POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: Rewind-A-Wai – TUF Season 1 (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Wai (FREE)
Friday: ROH Final Battle with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: UFC 296 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte
Sunday: The N.W.A. Podcast with Nate Milton, Andrew Thompson & Kris Ealy
On tonight’s Rewind-A-Raw, we will go through the submissions for our Iron Claw contest and select the winners to go see an advance screening of the film in Toronto this week. We will have a lot of news to discuss at the beginning of the show before the Raw review.
This Thursday, Rewind-A-Wai will cover the first three episodes of season one of The Ultimate Fighter along with the finale fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar. The show will be released for POST Wrestling Café members and feedback can be submitted on the POST Wrestling Forum.
This is a reminder that our POST Wrestling Christmas Jingle Contest is open to everyone with the deadline to submit your jingle on Thursday, December 21.
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw takes place from the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio. The arena has significance in CM Punk’s career where he walked out of the company in January 2014 prior to Raw in that building. In September 2016, he made his UFC debut in the same arena where he fought Mickey Gall at UFC 203. Tonight’s episode will revolve around Punk’s decision of where to sign following appearances at SmackDown and NXT Deadline. His promo was very strong on Friday as it laid out short and long-term directions with a roadmap appearing to be his entry into the Royal Rumble match where he and Cody Rhodes will be the favorites and then, his goal of headlining WrestleMania (which makes sense to be the Seth Rollins match). There are always variables but that was what you left to assume after Friday’s promo. He also dropped Roman Reigns’ name and that he was the “OG Paul Heyman Guy”, which is a big match down the road.
There is extra competition tonight with two Monday Night Football games airing. The Green Bay Packers vs. New York Giants airs on ABC & ESPN+ and the Tennessee Titans vs. Miami Dolphins will air on ESPN and ESPN+. There are two more weeks of Monday Night Football (although Raw is not expected to have a new episode on 12/25) but they will air against the College Football Championship game on January 8 and an NFL Wild Card playoff game on January 15. It will be interesting to see if WWE opts to hold off on Punk’s first televised match for the Royal Rumble or decide to have him wrestle on television prior. Punk has not been advertised for any of the post-Christmas house shows but I don’t see any harm in putting Punk on television for a match prior to the Rumble and market it as Punk’s first WWE match in a decade. The optimal week would be January 22 on the go-home show before the Rumble and the first week without NFL competition where the audience is naturally going to be boosted and it’s a big attraction to boost viewership heading into the Rumble and WrestleMania season.
Here is the lineup for Raw tonight in Cleveland:
*CM Punk makes his decision
*Cody Rhodes vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
*Jey Uso vs. Drew McIntyre
*Non-Title Match: Rhea Ripley vs. Maxxine Dupri
*Becky Lynch “calls out” Nia Jax
**The World Tag League wrapped up on Sunday after the sixteen-show tour. IWGP tag champions Bishamon won the Tag League for the third year in a row by beating El Phantasmo & Hikuelo in a 40+ minute match. The total announced attendance for the sixteen shows was 17,127 or 1,070 per show. The biggest attendance was for the finals which drew an announced attendance of 2,658 in Kumamoto and seven shows topping 1,100. A rematch of the finals between Bishamon and El Phantasmo & Hikuelo will take place at Wrestle Kingdom 18 in a Title vs. Title match between and the IWGP tag champions and STRONG Openweight tag champions.
**A special show at Korakuen Hall is set for February 9 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of pro wrestling airing on NTV with Pro Wrestling NOAH announcing it would be participating in the event. NTV’s history with professional wrestling goes back to February 19, 1954, when it broadcast a JWA card from Kuramae Kokugikan headlined by Rikidozan & Masahiko Kimura against Ben & Mike Sharpe with the two teams going to a 61:00 draw. The first of three nights of shows were broadcast on both NTV and NHK with NTV airing the second and third nights with Rikidozan vs. Ben Sharpe on the second night and a tag team rematch on night three. NTV became the home of All Japan Pro Wrestling after it launched in 1972 and remained the home of All Japan until the formation of Pro Wrestling in NOAH twenty-eight years later. No matches have been announced yet for the anniversary card.
**Peacock will be streaming a documentary on Braun Strowman this Friday called Braun Strowman: Waukesha Strong, which will be added at 10 a.m. ET. This follows past Peacock documentaries on Ric Flair, Cody Rhodes, and Kurt Angle.
**Several weeks ago, Kontji Anthony of WREG News Channel 3 interviewed Jerry Lawler at his home. Lawler took Anthony on a tour of his various collectibles including his Batmobile and showed off his many ring robes. Lawler spoke about the stroke he suffered this past February and how he is working on getting his speaking pattern to return but he sounded better in this interview format.
**Demand Lucha runs its final show of the year in Toronto this Thursday night at the Parkdale Hall. The show will feature Gringo Loco vs. Jack Cartwheel in a ladder match with doors opening at 7 p.m.
MMA NEWS
**In a very significant move, the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) has granted a conditional license for Dana White’s Power Slap following a unanimous vote this past Saturday. Until now, Power Slap had only been granted licensure in the state of Nevada with those two states paving the way for the possibility of others to follow. The Power Slap side was aided by the opinion of Dr. Vernon B. Williams, who is the director of the Center for Sports Neurology & Pain Medicine at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute:
My review of the limited information on experience to date regarding Health & Safety of Power Slap events is that there are no ‘Red Flags’ that would absolutely contraindicate a trial, and I would support that process as well.
In addition, the CSAC only voted to approve licensing Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships (BKFC) with both receiving unanimous votes, per Bloody Elbow’s reporting. Hunter Campbell of TKO spoke during the hearing and noted they would plan to run a Power Slap event in the state on the Friday before a UFC event which could coincide with UFC 298 taking place in Anaheim on February 17. Both Power Slap and BKFC are receiving temporary licenses as a trial run in 2024. BKFC was quick to announce it would be running a show in California next spring.
**Belal Muhammad has agreed to be the backup fighter for this Saturday’s UFC 296 headliner between Leon Edwards and Colby Covington for the UFC welterweight title. Muhammad spoke to MMA Junkie on Sunday:
They just hit me up Friday, asked me if I’m willing to weigh in for next week. I think obviously they know Colby and Leon are the two most inactive welterweights in the division. Neither of these guys likes to fight. They’re both good at running. So just to be on the safe side, they called the dude that always steps up whenever needed.
Muhammad (23-3, 1 NC) is unbeaten in his previous ten fights and is coming off wins against Vicente Luque, Sean Brady, and Gilbert Burns with many believing he deserved the title fight over Covington. Muhammad and Edwards fought in March 2021, but the fight ended in a no-contest after an accidental eye poke by Edwards ended the fight when Muhammad could not continue.
**Bryce Mitchell is stepping in to fight this Saturday on short notice. Mitchell replaces Giga Chikadze, who suffered an injury and will be unable to fight Josh Emmett at UFC 296. Mitchell (16-1) bounced back from a submission loss to Ilia Topuria and defeated Dan Ige by decision in September while Emmett (18-4) is coming off back-to-back losses to Yair Rodriguez and Ilia Topuria over the past year. The two featherweights will be headlining the televised prelims this Saturday on ESPN 2 and ESPN+.
**Georges St-Pierre was in Las Vegas for the UFC Fight Pass Invitational and spoke with the media. Regarding Dana White teasing a “super fight” for UFC 300, GSP shot down the potential of the former welterweight champion fighting again. St-Pierre said he promised himself he would never have a competitive MMA fight after he turns 40 and it tarnishes fighter’s legacies and their health. He is open to doing other combat sports events (he was going to do an exhibition grappling match with Nick Diaz until injuries prevented it) and was entertaining the idea of doing a boxing fight but his UFC contract restricted him from doing one. St-Pierre retired in early 2019 and last competed in November 2017 when he beat Michael Bisping to win the UFC Middleweight Championship.
**A significant bantamweight fight is expected to be added to UFC 298 in February. Former 135 & 125-pound champion Henry Cejudo announced publicly that he is fighting Merab Dvalishvili at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California on February 17. Cejudo (16-3) retired in May 2020 but returned earlier this year with a split-decision loss to Aljamain Sterling at UFC 288. Dvalishvili (16-4) has won nine fights in a row and is coming off a decision win against former champion Petr Yan this past March.
**Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card didn’t have a Fight of the Winner bonus but Performance of the Night bonuses were handed out to Khalil Rountree Jr., Nasrat Haqparast, Tim Elliott, and Park Hyun-sung for $50,000 each.
**Former UFC featherweight Makwan Amirkhani has signed with OKTAGON and will be part of the group’s $1 million tournament that begins March 2 in Ostrava, Czechia. Amirkhani (17-9) debuted in the UFC in 2015 and was considered a rising prospect but had several setbacks when he only fought four times between Feb. 2016 and June 2019. He lost five of his last six fights before leaving the UFC earlier this year following a submission loss to Jack Shore in March. The 16-man tournament will be contested at lightweight.
**The Countdown to UFC 296 special.
**The TKO stock closed at $73.29 on Monday.
*****
COLLISION COURSE
John Siino and Kate From MTL review AEW Collision featuring the latest from the Continental Classic Blue League: Eddie Kingston vs Claudio Castagnoli and Bryan Danielson vs Andrade el Idolo.
*****
NJPW WORLD TAG LEAGUE FINAL
Bruce Lord and Karen Peterson prepare for the Road to Wrestle Kingdom 18 with the NJPW World Tag League 2023 Finals.
*****
NXT DEADLINE 2023
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT Deadline from Bridgeport, Connecticut on December 9th, 2023.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock is joined by “Our Man” Neal Flanagan to review the Tribute to the Troops edition of SmackDown feat. CM Punk appearing.
*****
POST PURORESU: 2023 Year in Review
WH Park & Karen Peterson are joined by Dylan Fox from The Eastern Lariat to reminisce about the highs and lows of the past year.
*****
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