POST IT NOTES
**We have this week’s REWIND-A-WAI show out for members of the POST Wrestling Café as Wai Ting and I review the WWF’s Survivor Series 1996 card from Madison Square Garden. This show was chosen by Espresso Executive Producer Roberto Macias and joined us to chat why he chose this event and his memories of attending this show in 1996. Wai and I chat about the decision to go with Sid as WWF champion, defeating Shawn Michaels on this card, the angle with Jose Lothario, Bret Hart’s return to face Steve Austin, the debut of Rocky Maivia, Jim Ross’ performance, Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon, Fake Razor & Diesel, and we take your feedback.
**Over the last two days, we have a new edition of Keep It 2000 with Brian Mann & Nate Milton being joined by Zach Linder to review the July 24th, 2000 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. We also have a new edition of upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman reviewing this week’s NXT episode.
**On Saturday night, I will be back with a UFC 224 Post Show. On this show, I will also be doing an MMA Q&A at the end of the show and you can post questions on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**We will also have the latest POST ROUNDTABLE SHOW out this Sunday with Arda Ocal joining us this month.
**Wai Ting joins the True North Nerds Podcast to chat Avengers: Infinity War.
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WRESTLING NEWS
**Pro Wrestling Tees has announced a rare wrestling-related appearance for CM Punk on Friday, August 31st at their retail store in Chicago for an autograph signing. Punk is scheduled for a meet-and-greet with limited tickets on sale May 23rd at 1 pm Eastern. The signing will ramp up speculation as it is the day before the “All In” event in the city. Pro Wrestling Tees will only be selling 200 tickets for the meet-and-greet with $50 for an autograph, $50 for a photo op (with up to two guests), or $90 for both that comes with a t-shirt.
**Ring of Honor continues its War of the Worlds Tour at the Ted Reeve Arena in Toronto, Ontario tonight with a sold-out show. The event will be streaming on Honor Club and will feature the following card:
*Jay White vs. Punishment Martinez for the IWGP United States title
*SoCal Uncensored vs. Roppongi 3K & Rocky Romero
*Cody vs. Jushin Thunder Liger
*The Young Bucks vs. The Super Smash Bros.
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Beer City Bruiser
*Jay Lethal, Flip Gordon & Kenny King vs. Hiromu Takahashi, EVIL, Sanada & Bushi – Dalton Castle is still listed on the website for this match, but he is not scheduled to wrestle tonight due to his injury, so presumably, they will name a replacement ahead of the match.
*Silas Young vs. Hangman Page for the Television title
**The tour continues Saturday night in Royal Oak, Michigan with The Briscoes vs. Tetsuya Naito & Bushi for the ROH tag titles, The Young Bucks vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. Roppongi 3K, and Hiromu Takahashi vs. Cody among the key matches. The tour wraps on Saturday with a television taping in Villa Park, Illinois.
**Dalton Castle did not work Wednesday’s War of the Worlds show, where he was advertised to defend the ROH title against Matt Taven. On the show, Castle announced he was injured and they changed the match into a six-man tag with The Kingdom taking on SoCal Uncensored with The Kingdom winning the ROH six-man tag titles. Castle is dealing with a hand and back injury. I was told that Castle will be in attendance in Toronto tonight but will not be wrestling.
**Greg Oliver wrote about a panel from last week’s Cauliflower Alley Club reunion that looked at the Fabulous Moolah following the allegations brought back to light ahead of this year’s WrestleMania. It is a complicated story because the key people are no longer alive. Moolah always had a reputation of taking a sizable amount of the women’s pay for their matches, with many noting Moolah was upfront about it but still left the women losing out on sizable portions of their pay. The bigger stories are harder to come to a definitive conclusion on. In 2006, a story in the Free Times profiled wrestler Susie Mae McCoy a.k.a. Sweet Georgia Brown with allegations that during her time as a wrestler she was raped and given drugs. In the 2006 article, McCoy’s daughter shared these stories her mother told her, although McCoy’s son, Michael, has recently done an interview to defend Moolah, although adds that if Moolah was aware of anything going on, she was not in a position to speak up about those things.
Wrestler Jeannine Mjoseth flat out stated in a 2014 interview that Moolah would send girls to a promoter in Arizona with the knowledge that the promoter expected sexual favors.
The panel at the CAC consisted of Dan Murphy (who co-wrote Sisterhood of the Squared Circle and goes through the allegations in the book) as moderator with panellists Beverly Shade, Joyce Grable, Judy Martin, Despina Montagas, Malia Hosaka and Peggy Lee Leather. The women all seemed to agree that Moolah never pimped them out, although the article describes a story from Princess Victoria where she was sent to a promoter in Amsterdam and it was implied by Moolah to Victoria that “the nicer I was to him, the better it would be.” She then detailed a story of being in a car with the promoter, who threatened to take her passport if she didn’t have sex with him and Victoria threatened him back with violence, but Victoria stated Moolah was not a pimp.
**On the same topic, Nigel Sherrod recently spoke to Judy Martin regarding the Moolah allegations.
**Charlotte had some of her teeth knocked out during a match with Carmella on Thursday during the first SmackDown show on the European tour in Oberhausen, Germany. After the match, a fan attempted to take a video with Charlotte, who covered her mouth and explained she had lost some of her teeth. Dave Meltzer reported that Charlotte will have dental surgery in the United States and return for the rest of the tour.
**Impact Wrestling did 295,000 viewers on POP TV on Thursday night. Unlike previous weeks, there wasn’t competition from the NBA but they did go against an NHL playoff game between Winnipeg and Nashville, which did 1,556,000 viewers.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of MLW Fusion at 8 pm Easter on beIN Sports:
*Joey Janela vs. Jimmy Havoc
*Tom Lawlor vs. ACH
*Fred Yehi vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman
**The WWE and Filipino broadcaster 5 out of the Philippines have announced a new broadcast agreement. The deal will extend the network’s one-hour broadcast of SmackDown on Mondays at 8:30 pm and also add a one-hour version of Raw to air Sundays at 10 pm.
**Cedric Alexander will defend the Cruiserweight title against Buddy Murphy on the May 29th episode of 205 Live from Raleigh, North Carolina.
**Brandi Rhodes underwent surgery this week for a broken clavicle, which was injured during her recent tour with Stardom for the Cinderella tournament. Rhodes continued with her scheduled matches and worked around the injury before flying home.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Ultimo Guerrero and Titan will be working the June 2nd television tapings at the Manhattan Center.
**ROH has also announced Atlantis will be working for the promotion on Friday, June 15th in San Antonio at The Aztec Theatre and on Saturday, June 16th in Dallas at Gilley’s.
**Here are the results from the Anarchy Pro Wrestling card on Wednesday in Camden, London with results sent into us by Steve Harris: Fraser Thomas over Shay Purser, El Phantasmo over Los Federales Santos Junior, Clint Margera over Jack Jester in a Barbed Wire Death Match, Jinny over Chris Ridgeway in an I Quit Match, Damien Moser over Chief Deputy Dunne in a Lego Death Match (not a typo), Mark Haskins over Sammy Smooth in a British Rules Match, Amir Jordan over Rocky Mac, and Drew Parker over Chris Brookes in a Light Tube Death Match. This card was the opening round matches of the Master of Brutality Tournament with the second round scheduled for June 14th and final round on July 26th.
**Here is a great video from Brandon Howard on newer philosophies and trends for wrestling performers getting over with their audience:
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TELEVISION REVIEWS
Impact Wrestling (May 10th)
-The premise at the start of the show was an intriguing one. They kicked off the broadcast with urgency as Josh Mathews recapped the attack from Sami Callihan on Don Callis at last Sunday’s Destiny Wrestling show in Mississauga. They established a show-long story of Impact officials meeting behind closed doors and that has run late and will interrupt the show for the decision.
-Throughout the show, Mathews was calling the matches solo with the injury to Callis. Mathews had to treat the situation as very serious and I felt some of the isolated scenes with him on screen were overdone and it’s hard to put Mathews in the serious role and be taken seriously when he was Matt Sydal’s “guru” only a few weeks ago.
-The story climaxed with Eddie Edwards barging into the executive meeting and being told by Scott D’Amore off camera that Sami Callihan has been fired. Edwards swore and was upset, so D’Amore reversed his decision and they are having a street fight next week. The payoff didn’t really match the urgency they attached to it for such a significant decision regarding someone’s firing being overturned in a heartbeat. The feud is over to the audience and has helped Impact, but this story kind of fell flat with the conclusion on this episode.
-The rest of this show felt very thrown together with a heavier emphasis than usual on old content to fill the two-hours. There was a House of Hardcore match between Kongo Kong and Moose, which is at least a current story and relevant with two Impact performers. They also aired an old Ultimate X Match, which is the usual Global Wrestling Network promotion, and then they aired a Brian Cage vs. Takashi Sugiura match from June 2017. It felt like something you would have seen in the 80’s where Impact had a match involving one of their top stars pinning the current GHC champion, even though this match was a year old.
-The main event featured Pentagon Jr. defeating Eli Drake in a mediocre match with the story that Drake wanted to do it along rather than accept help from Scott Steiner. They are building to a rematch on television between Pentagon and Austin Aries.
-The follow up to the Allie storyline with Su Yung featured a video with Allie receiving a demon doll with a note pinned to it, Allie looked in the mirror and began twitching (her face, not broadcasting on Twitch) as though she’s been cast for the next Conjuring film.
-El Hijo del Fantasma won a four-way #1 contender’s match for a future X division title match over Aerostar, Drago, and Taiji Ishimori. There was a dive by Aerostar to the floor, which was incredible that he got up from after landing badly on his neck.
WWE NXT (May 9th)
-The show built to Tommaso Ciampa destroying Kassius Ohno in a good television main event. Ciampa won the match, and then attacked Ohno with his knee brace. The match featured both men trying to attack the eye of each other and added to Ciampa’s psychotic demeanour with the eye being his target. Mauro Ranallo treats Ciampa as the most despicable human being he has seen and puts Ciampa on a higher level than anyone else.
-While the WWE is introducing several storylines involving a bullying dynamic, the best one is with Shayna Baszler and Dakota Kai. Kai is such a sympathetic figure that conveys fear in a way few others could get away with. Baszler is a great bully and it’s building towards Nikki Cross standing up for Kai.
-The show opening with a Ricochet promo and was interrupted by Velveteen Dream. Dream is clearly the more comfortable speaker, but Ricochet came off well in the segment too. Dream having a long run in NXT will do him a lot of favours than being called up to the main roster too early.
-Overall, this show was building up your key heels in Ciampa and Baszler, as well as teasing matches with Dream and Ricochet and establishing an alliance between Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch to face off with The Undisputed Era.
MMA NEWS
**There was a frightening scene in Rio de Janeiro late Thursday night near the UFC host hotel. Several people associated with the UFC and fighter managers were robbed at gunpoint. Sucker Punch Entertainment’s Brian Butler-Au was one of the men robbed with a gun put in his face and estimated there were ten victims. Thankfully, there were no injuries other than the trauma of such a scary incident. Butler-Au described the robbery to TMZ:
**The major news from Friday’s UFC 224 weigh-ins was strawweight Mackenzie Dern missing weight by a significant margin for her fight with Amanda Cooper. Dern stepped onto the scale at 123 pounds, seven over the strawweight limit of 116. Cooper has agreed to go ahead with the fight with Dern losing 30% of her purse. It is not the first time Dern has missed weight at strawweight in her career and would suggest that fighting at flyweight would be the alternative if significant changes are not made. Amanda Cooper posted the following statement:
Not shocked @MackenzieDern missed weight but 7.4lbs over is a disgrace to all professionals. She’s not getting out of this fight that easy. Fight is still on. ABCNation get ready. #ufc224 strawweight vs flyweight tomorrow night in Brazil
**Below is Saturday’s full card with the results from the weigh-ins:
MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on pay-per-view)
*Amanda Nunes (135) vs. Raquel Pennington (135) for the UFC bantamweight title
*Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (186) vs. Kelvin Gastelum (185)
*Amanda Cooper (116) vs. Mackenzie Dern (123)
*John Lineker (136) vs. Brian Kelleher (136)
*Lyoto Machida (186) vs. Vitor Belfort (184)
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm on FXX, TSN 2 in Canada)
*Cezar Ferreira (186) vs. Karl Roberson (185)
*Alexey Oleynik (235) vs. Junior Albini (266)
*Nick Hein (156) vs. Davi Ramos (156)
*Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (171) vs. Sean Strickland (170)
FIGHT PASS CARD (6 pm)
*Warlley Alves (171) vs. Sultan Aliev (171)
*Thales Leites (186) vs. Jack Hermansson (186)
*Ramazan Emeev (171) vs. Alberto Mina (171)
*Markus Perez (186) vs. James Bochnovic (186)
**Here is the main card for the Bellator 199 event on Saturday night at 9 pm Eastern from the SAP Center in San Jose, California and airing on the Paramount Network:
*Ryan Bader (225.1) vs. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal (217.4) in the Heavyweight Grand Prix
*Paul Daley (170.3) vs. Jon Fitch (171)
*Cheick Kongo (241.7) vs. Javy Ayala (265.5)
*Carrington Banks (155.6) vs. Adam Piccolotti (155.3)
*Aaron Pico (145.7) vs. Lee Morrison (144)
**TUF Latin America winner Yair Rodriguez looks to be done with the UFC after failing to accept a fight on the August 4th card scheduled for Los Angeles, according to Lance Pugmire at the L.A. Times. Earlier this week, it was reported that the UFC was working on putting together a fight between Rodriguez and Zabit Magomedsharipov. The Los Angeles Times reported the fight was in talks, leading to Rodriguez responding to the story on Twitter as “Fake News”. White tweeted early Friday morning, “Real News”. White informed the Los Angeles Times that Rodriguez has turned down fights with Ricardo Lamas and Magomedsharipov for the August 4th card and he has since informed Rodriguez he was being released. Rodriguez won TUF Latin America in 2014 and gone 6-1 in the UFC with victories over Andre Fili, Alexa Caceres, and BJ Penn. He is coming off TKO loss to Frankie Edgar at UFC 211 in May 2017.
**The lightweight rematch between Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier has been signed for July 28th in Calgary, Alberta on Fox. The rematch was first reported by Brett Okamoto at ESPN and confirmed on Thursday by Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting after some snags during the day to finalize the matchup. The two fought in May 2017 at UFC 211 and ended in a no contest following a series of illegal knees delivered by Alvarez. Both have secured big victories in the competitive division since their fight with Alvarez stopping Justin Gaethje last December at UFC 218, while Poirer has stopped Anthony Pettis and Gaethje.
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**Here are the two most recent UFC Embedded episodes for UFC 224:
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #10: WWF Survivor Series 1996 (Patreon)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18736543
*****
upNXT 5/10/18: Heavy War Machinery with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/nuy7bg/180510_upNXT.mp3
*****
KEEP IT 2000: Ep. 30 – “It’s The Tape” with Zach Linder (July 24, 2000)
https://keepit2000.podbean.com/mf/download/e23wve/180509_KI2000.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 5/8/18: MITB Qualifiers, Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/y3zhpa/180508_RASD.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 5/7/18: Money in the Bank Qualifiers
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/2jyada/180507_RAR.mp3
*****
WWE BACKLASH 2018 POST SHOW W/ JOHN POLLOCK & WAI TING
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/t6gt8c/180506_BACKLASH_POST.mp3
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (May 2018)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18612754/
*****
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https://forum.postwrestling.com
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