POST IT NOTES
**On today’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw, we reviewed one of the toughest Raw episodes of the year and what isn’t working on the show. We started off the show with a big discussion on the changes to the UK scene that the WWE is making, the signing of Walter, more on the life of Larry Matysik, and we also discussed the Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell fight from the Golden Boy card on the weekend. Plus, an announcement at the end of our year-end shows we have planned and your feedback.
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown reviewing tonight’s show in Minneapolis, the Mixed Match Challenge and going through today’s news items. Then, we have the Double Shot for members of the POST Wrestling Café and we will be chatting the season-premiere of the Edge & Christian show, some quick thoughts on the Starrcade broadcast, the latest Being the Elite and I’ll also discuss two recent UFC Fight Pass documentary shorts on Daniel Cormier and Ronda Rousey.
**On Wednesday’s edition of the British Wrestling Experience, Martin Bushby and Benno will be joined by Will Cooling, who writes for Fighting Spirit Magazine. The three will go over all the big WWE UK news this week and what it means for the UK wrestling scene in the short and long-term, plus Walter’s signing and other news and notes.
**A reminder that this Thursday, we will be live with the Café Hangout at 3 pm Eastern for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members. We will be joined by Jan Murphy to chat about his TJ Wilson feature and this Saturday’s Chinlock Wrestling charity event in Kingston, Ontario. Plus, we will reveal the new list of categories for the “Best of” and “Worst of” shows at the end of the year on POST Wrestling.
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WRESTLING NEWS
**The SmackDown tapings are taking place from the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota tonight. Below are the matches and segments they have announced for the tapings:
*AJ Styles responds to Daniel Bryan
*Jeff Hardy’s 20th-anniversary celebration with the WWE – he signed with the company in 1998 after working enhancement years as far back as 1994 with his brother. Hardy left the company in September 2009 and didn’t return until April 2017, spending most of that period with TNA.
*Becky Lynch appears on the show
*The Bar vs. The Usos in a non-title match
*Finn Balor & Bayley vs. Bobby Lashley & Mickie James on the Mixed Match Challenge
*Jinder Mahal & Alicia Fox vs. Ember Moon & Curt Hawkins (the replacement for Braun Strowman)
**Gabe Sapolsky announced Tuesday that Impact Wrestling has pulled Santana & Ortiz from the upcoming EVOLVE cards in December. LAX was scheduled for a three-way match on December 15th against The Street Profits and AR Fox & Leon Ruff for the EVOLVE tag titles and a six-man tag on December 16th with LAX and Austin Theory against The Street Profits & Darby Allin. Sapolsky stated they were working on finding replacements for the shows.
**Jan Murphy of Postmedia has an extensive feature on Tyson Kidd (TJ Wilson) detailing his entire life from entering wrestling as a child, his lifelong friendship with Teddy Hart and the Hart family and going in-depth regarding his career-ending injury from June 2015 when he took a muscle buster from Samoa Joe during a dark match in San Antonio, Texas. We will have Murphy on as a guest this Thursday on the Café Hangout and will chat about this feature and the event Murphy is promoting in Kingston, Ontario this weekend with Wilson appearing as a guest.
**Last Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling on Thanksgiving Night averaged 124,000 viewers on Pop TV. I guess it’s a small victory that it wasn’t the least-watched Impact in Pop history and beat three recent episodes in the new time slot. The show was a throwaway episode with comedic promos all night leading to a ten-person tag with Disco Inferno being forced to wear the turkey suit. They also went against the ending of the NFL game on NBC that did 17.6 million viewers from 10-11 pm.
**New Japan continues with the World Tag League tournament on Wednesday with a card in Ibaraki with the following tournament matches scheduled:
*EVIL & Sanada vs. Shota Umino & Ayato Yoshida
*Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi vs. Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi
*Best Friends vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima
*Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka
*Michael Elgin & Jeff Cobb vs. Togi Makabe & Toa Henare
*Hangman Page & Yujiro vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano
*Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Killer Elite Squad
**MLW has announced that Pentagon Jr. will face Teddy Hart in the main event of their “Never Say Never” card on December 13th in Miami, Florida. The same card features PCO vs. LA Park in a Falls Count Anywhere in Miami match, Tom Lawlor vs. Simon Gotch in a No Ropes, No Holds Barred match, and Low Ki defending the MLW title against Konnan.
**MJF will be unable to wrestle at this Sunday’s Alpha-1 card in Hamilton and will be replaced by Eddie Kingston on the show. Kingston will team with Homicide against Ethan Page and Colt Cabana. The card takes place Sunday at 222 Queenston Road in Hamilton at 4 pm.
**Insane Championship Wrestling has announced that Jeff Jarrett will be the special referee for the match between Grado and James Storm at The Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland this Sunday.
**Destiny Wrestling out of Mississauga, Ontario will be making an announcement Thursday about their next card in January and who will be part of it.
**Trish Stratus has a cover story in the holiday issue of Real Style discussing her matches at the Royal Rumble and Evolution this year, retiring at age 30 in 2006, and how she prepared for her matches.
**The WWE stock closed at $65.28 on Tuesday.
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MMA NEWS
**CM Punk (Phil Brooks) spoke to MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi about his upcoming commentary role with Cage Fury Fighting Championships on Friday, December 14th on Fight Pass. Punk was contacted by Dave Sholler, who is a part owner in the CFFC group and former head of public relations for the UFC, for the gig. He stated he recently went to the UFC Performance Institute, is still under contract to the UFC and is part of the USADA testing pool (the latest data from USADA states he has been tested four times this year). In other interviews, Punk has said he will decide at the beginning of the year regarding his future in fighting as he just turned 40 years old. On the professional wrestling front, he was asked about the potential of a startup group with the All Elite Wrestling venture and said:
I think at this point that whatever those guys decide to do will be great for them and their families. If I was asked what I would do or what I would say to them — because they could obviously go to WWE whenever they want — it’s just a matter of is this what’s best for your family? And I think we live in a time now where WWE is not the end-all, be-all. I don’t think it has been for quite some time. I think the stigma that it is still there and probably will persist for many, many years. But enough people have been there and left that can, I guess, extoll the knowledge of, ‘Hey, you know what, the place ain’t all that.’
Punk added that that “pro wrestling not on my radar”, but added that he was never presented with a real offer to appear at “All In” in September and whether he would listen to a pitch from The Young Bucks:
I would always listen. I would listen to them, because just like Dave, I like the Young Bucks. I text with Matt on and off. But business is business. I know Cody was out there in the media saying that an offer was made. An offer was not made. Calling me up or texting me saying, ‘Hey, if you want to come to the show and do something, we would love that’ is not an offer. That’s not an offer.
There’s other things. There’s a couple more loose ends that I’m still trying to tie up to fully absolve me from the world of pro wrestling. I feel like I’ve still been attached to it since the day that I left it and that’s mostly because of fugazi lawyers and such. But we’re wrapping all that up and that’ll come to an end. And once I’m truly free, we can explore the world and just float and hang out.
**UFC president Dana White appeared on the UFC Unfiltered Podcast on Tuesday with Matt Serra and Jim Norton with the following notes coming out of the show:
-White flew to Australia to meet with Israel Adesanya and then flew to Los Angeles to meet with Anderson Silva to put the fight together for the UFC 234 pay-per-view in February.
-He stated that Ben Askren will be fighting Robbie Lawler, which is being targeted for the UFC 233 card at the end of January
-White said he loves Chuck Liddell but had less than kind words for Oscar de la Hoya, who he called “a coke head”. He stated it was “disgusting” that the California State Athletic Commission allowed that fight to happen. He tore into De La Hoya for how little most of the card was paid and not knowing all the fighter’s names. He hopes someone talks de la Hoya into fighting again, so he is knocked out like Liddell was. White said he would reach out to talk to Liddell later this week. He flat out said the guy snorts cocaine and is not smart enough to get into the MMA industry.
-He said that Sage Northcutt is leaving the UFC with his contract expiring and left the door open for Northcutt to return in a few years.
-The hope is to book Tyron Woodley and Colby Covington for the UFC 233 card on January 26th.
**Jon Jones was at ESPN on Monday and did several interviews, including First Take and Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show. On the latter’s show, he stated that he is not sober and continues to drink and smoke pot. He added that sobriety was something he strived for at one time but is not possible right now.
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*****
RAR 11/26/18: Baron Corbin’s Raw, WWE’s UK moves, Larry Matysik
WWE was in Milwaukee for Raw and featured Baron Corbin’s heel unit destroying babyfaces Finn Balor and Elias, Dean Ambrose gets vaccinated from the audience, Seth Rollins held an Open Challenge for the Intercontinental title. We also discuss WWE making several big moves with the NXT UK brand and the passing of Larry Matysik.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/27/rar-11-26-18-baron-corbins-raw-wwes-uk-moves-larry-matysik/
*****
GOLDEN BOY MMA: Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz POST Show
John Pollock & Mike Bohn from USA Today and MMA Junkie chat about Golden Boy MMA’s first card featuring Chuck Liddell fighting Tito Ortiz.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/25/golden-boy-mma-chuck-liddell-vs-tito-ortiz-post-show/
*****
EGGSHELLS PODCAST COMPANION: 2011 w/ Mike Sempervive
Episode 23 sees Chris Charlton and Mike Sempervive look at 2011. NJPW‘s cross-promotion with TNA and NOAH in the Dome sees some strange results as Toru Yano faces Rob Van Dam, Tetsuya Naito squares off with Jeff Hardy and Kazuchika Okada makes a surprisingly nondescript return.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/24/eggshells-podcast-companion-2011-w-mike-sempervive/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #24: AAA & IWC’s WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE 1994
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the highly-acclaimed When Worlds Collide event from November 1994 and welcome Rob Bihari to the show to chat about the card, the legacy of the event, Art Barr, AAA’s expansion attempts and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/23/rewind-a-wai-24-aaa-iwcs-when-worlds-collide-1994/
*****
upNXT 11/22/18: WAR GAMES HANGOVER
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT featuring the “Hangover” from this past weekend’s TakeOver: War Games. Tons of recaps, Candice LeRae vs. Nikki Cross, an angle with Lars Sullivan & Keith Lee, and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/22/upnxt-11-22-18-war-games-hangover/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 11/21: Dean Ambrose & AJ Styles’ WWE Network specials, Nick Gage vs. David Arquette
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the WWE Network’s specials on Dean Ambrose & AJ Styles, Nick Gage vs. David Arquette & Being the Elite.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/21/double-shot-11-21-dean-ambrose-aj-styles-wwe-network-specials-nick-gage-vs-david-arquette/
*****
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