POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw
The audio version of today’s update is available for Double Double & Espresso members.
Wai Ting and I will be doing six individual shows covering each episode of the Mr. McMahon series on Netflix. The first episode will be released next Friday for free with reviews of Episodes 2-6 released daily starting Saturday, September 28 for members at POSTWrestlingCafe.com.
Rewind-A-SmackDown is live at 10:05 p.m. ET for all members of the POST Wrestling Café (listen/watch live tonight).
WRESTLING NEWS
**The second edition of SmackDown on USA Network takes place from the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California. It’s another big one with over 13,400 tickets distributed, according to WrestleTix. Last week was the heavily promoted debut including Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa and did a strong 0.55 in the 18-49 demographic. This week’s show doesn’t have the hype of the season premiere but they are advertising Rhodes and Roman Reigns to appear. The following matches are advertised:
*Tornado Rules Match: Nia Jax & Tiffany Stratton vs. Naomi & Bayley – If Naomi or Bayley score the fall, they receive a title shot at Bad Blood, if either of them takes the fall then they must leave SmackDown
*United States Championship: LA Knight © vs. Andrade
*Apollo Crews vs. Giovanni Vinci
*Footage of Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns at Georgia Tech
**Representatives for Janel Grant held a press conference on Thursday with remarks by lawyer Ann Callis and PR agent Kendra Lamy of SKDC. There was no announcement from the two beyond a message of wanting to move the civil process forward as quickly as they could while remaining on a stay until December 11 to allow for the federal investigation into Vince McMahon. This was the first type of press event that Grant’s reps have hosted where they took questions from the media. Regarding the Netflix series, they stated that Grant was approached and repeatedly said that Grant would tell her story when she was ready. Callis was careful not to criticize the Netflix series (she has yet to see the series) and is hopeful it will bring light to the allegations against McMahon. Callis shared an update on Grant, who has struggled with suicidal ideation and an inability to leave her home for long periods. Callis added that after the lawsuit was filed this past January, there was initial outreach by WWE but nothing since then. The Netflix series will be released next Wednesday and it’s our understanding that the Grant story will be covered in the first and final episodes with a larger emphasis dedicated to the story in the last episode of the series. For transparency, we have not seen the series nor were we issued screeners.
**Tony Khan was interviewed by Dave LaGreca of Busted Open Radio to promote Grand Slam next week. Khan joked that AEW’s future was “so bright” that he needed to wear sunglasses and cited John Ourand’s reporting in Puck, which he didn’t confirm, nor did he speak to the outlet but also didn’t dispute any of the reporting. Khan went so far as to say with “100 percent certainty” that AEW, TNT & TBS are “here to stay for a long time.”
**The TKO closed at $121.94 on Friday, which was a drop of 2% throughout trading today. The stock experienced a 6% surge throughout the week.
**The five-part Queen of Villains series was released by Netflix on Thursday profiling legendary talent Kaoru “Dump” Matsumoto. I have watched the first two episodes and thought they did a great job conveying the life inside of the All Japan Women’s dojo and introducing the major names of that era. Matsumoto and Chigusa Nagayo (who worked on the series) are the two prominently featured performers with Jackie Sato of The Beauty Pair as the ultimate star for that generation of fans. The backdrop is All Japan Women reeling after the retirement of Maki Ueda without mentioning the mandatory retirement age instilled, and business goes down as the Matsunaga Brothers are in search of new stars. The second episode culminates with Sato’s own retirement and the recreation of the January 4, 1983, match between Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka (Tomoko Kitamura) and leads to the formation of The Crush Gals.
**WWE has posted a 45-minute video featuring Dump Matsumoto’s two matches with the company from 1986 teaming with Bull Nakano in New York and Boston. The video includes matches involving The Crush Gals from the same era on its WWE Vault channel.
**Dwayne Johnson is interviewed on the Patrick Bet David podcast on his life and career:
**Ken Shamrock was interviewed by Chris Van Vliet and confirmed he is under a Legends contract with WWE. After leaving the UFC, Shamrock was expected to sign with New Japan Pro Wrestling when WWE managed to ink Shamrock to a deal and he was introduced in early 1997. Shamrock was only in the company for 2 ½ years but coincided with the Attitude Era boom and became a King of the Ring winner, Intercontinental & tag champion, and had a feud with The Rock in early 1998. In 1999, he opted to leave the company to renew his MMA career and fought for PRIDE, and returned to the UFC in 2002 his first of three fights with Tito Ortiz. Despite being a key name in the boom period, Shamrock had not been one of WWE’s past characters that they brought back for reunion shows or did much with but that’s shifted. Shamrock’s last pro wrestling run was in TNA from 2019-2021 and was inducted into their Hall of Fame.
**Former WWE Women’s Champion Leilani Kai underwent a total hip replacement procedure on Wednesday.
Just woke up after my hip replacement and feeling amazing! The love, messages, and prayers you all sent meant more to me than words can say. I was scared, but you made sure I never felt alone. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
Kai stated she may be able to go home as soon as today. Kai began her career in 1975 and wrestled as recently as 2015. She wrested on the first WrestleMania card in 1985 against Wendi Richter with the involvement of Cyndi Lauper from the MTV exposure and returned nine years later to perform at WrestleMania 10.
**CMLL is at Arena Mexico tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET one week after its Aniversario card. The show is headlined by Euforia (unmasked), Esfinge & Soberano Jr. vs. Hechicero, Bárbaro Cavernario & Valiente with all four members of last week’s Mask vs. Mask match involved. The full lineup includes:
* Místico vs. Averno
* Último Guerrero, Gran Guerrero & Stuka Jr. vs. Atlantis Jr., Templario & Titán
*Flip Gordon, Neón & Pelon Encapuchado vs. Magnus, Rugido & Vegas
*Blue Panther Jr., Dark Panther & El Hijo de Blue Panther vs. Dark Magic, Espanto Jr. & Raider
* Rayo Metálico & Legendario vs. Infarto & Alom
**AEW Rampage airs at 10 p.m. ET on TNT from the tapings in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The card features Nick Wayne vs. Rocky Romero vs. Kip Sabian vs. Lio Rush, Roderick Strong & Beast Mortos vs. Marcus Mathers & Joey Keys, Harley Cameron vs. Hikaru Shida, The Butcher vs. Wheeler Yuta, and Mark Briscoe vs. Bryan Keith. It will be interesting to see if SmackDown continues with overruns and if that affects the opening quarter for Rampage over the next several weeks. SmackDown couldn’t do overruns on Fox due to affiliate programming but that doesn’t apply on the USA Network.
**DEFY Wrestling’s By Design card takes place tonight at Washington Hall in Seattle with KENTA vs. Artemis Spencer for the DEFY title. The lineups include Schaff vs. Sebastian Wolfe for the Pacific Northwest title, Cody Chunn & Guillermo Rosas defending the tag titles against The Bollywood Boyz, Midnight Heat, and Sinner and Saint; Vipress takes on Vert Vixen, Leon Slater faces Man Like DeReiss, Matt Vandagriff vs. Jordan Oasis, and Shelton Benjamin will face Kevin Knight.
**GCW Aura is at Harrah’s in Philadelphia tonight at 8 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+. The lineup features Mance Warner vs. Tony Deppen for the GCW title, Joey Janela & Megan Bayne vs. Brandon Kirk & Kasey Catal, Zilla Fatu vs. Matt Tremont, Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Ruckus, Tasha Steelz vs. Brooke Havok, Sidney Akeem vs. Arez, Homicide vs. Marcus Mathers, and Effy vs. Greg Excellent. On Saturday, GCW Back to Back is in Hartford headlined by Mance Warner vs. Joey Janela for the GCW title at 8 p.m.
**C*4 Wrestling is in Ottawa tonight at their home base of the Preston Event Centre with the show airing next Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on IWTV. Junior Benito defends the C4 Championship against Evil Uno, The Butcher takes on Mike Marston, Kevin Blackwood faces Gabriel Fuerza, and TDT defends the C4 tag titles against Dani Luna & Jody Threat in the top matches.
**NJPW’s Road to Destruction tour is at the Kushiro Super Arena on Saturday with Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Yota Tsuji & BUSHI vs. Jeff Cobb, HENARE, Great O-Khan & Francesco Akira in the main event. The promotion has one more Road to event on Monday and then, has the week off before Destruction in Kobe on September 29.
**MLW has added a match between Donovan Dijak and Trevor Lee to its Slaughterhouse event on October 4 in St. Petersburg, Florida with Lee replacing TJP. The show will stream at 9 p.m. ET on YouTube.
**CMLL’s Lluvia debuts for MLW at Lucha Apocalypto on November 9 at Cicero Stadium in Illinois.
**The UFC is off this weekend and returns next Saturday with a Fight Night card at the Accor Arena in Paris, France. They will host events for the next nine weeks alone. The current season of the Contender Series runs until October 15.
**On this date in 1934 at Wrigley Field in Chicago:
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MCU L8R: Agatha All Along Ep. 1 & 2
The MCU L8R universe is right again, as Rich Fann and WH Park are back to talk about Agatha All Along, Marvel’s sequel to WandaVision
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REWIND-A-WAI #165: WWE Raw (Dec. 6, 2004)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Raw from December 6, 2004 main evented by Trish Stratus vs. Lita for the Women’s Championship.
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REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite featuring Chris Jericho taking on Orange Cassidy from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston discuss AEW closing in on its media rights deal with guest Brandon Ross of LightShed Partners.
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