POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, we will be releasing a UFC 264 Preview Show with Phil Chertok and Eric Marcotte joining me to chat about Saturday’s card, the Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor main event, what can be learned from the second fight, comparisons to their first fight in 2014, and a look at the rest of the key fights on the show.
**This Saturday night, we will be live on the POST YouTube channel immediately after UFC 264. Phil Chertok and I will have a review of the entire card and the major stories from the night. You can also follow along with other listeners throughout UFC 264 on the POST Discord, which is always a fun time and includes fight picks for each fight.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC 264 press conference takes place tonight at 8 p.m. ET, which will be the first major appearance by Conor McGregor during fight week. McGregor has recently begun media appearances with his Mac Life website, ESPN, TSN, and with Ariel Helwani for BT Sport. He has been noticeably absent on the first three episodes of UFC Embedded, which has focused instead on Dustin Poirier, and most of the footage centered around Stephen Thompson and Gilbert Burns.
**During McGregor’s interview with Ariel Helwani for BT Sport, he said the following:
*He said he does whatever he wants and ‘you pay to see my work’ when asked about fewer media appearances including UFC Embedded this week
*McGregor would not have believed he would end up fighting Dustin Poirier three times after the outcome at UFC 178 in 2014
*He felt that Poirier was attacking his character and called it a ‘grave mistake’ regarding the charity donation story after their last fight. McGregor ended up donating $500,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of Acadiana in Louisiana and not to Poirier’s “Good Fight” foundation
*He said this camp has been more well-rounded to focus on MMA than the majority of the last camp dedicated to boxing and preparing for Manny Pacquiao. There were benefits he felt he obtained from the boxing style of training ahead of the January fight.
*He is not concerned about Khabib Nurmagomedov any longer.
*With a win on Saturday, his plan is to fight Charles Oliveira next for the lightweight title
*McGregor said Poirier is going out on a stretcher
**Stephen A. Smith interviewed McGregor for ESPN. McGregor said the third fight with Nate Diaz must happen and would love to compete at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. He added that he will box again but it isn’t on the radar right now. McGregor said it wasn’t a ‘good look’ for Floyd Mayweather Jr. to fight Logan Paul recently.
**Reporter Manouk Akopyan interviewed Dana White to promote UFC 264 this weekend. White spoke about Jon Jones and said they have had ‘their good times and their bad times’ and said the two of them are cool and both are hard-headed about things. White said fighter pay has been criticized for the last twenty years and there is no gag order for fighters not to disclose their pay, they are free to do that. White said all the champions share in the pay-per-view revenue and said if you don’t like it you can go start your own MMA promotion and pay whatever you like.
**Aaron Bronsteter of TSN also spoke with McGregor prior to Saturday’s fight.
**Combate was the first to report that former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos is in Las Vegas to serve as an alternate if needed for the main event of UFC 264.
**One of the major fights of the summer could be postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak. ESPN’s Mike Coppinger reports that an outbreak has occurred in Tyson Fury’s camp ahead of his rematch with Deontay Wilder that is scheduled for the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 24th. No official determination has been made on the status of the fight while Coppinger is reporting that it’s possible the fight could be moved to September. Top Rank issued the following statement to Coppinger:
We continue to monitor the health status of Tyson and his team and the status of the event has not changed to date.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Alex Perez vs. Matt Schnell at UFC Fight Night on Aug. 28 (ESPN)
Andrei Arlovski vs. Carlos Felipe on Oct. 16 (MMA Fighting)
Amanda Ribas vs. Virna Jandiroba on October 30 at UFC 267 (Combate)
ON THIS DATE
UFC 61 took place on this date in 2006 featuring the second of three fights between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. This card set the all-time pay-per-view record for the company at the time with a reported 775,000 buys. While the UFC took off significantly the year prior after Ultimate Fighter season one, their pay-per-view explosion occurred in 2006. It began with the stunning number they hit for UFC 60 in May when Matt Hughes defeated Royce Gracie that topped 600,000 buys and followed with Ortiz-Shamrock blowing it out of the water. UFC 61 was not a great card as it had an atrocious fight between Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia that went five rounds followed by Ortiz stopping Shamrock in the first round and Shamrock complaining about an early stoppage. Herb Dean was the referee and it was a very justifiable stoppage but there was such an uproar that it turned into a blessing in disguise. It gave the UFC the excuse to run back the fight again and present it on Spike TV later that year and it did a monster television number with the same outcome and Ortiz winning all three fights.
Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero had their first of two fights on this date at UFC 213 in 2017. Whittaker won by unanimous decision for the interim middleweight championship. Later, Whittaker was named the undisputed champion and fought Romero again in June 2018 winning by split decision.
*****
THE BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE
Martin Bushby & Benno are once again joined by Andy Ogden of Graps & Claps to rundown the last month in European wrestling including the latest with NXT UK, Duodrop on Raw, RevPro, Progress and more.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE: Road Rager, Malakai Black, Jimmy Uso
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite’s Road Rager from Miami, the debut of Malakai Black, Jimmy Uso’s arrest, and the deaths of Chris Youngblood & Sid Cooper.
*****
SHOT IN THE DARK
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 – 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).
*****
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