POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be back with Rewind-A-Raw tonight discussing the show from Everett, Washington and going through today’s news along with your feedback at the end. We will also have news about our next contest on the show tonight and information about our G1 coverage for the next two months.
**Our WWE Stomping Grounds POST Show is up on the site and all usual outlets to download and watch. The show features a full review of the card with Wai Ting and I sharing our thoughts and discussing the news coming out of it. You can download the show at this link or watch the YouTube version below.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: The Double Shot (Patreon)
*Thursday: Café Hangout (3 pm ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #39 – WWF In Your House ‘Canadian Stampede’ (Patreon)
*Saturday: Cruel Summer ‘G1 1999’ with WH Park & Matt McEwen
*Saturday: NJPW Southern Showdown POST Show w/ WH Park & Chris Thunder
*Saturday: AEW Fyter Fest POST Show w/ Wai Ting & Davie Portman (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*Sunday: Cruel Summer ‘G1 2000’ with WH Park & JP Houlihan
WRESTLING NEWS
**Axios has released numerous internal documents from Donald Trump’s staff members regarding the vetting of cabinet members. The one of most interest to our readers is the exhaustive list of issues concerning Linda McMahon when she was up for the role of head of the Small Business Administration, which she was awarded and has since moved on from.
The document is broken up into sections, with the most concerning under the headline ‘Red Flags’ and includes stories involving McMahon donating to the campaign of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, McMahon being late on property tax payment, calling Trump’s comments about women ‘deplorable’ in 2016, taking taxpayer subsidies while criticizing Government bailouts, sexual harassment allegations among those in WWE while she was with the company, and issues with content on WWE programming.
Certain portions of the documents are redacted but it’s as deep a list of controversies you are going to find in one area regarding every black mark on WWE’s history. It goes into news stories regarding the 2007 murder/suicide involving Chris Benoit, all the stories related to Vince McMahon going on trial in 1994 on charges of conspiracy to distribute steroids, the company’s relationship to former Pennsylvania doctor Dr. George Zahorian, premature deaths among wrestlers, and the labeling of talent as independent contractors.
There was also a background check on McMahon that discovered an unspecified infraction against McMahon from August 2013 in North Carolina. They also looked into past statements regarding her opinions on abortion (she labeled herself ‘pro-choice; in a statement from December 2009), climate change (‘I think there’s evidence to the positive and to the contrary about global warming’ from December 2009), as well as comments regarding the Stimulus bill, the tax cuts initiated by the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003, as well as McMahon’s own political affiliation that reveals several Democratic campaign donations between 2002 and 2008. Finally, there is a brief summary of Linda & Vince McMahon filing for bankruptcy in 1976 where the couple stated they lost their home after several bad investments. This was when their son Shane was seven-years-old and Linda was pregnant with Stephanie.
You could likely write several books covering the totality of stories listed within the vetting papers and it will be interesting regarding the level of coverage this receives. McMahon left her post as head of the SBA earlier this year and was named the chair of America First Action, a group designated to raise funds for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett, Washington following Sunday’s Stomping Grounds event. They are advertising two matches with a non-title match scheduled between Ricochet and AJ Styles, as well as a handicap match with Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre & Shane McMahon. It will also be interesting to see how the now edict regarding commercial breaks is handled and the creative ways they avoid having any wrestling during the breaks. The next pay-per-view is in three weeks, so I would expect an immediate push towards that show and shooting angles for the key matches this week.
**OTT held their WrestleRama card in Dublin on Sunday and featured WALTER facing David Starr. The spot within the match that has received added attention involved Starr taking the NXT UK championship, placing it on the mat and stepping on it. In another era, this would be a massive deal and it very well could irk those in WWE that WALTER was involved with the company’s championship being disrespected. The match was said to be excellent between the two, but I have yet to see it.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling will be holding their final Kizuna Road card on Tuesday morning with a card from Sendai at 5:30 am Eastern. The big match on the show is a British heavyweight title match between Zack Sabre Jr. and Yoshi-Hashi with Sabre’s spot in the G1 Climax up for grabs. Here is the full lineup and the card will stream on New Japan World:
*Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Yoshi-Hashi for the British heavyweight title
*El Phantasmo vs. Ryusuke Taguchi for the British Cruiserweight title
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask vs. Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Roppongi 3K & Toa Henare vs. Jay White, Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro & Chase Owens
*Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls in a non-title match
*Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Sanada, Shingo Takagi & Bushi vs. Kota Ibushi, Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe, Shota Umino & Ren Narita
*Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Yuji Nagata & Yota Tsuji
**EVOLVE was informed on Monday that Kyle O’Reilly is unable to wrestle on the upcoming shows this weekend in Queens and Brooklyn, New York. O’Reilly was scheduled to team with Roderick Strong to take on Anthony Henry & JD Drake this Saturday and face Josh Briggs on Sunday. Earlier this month, O’Reilly was kept off the Download Festival shows citing a back injury, although EVOLVE didn’t state what the reason for his removal was. The promotion will be announcing the changes to the card either today or Tuesday. O’Reilly hasn’t wrestled since the ladder match at TakeOver on June 1st.
**Ryan Alpert, who was a member of the WWE’s writing staff, has announced he has left the company. Alpert appeared in several segments alongside the New Day as ‘Mr. Bootyworth’ and had been with the company since 2016. He wrote the following message on Instagram:
It’s been a wild 3 years. Thank you for everything…but mostly the frequent flyer miles. One of the best writing teams in the world to work on…glad I got to be a part of it.
**MLW has announced that Alex Hammerstone will defend the National championship against Davey Boy Smith Jr. on Saturday, July 6th at the Kings of Colosseum card from Cicero Stadium in Illinois.
**Smash Wrestling has announced that Shawn Spears is off the July 6th and 7th cards in Toronto and London, Ontario respectively. Orange Cassidy will be replacing Spears on those shows. Cassidy takes on Psycho Mike Rollins on the first night and Cody Deaner the following evening.
**Impact Wrestling has announced a partnership with FC Dallas for a series of promotional events leading into the Slammiversary card on Sunday, July 7th in the city. Brian Cage will be attending the club’s game on Thursday, July 4th at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas and will take part in some activities at halftime.
**DEFY Wrestling has announced that they are working with New Japan when the group holds its Super J Cup card at the Temple Theatre in Tacoma, Washington. The Super J Cup card will take place Thursday, August 22nd and then DEFY will run the building the following night with New Japan talent on the show, as well.
**NXT will be holding live events in Albany, New York on August 8th and Buffalo, New York on August 9th.
**The WWE stock closed at $73.15 on Monday.
MMA NEWS
**The MMA Hour, one of the most popular MMA talk shows, had its final show earlier today. Host Luke Thomas announced at the show’s conclusion that he was reducing his workload and will no longer be doing The MMA Hour and The MMA Beat, which is a weekly panel show amongst media reporters. The show was launched by Ariel Helwani in June 2009 and he was the host for nine years until leaving parent company Vox Media in June of last year to go to ESPN and Thomas taking over hosting duties for the show. The show continued Monday afternoons with Helwani launching his own talk show at ESPN and the two shows went head-to-head for the past year. Thomas had an enormous workload commuting from outside New York on top of hosting a daily show on SiriusXM. Thomas indicated that he would be announcing a new project but couldn’t speak about it at this time.
**The UFC is holding a big press conference on Friday, July 5th prior to the ceremonial weigh-ins for UFC 239. It’s their seasonal presser promoting all the big fights coming up. Marc Raimondi reported that Daniel Cormier, Stipe Miocic, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Dustin Poirier, Max Holloway, and Frankie Edgar are scheduled to attend.
**The weigh-ins for tomorrow night’s edition of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series took place earlier today with the following fights set for 8 pm Eastern tomorrow:
*Miguel Baeza (169.5) vs. Victor Reyna (178*) – Reyna missed the welterweight limit by seven pounds
*Tony Johnson (203) vs. Alton Cunningham (205.5)
*Zach Zane (146) vs. Justin Gonzales (146)
*Kyle Daukaus (185.5) vs. Michael Lombardo (185.5)
*Richie Santiago (135.5) vs. Miles Johns (135.5)
**The UFC has announced they will hold a Fight Night card from the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia on Saturday, September 14th.
**This Saturday, the UFC has a Fight Night card from the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The card was originally headlined by a rematch between former welterweight champions Tyron Woodley and Robbie Lawler, but a hand injury to Woodley led to the fight being off. In its place is a heavyweight main event between Junior dos Santos and Francis Ngannou. The former heavyweight champion dos Santos is on a run with three consecutive wins and would be in line for another title opportunity with a victory. Ngannou is coming off victories over Curtis Blaydes and Cain Velasquez, which was his biggest to date this past February as he stopped the former champion in 26-seconds.
There is also an interesting flyweight fight on the card between Joseph Benavidez and Jussier Formiga, in theory setting up the next title challenger. However, with Henry Cejudo undergoing shoulder surgery, it causes even more confusion to the 125-pound weight class and begs the questions if an interim title will be introduced while Cejudo is injured and a two-division champion. Cejudo has bigger fights at bantamweight, although the last person to beat him is Benavidez when they fought in December 2016 and Benavidez won by split decision. Benavidez has won eight of his last nine fights and Formiga has won his last four. The two fought in 2013 with Benavidez winning by TKO.
The entire card is airing on ESPN with the prelims starting at 6 pm Eastern and the main card at 9 pm.
MAIN CARD (9 pm Eastern on ESPN)
*Junior dos Santos vs. Francis Ngannou
*Joseph Benavidez vs. Jussier Formiga
*Demian Maia vs. Anthony Rocco Martin
*Vinc Pichel vs. Roosevelt Roberts
*Drew Dober vs. Marco Polo Reyes
*Alonzo Menifield vs. Paul Craig
PRELIMINARY CARD (7 pm Eastern on ESPN)
*Ricardo Ramos vs. Journey Newson
*Eryk Anders vs. Vinicius Moreira
*Jordan Griffin vs. Vince Murdock
*Dan Moret vs. Jared Gordon
*Justin Ledet vs. Dalcha Lungiambula
*Amanda Ribas vs. Emily Whitmire
*Junior Albini vs. Maurice Greene
*****
WWE STOMPING GROUNDS POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Stomping Grounds from Tacoma, WA headlined by Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin for the WWE Universal Championship with a mystery referee.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/06/24/wwe-stomping-grounds-post-show/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER #8: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki (1998)
WH Park welcomes one of the co-hosts of the Eastern Lariat podcast, Dylan Fox to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 8th G1 Climax tournament: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kazuo Yamazaki from August 2, 1998.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/06/23/cruel-summer-8-shinya-hashimoto-vs-kazuo-yamazaki-1998-w-dylan-fox/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER #7: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan (1997)
WH Park welcomes the co-host of POST Wrestling’s NXT review show, upNXT – Braden Herrington to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 7th G1 Climax tournament: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan from August 3, 1997.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/06/22/cruel-summer-7-kensuke-sasaki-vs-hiroyoshi-tenzan-1997-w-braden-herrington/
*****
Café Hangout – June 20, 2019
On this week’s Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting chat the latest news in pro wrestling and a preview Sunday’s WWE Stomping Grounds. Damian Abraham joins us to discuss a double-header of Viceland’s The Wrestlers.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/06/21/stomping-grounds-preview-mia-yim-rey-fenix-on-the-wrestlers-cafe-hangout/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW: Ant-Man (2015)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the twelfth Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Ant-Man (2015) starring Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/27784817
*****
upNXT 6/20/19: “Fish with One Eye”
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back with another episode of upNXT! The BDE chat all about the June 20th Edition of WWE NXT.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/06/20/upnxt-6-20-19-fish-with-one-eye/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: DDT’s Pool Wrestling, Tony Khan w/ Austin, 205 Live
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Steve Austin’s interview with Tony Khan, DDT’s Pool Wrestling special, 205 Live, BTE & Road to Fyter Ep. 3.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/27764346
*****
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