POST IT NOTES
**We have a new Rewind-A-Wai show out today with Wai Ting and I reviewing UFC 189 from July 2015. This was one of the biggest cards in company history as Conor McGregor fought Chad Mendes in the main event with an unbelievable crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The card also featured one of the best championship fights in company history between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald for the welterweight title. We discussed the entire main card and were also joined by Espresso Executive Producer Eric Marcotte. Plus, headlines from that week, the trivia gauntlet, and more. This show is available for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**A new edition of Cruel Summer comes out Saturday with WH Park welcoming Rich Kraetsch from the Voices of Wrestling network. The two will review the G1 Climax final from 2013 between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito. On Sunday, WH will be joined by Joey Bay to review the 2014 final between Kazuchika Okada and Shinsuke Nakamura.
**This week’s edition of Five Questions with Phil Chertok focuses on UFC 241 this weekend. Phil and I will have a UFC 241 POST Show up late Saturday night.
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW put tickets on-sale for their second and third weeks of television in Boston and Philadelphia respectively, both shows sold out. On October 9th, the promotion will be running at the Agannis Arena in Boston and then head to the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia the following week on TNT. The sellouts continue their streak after selling out all available tickets for the TNT premiere on October 2nd at the Capital One Center in Washington, D.C. The promotion has announced Jon Moxley vs. Shawn Spears and The Young Bucks vs. Private Party for the October 9th episode. The October 16th episode will feature an AEW title defense involving the winner of Chris Jericho vs. Hangman Page at ‘All Out’ and the AEW women’s title will be defended that week.
**AAA has officially moved their Sunday, September 15th card from Madison Square Garden to the adjacent Hulu Theatre. Due to lower than expected ticket sales, the move was expected with the smaller Hulu Theatre listing a capacity of 5,600. They have announced a rematch from TripleMania between Blue Demon Jr. and Dr. Wagner Jr. along with Tessa Blanchard defending the Reina de Reinas championship against Taya Valkyrie. The event will be airing on Fite TV that night for $29.99 as well as traditional pay-per-view, but the show is also going up against the WWE’s Clash of Champions card from North Carolina. AAA will also be running a card from The Forum in Inglewood, California on Sunday, October 13th.
**All Elite Wrestling has added another match to the ‘All Out’ card on Saturday, August 31st from the Sears Center. On the show, Riho will take on Hikaru Shida. The two teamed together with Ryo Mizunami on the ‘Double or Nothing’ card this past May and defeated Aja Kong, Emi Sakura & Yuka Sakazaki.
**We have a story on the passing of legendary Tennessee figure Eddie Marlin, who died on Thursday at the age of 89. Marlin was a fixture within the state, working for promoters Nick Gulas and Roy Welch until his son-in-law Jerry Jarrett broke from the two and formed the CWA and Marlin joined him. He was well-remembered for his team with Tommy Gilbert and later serving as the credible babyface authority that would wrestle when the issue called for it. He still did matches sporadically until the early ‘90s and had just turned 89 this past week. He was admitted to hospice care and passed away at approximately 5 am on Thursday morning.
**Greg Oliver at SLAM Wrestling also has a story on Marlin,
**Buffalo-based wrestler Roscoe Black (real name Lakeem Bradberry) spoke with POST Wrestling about a pair of incidents over the past week at two Toronto area shows. Black was performing for the Union of Independent Professional Wrestlers promotion last Thursday when a fan got up and approached him leading to Black shoving him down. On Friday at Smash Wrestling’s Super Showdown VII card, Black struck a fan, which he said was accidental. Both promotions have issued statements and Black spoke with us regarding what happened at each show.
**WWE has confirmed Ryan Satin’s report at Pro Wrestling Sheet that Roman Reigns (Joe Anoa’i) has signed a new multi-year contract with the company. The terms and length of the deal were not disclosed or how much time was remaining on his prior deal. He signed with the company in 2010 and started on FCW television as Leakee where he performed for two years before the main roster call up in November 2012 as a member of The Shield. Given the landscape and incredible deals the WWE has been offering, you would imagine that Reigns was due for one of the most lucrative contracts in WWE history with the timing of this renewal.
**According to PWG’s website, there are tickets still remaining for each night of the Battle of Los Angeles tournament. Tickets are broken up into Front Row, Opera Box, General Admission, and Standing Room tickets. On the first two nights on September 19th and 21st, the Front Row and Opera Box seats are sold out, but there are tickets remaining at General Admission and SRO, each priced at $90. For the final night on September 22nd, the only tickets left are Standing Room tickets. The tickets went on sale Thursday night with the promotion releasing the cards and first-round match-ups for the first two nights.
**WWE is sending KUSHIDA to work the EVOLVE events next weekend, which will be streaming on the WWN Live service. At EVOLVE 133 next Saturday, KUSHIDA will be facing JD Drake in Livonia, Michigan, and the following night he will challenge Drew Gulak for the Cruiserweight title in Chicago, Illinois.
**The Raw crew has a show in Bismarck, North Dakota tonight with Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin and Becky Lynch vs. Lacey Evans advertised.
**On Saturday, they are holding a dual-brand show in Houston at the Toyota Center with Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton, Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler, Becky Lynch vs. Alexa Bliss, Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair, Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Ali, and Braun Strowman vs. Sami Zayn among the matches advertised. On the same night, there is a show in Grand Forks, North Dakota with Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin in the main event.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 10 pm Eastern on the Pursuit Channel, Twitch and Fight Network in Canada:
*Tessa Blanchard & Tommy Dreamer vs. Sami Callihan & Dave Crist
*Rob Van Dam, Willie Mack & Rich Swann vs. The Rascalz
*Madison Rayne & Kiera Hogan vs. Jordynne Grace & Alexia Nicole
*Desi Hit Squad vs. The Deaners
*Moose vs. Fallah Bahh
**Impact Wrestling has their second night of television tapings at Fronton Mexico in Mexico City tonight. The following matches will be taped to air over the next several weeks:
*Tessa Blanchard, Rob Van Dam, Rhino & Tommy Dreamer vs. Sami Callihan, Jake & Dave Crist & Madman Fulton
*LAX vs. Rich Swann & Willie Mack
*Jessicka Havok vs. Su Yung
**The WWE Network has added a show called The Boogie Jam from Jim Crockett Promotions on March 17, 1984, headlined by a 60-minute match between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat for the NWA title. The card also features a Hair vs. Mask match between Jimmy Valiant and The Assassin, as well as a United States title match with Dick Slater against Greg Valentine.
**Steve Austin appears on Hot Ones to promote ‘Straight Up Steve Austin’.
**The WWE stock closed at $69.61 on Friday.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC 241 pay-per-view takes place Saturday night from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. With the top two fights, it feels like the biggest card of 2019 especially with the addition of Nate Diaz. The main event is a rematch from UFC 226 in July 2018 where Daniel Cormier stopped Stipe Miocic to win the heavyweight championship and became a two-division champion. Going into the fight and coming out of it, the talk is centered around Jon Jones with the third fight everyone expects. Cormier has not confirmed if this will be his final fight or not but has stated Jones is the only fight left while adamant it would have to be at light heavyweight where Jones beat him.
Cormier weighed 236.5 pounds on Friday, which was significantly lighter than their first fight where he weighed 246 pounds. Miocic is also coming in much lighter at 230.5 pounds after coming in at 242.5 for the first fight.
The welterweight picture is a fascinating one with Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington expected to fight for the title and then Jorge Masvidal has entered a realm of popularity he’s never experienced after the knockout of Ben Askren. Saturday’s fight could position Anthony Pettis into a solid spot if he can claim wins over Stephen Thompson and Nate Diaz that will allow him to leapfrog to the upper echelon of contenders. For Diaz, he has never been vocal of championship aspirations and there is no road map to predict for him. Diaz could win and disappear, or the UFC could offer him an attractive fight and he’s willing to take it. While Diaz is 34-years old, it’s been three years since he last fought at UFC 202 in the rematch with Conor McGregor. His conditioning has been an immense tool of his in the past, but Pettis is not undergoing the excessive weights cuts he had in the past when he fought at 155 and even as low as 145.
Below is the full card and results from Friday’s weigh-ins:
MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*Daniel Cormier (236.5) vs. Stipe Miocic (230.5) for the UFC heavyweight title
*Nate Diaz (170) vs. Anthony Pettis (169.5)
*Yoel Romero (184.5) vs. Paulo Costa (186)
*Gabriel Benitez (146) vs. Sodiq Yusuff (145)
*Derek Brunson (186) vs. Ian Heinisch (185.5)
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm Eastern on ESPN)
*Devonte Smith (156) vs. Khama Worthy (155.5)
*Raphael Assuncao (136) vs. Cory Sandhagen (136)
*Drakkar Klose (155.5) vs. Christos Giagos (155)
*Manny Bermudez (140) vs. Casey Kenney (139) – this was moved from a bantamweight fight to a catchweight fight after monitoring the weight they had been cutting this week
FIGHT PASS CARD (6:15 pm)
*Hannah Cifers (114.5) vs. Jodie Esquibel (116)
*Kyung Ho Kang (136) vs. Brandon Davis (136)
*Shana Dobson (124.5) vs. Sabina Mazo (126)
**Dana White appeared on The Jim Rome Show to promote UFC 241. In this clip, White addressed the video of Conor McGregor striking an older man at a pub in Ireland this past April. White said there was nothing ‘alleged’ about it adding that when you’re dealing with a professional fighter and sprinkle a ton of money on top ‘get ready for a disaster’.
**Below is Episode six of the UFC Embedded series going into UFC 241:
POLL RESULT
Which is the bigger fight this Saturday at UFC 241?
Cormier vs. Miocic II: 60%
Diaz vs. Pettis: 40%
(484 votes)
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #42: UFC 189
John Pollock & Wai Ting review UFC 189 feat. Conor McGregor vs. Chad Mendes and Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald from July 2015.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/29199717
*****
upNXT 8/15/19: HangOver VII – Toronto TailGate
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back with another HangOver edition of upNXT discussing all the fallout from NXT TakeOver: Toronto and the pre-tapings from the Scotiabank Arena.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/15/upnxt-8-15-19-hangover-vii-toronto-tailgate/
*****
POST Interview: WWE referee Darryl Sharma
John Pollock speaks with WWE referee Darryl Sharma about a tribute concert he is promoting tonight, coming up through Ontario, joining WWE in 2016, SummerSlam week & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/15/post-interview-wwe-referee-darryl-sharma/
*****
POST Wrestling LIVE in Toronto Q&A [PATREON]
John Pollock and Wai Ting host a very special live Q&A from a sold-out John Candy Box Theatre in Toronto just hours before SummerSlam on August 11th, 2019.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/14/post-wrestling-live-in-toronto-qa/
*****
RASD 8/13/19: Lyin’ Bryan and The Case of the Libel Lock
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown as Roman Reigns took on Buddy Murphy in the continuing search for his attacker.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/14/rasd-8-13-19-lyin-bryan-and-the-case-of-the-libel-lock/
*****
RAR 8/12/19: The Sasha Banks Arena
John Pollock & Wai Ting provide a condensed review of Raw from Toronto featuring the return of Sasha Banks, a new 24/7 champion, Steve Austin on Skype & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/13/rar-8-12-19-the-sasha-banks-arena/
*****
G1 CLIMAX 29 FINAL POST SHOW
After 19 shows, John Pollock & Wai Ting review NJPW’s G1 Climax 29 Final featuring Kota Ibushi vs. Jay White. Plus, a new Bullet Club member is revealed and a wrestler makes a shocking return.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/12/g1-climax-29-final-post-show/
*****
WWE SUMMERSLAM 2019 POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SummerSlam headlined by Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins, the debut of The Fiend and the singles match return of Trish Stratus.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/08/12/wwe-summerslam-2019-post-show/
*****
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