POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: EVOLVE no longer booking talent contracted to Impact

EVOLVE issues a statement on LAX being pulled and won't book talent contracted to Impact Wrestling, a huge weekend of MMA events, Ronda Rousey wrestling on Raw & WWE stock continues to climb.

POST IT NOTES

**Today on the POST Wrestling Café we have our monthly ASK-A-WAI show with Wai Ting and I answering 40 questions covering a wide range of topics. Each month, you can post questions on the POST Wrestling Forum and then we answer them all at the end of the month.

**This week’s edition of the Café Hangout is available on POST Wrestling’s YouTube channel. On this week’s show, we run through all the news from the past few days and welcome Jan Murphy to the show at the 15:00 mark. Jan chatted with us about Saturday’s Chinlock Wrestling charity show in Kingston, Ontario that features Tyson Kidd, Vickie Guerrero, Tito Santana, Jimmy Korderas, Tyson Dux and some surprises scheduled for the show. We also spoke to Jan about his excellent feature on Tyson Kidd (TJ Wilson) that he released this week.

**On Saturday, Chris Charlton will have the latest edition of the EGGSHELLS Podcast Companion covering Wrestle Kingdom 6 from 2012 with Sean Radican from PW Torch.

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WRESTLING NEWS

**Following positive analysis from several outlets, the WWE stock has shown a bounce upward following a steep decline since the beginning of October. Last Friday, the stock was trading at $62.60 and closed today at $73.96 representing an 18% increase in one week. The optimism seems to be focused on the upcoming television deals the WWE plans to announce for the UK and India. Initially estimates from the company were for the UK deal to be announced before the end of 2018 and India deal in the first quarter of 2019.

**WWN has released a statement regarding Santana and Ortiz of LAX being pulled by Impact Wrestling for the upcoming shows in December. The WWN side is stating that LAX contacted them to state they were needed for something else that weekend, without a further explanation, although it was stated that Impact didn’t contact EVOLVE directly. The promotion had wanted to do matches between The Street Profits and LAX but was told that LAX could not lose those matches. Therefore, they changed the matches to a three-way the first night and a six-man tag the second night to avoid LAX having to lose. EVOLVE complained in their statement that Impact should have turned down the dates, to begin with prior to EVOLVE announcing the matches. They added that they will no longer be booking talent from Impact Wrestling. Below is the full statement they released Friday:

We are sorry to inform you that Impact Wrestling has pulled LAX off the upcoming EVOLVE dates. EVOLVE officials were contacted by LAX and informed that they were needed for something else that weekend. No other explanation was given. Impact Wrestling didn’t contact EVOLVE officials and left it up to LAX. There is no heat on LAX as WWN understands the situation they were put in. EVOLVE officials had told LAX that the plan was to have matches with EVOLVE Tag Team Champions The Street Profits of Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins that weekend. EVOLVE was informed that LAX would not be able to lose in those matches. In order to avoid any political issues, EVOLVE made one night a triple threat match and the other night a six man tag. This would give the fans the LAX vs. Street Profits matches they wanted, while protecting all parties politically. Unfortunately, Impact Wrestling waited until the matches were announced and then pulled the talent the next day. This all could have easily been avoided by not allowing LAX to take the dates in the first place. EVOLVE will no longer consider booking Impact Wrestling contracted talent moving forward. EVOLVE officials are currently working on a replacement and will have news early next week. We apologize for the lineup change, but assure you that EVOLVE will produce something special on for EVOLVE 117 December 15th in Queens, NY and EVOLVE 118 on December 16th in Deer Park, NY. Thank you for your support.

We have reached out to Impact Wrestling for a response and will update if they choose to respond.

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**Santana posted the following comment on Twitter regarding the team being pulled from the show:

In a perfect world.

It would’ve definitely been cool, especially for the fans. But wrestling has proven to us once again that there’s still much more work that needs to be done, in order for all of us to truly enjoy the endless possibilities.

**The Raw crew has a show at Arena Ciudad in Mexico City on Saturday night. They have booked Rey Mysterio on the Raw brand along with Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Drew McIntyre as the top stars advertised. The Raw crew heads to Bossier City, Louisiana on Sunday with Ronda Rousey advertised for that card. The SmackDown crew is in Arlington, Texas on Sunday.

**The WWE has announced that Ronda Rousey and Natalya will take on Nia Jax and Tamina this Monday in Houston for Raw.

**Former WWE creative team member Kevin Eck has announced he has taken a full-time position with Ring of Honor. Eck, who also wrote for the Baltimore Sun in the past, had been working on a part-time basis with the company prior to accepting this new position.

**Here are the matches taking place on tonight’s episode of MLW Fusion at 8 pm Eastern on beIN Sports:
*Pentagon Jr. and Rey Fenix vs. LA Park and El Hijo de LA Park
*Tommy Dreamer vs. Brian Pillman Jr.

**MLW is set to announce the main event of their first of two WrestleMania Week cards. The plan is to announce the match next week. They will be running the Melrose Ballroom on April 4th and 5th next year.

**ICW out of Scotland presents their biggest card of the year with Fear & Loathing XI from the SSE Hydro in Glasgow and the following line up:
*Jackie Polo vs. Lionheart in an ICW title versus Career match
*British Strong Style vs. Noam Dar, Wolfgang, and BT Gunn
*Mark Coffey vs. Joe Coffey for the ICW Zero-G title
*Viper vs. Kay Lee Ray for the Women’s title
*The Kinky Party vs. Alpha Evil for the tag titles
*James Storm vs. Grado with Jeff Jarrett as the special referee
*Mikey Whiplash vs. Joe Hendry
*A six-team Tables, Ladders & Chairs match feat. The Briscoe Brothers
*Aaron Echo vs. Kenny Williams

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**New Japan’s World Tag League is off until Sunday when they return with a card in Osaka. The show will stream late Saturday, early Sunday morning at 2 am Eastern on New Japan World with the following card:
*Killer Elite Squad vs. Shota Umino and Ayato Yoshida in the tournament
*EVIL & Sanada vs. Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi in the tournament
*Juice Robinson and David Finlay vs. Hangman Page and Yujiro in the tournament
*Togi Makabe and Toa Henare vs. Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka in the tournament
*Best Friends vs. Jeff Cobb and Michael Elgin in the tournament
*Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi in the tournament
*Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA and Rocky Romero vs. Jay White, Bad Luck Fale, Taiji Ishimori and Gedo

**Lance Storm’s latest Storm Wrestling Academy session wrapped today. This session of Storm’s featured Dominic Gutierrez, the son of Rey Mysterio.

**Ring of Honor has announced that Zack Sabre Jr. will take on Tracy Williams at the final set of television tapings for the year on Saturday, December 15th at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.

**Jun Akiyama is scheduled to have his first match in the United States next March. Pro Wrestling Revolution out of California has announced that Akiyama will be part of their March 9th card in San Francisco. He will also be part of the All Japan tryouts that Pro Wrestling Revolution will be hosting at their academy on March 7th alongside Ultimo Dragon and Tajiri.

**Jay “Christian” Reso turns 45 years old today.

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MMA NEWS

**ESPN reported Friday that the long-awaited fight between Paul Daley and Michael “Venom” Page is expected to take place on February 16th from Uncasville, Connecticut as part of the Welterweight Grand Prix. The same site is also reporting that a heavyweight fight between former champion Vitaly Minakov and Cheick Kongo is scheduled for the same card at Mohegan Sun Arena. This card will also air live on 5Spike in the U.K and on DAZN.

**It’s a packed weekend of mixed martial arts events with the UFC and Bellator hosting two events each, plus KSW and LFA have events this weekend.

**Here is the full card for tonight’s TUF Finale event from The Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas:

MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on FS 1, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Kamaru Usman vs. Rafael dos Anjos
*Juan Espino vs. Justin Frazier in the TUF heavyweight tournament final
*Pannie Kianzad vs. Macy Chiasson in the TUF women’s featherweight final
*Pedro Munhoz vs. Bryan Caraway
*Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Darren Stewart
*Ji Yeon Kim vs. Antonina Shevchenko

PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Kevin Aguilar vs. Rick Glenn
*Joseph Benavidez vs. Alex Perez
*Michel Batista vs. Maurice Greene
*Julija Stoliarenko vs. Leah Letson

FIGHT PASS CARD (6:30 pm)
*Roosevelt Roberts vs. Darrell Horcher
*Tim Means vs. Ricky Rainey
*Chris Gutierrez vs. Raoni Barcelos

**Bellator 217 takes place tonight from Thackerville, Oklahoma and is an oddly structured card. Unlike typical shows, it is the preliminary fights that feature the big names and the main card has little of note. The preliminary fights will stream on Paramount’s website, so it isn’t even a case of DAZN having a strong undercard and Paramount getting a weaker main card. Below is the complete card:

MAIN CARD (9 pm Eastern on Paramount Network and DAZN)

*Chidi Njokuani vs. John Salter
*David Rickels vs. Guilherme Bomba
*Bruna Ellen vs. Kristina Williams
*Juan Archuleta vs. Jeremy Spoon

PRELIMINARY CARD (7 pm Eastern on Paramount.com)
*Gerald Harris vs. Hracho Darpinyan
*Chris Honeycutt vs. Costello Van Steenis
*Jordan Young vs. Anthony Ruiz
*Daniel Weichel vs. Goiti Yamauchi
*Joe Schilling vs. Will Morris
*Joe Warren vs. Shawn Bunch
*Scott Futrell vs. Mike Shipman
*Brian Moore vs. Noad Lahat
*Adil Benjilany vs. Daniel Carey
*Vernon Lewis vs. Rudy Schaffroth

**The LFA 55 card is airing at 9 pm Eastern tonight on AXS TV will Miles Johns taking on Adrian Yanez for the vacant bantamweight title and Sarah Alpar vs. Joselyne Edwards to crown the promotion’s first women’s bantamweight champion. The card is taking place from The Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas.

**KSW is running a card from Poland on Saturday at 1 pm Eastern on DAZN from Arena Gliwice. The card is headlined by middleweights Mamed Khalidov and Tomasz Narkun. The card will also feature Mateusz Gamrot and Kleber Koike Erbst fighting for the vacant featherweight title.

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**The UFC’s second card of the weekend is Saturday from Adelaide, Australia at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre with the following card:

MAIN CARD (10 pm Eastern on FS 1, TSN 5 in Canada)
*Junior dos Santos vs. Tai Tuivasa
*Mark Hunt vs. Justin Willis
*Tyson Pedro vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
*Jake Matthews vs. Tony Martin
*Suman Mokhtarian vs. Sodiq Yusuff
*Paul Craig vs. Jim Crute

PRELIMINARY CARD (8 pm on FS 1, Fight Network in Canada)
*Yushin Okami vs. Alexey Kunchenko
*Ben Nguyen vs. Wilson Reis
*Keita Nakamura vs. Salim Touahri
*Elias Garcia vs. Kai Kara-France

FIGHT PASS CARD (7 pm)

*Mizuto Hirota vs. Christos Giagos
*Damir Ismagulov vs. Alex Gorgees

*****
ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (December 2018)
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the December 2018 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/30/ask-a-wai-ask-us-anything-december-2018/
*****
upNXT 11/29/18: Big Lads Wrestling

Braden Herrington & Davie Portman chat this week’s episode of WWE NXT from San Jose featuring Lars Sullivan vs. Keith Lee, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. The Mighty, a Dijak promo and more!
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/29/upnxt-11-29-18-big-lads-wrestling/
*****
BWE 11/28/18: NXT UK, Walter, OTT Redemption, EVE She-1, ICW Fear & Loathing
Martin & Benno are joined by Will Cooling from Fighting Spirit Magazine to discuss all the major news regarding recent NXT UK contract changes. They look at how this will affect the UK scene from every angle.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/28/bwe-11-28-18-nxt-uk-walter-ott-redemption-eve-she-1-icw-fear-loathing/
*****
DOUBLE SHOT 11/28: WWE Starrcade, Edge & Christian Show, Being the Elite, Ronda Rousey and Daniel Cormier docs

John Pollock and Wai Ting review the WWE Starrcade test, Edge & Christian’s season-premiere, Being the Elite & a pair of UFC documentaries on Ronda Rousey & Daniel Cormier, plus the New Japan World feature on the LA Dojo.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/28/double-shot-11-28-wwe-starrcade-edge-christian-show-bte-rousey-and-cormier-doc/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 11/27/18: Women’s TLC announced, Jeff Hardy’s anniversary, CM Punk speaks

The Target Center in Minneapolis was the site of SmackDown Live Tuesday with a Battle Royal to determine the third member of the first women’s TLC match next month involving Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, Randy Orton and Rey Mysterio continued their feud with another attack, and Jeff Hardy’s 20th anniversary celebration was ruined by Samoa Joe.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/28/rasd-11-27-18-womens-tlc-announced-jeff-hardys-anniversary-cm-punk-speaks/
*****
RAR 11/26/18: Baron Corbin’s Raw, WWE’s UK moves, Larry Matysik
WWE was in Milwaukee for Raw and featured Baron Corbin’s heel unit destroying babyfaces Finn Balor and Elias, Dean Ambrose gets vaccinated from the audience, Seth Rollins held an Open Challenge for the Intercontinental title. We also discuss WWE making several big moves with the NXT UK brand and the passing of Larry Matysik.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/27/rar-11-26-18-baron-corbins-raw-wwes-uk-moves-larry-matysik/
*****
GOLDEN BOY MMA: Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz POST Show
John Pollock & Mike Bohn from USA Today and MMA Junkie chat about Golden Boy MMA’s first card featuring Chuck Liddell fighting Tito Ortiz.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/11/25/golden-boy-mma-chuck-liddell-vs-tito-ortiz-post-show/
*****

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About John Pollock 5484 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.