POST IT NOTES
**We have a big interview on the site with Mauro Ranallo discussing a wide range of subjects including his decision to depart WWE this past summer. Ranallo left the company in August prior to the TakeOver event that month and later, it was announced the sides were parting ways. In the interview, we also spoke about the process of calling NXT shows during the pandemic remotely, the recent Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. exhibition he called alongside Snoop Dogg and “Sugar” Ray Leonard, plus his long-time relationship with Showtime, and new Maurologue podcast series.
**Wai Ting and I will be back with Rewind-A-Raw tonight discussing all the latest news and a big review of tonight’s episode of RAW. We will also go over the schedule we have at POST Wrestling over the next week with a lot of cool shows and guests coming up.
**The NXT TakeOver: War Games POST Show with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman is available to download or watch.
**On Tuesday, members of the POST Wrestling Café will have access to Rewind-A-Wai #76 covering the first Ultima Lucha card from Lucha Underground in the summer of 2015. You can still post feedback for the show on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Andrew Thompson will be releasing an interview with Julius Smokes on Tuesday, will also join Davie Portman for a special IMPACT Wrestling review podcast Tuesday night on the main POST Wrestling feed.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Congratulations to Seth Rollins (Colby Lopez) & Becky Lynch (Rebecca Quin), who announced the birth of their child Roux on Monday.
**WWE is advertising the following for tonight’s episode of RAW at the ThunderDome:
*Drew McIntyre & Sheamus vs. AJ Styles, The Miz & John Morrison
*Bobby Lashley vs. Jeff Hardy
*Randy Orton appears on the Firefly Fun House
**In the U.S., Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,130,000 viewers on Fox. The show did a 0.6 in the 18-49 demographic tying it with ABC’s Shark Tank for the top spot among network programming for the night. SmackDown was #1 with adults 18-34 among the network shows with a 0.4 rating. The show was marginally down in viewers from the week before, which did 2,141,000 and a 0.6 in the key demo.
**WWE had the top three sports programs in Canada this past Friday night led by SmackDown with 170,600 viewers with 83,200 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. That was followed by WWE Main Event airing immediately after SmackDown that did 80,400 viewers and the one-hour version of NXT at 7 pm Eastern averaged 71,400. The fourth most-watched sports program on Friday was a U.S. football college game between Louisiana and Appalachian State on TSN.
**Jon Alba of Spectrum Sports posted a photo inside Tropicana Field where they are preparing for WWE’s arrival beginning this Friday for SmackDown. The final episode of WWE programming at Amway Center is tonight.
A source inside Tropicana Field just passed this along: your first look at the new #WWE ThunderDome at the home of the #Rays. First show there will be this Friday, final Orlando show at Amway Center is tonight with #RAW. @MyNews13 @BN9 pic.twitter.com/GEL5HmOWou
— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) December 7, 2020
**The New York Times has published an obit on the passing of Pat Patterson.
**Candice LeRae injured her arm during the War Games match at TakeOver on Sunday. After the show, Paul Levesque said it might be broken as LeRae was undergoing x-rays to determine the extent of the injury. There was a photo posted afterward with LeRae wearing a sling on the right arm.
**NXT is promoting their first episode of 2021 as “New Year’s Evil” on January 6th. Levesque indicated they will be doing more specials after the success of Halloween Havoc in October. This will be an interesting trend to watch in 2021 with both AEW and NXT building towards television specials periodically and attempting to replicate the success seen for Havoc and Winter is Coming. For AEW, the objective is clearly growing its audience and willing to take risks to do so. NXT has the task of figuring out its goal for 2021 whether it be taking chances and making changes to its presentation, or strictly maintaining its audience with its current product.
**The Heel By Nature site has the latest regarding the lawsuit filed by Joey Ryan (Joseph Meehan) against Pelle Tsichlis (who wrestled as Pelle Primeau). Meehan is suing Tsichlis for libel over comments made about Meehan after the Speaking Out allegations came out. After Tsichlis made a request to dismiss the suit, Meehan filed an opposition to the request last week and is willing to change venues if the suit is dismissed moving it from California to Pennsylvania, if necessary. The website adds that a hearing is set for December 21st in Los Angeles with Heel by Nature obtaining and posting the 15-page filing on their site.
**Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi won All Japan Pro Wrestling’s Real-World Tag League earlier today at Korakuen Hall. The tournament came down to the final match with Miyahara & Aoyagi defeating Jake Lee & Koji Iwamoto to finish with ten points.
**Dan Gable received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday from U.S. President Donald Trump.
**On Sunday’s call with media members, Paul Levesque was asked about the signing of Zachary Wentz and Dezmond Xavier, but not Trey Miguel. Levesque didn’t get into why some talent are signed and others are not and left it at that. On Monday, Miguel posted an update message alluding to outside issues his family is going through after the premature birth of Miguel’s nephew:
I feel like it is worth mentioning AGAIN that a month and a half ago my Nephew was born prematurely and is in isolated care until what would have been his actual due date. Meeting a healthy baby boy is more important to me than anything else. I’m sure you all can respect that.
**PWinsider.com noted that there was a dark match prior to TakeOver with Santos Escobar, Raul Mendoza & Joaquin Wilde defeating Curt Stallion, August Grey & Ashante Thee Adonis.
**Ring of Honor has added the following matches to Final Battle on Friday, December 18th:
*ROH Tag Team Championship: Jonathan Gresham & Jay Lethal (champions) vs. PCO & Mark Briscoe
*ROH Pure Championship: Jonathan Gresham (champion) vs. Flip Gordon
*Matt Taven & Mike Bennett vs. Vincent Marseglia & Bateman
**On Thursday night, The Miz & Mrs. and Total Bellas both scored with a 0.14 in the 18-49 demographic, although the former had significantly more overall viewers. The Miz & Mrs. averaged 503,000 viewers on the USA Network while the new episode of Total Bellas averaged 299,000. Total Bellas is only averaging 324,000 viewers after three episodes this season, down from an average of 490,000 in season five.
**This week’s Being the Elite is titled “Heel Turn”.
**Pat McAfee wore a neck brace on his show Monday putting over the effects of his War Games match and said he might have broken his big toe:
It was a hell of a match last night..
It’s #OverreactionMonday, but this neck brace? This is not an overreaction ok? #WarGames #WWENXT #PatMcAfeeShowLIVE pic.twitter.com/0NQX566D1o
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 7, 2020
**MLW has added a match between Calvin Tankman and Zenshi for this Wednesday’s episode of Fusion airing at 7 pm Eastern on Fubo Sports and the company’s YouTube channel.
**Luchador Bestia 666 has revealed that his father Damien 666 and his mother have both contracted COVID-19. We wish a full recovery for both.
**The WWE Network will release its latest edition of “WWE Untold” this Sunday covering Bill Goldberg’s streak from 1997-98. The teaser includes interview clips from Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Diamond Dallas Page, and Hulk Hogan. The winning streak began in September 1997 and continued to grow as Goldberg quietly rose in WCW and became the company’s saving grace in 1998 when the WWF was overtaking them. After originally keeping the streak legitimate, they began inflating the number, and then they made the call to end it at Starrcade in December 1998. The finish was designed to give Goldberg an “out” after being electrocuted by Scott Hall and pinned by Kevin Nash. It took the air out of the sails and while Goldberg was still popular in 1999, it was nowhere near the heights he hit in the spring and summer of 1998.
**WWE performer Mansoor recently returned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to visit family.
**Jon Moxley (Jonathan Good) turns 35 today.
**Here is the match listing for Tuesday’s edition of AEW Dark at 7 pm Eastern on its YouTube channel:
*The Gunn Club vs. Shawn Dean, Sean Maluta & Ryzin
*10 from the Dark Order vs. Aaron Solow
*Peter Avalon vs. Louie Valle
*Sonny Kiss vs. Baron Black
*Brian Cage vs. Danny Limelight
*Jack Evans & Angelico vs. Sotheara Chhun
*The Acclaimed vs. Jon Cruz & Michael Nakazawa
*Diamante vs. Tesha Price
*Colt Cabana & Alex Reynolds vs. Brian Pillman Jr. & Griff Garrison
*Luchasaurus & Marko Stunt vs. Falco & Mike Magnum
*Shanna vs. Freya States
*Brandon Cutler vs. Fuego del Sol
*Nyla Rose vs. Alex Gracia
*Ivelisse vs. Skyler Moore
*Big Swole vs. Lindsay Snow
*Red Velvet vs. Dani Jordyn
**The WWE stock closed at $44.30 on Monday.
ON THIS DATE
MMA NEWS
**Over the weekend, it was announced that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and internet star Logan Paul will have an exhibition fight on February 20, 2021. The event is being put on by content producer Fanmio, which is a group Mayweather had an existing relationship with. The website for the fight is promoting a staggered pricing plan where the first one million orders for the fight will be priced at $24.99, after one million order the price will be $39.99, it jumps to $59.99 on or after December 29th, and then escalates to $69.99 on February 11th.
After the gigantic success of the Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. experiment, which also featured Jake Paul on the undercard, it’s a foregone conclusion that many more fights of that nature will be presented to the public. While most will fail, the reality is Mayweather fighting Paul is the type of novelty that typically does well.
There is no word on the location of the exhibition or what commission is sanctioning it. Yet again, it will place a spotlight on a fight with economic value overriding the prime function of a commission that shouldn’t allow two fighters with such a wide disparity to compete, even in the confines of an exhibition showcase.
The staggered pricing model is an experiment where the company is banking on fans purchasing in advance, which is the opposite way they are conditioned to ordering pay-per-views in this generation. Without knowing the economics of staging this fight, it’s hard to determine if this is a wise choice or if they are costing themselves greatly. The fans willing to purchase a fight more than three months in advance are the ones most likely to buy the fight at the highest price point and instead, will be paying $45 less per buy. Triller, the site that hosted Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr., is claiming 1.6 million purchases and clearly, there is a market and fanbase for this type of novelty.
The next question is what the ceiling is for this type of spectacle. No one could forecast the numbers Mayweather and Conor McGregor generated, although McGregor was a real fighter but not a boxer. Logan Paul has a large following and his sole justification for landing this fight is the notoriety he brings to the table.
One guarantee is that this fight will be heavily criticized, and there is merit to that criticism but in the end, most understand this fight will do big business and it’s a lesson that continues to play itself out with the public.
**The UFC bonuses from Saturday saw the main event between Marvin Vettori and Jack Hermansson earned the “Fight of the Night” bonus with Jordan Leavitt and Gabriel Benitez receiving the “Performance of the Night” bonuses for $50,000 each.
**MMA Junkie reports that the UFC has cut Rachael Ostovich after three consecutive losses with the most recent to Gina Mazany last month. Ostovich came from Invicta FC and competed on the Ultimate Fighter in 2017. Her most high-profile fight was a submission loss to Paige VanZant on the first ESPN+ card in January 2019. Over the weekend, UFC president Dana White stated there would be large cuts coming and cited the number being around sixty. This comes after the news that Yoel Romero is among those departing the promotion.
**UFC strawweight Angela Hill is off the UFC 256 card this Saturday after contracting COVID-19 where she was scheduled to fight Tecia Torres:
Unfortunately I tested positive for Covid-19 and won’t be fighting next week. Tried to stay as safe as possible during fight camp but with mma training there’s virtually no social distancing. Was really looking forward to running it back, maybe we still can in the near future.
**UFC flyweight Cody Durden was pulled from this past Saturday’s Fight Night card against Jimmy Flick after the fighter contracted pink eye earlier in the week. The fight has been re-booked for December 19th:
I did everything in my power to make the fight go on. I was not cleared by the UFC doctor to fight last night. I woke up in Vegas with pink eye Wednesday. Called the UFC doctors, picked up the prescription eye drops, did exactly what I was suppose to do in this situation.
**Bellator finishes out its year with Bellator 254 this Thursday at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. The card is headlined by flyweight champion Ilima-Lei Macfarlane defending her title against undefeated Juliana Velasquez. For the past two years, Bellator has ended its calendar year with a card in Hawaii headlined by Macfarlane, but obviously, that was not happening this year. The following main card will air on the CBS Sports Network at 10 pm Eastern this Thursday:
*Women’s Flyweight Championship: Ilima-Lei Macfarlane (11-0) vs. Juliana Velasquez (10-0)
*Bantamweight: Magomed Magomedov (16-1) vs. Matheus Mattos (12-1-1)
*Lightweight: Nate Andrews (16-3) vs. Goiti Yamauchi (25-4)
*Heavyweight: Linton Vassell (20-8) vs. Ronny Markes (19-7)
**The UFC has released its Countdown to UFC 256 special profiling the top three fights on Saturday’s card. After losing a series of championship fights, the new main event features flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo coming back three weeks after his last defense to fight Brandon Moreno. The biggest marquee fight on the show is Tony Ferguson taking on Charles Oliveira, which should be an excellent fight.
**Episode 1 of UFC Embedded going into this Saturday’s UFC 256 card.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Gillian Robertson vs. Talia Santos for UFC Fight Night on December 19
Cody Durden vs. Jimmy Flick for UFC Fight Night on December 19
Karl Roberson vs. Dalcha Lungiambula for UFC Fight Night on December 19
Shana Dobson vs. Casey O’Neill – UFC on Feb. 20 (MMA Junkie)
*****
NXT TakeOver: War Games 2020 POST Show
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review NXT TakeOver: WarGames from the Capital Wrestling Center on December 5th, 2020.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/07/nxt-takeover-wargames-2020-post-show/
*****
THE LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue (4/12/1993)
Brian Elliott from HardCopy.ie joins WH Park on the Long & Winding Royal Road to talk about a match with many ramifications for All Japan Pro Wrestling: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue from the 1993 Champion Carnival.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/06/lwrr-6-toshiaki-kawada-vs-akira-taue-4-12-93-w-brian-elliott/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 12/4/20: Reigns-Owens at TLC, Pat Patterson
Wai Ting and a returning John Pollock review WWE SmackDown with a tribute to Pat Patterson, additional matches made for TLC, and Roman Reigns teams with Jey Uso against Kevin Owens & Otis.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/05/rewind-a-smackdown-12-4-20-reigns-owens-at-tlc-pat-patterson-pollock-returns/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 12/2/20: “Winter is Coming”, Moxley vs. Omega, Pat Patterson
Wai Ting and Bruce Lord review AEW’s “Winter Is Coming” special headlined by Jon Moxley vs. Kenny Omega for the AEW Title. Plus, a WCW legend makes a surprise return. Andrew Thompson joins us to discuss the death of Pat Patterson and today’s top stories.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/03/rewind-a-dynamite-12-2-20-winter-is-coming-moxley-vs-omega-pat-patterson/
*****
upNXT 12/2/20: “War is Coming”
The BDE talk all about WWE NXT featuring Raquel Gonzalez vs Shotzi Blackheart in a Ladder Match (for War Games Advantage), Imperium vs Grizzled Young Vets, and the final member of Team Shotzi is revealed!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/03/upnxt-12-2-20-war-is-coming/
*****
POST INTERVIEW: Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Yearbook ‘97
John Pollock is joined by Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter to discuss the Wrestling Observer Yearbook covering 1997.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/01/post-interview-dave-meltzer-wrestling-observer-yearbook-97/
*****
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