Daily Update: Ava, AEW Dynamite ratings, Powerhouse Hobbs
Daily Update
Latest News
- Braun Strowman discharged from hospital following knee infection
- WWE SmackDown live results: Royal Rumble go-home show
- WWE issues statement on Ava’s departure
- AEW Dynamite draws best viewership in four months
- WWE 2K26 full details announced
- Ava announces WWE departure
Latest Audio
- WOR: WWE Royal Rumble preview, AEW’s Alex Marvez talks Kim Wood
- WOL: Royal Rumble surprises, TNA Impact TV report, Dynamite, more!
- Wrestling Weekly: Royal Rumble predictions, a big win for Andrade, Kim Wood memories & stories
Latest YouTube Video
This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
The new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is up on the site right now. Some of the key stories being covered:
- Royal Rumble thoughts, odds and direction
- The business of UFC to Paramount, the numbers that were released, what they mean, and how much revenue does this mean vs. how much they paid for rights
- Coverage of Saturday Night’s Main Event
- UFC 324 coverage, the fights, the future and the business
- The life and times of Kim Wood, football, weightlifting, perception of people, Ken Shamrock and Brian Pillman
- How Smackdown and NXT did throughout 2025 on Netflix, the ups and the downs
- The most complete look at the ratings for all the pro wrestling TV shows over the past week, demos, comparisons, drops from last year factoring out why it would and should drop with big data
- A new record set for most sellouts by a main eventer in a given month
- Huge CMLL business week and great matches
- Major shows upcoming
- Big events coming for New Japan
- Fantastica Mania coming
- Mayu Iwatani’s 15th anniversary show
- Jesse Ventura suggest Minnesota should leave the U.S.
- Chris Jericho on TV show
- Jimmy Jacobs talks working for Vince McMahon
- Mick Foey on his mother’s death
- Controversial independent angle makes mainstream attention and gets wrestler fired
- Former WWE champion in talks to become a weekly TV character elsewhere
- Former WCW attitude era announcer about to come back to wrestling
- Ticket sales for upcoming WWE, AEW and TNA shows
- Looking at the AEW business with Triller
- AEW executive there from the start leaving
- Issues with spoliation of evidence in UFC case
- More on the White House show
- Lots of notes on Zuffa boxing contracts
- Notes on WWE international deals
- Injryu updates
- New AEW & WWE signings
This Week’s Back Issue
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Friday Update
— I don’t have much new regarding Simone Johnson (Ava) leaving WWE. She announced that her contract has expired and wasn’t going to sign a new deal earlier today. I guess there is no angle to write her off but it’ll be explained on Tuesday.
— Want to thank everyone for the nice comments about the show on Wednesday and the article on Kim Wood in today’s Observer. We talked a lot more about Wood on today’s show with Alex Marvez, who knew him well from his days covering the Cincinnati Bengals and they remained very close friends.
— AEW Dynamite did 653,000 viewers and an 0.09 in 18-49. It is the most viewers the show has done since Big Data came into being. This number doesn’t include MAX. For live and same day viewing, if you include MAX, it would beat the Raw number of the prior week and could be close to the Smackdown number as well. It’s only a one-week thing and the gains were mostly teenagers (best teenage number for a pro wrestling TV show in recent weeks) and 50+. These numbers aren’t exact but it did about 43,000 in 18-34, 81,000 in 35-49 and 107,000 in 50-54 which obviously makes no sense at all. I wouldn’t react too much to a one-week rating number, but since the focus was on multiple challengers for the world title (Swerve, Andrade, Kenny Omega, Adam Page and Brody King) that would seem to be the reason, but it’s better to wait for a pattern.
— Regarding Powerhouse Hobbs/Royce Keys and the note in the current issue. While AEW did make a big offer for him to come in, a number that just a few years ago would be very high for a pro wrestler, it wasn’t through the roof high and was not at the level of the top ten plus stars in AEW, but it was a very good five-year offer. We don’t know the WWE offer. To clarify, it was not at the level of the biggest stars in the company right now. I don’t know how much he even considered as WWE believed he was coming for some time either way. I think some had the impression he was offered top-of-the-line money and while it would have been pre-wrestling competition a great number, the salary scale throughout the industry has risen because of competition.
— Voices of Wrestling released their poll for the ten best matches of 2025:
- Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd 1/5
- MJF vs. Mistico 9/19
- Adam Page vs. Will Ospreay 5/25
- Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley 7/12
- Toni Storm vs. Mariah May 3/9
- Hirooki Goto vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 2/11
- Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano 4/27
- Bandido vs. Konosuke Takeshita 7/11
- El Desperado vs. Jun Kasai 6/24
- Sareee vs. Syuri 3/10
— Henry Miller, the former sumo and MMA fighter Sentoryu who was popular during the Pride heyday, passed away last night at the age of 56. He had lung issues.
- — CMLL at Arena Mexico. At this writing the show is not sold out. They raised ticket prices for this one. It’s on Triller starting at 9:30 p.m. Eastern as well as on the CMLL YouTube subscription page.
- Espiritu & Rey Cometa vs,. Coyote & Polvora
- Cobarde & Felino Jr. & El Hijo de Stuka Jr. vs. Akuma & Los Gemelo Diablos I & II
- Jarochita & Skadi & Tabata vs. Persephone & Sanely & Zeuxis
- Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja & Soberano Jr. vs. Mason Madden & Mansoor & Johnny TV
- Flip Gordon vs. Barbaro Cavernario
- Claudio Castagnoli vs. Xelhua for the CMLL heavyweight title
- Mistico & Mascara Dorada & Neon vs. Difunto & Ultimo Guerrero & Volador Jr. in a non-title match
- This is the first show with The Sky team all together in seven weeks as it’s Neon’s first match back from a broken shoulder.
— For tomorrow night at Arena Coliseo in Mexico City, the main event is a non-title four-way with Castagnoli vs. Angel de Oro vs. Cavernario vs. Euforia plus Johnny TV & Madden & Mansoor vs Barboza & Difunto & Furia Roja
— Sunday at Arena Mexico has Madden & Mansoor & TV in the main event against Atlantis Jr. & Gordon & Neon and Xelhua vs. Euforia. Puebla on Monday looks to be the strongest sellout chance with Mistico & Dorada & Templario vs. Cavernario & Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr. plus Atlantis Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero
- — The Royal Rumble starts at 2 p.m. tomorrow from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Men’s Royal Rumble
- Women’s Royal Rumble
- Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn for WWE title
- Gunther vs. AJ Styles with Styles career at stake
— We’re looking for reports on these weekend shows:
*NXT in Nashville, TN tonight
*NXT in Birmingham, AL tomorrow
We’re looking for results, finishes and highlights to [email protected]
— We’ll be doing a poll on the Royal Rumble tomorrow so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
— UFC tomorrow night on Paramount from Sydney,Australia starting at 5 p.m. Eastern time:
- Aaron Tau (129) vs. Namsral Batbayar (126) – Fight canceled due to Tau missing weight
- Sulangrangbo (135.75) vs. Lawrence Lui (135.25)
- Keeichiro Nakamura (145.25) vs. Sebastian Szalay (145.75)
- Sungwook Kim (155.75) vs. Dom Mar Fan (154.75)
- Kaan Ofli (145.25) vs. Yizha (145.5)
- Jonathan Micalief (170.5) vs. Oban Elliott (169.75)
- Jacob Malkoun (185.75) vs. Torrez Finney (185.75)
- Cameron Rowston (184.5) vs.Cody Brundage (184.75)
- Junior Tafa (202.25) vs. Billy Elekana (204)
- Quillan Salkilld (155.5) vs. Jamie Mullarkey (155.5)
- Tai Tuivasa (265.5) vs Tallison Teixeira (259)
- Rafael Fiziev (155.5) vs. Mauricio Ruffy (155.25)
- Dan Hooker (155.75) vs. Benoit Saint Denis (155.75)
- Alexander Volkanovski (144.5) vs. Diego Lopes (145) for the UFC featherweight title
— Collision is tomorrow at 8 p.m. from Arlington, TX:
- Mark Briscoe vs. Tommaso Ciampa for TNT title
- Willow Nightingale & Harley Cameron vs. Skye Blue & Julia Hart for AEW women’s tag titles
- Kazuchika Okada vs. Adam Priest for International title
- Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. Lio Rush & Action Andretti
- Darby Allin vs. Clark Connors
— The home that Hulk Hogan lived in in Clearwater Beach, FL, is up for sale for just under $11 million. It’s 5,400 square feet with five bedrooms, with an ocean view, a pool and spa.
— Braun Strowman was released from the hospital today after surgery for an infection in his knee.
— New Japan announced they will be releasing a documentary on Hiroshi Tanahashi’s final match which will be released shortly for free on New Japan World.
— James Curtin/Rockstar Spud/Drake Maverick turns 43 today while Becky Lynch turns 39. Sailor Art Thomas was born 102 years ago today. Rick Harris/BlackBart would have been 78 today. (Thanks to Tony Richards)
–AAA on YouTube tomorrow has:
- TJP vs. Chris Carter vs. Mini Vikingo vs. Elio LeFleur with the winner getting a cruiserweight title shot at Laredo Kid
- Lola Vice vs. La Hiedra, winner teams with Mr. Iguana for a mixed tag team challenge against Ethan Page & Chelsea Green
- La Parka vs. Apollo Crews vs. Jack Cartwheel vs. Aerostar, winner goes to the Rey de Reyes finals.
— Last night at Arena Aficion for its 74th anniversary show before a sellout 3,500 fans, Mistico & Bandido b Soberano Jr. & Angel de Oro, Mascara Dorada & Esfinge b Mortos & Difunto, Solar drew Satanico for the Masters title were the top matches.
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.