POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, on Rewind-A-Raw we will be joined by Andrew Thompson & Nate Milton for an important discussion about the past week, the murder of George Floyd, and many important aspects to what is going on now. We will also have a review of Raw and discuss news from the past few days along with your feedback at the end.
**Later this week, Damian Abraham will be joining us to remember Danny Havoc (Grant Berkland) who died over the weekend. Damian got to know Grant well through his series “The Wrestlers” that aired on Viceland and they spent an episode profiling Havoc in the lead-up to his 2017 retirement match with Alex Colon for CZW.
**Over the weekend, we released our monthly edition of POST Puroresu discussing the history of Pro Wrestling NOAH. I thought this was one of our best shows to date with WH Park and I very happy with how it turned out. Beyond NOAH, we spoke about Hana Kimura, the coverage of her death, a round-up of the latest news in all the promotions, and the POST Puroresu theme song contest.
**Wai Ting and Pauline review episodes seven and eight of Total Bellas for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw w/ guests Nate Milton & Andrew Thompson
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI mailbag show (Patreon)
Wednesday: POST Interview with Damian Abraham remembering Danny Havoc
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Thursday: UFC 250 Preview with John Pollock & Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (LIVE for all Patrons)
Saturday: UFC 250 POST Show with John & Phil Chertok
Sunday: Total Recall Season Finale (Patreon)
Sunday: The Long & Winding Royal Road with WH Park (History of the Triple Crown)
Sunday: NXT TakeOver: In Your House POST Show with Braden & Davie
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw will air from the Performance Center tonight with an episode taped last week. They have announced the following for the show:
*Apollo Crews vs. TBA for the United States title
*Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair
*Seth Rollins vs. Aleister Black
*The Rey Mysterio Retirement Ceremony
*The Street Profits and Viking Raiders go bowling
**The new Raw Talk post-show will stream free on the WWE Network following tonight’s episode with hosts Charly Caruso & Samoa Joe.
**Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,170,000 viewers on Fox and 0.6 in the 18-49 demographic. It was SmackDown’s best viewership since April 17th, which was also the last week to hit 0.6 in the main demo. In the demo, they tied with a replay of Shark Tank on ABC for first among network programming. SmackDown also did 0.4 in the 18-34 demo, which was the highest among Friday’s network shows. The cable numbers on Friday were dominated by news programming with the ongoing protests and coverage throughout the country.
**Titus O’Neil was joined by Dave Bautista, Chief Brian Dugan, and Sherriff Chad Chronister for a one hour Instagram discussion on the murder of George Floyd. Bautista called this “the civil rights movement of our time.”
**Montez Ford and Bianca Belair have launched The Culture Connection in an effort to bring knowledge to others about black history and the struggle that has led to this moment.
The Culture Connection’s mission is to advocate, learn, share, interact, and promote positivity. We want to assist those who want to take action, advocate, learn, and more but don’t know where to look or start. We aim to create a space for ALL who are interested in taking action by providing an array of information that brings awareness to opportunities to volunteer, advocate, & donate in regards to current issues and events affecting Black people. We also promote educating & re-educating yourself & others by providing book suggestions, videos, documentaries, news, articles, facts, etc. that we feel touch on Black culture, history, entertainment, issues, & topics.
**A fan on Twitter @SpotCallerz put together a video explaining Black Lives Matter being a black wrestling fan. He tweeted out the video and tagged several wrestlers including Chris Jericho, who he said he made the video to explain his perspective. On Monday, he stated that he had been blocked by Jericho. It is not known what Jericho’s reasoning was for the block with the user noting it was only the tweet containing the video where he tagged him.
One of the other wrestlers tagged was Dave Bautista, who did respond:
Brother I think everything you said is valid AF. I cant speak for anyone but I believe when people post #AllLivesMatter they mean well but they are severely missing the point. I lost over 11k followers very recently on IG and I hope they never come back
**Big E. is auctioning off a pair of ring-worn boots of his to raise funds for Saigon Bay, a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Tampa that was damaged over the weekend. He stated that everything raised from the auction will go towards the GoFundMe set up to repair the restaurant.
**Over the weekend, two members from the Pittsburgh scene passed away with Joe Perri and Michael Blade (Michael Runco Jr.). Perri died after battling cancer for the past two years. He worked as a referee and manager among his roles and served as the commissioner in the Keystone State Wrestling Alliance. He was 61.
Runco Jr., who wrestled over the past 30 years died in his sleep Saturday night with the cause of death yet to be determined. He was 48 years old and a veteran of the Pennsylvania scene until retiring in 2016. His last match was for Code Red Wrestling and held their heavyweight title that same year.
Tom Leturgey has a story on both performers at SLAMwrestling.net.
**Over the weekend, it was reported by Louis Dangoor of WrestleTalk that Dominik Dijakovic would be leaving NXT and moved to the main roster. Dave Meltzer has since confirmed that Dijakovic is earmarked for the Raw brand.
**Cost-cutting is continuing at WWE with the company reducing certain salaries among officials and executives, and cutting pay up to 20% for some producers and referees. PWinsider.com first reported the added cost-cutting measures and the Wrestling Observer reported on the direct impact on some of the producers and referees.
**SLAM Wrestling is re-launching its site at SLAMwrestling.net. Greg Oliver, who has run the site with John Powell since 1997, announced that they were informed by parent company Postmedia back in April that they were being given sixty days’ notice when the site would shut down as a result of the pandemic affecting many businesses including media divisions. The group has re-launched at the new site and running it by themselves. They are in the process of adding all their historical content, which is one of the vital outlets in the wrestling media landscape. SLAM was one of the first sites I discovered in late 1998 and has been a routine stop for me over the past twenty-two years. Oliver is among the top historians in the industry and has written some of the best historical content anywhere alongside Steven Johnson with their Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame series of releases going back to 2003.
**Wrestler Clutch Adams recently did a match with Shawn Spears to air on Tuesday’s episode of AEW Dark. Cody Rhodes announced the match had been pulled following the revelation of racist and homophobic tweets from 2013. In a statement, Adams apologized for his past remarks and below is a portion of the statement:
When I wrote those original tweets seven years ago, I was a 20-year old kid. I was trash-talking friends about a football game on Twitter. At that point, in time, I was ignorant to the pain that those words could cause people. In 2013, it was meant to be locker room trash talk that I felt was OK to use in that context. Now I know differently. I was not a hateful person back then, as I am not a hateful person today. I was stupid and ignorant. Plain and simple, no excuses.
**AEW had added a match between KiLynn King and Christi Jaynes to Tuesday’s episode of Dark in the place of Spears vs. Adams.
**Tully Blanchard cut an awesome promo on Shawn Spears, this was really amazing and belongs on television.
Message heard….
— HEARTLESS (@Perfec10n) June 1, 2020
**AEW has announced that Tony Schiavone with conduct a sit-down interview with FTR, and Brian Cage will be in action on Dynamite this Wednesday. This week’s episode was taped last week in Jacksonville, Florida at Daily’s Place.
**According to Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com, WWE has banned the use of the buckle bomb.
**On their podcast this week, Pat Laprade & Kevin Raphael put together a tribute for the late Owen Hart and spoke with Kevin Owens, Raymond Rougeau, Jimmy Korderas, PCO, Carl Leduc, and Ross Hart.
**Rhea Ripley spoke to Metro in the U.K. and discussed recent visa issues. She confirmed she did have to do her visa but didn’t have to leave the country to go back to Australia due to there being no flights with the ongoing pandemic. She noted she wouldn’t be able to get to Australia or come back if she went there.
**TSN’s Michael Landsberg will be interviewing Taya Valkyrie today at 5 pm Eastern on Isolation Nation. They will be discussing mental health, cyberbullying, and the recent death of Hana Kimura.
**The WWE stock closed at $47.15 on Monday.
**The UFC will return this Saturday with the UFC 250 pay-per-view headlined by Amanda Nunes vs, Felicia Spencer for the women’s featherweight title. On Saturday, June 13th, the Fight Night card will feature Cynthia Calvillo vs. Jessica Eye in the main event, and the Fight Night card on June 20th will see heavyweights Curtis Blaydes and Alexander Volkov headline. All three of these cards take place from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. Last week, they received clearance by the Nevada Athletic Commission to run this past Saturday’s event and this Saturday’s UFC 250 card. Barring a significant event, it seems a lock they won’t have any issues continuing to gain clearance for future shows. The commission has also given Top Rank clearance to run two boxing events later this month.
**The latest edition of Being the Elite:
*****
POST PURORESU: The History of Pro Wrestling NOAH
John Pollock & WH Park are back for a packed edition of POST Puroresu including the history of Pro Wrestling NOAH & their launch in the spring of 2000.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/31/post-puroresu-the-history-of-pro-wrestling-noah/
*****
TOTAL RECALL: Total Bellas Season 5, Ep. 7 & 8
Wai Ting and Pauline are back to review Total Bellas Season 5, Episode 7 “Bella Vs. Bella” & Episode 8 “Off the Deep End”.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/30/total-recall-total-bellas-season-5-ep-7-8/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 5/29/20: Jeff Hardy Hit-and-Run, Matt Riddle to SD
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss Friday Night SmackDown from the WWE Performance Center featuring an alleged drunk hit-and-run accident to kick off the show.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/30/rewind-a-smackdown-5-29-20-jeff-hardy-hit-and-run-matt-riddle-to-sd/
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE: The BWE Mixtape Vol. 1
Martin, Benno & Jamesie are once again joined by Andy Ogden of Graps & Claps Audio in a special mixtape episode looking back at classic matches from European wrestling. Those include Owen Hart vs. Marty Jones, Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr., and Chris Hero vs. Tyler Bate.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/28/bwe-5-29-20-the-bwe-mixtape/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 5/27/20: Mike Tyson’s Outer Circle
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite following the Double or Nothing pay-per-view with a big angle involving Mike Tyson and Chris Jericho. Plus, today’s news on Chris Jericho’s cruise, UFC in Nevada, and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/28/rewind-a-dynamite-5-27-20-mike-tysons-outer-circle/
*****
upNXT 5/27/20: Fight Pit
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the May 27th edition of WWE NXT featuring Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle (with Kurt Angle as the Special Guest Referee) in the first ever FIGHT PIT match!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/05/28/upnxt-5-27-20-fight-pit/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #62: WrestleMania 31 (Patreon)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE WrestleMania 31 (2015) from Santa Clara, CA as Seth Rollins cashes-in his MITB briefcase during Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns to win the WWE Championship.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/37567520
*****
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