RAW TONIGHT

With tonight being the next to last Raw before WrestleMania, the last matches are expected to be finalized. The key matches are the women's multiple person tag team match that hasn't been announced and what they are doing with the IC title match past Kevin Owens defending and Sami Zayn as a challenger, but originally this was to be a six-way, but a lot of the guys in the original plans haven't been pushed and Neville was injured and off the show.

We're looking for your thoughts on Friday night's CMLL Dos Leyendas show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

Raw is tonight in Philadelphia. Vince & Stephanie McMahon are scheduled but Brock Lesnar, Undertaker and Shane McMahon are not scheduled. We're looking for reports from the show as well as anything that wouldn't be evident from the live show, dark matches, dark segments, Superstars matches, newstips@wrestlingobserver.com

Tuesday will be Smackdown tapings in Boston. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman are scheduled for Boston. We'll be looking for reports from that show to newstips@wrestlingobserver.com

F4W MANIA~!

Click here for the complete run down. Bus seats are still available for the WrestleMania bus ride, but dinner is now sold out.

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If you've ever wanted to WATCH our radio shows here on the site, check out our new Youtube page! No full video shows, but lots of video clips, full free audio shows that you can tell your friends about, and much more to come! Make sure you subscribe today!

Figure Four Weekly 2/22/2016: All the latest on the Hulk Hogan Lawsuit

All the latest details on the Hulk Hogan/Gawker lawsuit.





Wrestling Observer Newsletter

SUBSCRIBERS READ IT HERE: March 21, 2016 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: UFC 196 breaks records, New Japan Cup, WWE Road Block

We've got a major history issue! The life of Hayabusa. The story behind one of the more noted sports owners, Eddie Einhorn, and his two major forays in pro wrestling. Our lead story goes into the records set at UFC 196, including why PPV numbers were so strong, lessons about the UFC audience, what the audience wants from big fights now, the value of stars and momentum and what comes next. Update on what may be the end of UFC's long struggle to get legalized in New York.



WrestleMania update, the entire lineup, ticket sales, compared previous company records, boxing attendance record, more people talked about for the WWE Hall of Fame this year, physical Hall of Fame location, WWE TV revenue compared to NASCAR, Foley talks Mania, Foley's new show, WrestleMania in Europe, NXT TV taping dates, WrestleMania 2017, William Regal's warning to wrestlers, Heyman signs a new distribution deal, AAA star gets tryout, interesting career and role John Cena's grandfather played in major league baseball and college baseball.

What happened in the Chris Jericho vs. Neville match including the ironies of the WWE officiating. WWE's most underutilized talent is right now, full coverage of Roadblock.

NJPW struggles, major shows upcoming, the New Japan Cup finals, NJPW's current trajectory.



Major story on the life and career of Hayabusa, childhood, becoming a wrestling fan, start in the business, rise to stardom, career title history, the politics that hampered his career, injuries, big show matches, his career breaks, the heyday and fall of FMW, the various attempts restart it. The end of his career, how close he came to death, his thoughts while he was paralyzed.



Results of Nikkan Sports fan voting awards, Japan's major newspapers, the best of 2015.



Eddie Einhorn, his role in making college basketball a popular television sport, and his attempt in the 1970s to get into pro wrestling and ran opposition to the NWA and WWWF. The background of Pedro Martinez, his partner, including when he ran wrestling in Madison Square Garden and his famous fight with Toots Mondt.



The ratings of all the major wrestling and MMA programming from the past week, as well as results of the major arena events around the world and reviews of the key television shows.

Current subscribers click here to continue reading.

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Click here for the most requested Wrestling Observer back issues.

If you wanted to know just how big Giant Baba was to people who grew up in the 60s and 70s, the latest back issue will explain.

Check out the latest Online Wrestling Observer BACK ISSUE:

MONDAY NEWS UPDATE

-The vote in the New York assembly regarding MMA being legalized, that is expected to pass, is scheduled for either today or tomorrow. The tentative plan would be to run a big show in November in Madison Square Garden.

-Paige VanZant is part of the cast in Dancing With the Stars that debuts tonight on ABC at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC-TV.

-HULK HOGAN V GAWKER: Hollywood Reporter on why Gawker needs to settle the Hogan case rather than appeal. And Esquire talks the case as well. Nick Denton of Gawker media was profiled here on CBS Sunday Morning

-February 15, 1999 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Reaction to the death of Giant Baba, 2 wrestlers have heart scares, plus tons more A look at the surprising public reaction to the death of Giant Baba, 2 wrestlers have heart attack scares, plus tons of news and notes. This wasn't in the story, but will be in an upcoming back issue, but Baba's public funeral had nearly 29,000 people attend. It was one of the largest funerals in recorded history. If you wanted to know just how big Giant Baba was to people who grew up in the 60s and 70s give this one a read.

-Jim Ross and ESPN boxing writer Dan Rafael went back-and-forth on Twitter yesterday regarding Ross' call of yesterday's UR Fight show. Rafael noted that he called Roy Jones' knockout "Sweet chin music" and Ross wrote back, "LOL, Really Dan, It's show biz." Then Rafael wrote about Ross "extolling the virtues of Roy Jones continuing to fight. I am going to throw up." Ross wrote back. "Get a life. Is it not Roy Jones Jr's decision. Write a NYT best seller. I have, and check back in."

-Today is the 25th anniversary of the first New Japan/WCW PPV show held at the Tokyo Dome headlined by the Ric Flair vs. Tatsumi Fujinami NWA title match, which I was at live. The show also had Riki Choshu beating Tiger Jeet Singh, Great Muta over Sting, El Gigante over Curtis Hughes, Rick & Scott Steiner over Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki (which won the 1991 Match of the Year award) , Bam Bam Bigelow & Vader over Doom (Ron Simmons & Butch Reed), Arn Anderson & Barry Windham over Masa Saito & Masahiro Chono, Jushin Liger over Akira Nogami and Kuniaki Kobayashi & Shiro Koshinaka & Takayuki (Takashi) Iizuka over Brian Pillman & Tom Zenk & Tim Horner. That's when pro wrestling was on the front page of the sports newspapers and the lead story and the show legit sold out.

WWE

WWE informed Sky Italy, which will carry WrestleMania on PPV, that the show will go five to 20 minutes past the hour so it will be longer than the usual four hour main show.

WWE is raising money with things like meeting Roman Reigns backstage at Raw, lunch with the cast of Total Divas, walking down the ramp with New Day and more atwww.charity.buzz.com/wwe The auction will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Among the items you can bid on are: Meet and greet backstage at Raw with John Cena, A tour of the performance center and meet and greet HHH and NXT stars, Meet and greet backstage with Stephanie McMahon

They are doing Daniel Bryan Appreciation Nights this coming weekend at house shows in Madison Square Garden, Trenton and Washington, DC. Trenton announced Big Show vs. Bray Wyatt Kalisto vs. Alberto Del Rio and Kane & Ryback vs. Luke Harper & Braun Strowman as the top matches.

Ryback worked as a babyface against Erick Rowan on all the weekend house shows.

WWE SuperToken is offering in-game content for 2K's mobile card game WWE SuperCard. Each token, for $6.99, grants three cards of different rarities in WWE SuperCard and also has a unique distribution quantity. It's available exclusively at GameStop retail locations nationwide. The ten tokens are of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Paige, and others. A video here.

Randy Orton will be at Middle East Film and Comic Con at the Dubai World Tra from 4/7 to 4/9. For more info go to www.mefcc.com

David Otunga will be on the Steve Harvey Show doing a segment on dieting on Wednesday.

The ESPN documentary on Xavier Woods and Adam Rose airs on 3/27 on ESPN News at 1: 30 a.m.

WWE stock fell 15 cents today to $17.85 per share.

MISCELLANEOUS

The local Peterborough Examiner talks Bobby Roode's leaving TNA. Not sure about TNA being the second biggest pro wrestling company in the world. I guess for exporting television you could make that claim, but not sure about anything else.

A special mass was being held today in Mexico City to honor Perro Aguayo Jr., who passed away one year ago.

TMZ at www.tmz.com reported today that Randy Couture pulled a family from a flipped vehicle Sunday in Mexico, rescuing several people trapped after a crash near Cancun. Couture was in Mexico to work on the movie "Bruja" and was on his way to the hotel when he saw a minivan go off the road, and it rolled over twice into the jungle. He said his driver pulled over and called the police. He and others went into the woods to help two women and a child out of the van.

The Marcos Galvao vs. Eduardo Dantas Bellator bantamweight title match that was scheduled for February but postponed due to Galvao's illness has been announced for 6/17 in Fresno at the Save Mart Center.

A Q&A with Matt & Jeff Hardy has been added to Wrestlecon on 4/1 at Noon in Dallas.

Shimmer runs on 4/2 in Dallas as part of the WWN shows with a 12-woman single elimination tournament at Eddie Deen's Ranch in Dallas at 4 p.m. local time and be an iPPV at www.WWNLive.com

Kurt Angle on Live Audio Wrestling

Phil Collins talks Ultimate Warrior

IWC Night of Superstars on 4/9 in Meadville, PA at the Meadville Area High School with Jake Roberts, Scott Hall, Booker T, Jeff Jarrett, Karen Jarrett, Robbie E, Shelton Benjamin, Abyss and Tatanka.

Hi Octane Wrestling on 4/15 at the Family Tree Social Club in Shemsley, Wood, Birmingham, UK.

Conflict Wrestling Retribution on 4/23 in Kitchener, ONT

Pro Wrestling Phoenix runs tomorrow night in Omaha at the Waiting Room Lounge.

Steve "Dr. Lucha" Sims is on Winter Palace podcast at www.tinyurl.com/winter27 and www.tinyurl.com/winter28 talking Lucha Libre with Alfredo Esparza.

Global Force Wrestling on 6./3 at The Palisades in McKeesport, PA with Jeff Jarrett, Colt Cabana, Karen Jarrett, DJ Zema Ion, Sonjay Dutt and Nick Aldis

Canadian Wrestling Elite on 5/26 in Brandon, Manitoba at the Assiniboine Community Center with Frankie Kazarian, Lio Rush and Silas Young.

Daily Pro Wrestling History: Steiner Brothers win the IWGP World Tag Team Titles

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