POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I are live tonight with Rewind-A-Raw at 11:15 p.m. ET on the POST YouTube channel. We will be live fifteen minutes after Raw ends with a big review of WWE Raw, a discussion on the major news from the day, and taking your Super Chats and feedback. The show will be available late tonight on your podcast app of choice.
**The POST Daily News show returns on Tuesday with a live show at 1 p.m. ET.
**Thanks to everyone that joined us live for the AEW Revolution POST Show. The full show is available in podcast form by subscribing to POST Wrestling in your app of choice and the video version is on the POST YouTube channel.
**On Tuesday, Rewind-A-Wai #105 will be released as we review TNA Hardcore Justice 2012. This event takes place during the ongoing Bound for Glory Series tournament with several multi-man stipulation matches on the card. It includes a ladder match involving AJ Styles, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, and Christopher Daniels and is headlined by Austin Aries defending the TNA world title against Bobby Roode. You can leave feedback on the POST Wrestling Forum and the show will be out Tuesday evening for all POST Wrestling Café members.
**With the news of Vader’s induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, we have re-posted the 2018 POST Profile we produced on Leon White. The audio documentary features an overview of his career with exclusive comments from Bret Hart, Jim Ross, Chris Charlton, and Jordan Breen.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Live at 11:15 p.m. on POST YouTube)
Tuesday: POST Daily News at 1 p.m. ET
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #105: TNA Hardcore Justice 2012 (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite (10:15 p.m. on POST YouTube)
Thursday: The British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Benno & Andy Ogden
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (First 20 mins on POST YouTube, full show for Patrons)
Saturday: The Long & Winding Royal Road with WH Park & Andrew McCauley (Kobashi & Akiyama vs. No Fear, Oct. 1999)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics with Brandon Thurston & Chris Gullo
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW Revolution was an incredible card from the company. The last three pay-per-views (All Out, Full Gear, and Revolution) have arguably been the top three in company history and operating a different level as the new state-of-the-art for consistency at a high level. You can make arguments for many candidates for match of the night starting the pre-show six-man tag and covering Hangman Page vs. Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley, CM Punk vs. MJF, the AEW tag title triple threat, and Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Kingston that were all stellar. This was a must-see card and featured the surprise appearance of William Regal (identified on the broadcast and his AEW graphic as “William” but Tony Khan kept calling him “Lord Regal” during the press conference) and introduction of Shane “Swerve” Strickland, who came off as a star in his appearance in front of the crowd. As an entire show, it didn’t have the monumental ending that All Out provided with Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole arriving but in terms of match-after-match at such a high level, this was as strong as any card AEW has produced in my opinion.
**WWE Raw takes place from the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio with four weeks until WrestleMania. The card is taking shape with a few question marks remaining. Tonight’s tag title match should provide some clarity regarding some directions for Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, and Riddle. Orton appeared to have injured himself after From the Heavens last Monday but did work at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. There was a subtle line by Orton last week about winning the tag titles “if it’s the last thing we do” and could be a nothing line, or a hint towards a break-up if Orton and Riddle lose tonight. RK-Bro has been a successful pairing and outlived many tag team acts but neither has anything big on the horizon for WrestleMania and they desperately need top babyfaces, which Riddle could be if they adjust elements of his presentation.
Here are the announced matches and segments for tonight’s show at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network:
*Raw Tag Team Championship: Alpha Academy (champions) vs. RK-Bro vs. Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins
*Edge explains his actions
*Logan Paul hosts a Hometown Party for The Miz
*Jerry Lawler to appear
The tag team triple threat will be kicking off the show tonight.
**WWE returned to Madison Square Garden on Saturday with the strongest push for a house show in decades. After drawing an abysmal number last December during the holiday tour, they put all its resources in this return date including on-air promotion for Brock Lesnar’s title defense. Originally, Lesnar was advertised to defend the title against Bobby Lashley but with his shoulder injury, it became clearer that match was not going to happen even though they presented it as a small possibility on the February 21st edition of Raw. Once Lashley was gone, it was left as a mystery regarding who would face Lesnar and the opponent ended up being Austin Theory, who was destroyed within 90 seconds. It was a puzzling payoff to reward fans that bought into the television hype and bought tickets based on it. On the same show, Roman Reigns destroyed Seth Rollins in approximately five minutes and beat Drew McIntyre the next night in Laval, Quebec. Either Rollins or McIntyre would have been suitable enough replacements to face Lesnar on Saturday’s show compared to Theory. The live events this weekend featured Ronda Rousey working both nights teaming with Naomi and beating Charlotte Flair & Sonya Deville including Rousey submitting Flair at The Garden.
**AEW’s next pay-per-view is Double or Nothing on Sunday, May 29th. Tickets went on sale Friday with Tony Khan announcing the promotion had achieved its first million-dollar gate for the show at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. As of Saturday, the show was not completely sold out with WrestleTix reporting over 12,200 tickets were out. It is the first event for AEW in Las Vegas since their first show in May 2019 and it’s a larger venue compared to the MGM Grand Garden Arena. That will be a major week for the company with the pay-per-view in Las Vegas, the following Dynamite at The Forum in Inglewood for their first date in California, and a live Rampage that week from Ontario, California.
**Tony Khan didn’t have any concrete details regarding the Ring of Honor purchase when he spoke to the media after Revolution. He did make it clear he plans to continue its operations, but the big question will be the distribution of the product. Khan said he would be the booker for the company but was vague on other details noting they are in the preliminary phase and many of those questions are likely without answers this early.
**CM Punk spoke to the media and said it was an emotional day for him beginning when they showed him his ring jacket, a nod to his Straight Edge character in the early 2000s. The outfit he wore to the ring was nearly identical to the one worn in 2003 including for his dog collar match against Raven at Death Before Dishonor and entered to his old AFI theme “Miseria Cantare” that tore down Twitter for fans of the era of Punk. He stated how much he loved Ring of Honor and felt the footage was in the right hands and compared it to his baby being handed over to Tony Khan to raise.
Punk stated the following about royalty checks in WWE after the launch of the WWE Network in 2014 and the impact on pay for talent (Transcribed by Ethan Renner at Wrestling Observer):
I’ve watched my royalty checks, which I still get, dwindle to nothing, because they just put everything on the network. And the boys don’t get paid. That’s not just me, that’s everybody. That’s criminal.
I loved ROH so much, and I can’t explain how happy I am that my footage, it’s in good hands. It’s just good to know it’s in the hands of somebody who will treat it well. I literally feel like my baby is in someone’s hands who will raise the child the right way and do good things with it. And it won’t get made into just some tab on a sh*tty, confusing app that’s hard to navigate and the boys don’t get paid anything off it.
**This Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite in Estero, Florida will feature a #1 contenders match between Thunder Rosa and Leyla Hirsch. The winner will challenge Dr. Britt Baker at the St. Patrick’s Day Slam edition of Dynamite on March 16th at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas. Thunder Rosa lives in San Antonio and beat Baker in the Lights Out match at last year’s St. Patrick’s Day Slam, so it seems telegraphed for Rosa to get the rematch in her hometown and is probably the night to pull the trigger on a title switch. It also makes the booking of the pay-per-view match make more sense as it wasn’t the blowoff but the interference, in theory, being thwarted in the rematch for Rosa to overcome the numbers.
This Wednesday’s episode will also have a TNT title match between Sammy Guevara and Scorpio Sky with the winner defending against Wardlow the following week in San Antonio.
**The first round of the New Japan Cup wrapped up today at Ota Ward Gymnasium including Shingo Takagi beating Tomohiro Ishii and Hiromu Takahashi over SHO in the top matches. I have not seen the matches from today but it’s hard to envision either one of those being disappointing. The second round begins on Wednesday with the following tournament matches scheduled for Korakuen Hall:
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Master Wato (winner faces Taichi)
*Dick Togo vs. Hirooki Goto
*Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. CIMA
**Jake Something has confirmed he is now a free agent, which was first reported by Fightful Select. Something wrestled Trey Miguel at the IMPACT Sacrifice on Saturday where Miguel retained the X Division championship.
**FTR has stated they will be taking a select number of independent bookings to have matches with the best teams out there and have the best matches for the audience.
**The following matches are scheduled for AEW Dark: Elevation tonight at 7 p.m. ET on the AEW YouTube channel:
*Kris Statlander vs. Emi Sakura
*Wheeler Yuta vs. Aaron Solo
*Scorpio Sky vs. Shawn Dean
*Ruby Soho vs. Session Moth Martina
*Daniel Garcia vs. Ray Jaz
*Lance Archer vs. Cameron Stewart
**Being the Elite Ep. 297: “Revolution 2022”.
MMA NEWS
**On Monday, Cain Velasquez was back in court and denied bail in his attempted murder case following his arrest last week. He appeared in front of judge Shelyna Brown in Santa Clara County Superior Court for his latest hearing and gave the following reasoning for denying bail (Courtesy: MMAFighting.com)
It is clear to this court that there is clear and convincing evidence that there is a substantial likelihood that release would result in great bodily injury, not just to the named complaining witnesses in this case but to Santa Clara residents at large. This case involves allegations of extreme recklessness to human life.
Ramming a vehicle in the middle of the day where are citizens are out driving, going about their business and shooting out of a car at other individuals, which is reckless by any standard. Anyone could have been injured. Anyone could have been killed and when this court looks at article 1, section 12, it is this level of risk that the court must take into consideration. With that said, this court is making the ruling that the risk is too great and that there will be no bail set at this time.
ESPN’s Marc Raimondi posted the following statement from Velasquez’s attorney Mark Geragos:
Is there anybody out there who finds it beyond the pale that a father was not consulted when they released the perpetrator back into the public with zero-dollar bail, yet they’re holding Cain on no bail?
Velasquez is facing ten charges after allegedly shooting at a car containing three people last Monday in the Bay Area. If convicted, Velasquez could face over twenty years in prison. He will return to court on Tuesday, April 12th.
**The UFC 272 card drew an announced attendance of 19,425 to the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday and a gate of $6,760,000 featuring Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal in the main event. The gate would make it the ninth highest MMA event in the history of Nevada.
*****
The Man They Call Vader: A POST Profile
John Pollock examines the career and legacy of the late Leon “Vader” White, including exclusive interviews with former colleagues Bret Hart and Jim Ross, Japanese wrestling historian & author Chris Charlton, and Jordan Breen of Between Rounds Radio.
*****
AEW Revolution 2022 POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Revolution 2022 featuring “Hangman” Page vs. Adam Cole for the AEW Championship, and CM Punk vs. MJF in a Dog Collar Match.
*****
Wrestlenomics: Tony Khan buys ROH, Vince talks to McAfee
Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor. Vince McMahon had his first live interview since 2014. Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo look at AEW’s pay-per-view and streaming potential ahead of the Revolution event tonight.
*****
UFC 272 POST Show: Colby Covington vs. Jorge Masvidal
Phil Chertok and Eric Marcotte review Saturday’s UFC 272 card featuring the grudge fight between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN: AEW Revolution Go-Home, Ronda wrestles
John Pollock & Wai Ting discuss the final AEW episode before Revolution with the TNT title being defended, and Ronda Rousey wrestling on Friday Night SmackDown.
*****
POST Puroresu: New Japan Cup, KAIRI, Fujita wins GHC title
John Pollock & WH Park chat about the New Japan Cup, KAIRI returning to STARDOM, Kazuyuki Fujita’s GHC title win & many other topics.
*****
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