POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I have our review of the WWE Backlash card posted on the main page of the site. This was most critical response we have received to a card this year with just about everyone down on the show. The two of us have a match-by-match rundown, notes from the show, a big discussion on the upcoming season of Total Bellas, and we take your feedback. The show is available at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/05/07/backlash-2018-post-show-w-john-pollock-wai-ting/ and subscribe to POST Wrestling on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play etc.
**We will be back with Rewind-A-Raw late tonight to review the show from the Nassau Coliseum and take your questions and feedback.
**Chris Jericho and Tetsuya Naito will meet at Dominion and we have the top match announcements for the card that takes place June 9th at Osaka-jo Hall.
**We have the full schedule and match announcements for the Best of the Super Juniors tournament that begins on Friday, May 18th.
**We have all the results from Monday’s final day of the Progress Wrestling Super Strong Style 16 tournament, including the announcement of when the winner will challenger for the Progress championship this year.
THIS WEEK AT POST WRESTLING:
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: Keep It 2000 with Brian Mann & Nate Milton (July 24th, 2000, WCW Monday Nitro)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai – WWF Survivor Series 1996 (Patreon)
*Sunday: The POST Roundtable feat. Arda Ocal
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WRESTLING NEWS
**One piece of the WWE’s domestic television package is staying put with the announcement that Total Divas has been renewed for two additional seasons by E! The series, which began in July 2013, has been greenlit for Season 8 and 9, with the eighth season to begin filming this fall. The series has spawned two spin-off shows with Total Bellas scheduled to return on May 20th and the pending debut of “Miz & Mrs” that will be a show built around Mike Mizanin and his wife, Maryse. The most recent season of Total Divas, which aired from November 2017 – January 2018, averaged 581,750 viewers for the season. The big television rights deal on the horizon is the deal for Raw and SmackDown Live with the company stating that an announcement would be made between May and September this year. The Total Divas and spinoff shows will keep the WWE in a relationship with an NBC Universal network, regardless of where Raw and SmackDown end up. It was noted on last week’s investors call that the WWE would have a presence at the USA Network’s upfront presentation for advertisers.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw will take place from the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, New York. They are coming off a pay-per-view that has been heavily panned and one of the worst shows in recent memory the company has produced. The show tonight should provide some idea of where they are heading with Roman Reigns and his position at Money in the Bank. A change in direction seems the only possibility with a turn long overdue. Based on his win over Joe, it would seem the next logical match is yet another rematch with Brock Lesnar but the roles need to be changed or that match will die, especially if it takes place in Chicago next month.
Money in the Bank is six-weeks away, so they have a lot of time to promote that show with qualifying matches. They announced on the Backlash broadcast that there will be a men’s and women’s ladder match just like last year.
**The SmackDown crew has a live event in Allentown, Pennsylvania tonight and the television tapings are in Baltimore, Maryland Tuesday night. Daniel Bryan is advertised for tonight’s house show and they are advertising the main event with AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Samoa Joe. Tuesday’s episode will feature a Money in the Bank Qualifying match involving The Miz.
**In an interview with Pat Laprade for TVA Sports, Kevin Owens revealed that he recently signed a new five-year deal with the WWE, which would keep Owens under contract until 2023 just before his 39th birthday. In the interview, it outlined the crazy schedule Owens had last week ahead of Raw in Montreal. After flying 30-hours roundtrip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and back, he only had a few hours at home with his family in Florida before flying to Montreal. In his home province, he did a bunch of interviews and pre-tapes before Raw. Owens added that he never felt at home on SmackDown over the past year and is happy to be back on Raw. He was also very proud of how the houses have improved in Quebec with 13,500 attending Raw last week and another 8,900 for SmackDown (which Owens and Zayn were originally advertised for before the shakeup sent them to Raw). While Canada isn’t the priority it was in years past with other countries higher on the list, they have something very special in Owens that the Quebec market gravitates towards. There are very few performers that receive the type of publicity that Owens does in their home market and to play with that formula by beating the star of the show in his home market last week was baffling to me. If the larger story required Owens to lose, that’s one thing, but it was a trivial tag match that Jinder Mahal, and even Zayn, would have been a better option to take that fall as opposed to Owens, who is the top guy in Quebec.
**Alexa Bliss injured her shoulder during the match with Nia Jax at Backlash. We should know tonight if the injury is serious or not as she was set to have the shoulder checked out. Dave Meltzer confirmed on his radio show that the injury was legitimate.
**The WWE Network has added 52 episodes of Sunday Night Heat to the streaming service. The shows added begin with the show’s debut on August 2nd, 1998 and through July 25th, 1999 (which is the lead in for that year’s Fully Loaded pay-per-view and featured Triple H referring to himself as “The Game” for the first time during a sit-down interview with Jim Ross).
**The WWE announced Monday that Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke have reported to the Performance Center in Florida to officially begin training. Duke is 31-years old and had an amateur fight career before turning pro in July 2012 where she began fighting for Invicta FC. After three fights for Invicta, she earned a spot on the Ultimate Fighter for the first season that featured women on the show and met Ronda Rousey. Duke received a UFC contract after the season and went 1-3 in the promotion. She left the UFC after consecutive losses to Bethe Correia, Leslie Smith, and Elizabeth Phillips and returned to Invicta where she lost two more fights to Irena Aldana and Cindy Dandois, which was her final fight in July 2016. Shafir just turned 30 years and was unbeaten as an amateur and then went pro in April 2014, submitted Chandra Engel and was knocked out in her next two bouts to Amanda Bell and Amber Leibrock, both losses ended 0:37 into each fight and she hasn’t fought since July 2015.
**Tyler Bate suffered a shoulder injury against Kassius Ohno on Sunday in their Super Strong Style 16 tournament match for Progress Wrestling. Bate was removed from today’s card and replaced by Ohno with the promotion announcing the injury and replacement before today’s final card of the tournament.
**Progress Wrestling will be running the Wembley Arena on Sunday, September 30th and have announced that Will Ospreay will take on Jimmy Havoc on the card.
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**Bryan Danielson was a guest with Amy Jo Martin on the “Why Not Now?” podcast and discussed his struggle in gaining clearance to return to wrestling. Danielson noted that it was sitting ringside for an AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose match while he was the General Manager of SmackDown that gave him the bug to want to return and set out on a mission of getting cleared. There was an interesting discussion about some findings he has come across regarding the formation of Tau protein in the brain, which can kill of brain cells. Danielson noted that some studies have shown a higher prevalence of CTE among heavy steroid users, as well as some studies showing people with higher animal protein in their diet, can show the early signs of Alzheimer’s, compared to Danielson, who has a plant-based diet and it’s unknown if his diet has helped him with his concussion issues. While this hasn’t been scientifically proven, it’s an interesting pattern to look deeper into as I feel we are still just scratching the surface when it comes to education regarding CTE and the causes.
**Today would have been Owen Hart’s 53rd birthday. It is also Kevin Owens’ birthday and he is 34 years old today.
**Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling will begin their annual War of the Worlds Tour this Wednesday with four cards scheduled this week. They will kick off the tour in Lowell, Massachusetts with the following card streaming live on Honor Club:
*Dalton Castle vs. Matt Taven for the ROH title
*Cody, Hangman Page & Marty Scurll vs. Roppongi 3K & Rocky Romero
*The Young Bucks vs. Hiromu Takahashi & Bushi
*The Briscoe Brothers vs. Flip Gordon & Jushin Thunder Liger for the ROH tag titles
*Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky vs. Jay White, Jay Lethal & Chuckie T. for the ROH six-man tag titles
*Silas Young, Beer City Bruiser & Brian Milonas vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL & Sanada
*Coast to Coast vs. Vinny Marseglia & TK O’Ryan
The War of the Worlds tour continues on Friday in Toronto at the Ted Reeve Arena, Saturday in Royal Oak, Michigan, and wraps up Sunday with a television taping at The Odeum in Villa Park, Illinois.
**The WWE stock continues to ride a big wave, closing at $42.07 on Monday. This is the highest the stock has ever traded at since going public in 1999.
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*****
WWE BACKLASH 2018 POST SHOW W/ JOHN POLLOCK & WAI TING
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/t6gt8c/180506_BACKLASH_POST.mp3
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (May 2018)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18612754/
*****
NJPW Dontaku 2018 Reviews
https://www.patreon.com/posts/njpw-dontaku-18608942
*****
upNXT 5/3/18: Infinity Shoe
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/dntahy/upNXT-May3-2018.mp3
*****
BWE 5/2/18: Defiant No Regrets, wXw True Colours, World of Sports, Super Strong Style 16
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/9auz2n/180502_BWE.mp3
*****
POST Puroresu (May 2018): Champion Carnival Review, NJPW Dontaku Preview
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/yt7gk5/POST-PURORESU-MAY-2018.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 5/1/18: Backlash Go-Home Show
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/mxivvj/180501_RASD.mp3
*****
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