POLLOCK'S NEWS UPDATE: The Undertaker vs. Bill Goldberg set for Saudi Arabia

General
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Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/13/pollocks-news-update-the-undertaker-vs-bill-goldberg-set-for-saudi-arabia/

POST IT NOTES

**Wai Ting and I will be back with Rewind-A-Raw tonight on the site chatting Raw from London, the news of the day, and taking your feedback. The show will be posted late tonight in the usual spots.

**If you missed it, I did a solo UFC 237 POST Show on Saturday night reviewing the card from Brazil, plus a rundown of the Bellator 221 card in Chicago and discussing the passing of Silver King.

POST WRESTLING SCHEDULE

*Mon: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Tues: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Wed: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Benno & guest Will Cooling
*Wed: The Double Shot (Patreon) reviewing Dark Side of the Ring, Bret Hart vs. Tom Magee & more
*Thurs: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Thurs: Café Hangout live at 3 pm Eastern with guest Tony Maglio from The Wrap (Double Double+ Patrons, free on Friday)
*Fri: Rewind-A-Wai #36 on WWF One Night Stand 1997
*Sat: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate Milton covering “Doom” (2005)
*Sun: WWE Money in the Bank POST Show

WRESTLING NEWS

**The WWE announced Monday that the June 7th event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will be billed as “Super Showdown”, adopting the same name they used for last October’s event in Australia. They have announced The Undertaker will take on Bill Goldberg, Randy Orton will face Triple H, and there will be a 50-man battle royal. They consistently referred to the match as a “battle royal” and even promoted it as the “largest ever”, which would distinguish it from last year’s 50-man Royal Rumble. Logistically, it sounds impossible to start a match with 50 people in the ring but it’s it notable how they are promoting it and not calling the event the Greatest Royal Rumble.

For Bill Goldberg, this will be his first match since April 2017 when he faced Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33. He has posted photos training in preparation for the match in Saudi Arabia. The Undertaker has not wrestled since the Crown Jewel event last November in Riyadh. The promotion of this show will likely accelerate next week after Money in the Bank with three weeks between shows.

**On Monday’s episode of Being the Elite, they announced two matches for Double or Nothing on May 25th. Chuckie T. and Beretta are out of the Casino Battle Royale and will have a tag match against Angelico and Jack Evans, whose signings were announced last week. They have also added a six-woman tag with Aja Kong, Yuka Sakazaki & Emi Sakura against Hikaru Shida, Riho Abe & Ryo Mizunami. This card looks excellent on paper with a wide variety of talent, styles and an audience that is going to make this a contender for show of the year.

**Raw will be airing tonight on a several hour tape delay from the O2 Arena in London, England. We have a feedback thread posted on the POST Wrestling Forum early for those that attended the show live. The following has been advertised in advance:
*A double contract signing with Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Lacey Evans
*Roman Reigns appears on Miz TV
*Naomi vs. Natalya vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Dana Brooke
*Braun Strowman vs. Drew McIntyre
*Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin

**Following Raw, the WWE Network will be adding the 1986 match between Bret Hart and Tom Magee along with a documentary they have produced discussing the lost match.

**WWE’s European tour continues Tuesday with the SmackDown and 205 Live tapings at the O2 Arena in London with the following announced:
*Finn Balor vs. Ali vs. Randy Orton vs. Andrade
*Sonya Deville & Mandy Rose vs. Kairi Sane & Asuka

**The Raw crew is scheduled for a show Tuesday in Paris, France and will be interesting to see how much the Paris card changes regarding Raw talent that may be needed for SmackDown for the Wild Card rule. The tour runs until Friday and the roster returns for the Money in the Bank show Sunday night in Hartford.

**The WWE stock fell almost 4% on Monday with a close of $80.78.

**Tickets for the NXT TakeOver special in Toronto over SummerSlam weekend go on sale this Friday at 10 am Eastern. The show takes place Saturday, August 10th from the Scotiabank Arena. That weekend is going to be insane with WWE running four shows in four nights; Smash Wrestling is running shows in conjunction with Progress Wrestling, wXw, Femme Fatales, and SHIMMER, ROH has announced a Friday night card for the Mattamy Athletic Centre, and Destiny Wrestling is also running on Friday night.

**The Best of the Super Juniors kicked off Monday from Sendai with a phenomenal match between Shingo Takagi and SHO. They set the bar for the best match of the tournament, going over 25 minutes and tearing the house down. This was the match to go out of your way to watch from the first day. Takagi’s unbeaten streak is going to be one of the major stories of the next few weeks. On the show, Kevin Kelly did state that the winner will challenge Dragon Lee for the IWGP junior heavyweight title at Dominion. Below are Tuesday’s B Block matches from Miyagi and streaming at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World:
*Ren Narita vs. Douki
*Robbie Eagles vs. Rocky Romero
*Bandido vs. El Phantasmo
*Will Ospreay vs. Bushi
*Ryusuke Taguchi vs. YOH

**Caprice Coleman was part of the English broadcast team at the Best of the Super Juniors show alongside Kevin Kelly and Chris Charlton.

**John Cena spoke to The Wrap about his relationship with WWE. He acknowledged that the company doesn’t need him anymore and there was a time that they needed him financially. He said he was able to rise in 2003 because so many performers either left (Steve Austin, The Rock) or were injured allowing the company to build new stars but also take a financial hit, alluding to the recent earnings call. He added: “I don’t want to go out there and think I can perform like I’m 30, because I can’t,” he continued. “It’s something I’ve seen a few instances of and I’m going to try everything in my power not to do that”.

**MLW announced over the weekend that Austin Aries is coming in. They have also announced that Teddy Hart will defend the MLW middleweight title against Jimmy Havoc on June 1st at the television tapings in Milwaukee.

**One of the many panels at Starrcast will be “Remembering Brian Pillman”, which takes place on Sunday, May 26th. The panel will feature “Crazy Like a Fox” author Liam O’Rourke, Dave Meltzer, Mark Madden, Kevin Sullivan, and Brian Pillman Jr.

**Danny Hodge, one of the greatest wrestlers of his era and a man synonymous with the NWA junior heavyweight title, turns 87 years old today.

**Garrett Kidney has announced that he has left his position as Digital Producer at Impact Wrestling, a role has served since January 2018. Prior to joining Impact, he covered the promotion for the Voices of Wrestling site.

**DEFY Wrestling has announced that Brian Cage and TJ Perkins will be wrestling on their June 15th card at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, Oregon on June 15th. Tickets go on sale this Friday at http://www.defywrestling.com/. (CORRECTION: The event is in Portland and originally had listed it in Seattle, Washington).

MMA NEWS

**Charges against Conor McGregor that stemmed from an incident in March have been dropped. McGregor was accused of taking a cell phone from a fan, stomping it and then leaving with the phone. He was facing a felony charge of robbery and a misdemeanor for criminal mischief. The accuser, Ahmed Abdirzak, had already dropped a civil suit against the fighter and his attorney informed the prosecutor’s office that the issue was resolved and no longer felt McGregor was trying to injure or damage him and his property. Even though there was surveillance footage, the Assistant State Attorney Khalil Madani brought into question the witness’ credibility issues and could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McGregor was guilty of the charges.

**The UFC 237 card from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Saturday drew 15,193 to the Jeunesse Arena. The Fight of the Night bonus was awarded to Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade with Andrade also receiving a Performance of the Night bonus for $100,000 total. Warlley Alves also received a Performance of the Night bonus. Ryan Spann, Irene Aldana, and Viviane Araujo were all in contention for bonuses with their respective performances.

**25-year old French fighter Tom Duquesnoy has announced his retirement from fighting. Duquesnoy had his first pro fight at the age of 18 and rose up the European scene, becoming featherweight and bantamweight champion for the BAMMA organization. Prior to joining the UFC, had a record of 14-1 and 1 no contest the lone blemish to Makwan Amirkhani from the fifth fight of his career. Duquesnoy debuted for the UFC in April 2017 defeating Patrick Williams by TKO. He returned at UFC 216 in October that year and dropped a split decision to Cody Stamann and last fought this past March where he defeated Terrion Ware by unanimous decision.

**The UFC will hold their first card in Rochester, New York this Saturday at the Blue Cross Arena. The card lacks a blockbuster marquee fight but there is solid depth to the show. The main event features Kevin Lee moving up to welterweight to fight Rafael dos Anjos in a tough fight for both guys, who appear in the middle of a logjam in their division with the top stars at lightweight all scheduled for fights, except for Conor McGregor and I don’t see McGregor fighting Lee or dos Anjos. Here is the full card this weekend:

MAIN CARD (8 pm Eastern on ESPN+, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Kevin Lee vs. Rafael dos Anjos
*Neil Magny vs. Vicente Luque
*Antonio Carlos Junior vs. Ian Heinisch
*Megan Anderson vs. Felicia Spencer
*Nik Lentz vs. Charles Oliveira
*Davi Ramos vs. Austin Hubbard

PRELIMINARY CARD (5 pm on ESPN+, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Aspen Ladd vs. Sijara Eubanks
*Desmond Green vs. Charles Jourdain
*Michel Pereira vs. Danny Roberts
*Mike Trizano vs. Grant Dawson
*Patrick Cummins vs. Ed Herman
*Trevin Giles vs. Zak Cummings
*Julian Erosa vs. Julio Arce

**Here are some of the key dates the UFC has announced for the rest of 2019:
*Saturday, July 20th – Fight Night in San Antonio, Texas on ESPN
*Saturday, July 27th – UFC 240
*Saturday, August 17th – UFC 241 in Anaheim (Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic, Nate Diaz vs. Anthony Pettis)
*Saturday, September 7th – UFC 241 in Abu Dhabi
*Saturday, September 21st – Fight Night in Mexico City
*Saturday, October 5th – UFC 243
*Saturday, November 2nd – UFC 244
*Saturday, December 14th – UFC 245

**The third season of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series returns on June 18th and will stream on ESPN+ in the U.S. and Fight Pass worldwide. There will be ten episodes this season and will run until August 20th. The fights will be taking place at the new UFC Apex and they have announced these fights for the first episode of the season:
*Punahele Soriano vs. Jamie Pickett – Middleweight
*Leon Shahbazyan vs. Brok Weaver – Welterweight
*Hannah Goldy vs. Kali Robbins – Strawweight
*Brendan Loughnane vs. Bill Algeo – Featherweight
*Alton Meeks vs. Yorgan De Castro – Heavyweight

**Combate Americas has announced a new bantamweight main event between Jose Alday and Juan Pablo Gonzalez for their June 7th card in Tucson, Arizona. The event will be airing live on Univision, UDN, and DAZN. They have also announced a lightweight fight between Rafa Garcia and Estevan Payan, and a strawweight fight with Yazmin Jauregui vs. Codie Wareham.

*****
UFC 237 POST SHOW: Namajunas vs. Andrade, Bellator 221, The Passing of Silver King
John Pollock is solo to review the UFC 237 and Bellator 221 cards, plus the details on Silver King’s passing after collapsing during a match in London on Saturday.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/12/post-show-ufc-237-bellator-221-the-passing-of-silver-king/
*****
POST PURORESU: BOSJ Preview, Champion Carnival, Stardom’s Cinderella Tournament
John Pollock & WH Park preview Best of the Super Juniors, reviews of Champion Carnival and Stardom’s Cinderella, Chris Jericho returns at Dominion & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/11/post-puroresu-bosj-preview-champion-carnival-cinderella-tournament/
*****
CAFÉ HANGOUT: The MCU with Wai Ting & Brent Chittenden
On a special edition of the Café Hangout, Wai Ting welcomes Brent Chittenden (True North Nerds) for a look back at the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/10/marvel-cinematic-universe-special-cafe-hangout-5-10-19/
*****
ASK-A-WAI: May 2019 (Patreon)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the May 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26749728
*****
upNXT 5/9/19: Everything is Fine
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s edition of WWE NXT featuring Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle, Mia Yim vs. Bianca Belair, War Raiders are attacked, and the continued dissension of The Undisputed Era.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/09/upnxt-5-9-19-everything-is-fine/
*****
THE DOUBLE SHOT
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Viceland’s “The Mysterious Death of Gorgeous Gino”, WWE Business Partner Summit, Greg Hamilton: A WWE Mockumentary, and this week’s Road to Double or Nothing and Being The Elite.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/26724769
*****
RASD 5/7/19: New Tag Champs, Wild Card, Damian Abraham talks “The Wrestlers”
Wai Ting is joined by Nate Milton to review WWE SmackDown as new Tag Team Champions are crowned. Damian Abraham joins us to discuss the official launch of Viceland’s The Wrestlers.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/05/08/rasd-5-7-19-new-tag-champs-wild-card-damian-abraham-talks-the-wrestlers/
*****

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If i could place a bet right now on Undertaker vs Goldberg being the consensus Worst Match of the Year, i would.

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This is incredible. For anyone that is hating on this I don’t know that to say.

I’m way more excited for this than any PPV in recent memory.

UT vs Goldberg Is literally a dream match! I never thought I would see this. Plus we likely get Lesnar vs Rollins and a 50 man battle Royale has me intrigued.

Randy vs HHH is a great callback to a great feud.

While it won’t be a technically masterpiece it’s going to have major mark our moments

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They should have The Revival be in the battle royal and have one of them let out a silent but deadly fart that clears the ring. It would be in line with the current way they are booking them.

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Triple H: “Hold my non-alcoholic beer… for at least 20 minutes.”

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So i’m thinking the taker vs goldberg match will be a very short match considering what both man are capable of doing but it’S still might a a great brawl the ends with either a spear/jackhamer or a tombstone. As for the rest of the card, i really feel like it’s the strong line up they had for one of these shows and i’m intrigue by it a lot more then i was the first two.

Also i feel like you can agree or disagree with the politics of the country itself but as far as the crowd is concern, you see genuine emotions of happiness from that crowd which i feel is why most WWE wrestlers don’t mind making the trip even with how crappy the politics of the country is.

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20 years ago, this would have interested me. Now… not so much

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Saudi prince giving us what we wanted…20 years ago.

Ah well…circle the wagons again and then not bring up the fact other companies are relying heavily on nostalgia across the entire business.

Match could work, entrances will be longer than the match and they could make it work if they use 3 of their best moves they can do without hurting themselves or each other and rely on theatrics…book of Dusty after 92.

I’m more wary of the Triple H/Orton match…those always sucked.

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Saudi Arabia: the Attitude era in pro wrestling and the medieval era in human rights.

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Taker and Goldberg is still a dream match kinda. Keep it short and they should be fine.

But that Orton/HHH match probably now has the green light to go like 30 minutes, which will be extremely painful to watch.

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Not much of an interesting match in my opinion. If it lasts less than 10 minutes it might be viewable but I would’ve much rather seen them in seperate matches against current wrestlers.

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Naw…they still attitude era in human rights…bro.

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Exactly! Let’s just watch some dream wrestling matches and thank the KSA for giving the money to WWE to make this possible. We get to mark out for Goldberg vs UT. It’s a legit Holy Sh@t moment

You don’t have to love the country and everything they do but this event looks like it will deliver!

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So when I first saw this online as “Undertaker & Goldberg for super show-down”, I was excited as I thought it was another Australian show.

However this is “Super Showdown (:saudi_arabia:)” not “Super Show-Down (:australia:)”, honestly it’s just said to see Undertaker in the ring now, the guy struggled in a 1-on-1 with Triple H last year.

Why take a name used 7-months ago from a different country and use it here?

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Answered your own question: because it’s associated with a different country.

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I’m actually looking forward to Taker/Goldberg in terms of how its booked.

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Booking will suck…let’s just say that so we don’t have toscroll through a bunch of threads saying the exact same thing.