Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/06/01/pollocks-news-update-6-1-wwe-executive-fired-over-wifes-twitter-account/
POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I have the June edition of ASK-A-WAI out for members of the POST Wrestling Café where we take your mailbag questions for the full show. This month, we had close to 60 questions that we tackled them all. You can download Ask-A-Wai if you a member of the Café. If you sign up for $6 per month, you will get this show and access to every bonus audio show we have done, including every Rewind-A-Wai show.
**We also have a new POST Production video up for ‘Double Double’ and above members of the Café. Wai and I spent almost 40 minutes discussing The Hollywood Reporter story from earlier this week on Fox’s pitch to land SmackDown through the detailed reporting of Marisa Guthrie. Wai and I went through the story line-by-line with our thoughts from all angles and the questions that remain. To access the video, you can find it in the POST Wrestling Café.
We do appreciate any feedback to our shows at [email protected]
**We have a Q&A up on POST Wrestling with Smash Wrestling promoter & wrestler Sebastian Suave chatting the idea behind the concept of the “Northern Tournament”, which go down this Sunday with two cards from The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto. We also discuss the “All In” success, the positives and negatives of promoting wrestling in Southern Ontario, and more.
**I was a guest on the TSN MMA Show this week with Aaron Bronsteter to chat about the UFC’s deal with ESPN, the retirement of Michael Bisping, the legacy of TUF, a preview of tonight’s UFC Fight Night card in Utica, and weight cutting solutions.
**This Sunday, the POST Roundtable returns as Wai Ting & I welcome Mauro Ranallo and director Haris Usanovic to discuss the “Bipolar Rock ‘N Roller” documentary that premiered last weekend on Showtime. The audio version is free for everyone and there is a video version for ‘Double Double’ and above members of the POST Wrestling Café.
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WRESTLING NEWS
**A high-ranking WWE executive has been fired after it was discovered that his wife was behind an Islamophobic Twitter account. Sal Siino was hired by the company and named their Senior Vice President of Global Content Distribution & Business Development in February 2017. A report by Luke O’Brien of The Huffington Post revealed that Amy Mekelburg ran the @AmyMek Twitter account, that features over 200,000 followers. The account is full of hate speech, the promotion of racist figures, attacking Muslims and other groups. The Huffington Post reached out to the WWE, who responded by stating, “This is the first time we’re hearing about Amy Mekelburg” with the WWE spokesperson requesting to not be identified. The outlet followed up with the WWE, who responded that Siino was no longer an employee of the company. It was reported in the piece that Siino was directly involved in television negotiations in the UAE.
**We have notes posted on the main page from CM Punk and Colt Cabana’s testimony on Friday morning from the Cook County Courthouse in Chicago.
**The WWE has announced a network television deal with upstart Imagen Television in Mexico. The deal will go into effect Saturday with one-hour versions of Raw and SmackDown Live airing on the network at 3 and 4 pm. The deal will place the two edited programs on an over-the-air broadcaster, which launched in October 2016. Raw and SmackDown also air live in Mexico on FOX Sports and that deal will not be affected by the addition of the network airings.
**The Best of the Super Juniors tournament is winding down this weekend with the final round robin matches scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. The finals will take place Monday from Korakuen Hall. Here are the updated standings for the blocks:
*A BLOCK: Will Ospreay (8 points), Taiji Ishimori (8), Flip Gordon (6), YOH (6), Bushi (6), Tiger Mask (6), ACH (4), and Yoshinobu Kanemaru (4).
*B BLOCK: Dragon Lee (6), Marty Scurll (6), Hiromu Takahashi (6), KUSHIDA (6), Chris Sabin (4), El Desperado (4), SHO (4), and Ryusuke Taguchi (4)
In the A Block, Ospreay and Ishimori would be the favorites. Ospreay faces Flip Gordon in his final tournament match and Ishimori is facing YOH. If Ospreay and Ishimori both win, Ishimori advances due to his win over Ospreay on the opening night. If Gordon beats Ospreay AND Ishimori loses, Gordon would win the block as he would have wins over both. YOH and Bushi could cause a playoff by winning their final matches and tying, but that is highly unlikely. Tiger Mask, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and ACH are eliminated.
The B Block is wide open with the parity booking and all B Block members have two remaining tournament matches so everyone is still alive. Takahashi would appear to be the favorite to win the block and has matches with SHO and KUSHIDA remaining.
**Here are the B Block matches scheduled for Saturday’s card in Gunma:
*Chris Sabin vs. El Desperado
*Marty Scurll vs. Ryusuke Taguchi
*SHO vs. Hiromu Takahashi
*KUSHIDA vs. Dragon Lee
The final two matches look outstanding on paper.
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**The Squared Circle Sirens website reported this week that Deonna Purrazzo has signed with the WWE. Purrazzo has been wrestling with Ring of Honor and was part of the recent tournament to crowd the first Women of Honor champion. She had also been announced for the “All In” event on September 1st.
**Ring of Honor is holding television tapings Saturday night at the Manhattan Center in New York City with the following matches announced:
*Dalton Castle vs. Ultimo Guerrero for the ROH title
*Cody vs. Titan
*Bully Ray vs. Cheeseburger
*Jay Lethal vs. Chuckie T.
*The Briscoes & Punishment Martinez vs. The Young Bucks & Hangman Page
*Kenny King vs. Jonathan Gresham
*Kelly Klein vs. Jenny Rose
*Sumie Sakai & Stella Grey vs. Gabby Ortiz & Riley Shepard
**Impact Wrestling is taping four episodes of Impact in Windsor, Ontario tonight and tomorrow at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario. These will be the four episodes leading into Slammiversary on July 22nd in Toronto.
**The Intercontinental title match between Seth Rollins and Elias has officially been added to the Money in the Bank card on Sunday, June 17th at the Allstate Arena. Here is the updated card:
*AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura in a Last Man Standing Match for the WWE title
*Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe vs. The Miz vs. Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens vs. Rusev vs. Bobby Roode vs. New Day member in the Money in the Bank Ladder Match
*Ember Moon vs. Natalya vs. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch vs. Lana vs. Naomi in the Money in the Bank Ladder Match
*Nia Jax vs. Ronda Rousey for the Raw women’s title
*Roman Reigns vs. Jinder Mahal
*Carmella vs. Asuka for the SmackDown women’s title
*Seth Rollins vs. Elias for the Intercontinental title
*The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows for the SD tag titles
*Bobby Lashley vs. Sami Zayn
*Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt vs. TBA for the Raw tag titles (the challengers will be determined in the Battle Royal on Raw next week)
**Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has announced the following matches for their “Threemendous V” card at The Globe Theatre on July 13th: Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz vs. The Young Bucks for the PWG tag titles, WALTER vs. Brody King, Marty Scurll vs. Matt Riddle, Dalton Castle vs. David Starr, Trevor Lee vs. Rey Fenix, Penta 0M vs. Rey Horus, and Jeff Cobb vs. Joey Janela.
**Alex Wong of Bleacher Report looks back at Dennis Rodman skipping practice with the Chicago Bulls and showing up on WCW Monday Nitro during the NBA Finals. At the time, Rodman showing up on Nitro after missing practice received tons of publicity for WCW and began the lead up to the Bash at the Beach card with Rodman teaming with Hulk Hogan against Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone. As turbulent a year as 1998 was, WCW’s ability to get mainstream attention and a match out of Rodman and Malone right after the Bulls beat the Jazz was a massive coup.
**The WWE stock closed at $58.95 on Friday.
**Revolution Pro has announced that KUSHIDA will be working their annual Summer Sizzler card on Friday, August 17th at York Hall.
**Linda McMahon was recently interviewed by Kara Swisher of the “Recode” and took audience questions regarding her role heading up the Small Business Administration and be grilled on President Donald Trump:
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TELEVISION REVIEWS
Impact Wrestling “Under Pressure” (May 31st)
RESULTS: Eli Drake over Scott Steiner, Madison Rayne over Tessa Blanchard, Brian Cage over Dezmond Xavier, Su Yung over Allie in a Casket Match to win the Knockout’s title, Austin Aries over Pentagon Jr. to win the Impact title
-Impact had been building to this special for several weeks, culminating with Austin Aries regaining the Impact title from Pentagon Jr. The match was taped days after Pentagon’s title win at Redemption and held off for close to six-weeks before airing it. The match had several restarts after a pair of double countouts, on the final restart, Aries kicked Pentagon low and hit a brainbuster to win the title back. The match wasn’t near the level of the three-way at Redemption, but I felt all the matches on this show suffered from the lack of crowd reaction. The Impact Zone isn’t the liveliest place to begin with, but this felt like a crowd that wasn’t engaged at all and it hurt the show a lot.
-Su Yung won the Knockout’s title in a casket match from Allie, who is turning into a darker character. They aired a music video teeing up the match and the storyline is pretty nuts if you try and explain it to someone – Allie’s best friend was murdered after this zombie and her dead friends abducted her in front of a live audience and then burned her to death in the woods, now the best friend is sliding into darkness and out for revenge – but the video was cool, and therefore I can give it a pass. Both Su Yung and Allie are very good in their respective roles.
-Eli Drake defeating Scott Steiner and all I can say is, Steiner wrestling in 2018 is a tough one to watch. There is a way to use Steiner, it’s a 90% talking and to lead to one match a year and then he disappears as the audience does react and take him as a threat.
-For a show they promoted as bigger than a typical Impact, I didn’t think it was a great show and the audience took down the show a lot.
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WWE NXT (May 30th)
RESULTS: War Raiders over Cody Vincent & George Hickson, EC 3 over Fabian Aicher, Ricochet over Chris Dijak, Shayna Baszler over Dakota Kai to retain the NXT women’s title
-I thought this was a very good episode of NXT with several positives to take away.
-The show concluded with Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai for the NXT women’s title and Kai finally standing up to the bully. Kai is great in the role of being bullied and it’s an effective storyline to help both Baszler and Kai. The finish was unique with Kai losing balance and falling awkwardly and Basler immediately taking her back and choking her out. After the match, Nikki Cross made the save and stole the title to set up TakeOver. This was a very well-done segment.
-The video package on Bianca Belair was another strong profile piece, which NXT is nearly flawless with. Belair has every bit the star quality of any female on the NXT roster, she is a terrific athlete and should be a big star over the next year. Usually, these pieces focus on a babyface and you can’t help but root for them, this one did achieve that same conclusion, but Belair is so cocky that it succeeded in working for a heel character too.
-Chris (formerly Donovan) Dijak made his television debut after reporting to the Performance Center last September. Dijak and Ricochet had as good a 2:00 match as you are going to have, in fact I felt this was a better 2:00 match than Hiromu Takahashi and KUSHIDA had at Invasion Attack 2017. Ricochet won with the 630 and they managed to showcase Dijak’s size and agility, so he got over in the process of losing such a quick match.
-After the match, Velveteen Dream and Ricochet interacted and culminated with Dream on the ramp and Ricochet somersaulting over the top and landing on his feet into Dream’s face, it was incredible.
-Johnny Gargano interrupted a match between EC 3 and Fabian Aichner to announce he has signed his contract to fight Tommaso Ciampa in a “Street Fight” at TakeOver. EC 3 was annoyed at Gargano opting to announce this news while his match was in progress, which is a valid source for anger.
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (June 2018) Patreon show
John Pollock & Wai Ting answer almost 60 questions from the mailbag
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19163339
upNXT 5/31/18: Rap Shoot
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman review this week’s NXT episode, they review Enzo’s rap single, Drake vs. Pusha T feud, and take your feedback
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/dippux/upNXT-May31-2018.mp3
BWE 5/30/18: OTT Scrappermania, Progress Be Here Now, WWE UK, UFC in Liverpool
Martin Bushby, Oli Court, and Benno review all the latest U.K. shows
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/qag6fc/180530_BWE.mp3
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 5/29/18: Bryan vs. Joe interrupted, CM Punk trial
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/mhwrs9/180529_RASD.mp3
RAR: OVERRUN
News we could not fit into Rewind-A-Raw as John & Wai chat Total Bellas Episode 2 & more
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19097774
REWIND-A-RAW 5/28/18: Nia taunts Ronda, Mauro Ranallo documentary, Enzo’s rap debut
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/jg8i7x/180528_RAR.mp3
*****
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