POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: WWE at Super Bowl, WrestleMania 2-for-1 promotion, AEW return to UBS Arena

WWE's presence at the Super Bowl, WrestleMania 2-for-1 promotion, AEW returning to Long Island, Dana White addresses Rogan & UFC 271 fallout.

February 14, 2022 John Pollock NEWS
Photo Courtesy: NFL

POST IT NOTES

**Rewind-A-Raw is live tonight at 11:15 p.m. ET for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café we review the show from Indianapolis going into Elimination Chamber this weekend.

**If you want to get your questions submitted for this month’s ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show, you can post them in the thread on the POST Wrestling Forum. The show will be released on Tuesday night for POST Wrestling Café members.

**Our UFC 271 POST Show is available to download or watch on the POST YouTube channel with Phil Chertok and I reviewing the card from Houston, Texas.

POST DAILY NEWS SHOW

-WWE integration on the Super Bowl broadcast
-WrestleMania Valentine’s Day promotion
-Dana White comments on Joe Rogan
-Samoa Joe inducted into ROH Hall of Fame
-Owen Hart Tournament to begin on May 11
-Nick Wayne presented with AEW contract
-Dog Cage Match between Minoru Suzuki and Toru Yano
-WWE Raw tonight

Audio version for POST Wrestling Café members.

POST SCHEDULE THIS WEEK

Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw (11:15 p.m. ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite (10:15 p.m)
Thursday: POST Media Panel with John Pollock, Brandon Thurston & David Bixenspan
Thursday: The Wellness Policy with Wai Ting & Jordan Goodman
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai Ting & Kate from Montreal (10:15 p.m. ET for all Patrons)
Saturday: WWE Elimination Chamber POST Show (8 p.m. ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio with Brandon Thurston & Chris Gullo

WRESTLING NEWS

**WWE had several tie-ins with the Super Bowl on Sunday night, which aired on NBC. The most prominent exposure was a pair of commercials for WrestleMania 38 that aired during the game with a 15 and 30-second version promoting WrestleMania and featuring the voiceover by Pat McAfee. In a savvy move, they issued a replica championship belt for linebacker Leonard Floyd to wear during the post-game presentation of the Vince Lombardi trophy to the L.A. Rams, which was very visible in the background.

**Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson kicked off the main broadcast by introducing both teams onto the field while Dave Batista was featured in a Nissan commercial during the game, and Nikki Bella appeared during the pre-game coverage to promote America’s Got Talent: Extreme that begins later this month where she will be a judge on the series.

**Brock Lesnar appeared in-studio on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday promoting Elimination Chamber and was asked about working for Vince McMahon and Dana White:

**WWE Raw takes place from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana tonight for the final Raw before Elimination Chamber. It’s their second week on Syfy going against the Winter Olympics with a return to the USA Network next Monday. Last week’s numbers still beat everything outside of the Olympics on cable for the night. This week’s show does feature Brock Lesnar making an appearance along with the knowledge that the show is on Syfy after last week’s move.

The following matches and segments are advertised for the show beginning at 8 p.m. ET:
*United States Championship: Damian Priest (champion) vs. AJ Styles
*Brock Lesnar’s appearance
*Lita to appear
*RK-Broga Party

**AT&T Stadium and WWE are doing a Valentine’s Day promotion where you can get two tickets to WrestleMania for the price of one using the code ‘WMLOVE’ until Tuesday night at 10 p.m. Last week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer listed both nights having just under 48,000 tickets out for each night, so both nights are not near capacity with seven weeks until the shows. Obviously, they should see tickets continue to move as the weeks draw closer and the cards become clear. In past years, they have waited until late to announce which night certain matches are taking place, which only helps if you believe one of the main events is moving tickets at a notable rate beyond WrestleMania as the draw for ticket buyers. The key matches right now are Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar and Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey, which were not mentioned during the Super Bowl ad as they went with a generic WrestleMania promotional spot instead. Later in the day, the AT&T Stadium Twitter account deleted the post about the promotion.

**AEW is returning to the UBS Arena on Long Island, New York on Wednesday, May 11th. The Dynamite/Rampage taping will feature the opening round matches of the Owen Hart Cup Tournament that will see both men’s and women’s versions. The promotion ran its first card at the building last December and drew 9,300 paid, which outdrew Raw in the same building the week prior. Tickets for the show in May go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. ET.

**Below are the matches for tonight’s episode of AEW Dark: Elevation airing at 7 p.m. ET on YouTube:
*Ruby Soho, Anna Jay & Tay Conti vs. Nyla Rose, The Bunny & Emi Sakura
*Daniel Garcia, 2point0 & The Acclaimed vs. Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, John Silver, Alex Reynolds & Preston “10” Vance
*Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Matt Sydal
*Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky vs. Jaden Velo & Steve Pena
*Serpentico vs. Zack Clayton
*Dante Martin vs. Kevin Matthews
*Thunder Rosa vs. Riley Shepard

**WWE has released a great video focusing on Lita’s training for the match against Becky Lynch at Elimination Chamber. The feature includes Lita training with Dark Sheik.

**MLW has added a match between Richard Holliday and Alex Shelley for its SuperFight card on Saturday, February 26th at the Grady Cole Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alicia Atout will be in Holliday’s corner after last week’s angle on Fusion where Atout turned on Alex Hammerstone and joined Holliday. The card in Charlotte will also feature Hammerstone vs. Davey Richards for the MLW title, Jacob Fatu vs. Mads Krugger in a Stairway to Hell match, nZo vs. KC Navarro, Killer Kross’ return to the promotion, Alex Kane vs. Calvin Tankman vs. ACH vs. Matt Cross for the National Openweight title, and appearance by Ricky Steamboat.

**This Friday’s CMLL event at Arena Mexico is headlined by Mistico & Templario taking on Averno & Volador Jr.

**Progress Wrestling will hold its Chapter 129 card from the Electric Ballroom this Sunday in London, England. The card will see Cara Noir defending the Progress championship against Shane Strickland, Jonathan Gresham vs. Dean Allmark for the ROH title, and women’s Thunderbastard match involving Session Moth Martina, Lana Austin, Taonga, Mercedez Blaze, Skye Smitson, Kanji and Charlie Morgan.

**Progress has also announced that NXT UK champion Ilja Dragunov will take on Progress champion Cara Noir on the company’s tenth-anniversary show on Friday, March 25th at The Garage in London, England.

**Malakai Black will take on Kevin Blackwood at West Coast Pro’s event on Friday, March 11th at The State Room in South San Francisco.

MMA NEWS

**Dana White addressed Joe Rogan’s absence from the UFC 271 broadcast at the post-fight press conference on Saturday. White said there was no “scheduling conflict” and called it “bullshit”. White noted that Rogan opted not to do the show and wasn’t a case of the UFC stepping in. There was no mention of whether Disney/ESPN had any input or opinion regarding Rogan doing the show. Rogan had been scheduled to do the show with Jon Anik and Daniel Cormier but there was a report Friday evening that Michael Bisping would replace Rogan due to a “scheduling conflict”. Throughout the night, there were several chants of “We Want Rogan” from the crowd at the Toyota Center. The strangest moment came during the main event when Anik relayed a message that Rogan sent via text about a potential hand injury to Israel Adesanya he observed while watching the fight. The fact Rogan was watching the card put a big hole into the public explanation for his absence and White didn’t try to maintain the illusion afterward.

**Israel Adesanya retained the UFC middleweight championship against Robert Whittaker in the main event with a unanimous decision and scores of 49-46 and 48-47 twice. Judge Mike Beltran only scored the second round for Whittaker, and both Douglas Crosby and Jacob Montalvo gave Whittaker the final two rounds on their cards. I had it scored 49-46 for Adesanya with Whittaker winning the final round as the easiest rounds to score was Round 1 for Adesanya and Round 5 for Whittaker. Rounds 2-4 can be debated with Whittaker improving after a bad opening round and using his left hand often. The issue for Whittaker was his lack of advancement after achieving a takedown. He scored four takedowns during the fight but his control time on top was minimal and didn’t do much with the takedowns before Adesanya got back up. Adesanya targeted the legs throughout the fight and damaged the rib area of Whittaker, which was red by the midway point. It was not the most exciting fight, but it was close and was engaging due to the level of skill and being a championship fight.

**Jared Cannonier all but guaranteed he will be the next contender for Israel Adesanya after coming back from a tough opening round to stop Derek Brunson at UFC 271. For Cannonier, he is now 5-1 since moving to middleweight with the lone blemish to Robert Whittaker. Adesanya stated he would like to return in June and providing Cannonier isn’t injured, that would seem like the obvious fight for him. The only other contender is Sean Strickland, who just beat Jack Hermansson but I can’t see him being given the fight over Cannonier unless he was unavailable when Adesanya is ready to fight. Regardless of the opponent, Adesanya will be the clear favorite and after another win, it will re-open the discussion of Adesanya moving to light heavyweight as there are few options left for him in his current weight class.

**UFC 271 judge Robert Anthony was the source of much criticism on Saturday for two cards he turned in. The most egregious was a 29-28 score for Roxanne Modafferi against Casey O’Neill on the televised prelims. I scored it 30-27 for O’Neill as did every media member that submitted their score to MMA Decisions. O’Neill landed 229 significant strikes throughout the fight compared to 120 for Modafferi (72-44 in Round 1, 86-25 in Round 2, and 71-41 in Round 3) and I don’t think any round should have been scored for Modafferi but the closest round was the third. On the broadcast, the commentators were stunned with Jon Anik noting that Anthony had only turned in two scorecards prior to that night as he rendered two cards at UFC 247 in 2020 and one card at UFC 265 last August with all three events taking place in Houston. In the very next fight between Andrei Arlovski and Jared Vanderaa, he was the lone judge to score the fight 29-28 for Vanderaa, and again, no one on MMA Decisions had a card for Vanderaa. At least, the right fighter won in each case but those were bad cards turned in.

**Booker T. attended the UFC 271 post-fight press conference and asked Dana White several questions about Derrick Lewis’ loss to Tai Tuivasa. Later, when UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya appeared at the press conference, he spotted Booker T. and was excited to see him. Booker is from Houston where the event took place on Saturday night.

**This Saturday’s UFC Fight Night at the Apex in Las Vegas has a new main event between Jamahal Hill and Johnny Walker. The original main event between Rafael Fiziev and Rafael dos Anjos was moved to UFC 272 in several weeks due to a visa issue for Fiziev. Walker (18-6) has lost three of his last four fights and is coming off a decision loss to Thiago Santos last October while Hill (9-1, 1 NC) scored a 48-second knockout against Jimmy Crute in his last fight in December.

**Bellator 274 takes place this Saturday on Showtime from Mohegan Sun with a welterweight main event between Neiman Gracie and Logan Storley. Gracie (11-2) fought twice last year with a decision loss to Jason Jackson and rebounded by defeated Mark Lemminger by TKO. Storley (12-1), who was an NCAA Division I wrestler at the University of Minnesota before going pro in MMA in 2015 – sustained his first loss in November 2020 to Yaroslav Amosov (who is now the welterweight champion) and came back to defeat Dante Schiro last August. The main event will be the first non-title five-round main event for Bellator, which has adopted the five-round model for all main events moving forward.

The main card will also see Andrey Koreshkov (24-4) vs. Chance Rencountre (16-4), Georgi Karakhanyan (31-12-1) vs. Adam Piccolotti (12-4), and Said Sowma (8-2) vs. Davion Franklin (4-0).

ON THIS DATE

Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham for the NWA world title at Battle of the Belts II in 1986:

WWF held the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1999 from The Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee. The show featured a steel cage match between Steve Austin and Vince McMahon after business exploded over the past year stemming from the feud. It saw the debut of Paul Wight, who came up through the ring and tossed Austin into the cage, which broke and led to Austin landing on the floor to win. Instead of building to a major match down the road, Austin pinned Wight the next month on the go-home Raw before WrestleMania 15, which was baffling given the proclivity for non-finishes during this era and the argument of saving Wight’s first clean loss for a larger stage.

Dwayne Johnson returned to WWE on this date in 2011 after being named the host of WrestleMania 27:

*****
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BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE: Michael Oku interview, RevPro High Stakes, Progress, GCW in the UK
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About John Pollock 5925 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.
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