POST IT NOTES
**First off, we have had a huge week at POST Wrestling with coverage of Wrestle Kingdom and an outstanding response to all of it. For those that have signed up to the POST Wrestling Café, we have our big review of Wrestle Kingdom 12 available for all Patrons and will also be doing a small bonus show later today covering New Year’s Dash for Café members. The Wrestle Kingdom show is a two-hour review of the show, match-by-match analysis, Braden Herrington joins us to chat about his live experience at the Tokyo Dome and we take your feedback to the show.
The “Worst of 2017 Show” will be released everywhere Sunday morning as Jason Agnew and Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski will return and provide their picks with Wai Ting and myself in the following categories:
WORST WRESTLER (Male)
WORST WRESTLER (Female)
WORST TAG TEAM
WORST ON THE MIC
WORST ANNOUNCER
WORST NON-WRESTLING PERFORMER
WORST GIMMICK
WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR
WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR
THEY REALLY DROPPED THE BALL ON
WORST ANGLE
WORST EVENT (wrestling)
WORST EVENT (MMA)
WORST PROMOTION
WORST TV SHOW
WORST Non “In Ring” TV show
MOST DISAPPOINTING FIGHTER
WORST MMA FIGHT
WTF MOMENT OF THE YEAR
WRESTLING NEWS
**The Ryan Center in Kingston, Rhode Island announced today that the 205 Live event scheduled for Friday, January 19th has been canceled “due to routing and scheduling issues” and offering full refunds. POST Wrestling contacted representatives at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium and the Mid-Hudson Civic Center where the other 205 Live events are scheduled that weekend, both venues told us that the 205 Live shows are still scheduled for those dates. In an effort to increase sales for the tour, the WWE announced last month that Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt were being added to those shows. The WWE confirmed to POST Wrestling that the Kingston show was canceled but that the Lowell and Poughkeepsie shows would go on as scheduled.
**There were several angles shot at New Year’s Dash on Friday morning with the biggest being Chris Jericho’s attack on Tetsuya Naito. Naito was addressing the crowd after the ten-man tag main event and Jericho stormed the ring and attacked Naito from behind. It was executed with lots of intensity to back up the obvious excitement of the crowd that not only was Jericho on the show but looks to have at minimum one more match with New Japan. Jericho feels like the hottest star in the business this week coming off one of the great performances of his entire career at Wrestle Kingdom, his heel work has been nothing short of incredible and this is a tremendous program for Naito coming off the loss to Kazuchika Okada.
The other key angle on the show was Jay White attacking Kenny Omega after Omega presented White with a Bullet Club t-shirt and White put the shirt on and then laid out Omega with the Blade Runner. This followed another big story involving Omega, who came to the rescue of Kota Ibushi as he was being attacked by Cody and The Bullet Club. They have so much lined up for Omega where the Jay White program should be the immediate direction and then he has long-term options with Cody, Kota Ibushi (as a team or as opponents) and there is the outstanding issue with Okada where Omega holds a non-title win over from their G-1 match last August and the fourth match is something that is always there.
Minoru Suzuki looks to be going after the Intercontinental title next after a big attack on Hiroshi Tanahashi and injuring his knee. Kazuchika Okada was beaten down by LIJ after their ten-men tag and it was Sanada who the heat was placed on and that feels like a quick program for Okada at one of the New Beginning cards as Sanada has not been heated up to any significance for a title match.
Will Ospreay and Hiromu Takahashi teased a future title match on the show and that should be excellent. There was also a hint of Hirooki Goto vs. EVIL with EVIL attacking Goto with Darkness Falls after the ten-man tag, which makes sense if Sanada is tied up with Okada and EVIL can go with Goto rather than having the two defend the tag titles on whatever card those matches land on.
In terms of the timing of the matches, you need a big main event for Osaka next month and Jericho vs. Naito can headline that show and it allows Okada to have a smaller match with Sanada on one of the other New Beginning shows (I wouldn’t put an Okada title defense on a card that is underneath Jericho vs. Naito). The key matches will be spread out over the three New Beginning events with two in Sapporo on back-to-back nights on January 27th and 28th and then Osaka on February 10th. I can see Tanahashi vs. Suzuki headlining one of the Sapporo cards and then you have Omega vs. White.
**There was also a small title change on the New Year’s Dash card with Bad Luck Fale & The Guerillas of Destiny regaining the NEVER six-man tag titles from Tomohiro Ishii, Beretta, and Toru Yano. The latter won the titles the night before at Wrestle Kingdom and immediately dropped them back to the former champions.
**Tickets for New Japan Pro Wrestling’s “Strong Style Evolved” card in Long Beach, California will be going on sale on Monday, January 29th at 1 pm Eastern. The show will be in a larger venue this time with the Walter Pyramid booked and that is an arena that can hold approximately 4,200 people. Tickets for the show start at $50 and top out at $200 and I don’t think they will have trouble with that price range. The biggest risk they are taking is running a show that is so heavily catered to travelers and doing so two weeks before WrestleMania weekend in New Orleans. I can see a lot of people within California making the trip, but this feels more like a show designed for those within driving range rather than a big fly in show with people far away who have their WrestleMania plans in place for their travel.
**The Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio has just announced that John Cena is scheduled for a special appearance at the WWE Fast Lane event at the venue on Sunday, March 11th. The same venue is advertising a fatal five-way match for the show with A.J. Styles vs. Randy Orton vs. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn for the WWE title. Sometimes when an advertised match gets out for a pay-per-view it will be changed or removed but that listing has been up on the Nationwide Arena’s website for a while now. The Fast Lane event is the lone SmackDown event in between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. If the five-way is the direction, that would heavily suggest that a Raw talent is winning the Royal Rumble but you should always take these things with a degree of skepticism along with changes that can occur.
**The WWE has been announcing teams this week for the “Mixed Match Challenge” with the following teams announced so far: Braun Strowman & Alexa Bliss, Bobby Roode & Charlotte, Finn Balor & Sasha Banks, Rusev & Lana, Jimmy Uso & Naomi and the latest announcement is Nia Jax teaming with Apollo Crews (in the spot that was likely designed for Enzo).
**Total Divas averaged 684,000 viewers on E! this past Wednesday night.
**The WWE will be running a SmackDown live event in Amsterdam on May 19th at the Ziggo Dome. They have announced A.J. Styles, Jinder Mahal, Shinsuke Nakamura, Charlotte, New Day and Kevin Owens among those that are scheduled to appear.
******
WRESTLE KINGDOM 12 REVIEW (Patron-only show)
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/01/05/njpw-wrestle-kingdom-12-review-patreon-exclusive/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 1/2/18: AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn, The Usos vs. Gable & Benjamin, Becky Lynch returns
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/np7x6z/180102_RASD.mp3
*****
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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