Daily Update: Leon Slater, AAA, Tito Ortiz

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

*Coverage of the Tokyo Dome show

*How did the show accomplish what should have been its key goals

*Thoughts on Aaron Wolf

*Business notes on the show

*Yota Tsuji and the title name change

*The end of the Bullet Club

*Shinsuke Nakamura and his thoughts

*Angle with Will Ospreay

*Records that Tanahashi set during his career

*Tanahashi’s background

*Notes on his last IWGP title win that wasn’t supposed to happen

*The unique way he became a mainstream figure in a news story

*How his career exploded from there

*How Tanahashi differed from prior IWGP champions and how that changed who could hold that title

*The Tanahashi era that turned around New Japan

*A look at his record setting 13 Tokyo Dome career main events

*Various title wins and career awards

*2025 Business Year in Review

*A look at all the shows that drew 15,000 fans

*Biggest individual draws of the year

*Crowds of 15,000 or more by promotion  and how the main companies did

*How UFC PPV gates wer

*The biggest pro wrestling drawing card every year from 1916 to 2025

*What wrestlers were No. 1 for the year the most years in their career

*The 50 biggest arena draws  in pro wrestling history based on the standards of their era

*New Year Dash coverage

*The year in matches, who had the most great matches in 2025, most over the course of a career, top ten arenas of all-time and new records set in 2025 by a promotion for a year as well as for a city

*A look at the life of Johnny Legend, a cult celebrity wrestling fan, his work with Freddie Blassie and Andy Kaufman, and his promotion, Incredibly Strange Wrestling.

*The most detailed look at the ratings of the pro wrestling TV shows and details regarding who watches

*Advanced ticket sales for WWE, AEW and TNA events

*AEW stars headed to CMLL next week

*Another Arena Mexico sellout

*Legendary pro wrestling promoter turns 101

*Old living wrestling personalities

*Ted DiBiase files lawsuit

*The Ted DiBiase Jr. case

*A look at the career of Bob Boyer/Bobby Bold Eagle, who wrestled from 1955 to 1987

*Documentary planned on 80s tag team

*Notes on WrestleMania week shows

*Update on the WBD sale

*Former UFC champion goes for boxing world title

*Update on the home for WWE’s library

*Plans for TV shows this month

*How much Dwayne Johnson has made from the WWE contract he signed two years ago

*Those added to WWE, those leaving, those injured and those they are interested in

*How the Holiday week house shows did

*Why WWE’s weekly  audience on Netflix should go up close to 12 percent over the next three months.

This Week’s Back Issue

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Monday Update

WWE NXT Showdown Leon Slater
Image Copyright: WWE

[email protected]

— Bryan and I will be up tonight to talk about Raw, the story in the front page on WWE, and the rest of the pro wrestling news with Wrestling Observer Radio tonight.

— I have a story on the front page of the site covering WWE wrestlers, how many dates they worked, wins and losses, all the annual stuff we get every year but some comments because of some notable things with the change in schedule.

— Raw already took place today and results are on the front page. They built a SNME match for 1/2 with Iyo Sky & Rhea Ripley defending the tag titles against Roxanne Perez & Liv Morgan.

— Shingo Takagi of New Japan and Natsupoi of Stardom announced that they have gotten married. The two met in 2024 when Takagi made a guest appearance on a Stardom show.

— TNA has stopped listing the Leon Slater vs. Myron Reed match for Thursday’s AMC TV debut.  This coincides with talk that Slater may be booked for some of the WWE shows this week in the U.K. Frankie Kazarian vs. Mike Santana remains the main event with Nic Nemeth saying he’s challenging the winner, The Hardys & Elijah face Mustfa Ali & Jason Hotch & John Skyler and The Iinspiration defends the Knockouts tag titles against Heather & M By Elegance. Perez Hilton will also appear on the show.

— Paramount’s price will go from $7.99 to $8.99 per month for the lowest priced tier starting on Thursday and premium (ad free, but not during UFC) goes from $12.99 to $13.99 per month.

— Before the Raw taping in Dusseldorf, Germany, they taped two singles matches for Main Event:

  • Maxxine Dupri b Ivy Nile via ankle lock in 6:01
  • Otis & Akira Tozawa b Julius & Brutus Creed in 6:18.

— Tito Ortiz was announced as being inducted into the Huntington Beach Sports Hall of Fame this year. He will be honored on 2/1 at The Huntington Club. We never did get the Ortiz vs Chael Sonnen match in RAF that Ortiz cut one of the worst promos ever for.

— They have 2,615 tickets out for Wednesday’s Dynamite in Phoenix. Real capacity would be about 3,500. The goal of late seems to be 3,000 so they have a shot at it.  With MJF vs. Bandido you would hope to hit that mark.

— Hazuki vs. Mei Seira has been noted to us as another weekend match worth going out of your way to see.

— AAA has a show on Saturday night at the Juan de la Barrera Gym in Mexico City which is sold out. A few keys is that this is the debut show on Fox One in Mexico and there has been no promotion at all, nor has a lineup been released. PWInsider lists Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley being there.  FoxOne hasn’t promoted it at all but they do list a one-hour block from 9-10 p.m., meaning that they won’t be airing at  least the first hour of the show. WWE not promoting the first show live on a new network is very much unlike them.

— Templairo’s CMLL middleweight title defense against Bandido is set for Sunday at Arena Mexico. That’s the only specific date for a match that CMLL has announced for this weekend as well. Given there is a war on the Mexico City turf on Saturday night, you would think both sides would release match lineups. You would believe wrong.

— The movie “Night Patrol” with CM Punk will debut at the theaters on Friday.

— Pro Wrestling Revolucion announced they will have Dragon Gate tryouts on 4/12 at their training Center in San Jose. Someone from the tryout will get a chance to wrestle for DragonGate inJapan.

— Greaeme Lloyd, who played major league baseball from 1993 to 2003 for a number of teams, one of only a handful of Australians to do so, wrestled for Oceania Pro Wrestling over the weekend in Melbourne, winning a Battle Royal. There is not a long list of former major league baseball players who have done a pro wrestling match.  

— Andre Drapp, a European bodybuilder who became a major pro wrestling star, was born on this day in 1920. Ray “Thunder” Stern, a bodybuilder wrestler who became an aviation millionaire was born on this day in 1933. Luna Vachon would have turned 64 today. Big Dick Dudley would have turned 58 today. Brian Blair turned 69 today. The famed Minowa-man (Ikuhisa Minowa) of Japanese pro wrestling and MMA fame turned 50 today. Raquel Rodriguez turns 35 today. (thanks to Tony Richards)

— Komander has been added to the Jersey Championship Wrestling show on 2/1 at the Melrose Ballroom in New York. Other AEW talent on the show include Willow Nightingale, Billie Starkz, Lee Moriarty, Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight.

— Jason Oberlander was announced today as the new Chief Commercial Officer for the PFL.  He will lead PFL’s global partnership business overseeing all aspects of Sponsorship strategy revenue generation and partner innovation. He had been the founder and chairman of DRVN Sports & Entertainment. He’s worked for IMG, the NBA, MTV and Showtime.

–Austin Aries was announced for the 1/29 MLW Battle Riot event in Kissimmee, FL.

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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.