POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will have two G1 Climax shows this weekend with a show out on Saturday and another on Sunday for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**This week’s Café Hangout featured Wai Ting and I welcoming Brandon Thurston from Wrestlenomics to discuss the WWE’s second-quarter earnings report and breaking down the key areas of their business. Plus, we spent a lot of time discussing the earnings call with Vince McMahon’s assessment of AEW, the roles Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff have been appointed to, and lots more. Plus, a run-through of all the major news items including Jimmy Uso’s arrest, CM Punk’s interview with ESPN, ROH, and the NWA no longer working together, and your phone calls.
**The newest edition of Rewind-A-Wai is also out today with Wai Ting and I reviewing one of New Japan’s shows from their Fallout from Down Under tour in February 2018. This was selected by our Espresso Executive Producer Chris Thunder, who attended the show live and joined us to discuss the card from the famous Festival Hall in Melbourne. It is not a historic event, but it is interesting to go back 15 months and see how different New Japan’s front face was on this tour and how it has changed with the exodus of The Elite. The show is headlined by Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Rocky Romero taking on Kenny Omega and the Guerrillas of Destiny as a precursor to Okada and Omega’s fourth match later that year at Dominion. This show is available for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**We have a very limited number of tickets remaining for the POST Wrestling LIVE in Toronto special on Sunday, August 11th. Wai Ting and I will be doing a live Ask-A-Wai at the John Candy Box Theatre at Second City in downtown Toronto. The Q&A portion will take place at 1 pm followed by a meet-and-greet where you can have photos taken and hang out with the POST Wrestling crew.
**WH Park will have two new editions of Cruel Summer out this weekend on the main POST Wrestling feed. On Saturday, he will be joined by Joel Abraham of The Super J Cast to review the 2007 G1 final between Yuji Nagata and Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Sunday’s show features Alan4L stopping to review the Hirooki Goto vs. Togi Makabe final from 2008.
**The Rocky Maivia Picture Show is back Saturday with Nate Milton’s monthly look at one of Dwayne Johnson’s films. This month’s subject is Gridiron Gang and Nate welcomes Marcus Vanderberg and Mike Mills to review the film.
**Finally, Phil Chertok and I will have a UFC 240 POST Show late Saturday night on the site.
POST SCHEDULE
Saturday: G1 Climax Night 9 with John & Wai (Patreon)
Saturday: Cruel Summer “2007” with WH Park & Joel Abraham from Super J Cast (Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi)_
Saturday: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate Milton, Marcus Vanderberg & Mike Mills (Gridiron Gang)
Saturday: UFC 240 POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
Sunday: G1 Climax Night 10 with John & Wai (Patreon)
Sunday: Cruel Summer “2008” with WH Park & Alan4L (Hirooki Goto vs. Togi Makabe)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE has announced several matches and segments for Monday’s episode of Raw from Little Rock, Arkansas with the following announced for the show:
*Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler
*Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss in a non-title match
*A ‘Samoan Summit’ between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe
**The Verizon Arena in Little Rock is advertising an appearance by Brock Lesnar on Monday, as well.
**The WWE’s second-quarter earnings report was met favorably by the stock market with a big jump in WWE’s stock. For the quarter, they announced a net income of $10.4 million off revenue of $268.9 million, the latter figure is down 4.5% from Q2 of 2018. Despite several segments showing notable drops, including the WWE Network subscribers, live events, consumer products, and television viewership, it’s offset by the enormous revenue they are bringing in greatly assisted this past quarter by the Super Showdown event in Saudi Arabia.
The financial impact will only strengthen this year once the new deals with the USA Network and Fox go into effect in the fourth quarter along with another show expected in Saudi Arabia that quarter. They outlined the tentative plan for ‘a second large scale event in the MENA (the Middle East and North African) region, and the completion of a media rights deal in the MENA region.” The company did caution that they believe most deals are agreed to in principle but are nonbinding and that the worst-case scenario if they fell through, would be a $10-20 million downside in their projected Adjusted OIDBA. The company is still maintaining its forecast of record revenue of $1 billion for 2019 and a record of $200 million in Adjusted OIBDA.
The earnings call was one of the more interesting ones in some time, given Vince McMahon’s candor addressing All Elite Wrestling and outlining his categorization of the upstart group. While never saying the letters ‘AEW’, he made it clear by mentioning TNT whom he was referring to. McMahon began his answer stating that the WWE product would be edgier while maintaining a PG product and would not be going back to the ‘blood and guts’ style of programming that he used to describe AEW in several instances. McMahon stated they were a more sophisticated product and had graduated from that type of programming. He added that the didn’t think TNT would stand for the type of ‘blood and guts’, which tells you the attention he has paid to past comments as Tony Khan has specifically stated the violence on past shows isn’t going to be featured on television.
I was surprised at how hard McMahon went in on AEW and for lack of a better term “selling” their impact as a competitor out of the gate. He clearly wanted to present them as a lower rent version of themselves and indicate they were appealing to a narrow audience. Whether McMahon truly believes what he said is up for debate, his classification of the group indicates he’s been exposed to very little of their product beyond visuals of Dustin Rhodes from the match with Cody and/or Jon Moxley’s match with Joey Janela at Fyter Fest.
**Brandon Thurston, who was our guest on the Café Hangout Thursday, has an extensive breakdown at Fightful of the WWE’s earnings report and second-quarter report. Of note, is the WWE’s disclosure in the Key Performance Indicators regarding the paid attendance for this past year’s WrestleMania at MetLife Stadium. While the company announced 82,265, the paid number was closer to 63,000. Based on the KPI, you can arrive at a range of at least 60,399 and no more than 65,547 as the paid number. The show did a gate of $16.9 million, which is the second-highest in history behind WrestleMania 32 from AT&T Stadium in April 2016.
**The WWE stock closed at $75.99 on Friday following a strong increase on Thursday after the release of the second-quarter earnings report.
**The G1 Climax resumes with shows in Nagoya on Saturday and Sunday. The A Block takes place early Saturday morning at 5 am Eastern with the following card:
*Taichi, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Jeff Cobb, Ren Narita & Yota Tsuji
*Jay White, Yujiro & Chase Owens vs. Juice Robinson, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare
*Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi
*Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi vs. Jon Moxley & Shota Umino
*Kota Ibushi (2-2) vs. Lance Archer (2-2)
*Will Ospreay (1-3) vs. Bad Luck Fale (1-3)
*EVIL (2-2) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (1-3)
*Hiroshi Tanahashi (2-2) vs. Sanada (1-3)
*Kazuchika Okada (4-0) vs. KENTA (4-0)
**Sunday’s B Block show is also in Nagoya and starts early that morning at 2 am Eastern with the following card:
*Ren Narita vs. Yuya Uemura
*Kota Ibushi, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare vs. Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro & Chase Owens
*Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Yoshi-Hashi & Shota Umino vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Lance Archer, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, KENTA & Karl Fredericks vs. EVIL, Sanada & Bushi
*Hirooki Goto (1-3) vs. Toru Yano (2-2)
*Juice Robinson (3-1) vs. Tomohiro Ishii (2-2)
*Taichi (2-2) vs. Jeff Cobb (1-3)
*Jay White (1-3) vs. Shingo Takagi (2-2)
*Tetsuya Naito (2-2) vs. Jon Moxley (4-0)
**Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is holding their anniversary card entitled ‘Sixteen’ from The Globe Theatre in Los Angeles tonight. There was a late change this past week with Flip Gordon removed from the show due to injury and replaced by Andy Brown. The full card is below:
*Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. Santana & Ortiz in a Ladder match for the PWG tag titles
*David Starr vs. Brody King
*Joey Janela vs. Jungle Boy
*Bandido, Rey Horus & Flamita vs. Laredo Kid, Puma King & Black Taurus
*MJF vs. Darby Allin
*Chuckie T. & Beretta vs. Evil Uno & Stu Grayson
*Trey Miguel vs. Andy Brown
**There is no WWE house show tonight as the previously scheduled Raw event in Texarkana, Arkansas was canceled earlier this week. Raw will have a show in Oklahoma City on Saturday with Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin, Becky Lynch vs. Lacey Evans for the Raw women’s title (so much for the Extreme Rules stipulation), and AJ Styles vs. Ricochet are being advertised. The SmackDown crew has their ‘Smackville’ event in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday night.
The following matches will be streamed on the WWE Network Saturday at 9 pm Eastern
*Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Samoa Joe for the WWE title
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Finn Balor for the Intercontinental title
*A performance by Elias
**Steve Austin’s interview with Hulk Hogan for his podcast will be released next Tuesday.
**Below are the matches announced for tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 10 pm Eastern:
*Jordynne Grace vs. Kiera Hogan
*Rich Swann vs. Jake Crist for the X Division title
**Here are the matches for MLW’s Fusion episode on Saturday night at 9 pm Eastern on beIN Sports:
*Marshall & Ross Von Erich vs. Simon Gotch & Josef Samael in an Unsanctioned match
*Mance Warner vs. Bestia 666
*Low Ki vs. Ricky Martinez
**wXw has announced an interesting match for their card in Toronto on Friday, August 9th at The Met. Amale, the wXw women’s champion will be facing NXT UK women’s champion Toni Storm and NWA women’s champion Allysin Kay in a three-way match.
**The first entrants for this year’s Super J Cup tournament are SHO, TJP, and Dragon Lee. The 16-man tournaments will take place over three shows in the U.S. starting on August 22nd in Tacoma, Washington, August 24th in San Francisco, and August 25th in Long Beach, California. Jushin Thunder Liger is listed as the producer of the tournament and will be wrestling in non-tournament matches on the tour.
**One person within the company noted to us that the reason Daniel Bryan was off television this week was that he had vacation time. They do have a program scheduled for Bryan, but he was never set for television this week despite the tease on the website preview for SmackDown.
**Tegan Nox had her first match back on Thursday night at the NXT live event in Orlando, Florida. Nox suffered a devastating left knee injury during the Mae Young Classic last August in a match against Rhea Ripley. Among the injuries included a torn ACL, tears of the MCL and LCL, bone contusions, and a Segond fracture of her left tibia. She returned Thursday teaming with Jessie Kamea to defeat Aliyah and Vanessa Borne. This is the second major knee injury Nox has returned from after tearing the ACL in her left knee in 2017.
**MLW and Pro Wrestling NOAH have announced a working agreement that will begin with the upcoming N-1 Victory Tour in August. MLW will be sending a representative on the tour and the groups will exchange talent back-and-forth. NOAH added that they will continue their working agreement with Impact Wrestling, as well.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Rush will take on Dalton Castle in a No DQ match at the Summer Supercard event on Friday, August 9th at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto. This is a rematch from the G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden where Rush defeated Castle immediately with the Bull’s Horns. Earlier this week, they announced a Ladder War with The Briscoes defending the ROH tag titles against the Guerrillas of Destiny along with Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham taking on Bandido & Mark Haskins.
**Matt Riddle is being sent to the EVOLVE cards on Saturday, August 24th in Livonia, Michigan and the following night in Chicago. In Livonia, Riddle will be taking on Josh Briggs and the following night Riddle teams with Curt Stallion to challenge AR Fox and Leon Ruff for the EVOLVE tag titles. The cards will be streaming on Club WWN, including Riddle’s matches.
**Danny Cage, the owner and head trainer of The Monster Factory, has been in Florida this week as a guest coach at the WWE Performance Center.
**Tessa Blanchard turns 24 years old today. This has been a breakthrough year in her career, emerging as the top star at Impact Wrestling. She is a performer the company could build itself around and must have that in mind given her placement at Slammiversary in the main event slot.
**Rob Van Dam discusses the political nature of WWE and trying to ascend the ladder among talent.
MMA NEWS
**The weigh-ins for UFC 240 took place earlier today with an extra fighter on hand as a backup. Featherweight Alexander Volkanovski was brought to Edmonton and weighed in as a backup in case of any issues involving the main event participants. However, both champion Max Holloway and challenger Frankie Edgar made weight and Volkanovski will not be needed. Here is the full card and results from Friday’s weigh-in:
MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*Max Holloway (145) vs. Frankie Edgar (145) for the UFC featherweight title
*Cris “Cyborg” Justino (146) vs. Felicia Spencer (145)
*Niko Price (169) vs. Geoff Neal (170.5)
*Olivier Aubin-Mercier (155.5) vs. Arman Tsarukyan (155)
*Marc-Andre Barriault (184.5) vs. Krzysztof Jotko (185.5)
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm on ESPN, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Alexis Davis (125) vs. Viviane Araujo (125)
*Hakeem Dawodu (146) vs. Yoshinori Horie (145.5)
*Gavin Tucker (145) vs. Seungwoo Choi (145)
*Deiveson Figueiredo (126) vs. Alexandre Pantoja (125.5)
FIGHT PASS CARD (7 pm)
*Gillian Robertson (125) vs. Sarah Frota (125)
*Erik Koch (170.5) vs. Kyle Stewart (170.5)
On paper, it isn’t a card that jumps off the page for a pay-per-view level card. The main event will be a strong fight and represents a big opportunity for Frankie Edgar as it’s hard to imagine him having any more opportunities at winning a championship. Holloway took the gamble of moving up in weight for his last fight in a losing effort to Dustin Poirier where size was an issue. Ultimately, I see Holloway returning to lightweight and I feel in time he will grow into the weight and could thrive there, as well. Holloway should be heavily favored in this fight, although it will be a test as Edgar’s conditioning is superb. Once Holloway has his rhythm and the fight gets going, he does not slow down and it becomes a nonstop pace that Edgar will be dealing with.
Cyborg is a big favorite against Spencer and for good reason. Justino had not lost a fight since May 2005 prior to the Amanda Nunes loss in December. This is the last fight on Justino’s UFC deal where a win will put a lot of pressure on the UFC to get a deal done and they obviously want her to rematch Nunes next. In the new era of ESPN+, the UFC is not beholden to any fighter as they are in a tremendous point of leverage with fighters because of the guaranteed money they have negotiated. It’s a difficult fight to imagine Spencer prevailing in, although she is undefeated and looked good in submitting Megan Anderson in her promotional debut, there is an obvious gap with one of the top female fighters of all-time.
**The PFL held their latest card of the season on Thursday night in Atlantic City, New Jersey with the following results:
*Chris Wade def. Akmed Aliev by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Lance Palmer def. Luis Laurentino by TKO at 2:45 of Round 3
*Nathan Andrews def. Rashid Magomedov by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Alex Gilpin def. Freddy Assuncao by guillotine at 2:08 of Round 1
*Jeremy Kennedy def. Steven Siler by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Natan Schulte def. Jesse Ronson by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Andre Harrison vs. Movlid Khaibulaev ended in a majority draw (29-28, 28-28, 28-28)
*Islam Mamedov def. Bao Yincang by TKO at 3:32 of Round 1
*Alexandre Almeida def. Peter Petties by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Loik Radzhabov def. Ylies Djiroun by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)
**Below is the latest edition of UFC Embedded for this weekend’s card:
G1 REVIEWS
Night 1: https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/g1-climax-29-post-show-opening-night-okada-vs-tanahashi-free-preview/ (Tanahashi vs. Okada) – FREE SHOW
Night 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28351982 (White vs. Goto)
Night 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28374580 (Tanahashi vs. KENTA)
Night 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28403937 (Naito vs. Taichi)
Night 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28475091 (Ospreay vs. Ibushi)
Night 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28495477 (Moxley vs. Ishii)
Night 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28520429 (Okada vs. Ospreay)
Night 8: https://www.patreon.com/posts/free-g1-climax-28631911 (Naito vs. Ishii)
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT feat. Brandon Thurston, WWE Q2 Earnings Report
On this week’s Café Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss highlights of Thursday’s WWE’s Q2 2019 Earnings Report. Brandon Howard Thurston (Wrestlenomics) joins us for an in-depth discussion about the results.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/26/wwe-q2-2019-earnings-report-w-brandon-thurston-cafe-hangout/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #41: NJPW Fallout Down Under 2018 (Night 2)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NJPW Fallout Down Under 2018 (Night 2) featuring Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii ＆ Rocky Romero vs. Kenny Omega & The Guerrillas of Destiny from the legendary Festival Hall in Melbourne, Australia.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/25/rewind-a-wai-41-njpw-fallout-down-under-2018-night-2/
*****
upNXT 7/25/19: The Dream is Dunne
The BDE chat all about the July 24th Edition of WWE NXT including Keith Lee vs. Damian Priest, Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano pick their stipulations for TakeOver Toronto and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/25/upnxt-7-25-19-the-dream-is-dunne/
*****
BWE 7/24/19: FCP Project Whitewold, Progress 92, OTT, Fighting Spirit Magazine
Martin and Benno talk Fight Club: PRO’s Project Whitewolf (A-Kid vs. Pete Dunne), Progress Chapter 92 (Jordan Devlin vs. Ilja Dragunov), OTT Contenders 15 (Callum Black vs. Jordan Devlin) and Zack Sabre Jr. & Will Ospreay in this year’s NJPW G1 Climax.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/24/bwe-7-24-19-fcp-project-whitewolf-progress-92-ott-fighting-spirit-magazine-ends/
*****
RASD 7/23/19: SummerSlam Update, Raw Reunion Viewership
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown as Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton and Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahaon are both made official for SummerSlam.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/24/rasd-7-23-19-summerslam-update-raw-reunion-viewership/
*****
RAR 7/22/19: Raw Reunion
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring the Raw Reunion and the return of Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, DX, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and countless others.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/23/rar-7-22-19-raw-reunion/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Satoshi Kojima vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan (2006)
WH Park is joined by a legendary figure in the Toronto wrestling broadcasting scene, Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski. They review the finals of NJPW’s G1 Climax from August 13, 2006: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Satoshi Kojima.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/21/cruel-summer-16-hiroyoshi-tenzan-vs-satoshi-kojima-2006-w-dan-lovranski/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Masahiro Chono vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (2005)
WH Park is joined by independent Australian wrestler and wrestling trainer, Davis Storm to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 15th annual G1 Climax tournament: Masahiro Chono vs. Kazuyuki Fujita from August 14, 2005
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/20/cruel-summer-15-masahiro-chono-vs-kazuyuki-fujita-2005-w-davis-storm/
*****
Browse the new POST Wrestling Store
https://store.postwrestling.com
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum
https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café
http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling
