POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: Roman Reigns speaks on his return from leukemia

Roman Reigns discusses his return after battling leukemia, TakeOver confirmed for San Jose, Jimmy Uso update, Vince McMahon sells stock, WrestleMania 15 & more.

POST IT NOTES

**For those that are Double Double, Iced Capp, and Espresso members, we had a great edition of the Café Hangout on Thursday and you can watch that show now if you’re a member. Nate Milton was a guest and a lot of people enjoyed the discussion on the Kofi Kingston story and themes explored throughout it. That will be available for everyone on Friday, including on the POST Wrestling YouTube channel.

**I really appreciate all the feedback to the interview we did with Kenny Omega and that so many people enjoyed it.

**On Friday, we will have a new Rewind-A-Wai with OSW Review’s Jay Hunter joining us as we review two wrestling-themed episodes of “The Simpsons” from 1997 and 2013. The first one is “The Old Man and the Lisa” and features a Bret Hart cameo and the 2013 episode is “Gorgeous Grampa” and is a full-themed episode.

**On Saturday, we will have our monthly POST Puroresu show with WH Park joining me as we chat the New Japan & Ring of Honor G1 Supercard, All Japan’s recent Dream Series card with Kento Miyahara vs. Naoya Nomura, the Champion Carnival lineup, the Momo Watanabe vs. Jungle Kyona match from Stardom earlier this month and lots more.

WRESTLING NEWS

**Roman Reigns spoke with Maya Jones for a piece on The Undefeated site about his return from leukemia and getting onto the WrestleMania card. It was noted by Jones in the article that Reigns’ white blood cell count had exceeded 100,000 when the range of a healthy adult is 4,000 – 11,000. That went along Reigns having an enlarged spleen as the call was made for Reigns to relinquish the Universal title last October and take an indefinite period off.

**Paul Levesque held a conference call Thursday with members of the media and confirmed the next TakeOver special will be Saturday, June 8th at San Jose State University. The special will not piggy-back off a WWE pay-per-view weekend and they are returning to the site of a significant show in the brand’s history. They ran San Jose State University during WrestleMania weekend in 2015 and it was an NXT card that Vince McMahon attended and featured Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks, which stole the show (we had previously listed this was the main event, the show was headlined by Finn Balor vs. Neville). That card was a live event only but led to the realization that the brand could be bigger, and they ran the Barclays Center later that August over SummerSlam weekend.

**Levesque noted on the call that they were aware of Ciampa’s neck injury and it was thought to be manageable before taking a turn and he had to undergo surgery.

**AAA has announced they are holding a press conference next Thursday at 11:30 am at the Chase Lobby of Madison Square Garden. In the release to the media, it is listed as an announcement about AAA coming to the U.S. in September 2019.

**Jimmy Uso (Jonathan Fatu) has reportedly struck a deal over his February arrest for disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice. TMZ is reporting that the SmackDown tag champion has pleaded no contest to interfering with a Government employee and will pay a $450 fine. Fatu was a passenger with his wife Naomi (Trinity Fatu) and was pulled over by police in Detroit. Fatu exited the vehicle and allegedly tried to square up with the officer and was arrested.

**On Wednesday, Vince McMahon sold 3,204,427 shares of Class A common stock that is valued at approximately $282 million. The SEC filing listed the sale of the stock to primarily fund McMahon’s Alpha Entertainment, which is the parent company of the XFL that will launch in February 2020. In the filing, it listed that McMahon has no current plans to sell additional stock. For comparison regarding the WWE’s stock price, when McMahon initially funded Alpha Entertainment in 2017 by selling 3,340,000 shares of Class A stock, it was valued at $95.8 million.

**Tuesday’s episode of SmackDown averaged 2,393,000 viewers on the USA Network on Tuesday. It was their highest number since the 1,000th episode last October.

**Kenny Omega did an incredible volume of media in Toronto this week as he was all over CTV and TSN-related properties to promote the “Omega Man” documentary. Here is his link to his appearance on The Social on CTV.

**A match between Chris Dickinson and Andy Williams has been added to Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport card on Thursday, April 4th at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey.

**MLW has announced that Dan Severn has been added to the 40-man Battle Riot on Friday, April 5th and have also added a match between Low Ki and Daga for the same card at the Melrose Ballroom.

**The WWE stock closed at $86 on Thursday.

**Thursday marked 20-years since WrestleMania 15 from Philadelphia in 1999. As a show, it was hardly one of the classic shows in company history with the main event involving The Rock and Steve Austin. The two had a much better match one month later at Backlash and blew both out of the water with their 2001 and 2003 WrestleMania matches.

What was memorable about that main event was the two participants lobbying to have Jim Ross return and call their match. Ross had been off television with a return of Bell’s Palsy in December and then was brought back as a heel alongside Dr. Death Steve Williams and portrayed as a senile old man that had lost it. It was terrible. It was thought that Ross’ days of being the voice of the show were over and Michael Cole would succeed him. Ross got the call to do the main event of WrestleMania and essentially, won his job back and the heel character was shelved, and Ross remained one of the voices of the WWE for another decade.

**In a coincidence, Jim Ross’ contract with the WWE expires on Friday and concludes the two-year deal he signed in 2017. During this period, he has been used in minimal fashion and has not appeared on a WWE broadcast since the kickoff panel at the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia last April.

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upNXT 3/28/19: Dusty Classic Finals & Gas Station Sunglasses

Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review this week’s WWE NXT featuring the finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic with Ricochet & Aleister Black vs. The Forgotten Sons.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/28/upnxt-3-28-19-dusty-classic-finals-gas-station-sunglasses/
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DOUBLE SHOT: Omega Man documentary, BTE & C2E2 panel, Total Bellas

John Pollock and Wai Ting present an extended edition with a review of the “Omega Man” documentary, season-finale of Total Bellas, Being the Elite & their C2E2 panel chat.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/27/double-shot-omega-man-doc-bte-c2e2-panel-total-bellas/
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RASD 3/26/19: Charlotte wins SD women’s title, Kofi Kingston receives ‘Mania match

Tuesday’s episode features a Tag Team Gauntlet match involving Big E. and Xavier Woods running the table for Kofi Kingston’s last chance to face Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania, Asuka defended the SmackDown women’s title against Charlotte Flair causing changes to the WrestleMania card.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/27/rasd-3-26-19-charlotte-wins-sd-womens-title-kofi-kingston-receives-mania-match/
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THE POST INTERVIEW: Kenny Omega

John Pollock sits down with Kenny Omega to discuss “Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story”, which premieres on TSN Wednesday night.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/26/post-interview-kenny-omega/
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RAR 3/25/19: Joe-Angle, Conference Call Paul, Last Man Stan-Dean

Monday’s episode featured a Last Man Standing match between Drew McIntyre and Dean Ambrose, Triple H quotes the Spice Girls as his career is threatened, SNL hosts added to the WrestleMania battle royal & more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/26/rar-3-25-19-joe-angle-conference-call-paul-last-man-stan-dean/
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NJPW NEW JAPAN CUP FINALS (Patreon)
John Pollock reviews the final night of the New Japan Cup tournament, featuring Kazuchika Okada facing Sanada in the finals in Nagaoka. Plus, a review of the whole show, angles shot on the undercard and a preview of the week ahead at POST Wrestling.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25597525/
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upNXT Movie Review – The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are joined by friend of POST Wrestling, WH Park of POST Puroresu to discuss the 2011 Indonesian martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/22/upnxt-movie-review-the-raid-redemption-2011/
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upNXT MOVIE REVIEW – The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Braden Herrington & Davie Portman are joined by friend of POST Wrestling, WH Park of POST Puroresu to discuss the 2011 Indonesian martial arts film, The Raid: Redemption.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/03/22/upnxt-movie-review-the-raid-redemption-2011
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ASK-A-WAI: Ask Us Anything! (April 2019)

John Pollock and Wai Ting (joining us remotely from Hawaii) answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the April 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai. We cover over 35 questions in this 80 min podcast, discussing AEW, WWE house shows, Umaga, Konnan, Wrestling GIFers, parenting, dental hygiene and more.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/25536475/
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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.