POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be live tonight with the Money in the Bank POST Show immediately after the pay-per-view ends. You can listen and watch our show live if you’re a Double Double, Iced Capp, or Espresso member of the POST Wrestling Café. We will also be taking your phone calls if you tune in live. For everyone else, the podcast version will be posted late tonight.
**On Monday afternoon, we will be releasing Owen Hart’s Final Day: A POST Profile, which is our audio documentary looking back 20-years ago to the passing of Owen Hart and the circumstances surrounding his death. This will be available on our main podcast feed.
**The latest edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show is available with host Nate Milton welcoming Jason Chapa to review the 2005 film “Doom”.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight, is the WWE’s Money in the Bank card from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut beginning at 6 pm Eastern with the kickoff show and main card at 7 pm. The card currently lists 11 matches and on paper has the potential of being a great show. Here is a full preview of the card:
Seth Rollins vs. AJ Styles for the Universal title
Styles has taken a heel bent in the leadup to the show and can play it subtly in the match. Rollins just won the title, so I don’t think anyone assumes he is dropping it. It should get lots of time and therefore, the expectations are high. Rather than Styles winning, the intrigue will be if Styles remains a babyface or not. With the wild card rule, that alleviates the depth issues of babyfaces and heels on each show and allows you to make moves to compensate. Baron Corbin is clearly being groomed for a run with the champion and would indicate this could be a one-and-done program, although I feel they could get much more beyond tonight.
Kofi Kingston vs. Kevin Owens for the WWE title
This program hasn’t lit that spark for me, and it feels lukewarm. It’s too early to take the title off Kingston. Owens has been a victim of bad timing through no fault of his own and has played the utility guy. This program needed that big Owens promo to justify his turn on New Day, being left off WrestleMania, and they only scratched the surface. Hopefully, the match over-delivers as I don’t sense too much buzz for this one.
Becky Lynch vs. Lacey Evans, Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair for the Raw and SmackDown women’s titles
I’m grouping these together because the match order and layout will affect each. If Lynch were to lose one of the titles, your options would be going through a war with Charlotte Flair and then leaving Lynch weakened for the match with Evans and she drops the Raw title. Or, Lynch could get through both and pull off the extraordinary feat and being cashed in on by the winner of the ladder match. I see the least likely scenario being Flair beating Lynch for the SmackDown title. The SmackDown title match should be solid as their prior matches have shown. The big test is with Evans, who is on a big stage to deliver and hopefully isn’t left out for too long.
Finn Balor vs. Randy Orton vs. Andrade vs. Ali vs. Sami Zayn vs. Baron Corbin vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Ricochet in the Money in the Bank Ladder match
This could be one of the best WWE matches this year and one of the best ladder matches they’ve had in years. The talent is incredible that has been assembled for this match. Braun Strowman was replaced by Sami Zayn on Monday and would indicate Strowman getting involved during the match. I think Corbin is a tremendous piece of this match because the teases of him grabbing the briefcase will garner such big reactions and can play the “anyone but him” role. Ricochet, Ali, and Balor should all have their big moments and Orton works well off them. The favorites would seem to be McIntyre and Andrade with Balor as a candidate and further down would be Ricochet for the surprise, and someone that needs a boost. I expect this to tear the house down.
Natalya vs. Dana Brooke vs. Naomi vs. Nikki Cross vs. Carmella vs. Mandy Rose vs. Ember Moon vs. Bayley in the Money in the Bank Ladder match
I see the favorites as Mandy Rose, Bayley, and Nikki Cross. Rose has been protected from the start and they’re building her up along with Sonya Deville while teasing dissension. Bayley would be my choice if they were going to do the heel turn and cash-in to close the show, as no one else fits that role in my mind. Bayley has been in purgatory since Sasha Banks disappeared and it could be time for her to turn. The other one is Cross, which would be the story that Alexa Bliss claims ownership of the briefcase as she did Cross’ victory on Raw this past week with Cross as her surrogate. My gut says Moon will get the same level of reaction Becky Lynch got last year as the crowd favorite that isn’t winning. This could be very good and is flying under the radar.
Roman Reigns vs. Elias
If this is longer than three minutes, they overthought it. Reigns should kill Elias in as short a match as possible.
The Miz vs. Shane McMahon in a Steel Cage match
Either they brawl over the arena before entering the cage or they break out of the cage. The option of keeping this match inside the cage will hurt the match, greatly. This is an example of a stipulation harming the match and not helping it. Miz has cut some strong promos in the lead up to the match and McMahon has been a very good heel, the two do have a unique chemistry together both as allies and enemies. It seems like The Miz should win, but I don’t feel they are designing this program for Miz. It seems Shane is being groomed for a match with Roman Reigns and I see Shane escaping with the win through assistance from Bobby Lashley.
Samoa Joe vs. Rey Mysterio for the United States title
I’m sure this will be longer than their WrestleMania match, but it feels like Dominic is the focus, rather than the title. This is probably the angle they had in mind for Dominic at WrestleMania, which was scrapped. Either way, I see the feud continuing and who holds the title seems secondary.
Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. The Usos in a non-title match
An inter-promotional non-title match. High Stakes. I don’t see Bryan or Rowan being defeated, even with the non-title scenario.
Tony Nese vs. Ariya Daivari for the Cruiserweight title
Nese retains as the Cruiserweights go out to have another great match. I’m sure it will be a good match, but with the depth of this card, I don’t see this one standing out among the top matches by the end of the night.
**The advertised match between Hangman Page and PAC is not happening at Double or Nothing next Saturday in Las Vegas. On Saturday, an angle was shot in Nottingham, England at a WrestleGate card where Page answered an open challenge from PAC, and they had an impromptu match. AEW will be airing the match later this week, which featured a disqualification, to deliver the match. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting that it came down to creative differences with PAC unwilling to lose while holding the Open the Dream Gate championship and AEW unwilling to do a draw. PAC won the title back in December and has not lost any matches since leaving WWE, including DQ finishes with Zack Sabre Jr. and WALTER and a time limit draw with Will Ospreay. Page will still wrestle next weekend, although it’s unknown who his opponent will be.
**WWE has canceled Monday night’s SmackDown house show in Lowell, Massachusetts. This will allow for any SmackDown talent to be available for Monday night’s episode of Raw in Albany, New York.
**WWE has announced an Intercontinental title match for Super Showdown on June 7th with Finn Balor defending the title against Andrade in Saudi Arabia. They have also added Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley to the show.
**A new episode of WWE 24 profiling Becky Lynch will air immediately after Money in the Bank on the WWE Network.
**Chris Jericho will be introducing a new move at Double or Nothing called “The Judas Effect”. Jericho posted a video training with former MMA fighter Josh Rafferty and the move is a spinning elbow, which Andrade uses.
**Impact Wrestling has a strange screwup on the Pursuit Channel during Friday’s broadcast. During the main event between Michael Elgin and Rich Swann, they went to commercial with 24 minutes remaining and never came back from commercial. Impact issued an apology for the technical problems and will be adding the match to Impact Plus this week. The match was one of the better matches on Impact in a long time and is worth checking out.
**Pat McAfee is hosting a Watch Along for Money in the Bank tonight on the WWE’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter channels. McAfee will be joined by The IIconics, The Usos, R-Truth, Liv Morgan, Cathy Kelly, Vanessa Borne, Eric Bugenhagen, Aliyah, and Field Yates from ESPN.
**New Japan has announced that Hiroshi Tanahashi will be wrestling on the upcoming shows in Australia on June 29th in Melbourne and June 30th in Sydney.
**Matt Riddle is scheduled to face Drew Gulak at the EVOLVE 131 event on Saturday, July 13th in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena.
PAY-PER-VIEW REWIND
WWE Money in the Bank
Sunday, June 17th, 2018
Chicago, Illinois at the Allstate Arena
*The Bludgeon Brothers over Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson to retain the SmackDown tag titles
*Daniel Bryan over Big Cass
*Bobby Lashley over Sami Zayn
*Seth Rollins over Elias to retain the Intercontinental title
*Alexa Bliss over Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, Ember Moon, Naomi, Natalya, and Lana in the Money in the Bank Ladder match
*Roman Reigns over Jinder Mahal
*Carmella over Asuka to retain the SmackDown women’s title
*AJ Styles over Shinsuke Nakamura in a Last Man Standing match to retain the WWE title
*Ronda Rousey over Nia Jax by DQ for the Raw women’s title
*Alexa Bliss over Nia Jax to win the Raw women’s title
*Braun Strowman over Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Kofi Kingston, Rusev, The Miz, and Bobby Roode in the Money in the Bank Ladder match
MMA NEWS
**During Saturday’s UFC Fight Night broadcast, the promotion announced that Rashad Evans will be inducted into the Modern Wing of the UFC Hall of Fame this July during International Fight Week.
Evans was a wrestler out of Niagara Falls, New York and attended Michigan State and competed at the NCAA Division I level with a 48-34 amateur record in college.
Evans moved onto Mixed martial arts in 2004 and was 5-0 when he was selected to participate in the second season of Ultimate Fighter in 2005. He competed at heavyweight on the series and defeated Tom Murphy, Mike Whitehead, and Keith Jardine before earning a split decision over Brad Imes in the finals. Evans would immediately move down to light heavyweight and won his first four fights at the weight class, which included a majority decision over Stephan Bonnar.
After an all-time knockout against Sean Salmon, which has been replayed countless times since 2006, he fought Tito Ortiz for the first time in July 2007. The fought to a draw, although Ortiz would have won the fight if he didn’t grab the fence and get deducted one point. He followed that fight with a pay-per-view main event against Michael Bisping and won by split decision before his career-making knockout win over Chuck Liddell in September 2008, which was a changing of the guard. That fight propelled Evans to challenge Forrest Griffin for the light heavyweight title and stopped Griffin in the third round with strikes from inside of Griffin’s guard.
Evans was unsuccessful in defending the title, losing it to Lyoto Machida in May 2009 with a brutal knockout loss. Evans continued to have big fights, including a blockbuster pay-per-view fight with Quinton Jackson in May 2010. The two served as coaches on Season 10 of the Ultimate Fighter and led to an enormous grudge that drew over 1-million buys. It was not a great fight, but Evans clearly won the decision.
During this time, he had a falling out with Jackson-Winkeljohn and left the camp to held form the Blackzilians in Florida and would lead to another monster fight involving former teammate Jon Jones, who became Evans’ biggest rival. Jones won the light heavyweight title from Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in March 2011, in a fight where Evans had to pull out of due to injury and Jones replaced him. Later in an interview, Jones said he would be willing to fight Evans and there was bad blood from that moment. It climaxed in April 2012 where the two fought in Atlanta after Evans had earned his title fight after wins over Ortiz and a Fox main event victory against Phil Davis. It was also Jones’ biggest fight to date. Like the Jackson grudge bout, this was not a great fight, but unlike with Jackson, this time it was Evans dropping the decision without any debate.
In his remaining years, Evans went 2-6, including five straight losses from October 2015 until June 2018. He battled back from injury, experimented at middleweight and then returned to light heavyweight at UFC 225 last year and was knocked out in 53 seconds by Anthony Smith.
Today, Evans serves as a broadcaster for the UFC and announced his retirement after the loss to Smith.
**Here are the results from Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card in front of 8,132 at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, New York with a live gate of $643,000:
*Julio Arce def. Julian Erosa by KO at 1:49 of Round 3
*Zak Cummings def. Trevin Giles by guillotine at 4:01 of Round 3
*Ed Herman def. Patrick Cummins by TKO at 3:39 of Round 1
*Grant Dawson def. Michael Trizano by rear-naked choke at 2:27 of Round 2
*Michel Pereira def. Danny Roberts by KO at 1:47 of Round 1
*Desmond Green def. Charles Jourdain by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Aspen Ladd def. Sijara Eubanks by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-28)
*Davi Ramos def. Austin Hubbard by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Charles Oliveira def. Nik Lentz by TKO at 2:11 of Round 2
*Vicente Luque def. Derrick Krantz by TKO at 3:52 of Round 1
*Felicia Spencer def. Megan Anderson by rear-naked choke at 3:24 of Round 1
*Ian Heinisch def. Antonio Carlos Junior by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Rafael dos Anjos def. Kevin Lee by arm-triangle at 3:47 of Round 4
**The Fight of the Night bonus was awarded to Aspen Ladd and Sijara Eubanks and the Performance of the Night bonuses went to Grant Dawson and Michel Pereira for $50,000 each.
**Sage Northcutt posted an update following his 29-second loss to Cosmo Alexandre in his debut fight for ONE Championship. Northcutt suffered eight fractures in his face and underwent a nine-hour operation to correct the damage.
**The UFC is off next weekend and will be back on June 1st with an ESPN+ card from Stockholm, Sweden. The card will be headlined by Alexander Gustafsson fighting Anthony Smith with both fighters in limbo if Jon Jones is the light heavyweight champion with each losing to Jones within the past six months. It’s a heavy showcase of light heavyweights on the Sweden card with Volkan Oezdemir meeting Ilir Latifi and Jimi Manuwa taking on Aleksandar Rakic.
*****
TRMPS #5: Doom (2005) w/ Jason Chapa
Nate Milton welcomes video game aficionado/pop-culture critic/brave soul Jason Chapa into the theater to review 2005’s sci-fi/horror/action mash-up, Doom!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/18/trmps-5-doom-2005-w-jason-chapa/
*****
Café Hangout – AEW on TNT details with Tony Maglio
John Pollock & Wai Ting are joined by The Wrap’s Tony Maglio to discuss details of AEW’s television deal with TNT. We then preview Sunday’s Money In The Bank.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/17/aew-on-tnt-details-with-tony-maglio-mitb-preview-cafe-hangout-5-16-19/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #36: WWF One Night Only 1997
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWF One Night Only 1997, a UK-only PPV headlined by British Bulldog vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF European Championship with a controversial ending.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26918316
*****
upNXT 5/16/19: Killing Me Strongly
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s edition of WWE NXT featuring Viking Raiders vs. Street Profits for the NXT Tag Team titles.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/16/upnxt-5-16-19-killing-me-strongly/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: Bret Hart vs. Tom Magee, The Fabulous Moolah, BOSJ Night 3, BTE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the Bret Hart vs. Tom Magee match, The Fabulous Moolah edition of Dark Side of the Ring, BOSJ Night 3 & Being the Elite Ep. 151.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26896477
*****
BWE 5/15/19: Progress Super Strong Style 16, Rev Pro Epic Encounter, ITV/AEW
Martin is joined by Will Cooling and JP Houlihan to talk Progress Super Strong Style 16 (Trent Seven vs. Walter), Rev Pro Epic Encounter (Suzuki-Gun vs. Aussie Open) and Pro Wrestling EVE.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/15/bwe-5-15-19-progress-super-strong-style-16-rev-pro-epic-encounter-itv-aew/
*****
RASD 5/14/19: Lars Sullivan fined, MITB Go-Home, Kabuki Warriors, BOSJ Day 2
John Pollock is joined by Wai Ting to review the final WWE SmackDown before Money in the Bank from the O2 Arena in London, England. We also discuss WWE fining Lars Sullivan for past message board remarks.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/15/rasd-5-14-19-lars-sullivan-fined-mitb-go-home-kabuki-warriors-bosj-day-2/
*****
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