Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/08/21/pollocks-news-update-villano-iii-passes-away-raws-viewership-rises-triplemania-card/
POST IT NOTES
**Monday’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Raw from Brooklyn, the latest Shield reunion, Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor for the Universal title, no Brock Lesnar on the show, the fallout from SummerSlam, GLOW being renewed by Netflix, the New Japan cards for Destruction, and lots more at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/08/21/rewind-a-raw-8-20-18-roman-reigns-vs-finn-balor-strowman-awaits/. You can also subscribe to POST Wrestling on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
**Wai Ting and I are back with Rewind-A-SmackDown later tonight for the fourth consecutive night here at POST Wrestling. We will review SmackDown and the end of SummerSlam weekend as the WWE concludes their run at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. We will also be taking feedback and questions, as well as going over the top news stories from Tuesday.
**For members of the POST Wrestling Café, a new edition of “The Double Shot” will be coming out tomorrow. On this week’s show, I will be reviewing “Joey Janela’s Lost in New York” card that Game Changer Wrestling put on with lots of unique stuff from the card. Wai will be recapping the latest edition of Being the Elite, which came out on Monday. If you sign up for the Café, you will have instant access to this show, a custom RSS feed for easy access on iTunes or wherever you listen, and access to the entire Café archive that includes all the G1 reviews and past Rewind-A-Wai shows.
**On Wednesday’s edition of the British Wrestling Experience, Martin Bushby & Oli Court will be discussing this past weekend’s Summer Sizzler card that Revolution Pro put on and featured Walter vs. Tomohiro Ishii, they will chat the life & career of Doc Dean, and also go over the big Wembley Arena card that Progress is promoting at the end of September. You can post questions for Martin & Benno on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**We are taking feedback for this Friday’s MCU review of the 2008 “Ironman” film on the POST Wrestling Forum.
**Friend of the show and creator of the Rewind-A-SmackDown theme song, Paul, a.k.a. “THE iDENTiTY CRiSiS” is interviewed on The Striving Artist YouTube series to discuss his work and career.
WRESTLING NEWS
**Arturo Diaz Mendoza, who was better known as ‘Villano III’, has died at age 66. We have a lengthy story on his career up on the site. Mendoza began his career in 1970, following his father, Ray Mendoza, and two older brothers into the industry. In total, there were five Villano brothers that followed their father as professional wrestlers with each going by their numerical order. Villano III was considered the most talented and one of the all-time great Lucha Libre performers. He was a major figure in the UWA organization that his father helped to launch, with Arturo constantly linked to the WWF light heavyweight title that the UWA was able to control. The two offices held a working arrangement and led to the creation of the title, which has a very unique lineage having gone from a Mexican based title in the UWA, to a Japanese title after the folding of the UWA and was part of the J Crown championship when they titles were put together in August 1996, and eventually becoming a WWF championship title when they launched their light heavyweight division in 1997.
The match that will be cited by most remembering his career will be the Mask vs. Mask match from March 2000 between Villano III and Atlantis. It was the only time that a Lucha Libre match was voted ‘Match of the Year’ by the voters of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards. The match was Villano’s last great match and one of the greatest in Lucha Libre history, which is a very accessible match as well online unlike a lot of big matches from his UWA career. Arturo continued wrestling into his 60’s and had a Hair vs. Mask match with LA Park in 2007 and then his retirement match in August 2015 at TripleMania, teaming with his brothers IV & V against Los Psycho Circus.
In my opinion, he was a Hall of Fame wrestler and has come very close to inclusion over the past few years for the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame since his retirement. In 2015, he received 85 of the 92 votes necessary for inclusion. In 2016, he was five votes short of being added and last year dropped a bit by receiving 50% of the required 60% as was 16 votes shy.
**Tonight’s episode of SmackDown is being promoted as “one of the biggest episodes ever” in the commercial, which is probably a big stretch. The following has been announced for their final night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn to wrap up SummerSlam weekend:
*The Bludgeon Brothers vs. New Day in a No Disqualification Match
*Randy Orton vs. Jeff Hardy
*Naomi vs. Peyton Royce
*Becky Lynch addresses her actions against Charlotte Flair
**Monday’s episode of Raw was up and averaged approximately 3,000,000 viewers on the USA Network, topping the MTV Video Music Awards and an NFL pre-season game on ESPN. The show opened with 3,110,000 viewers in the first hour and grew 4.2% in the second hour up to 3,241,000 before dropping 9.4% in the final hour down to 2,936,000 viewers. The main event of the show featured the first Universal title match on Raw since January 2017, as Roman Reigns defeated Finn Balor in a tremendous match that also featured the tease of a Money in the Bank cash-in by Braun Strowman and the show-closing angle with The Shield reuniting.
**Erick Rowan is believed to have suffered a torn biceps muscle following the SmackDown tag title match on Sunday at SummerSlam. Following the match, which ended with the New Day defeating Rowan & Harper by disqualification, it was reported by Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com that Rowan had suffered an injury to his arm. On Tuesday, Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported it to be a torn biceps. Rowan did not work Monday’s house show in Atlantic City, instead, Luke Harper lost a handicap match with Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows.
**AAA held a press conference on Tuesday to promote this Saturday’s TripleMania event from Arena Ciudad, which will be streamed on Twitch in English and Spanish. The English commentary team will consist of Matt Striker and Vampiro. Below are the matches they have announced:
*Pentagon Jr. vs. El Hijo del Fantasma vs. LA Park vs. Psycho Clown in a four-way mask match inside a steel cage, the last two remaining will have a match and the loser is unmasked
*Lady Shani vs. Faby Apache in a Mask vs. Hair match
*Jeff Jarrett vs. Brian Cage vs. Fenix vs. Rich Swann for the AAA Mega heavyweight title
*Pagano, Joe Lider & Murder Clown vs. Texano Jr., Rey Escorpion & La Mascara in a street fight
*Chessman, Averno & Super Fly vs. Juventud Guerrera, Jack Evans & Teddy Hart in a lumberjack match
*Maximo, Pimpinela Escarlata & Mamba vs. Tito Santana, Carta Brava Jr. & Mocho Cota Jr. vs. El Hijo de LA Park, Puma King & Taurus
*Aerostar & Drago vs. Bandido & Flamita vs. Laredo Kid & Golden Magic vs. Andrew Everett & DJZ in a ladder match
*Big Mami & Nino Hamburguesa vs. El Hijo del Vikingo & Vanilla vs. Dinastia & Lad Maravilla vs. Angelikal & La Hiedra
*Australian Suicide defending the AAA Cruiserweight title in a 10-way match
**Following Saturday’s TakeOver card, there was a lot of speculation that Shayna Baszler may be set for a main roster call-up. While I don’t know if she is being called up imminently or not, I was told that she isn’t done with NXT yet. It’s possible that she could be called up and finish up a program in NXT, but as it was told to me, Saturday was not the end of Baszler’s NXT tenure.
**The second set of NXT UK tapings will be this Saturday and Sunday in Birmingham, England as part of the Insomnia Gaming Festival. On Tuesday, it was announced that the first NXT UK women’s champion would be crowned with the advertisement featuring Toni Storm, Jinny, Rhea Ripley, Xia Brookside, Dakota Kai, Isla Dawn and Nina Samuels. The first set of tapings took place last month but have yet to be broadcast anywhere. A short trailer for the series aired during this past Saturday’s TakeOver event and listed the series as “coming soon”.
**Reby Hardy was a guest on the Busted Open Radio show this past weekend and discussed the status of her husband, Matt Hardy. Reby noted that he was going through a “transitional period” in his career and acknowledged the injuries he has been dealing with. She added that Hardy’s contract with the WWE expires next March and he has a decision to make regarding what his future is going to be and whether it involves continuing to wrestle or doing something else outside of the ring.
**Here is a sample of the Finn Balor comic that Wai Ting mentioned on Rewind-A-Raw, specifically addressing why the character is selective when morphing into “The Demon” outfit.
**The WWE stock closed at $80.92 on Tuesday.
**There is a tremendous feature on Matt Riddle’s departure from WWN / EVOLVE, which was produced by Kenny Johnson. It includes an emotional Riddle discussing how important his time in EVOLVE was, how much happier he is than when he was a fighter and opting to go to the WWE at this stage:
**It was on this date in 2005 that Hulk Hogan had his last great drawing match on pay-per-view at SummerSlam with Shawn Michaels. The match is more remembered today for Michaels’ antics during the match in overselling Hogan’s offense and appearing to work the match as his own protest over losing to Hogan, who made the call he was winning the match. The following night, Michaels cut a promo on Hogan that upset Hogan and the idea of the two having a series of matches was off. The actual build to the show was executed very well following a heel turn by Michaels in early July by superkicking Hogan and setting up the first-time meeting. Michaels did some of the best work of his career that summer as a heel, including a segment where he portrayed Hogan during a spoof of the Larry King Live show. The pay-per-view drew a reported 640,000 pay-per-view buys.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 8/20/18: Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor, Braun Strowman awaits, The Shield reunites
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Monday’s show from Brooklyn, the first Universal title match on Raw since January 2017, the reunion of The Shield, the fallout from SummerSlam, GLOW renewed by Netflix, New Japan’s lineups for September & your feedback.
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/download/fe9dn8/180820_RAR.mp3
WWE SUMMERSLAM 2018 POST SHOW
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the 31st annual SummerSlam event from Brooklyn with Roman Reigns and Ronda Rousey winning titles, Becky Lynch turns on Charlotte Flair, a tremendous WWE title match starring Annie Styles, Wai’s unexpected trip to Montreal, Pollock’s food recommendation of the year & more.
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/download/r4yxer/180819_SUMMERSLAM_POST.mp3
NXT TAKEOVER: BROOKLYN 4 POST SHOW
John Pollock & Braden Herrington are joined by Davie Portman, who attended the card live and they review the NXT TakeOver event from the Barclays Center with Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano, Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane, the debut of Matt Riddle & more.
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/3y8zuf/NXT-TakeOver-Brooklyn-POST-Show.mp3
EGGSHELLS PODCAST COMPANION: 1997 w/ NATE MILTON
Chris Charlton chats the major Tokyo Dome cards from 1997 with Nate Milton, including the success of N.W.O. Japan, the Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoya Ogawa feud, and Nate’s time living in Japan and early voiceover experiences.
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/download/m7xa5c/EGGSHELLS_Podcast_Companion__1997_w__Nate_Milton.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #17 – WCW Bash at the Beach 1998
John Pollock & Wai Ting review Bash at the Beach from San Diego with Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman taking on Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone, plus a look at WCW’s business in the summer of ’98, the state of Bret Hart’s status with the company, Bill Goldberg coming off his WCW title win, and much more from this era.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/20813114
upNXT 8/16/18: Brooklyn’s Kindest
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman review the final episode of NXT before TakeOver featuring Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Bate, they preview TakeOver and explain how you can win a free ticket to Saturday’s show at the Barclays Center
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/g2riyy/upNXT-August16.mp3
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling