"All In" to air on pay-per-view, first hour airing on WGN America

POST IT NOTES

**Wai Ting and I are back late tonight with Rewind-A-Raw as we will review the show, chat today’s news, and take your feedback & questions.

**We have some great shows out over the past few days with Wai Ting reviewing Saturday’s G1 card in Osaka with WH Park and discussing one of the best matches of 2018, Wai also did a show with Fraser Marriott covering Sunday’s card in Osaka. Fraser has attended every G1 card this year and was seated near the fan that Tama Tonga went after on Sunday’s card and grabbed hold of the fan’s throat.

**We have a UFC 227 review show up on the site with Ziggy Cao, Phil Chertok and I reviewing the card from Los Angeles, chatting about T.J. Dillashaw’s win over Cody Garbrandt and the close fight between Henry Cejudo and Demetrious Johnson with Johnson’s nearly six-year reign as flyweight champion coming to an end. We also discussed the announcement of the Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Conor McGregor fight that was made Friday.

**Our latest POST Production video is out for “Double Double” and above members of the POST Wrestling Café. On this week’s video, we discussed the tweets from Cedric Alexander and Tye Dillinger that were uncovered from several years ago, how it was handled, how to react to these stories, and our own views. Plus, we received mail from our friends at OSW Review, who just surpassed 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and we present an UNBOXING!

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**This is the final week of the G1 Climax and we will have shows posted on the POST Wrestling Café on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sunday’s G1 Final from Budokan Hall will be a free show, but it will show up on both feeds. On Sunday’s show, we will be joined by Chris Engler to announce the winner of the POST Wrestling G1 Picks Contest.

SCHEDULE THIS WEEK:
*Monday: Rewind-A-Raw
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: The Double Shot (this a new night for the show and will be its new home)
*Wednesday: G1 Climax Day 16 review (Patreon)
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Oli Court & Benno
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: G1 Climax A Block Final (Patreon)
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion with Chris Charlton being joined by Damian Abraham to discuss 1996
*Saturday: G1 Climax B Block Final (Patreon)
*Sunday: The G1 Climax Final Night (Free)

WRESTLING NEWS

**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from Jacksonville, Florida and will feature Ronda Rousey’s first match on free television. Rousey will be taking on Alicia Fox, which was set up last week. The match should generate a lot of curiosity and I would expect a big bump in the hourly viewership when Rousey’s match takes place. Below are the matches they have announced for tonight’s show:
*Ronda Rousey vs. Alicia Fox
*The B Team vs. The Revival
*Sasha Banks & Bayley vs. Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan
*Mojo Rawley vs. Bobby Roode

**On Monday’s edition of “Being the Elite”, they announced the broadcast information for “All In”. The first hour of the show is going to air on WGN America at 6 pm Eastern and will be promoted as “All In: Zero Hour”. The rest of the show will air on traditional pay-per-view and on FITE TV beginning at 7 pm. On the show today, they also announced that Stephen Amell will be facing Christopher Daniels on the card and below is the updated card:
*The Young Bucks & Kota Ibushi vs. Rey Mysterio, Fenix & Bandido
*Nick Aldis vs. Cody for the NWA heavyweight title
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Marty Scurll
*Stephen Amell vs. Christopher Daniels
*Joey Janela vs. Hangman Page
*Over Budget Battle Royal feat. Moose, Colt Cabana, Jordynne Grace, Rocky Romero & Ethan Page

**The major news out of EVOLVE this past weekend was Matt Riddle losing the EVOLVE title to Shane Strickland on Saturday night at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. Riddle has two more shows scheduled with EVOLVE next weekend where he is scheduled to face Darby Allin on Saturday and JD Drake on Sunday. His final independent date is scheduled for Friday, August 17^th at “Joey Janela’s Lost in New York” show against PCO.

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**The G1 is off Monday and Tuesday and resumes with a B Block show Wednesday in Yokohama as the tournament winds down in its final week. The two cards in Osaka didn’t lead to any more eliminations as Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, and Jay White are alive in the A Block and White holds the tiebreaker wins over both. In the B Block, Kenny Omega lost his first match of the G1 to Tomohiro Ishii and is on top with 12 points. Tetsuya Naito and Kota Ibushi are tied with 10 points each. Here are the scenarios for the A Block:
*Hiroshi Tanahashi faces Kazuchika Okada and Jay White faces EVIL on Friday at Budokan Hall
*If Jay White loses, he is eliminated. If White loses and Okada loses, Tanahashi wins the block.
*If White loses and Tanahashi loses, Okada would tie Tanahashi and advance based on the tiebreaker.
*If White wins and Tanahashi wins, Tanashashi wins the block
*If White wins and Okada wins, White wins the block based on the tiebreaker win over Okada
*If White wins and Tanahashi vs. Okada go to a draw, Tanahashi wins the block

On the B Block, Kenny Omega has matches remaining with Toru Yano and Kota Ibushi, Tetsuya Naito has matches with Sanada and Zack Sabre Jr., and Kota Ibushi has matches with Tama Tonga and Omega. The next B Block show is Wednesday morning at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World:
*Tetsuya Naito (5-2) vs. Sanada (4-3)
*Kenny Omega (6-1) vs. Toru Yano (1-6)
*Kota Ibushi (5-2) vs. Tama Tonga (2-5)
*Hirooki Goto (3-4) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (4-3)
*Juice Robinson (2-5) vs. Tomohiro Ishii (3-4)
*Kazuchika Okada & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & David Finlay
*Jay White & YOH vs. EVIL & Bushi
*Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado vs. Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa
*Hangman Page & Chase Owens vs. Yoshi-Hashi & SHO
*Michael Elgin & Shota Umino vs. Togi Makabe & Toa Henare

**CW 30 aired a story on the passing of Brian Lawler and his father, Jerry Lawler briefly for the piece:

**Dwayne Johnson, who started his career working in Memphis as Flex Kavana, posted the following on his memories of Brian Christopher:

Spent all week trying to process the hard loss of my good bud, Brian Christopher Lawler.

He became a great friend the day I stepped foot in the small wrestling territory in the south known as the USWA to start my pro wrestling career.

We rode together daily (1500 miles per week) trained together at any gym we could find, ate together at any Waffle House off the highway, wrestled together in flea markets to state fairs, shared motel rooms together, and would always dream (and talk shit;) about what life would be like once we made it to the big leagues of the WWE.

Once we both finally made it to the big leagues of the WWE, nothing changed… we still did everything together. Including having nightly Madden tournaments after our wrestling matches in our motel room and then we’d extend our competitive spirit to a rowdy game of Wiffle Ball. Imagine us acting like crazy Wiffle Ball idiots at 2am in the parking lot of the Motel 6.

Our jaws would hurt from laughing so hard.

Then we’d finally take our butts to bed, hit the gym in the morning, drive 200 miles to the next town to wrestle and start the night all over again.

I’ll miss these times now even more.

Hurts my heart to know how Brian decided to check out.

I never knew him to be suicidal, but I guess sometimes the pain just gets to be too much for one to take.

I’ll miss you man and the times we had.

Thanks for being a great friend.

Thanks for being my boy.

My love, light, support and strength to Brian’s father, Jerry Lawler and Brian’s mother, Kay as well as Brian’s family and friends.

**The English version of Shinsuke Nakamura’s book from 2015 is going to be released on Tuesday. The book is called “King of Strong Style: 1980-2014” will focus on the early portion of his career and rise up the New Japan system, which was a tumultuous period for the promotion throughout the 2000’s. Nakamura was thrown into all of the mixed martial arts crossovers and fought well, which helped him in the onset of his first major push. In his first fight with Daniel Gracie on the Inoki Bom Ba Ye event on New Year’s Eve 2002, he lost the fight but looked good against someone with a credible last name to the Japanese public. The loss didn’t hurt Nakamura and within one year he became IWGP heavyweight champion. He also went on to defeat Jan Nortje and Alexey Ignashov in future fights and became a rare example of a New Japan wrestler that was helped from his exposure into mixed martial arts.

**John Cena has indicated he will be appearing on the WWE’s live event on September 1^st in Shanghai, China. It will be Cena’s first match back since participating at the Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia this past April where he took on Triple H.

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**Pro Wrestling Tees is presenting the “All Out Party”, which will be a pre-show event before “All In” on September 1^st in the parking lot of the Sears Centre. The pre-party takes place from 11 am – 3 pm and will be hosted by Flip Gordon and feature live music from DJ Z. The event is $20 and includes a t-shirt with the purchase of a ticket and it’s a rain or shine event. Tickets go on sale Wednesday at Noon central at www.ProWrestlingTees.com/AllOut.

**A new episode of “Table for 3” airs tonight with Beth Phoenix, Nia Jax, and Natalya on the WWE Network following Raw.

**Tony Nese turns 33 years old today.

MMA NEWS

**Bellator MMA has released the brackets for the Welterweight Grand Prix, which will feature ten welterweights with two serving as alternates in the case of an injury. Below are the first-round fights:
*Douglas Lima vs. Andrey Koreshkov – September 29^th in San Jose
*Paul Daley vs. Michael Page
*Ed Ruth vs. Neiman Gracie
*Rory MacDonald vs. Jon Fitch
*Lorenz Larkin vs. Yaroslav Amsov in the alternate fight

MacDonald will be defending his welterweight title throughout the tournament, so the fight with Fitch is for the title. The only fight with a date and location is the Lima vs. Koreshkov bout next month in San Jose. Every fight in the tournament is scheduled for five rounds.

**I re-watched the second round of the Henry Cejudo vs. Demetrious Johnson fight, which was the round most debated. The three judges agreed on every round except the second. They scored Rounds 1 and 3 for Johnson, 4 and 5 for Cejudo and two judges gave Round 2 to Cejudo. I scored the fight 48-47 for Cejudo and in re-watching, still felt Cejudo won the second round. Fight Metric listed Johnson landing 15 of 29 significant strikes in the round compared to Cejudo landing 11 of 33. The difference was minimal, and no strikes are equal, so you can’t conclude that the person that lands more is necessarily the victor in that round. Cejudo landed several right hands, while Johnson had the edge in leg strikes. The key was the takedown in the final minute with Cejudo landing some shoulder strikes at the end. If you look at the totality of the fight, Johnson landed 81 of 134 strikes compared to Cejudo landing 51 of 147. Over the five rounds, Johnson landed much more and was more accurate, but you can’t score a fight based on the entirety, you score it round-by-round. Johnson had a big round in the first and third where he landed half of his entire strikes for the fight and was awarded those rounds. Johnson slightly out landed Cejudo in the second and they were virtually identical in strikes landed in the fourth and fifth rounds. This was an incredibly close fight and you can go either way.

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**The California State Athletic Commission has released fight night weights of all the fighters from UFC 227 on Saturday. While it’s a regular practice on boxing broadcasts to announce what the fighters’ weight on the night of the fight, it is not regular practice within mixed martial arts. The data included their weight on Friday morning at the weigh-ins and contrasted with their weight on fight night with the percentage of body weight added in that time. The largest jump by a percentage basis was featherweight Alex Perez, who weighed in at 126 pounds and was 146.5 pounds by fight time and increased by 16.3%. The next biggest jump was Brett Johns by 16.2% from 135.2 pounds to 158 pounds. On the main card, Thiago Santos added 21.5 pounds or 12.6% of his body weight and outweighed his opponent, Kevin Holland by 16.5 pounds by the time of the fight. Here is the data from all the fighters on the show from the information provided to MMA Fighting by the CSAC:
*T.J. Dillashaw (135 to 149.5 pounds, 10.7%) vs. Cody Garbrandt (134.7 to 142 pounds, 5.2%)
*Henry Cejudo (124.5 to 141 pounds, 12.8%) vs. Demetrious Johnson (125 to 142 pounds, 13.6%)
*Renato Moicano (146 to 165.5, 13.4%) vs. Cub Swanson (145.2 to 160.5 pounds, 9.9%)
*J.J. Aldrich (115.8 to 130.5 pounds, 12.5%) vs. Polyana Viana (115 to 129.5 pounds, 11.6%)
*Thiago Santos (185.5 to 209.5 pounds, 12.6%) vs. Kevin Holland (184.7 to 193 pounds, 3.8%)
*Pedro Munhoz (135 to 151, 11%) vs. Brett Johns (135.2 to 158 pounds, 16.2%)
*Ricky Simon (135.2 to 152 pounds, 11.8%) vs. Montel Jackson (136 to 152 pounds, 11.8%)
*Ricardo Ramos (135.5 to 153.5 pounds, 12.9%) vs. Kyung Ho Kang (136 to 154, 13.2%)
*Sheymon Moraes (146 to 164 pounds, 12.3%) vs. Matt Sayles (145.7 to 165 pounds, 13%)
*Alex Perez (126 to 146.5, 16.3%) vs. Jose Torres (125 to 143, 13.5%)
*Weili Zhang (115.5 to 127 pounds, 9.5%) vs. Danielle Taylor (115.4 to 124.5 pounds, 7.3%)
*Marlon Vera (135.5 to 150, 10.3%) vs. Weliji Buren (135.5 to 149.5 pounds, 9.9%)

The commission can recommend that any fighter that added more than 10% of their body weight be moved up a weight division for their next fight, which would mean that 18 of the 24 fighters would be recommended to move up a division. The question is whether there is any enforcement for such a recommendation other than the commission providing their opinion to the fighter. If there is no penalty, there is no incentive for a fighter to maintain their weight overnight as you had fighters that far exceeded the recommended limit of 10%.

*At the UFC 227 post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White stated that there wouldn’t be a media tour for Khabib Nuramgomedov and Conor McGregor with the fight taking place in less than nine weeks. We discussed it on the post-show this weekend, but it will be interesting to see if the UFC experiments with a higher price point for this pay-per-view than the standard $64.99 tag the current shows cost. The fight is arguably the biggest the UFC has ever promoted, and you are coming off a boxing fight where a large percentage of mixed martial arts fans spent $100 to watch McGregor in a boxing fight. While there would be upset fans, I don’t think this card would be harmed in the slightest with an increased price as McGregor has established his shows being in their own stratosphere. Below is the promo they have released for the fight:

**The UFC has several weeks off with one card remaining this month. They will run a Fight Night card on Saturday, August 25^th in Lincoln, Nebraska with lightweights James Vick and Justin Gaethje meeting in the main event. It’s a big fight for Vick, who has never been in a main event and is overlooked in the deep lightweight division. Vick has won his last four fights and is 9-1 since entering the UFC in 2013. Gaethje is an opponent any lightweight would want to fight as he comes with tons of notoriety because his fights are always wild brawls, but he has obvious weaknesses that have been solved by the top fighters he has faced. After the Nebraska card is the UFC 228 pay-per-view on September 8^th in Dallas with Tyron Woodley vs. Darren Till for the welterweight title and Nicco Montano vs. Valentina Shevchenko for the women’s flyweight title.

**Bellator is also fairly quiet this month with one show scheduled on Friday, August 17^th in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with Darrion Caldwell moving up and fighting at featherweight against Noad Lahat, even though Caldwell is the promotion’s bantamweight champion.

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**Georges St-Pierre spoke to the crew at Submission Radio about the possibility of fighting in 2018. St-Pierre said he was offered to fight Nate Diaz in September in Dallas but wasn’t excited by that fight and felt he would look like a bully going to fight someone at lightweight. He left the door open to fight in November at Madison Square Garden or in Toronto in December. St-Pierre shot down the idea of fighting Anderson Silva as he had more to lose than gain from fighting Silva. He stated he would be interested in fighting the winner of the upcoming fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor, although he noted that the UFC may not want him to fight for the lightweight title after he vacated the titles at both middleweight and welterweight since 2013. He believes he could make the lightweight limit but would have to be a fight that would enhance his legacy. He is choosing Nurmagomedov to beat McGregor in October at UFC 229 but stated he is a slow starter and can be hit.

*****
UFC 227 REVIEW
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok & Ziggy Cao to review the UFC 227 card from Saturday with T.J. Dillashaw defending the bantamweight title, Henry Cejudo unseats Demetrious Johnson, full rundown of the card, and we chat Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/ymdsii/UFC-227-POST-SHOW.mp3
*****
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 1995 with Wai Ting
Chris Charlton is joined by Wai Ting to chat the Tokyo Dome events from 1995 with the New Japan vs. UWFi feud, the Bridges of Dreams events, and lots more covered.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/rw7t5f/EGGSHELLS_Podcast_Companion__1995_w__Wai_Ting.mp3
*****
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
*****

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