POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is back tonight at 11 p.m. ET as we chat about Monday Night Raw, Billy Jack Haynes’ story, reaction to New Beginning in Osaka, and the future of Kazuchika Okada.
**The ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show is this Thursday, and you still have time to submit questions on the POST Wrestling Forum thread or submit an audio question at memo.fm/POSTwrestling.
**Karen Peterson has a great breakdown of the Rossy Ogawa story during Sunday’s New Beginning in Osaka review, which is available now on the POST Wrestling Café.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston feat. Tim Marchman of VICE News
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: POSTmarks feat. Robert Pearson
Sunday: UFC 298 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte
Sunday: The N.W.A. Podcast with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy & Andrew Thompson
WRESTLING NEWS
**Billy Jack Haynes (William Albert Haynes III) has been named a suspect following the killing of his 85-year-old wife, Janette Becraft. The police responded after they were alerted to gunfire in the Haynes’ home last Thursday. It led to a two-hour standoff where Haynes was unwilling to exit the home before eventually, entering custody. The medical examiner determined that Becraft died from a gunshot wound.
Haynes is currently hospitalized, due to a condition “unrelated to the homicide” and is expected to be booked after he is discharged from the hospital. A neighbor spoke with KPTV Fox in Oregon and stated Haynes had been hospitalized the prior week due to broken ribs but returned home to be with Janette.
Portland police released the following statement on Saturday:
He is in police custody at a local hospital while he is being treated for a medical condition unrelated to the homicide or his contact with law enforcement. Once he is released from the hospital, which may be days from now, he is expected to be booked into jail. Haynes’ charges will be released once he is booked.
Officers determined the suspect was inside the home and they requested assistance from the Special Emergency Reaction Team (SERT) and the Crisis Negotiation Team (CNT) in order to safely take the suspect into custody. Officers went inside the home and located an adult female who was deceased. Homicide detectives responded to the scene and began their investigation. There is no ongoing threat to the community.
Haynes was close friends with Janette’s son, Tod Becraft since they were nine years old. Todd died in November 2021 and had been involved in the Oregon pro wrestling scene himself wrestling as Tod Ruhl.
**The Super Bowl had plenty of WWE and professional wrestling integration to emphasize its placement among pop culture where it’s commonplace for a figure to be featured in a Super Bowl ad or celebrities posing with a replica belt. Jade Cargill and Steve Austin appeared in Super Bowl ads for Mountain Dew and Kawasaki respectively, as did Dana White, who appeared in a Bud Lite spot. Rey Mysterio, Mercedes Mone, Bayley, Naomi, Mojo Rawley, and Nate Diaz were among those in attendance at the game. Snoop Dogg was going around with a WWE gold replica championship (believed to be the one he was presented with by Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair) and saw various celebs posing with the belt, which was terrific marketing for WWE. Tony Khan was in town with Collision taking place outside of Las Vegas on Saturday and made several media appearances. Nicole & Brie Garcia were recording throughout the week on radio row and appearing at various events in Las Vegas.
**Immediately after the game, WWE released its Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl legacy title belt on WWE Shop.
**Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes was celebrating in the locker room with a replica WWE championship.
**During the “Overtime” segment of Real Time with Bill Maher, the panel spoke about the allegations against Vince McMahon. One of the panelists was Bob Costas, who has a long history with professional wrestling and McMahon. Costas grew up a fan in St. Louis and admirer of Sam Muchnick and was good friends with Larry Matsyik. When Maher stated that the accusations against McMahon were like Harvey Weinstein’s, Costas stated McMahon’s are “worse” with the inclusion of sex trafficking among the charges from Janel Grant. There wasn’t much to the segment beyond some dismissive remarks for wrestling fans and Costas quoting an old Bobby Heenan line that the thing that scared him most about fans was that “they could vote, and they could breed.” Costas was scheduled to be part of WrestleMania 7 in March 1991 but pulled out due to the nature of the Gulf War angle involving Sgt. Slaughter. In 2001, Costas conducted a famous sit-down interview with McMahon that grew contentious and saw McMahon lose his cool with Costas, one year later he returned and did a follow-up with Costas.
**ESPN’s NFL Countdown produced a beautiful feature on Steve “Mongo” McMichael and his pending induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. McMichael, 66, was diagnosed with ALS in 2021 and is fighting for his life as his weight has deteriorated and cannot breathe without a machine. He is still cognitively aware of everything going on but relies on a machine to communicate. McMichael played fifteen seasons in the NFL and was part of the Chicago Bears team that won the Super Bowl in 1985. His post-football career saw McMichael move to professional wrestling and appeared at WrestleMania 11 as one of Lawrence Taylor’s cornermen against Bam Bam Bigelow. He didn’t sign with the WWF and instead, was hired by WCW and was part of the inaugural broadcast team when WCW Monday Nitro launched in September 1995. In the spring of 1996, he was involved in a program with The Four Horsemen and turned on partner Kevin Greene to join the Horsemen and wrestled for WCW until early 1999.
How Steve McMichael fought ALS so he could see himself get to Canton. pic.twitter.com/3N1rLTTMWK
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 11, 2024
**NJPW held an early contender for “Show of the Year” on Sunday with New Beginning in Osaka. The final two matches were easily among the best of the year, and I’d place the rematch between Zack Sabre Jr. and Bryan Danielson on top of my list after six weeks of 2024.
ZSJ and Danielson was a technical, albeit brutal, masterpiece with physical storytelling at another level. The premise of the rematch was that Danielson beat Zack but was unable to submit him. So, we had over twenty minutes of technical wrestling, submission attempts, and counters. At the twenty-five-minute mark, Zack hits the Zack Driver and is willing to pin Danielson and take the win by any means necessary, it was a brilliant spot and set the stage for the closing stretch including a riveting sequence that climaxed with Zack scoring the fall with a crucifix to even the series, yet, leaving the submission win elusive. There will be another match between them as Danielson has proposed two-of-three falls match on “neutral ground”.
The main event was a 64-minute war between the United Empire and the Bullet Club War Dogs held a ridiculous pace for that length. Francesco Akira was among the focal points of the match as he was the reluctant member of the group to partake in the brutality but rose to the occasion and should add a more dangerous edge to his character following it. Gabe Kidd has an aura unlike the others that feels dangerous to the audience and his poise is right at that main event level and would be someone I would want to have locked up to a deal and have a long-term plan for. David Finlay is slotted in the top foreigner role and was the one to pin Will Ospreay. Finlay is a talented guy but doesn’t have the presence that Kidd possesses.
**Monday Night Raw is at the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky with WrestleTix reporting over 9,100 tickets distributed as of Sunday. Below are the matches scheduled for the show:
*Imperium vs. Jey Uso & New Day
*Elimination Chamber – Qualifying Match: Liv Morgan vs. Zoey Stark
*Elimination Chamber – Qualifying Match: Bronson Reed vs. Bobby Lashley
*Elimination Chamber – Qualifying Match: LA Knight vs. Ivar
*R-Truth vs. JD McDonagh
**Friday Night SmackDown averaged 218,300 viewers in Canada on Sportsnet 360 this past Friday. It ranked fourth among sports programs for the night behind Sportsnet Central, the Toronto Raptors vs. Houston Rockets, and the Anaheim Ducks vs. Edmonton Oilers.
**Fantasticamania continues Tuesday with a show in Osaka headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi, Volador Jr. & Templario vs. Rocky Romero, Soberano Jr., & DOUKI and includes Ultimo Guerrero, Stuka Jr. & Francesco Akira against Mistico, Mascara Dorada & El Desperado. The week-long tour has stops in Kagawa, Nagoya, and Chiba, and wraps up with two Korakuen Hall shows on Sunday & Monday.
**NJPW has confirmed that its 52nd Anniversary Card will feature the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion taking on the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion in a non-title affair on March 6. Tetsuya Naito defends the IWGP title against SANADA and El Desperado defends the Jr. Heavyweight belt against SHO in Sapporo with the two winners meeting on the Anniversary card at Ota Ward City Gymnasium, which housed the first NJPW card in March 1972 featuring Antonio Inoki taking on Karl Gotch.
**TV Insider spoke with Natalya and asked her about rumors of a possible movie chronicling the Hart family being developed. The WWE performer stated she was working on something “near and dear to my heart” and could not confirm or deny what she was working on. However, she did provide an answer when it came to who would be the top choice to play Jim Neidhart for such a project:
If I were going to do a movie and could choose who I would personally want to play my dad, it would be Paul Walter Hauser. Paul is a huge wrestling fan. He just won the Emmy Award and called out [wrestler] Matt Cardona in his acceptance speech. I love Paul’s passion for the industry. I see old footage of my dad and think, ‘If there was a movie on the Hart family, call Paul Walter Hauser.’ I can’t unsee him as my dad. He has to be my dad. I love Paul. I think it’s so commendable that someone from his world has so much respect for us.
**Kevin Von Erich (Kevin Adkisson) is the guest on this week’s edition of Under the Ring with Phil Strum.
**The Countdown to UFC 298 special is up featuring a preview of the UFC Featherweight Championship fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria in Anaheim this weekend. They also dedicated segments to the middleweight fight between former champion Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa, and Henry Cejudo’s fight against Merab Dvalishvili. Those are three strong fights on the pay-per-view portion. Dvalishvili would seem set for a championship fight if he beats Cejudo.
**In Canada, the main card of the UFC Fight Night from Saturday averaged 46,000 viewers and 20,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It did not rank among the top ten sports programs for the night, which was dominated by NHL programming and a Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game.
**The TKO stock closed at $87.04 on Monday and was up 1% on Monday.
*****
NJPW New Beginning in Osaka Review
Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson discuss the dismissal of Rossy Ogawa from STARDOM. Plus, a full review of NJPW’s New Beginning in Osaka.
****
COLLISION COURSE
This week’s AEW Collision will feature the latest volley in the battle between CMLL and the BCC, along with the unexpected International Title match between Orange Cassidy and Tomohiro Ishii.
****
LONG & WINDING ROYAL ROAD
Wai Ting joins WH Park’s L&WRR for the first time to discuss Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada from the 1995 Champion Carnival.
****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with Paul Levesque addressing the WrestleMania 40 situation.
****
REWIND-A-WAI #150: “THE SMASHING MACHINE”
John Pollock and Wai Ting review The Smashing Machine, a 2002 documentary profiling MMA pioneer Mark Kerr’s rise in Pride FC and struggles with painkiller addiction.
*****
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum
https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café
http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling
