The full list of 32 participants for the WWE's Mae Young Classic

POST IT NOTES

**We have a new REWIND-A-WAI out today with Wai Ting and I doing a different type of review this week. On this show, our Espresso Executive Producer is Mitch Gelkopf a.k.a. “MJ from NJ”, who selected the “Being the Elite” video series. Wai and I share our thoughts on the evolution of the series, how it has changed since its launch in 2016, the effect it has had on their careers, the editing style, the future of the show, and many other topics covered. This was a fun and different review, so we hope you enjoy it. It is available now for all members of the POST Wrestling Café. As a bonus, Wai also describes his recent experience with CUPPING THERAPY that you will want to hear his report on.

**Here is our monthly POSTmortem chronicling all of the POST Wrestling news for the month of July.

**The latest edition of upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman is up on the site with a rundown of their big move this week as the two are now roommates. They also go through this week’s edition of NXT with the closing segment involving the three-way set up for TakeOver, a non-title match between Shayna Baszler and Candice LeRae, and Braden breaks down the “BDE” line from EC3.

**Chris Charlton will be releasing the latest edition of the EGGSHELLS Companion Podcast on Saturday morning, covering the Tokyo Dome cards from 1995. On this weekend’s show, Chris will be joined by Wai Ting.

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**The G1 Climax shows will resume on the POST Wrestling Café with news shows coming out Saturday and Sunday. Wai Ting will be joined by WH Park on Saturday for a review of the B Block event from Osaka, which WH is attending live. On Sunday, Wai will be joined by Fraser Marriott, who has attended EVERY G1 CARD so far this year.

**I’ll be back on Sunday with a show reviewing the UFC 227 card along with Phil Chertok and Ziggy Cao. That show will be available on the free POST Wrestling feed and on the website.

**For those attending Starrcast during “All In” weekend, Wai Ting & I will be hosting a special live edition of ASK-A-WAI on Saturday, September 1^st at 10 am local time. We will be hosting the show from the Podcast Movement Pop-Up Recording Studio and hanging out after the show for anyone that wants to come to watch. All the information can be found at http://www.starrcast.com.

WRESTLING NEWS

**The WWE’s Raw crew begins their house show tour tonight in Augusta, Georgia at the James Brown Arena with Ronda Rousey working the weekend shows. They are advertising Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens for tonight’s show. Roman Reigns is not listed for tonight’s show but is listed for Saturday and Sunday’s shows. The Raw crew heads to North Charleston, South Carolina on Saturday. The SmackDown crew begins Saturday in Pensacola, Florida with AJ Styles, Jeff Hardy, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Samoa Joe advertised.

**The WWE announced more names on Friday for the Mae Young Classic, which takes place next Wednesday and Thursday at Full Sail University. Below are the latest additions to the tournament:
*Allysin Kay – Formerly Sienna with Impact Wrestling and a veteran of ten years since debuting in 2008. Prior to Impact, she wrestled for WSU, SHINE, and SHIMMER among many others. She was signed by Impact in 2016 and was part of a group with Maria Kanellis and Allie. She was a two-time Knockouts champion and won the GFW version of the women’s title as well. She had been off television for much of 2018 prior to leaving the company recently.
*Rachel Evers (Rachael Ellering) – Ellering is the daughter of Paul Ellering and was trained by Lance Storm and was given her ring name as a tribute to Storm. Prior to wrestling, she was involved in powerlifting and debuted in November 2015 after attending the Storm Wrestling Academy. She has been featured on NXT numerous times and competed in last year’s Mae Young Classic, losing to Abbey Laith in the second round.
*MJ Jenkins – Jenkins was just announced as one of the latest performers to report to the Performance Center, following a tryout earlier this year. She has been wrestling since 2015 and was based out of Brooklyn. She was introduced on Impact Wrestling last year when the Jeff Jarrett regime was in place and remained with the company until last November.
*Xia Li – She has been training at the Performance Center since January 2017 and was part of last year’s Mae Young Classic, losing to Mercedes Martinez in the first round with virtually no experience prior to the tournament. She comes from a background in Wushu.
*Zatara – Previously wrestled as Tifanny and is from Santiago, Chile. It was in Chile that she began her career in 2008. She had been working in Mexico over the past year under the name, Xatana.

With Friday’s announcement, the entire field of 32 women has been announced and here is the full list of participants: Allysin Kay, Rachel Evers, Xia Li, MJ Jenkins, Zatara, Kaitlyn, Io Shirai, Nicole Matthews, Rhea Ripley, Deonna Purrazzo, Jinny, Kacy Catanzaro, Jessie Elaban, Tegan Nox (Nixon Newell), Killer Kelly, Kavita Devi, Mercedes Martinez, Mia Yim, Taynara Conti, Reina Gonzalez, Isla Dawn, Toni Storm, Meiko Satomura, Karen Q, Lacey Lane, Zeuxis, Pricilla Kelly, Ashley Rayne (Madison Rayne), Xia Brookside, Vanessa Kraven, Aerial Monroe, and Hiroyo Matsumoto.

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**The G1 Climax is off today and returns with two big cards from the Edion Arena in Osaka Saturday and Sunday. In both blocks, you have three people still alive. In the A Block, it is down to Hiroshi Tanahashi (12 points), Kazuchika Okada (10), and Jay White (10). In the event of a tie, White would win the tiebreaker with previous wins over Tanahashi and Okada. White’s remaining matches are with EVIL and Togi Makabe, Tanahashi has matches with Michael Elgin and Okada, and Okada faces EVIL this Sunday before the Tanahashi match at Budokan Hall next Friday. In the B Block, Kenny Omega leads it with 12 points, Tetsuya Naito has 10, and Kota Ibushi has 8. For Ibushi to be alive for the match with Omega next Saturday at Budokan Hall, Omega needs to lose at least one match against Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano. I can see a scenario where Omega loses to Ishii and beats Yano, where he would have 14 points, Ibushi wins his next two and has 12 points going into Budokan Hall, where it is set up that if Ibushi beats Omega, he ties him and advances from the tiebreaker. However, you could have the result be a time limit draw, where Omega failed to beat Ibushi, but still advances to the final. I would like that scenario even more if Ibushi had been given one more win and therefore, Omega beats everyone except for Ibushi in the round robin and sets up a big rematch for later.

Saturday’s card is a B Block show that takes place at 4 am Eastern in Osaka, which is the hottest market for New Japan and the audiences could be off the charts for both nights this weekend. Here is the card for Saturday’s show and Sunday’s card:
*Tetsuya Naito (5-1) vs. Kota Ibushi (4-2)
*Kenny Omega (6-0) vs. Tomohiro Ishii (2-4)
*Juice Robinson (2-4) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (3-3)
*Tama Tonga (2-4) vs. Hirooki Goto (2-4)
*Sanada (3-3) vs. Toru Yano (1-5)
*Kazuchika Okada & Gedo vs. EVIL & Bushi
*Hiroshi Tanahashi & Shota Umino vs. Michael Elgin & David Finlay
*Togi Makabe & Toa Henare vs. Jay White & YOH
*Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado vs. Hangman Page & Chase Owens
*Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa vs. Yoshi-Hashi & SHO

Below are the A Block tournament matches on Sunday’s card from Osaka at 2 am Eastern on New Japan World:
*Kazuchika Okada (5-2) vs. EVIL (4-3)
*Hiroshi Tanahashi (6-1) vs. Michael Elgin (3-4)
*Jay White (5-2) vs. Togi Makabe (2-5)
*Minoru Suzuki (4-3) vs. Hangman Page (2-5)
*Bad Luck Fale (3-4) vs. Yoshi-Hashi (1-6)

**CW30 in Memphis will have a special Brian Christopher tribute edition of “Jerry Lawler’s Classic Memphis Wrestling” this Saturday at 11 am. The visitation and funeral for Brian are today in Cordova, Tennessee and he will be buried at Memorial Gardens in Bartlett, Tennessee.

**Thursday night’s episode of Impact Wrestling dropped 17% from last week to 248,000 viewers on POP. It was the promotion’s lowest viewership of 2018.

**The pre-sale for the Ring of Honor & New Japan card at Madison Square Garden takes place next Wednesday at 10 am Eastern time. They are offering a special pre-sale code for all Honor Club members with the code providing you the first chance to buy up to eight tickets for the event. Tickets will start at $30 and go up to $300. The card will take place Saturday, April 6^th, on the eve of WrestleMania at MetLife Stadium and will go head-to-head with NXT TakeOver at the Barclays Center.

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**Ronda Rousey has been doing promotion this week for “Mile 22”, which comes out in two weeks. Rousey was on “Good Morning America” earlier this week and did promote SummerSlam this month. Rousey was asked to compare fighting to the WWE and likened the WWE to fight choreography and then added that she felt she wasn’t even that good at it yet. It was just one line, but it emphasizes here mindset when it comes to the industry of professional wrestling and clearly doesn’t have a big head about it and came off very humble with regards to her skillset. After the limited matches she has had, she has been off the charts when it comes to little details she has displayed proficiency in that often take years to master.

**Trent Beretta and Chuckie T. have announced for the “All In” show on September 1^st at the Sears Centre.

**AXS TV will be airing the Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito match from the second night of the G1 at 8 pm Eastern tonight. This is many people’s pick for the best match of the G1 show far, which covers a lot of ground and at worst, is top three. The show will also feature an edited version of the Kota Ibushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. match from the same card, which was also an excellent match.

**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of MLW “Fusion” at 8 pm Eastern on beIN Sports:
*Shane Strickland vs. Sami Callihan
*Brody King vs. Jimmy Havoc
*Simon Gotch vs. Jake Hager
*An interview with Brian Pillman Jr.

**Big Time Wrestling has announced that William Morrissey, formerly Big Cass, will be working his first independent show since his release by the WWE in June. Morrissey is being promoted as “Big Cazz” and will be appearing for the promotion at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium on Friday, September 21^st in South Carolina. The promotion is advertising Mick Foley, Emma, Haku & The Barbarian, Jim Duggan, Tommy Dreamer, and James Ellsworth for the event.

**This past Wednesday’s episode of Lucha Underground was down to 114,000 viewers, which was their lowest number since July 4^th. After eight episodes, the current season is averaging 119,500 viewers per episode on the El Rey Network.

**EVOLVE is holding iPPV events on Saturday in Philadelphia and Sunday in Melrose, Massachusetts at WWNLive.com. Matt Riddle is scheduled for four more EVOLVE shows, including the two this weekend and another two next week. He is going into the weekend as the EVOLVE champions and below is the card for Saturday’s show at 4 pm Eastern:
*Matt Riddle vs. Shane Strickland in a Hardcore Rules Match for the EVOLVE title
*Chris Dickinson & Jaka vs. Tracy Williams & TK Cooper for the EVOLVE tag titles
*Joey Janela vs. AR Fox in a non-title match
*Darby Allin vs. Austin Theory
*Odinson vs. JD Drake vs. Josh Briggs vs. Jon Davis
*Anthony Henry vs. Saieve Al Sabah

**Sunday’s EVOLVE 109 card from Melrose takes place at 4 pm Eastern and is headlined by Joey Janela vs. Darby Allin for the WWN championship and a non-title match between Matt Riddle and Austin Theory.

**The funeral for Tracy Caddell, the father of Trevor Lee, took place on Thursday. The Hardys and Shane Helms were among those in attendance. A GoFundMe was set up to assist with the costs of the funeral and other expenses with the $9,000 goal raised within three days and currently sits at over $10,700.

**MLW’s return to Queens, New York on October 4^th at the Melrose Ballroom will feature Pentagon Jr. & Fenix defending the MLW tag titles against LA Park & El Hijo de Park.

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TELEVISION REVIEW

Impact Wrestling (August 2^nd)
-The highlight of this week’s show was the work by Austin Aries and Anthony Carelli, where the latter was cornering his student, Dustin Cameron to face Aries. Carelli gave this tremendous motivational speech in the back prior to the match. When Aries attempted the second brainbuster to Cameron, Carelli threw in the towel and it culminated in a low blow to Aries after Carelli was provoked. I thought Carelli was great in this serious role, which most have never seen him in and it worked well for an otherwise standard episode. Carelli appeared to be written off at the end when he was revealed as the latest victim to be attacked by Killer Kross.
-The main event featured Pentagon Jr. & Fenix defeating oVe and was the best match on the show with some great high-flying and the audience behind the babyfaces.
-There wasn’t a heavy progression of many stories on this episode beyond Allie pinning Su Yung and then being attacked by Tessa Blanchard, the Grado and Joe Hendry split continues to develop, and the civil war between LAX is building towards a street fight that will air in the next few weeks that was shot outdoors in Toronto.
-Scarlett Bordeaux did another promo, this time after interviewer Bob Kapur was stumbling over his words to appear nervous before she kicked him out of the scene. The character has gotten off to a strong start in the first two weeks.
-They brought up that Moose suffered a concussion at Slammiversary and there was no update on him.
-This wasn’t an episode that you have to make time to check out, it contained a lot of filler matches with undercard acts and setting up next week’s title match with Aries defending against Eddie Edwards.

MMA NEWS

**The UFC is holding their big seasonal press conference in Los Angeles today at 4:30 pm Eastern to promote all the big fights for the remainder of 2018.

**Nate Diaz is scheduled to return later this year for a huge lightweight with Dustin Poirier at UFC 230. The news was first reported by Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times stating that Diaz will fight for the first time since his rematch with Conor McGregor in August 2016 at UFC 202, which is believed to have been the most purchased UFC pay-per-view in history. The lightweight contest is scheduled for Saturday, November 3^rd when the UFC returns to Madison Square Garden in New York City. Poirier is ranked #3 at lightweight and is coming off a TKO victory over Eddie Alvarez this past Saturday in Calgary, Alberta. Since returning to the lightweight division in 2015, Poirier has put together a record of 8-1 with 1 no contest and is unbeaten since September 2016. Pugmire noted in his report that the fight is scheduled to be the co-main event at UFC 230. The fight will formally be announced at today’s press conference in Los Angeles.

**The UFC 227 weigh-ins took place this morning in Los Angeles and all the fighters made weight, below is the lineup and results from the weigh-ins:

MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*TJ Dillashaw (135) vs. Cody Garbrandt (134.75) – UFC bantamweight title
*Demetrious Johnson (125) vs. Henry Cejudo (124.5) – UFC flyweight title
*Thiago Santos (185.5) vs. Kevin Holland (184.75)
*JJ Aldrich (115.75) vs. Polyana Viana (115)
*Cub Swanson (145.25) vs. Renato Moicano (146)

PRELIMINARY FIGHTS (8 pm Eastern on FX, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Pedro Munhoz (135) vs. Brett Johns (135.25)
*Montel Jackson (136) vs. Ricky Simon (135.25)
*Ricardo Ramos (135.5) vs. Kyung Ko Kang (136)
*Sheymon Moraes (146) vs. Matt Sayles (145.75)

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:30 pm)
*Jose Torres (125) vs. Alex Perez (126)
*Zhang Weili (115.5) vs. Danielle Taylor (115.25)
*Marlon Vera (135.5) vs. Wuliji Buren (135.5)

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**Since re-entering the USADA testing pool on July 3^rd, Brock Lesnar has been randomly drug tested three times. While Lesnar has not signed a contract with the UFC, as he remains under contract to World Wrestling Entertainment, Lesnar is eligible to fight again as of January 8^th, 2019.

**Earlier this week, numerous tweets from Cody Garbrandt were uncovered from 2012 and 2013 containing racial slurs. At Thursday’s UFC 227 media day, Garbrandt was asked about the tweets by MMA Junkie’s John Morgan with Garbrandt defending his language by stating they were “lyrics” and explained:

I grew up hanging out with blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, selling drugs. That’s a street word we would always say. It wasn’t like I was using derogatory words toward anyone. That’s how we grew up. It was kind of normal. That’s it. It’s a learning experience for a lot of people to not use that word in this day an age.

Garbrandt proceeded to end the interview with Morgan and began his statement by saying that was the only time he would address it. It was later uncovered by Deadspin that Garbrandt had also made past tweets containing homophobic slurs.

**Globo Esporte was the first to report that Glover Teixeira will fight Jimi Manuwa in the main event of the UFC’s Fight Night card in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Saturday, September 22^nd. Teixeira just dropped a unanimous decision to Corey Anderson on July 22^nd in Hamburg, Germany and has lost two of his last three bouts. Manuwa is coming off consecutive losses to Volkan Oezdemir in July 2017 and a decision loss to Jan Blachowicz this past March. Combate has reported that middleweights Elias Theodorou and Antonio Carlos Junior will also fight on the card in Sao Paulo.

**The UFC has also announced that light heavyweights Volkan Oezdemir and Anthony Smith are scheduled to headline the UFC’s Fight Night event in Moncton, New Brunswick on Saturday, October 27^th. Oezdemir last fought in January, where he was defeated by light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier in the second round of their championship fight. Smith has been on a roll since moving up from the middleweight division and competing at 205 pounds. He knocked out Rashad Evans this past June at UFC 226 in Chicago and followed that up with a knockout of Mauricio “Shogun” Rua two weeks ago in Germany.

**The PFL held their latest event on Thursday night from the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York and below are the results:
*Thiago Tavares def. Arthur Estrazulas by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Dan Spohn def. Artur Alibulatov by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27)
*Chris Wade def. Yuki Kawana by guillotine choke at 4:24 of Round 1
*Rashid Magomedov def. Luiz Firminho by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Maxim Grishin def. Rakim Cleveland by rear-naked choke at 4:03 of Round 2
*Will Brooks def. Robert Watley by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Vinny Magalhaes def. Brandon Halsey by TKO at 1:34 of Round 1
*Natan Schulte def. Jason High by technical submission from a rear-naked choke at 4:18 of Round 1

After two fights, Natan Schulte is in first place among the lightweights with 9 points (1 win by decision and 1 win in the first round) with a decision win worth three points, a third-round finish is worth four points, second round finish is worth 5, and a first-round finish worth six points. Will Brooks (2-0, both decisions), Islam Mamedov (2-0, both decisions), and Chris Wade (1-0, first round finish) are tied with six points for second place.

In the light heavyweight division, Vinny Magalhaes is in first place with 12 points (2-0, both first-round finishes), second place is Maxim Grishin (2-0, a first round, and a second round finish), and Dan Spohn is in third place with seven points (2-0, a third-round finish and a decision).

**The next PFL card is Thursday, August 16^th in Atlantic City, New Jersey with the following lineup and the point totals in brackets:
*Ray Cooper (5) vs. Pavlo Kusch (5) – Welterweight
*Magomed Magomedkerimov (6) vs. Bojan Velickovic (5) – Welterweight
*Kayla Harrison vs. Jozette Cotton – Non-tournament fight
*Abubakar Nurmagomedov (0) vs. Jonatan Westin (0) – Welterweight
*Joao Zeferino (6) vs. Yuri Villefort (0) – Welterweight
*Abus Magomedov (6) vs. Anderson Goncalves (0) – Middleweight
*Bruno Santos (3) vs. John Howard (5) – Middleweight
*Shamil Gamzatov (3) vs. Rex Harris (3) – Middleweight
*Jake Shields (0) vs. Herman Terrado (0) – Welterweight
*Gasan Umalatov (0) vs. Eddie Gordon (0) – Middleweight

**Here is the latest episode of UFC Embedded for this weekend’s UFC 227 card:

*****
upNXT 8/2/18: The One with The BDE
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are officially roommates and they document their move in addition to their review of this week’s episode of NXT.
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/2jbm5i/upNXT-Aug2.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 7/31/18: Charlotte added to SummerSlam title match, Daniel Bryan challenges The Miz
John Pollock & Wai Ting review a strong edition of SmackDown from Tampa with the return of Charlotte, a great Samoa Joe promo, the build for SummerSlam continues and John & Wai go through the major news stories from the day.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/hgy832/REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN-JULY-31-2018.mp3
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 7/31/18: Total Bellas Season Finale, Impact Wrestling & Being the Elite Ep. 113
It’s more from John & Wai with our weekly Patreon bonus with added reviews of the season finale of Total Bellas, the Impact episode following Slammiversary, the latest Being the Elite with a six-man dream match added to ‘All In’
https://www.patreon.com/posts/20429617
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 7/30/18: Brock Lesnar hates WWE, Rousey’s first Raw match announced, Bobby Lashley sings
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Raw from Miami, the quest to have Roman Reigns cheered is achieved, Lesnar & Heyman split, Rousey’s first match on TV set for next week, Lashley sings & Wai’s nephew reviews Balor vs. Corbin
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/pemmfq/REWIND-A-RAW-JULY-30-2018.mp3
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE – World of Sport Ep. 1 review
Martin Bushby, Oli Court & Benno present a special edition of the show, reviewing the premiere episode of World of Sport on ITV, what worked and what didn’t work, as their ten-week run on ITV kicks off.
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/rmp6nr/BWE_WOS_Special_Final.mp3
*****
EGGSHELL PODCAST COMPANION – 1994
Chris Charlton welcomes wrestling historian Pat Laprade, as well as Dann & Emily Read of Pro Wrestling EVE to discuss the Tokyo Dome events of 1994, including the Big Egg Universe card from November ’94.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/zzisjw/EGGSHELLS_Podcast_Companion__1994_w__Pat_Laprade_Pro_Wrestling_EVE.mp3
*****

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POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE – The full list of 32 participants for the Mae Young Classic

The WWE has released the full list of the 32 participants for the Mae Young Classic, a preview of the G1 cards in Osaka, Ronda Rousey working WWE shows this weekend, Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier to fight at UFC 230, Cody Garbrandt faces criticism for old tweets, review of Impact Wrestling & more.