POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I are back with Rewind-A-Raw tonight covering Raw from Oklahoma City, a busy news cycle from the past weekend, and we will take your feedback at the end of the show.
**The deadline to submit your picks for the Royal Rumble Pool is this Sunday at 3 pm Eastern. The winner will be announced next Monday on Rewind-A-Raw.
**Later this week, we will have an interview on the site Matthew Ryan, who is the co-founder of Capitol Wrestling out of New Jersey discussing the business of independent wrestling in 2019.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE THIS WEEK
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock and Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: The Double Shot (Patreon special) with reviews of Impact Wrestling, an episode of WWF Superstars from 1992, and Total Bellas
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with Benno and Fighting Spirit Magazine’s Will Cooling
*Thursday: WWE Royal Rumble Preview with guest Jimmy Korderas (Live at 3 pm Eastern for Double Double + members of the POST Wrestling Café, the audio version is free on Friday)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington and Davie Portman
*Friday: ASK-A-WAI mailbag show with Pollock and Wai (Patreon special)
*Saturday: NXT TakeOver POST Show with Braden Herrington and Davie Portman
*Sunday: WWE Royal Rumble POST Show with John Pollock and Wai Ting (LIVE for Double Double + members of the Café, audio version free later that night)
WRESTLING NEWS
**ESPN had enormous success this weekend with the UFC event from the Barclays Center. The goal of the event was to drive new subscribers to the upstart ESPN+ streaming service with the network reporting they had 568,000 sign ups between Friday and Saturday with 525,000 alone on Saturday. Those that were signing up for the first time received a seven-day free trial and will then be charged $4.99 per month or you can get the service for $49.99 for 12-months. ESPN also announced that the preliminary card from 8-10 pm Eastern on ESPN drew a 1.4 rating and was the highest rated preliminary card for the UFC since 2013.
**TSN in Canada has announced that the Kenny Omega documentary will be part of their “Engraved on a Nation” series and will premiere on Wednesday, March 27th at 7:30 pm Eastern. The 60-minute episodes of the series will be available on demand through TSN’s website, app, and on the Crave streaming service. The documentary was produced by Jocumentary Productions with Bell Media with Yung Chang serving as the director and produced by Dale Burshtein. There is a trailer for the coming series with the Omega documentary featured at the 3:20 mark with interview clips from Omega, Chris Jericho, and Dave Meltzer.
**Tonight’s episode of the Raw takes place from Oklahoma City and is the final Raw before the Royal Rumble this Sunday. Brock Lesnar is advertised for the show as they have one show to push the new match with Finn Balor. They have also announced a tag match with Ronda Rousey and Natalya vs. Sasha Banks and Bayley.
**The SmackDown crew has a house shows in Topeka, Kansas tonight with Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles in the main event. The television tapings are Tuesday in Wichita and have announced a number of matches for the show:
*Rey Mysterio vs. Andrade in a 2-of-3 falls match
*Cesaro vs. The Miz
*Mandy Rose vs. Naomi
*Samoa Joe vs. Mustafa Ali
**Peter Corneil, who had served as a manager on the Ontario independent wrestling scene as Otto Bahn since the late ’90s, has passed away. According to wrestler Chris Tidwell, he passed away in his sleep Monday morning and no further details have been revealed. I first became familiar with Bahn in 1999 when he served as the “agent” for a team called The Hollywood Hunks, consisting the Custom Made Man, Stunning Sean, and Sexy Baby Jamie Jackson with a female manager named Raquel that was also part of the group. He had been a regular with Cross Body Pro Wrestling out of Kitchener, Ontario.
**Sonjay Dutt has been on several media outlets after being on a United flight that was grounded for 16 hours over the weekend. Dutt was on his way to a EWE (Extreme Wrestling Entertainment) wrestling event in Macau, China set for Tuesday from Newark, New Jersey. Due to a medical issue with a passenger, the flight was grounded in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador. Then, the flight experienced mechanical problems believed to be a result of the cold temperature and an issue affecting the plane door being unable to close properly. The passengers remained stuck on the flight with minimal food and cold temperatures as Dutt was sending out updates and pictures from inside the plane. Because the plane was grounded overnight, there were no customs officials where they landed, and they could not exit the plane. Passengers eventually got onto a rescue plane and returned to New Jersey with Dutt providing an update that he returned home to Virginia and will not be making it to China.
**Josh Alexander defeated Pete Dunne for the Destiny championship on Sunday’s card in Mississauga, Ontario to end Dunne’s 581-day reign. After the match, Dunne gave a speech to the audience and put over Alexander, calling him one of the best-unsigned talents out there.
**The WWE Network has officially added 34 episodes of WWF Superstars. The shows are from 1992 from April 18th through December 5th. It’s an interesting era of the company as you watch the transition coming out of WrestleMania with the exodus of talent, namely Hulk Hogan but also the departures of Roddy Piper, Sid Justice, and Jake Roberts. By October, Ric Flair is being phased down in favor of Bret Hart, and another talent shift as the Ultimate Warrior and British Bulldog were done with the company leading to an enormous facelift of the company throughout 1992 as business was hit hard during this era.
**This past weekend at the Klandestino No Fear card in Mexico, a challenge was made between Pentagon Jr. and Angel o Demonio for a match. Angel o Demonio is the wrestler who was suspended indefinitely last year by the commission in Mexico following a disgusting incident. Angel o Demonio lifted a cinder block and launched it at wrestler El Cuervo and knocked him out resulting in the wrestler requiring surgery to have a blood clot removed. Pentagon has an incredibly busy schedule so it’s not a lock this match will happen but would bring a lot of negative attention if he chose to work a match with him.
**Impact Wrestling has uploaded the entire match between Hiroshi Tanahashi and AJ Styles from Final Resolution in January 2006.
**MLW has announced a match between Puma King and Gringo Loco for this Saturday’s Superfight card in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena.
**Eli Drake and Taya Valkyrie will be attending the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show this Wednesday from 10 am until Noon at the Pursuit Channel’s booth. The convention takes place in Las Vegas at the Sands Expo Center.
**The 1990, 1996, and 2001 editions of the Royal Rumble took place on this date.
In 1990, Hulk Hogan won his first Rumble with the focused segment of the match being his interaction with the Ultimate Warrior and teasing the showdown of the top babyface stars at WrestleMania 6 in April. Hogan won the Rumble eliminating Mr. Perfect at the end, and it was always puzzling to me that they didn’t have Ultimate Warrior win the match and define a clearer path for WrestleMania to justify his title shot.
In 1996, it was the return of Shawn Michaels stemming from the angle with Owen Hart the prior November where he was knocked out with an enzuigiri. The show featured Michaels positioned as the top babyface of the company and the priority over Bret Hart with his coronation planned for WrestleMania in Anaheim, which is how things played out.
The 2001 version was one of the best shows the WWF produced of that era. The company had booked the Astrodome in Houston with WrestleMania returning to a stadium for the first time since 1992 as the company was on fire. Steve Austin won the Rumble and Kurt Angle left the show as WWF champion but would drop the title to The Rock the next month to set up the biggest match possible for WrestleMania with the two top stars.
This card featured one of the promotion’s best ladder matches with Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho having a different style of match than the TLC versions. The idea was to have a match where a ladder happened to be available as a weapon rather than working various stunts around the ladder. Jericho has always been extremely proud of this match, although because of Benoit’s involvement, it isn’t one that is going to be promoted by the WWE when they look at the history of great ladder matches.
One of the surprises on the show was the return of Haku to the company, who had just won WCW’s Hardcore title the week prior at the Sin pay-per-view but had no contract and appeared unannounced in the Rumble match.
*****
UFC ON ESPN+ POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok to review the UFC’s debut card on ESPN+ featuring Henry Cejudo defending the UFC flyweight title against T.J. Dillashaw, the debut of Greg Hardy, and the 30th UFC fight for Donald Cerrone.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/20/ufc-on-espn-post-show-henry-cejudo-vs-t-j-dillashaw/
*****
Café Hangout LIVE 1/17: WWE talent requesting releases, Jericho Talks AEW Deal
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss recent reports of The Revival and Mike & Maria Kanellis requesting their releases from the WWE. Plus, Chris Jericho dishes details about his AEW deal on his latest podcast.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/18/wwe-stars-request-releases-jericho-talks-aew-deal-cafe-hangout-live-1-17-19/
*****
TRMPS #1: The Scorpion King (2002) w/ Brian Mann
Welcome to the debut edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show! Nate Milton realizes that he can’t “Stand Alone” on his first episode, so he invites Brian Mann (Complex, “Keep It 2000”) into the theater to review Dwayne Johnson’s first major foray into the movie business, 2002’s The Scorpion King.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/18/trmps-1-the-scorpion-king-2002-w-brian-mann/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #28: NXT TakeOver Dallas (2016)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NXT TakeOver: Dallas featuring the WWE debut of Shinsuke Nakamura against Sami Zayn. We also discuss a blood-filled main event featuring Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe that consisted of a number of medical interruptions.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/18/rewind-a-wai-28-nxt-takeover-dallas-2016/
*****
upNXT 1/17/19: JC & Chris Lightning, Kassius Ohno vs. Keith Lee
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of NXT featuring Keith Lee vs Kassius Ohno, Johnny Gargano vs Humberto Carrillo, and the MUCH anticipated return of… JC & Chris!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/17/upnxt-1-17-19-jc-chris-lightning-kassius-ohno-vs-keith-lee/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 1/16: Nigel McGuinness & Gene Okerlund specials, Total Bellas Season 4
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the recent WWE Network specials on Nigel McGuinness and Mean Gene Okerlund, a review of the season premiere of Total Bellas and Being the Elite.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/24012991
*****
RASD 1/15: Shane’s Birthday Bash, USO-tel Room, Rush signs with ROH
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown from Birmingham, Alabama featuring a Birthday Bash for Shane McMahon, a huge debate about the Jimmy Uso hotel segment with Mandy Rose, more cameos from the NXT call-ups, and a great television match between Rey Mysterio and Andrade, just Andrade
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/01/16/rasd-1-15-19-shanes-birthday-bash-uso-tel-room-rush-signs-with-roh/
*****
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