Originally published at POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE: Feature on Rita Chatterton, Forbidden Door fallout, John Cena returns - POST Wrestling | WWE NXT AEW NJPW UFC Podcasts, News, Reviews
POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be live tonight with Rewind-A-Raw at 11:05 p.m. ET to chat about the New York Magazine story on Rita Chatterton, review WWE Raw, and go over other news items. We will be live on the POST YouTube channel and available on the POST Wrestling podcast feed on Tuesday morning.
**While we will be going over the New York Magazine story on Rita Chatterton tonight, we will have a much longer and in-depth discussion on the POST Daily News Show on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET.
**We have a two-hour AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door POST Show available as Wai Ting and I review one of the best shows of the year. Forbidden Door had a lot of problems with the build-up given the injuries and the handling of some of the programs, but the actual show was tremendous in front of one of the hottest crowds of the year.
**Rewind-A-Wai #113 will be released on Tuesday with a review of TNA Destination X from July 2012 featuring Austin Aries invoking “Option C” and challenging Bobby Roode for the TNA Championship, the last man standing match between AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe in the Bound for Glory Series, and Ultimate X. The show will be exclusive to POST Wrestling Café members.
**The N.W.A. Podcast returned on Saturday and the guys have both video and audio versions available. Rich Fann of PW Torch joined Nate Milton, Kris Ealy, and Andrew Thompson this month for the first half of the show. With the new format, The N.W.A. Podcast will be up to date on all the latest stories with a much faster turnaround from recording to releasing the show. There were a lot of great topics covered on this month’s show.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE STORY ON RITA CHATTERTON
The major story out today comes from Abe Riesman with a long-form feature in New York Magazine outlining the story of Rita Chatterton, who made sexual assault allegations against Vince McMahon in 1992. In the NYM feature, Chatterton spoke to the publication but didn’t get into the specifics of an alleged incident involving McMahon and Chatterton inside of a limo in July 1986. However, the NYM piece interviewed former wrestler and friend to Chatterton, Leonard Inzitari (who wrestled as Mario Mancini), and corroborated Chatterton’s 1992 allegations. When the story broke thirty years ago, it led to Vince & Linda McMahon suing Chatterton, Geraldo Rivera, the producer of a piece covering the story, the production partners, and ex-wrestler Dave Shults, who the McMahons alleged conspired with Chatterton and fabricated the story. The suit went nowhere with Jerry McDevitt later stating that they needed to focus their efforts on McMahon’s trial in 1994.
This would be the first major follow-up to the Wall Street Journal’s report on McMahon allegedly making a settlement with a former romantic partner, who served as a paralegal in WWE in recent years, and the discovery of other NDAs involving McMahon and John Laurinaitis with past female employees.
The key to the Wall Street Journal story was whether it would trigger other stories to come to light, and people speaking up. The Rita Chatterton story was known but having someone else corroborate the story gives the story a new perspective and will force others to dig in further.
In 2006 there was a notable story that was reported in the Florida media where McMahon was accused of trying to kiss and grope a tanning salon employee in Boca Raton, Florida along with showing the female employee nude and semi-nude photos of himself. The police did get involved with the case with McMahon’s legal representation denying any and all wrongdoing. In 2018, the police report of the incident circulated and David Bixenspan wrote about the story for Deadspin. McMahon was never charged but the police report noted “There is probable cause to believe that Vincent McMahon did actually and intentionally touch against the will of , contrary to Florida Statute 784.03.” In March 2006, it was found that there was a lack of independent evidence to support the allegations against McMahon and the state declined to file charges against him. The police report is available on the Daily Beast site.
It is unknown if WWE will respond to Monday’s report by New York Magazine. After being vocal in 2010 when an outlet was looking into the Chatterton story, Jerry McDevitt did not issue a response to NYM for today’s report and didn’t receive a response from Vince McMahon after going through WWE for comment.
WRESTLING NEWS
**There isn’t an official update on Adam Cole beyond there was an issue that was evident during the ending of the IWGP Championship. During a spot where Kazuchika Okada went for the Rainmaker, Cole collapsed without taking the move, prompting Jay White to enter the ring and hit Okada with the Blade Runner before pinning Cole, who was down and it seemed like Cole was trying to kick out. Prior to Forbidden Door, Cole had not wrestled since Double or Nothing and worked the match on Sunday with his left shoulder taped up. Until the finish, it was a great match and despite complaints about the nature of a four-way match, when the bell rang to start the match, the audience treated them as four major stars and were red-hot throughout it.
**Overall, Forbidden Door was one of the best shows of the year and one of the best crowds in AEW’s history. For the New Japan talent, some of the performers have come over for a few shows in the U.S. but nothing like Sunday night, and it had been an incredible feeling to have the crowd being able to cheer and have over 15,000 in the United Center. As I said on the POST Show, the show will be judged based on three factors – ticket sales, pay-per-view buys, and show quality. The ticket sales were off the chart when they were first put on sale, although the secondary market didn’t sustain, and you could get tickets on Sunday for as little as $4-5. The show quality was an A+ and that’s without some of the key stars with endless combinations for future shows and haven’t even scratched the surface for dream match scenarios. The pay-per-view question will become clearer in the next week, although Tony Khan believes it will top 100,000 buys. At first glance, you would think a higher number was achievable but it comes with the knowledge that they lost their biggest difference-maker in CM Punk and were running a pay-per-view without Bryan Danielson, Kenny Omega, and even Kota Ibushi, who would have meant something extra on the card. There is no doubt they should do another show and can avoid the pitfalls of this first iteration. Some of the issues were beyond either promotion’s control, other issues were the way the existing matches were built, the introduction of the New Japan talent to non-NJPW followers, and peak the programs for maximum interest.
**WWE Raw is sold out tonight in Laredo, Texas with the return of John Cena, who moved a ton of tickets once his return was announced. WrestleTix reports that over 8,200 tickets are out for tonight’s show and that more than 4,500 were distributed after the announcement of Cena’s return, which is a giant figure. On television, they have begun teases of Theory being aligned with Cena and that being a potential match for SummerSlam. Theory is currently involved in a program with Bobby Lashley with the two set for a match this Saturday at Money in the Bank.
Below are the announced matches and segments for Raw beginning at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network:
*The return of John Cena
*Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Kevin Owens vs. Ezekiel
**Tony Khan spoke to the media after Forbidden Door and shared the following news and notes:
*Based on the early data available, he is confident the show will do over 100,000 buys, which was the number he deemed would be a success for the show.
*He said it was the largest creative challenge since the early days of the pandemic given all the injuries the company had to deal with and was grateful to New Japan with plans to do it “many times over”
-Khan contacted Claudio Castagnoli on June 2nd and wasn’t sure if he was going to be brought into AEW or saved for Ring of Honor’s pay-per-view on July 23rd but then the injury to Bryan Danielson occurred.
*Danielson told him last weekend he wasn’t feeling 100% and Khan told him to take the pay-per-view off and Danielson suggested Castagnoli. Khan revealed to Danielson that he had him under contract.
*He thanked Rocky Romero and this show wouldn’t have been possible as the go-between for both companies
**AEW has released that the date of All Out will be on Sunday, September 4th but they have not officially announced the location. It means that the show will not fall on the same day as WWE’s Clash at the Castle, which takes place the day prior in Wales.
**Tony Khan did announce that Ring of Honor’s new show will be Death Before Dishonor on Saturday, July 23rd from the Tsongas Center in Lowell, Massachusetts.
**Giovanni Vinci will face Ikemen Jiro on Tuesday’s episode of NXT 2.0.
**Mickie James & Mia Yim will take on Deonna Purrazzo & Chelsea Green this Friday at IMPACT’s Against All Odds card from Center Stage in Atlanta, Georgia. The show includes Josh Alexander defending the IMPACT Championship against Joe Doering, a Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match between Moose and Sami Callihan, and a ten-man tag with Honor No More against The Good Brothers, The Briscoes & James Storm.
**Joseph Montecillo goes through the history of the feud between Eddie Kingston and Claudio Castagnoli to contextualize their story, which was directly referenced when Kingston stormed off at the end of Forbidden Door.
**Here are the matches scheduled to stream on AEW Dark: Elevation that airs at 7 p.m. ET on the AEW YouTube channel:
*Ricky Starks & Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Joey Jett & Jordan Chaos
*Ruby Soho vs. Missa Kate
*Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland vs. Vic Capri & GPA
*Anna Jay vs. Heather Reckless
*Brody King & Buddy Matthews vs. Brubaker & CJ Esparza
*Ethan Page vs. Serpentico
*John Silver vs. Kevin Matthews
*Max Caster & The Gunn Club vs. Evil Uno, Preston “10” Vance & Alex Reynolds
**Being the Elite Ep. 312: “The Forbidden Door”.
**The flyweight fight between Miesha Tate and Lauren Murphy is off UFC 276 due to COVID-19 protocols and moved to the Fight Night card on July 16th on Long Island, New York. This will be Tate’s debut at 125 pounds and could fast track her toward a title fight with Valentina Shevchenko given the lack of marquee opponents for the champion. The UFC 276 card has 12 fights listed with the removal of the flyweight bout, which was originally set for the pay-per-view main card.
**The UFC has released the first episode of UFC Embedded prior to UFC 276 this Saturday in Las Vegas.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John & Wai at 11 p.m. ET
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #113 – TNA Destination X 2012 (Patreon)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman (upNXT)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT)
Thursday: MCU L8R – Ms. Marvel Ep. 4 (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Wai (Patreon)
Saturday: WWE MITB POST Show with John & Wai
Sunday: UFC 276 POST Show with Phil Chertok & Eric Marcotte
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio with Brandon Thurston & Chris Gullo
ON THIS DATE
One of the most remembered promos in the history of Raw when CM Punk cut his famous promo prior to Money in the Bank in 2011:
Billy Gunn wins one of the more forgettable King of the Ring tournaments in 1999, defeating X-Pac in the final in Greensboro, North Carolina. This did not propel Gunn to a major singles position and would hit his ceiling that summer working against The Rock at SummerSlam and moving back to the tag division after the summer with Road Dogg:
The air date of SmackDown in 2002 featured the main roster debut of John Cena, as he confronted Kurt Angle. This was during the era when SmackDown aired on Thursday night, so it was taped two days prior:
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AEW x NJPW FORBIDDEN DOOR POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door featuring Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the Interim AEW Championship.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: Vince McMahon scandal affects ratings, stock
Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discuss how WWE’s stock and TV ratings have been affected since the Wall Street Journal report on the scandal surrounding Vince McMahon. Plus, Tony Khan’s comments ahead of an injury-afflicted Forbidden Door pay-per-view.
*****
THE N.W.A. PODCAST: “Summer Madness”
“The Godfather” Nate Milton, “The Professor” Kris Ealy, and “The Youngest In Charge” Andrew Thompson return to give their thoughts on several of the season’s biggest stories! Rich Fann (PW Torch) joins.
*****
POST PURORESU: CyberFight Festival, Forbidden Door Preview
WH Park is joined by Karen Peterson to talk about CyberFight Festival, AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door, NJPW Dominion and G1 Climax.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN & RAMPAGE
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE SmackDown featuring Gunther vs. Ricochet in a rematch for the IC title, and AEW Rampage headlined by Andrade El Idolo vs. Rey Fenix ahead of Sunday’s Forbidden Door PPV.
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