POST IT NOTES
**Phil Chertok and I will have a UFC 241 POST Show up late tonight with a rundown of tonight’s card from Anaheim, California featuring Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic and Anthony Pettis vs. Nate Diaz.
**The latest edition of Cruel Summer is out on the site with WH Park being joined by Rich Kraetsch of Voice of Wrestling to review the G1 Climax 2013 final between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito. This was the first year that a worldwide audience could follow the G1 due to its agreement with Ustream to carry the tournament prior to the advent of New Japan World in late 2014.
**On Sunday’s Cruel Summer, WH welcomes back Joey Bay to review the 2014 final between Kazuchika Okada and Shinsuke Nakamura from the Seibu Dome.
WRESTLING NEWS
**ESPN’s Marc Raimondi is reporting that UFC heavyweight Cain Velasquez will be wrestling at the two AAA events in the United States in September and October. Velasquez, who made his pro wrestling debut at TripleMania XXVII this past month, is scheduled for the September 15th event at the Hulu Theatre in New York City and October 13th card at The Forum in Inglewood, California. In Raimondi’s report, he states that Velasquez and his team did have talks with WWE, which fell through. The wrestling bug bit Velasquez after attending the Elimination Chamber event in February 2018 and going to the extent that he received an exemption for professional wrestling written into his latest UFC contract. At TripleMania, he teamed with Cody and Psycho Clown against Black Taurus, Texanor Jr. & Killer Kross with Velasquez submitting Texano with a kimura. It was heavily teased that Velasquez and Kross would have a future match after the finish.
**Obviously, one of the big stories we are monitoring concerns NXT and if it finds a television home on Wednesday nights this fall. Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported that the USA Network is in the picture and could be a destination for NXT on Wednesday nights from 8-10 pm Eastern against AEW on TNT. It is not a done deal, but we had heard this week that the USA Network had been brought up as a possibility. NXT just taped four-weeks of television this past Thursday and are scheduled for tapings on Wednesday, September 11th and Thursday, September 12th. If it going to television before AEW debuts on TNT, I would expect an announcement imminently.
**The WWE has two shows tonight with a dual-brand event at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas and another live event in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The Houston card is advertising Roman Reigns, Kofi Kingston, Charlotte Flair, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, Samoa Joe, Aleister Black, and more. The Grand Forks event will feature Seth Rollins, Baron Corbin, and Ricochet. WWE is advertising Joe on both shows. On Sunday, the Raw crew is in Fargo, North Dakota and the SmackDown crew are in Omaha, Nebraska.
**Monday’s episode of Raw takes place from St. Paul, Minnesota with the start of the King of the Ring tournament and AJ Styles vs. Braun Strowman for the United States title advertised. The SmackDown and 205 Live tapings are Tuesday night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
**Tuesday’s edition of 205 Live will feature a 5-on-5 Captain’s Challenge match. The captains are Drew Gulak and Oney Lorcan with the two assembling teams. So far, they have announced Gulak, Mike Kanellis, Ariya Daivari, Angel Garza & TBA against Lorcan, Jack Gallagher, Akira Tozawa, Humberto Carrillo & TBA.
**A tag match involving WWE-contracted talent will be featured at Progress Wrestling’s Chapter 95 card on Sunday, September 15th at Alexandra Palace. Matt Riddle & Keith Lee will be sent over from NXT to take on Tyler Bate & Trent Seven, which they are billing as an NXT vs. NXT UK showdown. The card will also feature WALTER defending the Progress Unified title against David Starr and Meiko Satormura will challenge for the Progress women’s title.
**C*4 Wrestling held their ‘Fighting Back 9’ fundraising show on Friday night in Ottawa, Ontario where all the proceeds from the event were being donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. The show featured Cody & MJF vs. TDT and they shot an angle after the match with Shawn Spears making a surprise appearance and attacking Cody. They teased another chair shot but didn’t do it and all the babyfaces ganged up and attacked Spears.
**Dr. Britt Baker posted an update that she has been cleared to return after suffering a concussion at the Fight for the Fallen show last month in Jacksonville, Florida. Baker teamed with Riho on a match against Bea Priestley and Shoko Nakajima where she suffered the injury and was clearly hurt and unaware of her surroundings. In her tweet, she indicated she will be part of the women’s Casino Battle Royale match on August 31st at “All Out”.
**WOW (Women of Wrestling) have announced the signing of Teal Piper, the daughter of Roddy Piper (Roderick Toombs). Teal is scheduled to work the September 18th and 19th WOW tapings in Los Angeles at the Belasco Theatre. Her signing with WOW comes after the news that she will participate in the Casino Battle Royale match at “All Out” on Saturday, August 31st for All Elite Wrestling.
**Tonight’s episode of MLW Fusion will feature a New York City Street Fight between L.A. Park and Jimmy Havoc at 9 pm Eastern on beIN Sports.
**AXS TV will be airing the five matches from the B Block final on tonight’s episode of New Japan Pro Wrestling at 9 pm Eastern. The matches they will be airing from Budokan Hall are Jeff Cobb vs. Toru Yano, Tomohiro Ishii vs. Taichi, Shingo Takagi vs. Hirooki Goto, Jon Moxley vs. Juice Robinson, and Jay White vs. Tetsuya Naito.
**Smash Wrestling is holding their next television taping on Saturday, August 24th from the London Music Hall in London, Ontario at 5 pm. Gail Kim will be making an appearance and they are also advertising Sebastian Suave & Brent Banks vs. Jordan James & Alec Realm, Psycho Mike vs. Joe Coleman, Idris Abraham vs. Vaughn Vertigo, Tyson Dux vs. Carter Mason, and Tyler Tirva vs. Jim Stryder, and Kevin Bennett defending the Smash title against Tarik. Suave, Mason, and Abraham have all recently done enhancement work on Raw.
**If you missed this from earlier in the week, Brandi Rhodes hit it out of the park with another home-run promo on the latest Road to All Out episode:
MMA NEWS
**The UFC 241 card takes place tonight from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and is the biggest card the promotion has had in 2019. The top two fights have a high level of interest with a ton of attention on Nate Diaz’s first fight since August 2016.
If this becomes Daniel Cormier’s last fight, it will be a historic event for that alone. Cormier has repeatedly said he’s unsure of his future and indicated in an interview with Brett Okamoto at ESPN that if he was to retire, he’s unlikely to announce it in the cage before speaking with his family.
In terms of his standing within the division, Anthony Pettis could leapfrog many contenders with a win over Nate Diaz tonight. Diaz is not ranked because of his inactivity and Pettis has yet to fight the top contenders of the division but wins over Stephen Thompson and Diaz will catapult his standing.
I’m also curious how Yoel Romero looks tonight, he’s 42 years old and hasn’t fought in 14 months with two wars against Robert Whittaker over the past two years. In between those middleweight title fights, he had the impressive knockout win over Luke Rockhold while Paulo Costa can greatly improve his placement within the division with a win tonight. It’s a very fun card on paper and the top fights are very hard to predict.
MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*Daniel Cormier (236.5) vs. Stipe Miocic (230.5) for the UFC heavyweight title
*Nate Diaz (170) vs. Anthony Pettis (169.5)
*Yoel Romero (184.5) vs. Paulo Costa (186)
*Gabriel Benitez (146) vs. Sodiq Yusuff (145)
*Derek Brunson (186) vs. Ian Heinisch (185.5)
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm Eastern on ESPN, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Devonte Smith (156) vs. Khama Worthy (155.5)
*Raphael Assuncao (136) vs. Cory Sandhagen (136)
*Drakkar Klose (155.5) vs. Christos Giagos (155)
*Manny Bermudez (140) vs. Casey Kenney (139) – Catchweight bout
FIGHT PASS CARD (6:15 pm)
*Hannah Cifers (114.5) vs. Jodie Esquibel (116)
*Kyung Ho Kang (136) vs. Brandon Davis (136)
*Shana Dobson (124.5) vs. Sabina Mazo (126)
**In an interview with Aaron Bronsteter of TSN, UFC president Dana White said that over 30,000 tickets have been sold for the UFC 243 card at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia. The event will be headlined by Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya for the UFC middleweight title on October 6th.
**During Friday’s CFFC 77 card in Atlantic City, New Jersey, there was an incident involving someone at cage side and commentator CM Punk (Phil Brooks). In the video of the incident, it appears that a fan comes up to Punk and gets too close with Punk removing his headset and swearing at the person. Security got between them while play-by-play commentator John Morgan addressed the issue prior to a cutaway to a backstage interview.
**On Sunday night’s episode of Celebrity Family Feud, The Bella Twins will be taking on the MMA contingent of Ryan Bader, Ilimia-Lei Macfarlane, Tyron Woodley, Chuck Liddell, and Randy Couture at 8 pm Eastern on ABC.
**Here is the final episode of UFC Embedded going into tonight’s show:
*****
CRUEL SUMMER #23: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito (2013)
WH Park is joined by Rich Kraetsch of the Voices of Wrestling flagship podcast and website to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 23rd G1 Climax tournament: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi from August 11, 2013.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/17/cruel-summer-23-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-tetsuya-naito-2013-w-rich-kraetsch/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #42: UFC 189
John Pollock & Wai Ting review UFC 189 feat. Conor McGregor vs. Chad Mendes and Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald from July 2015.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/29199717
*****
upNXT 8/15/19: HangOver VII – Toronto TailGate
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back with another HangOver edition of upNXT discussing all the fallout from NXT TakeOver: Toronto and the pre-tapings from the Scotiabank Arena.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/15/upnxt-8-15-19-hangover-vii-toronto-tailgate/
*****
POST Interview: WWE referee Darryl Sharma
John Pollock speaks with WWE referee Darryl Sharma about a tribute concert he is promoting tonight, coming up through Ontario, joining WWE in 2016, SummerSlam week & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/15/post-interview-wwe-referee-darryl-sharma/
*****
POST Wrestling LIVE in Toronto Q&A [PATREON]
John Pollock and Wai Ting host a very special live Q&A from a sold-out John Candy Box Theatre in Toronto just hours before SummerSlam on August 11th, 2019.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/14/post-wrestling-live-in-toronto-qa/
*****
RASD 8/13/19: Lyin’ Bryan and The Case of the Libel Lock
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown as Roman Reigns took on Buddy Murphy in the continuing search for his attacker.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/14/rasd-8-13-19-lyin-bryan-and-the-case-of-the-libel-lock/
*****
RAR 8/12/19: The Sasha Banks Arena
John Pollock & Wai Ting provide a condensed review of Raw from Toronto featuring the return of Sasha Banks, a new 24/7 champion, Steve Austin on Skype & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/13/rar-8-12-19-the-sasha-banks-arena/
*****
G1 CLIMAX 29 FINAL POST SHOW
After 19 shows, John Pollock & Wai Ting review NJPW’s G1 Climax 29 Final featuring Kota Ibushi vs. Jay White. Plus, a new Bullet Club member is revealed and a wrestler makes a shocking return.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/12/g1-climax-29-final-post-show/
*****
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