Originally published at POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE: Colby Covington doesn't get a pass
POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is tonight with Wai Ting and I reviewing WWE Raw, discussing the latest news items, taking your feedback, and previewing the week coming up at POST Wrestling.
**Tuesday night, we will release this month’s edition of the ASK-A-WAI Mailbag Show and you can still submit questions for this month’s show on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Wai Ting and I have begun our annual G1 Climax podcast with our show following the first show available for free on the site. If you are a member of the POST Wrestling Café, you will have access to all 19 shows over the next month including our review of Day 2. There will be G1 shows coming out Wednesday, Thursday & Sunday this week. On Sunday’s show, it will be hosted by Wai Ting and Mike Murray.
**Wai Ting was a guest on Ennui Talk with Matthew Winter discussing POST Wrestling:
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw will be going up against the Monday Night Football game with the New Orleans Saints against the Las Vegas Raiders. Unlike last week, the game will be broadcast on ABC and ESPN, so the reach will wider than last week’s game. Tonight’s show is the go-home Raw before Clash of Champions this weekend and the following is being advertised:
*Drew McIntyre vs. Keith Lee
*Seth Rollins & Murphy vs. Angel Garza & Andrade vs. Dominik Mysterio & Humberto Carrillo – the winners challenge The Street Profits at Clash of Champions
*Braun Strowman vs. Dabba-Kato on Raw Underground
**Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,037,000 viewers falling 12.5 percent from last week’s high point since April and the show’s lowest viewership since the debut of the ThunderDome last month. The show did a 0.5 in the 18-49 demographic, which tied ABC’s special report on the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that night’s edition of 20/20 on ABC. On cable, the big competition was from the NBA playoff game between Denver and the Lakers that did 4,921,000 viewers going against the second hour of SmackDown. With the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, all the cable news outlets were up due to their coverage.
**In Canada, SmackDown averaged 223,700 and was the fifth most-watched sports broadcast of the night behind the two games involving the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies, the NBA game between Denver and Los Angeles, and an episode of Blue Jays Central. SmackDown also did 126,500 in the 25-54 demo. The episode of WWE Main Event that aired right after SmackDown did 80,000 viewers.
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reports that Tom Phillips is expected back on Raw tonight. He has been off the previous two weeks, but no reason was given for his absence. Johnson also reports that Jerry Lawler is in Orlando.
**The Speaking Out movement was recently addressed during a House of Commons debate with Member of Parliament Alex Davies-Jones addressing the House:
Now while it’s easy to get lost in the statistics, these numbers really do matter, particularly and traditionally in male-dominated sports such as wrestling. The disturbing reality and lived experience for many female wrestlers is, more often than not, entrenched in misogyny. I have heard horrific tales from female wrestlers who were faced with threats of rape or sexual assault all in the name of friendly banter. I have also heard from women as young as 13 or 14 who at the start of their careers were the targets of vile behaviors that saw male wrestlers competing to be the first to take their virginity.
The Me-Too movement shone a light on the inherent misogyny that persists across so many industries but less well known is the Speaking Out Movement that has tainted the wrestling industry with its harrowing stories of emotional and sexual abuse. These behaviors are disgraceful, yet they continue to persist and ultimately, the sports industry urgently needs more regulation.
The UK government has a responsibility to engage proactively with governing bodies to support women and bring an end to this abuse. I would be interested to know how many meetings the Minister has had with governing bodies to discuss misogyny in sport? What tests has his department put in place to hold these institutions to account, particularly when there is no governing body to hold to account?
**There is a transcript of the entire debate including the comments from Davies-Jones.
**NXT has revealed the final entrant for this Wednesday’s Gauntlet Eliminator with Bronson Reed joining KUSHIDA, Cameron Grimes, Kyle O’Reilly, and Timothy Thatcher. The winner of this week’s match will challenge Finn Balor for the NXT title at TakeOver on Sunday, October 4th. There will also be a women’s battle royal this Wednesday to determine the challenger for Io Shirai at TakeOver.
**Masato Yoshino avoided retirement winning Dragon Gate’s annual Six-Way Steel Cage Match over Yamato, KAI, Eita, BxB Hulk, and Big R Shimizu. If Yoshino lost, he was to shave his head immediately and then have a farewell match against Naruki Doi and retire. It came down to Yoshino and Big R Shimizu, which means Shimizu must leave R.E.D, get a crew cut, and wrestle under his real name of Ryotsu Shimizu. KAI was the first to escape the cage and therefore, he will join R.E.D. As well, Eita failed to escape the cage first and that means he must defend the Open the Dream Gate Championship against a member of Dragon Gate Generation in his first title defense since winning it in August. Below are the results from the show:
*Masato Yoshino over Big R Shimizu, Eita, KAI, Yamato & BxB Hulk in the six-way steel cage match
*Jason Lee & Kota Minoura over Dragon Kid & Susumu Yokosuka to retain the Open the Twin Gate titles
*Takashi Yoshida, Kazma Sakamoto & Diamante over Ben-K, Strong Machine & Dragon Dia to win the Open the Triangle Gate titles
*Kzy over Naruki Doi
*Masaaki Mochizuki, Ultimo Dragon & Shuji Kondo over Genki Horiguchi, Don Fujii & Ryo Saito
*Keisuke Okuda, Problem Dragon, UT & Punch Tominaga over Yasushi Kanda, Kagetora, Gamma & Ho Ho Lun
*Kaito Ishida over Yosuke Santa Maria to retain the Open the Brave Gate title
*HYO and Kento Kobune fought to a five-minute draw (Source: http://www.purolove.com/)
**Melina Perez issued a statement over the weekend denying that she has signed with WWE, although acknowledged there being talks. This followed a report from PWinsider.com that the former WWE talent had come to terms on a return to the company.
POST Wrestling has not been able to confirm the report, although it goes without saying that Mike Johnson is an extremely reputable reporter. Below is a portion of Perez’s lengthy statement she posted:
I AM NOT signed with the WWE. But that doesn’t mean it is not a possibility. My reason for this post is that it bothers me that these sites lie to fans. If I potentially get signed, don’t forgive them for lying to you. I know there are those that aren’t a fan of mine, but I still will care about them as I do my own fans. I don’t like when people lie to you and/or bring your hopes up. You deserve better than that. YOU should demand better than that. They think it’s ok to pull these stunts because you’ll still follow or click that link. You should follow sites that don’t treat you like you’re stupid and do not lie to you. It seems like a lot of wrestling news sites do that though. I don’t know what my future will hold but I know 2020 has taken so much from me. From all of us. Going back home to the WWE would feel like everything I’ve gone through was for this very moment. But we don’t know what’s going to happen.
**WWE announced a distribution deal with the iQIYI Sports out of China that will begin broadcasting Raw and SmackDown in Mandarin & English as options. The deal will see those in mainland China with access to the two programs along with the launch of a subscription-based video-on-demand service that will carry its monthly pay-per-view events and archives.
**Kevin Kelly provided the following update regarding English-language commentary for the G1 Climax events:
Ok apologies for any delay but @azucarRoc and I have finished English commentary for nights 1&2 for #G1CLIMAX30. Files have been sent and expected on World in a day or so. We will be recording commentary until the final 3 nights when we’ll do it live, pal. @njpwworld
**The United Wrestling Network returns Tuesday night with its follow-up show after a tumultuous debut last week. On the premiere, the series was plagued by streaming issues that left many unsatisfied while the main event was limited in time due to the hard out at 90 minutes. With the best of circumstances, the UWN will have to work hard to carve out a sustainable customer base weekly, and even on a non-WWE night like Tuesday, there are still several free alternatives when it comes to first-run wrestling programming. If they have a flawless broadcast, then the first week will be a distant memory but it’s imperative they have those issues addressed and re-addressed to avoid any issues this week. They have announced the following matches for the card on Tuesday night at 9 pm Eastern airing on Fite TV and InDemand:
*Thunder Rosa vs. Priscilla Kelly for the NWA Women’s Championship
*Eli Drake vs. Watts
*Danny Limelight vs. Kevin Martenson
*The Real Money Brothers vs. The Friendship Farm
*Karl Fredericks will appear
**Former NWA champion Jack Brisco would have turned 79 years old today. The legendary figure passed away in 2010 at the age of 68. After he died, Dave Meltzer broke an extensive story on his career in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, which the site has posted for free.
**The WWE stock fell 2 percent on Monday closing at $39.36.
**Being the Elite ended with Matt Jackson re-visiting a tweet he sent out years ago promising The Young Bucks would face The Revival. The episode also features an appearance from Sue, who may be in the running for rookie of the year with Dominik Mysterio. Once again, John Silver was the highlight of the episode.
**MLW has added its Saturday Night SuperFight card from November 2019 to DAZN as part of their new pact. The pay-per-view card featured Jacob Fatu defending the MLW heavyweight title against L.A. Park in the main event.
**This Sunday, WWE will run its next Broken Skull Sessions with Steve Austin speaking to Kurt Angle.
**All Japan Pro Wrestling has launched an English-language Twitter account.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH’s N-1 Victory tournament resumes Tuesday morning with a show at Korakuen Hall with the following tournament matches and point totals in brackets:
*Go Shiozaki (2) vs. Kazushi Sakuraba (2) – Block A
*Kaito Kiyomiya (1) vs. Masa Kitamiya (0) – Block A
*Naomichi Marufuji (2) vs. Takashi Sugiura (4) – Block B
*Kenoh (0) vs. Shuhei Tanigichi (0) – Block B
**Here are results of the Champion Carnival tournament matches from All Japan’s show on Sunday from Korakuen Hall:
*Jake Lee over Kuma Arashi
*Shotaro Ashino over Shuji Ishikawa
*Zeus over Suwama
*Kento Miyahara over Yuma Aoyagi – this match was said to be very good and the best on the show
**In the updated standings for the Carnival, the A Block is led by Jake Lee & Zeus with six points, Suwama & Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio have two points, and Kuma Arashi has zero. The B Block has a three-way tie with Kento Miyahara, Shuji Ishikawa & Yuma Aoyagi with four points, Shotaro Ashino has two, and Yoshitatsu has zero.
**The next Carnival show is on Saturday with Zeus vs. Jake Lee, Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio vs. Kuma Arashi, Kento Miyahara vs. Shuji Ishikawa (a big match in the tournament), and Shotaro Ashino vs. Yoshitatsu. The finals are October 5th at Korakuen Hall.
UPCOMING SHOWS
*Tonight at 8 pm ET: WWE Raw
*Tuesday morning: NOAH’s N-1 Victory at Korakuen Hall
*Tuesday at 7 pm: AEW Dark on YouTube
*Tuesday at 8 pm: Impact Wrestling on AXS TV
*Tuesday at 9 pm: United Wrestling Network’s Primetime LIVE on FITE TV
*Tuesday TBA: Late Night AEW Dynamite on TNT
*Wednesday at 5:30 am: G1 Climax Block A
*Wednesday at 8 pm: WWE NXT on the USA Network
*Wednesday at 8 pm: AEW Dynamite on TNT
TELEVISION REVIEW
Ring of Honor (September 21, 2020)
-After universal praise for last week’s kickoff to the Pure Championship tournament, this episode had a feeling of ROH coming back to reality with a more pedestrian outing
-The positives continue to be the video packages both with reactions from Jay Lethal and Jonathan Gresham on their wins last week to the previews of this week’s matches. There was a great contrast between David Finlay as the fourth-generation wrestler that found himself in the New Japan Dojo in 2015 unable to speak Japanese and was responsible for doing Rocky Romero’s laundry, his opponent for tonight’s show. Finlay also used his speaking time to explain he’s working on a new leg submission that added a story for the match.
-Romero brought up Finlay’s previously injured shoulder that he required surgery for in 2019 that put him out of action, and that became a target during the match.
-The two had a good match that went thirteen minutes ending with Finlay, who had sold his shoulder all match, stopping a sliced bread and hitting a backbreaker followed by the Trash Panda (his Ushigoroshi) to pin Romero. This was the better match of the two in the episode.
-The other match featured Matt Sydal vs. Delirious and they did a great job explaining their history dating to 2000 when Sydal broke in and was under Delirious’ wing. Sydal also spoke of the damage done to his foot where he walks with a limp due to the calcified bone. This was all about their history including the two facing one another in Sydal’s ROH debut in April 2004.
-The match itself was average and probably the weakest of the four-tournament matches that have aired. Sydal attacked the legs of Delirious and won with a cobra clutch in ten minutes to advance.
-Next week’s matches are Josh Woods vs. Kenny King and Fred Yehi vs. Silas Young. Yehi is an excellent choice for this style of tournament.
-It wasn’t as solid an episode as last week but I’m still into the presentation of the tournament and ROH is doing a strong job telling the stories and making the matches have a significant feel with the promotional tools at their disposal.
MMA NEWS
**After Saturday’s win against Tyron Woodley, UFC welterweight Colby Covington proceeded to speak on the post-fight show where Kamaru Usman was part of the panel of analysts. What followed was a racist rant from Covington directed at Usman that has once again forced the discussion of what the UFC is promoting with this fighter? The notion that Covington is simply “playing a character” relieves the fighter of any responsibility for his words and actions and that’s a sham in 2020. By making that same comparison and harkening to fighters of past generations imploring race as a tool for promotion also absolves the public and media from confronting the subject of racism in fight sports.
While Dana White is touting the UFC being a beacon of free speech, that comes off comical given his history with reporters not to mention his stance on COVID-19 being addressed on the air.
For the UFC not to take a stand and denounce this language, it allows the company to punt on the subject and it doesn’t seem the sports media landscape at large feels this is a controversy worth pursuing. The fact remains that a racist diatribe from Covington was spewed on ESPN’s platform and had this been any other sports league, it would force a response and a condemnation of the athlete in question. However, fight sports appear to receive a pass and that’s been evident throughout the rise of Covington since he took a hard right turn on how he presented himself in public.
The deeper issue that comes up is that this is a sport where Covington taking this tact has presented a career breakthrough instead of a career-ender. Beyond his own conscience, what price has he paid for this other than going for a talented prelim fighter to a consistent main event fighter? That is the harder part to stomach is that this style of character has thrived with no roadblocks placed in front of him from his promotion when it comes to what he perpetuates as the UFC is only so happy to showcase him on multiple platforms to send his message.
To those defending it or downplaying the actions of Covington, what is the line that has yet to be crossed? How far is your fandom going to take you before you are forced to confront this uncomfortable promotion of a fighter that is openly mocking a Nigerian-born fighter for his heritage?
**Andreas Hale of The Sporting News has a great piece discussing the subject of Colby Covington. Ben Fowlkes of The Athletic also has a piece looking at the abhorrent comments from Covington and how UFC beneath under the radar.
**Dana White spoke to the media after Saturday’s card with the following notes from the Q&A:
*He called the Kamaru Usman vs. Colby Covington fight last December one of the best fights he has ever seen
*He thinks it’s time for Tyron Woodley to think about hanging it up after these three losses
*Gilbert Burns is still next in line to challenge Usman for the welterweight title
*White threw out the possibility of Covington fighting Jorge Masvidal
*White scored Niko Price and Donald Cerrone a draw, he loves Cowboy but says it’s time to have a conversation with him
*He doesn’t have an answer for the level of eye pokes we have seen recently
*Khamzat Chimaev is one of the most special fighters he has seen and is blown away by him and has never seen anything like him before
*He said they let their fighters say whatever they want and trumpeted the level of free speech they allow
*Continues to call Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa the fight of the year next weekend
*He said he has no political aspirations when asked about his endorsement of Donald Trump and attending the recent rally in Nevada
**After Saturday’s show, the UFC returns to Abu Dhabi for the next five weeks of events starting with UFC 253 this Saturday. The card is built around the two championship fights with Israel Adesanya defending the title against Paulo Costa and the vacant light heavyweight title will go to the winner of Dominick Reyes and Jan Blachowicz. While pay-per-view numbers are less readily available, this one is largely on the shoulders of Adesanya with the promise from Dana White that it will be the “fight of the year”, that almost jinxes the fight from the onset. Beyond the top two fights, there is little in the way of marquee names with this past Saturday’s Fight Night as much better top-to-bottom main card.
MAIN CARD
*Israel Adesanya vs. Paulo Costa for the UFC middleweight title
*Dominick Reyes vs. Jan Blachowicz for the vacant UFC light heavyweight title
*Kai Kara-France vs. Brandon Royval
*Ketlen Vieira vs. Sijara Eubanks
*Hakeem Dawodu vs. Zubaira Tukhugov
PRELIMINARY CARD
*Brad Riddell vs. Alex Da Silva
*Jake Matthews vs. Diego Sanchez
*Shane Young vs. L’udovit Klein
*William Knight vs. Aleksa Camur
EARLY PRELIMS
*Juan Espino vs. Jeff Hughes
*Khadis Ibragimov vs. Danilo Marques
**The UFC 253 Countdown show has been posted online previewing the two championship fights on Saturday.
ON THIS DATE
G1 CLIMAX PODCASTS
Day 1: Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi, Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/20/g1-climax-30-post-show-day-2-hiroshi-tanahashi-vs-tetsuya-naito/
Day 2: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41821300
*****
THE ROCKY MAIVIA PICTURE SHOW: Empire State (2013) w/ Brandon from NJ & Kris from L.A
Nate Milton arranges an East Coast/West Coast collaboration with guests Brandon From NJ and Kris From L.A.! The guys head into the theater to review The Rock’s 2013 direct-to-DVD “based on a true story” classic, “Empire State”!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/19/trmps-21-empire-state-2013-w-brandon-from-nj-kris-from-l-a/
******
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 9/18/20: Samoan Street Fight, AEW & NXT Ratings, G1 Preview
John Pollock and Wai Ting chat WWE SmackDown featuring the Samoan Street Fight, a preview of this weekend’s start of the G1 Climax, AEW & NXT ratings, and UFC this weekend.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41769931
*****
upNXT – Best Match Ever: Stan Hansen
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman nerd out over more old school wrestling with another BEST MATCH EVER, and this time they are joined by POST Wrestling’s John Pollock to review, rate, and dissect the best matches of Stan Hansen.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/17/upnxt-best-match-ever-stan-hansen-feat-john-pollock/
*****
upNXT 9/16/20: “It’s a Freakin’ Parking Lot!”
The BDE review WWE NXT featuring Damian Priest vs Timothy Thatcher for the NXT North American Championship, Io Shirai vs Shotzi Blackheart, Breezango vs Imperium for the NXT Tag Team Championship, plus the new TakeOver announcement and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/17/upnxt-9-16-20-its-a-freakin-parking-lot/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 9/16/20: Parking Lot Fight, USA Network departure, Daniel Cormier
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite and one of the craziest main events they have had, USA Network president is leaving, Raw ratings, and Daniel Cormier chats WWE.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/09/17/rewind-a-dynamite-9-16-20-parking-lot-fight-usa-network-head-leaving-daniel-cormier/
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #70: NWA Great American Bash 1990
John Pollock and Wai Ting review NWA Great American Bash 1990 featuring Ric Flair vs. Sting for the NWA World Championship.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/41643096/
*****
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