POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live at 10 p.m. ET tonight with a review of the Holiday Bash episode of Dynamite. Wai & I will go through the latest news and be announcing a contest for tickets to see “The Iron Claw” at any Cineplex across Canada. Tune in tonight on the POST YouTube channel.
**On Pollock & Thurston today, we were joined by journalist Irv Muchnick to chat about his history covering the Von Erich family before “The Iron Claw” is released on Friday. We spoke with Muchnick about his 1988 feature, “Born-Again Bashing” on the Von Erichs, his interactions with the family, impressions of the film, and his lengthy coverage of the pro wrestling industry over the years. Plus, Brandon & I spoke about the biggest stories of 2023 and the key players from the past year.
**The final ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show will be released on Thursday for POST Wrestling Café members. Submit your questions on the POST Forum thread by Thursday morning and we will answer all the questions submitted or send us an audio question at memo.fm/POSTWrestling.
**The deadline for the POST Wrestling Christmas Jingle Contest is Thursday at Noon ET – send your submissions here.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Thursday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show with John & Wai (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: The Long & Winding Royal Road with WH Park & Rich Kraetsch
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: POST Wrestling Christmas Show 2023
WRESTLING NEWS
**Axios reports that Warner Bros. Discover (WBD) and Paramount Global have had merger discussions. The outlet reports that WBD CEO David Zaslav recently met with Paramount CEO Bob Bakish this past Tuesday in New York City. The site notes that WBD currently holds a market value of approximately $29 billion while Paramount Global has undergone significant challenges and stands at a value of just over $10 billion and has significant debt. Axios added that Zaslav has also met with Shari Redstone, the owner of National Amusements, Inc., the parent company of Paramount. The news of the talks came out right after the markets closed, so we’ll have a better sense of Wall Street’s reaction on Thursday but this has the potential to be a massive story in news and entertainment.
**The 90-day no-compete clauses from the WWE releases in September end after today. Those released in the last batch include Mustafa Ali, Dolph Ziggler, Shelton Benjamin, Emma, Riddick Moss, Dana Brooke, Top Dolla, Aliyah, Rick Boogs, Mace, Mansoor, Shanky, and Elias. There were additional cuts at the NXT level, which are typically subjected to 30-day no-compete periods as opposed to the main roster period.
Matt Riddle was also cut with all these names and has said that he has spoken with MMA promotions without being specific and is featured on a poster for the MLW Kings of Colosseum event on January 6, although MLW has not officially announced him beyond that poster that circulated this week. For Riddle, it’s been a decade since he fought and that’s a tough industry to return to at his age after years of pro wrestling bumps, although you could see PFL offering him something sizable. For the pro wrestling side, any company that hires Riddle is going to have to weigh the star power he accumulated as a pushed star on WWE for several years against the allegations made during the Speaking Out movement, which will follow Riddle and understandably, a fanbase that won’t overlook that aspect.
The key names are Ziggler and Ali, which would be at the top of most lists to land in an AEW, although the company is so stocked with talent, but there’s always a desire to sign names when they become available. TNA appears to be in an aggressive mode with the rebranding and is teasing a major signing as the hook for Hard to Kill on January 13. Benjamin has a history with New Japan, but he is 48 years old and is not going to be a difference-maker at this stage. Emma (Tenille Dashwood) could fit into the women’s division in either AEW or TNA immediately and was working in TNA before returning to WWE. Moss will be a curious one, as deserves an opportunity and is one name I could see succeeding if he went to Japan but the number of spots available for foreigners is finite.
For performers such as Top Dolla, Elias, Aliyah, Rick Boogs, and Dana Brooke, we’ll see how they thrive outside WWE as that’s a tough transition. Aliyah wrestled on the independents in Toronto but signed with WWE when she was very young and she had been in the company since 2015. Top Dolla has a ton of charisma and when Hit Row was introduced, it was a fresh act on NXT and he was a key ingredient to its success. When they were brought back without Swerve Strickland, it never had the magic of the first iteration and quickly became afterthoughts on SmackDown.
**The retirement of Sting next March at Revolution is shaping up to be one of the biggest events that AEW will stage next year. After a week of tickets being on sale, the latest figure from WrestleTix is 12,379 tickets distributed for the March 3 event. The record for a pro wrestling event at the Greensboro Coliseum was set in April 1998 when the WWF staged its Unforgiven pay-per-view and drew 21,427 in the building and 20,268 paid, per the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. With over two months until the show and real promotion of Sting’s retirement yet to take form on television, there could be a lot of momentum for this show in the weeks leading up to it. Most of all, I think many people observe this to be a “real” retirement and not a gimmick one given Sting’s age and the goodwill he has built over this AEW run, which no one could have forecasted being this strong when he arrived three years ago.
**The Holiday Bash edition of AEW Dynamite airs tonight from the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. The show includes the final round-robin matches of the Gold League in the Continental Classic where the top two advancing to next week’s semi-final. Jon Moxley leads the group with 12 points and a 4-0 record followed by Swerve Strickland and Jay White with 9 points each. The key matches are Moxley vs. White and Swerve vs. Rush (who has six points). Several of the scenarios include:
*Jon Moxley and Swerve Strickland win, they advance and meet in the semi-finals (the cleanest outcome where it’s a definitive result tonight)
*Jay White and Swerve Strickland win, it’s a three-way tie with Moxley with 12 points each (Moxley beat Swerve, Swerve beat White, and White would have a win over Moxley, so it’s not a clean tiebreaker scenario based on the head-to-head results)
*Moxley and Rush win, Moxley advances and it’s a three-way tie between Rush, White & Swerve for second place
Here are the matches and segments announced for tonight’s episode on TBS:
*Gold League: Jon Moxley (12) vs. Jay White (9)
*Gold League: Swerve Strickland (9) vs. Rush (6)
*Gold League: Mark Briscoe (0) vs. Jay Lethal (0)
*Riho vs. Saraya – Winner challenges Toni Storm at Worlds End
*Roderick Strong vs. Komander
*MJF and Samoa Joe to speak
Tonight’s episode will also feature a five-minute overrun, per Tony Khan.
**Jason Solomon interviewed MJF about the transition to a babyface and being afraid of rejection as opposed to a heel, the status of his torn labrum injury, and Tony Khan’s recent remark about AEW being attacked.
**NJPW presents its final shows of the year with back-to-back nights at Korakuen Hall over the next two days. The Road to the Tokyo Dome shows begin on Thursday at 4:30 a.m. ET on New Japan World. The card will feature the following:
*NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Titles: Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomohiro Ishii © vs. HENARE, Great O-Khan & Jeff Cobb
*Whiskey Bottle on a Ladder Match, KOPW 2023: Taichi (holder) vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*SANADA, Yuya Uemura & DOUKI vs. Tetsuya Naito, Yota Tsuji & BUSHI
*Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi vs. El Desperado & Satoshi Kojima
*EVIL, Ren Narita & SHO vs. Shota Umino, Tomoaki Honma & Master Wato
*TJP, Francesco Akira & Callum Newman vs. Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney & Gedo
*Zack Sabre Jr. & Kosei Fujita vs. Yuto Nakashima & Oskar Leube
*Toru Yano & Tiger Mask vs. Masked Horse & “Masked Boltin”
**Dax Harwood reflected on FTR’s 58-minute match with Jay White & Juice Robinson from Collision in Calgary this past July. Harwood shared that he received a text message from Bret Hart before the match stating that the audience was “hard to impress” and afterward, said it was one of the greatest matches that Hart ever saw with the final half hour being a “masterclass”. Harwood called it “easily” one of the top five matches he and Cash Wheeler have ever had.
**The TKO stock closed at $77.66 on Wednesday.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to review WWE NXT from December 19th, 2023 featuring Ilja Dragunov vs Ridge Holland!
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY(Open Calls)
Join Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman and Neal Flanagan for the final Wellness Policy of the year as they reflect on 2023 with the POST Wrestling audience.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with Gunther vs. The Miz in a rematch for the IC title, and two tag team title matches in Des Moines, Iowa.
*****
THE N.W.A. PODCAST – 2023 Rap-Up!
The Advocates bring 2023 to a close by discussing the biggest stories of the year: The machinations of “The Muffin Man”, Devante’s deferred destiny, corporate chaos, and so much more.
*****
UFC 296 REVIEW
John Pollock and Eric Marcotte review the UFC 296 card with Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington for the UFC Welterweight Championship from Las Vegas.
*****
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