POST IT NOTES
**The ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show for October will be recorded live on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET for all POST Wrestling Café members and available immediately after to download. You can submit your questions in the thread on the POST Wrestling Forum and all topics are welcome.
**Rewind-A-Raw is live at 11 p.m. ET tonight to review Raw from Charlotte, North Carolina as well as go through today’s news headlines, take your feedback, and preview this week at POST Wrestling. Tune in live on the POST YouTube channel.
**Our UFC 280 POST Show is available to download and stream on the POST YouTube channel. Eric Marcotte and I provided a rundown of the entire card including our thoughts on Islam Makhachev’s dominant submission win, the absurdity of Aljamain Sterling vs. TJ Dillashaw, disagreement over Sean O’Malley being awarded the decision against Petr Yan, and the rest of the card from Abu Dhabi.
**I highly recommend The Wellness Policy show from last Thursday covering the subject of fatherhood:
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (11 p.m. ET)
Tuesday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman (10:15 p.m.)
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John & Wai (10 p.m.)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Wai (Patreon)
Saturday: The N.W.A. Podcast with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy & Andrew Thompson
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown averaged 2,231,000 viewers and approximately 678,000 (0.52) in the 18-49 demographic featuring Logan Paul’s appearance in the main event segment. The show was #1 among network programming but trailed the MLB playoffs and NBA games on cable. SmackDown was only fourth among 18-34 on network programming due to Univision’s lineup. SmackDown was down 2% in viewers and dropped 4% in 18-49 from last week but saw a big drop of 24% among adults 18-34 (which was a demo that was down for Rampage, as well). SmackDown aired against the FS 1 coverage of the NLCS series and the early game on ESPN between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat that finished #4 among cable originals with 1.41 million viewers and 0.47 in the demo. (Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily)
**In Canada, SmackDown averaged 168,300 viewers and 60,300 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. They fell 8.5% in viewers and dropped 32% in the demo but actually fared well. Among the sports programs that night, SmackDown ranked fifth behind the Toronto Raptors vs. Brooklyn Nets, two CFL games, and the NLCS.
**AEW Rampage ranked #24 among cable originals on Friday night airing against the NLCS game between San Diego and Philadelphia and the NBA game between Golden State and Denver. Rampage averaged 483,000 viewers and approximately 170,000 (0.13) in 18-49. Overall viewership grew 5% this week but that was largely due to the 50+ demo growing from 0.18 to 0.24 this week because their younger audiences were way down. Adults 18-49 fell 23% this week while 18-34 plummeted 60%. Those audiences dropping dramatically is likely attributable to both the MLB playoffs and a big NBA game. The Padres vs. Phillies was the most-watched program all night with 4.88 million viewers and 1.12 in 18-49 while the Golden State vs. Denver game was #2 with 1.9 million viewers and 0.66 in the key demo. (Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily)
**Tonight’s edition of Raw takes place from the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The show will be airing against the New England Patriots vs. Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football. The following matches have been advertised for tonight:
*Non-Title Match: Bianca Belair vs. Bayley
*Finn Balor vs. Karl Anderson
**WWE Raw will be airing on OLN in Canada tonight instead of Sportsnet 360 due to NBA basketball. Raw is by far the most-watched pro wrestling show in Canada each week, so this will hurt its audience significantly. The show will also be streaming live on the Sportsnet website at 8 p.m. ET. Sportsnet did do a very effective job announcing the programming change throughout Raw and SmackDown over the past week on the ticker. Sportsnet 360 will be replaying Raw late tonight at 2 a.m. ET.
**Kevin Nash managed to put out a new podcast on Monday dedicated to his late son, Tristen, who died last week at the age of 26. I don’t know how he was able to complete this show but I’m sure it was therapeutic to talk about his son and share memories of him. We send all our best wishes to the Nash family as they go through this tragic loss.
**The World Series begins this Friday between the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros. Game 1 will air on Fox, which will result in SmackDown being moved to FS 1 that night. Game 3 will be played next Monday night, so Raw will have both the World Series and Monday Night Football to contend with as well as Halloween, so that’s a really rough night for the show competition-wise. If the teams make it to Game 5, it will affect AEW Dynamite on 11/2 and a potential Game 6 would air on 11/4 against SmackDown and Rampage.
**Black Adam starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was the #1 film at the box office earning $67 million in domestic ticket revenue on top of $73 million internationally. The Warner Bros. film featured a massive worldwide promotional vehicle built around Johnson as the lead in the DC extended universe film. Going into the weekend, the predictions for the domestic box office were tabbed at $61.4 million, so they overachieved expectations. The film topped Ticket to Paradise starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, which made $16.34 million domestically. The reviews for the film have been mixed with Rotten Tomatoes listing a 39% positivity rate among reviewers, however, audience reviews are at 90%.
**The Hollywood Reporter has a story on Apple TV+ increasing its price from $4.99 per month to $6.99 and its annual plan going from $49 to $69 per year. This comes as Netflix is gearing up to introduce its advertising-supported tier in November and is the next wave of revenue growth for these subscription services. Netflix had a strong quarter due to the fact they over-delivered on the number of subscribers added. Disney utilized the strategy of pricing its streaming services very low to draw subscribers in and has continually increased its price point, which is probably going to be the tact all the major services take.
**Denise Salcedo spoke with Willie Mack on his decision to leave IMPACT Wrestling after four years and that it came down to money.
**Taya Valkyrie will defend the MLW Women’s Featherweight title against Trish Adora at MLW Fightland on 10/30. The Fusion television tapings will take place at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and will include a last-man-standing match between Alex Hammerstone and EJ Nduka for the MLW World Heavyweight title, Shun Skywalker vs. Lince Dorada for the MLW Middleweight title, Jacob Fatu vs. Lio Rush, Calvin Tankman vs. Willie Mack, nZo vs. Mance Warner, Davey Boy Smith Jr. & The Billington Bulldogs against The Bomaye Fight Club & more.
**Vice TV’s Tales from the Territories will cover Championship Wrestling from Florida on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET. The panel will include Jerry Brisco, Bob Roop, Kevin Sullivan, Brian Blair, and Steve Keirn.
**NXT on Tuesday from the Performance Center has announced Kayden Carter & Katana Chance vs. Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark for the women’s tag titles, Pretty Deadly against Edris Enofe & Malik Blade for the men’s tag titles, and Lash Legend taking on Shotzi and the fallout from Halloween Havoc. Their next premium live event is NXT Deadline and is scheduled for 12/10.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling will have cheering events at Korakuen Hall this Wednesday and Thursday. The card on Wednesday will be streaming live on New Japan World at 5:30 a.m. ET and includes the final opening round matches of the World TV title tournament with Tomohiro Ishii vs. Ren Narita and Toru Yano vs. Great O-Khan. Thursday’s show at 5:30 a.m. features the start of the second round of the tournament with Zack Sabre Jr. vs. David Finlay and EVIL vs. YOSHI-HASHI.
**GCW’s Settlement Series continues Tuesday night with a card in Williamstown, New Jersey, and streaming on IWTV. The remaining shows in the series are scheduled for 11/8 in Williamstown, 11/19 in Boonton, and wrap up 12/6 in Williamstown.
**Jeff Cobb vs. Michael Richards has been added to NJPW’s TAMASHII card on 11/11 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The match joins the previously announced matches with KENTA vs. Andrew Villalobos, and Taiji Ishimori & Bad Luck Fale vs. Aaron Solo & Tony Kozina.
**The WWE stock closed at $77.50 on Monday.
MMA NEWS
**UFC 280 saw an unfortunate ending to the bantamweight title fight where TJ Dillashaw went into the fight with a bad shoulder that popped out several times during the fight. In the first round, Aljamain Sterling took Dillashaw down where it appeared the shoulder dislocated and Dillashaw had no use of the arm and was on the verge of tapping. It was a 10-8 round for Sterling as Dillashaw gutted his way to the corner and his team popped the shoulder back into place. In the second round, Dillashaw wasn’t using the arm and it appeared to dislocate for a second time and Sterling ended the fight with ground-and-pound. After the fight, it was noted that referee Marc Goddard was alerted to the injury before the fight and that the shoulder might pop out. Dillashaw confirmed he blew out his shoulder in April and it dislocated approximately “twenty times” during his training camp as he apologized for holding up the division to take this title fight. It brought up several issues including the purpose of the screening process prior to the fight and Dillashaw’s team not protecting the fighter from himself. Dillashaw had no chance of winning this fight given the severity of the injury and left the public deceived that purchased the card or had money on the bout. While title fights are hard to come by, there was no prayer for Dillashaw in this fight and instead of treating the shoulder when the injury occurred, there is a major question of how much damage he has done and almost surely will require surgery. At age 36, he is on the older end of the division, which is a speed-based weight class and he has already had previous operations on both shoulders during his two-year USADA suspension. The future for Dillashaw will be in doubt until the severity of the injury is known and was likely the last time that we’ll ever see Dillashaw in a title fight.
**The most contentious outcome was the split decision victory by Sean O’Malley against Petr Yan. Judges David Lethaby and Ben Cartlidge scored the fight 29-28 for O’Malley with both scoring rounds one and three for O’Malley. Judge Vito Paolillo had it 29-28 for Yan with Yan winning the first two rounds. On MMA Decisions, all 25 member members/outlets scored the fight for Yan. It basically came down to your scoring of the first round, which was the closest of the three as Yan clearly won the second round and O’Malley won the third. In the first round, O’Malley connected with 23 of 55 significant strikes compared to Yan’s 19 of 31, per UFC stats. Yan also had one takedown in the first and 1:10 of control time. To me, the first round was close enough that I cannot label this a robbery, but the consensus was Yan won the first round. When the fight ended, my reaction was that O’Malley was going to lose the decision but proved he could compete with the top fighters in the division and that his stock would improve even with a loss. Once the decision was read, the audience booed and it changed that immediate perception but in the long-term, this fight did a lot to prove O’Malley is a legitimate threat at bantamweight and gave the former champion a very difficult fight. I would hate to see O’Malley rushed into a title fight off this win even though he’s probably the most marketable challenger for Aljamain Sterling and Sterling would be favored. I hope O’Malley gets another contender in the top five as he shouldn’t be in a rush, especially after a win under these circumstances where there is a lot of glean from this fight in terms of areas for improvement.
**Bellator and Rizin are working together for a New Year’s Eve card on 12/31 at the Saitama Super Arena featuring five inter-promotional fights. Bellator has announced that featherweight champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire, A.J. McKee, Juan Archuleta, Kyoji Horiguchi and one other fight to be revealed will be representing Bellator with the Rizin fighters yet to be announced. The fights will take place inside of a ring instead of the Bellator cage and a press conference is scheduled for Wednesday in Tokyo to announce several of the fights. The 12/31 card will air at 8 p.m. ET on Showtime in the U.S.
**Beneil Dariush appeared on Submission Radio after his win against Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 280. Dariush has now won eight fights in a row but he understands that he isn’t the flashiest fighter and that it’s going to be a long road toward a title fight in a division full of names. When asked about fighting on the UFC 284 card in Australia next February, he said he isn’t interested in being the backup fighter for Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski but would like to fight an opponent on that card. He appeared to be pushing for a fight with former champion Charles Oliveira and noted that he doesn’t hate the idea of fighting Rafael Fiziev.
**This Saturday will be a busy one as UFC and Bellator each have fight cards and it’s the Anderson Silva vs. Jake Paul fight. The UFC is at the Apex in Las Vegas with a main event between featherweights Calvin Kattar and Arnold Allen, which is a very good fight. Bellator has a show in Milan, Italy that will air live on Showtime on Saturday afternoon headlined by Adam Piccolloti and Mansour Barnaoui. You would assume that Silva vs. Paul gains some momentum this week as it’s the biggest name that Paul has fought but I don’t sense a huge level of interest for this card. It’s a real test for Paul, who could very easily lose this fight to Silva as the former UFC middleweight champion has way more boxing experience that past MMA opponents like Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley. If Paul wins, it will be his most legitimate win in his career and will set the table for the potential fight against Nate Diaz, which everyone assumes will happen after Diaz’s negotiating period with the UFC ends.
ON THIS DATE
Jumbo Tsuruta defends the All Japan Triple Crown against Toshiaki Kawada in Yokohama in 1991:
The first pay-per-view under the regime of Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara in WCW took place in 1999 with Halloween Havoc. The show featured Hulk Hogan “laying down” for Sting in the middle of the show and allowing Sting to hold onto the WCW title. This led to an impromptu match at the end of the night where Bill Goldberg defeated Sting to win the title, which was vacated the next night and led to the headache-fueled tournament over the next month.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: Could The Rock buy WWE?
Brandon Thurston, Jesse Collings, Chris Gullo talk about AEW and CM Punk’s contract, and Dwayne Johnson’s comments on possibly investing in WWE.
*****
upNXT: NXT Halloween Havoc 2022
Braden Herrington is joined by Andrew Thompson to chat all about NXT Halloween Havoc 2022 featuring Bron Breakker vs. Ilja Dragunov vs. JD McDonagh!
*****
UFC 280 POST SHOW: Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev
John Pollock and Eric Marcotte review UFC 280 from Abu Dhabi featuring Charles Oliveira vs. Islam Makhachev for the vacant lightweight title.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown and AEW Rampage and discuss the latest on CM Punk & AEW, Tuesday night ratings, NXT Deadline & more.
*****
MCU L8R: Werewolf by Night (Spoiler review)
This week, Rich Fann and WH Park are back in the saddle to talk about firings at DC, casting calls in the MCU, Luke Cage: Thunderbolt? and of course, a review of the Marvel Studios Special Presentation, Werewolf by Night.
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY: Fatherhood
Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman, and Neal Flanagan are joined by POST Wrestling’s own Scarborough Dad Mike Murray on this month’s edition of The Wellness Policy to talk about all aspects of fatherhood.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #118: WWF at MSG 10/17/1983 (Don Muraco vs. Jimmy Snuka)
John Pollock & Wai Ting travel back to October 17, 1983 to review WWF at Madison Square Garden featuring Jimmy Snuka and Don Muraco’s legendary steel cage match.
*****
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