POST IT NOTES
**Wai Ting and I have our doubleheader of shows out today following Monday’s episode of Raw. We will also be back later tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown.
**On Rewind-A-Raw, Wai & I reviewed Raw from San Diego, discussed the announcement that Rey Mysterio will be the pre-order character in WWE 2K19, the change to the Extreme Rules main event, the Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins rematch, and took your feedback & questions at the end of the show.
**We also have the Rewind-A-Raw “bonus show” (the name is pending) featuring Wai’s weekly review of Total Bellas as Nikki Bella make a big decision and Daniel Bryan & Brie take part if “goat yoga”. Then, we also have recaps of the WWE’s UK Championship Tournament card that aired Monday, the latest “Being the Elite” episode, and the debut episode of “All Us” featuring a sit-down interview with Cody and The Young Bucks discussing the success of “All In” and the daunting task the show has become.
**We have also launched the first POST Wrestling G1 Contest, which you can enter at www.POSTwrestling.com/g1 and the deadline to submit picks is Thursday, July 12th at 11:59 pm Eastern. The contest is free to participate in and the top three finishers will receive a POST Wrestling prize back that included a signed copy of “Eggshells: Pro Wrestling in the Tokyo Dome”, which is Chris Charlton’s upcoming book on the history of wrestling at the Tokyo Dome.
**We are going to have extensive coverage of the G1 Climax throughout the tournament. It begins with a G1 primer show on Wednesday, July 11th with Wai Ting, WH Park and I previewing the tournament and bringing everyone up to speed on the history of the G1 and how it works. Then, we will have shows up covering every match that goes down in the G1 from July 14th – August 12th (the date of the final). The G1 post shows will be available exclusively to members of the POST Wrestling Café. For those that sign up at the $6 level or higher, you will have access to every G1 show and our back library of bonus shows.
**The Ask-A-Wai mailbag show will be out this Friday on the POST Wrestling Café and we are answering questions posted in the POST Wrestling Forum.
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WRESTLING NEWS
Eric Arndt (formerly Enzo Amore and now going by ‘Real1’) was a guest on the Steve Austin podcast on Tuesday and went in-depth over his firing by World Wrestling Entertainment in January following allegations of sexual assault. Arndt remained quiet during the process of the Phoenix Police Department’s investigation, which the department announced was closed in May. Since then, Arndt has released a rap video slamming the allegations and maintaining his innocence regarding the falsehood of what he was accused of.
The firing occurred the day after the Raw 25th-anniversary episode in January. Enzo said he became aware of the allegations on that day when the accuser publicly tweeted about it. In the interview with Austin, Arndt did clarify that a friend of his contacted him in December and the friend’s girlfriend did receive an email from someone stating they were an investigator (but not identifying themselves as a police officer) and a woman had made a claim against a wrestler (not stating Arndt’s name). Arndt was made aware, contacted his lawyer, who in turn reached out the Phoenix Police Department and asked if Arndt was being charged and was told no charges had been laid. Arndt went about his business until the day of Raw 25 in Brooklyn and once the tweets came out, he immediately contacted his lawyer and then went to Mark Carrano, a WWE lawyer, and WWE official Adam Hopkins before meeting with Vince McMahon.
Enzo was scheduled for several segments throughout the episode of Raw. He was supposed to be part of the APA poker game and a series of backstage segments were to be shot with Enzo losing his Cruiserweight title in the game to Ted DiBiase, leading to Nia Jax winning the title back herself and handing it back to Enzo. Enzo was also scheduled for a match with Goldust on the show that would culminate with The Dudley Boyz appearing and putting Enzo through a table.
After meeting with Vince McMahon, Enzo was sent home with McMahon noting the timing of these allegations when they are promoting the women’s Royal Rumble match that weekend and the “Me Too” movement. As soon as Enzo left the meeting with McMahon, he was informed by Adam Hopkins that he had been suspended a statement had just been released by the company with Enzo responding, “I won’t forget about this” and was furious that the company didn’t have his back. Enzo proceeded to drive from Brooklyn to his sister’s house in Delaware while recording himself for the entire drive and is holding onto that audio until he thinks of what to do with it.
He was also contacted after his firing the next day about returning the Cruiserweight title or he wouldn’t be paid out for his 90 day no compete period.
The way his storyline with Nia Jax was scheduled to go, was that Enzo would be caught with Alexa Bliss and revealed that he was using Jax as his “heater” to keep the Cruiserweight title while hooking up with Bliss.
He confirmed in the interview that he was dressing by himself backstage and came off as having a dismissive attitude toward the culture of the wrestling locker room, with certain outdated traditions such as Wrestler’s Court not appealing to him and refusing to participate in them.
Regarding a return to the WWE, he stated he can’t wrestle due to sciatica right now, adding that he broke his back for a company that didn’t have his back in the end. He has also blocked out all the numbers with a “203” area code in his phone, which is the Connecticut area code. His full concentration appears to be on writing and producing music, which his younger brother shoots and edits as Arndt is hesitant to sign with a label.
The full interview can be heard on Tuesday’s edition of the Steve Austin show and we will discuss it further on Rewind-A-SmackDown tonight.
**The second night of the WWE’s UK Championship Tournament from Royal Albert Hall will air at 3 pm Eastern today on the WWE Network with the following lineup:
*Pete Dunne vs. Zack Gibson for the UK title
*Shayna Baszler vs. Toni Storm for the NXT women’s title
*Aleister Black & Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream & EC3
*Adam Cole vs. Wolfgang for the North American title
*Mark Andrews vs. Noam Dar vs. Travis Banks vs. Flash Morgan Webster
*Killer Kelly vs. Charlie Morgan
*Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly vs. Tyler Bate & Trent Seven for the NXT tag titles
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**Here are the matches announced for tonight’s episodes of SmackDown Live and 205 Live from the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California:
*Jeff Hardy vs. Shinsuke Nakamura for the United States title
*Rusev vs. Xavier Woods
*Peyton Royce vs. Becky Lynch
*The Bludgeon Brothers on Miz TV
*The Lucha House Party vs. Drew Gulak, Brian Kendrick & Jack Gallagher on 205 Live
*The debut of Lio Rush
**Britt Baron and Sydelle Noel, who are cast members on ‘GLOW’ have indicated they will be appearing on tonight’s episode of SmackDown Live with Naomi. The second season of ‘GLOW’ premieres on Friday on Netflix.
**Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has announced the complete list of participants for the annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament that will take place September 14th – 16th at the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles: PCO, Brody King, Jody Fleisch, Ilja Dragunov, Robbie Eagles, Joey Janela, Puma King, David Starr, Rey Horus, Chris Brookes, Matt Riddle, Darby Allin, Adam Brooks, Flamita, Jonah Rock, DJ Z, Timothy Thatcher, T-Hawk, CIMA, Jeff Cobb, Travis Banks, Bandido, WALTER, and Shingo Takagi.
The lineup looks really impressive with so much international talent and dream pairings you didn’t even think of until you see this collection of names linked in the same tournament.
**Due to an injury in the middle of the match, the WWE had to edit around Monday’s multi-person women’s match on the UK Championship Tournament show. It was originally a fatal four-way match with Toni Storm, Killer Kelly, Isla Dawn, and Jinny. During the match, Jinny is believed to have suffered a concussion and they removed her from the match and redid it as a three-way, which is what you saw on Monday’s broadcast. The lone slip up was that the announcer introduced the match at the beginning as a “fatal four-way match”, which was a minor issue but one that I figured someone would have caught in post-production. Jinny has since come out stating she wasn’t seriously hurt and thanked those that checked in on her.
**Alicia Fox made her first appearance on Raw Monday night as she was cleared to return last Monday. She was featured in a brief interaction with Bayley and then left the scene with Kurt Angle entered to speak with Bayley.
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**Pro Wrestling NOAH has officially announced that Hideo Itami (formerly ‘KENTA’) will be returning on September 1st at Naomichi Marufuji’s 20th-anniversary card for a singles match with his long-time partner and rival. The card will take place at Sumo Hall and will also feature a tag match with Takashi Sugiura & Daisuke Harada taking on Jun Akiyama & Atsushi Aoki. It opens the door for a relationship between the WWE and Pro Wrestling NOAH, which Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has reported on and stated that a verbal agreement was in place last week between the two sides.
**The WWE is running local ads in the New York market to promote their July 7th house show at Madison Square Garden that state, “Ronda may be banned from Raw, but she is not banned from Madison Square Garden.” (Thanks to Ron Rampino)
**Here is the WWE 2K19 commercial that aired Monday during Raw with the reveal of Rey Mysterio as one of the two characters that will be accessible to those that pre-order the game:
*****
RAR BONUS 6/25/18: Total Bellas, WWE UK, Being the Elite, All Us
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19679737
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 6/25/18: Bayley snaps, Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins, G1 contest announcement
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/06/26/rewind-a-raw-6-25-18-bayley-snaps-ziggler-vs-rollins/
*****
EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion: 1989 with Chris Charlton joined by Jojo Remy
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/njdu5c/EGGSHELLS_podcast_companion_episode_1-_1989_with_Jojo_Remy.mp3
*****
THE POST PROFILE: “The Man They Call Vader” feat. Comments from Bret Hart, Jim Ross, Chris Charlton & Jordan Breen
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/ktei9e/POST-PROFILE-The-Man-They-Call-Vader.mp3
*****
REWIND-A-WAI #13: Tag Team (1991) starring Jesse Ventura & Roddy Piper
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19598943
*****
upNXT 6/21/18: NXT HangOver Chicago with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/f232yf/upNXT-June21.mp3
*****
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