POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live at 10:05 p.m. ET on the POST YouTube channel tonight. Wai Ting and I will have a review of the show from South Carolina along with the latest news and your feedback on the show.
**On today’s POST Daily News Show, we have a great interview with Ian Riccaboni discussing the state of Ring of Honor over the past several months, the emotions of calling Final Battle and the final new matches on the television tapings, Cary Silkin receiving the legacy award, and his relationship and discussions with The Briscoes, who he believes have grown a lot since Jay’s tweet in 2013. I’d recommend this interview as it provided a lot of insight from someone so closely associated with ROH.
**We have put out the latest Rewind-A-Wai show covering the WWE draft from July 2016, which set up the current brand split. The show featured the draft picks by Stephanie McMahon & Mick Foley for Raw and Shane McMahon & Daniel Bryan on SmackDown. We also dug into the news from that week including the fallout from UFC 200 and the drug test results for Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar, IMPACT presents The Final Deletion, SmackDown moving to Tuesday nights, and a big look at this era of the company. This show is exclusive for POST Wrestling Café members. The next Rewind-A-Wai will be released on April 19th.
REWIND-A-WAI #107: WWE Draft 2016
A supercut of all the interesting conversations you'll miss not being a @POSTwrestling patron.@iamjohnpollock @wai0937 https://t.co/NOyvLtPzMK pic.twitter.com/QUKw9yyaNZ
— The Archivist (@Archive_A_Wai) March 30, 2022
**Our WrestleMania Week coverage will feature a special Thursday night show with Wai and I chatting about Bloodsport and Spring Break Pt. 1, which will be available for POST Wrestling Café members. On Friday, we will have a show late that night after SmackDown and the Hall of Fame ceremony. Saturday, we’ll have two shows for Café members with a review of ROH Supercard of Honor and Wai & Jon Pine doing a separate show covering Spring Break Pt. 2. Wai and I will be live on both Saturday and Sunday night on the POST YouTube channel immediately after both WrestleMania cards.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting (10:05 p.m. ET on POST YouTube)
Thursday: Bushby & Thompson’s Wrestling Adventure w/ Will Cooling (Scott Hall matches)
Thursday: MCU L8R – Moon Knight Ep. 1 with WH Park & Rich Fann (Patreon)
Thursday: John & Wai review Bloodsport and Spring Break Pt. 1 (Patreon)
Friday: John & Wai review SmackDown & Hall of Fame (Patreon)
Saturday: NXT Stand & Deliver POST Show w/ Braden & Davie (upNXT feed)
Saturday: John Pollock reviews ROH Supercard of Honor (Patreon)
Saturday: Wai Ting & Jon Pine review Spring Break Pt. 2 (Patreon)
Saturday: WrestleMania Saturday POST Show with John & Wai (POST YouTube)
Sunday: WrestleMania Sunday POST Show (POST YouTube)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WrestleMania Week truly kicks off Thursday with the start of the marathon list of shows. It begins with the Glory Pro card as part of The Collective at Noon (all times listed for Eastern), Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 8 takes place at 4 p.m., AAA invades WrestleCon at 6 p.m., MLW has its Intimidation Games taping at 8, CYN’s The Awakening at the same time, Joey Janela’s Spring Break – Part 1 at 9 p.m., the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow at 10 p.m., and Planet Death airs late Thursday at 1 a.m. If you are attending any of the events and have any notes or news, attendance estimates, or anything else you can send those notes to [email protected].
**AEW Dynamite takes place from the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina tonight. Below are the announced matches airing at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and TSN 2 in Canada:
*Jon Moxley vs. Jay Lethal
*CM Punk vs. Max Caster
*Bryan Danielson vs. Wheeler Yuta
*Andrade El Idolo vs. Darby Allin
*FTR vs. The Gunn Club
*Owen Hart Cup Qualifier: The Bunny vs. TBA
*Undisputed Elite Title Celebration with Adam Cole & reDRagon
**WrestleTix reports that nearly 4,700 tickets are out for tonight’s show in South Carolina.
**Tony Khan mentioned on Busted Open Radio that Anthony Bowens is dealing with a knee injury, which he hopes will be a short-term issue. Khan said it was originally going to sideline Bowens for two weeks, but he’s been out of action since his last match on the March 9th edition of the show.
**Paul Heyman was on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani to promote WrestleMania. Heyman dismissed the idea of shooting an angle at the end of the show where The Rock would challenge Reigns for next year’s show noting that a year is a long time and would deem everything inconsequential for the following year with that match announcement. Heyman also spoke about MJF and his recent interview with Helwani and that it was “good business” for the performer to put his contractual status out in the open and complimented him on his work. He was surprised in some ways that Cody Rhodes left AEW and not surprised in other ways mentioning him being one of the people that helped start the company. Heyman also stated Reigns and Lesnar keep their contractual status quiet, so people don’t know how long their deals are. This came after Heyman revealed on Richard Deitsch’s podcast that he quietly signed an extension with WWE last year.
**Seth Rollins was on the SI Media podcast to promote WrestleMania 38 and his storyline over the past month. Rollins stated that the story of having no spot on the show was rooted in reality, as his plans blew up on Day 1. The main event of that show was scheduled to be Roman Reigns against Brock Lesnar but Reigns was removed from the show when he contracted COVID-19. Instead, Lesnar was inserted into the WWE championship match, which became a fatal-five way and Lesnar won the title. There had been a report from Dave Meltzer that Rollins was scheduled to win the title that night. Then, Shane McMahon was scheduled to be involved at the Elimination Chamber show and face Rollins at WrestleMania but all plans involving McMahon were dropped following the Royal Rumble. In the interview, Rollins preferred the two-night version of WrestleMania citing the show at MetLife Stadium in 2019 clocking in at nearly seven hours and how the women’s triple threat match was affected by the audience being tired.
**John Cena spoke with GQ promoting Peacemaker and discussed whether he missed being a full-time performer with WWE:
I miss it every day. Every single day. But I’ll be 45 on April 23rd, and I was very fortunate to make it as long as I did with only a minor list of injuries. Nothing that has changed the trajectory of my long term health. I’m strong, flexible, and in really good shape externally, internally. I think now, being a full-time touring performer might start to hit that point of diminishing returns, and I have to be realistic when I look at that.
**A scramble match has been added to Thursday night’s Spring Break card with Nick Wayne, Jordan Oliver, Alex Price, Jack Cartwheel, Gringo Loco, and Ninja Mack. The show airs at 9 p.m. ET as part of The Collective streaming on FITE TV.
**There was a really interesting stat that came out of Sunday’s Academy Awards featuring the big altercation involving Chris Rock and Will Smith. Essentially, you had the ultimate “water cooler” moment that was dominated every discussion online that night after the slap. The broadcast averaged 16,480,000 viewers before the slap and averaged 16,865,000 after it with a 2 percent increase after all social media blew up that night, plus you had Will Smith delivering a speech after winning the Oscar. There is probably no incident we will see in this generation where something occurs on such a large stage that would alert people online to tune into a broadcast because of the chaos and in this instance, it made the smallest dent.
**WWE is holding tryouts in Dallas beginning today with 45 current and former college athletes and several other athletes, according to ESPN. The tryouts will take place over three days at the headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys in Frisco. Of the 53 athletes trying out, all of them are 25 years of age or under. The attendees of the tryout include football players Anthony McKinney, Dallas Hobbs, Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald, Kyle Spalding, Dominic Gudino, and Evidence Njoku. It also includes several basketball players, a champion tumbler at Baylor University, and athletes that took part in volleyball, shot put, relay, soccer, CrossFit, and MMA.
**Andrew Zarian at the Wrestling Observer is reporting that WWE is set to return to Saudi Arabia this September for a premium live event, although no specific date is listed. The deal with the General Sports Authority in Saudi Arabia calls for two events per year with the company previously running the Elimination Chamber this past February. Zarian added in his report that the event could be “TLC”, which is a themed event the company has not run since December 2020.
**Speedball Mike Bailey appears to be the frontrunner for WrestleMania Week bookings in and around Dallas this weekend. At last check, he is scheduled for nine matches between Thursday and Saturday. On Thursday, he faces Yuya Uemura at Bloodsport and then faces Bandido at the Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow (which is a spectacular match on paper). His busiest day is Friday where he wrestles Effy at Zicky Dice’s Trouble in Paradise 2, against Jay White at New Japan’s Lonestar Shootout, against Jay White at IMPACT’s Multiverse of Matches, and then onto Spring Break against PCO. On Saturday, he has a match with Davey Richards on the US vs. The World card at WrestleCon and then wrestles Cole Radrick for Unsanctioned Pro.
**On his YouTube channel today, New Japan star Hiromu Takahashi slept for eight hours inside Korakuen Hall with around 400 people watching throughout the day.
**Logan Paul spoke with Steven Muehlhausen of DAZN about his appearances on WWE programming prior to WrestleMania this weekend:
Sometimes I go in there, and it’s I never don’t have fun, but sometimes I’m really nervous. Sometimes I go in there like 100 percent and just (be) like, ‘F— it’, (and be) carefree. But just like anything, it’s a new thing that I’m doing that I’m not accustomed to in front of a ton of people. There’s a learning curve with it. I’m in it, you’re watching it, and we’ll see how it develops.
**BetOnline has released betting odds for WrestleMania 38 this weekend. For the first night, the lines listed are Becky Lynch (+350) vs. Bianca Belair (-600), Charlotte Flair (+400) vs. Ronda Rousey (-700), The Usos (-200) vs. Nakamura & Boogs (+150), Seth Rollins (+300) vs. TBA (-500), Drew McIntyre (-1000) vs. Happy Corbin (+500), The Mysterios (-120) vs. The Miz & Logan Paul (-120), and New Day (+200) vs. Sheamus & Ridge Holland (-300). For Sunday, it’s Roman Reigns (-350) vs. Brock Lesnar (+225), RK-Bro (-150) vs. Street Profits (+150) vs. Alpha Academy (+400), Queen Zelina & Carmella (+500) vs. Naomi & Sasha Banks (-200) vs. Shayna Baszler & Natalya (+750) vs. Liv Morgan & Rhea Ripley (+185), Omos (-200) vs. Bobby Lashley (+150), AJ Styles (-160) vs. Edge (+120), Johnny Knoxville (-300) vs. Sami Zayn (+200), and Pat McAfee (-140) vs. Austin Theory (+100).
**WWE will be presenting live editions of The Bump this Saturday and Sunday at 4 p.m. ET prior to each night’s WrestleMania card. On Saturday, the guests will be The Usos, The Miz, Logan Paul, and TikTok personality Josh Richards. On Sunday, the guests will be AJ Styles, Naomi, and Sasha Banks. The show will stream on Peacock/WWE Network and all of WWE’s social channels.
**MLW has added a match between Davey Richards and Danny Limelight for its Azteca Underground card this Friday at Gilley’s in Dallas, Texas.
**Michael Cole is interviewed by Bryan Curtis from The Press Box on The Ringer network.
**Robbie Fox from Barstool spoke with Bianca Belair about her match with Becky Lynch this Saturday, her match with Sasha Banks last year, and working with producer T.J. Wilson.
ON THIS DATE
WrestleMania 19 at Safeco Field in Seattle featured Steve Austin’s unadvertised last match as he faced The Rock for the third time at ‘Mania. The weekend was a mess for Austin, who was hospitalized the night before the show with fear of a heart issue. Austin later said, “The bottom line was I was drinking too much alcohol and caffeine and I wasn’t getting enough rest. I wasn’t cleared to leave the hospital but I left because I was going to wrestle the Rock.”
The show is one of the underrated WrestleMania cards as the second half of the card is very strong, although was marred by Brock Lesnar nearly breaking his neck on a shooting star press, which he has never attempted since then but was a move he could pull off in Ohio Valley Wrestling. The show did a disappointing number of approximately 560,000 buys, which was a huge drop from prior years and the lowest since 1997. The company wouldn’t bring WrestleMania back to a stadium setting for four years, and now it’s a staple having outgrown a regular-sized arena.
WrestleMania 24 took place from the Citrus Dome in Orlando featuring Ric Flair’s “retirement match” (he would return the following year on a tour of Australia with Hulk Hogan before joining TNA and wrestling for the promotion) against Shawn Michaels. Flair has always credited Michaels for carrying him in this match with Michaels laying it out and ending the match with the famous “I’m sorry, I love you” superkick.
*****
SHOT IN THE DARK: Chelsea Green turns on Mickie James, Meiko vs. Isla
John Siino reviews this week’s editions of AEW Dark, AEW Dark: Elevation, NXT UK, IMPACT Wrestling, NXT Level Up, NJPW Strong, NWA USA, NWA Powerrr, and Main Event in under 15 minutes on Shot In The Dark.
*****
upNXT: Stand and Deliver Go-Home show
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review the March 29th, 2022 edition of WWE NXT headlined by Roderick Strong vs Cameron Grimes vs A-Kid to determine the final competitor in the North American Championship Ladder Match at Stand and Deliver!
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #107: WWE Draft 2016
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Draft 2016 (SmackDown 7/19/16) as Raw and SmackDown choose their new rosters as part of WWE’s re-introduction of the brand split.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW: Final Raw before WrestleMania 38
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the final WWE Raw before WrestleMania 38.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: Triple H retires as wrestler, continues as executive
“Triple H” Paul Levesque announced his retirement as a wrestler this week and discussed his future as a WWE executive. We look at WrestleMania attendance as the two-day event is a week away. Plus, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo go over ticket sales for other live events for WrestleMania week.
*****
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