Daily Update: UFC’s wild Freedom 250 numbers, CM Punk’s Brazil story

UFC Freedom 250
UFC Freedom 250 (Image credit: UFC)

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Among the topics covered:

  • Previewing the four major weekend shows as well as interest levels of the shows
  • What should be the business goals of the show
  • Preview of the G-1 Climax tournament
  • CMLL business notes and coverage of Fantastica Mania
  • Trying to make sense over claims about the UFC numbers
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the wrestling and MMA TV shows, comparisons, competition and more
  • CMLL bring back the concept of club championships
  • Latin Lover talks Konnan’s situation
  • The story behind the return of Los Perros Del Mal and their history in AAA
  • Stardom PPV coverage
  • Unique comedy angle to set up a world title match
  • Attempt to set up kickboxing legend vs. Minoru Suzuki match
  • My thoughts on June 26, 1975, watching Ali vs. Inoki and the entire closed circuit show
  • Final X notes
  • Ronda Rousey as Executive Producer of a new movie
  • Bully Ray-Josh Barnett silliness
  • Book on Rikidozan
  • More crazy independent stories
  • The Tommy Dreamer departure from TNA
  • The update on the WBD sale being approved
  • The move made by WBD for a new show that flies in the face of all the anti-AEW doomsayers
  • Tony Khan press conference notes
  • Martha Hart honored as Cagarian of the year
  • Update on FTR
  • Darby Allin tries another crazy idea
  • ROH tapings
  • More in the Kajan Johnson lawsuit
  • Dana White talks Zuckerberg vs. Musk fight
  • UFC sponsor in hot water
  • Complaints regarding McGregor on Jimmy Fallon
  • UFC changes how it does rankings
  • Dustin Poirier’s arrest update
  • Cris Cyborg retirement and thoughts
  • CM Punk return imminent
  • Notes on interviews by Paul Heymand and Paul Levesque
  • Logan Paul talks being ripped off by Floyd Mayweather
  • Notes from WWE & AEW arena events

This Week’s Back Issue

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Friday Update

CM Punk & Cody Rhodes | WWE Raw
Cody Rhodes offers up a future challenge to CM Punk on WWE Raw. (Image credit: WWE)

— I just finished today’s show with Garrett Gonzales talking Joe Doering, previewing the weekend, talking UFC numbers and media lack of understanding of such numbers, Forbidden Door and build to All In, Clash of Champions and build to SummerSlam, predictable seasonal booking, Nick Khan’s strategy, what move WBD just made that should shut up AEW doomsayers but they’ll never understand it to being with, How Kendal Grey is related to Claudio Castagnoli, and the 50th anniversary of Ali vs. Inoki and answering questions on that subject.

— The UFC claimed 34 million people watched the White House show. Unless they were mostly in India and China there is no way anything approaching that is accurate, even counting people who only watched for one minute. An attempt to get a breakdown of those numbers was unsuccessful. Anyway, I talked about this on today’s show. It is possible more people worldwide watched it than Rousey vs. Carano, but there’s no proof. It’s even possible more did in the U.S., because they were measured in a different way. It’s also just as likely that it’s the other way around. But it is notable that you get a U.S. Nielsen number of 7 million, and UFC’s major markets of popularity of the U.S. and Brazil, and both of those countries as well as the rest of Latin America gets you up to 8.2 million, and people take that 34 million number without a grain of thought. They are counting everyone who watched for a minute and even they are using assumptions in many countries where they have no numbers if you actually read the release. They claimed 126 billion social media views. Okay, that means every single person on the planet averaged 15.2 social media views of the show. Imagine lapping this up without question.

–WWE Night of Champions starts at 1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon from Riyadh:

  • Cody Rhodes vs. Gunther vs Sami Zayn for the WWE title
  • Bron Breakker vs. Seth Rollins cage match
  • Trick Williams vs. Ricky Saints for the U.S. tile
  • Tiffany Stratton vs Jade Cargill for the U.S. title
  • Oba Femi vs. Jey Uso for King of the Ring and a title shot
  • Liv Morgan vs. Iyo Sky for Queen of the Ring and a title shot

ESPN will air from 1-2 p.m. with the Femi and Morganmatches

— AEW on Wednesday did 616,000 viewers, an 0.10 in 18-49 and 0.18 in 25-54 against the World Cup game. The game, featuring Mexico, did 12.3 million on Telemundo and another 6.5 million on FOX and 2.2 million on FS 1. They fell to 12th place for the night and were behind the WNBA game on USA besides Fox News, ESPN with the NBA draft, and there’s shows they usually beat as well like the WNBA that were ahead. The lead-in of Big Bang Theory was down huge from normal as well.

— Starting Monday, WWE has a 25 percent off all tickets for all shows in July and including SummerSlam, and Saturday Night’s Main event in Madison Square Garden.

–The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight originally set for 9/19 appears to be off.

— As noted in the current issue, the panel numbers (the way TV was measured until last September) was far higher last week, as Collision was up 146,000 viewers, Smackdown was upm 253,000 viewers and Dynamite was up 154,000 viewers. So that would indicate the panel number will come in around 770,000.

— Holy s***. CM Punk did an interview regarding his match with Chris Jericho in Brazil where Jericho tried to get heat by desecrating the flag. So this is what Punk basically said:

  • During the match Jericho rolled out of the ring, grabbed a Brazilian flag from a fan, and wiped his ass with it.
  • The atmosphere instantly shifted. A second referee entered the ring alongside WWE’s head of talent relations. Moments later, armed men in fatigues surrounded the ring, with one aiming a machine gun directly at Punk.
  • Officials ordered the match to end immediately, but Jericho initially refused. Punk had to execute an abrupt, legitimate pinning sequence to secure the victory and defuse the situation.
  • Following the win, Punk jumped on the turnbuckle, grabbed the flag, and kissed it to show respect to the crowd.

Based on a video of the show which is out there, Jericho in fact kicked the flag, and was forced to apologize during the match. They went another ten or so minutes and Punk won with the GTS, just as planned. Nobody was going to shoot anybody or anything like that. There is no evidence at all that anyone wouldn’t do the finish as you can’t do a shoot GTS and Jericho went up like you always would for it. Punk did run around the ring with the Brazilian flag for a big pop after the match.

— Nobody went to Arena Mexico on Wednesday when they moved the show start time to 4:30 p.m. so the show would be over in time for the game.

— Last night’s show in Cuernavaca sold out with Mistico & Mascara Dorada vs. Soberno Jr. & Averno

— Arena Mexico sold out a few hours ago. It was the seventh straight sellout on Fridays. This is right around the all-time record in an arena that opened in 1956. The top two matches are Sammy Guevara & Beast Mortos vs. Mistico & Dorada for the ROH tag team titles and Titan & Flip Gordon vs. Hechicero & Volador Jr. Tony Khan didn’t outright say that if Mistico & Dorada wno that they wouldn’t be defending the title at Forbidden Door, but certainly indicated that wouldn’t be the case, but he did so in a manner that he may have thought he was trying to not give away tonight’s finish.

— Titan and Aubrey Edwards are working Saturday night at Arena Coliseo and then flying into San Jose. Actually a lot of people are coming in on Sunday rather than the night before.

— Zack Carpinello, who wrestled in many places as Zack Clayton, including AEW, married Jenni Farley, JWoww of Jersey Shore fame this past week. They had invited 50 friends for a screening of her new movie and when they got there, were surprised it was the wedding. The two have been engaged forever. Farley worked for TNA in the past.

— The first of the regular Puebla shows on Thursday’s will be on 7/2.

— Chris Bey did reps with 90 pound dumbbells in a seated military press today. That is quite amazing to me.

–UFC is from Baku, Azerbaiijan starting at 9 a.m. Eastern and 6 a.m. Pacific tomorrow morning

  • Tahir Abdullayev (170.5) vs. Jefferson Nasicmento (171)
  • Bekzat Almakhan (136) vs. Jean Matsumoto (135.5)
  • Danill Donchenko (170.5) vs. Theodor Berggren (171)
  • Kaan Ofli (146) vs. Javier Reyes (145.5)
  • Nursulton Ru8ziboev (186) vs. Andrey Pulyaev (186)
  • Abdul Rakman Yakhyaev (206) vs. Julius Walker (206)
  • Farman Hasanov (170.5) vs. Eric Nolan (170.5)
  • Abus Magomedov (185.5) vs. Michael Oleksiejczuk (186)
  • Ikram Aliskerov (186) vs. Brunno Ferriera (185)
  • Asu Almabayev (126) vs. Charles Johnson (125.5)
  • Nazim Sadykhov (156) vs. Matheus Camilo (156)
  • Shara Magomedov (186) vs. Michel Pereira (185.5)
  • Rafael Fiziev (156) vs. Manuel Torres (156)

— Bare Knuckle Fighting, which announced a show at Fenway Park, is bringing former UFC star Joe Lauzon out of retirement for that card.

— MLW Fusion at 6:05 p.m. tomorrow on YouTube and Mondays on New Japan World has Matt Riddle vs Trevor Lee as the main event.

— Dark Side of the Ring will have a screening of the new season on 7/6 in New York at Metrograph. They will be airing the first two episodes of the season on GNA with Jeff Jarrett there for a Q&A.

— JJ Dillon/James Morrision turned 84 today. Davey O’Hannon turned 75. Lady Apache turned 56. Matt Striker turned 52. Mark Jindrak/Marco Corleone turned 49. Cal Eaton, the stepfather of Mike & Gene LeBell, was born on this day in 1908. Jackie Fargo was born on this day in 1930. Larry Sharpe was born on this day in 1951. Buddy Rogers passed away 34 years ago tday at the age of 71. Louie Tillet passed away two years ago today at the age of 89. (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.