POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I have our latest G1 Climax review with a full rundown of Saturday’s show from Korakuen Hall. This show was headlined by Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay and may have been the best show of the tournament and one of the best cards in 2019. We go through the undercard, the five tournament matches, an update on the standings, a preview of Wednesday’s B Block show, and lots more. This show is available to all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**You can go back and catch up on all our G1 Climax reviews if you’re a member of the Café.
**WH Park’s latest edition of Cruel Summer is up on the site with guest Davis Storm. The two go back to 2005 to review the G1 Climax final between Masahiro Chono and Kazuyuki Fujita. On Sunday’s show, WH will be joined by Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski to review Satoshi Kojima vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan from 2006.
WRESTLING NEWS
**New Japan Pro Wrestling wrapped up three consecutive nights at Korakuen Hall with each featuring an incredible main event. The matches involving Kota Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay, Jon Moxley vs. Tomohiro Ishii, and Saturday’s main event between Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay were not just three of the best matches of the G1, but of the year. For my money, Okada vs. Ospreay is the new leader for the best match of the tournament with an unbelievable match earlier today. Moxley vs. Ishii was different from the others with a brawl around the arena and the most visually impressive spot with Ishii executing a splash off the top to put Moxley through a table on the floor. After seven nights, this is as good a G1 tournament as New Japan has ever had and with 12 shows remaining is on pace to be the best one, ever.
They are off until Wednesday with the coming week being a quiet one with one show until next weekend. The card on Wednesday takes place from Hiroshima with the following B Block matches:
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii
*Jeff Cobb vs. Jay White
*Jon Moxley vs. Shingo Takagi
*Taichi vs. Hirooki Goto
*Juice Robinson vs. Toru Yano
**Here are the updated standings after seven shows:
A BLOCK: Kazuchika Okada and KENTA (8 points), Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, EVIL & Lance Archer (4), Will Ospreay, Sanada, Bad Luck Fale & Zack Sabre Jr. (2)
B BLOCK: Jon Moxley (6 points), Tomohiro Ishii, Shingo Takagi, Juice Robinson & Toru Yano (4), Tetsuya Naito, Hirooki Goto, Jeff Cobb & Taichi (2), Jay White (0)
**Next Saturday’s A Block show from Aichi will be headlined by Okada and KENTA with both on top of the A Block and undefeated after four matches. KENTA has been booked as a top star and they could go either way in this match. Either this is the match where KENTA’s unbeaten run ends against the top guy in the company, or he gets another win and sets up a unique title match for a show like King of Pro Wrestling in October. Okada needs to have one or two key losses and with the win over Will Ospreay today, that opens the door for someone else. At the start of the tournament, the pick most looked at was Sanada when he faces Okada in Osaka in two weeks as one potential upset after the long chase by Sanada. Okada also has matches remaining with EVIL, Lance Archer, and the big one with Kota Ibushi.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of MLW Fusion airing at 9 pm Eastern on beIN Sports from the recent Cicero Stadium tapings:
*Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. L.A. Park & El Hijo de L.A. Park
*Alex Hammerstone vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. for the MLW National title
**Dragon Gate has a huge show tonight with their biggest card of the year in Kobe. This year’s show has more attention from the English-speaking audience with the show including English commentary. Rich Bocchini of MLW and Larry Dallas will be calling the show at dragongate.live, which is their subscription service. The card will stream live late tonight at 2 am Eastern with the following card:
*PAC vs. Ben-K for the Open the Dream Gate title
*Yamato & KAI vs. Eita & Big R Shimizu vs. Naruki Doi & Kaito Ishida for the Open the Twin Gate titles
*Ultimo Dragon, Masato Yoshino & Dragon Kid vs. Masaaki Mochizuki, Shuji Kondo & Takuya Sugawara – this is Ultimo’s return to the company after leaving in 2004 and is probably the biggest story going into the show
*Susumu Yokosuka vs. Flamita for the Open the Brave Gate title
*Takashi Yoshida, Yasushi Kanda & Kazma Sakamoto vs. The Strong Machines for the Open the Triangle Gate titles
*Kzy vs. Shun Skywalker
*Choi Hong-man vs. Ryo Saito & Stalker Ishikawa
*BxB Hulk, Yosuke Santa Maria & Kagetora vs. Genki Horiguchi, Yasshi & Punch Tominaga vs. Hyo Watanabe, Kota Minoura & Yuki Yoshioka
*Kenichiro Arai, Jason Lee, Keisuke Okuda, Dragon Dia & Jimmy vs. Super Shisa, K-ness, Shachihiko Boy, Problem Dragon & Draztick Boy
**The Raw crew is in Wildwood, New Jersey tonight with the SmackDown crew in Columbus, Georgia. Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Braun Strowman and Baron Corbin are the top talent advertised on Raw and the Columbus show features Kofi Kingston, Kevin Owens, Charlotte Flair, and Dolph Ziggler. On Sunday, Raw is in Orlando at the Amway Center and the SmackDown crew is in Pensacola, Florida. The Raw Reunion special takes place Monday night from the Amalie Arena in Tampa.
**Ring of Honor is holding television tapings at the Hammerstein Ballroom tonight with the top matches streaming on Honor Club at 7 pm Eastern. Below are the matches scheduled to air:
*Matt Taven vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH title
*The Guerrillas of Destiny vs. The Briscoes in a Street Fight for the ROH tag titles
*Marty Scurll, PCO, Brody King & Flip Gordon vs. Bandido, Tracy Williams, Mark Haskins & PJ Black
*Jonathan Gresham vs. Dragon Lee
**Ring of Honor will have an Honor Club show on Sunday night from the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Massachusetts. The show will be headlined by Villain Enterprises vs. Bandido, Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins for the ROH six-man tag titles and streams at 7 pm Eastern.
**Ring of Honor has announced they have concluded their investigation regarding an incident at their live event last month in Portland, Oregon. During the show, a fan named Josh Ketch was interacting with The Allure (Velvet Sky, Angelina Love & Mandy Leon) and led to Sky and Leon coming up to him and claimed Leon spit on him and was called a ‘virgin’ by Sky. Later in the show, he was alerted he needed to go backstage and was confronted by Bully Ray and was told how to behave and then sent back to his seat. The tone and nature of the conversation differed between Ketch and Bully’s version of the story with both addressing it. On Friday, ROH issued the following statement to PWinsider.com:
We have now concluded our internal investigation into the events that occurred in Portland on June 2nd and have taken appropriate actions with all parties involved. Our Code of Honor, which calls for sportsmanship, respect and honor in – and outside of the ring is a core value of this company and one we will continue to strive to uphold. To all of our loyal and dedicated fans, we apologize for the incident that transpired and we encourage all of our fans to continue attending our events. Furthermore, we promise to continue delivering the best wrestling and the best live experience on the planet. In adherence to Ring of Honor policy, we will not comment further on these matters.
In response to the statement, Ketch simply tweeted ‘shrugs forever’. He had previously stated he would never attend another ROH card. He also added that after the incident, Kevin Owens reached out to him and provided tickets to Ketch and his friends for a recent SmackDown taping.
**Barbaro Cavernario is the latest addition to PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament.
**The main event of the NXT UK TakeOver card on Saturday, August 31st will see WALTER defend the NXT UK title against Tyler Bate. On the same card, Toni Storm will defend the women’s title against Kay Lee Ray.
**MLW CEO Court Bauer issued a statement to the Wrestling Observer website regarding AEW’s recent use of Tony Schiavone for their Road to All Out episode. Bauer stated that Schiavone cannot proceed with AEW or any other company unless AEW reaches out to them. Bauer was unaware Schiavone was doing the ‘Road to’ episode ahead of time. Schiavone has a contract with MLW and has been part of their broadcast team since MLW re-launched in 2017.
**Destiny Wrestling has announced a six-man tag for their card on Friday, August 9th in Mississauga, Ontario during SummerSlam week. Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky will take on Sami Callihan & oVe in a six-man tag. The card will take place from the Don Kolov Arena and they have also announced Channing Decker vs. Ricky Shane Page for the event. This show will go head-to-head with the ROH Summer Supercard at the Mattamy Athletic Centre and Smash Wrestling’s Super Showdown VII card at the Midtown Event Theatre in Toronto.
**Here is the lineup for tonight’s UFC Fight Night card from San Antonio, Texas at the AT&T Center with all the fights airing on ESPN in the U.S:
MAIN CARD (9 pm Eastern on ESPN, TSN 2 in Canada)
*Rafael dos Anjos (171) vs. Leon Edwards (171)
*Walt Harris (256) vs. Aleksei Oleinik (236)
*Greg Hardy (266) vs. Juan Adams (266)
*Dan Hooker (155) vs. James Vick (156)
*Alexander Hernandez (155) vs. Francisco Trinaldo (156)
*Ben Rothwell (265) vs. Andrei Arlovski (246)
PRELIMINARY CARD (6 pm on ESPN, TSN 2 in Canada)
*Alex Caceres (146) vs. Steven Peterson (145)
*Raquel Pennington (136) vs. Irene Aldana (135)
*Klidson Abreu (205) vs. Sam Alvey (205)
*Jennifer Maia (129*) vs. Roxanne Modafferi (125)
*Ray Borg (136) vs. Gabriel Silva (134)
*Jin Soo Son (136) vs. Mario Bautista (136)
*Felipe Colares (136) vs. Domingo Pilarte (136)
G1 REVIEWS:
Night 1: https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/g1-climax-29-post-show-opening-night-okada-vs-tanahashi-free-preview/ (Tanahashi vs. Okada) – FREE SHOW
Night 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28351982 (White vs. Goto)
Night 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28374580 (Tanahashi vs. KENTA)
Night 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28403937 (Naito vs. Taichi)
Night 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28475091 (Ospreay vs. Ibushi)
Night 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28495477 (Moxley vs. Ishii)
Night 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28520429 (Okada vs. Ospreay)
*****
Café Hangout – July 18, 2019
On this week’s Café Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting chat news involving CM Punk appearing at Starrcast III, James Lynch from The Score discusses MMA media, Buck Gunderson chats OWE’s Canadian debut.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/19/cm-punk-at-starrcast-james-lynch-buck-gunderson-cafe-hangout/
*****
upNXT 7/18/19: Dain, Pain, and Automobiles
The BDE chat all about the July 17th edition of WWE NXT including Matt Riddle vs. Arturo Ruas, the re-debut of Killian Dain, Kushida vs. Apollo Crews, and a huge angle between Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/18/upnxt-7-18-19-dain-pain-and-automobiles/
*****
RASD 7/16/19: SmackTown Hall, Bayley’s SummerSlam Opponent
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown featuring Shane McMahon’s Town Hall with the SmackDown locker room.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/16/rasd-7-16-19-smacktown-hall-bayleys-summerslam-opponent/
*****
RAR 7/15/19: The Cross-Branded All-Star Top 10 Battle Royal
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring an All-Star Top 10 Battle Royal to determine Brock Lesnar’s opponent for the Universal title at SummerSlam.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/16/rar-7-15-19-the-cross-branded-all-star-top-10-battle-royal/
*****
WWE EXTREME RULES POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Extreme Rules headlined by Seth Rollins & Becky Lynch defending their championships against Baron Corbin & Lacey Evans.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/15/wwe-extreme-rules-2019-post-show/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (2004)
WH Park and Joey Bay discuss the finals of NJPW’s 14th annual G1 Climax tournament: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi from August 15, 2004.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/14/cruel-summer-14-hiroyoshi-tenzan-vs-hiroshi-tanahashi-2004-w-joey-bay/
*****
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