POST IT NOTES
**Tuesday’s edition of Rewind-A-SmackDown is up on the site as Wai Ting and I review the final USA Network edition of SmackDown. We go through the full show, what was set up for the Fox debut, the closing segment with Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon, and more. Plus, we go over Impact moving to Tuesdays on AXS TV, Sportsnet 360’s Friday night WWE block, the New Japan lineups for Fighting Spirit Unleashed and King of Pro Wrestling, Raw’s viewership, and more.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman will have upNXT coming up later tonight to review the second episode on the USA Network. The show will be available free on the upNXT feed.
**Wai Ting and I will be releasing the final edition of The Double Shot late tonight for members of the POST Wrestling Café. On the show, we will be chatting about the latest “WWE Untold” focusing on Kane’s debut from 1997, the latest Road to AEW on TNT episode, and more.
**On Thursday’s edition of the Café Hangout at 3 pm Eastern, Wai and I will be joined by Nate Milton.
**A feedback thread for this week’s Rewind-A-Wai on “The Big Event” from Exhibition Stadium in Toronto is up on the POST Wrestling Forum.
POST WRESTLING ON YOUTUBE
POST SCHEDULE
*Tonight: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Tonight: The FINAL Double Shot (Patreon)
*Thursday: Café Hangout (Live at 3 pm Eastern for Double Double+ members)
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #45: WWF “The Big Event” (Patreon)
*Friday: ROH Death Before Dishonor POST Show with John Pollock & Mike Murray
*Saturday: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate Milton “Get Smart” (2008)
WRESTLING NEWS
**NXT’s enters its second week on the USA Network with another split between the cable network and the WWE Network dividing the show. Tonight should be centered around building up to next week’s show, which is the real hard launch of the series on USA and the head-to-head with AEW. Last week’s audience number of 1,179,000 viewers was viewed as a great sign for its first week and I would say anything in the range of that figure is a good follow up, even if it’s down a little bit. There wasn’t a lot of promotion for the show on Raw or SmackDown this week, but I didn’t feel there was an overwhelming television push last week and people found the show on week one.
**ITV in the UK has announced they will be carrying All Elite Wrestling’s weekly Dynamite program but it will be on a four-day delay. The broadcaster revealed Wednesday that the series will air on ITV4 on Sunday mornings at 8:20 am in a two-hour timeslot along with a one-hour highlight version on Mondays on ITV at 11:45 pm. The first episode is set to air on ITV4 on Sunday, October 6th.
AEW President Tony Khan added:
We’ll work together to ensure there will always be a free to air broadcast of the most recent episode of AEW: Dynamite before Saturday PPVs including Full Gear. We’ll also be announcing a live viewing solution soon for the UK + many other countries with great AEW fans. Thank you!
**The final episode of SmackDown on the USA Network averaged 2,099,000 viewers. It was up slightly from last week and their highest audience since September 3rd.
Here are the matches advertised for tonight’s episode:
*Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dane in a Street Fight and the winner receives an NXT title match with Adam Cole
*Keith Lee vs. Donovan Dijakovic
*WALTER & TBA vs. KUSHIDA & TBA in a six-man tag
*The return of Dakota Kai
**A rematch between AJ Styles and Cedric Alexander for the United States title has been added to Monday’s episode of Raw in Phoenix, Arizona.
**There is a big story in AdAge covering lots of news items regarding Friday Night SmackDown’s launch on Fox. The article includes the news that Progressive Insurance will be coming on board as the presenting sponsor of the show, lots of information regarding the response from the advertising community, and a potential lessening of the commercial spots on the show. The article also teases a potential appearance by Dwayne Johnson on the debut show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
**It was reported by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Kevin Sullivan will be joining All Elite Wrestling as their VP of Post-Production. We have not been able to confirm the additional number of people that had been working with Sullivan and are leaving, as well. Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reported that Jim Morris is also leaving with Sullivan for AEW.
UPDATE: I spoke with one person at Impact Wrestling who told us the number of people that left with Kevin Sullivan was “less than ten”. We were not given the specific number.
**Rogers Sportsnet in Canada has announced a new block of WWE programming on Friday night beginning October 4th with SmackDown’s move. The new lineup features the Aftermath studio show airing at 6:30 pm Eastern followed by a one-hour edited version of NXT at 7 pm, Friday Night SmackDown at 8 pm, and WWE Main Event at 10 pm. Naturally, there are people upset that NXT is on a 48-hour delay on television and it’s an edited down version, although the full version will be up on the WWE Network on Thursday nights.
**The Aftermath studio show, which is hosted by Caroline Szwed with panelists Jimmy Korderas, Anthony Carelli, and Mike “Nug” Nahrgang will be taped on Fridays and air that night. Previously, Sportsnet 360 aired Prime Time Sports from 4-7 pm Eastern but today announced the re-shuffling of their lineup with the elimination of PTS and the hosts of the show moving to a slot from 2-5 pm Eastern on the radio. It is not known yet what the lead-in will be for Aftermath on SN 360.
**On Wednesday’s Road to AEW on TNT episode, it was revealed that Hangman Page will face PAC on the premiere of Dynamite next Wednesday night from Washington, D.C. The matches advertised for the debut episode includes Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks vs. Chris Jericho & two partners, Nyla Rose vs. Riho to crown the first women’s champion, PAC vs. Hangman Page, Brandon Cutler vs. MJF, and Cody vs. Sammy Guevara. There is a strong promo from Cody at the end of the Road to episode addressing Chris Jericho calling Dusty Rhodes a “son of a bitch”.
**The NWA will hold their tapings this Monday and Tuesday from the GPB Studios in Atlanta, Georgia and then will be announcing when and where the episodes will air. They are planning to run additional shows in mid-December. They released another video today that features James Storm addressing Billy Corgan and Nick Aldis.
**The UK-based Southside Wrestling group announced Wednesday that talent under WWE contract have been pulled from their ninth anniversary card on October 26th. The news came two-days after Revolution Pro announced they would take over operations of Southside, beginning on October 28th, although we can’t confirm if that was the specific reason for talent being pulled. The card was set to feature Joseph Conners, Ilja Dragunov, Kay Lee Ray, El Ligero, Saxon Huxley, and Xia Brookside, who are all NXT UK performers. In the release from Southside, the promotion said “We asked permission in advance and accepted all conditions. We have spent a small fortune on posters / flyers / banners for the show which are now unusable”. They went on to end the release with “Although this is business we have personally taken this badly. 9as was our goodbye and we wanted to say it with the stars who made us what we are, our previous champions and most importantly our close friends”.
**Here is the updated card for WWE’s Hell in a Cell show Sunday, October 6th at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California:
*Seth Rollins vs. The Fiend in a Hell in a Cell match for the Universal title
*Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks in a Hell in a Cell match for the Raw women’s title
*Roman Reigns & Daniel Bryan vs. Erick Rowan & Luke Harper
**It was on this date in 2000 that Raw debuted on TNN (The National Network and later re-branded as Spike TV in 2003). It was a major coup for TNN, who had been broadcasting ECW on Friday nights beginning in September 1999 and would finish up on October 6, 2000. The deal with TNN saw the company go from earning $5.5 million per year from the USA Network to a lofty increase to $28 million per year on TNN with a cut of the advertising revenue. Raw would remain on TNN/Spike through September 2005 and then return to the USA Network after Spike publicly removed themselves from negotiations and put their resources behind the UFC as their flagship programming. WWE’s departure from Spike also opened the door for TNA Wrestling to get a one-hour Saturday night timeslot at 11 pm Eastern on the cable network that launched on October 1, 2005.
**The WWE stock closed at $71.01 on Wednesday.
**The likelihood of Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier having their third fight before the end of 2019 looks less likely. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto spoke with Miocic and his manager Jim Walter, who stated Miocic suffered a “major retina injury” after being poked in the eye several times during the rematch with Cormier this past August. Miocic underwent a procedure on his eye and is set to have it evaluated in three weeks to determine if he needs an additional procedure. Because of the timetable, Miocic fighting before the end of the year would be tough. On Monday, Cormier announced on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show that he will fight one more time before retiring but it must be a third fight with Miocic.
**James Lynch from The Score interviews Bellator’s Gegard Mousasi as he plays Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nintendo. Mousasi is fighting Lyoto Machida this Saturday at Bellator 228 and is a rematch from February 2014 that Machida won by unanimous decision.
**Below is the latest Bellator countdown special for this Saturday’s card in Inglewood, California that feature the remaining opening round fights in the Featherweight Grand Prix:
*****
RASD 9/24/19: Farewell to USA, Impact Wrestling on Tuesdays
The final Tuesday night edition of SmackDown saw Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens set up one final match with a major stipulation, Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan come together for a match against Erick Rowan and Luke Harper at Hell in a Cell.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/25/rasd-9-24-19-goodbye-usa-impact-wrestling-on-tuesdays/
*****
RAR 9/23/19: Fatal Five-Rey, Lacey vs. Canada, POST’s new schedule
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring a Fatal Five-Way to become #1 contender and more details about next week’s Raw Season Premiere. Plus, we reveal the new fall schedule at POST Wrestling.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/24/rar-9-23-19-fatal-five-rey-lacey-vs-canada-posts-new-schedule/
*****
NJPW Destruction in Kobe POST Show (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review NJPW’s Destruction in Kobe featuring Tetsuya Naito defending the IWGP Intercontinental title against Jay White and a major angle involving Jushin “Thunder” Liger and Minoru Suzuki.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/23/njpw-destruction-in-kobe-2019-post-show/
*****
upNXT’s EVOLVE 135 & 136 POST Show
Davie Portman is back to chat all about this weekend’s two EVOLVE cards taking place from Brooklyn and Queens, New York with Jesse from the Six and John Siino.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/21/upnxt-9-21-19-evolve-135-136-post-show/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the fifteenth Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017). We discuss James Gunn’s sequel to his 2014 surprise hit, the comedic talents of Dave Bautista as Drax, Yondu’s fantastic babyface turn, the incredible emotive abilities of a CGI raccoon, and how Awesome Mix Vol. 2 stacks up against the original.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/30096101
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT – Sept. 19th, 2019
John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined live in-studio by upNXT’s Braden Herrington and Davie Portman (The BDE) to discuss last night’s NXT debut on USA and their recently launched Patreon.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/19/cafe-hangout-nxt-debuts-on-usa-w-upnxt
*****
THE DOUBLE SHOT: GLOW Season Finale, Bloodsport 2, WWE Chronicle
On this week’s Double Shot, John Pollock & Wai Ting review Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 2, WWE Chronicle: Sasha Banks, and Episodes 9 & 10 (Finale) of GLOW Season 3.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/19/double-shot-glow-s3-finale-bloodsport-2-sasha-banks/
*****
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
