POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with the Double Shot and we will be reviewing a bunch of shows tonight, including Episodes 5 & 6 of GLOW, several of the Starrcast panels including the CM Punk interview that Mike Johnson conducted, and the Adrian Street special from the WWE Network this past weekend. This show will be available to all members of the POST Wrestling Cafe.
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Tuesday’s show from Norfolk, Virginia. We also discussed the handling of KENTA’s injury at Royal Quest and what can be learned from it, AEW’s countdown special on TNT, the UFC returning to Abu Dhabi, and lots of other news items.
**I want to make mention that Andrew Thompson is going to be contributing to the site. Last week, he conducted an interview with Mike Weber of Fite TV and has his own news update posted today.
**This week, Wai Ting and I are the guests on the PWT Cast with Scrump discussing POST Wrestling, our recording schedule, Marvel reviews, and old wrestling merchandise. Kenny Omega also has a cameo in this episode.
**To mark the ten-year anniversary since Wai Ting and I launched Review-A-Wai, The Archivist is doing a daily countdown on the POST Wrestling Forum of the top ten reviews we have done. Today’s entry was WCW Uncensored 1995, which was bad.
WRESTLING NEWS
**All Elite Wrestling has announced that Kenny Omega will face Jon Moxley at the “Full Gear” pay-per-view on Sunday, November 9th. The match was slated for this past weekend’s “All Out” show but fell apart due to Moxley contracting MRSA in his elbow and being replaced by PAC. Moxley is not listed for any matches until October 14th where he is scheduled to work against Juice Robinson at the New Japan King of Pro Wrestling show in Tokyo. Tickets for “Full Gear” go on sale on Friday at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. (CORRECTION: Jon Moxley is currently listed for a match against Shawn Spears on the October 9th episode of AEW on TNT).
**We reported earlier today that the WWE is tentatively planning to hold a draft next month over the course of two shows. The draft is set to begin on Friday, October 11th on SmackDown from Las Vegas. It would continue the following Monday on Raw from Denver, Colorado on October 14th.
**On the holiday edition of Raw, the three-hour show averaged 2,507,000 viewers, their lowest mark since August 5th. The show went against the Notre Dame vs. Louisville college football game that averaged 5,599,000 viewers on ESPN. Raw opened with 2.638 million viewers, which was their second-highest start to Raw since the Raw Reunion in July, so interest was there at the start. The show fell 3% in the second hour to 2.557 million viewers and then dropped 9% in the third hour to 2.326 million viewers. The start-to-finish decline was 12% throughout the show.
Last year’s Labor Day edition of Raw averaged 2,807,000 viewers and also went against a college game that did 5,576,000 viewers. The drop year-to-year was 12.5%. Next week’s competition will be the NFL, which has a doubleheader on Monday night against Raw from Madison Square Garden with Steve Austin on the show.
**The ongoing saga of the missing AEW championship title has become one of the strangest stories this year. The amount of media coverage is staggering to the point it’s hard for most to accept it’s a legitimate story but it is. The latest turn came Wednesday morning when a photo emerged from the Facebook page of the Tallahassee Police Department with a photograph of the title in their possession indicating it had been found. However, the post was later deleted with a spokesman for the TPD stating the investigation was still “open and active”.
UPDATE: At 3:57 pm Eastern, reporter Jeffrey Burlew of the Tallahassee Democrat reported that the championship title had been turned in with someone stating it was found at the side of a road. The Tallahassee Police Department added that the title was valued at $30,000.
Regardless of how silly this story is over a missing championship, Chris Jericho and by extension AEW have been smart to play off the publicity and will likely have a lot of fun with this. It’s an applicable lesson that the best stories are the ones that fall into your lap and come from reality. When the audience knows something stems from reality it takes away the need to suspend disbelief because you already have their belief and then you can play with that for your own gain.
**On Wednesday’s Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho did not address the missing title story but did run through the All Out show. He mentioned that on the day before the show, the roster had a seminar that was run by Christopher Nowinski about concussion awareness that Jericho raved about. The agent for the Jericho vs. Hangman Page match was Dean Malenko and Jericho specifically asked for Aubrey Edwards to be their referee, who he believes is their best official on the roster.
**It was announced Tuesday ahead of SmackDown that Roman Reigns will face Erick Rowan at Clash of Champions on September 15th in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was said to be a recent switch as the original idea was for Reigns to face Daniel Bryan on this show.
**Starrcast IV has been announced for the weekend of the “Full Gear” pay-per-view in Baltimore, Maryland. The convention will take place from November 7-11 meaning it will be a five-day event. The host hotel and ticket information have yet to be released. Tickets for the pay-per-view on November 9th at the Royal Farms Arena go on sale Friday.
**An OWE tour of the UK that was scheduled for September is off. The tour was to feature five shows with cards on September 18th and 19th in London followed by three shows in Liverpool from September 20-22. On Wednesday morning, OWE United Kingdom SVP Sean McMahon posted a statement on Facebook that he had submitted his resignation citing what he believed to be “misconduct of the director and OWE China”, adding that “I find this totally unacceptable, damaging to the industry and reputation of all who have committed themselves to ensure the tour would have been a success.” Additionally, McMahon spoke to Fightful.com stating broken promises were made to him and that he has been offered a position with another company.
OWE has released the following statement on the tour: “The OWE UK tour has been delayed, not cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We will be making further announcements as soon as we finalise things“.
**The Cruiserweight title match at Clash of Champions will now be a three-way match with Lince Dorado added to the match with champion Drew Gulak and Humberto Carrillo.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of NXT at 8 pm Eastern on the WWE Network:
*Adam Cole vs. Jordan Myles for the NXT title
*Velveteen Dream vs. Kona Reeves
*Taynara Conti vs. Bianca Belair
*Tyler Breeze & Fandango vs. Chase Parker & Matt Martel
**WWE Raw has been nominated for “Best Show” at this year’s E! People’s Choice Awards. Voting is open until Friday, October 18th at 11:59 pm Eastern with Raw up against Game of Thrones, Grey’s Anatomy, Stranger Things, This is Us, Big Bang Theory, Riverdale, and Walking Dead. The award ceremony will air live on E! on Sunday, November 10th.
**Ring of Honor has released the brackets for their #1 contender tournament to determine the ROH title challenger at Final Battle in December. On one side of the bracket, PCO will face Kenny King and Mark Haskins takes on Dalton Castle. On the opposite side, Jay Lethal faces Bandido and Marty Scurll faces Colt Cabana. The tournament begins on September 27th at the Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view with PCO vs. King and Scurll vs. Cabana. The other two matches take place on September 28th at the television tapings in Las Vegas at Sam’s Town Live. The semi-finals and final will take place at Glory by Honor on October 12th in New Orleans, Louisiana and Final Battle is set for Friday, December 13th in Baltimore, Maryland at the UMBC Event Center.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling will be at Korakuen Hall Thursday for their second and three straight nights in the building. The show will stream at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World with the following card:
*Tetsuya Naito & EVIL vs. Bad Luck Fale & Jay White
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto & Rocky Romero vs. Sanada, Shingo Takagi & Bushi
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi & Roppongi 3K vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki
*Will Ospreay, Robbie Eagles & Tomoaki Honma vs. El Phantasmo, Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro
*Guerrillas of Destiny & Chase Owens vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Toa Henare & Yoshi-Hashi
*Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Shota Umino & Yota Tsuji vs. Satoshi Kojima, Clark Connors & Alex Coughlin
*Ren Narita vs. Karl Fredericks in the Young Lion Cup
*Michael Richards vs. Yuya Uemura in the Young Lion Cup
**ROH wrestler Dalton Castle and RJ City will be doing a comedy show together in Toronto on Monday, October 14th at 9 pm. The show is called “Eye Contact & Anxiety: An Evening of Everything But Wrestling” at Comedy Bar at 945 Bloor Street West. Tickets for the show can be purchased at www.comedybar.ca.
**Dominic Garrini will take on Ariel Dominguez at MLW’s War Chamber tapings this Saturday in North Richland Hills, Texas. They have announced eight matches for the tapings, including the War Chamber match with Tom Lawlor, Marshall and Ross Von Erich & Low Ki vs. Contra Unit and a tribute to Gary Hart.
**DEFY Wrestling has announced that SCHAFF will defend the Defy title against Joey Janela at their “Doomsayer” event on Friday, September 27th at Washington Hall in Seattle. The card will also feature Rey Horus vs. Bestia 666 and it will be Darby Allin’s farewell match with the promotion prior to AEW launching on TNT.
**WWE and 2K have released their latest trailer for the 2K20 game featuring Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, Sting, Bret Hart, and Shawn Michaels:
**After a bit of a drop on Tuesday, the WWE stock was up over 2% today and closed at $70.99.
MMA NEWS
**Journalist Karim Zidan has a tremendous piece for The Guardian looking at the UFC’s five-year partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi beginning with UFC 242. Zidan looks at the prior shows held in the country in 2010 and 2014 with criticism of the treatment of labor workers on those shows, although no reports have surfaced about similar issues with the UFC 242 card. In addition, Zidan points to one of the particulars of the deal that sees Abu Dhabi Media (ADM) with exclusive digital rights of the UFC for the Middle East and North Africa region. They have launched a streaming platform called UFC Arabia but has not been made available to those in Qatar.
**BJ Penn was interviewed by Aaron Bronsteter on The TSN MMA Show to provide his side of the recent bar fights he has been involved in.
**Bellator will return to Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday, November 14th and will air on tape delay the following night on the Paramount Network and DAZN. The card will be headlined by a heavyweight fight between Sergei Kharitonov and Linton Vassell. The card will also feature Roger Huerta taking on Sidney Outlaw, Austin Vanderford takes on Grachik Bozinyan, and Olga Rubin taking on Sinead Kavanagh in a featherweight fight.
**UFC women’s featherweight and bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will be part of ESPN’s annual Body Issue. Past fighters to pose for the annual issue include Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, Meisha Tate, Gina Carano, and Michelle Waterson.
**Below is Episode 3 of this week’s UFC Embedded series for UFC 242:
*****
RASD 9/3/19: The Ramdeen Laugh, Jericho loses AEW belt, KENTA
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown as Daniel Bryan demands an apology from Roman Reigns (again). Chris Jericho’s AEW title is either lost or stolen. We discuss NJPW’s handling of concussions with regards to KENTA vs. Tomohiro Ishii.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/04/rasd-9-3-19-the-ramdeen-laugh-jericho-loses-aew-belt-kenta/
*****
RAR 9/2/19: Bayley’s Irish Cream
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring Bayley’s attack on Becky Lynch. Plus, a discussion on the AEW media scrums, Royal Quest added to New Japan World, and fallout from the weekend.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/03/rar-9-2-19-bayleys-irish-cream/
*****
BWE Special: NJPW Royal Quest, NXT UK TakeOver & Summer Sizzler
Martin, Benno & Jamesie are back to review two major shows this weekend: NJPW Royal Quest (Okada vs. Suzuki) and WWE NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff (WALTER vs. Bate). Will Cooling drops in to give a live report from RevPro’s Summer Sizzler and a controversial main event between Will Ospreay and David Starr.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/01/bwe-special-njpw-royal-quest-nxt-uk-takeover-cardiff-revpro-summer-sizzler/
*****
Cruel Summer #28: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi (2018)
WH Park reunites with John Pollock on the final episode of Cruel Summer (for now) to discuss the finals of NJPW G1 Climax 28: Kota Ibushi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi from August 12, 2018.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/01/cruel-summer-28-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-kota-ibushi-2018-w-john-pollock/
*****
AEW All Out POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW All Out headlined by Chris Jericho vs. Hangman Page to determine the first AEW World Champion, Kenny Omega vs. PAC and The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Brothers in Escalera de la Muerte.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/01/aew-all-out-post-show/
*****
upNXT MOVIE REVIEW: Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are back with another BDE movie review as they continue on their journey to review all the Star Wars movies, and this time it’s Episode II: Attack of the Clones!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/31/upnxt-movie-review-star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones-2002/
*****
Cruel Summer #27: Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito (2017)
WH Park is once again joined by Joel Abraham of the Super J-Cast (which you can find at Voices of Wrestling) to discuss the finals of NJPW G1 Climax 27: Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito from August 13, 2017.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/31/cruel-summer-27-kenny-omega-vs-tetsuya-naito-2017-w-joel-abraham/
*****
Cafe Hangout with Jamesie of the BWE
John Pollock and Wai Ting preview a busy weekend with AEW All Out, NJPW Royal Quest, NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff and Starrcast all taking place. British Wrestling Experience’s Jamesie joins us to discuss a weekend of major shows in the UK.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/30/aew-all-out-nxt-uk-takeover-njpw-royal-quest-previews-cafe-hangout/
******
REWIND-A-WAI #43: Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow 2019
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WrestleCon’s Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow 2019 headlined by Will Ospreay vs. Bandido in a heavily-anticipated match during WrestleMania 35 Weekend in New York City.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/29559316
*****
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