POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live at 10:10 p.m. ET tonight following AEW Dynamite from Indianapolis.
**On Pollock & Thurston, we spoke about the CNBC feature on Vince McMahon and chatted with Karen Peterson about the launch of Marigold, the influence of Rossy Ogawa, WWE’s ties, and what this means for the Joshi scene.
**Send in your questions for the ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show for John & Wai to answer on Thursday’s show for POST Wrestling Café members. Audio questions can be submitted at memo.fm/POSTWrestling.
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: MCU L8R with Rich Fann & WH Park (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: AEW Dynasty with John Pollock & Wai Ting
WRESTLING NEWS
**CNBC’s Alex Sherman & Chloe Melas have a big story on Vince McMahon and what he’s been up to since the lawsuit was filed by Janel Grant in January. It mentions that he has remained in contact with Donald Trump, although a source noted they have not spoken about legal issues or Trump offering him legal advice. Sources for the article stated that McMahon has not been in contact with “company leaders and figureheads” and has not spoken with daughter Stephanie McMahon or son-in-law Paul Levesque on company matters.
However, it states that McMahon has been in contact with Dwayne Johnson and John Cena, which drew a scathing response from a spokesperson with Janel Grant issued to the media:
It’s shameful that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cena would associate themselves with an individual with decades of allegations just like Janels. Behind-the-scenes support is louder than any public statement ever could be.
One person close to McMahon informed CNBC that the former chairman believes that there will be no federal charges levied at him and believes the Grant suit will be settled out of court. Grant’s attorneys were strong in their response stating that no settlement talks have taken place and Grant’s attorney Ann Callis issued the following statement:
Vince McMahon raped, trafficked and physically assaulted Janel Grant as part of his decades-long normalization of treating women within the WWE as objects. He might have thought that Janel would just walk away, but that wishful thinking couldn’t be further from the case.
Every day we are focused on adding to our mountain of evidence, speaking with other victims, hiring renowned experts on sex trafficking/coercive control and preparing to vociferously litigate this case.”
The article reported that Stephanie McMahon does not hold a position with the company despite her appearance at WrestleMania 40, which was reported by Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com last week.
**The go-home edition of Dynamite before the Dynasty pay-per-view airs tonight from the Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis. WrestleTix reports 2,495 tickets distributed, which is slightly below the 3,000 they drew for a September 2023 episode of Dynamite when they last ran the arena. The following matches and segments are advertised:
*Will Ospreay vs. Claudio Castagnoli
*Deonna Purrazzo vs. Mariah May
*Adam Copeland & Willow Nightingale vs. Julia Hart & Brody King
*Kazuchika Okada & Young Bucks vs. PAC, Daniel Garcia & Penta El Zero Miedo
*Shane Taylor vs. Orange Cassidy
*Taz brokers a meeting between HOOK and Chris Jericho
*Samoa Joe and Swerve Strickland to speak
*Mercedes Mone to speak
*Jon Moxley appears
**The latest Dark Side of the Ring episode covered the late “Gentleman” Chris Adams, who died from a gunshot wound in October 2001. At the peak, Adams was one of the major stars in World Class Championship Wrestling, a pioneer of the superkick, and was a tremendous babyface but even better heel. A year after arriving at WCCW, he turned on the Von Erichs and formed The Dynamic Duo with Gino Hernandez managed by Gary Hart. Their team was cut short when Hernandez died of a reported cocaine overdose in January 1986 at the age of 28 as the death toll continued to grow in the territory. Adams became a common story of someone who experienced fame and money early in his career and succumbed to the pitfalls of the road through excessive drug use and came off in the episode as someone chasing past glory and feeling overlooked throughout the latter years. Just about everyone interviewed on the episode shared their stories of Adams’ incredibly violent temper where he became another person and this included excessive physical violence that led to a prison stint after head butting a flight attendant coming back from Puerto Rico and a painting a horrifying picture of the abuse he committed on his second wife, Toni Collins. It was this violent rage that permeated the circumstances of his death, according to his close friend and the man that shot him in self-defense, Brent “Boo Ray” Parnell. Parnell was interviewed and said that Adams flew off the handle unprovoked and began attacking Parnell with a wooden piece from a bed and was choking Parnell, who grabbed a gun and felt he had no option but to shoot Adams and shot him in the chest. Parnell stated that alcohol had been involved and there were enough stories that Adams and alcohol was a horrible combination. Both his children, Jade and Chris Jr. were interviewed, and I felt gutted listening to their memories of their father. Jade looked at her father as a hero and explicitly stated that Adams wasn’t here to defend himself and therefore, that was why she was here. Chris Jr. spoke about the abuses his mother Toni went through and spoke about the dark aspects of Chris’ life but also said he was a great father and that there was another side that fewer people got to experience. This was an episode where the producers did an excellent job of contacting the best people available from his two children, Parnell, his first wife Jeanie Clarke (who later married Steve Austin, one of Adam’s students and three having a well-remembered program on TV), along with Kevin Von Erich and David Manning on the World Class days. Von Erich stood out as someone who sounded like he was hearing the details of the domestic violence toward Toni for the first time and seemed horrified, concluding that the bad side of Chris outweighed the good but Kevin opts to remember the good. Adams was in a very bad place when he died as he was facing a manslaughter charge after his girlfriend Linda Kaphengst died in April 2000 from a combination of alcohol and GHB. I would highly recommend the last two episodes covering Chris Colt and the Adams episode. Next week focuses on Sensational Sherri followed by The Sandman (Jim Fullington) and Black Saturday.
**WWE Raw averaged 1,807,000 viewers and 0.61 in the 18-49 demographic on Monday night. Outside of last week’s huge audience, it was Raw’s largest since February 19 and was extra impressive as it aired against the WNBA Draft, which averaged 2.45 million viewers and 0.58 in the demo on ESPN. Raw ranked first on cable on Monday ahead of the WNBA Draft with the first hour of Raw averaging 1,929,000 viewers and 0.63 on the demo, 1,815,000 and 0.62 in the second hour, and 1,676,000 and 0.57 in the final hour. In Canada, Raw averaged 283,900 viewers and 98,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 with the replay at Midnight ET drawing 113,100 viewers and 80,500 in the demo and the first time I can recall that the replay ranked among the top ten sports programs on that night. (Wrestlenomics)
**NXT averaged 625,000 viewers and 0.17 in the 18-49 demographic on Tuesday on the USA Network. The audience dropped by three percent and the 18-49 audience fell by eleven percent from last week. In Canada, it finished outside of the top ten for sports with an average of 54,000 viewers and 13,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was NXT’s lowest audience in Canada in its normal timeslot since September 19, 2023.
**The Young Bucks spoke with SI.com in advance of the ladder match at Dynasty. Matt and Nick both commented on the airing of the All In security footage last week involving CM Punk and Jack Perry:
Matt: We decided it was only fair to be transparent and honest with our fans. We needed to give them context about why we feel we came up short at All In London. Our bodies were there in the ring wrestling FTR at Wembley, but our minds were in the back with the scapegoat in the entire situation, Jack Perry. The three of us specifically were wronged that night, and I haven’t gotten over that.
Nick: As EVPs, we were given a task for that week by the boss and we did it to the best of our abilities. Zero regret.
**The TNT schedule notes that next weekend’s Collision on April 27 will not begin until 8:30 p.m. ET due to the NBA playoff coverage. They are also listing Rampage for next Saturday night following Collision, which is the same format for this Saturday’s broadcast.
**WWE has announced that tickets for Friday Night SmackDown and Clash at the Castle at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland will go on sale April 26.
**AJPW’s Champion Carnival tournament, which dates to 1973, will begin on Thursday and runs until May 12. Past winners Kento Miyahara, Suwama, Yuma Aoyagi, and Shotaro Ashino are part of this year’s Carnival as well as new Triple Crown holder Yuma Anzai with an interesting field, especially the A Block combinations. The shows will air on All Japan’s streaming platform with the following matches set for Thursday’s opening night card at Korakuen Hall:
*A BLOCK: Shotaro Ashino vs. Hokuto Omori
*A BLOCK: Yuma Aoyagi vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.
*A BLOCK: Kento Miyahara vs. Ren Ayabe
*B BLOCK: Ryuki Honda vs. Lord Crewe
*B BLOCK: Yuma Anzai vs. Jun Saito
*B BLOCK: Suwama vs. Rei Saito
**IMPACT Wrestling returns to pay-per-view on Saturday at The Palms in Las Vegas. Rebellion will be headlined by Moose vs. Nic Nemeth for the TNA Championship following the promotion’s biggest pay-per-view in years with Hard to Kill. Since that show, the major news was the exit of Scott D’Amore and long-time stalwarts of the company, Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. This pay-per-view is a test of how many new or lapsed fans who ordered Hard to Kill will come back three months later. It doesn’t feel like the momentum was sustained and while it’s hard enough for an AEW to maintain momentum when the industry leader is on fire, it’s ten times as difficult for a company at TNA’s level and “ask” of its fanbase for a $30 pay-per-view. As always, it looks like a very good show on paper and the quality is not the issue but rather the frantic schedule of shows for average fans to keep up with and where TNA places among a typical viewer’s priority list. It doesn’t help that this pay-per-view is occurring one night before AEW Dynasty, which is a loaded card. One metric to compare is ticket sales with Hard to Kill and Rebellion both taking place from The Palms. The reported figure for the January pay-per-view was 1,630 tickets distributed while the latest figure from WrestleTix lists 550 distributed and shows a significant drop off when returning so quickly to the market.
**Tony Khan was a guest on The Battleground podcast to promote Dynasty, the decision to air the All In security footage, and the reaction Jack Perry received at Windy City Riot.
**NJPW’s Road to Dontaku tour kicks off on Saturday in Tokyo and is headlined by Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Yota Tsuji, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. David Finlay, Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney & Gedo. The major shows on the tour are Wrestling Satsuma no Kuni on April 27 in Kagoshima and the two Dontaku cards on May 4 & May 5 in Fukuoka.
**IMPACT has introduced a new video series called Immersed focusing on the recent match between Nic Nemeth and Steve Maclin at Sacrifice.
MMA NEWS
**There were two major moves this week in the MMA media space. Marc Raimondi of ESPN wrapped up his duties on the combat side following UFC 300 as he became a full-time beat reporter for the Atlanta Falcons while remaining at ESPN. Raimondi has been covering for MMA for over a decade and has covered countless regulatory and legal cases in the industry, which is not the glamorous side of MMA but is the most important. Andreas Hale, who was formerly with The Sporting News, has joined ESPN and will be covering Boxing and MMA and is a very talented writer and broadcaster. The other news is that veteran reporter Steven Marrocco has been let go by Vox Media’s MMA Fighting outlet and that is another blow to the journalism of MMA with Marrocco being another example of someone who was covering hard news stories in the space. I would be lying if I said I was not concerned about this trend and the loss of two very important voices in the field with the hope that Marrocco lands elsewhere. The combination of the UFC settling its antitrust lawsuit, further protections for the promotions when it comes to disclosures from various commissions and the impact of Bloody Elbow’s recent sale has led to fewer checks and balances in place for the industry leader. There is a much larger discussion to be had about the state of journalism in both MMA and professional wrestling but there has been an enormous impact on the latter over the past several years.
**UFC lightweight Arman Tsarukyan appeared on The MMA Hour and confirmed he was offered the lightweight title fight against Islam Makhachev immediately after his win against Charles Oliveira. Tsarukyan said he was approached by UFC’s chief business officer Hunter Campbell right after the win and offered the title fight at UFC 302 on June 1 and Tsarukyan could not turn around that quickly to compete in six weeks. At the press conference right after the UFC 300 card, Dana White was handed a note and announced that Makhachev would defend the title against Dustin Poirier on June 1.
**Jorge Guimarães, who is the manager of Alex Pereira, spoke on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast and stated his fighter would not be competing on the UFC 301 card on May 4. In addition to breaking one of his toes before the fight with Jamahal Hill, Pereira broke a second toe during the fight. After the win, the light heavyweight champion stated he would be willing to accept a fight at heavyweight on short notice at the UFC 301 card in Rio de Janeiro. The June 1 card will be headlined by a flyweight title fight between Alexandre Pantoja and Steve Erceg and the return of Jose Aldo.
**The TKO stock closed at $96.32 on Wednesday.
*****
POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston speak about Rossy Ogawa’s new promotion, Dream Star Fighting Marigold, and CNBC’s story on Vince McMahon.
*****
upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from April 16th, 2024 headlined by Trick Williams vs Carmelo Hayes in a Steel Cage Match.
****
REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw from Montreal with Sami Zayn defending the Intercontinental title against Chad Gable, and Rhea Ripley relinquishing her title due to injury.
*****
THE N.W.A. PODCAST
The Advocates are back to discuss Cody “Devante” Rhodes’ completion of his story and other results from WrestleMania XL, AEW’s airing of the CM Punk-Jack Perry backstage incident, and more top stories from the past month in pro wrestling.
*****
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