POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE 6/13 - Chris Jericho explains why he turned down NJPW U.S. shows & "All In"

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/06/13/pollocks-news-update-6-13-chris-jericho-explains-why-he-turned-down-njpw-u-s-shows-all-in/

POST IT NOTES

**We have a new British Wrestling Experience on the site with Martin Bushby & Oli Court, while Benno is on vacation. In Benno’s place, JP Houlihan joins Martin & Oli to chat about the recent OTT ‘A Haven for Monsters’ card that was headlined by WALTER & Low Ki vs. Jordan Devlin & David Starr, the PROGRESS Chapter 71 event with Jinny vs. Dakota Kai, as well as a look at the cards for the Rev Pro / NJPW ‘Strong Style Evolved’ shows coming up. You can download the show on the main page of the site and subscribe to the BWE iTunes feed at https://www.postwrestling.com/subscribe/.

**This week’s Rewind-A-SmackDown features Nate Milton joining me to review the final show before Money in the Bank. In addition to SmackDown, we also preview the matches at Money in the Bank, we discuss Jeff Hardy’s guilty plea this past Monday after his arrest in March and the Sinclair story about ROH planning to run Madison Square Garden next year. The show can be downloaded at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/06/13/rewind-a-smackdown-6-12-18-history-making-smackdown-mitb-preview-roh-planning-msg-card/.

**On Thursday, we will have a new upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman reviewing tonight’s NXT and previewing Saturday’s TakeOver card in Chicago.

**Wai Ting will be back this Friday for our monthly Marvel review on the POST Wrestling Café as we review ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and you can sign up for the Café at www.POSTwrestlingCafe.com.

POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Marvel review of ‘Captain America: Civil War’ with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
*Sunday morning: NXT TakeOver review with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Sunday night: WWE Money in the Bank review with John Pollock & Wai Ting

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WRESTLING NEWS

**The Baltimore Business Journal spoke to Chris Ripley, who is the CEO of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, regarding Ring of Honor and Sinclair’s ownership of the promotion. Ripley announced in the interview that the group would be running an event from Madison Square Garden in 2019. In the interview, there was no date for the event, but I couldn’t imagine them opting to run Madison Square Garden on any weekend besides WrestleMania Weekend in April. The Garden is an extremely expensive building to rent but, in my opinion, it’s a risk worth taking, and I would be curious how well a major card at The Garden could draw WrestleMania weekend with talent like Kenny Omega, Cody, The Young Bucks, New Japan talent and how much attention a non-WWE event at The Garden would receive.

**In a correction from our discussion on Rewind-A-SmackDown, I had stated on the show that Chris Ripley of Sinclair had claimed that the “All In” show was a Ring of Honor event. In the article, Ripley had stated to the interviewer that ROH was starting to book larger arenas and it was the writer of the piece that mentioned, “an independent show later this year in Chicago starring some of Ring of Honor’s wrestlers sold out 10,000 seats in less than an hour.”

**Last week, I had reported that one of the members of the Authors of Pain was going through a visa issue. I was told on Wednesday that the visa issue has been resolved. Because the focus of the tag division has primarily been on The B Team and Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre, they have been held off television for the time being.

**The Raw tag title match with Matt Hardy & Bray Wyatt vs. The B Team is not currently scheduled for the Money in the Bank show.

**Arkangel de la Muerte of CMLL died on Wednesday morning after being discovered by his wife. SuperLuchas reported the news and CMLL has issued a statement confirming his passing at the age of 51. Arkangel had still been wrestling as recently as this past Saturday night at Arena Mexico and was one of CMLL’s main trainers. SuperLuchas said that it was believed he had gone into cardiac arrest.

Arkangel began his career in 1985 at the age of 19, wrestling as Mr. Cid and switched to Arkangel in 1991. Throughout his career, he had tag runs with Guerrero de la Muerte, Pantera II, and Canelo Casas.

The Lucha Blog site has a comprehensive rundown of his career.

**Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by “Inside the Ropes” in the U.K. and spoke about offers he has received for matches this year. Jericho confirmed what many had assumed, that he doesn’t want to work any non-WWE shows in the United States. Jericho turned down offers from New Japan to work in Long Beach, California this past March and the upcoming Cow Palace event. He also turned down an offer to work the “All In” event in September in Hoffman Estates. Jericho stated that he isn’t working anywhere else for less than six-figures and said this is the most he has ever made for the least amount of matches (referring to the Kenny Omega and Tetsuya Naito matches).

**Season 4 of Lucha Underground premieres tonight at 8 pm Eastern on the El Rey Network and will be picking up from last season’s finale where Dario Cueto was shot inside his office at The Temple. This season will take place from a new location and the first episode will feature Aztec Warfare 4, which is their most-popular match. In Season 3, the Aztec Warfare match did 209,000 viewers between the premiere and the replay later that night. Below is a trailer for the fourth season of the series:

**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of NXT at 8 pm Eastern on the WWE Network:
*Kassius Ohno vs. EC 3
*Bianca Belair vs. Aliyah
*Pete Dunne vs. Kyle O’Reilly for the U.K. title

**Total Bellas has seen a surge in viewership over the past two episodes. The season began with the two least-watched episodes in the series’ history, despite all the publicity surrounding John Cena and Nikki Bella’s breakup. Last week’s episode saw a 30% jump up to 654,000 viewers and this past Sunday’s episode saw a 12% increase to a season-high of 734,000 viewers on E!

**The Bludgeon Brothers vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows tag title match will take place on the kickoff show before Money in the Bank this Sunday in Chicago.

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**AXS TV will be hosting a ‘Bullet Club is Fine’ marathon on Saturday, July 7th from Noon – 8 pm Eastern as a lead in for the G1 special from the Cow Palace. Below is the schedule of matches for the marathon:
*Noon – Kenny Omega vs. Jay White (New Beginning in Sapporo)
*1 pm – Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi vs. Cody & Marty Scurll (Honor Rising 2018)
*2 pm – Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi vs. The Young Bucks (Strong Style Evolved)
*3 pm – Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi vs. Cody & Hangman Page (Sakura Genesis)
*4 pm – Kota Ibushi vs. Cody, Kenny Omega vs. Hangman Page (Dontaku)
*5 pm – EVIL & Sanada vs. The Young Bucks (Dominion)
*6 pm – Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega (Dominion)

**Impact Wrestling has hired interviewer Alicia Atout, who has been running her own YouTube channel for several years interviewing wrestlers and musicians. (UPDATED): PWinsider.com had reported that McKenzie Mitchell had been let go by the company, although Mitchell tweeted, “news to me” in reference to the story of her release. POST Wrestling has reached out for confirmation on Mitchell’s status with the company. PWinsider.com has since apologized for the error.

**EVOLVE has announced a venue change for EVOLVE 106 on Saturday, June 23rd. The event was originally scheduled for La Boom in Queens, New York and will now take place at the Most Precious Blood Youth Center in Brooklyn, New York. Tickets for the event will be honored at the door and if you cannot make it to the new venue, you can contact the promotion for a refund. The June 23rd event is headlined by Matt Riddle vs. Shane Strickland for the EVOLVE championship and Austin Theory vs. Joey Janela for the WWN championship.

**MLW has announced that Jimmy Havoc will take on “Filthy” Tom Lawlor at the next set of television tapings on Thursday, July 12th in Orlando at the Gilt Nightclub.

**The WWE stock closed at $61.70 on Wednesday.

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MMA NEWS

**Season 2 of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series kicked off on Tuesday night on UFC Fight Pass. The show took place from the UFC Gym in Las Vegas with family, friends, and media members in attendance. The intimate setting works much better on this show than it does on Ultimate Fighter, with DWTNCS also featuring commentary for the fights from Brendan Fitzgerald and Michael Bisping. The concept is that five fights take place and at the end of the show, Dana White reveals which fighters will be offered a contract to attach a hook to every show and place meaning on each fight. Below are the results from Tuesday night’s card:
*Kevin Holland def. Will Santiago by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Holland received a lot of criticism for his showboating and joking around throughout the fight. Holland had an enormous 11.5” reach advantage over the shorter Santiago. Santiago landed some power shots but was outworked throughout the fight.
*Montel Jackson def. Rico Disciullo by TKO at 2:15 of Round 3 – Jackson committed the “holy trinity” of fouls with a strike to the back of the head, a low blow, and an eye poke. Of the three fouls, he was deducted two points by referee Herb Dean. Jackson was winning each round, but the point deductions were killing him. Jackson landed a knee flush to the head as Disciullo covered up and the fight was stopped.
*Greg Hardy def. Austen Lane by KO at 0:57 of Round 1 –
Hardy had the most coverage of any fighter ahead of this season because of his domestic violence issues and the questionable decision to use him. Hardy has significant power and rocked Lane with a right hook that dropped him, and a left hand followed.
*Chris Curtis def. Sean Lally by TKO at 1:37 of Round 3 – I had it even going into Round 3 and Curtis started with a sidekick and it turned into a hook kick that dropped Lally and he was stopped with strikes. The unfortunate news was that Curtis broke his hand and will require surgery, he didn’t receive a contract and announced his retirement on Wednesday.
*Alonzo Menifield def. DaShawn Boatwright by TKO at 0:08 of Round 1 – This was one of the shortest fights you are going to see. Boatwright threw a head kick and was countered with a left that set up a huge overhand right and Menifield dropped him and finished him instantly.

Dana White announced that Alonzo Menifield would be offered a UFC contract and they are going to sign Greg Hardy and figure out a plan for him as he acknowledged that Hardy needs more experience.

**Here are the fights for next Tuesday’s edition of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series:
*Matt Sayles vs. Yazan Hajeh – Featherweight
*Jordan Wright vs. Anthony Hernandez – Middleweight
*Giga Chikadze vs. Austin Springer – Featherweight
*Ryan Spann vs. Emiliano Sordi – Light Heavyweight
*Dwight Grant vs. Tyler Hill – Welterweight

**Malki Kawa, who is the agent for Yoel Romero, stated on ‘The MMA Hour’ on Monday that they would be filing legal action against the Illinois State Athletic Commission over the handling of Romero’s weight cut on Friday that led to the middleweight fight with Robert Whittaker being changed to a non-title fight. Romero missed weight on his first attempt and was told he would receive two hours to make the limit of 185 pounds. Romero’s team has stated that after one hour, they were stopped by the Illinois commission when he was at 185.2 pounds and was over the limit. On the live video for the weigh-ins, it is almost exactly two hours between weigh-ins for Romero. POST Wrestling has reached out to members of the Illinois commission to get their side of the story regarding their decision to stop Romero from cutting weight and how much time was left, we have yet to receive a response from the commission.

**Bovada has already released the lines for a hypothetical fight between Jon Jones and Brock Lesnar with Jones listed as the -350 favorite and Lesnar at +260. The same outlet has released a line for Tyron Woodley and Colby Covington, which is expected to take place some time this year and Woodley is listed as a -140 favorite and Covington is a +110 underdog.

**Invicta FC has announced their card for Saturday, July 21st at the Scottish Rite Temple in Kansas City and will air on UFC Fight Pass:
*Jinh Yu Frey vs. Minna Grusander for the Invicta Atomweight title
*Felicia Spencer vs. Helena Kolesnyk – Featherweight
*Heather Jo Clark vs. Kinberly Novaes - Strawweight
*Alexa Conners vs. Kerri Kenneson – Bantamweight
*Brogan Walker-Sanchez vs. Miranda Maverick - Flyweight
*Shino VanHoose vs. Alesha Zappitella - Atomweight
*Stephanie Alba vs. Alyse Anderson – Atomweight
*Erin Blanchfield vs. Brittney Cloud – Flyweight

**LFA 46 will take place on Friday, July 27th on AXS TV from Newport News, Virginia and will be headlined by LFA welterweight champion James Nakashima defending against Kyle Stewart.

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*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE 6/13/18: OTT ‘A Haven for Monsters’, PROGRESS Chapter 71, Rev Pro Live in Southampton, Strong Style Evolved UK cards – with Martin Bushby, Oli Court & JP Houlihan
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/sdh397/POST-WRESTLING-British-Wrestling-Experience-June-13-2018.mp3


REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 6/12/18: History-Making SmackDown, MITB Preview, ROH Planning MSG card – with John Pollock & Keep It 2000’s Nate Milton
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/ms9cw8/REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN-JUNE-12-2018.mp3


REWIND-A-RAW 6/11/18: ‘Hip Hop Legend John Mayer’ – with John Pollock & upNXT’s Davie Portman
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/hkqwn9/REWIND-A-RAW-JUNE-11-2018.mp3


UFC 225 POST SHOW with John Pollock, PHIL & ZIGGY
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/a9bhqe/POST-UFC-225-Review.mp3


NJPW DOMINION REVIEW with John Pollock & WH Park (Patreon)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19347819


THE POST INTERVIEW: Colt Cabana
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/f68qvi/POST-WRESTLING-Colt-Cabana-June-2018.mp3


REWIND-A-WAI – WWF King of the Ring 1993 (Patreon)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19301977/


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