POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite will be live tonight at 10:15 p.m. ET for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café. We’ll have a big review of the Road Rager show from Miami, plus we’ll chat about the passing of Chris Youngblood & Sid Cooper, Jimmy Uso’s arrest, Great American Bash thoughts, and your feedback.
**If you missed our ASK-A-WAI Mailbag show for July, it’s a near two-hour edition of the show with tons of questions we answered. These shows always have a great variety of topics and subjects including non-wrestling questions thrown in there. Each month, you can submit questions on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**On Thursday, there will be a new edition of The British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby and Benno. Plus, MCU L8R will be available for all POST Wrestling Café members as Wai & WH review episode five of Loki.
**Prince Nana will be a guest on The NWA Podcast this Sunday.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite (10:15 p.m. ET for Double Double+)
Thursday: The British Wrestling Experience
Friday: UFC 264 Preview Show
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai & Kate from MTL (10:15 p.m. ET for all Patrons)
Saturday: UFC 264 POST Show with John & Phil Chertok
Sunday: The NWA Podcast with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy & Andrew Thompson
WRESTLING NEWS
**It was reported on Wednesday that legendary heel performer ‘Cyanide’ Sid Cooper has passed away. Cooper was a fixture throughout the World of Sport era as one of the main villains with the tag line of being ‘rotten to the core with a face that could curdle milk.’ Cooper originally wrestled under the name Norman Cooper and switched to the well-remembered moniker in May 1963.
Cooper was cited as one of William Regal’s heroes growing up and he would often tweet about Cooper as well as writing about him in his 2004 autobiography. Cooper was a one-time British Welterweight Champion beating Danny Collins in May 1985. He also formed a memorable team with Alan Dennison as The Dennisons, and later teamed with Joe Murphy as The Roughnecks. He wound down his career in October 1988 right as World of Sport was coming to an end on ITV. (Notes courtesy: British Wrestlers Reunion)
**We have a lengthy story on the passing of Chris Romero a.k.a. Chris Youngblood of the Romero wrestling family. It was first announced by Chris’ brother on Wednesday morning that Chris passed away. He was a fixture from 1985 onward with his brother Mark wrestling in Puerto Rico for WWC, World Class, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and had a stint in WCW where the two wrestled as The Renegade Warriors.
**WWE has not addressed this week’s arrest of Jimmy Uso (Jonathan Fatu) as of yet. POST Wrestling did reach out to a company representative for a statement and will update if one is issued. TMZ reported that Fatu was arrested Monday night after being pulled over in Pensacola after running a red light. A breath test revealed Fatu registered a BAC level of 0.202 and 0.205, well above the Florida limit of 0.08.
**AEW hits the road with its first show outside of Daily’s Place since March 2020. Tonight’s ‘Road Rager’ event from the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida should feature an electric atmosphere with approximately 3,600 tickets out in the market. It’s going to be an interesting show given the different acts in front of crowds separate from the Jacksonville audience and those that traveled from out of town for Double or Nothing. Below are the announced matches and segments for tonight’s show at 8 p.m. ET on TNT and TSN 2 in Canada:
*AEW Tag Team Championship Street Fight: The Young Bucks (champions) vs. Eddie Kingston & Penta El Zero M
*South Beach Strap Match: Cody Rhodes vs. QT Marshall
*Mixed Tag: Orange Cassidy & Kris Statlander vs. The Blade & The Bunny
*FTR & Wardlow vs. Jake Hager, Santana & Ortiz
*Andrade El Idolo vs. Matt Sydal
*Face-to-Face Standoff: Chris Jericho and MJF
*Darby Allin and Ethan Page’s sit-down interview with Jim Ross
**While AEW avoids the NBA Finals, they will be going against Game 5 of the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Montreal Canadiens series tonight.
**Tokyo Joshi Pro has announced that Pom Harajuku has tested positive for COVID-19. The group added that Miyu Yamashita and Yuki Aino came into close contact with all three removed from this weekend’s events at Ryogoku KFC Hall and Itabashi Green Hall.
**WWE is partnering with the Rolling Loud rap festival for a special edition of Friday Night SmackDown on July 23rd on Fox. From the release:
Gracing the same stage as festival headliners Travis Scott, Post Malone and A$AP Rocky, WWE Superstars will compete in matches live from Rolling Loud Miami. The July 23 edition of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX will feature a split-site broadcast with multiple matches at Rolling Loud Miami, and the remainder of the evening held at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland.
The festival takes place from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami from July 23-25.
**The Japan Times reported Wednesday that another state of emergency is expected to be put in place in Tokyo through August 22nd. This is very significant given that the Olympics are set to begin on July 23rd and would take place while the host city is under a state of emergency. It would also coincide with New Japan’s scheduled event at the Tokyo Dome on July 25th. The Associated Press notes that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to make a decision on Thursday regarding the reinstatement of a state of emergency in Tokyo, which reported 920 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, which is its highest case number since mid-May.
**AEW president Tony Khan was on The Dan LeBatard Show on Tuesday to promote tonight’s show in Miami. The major topic addressed was the disappointing end to the Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch between Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley this past March at the Revolution pay-per-view. After the match was designed around the large explosion at the end, it didn’t go off as intended and left the match on a dour note even though Omega and Moxley had an excellent match before the screw-up. In the interview LeBatard, Khan said they relied on a professional pyro company that did not understand wrestling and said they “totally shit the bed” with the company refunding them $100,000 because of the error. Khan stated he would do the match again noting that it drew on pay-per-view.
**NXT had a tremendous show on Tuesday night with the Great American Bash. I thought the main event was excellent between Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly and with the more compact version, I preferred this one over their Stand & Deliver match. However, the segment I feel will generate the most impact for those involved in the Cypher Celebration from Hit Row. To me, it felt like a star-making performance for all four and took the group, that was already popular, into another stratosphere as one of the hottest acts the company has on any brand. It was one of the most unique segments on any wrestling show in a long-time and the skills demonstrated made all four feel like huge stars. It’s rare to have a group that can crossover to non-fans and draw them into the product, but Hit Row has that potential.
**On Wednesday’s Stardom card from Korakuen Hall, the promotion drew 435 fans (which is more than some of the recent New Japan shows in the building) featuring Tam Nakano, Unagi Sayaka & Mina Shirakawa retaining the Artist of Stardom titles over Utami Hayashishita, AZM & Saya Kamitani. Their next show is Saturday in Osaka headlined by Syuri defending the SWA title against Unagi Sayaka.
**Jim Hague of The Observer newspaper in New Jersey has a lengthy obit on Michael Cammett, who died tragically last week at the age of 24.
**The CFL released a statement noting they will not be working with the XFL for any future venture after talks began earlier this year. In the statement, they said, ‘We and our XFL counterparts have jointly decided to not pursue any formal arrangements at this time.’
**The WWE stock closed at $56.30 on Wednesday.
MMA NEWS
**In a significant change, Marc Raimondi of ESPN reports the Nevada State Athletic Commission stated on Wednesday that it will no longer discipline fighters over the usage of cannabis and takes effect immediately. Previously, fighters had a threshold of 150 nanograms per milliliter for cannabis during in-competition drug testing. It was the Nevada commission that infamously suspended fighter Nick Diaz for five years after testing positive for marijuana but was later reduced.
**Dana White informed TSN reporter Aaron Bronsteter that they on working on finalizing a fight between Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler for September but the fight is not finalized. Diaz has not competed since January 2015 when he fought Anderson Silva. Diaz and Lawler fought in April 2004 at UFC 47 where Diaz knocked out Lawler in the second round. Lawler is now 39 years old and has lost his previous four fights since December 2017 and is coming off a decision loss to Neil Magny last August.
**The UFC has partnered with Crypto.com as the promotion’s official fight kit partner with its logo appearing on fighter’s gear as they walk to the cage and compete as well as its logo appearing on the Octagon during pay-per-views and on the Contender Series. ESPN reports that fighters will not receive a cut of the deal, although they can broker separate deals with Crypto.com and can be utilized as ambassadors for the group. Sportico is reporting that it’s a ten-year deal worth approximately $175 million.
**Marc Raimondi of ESPN reported that at Wednesday’s Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting, it was determined that Herb Dean will referee this Saturday’s main event at UFC 264. The judges will be Derek Cleary, Sal D’Amato, and Junichiro Kamijo.
**UFC president Dana White told John Morgan of MMA Junkie that this Saturday’s card has more pre-buys than any UFC card in history and said he expects this to be the most purchased event of the year. White has been pushing the message in several interviews for people to purchase the card ahead of time and not wait until Saturday night. Specifically, for the big cards, ESPN+ has been a nightmare for people buying the card in the past and even issued an apology after UFC 257 (Poirier vs. McGregor 2) this past January that was riddled with technical problems for users of the service.
**UFC Embedded has released Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3 going into UFC 264 this Saturday. Conor McGregor has not appeared on the first three episodes with the focus on Dustin Poirier, Stephen Thompson, Gilbert Burns, and Sean O’Malley.
ON THIS DATE
The famous angle involving the formation of the New World Order took place at Bash at the Beach in 1996. The turn by Hulk Hogan took WCW business to another level in 1997 and then even higher in 1998 before the crash.
Daniel Cormier won the UFC heavyweight championship on this date in 2018 at UFC 226. Cormier stopped Stipe Miocic in the first of three fights between the two. The post-match also saw Brock Lesnar enter the cage and literally shoot an angle for a fight with Cormier, which would never happen but there was definitely hope on the side of Cormier and the UFC that it would happen. Instead, Cormier defended the title against Derrick Lewis later that year and lost the belt back to Miocic in August 2019.
*****
upNXT – The Great American Bash
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT: The Great American Bash from July 6th 2021 headlined by Kyle O’Reilly vs Adam Cole!
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (July 2021)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the July 2021 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW: “Made from the tooth of the Loch Ness Monster”
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring the New Day taking on Bobby Lashley & MVP, Drew McIntyre’s sword is stolen, and Ripley & Flair’s feud continues.
*****
THE LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD
WH Park is joined by Mark Buckeldee to review a classic tag match from 10/23/99 as Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa (The Untouchables) defend their AJPW World Tag Team Titles against challengers, Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (Burning).
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with a great Last Man Standing Match, Zelina Vega returns, and we discuss the passing of Del Wilkes.
*****
MCU L8R: Loki Ep. 4 “The Nexus Event” w/ Rich Fann II
Wai Ting & WH Park welcome Rich Fann II (PWTorch) to discuss Loki Episode 4 as Loki tries to convince Mobius about the truth of the TVA’s origins while Sylvie finally has her long-awaited encounter with the mysterious Time Keepers.
*****
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