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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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Sunday Update

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— Bryan and I will be back tonight covering the weekend wrestling news. On our Friday show we were joined by John Pollock talking about the 2025 Wrestling Observer Awards.

— Hall of Fame Masakatu Funaki, who is now 56, suffered a neck injury in his match with Takanori Ito at the GLEAT show over the weekend. He took a half nelson suplex and was unable to get up. He lost the match he no doubt was scheduled to win. He suffered a cervical interspinous ligament injury. He is out of the hospital now.

— The Golden Globe Awards air tonight on CBS. Dwayne Johnson was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a drama for his role as Mark Kerr in “Smashing Machine.” Emily Blunt, who played Kerr’s girlfriend Dawn Staples, was nominated for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting role. Zootopia, an animated movie where Johnson, Roman Reigns and CM Punk voiced characters also had a few nominations.

— Raw tomorrow from Dusseldorf, Germany airs live on Netflix at 2 p.m. Eastern time because it’s from a different time zone. AJ Styles vs. Gunther and Dragon Lee & Penta vs. Austin Theory & Bronson Reed have been announced.

— In the Google searches for this weekend, at press time No. 1 at 2 million searches when I had checked was the Bills-Jaguars NFL Wild Card playoff game that the Bills won 27-24 to knock the Jaguars out of the playoffs Real American Freestyle was No. 99 at 20,000 due to the Colby Covington vs. Luke Rockhold match. WWE was No. 177 at 20,000 for Smackdown based on the Drew McIntyre title win. Also making the top 500 were AJ Ferrari’s latest arrest, UFC 324 (which takes place in two weeks) and Lance Palmer, who also wrestled on the RAF show.

— The only international matches I’ve been told about to watch as far as the best matches this weekend not on US television were CMLL bouts from Neza, Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo and today’s Hazuki vs. Mei Seira match from Stardom at Korakuen Hall. The highest profile was Friday night’s Mistico vs. Cavernario CMLL light heavyweight title match but others were Mistico & Mascara Dorada vs. Bandido & Soberano Jr. and Komander & Atlantis Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Hechicero from Thursday and last night’s Dorada & Atlantis Jr. vs. Soberano Jr. & Yutani from Arena Coliseo.

— We are only 11 days into the new year as Mistico has headlined eight sellouts and one crowd of 15,000 that was not a sellout.

— Add Starboy Charlie to the list of those who are going to the WWE tryout in Orlando. KJ Johnson, who was a senior last season at Louisiana State in gymnastics, is also at the tryout aside from names that have already been reported.

— Saya Kamitani’s return after time off to heal up on 2/7 in Osaka will be a World of Stardom title defense against Starlight Kid.

— From last night in Glasgow, Scotland with Drew McIntyre returning to Scotland as WWE champion:

  • Jey Uso b Finn Balor
  • AJ Styles & Dragon Lee b New Day
  • Alexa Bliss b Kairi Sane
  • Wyatt Sicks b Tama & Talla Tonga & JC Mateo & Tonga Loa
  • Drew McIntyre b Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the WWE title
  • Liv Morgan b Lyra Valkyria
  • Gunther b Sami Zayn
  • CM Punk b Bronson Reed to keep the world title

— We’re looking for reports from last night’s show in Glasgow as well as tonight’s WWE show in Copenhagen, Denmark, results, finishes and highlights to [email protected]

— Hall of Famer Salvador “Gori” Guerrero, the father of Eddy Guerrero as well as Chavo (Sr.), Mando and Hector, was born on this day in 1921. Haruka Eigen was born on this day in 1945.  Kuniaki Kobayashi was born on this day in 1956. Abdullah the Butcher turned 85 today. The Mascara Sagrada that worked in the early 1990s for AAA including at When Worlds Collide, considered the greatest mini of all-time, turned 61 today. Former amateur champion, MMA star and pro wrestler King Mo Lawal turned 45 today. Natalia Markova turned 37. Count Billy Varga, a top name made off 1950s television in Southern California which was on network TV, died 13 years ago today at the age of 94. The second La Parka in AAA died six years ago today after months of issues from an in-ring injury at the age of 54.  

— BJ Penn was back in court on Friday after he failed to undergo a court mandated mental health evaluation. Penn blamed his attorney for not informing him of the evaluation. Penn asked the judge to dismiss his current attorney so he could retain a new attorney. He also asked for the judge to be replaced. The judge ordered him to get his mental health evaluation by 2/23 and to be in front of the judge on 3/2 for the next ruling.

— At the RAF show last night in Hollywood, FL, the Yoel Romero vs. Bo Nickal match that was the most talked about on the show never happened. There was a lot of disorganization. The wrestlers expected weigh-ins on Friday, but they were moved to Saturday. Romero had scheduled a dinner with family and friends Friday night after weigh-ins. He went to the dinner anyway and weighed in seven pounds heavy. Nickal refused the match at that point because he missed weight by so much. In a weird fan reaction, Nickal was viewed as the bad guy and not the guy who missed weight by a lot. The feeling is Romero was 48 and Nickal probably would have beaten him. Romero did score a big win on the last show, but he fought Stephen Buchanan, who also missed weight at 205 but that was because he was told it was at 225.  Buchanan beat Romero via 10-0 tech fall. 

 In the main event, Colby Covington beat Luke Rockhold via tech fall at 12-0. While Rockhold is a naturally bigger guy, he was a high school wrestler who was good in high school but hardly great while Covington was a college champion, a totally different level, and several years younger. Covington came out of it saying he wanted to move to middleweight in UFC, and also issued a grandstand challenge to Georges St-Pierre for a wrestling match. I don’t expect we’ll see that but it got him pub.

— Maki Itoh debuted in Stardom today after signing a contract where. Aaya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara beat Itoh & Saori Anou when Sakurai pinned Itoh.

— Yota Tsuji was announced for the 2/27 New Japan show in Trenton, NJ, which will also have El Phantasmo vs. Konosuke Takeshita for the World TV title.

— CJ Perry said she was going to return to pro wrestling as a manager on independent shows.

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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.