POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live at 10 p.m. ET as we chat Dynamite in Pittsburgh, further analysis of the WWE-UFC merger, Bill Goldberg’s plans to wrestle again, TV ratings, and a preview of the Stardom pay-per-view this weekend. You can stream Rewind-A-Dynamite live on the POST YouTube channel.
**We will return with Rewind-A-Wai #129 on Thursday as Wai & I tackle the All Wheels Wrestling pilot, which was filmed in June 2011. The TNA offshoot was an idea pitched to the Speed Channel to marry motorsports with professional wrestling. The pilot features the characters of RPM (Jay Lethal), Dubai (Shawn Daivari), Cyclone (Aaron Aguilera), and Schwagg D (Sonjay Dutt) battling in a series of speed matches followed by the BigAir Challenge (an Ultimate X Match) with points at stake. We will go into the entire concept, feedback from a listener that attended the taping, and go back to that week’s headlines including the aftermath of CM Punk’s pipe bomb promo. This show was selected by Espresso Executive Producer Sean Sedor and is available Thursday for all POST Café members.
**Bruce Lord and Karen Peterson have a tremendous primer for newer fans of Stardom. The two have an easy-to-digest preview of this Sunday’s All-Star Grand Queendom pay-per-view with an understanding of all the key players and stories going into the show.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: Rewind-A-Wai – All Wheels Wrestling pilot (Patreon)
Thursday: The Wellness Policy
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Patreon, 10 p.m. ET)
Saturday: The N.W.A. Podcast (9 p.m. ET)
Sunday: Stardom All-Star Grand Queendom review (Patreon)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio
WRESTLING NEWS
**Steve Austin spoke about the dialogue with WWE about wrestling at this year’s WrestleMania. While promoting Stone Cold Takes on America, Austin spoke with SI.com and stated there were talks:
I met with some people from WWE. We talked about the possibility of me wrestling at WrestleMania 39. The biggest thing in my mind was the presentation and what kind of match it was going to be. Going back to 38, the way the KO thing was presented—I love KO—I turned that down three, four, five times until the creative finally came to what it ended up being.
The main issue at hand was Austin’s involvement with the soon-to-premiere A&E series that required too much of his time to get in the proper shape for an actual wrestling match:
But to do a proper match, I’d have to be in off-the-charts shape. I told them, and this is the exact truth, I said, ‘Guys, I’m just fixin’ to go into production on this show, Stone Cold Takes on America, and until we start production, I don’t know what my life looks like. I can’t commit.’ Sure enough, there were technical issues before we finished. I was supposed to finish a month before we did. There’s no way, with the schedule I was doing.
**AEW returns to the Peterson Events Center in Pittsburgh tonight for a live Dynamite and Rampage taping. WrestleTix lists the show at 5,440 tickets distributed. The last time they ran the venue was one year ago with 5,800 paid. There are two head-to-head NBA playoff games with the L.A. Lakers vs. Memphis Grizzlies at 7:30 p.m. ET and Miami Heat vs. Milwaukee Bucks at 9 p.m. TBS will also have a non-staggered feed tonight due to a men’s soccer game, so that means Dynamite is airing at 5 p.m. on the west coast and its regular time on the east coast. Below is the lineup for tonight:
*TNT Championship: Powerhouse Hobbs © vs. Wardlow
*Jamie Hayter & Dr. Britt Baker vs. Toni Storm & Ruby Soho
*Jay White vs. Komander
*The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn vs. Jake Hager, Matt Menard & Angelo Parker
*The Elite to appear
*FTR speaks
*Chris Jericho confronts Adam Cole
*Hijo del Vikingo vs. Dralistico (taped for Rampage this Saturday)
**Justin Roberts shared that he would not be in Pittsburgh and posted multiple COVID tests that he tested positive on. Roberts had just worked for the PFL this past Friday.
**Due to the men’s soccer game between the U.S. and Mexico tonight on TBS, there is no new episode of AEW All Access, and the series resumes next week with three episodes remaining.
**Larry Shreve a.k.a. Abdullah the Butcher was interviewed by WDIV in Detroit and stated he could be destitute. Shreve noted he never learned to read and write and states he has been “ripped off” and noted it was his illiteracy that led to him losing a lawsuit in 2014 for $2.3 million. The suit was filed by wrestler and promoter Devon Nicholson over a match the two had in 2007 where Nicholson claimed that Shreve bled in their match, never communicated to Nicholson that he had Hepatitis C, and led to Nicholson contracting the disease. Nicholson also asserted that the knowledge of the disease led to a WWE offer being pulled. Shreve cites his illiteracy as the reason he lost the case. Due to Shreve’s financial woes, he revealed that he had to sell his WWE Hall of Fame ring, which he received for his 2011 induction in Atlanta.
**Dax Harwood is ending his podcast, FTR with Dax Harwood. The AEW performer made the announcement on his latest show with co-host Matt Koon. The two felt that the show was doing more harm than good for professional wrestling with the negative interpretations of Harwood’s comments on current issues. They emphasized that they were not being forced to end the show nor did the two have any falling out and left the door open to resume it down the road.
**Big E. was a guest on the Battleground Podcast and shared that he recently had a one-year scan of his neck. The performer noted that the type of broken neck he sustained is called a ‘Jefferson fracture’ where he broke his C1 vertebrae in two spots. He said it just takes time to heal but is in great spirits and was in the gym two weeks after breaking his neck during a match on SmackDown in March 2022.
**Kevin Kleinrock was on The Business of the Business podcast and spoke about the work of Masked Republic. He estimated that the agency now works with about 200 performers and assisted in them obtaining work visas to open doors to the United States – the most impactful being for Hijo del Vikingo, who has made an enormous footprint in the U.S. since obtaining one. Masked Republic also worked with Dragon Lee in negotiating his deal with WWE and mentioned that the company is working with more incoming talents that have existing deals elsewhere and are more accommodating, such as Lee’s deals with Masked Republic.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling runs a ‘Road to Dontaku’ event in Nara on Thursday morning headlined by members of LIJ against Just Five Guys in an eight-man tag match. Friday’s show is in Kobe with CHAOS against House of Torture in a six-man tag. On Saturday, it’s Hirooki Goto’s 20th Anniversary card (his debut was July 6, 2003, against Ryusuke Taguchi).
**The following matches have been listed for Thursday’s episode of IMPACT Wrestling from Monday’s tapings in Toronto:
*Digital Media Championship: Joe Hendry © vs. Sheldon Jean
*Trey Miguel, Speedball Mike Bailey & Jonathan Gresham vs. Motor City Machine Guns & KUSHIDA
*Frankie Kazarian vs. The Good Hands
*Yuya Uemura vs. Moose
*Nick Aldis to speak
**The WWE stock closed at $105.88 on Wednesday and currently has a market cap of $7.88 billion.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC lost its main event for the Fight Night card on 4/29 at the Apex in Las Vegas. Featherweight Renato Moicano was injured and is unable to fight Arman Tsarukyan and the promotion will not be seeking a replacement fighter. In its place, a bantamweight fight between Song Yadong and Ricky Simon will serve as the headliner. Yadong is coming off a TKO loss to Cory Sandhagen last September and ended a three-fight win streak. Simon has won his last five fights but only fought once in 2022 with a submission win against Jack Shore last July.
**Charly Arnolt has joined OutKick, a conservative-leaning outlet that covers sports and politics. Arnolt, who previously worked at WWE as Charly Caruso, said she is leaving ESPN in order to speak her mind on numerous subjects. Arnolt will continue to work on UFC broadcasts on ESPN due to UFC controlling the broadcast of their events and utilizing Arnolt during her time at ESPN. Regarding the exit from ESPN, Arnolt told the IndyStar:
It feels like I was a little bit stifled in the past. People are too scared to speak up for the fear of being called politically incorrect. The idea of cancel culture, it doesn’t exist here. I speak freely.
**Bellator returns to Hawaii this weekend with two cards. On Friday, Bellator 294 will be headlined by Liz Carmouche defending the flyweight championship against DeAnna Bennett. It’s a rematch from a September 2020 fight where Carmouche submitted Bennett at Bellator 246. The card on Friday will also feature Sara McMann making her promotional debut against Arlene Blencowe, and Danny Sabatello taking on Marcos Breno. Bellator 295 on Saturday night is headlined by the finals of the Bantamweight World Grand Prix as interim champion Raufeon Stots meets Patchy Mix. Saturday’s main card includes Ilima-Lei Macfarlane vs. Kana Watanabe, Aaron Pico against James Gonzalez, and Kyoji Horiguchi taking on Ray Borg as part of a strong lineup. The main cards for each night will be airing live on Showtime and YouTube in Canada.
**The UFC has announced that a bantamweight fight between Raquel Pennington and Irene Aldana will headline the Fight Night card on 5/20 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The two fought in July 2019 with Pennington winning by a split decision. Since winning their last fight, Pennington has gone 5-1 and is coming off a split-decision win against Ketlen Vieira this past January. Aldana has won four of her last five fights and is coming off stoppages against Yana Kunitskaya and Macy Chiasson.
ON THIS DATE
The only singles match between Randy Savage and Shawn Michaels occurred in 1992 on the WWF’s European tour following WrestleMania 8:
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REWIND-A-RAW
John & Wai’s WWE Raw Review: The Bloodline & Judgment Day strike a deal, Trish Stratus explains, and Brock Lesnar answers Cody Rhodes challenge.
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IMPACT REBELLION 2023 POST SHOW
John Pollock & John Siino review IMPACT Rebellion with Deonna Purrazzo winning the Knockouts Championship, and Steve Maclin is the new IMPACT champion.
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WRESTLENOMICS RADIO
This week on Wrestlenomics: Nick Khan’s interview on LightShed Live talking WWE’s merger with UFC, media rights, talent pay; and more.
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REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown with Shinsuke Nakamura’s return and Matt Riddle vs. Solo Sikoa. Plus, the latest on CM Punk’s potential return to AEW.
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