POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live at 11:05 p.m. ET tonight immediately following WWE Raw from Anaheim. We will be discussing Lee Cole’s interview with a former WWF ring boy, Michael Oku vs. Will Ospreay, and some business notes from WWE’s recent events.
**The N.W.A. Podcast is a monster edition this month with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy & Andrew Thompson going over five hours chatting about the greatest Afrocentric moments in pro wrestling history, the future for Mercedes Mone, WWE scandals, and lots more.
**Rewind-A-Wai returns on Thursday at POSTWrestlingCafe.com with a review of WrestleMania 24 and feedback for the show can be submitted on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Our UFC 298 review with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte with a rundown of Saturday’s card including Ilia Topuria winning the UFC Featherweight Championship.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
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: Rewind-A-Wai #151 – WrestleMania 24 (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: WWE Elimination Chamber with John Pollock & Wai Ting (NOON ET)
Saturday: New Beginning in Sapporo with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Lee Cole will be airing an interview with a former WWF ring boy later tonight at 7 p.m. ET on his YouTube channel. Cole is the older brother of the late Tom Cole, who was at the center of the ring boy scandal in 1992. The video has the following description listed:
A FORMER RINGBOY FROM 1986–1987 has come forward to give an exclusive interview. The former Ring boy is a 23-year military veteran and spent several years as a policeman. He will discuss Terry Garvin, Mel Philips, Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon. This will be Shawns first discussion about what happened to him as a Ring Boy. He will also discuss if he endured what so many other former Ring Boys have.
**WWE drew its largest house show attendance of the year on Sunday in Fresno, California. WrestleTix reported 9,221 tickets distributed for the show at the Save Mart Center which featured Cody Rhodes beating Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event. There was strong movement over the past week with over 2,400 tickets being sold over the last week. Saturday’s house show in Oakland had 7,578 tickets distributed, which are remarkable figures for a live event outside of the post-Christmas week shows.
**Monday Night Raw is at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, which is going to be a major venue for WWE & UFC over the next several years with multiple shows scheduled on an annual basis. It comes two days after UFC 298 in the building where they announced a gate of $7.3 million for Alexander Volkanovski vs. Ilia Topuria. The following has been announced for tonight’s show:
*Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre
*Intercontinental Championship: Gunther © vs. Jey Uso
*Last Chance Battle Royal: Shayna Baszler vs. Michin vs. Alba Fyre vs. Zelina Vega vs. Zoey Stark vs. Chelsea Green
*Finn Balor, Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh vs. DIY, The Miz & R-Truth
*Chad Gable vs. Ivar
**Adam Pearce posted a video that Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre will be opening the show tonight.
BREAKING: #WWERaw GM @ScrapDaddyAP just announced that @CodyRhodes vs. @DMcIntyreWWE will KICK OFF RAW TONIGHT! 🔥
Also, @ImChelseaGreen will get her chance to go to #WWEChamber when she competes in the Last Chance Battle Royal Qualifier TONIGHT!
📺 8/7c on @USANetwork pic.twitter.com/Tfg8g7GDwy
— WWE (@WWE) February 19, 2024
**Tonight’s edition of Raw is sold out at the Honda Center, according to WrestleTix. Over 11,000 are expected in the building tonight following a sold-out edition of SmackDown from this past Friday at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
**WWE and Fanatics Events will be hosting a five-day fan experience in conjunction with WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia. The events will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from April 4 until April 8 with tickets on sale this Thursday and ranging from $30 to $300.
WWE World at WrestleMania will feature a variety of immersive experiences for fans including a central main stage that will host roundtable discussions with top WWE Superstars, a WWE 2K24 gaming tournament, live podcast recordings, live memorabilia and autograph sales through Fanatics Live, and the largest WWE Superstore in WrestleMania history. The event will also feature exclusive merchandise, autograph sessions and meet-and-greets with WWE Superstars and Legends, in addition to immersive exhibits and memorabilia honoring WrestleMania’s 40-year history.
**WWE has added a live event for Vienna, Austria on Thursday, May 2. The event will take place at Wiener Stadthalle Halle D and coincides with their run of European shows, which include the Backlash premium live event two days later in Lyon-Decines, France. The card in Vienna will be the company’s first since 2019 and they are advertising Cody Rhodes, Bianca Belair, Randy Orton, IYO Sky, Drew McIntyre, LA Knight, Bobby Lashley, Kevin Owens, and Jey Uso.
**The Michael Oku vs. Will Ospreay match from RevPro’s High Stakes event is easily going to be among the best matches of 2024. The 47-minute epic wove together so much backstory with callbacks to their match in 2022 and the incorporation of Amira, who was just as important in the development of this feud and leading to the climactic ending. The match is up on the RevPro streaming service and is neck-and-neck with last weekend’s match between Zack Sabre Jr. and Bryan Danielson for my choice of the best match this year. Tony Khan attended the show at Crystal Palace and the card included a surprise appearance by Orange Cassidy, who defended and retained the AEW International Championship in a multi-man match to open the show.
**Due to his declining health, Afa the Wild Samoan is shutting down his WXW independent promotion in April. The promotion announced its final show is set for April 13 called “The Grand Finale”. It notes that Afa is dealing with a “serious heart condition, mild-moderate vascular dementia, and Alzheimer’s” along with other health issues. The group started in 1996 and became an outlet for trainees of Wild Samoan Pro Wrestling Training Center with students including Dave Bautista, Billy Kidman, Gene Snitsky, and many members of the extended Samoan wrestling family. WXW released the following statement:
Good morning, WXW Universe. Our wrestlers, staff, family, and fans are all heartbroken and reeling from the announcement last night from our beloved founder and Pops, Afa the Wild Samoan, that Saturday April 13th will be the last #WXWWrestling show. Instead of X-Treme War, that event will be called The Grand Finale. After 27 years, WXW will be opening our doors one last time. This news was not easy to hear last night. Due to Afa’s serious heart condition, his mild-moderate vascular dementia with Alzheimer’s, and other health complications, he felt that April would be the perfect time to take our final bows and close an amazing 27- year chapter. Being that he is the heart and soul of WXW, his family tearfully agreed, and his wrestlers, though very sad, support his decision. We’ll see you one more time in person, Saturday, April 13th for the Grand Finale super-show. There will be more matches, an earlier start time, and some big names from WXW’s incredible 27-year legacy. We love you all, thank you for all your support throughout these many years.
**Tuesday’s edition of NXT is a taped show from last week and will include Lyra Valkyria vs. Shotzi for the NXT Women’s Championship (this is the match where Shotzi is injured and Lash Legend takes her place, so it will be interesting to see how the injury is handled and edited), Kelani Jordan vs. Lash Legend, Andre Chase & Duke Hudson vs. Axiom & Nathan Frazer, Jacy Jayne vs. Arianna Grace, Brooks Jensen vs. Josh Briggs, Roxanne Perez vs. Wren Sinclair, and Oba Femi vs. Lexis King for the NXT North American title.
**Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s ZOA Energy Drink has launched a new campaign promoted around “Big Dwayne Energy”.
**KENTA will defend the DEFY World Championship against Gringo Loco on April 4 at The Collective during WrestleMania Week. DEFY’s Can’t Deny It takes place at Penn’s Landing at 11 a.m. ET.
**Hiroshi Tanahashi was interviewed by Inside the Ropes on his new position as president of NJPW. He stated the new for the company to create new stars and added their initiatives to expand in the U.S. and throughout Asia:
The scale and scope of our events in the US lately is something we’re really happy with and we want to maintain that, but from this year, New Japan is going to put a lot of effort into our expansion in Asia and you’ll see that become an area of major growth for us in my opinion.
**The full West Coast Pro show from Sunday is available for free on its YouTube channel. After Chris Hero’s match with Adrian Quest, Konosuke Takeshita made an unannounced appearance to aid Hero and Titus Alexander.
**MLW will be in Atlanta on June 1 for Battle Riot VI with the annual event taking place at Center Stage. Tickets go on sale this Thursday at 10 a.m. ET at MLWLive.com.
**NJPW’s Fantasticamania wrapped up today in front of 1,455 fans at Korakuen Hall with the following results (Courtesy: Purolove.com):
*Mascara Dorada over Stuka Jr. in 17:13
*Mistico over Ultimo Guerrero in 13:34
*Volador Jr., Templario, El Desperado & MUSASHI over Hiroshi Tanahashi, Rocky Romero, Soberano Jr. & Tiger Mask in 11:53
*Atlantis Jr. over Hechicero in 12:42
*OKUMURA over Dark Panther in 9:13
*Tetsuya Naito, Kamaitachi (Hiromu Takahashi), Titan & BUSHI over SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Magnus & Difunto in 7:36
*YOH, Ryusuke Taguchi & Brillante Jr. over Stigma, Pegasso & Francesco Akira in 8:31
MMA NEWS
**Wanderlei Silva was announced for the UFC Hall of Fame as part of this year’s class and joins Frankie Edgar. Silva (35-14-1, 1 NC) is among the iconic figures of the PRIDE era where he ruled the middleweight division as champion from November 2001 until February 2007 when he was defeated by Dan Henderson for the belt. “The Axe Murderer” had an aura that few possessed from his entrance to “Sandstorm” by Darude to some of the most devastating action fights of any era in the sport.
He was a product of Chute Boxe in Brazil and came up through the Vale Tudo era in the country before his emergence in PRIDE. His fights with Kazushi Sakuraba added to the legend of the Japanese star and allowed PRIDE to book the Tokyo Dome when the two had their second fight in November 2001. Sakuraba was so undersized and while many elements of PRIDE are romanticized, it is nearly impossible to justify the way the sport was handled during this time in Japan with no regard to weight classes, drug testing, or the limits the human body can reach and demand of itself.
In 2003, Silva won the PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix, which was the gold standard of tournaments when the field was unveiled and included a third fight between Silva and Sakuraba in the opening round and included the UFC lending out Chuck Liddell. Silva won the tournament, defeating career rival Quinton Jackson in the final and having a rematch one year later, with a devastating finish with knees from the clinch by Silva as he left Jackson draped on the bottom rope in a long-lasting image.
When PRIDE went under, he migrated to the UFC and had the same aura and legendary status but was past his prime. He was never a title contender in the UFC was booked for action fights and was never in a dull fight with his UFC debut against Liddell being a well-remembered fight from 2007. His last fight with the company was a war with Brian Stann and was staged in Tokyo with Silva getting the victory.
When he left the company and was banned for life by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for evading a drug test, Dana White said he would never be part of its Hall of Fame. White didn’t even remember that statement until he was reminded of it during the press conference on Saturday. The lifetime ban was later overturned and Silva was released from his UFC contract after issuing a public apology for alleging that the UFC had engaged in fixing fights. Silva ended his career fighting for Bellator where he lost by decision to Chael Sonnen in June 2017 and was stopped by Quinton Jackson in September 2018.
**The main event for UFC 300 was confirmed by UFC COO Dana White following Saturday’s card in Anaheim, California. The April 13 event will include three championship fights with the headlining status reserved for Alex Pereira (9-2) and Jamahal Hill (12-1, 1 NC) for the light heavyweight championship fight. It was obviously not the promotion’s first option, but they were scrambling with Jon Jones revealing he was asked to headline the card and could not make that date as he’s still recovering from a torn pectoral muscle. White added that Leon Edwards was offered three different opponents and agreed to all of them, it’s unknown why none of the fights materialized. Belal Muhammad publicly stated he would fight Edwards now and Muhammad did have the strongest justification for the title fight given his winning streak. Hill has not fought since January 2023 when he won the 205-pound title but was forced to vacate the belt due to injury and is absolutely deserving of the shot. The title fight joins Zhang Weili vs. Yan Xiaonan and Justin Gaethje vs. Max Holloway in the three championship fights booked for UFC 300 on April 13 in Las Vegas.
*****
THE N.W.A. PODCAST
The Advocates are back to discuss Cody Rhodes vs. The Bloodline, the latest regarding the Vince McMahon investigation, and their favorite Afrocentric moments in pro wrestling history.
*****
UFC 298 REVIEW
John Pollock and Eric Marcotte review UFC 298 with Alexander Volkanovski defending the UFC Featherweight Championship against Ilia Topuria.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with appearances by The Rock and Roman Reigns in Salt Lake City, Utah.
*****
POSTmarks #28: Robert Pearson
Bruce Lord and David Meyers talk to Robert Pearson about training as a pro wrestler, working for Morgan Spurlock, and how his childhood led him to the entertainment industry.
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ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (February 2024)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions about anything and everything in the February 2024 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite headlined by a Texas Death Match between Orange Cassidy and Matt Taven.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston continue their coverage of the allegations against WWE including new information on the Ashley Massaro case.
*****
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