POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, Rewind-A-Raw will be live at 11:15 p.m. ET for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café. Wai Ting and I will have an extensive look at the A&E Biography on the Ultimate Warrior followed by a review of WWE Raw. We hope you join us live tonight and the podcast version will be available later tonight.
**On Wednesday, we will be joined by Colt Cabana to chat about his new podcast ‘Wrestling Anonymous’ which debuts on Tuesday.
**This Friday, Wai Ting and I will be reviewing the documentary ‘The Dissident’ and we will be joined by director Bryan Fogel to discuss the making of the doc. You can leave us feedback on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Due to AEW Dynamite airing Friday night, Wai Ting and I will be doing a live show at Midnight ET this Friday covering both Dynamite and Friday Night SmackDown. This will be available live for all members of the POST Wrestling Café and then, we will post the show free for everyone this week.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman were joined by WH Park to look at some of the best matches of the late Hana Kimura’s career.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw (LIVE at 11:15 p.m. ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Tuesday: POST Interview – Colt Cabana
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
Thursday: Bushby & Thompson’s Wrestling Adventure (“Beyond the Mat” doc)
Friday: POST Movie Review – “The Dissident” with director Bryan Fogel
Friday: Rewind-A-DynaDown (LIVE at Midnight ET for all Patrons)
Sunday: AEW Double or Nothing POST Show (LIVE after the PPV for Double Double+ Patrons)
WRESTLING NEWS
**A&E aired its most-anticipated edition of Biography for the current run of past WWE performers focusing on Ultimate Warrior. We will spend a lot of time on tonight’s Rewind-A-Raw discussing the doc and the many points it brought up. The Dark Side of the Ring episode on Warrior will be airing this Thursday but it’s going to be much different as it will heavily focus on Warrior’s earlier years going from chiropractor to pro wrestler and his marriage to Shari Tyree, who is the primary interview subject.
The handling of Warrior’s divisive commentary and outright malicious comments were going to be under a microscope for this doc. It was nearly impossible for this documentary to fully analyze Warrior and go ‘warts and all’ given the WWE’s involvement and their choice to honor him every year and present him as a philanthropic symbol. They went into enough subject matter that a portion of the audience can defend the doc stating they ‘went there’ but it was also downplayed as Warrior being influenced by talk radio or that the speech of UConn was an aberration from his actual beliefs and words. If they had gone into the specific words he used to describe Bobby Heenan battling cancer it would have been impossible to veer back to a positive reflection of Warrior.
There was also lots of context missing from different stories including the SummerSlam 1991 exit and Warrior’s demands. David Bixenspan uncovered most of those documents relied on for that section but went into far greater detail including Vince McMahon faxing a response in July 1991 agreeing to all of Warrior’s requests.
There were absolutely strong elements of the documentary as well. The uncovering of the Warrior apology video for the station manager who claimed Warrior snapped at his child at an airport was an amazing piece of video complete with Vince McMahon producing it. I thought that Hellwig’s mother Donna and high school football coach Greg Pate added the most depth to his upbringing and were great voices to include in the documentary. Dana Warrior came off as someone attempting to preserve a legacy that few accept in terms of Warrior as this positive role model that is now an icon for WWE’s public profile.
It was also notable how few wrestlers that actually worked with Warrior were involved in the piece. It was limited to Jerry Lawler on Warrior’s arrival in Memphis, a lot with Shane McMahon (who was working as referee ‘Shane Stevens’ during Warrior’s big year of 1990), Jimmy Hart (who wasn’t even in Memphis when Warrior arrived in 1985), Hogan, Undertaker, and then using an old 2014 interview with Steve Borden (who would have been one of the obvious choices to conduct a new interview with and obviously didn’t). The result was a reliance on other talking heads that made up the bulk of the recollections.
**For additional reading, I would recommend this VICE article from 2017 that covered many of the more unsavory comments Warrior made, and a huge feature David Bixenspan put out featuring a lot of the documents presented in the A&E special.
**VICE TV has released the following teaser for this Thursday’s episode “Becoming Warrior” airing at 9 p.m. ET:
The Ultimate Warrior’s career would hit astronomical heights with WrestleMania VI, and no one was closer to him than his wife Shari…or so she thought.
“Becoming Warrior” premieres Thurs, 9pm on @vicetv and @cravecanada. pic.twitter.com/XoOxRlqgG4
— Dark Side of the Ring (@DarkSideOfRing) May 24, 2021
**Tonight’s edition of WWE Raw airs at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network with the following matches and segments advertised:
*Women’s Tag Team Championship: Natalya & Tamina (champions) vs. Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler
*Riddle vs. Xavier Woods
*Bobby Lashley reacts to last week’s loss to Kofi Kingston (I bet he’s upset)
**SLAM Wrestling’s Greg Oliver has a story on the passing of Paul Christy at the age of 82. Christy debuted in 1959 finding success in the Los Angeles-based WWA, the Gulf Coast, and wrestling for the Poffo’s ICW promotion out of Kentucky. In the Gulf Coast, he wrestled as Chris Lucas as the storyline brother of Ken Lucas. The pair won the territory’s version of the tag titles five times in 1965-66 losing them one last time to Don Carson & Maxie York in September 1966. In the WWA, he formed teams with Moose Cholak, Wilbur Snyder, and Roger Kirby with each pairing holding the promotion’s version of the tag titles. As a singles performer, he held the ICW’s heavyweight championship in November 1983 defeating Randy Savage and dropping it to Lanny Poffo on New Year’s Day 1984. Christy regained the title from Poffo and was the last champion of the outlaw group, which shut down. In 2006, he married his long-time manager Bunny Burmeister. He also released a book in 2005 that is still available called ‘The Many Faces of Paul Christy’.
**The Sportsnet television schedule is listing Tuesday’s NXT episode for the SN NOW streaming app instead of Sportsnet 360 due to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
**Taichi is the latest New Japan talent to confirm he was one of the positive COVID-19 cases after taking a PCR test earlier this month. New Japan announced a total of nine positive cases but didn’t reveal the identities of the positive cases. Since then, Kazuchika Okada confirmed he was among the positive cases. Taichi wrestled on both nights in Fukuoka for Wrestling Dontaku before returning to Tokyo and felt ill and contracted a high fever. Taichi told Tokyo Sports that he’s feeling better now and has resumed training but did note feeling dizziness after he resumed training. His last match was on May 4th teaming with DOUKI and Zack Sabre Jr. against the Guerrillas of Destiny & Jado.
**NJPW began its first of three consecutive shows at Korakuen Hall earlier today with some of the thinnest line-ups the company has presented in Bushiroad era. The company has been riddled with talent unavailable due to the COVID outbreak and injuries. There are absolutely issues going on behind-the-scenes regarding talent unhappy over the handling of certain issues related to the pandemic. This was given credence by Fit Finlay when speaking with JBL & Gerry Brisco, who said his son is confused and they are going to have a chat when he returns about his future and if he wants to work elsewhere.
**The attendance for today’s Korakuen Hall event was listed at 280.
**The Japan Times has an article on the problems in Osaka. The hospitals are running out of beds and ventilators due to the surge in cases and are concerned with a potential crash of the system. While Osaka only represents 7 percent of the population, it accounts for one-third of the death toll this month in the country. The article notes that only 14 percent of Osaka’s COVID cases have been hospitalized compared to a 37 percent rate in Tokyo. From a wrestling perspective, this could impact the Dominion event set for June 6th in Osaka that currently has no matches announced.
**Former WWE official Drake Wuertz has announced he will be part of an event called ‘Take Down Trafficking’ on Saturday, June 26th in Orlando, Florida that will include a meet-and-greet with Matt Morgan and Low Ki. Wuertz stated on Instagram he will make his return to in-ring action on the show, which he said is a benefit show for bikers against trafficking. Last week, Wuertz was among the cuts made by WWE.
**The FMW-E show scheduled for July 4th has announced a ‘Death Match of Hell’ main event with Atsushi Onita teaming with Ricky Fuji and Minoru Fujita against Abdullah Kobayashi and two mystery partners.
**Kofi Kingston was interviewed by Steven Muehlhausen of DAZN and shared his feelings on the WrestleMania main event between Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair last month:
With Sasha, and Bianca at WrestleMania, being in the main event was so powerful. The way they killed it was, I know that a lot of people are going to remember that match for a long time. It’s going to inspire people to do amazing things in this industry, outside of this industry. That is what it’s all about. So if Bobby and I were able to go head to head for the WWE title, the thought of winning the championship for a second time would be amazing. But even more amazing than that is the lives that we would touch and the lightbulbs that would go off and just the seeds that we would plant in terms of motivating people on so many different levels. There hasn’t been any talk of this. We’re all just kind of assuming what would happen. But based on what happened last week, a win over the WWE Champion is a win over the WWE Champion. Not to mention that nobody has pinned Bobby Lashley since he’s become WWE Champion, except this guy. I’m going to go ahead and celebrate that.
**Andrade is being advertised for a match against El Hijo del Santo on Saturday, June 12th in Anaheim, California with tickets available.
**Below are the matches listed for tonight’s edition of AEW Dark: Elevation streaming at 7 p.m. ET on its YouTube channel:
*Scorpio Sky vs. Alan “5” Angels
*Rocky Romero vs. JD Drake
*Ren Narita vs. Royce Isaacs
*Thunder Rosa vs. Ashley D’Amboise
*QT Marshall vs. Robo
*Mike Sydal vs. Penta El Zero Miedo
*Nyla Rose vs. Robyn Renegade
*Matt Hardy vs. Fuego Del Sol
*Ethan Page vs. Alex Reynolds
*Abadon vs. Leila Grey
*Lee Johnson vs. Daniel Garcia
*Tay Conti vs. Queen Aminata
**Here is the line-up for Tuesday’s New Japan card at Korakuen Hall and streaming at 5:30 a.m. ET on New Japan World:
*Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jeff Cobb & The Great O-Khan
*Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, SANADA & BUSHI vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Ryusuke Taguchi
*Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Master Wato
*Zack Sabre Jr. & DOUKI vs. Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro
*Chase Owens vs. Yota Tsuji
**It has been almost two weeks that the Showbuzz Daily site has been unable to post new data with the charts and demographic breakdowns for all programming. The site has become a vital resource for both media and even those inside the industry because of its wide scope covering all programming and putting numbers in context with its competition and what can be deemed a strong or weak performance. We are still getting viewership figures and the key demo rating but it’s hard to assess without the entire look at how the other programs performed and what may have impacted the wrestling programming.
The latest update on Monday from the site’s creators said they were unsure what the future of Showbuzz Daily is but are determined to find a way back:
It appears that whatever caused the shutdown (which is still unclear) led to a domino effect that triggered underlying problems we hadn’t even known were there. As many of you are aware, we’ve been operating the site for years without revenue, and honestly the cost and time that would be required to bring the site back has led us to consider what the future of showbuzzdaily can be. We’re also not in a position to make arrangements regarding our databases or other content. We promise that we’re going to try and figure out a way back, and we’ll let you know when there’s an update.
**Scorpio Sky is a guest on Sunday Night’s Main Event discussing the tag match at Double or Nothing with Ethan Page against Sting & Darby Allin this Sunday.
**Brian Zane at Wrestling with Wregret and Ring of Honor posted a video blog from inside the ROH bubble for the last set of tapings earlier this month.
**Phil Schneider has released a new book looking at the 100 greatest bloody matches in wrestling history titled ‘Way of the Blade’. From the description:
In Way of the Blade, Segunda Caida’s Phil Schneider, a leading wrestling critic and internet wrestling pioneer with the Death Valley Driver Video Review, looks at 100 of the best, bloodiest matches in the sport’s history. Starting in the 1950s and spanning the decades and continents, Schneider tells the story of a very weird sport. You’ll meet wrestling chickens, Nazi doctors of philosophy and Japanese death match specialists. You’ll relive classics everyone knows and discover some hidden gems previously witnessed by a mere handful of fans lucky enough to have been in the building the night the carnage went down.
**The latest edition of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions premieres this Sunday with guest Charles Wright a.k.a. ‘The Godfather’ on the WWE Network.
**Charly Arnolt (formerly Charly Caruso in WWE) will be hosting a weekly recap and discussion show after each episode of Ultimate Fighter on ESPN+ beginning Tuesday, June 1st. The upcoming season is the first domestic version of TUF since 2018 and will feature coaches Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega with bantamweights and middleweights competing for the UFC contracts.
**It’s a rare weekend coming up without a UFC card before returning with Saturday night shows throughout the month of June. Their next card is June 5th headlined by a heavyweight fight between Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Augusto Sakai.
**The WWE stock closed at $57.92 on Monday.
*****
POST PURORESU BONUS: Hana Kimura, Stardom, NJPW Turmoil (w/ Dylan Fox)
WH Park is joined by Dylan Fox from The Eastern Lariat to remember Hana Kimura on the one year anniversary of her death. They also discuss Stardom, turmoil in NJPW, and other recent happenings in the Japanese wrestling scene.
*****
BEST MATCH EVER: Hana Kimura
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are joined by WH Park to celebrate the life of Hana Kimura as they look back at her pro wrestling career.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 5/21/21: WWE returning to live events, Velveteen Dream
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss WWE SmackDown, WWE’s return to live events, the release of Velveteen Dream, Dark Side of the Ring: Collision in Korea, and your calls.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #86: TNA Unbreakable (2005)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review TNA Unbreakable (2005) headlined by a legendary X-Division triple threat title match between Chris Daniels, AJ Styles & Samoa Joe.
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY #5: Creativity w/ David Speed
Wai Ting and Jordan Goodman are back with Episode 5 of The Wellness Policy as they welcome artist and co-host of the Creative Rebels podcast, David Speed! You’ve likely seen his beautiful mural of Brodie Lee in London.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 5/19/21: AEW to TBS, WWE cuts
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite and discuss major news involving the addition of a new AEW Friday show, Dynamite moving to TBS in 2022, and WWE’s latest roster cuts including Drake Wuertz and Alexander Wolfe.
*****
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