Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/12/pollocks-news-update-batista-comments-on-goldberg-undertaker/
Photo courtesy: WWE
POST IT NOTES
**On the Café Hangout this week, Wai Ting and I were joined by Brendan Docherty from Wrestling Arcade along with Rob Naylor to discuss their Kickstarter project ‘Pro Wrestling’s Greatest Moments Book: A Pixelated Guide’, which they are hoping to fund with a deadline of July 30th. We discussed the popularity of Wrestling Arcade, Brendan’s work with Joey Janela and The Young Bucks, as well as current viewing habits and other topics. Plus, MLW CEO Court Bauer was on the show to discuss the promotion’s first pay-per-view in November, the success they have had with their attendance numbers and lots more.
**Rewind-A-Wai #40 is also out today for members of the POST Wrestling Café as Wai Ting and I review New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom 11 card from January 4, 2017. This event was chosen by our Espresso Executive Producer Scott Douglas, who joined us to discuss his selection and go through the Trivia Gauntlet from that week in 2017. Wai and I provide an extensive review of the Tokyo Dome card, the first match between Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega, and a big week of the news from January 2017.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman have the latest edition of upNXT on the site reviewing Wednesday’s episode. The two will be back on Saturday night with their EVOLVE 131 POST Show and will be available on the upNXT feed.
**Wai Ting and I will have shows after every G1 Climax card this summer for members of the POST Wrestling Café. It’s the best time of the year to sign up with the number of shows out on the Café weekly. We will also have LIVE shows for Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members on Saturday after Fight for the Fallen and Sunday after Extreme Rules. The podcast versions of those shows will be out afterward.
**We have a packed weekend of shows and will have you covered for everything that is going on with the following schedule:
SATURDAY
*AEW Fight for the Fallen POST Show (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*G1 Climax Day 2 Podcast with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
*EVOLVE 131 POST Show with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Cruel Summer “2003” with WH Park and Jojo Remy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Jun Akiyama)
SUNDAY
*WWE Extreme Rules POST Show (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*G1 Climax Day 3 Podcast with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
*Cruel Summer “2004” with WH Park & Joey Bay (Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi)
POST WRESTLING YOUTUBE
WRESTLING NEWS
**This will be one of the busiest weekends of the summer with lots of major cards happening. Among the big shows are two G1 Climax events from Tokyo, the AEW Fight for the Fallen card, EVOLVE 131 & 132 (they are running Sunday night, as well), WWE’s Extreme Rules, plus there is a Bellator show tonight and UFC is in Sacramento on Saturday with Urijah Faber coming out of retirement.
**The G1 Climax returns to Japan with two shows in Tokyo at Ota Ward Gymnasium, beginning Saturday at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World with the following card, including Kota Ibushi still scheduled to work the opening six-man tag in spite of his ankle injury from last weekend:
*Kota Ibushi, Will Ospreay & Yuya Uemura vs. EVIL, Sanada & Bushi
*Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens vs. Lance Archer & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shota Umino & Ren Narita vs. KENTA, Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks
*Kazuchika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Minoru Suzuki
*Shingo Takagi vs. Juice Robinson – B BLOCK
*Jon Moxley vs. Taichi – B BLOCK
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Toru Yano – B BLOCK
*Tomohiro Ishii vs. Jeff Cobb – B BLOCK
*Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto – B BLOCK
**The G1 continues on Sunday at the same venue with a 2 am Eastern start time and the following A Block tournament matches:
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
*Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. KENTA
*Kota Ibushi vs. EVIL
*Will Ospreay vs. Sanada
*Bad Luck Fale vs. Lance Archer
**Dave Bautista is doing a slew of press for the release of ‘Stuber’ that is out this weekend. He spoke with GQ and several wrestling-related topics were brought up including the recent match between The Undertaker and Bill Goldberg in Saudi Arabia. Bautista gave the following answer about how the match came off and speaking to Undertaker before the match and his own decision not to wrestle in Saudi Arabia:
I called, man. I called ‘Taker and said, “Is there any way I could change your mind?” He laughed, and I knew I couldn’t change his mind. He said it sounded good when we first started talking about it. I only saw highlights which were, you know, low lights. it was not good. It’s just bad circumstances all the way around. I feel like Taker’s there for the right reasons. I think he’s there because he still loves it. But I wish that they would utilize him in the right way. I think a novelty match with Goldberg is the wrong way. I just don’t think it’s good for anybody and especially it’s not good for the fans. I wouldn’t have gone to Saudi at all. I don’t care who they would’ve booked me with. I just would not have gone.
But I loved my final match at Wrestlemania, with Hunter. The fans wanted to see two old guys go to war. That’s what we did. That’s the way the match was designed.
**AEW’s Fight for the Fallen event takes place Saturday night from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida and will stream free on B/R Live as well as Fite.tv for $9.99. This will be an interesting show to watch to contrast to Fyter Fest, which received both praise and criticism for various elements with the pre-show singled out as one of the parts of the show that didn’t serve its purpose. The venue will near, if not completely full and holds approximately 5,000 people.
Thus far, AEW has had the Midas touch and their ideas and concepts have been re-enforced with immediate sell outs, incredible sales and influence across the industry. So, when you have constructive criticism that Fyter Fest elicited, how do you respond? Do you stay with your intuition that led to those ideas, or acknowledges when something doesn’t click and adjust? Effective promoters should always be a step ahead of the public when they have a formula that clicks and an ability to lead the audience in the direction you want with the belief you have a great idea that will have its payoff. The stubborn side is not trusting the fanbase when they reject an idea and proving them wrong, which we’ve seen from the most successful promoters in history.
The complicated part to AEW is that it isn’t a singular vision, although Tony Khan appears to be the last line of defense that signs off. You have several incredibly smart executives that have been raised on various styles and influenced in different ways that are attempting to present their vision of wrestling and there will inevitably be collisions along the way. That is an interesting part to watch and see how they maneuver when their ideas clash and the management of ideas. From the outside looking in, having the different executives take their pieces of the pie with the Bucks overseeing the tag division, Kenny Omega and Brandi Rhodes with the women’s division, etc. allows for a wider variation and avoids a show coming across as ‘uniform’ or falling into the trap of one set of tropes unique to the company.
This show isn’t going to answer long-term questions, it’s an evolutionary process as AEW seeks its deeper identity that may be radically different from their mindset today versus a year from now. All that said, that’s part of the draw of AEW is that it feels like a fresh canvas and there is a large amount of confidence in those with the most influence.
**Here is the updated card for Fight for the Fallen with several new matched added over the past two days. The pre-show begins Saturday night at 7:30 pm Eastern and the main show streams live at 8:15 pm:
*The Young Bucks vs. Cody & Dustin Rhodes
*Kenny Omega vs. CIMA
*Brandi Rhodes vs. Allie
*Hangman Page vs. Kip Sabian
*Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix
*Dr. Britt Baker & Riho vs. Bea Priestley & Shoko Nakajima
*Dark Order vs. Angelico & Jack Evans vs. Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus – The winning team goes to All Out for a chance at receiving a bye in the tag title tournament
*Shawn Spears, MJF & Sammy Guevara vs. Joey Janela, Jimmy Havoc & Darby Allin
*Sonny Kiss vs. Peter Avalon on the ‘Buy-in’ pre-show
**The Raw crew has a show in Augusta, Maine tonight and Springfield, Maine on Saturday. The SmackDown crew is in Petersburg, Virginia on Saturday with Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler, Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair, Finn Balor vs. Ali vs. Andrade, and Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. Heavy Machinery advertised. The Extreme Rules card is Sunday night at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia.
**Tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 10 pm Eastern will feature a three-way match with Jordynne Grace vs. Kiera Hogan vs. Madison Rayne that was taped last Sunday before the pay-per-view. The show will feature lots of taped content, including comments from various Impact officials on Slammiversary from this past weekend.
**This is a big weekend for EVOLVE with their debut on the WWE Network and it prompted reporter David Bixenspan to unearth some information regarding two outstanding liens. In Bixenspan’s research, he found two liens from the New Jersey Division of Taxation listed for World Wrestling Network, Inc., totaling $14,901.72 from unpaid taxes since March 13, 2014. The company ran shows in New Jersey over WrestleMania weekend in 2013 in New Jersey and have not promoted shows within the state since. A clerk court confirmed the liens are still active and unpaid with $10,450.86 listed for World Wrestling Network. Inc. and $4,450.86 against WWN owner Sal Hamaoui. Furthermore, World Wrestling Network, Inc. was voluntarily dissolved on April 29, 2016, after a new company named WWN, Inc. had been formed the prior September.
**Here is the full card for the EVOLVE 131 event on Saturday night at 8 pm Eastern from the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and streaming on the WWE Network:
*Adam Cole vs. Akira Tozawa for the NXT championship
*Austin Theory vs. JD Drake in a Winner Take All match for the WWN & EVOLVE titles
*Eddie Kingston & Joe Gacy vs. AR Fox & Leon Ruff for the EVOLVE tag titles
*Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak
*Anthony Henry vs. Arturo Ruas
*Brandi Lauren vs. Shotzi Blackheart
*Babatunde vs. Colby Corino
*Sean Maluta vs. Harlem Bravado vs. Curt Stallion vs. Stephen Wolf
*Josh Briggs vs. Anthony Greene
**Starrcast has announced that Jim Ross will be doing a sit-down interview with Jon Moxley at the convention on Friday, August 30th during All Out weekend. SI.com announced the news along with Moxley scheduled for a meet-and-greet that day, as well. Moxley will be taking on Kenny Omega the following night at the Sears Center in Chicago.
**Nomi Whalen, the widow of Stampede Wrestling announcer Ed Whalen, passed away on Thursday at the age of 87. Nomi was a Calgary councilor and helped launch the Albert Human Rights Commission and served as a marriage commissioner. She will be buried next to her husband, who passed away in December 2001.
**Dave Bautista appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live to discuss his decision to retire at WrestleMania this past year, a surprise appearance from his co-star Kumail Nanjiani, and a parody trailer.
**The Huffington Post is reporting on the contents of several alleged messages sent by Tyrus (George Murdoch) to his former Fox Nation co-host Britt McHenry. The two had been hosting the program ‘UN-PC’ on Fox Nation, which is the network’s streaming service with Tyrus being taken off the show this past April and given his own program called ‘NuffSaid’. It is alleged that Tyrus sent several inappropriate messages to McHenry from November 2018 until January 2019 with an investigation into the matter launched by Fox News, although Huffington Post reports that Tyrus was not suspended during the investigation.
**EVOLVE has added one more match to Saturday’s special on the WWE Network as Shotzi Blackheart will face Brandi Lauren.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Alex Shelley will be challenging for the ROH title at their Summer Spectacular event on Friday, August 9th at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto. The event will feature talent from New Japan and CMLL over SummerSlam weekend in the city. The promotion has also announced a six-man tag with Caristico, Soberano Jr. & Stuka Jr. vs. Barbaro Cavernario, Hechicero & Templario from CMLL.
**Jake Atlas is the ninth name announced for PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament in September.
**Ring of Honor has announced Brian Johnson, Dante Caballero, Joe Keys, and Dak Draper for their annual Top Prospects tournament that begins July 21st in Lowell, Massachusetts.
**MLW has announced that Austin Aries will take on Ace Austin at Never Say Never on Thursday, July 25th at the Melrose Ballroom tapings.
**DEFY has announced that Brian Cage has withdrawn from their card on July 26th ‘due to injury’ and they announced a new match between Christopher Daniels and SCHAFF for the event at Washington Hall in Seattle that night.
**Tickets for MLW’s Saturday SuperFight pay-per-view will go on sale this Monday at 11 am Eastern starting at $15. The card takes place on Saturday, November 2nd at Cicero Stadium in Illinois and will be available on DirecTV, InDemand, DISH Network, and streaming on Fite.tv.
**The WWE stock closed at $73.18 on Friday.
**Brock Lesnar turns 42 years old today while Shane Helms is 45, and Sami Zayn is 35.
**There is a band out of Toronto named POWERBOMB and they have just released a new album called ‘No Mercy’ with a heavy influence from professional wrestling. Tracks on the album include ‘Nitro’, ‘Bang Bang’, ‘Rest in Peace’, ‘Curb Stomp’, ‘One Winged Angel’ and ‘American Nightmare’. The album is available for $5 digitally or you can buy their CD for $10.
**Insane Championship Wrestling’s tribute for Adrian ‘Lionheart’ McCallum:
MMA NEWS
**All the fighters made weight for the UFC’s Fight Night card on ESPN+ Saturday. There was a scary moment where Aspen Ladd was getting onto the scale and was shaking as she had to use the curtain. She did make the limit and was cleared to go ahead and fight tomorrow night despite the concern from those watching. Below are the results from today’s weigh-ins:
MAIN CARD (8 pm Eastern on ESPN+)
*Germaine de Randamie (136) vs. Aspen Ladd (135)
*Urijah Faber (135.5) vs. Ricky Simon (134.5)
*Josh Emmett (146) vs. Mirsad Bektic (145)
*Karl Roberson (185.5) vs. Wellington Turman (185)
*Cezar Ferreira (185.5) vs. Marvin Vettori (185.5)
PRELIMINARY CARD (5 pm on ESPN+)
*Mike Rodriguez (204.5) vs. John Allan (203)
*Andre Fili (145.5) vs. Sheymon Moraes (146)
*Nicco Montano (135.5) vs. Julianna Pena (135.5)
*Ryan Hall (144.5) vs. Darren Elkins (145.5)
*Liu Pingyuan (136) vs. Jonathan Martinez (136)
*Livinha Souza (116) vs. Brianna Van Buren (115)
*Vince Morales (135.5) vs. Benito Lopez (136)
**UFC heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier sat down with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto to discuss next month’s rematch with Stipe Miocic. In the interview, Cormier said he did a four-week pre-camp before the official training began to see where his body was after back surgery. Cormier noted he had gotten up to 261 pounds following back surgery and was the heaviest has ever weighed. For his last two fights, Cormier weighed in at 246 pounds for the first fight with Miocic in July 2018 and was 251.2 against Derrick Lewis last November. Regarding a potential third fight with Jon Jones, Cormier said if it were to happen, he would prefer going to light heavyweight with his reasoning that he wants to beat Jones at the weight class where Jones defeated him. Cormier’s coach Bob Cook disagrees and doesn’t want to see Cormier go back down to light heavyweight because it takes so much out of him.
**Bellator returns tonight with a card from Thackerville, Oklahoma and will be airing on the Paramount Network and DAZN. While the UFC will run a card all but one weekend this summer, Bellator only has two shows on the schedule this summer including tonight. They will not hold another card until August 24th and have also announced a big show for the SAP Center in San Jose on September 7th. Here is the card for tonight’s show:
*Julia Budd (12-2) vs. Olga Rubin (6-0) for the Bellator women’s featherweight title – Budd is looking to make her third defense of the title. Rubin has only been fighting since 2016 and is 6-0 with wins over Cindy Dandois and Iony Razafiarison in her last two fights.
*Rafael Carvalho (15-3) vs. Chidi Njokuani (18-6) – Carvalho is coming off losses to Gegard Mousasi and Lyoto Machida.
*Julianna Velasquez (8-0) vs. Kristina Williams (3-1)
*Kiichi Kunimoto (20-7-2) vs. Ed Ruth (6-1) – Ruth is coming off his first loss to Neiman Gracie back in December.
On the preliminary card, Leslie Smith will make her Bellator debut against Sinead Kavanagh in a featherweight fight, which is a tough fight for Kavanagh and grappling wizard AJ Agazarm will have his second Bellator fight when he takes on Jacob Landin after losing his debut fight.
**LFA has a card on AXS TV tonight at 9 pm Eastern with Jason Jackson taking on Hemerson Souza in the main event for the vacant LFA welterweight title.
**Bellator 228 is officially set for The Forum in Inglewood, California on Saturday, September 28th. As reported earlier this week by Ariel Helwani at ESPN, Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire will defend the featherweight title against Juan Archuleta in the first round of the upcoming Featherweight Grand Prix. The promotion has also announced a middleweight fight between Lyoto Machida and Gegard Mousasi for the card. The two middleweights fought in February 2014 when they were with the UFC with Machida winning by unanimous decision.
**The Fighters Only World MMA Awards will air on the CBS Sports Network tonight at 9 pm Eastern. The ceremony took place last week in Las Vegas during International Fight Week and was hosted by Dolph Lundgren.
**Here are the results from the PFL’s card on Thursday night from Atlantic City:
*Magomed Magomedkerimov def. Chris Curtis by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-26)
*Kayla Harrison def. Morgan Frier by submission at 3:35 of Round 1
*Joao Zeferino def. Bojan Velickovic by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*John Howard def. Ray Cooper III by TKO at 3:23 of Round 1
*Glaico Franca def. Sadibou Sy by TKO at 4:29 of Round 3
*David Michaud def. Handesson Ferreira by TKO at 4:37 of Round 1
*Larissa Pacheco def. Bobbi Jo Dalziel by armbar at 2:31 of Round 1
*Genah Fabian def. Moriel Charneski by TKO at 1:42 of Round 1
**In the women’s lightweight tournament, Kayla Harrison and Sarah Kaufman are tied for first with nine points followed by Genah Fabian and Larissa Pacheco with six points. Bobbi Jo Dalziel, Roberta Samad, Morgan Frier, and Moriel Charneski have been eliminated from the playoffs with three points or fewer.
**In the men’s welterweight tournament, Glaico Franca is on top with ten points, Magomed Magomedkerimov has nine points followed by John Howard, David Michaud & Sadiboy Sy with six points, Ray Cooper II with five points, Chris Curtis with four, and Andre Fialho has three points and they have clinched the playoffs. Handesson Ferreira (3), Joao Zeferino (3), Bojan Velickovic (0), Gamzat Khiramagomedov (0), and Zane Kamaka (0) have been eliminated.
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT
On this week’s Café Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting talk to Wrestling Arcade’s Brendan Docherty and Rob Naylor about their new book. Court Bauer then joins us to discuss MLW’s first PPV, Saturday Night SuperFight.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/12/mlws-court-bauer-wrestling-arcade-cafe-hangout/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #40: NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11 (Patreon)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11 featuring Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega in their legendary 6-star match from the Tokyo Dome on January 4th, 2017.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/11/rewind-a-wai-40-njpw-wrestle-kingdom-11/
*****
upNXT 7/11/19: “Shirai Gets Me High”
The BDE chat all about WWE NXT including Io Shirai’s new “heel” look, Boa vs. Jordan Myles from the NXT Breakout Tournament, The Brit-Am Brawlers vs. The Street Profits for the NXT Tag Team Championship and Damien Priest in action.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/11/upnxt-7-11-19-shirai-gets-me-high/
*****
BWE 7/10/19: Progress Ch. 90 & 92, EVE Wrestle Queendom 2, Riptide Wrestling
Martin and Jamesie are back with Benno to talk Pro Wrestling EVE Wrestle Queendom 2 (Kay Lee Ray vs. Viper), Riptide Wrestling Point Break (PAC vs. Cara Noir) and Zack Sabre Jr. & Will Ospreay in this years NJPW G1 Climax.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/10/bwe-7-10-19-progress-ch-90-92-eve-wrestle-queendom-2-riptide-wrestling-rev-pro-ungovernable/
*****
RASD 7/9/19: Au-Steen vs. McMahon, Extreme Rules Preview
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown featuring Roman Reigns vs. Dolph Ziggler in the main event heading into Extreme Rules.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/10/rasd-7-9-19-au-steen-vs-mcmahon-extreme-rules-preview/
*****
RAR 7/8/19: Cedric the Sports Entertainer
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Monday’s Extreme Rules go-home edition of WWE Raw featuring the main event where Roman Reigns teamed with a masked janitor against Shane McMahon & Drew McIntyre.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/09/rar-7-8-19-cedric-the-sports-entertainer/
*****
IMPACT SLAMMIVERSARY 2019 POST SHOW
John Pollock is joined by Nate Milton to review the Slammiversary card from Dallas, the Intergender main event, the state of Impact Wrestling & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/08/impact-slammiversary-2019-post-show/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Masahiro Chono vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (2002)
WH Park welcomes back the Eastern Lariat’s, Dylan Fox to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 12th G1 Climax tournament: Masahiro Chono vs. Yoshihiro Takayama from August 11, 2002.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/cruel-summer-12-masahiro-chono-vs-yoshihiro-takayama-2002-w-dylan-fox/
*****
G1 CLIMAX 29 POST SHOW: Opening Night
John Pollock & Wai Ting review every tournament match from the G1 Climax 29. Day 1 (July 6) is headlined by Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/g1-climax-29-post-show-opening-night-okada-vs-tanahashi-free-preview/
*****
Browse the new POST Wrestling Store
https://store.postwrestling.com
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum
https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café
http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling