Daily Update: AEW stars in Australia, Chris Jericho, HBO Max

AEW Grand Slam Australia

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

*Winners, top place winners, comments and every winner of every award dating back to 1980, from Wrestler of the Year, MMA MVP, Most Outstanding, Most Outstanding MMA Fighter, Tag Team of the Year, Best on Interviews, Promotion of the Year, Best Weekly TV show, Match of the Year, MMA Fight of the year, U.S./Canada MPV, Japanese MVP, Mexico MVP, Europe MVP, Best non-heavyweight, Women’s MVP, Women’s MMA MVP, Feud of the Year, Best Box Office Draw, Most Improved, Most Charismatic, Best Technical, Best Brawler, Best Flying Wrestler, Most Overrated, Most Underrated, Rookie of the Year, Best Non-WRestler, Best Television Announcer, Worst Television Announcer, Most major show, Worst major show, Best maneuver, Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic, Worst TV show, Worst match, Worst feud, Worst promotion, Best Booker of the Year, Promoter of the Year, Best Gimmick, Worst Gimmick, Best Book and Best Documentary.

*Tons of news related to the build to WrestleMania, why the card may be changing, a major concern regarding ticket sales, predictabiity vs. surprises, How Bron Brakker’s injury changes things, Brock Lesnar situation, Becky Lynch situation, situation in Las Vegas, concerns in Las Vegas, why ticket sales are down, plus build to Elimination Chamber

*Tadao Yasuda, a unique life of a former sumo star, IWGP champion, one of the biggest upsets in MMA history, the birth of the New Year’s Eve fighting tradition, gambling issues and more

*Coverage of the New Beginning in Osaka, talent leaving, talent staying, what is the difrection for New Japan the next few months and a worst and best match of the year candidate one right after the other

*Betting odds for this week’s wrestling

*Most detailed look at the TV ratings, a look at the red flags, streaming numbers and more.

*Notes on the honoring and retirement of El Satanico and career highlights

*Mistico sellout updates

*The last Friday for a month at Arena Mexico with the biggest names

*AAA TV tapings with WWE talent

*Starddom PPV notes

*Epstein files wrestling references

*Biggest UK women’s show coming

*Show coming up attempting to be the largest attendance for an all-women’s show in three decades

*Pareamount again trying to get WBD

*How politics affects pro wrestling

*Grand Slam Australia notes

*MJF talks Punk

*TV reviews

*YouTube notes

*CBS airing UFC on 3/7

*Zuffa boxing defies Ali Act with world title announcement

*WWE injury updates

*Bad Bunny Super Bowl controversy

*WWE Hall of Famer threatens to quit if another person isn’t removed

*Reigns upcoming schedule

This Week’s Back Issue

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Friday Update

— Garrett and I did our weekly show covering AEW in Australia, the awards and WrestleMania build and news. Our weekend show will be Sunday night.

–The biggest issue of the year of the Observer, our awards issue, is out today.

–Hopefully if you DVR SmackDown you scheduled it because a lot of systems including my own did not record it if you didn’t due to it being on Syfy tonight. It’s also on Syfy next week before going back to USA on 2/27.

— Grand Slam Australia with the time difference actually takes place tomorrow morning U.S. time from Sydney. It will air on tape delay on both TNT and HBO MAX at 8 p.m. It’s a pretty loaded up show. About 7,000 tickets were out at last word.

— AEW is doing lots of media this week. MJF was on their version of The Today Show this morning, Kyle Fletcher arrived and went to an indie show where he cut a promo and announced.

— There is a 25 percent off ticket sale for both nights of WrestleMania offered through Allegiant Stadium for both nights through midnight on Monday night.

— Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast that came out this week was with Thekla, which was the first show he’s done with an AEW wrestler since Darby Allin in September.

— Since I’ve been asked this a few times this week, when HBO MAX debuts later this year in the U.K., AEW will not be part of it at this time. In the U.K., AEW will remain exclusive for TV shows on AEW+ for the TV shows live and ITV for television exclusivity on a few days delay.

— AEW Dynamite did 604,000 viewers and an 0.12 in 18-49, down from last week but second best demo number in a while. We’re still trying to figure out what is good and what is normal with the latest refiguring. The number doesn’t include HBO MAX viewership.

— Dana White is on the NASCAR truck series race broadcast between the first and second stage. He is associated with the return of Dodge to the series and is talking about them and Tony Stewart, as well as the “driver search” which was a contest to find a full time Dodge Ram driver in the Truck series on FS1 (thanks to Tom Mehs)

— No UFC tomorrow. UFC returns on 2/21.

— Arena Mexico sold out by the time I woke up today. It’s the Fantastica Mania farewell tour as the top guys won’t be back wrestling on a Friday Arena Mexico show after tonight until 3/13. The only people booked are those who are going to Japan with the tour starting Wednesday in Tokyo. Tonight’s card looks great, all matches out of nowhere but unique lineups:

  • Stigma vs. Okumura
  • Futuro & Valiente Jr. vs. El Hijo de Stuka Jr. & Magnus
  • Utimo Guerrero vs. Hechicero vs. Atlantis
  • Mascara Dorada vs. Titan
  • Atlantis Jr. vs. Soberano Jr. vs. Averno for the Historic light heavyweight title
  • Mistico vs. Templario

This means Hechicero and Dorada won’t be at AEW tapings until March.

— El Clon debuts tomorrow night at Arena Coliseo teaming with Volador Jr. vs. Angel de Oro & Daniel Garcia, also debuting tomorrow. This was tracking toward a sellout.

— The Sunday Arena Mexico main event has Neon vs. Clon vs. Garcia vs. Esfinge.

— AAA TV tomorrow night on YouTube at 9 p.m. Eastern has La Parka vs. Jack Cartwheel, Money Machine vs. War Raiders vs. Rayo & Bravo with the winners getting a shot at Pagano & Psycho Clown for the title and Las Toxicas vs. Adelicious & Faby Apache & Jesse Jackson.

— Maple Leaf Wrestling has announced floor seats are sold out for their 3/27 and 3/28 shows in Windsor, ONT. Both shows will be live on Triller. Among those appearing are Don Callis, Josh Alexander, Cavernario, Mascara Dorada, Bishop Dyer, Ricochet, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, Kaito Kiyomiya, Gisele Shaw and Daisuke Sasaki.

— AEW stars Mistico, Tommaso Ciampa, Roderick Strong, Orange Cassidy, Hechicero and Marina Shafir are going to the C2E2 pop culture convention in Chicago at the PWW Tees booth.

— PWInsider has reported that the NXT show scheduled for 2/24 at Center Stage in Atlanta is in jeopardy. It was reported that the production trucks are usually parked in the parking lot next to the building, but the parking lot has been sold and they’ll need additional permits to do production.

— Baby Doll Nickla Roberts turns 64 today. Tommy Dreamer turns 55. Mark Coffey turns 36 and Chris Bey turns 30. Bill Mercer was born 100 years ago today. Angelo Mosca was burn on this day in 1937. Buddy Lee, who promoted women’s wrestling when he was married to Fabulous Moolah and later became a major name in country music as a promoter, passed away 33 years ago today at the age of 60. (thanks to Tony Richards)

— Defy and Dragon Gate have a joint show on 4/10 at the Hawthorne Theater in Portland, OR. A full crew of Dragon Gate wrestlers will be on the show along with Bryan Keith and Marina Shafir, who are both Defy champions.

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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.