POST IT NOTES
**On behalf of everyone at the site, I’d like to send our condolences and best wishes to John Siino who has had a death in the family and we wish his family the best after this tough news.
**Rewind-A-Raw is LIVE tonight at 11:15 pm ET for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café. Wai Ting and I will run through some of the new items from the past weekend and then review Raw from Tropicana Field. The show will be available for everyone early Tuesday morning on the site, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. by searching for POST Wrestling.
**Our monthly ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show drops on Tuesday as Wai & I go through the mailbag that has piled up since December. You can still submit questions on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Wai Ting and Pauline review the season finale of Total Bellas on Total Recall for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw (LIVE at 11:15 pm ET for Double Double, Iced Capp Espresso Patrons)
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show with John & Wai (Patreon)
Tuesday: DEEP IMPACT with Davie Portman (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite (LIVE at 10:15 pm ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Thursday: New Beginning in Hiroshima POST Show with John & Wai (Patreon)
Thursday: The British Wrestling Experience w/ guest Will Cooling
Complete schedule for the week.
The excellent edition of The Long & Winding Royal Road with WH Park & Dylan Fox of the Eastern Lariat Podcast with a 2.5-hour dive into Kawada’s career, legacy, and highlights:
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw takes place tonight from the ThunderDome at Tropicana Field. They have two weeks until the Elimination Chamber show and I would assume this week’s television will focus on putting that card together and setting up the Elimination Chamber matches. The following is being advertised for tonight’s show:
*Non-title Match: Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton
*Charlotte Flair and Lacey Evans have a Face-to-Face confrontation
**Former undisputed heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist Leon Spinks died over the weekend at the age of 67. Spinks had more than a fleeting involvement with professional wrestling including a major match with Antonio Inoki. One decade after Inoki’s famous match with Muhammad Ali, he squared off with the man who upset Ali to win the undisputed championship. The match between Inoki and Spinks took place on October 9, 1986, and drew a 28.9 rating. While still actively boxing, Spinks did an angle with Jerry Lawler in 1990 leading to a match at the Mid-South Coliseum on June 25, 1990 (the anniversary of Inoki vs. Ali).
Spinks had a lengthy tenure with FMW in the early ‘90s and won its Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship from Tarzan Goto in March 1992 and dropped the title to Atsushi Onita two months later. He also wrestled in their World Strongest Tag Team Tournament in 1991 alongside Rufus Blackborn and later teamed with AEW’s Dr. Luther on several shows.
SLAM Wrestling noted that Spinks did a series of matches with The Great Wojo (Greg Wojciechowski) with a match in Toledo, Ohio in April 1989 and another in Windsor, Ontario in May 1993.
Spinks’ boxing career ended in 1995 and lost his battle with cancer over the weekend.
**A t-shirt fundraiser has been launched to assist Pelle Tsichlis (who wrestled as Pelle Primeau) with his exorbitant legal costs to defend himself in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by Joseph Meehan (Joey Ryan). The suit is over alleged statements Tsichlis made about Meehan during the Speaking Out movement last year with Meehan claiming he suffered damages over said statements. Tsichlis is attempting to raise $35,000 to defend himself. The shirt fundraiser was launched by ROH wrestler Rhett Titus, who has stated that 100 percent of the proceeds will go to Tsichlis to assist with his legal costs. In January, the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California agreed that the lawsuit was filed in the wrong venue and has been transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania where Tsichlis resides. PWinsider.com has a thorough rundown of the case after obtaining the court documents and what Meehan is alleging in the libel suit. Last month, Tsichlis included the following message in an update on his Go Fund Me site:
I am seeking Philadelphia counsel to assist in sponsoring Stephen P New to defend my in the city of brotherly love! My hometown! The issue being, of course, is that I must pay an initial retainer fee to my Philadelphia attorney that is willing assist us in our case – I have taken out a bank loan for $5000 to start, and will immediately have to begin repaying this next month. I legitimately do not know how I will be able to make the monthly payments right now, as crunching the numbers has not been a pleasant experience.
Furthermore, the initial retainer fee is just that, the initial fee, and this is where we will be for the long haul. We will be receiving several more invoices in the future, and my options of managing these invoices is little to none. We need your help.
**Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs was played in front of an estimated 25,000 fans at Raymond James Stadium. The venue for this year’s two-night WrestleMania 37 shows required those in attendance to wear masks and provided hand sanitizer. The attendance included 7,500 vaccinated health care workers, who were admitted free of charge. There were also 30,000 cardboard cutouts to fill out the seating. WWE has yet to announce protocols for WrestleMania or the capacity they will hold.
**Both Dave Bautista and John Cena were featured in Super Bowl ads on Sunday. Bautista appeared in a Rocket Mortgage commercial with Tracy Morgan and Liza Koshy. Cena appeared in the new Mountain Dew Major Melon ad and was featured in the trailer for Fast and Furious 9.
**AEW’s Tony Khan and Chris Jericho attended the game at Raymond James Stadium.
**The WWE stock closed at $47.42 on Monday.
**A Go Fund Me campaign has been established to assist Jimmy Rave with mounting medical costs. Last November, Rave had his arm amputated due to an infection and has ended his wrestling career after 21 years. They have set the goal at $20,000.
**We want to send our best thoughts to Shaul Guerrero after she announced she is removing herself from all upcoming appearances and shows:
Officially today I am withdrawing from all performances and appearances scheduled in conjunction with wrestling. After a very scary mental illness crisis I am no longer advised by loved ones and professionals to participate in high stress event at this time. I deeply apologize to the fans who have been respectful and supportive of me and who continue to do so. I will be using this time to seek the help I need, re-establish my eating disorder treatment and hopefully get answers and solutions to reach a healthy mental state. I apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment this may bring.
**MLW has added a match between ACH and Brian Pillman Jr. for this Wednesday’s edition of MLW Fusion at 7 pm ET.
**Dark Side of the Ring held a voiceover session on Monday with narrator Chris Jericho for the forthcoming season. Dave Meltzer noted he was in Huntington Beach, California this past weekend and was interviewed for three episodes in the next season including the season premiere on Brian Pillman.
**Kenny McIntosh spoke with Chris Hero about his new podcast “Can Chris Hero Save Wrestling?”
**Lisa Marie Varon and Mickie James discussed their appearances in the women’s Royal Rumble alongside their GAW co-host SoCal Val. Varon said she got the call two weeks before the show and only told a handful of people.
**In the main event of today’s Road to New Beginning show at Korakuen Hall, the tag match with Kota Ibushi & SHO vs. SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi went to a 30:00 draw. It ended with SANADA releasing the Skull End on Ibushi and missing a top rope moonsault followed by Ibushi rallying for one more pin attempt when time expired.
**Here is the full card for Wednesday’s New Beginning in Hiroshima card that streams at 4 am ET on New Japan World and is the first of back-to-back shows in the city:
*IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi (champion) vs. SHO
*IWGP Tag Team Championship: Guerrillas of Destiny (champions) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi
*Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma vs. SANADA & Tetsuya Naito
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, Yoshi-Hashi & Toru Yano vs. EVIL, Jay White, Taiji Ishimori, El Phantasmo & Yujiro
*Master Wato vs. BUSHI
*Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Gabriel Kidd, Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura
**The Nightmare Family has announced that Aaron Solow and Nick Comoroto have joined.
**Being the Elite: Ep. 242 Set for Life.
**TNT Extreme Wrestling and Ignition have re-scheduled their upcoming events for February 27th and 28th until later this year. The group posted a message stating they hope to return before the end of the year.
**WWE The Day Of: Royal Rumble 2021 premieres this Sunday on the WWE Network.
**Big Show (Paul Wight) turns 49 years old today.
**The most-attended episode of WWE Raw occurred on this date in 1999 at the SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) in Toronto, Ontario. The venue had 41,432 inside the building with the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reporting a paid attendance of 38,661 and a gate of $737,628 (U.S.) for an episode that didn’t even air in the United States that night due to the Westminster Dog Show. The show aired live in Canada on TSN and on a five-day delay for a special Raw Saturday Night on February 13th the night before the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre pay-per-view. The company continued running live events at the SkyDome until June 2000 before shifting to the newly constructed Air Canada Centre beginning in October 2000. They did return to the stadium for WrestleMania X8 in March 2002 and was the last wrestling event to take place at the venue.
ON THIS DATE
UPCOMING EVENTS
Wednesday, February 10 – New Beginning in Hiroshima at 4 am ET
Thursday, February 11 – New Beginning in Hiroshima at 1 am ET
Friday, February 12 – NOAH Destination 2021 at Budokan Hall at 2:30 am ET
Saturday, February 13 – UFC 258
Saturday, February 13 – IMPACT Wrestling’s No Surrender on Impact+
Saturday, February 13 – GCW Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 4
Sunday, February 14 – NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day
*****
TOTAL RECALL: Total Bellas Season 6, Ep. 9 (Finale)
Wai Ting & Pauline review Total Bellas Season 6 Episode 9 (Finale) as Nikki & Brie move into their new homes in Napa Valley. We discuss the series’ ratings for the sixth season and whether there is enough appeal for a seventh.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/08/total-recall-total-bellas-season-6-ep-9-finale/
*****
REWAND-A-VISION: WandaVision Episode 5 (Free)
Wai Ting & WH Park are joined by John Siino to review WandaVision Episode 5 as Wanda’s take on the 1980s leads to a real-world confrontation with S.W.O.R.D. and the arrival of a familiar face that carries uncanny consequences for the MCU.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/07/rewand-a-vision-episode-5-on-a-very-special-episode/
*****
THE LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD – Toshiaki Kawada Biography
WH Park is joined by co-host of the Eastern Lariat, Dylan Fox as The Long & Winding Royal Road spotlights one of the key members of the 90s All Japan roster, “Dangerous K” Toshiaki Kawada!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/06/lwrr-8-toshiaki-kawada-biography-w-dylan-fox/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 2/5/21: Edge & Bianca Belair speak
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown featuring appearances by Royal Rumble winners Edge and Bianca Belair. Plus, WWE Q4 and Year-End financials, Butch Reed passes away, and your phone calls.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/06/rewind-a-smackdown-2-5-21-edge-bianca-belair-speak/
*****
POST INTERVIEW: Brandon Thurston on WWE’s Year-End Financials
John Pollock is joined by Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics to discuss WWE’s fourth quarter and 2020 year-end financial
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/02/05/post-interview-brandon-thurston-on-wwes-year-end-financials/
*****
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/
*****
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