Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/17/pollocks-news-update-the-undertaker-returns-on-raw-tonight-from-dallas/
POST IT NOTES
**Our WWE Hell in a Cell POST Show is up on the site with Wai Ting & I chatting Sunday’s event with a rundown of the whole card, Brock Lesnar’s appearance, the Becky Lynch title win, the two cell matches and how they came off, Ronda Rousey’s match, as well as taking your feedback and catching up on some news and notes. You can subscribe to POST Wrestling on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts to listen to the show.
**For this show, we also have the video version we recorded that is available to Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café and that can be accessed to members at https://www.patreon.com/posts/hell-in-cell-21460367. Wai and I will be doing another live video stream for Double Double & above members after the WWE’s Super Show-Down event on Saturday, October 6th. The live video stream went off well last night and it was a lot of fun to do the show live and interact with listeners.
**Wai Ting and I will be back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw to discuss tonight’s show from Dallas, the latest with Brock Lesnar, the promotion for Super Show-Down taking focus and we will go through today’s New Japan Destruction in Beppu card and take your feedback.
**We have a full review of today’s NJPW Destruction in Beppu card with Tetsuya Naito vs. Minoru Suzuki and Hirooki Goto defending the NEVER Openweight title against Taichi.
**This Friday will feature the return of our Marvel Cinematic Universe reviews. We have decided we are going to review all the MCU films and go in order so following last month’s review of “Ironman”, this Friday we are reviewing “The Incredible Hulk” starring Edward Norton and Liv Tyler. We have posted a feedback thread on the POST Wrestling Forum. This show will be available for all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE THIS WEEK:
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: The Double Shot (Patreon) with reviews of CMLL’s Anniversary card and Mick Foley’s WWE Network special
*Wednesday: The British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Oli Court & Benno
*Thursday: upNXT/Forever Young with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Friday: MCU review of “The Incredible Hulk” with Pollock & Wai (Patreon)
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion with Chris Charlton on 2002 with Lee Daly
*Sunday: NJPW Destruction in Kobe POST Show with Pollock & Wai (Patreon)
WRESTLING NEWS
**We reported earlier today that Brock Lesnar is scheduled to wrestle at the WWE’s next event in Saudi Arabia in a three-way match with Universal champion Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman. The match is expected to be announced tonight and will be Lesnar’s first match since SummerSlam.**I spoke with someone regarding Becky Lynch and the direction she is going. At SummerSlam, it was designed to turn Becky into a heel, however after the reaction that week in Brooklyn they decided to adjust and make it more about Becky and Charlotte’s issues with one another rather than making Becky a strong heel. The directive at the time was that Becky was a ‘Stone Cold’ type of character knowing she would be cheered, however, we are told that has somewhat changed. Internally, Becky is technically considered a heel, although she isn’t generally being received as one by the public. There are no plans to make Charlotte Flair a heel coming out of this.
**Tonight’s episode of Raw takes place from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas with The Undertaker appearing on the show. The prime focus will be the Super Show-Down event, which they began pushing hard on Sunday’s Hell in a Cell show. The card is largely set with the major names listed for matches on both brands.
**The Emmy Awards are tonight with GLOW nominated for Best Comedy Series along with Betty Gilpin being nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Debbie Eagan.
**The SmackDown crew has a live event in Oklahoma City tonight and the television tapings are in Tulsa on Tuesday night. The tapings will feature SmackDown, 205 Live and the return of the Mixed Match Challenge. The following matches have been announced for SmackDown:
*AJ Styles vs. Andrade Cien Almas in a non-title match
*Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev for the United States title
**For Kevin Owens, Natalya, Braun Strowman, and Alexa Bliss that means an extra day on the road as the Raw talent working on Tuesday. It will also be noteworthy where the tape 205 Live whether it’s before SmackDown or after the Mixed Match Challenge.
**The winner of the 2018 PWG Battle of Los Angeles tournament and a look at the previous winners dating back to 2005.
**For the second straight year, the WWE will be presenting a Starrcade event with the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati hosting the show on Saturday, November 24th. The arena announced the event along with the following matches: The Shield vs. Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre in a Cincinnati Street Fight, AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe in a steel cage match, Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair in a steel cage match and an appearance by Ric Flair. Last year’s show was not televised and there is no indication this will be anything more than a house show for the company. Tickets go on sale this Friday.
**Cody will be defending the NWA championship against Willie Mack on Saturday, September 29th at the Ring of Honor television tapings in Las Vegas. Cody is also set to headline the NWA’s 70th Anniversary event on Sunday, October 21st in a rematch with former champion Nick Aldis in Nashville, Tennessee.
**Last Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling averaged 258,000 viewers on POP TV and was their highest number since the episode following Slammiversary in July. Thursday’s show went against the Ravens vs. Bengals game that did 7,024,000 viewers on the NFL Network. Numbers for Impact have been down consistently since the end of July and the common thread is the NFL that appears to have cut their audience down. It would seem to be a factor that Impact just needs to accept because I cannot see them having much success any other night of the week. Monday and Tuesday nights would be killers today, although Tuesdays will be open in the fall of 2019 barring any additional programming being added. Wednesdays have become insane with 205 Live, NXT, the Mae Young Classic, Lucha Underground and Total Divas airing that night for the next two months. Fridays weren’t a bad night for Impact when they were on Destination America but that would be a bad night to move to with SmackDown on Fox that night next year. That leaves Saturday and Sunday nights, which are bad nights in general but realistically, I think Impact has their core audience that is going to find the show and in the larger picture the fluctuation is just a reality that exists.
**Renee Young is a guest on The Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch today to discuss her promotion to the Raw commentary team. She explained that they have not had a discussion yet about how she should approach calling Dean Ambrose’s matches (this was recorded prior to Sunday’s Hell in a Cell show) and explained why she laid out on her first night as part of the team when Ambrose made his return and hasn’t had to call a lengthy match of his. Paul Heyman also wrote a lengthy note to the host Richard Deitsch praising Young’s performance during their sit-down interview prior to SummerSlam over the break up with Brock Lesnar. Heyman said he would not be able to pull off that type of performance without having Young to work off through her questions and how she delivered them. Young said she prefers calling the matches without the knowledge of what is going to happen and for her role, it’s not important to know the outcome and can react naturally.
**The following matches are scheduled for this week’s edition of the Mae Young Classic at 9 pm Eastern on the WWE Network:
*Kaitlyn vs. Kavita Devi
*Jinny vs. Toni Storm
*Karen Q vs. Xia Li
*Allysin Kay (formerly Sienna in Impact Wrestling) vs. Mia Yim
**William Regal attended the first two nights of PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles. We were also told that Brian Kendrick was in attendance on Saturday.
**New Japan continues their Road to Destruction tour on Tuesday in Kumamoto, Thursday in Yamaguchi, and Friday in Ehime. Sunday is the Destruction in Kobe card with the big rematch between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada with the Wrestle Kingdom title shot at stake. Sunday’s card in Kobe also features KUSHIDA taking on Bushi in the junior heavyweight title tournament with the winner advancing to the final at King of Pro Wrestling on October 8th.
**MLW has announced that Marko Stunt will join ACH and Rich Swann against Teddy Hart, Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Brian Pillman Jr. on October 4th at the promotion’s “Fury Road” event at the Melrose Ballroom in Queens, New York. The same card will feature L.A. Park taking on PCO.
**Jim Cornette turns 57 years old today and Masahiro Chono is 55.
**The WWE stock closed at $87.75 on Monday.
MMA NEWS
**The UFC held a huge Fight Night event from Moscow, Russia on Saturday afternoon with a card at Olimpiyskiy Stadium in front of an announced attendance of 22,603. The figure would make it one of the largest audiences in the history of the UFC and generated a gate of $1,840,000, so this was an enormously successful Fight Night event for the promotion’s first event in the country. Here are the results from the show: *Merab Dvalishvili def. Terrion Ware by unanimous decision (30-25 all) *Ramazan Emeev def. Stefan Sekulic by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27, 29-28) *Jordan Johnson def. Adam Yandiev by arm-triangle choke at 0:42 of Round 2 *Magomed Ankalaev def. Marcin Prachnio by KO at 3:09 of Round 1 *Mairbek Taisumov def. Desmond Green by unanimous decision (30-27 all) *Rustam Khabilov def. Kajan Johnson by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) *Petr Yan def. Jin Soo Son by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) *Khalid Murtazaliev def. C.B. Dollaway by TKO at 5:00 of Round 2 *Alexey Kunchenko def. Thiago Alves by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) *Shamil Abdurakhimov def. Andrei Arlovski by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) *Jan Blachowicz def. Nikita Krylov by arm-triangle choke at 2:41 of Round 2 *Aleksey Oleinik def. Mark Hunt by rear-naked choke at 4:26 of Round 1**The Fight of the Night was the Petr Yan vs. Jin Soo Son fight, however, since Son missed weight he was not awarded the bonus money and only Yan received the bonus. With the extra $50,000, they gave out three Performance of the Night bonuses to Aleksey Oleinik, Jan Blachowicz, and Magomed Ankalaev.
**This Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card has a new main event six-days out. MMA Junkie reported Sunday night that Jimi Manuwa was off the card and would be replaced by Eryk Anders in the main event against Thiago Santos. Anders just fought on August 25th where he knocked out Tim Williams in the third round of their middleweight fight. Anders will be coming up in weight to fight Santos at light heavyweight this weekend.
**Conor McGregor has launched his own line of whiskey that is being marketed as “Proper No. 12”.
**Bellator confirmed Monday that they will be holding their first event in Hawaii on Saturday, December 15th from the Neal S. Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu. The card will feature women’s flyweight champion Ilima-Lei Macfarlane defending the title against Valerie Letourneau. The event will also feature Lyoto Machida’s promotional debut against former middleweight champion Rafael Carvalho and the Welterweight Grand Prix tournament fight between Ed Ruth and Neiman Gracie. The event will be streamed exclusively on DAZN.
*****
WWE HELL IN A CELL POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the Hell in a Cell card, a match-by-match rundown, Brock Lesnar appears during the main event, Becky Lynch wins the women’s title, the finish of Styles-Joe, the red cage and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/17/wwe-hell-in-a-cell-post-show-with-john-pollock-wai-ting/
NJPW DESTRUCTION IN HIROSHIMA POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review New Japan’s Destruction card from Hiroshima with the IWGP title match between Kenny Omega and Tomohiro Ishii and several future matches set up on the undercard from the current tour.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/15/njpw-destruction-in-hiroshima-2018-post-show-w-john-pollock-wai-ting/
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 2001 w/ Rich Kraetsch
Chris Charlton is joined by Rich Kraetsch of Voices of Wrestling to discuss 2001 at the Tokyo Dome with the bizarre relationship between New Japan & All Japan, Toshiaki Kawada’s rematch with Kensuke Sasaki, the final year All Japan ran the Dome & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/15/eggshells-podcast-companion-2001-w-rich-kraetsch/
REWIND-A-WAI #19: UFC 194 (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the UFC 194 card from December 2015 headlined by Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor and Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold. We welcome MMA analyst Robin Black, who covered the show live and interviewed McGregor ahead of the fight. This event was selected by Espresso Executive Producer Joshua Martin.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/14/rewind-a-wai-19-ufc-194-aldo-vs-mcgregor-w-robin-black/
upNXT/Forever Young 9/13/18: Mae Young Classic review with Dahlia Black
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman return to chat about a dull edition of NXT, but then things pick up with a review of the second week of the Mae Young Classic and are joined by wrestler Dahlia Black with her thoughts on the MYC episode.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/13/upnxt-forever-young-9-13-18-myc-review-with-dahlia-black/
POST PURORESU – Sept. 2018
John Pollock & WH Park chat about the recent Golden Lovers vs. Will Ospreay & Tomohiro Ishii tag, the Destruction cards, Zeus defends the Triple Crown against Shuji Ishikawa, the Naomichi Marufuji vs. KENTA match at Sumo Hall, Stardom’s 5 Star Grand Prix, Takayamania Empire benefit card & lots more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/12/post-puroresu-golden-lovers-vs-ishii-ospreay-marufuji-vs-kenta-stardom-5-star-grand-prix/
THE DOUBLE SHOT 9/12/18 (Patreon)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the Jay Lethal vs. Jonathan Gresham Ironman match from Ring of Honor, John chats the latest episode of Lucha Underground, Wai reviews a new comic featuring Rey Mysterio and they chat the recent “Being the Elite” episode.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/12/double-shot-9-12-18-lucha-underground-lethal-vs-gresham-rey-mysterio-comic/
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 9/11/18: Storytime with Samoa Joe, Hell in a Cell Preview
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the final SmackDown before Hell in a Cell, Samoa Joe reads a story, Becky Lynch attacks Charlotte, Brie Bella takes on Maryse, all the news of the day and a preview of the Hell in a Cell card.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/09/12/rasd-9-11-18-storytime-with-samoa-joe-hell-in-a-cell-preview/
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