POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Lonestar Shootout with Karen Peterson & Bruce Lord (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with Kate from Montreal & John Siino [FREE]
Sunday: UFC 295 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte (11 a.m. ET)
Sunday: MCU L8R with WH Park & Rich Fann – Loki Season 2 (POST Wrestling Café)
The 25th edition of POSTmarks is available for everyone on the free feed with David Meyers & Bruce Lord speaking with long-time POST contributor Nate Milton about his career in broadcasting and working with us. Congratulations to David & Bruce for producing this show over the past two years and has been an excellent addition to our lineup of shows.
WH Park & Rich Fann will be live this Sunday night for POST Wrestling Café members to review the season finale of Loki on Disney+ and take your calls.
A reminder that we are putting out multiple audio news updates each week for Double Double & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café. Ad-free versions of Rewind-A-Raw, Rewind-A-Dynamite, and pay-per-view reviews are available to ALL Café members.
Next week’s Rewind-A-Wai will cover NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10 from January 4, 2016, featuring Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP title and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles.
WRESTLING NEWS
**The news of Vince McMahon’s sale of 8.4 million Class A shares of his TKO stock has led to the company stock taking a hit. The stock closed at $84.85 on Thursday and opened today just above $77.00 before closing at $79.22. The 8.4 million shares represent 29.3% of McMahon’s previous total shares of 28,682,948. Brandon Thurston calculated that McMahon’s previous figure of 16.4% shares of the company had been reduced to 11.6% after the sale of shares. Endeavor’s stake in TKO remains at 51% while other TKO executives and financial institutions have grown from 31.2% to 36% including Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro buying a portion of McMahon’s shares. Comparing the stock price over 24 hours, the 8.4 million shares in question would have decreased $47,292,000 in value.
**Dana White, Nick Khan & Paul Levesque attended Thursday’s boxing fight between Callum Walsh and Ismael Villareal in New York City at the Hulu Theatre. The card was streaming on UFC Fight Pass and piggybacks off UFC 295 this Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Levesque was interviewed by Justin Barrasso of SI.com and commented on the opportunities within TKO and the merger of UFC with WWE:
I can’t tell you how excited I am. Working with Endeavor, it’s next level. The flywheel for all the things they touch–if you were trying to build that on your own, it’s taking you a decade. For us, now, it fast-tracks everything we’re doing.
**Friday Night SmackDown is at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio following Crown Jewel and two weeks out from Survivor Series. This is the first week without John Cena since September 8. WrestleTix reports just over 7,400 tickets distributed and will end the run of 10,000+ attendances, although still a very healthy advance. WWE is advertising AJ Styles on the live events page and has been out of action for almost two months. The following matches have been announced for the show on Fox tonight:
*Carlito vs. Bobby Lashley
*LA Knight vs. Grayson Waller
*Bayley addresses the future of Damage CTRL
**AEW has a rare live edition of Rampage tonight from Oakland, California where they will also tape tomorrow night’s edition of Collision. The last update from WrestleTix on Thursday listed approximately 3,800 tickets distributed. AEW has announced FTR vs. El Hijo del Vikingo & Komander for Rampage with Collision featuring Adam Copeland, Sting & Darby Allin vs. Lance Archer, Dutch & Vincent and The Workhorsemen vs. Rush & Dralistico.
**NJPW STRONG holds its Lonestar Shootout card tonight at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas (the same venue where AEW is running back-to-back nights next month with Final Battle and a live Collision). The card is available for $19.99 U.S. on FITE TV for the English commentary and on New Japan World with Japanese commentary. The kickoff show begins at 6:30 p.m. ET and the pay-per-view begins at 8:
*NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi © vs. Trent Beretta
*IWGP Women’s Championship: Mayu Iwatani © vs. Stephanie Vaquer
*Jon Moxley & Wheeler Yuta vs. KENTA & David Finlay
*NJPW World Television Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. © vs. Speedball Mike Bailey
*STRONG Openweight Championship: Eddie Kingston © vs. Satoshi Kojima
*Mistico vs. TJP
*STRONG Openweight Tag Titles: El Phantasmo & Hikuelo © vs. Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs
*Joey Janela vs. Toru Yano
*Clark Connors, Gabe Kidd, Chase Owens & Alex Coughlin vs. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight
*Atlantis, Tiger Mask & Mascara Dorada vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Rocky Romero & Hechicero
*Kickoff: Tom Lawlor vs. Fred Rosser
*Kickoff: Barrett Brown vs. Matt Vandagriff
**DDT’s Ultimate Party card streams live on Saturday night at Midnight ET and has one of the biggest matches in DDT’s history with Chris Jericho wrestling Konsouke Takeshita. There was zero promotion for the match on AEW’s end even though it is an extension of an ongoing AEW storyline that continues next Wednesday with the Street Fight in Ontario, California. The hope would be that this promotes worldwide sign-ups for Wrestle Universe through Jericho’s involvement and finds some of the success that Jericho had spiking New Japan World subscribers for the famous match with Kenny Omega in January 2018. Jericho vs. Takeshita is part of the double main event alongside the KO-D Openweight title match between Chris Brookes and Yuki Ueno. Below is the full lineup:
*KO-D Openweight Championship: Chris Brookes © vs. Yuki Ueno
*Dramatic Dream Match: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Chris Jericho
*Saki Akai’s Retirement Match: Saki Akai, Yukio Sakaguchi & Hideki Okatani vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Kazusada Higuchi & Miyu Yamashita
*DDT Universal Championship: Matt Cardona © vs. MAO
*KO-D Tag Team Titles: Soma Takao & Shota © vs. Masahiro Takanashi vs. Antonio Honda
*Kazuki Hirata vs. Hiromu Takahashi
*Daisuke Sasaki vs. Tetsuya Endo
*Jun Akiyama, HARASHIMA & Yukio Naya vs. Toshizo, Jun & Rei Saito
*Sanshiro Takagi, Akito, Makoto Oishi & Shinichiro Kawamatsu vs. Yoshitatsu, Danshoku Dino, Yoshihiko & Super Sasadango Machine
*Five-Way Tag Match: Yusuke Okada & Yuya Koroku vs. Takeshi Masada & Rukiya vs. Toi Kojima & Yuki Ishida vs. Naruki Doi & Kazuma Sumi vs. KANON & MJ Paul
**On Thursday night, “The Iron Claw” had its premiere screening at the Texas Theatre in Texas and included stars Jeremy Allen White and Zac Efron in attendance. In a cool touch, Kevin Von Erich was also invited and appeared for the screening. Others in attendance included wrestlers Silas Mason and Luke Hawx (who play Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy), Chavo Guerrero Jr., who coordinated the wrestling scenes, and Trish Stratus. The film will be released in theatres on December 22 through A24.
This is The Iron Claw ✨ pic.twitter.com/OU4jLYJhwq
— A24 (@A24) November 9, 2023
**The Bunny (Laura Dennis) was removed from the AEW roster page on Thursday with PWinsider.com reporting that the sides have mutually parted ways. Dennis came up through the Ontario independent scene wrestling as Cherry Bomb and started being booked in the U.S. and abroad before getting her big break at IMPACT as Allie and was a tremendous character, who was killed off when she left the company. She joined AEW in 2019 prior to the company’s first event and became The Bunny, paired with The Butcher and The Blade. She had been out of action this year with a broken orbital bone but returned in August and last wrestled on the September 8 edition of Rampage.
**Kota Ibushi indicated on X that he recently broke his hand while preparing for Wednesday’s street fight on AEW Dynamite. Ibushi said, “Street fight training is over. The back of my hand broke when I threw it in a full swing, but it would have healed in three days. I’m looking forward! I’m in the mood! Sorry if it’s not what you expected. I need to get insurance lol.” Ibushi added photos of his right hand which was swollen. Ibushi teams with Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho & Paul Wight against Powerhouse Hobbs, Konosuke Takeshita, Kyle Fletcher & presumably Sammy Guevera if he is cleared by Wednesday.
**Wrestlenomics reports that the peak quarter for AEW Dynamite this week in viewership was the opening fifteen minutes with the MJF opening and interactions with Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, The Kingdom, and the start of the match with Daniel Garcia at 892,000 viewers. The peak in the 18-49 audience was from 9-9:15 p.m. ET for Samoa Joe vs. Keith Lee and backstage promo with Orange Cassidy at 394,000 viewers. The first hour averaged 838,000 viewers and 365,000 in the demo and the second hour dropped to 770,000 viewers and 341,000 in the demo.
**IMPACT Wrestling featured an outstanding main event between Alex Shelley and Jonathan Gresham from last month’s television taping at Cicero Stadium. The match had over twenty minutes of television time and saw Gresham focus on Shelley’s knee, resulting in the champion constantly collapsing during Irish whip attempts and executing a phenomenal job of selling the injury. The closing minutes were out of in this world with the grappling exchanges, pin attempts, and counters and were as smooth a series of transitions as you will see. Shelley landed a superkick that rocked Gresham, who nearly fell backward but was grabbed by the wrist and pulled into the Shell Shock as Shelley retained the title. It was one of the best IMPACT matches of the year and well worth the time to seek out.
**The much-anticipated match between Will Ospreay and Josh Alexander airs next week on IMPACT from the same taping at Cicero Stadium. Lance Storm, who is a producer at IMPACT, spoke about the potential that this one might be better than the Ospreay and Speedball Mike Bailey match at Bound for Glory.
**Myron Reed made his on-screen debut for IMPACT on Thursday as the newest member of The Rascalz, joining Zachary Wentz and Trey Miguel. The three will team against Laredo Kid, Black Taurus & Juventud Guerrera in next week’s episode.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC’s seventh card at Madison Square Garden goes down on Saturday with UFC 295, which was scaled at a massive level with the promotion aiming to break its all-time gate record of $17.7 million set at the arena in November 2016 for the first card at MSG headlined by Eddie Alvarez vs. Conor McGregor. The card took a major hit with the loss of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic and while the star power is greatly diminished, the top two fights are excellent including the new interim heavyweight title fight involving two fighters that should be among the elite in the division for years to come. WrestleTix noted a big movement of 2,000 tickets over the past several days with the show topping 16,500 distributed and should ensure one of the largest gates in the history of the company. The event coincides with the 30th anniversary weekend of UFC 1 that took place on November 12, 1993, and has been a year-long promotion of the anniversary of the first show staged by Art Davies, Rorion Gracie, and SEG.
Two fighters missed weight on Friday morning including Roosevelt Roberts, who stepped in this week to fight Mateusz Rebecki and was off the lightweight limit by two pounds. Jamall Emmers missed weight by one pound in his featherweight fight against Dennis Buzukja.
MAIN CARD (10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view)
*UFC Light Heavyweight Championship (Vacant): Jiri Prochazka (29-3-1) vs. Alex Pereira (8-2) – Pereira has the chance to become a two-division champion after 11 fights and would an amazing resume for someone with so few fights in MMA considering past wins over Sean Strickland, Israel Adesanya, and Jan Blachowicz. Prochazka has been out of action since June 2022 when he fought Pereira’s mentor, Glover Teixeira, in one of the best fights of the year. Prochazka suffered a terrible shoulder injury and this is his first fight back. Prochazka has many defensive liabilities that make for action-packed fights, but this is as dangerous a striker as you’re going to contend with in Pereira.
*UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship: Tom Aspinall (13-3) vs. Sergei Pavlovich (18-1) – These two represent the next wave of heavyweights that could control the division and is an excellent match-up. The downside is Aspinall is taking the fight on short notice and both have questions regarding stamina over five rounds. Pavlovich has had 19 pro fights and two have gone the distance including a five-rounder in 2017 but the other 17 fights ended in the first round including his last six in the UFC, which he has won. Aspinall has never gone to a third round in any fight and won nine of his last ten. The loss was due to blowing out his knee against Curtis Blaydes 15 seconds into their fight in 2022. He returned this past July and dispatched Marcin Tybura quickly. Aspinall shows great ring awareness and transitions to the ground where he has good enough wrestling and submission skills to be a threat including a submission of Alexander Volkov last year. He likes to use his knees to the body to set up his punches and shows no hesitancy. On paper, this is a great fight.
*Mackenzie Dern (13-3) vs. Jessica Andrade (24-12) – Dern has won two of her last three and is coming off a decision nod against Angela Hill. Andrade has bounced around multiple weight classes but is 0-2 since returning to Strawweight and is coming off losses to Yan Xiaonan and Tatiana Suarez and needs a win.
*Matt Frevola (11-3-1) vs. Benoit Saint-Denis (12-1, 1 NC) – Another very good fight on paper. Frevola has won three in a row and stopped Drew Dober in May with the strongest name on his resume. Saint-Denis has won his last four – all by stoppage. This is his third fight since July.
*Diego Lopes (22-6) vs. Pat Sabatini (18-4) – Lopes is entering his third fight in the UFC and submitted Gavin Tucker in August. Sabatini is 5-1 in the UFC and submitted Lucas Almeida in June.
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 p.m. ET on ESPNews, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Steve Erceg (10-1) vs. Alessandro Costa (13-3)
*Tabatha Ricci (9-1 vs. Loop Godinez (11-3)
*Mateusz Rebecki (18-5) vs. Roosevelt Roberts (11-3)
*Nazim Sadykhov (9-1) vs. Viacheslav Borshchev (7-3)
EARLY PRELIMS (6 p.m. ET on ESPN+ and Fight Pass)
*Jared Gordon (19-6) vs. Mark Madsen (12-1)
*John Castaneda (20-6) vs. Kyung Ho Kang (19-9)
*Joshua Van (8-1) vs. Kevin Borjas (9-1)
*Dennis Buzukja (8-3) vs. Jamall Emmers (19-7)
**Tom Aspinall weighed 261.6 pounds at the weigh-in on Friday, which was the heaviest he’s been for a UFC fight, as noted by Luke Thomas. Aspinall weighed as low as 248 pounds for his fight with Jake Collier in 2020 and the heaviest he had been prior was 258 pounds for his last fight against Marcin Tybura.
**The Joe Pomp Show dedicated an episode to the records of various UFC payouts being revealed through discovery in the antitrust lawsuit. The show focuses on the disparity between what the top earners in the UFC made during the 2011-16 period that the payouts revealed compared to their boxing counterparts where the revenue splits are more fighter friendly and an industry aided by protections by the Muhammad Ali Reform Act that was passed in 2000. It broke down the numbers of UFC 196 where Conor McGregor made $5.5 million for the first fight against Nate Diaz and represented 9.1% of the revenue that the UFC generated for that card. At UFC 205 in November 2016, McGregor was paid $6.8 million or 10.3% of UFC’s overall revenue for the card.
**Julia Budd is done with the PFL, according to company CEO Peter Murray. Budd withdrew from her upcoming fight with Kayla Harrison on the November 24 pay-per-view and has been replaced by former UFC fighter Aspen Ladd. The new fight will be contested at a catchweight of 150 pounds. The PFL stated in a press release announcing the change that Budd “refused to fulfill her contractual obligation.” Murray tells MMA Fighting that, “[Budd] did not sign her bout agreement, consistent with her contract, and unfortunately we had to move on.” Harrison (15-1) returns to the ring one year after suffering the first loss of her career against Larissa Pacheco last November. Ladd (11-4) left the UFC in 2022 and has gone 2-1 in the PFL including a split decision win against Budd last November and is coming off a submission win against Karolina Sobek in June.
**The PFL Championship card on November 24 will air on pay-per-view in Canada with the prelims airing on TSN and RDS’s digital platforms. The main card will air on a three-day delay on TSN on November 27 at 12:30 a.m. ER, according to Aaron Bronsteter of TSN.
**Episode 5 of UFC Embedded before UFC 295.
*****
POSTmarks #25: Nate Milton
Bruce Lord and David Meyers talk to Nate Milton about his life, his broadcasting career, and the pursuit of dreams amidst life and adversity. Celebrating two years of POSTmarks.
*****
POLLOCK & TING: TALK (Vol. 11)
John Pollock heads to Wai Ting’s place for a conversation about home ownership woes, parenting styles, the art of dentist small talk, and reconciling their pasts as juvenile delinquents.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with MJF defending the AEW Championship against Daniel Garcia, and Sting teaming with Darby Allin in Portland.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston go through TKO’s Q3 Earnings Report and call with analysts, and NXT is moving to the CW Network.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington is joined by John Siino to discuss WWE NXT from November 7th, 2023 and the show’s move to The CW in 2024.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring Seth Rollins vs. Sami Zayn for the World Heavyweight Championship and the announcement of teams for WAR GAMES.
*****
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