Raw’s 14th of December episode set the show’s record low with an average of 1.53 million viewers and a 0.41 rating in the key 18-49 demo. WWE’s reaction to this was to go back to the past, so they scheduled Raw Legends Night. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were heavily advertised ahead of time, plus Goldberg appeared to confront Drew McIntyre. This, along with no NFL competition, resulted in the show having an average of 2.13 million viewers and a 0.68 in the 18-49 demo. This rating made it the most-watched episode of Raw since March 2020, and WWE will be especially pleased by the fact viewership didn’t significantly drop off. Hour one had 2.20 million viewers, hour two 2.15 million viewers, and hour three 2.04 million viewers. It will now be interesting to see how many of those viewers return next week to see the program between Drew McIntyre and Goldberg’s progress.

Damian Priest may be wrestling his final NXT match tonight at NXT’s New Year’s Evil when he faces Karrion Kross. The reason for this is because the former NXT North American Champion is expected to be called up to the main roster. Fightful Select has reported that, in fact, he almost debuted this past Friday on SmackDown, supposedly scheduled to be involved with Roman Reigns, however, plans changed.

Priest began training seriously to become a pro wrestler in 2012 at the Monster Factory, the same school involved in teaching current stars QT Marshall and Matt Riddle. In earlier years, they produced notable talents such as Balls Mahoney, Chris Candido, Bam Bam Bigelow, and The Headbangers. Eventually, Priesnt would begin training at the Ring of Honor dojo and competed for the promotion under the ring name Punisher Martinez.

During his three years with ROH, he’d share a ring with talents such as Lio Rush, Frankie Kazarian, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Jay White. At one point, he’d hold the ROH World Television Title and dropped it to Jeff Cobb in his final match with the promotion before joining WWE. Initially, he’d compete as Punishment Martinez on NXT house shows, but his name was changed to Damian Priest ahead of appearing on television. Last August, he won the NXT North American Championship in a five-way ladder match and recently dropped the title to Johnny Gargano at December’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames.

Dark Side of the Ring first premiered on Viceland in 2019 and was a big enough success to have a second season. The finale of the second season, based on Owen Hart’s death, would give Vice its highest ever-rated program with 626,000 viewers. A third season is currently filming, and over recent months tidbits have come out revealing the topics. David Arquette let slip in an interview that he’d been spoken to about a Nick Gage episode. Eric Bischoff told listeners of his podcast that he was interviewed about Brian Pillman and the Collision In Korea show. Additionally, PWInsider reported that Jake “The Snake” Roberts has been interviewed about his father Grizzly Smith, who he holds responsible for his substance abuse issues. Now, Super Genie, the parter of Sabu, has shared photos of him being filmed for interviews, and he would later confirm were for episodes on Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling and Xtreme Pro Wrestling.

Sabu wrestled for Japanese promotion FMW between 1991 and 1994 and is where the majority of the scars on his body occurred. In many ways, the promotion was the precursor to Extreme Championship Wrestling, and like Paul Heyman’s promotion would go bankrupt. Though, with part of the money being owed to the Yakuza, who do not recognize bankruptcy laws, the owner Shoichi Arai went into hiding before sadly hanging himself so his family could pay a portion of the debt from his life insurance.

Regarding XPW, Sabu wrestled for them in 2000 and 2001 and held the promotions World Heavyweight Championship. The promotion was run by Rob Black, who owned an adult film company and ended up spending time in prison due to the distribution of obscene videos. During the XPW’s existence, there were enough incidents to fill an entire season of Dark Side of the Ring. These include an attempt to advertise their show during an ECW pay-per-view and resulted in a parking lot brawl, a wrestler receiving second-degree burns during a match, New Jack throwing Vic Grimes off a 40ft scaffold, and most famously, one of their wrestlers, named Messiah, having his thumb cut off.

Some allege that Black may have orchestrated the attack on Messiah, as the wrestler had an affair with Black’s wife. It should be noted police never named Black as an official suspect. The incident was covered by America’s Most Wanted, and you can watch the segment below.

Carlito was advertised by WWE to appear on Raw Legends Night but hadn’t appeared by the time show ended. This caused fans across social media to question his absence. Now, WrestlingInc.com has reported that the former Intercontinental, United States, and Tag Team Champion was never actually booked. Reportedly, WWE sent out feeling to multiple talents to check their availability, but nothing progressed. This wasn’t communicated throughout the company, and someone internally jumped the gun and announced him.

Had Carlito made an appearance, it would have been the first time he’d been on Raw since 2010. Initially pushed as an up-and-coming star, he would gradually move down the card and eventually was released after refusing to attend rehab after a violation of WWE’s Wellness Program. Over the years, there has been speculation of him returning, but nothing ever came of it. Instead, he worked for his father’s promotion World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico and on the independent scene.

Kurt Angle and Candice Michelle also missed Raw despite being announced. However, the reason for their absences have not been revealed, but it’s possible they were also not officially booked.

Angel Garza was one of Paul Heyman’s projects when he was in charge of writing Raw, however, once he was removed from his role, Garza became just another guy on the roster and is now playing a comedy lothario character. He’d get to win the WWE 24/7 Championship from R-Truth on TikTok (yes, really) during a New Year’s Eve party, and during Monday’s Raw Legends Night would hit on Alicia Fox and Mickie James. After being unsuccessful with them, he’d interrupt Torrie Wilson, who was chatting to Nikki Cross and was told that Kylie Jenner, Ariana Grande, and Cardi B were in a room down the hall. Of course, in typical WWE style, it turned out to be The Boogeyman waiting, who frightened Garza, resulting in him quickly exiting the room and being pinned by a waiting R-Truth.

It was the usual WWE 24/7 Championship comedy skit fans have come to expect, although due to dropping Cardi B’s name, it got the Grammy Award winners’ attention as wrestling fans began tweeting her on mass. In her Twitter replies, she’d say that she used to be a WWE fan in her early teens when talents like Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, Batista, John Cena, and Melina were the companies stars but doesn’t watch now. You can view a selection of her tweets below.

With WWE always looking for mainstream attention, these tweets will have pleased the company, and they published an article on WWE.com about her tweeting about them. They did, though, choose to omit to mention the tweet where she said she hadn’t watched in years. That, though, likely won’t stop the company from reaching out to her management if they feel her appearance would boost ratings.

After the WrestleMania 36 match between Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns was called off, it wasn’t known if the match would ever occur. Then, at last October’s SmackDown on FOX season two premiere, Goldberg appeared on a ThunrderDome video screen. He’d watch the main event between Strowman and Universal Champion Roman Reigns with WWE planting the seeds Goldberg would be looking to challenge the winner. Then during an interview with The Bump, Goldberg would say he was gunning for Reigns because Reigns backed out at WrestleMania and stole The Spear from him. Vince McMahon doesn’t believe in wasting time promoting a match that isn’t going to happen, so based on all of this, it looked that Goldberg vs. Reigns was as good as confirmed.

However, on last night’s Raw, following Drew McIntrye retaining the WWE Championship by defeating Keith Lee, Goldberg surprisingly made his Raw return and challenged Drew McIntyre, setting up the pair facing off at the Royal Rumble. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has now confirmed that the Goldberg/Reigns build wasn’t a swerve, and WWE changed plans this past Saturday due to the feeling they had nobody suitable for McIntrye to wrestle.

As Goldberg is contracted to wrestle twice per year for WWE, Vince McMahon may follow through with Goldberg vs. Reigns at WrestleMania 37 or at SummerSlam. Although with Goldberg contracted through 2022, the match could take place next year.

Mickie James hasn’t wrestled since breaking her nose in a match against Zelina Vega on Raw’s September 21st episode. It was believed she’d return in a few weeks, but over three months later, and she hasn’t returned to television. She wasn’t included in WWE’s last draft, so she is currently recognized as an undrafted free agent, but WWE may no longer consider her an active wrestler at all. It now appears she is regarded as a WWE Legend by the company, as this she appears in the advertisement for Raw Legend’s Night as you can see below.

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While this classification is not yet official, it does appear the 41-year-old former Divas and Women’s Champion is no longer in WWE’s plans at present. If accurate, it shows how quickly things can change within WWE as back in November, WWE was planning to have her work with Chelsea Green on Raw. The storyline was Green playing an obsessed fan of James, and WWE apparently even filmed some segments. However, WWE scrapped this idea and instead debuted Green on SmackDown.

Last Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite was a tribute episode for Brodie Lee was tragically passed away the weekend prior. Each match featured at least one member of The Dark Order, Lee’s longtime tag partner Erick Rowan would make an appearance, and Lee’s son was awarded the TNT Championship belt his father previously held. It was an emotional night and will live long in the fans’ memories.

The final ratings had initially been delayed due to the holidays, but it has now been confirmed the show had 977,000 average viewers. This was a 26% increase from the previous week. The episode would also have a 0.40 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. While the Wednesday Night Wars weren’t of any importance last week, NXT lost the night heavily with 586,000 average viewers. This was down 16% week on week.

Current New Japan IWGP United States Champion Jon Moxley last defended the title against Minoru Suzuki 11 months ago. Worldwide events have meant he hasn’t traveled to Japan during this timeframe. But as matches weren’t booked, he technically hasn’t missed any title defenses, meaning New Japan hasn’t stripped him of the title. To manage Moxley’s absence, New Japan held a tournament to keep the United States Championship in fans’ minds, with the victor becoming the #1 contender. KENTA, known to US fans as Hideo Itami, would win the tournament and is took possession of the #1 contendership briefcase.

Earlier today, at New Japan’s biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom 15, KENTA would defend his title shot contract against Satoshi Kojima. However, before the match, a promo from Jon Moxley would air where he declared himself the boogeyman of New Japan Pro Wrestling. He also said that he was coming for whoever won the match. You can watch this promo below.

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KENTA would retain the briefcase after hitting Kojima with the Go 2 Sleep, meaning he is still at the front of the queue to face Moxley in the future. We don’t yet know when it will occur, but hopefully, it won’t be long away.

On Friday night Mick Foley revealed he had tested positive for COVID-19. He believes he caught it at a virtual autograph signing on December 12th due to one of the two men in attendance with him starting to show symptoms later that day. This resulted in him isolating away from his family, in a hotel room, and missing both Christmas and New Year’s with them. Thankfully Foley has now followed up with some good news and confirmed that after 19 days alone, he is no longer contagious and will be returning home tomorrow. You can read his Facebook post discussing this below.

Mick Foley is well-known for his love of Christmas, so not celebrating the holiday with anyone would have been terrible for him. He does, though, have a Christmas room in his house, so hopefully, he’ll be able to celebrate Christmas in January.

The wrestling world is still coming to terms with the loss of Brodie Lee, who was the leader of The Dark Order in AEW. The group had many detractors when it formed initially and was much maligned until Lee’s arrival as The Exalted One. Almost overnight, his presence gave the faction credibility and direction. Now he sadly no longer there to lead the group, The Dark Order’s long-term existence is in doubt, and Evil Uno addressed this on Talk Is Jericho’s Brodie Lee tribute episode.

The Dark Order came across as stars during the Celebration of Life themed episode of Dynamite last Wednesday and will be massive babyfaces for the foreseeable future. How AEW chooses to use the group remains to be seen, but if they opt to add a new leader, whoever is chosen will have big boots to fill.

Current WWE producer and Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley recently appeared on the Average Blokes Show and took part in a lighthearted interview where he discussed the people he’d have liked to have put through a table during his career. Somewhat surprisingly, he chose WWE’s chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon. In doing so, he revealed in a joking manner that he is actually infatuated with her and would have loved to have dated her.

It was a fun interview, and seeing as D-Von has two young daughters with his second wife Taylor, obviously Triple H has nothing to worry about. Although if Stephanie McMahon receives an anonymous Valentine’s Day card this year, D-Von will be the prime suspect.