Weekend Roundup: AEW Talent Meeting Update, Young Bucks WWE Rumor Update, NJPW, WBD & NBC Merger Rumors, Indies

WWE

• This past Friday’s WWE Friday Night SmackDown drew a preliminary viewership of 2,086,000 viewers on FOX, according to SpoilerTV.
• Mandy Rose announced on Instagram that she recently got engaged to former WWE wrestler Tino Sabbatelli.
• During a recent Ronda on the Road vblog, Ronda Rousey gave her thoughts on why she feels that her match against Charlotte Flair at this past April’s WrestleMania 38 event will be remembered fondly as a cult classic type match. Rousey stated “You know what? The first time I watched the match, it was on my phone with the sound off when I was trying to put Po to sleep. She was feeding. And I was like, ‘Hmm.’ Then I watched it again later and was like, ‘Huh!’ And I think it’s going to be like one of those cult classic matches. It’s going to be like The Labyrinth of matches. You know? When it first came out, everyone was like, ‘What the hell? Why does David Bowie have a giant codpiece and talking to our children?’ But then later, you realize something awesome about it every time and it kind of makes it one of your favorite movies ever. And, you know, I sometimes need to watch it and sing ‘You Remind Me Of The Babe.’ […] That’s what I feel like that match. Every time you watch it, you’ll catch something new about it. I think re-watchability is something that is very important in movies. The Labyrinth, case in point.” (Transcript h/t: 411Mania.com)
• As noted before, WWE announced this past Saturday that Logan Paul will be facing off against Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match at their Crown Jewel 2022 event this November in Saudi Arabia. Paul’s brother Jake Paul recently teased on Twitter that he might make an appearance for WWE to support brother’s match at their upcoming Saudi event. Paul stated “Logan is the definition of anything is possible. 2 matches in WWE and he’s challenging for the belt. I might have to come to Saudi Arabia for this.“
• WWE filed a trademark for “WWE Rush” for NIL-related purposes on September 14th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• WWE reportedly generated an attendance of 9,814 (9,000 paid) for their Sept. 9th SmackDown show in Seattle, WA, 4,245 for their Sept. 10th house show event in Colorado Springs, CO, 3,765 for their Sept. 10th house show event in Spokane, WA, 3,813 for their Sept. 11th house show event in Wenatchee, WA, and 7,893 (7,200 paid) for their Sept. 12th RAW show in Portland, OR, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly has sold around 5,754 tickets for their Sept. 19th RAW show in San Jose, CA, 4,864 tickets for their Sept. 23rd SmackDown show in Salt Lake City, UT, 5,927 tickets for their Sept. 24th house show event in Vancouver, Canada, 2,474 tickets for their Sept. 24th house show event in Stockton, CA, 2,830 for their Sept. 25th house show event in Fresno, CA, 10581 tickets for their Sept. 26th RAW show in Edmonton, Canada, 7,853 tickets for their Sept. 30th SmackDown show in Winnipeg, Canada, 2,418 tickets for their Oct. 1st house show event in Regina, Canada, 2,940 tickets for their Oct. 2nd house show event in Saskatoon, Canada, 4,375 tickets for their Oct. 3rd RAW show in St. Paul, MN, 1,807 for their Oct. 7th SmackDown show in Worcester, MA, 10,032 tickets for their Oct. 8th Extreme Rules 2022 event in Philadelphia, PA, 2,548 tickets for their Oct. 14th SmackDown show in New Orleans, LA, 3,148 tickets for their Oct. 17th RAW show in Oklahoma City, OK, 3,035 tickets for their Oct. 21st SmackDown show in Toledo, OH, 3,013 tickets for their Oct. 24th RAW show in Charlotte, NC, 4,327 tickets for their Oct. 31st RAW show in Dallas, TX, 2,562 tickets for their Nov. 7th RAW show in Wilkes-Bare, PA, and 2,796 tickets for their Nov. 14th RAW show in Louisville, KY, as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• WWE reportedly recently cancelled their Sept. 25th house show event in Grand Prairie, Alberta due to low ticket sales, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• This past Tuesday’s NXT show featured a show closing announcement by Shawn Michaels revealing that NXT will be moving from their NXT 2.0 era to back to their former Black & Gold era. During a recent interview with the WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves podcast, NXT announcer Vic Joseph stated that the crowd chanted “Black & Gold” for several minutes after NXT’s show that night had ended. Joseph stated “Then, the roof blew off the place. Because at the end of the night, and it’s been on social media and it’s been all the buzz and everything is still ‘loading,’ a new logo was shown with the black and gold outline. After the show, I don’t know if I’m going to get in trouble for this or not, the show went off the air, five or six minutes went on and the crowd was still chanting “black and gold.’ To give you an idea, the camera crew had enough time to leave and get brought back out, reconnect, and get put back in position to film some of the audience and then organic reaction. I stood up, took my headset off, and was like, ‘Holy shit.’ Wade (Barrett) was even laughing. This was unreal, the amount of love that all of a sudden … it’s hard to describe. I guess black and gold means so much to so many.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• As noted before, Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently touted on Twitter about the success and new all-time WWE records set by WWE’s Clash at the Castle event earlier this month in Cardiff, Wales. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that he estimates that the live gate revenues for Clash at the Castle was likely around triple of what WWE did for their SummerSlam 1992 event in Wembley Stadium, which was around $2.5 million. SummerSlam 1992 reportedly was also the previous record for highest ever gate for an international WWE event in WWE history. Meltzer reported that Clash at the Castle is also currently expected to have generated the highest ever live gate revenues for a non-WrestleMania event in wrestling history.
• Fightful Select reported that WWE officials under the new regime leadership were not interested in the idea of Velveteen Dream returning to the company even prior to his recent arrests this past August. Dream’s name reportedly was never considered as an option for potential former WWE talent returns to the company. In regards to past issues, it was reported that their sources stated that prior to Dream’s release in May of 2021, he had been dealing with significant backstage heat within NXT over drug issues involving rumored cocaine usage and erratic behavior at the Performance Center. In regards to Dream’s car accident incident in June of 2020, it was reported that their sources confirmed that this was a legit incident and the reason why he was pulled from NXT television at the time. During his time away, Dream reportedly was among the names being considered to be cut from the company but it is currently not known why WWE officials decided against releasing him at the time. One high level source stated that it would take a “miracle” for Dream to ever be rehired under WWE’s new regime and despite Dream’s recent teases on social media, WWE still do not have any plans to bring him back.

AEW & ROH

• During a recent interview with TSC News, Anthony Bowens revealed that he is currently working on an book about his life and wrestling career. Bowens stated “I’m writing a book. It’s the first time I’ve said that openly. I’m about 45,000 words in and I hope to have that out in the next few years or so — so I like to dip my toes into every avenue that I can and I’ve read a lot of wrestling books growing up so now that I’m achieving that success and I think I have a story to tell that would resonate with people, I wanna put that out there eventually, so that’s a goal of mine.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
• DDT Pro-Wrestling talent Konosuke Takeshita recently announced on Twitter that one of his career goals is to be able to help AEW hold an event in Japan in the future. Takeshita stated “I have one more goal in mind. One day, I would like to do an AEW show in Japan. I have learned that Japanese fans are eager to watch AEW fight. I started running that today.” Takeshita last worked for AEW from this past April to August as part of his excursion tour in the United States. Takeshita also recent competed against Christopher Daniels in a match held for AEW at THQ Nordic’s booth at this past week’s Tokyo Game Show 2022 convention in Tokyo, Japan.
• As noted before, AEW’s All Out 2022 post-show media scrum featured an infamous rant incident by CM Punk. Among those Punk ranted against was Colt Cabana, which included Punk’s insult at him for sharing a bank account with his mother. During a recent Twitch stream, Cabana gave his thoughts about Punk’s recent disparaging comments made towards him. Cabana stated “My brother is the director of Family Guy, if you didn’t know that. That’s a fun little tidbit. My brother is the director of Family Guy. You can look up his name. He also shares a bank account with my mother. It’s just all in the family, you know how it is.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
• This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show featured an AEW Tournament of Champions Semifinals match between Chris Jericho and Bryan Danielson, which was won by Danielson. Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that his sources stated that Jericho was the person who came up with the idea for the ankle injury spot and have him attack it throughout the rest of the match to build up both crowd heat on himself and Danielson’s “over coming the odds” comeback victory. Meltzer reported that Jericho told others that the inspiration for his idea came from a match between “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Bet Hart in WWF in 1987.
• As noted before, recent rumors and reports of the Young Bucks recently sending feelers to WWE to gauge their interest in a potential future deal were denied to be true by the Wrestling Observer and Fightful. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the Young Bucks do have someone within WWE that they regularly talk with but its is more as just friendly chatter and to stay in touch with each other. Meltzer reported that a recent conversation by the Young Bucks with this longtime friend somehow managed to get quickly spinned online as the Young Bucks talking with WWE’s management over the idea of them leaving AEW to sign with WWE in the future.
• As noted before, AEW held a talent meeting this past August to discuss the new behind-the-scenes changes made at the time and the company being upset over WWE contacting AEW contracted talent for potential future deals. Among those who spoke included Kenny Omega, whose speech was described as generating mixed reactions within AEW’s locker room. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources recently provided several new details regarding Omega’s speech at this meeting. Omega reportedly stated that “eight out of ten of the people there he wouldn’t have hired” if he was in charge which irked some talent while others believed it was done in a joking manner over how he acted afterwards. Omega reportedly also stated that the “overall energy and locker room at the start of the company was more positive” with those spoken to stating that this was likely his way of trying to recreate that time and place with AEW’s current roster.
• AEW reportedly recently signed a new streaming deal with Starz Play Sports for their Middle East and North African markets, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that this new deal includes all of AEW’s television series, Dark and Dark Elevation YouTube series, and pay-per-view events to air live on the service. AEW PPV events reportedly will also be aired at no extra charge to subscribers on the service.
• AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 4,300 (4,100) for their Sept. 14th Dynamite show in Albany, NY, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• AEW reportedly has sold around 12,000 tickets for their Sept. 21st Dynamite Grand Slam 2022 show at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, NY, 5,008 tickets for their Sept. 28th Dynamite show in Philadelphia, PA, 2,105 tickets for their Oct. 5th Dynamite show in Washington, DC, 1,895 tickets for their Oct. 7th Rampage & Battle of the Belts IV shows in Washington, DC, 6,777 tickets for their Oct. 12th Dynamite show in Toronto, 4,797 tickets for their Oct. 13th Rampage show in Toronto, Canada, 2,595 tickets for their Oct. 18th Dynamite show in Cincinnati, OH, 2,165 tickets for their Oct. 21st Rampage show in Jacksonville, FL, 2,005 tickets for their Oct. 26th Dynamite show in Norfolk, VA, 3,691 tickets for their Oct. 28th Rampage show in Uncasville, CT, and 1,700 tickets for their Nov. 9th Dynamite show in Boston, MA as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Andrade El Idolo reportedly was recently informed by AEW officials to no longer perform his spinning back elbow strike during matches due to it being too similar to Chris Jericho’s Judas finisher, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Fozzy recently announced that they have cancelled the remainder of their Save The World concert tour in the United States this year due to Chris Jericho’s recent bruised larynx injury. It was also announced that all of the cancelled dates have been rescheduled to now take place in April of 2023 and all tickets purchased for the original dates will be honored at these shows.
• AEW recently announced that they will be holding an AEW Dynamite event on January 4, 2023 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington. It was also announced that tickets for this upcoming event will officially go on sale starting on September 30th.
• During a recent interview with the Sporticast podcast, AEW CEO Tony Khan gave his thoughts about AEW’s current working relationship with Warner Bros Discovery. Khan stated “This is my third TV deal (coming up). I’m on my second TV deal. Live events is a huge revenue driver, merchandising is a huge revenue driver. We have big sponsorships now, DraftKings has come in and been an amazing sponsor for AEW this year. Also, what we have, media rights is a big part of it. Pay-per-view is a big part of it. We’ve been selling pay-per-views, working with Bleacher Report, InDemand providers, internationally, FiteTV streaming. Our TV deals are our biggest individual revenue driver. For us, we have this great partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery and have the rest of this year and next year. They have been so good to us. Not only was the original leadership so great to take a chance on an unknown company, but post-merger, the Discovery leadership that has come in has been so supportive and we’re getting opportunities now with the new management even bigger than we’ve ever gotten before. New faces, new people, and they’re great people. We’ve had different management teams over the last few years and this is a new group. Obviously, they have different experiences and different insights and a different portfolio of IP coming in, but also new IP being created by the new property and existing IP we’ve never really been associated with before. Just in the few months we’ve been working together, it’s been great getting to know them and working with them. They’ve given us opportunities for integrations and I hope we’ve done a good job. The fact that we’re getting more of them and they’ve been so positive about the job we’ve done, it went really well.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Indies & Misc. Wrestling

• New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced that they cancelled their Burning Spirit 2022 event earlier today in Beppu, Japan due to safety-related concerns over the impending landfall of Typhoon Nanmadol in the country. It was also announced that this Monday and Wednesday’s Burning Spirit 2022 events are still currently expected to take place as scheduled.
• NJPW also announced that they had pulled KUSHIDA from the card of Saturday’s Burning Spirit 2022 event in Kagoshima due to him recently falling ill with a fever. It was also announced that KUSHIDA had taken a COVID-19 test as a precaution that returned a negative result.
• As noted before, Kota Ibushi has been out of action for NJPW since this past October due to a shoulder injury. During his time away from the company, Ibushi accused NJPW’s management of “power harassment” against him over the past year. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Ibushi’s shoulder has been slowly healing up.
• NJPW reportedly generated a paid attendance of 456 for their Sept.9th Burning Spirit 2022 event in Fuji, 925 for their Sept. 10th Burning Spirit 2022 event in Gunma, 1,200 for their Sept. 11th Burning Spirit 2022 event in Togane, Japan, 788 for their Sept. 11th NJPW Strong Autumn Action 2022 event in Las Vegas, NV, 685 for their Sept. 13th Burning Spirit 2022 event in Osaka, and 789 for their Sept. 15th Burning Spirit 2022 event in Shunan, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Bushiroad recently released their fiscal 2022 report revealing that NJPW and Stardom had grossed around 5.599 billion yen ($39.1 million) in revenues combined, up compared to last year’s fiscal year gross revenues of 4.457 billion yen ($31.1 million). In regards to live events, NJPW and Stardom generated a $300,000 loss in income, down compared to last year’s fiscal year income loss of $800,000. In regards to New Japan World, it was revealed that the service was “in the range of 100,000 subscribers.” (Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
• Stardom reportedly generated a paid attendance of 1,324 for their 5STAR Grand Prix 2022 Sept. 11th event in Yokohama, and 781 for their Sept. 12th 5STAR Grand Prix 2022 event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
• Impact Wrestling reportedly is currently planning to officially reveal the challengers for OGK’s (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) Impact World Tag Team Championship match for next month’s Bound For Glory 2022 event during this week’s episode of Impact!, according to PWInsider.
• PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that the backstage reaction to Lou D’Angeli’s recent hiring to Impact Wrestling has been very positive.
• Impact recently released a new Joe Doering themed shirt on their official online store with all proceeds going directly towards Doering to help financially assist his medical costs for his current battle with brain cancer.
• As noted before, the National Wrestling Alliance held a talent meeting earlier this month that was described to have “ruffled some feathers” over issues of how it was handled and backstage heat it gave to several talents in the end. Fightful Select reported that their sources recently provided several new details regarding this past meeting. Several veteran talents spoken to stated that they felt that this meeting was a “waste of time” and unnecessary. This feeling reportedly was due to one of the main topics being about cleaning after themselves after shows was likely meant to be directed towards extras hired for shows and not the regular roster. Those spoken to stated that Luke Hawx did not get any backstage heat with the locker room over his comments requesting this issue to be resolved since some talent sided with him over it. One talent spoken to stated that nothing “noteworthy” took place during this meeting and revealed that very few people are currently under full-time deals with the company. Another talent spoken to confirmed that they had walked out of the meeting as it took place but nobody seemed to have cared or felt disrespected by it.
• During a recent interview with Whitepaper.mx, Lucha Libre AA co-owner Dorian Roldan stated that the company is currently working on plans to run a new event in Arizona this December. Roldan stated that this upcoming event would be formatted differently than typical events held by the company. (English translation via Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
• As noted before, AAA recently pulled Thunder Rosa from the card of their Triplemania XXX: Mexico City event on October 15th in Mexico City, Mexico due to Rosa recently suffering a back-related injury. It was announced that NWA talent Kamille would be replacing Rosa as the challenger for Taya Valkyrie’s Reina de Reinas Championship match at the event. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that AAA officials were unable to get a replacement female talent from AEW for Rosa which is why they went in a different direction for Valkryie’s opponent. AAA reportedly had requested either Ruby Soho or Toni Storm as possible replacements but were unable to get both due to Soho’s recent broken nose injury and AEW denying their request for Storm.
• Japanese deathmatch legend Atsushi Onita reportedly is currently very interested in the idea of competing in an explosive barbed wire match against Jon Moxley in the United States, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that while it is currently not known if AEW would approve of the idea or allow it to take place outside of the company, Onita himself is interested in this potential match taking place in AEW to improve the chances of it happening.
• The Hollywood Reporter reported that their sources stated that Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal have recently held talks regarding a potential merger of both companies as early as 2024. In regards to WBD’s interest over a potential merger, it was stated that “given the company’s daunting challenges, it has become accepted wisdom at the highest levels of the industry that another deal waits in the wings for Warner Bros. Discovery. For reasons related to the complicated structure of that merger, no negotiations can happen until April 2024. But at that point, many industry observers believe that Comcast’s Brian Roberts will make a long-awaited move, looking to combine NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.” In terms of wrestling importance, NBCU is the parent company of USA Network, which is one of the two current home networks of WWE and WBD is the parent company of TNT and TBS, which is the current home network of AEW.
• During a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, Maria Kanellis announced that her co-owned Women’s Wrestling Army promotion will be holding their next set of tapings on November 4-5 in Chicago, Illinois.
• All Japan Pro Wrestling held their 50th Anniversary Show earlier today in Tokyo, Japan which featured Kento Miyahara defeating Suwama to become the new Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion for the sixth time in his career.