Weekend Roundup: Gunther vs. Sami Zayn Planned for WWE Bad Blood, Thunder Rosa Dealing with Concussion, AEW Not Interested in Matt Riddle, Athena Breaks All-Time ROH Record, MLW, TNA Bound For Glory Main Event Plans, Indies

Indie / Misc

Steve C.

Sep 15, 2024

WWE

The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported in Sunday’s Daily Update that his sources stated that WWE officials’ current internal list for the card of this month’s Bad Blood 2024 event has Gunther defending his WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Sami Zayn at the event.
Saturday’s UFC 306 event at The Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada featured Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio among those in attendance in the crowd.
WWE’s Lyra Valkyria and Pro Wrestling NOAH’s LJ Cleary announced this past Friday on Instagram that they have gotten engaged.
WWE recently announced that a Dumpster match between Chelsea Green and Michin will be taking place on a future SmackDown show.
WWE recently released four new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a complete episode of WCW Saturday Night from 1994. The second new video was a tag team match of John Cena & Sting vs. Seth Rollins & Big Show from the September 14, 2015 episode of WWE RAW. The third new video was a Vacant WWE Championship Hell in a Cell match of Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan at WWE Hell in a Cell 2013. The fourth new video was a WWE Top 10 of the best moments from SmackDown’s first year in 1999.
This past Friday’s WWE SmackDown show in Seattle, Washington featured a wrestler named “Ricky” making a surprise appearance as the first mystery partner for Kevin Owens for his tag team match against A-Town Down Under. Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert reported that the identity of “Ricky” is indie wrestler Ricky Gibson of the Midnight Heat.
As noted before, WWE’s NXT television series will officially premiere on The CW on Tuesday, October 1st. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the two biggest changes to comes for NXT shows on The CW is that NXT will no longer be having an overrun and shows will be required to end by 9:59PM EST. Meltzer reported that the reason is due to many of The CW’s stations air local news programming starting at 10PM EST and those shows can not be preempted.
As noted before, USA Network recently announced that replays for WWE SmackDown shows will now be uploaded to Peacock 30 days after its initial airing. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that while Hulu’s contract with WWE for SmackDown replays expired when the FOX deal expired, RAW replays will still be uploaded the day after its airing on Hulu until the end of this year. Meltzer reported that once RAW moves to Netflix, replays of RAW shows will no longer be available on Hulu and instead be on Netflix.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that one major reason why FOX ended up not renewing their television deal with WWE for SmackDown was due to WWE’s SmackDown was that the average household income was the lowest out of WWE and AEW’s main six television show. Meltzer reported that SmackDown’s average was $47,000 per 30 second ad spot for 2024 and down $900 compared to the 2023 average for a viewer. For some comparisons, Meltzer reported that the average household income for an AEW Dynamite viewer was $61,500 per 30 second ad spot for 2024. Meltzer also reported that SmackDown’s average household income per viewer was also way down compared to average for shows on network stations.
WWE’s Bash In Berlin event this past August in Berlin, Germany reportedly generated around 8,400 cable television pay-per-view buys based on updated late buys purchases, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Meltzer reported that Bash In Berlin’s buys are down 36.1%m compared to this past August’s SummerSlam 2024 event but up 21.9% compared to this past July’s Money In The Bank 2024 event.
WWE reportedly drew an attendance of 10,928 for their Sept. 6th SmackDown show in Edmonton, Canada and 8,624 for their Sept. 9th RAW show in Calgary, Canada, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
WWE reportedly has sold 5,440 tickets for their Oct. 1st NXT show in Chicago, IL, 13,585 tickets for their Oct. 5th Bad Blood 2024 event in Atlanta, GA, and 4,002 tickets for their Oct. 26th NXT Halloween Havoc 2024 event in Hershey, PA as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Prior to WWE’s announcement of their Oct. 8th NXT show being moved from St. Louis to Chesterfield, MO, Dave Meltzer reported that WWE had only sold 2,104 tickets for the show up to that point.
In a recent episode of the Off The Top podcast, WWE Hall of Famer and co-host Rikishi gave his thoughts about how his son Jey Uso should consider taking a break from WWE and possibly consider other places to work for if WWE’s issues over their handling and booking of him does not improve. Rikishi stated “It’s a concern. At the end of the day, these are our bodies and this is my flesh and blood. My flesh and blood is pounding his body day in and day out. He has a family and comes home aching, his body is hurting. He’ll never sell it because he’s not trained to quit. You sign that dotted line, I’m not talking about that contract, that dotted line for you and yours. That’s bigger than the purpose of WWE. The kid is so good, WWE ain’t the only spot. He could probably go to AEW if he wants to write his own ticket, maybe more than what WWE is making on him. Hopefully, they turn it around and do the right thing by The Yeet Man.” In a follow-up episode, Rikishi clarified his comments stating “If you’re gonna talk about what I said, please make sure you put down exact, don’t twist my words around. I’m gonna say it again, WWE is The Dynasty’s home, period. We are not going nowhere, we don’t plan to go nowhere. The past, present, and future. Give me a YEET on that.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
WWE filed new trademarks for “Niko Vance” and “Kali Armstrong” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes on September 9th to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

AEW & ROH

In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, Thunder Rosa revealed that she recently suffered a concussion injury and will be out of action for at least a few weeks. Rosa stated “If you feel like you have a concussion, make sure you stop. Don’t get in there. It’s not worth it. I can tell you… right now, I’m suffering a concussion. So I’m gonna be out for a little bit, for a couple weeks.“
Sunday’s special Lucha Libre event for AEW at Flex Field in Jacksonville, Florida featured Sammy Guevara & Hologram defeating The Beast Mortos & Matt Taven in a Lucha Libre match that was held prior to the start of the Jacksonville Jaguars game against the Cleveland Browns.
Saturday’s taped AEW Collision show featured Wheeler Yuta defeating Anthony Henry in a singles match. Following the match, AEW held a digital exclusive backstage interview with Yuta discussing his thoughts about what was going through his head after AEW All Out weekend and revealed that his aunt had passed away last weekend. Yuta stated “Uh… Everything and nothing, if that makes sense. Everything because I’m just trying to scramble to figure out why… why they did what they did, why they didn’t tell me, why they did that to Bryan. Then nothing, because all I can really think about is those moments where they had that bag over Bryan’s head, where they were trying to end him. They were trying to make me watch for some reason. Jon keeps talking about this higher purpose and I just don’t understand it. All I understand is how afraid, how terrified, how concerned, how helpless I was when all that happened. It was a really rough day for me Saturday. Before the show. I found out that my aunt in Japan had passed away. She passed away from complications due to COVID-19 and I just kind of know that in her. Her last moments she was. Struggling to find breath and. That’s really all I could think about when I watched that happen to Bryan. Kumiko, I love you. Rest in peace. But Bryan, Bryan’s going to be okay. Bryan’s going to be all right. Hee’s going to be like no one we’ve ever seen before. I don’t really know where that leaves me. Yeah, just a lot to think about. I’m sorry if you excuse me. I’m going to take some time by myself, if that’s all right.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, former WWE talent Matt Riddle gave his thoughts about having a meeting with AEW CEO Tony Khan for a potential deal with AEW. Riddle stated “With AEW, I think AEW is a fantastic product. I know a lot of the people that work there. I like the company. I like the way they work. I like the people that work there. I think with me, and it’s one of the things I’ve noticed, I’ve been relieved after getting fired from WWE. I felt that because I was on TV, and I’m such a provocative character at times, everything was magnified so much because I was on TV. The stress of working on TV two to three days a week was a lot. I like pressure. I like stress too, but it was a lot. The best answer would be to go to AEW, get more money, and work a decent schedule. I didn’t want to work on TV again. I didn’t want the attention for a while. I wanted to step away. I just wanted to do Indies. I know MLW works with New Japan. New Japan works a lot with AEW. Maybe you’ll see me on an AEW channel or broadcast sooner rather than later. Maybe you won’t. I talked to Tony (Khan). I don’t know if he likes me. He seemed happy. I wrestled Zach Sabre Jr. in Chicago. He seemed cool about it. I don’t know. When you meet me, I’m very sarcastic. But when I met him, I was like, ‘Oh, you like that match’? But I said it a different way, and he looked at me all confused. And I was like, ‘Never mind, dude’. I just walked away. So that was my experience with that.“
In regards to the potential of Matt Riddle joining AEW, Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that AEW CEO Tony Khan has not shown any interest towards potentially signing Riddle to a contract with the company. It was reported that AEW talent almost never work with Riddle in the indies and when it does happen, its at events in Mexico. It was also reported that Riddle has been in recent talks with TNA Wrestling for a potential deal.
Mercedes Mone current reign as AEW TBS Champion recently surpassed the combined number of days from her five reigns as RAW Women’s Champion in WWE.
As noted before, “Timeless” Toni Storm made a surprise appearance at Stardom’s Namba Grand Fight event on Saturday in Osaka, Japan and challenged Mayu Iwatani to a match for her IWGP Women’s Championship at next month’s Nagoya Golden Fight event. In a recent interview with Tokyo Sports, Iwatani gave her thoughts about her upcoming match against Storm and her current interest in working in AEW in the future. Iwatani stated “I was happy that Iwatani Mayu was in Toni’s mind. I will beat Toni and prove to the world that I am the true champion of this belt. Who will be there if I beat Toni… Mariah is the current champion… This makes me even more excited. I don’t know where things will go from here. I want to pave my own path.” (English translation via Fightful.com)
As noted before, this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show featured Nigel McGuinness revealing that he got a match made against Bryan Danielson at AEW’s Dynamite Grand Slam 2024 event later this month. Dave Meltzer reported in a recent episode of the Wrestling Observer Radio that his sources stated that AEW officials plans for a match between McGuinness and Danielson was something that had not been planned long out. Meltzer reported that a match between the two was something that had been expected to take place at some point during Danielson’s final year of his full-time in-ring career and AEW officials decided that holding the match at their Grand Slam show in the New York City area was a great choice for it.
Grizzled Young Veterans filed a new trademark for “Grit Your Teeth” for merchandise-related purposes on September 9th.
In a recent interview with Teasy’s Table, Lee Moriarty gave his thoughts about his current goals for his AEW career for the next five years. Moriarty stated “My wrestling career, five years from now, I definitely want to be AEW world champion. I definitely want to be a world champion. I have so many aspirations in professional wrestling. The way that I set goals, it’s interesting because it’s not necessarily long-term. The long-term goals I do have are broad, but it’s just an individualistic goal. So, like, my big goal is to wrestle in Japan one day. That’s a goal. I don’t put a time limit on it. That’s just something I want to do at some point. The Ring Of Honor Pure championship is a goal I had and I went there. The World championship, the TNT championship, the Continental championship, all these things are goals I have and I don’t put time limits on them because i think once you put a timeline on something you’re putting pressure on yourself and maybe you’re not ready for whatever comes with that at that moment, if i were to put a time limit on the art I create I’m rushing through it and then i’m not letting the art be the best version of itself. So I don’t want to put a pressure on my career for a five year limit or is I just want to say I want to be successful I want to be at a higher level than where I am now I want to be better than I was the year before as opposed to one specific thing I’ll get there when I get there but I have to do the work to get there and I have to improve upon myself every week every month every year you want to know something real deep bro what I learned about goals and what helped me get to this point was practicing the law of detachment, was work hard and have goals, but let go of the attachment to the results. I tell people sometimes, and I always tell my young guys that I mentor, you don’t want to be so goal-oriented on something that you don’t let life kind of go with the flow. Because, like they said, I’m not trying to be super religious, but they said, you know, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan, right? Because he’s always going to throw roadblocks, or he’s always going to have you do a U-turn.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with Barstool’s Rasslin podcast, Big Bill gave his thoughts about AEW having a stacked roster in terms of roster size and star names. Big Bill stated “The roster is fucking stacked. I think it creates for good stories, good rivalries. I want to work with everybody you just named. I think bring them all in. The more people, the better. I could see the flip side of it, but I think we want to have a fucking super team, dude. We want the 2011 Miami Heat, we want a fucking super team.” Bill quickly clarified his comparison stating that he wants AEW to be the 2012 Miami Heat team since that team had won the NBA Finals and not the 2011 team. (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
AEW reportedly drew an attendance of 2,723 for their Sept. 6th Collision show in Hoffman Estates, over 9,000 (8,600 WrestleTix) for their Sept. 7th All Out 2024 event in Hoffman Estates, IL, 2,911 for their Sept. 11th Dynamite show in Lexington, KY, and 3,000 for their Sept. 12th Dynamite show in Dayton, OH, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
AEW reportedly has sold around 4,411 tickets for their Dynamite Grand Slam 2024 show at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, NY and 4,707 tickets for their Oct. 12th WrestleDream 2024 event in Tacoma, WA as of this past Thursday, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Athena broke the all-time record for longest ever reign as a ROH Champion in Ring of Honor history as of Sunday. Athena surpassed the previous record of 645 days for her current ROH Women’s World Championship reign. The previous record was held by Samoa Joe and his ROH World Champion reign from March 22, 2003 to December 26, 2004. In celebration of Athena’s new record, ROH released a new ROH Timelines video focusing on Athena’s reign as ROH Women’s World champion.

TNA, NJPW, Indies, & Misc. Wrestling

Friday’s Fightland 2024 event for Major League Wrestling in Atlanta, Georgia featured WWE Hall of Famer JBL making a surprise appearance. During the tag team match between The Andersons and Bomaye Fight Club, JBL came out making a surprise appearance and laid out BFC’s Mr. Thomas. JBL then whispered something to Brock Anderson before leaving the ring.
Friday’s MLW Fightland 2024 event in Atlanta also featured Mistico defeating KENTA in the Finals of the Opera Cup to become the winner of this year’s tournament.
MLW recently announced that their next event will be called Pit Fighters and it will be taking place on September 26th. It was announced that this upcoming event will be airing on BeIN Sports and on their MLW YouTube channel. One match was also announced for this upcoming event, which is a Vale Tudo Rules match of Matt Riddle vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor.
MLW also recently announced one new match for the card of their Slaughterhouse 2024 event on October 4th in St. Petersburg, Florida. This new match announced was a MLW National Openweight Championship match of Matthew Justice vs. Bad Dude Tito (c).
This past Friday’s 91st Anniversary Show for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico featured Hechicero defeating El Valiente, Esfinge, and Euforia in a Lucha de Apuesta, Mask Four-way match. The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported in Sunday’s Daily Update that Hechicero recently told others that he believes he might have suffered a torn right triceps injury during the match.
CMLL reportedly drew an attendance of around 7,500 for their Super Viernes event at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that one main reason for the much lower than usual attendance for that night’s show was due to issues involving current political unrest in the city and a lot of people wanting to avoid being in large gatherings.
Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced that Josh Barnett will be making an appearance for the company at their Star Navigation 2024 event on October 14th in Tokyo, Japan. It was also announced that Barnett will be teaming with Ulka Sasaki in a tag team match against Katsuyuki Fujita & Masakatsu Funaki at the event.
NOAH reportedly drew a paid attendance of 240 for their Sept. 6th UK Tour 2024 event in Edinburgh, Scotland, 420 for their Sept. 7th UK Tour 2024 event in Manchester, England, and 304 for their Sept. 8th UK Tour 2024 event in London, England, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
This past Friday’s Victory Road 2024 event for TNA Wrestling in San Antonio, Texas featured Joe Hendry defeating Josh Alexander in a singles match. Following the match, TNA held a digital exclusive backstage interview with Hendry discussing his thoughts about his victory over Alexander and his current plans to go after the TNA World Championship and become the new face of TNA. Hendry stated “Say his name, and he appears. Now, let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to kick Joe Hendry in the balls. We’re too smart for that one now. But all jokes aside, tonight, I made a statement by beating one of the very best wrestlers to ever lace up, a pair of boots in this company. Next, there is only one thing for Joe Hendry, I believe that I am the face of TNA, but to prove it, I have to win the TNA World Title, and that is what’s next for Joe Hendry.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that TNA officials current plans are for Nic Nemeth to defend his TNA World Championship against Joe Hendry in the main event of their Bound For Glory 2024 event on October 27th in Detroit, Michigan.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that The Good Hands’ Jason Hotch suffered a concussion injury at TNA’s Impact tapings earlier this month in Louisville, Kentucky.
TNA’s Slammiversary 2024 event this past July reportedly generated around 9,000 cable television pay-per-view buys based on updated late buys purchases, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that when including estimated streaming buys numbers, TNA’s event is currently estimated to have generated around 30,000 total buys as its updated final PPV buys number.
Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that Matt Riddle had suffered a sprain ankle injury at Lucha Libre AAA’s Trilplemania XXXII: Mexico City event this past August in Mexico City, Mexico. Meltzer reported that despite the injury, Riddle has been working at indie events since then while rehabbing from his injury.
Marigold reportedly drew a paid attendance of 305 for their Aug. 31st Dream Star Grand Prix afternoon event in Osaka, 363 for their Aug. 31st Dream Star Grand Prix evening event in Osaka, and 305 for their Sept. 8th Dream Star Grand Prix event in Toyama, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced that this year’s Super Junior Tag League will be taking place from October 24th to November 3rd in Japan.
NJPW reportedly drew a paid attendance of 725 for their Sept. 6th Road to Destruction 2024 event in Nagoya, 1,678 for their Sept. 7th Shingo Takagi 20th Anniversary Show in Yamanashi, 1,384 for their Sept. 8th Road to Destruction 2024 event in Tokyo, 1,190 for their Sept. 9th Road to Destruction 2024 event in Tokyo, and 1,126 for their Sept. 11th Road to Destruction 2024 event in Sendai, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Stardom reportedly drew a paid attendance of 1,022 for their Sept. 8th event in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Wrestling TV Ratings for Week of September 6 to September 12, 2024

WWE Friday Night SmackDown – 1,770,000 viewers, 0.45 rating (prior week – 2,054,000 viewers, 0.53 rating)
WWE RAW – 1,430,000 viewers, 0.45 rating (prior week – 1,652,000 viewers, 0.49 rating)
WWE NXT – 628,000 viewers, 0.19 rating (prior week – 631,000 viewers, 0.17 rating)
AEW Rampage – 233,000 viewers, 0.08 rating (prior week – 218,000 viewers, 0.07 rating)
AEW Collision – 157,000 viewers, 0.04 rating (prior week – 289,000 viewers, 0.10 rating)
AEW Dynamite – 716,000 viewers, 0.21 rating (prior week – 660,000 viewers, 0.19 rating)
TNA Wrestling Impact! – N/A (prior week – N/A)

Total wrestling television viewership for the week: 4,934,000 viewers, down 570,000 viewers from the prior week’s 5,504,000 viewers.

The viewership and ratings numbers for the August 22nd and August 29th TNA Impact! shows are currently not known.