POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw airs tonight at 11 p.m. ET. We will chat Raw from Buffalo, thoughts on CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe from Collision, UFC 290 notes, SmackDown & Rampage ratings a big week coming up. You can join us live at YouTube.com/POSTwrestling.
**On Tuesday, we will release the latest edition of Pollock & Ting: TALK for members of the POST Wrestling Café. This week, we have six shows coming out on the Café including The Double Shot on Wednesday night after Dark Side of the Ring, MCU L8R on Thursday for Secret Invasion, Rewind-A-SmackDown, and Collision Course. Plus, it is the start of our annual G1 Climax shows beginning with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson covering the first night of the tournament this Saturday at the Café.
**Wai Ting & I will cover the second night of the G1 Climax this Sunday on the free feed at POST.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: Pollock & Ting – TALK (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Wednesday: The Double Shot – The Tragic Fall of Adrian Adonis (Patreon)
Thursday: MCU L8R – Secret Invasion Ep. 4 (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Patreon)
Saturday: Stan Hansen Retrospective with WH Park & Mike Spears
Saturday: G1 Climax – Day 1 with Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord (Patreon)
Sunday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (Patreon)
Sunday: G1 Climax – Day 2 with John Pollock & Wai Ting (FREE)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw is at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York tonight and airing at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network. The show airs against ESPN’s coverage of the Home Run Derby, which drew over six million viewers last year. Below is the announced lineup for Raw:
*Seth Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio
*No Disqualification Match: The Miz vs. Tommaso Ciampa
*Face-to-Face: Ricochet and Logan Paul
*Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci vs. Drew McIntyre & Matt Riddle
*Cody Rhodes addresses Brock Lesnar
*Graduation ceremony for Maxxine Dupri
**WrestleTix reports that just over 9,700 tickets have been distributed for tonight’s episode of Raw at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
**Dark Side of the Ring returns on Tuesday with ‘The Tragic Fall of Adrian Adonis’. Adonis (Keith Franke) started his career in 1974 and jumped around territories including Florida, Vancouver, Mid-Atlantic, Los Angeles (where he first met Roddy Piper), Georgia Championship Wrestling, Portland (as a big babyface), and Amarillo among them.
In 1979, he went to the AWA and had a significant push teaming with Jesse Ventura as The East-West Connection. Adonis was the worker of the two while Ventura was developing into a strong presence on the microphone. Adonis & Ventura won the AWA tag titles in July 1980 and held them for nearly a year. The two moved to the WWWF and Adonis was one of Bob Backlund’s better opponents with a back-to-back series at Madison Square Garden in early 1982 where Adonis won by blood stoppage on January 18 and they came back on February 15 with a Texas Death Match, which Backlund won and they took the match to various cities in the Northeast. In between his stints with WWF, he toured with New Japan beginning in 1982 and worked in the U.S. for Joe Blanchard’s Southwest Championship Wrestling.
Adonis was working with Dick Murdoch in New Japan when the two were signed and started with the WWF at the end of 1983. The duo won the WWF tag titles and held them for most of 1984, losing to Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo prior to the first WrestleMania. In 1986, he was re-packaged as ‘Adorable’ Adrian Adonis and was the character he was linked with the most as an effeminate character in the style of Adrian Street with the dated homophobic elements to elicit a negative crowd reaction. The high point of his career came in one of the featured matches at WrestleMania 3 on March 29, 1987, losing to close friend Roddy Piper at the Pontiac Silverdome.
By April, he was gone from the company and returned to the AWA and was attempting to get his weight under control and prepare for a comeback in 1988 when he died on a Canadian tour for promoter Dave McKigney. Adonis was in a van with McKigney and Mike & Pat Kelly (William & Victor Arko) when the vehicle went into the water and killed Adonis, McKigney, and Pat Kelly while Mike/Victor survived. Adonis was 34 years old when he died.
**Brad Cain a.k.a. Lodi spoke about his recent heart attack and how he discovered it. Cain finished a match and was dealing with pain, so he drove himself to the hospital which took approximately 52 minutes to arrive. They discovered two arteries had 100% blockage and the widow maker (left anterior descending artery) had 90% blockage. Cain underwent a quintuple bypass surgery but does plan to wrestle again. Cain is 52 years old and wrestled for WCW from 1997 until 2000 as part of Raven’s Flock, the West Hollywood Blondes with Lenny Lane, and as Idol & Rave.
**AEW Collision aired at Midnight ET on TSN 2 this past Saturday and averaged approximately 34,000 viewers and 7,000 in the 25-54 demographic. It was up from the previous week’s episode that did 5,000 and 3,000 respectively. Collision streamed live on TSN+ earlier in the evening for both weeks.
**WWE has added three U.K. dates for October. They will be at the OVO Arena Wembley in London on October 29, the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham on October 30, and OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland on October 31. The advertising features Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, Bobby Lashley, The Usos, Asuka, and The Street Profits. Tickets go on sale this Friday with a pre-sale the day prior.
**IMPACT Wrestling averaged 121,000 viewers and 29,000 (0.02) in the 18-49 demographic from last Thursday’s episode on AXS TV. (Wrestlenomics)
**This Saturday is going to be one of the busiest of the year with so many major shows taking place that day. The G1 Climax kicks off in Hokkaido, and Pro Wrestling NOAH has a show at Korakuen Hall with Katsuhiko Nakajima facing All Japan’s Kento Miyahara. In Mexico, it is the second of three TripleMania events from Tijuana with the rematch between El Hijo del Vikingo and Kenny Omega for the AAA Mega Championship. IMPACT has its Slammiversary card in Windsor, Ontario featuring Alex Shelley vs. Nick Aldis and Scott D’Amore & PCO against Bully Ray & TBA. Finally, AEW Collision is in Calgary with the finals of the two Owen Hart Cup tournaments with CM Punk against Ricky Starks on the men’s side and will be followed immediately by Battle of the Belts VII with the three-hour block airing on TNT.
**The first two G1 Climax cards are airing for free this weekend on New Japan World, which the promotion announced on Monday. Saturday’s card from Hokkaido will stream live at 4 a.m. ET with the following day’s card airing late Saturday/early Sunday at 1 a.m.
**NXT on Tuesday night will include all members of The Judgment Day appearing on the show as they continue to incorporate more main roster appearances into the program. They are advertising Ilja Dragunov vs. Bron Breakker (the winner challenges Carmelo Hayes at Great American Bash on July 30), Andre Chase & Duke Hudson vs. Drew Gulak & Charlie Dempsey, Tiffany Stratton vs. Ivy Nile in a non-title match, Joe Coffey vs. Channing Lorenzo (If Lorenzo wins, Tony D’Angelo is freed from prison, which I assume was approved by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis), and Cora Jade vs. Kelani Jordan.
**The WWE stock closed at $109.00 on Monday.
**Being the Ep. 355: Hung Bucks.
MMA NEWS
**UFC 290 was the best MMA cards of the year, thus far, with a ‘Fight of the Year’ contender between Brandon Moreno and Alexandre Pantoja for the Flyweight Championship. The card was a massive success as a live event with a gate of $9.75 million at the T-Mobile Arena. In the main event, Alexander Volkanovski continued his dominance at featherweight by stopping Yair Rodriguez in the third round after winning the first two rounds. The champion stated he needed surgery on his arm but still hopes to fight one more time this year, which seems ambitious, but he’s maintained an unreal schedule. The card also saw Dricus du Plessis score the biggest win of his career, stopping Robert Whittaker and setting up a title fight with Israel Adesanya. The middleweight champion entered the cage and dropped the ‘N-word’ multiple times on du Plessis, which many were uncomfortable with, although Dana White stated he didn’t care when asked about the racial undertones during the post-fight press conference. Perhaps the best moment of the night was reserved for Robbie Lawler, who retired on a high note with a 38-second stoppage of Niko Price. Lawler was emotional when interviewed and they played an excellent tribute video for Lawler with highlights of his career going back to 2001. The Lawler retirement fight and video were broadcast on both ABC & ESPN.
**Karim Zidan wrote an excellent piece for his Sports Politika outlet on the ties between the UFC and former president Donald Trump, who was present at UFC 290. Zidan goes over the longstanding relationship between Trump and the UFC going back to 2000 when the Trump Taj Mahal in New Jersey hosted UFC 28 and followed by two more events in 2001 when Zuffa purchased the company. Despite criminal indictments against Trump, he was showcased on the broadcast this past Saturday and received a positive reception inside the venue. Zidan believes Trump will utilize the UFC for strategic appearances over his forthcoming campaign where he is the favorite to become the Republican nominee in the 2024 U.S. election. Trump also recorded an episode of UFC Unfiltered with Matt Serra & Jim Norton in Las Vegas.
**Brandon Moreno suffered a broken hand in the first round of his five-round contest with Alexandre Pantoja on Saturday. It was Pantoja’s third win against Moreno with past victories on The Ultimate Fighter in 2016 and a rematch in 2018. There would seem to be a strong probability of the two fighting for a fourth time in the future.
**Rey Mysterio was in attendance and shown on the UFC 290 broadcast, although was identified as ‘Ray Mysterio’.
**One week after losing the UFC Flyweight Championship in one of the best fights of 2023, Brandon Moreno is scheduled to appear at TripleMania this Saturday. Moreno is scheduled to corner Team Baja of Damian 666, Rey Horus, Nicho & Xtreme Tiger against Team Chilango of Argenis, Chessman, Negro Casas & Daga in an eight-man tag.
**Dana White’s Contender Series returns on Tuesday, August 8, and will stream live on ESPN+ & Fight Pass. The first week’s fights will feature Cesar Almeida vs. Lucas Fernando, Bogdan Grad vs. Tom Nolan, Caio Machado vs. Kevin Szaflarski, Junior Cortez vs. Payton Talbott, and Kevin Borjas vs. Rickson Zenidim.
**UFC welterweight Josiah Harrell was pulled from his UFC 290 fight against Jack Della Maddalena after a pre-fight medical check revealed a rare brain disease called moyamoya. Harrell put out a statement noting the disease is treatable and plans to be back calling it a ‘small bump in the road’. (MMA Fighting)
*****
COLLISION COURSE
John Siino & Kate From MTL review AEW Collision featuring CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe in the Owen Hart Cup Tournament Semifinals — their first encounter since 2005.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Andrew Thompson review the WWE SmackDown featuring The Trial of The Tribal Chief Roman Reigns at Madison Square Garden.
*****
MCU L8R: Secret Invasion Ep. 3
This week, WH Park and Rich Fann are joined by Daniel Palmer of The MTR Network to talk episode 3 of Secret Invasion, “Betrayed”.
*****
NJPW STRONG Independence Day Review
Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord review NJPW STRONG’s debut in Japan with Independence Day, a 2-day special event in Korakuen Hall highlighted by El Desperado and Jon Moxley in double feature deathmatches.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with Kenny Omega taking on Wheeler Yuta and the Blind Eliminator Tournament begins in Edmonton.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON: Chris Hero
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston are joined by Chris Hero to chat about the current state of independent wrestling and lots more.
*****
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