POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: Ed Nordholm describes “darkest period” for Impact Wrestling in 2017

Ed Nordholm speaks on the state of Impact Wrestling and their "darkest period" in 2017, Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson rematch set for UFC 232, Edge added to SmackDown 1000 & more.

POST IT NOTES

**We have a packed edition of the DOUBLE SHOT available today for POST Wrestling Café members. Wai Ting and I covered a lot of extra stuff this week with bonus reviews of the following:
-A recap of an interview with Impact Wrestling executive Ed Nordholm on the state of the company
-A quick preview of this Sunday’s Bound for Glory event
-The UFC Fight Pass documentary on Matt Hughes
-A documentary by filmmaker Kenny Johnson on PCO
-The latest editions of Total Divas, Being the Elite & Ten Pounds of Gold

**This week’s edition of Rewind-A-SmackDown is up on the site with Wai Ting and I reviewing Tuesday’s show from Indianapolis. In addition, we also have a review of the Mixed Match Challenge and a busy day of news with the Daniel Cormier vs. Derrick Lewis announcement, Dustin Poirier off UFC 230, the matches announced for Power Struggle, the teams for the Super Tag League, journalist Jamal Khashoggi and more. You can subscribe to the free POST Wrestling feed on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, Stitcher & more.

**We are running a Twitter contest this week for another copy of “Creating the Mania” by Jon Robinson, courtesy of ECW Press. For this contest, we are asking you to write a HAIKU POEM and send it to us @POSTwrestling on Twitter and using #POSTHaiku. We will read the best submissions and announce the winner next Monday on Rewind-A-Raw.

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**On Thursday, Braden Herrington & Davie Portman will have a new edition of upNXT & Forever Young covering tonight’s episodes of NXT, the Mae Young Classic and Davie’s 205-second review of 205 Live.

**On Friday, it’s a new edition of Rewind-A-Wai as we go back to February 2014 to chat the NXT Arrival event from Full Sail University, as chosen by Espresso Executive Producer Michael King. You can leave feedback for this show on the POST Wrestling Forum.

WRESTLING NEWS

**Ed Nordholm of Impact Wrestling was a guest with David Penzer on the Sitting Ringside podcast to promote this Sunday’s Bound for Glory card. The interview featured Nordholm going through the past two years overseeing the company since Anthem’s purchase of the company and taking control at the start of 2017. The most interesting note was his assertion that the darkest period occurred in August and September 2017. During this period, Nordholm stated they had to make a lot of hard decisions whether to continue with the operation of the company and was not prepared to throw good money after bad. If you recall, Justin Barrasso of SI.com reported that Anthem was considering selling in September 2017. At the time, Nordholm went on Wrestling Observer Radio to deny the sale talk, which publicly he had to do, but regardless this new revelation validated Barrasso’s report at the time.

Nordholm stated in the interview with Penzer that last year’s Bound for Glory was a “watershed” for the company that they needed to get through that show and after that make a concrete plan for the next steps to be taken. This eventually led to the hiring of Don Callis to work with Scott D’Amore as executives, which Nordholm said in the interview was his biggest success citing their common view of the product.

He said that the hardest part has been the difference between broadcasting content and producing it, admitting he was a bit naïve thinking it would be so straight-forward. He took credit for the initiative to allow talent to retain the rights to their intellectual property and take elsewhere.

On the rumors of Chris Jericho appearing at Sunday’s pay-per-view, he stated, “that isn’t in the cards” but also joked that if it was true, he would not say that and risk “being shot”. We chatted more about this interview on last night’s edition of the Double Shot.

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**Here are the matches for 205 Live at 7 pm Eastern tonight that was taped Tuesday night in Indianapolis:
*Cedric Alexander vs. Tony Nese
*Lio Rush vs. Lince Dorado

**Below are the matches for NXT tonight at 8 pm Eastern on the WWE Network:
*Ricochet vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole for the North American title
*Keith Lee vs. Kona Reeves

**Here are the second round matches scheduled for tonight’s episode of the Mae Young Classic at 9 pm:
*Mia Yim vs. Kaitlyn
*Io Shirai vs. Zeuxis
*Xia Li vs. Deonna Purrazzo
*Tegan Nox vs. Nicole Matthews

**Here are the matches announced for tonight’s episode of Lucha Underground at 8 pm Eastern on the El Rey Network:
*Pentagon Dark vs. Reklusa (Chelsea Green)
*Mil Muertes & Fenix vs. El Dragon Azteca, Jr. & The Mack

**Edge (Adam Copeland) has been added to next Tuesday’s SmackDown 1000 episode from Washington, D.C. The news of his inclusion on the show was first reported by Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com last month, which Copeland noted at the time was “news to me”. He is scheduled to host “The Cutting Edge” segment on next week’s show.

**On Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown, they promoted Rey Mysterio’s return next Tuesday and will take on Shinsuke Nakamura in a World Cup Qualifying match. It will be Mysterio’s first match on an episode of SmackDown since February 2014.

**The WWE has also announced Mysterio for the following dates: October 20th in Hartford, October 21st in Boston, October 22nd in White Plains, October 23rd in Newark for the SmackDown tapings, October 30th in Atlanta for the SmackDown tapings, November 3rd in Cardiff, Wales, November 4th in Aberdeen, Scotland, November 5th in Birmingham, England, and November 6th in Manchester for the SmackDown tapings.

**Monday’s episode of Raw averaged 2,370,000 viewers on the USA Network, which was 3.5% from last week’s average. It probably helped that the Monday Night Football game was down 20% this week with the Washington Redskins vs. New Orleans Saints game did 10,506,000 viewers on ESPN. Raw opened with 2,533,000 in the first hour and fell to 2,388,000 in the second hour and dropping to 2,200,000 for the third hour. The show still among the three lowest shows of the year.

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**Kevin Owens is out of the Mixed Match Challenge and Natalya will receive a new partner for next week’s episode where their team takes on Bobby Lashley & Mickie James.

**Following his departure from EVOLVE, Ring of Honor has announced that Tracy Williams will be part of the Survival of the Fittest tournament on Sunday, November 4th in Columbus, Ohio.

**Rapper Bodega Bamz will be playing LAX out to the ring for their match against Homicide, Hernandez & The King for the Concrete Jungle Street Fight.

**AXS TV has announced that WOW: Women of Wrestling series will be premiering on the network on Friday, January 18th.

**Following the non-finish between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair on Tuesday’s SmackDown, the two will have a rematch at Evolution in a Last Woman Standing match on October 28th.

**MLW is planning to hold a television taping on February 2nd over Super Bowl weekend. They have not announced a location for the taping but stated that Tom Lawlor will be challenging for the MLW title on the show.

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MMA NEWS

**The rematch of one of the greatest fights in UFC history is set with Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson set to headline UFC 232 on December 29th in Las Vegas. ESPN’s Ariel Helwani confirmed that the fight is set and will be for the UFC light heavyweight as Daniel Cormier will be stripped of the title the moment the fight starts between Jones and Gustafsson.  The two fought at UFC 165 in September 2013 and is regarded by some as the greatest fight in UFC history as Jones won by decision to retain his light heavyweight title.

This will mark Jones’ latest return to the octagon after a long sabbatical since July 2017 when he defeated Daniel Cormier for the second time. The win was changed to a no contest after he failed his post-fight drug test and was stripped of the light heavyweight title. This will be Gustafsson’s first fight since May 2017 and has won his last two fights over Jan Blachowicz and Glover Teixeira.

**UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and his father, Abdulmanap recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin following Khabib’s victory over Conor McGregor last weekend. A video of the meeting was circulated online Wednesday.

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**One of the most anticipated fights of the year is off as Dustin Poirier is off the UFC 230 card. The news was broken by Brett Okamoto of ESPN on Tuesday night that Poirier suffered an undisclosed injury and has been removed from his fight with Nate Diaz. UFC president Dana White spoke to Lance Pugmire of the L.A. Times and added that Diaz is off the card, which is another terrible blow to this card. As it stands, the November 3rd event will be headlined by Daniel Cormier and Derrick Lewis for the UFC heavyweight title and a rematch between former middleweight champions Chris Weidman and Luke Rockhold.

**Tickets for UFC 231 in Toronto go on sale Friday with fighters doing the media rounds today to promote the event. The card is headlined by featherweight champion Max Holloway defending against Brian Ortega and the Valentina Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk flyweight title fight is back on this card. The UFC 231 event will take place Saturday, December 8th from the Scotiabank Arena.

**Duke Roufus has stated that Sergio Pettis will be moving back to the bantamweight division and is hopeful of fighting on the Fox card in Milwaukee on December 15th. Pettis began his UFC career at bantamweight and went 3-1 in the organization at that weight. Pettis moved down to flyweight in 2015 and has gone 5-2 at that weight and coming off a decision loss to Jussier Formiga this past weekend at UFC 229.

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DOUBLE SHOT 10/10/18: Recap of Ed Nordholm interview, Matt Hughes & PCO docs, Being the Elite, Total Divas

John & Wai review docs on Matt Hughes & PCO, a recent interview with Ed Nordholm, Total Divas, Being the Elite, Ten Pounds of Gold & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/10/double-shot-10-10-18-state-of-impact-wrestling-bte-total-divas-pco-matt-hughes-docs/
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REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 10/9/18: World Cup Qualifiers, Becky vs. Charlotte, Mixed Match Challenge
Two World Cup Qualifying matches with Jeff Hardy vs. Samoa Joe and Randy Orton vs. Big Show, the latest installment of Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair, Miz TV with AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan, and the conclusion of “One Night in Milwaukee”.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/10/rasd-10-9-18-world-cup-qualifiers-becky-vs-charlotte-mmc/

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REWIND-A-RAW 10/8/19: HBK to wrestle, DX reforms, Bellas turn, Angle returns 

Raw took place from Chicago and featured the announcement that Shawn Michaels will wrestle at Crown Jewel as part of a reformed D-Generation X, Trish Stratus will now team with Lita against Alexa Bliss & Mickie James at Evolution, Kurt Angle has his first match on Raw in almost 13 years, The Bellas attack Ronda Rousey & much more on a loaded Raw.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/09/rar-10-8-18-hbk-to-wrestle-dx-reforms-bellas-turn-angle-returns/
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NJPW KING OF PRO WRESTLING POST SHOW (Patreon)

John Pollock & Wai Ting are back for a big review of NJPW King of Pro Wrestling 2018 featuring an incredible main event between Kenny Omega, Cody & Kota Ibushi for the IWGP heavyweight title, a big angle involving Jay White & Gedo forming a new alliance with the BC OGs, an appearance by Chris Jericho, and the debut of Shingo Takagi.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/08/njpw-king-of-pro-wrestling-2018-post-show-w-john-pollock-wai-ting/
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INTERVIEW: A.J. KIRSCH ON WWE 2K19

Davie Portman chats with the voice of WWE 2K19 My Career Mode, A.J. Kirsch. A.J. talks about how he got the gig, what to expect from the new game, his love for The Legend of Zelda series and shares his thoughts on Shawn Michaels stepping back into the ring. All this, plus more! 
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/07/interview-a-j-kirsch-on-wwe-2k19/
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UFC 229 POST SHOW

John Pollock is joined by Phil Chertok & Ziggy Cao with the UFC 229 POST Show as they react to the show-closing brawl following Khabib Nurmagomedov’s win over Conor McGregor and a review of the entire show.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/07/ufc-229-post-show-with-john-pollock-phil-chertok-ziggy-cao/
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WWE SUPER SHOW-DOWN POST SHOW (Patreon)

John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Super Show-Down and discuss the main event featuring The Undertaker vs. Triple H, the post-match angle with Shawn Michaels and Kane, AJ Styles defending the WWE title against Samoa Joe and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/06/wwe-super-show-down-post-show-w-john-pollock-wai-ting-patreon/
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EGGSHELLS PODCAST COMPANION: 2004

Episode 16 sees Chris Charlton and John Carroll look at 2004. Despite a strong start to the year, NJPW would struggle, especially through a difficult IWGP title reign for Bob Sapp. Meanwhile, NOAH makes their Tokyo Dome debut with a fantastic Departure card.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/10/06/eggshells-podcast-companion-2004-w-john-carroll/
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ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything (October 2018)
John Pollock & Wai Ting present the biggest Ask-A-Wai ever with 2.5 hours of mailbag questions being answered.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/21863739/
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About John Pollock 5914 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.