At Wrestle Kingdom 9, Shinsuke Nakamura fended off Kota Ibushi’s challenge for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship in what was one of the best matches of 2015, despite taking place only four days into the new year and being followed by nearly twelve months worth of fantastic wrestling. This year, it’s A.J. Styles’ turn for a shot at the IC title, a belt that’s become synonymous with its current holder, Shinsuke Nakamura.
Nakamura is a five time IWGP Intercontinental Champion, the most since the title’s inception in 2011. Nakamura first won the title in 2012 when he defeated Hirooki Goto. Since then, the belt has basically belonged to him. Sure, he’s lost it four times, but Nakamura doesn’t really ever lose the title, he just lets others play with it until he’s ready to take it back.
A.J. Styles is no slouch when it comes to impressive title reigns. After signing with New Japan, Styles defeated Kazuchika Okada in his debut match at Wrestling Dontaku 2014 for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Not a bad start. He was also in some company called TNA, or Impact Wrestling, or Wrestling Matters, or something, where he was apparently quite successful, but I don’t really know anything about that.
How’d We Get Here?
It’s pretty simple, actually. After deciding Hirooki Goto had played with his belt for long enough, Nakamura took back his property at Destruction in Kobe in September. Nakamura successfully defended the title against Bullet Club co-founder Karl Anderson at Power Struggle, but before the match, he went the John Cena route and issued an open challenge for the title at Wrestle Kingdom. You’ve got to admire the gall of Nakamura, issuing an open challenge when he still had Karl Anderson to get through. After defeating Anderson in a very exciting match, A.J. Styles came out to graciously accept the challenge. And there we have it. Nakamura vs. Styles at Wrestle Kingdom 10.
One reason I’m excited about this match, besides the fact it involves two of the best wrestlers in the world today, is that it’s a first time match. Nakamura and Styles have only previously met in tag matches or multi-mans, so this will be their first singles match together. So that’s neat. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of chemistry they have, and if this match will be the beginning of a long term feud, or just a one off thing.
It’s also a battle of the hairstyles. One wrestler has a very progressive, fashionable hairstyle, and the other is A.J. Styles. I kind of wish this match was a Lucha de Apuesta, with Nakamura’s title vs. A.J.’s hair. There’s still time, NJPW!
Finally, what I’m most excited for is Shinsuke Nakamura’s ring entrance. At Wrestle Kingdom 9, Nakamura came out wearing a regal crown and looking like Vincent Valentine, which was great, but fairly tame for Nakamura. The previous year, he was accompanied by a whole troop of dancers. With poles for some reason! One thing that was missing from Wrestle Kingdom 9 were the long, extravagant entrances. Without GFW’s involvement and the incurred time constraints, Wrestle Kingdom 10 should go back to the big, elaborate entrances of years past.
Of course, this will all be for naught if A.J. Styles doesn’t even make it to the Tokyo Dome. Recently, Styles was sent home from the NJPW World Tag League tournament due to a lingering back injury. Shortly before the tournament, he had also missed some ROH shows. Hopefully it’s nothing a little R&R can’t fix. Though he still had a major match in ROH against Jay Lethal to get through before Wrestle Kingdom, so I’m not sure just how much of the R’s he’s actually got.
Cards are always subject to change. It would be a huge disappointment to miss the biggest NJPW show of the year, but personal well-being does come first. However, I don’t doubt Styles will make it to Wrestle Kingdom, but I highly doubt he’ll be at his best. Luckily for him, he’ll be in there with one of the best in the world. Besides, even an A.J. Styles at 50% would still be better than most.
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today with a PACKED show! It’s part one of the 2016 Prediction Show, your calls on what you think will happen in the fine Year of Our Lord 2016. Then, Ethan Carter III joins us to talk TNA, Impact’s debut on POP TV this Tuesday, and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Results from today’s Rizin show from the Saitama Super Arena:
Rena beat Jleana Valentino in a women’s 112 pound fight with a second round flying armbar.
King Mo Lawal beat Teodoras Aukstuolis in the heavyweight tournament semifinal, dominating him everywhere and winning via decision
Jiri Prochazka beat Vadim Nemkov in the other heavyweight semifinal. Very good fight going back-and-forth. Nemkov had the advantage on the ground. Both very tired by the end of the 10 minute first round and when it was over, Nemkov just couldn’t get up and didn’t answer the bell for the second round.
Brennan Ward of Bellator beat Ken Hasegawa with a belly-to-belly suplex and choke.
Soo Chul Kim beat Maike Linhares in a boring fight via unanimous decision.
Takeru beat Yang Ming under K-1 rules. The ref stopped it after a barrage of punches in the second round.
Gabi Garcia beat Lei’d Tapa via knockout with a backfist that looked most like a reflex action than a planned punch. Garcia looked tons bigger than Tapa, stunningly so. Tapa was a lot lighter than her wrestling size and Garcia had the most ridiculous shoulders on a fighter, man or woman, that you’ll see. Tapa knocked her down first and then both swung wildly with no technique. The crowd was very into this as a freak show fight.
Bob Sapp beat Akebono. This fight was so bad Spike couldn’t air it.
Baruto beat Peter Aerts via decision. The 403-pound Baruto threw Aerts around pretty easily.
Andy Souwer, a kickboxing legend, beat Yuichiro Nagashima with a flurry of hard punches to the head and particularly the body and Nagashima went down.
Kron Gracie beat Asen Yamamoto via triangle. He got the triangle, Yamamoto was able to power bomb Gracie but Gracie held on tight for the submission. Yamamoto was too young and too small. Gracie’s technique looked great.
Fedor Emelianenko beat Jadeep Singh via first round ground and pound as Singh tapped from strikes. Fedor took him down and pretty much beat him up. Hiroshi Hase made a cameo in the ring with Fedor.
King Mo beat Jiri Prochazka too win the heavyweight tournament. Prochazka landed a lot of kicks early, but Mo took him down. Prochazka rushed in after getting up and Mo knocked him out cold with a right hand.
A lot of promotions enjoyed a Christmas break this week, but while things don’t really wake up until the middle of January, there were still things going on in the UK. Here are five things you need to know about British wrestling this week:
1) The time for talk is over.
For the last few years, British wrestling fans – although not necessarily fans of British wrestling – have had their own TV show on Challenge TV every Sunday night. WrestleTalk TV, which follows TNA on the mostly-retro quiz channel, is a discussion show, mostly concerned with the mainstream promotions, and TNA. Most of the interviews, given WWE’s embargo on all but the most valuable (to them) outlets, are with former-WWE stars or current TNA wrestlers, and for fans of that kind of thing it’s been a weekly staple of varying interest. This week, however, Challenge TV announced that the show was cancelled, although producer Alex Shane was quick to claim it would appear on another channel soon. In it’s place – although the exact time slot is yet to be determined – will be another Shane-produced wrestling show, but this time a quiz show more in fitting with the rest of the channel’s output.
As well as the main show, there was a monthly British Wrestling Round-Up show, which followed late into the evening, but mostly featured footage from just the one promotion, New Generation Wrestling from Hull. Nothing has been announced as to the future of this show. While it wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, the show did at least maintain a visibility for something other than WWE & TNA on British TV, and for that alone it’s loss should be noted with some disappointment.
2) Even on a quiet Christmas Day, you can still watch British wrestling.
For many years TV was seen as the be all and end all for British wrestling companies, and more than one promotion killed itself trying to make that happen. The last few years, however, have seen an explosion in online on-demand channels, made possible by advancements in broadband speeds and editing software available to even the tiniest promotion. The upshot of all this is that there is plenty of quality British wrestling to watch, whenever you want to watch it. The main leaders in the field are Insane Championship Wrestling and PROGRESS, who have mobilised their hefty fanbases into subscribing to on-demand channels. As well as recordings of live shows, both promotions offer exclusive footage only available to subscribers, such as ICW’s Friday Night Fight Club and the excellent Jimmy Havoc Q&A on Demand PROGRESS. Both channels utilise Pivotshare software, and are available through all the usual platforms.
Many other promotions – and I’ll try to list them later – offer a different model, whereby you pay for access to one or more of their shows to stream or download. Some host their own shows, while others are available through third party sites like Your Fight Site and Wrestling Store, and use a variety of different platforms, although Vimeo is popular. Among the major promotions to use this model are Revolution Pro-Wrestling, Preston City Wrestling, Southside Wrestling Entertainment, and IPW:UK, but there are also shows from Grand-Pro, Pro-Wrestling Chaos, LDN, NGW, FutureShock, and many more out there. In addition, RevPro offer a weekly show on their YouTube channel, the first 2016 taping for which is this coming Sunday and it is a stacked card.
All this means that, if it happens in the UK, you can pretty much see it within days on one platform or another, and makes it very easy – and enjoyable – to be a fan of British wrestling . Nothing comes close to the live show experience (and there are still a couple of promotions who offer nothing but that experience) but having it beamed live to your living room is the next best thing.
3) Joey Ryan’s penis is stronger than we thought.
So how was your Christmas? Yeah, mine too. Oh, did you get to see Joey Ryan replicate his famous spot with Danshoku Dino, only in a sleepy Cambridgeshire market town instead of Tokyo, and with five other men instead of a Japanese sex pest? You didn’t? Oh, man. So, yeah, Joey Ryan came to the UK last week, and of course he played up on that spot. At Southside last Sunday, at the sold out Season’s Beatings in St Neots, he competed in a six-man Giant Lollipop On A Pole match, which also featured Rockstar Spud and Martin Kirby, and a ton of brilliant comedy spots that had me crying with laughter. Spud won the match – does it matter? – but all six men (and referee Joel Allen, who played his part, too) deserved a standing ovation.
Southside are one of the UK’s second-tier promotions, never grabbing the big headlines but putting on solid shows with a good roster and a sprinkling of the more interesting imports. Already for 2016, they’ve announced Sami Callihan, Angelico, Timothy Thatcher, and Leva Bates, but the main focus is placed on their British stars, which include Will Ospreay, Jimmy Havoc, and el Ligero. Ligero main-evented Sunday’s show, in a Loser Leaves Southside match against Kay Lee Ray, and even though the result was slightly spoiled by Ligero appearing on the poster for February’s show, the match was well-worked, hard-fought, and painful-looking (if a little overbooked).
Also on the show, Stixx continued his battle against Joseph Conners’s Righteous Army, and Nixon Newell defended her Queen Of Southside title. While the likes of ICW, PROGRESS, PCW, and RevPro get the major headlines – and rightly so for the most part – Southside (and promotions like them) are really worth checking out if you get the chance. They’re not “my” brand but I’m never disappointed by their shows.
4) PROGRESS are HUGE teases.
With all their shows for 2016 seemingly announced and a stunning amount of season tickets already sold for the London shows, you might be forgiven for thinking that PROGRESS can sit back and just roll out whatever they’ve got planned for the year as it comes. On Tuesday, however, they tweeted that they would be announcing HUGE news on New Year’s Day, and their fanbase exploded into speculation. The big guess was some kind of TV deal, what with a test being filmed at their last London show, but that was quickly shot down by management with promoter Jim Smallman repeating his opinion that TV wasn’t necessary for a promotion to be a success in 2016. Other guesses have included a tour (ICW run two successful tours a year in the UK), a live webcast of a show, and a big show at a bigger venue than the 700-seaters they traditionally run. Like a lot of “announcements” in this most carny of industries, it could turn out to be a damp squib but I’d lay money on it being something really, really interesting. Check your Twitter feed on Friday at midday to find out.
5) Shows still happened.
Although live action was thin on the ground over Christmas week, it wasn’t entirely absent. As well as the Southside show reported above, and a few shows at holiday camps open to seasonal vacationers, New Generation Wrestling ran Hull, and WrestleForce promoted Witham Town Hall. At NGW’s Eternal Glory At Christmas show, NGW champion Nathan Cruz defeated Matt Myers to keep hold of the title he’s worn since July, although Zack Gibson – who added Zack Sabre Jr on this show to his list of recent conquests – will be gunning for him in the new year. Also on the show were Mark Andrews, Bubblegum, Rampage Brown, and el Ligero, as well as a host of other NGW regulars.
The promotion have already announced their big show for next year, May’s Ultimate Showdown, and will be hoping to capitalise on a nationwide tour in the spring. WrestleForce’s Festive Fury, held in the Essex town of Witham, featured all their usual characters, some of whom may or may not also be regulars in the RetroFutureVerse of Lucha Britannia. Former WWE developmental prospect The Zulu Warrior retained his International Championship, seeing off the challenge of Joey Ozbourne, while the team of Peace & Brad O’Brien sent the fans home happy with a victory in the main event over the evil Voodoo & Damien. Also on the show were Richard Parliament, “Blackbelt” Tom Dawkins, and a good shout for rookie of the year 2016, the Punjabi Prince (Malik Waseem), and – as always at WrestleForce’s slightly surreal outings – a fun time was had by all.
Next weekend sees us rocket into 2016 with shows from three of the big names of British wrestling.
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back today with tons of pro-wrestling and MMA notes — RIZIN talk including results from Day 1, weigh-in notes, a bit of live Day 2 coverage and more. Plus, UFC this weekend, Smackdown spoilers, WWE running a special in Toronto, ratings from Monday, latest on the Rock, questions and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
A Raw recap opened the show, which included Vince McMahon’s line about Roman Reigns’ ancestors. It also made the return of John Cena seem secondary. They announced Reigns and Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens and Sheamus for tonight.
The New Day came out and they showed a replay of Sin Cara separating his shoulder at the hands of Big E on Raw. Xavier Woods said they don’t have a New Year’s resolution because they’re perfect. They’re still upset about not being voted Tag-Team of the Year and Kofi Kingston said the fans don’t appreciate them. They had a list of resolutions for the fans, like the fans should wear glasses and hearing aids, and they’re required to keep a New Day journal so they don’t forget anything. This wasn’t good.
Lucha Dragons interrupted. Sin Cara wore a sling. Kalisto called New Day a cute tag-team and Sin Cara challenged all three of them to a match. New Day laughed at him. Woods said Sin isn’t hurt, he’s injured. Kalisto said they had friends of their own and the Dudleys came out with a table that had “Happy New Year” spray painted on it.
Throughout the night they aired pre-taped segments with guys giving their New Year’s resolutions. Ryback wished everyone a happy new year and his resolution was to help those less fortunate.
6-Man Tag Match: Kalisto & The Dudley Boyz beat The New Day via pinfall
Dueling chants for New Day. Bubba and D-Von held Kingston’s legs apart so Kalisto could hit a diving headbutt to the groin. Kalisto went after Kingston on the outside but Big E yanked him down onto the ring apron, trying to injure the shoulder. As they worked over Kalisto, Woods played the trombone to loud “New Day sucks” chants.
Big E hit Kalisto with an impressive big splash, but Kalisto kicked out and hot tagged Bubba. Kalisto eventually tagged back in and hit a sitting senton off of Bubba’s shoulders followed by a tornado DDT. Dudleys gave Big E a 3D, and Kalisto used Salida Del Sol on Kingston for the win. After the match, Bubba put Woods through a table with a powerbomb. This was good and the crowd was into it. I like that Woods is the one New Day member always getting beat up.
Tyler Breeze (w/Summer Rae) beat Goldust via pinfall
Booker said Goldust debuted in 1988, the same year Breeze was born. Booker then reminisced about tagging with him. Goldust took most of the match and was begging the crowd to get into it, but they didn’t. Breeze won on a crap finish, sending Goldust face-first into the middle turnbuckle pad and getting the pinfall win with his feet on the rope.
Afterwards, Summer said they had a huge announcement for 2016. Breeze announced that he and Summer are (amicably) going their separate ways. They gave the crowd one last selfie together. Well, that’s one way to break up a duo.
The announcers talked about The Rock and WrestleMania and drooled over all the news coverage.
Backstage, Bo Dallas found Curtis Axel somehow. Dallas said Axel had a bad year and should make a New Year’s re-bo-lution. Ugh. Axel told him he was never eliminated from the Royal Rumble and wouldn’t be eliminated this year either. Dallas told him to start using deodorant. Dallas continued walking and autographed some woman’s hand, which she rubbed off as soon as he walked away.
He then ran into Dolph Ziggler, who told him to stop dressing like the New Year’s baby. Dallas had an amazing comeback, telling Ziggler: It always sounds like you’re telling a joke, but you never actually say anything funny. Ziggler said he should get ready for his match, because its against him. Ziggler psyched out Dallas with a fake superkick and told him to Bo-lieve.
Luke Harper & Braun Strowman (w/Erick Rowan) beat The Usos via submission
Bray Wyatt wasn’t there, so they came out to Harper’s music. Wyatts had the heat almost immediately, working over Jimmy Uso. Jey made a hot tag and ran wild on Harper and nailed him with a suicide dive. I assume Jimmy tagged himself in as Jey went out on the dive, but they didn’t really show it. Jimmy hit two superkicks on Strowman and superkicked Rowan off the apron. Jimmy tried a third superkick on Strowman, but Strowman caught him and choked him out for the win. Surprisingly quick loss for The Usos.
They announced John Cena would return to Smackdown next week.
Brie Bella & Alicia Fox beat Naomi & Tamina via pinfall
Light “We want Sasha” chants. She wasn’t there. After Tamina hit a superkick, Booker said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but never mentioned Snuka by name. Brie made this match’s version of a hot tag and hit Yes Kicks and an X-Factor on Naomi for the win. If they don’t forget about this match by Monday, they can tell the story that Team B.A.D. lost here without Sasha Banks.
Backstage, they wanted Miz to make a New Year’s resolution but he laughed at them, called his manager and walked away.
They’re plugging The Hateful Eight movie by essentially counting down the top eight heels in the company. They started with the first four tonight: 8. The Miz, 7. Paige, 6. Rusev & Lana, 5. Kevin Owens. Final four will be shown on Raw.
Dolph Ziggler beat Bo Dallas via pinfall
Dallas did a victory lap around the ring after getting the heat less than a minute into the match and Jerry Lawler said he really does look like the New Year’s baby. Rich Brennan reminded us that he’s the longest reigning NXT Champion, something they might want to ignore. In short: Bo Dallas dominated for five minutes and Ziggler won with a superkick. Ziggler looked like such a loser getting beat up by Bo Dallas.
New Day does have a resolution after all: to get the patriarch Kofi Kingston the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. That seems unlikely.
They aired the same Raw recap that opened the show and plugged Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus with McMahon as referee for Monday.
WWE Champion Roman Reigns & I.C. Champion Dean Ambrose beat Kevin Owens & Sheamus via DQ
They showed a replay of Owens powerbombing Ambrose through the announce table on Raw as Ambrose walked to the ring looking like he always does. Reigns hit some moves on Sheamus and tagged in Ambrose who nailed a suicide dive. Owens tagged in and Ambrose sent him to the outside to set up for a powerbomb through the announce table, but Owens drove him into the side of the ring.
Heels beat up Ambrose for a while until he hit Owens with a rebound clothesline and tagged in Reigns. Reigns hit Sheamus with clotheslines in the corner, a Samoan drop and superman punch. He readied for the spear, but Owens tripped him from behind and pulled him groin-first into the ring post for a lame DQ.
They attacked Reigns and sent him over the announce table. Ambrose dove on Sheamus but Owens cut him off with a superkick. Owens set up Ambrose for a powerbomb through the announce table but Reigns hit him with a superman punch. Ambrose tossed Sheamus into the ring post and Reigns finished him off with a spear. Reigns and Ambrose stood tall on the announce table holding their titles to end the show.
Final Thoughts:
The opening match was fun but the show dragged like crazy after that. A good main event on paper ending with an abrupt DQ is the perfect way to end the final Smackdown of 2015.
NXT at 8:00 p.m. ET on WWE Network is a best of 2015 edition.
ROH at midnight ET/PT on COMET is also a best of 2015 edition with ACH & Matt Sydal vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Roderick Strong, A.J. Styles & The Young Bucks vs. ACH, Matt Sydal, & Cedric Alexander, and Jay Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal.
Meanwhile, WWE’s last two house shows of 2015 are tonight: Toronto is headlined by Alberto del Rio vs. John Cena, while Baltimore has a main event of Roman Reigns vs. Sheamus.
RIZIN FROM THE SAITAMA SUPER ARENA (some matches air on U.S. TV on Spike Thursday morning at 10 a.m.)
Rena vs. Jlena Valentino – women’s match
Heavyweight tournament semifinals
Brennan Ward (Bellator) vs. Ken Hasegawa
Takeru vs. Yang Ming in K-1 rules
Soo Chul Kim vs. Maike Linhares
Gabrielle Garcia vs. Lei’d Tapa – women’s super heavyweight match
Akebono vs. Bob Sapp – Shoot boxing rules (boxing, kicking, takedowns, no ground work or submissions)
Andy Souwer vs. Yuichiro Nagashima
Peter Aerts vs. Baruto (sumo star)
Kron Gracie (Rickson’s son) vs. Asen Yamamoto (age group wrestling champion, son of former women’s world champion Miyu Yamamoto)
A look at the Slammy Awards, business of the show, who watched the show, suggestions made for improving the awards show idea, some history of where it came from and what happened at the show including injury updates.
We also have a story about both the California commission, doctors, and reps from the Association of Boxing Commissions talking about the problem of weight cutting in MMA as well as all the medical issues involved, win/loss records of bigger vs. small fighters, belief of how many fighters go into fights dehydrated, the dangers of fighting dehydrated, new weight class suggestions, the good and the bad of adding weight classes, the discussion of splitting up the heavyweight division and the ONE organization becomes the first promotion to take drastic steps in this subject with a look at their new regulations.
We also look at the life, career and significance of Lizmark, one of the biggest stars in the history of Lucha Libre, who passed away this past week. We have his background, how he got into wrestling, his life before wrestling, why he first wore a mask, how he got the name Lizmark, his long run as a constant singles champion or top contender, his induction into the Hall of Fame, his run in the glory days of AAA, Lizmark Jr. and why he fell out of favor in WCW due to loyalty to his father, his biggest rivals, the wrestlers who emulated him and his title history.
We look at what is next for NXT, the upcoming tour dates, reaction to Roman Reigns internally, Notes on the video game, Mauro Ranallo updates, WWE injury updates, John Cena and Dwayne Johnson news, lots of WWE U.K. date business notes, Japan TV update, Two new wrestlers making main roster debut for one tour in January and why. We also have notes from all the weekend house shows.
You can also order the print Observer right now and get it delivered to your door via mail, by sending your name, address, Visa or Master Card number and an expiration date to Dave Meltzer
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The new issue of Forbes has a two-page satellite photo of properties near the CT/NY border; the McMansion being one of the ones listed. At a current value of $7 million, it’s the least expensive of the homes features.
CBS Detroit says that there are rumors about WrestleMania returning to Ford Field.
UFC/MMA
UFC cut Fabio Maldonado, Chico Camus, Ericka Almeida, Bubba Bush, Mickael Lebout, Vernon Ramos and Jumabieke Tuerxun. At one point, that list was believed to include Kevin Souza, who then said in an interview with MMAFighting.com said that he was not informed by the company that had been cut. Instead, USADA emailed him and told him that he no longer had to inform them of his whereabouts at all times because he was no longer listed as a UFC fighter. What actually happened was that he was unaware that his contract was up and it was all a miscommunication.
Fedor Emeliananko on Jaideep Singh: “I think he is quite a serious contender.”
Here are the weigh in results for Rizin Fighting which takes place on December 31st in Japan.
MISC
Our annual Prediction Show will span two days this year, tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday on Wrestling Observer Live. If you can’t listen to the show during its live airing (12 PT/3 ET on Sports Byline USA, links are up on the front page), don’t worry. Just call between 12:05/3:05 and 12:40/3:40). Everyone will get MAX two predictions for 2016, and next year will will crown a winner. Obviously, if you predict something like “WrestleMania will draw more than 18,000 fans” you will not win the grand prize. Grand prize goes to the most out-on-a-limb yet still accurate prediction (“Roman Reigns will win the title at Survivor Series over Dean Ambrose but then Sheamus will cash in and steal the belt” would be an amazing prediction if it had been made at this time last year). We will also be reading last year’s predictions over the next two days as well and crown the 2015 winner. If we are deluged with calls, we may move last year’s predictions reading to Sunday’s Observer Live. We’ll play it by ear. The numbers are up on the front page of the website. For now, no email or text message predictions, only phone calls. Have fun!
Karl Stern’s first Dragon King Dark episode will be up on the After Dark Radio website later today. Karl will be doing one new show a week, as announced on Sunday’s After Dark Radio. If you are a regular listener and interested in providing columns for the brand new website, email bryan@afterdarkradioshow.com.
ROH Winter Warrior Tour: SATURDAY, JANUARY 9TH 2016 – 7:00PM BELL TIME – NATIONAL TV TAPING. Cabarrus Events Center – 4751 NC Hwy 49 North – Concord, NC 28025. Tickets on Sale Now. ROH Tag Team Champions War Machine vs. All Night Express has been signed.
Tonight on RDS (Quebec’s version of ESPN) there will be a one-hour documentary on the Rougeau family. From Eddy Auger to his nephew Johnny and Jacques Rougeau to Jacques’ children Raymond, Jacques Jr, Armand and Joanne (who promoted here from 95-2000 for the WWF) to Jacques Jr’s sons Emile and Cedric (6 foot 7, 315 pounds) the documentary talks about all 4 generations of Rougeaus, the only ones with the McMahons to have 4 generations in wrestling. Patric Laprade says, “Other people like Gino Brito, Pierre-Carl Ouellet, announcer Marc Blondin and myself have also been interviewed for this. I have also worked in the behind-the-scenes of this documentary.”
Even going against the highest rated Monday night game of the season, Raw did well above its fall season average with the Vince McMahon show-long arrest angle.
Raw did 3.53 million viewers, placing it third for the night on cable behind the Broncos-Bengals game that did 15.81 million viewers and an episode of SportsCenter.
The angle, as expected, helped maintain the audience as there was less of an audience drop as the show went on as is typical of Raw. The return of John Cena also played a part in that.
The three hours were:
8 p.m. 3.70 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.49 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.43 million viewers
Monday was the final episode of Monday Night Football. With the exception of the 1/11 show, which goes against the college football championship game, Raw will now be free of its top competition, and ratings should rise about 10 percent from the level they have been if history is an indication.
