POST IT NOTES
**We have our NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed POST Show up on the site with Mike Murray joining me to review the Long Beach card, a discussion on the Death Before Dishonor event and chatting numerous other topics. You can download the show or subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts.
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw as we review the show from Seattle and look ahead to the Super Show-Down card this weekend. We will also go through all the major news items from the past few days and take your feedback from the POST Wrestling Forum.
**We have a busy week of shows on the site as I will be joined Tuesday by MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi, who just covered the Bellator & New Japan cards live over the weekend and is headed to Las Vegas for UFC 229. We will chat with Marc about several news items and a look at this weekend’s card featuring Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor. On Wednesday, WH Park returns for a new POST Puroresu as we will chat Fighting Spirit Unleashed, the KOPW card, Japanese candidates for the Hall of Fame, Stardom’s 5 Star Grand Prix and more.
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**For our POST Shows this weekend, the WWE Super Show-Down review will be exclusive to members of the POST Wrestling Café with Double Double & above members having access to a live video stream of the review. On Saturday night, we will have a free POST Show with a review of UFC 229.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE THIS WEEK:
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: MMA news and notes with John Pollock & MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi
*Wednesday: The Double Shot (Patreon)
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Oli Court & Benno
*Wednesday: POST Puroresu with John Pollock & WH Park
*Thursday: upNXT & Forever Young with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: ASK-A-WAI (Patreon)
*Saturday: WWE Super Show-Down POST Show (Patreon)
*Saturday: UFC 229 POST Show with John Pollock & Ziggy Cao
WRESTLING NEWS
**Daniel Bryan posted the following comments regarding Liv Morgan’s injury on Raw last week and the harsh criticism that Brie Bella has received over the past week:
“I am proud of how strong my wife is. After accidentally injuring Liv Morgan last week, the first time Bri’s ever hurt another performer, she’s been subject to a constant barrage of social media attacks. Almost every wrestler has accidentally hurt someone but rarely do you see this kind of hate when it happens. For example, I concussed Randy Orton in 2012 after hitting him with what was supposed to be a chair to the back. Unfortunately, part of the side hit him in the back of the head, and he was forced to miss a PPV. In 2009, in our last match against each other, I concussed Nigel McGuinness after doing into him into the crowd, where his head hit the floor. And there are others. As for the Yes kicks, two weeks ago I accidentally kicked Andrade (Cien Almas) directly in the head due to a miscommunication on my part. I feel fortunate that he was ok, because there are few feelings worse than hurting someone. Despite all of that, never I receive the backlash Bri did this week. With all the negative things said about my wife, nobody was harder on her than she was on herself. Thank you to the many people who reached out to support her, both publicly and privately. We all wish Liv Morgan a speedy recovery”. #EndCyberBullying
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**The main event for New Japan’s King of Pro Wrestling show next week will be a three-way match for the IWGP heavyweight title. Kenny Omega will defend the title against Kota Ibushi and Cody at Sumo Hall. The closing angle at Fighting Spirit Unleashed had Omega challenge Ibushi to a rematch, but Ibushi was interrupted by Cody who suggested the three-way match and the match was made. In a trivia note, the first time the IWGP title was featured in a three-way match was October 8th, 2005 with Brock Lesnar vs. Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Masahiro Chono and was 13 years to the day of next week’s three-way match. There was also a three-way match in May 2014 with AJ Styles vs. Kazuchika Okada vs. Michael Elgin for the IWGP title at the ROH War of the Worlds card in New York City.
Ticket sales are doing very well for Sumo Hall next week, so the show didn’t have the same issues as Long Beach with the audience awaiting announcements. Still, there are two matches official for one of the biggest shows of the year with the IWGP title match and the final of the junior heavyweight title tournament between KUSHIDA and Marty Scurll. I would expect the full card to be released later tonight or tomorrow at the latest. Based on the booking in Long Beach it looks like EVIL and Zack Sabre Jr. will have a match on the show, which could lead to Chris Jericho challenging EVIL by video or in person.
**New Japan announced attendance at 3,007 for Sunday’s card at the Walter Pyramid. The empty seats were very visible throughout the show and acknowledged by Kenny Omega in his closing promo. As great a show as it was, shows don’t sell tickets in hindsight and it’s all about the promotion and anticipation ahead of time. There are lessons for New Japan to have learned from this show and we will see if they are ignored or applied with their next U.S. card.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw will take place from the Key Arena in Seattle, Washington for the final Raw before the Super Show-Down event this Saturday in Melbourne. Below is what they have announced for Raw:
*Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott
*Kevin Owens vs. Bobby Lashley
*Shawn Michaels will be on the show
**Mauro Ranallo, Kairi Sane, and Io Shirai were all seen in the audience at the New Japan card in Long Beach on Sunday.
**Ring of Honor has announced that they will be carrying CMLL’s Grand Prix event this Friday from Arena Mexico on Honor Club at 9:30 pm Eastern.
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**The NWA has announced a one-night tournament for their vacant National title at the 70th-anniversary card on Sunday, October 21st. The tournament will feature eight people with two separate four-way matches and the winners facing off later that night to become the champion. The company has announced Colt Cabana, Scorpio Sky, Mike Parrow, Jay Bradley and Sam Shaw as the first five participants. The card will stream live that night on FITE TV from the Nashville Fairgrounds and is headlined by Cody and Nick Aldis in a rematch for the NWA title.
**The WWE stock experienced a 2.5% drop on Monday. The stock opened at $97.36 and closed at $94.22.
**The NWA has also announced that Jazz will defend the NWA women’s title on the anniversary card. They will announce her opponent next week.
**In Sunday’s update, I stated that the Thursday night NFL game did 3,168,000 viewers on the NFL Network against Impact Wrestling. The game also aired that night on Fox, which averaged 14,447,000 viewers.
**PROGRESS Wrestling’s “Hello Wembley” card on Sunday ran long and caused many fans to leave the building to catch their train home and missed the main event. As a cool gesture on the part of the promotion, they are going to post the main event between Walter and Tyler Bate for free as a make good on their Demand Progress streaming service. The entire show from Sunday should be up and available for purchase this week.
**The next PROGRESS card is Chapter 77 “Pumpkin Spice Progress” from the Electric Ballroom in Camden on Sunday, October 28th. Tickets are on sale today for the show and they have announced Walter will defend the Progress championship against Zack Sabre Jr. in the main event.
**NXT will be holding live events in San Jose, California on November 15th and Visalia, California on November 16th prior to TakeOver: War Games on November 18th in Los Angeles.
**The Undertaker did a lengthy out-of-character interview with Ed Young of the Fellowship Church in North Texas. He went into the origin of his character, his first interaction with Vince McMahon, evolving the character and philosophies on the wrestling industry:
MMA NEWS
**Conor McGregor spoke to Andrew McGahon on The Mac Life site ahead of his return at UFC 229 this week. This was a much different version of McGregor than you will likely see at the press conference this Thursday. He hit home the need for more weight classes in the sport and that the toughest elements for him are the media obligations and weight cuts, which usually go together during fight week. McGregor was in favor of a 165-pound weight class, which Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier have been pushing for to compete at next month. McGregor said he was willing to step in and fight Frankie Edgar on short notice (for the March 3rd UFC 222 card) at 155 pounds and would have taken a pay cut to make the fight happen, but the UFC needed more time to promote a fight of his. McGregor stated he was bothered by how he was stripped of the featherweight and lightweight titles citing all the work he put into becoming a double champion and was never offered a chance to defend the featherweight title. McGregor won the featherweight title from Jose Aldo in December 2015 and was stripped the following year after he became lightweight champion defeating Eddie Alvarez in November 2016. He brought up lots of options for future fights with Poirier and Diaz fighting next month, Georges St-Pierre and Tyron Woodley being mentioned as well. McGregor envisions rattling Khabib Nurmagomedov’s head when he makes contact but is prepared for five rounds, if necessary.
**Daniel Cormier appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on Monday and stated that things were “tense” between the UFC and the light heavyweight title. Cormier stated that the promotion wants to strip him of the title so that Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson can fight for the title on December 29th. He added that he is open to the possibility of fighting Jones a third time but is hopeful of fighting Brock Lesnar in January and turning around to fight in March before retiring by his 40th birthday.
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**UFC bantamweight Sean O’Malley has announced that he is off this Saturday’s UFC 229 card due to a USADA violation stemming from an out-of-competition drug test. O’Malley announced the reason he was off the card because there is a new policy in place that the UFC and USADA will not announce a violation until the adjudication process is complete. The 23-year old was scheduled to fight Jose Quinonez on the preliminary card on FS 1 this Saturday in Las Vegas. He appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show and stated that the substance found was Ostarine.
**Alberto Del Rio (Alberto Rodriguez) was a guest on The MMA Hour with Luke Thomas on Monday to promote Combate Americas. Rodriguez stated that he will be fighting for the promotion in 2019 and will be his first fight since 2010. Rodriguez is 41 years old and began fighting for the Deep organization in 2001 and infamously fought Mirko Cro Cop on the inaugural Pride Bushido event in October 2003 wearing his mask and was knocked out. He stated on the program that he no longer enjoys professional wrestling so he’s going to do something else and wants to fight for Combate.
**Channel 5 in the U.K. has added the Bellator 206 card to their My5 VOD service, which includes the Gegard Mousasi and Rory MacDonald fight, which was cut off due to time restrictions on the Channel 5.
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**Below is the first episode of UFC Embedded for UFC 229 this Saturday:
*****
NJPW FIGHTING SPIRIT UNLEASHED POST SHOW
John Pollock is joined by guest co-host Mike Murray to review Sunday’s card from Long Beach, discussing a terrific card from New Japan, the main event for KOPW, a discussion on the Death Before Dishonor show, feedback & lots more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/01/njpw-fighting-spirit-unleashed-post-show-with-john-pollock-mike-murray/
*****
EGGSHELLS PODCAST COMPANION: 2003 with Jonathan Snowden
Chris Charlton is joined by Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden to chat 2003 with four cards at the Tokyo Dome, the first Ultimate Crush event, the rise of Hustle, Bill Goldberg’s involvement, the influence of Pride & K-1 on the wrestling scene & lots more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/29/eggshells-podcast-companion-2003-w-jonathan-snowden/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI – WWF In Your House: International Incident (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the WWF’s IYH event from Vancouver in July 1996 featuring a six-man tag with Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson & Sid vs. Vader, Owen Hart & British Bulldog as chosen by Espresso Executive Producer Zubin Sundar.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21693210
*****
upNXT & Forever Young 9/27/18: Genius of the Sky
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman review this week’s NXT episode, the Mae Young Classic with Io Shirai vs. Xia Brookside and Davie’s 205 (approximate) second review of 205 Live.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/27/upnxt-forever-young-9-27-18-genius-of-the-sky/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 9/26/18: Total Divas, July ’96 Raw, Jeff Hardy & Slammiversary features
John Pollock & Wai Ting provide additional reviews of the season premiere of Total Divas, a review of the July 15th, 1996 episode of Raw leading into “International Incident”, reviews of the Jeff Hardy & Slammiversary features, Ten Pounds of Gold & more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21648948
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 9/25/18: AJ’s Mailbox, That Night in Milwaukee, Liv Morgan update
John Pollock & Wai Ting review SmackDown and chat the angles involving AJ Styles & Samoa Joe, Aiden English with Rusev, the debut of Truth TV, a review of Mixed Match Challenge, the top news stories of the day & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/26/rasd-9-25-18-ajs-mailbox-that-night-in-milwaukee-liv-morgan/
*****
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