POST IT NOTES
**This week’s Rewind-A-Wai show is out with Espresso Executive Producer Bruce Lord choosing the final night of PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles card from last September. Wai Ting and I review the final night of the tournament, the standout performers and matches, the changing independent landscape, PWG’s distribution method, the changing of locations from the American Legion Post to the Globe Theatre and lots more discussion. This show is available to all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**The Café Hangout is available today for everyone to check out with Wai and I joined by David Lagana. This is our first chat with Lagana in the POST-era as we went through the growth of the NWA since Billy Corgan took it over, their storytelling methods, the Cody vs. Nick Aldis program, All In, the upcoming Crockett Cup and interesting participants, and the big stories to follow in 2019. It’s always great to catch up with Dave and we will definitely be having him back for a future show.
**On this week’s British Wrestling Experience, the crew was joined by MLW’s Court Bauer to discuss the promotion’s new deal with FreeSports, which will air Fusion on Monday night at 10 pm. They also chat the latest Progress show, the retirement of Kid Lykos, WrestleMania Weekend & lots more.
**I also want to welcome Jamesie as a regular contributor to the British Wrestling Experience. He is based out of Ireland and has received a great response when he’s joined the guys for his two guest spots. He will be on every other week moving forward with Martin Bushby and Benno.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Jim Cornette went into detail about the Montreal Screwjob on his podcast this week with co-host Brian Last. This followed Viceland’s “Dark Side of the Ring” covering the subject and Cornette’s admission that he pitched the double cross finish between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at the Survivor Series. Cornette said Vince McMahon challenged Cornette to come up with a viable finish that would allow Shawn Michaels to have plausible deniability that he wasn’t in on it for fear if Bret Hart became aware in the moment, he’d beat up Michaels on the live pay-per-view and it would be a disaster for their new champion.
Cornette had been reading Fall Guys: The Barnums of Bounce, which was a book put out by Marcus Griffin in 1937 and been re-issued by Scott Teal in 1997. Cornette had just read about the original Montreal Screwjob between Ed “Strangler” Lewis and Henri DeGlane from May of 1937 and how they screwed Lewis out of the title by claiming Lewis bit DeGlane’s arm in the third and deciding fall. Cornette pitched his idea with no clue that if registered with McMahon or that he would use it. Cornette wasn’t aware it was being used until he saw the finish unfold in the ring. For years, Cornette has felt guilty about it and only told a few people in confidence, including Jim Ross and Dave Meltzer. Cornette genuinely liked Hart and disliked Michaels and felt the double cross led to the industry going down a path he disagrees with and he’s partially to blame.
Cornette said that the idea Bret Hart would go on Nitro with the title the next night, which is a point many defending McMahon’s actions have clung onto, was never a possibility. They knew Hart wouldn’t do it, he was still under contract to the WWF until the end of the month and the trademark lawsuit they had with WCW would have put WCW in front of a legal firing squad if they put the WWF’s intellectual property on their show. Cornette says the real fear was that Eric Bischoff would go on Nitro and claim they signed the WWF champion as there was nothing stopping Bischoff from doing that.
The argument against that one is that Hart’s deal with WCW was already finalized the prior Monday and it’s not like Bischoff went on television that week, but there is no way of knowing what he would have done. From most accounts, Bischoff came off as very agreeable to whatever Hart wanted, to the point he would allow Hart to work the December pay-per-view for the WWF and drop the title on December 7th, even though his WCW deal went into effect on December 1st. That said, Bischoff and the N.W.O. did go on Nitro after the Survivor Series and did a segment basically announcing Hart was coming to WCW, but that was clear as day by the end of the Survivor Series and Hart spelling out “WCW” with his fingers.
One year later, Meltzer got a hold of the entire audio recording of Hart’s conversation with McMahon when he was wired by the Wrestling with Shadows team. In the conversation, McMahon acknowledges that everyone already knows he’s going to WCW and didn’t give any indication that it was a concern because it wasn’t a secret.
The same night, Jim Ross flat out stated on the pay-per-view that it could be Hart’s final match with the company, a curious statement in hindsight because outside of the inner circle it wasn’t expected to be Hart’s final match with time remaining on his contract.
If you watched the Viceland documentary, I’d recommend Cornette’s podcast as a great companion piece. Cornette kept his schedule and notes from that era and is meticulous when it comes to details so I would argue he has as much credibility as anyone directly involved in the Montreal story.
**John Cena filled in for Ellen DeGeneres to host her talk show on Friday.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 10 pm Eastern on Twitch, Pursuit and the Fight Network in Canada:
*Pentagon Jr. and Fenix vs. Eddie Edwards and Eli Drake
*Taya Valkyrie vs. Madison Rayne in a non-title match
*Moose vs. Dez
*Fallah Bahh and Scarlett Bordeaux vs. Desi Hit Squad
*Tommy Dreamer vs. Madman Fulton (formerly Sawyer Fulton in NXT)
**The WWE Network will be airing two matches from Sunday’s live event in Moline, Illinois at 9 pm Eastern. The special is being promoted as “The Shield’s Final Chapter” with Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and the departing Dean Ambrose facing Drew McIntyre, Bobby Lashley, and Baron Corbin. They are also advertising Finn Balor defending the Intercontinental title against Elias.
**The Raw crew starts tonight in St. Louis, Missouri and then go to Springfield, Illinois on Saturday. The top matches are the same all weekend with The Shield vs. Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre and Finn Balor vs. Elias. The SmackDown starts Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin with Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton, Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair and Kevin Owens vs. Andrade advertised.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling is hosting Sengoku Lord early Saturday morning at 5 am Eastern from the Aichi Prefectural Gym and the following card, including two title matches:
*Kota Ibushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. for the Intercontinental title – This is a rematch from the New Japan Cup where Sabre submitted Ibushi. They have had four singles matches with Sabre winning both New Japan Cup matches from 2018 and 2019 and Ibushi defeating Sabre in the G1 Climax in 2017 and 2018. Ibushi just won the title from Tetsuya Naito earlier this month and seems logical he will defend the title successfully and get the win back. On paper, this should be a phenomenal match as Ibushi kicks off his reign as champion, which is hopefully a sustained one.
*Juice Robinson vs. Bad Luck Fale for the IWGP United States title – This was set up at the end of the New Japan Cup tournament on the final night. There is a formula to getting the most out of a big title match for Fale against the undersized champion. Robinson has bounced around with the title and it’s hurt his momentum, so losing the title wouldn’t be the direction I would go. I would expect this match to have heavy involvement from the Bullet Club, which is a big negative to Robinson’s match against Chase Owens last month but it’s the pattern I see continuing.
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Yoshi-Hashi & Roppongi 3K vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Sanada, Shingo Takagi & Bushi
*Jay White and Hikuleo vs. Hirooki Goto and Ryusuke Taguchi
*Chase Owens vs. Mikey Nicholls
*Guerrillas of Destiny and Taiji Ishimori vs. Dragon Lee, Toru Yano & Togi Makabe
*Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taka Michinoku vs. Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, Tomoaki Honma, Toa Henare & Jushin Thunder Liger
*Shota Umino and Ren Narita vs. Yuya Uemura and Yota Tsuji
**Following Saturday’s card, New Japan is running three straight nights at Korakuen Monday through Wednesday.
**There was a screening of “Fighting With My Family” at the FOX offices on Thursday in Los Angeles, including a Q&A with Paige that was hosted by Renee Young. We received highlights of the Q&A from someone in attendance:
-Paige discussed the role Dusty Rhodes had on her presentation as a character and said her favorite wrestlers were Steve Austin, Lita, and Bull Nakano
-She loves talking and believes it’s a good role to be the mouthpiece for Kairi Sane and Asuka
-She is doing stuff in the makeup and clothing industries as he looks towards life after wrestling and made a joke that FOX needs to hire her
-She ended by stating she wished she got to work more with The Bella Twins and Nia Jax, the latter she noted is her best friend
**Here are the matches for Saturday night’s episode of MLW Fusion at 9 pm Eastern on beIN Sports from the tapings at the Melrose Ballroom:
*Mance Warner vs. Sami Callihan
*Pentagon Jr. and Fenix vs. Rey Horus and Air Wolf
*Ace Romero vs. Josef Samael
*Puma King vs. Gringo Loco
**There will be a match between Drew Gulak and Humberto Carrillo on next Tuesday’s episode of 205 Live from Lincoln, Nebraska.
**Ring of Honor has announced that the Guerrillas of Destiny will defend the ROH tag titles against The Briscoes on Sunday, May 12th in Villa Park, Illinois during the War of the Worlds tour. They are only listing the ROH tag titles being defended as the Guerrillas are both ROH and IWGP tag champions.
**New Japan has added a second show for Australia when the promotion returns in June. The company has added a show for Sunday, June 30th in Sydney at the University of New South Wales Roundhouse, the day after their card at Festival Hall in Melbourne. Tickets for the card in Sydney go on sale next Friday.
**Justin Barrasso has a story on Roman Reigns and his recovery from leukemia that originally appeared in the print edition of Sports Illustrated this past week.
**Mike Johnson at PWInsider.com reported this week that KM a.k.a. Kevin Matthews is no longer with Impact Wrestling after his contract expired on March 4th. Johnson also reported that Keith Mitchell has left Impact and accepted a full-time position with All Elite Wrestling.
**After 11 shows, here are the updated standings for this year’s All Japan Champion Carnival tournament, which runs until April 29th:
BLOCK A: Zeus (8 points), Shuji Ishikawa / Kento Miyahara / Dylan James (6), Ryoji Sai (5), Yuma Aoyagi / Atsushi Aoki / Gianni Valletta (4), Yuji Okabayashi (2)
BLOCK B: Naoya Nomura (8 points), Suwama / Jake Lee / Takashi Yoshida (6), Sam Adonis / Yoshitatsu / Joel Redman / Joe Doering / Daichi Hashimoto (4)
The tournament resumes on Saturday in Sapporo with the following matches scheduled:
*Yuji Okabayashi vs. Dylan James – Block A
*Kento Miyahara vs. Gianni Valletta – Block A
*Daichi Hashimoto vs. Naoya Nomura – Block B
*Yoshitatsu vs. Sam Adonis – Block B
*Joel Redman vs. Suwama – Block B
**EVOLVE has announced that champion Austin Theory will take on Adam Cole on Friday, May 10th in Livonia, Michigan. Cole will also take on AR Fox the following night in Indianapolis. Kassius Ohno is also being sent by NXT to work these shows as he will team with Harlem Bravado against AR Fox and Leon Ruff the first night and take on Josh Briggs the second night.
**MLW’s Court Bauer announced on the British Wrestling Experience on Wednesday that the promotion would be adding another singles title. On Thursday, they officially announced the creation of the National Championship, which will be an Openweight title among all divisions. The first champion will be crowned on Saturday, June 1st when they hold their television tapings in Milwaukee at the Waukesha County Expo Center with a four-man tournament.
**AAA is putting tickets on sale on May 4th for their card at Madison Square Garden that is scheduled for September 15th. The card is being billed as “Invading New York”. Following the recent Ring of Honor and New Japan G1 Supercard, AAA will be the second non-McMahon run card at The Garden since 1960 when Jack Pfefer ran The Garden after Vince McMahon Sr. temporarily lost the rights to run the arena. Pfefer’s last card at The Garden was on November 14, 1960, and featured Argentina Rocca facing Bruno Sammartino, prior to Sammartino’s first reign as WWWF champion that began in 1963.
**CM Punk reflected on a photo of himself, Rey Mysterio and Eddy Guerrero from an IWA Mid-South match they had in March 2002. This was during the time period after Guerrero had been let go by WWF the prior November due to substance issues and later brought back in April 2002. Mysterio had not been one of the ex-WCW talents brought in right away and wouldn’t debut until July of that year:
People should know how good Eddie really was. He was in a rough spot. Recently fired, home front was turbulent. He came to this show and looked tired. Said to me “I hate three ways. If it’s okay with you, can you and Rey put something together and just call it to me?” I wasn’t sure that was possible. He didn’t miss a beat. And you Rey, so open and giving to a little punk Indy kid. You laid out a masterpiece and I wasn’t sure I could keep up. One of the early times I remember being in the ring and thinking to myself, “this is fucking MAGIC!” A pleasure. An honor. I miss Eddie, truly fortunate to have worked him as many times as I did. I feel the same about you Rey! Legends, who treated me like an equal, and I’ve never forgotten it. Viva la raza!
**Sam Roberts made his commentary debut on this week’s episode of WWE Main Event with Byron Saxton and Renee Young.
**DEFY Wrestling has announced that they are holding an eight-man tournament spread over two nights with the Super 8XGP July 26th and 27th. The shows will be in Seattle, Washington and one of the feature matches will include Joey Janela.
**Matt Farmer, who runs DEFY alongside Jim Perry, will also be serving as the senior coordinator for MLW.
**Braun Strowman will be throwing out the first pitch at the Milwaukee Brewers’ game this Sunday against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Miller Park.
**For those in Canada, the “Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story” documentary on Kenny Omega is now streaming on Crave.
**The trailer for Hobbs & Shaw has been released starring Dwyane Johnson and Jason Statham and featuring Roman Reigns, who plays Johnson’s brother.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC returns to Russia on Saturday morning with a card from St. Petersburg and streaming on ESPN+. All fighters made weight on Friday and below is the card:
MAIN CARD (10 am Eastern on ESPN+)
*Alistair Overeem (245) vs. Aleksei Oleinik (237)
*Islam Makhachev (155) vs. Arman Tsarukyan (155)
*Marcelo Golm (250) vs. Sergei Pavlovich (254)
*Ivan Shtyrkov (206) vs. Devin Clark (204.5)
*Roxanne Modafferi (125) vs. Antonina Shevchenko (125)
*Krzysztof Jotko (185) vs. Alen Amedovski (186)
PRELIMINARY CARD (10 am Eastern on ESPN+)
*Seung Woo Choi (145) vs. Movsar Evloev (146)
*Sultan Aliev (170) vs. Keita Nakamura (171)
*Alexander Yakovlev (155) vs. Alex Da Silva (156)
*Shamil Abdurakhimov (258) vs. Marcin Tybura (249)
*Michael Oleksiejczuk (206) vs. Gadzhimurad Antigulov (204.5)
*Magomed Mustafaev (154.5) vs. Rafael Fiziev (155)
**The UFC has announced they will host their first Fight Night card in Uruguay on Saturday, August 10th (which is one of the craziest weekends of the year with SummerSlam and the G1 Climax finals). The promotion will also hold a Fight Night event on Saturday, November 16th in Sao Paulo, Brazil. MMA Fighting is reporting that the promotion will be holding a pay-per-view on September 7th, which is expected to take place in Abu Dhabi.
**There was a scary incident involving former UFC and current Combate Americas fighter Angela Magana. The fighter fell into a coma on Tuesday following an emergency procedure for a neurological issue. The report from MMA Fighting stated that Magana suffered a herniated disc and underwent a nerve block to deal with and caused the emergency surgery. Magana filmed a message before the surgery and was concerned over how the anesthesia was administered prior to going into a coma. Magana awoke on Thursday evening and posted an update:
**Josh Burkman is returning to fight at LFA 66 on Friday, May 10th against former UFC fighter William Macario. It is Burkman’s first fight since February 2018, which was his final fight with the UFC and his fifth consecutive loss. Burkman competed on the second season of the Ultimate Fighter and fought for the promotion until 2008. He found success fighting for World Series of Fighting and returned to the UFC in 2015 and went 1-7 with 1 no contest during his second stint. The card will air that night on AXS TV at 9 pm Eastern and is headlined by Tyler Diamond fighting undefeated Jon Neal in a featherweight bout.
*****
Café Hangout – David Lagana of the NWA
John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome NWA Vice President David Lagana to discuss the revival of The Crockett Cup tag team tournament, the importance of basing storylines on reality in the Cody vs. Nick Aldis build-up to ALL IN, and how he and Billy Corgan want to make the most out of the average wrestling fan’s limited supply of time.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/19/david-lagana-on-nwas-reality-based-storytelling-crockett-cup-cafe-hangout-4-18-19/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #34: PWG Battle of Los Angeles (Patreon)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the Final Stage of Pro Wrestling Guerilla’s Battle of Los Angeles 2018 tournament featuring Bandido, Jeff Cobb, Shingo Takagi, WALTER, Joey Janela, PCO, CIMA, Trevor Lee, Brody King and more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26209137/
*****
upNXT 4/18/19: The NXT Experience
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s edition of WWE NXT featuring an instant TV classic for the North American championship between Velveteen Dream & Buddy Murphy, a heated segment between The Undisputed Era & Johnny Gargano, Shayna Bazler vs. Kairi Sane for the NXT Women’s Championship with a heartbreaking ending… and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/18/upnxt-4-18-19-the-nxt-experience/
*****
THE DOUBLE SHOT (Patreon)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Joey Janela’s Spring Break III Part 1 & 2, Dark Side of the Ring on the Montreal Screwjob, Being the Elite & more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26185803
*****
BWE 4/17/19: Court Bauer on MLW in UK, Progress Chapter 87
Martin & Benno are joined by Jamesie to talk Progress Chapter 87 Breadknife, RevPro’s Live At The Cockpit 40, and notable Euro highlights from WrestleMania Weekend. They are then joined by Court Bauer, CEO of MLW to discuss the company’s premiere on Freesports and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/17/bwe-4-17-19-court-bauer-on-mlw-in-uk-progress-ch-87-wrestlemania-weekend/
*****
RASD 4/16/19: Superstar Shakeup Night 2, Roman Reigns to SD Live
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown from Montreal, Quebec and the second night of the Superstar Shakeup as Vince McMahon announces the “biggest acquisition in the history” of the show.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/17/rasd-4-16-19-superstar-shakeup-night-2-roman-reigns-to-sd-live/
*****
RAR 4/15/19: Superstar Shakeup Night 1 feat. Ivar and Erik
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the first night of the Superstar Shakeup with WWE Raw from Montreal, Quebec featuring the arrivals of AJ Styles, The Usos and the debut of The Viking Experience.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/16/rar-4-15-19-superstar-shakeup-night-1-feat-ivor-and-erik/
*****
UFC 236 POST Show: Holloway vs. Poirier, Gastelum vs. Adesanya
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok to review the excellent UFC 236 card from Saturday night featuring two of the best fights of 2019. The two go through the entire card from Atlanta with Dustin Poirier fighting Max Holloway for the interim lightweight title and Israel Adesanya and Kelvin Gastelum fighting for the interim middleweight title.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/14/ufc-236-post-show-holloway-vs-poirier-gastelum-vs-adesanya/
*****
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