Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/25/pollocks-news-update-raw-womens-title-match-to-headline-wrestlemania-35/
POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, we are back with Rewind-A-Raw as Wai Ting returns from vacation. We will catch up on the latest news and then dive into Raw from Boston, the latest developments for WrestleMania and then run through your feedback and questions. A reminder, that every Monday we do a draw at the beginning of the show to give away an item from the POST Wrestling Store. Every person that is a member of the POST Wrestling Café is automatically part of the draw.
**If you missed it, I did a solo show after the New Japan Cup Finals with a complete review of the card from Nagaoka, including a stellar main event between Kazuchika Okada and Sanada. The show is available for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**There are still tickets remaining for POST Wrestling LIVE in New York on Sunday, April 7th at Noon at the Broadway Comedy Club in New York City. The show will feature a Q&A with Wai Ting and I at Noon with a meet-and-greet before and after the show.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE
*Monday: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock and Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: The POST Interview – Guest TBA
*Wednesday: The Double Shot – A Wednesday night edition of the show with a review of “Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story” (Patreon)
*Thursday: Café Hangout live at 3 pm Eastern with Pollock & Wai (Live for Double Double, Iced Capp, and Espresso members)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington and Davie Portman
*Friday: MMA news and notes with John Pollock and MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #33 – Wrestling themed episodes of “The Simpsons” (Patreon)
*Saturday: POST Puroresu with John Pollock and WH Park
WRESTLING NEWS
**The WWE issued a press release on Monday morning confirming that the Raw women’s title match involving Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch will be the main event of WrestleMania and going on last. It was smart to announce this ahead of time because it’s an easy story for non-wrestling media outlets to grab hold of and promote in the final week leading into the show and pushing the historical aspect. It’s a big position for the women to be put on last in a card that will be seven plus hours. Last year, it was a disaster for Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns, but this is entirely different, and you won’t have the audience dare turn on this match. Something that should not be lost in the WWE’s promotion of this match headlining the show is that it absolutely should be the main event and is the strongest program going into the card.
**On Monday, it was announced through Yahoo Sports that Bret Hart of Jim Neidhart will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. It was initially reported that Jimmy Hart would be part of the Hart Foundation going in, but he was not included. We have a story on the Hart Foundation on the main page and how the team came together when both came to the WWF. The Hall of Fame ceremony takes place on Saturday, April 6th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with the Hart Foundation joining DX, Honky Tonk Man, Torrie Wilson, Harlem Heat, and Sue Aitchison receiving the Warrior Award.
**The WWE has announced that Kurt Angle’s opponent on Raw tonight will be Samoa Joe. Joe was Angle’s top opponent in TNA and drew the promotion’s highest pay-per-view numbers during their initial matches in late 2006, early 2007 and at the Lockdown card in April 2008.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the TD Garden in Boston with two episodes remaining until WrestleMania. They are promoting a match with Kurt Angle as he continues his farewell tour of matches leading into WrestleMania. As of Sunday, nothing has changed regarding Angle’s match with Baron Corbin at WrestleMania.
**The SmackDown crew has a house show in Allentown, Pennsylvania. They are advertising Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch for tonight’s show along with Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens and another three-way with Samoa Joe vs. Rey Mysterio vs. R-Truth for the United States title. The television tapings are in Uncasville, Connecticut on Tuesday night with Kurt Angle vs. AJ Styles and a four-way match with Naomi vs. Carmella vs. Mandy Rose vs. Sonya Deville and the winner challenging Asuka at WrestleMania.
**All Elite Wrestling will be doing a show with CEO Gaming on Saturday, June 29th at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. Last year, CEO partnered with New Japan for a card that featured Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi in the main event.
**Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks were a big hit at the C2E2 convention in Chicago over the weekend. From one person in attendance all weekend, they noted to us that the ones with the longest lines that needed to be capped off were Paul Rudd, Amy Jo Johnson from the Power Rangers, the voice of Vegeta, and the Elite. It was said to be a test to see how wrestling would do at the convention with CM Punk, Marty Scurll, Jim Cornette and Eric Bischoff also appearing at the convention and seems likely they will continue next time with wrestlers.
**Omega and The Young Bucks did a Q&A panel at C2E2 with lots of teases of future announcements. The biggest was stating they would return to Chicago for a show, with heavy hints towards “All In 2” for the Sears Center without directly saying it was confirmed. They were asked about WWE talent they would love to bring to AEW and listed Candice LeRae, AJ Styles, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, and Omega added Kairi Sane. Omega asked the audience to name talent they should be looking at and Darby Allin stood out the most from the names thrown at them. In a separate interview at the convention, the Bucks confirmed they would defend the AAA tag titles against Pentagon Jr. and Fenix at “Double or Nothing” on May 25th in Las Vegas.
**Brock Lesnar is being advertised for next Monday’s Raw from Washington, D.C., which is the go-home show for WrestleMania.
**On Sunday’s season finale of Total Bellas, Nikki Bella announced she was also retiring one week after Brie announced her retirement on the series, as well. The Bellas are also launching their own podcast this Wednesday, which Wai can immediately subscribe to.
**The complete card has been released for the G1 Supercard on Saturday, April 6th at Madison Square Garden. Among the additions to the show is the Intercontinental title match between Tetsuya Naito and Kota Ibushi, Zack Sabre Jr. defending the British heavyweight title against Hiroshi Tanahashi, the addition of The Briscoes and EVIL & Sanada to the IWGP and ROH tag title match involving the Guerrillas of Destiny and PCO & Brody King, plus Jushin Thunder Liger has been added to the Honor Rumble match.
**Kenny Omega will be in Toronto this week doing media for the “Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story” documentary that airs Wednesday night on TSN at 7:30 pm Eastern.
**With PAC removed from the show, Revolution Pro has announced that Will Ospreay’s new tag partner on the card will be Hiroshi Tanahashi and their opponents will be Zack Sabre Jr. and Minoru Suzuki. The Rev Pro card takes place Friday, April 5th at 3 pm at the Hilton Midtown Hotel.
**In its sixth week at the box office, Fighting with My Family did $509,274 over the weekend and brought its overall gross to $21,929,250. It was 17th over the weekend, which was dominated by Us at $70,250,000 and Captain Marvel at $25,021,000.
**MLW has announced that Teddy Hart will take on Ace Austin for the MLW middleweight title on Friday, April 5th at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens.
**The Bullet Club’s Jay White, Guerrillas of Destiny, Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro, and Gedo will be at WaleMania V on Thursday, April 4th at Sony Hall. The doors open at 7 pm.
**A new episode of WWE Photo Shoot will air tonight after Raw on the WWE Network featuring Rusev.
**Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins are doing a live podcast on Wednesday, April 3rd in Hicksville, New York at 95 Engineers Drive. The event starts at 10 pm and will include a meet-and-greet.
**In light of the news that Rob Gronkowski is retiring from football, Bet Online has placed the following odds on what he will do next: Fight in WWE (3/2), NFL commentator (2/1), Actor (5/1), Host a Podcast (5/1), play in the NFL (10/1), play in AAF (33/1), Play in the XFL (33/1), Stripper (50/1), and play in the CFL (50/1).
MMA NEWS
**Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card in Nashville drew 10,863 to the Bridgestone Arena and a gate of $939,095.99 (props to the person that didn’t round up by one penny). The Fight of the Night bonus was awarded to Bryce Mitchell and Bobby Moffett and the Performance of the Night bonuses went to Anthony Pettis and Randa Markos for $50,000 each. While Pettis and Markos had the finishes, the most dominant performance of the night came from Curtis Blaydes, who dismantled Justin Willis over three rounds. I scored that fight 30-25 for Blaydes with 10-8 rounds in the first and second.
**This Saturday’s UFC card takes place from the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia with a dynamite main event on ESPN. Lightweights Justin Gaethje and Edson Barboza will meet in the main event and has the potential of being a fight-of-the-year contender, which all Gaethje’s fights have the potential to. There was an insane statistic on Saturday’s broadcast that listed Gaethje averaging 8.53 strikes he lands per minute offset by 10.54 strikes he absorbs per minute. To compare, Barboza averages 3.99 strikes landed per minute and 4.14 he absorbs per minute. Both are coming off wins as Barboza defeated Dan Hooker last December and Gaethje knocked out James Vick last August.
**On Saturday’s ESPN+ post-show, Dana White said their plan was to match Henry Cejudo with Marlon Moraes to fight for the vacant bantamweight title and put Joseph Benavidez against Jussier Formiga on the same card. Neither fight is official but White said that was their plan with the idea that Benavidez vs. Formiga serves as a backup in case of injury and the two winners can fight if each fight takes place.
**Combate in Brazil reported that former UFC featherweight champion was in a hospital for several days with a bacterial infection. Aldo was admitted on Wednesday with the infection believed to be a result of a cut to his knee. The outlet reported that Aldo was released on Sunday and is still scheduled to fight Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 237 on May 11th in Rio de Janeiro.
**Cage Fury Fighting Championships has announced that John Morgan of MMA Junkie will become a commentator for the promotion. Morgan will be calling shows alongside CM Punk, who has been working with the promotion since December. Their next cards are May 17th in Atlantic City, New Jersey and May 25th in Coachella, California with Heloisa Azevedo taking on Miranda Granger to crown the promotion’s first female strawweight champion and will stream on UFC Fight Pass.
**The UFC has announced a featherweight fight between Makwan Amirkhani and Chris Fishgold for their next card in Stockholm, Sweden on June 1st. Amirkhani has not fought since May last year where he defeated Jason Knight by split decision. Fishgold is coming off a submission victory over Daniel Teymur in February. The Stockholm card is headlined by a light heavyweight fight between former title challengers Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony Smith.
**Bellator has announced that Julia Budd will defend her featherweight title against Olga Rubin on Friday, July 12th in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Budd defeated Marloes Coenen in March 2017 to become Bellator’s first women’s featherweight champion and has defended it against Arlene Blencowe and Talita Nogueira. Rubin is 29-years old with a 6-0 record since debuting in 2016. She is coming off decision wins over Cindy Dandois and Iony Razafiarson in Bellator.
*****
NJPW NEW JAPAN CUP FINALS (Patreon)
John Pollock reviews the final night of the New Japan Cup tournament, featuring Kazuchika Okada facing Sanada in the finals in Nagaoka. Plus, a review of the whole show, angles shot on the undercard and a preview of the week ahead at POST Wrestling.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25597525/
*****
upNXT Movie Review – The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are joined by friend of POST Wrestling, WH Park of POST Puroresu to discuss the 2011 Indonesian martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/22/upnxt-movie-review-the-raid-redemption-2011/
*****
upNXT MOVIE REVIEW – The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are joined by friend of POST Wrestling, WH Park of POST Puroresu to discuss the 2011 Indonesian martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/22/upnxt-movie-review-the-raid-redemption-2011
*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (April 2019)
John Pollock and Wai Ting (joining us remotely from Hawaii) answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the April 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai. We cover over 35 questions in this 80 min podcast, discussing AEW, WWE house shows, Umaga, Konnan, Wrestling GIFers, parenting, dental hygiene and more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25536475/
*****
POST Interview: Damian Abraham from “Turned out a Punk”
John Pollock is joined in-studio by Damian Abraham and discuss tons of topics, including Damian’s trips to Japan, hanging out with Atsushi Onita & lots more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/21/post-interview-damian-abraham-from-turned-out-a-punk/
*****
upNXT 3/21/19: I Got 5 On it
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s WWE NXT with Triple H and his announcement regarding the fate of the NXT Title & TakeOver New York, and a crazy one match TV main event Fatal 5 Way featuring: Ricochet vs Adam Cole vs Aleister Black vs Velveteen Dream vs Matt Riddle.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/21/upnxt-3-21-19-i-got-5-on-it/
*****
BWE 3/20/19: OTT Scrappermania V, wXw 16 Carat Gold, NXT UK
Martin and Benno are joined by Jamesie to talk their live perspectives from OTT Scrappermania V (Walter vs.Jordan Devlin, Scotty Davis vs. Jushin Liger) and WXW 16 Carat Gold (Starr vs. Walter).
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/20/bwe-3-20-19-ott-scrappermania-v-wxw-16-carat-gold-nxt-uk-njpw/
*****
POST Interview: New York Ric of ESPN
John Pollock is joined by ESPN’s New York Ric to chat about TJ Dillashaw relinquishing the 135-pound title, UFC-ESPN+ deal, Jorge Masvidal, UFC welterweights, Michael Bisping & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/20/post-interview-new-york-ric-of-espn/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT: Total Bellas, BTE, MLW, Impact & Road to Double or Nothing
John Pollock is solo this week and reviews this past week’s editions of Total Bellas, Being the Elite, Impact, MLW & Road to Double or Nothing.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/20/double-shot-total-bellas-bte-mlw-impact-road-to-double-or-nothing/
*****
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