Daily Update: Neville vs. Enzo Amore at No Mercy, Nikki Bella, GFW
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THE ROUND-UP
The Latest from the F4W Staff
NEWS
WWE Raw ratings down for Labor Day episode
Mayweather vs. McGregor gate fails to break all-time record
Inside the Jeff Jarrett-GFW-Anthem Sports situation
WWE Mae Young Classic episode seven results: The quarterfinals
WWE SmackDown video highlights: Shane McMahon attacks Kevin Owens
Kenny Omega injures knee, still set for Kobe Destruction show
Jinder Mahal vs. Shinsuke Nakamura official for WWE Hell in a Cell
WWE 205 Live results: Fatal five-way main event
Vince McMahon’s return set for loaded WWE SmackDown next week
AUDIO
DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show: The late 1930s World title picture 9/6
WOL: Dave Meltzer on GFW, Australian scene, tons of news and more! 9/6
WOR: Chris Jericho talks his new book, WWE and more! 9/6
B&V&C: Retro Raw and Nitro from 19 years ago this week! 9/5
FIGURE FOUR WEEKLY: Figure Four Weekly 9/4/2017: Women’s wrestling takes another step forward with Mae Young Classic
With everything but the final now having aired, the Mae Young Classic has again challenged whether women’s wrestling occupies enough of the current WWE landscape. The matches went about as well as could be expected. There were few bad ones, a handful of standouts, and a ton of pretty good matches. The 32-competitor field showcased female wrestlers of varying skill sets — from one participant having their literal first professional match (Xia Li) to veterans finally getting their first chance in a WWE ring after lengthy careers.
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WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: September 4, 2017 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: McGregor vs. Mayweather, Dr. Wagner Jr. unmasks, more
A look at Mayweather vs. McGregor, and when happens next, is the lead story in this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer. Read about the week that had two matches of the century and one match of the decade all within 15 hours.
Look at the fight, the judging, the realities of how McGregor and Mayweather each fought, the future of McGregor and tons of different business numbers and indicators. Check out the problems people had in viewing the show, the gambling, TV numbers and head-to-head competition.
This issue has a major feature on TripleMania, both the Dr. Wagner mask loss and the incident with Sexy Star and Rosemary. Look at the business of the show and the amazing television numbers, go through the Sexy Star match and what happened to lead to what happened, comments from many in wrestling, explanations, as best as there are, the background as to why things fell apart, how much Wagner earned for losing his mask, how much Wagner and L.A. Park were offering to lose their mask to local promoters, and the famous story of what was supposed to be the debut of Dr. Wagner Jr., in a tag team match with his father, and why the two never teamed up.
Read about the situation with Ric Flair.
This issue has a run down of the big What Culture shows of the past week with some of the top talent in the world, including the YouTube business, Will Ospreay vs. Rey Mysterio, and more.
Examine the WWE injury bug and some of the reasons the injury rate is so high, get a run down the latest injuries, thoughts on the schedule, Nikki Bella on two TV shows at the same time, Asuka’s future, The Cena/Reigns promo, Sami Zayn fund raising efforts, thoughts on the Mae Young Classic, new show for Cena, update on Ciampa, woman referee, Nakamura talks about his UFC offer, Jericho talks his role in the Styles vs. Owens situation, most-watched shows on the WWE network for the week and full coverage of all the WWE and NXT arena events over the past week and business notes.
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WON BACK ISSUE: August 14, 2000 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: WCW turmoil, Hall of Fame candidates, more
The turmoil regarding the future of World Championship Wrestling continues with what apparently is a shake-up leaving Brad Siegel backing Vince Russo in complete control of the company. At the same time, the losses continue to escalate, with July’s losses estimated at $7 million, the most, by far, of any month in the history of a company now on track to lose close to $80 million over the course of this year.
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WEDNESDAY NEWS UPDATE
WWE
Asuka vacating the NXT Women’s Championship will air on tonight’s episode of NXT. There will also be Hideo Itami vs. Kassius Ohno in a no DQ match, Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Cezar Bononi, and Lars Sullivan in a three-on-one handicap match.
Enzo Amore will challenge for Neville’s Cruiserweight Championship at No Mercy on September 24th after winning the number one contender’s fatal five-way elimination main event on 205 Live last night.
Booker T is doing a live show in Los Angeles prior to No Mercy with all proceeds benefitting victims of Hurricane Harvey.
As expected, it was officially announced today that Nikki Bella will be part of the next season of Dancing with the Stars. She’ll partner with dancer Artem Chigvintsev on the show, which will debut on Monday, September 18th.
On his podcast this week (which also included an appearance by Bret Hart), Jerry Lawler said that WWE didn’t contact him about joining the SmackDown commentary team on a full-time basis when JBL left. Lawler noted that it would have been a difficult decision to make if they did.
IGN and WWE released the final part of the roster reveal for WWE 2K18. There were 47 more wrestlers announced to complete the game’s lineup.
Shane McMahon continued the storyline of his indefinite suspension for attacking Kevin Owens by writing on Twitter: “Apologies to the @WWE Superstars, employees, & fans that were affected by my actions tonight that led to my suspension. #SDLive” Vince McMahon will return to television on SmackDown next week to address the situation, with Natalya vs. Naomi for the SmackDown Women’s Championship, AJ Styles vs. Tye Dillinger for the US title, and The Usos vs. New Day in a street fight for the tag titles also set.
NDTV Sports ran a story on Kavita Devi’s participation in the Mae Young Classic. WWE’s clip of her match against Dakota Kai is embedded in the article and now has 3,970,925 views.
Braun Strowman turned 34 years old today.
Chris Jericho appeared on Fox News to promote his new book.
Harper’s Magazine has a story on Donald Trump and his appearances for WWE.
The Washington Post and UMass Lowell conducted a poll where they asked sports fans about their fandom and their opinion on head injuries and other issues. Pro wrestling (such as WWE) and MMA were included in a question that asked if respondents considered themselves a fan of a sport or not. 25 percent said that they were fans of MMA, with 14 percent saying they’re fans of pro wrestling.
Pro Wrestling
On the same day as the Sports Illustrated report about Anthem being ready to exit the wrestling business, GFW sent out a press release today touting a few broadcast initiatives, including their plans to launch the Global Wrestling Network (an on-demand service), plans to launch a channel on Pluto TV, a deal with 7Sports to bring Impact back to screens in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland via ran FIGHTING, and the announcement that they’ve extended their deal with Pop TV to carry Impact.
NJPW’s English-language website has an interview with Kota Ibushi where he talks about his return in the G1. Ibushi said that this year has been one of his most fun times in pro wrestling.
Kenny Omega tweeted about his knee injury and reaffirmed that he’ll be back for Destruction in Kobe later this month: “Unfortunately, I’ll have to take a short break. Hold the fort, Leo Tonga. See you in Kobe.”
Melissa Santos announced that she’s pregnant and that her and Brian Cage will be welcoming their baby into the world in 2018.
The Kingdom will be facing The Briscoes & Bully Ray in a match at ROH’s Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view, with the winners going on to challenge The Young Bucks & Hangman Page for the six-man tag titles later in the night. Jay Lethal vs. Silas Young in a last man standing match is also set for the PPV.
PROGRESS Wrestling revealed that there will be an eight-man scramble match at their Alexandra Palace show on Sunday. Mark Andrews, Eddie Dennis, Zack Gibson, James Drake, Jack Sexsmith, Chief Deputy Dunne, Strangler Davis, and Flash Morgan Webster will be involved in it.
Highspots uploaded the preview of their episode of “An Officer and a Gentleman” with Dave Meltzer as the guest. The show is now streaming on their Highspots Wrestling Network service.
EVOLVE’s latest mini-documentary focuses on the team of Anthony Henry & James Drake.
Antonio Inoki is making another visit to North Korea.
MLW released the third chapter of their video series hyping up Ricochet vs. Shane Strickland at MLW One-Shot.
Sammy Guevara posted a vlog of his weekend in Reseda for the Battle of Los Angeles.
UFC/MMA
John Kavanagh, Conor McGregor’s head coach, wrote that McGregor fighting again in 2017 seems to be unlikely with his time off after the Floyd Mayweather fight and how long it would take to plan and execute a training camp.
Dan Hardy will be interviewing McGregor at “An Evening with Conor McGregor” at the O2 in London on September 30th.
Daniel Cormier appeared on the Fight Society podcast and discussed Jon Jones’ drug test failure.
Ben Askren explained why he’s choosing to retire from MMA.
Aaron Pico will face Justin Linn in a featherweight matchup at Bellator’s show in San Jose on September 23rd.
Dr. Bennet Omalu included MMA (along with football, ice hockey, boxing, wrestling, and rugby) as one of the six sports that children under the age of 18 shouldn’t participate in.
Today in Professional Wrestling History: Lesnar vs. HHH in battle of champions
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