POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Monday’s show from Denver with an update on Liv Morgan and what happened during her match, the show-long story involving Dean Ambrose, a great tag title match with Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre against The Revival, and we went through the latest news items and took your feedback. You can download the show directly or subscribe to the POST Wrestling feed on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and wherever you listen to your podcasts.
**Wai Ting and I will be back tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown to chat SmackDown and the Mixed Match Challenge. We will also go through today’s news items, a look at the New Japan lineup for Long Beach and will take your questions and feedback at the end of the show.
**For POST Wrestling Café members, we will also have “The Double Shot” dropping late tonight with bonus coverage of various shows, including:
*My review of the July 15th, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw going into In Your House: International Incident (which we will review Friday on Rewind-A-Wai)
*Wai Ting reviews the season premiere of Total Divas
*A quick chat on the WWE feature profiling Jeff Hardy’s first Hell in a Cell match
**If you want to leave feedback for this Friday’s Rewind-A-Wai show on In Your House “International Incident”, you can post it in the POST Wrestling Forum.
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SCHEDULE THIS WEEK:
*Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Wednesday: The Double Shot – including a review of a July 1996 episode of Raw (Patreon)
*Thursday: upNXT & Forever Young with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai – WWF In Your House “International Incident” (Patreon)
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion – Chris Charlton chats 2003 at the Tokyo Dome with Jonathan Snowden
*Sunday: NJPW Long Beach POST Show with John Pollock & Mike Murray
WRESTLING NEWS
**The major story from Raw was the injury sustained by Liv Morgan during the women’s six-person tag with The Riott Squad taking on The Bella Twins & Natalya. In the middle of the match, Brie Bella began delivering the Yes kicks to Morgan and connected with two kicks to the face as Morgan slumped down to the mat and appeared to be knocked out. Morgan was brought to her corner by Brie and tagged out, with Sarah Logan carrying her on the floor to get assistance from the medical staff. Amazingly, Morgan was brought back into the match for a triple suplex spot, which seemed crazy given the possibility she may have suffered a concussion and returning for one more spot. She was outside the ring being tended for the remainder of the match. We were told by one person within the company that she was said to be okay and walking around backstage with Brie and Morgan both apologetic to each other in the back. If she suffered a concussion, it’s hard to assess how long she could be out for. Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com noted she was undergoing tests backstage and the results of those will determine if it’s serious or not. The situation was handled poorly in the heat of the moment with Morgan appearing unconscious from the strikes and then being taken to her corner and risking further injury. Then, to have her return for the suplex was just baffling given the state she appeared to be in.
UPDATE: The WWE has since released the following statement to the media, confirming that Morgan suffered a concussion during Monday’s match:
Liv Morgan has a concussion and is going through the proper protocol under WWE’s comprehensive wellness program.
**The WWE is at the Pepsi Center in Denver for a second consecutive night with the SmackDown, 205 Live & Mixed Match Challenge tapings tonight. The following have been announced for each show:
*A contract signing between AJ Styles and Samoa Joe for the Super Show-Down title match
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Tye Dillinger on SmackDown
*Big E. vs. Sheamus on SmackDown
*Mustafa Ali vs. Hideo Itami on 205 Live
*Lio Rush vs. Noam Dar on 205 Live
*Bobby Lashley & Mickie James vs. Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox on the Mixed Match Challenge
*Asuka & Carmella vs. The Miz & Asuka on the Mixed Match Challenge
Last week, they taped 205 Live ahead of SmackDown and would appear to be the taping format for at least the next two months. It was a positive for 205 Live last week, mainly for the main event where they allowed Cedric Alexander and Drew Gulak a long match and the audience enhanced rather than detracted from the match.
**With less than a week to go, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the full lineup for Sunday’s card at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, California. The show has been a struggle to promote with this card following three Destruction events and its tradition within New Japan to not announce future matches that are designed to come out of the preceding events. The lack of a full card probably hurt ticket sales but it’s a series of factors, including going to Long Beach so many times, the traveling audience just going to “All In” and not seeing this event as special, which is a big reason so many fans travel for shows. There is a novelty to New Japan itself coming to a market, but this is a show that probably should have gone elsewhere in the United States or Canada. It’s also not airing live on AXS TV, which defeats the purpose of one of these shows in the U.S. when the audience is being sent to New Japan World and not the U.S. broadcaster. That said, the lineup looks very good and I expect a strong show on Sunday. The main event looks tremendous, Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll will tear the house down, and Juice Robinson & Cody are coming off huge performances with Robinson’s win over Jay White in July and Cody with Nick Aldis that each feel like much bigger stars that a few months ago.
Below is the full card, which airs at 8 pm Eastern this Sunday with Kevin Kelly and Jim Ross on the call:
*Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi vs. Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii
*Juice Robinson vs. Cody for the IWGP United States title
*The Young Bucks vs. Guerrillas of Destiny for the IWGP tag titles
*Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll in the IWGP junior heavyweight title tournament – the winner will face KUSHIDA on October 8th at King of Pro Wrestling for the vacant title
*Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs. Jay White & Gedo
*Killer Elite Squad & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL & Sanada
*Hirooki Goto & Chuckie T. & Beretta vs. Flip Gordon, Jeff Cobb & Chris Sabin
*Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian vs. Hangman Page & Chase Owens
*Roppongi 3K & Rocky Romero vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, ACH & Ryusuke Taguchi
Based on the matches announced, I would assume that EVIL and Zack Sabre Jr. is going to happen at King of Pro Wrestling and that could lead to EVIL and Chris Jericho having their match in November at Power Struggle. Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jay White are being heavily teased for one of the big shows remaining this year, although I don’t think its time for either to lose going into Wrestle Kingdom and don’t know if it’s the right timing for the match. I’m glad Jeff Cobb is on the show and that six-man could get over very strong in front of that crowd.
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**The following first-round matches are scheduled to air on the Mae Young Classic Wednesday night at 9 pm Eastern on the WWE Network:
*Nicole Matthews vs. Isla Dawn
*Taynara Conti vs. Jessie Elaban
*Rachel Evers vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto
*Xia Brookside vs. Io Shirai
**Ring of Honor has added a singles match between Kenny King and Chase Owens for this Saturday’s television taping in Las Vegas, Nevada following Friday’s pay-per-view.
**On Monday’s episode, they announced that next week’s Raw from Seattle will feature Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott, Kevin Owens vs. Bobby Lashley, and an appearance by Shawn Michaels for the final Raw before the Super Show-Down card.
**MLW has added a match between Low Ki and Daga for the MLW world title at next Thursday’s “Fury Road” event from the Melrose Ballroom.
**Historian Pat Laprade has written an extensive piece covering the legacy of Johnny Rougeau and making his case for inclusion in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.
**The Wrap reports that Paul “Big Show” Wight is going to have a recurring role on the Syfy series “Happy”. Wight is scheduled for five episodes as the character Big Pink.
**WrestleCon is going to be taking place April 5th and 6th at the New York City Hilton Midtown Hotel. The WrestleCon Supershow is being named after the late Mark Hitchcock and will take place Thursday, April 4th with Bandido being the first performer announced for that card. Tickets are on sale and start at $49 for General Admission and go as high as $249 for the front row.
**WWN Live has announced that their events over WrestleMania Week will take place from the La Boom nightclub in Queens, New York from April 4th – 5th and then will run April 6th in Brooklyn, although no location has been announced. There are going to be multiple brands presenting their shows under the WWN Live banner that week, with the announcement of authentic shows being presents by DDT and wXw for the first time in the United States. They will also have shows from EVOLVE, SHIMMER, Kaiju Big Battel, and the Mercury Rising event.
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**MLW has announced that their WrestleMania Week event on April 4th will be taking place from the Melrose Ballroom in Queens with tickets on sale Wednesday, October 10th at 10 am Eastern. They have announced Low Ki, L.A. Park, Pentagon Jr., Rey Fenix, Konnan, Tom Lawlor, MJF, Ariya Blake, Tony Schiavone, and Salina de la Renta so far for the Fusion television taping that night.
**Absolute Intense Wrestling (AIW) is going to be working with Game Changer Wrestling during WrestleMania Week and running a show on Thursday, April 4th at 11:59 pm at the White Eagle Hall, which will house all the GCW events that week.
**Women of Wrestling has announced that Shaul Guerrero, the daughter of Eddie & Vickie and the wife of WWE wrestler Aiden English, has joined the promotion as their ring announcer. Guerrero was in Florida Championship Wrestling from 2010-2014 and wrestled as Raquel Diaz before leaving the company. WOW will be holding their next television tapings on October 10th and 11th from the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles. The promotion will be premiering on AXS TV in 2019.
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**Over the Top Wrestling (OTT) out of Ireland has posted the full match between WALTER and Jordan Devlin from August 19th, which people have raved about as one of best matches in the promotion’s history. Benno from the British Wrestling Experience has stated that it’s probably going to be his European Match of the Year, which covers a lot of ground as he’s watched everything of note this year:
**Impact Wrestling has released a feature on the hours leading up to Slammiversary this past July from The Rebel Complex in Toronto. The piece features comments from Scott D’Amore, Don Callis, Tommy Dreamer, and their head of production Michael Vettor. The challenge of this event was not gaining access to the building until Sunday morning to set up the arena for that night’s event because the Rebel had an event the night prior.
MMA NEWS
**This past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night event from Sao Paulo, Brazil averaged 607,000 viewers on FS 1 featuring Thiago Santos defeating Eryk Anders in the main event. The preliminary card aired on FS 2 and did 243,000 viewers. Last month’s Fight Night main card from Nebraska averaged 573,000 viewers for the card headlined by Justin Gaethje vs. James Vick, which was a much stronger main event on paper so that’s a positive for Santos and Anders. The prelims for this past weekend’s card were down 11% from last month’s average with both prelim cards airing on FS2.
**The Nevada Athletic Commission has chosen Herb Dean to officiate the UFC lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor at UFC 229 on Saturday, October 6th. The judges for the fight will be Derek Cleary, Sal D’Amato, and Junichiro Kamijo.
**Todd Martin from Sherdog wrote about the recent ruling on Jon Jones, reducing his suspension down to 15 months.
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*****
REWIND-A-RAW 9/24/18: Shield dissension, Liv Morgan hurt
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Raw from Denver, discuss the injury to Liv Morgan and provide an update, the show-long story with Dean Ambrose, a great tag titles match, Jim Cornette calling NWA show, UFC 229 press conference reaction, your feedback & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/25/rar-9-24-18-shield-dissension-liv-morgan-hurt/
*****
NJPW DESTRUCTION IN KOBE POST SHOW (Patreon show)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Sunday’s card from Kobe that was headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi taking on Kazuchika Okada and concluded with a major angle involving Gedo turning on Okada and aligning with Jay White.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/23/njpw-destruction-in-kobe-2018-post-show/
*****
EGGSHELLS PODCAST COMPANION: 2002 with Lee Daly
Episode 14 sees Chris Charlton and Lee Daly look at 2002, a year of radical change and dissent within NJPW. As many standbys left the promotion, some new faces appeared, significantly Joanie Laurer and Bob Sapp. Antonio Inoki also sought to bring the MMA flavored UFO to the dome.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/22/eggshells-podcast-companion-2002-w-lee-daly/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW – The Incredible Hulk (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting continue their MCU reviews with the 2008 film “The Incredible Hulk” that stars Edward Norton, Liv Tyler & a cameo from Rickson Gracie. The two discussed the forgotten MCU film, the casting of Norton, the switch to Mark Ruffalo, the chemistry of Norton & Tyler, and the Toronto landmarks featured.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21549471
*****
upNXT & Forever Young 9/20/18: Title vs. Title
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT featuring Ricochet vs. Pete Dunne, plus the WWE 2018 Mae Young Classic featuring Allison Kaye vs. Mia Yim.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/20/upnxt-forever-young-9-20-18-title-vs-title/
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE 9/19/18: Fight Club Pro, MediaCon, British J Cup, WOS
Martin Bushby & Benno are back to chat about Fight Club Pro’s recent card featuring Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin, Rev Pro’s British J Cup, World of Sport Ep.8, and Benno chats his live coverage of Wrestling MediaCon
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/19/bwe-9-19-18-fight-club-pro-mediacon-british-j-cup-world-of-sport-la-triple-w/
*****
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