Daily News Update — page 73

Congratulations to all the winners of the Doomie Awards for 2019.  Hopefully Night’s acceptance speech will be wrapping up sometime this morning.

I was not feeling so hot last night, so Powerrr is gonna have to wait until later.

To the news!

DATELINE:  John Cena returns to Smackdown in two weeks.  They’re in Boston so he’s probably doing something to promote F9.

DATELINE:  Matt Hardy posted a goodbye tweet after RAW.  And then Evil Uno posted an apparently unrelated tweet that said “You say goodbye, and we say hello.”  Hmmmmmm.

DATELINE:  The participants for the Smackdown version of the Elimination Chamber match have been leaked.  Basicall who you’d expect.  On Observer Radio, Meltzer said that regardless of the last minute addition of the Goldberg-Fiend match to the Saudi show, the plan is still Roman-Fiend at Wrestlemania and always has been.

And here is AEW Dark for y’all in case you didn’t watch it last night.

Hey, 15 in a row for the Raptors.  Not too shabby.

DATELINE:  Brandi Rhodes put the final nail in the coffin of the Nightmare Collective, saying that things went a lot differently than she had planned.  That’s an understatement.

DATELINE:  The Tuwaiq Trophy is the latest bullshit “title” set for Super Showdown this month, with 6 geeks in a gauntlet match.  They’re really doing the hard sell for this one.

DATELINE:  Rock’s daughter Simone joined the WWE Performance Center.  The Pebble?

Hey, here’s Edge v. Eddie in a ladder match to start your day.

Whoa, Parasite.  Not gonna lie, I was 100% Team Tarantino for this year’s nominees, but at least the movie got a couple of awards.

Thank god someone finally used their acceptance speech to speak up for the plight of the bovine nation.

Also, I don’t know if Brian wants to take these over again post-concussion or what, but I’m usually up at 5AM for work these days anyway and I know you all love my snarky humor first thing in the morning.

To the news!

DATELINE:  The XFL did 3.3 million viewers for the debut on ABC.  It’s a good-ish number, but of course the real test will be what it looks like by four or five weeks in.

DATELINE:  New Japan will be returning to MSG with “Wrestle Dynasty” in August.  Um, but how are they gonna draw a crowd without Matt Taven and ROH to prop them up?

And here’s a WWE show about the best wrestling weddings, given the proximity of Valentine’s Day…

The XFL is back!  I don’t feel like many people were ready for some more football.  But whatever, it’s Vince’s money.

DATELINE:  Smackdown had better ratings this week, although they’re basically the same audience every week.

DATELINE;  Chris Jericho is teasing that EC3 might be coming into AEW.  Hey, if they could rehab Jake Hager, anything is possible.

Well, we made it to Friday, and there’s a new Observer out last night!  Let’s see what’s in the news…

DATELINE:  The secret streaming service apparently bidding for Wrestlemania is Peacock, which launches on 4/15 and will carry a $9.99 price tag.  The idea being that all the PPVs move to that service and the WWE Network moves towards the Fight Pass model of the old WWE content plus hosting other indie promotions like Evolve and WXW.

DATELINE:  New Japan is looking at a return to MSG in the summer, assuming that Vince doesn’t try to get it shut down again.  However, regardless of whether they can strike a deal with AEW for talent exchanges, it wouldn’t appear likely for Tony Khan to allow AEW guys to work that show.

DATELINE:  With Awesome Kong off to film GLOW again, AEW taped a segment for YouTube where Brandi Rhodes goes to a psychiatrist and is cured of her evil side.  So the Nightmare Collective is offically done.

And here’s Brock Lesnar squashing Hulk Hogan to kick off your day!

It’s EARNINGS CALL DAY for WWE.  This should be an interesting one.

DATELINE:  WWE stock opened up at $49 this morning ahead of the call and has rebounded slightly from the disaster following the Barrios/Wilson firings.

DATELINE:  Conor McGregor should probably list himself on the stock market, because UFC 246 became the first streaming PPV to do one million buys according to ESPN.

DATELINE:  WWE has abandoned the trademark to EC3 because EC3 already registered it for himself.  I’m thinking he’s not sticking around much longer.  Just a hunch.

Four days until the launch of the XFL 2.0!  Hope you’ve got your calendars marked appropriately!

DATELINE:  Timothy Thatcher is the latest indy guy to be stockpiled into the WWE system now.  Hope he’s making good money from it.

DATELINE:  While the WWE Network is struggling, Disney Plus already has an astonishing 28.9 million subscribers worldwide.  Not wrestling related news but I mean, holy shit, right?

And although I’m not reviewing it this morning, here’s AEW Dark for you.

All kinds of stuff coming out of RAW last night as they build to SUPER DUPER SAUDI SHOWDOWN III at the end of the month.

DATELINE:  Brock Lesnar defends against Ricochet in the main event of the show, which should be awesome because Brock’s best stuff is when he’s got a little guy to hurl around the ring and then pin.

DATELINE:  Ruby Riott is back, so that one guy who e-mailed me about her that one time should be happy.

DATELINE:  Charlotte will be facing Rhea Ripley at Wrestlemania.  I bet Bayley is so upset at being overshadowed that she’s gonna SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER about it.

Meanwhere, here’s some AEW.

Oh my god aren’t you all thankful that the pre-season level nonsense of the “NO FUN League” is done with and now we can get to some REAL football?  Because it’s almost time for the XFL!

DATELINE:  The Kansas City Chiefs won their first BLAH BLAH BLAH god I can’t even finish typing that sentence because I’m still so BORED from the whole “football” season.  Why can’t someone bring back real football the way it was meant to be played, which is so very important to me as an 18-49 year old white male who likes sports?  Well, some sports.  Mostly hockey.

DATELINE:  Minoru Suzuki will be facing Orange Cassidy at Joey Janela’s Spring Break show in April.  THIS IS A REAL THING THAT’S HAPPENING.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

DATELINE:  Dio Madden is apparently a wrestler again.  I honestly didn’t know he was a wrestler in the first place or where he came from before being a terrible announcer.  So we’ve all learned something today.

Let’s all celebrate HHH this morning with WWE’s Top 10 Returns from Injury, shall we?

Who’s ready for some FOOTBALL?  Although we here at the Blog of Doom do not normally care about the sport or endorse specific teams, there is one team that I do take a rooting interest in.

DATELINE:  MLW and Dragon Gate now have a working relationship.  Really, the more of these smaller groups that can band together, the better it is for everyone.

DATELINE:  Tegan Nox will now face Dakota Kai in a street fight at Takeover Portland.  Goddamn that show is gonna be a banger, innit?

DATELINE:  The Guerrillas of Destiny regained the IWGP tag team titles on New Japan’s USA tour.   Not a very auspicious tag title reign for Juice, sadly.

And if you want something to watch today, Impact has posted the first ever TNA PPV to YouTube.  Midget garbage wrestling and all.  I might actually bookmark that one and redo it on Monday, actually.

I was actually working on the Smackdown review last night, but then literally fell asleep mid-show, so you get 95 RAW instead.  I think it’s safe to say I’m gonna leave it to Tommy from now on.

DATELINE:  Apparently the firing of Barrios and Wilson came as a complete shock to everyone, although the stock plunge is something of an overreaction according to Dave Meltzer.  TV deals are still pumping hundreds of millions into the company for the next five years.

DATELINE:  ROH is reviving the Pure Title.  Not sure why.  Considering that their current World champion is a goddamn Frankenstein monster, pure wrestling doesn’t seem high on their current list of needs.

We made it through the first month of the year!

DATELINE:  As noted yesterday, WWE fired both Michelle Wilson and George Barrios yesterday, ahead of what sounds like a disaster of an earnings report.  Stock had plummetted to $48 as this is being written.  Maybe they spent too much time hanging out in catering?

DATELINE:  MVP has officially retired again following RAW.  I don’t want to be that way about it, but no one cares.

DATELINE:  Ronda Rousey is officially not going to be at Wrestlemania.

Good morning, and unfortunately my PVR destroyed Dynamite last night so I was unable to watch past the first 3 minutes when I got home.  I’ll have to check out the online replay on TSN later today.  For the moment, please enjoy the NXT and Dynamite reviews from Tommy Hall, and just pretend he really loved Dynamite and rated everything **** or higher if you miss my review.

DATELINE:  Pro Wrestling NOAH has been bought by the parent company of DDT.  I’m assuming this is some good news for a company that hasn’t been doing great lately.

DATELINE:  Matt Riddle is still talking shit about Brock Lesnar.  That just doesn’t feel like a great career move to me.  Plus I’m pretty sure Brock would stomp on his bare feet.

DATELINE:  John Cena seems to be replacing the Rock in Fast & the Furious 9.  He’ll be ideal for running from the cops, because, you know…

…you can’t see him.  That’s where I was going there.

Anyway, here’s a Top 10 Edge Moments list from WWE.  Have a great day.

Well, here I am in the 21st century now, as I bought my wife a Series 3 Apple Watch for an early Valentine’s Day present, and ended up with her Series 1 watch in exchange.  It’s pretty awesome, actually.  And to think I was such a hardcore Android guy just a few years back.

DATELINE:  Samoa Joe suffers a concussion at Monday Night RAW.  That poor bastard just cannot catch a break, injury-wise.

DATELINE:  RAW was down 12% from last year’s Rumble show ratings.  Again, really, it means nothing.

DATELINE:  The Performance Center took in three new recruits from India.  Trained by the Great Khali.  That doesn’t sound encouraging.

And since I probably won’t get a chance to review it, here’s yesterday’s AEW Dark, which, in case you haven’t heard, was ON A BOAT.

Oh, we’ve got some stuff going on this morning!

DATELINE;  Andrade has been suspended for 30 days due to a Wellness violation.  What the heck is with all the failures all of a sudden after years of radio silence?

DATELINE:  The original winners of the Rumbles were actually supposed to be Roman Reigns and Shayna Baszler, like everyone in the world predicted, but Vince switched things up shortly before the show.

DATELINE:  AJ Styles is out with a shoulder injury and he might be gone for a while.

And finally, WWE has released a better camera angle of the Edge return, so here you go…

https://youtu.be/nfsG-ZXyjeA?t=121

That Rumble match is proving pretty divisive!  However, we as a people can still all come together and agree that we’re tired of Charlotte at the very least.

DATELINE:  Vic Joseph got bounced as lead RAW announcer before the show and will be replaced by Tom Phillips.  I honestly can’t tell the difference between them anyway.

DATELINE:  Edge has signed a new 3-year deal and will be working with Orton at Wrestlemania, according to Observer radio this morning.

DATELINE:  The Briscoe Brothers have signed a new deal with ROH.  Was anyone else gonna put them on national TV anyway?  Doubt it, so good for them.

Today’s free match is from New Japan, as Goto takes on Jeff Cobb from the G1 San Fran special last year…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bMVZS2IVJU

The weekend of wrestling BEGINS.  Well, last night, but wrestling on the WWE Network begins tonight.

Tonight is Worlds Collide on the WWE Network, which is baffingly taking place in the US instead of the UK, where people would actually know everyone.  Apparently tickets aren’t selling for the show, surprise surprise, but it should be a neverending lineup of **** matches, or as we call it on Wednesdays, AEW.

DATELINE:  The NWA announced the return of the Crockett Cup in April, which will be their next PPV.  I’m all over that one.

DATELINE:  Daniel Bryan is making eco-friendly t-shirts.  This is what you call a “slow news day item”.

Today’s free match on WWE’s YouTube channel is the 2018 Women’s Rumble match!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR5owbCJSos

Friday is upon us again!

DATELINE:  AEW Dynamite was down slightly in the ratings, dipping like the waves in the ocean, while NXT was up slightly, rising like the tide.

DATELINE:  Tonight on Smackdown, it’s a CONTRACT SIGNING.  Those always go well.

And this morning’s grappling exhibition is a bonus match from the cruise, featuring Joey Janela against Fenix!

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives with no more wrestling on boats.  Until next year.  Try to cope.

DATELINE:  Keith Lee won the North American title from Roderick Strong on NXT last night, thus breaking up the Undisputed Era’s stranglehold on the titles.

DATELINE:  Hangman Page and Kenny Omega won the tag team titles from SCU.  Which, in case you haven’t heard, happened ON A BOAT.

And tomorrow night sees HARD TIMES for the NWA, only $20 on Fite.TV.

Not much in the way of news updates on the Observer site because everyone’s ON A BOAT for a few days.

DATELINE:  Tonight is of course AEW from the Jericho Cruise, featuring Moxley v. Pac for the #1 contendership and SCU defending the tag titles against Kenny Omega and Page.  Although I have not read the above link, there’s spoilers for the show tonight, so BUYER BEWARE.

DATELINE:  Marty Scurll will appear on Friday’s Hard Times PPV as the ROH and NWA relationship seems to be getting more serious.  Can a promise ring be far behind?