POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite has a start time of 11:05 p.m. ET tonight as we will be covering both AEW Dynamite & Rampage from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Plus, all the news and your feedback.
**Pollock & Thurston features an interview with French reporter Felix Gouty and his article on the site covering WWE’s history in the country. We also discuss the latest on WrestleMania 41’s location, the non-disclosure agreement between Vince McMahon and Janel Grant, Comcast making a major play for NBA rights, The Wrap’s feature on Dwayne Johnson, TV ratings notes & lots more.
**Next week’s Pollock & Thurston will air on Thursday at 3 p.m. ET with a reaction to the TKO quarterly earnings report & call.
**We have the POST Wrestling Café Menu for May posted on the site. Highlights this month include two editions of Rewind-A-Wai covering WrestleMania 30 from New Orleans, and WWE’s Extreme Rules 2012 show featuring John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar. MCU L8R continues each Friday for the remaining three episodes of X-Men ’97 as WH Park & Rich Fann share their thoughts, and we’ll have an NJPW review from Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord this Saturday after Wrestling Dontaku. For $6 per month, you gain access to all the bonus shows listed above, weekly Rewind-A-SmackDown and Collision Course shows, and the POST Daily News Updates sent directly to your inbox.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite at 11 p.m. ET
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
**Jim Fullington a.k.a. The Sandman was profiled on Dark Side of the Ring and featured one wild story of debauchery after another with a pattern of wild drug abuse with multiple people amazed Fullington lived. It was another episode where this season’s subject was responsible for domestic violence following stories involving Harley Race and Chris Adams in recent episodes. Fullington’s ex-wife Lori, who performed in ECW for years, stated that Fullington got extremely angry and physically violent once he got heavily into steroids when he signed with WCW and bulked up. Lori stated that the verbal abuse may have been worse than the physical violence. It was very sad to hear Fullington’s children, Tyler and Kelly, acknowledge that they loved their father but were very disappointed in him when speaking about his treatment of Lori.
Fullington seemed to get outside of the persona of “The Sandman” toward the end of the episode and sounded regretful of his actions, stating he was “self-sabotaging” and took all the blame for his marriage with Lori ending and looking at things differently now that he’s older. The other aspect that stood out was Fullington’s family members collectively stating that they wish Jim could move forward with his life as they appear to have forgiven him for his faults, but that Jim seems tied to the fame that defined him in the ‘90s and having a hard time accepting that chapter of his life is closed.
The drug use was insane from getting involved with cocaine before getting involved in wrestling and only escalating as he got deep into the violent matches he participated in. Fullington described shooting himself up in a gas station, going back to the car with Raven and Bill Alfonso, and overdosing while they were on the road. He spoke of a monthly ritual of going doctor hopping across Philadelphia and scoring pills from three separate doctors to land maximum prescriptions of OxyContin.
He added that he needs a new hip and surgeries on both his shoulders.
There was a portion covering his 2008 arrest when he attended Lou Albano’s birthday party in Yonkers, New York. Fullington got drunk at the restaurant and the waiter continued serving him. Hours later, it got violent, and the waiter threw a glass at Fullington, and all hell broke loose with Fullington throwing glasses inside the restaurant until police arrived and he was arrested.
Fullington had several big years in the industry and benefited greatly from the peak of the Monday Night War. Previously, Fullington has noted making $175,000 per year in ECW and would leave for WCW where he was bumped to $250,000 per year when he signed in WCW, although he was gone from WCW in less than a year. He had one run in WWE when ECW was rebooted in 2006 and worked there until September 2007.
The Sandman character brings about lots of nostalgia and was an iconic representation of what ECW stood for but when you peel back the layers of Jim Fullington in a forum like this, it didn’t make for a feel-good episode when you observe the toll it took on his family.
**Wrestlenomics made a public records request to the City of Greensboro and received information regarding AEW Revolution from March. The live gate grossed $1,025,829.50, which came out to a net revenue of $951,417.17. The show was anchored by Sting’s retirement match and led to the show doing a reported estimate of 180,000 buys across traditional and streaming pay-per-view outlets, which would be the third largest in AEW’s history. The records show that 16,118 tickets were distributed for the show and included 281 comps. Of the allotment distributed, 13,950 tickets were scanned.
**Monday’s draft edition of WWE Raw averaged 1,683,000 viewers and 725,000 (0.55) in the 18-49 demographic airing against the NBA & NHL playoffs. The audience increased by five percent while the demo rose by six percent compared with last week’s figures. Raw topped everything on cable except the NBA, which was led by the L.A. Lakers vs. Denver Nuggets (3,960,000 viewers and 1.30 in the demo) and Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat (2,685,000 and 0.83) with both games simulcast on truTV. Raw beat both NHL playoff games, which aired on ESPN. (Wrestlenomics, Sports Media Watch)
Raw averaged 1,676,000 viewers and 0.55 in the demo in the opening hour, 1,752,000 and 0.57 in hour two, and 1,621,000 and 0.52 in the final hour.
In Canada, the show was back on Sportsnet 360 this week (it aired on the smaller OLN last week due to the NHL) and averaged 286,000 viewers and 92,000 in the 25-54 demographic. Raw ranked fourth among sports programming on Monday behind the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Kansas City Royals and the two NHL playoff games. The two NBA games ranked ninth and tenth for the night.
**AEW holds a live three-hour programming block on TBS tonight with Dynamite and Rampage in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The company returns to the Canada Life Centre with the show featuring Chris Jericho and Adam Copeland in separate matches and the first appearance by Kenny Omega on AEW programming since December. Last week’s show drew a very disappointing audience following the pay-per-view and featured one of the bigger angles in recent memory with Tony Khan being attacked by The Elite. The angle, coupled with Khan’s selling of the neck injury, generated a fair amount of publicity due to Khan’s appearances at the NFL Draft wearing the neck brace. With wrestling, his biggest publicity occurred when comparing WWE to Harvey Weinstein, which had vehement responses in favor and opposition of the line being used by Khan. This week will show what the short-term effects from the angle and media coverage represent along with the follow-up as the story is that Khan is still running AEW remotely in Jacksonville but is not allowed to travel and a tease that The Elite will be in control. Omega should be figured into this main storyline given his role in the company and this being his first appearance since being kicked out of the group in favor of his long-time rival, Kazuchika Okada.
The latest update from WrestleTix lists 4,225 tickets distributed for the show with the following announced:
*FTW Championship: Chris Jericho © vs. Katsuyori Shibata
*TNT Championship: Adam Copeland © vs. House of Black member
*Samoa Joe vs. Isiah Kassidy
*Mariah May vs. Serena Deeb
*Brian Cage vs. Claudio Castagnoli
*Kenny Omega appears
*Swerve Strickland’s opponent for Double is Nothing
*Orange Cassidy speaks
For Rampage, they have announced Jay White vs. Dante Martin.
**Netflix will hold a press conference to promote the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight later this month. The press conference is scheduled at The Apollo in Harlem on Monday, May 13 with Paul, Tyson, Katie Taylor, and Amanda Serrano set to appear with Ariel Helwani hosting. It will be streaming live on the Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions YouTube channels at 5:30 p.m. ET.
**The TKO stock closed at $95.71 on Wednesday.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston cover all the latest stories including the WWE going to France for Backlash this weekend.
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upNXT – Spring Breakin’
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT Spring Breakin’ Night 2 from April 30th, 2024 headlined by Lola Vice vs Natalya in an NXT Underground Match!
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REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review the second night of the WWE Draft from Kansas City with six rounds of picks between Raw and SmackDown.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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