POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I have put out a special review of “American Vandal” Season 2 for members of the POST Wrestling Café. We reviewed the first season and received a lot of interest to do the second season. All members can access the audio version but if you’re a Double Double or higher member of the Café you can stream it as a video as well.
**Saturday’s edition of the EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion features Chris Charlton chatting with STRIGGA from Cagematch.net and the Eastern Lariat Podcast about the year 2006 at the Tokyo Dome. There was only one Dome show that year with New Japan keeping their January 4th tradition despite the company going through turmoil. The card featured Brock Lesnar defending the IWGP heavyweight title against Shinsuke Nakamura after original opponent Kazuyuki Fujita backed out and a big presence from Big Mouth Loud on the show. The two also chat about the return of Riki Choshu to New Japan and the beginnings of New Japan showcasing bits of life.
**Wai and I will be back Monday night with Rewind-A-Raw as we review the show from Providence and go through the news from the weekend.
**This weekend’s shows on the POST Wrestling Café will include the Double Shot Tuesday night and Rewind-A-Wai this Friday as we review WWE Battleground 2016 from Washington, D.C headlined by Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns for the WWE title.
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WRESTLING NEWS
**The NWA will present their 70th-anniversary card tonight from the Nashville Fairgrounds (the former home of NWA TNA when they ran Wednesday nights on pay-per-view). The resurgence of the NWA has been an interesting story to monitor as they have approached it from a grassroots initiative with a small staff, led by Billy Corgan & David Lagana. Rather than go the live event route or using traditional television as a means for distribution, they have utilized online media with documentary-style videos on their YouTube channel. The first sign of buzz was the job they did to present then NWA champion Tim Storm, who was a wrestler most fans had never heard of before the “Ten Pounds of Gold” series. Storm came off so well in the videos and became the template for the series in going deeper to tell the stories of the performers. It’s something that the WWE struggles with on their main television with lots of talented wrestlers but a lack of depth to so many. It is only when the personalities got a chance to go deeper on shows like “Talking Smack” or a WWE Network documentary that the depth was showcased. There is a big hole in the market when it comes to this style of presentation and the NWA has identified that hole and is using it as the niche that sets them apart. The concept took on a larger role with “All In” and the story of Cody challenging Nick Aldis for the NWA title. The build-up through YouTube was excellent and led to the most heated match that night in front of 11,000 people at the Sears Centre with an incredible crescendo when Cody pinned Aldis. It was not the best “wrestling match” on the show, but so much of wrestling is the story and anticipation of the desired result that for me, made it the best match on the show because it was the story that connected most.
Tonight’s show is a step further to see if their audience will pay for their product with the show being promoted around a rematch between Cody and Aldis and enough time removed from “All In”. Below is the full card, which will be available for $24.99 on FITE TV beginning at 7:05 pm Eastern:
*Cody vs. Nick Aldis in a 2-of-3 falls match for the NWA title – the toughest part will be fighting the audience’s memory of “All In”, where the atmosphere made the match and it will be tough to recreate that in a much smaller venue with a fraction of the people.
*Jazz vs. Penelope Ford for the NWA women’s title
*Willie Mack vs. Mike Parrow vs. Jay Bradley vs. Ricky Starks in the first round of the NWA national title tournament
*Colt Cabana vs. Sammy Guevara vs. Scorpio Sky vs. Sam Shaw in the first round of the NWA national title tournament
*The two winners will meet to crown the NWA national champion
*Tim Storm vs. Peter Avalon
*Crimson & Jax Dane (w/ Road Warrior Animal) vs. The Kingdom of Josephus
*Laredo Kid vs. Barrett Brown
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**Kento Miyahara regained the All Japan Triple Crown championship today defeating Zeus at Yokohama Bunka Gym. WH Park stated it was a match of the year contender and well worth going out of your way to see. The show also featured Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama defeating KAI & Kengo Mashimo to retain the AJPW tag titles and Jake Lee defeating Dylan James. Zeus held the title since July and was his first reign as champion. This is Miyahara’s fourth title win and ties him with Stan Hansen for the third most in All Japan history behind Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada with five reigns each, and Suwama with six.
**On Friday, Tessa Blanchard and Mercedes Martinez had a match at the RISE 10 “Insanity” event in Berwyn, Illinois that went 75 minutes. RISE has already put the live edit of the match on sale for DVD and Blu Ray. It was the longest women’s match in history, surpassing an August 2011 match between Mercedes Martinez and Lexxus (Alisha Edwards) for WSU that went 73 minutes. There was also a match with Martinez and Angel Orsini on June 6th, 2009 that lasted 70 minutes, which would be the three longest women’s matches ever. (Thanks to historian Pat Laprade for the notes)
**The WWE has a big co-branded house show tonight at the TD Garden in Boston featuring Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey, AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, Samoa Joe, and Braun Strowman among those advertised.
**Monday’s episode of Raw is in Providence, Rhode Island but nothing has been advertised ahead of time. The following has been announced for Tuesday’s taping in Newark, New Jersey:
*Miz TV with Rey Mysterio
*Rusev vs. Aiden English
*Hideo Itami vs. Mustafa Ali in a Falls Count Anywhere match on 205 Live
*Mike Kanellis vs. Lince Dorado on 205 Live
*Bobby Roode & Natalya vs. Finn Balor & Bayley on Mixed Match Challenge
*Asuka & The Miz vs. Naomi & Jimmy Uso on the Mixed Match Challenge
**The World Series begins on Tuesday night on Fox meaning SmackDown will face heavy competition this week. The series could wrap as early as Saturday if it’s a four-game sweep. This will be interesting in 2019 with SmackDown moving to Fox and how the network will handle the WWE property when there are sports conflicts with the likely solution being SmackDown on FS1 when there is a major game.
**The New Japan Super Junior Tag League will resume Monday in Shimane with the following matches being uploaded to New Japan World after the show:
*Shingo Takagi & Bushi vs. Volador Jr. & Soberano Jr.
*Roppongi 3K vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask
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**Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks have been cleared and both wrestled on the Raw house show in Bangor, Maine Friday night. Bliss had been off since the Hell in a Cell match with Ronda Rousey due to an arm issue and Banks had been sidelined recently for an undisclosed reason. Both are scheduled for next Sunday’s Evolution event on Long Island, New York.
**The WWE has added Ivory, Michelle McCool, Molly Holly, Kelly Kelly, Maria Kanellis, and Madusa to the battle royal match at Evolution. McCool was advertised on the WWE’s events page for this past Tuesday’s SmackDown 1000 episode but never appeared on the show.
**Impact Wrestling has announced they will tape television on Friday, March 22nd and Saturday, March 23rd next year in Windsor, Ontario at St. Clair College.
**The WWE Network will be airing the “House Hardy Halloween Special” immediately after the Evolution event next Sunday. The special was filmed at the Hardy Compound with Matt Hardy raving about the finished product. This seems like a great idea and a better venue for this style of production than an episode of Raw.
**Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter this past week that Chinese wrestler Tian Bing was released by the WWE this week. Bing began wrestling in 2013 for Antonio Inoki’s Inoki Genome Federation and was signed by the WWE in 2016. He has the obscure fact of working at WrestleMania as he was part of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal in 2017 in Orlando and was featured on this past week’s NXT episode teaming with Rocky to lose to Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch.
**Here are the results from Friday’s PWG “Smokey and the Bandido” card from the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles: Trevor Lee over Darby Allin, Puma King over Flamita and Rey Horus, Zack Sabre Jr. over Hechicero, Bandido over Rey Fenix, Timothy Thatcher over Brody King, Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz over Santana & Ortiz to keep the PWG tag titles, Jeff Cobb over Walter to win the PWG title. One person that attended the show told me the standout matches were the Bandido vs. Fenix and Puma King vs. Flamita vs. Rey Horus matches. There was no announcement of when their next event will be.
**The Ringer speaks with Billy Corgan about the NWA and the state of the wrestling industry in 2018.
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**Lucha Blog has reported that Netflix will be removing the first two seasons of Lucha Underground after November 15th. The expectation was that Netflix would open the franchise to a wider audience, but there is nothing to suggest that was the case with Lucha Underground at its lowest viewership in history this season. As much as Lucha Underground has been presented as a serialized television program rather than traditional wrestling, it’s hardcore wrestling fans that consumed this series and isn’t a word-of-mouth show that is going to cross over to a mainstream audience. While pro wrestling has a lot of re-watch value among its fanbase, it’s not like the WWE Network is seeing large numbers going back to watch old episodes of Raw because that has a narrow appeal.
**The New Yorker has a big story on the Sinclair Broadcast Group (the parent company of Ring of Honor) and gaining influence on its viewership by targeting smaller markets.
**The WWE has released another “Day of” special featuring Dave Bautista this past Tuesday and his trip from Toronto to Washington for SmackDown 1000. Bautista is in the middle of shooting a new movie called “My Spy” in Toronto and began his day at 5:30 am where he spent the day shooting the movie, got on a flight and arrived in Washington, D.C. at 6 pm and did the show, flew back to Toronto to shoot Wednesday morning.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC 230 card has undergone more changes with Luke Rockhold’s removal from the card for his fight with Chris Weidman. It was reported Friday by ESPN that Rockhold had suffered multiple injuries in training camp to his shin, knee, and nose, forcing him to withdraw from the rematch with Weidman. The same outlet later confirmed that Weidman will now fight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, who was already scheduled for the event against David Branch. They have been able to keep Branch on the card, who will now fight Jared Cannonier. The card has undergone multiple setbacks, including losing a highly-anticipated fight between Nate Diaz and Dustin Poirier after Poirier had to withdraw due to ongoing issues with his hip.
**UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier spoke to the media ahead of his fight with Derrick Lewis and revealed that he pushed back a commentary tryout with the WWE to take the fight with Lewis. Cormier has repeatedly stated he has a deadline in March when he turns 40 that he is retiring from fighting. His goal is to beat Lewis and then turn around and fight Brock Lesnar before his retirement deadline.
Cormier has risen to become one of the best analysts in the UFC as a regular member of the pay-per-view broadcast team with Jon Anik and Joe Rogan, although he refuses to commentate during events when his teammates are fighting. This was why Cormier didn’t call UFC 229 with Khabib Nurmagomedov was in the main event and why he wasn’t going to call UFC 230 with Rockhold booked, prior to Cormier’s involvement on the same show. Cormier is a lifelong pro wrestling fan dating back to his childhood following Mid South Wrestling where he grew up in Louisiana. Cormier did a WWE tryout in 2004 and heeded the advice of Kurt Angle to continue his amateur career. Cormier represented the U.S twice at the Olympics, placing fourth in 2004 in Greece and forced to withdraw at the Beijing games in 2008 due to kidney failure while cutting weight.
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**The latest UFC documentary on Fight Pass is A Matter of PRIDE: The Story of UFC’s Rivalry with Japan’s PRIDE FC”. The 20-minute piece centers around the PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix in 2003 that saw the UFC send light heavyweight Chuck Liddell into the tournament for the opportunity to represent the UFC, fight Wanderlei Silva in the finals with the UFC optimistic that Pride would reciprocate and send fighters over for UFC events. Those interviewed for the documentary included Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, Chuck Liddell, Nobuyuki Sakakibara (Pride’s president from 2003-2007), Bas Rutten, and Wanderlei Silva.
They outlined the brackets that White felt were greatly skewed against Liddell as he drew Alistair Overeem in the opening round with White seeing the Dutch fighter as their toughest test to get to Silva. Liddell defeated Overeem in August but fell to Quinton Jackson in November prior to Jackson’s loss later that night in the final to Silva. There was some great footage of Liddell backstage apologizing for the loss and stating how hard he took it in letting down the UFC and his team. White said after they lent Liddell for the tournament, Pride never came back and later tried to run shows of their own in Las Vegas, with the first in October 2006 after they had lost Fuji TV in Japan and were declining rapidly.
They spoke with journalist Jake Adelstein, who covered the story of Pride’s ties to the Yakuza that were the death blow for Pride. The company lost Fuji TV because of the scandal and were out of business within a year. The UFC purchased the company for a reported $70 million and absorbed many of the fighters. It was a big deal to White to purchase Pride and its hard to justify the price paid because they got a tape library and the IP to market Pride FC for a price that dwarfed what the WWE spent to acquire WCW six-years earlier.
**The Professional Fighters League will present the finals of their six tournaments on New Year’s Eve with the matchups set following Saturday’s show in Washington, D.C. The winner of each tournament will receive $1,000,000 in prize money with the following tournament finals set for New Year’s Eve at the Hulu Theatre at Madison Square Garden:
*Lance Palmer vs. Steven Siler – Featherweight
*Rashid Magomedov vs. Natan Schulte – Lightweight
*Ray Cooper III vs. Magomed Magomedkerimov – Welterweight
*Abuspiyan Magomedov vs. Louis Taylor – Middleweight
*Vinny Magalhaes vs. Sean O’Connell – Light Heavyweight
*Philipe Lins vs. Josh Copeland – Heavyweight
*****
AMERICAN VANDAL (Season 2) SPOILER REVIEW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Season 2 of the Netflix crime mockumentary series, American Vandal. We discuss our thoughts on how this season compared to the first, choose our favorite cast members, and give our take on the series’ commentary on journalism and social media.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/21/american-vandal-season-2-spoiler-review/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW: Iron Man 2 (2010)
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss the return of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the controversy surrounding Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, the introduction of Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, the use of antagonists played by Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell, and the reasons why this movie might not be as fondly remembered as its predecessor.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/19/post-movie-review-iron-man-2-2010/
*****
upNXT MOVIE REVIEW: Halloween (1978)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman from upNXT review John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic, HALLOWEEN! They go through and share their views on the film, give their thoughts on the entire Halloween series itself, deliver some nerdy trivia, and look ahead to the new sequel coming out today!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/18/upnxt-movie-review-halloween-1978/
*****
upNXT & Forever Young 10/18/18: Back to Black
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT featuring the War Raiders vs. Undisputed Era and the return of Aleister Black! Plus this week’s episode of the WWE Mae Young Classic and the Tegan Nox injury.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/18/upnxt-forever-young-10-18-18-back-to-black/
*****
BWE 10/17/18: WWE NXT UK, wXw Tag League, Defiant Fight or Flight, Progress
Martin Bushby & Benno are back to talk the first episode of WWE NXT UK including the highlights from the show, where it fits in the UK scene and the future of the brand.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/17/bwe-10-17-18-wwe-nxt-uk-wxw-tag-league-defiant-fight-or-flight-progress/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 10/17/18
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the Eddie Guerrero “Untold” feature, Being the Elite Ep. 121, Lucha Underground & Total Divas.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/17/double-shot-10-17-18-eddie-guerrero-untold-lucha-underground-total-divas-bte-ep-121/
*****
RASD 10/16/18: SmackDown 1000, Evolution reunion, Mysterio vs. Nakamura
This week was SmackDown 1000 with the return of several stars, including Rey Mysterio for a World Cup Qualifier with Shinsuke Nakamura, a reunion of Evolution and a match tease, Edge hosted The Cutting Edge with guest Becky Lynch, new SmackDown tag champions and a BIG SHOW TURN!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/17/rasd-10-16-18-smackdown-1000-evolution-reunion-mysterio-vs-nakamura/
*****
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