POST IT NOTES
**Today’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site and is a loaded show with Wai Ting and myself. We have a full review of Raw, the segments involving Braun Strowman, booking of Nia Jax vs. Asuka and also discuss a lot of news with the status of Paige, the additions to the Raw anniversary show with Chris Jericho announced, Bill Goldberg announced for the WWE Hall of Fame and we take your feedback. The show can be downloaded at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/01/16/rewind-a-raw-1-15-18-braun-strowman-fired-finn-balor-vs-seth-rollins-paige-appears/ and you can listen on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, the TuneIn Radio app on any device.
**The POST Wrestling Royal Rumble Pool is now up and running and you can join the pool at https://www.postwrestling.com/rumble. The deadline to submit your picks is Sunday, January 28th at 3 pm Eastern.
**Wai Ting and I are back late tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown to chat tonight’s show from Laredo, Texas and the inaugural episode of the Mixed Match Challenge.
**On Thursday, the British Wrestling Experience will debut on POST Wrestling with Martin Bushby, Oli Court, and Benno.
**I will also be doing a free show this Saturday night with a review of the UFC 220 and Bellator 192 cards.
**For all members of the POST Wrestling Café, we will have a roundtable show coming out this Friday with Wai Ting, Brian Mann, Martin Bushby and myself. This is available to all members of the Café and you can join now at www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Television ratings for Monday’s episode of Raw and this past Sunday’s UFC Fight Night card are delayed this week due to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
**Tonight, the WWE tapings for SmackDown Live, 205 Live and the first episode of the Mixed Match Challenge will take place from the Laredo Energy Center in Laredo, Texas. They have announced three matches for tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live:
*Jinder Mahal vs. Xavier Woods in the United States title tournament
*Bobby Roode vs. Mojo Rawley in the United States title tournament
*Charlotte, Naomi and Becky Lynch vs. The Riott Squad
**The debut of the Mixed Match Challenge will follow immediately after SmackDown Live at 10 pm Eastern on Facebook Watch. Each week will feature one match from the tournament and will last approximately 20 minutes on the streaming service. Tonight’s tournament match will be Shinsuke Nakamura and Natalya vs. Finn Balor and Sasha Banks. Facebook Watch launched last August and was only available to U.S viewers when it began. The WWE Network will be replaying this week’s episode on Thursday night at 10 pm.
**The latest class of signees reported to the WWE Performance Center on Tuesday. The WWE officially announced the signings of Ricochet, Candice LeRae and War Machine among the latest additions. They are the standouts in a class that also include: Rinku Singh (a former baseball player, whose signing received some attention over the weekend), Shadia Bseiso, Kavita Devi (who was part of the Mae Young Classic), Saurav Guraj, Nicolai Salchow, Nasser Alruwayeh, and Kacy Catanzaro.
**Raymond Rowe will be working his final independent show this Friday for AIW at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Cleveland ay 1355 West 70th Street.
**Candice LeRae will be taking part in her final independent appearance this Thursday for the Bar Wrestling promotion, which is run by Joey Ryan. The card will be headlined by LeRae taking on Ryan and takes place in Baldwin Park, California at 4725 Maine Ave.
**The WWE uploaded four separate Braun Strowman segments from Monday’s episode of Raw as his crazy stunts are always highly viewed items. At last check, the segment to start the show with Kurt Angle firing Braun Strowman was at 995,000 viewers, Braun tipping the production truck was at 2.4 million views, throwing Michael Cole off the stage was at 1.1 million views and a backstage segment tossing security around was at 874,000 views. The only other segment from Raw to perform as well was the Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor match with the return of the curb stomp that has 1.3 million views.
**On the WWE injury front, they did address Paige’s neck injury on Monday’s broadcast and stated she was out of the Royal Rumble match but didn’t add anything further regarding her status beyond the Rumble. Samoa Joe’s image was removed from the Royal Rumble graphic of the participants and it is assumed he will be off the show due to the right foot injury he sustained on Raw last Monday.
**Impact Wrestling officially announced their agreement with Twitch on Tuesday morning. Impact Wrestling will be launching their own 24-hour streaming channel on the platform at www.twitch.tv/impactwrestling. The channel is set to launch on Wednesday and build up their first big piece of content for Thursday night at 10 pm Eastern with the airing of the “Barbed Wire Massacre Match” between oVe and LAX immediately following Impact Wrestling on POP TV. The channel will consist of archived content from the Impact library, monthly live events, house shows, as well as original content produced for Twitch with their performers outside of the ring. Below is their schedule of weekly live content they will produce on Twitch:
*Live Audio Wrestling – The show will be hosted by Jeremy Borash on Monday nights and will be a video podcast with guests, callers, and news.
*’Nuff Said – A Wednesday series hosted by Tyrus (who just returned to the company at the last set of tapings) as he discusses wrestling, politics, sports, and pop culture issues.
*Mathews’ Megacast – A Thursday second screen experience to Impact Wrestling from 8-10 pm Eastern, hosted by Josh Mathews.
Impact also announced in the release that Impact’s live event at WrestleCon on Friday, April 6th will be airing on Twitch at 10 pm Eastern. The start time means they will be going up against the live stream of the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony that evening in addition to the countless other shows in New Orleans that night over WrestleMania weekend.
**The Impact Wrestling “Redemption” pay-per-view that is scheduled for Sunday, April 22nd is expected to be taking place in Toronto. The city was announced during a promo segment at Monday’s taping. We have reached out for confirmation on the building they will be running but have yet to hear a response. Once we can confirm the venue we will provide an update.
**Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling will be holding their annual “War of the Worlds” tour this May with four events scheduled:
*Wednesday, May 9th in Lowell, Massachusetts at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium
*Friday, May 11th in Toronto, Ontario at the Ted Reeve Arena
*Saturday, May 12th in Royal Oak, Michigan at the Royal Oak Music Theatre
*Sunday, May 13th in Villa Park, Illinois at The Odeum Expo Center
**Chelsea Green (who performed as Laurel Van Ness) announced her departure from Impact Wrestling on Monday, stating that she had been granted her release. Green joins a list that includes Bobby Lashley, Ethan Carter III and Chris Adonis of talent that is not expected to be returning and was written out over the most recent set of television tapings. Given Impact’s new contract structure, it appears that Green could continue to use that name and character outside of the promotion.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling and CMLL continue the Fantastica Mania tour on Wednesday with a card from the Toyama Techno Hall. The show is headlined by Kazuchika Okada, Barbaro Cavernario and Ultimo Guerrero vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Voladro, Jr., and Mistico. The major shows on the tour begin on Friday with the first of three shows from Korakuen Hall with Friday’s event featuring Niebla Roja defending the CMLL light heavyweight title against Gran Guerrero, Soberano, Jr. defending the welterweight title against Sanson and Angel de Oro defending the CMLL middleweight title against Cuatero.
**All three of the Fantastaicamania shows at Korakuen Hall will be airing on New Japan World this weekend.
**Hirai Kawato’s final match for New Japan before his excursion will take place this Monday at Korakuen Hall with Kawato teaming with Atlantis against Barbaro Cavernario and Gedo. The 20-year old Kawato will be leaving for an excursion to CMLL and is considered a can’t miss talent at such a young age. They have a great crop of young lions and I would place Kawato right at the top of the mix.
**Alpha-1 Wrestling returns with a show in Hamilton, Ontario this Sunday with “Wrestlers Gone Wild” at 222 Queenston Road. The show will feature Cody Rhodes, Joey Ryan, Ethan Page, Maxwell Jacob Freidman, Josh Alexander and others with the doors opening at 3:30 pm and the show is at 4 pm.
**The WWE stock closed at $31.89 on Tuesday.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 1/15/18: Braun Strowman Fired? Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins, Paige Appears
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/huy9y4/180115_RAR.mp3
*****
THE 2018 MMA PREDICTION SHOW feat. Ariel Helwani
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/3rk3me/THE-2018-MMA-PREDICTION-SHOW.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-WAI – Night After ‘Mania Raw 2013
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Raw from the night after WrestleMania 29 featuring Dolph Ziggler’s cash in, birth of “Fandango-ing”, revolt during Orton vs. Sheamus and we welcome Espresso Executive Producer John Taylor at the end of the show)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/rewind-wai-2-raw-16353951
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 1/9/18 – John Pollock & Wai Ting review SmackDown Live, Wai catches us up on this season of Total Divas, Pollock chats Brian Pillman book and we take your feedback
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/web/u3tyfs/180109_RASD.mp3
*****
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