POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live tonight at 11:15 p.m. ET as Wai Ting and I review the go-home Raw before the Survivor Series. You can listen and watch live if you’re a Double Double, Iced Capp, or Espresso member of the POST Wrestling Café.
**The latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio features Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discussing AEW Full Gear and following the most successful pay-per-view in their history, projections for WWE in the near and long-term future, an analysis of the AEW/IMPACT relationship, New Japan’s business, and an interesting look at the sports and media landscape of potential suitors to ever start a pro wrestling company.
**Our AEW Full Gear POST Show is available to download from the site or watch on YouTube.
**On Tuesday, we are back with Rewind-A-Wai #99 covering the UWF Blackjack Brawl from September 1994 and the final event that Herb Abrams would promote. Amazingly, we have never reviewed this card and will chat about all the events surrounding this show and the UWF in general. You can leave feedback on the POST Wrestling Forum with this show being released Tuesday night for Café members.
**The POST Daily News show is out covering the NJPW Battle in the Valley notes, Will Ospreay returning to Japan for Wrestle Kingdom, Chris Dickinson injured in San Jose, and Kenny Omega discusses his battle with vertigo since 2018.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (11:15 p.m. ET)
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai – UWF Blackjack Brawl (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite (10:15 p.m. ET)
Thursday: The Wellness Policy with Wai Ting & Jordan Goodman (3 p.m. ET for Patrons)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (11:15 p.m.)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio
Sunday: Survivor Series POST Show w/ John & Wai (Live for Double Double+ Patrons)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE Raw takes place from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana (the same market as AEW Dynamite last week). As of Monday afternoon, very little has been announced for the show other than continuing the issue between Big E. and Kevin Owens following last week’s attack by Owens and how Big E. will respond as well as Becky Lynch reacting to Liv Morgan as her next challenger, and Bobby Lashley will be on the show.
UPDATE: WWE has announced that Seth Rollins will take on Finn Balor on tonight’s episode.
Thus far, the promotion of Survivor Series has achieved the bare minimum with six days remaining. After Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods were attacked, they desperately need a promo from Big E. to give something of a reason for Sunday’s match with Roman Reigns, although he is coming off his own beatdown angle by Owens and clouds the whole picture going into Sunday.
The Survivor Series elimination matches being ice cold with incomplete teams on the SmackDown side, Adam Pearce playing heel cheerleader for Raw while holding the exact same position on SmackDown, and as always, zero stakes for the winning and losing sides.
The only match with a degree of intrigue is Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair but only to those familiar with the issues surrounding the segment in Wichita, Kansas several weeks ago. It’s very hard to transfer that type of story onto television especially for WWE by trying to explain in a nuanced way one side pulling a fast one during a segment and leading to a heated confrontation backstage. However, there is enough there to convey the story that the two came up together and were legitimately close friends, they have gone separate paths and are no longer friends, which the audience will buy into more due to the public nature of their feud and having that realism embedded should be used for all its worth if you’ve made the decision to promote the match.
Aside from that, in theory, it should be Damian Priest vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and The Usos vs. Randy Orton & Riddle but neither match has been mentioned once. It’s the double-edged sword of doing the draft immediately before Survivor Series where you either have Raw and SmackDown talent appearing on opposing shows to build the pay-per-view and rendering the draft meaningless or this version where you have a cold build six days out with a show relying on historical attachment to the Survivor Series and matches that are designed to excite you on paper with minimal promotion on television.
**NJPW made several announcements on Monday regarding their 50th-anniversary events in 2022:
*There will be four anniversary shows scheduled for February 11th at the Xebio Arena in Sendai, February 13th at the Edion Arena in Osaka, February 19th & 20th in Hokkaido, and March 1st & 2nd at Budokan Hall.
*The January tour will be billed as ‘New Years Golden Series’ as a nod to the past of what the opening tour of the year was promoted as
*There will be a themed exhibit at the Tokyo Dome City’s Gallery AaMo running from February 11-27 with various New Japan artifacts including ring worn boots from Andre the Giant
*The company is also working with 50 different companies to produce commemorative items including LIJ-themed game chairs and golf bags.
**Eddie Kingston provided an update stating that his shoulders are fine, and he won’t be missing any action. In his tweet, he added that he would be at the Northeast Wrestling card this Saturday in Waterbury, Connecticut.
**Kenny Omega appeared on Dr. Beau Hightower’s YouTube channel for a chiropractic adjustment and interview. Hightower frequently speaks with MMA fighters and pro wrestlers for his channel while performing adjustments. During the interview, Omega spoke about lingering issues he has been dealing with including his documented shoulder problems but also revealed an ongoing problem with vertigo since 2018: (Transcribed by Robert Defelice at Fightful)
Yeah, it’s been an issue since 2018. I just get really bad vertigo. I get dizzy in the ring. I can’t — the room spins. It’s been a new skill I’ve had to inherit is wrestling in a spinning ring. So to make sure I get that straightened out as much as I can, as often as I can is really paramount for my performances.
**The major notes coming out of ROH’s Honor for All special on Sunday night (that was taped at the last set of tapings in Baltimore) saw Bandido defeat Demonic Flamita in a non-title/no DQ match while Jonathan Gresham defeated Brody King, which should set up Bandido and Gresham for the main event of Final Battle next month, which will be the company’s last before the hiatus. Mike Bennett & Matt Taven won the ROH tag titles from Kenny King & Dragon Lee and Holidead became the #1 contender for the Women’s Championship. On the broadcast, they stated Holidead would receive her title match on the Christmas edition of ROH TV, which would be “the last event of this era”.
The Final Battle card is a unique show to promote as the company is going to have heightened curiosity given the state of the company and the many questions surrounding what ROH will look like after the hiatus. At the very least, it’s the end of this promotion in its current form as one offering contracts and at best, will be a significantly scaled-down promotion that is closer to a big Indie with show-to-show booking and a revolving door of talent. For the maximum value, they should promote Final Battle as the end of the era while also having some type of messaging or mission statement regarding its future for a fanbase that is about to see the company go dark for multiple months including through the company’s 20th anniversary in February.
**NJPW Strong has its taping in Riverside, California tonight with the following matches advertised:
*Strong Openweight Championship: Tom Lawlor (champion) vs. Fred Rosser
*Tomohiro Ishii vs. Brody King
*Jay White & Hikuleo vs. Alex Zayne & Yuya Uemura (Uemura is replacing Chris Dickinson)
*Jonathan Gresham vs. Gabriel Kidd
*Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb & TJP vs. Ren Narita, Karl Fredericks & Clark Connors
*Lio Rush & Adrian Quest vs. Misterioso & BATEMAN
*Kevin Knight & The DKC vs. Jordan Clearwater & Brogan Finlay
*Josh Barnett vs. Alex Coughlin
**Below are the matches scheduled for AEW Dark: Elevation tonight at 7 p.m. ET on the AEW YouTube channel:
*Nyla Rose, The Bunny & Emi Sakura vs. Riho, Ryo Mizunami & Skye Blue
*Andrade El Idolo vs. Lord Crewe
*Ruby Soho vs. Charlie Kruel
*Matt Hardy, The Blade & Isiah Kassidy vs. Evil Uno, Stu Grayson & Alan Angels
*QT Marshall vs. John Silver
*The Gunn Club vs. Nasty Russ, T-Money & Shawn Cook
**In the promotion for Tribute to the Troops, Bianca Belair spoke to Scott Fishman of TV Insider about whether she has gone back to watch the match with Sasha Banks at WrestleMania:
I haven’t watched it a lot since because it is draining to watch it back emotionally. I had to prepare myself. That is one I can’t just sit and watch because it brings emotions out of me. Even when I’m on social media and see clips I get goosebumps. It was a special moment. Everything I’ve wanted to do since the day I stepped foot into WWE was all unfolding at WrestleMania. I was super blessed to be that woman who was standing in the ring across from Sasha Banks. It could have been any of us. That moment will go down in history. The thing that is most inspiring to me is to think there are going to be other girls in the future that are aspiring WWE superstars. It keeps continuing to thrive in history.
**New Japan is off Tuesday and resumes the tour on Wednesday with the World Tag League from Toyama headlined by Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens. The Best of the Super Juniors tournament continues Thursday in Nagano featuring IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion El Desperado vs. Master Wato in the main event after Desperado has lost his first two matches of the tournament. The other standout matches to look out for on Thursday include Robbie Eagles vs. Taiji Ishimori and SHO vs. Ryusuke Taguchi. Both tournaments conclude with the finals on December 15th at Sumo Hall.
**DEFY has announced that The Briscoes will be wrestling on this Saturday’s card in Seattle at Washington Hall. The Briscoes will be taking on SCHAFF and Ethan HD and will also be holding a meet-and-greet.
**CBC’s As It Happens has a story on Raymond Rougeau becoming the mayor of Rawdon, Quebec.
**West Coast Pro has added Bandido, Daniel Garcia, Alex Shelley, and Rocky Romero to its ‘Iceland’ card on Friday, December 10th in San Francisco and will be streaming that night on IWTV at 10 p.m. ET.
**Being the Elite Ep. 282: “Hangman’s Tale”.
MMA NEWS
**Max Holloway and Yair Rodriguez had one of the best fights of 2021 on Saturday night at the Apex in Las Vegas. Holloway clearly won the fight and I scored it 48-47 with Holloway winning Rounds 2-5 on my card. Rodriguez had not fought in nearly two years and showed incredible durability by sustaining the heavy volume of strikes from Holloway while also escaping several terrible positions on the ground where Holloway wasn’t shy going for takedowns and working for the mount position while threatening with several big submissions. The win by Holloway should secure the Hawaiian a third fight with 145-pound champion Alexander Volkanovski, who already has two wins against Holloway but there is no one else more deserving than Holloway.
**Holloway and Rodriguez easily took the ‘Fight of the Night’ honors while Khaos Williams and Andrea Lee won the ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses. Williams stopped Miguel Baeza in the third round of their welterweight fight while Lee pulled off an upset by defeating Cynthia Calvillo on the prelims, which ended after the second round. All bonus recipients received $50,000.
**This Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card has two big fights with Miesha Tate (19-7) taking on Ketlen Vieira (11-2) in the main event and a welterweight fight between Michael Chiesa (18-5) and Sean Brady (14-0). Tate came out of retirement over the summer and looked terrific against Marion Reneau with arguably the best striking Tate has ever presented. Given her history and a lack of marketable opponents, a win by Tate could set up a rematch with Amanda Nunes in 2022. Vieira seemed poised for a title fight but has stumbled along the way with only three fights over the past two years. She was knocked out by Irene Aldana in December 2019, came back with a decision win against Sijara Eubanks, and then dropped a decision to Yana Kunitskaya this past February while also missing weight for the fight.
Michael Chiesa saw a four-fight win streak come to an end against Vicente Luque back in August where he was submitted in the first round of their fight. Brady has shown a high ceiling throughout his UFC tenure after fighting for CFFC and coming into the promotion in 2019. Since then, he has gone 4-0 with notable wins against Court McGee and is coming off a submission win against Jake Matthews in March but Chiesa is a huge step up in competition and will put Brady into the upper mix with a win.
**Tate was on The MMA Hour on Monday and spoke about contracting COVID-19, which pushed this fight with Kelten Vieira to this Saturday from its original date. Tate described it as a bad case of the cold and flu but that it went into her lungs and as coughing up a lot of phlegm. Tate added that both her young children tested positive as well and it was two-weeks where she was removed from her fight camp and it was the right decision to push the fight back.
**Khama Worthy stated on his Instagram account that his management was informed he has been cut by the UFC. The 35-year old entered the promotion in 2019 with wins over Devonte Smith and Luis Pena but had lost his last three including his most recent one last month to Jai Herbert by TKO on October 23rd.
ON THIS DATE
The Rock won his first WWF Championship on this date in 1998 at the Survivor Series after defeating Mankind in the finals of the 14-man tournament. The booking was well done as they had positioned The Rock as the next babyface star (his fate was sealed after the ladder match at SummerSlam as the star of the future) with the audience completely behind him before joining The Corporation as winning the title to delay the inevitable. They could not resist doing the Montreal finish one year after, which was pretty groan-inducing then and here we are 24 years later. This pay-per-view was the first of four consecutive events where The Rock and Mankind had singles matches and was a big feud to both establish The Rock as a top heel and set the table for Steve Austin at WrestleMania.
While the invasion storyline was dead by this point, Paul Heyman delivered a memorable promo on the final SmackDown before the Survivor Series in 2001:
*****
POST DAILY NEWS 11/15: Kenny Omega discusses vertigo, other injuries
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss the latest wrestling news including Kenny Omega and his ongoing injuries, Will Ospreay being announced for Wrestle Kingdom 16, Chris Dickinson injured, and more.
****
Wrestlenomics: AEW Full Gear business, WWE financial outlook
Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discuss the economics of AEW’s Full Gear pay-per-view, and try to estimate how much revenue All Elite Wrestling might’ve grossed for the event.
*****
AEW Full Gear 2021 POST Show: Kenny Omega vs. Hangman Page
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Full Gear 2021 featuring Kenny Omega vs. “Hangman” Adam Page for the AEW Championship, CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston, and more.
*****
The N.W.A. Podcast: “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays”
Nate Milton, Kris Ealy, and Andrew Thompson are joined by Phil Lindsey (Bleacher Report, the Grapsody podcast) for an entire episode of “Nubian News”!
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN: Roman’s Reign…Uh Oh?
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with more knees being bent and a live AEW Rampage from Minneapolis on the eve of Full Gear.
*****
Browse the POST Wrestling Store
https://store.postwrestling.com
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
