POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons tonight at 11:15 pm ET. Wai Ting and I will review WWE Raw, the Steve Austin documentary from A&E, Triller Fight Club, and discuss the latest news along with your feedback. Patrons at the Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso level can log in live for the show, which is always a lot of fun in the Zoom Room.
**This week’s MCU L8R is available free for everybody as Wai Ting, WH Park & Nate Milton review the penultimate episode of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. All three will return this Saturday to review the finale and that show will be available to all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**On Tuesday, we will release Rewind-A-Wai #84 covering the G1 Special in San Francisco that NJPW presented in July 2018. The show takes place from the Cow Palace and featured Kenny Omega’s first IWGP title defense against Cody. You can leave feedback and questions for the show on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**I wrote a review of the A&E Biography on Steve Austin and it’s available on the site.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (LIVE at 11:15 pm ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #84: G1 Special in San Francisco (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John & Wai (10:15 pm ET for Dbl Dbl+ Patrons)
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
Friday: WWE Q1 Earnings Analysis with John Pollock & Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics
Friday: IMPACT Rebellion Primer with Davie Portman & John Siino (upNXT feed)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai & Kate from Montreal (10:15 pm ET for all Patrons)
Saturday: MCU L8R with Wai, WH Park & Nate Milton (Patreon)
Saturday: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate & Brian Mann (The Rock’s appearances on SNL)
Saturday: UFC 261 POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
Sunday: IMPACT Rebellion POST Show with Davie Portman & John Siino
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s edition of WWE Raw is advertising the following matches as they continue the build-up for WrestleMania Backlash on 5/16:
*Randy Orton vs. Braun Strowman
*Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka
*Drew McIntyre demands answers from MVP
**Below are the listed matches for AEW Dark: Elevation tonight at 7 pm ET on AEW’s YouTube channel:
*Kenny Omega, Konsouke Takeshita & Michael Nakazawa vs. Matt and Mike Sydal & Danny Limelight
*Dr. Britt Baker vs. Tesha Price
*Brian Cage & Ricky Starks vs. Mike Magnum & Stone Rockwell|
*Private Party vs. Alex Reynolds & Colt Cabana
*Abadon vs. Skye Blue
*Hangman Page vs. Spencer Slade
*Best Friends vs. Kit Sackett & Hayden Backlund
*Scorpio Sky & Ethan Page vs. Dean Alexander & Carlie Bravo
*Leyla Hirsch & Ryo Mizunami vs. Nyla Rose & Madi Wrenkowski
*Thunder Rosa vs. Shawna Reed
*Aaron Solow vs. Austin Gunn
*Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Midas Black & Jay Lyon
*Orange Cassidy vs. Prince Kai
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com is reporting that Mia Yim is moving to Friday Night SmackDown, it is unknown if she will continue as the character of “Reckoning”. POST Wrestling was able to confirm this news along with Shane Thorne a.k.a. Slapjack also being moved to SmackDown on the company’s official roster.
**A championship celebration for KUSHIDA is being advertised for Tuesday’s episode of NXT.
**MLW is set to make an announcement tonight at 9 pm ET.
**On his show Monday, Pat McAfee shared the experience of his first night as a member of the SmackDown broadcast team with Michael Cole. McAfee shared his thoughts on where he fell short and noted Vince McMahon was not at the tapings this past Friday at the Yuengling Center:
-McAfee was critical of his first performance noting he used several words too often, didn’t want to show too much bass in his voice on his first show to dominate the commentary.
-He said his natural instinct was to stand during certain moments and was told he probably shouldn’t do that especially when they went to the two-shot with Michael Cole sitting. He went so far as to say, “I stunk but have a chance to get better” and had a blast on Friday.
-McAfee said the original announcement was to go out Thursday night but “something happened at WWE on Thursday” and they didn’t feel right about making the announcement that evening (obviously alluding to the talent cuts but not stating it outright) and it was delayed to Friday
-Vince McMahon was not at the SmackDown tapings on Friday and therefore, didn’t produce him but doesn’t believe he will have trouble being coached by McMahon
**Chelsea Green spoke with Sean Ross Sapp at Fightful in her first interview since last week’s release by WWE. Below are a few of the highlights from the hour-long discussion:
-She was totally shocked about last week’s release and was prepared in the past to be released but less so this time and was getting ready to debut
-John Laurinaitis made the call and cited “budget cuts” as the company’s reasoning
-She did have a bit of a heads-up regarding releases coming and it braced her for the call
-Green has a 90-day no-compete clause, which is nice to get paid during the pandemic but she’s already been off television for the past year and wants to get back on screen
-She was not at WrestleMania as she didn’t want to push things with COVID protocols and not show up if she wasn’t booked
-Green had been planning to attend SmackDown prior to the news of her release
-Green and Mickie James were set for a program and even taped a match that was scheduled to air on television but it never did
-There were other plans for a group with Green, Vanessa Borne, and Santana Garrett that she described as a mixture of the Pussycat Dolls and Charlie’s Angels
-When she was brought up to SmackDown last November, she confirmed her name was going to be “Victorious” and she was surprised when she was introduced in the fatal four-way as Chelsea Green but would be revealed in a post-match segment that her name was Victorious. This is the match where Green suffered her injury.
-Prior to the injury in November, she had signed a new three-year contract with the company
**A new edition of Road to AEW Dynamite premieres tonight at 6 pm ET.
**The rain-delayed portion from the first night of WrestleMania has been edited off the WWE Network. After Vince McMahon’s opening speech and video opening, it goes right to the introduction of Titus O’Neil and Hulk Hogan as the co-hosts of the show and editing off all the impromptu interviews to kill time during the rain delay. Gary Cassidy of Inside the Ropes added that Mandy Rose’s slip on the ramp has also been edited off, which is hysterical given it was incorporated into an angle on Raw last week.
**Zeus suffered his first losses of the Champion Carnival over the weekend losing to Yuma Aoyagi on Saturday and to Kohei Sato on Sunday. After five shows, it’s a four-way tie for first place between Zeus, Jake Lee, Kohei Sato, and Yuma Aoyagi with six points each. Shuji Ishikawa, Kento Miyahara, Suwama, and Shinjiro Otani each have four points and the bottom rung has Shotaro Ashino and Koji Doi with two points each. Purolove.com listed 150 fans attending Saturday’s show at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring, and 135 people at Sunday’s show in Chiba. The Carnival tournament resumes Saturday with a show at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring with Suwama vs. Yuma Aoyagi, Kento Miyahara vs. Kohei Sato, Shuji Ishikawa vs. Shotaro Ashino, and Shinjiro Otani vs. Koji Doi. Sunday’s line-up at Korakuen Hall looks to be among the best cards of the entire tournament.
**Ring of Honor aired its 500th episode over the weekend with two matches spread out over the hour. The Pure Championship match between Jonathan Gresham and Jay Lethal was terrific ending with Gresham applying a head scissors, Lethal going to transition out, and getting cradled for the win. This happened after Gresham had used his three rope breaks and had his left shoulder worked on throughout the match. This match was excellent and was a finish you would expect out of a Bret Hart match during the mid-’90s. I would strongly recommend this match. The rest of the episode featured a match between Jay and Mark Briscoe.
**Independent wrestler Adam Priest broke his left arm recently that required surgery. He posted an update that the procedure required four screws and a plate to be inserted and added he would be missing a significant amount of time. Priest has wrestled on several editions of AEW Dark and was working shows in Tampa during WrestleMania Week for IWTV’s Family Reunion and a match with Matt Makowski at ACTION and SUP’s Have Fun, Be Sad card on April 9th. Priest mentioned you can purchase shirts of his through his online store.
**This Thursday’s episode of Dark Side of the Ring: Confidential will focus on “The Final Days of Owen Hart” from season two on VICE TV at 9:30 pm ET.
**Warrior Wrestling has announced that the match between Kylie Rae and Thunder Rosa that was scheduled for Saturday, June 5th has been pushed back to August 21st as part of its Stadium Series of shows.
**NJPW ran Korakuen Hall today in front of 306 fans. It was the second of three consecutive nights at the arena as part of their “Road to Wrestling Dontaku tour”. The main event lasted over 26 minutes with KENTA defeating YOSHI-HASHI with the Go 2 Sleep. Below are the results:
*Toru Yano, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomoaki Honma over EVIL, Dick Togo & Gedo in 8:54
*Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare & The Great O-Khan over Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, SANADA & BUSHI in 7:43
*Tomohiro Ishii over Yujiro in 15:17
*Taiji Ishimori over Hirooki Goto in 12:08
*KENTA over YOSHI-HASHI in 26:06
**Tuesday’s card at Korakuen Hall is headlined by a NEVER Openweight Six-Man Championship match with Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI defending the titles against KENTA, Yujiro & Taiji Ishimori.
**FITE is carrying the next big Pro Wrestling NOAH card “The Glory” on Thursday, April 29th for $19.99 (U.S.) The show features Keiji Muto’s latest GHC Championship defense against Masa Kitamiya in the main event.
**The WWE Network will be releasing a new edition of “WWE 24” this Sunday profiling The Miz.
**Eric Bischoff is the guest on this week’s edition of the PWT Cast with Scrump & Stank.
**Being the Elite Ep. 252 “The Forbidden Dior”.
**So, here is a look at what the typical week is going to look like for all the available professional wrestling content:
*Monday: WWE Raw, AEW Dark: Elevation, Miz & Mrs.
*Tuesday: WWE NXT, NWA Powerrr, AEW Dark
*Wednesday: AEW Dynamite, MLW Fusion
*Thursday: IMPACT Wrestling, NXT UK, VICE TV’s Dark Side of the Ring (beginning May 6th)
*Friday: Friday Night SmackDown, 205 Live, NJPW Strong
*Saturday: Ring of Honor (syndicated throughout the weekend)
*Sunday: A&E Biographies, WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures
MMA NEWS
**There is no denying that the attention of the fight world was concentrated on Triller this past weekend with an enormous amount of attention garnered for the circus-like presentation that was closer to a parody of a fight card than a substantive one. In an era where social media currency is premium, producing train wreck content that will generate online buzz, shock, and memes, Triller was the sideshow attraction no one could take their eyes off. There is the undeniable fact that they have garnered significant attention and will continue the concept with shows June 5th and July 3rd featuring Evander Holyfield fighting Kevin McBride in June, and Oscar De La Hoya fighting at aged 48 in July.
The appearance by De La Hoya on commentary during Steve Cunningham’s fight with Frank Mir was sad and he had no business being kept on the air for as long as he was. He came off sounding like he was in an altered stated and given his history, it was very uncomfortable. Frank Mir sent out a message that conveyed my feelings on it:
Regarding the commentary during my fight last night. I could be angry and I could laugh too but addiction is no joke, I know. I sincerely hope that those around Oscar get him help he needs. He was a great champion & ambassador for boxing. I’d like to think he can be again.
As Dave Meltzer reported, the Google searches (which are a good indicator of a show’s performance on pay-per-view) were through the roof this weekend for the card with over 7.2 million as of Sunday evening. The question is sustainability given the poor quality of fights, a massive budget for its musical acts, production and purses, and whether they will run this concept dry after the novelty wears thin. Some have pegged this as the demise of boxing, I just look at it as a concept designed to have the car crash effect where it’s less a boxing card and more a spectacle that has obviously found an audience.
Regarding pay-per-view points, Ben Askren appeared on Steve-O’s Wild Ride last week and stated he doesn’t have a percentage of the pay-per-view built into his deal for the fight. It was reported last week by MMA Fighting that his purse was $500,000 for the fight.
**On Saturday’s UFC Fight Night broadcast, the revealed the fighters for the 29th season of the domestic version of Ultimate Fighter. The series will feature a men’s bantamweight and middleweight tournament for the UFC contracts. The coaches for the season will be UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega, who were scheduled to fight last month but were delayed due to Volkanovski contracting COVID-19. The season will premiere on June 1st on ESPN+. Here is the list of fighters announced:
*Bantamweight: Daniel Argueta (5-0), Beady Hiestand (4-1), Dustin Lampros (5-0), Vince Murdock (11-6), Mitch Raposo (5-0), Joshua Rettinghouse (16-5), Liudvik Sholinian (9-1), and Ricky Turcios (10-2).
*Middleweight: Aaron Phillips (5-1), Andre Petroski (5-1), Bryan Battle (4-1), Ryder Newman (3-1), Tresean Gore (3-0), Miles Hunsinger (7-0), Kemran Lachinov (10-3), and Gilbert Urbina (6-1).
**The PFL issued a press release announcing a live event page on Twitter featuring curated content from fighters and personalities before, during, and after the fights. The news comes days before their season launches this Friday night from Atlantic, New Jersey, and airing on ESPN2 and TSN2 in Canada.
Through the partnership, fans will have insider access to PFL fighter training content from the regular season bubble, live PFL fight night content, the pre-fight walk-out, real-time highlights, post-event PFL fighter press conference and The Round Up – which is a live feed where influencers will host a chat with fans during commercial breaks while they discuss what just happened in the fights and what they think is yet to come. PFL and Twitter will also launch a hashmoji for fans Tweeting about the event, with the hashtag #PFLMMA.
**UFC has released the first episode of UFC Embedded for this Saturday’s card:
*****
MCU L8R: Falcon & Winter Soldier Ep. 5 [FREE]
Wai Ting, WH Park and Nate Milton review The Falcon & The Winter Soldier Ep. 5 as Sam confronts Isaiah Bradley about the ugly truth behind the shield.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 4/16/21: Cesaro, Belair Victory Party, Pat McAfee
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown coming out of WrestleMania featuring the ascension of Cesaro, Bianca Belair’s Victory Party, and the debut of Pat McAfee on the show’s commentary team.
*****
POST NEWS: WWE releases, AEW ratings, Pat McAfee, Mauro Ranallo
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss today’s top stories from POSTwrestling.com including a thorough discussion about WWE’s roster releases, AEW’s unopposed Wednesday rating, Pat McAfee, Mauro Ranallo and more.
*****
POST PURORESU: NJPW’s Schedule, Champion Carnival, Stardom’s Cinderella Tournament
John Pollock & WH Park chat Will Ospreay’s title wins and NJPW’s ambitious schedule, Champion Carnival & Cindrella highlights, and more.
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY #4: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Join Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman and the POST Wrestling community for Episode 4 of The Wellness Policy as we discuss the wildly successful anti-self help book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson.
*****
BWE: APPG Report on BritWres, WALTER, Will Ospreay wins IWGP title
Martin Bushby is joined by three guests to discuss the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wrestling report: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour MP and APPG co-chair), Alan Collins (child abuse litigator), Will Cooling (PW Torch).
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 4/14/21: Mike Tyson, Bucks vs. Death Triangle
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the unopposed episode of AEW Dynamite featuring Mike Tyson and two championship matches, plus a look at television numbers for WWE Raw and NXT.
*****
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