POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is live at 10 p.m. ET tonight on the POST Wrestling Café. We will chat SmackDown from New Orleans, Dynamite ratings, UFC 291 this weekend, and all the latest news. As always, calls are welcome to discuss any topics.
**WH Park & Karen Peterson will have a G1 Climax review on Sunday night to review that day’s card from Nagoya and will be posted on the POST Wrestling Café.
**NXT Great American Bash goes down Sunday night and Davie Portman & Braden Herrington will be live immediately following the show on the POST YouTube channel.
**Pollock & Thurston will be back next Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. ET and we will spend most of the show going over the WWE Q2 financials and the notes from the earnings call from earlier that morning. In two weeks, we will have David Bixenspan on the show to go over the lawsuit that came out of Bash at the Beach 2000 involving Hulk Hogan, as well as Bixenspan’s thoughts on the big stories covered throughout season four of Dark Side of the Ring.
All G1 Climax coverage and podcasts can be followed at https://www.postwrestling.com/g1/.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown 10 p.m. ET with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
Saturday: POSTmarks with David Meyers & Bruce Lord with guest Jesse from the 6
Sunday: G1 Climax – Night 10 with WH Park & Karen Peterson (Patreon)
Sunday: NXT Great American Bash Review with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
G1 CLIMAX UPDATE
**The G1 Climax is at the midway point after nine events and ten remaining. The tour resumes on Sunday with a big event in Nagoya at Dolphin’s Arena.
The A Block is dominated by SANADA, who is unbeaten at 5-0 and has matches remaining with Gabe Kidd and Chase Owens – neither of whom would qualify as a big enough challenger for a big show this year. It would suggest SANADA sweeps the round-robin portion and if he loses, it would be in the playoffs. They do need at least one title defense for October at Sumo Hall, so SANADA losing makes sense. Second place looks to be Kaito Kiyomiya with six points with Shota Umino also at six points, and Gabe Kidd at five. The winner of this block faces the 2nd place finisher in Block C, and the 2nd place in Block A faces 1st place in Block D in the quarter-finals.
Block B should be a lock for Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay to be the two to advance with the two tied with 4-1 records and Ospreay holding the tiebreaker. Taichi is at six points and has a win against Ospreay and a loss to Okada. If Okada and Kiyomiya are to have a rematch, it couldn’t be until the semi-finals at the earliest (if Okada won the B Block, he couldn’t face Kiyomiya until the finals as Kiyomiya cannot win the A Block).
The C Block is wide open with David Finlay, EVIL, and Tama Tonga at six points and Shingo Takagi & Eddie Kingston right behind at four points. Finlay still has matches with Takagi, Henare & Kingston but is definitely the favorite to advance while the second to qualify is a toss-up. Ishii isn’t going to advance but he could play spoiler with matches against Takagi and EVIL. I’d lean toward Tama Tonga being my pick to advance with Finlay. Tonga also pinned Finlay and should lead to a NEVER Openweight title match.
Jeff Cobb leads the D Block at 4-0 with eight points with Zack Sabre Jr. at six points, and Tetsuya Naito at four. Prior to the tournament, I felt Zack and Naito were the favorites to advance and that’s still possible. Naito has matches against Tanahashi, Zack, and Alex Coughlin. Zack faces Naito, Goto & Haste and Cobb faces Yano, Goto, and Haste. It’s hard to imagine Cobb going 0-3 for the rest of the round-robin given those opponents and would increase his chances of advancing.
If the playoffs started today, it would be SANADA vs. either Finlay/Tama Tonga/EVIL (they are tied), Will Osprray vs. Zack Sabre Jr, Finlay/Tama/EVIL vs. Kazuchika Okada, and Jeff Cobb vs. Kaito Kiyomiya in the quarter-finals.
Sunday’s card in Nagoya will stream at 3 a.m. ET (Midnight Pacific on Saturday night) with the following matches:
BLOCK C: Aaron Henare (1-3) vs. David Finlay (3-1)
BLOCK D: Toru Yano (0-4) vs. Jeff Cobb (4-0)
BLOCK C: Mikey Nicholls (1-3) vs. Eddie Kingston (2-2)
BLOCK D: Tetsuya Naito (2-2) vs. Alex Coughlin (1-3)
BLOCK C: Tomohiro Ishii (1-3) vs. EVIL (2-2)
BLOCK D: Zack Sabre Jr. (3-1) vs. Shane Haste (2-2)
BLOCK C: Tama Tonga (2-2) vs. Shingo Takagi (2-2)
BLOCK D: Hiroshi Tanahashi (2-2) vs. Hirooki Goto (2-2)
WRESTLING NEWS
**On Thursday, NBCUniversal reported its second-quarter earnings and the latest on Peacock. The streaming service is boasting 24 million subscribers, which represents an increase of 11 million subs over the past year and two million above the last quarter. While Peacock has revenue of $825 million it still managed to lose $651 million this quarter. Peacock is set to initiate its first price hike beginning August 17 when the ad-supported tier rises from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, and the ad-free tier will go from $9.99 to $11.99. Earlier this year, Peacock eliminated a free tier for new subscribers while also removing the free accessibility of Peacock for Xfinity subscribers. WWE signed a five-year deal with Peacock that went into effect in early 2021 allowing Peacock to license the WWE Network content in the U.S. including its monthly premium live events. (Hollywood Reporter)
**AEW Dynamite ranked second among cable originals on Wednesday with 383,000 viewers (0.29) and was just beaten out by Cocaine Sharks on Discovery at 0.30. (Wrestlenomics)
**Friday Night SmackDown is at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans and is back on Fox. It is the second-to-last episode before SummerSlam and we basically have the entire card laid out. Roman Reigns is not advertised for tonight, but Bianca Belair is being listed after missing last week’s episode. The show is listing the following matches:
*U.S. Title Invitational – Finals: Santos Escobar vs. Rey Mysterio
*Karrion Kross vs. Karl Anderson
**WWE has live events in Fort Myers and Coral Gables, Florida this weekend. Saturday’s card lists Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor for the World Heavyweight Championship, Cody Rhodes vs. Damian Priest vs. Dominik Mysterio, Asuka vs. Bianca Belair vs. Charlotte Flair for the Women’s title, and Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya for the Women’s Championship. Sunday’s show has Rollins vs. Balor, Rhodes vs. Priest, and Asuka vs. Belair vs. Flair as the top matches.
**AEW Rampage airs at 10 p.m. ET on TNT with another battle royal to set up future tag title challengers. The show was taped in Albany, New York with the following set to air:
*Battle Royal: Brian Cage & Big Bill, Ethan Page & Brother Zay, Jay Lethal & Satnam Singh, The Hardys, Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels, The Butcher & The Blade, Matt Menard & Angelo Parker, and Luther & Serpentico
*Nyla Rose vs. Hikaru Shida
*Komander vs. Kip Sabian (this was advertised as Scorpio Sky vs. Sabian on Dynamite but was changed to Komander with live reports stating that Tony Khan issued an update in the building that Sky was hurt.)
*Matt Taven & Mike Bennett vs. Myung-Jae Lee & Hayden Backlund (Backlund has been wrestling since late 2020 and spent time at Grappler’s Anonymous and the Nightmare Factory and done some work for C*4 in Ottawa, Lee was also trained at Grappler’s Anonymous in Buffalo and has been wrestling for two years and is a regular in the Southern Ontario independent scene.)
**AEW Collision at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, and has a strong lineup despite nothing promoted regarding CM Punk. The big match is the AEW Tag Titles on the line with FTR defending against MJF & Adam Cole after the latter team won the Blind Eliminator Tournament. MJF & Cole are the hottest act in the company and should be received as the babyfaces. I felt the taped promos were very strong this past Wednesday and this one should have plenty of time given the Collision format. There is a valid argument to put the titles on MJF & Cole given the momentum they have, although, it’s now established MJF and Cole will have a rematch imminently and could risk putting the tag titles on the backburner. Saturday’s show will also see Andrade El Idolo against Buddy Matthews in a Ladder Match, and a Trios match with El Hijo del Vikingo, Action Andretti & Darius Martin vs. The Gunns & Juice Robinson. It’s also very important they have some type of big announcement for next week’s card that goes head-to-head with SummerSlam and will be the stiffest test Collision has faced as the WWE show will be huge. In September, Collision will go head-to-head with both WWE Payback on Sept. 2 and NXT No Mercy on Sept. 30.
**NXT Great American Bash has approximately 3,900 tickets distributed at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park Texas for Sunday’s event. Cody Rhodes will be doing a voiceover for the opening of the show that goes back to 1985 and the first incarnation of the show featuring Dusty Rhodes challenging Tully Blanchard for the Television Championship in a Steel Cage Match in Charlotte. In 1985 & 1986, it was expanded to a tour with the 1986 version drawing $2.4 million over 36 events. In 1987, Rhodes introduced the WarGames concept at The Omni in Atlanta to kick off the GAB tour and had an unbelievable month of business for the tour. Sunday’s show looks strong and the NXT PLEs have found their footing and while not at the level of the classic Black & Gold era, they are still very good shows and it’s a way stronger mix of experienced and rising talent than the earlier days of the 2.0 era. Below is the card:
*NXT Championship: Carmelo Hayes © vs. Ilja Dragunov
*NXT North American Championship: Dominik Mysterio © vs. Wes Lee vs. Mustafa Ali
*NXT Women’s Championship: Tiffany Stratton © vs. Thea Hail
*NXT Tag Team Championships: Wolfgang & Mark Coffey © vs. Tony D’Angelo & Channing Lorenzo
*Weapons Wild Match: Roxanne Perez vs. Blair Davenport
*Gable Steveson vs. Baron Corbin
*Kickoff Show: Nathan Frazer, Dragon Lee, Yulisa Leon & Valentina Feroz vs. Noam Dar, Oro Mensah, Lash Legend & Jakara Jackson
**This past Tuesday’s episode of NXT in Canada averaged 87,300 viewers and 42,800 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 and ranked tenth among sports programs for the night.
**Thursday’s G1 card at Ota Ward City Gymnasium drew 2,316 fans for Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay. In 2022, NJPW ran the venue on back-to-back nights at Ota Ward during the G1 and drew 1,919 with Jay White vs. Tomohiro Ishii in the main event and 2,518 on the second night headlined by Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi.
**Exodus Pro has signed a streaming deal with the Premier Streaming Network. In the press release, they describe Exodus Pro as “the new professional wrestling promotion from the mind of EC3” and will launch on August 12 with “The Journey Home” in Cleveland and available to Premier+ subscribers.
**The Motor City Machine Guns will have a rare singles match on September 1 for Prestige Wrestling. Alex Shelley will defend the Prestige Championship against Chris Sabin at Prestige’s ‘Roseland 6’ at the Roseland Theatre in Portland, Oregon, and streaming on IWTV.live. The card includes Matt Cardona vs. Tyler Breeze, Rey Fenix vs. Rey Horus, Killer Kelly vs. Xia Brookside, and Shun Skywalker vs. Kevin Blackwood.
**Next week’s Ring of Honor show will feature Katsuyori Shibata defending the Pure Championship against Josh Woods on Honor Club.
MMA NEWS
**Michel Pereira missed weight for his welterweight fight against Stephen Thompson. Pereira missed weight by three pounds and the status of the fight for Saturday at UFC 291 is up in the air. This was a major fight for Pereira, who has quietly won five in a row and Thompson was the biggest name he had been matched against.
**UFC 291 is a very strong card led by the rematch between Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, who previously fought five years ago and Poirier won by TKO in the fourth round. While boxing had ‘The Four Kings’, an equal label should be attached to the group of Poirier, Gaethje, Michael Chandler, Charles Oliveira, and I’d add Eddie Alvarez to that mix with the five producing some of the best fights of any era with so many combinations over the years. At 34 years of age, Poirier and Gaethje are at that stage where you question when that check is coming due to the damage incurred from an ungodly level of fights over the years. At stake for Poirier is the potential of one more shot at the lightweight title and would seem a strong candidate to challenge the winner of Islam Makhachev and Charles Oliveira, who will fight in October.
It’s worth noting that Salt Lake City is at elevation and this was a big factor for several fighters when the UFC held its card there last summer. Several fighters got to Salt Lake City in advance to acclimate but that’s obviously going to favor the fighters that have the financial means to do so and bring their team along for a longer trip.
UFC 291 is a crossroads for several veterans including Stephen Thompson, Tony Ferguson, and Derrick Lewis. Thompson is 40 years old but has the Kota Ibushi gene where he hardly looks his age (though Ibushi has aged throughout his hiatus) and is unlikely to be a contender at welterweight this late in his career. Ferguson is past the point of anyone thinking he can get his career back on track and I’d imagine most of his supporters just want to see him come out unscathed after so many losses and a concerning incident earlier this year when he rolled his vehicle and was charged with DUI. Lewis has lost three of his last four and has been moved down to the prelims for this card. He is a very popular fighter but has several major weaknesses that have been exposed in fights and admitted to falling to the pressure of headlining a card in his hometown against Ciryl Gane two years ago, which is probably the closest he’ll ever come to a championship of any kind.
This is a stronger card than the International Fight Week show earlier this month but it’s a big ask for your audience to buy two pay-per-views in a three-week period along with another pay-per-view on August 19 and making it three events in six weeks at $80 U.S. per card.
Saturday night is also a competitive one for combat sports as UFC is going head-to-head with the big fight between Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence, which is priced at $84.95 on Showtime pay-per-view.
Here is the full card for UFC 291 on Saturday:
MAIN CARD (10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view)
*BMF Championship: Dustin Poirier (29-7, 1 NC) vs. Justin Gaethje (24-4) – Poirier has won three of his last four and last submitted Michael Chandler last November. Gaethje has won six of his last eight fights with the two losses being submissions in championship fights against Khabib Nurmagomedov and Charles Oliveira. Poirier is an excellent submission fighter and if this goes to the ground, he would be heavily favored. On the feet, Gaethje is much more disciplined than his earlier fights but both know they are in a position to deliver a fight that is all fireworks and we will see if both can avoid that temptation to forfeit their game plan in favor of a war. A title fight is possible for either winner. Gaethje weighed 156 pounds but this fight allows for a one-pound allowance despite it being for a title.
*Jan Blachowicz (29-9-1) vs. Alex Pereira (7-2) – This is really interesting to see Pereira make his light heavyweight debut as he was a super large middleweight and he could own this division if it agrees with him. Blachowicz is a major test, although he is 40 and is coming off a split draw with Magomed Ankalaev. With the injury to Jamahal Hill, the division is wide open with the winner of this fight joining Ankalaev, and the eventual return of Jiri Prochazka (who was injured and never lost the belt, just like Hill) forming the title picture for the vacant belt.
*Michel Pereira (28-11, 2 NC) vs. Stephen Thompson (17-6-1) – Pereira missed weight by three pounds and will hurt his stock if this fight falls apart. Thompson, 40, has lost two of his last three but is a great counter striker, and while outside title consideration, he is still a strong litmus test at the division.
*Tony Ferguson (25-8) vs. Bobby Green (29-14-1, 1 NC) – Ferguson is 39 and has lost his last five fights and absorbed tons of damage. His losses have been to quality fighters in Justin Gaethje, Charles Oliveira, Beneil Darius, Michael Chandler, and Nate Diaz. But his time has come, and he should be winding down his career, although he’s speaking the opposite this week. Green is a frustrating stand-up fighter for guys to figure out and is very unorthodox with his entries and I suspect he gives Ferguson a lot of problems and likely wins a decision.
*Michael Chiesa (16-6) vs. Kevin Holland (24-9, 1 NC) – Chiesa is back after nearly two years off and says his back is in great shape and has gotten his injuries taken care of. If Chiesa is close to his best, I see him as a solid favorite to win this fight as Holland has a lot of holes in his game when matched with the upper echelon. This will be Holland’s 14th fight since May 2020 and is an astonishing number of fights in a three-year window. Chiesa comes off losses to Vicente Luque and Sean Brady while Holland knocked out Santiago Ponzinibbio this past April.
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN & ESPN+)
*Gabriel Bonfim (14-0) vs. Trevin Giles (15-4)
*Derrick Lewis (26-11) vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima (21-8-1)
*Roman Kopylov (10-2) vs. Claudio Ribeiro (11-3)
*Jake Matthews (17-6) vs. Darrius Flowers (11-5-1)|
EARLY PRELIMS (6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+ & Fight Pass)
*Vinicius Salvador (13-5) vs. CJ Vergara (11-4-1) – Salvador missed weight at 128.5 pounds and was fined 20% of his purse according to MMA Junkie and the fight will go on
*Priscila Cachoeira (12-4) vs. Miranda Maverick (11-5)
*Uros Medic (8-1) vs. Matthew Semelsberger (11-5)
**Bellator was hit by a major blow with the loss of top star A.J. McKee in the World Lightweight Grand Prix. Due to a staph infection, McKee is off Saturday’s card in Japan and being replaced by RIZIN’s lightweight champion Roberto de Souza in a 161-pound catchweight fight against Patricky “Pitbull” Freire. It gets confusing as this is still part of the World Lightweight Grand Prix even though the two are fighting at 161 pounds because of the short notice for de Souza. McKee will remain the top alternate, if necessary, throughout the remainder of the Grand Prix. Bellator has also added Patricky’s brother, Patricio, to Saturday’s card where the Bellator Featherweight Champion will fight Chihiro Suzuki in a non-title, 154-pound catchweight fight on the RIZIN portion of the card.
The Bellator card airs at 11 p.m. ET on Showtime on Saturday night with the RIZIN card airing right afterward at 3 a.m. ET (Sunday morning) and available on FITE TV for $19.99 USD.
The Bellator portion features Patricky “Pitbull” Freire (24-11) vs. Roberto de Souza (14-2) at 161 pounds in the World Lightweight Grand Prix, Kyoji Horiguchi (31-5) vs. Makoto Shinryu (11-1-1) to crown the first Bellator Flyweight Champion, Magomed Magomedov (19-3) vs. Danny Sabatello (14-2), Kana Watanabe (11-2-1) vs. Veta Arteaga (7-5), and Andrey Koreshkov (25-4) vs. Lorenz Larkin (25-7). This will go head-to-head with both the UFC 291 main card and Terrence Crawford vs. Errol Spence pay-per-view.
The RIZIN portion will have Mikuru Asakura (17-3) vs. Vugar Karamov (18-4) for the RIZIN Featherweight Championship, Hiromasa Ougikubo (25-7-2) vs. Juan Archuleta (28-4) for the vacant RIZIN Bantamweight Championship, Seika Izawa (10-0) vs. Claire Lopez (8-4) for the RIZIN Atomweight Championship, Kenta Takizawa (13-9) vs. Shinobu Ota (3-2), Igor Tanabe (2-0) vs. Daichi Abe (12-6), Yuki Ito (13-5) vs. Hiroya Kondo (8-10-1), Akira Okada (19-9-4) vs. Tofiq Musayev (20-5), and the new fight between Patricio “Pitbull” Freire (35-6) and Chihiro Suzuki (10-3) at 154 pounds.
**Next Saturday’s boxing fight between Jake Paul and Nate Diaz from Dallas, Texas will be available on DAZN pay-per-view for $59.99 USD & CDN. Logan Paul has said that he wants his match with Ricochet to go on first at SummerSlam in Detroit, so he can immediately fly to Dallas and make it in time to corner his brother, which is ultra-ambitious.
*****
MCU L8R: Secret Invasion Season Finale Review
It’s the Secret Invasion Finale! Nate Milton joins to help WH Park & Rich Fann explain what they saw and what they missed.
*****
Dark Side of the Ring: Bam Bam Bigelow Review
It’s the Secret Invasion Finale! Nate Milton joins to help WH Park & Rich Fann explain what they saw and what they missed.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with The BCC vs. Best Friends vs. Lucha Bros. in the main event, AR Fox joins Mogul Embassy, and Chris Jericho will team with Konosuke Takeshita.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the NXT Great American Bash “Go-Home” edition of WWE NXT from July 25th, 2023 featuring Rhea Ripley vs Lyra Valkyria.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with Becky Lynch taking on Zoey Stark, Logan Paul confronts Ricochet & a contract signing for SummerSlam.
*****
THE N.W.A. PODCAST
Nate Milton, Kris Ealy and Andrew Thompson are joined by Ray Williams of Kings of Sport to chat July’s biggest wrestling news stories.
*****
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