Weekend Roundup: Vince McMahon, Ultimate Warrior, Forbidden Door Update, D’Lo Brown Headshake Origin, AAA, Indies

WWE

• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 4,792 (4,000 paid) for their June 10th SmackDown show in Baton Rouge, LA, 375 for their June 10th NXT house show event in Tampa, FL, 350 for their June 11th NXT house show event in Largo, FL, 2,561 for their June 11th house show event in Cape Girardeau, MO, 4,890 for their June 11th house show event in Las Cruces, NM, 2,865 for their June 12th house show event in Springfield, MO, 3,516 for their June 12th house show even in Albuquerque, NM, and 4,000 (3,100 paid) for their June 13th RAW show in Wichita, KS, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. In regards to the June 10th SmackDown show and June 13th RAW show ticket sales, Dave Meltzer reported that this was the third lowest for a SmackDown brand show and the second lowest for a RAW brand show since WWE resumed live touring in July of 2021.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 2,421 tickets for their July 19th house show event in Billings, MT, 4,857 tickets for their July 20th RAW show in Lincoln, NE, 4,499 tickets for their July 24th SmackDown show in Austin, TX, 5,154 tickets for their July 27th RAW show in Laredo, TX, 5,308 tickets for their July 1st SmackDown show in Phoenix, AZ, 12,088 tickets for their July 2nd Money in the Bank 2022 event in Las Vegas, NV, 4,487 tickets for their July 29th SmackDown show in Atlanta, GA, and 23,899 tickets for their July 30th SummerSlam 2022 event in Nashville, TN as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Roman Reigns’ work schedule for this summer currently is the June 24th SmackDown show, the July 8th SmackDown show, the July 22nd SmackDown show, the July 25th RAW show at Madison Square Garden, the July 30th SummerSlam 2022 event in Nashville, and the September 3rd Clash at the Castle event in Cardiff. Meltzer reported that another reason why Reigns had been pulled from the July 2nd Money in the Bank 2022 event was due to the plans WWE officials had for his match against Riddle at this past Friday’s SmackDown show, which involved Brock Lesnar’s surprise return and match announcement for their upcoming SummerSlam 2022 event.
• WWE filed a trademark for “SmackDown Lowdown” on June 13th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This was recently revealed to be the new name of WWE’s Talking Smack series which aired its first episode under the new name following this past Friday’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown.
• As noted before, WWE recently announced that Vince McMahon has stepped down as the CEO and Chairman of the company until the conclusion of their investigation into McMahon’s alleged misconduct towards several former female employees. Despite the on-going investigation against him, McMahon made an advertised appearance at this past Friday’s SmackDown show in Minneapolis, Minnesota. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that the pre-show production meetings that night were described to him as being “weird” due to the obvious issues involving McMahon and nobody backstage knowing when more details will be revealed. Those same sources also stated that nothing about McMahon’s planned segment was discussed during the meeting itself. Those spoken to stated that some had privately wondered how many NDAs were uncovered during the investigation and how many more might still exist out there.
• Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that McMahon was more hands on than usual with running this past Friday’s SmackDown show, which one source stated was likely McMahon’s way of showing that he still runs things in WWE. One talent spoken to stated “He’s basically showing through his promo that he handles what’s in front of him and he’s not running.”
• As noted before, Sasha Banks has been away from WWE since this past May due to her current suspension from the company following a walk out incident over backstage creative issues during the May 16th WWE RAW show in Norfolk, Virginia. Fightful’s Gisberto Guzzo reported that WWE editted out a fan sign showing support for Banks that had aired live during this past Friday’s SmackDown show but was later erased from the official photo gallery of the show on WWE’s official website.
• In an interesting WWE history tidbit, Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that an unsigned contract for the Ultimate Warrior in 1997 recently surfaced online. Meltzer reported that this five-year contract was part of Vince McMahon’s attempts in December of 1997 to persuade Warrior from not signing with WCW at the time and included a downside guarantee of a $750,000 salary per year, 35% royalties from merchandise sales, and a limit of no more than 14 days per month on the road. In the end, Warrior turned down WWF’s offer and joined WCW due to their contract offering better pay and less than 38 dates per year.
• AEW’s Double or Nothing 2019 event featured Cody Rhodes destroying a throne that was a symbolic representation of Triple H’s “King of Kings” throne in WWE. Rhodes recently revealed on Twitter that he recently restored the throne back to its original state and currently has it stored at his home.
• WWE recently announced that this year’s Extreme Rules event will be taking place on October 8th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was also announced that tickets for this upcoming event will officially go on sale starting on July 15th.
• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson revealed on Instagram that he recently surprised his cousin and WWE talent Tamina with a gift of a brand new home.
• The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported in Sunday’s Daily Update that Vince McMahon was the most searched term on Google this past Friday at around 200,000 searches.

AEW & ROH

• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 4,800 (4,500 paid) for their June 15th Dynamite show in St. Louis, MO, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 4,266 tickets for their June 22nd Dynamite show in Milwaukee, WI, 15,409 tickets for their co-promoted June 26th Forbidden Door event in Chicago, IL, 9,845 tickets for their Dynamite Blood & Guts 2022 show in Detroit, MI, 4,204 tickets for their July 6th Dynamite show in Rochester, NY, 3,349 tickets for their July 13th Dynamite show in Savannah, GA, 3,155 tickets for their July 20th Dynamite show in Duluth, GA, 4,550 tickets for their July 27th Dynamite show in Worcester, MA, and 3,263 tickets for their August 5th Dynamite show in Grand Rapid, MI as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that a lot of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s major stars are currently scheduled to appear at this Wednesday’s Dynamite show in Milwaukee to help with the final push for AEW & NJPW’s upcoming Forbidden Door event. In regards to Kazuchika Okada, Meltzer reported that his status for the upcoming Forbidden Door event is currently not known but Okada had mentioned previously that he was not planning to attend the event due to a planned birthday party for his wife that week.
• This past Sunday’s NJPW Dominion 2022 event in Osaka, Japan featured AEW talent Lance Archer being revealed as the sole AEW representationfor NJPW’s upcoming G1 Climax 2022 tournament. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason for the lack of bigger name and more AEW talents for this year’s G1 Climax tournament is due to many notable AEW talents still do not want to travel to Japan while the restrictions on verbal crowd cheering for events remain in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic rules in the country. Another reason is due to AEW being less open to the idea of losing notable big name talents for a five week period.
• As noted before, Andrade El Idolo is currently not expected to appear at AEW and NJPW’s co-promoted Forbidden Door event due to issues involving Lucha Libre AAA and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason why Sammy Guevara and FTR are able to work at the upcoming Forbidden Door event despite them also working for AAA is due to CMLL’s restrictions seem to not apply to American-based wrestlers.
• The Los Angeles Times reportedly had contacted AEW for a potential story about the company during AEW’s stay in Los Angeles earlier this month, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that AEW officials did not bother to contact the LA Times back for reasons that were unknown at the time. Meltzer later reported in Sunday’s Daily Update that his sources stated that the reason was due to a mix up in communications between AEW and the LA Times. These same sources also stated that both companies recently managed to contact each other and have straightened out the issues.
• During a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, co-host Matt Hardy provided an update on the status and situation of his brother Jeff following his recent DUI arrest. Hardy stated “After speaking to Jeff, the last couple of days, he is so remorseful, so embarrassed, he like hates himself. That’s a part of it, too. He has to know, obviously what he did was atrocious and terrible, terrible decision making, but he has to know that people love him. It’s very important. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the individual. You have to keep yourself in check and be on top of yourself. You are the only person that can really ensure that you’re not going to go array or in a bad direction, whether it’s because of mental or addiction issues. If you don’t decide to do it on your own, you’re going to kind of half-ass it and you don’t get any positivity or productivity out of it.” Hardy also gave his thoughts about recent online comments from some fans placing blame on AEW and Jeff’s family for enabling his brother Jeff’s actions since arriving in the company. Hardy stated “No alcohol comes here. No fans bring alcohol. That’s one of the scariest things about this, especially if you feel like someone is vulnerable, ‘Oh my God, you’re my guy, let me buy you this alcohol.’ She was on that shit. She gets very offended if she hears that because she would be the last person you could label as an enabler. She’s a super bitch and would do whatever it takes to shut these instances down.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• During a recent interview with the Generation of Wrestling podcast, former AEW talent Lio Rush gave his thoughts about the potential of him working with Tony Khan and AEW in the future. Rush stated “I don’t think anything is ever closed. Nothing is ever closed, nothing. I feel like I made the best out of the opportunity I was presented while staying true to myself. That’s honestly what is most important to me. That’s what is most important to me. I can’t hop on a plane and go all over the country and not be myself. I can’t live this double personality lifestyle. I don’t have the energy for it. There are things in my life that mean a little more to me, that are closer to the surface than doing something that I don’t feel comfortable with for a paycheck. That’s one bag out of a million. I’m not tripping over it. I do think, one day, it’ll be inevitable for me to cross paths with Tony again. Look what New Japan is doing with AEW right now. Even with my departure, there was no bad blood. The situation was what it was, and we parted ways. I don’t think that door was closed, at least from what I know. I don’t know how they feel on the other end, and I’m not worried how they feel on the other end, I’m doing me. When that time comes, it comes. If it doesn’t come, it’s not meant to be.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• During a recent episode of the DDP Snake Pit podcast, co-host Jake “The Snake” Roberts gave his thoughts about the advice he has given to some of AEW’s talent on how to improve their promo delivery skills. Roberts stated “I just tell them not to be afraid to be different. I used to use a lot of subliminal thought stuff whenever I did interviews and I still believe in that stuff. I think it gets a hold of people. You need to say something in your interview that grabs people and shakes them a little bit. Now you can do that, one way is by saying something that they know to be true or something that they’ve heard 1000 times, and then when you calmly say it, automatically their mind connection goes, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that before.’ Whether it’s, ‘Don’t play with that boy at the end of the block, he’s a bad boy.’ You know, ‘Don’t eat this, it’s bad for you.’ ‘Don’t trust this kind of people, they’re no good.’ You’ve heard that before and your mind agrees with it without you knowing it. If you say it in an interview, you’ve got the hook into them and they’re now following you. So that’s what I try to tell them. I don’t know if any of them get it. I hope they do. But yeah, the main thing is don’t be afraid to be different. I basically had to come up with my interview style from necessity. Back in 1975, I got a knee dropped on my throat and I crushed my voice box. So this is as loud as I get. If I tried to scream, nothing comes out. So I had to learn a different way to do it, but it certainly worked well for me and I’m so grateful for the man above to lead me down that road and show me something different.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• During a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, AEW CEO Tony Khan gave his thoughts about the upcoming Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match for the Interim AEW World Championship at the upcoming Forbidden Door event. Khan stated “That’s a match that has been talked about in New Japan for a long time, well over a year. There’s some backstory as to why it never happened. I would never allow it to happen. I’ll make an old WWF reference, Armageddon, Vince (McMahon) came out with the truck to stop the six-way cage match [Hell in a Cell], that’s like me with this match. They tried to do it so many times, Moxley vs. Tanahashi, and I’ve always been there to stop it from happening because it’s such a huge match and we had to be involved if it was going to happen. Lo and behold, at a time when everything changed, CM Punk won the world title, he gets injured, we have to set up a huge match to crown an Interim World Champion. Going back to the relationship between AEW and New Japan, it’s been building towards this and it’s fate. Moxley vs. Tanahashi was a match that was supposed to happen many times and it never happened. Now, it’s the right time and right place. It could have happened a lot of times and heaven knows I stepped in and tried to stop it and now it’s finally happening at the perfect time for AEW and New Japan and all the fans.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Indies & Misc. Wrestling

• New Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly generated a paid attendance of 6,068 for their Dominion 2022 event on June 12th in Osaka, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Pro Wrestling NOAH, DDT Pro Wrestling, Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, and Ganbare Pro reportedly generated a paid attendance of 4,891 for their joint CyberFight Festival 2022 event on June 12th in Saitama, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. This event was notable for featuring NJPW talent Satoshi Kojima defeating Go Shiozaki for the GHC Heavyweight Championship.
• DDT Pro Wrestling reportedly generated a paid attendance of 444 for their June 16th King of DDT 2022 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced the full schedule for Keiji Mutoh’s (also known as The Great Muta) “Final Countdown” retirement tour. The dates announced are July 16th in Tokyo, September 25th in Aichi, October 30th in Tokyo, and January 22, 2023 in Tokyo, Japan.
• Pro Wrestling NOAH also recently announced that Anthony Greene and Stallion Rogers will be making an appearance for the company at their July 16th event in Tokyo, Japan.
• Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling recently announced two new matches for the card of their Summer Sun Princess ’22 event on July 9th in Tokyo, Japan. These are a singles match of Willow Nightingale vs. Miu Watanabe and a singles match of Thunder Rosa vs. Miyu Yamashita.
• CMLL talent Sagrado reportedly was involved in a fan altercation incident at CMLL’s June 7th event in Guadalajara, Mexico, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Sagrado reportedly attacked a fan following an incident where a group of rowdy fans were throwing coins at wrestlers attempting to hurt them instead of the usual sign of respect of tossing money in the ring to celebrate a great match performed. CMLL reportedly pulled Sagrado from their June 13th event in Puebla as punishment but he is currently scheduled to perform at their June 20th show in Puebla, Mexico.
• Impact Wrestling reportedly has sold around 256 tickets for their July 1st Against All Odds 2022 event in Atlanta and 244 tickets for their July 2nd Impact! TV tapings in Atlanta, Georgia as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Impact Wrestling announced earlier today that they have pulled Jack Evans out of the card of tonight’s Slammiversary 2022 event in Nashville, Tennessee due to him suffering a neck-related injury at GCW’s You Wouldn’t Understand event on Saturday in New York City, New York. It was announced that indie talent Andrew Everett would be replacing Evans for his scheduled X-Division Championship Ultimate X match at the event.
• During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, D’Lo Brown revealed the origin of his famous headshake routine during his entrances for matches. Brown stated “Back in ’97, portable DVD players were just starting to come out. You’d have sleeves of DVDs kind of like you’d have sleeves of CDs. The movie Friday was part of the regular rotation on our road trips. The Rock and I finished a match on a Sunday and we were back at the hotel watching Friday, and there’s a scene where Deebo knocks out a guy and Chris Tucker yells, ‘You just got knocked the f— out!’ The next night at Raw, we’re getting ready to go to commercial break, and the spot is that Rocky is going to clothesline Ken Shamrock out of the ring and onto the floor, and then we’d go to the commercial. But I knew, if I had that 30 seconds, I was stealing it. So when Ken was knocked out of the ring. I ran up to the ropes, and screamed, ‘You just got knocked the f— out!’ and I’m shaking my head. That’s when it dawned on me that I’d swore on TV. I figured Vince [McMahon] was going to be furious. Vince had two looks. One was when he looked at you and gave a thumbs up. That was good. The other was when he looked up, pulled his glasses down, and waved a finger over to him. That’s what I got that night. And he looked at me and said, ‘That thing you’re doing with your head? Keep doing it.’ So I didn’t get fined for swearing and I did something that piqued Vince’s curiosity. Then I turned the volume up on the head shake, and people still tell me stories to this day about doing it in a hallway or to their mom. It’s incredible.”
• National Wrestling Alliance talent Nick Aldis filed trademarks for” Strictly Business” and “Empower” on June 13th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the USPTO. Aldis also filed trademarks for “Empower” and “FigureMania” on June 13th for merchandise-related purposes.
• Saturday’s Lucha Libre AAA Triplemania XXX: Tijuana event in Tijuana, Mexico featured a promo segment by current AAA Reina de Reinas champion Taya Valkyrie calling out current AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa for a match between the two in the future in AAA. Following Valkyrie’s promo, Rosa stated on Instagram that she accepted the match challenge.
• Saturday’s AAA Triplemania XXX: Tijuana event also featured John
  Hennigan being revealed as Matt Hardy’s mystery tag team partner for Hardy’s tag team match against Dragon Lee and Dralistico. Hardy revealed that Hennigan would be made an honorary Hardys brother for the night and was given the name of “Johnny Hardy.” During the main event, Hennigan ended up betraying Hardy costing their team the match. Following the match, Hardy got revenge and hit a Twist of Fate on Hennigan and shook hands with Lee and Dralisitco to close out the show.
• Game Changer Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their The People vs. GCW event on July 29th in Nashville, Tennessee. This will be a GCW Championship match of Blake Christian vs. Jon Moxley (c).