Daily Update: Jake Paul, Bad Bunny, Dory Funk Jr.

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new issue of the Observer is up on the site today:
*Road to WrestleMania including the booking changes and injury changes that have caused several changes of plans since they were first in place. We discuss the evolution of this year’s two main events.
*We look at how the Royal Rumble show changed on the last day
*Full Royal Rumble coverage
*Status of different matches
*AJ Styles and is this his final match
*Business notes on the show
*Plans for Elimination Chamber
*How Royal Rumble did on Netflix
*What changes in Nielsen have meant to the TV ratings and why this has happened, and how it will happen multiple more times in 2026 to a lesser degree
*Has the increased in reported viewership helped pro wrestling in the TV world
*Full UFC 325 coverage
*Death of Frankie Cain/Great Mephisto, one of the most intriguing pro wrestling characters of the 60s and 70s with ties to many different worlds
*Death of Bob Lueck, a former Stampede Wrestling headliner who was a CFL All-Star and how he was responsible for getting one of the most important and most influential wrestlers of all-time into the industry
*The most detailed look at the ratings of the pro wrestling shows this past week including placings, demos and silliness
*Box office record set
*CMLL star arrested
*AEW stars spend the week in CMLL
*Major Arena Mexico shows coming
*Reyes del Aire report
*Hiromu Takahashi leaving
*New Japan major show this week
*Fantastica Mania cards announced
*Best matches of 2025
*AEW booking direction
*New AEW signings
*Advance ticket sales for all the major WWE & AEW shows
*Dana White’s testimony regarding his job
*Pride star passes away
*Ava departure from WWE

This Week’s Back Issue

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Monday Update

— Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw and the rest of the wrestling news with Wrestling Observer Radio.

— Andrei Arlovski in his post-fight interview after stopping Ben Rothwell to win the Bare Knuckle Fighting championships heavyweight title at 47 years old, revealed that he in recent years has beaten cancer three times. His said one year ago a tumor was removed from his kidney and also had 28 lymph nodes removed and went through chemotherapy.

— An update regarding the Bron Breakker hernia surgery which took place this past week. He has been dealing with this issue for some time but has been able to work with it. It’s like many active wrestlers do and it’s not that dangerous, but if it gets bad, then you have to take care of it immediately with surgery. Kenny Omega had it and was feeling bad but didn’t go right in for surgery and almost died. It flared up last week and WWE doctors told him to take care of it. There is no time frame on his return. This had zero to do with the Royal Rumble booking.

— In a strange story, all over there have been reports with a number as to how many people watched the Bad Bunny halftime performance at the Super Bowl which turned into a political issue for reasons that make no sense to me. Anyway, even though CBS News even reported the number, it is fake. Somebody on the Internet just spread it and since everyone wanted a number first, it spread quickly. I thought it was totally weird how there was a rating last night for something that took place yesterday because that’s not how this stuff works, plus there was a rating for halftime and not the game which also makes no sense. Anyway, the rating won’t be out until tomorrow although I suppose a prelim number could be out later, but the number floating around and being reported today is a fake number.

— Jake Paul didn’t apologize for his remarks yesterday on Bad Bunny after Logan Paul said that his brother was wrong in his remarks when he said he was purposely turning off the halftime show and called Bunny a fake American citizen. Even Jake Paul’s own fighter Amanda Serrano took issue with his remarks while praising all Paul had done for her. Paul said he wasn’t calling him a fake American because he’s from Puerto Rico, but said he’s fake because of his values and criticism “of our great country.” But later he said, “Guys, I love Bad Bunny idk what happened on my twitter last night.”

— An interesting note is whether or not WWE will bring in Bad Bunny in the next month or two after all this publicity. Of course it depends on his schedule as well. The key is that it would be taking advantage of the pub and he has a good relationship with the company, plus, Sen. Ruben Gallego or Arizona publicly pushed AEW to bring him in (as if it’s that simple) because he said he likes AEW more. But President Trump has made Bad Bunny a symbol of something negative and Linda McMahon is in the cabinet and Paul Levesque is her son-in-law who works with Trump as well. If they were to use him now, it would come across to Trump like an affront, but from a business standpoint it would be a decision WWE would normally make to do so.

— The Amarillo paper ran a story today on the 85th birthday of Dory Funk Jr. Funk Jr. was the son of Dory Funk Sr., the biggest wrestling star in West Texas in the late 50s and into the 60s. Dory was a football star at West Texas State and the first of the slew of players from the team who would later become major stars in the industry like Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, Bobby Duncum, Tito Santana, Tully Blanchard, Ted DiBisae, Manny Fernandez, Scott Casey and Kelly Kiniski that I can recall. He was NWA world champion from 1969-73 and a legendary figure in Japan, Texas and Florida.

— YouTube TV is introducing a skinny sports bundle for $64.99 per month which will have ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, FS 1, NBC Sports and all the ESPN networks including ESPN Unlimited.

— Cuatrero, who has not wrestled in years since being charged and jailed for a long time for alleged sexual abuse regarding then-girlfriend Stephanie Vaquer, is being advertiseed for a show on 3/13 in Ecatepec. He hasn’t wrestled in three years and has been out of jail for nearly a year. When he was released he was prohibited from wrestling but his lawyers have gotten that restriction removed.

— Kevin Matthews, who works backstage for AEW, was in a Super Bowl commercial with DJ Kahled doing a pro wrestling theme for Wegovy.

— Raw tonight is from Cleveland with some Elimination Chamber qualifiers with Austin Theory vs. Penta vs. LA Knight and Lyra Valkyria vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Ivy Nile, plus Jimmy Uso returns for an Usos tag title defense against Otis & Tozawa and Nattiie makes her WWE match debut with her new gimmick against Maxxine Dupri. They had 9,900 t9ckets out for the show as of earlier today, so again a very good crowd but not going to be close to a sellout.

— We’re looking for reports and results from Cleveland from the Main Event matches to [email protected]

— TNA Impact did 241,000 viewers and an 0.05 in 18-49 on Thursday, up from 201,000 last week. It’s the best number by far the show has done on AMC. The only time they did a number in that realm in years was the first time Kenny Omega appeared on the show on AXS, but that’s a lot smaller platform and things have changed so much with TV it’s not really a fair comparison. Unlike with AEW where Google searches have coincided with the ratings gains, TNA was actually down 12 percent in searches from the prior week and far lower than that of the first two shows. TNA has No Surrender Friday from Nashville on TNA+

— New Japan New Beginning in Osaka is at 1 a.m. late Tuesday night Eastern and 10 p.m. Pacific, so in our time zone New Japan airs right after NXT ends. Hiromu Takahashi has his last New Japan match teaming with Taiji Ishimori against Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young. Also the Great O’Khan & Henare vs. returning Shingo Takagi & Drilla Moloney, Oleg Bolton & Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi defend the trios titles against Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa & Hartley Jackson, Gabe Kidd vs Andrade with the winner getting a Global title shot at Yota Tsuiji, David Finay vs. Callum Newman Aaron Wolf defends the Never title against Ren Narita, Yuto-Ice & skar defend the IWGP tag titles against Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura and Yota Tsuji vs. Jake Lee for the IWGP title. The show has been sold out for some time so from a business end the card sold the tickets.

— Roman Reigns will be on the Raw shows on 3/2 in Indianapolis, 3/16 in San Antonio, 3/23 in Boston, 3/30 in Madison Square Garden and 4/13 in Sacramento.

— Pro Wrestling NOAH announced they will handle the management and representation for Shinjiro Otani, and they hope Otani will be at their 2/11 show at Korakuen Hall. Otani has been paralyzed from the neck down due to a neck injury in a 2022 match with Takashi Sugiura. He was one of the greatest in-ring wrestlers ever.

— The 2025 awards issue of the Observer will be out late Thursday night.

— NXT has Sol Ruca & Zaria vs. Kendal Grey & Wren Sinclair with the person who scores the pin getting a match with Jacy Jayne for the NXT title, Eli Knight vs. Josh Briggs in a Speed tournament match, Jaida Parker vs. Blake Monroe and Brad Baylor & Ricky Smokes vs Han k & Tank.

— Jim Shank, 60, who worked in production as Technical Operations Manager in WWE and had been with the company for more than 25 years, passed away after a battle with colorectal cancer. He was the operator of the remove controlled and robotic cameras for television.

— Chris Walker turned 65 today. Madusa turned 63. Shelly Martinez turned 46. Alexis Smirnoff was born on this day in 1947. Milo Steinborn, a famous strongman who turned pro wrestler and later became a promoter and was the father of Dick Steinborn, was 95 when he passed away 27 years ago. Sal Bellomo was 67 when he passed away six year ago. Candi Divine was 63 when she passed away four years ago. (thanks to Tony Richards)

— MLW announced a return to Cicero Stadium on 11/7

— The 3/8 Pro Wrestling Eve show at Indigo at the O2 Arena, Wrestle Queendom 8, is 140 tickets shy of breaking the all-time attendance record for an all-women’s show in the U.K.

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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.