Daily Update: WWE Survivor Series fallout, Dean Ayass, other matches from the weekend

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

We have the largest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in our history up on the site today because we are covering two very newsworthy weeks:

*Full coverage of Full Gear. The good, the bad, the reaction, the business notes, reasons for the surprisingly good PPV number, thoughts on the world title change, long title reigns and how they create legends, and early Continental Classic thoughts.

*Notes and odds regarding upcoming matches

*UFC announces its first two shows of 2026, changes that the company is making and why the first two main events are so controversial

*Full coverage of UFC 323

*The life and times of Bob Caudle, the voice of Mid Atlantic wrestling and a Hall of Fame candidate

*A detailed look at how and why the ratings have changed, why the explanation makes no sense, exactly how much the new panel and big data ratings have hurt each show and in particular where.

*The most in-depth look at the ratings for all the shows over the past two weeks, placings for the week, placings in the time slot, men vs. women, how the placings compare to 2024 and 2023, and each show compared with the prior year and prior week, as well as the leading competition for each show.

*Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel Garcia, Komander, Mortos, Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight go to CMLL, draw big crowds and a look at their key matches

*CMLL ready to honor a milestone it is close that no company has ever done in history

*Notes on AAA’s new TV deal in Mexico and Latin America and who they are pushing as the top stars

*WWE tag team taking the name of one of Mexico’s greatest tag teams in history

*Updates on tag team tournaments in Stardom, New Japan and All Japan.

*Wrestler suspended after getting in car accident and messing up a tournament

*Update on Tokyo Dome ticket sales

*Fantastica Mania 2026 notes

*Battle of the Generations

*RAF new philosophy and update

*Santo’s final matches

*Sting’s son has first singles match

*Headbangers farewell tour

*The oldest male wrestler in history has a match last week

*Opera Cup notes

*TNA business notes as well as notes on the next PPV show and the last major show

*AEW TV changes

*Final Battle updated card

*Tony Khan on multiple subjects

*Ticket sales for upcoming WWE, AEW and TNA shows

*Two best in the world at their specific sport athletes are on UFC’s radar

*Becky Lynch’s comments

*Update on stockholders lawsuit against WWE

*New WWE signings

*WWE star talks about her domestic violence issue

*WWE engagements

*Bret Hart talks McMahon and Michaels and our thoughts on it.

This Week’s Back Issue

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Sunday Update

— Bryan and I did our weekend show covering Survivor Series and the weekend TV and other news last night. That’s our only weekend show for this week and we’ll be back tomorrow night.

— We talked extensively on last night’s show regarding Survivor Series. The Bron Breakker pin on CM Punk was to set up a future title match. Austin Theory was the guy who interfered and the original plan was for him to be part of The Vision. Originally he was supposed to be in War Games before the Jacob Fatu injury forced them to move up the Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre feud one month, and thus opened both of them up for War Games, with Rhodes as Fatu’s replacement and the feeling was McIntyre would fit better in the match than Theory.

— For matches this weekend, the stuff I’ve seen and heavily recommend would be the Claudio Castagnoli win over Gran Guerrero for the CMLL title Friday night as well as the Leyenda de Plata finals with Mistico vs. Cavernario vs Soberano Jr, which was Friday’s main event before a sellout of 16,000 fans.  They couldn’t have been more different. The title match takes you back to a 1975 world title match, different moves, but same crowd feel and a little more aggressive.  The main event was a top-fight version of an Arena Mexico main event with two of the most charismatic guys in the business. The other match I saw that looked great was Chris Carter vs. Jack Cartwheel vs Aigie Blanc (who used another name) on Friday night’s AAA show. I haven’t seen the Vikingo vs. Grande Americano match on that show but was told it was great as well.  The most highly recommended New Japan match was Yuya Uemura & Shota Umino vs Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa.

— Last night’s Arena Coliseo main event with Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta & Daniel Garcia vs. Esfinge & Ultimo Guerrero & Difunto was very good, but most notable is that after the match people were throwing plastic bottles into the ring at the Death Riders. Some thought it was cool seeing that as heat. I know in CMLL they hate that stuff, and it almost never happens. It was more of a reaction to Yuta it appeared to me. The guy is a natural heat magnet. It was a great main event as well.

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

— A correction from yesterday’s Observer. We listed Dynamite on New Year’s Eve starting at  6 p.m.  It’s actually a 6 p.m. start on Christmas Eve, not New Year’s Eve. (thanks to Jose Santana)

— Court Bauer said that Thursday’s MLW show in Charleston, SC was a complete sellout of the building.  WrestleTix is listed as a sellout with a 607 capacity and the building’s listed capacity was 1,198. Bauer said they opened up the entire building and sold it out.  

— Dean Ayass, a longtime U.K. manager, and longtime reader of the Observer noted to us this:

Today at Premier Promotions in Worthing, I formally announced my retirement from wrestling management. I hadn’t been able to perform on shows since February 2020, due to the Covid pandemic and then as soon as the world returned to normal, I was diagnosed with chronic migraines and headaches, something I’m still affected by today (although less so, thanks to years worth of trial and error medication). I can no longer take any bumps or knocks to the head, and a heel manager has to get his comeuppance at some point, so the time was right to go.

I started managing in the FWA in 2001 with my old Hammerlock buddy Justin Richards, who remains one of my closest friends in or out of wrestling to this day. And I finished it working with ‘Amazon’ Ayesha Raymond, another good friend and someone closely associated with Justin. A nice way to bookend things.

I have so many fond memories of working with (or against), and learning from, absolute legends of this business like Terry Funk, Drew McDonald, Christopher Daniels, Doug Williams, the UK Pitbulls, Robbie Brookside, Stixx, Martin Stone, Jonny Storm….the list goes on and I’ve probably forgotten loads of people through my concussion addled poor memory. I’ve needed security escorts back to the dressing room, had rubbish thrown at me and even had a disgruntled fan punch me in the face on one occasion! It’s still real in Worthing….

Wrestling managing is a dying art. Done in the right way, with the right people, it’s a way of elevating individuals by taking the manager’s heat and transferring that to a lesser known wrestler, as well as giving the wrestler an extra dimension to their in-ring character.

I hope that this isn’t the end for me in wrestling completely. I’m hoping that I can get my life back on track soon, get back to normal, or a new kind of normal, and be in a position where I can still MC or commentate on the odd show here and there.”–

— Wrestlecade posted a statement that somebody stole Jimmy Hart’s megaphone yesterday and they want it back. They noted there were surveillance cameras and police will see who did it.  They said the person who did can return it to them and Hart won’t press charges if it’s returned.  If it’s not returned, he will be forced to press charges.

— New Japan’s tag team tournament earlier today in Akita saw:

  • Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura beat Lance Archer & Alex Zayne
  • Yuto-Ice & Oskar b Great O’Khan & Callum Newman
  • Sanada & Ren Narita b David Finlay & Hiromu Takahashi
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi & El Phantasm b Zack Sabre Jr.  & Ryohei Oiwa

We’re midway through the tournament and these are the standings:

A block:

  • Shuji Ishikawa & El Desperado, Yota Tsuji & Gabe Kidd and Evil & Don Fale 3-1
  • Oleg Boltin & Toru Yano, Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hahis and Drilla Moloney & Shingo Takagi 2-2
  • Satoshi Kojima & Taichi 1-3
  • Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi 0-4

B block:

  • Sanada & Ren Narita 3-1
  • Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa, David Finlay & Hiromu Takahashi, Lance Archer & Alex Zayne, Yuya Uemura & Shota Umino, Great O’Khan & Callum Newman and Yori-Ice & Oskar 2-2
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi & El Phantasmo 1-3

They are back on Tuesday in Yamanashi with an A block show with Yano & Boltin vs. Yujiro & Owens, Goto & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Evil & Fale, Ishikawa & Desperado vs Tsuji & Kidd and Kojima & Taichi vs Takagi & Moloney.

— For Google searches this weekend, Survivor Series was No 18 with 275,000 searches, which is above average for a WWE show. As far as individuals, Austin Theory was No. 108 and Liv Morgan was No. 110 with 20,000.  Lash Legend and Charlotte Flair were No. 177 and No. 182 with 10,000. A surprise is that Real American Freestyle, which had their show last night in Chicago, was No. 297.

— Michael Chandler beat Chad Mendes in last night’s RAF main event. Chandler then issued a challenge to Jordan Burroughs. They also announced Yoel Romero vs. Bo Nickal. If it was Romero from 20 years ago, Nickal would have a lot of trouble.  Today, it is a mismatch.

— Update on the All Japan tournament:

A block:

  • Go Shiozaki & Shotar Ashino and Talos & Ren Yabe 6 points
  • Hidei Suzuki & Kengo Mashimo 4 points
  • Hokuto Omori &Kuma Arashi and  Musashi & Seiki Yoshika 2 points’
  • Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura 0 points

B block:

  • Xyon & Odyssey (former WWE wrestlers Xyon Quinn & Odyssey Jones) 8 points
  • Kento Miyahara & Davey Boy Smith Jr, Ryuki Honda & Naoya Nomura and Atsuko Aoyagi & Rising Hayato 4 points
  • Taashi & Kuroshio Tokyo Japan 2 points
  • Yuma Aoyagi & Yuma Anzai 0 points, forfeiting all remaining matches due to Aoyagi’s suspension
  • Konosuke Takeshita beat Japanese MMA legend Shinya Aoki in  a singles match today on the DDT show at Korakuen Hall.

— Today would have been the 85th birthday of Pittsburgh star Jumping Johnny DeFazio, the 75th birthday of Bad Bad Leroy Brown, the 67th birthday of Tom Zenk, the 63rd birthday of Jimmy Del Ray and the 60th birthday of Bart Sawyer. It is the 62nd birthday of Keiichi Yamada aka Jushin Liger, the 52nd birthday of Jason Reso aka Christian Cage and the 38th birthday of Trinity Fatu aka Naomi. (thanks to Tony Richards)

It hardly seems to me like 23 years since the death of Hall of Fame candidate Tim “Mr. Wrestling” Woods. We would have that in the issue 23 years ago in our archives.  Woods was one of the best technical wrestlers and a major star from the mid-60s until his retirement in the early 80s. I remember his matches with Jack Brisco, Gene Kiniski, Dory Funk Jr, Ric Flair, Johnny Valentine and the other elite stars of that period. At one point he was the biggest babyface in Georgia. He and Harley Race drew the first ever pro wrestling sellout at the Omni of 16,500 fans in 1973. This was actually billed as Funk Jr. vs. Mr. Wrestling coming off a landmark finish in their prior match where at the 48:00 mark, the ring broke and Mr. Wrestling was injured and couldn’t continue.  

Mr. Wrestling vowed to not just unmask if he lost, but he would unmask when the match started and would wrestle without a mask for the first time in Atlanta. Fans thought a world title change was probable, figuring why else would he unmask before the match, because of the idea that the NWA would never have a masked man as world champion. It worked. However, a few days before the match, Harley Race beat Funk Jr, and it was Race’s first title defense in Atlanta and one of the biggest of his career. They went to a 60:00 draw with Race asleep just as the bell rang. 

Another Tim Woods story few knew about was in 1957, he was going to cut to 174 pounds in the AAU national championships because he wanted to wrestle Danny Hodge was the best wrestler in any weight in the country and probably the world at the time. It was the opposite of most of the 174 pounders who moved to 191 with the idea they had no chance at 174 and Woodin (his real last name) took it as a challenge. However, Hodge had already started his pro boxing training and didn’t compete in the tournament.  When Woods found out, he stayed at 191, his best weight,and won his second national title.

— Tom Aspinall’s eye has not come close to recovering  as he still can’t train or even drive at this point.  It was one of the ugliest and more ignorant fan responses with the idea that she should have continued even though he couldn’t see in his fight with Cyril Gane.

— Defy runs 12/27 in Seattle at Washington Hall and 12/28 in Los Angeles at The Lodge Room.

— Kirk White’s Big Time Wrestling has sold out its 12/5 show at the Newark, CA Pavilion. The main event is Killer Kross & Scarlett Bordeaux vs. Toa Liona & Harley Cameron, Alan Angels vs. Starboy Charlie with the winner facing QT Marshall, Shane Haste vs Aaron Solo and more.

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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.