Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/04/pollocks-news-update-timothy-thatcher-signs-with-wwe/
POST IT NOTES
**Monday’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Raw from Monday night and going through all the angles and news from the show in Salt Lake City. Plus, we chat about the WWE’s stock, this Thursday’s investor’s call, Minoru Suzuki vs. Orange Cassidy at Spring Break IV, Ring of Honor’s match announcements, Super Bowl viewership, and Arn Anderson’s promo on ‘Road to Huntsville’ along with your feedback and questions at the end of the show.
**Rewind-A-Wai is back late tonight with Episode #54 covering the WWE’s Global Warning event from Melbourne, Australia in August 2002. We will dive into this show and be joined by Espresso Executive Producer Alex Williams, who chose the show. Wai and I will review the show that is on the WWE Network and going into this time period of WWE during the summer of 2002. You can still leave feedback for the show on the POST Wrestling Forum and this podcast will drop tonight for all members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**Andrew Thompson has an extensive interview on the site with Rohit Raju of the Desi Hit Squad in Impact Wrestling. In this 45-minute discussion, Raju chats about his placement in Impact, working with Gama Singh and the Desi Hit Squad unit, his match last year with Scarlett Bordeaux, what he has learned from fellow Impact wrestler Ethan Page, and wanting to see Monty Brown return. You can also listen to the entire interview on Andrew’s YouTube channel.
**On Wednesday night, we will have new editions of Rewind-A-Dynamite and upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman.
POST SCHEDULE
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Wai #54: WWE Global Warning 2002 (Patreon)
*Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John Pollock & Wai Ting
*Wednesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Thursday: Café Hangout with guest Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics (LIVE at 3 pm ET for all Patrons)
*Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai Ting (Patreon)
*Friday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby, Benno & Jamesie
*Saturday: UFC 247 POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
*Sunday: Thunderstruck with WH Park & guest Nate Milton (Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman, WCW Monday Nitro)
*Sunday: New Beginning in Osaka POST Show with John & Wai (Patreon)
POST WRESTLING VIDEO
WRESTLING NEWS
**Brock Lesnar will defend the WWE Championship against Ricochet at Super ShowDown on Thursday, February 27th with the match set up on Monday’s episode of Raw. Ricochet pinned Bobby Lashley after a 630-splash in a triple threat involving Seth Rollins. Lesnar made a surprise appearance storming the ring and laying out Ricochet with an F-5 to end the show. Style-wise, it’s a good match for Lesnar, although they have their work cut out to build Ricochet as even a minor threat to Lesnar. It would appear this match was in the planning stages at least by January 20th when they did the angle with Ricochet confronting Lesnar and getting attacked on Raw, thus setting up Ricochet’s spot with Drew McIntyre to eliminate Lesnar from the Royal Rumble six days later.
**Bill Goldberg returns on Friday Night SmackDown this week in San Jose and he will be wrestling at Super ShowDown later this month.
**The WWE stock saw a slight uptick on Tuesday closing at $47.36 after opening at $46.61.
**Disney has released updated figures for its streaming platforms. ESPN+ grew exponentially and was listed at 6.6 million subscribers by the end of 2019 compared to 1.6 million subs at the end of 2018. It is believed the service received a big bump by being bundled alongside the Disney+ and Hulu for U.S. subscribers. Disney+ is currently at 26.5 subscribers after three months since its launch.
**Casey Michael at Squared Circle Sirens was the first to report that Timothy Thatcher had signed with WWE. Additionally, Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com confirmed the signing. Thatcher, 36, has been wrestling for 15 years and established himself as one of the top grapple-based performers in the industry, who had never displayed much interest in going to WWE until now. He is based out of Sacramento and got his start with APW but made his name primarily in Europe wrestling for wXw, Progress, Rev Pro as well as significant time throughout the U.S. independent scene. While wrestling for EVOLVE, he held their championship for 19 months from July 2015 until February 2017 when he lost it to Zack Sabre Jr. Thatcher last wrestled for MLW this past December losing to Brian Pillman Jr. in the semi-finals of the Opera Cup tournament. Thatcher also dropped the wXw Unified World title in a four-way match to Bobby Gunns that also featured David Starr and Ilja Dragunov on December 14th at the company’s 19th-anniversary card.
**It has been so interesting to see the lack of promotion for the XFL by WWE, even though it is not a WWE run league this time around. There was zero mention of the league on Monday’s episode of Raw heading into the kickoff this Saturday. It will be notable how much the league is pushed on Friday Night SmackDown because Fox is carrying games, unlike the USA Network. It is also worth adding that a lawsuit was filed against WWE in December by the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System, who are a WWE shareholder regarding WWE’s connections to the league.
**Friday Night SmackDown finished with 2,422,000 viewers on Fox this past Friday. The show did a 0.7 in the 18-49 demo and 0.5 with 18-34s.
**Jerry Lawler was a guest on Tuesday’s edition of The Steve Austin Show and discussed the current era of wrestling that he doesn’t necessarily agree with citing the lack of storytelling in lieu of big moves especially from the talent that don’t need to be executing them. He recently spoke with Bruce Prichard about the subject and Prichard said it’s the way wrestling is now and there isn’t any going back. About punches, which Lawler is considered among the best at them, he said he learned from his mentor Jackie Fargo and credits him with the best punches. He added that Becky Lynch recently told him she was instructed to work on her punches and went online to study Lawler’s.
On returning to Raw last September, he was contacted by Kevin Dunn at the time Michael Cole and Corey Graves were getting set to move to SmackDown for the debut on Fox. Lawler said that Paul Heyman initially had a three-person crew in mind that didn’t feature Lawler. Dunn conveyed to Lawler they wanted someone with experience and a star to the audience to work with the younger broadcasters. He said he never met Vic Joseph or Dio Maddin until an hour before their first episode together. He put over Joseph and reminds Lawler of a young Michael Cole. Lawler repeated the longstanding belief that he doesn’t watch wrestling in his spare time and needed Joseph to help during the NXT invasion on Raw as Lawler wasn’t familiar with the younger talent from NXT.
**Following their excellent match at New Beginning in Sapporo on Sunday, Zack Sabre Jr. and Will Ospreay will have a rematch for Revolution Pro. The promotion announced the rematch for the British heavyweight title for Friday, February 14th at York Hall for their High Stakes event.
**Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis had their second child on Monday. Bennett posted photos of the baby named Carver Mars Bennett and congratulations to both.
**Ring of Honor has announced a tag match with KENTA & Taiji Ishimori taking on Jeff Cobb & Dan Maff at Supercard of Honor on Saturday, April 4th in Lakeland, Florida. This joins the previously announced match between Jay White and Marty Scurll on the show.
**Here are the matches the NWA has announced for tonight’s episode of Power at 6:05 pm Eastern from last week’s tapings in Atlanta:
*Thunder Rosa vs. Allysin Kay for the NWA women’s title – these two had the best match on the last pay-per-view
*Aron Stevens vs. Trevor Murdoch for the NWA National title
**The new theme for Power is ‘I’m Broken’ by Pantera that replaces ‘Into the Fire’ by Dokken.
**Below are the matches for AEW Dark tonight at 7 pm Eastern, including their first inter-gender match taped on the Chris Jericho cruise:
*Riho & Kenny Omega vs. Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford
*Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Brandon Cutler & Sonny Kiss
*Hikaru Shida vs. Mel
*Best Friends vs. Shawn Spears & Colin Delaney
**Here are the matches for tonight’s episode of Impact Wrestling at 8 pm Eastern on AXS TV from the Mexico City tapings:
*Vikingo vs. TJP
*Rosemary vs. Susie
*Jake & Dave Crist vs. Daga & Dr. Wagner Jr.
*Tessa Blanchard responds to Ace Austin
**New Japan held its first of three straight shows at Korakuen Hall on Tuesday as part of the ‘Road to New Beginning’ shows. In the main event, CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay & Roppongi 3K) over Suzuki-gun (Zack Sabre Jr., Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado & Taichi) in an elimination match. It came down to Ospreay and Sabre with Ospreay pinning Sabre with the Storm Breaker. Taichi eliminated Okada by throwing him over the top rope.
**Here is the card for Wednesday’s ‘Road to New Beginning’ show at Korakuen Hall streaming on New Japan World at 4:30 am Eastern:
*Yuya Uemura vs. Gabriel Kidd
*Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Yota Tsuji
*Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma
*Zack Sabre Jr., Minoru Suzuki & Douki vs. Will Ospreay, Tomohiro Ishii & Robbie Eagles
*Shingo Takagi & EVIL vs. Hirooki Goto & Toa Henare
*Kazuchika Okada & Roppongi 3K vs. Taichi, El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, Hiromu Takahashi & Bushi vs. KENTA, Jay White, Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo in an Elimination match
**Thursday’s card from Korakuen Hall is headlined by Shingo Takagi, EVIL & Bushi defending the NEVER six-man tag titles against Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Robbie Eagles.
**Drew McIntyre will be the guest on WWE Backstage tonight at 11 pm Eastern on FS 1.
**Cary Silkin and Ian Riccaboni of Ring of Honor have launched a new podcast called Last Stop Penn Station. The idea had been batted around with Silkin trying to sense if there is interest in his memoirs and this feels like a test subject to find out. I’ve heard the first two episodes that cover ROH’s first trip to Las Vegas in 2007 that turned into a disaster and the second dealing with the promotion’s involvement with the movie ‘The Wrestler’.
Silkin knows the history of ROH as well as anyone, having come on in an official capacity in 2004 to fund the company and is very frank in saying it wasn’t a business that made a lot of sense financially despite the critical acclaim in that era. Riccaboni grew up a major fan before joining the company and guides Silkin along with all the relevant dates and stats, which is very helpful.
In 2011, Silkin sold the company to Sinclair Broadcasting as the company was on its last legs by then. On one of the shows, Riccaboni also noted that the music on the old ROH shows was an issue with the hold up of adding shows to Honor Club from that time period.
Silkin and Riccaboni have recorded ten episodes for the show’s first season and have episodes coming up on Japan, the UK, Puerto Rico, New Orleans, and the show at Madison Square Garden last year.
**Ryan Satin at Pro Wrestling Sheet spoke with Jordan Devlin about winning the Cruiserweight title at Worlds Collide, appearing on three brands currently, his continued independent appearances, working with Paul Levesque and Shawn Michaels, and who he would want to face if he wrestled at WrestleMania.
**Natalya posted a photo of her black eye she received during the match with Asuka on Monday night.
**Xavier responded to Jay Lethal’s promo to make the match between the two former ROH champions official for the ‘Past vs. Present’ card. The show is taking place Saturday, March 14th at Sam’s Town Live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Xavier was the second ROH champion defeating Low Ki in September 2002 and held it until the following March losing to Samoa Joe.
**PWG’s next event will be called ‘KOBE’ in honor of the late Kobe Bryant. The show takes place on Sunday, March 29th right before WrestleMania week.
**MLW will return to Philadelphia this July for their Battle Riot III card. The show will take place on Saturday, July 18th and was announced by the promotion would be a Fusion taping for beIN Sports. The company will be holding two cards in three nights as they will be at the Melrose Ballroom on Thursday, July 16th for the Never Say Never tapings.
**AEW’s meet-and-greet on Wednesday in Huntsville, Alabama will feature Arn Anderson, Missy Hyatt, and Austin Idol. Doug Gilbert is not included in the advertising.
**All Japan’s next major event is next Tuesday at Korakuen Hall with four title matches. The main event will feature Kento Miyahara facing Yuma Aoyagi for the Triple Crown stemming from Aoyagi’s attack on Miyahara on January 3rd after the title match with Jake Lee. This card will also feature Manabu Nakanishi working the event in an eight-man tag with Jun Akiyama, Osamu Nishimura & Yutaka Yoshie against Yoshitatsu, Tajiri, Ryoji Sai & Dan Tamura ahead of Nakanishi’s retirement match on February 22nd with New Japan.
**RJ City will be taking on Effy at Joey Ryan’s Penis Party as part of WrestleCon during WrestleMania week. RJ cut a fantastic promo setting up the match for Saturday, April 4th in Tampa.
**The latest We Are Stardom episode has been posted on YouTube featuring Hana Kimura vs. Giulia and Hazuki vs. Natsuko Tora from the Korakuen Hall card on December 24th.
**AIW has a show this Friday at the Odeon in Cleveland at 1295 Old River Road. The show will feature Jeff Cobb vs. Tom Lawlor, Alex Shelley vs. Lee Moriarty, Swoggle vs. Super Oprah, and a six-way with Mance Warner vs. Nick Gage vs. Joshua Bishop vs. Erick Stevens vs. Wheeler Yuta vs. Daniel C. Rockingham.
**BetOnline has released odds for the upcoming XFL season. The Dallas Renegades are listed as the favorite to win the entire thing followed by the DC Defenders and Tampa Bay Vipers. The Seattle Dragons have the longest odds to win the season. There are also odds of players most likely to play in the league with Chad Johnson listed at 5/1, Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones at 7/1, Johnny Manziel 12/1, Colin Kaepernick 20/1, Greg Hardy 100/1, Tim Tebow 100/1, and Tom Brady at 500/1 odds.
**Black Label Pro is advertising a tag match with Dezmond Xavier & Trey Miguel vs. Blake Christian & Alex Zayne for their Quantum Leap card. The show takes place on Saturday, February 29th at the RDS Gym at 1260 Arrowhead Crescent in Crown Point, Indiana and streams on IWTV at 2 pm Eastern.
**Smash Wrestling has posted a free match between The Pillars and KillScreen as one of their best matches from 2019.
**Chris Sabin and Punishment Martinez both turn 38 today.
MMA NEWS
**This Friday, Invicta FC has a card at Memorial Hall in Kansas City with Atomweight champion Jinh Yu Frey defending the title against Ashley Cummins. Cummins is 7-4 and coming off decision wins over Stephanie Alba and Jessica Delboni but both those fights were from 2018 and didn’t fight in 2019. The two previously fought in July 2017 with Frey defeating Cummins by unanimous decision.
**The UFC is holding a press conference this Friday at 4 pm Eastern for UFC 248 that takes place on March 7th with Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero for the middleweight title in the main event and Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk for the strawweight title.
**MMA agents Malki and Abe Kawa posted a photo with AEW owner Tony Khan. The Kawas agency, First Round Management also represents several NFL players and they posted the following:
Last night was amazing. @abrahamkawa and I had an amazing meeting with @tonyrkhan the owner of the @jaguars and @allelitewrestling as well as a soccer team in London. We discussed this years upcoming @nfldraft, his other company TRUMEDIA, and many different subjects revolving around sports. Look out for some big things coming soon.
**Here are the first two episodes of the UFC’s Embedded series going into UFC 247 this Saturday:
*****
RAR 2/3/20: Believe It or Not, Ripley on Raw
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw with a #1 contender’s match for a WWE title shot between Ricochet, Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/04/rewind-a-raw-2-3-20-believe-it-or-not-ripley-on-raw/
*****
NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo 2020 POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting are not discussing the Super Bowl and instead, will be reviewing the two NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo this weekend headlined by Shingo Takagi vs. Hirooki Goto and Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/33692085
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Tiger Mask III (1/4/1994)
WH Park and Rich Kraetsch of Voices of Wrestling talk about Jushin Liger taking on Tiger Mask III aka Koji Kanemoto on New Japan’s January 4th, 1994 Tokyo Dome show.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/02/thunderstruck-15-jushin-liger-vs-tiger-mask-iii-1-4-94-w-rich-kraetsch/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 1/31/20: Dog Food, Barrios/Wilson Out, F9
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Friday Night SUPER SMACKDOWN coming out of the Royal Rumble. We discuss the WWE departures of co-presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/01/rewind-a-smackdown-1-31-20-dog-food-barrios-wilson-out-f9/
*****
Café Hangout: GRAPPL 100, NXT-AEW Ratings, Your Calls
John Pollock and Wai Ting re-open the doors to the Café Hangout for the first time in 2020! We take calls all show long discussing this week’s top stories in wrestling and MMA. GRAPPL creator Gareth Hodgson joins us to discuss the GRAPPL 100!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/01/30/live-link-cafe-hangout-returns-3-pm-et/
*****
upNXT 1/29/20: “Signed in Blood”
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are back to talk all about the January 29th edition of WWE NXT featuring the final of the Dusty Classic between The Bro-serweights and Grizzled Young Vets.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/01/30/upnxt-1-29-20-signed-in-blood/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 1/29/20: “Cleveland MOX”
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite featuring Jon Moxley’s Ohio homecoming. Plus, DDT’s parent company buys NOAH, Mauro Ranallo gives us an update on his health, and The Bella Twins are both pregnant.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/01/30/rewind-a-dynamite-1-29-20-cleveland-mox/
*****
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