POST IT NOTES
**On Monday night, Wai and I announced our POST Wrestling LIVE in Tampa Q&A show for WrestleMania weekend. It is a live podcast recording taking place Sunday, April 5th at Noon Eastern from the Art Institute of Tampa’s Atrium (minutes away from Raymond James Stadium for WrestleMania that day). The VIP tickets include a VIP lunch with us, a POST Live in Tampa t-shirt, a ticket to the Q&A, and a post-show meet-and-greet with us – and, it also comes with a parking spot at the Art Institute that is good for the entire day if you choose to park there and walk to the stadium for WrestleMania.
All Patrons of the POST Wrestling Café will receive a code in advance for a $5 discount on all tickets.
Tickets go on sale this Thursday at 10 am Eastern and all the information is available at http://www.POSTwrestling.com/live.
**Monday’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site with the announcement of our POST Wrestling LIVE in Tampa show, a review of Raw in Everett, MVP’s new role in WWE, Shelton Benjamin re-signing, and AEW running Dynamite at the MGM Grand after Double or Nothing. Plus, Wai and I share our thoughts on the first episode of WWE’s Ruthless Aggression series and NXT TakeOver: Portland.
**Rewind-A-Wai #55 will be released tonight for all members of the POST Wrestling Café. On tonight’s show, Wai and I review the 1974 film ‘The Wrestler’ starring Ed Asner, Verne Gagne, and Billy Robinson. It’s an interesting snapshot of the era with dozens of cameos including Superstar Billy Graham, Dusty Rhodes, Dick Murdoch, Vincent J. McMahon, Ray Stevens, and many others. This movie choice was made by Espresso Executive Producer Robert Holzhammer.
POST WRESTLING VIDEO
WRESTLING NEWS
**Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Davey Boy Smith Jr. will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on Thursday, April 3rd in Tampa, Florida. Smith would join the previously announced inductees of Dave Bautista, and the unit of Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash entering as the original members of the New World Order. It has also been reported that The Bella Twins and Jushin Thunder Liger will be part of the 2020 class.
Smith started very young following the footsteps of his cousin Tom Billington in the UK as a teenager. He was wrestling on ITV and would migrate to Calgary in 1981 as part of Stampede Wrestling. He would feud and team with Billington in Stampede and the Calgary connection opened the doors for Smith to join his cousin getting into New Japan in 1983 where Billington already had a relationship working there. The pair jumped to All Japan in 1984, which was a major coup by AJPW and paid them big money.
In 1984, Stampede was bought out by Vince McMahon in a deal that ultimately went south for Stu Hart and eventually, would re-open the territory. But, in 1984, this opened the door for Stampede’s top talent to go to the WWF and that included the British Bulldogs, who were still maintaining the All Japan deal.
Smith and Billington would work exclusively for the WWF eventually and won the tag titles at WrestleMania 2 from Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake and held them until January 1987. This was a well-known story from Billington’s account of it in his Pure Dynamite book. Billington collapsed during a match the month prior in Hamilton and had two bulging discs in his back and nerve damage. He was literally carried to the ring in Tampa to drop the titles to the Hart Foundation and it was thought that Billington’s career was over, but he did continue.
The Bulldogs left the WWF in November 1988 and returned to Stampede Wrestling one year before the company shut its doors for the last time. They also got back into All Japan but the two would have a falling out with Smith returning to the WWF in 1990.
His biggest run for the company occurred in the summer of 1992 where he headlined SummerSlam at Wembley Stadium, defeating brother-in-law Bret Hart for the Intercontinental title. Smith was fired a few months later along with the Ultimate Warrior as the company was serious about drug testing with a belief that the two were violating the provisions set out at the time. He would wrestle for All Japan and go to WCW, where the hope was that he could be their breakout star for the U.K. but was done with the company by the end of 1993.
He returned to the WWF in the summer of 1994 and would work as a babyface for a year before turning to feud with then WWF champion Diesel. He was then aligned with brother-in-law Owen Hart and Vader as part of Camp Cornette. One of the best matches of this era in the company occurred in Berlin, Germany in February 1997 with Bulldog defeating Owen Hart to become the first European champion. In the fallout of the Survivor Series in 1997, Bulldog got out of his WWF contract to follow Bret Hart to WCW and had a dismal second run with the company that ended with a debilitating back injury where he landed on a hidden trap door that was designed for the Ultimate Warrior’s entrance in the fall of 1998. His health was terrible in the ensuing months but worked his way back and would sign again with the WWF in 1999. He was there for a year but has lots of problems and was let go in 2000.
He did a pair of matches with his son Harry in May 2002 with his final match on May 11th and died several days later at the age of 39 from a heart attack.
**In a call with members of the media on Tuesday, Cody stated that AEW and Jeff Cobb are in the ‘gestation’ stage stating that Cobb is still working with Ring of Honor and New Japan but will be doing more AEW dates beyond Dynamite this week.
**The ongoing preventive measures being taken to curb the spread of the coronavirus has affected numerous shows from Stardom. The company has announced that their shows on February 22nd in Osaka, February 23rd in Nagoya, February 29th in Tokyo, and March 14th in Osaka have been canceled. On March 8th, they will go ahead with their show at Korakuen Hall but they will be doing the show in an empty arena without fans and stream the show on its YouTube channel.
**New Japan has added that their shows will go on as scheduled but are encouraging fans to be mindful of their physical condition before attending, to wear surgical masks wherever possible, to go home if you feel ill, and are canceling all meet-and-greets and signings until further notice.
**Shelton Benjamin revealed on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing the Glory podcast that he signed a new multi-year deal with WWE. In the interview, he cited his frustration with his current position in the company but is hopeful of things changing.
Benjamin, 44, is on his second stint with the company after originally signing in 2000 as being brought up through OVW and added to the SmackDown roster in late 2002 as part of the World’s Greatest Team with Charlie Haas. The two were split in 2004 with Haas on SmackDown and Benjamin on Raw where he received a substantial push that ultimately, didn’t propel him. He was let go in 2010 and would reunite with Haas later that year in Ring of Honor. In 2012, he joined New Japan Pro Wrestling teaming with MVP and participated in the G-1 Climax, which was won by Kazuchika Okada that year. In 2013, he joined Suzuki-gun and would be part of the group sent to Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2015 when the two promotions were working together.
In July 2016, after the latest brand split the WWE announced Benjamin was returning but it was delayed by a year after Benjamin had to have a torn rotator cuff taken care of. He eventually signed with WWE and returned in August 2017 and has appeared sporadically throughout this run. He was drafted to Raw last October and got a decent spotlight in this year’s Royal Rumble during a spot with Brock Lesnar that played off their history together at the University of Minnesota with Lesnar eliminating Benjamin after teasing an alliance.
**Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,464,000 viewers on Fox last week. The show did a 0.7 among adults 18-49 and tied the CBS block of programming with MacGyver, Hawaii Five-O, and Blue Bloods doing the same. SmackDown was also #1 among networking programming with adults 18-34 with a 0.5. SmackDown fell 3% from the prior week. One would think the next two episodes should be strong with Bill Goldberg and John Cena’s appearances.
**Due to the holiday on Monday, ratings for the XFL and Raw have been delayed.
**NXT UK is advertising appearances from Finn Balor at their next set of tapings in March. Balor is listed for the shows on March 6th and 7th from the Coventry Skydome Arena. With the next NXT UK TakeOver set for Dublin, Ireland it would make all the sense for Balor to have a big role on that card. The TakeOver event is scheduled for Sunday, April 26th at the 3Arena.
**WWE has added a Raw tag title match to Super ShowDown with Seth Rollins & Murphy vs. The Street Profits.
**Last week, the promotional material for Super ShowDown was updated with the show now taking place from the Mohammed Abdu Theatre at The Boulevard in Riyadh. The show was initially set for King Fahd International Stadium and is about 25 minutes away from the new venue. Tickets for the show start at 25 Saudi Riyals ($6.67 U.S), floor seats range from 100-250 riyals ($26-53) with VIP floor seats priced at $200 U.S. There are also offering platinum seating for 2000 riyals ($533.28 U.S). The Mohammed Abdu Theatre has a listed capacity of 22,000, which could fluctuate based on the production set up for the event. King Fahd Stadium, which hosted the Crown Jewel show last October, is a big stadium that can hold close to 70,000.
**Former WWE talent Eve Torres-Gracie put out a post regarding an incident from 2009 involving Donald Trump during the period he was given control of Raw. Torres-Gracie cited a press event in June 2009 in Green Bay prior to Raw where she appeared alongside Torrie Wilson, Maryse Ouellet, The Bella Twins, and Maria Kanellis where she alleges that Trump forcefully grabbed her. Below is the Instagram post from Torres-Gracie:
**There is no NWA Power episode tonight and in its place is the debut episode of ‘The Circle Squared’ at 6:05 pm Eastern. The concept is that a group of independent wrestlers vying for an NWA contract. This week’s contestants are Luke & PJ Hawx with PJ recently the subject of a massive viral clip where he dove off a balcony at a show inside a shopping mall. They will also be announcing the date and location for the Crockett Cup pay-per-view in April. NWA Power will resume next Tuesday in its usual slot.
**Below are the matches for tonight’s AEW Dark program at 7 pm Eastern, taped last week in Austin, Texas:
*Jack Evans & Angelico vs. Best Friends
*Kris Statlander vs. Diamante
*Big Swole vs. Christi Jaynes
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 8 pm Eastern on AXS TV:
*Tessa Blanchard, Trey Miguel & Tommy Dreamer vs. Ace Austin & Reno Scum
*TJP vs. Josh Alexander
*Michael Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards in Match #3 of their best-of-five series
*Rhyno vs. Dave Crist
*Madison Rayne issues an open challenge
**NXT North American champion Keith Lee and Mark Henry will be on tonight’s edition of WWE Backstage at 11 pm Eastern on FS 1.
**Cody and Brandi Rhodes spoke with 11 Alive in Atlanta to promote Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite at the State Farm Arena. Cody said within five years, he would like to see AEW on a different night of the week and would be very confident if they were to air on a Monday night. There was a big emphasis on the data they pour through during the week from Dynamite and cited Chris Harrington as the one handling that aspect.
**Wednesday’s edition of The Bump at 10 am Eastern will feature Sheamus in-studio along with guests Roman Reigns and Fit Finlay.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Adam Brooks will take on Slex in Brooks’ promotional debut at their 18th Anniversary pay-per-view on Friday, March 13th in Las Vegas. The company has also announced a reunion of the Havana Pitbulls as Rocky Romero & Ricky Reyes will take on Bandido & Flamita at the Past vs. Present card the following night on March 14th in Las Vegas.
**TSN’s Engraved on a Nation series has been nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best biography or art documentary program or series. The six documentaries they produced included ‘Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story’ profiling Kenny Omega.
**EVOLVE has announced that Jake Atlas will be working several dates for the group. Atlas is scheduled for February 29th in Queens, March 1st in Melrose, March 14th in Livonia, and March 15th in Chicago.
**The WWE stock closed at $45.96 on Tuesday, which was up over 2% during the day.
**Col. Robert Parker will be returning to MLW on April 18th at the ‘Intimidation Games’ show at Cicero Stadium in Chicago.
**The results from WWE’s Main Event tapings on Monday in Everett featured Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder over Eric Young & Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander over Akira Tozawa.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling will be running Korakuen Hall for the next four days with Wednesday morning’s show airing at 4:30 am Eastern on New Japan World. Wednesday’s card is highlighted by Tiger Hattori’s retirement ceremony and the following matches:
*Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare vs. Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura & Gabriel Kidd
*Will Ospreay & Roppongi 3K vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Rocky Romero & Tiger Mask
*Hiromu Takahashi, EVIL & Bushi vs. Juice Robinson, David Finlay & Yoshi-Hashi
*Manabu Nakanishi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima & Yuji Nagata vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado
*Guerrillas of Destiny, Jay White & Bad Luck Fale vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano
*Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & Sanada vs. Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto
*Tiger Hattori Retirement Ceremony
**Pro Wrestling NOAH’s next major card is March 8th in Yokohama and is headlined by Go Shiosaki defending the GHC heavyweight title against Kazuyuki Fujita. Michael Elgin has also been announced for this card.
**The latest episode of We Are Stardom features Hana Kimura & Kagetsu vs. Mayu Iwatani & Saki Kashima from January 3rd at Shinkiba 1st Ring (which is a show I attended) and Kagetsu vs. Tam Nakano and Saki Kashima, Natsuko Tora & Natsu Sumire vs. Saya Kamitani, Itsuki Hoshino & Saya Iida from Korakuen Hall on January 19th.
**Thursday’s card at Korakuen Hall features Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the NEVER Openweight title and Roppongi 3K vs. Rocky Romero & Ryusuke Taguchi for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag titles. Friday’s card is headlined by the Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi for the IWGP tag titles and a NEVER Six-Man tag title match with Shingo Takagi, EVIL & Bushi vs. Colt Cabana, Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi. Saturday’s show is the Manabu Nakanishi Retirement Ceremony with the main event consisting of Nakanishi, Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi & Hirooki Goto. All the shows from Korakuen Hall this week begin at 4:30 am Eastern and stream on New Japan World.
**WrestleCon has added more names to their convention from April 2-5 in Tampa with Rocky Romero, Shingo Takagi, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, Katsuyori Shibata, the Guerrillas of Destiny, El Desperado, Cinta de Oro, Ron Simmons, and NZO (Enzo Amore).
**A match receiving a lot of praise is the Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Hideki Suzuki match from NOAH’s Korakuen Hall show on Sunday.
**Here are the line ups for NXT and AEW on Wednesday night:
AEW at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta:
*Cody vs. Wardlow in a Steel Cage Match
*Jon Moxley vs. Jeff Cobb
*Kenny Omega & Hangman Page vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix for the AEW tag titles
*Tag Team Battle Royal for a title shot at AEW Revolution (The Young Bucks, Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy, Scorpio Sky & Frankie Kazarian, Santana & Ortiz, Private Party, Angelico & Jack Evans, Best Friends, Butcher & The Blade, CIMA & T-Hawk, John Silver & Alex Reynolds)
NXT at Full Sail University:
*Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong
*Jordan Devlin vs. Lio Rush for the Cruiserweight title
*Kayden Carter vs. Chelsea Green
MMA NEWS
**On Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from Rio Rancho, New Mexico the source of controversy coming out of the show was Diego Sanchez’s disqualification victory against Michel Pereira. In the third round of a fight, he was clearly ahead on points for, Pereira struck Sanchez with an illegal knee where Sanchez was clearly a downed opponent. It opened a significant cut on Sanchez’s forehead as time was halted. Referee Jason Herzog gave Sanchez time to recover and asked if the fighter wanted to continue. Sanchez, thinking on the spot, asked what would happen with Herzog (correctly) not giving an answer. Sanchez asked to speak to his corner and that request was turned down. Sanchez stated he could not continue and was ruled the winner by disqualification.
There has been criticism that Sanchez has faced and it’s very hard to look at his situation without the understanding of what he stood to lose. We don’t have the purse figures from Saturday but Sanchez’s last fight at UFC 239 against Michael Chiesa was listed at $103,000 to fight with a $103,000 win bonus, meaning Sanchez would have cost himself six figures to have continued a fight he was clearly losing. He was down 20-18 on the three judges’ scorecards on Saturday.
It brings about natural questions about the subject of open scoring and the ability for those fighters to work the system to their advantage. If a fighter is fouled and can see they are down on the scorecards, there is minimal incentive to continue the fight and I find it hard to place blame on Sanchez given the UFC’s bonus system. There is a stronger argument to the Bellator model of paying fighters a flat fee, so they know upfront what they are making and I don’t buy for a second that it would hinder their performance without a carrot being dangled in the form of a win bonus.
There is a separate discussion to be had over Sanchez’s performance and if he’s competing at a diminished capacity after all these years. He was never in this fight against Pereira and at the age of 38, the wars have taken its toll on Sanchez. After the win, I cannot see the UFC not booking him in another fight and Sanchez just signed a new deal with the promotion late last year.
In speaking with Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, Sanchez gave the following statement regarding the end to Saturday’s fight:
Did I quit? No. I got hit with a (expletive) serious knee to the head. I knew I was going down on the scorecards, I knew how things were rolling out. I made a smart, veteran decision because I know my face is, regardless or not of the last two minutes of the fight, my face is going to be covered in blood. The image is going to be painted on the judges. I already know. I don’t have a chance of winning that fight anymore. So, did I quit? I made a (expletive) smart decision to not put myself in some real danger where I would’ve been injured when that mother(expletive) hit me with an illegal shot when I was down.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 2/17/20: Disciples & Profits, Ruthless Aggression Review
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring the destruction of Matt Hardy. They also share their thoughts on the first episode of the WWE Network’s Ruthless Aggression series as well as NXT TakeOver: Portland. Plus, today’s news and details on the POST Wrestling LIVE in Tampa Q&A.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/18/rewind-a-raw-2-17-20-disciples-profits-ruthless-aggression-review/
*****
NXT TakeOver: Portland POST Show
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back reviewing NXT TakeOver: Portland featuring Tommaso Ciampa vs. Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano vs. Finn Balor!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/17/nxt-takeover-portland-post-show/
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger in RevPro’s British J Cup
WH Park and Will Cooling from PW Torch’s The British Wrestling Report talk for the first time to discuss Jushin Liger’s participation in the British J Cup held by RevPro in the summer of 2017.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/16/thunderstruck-17-jushin-liger-in-revpros-british-j-cup-7-8-17-w-will-cooling/
*****
TRMPS #14: Fast Give (2011) w/ Joey Lewandowski & Joe Two
Nate Milton welcomes Joey Lewandowski & Joe Two of the “2 Fast 2 Forever” podcast into the theater to recap The Rock’s first ride as DSS Agent Luke “Rebecca” Hobbs in 2011’s Fast Five.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/15/trmps-14-fast-five-2011-w-joey-lewandowski-joe-two/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 2/14/20: Heavy Hearted Machinery
John Pollock and Wai Ting are back to review WWE SmackDown on Valentine’s Day featuring Otis’ date with Mandy Rose. Carmella challenges Bayley for the SD women’s title, and Hulk Hogan joins us via satellite.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/15/rewind-a-smackdown-2-14-20-heavy-hearted-machinery/
*****
POST PURORESU: New Beginning, MSG, Miyahara vs. Aoyagi
WH Park is joined by Dylan Fox of the Eastern Lariat Podcast to discuss the New Beginning cards, NJPW at MSG, Champion Carnival, CyberAgent buys NOAH & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/14/post-puroresu-new-beginning-msg-miyahara-vs-aoyagi/
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT: WrestleMania 37 in LA, XFL w/ Marcus Vanderberg
John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by Marcus Vanderberg (Yahoo Sports, The Kings of Sport podcast) to chat about WrestleMania going to Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium in 2021, XFL Week 1 and the latest in wrestling news.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/13/live-link-cafe-hangout-your-calls-marcus-vanderberg/
*****
upNXT 2/12/20: “Bro, Where’s My Car?”
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to review the NXT TakeOver: Portland “go-home” edition of WWE NXT featuring KUSHIDA vs. Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano vs. Cameron Grimes, and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/13/upnxt-2-12-20-bro-wheres-my-car/
*****
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