POST IT NOTES
**For anyone planning to vote for our year-end “Best” and “Worst” of 2018 shows, the voting will close this Thursday night at Midnight Eastern. The results of the voting will be announced on each show with the “Best of” show out Friday, December 21st and the “Worst of” show the following Friday.
**Wai Ting and I kick off a huge week at POST Wrestling with Rewind-A-Raw tonight as we review Raw from San Diego, go through a busy weekend of news, take your feedback and get up to speed on everything happening inside the POST Office. That show will be up on the site and available through iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and all the usual places.
**Wai and I put out a bonus show Sunday for members of the POST Wrestling Café with a review of New Japan’s final night of the World Tag League. We reviewed the full card, discussed the finals of the World Tag League, Kota Ibushi’s win over Hirooki Goto and setting up the big match with Will Ospreay, as well as the updated card for Wrestle Kingdom.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman were joined by SCRUMP from Pro Wrestling Tees to review the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie from 1995.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE THIS WEEK
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock and Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: Double Shot (Patreon)
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with guest Findlay Martin to chat the passing of the Dynamite Kid
*Thursday: The POST Roundtable featuring Ariel Helwani of ESPN
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington and Davie Portman
*Thursday: Café Hangout at 3 pm with guest Sebastian Suave of Smash Wrestling (Double Double and above members of the Café get it live, free show the next day)
*Friday: Marvel review of “Captain America – The First Avenger” (Patreon)
*Friday: ROH Final Battle POST Show with John Pollock and Mike Murray
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion with Chris Charlton – 2014 with Juan Torres of The Lion Marks
*Saturday: POST Puroresu with John Pollock and WH Park
*Sunday: WWE TLC POST Show with John Pollock and Wai Ting (live video stream for Double Double and higher members of the Café)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from San Diego and is the final episode before TLC this Sunday. They have announced the following segments for the show:
*Alexa Bliss will host a press conference between Ronda Rousey and Nia Jax
*Seth Rollins will address Dean Ambrose and the State of Raw under Baron Corbin
*Heath Slater starts his new career as a referee, as we have reported the Rhyno story is an angle and he is not leaving
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider has the latest on the ongoing legal issues between Colt Cabana (Scott Colton) and CM Punk (Phil Brooks). Earlier this year, Cabana’s team filed a suit against Punk alleging unpaid legal fees and breach of contract over the case filed by Dr. Chris Amann stemming from their 2014 podcast. In November, a judge in Illinois threw out Cabana’s lawsuit against Punk after the latter responded to the suit. The judge ruled that Cabana’s side had failed to prove that the offer made by Punk to cover certain fees was definite to support an enforceable contract or that Punk had intended to defraud him. This has led to Cabana’s side refiling a suit against Punk stating that Punk knew the WWE would come after him legally following the 2014 interview and that Cabana agreed to work with Punk’s team in the lawsuit in exchange for Cabana’s legal bills to be covered and not cooperate with Dr. Amann’s side.
The two sides appeared to be fine through April 2016, which is when Punk notified Cabana, he wouldn’t be paying his legal bills any longer and intimated in a message that there was a falling out. Cabana sought separate council at this point, with Punk’s firm Loeb & Loeb stepping in to continue representing Cabana. That continued until March 2017, when Cabana finally did seek separate legal representation after being dropped by Loeb & Loeb. In the suit, Cabana alleges that Punk had the firm drop Cabana and was done after the discovery phase was completed with Cabana.
Cabana’s argument is that if he had complied with the demand letter sent by Dr. Amann’s side after the podcast aired, he doesn’t believe he would have been included in the suit. His reasoning for joining the suit and not following the demand letter was done because of the belief his legal costs would be covered.
In the new lawsuit filed, Cabana is seeking $200,000 in damages from the legal fees he believes he is owed.
**Becky Lynch was a guest on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show discussing her rise in popularity over the past few months and promote her feud with Ronda Rousey. Lynch stated that after she was hit by Nia Jax on Raw, she completely blacked out and said her autopilot took off. During the spot, you can see her recover from the punch while clutching onto the ropes. She was complimentary towards Ronda Rousey’s work ethic, what she has done for women in mixed martial arts and attention onto the female wrestlers in WWE. She has trained at SBG Ireland in the past, although never considered going into mixed martial arts.
**There was a scary scene at Saturday’s House of Hardcore event in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena. Prior to the match, he had scheduled, Big Cass (William Morrissey) was in the lobby during intermission and went face down and began having a seizure. He was immediately attended to and taken to the hospital. Tommy Dreamer addressed the crowd afterward to provide an update and stated it was not drug-related. Dreamer followed up Sunday stating he spoke with Cass and he is doing okay.
**John Cena spoke to Chris Van Vliet to promote the Bumblebee movie that is out December 21st. In the interview, he noted that when he criticized The Rock years back for filming movies and not being in WWE, the same can be said about him now. However, he noted he spoke out of ignorance years ago and has since apologized for The Rock adding that if either were to get injured, they can throw a movie schedule off and cost other’s work. It’s isn’t a coincidence that after Rock’s injury in the second John Cena match in 2013 that he hasn’t done any more wrestling matches unless you could the few seconds with Erick Rowan in 2016 that was more a spot than a wrestling match.
**The SmackDown crew has a house show in Ontario, California tonight and the television tapings are in Las Vegas Tuesday at the T-Mobile Arena.
**The WWE has announced a Cruiserweight title match between Buddy Murphy and Cedric Alexander for this Sunday’s TLC card in San Jose, California. That brings the total number of matches to 11 on the show.
**Tom Lawlor has a broken hand stemming from his recent fight with Deron Winn at the Golden Boy MMA card last month. Lawlor is unsure if he will able to work this week’s MLW shows in Miami where he is scheduled to face Simon Gotch Thursday in a No Holds Barred match.
**On this past Friday’s episode of MLW, Rush made his debut defeating Sammy Guevara in the main event from Cicero Stadium in Chicago. After the match, Rush issued a challenge to LA Park and appears to be the direction they are going with the two. Rush and LA Park was the intended main event for this past September’s CMLL Anniversary card in a Mask vs. Hair match, but the sides could not agree, and the match didn’t happen.
**AXS TV has announced they will be running a 10-hour Kenny Omega marathon on Friday, December 28th beginning at 2 pm Eastern. They will be running the following matches from Omega in this order: Omega vs. Hirooki Goto from the G1 Final in 2016, Omega vs. Okada I from Wrestle Kingdom 11, Omega vs. Okada II from Dominion 2017, Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii from the U.S title final in July 2017, Omega vs. Chris Jericho from Wrestle Kingdom 12, Omega vs. Jay White from New Beginning in Feb. 2018, Omega vs. Okada in the 2/3 Falls match from Dominion 2018, Omega vs. Cody from the G1 Special at the Cow Palace in July 2018, and Omega vs. Cody vs. Kota Ibushi from King of Pro Wrestling 2018.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the cards for their final two shows of 2018 that take place at Korakuen Hall. Both cards will stream on New Japan World Friday and Saturday at 4:30 am Eastern with the following lineups for each:
Friday, December 14th:
*Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, Chase Owens & Yujiro vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Will Ospreay, Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Gedo
*Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Sanada and Bushi vs. Guerrillas of Destiny, Taiji Ishimori and Bad Luck Fale
*El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Roppongi 3K
*Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka vs. Hirooki Goto and Rocky Romero
*Shota Umino vs. Shingo Takagi – this could be excellent
*KUSHIDA, Tiger Mask, Tomoaki Honma and Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Toa Henare, Ayato Yoshida, Yuya Uemura and Ren Narita
Saturday, December 15th:
*Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and Will Ospreay – this should be off the charts even if they don’t go all out
*Kazuchika Okada, KUSHIDA, Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe and Toru Yano vs. Guerrillas of Destiny, Taiji Ishimori, Bad Luck Fale and Gedo
*Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, and Bushi vs. El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Taichi
*EVIL and Sanada vs. Chase Owens and Yujiro
*Tomohiro Ishii and Hirooki Goto vs. Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka
*Roppongi 3K and Rocky Romero vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Toa Henare and Tiger Mask
*Teruaki Kanemitsu and Ren Narita vs. Shota Umino and Ayato Yoshida – Kanemitsu has been out of action since 2016 with a cervical spine injury and this is his first match back
**Impact Wrestling has announced a Monster’s Ball match between Eli Drake and Abyss for the Homecoming pay-per-view on Sunday, January 6th in Nashville, Tennessee.
**Brody King retained the AAW heavyweight title over Eddie Kingston on Saturday’s card in Chicago. King, who recently signed with Ring of Honor, will defend the title against Sami Callihan on December 29th at AAW’s Winter Classic XIV event.
**Heath McCoy, the author of the excellent “Pain and Passion” book on the history of Stampede Wrestling, spoke with CBC in Canada about the passing of Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington.
**Dolph Ziggler has announced an eight-show comedy tour in 2019 with comedian Sarah Tiana. Ziggler will be performing January 27th in Phoenix at Standup Live (this will be right after the Royal Rumble nearby), February 20th in Baltimore at Magobys, February 27th in St. Louis at the Funny Bone, February 28th in Poughkeepsie at Laugh It Up, March 6th at the House of Comedy in Minneapolis, March 7th at the Comic Strip in Edmonton, March 20th in Cleveland at the Improv, and the final date is March 21st at The Funny Bone in Toledo, Ohio.
**The WWE stock closed at $76 on Monday.
**This weekend is one of the busier ones of the year with the following wrestling and MMA cards taking place:
*Thursday: MLW in Miami (Pentagon Jr. vs. Teddy Hart, LA Park vs. Sami Callihan)
*Friday: New Japan at Korakuen Hall (Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, Yujiro and Chase Owens vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Will Ospreay, Togi Makabe and Toru Yano)
*Friday: ROH Final Battle (Jay Lethal vs. Cody for the ROH title)
*Friday: MLW in Miami (Rush vs. Rich Swann, live broadcast from 8-9 pm on beIN Sports)
*Friday: Bellator 212 on Paramount Network and DAZN (Brent Primus vs. Michael Chandler for the lightweight title)
*Saturday: New Japan at Korakuen Hall (Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and Will Ospreay)
*Saturday: EVOLVE 117 at 6 pm (Fabian Aichner vs. Roderick Strong vs. Austin Theory, Kassius Ohno vs. Darby Allin)
*Saturday: Invicta FC 33 (Jinh Yu Frey vs. Minna Grusander for the Atomweight title)
*Saturday: Bellator 213 on DAZN (Ilima-Lei Macfarlane vs. Valerie Letourneau, Lyoto Machida vs. Rafael Carvalho)
*Saturday: UFC on Fox (Kevin Lee vs. Al Iaquinta)
*Sunday: EVOLVE 118 at 8 pm (Fabian Aichner vs. AR Fox, Kassius Ohno vs. Anthony Henry, Roderick Strong vs. Darby Allin)
*Sunday: WWE TLC (Ronda Rousey vs. Nia Jax, Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles)
MMA NEWS
**Over the weekend, news surfaced regarding Iain Kidd, a writer, and podcaster for the Bloody Elbow site that is part of SB Nation. It was uncovered that Kidd was part of a group collecting and filming child pornography over a 12-year period.
John Ness of SB Nation issued the following statement on Saturday:
On Friday, Bloody Elbow became aware of news reports linking one of our writers to criminal activities including possession of child pornography. As a result, Bloody Elbow and SB Nation terminated his contract that same day. SB Nation and Bloody Elbow strongly condemn the types of activities reported and encourage our readers and listeners to visit Protect Children in Canada, Stop It Now in Scotland, and Darkness 2 Light in the United States for more information to support victims.
The Planet Radio outlet reported that Kidd was one of three men involved with Kidd admitting to charges of downloading and possessing indecent images of children from July 2005 until June 2017. He also admitted to a charge of possessing extreme pornographic images between April 2007 and August 2017. A search of Kidd’s home revealed 984 still images, 496 moving images, 7,689 pictures of “extreme pornography” and possession of pictures and videos involving children that ranged from category A (the most extreme) to category C. The Evening Times is reporting that due to a diversion program, Kidd will not face jail time and will be placed on probation for three years while registering as a sex offender, maintain a curfew and restricted from using the Firefox web browser while submitting his browser history upon request.
**Saturday’s UFC 231 card in Toronto was a complete sell-out with an announced attendance of 19,039 and gate of $2.4 million, which was the second time Max Holloway has headlined the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto (formerly the Air Canada Centre). The Fight of the Night bonus was awarded to Max Holloway and Brian Ortega with the Performance of the Night bonuses going to Holloway and Thiago Santos.
**Brian Ortega issued a statement that he suffered a broken nose and thumb during Saturday’s featherweight title fight against Max Holloway.
**This Saturday’s UFC card in Milwaukee is their final show on Fox and will be headlined by a rematch between Kevin Lee and Al Iaquinta. They fought in February 2014 with Iaquinta defeating Lee by unanimous decision at UFC 169.
**At Monday’s Nevada Athletic Commission hearing, it was announced that Herb Dean will be the official for the rematch between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson on December 29th at UFC 232. Marc Goddard will be the referee for the women’s featherweight title fight between Cris “Cyborg” Justino and Amanda Nunes on the same card.
**This Saturday’s Invicta FC preliminary fights will be airing on UFC Fight Pass and Invicta FC’s Facebook page. The three-fights on the prelims will air at 8:30 pm Eastern with the following fights scheduled:
*Sarah Kleczka vs. Brittney Victoria – Bantamweight
*Anastasia Nikolakakos vs. Ashley Medina – Atomweight
*Chantel Coates vs. Ashlynn Kleinbeck – Flyweight
*****
NJPW World Tag League 2018 Final POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the NJPW World Tag League 2018 Final card featuring Guerrillas of Destiny vs. EVIL & SANADA, Hirooki Goto vs. Kota Ibushi for the NEVER Openweight Championship and Will Ospreay vs. Taichi.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/09/njpw-world-tag-league-2018-final-post-show-w-john-pollock-wai-ting/
*****
upNXT MOVIE REVIEW – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie (1995)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman from upNXT are joined by friend of the show Scrump, to review the 1995 blockbuster, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie! It’s morphin’ time!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/09/upnxt-movie-review-mighty-morphin-power-rangers-the-movie-1995/
*****
UFC 231 POST Show: Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok to review UFC 231 from Toronto featuring two title fights with Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega and Valentina Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/09/ufc-231-post-show-max-holloway-vs-brian-ortega/
*****
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 2013 w/ John Pollock
Episode 25 sees Chris Charlton and John Pollock look at 2013. Kazushi Sakuraba makes a controversial return to prominence and has a classic with Shinsuke Nakamura. MVP and Low Ki finish with NJPW, and Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi continue a legendary rivalry.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/08/eggshells-podcast-companion-2013-w-john-pollock/
*****
Café Hangout: Dynamite Kid passes, Greg Hardy in UFC, Year-End Voting
John Pollock and Wai Ting chat the passing of “Dynamite Kid” Tom Billington, UFC’s decision to debut accused abuser Greg Hardy on the same card as domestic abuse victim Rachael Ostovich, Chris Engler joins us for an update on the POST Wrestling’s Year-End Awards and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/07/dynamite-kid-passes-greg-hardy-in-ufc-cafe-hangout-live-12-6-18/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #25: WWE SummerSlam 2013
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SummerSlam 2013 featuring two excellent main events in John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship and “The Beast vs. The Best” as Brock Lesnar faces CM Punk.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/07/rewind-a-wai-25-wwe-summerslam-2013/
*****
upNXT 12/6/18: Master of Puppets
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT featuring a great angle between Ciampa, Black & Gargano; Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai; Matt Riddle vs. Punishment Martinez and more! Plus, this week’s 205 Live.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/06/upnxt-12-6-18-master-of-puppets/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 12/5: Total Divas, Edge & Christian Show, ROH TV, Being the Elite
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the season finale of Total Divas, Ring of Honor TV, Being the Elite, and the latest Edge & Christian Show on the WWE Network
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/12/05/double-shot-12-5-total-divas-edge-christian-show-roh-tv-being-the-elite/
*****
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