attendance of 1,095 for their May 28th Best of the Super Juniors 2022 event in Chiba and 1,890 for their May 29th Best of the Super Juniors 2022 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Stardom reportedly generated a paid attendance of 1,871 for their May 28th Flashing Champions 2022 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. This event featured KAIRI’s competing in her first match for the company since Stardom’s World Climax event this past March.
• Stardom talent Thekla reportedly recently suffered an injury and is currently expected to be out of action for at least the remainder of this month, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• As noted before, Dragon Gate talent are currently rumored to be upset over the recent booking of the company due to issues involving the current inter-promotional storyline with Pro Wrestling NOAH and NOAH’s head booker Nosawa Rongai. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that one Dragon Gate official recently spoken to stated that he could not confirm reports of Dragon Gate talent being upset over booking issues. This same person stated that the company’s talent relations department have not gotten many complaints over the company’s booking for their current King of Gate tournament. This same person also confirmed that there has been some changes made to the company’s plans for their current Dragon Gate tournament and that Rongai did play a key role in those changes. Rongai was also confirmed to have control over some of Dragon Gate’s current storylines that do not involve NOAH talent and wanting some talent freed up from Dragon Gate storylines in order to be available for the inter-promotional storyline between both companies.
• The National Wrestling Alliance recently announced that Samuel Shaw, former Dexter Lumis in WWE, will be making an appearance for the company at their Alwayz Ready event on June 11th in Nashville.
• Indies Deathmatch wrestler Nick Gage recently gave his thoughts on Twitter about the future of his wrestling career. Gage stated “I dont know how much i got left im just bein honest but i know im not done yet ill fight till im dead MDK.”