POST IT NOTES
**We have a bonus POST News Update with Wai Ting and I discussing today’s news, a preview of tonight’s shows from WWE and AEW, as well as our thoughts on the latest Dark Side of the Ring covering Grizzly Smith and the Smith family. A warning that the review portion of Dark Side contains descriptions of sexual abuse involving minors.
**Tonight, Wai Ting and I will be LIVE at 12:15 a.m. ET for Rewind-A-DynaDown as we review both Friday Night SmackDown and Friday Night Dynamite. We will have condensed reviews of both shows and then, open the phone lines for the remainder of the show. Live access to the stream is available to all POST Wrestling Café members.
**Eric Marcotte will have an extensive review of the UFC Fight Night card on Saturday night. On Sunday, Mark Buckeldee will have a review of the CyberFight Festival show. Later on Sunday, John Siino will have coverage of the NWA ‘When Our Shadows Fall’ pay-per-view.
**On this week’s edition of Rewind-A-Wai #87, we review the 2011 film “Warrior” starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte and featuring Kurt Angle playing the role of Russian fighter ‘Koba’. This was selected by Espresso Executive Producer Robert Brockie, who appeared on the show to discuss why he chose the film. The movie features many MMA personalities including Anthony Johnson, Nate Marquardt, Roan Carneiro, Jon Anik, Rashad Evans, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Rosenthal, and Punkass & Skyscrape from Tapout.
**This Sunday, WH Park will present the latest edition of The Long & Winding Royal Road. Along with Case Lowe from Voices of Wrestling, they will continue their look at the four pillars with an entire show dedicated to Kenta Kobashi with a look at his career and biggest moments. Previously, WH has done shows dedicated to Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada.
**On Monday, Wai Ting and I will have a bonus show for POST Wrestling Café members with a review of NJPW Dominion.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-DynaDown (LIVE at Midnight ET for all POST Wrestling Café members)
Sunday: The Long & Winding Royal with WH Park & Case Lowe (Kenta Kobashi Retrospective)
Monday: NJPW Dominion POST Show with John & Wai (Patreon)
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw (LIVE at 11:15 p.m. ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show (Patreon)
WRESTLING NEWS
“To me, he was my monster” – Robin Smith
**Thursday’s episode of Dark Side of the Ring “The Shadow of Grizzly Smith” was the toughest one to watch but also the most important. The stories were out there regarding Smith including ones of sexual abuse among young girls, but it was quite an astonishing documentary to hear so many coming from his direct family. Robin Smith is a remarkable individual that has been able to leave those years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father in the past and move on with her life. It was a powerful statement when she said that her father ruined her childhood but would not allow him to ruin the rest of her life. Jake was very open regarding how badly he was damaged from his childhood from learning of the horrors of his father with Jake’s mother having him when she was thirteen years old, the lack of love from his father, and later encountering sexual abuse by a stepmother after Grizzly divorced Jake’s Mom. It’s a very difficult episode to watch and is going to remain with people that sit through and absorb all the unspeakable acts committed. It was also a powerful episode with a strong message of speaking out and reaching for help if you are going through similar issues. In many ways, this was the most essential episode from the series because it could genuinely help many people.
**The run of documentaries will continue with A&E’s Biography on Bret Hart this Sunday and Dark Side of the Ring ending the first half of season three with an episode dedicated to Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington next week. The Bret Hart documentary will likely be great because of Hart’s intensive documentation of his career through voice notes he took and producing one of the most thorough wrestling biographies ever released. Of course, Montreal must be a big subject in this episode, and you have the viewpoints of Bret, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon after nearly twenty-four years. Bret has always been candid, even if it’s to his detriment, with a level of honesty that few possess.
**For the second week in a row, WWE and AEW will have a doubleheader with Friday Night SmackDown airing at 8 p.m. ET followed by Dynamite at 10. It appears this will continue next week as the TNT schedule lists Dynamite for next Friday night, as well. The first week was not a successful number for Dynamite but there are several factors that should assist tonight’s show. They are coming off a very successful pay-per-view, the atmosphere with more fans in attendance should help and there’s the promise of a Young Bucks match.
**Friday Night SmackDown on Fox will feature two title matches with the following advertised for tonight:
*SmackDown Tag Team Championship: Rey & Dominik Mysterio (champions) vs. The Usos
*Intercontinental Championship: Apollo Crews (champion) vs. Kevin Owens – Commander Azeez is banned from ringside
*Ariya Daivari vs. August Grey on 205 Live
*Sunil Singh vs. Ari Sterling on 205 Live
**Friday Night Dynamite will feature the following matches and segments at 10 p.m. ET on TNT and TSN 2 in Canada:
*Non-Title Match: The Young Bucks vs. PAC & Penta El Zero Miedo
*Bullrope Match: Dustin Rhodes vs. Nick Comoroto
*Jungle Boy & Christian vs. Private Party
*Red Velvet vs. The Bunny
*Cody Rhodes & Lee Johnson vs. QT Marshall & Anthony Ogogo
*Dr. Britt Baker’s Championship Celebration
*An appearance by Mark Henry
*Tony Schiavone interviews Sting & Darby Allin
*The Inner Circle’s “Stadium Stampede Victory Lap”
**On Friday’s edition of Busted Open Radio, Tony Khan revealed that Dynamite will have a Saturday night airing on June 26th and will feature the AEW Championship match between Kenny Omega and Jungle Boy. Khan noted that June 26th will be a live episode from Daily’s Place and expects it to be the last week where they are shifted due to the NBA playoffs on TNT. He also confirmed that next week’s episode of Dynamite will be on Friday night.
**Here is the list of matches for tonight’s edition of NJPW Strong airing at 10 p.m. ET on New Japan World:
*Satoshi Kojima & Karl Fredericks vs. Danny Limelight & JR Kratos
*Barrett Brown vs. Adrian Quest
*Kevin Knight vs. TJP
**CMLL has a pay-per-view tonight at Arena Mexico airing on the Ticketmaster site with the following card:
*Mistico, Caristico & Volador Jr. vs. Euforia, Terrible & Angel de Oro
*Cuatrero & Los Gemelo Diablos vs. Blue Panther Jr., Valiente & The Panther
*El Audaz, Guerrero Maya Jr. & Fugaz vs. Okumura, Dark Magic & Vangellys
*Dalys & Stephanie Vaquer
*Magia Blanca vs. El Coyote
*Sonic & Sangre Imperial vs. Akuma & Espanto Jr.
**Game Changer Wrestling has a series of events from The Showboat in Atlantic City, New Jersey this weekend. On Saturday, they are hosting the Tournament of Survival streaming at 3 p.m. ET on FITE TV with the following first-round matches:
*GCW Ultraviolent Title, Bundles of Hate Death Match: Alex Colon (champion) vs. Bam Sullivan
*Towers of Terror Death Match: Nolan Edward vs. Orin Veidt
*Bunkhouse Death Match: G-Raver vs. Effy
*Fuckery Boards Death Match: Atticus Cogar vs. Manders
**Warrior Wrestling returns on Saturday with the start of its Stadium Series at Marian Catholic High School on the outdoor football field. The doors open at 6:30 p.m. local time and the bell time is at 7 featuring:
*Lucha War of Attrition: Laredo Kid vs. Arez vs. Aramis vs. Black Taurus vs. Dragon Bane vs. Gringo Loco vs. Canis Lupus vs. Golden Dragon
*Warrior Wrestling Championship: Trey Miguel (champion) vs. Lee Moriarty
*Warrior Wrestling Women’s Championship: Kylie Rae (champion) vs. Holidead
*Matt Cardona vs. Sam Adonis
*Deonna Purrazzo vs. Ray Lyn
*Cole Radrick vs. KC Navarro
*Jake Something vs. Warhorse
*Kongo Kong vs. Beastman
**Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that NXT is expected to resume live events within the state of Florida in July. The live events would begin with the ‘Coconut Loop’ of various Florida cities in 200-400 seat venues that don’t typically feature the top NXT talent.
**IMPACT Wrestling is the latest promotion to announce that limited fans will able to attend shows. The company has already sold all the available tickets as they welcome fans back at the Slammiversary pay-per-view at Skyway Studios in Nashville on July 17th. IMPACT has been running their events from the empty studio for over a year and has added sound effects to help with the atmosphere, but it’s been tough even though the shows have generally been very good. This means by mid-July that WWE, AEW, Ring of Honor, IMPACT, and MLW will all be running events with fans.
**At Luchablog, thecubsfan has a biography on Pasion Kristal (Gabriel Zentella Damian) who died earlier this week during a tragic accident where Kristal drowned while in Acapulco, Mexico at age 45.
**The big CyberFight Festival event will take place late Saturday night beginning at Midnight ET from the Saitama Super Arena and airing on Wrestle Universe. There will be English commentary from Stewart Fulton and Mark Pickering and will feature guest commentators Baliyan Akki from Gatoh Move and journalist Hiroshi Arai. The card is scheduled to have the following fifteen matches:
*GHC Championship: Keiji Muto (champion) vs. Naomichi Marufuji
*KO-D Openweight Championship: Jun Akiyama (champion) vs. Harashima
*Princess of Princess Championship: Miyu Yamashita (champion) vs. Yuka Sakazaki
*Konosuke Takeshita & Yuki Ueno vs. Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura
*Masa Kitamiya vs. Hideki Okatani
*Takashi Sugiura & Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Danshoku Dino & Super Sasadango Machine
*Sanshiro Takagi, Akito, Yukio Sakaguchi, Kazusada Higuchi, Naomi Yoshimura & Yukio Naya vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenoh, Manabu Soya, Haoh, Nioh & Tadasuke
*Daisuke Harada, Atsushi Kotoge & Hajime Ohara vs. Yoshinari Ogawa, Hayata & Seiki Yoshioka
*Maki Itoh, Yuki Kamifuku & Marika Kobashi vs. Hikari Noa, Mizuki & Yuki Arai
*Shoko Nakajima & Hyper Misao vs. Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe vs. Nodoka Tenma & Yuki Aino
*Chris Brookes, Shunma Katsumata & Mao vs. Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo & Soma Takao
*Kinya Okada & Junta Miyawaki vs. Yuki Iino & Toui Kojima
*Ken Ohka, Keisuke Ishii & Shota vs. Koki Iwasaki, Shuichiro Katsumura & Yumehito Imanari
*Battle Royal (Announced: Yoshiaki Yatsu, Masao Inoue, Muhammed Yone, Shuhei Taniguchi, Akitoshi Saito, Shuhei Taniguchi, Shu Sakurai, Toru Owashi, Makoto Oishi, Kazuki Hirata, Yuna Manase, Yuji Hino, Yuya Koroku, Saki Akai, Yusuke Okada & Antonio Honda)
*Haruna Neko, Moka Miyamoto, Mirai Maiumi, Suzume & Arisu Endo vs. Nao Kakuta, Pom Harajuku, Raku, Mahiro Kiryu & Kaya Toribami
**The WWE stock closed at $56.83 on Friday.
**Francesco Akira won All Japan’s Junior Battle of Glory tournament on Thursday. The two-day tournament at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring began on Wednesday with sixteen junior heavyweights. The opening round on Wednesday saw Akira defeat Yoshihiro Tajiri while Yusuke Kodama, Fuminori Abe, Izanagi, SUGI from Zero1, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Hikaru Sato, and El Lindaman advanced to the second day. On Thursday, Akira defeated Takaiwa and SUGI to clinch a spot in the final where he defeated El Lindaman from GLEAT. Purolove.com listed 150 fans attending each day.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH has posted a free version of Keiji Muto’s recent title defense against Masa Kitamiya with English commentary from Stewart Fulton and Mark Pickering.
**Many people were raving about the Ironman Match between Josh Alexander and TJP from Thursday. IMPACT split up the match between the ‘Before the Impact’ pre-show and airing the final eight minutes and the overtime period on IMPACT. I only had a chance to watch the IMPACT portion and don’t have an assessment of the entire match. In watching Thursday’s episode, it feels like they have something incredible with Alexander rising as an IMPACT branded star. On the show, he positioned himself as the main champion of the promotion since Kenny Omega has taken the IMPACT title. The idea of building Alexander for a future match with Omega is intriguing but you almost want to save that one because Alexander is as strong a candidate as anyone on the IMPACT roster to be the one to finally beat Omega. However, I can’t imagine Omega losing while he is the AEW champion.
**Steve Maclin, the former Steve Cutler in WWE appeared during a vignette on IMPACT. He was shown drinking whiskey and just referred to as ‘Maclin’. For someone like Maclin that doesn’t carry a big name from his WWE tenure during this massive free-agent period, I think IMPACT is a great landing spot for him to rehabilitate himself as the company has developed a reputation for talent receiving a fresh canvas to develop their new personas.
MMA NEWS
**The major event this weekend is the boxing exhibition between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Logan Paul from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida. It is the latest test of the marketing by the Paul brothers to a mass audience that has shown incredible effectiveness in stirring the emotions of true fight fans while also attracting a wide-ranging audience outside of boxing’s scope. It is coupled with the most talented boxer of the last generation, who returns for his first “competition” since his fight against Tenshin Nasukawa, which was also an exhibition, in December 2018. Mayweather’s last real fight was against Conor McGregor in August 2017 and generated one of the biggest pay-per-view numbers of all time.
The McGregor fight would suggest that this fight, happening on the non-traditional Sunday night, should be a massive success because of the intrigue that the Paul brothers bring. In 2017, there was a subset of fans that could at least talk themselves into it given McGregor was a real fighter but entering a totally different sport that boxing fans understood he had zero chance of winning. In this fight, there isn’t even an illusion of competitiveness and only a question if Mayweather opts to carry Paul. While Mayweather is not a known finisher, this is one where I would be stunned if Paul lasts the eight rounds.
It’s hardly worth debating the merits of this event as I don’t view it as a stain on boxing but a recognition of what sells and if the public supports these fights in large numbers they will continue. However, there is a breaking point and you’re starting to see the oversaturation of these types of fights that the public will get tired of. Given the names involved, this won’t likely be the one that breaks the camel’s back. Later this month, Anderson Silva will step into this world boxing Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on June 19th, Jake Paul’s ongoing battle with MMA stars continues with Tyron Woodley this summer, and you have the Triller experiment that is born and bred on this type of matchmaking.
**Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell interviewed Floyd Mayweather Jr. about this stage of his career. Mayweather is completely open about the fact that the recent fights with McGregor, Nasukawa, and Paul are the “gravy” after his boxing career ended. He wasn’t sure if this card would hit two million buys and stated he is making less money than some of his larger ones because this card is available for $50 compared to other fights of his priced at $100. Mayweather said he would be open to having another fight with McGregor.
I’m fighting a YouTuber who thinks he’s a real fighter and I’m getting crazy money for it. I’ve already made $30 million just building up to the fight.
**The UFC returns after taking Memorial Day weekend off. Saturday’s card has no buzz attached to it. When you run weekly, there are going to be cards like this with little intrigue but that doesn’t mean the fights won’t turn out to be great. The bigger show is UFC 263 next weekend, which I’m sure will be heavily promoted throughout the broadcast. The entire card is streaming on ESPN+ with the following line-up along with results from Friday’s weigh-in:
MAIN CARD (7 p.m. ET on ESPN+)
*Jairzinho Rozenstruik (254) vs. Augusto Sakai (255.5)
*Walt Harris (264) vs. Marcin Tybura (255.5)
*Laureano Staropoli (185) vs. Roman Dolidze (186)
*Santiago Ponzinibbio (170.5) vs. Miguel Baeza (171)
*Gregory Rodrigues (186) vs. Dusko Todorovic (186)
*Tom Breese (186) vs. Antonio Arroyo (186)
PRELIMINARY CARD (4 p.m. ET on ESPN+)
*Ariane Lipski (124.5) vs. Montana De La Rosa (126)
*Tanner Boser (242) vs. Ilir Latifi (240)
*Francisco Trinaldo (169.5) vs. Muslim Salikhov (171)
*Makwan Amirkhani (146) vs. Kamuela Kirk (146)
*Mason Jones (156) vs. Alan Patrick (154.5)
*Tabatha Ricci (124.5) vs. Manon Fiorot (125.5)
*Sean Woodson (145) vs. Youssef Zalal (146)
*Claudio Puelles (155) vs. Jordan Leavitt (156)
ON THIS DATE
*****
POST NEWS UPDATE: Dynamite Update, Chyna doc, Grizzly Smith DSOTR
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss today’s top stories including AEW Dynamite’s ongoing scheduling changes, VICE TV airing a new Joanie “Chyna” Laurer doc, Logan Paul vs. Floyd Mayweather, and our review of Dark Side of the Ring: In the Shadow of Grizzly Smith.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #87: Warrior (2011 film)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Warrior, a 2011 Mixed Martial Arts film about fighting, family and forgiveness featuring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte.
*****
POST NEWS UPDATE: WWE Releases
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss WWE’s releases of Braun Strowman, Aleister Black, Lana, Ruby Riott, Santana Garrett and Murphy. Plus, Friday Night Dynamite ratings.
*****
SHOT IN THE DARK: Double or Nothing fallout, NJPW Strong
John Siino reviews this week’s editions of AEW Dark, AEW Dark: Elevation, NXT UK, NWA Powerrr, 205 Live, NJPW Strong, Ring of Honor, and Main Event in under 15 minutes on Shot In The Dark.
*****
POST INTERVIEW: ‘The Dissident’ director Bryan Fogel
John Pollock & Wai Ting are joined by Academy Award-winning director Bryan Fogel (Icarus) to discuss ‘The Dissident’, his 2020 documentary about the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia’s attempts to silence international dissent.
*****
upNXT 6/1/21: “When Cole Met Kross”
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the June 1st 2021 episode of WWE NXT featuring Pete Dunne vs Kyle O’Reilly vs Johnny Gargano and the return of Adam Cole!
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 5/31/21: Drew vs. Kofi, Jimmy Smith, Mick Foley A&E Biography
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston, the debut of announcer Jimmy Smith, a review of the Mick Foley A&E Biography, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are done!
*****
POST INTERVIEW: David Bixenspan chats Ultimate Warrior
John Pollock is joined by reporter David Bixenspan to discuss the recent documentaries on the Ultimate Warrior.
*****
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