Daily Update: The Great Mephisto passes away

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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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Monday Update

– Bryan and I will be back tonight covering Raw, Great Mephisto, Royal Rumble fallout, AEW, CMLL, NXT and the rest of the week’s news with Wrestling Observer Radio tonight.

– Frankie Cain, born James Ault, who was best known as part of the Infernos tag team in the 60s and the Great Mephisto in the 70s, passed away this morning as reported by close friend Scott Teal. The Infernos (Ault & Roland “Rocky” Smith, managed by J.C. Dykes), were one of the top heel teams in the country, with eight regional world tag team titles between 1965-68. He then became part of the masked tag team Mephisto & Dante in Tennessee with Dante being Bobby Hart. He went to Florida in late 1970 as the Great Mephisto as a Sheik knockoff, and his biggest career run was in California in 1972-73 where he was the top heel.

Of all the heels I saw in Northern California, the two people who got the most heat were Mephisto and manager Ken Ramey (who managed Paul DeMarco). He had a falling out with Shire, and either slapped him around or decked him and left the territory. Shire tried to blacklist him but the reality is once you had a rep for drawing money, you were going to be able to get work. He was later a manager and booker. As a booker, he started Paul Bearer, and was the one who first put Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy together as a tag team. He also wrestled in carnivals, was perhaps the last man alive who worked with Jim Londos, and boxed professionally.

– WWE celebrity stars Bad Bunny and Jelly Roll won Grammy Awards last night. Bad Bunny won Album of the Year and Best Musica Urbana Album as well as Best Global Music Performance. Jelly Roll won for Best Country Duo or Group Performance with Shaboozey and Best Contemporary Classic album.

– CMLL wrestler El Pegasso was charged with domestic violence toward his family and arrested on Friday according to The Cubs Fan. The alleged incident took place in 2024 and the case has been moving through the courts. The alleged victim is his son from a previous relationship. The story had first been covered in November.

– Raw is tonight in Philadelphia with Stephanie Vaquer vs. Raquel Rodriguez in a street fight and Penta vs. Bronson Reed. They’ll start the tease of who Roman Reigns and Liv Morgan will choose as well as start the Elimination Chamber build. They were very close to sold out with 12,600 tickets out as of last word. Business is still awfully good. Maybe not at the peak of last year but still very good.

– We’re looking for your thoughts on the Royal Rumble, so you can leave a thumbs up thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]

– We were told it was the decision of Simone Johnson to take down her Twitter account after her post negative to Ice and the current administration. It was not forced on her although it was under the Ava name, which she in theory would no longer be able to use since her contract has expired.

– We’re also looking for reports from Philadelphia tonight with Main Event matches or anything not on the live TV show as well as the same for AEW in Las Vegas on Wednesday with any ROH matches or Collision tapings to [email protected]

– TNA Impact did an 0.14 household rating and an 0.04 in 18-49, up from 0.03 last week. We don’t have the viewership number at the moment, but it was 86th for the night in viewers. A 1.20 VPH would be 215,000 viewers and an 1.30 VPH would be 233,000 viewers, so it should be by far the highest to date. Ironically the first taped show did the biggest numbers likely by far.

– Movsar Evloev vs. Lerone Murphy for the No. 1 contender at featherweight for Alexander Volkanovski was announced for 3/21 in London at the O2 Arena. Also on the show announced today were Luke Riley vs Michael Aswell and Michael Venom Page vs. Sam Patterson.

– The NXT title will be up tomorrow in a seven-man ladder match with Ricky Saints, Sean Legacy, Keanu Carver, Jackson Drake, Joe Hendry, Shiloh Hill and Dion Lennox, plus Izzy Dame vs. Thea Hail vs. Lola Vice for the North American title and The Elegance Brand defends the TNA tag titles against Sol Ruca & Zaria.

– Just for a clarification, on the weekend CMLL shows, they were not using American tag team rules as far as tagging needed, but were doing American rules about only needing one pin to end the match and being one fall instead of two out of three which non-title tag s and trios matches are. Aubrey Edwards went to Mexico this weekend and became the first female referee to referee a men’s match ever at Arena Mexico on Friday night.

– Tonight’s show at Arena Puebla has sold out with Mistico & Mascara Dorada & Templario vs. Cavernario & Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr, Atlantis Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero and Star Jr. & Xelhua vs. Mason Madden & Mansoor.

– Mike Santana, Priscilla Kelly and Tyler Breeze will be at Saturday’s AIW show in Youngstown, OH.

– Chris Harris & James Storm, America’s Most Wanted, won an independent tag team title over the weekend.

– GCW will hold a Marko Stunt retirement event on 3/14 at the Showboat in Atlantic City, NJ. Stunt made it clear he will not be wrestling on that show.

– The Toronto Raptors vs. Minnesota Timberwolves game on Wednesday in Toronto will be WWE night with all fans getting a pro wrestling mask and some WWE talent appearing.

– MLW announced a 6/11 show at the Melrose Ballroom in New York.

– Titan & Bandido & Astral beat Magnus & Vegas Depreadador & Virus last night in Monterrey, Mexico. The local newspaper put over the show as completely captivating the audience and confirming the sports’ current popularity, and put over Bandido as being the big star of the show.

– Combate Global announced that all 20 of its events this year will stream live in Mexico on the Samsung TV Plus Fast Channel.

– Hall of Famer Genichiro Tenryu, who was a star in sumo and then a bigger star in pro wrestling, turned 76 today. Susan Sexton, who was once the roommate of Bill Apter, turned 68. Naoki Sano, famous for his early 90s matches with Jushin Liger, turned 61. Brian Cage turned 42. Isla Dawn turned 32. John Pesek, one of the baddest men in the world of his era, was born on this day in 1894. Jack Veneno, the biggest pro wrestling star ever in the Dominican Republic, who once beat Ric Flair to win the NWA world title (it was only recognized in the Dominican Republic but is the most famous match by far ever on that island) was born 84 years ago today. Gino Hernandez, one of the most unique heels of his ear, was 28 when he died of a cocaine overdose in 1986. Jim Wilson, famous for suing Jim Barnett and writing a great book on pro wrestling, was 66 when he died 17 years ago today. Tom Drake, a pro wrestler who became more famous as an Alabama politician was 86 when he passed away nine years ago. Lanny Poffo was 68 when he passed away three years ago (Thanks to Tony Richards)

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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.