POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will have a G1 Climax show up before SmackDown airs tonight with a review of Tuesday’s A Block show from Takamatsu. We will also be back late tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown to chat the show from Memphis and today’s news.
**Monday’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is up and available to download. I know a lot of people have experienced slower download times over the last few weeks and we have addressed those issues. The problem was that the number of downloads has grown to such a degree with the addition of other shows to the main feed that it slowed down the feed as a whole. Wai Ting has worked tirelessly to fix these issues and they appear to be corrected. On Monday’s show, we have a complete review of Raw as well as a clip from the Becky Lynch media call on Monday where Wai spoke with her, as well as a run-through of all the day’s news and taking your feedback.
**Becky Lynch participated in a conference call with international media members on Monday to promote SummerSlam. POST Wrestling was invited onto the call and we have posted the full audio for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**Rich Kraetsch from the Voices of Wrestling site will be joining us live at 3 pm Eastern this Thursday on the Café Hangout to chat the latest news going on, the G1 Climax, and other subjects. You can listen live and call in if you’re a Double Double, Iced Capp, or Espresso member of the Café.
POST SCHEDULE
*Today: G1 Climax – Night 11 (Patreon)
*Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: ASK-A-WAI (Patreon)
*Thursday: G1 Climax – Night 12 (Patreon)
*Thursday: Café Hangout with guest Rich Kraetsch from Voices of Wrestling (LIVE at 3 pm Eastern)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Saturday: G1 Climax – Night 13 (Patreon)
*Saturday: Cruel Summer with WH Park & guest Mike Murray (Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Togi Makabe, G1 Climax 2009)
*Sunday: G1 Climax – Night 14 (Patreon)
*Sunday: Cruel Summer with WH Park & STRIGGA (Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Satoshi Kojima, G1 Climax 2010)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live takes place from the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee and is being promoted around Trish Stratus appearing on The King’s Court with Jerry Lawler and likely shooting her angle for SummerSlam. We reported last week that the plan is for Stratus to face Charlotte Flair at the pay-per-view in Toronto with Flair teasing a match with someone from the past on last week’s episode. Here are the matches announced for SmackDown and 205 Live tonight:
*Finn Balor vs. Dolph Ziggler
*The IIconics vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville in a non-title match (they have not listed the match in the advertising today)
*Kofi Kingston, Big E. & Xavier Woods vs. AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson (they had originally announced Big E. & Xavier Woods vs. Drew McIntyre & Elias but then announced the six-man tag on Tuesday)
*Drake Maverick vs. Mike Kanellis in an Unsanctioned match on 205 Live
*The Singhs vs. Brian Kendrick & Akira Tozawa on 205 Live
**Ryan Satin at Pro Wrestling Sheet reported that Vince McMahon called for a re-write of Smackdown on Tuesday and led to some of the changes listed above. In speaking with one person, I was told that with the rosters intermingling with the wild card that it’s common for changes to take place on SmackDown to follow up on things from the night before.
**WWE is advertising a 6 pm Eastern start time for the SummerSlam kickoff show on Sunday, August 11th. This would mean the kickoff show will be one hour as opposed to the usual two for a big four event. It would also indicate fewer matches unless they plan to have the show run later than usual. I think this is a smart move as the big four events have become marathons to get through and the kickoff show being cut in half is a sign that ease of viewing is a priority compared to the “number of hours consumed”. The main portion of SummerSlam is still listed for a 7 pm start.
**AEW has revealed that the first match on TNT will feature Cody taking on Sammy Guevara. The debut show will air Wednesday, October 2nd at 8 pm Eastern from the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. with tickets going on sale this Friday for the show.
**The G1 Climax continued Tuesday in Takamatsu with several eliminations in the A Block. Kazuchika Okada defeated Lance Archer in a bit of a surprise because the win eliminated Will Ospreay and Archer as they joined Sanada, Bad Luck Fale, and Zack Sabre Jr. who are all out of the tournament. On top of that, Okada’s match against Sanada this Saturday in Osaka won’t have any impact on Sanada’s tournament other than the story of trying to get the first win over Okada in this year’s G1. They are going with the story of two dominant leaders in the blocks with Okada at 6-0 and twelve points while Jon Moxley is on top of the B Block at 5-0 with ten points.
In the A Block, Okada leads the block followed by KENTA, Kota Ibushi and Hiroshi Tanahashi with eight points each and EVIL has six. EVIL is technically alive but would have to win his final three matches against Okada, Ospreay, and Archer and Okada would have to lose his final three matches. The block seems to be building towards the final weekend with Okada, Ibushi, and Tanahashi as the three top guys and probably comes down to Okada vs. Ibushi on August 9th on the first Budokan Hall show, which is the A Block final. As with each G1, it’s best to assess the storytelling after the tournament is over rather than question certain match results in the middle because it’s laying the groundwork for a bigger story to culminate over the final three nights.
**They are off Wednesday and return on Thursday with a B Block show from Fukuoka and the following card streaming at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World:
*KENTA, Karl Fredericks & Clark Connors vs. Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro & Chase Owens
*Lance Archer & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Minoru Suzuki
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shota Umino & Ren Narita vs. Kota Ibushi, Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma
*Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Sanada, Bushi & EVIL
*Shingo Takagi (2-3) vs. Jeff Cobb (2-3)
*Jon Moxley (5-0) vs. Toru Yano (2-3)
*Tetsuya Naito (2-3) vs. Juice Robinson (3-2)
*Jay White (2-3) vs. Taichi (2-3)
*Tomohiro Ishii (3-2) vs. Hirooki Goto (2-3)
**If Jon Moxley beats Toru Yano, that would eliminate Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito, Jeff Cobb, and Yano.
**WWE Studios and Netflix have announced a comedy sitcom series starring Paul Wight a.k.a. Big Show. The series, entitled ‘The Big Show Show’ will begin filming next week in Los Angeles with 10 half-hour episodes scheduled for the first season. The premise reads, “When the teenage daughter of Big Show, a retired world-famous WWE Superstar, comes to live with him, his wife, and two other daughters, he quickly becomes outnumbered and outsmarted. Despite being 7 feet tall and weighing 400 pounds, he is no longer the center of attention”. The series will be overseen by executive producers and showrunners Josh Bycel and Jason Berger with Susan Levison and Richard Lowell representing WWE Studios as executive producers on the series.
**Ring of Honor has made changes to their September shows in Dearborn on September 6th, Villa Park on September 7th, and Milwaukee on September 8th and will now be promoted as ‘Global Wars’ with CMLL talent added. They have announced that Volador Jr., Stuka Jr., Triton, Barbaro Cavernario, Hechicero, Rey Bucanero, and Okumura will be on all three shows withy Caristico scheduled for Villa Park and Milwaukee.
**Impact Wrestling has signed Tenille Dashwood (a.k.a. Emma in WWE) following her run with Ring of Honor that was marred by a shoulder injury that required surgery. The 30-year old was first signed by WWE in 2011 where she came up through FCW and later NXT. She appeared on the first live special on the WWE Network had a great match with Paige in February 2014 that placed a big spotlight on the NXT women’s division. She was called up to the main roster in 2014 and never clicked with comedy roles and various characters ideas they had for her. She was released in October 2017 and joined Ring of Honor the following year to coincide with ROH promoting a women’s division. The injury took her away from performing and left ROH.
**Impact Wrestling is returning to Fronton Mexico in Mexico City for television tapings on Monday, August 15th and Tuesday, August 16th. Tenille Dashwood is featured on the advertising for the tapings along with Rob Van Dam, LAX, Taya Valkyrie, Tessa Blanchard, Michael Elgin, Brian Cage, TJP, and Rhino.
**Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson won the Raw tag titles on Monday during the three-way match defeating The Revival and The Usos. It is the second time Gallows and Anderson have been Raw tag champions with their first reign in 2017 that ended when they lost them at WrestleMania 33 in a multi-team match involving The Hardys, Enzo & Big Cass, and Sheamus & Cesaro.
**PWG has announced that Jungle Boy is the latest entrant into the Battle of Los Angeles tournament in September. He joins A-Kid, Jonathan Gresham, Artemis Spencer, Darby Allin, Mick Moretti, Orange Cassidy, Bandido, Caveman Ugg, Jake Atlas, Tony Deppen, Rey Fenix, Lucky Kid, Joey Janela, Brody King, Barbaro Cavernario, and Trey Miguel. The tournament begins on Thursday, September 19th at The Globe Theatre in Los Angeles and continues September 20th and 22nd.
**MLW has announced a return to the Melrose Ballroom in New York on Thursday, December 5th and will be holding a tournament for the Opera Cup. In their release, they explained that the trophy was an attraction that was handed out throughout the first half of the 1900s in an annual tournament across cities in the Northeast U.S. The final recipient of the Opera Cup was Stu Hart in 1948 and when he passed away, the trophy was left for Teddy Hart, who has donated it to MLW and will be the basis of their tournament in December. Tickets for this event go on sale next Monday and they are advertising Teddy Hart, Jacob Fatu, The Dynasty, L.A. Park, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Tom Lawlor, Alex Hammerstone, The Von Erichs, Low Ki, Mance Warner, Zenshi, Brian Pillman Jr., El Hijo de L.A. Park, and The Spirit Squad for the December date.
MMA NEWS
**Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series takes place at 8 pm Eastern tonight from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas with the following fights scheduled:
*Aleksa Camur (204) vs. Fabio Cherant (205)
*Aalon Cruz (146) vs. Steven Nguyen (146)
*Tracy Cortez (126) vs. Mariya Agapova (125)
*Rico Farrington (171) vs. Daniel Rodriguez (171)
*Rodrigo Nascimento (257) vs. Michal Martinek (239.5)
**The UFC 240 preliminary card averaged 722,000 viewers on ESPN leading into the pay-per-view. The featured prelim bout featured Viviane Araujo defeating Alexis Davis by unanimous decision. The number for the prelims was down 37% from the UFC 239 prelims earlier this month, which led into the pay-per-view headlined by Jon Jones and Thiago Santos. Prior to UFC 240, this year’s pay-per-view preliminary cards had been averaging 1,226,000 viewers, so this was a big drop from the average.
**Over the weekend, UFC president Dana White stated that former lightweight and welterweight champion BJ Penn will be granted one more fight with the organization and then that’s it. Penn, who has lost his last seven fights and was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2015, allegedly wouldn’t relent in sending text messages to White, who finally gave in and granted Penn another fight on the condition it would be his last one in the promotion. It’s a sad story for Penn, who has been unable to move on from fighting even though it’s clear that fighting has passed him and it’s no longer benefiting anyone to have him fight. For the UFC, the draw of seeing Penn fight has long since past and for Penn, it’s putting off the inevitable and finding life after fighting and simply delaying it by one more fight camp. Based on the last few years, it would not shock anybody for Penn to go fight elsewhere when the UFC door shuts and when you occupy a name within the sport, there will always be promoters willing to take that gamble.
Penn is set to fight Nik Lentz on a future card with Lentz coming off a TKO loss to Charles Oliveira this past May following victories over Gray Maynard and Scott Holtzman over the past year.
A restraining order was granted to one of Penn’s former girlfriends this past February after she accused the fighter of physical and sexual abuse. Last month, a video surfaced where Penn was allegedly involved in an altercation with a bouncer outside a strip club and rolling on the ground with TMZ reporting that Penn had been removed from the club after he was acting “very drunk.” The case was not pursued and Penn was not arrested over the incident in June.
**ONE Championship has a card this Friday morning in the Philippines with the main card streaming at 8:30 am Eastern on B/R Live. The card is headlined by Martin Nguyen defending the ONE featherweight title against Koyomi Matsushima. The bigger fights involve Eddie Alvarez who is fighting Eduard Folayang in the semi-finals of the lightweight tournament and Demetrious Johnson facing Tatsumitsu Wada in the semi-finals of the flyweight Grand Prix. In the other flyweight semi-final fight, Danny Kingad will be fighting Reece McLaren.
G1 CLIMAX 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)
Night 9: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28693414 (Okada vs. KENTA)
Night 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28714838 (Moxley vs. Naito)
*****
RAR 7/29/19: The Massacre of Seth Rollins, Becky talks TV romance
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring The Massacre of Seth Rollins by Brock Lesnar. Wai speaks with Becky Lynch translating her real-life romance to TV.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/30/rar-7-29-19-the-massacre-of-seth-rollins-becky-talks-tv-romance/
*****
Becky Lynch SummerSlam Conference Call (Full Audio)
WWE Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch speaks to members of the media in this conference call ahead of SummerSlam 2019.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/28745967
*****
CRUEL SUMMER #18: Togi Makabe vs. Hirooki Goto (2008)
WH Park and Alan4L of PWTorch’s ProWres Paradise come together to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 2008 G1 Climax tournament: Togi Makabe vs. Hirooki Goto from August 17 of that year.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/28/cruel-summer-18-togi-makabe-vs-hirooki-goto-2008-w-alan4l/
*****
UFC 240 POST SHOW
John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok for the UFC 240 POST Show as they review Saturday night’s card from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/28/ufc-240-post-show-max-holloway-vs-frankie-edgar/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER #17: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Yuji Nagata (2007)
WH Park is joined by Joel Abraham of the Super J-Cast (which you can find at Voices of Wrestling) to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 17th G1 Climax tournament: Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi from August 12, 2007.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/27/cruel-summer-17-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-yuji-nagata-2007-w-joel-abraham/
*****
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/
*****
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