Photo courtesy: WWE
POST IT NOTES
**We have two shows out today, starting with Rewind-A-Raw as Wai & I review Monday’s show from Boston, discuss the brawl in the opening segment, the main event between Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre (and the preceding interview segment), the continuation of the Bayley and Sasha Banks segments, final matches set up for Extreme Rules and more. On the show, we also go over updates on Hiromu Takahashi, the situation involving Jim Ross being injured at the show, USADA’s statement on the status of Brock Lesnar and when he is eligible to fight, as well as taking your feedback and questions. The show can be downloaded at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/07/10/rewind-a-raw-7-9-18-extreme-rules-go-home-show/ and available on the POST Wrestling podcast feed.
**On the RAR “Double Shot”, Wai and I go through the Sports Business Journal piece on the recent WWE & UFC television negotiations with a behind-the-scenes look by John Ourand. We also recap the recent episodes of “Being the Elite”, “Total Bellas” and I share my thoughts on the New Japan card from the Cow Palace. This show is available to all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown with a review of tonight’s show and we will preview the Extreme Rules show on Sunday.
**I was a guest today with Andy McNamara on TSN 1050 Toronto chat Daniel Cormier’s win over Stipe Miocic, the future of both, the return of Brock Lesnar & more.
**On Wednesday, we will have a G1 Primer show with Wai Ting and WH Park previewing this year’s tournament, going through the blocks, the major matches and taking questions from the POST Wrestling Forum.
**The deadline to enter POST Wrestling’s G1 contest is this Thursday at 11:59 pm Eastern and is free to join.
**This Friday on the POST Wrestling Café we are reviewing the entire second season of GLOW.
**The first G1 review will be released this Saturday. We will be reviewing all the G1 cards for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s WWE television tapings take place from Manchester, New Hampshire for the final set of shows before Extreme Rules this Sunday. SmackDown Live is coming off their lowest viewership mark since November 2016, which was the night of the U.S. Election and they are putting a big match on television this week. Below is what has been announced for tonight:
*AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
*Asuka vs. James Ellsworth in a Lumberjack Match
*Andrade Cien Almas vs. Sin Cara
*Samoa Joe vs. Tye Dillinger
*Miz TV with Daniel Bryan and Kane
*Cedric Alexander vs. Hideo Itami for the Cruiserweight title on 205 Live
**The WWE has switched up their pay-per-view schedule for the later this year. One reader alerted us Monday night that at the TD Garden they promoted the WWE’s return for October 21st (which was scheduled to be the TLC event) and was announced as a WWE Supershow with Raw & SmackDown Live talent. PWinsider.com has confirmed that TLC will now take place December 16th in place of Clash of Champions in San Jose. Instead of running two pay-per-views in October, the WWE will just be running the Super Show-down event from Melbourne, Australia on October 6th as the major show that month. Below is the schedule for the remainder of 2018:
*This Sunday – Extreme Rules from Pittsburgh
*August 19th – SummerSlam from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn
*September 16th – Hell in a Cell from the AT&T Center in San Antonio
*October 6th – Super Show-Down from Melbourne, Australia
*November 18th – Survivor Series at the Staples Center in Los Angeles
*December 16th – TLC at the SAP Center in San Jose
**Shinsuke Nakamura returned to the ring on Monday’s house show in Augusta, Maine following the dog bite he sustained last month. Nakamura worked against AJ Styles in the main event of the show with Styles retaining the WWE title. Nikki Cross also worked the house show Monday as she teamed with Becky Lynch and defeated Billie Kay and Peyton Royce.
**The latest addition to the Extreme Rules card this Sunday is a steel cage match between Braun Strowman and Kevin Owens. They have officially announced ten matches for the show, with one being a 30-minute Ironman match so this appears to be another lengthy show coming up. Here is the updated card:
*AJ Styles vs. Rusev for the WWE title
*Bobby Lashley vs. Roman Reigns
*Kevin Owens vs. Braun Strowman in a steel cage match
*Dolph Ziggler (w/ Drew McIntyre) vs. Seth Rollins in a 30:00 Ironman Match for the Intercontinental title
*The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Daniel Bryan & Kane for the SmackDown tag titles
*Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt vs. The B Team for the Raw tag titles
*Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax in an Extreme Rules Match for the Raw women’s title
*Carmella vs. Asuka for the SmackDown women’s title
*Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the United States title
*Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin
**Sunday’s episode of Total Bellas averaged 719,000 viewers on E! The show was up 8% from their last episode that aired June 24th. There was no episode last week.
**Impact Wrestling announced today they have signed Tessa Blanchard to a long-term deal. They did not state the length of the contract.
**It was announced during Raw on Monday that the second pre-order character for the WWE 2K19 game will be Ronda Rousey with Rey Mysterio being the other available character. They aired an incredible spot produced by 2K with Rousey entering an empty locker room, hanging up Roddy Piper’s jacket with audio of the two talking on a podcast they recorded years ago.
**The WWE has announced a distribution deal with FOX Networks Group Asia to air Raw on FOX+ in the Philippines. The deal will go into effect next week with Raw airing live on Tuesdays at 8 am on FOX+ and will replay Tuesday nights at 8 pm on FOX Sports. The FOX+ streaming service is also going to begin running “Afterburn”, “Experience” and “This Week”.
MMA NEWS
**Bellator has announced that the semi-final fight of the Heavyweight Grand Prix between Ryan Bader and Matt Mitrione will take place Friday, October 12th at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Mitrione defeated Roy Nelson by majority decision in February to advance while Bader scored a 15-second stoppage over Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal in their opening round bout this past May at Bellator 199 to advance. The other semi-final fight between Chael Sonnen and Fedor Emelianenko has not been announced yet.
**The UFC 226 preliminary card averaged 668,000 viewers on FS 1 this past Saturday featuring Paulo Costa stopping Uriah Hall in the second round of the featured prelim bout. The viewership was almost identical to the 667,000 average for the UFC 225 prelims last month in Chicago.
**Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting reported Monday that charges related to Volkan Oezdemir’s felony battery case have been dropped. The state attorney’s office told the outlet that charges had been dropped due to a lack of cooperation from the victim. An incident allegedly occurred last August outside a bar where Oezdemir was accused of striking a man and was facing a third-degree felony charge with a trial set to begin next week. Oezdemir was recently removed from the UFC’s Fight Night card in Hamburg, Germany on July 22nd where he was scheduled to headline against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Oezdemir was removed from that card and placed onto the UFC 227 card August 4th against Alexander Gustafsson.
**Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series returns tonight after one-week off. Below are the fights scheduled for tonight’s card, beginning at 8 pm Eastern on Fight Pass:
*Lightweight: Kevin Aguilar (14-1) vs. Joey Gomez (7-0)
*Middleweight: Alton Cunningham (5-0) vs. Bevon Lewis (5-0)
*Featherweight: Ricky Palacios (9-1) vs. Toby Misech (10-5)
*Flyweight: Riley Dutro (13-3) vs. Jordan Espinosa (12-5)
*Lightweight: Max Mustaki (6-2) vs. Jalin Turner (6-3)
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 7/10/18: Being the Elite Ep. 110, WWE/UFC TV Deals, Total Bellas
John Pollock & Wai Ting go through the SBJ article on the recent television negotiations and Wai reviews Total Bellas and the latest episode of Being the Elite
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19976542
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 7/9/18: Extreme Rules Go-Home Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Raw from Boston, discuss the injuries to Hiromu Takahashi and Jim Ross from Saturday’s Cow Palace card, USADA’s statement on when Brock Lesnar can fight & your feedback
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/8rb8xn/180709_RAR.mp3
*****
NJPW G1 Special in San Francisco Review w/ Wai Ting, Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski & Mike Murray (Patreon)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19935349
*****
UFC 226 Review with John Pollock, Phil Chertok & Ziggy Cao
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/5q7hiv/POST-UFC-226-Review.mp3
*****
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 1991 with Alan Counihan
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/ya38kj/EGGSHELLS_Podcast_Companion__1991_w__Alan_Counihan.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-WAI – WCW Uncensored ’97 (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review this card headlined by Team WCW vs. Team Piper vs. Team N.W.O. and chat with Espresso Executive Producer Jon Ziegler on his choice of this show.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19897182/
*****
upNXT 7/4/18: Gargano’s Descent
Wai Ting fills in for Braden Herrington to review this week’s NXT with Davie Portman to discuss the Johnny Gargano story, and learn about the World Cup.
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/4j6jqk/upNXT-July4-2018.mp3
*****
KEEP IT 2000: Ep. 33 – “I Own WCW” with Chris Urbanowicz (March 26, 2001)
https://keepit2000.podbean.com/mf/download/zejwum/KEEP_IT_2000_EP_33-2.mp3
*****
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum
https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café
http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling
