Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/12/pollocks-news-update-the-ufc-turns-25-matches-to-be-taped-prior-to-takeover/
POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I will be back tonight for Rewind-A-Raw to review Raw from Kansas City and we will also discuss the Ring of Honor event we attended Sunday in Toronto at the Mattamy Athletic Centre. We will also be taking your questions and feedback from the POST Wrestling Forum.
**On Tuesday night, we will have Rewind-A-SmackDown and that will also include a preview of the Survivor Series. Plus, for members of the POST Wrestling Café, we have the weekly Double Shot with additional reviews of Ultima Lucha Part 2, Being the Elite, and Total Divas as well as anything else we can squeeze in.
**If you are a Double Double, Iced Capp or Espresso member of the POST Wrestling Café, we will be live this Thursday at 3 pm Eastern for the second Café Hangout. Wai Ting and I will be joined in studio by Martin Bushby of the British Wrestling Experience and we will be taking calls.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE THIS WEEK
*Monday: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Tuesday: Double Shot covering Ultima Lucha Part 2, Total Divas, Being the Elite
*Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with Oli Court & Benno
*Thursday: Café Hangout with Pollock, Wai & Martin Bushby at 3 pm Eastern (live video stream for Double Double & above members of the Café)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: Marvel review of “Thor” with John Pollock & Wai Ting (Patreon)
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion with Chris Charlton: 2010 with Damon McDonald of Super J Cast
*Saturday: NXT TakeOver War Games POST Show with Braden Herrington, Davie Portman & John Pollock
*Sunday: WWE Survivor Series POST Show with John Pollock & Wai Ting
WRESTLING NEWS
**Tonight’s episode of Raw will take place from the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri and is the final Raw before the Survivor Series this Sunday. Brock Lesnar and Stephanie McMahon are scheduled for the show along with the announcement of the Raw women’s team for the Survivor Series. Tonight will also mark the end of the overrun segment, which was first reported by Sean Ross Sapp at Fightful last week and takes effect tonight. The show will be three hours and ending at 11 pm Eastern.
**The current plan for TakeOver is to have a four-match show, beginning at 7 pm Eastern. They are scheduled to be taping two matches beforehand with Kassius Ohno vs. Matt Riddle and Nikki Cross vs. Candice LeRae to air on television at a later date. Below is the lineup for TakeOver:
*Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Ricochet, Pete Dunne & War Raiders in a War Games match
*Tommaso Ciampa vs. Velveteen Dream for the NXT title
*Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane in a 2-of-3 Falls match for the NXT women’s title
*Aleister Black vs. Johnny Gargano
**NXT will also be holding a television taping this Thursday night in San Jose to air after TakeOver.
**The WWE and Louisiana government issued a report today based on research by Enigma Research Corporation, stating WrestleMania 34 brought $175 million in economic related activity to New Orleans this past year. Some of the stats they listed included 77% of fans attending WrestleMania were from outside New Orleans, $22 million was spent on hotels and accommodations, the economic impact from the week was equal to the creation of 1,583 full-time jobs in the area and $9.9 million was spent on restaurants in the city by visitors. The city of New Orleans aggressively went after WrestleMania this year to coincide with the city’s Tricentennial celebration this year and led to WrestleMania returning quickly after the 2014 show in New Orleans.
**The WWE stock experienced a 3% drop on Monday as it closed at $67.40.
**Impact Wrestling continues their television tapings in Las Vegas tonight at Sam’s Town. They will wrap the tapings Tuesday night.
**This Saturday’s NXT TakeOver card is scheduled to begin with the kickoff show at 6 pm Eastern and the card is listed for a window from 7 pm until 9:30 pm. A new episode of WWE Chronicle will air immediately after TakeOver featuring Dean Ambrose’s return this past summer from injury and turn on Seth Rollins.
**All Japan Pro Wrestling’s annual Real World Tag League begins Tuesday morning with a card from Korakuen Hall and will feature the following tournament matches that will stream at AJPW.tv:
*Naoya Nomura & Yuma Aoyagi vs. Parrow & Odinson
*Zeus & The Bodyguard vs. Takao Omori & Manabu Soya
*Jun Akiyama & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. KAI & Kengo Mashimo
*Kento Miyahara & Yoshitatsu vs. Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa
**Here are the results from Sunday’s Lion’s Break Project 1 card in Anaheim, California:
*ACH over Karl Fredericks
*Jushin Thunder Liger over Clark Connors
*Jeff Cobb & Ryusuke Taguchi over Hirooki Goto & Rocky Romero
*Kenny Omega over David Finlay
**Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW) announced Sunday that WWE performer Noam Dar will be part of their annual Fear & Loathing event on Sunday, December 2nd at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. Dar will team with Wolfgang & BT Gunn against Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate & Trent Seven.
**A new episode of the WWE 365 will be airing immediately after the Survivor Series featuring AJ Styles’ last year as WWE champion. This is the second installment of the series with the first featuring Kevin Owens, which was a very intriguing look at the frustrations of his career during his switch from Raw to SmackDown in 2017.
**The WWE personalities nominated for People’s Choice Awards came up empty at Sunday’s awards ceremony. John Cena was nominated for Best Comedy Movie Star and lost to Melissa McCarthy, Nikki Bella was nominated for Competition Contestant for Dancing with the Stars and lost to Maddie Poppe of American Idol, Nikki was also nominated for Best Reality TV Star and fell to Khloe Kardashian. The final WWE representative was Nia Jax for Game Changer of 2018, which was won by Serena Williams.
**Variety reports that the American Cable Association is pushing for the Department of Justice to investigate Comcast-NBC Universal for antitrust violations. The parent company of the USA Network, which broadcasts Raw and SmackDown Live, is being pressed by the ACA to explain if Hulu was being used to harm its rivals and if the company has “engaged in specific behavior that has undermined competition while it’s been subjected to the new-expired conditions”, referring to conditions put in place when Comcast acquired NBC Universal in 2011. A response was issued by Comcast stating the ACA’s letter to the DOJ is “without merit and constitutes an inappropriate attempt to gain leverage in the commercial marketplace.”
The season-finale of WWE Ride Along will air immediately after Raw on the WWE Network tonight featuring Edge & Christian and The Riott Squad.
It was noted by Rob Viper on Twitter that Fenix is on a stretch of eight straight days of shows. It began last Wednesday in Austin, Texas and then worked for MLW on Thursday, against Kenny Omega on Friday for Northeast Wrestling, Saturday for AAW, Sunday through Tuesday for Impact in Las Vegas and concludes Wednesday for AAA in Mexico City.
MMA NEWS
**Today marks the official 25th anniversary of the first UFC event from McNichols Sports Arena on this date in 1993. There are some great resources out that cover the creation of the UFC 1 through Art Davie’s being influenced by an article in Playboy in 1989 that led him to the Gracie family and working with Rorion to develop the show. It was originally going to be marketed as “War of the Worlds” before settling on the Ultimate Fighting Championship branding that has withstood all the ups and downs of the company. At its core, that is what Lorenzo Fertitta cited as the assets they were purchasing in 2001 – the letters “UFC”, which was still the industry standard throughout the dark days of MMA.
There are so many “what if?” scenarios that could see the UFC die and MMA never take off to this level. Some criticized the direction the early shows took and the political enemies it created that nearly killed it, however, a sanitized version isn’t gaining 86,000 curiosity buys for the debut show in 1993 that didn’t even have television to promote the event. Times changed and so did the UFC, despite the “Zuffa myth” (which you don’t hear too often anymore) of the former management running from regulation, it was hardly the case with rules in place from the first show along with future rule changes and implementation of weight classes long before Zuffa was involved.
In 2001, the Fertittas and Dana White took a promotion on the brink of death and breathed new life into it. It was not an overnight change and there were periods it looked doomed. A major event for Zuffa was UFC 40 “Vendetta” in November 2002 for the first fight between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. It was the fight that generated their most attention since the 2001 purchase and while 150,000 buys would be disappointing today, it was the flicker of a light at the end of a long tunnel suggesting Zuffa should stay the course. They continued, but the losses were mounting, and the Hail Mary was the Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV. It’s so interesting to analyze the intersection of the WWE and the UFC and it’s this period that is most pronounced. Monday Night Raw was the gem of Spike TV, that led to a transformation of The Nashville Network into The National Network into Spike TV by 2003. Had WWE stayed with the USA Network and not explored leaving, who is to say there would have been a network in the vein of Spike for the marketplace to support a UFC reality show? The WWE also had to approve the Ultimate Fighter to air immediately after Raw, which was the greatest lead-in UFC could ask for.
By the TUF Finale, you knew the UFC had big buzz attached to it and while Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar was a huge fight in company history, the series had already found an audience and it would have been impossible to imagine Spike walking away from this hit, especially with the WWE leaving the network that year. The biggest impact that changed the game was the UFC’s ability to take their television viewers of TUF and turn them into pay-per-view consumers as their business took off in 2005 and sent the company into profitability. While 2005 was a pivotal year, it was 2006 where they exploded with mega fights involving Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrock, Matt Hughes, and Royce Gracie as the core draws on the platform that year.
It’s an incredible story from the origin in 1993 to this date where the company is on the eve of a $1.5 billion television and streaming deal with ESPN. The company has undergone many changes to its identity from the first show in 1993 that kicked off the first pay-per-view glory period, to the depths of darkness from 1997-2001, a re-emergence under new ownership in the first years of the new century, the Spike era of 2005-2011, the Fox era that ends in a few weeks and the dawn of the ESPN era that could place the company into a different light by the end of that deal. It has always had the connective tissue of relying upon stars that have sent fans to their cable provider to spend high-end money for the biggest fights. Never has the UFC had more guaranteed money than the ESPN deal provides annually, but the ability to stay at the top of the pay-per-view industry is lucrative and it’s always about star power on that medium. Television and streaming money can offset turbulence with talent turnover and stars fading, but the biggest question of the next five years will be the utilization of ESPN as a star maker.
**Jonathan Snowden at Bleacher Report has an excellent feature on UFC 1 and the birth of the promotion in 1993.
**ESPN’s panel ranks the 25 most influential figures in the history of the UFC. The major figures are all accounted for with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta tied for first, followed by Royce Gracie, Art Davie, Conor McGregor, Chuck Liddell, Ronda Rousey, Rorion Gracie, Bob Meyrowitz, and Campbell McLaren in the top ten. If I were to add people to the list, I would include Kevin Kay at Spike TV, who spearheaded the UFC onto the network and deserves a lot of credit. The success of the first season of TUF should include Chris Leben and Josh Koscheck, whose fight and rivalry led to TUF topping a 2.0 for the first time for a taped fight airing outside of prime time late on a Monday night. That feud cemented TUF’s ability to draw an audience and create stars. Joe Silva and Lorenzo Fertitta are big ones and their absence has been felt since each has left the company. On the Canadian front, Tom Wright was an important figure for this country and someone that got the ball moving exceedingly fast to open the province of Ontario within a year of his appointment and allowing the UFC to run Rogers Centre in April 2011. Wright also worked very hard dealing with regulations in Australia that became another hotbed for the promotion when it came to getting into Melbourne and holding their first show in the city in 2015.
**The UFC is in Argentina for the first time on Saturday with a Fight Night event. Below is the full card that takes place from Buenos Aires:
MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on FS 1, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Neil Magny vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio
*Ricardo Lamas vs. Darren Elkins
*Khalil Rountree vs. Johnny Walker
*Cezar Ferreira vs. Ian Heinisch
*Marlon Vera vs. Guido Cannetti
*Cynthia Calvillo vs. Poliana Botelho
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Michel Prazeres vs. Bartosz Fabinski
*Ulka Sasaki vs. Alexandre Pantoja
*Humberto Bandenay vs. Austin Arnett
*Hector Aldana vs. Laureano Staropoli
FIGHT PASS CARD (7 pm)
*Devin Powell vs. Jesus Pinedo
*Anderson dos Santos vs. Nad Narimani
*****
CONTENT TALKS TORONTO: Podcasting (Nov. 6, 2018)
POST Wrestling’s John Pollock joins a panel of fellow podcasters in this special discussion presented by Content Talks Toronto. This hour-long conversation features four experts discussing how they each got started in podcasting, what is required to start a podcast, ways they have each found success, and a number of other tips for anyone interested in the medium.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/11/content-talks-toronto-podcasting-nov-6-2018/
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 2009 w/ Joel Abraham of Super J Cast
Episode 21 sees Chris Charlton and Joel Abraham look at 2009. NJPW continues a trend of cross-promotion in the Tokyo Dome with talents from TNA and NOAH prominent, and Hiroshi Tanahashi headlines opposite Keiji Muto.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/10/eggshells-podcast-companion-2009-w-joel-abraham/
REWIND-A-WAI #23: WWE Payback 2013
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Packback 2013 featuring CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho as Punk returns to Chicago following a two-month hiatus, and John Cena vs. Ryback in a Three Stages of Hell match for the WWE Championship.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/09/rewind-a-wai-23-wwe-payback-2013/
upNXT 11/8/18: BRO-LEEmian Rhapsody
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT featuring Velveteen Dream vs. Lars Sullivan, a final answer as to “why” Gargano attacked Black, Matt Riddle & Keith Lee join forces, Heavy Machinery in action… and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/08/upnxt-11-8-18-bro-leemian-rhapsody/
DOUBLE SHOT 11/7/18: Ultima Lucha Cuatro Part 2, BTE Halloween, Total Divas
John Pollock and Wai Ting bring you the DOUBLE SHOT featuring reviews of Ultima Lucha Cuatro Part 1, Being The Elite with a Halloween-themed episode and footage from the Chris Jericho cruise, Total Divas starring the lovable Rusev and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/07/double-shot-11-7-18-ultima-lucha-cuatro-pt-1-bte-halloween-total-divas/
RASD 11/6/18: Survivor Series teams announced, NXT star debuts, Mysterio vs. Almas
The WWE’s second night in Manchester featured the men’s and women’s Survivor Series teams being announced, Daniel Bryan & The Miz are named co-captains, two great matches with New Day vs. The Usos and Rey Mysterio vs. Andrade Cien Almas, Becky Lynch is confronted by the debuting Nikki Cross & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/07/rasd-11-6-18-survivor-series-teams-announced-nxt-star-debuts-mysterio-vs-almas/
REWIND-A-RAW 11/5/18: Kurt Angle wrestles, Survivor Series news, Triple H set for surgery
Monday’s Raw from Manchester saw Kurt Angle have his first singles match on Raw since 2006 against Drew McIntyre, the top matches were announced for Survivor Series, plus special news from the POST Office with the launch of the POST Wrestling Store.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/06/rar-11-5-18-angle-wrestles-survivor-series-news-triple-h-set-for-surgery/
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