POST IT NOTES
**We had a great conversation with Chris Hero on Pollock & Thurston on Wednesday. Hero is a wealth of knowledge and you won’t find too many people that are open books about their experiences and educated on so many eras and aspects of professional wrestling as he is. Chris is the matchmaker for West Coast Pro out of San Francisco and they have their Cruel Summer event this Saturday night on IndependentWrestling.tv. Hopefully, we have Chris come back on as the early feedback to the show was strong.
**Wai Ting and I host Rewind-A-Dynamite tonight at 10 p.m. ET right after AEW Dynamite in Edmonton, Alberta. It’s a much stronger attendance than the Hamilton shows with WrestleTix reporting over 5,800 tickets distributed.
**The latest edition of upNXT is posted with Davie Portman and Braden Herrington chatting about Tuesday’s taped episode including the NXT Underground Match, The Creeds losing to The Dyad, and the show-closing brawl between Bron Breakker and Ilja Dragunov.
**No Double Shot tonight as Dark Side of the Ring is off this week and returns next week with the episode on Adrian Adonis.
**On the latest Rewind-A-Wai that is available now for POST Wrestling Café members:
– ROH Supercard of Honor 2013
– Company sets its gate record over WM weekend
– Jay Briscoe wins the ROH Championship
– The middle of ROH vs. SCUM
– More streaming issues affect the main event
– ROH’s identity crisis
– Charlie Haas leaves the company
– Steve Corino as a color commentator
– Tangent discussion on CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe & more
Full show: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rewind-wai-134-85595171
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Friday: MCU L8R with WH Park & Rich Fann (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Andrew Thompson (Patreon)
Sunday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & John Siino (Patreon)
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE issued a press release touting the success of the two events at the O2 Arena this past weekend in London. The company cited a combined gate figure in excess of $5.4 million between Friday Night SmackDown and Money in the Bank with Saturday’s show described as the largest arena gate in company history. They also stated that viewership for MITB increased 17% over last year’s show, which is notable since this year’s event was an afternoon show compared to the prime-time airing of the July 2022 show from Las Vegas. That was always a concern of running events outside the usual time zone and perhaps it would pose a challenge if it was distributed on traditional pay-per-view but this proves that streaming is not impacted and the earlier start provided a larger viewing audience. Other factors are that the product is much stronger than last year, and additional subscribers on Peacock allow WWE to draw from a larger base than one year ago. The press release mentioned that sponsorship revenue for this year’s Money in the Bank was up 9% from 2022.
**The BBC covered WWE’s push to bring WrestleMania to London following John Cena’s appearance at Money in the Bank. The article quoted Labour MP Alex Davies-Jones, who is also the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Wrestling, which came in the middle of the Speaking Out Movement to clean up the industry. Davies-Jones indicated they would be fully behind WWE’s efforts to bring the show to London and negotiate with the Government for a potential subsidy:
Whatever we can do to make the UK attractive to host wrestling on the world stage we are more than happy to help facilitate.
We would use our contact and negotiating skills to try and reach out to WWE, making conversations happen to try and promote the UK as a premier destination for world-class wrestling.
**Stephanie Chase wrote a very important article about her experiences as a female media member covering professional wrestling including a specific incident from this past weekend. While I’ve never had illusions that male and female media members have similar experiences, it was still eye-opening to read of Stephanie’s own. There is a significant weight placed on women in this field that comes with daily harassment through social media, comments, and assumptions that are assigned that no male members are contending with. It’s also a very well-written piece and it’s going to elicit positive and negative feedback, which makes it more important that Stephanie went ahead and wrote it and called it out.
**The AEW Collision number for this past Saturday in Hamilton was down significantly from the previous week. The category that jumps out was adults 18-34 which fell 59% from week two. Males 18-34 were down by 82% this week with an average of 11,000, which is a scary amount. To place in context, males 18-34 last week were at 72,000 for NXT, 89,000 for Dynamite, 23,000 on Rampage, and 10,000 for Dark Side of the Ring. It was the 4th of July weekend and you can make arguments about the show being down but overall, it was a lack of buzz for the third episode and none of the excuses of it being a long week or airing on tape delay impacted SmackDown, which did one of its best numbers of the year. I don’t expect this Saturday’s show to continue the slide and for AEW’s sake, hopefully, this is the bottoming-out number.
**Drew McIntyre appeared on WWE’s The Bump and addressed his absence since WrestleMania: (Transcript: Collin Tessier of Fightful)
I just want to apologize for everybody, that I missed my dates, I missed the towns. It’s not like me, unless there’s a reason. Obviously, the rumor and innuendo is out there. What’s going on with Drew McIntyre? What’s going on with the future? The future doesn’t matter. What matters is the present, and presently, Drew McIntyre is back. If you’re heading to a WWE show and Drew McIntyre’s there, you know you’re gonna get 110%, and finally, I’m chasing that big moment with a title in front of live fans. So let’s make that happen finally.
**AEW Dynamite takes place from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta as the Canadian tour continues with WrestleTix reporting over 5,800 tickets distributed. The show posted its lowest 18-49 audience in three years last week, so we will see if that was an aberration. Unlike last week, regardless of the rating, we won’t know where Dynamite ranks on cable as last week was a very low 18-49 audience and was still third among cable originals, which adds context. Below are the announcements for tonight’s show:
*Kenny Omega vs. Wheeler Yuta
*Blind Eliminator Tournament: MJF & Adam Cole vs. TBA
*Blind Eliminator Tournament: Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland vs. Orange Cassidy & Darby Allin
*Owen Hart Cup: Dr. Britt Baker vs. Ruby Soho
*Jon Moxley speaks (he won’t be in Edmonton due to the NJPW Strong events)
*Chris Jericho speaks
**Friday Night SmackDown averaged 142,700 viewers and 58,700 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 in Canada this past Friday. It was a three-week low for SmackDown in the country and down from the previous week that averaged 163,300 and 76,100 respectively. The show ranked #5 among sports programs on Friday, which included the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Boston Red Sox, and a CFL game between Edmonton and Ottawa.
**WWE Raw on Monday in Canada averaged approximately 225,700 viewers and 98,600 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was second place among sports programs on Monday behind the Toronto Argos vs. B.C. Lions.
**ROH Honor Club does have the trilogy of matches involving Samoa Joe and CM Punk from 2004. The full shows are not listed in the ‘ROH Events’ section but the individual matches are posted under ‘Collections’. I’ll be writing about the trilogy later this week because they were very important for ROH that year and is the most high-profile match in Collision’s short history.
**AEW issued a press release confirming its deal with Spanish-language streaming service ViX, which is owned by TelevisaUnivision:
Starting today, Wednesday, July 5th, subscriber to ViX’s premium plan in the regions listed above will have access to the most exciting action from AEW each week:
- “AEW: Dynamite” – Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CDMX
- “AEW: Rampage” – Fridays at 10 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CDMX
- “AEW: Collision” – AEW’s newest show, on Saturdays at 8 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CDMX
This exclusive transmission agreement for ViX also includes several special wrestling events such as:
AEW’s quarterly “Battle of the Belts” special; the popular pay-per-view events on a 30-day delay: “Revolution,” “Double or Nothing,” “All Out,” and “Full Gear;” and more than 190 episodes with commentary in Spanish of “AEW: Dark” and “AEW: Dark Elevation.” All these specials will be available on the AVOD service of the streaming platform.
**The WWE stock closed at $108.50 on Wednesday.
**Ring of Honor has the following lineup for Thursday’s episode on Honor Club with two weeks until Death Before Dishonor:
*Proving Ground Match: Athena vs. Seleziya Sparx
*Daniel Garcia vs. Christopher Daniels
*Komander vs. Gringo Loco
*The Kingdom & Maria Kanellis vs. Carlie Bravo, Shawn Dean & Trish Adora
*Lee Moriarty & Big Bill vs. The Boys
*Stu Grayson, Vincent & Dutch vs. Rip Impact, Zak Patterson & Macrae Martin
*Vanessa Kraven vs. Diamante
*JD Drake vs. Tony Nese
*Gates of Agony vs. Darius Martin & Action Andretti
*Brian Cage vs. Shane Taylor vs. Dalton Castle vs. Josh Woods vs. Willie Mack vs. Trent Seven
**IMPACT Wrestling’s lineup for AXS TV on Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET:
*Motor City Machine Guns vs. Nick Aldis & Lio Rush
*Eddie Edwards vs. Frankie Kazarian
*PCO vs. The Good Hands
*Jonathan Gresham vs. Angels
*Gisele Shaw vs. Courtney Rush
*Sami Callihan & Rich Swann in action
*Before the Impact: Dirty Dango vs. Crazzy Steve
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON: Chris Hero
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston are joined by Chris Hero to chat about the current state of independent wrestling and lots more.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from July 4th, 2023 featuring Diamond Mine vs Dyad in a “Loser Leaves NXT” Match!
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #134: ROH Supercard of Honor 2013
John Pollock & Wai Ting review ROH Supercard of Honor VII (2013) featuring Kevin Steen vs. Jay Briscoe for the ROH World Championship and reDragon vs. American Wolves for the ROH Tag Team Championships.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw following Money in the Bank as Damian Priest plots to cash-in on Seth Rollins.
*****
COLLISION COURSE
John Siino & Kate From MTL review AEW Collision featuring Owen Tournament Quarterfinals including Samoa Joe vs. Roderick Strong with CM Punk on commentary.
*****
WWE MONEY IN THE BANK REVIEW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Money In The Bank 2023 from London, England featuring The Bloodline Civil War tag match and this year’s Men’s & Women’s MITB ladder matches.
*****
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