POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw following the show in New Orleans, Louisiana. We will have lots of news coming out of the weekend and a look ahead to a packed weekend of shows. Plus, your feedback and questions will be taken at the end of the show.
**Davie Portman was joined by Jason Solomon of the Solomonster Sounds Off podcast to review EVOLVE 134 on Sunday night. They have a complete review of the show from Chicago, which included a WWE Cruiserweight title match between Drew Gulak and KUSHIDA.
**On Wednesday, Wai Ting and I will continue our review of the latest season of GLOW discussing episode three and four. This show will be out Wednesday night for members of the POST Wrestling Cafe.
POST SCHEDULE
*Monday: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: The Double Shot (Patreon)
*Thursday: Cafe Hangout with John & Wai (3 pm ET, LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #43 – Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow 2019 (Patreon)
*Saturday: AEW All Out POST Show with John & Wai (LIVE for Dbl Dbl+ Patrons)
*Saturday: Cruel Summer “G1 Climax 2017” with WH Park & Joel Abraham (Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito)
*Sunday: NJPW Royal Quest & NXT UK TakeOver POST Show with Martin Bushby & Jamesie
*Sunday: Cruel Summer “G1 Climax 2018” with WH Park & John Pollock (Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have announced the following matches for the show:
*Ricochet vs. Drew McIntyre in the King of the Ring tournament
*The Miz vs. Baron Corbin in the King of the Ring tournament
*Bayley vs. Nikki Cross in a non-title match
*Sasha Banks vs. Natalya
**Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch are not advertised for tonight’s show. We were told that they did shoot some footage involving Rollins and Braun Strowman that should air on tonight’s episode.
**WWE and E! announced that Total Divas will return on Wednesday, October 2nd at 10 pm Eastern. The next season features the addition of Ronda Rousey and Sonya Deville to the cast. The will join Natalya, Nia Jax, Naomi, and Carmella along with guest appearances by The Bella Twins. The series returns on the same night that AEW debuts on TNT and will immediately follow NXT on the USA Network that runs from 8-10 pm Eastern. The last season of Total Divas aired from September through November 2018 with the ten-episode season averaging 391,700 viewers in its timeslot.
**Steve Austin is being advertised for the September 9th episode of Raw from Madison Square Garden, which is the first time WWE has taped television from the venue since 2009. The company will run on back-to-back nights at The Garden with SmackDown on Tuesday, September 10th. The Undertaker is being advertised for the second night. Austin’s show, “Straight Up Steve Austin” airs immediately after Raw on the USA Network.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw is the final Monday of the year without football competition. Next week, there is a college game between Notre Dame and Louisville with Monday Night Football returning on September 9th and a doubleheader against Raw. (Thanks to Eric Lauzin)
**On Monday’s episode of Being the Elite, they revealed the next location for the television series. They will head to the Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday, November 6th with tickets going on sale Friday, September 6th. The advertisement features Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, MJF, and Dr. Britt Baker.
**A six-man tag has been added to this Saturday’s AEW All Out event as Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky will face Jungle Boy, Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt.
**AEW has confirmed that Tony Schiavone has signed a multi-year with the promotion. The press release states that Schiavone will join the broadcast team with Jim Ross and Excalibur, as well as serve as senior producer of AEW events. Schiavone will continue to work with MLW, who he has a deal with, as well as his existing duties with the University of Georgia football and baseball networks, and calling play-by-play for the Gwinnett Stripers.
**Tetsuya Naito will defend the IWGP Intercontinental title against Jay White at the Destruction in Kobe card on September 22nd. White defeated Naito in the B Block of this summer’s G1 Climax.
**Due to the MRSA infection of Jon Moxley’s elbow, he is off the Bloodsport card on September 14th. Moxley was scheduled to face Josh Barnett on the card. Moxley announced the news over the weekend, which removes him from All Out this Saturday where he was set to face Kenny Omega in the featured match on the show.
**Kenny Omega is set to return to DDT for their Ultimate Party show in November. Omega will team with Riho to take on Antonio Honda and Miyu Yamashita on November 3rd at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. The show takes place the same day that New Japan will be running Edion Arena with Power Struggle that day in Osaka. The Japanese outfit is where Omega received his largest break on the international level, starting with DDT in 2008 and wrestling with the promotion until late 2013 when he went to New Japan full time. Omega’s deal with All Elite Wrestling includes certain provisions regarding outside promotions he can work for, and that includes New Japan Pro Wrestling.
**This Saturday, Fite TV will be streaming the New Japan Royal Quest card at 12:30 pm Eastern. The NXT UK TakeOver show begins at 2 pm Eastern (with a pre-show at 1:30 pm). AEW’s All Out will begin at 7 pm Eastern with the free Buy-In pre-show and the pay-per-view starts at 8 pm. That same day, CM Punk is doing his Starrcast show, which streams at 1 pm Eastern on Fite TV.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling is bringing back the Young Lion Cup with talent from New Japan’s Japanese and Los Angeles Dojos, as well as one participant from the Fale Dojo in New Zealand. The eight-man round-robin tournament will feature Shota Umino, Ren Narita, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura, Clark Connors, Karl Fredericks, Alex Coughlin, and Michael Richards. The matches will be spread out among the Road to Destruction cards with a 15-minute time limit to the matches and finish on September 22nd at the Destruction in Kobe card. The Young Lion Cup began in 1985 and was won by Shunji Kosugi and past winners include Jushin Thunder Liger, Masahiro Chono, Satoshi Kojima, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Hirooki Goto. The last Young Lion Cup was in 2017 and won by Katsuya Kitamura.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling will be holding a card on September 8th to commemorate Yuji Nagata’s 35 years in the industry. Blue Justice 9 will stream that day on New Japan World with Nagata teaming with Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Manabu Nakanishi, and Jushin Thunder Liger against Bad Luck Fale, the Guerrillas of Destiny, Yujiro, and Jado. The show will also feature matches in the Young Lion Cup that takes place throughout September.
**The Fight Network has released a new episode of Diary focusing on Rhino’s return to Impact Wrestling in July. The 26-minute feature follows the wrestler around backstage and features additional comments from Scott D’Amore, Tommy Dreamer, Sami Callihan, Eddie Edwards, D-Lo Brown, Gail Kim, and others regarding his return. These features that they put together are well produced and as good as their counterparts that WWE produces on the network with a less glossy feel to them. In the piece, Rhino reiterates that he turned down more than double his salary at WWE because he wanted to stay on the road and not be on the sidelines for his remaining years in the business.
**Peyton Royce (Cassie McIntosh) and Shawn Spears (Ron Arneill) were married over the weekend.
**The National Wrestling Alliance has released further information for their forthcoming tapings on September 30th and October 1st. Joe Galli will serve as the lead voice of the promotion. Nick Aldis, James Storm, Allysin Kay, and Eli Drake are scheduled for the tapings. They put out a video announcing they will tape their shows at the GBP (Georgia Public Broadcasting) Studios in Atlanta with 100 VIP packages available for each taping beginning September 3rd.
**Ken Shamrock is scheduled to appear at the Impact Wrestling tapings at Sam’s Town Casino in Las Vegas next week. Impact is taping television from the venue on Thursday, September 5th and Friday, September 6th. They have put out a video with Moose challenging Shamrock. In 2002, when NWA TNA launched, Shamrock became the first NWA champion under the TNA umbrella and worked with the company in its infancy. For whatever reason, Shamrock is one of the few stars from the Attitude Era that has never been invited back when the WWE does its nostalgia shows or been a name that comes up for the Hall of Fame. Shamrock left the World Wrestling Federation in late 1999 to return to MMA and fought for PRIDE prior to his UFC return where he did big business with Tito Ortiz in 2002 and again in 2006.
**MLW has added a match between Timothy Thatcher and Douglas James to the War Chamber tapings on September 7th in North Richland Hills, Texas.
**A new episode of WWE “Ride Along” will air on the WWE Network following Raw tonight. Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch will be featured, as well as the War Raiders and Sarah Logan.
MMA NEWS
**USADA has handed down a two-year suspension to C.B. Dollaway after a series of infractions. The agency released information that Dollaway tested positive for anastrozole, growth hormone-releasing peptide 2 (a metabolite of GHRP-2 and GHRP-6) during an out-of-competition test administered on December 19, 2018. Another out-of-competition test administered on February 9, 2019, came back positive for clomiphene. Prior to the first test failure, he also used an IV infusion above the allowable limit of 100 mL within a 12-hour period. The suspension is retroactive to the IV infraction in December and he will be eligible to return after December 13, 2020. USADA is ruling all of the infractions as one violation believing then ingestion occurred prior to January 11, 2019, when Dollaway was first notified of the initial failure.
The 36-year old is 17-9 and was a finalist on the seventh season of ‘Ultimate Fighter’ in 2008, losing to Amir Sadollah and was signed by the UFC. Dollaway fought twice in 2018 with a win by disqualification over Hector Lombard in March at UFC 222 and last fought in September in Russia where he was stopped by Khalid Murtazaliev. Dollaway has issued a statement on the suspension:
In light of the recent decision made by USADA to issue me a two year sanction, I want it to be very clear that I did not knowingly nor intentionally take any performance enhancing drugs. As many people to me are aware, I suffered a serious back injury in 2016. With my insurance capped out, I needed to find alternative solution if I wanted to continue to compete in Mixed Martial arts. I traveled to Mexico to have a stem cell procedure done and ended up coming into contact with the mentioned substances. I am sorry to let my friends, family, and fans down. I want to persoanlly thank Donna Marcolini the VP of health and performances of the UFC for her assistance and for believing in me. I will take this time to continue working on my health and hopefully be ready to come back in 2020 as a healthy athlete/fighter for the first time since 2016.
**This past weekend, Daniel Cormier lost his stepfather, Percy Benoit, to cancer. Cormier posted the following message in his memory:
Today I lost my hero to cancer, my father was the bravest, strongest , hardest working and most caring person I’ve ever known. Always the life of the party and made everyone he ever came in contact with feel good. I never could have imagined we would be going through this right now. All the lessons I wanna try and pass along I learned from my dad. You know its about the legacy we leave behind and my dads legacy will be one of just a great person, loving husband and father and friend to everyone. If you’ve ever met Percy Benoit you’re better for it. We were able to see some amazing things pops and I hope you enjoyed the ride, I only wanted to make you proud. I love you pop, you were the strength of this family, now you get to rest. No more pain. Love you Dad
**With this past weekend off, the UFC is back on Saturday with a card from Shenzhen, Guangdong in China. This is not a deep card but does feature a championship fight as Jessica Andrade defends the strawweight title for the first time against Weili Zhang. Andrade upset Rose Namajunas this past May at UFC 237 after slamming Namajunas and earning the stoppage victory despite Namajunas dominating Andrade in the first round. Zhang is 19-1 with her lone defeat coming in her debut fight in November 2013 by decision. She is 3-0 in the UFC and earned the title fight after wins over Danielle Taylor, Jessica Aguilar, and Tecia Torres. The location of the fight likely assisted in Zhang receiving the nod for the title fight.
Due to the time difference, the prelims will be streaming early Saturday morning at 3 am Eastern and the main card will begin at 6 am.
**The season-finale of Dana White’s Contender Series goes down Tuesday night at 8 pm Eastern from the UFC Apex. This series was one of my favorite shows in 2018 but given the WWE schedule with SmackDown, it’s been impossible for me to follow along this season, but with SmackDown moving to Fridays that should free up some time to cover the next season. Below are the final set of fights for Tuesday’s episode:
*Dusko Todorovic (8-0) vs. Teddy Ash (14-4)
*Impa Kasanganay (5-0) vs. Kailan Hill (5-0)
*Sang Hoon Yoo (5-0) vs. Peter Barrett (10-3)
*Dustin Joynson (5-0) vs. Ben Sosoli (7-2)
*Dylan Lockard (6-1) vs. T.J. Brown (13-6)
**Bellator is set to run the Mohegan Sun Arena on back-to-back nights this October in Uncasville, Connecticut. Bellator 231 is scheduled for Friday, October 25th with Bellator 232 the next night in the same arena. The first night’s event will be headlined by a heavyweight rematch between Frank Mir and Roy Nelson, who fought in May 2011 at UFC 130. In the first fight, Mir defeated Nelson by unanimous decision. Mir is coming off four losses going back to September 2015 and is 0-2 since joining Bellator with stoppages at the hands of Fedor Emelianenko and Javy Ayala. Nelson is 1-3 with the promotion and has lost his last three fights to Matt Mitrione, Sergei Kharitonov, and dropped a decision to Mirko Cro Cop this past February. The card on Friday night airs on the Paramount Network and will be simulcast on DAZN.
**The second night at Mohegan Sun features the final of the Welterweight Grand Prix where Rory MacDonald will defend his title against Douglas Lima. MacDonald defeated Lima by decision in January 2018 to become the welterweight champion and advanced in the tournament with a majority draw against Jon Fitch and a decision victory over Neiman Gracie. Lima submitted Andrey Koreshkov in the opening round and knocked out Michael “Venom” Page in the semi-finals. Saturday’s card will air exclusively on DAZN.
**ESPN’s Ariel Helwani confirmed that Ben Askren will fight Demian Maia on October 26th when the UFC goes to Singapore. The card will take place from the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang with Askren vs. Maia in the main event slot. Maia will be stepping into the Octagon for the 31st time less than two weeks before his 42nd birthday. Following three consecutive losses, Maia is coming off victories over Lyman Good and Anthony Rocco Martin this year. Askren will have his third fight with the promotion and is coming off one of the most vicious knockouts in UFC history when he was stopped by a flying knee from Jorge Masvidal in five seconds at UFC 239 in July.
*****
upNXT EVOLVE 134 POST Show
Davie Portman is joined by Jason Solomon from “Solomonster Sounds Off” for a special edition of upNXT where they review EVOLVE 134 featuring KUSHIDA vs. Drew Gulak for the WWE Cruiserweight title.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/26/upnxt-8-26-19-evolve-134/
*****
Cruel Summer #26: Hirooki Goto vs. Kenny Omega (2016)
WH Park and JoJo Remy come together again to discuss the finals of NJPW G1 Climax 26: Hirooki Goto vs. Kenny Omega from August 14, 2016.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/25/cruel-summer-26-hirooki-goto-vs-kenny-omega-2016-w-jojo-remy/
*****
Cruel Summer #25: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (2015)
WH Park and Mike Murray (POST Wrestling’s ROH reviewer) reunite to discuss the finals of NJPW G1 Climax 25: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura from August 16, 2015.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/24/cruel-summer-25-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-shinsuke-nakamura-2015-w-mike-murray/
*****
Cafe Hangout: NXT vs. AEW Wednesday Night Wars
John Pollock and Wai Ting take your calls on NXT vs. AEW in their upcoming head-to-head battle on Wednesdays nights. We also discuss the news of WWE launching a podcast network and the opening brackets for NJPW Super J Cup 2019.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/23/nxt-vs-aew-wednesday-night-wars-cafe-hangout/
*****
BWE Special: The Greatest Matches Ever Held in the UK
In a special edition of the British Wrestling Experience, Jamesie is joined by Alan Counihan of Pro Wrestling Torch to discuss the greatest wrestling matches ever held in the UK. This episode is a companion piece to Alan’s article in the final issue of Fighting Spirit Magazine.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/22/bwe-special-the-greatest-matches-ever-held-in-the-uk/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW: Doctor Strange (2016)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review perhaps Marvel’s most conceptually challenging film to date, Doctor Strange (2016) starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/29374491
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: GLOW Season 3 Ep. 1 & 2, Road to ALL OUT
On the return of the Café Hangout, John and Wai dive into Season 3 of GLOW with reviews of Episodes 1 and 2. Plus, we discuss the latest edition of Road to ALL OUT.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/29353962
*****
BWE 8/21/19: Progress Toronto, wXw Ambition, ROH UK Tour
Martin, Benno, and Jamesie are back to chat Progress Toronto (WALTER vs. Paul Robinson), wXw Toronto (Mike Bailey vs. Bobby Gunns) and their final thoughts on Will Ospreay & Zack Sabre Jr. in the G1 Climax.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/21/bwe-8-21-19-progress-toronto-wxw-ambition-roh-uk-tour/
*****
RASD 8/20/19: Twin Freaks, NXT to USA Network
John Pollock & Wai Ting are back to review SmackDown from Sioux Falls, further discussion on NXT’s move to the USA Network, additional details on the move, and how they announced it.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/21/rasd-8-20-19-twin-freaks-nxt-to-usa-network-official/
*****
RAR 8/19/19: Mandible Lawler, Latest on NXT-USA Network
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Raw from Minnesota, discuss the latest involving NXT-USA Network, AEW’s latest locations, Starz greenlights a wrestling drama & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/20/rar-8-19-19-mandible-lawler-latest-on-nxt-usa-network/
*****
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
