POST IT NOTES
**We are LIVE tonight at 11:15 p.m. ET for Rewind-A-Raw as Wai Ting and I will catch up on the latest news and review tonight’s edition of Raw. The show is available live for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**On Tuesday, we are diving into the 2008 feud between Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels on Rewind-A-Wai. We will be discussing their matches from Judgment Day, Great American Bash, Unforgiven, and No Mercy that year and the legacy of their feud, where they were in their respective careers, and more. You can post questions and feedback for the show on the POST Wrestling Forum. The show will be available Tuesday evening for all Café members.
**WH Park and I have a new edition of POST Puroresu on the site catching up on all the new champions in NJPW, AJPW, and NOAH. We spoke about the ambitious schedule for New Japan this summer, Keiji Muto dropping the GHC title, the impact of Utami Hayashishita vs. Syuri for Stardom, Jake Lee winning the Triple Crown, and the debut of FMWE this Sunday.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John & Wai (Live at 11:15 p.m. ET)
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #89: Michaels vs. Jericho ’08 feud (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman (Live at 10:15 p.m. ET)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite (Live at 10:15 p.m. ET)
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
Thursday: MCU L8R with Wai Ting & WH Park (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Live for all Patrons at 10:15 p.m. ET)
Sunday: The Long & Winding Royal Road w/ WH Park & guest Mark Buckeldee (Misawa & Ogawa vs. Kobashi & Akiyama from Oct 23, 1999)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw airs tonight and has several matches and segments announced for the show in advance:
*Last Chance MITB Qualifier: Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre vs. AJ Styles
*Strap Match: Elias vs. Jaxson Ryker
*Face-to-face: Kofi Kingston and MVP
*Rhea Ripley, Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke vs. Charlotte Flair, Natalya & Tamina
**The Stanley Cup Final between Montreal and Tampa Bay begins tonight and the Canadian numbers throughout the playoffs have been huge. This series should play a big factor in wrestling numbers in Canada as the games coincide with WWE and AEW programming. Game 1 is tonight, Game 2 is Wednesday against Dynamite, Game 3 is Friday against SmackDown, and Game 4 is next Monday. If the series continues, Game 5 is Wednesday, July 7th (the night of AEW Road Rager), and Game 6 is Friday, July 9th. Wrestling will avoid a potential Game 7, which would be on Sunday, July 11th.
**Here are the matches listed for AEW Dark: Elevation streaming tonight at 7 p.m. ET on the AEW YouTube:
*Eddie Kingston & Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Angelico & Jack Evans
*Karl Anderson vs. Wheeler Yuta
*Riho vs. KiLynn King
*The Acclaimed vs. PB Smooth & Matt Justice
*Matt Hardy & Private Party vs. Alex Reynolds, Alan ‘5’ Angels & Colt Cabana
*The Blade vs. Chuck Taylor
*Hikaru Shida vs. Reka Tehaka
*Dustin Rhodes, Lee Johnson & Brock Anderson vs. Adrian Alanis, Liam Gray & Justin Corino
*Thunder Rosa vs. Katalina Perez
*The Varsity Blonds vs. Aaron Rourke & Jake Logan
*Valentina Rossi vs. Penelope Ford
*The Gunn Club vs. JD Drake & Ryan Nemeth
*Brian Cage vs. Serpentico
**Ryan Satin interviewed Samoa Joe and spoke about his release earlier this year and being notified by John Laurinaitis. He said it wasn’t unexpected due to the pandemic, his injuries, and said he remained calm about the news whereas he may have panicked if he was younger. Joe said he received a call from Paul Levesque several hours after the call from Laurinaitis and got the ball rolling on the NXT option. Satin asked if he has any reservations about coming back and working at NXT:
No, a lot of it was, Triple H and I had spoken about this transition in-depth and it was just coming back to NXT and being an enforcer and having a role on the show. Now, I’m working in the talent scouting department, working with Canyon Ceman, a few more administrative things behind the scenes. So, it’s a little bit of a transition for me too into some of the other aspects of the business of WWE. It’s kind of an evolution on my journey, you know, I’ve gone through the commentary/production ranks, now I’m working a bit more behind the house type of thing. It was a really great, cool opportunity that Hunter offered me and still a performer within the bounds of WWE. It was a very nice understanding that we’ve come to and I’m really excited about it.
Samoa Joe was also asked about whether he is working toward an in-ring return:
Absolutely. We’ll just say, ‘yes’, we’ll leave it at that.
**The September 8th edition of AEW Dynamite has been moved from the Agganis Arena in Boston with a new date for the arena on Wednesday, October 27th. AEW has not announced the location of the September 8th episode, which will be the Dynamite following the All Out pay-per-view.
**It was first reported by Wrestlevotes and confirmed by Dave Meltzer that the final live WWE show featuring the ThunderDome at the Yuengling Center will be SmackDown on Friday, July 9th. The Monday, July 12th edition of Raw will be from the ThunderDome but the report is that it will be taped the week prior. This will end the ThunderDome era, which began last August with the concept staged at the Amway Center in Orlando and moved to Tropicana Field and then, to the Yuengling Center this past April. WWE will go back on the road beginning with the Friday, July 16th edition of Friday Night SmackDown in Houston, Texas at the Toyota Center.
**Chris Jericho hosted his Saturday Night Special after Dynamite and spoke about his new book ‘The Complete List of Jericho’, which he couldn’t find a publisher for and opted to self-publish:
I have four New York Times best-selling books and no publisher would accept the idea of ‘The Complete List of Jericho’, they said no one would be interested, it’s too bottlenecked, too specific, the general public won’t want this. Well, of course, the general public won’t want this, but this is for true Jericho fans and true wrestling fans too. This is a list of matches from 1990 to 2020, think about how much the industry has changed over that time frame.
I said, ‘screw it’, I’m going to publish it myself, okay? And, in the first week, we’ve sold out almost half the printing, the amount of copies that were printed at the start, we’ve sold almost half of them. That shows you right there, we’re talking thousands and thousands of books. So, to the publisher that said it would never work and ‘suck it’ (laughs) because now we’ve sold thousands of books and basically, you had money in your pocket and you didn’t want to go with it, so screw it we’ll do it ourselves.
**New Triple Crown holder Jake Lee will defend his championship for the first time at Korakuen Hall on July 22nd. On July 11th, AJPW will hold a card in Osaka with Shuji Ishikawa taking on Shotaro Ashino to determine who will face Lee later that month. The July 22nd card will also see new junior heavyweight champion Francesco Akira defend against SUGI.
**SLAM Wrestling has a story on the passing of Michael Cammett, who died suddenly at the age of 24. Cammett was trained by Kevin Knight in New Jersey and began working on the independent scene before stepping away several years ago to pursue his education.
**Tyler Breeze (Matt Clement) spoke about his release on his Twitch stream. He said he would be streaming more and is getting back on Cameo and going through the approval process on the app and said he has some ideas for Patreon. When he was asked about continuing his wrestling career by a fan, he responded, ‘I don’t know yet, we’ll have to see, haven’t really decided anything yet.’ He said his mindset had always been preparing to be fired since the day he started and adopting that mindset because your time in the company can be short and set yourself up financially for that potential outcome.
**WWE president and chief revenue officer Nick Khan spoke with the Las Vegas Sun about the decision to run SummerSlam in the city and following the trends established from March Madness:
We were paying close attention to March Madness because there was a thought that people might not be going back to Las Vegas [to bet and watch games] because there was nothing to go back to. But once March Madness hit, the occupancy rate skyrocketed. That was our moment of [understanding] if we have an event, it will get people back, and it’s an opportunity to also help jumpstart the Vegas economy.
**WWE will release its next edition of WWE Icons this Sunday profiling Lex Luger (Lawrence Pfohl). This follows episodes of the series on Yokozuna, Beth Phoenix, and Rob Van Dam.
**NJPW is holding a card in Toyama on Tuesday headlined by Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI against Kota Ibushi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe & Tiger Mask. The ‘Kizuna Road’ shows wrap up with two events at Korakuen Hall on Thursday and Friday, which will stream for free on New Japan World. Friday’s show looks very strong with Shingo Takagi vs. Yuya Uemura and Kota Ibushi vs. Yota Tsuji scheduled.
**The candidates for ‘Best WWE Moment’ for the ESPY Awards have been narrowed down to four – Bianca Belair winning the Royal Rumble, Edge winning the Royal Rumble, Bad Bunny teaming with Damian Priest at WrestleMania, and Belair and Sasha Banks headlining WrestleMania. The ESPY Awards air on ABC on Saturday, July 10th.
**Hayata won the GHC junior heavyweight championship on Sunday at NOAH’s card at their empty television studio defeating Atsushi Kotoge. It is Hayata’s third reign as champion after previously winning the title in 2017 and 2019. The NOAH card on Sunday was headlined by The Great Muta defeating Kenoh.
**John Morrison spoke with TV Insider about his return to WWE in 2019, working closely with The Miz, and spoke about the creative process and the collaborative nature on Raw:
Sometimes it’s improv, but I would call it more collaborative. We’re not going to talk or say anything without producers, agents, writers, Vince [McMahon]. As soon as we get anything, we read it and talk to each other. We may say, “These lines are crap. Let’s fix it the best way we can and then go talk to them about our fixes.” It’s not good to be thrown into an office and just say something is garbage. You may say, “You know what I like better is this other option.” We constantly do that. A writer or Vince may agree and say, “This is better. But you know what would be even better? This.” It then evolves.
**IMPACT has announced that Satoshi Kojima will face Eddie Edwards this Thursday on AXS TV at 8 p.m. ET.
**Bianca Belair’s prep for the Hell in a Cell match from last week.
**Tony Nese will be speaking on the Wrestling Perspective podcast this Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
**MLW has added Muhammad ‘King Mo’ Lawal, Bu Ku Dao, and Alex Kane to the 40-person Battle Riot on Saturday, July 10th in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena. The three join Alex Hammerstone, King Muertes, Mads Krugger, The Von Erichs, Richard Holliday, TJP, Myron Reed, Calvin Tankman, Gino Medina, Aramis, Arez, Kevin Ku, Savio Vega, EJ Nduka, Lee Moriarty, Gringo Loco, and Zenshi.
**The WWE stock closed at $59.01 on Monday.
**GLEAT has announced that this Thursday’s card will stream free on YouTube at 5:30 a.m. ET. Below is the full card:
*SHO vs. Takanori Ito
*Yu Izuka vs. Masakatsu Funaki
*Chichiro Hashimoto vs. Maya Fukuda
*Minoru Tanaka & Soma Watanabe vs. Daijiro Matsui & Tetsuya Ido
*T-Hawk vs. Ryuichi Kawakami
*Kaz Hayashi, Soma Watanabe & Keiichi Sato vs. CIMA, Onizuka Ichijo & Shigehiro Irie
*Kyoko Inoue vs. Miyagi Tomoko
*El Lindaman vs. Hayato Tamura
**GCW has added Lee Moriarty to its ‘No Signal in the Hills’ show on Saturday, August 7th in Los Angeles at the Ukrainian Cultural Center. The event will be streaming that night on FITE TV at 8 p.m.
**Being the Elite Ep. 262 ‘Intermission’.
ON THIS DATE
Hell in a Cell on this date will forever be linked to the career of Mick Foley and remembered as one of the most brutal matches in history. While it’s hard to watch for the sheer violence involved and greatly impacting Foley’s longevity, it has also been a match discussed, debated, replayed, celebrated, and all things in between, so that no one is ever going to forget this match. There isn’t a prayer this type of match could happen in WWE today, and that’s a good thing.
A monumental feat was achieved by WWE on this date in 1999 when Steve Austin won the WWF title from The Undertaker on the June 28, 1999, episode of Raw. The match was watched by an average of 10,721,000 viewers at the peak of the Attitude Era. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the show did a 6.82 rating and 11.2 share:
*****
POST PURORESU: The State of NJPW, Stardom Breakthrough
John Pollock and WH Park are back to chat all the major news including news champions crowned in NJPW, AJPW, and Pro Wrestling NOAH.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNADOWN 6/26/21: Omega vs. Jungle Boy, Edge returns
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown and AEW Saturday Night Dynamite featuring the return of Edge and Kenny Omega vs. Jungle Boy for the AEW Championship.
*****
MCU L8R: Loki Ep. 3 “Lamentis”
Wai Ting & WH Park review Loki Episode 3 as stranded variants Loki & Sylvie get to know one another while they attempt to flee an impending apocalyptic event.
*****
BTWA #10: WWE SummerSlam (2002)
Martin Bushby & Andrew Thompson are back with another round of Wrestling Adventure. This month, they journey back almost 20 years to talk about WWE SummerSlam 2002.
*****
upNXT Movie Review: The Dark Knight (2008)
Why so serious? Braden Herrington and Davie Portman return to Gotham with Christopher Nolan’s second part of his Bat-Trilogy – “The Dark Knight” (2008)
*****
SHOT IN THE DARK: Josh Alexander NJPW debut
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.
*****
upNXT 6/22/21: This is Diamond Mine, Kyle vs. KUSHIDA
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the June 22nd 2021 edition of WWE NXT featuring Kyle O’Reilly vs KUSHIDA… and the debut of Diamond Mine!
*****
POLLOCK & TING: TALK (Debut)
John Pollock and Wai Ting debut Pollock & Ting: TALK, a new podcast where they… talk.
*****
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