POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE - CM Punk to decide on his fighting future by the end of 2018

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/11/pollocks-news-update-cm-punk-to-decide-on-his-fighting-future-by-the-end-of-2018/

POST IT NOTES

**Today’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw features Wai Ting and I reviewing Raw from New Orleans, the return of Mick Foley and addition to Hell in a Cell, The Shield’s strange manipulation of law enforcement, Ronda Rousey’s tag match, Renee Young being added to the Raw team permanently, the Cody vs. Nick Aldis rematch, Nicco Montano being stripped of the flyweight title, and I review AQUA’s concert from Saturday night in Toronto. You can download the show directly or subscribe to POST Wrestling on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts.

**Wai Ting and I will be back tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown to chat tonight’s show from Lafayette and we will also preview the full Hell in a Cell card and take your questions & feedback.

**We will also have our weekly “Double Shot” show coming out Wednesday morning with reviews of the last week’s Lucha Underground episode, the Jay Lethal vs. Jonathan Gresham Ironman match, and last week’s 47-minute episode of “Being the Elite”. This show will be up for all members of the POST Wrestling Café.

**WH Park will return on Wednesday for POST PURORESU. The two of us will be chatting this month’s Destruction cards from New Japan, the recent tag match with the Golden Lovers vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Will Ospreay, mixing up the juniors with the heavyweights, the Naomichi Marufuji 20th anniversary card, an update on Stardom’s 5 Star Grand Prix, the Takayamania Empire benefit show for Yoshihiro Takayama, Zeus’ first defense of the Triple Crown, Shingo Takagi going freelance and WH’s picks for best match, show & performer of the past month.

**The feedback thread for this week’s Rewind-A-Wai on UFC 194 (Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor) is up on the POST Wrestling Forum.


**This Sunday night, Wai Ting and I will be doing a live video stream of our review of WWE’s Hell in a Cell for “Double Double”, “Iced Capp”, & “Espresso” members of the POST Wrestling Café. We will be going live immediately after the show wraps up and then the podcast version will up later that night for everyone.

**We are also going back to re-watch the Mick Foley vs. The Undertaker Hell in a Cell match and that re-watch with our commentary will be out Friday for “Double Double” and higher members of the POST Wrestling Café.

WRESTLING NEWS

**With today marking 17 years since the tragedy of 9/11 in September 2001, the WWE has posted a short interview that Renee Young conducted with Zelina Vega (Thea Trinidad), whose father died in the World Trade Center that day. Michael Angel Trinidad was only 33 years old and was on the 103rd floor of the tower and called home to say goodbye that morning when Thea was only 10 years old. The two had bonded over pro wrestling because Thea’s father was a huge fan, specifically of The Rock and eventually Thea got to meet Dwayne Johnson and tell him about her late father.

**Tonight’s SmackDown & 205 Live tapings take place from the Cajundome in Lafayette, Louisiana for the final set of shows leading into Sunday’s Hell in a Cell event. In a rarity, they have announced most of the matches ahead of time for tonight’s show with the following advertised:
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy
*Charlotte Flair vs. Sonya Deville in a non-title match
*Sheamus & Cesaro vs. Rusev & Aiden English to determine the #1 contenders for the New Day
*Andrade Cien Almas vs. R-Truth
*Maryse vs. Brie Bella
*Buddy Murphy vs. Gran Metalik on 205 Live
*Cedric Alexander & Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak & Jack Gallagher on 205 Live

**Ring of Honor has announced they will be streaming this Friday’s CMLL 85th Anniversary card on the Honor Club service. The card takes place from CMLL’s home base of Arena Mexico and the broadcast is scheduled to begin at 8:30 pm Eastern but will only have Spanish language commentary. CMLL’s anniversary usually produces one of the best atmospheres of the year, although this year’s card lacks the major match of year’s past where a significant mask is on the line. They had been teasing a match between LA Park and Rush, but that match never came together. An interesting note is that Impact Wrestling will also be running shows this Thursday and Friday in Mexico City, including running head-to-head with CMLL’s major show of the year. Pentagon Jr. and Fenix are being advertised for both shows on Friday, which is not logistically impossible as the venues are only ten minutes away from each other but more so a political deal with Impact running against CMLL and talent able to work both. Below is the card for Friday’s CMLL Anniversary card:
*Volador Jr. & Matt Taven vs. Rush & Barbaro Cavernario in a Double Hair vs. Hair match
*Penta El 0 M, King Phoenix (Fenix) & Diamante Azul vs. Caristico, El Hijo de L.A. Park & L.A. Park
*Gran Guerrero, Euforia & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Ciber the Main Man, The Chrizh & Sharlie Rockstar for the CMLL trios championships
*Atlantis, Mistico & El Soberano vs. El Cuatero, Sanson & Forastero
*Negro Casas, Mephisto & El Felino vs. Angel de Oro, Niebla Roja & Audaz
*La Jarochita, Marcela & Princesa Sugehit vs. Dalys la Caribena, La Maligna & Reyna Isis

**Impact Wrestling has priced the tickets for this week’s tapings in Mexico from $10 - $32 (U.S.) before service fees.


**The Undertaker is scheduled to appear on next week’s episode of Raw from Dallas, Texas.

**The following matches are scheduled for this week’s episode of the Mae Young Classic on the WWE Network:
*Priscilla Kelly vs. Deonna Purrazzo
*Zeuxis vs. Ariel Monroe
*Reina Gonzalez vs. Kacy Catanzaro
*Mercedes Martinez vs. Ashley Rayne a.k.a. Madison Rayne

**PWG will be holding their biggest shows of the year this weekend in Los Angeles with the annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament. The three-day event begins Friday and runs through Sunday at the Globe Theatre and the is the first time in ten years the tournament has taken place outside of Reseda. The tournament will feature the following opening round matches spread out between Friday and Saturday: Adam Brooks vs. Rey Horus, Puma King vs. Flamita, Brody King vs. PCO, Joey Janela vs. David Starr, T-Hawk vs. Bandido, CIMA vs. Jody Fleisch, Walter vs. Timothy Thatcher, Jeff Cobb vs. Darby Allin, Jonah Rock vs. Sammy Guevara, Trevor Lee vs. Chris Brookes, Robbie Eagles vs. DJ Z, and Shingo Takagi vs. Ilja Dragunov.

**Pat Laprade of TVA Sports spoke with Mick Foley about the anniversary of the Hell in a Cell match and Foley’s one-man show that heads to Montreal on Wednesday.

**Tickets for the NWA’s 70th Anniversary card go on sale this Friday and will be priced from $19.48 (in honor of the year of the NWA’s formation) up to $70 for ringside seats. The event will feature the rematch between Cody and Nick Aldis for the NWA championship and takes place from the Nashville Fairgrounds on Sunday, October 21st with the show being streamed live on FITE TV.

**Paul Heyman turns 53-years old today.

**Smart Mark Video has uploaded the performance by Wheatus at Joey Janela’s Lost in New York show from last month in New York:

POST WRESTLING POLL

Which of the following non-WWE television programs do you follow most consistently?

Ring of Honor – 47%

Impact Wrestling – 22%
MLW Fusion – 16%
Lucha Underground – 15%


MMA NEWS

**CM Punk (Phil Brooks) appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show on ESPN Monday to promote Ultimate Beastmasters, which was released on Netflix last month. Punk listed off the movie projects he has been working on and was non-committal on a return to mixed martial arts. He stated he would decide by the end of the year and added that it wasn’t “UFC or bust” for him, suggesting he would be open to fighting elsewhere if he wasn’t retained by the promotion. He showed no desire to entertain the idea of professional wrestling, although he was presented with an invitation to “All In”, although it was a vague invite with no specifics discussed and he was shooting his recent film that day regardless. He referred to professional as an “escape hatch” and wasn’t interested in anything with pro wrestling. He was asked about Colby Covington’s character and wasn’t receptive to his tactics, calling the act “racist” and didn’t care for him or the approach.

**UFC lightweight Michael Chiesa has filed a lawsuit against Conor McGregor stemming from the bus attack in Brooklyn this past April during UFC 223 fight week. TMZ reported the news with Chiesa filing in the state of New York claiming he suffered severe emotional distress, mental trauma and/or bodily harm and suing McGregor for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Chiesa has also listed the Barclays Center in the suit for not providing proper security measures to protect them. The incident occurred after media day where McGregor and company stormed the arena as fighters were getting onto the bus and proceeded to attack with a guardrail and dolly being thrown. The dolly smashed a window of the bus causing Chiesa to be cut on the forehead and was unable to be cleared to fight that Saturday at the event. Chiesa has spoken about the ripple effect that he believed he could have been the one chosen to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov in the main event after Max Holloway was forced to withdraw and Al Iaquinta took the fight one one-days notice.

**The UFC 228 preliminary fights on FX from this past Saturday didn’t perform well with an average viewership of 560,000 viewers. It’s a good comparison with last month’s UFC 227 card because the prelims on that show also aired on FS 1 and averaged 717,000 viewers so it was down 22% from last month. The difference can likely be attributed to the college football competition they faced this past weekend on ABC and ESPN. The UFC 228 prelims featured Tatiana Suarez destroying Carla Esparza in the featured prelim bout. The UFC 228 pre-fight show on FX averaged 271,000 viewers at 7 pm.


*****
REWIND-A-RAW 9/10/18: Mick Foley returns, Alexa “ribs” Ronda, John reviews AQUA
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Raw from New Orleans with Mick Foley’s return, Ronda Rousey wrestles, The Shield overcomes law enforcement, the day’s top news stories, plus John reviews the AQUA concert from Toronto on Saturday night.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/11/rewind-a-raw-9-10-18-foley-returns-alexa-ribs-ronda-john-reviews-aqua/


UFC 228 POST SHOW
John Pollock reviews Saturday’s UFC 228 card from Dallas featuring Tyron Woodley defending the welterweight title against Darren Till, an excellent fight from Irene Aldana and Lucie Pudilova, big wins for Jim Miller & Diego Sanchez, Nicco Montano stripped of her flyweight title, UFC 229 look ahead & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/09/ufc-228-post-show-with-john-pollock/


EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 2000 w/ Joe Gagne
Chris Charlton is joined by Joe Gagne and travel back to 2000 with the year NOAH was formed, New Japan and All Japan work together, Jushin Liger moves to heavyweight, the circumstances behind Zero-One forming, “DO Judge!!” & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/08/eggshells-podcast-companion-2000-w-joe-gagne/


ASK-A-WAI: Live at Starrcast (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting’s live show from Starrcast during “All In” weekend where they spent close to 90 minutes taking questions from the live audience and chatting a wide range of topics.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/07/ask-a-wai-live-at-starrcast-september-2018/


upNXT & Forever Young 9/6/18: Gargano vs. Dream, Mae Young Classic
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman have returned from Chicago with their road trip stories and then chat about this week’s edition of NXT and the premiere episode of the Mae Young Classic
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/06/upnxt-forever-young-9-6-18-gargano-vs-dream-mae-young-classic/


BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE 9/5/18: Progress Chapter 75, OTT Wrestlerama 2, Defiant Stacked ’18, WOS, Wrestling MediaCon
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/05/bwe-9-5-18-progress-ch-75-ott-wrestlerama-2-defiant-stacked-18-world-of-sport-wrestling-mediacon/


THE DOUBLE SHOT 9/5/18: “King of Strong Style” by Shinsuke Nakamura & John’s “Mystery Review”
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/05/double-shot-9-6-18-king-of-strong-style-by-shinsuke-nakamura-johns-mystery-review/


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2 Likes

That Zelina Vega interview is heartbreaking. It’s the first time I had heard her story.