Daily Update: Weekend notes, Chelsea Green, AEW Dynamite ratings

Chelsea Green responds to WWE Unreal critics

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new issue of the Observer is up on the site today:
*Road to WrestleMania including the booking changes and injury changes that have caused several changes of plans since they were first in place. We discuss the evolution of this year’s two main events.
*We look at how the Royal Rumble show changed on the last day
*Full Royal Rumble coverage
*Status of different matches
*AJ Styles and is this his final match
*Business notes on the show
*Plans for Elimination Chamber
*How Royal Rumble did on Netflix
*What changes in Nielsen have meant to the TV ratings and why this has happened, and how it will happen multiple more times in 2026 to a lesser degree
*Has the increased in reported viewership helped pro wrestling in the TV world
*Full UFC 325 coverage
*Death of Frankie Cain/Great Mephisto, one of the most intriguing pro wrestling characters of the 60s and 70s with ties to many different worlds
*Death of Bob Lueck, a former Stampede Wrestling headliner who was a CFL All-Star and how he was responsible for getting one of the most important and most influential wrestlers of all-time into the industry
*The most detailed look at the ratings of the pro wrestling shows this past week including placings, demos and silliness
*Box office record set
*CMLL star arrested
*AEW stars spend the week in CMLL
*Major Arena Mexico shows coming
*Reyes del Aire report
*Hiromu Takahashi leaving
*New Japan major show this week
*Fantastica Mania cards announced
*Best matches of 2025
*AEW booking direction
*New AEW signings
*Advance ticket sales for all the major WWE & AEW shows
*Dana White’s testimony regarding his job
*Pride star passes away
*Ava departure from WWE

This Week’s Back Issue

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Sunday Update

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— Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about the weekend in pro wrestling and other notes.

— Bron Brekker had surgery for a serious hernia. No word on how long he’ll be out.

— Bad Bunny is performing at halftime of the Super Bowl today. It’s possible you’ve heard about it.

— Fred Ottman, the former Tugboat, Typhoon, Big Bad Steel Man, Big Bubba, Shock Master, Uncle Fred and other names said he’s been in the hospital for the last 30 days after his gallbladder exploded. He said his wife was told that if he had waited another day to come to the hospital he may not have made it. He said he’s lost a lot of muscle, being on his back for a month and is learning how to walk again. He is expected to be released from the hospital tomorrow. He still will need regular kidney dialysis for now and will need surgery later this month.

— Chelsea Green’s ankle injury was a bruise and not a break, and while she did miss last night’s AAA show where she and Ethan Page lost the mixed tag team titles (Lola Vice & Mr. Iguana are the new champions), I don’t expect her out for too much time.

— I don’t know all the Observer awards winners right now, but do know that so far that at least nine companies have had winners representing four countries. There could be more.

— Andrei Arlovski, 47, defeated Ben Rothwell to win the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship heavyweight title last night before a sellout crowd of 18,217 in Philadelphia. Arlovski won via third round stoppage due to a nasty head cut. BKFC claimed 2 million people watched the show.

— YouTube numbers for last night’s shows had it at 324,000, and keep in mind that’s a number watching at least ten seconds, not the entire show and can count the same person multiple times. For a comparison, the English language feed of AAA was at the same time at 231,000 and the taped MLW Battle Riot from a few weeks back was at 190,000.

— For the matches we’ve heard a lot about, Saya Kamitani vs. Starlight Kid for the World of Stardom title has gotten a lot of talk. Kamitani suffered a finger injury legit, worked a long match after the injury and retained her title. Friday’s Arena Mexico didn’t have a great star power lineup on paper, but boy was it a fun show. I’d highly recommend Yutani vs. Capitan Suicida as a high flying match, MxM Collection vs. Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja which was an awesome tag title match, Johnny Consejo (Johnny TV) vs. Soberano Jr was very entertaining and the main event was usual standard Arena Mexico trios on top with Averno & Cavernario & Hechicero over Neon & Templario & Flip Gordon with them setting up Templario vs. Averno for the CMLL middleweight title for next Friday. It was the usual style, although not quite as heated or as many flashy moves with no Mistico & Mascara Dorada. Templario took the Mistico spot as the star of the team and he’s an awesome wrestler, not as over at all as Mistico, but better in the ring and like with Mistico, they focused the match around him. The show didn’t sell out but there were way more women at the show than usual and the clear draw ws Soberano Jr., to the point there were a lot of empty seats during the main event. Last night’s show at Arena Coliseo was sold out. Tuesday’s Reyes del Aire match was spectacular.

— For Google searches this weekend, as you can imagine, it was dominated by the Super Bowl and Olympics. The only top 100 searches were Mario Bautista (46) and Kyoji Horiguchi (96) from last night’s UFC show at the Apex. The show itself did 100,000 searches. Smackdown got 2,000 searches and nothing from AEW made the list. The biggest search in pro wrestling was Ricky Steamboat, who is fine.

— Wednesday’s AEW show not only did the best ratings in months for a television show, but was up 6.5 percent higher in web searches for AEW than any other TV show since November, beating out 1/14 (MJF vs. Bandido), 1/28 (MJF vs. Brody King and Kenny Omega vs. Andrade among others) and 1/24 (Tommaso Ciampa vs. Mark Briscoe). Essentially Google searches continue to corroborate that interest level is up and it’s not just a ratings change with these increased numbers. The ratings change does help though.

— SmackDown will be on Syfy on Friday due to the Olympics.

— MLW from last night in Chicago sold out Cicero Stadium: Shotzi Blackheart b Shoko Nakajima to win the women’s featherweight title, Mistico b Diego Hill in a babyface battle, Donovan Dijak & Bishop Dyer b uke Gallows & Karl Anderson to retain the MLW tag team titles, Kushida b Alan Angels to keep the middleweight title, Josh Bishop vs. Matthew Justice street fight (not sure who won) but Justice tok a crazy dive off the bleachers and was shaken up but said to be okay, Killer Kross NC Matt Riddle for the MLW title when Alex Hammerstone attacked both guys, Okumura b Victor ?, Soberano Jr. b Neon (really good), Scarlett Bordeaux b Blair Onyx, Hammerstone b Ultimo Guerrero, Mads Krule Krugger b Bishop Dyer with a DDT on a belt, Austin Aries b Blue Panther (Panther looked like he got hurt on a flip dive off the paron and may have landed on or near his head), Zamaya b Lil Ruiz, Mistico b Templario with La Mistica. Match started after 11 p.m. so not the usual level of Mistico reaction. (thanks to Lance LeVine)

— They teased the idea of Dominik Mysterio putting up his hair against El Hijo del Vikingo on 3/14 in Puebla. Either way they are doing an AAA Mega title match. The Grande Americano who qualified for the Rey de Reyes finals was Chad Gable, not Ludwig Kaiser, winning over Rey Fenix, Dragon Lee and Octagon Jr.

— AEW Collision will go head-to-head with Elimination Chamber on 2/28.

— Misty Blue Simms turned 67 day. Paul Wight turned 54. Royce Isaacs turned 37. Duke Hudson turned 36. Xyon Quinn turned 36. Fred Blassie was born on this day in 1918. Jim Neidhart was born on this day in 1955. Sherri Martel was born on this day in 1958. Kat LaRoux was born on this day in 1965. Chicago figurehead promoter and TV announcer Bob Luce died 19 years ago today at the age of 78. Ricky Hunter died four years ago today at 86. (thanks to Tony Richards)

— DDP has uploaded three episodes of his “Change or Die” reality show on Tubi. The show features Page helping Buff Bagwell and Butterbean.

— On yesterday’s PFL show in Dubai, Usman Nurmagomedov retained the lightweight title via fourth round submission over Alfie Davis. Ramazan Kuramagomedov went to 14-0 and wn the vacant welterweight title beating Shamil Musaev via decision on scores of 48-46 across the board. Kurammagomedov told announcer Dan Hardy after the fight that he may have suffered a broken arm and also talked about possibly retiring.

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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.