John Pollock goes through New Japan’s biggest show of the year with Wrestle Kingdom 12 from the Tokyo Dome. The event is headlined by Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP heavyweight title against Tetsuya Naito along with Kenny Omega taking on Chris Jericho.
A big preview of the Wrestle Kingdom 12 card going through all the matches, tickets sold for the Tokyo Dome, New Japan announces video game deal with Fire Pro Wrestling, the first team announced for “Mixed Match Challenge”, Daniel Bryan speaks on WrestleMania, Chris Jericho and Don Callis share details of how New Japan deal came together and lots more.
A.J. Styles takes on Sami Zayn in a non-title match on SmackDown Live in Orlando, Larry Matysik hospitalized, a schedule of the major events for the month of January, commentary team for “Mixed Match Challenge”, John Cena enters the Royal Rumble, a new book on the history of the Tokyo Dome and lots more.
Sid Eudy misses an independent show and cites a travel restriction as the reason, Braun Strowman misses WWE shows, Samoa Joe cut leads to match ending early with Roman Reigns, a full rundown of the UFC 219 card, POST Wrestling’s “Best of 2017 Show” is out and a schedule of this week’s POST shows.
Chris Jericho has announced that he will be leaving the Podcast One network, Cody and Nick Jackson have indicated that plans are nearly final for “All In”, a rematch between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe has been added to Raw, Colt Cabana will be changing the format of his popular podcast, a review of this week’s NXT and lots more.
Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown Live saw an increase in the program’s audience with the USA Network airing the first hour of the program commercial-free.
A six-woman tag was called off in the middle of the match on Wednesday after an injury to Paige at the WWE’s live event on Long Island, New York. The match involved Paige teaming with Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose against Sasha Banks, Mickie James and Bayley.
The unique experiment of running a live episode of Raw on Christmas Night with a commercial-free first hour at least proved the WWE and USA Network could maintain the core audience.
Jeff Jarrett has returned home after going through a WWE-sponsored rehab program, new GHC champion crowned, John Cena vs. Roman Reigns advertised for The Garden, WWE stock update following McMahon’s stock sale & more.
John Pollock looks at all of the television viewership from the past week among professional wrestling shows. Shows were down across the board, including Impact doing its lowest number ever on POP TV as they faced competition from the WWE.