POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I are back with Rewind-A-Raw tonight discussing the show from Brooklyn, New York. We will go over a lot of news including Matt Hardy’s free agency, The Great Muta story with GCW, and lots more. Plus, we will take your questions and feedback at the end.
**On Tuesday, it’s Rewind-A-Wai #56 as Wai Ting and I review PWG Eleven from July 2014. This was PWG’s anniversary card featuring a memorable Guerrilla Warfare match between The Young Bucks and Joey Ryan & Candice LeRae, Kevin Steen’s farewell before going to NXT, Kyle O’Reilly vs. Chris Hero for the PWG title, Adam Cole vs. Roderick Strong, Frankie Kazarian vs. Brian Kendrick, ACH vs. Cedric Alexander, and Tommaso Ciampa vs. Rocky Romero. We will also look at the major news from this week in 2014. This will be available to all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**The AEW Revolution POST Show is available for everyone to download and watch. Wai Ting and I reviewed the card highlighted by the outstanding tag match with Kenny Omega & Hangman Page vs. The Young Bucks. Plus, we took your phone calls with reactions to the show.
**This week’s edition of Thunderstruck features WH Park welcoming Mark Spears from the Voices of Wrestling network to review the Jushin Thunder Liger vs. CIMA match from April 2000.
POST SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #56: PWG Eleven (Patreon)
*Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
*Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Wednesday: UFC 248 Preview with John Pollock & Cody Saftic
*Thursday: Café Hangout at 3 pm ET (LIVE for all Patrons)
*Friday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Benno & Jamesie
*Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai Ting (Patreon)
*Saturday: UFC 248 POST Show
*Sunday: Thunderstruck with WH Park & guest Davis Storm (Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto, Feb. 1997)
*Sunday: WWE Elimination Chamber POST Show with John & Wai (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Unlike most weeks, they have announced plenty in advance of tonight’s episode with the following advertised:
*Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane – WWE announced Sane was replacing Asuka and stated it was because Asuka had a sprained wrist
*Seth Rollins & Murphy vs. The Street Profits for the Raw tag titles
*AJ Styles vs. Aleister Black
*Andrade & Angel Garza vs. Rey Mysterio & Humberto Carrillo
*Riddick Moss defends the 24/7 title
*Brock Lesnar to appear
*Beth Phoenix provides an update on Edge
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reported that Matt Riddle is in Brooklyn, New York. We were told that Riddle is there for a meeting. Johnson also reported that Bianca Belair was spotted in Brooklyn.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw is the only show the brand has before the Elimination Chamber card. I feel AJ Styles needs to have something noteworthy tonight to counter the way he was handled at Super ShowDown. He needs to cut a big promo or do something big to erase the memory of that loss. He can always see he wasn’t ready for The Undertaker, he wasn’t part of the match, but I think it needs to be more intense to make the majority want to see the match.
Given the lead-up on television, I think there is a strong argument for switching the roles of Ricochet and R-Truth at Super ShowDown. People would have been much more accepting of R-Truth as this ironic challenger to Brock Lesnar, based on their interaction on Raw, and Lesnar ultimately winning in 90 seconds. This was never a serious match with Ricochet and if it was only a placeholder to get Lesnar on the show then sacrifice R-Truth instead, who is bulletproof to that type of loss as the overmatched challenger. As well, you could have aired clips from the 24/7 special on R-Truth to present him in a serious light going for the title given its premiere right after the show.
Conversely, Ricochet running the table in the Gauntlet Match and runs into a fresh AJ Styles, who he had been feuding with on TV, falling to Styles doesn’t hurt him and Styles wins by entering the match last. Styles continues the same promo he’s been cutting about being the new Mr. WrestleMania and the lights go out for the major pop with The Undertaker appearing and staring down Styles.
**Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,687,000 viewers on Fox last week with John Cena’s return. They did a 0.8 in the 18-49 demographic, which was the top program on television that night in that category.
**Game Changer Wrestling provided an update on the status of Keiji Muto for Spring Break IV with the Japanese star’s presence in limbo for the event. GCW issued a lengthy statement about the problems they have experienced after working out two separate deals with Muto and promoting him for the April 3rd show in Ybor City and appear on behalf of GCW at WrestleCon.
Since then, Sonny Onoo (the former WCW manager) has got involved telling the promotion he would be handling Muto’s dealings with the company and would seek other work for Muto that weekend in Tampa. Onoo informed GCW he brokered a deal with a vendor to bring Muto to WrestleCon and that would replace his previous agreement in place with GCW. The company was willing to allow this to occur providing this new vendor share in the costs for travel and accommodation, which Onoo was stunned by. According to GCW, they learned that the mystery vendor was Onoo and they surmised he was trying to get in on the WrestleCon booking while GCW ate the cost. Onoo later admitted to the company he was the vendor. They stated Onoo has stopped relaying messages to Muto and that his presence at Spring Break IV is unlikely pending some drastic change in the negotiations.
Among the requests Onoo was asking for of GCW in their talks were four nights at a Disney hotel in Orlando, four 4-day Park Hopper passes to Disney parks, a 12.5% commission to Sonny Onoo, four skybox seats for WrestleMania in Tampa, and transportation to and from Orlando and Tampa.
Following this news, John Thorne of Absolute Intense Wrestling and Kevin Matthews from WrestlePro have each shared stories of their problems dealing with Onoo in the past.
GCW added that will seek a replacement that meets the expectations of their fanbase.
**Matt Hardy became a free agent on Sunday and released a video explaining why he is testing out free agency and where he and WWE differed. WWE posted its own story on Monday confirming that Hardy’s contract has expired and complimented Hardy as a trailblazer and added that, ‘WWE thanks Matt Hardy for his contributions to sports-entertainment and the WWE Universe and wishes him the best in his future endeavors.’
**After the AEW Revolution card, Tony Khan spoke to members of the media and announced that Colt Cabana had signed with AEW. Khan said that Cabana could serve as a wrestler, commentator or coach. This came after Cabana’s surprise appearance on the ‘Buy-In’ pre-show ahead of Revolution where he came out to confront Dark Order as they attacked SCU after their tag match. Cabana tweeted out the following statement after the news was revealed by Khan:
As @TonyKhan said last night, I’ve signed with @AEWrestling & @AEWonTNT. I’ve had different goals & ideas throughout my career in Wrestling. Right now, to be involved on a national TV show & product with my Friends and Equals…it’s all I can ask for! This will be fun! Thankssss
**All Japan’s Jun Akiyama will be going to Orlando in May to serve as a guest coach at the WWE Performance Center. All Japan announced Akiyama would be there from May 12th to 22nd and would also be meeting with Paul Levesque during his trip. Tokyo Sports has reported that Levesque and Akiyama first met in June and noted the potential of the two sides coming together. In the article, All Japan president Takeki Fukuda was asked about a potential relationship between the two sides:
I haven’t decided anything yet, and I’m looking forward to the future. I hope this visit will have a positive impact on each other.
**Cody posted the following comment on his neck tattoo he unveiled at the Revolution pay-per-view:
I’m humbled by the run I’ve been on and the love of the fans. Incredibly lucky man. It was very simple, I wear a lot of brands…I wanted to make sure mine was one of them. And I wasn’t hiding it. More details on tomorrow’s “Road To Denver.
**The Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland will host WWE’s Money in the Bank event on Sunday, May 10th. The show will take place five weeks after WrestleMania but has not officially been announced by WWE, although it’s listed on Ticketmaster with a pre-sale scheduled for Tuesday, March 10th.
**This Friday’s edition of 205 Live will feature a 10-man Elimination tag match with Lio Rush, Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott, Tyler Breeze, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Tony Nese, Mike Bennett, Brian Kendrick, Ariya Daivari & Jack Gallagher. 205 Live takes place immediately after SmackDown from Buffalo, New York at the KeyBank Center. Roman Reigns is not being advertised for this Friday’s show.
**Prior to the Revolution pay-per-view, Nyla Rose spoke with ET Canada about her role with the company and indicated AEW would be coming to Canada in the future and hopes it will be sooner rather than later. In the interview, Rose spoke about a role she had in a Canadian television series called ‘The Switch’, which was a comedy on OutTV where she moves to Canada and comes out as a transgendered woman and filmed the series in Canada. Regarding backlash she has received, Rose stated:
At the end of the day, it is simply about respect. As the saying goes do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That’s the Golden Rule. Treat others how you wish to be treated. Nobody is asking anyone to go out of their way and change their beliefs. It is just about showing another human being some respect. To have people like Dustin and Cody stand up and say, ‘enough is enough’ is huge because not only are they are supporting and backing their talent, they are also putting their money where their mouths are.
**Coming out of the weekend for Ring of Honor, Rush is the new ROH champion pinning PCO in the main event triple threat match in St. Louis. As per the stipulation, Mark Haskins receives the title match at the next pay-per-view because he wasn’t pinned in the main event. The 18th-anniversary card takes place Friday, March 13th from Las Vegas with the updated card:
*Rush vs. Mark Haskins for the ROH title
*Dragon Lee vs. Bandido for the ROH Television title
*Jay Lethal & Jonathan Gresham for the ROH tag titles
*Slex vs. Adam Brooks
*The Briscoes vs. Dalton Castle & Joe Hendry
*Kenny King vs. Dan Maff vs. Shane Taylor vs. Bateman in a Dealer’s Choice match
*Nicole Savoy vs. Session Moth Martina
**Flip Gordon is set to challenge the ROH champion at Supercard of Honor on Saturday, April 4th in Lakeland, Florida.
**Low Ki vs. Zack Sabre Jr. has been added to the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow on Thursday, April 2nd over WrestleMania week. The Supershow also has Shingo Takagi vs. Bandido and a four-way with Arez vs. Taurus vs. Laredo Kid vs. Aramis and sounds like an incredible show.
**Black Label Pro is running The Cuban Club in Ybor City on Friday, April 3rd at Midnight as part of The Collective series of shows. They have announced that Nick Gage will be fighting former UFC and Bellator fighter Stephan Bonnar, Dominic Garrini & Kevin Ku vs. Jordynne Grace & Leyla Hirsch, Tom Lawlor vs. Haku, and Jeff Cobb vs. Jake Something.
**The Bella Twins are doing a Premium+ autograph session at WrestleMania Axxess on Saturday, April 4th at 1 pm Eastern. Tickets will be available this Friday at 10 am.
**Progress Wrestling sent out a release that there will be a pair of shows at Alexandra Palace on May 23rd and 24th as part of Super Strong Style 16 weekend. The May 23rd card will be Kaiju Big Battel and then on the 24th, it’s a concept show with the premise that it will be taking place in 1998 with the following description:
XTREME ATTITUDE 1998
The year is 1998. Professional wrestling has moved on from the late 80s and early 90s. No longer does every wrestler have a trade, nor do they eat their vitamins and say their prayers. Hell no. Because now… everyone is XTREME. Everyone has ATTITUDE.
This is XTREME ATTITUDE: The loudest, violentest, funniest and most unmissable show that emerged from the chaos of professional wrestling in 1998. Admit it, this is the reason you love wrestling.
XTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME!
This event is a live show ONLY, it will not be filmed for Demand PROGRESS
**Ring of Honor has updated the list of participants for their Pure title tournament. Those announced include Jonathan Gresham, Doug Williams, Alex Shelley, Rocky Romero, Slex, Mark Haskins, and Tracy Williams. The 16-man tournament begins April 10th in Columbus, Ohio and continues the following night in Pittsburgh at Stage AE.
**The other tournament ROH is launching is for the vacant women’s title. The 16-woman tournament kicks off April 24th in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena with former champion Sumie Sakai, Angelina Love, Nicole Savoy, Session Moth Martina, Kellyanne, Jenny Rose, Tasha Steelz, and Katarina listed. The title has been vacant after champion Kelly Klein’s contract ended last year.
**Beyond Wrestling has added a show for WrestleMania weekend on Sunday, April 5th in Tampa at 8 pm Eastern head-to-head with WrestleMania. The show takes place at the 81Bay Brewing Company with Jonathan Gresham vs. Daniel Makabe announced for the show along with David Starr, Kylie Rae, Jordynne Grace, and Bear Country. In addition, season three of their series ‘Uncharted Territory’ will begin on Thursday, April 30th from The White Eagle in Worcester, Massachusetts and streams on IWTV.
**NXT has added live events on April 17th in Atlanta, April 18th in Knoxville, and April 19th in Greensboro, North Carolina with tickets to all three on sale this Friday.
**This past weekend’s episode of Ring of Honor was a strong episode. It featured two matches from the Free Enterprise card in Baltimore last month with Alex Zayne vs. Andrew Everett and The Briscoes vs. Bandido & Flamita. Both were hot matches, but the main event was spectacular with Flamita having a tremendous showcase with the height he reached on several dives. Bandido landed a beautiful springboard shooting star to the floor. It climaxed with numerous near falls that the audience went crazy for prior to Froggy Bow from Mark Briscoe, who got the cover. The episode featured clips of their August 2002 match where Mark beat Jay in his debut for the company. The highlight package was designed to promote their match at the Past vs. Present show on Saturday, March 14th. I enjoyed the show a lot, it was a fast-moving show with two solid matches and some campy backstage scenes with PJ Black teaching Brian Johnson his new finisher and Josh Woods buying skinny jeans for Silas Young, which was a pretty funny scene.
**The WWE stock closed at $46.36 on Monday.
**WrestleCon has added Zack Sabre Jr., Scott Hall, Ken Anderson, Bob Backlund, Matt Sydal, Gerald Brisco, Mike McGuirk, Mike Knox, and Garrett Bischoff to their convention April 2-5 in Tampa.
**WWE released a clip from the recent episode of ‘Break it Down’ with Trish Stratus reflecting on her hardcore match against Victoria from the Survivor Series in November 2002.
**Dragon Gate held its Champion Gate card on Sunday in Osaka with Naruki Doi retaining the Open the Dream Gate title against Susumu Yokosuka in the main event. In the co-feature, Open the Dream Gate champions BxB Hulk & Kazma Sakamoto went to a no-contest with Yamato & KAI. The promotion has canceled its shows until March 14th when they are tentatively scheduled to resume. The cancellations are due to the concerns over the outbreak of the coronavirus that have impacted numerous companies in Japan.
**Progress Wrestling put tickets on sale today for their Chapter 105 card set for Monday, April 20th at the Electric Ballroom in Camden.
**Fight Network has released its latest edition of ‘Diary’ focus on Tessa Blanchard during ‘Hard to Kill’ weekend in Dallas prior to her title win against Sami Callihan. The issues going on that weekend for Blanchard are not addressed other than some vague references to the allegations and a shot of Blanchard visibly upset backstage. We will discuss the episode on tonight’s Rewind-A-Raw:
**OTT put out a sit-down interview with champion David Starr that was conducted by Aonghus McAnally to promote his match against Jon Moxley at ScrapperMania 6 on Saturday, March 14th:
**Below is the full panel discussion involving Cody and The Young Bucks from Friday as part of C2E2:
**The latest edition of Being the Elite covers the lead-up to Revolution. It ends with The Young Bucks getting set to go home when Matt receives a mystery call from someone with a 910 area code (North Carolina) that they haven’t heard from in a while and have to delay going home to meet this person:
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. CIMA (4/9/2000)
WH Park and “Iron” Mike Spears of Voices of Wrestling’s Open the Voice Gate and Everything Elite podcasts talk for the very first time to review Jushin Liger vs. CIMA from the finals of the 2000 Super J Cup.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/01/thunderstruck-19-jushin-liger-vs-cima-4-9-00-w-mike-spears/
*****
AEW REVOLUTION POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Revolution featuring Chris Jericho vs. Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship, “Hangman” Page & Kenny Omega vs. The Young Bucks for the AEW Tag Team titles, and Cody vs. MJF.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/01/aew-revolution-post-show/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 2/28/20: WrestleMania Announcements
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with the return of John Cena and the announcement of Goldberg’s WrestleMania challenger. Plus, we preview tonight’s AEW Revolution card.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/29/rewind-a-smackdown-2-28-20-wrestlemania-announcements-revolution-preview/
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT – WWE Super ShowDown POST Show
John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by Mike Murray to review WWE Super ShowDown from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia featuring Goldberg vs. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt for the WWE Universal Title.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/27/live-link-wwe-super-showdown-post-show-9pm-et/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 2/26/20: Revolution Go-Home, Ruthless Aggression Ep. 3
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite’s final stop before Saturday’s Revolution PPV featuring Kenny Omega vs. PAC in a 30-minute Ironman match and a weigh-in before Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/27/rewind-a-dynamite-2-26-20-revolution-go-home-ruthless-aggression-ep-3/
*****
upNXT 2/26/20: The Fresh Queen of Belair
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back reviewing the February 26th edition of WWE NXT featuring Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair, Austin Theory vs. Tommaso Ciampa and Grizzled Young Veterans vs. The Forgotten Sons in an epic UK vs USA match!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/27/upnxt-2-26-20-the-fresh-queen-of-belair/
*****
Browse the 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
