POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live tonight at 11:05 p.m. ET as Wai Ting and I review the Raw after WrestleMania from Dallas, Texas. We will have a review of the show and be taking your feedback. The show will be live on the POST YouTube, Facebook & Twitter platforms and available on all podcast platforms by subscribing to POST Wrestling.
**We are scheduled to have a special show airing in place of the POST Daily News on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET. If everything is confirmed, we will announce it tonight on Rewind-A-Raw.
**We have our WrestleMania Sunday POST Show available to download with an extensive review of the second night at AT&T Stadium. You can also watch the show on the POST YouTube channel.
POST DAILY NEWS SHOW
On today’s show, we chatted with Pat Laprade of TVA Sports and Les Anti-pods de la Lutte on the performances of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at WrestleMania, covering their careers from their early days on the independents, being in attendance for Zayn’s second match, how close Owens came to walking away in 2007, and their impact in Quebec for the company. Plus, we spoke about Speedball Mike Bailey’s weekend and other highlights from Dallas where Pat attended many shows including both nights of WrestleMania.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting (11:05 p.m. ET on POST YouTube)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John & Wai (10:05 p.m. on POST YouTube)
Thursday: MCU L8R – Moon Knight Ep. 2 with Wai Ting & WH Park (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with Wai Ting & Kate from Montreal (11:05 p.m. for Café members)
Saturday: UFC 273 POST Show with Phil Chertok & Eric Marcotte (Live on POST YouTube)
Saturday: NJPW Hyper Battle POST Show with John Pollock (Patreon)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio with Brandon Thurston & Chris Gullo
THE KEVIN OWENS SHOW
There are many stories coming out of WrestleMania Weekend but the one that should be told at length one day is that of Kevin Owens. On Saturday night, he reached something that many scratch and claw for yet can never recognize when it actually happens – validation.
For years, he was someone that was always at the top of the list of someone that didn’t fit the WWE “look”, gaining the reputation of a top-level promo, incredible bump taker but would never get a sniff from WWE because of a viewpoint of who could be a star. As Pat Laprade shared on our show today, there were times he was ready to pack it in and find a different path in life including in 2007 with Ring of Honor and coming through in a pivotal match with The Briscoes. Without Ring of Honor, there are many of today’s stars that might have left the industry or never found success, Owens being one of them.
He grew up with French as his first language and later revealed that it was Jim Ross’ commentary that helped him learn English and today, is among the best talkers in the industry. After a chance run-in with Steve Austin at an airport in 2005, he was given the advice of “keep running your mouth” as Austin left that conversation unaware that this 21-year old would one day share a ring with him on the biggest show of the year.
In April of 2014, Steen attended WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans and made a vow that day that it was the last time he would come to one of these shows without WWE paying for him to be there. One year later, he was in their system and holding the NXT championship. Even when WWE expanded its view on talent, signing Owens, it came with the caveat that NXT would be his ceiling and would not see the main roster. It took Owens less than six months before he was working with John Cena on the main roster and would be WWE Universal champion one year later.
His time in WWE has seen the highs of winning the Universal title, a memorable pairing with Chris Jericho, being part of Bryan Danielson’s return match in 2018, and working against his best friend at WrestleMania last year. On the other side, he has faced the lows of WrestleMania 33 where Vince McMahon told him he hated his match with Jericho, he was left off WrestleMania 35 altogether when plans changed and he was the odd man out, he has constantly bounced between brands, but he was always the utility guy they could throw anything at. This year, he got the ultimate prize of working with Austin and it became the undeniable main event for Saturday’s show.
For the promotion of the match, Owens had to do the heavy lifting by promoting the showdown without his dance partner on television each week. It forced Owens to put the advice from Austin into practice as he ran his mouth for weeks against the state of Texas.
The story of Kevin Owens isn’t complete but Saturday was a major chapter in a career that many doubted, many criticized, and it took twenty years to reach the biggest spotlight. For one night, the main event of WrestleMania became The Kevin Owens Show.
WRESTLING NEWS
**The Raw after WrestleMania takes place tonight with the promotion’s third event at the American Airlines Center over the course of the weekend. It is the first Raw after ‘Mania with fans in attendance since 2019 as last year’s show was back inside the ThunderDome after having limited fans for the two nights at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
Cody Rhodes is scheduled to speak on the show and likely outline what his motivation is for coming back to WWE and has indicated in interviews about chasing the title his father never won. It will be a very interesting interview given how entrenched Rhodes was with AEW and is where he went to become a major star. Rhodes has gone out of his way to be complimentary towards the promotion and isn’t going to knock them publicly. I feel you have to use that part of the story for maximum value but you can also get around using the name “AEW” by just stating he left WWE, changed the industry, and now he’s back to disrupt WWE or something along those lines. Regardless, it will likely be the most interesting segment on the show and he’s coming off a terrific return on Saturday between the authentic American Nightmare entrance, the reaction, and then having a classic WrestleMania match with Seth Rollins.
Veer is also advertised to make his return after being off Raw since the draft last October and being relegated to Main Event.
**WWE put out a press release touting the success of both nights of WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium. In the release, they claimed a combined attendance figure of 156,352 while calling it the “highest-grossing and most-attended event in company history” and surpassing the figures of WrestleMania 32 in 2016 in the same stadium. It’s misleading given that the 2016 show was one night as opposed to two and they are taking the total attendance and gate between both nights and comparing it against one-night events. Interestingly, they didn’t list a gate figure for either night, which they usually attach in the press release and is a legitimate figure, unlike the attendance. In 2016, the gate was $17.3 million with the turnstile count at 80,709 (they announced 101,763). To call it the highest-grossing event in company history would also not take into account the shows in Saudi Arabia, which are believed to gross approximately $50 million per show and would be the most lucrative. WrestleTix reported that the total number of tickets distributed (not counting those in the suites) was 131,372 over both nights, so paid attendance would be under that figure as that number would include comps, etc.
**The best video you are going to watch today:
Some of my students didn’t get to see Wrestlemania this weekend, so for our wrestling club today we had to watch @BiancaBelairWWE vs. @BeckyLynchWWE at #WrestleMania. It was one of the best matches I’ve ever seen and it’s safe to say my students agree too! 🙌🏽 pic.twitter.com/6Ecx8SHecO
— Victor Taylor Perry (@wallflowerperry) April 4, 2022
**On the WWE YouTube channel, the highest performing videos coming out of the weekend are Cody Rhodes returning to WWE (2.4 million views as of Monday morning), Night 1 highlight video (2.4 million), Steve Austin making his in-ring return (1.4 million), and a behind-the-scenes video for Cody Rhodes before his entrance (1.3 million). The videos from night one have the advantage of having a full day of extra viewing before the night two videos, although nothing was bigger than Cody Rhodes’ return from an engagement standpoint, and don’t see anything from night two hitting that figure after twenty-four hours.
**Brandon Thurston went through the data on Cagematch regarding the performers with the most matches over WrestleMania Week. As we noted, Speedball Mike Bailey had the most matches with nine, and given the quantity and quality, he would have to be the performer of the weekend. Janai Kai had seven matches followed by five matches each for Davey Richards, Shazza McKenzie, Gringo Loco, Minoru Suzuki, Billie Starkz, Black Taurus, Hoodfoot, Keita Murray, and Jack Cartwheel. Thurston added that there were 49 events and 438 wrestlers with Cagematch profiles on those shows not counting the second night of WrestleMania when the data was tabulated.
**Game Changer Wrestling has announced that The Collective will take place from March 30th until April 1st next year at The Ukrainian Cultural Center in Los Angeles over WrestleMania Weekend.
**We have not heard an update on the injury to Grayson Waller at NXT’s Stand & Deliver. Waller came off a ladder with an elbow drop through another ladder and it looked gruesome. Waller did a promo after the match with his arm in a sling and said the arm “might be broken”, which the announcers speculated on the broadcast.
**Mick Foley reacts to Steve Austin’s Stone Cold Stunner on Vince McMahon:
My son recorded my reaction to the world’s worst stunner. Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/58kzus5FJH
— Mick Foley (@RealMickFoley) April 4, 2022
**Phil Strum speaks with MLW CEO Court Bauer on the Under the Ring podcast for USA Today.
**Sasha Banks reacts to her first win at WrestleMania after six prior losses while speaking with Ariel Helwani alongside Naomi.
**Being the Elite Ep. 301: “Teleportation”.
**Episode 1 of UFC Embedded heading into UFC 273 this Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida.
ON THIS DATE
WrestleMania 9 took place from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in 1993 featuring Hulk Hogan leaving the show as WWF champion. This was considered one of the weakest WrestleMania cards in history. After beating Bret Hart for the title, Yokozuna made an impromptu challenge to Hogan at ringside, who beat Yokozuna in seconds to win the championship for the fifth time. The idea was that Hogan and Hart would have a match at SummerSlam with Hart noting in his book that they did a photo shoot for the promotional material where they had a tug-of-war with the belt. The match never happened as Hogan dropped the belt to Yokozuna in June and finished up with the company shortly thereafter. The event occurred when business was in decline and they went to the nostalgia well with Hogan and would do it again nine years later. It would be Hogan’s last WrestleMania appearance until the match with The Rock in 2002.
The Rock and John Cena set up their match for WrestleMania 28 one year in advance in 2011:
*****
POST DAILY NEWS: WrestleMania 38 Fallout, Pat Laprade talks Owens & Zayn
John Pollock & Wai Ting chat WrestleMania Weekend fallout and are joined by Pat Laprade (TVA Sports) from Dallas, TX to discuss the highlight performances of Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn.
*****
WrestleMania 38 Sunday (Night 2) POST Show
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE WrestleMania 38 Sunday (Night 2) featuring Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar in a Champion vs. Champion match.
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WRESTLENOMICS: The business of WrestleMania 38
More than 65,000 fans were in attendance for Night 1 of WrestleMania. WWE, as always, announced a bigger number. Brandon Thurston is joined by Jesse Collings to discuss.
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WrestleMania 38 Saturday (Night 1) POST Show
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE WrestleMania 38 Saturday from Dallas, TX featuring the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte, and Seth Rollins vs. ???
*****
upNXT: NXT Stand & Deliver 2022 POST Show
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT: Stand & Deliver 2022 headlined by Dolph Ziggler vs Bron Breakker for the NXT Championship.
*****
GCW Joey Janela’s Spring Break 6 Pt. 2 POST Show
Wai Ting & GCW reviewer Jon Pine continue Mania Week coverage by discussing Joey Janela’s Spring Break 6 Part 2 featuring The World’s Greatest Clusterfuck and Minoru Suzuki vs. Effy.
*****
ROH Supercard of Honor 2022 POST Show
John Pollock is solo to review ROH Supercard of Honor from Friday night featuring the arrival of Samoa Joe, FTR vs. The Briscoes & more
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WWE Hall of Fame & WM SmackDown POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the WWE Hall of Fame 2022 featuring The Undertaker’s induction speech, and WrestleMania SmackDown featuring the Andre Memorial Battle Royal.
*****
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