Originally published at POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE: Kofi Kingston provides update on jaw injury
POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw to review the show, plus we’ll catch up on the news from the weekend including the WrestleMania location announcements, and more. If you’re a Double Double, Iced Capp, or Espresso Café member you can listen & watch the show LIVE at 11:15 pm ET.
**We have an interview with MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn on the site discussing this past Saturday’s UFC on ABC card and looking toward UFC 257 this Saturday. Mike is in Abu Dhabi and shared the entire process for media to go through with testing and flying over to cover the events as well as a sense of what it’s like covering these events on Fight Island.
**On Tuesday, I’ll have an interview with Paul “The Mauler” Lazenby, who was friends with the late Paul Varelans and helped him out a lot when Varelans went over to Japan in 1997.
**For POST Wrestling Café members, Rewind-A-Wai #78 will be released Tuesday with Wai & I reviewing the Stone Cold Podcast with guest Vince McMahon from December 2014. You can still leave feedback for the show on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Jordan Goodman is a guest on the PWT Cast today discussing a new show he is doing with Wai Ting called The Wellness Policy that debuts this Thursday on the POST Wrestling Café.
POST SCHEDULE (Full schedule)
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John & Wai (LIVE at 11:15 pm ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Wai #78: Stone Cold Podcast feat. Vince McMahon (Patreon)
Tuesday: DEEP Impact with Davie Portman & Andrew Thompson (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s edition of RAW will feature Randy Orton responding to the attack by Alexa Bliss at the end of last week’s episode. They have also announced Bliss will face Asuka.
**On the latest New Day: Feel the Power podcast, Kofi Kingston spoke about the jaw injury he is working through. Kingston noted it occurred several weeks ago during a match with The Hurt Business but continued working: (Transcribed by Jeremy Lambert at Fightful)
I got kneed in the face by Cedric Alexander three weeks ago. A couple of my teeth chipped, it was fine and cool. The point of impact was real sore. I thought it was a bruise or whatever. The next week, we have a six-man match and everything was fine. A little bit of pain, not terrible. Then, the next week, right before we went out, it kept feeling like it was loose. As soon we get to the ring, I’m moving around and I feel it like get out of place and like it wasn’t set in. I feel that if the fans were there, I wouldn’t have felt that. Throughout the match, anytime I would get hit, I would grab my jaw. The entire match, I was thinking about it.
**Ring of Honor and IMPACT Wrestling are holding television tapings this week. IMPACT has announced a match between Eric Young and Rhino as well as Susan (Su Yung) & Kimber Lee vs. Jordynne Grace & Jazz for Tuesday.
**Jeff Hardy is the latest entrant into the men’s Royal Rumble match. We have an ongoing list of the participants announced for both Rumble matches.
**A reminder for Canadian viewers that AEW Dynamite will be airing on TSN1 this Wednesday at 8 pm ET.
**Between now and February 25th, New Japan is running 13 cards at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and seems like overkill for the city. On Tuesday, they wrap up their third straight night at the venue on their Road to New Beginning tour with the following line-up streaming at 4 am ET on New Japan World:
*Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, SHO & Master Wato
*Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma vs. SANADA & Tetsuya Naito
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi vs. EVIL, Yujiro & Dick Togo
*Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki vs. Taiji Ishimori, El Phantasmo, Gedo & Jado
*Will Ospreay & The Great O-Khan vs. Satoshi Kojima & Yota Tsuji
**Utami Hayashishita retained the World of Stardom title on Sunday’s show at Korakuen Hall defeating Maika. Afterward, it was set-up that Saya Kamitani would be the next challenger for Hayashishita. On the same show, Giulia retained the Wonder of Stardom title defeating Natsuko Tora in a No Rules Match. Here are the complete results:
*World of Stardom title: Utami Hayashishita (champion) over Maika
*Wonder of Stardom title: Giulia (champion) over Natsuko Tora
*Saya Kamitani & Momo Watanabe over Bea Priestley & Saki Kashima, Syuri & Himeka, and Mayu Iwatani & Ruaka in a four-way elimination match
*Tam Nakano over Starlight Kid
*High-Speed Championship: AZM (champion) over Kaori Yoneyama
*Natsupoi over Konami by disqualification
*Future of Stardom Championship: Saya Iida (champion) over Unagi Sayaka
**Big Japan confirmed that El Lindaman recently tested positive for COVID-19. T-Hawk came into contact with El Lindaman and therefore, he is off Tuesday’s card at Shinkiba 1st Ring. Kuma Arashi is taking T-Hawk’s spot against Yuya Aoki.
**Lucha Blog reported that Black Taurus was at the IMPACT television tapings on Sunday and set to appear in the coming weeks on AXS TV.
**Sean Ross Sapp at Fightful has an extensive feature on the history of the Royal Rumble with numerous wrestlers, writers, announcers, and others involved speaking about the construction of the match, the recurring aspects of the match, and those involved with putting it together over the years. It’s a really interesting long-form feature that covers so many angles.
**Last Thursday’s edition of Total Bellas featuring the two births did 381,000 viewers and a 0.17 in the 18-49 demo on E!
**On Being the Elite today, the show centered around The Young Bucks confronting Kenny Omega & The Good Brothers after the six-man tag last week and concluding they were lied to.
**Game Changer Wrestling is preparing for its 24-hour event beginning Friday, January 29th at 8 pm ET. Here is the schedule, so far:
*Friday at 8 pm: The Wind of God
*Friday at 10 pm: For the Culture
*Friday at Midnight: UV 60 – The Death Hour
*Saturday at 1 am: Jimmy Lloyd’s Up All Night
*Saturday at 3 am: No Peace Underground
*Saturday at 6 am: Freelance Wrestling/Freelance Underground
**MLW is listing the following for Wednesday’s episode of Fusion at 7 pm ET
*MLW Heavyweight Championship: Jacob Fatu (champion) vs. ACH
*Shawn Daivari debuts
*Alicia Atout interviews Salina de la Renta
**The WWE Network will be releasing “My Way: The Life and Legacy of Pat Patterson” this Sunday along with a new edition of WWE Chronicle covering Bianca Belair. The streaming service has also added 13 episodes of Wrestling Challenge from September 6 to November 29, 1986.
**Ted DiBiase turns 67 today, Dave Bautista is 52, and Mark Briscoe turns 36.
MMA NEWS
**Saturday’s performance by Max Holloway was among, if not the, greatest we have seen inside the UFC. Holloway landed 445 significant strikes over five rounds against Calvin Kattar. The 32-year old Kattar hung in throughout the twenty-five minutes and while extremely concerning, it was difficult to isolate one sequence where Herb Dean wouldn’t have been eaten alive for ending the fight. Personally, it could have ended in the third round and I would have been fine. The mindset of saving your fighter and acknowledging defeat mid-fight is not prevalent inside MMA and Kattar will likely wear the effects of this fight for a long time as we’ve seen numerous examples of fighters never being the same after a war like that. It’s the frontrunner for Fight of the Year but the drawback is that it wasn’t competitive, and the scorecards reflected that. For Holloway, he looked like the best fighter in the world and if he doesn’t fight one more time in 2021, I would still nominate him for Fighter of the Year based on this singular performance. There is no doubt he deserves another fight for the featherweight championship, which would be a rematch regardless of the winner between Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega on March 27th.
**Television ratings across the board will be delayed several days due to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States.
**Conor McGregor sat down with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani with the entire interview airing Sunday prior to UFC 257 this weekend. When asked about his last retirement in June, McGregor stated “I’ll probably never retire from the game”, which was a great line as I’ve lost count of the announcements since 2016. McGregor didn’t want to delve deep into the issues with Dana White throughout 2020 but reading between the lines, he wanted to fight and felt he was being shelved. From a UFC standpoint, they were guaranteed their revenue from ESPN for the pay-per-views and the added expense of booking McGregor wasn’t offset by a live gate, so the same impulse to book McGregor wasn’t there. He is very confident that this Saturday’s fight “will be a smooth one for me” as he made a big prediction last week of ending the fight in the first sixty seconds but told Helwani he would also relish a war and racking up minutes inside the Octagon.
He is predicting 1.6 – 2 million buys for the fight and it’s hard to forecast a McGregor number. Last year’s fight with Donald Cerrone did 1.3 million buys with the majority coming through ESPN+, which is extraordinary and way more impressive than the old model that had so many more homes to draw from. ESPN+ has grown from 6.6 million subscribers in Q1 2020 to 10.3 in Q4. Plus, this fight will be the first one with the price increase to $64.99 on the platform along with the $4.99 monthly fee and will a more profitable show than the Cerrone fight, even if it comes up short with buys.
McGregor added that there was a “high probability” of fighting Manny Pacquiao this year while hoping to fight 3-4 times. Pacquiao is a can of worms that Dana White doesn’t appear to have any desire of opening. It hasn’t been discussed but if White cannot get Khabib Nurmagomedov to fight McGregor, what does the latter want to do? Right now, McGregor is saying all the right things that he’ll fight anyone and wants to be busy but his history dictates big fights for the largest sum and if Nurmagomedov won’t do the rematch, I feel the Pacquiao option becomes more attractive to McGregor rather than fighting another lightweight in the division.
**After the card on ABC, Dana White spoke with the media and said they had a hard out at 6 pm ET due to the news rather than the traditional mindset with live sports that the game ends when it ends. He spoke more in-depth about the meeting with Khabib Nurmagomedov than he did on ABC. He said Nurmagomedov is going to watch the two lightweight fights next weekend – McGregor vs. Poirier and Chandler vs. Hooker – and see if anyone grabs his attention and they’ll meet in Las Vegas in a few weeks to finalize the decision to fight or not. The other lightweight that would be in the mix is Charles Oliveira, who had a spectacular performance against Tony Ferguson last month. The reality is that Nurmagomedov is looking at five lightweights of which three he has already beaten handily.
**Khabib Nurmagomedov spoke with Full Reptile while in Abu Dhabi about his cousin Umar’s UFC debut this Wednesday and Max Holloway’s performance this past weekend.
**Saturday’s win over Matt Brown was the final fight on Carlos Condit’s existing UFC deal.
**The Independent spoke with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Bruce Buffer, and Megan Olivi of the UFC, and reporter Peter Carroll about the first fight between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier at UFC 178 in September 2014.
**The UFC holds their next show on Wednesday morning with the main card airing at Noon ET and the prelims at 9 am from Abu Dhabi. The positive is for the fighters that get to fight at a regular time but for television viewers, I don’t think you could schedule a card at a worse time this week going against the inauguration and airing on a weekday morning. Below is the fight card:
MAIN CARD (Noon ET on ESPN, ESPN+)
*Michael Chiesa vs. Neil Magny
*Warlley Alves vs. Mounir Lazzez
*Vinicius Moreira vs. Isaac Villanueva
*Roxanne Modafferi vs. Viviane Araujo
*Matt Schnell vs. Tyson Nam
*Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Lerone Murphy
PRELIMINARY CARD (9 am on ESPN, ESPN+)
*Omari Akhmedov vs. Tom Breese
*Ricky Simon vs. Gaetano Pirrello
*Zarrukh Adashev vs. Su Mudaerji
*Dalcha Lungiambula vs. Markus Perez
*Jerome Rivera vs. Francisco Figueiredo
*Mike Davis vs. Mason Jones
*Sergey Morozov vs. Umar Nurmagomedov – Umar is Khabib’s cousin and is the reason the lightweight champion is in Abu Dhabi to corner him
*Manon Fiorot vs. Victoria Leonardo
**The Countdown to UFC 257 show has been releasing focusing on the two big lightweight fights with Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler vs. Dan Hooker.
ON THIS DATE
*****
POST INTERVIEW: MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn
John Pollock is joined by MMA Junkie & USA Today’s Mike Bohn from Abu Dhabi where he is covering UFC 257: McGregor vs. Poirier.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/18/post-interview-mma-junkies-mike-bohn-from-ufc-fight-island/
*****
REWAND-A-VISION: WandaVision Ep. 1 & 2
Wai Ting & WH Park review Marvel Studios’ WandaVision Ep. 1 & 2 featuring Wanda Maximoff and Vision as a newlywed couple whose lives play out in a series of mysterious sitcom parodies.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/17/rewand-a-vision-wandavision-ep-1-2/
*****
IMPACT Hard to Kill 2021 POST Show
Davie Portman is joined by Nate Milton and Andrew Thompson to review IMPACT Hard To Kill headlined by Kenny Omega & The Good Brothers vs Rich Swann, Chris Sabin & Moose.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/17/impact-hard-to-kill-2021-post-show/
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REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 1/15/21: Ding Dong, A Contract Signing
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown featuring the updated Universal title match for the Royal Rumble as the show is built around… a contract signing.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/46273199
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POST PURORESU: WK 15, New Beginning Cards, Shiozak-Muto
John Pollock & WH Park chat Wrestle Kingdom 15, New Beginning cards, Go Shiozaki vs. Keiji Muto, Stardom’s tenth-anniversary show & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/15/post-puroresu-wk-15-new-beginning-cards-shiozaki-muto/
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BWE: WALTER vs. A-Kid, Tyler Bate, Ben Carter, Marty Scurll, Likely-Unlikely
Martin & Benno are joined by JP Houlihan of GRAPPL Spotlight to talk about the past month in European wrestling.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/14/bwe-walter-vs-a-kid-tyler-bate-ben-carter-marty-scurll-likely-unlikely/
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POST WRESTLING’S WORST OF 2020 SHOW
POST Wrestling’s John Pollock & Wai Ting and upNXT’s Braden Herrington & Davie Portman discuss the many lowlights of the past year in our Worst of 2020 Show.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/01/14/post-wrestlings-worst-of-2020-show/
*****
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