Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024

WWE Raw Ratings:

This week: 1, 597,000 viewers and a 0.52 in the key demos.

Last week: 1,807,000 viewers and 0.61 in the key demos.

An announcement from TNA:

“TNA Wrestling presents back-to-back nights of high-energy live pro wrestling on Friday and Saturday, May 3-4 with Under Siege and TV tapings. Both shows will originate from the Washington Avenue Armory – and all TNA championships will be on the line in Albany, as TNA makes its long-awaited return to Albany for the first time since October 2022.

Here’s your Disney+ May premiere calendar from Slam’s John Powell:

What’s Coming to Disney+ In May

AEW Rampage ratings:

This week: 397,000 viewers and a 0.13 in the key demos.

Last week: 295,000 viewers and a 0.8 in the key demos.

AEW Collision ratings:

This week: 461,000 viewers and a 0.13 in the key demos.

Last week: 467,000 viewers and a 0.13 in the key demos.

Happy 47th birthday to John Cena. You can’t see him – but you can see all the stories we’ve written about him by clicking here to read our John Cena story archives.

Also celebrating are: TNA World Champion Moose (turning 40); Britt Baker, the DMD who’s MIA in AEW lately (33); and AEW’s Jamie Hayter (29) who is apparently still injured – get well soon!

In case you missed it on Raw, Drew McIntyre, Gunther and Xavier Woods announced they will be part of the King of the Ring tournament on May 27th.

That sling Dominik Mysterio is wearing is legit. He is injured with no word on when he will return to action.

Here is what you will see on NXT Spring Breakin’ Week One:

WWE NXT Champion Ilja Dragunov vs. Trick Williams.  If Williams loses, he must leave NXT.

WWE NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez vs. Lyra Valkyria vs. Tatum Paxley.

Sol Ruca vs. Blair Davenport in a Beach Brawl.

No Quarter Catch Crew vs. The D’Angelo Family.

Contract: NXT Underground match – Lola Vice vs. Natalya

DIY has issues after their loss on Raw:

Word is that Finn Balor has resigned with WWE.

You can expect Jacob Fatu to debut for the WWE soon as part of the new Bloodline. The angle will probably end up with The Usos joining Reigns during his eventual return to battle the new Bloodline, which is under the leadership of The Rock. This will set-up Reigns versus The Rock at WrestleMania match next year.

NJPW has announced that they are fully acquiring Stardom. “NJPW will fully acquire all stakes in Bushiroad Fight Co. Ltd. (henceforth “Bushiroad Fight”, due to rename itself STARDOM Co. Ltd. from June 28) from parent company Bushiroad Inc. With this acquisition, Bushiroad Fight will become a fully owned subsidiary of New Japan Pro-Wrestling effective June 28,” the company said in a statement today.

Word is that the angle with Paige VanZant and AEW has stalled as Paige has decided against becoming a wrestler.

Monday, April 22nd, 2024

Here are some updated ticket sales courtesy of WrestleTix:

Monday Night Raw, April 22: 8,927 of 9,400 ticket sold.

WWE Friday Night SmackDown, April 26th: 9,264 out of 10,371 tickets sold.

AEW Dynamite, May 15th: 2,601 of 3,344 tickets sold.

AEW Double or Nothing: 5,408 of 6,910 tickets sold.

AEW Collision, May 11th: 5,176 of 6,821 tickets sold.

NJPW Resurgence, May 11th: 1,955 of 3,034 tickets sold.

WWE Raw: WWE Draft, April 29th: 8,399 of 9,187 tickets sold.

AEW All In 2024: 40,937 of 50,708 tickets sold.

The presale code for Forbidden Door in Belmont Park, NY, is “AEWAEF1”.

WWE has announced that “NXT Battleground will emanate from UFC APEX in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 9. Limited NXT Battleground Priority Passes will soon be available through exclusive partner On Location. Starting today, fans can place a deposit to secure access ahead of the general public, as well as register for exclusive pre-sale opportunities. To learn more or to place a deposit, please visit https://onlocationexp.com/battleground.”

Lots of AEW stars referencing WWE at the Dynasty press conference last night:

Toni Storm spoke about Cody Rhodes and The Rock in a “prepared statement”. She said people whop want “cinema” can go watch a movie and mocked people speaking about “goosebumps” and finishing their “stories”. She then mocked Nikki Garcia (Nikki Bella).

Swerve Strickland also mentioned Kofi Kingston saying: “Friends of mine. Seeing friends like Kofi. The last five years, that’s probably one of the biggest inspirational things you’ve ever seen, not just black history but wrestling history, period.”

As well as apologizing for what happened to Danielson, Will Ospreay said this about his unscripted response to HHH’s public comments about him saying:

“I come from a generation, the way I grew up, if you throw a jab I throw one back. Although I wasn’t mentioned by name it’s clearly about me. So all due respect I’m kind of done with mentioning anyone over there now. I don’t want to do that anymore because I feel like I lowered myself to that standard. I don’t need to do that anymore. Look what I just did in the ring with Bryan…I don’t think it was anything bad, it’s a f—–g joke from 20 years ago for f–k’s sake. Don’t be too butthurt. I’ll be honest with you that’s the first I’ve ever experienced true tribalism between the two. It’s not nice. It’s unnecessary. I’m over it. I can’t be bothered with it. I just want to focus on promoting AEW.”

Becky Lynch was on Ireland’s The Late Late Show this weekend. You can watch her appearance here.

Here’s a story about Cody Rhodes visiting a special fan.

According to TNA here are some updates on multiple injuries at Rebellion:

Eric Young needed plastic surgery to reattach his ear after his match with Frankie Kazarian at Rebellion. He isn’t medically cleared to wrestle at present.

Brian Myers injured his shoulder. At present it is unknown how serious his injury is. He isn’t cleared to wrestle.

Josh Alexander “suffered a severe ear laceration” but is cleared to wrestle.

“Hammerstone passed all concussion protocol tests. Hammerstone is medically cleared to wrestle.”

Word is that Seth Rollins will miss between 2 to 8 months due to the surgery on his knee.

Global News’ Kevin Nielsen — an old pal of SlamWrestling.net who wrote for us many moons ago (last story in 2001!) — has a nice feature on Big Ben Ortmanns and his Cross Body Pro Wrestling promotion which runs out of a church in Cambridge, Ontario. Check it out: ‘I just love pro wrestling’: The divine nature of Ontario’s independent scene

Happy birthday to Omar Atlas, who is 86, and we profiled back in 1999 with Omar Atlas: Just doing his job, and Winnipeg’s unique “Beautiful” Bobby Jay (59).

Want to know what’s streaming this weekend? Check the schedule by Slam’s John Powell here:

What’s New to Stream This Week April 22nd to 26th

Happy Earth Day. Besides Bryan Danielson’s Earth-conscious eco-warrior in WWE when he was Daniel Bryan, it’s tough to think of many other tie-ins. But hey, here’s our Earthquake obit, with links to the other stories we did on John Tenta. Though this meme from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum is pretty great:

National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum🌍💚 Happy Earth Day! Hug a TREE! #EarthDay

🌍💚 Happy Earth Day! Hug a TREE! #EarthDay

Here’s your spoilers from TNA’s tapings over the weekend:

Speedball Mike Bailey beat Crazzy Steve

Zachary Wentz beat Leon Slater

Decay defeated Viva Van & Alex Gracia

Josh Alexander beat Frankie Kazarian –  TNA World Title #1 Contenders Match

Xia Brookside beat Ash By Elegance

Sami Callihan beat The Good Hands – Handicap Match

Edward Edwards beat Nic Nemeth. Moose attacked Nic Nemeth with the TNA World Title. Ryan Nemeth made the save.

Mustafa Ali beat Chris Bey

Hammerstone beat Cody Deaner – Sin City Streetfight.  Jake Something came to the aid of Deaner when Hammerston wouldn’t release his Torture Rack.

Alisha Edwards beat Dani Luna

Joe Hendry special song for AJ Francis

Ace Austin beat Trey Miguel

Jordynne Grace beat Miyu Yamashita

Sunday, April 21st, 2024

On this date in 1914, wrestler-promoter Angelo Savoldi was born. He passed away at the age of 99 – check out our obituary on the legend here.

Happy birthday to WWE’s Nikki Cross, who turns 35 today. Hopefully as a present she actually gets something to do on TV soon.

Sanga, who was released from WWE this week, posted this update on Twitter. In it, he says he, Veer, and Jinder Mahal (both of whom were also released) were feeling positive and encouraged their fans to do the same. He did note, though, that India has 1.4 Billion people, and if WWE is looking to increase product awareness and YouTube views in that country, it might help to have some Indian superstars on the roster.

 

Here is word from Matt Hardy about his current status:

Here’s what happened on Rampage last night:

  • Rob Van Dam defeated Isiah Kassidy, Lee Johnson and Komander – A High Fliers Elimination Match
  • Yuka Sakazaki beat Emi Sakura
  • Kyle O’Reilly, Rocky Romero and Matt Menard beat Roderick Strong, Matt Taven and Mike Bennett

Here is what happened on Collision last night:

  • Adam Copeland, Mark Briscoe and Eddie Kingston beat Top Flight (Darius and Dante Martin) and Action Andretti
  • Powerhouse Hobbs defeated  CJ Esparza
  • The Acclaimed (Max Caster and Anthony Bowens) w/Billy Gunn beat The Gunns (Austin and Colton Gunn) w/Jay White
  • Bryan Danielson and Claudio Castagnoli defeated Kyle Fletcher and Konosuke Takeshita – Bunkhouse Brawl Match

TNA announced that Slammiversary will be held at the Verdun Auditorium on Saturday, July 20th, in Montreal.