POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live tonight at 11:15 p.m. ET with our review of WWE Raw in Jacksonville, Florida. We will be live on the POST YouTube channel with the podcast version available early Tuesday morning.
**On Tuesday, Wai Ting and I will be recording this month’s edition of the ASK-A-WAI Mailbag show. We are going to record the show at 2 p.m. ET and are allowing Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café to listen to the recording live, if they would like to. The podcast version will be posted later in the day for all Café members. You can still submit your questions on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**As most are aware, we have re-designed the Four Pillars shirt with the new version available in the POST Wrestling Store with black and white versions. Until March 31st, we will be donating 30 percent of the profits from the shirt to the Japanese Red Cross Society with POST Wrestling matching that amount and donating the same figure to the Doctors Without Borders/MSF Canada outlet to support their efforts to assist with the crisis in Ukraine. We want to thank all of you that have picked up one of the new shirts.
**The complete POST Wrestling schedule for the week.
POST DAILY NEWS SHOW
Wai Ting and John Pollock discuss the career of Scott Hall, the latest from Big E., Sharmell going into the WWE Hall of Fame, the New Japan Cup, and tonight’s episode of Raw:
WRESTLING NEWS
Note: This was written on Monday afternoon and will update you when any new information regarding Hall’s status is released.
**First off, we want to send our best wishes to the family and friends of Scott Hall. Hall is being taken off life support after suffering three heart attacks after having hip surgery.
This is accurate. https://t.co/pbxuBWBagI
— Sean Waltman (@TheRealXPac) March 14, 2022
The life and career of Hall is a difficult one to contextualize because he had a life of highs and lows, championships and trauma, celebration and addiction, and leaves behind cautionary lessons along with a big footprint as a major star during the peak of the Monday Night War.
Hall bounced around many places after breaking into the industry in 1984 after being trained by Hiro Matsuda, and later taken under the wing of Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda in Tampa. He worked in Mid-Atlantic and Kansas City before going to the AWA and that opened the door for his first tour with New Japan Pro Wrestling. He had a few stays with WCW throughout his career, it was wrestling as Diamond Studd in 1991 that got him a sustained position on television before leaving and joining the WWF to become the memorable Razor Ramon character.
After a series of tremendous vignettes, the Scarface-inspired character became a top heel and was challenging Bret Hart for the WWF Championship at the Royal Rumble in Sacramento by January 1993.
After the loss to the 1-2-3 Kid (Sean Waltman), it further established Monday Night Raw as the prime show for the company and began Hall’s switch to a babyface where he became Intercontinental champion that year after Shawn Michaels had gone on sabbatical. Michaels returned with his claim to the championship and set up the ladder match at WrestleMania 10 in March 1994 after doing a series of them on the road. It helped produce one of the best shows in company history by that point, coupled with the match between Bret and Owen Hart the same night.
Hall gave his notice in early 1996 and was removed from that year’s WrestleMania show in Anaheim. Along with Kevin Nash, the two migrated back to WCW with Hall appearing on the first two-hour edition of Monday Nitro on Memorial Day with Nash to follow soon after.
With the launch of the N.W.O. in July, business took off for WCW with Hall & Nash aligned with Hulk Hogan and led the company to unprecedented heights in 1997 and 1998. During this time, Hall was combating his personal issues that got way out of control and sadly, even turned into an on-screen angle in late 1998 based on his problems – while at the same time, WWF was doing a similar story involving Mike Hegstrand a.k.a. Road Warrior Hawk.
When someone is a major star and commanding a high salary, leeway is given and Hall certainly had a long leash, but even WCW had to wipe their hands clean by 2000, and Hall was gone. He resurfaced for a few appearances in ECW and worked primarily for New Japan in 2001 before getting back to WWE in early 2002.
The decision to bring Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Hall back to the company was heavily debated with the concern of bringing those forces into the WWF locker room. The company needed a shot in the arm after a fizzled invasion angle and they were stars that produced differing results. Hogan had a surprisingly great run that year wrestling way more than most anticipated and despite having a brief run with the WWF title, was largely there to lose.
Hall’s run was short-lived and was gone by May despite working with Steve Austin at WrestleMania and being figured into plans on the Raw side. After the Plane Ride from Hell in May 2002, he worked that Monday’s edition of Raw before being let go. He would wrestle for NWA TNA, which launched the next month, and worked sporadically with the group through 2010.
The issues Hall battled continued to escalate and the damage was mounting, which included a pacemaker being inserted to help with heart issues while also paying the price for his in-ring career, which included a hip replacement in 2013.
Diamond Dallas Page was credited for getting Hall back onto a path towards getting clean with Hall having his moment in 2014 when he was inducted into the company’s Hall of Fame. He would have cameos over the years including a run-in with Hogan & Nash at WrestleMania 31 and at Raw 25 in January 2018.
He has two children, Cody and Cassidy, and we send our best to all of them.
**A match that many people have been bringing up today is the tag involving Hall & Waltman against Shawn Michaels & Kevin Nash from a 1994 edition of WWF Action Zone, which is on the WWE Network.
**WWE Raw is at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida tonight with the show airing at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network. All eyes will be on whether Cody Rhodes appears or not as this would be the time and place to introduce him if a deal is complete. If Rhodes is not on the show, it shouldn’t eliminate his chances of coming. They have only announced the following for tonight’s show:
*Championship celebration with RK-Bro
*Kevin Owens reacts to Steve Austin
**Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels says that in the aftermath of the merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia, the two streaming services attached to the companies will be combined, per the Hollywood Reporter. While speaking at a conference, Wiedenfels stated that Discovery+ and HBO Max will eventually be joined together for what he described will be a “blowout DTC (direct-to-consumer) product that should certainly drive healthy revenue growth for years to come.” AT&T is set to spin off WarnerMedia to merge with Discovery, which will be run by David Zaslav. There is no timetable listed for the eventual combining of the streaming services.
**During her speech at SXSW, WWE chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon-Levesque revealed that the company is launching its own NFT platform called WWE Moonsault. Additional details will be released when as it gets ready to launch.
**A new animated series called ‘The Gimmicks’ will debut this Friday at https://www.therealgimmicks.com/ featuring the characters and voices of Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, nZo, and Rocky Romero. The episodes are being produced by Toonstar and Sixth Wall Productions, which is attached to Mila Kunis’ Orchard Farm Productions. The series will incorporate Solana NFTs to help shape the storyline directions and characters throughout the series. The wrestlers involved will voice their characters with the series being written by Dave Ihlenfeld and David Wright.
**Becky Lynch was back on the live events this past weekend after missing last Monday’s Raw with what was described as a damaged voice box. On both nights, Lynch teamed with Queen Zelina, Carmella & Doudrop against Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan in a pair of handicap matches.
**Xavier Woods also returned on the live events this past weekend after suffering a torn plantaris in January. On Saturday, he teamed with Kofi Kingston against The Usos and Sheamus & Ridge Holland, and on Sunday with Kingston & Drew McIntyre against The Bloodline.
**John Oliver covered the ticketing industry on Last Week Tonight, specifically looking at TicketMaster and the role of the secondary market.
**NBC’s Young Rock returns on Tuesday for the start of its second season. The series was renewed last year and had a one-off special at Christmas time with its version of A Christmas Carol. The executive producers on the show include Dwayne Johnson, Nahnatchka Khan (the sister of Nick Khan), and former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz.
Below is NBC’s synopsis of the upcoming season:
The second season of Young Rock delves back into Dwayne Johnson’s life, continuing the storylines from Season 1 while also introducing new chapters we haven’t yet seen. As Dwayne and his loving, resilient family face new challenges and meet new wild characters of professional wrestling, Dwayne contemplates embracing the grind of professional wrestling himself. The show will explore the crazy rollercoaster that has shaped Dwayne into the man he is today and the larger-than-life people he’s met along the way.
**Takashi Sugiura & Hideki Suzuki came out of Sunday’s NOAH card as the new GHC tag team champions after a one-night tournament. The titles were vacated by Naomichi Marufuji & Keiji Muto due to Muto’s hip problems. The four-team tournament in Yokohama saw Sugiura & Suzuki defeat Kenoh & Masakatsu Funaki and advance to the finals, where they beat Kaito Kiyomiya & Daiki Inaba in front of 905 fans at Yokohama Budokan. The show also featured Eita winning the GHC junior heavyweight championship by defeating Daisuke Harada.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH’s next big show is on Monday, March 21st with Kazuyuki Fujita defending the GHC heavyweight title for the first time against Masato Tanaka in Fukuoka. Atsushi Kotoge & YO-HEY will defend the GHC junior heavyweight tag titles against NOSAWA Rongai & Kotaro Suzuki on the same show.
**Here are the matches that will stream on AEW Dark: Elevation tonight at 7 p.m. ET on the AEW YouTube channel:
*John Silver & Alex Reynolds vs. Luther & Serpentico
*Ruby Soho vs. Amber Nova
*Jay Lethal vs. Merrik Donovan
*Skye Blue & KiLynn King vs. The Bunny & Emi Sakura
*Frankie Kazarian vs. Tiger Ruas
*Nyla Rose vs. Katalina Perez
**The New Japan Cup continues on Tuesday with a show at 5:30 a.m. ET from Okayama and will stream live on New Japan World with the following card:
*New Japan Cup: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito
*New Japan Cup: Jeff Cobb vs. YOSHI-HASHI
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto & YOH vs. Taichi, Minoru Suzuki & DOUKI
*Shingo Takagi, SANADA, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. EVIL, SHO, Yujiro & Dick Togo
*Will Ospreay, Aaron Henare & Great O-Khan vs. El Desperado, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taka Michinoku
*Guerrillas of Destiny & Jado vs. Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Gedo
*El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori vs. Master Wato & Kosei Fujita
*Ryusuke Taguchi & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask
**The rest of the second-round matches take place on Thursday and Friday with the quarter-finals beginning on Sunday with Kazuchika Okada vs. CIMA.
**Amy “Lita” Dumas is set to be a guest on The Broken Skull Sessions with Steve Austin with the interview dropping Friday, March 25th.
**The Undertaker breaks down Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania.
**Being the Elite: Ep. 298 “Jeff Hardy”.
**The WWE stock closed at $55.96 on Monday.
ON THIS DATE
WrestleMania 20 took place from Madison Square Garden in 2004. After a dismal pay-per-view the year prior, the company promoted ‘Mania 20 throughout the year while also taking the event away from a stadium setting and not going back to one until 2007. The event ended with Chris Benoit and Eddy Guerrero embracing in the middle of the ring as each brand’s respective champion, it takes on a completely different meaning today for a variety of circumstances. It was also the last night for Brock Lesnar and Bill Goldberg, which the audience knew and turned on their match with the saving grace being Steve Austin laying out both with stunners. Lesnar would return eight years later and Goldberg twelve years later with the two having a rematch at the Survivor Series in 2016 and their best match together at the following year’s WrestleMania.
Chris Jericho’s last pay-per-view match with WCW:
*****
POST DAILY NEWS: Scott Hall to be taken off life support
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss the life and career of Scott Hall / Razor Ramon. Plus, updates on Big E, Becky Lynch & Xavier Woods, NJ Cup and WWE Raw tonight in Jacksonville.
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WRESTLENOMICS: AEW PPV buys, WWE 2K22 is released
Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo talk AEW Revolution pay-per-view business. WWE 2K22 is a pivotal release for the partnership with Take-Two. Plus, Tony Khan says he will book Ring of Honor. And we look at what Apple TV+’s new deal with MLB tells us about the outlook of media rights fees for wrestling.
*****
THE LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD: NO FEAR vs. Kobashi & Akiyama w/ Robert McCauley
Robert McCauley joins WH Park to talk about a World Tag Team Title match between Burning (Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama) and NO FEAR (Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama) from October 30, 1999 at Budokan Hall.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown & AEW Rampage from Friday night and take your calls.
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