Check here for Monday Update #1. At the very bottom of the post are the full spoilers for today’s episode of Raw that was taped in Australia. If you don’t want to know what happens, stop after I complain about Bound For Glory. Also, buy my two books: 40 Years Of Pay-Per-View: Book 1: 1985-1990 and Book 2: 1991-1993. The Kindle version of Book 1 is currently available for 99 cents until Wednesday.
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Konosuke Takeshita defeated Zack Sabre Jr. at King Of Pro Wrestling to become the IWGP World Champion, successfully cashing in his Right To Challenge contract from winning this year’s G1 Climax. Interestingly enough, the people who have cashed in before WrestleKingdom are 2-0, while the contract holders who waited until the big show of the year had a notoriously bad track record, going 1-8 until 2021 when we had three straight G1 winners win their title matches. Takeshita was then challenged by former champion Hirooki Goto, but it doesn’t appear like that will be the Tokyo Dome Match
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Elsewhere at KOPW (NJPW1972):
Syuri defeated Saree in an IWGP Women’s Title Match
David Finlay, Clark Connors & Taiji Ishimori defeated Titan, Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi
Drilla Mahoney pinned SANADA
Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH defeated Kosei Fujita, Hartley Jackson & Ryohei Oiwa
El Phantasmo and Hiroshi Tanahashi went to a 15-minute time limit draw in a TV Title match. After the match, Santino Marella demanded 5 more minutes and it ended immediately when Darkslate ran in and attacked the wrestlers, pissing off the crowd. Wait, that was TNA. Never mind.
EVIL defeated Boltin Oleg for the NEVER Openweight Title
Yuto Ice & Oskar defeated Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura in an IWGP Tag Team Title Match
Yota Tsuji submitted Gabe Kidd for the Global Heavyweight Title
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On today’s edition of The Ariel Helwani Show (link to live feed), Darby Allin said that egotistical wrestlers who don’t want to lose were a cancer to AEW and specifically said he wasn’t talking about CM Punk (transcript courtesy of F4W) “It’s the greatest thing in the world, but it’s staged,” Allin said about pro wrestling. “So if you’re going to have an ego about that, get out of the f*cking sport. Go be in the UFC. Go try, you know what I mean, don’t be bringing that sh*t here. This is about having fun. This is about, like, just putting on a good energy. It’s like, ‘Come on, man. Just stop.’ And that was like the biggest thing with me — once all that got cleared up, I really felt, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s rock.’ But I just don’t like egos. I can’t stand them. Can’t stand them.”
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From a personal perspective, Bound For Glory was a good show ruined by the bad booking of the Gauntlet Match and the X Title Match. However, it turns out the way to quell a revolting crowd is to first turn Alisha Edwards into a human pincushion and then send the Hardys out. That apparently will solve any revolting crowd problem.
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Raw was taped earlier today and in a surprise angle, Paul Heyman, Bron Breaker and Bronson Reed turned on Seth Rollins.
Elsewhere on the show…
Dominik Mysterio defeated Penta
Rhea Ripley defeated Kairi Sane
Bronson Reed beat Jimmy Uso
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria defeated Roxanne Perez & Raquel Rodriguez
CM Punk defeated Jey Uso and LA Knight to become number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship
Announced for next week:
Becky Lynch (c) vs. Maxxine Dupri for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship
Dominik Mysterio (c) vs. Rusev for the Intercontinental Championship
Finn Bálor & JD McDonagh vs. AJ Styles & Dragon Lee for the World Tag Team Championships
