POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: Dark Side of the Ring gets second season

Viceland confirms a second season of Dark Side, Josh Barnett vs. Jon Moxley, Kevin Owens challenges Shane McMahon, UFC 243 location at stadium & more.

POST IT NOTES

**We have a big edition of Rewind-A-Raw out today with Wai Ting and I reviewing the Raw Reunion from all angles, the usage of past & present talent, how they promoted SummerSlam, and many more thoughts on the broadcast from Tampa. In the news section, we discussed Seth Rollins’ comments from a WWE conference call on Monday including audio clips, we also spoke about the Variety piece on WWE’s viewership, the latest drama involving Jon Jones, Josh Barnett vs. Jon Moxley taking place at Bloodsport II, and your feedback.

**Wai Ting and I are back tonight with Rewind-A-SmackDown reviewing the show from Miami and we will be doing our prize pack giveaway on tonight’s show. Each week, we give out a POST Wrestling prize pack with all members of the POST Wrestling Café eligible for the weekly draw.

**Our next G1 Climax show will be out Wednesday evening with a review of the B Block show from Hiroshima featuring Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii. This will be a special free edition of the G1 reviews.

**The British Wrestling Experience returns Wednesday with Martin Bushby and Benno discussing all the latest news and reviews of several shows.

**Over SummerSlam weekend in Toronto, POST Wrestling will be hosting three meet-up events with the following scheduled:
*upNXT Tailgate Party (Saturday, August 10) – Braden Herrington & Davie Portman will host a Tailgate Party at Wide Open (139A Spadina Avenue) from 1 pm until 5 prior to NXT TakeOver.
*POST Wrestling LIVE in Toronto (Sunday, August 11) – John Pollock & Wai Ting will host a live Ask-A-Wai Q&A show at the John Candy Box Theatre at Second City in downtown Toronto. There is a discount on tickets for members of the POST Wrestling Café.
*POST Wrestling: Return to O’Grady’s (Monday, August 12) – A screening of WWE Raw from O’Grady’s Tap & Grill at 171 College Street (at McCaul) with John Pollock, Wai Ting, Braden Herrington, Davie Portman, WH Park, Mike Murray & more. It is free to attend, and we ask you RSVP on the Facebook event page.

POST SCHEDULE

Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown
Wednesday: British Wrestling Experience with Martin Bushby & Benno
Wednesday: G1 Climax Night 8 with John & Wai (FREE SHOW)
Thursday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Thursday: Café Hangout with John & Wai and guest Brandon Howard Thurston (3 pm ET for Double Double+ Patrons)
Friday: Rewind-A-Wai #41 – New Japan in Melbourne, Australia from 2/17/2018 (Patreon)
Saturday: G1 Climax Night 9 with John & Wai (Patreon)
Saturday: Cruel Summer “2007” with WH Park & Joel Abraham from Super J Cast (Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi)_
Saturday: The Rocky Maivia Picture Show with Nate Milton, Marcus Vanderberg & Mike Mills (Gridiron Gang)
Saturday: UFC 240 POST Show with John Pollock & Phil Chertok
Sunday: G1 Climax Night 10 with John & Wai (Patreon)
Sunday: Cruel Summer “2008” with WH Park & Alan4L (Hirooki Goto vs. Togi Makabe)

WRESTLING NEWS

**The SmackDown and 205 Live tapings take place from the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida tonight. Below is what has been announced:
*Shane McMahon to address Kevin Owens – Owens posted a promo online challenging McMahon to a match at SummerSlam where he will quit if he loses
*Kofi Kingston challenges his SummerSlam opponent
*Charlotte Flair vs. Ember Moon
*Shawn Michaels on commentary
*Drew Gulak vs. Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott on 205 Live
*Humberto Carrillo & Raul Mendoza vs. Kalisto & Gran Metalik
*Contract signing between Drake Maverick and Mike Kanellis

**AEW is promoting a big announcement for Wednesday, which most would assume is the announcement of the weekly television show with the timeslot and its night on TNT’s schedule.

**Game Changer Wrestling announced that Josh Barnett will face Jon Moxley on Saturday, September 14th at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport II. The show will air on Fite TV and takes place from The Showboat in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Bloodsport began as a new concept from GCW over WrestleMania Weekend in 2018 with Matt Riddle’s name attached to the show. After Riddle joined WWE, Barnett was inserted and ran one of the strongest shows over this past April’s WrestleMania Weekend. At the show this past April, Moxley attended the show with William Regal while he was still under contract to WWE. GCW put out a great video announcing the match between Moxley and Barnett:

**Viceland confirmed last week’s report in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter with the Dark Side of the Ring series returning for a second season. The next season will see an increase with ten (10) one-hour episodes ordered with Executive Producers Evan Husney and Jason Eisener. The first season featured six-episodes and averaged 201,000 viewers with episodes dedicated to Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth, the Montreal Screwjob, Bruiser Brody, The Von Erich Family, Gino Hernandez, and The Fabulous Moolah. The most-watched episode was the Von Erich episode that averaged 234,000 viewers.

**WWE has canceled this Friday’s Raw house show at the Four States Entertainment Center in Texarkana, Arkansas. A WWE spokesman told the Texarkana Gazette that the cancelation was due to a ‘scheduling conflict’ and they are offering refunds. The Raw crew will now start Saturday night in Oklahoma City and then run in Springfield, Missouri on Sunday.

**The G1 Climax resumes Wednesday in Hiroshima with a B Block show streaming live at 5:30 am Eastern. Below is the full card along with the points totals:
*Tomohiro Ishii (4) vs. Tetsuya Naito (2)
*Jay White (0) vs. Jeff Cobb (2)
*Jon Moxley (6) vs. Shingo Takagi (4)
*Hirooki Goto (2) vs. Taichi (2)
*Juice Robinson (4) vs. Toru Yano (4)
*Kazuchika Okada, Yoshi-Hashi & Toa Henare vs. KENTA, Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks
*Hiroshi Tanahashi & Shota Umino vs. Kota Ibushi & Ren Narita
*EVIL, Sanada & Bushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki
*Will Ospreay, Tomoaki Honma & Yuya Uemura vs. Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro & Chase Owens

**It is the only G1 Climax event this week before the cards in Nagoya this weekend. On Saturday, the A Block is headlined by Kazuchika Okada and KENTA, who are both undefeated with eights points each. Sunday’s show is headlined by Tetsuya Naito taking on Jon Moxley.

**New Japan Pro Wrestling has confirmed that Jushin Thunder Liger will be wrestling on the three Super J Cup cards in the U.S. in August. Liger will not be part of the actual tournament but is set to wrestle in Tacoma on August 22nd, San Francisco on August 24th, and Long Beach on August 25th.

**Impact Wrestling announced on Tuesday they have renewed their agreement with Twitch and will be expanding their weekly content on the streaming channel. The platform hosts Impact’s flagship show on Friday nights at 10 pm Eastern and the renewal will include more exclusive content with pre and post-shows, live monthly specials, Xplosion, and first-person streams. They noted that Melissa Santos and Don Callis would be among those hosting content on Twitch.

**MLW has added a match between Mance Warner and Ricky Martinez to the Never Say Never card this Thursday at the Melrose Ballroom.

**It was seven-year ago today that WWE presented Raw 1000, which marked the beginning of the weekly three-hour format for the show. That show in July 2012 was promoted much more than this year’s Raw Reunion but to compare to seven years ago, the three-hour episode averaged 6,040,000 viewers and the 25th Anniversary of Raw in January 2018 averaged 4,500,000.

**The WWE stock closed at $68.32 on Tuesday and was down 1.85% for the day.

MMA NEWS

**Russian boxer Maxim Dadashev passed away on Tuesday after suffering brain injuries during his knockout loss to Subriel Matias last Friday at a card in Oxon Hill, Maryland. The fight was stopped at the urging of his trainer Buddy McGirt after the 11th round. After the knockout loss, he collapsed and began vomiting and taken to a hospital in Maryland. He underwent emergency brain surgery for a subdural hematoma and was in a medically induced coma. Dadashev was born in Russia but was based in Oxnard, California and turned pro in April 2016 as a junior welterweight and the loss to Matias was the first of his pro career. Dadashev was only 28 years old and had a wife and young son.

**The venue is now official for UFC 243 on Saturday, October 5th. Robert Whittaker will defend the UFC middleweight against interim champion Israel Adesanya in the main event of the card at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia. The stadium was formerly known as Etihad Stadium and previously hosted UFC 193 in November 2015, which featured the famous fight involving Holly Holm knocking out Ronda Rousey to become the UFC women’s bantamweight champion and drew 56,214 and a gate of $6.8 million, which is still the UFC’s attendance record.

Since debuting in the UFC in February 2019, Adesanya has gone 6-0 and defeated Kelvin Gastelum to become interim champion this past April in one of the best fights of 2019. Whittaker has not fought since June 2018 and was pulled from a title defense against Gastelum hours before their fight this past February. Whittaker had to undergo emergency surgery for an abdominal hernia and bowel issue. Whittaker has won his last nine fights and is undefeated since moving up to middleweight in November 2014. He is coming off a pair of decision victories over Yoel Romero in July 2017 and June 2018.

**Here is the card for tonight’s episode of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series at 8 pm Eastern on Fight Pass from the UFC Apex:
*Ramazan Kuramagomedov (5-0, 185.5) vs. Jordan Williams (8-2, 185)
*Terrance McKinney (7-1, 146) vs. Sean Woodson (5-0, 146)
*JJ Okanovich (6-1, 155) vs. Christian Lohsen (7-1, 155.5)
*Jamahal Hill (5-0, 204.5) vs. Alexander Poppeck (9-2, 204)
*Kamuela Kirk (9-2, 145) vs. Billy Quarantillo (11-2, 146)

**Saturday’s UFC card on ESPN averaged 957,000 viewers for the main card that was headlined by a five-round decision with Leon Edwards defeating Rafael dos Anjos. The preliminary card on ESPN averaged 548,000 viewers with Alex Caceres vs. Steven Peterson in the featured prelim fight. The show started with nine straight decisions, including all seven preliminary fights. The last Fight Night card on ESPN was on June 29th headlined by a quick fight where Francis Ngannou stopped Junior dos Santos that averaged 1,145,000 viewers and the prelims on that show averaged 553,000 on the network.

ESPN 2 replayed Saturday’s prelims and main card beginning at Midnight with the prelims averaging 164,000 viewers. The main card saw 124,000 watch the replay at 3 am, which is impressive given the main event didn’t end until 6 am.

**PFL fighter and two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison attended Raw on Monday night in Tampa.

**Here is the first episode of this week’s UFC Embedded series going into UFC 240 this Saturday night:

G1 REVIEWS

Night 1: https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/07/g1-climax-29-post-show-opening-night-okada-vs-tanahashi-free-preview/ (Tanahashi vs. Okada) – FREE SHOW
Night 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28351982 (White vs. Goto)
Night 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28374580 (Tanahashi vs. KENTA)
Night 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28403937 (Naito vs. Taichi)
Night 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28475091 (Ospreay vs. Ibushi)
Night 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28495477 (Moxley vs. Ishii)
Night 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28520429 (Okada vs. Ospreay)

*****
RAR 7/22/19: Raw Reunion

John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring the Raw Reunion and the return of Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, DX, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and countless others.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/23/rar-7-22-19-raw-reunion/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Satoshi Kojima vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan (2006)

WH Park is joined by a legendary figure in the Toronto wrestling broadcasting scene,  Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski. They review the finals of NJPW’s G1 Climax from August 13, 2006: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Satoshi Kojima. 
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/21/cruel-summer-16-hiroyoshi-tenzan-vs-satoshi-kojima-2006-w-dan-lovranski/
*****
CRUEL SUMMER: Masahiro Chono vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (2005)
WH Park is joined by independent Australian wrestler and wrestling trainer, Davis Storm to discuss the finals of NJPW’s 15th annual G1 Climax tournament: Masahiro Chono vs. Kazuyuki Fujita from August 14, 2005
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/20/cruel-summer-15-masahiro-chono-vs-kazuyuki-fujita-2005-w-davis-storm/
*****
Café Hangout – July 18, 2019
On this week’s Café Hangout, John Pollock and Wai Ting chat news involving CM Punk appearing at Starrcast III, James Lynch from The Score discusses MMA media, Buck Gunderson chats OWE’s Canadian debut.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/19/cm-punk-at-starrcast-james-lynch-buck-gunderson-cafe-hangout/
*****
upNXT 7/18/19: Dain, Pain, and Automobiles
The BDE chat all about the July 17th edition of WWE NXT including Matt Riddle vs. Arturo Ruas, the re-debut of Killian Dain, Kushida vs. Apollo Crews, and a huge angle between Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/18/upnxt-7-18-19-dain-pain-and-automobiles/
*****
RASD 7/16/19: SmackTown Hall, Bayley’s SummerSlam Opponent
John Pollock and Wai Ting review Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown featuring Shane McMahon’s Town Hall with the SmackDown locker room.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/07/16/rasd-7-16-19-smacktown-hall-bayleys-summerslam-opponent/
*****

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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.