POST IT NOTES
**We have our Impact Wrestling Rebellion POST Show up on the site with Nate Milton and I reviewing Sunday’s pay-per-view with Toronto. It’s a 90-minute show covering the latest involving Impact, a full review of the card, their move to Pursuit, several announcements made on the show, the injury to Brian Cage, Gail Kim’s final match, and your feedback. The show can be downloaded directly or listen to POST Wrestling on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts.
**Wai Ting and I will be back late tonight with Rewind-A-Raw to review Raw from Kentucky, catch up on all the news and take your feedback. The two of us are going to dedicate some time on Tuesday night during Rewind-A-SmackDown to chat about Avengers Endgame but will save that discussion for the end of the show for those that have not watched it.
**This week we will be moving the schedule around due to some scheduling issues. The Café Hangout will be live on Friday at 3 pm Eastern for Double Double, Iced Capp, and Espresso Café members. Conrad Thompson will be our guest on the show this week to chat about Starrcast II and much more.
**With the Café Hangout on Friday, we will be releasing Rewind-A-Wai this Sunday for Café members. We will be reviewing WWE’s New Year’s Revolution 2006 card. Feedback for Rewind-A-Wai can be posted on the POST Wrestling Forum.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. They are advertising a Moment of Bliss segment with Alexa Bliss announcing the Raw participants for the men’s and women’s Money in the Bank Ladder matches next month. I was told that the men’s match will feature eight people with four from each brand.
**SmackDown will be holding a house show in Huntington, West Virginia tonight and the television tapings are in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday night. They have announced Becky Lynch vs. Bayley and an interview with Kofi Kingston responding to the Kevin Owens turn for Tuesday’s show.
**The WWE will be holding a pay-per-view called “Stomping Grounds” on Sunday, June 23rd. The event will take place from the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington. Initially, they were going to host Backlash the weekend before in San Diego at the Pechanga Arena, but that event was removed. It is expected the WWE will hold two specials in June with the unannounced return to Saudi Arabia expected for early June. Tickets for Stomping Grounds go on sale this Friday and Raw will take place the following night on June 24th in Everett, Washington.
**Kento Miyahara won the Champion Carnival tournament on Monday defeating Jake Lee in an excellent match. The two went over 27 minutes and ended with Miyahara securing control of Lee’s wrists and delivering the Shutdown German suplex in front of an electric crowd at Korakuen Hall. The match was one of the best I’ve seen in 2019. This was Miyahara’s first Champion Carnival win after participating each year since 2014 and going to the finals in 2018, losing to Naomichi Marufuji. Miyahara is the reigning Triple Crown champion and typically, the Carnival is used to create a future challenge instead of having the champion win. Miyahara and Lee were former members of the Nextream stable, prior to Lee leaving the group. The tournament received tremendous reviews with Miyahara and Yuji Okabayashi as the MVPs of the Carnival.
**Cody cut a promo on this week’s Road to Double or Nothing responding to his brother from the prior week. Cody did a great job with the delivery and adding in the element of his generation believing they are better than those from the Attitude Era. He mentioned CM Punk’s pipe bomb promo from June 2011 as a comparison to The Rock and that the women at “All In” were better than any Bra and Panties match put on a generation ago. I have no doubt this is going to be among the most heated matches at Double or Nothing and the promos from both have been excellent. In terms of building up Double or Nothing, this series has been much more effective than Being the Elite with four weeks remaining until the show.
**Brian Cage was taken to hospital after his match with Johnny Impact at Rebellion on Sunday night. During the match, Cage took a Spanish Fly off the ramp to the floor and is suffered a back injury. It was clear throughout the rest of the match that he was compromised and gutting his way through it. Cage appeared on Busted Open Radio on Monday and said it was likely inflammation and a bone bruise, which the possibility of a small fracture but it appears it isn’t a major injury. Not only did Cage have to finish the match, but he also did a post-match angle with Michael Elgin and took an Elgin Bomb.
**Fenix took a nasty fall during a Spanish Fly of his own in the Full Metal Mayhem match. Fenix scaled the ropes and delivered a Spanish Fly to Ortiz from a ladder and went through a table on the ramp. We were told by one person that Fenix was okay after the spot.
**Michael Elgin began with Impact Wrestling on Sunday, which was his first prominent appearance since leaving New Japan Pro Wrestling. His contract expired with the group at the end of March and he has kept a low-profile since. It would appear he is coming in for a major program out of the gate with new Impact champion Brian Cage, who was his tag partner in PWG.
**Impact Wrestling will be holding television tapings in Toronto tonight at the Rebel Entertainment Complex. They have announced Fenix vs. Eddie Edwards, Ace Austin vs. Petey Williams, Rosemary vs. Kiera Hogan, and Taya Valkyrie vs. Madison Rayne, plus Rob Van Dam will be appearing at the tapings. They will be taping television this Friday and Saturday night at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and announced dates for June 6th and 7th at the Melrose Ballroom in New York City.
**The Slammiversary pay-per-view will be taking place on Sunday, July 7th in Dallas, Texas, although no venue was announced. The timing is notable as they will be running Dallas the night after New Japan is holding the G1 Climax opening night card from the American Airlines Center in the city. That means within one-week, Dallas will be hosting Raw on July 1st, the G1 card on July 6th, and Slammiversary on July 7th. The company has held Slammiversary twice before with the 2012 and 2014 shows taking place in Arlington at the College Park Center. In 2014, they had a great idea utilizing the Von Erich lineage with Kevin Von Erich appearing with his sons, Marshall and Ross, for a tag match and having Kevin do the claw spot for a massive reaction.
**The WWE stock closed at $82.48 on Monday, so it has not shown any signs of bouncing back since Thursday’s earnings report.
**NXT UK wrestler Eddie Dennis has announced that he has suffered a torn pectoral muscle and was set to undergo surgery on Monday. He said he is expected to be on the shelf for six months of rehab after the operation.
**Superstar Billy Graham has a Go Fund Me campaign set up for assistance with upcoming hip surgery. Graham says he needs a total hip revision, which is a $100,000 surgery, which Medicaid only covers ¾ of. Graham is hopeful of raising the extra $25,000. He has been on crutches for the last 18 months to keep his body weight off the left hip and has prevented him from traveling.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling has shows in Kagoshima and Oita on Tuesday and Wednesday and then the big Wrestling Dontaku event on Friday and Saturday in Fukuoka. Friday’s card is headlined by Dragon Lee vs. Taiji Ishimori for the IWGP junior heavyweight title and Jeff Cobb vs. Taichi for the NEVER Openweight title. Saturday’s card will feature Kazuchika Okada’s first IWGP title defense since regaining the title when he defends against Sanada.
**AEW has announced that Chuckie T. and Beretta have been added to the Over the Budget Battle Royale at Double or Nothing on May 25th.
**Impact Wrestling is re-branding the Global Wrestling Network to Impact Plus, beginning on Wednesday with existing subscribers to the GWN being migrated over. The service will include live monthly specials, the archive of Impact episodes, the pay-per-views from June 2002 through Homecoming this past January, and content from 15 other independents.
**DEFY Wrestling has a show on Friday, May 10th at Washington Hall in Seattle featuring Pentagon Jr., Fenix, and Tom Lawlor.
**AIW has announced that Savio Vega is the first entrant for this year’s JT Lightning Invitational tournament on June 14th and 15th. The shows will take place at The Odeon in Cleveland, Ohio.
**Smash Wrestling has announced the list of 16 participants for their annual Northern tournament that takes place June 1st and 2nd at the Franklin Horner Community Centre in Etobicoke, Ontario. The tournament will feature Ultimo Dragon, Josh Briggs, Tyson Dux, Matt Cross, John Greed, The Blade, Anthony Greene, Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, Mike Bailey, Sebastian Suave, Jason Kincaid, Mike Rollins, Carter Mason, Jim Stryder, and LuFisto.
**APW out of California has posted a free match between Jungle Boy and Bryan Alvarez from this past Saturday’s card in Union City for the APW Junior’s title.
**Titus O’Neil turns 42 today.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC has officially announced their return to Abu Dhabi for the UFC 242 event on Saturday, September 7th. This event will mark the first in a five-year partnership between the company and the Au Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism through 2023. There is no main event announced for the September card, but it has been heavily rumored that they are attempting to put a lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier for that show. It will be the UFC’s first card in Abu Dhabi since April 2014. In the release, it stated that the cards from Abu Dhabi will include at least one title fight per show.
**Over the weekend, former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz signed a multi-fight deal with Combate Americas. The 44-year old is expected to fight this fall, although no opponent has been revealed. Ortiz last fought in November 2018, defeating rival Chuck Liddell at the lone Golden Boy MMA card in Inglewood, California. Ortiz has been fighting professionally since May 1997 and retired the first time in July 2012, which was his final fight with the UFC. He signed with Bellator and returned to fight in 2014 where he earned victories over Alexander Shlemenko and Stephan Bonnar. He would fight two more times with the organization, losing to Liam McGeary in September 2015 when McGeary was still their light heavyweight champion. His final fight with Bellator was in January 2017 where he submitted Chael Sonnen.
**ONE Championship has announced further requirements as part of their ONE Agent Certification program. The promotion is establishing this outlet whereby managers of the fighters must meet the criteria that the promotion is set forth. Among the qualifications that ONE requires is that a manager, agent or advisor must be a resident of Asia for at least one year, have no criminal record, no history or current ongoing matters of legal or lawsuit activity with any athlete, a minimum of ten years of experience in the MMA industry, and possess a college or university degree. The news has been met with a lot of resistance because it’s the promotion directing the guidelines and whether it’s a conflict when the manager or agent is negotiating on behalf of their client and must be approved by ONE’s criteria. ONE Elite Agency was launched in 2018 and is run by Victor Cui.
**ONE has also announced a television and film division of the company with the formation of ONE Studios. Chatri Sityodtong, ONE’s Chairman and CEO, stated his goal is to create the next generation of heroes across the world like Dwyane Johnson and Jackie Chan. In the press release, it states ONE Studios will distribute their content through Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon.
**Former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia has signed with the Professional Fighter League (PFL) to serve as the promotion’s ring announcer for their second season. The PFL’s next season begins on Thursday, May 9th with six regular-season events followed by three playoffs events and the finals of the various tournaments is scheduled for New Year’s Eve. The PFL recently announced a deal with ESPN to broadcast their cards across their platforms and will also air on TSN in Canada.
**Bellator president Scott Coker confirmed to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani that a rematch between Darrion Caldwell and Kyoji Horiguchi will take place at Bellator 222 on Friday, June 14th at Madison Square Garden. The two fought back in December to crown the first Rizin bantamweight champion with Horiguchi submitting Caldwell. Caldwell is Bellator’s bantamweight champion and his title will be at stake in the rematch. Horiguchi has won his last 12 fights and fought for Rizin since leaving the UFC. He just defeated Ben Nguyen last week at Rizin 15 with a first-round TKO victory. Caldwell won the title from Eduardo Dantas in October 2017 and defended it twice prior to the loss to Horiguchi in Rizin.
**Combate Americas has announced a card for Friday, May 31st in Lima, Peru at the Coliseo Manuel Bonilla and airing on DAZN, Univision, and UDN. They have announced a lightweight main event between Peru’s Rolando Bedoya and Daniel Zellhuber and a co-feature with Marlon Gonzalez facing Pablo Villaseca.
*****
IMPACT WRESTLING REBELLION POST SHOW
John Pollock is joined by Nate Milton to review Impact Wrestling’s Rebellion pay-per-view featuring Johnny Impact vs. Brian Cage, Pentagon & Fenix vs. LAX & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/29/impact-wrestling-rebellion-post-show/
*****
TRMPS #4: Be Cool (2005) w/ Brent Chittenden
On this edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show, Nate Milton welcomes Brent Chittenden (the “True North Nerds” podcast) into the theater to review 2005’s Be Cool!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/27/trmps-4-be-cool-2004-w-brent-chittenden/
*****
Café Hangout: WWE Q1 Financials with guest Brandon Howard
John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome Brandon Howard Thurston (Wrestlenomics, Fightful) to break down WWE’s First Quarter 2019 Earnings report. We discuss the company’s net loss of $8.4 million for the quarter, plus whether “superstar absences” may have truly contributed to WWE’s live event and ratings decrease.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/26/wwe-reports-8-4-million-net-loss-brandon-thurston-on-q1-2019-results-cafe-hangout-4-25-19/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the tenth Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). On the week of Endgame’s release, we discuss Marvel’s first deep dive into its cosmic side as we learn more about the Infinity Stones and the world of Thanos.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26368750
*****
upNXT 4/25/19: Disputed Era
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s edition of WWE NXT featuring Johnny Gargano vs. Roderick Strong (and the possible break-up of The Undisputed Era?), War Raiders vs. Street Profits for the NXT tag titles, Candice LeRae & Kacy Catanzaro in action, Kassius Ohno shows up… and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/25/upnxt-4-25-19-disputed-era/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: The Killing of Bruiser Brody, BTE, Ten Pounds of Gold & more
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Dark Side of the Ring on ‘The Killing of Bruiser Brody’, Being the Elite, Ten Pounds of Gold, MLW Fusion, Road to Double or Nothing & more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26345863
*****
RASD 4/23/19: Turn Owens Turn, Starrcast removals, BOSJ lineup
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s episode of WWE SmackDown as Kofi Kingston took on Shinsuke Nakamura with a big angle closing the show to set up Kingston’s next program, Charlotte Flair took on Bayley in a #1 contender’s match, Roman Reigns was not fired for attacking Vince McMahon, and we played Memento with Finn Balor and Andrade going right back to where they started last week.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/04/24/rasd-4-23-19-turn-owens-turn-starrcast-removals-bosj-lineup/
*****
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