POLLOCK’S NEWS UPDATE: Cody Rhodes expected “a more polarizing reaction”

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POST IT NOTES

**Rewind-A-Dynamite is live tonight at 10:05 p.m. ET on the POST YouTube channel. Wai Ting and I will review the show from Boston and go through all the major news.

**Braden Herrington & Davie Portman have this week’s installment of upNXT reviewing Tuesday’s show following Stand & Deliver.

**WH Park has released a huge edition of The Long & Winding Royal with guest reviewer Eddie Kingston. The AEW performer sat down with WH to discuss the June 1998 match between Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada as well as discussing his love for that era of All Japan Pro Wrestling, the different styles that are represented at the top of AEW, and lots more. There has been a great response to this show and is definitely worth checking out.

POST DAILY NEWS SHOW

Wai Ting is joined by John Siino to discuss the Raw After WrestleMania numbers, reported figures for ROH Supercard of Honor, Jerry Lawler stepping into the Raw booth for several weeks, and NXT 2.0 from Tuesday night.

WRESTLING NEWS

**I studied the age of all the performers on the WrestleMania cards this past year to get a sense of the average. In addition, I compared it with the shows from last year, 2017, and 2012. As well, I listed the age of every WrestleMania headliner going back to 1985 and how old they were on the day they headlined the show. I didn’t intend to go so deep into it and was curious how the past years compared. If you have any thoughts, feedback, or corrections (I did my best with the math and had to make several updates), please respond below in the comments.

**AEW Dynamite takes place from the Agganis Arena in Boston, Massachusetts tonight and will feature Samoa Joe’s in-ring debut for AEW as well as the second match ever between The Young Bucks and FTR.

The ticket sales are right on pace with their last time in the market. Last October, they ran the same building for Dynamite and drew 5,500 paid, per The Wrestling Observer. According to WrestleTix, as of Tuesday night, there were nearly 5,500 tickets out for the show (which includes all tickets, not just paid).

While WWE truly owned the weekend with WrestleMania, reports are that ROH’s Supercard of Honor did very well with Dave Meltzer reporting that the show did over 20,000 buys. That’s an important figure because it was a show built solely on social media as opposed to having any television promotion from AEW’s end other than a brief mention of the Pure Championship match on last Wednesday’s Dynamite. Not to mention the competition that night for the wrestling fan’s attention between SmackDown, Hall of Fame, New Japan, IMPACT, and Rampage among the shows running that evening.

Tonight’s show is loaded with star power between the in-ring debut of Samoa Joe in his first match since August as well as The Hardys in a tables match, Christian Cage in a rare television match, and a big tag title match.

The main event could have implications on AAA’s TripleMania card in Monterrey on April 30th. The Young Bucks are scheduled to headline the show against Rey Fenix & Hijo del Vikingo and could see the AAA tag titles defended in that match if they win tonight.

Below are the matches announced for tonight’s episode airing at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and TSN 2 in Canada:
*AAA & ROH Tag Team Championships: FTR (champions) vs. The Young Bucks
*Tables Match: The Hardys vs. The Butcher & The Blade
*Owen Hart Qualifying Match: Samoa Joe vs. Max Caster
*Owen Hart Qualifying Match: Julia Hart vs. Hikaru Shida
*Adam Cole vs. Christian Cage
*Eddie Kingston, Santana & Ortiz to appear

**Cody Rhodes appeared on WWE’s The Bump on Wednesday to discuss his return to the company. He said that his speech on Raw was “unscripted and raw”.

Regarding his feelings after the match and seeing his wife Brandi:

I have to be careful talking about my wife because as you guys know, I’m an emotional cat. It was big for us because you know we did everything, we thought we did everything right in terms of leaving AEW, coming here, and having set out house up there, again, so proud of it and what it is. But, for the past forty-something days, we’ve been quiet, and everyone’s had these theories and talked, ‘I don’t know’ about us, theories and whatnot. I wanted this to be a positive moment, no strings attached to that positive moment and we got to experience that together.

I know whatever her next big step is, I want to be there for her like she was there for me because truly, I couldn’t have done it without her.

On the type of reaction that he expected for his return:

I was trying very hard not to have expectations, but you have to. I was expecting a more polarizing reaction because of the last bit of wrestling I had done I was a bit more of “let’s go, Cody, Cody sucks” type, which I love. But also, I’m an outsider. I broke the throne, I helped create an alternative promotion, I caused an incredible amount of disturbance in this world and everyone, how beautiful of it, it wasn’t a negative return, it was positive. I got the vibe the next day, it wasn’t about leaving as it was about returning and that felt like a triumphant return.

I was expecting some detractors to it all and I would have loved that just as much, but it didn’t seem we got any of that.

**TMZ is reporting that Tammy Sytch allegedly caused a car crash on March 25th where a 75-old man in the vehicle she struck died from the injuries. TMZ obtained the traffic crash report that was filed by the Ormond Beach Police Department. The report states Sytch crashed into the back of a vehicle that was stopped at a red light. The impact caused the stopped vehicle to go into a vehicle that was in front of it. Two eyewitnesses stated that Sytch was driving at a “high rate of speed”. The victim was taken to hospital and died from the injuries. Police stated in the reports that they thought Sytch was under the influence of alcohol and a blood sample was taken but the results are not back yet. Depending on the results of the tests, Sytch could face criminal charges.

**Tony Khan was on Busted Open Radio on Wednesday and expects ROH’s Supercard of Honor event from this past weekend to be one of the promotion’s highest-grossing events in history. Khan said on FITE TV alone, they did over 15,000 buys and that’s without the cable and satellite numbers that take a bit longer to come in.

**WWE Raw did a massive number in Canada on Monday with an average of 348,900 viewers and 206,600 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It would make it the biggest number for WWE in the country in years and the highest since we’ve regularly been receiving Canadian viewership figures. Among other sports programming that night in Canada, it was third in overall viewership behind the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Tampa Bay Lightning game, and Curling with Raw topping another NHL game between Calgary and L.A, the NCAA men’s basketball final, and Toronto Blue Jays vs. Detroit Tigers pre-season game. In the 25-54 demo, Raw was #2 among sports programming trailing only the Leafs vs. Lightning game that did 1,118,500 and 430,500 in 25-54.

**David Meyers, who co-hosts the monthly POST Marks show on our site, recently spoke with MJF for a feature in The Algemeiner. In the interview, MJF described being subjected to antisemitism while wrestling on the independent scene. In addition to derogatory comments, he shared a story of an unnamed wrestler from Ohio that called him a Jewish slur and keyed his car. He noted in the interview that he has never experienced any anti-Semitism in the AEW locker room but experienced a “ton” while on the independents.

**On Monday’s Raw Talk, they announced that Jerry Lawler will be filling in for Corey Graves for a few weeks with Graves going on his honeymoon. Graves and WWE performer Carmella are getting married this week. Lawler will be on commentary with Jimmy Smith and Byron Saxton beginning this Monday in Detroit.

**NJPW has added a twelve-man tag to the Windy City Riot card on Saturday, April 16th in Villa Park, Illinois. Former IWGP heavyweight champion Scott Norton is going to wrestle at the age of 60 teaming with Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, Chris Bey & Hikuelo against Jeff Cobb, Great O-Khan, TJP, Aaron Henare & Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher). It will be Norton’s first match in over two years. The card will be available on FITE TV and is headlined by Jon Moxley taking on Will Ospreay.

**Game Changer Wrestling has released a video continuing the story between Jeff Jarrett and Effy.

**New Japan has a show on Thursday in Saitama with Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano & YOH against Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & DOUKI. It’s the last stop before Saturday’s big Hyper Battle card at Sumo Hall where Okada defends the IWGP heavyweight championship against Sabre with six championship matches on the show. Saturday’s card will stream on New Japan World at 4 a.m. ET.

**Dwayne Johnson revealed the new logo for the XFL along with a mission statement for the league that is set to begin to play in one year. Johnson and business partner Dany Garcia along with RedBird Capital bought the remnants of the league from bankruptcy court last year. The spring league will undergo its third launch into the market after previous attempts in 2001 and 2020 by Vince McMahon.

**New Japan World had added the Rhett Titus vs. Minoru Suzuki match from ROH Supercard of Honor this past Friday.

ON THIS DATE

WrestleMania 30 took place in 2014 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome featuring Daniel Bryan defeating Batista, Randy Orton, and Triple H on the same night to become the undisputed champion. It was also the end of The Undertaker’s streak after 23 years and being pinned by Brock Lesnar in a match where The Undertaker sustained a concussion early and doesn’t remember most of what happened.

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About John Pollock 5511 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.