POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is live at 10 p.m. ET tonight on the POST Wrestling Café with Wai Ting & John Pollock covering SmackDown from South Carolina. News topics include WWE and Netflix working on a documentary series, GCW booking the Hammerstein Ballroom again, AEW Dynamite ratings from Wednesday & your calls.
**Rewind-A-Wai #167 was released on Thursday with a review of WWF’s Saturday Night’s Main Event from October 1987. The show included the formation of The Mega Powers, three championship matches, a heavy angle involving Honky Tonk Man and Randy Savage and an explanation of the backstory and significance of this match, the debut of the “Piledriver” music video, and perhaps the best rendition of “The Age Game” we have done. This is available for all POST Wrestling Café members.
How old do you think King Kong Bundy, Oliver Humperdink, and Roman Reigns were in 1987?
After selecting WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event 12 for Rewind-A-Wai, @Hanzi83 joins “The Age Game” to guess the ages of various wrestlers who appeared on the show. pic.twitter.com/6BQYCVSYcM
— POST Wrestling (@POSTwrestling) October 17, 2024
**John Siino will have coverage on the site this weekend for Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling’s debut events from Windsor, Ontario. Siino will also be back with Kate from Montreal on Collision Course on Saturday to review Collision & Battle of the Belts.
**Jack Wannan will have a story covering PFL’s Battle of the Giants on Saturday featuring Francis Ngannou vs. Renan Ferreira and Cris Cyborg vs. Larissa Pacheco.
**Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord will have a show on the POST Wrestling Café on Sunday night covering NJPW’s Royal Quest IV from Crystal Palace.
**The N.W.A. Podcast will be live on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy, Andrew Thompson, and Two Way Ray on the POST YouTube channel.
**WH Park welcomes Dylan Fox to The Long & Winding Royal Road on Saturday to review this classic match from September 1998:
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Wai (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: L&WRR with WH Park & Dylan Fox (Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Jun Akiyama – 9/11/98)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: NJPW Royal Quest IV with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: The N.W.A. Podcast
WRESTLING NEWS
**The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) are expected to debut on Friday Night SmackDown after multiple vignettes with Detroit imagery and using the “MCMG” letters last week to remove any doubt. It will represent one of the rare instances of two wrestlers over the age of 40 making their WWE debuts after solidifying themselves as one of the top tag teams of this generation and heavily influencing many of the top acts that followed. Sabin has been wrestling since 2000 and was trained at the Can-Am Dojo under Scott D’Amore, who helped Sabin gain his first major break with TNA in 2003 and became one of its pillars in the X Division and eventually, winning the TNA Heavyweight Championship in 2012. Sabin had to overcome back-to-back torn ACLs in each knee and essentially lost two years of his career and it’s a brutal set of injuries for someone with his style who reinvented himself and is still wrestling ten years later. Shelley debuted in March 2002 (for trivia purposes, one day after the pro debut of Kevin Steen) and first burst onto the national scene through Ring of Honor after working for Ian Rotten’s IWA Mid-South and CZW. He was part of Generation Next with Austin Aries, Jack Evans, and Roderick Strong. He would split time between ROH and TNA before going with TNA full-time. Sabin & Shelley began teaming in 2007, first as the Murder City Machine Guns before the slight adjustment to Motor City. They became one of the top teams in the world and won the tag titles three times in TNA, once in ROH, and held the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight tag titles in New Japan. Last year, Shelley won the TNA Heavyweight Championship and completed the rare feat of tag partner each winning the promotion’s top title. The two wrapped up with TNA earlier this year and had been expected to debut in WWE for some time before the vignettes began airing.
The show is at the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina with the following advertised:
*Angel Garza & Humberto Carrillo vs. TBA (teased as the MCMG debut)
*Andrade vs. Carmelo Hayes (Series tied 3-3)
*Roman Reigns to appear
*Fallout from Kevin Owens’ attack on Randy Orton
**Politico’s Alex Isenstadt reports that presidential candidate Donald Trump is expected to appear on Mark Calaway’s Six Feet Under podcast. Trump was just interviewed by Tyrus on Fox News and previously interviewed by Logan Paul in June. Trump has sought out many podcast outlets with access to young male voters, which has been seen as a key demographic for what will be a razor-close race between Trump and Kamala Harris.
**After a one-week delay, “Timeless” Toni Storm will wrestle La Catalina on tonight’s CMLL show at Arena Mexico. Four of the six matches are women’s bouts including with the finals of the Universal de Amazones tournament, which will headline the show. As always, it streams for members of CMLL’s top-tier YouTube subscribers beginning at 10:30 p.m. ET:
*Universal de Amazones 2024 – Final: Persephone vs. Zeuxis
*Toni Storm vs. La Catalina
*Mistico, Atlantis Jr. & Neon vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Gran Guerrero & Stuka Jr.
*CMLL Women’s Tag Titles: Tessa Blanchard & Lluvia © vs. Unagi Sayaka & Sumika Yanagawa
*Alex Windsor, Red Velvet, Viva Van & Samantha Black vs. Sanely, Amapola, Metalica & Olympia
*Futuro, Max Star & Pelon Encapuchado vs. Dark Magic, Raider & Espanto Jr.
**Below are the matches for tonight’s edition of AEW Rampage at 10 p.m. ET on TNT:
*Mark Briscoe vs. The Butcher
*Private Party vs. MxM Collection
*Anna Jay vs. Trish Adora
*Kyle O’Reilly vs. Aaron Solo
**The AEW Collision & Battle of the Belts XII tapings occurred in Stockton, California with approximately 2,300 tickets distributed. The spoiler-free match listing for Collision includes The Outrunners vs. Beast Mortos & Rush, House of Black in action, Ricochet vs. AR Fox, Kris Statlander vs. Harley Cameron, Premier Athletes vs. Daniel Garcia & Private Party, Orange Cassidy vs. Bulk Bronson, Jamie Hayter vs. Brooke Havok, Atlantis Jr. vs. Kyle O’Reilly, and The BCC defending the Trios belts against Action Andretti & Top Flight. Battle of the Belts airs immediately after Collison on TNT and will feature Kazuchika Okada vs. Kyle O’Reilly for the Continental Championship, an eliminator bout between Mariah May and Anna Jay, and Lance Archer & Brian Cage vs. Jack Cartwheel & Jon Cruz.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling presents Royal Quest IV at Crystal Palace this Sunday at Noon ET with the pre-show. The Japanese version will stream live at New Japan World with English commentary to follow on-demand later. The show is headlined by Zack Sabre Jr. making the first defense of his IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against SANADA and if he wins, will defend the title against Shingo Takagi at Power Struggle on November 4. If SANADA wins, he will defend the title against Shota Umino next month. Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson will have a review on the POST Wrestling Café on Sunday.
*IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. © vs. SANADA
*STRONG Openweight Tag Titles: Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls © vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomohiro Ishii
*Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi & Titan vs. Ryohei Oiwa, Robbie Eagles & Mascara Dorada
*David Finlay vs. Taka Michinoku
*Shota Umino vs. Callum Newman
*Yota Tsuji vs. Drilla Moloney
*Kosei Fujita vs. Michael Oku
*Mina Shirakawa & Kanji vs. AZM & Dani Luna
*Taiji Ishimori & X vs. Danny Black & Joe Lando (Ishimori’s partner will team with him in the Super Jr. Tag League)
*Pre-Show: Yuto Nakashima & Oskar Leube vs. Danny Jones & Brendan White
**Greg Klein, author of The King of New Orleans on the Junkyard Dog, has written a great piece on SLAM Wrestling advocating for the induction of Houston promoter Morris Sigel into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. Sigel is on the ballot in the non-wrester category and received 31.4% of the required votes, well below the 60% needed, and therefore, is going to be a longshot this year. Sigel and his brother Julius were involved with wrestling in the city almost from its infancy in 1916 and later, Morris ran the town on his own when his brother left. He was a wrestling and boxing promoter who partnered with Doc Sarpolis and Frank Burke and ran on Friday nights in Houston for decades right until he died in 1966. In Klein’s article, he cited a Houston Post article from 1953 where the paper estimated that Sigel had drawn over six million fans to pro wrestling over the past four decades and staged at least 7,500 cards with only two show cancellations. It also goes into the nasty promotional wars between Sigel and former partner Ed McLemore, who ran the Sportatorium in Dallas. In 1953, the arena was burnt down and while it was never proven to be the work of Sigel, it was theorized that there were two other fires labeled “suspicious”. The two formed a truce the next year and the territory hit a high point in the mid-1960s. After Sigel’s death, his apprentice Paul Boesch took over Houston after purchasing the rights from Morris’ widow.
**Next Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite will be airing head-to-head during its second hour with Kamala Harris’ Presidential Town Hall on CNN, which begins at 9 p.m. ET.
**Piers Morgan will host a segment covering Vince McMahon on his program tonight. His panel will include Vince Russo, Jonathan Coachman, Maven, Charly Arnolt, and a surprise guest they are promoting.
**The Barclays Center is advertising a match between Seth Rollins and Dominik Mysterio for next Friday’s SmackDown taping but that will almost surely be a dark match. WWE is taping two episodes in Brooklyn next Friday as a portion of the crew will be in Saudi Arabia next week for Crown Jewel.
**The WWE Vault site has added a match between Gunther/WALTER and Zack Sabre Jr. from EVOLVE 99 from January 2018 in New York City. That same card featured the one-ever match between Darby Allin and Brody King with the two wrestling to a ten-minute draw.
**House of Glory tonight at 8 p.m. ET at the NYC Arena features Mike Santana vs. Masato Tanaka for the HOG Heavyweight title, El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Nic Nemeth, Allie Katch vs. Diamond Virago, The Mane Event & Joey Silver vs. The Cold Blooded Killers, and Carlos Ramirez vs. Idris Jackson.
**C*4 Wrestling is in Ottawa, Ontario tonight with Evil Uno defending the C4 title against Myung Jae Lee, TDT defending the tag titles against Triple Dragon in a double dog collar match, Benjamin Tull defending the Underground title against Jody Threat, and Junior Benito & Macrae Martin defend the IWTV tag titles against Kevin Ku & Dominic Garrini in the top matches. The show will stream on Tuesday night at IWTV.
MMA NEWS
**The sentencing of Cain Velasquez for attempted murder and gun charges has been delayed until early 2025. Damon Martin at MMA Fighting reported that Velasquez was scheduled for a court appearance on Friday after he pleaded no contest earlier this year. Velasquez was arrested in 2022 after a car chase where Velasquez opened fire on a vehicle containing Harry Goularte, who is accused of sexually assaulting Velasquez’s son. Velasquez did not hit the intended target, instead shooting Goularte’s father-in-law, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Velasquez served eight months in prison before being allowed out on $1 million bail. There is no specific sentencing date in 2025 for Velasquez, who faces as much as life in prison.
**Gegard Mousasi has filed a lawsuit against the PFL in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey. Mousasi is seeking at least $15 million alleging a breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment, and a claim for relief for Monopsonization. Mousasi went public with his frustrations regarding the lack of fights he was being offered and was released this past May. In the suit, it’s disclosed that Mousasi earned a flat fee of $200,000 per fight along with a $50,000 win bonus and a guaranteed promotional fee of $600,000, which was signed in 2020. Mousasi, 39, has fought for Bellator since 2017 and became its middleweight champion in May 2018 and won it a second time in October 2020. His last fight was in May 2023 where he lost to Fabian Edwards by unanimous decision. He is also arguing he was misclassified as an independent contractor. The suit lists the PFL, Donn Davis, Peter Murray, and Ray Sefo among the defendants.
**The big show of the weekend is arguably the biggest of PFL’s history with a pay-per-view from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the promotional debut of Francis Ngannou. The event is being promoted as “Battle of the Giants” as Ngannou (17-3), who can lay claim as the lineal heavyweight champion after leaving UFC without losing the belt, fights Renan Ferreira (13-3). Ngannou has not had an MMA fight since January 2022 but is coming off high-profile boxing fights with Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua both occurring in Saudi Arabia. Tragically, his fifteen-month-old son Kobe died this past April, and I cannot fathom how Ngannou has processed that loss and is not something a parent is ever going to fully recover from.
This is a unique show because in one sense, the involvement of Saudi Arabia places less emphasis on whether this show does well on pay-per-view or sells tickets but it will be a litmus test of what PFL means on pay-per-view and if fans are encouraged to buy a non-UFC event because this as good a card as you’re getting outside of the industry leader.
The main card at 4 p.m. ET includes Cris Cyborg (27-2) vs. Larissa Pacheco (23-4), Johnny Eblen (15-0) vs. Fabian Edwards (13-3) for the Bellator middleweight title, Husein Kadimagomaev (8-1) vs. Zafar Mohsen (13-4), and A.J. McKee (22-1) vs. Paul Hughes (12-1).
Cyborg and Pacheco have a marquee value due to Cyborg and Pacheco lays claims as the only loss on Kayla Harrison’s record (while also losing to Harrison twice prior). Cyborg has not lost in nearly six years and Pacheco is 10-0 since 2021, which is a ridiculous number of fights in such a short window.
Eblen is one of the best middleweights in the world and would be a top contender if he ever went to the UFC. McKee and Hughes is a fight flying under the radar but is a solid fight and I think the main card is very enticing.
The pay-per-view will be available through ESPN+ and DAZN.
**The UFC has its second Apex card in a row this Saturday and is headlined by a middleweight fight between Anthony Hernandez and Michel Pereira. Hernandez has won his last five fights including a submission win against Roman Koplyov earlier this year. Pereira has put together an eight-fight winning streak going back to 2020 and this is his third fight of the year after wins against Michael Oleksiejczuk and Ihor Potieria by submission.
MAIN CARD (7 p.m. ET on ESPN+)
*Anthony Hernandez (12-2) vs. Michel Pereira (31-11)
*Rob Font (20-8) vs. Kyler Phillips (12-2)
*Charles Johnson (20-13-1) vs. Su Mudaerji (16-5)
*Jake Hadley (11-3) vs. Cameron Smotherman (8-4)
*Daniel Pineda (28-16) vs. Darren Elkins (26-11)
PRELIMINARY CARD (4 p.m. on ESPN+)
*Asu Almabayev (20-2) vs. Matheus Nicolau (19-4-1)
*Jean Matsumoto (15-0) vs. Brad Katona (14-3)
*Jessica Penne (14-7) vs. Elise Reed (7-4)
*Melissa Martinez (2-1) vs. Alice Ardelean (9-6)
*Austen Lane (12-5) vs. Robelis Despaigne (5-1)
***
REWIND-A-WAI #167: WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event #12
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event XII from Oct. 3, 1987, featuring the formation of the Mega Powers: Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage.
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REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with the fallout from WrestleDream including appearances by Jon Moxley & Adam Cole.
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston chat about the latest filing by Janel Grant’s team and look back at the career of the late Joe Koff.
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upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT featuring Ethan Page vs Wes Lee vs Je’Von Evans to determine the Number 1 Contender for the NXT Championship.
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NJPW King of Pro Wrestling 2024
John Pollock reviews NJPW King of Pro Wrestling featuring Tetsuya Naito defending the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against Zack Sabre Jr.
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