POST IT NOTES
**Josh Nason was our guest on Pollock & Thurston on Wednesday discussing SmackDown moving back to USA, AEW’s “new era”, the hours of programming being produced, and comparisons to UFC’s expansion over the past decade, and a bold prediction from Josh! Plus, we review AEW’s media call hosted by Tony Khan and the latest on WWE vs. Panini.
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live at 10:05 p.m. ET tonight with Wai Ting and I reviewing Dynamite from Colorado, Jade Cargill signing with WWE, TV ratings, No Mercy & taking your feedback.
**Last call for questions for this month’s ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show. You can submit your questions by Thursday morning on the POST Wrestling Forum or submit an audio question at memo.fm/postwrestling. The show will be released Thursday evening for POST Café members.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tuesday’s episode of NXT averaged 636,000 viewers and 0.18 in the 18-49 demographic, which topped all sports programs on cable for the day. It was a fall back to the normal range of the show after two weeks of being boosted by matches involving Becky Lynch. The audience was down 23% from last week and the 18-49 audience fell by 26%. The major declines were among females with a 48% drop in 18-49, a 46% drop in 18-34, and a 50% loss in 35-49 from the previous week. It was NXT’s lowest audience since August 29. NXT still edged out PTI on ESPN, and the WNBA playoffs for the top spot among sports on cable for Tuesday. (Wrestlenomics & Sports TV Ratings)
**In Canada, Tuesday’s episode of NXT averaged 57,200 viewers and 24,100 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It ranked #7 for the night among sports programs behind the Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees, which was led by the Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees and averaged 1,452,000 viewers. With the Jays chasing a Wild Card spot, their numbers are going to be huge this week as the season wraps on Sunday.
**AEW Dynamite is at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado tonight for Dynamite. The last update from WrestleTix lists just over 2,700 tickets distributed for the tapings tonight. It is the first of four nights of programming from AEW with Rampage, Collision, and WrestleDream to follow. Zack Sabre Jr. has no commitments with New Japan this week and therefore, could be available for tonight and Saturday prior to the match with Bryan Danielson in Seattle. The following announcements have been made for tonight’s program on TBS:
*Matt Jackson vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Austin Gunn vs. Penta El Zero Miedo
*Julia Hart vs. Willow Nightingale
*MJF & Adam Cole to appear with an update regarding Cole’s status for Sunday
*A contract signing between Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page
*Jim Ross conducts a sit-down interview with Christian Cage and Darby Allin
**Roy Lucier shared the following message from Joyce Grable’s son Terry regarding the health of his mother, who is under hospice care:
Joyce Grable update!
Joyce will be returning home tomorrow. Unfortunately it will be under hospice care. We will make sure that she’s knows she is loved. We will do everything in our power to make sure that she is as comfortable as she can possibly be.
She has lived a long fulfilling life and is ready to be with the Lord.
We ask for continued prayers for peace and mercy as she lives out her final days here on earth.
She will happily receive any cards that anyone would like to send. 5543 Bevis Road Franklin Ga. 30217.
Thank you to everyone that has prayed and reached out to offer support.
**After two seasons, Starz has canceled “Heels”, which starred Stephen Amell and featured CM Punk in a recurring role. The pro wrestling-themed series focused on a territory in Georgia with Amell in the lead role as Jack Spade. The second season averaged 40,000 viewers per episode and a 0.01 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which was down from 91,000 and 0.02 in the first season from 2021, per SLAM Wrestling.
**Tokyo Sports has an article on Katsuhiko Nakajima wrapping up with Pro Wrestling NOAH next month and where the outlet theorizes where his potential destination is (using Google translate from the original Japanese text):
Where will Nakajima, who will be free from October, go? He is said to have a strong interest in overseas markets, and there are rumors that he will compete in American mats such as WWE and AEW. Future trends are attracting attention.
**With the return of football, ESPN and FS 1 have each seen a small increase in the number of cable subscribers from last month. Sports TV Ratings reports that ESPN is in 71,080,000 homes (an increase of 205,000 from August) and FS 1 is in 70,986,000 homes (an increase of 203,000 homes from August).
**NJPW’s Road to Destruction tour resumes Thursday in Saitama with SANADA, DOUKI & Taka Michinoku against EVIL, SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru in the main event. On Saturday & Sunday, they are running Korakuen Hall with both shows streaming on NJPW World.
**Thursday’s episode of IMPACT Wrestling from the tapings in Memphis will feature the following on AXS TV:
*X Division Championship: Chris Sabin © vs. Alan Angels
*Non-Title: Trinity vs. Gisele Shaw
*Memphis Street Fight: Tommy Dreamer & Heath vs. Kenny King & Sheldon Jean
*Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Jonathan Gresham
*Rhino vs. Jack Price
*Yuya Uemura’s Goodbye Ceremony
*Before the Impact: Sami Callihan & Rich Swann vs. Laredo Kid & Black Taurus
**GCW is going to St. Louis on Friday, November 3 with a card at Pop’s Nightclub that will stream on FITE+. They have not announced when tickets are going on sale.
**The TKO stock closed at $80.82 on Wednesday.
MMA NEWS
**Hall of Fame boxing commentator “Colonel” Bob Sheridan has died at the age of 79. Sheridan began calling boxing in 1966 and would call some of the biggest fights of the era including Muhammad Ali’s fights with George Foreman, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers, Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes, the Thrilla in Manilla with Joe Frazier, Buster Douglas’ massive upset against Mike Tyson in February 1990 at the Tokyo Dome, and the Tyson fights with Evander Holyfield later that decade including the “Bite Fight” from June 1997 (where he suffered a heart attack that morning and managed to call the fight) along with countless other championship fights involving the biggest boxers of those decades. Late in his career, he began calling MMA fights for BoDog Fight, which was funded by Calvin Ayre with Sheridan working with former UFC commentator Jeff Osborne and former fighter & pro wrestler Paul Lazenby. Sheridan is a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame, and the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, and was presented with the Sam Taub Award by the Boxers Writers’ Association of America.
**Mark Hunt’s lengthy case against the UFC appears to be over with a judge striking down Hunt’s claims. Hunt initially sued the UFC, Dana White, and Brock Lesnar after his loss to Lesnar at UFC 200 in July 2016 and the discovery that Lesnar failed a pair of drug tests related to the fight while also bypassing the USADA protocol for a retired fighter to enter the testing pool prior to returning. Hunt’s suit alleged racketeering, fraud, and breach of contract and was ruled against twice by Judge Jennifer Dorsey but an appeals court reversed the decision. Hunt was unable to prove that Dana White was aware of Lesnar’s usage of banned substances prior to the fight nor was it proven that Hunt sustained any additional damage in the fight due to the substances Lesnar was using. Lesnar won a three-round decision over Hunt but it was later changed to a no-contest when the results of Lesnar’s tests came back. During this period, the WWE issued a statement that only full-time performers were subjected to its Wellness Policy testing and therefore, Lesnar was exempt. Lesnar returned a month later to the SummerSlam event in August 2016 for a match with Randy Orton and never fought again, although did tease a fight with Daniel Cormier when he entered the cage after Cormier’s heavyweight title over Stipe Miocic in July 2018.
**Jason Cruz of MMA Payout has a great interview with Michael Thomsen on his book Cage Kings: How an Unlikely Group of Moguls, Champions & Hustlers Transformed the UFC into a $10 Billion Industry on the history of the UFC and its ongoing antitrust issues and the process of reporting on the company, the tight-lipped nature of many people associated with the UFC and access he received during the project. The book is available now through Simon & Schuster.
**UFC president stated at the Contender Series’ press conference on Tuesday that Belal Muhammad has a fight scheduled and it will be announced soon. There was a lot of pushback when Colby Covington received the next welterweight title fight against Leon Edwards at UFC 296 in December despite Muhammad being unbeaten since January 2019. Muhammad is coming off a unanimous decision win against Gilbert Burns at UFC 288 this past May.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston are joined by Josh Nason of the Wrestling Observer site to discuss SmackDown to USA & more.
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upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT featuring Axiom vs Trick Williams vs Dragon Lee vs Tyler Bate to determine Dominik Mysterio’s opponent for the NXT North American Championship at No Mercy!
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THE WELLNESS POLICY
Ahead of Jordan’s birthday, we speak about the topic of aging — why some may feel uncomfortable with it and why some may not! Neal drops a bombshell revelation on the POST Wrestling universe.
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REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with Judgment Day defending the tag titles against Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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