Bryan Alvarez:
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Dave Meltzer:
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We're looking for reports on today's TNA house show at the Manchester Evening News Arena and tonight's ROH show in Los Angeles at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
We're also looking for reports on yesterday's TNA house show in Coventry, England.
Saturday night has Strikeforce on Showtime at 10 p.m. featuring Nick Diaz vs. Marius Zaromskis for the welterweight title, Cris Cyborg vs. Marloes Coenen for the women's title, Melvin Manhoef vs. Robbie Lawler, Bobby Lashley vs. Wes Sims and Greg Nagy vs. Herschel Walker. We'll have live coverage of the event on the site.
We're also looking for reports on Saturday's PWG show in Los Angeles, TNA show in London, England and WWE tri-branded house show in Macon, GA.
Sunday is the Royal Rumble PPV, the traditional No. 2 pro wrestling event of the year. Besides the Rumble, the show has Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio for the world title, Sheamus vs. Randy Orton for the WWE title, Christian vs. Ezekiel Jackson for the ECW title and Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James for the women's title.
Raw will be Monday in Nashville featuring appearances by Bret Hart and William Shatner. Tuesday will be Smackdown and ECW taped in Memphis.
Our traditional best selling issue of the year, the 2009 awards double sized issue, comes out this coming Monday. The issue has a complete rundown of the annual awards, as well as a feature on what may be the biggest pro wrestling news story of the year, regarding the future of Monday night television, plus in-depth on Brock Lesnar and his return, a feature on Georgiann Makropoulos, as well as future booking plans from WWE, UFC, TNA and Strikeforce.
The issue is already available on the web site for premium subscribers.
We have a rundown of the winners and top ten finishers, as well as every winner in the 30-year history of the Observer awards dating back to 1980, as well as comments on the voting and winners.
Categories are
Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award for Wrestler of the Year
MMA Most Valuable Fighter
Most Outstanding Wrestler
Most Outstanding Fighter
Best Box Office Draw
Feud of the Year
Tag Team of the Year
Most Improved
Best on Interviews
Most Charismatic
Best Technical Wrestler
Bruiser Brody Memorial Award for Best Brawler
Best Flying Wrestler
Most Overrated
Most Underrated
Promotion of the Year
Best Weekly TV show
Worked Match of the Year
Shoot Match of the Year
Rookie of the Year
Best Non-Wrestler
Best TV announcer
Worst TV announcer
Best major event
Worst major event
Best maneuver
Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic
Worst TV show
Worst Match of the Year
Worst Feud of the Year
Worst Promotion of the Year
Best Booker
Promoter of the Year
Best Gimmick
Worst Gimmick
Best Book
Best DVD
We also look at the details of Brock Lesnar's illness, Canadian Health Care, and reactions.
We look at the life of Georgiann Makropoulos, with comments from Bruno Sammartino and others.
We've got notes on the next Dragon Gate USA PPV show.
We also have notes on a possible interview theme for Smackdown in a few weeks, as well as an update on WrestleMania, Dwayne Johnson in WWE, next year's WrestleMania, Royal Rumble preview, major WWE lawsuit settled out of court, why major business analysis publication believes WWE is going up, and some major star injury updates. We also have WWE developmental notes, Royal Rumble stats, The Miz growing up, update on WWE Legends Roundtable discussions as well as highlights from all the weekend WWE live events.
We also have a look at the ratings for all the major pro wrestling and MMA shows on television over the past week.
We also have our usual weekly features such as the results of the biggest matches of the week and rundown of the major television shows.
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-- Sorry this update was late. It may be late Saturday and Sunday as well. Also, as noted on last night's Bryan and Vinny Show I will be moving early next week and thus all of our audio equipment needs to be moved, phone lines, Internet and cable switched over, etc. So we will not have a new radio show at all Tuesday and probably Wednesday as well. If all goes well (not holding my breath) we will have everything set up for both a Bryan & Vinny and Wrestling Observer Radio show on Wednesday night. More updates as the week goes on. Everything else (daily updates, newsletters, etc.) will remain unchanged as the website stuff is hosted elsewhere and Dave can do all of the normal updates.
-- The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that it is expected WWE will announce Atlanta as the host city for WrestleMania 2011 on Monday. We can confirm this is a done deal.
-- Davey Richards has been pulled from all future DGUSA and EVOLVE events effective immediately. They're not talking about what happened.
-- Strikeforce weigh-ins for tomorrow:
1. Nick Diaz (169.5) vs. Marius Zaromskis (169) for the vacant welterweight title
2. Cristiane Cyborg (144.5) vs. Marloes Coenen (143.75) for the 145-pound women's title
3. Greg Nagy (210.5) vs. Herschel Walker (214.25)
4. Robbie Lawler (185.75) vs. Melvin Manhoef (185.75)
5. Bobby Lashley (252.25) vs. Wes "The Barber Beefcake" Sims (258.25)
6. Jay Hieron (170.25) vs. Joe Riggs (170.5)
7. Pablo Alfonso (139.25) vs. Marcos da Matta (139.75)
8. Hayder Hassan (170.5) vs. Ryan Keenan (168)
9. Sabah Homasi (171.5) vs. John Kelly (170.5)
10. Michael Byrnes (154.5) vs. David Zitnik (154)
11. David Gomez (144.5) vs. Craig Osley (144.75)
12. John Clarke (169.75) vs. Joe Ray (169.75)
No real notes except that Hassan, Homasi and Kelly all missed weight. Everyone agreed to let the fights go on as scheduled without penalty. Byrnes also managed to miss the weigh-ins entirely. He weighed in later and was fined an undisclosed amount for missing the weigh-in. Some real professionalism on this undercard.
-- TNA had good news and bad news with Thursday's rating. Good news was that the show did a 1.4 rating (Thursday record) and 1.9 million viewers. Bad news is that it opened at a 1.51 and lost viewers in every single quarter until the final 15 minutes when it grew slightly to a 1.30.
-- Great video here of TMZ alerting Randy Orton that Jericho and Hurricane got arrested.
-- More on the Jericho/Helms deal. They were bailed out by Christian and, ironically, CM Punk. Matt Hardy, who was sober, ran after Hurricane when he tried to flee and talked him into returning, but then when Hurricane returned Matt wasn't with him. He had disappeared into the night, according to cops. They won't be pursuing any charges related to that. The girl who was hit, Ashley Storer, caught an accidental elbow as Jericho and Helms were fake wrestling (legit fake wrestling, not the fake wrestling that caused Taz to yell at Vince Russo), and later said the whole thing was blown out of proportion once the cops showed up. Helms, who was listed as Superstar of the Day for a few hours until someone figured out that faux pas, has apparently been pulled from the Rumble match as a result.
-- Santino is off the Rumble roster as well. This could all change multiple times in the next few days.
-- Screw-up of the Week, from a Time Warner Cable emailing: The road to WrestleMania XXVI is a tough one, and every WWE wrestler knows the quickest path is to win at Royal Rumble. How? It’s simple – 30 wrestlers, 30 minutes – and the last man standing gets a guaranteed title match at WrestleMania XXVI. Tune in to Time Warner Cable Pay-Per-View, LIVE, Sunday, January 31 to see Jeff Hardy, Triple H, Rey Mysterio, Batista, John Cena and all your favorite Superstars go head-to-head.
-- Strikeforce will be aired on Bravo in the UK on Sunday night at 10:00 PM UK time. They're only airing two hours of the show so it will be edited. Thanks to Darren Wadsworth.
-- Eric Bischoff on Bubba today said he'd rather have a rusty ice pick in his thigh than book Honky Tonk Man in TNA. He and Hogan also said that TNA to Mondays live was not a done deal yet.
-- Morgan writes: Herschel Walker appeared on Pardon the Interruption yesterday (Wednesday). He said he's serious about doing MMA and doesn't do anything for the circus factor. He said he did martial arts even as a football player at Georgia and said he was watching MMA when it had no weight classes and now it has weight classes and rules and a referee. Tony Kornheiser said he didn't see Herschel as the kind of person who would hurt anyone and Herschel said he's entering MMA to compete. When Kornheiser wondered if Herschel would have to pound his opponent, Herschel said no, you just have to knock him out, and he's planning on knocking his opponent out early so he can see the other fights, saying he was embarrassed to be getting so many attention with so many great fighters on the card. Later Michael Wilbon asked him about the potential for injury and Herschel again said that now there's a referee that stops the fight if you get knocked down and you can tap out as well, and claimed football and boxing are worse because "in boxing, when you get knocked down, they give you a standing eight-count, that's when you're still woozy, and then they send you back out there to fight" and cited the problems football is having with concussions. He said years ago it was a brutal sport and he would never have considered getting involved, but now it's become a real sport and it's become an art, and said "there's not too many sports where you can roll boxing, karate, rasslin', jiu jitsu, and judo into one." I got the impression he was mostly trying to put over MMA itself. There was a segment during the commercial break where Wilbon said he wouldn't have watched the fight before but he would be watching now.
-- Lots of news stories today:
-- Big Rob hails his big victory
-- Dixie Carter here has an interview where she says she doesn't play favorites. Maybe that's why nearly everyone in the promotion has an identical win-loss record.
-- Jake Roberts has an interview here where he talks a number of subjects including thoughts on why so many of his friends have passed away but he's still alive.
-- Ultimate Fighting “KO’d” by Nearly Seven in Ten NYS Voters
-- A look at Scott Colton, aka Colt Cabana, here.
-- WWE Superstar Sheamus Living the Dream as Champion
-- Alex Reid, who tried out for TUF 9, just won the UK version of Big Brother
-- Alex Marvez interviews RVD here.
-- We also interviewed Rob for nearly an hour on Wrestling Observer Radio Monday, which is available right now in the radio show section for members. Great stuff with Rob. The Cody Deaner interview on Tuesday is also awesome, and Lance Storm was great as usual yesterday as well.
-- In addition to Lashley, EA Sports MMA has added Nick Diaz, Marius Zaromskis, Joe Riggs and Melvin Manhoef to their roster.
-- Marty writes: According to the latest update on http://facebook.com/vinnyru , Russo is no longer involved with the page. The new posts were taken from his blog page. It is now a fan page kept open to promote the book and to pay tribute to his past and present contributions to professional wrestling. All questions asked going forward will apparently be answered by an administrator who is in contact with Russo.
-- There is a UFC 108 travel package for Montreal that you can check out here
-- CMLL will start airing on the Fight Network in Canada on February 1st at 11 PM. Thanks to Scott Decker.
-- Who will win the title matches at the Royal Rumble?
Sheamus 71.0%
Orton 29.0%
Undertaker 89.1%
Mysterio 10.9%
Who wins this match?
Bobby Lashley 86.3%
Wes Sims 13.7%
Will Gregory Helms be in TNA in 3 months?
Yes 65.2%
No 34.8%
-- VPW Presents December Devastation at the Deer Park Community Center, 41 Homer Avenue, Deer Park, NY 11729. 631-667-6665. Saturday, January 30, 2009
-- This Sunday, January 31st, Kamala makes his return to the Philadelphia-New Jersey area as as he battles "Wiseguy" Jimmy Cicero in the main event of the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance (TWA) & "Wiseguy" Jimmy Cicero BODYSLAM AUTISM SHOW at the Flyers Skate in Voorhees, NJ with a 4 PM Belltime.
-- Irv Muchnick at has a signing at the Borders in Stamford, Connecticut (how about that), Thursday, March 25, 7-9 p.m.
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