POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Saturday: The Long & Winding Royal Road feat. Daniel Makabe
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from MTL
Sunday: UFC 302 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte (11 a.m. ET)
Brandon Thurston joins us at the beginning of Rewind-A-SmackDown tonight to chat about the past week’s news regarding the Janel Grant lawsuit being put on pause, the involvement of the Southern District of New York, and more.
Daniel Makabe will be this month’s guest on The Long & Winding Royal Road with host WH Park. This month’s match they will chat about is from May 1992 with Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat vs. Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi.
Eric Marcotte and I will be live this Sunday at 11 a.m. ET with a UFC 302 review covering the card from New Jersey.
POLLOCK’S AUDIO NEWS UPDATE
John Pollock reviews Friday’s Best of the Super Juniors card, goes through all the day’s news, and welcomes POST’s Jack Wannan to preview UFC 302 featuring Islam Makhachev vs. Dustin Poirier.
Available today for ALL POST Wrestling Café members:
WRESTLING NEWS
**Olympic gold medalist and former WWE talent Gable Steveson has signed with the Buffalo Bills of the NFL with the team confirming the news. Steveson won the gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo (which took place one year due to the pandemic) and was a two-time NCAA champion at the University of Minnesota. ESPN’s Adam Schefter broke the news on Friday and added that the former wrestler is expected to play on the defensive line. The Bills are relying on his incredible athleticism as Steveson has never played football and had spoken in the past about eventually competing in MMA. Steveson signed with WWE in 2021 and was geared for a big role with the company including being drafted to Raw that year. He didn’t have his first match until July 2023 when he wrestled Baron Corbin in a forgettable match at the NXT Great American Bash and never wrestled on television again. Over the past year, he was limited to NXT live events and dark matches on the road with SmackDown until his release earlier this month. Steveson was accused of sexual misconduct in 2019 but the charges were not pursued due to a lack of evidence and the laws at the time in Minnesota broadened the ability for someone to consent while intoxicated. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman stated in 2019, “There are often conflicting versions of what happened and this case is no exception,” he said. “In the interest of justice, there is inadequate evidence to fairly charge and prosecute this case.”
**Friday Night SmackDown airs from the MVP Arena in Albany, New York tonight. The NBA Finals do not begin until next week, therefore, SmackDown will avoid any basketball competition tonight but will air against Game 5 of the Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars. The following is being advertised:
*Nia Jax’s Queen of the Ring coronation
*Cody Rhodes to appear
**AEW Rampage was taped at the Kia Forum earlier this week and airing at 6:30 p.m. ET tonight on TNT with the following matches:
*TNT Championship Qualifying Match: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Penta El Zero M
*AEW Women’s Championship – Eliminator Match: Timeless Toni Storm © vs. Viva Van
*Rey Fenix vs. Isiah Kassidy
*Satnam Singh vs. Peter Avalon
*Kyle O’Reilly vs. Jordan Cruz
**Two anonymous flight attendants have filed a civil lawsuit against former Jacksonville Jaguars’ kicker Brandon McManus and the team, alleging they were sexually assaulted by the player on a team-chartered flight last September. McManus is being accused of grinding against both women and attempting to kiss one of them. McManus is no longer with the Jaguars and signed with the Washington Commanders with the player denying the allegations and his lawyer telling CNN:
To be clear, these are absolutely fictitious and demonstrably false allegations made as part of a campaign to defame and disparage a talented and well-respected NFL player. We intend to aggressively defend Brandon’s rights and integrity and clear his name by showing what these claims truly are – an extortion attempt.
The Jaguars are owned by Shahid Khan (the father of Tony Khan, who also works for the team) with the team named in the suit and accused of “gross negligence” The team issued the following statement:
We’re aware of the complaint, and we acknowledge the significance of the claims. As we continue to look into the matter, it bears emphasizing that we insist on an organization built by people who represent our community and game with the highest character and class.
The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial and seek over $1 million in damages. Their lawyer stated that the women attempted to resolve the matter without litigation, but their efforts were met with “arrogance, ignorance, and stupidity”. The suit was filed last Friday in Duval County Circuit Civil Court.
**AEW Dynamite averaged 787,000 viewers and 335,000 (0.25) in the 18-49 demographic this past Wednesday on TBS. The show ranked second on cable for the night behind the Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers (1,756,000 and 0.56) and was Dynamite’s best performance since mid-April. The show was bolstered by an increase among women in the core demo and an increase in adults 35-49. The demo in AEW under the spotlight is 18-34 and after growing to 126,000 viewers last week, it dropped to 115,000 this week. (Wrestlenomics)
**Puck’s Matt Belloni appeared on The Powers That Be and reiterated his earlier reporting, stating that Tony Khan was “not thrilled” about the current offer from WBD for the upcoming domestic rights. Belloni noted this week that the exclusive negotiating window between the two entities expires in July. After Belloni’s report, the Wrestling Observer site reported that AEW sources denied being disappointed with the offer. The podcast focused on David Zaslav’s sports strategy in a post-NBA scenario and how AEW would fit into a picture of smaller profile sports properties to offset cable carriers dropping TNT. A constant topic in the NBA-WBD story is the benefit for UFC, the next major sports rights package to come due, and whether WBD makes an aggressive bid on the property through all the money saved by not renewing with the NBA.
**The round-portion stage of the Best of the Super Juniors wrapped up on Friday at Korakuen Hall. On Thursday, El Desperado and TJP advanced while today’s results led to Taiji Ishimori and DOUKI advancing. Surprisingly, Hiromu Takahashi was eliminated after his loss to Ishimori in the main event today. Ishimori led the block with fourteen points while Takahashi and DOUKI were tied with twelve points each and DOUKI advanced on the tiebreaker. The semi-finals are on Monday with El Desperado vs. DOUKI and Taiji Ishimori vs. TJP and the winners meet in the final at Dominion on June 9.
**AEW taped this week’s Collision on Thursday night in Palm Desert, California, and will air in its usual slot on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on TNT with the following matches:
*Claudio Castagnoli vs. Johnny TV
*Cage of Agony (Brian Cage & Gates of Agony) vs. KM, Danny Rose & Danny Gee
*Lio Rush vs. Roderick Strong
*AEW International Championship: Will Ospreay © vs. Kyle O’Reilly
*Daniel Garcia & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Anthony Henry & JD Drake
*Reina Dorada vs. Thunder Rosa
*Shane Taylor & Lee Moriarty vs. Royce Isaacs & Jorel Nelson
**I saw the Yuma Anzai vs. Kento Miyahara match this past Tuesday at Korakuen Hall. Miyahara won the Champion Carnival earlier this month and this was his shot to regain the Triple Crown. Anzai is 25 years old and has only been wrestling since September 2022, which is astounding given his talent, poise, and delivery in big-match scenarios. In March, All Japan put all their chips on Anzai but opted for the newcomer to be the one to unseat Katsuhiko Nakajima and win the Triple Crown, thus, becoming the youngest wrestler to hold the championship and achieving the feat two years earlier than Miyahara did. The match lasted almost twenty-seven minutes. The final stretch was incredible between Anzai’s repeated knee strikes out of nowhere, Miyahara connecting with the Blackout knee, and Anzai selling the move by stumbling around the ring showcasing great talent in the selling aspect. Anzai caught Miyahara with the Gimlet (his finisher), pinned Miyahara, and capped off a tremendous main event. Anzai is a fresh face in the main event mix, is young, and All Japan is going all the way with him with the audience accepting him in the role. It contradicts the standard argument that someone isn’t ready or picking apart areas to stay with the pat hand. All Japan needs to take chances and a pat hand is only going to produce the same results. In a short period, they have created a viable main event star, who could be the franchise player for the group.
**The NBA Finals begin next Thursday between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks on ABC. Game 3 of the series airs on June 12 against Dynamite and Game 4 is two days later against SmackDown. If the series goes to a fifth game, it will air against the June 17 episode of Raw.
**GCW’s Tournament of Survival 9 airs on Saturday from Atlantic City at 5 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+. The eight-man deathmatch tournament will feature the following opening-round matches:
*UltraMantis Black vs. Yuki Ishikawa
*John Wayne Murdoch vs. TBA
*Shunma Katsumata vs. Brandon Kirk
*Hideyoshi Kamitani vs. Big F’N Joe
**GCW returns on Sunday with a second show at The Showboat in Atlantic City with Cage of Survival featuring Effy vs. Mance Warner and a Gauntlet of Survival for the vacant GCW championship. Sunday’s show starts at 5 p.m. ET.
**MLW’s Battle Riot IV event is on Saturday at Center Stage in Atlanta. The show streams free on YouTube at 9 p.m. ET with the following matches:
*40-person Battle Riot (Announced: Mistico, Sami Callihan, Violent J of ICP, Rickey Shane Page, Jake Crist, Ernest Miller, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Bobby Fish, Jimmy Yang, Matt Riddle, Star Jr., Bad Dude Tito, Mr. Thomas, Timothy Thatcher, Mads Krule Krugger, Brett Ryan Gosselin, AKIRA, Rugido, 1 Called Manders, Josh Bishop, Ikuro Kwon, Chris Danger, Matthew Justice, Okumura, Jesus Rodriguez, and Paul Walter Hauser)
*MLW World Heavyweight Championship: Satoshi Kojima © vs. Tom Lawlor
*MLW Women’s Featherweight Championship: Janai Kai © vs. Delmi Exo
*Ritual Combat Match: Alex Kane vs. AJ Francis
**WWE has released a preview of this Sunday’s Biography: WWE Legends episode on Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, which airs at 8 p.m. ET:
Tune in this Sunday to see how Ricky Steamboat climbed his way to the top in an all-new episode of Biography: WWE Legends. It all starts at 8/7c only on @AETV. pic.twitter.com/sUpJ7dMTIn
— WWE (@WWE) May 31, 2024
**WWE has confirmed that Friday Night SmackDown takes place on August 2 at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio. The city will host SummerSlam the following evening at Cleveland Browns Stadium and tickets for SmackDown go on sale Friday, June 7 at 10 a.m. ET.
**Marigold runs shows in Osaka and Hamamatsu this weekend, which will stream on Wrestle Universe.
**TNA is going to Tampa, Florida for television tapings on Friday, August 2, and Saturday, August 3. The promotion will be staging the tapings at the Florida State Fairgrounds with tickets going on sale next Saturday at 10 a.m. ET.
**The TKO stock closed at $109.07 on Friday.
**Only one fighter missed weight before UFC 302 on Friday morning. Flyweight Andre Lima was four pounds over the limit for his fight with Mitch Raposo. MMA Junkie reports that Lima will be fined 30 percent of his purse with the fight still expected to take place.
**Here is the card for UFC 302, which takes place on Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey:
MAIN CARD (10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view)
*UFC Lightweight Championship: Islam Makhachev © vs. Dustin Poirier
*Sean Strickland vs. Paulo Costa (Five rounds)
*Kevin Holland vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk
*Jailton Almeida vs. Alexander Romanov
*Randy Brown vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 p.m. ESPN 2, ESPN+ & Sportsnet 360 in Canada)
*César Almeida vs. Roman Kopylov
*Grant Dawson vs. Joe Solecki
*Philip Rowe vs. Jake Matthews
*Niko Price vs. Alex Morono
EARLY PRELIMS (6 p.m. on ESPN+ & Fight Pass)
*Mickey Gall vs. Bassil Hafez
*Ailín Pérez vs. Joselyne Edwards
*André Lima vs. Mitch Raposo
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MCU L8R: X-Men (2000)
This week’s free MCU L8R looks back at 2000’s X-Men. Brent Chittenden returns to bring his thoughts to the table for the film that started it all
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POLLOCK & TING: TALK
In this edition of TALK, John Pollock & Wai Ting sip coffee in the Ting backyard as they catch up on each other’s personal and professional lives.
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REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite from the Kia Forum featuring the Forbidden Door Casino Gauntlet match to determine Swerve Strickland’s next challenger.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston cover the latest reporting on AEW’s media rights negotiation process, including when the exclusive window with Warner Bros. Discovery may be closing.
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upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from May 27th, 2024 featuring Trick Williams & Je’Von Evans vs Gallus.
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