POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Monday’s show from Long Island, New York. We chat about the fallout from Backlash, the qualifying matches for Money in the Bank, the Long Island crowd, the two three-way matches on the show, and lots more. We also chat the day’s news with the Dominion card lineup, Total Divas being renewed, autograph rates for this Friday’s ROH show in Toronto, and we take your feedback & questions. Download the show https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/05/08/rewind-a-raw-5-7-18-money-in-the-bank-qualifiers/ and subscribe to the POST Wrestling feed.
https://www.postwrestling.com/subscribe/
**We will be back with Rewind-A-SmackDown late tonight.
**We have a feedback thread posted for this week’s Rewind-A-Wai show that covers the WWF’s Survivor Series card from November 1996. The show features Shawn Michaels defending the WWF title against Sid, Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, The Undertaker vs. Mankind, and the debut of Rocky Maivia.
https://forum.postwrestling.com/t/feedback-wwf-survivor-series-1996/2432/2
THIS WEEK AT POST WRESTLING:
*Tonight: 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)
*Saturday: UFC 224 Post Show with John Pollock
*Sunday: The POST Roundtable feat. Arda Ocal
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WRESTLING NEWS
**The SmackDown and 205 Live tapings will take place at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland tonight. They have announced the following matches for the tapings:
*Jeff Hardy vs. The Miz in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
*Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
*Charlotte vs. Peyton Royce in a Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
*Brian Kendrick & Jack Gallagher vs. Lince Dorado & Gran Metalik on 205 Live
*Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy on 205 Live
**Dave Meltzer reported on Wrestling Observer Radio that Brock Lesnar is not scheduled for the Money in the Bank event on Sunday, June 17th in Rosemont, Illinois. It is unknown when Lesnar’s next match will be or whom it be with, although the finish at the Greatest Royal Rumble heavily suggested yet another rematch with Roman Reigns. With Lesnar not appearing at Money in the Bank, it leaves a question regarding Reigns’ placement on that show as he could be inserted into the ladder match or stretch this Jinder Mahal program until then, which sounds like a recipe for disaster in that city.
**The WWE and Impact Wrestling worked out a deal where Impact licensed footage to the WWE, which aired on “Table for 3” Monday with AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, and Shane McMahon. There was footage on the show of a singles match between Angle and Styles from 2010. The deal included a plug for the Global Wrestling Network at the end of the program with a graphic displayed. The Impact side noted that the WWE was great to work with.
**It appears that Rey Mysterio will be working a match at Dominion rather than just an appearance. I would presume his opponent will be someone in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament and won’t be able to announce who it is until the tournament is completed.
**Jim Ross and Josh Barnett will be voicing the upcoming New Japan episodes for AXS TV this week, including the top matches from the Dontaku cards last week. They will be dedicating one full episode to the Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match from last Friday, which may be the best match of 2018.
**Click Orlando is reporting that the city is going to make a big push to bring WrestleMania back to the city in 2023 or 2025. The site reports that the city is planning to spend $1 million to secure a future WrestleMania for the city, which would come from tourist tax money. Orlando hosted the event in 2008 and returned in 2017 with both events taking place at the Citrus Bowl (now Camping World Stadium). Last week, it was announced by Rob Higgins of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission that Tampa was submitting a bid to host WrestleMania in 2023, 2024, or 2025 at Raymond James Stadium, in addition to bidding for a future Royal Rumble in either 2022 or 2023.
**Daniel Bryan did not wrestle on Monday night’s SmackDown live event in Allentown, Pennsylvania and instead was the guest on Miz TV. The segment built up to Bryan punching Miz in the face and hitting the Busaiku knee. The house show was headlined by AJ Styles, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows defeating Shinsuke Nakamura, Cesaro & Sheamus.
**The insane month of travel for the WWE roster continues this week with the start of the European tour on Wednesday, which runs until Sunday, May 20th. The Raw crew begins the tour Wednesday in Bournemouth, England and continue in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Thursday. The SmackDown crew begins Thursday in Oberhausen, Germany. Next week’s television will take place on Monday and Tuesday at the O2 Arena in London, England.
**It was confirmed on Raw that there will be a men’s and women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match with four performers from Raw and four from SmackDown in each match. Braun Strowman and Finn Balor qualified for the men’s match and Ember Moon qualified for the women’s match on Raw.
**PROGRESS Wrestling’s next big card is “Chapter 69: Be Here Now” on Sunday, May 20th, with Travis Banks defending the PROGRESS title against Jack Sexsmith and Toni Storm vs. Jinny for the women’s title in Manchester at the Victoria Warehouse.
**PROGRESS also announced this past weekend a five-date tour of the U.S. this summer. They have announced August 4th in New York City, August 5th in Boston, August 9th in Seattle, August 11th in Chicago, and August 12th in Detroit. They will be partnering with DEFY Wrestling for the Seattle card and then working with WWN Live for the other four events. The WWN partnered events will feature double-header shows with WWN running in the afternoon and PROGRESS running at night.
**MLW will be running a card in New York City at the Melrose Ballroom on Thursday, July 19th. It is the first MLW show in the city since 2002 during the promotion’s initial run. Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10 am Eastern at www.MLWtickets.com.
**The WWE stock closed at $42.06 on Tuesday.
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MMA NEWS
**The UFC announced a major streaming rights deal with ESPN today, which has been reported to be a five-year deal worth $150 million per year, according to John Ourand at Sports Business Journal. This does not include the rights to the UFC’s linear television package, which expires with Fox at the end of 2018. The ESPN deal will provide their upstart streaming service, ESPN+ with 15 Fight Night events, Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series, a new all-access series from IMG Original Content, pre and post-fight shows for the Fight Night cards, and shoulder programming, including 30-minute preview specials for ESPN’s linear networks.
Regarding the Canadian market, there is nothing in place presently for the ESPN+ content but they do expect to find a home for it later this year. The UFC’s Canadian rights package with TSN and Fight Network has to be worked out as their Canadian rights deal is up this year. Once they finalize their new Canadian deal, I would assume a plan for the ESPN+ content will be finalized as well.
The deal is a big one for the UFC, who still have their linear package up for grabs. It was previously reported by John Ourand that Fox has offered the UFC $200 million to renew the television rights package. With an additional $150 million in revenue added to whatever the value of the domestic television deal is, the UFC will have an enormous jump in their revenue for U.S rights.
While Fight Pass will still exist, it’s hardly the priority it was at launch in 2014 and with the enormous streaming rights deal they have signed, perhaps it doesn’t need to be a priority. The UFC launched the service in January 2014 and didn’t place all their eggs into that basket, maintaining their pay-per-view revenue while television rights will likely increase with their pending deal, and they have landed a massive streaming deal, so they are in great shape. Pay-per-view is still a big revenue generator but with the guaranteed rights money, they are less reliant on pay-per-view, which is a volatile business and subject to injuries, drug test failures and issues out of their control that can make or break a big card.
**UFC president Dana White was on the UFC Unfiltered podcast on Tuesday with Matt Serra and Jim Norton to discuss various news items, among the highlights:
*White confirmed they are working to put together a lightweight fight between Georges St-Pierre and Nate Diaz and a light heavyweight fight between Alexander Gustafsson and Luke Rockhold. He said his dream scenario for the August 4th card in Los Angeles would be T.J. Dillashaw vs. Cody Garbrandt, St-Pierre vs Diaz, Gustafsson vs. Rockhold, and Derek Brunson vs. Antonio Carlos Jr., but none of that is official.
*He hopes Oscar de la Hoya is going to partner with Chuck Liddell in promoting mixed martial arts rather than bringing Liddell in to fight and doesn’t want to see him fight
*He doesn’t know anything about what happened with Leslie Smith and it’s not his problem anymore to deal with that stuff
*White recently met with Eddie Alvarez to discuss a new UFC contract and wants to put together a rematch between him and Dustin Poirier.
*He said the July 28th card in Calgary is his “Ultimate Birthday Card” and is turning 49 that day.
*He estimated that Tony Ferguson won’t be back until at least October from injury.
**This weekend is a busy one with the UFC and Bellator presenting big cards head-to-head on Saturday night. The UFC 224 pay-per-view takes place from Rio de Janeiro and is headlined by Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington for the UFC bantamweight title. I don’t see this pay-per-view doing much business as Nunes has not grown into a draw after her wins over Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey. The pay-per-view main card is a very good one on paper with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza fighting Kelvin Gastelum, although Gastelum will be giving up a lot of size in that fight. Vitor Belfort has stated this will really be his final fight as he takes on Lyoto Machida. Plus, John Lineker is fighting Brian Kelleher, who are two exciting bantamweights and the last time Kelleher was in Brazil, he upset Iuri Alcantara and cut a promo on the Brazilian audience to enormous heat.
The Bellator card is in San Jose, California and airing on the Paramount Network with the final opening-round fight of the Heavyweight Grand Prix between light heavyweight champion Ryan Bader and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal. The winner of that fight will advance and fight Matt Mitrione in the semi-finals, joining Fedor Emelianenko and Chael Sonnen in the final four. Jon Fitch is making his Bellator debut against Paul Daley, which feels like a terrible stylistic fight for Daley. Cheick Kong takes on Javy Ayala in heavyweight action. Ayala has had some exciting stoppage wins but is coming off a decision loss to Roy Nelson, while Cheick Kongo and the term “exciting” are never used together. The main card also features Aaron Pico’s fourth professional fight as he meets Lee Morrison is 19-8 and making his Bellator debut and is the most experienced fighter Pico has fought.
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VIDEO
**Here is the UFC 224 countdown special going into Saturday’s pay-per-view:
**The first episode of UFC 224 Embedded:
**The first episode of the Bellator 199 countdown special for this Saturday’s card in San Jose:
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 5/7/18: Money in the Bank Qualifiers
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/2jyada/180507_RAR.mp3
*****
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
*****
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