POST IT NOTES
**We have this week’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw posted on the site at with Wai Ting and I chatting about:
-Monday’s episode of Raw
-The Elimination Chamber participants for the women’s title match
-Kurt Angle’s segment with Alexa Bliss
-Elias pins John Cena in the main event three-way with Braun Strowman
-The streaming services announced by Ring of Honor and All Japan Pro Wrestling
-A WrestleMania game at the end of the show along with your feedback
**We have a POST Production video for those wanting to go inside the POST office as Wai provides a miniature tour from Monday night’s Rewind-A-Raw. All of our POST Production videos are available for “Double Double” and above members from the POST Wrestling Café.
**We will have Rewind-A-SmackDown posted late tonight with reviews of SmackDown Live, 205 Live, and Wai’s weekly review of the Mixed Match Challenge.
**There is a feedback thread up in the POST Wrestling Forum for this Friday’s Rewind-A-Wai show covering Night 3 of last year’s PWG Battle of Los Angeles tournament.
SHOWS THIS WEEK:
*Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Thursday: British Wrestling Experience
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai: BOLA ’17 Night 3 (Patreon)
*Saturday: UFC 221 post-show w/ John Pollock & @MikeBohnMMA
*Saturday: New Beginning review w/ John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
WRESTLING NEWS
**The WWE’s SmackDown tapings are taking place at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri with SmackDown, 205 Live and the Mixed Match Challenge taking place. Below are the matches that have been announced for the shows:
*Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn in a #1 contender’s match to face A.J. Styles at Fast Lane
*Bobby Roode vs. Rusev for the United States title
*Charlotte vs. Liv Morgan
*Goldust and Mandy Rose vs. Naomi and Jimmy Uso in the Mixed Match Challenge
*Roderick Strong vs. Hideo Itami in the Cruiserweight title tournament – if the crowd is invested, this could be excellent
*Kalisto vs. Lince Dorado in the Cruiserweight title tournament
**There is also a fan vote going on for tonight’s Mixed Match Challenge match with fans voting on whether Kurt Angle or Daniel Bryan should serve as the special guest referee.
**William Regal announced on behalf of the WWE on Tuesday that there is currently no Latin American tournament scheduled, despite speculation that one was being planned for later this year.
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reported on Tuesday that Mike “The Miz” Mizanin has signed a new four-year contract with the WWE, which would take him through 2022 with the company. Stemming from his notoriety off MTV’s Real World and various themed series, Miz was able to acquire a following prior to his professional wrestling career. He was initially training in Rick Bassman’s UPW but got his first big amount of exposure within the industry from the Tough Enough season in the fall of 2004 on SmackDown. Miz was a finalist on the revamped series, losing to Daniel Puder but still receiving interest from the company. As history has proven, if you are serious about making it as a wrestler off of these reality series and concepts, it is best to forego the big grand prize money and contract in favour of being a runner-up, getting a developmental deal and avoiding the inherent heat that has hurt so many in similar positions, with Puder being a prime example of that curse.
The creative staff on SmackDown brought The Miz in as an MTV style host to do wraparounds throughout the show and serve as its “host” without a big plan regarding his in-ring career. He was very bad at the start and was designed to be a babyface in the style of Ryan Seacrest but was easily more effective as a heel. His first glimpse of success came when teaming with John Morrison and receiving leeway on WWE.com to push their own digital series, “The Dirt Sheet”. This series showcased their comedic creativity in a less structured environment through the WWE’s digital arm.
After breaking up the team, Miz was drafted to the Raw brand in 2009 and immediately placed in a program with John Cena. Miz cut scathing promos on Cena for weeks before they finally had Cena beat him but did allow a larger audience to see Miz cut good promos. He would get his first major push in mid-2010 when he won the Money in the Bank briefcase in July and then cashed in and won the title from Randy Orton in November. He would hold the title until the following spring, including being a part of the main event at WrestleMania 27 with Cena, although the real main event was The Rock hosting the show and pushing a future program with Cena and Miz was on the backburner throughout this leadup to ‘Mania. Miz retained the title at ‘Mania (through the assistance of The Rock) and then dropped it to Cena the following month. After the run with the title, Miz was knocked down several pegs in the pecking order and it took a long time for him to find the proper character presentation while he was stuck in the middle of the card.
Miz was always a limited in-ring performer but with the right opponents could hold his own and evolved into a very competent wrestler. His matches with Dolph Ziggler were a strong point of SmackDown in 2016, including a solid pay-per-view match with Ziggler putting his career on the line. Miz also represented the style of promo that a generation of fans have been accustomed to within the WWE where a wrestler checks off all the boxes with the proper buzz words, speaks like a rehearsed performer and lacks the emotion that a promo is designed to elicit. For me, it wasn’t until 2016 that he shook this form and found his voice as a member of the SmackDown roster, receiving unscripted time on the “Talking Smack” program, including a memorable segment with Daniel Bryan, which was the best promo of The Miz’s career to date.
One of the big turning points for his character came in April 2016 when his wife, Maryse was added as his second and was a subtle addition that made an enormous difference in his presentation.
Today, Miz is a valuable asset to the company as someone that never gets injured, has been the star of “The Marine” franchise, is about to be part of his own spinoff reality show with Maryse on the USA Network and is a key character on Raw each week.
**Paul “Big Show” Wight appeared on the Busted Open radio show on Tuesday to provide a health update. Wight was written off television last September following a steel cage match on Raw with Braun Strowman for Wight to have hip resurfacing surgery. Several weeks after the surgery, it was discovered he had an infection through the metal implants inserted that required an extensive cleaning. He noted, that if the infection had gotten worse it could have required a career-ending hip replacement procedure. For seven weeks, he had a PICC line inserted that required an IV bag with the PICC line finally being removed on January 2nd. During this time, Wight was unable to work out but since January 2nd, he has lost almost 27 pounds and listed his timetable for recovery as “touch and go” for the next 6-8 months.
**Ring of Honor is expected to set a new paid attendance record for Supercard of Honor over WrestleMania weekend. It was Stephen Burns, who first reported that they have sold 3,828 tickets for the show, which will feature Kenny Omega vs. Cody. POST Wrestling spoke to an official with ROH on Monday afternoon regarding the report and was told yesterday that the figure being reported was “in the ballpark”. The official added that they would set their attendance record for this year’s show. ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni has since added that the report was true. This show will break the company’s record attendance that was set at last year’s Supercard of Honor event in Lakeland, Florida that was headlined by a ladder match between The Young Bucks and The Hardys.
**New Japan ran Korakuen Hall on Tuesday for the second consecutive day and the show was headlined by a very good IWGP tag title match with EVIL and Sanada retaining the titles over Kazuchika Okada and Hirooki Goto. The crowd took to Sanada in a big way, so the angles they have shot were effective in this setting, placing him into a babyface position. At the start of the match, the announcers played it up that the crowd was mixed, although it sounded like a much more pro-Okada crowd. By the middle of the match, when Sanada fired up on Okada and hit his own dropkick, the place was very hot and chanting for Sanada. The major sequence saw Okada roll out of the Skull End, then Sanada ducked a Rainmaker and he hit Okada with his own Rainmaker. This led to the Magic Killer being delivered to Goto followed by EVIL hitting the STO and pinning Goto and they won in 18:14. I feel both these singles matches are going to be great on Saturday at New Beginning and this is easily the best New Japan card since Wrestle Kingdom.
**New Japan will be announcing the main events this week for the upcoming tour of Australia. On Tuesday, it was announced that the February 16th event in Adelaide at the Titanium Security Arena will be headlined by Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii taking on The Young Bucks. The tour begins next Friday and continues in Melbourne on February 17th, Sydney on February 18th and concludes with a show on February 19th in Perth.
**Here is the updated card for the WWE’s Elimination Chamber show on February 25th in Las Vegas:
*Roman Reigns vs. John Cena vs. Braun Strowman vs. Elias vs. The Miz vs. TBA in the Elimination Chamber Match
*Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks vs. Mandy Rose vs. Mickie James vs. Sonya Deville in an Elimination Chamber Match for the Raw women’s title
*Asuka vs. Nia Jax – if Jax wins, the women’s title match involving Asuka at WrestleMania becomes a three-way match
**The final spot in the men’s Elimination Chamber Match will be determined through a four-way match on next Monday’s episode of Raw with Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Matt Hardy vs. Apollo Crews.
**The WWE is seeking additional writers for their creative staff with a job posting. The listing includes the responsibility of developing and implementing creative storylines for both broadcast television and the WWE Network, working with both the home and road team of writers, consistently improving and refining storylines, and taking consumer insights and social media to deliver impactful storylines that are consistent with the WWE brand and each talent’s skills and history.
**Nick Aldis will be defending the NWA title against Tommy Dreamer at the House of Hardcore event on March 24th at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
**Alpha-1 Wrestling returns on Sunday, February 18th in Hamilton, Ontario with a card headlined by Abyss vs. Josh Alexander. The show takes place at 222 Queenston, Road with a bell time of 4 pm Eastern. The information for the show can be found at http://www.alpha-1wrestling.com.
**Here is a segment from “Last Call with Carson Daly” with a spotlight segment on Chris Jericho.
**The WWE stock closed at $34.56 on Tuesday.
MMA NEWS
**This past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night event from Belem, Para in Brazil averaged 839,000 viewers for the main card on FS1. The card was headlined by a five-round decision victory for Lyoto Machida over Eryk Anders. The main card was down 35% in average viewership from last month’s Fight Night event on FS1, which was a Sunday night card headlined by Jeremy Stephens and Dooho Choi. The prelims from this past weekend aired on FS2 and averaged 361,000 viewers and featured Sergio Moraes defeating Tim Means by split decision in the feature preliminary fight.
**Following Saturday’s heated discussion regarding the officiating during the Valentina Shevchenko vs. Priscila Cachoeira fight in Belem, referee Mario Yamasaki issued a statement to defend his decision to allow the fight to continue as long as it did:
During the second round, I signaled to ‘Pedrita’ that if she didn’t move I’d stop the fight, and every time I’d stop, I told her and she moved to try to escape from the punches. Unfortunately, I also can’t control the number of blows thrown — again, when a fighter is trying to come back she’s game.
Fighters go through times of hard effort and dedication to be there. MMA is a contact sport and no fighter likes his fight to be stopped with no chance to revert the result. In my opinion, I allowed Pedrita to be a warrior and keep fighting. I could have stopped the fight in the second crucifix or in the mount, but she moved the whole time.
I also recognize that I should have stopped when she tapped the first time to the rear-naked choke. I only stopped a few seconds later.
About other people’s opinions, it’s their right to say.
The Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission (CABMMA) has also issued a statement addressing the controversial fight, their role in sanctioning the fight, and the actions of Yamasaki during Saturday’s bout:
The Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission (CABMMA) has discussed the stoppage with referee Mario Yamasaki at the post-fight meeting held at venue with all of the officials assigned for the event. We made it clear all of our concerns regarding the incident.
Priscilla Cachoeira demonstrated toughness and heart during the two rounds but those are two attitudes that should not interfere or confuse the referee when it comes to stoppages. In the first round, in the last couple of minutes, it was clear that Priscilla could not defend herself efficiently nor technically. That reflected directly on the judges scores, all three giving it a 10-8. Round two was the same, but obviously with Priscilla not physically recovered enough from the previous round to demonstrate her chance against Valentina, the fight should have been called off right in the initial moments. And if the fight wasn’t called off, it would have been a clear 10-7, due to what we considered a overwhelming dominance and significant impact in the round.
As to the matchmaking, the fight was approved by CABMMA. If it was not well matched and that being evidently demonstrated during the fight, it should have been identified by the referee in charge, as he is the highest authority in that moment, whose role is to protect the fighter at all times including stopping the fight at the proper moment.
CABMMA understands that errors can occur from all aspects, but they should be recognized and corrected, to avoid similar cases in the future. And in a sport where the main concern is the fighter’s health and integrity, from the regulator’s standpoint we should do everything possible to minimize the risk of a scenario such as the one of this weekend.
Mario Yamasaki has been one of the best referees in MMA for the past decade and played a key role in helping our commission build the team of officials. We will discuss the next steps together and decide what is certainly best for all parts involved in the process.
**UFC welterweight Jim Wallhead has accepted a nine-month suspension from USADA but was redeemed after an investigation confirmed that he took a legitimately tainted supplement that contained Ostarine. Wallhead failed an out-of-competition test last October and proceeded with an investigation with USADA, where the agency tested an independently sourced, unopened container of the supplement and discovered Ostarine was present in the sample and not listed on the ingredients. Wallhead will still serve a suspension for having the substance in his system and will be able to return to fight this July.
**It was first reported by Nolan King at MMA Today News that a heavyweight bout between Junior Albini and Alexey Oleynik has been added to the UFC 224 event on May 12th in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
**UFC fighter Carls John de Tomas has been suspended for one-year by USADA after failing a drug test that was administered on December 8th, the day before he fought Alex Perez at the UFC Fight Night event in Fresno, California. The fight was originally scheduled to take place in the flyweight division but officials at the California State Athletic Commission moved the fight up a weight class because of concerns with De Tomas the weight he had to cut that week. The drug test found a diuretic in the system of de Tomas and he be suspended until December 29th, 2018.
**Invicta FC has announced their card for the Invicta FC 28 show on Friday, March 24th in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Union Event Center:
*Janaisa Morandin vs. Virna Jandiroba for the vacant Invicta strawweight title after Angela Hill returned to the UFC
*Mizuki Inoue vs. Milana Dudieva
*DeAnna Bennett vs. Karina Rodriguez – Bennett’s return to the promotion after competing on the women’s flyweight season of TUF and then fighting Melinda Fabian to a draw on the TUF Finale last December
*Pearl Gonzalez vs. Kali Robbins – Gonzalez is making her Invicta debut after going 0-2 in the UFC last year
*Minna Grusander vs. Fernanda Priscila
*Kal Schwartz vs. TBA
*Kerri Kenneson vs. Chelsea Chandler
*Rebekah Levine vs. Jillian DeCoursey
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 2/5/18: Jordan Screws Up Again, Women’s Chamber Participants Announced
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/67bdxd/180205_RAR.mp3
*****
ASK-A-WAI #1: Ask Us Anything (February 2018) – https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/8cm67s/180204_ASK-A-WAI.mp3
*****
TOTAL DIVAS SEASON 7 FINALE REVIEW WITH JOHN POLLOCK & WAI TING (Patreon bonus show)
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/02/01/total-divas-season-7-finale/
*****
KEEP IT 2000: Ep. 23 – “The Red Liquid” with Damian Abraham (June 5, 2000)
https://keepit2000.podbean.com/mf/download/kycidg/Keep-It-2000-June-5-2000.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 1/30/18: Owens & Zayn dissension, New 205 Live GM, Braun & Alexa, Jeremy Borash, WWE 24 review
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/9xx9en/180130_RASD.mp3
*****
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