POST IT NOTES
**Tonight at 11 p.m. ET, Wai Ting and I will review the ROH Death Before Dishonor event and go through the notable points from Friday Night SmackDown. Note the special start time with the pay-per-view running later than SmackDown. The live link for POST Wrestling Café members is available here.
**All G1 coverage including podcasts for each event are available at https://www.postwrestling.com/g1/.
**We also have a really fun chat with statistician Chris Samsa on Pollock & Thurston discussing the G1 and telling stories through data.
**Rewind-A-Wai #135 is available for all POST Café members with our review of AWA SuperClash 1985 from Comiskey Park featuring the AWA, Jim Crockett Promotions, World Class, and All Japan among the promotions sending talent for the joint venture known as Pro Wrestling USA. We examine the circumstances behind Pro Wrestling USA, where WWF was by this period, the reason the co-operation didn’t last, issues with the show, the demise of so many territories and the state of the industry in 1985. This card includes Ric Flair vs. Magnum T.A., Rick Martel vs. Stan Hansen, Giant Baba teaming with Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu, Mil Mascaras, Harley Race, Nick Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens, The Crusher, a young Scott Hall, Sherri Martel & many more. The next Rewind-A-Wai covers a June 2004 two-part interview that Michael Landsberg of TSN’s Off the Record conducted with Vince McMahon.
**WH Park and Eric Marcotte will have a review of Night 5 of the G1 Climax tonight for POST Wrestling Café members.
**Karen Peterson has a terrific primer for the Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix that kicks off this Sunday and runs into September. It includes a big preview of Sunday’s opening night of the GP.
**We have released this week’s edition of The Double Shot for everyone to hear & see with Wai & I covering the latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring that profiles Abdullah the Butcher. The Double Shot airs Wednesday nights for Café throughout the ongoing season of Dark Side and will cover the Bam Bam Bigelow episode next week.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: ROH Death Before Dishonor Review (11 p.m. ET on Patreon)
Tonight: G1 Climax – Night 5 Review with WH Park & Eric Marcotte (Patreon)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (Patreon)
Sunday: G1 Climax – Night 6 Review with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson (Patreon)
Sunday: The N.W.A. Podcast (8 p.m. ET)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Ring of Honor returns to pay-per-view with Death Before Dishonor at the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton, New Jersey tonight. The show will be available through B/R Live, FITE TV (internationally), and Watch ROH. The main event has gone through several changes from Eddie Kingston being the initial challenger for Claudio Castagnoli (a one-year story going back to last year’s Blood & Guts and further if you incorporate the CHIKARA back story) but Kingston wanted to do the G1 Climax and Tony Khan acquiesced and even inquired if Kingston could fly back from Japan to work tonight, but it was not feasible with Kingston needing to return to Japan for Sunday’s match against Aaron Henare. Then, Mark Briscoe was announced for the challenger spot and went down due to an aggravating injury that required time off and attention, forcing the company into a bind and placing PAC in the role, which wasn’t announced until late Wednesday night following Blood & Guts. It is hard to determine what the baseline is for ROH pay-per-views as this is the first event with a complete cycle of episodes on Honor Club to build toward the show, it’s available through an additional platform in Watch ROH, but it had no AEW television build and the weekly television receives minimal traction among the endless hours of weekly pro wrestling. The show lacks the major AEW names like Chris Jericho and FTR but it’s a good card on paper and AEW/ROH pay-per-views are very consistent in quality.
Below is the announced lineup:
*ROH Championship: Claudio Castagnoli © vs. PAC
*ROH Women’s Championship: Athena © vs. Willow Nightingale
*ROH Television Championship: Samoa Joe © vs. Dalton Castle *
*ROH Pure Championship: Katsuyori Shibata © vs. Daniel Garcia
*ROH Tag Team Championships – Four-Way Match: Lucha Bros. © vs. The Kingdom vs. Best Friends vs. Aussie Open
*ROH Six-Man Championships: Mogul Embassy © vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato & Leon Ruffin
*Fight Without Honor: The Righteous vs. Dark Order
*Komander vs. Gravity
*Zero Hour: Shane Taylor vs. AR Fox
*Zero Hour: Darius Martin & Action Andretti vs. JD Drake & Anthony Henry
*Zero Hour: Tracy Williams vs. Josh Woods
*Zero Hour: Leyla Hirsch vs. Trish Adora
**Friday Night SmackDown takes place from the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida with a rare show on FS1. WWE has promoted the network switch very effectively over the past seven days and with the hot streak SmackDown is on, I expect this to be a stronger audience migration than usual to the cable destination. The following has been advertised:
*Roman Reigns and Jey Uso set up “The Rules of Engagement” for SummerSlam
*U.S. Championship Invitational: Sheamus vs. Rey Mysterio vs. LA Knight vs. Cameron Grimes (winner faces Santos Escobar next Friday)
*Asuka’s SummerSlam opponent to be named
**WWE has announced that tickets for WrestleMania 40 go on sale Friday, August 18 at 10 a.m. Eastern time for the general public. They have launched a pre-sale sign-up. WrestleMania takes place at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on April 6 & 7, 2024.
**Below are the matches for AEW Rampage tonight at 10 p.m. ET on TNT from the tapings in Boston at the TD Garden:
*Royal Rampage (Minoru Suzuki, Jay Lethal, Jeff Jarrett, Matt Hardy, Angelo Parker, Matt Menard, Brian Cage, Ethan Page, Nick Wayne, Gates of Agony, Komander, Darby Allin, Swerve Strickland, Isiah Kassidy, Matt Sydal, Jake Hager, The Blade, The Butcher, and Komander) – Winner receives a TNT title shot at All Out on Sept. 3
*The Acclaimed & Billy Gunn vs. QT Marshall, Johnny TV & Aaron Solo
*TBS Championship: Kris Statlander © vs. Marina Shafir
**Sam Adonis has announced that he is parting ways with MLW less than a year after he began working with the group. Adonis tweeted, “The time has come for myself and MLW to part ways (for now). I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the MLW crew and I wish them nothing but the best! Thank you! Adonis first worked for MLW last October and has been a regular throughout the first six months of the year, last working at the Fusion tapings earlier this month in Philadelphia where he wrestled Microman to a no-contest and lost a “Country Whipping Match” to Mance Warner.
**AAA presents Verano De Escandalo from Arena San Marcos tonight with a main event Trios Match of El Hijo del Vikingo, Alberto El Patron & Psycho Clown against Cibernetico, Gringo Loco & Sam Adonis. Octagon Jr. teams with Pagano & Vampiro Canadiense (Vampiro) against Daga, Taurus & TBA, and Forastero, Sanson & Hijo de Mascara Ano 2000 defending the AAA World Trios titles against Los Vipers of Abismo Negro Jr., Psicosis and Toxin in the top matches.
**The second half of today’s G1 Climax card in Aore Nagaoka was strong. I would recommend the matches with Will Ospreay vs. KENTA, Shota Umino vs. Kaito Kiyomiya, and Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi. I thought all three were excellent matches for varying reasons and just below those three was the main event between SANADA and Yota Tsuji, which picked up in the end but wasn’t at the level of their Dominion match. The tour resumes on Sunday in Nagano with EVIL vs. David Finlay in the main event as well as Tomohiro Ishii vs. Shingo Takagi, which could be the best match of the round-robin portion. They will have three shows in Tokyo next week on consecutive days with Korakuen Hall on Tuesday, Ota Ward Gymnasium on Wednesday, and back to Korakuen on Thursday. Thursday’s show has the big B Block match of the tournament with Okada vs. Ospreay.
**IMPACT Wrestling featured a closing angle with the members of the world title mix. Josh Alexander stated he was “100% cleared” and was confronted by Alex Shelley with the story that Shelley lost to Alexander earlier this year when he challenged for the title, now he holds the belt and needs to beat Alexander to prove he can. Those two were interrupted by Lio Rush, who has the X Division Title and the threat of “Option C” to cash in for a title shot of his own. Rush was confronted by KUSHIDA, who has a title shot due to Rush after winning Ultimate X. Then, Bully Ray came out to distract the babyfaces as Brian Myers & Moose jumped Alexander and Shelley while Rush watched on and left the ring rather than taking part in the attack. It was a good segment to lay out the next set of title matches and the various directions they can go with the players involved. Next week’s show has Eric Young vs. Nick Aldis, Johnny Swinger vs. Zicky Dice (Loser Leaves IMPACT), and Trinity & Dani Luna vs. The Coven.
**Greg Oliver has a really good review of this week’s episode of Dark Side of the Ring on Abdullah the Butcher, which I referenced on The Double Shot.
**Demand Lucha in Toronto has a show on Saturday night at Lee’s Palace including Effy vs. Bryan Keith, Gringo Loco vs. Bendito, FTM vs. Jody Threat, TDT vs. Los Medicos, and more.
**The WWE stock fell by 2% on Friday and closed at $105.87.
**ESPN reports that Umar Nurmagomedov is off the UFC Fight Night card on August 5. The bantamweight was set to headline the card against Cory Sandhagen but has sustained a shoulder injury and will be replaced by Rob Font. Sandhagen (16-4) lost Petr Yan in 2021 in a fight for the interim title but has since scored wins against Song Yadong and Marlon Vera in his last outings. Font dropped decisions to Jose Aldo and Marlon Vera in back-to-back fights but bounced back with a TKO win against Adrian Yanez at UFC 287 in April. The new main event will be fought at a catchweight of 140 pounds and is set for five rounds. This card airs the same night as the Nate Diaz vs. Jake Paul fight in Dallas and SummerSlam in Detroit.
**The UFC is back at the O2 Arena in London, England for an afternoon card in North America on Saturday. The show will stream on ESPN+ and Fight Pass internationally beginning at Noon ET. The card is loaded with fifteen fights including a heavyweight main event that sees countryman Tom Aspinall return after a year away due to a knee injury in his last fight, which only lasted fifteen seconds. With a win, Aspinall would be among the heavyweight title contenders along with Sergei Pavlovich. All the fighters made weight on Friday.
MAIN CARD (3 p.m. ET on ESPN+)
*Tom Aspinall (12-3) vs. Marcin Tybura (24-7)
*Molly McCann (13-5) vs. Julija Stoliarenko (10-7-1)
*Andre Fili (22-9) vs. Nathaniel Wood (19-5)
*Andre Muniz (23-5) vs. Paul Craig (16-6-1)
*Jai Herbert (12-4-1) vs. Fares Ziam (13-4)
*Josh Culibao (11-1-1) vs. Lerone Murphy (12-0-1)
PRELIMINARY CARD (Noon ET on ESPN+)
*Davey Grant (13-6) vs. Daniel Marcos (14-0)
*Danny Roberts (18-7) vs. Jonny Parson (8-2)
*Joel Alvarez (19-2) vs. Marc Diakiese (16-6)
*Jamal Pogues (9-3) vs. Mick Parkin (6-0)
*Makhmud Muradov (25-8) vs. Bryan Barberena (18-10)
*Ketlen Vieira (13-3) vs. Pannie Kianzad (16-6)
*Yanal Ashmouz (8-0) vs. Chris Duncan (10-1)
*Bruna Brasil (8-3-1) vs. Shauna Bannon (5-0)
*Jafel Filho (14-3) vs. Daniel Barez (12-5)
*****
MCU L8R: Secret Invasion Ep.5 Review
Rich Fann & WH Park are joined by Cam Hawkins of The Ringer to talk about Episode 5 of Secret Invasion, “Harvest”.
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #135: AWA SuperClash 1985
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AWA SuperClash (1985), a supercard resulting from a co-promotional effort between the AWA, NWA and WCCW (collectively known as Pro Wrestling USA) to compete with the WWF’s national expansion just months after WrestleMania I
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with Blood & Guts featuring The Golden Elite and The Blackpool Combat Club
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: Abdullah The Butcher – Legacy of Blood
John Pollock and Wai Ting continue their weekly look at Dark Side of the Ring with a review of Season 4 Episode 7, “Abdullah the Butcher: Legacy of Blood”.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston are joined by Chris Samsa from Sport of Pro Wrestling to chat about the G1 Climax and his meticulous stats.
*****
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