Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/09/pollocks-news-update-kota-ibushi-dealing-with-an-ankle-injury/
POST IT NOTES
**Monday’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is available to download with Wai Ting and I reviewing a terrible follow up to last week’s Raw. We go through some of the puzzling decisions that were made on this show, the build-up for Extreme Rules and a lot of news to cover from Monday. Wai shares his thoughts on Slammiversary and the UFC 239 card, and we discuss LAX and Johnny Impact, MLW going to pay-per-view and take your feedback.
**We will be back with Rewind-A-SmackDown later tonight on the site.
**The British Wrestling Experience returns Wednesday with a big show featuring Martin Bushby, Benno & Jamesie.
**We have a sale going on at the POST Wrestling Store throughout the G1 Climax. From now until August 12th, all members of the POST Wrestling Café will receive 20% off any orders, including the first time we have included our snapback hats as part of a sale.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience
*Thursday: Café Hangout with guests Court Bauer, Brendan Docherty & Rob Naylor (3 pm Eastern LIVE)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #40 – NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11 (Patreon)
*Saturday: AEW Fight for the Fallen POST Show with Pollock & Wai (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*Saturday: EVOLVE 131 POST Show with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Saturday: G1 Climax Day 2 Podcast (Patreon)
*Saturday: Cruel Summer “2003” with WH Park & Jojo Remy (Jun Akiyama vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan)
*Sunday: WWE Extreme Rules POST Show (LIVE for Double Double+ Patrons)
*Sunday: G1 Climax Day 3 Podcast (Patreon)
*Sunday: Cruel Summer “2004” with WH Park & Joey Bay (Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi)
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s SmackDown and 205 Live tapings take place from Manchester, New Hampshire for the final tapings before Extreme Rules. The following has been announced for tonight’s show:
*Finn Balor vs. Shinsuke Nakamura in a non-title match
*Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler
*Nikki Cross vs. Carmella
*The announcement of Aleister Black’s opponent for Extreme Rules
*A tag team ‘Summit’ involving Daniel Bryan & Rowan, New Day, and Heavy Machinery
*Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari in an ‘Anything Goes’ match on 205 Live
**Kota Ibushi is dealing with a left ankle injury following his match with KENTA this past weekend in Dallas. Ibushi posted a photo of the swollen ankle that has significant bruising. On Tuesday, he said he was able to walk 100 steps on the ankle and is hopeful of walking 200 steps on Wednesday. He is scheduled to work in a six-man tag on Saturday’s G1 show and then has a tournament match against EVIL on Sunday in Tokyo.
**On Monday, Dave Meltzer reported that Sunday’s Slammiversary event was the final match for LAX with the group. The team had a three-way match with The North and The Rascalz for the Impact tag titles. Mike Johnson adds that the group is under contract until August. WWE and AEW are the obvious frontrunners to land the group, who have grown significantly in popularity since joining Impact in 2017.
**Alexa Bliss was kept off the show Monday as she had been sick throughout the week. She was scheduled to be part of the Beat the Clock Challenge and Nikki Cross took her place.
**We confirmed that the location of Bound for Glory on October 20th will be the Odeum Expo Center in Villa Park, Illinois. The venue was first reported by Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com.
**Rehearsals for the WWE’s studio show on FS 1 have begun with the show set to launch this fall on Tuesday nights.
**Lavie Margolin has been tracking attendance figures for various promotions at the midway point of the year. Today, he looked at MLW, which has made significant gains compared to 2018. In the first six months of 2018, the promotion ran six live events compared to five in the same period this year. Overall attendance has increased 157% from 2,266 to 5,832 and that works out to an average of 377 per show in 2018 and 1,166 in 2019. The major difference is MLW’s decision to get out of Orlando where they had been running shows at the Gilt Nightclub, which is where all the 2018 shows during that six-month stretch took place from. This year, they have run Philadelphia, Cicero Stadium in Illinois (the promotion’s best market where they had 2,100 in attendance in March), two shows at the Melrose Ballroom, and ran in Waukesha, Wisconsin in June. This data doesn’t include this past weekend’s show at Cicero Stadium, which was said to be a sold-out event and took place after the six-month mark.
**The Kings of Colosseum show that MLW held over the weekend had approximately 2,100 in attendance at Cicero Stadium. It was said to be a late arriving crowd and they did not sell out in advance but was full by the end.
**AEW is promoting that Chris Jericho will be doing an interview at Fight for the Fallen this Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida. The card is scheduled to start at 8:15 pm Eastern on B/R Live and Fite.tv with the Buy-In pre-show airing at 7:30 pm on the AEW YouTube channel.
**Nicki Minaj has pulled out of her appearance to perform at Jeddah World Fest in Saudi Arabia later this month. The recording artist was scheduled to headline the event on July 18th but released the following statement to the Associated Press:
After careful reflection I have decided to no longer move forward with my scheduled concert at Jeddah World Fest. While I want nothing more than to bring my show to fans in Saudi Arabia, after better educating myself on the issues, I believe it is important for me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and freedom of expression.
The event is scheduled to take place from the King Abdullah Sports Stadium, which is where the WWE had held two events since April 2018 with the Greatest Royal Rumble and last month’s Super Showdown event.
**Following Monday’s episode of Raw, here is the updated card for Extreme Rules on Sunday from Philadelphia:
*Seth Rollins & Becky Lynch vs. Baron Corbin & Lacey Evans – Winners Take All for the Universal & Raw women’s titles
*Roman Reigns & The Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon & Drew McIntyre
*Kofi Kingston vs. Samoa Joe for the WWE title
*Bobby Lashley vs. Braun Strowman in a Last Man Standing match
*Ricochet vs. AJ Styles for the United States title
*Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. Xavier Woods & Big E. vs. Heavy Machinery for the SmackDown tag titles
*Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross for the SmackDown women’s title
*The Revival vs. The Usos for the Raw tag titles
*Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese for the Cruiserweight title
*Aleister Black vs. TBA
**Booker T. addressed his withdrawal from Starrcast on his radio program this past week. After being announced for Starrcast later this summer, Booker announced last Tuesday that he would not be appearing at Starrcast in Chicago as had been advertised. On his show, he said after appearing at Starrcast II in Las Vegas he made the decision that he would appear for Starrcast again as he is with WWE. Booker was contacted by Conrad Thompson on June 10th about doing meet-and-greets on Saturday, August 31st in Chicago and Booker said he was available. On his show this week, he said he didn’t realize this was a booking for Starrcast and may have been something else that Thompson was involved with. He added that WWE had nothing to do with his removal from Starrcast. Given that Starrcast is Thompson’s event, it’s All Out weekend and that Booker just did the last Starrcast with Thompson it’s a hard story to process.
**WWE Raw women’s champion Becky Lynch and Alison Brie from GLOW will be on the cover of ESPN The Magazine, which is out this Friday. The third season of GLOW will be released Friday, August 9th on Netflix.
**Orange Cassidy has been announced for PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament in September. He joins A-Kid, Jonathan Gresham, Artemis Spencer, Mick Moretti, and Darby Allin.
**Riptide Wrestling has posted the entire match between Cara Noir and mystery opponent PAC from their card this past Friday in Brighton.
**MLW has announced that Davey Boy Smith Jr. will face Timothy Thatcher on July 25th at the Melrose Ballroom for their ‘Never Say Never’ card.
**MLW has also announced a distribution deal that will make their Fusion program available on Playstation Vue’s live TV service through beIN Sports. The show will be available to watch in its regular slot on Saturdays at 9 pm Eastern.
**Dragon Gate has confirmed that there will be English commentary for the July 21st card in Kobe, Japan. The news was first reported by Joe Lanza at Voices of Wrestling and will see Rich Bocchini from MLW calling the show with Larry Dallas. The card is Kobe will be headlined by PAC defending the Open the Dream Gate championship against Ben-K.
**Ring of Honor has announced that Marty Scurll, PCO & Brody King will defend the six-man tag titles against Bandido, Tracy Williams & Mark Haskins on July 21st in Lowell, Massachusetts. The card will stream live that night on Honor Club.
**Regarding all the wrestling events in and around Chicago later this year, Ring of Honor is running a show from Villa Park on Saturday, September 7th at the same venue as Bound for Glory.
**Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Global Junior Tag League is underway with three shows in the books and the finals on July 27th. In the A Block, Minoru Tanaka is on top with four points, followed by Tadasuke and Yoshinari Ogawa with two points each, and Daisuke Harada, YO-HEY, and Junta Miyawaki with zero points. The B Block has HAYATA on top with four points, Hitoshi Kumano & Chris Ridgeway & Hajime Ohara with two points, and Kotaro Suzuki and Hi69 with zero. The tournament resumes on Friday with a show in Tokorozawa with the following tournament matches:
*Daisuke Harada vs. Minoru Tanaka – A Block
*Junta Miyawaki vs. YO-HEY – A Block
*Chris Ridgeway vs. Kotaro Suzuki – B Block
**New Jack will be releasing a book later this year that he is writing alongside Jason Norman. The project is titled ‘New Jack: Memoir of a Pro Wrestling Extremist’ is listed for a November 28th release this year.
**The WWE stock closed at $72.98 on Tuesday.
MMA NEWS
**Thiago Santos did significant damage to his left knee during Saturday’s fight against Jon Jones. Combate was the first to report that Santos suffered a torn ACL, MCL, PCL, and meniscus in his left knee. Despite the injury occurring early in the fight, Santos went five rounds with the light heavyweight champion and losing by split decision. Santos’ manager Alex Davis spoke to ESPN and said he believes the fighter will be out for the duration of 2019 “and beyond”. His coach Phillip Lima also spoke to ESPN Brazil and said Santos has a partially torn meniscus in the right knee.
**MMA Fighting has reported that John Lineker’s brief free agency is over. Lineker spoke to Guilherme Cruz and confirmed he has signed with ONE Championship and will compete at 145 pounds. Lineker was cut following his recent removal from a scheduled fight against Rob Font last week in Minneapolis. During his tenure with the UFC, he went 12-4 since 2012 but did miss weight on four occasions while competing at flyweight and bantamweight. He is coming off a split decision loss to Cory Sandhagen from this past April.
**Here are the fights for tonight’s episode of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series at 8 pm Eastern on Fight Pass:
*Jessie Wallace (9-2) vs. Joe Solecki (7-2) – Lightweight
*Antonio Trocoli (11-3) vs. Kenneth Bergh (6-0) – Light Heavyweight
*Hunter Azure (6-0) vs. Chris Olcon (4-0) – Bantamweight
*Maki Pitolo (11-4) vs. Justin Sumter (7-2) – Middleweight
*Jacob Rosales (11-4) vs. Jonathan Pearce (8-3) – Lightweight
**MMA analyst Robin Black had his popular Instagram account disabled after posting a fan’s video of the Jorge Masvidal knockout of Ben Askren at UFC 239. Black is hopeful of gaining back access to his account but has launched a new Instagram @robinblackmartialarts. In a video, he mentioned he did violate the restrictions years ago when he posted UFC footage and thought this would be safe because it was from a fan’s phone. Black has become very popular with the one-minute breakdowns he edits and posts on Instagram.
*****
RAR 7/8/19: Cedric the Sports Entertainer
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Monday’s Extreme Rules go-home edition of WWE Raw featuring the main event where Roman Reigns teamed with a masked janitor against Shane McMahon & Drew McIntyre.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/09/rar-7-8-19-cedric-the-sports-entertainer/
*****
IMPACT SLAMMIVERSARY 2019 POST SHOW
John Pollock is joined by Nate Milton to review the Slammiversary card from Dallas, the Intergender main event, the state of Impact Wrestling & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/08/impact-slammiversary-2019-post-show/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Masahiro Chono vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (2002)
WH Park welcomes back the Eastern Lariat’s, Dylan Fox to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 12th G1 Climax tournament: Masahiro Chono vs. Yoshihiro Takayama from August 11, 2002.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/cruel-summer-12-masahiro-chono-vs-yoshihiro-takayama-2002-w-dylan-fox/
*****
G1 CLIMAX 29 POST SHOW: Opening Night
John Pollock & Wai Ting review every tournament match from the G1 Climax 29. Day 1 (July 6) is headlined by Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/g1-climax-29-post-show-opening-night-okada-vs-tanahashi-free-preview/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Keiji Mutoh vs. Yuji Nagata (2001)
WH Park is joined by the other mastermind of POST Wrestling, Wai Ting to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 11th annual G1 Climax tournament: Keiji Mutoh vs. Yuji Nagata from August 12, 2001.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/06/cruel-summer-11-keiji-mutoh-vs-yuji-nagata-2001-w-wai-ting/
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT – July 4, 2019
It’s the season finale of Viceland’s The Wrestlers and host Damian Abraham joins John Pollock and Wai Ting in-person for the entire show. We chat the series as a whole and the final two episodes dealing with Witch Catch wrestling in the Congo and Exóticos battling homophobia in Mexico, plus your calls!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/05/vicelands-the-wrestlers-finale-damian-abraham-in-studio-cafe-hangout/
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (July 2019)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the July 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/28141374
*****
upNXT 7/4/19: “Anybody Can get Lucky, Once”
The BDE chat all about the July 3rd Edition of WWE NXT including Tyler Breeze vs. Roderick Strong, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs. Cameron Grimes from the NXT Breakout Tournament, and Adam Cole’s championship tour in Cleveland.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/04/upnxt-7-4-19-anybody-can-get-lucky-once/
*****
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