POST IT NOTES
**Tonight, we are live at 10:15 pm ET with Rewind-A-Dynamite as Wai Ting and I review the “Crossroads” edition of AEW Dynamite featuring Shaquille O’Neal, and the go-home episode prior to Revolution on Sunday. This show will stream live for our Double Double, Iced Capp & Espresso members of the POST Wrestling Café.
**We are holding sales throughout March on the POST Wrestling Store for members of the Café. This week, all Patrons will receive a 15 percent discount on our limited-edition Marvel-themed t-shirt. If you are a Café member, the discount code should be in your Patreon inbox.
**Braden Herrington and Davie Portman will have a new edition of upNXT streaming on Twitch at 10:15 pm ET tonight and available on the site later tonight.
**Rewind-A-Wai #81 was a great show as we spent close to three hours reviewing WrestleMania 6 from the SkyDome in Toronto. In addition to a show review, we also uncovered some local media coverage from 1990, spoke with Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski about his live experience at the show and the WWF’s touring of Toronto during this era, plus lots of feedback for the event. This show can be accessed by all POST Wrestling Café members.
**On Monday, we announced POST Podcast Day for Saturday, April 3rd beginning at Noon ET. We will be hosting six shows that day and the shows will be live for members of the POST Wrestling Café through Zoom. We will be announcing the shows and personalities involving over the next few weeks, but our first announcement is a LIVE ASK-A-WAI show that will take place that day for all Patrons.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite (LIVE at 10:15 pm ET for Dbl Dbl+ Patrons)
Tonight: upNXT with Davie & Braden Herrington (upNXT feed)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai Ting & Kate from MTL (LIVE at 10:15 pm ET for Patrons)
Friday: Best Death Match Ever with Davie, Braden & Damian Abraham (upNXT feed)
Saturday: UFC 259 POST Show with John & Phil Chertok (LIVE on POST’s YouTube)
Saturday: Rewand-A-Vision with Wai, WH Park & Nate Milton (10 pm ET for all Patrons)
Sunday: AEW Revolution POST Show with John & Wai (LIVE for Dbl Dbl+ Patrons)
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW is kicking off tonight’s edition of Dynamite with Shaquille O’Neal & Jade Cargill vs. Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet to start the show as big as possible. It would seem opportune to shoot a big angle in conjunction with the match and retain as much of the curiosity audience sampling Shaq’s appearance for the rest of the episode. Below is the line-up of segments advertised for tonight:
*Shaquille O’Neal & Jade Cargill vs. Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet
*Face of the Revolution Ladder Match Qualifier: 10 of the Dark Order vs. Max Caster
*Women’s Title Eliminator Finals: Nyla Rose vs. Ryo Mizunami
*Jurassic Express vs. FTR & Tully Blanchard
*Matt Hardy & Marq Quen vs. Hangman Page & John Silver
*PAC & Rey Fenix in tag action
*Chris Jericho and MJF’s press conference with the wrestling media
*Sting and Darby Allin make an appearance
*Paul Wight speaks
**The Countdown to AEW Revolution special will air on TNT immediately after Dynamite tonight.
**Cody Rhodes held a Q&A with the media on Wednesday covering a wide variety of topics. The entire call is available on the site.
**Here are the matches and segments scheduled for NXT tonight at 8 pm ET on the USA Network:
*Women’s Tag Team Championship: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler (champions) vs. Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez
*Non-Title Match: Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Timothy Thatcher & Tommaso Ciampa
*The Way attend a therapy session
**After an initial report from the Mat Men podcast with additional reporting from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, it appears there are significant discussions regarding the move of NXT to Tuesday nights on the USA Network. Meltzer was unable to confirm if it’s a done deal reporting “that if not, they are very close”. The Mad Men report stated that they would move to Tuesday nights beginning April 13th, which would be the Tuesday following WrestleMania.
The ramifications are significant if the move occurs. NXT would to Tuesday nights would not only benefit NXT but also open the door for a significant increase in AEW’s regular viewership. Last summer, NXT ran unopposed on back-to-back Wednesday nights followed by two weeks airing on Tuesday nights. The result was a four-week average of 841,000 viewers and a 0.24 in the 18-49 demo, which compares to the previous four weeks opposing AEW where NXT averaged 673,500 and 0.18 in the key demo. Those are significant adjustments if NXT could maintain that on a weekly basis running Tuesdays.
The other significant question is what AEW’s ceiling is on TNT without head-to-head wrestling competition? During that same four-week stretch, Dynamite aired on a Saturday night, a Thursday night, and then back to Wednesday where NXT aired a replay on Syfy and had one week unopposed on September 9th. The AEW audience followed the show with the Saturday night show following an NBA game and going against a TakeOver special and managed a 0.31 in the demo with 755,000 viewers. For the two Wednesday airings of Dynamite with a live NXT to contend with, the two shows averaged 972,000 viewers and 0.37 in the demo.
NXT debuted on the USA Network in September 2019, two-weeks prior to AEW’s debut on TNT and the two have battled head-to-head ever since. It became increasingly clear that the best move for NXT’s success was moving nights where its audience would grow and serve its product best. However, the calculated move was NXT serving as a cap on AEW’s growth. Compared to the prior four weeks, when AEW didn’t have a live NXT as competition last September, the increase over those two weeks was 12 percent in the demo and 17 percent in viewers.
**Fightful noted that when subscribers have attempted to cancel their WWE Network subscription, a screen appears advertising future events including a TakeOver special listed for Thursday, April 8th. WWE has yet to formally announce that event or date, but the advertisement appears next to reminders for Fast Lane on March 21st and WrestleMania on April 10th and 11th.
**A proposed charity event featuring Joey Ryan (Joseph Meehan) was canceled on Tuesday after the news of Ryan’s involvement came out. The event was being promoted as a “Wrestling 4 Women’s Charity” show for later this month in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was revealed through the ticketing site that the show was being promoted by Ryan’s Bar Wrestling outlet with Ryan also featured on the event’s poster. The story gained more attention after AEW president Tony Khan caught wind of it adding that any AEW talent advertised for the show (including Brian Cage and Sonny Kiss) would be pulled, although he would donate to the charity, which he later questioned the legitimacy of. AEW does have a third-party booking system where certain talent can be booked on the independents. The event’s Twitter account (which has since been deleted) issued a statement confirming the show was canceled while stating that everyone booked was “fully aware of all details”:
We apologize for riling everyone up. It is clear that we’re in over our heads. We’ll say that everybody booked was fully aware of all details including going through AEW’s 3rd party booking system for talent. Rather than put talent in a tough situation, we’ve canceled the show.
**Joseph Meehan has also dropped one of his lawsuits against an accuser from the Speaking Out Movement, whose name we are not reporting. Heel by Nature obtained the court documents that stated Meehan’s legal representative filed a notice of dismissal in the Central District of California after their client won a default judgment against the woman, who didn’t respond to the summons. Meehan alleged in his initial suit that the woman made untrue allegations against him that resulted in damages to his reputation and livelihood and defended himself stating he did not assault the woman and that any intimate acts were made with clear consent.
**WWE has put out a FAQ regarding its U.S. subscribers for the WWE Network migrating over to Peacock. In the question-and-answer session, it states that Fast Lane on March 21st will be available on both services for U.S. subscribers while WrestleMania will air exclusively on Peacock. Regarding current subscribers, this is their information on what you must do for the migration:
Starting in April, Peacock will be the exclusive streaming home of WWE Network. Until then, you can keep watching directly on WWE Network, as long as you have an active subscription. You can also create a Peacock account to stream WWE Network on Peacock beginning March 18.
Note: WrestleMania on April 10 and 11 will only be available to stream on Peacock.
Be on the lookout for an email with more specific directions on when and how to sign up for Peacock.
**IMPACT Wrestling averaged 134,000 viewers and a 0.03 in the 18-49 demographic on Tuesday finishing 130th among all cable programs. Last week’s show did 170,000 viewers and a 0.04.
**Young Rock finished with 3,223,000 viewers and a 0.66 in the 18-49 demographic Tuesday on NBC. The show finished third for the night among network programming behind This Is Us and NCIS. Young Rock down from last week’s average of 3,611,000 viewers and a 0.77 in the demo.
**Kenny Omega spoke with SI.com about this Sunday’s Exploding Barbed-Wire Death Match with Jon Moxley:
A standard I set for myself is that I can’t call myself the best in the world unless I can do everything. So yes, a huge, long match at the Tokyo Dome, with no restrictions, no agent, I can do that. I can also go on TV and have a performance everyone is talking about, one where I was supposed to have 21 minutes but then I only had 18, plus told a story after the match. That’s part of being the best, too.
**Here are the matches for tonight’s edition of MLW Fusion at 7 pm ET on Fubo Sports and its YouTube channel:
*MLW World Heavyweight Title: Jacob Fatu (champion) vs. Jordan Oliver
*MLW Tag Team Championship: Los Parks (champions) vs. Simon Gotch & Shawn Daivari
*Calvin Tankman vs. Laredo Kid
*Alicia Atout interviews Alex Hammerstone and Richard Holliday
*Parrow returns
**NJPW presents its 49th Anniversary card on Thursday morning from Budokan Hall streaming at 3 am ET on New Japan World with the following line-up:
*Final Double Championship Match: Kota Ibushi (champion) vs. El Desperado
*New Japan Cup: Tetsuya Naito vs. The Great O-Khan
*New Japan Cup: Satoshi Kojima vs. Jeff Cobb
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & SHO vs. Shingo Takagi, SANADA & BUSHI
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, David Finlay, Toa Henare & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jay White, EVIL, KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Chase Owens
*Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma, Master Wato & Gabriel Kidd vs. Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & DOUKI
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reports that IMPACT Wrestling is putting its long-running series Xplosion on “extended hiatus” while noting the show has not been canceled but they are placing more focus on the new Before the Impact pre-show that airs as a lead-in on AXS TV each Tuesday.
**The WWE stock closed at $51.82 on Wednesday.
**John Layfield and Jerry Brisco have launched a YouTube series called “Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw” and their latest episode features a chat with Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin.
**Charlotte Flair will be the guest on the season-finale of Straight Up Steve Austin next Monday on the USA Network.
**Dante Martin of Top Flight turns 20 years old today.
**John Morgan of MMA Junkie spoke with Bellator matchmaker Rich Chou on the introduction of their rankings system and Bellator’s return in April.
**UFC has released the third episode of UFC Embedded prior to this Saturday’s pay-per-view.
**Huntington Beach city council member Tito Ortiz hears from his constituents during a council meeting.
**There were several significant fights on this date including the UFC 68 main event where Randy Couture came out of retirement to unseat Tim Sylvia as UFC heavyweight champion in 2007. This was all time and place because on that night, it felt like the most improbable story coming to life as Couture was the underdog and had not fought since February of the previous year and was 43-years old. Immediately, Couture dropped Sylvia and the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio was electric. He didn’t finish Sylvia but easily won by decision with the entire building counting down as the fifth round ended like it was New Year’s Eve. Couture was a replacement for Brandon Vera, who was set to challenge Sylvia and once they lost the main event, Couture stepped in. There were two other incredible fights on this date with Diego Sanchez vs. Martin Kampmann in 2011 and Wanderlei Silva vs. Brian Stannin 2013. For pure action, those two fights rank very high and the Sanchez vs. Kampmann was just an unbelievably violent affair and doesn’t get brought up many times when discussing some of the best fights of the past decade.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Jim Miller vs. Joe Solecki at UFC Fight Night on April 10 (MMA Junkie)
Paul Daley vs. Sabah Homasi at Bellator 257 on April 16 (MMA Junkie)
Luis Pena vs. Alex Munoz at UFC Fight Night on April 17 (MMA Fighting)
Johnny Munoz vs. Mark Striegl at UFC 261 on April 24 (MMA Fighting)
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Talia Santos at UFC Fight Night on May 8 (Combate)
Francisco Figueiredo vs. Jimmy Flick at UFC Fight Night on May 8 (The Corner & The Casual Podcast)
Edson Barboza vs. Shane Burgos at UFC 262 on May 15 (ESPN)
ON THIS DATE
****
REWIND-A-WAI #81: WWF WrestleMania VI (w/ Dan Lovranski)
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWF WrestleMania VI (1990) featuring “The Ultimate Challenge” between Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior for the WWF and Intercontinental Championships. Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski joins us to discuss attending the event live in Toronto.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 3/1/21: New WWE Champion, POST Podcast Day
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring The Miz vs. Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship, a look at the New Japan Cup brackets, and an announcement about an upcoming POST event.
*****
NJPW Castle Attack POST Show – Ibushi vs. Naito, Okada vs. EVIL
John Pollock & Wai Ting review both nights of NJPW’s Castle Attack 2021 shows headlined by Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship and Kazuchika Okada vs. EVIL.
*****
REWAND-A-VISION: Episode 8 “Previously On” (w/ Brent Chittenden)
Wai Ting & WH Park are joined by Brent Chittenden to review WandaVision Episode 8 as Agatha Harkness forces Wanda to confront her past traumas in an effort to uncover the true source of her reality-altering powers.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN 2/26/21: Bryan challenges Reigns, Belair’s choice
John Pollock and Wai Ting are back to review Friday Night SmackDown, a recap of Jon Moxley vs. KENTA, the passing of Joseph Hudson, AEW & NXT ratings & your calls.
*****
BTWA #6: Eddie Guerrero ‘Cheating Death, Stealing Life’ (2004)
Martin Bushby & Andrew Thompson are back with another round of Wrestling Adventure. This month, they are joined by Neal Flanagan to look back at the 2004 Eddie Guerrero documentary, ‘Cheating Death, Stealing Life’.
*****
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