Daily Update: Weekend fallout, WWE WrestleMania 42, Titus O’Neil

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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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Sunday Update

Tommaso Ciampa AEW TNT Champion

— We did our weekend show last night talking about the Royal Rumble, UFC, Collision, Hobbs, Ava and lots of other subjects. Our Friday show was one of the best we’ve done of late with Alex Marvez as guest talking about the life and times of Kim Wood.

–Brie Bella’s return last night was not a one-night thing. She’s going to be back for at least the time being.

— As most would expect, right now the plan for WrestleMania is Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk and Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre. Jacob Fatu could be added to that match.

— Dynamite in Las Vegas on Wednesday:

  • Kenny Omega vs. Andrade
  • Adam Page vs. Mark Davis – winners of these matches face off no 2/14 with the winner facing the AEW champion on the 3/15 PPV show
  • Ricochet vs. Jack Perry for the National title
  • MJF vs. Brody King – if King wins he gets an AEW title shot on 2/14

They will also be taping Eddie Kingston &  Ortiz & Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. Big Bill & Bryan Keith & Grizzled Young Veterans in a parking lot brawl for Collision.

— We’re looking for your thoughts on last night’s Royal Rumble,thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]

— UFC’s show yesterday was the No. 2 show in the world on Paramount +. It was No. 3 in the U.S.

— Royal Rumble was No. 3 in the world yesterday for television shows on Netflix and SmackDown was No. 7. What makes that impressive is that it doesn’t include U.S. viewing.  First day viewing of Smackdown was No. 2 in Australia, No. 2 in  Canada, No. 4 in India, No. 5 in France, No.  2 in New Zealand,No. 2 in Saudi Arabia and No. 3 in the U.K. That’s for the day, not the week.  Rumble for yesterday was No. 2 in Canada, No. 2 in France, No. 2 in Mexico and No. 1 in Saudi Arabia.

— UFC last night did about 1.6 million searches, Alexander Volkanovski, Tai Tuivasa, Mauricio Ruffy, Benoit Saint-Denis, and Quillan Salikilld were all among the top 60 searches for the weekend. Royal Rumble did 305,000 with the top individual searches in order going to AJ Styles (by a wide margin and was No. 53 for the weekend when we last checked), Powerhouse Hobbs, Brie Bella, Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar. Ashley Massaro, whose rape accusation and how it was handled by the miliarty came up in the Epstein files, was also on the list.

— Diego Lopes was hospitalized after the show in Sydney last night and said that it looks like he broke both of his feet in his loss to Alexander Volkanovski.  

— In the scoring of the Volkanovski vs. Lopes fight, judge Ron Cartlidge gave Lopes round two and Sal D’Amato gave him round three. Clemens Werner gave him no rounds. Among media scores it was 65 percent giving him a 49-46 win and 35 percent at 50-45. There were close rounds so it was not as one-sided as those scores sound, but Volkanovski clearly won the fight.

— Parade Magazine listed the top 14 WWE wrestlers of all-time. I have no idea how they came up with this list:

  • 1.  Flair
  • 2. Hogan
  • 3. Austin
  • 4. Undertaker
  • 5.  The Rock
  • 6.  Reigns
  • 7. Michaels
  • 8. Bret Hart
  • 9. Sammartino
  • 10. Cena
  • 11. Savage
  • 12. Andre
  • 13. HHH
  • 14. Piper

The argument for Flair at No. 1 is that when wrestling experts do all-time rankings, Flair is No. 1 on more lists than anyone.

— I didn’t hear much about great weekend matches, pretty much just AJ Styles vs. Gunther, Mark Briscoe vs. Tommaso Ciampa and Friday’s Claudio Castagnoli vs. Xelhua matches.

–Looking for reports on these shows:

  • *NXT in Nashville and Birmingham over the weekend
  • *AEW last night in Arlington, TX with any matches not airing live.

Looking for results, highlights and finishes to [email protected]

— Thaddeus Bullard, the former Titus O’Neil, received the 2026 Horatio Alger award for leaders who have overcome adversity and support young people in  furthering their education. Bullard will be one of 11 people being honored.

— Dory Dixon, who was just elected into the Hall of Fame last year, turned 92 today. Dennis Condrey of the Midnight Express turned 74. Sean Royal turned 65. Ronda Rousey turned 39 and Saxon Huxley turned 38. Another Hall of Famer, Masa Saito, would have turned 84 today.  Luis Hernandez, the stepfather of Gino Hernandez, was 33 when he died 54 years ago today.  Jack Brisco was 68 when he died 16 years ago.  Brisco was one of the all-time greats. (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.