POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE – Madison Rayne added to the Mae Young Classic

Madison Rayne and two others have been added to the Mae Young Classic, Sheriff releases statement on the passing of Brian Lawler, Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey scheduled for Raw, latest G1 standings, six-man tag added to 'All In', Tracy Caddell passes away, review of MLW's Battle Riot & more.

POST IT NOTES

**Today’s G1 Climax podcast is posted and available for members of the POST Wrestling Café. Wai Ting and I review Monday’s card from Takamatsu with the A Block tournament matches, headlined by a tremendous match involving Kazuchika Okada and Michael Elgin. We also go through the updated standings, the latest names eliminated from the tournament, a look ahead to the B Block show on Wednesday, and the standings for our POST Wrestling G1 Contest. This show can be accessed by all members of the POST Wrestling Café.

**For “Double Double” & above members of the POST Wrestling Café, Wai & I have a review of the new album from Elias on this week’s POST Production video. You can access the video at https://www.patreon.com/posts/post-production-20375475.

**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-Raw reviewing tonight’s episode of Raw and we also discuss the passing of several performers over the weekend. On the “Double Shot” for Café members, we will be reviewing the season-finale of Total Bellas and last Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling coming off Slammiversary.

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SCHEDULE THIS WEEK AT POST WRESTLING
*Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw
*Tonight: RAR “Double Shot” (Patreon)
*Tuesday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
*Wednesday: G1 Climax Day 12 Podcast (Patreon)
*Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
*Thursday: G1 Climax Day 13 Podcast (Patreon)
*Friday: Rewind-A-Wai on “Being the Elite” as chosen by Espresso Executive Producer Mitch Gelkopf (Patreon)
*Saturday: EGGSHELLS Podcast Company with Chris Charlton and guest Wai Ting chatting 1995 Tokyo Dome cards
*Saturday: G1 Climax Day 14 Podcast with Wai Ting & WH Park (Patreon)
*Sunday: UFC 227 review with John Pollock, Ziggy Cao & Phil Chertok
*Sunday: G1 Climax Day 15 Podcast with Wai Ting & Fraser Marriott

WRESTLING NEWS

**Regarding the passing of Brian Lawler, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into his death. There was a statement issued by John Doolen, who is the Hardeman County Sheriff, to WMC-TV in Memphis. PWinsider.com obtained the full text of the statement and it can be read below:

Mr. Lawler, a resident of Hardeman County, was arrested for third offense DUI, driving on a revoked driver’s license and felony evading arrest.  Mr. Lawler’s bond was set at $40.000.  He appeared before the Judge of the General Sessions Court at which time his family requested time to determine if they were going to hire a private attorney or wanted the public defender to represent Mr. Lawler.

Mr. Lawler, because of his notoriety, was placed in a cell by himself but as the Sheriff’s Department had no indication he was suicidal, he was not on suicide watch.

When Mr. Lawler was discovered, he was given CPR and air lifted to the MED in Memphis.  The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was notified and requested to investigate the circumstances surrounding Mr. Lawler.

Any further information will be provided by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

**Tonight’s episode of Raw is being promoted heavily around the returns of Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. The show takes place from Miami, Florida at the American Airlines Arena and should begin the hard push for SummerSlam, following last week’s win by Roman Reigns to set up the show’s main event. It will be Lesnar’s first appearance on Raw since April 23rd and first time back since the Greatest Royal Rumble event that month. The WWE has announced the following matches for tonight’s show as well:
*Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre
*Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin

**The SmackDown has a house show in Fort Myers, Florida tonight with AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Samoa Joe, and Asuka among those advertised. The television tapings are Tuesday in Tampa and they have announced a singles match between Lana and Zelina Vega for this week’s show.

**WMC-TV has a story on the passing of Brian Lawler with comments from legendary Memphis weatherman and wrestling announcer Dave Brown as well as wrestler Derrick King.

**There was another passing this weekend with Tracy Caddell, the father of Impact wrestler Trevor Lee and one of the founders of OMEGA. Caddell wrestled as T.C. Brimstone, T.C. Flexer and later as “El Hijo del Fuego”. Caddell and Matt Hardy launched the East Coast Wrestling Federation together with the promotion eventually morphing into OMEGA, which was a launching pad for numerous performers from North Carolina. We send our condolences to his friends and family.

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**The WWE has announced that Madison Rayne, Xia Brookside, and Priscilla Kelly will be part of next month’s Mae Young Classic tournament. Rayne is the most experienced performer of the three and follows up on a tryout she had at the WWE’s Performance Center last fall. Over the past two weeks, Rayne challenged for ROH’s Women of Honor championship against Sumie Sakai in Atlanta and the following night lost to Knockout’s champion Su Yung at the Slammiversary pay-per-view event. Rayne is also scheduled for the “All In” event on September 1st.

Brookside is the daughter of Robbie Brookside, who is a trainer at the Performance Center. She began wrestling in 2015 and has been wrestling for Stardom over the past year, and worked in the U.S. for promotions including RISE, Bar Wrestling, DEFY, APW and others. Kelly is 20-years old and been wrestling since 2015. From 2016 onward, she has been a regular within the WWN wrestling on cards for SHINE and Full Impact Pro. Last July, Kelly became the inaugural SHINE Nova champion by winning a 16-woman tournament and defeating Veda Scott, Leah Vaughan, Kiera Hogan, and Candy Cartwright to win the title.

**A six-man tag was announced Monday for the ‘All In’ event on September 1st with The Young Bucks teaming with Kota Ibushi against Rey Mysterio, Rey Fenix & Bandido.

**The WWE stock dropped almost 4% on Monday with a close at $78.50 after opening at $80.93.

**Both Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor are working with Chris Jericho on his Rock ‘N Wrestling Rager at Sea later this year. It was announced on Monday that there will be an inter-promotional match on the cruise with The Young Bucks taking on Santana & Ortiz of LAX. It is the second match the Bucks will participate in on the cruise with a previously announced six-man tag with the Bucks & Chris Jericho vs. Kenny Omega, Cody & Marty Scurll. Jericho has stated that the cruise will not be streaming anywhere and the only way to see the matches is by signing up for the cruise. The cruise begins October 27th and sails from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas, returning on October 31st.

**Following today’s G1 Climax card from Takamatsu, Hangman Page, Yoshi-Hashi and Togi Makabe have been mathematically eliminated from the A Block. The main event from today’s card between Kazuchika Okada and Michael Elgin was excellent and well worth seeking out. Here are the updated standings for the blocks after 11 shows:

A BLOCK: Hiroshi Tanahashi (10 points), Kazuchika Okada (8), EVIL (8), Minoru Suzuki (8), Jay White (8), Bad Luck Fale (6), Michael Elgin (4), Togi Makabe (4), Hangman Page (2), and Yoshi-Hashi (2)

B BLOCK: Kenny Omega (10 points), Tetsuya Naito (8), Kota Ibushi (6), Sanada (6), Zack Sabre Jr. (6), Hirooki Goto (4), Tomohiro Ishii (4), Juice Robinson (2), Tama Tonga (2), Toru Yano (2)

**The G1 Climax resumes on Wednesday with a card from Kagoshima at 5:30 am Eastern on New Japan World with the following lineup:
*Kota Ibushi vs. Hirooki Goto
*Kenny Omega vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Toru Yano
*Juice Robinson vs. Sanada
*Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tama Tonga
*Kazuchika Okada & Gedo vs. Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado
*Hiroshi Tanahashi & David Finlay vs. EVIL & Bushi
*Jay White & YOH vs. Yoshi-Hashi & SHO
*Hangman Page & Chase Owens vs. Togi Makabe & Toa Henare
*Michael Elgin & Shota Umino vs. Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa

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**MLW has announced that LA Park will be working their September 6th “War Games” event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The promotion has not announced his opponent for the card. LA Park will also be working for the promotion on October 4th in Queens, New York at the Melrose Ballroom.

**The WWE has announced a meet-and-greet with Paul Levesque & Stephanie McMahon at the 40/40 Club at the Barclays Center on Friday, August 17th over SummerSlam weekend. The proceeds of the event will be donated to Connor’s Cure. Tickets for the event will be priced at $200, which includes an autograph from both and a professional photo taken with the two and go on sale this Friday.

TELEVISION REVIEW

MLW Battle Riot (July 27th)
-This was the promotion’s biggest show since launching on beIN Sports earlier this year with a two-hour special that was filmed in Queens, New York a week prior at the Melrose Ballroom.
-From a visual standpoint, this looked excellent with a major league looking set, the lightning was on point and it had a big league feel from the beginning.
-The show was built around a 40-man Royal Rumble match, which they are promoting as “Battle Riot”, which allows for eliminations by being pinned, submitted or thrown over the top rope as well as the use of weapons (which they purposely didn’t overdo for the first version of the match).
-The battle royal was built around Tom Lawlor, who entered at the #5 position and lasted the rest of the match, eliminating Jake Hager last to win the match and earn a future title shot at any time he chooses
-Usually, I don’t like the one-minute intervals for this type of match, but in this case, it worked with so many entrants. There were a handful of surprises with Headshrinker Samu, The Blue Meanie, Hornswoggle and others that were designed for the pop for their entrance and then a quick elimination, or some extended comedy in the case of Hornswoggle. The quick entrances kept a good pace and were a positive for the match, as was the submission elements, which allowed Lawlor to showcase that aspect of the character and have him eliminate several with rear-naked chokes.
-The reaction for Konnan’s entrance was incredible and was legitimately moved by the audience’s reaction to him. It was his first match in years following hip replacement surgery and you could tell he was very limited with his movement. It seems like a big stretch to see him doing a single match, but I could see him doing a six-man tag with LAX and The OGz in Impact or something in the future for MLW.
-Overall, I enjoyed the battle royal, it wasn’t at the level of some of the best Aztec Warfare or Royal Rumbles, but it kept my attention, had a lot of fun surprises and interactions with the match designed to heighten Tom Lawlor, which I feel was achieved by the end.
-The other matches on the card featured MJF becoming the inaugural middleweight champion defeating Joey Ryan and Kotta Brazil defeating Myron Reed. MJF has a great character, lots of confidence and poise for someone so young and is also a fresh name on the scene that hasn’t been everywhere. He cut a great promo after his win over Ryan, which featured the lollipop spot and it being placed into MJF’s mouth for the final sequence. If you enjoy Joey Ryan, this would have worked, and if not, this probably wasn’t a high point of the show for you.
-Tony Schiavone Schiavone’s legitimate excitement permeates through the screen and feels more like an older fan that enjoys what he is watching rather than a straight play-by-play voice. It is a contrast to his style from WCW, but he adds a great nostalgic voice to the product, comes off very engaged with the product and garnered attention for the show because of his connection to WCW during their peak period and being gone from the scene since they went out of business in 2001.

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*****
G1 REVIEWS
Day 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20075340
Day 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20089267
Day 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20108958
Day 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20175404
Day 5: https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/07/20/g1-climax-28-review-july-20-okada-vs-page-free-preview/ (free preview)
Day 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20216801 (Wai Ting & WH Park)
Day 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20239930
Day 8: https://www.patreon.com/posts/g1-climax-28-26-20333420
Day 9: https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/07/27/g1-climax-28-review-july-27-okada-vs-yoshi-hashi-free-preview/ (free preview)
Day 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/g1-climax-28-28-20374963
Day 11: https://www.patreon.com/posts/g1-climax-28-30-20416757

*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE – World of Sport Ep. 1 review

Martin Bushby, Oli Court & Benno present a special edition of the show, reviewing the premiere episode of World of Sport on ITV, what worked and what didn’t work, as their ten-week run on ITV kicks off.
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/rmp6nr/BWE_WOS_Special_Final.mp3
*****

EGGSHELL PODCAST COMPANION – 1994
Chris Charlton welcomes wrestling historian Pat Laprade, as well as Dann & Emily Read of Pro Wrestling EVE to discuss the Tokyo Dome events of 1994, including the Big Egg Universe card from November ’94.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/zzisjw/EGGSHELLS_Podcast_Companion__1994_w__Pat_Laprade_Pro_Wrestling_EVE.mp3
*****
ASK-A-WAI (July 2018)

John Pollock & Wai Ting spend over two hours answering your questions with Likely / Unlikely scenarios, Impact promoting their GWN app and running on Twitch, future stars in WWE, New Japan talent that could work in WWE one day, the memorably G1 event from 2013 & tons more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/20354619
*****
upNXT 7/26/18: Fade to Blackheart

Birthday Boy Braden Herrington chats with Davie Portman about the Tommaso Ciampa title win over Aleister Black, his recent concerts he has attended, their upcoming move & take your feedback.
https://upnxt.podbean.com/mf/download/f6b987/upNXT-July26.mp3
*****
BWE 7/25/18: Progress Chapter 73, Fight Club Pro Int’l Tekkers, ROH UK Tour
Oli Court & Benno are back to chat all the latest UK wrestling news, the Spanish wrestling scene, and reviews of some big shows over the past few weeks.
https://britishwrestlingexperience.podbean.com/mf/download/urqmz3/BWE_Episode_15.mp3 
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 7/24/18: Styles vs. Joe announced, Miz & Mrs. Premiere Party
John Pollock & Wai Ting review another strong edition of SmackDown, discuss the new SummerSlam matches, the show-closing Miz segment with Daniel Bryan and Pollock reviews his 1994 Baseball Mogul season.
https://postwrestling.podbean.com/mf/download/88evsb/180724_RASD.mp3
*****

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About John Pollock 5483 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.