POST IT NOTES
**Tickets are on sale for a special event involving POST Wrestling and Poisonrana over Forbidden Door weekend in Toronto. We will be hosting a pre- and post-show event at Real Sports Bar (15 York Street) right across the street from the Scotiabank Arena. Doors will open at 3 p.m. ET and feature a live Q&A podcast with POST Wrestling and hang out prior to the pay-per-view. After the show, we will have an afterparty at Real Sports including karaoke and wrestling-themed drinks. Tickets are $30 CDN for entry to both the pre and post-show events and are moving quickly at POSTwrestling.com/live.
**Rewind-A-Wai #130 will be released tonight with Bruce Lord joining Wai & I in-studio to review the WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic Finals from September 2016. The final four included TJP, Gran Metalik, Kota Ibushi, and Zack Sabre Jr. as we chat about the success of this unique tournament in a WWE setting, the legacy of the CWC, and what became of the division. Plus, all the news from that week including CM Punk’s debut in the UFC, Randy Orton suffering a concussion at SummerSlam, Bryan Danielson wanting to return to the ring, and Antonio Inoki’s travels to North Korea. This show will be posted for all POST Café members tonight.
**Rewind-A-SmackDown airs live on Friday at 10 p.m. ET for POST Café members. We will also have a show on Saturday night on the POST YouTube channel immediately after Backlash.
**We have a WWE Q1 analysis show with Brandon Thurston and I breaking down Thursday’s report and call with analysts. The two of us spoke about the successes of the quarter, the state of the domestic television rights negotiations, Peacock viewership, and the company seeking site fees for major shows including next year’s Royal Rumble. Plus, we discuss the early success of All In at Wembley Stadium.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Wai #130 – WWE Cruiserweight Classic Final (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown at 10 p.m. ET (Patreon)
Saturday: WWE Backlash POST Show
Sunday: UFC 288 POST Show with Phil Chertok & Eric Marcotte
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio
WRESTLING NEWS
**A shareholder lawsuit filed against Vince McMahon has been dropped following McMahon’s payment of $17.4 million. Bloomberg Law reports that a consolidated suit by shareholders has been rendered ‘moot’ after McMahon made a payment this past March towards the fees associated with a special investigation into the executive chairman of WWE regarding hush money payments and sexual assault allegations. The article notes that McMahon is being represented by the Potter Anderson & Corroon firm while WWE was being represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
**It is a historic week for AEW with the pre-sale numbers for ALL IN destroying previous company records. On Thursday evening, Tony Khan provided the latest figures that the company has sold over 43,000 tickets with a gate of $5.7 million (U.S.) consisting of those with unique codes to buy tickets early. The public on sale begins Friday and it’s unknown how significant of a rush there will be over the next 24 hours for tickets. The number of tickets sold tops WCW’s all-time high of 41,412 for the July 6, 1998 episode of Monday Nitro featuring Hulk Hogan vs. Bill Goldberg. The company did a very effective job of promoting the pre-sale success throughout Dynamite and emphasizing that ALL IN will be the largest event in the company’s history.
**Congratulations to Pat McAfee and his wife Samantha, who welcomed their first child on Thursday.
**Mina Shirakawa made the first defense of her Wonder of Stardom title on Thursday defeating Natsupoi at Stardom’s Fukuoka Goddess Legend pay-per-view in front of 1,338 fans. It was the company’s return to pay-per-view in quick fashion after last week’s All-Star Grand Queendom card and included MIRAI & Ami Sohrei defeating Hazuki & Koguma to retain the Goddesses of Stardom titles, AZM over Mei Seira to retain the High-Speed title, Giulia & Maika beating Utami Hayashishita & Saya Kamitani after Maika pinned Hayashishita with the Michinoku Driver II, Natsuko Tora & Momo Watanabe over Syuri & Konami, Tam Nakano & Saori Anou over Starlight Kid & Ruaka, Mayu Iwatani & Hanan over Mariah May & Xena, and Suzu Suzuki won the 16-person Fukuoka Rumble. The pay-per-view should be added to Stardom World early next week.
**IMPACT Wrestling airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on AXS TV with the taped matches from Chicago last weekend. IMPACT has pulled better viewership figures over the past month and should receive a lot of attention with Trinity Fatu’s debut airing tonight. The following matches and segments are listed for the show:
*The debut of Trinity Fatu
*Steve Maclin, Champagne Singh & Shera vs. PCO & TBA
*Brian Myers & Moose vs. Yuya Uemura & Bhupinder Gujjar
*Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Jonathan Gresham
*Jody Threat vs. Alisha Edwards
*Sami Callihan accepts Deaner’s challenge
*Before the Impact: Laredo Kid vs. Jack Price
**The WWE stock saw a drop on Thursday and closed at $105.44 after trading as high as $109+ earlier in the day. The company’s current market cap sits at $7.85 billion coming off its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday.
**WWE will hold a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Friday at Noon ET with Paul Levesque and all the major stars in attendance including Brock Lesnar. The conference will stream on Peacock and all of WWE’s social channels as the company embarks on back-to-back nights as the Coliseo de Puerto Rico for Friday Night SmackDown and Backlash.
**BetOnline has released the following betting lines for WWE Backlash:
*Bad Bunny (-2000) vs. Damian Priest (+700)
*Cody Rhodes (-300) vs. Brock Lesnar (+200)
*Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn & Matt Riddle (-300) vs. The Usos & Solo Sikoa (+200)
*Seth Rollins (-1000) vs. Omos (+500)
*Austin Theory (-2000) vs. Bobby Lashley (+700) vs. Bronson Reed (+500)
*Bianca Belair (-2000) vs. Iyo Sky (+700)
*Rhea Ripley (-10,000) vs. Zelina Vega (+1100)
**NOAH’s Majestic card at Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall) drew 2,721 fans on Thursday and was headlined by Jake Lee beating Naomichi Marufuji and making the second defense of his GHC Heavyweight Championship. It was a heated match with Lee winning with the front kick high, which has been established as a strong finisher with no one kicking out of it in NOAH. It was not at the level of Lee’s recent match with Katsuhiko Nakajima, but it was a well-worked match and the audience rallied behind Marufuji.
**Big Japan ran a card at Yokohama Budokan as part of Golden Week and drew a great crowd of 1,828 with Yuki Aoki beating Yuji Okabayashi to become the Big Japan World Strong Heavyweight champion in the main event. The other title changes saw Abdullah Kobayashi beat Hideyoshi Kamitani in a Yokohama Explosion Jungle Death Match to win the group’s Death Match Heavyweight title, and Kaji Tomato won the Big Japan Jr. Heavyweight title by defeating Kota Sekifuda. (Purolove.com)
**Dragon Gate runs its big Dead or Alive event on Friday morning at Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium and streams live on the DG Network with the following card:
*Open the Dream Gate: Shun Skywalker © vs. Madoka Kikuta
*Open the Twin Gate: Kenoh & Shuji Kondo © vs. KAI & ISHIN
*YAMATO & Yuki Yoshioka vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Dragon Kid
*Open the Triangle Gate: Ben-K & BxB Hulk © vs. Kzy, Big Boss Shimizu & Strong Machine J
*Naruki Doi & Ultimo Dragon vs. Diamante & H.Y.O.
*Open the Brave Gate: Jason Lee © vs. Dragon Dia
*Masaaki Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda & Susumu Mochizuki & Mochizuki Jr. vs. Don Fujii, Takashi Yoshida, Problem Dragon & Minorita
*U-T & Jacky ‘Funky’ Kamei vs. Kagetora & Kaito Nagano
MMA NEWS
**Bellator issued a press release to announce that they have re-signed featherweight champion Cris Cyborg to an exclusive multi-fight contract. Cyborg (26-2, 1 NC) debuted for Bellator in January 2020 where she won the 145-pound title in her debut fight against Julia Budd. She has gone 5-0 with Bellator and last competed in April 2022 where she beat Arlene Blencowe by unanimous decision. Cyborg gave the following statement in the release:
After receiving multiple offers from several promotions I’m very happy that I was able to come to terms with BELLATOR and remain the face of their women’s featherweight division. Scott Coker is a promoter that I’ve worked with and respected for many years. He’s done so much to further women’s MMA and give us a platform to showcase our skills. When making this decision, it was important to me that I was signing with the organization that I felt had the biggest names and the top talent at 145 pounds for me to challenge myself against. There is no question that all the top female featherweights are signed with BELLATOR and I can’t wait to get back in there and defend my belt.
**Most Valuable Promotions has announced that Amanda Serrano will defend her undisputed featherweight championship in a rematch with Heather Hardy on 8/5. The fight will serve as the co-feature on the event headlined by Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas in Diaz’s pro boxing debut. In their first fight in September 2019, Serrano defeated Hardy by unanimous decision.
**Episode 3 and Episode 4 of UFC Embedded going into Saturday’s card in Newark, New Jersey.
*****
WWE Q1 Earnings Analysis
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston break down WWE’s Q1 earnings report and discuss the early success of AEW All In.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with MJF & Sammy Guevara vs. Jack Perry & Darby Allin, plus a big announcement from POST x Poisonrana.
*****
NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2023 Review
Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord review NJPW’s Wrestling Dontaku with SANADA’s first title defence against Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji’s return, and multiple title switches.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and John Siino review WWE NXT from May 2nd, 2023 featuring all the fallout from the WWE Draft.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with the second night of the WWE Draft, and an appearance by Brock Lesnar in Fort Worth.
*****
POST PURORESU
John Pollock is joined by WH Park to chat about NJPW Wrestling Dontaku, Stardom’s All-Star Grand Queendom and its five title changes, the era of SANADA in NJPW, and the upcoming Best of the Super Juniors.
*****
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