POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is live at 10 p.m. ET on the POST Wrestling Café tonight. Wai Ting and I will review the news and look ahead to this weekend’s notable cards including NJPW Dominion & NXT Battleground. Plus, your calls and feedback at the end.
**The latest Rewind-A-Wai is available with Bruce Lord selecting the G1 Climax card from August 4, 2013, in Osaka and a show heralded as one of the best cards ever. Wai and I look back at the Osaka show, which included Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi, Kazuchika Okada vs. Togi Makabe, Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Prince Devitt, and Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii among the ten G1 matches. This is available to all POST Wrestling Café members.
**POST Puroresu with Karen Peterson & WH Park is out with a big review of the ALL TOGETHER card, a preview of New Japan’s Dominion card and the company’s recent press conference, plus notes on NOAH, Marigold’s debut, and the Hana Kimura Tribute Show.
**Karen Peterson returns with Bruce Lord this Sunday on the POST Wrestling Café with a review of NJPW’s Dominion card featuring El Desperado vs. Taiji Ishimori, and Jon Moxley vs. EVIL in the double main event.
**POST Wrestling and Poisonrana present THE CASH-IN on Saturday, July 6 at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto (226 Richmond Street West) at 2 p.m. Stop by for a live show involving John Pollock, Wai Ting, Braden Herrington, Davie Portman, and many members of the POST & Poisonrana teams. Tickets are available now at postwrestling.com/live for your chance to experience:
- LIVE Q&A
- Wrestling-themed Improv
- Davie & Braden’s interactive games
- Wrestling Karaoke
- Surprise guests
- More announcements to come!
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course with John Siino & Kate from Montreal (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: NJPW Dominion with Bruce Lord & Karen Peterson (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: NXT Battleground with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington
Monday: Rewind-A-Raw
Tuesday: Double Shot – “Who Killed WCW?” Ep. 2 (POST Wrestling Café)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown is at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky tonight. TKO is running the building on consecutive nights with the UFC Fight Night card on Saturday. Those who purchased tickets for a luxury suite will get to meet Valentina Shevchenko tonight and those in the suite on Saturday will get to meet Bianca Belair & Montez Ford. Below are the segments and matches scheduled for tonight’s show on Fox:
*Cody Rhodes responds to attack by AJ Styles
*Solo Sikoa anoints Tonga Loa
*Jade Cargill vs. Indi Hartwell
*Grayson Waller vs. Johnny Gargano
*Angel vs. Apollo Crews
**AEW Dynamite received a moderate bump in its viewership this past Wednesday with the return of MJF to the program. Dynamite averaged 790,000 viewers and 363,000 (0.28) in the 18-49 demographic, which were their best numbers since April 10. Dynamite ranked second among cable originals on Wednesday behind the College Softball World Series on ESPN, which did a 0.44 in the demo. The overall audience was only up by 3,000 viewers but the 18-49 audience increased by eight percent. Adults 18-34 grew from 115,000 to 138,000 viewers, so it was a younger audience that enhanced the figure. In the 35-49 demo, the growth was only two percent with an average of 225,000 viewers. AEW benefited without having NBA or NHL playoff competition, although they didn’t have NBA competition last week either. The Canadian audience experienced another bad week with only 40,100 viewers and 19,200 in the 25-54 demographic on TSN 2. It is the second bad number in a row and something to watch as you can’t blame the NHL for this week. Next week’s episode of Dynamite is going to be tough as it airs against Game 3 of the Boston Celtics vs. Dallas Mavericks on ABC. (Wrestlenomics, Programming Insider)
**For those keeping track of cable rankings, this week Raw and NXT both ranked first among cable originals for their night of the week and Dynamite was second on Wednesday.
**AEW Rampage returns to its normal time of 10 p.m. ET tonight on TNT with the following taped matches from Loveland, Colorado:
*Serena Deeb vs. Mina Shirakawa
*Jay White & The Gunns vs. Tyler Payne, Caleb Crush & Chris Wilde
*Gates of Agony vs. Private Party
*The Acclaimed vs. Hunter Grey & Parviz
*Penta El Zero Miedo vs. The Butcher
**The first episode of “Who Killed WCW?” averaged 138,000 viewers and did a 0.03 rating in the 18-49 demographic on VICE TV this past Tuesday. The show ranked #101 among cable originals while NXT ranked first for the night as the show continued its hot streak. Despite Dwayne Johnson being a WWE board member, this is not a WWE-related project and received no promotion on WWE broadcasts this week. The deal with VICE TV came together last December about a month before Johnson joined the WWE’s board. (Spoiler TV)
**NJPW’s Dominion card airs Sunday at 3 a.m. ET and is traditionally one of the promotion’s biggest shows of the year. This one will be historic because two junior heavyweights are in the headline position with the final of the Best of the Super Juniors between Taiji Ishimori and El Desperado. It should be a spectacular match even though a match of this significance seemed like it would be a lock to involve Hiromu Takahashi, who is wrestling on the undercard in a tag match. Jon Moxley defends the IWGP title against EVIL in a Lumberjack Match, which ensures plenty of House of Torture involvement and they will be offset by Moxley’s selections of Togi Makabe, Yuji Nagata, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, and Tiger Mask. Moxley has a killer month as he returns to Japan on June 22 for Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport and presumably, wrestles at Forbidden Door on June 30.
Below is the full lineup:
*Best of the Super Juniors – Final: El Desperado vs. Taiji Ishimori
*IWGP World Heavyweight Championship – Lumberjack Match: Jon Moxley © vs. EVIL
*NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi © vs. HENARE – they had a stellar match last year and this could be the show stealer
*IWGP Tag & STRONG Openweight Tag Titles – Tornado Match: KENTA & Chase Owens (IWGP) vs. El Phantasmo & Hikuleo (STRONG) vs. Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste vs. YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto
*NJPW World Television Title: Jeff Cobb © vs. Tomohiro Ishii
*NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Titles: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano & Oleg Boltin © vs. Hiromu Takahashi, BUSHI & Yota Tsuji
*KOPW Championship – Storm Catch Rules: Yuya Uemura © vs. Great O-Khan
*Zack Sabre Jr., Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles vs. Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney & LJ Cleary
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Callum Newman
**NXT will be at the UFC Apex on Sunday for a unique show, which will likely have approximately 700 people in attendance. UFC cards at the Apex are notorious for the poor atmosphere compared to a big arena setting and while NXT isn’t drawing 10,000 people for a PLE, they would have several thousand and the brand is on a hot streak with their recent television numbers. The appeal of the show is Jordynne Grace and Ethan Page being involved in the top two matches. There are several ways to go with the Grace vs. Roxanne Perez match from Grace losing and setting up a Knockouts title match in TNA, or Grace winning the title and Perez going to TNA to reclaim it. Next week, Grace is hosting an open challenge at Against All Odds and you would be led to believe that someone in NXT will answer the challenge or it’s going to be a disappointment. I’d argue the women’s title match should be the main event as it’s got the most interest while Trick Williams and Ethan Page shouldn’t be “one and done” and it makes sense to have a disputed ending to set up a rematch in Toronto at Heatwave. One handicap is that Battleground will be airing against Game 2 of the NBA Finals but it’s a different beast in the streaming era where engagement over 24 hours is highly coveted as opposed to live viewing.
Here is the lineup with Sexyy Red hosting the show:
*NXT Championship: Trick Williams © vs. Ethan Page
*NXT Women’s Championship: Jordynne Grace © vs. Roxanne Perez
*NXT Tag Team Titles: Axiom & Nathan Frazer © vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson
*North American Championship: Oba Femi © vs. Wes Lee vs. Joe Coffey
*Women’s North American Championship – Ladder Match: Lash Legend vs. Jaida Parker vs. Michin vs. Fallon Henley vs. Kelani Jordan vs. Sol Ruca
*NXT Underground Match: Shayna Baszler vs. Lola Vice
**AEW has announced Rush will wrestle on Dynamite next Wednesday and will be his first match on the program this year. No opponent has been listed.
**Brian Gewirtz of Seven Bucks Productions appeared on the Cheap Heat podcast with Peter Rosenberg to promote “Who Killed WCW?” Gewirtz said the team wanted to interview former Turner executive Jamie Kellner, who made the call to drop WCW programming but indicated he wasn’t interested in talking about it. Kellner was named head of TBS two weeks before the news of WCW being dropped. The NITRO book by Guy Evans (who is involved with the VICE series), spoke about Kellner’s role and included an interview with Kellner stating he grew up as a wrestling fan as a pushback to the belief he hated the genre. The book described Kellner’s hiring along with Steve Koonin the year before to run TNT (Koonin is currently the lead independent board member at TKO) and decided to diversify the networks by making TNT heavily focused on upscale dramas and lean TBS toward comedy programming with no place for professional wrestling. There was also language in the Fusient Media deal to control the timeslot from Turner for multiple years regardless of whether they canceled WCW programming and would have allowed Fuscient to control time on their networks, which they weren’t going to give up. (Transcript by Andrew Thompson)
**Motor City Machine Guns are booked to wrestle for Freelance Wrestling in Chicago on June 28 against Bang and Matthews at the Logan Square Auditorium.
**Black Label Pro is at the Logan Square Auditorium for its Family Reunion card at 8:30 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+. Jordynne Grace was initially advertised for the show but had to withdraw last week. The lineup includes Kevin Ku vs. Miyu Yamashita for the BLP Heavyweight title, Bang and Matthews vs. Koda Hernandez & Sabin Gauge for the tag titles, Matt Makowski vs. Tom Lawlor for the BLP Midwest title in a match involving former MMA fighters, Lee Moriarty vs. Dominic Garrini, Joey Janela vs. Myung-Jae Lee, and Kylie Rae vs. Billie Starkz among others.
**House of Glory presents Mike Santana’s Puerto Rican Weekend card on Saturday at 5 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+. Satana defends the HOG Heavyweight title against Amazing Red, Mercedes Martinez takes on Tasha Steelz, Epico & Primo face The Mane Event, and Carlos Ramirez defends the HOG Crown Jewel title against Homicide. Carlos Colon is also scheduled to appear at the NYC Arena.
MMA NEWS
**We are three weeks out from UFC 303 and questions remain concerning Conor McGregor’s status after this past Monday’s last-minute press conference cancelation. McGregor put out a vague statement on Monday but didn’t address anything concretely. On The MMA Hour on Wednesday, Ariel Helwani said there was heightened optimism regarding the fight but could not disclose the particulars, which he was told off the record. The event is set to be the largest gate in the history of MMA or professional wrestling at $20 million+ at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Given the number of tourists traveling for the fight and the amount being spent on tickets, it would be fair to question the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s role in protecting the consumer and determining the status of the fight ASAP and getting a clear answer one way or another if the fight is still confirmed for that date.
**Most Valuable Promotions and Netflix have announced that the fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson has been moved to Friday, November 15 at AT&T Stadium in Texas. In the press release, it noted the difficulty of rescheduling the fight during the NFL season as the Dallas Cowboys have a home game on Monday, November 18. Tyson had a medical issue on a flight last month which led to the fight being postponed from its original date of July 20. Tyson will be 58 years old by the time the fight takes place and last fought in November 2020. Those who purchased tickets will be honored in November.
**The UFC card on Saturday in Louisville is headlined by a middleweight fight between former title contender Jared Cannonier and Nassourdine Imavov. Cannonier has a strong resume since moving down to 185 pounds with wins against Anderson Silva, Jack Hermansson, Derek Brunson, Sean Strickland, and Marvin Vettori. However, he is 40 years old and lost his one championship fight when he dropped a decision to former champ Israel Adesanya in July 2022. Still, Cannonier has won four of his last five and with a win, he’s at least in the title mix but unlikely to jump past either Adesanya or Strickland to challenge Dricus du Plessis. Imavov fought Strickland last year at light heavyweight and lost by a decision before returning to middleweight and is coming off a no-contest with Chris Curtis and beat Roman Dolidze by a majority decision in his last fight. It’s a five-round fight and Cannonier has gone the full 25-minutes in four of his last five fights. The other interesting fights include Dominick Reyes taking on Dustin Jacoby. Reyes was undefeated when he challenged Jon Jones in February 2020 and many people thought Reyes won that fight but Jones was the unanimous winner. Reyes hasn’t been the same since that fight and has gone 0-3 since the title loss and badly needs a win. Jacoby is a former Glory kickboxing champion and joined the UFC in 2020. After going 6-0-1 in the promotion in his first seven fights, he is 1-3 since 2022 while managing three fights last year and dropped a decision to Alonzo Menifield in December. Raul Rosas Jr., 19, will have his fourth UFC fight when he takes on Ricky Turcios in a fight that was supposed to happen earlier this year. There is a big spotlight on Rosas Jr. due to his age, but this is a logical opponent and they aren’t tossing Rosas Jr. into the deep end yet. Turcios won TUF Season 29 and has gone 2-1 since winning the UFC contract.
MAIN CARD (8 p.m. ET on ESPN & ESPN+)
*Jared Cannonier (17-6) vs. Nassourdine Imavov (13-4)
*Dominick Reyes (12-4) vs. Dustin Jacoby (19-8-1)
*Raul Rosas Jr. (8-1) vs. Ricky Turcios (11-3)
*Brunno Ferreira (11-1) vs. Dustin Stoltzfus (15-5)
*Zach Reese (6-0) vs. Julian Marquez (9-4)
*Miguel Baeza (10-3) vs. Puna Soriano (4-0)
PRELIMINARY CARD (5 p.m. ET on ESPN+, Fight Pass)
*Ľudovít Klein (21-4-1) vs. Thiago Moisés (18-7)
*Carlos Prates (18-6) vs. Charlie Radtke (7-3)
*Brad Katona (13-3) vs. Jesse Butler (12-5)
*Montana De La Rosa (12-9-1) vs. Andrea Lee (13-9)
*Daniel Marcos (15-0) vs. John Castañeda (21-6)
*Denise Gomes (8-2) vs. Eduarda Moura (10-0) – Moura missed weight by ½ a pound and was fined 20 percent of her purse and was her second consecutive fight to miss the strawweight limit
*Cody Stamann (21-6-1) vs. Taylor Lapilus (19-4)
*Rayanne Amanda (14-7) vs. Puja Tomar (4-3)
**UFC has moved up the start time for next weekend’s UFC Fight Night card at the Apex. The main card was scheduled for 10 p.m. ET but will now begin at 7 p.m. with the early prelims at 4 p.m. The June 15 show is headlined by a flyweight contest between Alex Perez (25-8) and Tatsuro Taira (15-0). The prelims will overlap with WWE’s Clash at the Castle, which begins at 2 p.m. ET from Scotland.
**The TKO stock closed at $107.77 on Friday.
****
POST PURORESU
WH Park & Karen Peterson recap United Japan Pro-Wrestling’s ALL TOGETHER, a review of recent developments in NOAH, and preview NJPW’s Dominion.
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REWIND-A-WAI #158: NJPW G1 CLIMAX (Aug. 4, 2013)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NJPW G1 Climax 23 (Day 4) from August 4th, 2013 in Osaka featuring Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi in their first encounter and a WON 5-star match between Tomohiro Ishii and Katsuyori Shibata.
****
X2: X-Men United (2003)
This week in their Deadpool & Wolverine ReWatch, Rich Fann & WH Park are joined by The Legend Scrump of PWTcast to review the crowd fav of the OG trilogy with 2003’s X2: X-Men United.
****
WHO KILLED WCW? Ep. 1 with Brian Mann
John Pollock & Wai Ting bring back The Double Shot throughout June to review “Who Killed WCW?” Former WWE writer Brian Mann joins to discuss the first episode.
****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite with the return of MJF and Swerve Strickland vs. Roderick Strong for the AEW Championship.
****
POLLOCK & THURSTON with Law Professor Alex Long
Law Professor Alex B. Long joins the show to discuss his new book Professional Wrestling and the Law.
****
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