POST IT NOTES
**POST Wrestling’s Christmas Show will premiere tonight at 11 p.m. ET at YouTube.com/POSTwrestling. Wai & I will close out the year, by welcoming many surprise guests to the show and crown the POST Wrestling Christmas Jingle Contest winner. This is one of our most popular yearly shows and I can honestly say, this may have been our best one with some great guests & discussions coming your way. For POST Wrestling Café members, an ad-free version of the show will be posted on the Café podcast feed tonight.
**We have several big shows coming up for POST Wrestling Café members at all levels with the ad-free version of the Christmas Show tonight, our 5-Year Anniversary Q&A will be released next Tuesday, Rewind-A-SmackDown covering John Cena’s return next Friday, and a Wrestle Kingdom 17 POST Show on January 4th.
**If you would like to submit a scenario for our annual “Likely or Unlikely” list for the Best/Worst of 2022 Show, you can send in your audio clips at memo.fm/postwrestling.
**Due to the Christmas Show, there is no Rewind-A-SmackDown tonight, but we will return next Friday night at 11 p.m. ET.
**The final POST Puroresu of the year with WH Park & Karen Peterson will be released on Monday in place of Rewind-A-Raw.
**The final edition of The Wellness Policy for 2022 featured open calls with hosts Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman & Neal Flanagan.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: The POST Wrestling Christmas Show (11 p.m. ET)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics – Vince McMahon audio documentary
Monday: POST Puroresu with WH Park & Karen Peterson
Tuesday: POST Wrestling’s 5-Year Anniversary Q&A (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown is a taped show from last week in Chicago, which had over 12,000 fans in attendance at the Allstate Arena. The following matches are set to air on Fox tonight at 8 p.m. ET:
*Miracle on 34th Street Fight: Braun Strowman & Ricochet vs. Giovanni Vinci & Ludwig Kaiser
*Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships: The Usos (champions) vs. Hit Row
*Rey Mysterio vs. Angel
*Gauntlet Match: Liv Morgan vs. Tegan Nox vs. Emma vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Sonya Deville vs. Xia Li vs. Raquel Rodriguez
**AEW Rampage airs at 10 p.m. ET on TNT with the taped episode from San Antonio and the following matches scheduled to air:
*$300,000 Three Kings Christmas Casino Trios Battle Royal: Ari Daivari & The Varsity Athletes, Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli & Wheeler Yuta, AR Fox & Top Flight, Kip Sabian & The Butcher & The Blade, Alex Reynolds & John Silver & Evil Uno, Rush & Dralistico & Preston Vance, Serpentico & Luther & Angelico, Orange Cassidy & Best Friends
*Title Eliminator: Jade Cargill vs. Vertvixen
*Anthony Bowens & Billy Gunn vs. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal
**The NWA will hold its next pay-per-view event on Saturday, February 11th in Tampa, Florida, and will be called “Nuff Said” with Tyrus featured on the poster. This will come after the promotion’s live episode of Powerrr that is scheduled for 1/31 in Knoxville.
**NXT Level Up streams tonight at 10 p.m. ET with Charlie Dempsey vs. Myles Bourne, Sol Ruca vs. Dani Palmer, and Hank Walker vs. Trick Williams.
**New Japan wrestler Oskar Leube missed Friday’s Korakuen Hall event due to fever symptoms but has tested negative for COVID. Leube also missed Thursday’s card for the same issue. Jado replaced Leube in a tag match on Friday.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH is holding a press conference late tonight at 2 a.m. ET to promote the 1/1 card at Nippon Budokan.
**CMLL has the final of the Gran Alternativa tournament tonight at Arena Mexico with Gran Guerrero & Raider taking on Mistico (replacing Volador Jr.) & Panterita del Ring Jr. The rest of tonight’s card has Mistico teaming with Soberano Jr. & Titan against Averno, Templario & Yota, Dalys & Faby Apache & Princesa Sugehit vs. Marcela, Reyna Isis & Stephanie Vaquer, Pequeno Magia vs. Full Metal, and a cage match featuring Oro Jr., Milenium, Valiente Jr., Retro, Bengala, Neon, Zandokan Jr., Apocalipsis, Difunto, Nitro, Inquisidor, and Principe Odin Jr. (Courtesy: Luchablog.com)
**TheCubsFan has posted a video going through the top six stories in Lucha this year.
**A scheduled WWE event in India next month has been postponed. Sportskeeda had reported a show for 1/18 in Hyderabad and would have been the company’s first card in the country in over five years. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the event is being postponed due to WWE’s broadcast partner in the region, Sony Six, preparing for a merger with Zee and waiting until the merger is complete to host the event. A source at the company confirmed the postponement of the event to POST Wrestling.
**Shingo Takagi returns to Dragon Gate for his first match with the company in over four years this Sunday. The Final Gate 2022 card in Fukuoka will be streaming live on Dragongate.live and will see Takagi team with BxB Hulk against YAMATO & Madoka Kikuta, plus Yuki Yoshioka defends the Open the Dream Gate title against Ben-K. The event will stream early Sunday at 3 a.m. ET.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH has released preview videos for the GHC heavyweight title match between Kaito Kiyomiya and Kenoh, and the GHC tag title match between Satoshi Kojima & Takashi Sugiura and KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji. Both videos feature English subtitles for the interviews promoting NOAH’s “The New Year 2023” card on 1/1 at Nippon Budokan and streaming on Wrestle Universe.
**Dax Harwood is starting a podcast on the Ad-Free Shows network with Matt Koon with the show replacing the outgoing Gentleman Villain show with William Regal. Harwood posted a photo of CM Punk as the topic for the first episode but noted that Punk would not be appearing on the show as a guest.
**NBC’s Young Rock is off for the next two weeks and returns with a new episode on 1/6.
**WWE has released a short video on Jamie Noble following his retirement match last weekend in Charleston, West Virginia. The video includes comments from Seth Rollins, Molly Holly, Drew Gulak, Adam Pearce, and Shinsuke Nakamura.
MMA NEWS
**Paulo Costa was on The MMA Hour on Wednesday and explained why the fight with Robert Whittaker is off the UFC 284 card in February. Costa has one fight left on his existing UFC deal and the terms call for that fight to be for $70,000 with an additional $70,000 if he wins. Costa never finalized the fight with Whittaker and only agreed in principle because the financial terms were not finalized. Costa feels for a big fight with Whittaker he should be paid more and would be happy with $500,000 to fight Whittaker. The UFC has countered and been willing to offer a new deal to Costa, but he would have to sign a multi-fight deal at the new rate, and he doesn’t appear interested in a long-term deal. Costa added that he believes his deal expires with UFC next March as some deals do regardless of whether all the fights are completed. The middleweight fight is coming off a win against Luke Rockhold this past August at UFC 277.
**MMA Fighting reported that Chael Sonnen is set to go to trial beginning April 5th for an alleged assault last year at a hotel in Las Vegas. Sonnen has rejected a plea agreement regarding the four misdemeanor charges that the ex-fighter is facing after being accused of attacking multiple people at a hotel in Las Vegas in December 2021 including a couple, Julie & Christopher Stellpflug, who accused Sonnen of striking them. The couple is suing Sonnen in civil court after prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to support a felony battery charge against Sonnen. There is a separate case filed against Sonnen by a maintenance man, who claims he was punched in the jaw unprovoked by Sonnen.
**The next major card is the Bellator vs. RIZIN event on New Year’s Eve at the Saitama Super Arena featuring five inter-promotional fights. The main event will feature A.J. McKee (18-1) fighting Roberto de Souza (12-1) along with Patricio “Pitbull” Freire (34-5) vs. Kleber Koike Erbst (28-5-1), Kyoji Horiguchi (29-5) vs. Hiromasa Ougikubo (23-5-2), Juan Archuleta (26-3) vs. Soo Chul Kim (0-0), and Gadzi Rabadanov (18-4-2) vs. Koji Takeda (12-2). The card will stream live on FITE TV in the early morning of New Year’s Eve with Showtime airing the card that night on tape delay at 8 p.m. ET.
**The UFC won’t run another event until 1/14 with a Fight Night card at the Apex headlined by Kelvin Gastelum (17-8) fighting Nassourdine Imavov (12-3).
REVIEW
Impact Wrestling (December 22)
RESULTS
-Rosemary & Jessicka over Deonna Purrazzo & Gisele Shaw to retain the Knockouts tag titles, Speedball Mike Bailey over Yuya Uemura, Steve Maclin vs. Rich Swann ended in a double count-out, Jordynne Grace & Mickie James over Tasha Steelz & Savannah Evans
-Speedball Mike Bailey and Yuya Uemura had a great match that spanned two segments and over fifteen minutes of television time (including a commercial break). Uemura has all the attributes in his favor for a big run when his excursion ends and feels like a big star in the making. Bailey won after a release German out of the corner, his spin kicks into the corner, and Ultima Weapon. This was easily the best match on the show and will probably fly under the radar this week.
-The main event saw Jordynne Grace & Mickie James defeat Tasha Steelz & Savannah Evans with James’ career at stake if she loses any matches. Grace, her opponent at Hard to Kill, spent most of the match on the apron as James didn’t want to rely on her for help because she thinks Grace is underestimating her. Grace tagged herself in and won the match using the Muscle Buster. Afterward, the two argued and James struck the champion with the Mick Kick. It’s a good build and they have spent months on The Last Rodeo for James with the hopes of a big payoff in a few weeks, or at least what can be deemed a big success at IMPACT’S level.
-The match between Josh Alexander and Bully Ray at Hard to Kill is now a Full Metal Mayhem match with the idea that Bully has forced Alexander out of his comfort zone and will need to show a side of himself he never has before. Scott D’Amore said he is sending both home until the pay-per-view, which isn’t for another three weeks, and hopefully, they have the two incorporated in some fashion for the final episodes.
-Sami Callihan tried to join The Design but was rejected and destroyed by Deaner, Big Kon, and Alan Angels.
-The top two programs with Alexander and Bully Ray & Grace and James are very strong going into the pay-per-view.
-Next week is a “best of” show
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY: 2022 (Open Calls)
Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman, and Neal Flanagan are back with The Wellness Policy to reflect on the year that was and hang out with our tremendous listeners.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite: Holiday Bash with a No DQ match between Death Triangle and The Elite in Match #5 of the series.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman chat all about WWE NXT from December 20th, 2022 headlined by The New Day vs Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen for the NXT Tag Team Championship!
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #122: The Undertaker: One More Round
John Pollock & Wai Ting close out the year with The Undertaker: One More Round, his second interview on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions, released in November 2020 following the announcement of his in-ring retirement.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with Dexter Lumis and The Miz in a ladder match with the return of Bronson Reed.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS RADIO: 2023 Predictions
Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo make 2023 predictions and look back at their prognostications from last year. They’ll revisit some of the biggest moments in a pivotal year for the wrestling business, and look ahead at what will surely be an influential year in 2023 as major TV deals are negotiated.
*****
THE LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD
On this episode of the Long & Winding Royal Road, WH Park welcomes Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham to discuss Atsushi Onita vs. Hector Guerrero from April 20, 1983.
*****
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