POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live at 11:05 p.m. ET with John Pollock & Wai Ting going through the final night of the WWE Draft and the roster changes for Raw and SmackDown. Plus, they chat about the news coming out of the weekend and take your feedback. Tune in live on the POST YouTube channel.
**The latest POSTmarks features a one-hour chat with Andrew Thompson on how he started covering wrestling news and working on the site.
**WH Park and Neal Flanagan spoke about All Japan’s documentary series “This is All Japan Dojo” from 2020 on this month’s Long & Winding Royal Road.
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston (3 p.m. ET)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Friday: MCU L8R with Rich Fann & WH Park (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: POST Puroresu with WH Park & Karen Peterson
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Wai (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: NJPW Wrestling Dontaku with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: WWE Backlash with John & Wai
Sunday: UFC 301 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte
WRESTLING NEWS
**The second night of the WWE Draft takes place tonight at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. There will be six rounds of picks with four picks per round between Raw and SmackDown with many of the top names involved in tonight’s pool. The draft edition of SmackDown was a very underwhelming affair with Roman Reigns being removed from the pool and the top name listed. The major figures to be drafted will be CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, Jade Cargill, Kevin Owens, and Gunther. Cody Rhodes is going to need heels to work with on SmackDown and Gunther would seem to be a prime choice for a future program.
I can’t see Punk and McIntyre being split up with that inevitable program once the former is healthy. On the Raw side, they are positioning Jey Uso as the top babyface but he’s a work in progress for that top role and Damian Priest could end up on the babyface end within several months and is playing a tweener role. Many top names are not on television and not listed for the pool including Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, and Jimmy Uso, and will give them leeway to put on either brand when they have their storyline mapped out.
Brock Lesnar’s name hasn’t been mentioned once but when asked about his status at the WrestleMania press conference, Paul Levesque confirmed he was still under contract and feels like a situation that is waiting it out to see when the public backlash would be toned down. With the public statements back-and-forth between Janel Grant and Vince McMahon’s legal teams, the timing would be bad to entertain a Lesnar return especially as WWE has done a remarkable job distancing itself from the lawsuit even though the company is a listed defendant.
Tonight’s pool of talent for the draft includes DIY, Apollo Crews, Braun Strowman (who has been out for the past year), Bronson Reed, Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell, Chelsea Green & Piper Niven, CM Punk, The Creeds & Ivy Nile, Damage CTRL (IYO Sky, Dakota Kai, Asuka & Kairi Sane), Drew McIntyre, Final Testament, Giovanni Vinci (on his own), Gunther & Ludwig Kaiser (together), Jade Cargill, Judgment Day (Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh), Kayden Carter & Katana Chance, Kevin Owens, Legado del Fantasma, LWO (Rey Mysterio, Carlito, Dragon Lee, Cruz del Toro, Joaquin Wilde & Zelina Vega), Naomi, Natalya, New Catch Republic, New Day, Odyssey Jones, Pretty Deadly, Shinsuke Nakamura, Tegan Nox, The Pride (Bobby Lashley, Street Profits & B-Fab), and Tiffany Stratton. Plus, NXT talent is eligible with Ilja Dragunov stating he was part of the draft.
The following is advertised for tonight’s episode of Raw:
*Night Two of the WWE Draft
*Damian Priest, Finn Balor & JD McDonagh vs. Jey Uso, Ricochet & Andrade
*Logan Paul to appear
**Tickets for WWE SummerSlam go on sale Thursday, May 9 at 10 a.m. ET for the show at Cleveland Browns Stadium in August. There will be a pre-sale beginning on Tuesday, May 7.
**Dark Side of the Ring will cover The Sandman (Jim Fullington) on Tuesday night on Vice TV. It’s the penultimate episode of the season dedicated to one of the major figures in ECW’s history and a fixture in the Tristate wrestling scene throughout the ‘90s. In the latest trailer, Fullington discussed previous jobs he held including one as a Chippendale dancer, who was involved in a side hustle “soliciting” women with a group of male dancers before the authorities caught onto the scheme. Sandman was involved in several of ECW’s most significant programs including one with Raven where his wife Lori and son Tyler were taken under Raven’s influence and a dramatic angle for the era. He was a beneficiary of the Monday Night War as both WCW & WWF were looking for any star power that could give them an edge which led to Sandman going to WCW in 1998. He was introduced as a preppy-style character and a friend of Raven’s, but that character was abandoned, and he played a toned-down version of his ECW persona as Hardcore Hak. It was a short stint in ECW, and he was brought back to ECW later that year when the company got on TNN and needed star power. Fullington remained with ECW until the very end and worked the final ECW show in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in January 2001. Despite attachment to the ECW fabric, WWE didn’t bring him in during the Invasion angle and didn’t touch him until the One Night Stand card in June 2005 where he teamed with Tommy Dreamer against The Dudley Boyz. Fullington officially joined WWE the next year when ECW was rebooted which led to Sandman working WrestleMania in April 2007 and leaving the company later that year. Fullington is now sixty years old and wrestles sparingly but made a pair of appearances over WrestleMania Weekend at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia at the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show and ECW tribute show the following evening.
The Sandman had a few different gigs before breaking into the wrestling business; some as ordinary as that of a carpenter or a roofer, and a few others that weren’t quite as… typical…
“Enter Sandman: Legacy of a Hardcore Icon” premieres tomorrow at 10pm on @vicetv. pic.twitter.com/t5XJ4x0NvZ
— Dark Side of the Ring (@DarkSideOfRing) April 29, 2024
**In Canada, Friday Night SmackDown was moved to OLN and fell to 88,000 viewers and 36,000 in the 25-54 demographic for the draft edition of the show. The UFC Fight Night card on Sportsnet 360 on Saturday averaged 52,000 viewers and 23,000 in the demo for the main card and 48,000 and 31,000 in the demo for the prelims. Neither of the programs ranked among the top ten in sports programming for the night.
**AJPW’s Champion Carnival tournament continued Monday featuring Kento Miyahara beating Kuroshio Tokyo Japan, Suwama over Ryuki Honda, Davey Boy Smith Jr. over Ren Ayabe, Cyrus over Hokuto Omori, Rei Saito over Harley Jackson, and Lord Crewe over Hideki Suzuki in the tournament matches. The A Block is led by Kento Miyahara with ten points, Davey Boy Smith Jr. has eight points, and Shotaro Ashino & Yuma Aoyagi have six points each. The B Block has a tie between Triple Crown holder Yuma Anzai and Jun Saito with eight points each, and it’s a four-way tie between Suwama, Hideki Suzuki, Lord Crewe & Rei Saito with six points.
The next Champion Carnival show is on Friday in Sendai with Shotaro Ashino vs. Kuroshio Tokyo Japan, Yuma Aoyagi vs. Ren Ayabe, Cyrus vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr., Jun Saito vs. Rei Saito, Lord Crewe vs. Suwama, and Ryuki Honda vs. Hartley Jackson.
**This will be a packed weekend of shows beginning on Friday with the first of two Wrestling Dontaku cards from NJPW, a tape-delayed edition of Friday Night SmackDown from France, and TNA+ streams its Under Siege special. On Saturday, NJPW has its second Wrestling Dontaku, NOAH runs a pay-per-view with Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Kaito Kiyomiya, WWE Backlash airs live from France, and UFC 301 is Saturday night from Brazil. There is also a big boxing fight on Saturday with Canelo Alvarez fighting Jamie Munguia for Cinco de Mayo weekend at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which is more of a factor for the UFC pay-per-view, which does not have a strong pay-per-view level lineup.
**NJPW’s Road to Dontaku tour resumes Tuesday in Kumamoto with a show headlined by a five-on-five match between members of LIJ and the Bullet Club War Dogs. They will be in Oita on Wednesday and Wrestling Dontaku takes place Friday & Saturday in Fukuoka.
**GCW will host Gringo Loco’s The WLRD on Lucha this Sunday in Atlantic City, New Jersey. On Monday, they added a match between Joey Janela and Mascarita Dorada (El Torito in WWE) and added Demus to the card after he received a lot of fanfare after wrestling at DEAN~!!! Over WrestleMania Weekend. The card is advertising Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Galeno Del Mal, Effy vs. Pimpinela Escarlata, Masha Slamovich vs. Dulce Tormenta, and Arez & Gringo Loco & Latigo vs. Jack Cartwheel & Aramis & Gravity. The show will stream on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+.
**DEFY Wrestling is streaming its “Here and Now” card for free on YouTube on May 10. The show will include KENTA vs. Bryan Keith for the DEFY World title, Vert Vixen vs. Marina Shafir for the Women’s title, Sanity vs. Midnight Heat for the Progress tag titles, Danhausen vs. Randy Myers, and a 60-Minute Ironman match between Joey Janela and Nick Wayne.
**MLW National Openweight Champion Rickey Shane Page defends his title against Bad Dude Tito at MLW’s Azteca Lucha event on May 11 at Cicero Stadium in Illinois and streaming on TrillerTV+.
**Josh Nason is joined by Brandon Thurston on Josh Nason’s Punch Out for their AEW Q1 business review going over all the major events for the promotion from January through the end of March.
**Progress Wrestling has announced that Danhausen will debut for the group at Chapter 169 on July 28 at The Electric Ballroom in Camden.
MMA NEWS
**We want to extend our deepest condolences to Francis Ngannou with news out of Cameroon that his fifteen-month-old son has died. The news was circulating throughout various outlets on Monday with no additional details made public yet. Ngannou did post a message after the news was released.
— Francis Ngannou (@francis_ngannou) April 29, 2024
**Erik Magraken, a combat sport regulatory lawyer, has confirmed the rule set for the July 20 boxing fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. The Texas Department of Licencing and Regulation stated there are special rules for the fight including the bout being scheduled to be an eight-round fight two-minute rounds (not three), and the combatants will wear fourteen-ounce gloves. The fight will take place at AT&T Stadium in Texas and stream live for all Netflix subscribers and will include a rematch between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano in the co-feature. Tickets go on sale on May 16.
**Former WWE broadcaster and current UFC & Fox News personality Charly Arnolt became the first female ring announcer in UFC history on Saturday. It was an odd circumstance as the card’s regular announcer Joe Martinez was ill and his voice started to give out. The production team approached Arnolt about filling in, she initially declined because she was nervous and didn’t want to screw up on ESPN, but she was convinced to try and filled it for a portion of the main card. In UFC’s history, they have had female broadcasters but never a female serving as the in-ring announcer. Arnolt described the circumstances behind the historical event on Instagram.
**BKFC’s KnuckleMania 4 was headlined by Mike Perry knocking out former UFC fighter Thiago Alves in sixty seconds. Afterward, Alves announced he was retiring and already had considered himself retired before this fight but was stating it out loud. This was Alves’ first fight since June 2021 when he last fought for BKFC and has not competed in MMA in over four years. Alves, 40, began fighting professionally in 2001 and fought Gleison Tibau in his first recorded MMA fight. He joined the UFC in 2005 and ascended the welterweight ranks beating Chris Lytle, Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes, and Josh Koscheck to earn a title fight. He challenged Georges St-Pierre at UFC 100 in July 2009 and lost by unanimous decision. It was the peak of his career, but he stuck around in the UFC for another decade and went 6-9 over those years. His last win in the UFC came in February 2019 when he beat Max Griffin by split decision and lost his final two fights to Laureano Staropoli and Tim Means.
**The TKO stock closed at $96.49 on Monday.
**Episode 1 of UFC Embedded in advance of UFC 301 this weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:
*****
POSTmarks #30: Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson talks about growing up in Washington, D.C., how he started covering wrestling news, and the untold true story of his first high school basketball game.
*****
COLLISION COURSE
Siino & Kate look at AEW Collision and Rampage featuring Swerve Strickland’s first interview as AEW Champion, the debut of Grizzled Young Veterans, the (former) Best Friends in a parking lot brawl, and more.
*****
L&WRR: This Is All Japan Dojo (2020)
WH Park & Neal Flanagan talk about THIS IS ALL JAPAN DOJO, a 2020 documentary chronicling AJPW dojo training featuring Francesco Akira.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN [FREE SHOW]
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown featuring the first night of the 2024 WWE Draft. Plus, top stories of the day involving Tony Khan, Cameron Grimes, and patron calls.
*****
MCU L8R: X-Men ’97 Episode 7
With WH on assignment, Rich Fann is joined by Brandon Carr of the Why So Serious Podcast to review X-Men ‘97 Episode 7: “Bright Eyes”.
*****
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