Daily Update: John Cena’s last match, Vince McMahon, El Hijo del Santo
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- Report: TNA finalizes short-term deals with several wrestlers
- John Cena’s final match marks the end of an era | Column
- AEW Dark and ROH Global Wars UK spoilers from Cardiff
- Gunther appearance and more announced for WWE Raw
- Mercedes Mone defends multiple titles at RevPro event in Cardiff
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- WOL: John Cena’s farewell match
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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter
–We’ve got a giant new issue of the Observer out today covering the Cena and Santo retirements as well as all the big events from the past week.
*John Cena and El Hijo del Santo’s retirement shows and how they are so different
*A look back at both’s careers and places in history
*Where Santo went wrong
*Key people who saved John Cena’s career
*Why he never turned heel years ago
*Marketing of Cena as The GOAT
*How Cena ranks with the biggest draws in wrestling history
*Update on WBD’s potential sales to Netflix or Paramount, what the deals entail and how this all affects AEW
*Dwayne Johnson and his Golden Globe nomination
*Odds for upcoming pro wrestling bouts
*1,000,000th fan attends CMLL pro wrestling at Arena Mexico alone. Why this has never happened before, and the absolutely staggering part of the story that nobody talks about
*UFC 323 coverage of the last UFC show on PPV for at least seven years
*A look at NXT Deadline
*A look at ROH Final Battle
* a look at TNA Final Resolution
*A look at the career of Steve “Mr. Electricity” Regal, death of territories, the shocking win over the Road Warriors and holding world titles in the AWA and NWA in the 80s.
*The most detailed look at the ratings for all the TV shows over this past week
*A look at major promotions joining together for different shows in 2026
*A look at last week’s big shows at Arena Mexico, both a hell of a Friday and a big Tuesday with Bad Bunny under a Mistico mask in the front row
*Key CMLL talent banged up
*All Japan tag team tournament ends with a former rugby star from New Zealand and former member of the Harlem Globetrotters against each other.
*NOAH’s big start of the year show
*New wrestler starting at NOAH including the brother of a UFC fighter
*New Japan tag team tournament final standings and results
*Big awards being announced this week
*Actress who played Hall of Fame pro wrestler on a Netflix series wins major award for her performance
*Where did the original star ratings in Mexico rating matcheds come from
*Hulk Hogan album being re-released
*Notes on AEW Worlds End
*Andrade makes claims about what happened with AEW and WWE
*Advance ticket sales for all the AEW and WWE upcoming shows
*Lots more on Trump UFC event at the White House
*UFC schedule
*More on the Ali Act and attempting to change and subvert it
*Dana White talks Francis Ngannou now that he wants to return
*The most interest in buying tickets to a pro wrestling or UFC show in history took place this past week
*Lots more on the two lawsuits going against Vince McMahon and WWE
*The WWE TV schedule for this coming week
*Big PPV main event match that fell through from earlier this year
This Week’s Back Issue
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Sunday Update
— We have both of our weekend shows up on the site right now. We talked extensively about the John Cena retirement show as well as AEW Collision, Smackdown, Arena Mexico and more on last night’s show and did our week in review show where at the end we talked about the biggest real mystery in pro wrestling, the real life version who who got Vince McMahon.
— They did show McMahon on television in a brief clip in a Cena video and the crowd in Washington, DC cheered. No surprise.
— Regarding the finish of the match, we talked in detail about it last night. There was a lot of booing and “You f***ed up” chants and Paul Levesque after the match and in the post-show as well as a chant of “AEW” at one point. This is one of those things, ike the Cody Rhodes loss to Roman Reigns the first time, or the Steve Austin heel turn, where it’s better to evaluate in nine months based on where Gunther is. For the day it wasn’t what the fans would have wanted. It was what Cena and the company wanted because of their idea that it’s about making someone on the way out. This fan base is rarely negative about decisions, but they were last night.
I do think most will consider from a story standpoint that the Cena farewell overall was not well done because of the heel turn with no idea what to do next and the turn back having no storyline at all past we made a mistake and we have to undo it. Here, it wasn’t what the audience wanted but that doesn’t make it wrong. It doesn’t make it right. It would not be what I would have done in this specific situation but long-term we’ll see.
The Reigns-Rhodes thing happened when the audience was at its peak and right now big shows are very strong but there are the obvious signs of a slight cool off anyway and really if you take Cena out of the last month it would have been even worse. Cena is gone but now it’s coming up on the hottest time of the year with the build to the Rumble and Mania.
— Neither Vince McMahon nor Donald Trump was at the show. They wanted Trump. He attended the Army vs. Navy football game not far away and could have made it to both but his decision was not to come. Linda McMahon was at the event. Jesse Ventura was only put on the pre-show.
— El Hijo del Santo retired last night as well. Or at least that’s what he claimed. In the main event of Los Palacio de los Deportes, Santo & LA Park & Ultimo Dragon beat Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Fishman & El Texano Jr. when Santo used the la caballo (the famous finisher of both himself, his father and Gori Guerrero, what’s now called the camel clutch) on Fishman. Earlier in the show his son, Santo Jr., beat Angel Blanco Jr with the stipulations that if Blanco won, El Hijo del Santo would have to unmask before the main event. Instead, Blanco Jr. got his head shaved.
— Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa beat Yota Tsuji & Gabe Kidd in the finals of the New Japan World Tag League tournament in Kumamoto, Japan in what I was told was an excellent match. Toru Yano & Yoh & Master Wato kept the Never six-man titles over Evil & Ren Narita & Sanada in two bouts. The first was a no contest and then they did a restart. The full Tokyo Dome is likely to be announced this week. There will be a United Empire vs. War Dogs match on the show with Henare returning. Most likely Yuto-Ice & Oskar will defend the IWGP tag titles against Sabre Jr. & Oiwa.
— Yesterday’s match in Cardiff was not the first IWGP heavyweight champion vs. CMLL heavyweight champion match. It was the second. The first was August 31, 2012 between Hioshi Tanahashi and El Terrible. They were both in the Universal tournament of champions at Arena Mexico and Terrible beat Tanahashi.
— Raw tomorrow night from Hershey, PA, will have CM Punk on the show after he’s finished shooting his Netflix movie, Logan Paul vs. Rey Mysterio, Maxxine Dupri vs. Ivy Nile for the IC title. They will be taping Smackdown for the 19th at about 6:30 p.m., go live with Raw, and whatever isn’t finished by 7:55 p.m. will be taped after Raw for Friday’s Smackdown. We’re going to be looking for reports tomorrow of the Smackdown stuff and anything not on the live show to [email protected].
— Mistico beat Soberano Jr. cleanly with La Mistica in what was very clearly the start of a story to retain the CMLL light heavyweight title before a sellout of 16,000 at Arema Mexico on Friday That’s five sellouts in seven weeks. Arena Coliseo also sold out last night, Mistico then flew to New York and sold out a show at Tulum Night Club in Brooklyn teaming with KeMonito to beat Difunto & KeMalito.
— For Google searches for last night, WWE had 200,000 for Gunther for No. 20, 20,000 for Oba Femi for No. 98, while UFC’s show yesterday did 85,000.
— The updated three hour block schedule for Wednesday’s AEW show in Manchester, UK:
- Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Kazuchika Okada, Konosuke Takeshita & Hechicero with $1 million at stake
- Dynamite Diamond battle royal
- FTR vs. Juice Robinson & Austin Gunn for AEW tag titles
- Pac vs. Kyle Fletcher in C2
- Jon Moxley vs. Roderick Strong in C2
- Orange Cassidy vs. Mascara Dorada in C2
- AEW World title contract signing: Samoa Joe, Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland
- Mercedes Mone, Athena, Marina Shafir & Megan Bayne vs. Willow Nightingale & Harley Cameron & Toni Storm & Mina Shirakawa
— Andrade beat Xavant Friday night to win the WWC Universal title in his first match since getting fired by WWE. WWE has okayed Andrade to work in WWC while maintaining he still had a one year long non-compete that has nine months left.
— Leila Gray of AEW won a Fitness contest last night for the WBBF. She competed with a torn ACL suffered in the TBS title loss to Mercedes Mone last Saturday. She is undergoing surgery and will be out of action for some time.
— The Blade (Jesse Guilmette) did his first match in almost two years in Buffalo, NY this past weekend. It was on a show put together by his longtime partner Andy “The Butcher” Williams.
— Templario & Titan vs. Volador Jr. & Barbaro Cavernario headlines Arena Mexico tonight.
— Steve Asplund, who debuted on last night’s UFC show, once weighed 525 pounds.
— Kent Herron, a reader of the Observer dating back to the 80s who used to regularly write letters in the 80s as Klon or Klon Herron, and attended many PPV get-togethers among readers in the 80s and 90s, passed away yesterday at the age of 70. I was very sorry to hear this. He was still regularly sending me messages.
His close friend Ron Lemieux wrote: “I lost a great friend today. Kent Herron, known to old school wrestling fans as Klon, passed away at the age of 70. As I said he wasn’t just a wrestling friend but a true friend. When we first moved to Florida he and his wife Elaine hosted us for Thanksgiving and he only knew me from corresponding with him from CT. He had a heart as big as he was. So many great memories attending shows throughout the state of Florida with our crew. Condolences to his wife Elaine, daughter Melissa and rest of their family. Rest easy big man! I’ll miss ya!”
— A correction from Friday. Lance Gibson Jr., who lost at last night’s UFC show, was not the first second generation wrestler. Ryan Couture, son of Randy, had several UFC fights years ago.
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.