POST IT NOTES
**Wednesday’s edition of Rewind-A-Dynamite is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing AEW from last night for their empty arena show at Daily’s Place. We also went through all the latest news from the day including WWE and AEW tapings, Brie Bella’s concerns about Daniel Bryan working the shows in Orlando, Raw and Dark Side of the Ring ratings, and your feedback at the end of the show.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman have a new edition of upNXT with their show taped at Full Sail University and featuring the in-ring segment with Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano to set-up their blowoff match.
**A reminder that we have unlocked the first 25 editions of Rewind-A-Wai for everyone to access. These are the shows that span the first year on POST Wrestling including reviews of WrestleMania X-8 from Toronto, WrestleMania XX, Wrestle Kingdom 9 from 2015, Bash at the Beach 1998 (DDP & Karl Malone vs. Hogan & Dennis Rodman), and many others.
**I wanted to extend a thank you regarding the feedback we have received for the interview with Jeff Marek. I was very grateful that Jeff was willing to come on and speak about a tough subject and I’m glad people enjoyed the interview.
**I did a pair of interviews over the last few days, the first was with Josh Nason for his show on the Wrestling Observer website. On Wednesday, I joined Ariel Helwani of ESPN to discuss the WWE’s plans moving ahead with WrestleMania, how WWE has structured the empty arena shows, comparisons between Vince McMahon and Dana White, and the Chris Benoit documentary.
POST VIDEO
POST SCHEDULE
*Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Patreon)
*Sunday: Thunderstruck with WH Park & guest Alan4L (Jushin Thunder Liger & Minoru Tanaka vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemary from 4/7/2002)
*Sunday: The Double Shot (Patreon)
*Monday: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW averaged 819,000 viewers with a 0.34 in the 18-49 demo on Wednesday night. They were down from 839,000 viewers last week, although last week only did 0.31 in the key demographic. The big drop for AEW came with adults over 50, which declined 24% from last week.
**NXT averaged 669,000 viewers and 0.20 in the key demo. In total viewers, they were up 23% from last week’s show that didn’t feature any new matches.
**WWE was taping matches for WrestleMania 36 on Wednesday and is taping today as well in Florida. This week of tapings should cover them through Monday, April 6th with Raw being taped as well.
**A report from Raj Giri at Wrestling Inc. states that Teddy Hart was arrested again on Thursday in Richmond, Virginia.
Online records list Edward Annis being booked on Thursday at 1:15 pm but no additional details are listed.
Wrestler Ace Montana posted a video accusing Hart of attacking ROH performer Maria Manic, which Hart denied in the video.
Montana wrote the following online:
I literally had to pull my gun on #Teddyhart and throw him out of my friends house. This piece of shit literally choked out and physically assaulted Maria Manic and would not let her get help. she texted me I’m in danger never ever did I think I would meet a piece of shit like this guy who has now been arrested with a felony against him. I don’t think this guy knew how close to death he was. #fuckyouteddyheart This video is me kick him out before the cops came and arrested him.
Mike Johnson reports that Hart is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow at 8:45 am.
Hart was arrested twice this year with a February 12th arrested where he faced charges of possession, possession of a Schedule III controlled substance, and possession with intent to sell and distribute. Hart claimed that steroids and marijuana were found in his car, which led to the arrest. A second arrest occurred in early March for a violation of his house arrest.
**The season two premiere of ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ saw the series hit its highest viewership by a wide margin. The two-hour documentary on Chris Benoit averaged 320,000 viewers on Vice TV with a 0.14 in the 18-49 demographic. The previous high for the series was 234,000 viewers for last season’s ‘The Last of the Von Erichs’. The series continues next week with ‘The Life and Crimes of New Jack’.
**Wednesday night’s edition of Dynamite featured live and taped content throughout the body of the show. They did tape a lot of content and had heard they continued taping after Dynamite went off the air Wednesday night.
**You can look at many examples this week where AEW assessed what worked and didn’t last week along with the safety protocol. They did not fly in Jim Ross, Excalibur, and Taz with Tony Schiavone stating they didn’t make the trip but all three are fine. They also eliminated wrestlers in the crowd to add ambiance to the matches, instead of having locker room cutaways with several performers cheering intermittently. The only glaring instance for me was watching Cody bump elbows with Kenny Omega and Schiavone at the booth, acknowledging the precautionary measure people are taking, and immediately went to the ring and shook hands with Aubrey Edwards. It almost sounds silly as most would acknowledge shaking hands is something to avoid but it’s hard to get bent out of shape over handshaking when you consider what these performers are engaged in that involves way more physical contact than hands.
**NXT featured Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton on commentary instead of the usual team. The show is geared around presenting the matches that were scheduled for TakeOver in Tampa with the big one being Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano that will run on the April 8th episode. The story is that they will receive a location and meet there for their fight and it will be the end of their feud. The ending to the show saw Gargano and Ciampa interrupted while in the ring by a Killer Kross video and that’s how they went off the air. There was a very good match on the show between Matt Riddle and Roderick Strong that I thought was one of the better empty-arena matches we have seen.
**On the most recent edition of ‘This Card is Going to Change’, AIW owner and promoter John Thorne discussed the mounting issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and how it’s impacting his business. He addressed the status of ‘The Collective’ series of shows, which AIW was a part of for WrestleMania Weekend in Tampa and how WrestleMania opting to move forward instead of postponing the event had hurt them:
Everything right now on ‘The Collective’ front, is we’re in a holding pattern. Obviously, we want to go forward, and we want to do something. We have no idea what to do because this information hit us in a shock because we were all anticipating, like, the MLB season is suspended or postponed, or the NBA season is suspended or postponed. We were all anticipating WrestleMania will also be suspended or postponed and then, once they announce the new date then ‘The Collective’, we had a hold on the building, we could try to move that deposit elsewhere for other dates which would coincide with the new WrestleMania dates. When they said they were going forward with no fans, which nobody in the f***king world would have ever guessed that they would give up that all that money just to go forward, you know, we don’t know what to do at this point. I have no answer on that honestly. There is a plan to do something at someday eventually, but we just don’t know because you can’t make a plan for anything right now. We have a show on April 24th that we don’t even know if it’ll be allowed to go or not. We have a show in May in Akron that we don’t know if it will go or not. You can’t also go book the makeup dates now because who knows? This thing could be over next week, it could be over on Labor Day weekend, we don’t know how long the country is going to be in this sense of disarray with no idea on what’s going to happen.
Thorne went on in the interview to explain the bills that are coming due coupled with the enormous number of refunds they have to process and minimal flexibility without a time frame of how long shows will be shut down in the state of Ohio:
We do have these monthly expenses and you can’t stop them with no income coming in. We have some income whenever you’re buying off Smart Mark video or if you’re watching on IWTV we are going to get some income from that. It’s not going to be thousands and thousands of dollars; it will be a couple of hundred bucks probably depending on how much stuff is bought. But it’s going to be kind of like if I boil down the monthly expenses versus the money coming in it’s going to be tight and I haven’t even finished the refunds yet. Refund requests are coming in every day for Tampa, for ‘Gauntlet’ and for ‘Thunder in Paradise’, if you keep that ticket it will still be active when the show happens. But, as we covered on this podcast, some people are out of work and they really need whatever money they can get right now. I understand that that’s no disrespect to anybody it’s your money you need it and that’s just the cost of doing business or whatever you want to call it. It sucks, when you look at our PayPal account was just always so, I guess, healthy and when you look at thousands and thousands of dollars having to go out for refunds and then you’re looking at your monthly bills that are about to come out, you’re like ‘f**k’, how long can we do this to where it’s going to be down to zero pretty quick and then once it hits zero you’re accumulating debt and how do you dig yourself out of that debt when you don’t know when you’ll be able to do another show. Say when we can do a show are people going to be comfortable gathering in a large group again? There are a lot of factors that are just, no to sound grim, who knows how many independent promotions, AIW included can bounce back from this situation?
**The WWE stock closed at $34.95 on Thursday.
**The 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland has announced that the NXT UK: TakeOver event scheduled for next month has been pushed back and is now set for Sunday, October 25th.
**The SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan announced that the WWE live event on April 26th is off:
The WWE live event scheduled for Sunday, April 26 in Saskatoon, SK has been cancelled. Refunds are available at all points of purchase. All ticket buyers who bought their tickets through Ticketmaster will be issued an automatic refund on the credit card used to purchase their tickets. No further action is required. Tickets purchased in-person at the box office, please visit SaskTel Centre box office once it reopens. Please note that you should expect to receive your refund in as soon as 30 days.
**Samoa Joe’s 30-day Wellness Policy suspension ended on Wednesday.
**Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that Japan is placing an entry ban on foreigners from 21 European countries and Iran to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
**Governor Yuriko Koike has requested residents of Tokyo to stay at home and avoid non-essential outings this weekend. Saitama and Kanagawa have followed with the same instructions for its residents.
**As a result, Pro Wrestling NOAH has canceled its event in Yokohama (which is in the prefecture of Kanagawa) that was set for Friday.
**Dragon Gate has canceled their shows that were set for March 28th in Gifu, March 30th in Nagano, and March 31st in Chiba. The company added the following note:
Touring is tentatively scheduled to resume on 4/4 in Shizuoka. However, the current circumstances may require further cancellations or postponements. If this becomes necessary we will announce it as soon as possible.
**Due to the issues surrounding the coronavirus, All Japan stated that foreigners Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lucas Steel, and Joel Redman will not be participating in the Champion Carnival tournament that is still scheduled to begin next week. Smith posted the following message apologizing:
I am sorry to the Japanese fans I had to cancel (for now anyway) the AJPW Champion Carnival tournament. Due to the lockdown in Tampa because of Corona and not able to rush my travel in order to beat the 2 week mandatory Japanese quarantine for any future travelers after March 26th. But I will be back so don’t worry I promise.
**AAW in Illinois has had to cancel its April 17th card that was to take place at 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park. The company is attempting to raise donations to assist with the wrestlers that are unable to work.
**WWN Live has released a free match from 2019 between Velveteen Dream and Orange Cassidy from EVOLVE 123.
**Scott Armstrong shared some unfortunate news that his father ‘Bullet’ Bob Armstrong has cancer. In a Twitter post where the 80-year old was working out and noted he has cancer in his ribs, shoulder, and prostate but has opted not to go through with treatment.
**Fozzy has postponed its ‘Save the World’ tour that was set to begin on April 16th. The concert dates from April 16th to May 9th are being re-scheduled and the band is now planning to return July 10th with dates scheduled through early September and will have a new album out in the fall. Chris Jericho was quoted in the band’s update stating:
In light of the pandemic that’s gripping the world’s attention, it’s time to make the right move and postpone the April/May leg of Save The World Tour for everyone’s safety and well being. However, we promise you, once the World is back on its axis and TRULY saved, Fozzy will be back to hold you in our loving arms and literally ROCK all your troubles away!! See everybody soon and in the meantime and between time, please stay healthy and safe. We will get through this together.
**This is a significant date in wrestling history with the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro occurring on March 26, 2001.
**Paige VanZant turns 26 years old today. Other UFC fighters with birthdays today include Kai Kara-France, Calvin Kattar, and Irene Aldana.
**Below is the trailer for next week’s Dark Side of the Ring episode covering New Jack, which airs next Tuesday at 10 pm Eastern on Vice TV and streaming on Crave in Canada:
*****
upNXT 3/25/20: “Don’t Touch Me”
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the March 25th edition of WWE NXT from Full Sail University featuring Matt Riddle vs. Roderick Strong, Austin Theory vs. Tyler Breeze, the return of Io Shirai, the debut of a brand new tag team, Triple H addresses Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano, and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/26/upnxt-3-25-20-dont-touch-me/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 3/25/20: Vanguardian of the Galaxy
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite from Daily’s Place with Matt Hardy confronting Chris Jericho.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/25/rewind-a-dynamite-3-25-20-vanguardian-of-the-galaxy/
*****
POST INTERVIEW: Jeff Marek
On today’s show, John Pollock speaks with Jeff Marek about the new Dark Side of the Ring documentary covering Chris Benoit.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/25/post-interview-jeff-marek-on-the-chris-benoit-documentary/
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask us Anything! (March 2020)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the March 2020 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/24/ask-a-wai-ask-us-anything-march-2020/
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 3/23/20: Too Legit to Grit
John Pollock and Wai Ting review another empty-arena WWE Raw from the Performance Center as Randy Orton answers Edge’s challenge, and AJ Styles challenges The Undertaker to a BONEYARD match.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/24/rewind-a-raw-3-23-20-too-legit-to-grit/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: FCW documentary, Austin-Bret, GCW “Social Distance” Match
John Pollock and Wai Ting present a special return of the DOUBLE SHOT featuring reviews of “A Future WWE: The FCW Story”, “Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions: Bret Hart”, and GCW’s “Social Distance Rules” match between Joey Janela and Jimmy Lloyd.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/03/23/double-shot-fcw-documentary-austin-bret-interview-gcw-social-distance-match/
*****
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