POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, Wai Ting and I are back with a new edition of Rewind-A-Raw to go through WWE’s final night of their weekend in Chicago at the Allstate Arena. We will also go through all the news from the day and take your feedback & questions at the end of the show. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts by searching for POST Wrestling.
**Our Survivor Series POST Show is available for everyone to hear our review of Sunday’s show. On the show, Wai and I were joined by Braden Herrington and Davie Portman of upNXT to run through the entire show, as well as discussing the story involving Mauro Ranallo not appearing on the Survivor Series broadcast. Then, we take your phone calls and feedback to the show.
**We have a great review on the site that was sent in by Mark Buckeldee as he goes through the final Tetsujin card from this past Friday that featured Jordan Devlin vs. Timothy Thatcher and was said to be a great show.
**Brandon Sears is back with another book review as he writes about Mayor Kane: My Life in Wrestling and Politics, which will be released this week.
POST WRESTLING VIDEO
POST SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI mailbag show (Patreon)
*Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
*Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Thursday: Café Hangout (LIVE at 3 pm Eastern for all Patrons)
*Friday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby & Jamesie
*Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Patreon)
*Sunday: Thunderstruck Ep. 6 with WH Park & guest Dylan Fox (Liger vs. El Samurai, April 1992)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw is their fourth and final night at the Allstate Arena in Chicago to wrap up Survivor Series weekend. The next card is the TLC event on December 15th but this weekend there is the Starrcade special and it will be interesting to see if it is promoted on television or just runs as a live event on the network. The Allstate Arena’s website is advertising Brock Lesnar to appear tonight.
**They have announced a match between Asuka and Charlotte Flair for Raw tonight in a rematch from WrestleMania 34 in April 2018. AJ Styles will defend the United States title against Humberto Carrillo, which was set up on last week’s show.
**WWE has confirmed that the Worlds Collide event will take place Saturday, January 25th from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The show will air over Royal Rumble in place of NXT TakeOver. It was confirmed by the company on Monday that the format will see talent from NXT and NXT UK facing off without mentioning any other brands. Tickets for the show will go on sale Friday, December 6th at 11 am Eastern. In the advertising, they are listing Adam Cole, WALTER, Shayna Baszler, Kay Lee Ray, The Undisputed Era, and Imperium for the show.
**This past Friday’s edition of SmackDown finished with 2,544,000 viewers heading into the Survivor Series. The show did a 0.8 with adults 18-49, which was tied with Hawaii Five-O for tops among network programs that night. SmackDown also did a 0.5 with adults 18-34, which was the top network program of the night in that demo. In total viewers, they were up 10% from the week prior.
**Following the Survivor Series, the story involving Corey Graves and Mauro Ranallo is one of the items most are focused on. Graves did not remove the tweets referencing Ranallo’s commentary on TakeOver this past Saturday, which led to Ranallo going home and not appearing at the Survivor Series where he was set to call several matches. On the broadcast, they announced that Ranallo’s voice was gone but that was their way of explaining his absence with the plan for him to return this Wednesday. Graves continued Monday by lashing out at Frank Shamrock (Ranallo’s manager) and Dave Meltzer for his reporting on the story. Shamrock invited Graves to stop by stating he was in Los Angeles or he could call him.
In foresight and hindsight, it was a bad idea to come up with the on-air excuse of Ranallo’s voice, but you must imagine WWE’s intentions were to address his absence with minimal attention and just move on. I don’t think there is anyone that has not pieced everything together and can see the real reason Ranallo didn’t work the show on Sunday.
Rather than just apologize for an ill-thought-out series of tweets, Graves is just on the attack and it’s a bad look for both him and the company. I would say that when emotions are at a high, which they appear to be, Twitter is not the avenue to venture down. My hope is that cooler heads prevail and that Graves does realize fault and makes an apology and allow the tension to die down. Graves did not make things better today and it would be best for him to stay offline and away from the comments, which are going to heavily lean on Ranallo’s side given his issues and that most believe he was just doing his job. It’s not an argument that announcers are above criticism but it’s a separate scenario when it’s done on a public forum through Twitter as opposed to privately between colleagues.
The next question is whether Ranallo goes to NXT this Wednesday. If he does the appearance, then the story will probably die down and all parties move on but if he’s not there it’s obviously a bigger story.
**We were asked a question on the POST Wrestling Forum about the status of the Chris Benoit biopic that was announced in 2016. The film was going to be based on the book ‘Ring of Hell’ that was released by 2008 by Matthew Randazzo with Lexi Alexander attached to the film as the director. I reached out to Randazzo who tells me that the funding for the film fell through and the project is considered dead.
**The first edition of the Broken Skull Sessions aired Sunday after the Survivor Series with a 98-minute interview conducted by Steve Austin with The Undertaker. It is the longest interview of its kind with The Undertaker, totally out of character and reflecting on his career. We will discuss the interview further on Rewind-A-Raw tonight but one of the key things was his hesitation to retire and repeated several times how he wants to write the final chapter of his career. He echoed the opinion of Bill Goldberg regarding the match in Saudi Arabia this past June and said it was a bad night and didn’t want that to be the final image people had of him. Undertaker came back the next month at Extreme Rules and had a great tag match teaming with Roman Reigns while Goldberg had a quick but effective match with Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam to move on from the Super Showdown match. He also noted to Austin that he’s in a lot of pain and gets ready for matches with a training camp and you came away believing he’s doing another match and joked he’s retired 15 times. After the Hell in a Cell match with Triple H at WrestleMania 28 in 2012, he didn’t think he would be returning, and though the same when he left his attire in the ring after losing to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 33 in 2017.
**This Sunday, the WWE Network will air a one-hour version of the Starrcade event at 7 pm Eastern followed by a new edition of ’24’ on Trish Stratus.
**AEW has announced that the January 29th edition of Dynamite will take place from the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio and tickets will go on sale this Friday.
**Diamond Dallas Page will be on this week’s edition of Dynamite from the Sears Centre to present the Dynamite Diamond ring to the winner of the match between Hangman Page and MJF, who were the final two remaining in last week’s battle royal.
**MLW has added a ‘Prince of Darkness’ match to the Opera Cup tapings between Mance Warner and Jimmy Havoc on Thursday, December 5th at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens, New York.
**Over the weekend, Kenny Omega spoke with Dave Meltzer and Jim Valley on Wrestling Observer Radio in a wide-ranging discussing AEW following the Full Gear event and numerous subjects about the state of the company. One issue discussed was the other side of the argument when it comes to the schedule. One of the ways AEW has distinguished itself is a less intensive road schedule with one taping per week. It’s great for guys that have done the intense WWE schedule and should preserve performers without the wear and tear of three or four shows per week. However, younger talent requires that experience and Omega discussed that aspect of AEW and the issues the schedule creates:
We’ve always wanted to motivate people outside of AEW to try to find ways to get that ring time. We have not shut the doors on any outside bookings. We always encourage talent if they have a home promotion, if you want to do a Japan tour, a Japan stop or whatever please do it. That’s the one thing we don’t have right now and I wish we did. We don’t have anything like a Dojo or Performance Center and it’s kind of hurting us. There are people that would benefit greatly from having more ring time. I’m sure that change in the future but for now, the lack of having that, it’s a worry for me – not in the immediate future but for people we are trying to develop because there is talent that is going to be green that we are going to sign and give a chance to and they need to be put on a fast-track or whatever. Even if there is a move a guy wants to try, if there’s no ring to try it in or a sequence or whatever, they’ll never know if it’s going to work in the match. These are things that are pretty important, that need to be looked at and need to be addressed and I’m sure that it’s going to be a non-issue eventually but for now, it is, unfortunately, an issue for us.
**TNT is partnering with DC Comics for their BatWeek marathon that runs from now through Sunday and features airings of numerous Batman-related films. Newsarama reports that there will be an integration of this promotion within AEW Dynamite this Wednesday night.
**C*4 Wrestling has a card this Friday in Ottawa, Ontario at 523 St. Anthony Street featuring Josh Alexander vs. Daniel Garcia and LuFisto vs. Tony Deppen.
**Rob Van Dam’s documentary ‘Headstrong’ is available tomorrow on DVD through Amazon.
**The WWE stock closed at $60.51 on Monday.
**Finally, I just wanted to send my condolences to UFC fighter Walt Harris and his family who are going through a horrific tragedy. For over a month, authorities in Alabama have been searching for Harris’ stepdaughter Aniah Blanchard who went missing. On Monday, it was reported by CBS 42 in the state that human remains had been found and they believe it’s Blanchard. Blanchard was 19-years old and attending college when she went missing on October 23rd. There have been two suspects arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping. Both Antwon Fisher and Ibraheem Yazeed have been denied bond. Our condolences go out to Harris and his family following this tragic news.
POLL RESULTS
What did you think of the WWE Survivor Series? (469 votes)
Thumbs Up – 42.6%
Thumbs in the Middle – 40.5%
Thumbs Down – 16.8%
*****
WWE SURVIVOR SERIES POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting are joined by upNXT’s Braden Herrington & Davie Portman to review WWE Survivor Series 2019 featuring Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/24/live-link-for-tonights-wwe-survivor-series-2019-post-show-11pm-et/
*****
NXT TAKEOVER: WAR GAMES POST SHOW
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back reviewing NXT TakeOver: War Games III from the Allstate Arena featuring two War Games matches.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/23/nxt-takeover-war-games-iii-post-show/
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. The Great Muta (October 20, 1996)
WH Park and Matt McEwen discuss Jushin Liger vs. The Great Muta from October 20, 1996 featuring the first appearance of Kishin Liger.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/24/thunderstruck-5-jushin-liger-vs-the-great-muta-10-20-96-w-matt-mcewen/
*****
Cafe Hangout: WWE Survivor Series & NXT TakeOver: War Games Preview
On today’s Café Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by The BDE to preview Sunday’s NXT TakeOver: WarGames and Survivor Series. Plus, your calls discussing Jim Cornette, CM Punk and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/21/the-bde-in-studio-for-todays-cafe-hangout-3-pm-et/
*****
upNXT 11/20/19: Seth’s Not Cool!
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to chat all about this week’s go-home edition of NXT, Raw & SD talent appearing, CM Punk on WWE Backstage & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/21/upnxt-11-13-19-seths-not-cool/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite featuring Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin. We also discuss the Jim Cornette NWA Powerrr controversy.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/21/rewind-a-dynamite-11-20-19-moxley-vs-allin-cornette-out-of-nwa-cm-punk-fs1/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #49: Heroes of Wrestling (Patreon)
For the third and final time, John Pollock and Wai Ting begrudgingly watch and review Heroes of Wrestling (1999), a show widely considered to be the worst wrestling event ever created.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/31709394
*****
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