POST IT NOTES
**We have a packed edition of Rewind-A-Raw on the site with Wai Ting and I going through the season premiere of Raw from Phoenix on Monday, the return of Bobby Lashley and Lana, the big angle involving Brock Lesnar at the start of the show, the new announcers, new set, and tons more thoughts on the show. Plus, it was a busy day of news as we discussed The Rock being added to SmackDown on Friday, CM Punk and Colt Cabana settling their lawsuits, NWA announces a weekly series, 205 Live to Fridays, and lots more.
**Our next show is tonight with ASK-A-WAI, which is our monthly mailbag show with Wai Ting and I answer all your questions. The show will be up later tonight for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**Here is an interview I did with Jason Hagholm discussing this crazy week for professional wrestling.
**Rewind-A-Dynamite, our weekly review of AEW Dynamite will be out Wednesday night as Wai and I are going to running through the debut episode and will also discuss the major news coming out of the NXT episode on the USA Network. As always, we will be taking feedback at the end of the show.
**Andrew Thompson, who has been doing a great job with the Wednesday & Thursday updates on the site, will join us on the Café Hangout this Thursday at 3 pm Eastern. Thompson will be in attendance for AEW’s debut at the Capital One Center in Washington, D.C. The live stream of the Hangout is now available to ALL Café members.
POST WRESTLING ON YOUTUBE
WRESTLING NEWS
**Monday’s season premiere of Raw averaged 2,570,000 viewers over the three hours on the USA Network. They were up 16.3% from last week’s average and their highest since August 12th, which was the night after SummerSlam. The show went against the Cincinnati Bengal vs. Pittsburgh Steelers gave on ESPN that averaged 10,467,000.
Raw started with 2.701 million viewers and fell 4% in the second hour to 2.592 million and experienced another drop of 6.8% in the third hour to 2.416 million.
If you exclude the night after SummerSlam and the Raw Reunion in July, this was their highest overall average for Raw since the Superstar Shakeup on April 15th.
**TSN is expected to be releasing a press release today to confirm that AEW Dynamite will be airing Wednesday nights from 8-10 pm Eastern. We have been told that this week’s premiere will air on TSN 2 and it is unknown which TSN channel will carry it after the first week.
In a different trend, compared to this week in 2018, the show was up in 2019 by 12.2%. The October 1st, 2018 episode of Raw faced a bigger NFL game with a Kansas City vs. Denver game that did 13,214,000 viewers.
**Bandido posted a photo from a hospital on Tuesday while covering his face and added #7weeks in the post. Someone familiar with the situation informed us that the wrestler had surgery earlier today. Bandido had been working with a knee injury that is believed to have been an issue for him prior to the Battle of Los Angeles tournament but worked through the tournament and Friday’s ROH Death Before Dishonor event. Due to the injury, which ROH stated was a knee injury, he missed Saturday’s television tapings in Las Vegas. If he is out for seven weeks, that would mean he would be off ROH’s Honor United tour of the UK from October 25-27.
**Impact Wrestling president Ed Nordholm spoke to Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com and covered numerous topics surrounding the company of late:
-Nordholm stated that outgoing producer Kevin Sullivan was not an independent contractor but a full-time senior executive with Anthem
-When they learned that Sullivan had worked with All Elite Wrestling on “Double or Nothing”, he was told it was inappropriate to be working for a competitor. According to Nordholm, Sullivan said he would stop working with AEW.
-Nordholm said they began to organize a plan anticipating Sullivan leaving including bringing David Sahadi back a few months ago
-Sullivan officially gave his notice to Anthem on Sunday, September 22nd and is finished with the company. Nordholm added, “Kevin Sullivan was an executive employed by Anthem Wrestling who attempted to recruit his department to join a competitor while a full-time employee and executive with Impact Wrestling.”
-Nordholm said five employees of Anthem left, including Sullivan
-Their production team includes David Sahadi (Creative Director for Anthem Wrestling), Eric Tompkins (promoted to Director of Television Production), Jay Seeman (who previously held the role of head of audio production from 2004-16), Stu Marchetti (senior video editor), and Matt Caldwell (graphics editor)
-He insinuated the ball was in Kevin Kross’ court regarding his status with the company and clearly took issue with Kross’ public comments about his situation
-Regarding the potential of moving Impact Wrestling to another network if the right deal came along, he said: “I don’t see that happening, although I guess for enough money anything can happen, but I don’t see that happening.”
**All Elite Wrestling will have a countdown special airing on TNT tonight at 8 pm eastern featuring the reveal of Chris Jericho’s partners for Wednesday’s six-man tag against Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks.
**Impact Wrestling launches its programming on AXS TV tonight beginning with an airing of the Homecoming pay-per-view from January. They will be airing the Rebellion and Slammiversary shows over the next two weeks and will be hosted by Scott D’Amore and Josh Mathews. Below is the lineup from the Homecoming event:
*Johnny Impact vs. Brian Cage for the Impact title
*Tessa Blanchard vs. Taya Valkyrie for the Knockouts title
*LAX vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix for the Impact tag titles
*Abyss vs. Eli Drake in a Monster’s Ball match
*Sami Callihan vs. Willie Mack
*Moose vs. Eddie Edwards in a Falls Count Anywhere match
*Jordynne Grace & Kiera Hogan vs. Allie & Su Yung
*Rich Swann vs. Jake Crist vs. Trey Miguel vs. Ethan Page in an Ultimate X match
**The NWA is taping for their second straight night at GPB Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Photos of the set circulated online Monday and drew a lot of attention because of the retro feel to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling or any other old studio wrestling environment. With the goal to take fans on a time warp, the set does its part in transporting you back and it will remain to be seen if it’s a viable alternative as no one else is trying someone like this. We are scheduled to have David Lagana on the show after the first episode airs next week to discuss the tapings and the premiere episode.
**The ninth season of Total Divas premieres tonight at 10 pm eastern on E! The big addition to the cast is Ronda Rousey that should spark added interest to the series. Their last season aired on Wednesday at 8 pm in the fall of 2018 and averaged 392,000 viewers over the ten-episode run.
**Cody held a call with members of the media to promote Dynamite. He said he has no animosity toward the NXT locker room and said the comments from Kenny Omega were more designed to be “in-character”. He can use the name “Rhodes” but doesn’t want to use it because he got used to “The American Nightmare Cody” moniker and WWE is not holding the name hostage and can easily use it, if he chooses to. We have posted the entire conference call on the site and available on the free POST Wrestling feed.
**Wale announced he will be on NXT with The Street Profits on Wednesday night for their match against tag champions Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish.
**Denise Salcedo recently spoke to Jake Atlas regarding his future, offers he has received and more.
**The Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota will host the TLC pay-per-view on Sunday, December 15th. The arena’s Twitter announced that tickets will go on sale on October 11th at Noon eastern.
**WWE has announced NXT live event dates for Thursday, November 21st in Milwaukee and November 22nd in Indianapolis, Indiana. Those shows take place before TakeOver: War Games on November 23rd from the Allstate Arena in Chicago over Survivor Series weekend.
**Kevin Kelly noted on Tuesday that he was providing English commentary for this past Saturday’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed card from the Hammerstein Ballroom. The live version on New Japan World only featured Japanese commentary for the broadcast.
**Bellator has released its full card for Friday’s event in Temecula, California and airing at 9 pm eastern on the Paramount Network and DAZN. Below is the list of main card fights:
*Andrey Koreshkov vs. Lorenz Larkin
*Saad Awad vs. Goiti Yamauchi
*Kei Taylor Melendez vs. Mandy Polk
*Joe Schilling vs. Tony Johnson
**The UFC 243 card is this Saturday night at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia with one of the best title fights of the year. Robert Whittaker will be fighting for the first time since June 2018 as he defends the middleweight title against interim champion Israel Adesanya. Adesanya was involved in most people’s pick for the best fight of the year when he defeated Kelvin Gastelum this past February. The card did lose Holly Holm, who had to pull herself from her rematch with Raquel Pennington due to injury. They have released the first two episodes of UFC Embedded going into the card:
*****
RAR 9/30/19: Machka Made in Hell, Brock Lesnar kills Dominick
On the season premiere of Raw, Brock Lesnar returned for a major angle involving Rey Mysterio and son Dominick, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair set up a five-on-five match for Crown Jewel. Plus, The Rock, AEW and NWA in today’s news.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/01/rar-9-30-19-machka-made-in-hell-brock-lesnar-kills-dominick/
*****
POST Interview: Paul Lazenby remembers Rick Bognar
John Pollock speaks with Paul Lazenby on the passing of Rick Bognar a.k.a. Big Titan, who passed away earlier this month.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/29/post-interview-paul-lazenby-remembers-rick-bognar/
*****
TRMPS #9: Get Smart (2008) w/ Jennifer Smith
On this edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show, Nate Milton continues his aural excursion through Dwayne Johnson’s filmography by reviewing, 2008’s Get Smart with Place To Be Nation’s Jennifer Smith! POST-Marks, get ready for the most controversial episode of TRMPS to date!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/28/trmps-9-get-smart-2008-w-jennifer-smith/
*****
ROH Death Before Dishonor POST Show
John Pollock & Mike Murray are back to review Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor card featuring Matt Taven defending the ROH championship against Rush.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/28/roh-death-before-dishonor-post-show/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #45: WWF The Big Event (w/ Dan Lovranski)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWF The Big Event from 1986 headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff for the WWF Heavyweight Championship in front of a record-setting crowd of 64,100 at the CNE Stadium in Toronto, Ontario. Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski joins us to discuss attending this show live.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/27/rewind-a-wai-45-wwf-the-big-event-w-dan-lovranski/
*****
Café Hangout: New WWE Broadcast Teams, AEW UK TV, NXT audience
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss WWE’s new Raw & SD broadcast teams, John Hennigan re-signing with WWE, AEW’s UK TV situation, NXT Week 2 ratings. Nate Milton joins us to discuss Impact’s transition to AXS TV.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/26/cafe-hangout-new-wwe-broadcast-teams-aew-uk-tv-nxt-rating-nate-milton/
*****
THE (FINAL) DOUBLE SHOT
On the final edition of the DOUBLE SHOT, John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss WWE Untold’s profile of Kane’s debut and the first HIAC, Road to AEW on TNT Ep. 4, Being The Elite 171, WWEPC’s Roderick Strong feature and NWA Ten Pounds of Gold.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/26/the-final-shot-wwe-untold-road-to-aew-roderick-strong-ten-pounds-of-gold/
*****
upNXT 9/25/19: Kushdango!
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to chat all about this week’s WWE NXT featuring Matt Riddle vs Killian Dain in a Street Fight for the Number One Contendership of the NXT Title, KUSHIDA & Breezango vs Imperium, Cameron Grimes vs Raul Mendoza and much, much more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/09/26/upnxt-9-25-19-kushdango/
*****
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