POST IT NOTES
**On Sunday, we will have this month’s edition of the POST Wrestling Roundtable. Wai Ting and I will be chatting with Conrad Thompson on this month’s show on the success of “Something to Wrestle With”, the business of wrestling podcasts, what he has learned along the way, and their series going onto the WWE Network. This is a great conversation that I think a lot of you will enjoy. This will be a free show for everyone on the site and on the POST Wrestling iTunes feed.
**For “Double Double” and above members of the Café, we have our latest POST Production video that features a live UNBOXING of our new POST Wrestling enamel pins, which you can see for the first time. We also have the latest update on how the site is going, WrestleMania Weekend detox, and some cool stuff coming up shortly.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/update-t-shirt-18164480
**The latest edition of Keep It 2000 features Brian Mann and Nate Milton reviewing the July 10th, 2000 episode of WCW Monday Nitro following the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view and Booker T’s first WCW title win. The two are joined by Evan Susser of Fist Fight to share his thoughts as WCW entered the summer of 2000. The show can be heard at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/04/11/keep-it-2000-ep-28-traffic-cone-enema-with-evan-susser-july-10-2000/ and also subscribe to Keep It 2000 on iTunes and any podcast program.
**On Friday, we put out the latest Rewind-A-Wai show for members of the POST Wrestling Café covering New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom 9 card from January 4th, 2015. This show featured Hiroshi Tanahashi defending the IWGP title against Kazuchika Okada, most people’s match-of-the-year between Shinsuke Nakamura and Kota Ibushi, AJ Styles taking on Tetsuya Naito, UWF rules match between Minoru Suzuki and Kazushi Sakuraba, and lots more. The event was selected by Espresso Executive Producer Bruce Lord, who also joined us to discuss why he chose this event and his analysis of the event.
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WRESTLING NEWS
**The WWE main roster has a rare weekend off following WrestleMania Week. They return Monday night for the Superstar Shakeup edition of Raw in Hartford, Connecticut. There is no SmackDown house show and all talent will be accessible for use on Raw. The shakeup continues Tuesday night with the tapings in Providence, Rhode Island. Last year’s shakeup episodes did very well for the viewership for both shows and the last time that SmackDown topped three-million viewers.
**Following Raw, the crew will be off to South Africa for a four-event tour next week, beginning on Wednesday in Cape Town.
**Impact Wrestling has added a six-way match for the Redemption pay-per-view next week with Cage vs. Taiji Ishimori vs. Dezmond Xavier vs. Trevor Lee vs. DJZ vs. El Hijo del Fantasma. This will be Ishimori’s first time working with Impact since he left Pro Wrestling NOAH.
**Ring of Honor is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania tonight for “Steel City Excellence” and has the following card:
*The Briscoe Brothers vs. The Young Bucks for the ROH tag titles
*Silas Young vs. Flip Gordon for the ROH Television title
*Dalton Castle and The Boys vs. The Kingdom
*SoCal Uncensored vs. Cody, Marty Scurll & Hangman Page
*Punishment Martinez vs. Jay Lethal
*Jonathan Gresham vs. Will Ferrara
*Brandi Rhodes vs. Jenny Rose
*Coast to Coast vs. Beer City Bruiser and Brian Milonas
**Austin Aries won another title on Friday night, defeating Shane Strickland for the Defy championship at their card in Seattle, Washington.
**Jerry Lawler revealed on the most recent edition of the “Dinner with the King” podcast, that he suffered a stroke on March 21st and was rushed to the emergency room and his blood pressure was through the roof. Lawler was with his fiancé, Lauryn McBride, and began having speech problems and discovered the right side of his face dropping when he checked the mirror. It took Lawler several days to recover and then miraculously woke up on March 24th and was no longer showing any effects of the stroke. It is beyond remarkable that he went through with all his commitments, including hosting the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony this past Friday, which lasted 4 ½ hours. In addition, Lawler did an angle with Joey Ryan on the WrestleCon Supershow last Thursday and had appearances in the city as well, including at WrestleCon for several hours on the morning of the Hall of Fame. Lawler also called the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal this past Sunday alongside Jim Ross and Byron Saxton. From a safety standpoint, it is concerning if Lawler still intends to wrestle on independent shows following two major health scares, including going into cardiac arrest during a live edition of Raw in September 2012.
**A six-man tag with The Undisputed Era vs. Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate & Trent Seven has been announced for the first night of the WWE’s U.K. tournament at Royal Albert Hall. The two-day event is scheduled for June 18th and 19th in London with a tournament scheduled for the first night and the winner facing Pete Dunne on the second night. The second night will also feature titles matches for the NXT North American, NXT women’s, and NXT tag titles.
**Tuesday night’s HBO documentary on Andre the Giant did 931,000 viewers and was the most-watched HBO documentary in 15 years. The special has received lots of praise and I would imagine will open the door for more wrestling themed documentaries between HBO / Bill Simmons and the WWE for the right subject. Wai Ting and I will be doing a show on the documentary this Friday for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**Following today’s matches, here are the updated point totals in the Champion Carnival tournament:
BLOCK A: Yoji Hino (6 points), Kento Miyahara (4), Shingo Takagi (4), Joe Doering (2), Shuji Ishikawa (2), Naoya Nomura (2), The Bodyguard (0), Ryoji Sai (0)
BLOCK B: Jun Akiyama (6 points), Suwama (4), Naomichi Marufuji (4), Dylan James (4), Zeus (4), Yutaka Yoshie (2), Yoshitatsu (2), KAI (0)
**AAA has announced that Rey Mysterio will be working the Verano de Escandalo card on Sunday, June 3rd in Monterrey, Mexico. Earlier this week, PWinsider.com reported that Mysterio is scheduled to be part of the 50-man Royal Rumble match in Saudi Arabia and has also committed to working for New Japan Pro Wrestling this year.
**The NWA team, including David Lagana and David Marquez, have been in China over the past week to promote the first-ever NWA title match in the country. The show took place Saturday morning in Wenzhou with Nick Aldis retaining the championship over Colt Cabana.
**Over the past week, both Jack Evans and Angelico have announced they have departed Lucha Underground.
**The WWE has posted a behind-the-scenes special from last weekend’s WrestleMania show and features some great footage of performers getting ready for their matches, including a great promo by Roman Reigns at the end:
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**The WWE Network will be airing a new episode of Ride Along on Monday night with New Day traveling with Shelton Benjamin and Chad Gable. The new episode airs immediately after Raw.
**The WWE stock closed at $38.69 on Friday.
**Smash Wrestling out of Toronto is running a card on Sunday at The Rec Room (255 Bremner Blvd, across the street from the Rogers Centre) with a bell time of 5 pm. The card is headlined by Matt Riddle taking on Teddy Hart and will also feature Joey Ryan vs. Allie vs. Xandra Bale. Tickets are $25 and $45 with information available at www.smash-wrestling.com.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC has a card on FOX tonight from Glendale, Arizona and features a main event that could easily be a fight-of-the-year contender. The lightweight main event pits Justin Gaethje against Dustin Poirier with Gaethje producing two of the best fights of 2017 against Michael Johnson and Eddie Alvarez. Poirier is the better striker and the one you would be more confident with strategy and conditioning throughout the fight, but Gaethje has incredible power for a lightweight. This division is such a mess with the pending issues with Conor McGregor, the installation of an interim title that Khabib Nurmagomedov holds, and the questions surrounding Tony Ferguson, who should be fighting Nurmagomedov but there is an uneasiness in booking that fight for the fifth time. There are 14 fights scheduled today, beginning at 3:30 pm Eastern and the top eight fights will air on FOX, beginning at 6 pm Eastern and the rest will air on Fight Pass.
MAIN CARD (8 pm Eastern on Fox)
*Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje
*Carlos Condit vs. Alex Oliveira
*Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori
*Michelle Waterson vs. Cortney Casey
PRELIMINARY CARD (6 pm on Fox)
*Tim Boetsch vs. Antonio Carlos Junior
*Muslim Salikhov vs. Ricky Rainey
*John Moraga vs. Wilson Reis
*Krzysztof Jotko vs. Brad Tavares
FIGHT PASS (3:30 pm)
*Gilbert Burns vs. Dan Moret
*Lauren Mueller vs. Shana Dobson
*Dhiego Lima vs. Yushin Okami
*Arjan Bhullar vs. Adam Wieczorek
*Matthew Lopez vs. Alejandro Perez
*Luke Sanders vs. Patrick Williams
**Here are the main card results from the Bellator 197 event on Friday night in St. Charles, Missouri and aired on the Paramount Network:
*Kevin Ferguson Jr. def. Devon Brock by rear-naked choke at 1:34 of Round 1
*Logan Storley def. Joaquin Buckley by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-26)
*A.J. McKee def. Justin Lawrence by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Michael Chandler def. Brandon Girtz by arm-triangle at 4:00 of Round 1
Chandler was originally scheduled to fight Bellator lightweight champion Brent Primus on this card, but Primus was forced to withdraw due to an injury. Chandler fighting Primus is the obvious title fight to make after Chandler dropped the title to Primus last June when he suffered an ankle injury in the middle of their fight at Madison Square Garden last June.
**A light heavyweight fight between Gokhan Saki and Khalil Rountree Jr. has been added to UFC 226 on Saturday, July 7th as part of International Fight Week. Saki made his UFC debut last September and knocked out Henrique da Silva in the first round of a Fight Night card from Japan. Rountree was a finalist on TUF in 2016 and has gone 2-2 with 1 no contest in the UFC. His last fight was changed to a no contest against Michal Oleksiejczuk after Oleksiejczuk failed his post-fight drug test and his win was overturned.
