Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/21/pollocks-news-update-eric-bischoff-comments-on-his-wwe-release/
POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be with Rewind-A-Raw tonight for a full review of the show from Cleveland, a lot of news to discuss, and we will take your questions & feedback at the end of the show.
**Nate Milton and I have a Bound for Glory POST Show reviewing Sunday’s pay-per-view from Villa Park, Illinois and going through all the matches. Plus, we look at the state of Impact Wrestling as they get set to move to AXS TV and Nate shares his thoughts on NWA Power, SmackDown’s move to Fox, and we take your feedback.
**A new edition of Rewind-A-Wai will be released Tuesday night for Patrons with our review of the June 30th, 1997, episode of WCW Monday Nitro from Las Vegas.
**Later this week, I’ll have an interview on the site with Big John McCarthy chatting about his transition to broadcasting and this weekend’s two Bellator events in Uncasville, Connecticut.
POST SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai: WCW Monday Nitro from 6/30/1997 (Patreon)
*Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Thursday: Cafe Hangout at 3 pm eastern (LIVE for all Patrons)
*Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (Patreon)
*Saturday: Thunderstruck with WH Park with guest Damon McDonald (Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Naoki Sano, 1/31/1990)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Eric Bischoff addressed his firing for the first time in today’s edition of the 83 Weeks podcast with co-host Conrad Thompson.
I was really grateful for the opportunity to work in WWE – and it was an opportunity. It didn’t work out the way I wanted it to work out, clearly, it didn’t work out the way Vince McMahon wanted it to work out but that happens and I’m not taking any of it personally. Professionally? I’m taking a hard look at it and thinking it through. If anything, I’m just grateful for the opportunity and part of the reason I am is that I had the chance to work with a great team of people, the writing staff on SmackDown in particular as well as a lot of the other writers on Raw. They are a very, very talented and unbelievably hard-working and dedicated group of people and just the opportunity to work with people like that, in and of itself was worth this experiment. I didn’t come here thinking I was going to be in WWE for five or ten years, I looked at it as a relatively short-term opportunity meaning two to three years. I didn’t think it would be quite this short-term but sometimes that happens. WWE is a great company with a very defined culture and process, and you know, I didn’t necessarily fit into it and that’s just the way it is. I’m not disappointed, I’m not angry I’m not any of those things. I’m just looking forward to the next opportunity wherever and whenever that may be and kind of digging the idea of packing up the truck and getting back to Wyoming.
Bischoff added that he had dinner at Bruce Prichard’s new house this past weekend and has zero animosity with Prichard or believed he had anything to do with his dismissal and was a Vince McMahon decision. He fully supports Prichard and gave Prichard the credit for him getting this opportunity with WWE earlier in the year. He added that he one big project before joining WWE and indicated he would be going back to that. He is staying in Stamford until the end of November and then going to Clearwater, Florida to spend one month with their children and the head back to Wyoming, where he lived previously to the WWE job. He knew the odds of going into the job and was not surprised but was disappointed. He wished he could have met Vince McMahon’s expectations and have a long run with the role but would also do it over again.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse (formerly the Quicken Loans Arena) in Cleveland, Ohio with the following announcements for the show:
*AJ Styles, Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows vs. The Street Profits & a mystery partner
*Ric Flair names the final member of his team for Crown Jewel
*Andrade vs. Sin Cara
*Rey Mysterio to appear
**New Japan held a press conference on Monday morning to announce the formation of a subsidiary company, New Japan Pro Wrestling of America. The idea is to set up an American office and double the number of U.S. shows in 2020 without reducing their Japanese schedule. The U.S. dates will usually take place between Japanese tours, although they noted there could be some concurrent tours. The U.S. shows would be available on New Japan World either live or on VOD later. They are planning to run smaller venues that seat 2,000 or less. It was stated that this was “phase three” of their U.S. strategy following the opening of their L.A. Dojo and then running shows in the U.S. both independently and with other promotions, which they had been doing with Ring of Honor until recently.
**There was a scary scene at Arena Coliseo in Monterrey, Mexico on Sunday. La Parka (the second version, not LA Park) hit a suicide dive onto Rush and miscalculated the distance and smashed into the guardrail knocking himself out. La Parka was taken to hospital and was thought to be in bad shape. On Wrestling Observer Radio, it was reported that he had begun to get feeling back in his lower body and legs. Luchablog added that La Parka was set to go into surgery on Monday morning. Super Luchas is reporting that La Parka was diagnosed with a neck and cervical fracture.
**Xavier Woods suffered an injury on today’s WWE show in Sydney, Australia. Woods was teaming with Big E. against The Revival and was said to have gone down as he was coming off the ropes and was favoring his left leg. Woods was removed from the match that ended with Big E. losing the match. Later in the day, Woods posted an update saying he was sorry and indicated it was an Achilles tendon surgery but didn’t offer any details to the severity of the injury. WWE confirmed the injury with Woods removed from Tuesday’s show in Brisbane and Wednesday’s card in Melbourne.
**The WWE’s Espanol account is advertising Drew McIntyre and Andrade as the opponents for Cain Velasquez and Rey Mysterio on November 30th in Mexico City. It’s a co-branded event with Raw and SmackDown talent at Arena Ciudad, which is the same venue Velasquez had his debut in at AAA’s TripleMania event this past August.
**Revolution Pro has announced that PAC will face Amazing Red in the opening round of the British J-Cup on Sunday, November 24th at York Hall. PAC was the final entrant announced for the eight-man tournament joining Red, El Phantasmo, Robbie Eagles, Barbaro Cavernario, Rocky Romero, Michael Oku, and Senza Volto.
**Joey Ryan was a surprise entrant in the Call Your Shot Gauntlet match at Impact’s Bound for Glory event on Sunday night. Later in the night, Ryan confirmed an earlier report from SoCal Uncensored that he has signed with the promotion. Ryan added that he could do his independent dates in addition to Impact and will get to play the regular character that he has popularized.
**Prior to going on the air, Impact taped the six-man tag with The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier, Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz) vs. Dr. Wagner Jr., Black Taurus & Aero Star at The Odeum in Villa Park, Illinois. Instead of airing on the pay-per-view as advertised, they will be running the match on Tuesday’s “This is Impact” special on AXS TV at 8 pm eastern. The special is a prelude to the first episode of Impact airing on AXS next week in the same timeslot. They also taped a match between Madison Rayne and Shotzi Blackheart prior to the pay-per-view.
**WWE has won the sweepstakes for Jake Atlas with reports coming out Sunday that he has signed with the company. Atlas had been said to have been sought after my several promotions before choosing to go with WWE. SoCal Uncensored reported that Atlas will finish his independent dates and report to the WWE Performance Center in January. After training at the Santino Brothers Training Center in California, Atlas made his debut in 2016 and announced back in February 2018 that he was gay. The news of Atlas’ signing was initially reported by the Last Word on Wrestling outlet.
**MLW has added a tag title match with MJF & Richard Holliday defending the titles against Ross & Marshall Von Erich in a Texas Tornado Rules match to their November 2nd Saturday Night SuperFight pay-per-view. The card is headlined by Jacob Fatu defending the MLW championship against LA Park at Cicero Stadium in Illinois.
**CM Punk was a guest on the Daily Dead podcast to promote “Girl on the Third Floor” and chat numerous subjects.
**New Japan’s Super Junior Tag League continues Tuesday in Iwate with the lone tournament match featuring Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero taking on Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado. Wednesday’s show is in Fukushima with Taguchi & Romero taking on El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori.
**The Super Junior Tag League has a five-way tie for first with El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Roppongi 3K, El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori, Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocko Romero, and Titan & Volador Jr. with four points each. The Birds of Prey are at two points and then TJP & Clark Connors and Tiger Mask & Yuya Uemura have zero points.
**The WWE stock was up 3% on Monday and closed at $69.04 on Monday.
**PWA out of Austalia finished up their Colosseum tournament on Friday with their second consecutive night at Max Watts, selling out both shows according to the report we received. WWE It was also said that Canyon Ceman, the WWE’s Senior Director of Talent Development attended the shows ahead of WWE’s live events in Australia this week. Below are the results from reader Alex Donnelly:
*Matty Wahlberg over Orange Cassidy in the second round of the tournament
*Travis Banks over Ricky South in the second round
*Steph De Lander over Big Fudge, Headhunter Rig, & Royce Chamber
*Shazza McKenzie & Rory Gulak over The Nations
*Caveman Ugg over Jack J. Bonza to retain the PWA championship
*Speed Force over Davis Storm, Chris Basso, Sam Osborne & Jessica Troy
*James Adultman over Massive Q
*Matty Wahlberg over Travis Banks to win the Colosseum tournament
**The WWE Network has added 33 new episodes of Mid-South Wrestling from May through December 1985.
**A new episode of WWE Photo Shoot premieres tonight after Raw on the WWE Network featuring Kane. There will be a new episode of WWE Day Of this Sunday night at 8 pm eastern covering the launch of Friday Night SmackDown from earlier this month in Los Angeles.
**We received additional notes from the NXT live event in Vancouver on Saturday from James Cybulski:
Breezango defeated The Outliers
Dominic Dijakovic pinned Bronson Reed
Tegan Nox & Dakota Kai defeated Aliyah & Vanessa Bourne.
Kassius Ohno pinned Swerve. Following the bout, Ohno cut a promo which prompted Finn Balor to come out for an impromptu match with Ohno, whom Balor made quick work of with a Coupe de Gras for the finish.
Undisputed Era retained their Tag Titles over The Street Profits.
Shayna Bazler submitted Candace LeRae
Damian Priest pinned Pete Dunne
Roderick Strong retained his North American title with a pinball win over Matt Riddle thanks to interference from Fish and O’Reilly. The Street Profits stormed the ring after the match to help Riddle and even the score.
NXT coaches/producers Norman Smiley and Scotty Too Hotty then came out from backstage and invited a few others from backstage including Balor where they thanked the Street Profits for their time and growth in NXT. Angelo Dawkins was choked up emotionally in the ring a couple of times as this was their final NXT show as they are RAW bound.
One noticeable observation…the roster has really added some size. Dijakovic, Bronson, Priest, Riddick Moss all bring an element of impressive size compared to a lot of other stars on the roster like Cole, Gargano, Strong, Dunne, etc.
MMA NEWS
**Just days after the New York Times reported on a sexual assault investigation linked to Conor McGregor, the UFC fighter is set to hold a press conference this Thursday in Moscow, Russia. McGregor will travel to Russia and appear on behalf of the sports betting site Parimatch of which McGregor serves as an ambassador. In a statement to the New York Times over the weekend, a publicist for McGregor denied the allegations of which McGregor has not been charged or questioned by authorities, yet.
**Friday night’s UFC card from Boston, Massachusetts averaged 805,000 viewers featuring Dominick Reyes stopping Chris Weidman in the first round of their light heavyweight fight. The preliminary fights at 6 pm eastern averaged 396,000 viewers with both portions of the card airing on ESPN 2.
**Bellator president Scott Coker announced Monday that Sabah Homasi is off this Saturday’s Bellator 232 card where he set to fight Paul Daley. Saad Awad is stepping in on short notice and will fight Daley in a 175-pound catchweight fight on the main card that airs on DAZN.
**In addition to Bellator’s two shows in Uncasville, Connecticut, the UFC will run a Saturday morning show from Singapore headlined by Demian Maia taking on Ben Askren. The card from Singapore starts at 5 am eastern with the prelims and the main card airs at 8 am on ESPN+ and Fight Pass for those outside the U.S.
VIDEO
**Ariel Helwani sat down with Paul Levesque and Tyson Fury when the two were at ESPN last week to promote the match against Braun Strowman at Crown Jewel:
**WWE has released a video of The Street Profits having their send-off at the NXT house show this past Saturday night in Vancouver, British Columbia as they head to Raw full-time:
We’re not crying, you’re crying!
(via @wwenxt) pic.twitter.com/sL8PkhJXuJ
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) October 21, 2019
**Here is a preview of the latest WWE Day Of looking at the Hell in a Cell show from earlier this month in Sacramento, California:
**John McCarthy discusses the issue from Friday’s UFC card involving Greg Hardy using his asthma inhaler between the second and third rounds. Hardy asked for permission to use it and was not given proper advice, puffed from the inhaler and later had his decision overturned to a no contest.
**The latest edition of Being the Elite
**Grammar Slam with CM Punk returns:
*****
BOUND FOR GLORY POST SHOW
John Pollock and Nate Milton review Impact Wrestling’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view with Brian Cage vs. Sami Callihan for the Impact title, Ken Shamrock vs. Moose & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/21/impact-bound-for-glory-post-show/
*****
TRMPS #10: Race to Witch Mountain
On this edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show, Nate Milton celebrates October by reviewing Dwayne Johnson’s scariest movie to date, Disney’s “Race to Witch Mountain”! Featuring guest hosts Davie Portman and Daniel Perry.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/19/trmps-10-race-to-witch-mountain-2009-w-davie-portman-daniel-perry/
*****
RASD 10/18/19: Team Hogan’s New Captain, Bayley Speaks
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown on Fox featuring the announcement of Hulk Hogan’s new Team Captain at Crown Jewel, Bayley explains her new demeanor, and Shorty Gable receives an even shorter name.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/18/rasd-10-18-19-team-hogans-new-captain-bayley-speaks/
*****
BWE 10/18/19: wXw World Tag Festival, Breed Starrcave, Progress Chapter 96
Martin, Benno & Jamesie are back to review wXw World Tag Festival, Breed Wrestling In A Cave and Progress Chapter 96. Andy Ogden is back with his regular segment “Going Undergraps” discussing Tidal & Schadenfreude.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/18/bwe-10-18-19-wxw-world-tag-festival-breed-starrcave-progress-ch-96/
*****
Cafe Hangout: NJPW parent company buys Stardom, Corey Erdman talks Patrick Day
John Pollock and Wai Ting discuss this week’s news including NJPW parent company Bushiroad’s acquisition of Stardom. Boxing analyst and commentator Corey Erdman join us to discuss the unfortunate passing of boxer Patrick Day.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/17/njpw-parent-company-buys-stardom-corey-erdman-talks-patrick-day-cafe-hangout/
*****
upNXT 10/16/19: USButed Era
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to chat all about this week’s WWE NXT featuring Pete Dunne vs Damian Priest, Keith Lee vs Dominik Dijakovic in a Number 1 Contenders Match & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/17/upnxt-10-16-19-usbuted-era/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 10/16/19: Jericho vs. Allin, Bischoff-WWE, NWA Power
John Pollock and Wai Ting review this week’s AEW Dynamite on TNT featuring Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin in a Philadelphia Street Fight for the AEW Championship. Plus, we discuss Eric Bischoff being released by WWE and Episode 2 of NWA Power.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/17/rewind-a-dynamite-10-16-19-jericho-vs-allin-bischoff-wwe-nwa-power/
*****
POST MOVIE REVIEW – Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Thwip! John Pollock and Wai Ting review the sixteenth Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) starring Tom Holland and Michael Keaton.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/10/16/post-movie-review-spider-man-homecoming-2017/
*****
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