POST IT NOTES
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (11 p.m. ET)
Tuesday: The Wellness Policy with Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman & Neal Flanagan
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show with John & Wai (POST Wrestling Café exclusive)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café exclusive)
Saturday: NXT No Mercy review with Braden Herrington & John Siino
Saturday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café exclusive)
Sunday: AEW WrestleDream review with John Pollock & John Siino
To submit questions for the ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show, you can send them through the POST Wrestling Forum thread, or send an audio question (for free) to memo.fm/postwrestling by Thursday.
Karen Peterson and Bruce Lord have a big review of NJPW Destruction in Kobe for POST Wrestling Café members.
WRESTLING NEWS
**WrestleDream takes place this Sunday from the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle with approximately 5,300 tickets out for the event, per WrestleTix. On paper, this could be one of the best shows of 2023 with Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page, Christian Cage vs. Darby in a two-of-three fall match for the TNT title, Kenny Omega teaming with Chris Jericho & Kota Ibushi against Will Ospreay & Konosuke Takeshita & Sammy Guevara, The Young Bucks vs. Lucha Bros. vs. The Gunns vs. Orange Cassidy & Hook, Eddie Kingston vs. Katsuyori Shibata for the ROH & NJPW STRONG titles, Kris Statlander vs. Julia Hart for the TBS title, FTR vs. Aussie Open for the AEW tag titles, and MJF & Adam Cole vs. The Righteous for the ROH tag titles.
Even by AEW standards, this is a loaded show but quality at this level is almost expected from the promotion and shows the insane level that expectations are. It’s been a month since fans bought the All In and All Out shows, and is enough of a gap that I don’t see the return to pay-per-view as too sudden. If AEW does in fact move to monthly shows, this will be the norm and their audience has shown a strong appetite. The buzz for the show has not hit a big level yet and they have six hours of original programming to air and solidify this as a “must-see” show. The tease by Tony Khan that this will usher in a “new era” for AEW is going to gain traction throughout the week and invariably wild speculation as to what it means. The pay-per-view also coincides with the time frame that Adam Copeland stated was the end of his WWE deal and I can see that story gaining momentum throughout the week unless it’s shot down. Prior to All In and All Out, AEW has reportedly been hovering in the ballpark of 140,000 buys for its events of late, a number that I would consider a big success if this show could achieve. The big negative is that it’s airing against Sunday Night Football and is the first time an AEW pay-per-view has faced the NFL. It is 24 hours after the NXT No Mercy card, but based on prior examples, I don’t see that having a major impact. There is an inevitable tipping point with WWE and AEW programming alone making up for approximately 12 hours of content between Friday and Sunday night and that is just way too much for a fan to consume. The natural reaction is that no fan is required to watch all this wrestling, but it misses a larger point of actively telling your fan base that you don’t have to watch the entirety of our product. Wrestling viewing is all about habit creation and once you break those habits, it is very difficult to reform them. If you skip one pay-per-view, it becomes very easy to miss the next one and you go from a fan that bought four shows per year to being way more selective when the creatures of habit become creatures of options.
All of wrestling is going full steam ahead with more and more hours of content with the hopes of earning record revenues for producing them. As we have learned, the importance and significance of a show will override the price whether it’s a pay-per-view or a streaming event that comes at a fraction of a cost. AEW just demonstrated how effective it can be in the final days before a major show with Grand Slam having an incredible last-minute surge in tickets sold and drawing its best 18-49 audience of the year. This week the pay-per-view is the focus while also keeping the trains running out of the station with their weekly television with nine hours of content and a Countdown special on the menu.
Between WWE and AEW’s first-run programming, there will be nineteen hours of programming including No Mercy and WrestleDream. It’s a heavier number than usual due to the specials but it’s still a daunting number of hours removing those two shows. When you figure in the commitment to keeping up with WWE and AEW, it becomes a lot easier to process why engagement for other wrestling companies is so much lower and how many promotions are fighting for a sliver of the pie. This is the reality for IMPACT Wrestling, MLW, Game Changer Wrestling, NOAH, and even New Japan where it’s a double whammy of trying to attract an audience to sign up for a service but also finding the time to dedicate to these alternative products when so much of the wrestling demand is filled from the big two. This same exercise was implemented in 2012 when UFC moved to Fox and began to add more events to the point it became a near-weekly occurrence and has led to a massive chasm from the promotion with all of its competitors from Bellator, PFL, RIZIN, Bare Knuckle, Invicta FC, etc.
**Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that Matt Riddle has at least one major MMA company “if not more” interested in him fighting again. Riddle is 37 years old and has not competed in nearly a decade, although does train but has years of pro wrestling wear and tear on his body. For many reasons, the UFC would not seem like a company interested while the PFL is desperate for anyone with name identity as they try to make it in the pay-per-view space and have just received a major injection of capital by selling a 10% stake in the company to a group in Saudi Arabia. For Riddle, it will probably come down to the temperature of other wrestling companies and whether they want to take a chance on him and can accept his past issues including the Speaking Out allegations from 2020. History shows that a star of that level will always receive the benefit of the doubt and he’s been a significantly featured performer on WWE programming for the past five years. New Japan was very close to signing Riddle in 2018 when WWE scooped him up. There is also the mental hurdle of going from making big WWE money and odds are, much less outside of WWE but requires even more work with the hustle that aspect of the industry entails. AEW is the only one in the market that could pay comparable to WWE but that’s a huge question mark if they will consider him. If the MMA promotion in question is PFL or even Bare Knuckle (who will pay sizable amounts for name-value stars), you can make a lot of money without being on the road and tie it in with various sponsorships from the name-recognition standpoint, but MMA is a tough road to revisit for a pro wrestler that is ten years older than the last time they fought.
**Meltzer also noted on the same show that Sheamus is dealing with a “really bad shoulder injury” and is the reason he has been away for the past month. Sheamus last wrestled on August 18 against Edge on the episode of SmackDown from Toronto.
**The AEW Collision figures will be released on Tuesday but they aired a gigantic college game between Notre Dame and Ohio State. NBC announced that the game was its most-watched regular season college game since 1993 with 10.5 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and NBC Sports Digital. The game started at 7:30 p.m. ET and aired against the entirety of Collision from 8-10 on TNT.
**WWE Raw is at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California tonight with approximately 8,000 tickets distributed as of Monday morning, per WrestleTix. For the second week in a row, Raw airs against two NFL games with Philadelphia vs. Tampa airing at 7:15 p.m. ET and the L.A. Rams against Cincinnati at 8:15 p.m. with the games airing across Disney’s platforms including ABC & ESPN. Monday Night Football has led to the two lowest audiences in Raw’s history for a first-run airing and will be compounded by the simulcasts on ABC all season long. WWE has announced multiple matches and segments for tonight:
*Cody Rhodes opens the show
*WWE Undisputed Tag Titles: Finn Balor & Damian Priest © vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
*NXT North American Championship: Dominik Mysterio © vs. Dragon Lee
*Bronson Reed vs. Otis
*Shinsuke Nakamura answers Seth Rollins’ challenge
*Drew McIntyre on MizTV
Of the talents cut, the only ones I’d be curious about regarding some type of write-off explanation are Matt Riddle and Mustafa Ali. Both were in the middle of stories with Riddle tied to Drew McIntyre and Ali was supposed to appear on Raw and face Dominik Mysterio at No Mercy this weekend. Often, the released talent is never acknowledged and just dropped cold but that’s a very lazy way to treat your audience and comes off disjointed on the program.
**NXT on Tuesday will feature the finals of the Global Heritage Invitational with Joe Coffey vs. Butch, Baron Corbin vs. Josh Briggs, Dijak vs. Eddy Thorpe in a Strap Match, Joe Gacy vs. Trick Williams, Blair Davenport vs. Gigi Dolin, and Hank Walker & Tank Ledger vs. Bronco Nima & Lucien Price. The big appearance is by Becky Lynch, who is also scheduled for next Tuesday’s show after No Mercy.
**The Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix ends this Saturday at Yokohama Budokan with many women still alive in both blocks. There will be ten round-robin matches to determine the winner of the Red Stars and Blue Stars and the winners of each block will meet in the main event. The Red Stars are led by Suzu Suzuki & Natsuko Tora (12 points), Syuri & Tam Nakano & Mayu Iwatani (11) as the top players. The Blue Stars have a tie between Maika and MIRAI (10 points), followed by Mina Shirakawa & Giulia (9), and a tie between AZM, Utami Hayashishita, Saori Anou & Momo Watanabe (8). Karen Peterson will be reviewing the card this Saturday on POST Wrestling.
**Jake Lee retained the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Go Shiozaki on Sunday’s Grand Ship 2023 card from Nagoya in front of 940 fans. It was a really solid, hard-hitting match with Shiozaki targeting the leg of Lee. Lee won with the running boot (FBS) for the clean win and was confronted by Kenou afterward, which will be his next title defense. There was one title change on the show as Jack Morris & Anthony Greene beat Saxon Huxley & Timothy Thatcher to become the GHC tag champions.
**DDT will stage one of its biggest cards ever when it runs Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall) on November 12 with the big match involving Chris Jericho facing Konosuke Takeshita. They also set up Chris Brookes to defend the KO-D Openweight title against Yuki Ueno for that card. After his loss to Takeshita, MAO challenged Matt Cardona for the DDT Universal title after confronting him backstage. If ever there was a DDT show that was going to move subscriber numbers, it’s this show due to Jericho.
**Zack Sabre Jr. wrestled on Sunday’s Destruction in Kobe card and doesn’t have any New Japan dates until Royal Quest III on October 14. It would make sense to have him on at least one of the AEW shows this week prior to WrestleDream to promote the match with Bryan Danielson.
**The WWE Network has added ten episodes of WWF Superstars from December 15, 1996 through February 16, 1997. This period covers the first month of the year when Shawn Michaels regains the WWF Championship from Sid at the Royal Rumble and vacates the belts the next month as they go into the February In Your House show with a four-way match for the title. February 1997 is also when Raw expands to two hours and would further reduce Superstars’ level of importance.
**West Coast Pro has announced a rematch between Takuma Iroha and Masha Slamovich for the West Coast Pro Women’s Championship on October 14 on their fifth-anniversary card. Iroha beat Slamovich for the title on August 10 in San Francisco and became the second person to hold the title. The October card also features Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Alpha Zo, Masato Tanaka vs. Vinnie Massaro, and Ultimo Dragon & Motor City Machine Guns vs. Los Suavecitos.
**Being the Elite Ep. 366: “Get the Duck out”.
**Denise Salcedo interviews Brandon Thurston on the history of Wrestlenomics, the function it serves in the wrestling space, and the work Brandon provides.
*SUKEBAN has released their debut card from last Thursday for free on YouTube.
MMA NEWS
**Zach Rosenfield, who represents Nate Diaz, issued an update regarding an incident this past April where Diaz was involved in an altercation on the street in New Orleans. The courts have decided not to proceed with the case with Diaz’s arguing he was acting in self-defense. Rosenfield issued the following statement:
Today, the Orleans Parish District Attorney informed us they will not be pursuing a case against Nate Diaz.
Since Rodney Peterson sought out to fight Nate on Bourbon Street, we have maintained Nate’s actions were 100% in self defense. It was clear on video, clear in pictures and clear from the multiple other videos Rodney posted before and after.
Nate has a right to defend himself against those who want to make a name for themselves and did so.
We appreciate the Orleans Parish District Attorney taking the time to review all aspects of this case and their decision to not proceed with it.
**Bellator 299 saw Johnny Eblen stop Fabian Edwards in the third round of their middleweight title fight with Eblen winning by knockout and making the second defense of his title while improving to 14-0. Eblen and UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland train together and Eblen is definitely a superior wrestler but his striking has also become a big calling card and this is one example where you could argue that Bellator has the top fighter in this weight class. Aaron Pico improved to 12-4 by beating Pedro Carvalho by first-round TKO, which is a solid victory. Pico has now won eight of his last nine fights after things were looking dicey following consecutive stoppage losses in 2019. The blueprint of Pico’s handling after those losses is one of the stronger attributes of the Bellator matchmaking throughout this era. After a unanimous decision loss to Mads Burnell, long-time Bellator fighter Daniel Weichel announced he is retiring at age 38 with a record of 42-15. Weichel was a lightweight champion in M-1 Global and came to Bellator in 2014 and challenged for the featherweight title twice with a pair of decision losses to Patricio Pitbull. Since 2021, Weichel has gone 2-3 and has lost three of his last four fights following this most recent defeat. Weichel fought professionally for twenty-one years.
**Dana White’s Contender Series airs Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET from the UFC Apex. There will be five fights with Danny Barlow (6-0) vs. Raheam Forest (4-0), Mario Piazzon (6-0) vs. Alexander Soldatkin (14-3), Vinicius de Oliveira (18-3) vs. Victor Madrigal (4-0), Ernesta Kerackaite (4-0-1) vs, Carli Judice (3-0), and Danny Silva (1-0) vs. Angel Pacheco (1-0).
**This is one of the few weekends coming up without a UFC or Bellator card. The UFC returns on October 7 with an Apex card headlined by Grant Dawson vs. Bobby Green on the same night as Bellator 300 featuring four title fights in San Diego.
**Multiple fights have been added to UFC 296 on December 16 in Las Vegas. Last week, two title fights were announced with Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington for the UFC Welterweight Championship and Alexandre Pantoja vs. Brandon Royval for the UFC Flyweight Championship. Since then, a welterweight fight between Stephen Thompson and Shavkat Rahmonov has been added along with Tony Ferguson vs. Paddy Pimblett, and a welterweight fight between Vicente Luque and Ian Machado Garry.
**James Lynch speaks with Erik Makgraken on the UFC antitrust lawsuit:
*****
NJPW Destruction in Kobe
Bruce Lord and Karen Peterson review NJPW Destruction in Kobe featuring Will Ospreay defending the IWGP UK Championship against Yota Tsuji.
*****
COLLISION COURSE
John Siino returns to join Kate From MTL as they review AEW Collision featuring Bryan Danielson vs. Ricky Starks in a Texas Death Match.
*****
POSTmarks #23: Cory Rabiea
Bruce Lord and David Meyers talk to Cory Rabiea about finding wrestling through video games, going to college at a prison, and his music career.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss WWE’s talent roster cuts, SmackDown’s move to USA, and tonight’s episode featuring IYO SKY vs. Asuka.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #139: The Last of McGuinness (2013 Documentary)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review The Last of McGuinness (2013), an intensely personal look at Nigel McGuinness’ struggles to come to terms with the events that led to the end of his pro wrestling career.
*****
BREAKING: WWE SmackDown to USA Network
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston have a breaking news show reacting to the announcement of WWE SmackDown leaving Fox and returning to USA Network.
*****
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