POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE 1/2: Styles vs. Zayn on SmackDown, Larry Matysik in Hospital, Big January Events

POST IT NOTES

**It’s a very busy week here at POST Wrestling. We have two new shows up on the site with Rewind-A-Raw going through Monday’s episode of Raw with Wai Ting and myself reviewing the show and sharing our thoughts as well as taking your feedback to the show. You can download the show directly and can also subscribe to iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn and the Stitcher app.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/01/02/rewind-a-raw-1-1-18-the-club-reunites-womens-rumble-details-lesnar-laughs-at-kane/

We have also released a special New Japan Wrestle Kingdom 12 Primer & Preview Guide podcast. Wai Ting and myself went through the entire Wrestle Kingdom card and provided backstory on the matches, characters, the history of various performers and angles setting up the show. This was a really fun show to do and we’ll be doing more shows like this when an event warrants a primer ahead of time. You can download this show at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/01/02/njpw_wk12_primer/.

**A new edition of Rewind-A-SmackDown will be released on Wednesday morning as we go through tonight’s program.

**Our Patreon-exclusive Wrestle Kingdom 12 review show will be out late Thursday night to members of the POST Wrestling Café, which you can easily access and sign-up at http://www.POSTwrestlingcafe.com. Those that sign-up will immediately have access to last Friday’s Rewind-A-Wai debut show covering the WWE’s Survivor Series 2005 and then receive the Wrestle Kingdom 12 review this Thursday night.

**I also wanted to thank all of those that voted for Rewind-A-Raw / Rewind-A-SmackDown as the “Best Show Review Podcast” for the annual Sheety Awards that are voted on by listeners. The annual awards are put together by Les Moore & Hugh Little and can be heard at http://www.sheetsandwich.com. We also send congratulations to all the other shows and personalities that both won and were nominated as it’s a great spotlight on the many outstanding shows and people covering the industry.

WRESTLING NEWS

**We want to send our thoughts and best wishes to Larry Matysik, who is currently hospitalized with an unknown ailment. Matysik was the voice of Wrestling at the Chase and served as an understudy and later the right-hand man for Sam Muchnick in the St. Louis office. Matysik had a very straight-forward and sports-oriented approach to his play-by-play style that was akin to Mike Tenay and later Sean Wheelock (who grew up as a major fan in Kansas City and followed Central States Wrestling as a kid). Matysik has also written some of the best wrestling books to come out of ECW Press with a history of Wrestling at the Chase that he released back in 2005, a book on the life of his close friend Frank “Bruiser Brody” Goodish, “Drawing Heat the Hard Way” with a look at the principals of booking professional wrestling and a book listing the Top 50 Professional Wrestlers of all-time. Matysik has had a lot of health problems over the last number of years and suffers from spinal stenosis, which has made it difficult for him to get around and that was evident the last time I saw him when he came to Toronto years back for a book tour.

**The WWE announced on Tuesday that the commentary team for the upcoming “Mixed Match Challenge” show will consist of Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Beth Phoenix. The series premieres on Tuesday, January 16th at 10 pm Eastern on Facebook Watch.

**Raw ratings will be delayed due to New Year’s this week.

**The WWE’s SmackDown Live & 205 Live tapings are in Orlando, Florida tonight at the Amway Center. SmackDown will feature a non-title match between A.J. Styles and Sami Zayn and The Usos defending the tag titles against Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin. 205 Live will have a rematch between Hideo Itami and Jack Gallagher.

**New Japan Pro Wrestling has a small show at the Differ Ariake tonight at 10 pm Eastern featuring talent that will either not performing at Wrestle Kingdom or will be featured in the New Japan Rumble. Tonight’s show is just a three-match show and will air on New Japan World as part of their Fan Fest coverage:
*Jushin Thunder Liger & Tetsuhiro Yagi vs. Tiger Mask & Ren Narita
*Satoshi Kojima & Katsuya Kitamura vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Tomoyuki Oka
*Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Shota Umino

**Enzo missed Raw on Monday night due to the flu. He was in the hospital for ten hours and made his way to the American Airlines Arena in Miami with the intent of having his match with Cedric Alexander but was advised by WWE officials to return to the hospital for further evaluation and the match was scrapped from Raw.

**The Miz will return on next week’s episode of Raw from Memphis at the FedEx Forum. Brock Lesnar is also advertised for next week’s show.

**The next set of NXT television tapings are this Thursday and they will take place from Center Stage in Atlanta, Georgia. This will cover the weeks of television leading into Takeover over Royal Rumble weekend in Philadelphia. We should know the entire Takeover card after this week’s taping.

**It was announced on Monday’s episode of Raw that the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match will mirror the makeup of the men’s match. There will be 30 entrants in the women’s Rumble with over-the-top eliminations and the winner receiving a title match at WrestleMania.

**John Cena has been added to the Royal Rumble match. His next appearance is scheduled for the 25^th Anniversary of Raw on January 22^nd in Brooklyn, New York. Cena had previously won the Rumble in 2008 and 2013.

**CMLL held their annual Sin Piedad event from Arena Mexico on Monday and was headlined by Negro Casas defeating Sam Adonis in a ‘Hair vs. Hair’ match.  The six-match card is available for free on CMLL’s YouTube site.

**WWN Live will be bringing their Style Battle event back on Sunday, January 14^th in Brooklyn with an afternoon show prior to EVOLVE later that night. The first-round matches will feature WALTER vs. Nick Gage, Joey Janela vs. Joey Lynch, Shane Mercer vs. KTB and Rayo vs. Matt Riddle. The season-finale of Style Battle will be held over WrestleMania weekend with a show on Saturday, April 7^th in New Orleans, Louisiana.

**Chris Charlton has announced his second book that he will be releasing on the history of wrestling at the Tokyo Dome. The book will be called “Eggshells: Pro Wrestling in the Tokyo Dome” and will chronicle the 64 wrestling shows that have taken place at the venue. Charlton’s first book entitled, “Lion’s Pride” is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the history of Japanese professional wrestling and specifically New Japan Pro Wrestling.

**AAW has sold out their February 17^th event in Chicago, which features Tetsuya Naito wrestling Sami Callihan at the Logan Square Auditorium. This could feature Naito as IWGP heavyweight champion after this Thursday’s match with Kazuchika Okada.

**Impact Wrestling has one more episode from the last set of television tapings in Ottawa, which will air this Thursday before new episodes begin next week. Impact will begin their next tapings on Wednesday, January 10^th. They are the first set of tapings since Don Callis and Scott D’Amore were installed as Executive Vice-Presidents of the company. This week’s episode of Impact features the “Loser Leaves Town Match” between James Storm and Dan Lambert.

**The WWE stock continues its strong performance with a close at $31.41 on Tuesday.

JANUARY EVENTS
*Thursday, January 4^th – NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12 at 3 am ET (pre-show at 2 am)
*Friday, January 5^th – NJPW New Year’s Dash at 4:30 am ET
*Saturday, January 13^th – EVOLVE 98 at 9 pm ET (Zack Sabre, Jr. vs. Darby Allin)
*Sunday, January 14^th – WWN Live Style Battle at 3 pm ET
*Sunday, January 14^th – EVOLVE 99 at 7 pm ET (Keith Lee vs. Chris Dickinson, ZSJ vs. WALTER)
*Sunday, January 14^th – UFC Fight Night from St. Louis (Jeremy Stephens vs. Dooho Choi)
*Tuesday, January 16^th – WWE Mixed Match Challenge at 10 pm ET on Facebook Watch
*Friday, January 19^th – CMLL Fantastica Mania at 4:30 am ET on New Japan World
*Sunday, January 21^st – CMLL Fantastica Mania at 4:30 am ET on New Japan World
*Monday, January 22^nd – CMLL Fantastica Mania at 4:30 am ET on New Japan World
*Monday, January 22^nd – 25^th Anniversary of Raw special from New York at 8 pm ET
*Saturday, January 20^th – UFC 220 (Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou, Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir)
*Saturday, January 20^th – Bellator 192 at 9 pm ET (Douglas Lima vs. Rory MacDonald, Chael Sonnen vs. Quinton Jackson)
*Friday, January 26^th – SHINE 48 at 9 pm ET (LuFisto vs. Rain)
*Saturday, January 27^th – NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo at 4 am ET on New Japan World
*Saturday, January 27^th – NXT Takeover from Philadelphia (Andrade Cien Almas vs. Johnny Gargano)
*Saturday, January 27^th – UFC Fight Night (Derek Brunson vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza)
*Sunday, January 28^th – NJPW New Beginning Sapporo (Show #2) at 1 am Eastern late Sat/early Sun
*Sunday, January 28^th – WWE Royal Rumble

*****
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12 Primer: Preview & Guide to WK 12
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/26twfe/180102_NJPW_WK12_PRIMER.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 1/1/18: The Club reunites, Women’s Rumble details, Lesnar laughs at Kane
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/wc5xc2/180101_RAR.mp3
*****
POST WRESTLING’s “Best of 2017 Show” with John Pollock, Wai Ting, Jason Agnew and Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski
https://www.postwrestling.com/2017/12/30/the-best-of-2017-show/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI – WWE Survivor Series – Patron-Only Show
(John Pollock & Wai Ting present the inaugural edition of Rewind-A-Wai with a review of the WWE’s Survivor Series card from 2005 with a brand-new intro. Sign up today at POST Wrestling  Café and receive this show immediately by clicking the link below.)
https://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling
*****

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