POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is LIVE tonight at 10:15 pm Eastern from POST Wrestling Café members. Wai Ting and I will discuss a lot of news from the past few days, go through Friday Night SmackDown, preview NXT TakeOver & take your calls. A Zoom link will be sent out to all Café members prior to the show if you want to watch the show live. Café members will also get the podcast version in their podcast feed later tonight.
**Our G1 Climax podcasts resume Monday for all members of the POST Wrestling Café. In the meantime, you can go back and catch up on the eight G1 Climax shows we have produced since the start of the tournament. It’s the best time of the month to join the Café as $6 gets you access to all our bonus shows for the month along with our entire archive going back almost three years. Café members get all the bonus G1 Climax shows, Rewind-A-SmackDown each Friday night along with our Rocky III review next Tuesday, and episodes of Rewind-A-Wai later this month covering the Survivor Series 2002 and King of the Ring 1995.
**Our next movie review is ROCKY III that will be released next Tuesday for Café members. You can post your feedback and questions for the film on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**The Long & Winding Royal Road will be released on Sunday with WH Park joined by @Hi5ame for an entire episode dedicated to the career of Mitsuharu Misawa.
**On Sunday night, Braden Herrington & Davie Portman will be doing a LIVE Watch Along for NXT TakeOver followed by the NXT TakeOver POST Show that will be available here on the site with a full review of the card.
WRESTLING NEWS
**The site of WrestleMania 37 is expected to change with a new report stating that WWE’s flagship event is tentatively set to move to Tampa, Florida. Gary Cassidy at Inside the Ropes broke the news that plans are in place for WrestleMania 37 to move from its original location of SoFi Stadium in California to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the original venue that was scheduled to host this past April’s event.
Jon Alba at Spectrum Sports in Orlando reached out to WWE regarding the report and was provided with the following statement:
We have nothing to report and given the current environment, we continue to monitor locations for all of our potential events.
In Alba’s reporting, he also noted “The plan had been for the wrestling extravaganza to be at the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California for 2021, but multiple sources close to Spectrum News 13 say WWE is pursuing Tampa as its new host site as the status of fans in attendance events in the Los Angeles area remains uncertain”.
**On Thursday night, we reported that NXT will be moving from Full Sail University to the WWE Performance Center beginning with Sunday’s TakeOver event. On Friday, Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com added that NXT will begin airing live on Wednesday nights starting next week and throughout October with the expectation that will be the regular format moving ahead. POST Wrestling has reached out to WWE for comment on the story and will update if we hear a response.
**Today is the WWE’s cut-off date for talent to disengage with specific third parties, which was outlined to talent last month and reiterated in a notice from the company earlier this week. Raj Giri of Wrestling INC reported Thursday that the company has also told talent they will take control of their Twitch accounts in four weeks with talent provided a percentage of the Twitch revenue that will count against their downside guarantees.
Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com adds that the WWE is embarking on a major presence on Twitch and this edict aligns with that strategy. The site notes that WWE is expected to launch its own Twitch channel in the next 4-5 weeks, which would coincide with the notice of WWE talent signing over control of their channels.
Paige (Saraya Jade-Bevis) tweeted out the following on Friday afternoon:
Twitch is MY place what I built with my wonderful fans. A place where people can go and feel some positivity and little bit of normalcy. Fun. Interactive. Non judgemental. Charitable place. I’m proud of what I built with my fan base.
**Tonight’s episode of 205 Live will be a taped feature previewing the Cruiserweight title match between Santos Escobar and Isaiah “Swerve” Scott at TakeOver this Sunday. Multiple sources informed POST Wrestling that no matches were going to be taped at Amway Center tonight for 205 Live. The show is scheduled to be moving to the Performance Center beginning next week.
**Friday Night SmackDown takes place from the Amway Center tonight following Clash of Champions. The second hour will be going against Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Lakers and Heat. There should be some momentum following the pay-per-view and how engaged the audience appears to be in Roman Reigns and the follow-up to the program with Jey Uso. The following is being advertised for tonight’s show at 8 pm Eastern:
*Sami Zayn vs. Jeff Hardy for the Intercontinental title
*Roman Reigns “to officially be crowned the Tribal Chief”
*The Kevin Owens Show with guest Alexa Bliss – Yes, I know
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of NJPW Strong airing at 10 pm Eastern on New Japan World:
*Clark Connors vs. Logan Riegel in the semi-finals of the Lion’s Break Crown tournament
*Blake Christian vs. Danny Limelight in the semi-finals of the Lion’s Break Crown tournament
*Brody King & Flip Gordon vs. Karl Fredericks & TJP
*Misterioso & Rocky Romero vs. Hikuleo & Chase Owens
**The Pure Title tournament continues this weekend on Ring of Honor with Tracy Williams vs. Rust Taylor and PJ Black vs. Tony Deppen in opening round matches.
**The G1 Climax has the weekend off and resumes Monday with four consecutive shows through Thursday. Monday’s card is an A Block show headlined by Kota Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay and Tuesday’s show in Hiroshima features Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. KENTA in the main event. After eight shows, the A Block features a logjam on top with Taichi, Jay White, Will Ospreay, Minoru Suzuki, and Kota Ibushi tied with six points each. The B Block has a three-way tie with Tetsuya Naito, Juice Robinson, and Toru Yano with six points each.
**The G1 cards have averaged 1,818 per show after eight events. The average is brough down by the two Korakuen Hall events this week that did 696 people each night. Thursday’s show in Niigata had a listed attendance of 1,685 and the most attended show so far was the second night of the tournament in Osaka with the B Block show doing 2,640.
**Kyle O’Reilly spoke with the New York Post ahead of Sunday’s anticipated match with Finn Balor discussing the possibility of a babyface run and also shared his perspective on taking himself off the shows when the pandemic began due to having Type-1 diabetes and his decision to return:
As for everybody, it’s been a weird few months, it’s been a weird year. At first, when this whole thing broke out it was scary for the reasons like you said, health being a huge part of that. As we learned more about what going on, I became more confident. As time progressed, I started chomping at the bit to return. You could only do so many garage workouts in a day to keep the cabin fever away.
After a while, I was ready to come back. The company had my health in their best interest. They weren’t going to risk anything with me. Once the opportunity finally came around to come back, all the precautions had been taken and continue to be taken. I felt confident and yeah, it was a long few months. I was ready to come back a lot sooner, but that’s the way things work out and I’m glad to be finally back.
**Impact Wrestling has announced a new television distribution deal for the U.K. and Ireland beginning next week. Impact Wrestling’s major pay-per-views and specials will air on Premier Sports beginning with Victory Road. The Impact Plus special airs Saturday and will be broadcast on Premier Sports 2 next Tuesday at 8 pm local time. The Impact Wrestling flagship show will air Wednesday nights at 10 pm on Freesports and Bound for Glory will air live on Premier Sports 1 late Saturday, October 24th at 1 am local time.
**The Lucha Bros. vs. Joey Janela & Sonny Kiss has been announced for AEW Dark next Tuesday.
**Kairi Sane posted the following update regarding her role with WWE after moving back to Japan:
This is Kairi Sane from WWE. I will report on future activities. In addition to continuing to belong as a player, I have been given the role of a new WWE promotion supporter in Japan, and will resume activities based in Japan.
**Kenny Omega was part of Highspots’ Virtual Gimmick Table and was interviewed at length with the full chat available on the Highspots Facebook page. Omega elaborated on the development of an AEW video game that he is a significant part of:
**Pineapple Pete a.k.a. Suge D was interviewed by Nick Hausman at Wrestling INC this past week and discussed his extended run with AEW over the summer culminating in a match with Chris Jericho. He gave the following answer regarding why he did not sign with the company:
That’s the wrestling business man. I mean, if I had to give a self-critique, probably could have been in a little bit better shape. At the same time, it’s one of those cases. It’s something I’ve always been battling, always been working with.
I feel like by the time everything was over, I definitely whipped myself into better shape, but when you get that opportunity, sometimes, you just want to come in as the full package. But it’s not like I even knew there was a package to sell at the time. I thought it was just come in, make some people look good [and] call it a day. And that’s what it is.
I think the best advice that I can probably give to a lot of people right now is you have to know what it is and what it isn’t. When you walk into these situations, there wasn’t a promise or anything. I walked in as Suge D. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. There’s money to be made. I still get to do what it is that I do. So I walked in and I did it, and then I got this crazy opportunity and then I got a crazy opportunity that lasted for like six months.
I think people have this perception that, ‘oh god, He’s bitter, or oh god, he’s doing this or oh god, he feels he should have got this, or he’s got his nose up in the air because he thinks he’s this or he’s that.’ No, I love to wrestle, and occasionally, when I wrestle occasionally, real real real emphasis on occasionally, I like to get paid.
**The Cauliflower Alley Club (CAC) is hosting the CAULI-CON on Saturday night at 6:30 pm Eastern on Fite TV. The event is being hosted by Ed Bratz and will feature guest appearances by Diamond Dallas Page, Eric Bischoff, Jerry Brisco, Steve Keirn, Madusa, The Blue Meanie, The Bushwhackers, and others. The first 30 minutes will air for free and the rest of the broadcast will stream on Fite for $9.99 with the proceeds going to the CAC. There is a story on Saturday’s streaming event on the SLAM Wrestling site that includes comments from CAC president & CEO Brian Blair.
**NOAH’s N-1 Victory tournament resumes Sunday with the following matches leading into the final next weekend:
*BLOCK A: Go Shiozaki vs. Kaito Kiyomiya
*BLOCK A: Masa Kitamiya vs. Masaaki Mochizuki
*BLOCK A: Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Manabu Soya
*BLOCK B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima
*BLOCK B: Kenoh vs. Takashi Sugiura
*BLOCK B: Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Yoshiki Inamura
**All Japan’s Champion Carnival final takes place Monday morning from Korakuen Hall with Kento Miyahara taking on Zeus. The show will stream on AJPW.tv.
**Ring of Honor has launched a second podcast called OId School In Session featuring Gary Juster, who has had an extensive career in the industry and should be a fascinating and revealing show given his history and where he has worked. The first episode features Juster’s memories of Joe Laurinaitis and working with the Road Warriors.
**RISE has announced that past live events are now available on Amazon Prime for those with a Prime membership.
**All Japan Pro Wrestling has launched a store on Pro Wrestling Tees.
ON THIS DATE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvwqSWf9dFE
G1 CLIMAX PODCASTS
Day 8 – Tetsuya Naito vs. SANADA
Day 7 – Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Day 6 – Tetsuya Naito vs. Hirooki Goto
Day 5 w/ Wai Ting & Mike Murray – Okada vs. White, Ospreay vs. Takagi)
Day 4 – Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Day 3 – White vs. Ibushi
Day 2 – Naito vs. Tanahashi
Day 1 – Okada vs. Ibushi
*****
upNXT 9/30/20: “The Real Debate”
The BDE run down WWE NXT featuring a Face-To-Face between Kyle O’Reilly and Finn Balor hosted by Shawn Michaels ahead of their huge NXT Championship match at TakeOver: 31.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/10/01/upnxt-9-30-20-the-real-debate/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 9/30/20: Moxley defends, Jericho-MJF, Raw Ratings, NXT Call
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with another Jon Moxley title defense, notes from the NXT media call, Raw ratings, Harold Meij out at New Japan and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/10/01/rewind-a-dynamite-9-30-20-moxley-defends-jericho-mjf-raw-ratings-nxt-call/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #71: WCW Slam Jam Vol. 1 (1992)
Wai Ting welcomes Kris Ealy and Nate Milton to review World Championship Wrestling’s 1992 theme song compilation, WCW Slam Jam Vol. 1.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/42168635/
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 9/28/20: “Those Are Night Vision Goggles”
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss WWE Raw featuring Drew McIntyre defending the WWE title, night vision goggles, a report on the status of Retribution and the latest from Conor McGregor.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/29/rewind-a-raw-9-28-20-those-are-night-vision-goggles/
*****
WWE Clash of Champions POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Clash of Champions: Gold Rush featuring Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso for the Universal Championship and Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/27/wwe-clash-of-champions-2020-post-show-live-link/
*****
UFC 253 POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
John Pollock & Phil Chertok host the UFC 253 POST Show and discuss Israel Adesanya’s dominant title defense against Paulo Costa.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/27/ufc-253-post-show-israel-adesanya-vs-paulo-costa/
*****
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