POST IT NOTES
**The POST Wrestling Café schedule for March includes the events that will be covered on Rewind-A-Wai.
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is LIVE at 10:05 p.m. ET on the POST Wrestling Café as Wai Ting and I chat all the news, preview the Revolution card, and take your calls.
**The March edition of POST Puroresu is available now with WH Park & Karen Peterson going over Kazuchika Okada’s exit and how NJPW handled it, what the next months will look like, the next generation of stars, and the state of the company. The Hana Kimura Memorial card is announced, a preview of STARDOM’s Cinderella tournament, and Katsuhiko Nakajima is handed a cease-and-desist.
**John Siino has a review of MLW’s Intimidation Games, which he covered live at the Melrose Ballroom on Thursday. Siino was also part of several media scrums, which we are adding to the POST Wrestling Café including one with Janai Kai, which is already posted for members.
**Collision Course is back on Saturday at 10:05 p.m. ET with Kate from Montreal & Bruce Lord on the POST Café.
**Wai Ting and I will host the AEW Revolution review right after the pay-per-view ends on Sunday night on the POST YouTube channel. Braden Herrington and Davie Portman will be attending the show in Greensboro and will be calling in during the review.
**Earlier this week, we spoke about the passing of both Ole Anderson (Alan Rogowski) and Virgil (Mike Jones):
POST SCHEDULE
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & Bruce Lord (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: AEW Revolution Review with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw
WRESTLING NEWS
**The featured story on the site is The Unlikely and Improbable Career of Steve “Sting” Borden as I wrote about his nearly 40-year career that wraps up this weekend. While going through his career for this piece, you can look at a lot of crossroads he faced and where his career would have gone if he had chosen one path over another. The fact he was spotted by Rick Bassman and saw things through to even try pro wrestling is somewhat remarkable given the career that followed.
After teaming with Jim Hellwig and transferring from Memphis to Mid-South, it was the next fork in the road as Hellwig and Bill Watts did not gel and Hellwig left for World Class while Borden was a solo act. Had Borden left with Hellwig, who knows what would happen if WWF spotted the two as a tag team and Borden joined the WWF? The break-up with Hellwig was for the best as both careers flourished as individuals rather than a unit.
Besides Jerry Jarrett, no promoter wanted to take a chance on the two in 1985 and within several years, both were positioned to succeed Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair in WWF and WCW respectively. The Warrior transition didn’t play out according to plan and while he had his run, they took the belt off him, and he never reached the level they envisioned. Sting would become champion many times in WCW and be always right at, or near the top of the pecking order on the babyface side even when Hulk Hogan arrived and ceded the top spot.
The knock was that Sting’s prime years occurred when WCW was doing terrible business, but he was a stalwart of the company and synonymous with WCW, which left a mark on audiences that grew up with him. For business, his largest period was late 1997 and early 1998, and the series with Hulk Hogan, which culminated the year-plus lead-up to that match and Sting hanging out in the rafters, which was executed tremendously and completely botched at Starrcade.
He went through a lot of personal issues in 1998, which he has been public about between substance abuse and adultery on the road, which led to his dedication to religion and getting his life back on track. He remained a player in WCW through the end, but the company had lost its way by late 1999 and the next year was a disaster on all fronts.
He was one of the few who didn’t go to WWE and had a big contract to sit at home and earn the remainder on, but it’s not like he was urging to go to WWE either. While some are only going to look at the money, he cared about how his character would be handled and always thought they would not handle the Sting character well and saw the examples of WCW talent being squandered. While he would later defend the treatment at WrestleMania 31, it was a big letdown, as was the entire run when he finally did business with WWE. After the Seth Rollins match, no one expected him to wrestle again given his spinal stenosis and age.
The arrival at AEW was a genuine surprise but not as big as the run he would end up having. The fact that AEW got three years out of Borden, booked him to be undefeated, and incorporated a completely different style to his matches was unthinkable when he joined. It sets the scene for a really big event on Sunday where it’s on AEW to stick the landing and deliver a memorable retirement ceremony and send-off for one of the most well-liked individuals in the industry. There will not be too many examples like Borden performing at nearly 65 years of age with this style and not just maintaining his legacy but building on it through this last run.
**The buys for AEW Revolution will rest on the promotion and interest behind Sting’s retirement. They chose the right market for the retirement with over 16,000 tickets distributed at the Greensboro Coliseum and will likely be the largest U.S. attendance of the year for AEW and could be the second largest overall behind the return to Wembley Stadium. A typical AEW show does in the neighborhood of 135,000 buys with the latest estimate from the Wrestling Observer that Worlds End is around 141,000. If this was a typical AEW show, I would be concerned with all the talent that is unavailable including MJF, Kenny Omega, and Adam Cole, but this isn’t a typical show and it’s all about Sting’s retirement. Generally, something historic is going to draw with the idea of wanting to experience something significant. When they first announced his retirement match for this card, I felt there was a chance of it hitting the 200,000 mark, which only two shows in AEW’s history have achieved (All Out 2021, All In 2023) but I don’t sense the buys being able to hit that mark, but estimates are tough to make. From a top-to-bottom card, this could be among the best shows in company history and the build-ups have largely been very effective. Here is the latest line-up:
*Tornado Match for the AEW Tag Team Titles: Sting & Darby Allin © vs. The Young Bucks
*AEW Championship: Samoa Joe © vs. Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page
*AEW Women’s Championship: Toni Storm © vs. Deonna Purrazzo
*AEW Continental Crown: Eddie Kingston © vs. Bryan Danielson
*TNT Championship: Christian Cage © vs. Daniel Garcia
*AEW International Championship: Orange Cassidy © vs. Roderick Strong
*Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli vs. FTR
*Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita
*All-Star 8-Man Scramble: Chris Jericho vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Wardlow vs. HOOK vs. Lance Archer vs. Brian Cage vs. TBA vs. TBA
**Friday Night SmackDown is at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona tonight featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson responding to the challenge issued by Cody Rhodes at Elimination Chamber. WrestleTix reports that 11,639 tickets have been distributed and WWE is promoting the show as a sell-out. Johnson is set for the next three editions of SmackDown tonight, next week in Dallas, and Memphis on March 15. The following matches are advertised:
*Street Fight: Carlito vs. Santos Escobar
*Kabuki Warriors vs. Bayley & Dakota Kai
*Naomi vs. Tiffany Stratton
**AEW Rampage was taped last weekend in Springfield, Missouri, and will air tonight at 10 p.m. ET on TNT with the following matches:
*All-Star 8-Man Scramble Qualifying Match: Matt Sydal vs. Magnus
*Trish Adora vs. Riho
*Lance Archer & The Righteous vs. Anaya, Vaught & Luke Langley
*Claudio Castagnoli vs. Rugido
**The Countdown to AEW Revolution airs immediately after Rampage on TNT. They are promoting “never before seen footage” of Sting in NJPW.
**Diamond Dallas Page has released his latest documentary focusing on Marcus “Buff” Bagwell and Scotty Riggs, who teamed as The American Males in WCW, and their struggles.
**Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted a 21-minute monologue in character running down his dissenters and pushing the ongoing programs, it was really well done.
A message from The People’s Champ @wwe @tkogrp pic.twitter.com/s2yy6gYTTz
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 1, 2024
**The WWE on A&E block this Sunday features a new edition of Rivals focusing on Randy Savage vs. Jake Roberts and the focus of Biography: WWE Legends is Sgt. Slaughter. For the latter, it will have to be reliant on clips of Savage and other performers speaking on his behalf and they didn’t do anything with Savage in terms of sit-down interviews even when they released a Savage DVD before his death. Their angle in 1991 was a memorable one with the cobra biting the biceps of Savage and bleeding in a very graphic angle for its time. Slaughter could be an excellent documentary, especially with the ownership of his footage from Mid-Atlantic and the AWA, which is some of the biggest stuff in his career not to mention his first WWF run where he was legitimately right behind Hulk Hogan on the babyface totem pole before he left in 1984. I would imagine a lot will be focused on the 1991 heel turn and becoming an Iraqi sympathizer, which is presented as this ultra heat-generating story but was also a major turnoff to fans and partners as the company’s popularity was declining and led to the company to downsize projections for WrestleMania and move it from the Memorial Coliseum to the L.A. Sports Arena.
**WWE has live events in Palm Desert, California on Saturday and Bakersfield, California on Sunday. Monday’s episode of Raw is in San Antonio and they have announced Nia Jax vs. Becky Lynch and Drew McIntyre vs. Jey Uso.
**TNA announced that they have signed Alex Hammerstone, and he will wrestle Josh Alexander next Friday at Sacrifice in Windsor, Ontario. The former MLW World Heavyweight Champion made his TNA debut in January where he lost to Alexander at Hard to Kill.
**Saturday night’s edition of AEW Collision is a taped show from Wednesday in Huntsville, Alabama, the night before Revolution. The following matches will air on TNT:
*Christian Cage, Killswitch, Brian Cage & Roderick Strong vs. Orange Cassidy, Trent Beretta, HOOK & Daniel Garcia
*The Acclaimed & Austin Gunn vs. Evil Uno, John Silver & Alex Reynolds
*Mariah May vs. Angelina Risk
*Private Party vs. Christopher Daniels & Matt Sydal
*Thunder Rosa vs. Cassandra Golden
*All-Star 8-Man Scramble Qualifying Match: Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Dante Martin vs. Bryan Keith
**Project GCW streams tonight at 9 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+ from Illinois with Blake Christian vs. John Wayne Murdoch for the GCW title, Masha Slamovich vs. Arik Cannon, Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Alex Zayne, Billie Starkz vs. Killer Kelly, Matt Cardona & Steph De Lander vs. Dan the Dad & Shazza McKenzie, Nick Gage & Maki Itoh vs. Los Macizos, Myron Reed vs. Oni El Bendito, 1 Called Manders vs. Mance Warner, and Jack Cartwheel, Cole Radrick & Alec Price vs. Effy, Allie Katch & Sawyer Wreck. GCW is back on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on the same platform with a card headlined by Blake Christian vs. Arik Cannon for the GCW title.
**House of Glory’s Reckoning card on Saturday streams at 6 p.m. ET on Triller TV+ with Mike Santana vs. Penta El Zero Miedo for the HOG Heavyweight title, Mustafa Ali vs. Alex Shelley, and Carlos Ramirez vs. Lance Anoa’I for the HOG Crown Jewel title in the top matches.
**TNA will be sending talent to the Starrcade Down Under Tour in Australia next month. The multi-day convention will include several wrestling shows including HER, which is being produced by Mickie James, and Australian Stampede presented by Bret Hart with TNA talent participating in both shows.
**The UFC Fight Night card takes place from the Apex in Las Vegas with an afternoon card on Saturday. The prelims begin at 12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+. For those in Canada, the entire card is available through Fight Pass, and this is one of the cards that won’t be broadcast through Rogers Sportsnet. All fighters made weight on Friday morning.
MAIN CARD (4 p.m. ET on ESPN+, Fight Pass in Canada)
*Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Shamil Gaziev
*Tyson Pedro vs. Vitor Petrino
*Muhammad Mokaev vs. Alex Perez
*Bekzat Almakhan vs. Umar Nurmagomedov
*Matt Schnell vs. Stephen Erceg
PRELIMINARY CARD (12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+, Fight Pass in Canada)
*Eryk Anders vs. Jamie Pickett
*Bernardo Sopai vs. Vinicius Oliveira
*Javid Basharat vs. Aiemann Zahabi
*Claudio Ribeiro vs. Christian Duncan
*A.J. Cunningham vs. Ludovit Klein
*Loik Radzhabov vs. Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady
**The TKO stock closed at $82.25 on Friday.
*****
POST PURORESU
WH Park & Karen Peterson discuss Kazuchika Okada’s final matches with NJPW and how the promotion handled his exit.
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REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss the passing of Virgil and review AEW Dynamite with Sting’s final appearance before his retirement match.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston go through the fourth-quarter and year-end TKO earnings report, and welcome John Arezzi to the program.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from February 27th, 2024 featuring the reveal of Shawn Spears as the man behind “Three Faces”.
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