POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will have a new edition of Rewind-A-Raw tonight to review the show from Philadelphia and get you caught up on all the news from the past few days. We will also be taking feedback at the end of the show.
**On the Double Shot Tuesday night, I’ll be chatting about the WWE Untold feature on WWE’s relaunch of ECW in 2006. Wai Ting will have reviews of Being the Elite and Total Bellas and more. This show comes out each Tuesday night for all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**The poll for our next subject on Rewind-A-Wai closes tonight with the options of WrestleMania 2, 6, 11, and 26.
**The deadline to submit your picks in our free New Japan Cup contest is this Thursday.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock and Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: The Double Shot feat. WWE Untold on ECW’s re-launch, Being the Elite, Total Bellas & more (Patreon)
*Wednesday: The British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Benno & Will Cooling of Fighting Spirit Magazine
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington and Davie Portman
*Thursday: Café Hangout live at 3 pm Eastern with a WWE Fastlane Preview (Patreon, Double Double + subscribers, free version Friday afternoon)
*Friday: MCU review of “Thor: The Dark World” with Pollock, Wai Ting, and guest Davie Portman
*Sunday: WWE Fastlane POST Show with Pollock & Wai (Live for Double Double + subscribers, free version Monday morning)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Raj Giri of Wrestling INC has a report on Monday regarding the situation that ultimately led to Arn Anderson’s dismissal by the WWE last month. While we were told that there were several small instances leading up to the release, the breaking point occurred during an issue at a live event. Giri reported that the issue involved Anderson allowing Alicia Fox to perform at a house show while intoxicated with Giri citing multiple sources. The last house show appearance we can find for Fox was on February 10th in Saginaw, Michigan where she teamed with Mickie James and Nikki Cross against Natalya, Bayley & Dana Brooke.
We have reached out for a response from the WWE and will update this story if a statement is issued by the company regarding the circumstances behind Anderson’s release.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia and will feature guests Michael Che and Colin Jost from Saturday Night Live. The major focus of the show will be on the follow up to Batista’s return from last week with a response from Triple H. It is also expected that an angle will be shot to put The Shield together. As of last week, they were debating between a 3-on-3 and a 4-on-4 match for Fastlane, so both were possibilities at one point.
Charlotte Flair is also scheduled for the show as they follow up last week’s segment where Ronda Rousey left the Raw women’s title in the ring with Stephanie McMahon and walked out.
The Fastlane event is this Sunday and there is one Raw match announced with the women’s tag title match, so I would expect several matches to be put together tonight.
**All Elite Wrestling has announced that the “Fight for the Fallen” event will take place Saturday, July 13th at Daily’s Place, which is a 5,500 seat amphitheater attached to TIAA Bank Field, which is where the Jacksonville Jaguars play. Given the size, this is going to be a difficult ticket to grab, although this is not going to be a show at the level of “All In” or “Double or Nothing” and you would assume less of a traveling audience.
**The WWE announced through espnW on Monday that Torrie Wilson is going into the WWE Hall of Fame.
**There is a very good interview with Kazeem Famuyide on the Wrassle Rap podcast on the MLW network. He was recently let go by the company after being hired last April and started on the road in June. He discussed the process for the shows, which would begin on Thursdays as they piece together the shows. The lead writers for each show would pitch the ideas themselves to Vince McMahon on Thursday night. On Monday, the production meetings were led by McMahon, Paul Levesque, and Kevin Dunn and included the writing staff, the producers, the announcers and were described by Famuyide as “very stressful”. It’s a very interesting interview and I’d recommend checking it out.
**For those curious of the structure of WWE’s writing staff, Dave Kapoor is the Senior Vice President of Creative and oversees the team. Then, you have Ed Koskey and Brian James, who are the head writers for Raw and SmackDown respectively and they have VP titles with their positions. From there, you have the lead writers for each brand, several senior writers, writers, and the writer’s assistants. Of course, at the top of the food chain is Vince McMahon.
**Luke Perry passed away Monday after suffering a massive stroke last Wednesday. Perry, who is the father of Jack Perry a.k.a. Jungle Boy was a big wrestling fan and often seen on camera in the crowd over the years at various WWE shows. He also served as a consulting producer on Rory Karpf’s ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Ric Flair, which premiered last year. Perry was only 52 years of age and became an enormous pop culture figure for his role as Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills 90210. Perry was part of the series for the first six seasons and returned for the final two with the series going off the air in 2000. Up until his passing, Perry had been a series regular on the CW Network’s Riverdale series as Fred Andrews.
**There will be a new edition of WWE Chronicle featuring Roman Reigns returning last week. It will air on the WWE Network immediately after Raw tonight.
**They are also airing a special called WWE Untold documenting on the ECW relaunch 2006, which you can access now on the WWE Network. The feature is just under 30 minutes and features clips from Paul Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman, Shane McMahon, Big Show, and others regarding the 2006 relaunch and why it failed. On ECW’s closure in 2001, Dreamer maintains they had the opportunity to keep the promotion afloat through syndication until a larger television deal came about while Heyman was adamant that there was no national television deal to come and it was time to pull the plug. This caused issues between the two, but Dreamer noted he has moved on from the issue.
The relaunch was an idea from Shane McMahon, who was overseeing the digital side of the company and the original idea for ECW was to be an online property in 2006. Once the ball got rolling, there was interest from the Sci-Fi network, and it went from a digital project to becoming a third brand of the company and overseen by Vince McMahon.
Heyman thought it was doomed from the beginning and he was very unhappy with the product. In the leadup to the December to Dismember pay-per-view in December 2006, Heyman tried to hand in his resignation and he claims Stephanie McMahon refused to accept it. After the pay-per-view, Heyman and McMahon had a blow-up and it led to Heyman going home and would not return to the company until 2012 when Brock Lesnar needed a mouthpiece. We will chat more about this on the Double Shot Tuesday night for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**The SmackDown has a house show in White Plains, New York tonight with Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles advertised for the main event. The television tapings are Tuesday night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with the following announced:
*R-Truth’s Open Challenge for the United States title
*Jey Uso vs. The Miz
**The Money in the Bank pay-per-view is scheduled to take place Sunday, May 19th from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut with tickets going on sale this Friday at 10 am.
**Ryusuke Taguchi has been announced as David Finlay’s replacement for the New Japan Cup tournament, which begins this Friday. Taguchi will face Hiroyoshi Tenzan this Sunday in the opening round of the 32-man tournament. Finlay was removed from the tournament after suffering a dislocated shoulder during a tag match with Juice Robinson against The Briscoe Brothers on the second Honor Rising show last weekend at Korakuen Hall.
**All Elite Wrestling has announced they have signed Michael Nakazawa.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Jeff Cobb will defend the ROH Television title against Shane Taylor on Friday, March 15th in Las Vegas at the 17th-Anniversary pay-per-view.
**Moose (Quinn Ojinnaka) spoke with Steve Muehlhausen of Sporting News about signing a new contract with Impact Wrestling. In the interview, he spoke about having regret when he first joined the company in 2016, that talent wasn’t getting paid on time. He said it turned around after Anthem Sports purchased the company and then put Scott D’Amore and Don Callis in charge. He added that he considers D’Amore a father figure and would not be at Impact if it wasn’t for him.
**MLW has announced the first three participants in the 40-man Battle Riot battle royal for Friday, April 5th. Pentagon Jr., Davey Boy Smith Jr., and Minoru Tanaka have been announced for the match, which will be part of a two-hour live special that night on beIN Sports from the Melrose Ballroom in Queens, New York.
**New Japan’s 47th-Anniversary card on Wednesday will feature Kevin Kelly, Don Callis, and Colt Cabana on the English commentary for New Japan World. Chris Charlton has noted he will be calling the second round of the New Japan Cup on March 16th and 17th.
**Smash Wrestling out of Ontario has announced that Shawn Spears (the former Tye Dillinger) has been added to their July 6th event in Toronto at the Franklin Horner Community Centre and will be in London the following day at the London Music Hall.
**Smash Wrestling has two shows coming up this weekend with a card on Friday night at Fanshawe College at 8 pm in London, Ontario with students from the Tyson Dux Wrestling Factory. On Saturday, they are running a show at the Tannery Event Centre in Kitchener, Ontario at 7:30 pm with Tark vs. Super K for the Smash Wrestling championship, Tyson Dux and Brent Banks vs. Kill/Screen, Jody Threat vs. Nova, Kevin Bennett vs. Mike Rollins, Wrestle Factory vs. Halal Beefcake, Sebastian Suave vs. Joey Allen vs. Scotty O’Shea and John Greed vs. The Muscle.
**Fight Network in Canada is launching the third season of their “Retrospective” series featuring sit-down interviews with various fighters and wrestlers. The third season premieres Tuesday night at 9:30 pm on the network with Part 1 of their interview with Alberto El Patron. Part 2 will air on March 12th, Matt Sydal on March 19th, and a two-parter with Valentina Shevchenko on March 26th and April 2nd. Additional episodes this season will include interviews with Chris “Abyss” Parks, Moose, Brian Cage, Petey Williams, and others.
**WOW: Women of Wrestling will be holding a press conference this Wednesday at 2 pm Eastern to make an announcement. WOW owner Jeanie Buss, founder David McLane, Andrew Simon of AXS TV, Tessa Blanchard, and The Beast will be part of the press conference.
**Due to large demand, the Kaiju Big Battel event scheduled for Friday, May 4th in London has been moved from the Dome in Tufnell Park to Alexandra Palace. The card will now start at 9 pm that night with additional tickets available in the larger venue and takes place during Super Strong Style 16 weekend. Those on the waiting list for Kaiju tickets can buy tickets today and the general on sale is Tuesday for the remaining tickets.
**Progress Wrestling has announced that Chapter 95: Still Chasing will take place from the Alexandra Palace on Sunday, September 15th. The pre-sale will begin May 7th and tickets for the public are available May 10th. The promotion is also running a card the day prior on September 14th from the Electric Ballroom with a Natural Progression Series tournament with the winner receiving a title match of their choice at any time.
**The WWE stock closed at $83.98 on Monday.
MMA NEWS
**New welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and interim champion Colby Covington were involved in an altercation on Sunday. Both were in a lineup and had to be separated by those in line and included Usman’s manager Ali Abdelaziz appearing to throw a punch at Covington.
**After his loss to Diego Sanchez, Mickey Gall posted a statement on Instagram where he noted that he passed out while cutting weight:
I gassed hard in there. Had an adrenaline dump. I passed out during the weight cut and my body shut down in the first round. I’m sorry to my friends family and fans. Send love to @diegonightmaresanchezufc he’s a true legend. This was a nightmare come true for me. I promise I’ll be back soon and better.
**Saturday’s UFC 235 event drew an announced crowd of 14,790 to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with a gate figure of $4,035,156.50. The gate figure would be the 23rd largest MMA gate in the history of Nevada. The Fight of the Night bonus was awarded to Pedro Munhoz and Cody Garbrandt and the two Performance of the Night bonuses went to Johnny Walker and Diego Sanchez for $50,000 each.
**The UFC updated their schedule for 2019 with the following cards from April through International Fight Week in July:
*April 13th – UFC 236 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia
*April 20th – Fight Night on ESPN+ from Saint Petersburg, Russia
*April 27th – Fight Night on ESPN in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
*May 4th – Fight Night on ESPN+ in Ottawa, Ontario
*May 11th – UFC 237 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
*May 18th – Fight Night on ESPN+ in Rochester, New York
*June 1st – Fight Night on ESPN+ from Stockholm, Sweden
*June 8th – UFC 238 from the United Center in Chicago
*June 22nd – Fight Night on ESPN+ from Greenville, South Carolina
*June 29th – Fight Night on ESPN from the Target Center in Minneapolis
*July 6th – UFC 239 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
**The UFC continues their weekly schedule with shows every weekend in March and head to Wichita, Kansas this Saturday. This weekend’s show is headlined by a heavyweight fight between former champion Junior dos Santos and Derrick Lewis. Dos Santos is coming off wins over Blagoy Ivanov and Tai Tuivasa last year while Lewis last fought in November where he was stopped be current champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 230.
The co-feature is a welterweight fight involving two guys on lengthy winning streaks between Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and Curtis Millender. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos lost his UFC debut in May 2015 and has won his last six fights since that last fight. Millender has won nine in a row, including a 3-0 mark inside the UFC with wins over Thiago Alves, Max Griffin, and Siyar Bahadurzada, which is a strong list of opponents to start his UFC tenure.
Ben Rothwell will take on Blagoy Ivanov on this weekend’s card and is Rothwell’s first fight since April 2016 after sitting out due to a two-year suspension issued by USADA. Below is the full card for the event:
MAIN CARD (8 pm Eastern on ESPN+, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Derrick Lewis vs. Junior dos Santos
*Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Curtis Millender
*Tim Means vs. Niko Price
*Ben Rothwell vs. Blagoy Ivanov
*Beneil Dariush vs. Drew Dober
*Omari Akhmedov vs. Tim Boetsch
PRELIMINARY CARD (5 pm on ESPN+)
*Sergio Moraes vs. Antonio Rocco Martin
*Marion Reneau vs. Yana Kunitskaya
*Julian Erosa vs. Grant Dawson
*Maurice Greene vs. Jeff Hughes
*Matt Schnell vs. Louis Smolka
*Alex Morono vs. Zak Ottow
*Alex White vs. Dan Moret
*****
UFC 235 POST SHOW: Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok to review UFC 235 featuring Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith for the light heavyweight title and Tyron Woodley vs. Kamaru Usman for the welterweight title.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/03/ufc-235-post-show-jon-jones-vs-anthony-smith/
*****
POST PURORESU: Giant Baba Memorial Review, New Japan Cup Predictions
John Pollock & WH Park review the Giant Baba Memorial card, predictions for the entire New Japan Cup, Jay White wins IWGP title, PAC vs. Kzy, Takashi Iizuka’s retirement, Champion Carnival blocks & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/01/post-puroresu-giant-baba-memorial-review-new-japan-cup-predictions/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI: WWF Raw / WCW Nitro (July 13, 1998)
John Pollock and Wai Ting look back at WWF Raw is War and WCW Monday Nitro from July 13, 1998, in this special double review. Raw continued the mystery of whether The Undertaker was in CAHOOTS with his brother Kane ahead of a scheduled tag team match with Steve Austin, while Nitro brought us the fallout from Goldberg’s first WCW title win the week prior.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25036850
*****
upNXT 2/28/19: The Bray D & JoPo
Braden Herrington is joined by POST Wrestling’s John Pollock to review this week’s edition of WWE NXT including a huge match from Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic, Shayna Baszler vs. Mia Yim, and DIY are “officially” back together.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/28/upnxt-2-28-19-the-bray-d-jopo/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 2/27/19: “Fighting with My Family”, Being the Elite, Total Bellas
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the Paige-inspired film “Fighting with My Family” starring Florence Pugh and Vince Vaughn, The Young Bucks return to Chicago on Being The Elite, and after injuring Liv Morgan, Brie Bella struggles with self and public criticism on this week’s Total Bellas.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/24989211
*****
RASD 2/26/19: KO-Fi’d, New Fastlane Main Event, Hardys reunite
Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown featured the announcement by Vince McMahon that Kofi Kingston would not be challenging Daniel Bryan for the WWE title at Fastlane, Kevin Owens is back, Matt Hardy reunited with his brother as The Hardys took on The Bar, Charlotte Flair is coming to Raw, R-Truth resurrects the U.S. title Open Challenge and lots more on a busy episode.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/02/27/rasd-2-26-19-ko-fid-new-fastlane-main-event-hardys-reunite/
*****
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