POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be live tonight at 10:15 pm ET for all members of the POST Wrestling Café with Rewind-A-SmackDown. We will be discussing the NXT & AEW numbers from Wednesday, the WWE’s financial results, Butch Reed’s passing, and more. Plus, it’s Friday and that means lots of your phone calls at the end.
**On Saturday, WH Park will be releasing the latest edition of The Long & Winding Royal Road as he welcomes Dylan Fox of the Eastern Lariat Podcast for a career retrospective on Toshiaki Kawada.
**On Sunday, Café members will be receiving two additional shows. Wai Ting & Pauline will review the season finale of Total Bellas on Total Recall and then, it’s the latest Rewand-A-Vision as Wai & WH Park chats episode five of WandaVision. Both shows are exclusively available for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown is advertising appearances by Edge and Bianca Belair. The show has topped 2.3 million viewers the past two weeks, although Raw and NXT each posted disappointing figures this week coming off the Royal Rumble.
**The WWE stock dropped by 12 percent on Friday following Thursday’s financials. The stock closed at $49.,23.
**We have a big story on the career of “Hacksaw” Butch Reed who died on Friday following heart complications. Reed had suffered two heart attacks last month and was 66 years old.
**IMPACT Wrestling’s Deonna Purrazzo disclosed that she and boyfriend Steve Cutler tested positive for COVID-19 in early January but had no symptoms stating they are both healthy and in good spirits. This would explain the sudden disappearance of Cutler, who had just been paired with King Corbin alongside Wesley Blake as The Knights of the Lone Wolf. Purrazzo stated that both received tests on their own that were negative and once Cutler tested positive he returned home to quarantine.
Cutler was released by WWE on Thursday after nearly seven years with the company and indicated he had a 90-day no-compete clause, which is the standard time frame for a performer on the main roster.
**In the February 8th edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it was reported that long time staff member Dave Kapoor is transitioning to a role with NXT. Kapoor had been serving as the Senior Vice President of Creative Writing. Earlier this week, the company confirmed the hiring of Christine Lubrano as its news Senior Vice President of Creative Writing Operations and reporting to Brad Blum.
**Here are the matches for NJPW Strong tonight at 10 pm ET on New Japan World:
*Rey Horus vs. TJP
*Brody King, Barrett Brown, Logan & Sterling Riegel vs. BATEMAN, Jordan Clearwater, Misterioso & Adrian Quest
*Kevin Knight vs. The DKC
**Drew McIntyre and The Miz will be part of the SHAQ Bowl this Sunday from 3-6 pm ET and will stream at SHAQBowl.com and all their various social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok.
**The Giant Baba Memorial card took place on Thursday at Korakuen Hall and featured an appearance by Genichiro Tenryu, who just turned 71 this past Tuesday. The card coincided with the 22-year anniversary of Baba’s passing on January 31, 1999. Below are the results from the show, courtesy of Purolove.com:
*Keiji Muto, Suwama & Satoshi Kojima over Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Kaz Hayashi & Masayuki Kono
*Yuji Nagata & Yuma Aoyagi over Minoru Suzuki & Hikaru Sato
*BUSHI over Atsuki Aoyagi
*Masa Fuchi, Atsushi Onita, Great Kojika & Shiro Koshinaka over Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Arashi, Tiger Mask II & Takao Omori
*Tomoaki Honma, Jinsei Shinzaki & Mitsuya Nagai over Osamu Nishimura, Alejandro & Andy Wu
**The Marvelous promotion in Japan wrote that the Japanese bracket of the AEW Women’s Title Eliminator tournament will be taped in Japan with no fans in attendance. The winner of the Japanese bracket will travel to the U.S. for the finals to set up a challenger for Hikaru Shida. The eight participants announced on the Japanese side are Aja Kong, Yuka Sakazaki, Veny, Emi Sakura, Ryo Mizunami, Mei Suruga, Rin Kadokura, and Maki Itoh.
**MLW is promoting its “Filthy Island” edition of Fusion that airs on 2/17 and will feature Tom Lawlor, Dominic Garrini, Kevin Ku, and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal among those participating on the show.
**IMPACT Wrestling has added an eight-man tag for next Tuesday’s episode with Chris Bey, Ace Austin, Blake Christian & Daivari vs. Trey Miguel, Josh Alexander, Moose & Suicide.
**Johnny Gargano was a guest on This Week in Marvel.
MMA NEWS
**BKFC holds its biggest card to date with BKFC 14 tonight at 9 pm ET from Tampa, Florida and airing on traditional pay-per-view and FITE TV. The card is headlined by the bare-knuckle boxing debut of Paige VanZant as she fights Britain Hart in the featherweight main event. There will be several prelim fights airing for free at 8 pm following the main card at 9 with the following line-up:
*Paige VanZant vs. Britain Hart
*Johnny Bedford vs. Dat Nguyen
*Chris Leben vs. Quentin Henry
*Lorenzo Hunt vs. Rob Morrow
*Zach Zane vs. Martin Brown
*Greg Bono vs. John Chalbeck
*Haim Gozali vs. John McAllister
*Taylor Starling vs. Charisa Sigala
*Dillon Cleckler vs. Chris Jensen
**Here is the line-up for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night event with results from Friday’s weigh-in in Las Vegas:
MAIN CARD (10 pm ET on ESPN+)
*Alistair Overeem (255.5) vs. Alexander Volkov (264)
*Frankie Edgar (135.5) vs. Cory Sandhagen (135.5)
*Michael Johnson (154.5) vs. Clay Guida (155)
*Manel Kape (125.5) vs. Alexandre Pantoja (125.5)
*Cody Stamann (144.5) vs Askar Askar (145)
*Beneil Dariush (156) vs. Diego Ferreira (155)
PRELIMINARY CARD (5 pm ET on ESPN+)
*Danilo Marques (205) vs. Mike Rodriguez (205)
*Devonte Smith (159.5) vs. Justin Jaymes (159)
*Joselyne Edwards (135) vs. Karol Rosa (135)
*Lara Procopio (125.5) vs. Molly McCann (126)
*Seungwoo Choi (145.5) vs. Youssef Zalal (146)
*Timur Valiev (145.5) vs. Martin Day (146)
*Ode Osbourne (143.5) vs. Jerome Rivera (145)
**The UFC card will air on TSN 5 in Canada beginning at 6 pm ET.
**MMA Junkie reported that Brendan Fitzgerald will be calling the UFC Fight Night card alongside Daniel Cormier and Dominick Cruz.
**MMA Fighting is reporting that verbal agreements are in place for Diego Sanchez and Donald Cerrone to fight on Saturday, May 8th. Sanchez has since stated this would be his “UFC finale”. The fight pits two of the longest UFC resumes of all-time as Sanchez has been fighting for the company since April 2005 as a member of the inaugural season of TUF and has fought 32 times in the UFC. Cerrone came over from the WEC and made his Octagon debut in February 2011 and has fought 36 times in the company. After four losses and one no-contest in his last five fights, Cerrone is seeking his first victory since May 2019 while Sanchez has won three of his last five fights but is coming off a decision loss to Jake Matthews at UFC 253 last September.
**Bellator will be making an announcement next Tuesday at 4 pm ET.
ON THIS DATE
One of the most famous angles in WWF history with the referee switch leading to Andre the Giant beating Hulk Hogan and ending his four-year title reign. The Main Event on NBC drew 33 million viewers for the rematch of the WrestleMania 3 main event and led to the tournament at WrestleMania 4
*****
upNXT 2/3/21: “N-EDGE-IT”
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the February 3rd edition of WWE NXT featuring Undisputed Era vs Tommaso Ciampa & Timothy Thatcher in the Dusty Classic, plus an appearance from Edge!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/04/upnxt-2-3-21-n-edge-t/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 2/3/21: KENTA appears, Beach Break
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Beach Break as NJPW’s KENTA appears and attacks Jon Moxley, Orange Cassidy spoils Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford’s wedding, and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/04/rewind-a-dynamite-2-3-21-kenta-appears-beach-break/
*****
DEEP IMPACT 2/2/21: An Emotional Shark
Davie Portman & John Siino review IMPACT Wrestling from February 2nd, 2021 headlined by Moose & Chris Bey vs Rich Swann & Tommy Dreamer!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/03/deep-impact-2-2-21-an-emotional-shark/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #79: NJPW G1 Climax 25 Final (2015)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NJPW G1 Climax 25 Final (2015) headlined by a classic encounter between career rivals Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/02/rewind-a-wai-79-njpw-g1-climax-25-final-2015/
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 2/1/21: Edge vs. Orton, Royal Rumble Fallout
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Raw following the Royal Rumble featuring Edge vs. Randy Orton. We announce the winner of the POST Wrestling Royal Rumble Pool.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/02/rewind-a-raw-2-1-21-edge-vs-orton-royal-rumble-fallout/
*****
WWE ROYAL RUMBLE POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Royal Rumble 2021 featuring Men’s and Women’s Royal Rumble matches, Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens in a Last Man Standing Match for the Universal Championship, and Drew McIntyre vs. Goldberg for the WWE Championship.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/01/wwe-royal-rumble-2021-post-show/
*****
REWAND-A-VISION: Episode 4 “We Interrupt This Program”
Wai Ting & WH Park review WandaVision Episode 4 “We Interrupt This Program” as we break format to follow the outsider’s perspective on the strange happenings within Wanda’s world.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/30/rewand-a-vision-episode-4-we-interrupt-this-program/
*****
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