Daily Update: Charlie Norris, 'Superstar' Billy Graham, WWE Raw

This Week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

• February 6, 2023 Observer Newsletter: Royal Rumble 2023 review, WWE Q4 financials notes

In this week's issue
*Complete Royal Rumble coverage
*Match and performer of the week
*Highlights of the Rumble
*The story of the Reigns-Zayn angle
*Why Reigns vs. Zayn won't be happening at WrestleMania
*Records set at Royal Rumble
*How many people watched Royal Rumble on Peacock
*The 15 largest gates in pro wrestling history
*PPV crossover with Full Gear and Survivor Series
*Elimination Chamber update
*Wrestlemania update
*Return of Pat McAfee
*WrestleMania sponsorship
*Nick Khan talks WWE sale
*Khan talks about the next rights deals
*More on the Vince McMahon investigation and how much it cost WWE so far
*WWE business numbers for 2022
*A look at the career of Fedor Emelianenko as he has his retirement fight
*What pro wrestler brought Fedor into prominence
*What former pro wrestling promotion did he first become a star in
*A look at hs glory days in Pride
*Who is the best heavyweight ever
*The life and times of Lanny Poffo
*His career high points
*Winning the world tag team title at the age of 20
*Feuding with his brother
*The big name historically Randy Savage was to feud with that never happened
*The funeral of Jay Briscoe
*Another new lawsuit filed trying to get Vince McMahon out of power
*Legendary enhancement wrestler Kenny Jay passes away and the night he had a match with Muhammad Ali
*Why he never became a bigger star
*The story behind his match with Ali
*2022 Wrestling Observer Awards allot
*The most detailed look at the television ratings over the past week
*International TV ratings for AEW and WWE
*Streaming ratings for AEW & WWE
*Ticket sales for upcoming shows
*One of the oldest titles in history defended on Jericho cruise
*Keiji Muto struggles through retirement matches
*New Japan changes with New Japan Strong
*Mercedes Mone talks her new Japan debut
*Hiroshi Hase in controversy over doing a wrestling match last month
*Why Kota Ibushi did Bloodsport
*Thought on AEW doing house shows
*Difference between AEW and WWE fans
*Thoughts on MJF vs. Takeshita
*New A&E wrestling schedule

This Week's Retro Observer Newsletter:

• December 26, 2005 Observer Newsletter: Eddie Guerrero cause of death revealed, TNA Turning Point

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Monday Update

Bryan and I will be back tonight with Wrestling Observer Radio talking all the news in wrestling and MMA. You can send questions to the show to mailbag@wrestlingobserver.com

Charlie "Thunderblood" Norris, who did a native American gimmick on Midwest independents and wrestled for much of 1993 with WCW and was pushed for several months there, passed away earlier today. He was 57. We'll have a lot more on him later this week and on tonight's show. 

Best wishes to Superstar Billy Graham and wife Valerie. Billy, who as far as average attendance in the main event slot, was the biggest Madison Square Garden draw in history (19 sellouts in 20 main events), has been hospitalized for weeks and has lost 50 pounds in the last three weeks.

Jon Moxley has been added to Bloodsport on 3/30 at 4 p.m. at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The show, which is sort of UWFI oriented style, has Kota Ibushi vs. Mike Bailey, plus John Hennigan and Timothy Thatcher booked. It is already sold out.

Raw tonight is from the Amway Center in Orlando, FL. Bayley vs. Becky Lynch in the cage match scheduled for two weeks ago is on the show. Brock Lesnar, Edge and Beth Phoenix are there, presumably to set up their matches for 2/18 in Montreal. They are facing Finn Balor & Rhea Ripley on that show, or at least were as of two weeks ago. The presumption is Lesnar faces Bobby Lashley but that is not confirmed, but all angles lead to that direction. Also tonight is a match for the final slot in the women's Chamber is up with Miichin vs. Piper Niven vs. Candice LeRae vs. Carmella. The final slots in the men's Chamber are up as well going to the winners of matches with Montez Ford vs. Elias and Damien Priest vs. Angelo Dawkins. Another big crowd is expected as they were more than 9,600 tickets out this morning. WWE remains on its hottest run right now in a few years.

We are looking for reports from Orlando as far as the dark matches or anything else not on the live television show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

The movie "A Knock At The Cabin" was first over the weekend at the box office grossing $14,127,170 in 3,643 theaters, beating out the debuting "80 for Brady" which did $12,701,6049 in 3,912 theaters. Avatar, which had been on top for the last two months, finished third.

We're doing polls on these weekend shows:

*New Japan on Saturday in Sapporo

*Stardom on Saturday in Osaka

*NXT on Saturday in Charlotte

*New Japan on Sunday in Sapporo 

You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match from each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

MLW debuts tomorrow night at 10 p.m. on REELZ, featuring Alex Hammerstone vs. Jacob Fatu for the MLW title in a TV show that was taped Saturday night in Philadelphia. Entertainment Weekly listed MLW on REELZ on "What to Watch" for this week, which is a great publicity coup. They also got covered in OK Magazine.

Sonya Deville took seven stitches in a cut from last night's show in Pensacola, FL, where she faced Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan for the Smackdown women's title. The cut was an inch from the cut at the Royal Rumble.

Prestige Wrestling at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles on 3/31 at 4 p.m. has announced Hall of Famer Aja Kong coming in to face Masha Slamovich.

DDT on 3/30 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center on 3/30 at 8 p.m. has announced Konosuke Takeshita vs. Yuki Ueno. 

For the Culture on 3/30 at midnight at the Ukrainian Cultural Center has announced 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Bryan Keith (who made a big splash at PWG BOLA last month with a killer match with Mike Bailey.

Damage CTRL plus Lyra Valkyria vs. Valentina Feroz have been announced for NXT tomorrow. there could be others since Raw is in Orlando so main roster talent could just stay over the next day.

2K announced today details regarding its new War Games concept in the WWE 2K23 video game.

We were sent some photos of Randy Orton from Friday6y at the Boone Center in Missouri which is a place where special needs people are set up to get jobs. He looked like he has been training for what that is worth.

Other Notes

The Las Vegas newspaper ran an obituary for Robert W. Heenan of Las Vegas, who was the brother of Raymond (Bobby the Brain) Heenan. We talked about Bob Heenan on the show we did with Mike Tenay about Don West. Robert was 8 1/2 months older than Raymond, but born to different mothers. Neither knew about the other until the 90s when The Brain did an ancestry hart to find out that his father's name was Robert Heenan and he had family living in Las Vegas. He went to the door of the real Bob Heenan, well actually his wife did, and knocked on the door and they immediately all became family. Bob was a Catholic Priest who taught at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas for 15 years, but never was a teacher of either Dana White or Lorenzo Fertitta. He was the last survivor of that generation of Heenan's. Robert died on 12/18 at the age of 77, and his funeral will be tomorrow at St. Francis of Assisi in Henderson NV at 10 a.m.

Tomorrow also marks the 39th anniversary of the death of David Von Erich.

Defy on 2/11 at Washington Hall in Seattle is sold out. Swerve Strickland defends the Defy title in the main event against Titus Alexander, plus Jon Moxley & Schaff vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Davey Richards, Vert Vixen defends the women's title against Danika Diehard, The Second Gear Crew defends the tag titles against Midnight Heat, plus Eddie Kingston vs. Artemis Spencer and Cody Chhun vs. Nick Wayne. They also run 3/11 in Seattle with Top Flight and Kushida, and 5/5 in Tacoma.

Northeast Wrestling has announced Spring Slam on 4/15 in Poughkeepsie, NY at th Mid Hudson Civic Center with Kurt Angle as the guest star plus in the ring include Ricky Starks, Konosuke Takeshita, Matt Hardy and NZO.