THE ROUND-UP
THE LATEST NEWS
Monday Sale: Get a one month subscription for just $3.99!
Zelina Vega to make WWE main roster in-ring debut on SmackDown
Madison Rayne, two more set for WWE Mae Young Classic
Rey Mysterio facing Young Bucks & Ibushi in six-man tag at All In
World of Sport episode one results: Title match, Ospreay vs. DBS Jr.
WWE Hershey, PA, live results: AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe
NJPW G1 Climax 28 night 11 live results: Okada vs. Elgin
NXT UK TV taping spoilers: Pete Dunne vs. Danny Burch
Brian Christopher passes away at 46 years old
THE LATEST AUDIO
WOL: Mae Young Classic, G-1, SummerSlam, Will Cooling on World of Sport, more! 7/30
B&V: NWA World Championship Wrestling from 1988! 7/29
We’re doing our weekend poll on Saturday’s New Japan G-1 show from Nagoya, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected].
We’re also looking for reports from Saturday night’s WWE Raw show in Tallahassee, Sunday All Japan in Osaka, Sunday’s Raw in Daytona Beach, FL, Sunday’s NXT in Phoenix as well as the non-Raw stuff from Miami tonight and the Smackdown house show in Fort Myers, FL to [email protected].
For Raw tonight, Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman and Ronda Rousey return to the show. Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins and Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin are on the show.
Smackdown and 205 Live are Tuesday in Tampa with Usos vs. Sheamus & Cesaro in a first round match in a tag tournament to get the tag title shot at the Bludgeon Brothers at SummerSlam, as well as Lana as a babyface vs. Zelina Vega.
NEW JAPAN G-1 CLIMAX TOURNAMENT WEDNESDAY AT 5:30 A.M. EASTERN ON NEW JAPAN WORLD
Michael Elgin & Shota Umino vs. Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa
Togi Makabe & Toa Henare vs. Hangman Page & Chase Owens
Jay White & Yoh vs. Yoshi-Hashi & Sho
Hiroshi Tanahashi & David Finlay vs. Evil & Bushi
Kazuchika Okada & Gedo vs. Minoru Suzuki & Desperado
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tama Tonga
Juice Robinson vs. Sanada
Tetsuya Naito vs. Toru Yano
Kenny Omega vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Kota Ibushi vs. Hirooki Goto
F4W NEWSLETTER: Figure Four Weekly: Looking at 205 Live two years after Cruiserweight Classic
While this month marks the two-year anniversary of the premiere of the Cruiserweight Classic, the division that the tournament spawned is still one of the most puzzling parts of WWE programming. From a rough start, to it becoming the Enzo Amore show, to it being rebooted when Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over as showrunner, 205 Live has been constantly changing and never able to fully find its footing since it debuted in November 2016.
WON NEWSLETTER: (July 30, 2018) Wrestling Observer Newsletter: All women PPV WWE Evolution announcement, more
The WWE’s heavily promoted all women’s’ PPV show is the lead story in the new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Look at the announcement made on Raw, whether this will be a regular event, the actual first women’s PPV in the U.S., and thoughts on the business of this.
Look at SummerSlam, with both the matches announced thoughts on those matches, and several other bouts that will either be added, are being pushed and the one match that hasn’t been teased at all that has been talked about a lot this past week.
Get in-depth notes on Matt Riddle and expectations of his coming to WWE and his prospects in NXT and on the main roster, names WWE is after, Dwayne Johnson’s annual income, Rock and wrestling again and what the holdup would be.
Look at the state of Impact Wrestling after its most well received major show of the year. Look at the change in the hardcore stigma of the company, and look at injuries on the show, the next month of television and the direction, as well as match-by-match coverage and star ratings of Slammiversary.
This issue has detailed coverage thus far of the G-1 Climax tournament. Look at the standings, the business, match quality; the ridiculous level of tournament matches thus far, injuries, this week’s schedule, plus match-by-match coverage and star ratings for all the shows of this past week.
Look at the Dragon Gate promotion after its biggest show of the year.
Read about the UFC Hall of Fame ceremony and Ronda Rousey, as well as a look back to 2013 when women were first signed to the promotion and the immediate decision for them to headline on PPV the first night in.
ORDERING INFO: Order the print Wrestling Observer right now and get it delivered via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to Dave Meltzer, or by using PayPal directing funds to [email protected].
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MONDAY NEWS UPDATE
Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio covering Raw as well as all the latest news. You can also send in e-mail questions for the show to [email protected].
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation stated they believe there was no foul play in the death of Brian Lawler, and nobody believed there was. Lawler was found hanging in the jail cell he was living in solitary on Saturday night. Corrections officers administered CPR until paramedics arrived. He was rushed to Regional One Medical Center in Memphis where he passed away.
Both Lince Dorado and Mustafa Ali are injured. Dorado has a ruptured ligament in his thumb. Ali’s injury is unknown but he sent out a photo from the hospital saying he always kicks out.
PW Insider reported people seeing Hulk Hogan in Miami today. Raw is in Miami. There’s no word that he’s at the building, but if he was to appear, they’d probably hide him until the last minute.
WWE
HHH announced NXT shows on 9/6 in Buffalo, 9/7 in Pittsburgh, 9/8 in Warren, OH and 9/9 in Detroit.
OTHER
Impact and AML from last night in Greensboro, NC: Tessa Blanchard won three-way over Allie and Kristen Stadtlander (Blanchard had a knee injury and was very limited, Tully Blanchard was at ringside, Suicide b Jaxon Stone, Zane Dawson b Fallah Bah, Axton Ray b Eli Drake, Eddie Edwards b Chris Payne, Billy Brash kept Prestige title in a ladder match over Devin Driscoll, Brandon Scott, Gifted One Yahya, Cam Carter and Sean Denny, Desirable Dustin & Jiggalo Justin b Preston Quinn & CW Anderson to win the tag titles, AML champion Caleb Konley b Matt Sydal when Moose speared Sydal when the ref was down. They announced another joint show on Twitch on 8/19 in Knoxville with the NGW promotion, and that Impact would be working with Destiny Wrestling for a One Night Only taping.
The Professional Fighters League show on Thursday at the Nassau Coliseum is listing 50% off all tickets with the code TMBOGO.
Bellator announced it has signed 24 U.K. and Irish-based fighters who come from all over Europe to new contracts as part of their new U.K. division which will include regular shows televised in that market live.
The fighters signed are:
LIGHTWEIGHTS
Terry Brazier (10-1, England)
Pedro Carvalho (8-3, living in Ireland, from Portugal)
Constantin Gausariev (1-0, Moldova)
Luka Jelcic (10-3, Croatia)
Charlie Leary (15-9-1, England)
Lewis Long (16-5, Wales)
Norman Parke (25-6-1, Northern Ireland)
Myles Price (10-7, Ireland)
Paul Redmond (14-8, Ireland)
Daniele Scatizzi (9-4, Italy)
Sam Slater (2-0, Ireland)
Richie Smullen (3-1-1, Ireland)
Tim Wilde (12-3, England)
WELTERWEIGHTS
Ruben Crawford (16-3, Germany)
Kiefer Crosbie (4-0, Ireland)
Walter Gahadza (17-3, England)
Richard Kiely (2-1, Ireland)
Ion Pascu (18-8, Romania)
Jim Wallhead (29-11, England)
FEATHERWEIGHTS
Dylan Logan (2-3, Ireland)
Nathan Rose (6-1, England)
MIDDLEWEIGHTS
Claudio Conti (7-5-2, Italy)
John Redmond (7-13, Ireland)
WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT
Antonela Orlic (0-0, Croatia)
Beyond Wrestling from last night in Worcester MA: Chris Dickinson & Jaka & LAX b Jordynne Grace & Kimber Lee & Skylar & Mia Yim (the women took hard chops, Santana bled hard way from a head-butt by Yim, which isn’t a good thing at all), AR Fox b Anthony Greene, Trent Baretta b Jonathan Gresham-DQ (MJF, injured was there and attacked Baretta with help from Stokely Hathaway), Josh Briggs b Brody King, Nick Gage & Matt Tremont b Tom Lawlor & Matt Riddle, Tracy Williams b Wheeler Yuta to keep Internet title, John Silver & Alex Reynolds b Chuck Taylor & Orange Cassidy an Dan Barry & Bill Carr (Barry turned on Carr after), Brian Cage b PCO (PCO did all kinds of crazy moves and was the most popular guy on the show), David Starr b Joey Janela in what was billed as Janela’s last death match. They took down the ropes and put up barbed wire, they used barbed wire boards, barbed wire bats, a staple gun and push pins. The finish was Starr giving Janela a piledriver on four cinderblocks. (thanks to Nick Manhood)
ICW house party from last night in Glasgow, Scotland before 900 fans: Jeff Jarrett was commissioner and got a big reaction. Kez Evans b BT Gunn, Lewis Girvan & Aspain Faith b Hunter Brothers, Andy Wilde b Jody Flesich, Grado b Jackie Polo when Jeff Jarrett hit polo with a guitar shot, Aaron Echo b Jeff Cobb, James Storm b Ravie Davie in a Texas death match (good match with tables a bee bottle and thumbtacks being used) Viper kept the women’s title in a three-way over Session Moth Martina and Kasey, DCT b Stevie Boy to become ICW champion in a loser leaves the UK match. (thanks to Jordan Clark)
The BBC was filming at the show as they are doing a show called “Rouge to Wrestler,” which is kind of a British Boot camp type of show where the winner gets a contract to the GPWA wrestling school.
KSW announced a four-man tournament for their middleweight title which was vacated by Mamed Khalidov. Khalidov said he doesn’t want to hold up the division. The first round of the four-man tournament will be on the 10/6 show at SSE Wembley with Michal Materla (26-6) vs. former Olympic wrestling medalist Damian Jankowski (3-0) and Scott Askham (16-4) vs. Marcin Wojcik (11-5).
CWE debuts on 8/29 in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba.
Mick Foley will be appearing at the 8/22 Rochester Redwings baseball game on a Salute to Pro Wrestling night and there will be Mick Foley bobble heads given away to the first 1,000 fans who attend.
Acclaim Pro Wrestling on 9/8 in Ottawa at the Dom Polski Hall with Franky, Veda Scott and Mike Bailey.
Daily Professional Wrestling History: Stan Hansen wins PWF World title
12th Annual F4W Empire Vegas Convention
Greetings friends and fans of the F4W / Wrestling Observer website. The 12th annual F4W / Wrestling Observer Empire Las Vegas Convention~! is just around the corner.
This year’s event will be taking place in Las Vegas from August 16th to the 20th and will again be in conjunction with WWE’s SummerSlam weekend a.k.a. Super China Buffet Day~! There will still be the usual events, but our big draw will be WWE’s summer blockbuster PPV, SummerSlam. As per tradition, we will all gorge ourselves at a Las Vegas buffet, and then watch SummerSlam in a rented out movie theater. All information and ticketing prices are available now. Sign up ASAP as spots are limited for some events.
This year will also feature a Future Stars Wrestling show which will include the first ever Granny’s Doubles Match Classic! Already booked for the show are the teams Mia Yim & Leva Bates, Shotzi Blackheart & ???, Samantha Heights & Brittany Blake, and Miranda Alize & Kylie Rae. Also just booked for the show is a tag team Grappling Battel~! featuring Bryan Alvarez & Jack Jamieson vs. The Beach Bums (PeachMachine & Mikey G), You won’t want to miss this show! Check out the convention’s Facebook page for all additional information.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Poll opinions: [email protected]
Feedback: [email protected]
Show results and news tips: [email protected]
Wrestling Observer Radio questions: [email protected]
Support the Empire~! with F4W shirts. Grab yours today!