POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be back late tonight with a new show reviewing WWE Fastlane, the ROH 16th Anniversary card from Friday night and the New Japan Cup highlights thus far. We will also be taking your questions and feedback to the show, which you can post on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Benno of the British Wrestling Experience has been providing reports throughout the weekend from the wXw 16 Carat Gold Tournament, which is one of the biggest tournaments of year where the weekend has grown into a significant one for European wrestling fans. Benno has filed reports from Night 1 and for Night 2, which can be read on the site and will have a report on the third and final night coming
**We are running a quick contest on the POST Wrestling Forum this week for the chance to win a free single ticket to ROH’s Supercard of Honor event on Saturday, April 7th in New Orleans.
WRESTLING NEWS
**The WWE will be holding their final major event before WrestleMania with Fastlane tonight from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The SmackDown-only show should tie up the remaining loose ends before the strong push forward for WrestleMania in four-weeks. Here is a preview of the show:
*AJ Styles vs. John Cena vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler for the WWE title –On paper, this appears to be a great match as they had a strong five-way on Tuesday and will have lots of time tonight. The obvious pick is Styles and it would make little sense to detour from plans. There are several stories heading into this one – Styles fighting for the audience’s dream match with Shinsuke Nakamura, John Cena’s quest to get a major match at WrestleMania, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens’ dissension after this week’s show, and Ziggler’s chase for a singles match at WrestleMania. While I felt going with Cena vs. Nakamura on this show would have been of more interest, Cena can be hidden a bit more in this six-man and then shine for his key spots and does make this match a more intriguing one.
*Bobby Roode vs. Randy Orton for the United States title –Depending on the audience’s reaction, this could be a hell of a match. Roode seems to be finding his footing more and more on SmackDown now that he has a real program, the entrance isn’t the lone focus of his act, and Orton is a fresh opponent and I expect the two to have strong chemistry. Orton winning the title is an idea or Jinder Mahal getting involved to continue this feud is also an option. I’m optimistic though as this could be a sleeper on the card.
*The Usos vs. New Day for the SmackDown tag titles –Their feud was one of the high points of WWE programming in 2017 and I would expect another solid outing from the two teams. The Bludgeon Brothers have been kept in the background and appear to be the challengers at WrestleMania, whether that is a straight tag match or a multiple team match with Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin, Breezango etc. The Usos should retain and go into WrestleMania as champions.
*Charlotte Flair vs. Ruby Riott for the SmackDown women’s title –Riott is in the position of being the stopgap challenger before the ‘Mania program and it’s never an ideal spot. However, Riott has a big chance to deliver with Charlotte and set herself up for something more substantial after ‘Mania season. It’s the first major singles match of Riott’s main roster run and Charlotte could use a dynamic match to kickstart her in the right direction for ‘Mania. I could see a scenario where Charlotte wins and Asuka shows up unannounced to set that title match in stone.
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev –This match feels very cold and if anything, they are running the risk of the audience chanting for Rusev over Nakamura, who they need to heat up as much as possible over the next month. It should be a straightforward match with Nakamura winning clean.
*Naomi and Becky Lynch vs. Natalya and Carmella –this is currently being listed for the main show and not the kickoff. It’s a match.
**The ROH title match at Supercard of Honor will be Dalton Castle defending the title against Marty Scurll following Friday’s 16th Anniversary show where both were victorious. The story is Scurll has never received an ROH title match and it has been pushed for weeks on television. The Castle vs. Jay Lethal match is well worth the time to check out and was a fantastic main event.
**There will also be a ladder match at Supercard of Honor with SoCal Uncensored vs. The Young Bucks and Flip Gordon.
**On the new season of “Love” on Netflix, the fifth episode of the series features a Gail Kim and Lisa Marie Varon doing a match, which was put together by Chavo Guerrero Jr.
**The New Japan Cup tournament has really great so far with six of the eight opening round matches in the books. Today’s show featured Zack Sabre Jr. defeating Tetsuya Naito in the main event and Kota Ibushi defeating Yoshi-Hashi. They were completely different matches, but both were great. Yoshi-Hashi’s performance was at the level of his best matches and shined with Ibushi. The Sabre Jr. vs. Naito match was a clinic in submission-based wrestling, working over a body part and Sabre Jr. playing the role of the submission master that gears his offence towards suffocating his opponent with a wide range of holds that target the body part. Saturday’s show saw Hiroshi Tanahashi defeat Taichi and Bad Luck Fale over Lance Archer to advance. Tanahashi had a very good match with Taichi, who easily had the best week of his career over the past one after matches with Tetsuya Naito and Tanahashi. We will chat about the tournament more on tonight’s show.
**The New Japan Cup tournament resumes Monday with a show from Takamatsu at 6 am Eastern and will stream live on New Japan World with the following card:
*Sanada vs. Chuckie T. in the New Japan Cup tournament
*Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Toru Yano in the New Japan Cup tournament
*Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kota Ibushi and Chase Owens
*Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, Takashi Iizuka, and Taichi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Juice Robinson, and Toa Henare (this would be Suzuki and Tanahashi’s first meeting since the injury angle at New Beginning in Sapporo in January)
*Tetsuya Naito and Bushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and Taka Michinoku
*Michael Elgin and David Finlay vs. Hirooki Goto and Yoshi-Hashi
*Yuji Nagata, Tomoyuki Oka, and Shota Umino vs. Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro, and Tanga Loa
*El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Ryusuke Taguchi and Ren Narita
**There were three title changes on today’s Pro Wrestling NOAH “Great Voyage” card in Yokohama, including Takashi Sugiura defeating Kenoh to become the new GHC champion. After the match, they shot an angle with Atsushi Kotoge head-butting Sugiura and they will have a title match on April 29th.
The show also featured Katsuhiko Nakajima and Masa Kitamiya winning the GHC tag titles from Quiet Storm and Muhammad Yone. The GHC junior heavyweight tag titles also changed hands with Yoshinari Ogawa and Minoru Tanaka defeating Taiji Ishimori and Hi69. The only champion to retain his title was GHC junior heavyweight champion Daisuke Harada, who defeated challenger Hayata.
**Monday’s episode of Raw takes place from the Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit, Michigan and will feature a face-to-face segment involving Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns.
**The SmackDown crew has a house show Monday night in Dayton, Ohio at the Nutter Center at Wright State University. They are advertising a four-way main event with AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin for the WWE title and Bobby Roode vs. Randy Orton for the United States title. The television tapings are Tuesday night in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
**Friday night’s WWE event in Minneapolis featured a non-finish between Brock Lesnar and The Miz. The match ended with Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel running in and all three members of the Miztourage took suplexes and F-5s as the referee threw out the match after about a minute. The strategy appears to be presenting Lesnar as someone that is simply showing up to fulfil contract obligations and leave the audience unsatisfied, but still fulfilling his appearance requirement and doing minimal physicality. Next Friday night, he is scheduled for a three-way match with Braun Strowman and Kane at Madison Square Garden and is the final match he has scheduled before WrestleMania next month.
**The WWE Network will have a new episode of “Photo Shoot” on Monday night following Raw with Jim Cornette featured. Cornette (who started his wrestling career as a photographer in Memphis) will go through moments of his career with various photos displayed and Cornette sharing stories, which sounds like a pretty good episode of the series to check out.
**Stardom has announced that Brandi Rhodes will participate in the promotion’s annual Cinderella tournament on April 30th at Korakuen Hall.
PAY-PER-VIEW REWIND
WWE Fastlane 2017
Sunday, March 5th, 2017
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
*Rich Swann and Akira Tozawa over Noam Dar and Brian Kendrick
*Samoa Joe over Sami Zayn
*Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows over Enzo and Big Cass to retain the Raw tag titles
*Sasha Banks over Nia Jax
*Cesaro over Jinder Mahal
*Big Show over Rusev
*Neville over Jack Gallagher to retain the Cruiserweight title
*Roman Reigns over Braun Strowman
*Bayley over Charlotte Flair to retain the Raw women’s title – this also ended Charlotte’s undefeated pay-per-view streak
*Bill Goldberg over Kevin Owens to win the Universal title
*****
REWIND-A-WAI – WRESTLEMANIA XX (Patreon only)
John Pollock and Wai Ting go almost three hours reviewing WrestleMania 20 with the disaster between Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg, Chris Benoit’s title win and viewing it today, The Undertaker’s return and tons more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/rewind-wai-6-xx-17448189
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE 3/8/18: Progress Chapter 64, Fight Club Pro “A Tribute to Francois Trebec”, wXw 16 Carat Preview, 5 Star Wrestling
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/y8mddk/180308_BWE.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 3/6/18: Zayn Swerves Owens, Braun & Alexa Flirt
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/c68vh3/180306_RASD.mp3
*****
NJPW 46TH ANNIVERSARY REVIEW (Patreon only)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/17403218
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 3/5/18: Rousey & Angle Receive WM Opponents, Hardy’s Ultimate Deletion
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/i6eq5e/180305_RAR.mp3
*****
ASK-A-WAI – Ask Us Anything
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer any and all of their patrons’ questions from the members-only section of the POST Wrestling Forum.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/17301615
*****
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