POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown will be live at 10 p.m. ET tonight with John Pollock & Wai Ting to go through the show from Jacksonville, Florida along with the latest news and your calls on the POST Wrestling Café.
**Collision Course will be live on Saturday at 11 p.m. ET with Kate from Montreal & John Siino with a review of AEW Collision & Rampage from Portland, Oregon.
**The N.W.A. Podcast is live on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy, Andrew Thompson & Two-Way Ray.
**Karen Peterson will be providing coverage of MARIGOLD’s debut show this Monday and a review of the Hana Kimura Memorial Show next Thursday for readers of POST Wrestling.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal
Sunday: POSTmarks with guest RaceyJaycee
Sunday: The N.W.A. Podcast
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown takes place at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena tonight in Jacksonville, Florida with the quarterfinals of the King & Queen of the Ring tournament before next week’s premium live event in Saudi Arabia. WrestleTix reports over 9,400 tickets have been distributed with the following advertised:
*Queen of the Ring: Jade Cargill vs. Nia Jax
*Queen of the Ring: Bianca Belair vs. Tiffany Stratton
*King of the Ring: LA Knight vs. Tama Tonga
*King of the Ring: Randy Orton vs. Carmelo Hayes
*Contract signing between Cody Rhodes and Logan Paul
**SmackDown is airing against Game 6 between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers and Game 6 between the Florida Panthers and Boston Bruins.
**Tiffany Stratton received a lot of backlash for reposting a fan-made video on her Instagram story. The post, which Stratton has deleted, featured a video of her striking Jade Cargill with a forearm shot and a voiceover saying, “Black Bitch”. Stratton has not addressed the post other than removing it, although many fans tweeted about it and tagged Paul Levesque.
**The TKO closed at $105.36 on Friday and grew five percent over the past week.
**Brian Gewirtz of Seven Bucks Productions has begun doing media to promote “Who Killed WCW?”, which premieres on VICE TV on June 6 with the same team that produced Tales from the Territories. Gewirtz was on The Masked Man Show and stated this was not going to be the WWE version of how WCW died but a fresh take on the subject. In the interview, he mentioned that they spoke with Turner executives including Brad Siegel and the son of Ted Turner.
Siegel was the president of Turner Entertainment and largely oversaw WCW during its final years. Since the end of WCW in 2001, lots of theories have been presented regarding the low price that WWE/F acquired WCW’s assets for and one was the belief that Siegal’s relationship with then-WWF president Stu Snyder played a role. Snyder became president of WWF in 2000 but prior, worked in conjunction with Turner Broadcasting, according to his online bio:
Earlier in his career, Stu and his teams successfully grew both LIVE Home Video and Turner Home Entertainment into leading home entertainment companies with each generating $500 million in annual revenue and distributed many successful hit movies and family entertainment.
In the book NITRO by Guy Evans, he dedicates a chapter called ‘Conspiracy’ to the relationship between Siegel and Snyder and interviewed Snyder for the book. The chapter contains an online statement by former WCW employee Bob Ryder accusing Siegel of sabotaging WCW and convincing Jamie Kellner to cancel WCW programming and hand the assets to WWF on a silver platter. Snyder denied this notion to Evans by stating, “From my standpoint – not true. It (WCW) had already come to us that the show was being canceled, so we had nothing to do with that. I had nothing to do with that decision – them canceling the show,” with Snyder adding that, “Clearly, it’s a known fact that Brad and I worked together at Turner. That part is true, but the other element is not true.”
Years after leaving WWF, Snyder went to work for Turner Broadcasting as its COO and President of Animation and spent nearly a decade with the company. Siegel left Turner two years after the sale to WWF and founded Brand New World Studios six years ago.
Andrew Thompson has a lengthy recap of the interview that Gewirtz did with The Ringer.
**This past week at the upfront presentations, many sports documentaries were confirmed by the streamers and networks. Netflix listed docs including a ten-part series of Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, a series on Simone Biles, and the first season of “Receiver” with the NFL but it was notable there was no mention of the Vince McMahon project if you want to categorize it as “sports”. The lawsuit filed by Janel Grant came two days after the news that Netflix had signed a $5 billion deal with WWE. At a press event after the suit was filed, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria was asked about the accusations in the suit and she responded, “Well, Vince McMahon, he’s gone. He’s not there. He’s gone.”
**From Pollstar data, WWE drew a $1 million gate for the March 8 episode of SmackDown from the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas. The show sold 12,721 tickets at an average price of $80.64 with a gate figure of $1,025,846. The show included appearances by The Rock, Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins in the lead-up to WrestleMania 40.
**In his Puck newsletter, The Varsity, sports business reporter John Ourand states that Netflix is paying between $70 and $80 million per game to the NFL as part of its three-season deal announced earlier this week. The deal kicks off with two games that will be played on Christmas Day this year and continue in 2025 and 2026. This is a major development as it represents Netflix’s firm entrenchment into live sports content, which is something they were always reticent to commit to. While the NFL’s television deals are not expiring for another decade, other properties will be and this should signal Netflix having a vested seat at the table. Timing-wise, the Christmas Day games will be heavily promoted and come just one week before WWE programming will launch on Netflix and become a natural tie-in for Netflix to promote on the football broadcasts.
**This Sunday on A&E, there will be a new episode of WWE Rivals at 8 p.m. ET covering Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock followed by Biography: WWE Legends focusing on Steve Austin’s return at WrestleMania 38 for an impromptu match against Kevin Owens. On May 26, they are airing a Biography episode on the late Eddy Guerrero.
**After one week, the Best of the Super Juniors tournament sees Blake Christian and Titan on top of the A Block with six points each and both unbeaten with 3-0 records. The B Block leaders are KUSHIDA (who is having a tremendous tournament) and Taiji Ishimori with six points each. For me, the match of the tournament has been El Desperado vs. Kosei Fujita from this past Monday, which was a star-making one for Fujita, and his selling was off the charts. Dragon Dia has been an excellent addition as a substitute for an injured Ryusuke Taguchi and the contrast of styles within the B Block have made for some excellent pairings. They resume the tournament with shows on Saturday & Sunday with ten match lineups on each night to stream on New Japan World:
Saturday, May 18 at 5 a.m. ET:
*A BLOCK: Kosei Fujita (2) vs. Clark Connors (4)
*B BLOCK: Drilla Moloney (2) vs. Dragon Dia (0)
*A BLOCK: HAYATA (2) vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (2)
*B BLOCK: Ninja Mack (4) vs. DOUKI (2)
*A BLOCK: TJP (0) vs. BUSHI (0)
*B BLOCK: KUSHIDA (6) vs. Robbie Eagles (2)
*A BLOCK: Titan (6) vs. Blake Christian (6)
*B BLOCK: Taiji Ishimori (6) vs. Francesco Akira (2)
*A BLOCK: El Desperado (4) vs. Kevin Knight (4)
*B BLOCK: SHO (4) vs. Hiromu Takahashi (2)
Sunday, May 19 at 5 a.m. ET:
*B BLOCK: Francesco Akira vs. Drilla Moloney
*A BLOCK: Kosei Fujita vs. BUSHI
*B BLOCK: DOUKI vs. Dragon Dia
*A BLOCK: Kevin Knight vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*B BLOCK: KUSHIDA vs. Taiji Ishimori
*A BLOCK: Titan vs. Clark Connors
*B BLOCK: Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ninja Mack
*A BLOCK: HAYATA vs. TJP
*B BLOCK: SHO vs. Robbie Eagles
*A BLOCK: El Desperado vs. Blake Christian
**AEW held tapings at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon on Thursday for its three-hour block on Saturday with the following scheduled for Collision and Rampage:
AEW Collision at 8 p.m. ET on TNT:
*Will Ospreay vs. Shane Taylor
*Bryan Danielson & FTR vs. Lance Archer & The Righteous
*Orange Cassidy vs. Isiah Kassidy
*HOOK vs. Johnny TV
*Katsuyori Shibata vs. Rocky Romero
*Bryan Keith vs. Boulder
*Serena Deeb vs. Anna Jay
*Nick Wayne vs. Jack Cartwheel
AEW Rampage at 10 p.m. on TNT:
*Lee Moriarty vs. Kyle O’Reilly
*Brian Cage vs. Anthony Bowens
*Rush vs. Cody Chhun
*Deonna Purrazzo vs. Robyn Renegade
**Game Changer Wrestling presents ‘Most Notorious’ on Saturday at Harrah’s Casino in Philadelphia and streams at 8 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+. The lineup includes Joey Janela vs. Megan Bayne, Steph De Lander vs. Cheeseburger, Nick Gage vs. Tony Deppen, Mance Warner vs. Marcus Mathers, Frightmare & Hallowicked vs. Midas Black & Jay Lyon, Zilla Fatu vs. Broski Jimmy, and Brandon Kirk vs. Cole Radrick.
**TNA is holding television tapings in Newport, Kentucky on Saturday & Sunday. For the first night, they are advertising Nic Nemeth vs. Frankie Kazarian, Eddie Edwards vs. Joe Hendry, Mike Santana vs. Steve Maclin, Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Trent Seven, Jonathan Gresham vs. Sami Callihan, Jody Threat vs. Tasha Steelz, and Steph De Lander vs. Xia Brookside. The second night’s tapings include Matt Hardy & Ryan Nemeth vs. Brian Myers & Eddie Edwards, Nic & Ryan Nemeth vs. ABC, Jake Something vs. Hammerstone, Laredo Kid vs. AJ Francis for the Digital Media title, Ash by Elegance vs. Shazza McKenzie, Tasha Steelz vs. Dani Luna, and Jordynne Grace vs. Marti Belle in a non-title match.
**West Coast Pro has a card on Saturday in San Francisco at the United Irish Cultural Center. Naomichi Marufuji is wrestling Titus Alexander, plus Kevin Blackwood vs. Levi Shapiro for the West Coast Pro Heavyweight title, Jeff Cobb vs. Vinnie Massaro, Los Suavecitos vs. Cody Chhun & Guillermo Rosas for the tag titles, Takumi Iroha vs. Zara Zakher for the women’s title, Adam Priest vs. Alpha Zo, and Ishmael Vaughn vs. Aaron Solo.
**RevPro and CMLL are teaming up this weekend for its Fantastica Mania UK cards at York Hall in London, England. There will be two shows on Sunday with the early card including Gabe Kidd, Magnus & Templario vs. JJ Gale, Ricky Knight Jr. & Mistico, Robbie X vs. Barbaro Cavernario, and Connor Mills vs. Hechicero. The second card has the Grizzled Young Vets defending the British tag titles against Atlantis & Atlantis Jr., Angel de Oro vs. Zozaya, and Rhio vs. Stephanie Vaquer.
**Law professor Alex Long has released a book called Professional Wrestling and The Law covering various cases in the industry’s history. The book includes insight into cases such as Hulk Hogan’s suit against World Championship Wrestling after Vince Russo’s promo at the Bash at the Beach event in 2000. The book is out through McFarland & Company.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC returns to the Apex on Saturday night with a card streaming exclusively on ESPN+ in the U.S. The promotion will skip Memorial Day weekend and return on June 1 with the UFC 302 pay-per-view. Memorial Day used to be one of the big weekends for the UFC each year during the Zuffa era but isn’t a focus anymore. Saturday’s show is headlined by a featherweight contest between Edson Barboza (24-11) and Lerone Murphy (13-0-1). Barboza has been competing in the UFC since 2010 and this will be his thirtieth fight for the company. Barboza moved down to featherweight four years ago and put together a 4-3 record at the weight class. After losses to Giga Chikadze and Bryce Mitchell, Barboza bounced back with wins against Billy Quarantillo and Sodiq Yusuff last year. Murphy is undefeated and is 5-0-1 since entering the UFC in 2019. After knocking out Makwan Amirkhani in 2021, he didn’t fight for seventeen months and returned last March to beat Gabriel Santos by a split decision followed by a decision win against Joshua Culibao in July.
MAIN CARD (7 p.m. ET on ESPN+)
*Edson Barboza (24-11) vs. Lerone Murphy (13-0-1)
*Carlston Harris (19-5) vs. Khaos Williams (14-3)
*Themba Gorimbo (12-4) vs. Ramiz Brahimaj (10-4)
*Vinicius Salvador (13-6) vs. Adrian Yanez (16-5)
*Angela Hill (16-13) vs. Luana Pinheiro (11-2)
PRELIMINARY CARD (4 p.m. on ESPN+)
*Warlley Alves (14-7) vs. Abus Magomedov (25-6-1)
*Tuco Tokkos (10-3) vs. Oumar Sy (5-0)
*Victor Martinez (13-5) vs. Tom Nolan (6-1)
*Tamires Vidal (7-1) vs. Melissa Gatto (8-2-2)
*Ariane Carnelossi (14-3) vs. Piera Rodriguez (9-1)
*Emily Ducote (13-8) vs. Vanessa Demopoulos (10-5)
*Kleydon Rodrigues (8-3) vs. Heili Alateng (16-9-2)
**All the fighters made weight on Friday morning.
**Former UFC fighter Darren Till will make his boxing debut on the undercard of the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul card on July 20, which streams on Netflix. Till will fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who has not fought since 2021 but has sixty-one pro boxing fights including a split decision loss to Anderson Silva in June 2021. In 2011, Chavez Jr. won the WBC middleweight title from Sebastian Zbik and held it until September 2012 when he was defeated by Sergio Martinez. Till fought in the UFC between 2015 and 2022 and lost five of his last six fights with the promotion before he was granted his release. Of those five losses, three involved past and current champions Tyron Woodley, Robert Whittaker, and Dricus du Plessis.
RECENT SHOWS
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POLLOCK’S AUDIO: Best of the Super Juniors Night 3 & 4
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ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (May 2024)
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REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston cover the latest filings in the Janel Grant case, and TKO’s attempt to stop the release of records.
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