Daily Update: AEW Dynasty, Nikki Bella update, AAA notes

AEW Dynasty 2026
Credits: AEW

Daily Update

Latest News

Latest Audio

Latest YouTube Video

This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Among the topics covered:

  • The most detailed look at  how the Pat McAfee angle developed, its goal, why so many in the company are unhappy with it, where it  is leading, addressing the biggest WrestleMania questions, what CM Punk aid, where Paul Levesque and Ari Emanuel fit in, as well as an update on WrestleMania tickets compared to last year, discount offers cutting price back and more
  • Preview to AEW Dynasty, matches and business notes as well as updates on Double or Nothing direction and business, as well as All In at Wembley Stadium.
  • Favorites for WrestleMania and Dynasty
  • Lots of business notes on WrestleMania
  • Callum Newman wins IWGP title and review of Sakura Genesis, what we learned, business, Best of the Super Juniors and Dontaku notes
  • NXT Stand & Deliver.  Match rundowns and stories as well as business notes on the show
  • Texts from Paul Levesque to Nick Khan released in discovery regarding Vince McMahon’s involvement in booking when talent was told McMahon was out and Levesques frustration at the time
  • A detailed look at TNA pulling  talent from advertised indie events that they had previously approved and a better way of handling it
  • A look at the career of 60s and 70s star Flying Fred Curry, one of the major stars of The Sheik’s heyday running Michigan and Ohio, son of Bull Curry and nine-time world tag team champion.
  • The arrest of Alberto el Patron, lots more details and his history, shows he’s been pulled from, an ironic aspect of this story n a reality show in Mexico late last year
  • The most detailed look at the ratings for all the television shows of the past week, with  comparisons with last week, last year, demos and other stats, male vs. female percentage
  • More stats regarding the audience at Arena Mexico shows as well as a look back on a major week last week.
  • Saya Kamtani has major goal for Stardom’s big show later this month
  • Japanese television in 1985 and who were the draws
  • Ric Flair upset over WWE costing him a major merchandise deal
  • How many times was Flair world champion
  • Lots of injury updates
  • Two more possible WrestleMania card changes
  • Janel Grant lawsuit thoughts

This Week’s Back Issue

FIRST TIME SUBSCRIBERS GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH

Sunday Update

La Catalina makes AAA debut
La Catalina makes AAA debut

— Garrett Gonzales and I will be doing the show tonight since Bryan Alvarez will be at AEW Dynasty in Vancouver. We’ll also talk about Smackdown which we both attended but haven’t talked about to each other yet, Collision, the WWE angles, and the rest of today’s news. Bryan and I did a show last night covering UFC, Smackdown, the TNA PPV show and other pro wrestling and MMA news.

— AEW Dynasty tonight in Vancouver, BC:

  • 4 p.m. Zero Hour
  • Marina Shafir vs. Alex Windsor
  • Megan Bayne & Lena Kross defend the women’s tag titles against Maya World & Hyan
  • Jack Perry defends the National title against Mark Davis
  • 5 p.m.
  • David Finlay & Clark Connors & Gabe Kidd defend the trios titles against Orange Cassidy & Roderick Strong & ? (rumors to be Kyle O’Reilly who is from Vancouver)
  • Young Bucks vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Kazuchika Okada
  • Casino Gauntlet for the vacant TNT title. The first two entrants are Tommaso Ciampa and Rush. Nobody else is announced
  • Darby Allin vs. Andrade El Idolo for the title shot on Double or Nothing
  • Thekla defends the AEW women’s title against Jamie Hayter
  • Jon Moxley defends the Continental title against Will Ospreay
  • FTR defends the tag team titles against Adam Copeland & Christian Cage
  • MJF defends the AEW title against Kenny Omega
  • On paper it looks strong. Maybe not Revolution level strong, but the key matches have had strong builds and most matches on paper look great. They had 8,699 tickets out as of last word. So it probably won’t hit 9,500 but it is the largest for a Dynasty show to date.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on both the AEW Dynasty show tonight as well as the TNA Rebellion show last night for our weekend polls. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to [email protected]

— Regarding WrestleMania ticket sales since Pat McAfee announced the ticket discount for Saturday and not Sunday, since Friday morning, the Saturday show has moved 1,265 tickets to 40,610 and the Sunday show, with no discount, has moved 1,452, to 42,769.

— Regarding Nikki Bella and participating in the match at WrestleMania, I was just told a few minutes ago, “it’s too close to call.”

— The WWE Hall of Fame ceremony will air on ESPN Unlimited at midnight this coming Friday night.

— The new main event for the Mark Hitchcock Memorial show is Ricochet & Gates of Agony vs. Michael Oku & Mike Bailey on 4/16. Tony Khan had a strong P.R. week essentially adding the Gates of Agony, Bailey and Knight after TNA pulled Leon Slater out of the prior main event with Ricochet. The general rule in booking AEW talent is that they don’t like doing major AEW vs. AEW matches with the idea they want those exclusively for AEW television, but Khan allowed them to do that because of how the situation went. Other AEW talent on that show are Bandido, Lee Johnson, Blake Christian and Mark Davis.

— CMLL has added Persephone vs. Tessa Blanchard for the CMLL women’s title to its Thursday 3 p.m. show at the Palms in Las Vegas.

— For Google searches, there was actually a decent amount of traction over the weekend. UFC was the biggest. In fact last night’s UFC show was No. 3 among everything for the weekend with 1,115,000 searches. There were six UFC topics in the top 55 for the weekend, including Jiri Prochazka, Cub Swanson, Aaron Pico, Paulo Costa, Curtis Blaydes, Josh Hokit and several others. The Tyson Fury fight did 100,000. Conor Benn’s fight did 20,000. Gable Steveson did 10,000. Anthony Joshua did 20,000. WrestleMania did 10,000. The highest pro wrestling number was for La Catalina believe it or not. Others that trended with 2,000 were Rhea Ripley, Royce Keys and Danhausen. Pat McAfee did not.

— A couple of items at last night’s AAA show. Catalina did arrive and was presented as a big star, unlike in CMLL where none of the women really are and Persephone is the biggest star. She immediately was put in a feud with Flammer for the Reina de Reinas title. Penta retained the IC title over El Hijo del Vikingo. They were pushing hard the Grande Americano vs. Grande Americano feud with the last word we heard the mask vs. mask match will headline the 5/30 show at Arena Monterrey.

— There was controversy regarding the show last night. In the match with Grande Americano Chad Gable against Octagon Jr., Gable unmasked Octagon Jr. right in front of the referee. Octagon Jr. hid his face and Gable pinned him. Mexican wrestling rules dating back at least 60 years call for unmasking in front of the ref to be a DQ. This is actually one of the most foundational rules there are. WWE has decided to change that rule. The reality is that AAA fans today are mostly WWE fans and not as much AAA fans, as seen by the biggest reaction coming for WWE wrestlers. It’s not going to hurt business or anything, and we knew going in that WWE was going to change matches to American style, but this was a change a lot of people were very surprised and unhappy about. I mean, I’m sad to see the change but I also expect every Lucha Libre rule that isn’t the same as WWE to eventually change.

— Both AAA and CMLL sold out last night with 5,500 and 6,000 in Mexico City, respectively last night. This was the 15th sellout in the last 16 weeks for CMLL at Arena Coliseo (the only miss was a Saturday night where the Mexican national soccer team played in Mexico City before 83,000 fans, and even that show was almost sold out). I believe that is the best run in history for the 83-year-old arena.

— Friday night sold out Arena Mexico with 16,000 fans, as Hechicero beat Angel de Oro as the last two. Angel de Oro had pinned Mistico when they were the last three, clean, to knock him out of the tournament and the crowd was very surprised and unhappy about that. The main event was an elimination match with all the CMLL title holders except Mascara Dorada, who had already qualified last week. Besides Mistico, Hechicero and Angel de Oro, it had Templario, Neon, Niebla Roja and Stigma. On 4/24, Mascara Dorada and Hechicero will be joined by the winner of the match on 4/17 with all the Mexican national champions for a three-way Universal title tournament final.

— Last night’s UFC match with Josh Hokit vs. Curtis Blaydes is the leading candidate so far for fight of the year. It was an amazing slugfest, super exciting and the advantage went back-and-forth for three rounds with the most punches thrown in a heavyweight three-rounder in UFC history. Both were hospitalized, but Hokit was booked for a fight in nine weeks against Derrick Lewis. President Trump was at the show. According to Dana White, Trump specifically asked for Lewis to be on the White House show. So they immediately called Lewis, who agreed to it. They booked Hokit based on beating Blaydes, but with the beating he took, nine weeks is a tough turnaround. Of course getting on the White House show for many, if not most (and absolutely not all) fighters, is a big deal.

— Other bouts that have been highly recommended this weekend were the Arena Mexico main event and the Champion Carnival main event from today with Go Shiozaki vs. Yuma Anzai from All Japan. Young Bucks vs. Hechicero & El Clon from Collision was also great.

— Regarding Gable Steveson, while he clearly has the athletic talent, this is very quick to be signed by UFC. They probably had to because I think there was a really good chance he got an offer from MVP for the Rousey vs. Carano fight, and UFC, which has been interested in him, sped up the process. Rushing guys into UFC is a major risk.

— Dirty White Boy Tony Anthony turned 65 today. Cibernetico turned 51. El Terrible turned 50. Jackie Redmond, the WWE TV announcer, turned 39. Mighty Inoue was born on this day in 1949. Promoter George Culkin was born on this day in 1926. Joe Louis, the legendary boxer, who was involved in pro wrestling, died 45 years ago today at 66. Mike Von Erich died 39 years ago today at 23. Mary Jane Mull died 27 years ago today at 70. Great Goliath of Gordman & Goliath fame died 22 years today at 69. Balls Mahoney died ten years ago today at 44. Joe Pedicino died six years ago today at 70 (thanks to Tony Richards).

— Santino Marella was suspended by TNA as a cover due to undergoing sleep apnea related surgery.

— For Create-a-Pro on 5/11 in Melville, NY, the MJF vs. Nic Nemeth match that TNA cancelled is now Nemeth vs. Bear Bronson and Kris Statlander, Max Caster and Smart Mark Sterling will be on the show. MJF will headline in an open challenge for the AEW title if he’s champion.

— KC Navarro and EC3 will return to TNA for Thursday’s Impact. Impact and Collision will be going head-to-head because TNT is airing NHL playoffs on Saturday night.

— Neon & Xelhua headlined Arena Mexico tonight against Hechicero & Volador Jr. plus Star Jr. vs. Soberano Jr. Mistico & Neon vs. Hechicero & Volador Jr. headlines Puebla on Monday.

Google Icon
Dave Meltzer
Dave Meltzer

Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.