POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be back Monday night with Rewind-A-Raw to go over a busy weekend of news, a review of Raw from Des Moines and we will go over the upcoming week of shows.
**I was a guest on Antonio Thomas’ Left My Wallet show on the Wrestling Observer website to chat a bunch about Toronto sports. We covered a lot of non-wrestling with a discussion on the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors playoff runs that are ongoing, a lot on the Raptors expansion year, the Toronto Blue Jays fortunes, and we chat about WrestleMania Weekend. This show was a lot of fun to do.
**If you missed it, below is our interview with Dave Lagana from the Café Hangout this past week:
WRESTLING NEWS
**The WWE Network will be airing two matches from the Raw house show in Moline, Illinois tonight at 9:30 pm Eastern. The special is promoted around The Shield’s final match against Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin, and Bobby Lashley, which has headlined this weekend’s live events. There will also be an Intercontinental title match between Finn Balor and Elias airing. The television tapings are Monday night from Des Moines, Iowa.
**The SmackDown crew has a show in Rochester, New York tonight. They are advertising Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton and Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair as the top matches. The same crew has a house show Monday in Sioux City, Iowa and television is Tuesday night in Lincoln, Nebraska.
**Dustin Rhodes was revealed as the opponent for Cody at Double or Nothing with the announcement made on the Road to Double or Nothing series. Rhodes cut a series of promos that were edited together, building up the match and he did a tremendous job. It is astounding that Rhodes was not attached next to a microphone in recent years and could have facilitated many roles within WWE. Rhodes is no longer under contract to WWE and because of prior use, is free to use the name “Rhodes”. The match reminds me a lot of the one Cody had with Nick Aldis, where there was a divided opinion when it was announced but I fully expect this to be one of the hottest matches on the show because of the story and great promos over the next month. Rhodes had surgery on both his knees like July and just turned 50 earlier this month.
**The WWE has announced that Kofi Kingston will face Shinsuke Nakamura in a non-title match on SmackDown this Tuesday in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are advertising a face-to-face segment between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair and Roman Reigns facing the consequences of attacking Vince McMahon on last week’s show.
**Beth Phoenix will be doing additional dates for WWE on the upcoming European tour where she will team with Natalya. The Raw side desperately needs a babyface tag team for the women’s division with the split up of Bayley and Sasha Banks.
**Nikki Cross worked the Raw live events on this weekend. She was part of an eight-woman tag on Friday’s show in St. Louis and teamed with Bayley on Saturday night against Sarah Logan and Ruby Riott in Springfield, Illinois.
**Alexander Wolfe debuted at the NXT UK tapings on Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland and will be part of that brand moving forward. Wolfe joined Walter, Fabian Aichner, and Marcel Barthel as part of the Imperium faction on the show.
**MKE Wrestling, which is run by ROH wrestler Silas Young, held a show at the Knights of Columbus in West Allis, Wisconsin on Friday night that has generated a lot of discussion. During one of the matches, a masked man in a hoodie ran in and delivered a GTS to Daryck St. Holmes and then exited the hall. Silas Young and others tweeted out messages heavily implying it was CM Punk. The masked man was wearing the hoodie that Punk has worn in the past. Sean Ross Sapp at Fightful.com noted that Punk has done this several times in the past, including for the filming of Wrestling Road Diaries 3, which was not included in the documentary. Nick Hausman at Wrestling Inc reported that it was Punk under the mask.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling has three consecutive shows at Korakuen Hall, beginning Monday with a card at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World. Below is the card:
*Dragon Lee and Hirooki Goto vs. Jay White and Taiji Ishimori
*Togi Makabe, Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Guerrillas of Destiny and Hikuleo for the NEVER Openweight six-man tag titles
*Juice Robinson and Mikey Nicholls vs. Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Roppongi 3K & Rocky Romero vs. Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, EVIL, Shingo Takagi & Bushi
*Kota Ibushi, Yoshi-Hashi & Toa Henare vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & Taka Michinoku
*Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask & Shota Umino
*Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma vs. Ren Narita, Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura
**This past Wednesday’s airing of the Dark Side of the Ring episode on the Montreal Screwjob averaged 181,000 viewers on Viceland. This was a jump from the series premiere on Randy Savage and Elizabeth that did 154,000 viewers. VICE is ecstatic with the series from what I’ve been told. This week’s episode will be the one on Bruiser Brody and has been released online in the U.S. and doesn’t have the same notoriety of the Montreal Screwjob, so this will be an interesting one to see how the audience holds up. I have watched the Brody episode and there is a lot to discuss from it, which we will do on the Double Shot this week.
**The So Cal Uncensored site was the first to report that the WWE’s June 16, 2019 event at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego, California is off. The show was set to be the promotion’s Backlash event, although had never officially announced the show. This date was revealed in the recent court filings that revealed their touring dates for 2019. The website reports the reason for the cancelation is because of the next show in Saudi Arabia that is expected for early June and the issue of running two major shows within nine days of each other.
**A Go Fund Me campaign was launched by Brian Blair to help out James “Kamala” Harris and save his home. Harris was in danger of losing his home if his taxes were not paid in full by last Monday. The campaign has raised close to $15,000, above the target of $12,750. One of the donations was listed from Chris Jericho with $5,000.
MMA NEWS
**The Daily Mail out of the U.K. is reporting that UFC fighter Darren Till was arrested last week, following an initial report from the El Dia news outlet. Till is believed to be one of five men arrested during an incident in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. The group is alleged to have trashed their hotel room and proceeded to go to another hotel after being told to leave the original. When they were not allowed at the second hotel, a cab came to pick them up and the group took off in the cab while the driver was loading the cab. The report states the group was arrested early Thursday morning. The 26-year old Till is coming off the first two losses of his career where he was submitted by then-welterweight champion Tyron Woodley last September at UFC 228 and was knocked out by Jorge Masvidal last month in London, England.
**Below are the results from the UFC’s Fight Night event in St. Petersburg, Russia and we have a full report on the site:
*Magomed Mustafaev def. Rafael Fiziev by TKO at 1:26 of Round 1
*Michal Oleksiejczuk def. Gadzhimurad Antigulov by KO at 0:44 of Round 1
*Shamil Abdurakhimov def. Marcin Tybura by TKO at 3:15 of Round 2
*Alexander Yakovlev def. Alex da Silva Coelho by guillotine choke at 3:10 of Round 2
*Sultan Aliev def. Keita Nakamura by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Movsar Evloev def. Seung Woo Choi by unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-26)
*Krzysztof Jotko def. Alen Amedovski by unanimous decision (30-25, 30-26, 30-26)
*Roxanne Modafferi def. Antonina Shevchenko by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Sergei Pavlovich def. Marcelo Golm by KO at 1:06 of Round 1
*Islam Makhachev def. Arman Tsarukyan by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Alistair Overeem def. Aleksei Oleinik by TKO at 4:45 of Round 1
**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Islam Makhachev and Arman Tsarukyan, which was a very entertaining fight. The Performance of the Night bonuses went to Sergei Pavlovich and Magomed Mustafaev for $50,000 each. The drew 7,326 and sold out the Yubileyny Sports Palace.
**Next weekend is a packed one as the UFC and Bellator will be going head-to-head on Saturday night. The UFC has a show from Sunrise, Florida with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Jack Hermansson in the main event after Yoel Romero had to pull out and was replaced by Hermansson. It is also Greg Hardy’s second fight with the UFC and he is positioned right under the main event. Hardy did not look good in his debut in January and I don’t agree with how high he is being positioned on the show because it’s for all the wrong reasons. Hardy is fighting Dmitrii Smoliakov, who is a 9-2 heavyweight that went 0-2 in the UFC and has fought once since 2017.
**Bellator has a big card on Saturday from the SAP Center in San Jose, California with welterweight champion Rory MacDonald defending his title against Jon Fitch in the Welterweight Grand Prix. It also features Ilima-Lei Macfarlane defending the flyweight title against Veta Arteaga with the show airing on DAZN. The main event has received a lot of added attention after MacDonald’s coach Firas Zahabi came out and labeled Fitch a cheater after being flagged for a pre-fight drug test in 2014 by the California State Athletic Commission. The substance was never revealed by the CSAC, who performed a CIR test to confirm their findings after getting an adverse finding on a pre-fight test. Since the drug test failure, Fitch has won five straight fights over Yushin Okami, Joao Zeferino, Jake Shields, Brian Foster, and last fought in May 2018 where he beat Paul Daley at Bellator 199. The win streak has raised the suspicion of Zahabi.
**Here are the results from the Rizin card on Sunday morning at the Yokohama Arena:
*Kanako Murata def. Saray Oroczo by Von Flue choke at 2:12 of Round 2
*Manel Kape def. Seiichiro Ito by TKO at 2:59 of Round 2
*Damien Brown def. Koji Takeda by unanimous decision
*Kana Watanabe def. Justyna Haba by unanimous decision
*Mikuru Asakura def. Luiz Gustavo by unanimous decision
*Rena Kubota def. Samantha Jean-Francois by unanimous decision
*Karl Albrektsson def. Christiano Frohlich by unanimous decision
*Roberto de Souza def. Satoru Kitaoka by TKO at 3:57 of Round 2
*Kyoji Horiguchi def. Ben Nguyen by TKO at 2:53 of Round 1
*Jiri Prochazka def. Muhammed Lawal by TKO at 3:00 of Round 3 to become the inaugural Rizin light heavyweight champion
**Friend of the site Jeremy Botter has re-launched his Whizzered subscription-based newsletter covering the behind-the-scenes of MMA. Botter is one of the best writers in the space and is offering his writing for free until the end of the month and then it will predominantly be available for subscribers. He has written two pieces this week on the reintroduction of the newsletter and a look at the UFC’s relationship with ESPN.
*****
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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