Weekend Roundup: WWE’s Finalized WrestleMania 40 Card Plans, Ricky Starks Injury Scare Update, Matt Cardona & AEW Update, Katsuhiko Nakajima AJPW Future in Doubt, TJPW, Indies

Indie / Misc

Steve C.

Mar 31, 2024

WWE

The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported in a special edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials finalized their plans for the card for WrestleMania 40 as of last week. Meltzer reported that the current plans are for 13 matches in total with seven matches for Night 1 and six matches for Night 2. In regards to the remaining unannounced match, Meltzer reported that this will be a Philadelphia Street Fight match of The Final Testament (Karrion Kross & Authors of Pain) vs. Bobby Lashley & The Street Profits. Meltzer also reported that WWE officials made one change to the finalized card for WrestleMania, which was Pretty Deadly being removed from the Six-Pack Challenge Ladder match for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship for reasons currently unknown. Meltzer also reported that Dragon Lee’s inclusion for the LWO vs. Dominik Mysterio & Santos Escobar was also a late change to the plans for WrestleMania 40’s card.
WWE announced one new match for the card of this Monday’s RAW show in Brooklyn, New York. This new match announced was a singles match of Sami Zayn vs. Bronson Reed.
WWE also announced two new matches for the card of this Tuesday’s NXT show. These new matches announced were a singles match of Fallon Henley vs. Jacy Jayne and a singles match of Sol Ruca vs. Blair Davenport.
Olympics gold medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock made her official in-ring debut for WWE’s NXT brand at Saturday’s NXT house show event in Melbourne, Florida. Mensah-Stock defeated BreAnna Covington in a singles match at the event.
In a recent interview with Adrian Hernandez, Booker T announced that NXT talent Xavier Bernal will be making an appearance for his Reality of Wrestling’s April 13th event in Texas City, Texas.
In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Paul Heyman gave his thoughts about how Roman Reigns could fit into any era of wrestling history and be a top star. Heyman stated “Roman Reigns is the most innovative, transformative, disruptive superstar in the history of pro wrestling/sports entertainment. The reason why I can accurately make that statement is because Roman Reigns employs two tenant mantras of show business. One, he reads the room. Two, he knows his audience. That’s why he would fit into any era–whether it’s in the 70’s against Sammartino, the 80’s against Hulk Hogan, the 90’s in the Dangerous Alliance, the Attitude Era against Stone Cold and The Rock and DX, the John Cena era of The Doctor of Thugonomics, or now in the tenure being enjoyed by Roman Reigns, in his own era he created, when he lifted the whole industry out of the pandemic and into unfathomable heights that no one could have imagined or dreamt of back in August of 2020.“
WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler recently underwent knee replacement surgery, according to PWInsider.
In a recent interview with TMZ, Becky Lynch gave her thoughts about her long-term friendship with Charlotte Flair. Lynch stated “She’s been a huge part of my journey in every capacity and such an important part as best friends then as enemies and a fallout. I talk about that from my perspective. Also, the undercurrent of all of it is love, right? Because it’s always the people that you love the most that maybe hurt you the most and I know I’ve hurt her, and it’s been reciprocal. I think when you can come back from all of that, that’s a special thing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a separate interview with WrestlingNews.co, Becky Lynch gave her thoughts about the late Bray Wyatt and his impact on those who got to be around with him in WWE. Lynch stated “Oh man, Bray was always one of those people that you look forward to seeing because he had this, just this warmth about him and this kindness and this mischief in his eyes. Like he had the most sparkly eyes you’ve ever seen and that raspy voice and his signature laugh and his hugs, like he gave you, the world’s best talk, like it was, there was just nothing but love. You could just sit down and talk to him for hours about anything. I remember the first time meeting him and he was this huge star and I was just an extra. He just talked to me like an equal. There’s not a lot of people that did that, you know, especially back then and there was just goodness in him. There was just, he was good and he was kind. I told this story about how I didn’t have a clue how to set up a table and he spent a long time showing me. Then it was funny because I had a last woman standing match with Nia, and I couldn’t set up the damn table and I was like, oh, if only Windham was here, you know?” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
WWE filed trademarks for “Andrade,” “Chase U,” “Vic Joseph,” “Alicia Taylor,” “Blake Howard,” and “Erik” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes on March 29th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In a recent episode of the Gabby AF podcast, SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis gave his thoughts about the backstage environment in WWE. Aldis stated “Some of the reason that the company is firing on all cylinders so much is because there is a real breath of experience and I mean this in a sense of, behind the scenes, there’s a lot of TNA fingerprints and I think that lends itself well because for me, I developed a lot of my skill set by working with limited resources, particularly with the NWA. How could I make the most out of this thing, but I don’t have this huge team of people, I don’t have the ability to go, yeah, send this to that department and they’ll do this and that with it and then we’ll produce this thing and then we can go to this location and shoot this, no, we got to figure out how to bootstrap this thing, right? Raw was Chicago last night, and Cody referenced it like, ‘Oh, Chicago has been very kind to me.’ A six year timeline back to what he and I were able to accomplish there. It’s like, there’s value in having people all around your orbit who have been able to squeeze as much juice as possible out of every opportunity. Obviously, you need people who are familiar with the WWE way of doing things, because you need people to maximize that system. For me, I’m still figuring out, ‘Oh, we have a person for that?’ Because my instinct still is to sort of figure it out but it’s like, no, no, there’s a guy for that, you can just ask them. At the same time, having all of these different guys, like Abyss, is back there, Bobby Roode is back there, Shane Helms is back there, Petey Williams is back there, Davari is back there. [These] are all guys that have accomplished things at all sorts of different levels of resources, like we know how to handle a crisis, we know how to make the most out of something when it falls into our lap, we know how to make the most out of something even if it doesn’t seem like very much. Those are all of the skills that we can use to make the better show possible, and then you plug that into this energy source and this incredible amount of resources and the revenue that the company is doing. I know it’s cliche but, the sky is the limit.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with Fightful, Jade Cargill gave her thoughts about making her official in-ring debut for WWE at this past January’s Royal Rumble 2024 event. Cargill stated “It felt great, electrifying. That’s the word of the night for me. A shock. I didn’t know what I was going to get. I was very elated when I heard the crowd pop and just accept me. I want to see more. It’s literally the debut of a legendary career I’m about to have.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
As noted before, WWE established a consensual relationship policy for their employees in June of 2023. This new policy was put into place one year following the fallout over Vince McMahon’s initial resignation from the company over allegations of sexual misconduct against McMahon and hush money payments towards several former female employees and talent. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that several WWE talent spoken to stated that they were not aware of this new policy beforehand until it was made public.
As noted before, the January 25th episode of WWE RAW drew 1,729,000 viewers and a 0.57 key demographic rating. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE’s peak viewership was 2,200,000 viewers for the fifth quarter hour featuring the CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, and Seth Rollins promo segment. WWE’s peak key demo viewership was 933,000 viewers for the same quarter hour. This was up 314,000 overall viewers and 151,000 viewers compared to the prior quarter, which Meltzer reported that one main factor for this large spike for that quarter hour was due to it taking place during halftime of that night’s NBA basketball game.
WWE drew an attendance of 11,253 for their March 22nd SmackDown show in Milwaukee, WI, 4,797 for their March 23rd house show event in Springfield, IL, 5,519 for their March 24th house show event in Rockford, IL, and 15,810 for their March 25th RAW show in Rosemont, IL, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
WWE reportedly has sold around 12,365 tickets for their April 1st RAW show in Brooklyn, NY, 15,557 tickets for their April 5th SmackDown show in Philadelphia, 59,876 tickets for their April 6th WrestleMania 40 Night 1 event in Philadelphia, 61,197 tickets for their April 7th WrestleMania 40 Night 2 event in Philadelphia, 15,657 tickets for their April 8th RAW show in Philadelphia, 11,405 tickets for their April 12th SmackDown show in Detroit, MI, 9,004 tickets for their April 15th RAW show in Montreal, Canada, 9,579 tickets for their April 19th SmackDown show in Pittsburgh, PA, 3,719 tickets for their April 21st house show event in Fort Wayne, IN, and 6,571 for their April 22nd RAW show in Columbus, OH as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Paul Heyman gave his thoughts about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson throwing up a “L” sign instead of the signature one finger pointed up in the air for The Bloodline’s group hand signal. Heyman stated “I don’t know, and it’s something that certainly my suggestion would be that’s a great question to ask The Rock, and I’m sure he’d be happy to answer it. But it is a conspiracy. And just because it’s a conspiracy theory doesn’t mean there’s not a conspiracy behind it. So my father always taught me, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean the whole world’s not against you,’ so I’m sure there’s something to it. And my suggestion would be ask the final boss, ask The Rock.“

AEW & ROH

As noted before, Saturday’s AEW Collision show in London, Ontario Canada featured indie talent Matt Cardona making a surprise appearance on the show as the mystery challenger for Adam Copeland’s TNT Championship Cope Open match. Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that his sources stated that AEW officials plans for Cardona’s appearance was put together the past week. Sapp reported that this was the reason why Cardona pulled out of his scheduled match against Ultimo Dragon for the Squared Circle Expo Championship at Black Label Pro Wrestling’s event on Saturday so that he could travel to Canada for AEW’s event. Sapp reported that this was also the reason why Cardona dropped the title this past Friday and Black Label Pro announcing Nic Nemeth as Cardona’s replacement. In regards to Cardona’s status with AEW, Sapp reported that Cardona has not signed a deal with the company and instead is still a free agent.
Matt Cardona reflected earlier today on Twitter about his surprise appearance and match against Copeland at Saturday’s AEW Collision show and getting to reunite with him for the first time since their days in WWE. Cardona stated “@RatedRCope vs. Matt Cardona…my dream match…finally happened last night at #AEWCollision. When I was in high school, Edge was one of my favorite wrestlers. I’d have matches with him (an invisible version) in my bedroom or trampoline. Him reinventing himself into the Rated R Superstar made me an even bigger fan of his. A couple of years later,@Myers_Wrestling and I made it to WWE but were drowning as The Major Brothers. We were about be fired. We had an idea to be Adam’s entourage…his Edgeheads. He didn’t need us but we certainly needed him. He took a chance on us, saved our careers, and changed our lives. We went from sitting in catering about to be fired to wrestling guys like Undertaker, Batista, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, etc. We learned so much from working so close to Adam. Our first time at WrestleMania was being involved in the main event! I thought the next year at WrestleMania it’d be Edge vs. Hawkins vs. Ryder. That didn’t happen. LOL. 16 years (holy shit!) flew by so fast. Adam had to retire due to a neck injury in 2011. My dream match would never happen. Adam returns to WWE in 2020. I get fired from WWE in 2020. My dream match would never happen. I’ve been busting my ass these past 4 years to reinvent myself. Adam is the Rated R Superstar and I’m the Self Made Superstar. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve wrestled everyone. When Adam joined @AEW in 2023, I knew my dream match was back on the table. Last night in Canada, Adam had the Cope Open…an open challenge for his TNT Championship. I accepted. The fans didn’t forget the history. There was a HOLY SHIT chant on my god damn entrance. I may have lost but I learned even more from Adam from that match. It was a night that I’ll never forget. I finally wrestled my dream match. Thank you Adam. Thank you @TonyKhan for the opportunity.“
As noted before, Ricky Starks was involved in an injury scare incident at Saturday’s AEW Collision show in London, Canada. The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported in Sunday’s Daily Update that his sources stated that AEW officials current belief is that Starks had suffered a stinger and not a concussion injury.
Saturday’s AEW Collision show in London, Canada also featured one new match announced for the card of this week’s AEW Rampage show on April 5th, which was taped on Saturday. This new match announced was a singles match of Christopher Daniels vs. Malakai Black.
Saturday’s AEW Rampage tapings for this week’s episode also featured Canadian wrestler London Lighting competing in a singles match against Roderick Strong. AEW CEO Tony Khan recently reflected on Twitter about his decision to book Lighting for the show. Khan stated “I had noticed him long before last night’s show, which is why I put him in that hometown match on Rampage. It will be a fun #AEWRampage this Friday. Happy Easter!“
Fightful Select reported that their sources denied the recent rumors of Parker Boudreaux had departed from AEW. This rumor originated over a recent surprise appearance by Boudreaux at an AAA event and Boudreaux being announced to be competing at AAA’s Triplemania XXXII: Tijuana event this April. It was reported that Boudreaux is still under contract with AEW despite him not competing in a match for them in over a year.
In a recent interview with the Kicking Out podcast, Skye Blue gave her thoughts about the Street Fight match she had with Julia Hart against Kris Statlander & Willow Nightingale on the March 20th AEW Rampage show being her favorite match of her career so far. Blue stated “I’m not sure of any coming up. I know AEW is going to be in Peoria, which is pretty close to Chicago. So hopefully maybe something in a little kind of hometown way. I was not like, this one was past obviously, but the street fight match that we did was by far my favorite match I think I’ve ever done. So if anybody hasn’t seen that one, that would be my… I would go watch that one. I love that one. I got to go as crazy as I could and I absolutely love hardcore matches. Like, I remember being a kid and telling my mom, be like, I’m going to do table matches. I’m going to go through fire. I’m going to, you know, be all bloody and my mom’s like freaking out, like, please don’t die. I loved every second of it. Yes. I wish, I wish there was more, you know, I wanted to go through the packs. I wanted to do so much. I would have done a 60-minute street fight if it would have been allowed, but there will be many opportunities to do it.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Bryan Danielson gave his thoughts about Kazuchika Okada joining AEW. Danielson stated “Okada is a great fit for AEW. We’ve seen that right since his debut with The Young Bucks. That’s the way Tony presents stars in AEW. It’s not about starting over in AEW. So he was brought in as a star and introduced as a star. It’s the same way we introduced Will Ospreay, and the same way we’ve treated Místico. They’ve already proven it, so that’s the way we’ll present them to our audience. It’s a different approach from the ‘let’s see if this new talent can sink-or-swim.’ He’s a star. That’s how he’s treated.“
In a recent Twitch stream held by Kenny Omega, Riho gave her thoughts about her backstage interaction with Mercedes Mone at AEW’s Dynamite Big Business show earlier this month in Mone’s hometown of Boston. Riho stated via Omega’s English translation “So, Riho was saying she was actually really excited to meet and wrestle Mercedes Moné and she said that she was actually able to meet her at the arena but you know, the first altercation with her for that handshake was on camera. So she’s wondering… was it a sign of respect or was it her character? She’s got this mysterious feeling towards her and she’s hoping that eventually they will be able to meet more in a one-on-one, in-ring capacity.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
In the same Twitch stream, Adam Cole gave his thoughts about being hopeful of getting to wrestle a match against Will Ospreay in AEW. Cole stated “I think for me it’s Will Ospreay (who I’m looking forward to wrestling out of the recent AEW signees)… who I’ve only wrestled a couple of times… But years ago, over in the U.K., and then one in New Japan. But I think this was back in, oh my goodness, 2015 maybe? A long time ago, but, yeah, would definitely love to wrestle Will.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
In a recent interview with Sportskeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast, Ryan Nemeth gave his thoughts about his current contract status in AEW. Nemeth stated “I will very diplomatically tell you that is a topic I just can’t talk about at the moment. Everything I’ve ever done with AEW, I’ve been very proud of and I appreciate every single match I’ve had there and all the friends I’ve made and it was a great experience. TBD.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
As noted before, Wheeler Yuta has been absent from AEW since this past January due to an undisclosed injury. Yuta was originally scheduled to compete for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre at their event this past Friday in Mexico but was pulled due to him not being medically cleared to travel and compete. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that there have been no new updates regarding Yuta’s injury based on his sources beyond it being kept as a quiet situation.
AEW reportedly generated an attendance of 4,000 for their March 27th Dynamite show in Quebec City, Canada, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
AEW reportedly has sold around 2,312 tickets for their April 3rd Dynamite and Collision shows in Worcester, MA, 2,199 tickets for their April 10th Dynamite show in Charleston, WV, 1,484 tickets for their April 13th Collision and Battle of the Belts X shows in Highland Heights, KY, 1,279 tickets for their April 17th Dynamite show in Indianapolis, IB, 1,225 tickets for their April 20th Collision show in Peoria, IL, 5,392 tickets for their April 21st Dynasty event in St. Louis, MO, 1,227 tickets for their April 24th Dynamite show at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, FL, and 1,270 tickets for their April 27th Collision show at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
As noted before, Eric Bischoff and AEW CEO Tony Khan got involved in another online incident with each other revolving around Bischoff ending his Strictly Business podcast series leading to the two trading insults. Bischoff insulted Khan calling him a “money mark with no talent other than spending daddy’s money, going all the way to Canada to draw less than 4k in one of the hottest pro wrestling markets in North America” in a post featuring a photo of a mostly empty arena at AEW’s Dynamite show this past Wednesday in Quebec City that was taken during Ring of Honor’s tapings. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Bischoff’s claim of Quebec City being considered as “one of the hottest pro wresting markets” in North America would be a big surprise considering it historically has been a weak wrestling market even for WWE. Meltzer reported that AEW’s attendance of 4,000 for their Dynamite show this past Wednesday was the fourth largest for a wrestling event in the city since 1990, only behind three WWE events, and largest for a non-WWE event since 1986.
Ring of Honor reportedly has sold around 2,133 tickets for their April 5th Supercard of Honor 2024 event in Philadelphia, PA as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In a recent interview with PWInsider, Mark Briscoe gave his thoughts about challenging Eddie Kingston for the ROH World Championship at Supercard of Honor 2024 on the 11th anniversary of his late brother Jay’s first ROH World title victory. Briscoe stated “Amen. Said it to my wife and my friends about, man, ‘God’s booking this sh*t.’ It’s crazy just… how much of it is so much of a coincidence that it just don’t seem like a coincidence. Like, it’s crazy man. 11 years to the day and no one could have predicted or planned that.“

TNA, NJPW, Indies, & Misc. Wrestling

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling announced that they drew an attendance of 2,349 for their Grand Princess ’24 event on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan. This event broke the record for largest ever attendance for a TJPW event in TJPW history.
Sunday’s TJPW Grand Princess ’24 event featured Miu Watanabe defeating Miyu Yamashita to become the new TJPW Princess of Princess Champion.
Saturday’s Dream Power Series 2024 Night 5 event for All Japan Pro Wrestling featured Yuma Anzai defeating Katsuhiko Nakajima to become the new APJW Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion. Following the match, Nakajima was seen getting up from the mat and no sold the finish as he walked out of the ring to the back.
In regards to Nakamjima’s status in AJPW, Nikkan Sports reported that their sources stated that Nakajima’s future in AJPW is currently in doubt and could be leaving the company after their upcoming Champion Carnival 2024 tournament. Tokyo Sports reported that Nakajima no selling the finish to the match and abruptly leaving the venue without doing his post-match press conference backstage was something that was not planned by AJPW officials.
Following his match, Nakajima posted a cryptic video on Twitter of him leaving the venue and wondering alone before lying his head down on a cardboard box and getting some rest. Prior to the event, Nakajima had posted a message this past Friday on Twitter stating “[Ideal All-Japan Pro Wrestling]If I were the president, I would completely isolate the organization.The company’s young people, who are the treasures of the organization, are given unnecessary experience by other companies and used as they please, and the company’s classic style is only clouded.As long as there are people who only act for their own personal gain, a vicious cycle will continue to develop.I have been working to make my precious royal road shine, but…“
Sunday’s Revolution Rumble 2024 event for Revolution Pro Wrestling in Bethnal Green, England featured Leyton Buzzard suffering a dislocated knee injury during his match against Michael Oku for the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship. Following the match, Buzzard provided an update on Twitter confirming his injury and stated that best case scenario would be no muscle damage and only needing a few weeks to recover. Buzzard stated “Dislocated my knee. As long as no muscle damage should only be out a couple weeks. York Hall debut was crazy. Not over with Michael, don’t think it ever will be. Tonight he was the better man.“
Sunday’s RevPro’s Revolution Rumble 2024 event also featured Luke Jacobs being victorious in this year’s Revolution Rumble match. Jacobs last eliminated Ricky Knight Jr. to win the match and earn a shot at the British Heavyweight Championship at RevPro’s 12th Anniversary Show on August 24 in London, England.
Sunday’s RevPro’s Revolution Rumble 2024 event also featured The Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake & Zack Gibson) defeating Subculture (Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews) to become the new Undisputed British Tag Team Champions.
In a recent interview with NJPW, Yota Tsuji gave his thoughts about why he avoided NJPW’s LA Dojo during his excursion period for the company. Tsuji stated “Absolutely, I would do all I could not to go there (NJPW L.A. Dojo). The company got in touch with me about renewing my U.S. visa, but I thought if I had a visa then they would send me to the L.A. Dojo. So I made up an excuse about not understanding the explanation and got out of it that way.Back in the day, the L.A. Dojo guys took part in the Young Lion Cup, right? And they all wrestled the exact same way. I had no idea what made any of them different. All little clones of (Katsuyori) Shibata. I knew if I went there, anything that made me an individual would be killed off. Then all of those guys went on to join BULLET CLUB, right? I can’t speak about parenting, but I think that’s what happens when a parent is too strict, the kids go off the rails, heheh.“
As noted before, former Major League Wrestling talent Teddy Hart was arrested this past July over a speeding incident resulting in him being charged for with possession of MDMA and possession of a controlled substance without prescription. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that an arrest warrant that had been issued against Hart this past February was recently rescinded based on recent court records. Johnson reported that Hart’s lawyers filed a motion on March 13th requesting for the bench warrant to be withdrawn and stating that the reason for Hart missing his scheduled court hearing on February 28th was due to him being hospitalized at the time. Johnson reported that the prosecution did not object and the motion was granted on March 14th. Hart reportedly is currently now scheduled to attend a court hearing on April 4th.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Lucha Libre AAA Director Dorian Roldán made a surprise appearance at The Crash’s event on March 22nd in Tijuana, Mexico. Meltzer reported that Roldan’s appearance is notable due to AAA has been in a heated rivalry with The Crash over the years to the point of AAA no longer allowed their talent to work at shows for The Crash. Besides Roldan, AAA talents Mecha Wolf and Pagano also made a surprise appearance. Meltzer reported that his sources stated that the reason for Roldan’s surprise appearance was to setup an angle for AAA’s Triplemania XXXII: Tijuana event involving talent from The Crash. Meltzer also reported that Roldan’s appearance was also meant to be the start of the reopening of a working partnership between the two companies.
Stardom reportedly drew an attendance of 324 for their March 23rd event in Nara and 511 for their March 24th event in Kyoto, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Westside Xtreme Wrestling reportedly drew an attendance of 510 for their March 23rd event in Frankfurt, Germany, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
TNA Wrestling reportedly drew an attendance of around 500 for their March 23rd Impact tapings in Philadelphia and around 700 for their March 24th Impact tapings in Philadelphia, PA, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In a recent interview with the K100 with Konnan & Disco podcast, TNA and NJPW talent Nic Nemeth gave his thoughts about the future of his wrestling career. Nemeth stated “In the past, some, but I had a plan that I’ve been working on the probably the last year and a half that I wanted. I didn’t want to go anywhere, and I appreciate that several companies reached out immediately but I didn’t — I go, I just have this one plan, I just want to do this thing on my own and even so, Scott D’Amore was so insistent because the locker room was so strong and so many of the locker room [people] in TNA reached out and I go, man, you guys are really making this hard. Okay, let’s do some dates, I’m not gonna sign for three years but I go, I just want to bounce around and be a hired gun. I’ll go with anybody and do anything, I just really wanted to — I just got out of a long term relationship, I don’t want to sign a paperwork that says you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I could still represent the company, I am a great brand ambassador, I just don’t want to be locked in just in case. I did it for too long, I stayed a couple extra years just to get the good money, and then now I’m rested up, I’m in the best shape of my life mentally and physically and I’m like, really good at wrestling. I think I timed it out perfectly no matter what any fans tell me on Twitter. I did my plan exactly how I wanted to do it and I want to bounce around. I thought I was going to bounce around about six months and then look around, I think I’m going to do a year, maybe longer and then settle down somewhere. But so far, Japan has treated me so well, that locker room is awesome. TNA I’ve been to a few more times than Japan. The business model behind the scenes is so close to WWE, like long-term booking, having plans in place, having people where you don’t just always have to go to Vince. You can go to someone and go to someone else and make a move here. I don’t always want to bother the most important boss with a small thing because I’m new, but I really like all the pieces in place in that business model with the long-term booking and storytelling, that’s what I can sink my teeth into the most.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
Dark Side of the Ring recently released a trailer for this Tuesday’s episode based on Harley Race. It was announced that this upcoming episode will be featuring never before seen footage of Race and the earliest known footage of his wrestling career that was provided to them by Race’s family.
Prior to this past Friday’s Homenaje A Dos Leyendas 2024 event in Mexico City, Mexico, CMLL held a press conference featuring Blackpool Combat Club among the guests. During his portion of the press conference, Bryan Danielson stated that he would like to see the Blackpool Combat Club make a return appearance to CMLL in the future. Danielson stated “If, if, if we lose tonight, yeah, we’d love to come back and get revenge. But the idea is that we won’t lose tonight, and I’d still like to come back. That’s the thing. CMLL has some of the best luchadores in the world, but we think we’re the best wrestlers in the world. We plan on proving it.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In the same press conference, Bryan Danielson also stated that he would like to have a Hair vs. Mask match against either Blue Panther or Mistico for his dream match scenario in Mexico. Danielson stated “Yeah, I mean, honestly, this is one of my biggest dreams in wrestling that I have yet to accomplish, is to wrestle in Arena Mexico, in a Hair vs. Hair or Hair vs. Mask match. I would love for that to be against Blue Panther, but I don’t know how much of a chance he stands at this point. So he’ll be losing his hair if we do that. Whose mask I’d really like to take, I would love to do Mistico vs. Bryan Danielson, Hair versus Mask.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with Fightful’s Overbooked podcast, indie talent Shazza McKenzie gave her thoughts about the current progress of women’s wrestling and areas that could still be improved upon. McKenzie stated “I think when it comes to women’s wrestling and equality, at the end of the day, I think what my main goal with wrestling for women is for us to be seen as equals. I love having all women’s shows and having women in positions of power and all of that stuff, I’m glad that a lot of that is happening now and it’s not happening in a sense of token choice. For a while, it was very much like, we’ve got this woman doing thing thing so we’re supporting women, right? It should always be based on merit. I think for a while, that message got distorted like, we just need women. It was like, no, there’s a lot of women out there working hard that deserve an opportunity and we just want to be treated as equals. We’re not saying that men should never wrestle on shows ever again and that no men should ever run a wrestling company ever again. But, it’s like, that build towards treating us all as equals as competitors, equals in the business when it comes to like Athena being a coach, right? The idea of women being coaches in wrestling, that’s still such a new thing and there’s still a [notion] that women only train the women right, we can train everyone. There’s still little bits of stuff that we have to get over that are there, and you have to be aware of them and be on our side to see it because the guys aren’t gonna be aware of it. We’re in a completely different world than we were five years ago, we’re in a completely incredibly different world than we were fifteen years ago when I started it. We’re getting there, we’re making good progress. There’s just little bits that still need to be, not looking at it as a token thing and looking at it like, these are good professional wrestlers, these are good managers, these are good promoters, these are good storytellers.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
Over The Top Wrestling recently announced that Danhausen will be making an appearance for the company at their ScrapperMania 8 events on August 9-10 in Dublin, Ireland.
This past Tuesday’s Dark Side of the Ring episode drew 150,000 viewers and a 0.05 key demographic rating on VICE TV, according to SpoilerTV. This episode focused on Brutus Beefcake.

Wrestling TV Ratings for Week of March 22 to March 28, 2024

WWE Friday Night SmackDown – 2,235,000 viewers, 0.61 rating (prior week – 2,340,000 viewers, 0.68 rating)
WWE RAW – 1,727,000 viewers, 0.57 rating (prior week – 1,687,000 viewers, 0.55 rating)
WWE NXT – 601,000 viewers, 0.17 rating (prior week – 569,000 viewers, 0.18 rating)
AEW Rampage – N/A (prior week – 541,000 viewers, 0.18 rating)
AEW Collision – N/A (prior week – 393,000 viewers, 0.12 rating)
AEW Dynamite – 747,000 viewers, 0.23 rating (prior week – 800,000 viewers, 0.27 rating)
TNA Wrestling Impact! – 74,000 viewers, 0.02 rating (prior week – N/A)
Various – Biography: WWE Legends (A&E) – 357,000 viewers, 0.11 rating (prior week – 368,000 viewers, 0.09 rating)
Various – WWE Rivals (A&E) – 320,000 viewers, 0.10 rating (prior week – 330,000 viewers, 0.07 rating)
Various – Dark Side of the Ring (VICE) – 150,000 viewers, 0.05 rating (prior week – 193,000 viewers, 0.05 rating)

Total wrestling television viewership for the week: 6,211,000 viewers, down 1,010,000 viewers compared to the prior week’s 7,221,000 viewers.

The viewership and ratings numbers for the March 21st TNA Impact! show is currently not known.

AEW did not air a new episode of Rampage on March 22nd and instead that week’s episode was aired at an earlier date of March 20th due to TNT’s commitments with the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament for this past Friday.

AEW did not air a new episode of Collision on March 23rd due to TNT’s commitments with the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament that night.