POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, Wai Ting and I are back with Rewind-A-Raw with a review of the show, today’s news, and what is coming up this week.
**Braden Herrington & Davie Portman have a new edition of Best Match Ever available to upNXT Patrons looking at non-elimination matches from the Survivor Series.
**Andrew Thompson will have a new interview posted Tuesday with MLW Middleweight Champion Myron Reed discussing MLW’s Restart and the recent television tapings.
**On Tuesday night, we will release the November edition of the ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: Andrew Thompson interviews MLW’s Myron Reed
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show with John & Wai (Patreon)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with Wai Ting & Bruce Lord
Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown LIVE w/ Wai Ting & John Siino (10:15 pm ET for Patrons)
Saturday: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate Milton & guests Shane McDonough & Kris from L.A. (“San Andreas”)
Saturday: UFC 255 POST Show with Phil Chertok & Eric Marcotte (LIVE at YouTube.com/POSTwrestling)
Sunday: WWE Survivor Series POST Show w/ Wai Ting & TBA (LIVE for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso Patrons)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of WWE RAW features two title matches advertised for the go-home show before Survivor Series this Sunday:
*WWE Championship: Randy Orton (champion) vs. Drew McIntyre
*WWE RAW Tag Team Championship: Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods (champions) vs. Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander
**Jon Alba of Spectrum Sports received the following statement from SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris following the news of Zelina Vega’s WWE release and Carteris tweeting in support of the performer:
Wrestling is as much about media as it is sports, and we are going to directly engage with members of this profession to help find ways for them to protect themselves.
As more people reinvest in unions, and as more working people are harassed by employers who don’t want to protect them, SAG-AFTRA is committed to doing what we can to help professional wrestlers secure the protections they deserve.
**Friday Night SmackDown averaged 2,234,000 viewers on Fox this past Friday. The show averaged a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which was tied with 20/20 on ABC for second place among the networks trailing ABC’s Shark Tank. The show was down 3.5 percent in viewership following last week’s big episode that was boosted by the Sasha Banks vs. Bayley rematch. The disadvantage this week’s episode had was not having anything advertised, even though there were several marquee attractions including the “Final Chapter” between Rey Mysterio and Seth Rollins, and Drew McIntyre wrestling in the main event. It was still SmackDown’s second-highest viewership average since September 11. (Source: Showbuzz Daily)
**AEW has added a contract signing between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega for Dynamite this week. Below is the updated line-up for this week’s episode at Daily’s Place:
*Darby Allin & Cody vs. Ricky Starks & Brian Cage
*PAC vs. The Blade
*The Young Bucks vs. Top Flight
*Serena Deeb vs. Thunder Rosa for the NWA Women’s Championship
*Orange Cassidy vs. Kip Sabian
*The Inner Circle travels to Las Vegas
**WWE Executive Producer & Head of Global Television Distribution Kevin Dunn spoke with Cynopsis Media about the advent of the WWE ThunderDome and lessons they have learned throughout the pandemic.
On some of the challenges they have faced and learned:
I think the biggest challenge was just trying to reimagine our weekly flagship programming with a new technology that, we believe, has never been implemented before at this scale. Everything had to be reassessed as we were planning to launch ThunderDome. In testing, traditional camera shots were making the virtual fans look flat. Our entire lighting and production design had to be reimagined from the ground up.
We have a great team that had to reinvent themselves, and their day to day responsibilities, in order to come up with something as innovative as WWE ThunderDome.
Dunn also spoke about the future and taking elements from the ThunderDome when they return to normal:
If you asked me a year ago, I’d have said there is nothing we haven’t done from a production standpoint, but during this process, we’ve learned a lot and innovated in so many ways that I’d say anything is possible. Our goal is always to create the best possible experience for our fans. So, we are exploring a number of ideas and new shooting techniques, and in a post pandemic world I would expect to see our live shows draw heavily from our ThunderDome learnings.
**As of this afternoon, tickets were still available for this Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite at Daily’s Place. AEW is doing a promotion where those that buy tickets for this week’s show will be eligible for the pre-sale of the big December 2nd show featuring Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega.
**The Young Bucks’ new book “Killing the Business: From Backyards to the Big Leagues” is available Tuesday and published by Harper Collins. I have had a chance to read the book and will hopefully, have a review of it this week.
**The attendance for the opening night of the Best of the Super Juniors and World Tag League tournaments on Sunday drew 2,558 at the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium.
**Here are the results from today’s New Japan card at the Komatsu City Suehiro Gymnasium featuring the World Tag League matches:
*Yota Tsuji over Gabriel Kidd in 7:36
*Guerrillas of Destiny over Chase Owens & Bad Luck Fale in 10:07
*Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi over Jeff Cobb & The Great O-Khan in 13:41
*EVIL & Yujiro over Juice Robinson & David Finlay in 12:11
*Shingo Takagi & SANADA over Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano in 12:24
*Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi over Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare in 19:37
**WWE stock rose over 3 percent today and closed at $42.26.
**MLW has added that Alex Hammerstone will be in action this Wednesday for the restart of Fusion. Already announced for this week’s show is an MLW World Heavyweight title match between champion Jacob Fatu and Davey Boy Smith Jr., and Myron Reed defending the World Middleweight Championship against Brian Pillman Jr.
**Cody Rhodes found the line-up sheet from his debut match on an OVW card on May 13, 2006, in Croydon, Indiana. Rhodes lost to Pat Buck in the second match on a show that was headlined by a five-way with Chet the Jet over Deuce Shade, The Miz, Domino & Aaron “Idol” Stevens and had CM Punk retaining the OVW title against Gunner Scott (formerly Brent Albright).
**This week’s edition of Being the Elite features the announcement of Trent vs. John Silver for the BTE Championship.
**Below is Wednesday’s New Japan line-up at Korakuen Hall featuring the Best of the Super Juniors matches:
*Yuji Nagata & Gabriel Kidd vs. Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma
*BUSHI vs. Yuya Uemura
*Robbie Eagles vs. Master Wato
*SHO vs. DOUKI
*Taiji Ishimori vs. Ryusuke Taguchi
*El Desperado vs. Hiromu Takahashi
TELEVISION REVIEW
Ring of Honor (Nov. 15, 2020)
RESULTS: The Briscoes over S.O.S. (Kaun & Moses) in 9:41, Shane Taylor over Kenny King in 10:14
-The presentation adopted throughout the Pure Title tournament has been extended post-finals and it’s a positive change. The show was limited to two matches and the main event was built up with a great series of sit-down interviews from Taylor and King and made the main event feel very important.
-Taylor went through his upbringing, training under Ray Rowe, teaming with Keith Lee, and then being on his own and linking up with Rebellion (King, Rhett Titus, and Caprice Coleman), and that helped him find himself.
-Taylor stressed the importance of beating King because of what it signified and gave you a rooting interest in Taylor’s path.
-King was effective in his own right, reading a letter from the legal counsel of Los Ingobernables in Spanish and then translating because no one understood what it said.
-The match was 90 percent Taylor destroying King, short heat from King, and then a strong finish where King kicked out of a package piledriver and fell to Welcome to the Land. It was a strong win for Taylor, and he came off well with the interview and performance.
-The tag match was decent for what it was. Kaun stands out as someone with potential. The focus was EC3 on commentary and standing in the way of The Briscoes on their way to the back and Jay Briscoe challenging him next week.
-They also did an extensive hype package for Taven vs. Bateman next week and the history of Taven’s feud with Vincent with Bateman being the obstacle in the way.
-It’s a very easy-to-digest hour of television with a straight-forward approach.
-Next week: Jay Briscoe vs. EC3, Matt Taven vs. Bateman, and Jay Lethal vs. LSG.
MMA NEWS
**This Saturday’s UFC 255 card is a tough sell as a pay-per-view with a lack of big stars selling the key fights. Individually, you have two highly skilled flyweight champions in Deiveson Figueiredo and women’s champion Valentina Shevchenko, but the opponents are barely known to the larger audience. Figueiredo was originally fighting Cody Garbrandt, who was coming down from bantamweight and was a strong fight to make at 125 pounds where the star power is lower and Garbrandt is a solid name for the champion to fight. After Garbrandt was injured, Alex Perez was inserted. Perez is 24-5 and stopped Jussier Formiga in his last fight but there isn’t a lot of sizzle going into the card.
In the women’s flyweight fight, Shevchenko is currently a minus 1400 favorite on 5Dimes against Jennifer Maia, who is listed at +925. There is a giant disparity between Shevchenko and the rest of the division and would be among the greatest upsets ever if Maia won this fight. Maia upset Joanne Calderwood in August to get the title fight after Calderwood wanted to stay busy as she was next in line to fight Shevchenko. Maia also has losses to Liz Carmouche and Katlyn Chookagian, who Shevchenko has defended the title against successfully.
**The Professional Fighter League (PFL) announced the signing of former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum for its 2021 season. Werdum, 43, is one of the most decorated heavyweight fighters of all-time and competed with the UFC since 2012. He won the UFC heavyweight title in June 2015 defeating Cain Velasquez in Mexico City but lost it in his next fight to Stipe Miocic in May 2016. Werdum was suspended by USADA in 2018 but his two-year period was shortened to ten months and he returned earlier this year with two fights during the pandemic. His last fight was in July submitting Alexander Gustafsson.
Peter Murray, the CEO of the PFL, called Werdum “The Tom Brady of MMA”, which is quite the hyperbolic statement.
The PFL’s 2021 season is set to begin on April 23rd with the regular season running until June 25th before the playoffs.
**Here is episode one of the UFC Embedded series prior to UFC 255 this Saturday.
**Bellator 252 takes place Thursday night with the semi-finals of the Featherweight Grand Prix as Darrion Caldwell takes on A.J. McKee. The main card will also see Benson Henderson take on Jason Jackson as Henderson had a four-fight winning streak snapped in his last fight when he was stopped by the outgoing Michael Chandler in August. Jackson is 30-years old and came to Bellator from the LFA. He is 2-1 in Bellator, losing by split decision to Ed Ruth in October 2019, and has earned decision victories against Kiichi Kunimoto and Jordan Mein in his last two fights.
ON THIS DATE
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 11/13/20: “The Last Chapter”, Zelina Vega Released
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown featuring “The Last Chapter” between Seth Rollins and Rey Mysterio, an update on Chelsea Green, and Zelina Vega is released by WWE.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/14/rewind-a-smackdown-11-13-20-the-last-chapter-vega-released-chelsea-green/
*****
POST INTERVIEW: Dr. Alex Patel
John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome back Toronto-based critical care physician Dr. Alex Patel to discuss the latest on COVID-19 including second waves, pandemic fatigue, Pfizer’s vaccine, and your questions.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/13/post-interview-dr-alex-patel-on-the-latest-with-covid-19-nov-2020/
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE
Martin & Benno are joined by Ian Hamilton of BackBodyDrop and 411Mania to talk about the past few weeks in European wrestling including the big NXT UK match-up between WALTER and Ilja Dragunov.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/12/british-wrestling-experience-walter-vs-ilja-dragunov-revpro-wxw-ryan-smile-tracy-smothers/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 11/11/20: The SHAQ & PAC’d Edition
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite coming off the Full Gear pay-per-view featuring Rey Fenix vs. Penta El Zero M. Plus, Raw ratings, AEW Games, Tony Khan’s comments about New Japan, and The Rascalz leaving IMPACT.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/12/rewind-a-dynamite-11-11-20-the-shaq-pacd-edition-of-dynamite/
*****
upNXT 11/11/20: “Ruff Night”
The BDE talk all about NXT featuring Johnny Gargano defending his North American Championship against a mystery opponent determined by… the wheel! Plus, Breezango challenges Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch for the NXT Tag Team Championship.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #74: WWE Raw vs. TNA Impact (Jan. 4, 2010)
John Pollock and Wai Ting look back at the night TNA Impact and WWE Raw went head-to-head on January 4th, 2010. Featuring the TNA debut of Hulk Hogan and the WWE return of Bret Hart.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/10/rewind-a-wai-74-wwe-raw-vs-tna-impact-jan-4-2010/
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 11/9/20: Skipper, Mongoose, Bro-Lee, Fire Face & Dopey
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with the final qualifying match for its men’s Survivor Series team. We discuss SmackDown’s rating, WWE cuts, three matches confirmed for NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 15, and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/10/rewind-a-raw-11-9-20-skipper-mongoose-bro-lee-fire-face-dopey/
*****
REVIEW AMERICA: 2020 U.S. Election with Brian Mann & Nate Milton
Brian Mann & Nate Milton are back for a special edition of Review America to assess and dissect the 2020 U.S. Election.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/11/09/review-america-2020-u-s-election-with-brian-mann-nate-milton/
*****
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