POST IT NOTES
**We had a packed edition of Rewind-A-Raw on Monday night with Wai Ting and I reviewing Raw, chatting the returning Roman Reigns and how it was handled, Reigns getting physical, the return of Batista attacking Ric Flair in the closing segment, and Ronda Rousey handing over the women’s title to Stephanie McMahon. Plus, we had a lot of news to catch up on with the departures of Arn Anderson, TJP, Tye Dillinger, and Hideo Itami, the return of Bruce Prichard to the WWE, the latest on the Jeff Jarrett & GFW vs. Anthem lawsuit, the brackets for the New Japan Cup and taking your feedback.
**Wai Ting and I will be back with Rewind-A-SmackDown tonight with a full review of the show from Charlotte, North Carolina. We will also have the Double Shot available for POST Wrestling Café members. On the Double Shot, we will be reviewing “Fighting for My Family” along with the latest episodes of Total Bellas and Being the Elite.
**We announced Monday night that we are adding an additional meet-and-greet for the POST Wrestling LIVE in New York special. For those attending, you will have the option of taking part in the meet-and-greet before the show at 11 am or after the Q&A with the Q&A to run from Noon-1:30 pm. This will allow people the option if they must get going early for WrestleMania or other commitments. Tickets are $25 and $20 for Patrons at http://www.POSTwrestling.com/live.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tonight: The Double Shot, including a review of “Fighting with My Family” (Patreon)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington and John Pollock
*Thursday: Café Hangout LIVE at 3 pm Eastern (Double Double + Patreon members)
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai covering WWF Raw is War and WCW Monday Nitro from July 13, 1998 (Patreon)
*Saturday: POST Puroresu with John Pollock and WH Park
*Saturday: UFC 235 POST Show with John Pollock and Phil Chertok
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s edition of SmackDown Live is taking place from Charlotte, North Carolina with the following announced for the tapings:
*Daniel Bryan and Kofi Kingston’s contract signing for Fastlane
*Johnny Gargano vs. Cesaro
*Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev vs. Ricochet and Aleister Black
*Brian Kendrick vs. Drew Gulak on 205 Live
*Tony Nese vs. Kalisto on 205 Live
**Roman Reigns was interviewed by Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday in New York City. Reigns discussed his leukemia going into remission and how nervous he was prior to his speech on Raw. He didn’t make any big announcement other than stating he was aware of the platform he had to raise awareness for those fighting cancer and he would be doing a lot to help in that regard and seemed to imply taking an active role as a spokesperson on behalf of the company for the various awareness initiatives.
**I’m told that they are planning do a Shield reunion match and it’s only a question of whether it will be a 3-on-3 match against Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, and Baron Corbin or if it will be 4-on-4 with Braun Strowman and Elias added. It has been debated back-and-forth and as of Monday night, they were unsure what option they would go with. I was not told when the match would take place, although Fastlane seems to make the most sense given Seth Rollins already is in a match for WrestleMania.
**It appears that the location for WrestleMania 36 is set for Tampa, Florida in 2020. A report came out from PWinsider.com on Monday and was followed by confirmation by Tampa-based reporter Collin Sherwin that the event will be announced for Raymond James Stadium, the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The latter report is stating that a press conference is scheduled for Thursday, March 7th where the official announcement will be made. The stadium is set to host the Super Bowl in 2021 and would mark the first time the city has hosted WrestleMania.
**Following the news of Roman Reigns’ return on Monday, the Leukaemia Care group out of the UK has posted a thread regarding misconceptions and information regarding the many forms and complicated nature of that form of cancer that I encourage people to read through.
**The WWE announced through CBS Sports on Tuesday that the Honky Tonk Man (Wayne Farris) will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 6th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Farris had his first success teaming with Larry Latham as The Blonde Bombers in Florida and later gained fame in Memphis. One of the most popular matches in Memphis’ history was the Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl that Farris and Latham had against Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee in June 1979. Farris traveled to many territories throughout the ’80s, including a run with Stampede Wrestling in Calgary as Honky Tonk Wayne Farris. In Calgary, Farris became the North American heavyweight champion in June 1986 defeating Bad News Allen and vacating the title when he was signed by the World Wrestling Federation.
Farris debuted in the WWF that year as the Honky Tonk Man and was initially pushed as a babyface that flopped and he was quickly turned heel and paired with Jimmy Hart where he found his greatest success with the company. His most famous period was as the Intercontinental champion and it happened by chance. Ricky Steamboat defeated Randy Savage for the title at WrestleMania 3 and later that year wanted time off to be with his family. The company had put a lot into the promotion of Steamboat as champion and he would drop the title in June 1987. The original plan as told throughout the years was that Butch Reed was chosen to beat Steamboat but could not be found the day of the show, so they went with Farris. Honky Tonk Man would bill himself as the “Greatest Intercontinental champion of all-time” and held it for over 14 months. He would drop it in seconds to the Ultimate Warrior at the SummerSlam event in 1988.
After the title run, he would later team with Greg Valentine as Rhythm & Blues and remained with the company until 1991. He had a short stay with WCW when Hulk Hogan signed with the company in 1994 but that lasted for a cup of coffee. Farris returned to the WWF in 1997 as a commentator and managed Billy Gunn as “Rockabilly”. Honky Tonk Man would show up every few years as a surprise in the Royal Rumble in 2001, he inducted Koko B. Ware into the Hall of Fame in 2009 and appeared on an Old School Raw special in 2013. He was offered to go into the Hall of Fame in 2010 in Phoenix but had a deal with a comic convention for an appearance that paid him more than the Hall of Fame appearance and opted to stay with the convention he signed on for.
**Monday’s episode of Raw concluded with a major angle involving Batista returning and attacking Ric Flair to set up his expected match with Triple H at WrestleMania. This was the direction everyone expected after the segment on the 1,000th episode of SmackDown last October, although a monkey wrench was thrown into the mix when Triple H tore his pectoral muscle at the Crown Jewel show in November. For years, Batista had spoken about wanting to have one final program with Triple H and I recall him mentioning this to me in an interview I did with him back in 2014.
**After Raw ended, there was a bit where Jinder Mahal crashed the party and Kurt Angle put him through the birthday cake with the Angle Slam. The lights came up and the show ended without Ric Flair ever coming out. I did hear from people that attended the show that was disappointed, which is a fair criticism given it was promoted for weeks around Flair’s birthday and he should have appeared once in front of the audience and done a quick promo either before, during, or after the show.
**The WWE is currently advertising Brock Lesnar for the March 18th episode of Raw in Chicago and the April 1st edition in Washington, D.C., which is the final Raw before WrestleMania.
**Christopher Spata of the Tampa Bay Times has a big feature on Dave Bautista. In the piece, Bautista mentions how he hates being compared to Dwayne Johnson and John Cena as he believes “those guys are wrestlers who became movie stars. I’m something else. I was a wrestler. Now, I’m an actor.”
Bautista added that the night he decided he was moving on from professional wrestling came during a steel cage match he had against Chris Jericho, which Jericho documents in one of his books, and Batista opted to blade and was caught on camera doing so and fined $100,000. In Jericho’s book, he stated he was fined as well, and Batista paid for his fine. On the roles he is seeking and differences between Dwayne Johnson and himself:
Rock was, in a way, a movie star before he was even a movie star. There is something about him that’s really special. I’d never take that away from him. Would I consider him a great actor? F— no. I want good roles. I don’t care about Fast and Furious or Bumblebee. … That’s not the kind of stardom I want. … I want to be in Dune. I want to work with Denis Villeneuve. I want to work with Sam Mendes and Jodie Foster. I want to work with Academy Award winners. I’m proud to be a character actor. I want that respect and credibility and education.
**Total Bellas averaged 424,000 viewers for Sunday’s show on E! It was almost identical to the week prior, although that show faced heavy competition from the NBA All-Star Game, the UFC card on ESPN, and the WWE’s Elimination Chamber show. There are four episodes remaining this season with the season finale on March 24th.
**Charlotte Flair did work the SmackDown house show on Monday night in Savannah, Georgia where she lost to Asuka. The show was headlined by Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio defeating Randy Orton and Samoa Joe.
**The women’s tag title match for Fastlane is now official with Bayley and Sasha Banks facing Nia Jax and Tamina on the March 10th show. They have only announced three matches for the show with Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston and The Usos defending the tag titles against Shane McMahon and The Miz.
**Impact Wrestling is holding their weekly Press Pass Podcast for members of the media and hosted by Josh Mathews and Ross Forman. On this week’s call, they will be joined by a former Impact Wrestling champion to announce his return. The options would be Austin Aries, Alberto Del Rio, James Storm, Magnus (who is the NWA champion) or Rob Van Dam with Van Dam already announced for United We Stand on April 4th. On the same call, they will also be joined by their recent signing Josh Alexander.
**Jeff Farmer as N.W.O. Sting has been announced for the Clusterfuck Battle Royal at Joey Janela’s Spring Break Part 2 on Saturday, April 6th at Midnight at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City.
**The WWE stock closed at $84.69 on Tuesday.
**SummerSlam travel packages will be available starting next Tuesday at Noon Eastern. The various packages include tickets to SummerSlam, NXT TakeOver, Raw, and SmackDown Live at the Scotiabank Arena. The packages also include a breakfast with WWE talent and legends, a superstar experience meet-and-greet, a reception prior to SummerSlam, a Toronto boat cruise and hotel accommodations. Individual tickets to SummerSlam on Sunday, August 11th in Toronto will go on sale Friday, March 15th.
**Dave Schilling, who has written for outlets including Bleacher Report, The Guardian, Grantland, and VICE has announced that he will be joining the WWE creative team in March.
**Impact Wrestling has announced that Fallah Bahh has signed a new deal with the company.
MMA NEWS
**Former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes has been hit with a restraining order that was filed by his wife Audra with the former fighter instructed to stay 500 feet away from her. In a report from TMZ Sports, they state that court documents allege that Hughes struck his wife several times with the behavior beginning in 2017 after Hughes suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was hit by an oncoming train while in his truck.
Audra Hughes claims she was struck by Matt after refusing to give him the keys to his truck and he became enraged and started choking her while asking for the code to their gun vault. The second instance occurred last July where Hughes allegedly threatened to shoot Audra after she took his phone and accused him of communicating with other women. The final episode was last December where Matt allegedly struck Audra in front of children and Audra filed for the restraining order the next day.
Additionally, there are problems between Matt and his twin brother Mark Hughes. Mark claims the two had a disagreement over the ownership of a tractor and when Matt spotted Mark’s 15-year old son driving it, grabbed and shook Mark’s son and a later incident of Matt pouring gasoline onto the tractor. Mark filed for and was also granted a restraining order.
MMA Fighting added that court documents noted that Matt filed for divorce from Audra last week.
**The Philly Voice outlet was the first to report that two additional fights have been signed for the UFC’s Fight Night event in Philadelphia on Saturday, March 30th. Josh Emmett will return after more than a year off following facial injuries he sustained in a loss to Jeremy Stephens in February 2018 when he meets Michael Johnson on the card. They have also announced a bantamweight fight between Ray Bord and Liu Pingyuan. The card in Philadelphia will be headlined by a lightweight fight between Edson Barboza and Justin Gaethje.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 2/25/19: Roman Reigns is back, Batista attacks Ric Flair
On a huge episode of Raw, Roman Reigns made his first appearance since October to announce his cancer is in remission. The show built to Ric Flair’s birthday celebration and a huge angle to end the show involving the return of Dave Batista.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/26/rar-2-25-19-roman-reigns-is-back-batista-attacks-ric-flair/
*****
Café Hangout: Ariel Helwani on GSP’s Retirement
John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by ESPN’s Ariel Helwani to discuss the retirement of Georges St-Pierre. We also take your calls and discuss this week’s news including Tye Dillinger requesting his WWE release.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/22/ariel-helwani-on-gsps-retirement-cafe-hangout-live-2-21-19/
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (March 2019)
John Pollock and Wai Ting cover over 50 questions in this 95 min podcast, discussing their favorite announcers, Weezer, Pedro Morales, NXT call-ups, AEW, Tyron Woodley, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, factions, Chris Benoit, Impact and more in the March 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/24873017/
*****
upNXT 2/21/19: Gargan-LEGO Escape
Braden Herrington is joined by POST Wrestling’s Wai Ting to review this week’s edition of WWE NXT including Johnny Gargano vs. Velveteen Dream for the NXT North American Title, Roderick Strong vs. Aleister Black, Matt Riddle calls out Brock Lesnar, Mia Yim vs. Xia Lee, and they chat all the talk about the HUGE main roster call ups from this week!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/21/upnxt-2-21-19-gargan-lego-escape/
*****
BWE 2/20/19: Rev Pro High Stakes, OTT Homecoming 2, NXT UK, PCW in Blackpool
Martin and Benno are joined by Lee Malone of Voices Of Wrestling to talk Revolution Pro Wrestling High Stakes (Will Ospreay vs. PAC), Over The Top Homecoming 2 (Starr vs. Devlin, PAC vs. Walter) and Benno’s trip to Blackpool for Preston City Wrestling Road To Glory.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/20/bwe-2-20-19-rev-pro-high-stakes-ott-homecoming-2-nxt-uk-pcw-in-blackpool-wxw-icw/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 2/20: Mark Henry documentary, OTT Homecoming 2, Total Bellas, BTE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review World’s Strongest Man: The Mark Henry Story, the latest Total Bellas feat. Liv Morgan’s injury, Being the Elite and matches from OTT’s Homecoming 2.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/24828807
*****
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