POST IT NOTES
**The audio news update for Monday is available for Double Double & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café. Today’s update includes a review of Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport XI, Jack Wannan has a UFC 304 report, and the latest on the G1 Climax.
**Rewind-A-Raw is LIVE at 11:05 p.m. ET tonight with John Pollock & Wai Ting with a review of the show from St. Paul, Minnesota, and go through the news from the weekend.
**We are doing a live edition of MCU L8R on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET to review Deadpool & Wolverine on the POST Wrestling Café. All members have access to watch and call into the show.
**This Friday, Rewind-A-Wai #162 covers the WWF Unforgiven 2001 show from Pittsburgh with Kurt Angle challenging Steve Austin for the WWF title in his hometown.
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: MCU L8R – Deadpool & Wolverine review (POST Wrestling Café)
Tuesday: upNXT
Wednesday: G1 Climax – Day 8 & 9 with Bruce Lord & Kate from MTL (POST Wrestling Café)
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: POST Puroresu with WH Park & Karen Peterson
Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #162 – WWF Unforgiven 2001 (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: WWE SummerSlam with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Sunday: G1 Climax – Day 10 & 11 with WH Park & Eric Marcotte (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from MTL (POST Wrestling Café)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Pete Sanchez, who was an undercard wrestler in the Northeast, passed away on Saturday. Sanchez began his career in 1958. His primary fame occurred in the World Wide Wrestling Federation as an enhancement talent for many of the major names. His first listed match at Madison Square Garden was on the undercard on May 17, 1963, where he teamed with Argentina Apollo against the Fabulous Kangaroos on the night Bruno Sammartino won his first WWWF Championship by beating Buddy Rogers in 48 seconds. Sanchez would have matches at The Garden with The Sheik (Ed Farhat), Bull Ramos, Kevin Sullivan, and Ric Flair. The March 1, 1976, card was Flair’s first match at The Garden when he came in as the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion on a card headlined by Sammartino vs. Ernie Ladd. Sanchez also wrestled as Gino Caruso and ventured to various territories including stints with Stampede Wrestling, Texas, Kansas City, and Puerto Rico. When wrestling as Caruso in Stampede, he teamed with Bill Cody and Carlos Belafonte (Carlos Colon) to win the International tag titles. Sanchez held the Ohio version of the tag titles with Carlos Milano, and the West Texas version twice with Gary Young in 1979 & 1980. (SLAM! Wrestling)
**Friday Night SmackDown posted its largest audience in Canada in nearly four months this past weekend. The July 26 show aired against the CFL and the opening ceremonies for the Olympics with WWE averaging 265,900 viewers and 112,600 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was SmackDown’s largest audience in the country since April 5 before WrestleMania 40 and it ranked second among all sports programming for the night and was first in the demo. There is a caveat that the opening ceremonies were split among multiple networks and the cumulative audience would have topped SmackDown, although SmackDown still topped the demo. It was a very impressive set of figures for SmackDown especially since it was a taped version of the show from the previous week. SmackDown increased by 30.5 percent in viewers and 40 percent in the demo from the previous week.
**WWE Raw moves to Syfy for two weeks beginning tonight in St. Paul, Minnesota. They did a great job promoting the move last Monday with constant reminders from the hosts and airing commercials. The USA Network is airing wall-to-wall coverage of the Paris Olympics and caused Raw & NXT to be moved for two weeks. The show is the go-home Raw before SummerSlam with the following listed:
*Seth Rollins delivers the referee’s instructions to Drew McIntyre & CM Punk
*Gunther vs. Finn Balor
*Sheamus vs. Bronson Reed
*Shayna Baszler, Zoey Stark & Sonya Deville vs. Lyra Valkyria, Katana Chance & Kayden Carter
*Xavier Woods vs. Karrion Kross
*The Creeds vs. Otis & Akira Tozawa
**WrestleTix reports that Raw has distributed nearly 11,800 tickets at the Xcel Energy Center.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling drew 1,757 for Monday’s G1 card at the Fukuoka International Center for the A Block card. It was their second night in the building after having 1,780 for the B Block show on Sunday. Today’s show included EVIL beating Callum Newman, so EVIL is 5-0 and sits alone in first place after Zack Sabre Jr. lost his first match to Shota Umino and is 4-1. The main event was a Wrestle Kingdom 18 main event rematch between Tetsuya Naito and SANADA with Naito winning his second match of the G1. It was a fine main event, but Naito isn’t knocking them dead this year, but the audience did treat him like a star. Gabe Kidd and Shingo Takagi had an intense match and had a fast pace throughout it. The interesting tease was Kidd offering his hand to Takagi after winning, and Takagi accepted, but Kidd attacked him. For a moment, the audience bought Kidd as a babyface, and down the road, it’s a role he can play effectively and is building his cache with the audience.
Sunday’s show was incredible and the B Block is proving to be the better of the two. Between Konosuke Takeshita and Yuya Uemura having the best matches of the tournament, solid work from HENARE, El Phantasmo & David Finlay, and Hirooki Goto as the veteran presence, it’s a great mix on those cards.
The tour continues Wednesday at 5:30 a.m. ET in Yamaguchi with Konosuke Takeshita vs. David Finlay, Ren Narita vs. Hirooki Goto, Jeff Cobb vs. El Phantasmo, Yuya Uemura vs. HENARE, and Oleg Boltin vs. Yota Tsuji.
**Janai Kai will defend the MLW Women’s Featherweight title against Stardom’s HANAKO at Summer of the Beasts on August 29 at the Melrose Ballroom.
**Bill Goldberg is a guest on It’s Time with Bruce Buffer.
**Trish Stratus will be profiled on A&E’s WWE Legends Biography next Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.
**NXT’s first of two Great American Bash cards airs Tuesday on Syfy. The card includes Roxanne Perez vs. Thea Hail for the NXT Women’s Championship, Tony D’Angelo vs. Tavion Heights for the Heritage Cup, Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn vs. Lash Legend & Jakara Jackson for the WWE women’s tag titles, and a six-woman tag with Jacy Jayne, Jazmin Nyx & Fallon Henley vs. Sol Ruca, Karmen Petrovic & Lola Vice.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC announced an attendance figure of 17,907 and a gate of $6,720,000 for UFC 304 this past Saturday at the Co-op Live in Manchester, England. The first fight on the prelims didn’t begin until 11 p.m. local time with the card running until approximately 6 a.m.
**Paddy Pimblett was the big winner on the bonuses after his submission of Bobby Green. Pimblett received a $200,000 bonus for Performance of the Night with Tom Aspinall and Mick Parkin receiving $100,000 each for their performances.
**Last week, Dana White was convinced at the UFC 304 press conference to increase the fight night bonuses to $100,000 each, which he accepted. After seven straight decisions on Saturday, White swore off doing that again and argued it didn’t motivate anyone to fight harder. The ironic part is that the UFC has always structured its fighter payouts to have a guaranteed amount to fight, and a bonus for winning the fight with the idea it will make fighters compete harder for the win and double their pay. A lot has been made of White’s quick rush to judgment when you’re going to have good nights and bad nights, and this was a unique scenario where the fighters were competing in the middle of the night in Manchester to accommodate the time zone for the U.S. pay-per-view window. White didn’t rule out upping the bonuses at some point but made it seem he won’t be talked into it by the fighters anymore.
**The UFC 304 prelims averaged 98,000 viewers and 72,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 in Canada.
**This Saturday’s UFC card is in Abu Dhabi at Etihad Arena featuring a bantamweight main event between Cory Sandhagen (17-4) and Umar Nurmagomedov (17-0). Since his loss to Petr Yan for the vacant belt, Sandhagen has won three in a row but has been off for the past year since his decision win against Rob Font. Nurmagomedov is 5-0 since joining the UFC but this is easily the toughest opponent he has faced. It’s an afternoon card with the prelims airing on ESPN 2 and the main card is on ABC beginning at 3 p.m. ET. The main card will overlap with AEW Collision, which has a 5 p.m. start time this weekend on TNT.
**The TKO closed at $108.28 on Monday.
G1 CLIMAX
Day 5 & 6
Karen Peterson and Kate from Montreal review NJPW G1 Climax 34 Nights 5 & 6 featuring Tetsuya Naito vs. EVIL and Hirooki Goto vs. Yota Tsuji in the main events
Day 3 & 4
John Pollock and Eric Marcotte review NJPW G1 Climax 34 Nights 3 & 4 featuring Konosuke Takeshita vs. Yuya Uemura and Tetsuya Naito vs. Jake Lee in the main events
Day 1 & 2
G1 coverage begins at POST! Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson review and rate all 19 matches of the opening weekend including Tetsuya Naito vs. Shingo Takagi and Yota Tsuji vs. Konosuke Takeshita
PAST SHOWS
COLLISION COURSE
Join John Siino & Kate From MTL for Collision Course, looking at this week’s episode of AEW Collision and Battle of the Belts XI, with PAC vs Lio Rush, the debuting MxM vs FTR, and Willow Nightingale vs Deonna Purazzo for the CMLL Women’s World Title
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REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown featuring the Six Pack Challenge #1 Contenders match for a tag title shot.
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MCU L8R: Deadpool 2 (2018)
This week in their Deadpool & Wolverine ReWatch prep, Rich Fann & WH Park are in the presence of MCU L8R’s Charles Xavier, Wai Ting to review Deadpool 2 from 2018.
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