POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-Raw is live tonight at 11:05 p.m. ET with Nate Milton joining me for the show while Wai Ting is on vacation. The two of us will review the show from Detroit and take your feedback and super chats. The show will be live on the POST YouTube channel.
**On Tuesday, we will be joined by Brian Solomon on the POST Daily News Show. Solomon worked for WWE in their magazine department as the managing editor from 2000-07. His new book Blood & Fire: The Unbelievable Real-Life Story of Wrestling’s Original Sheik comes out tomorrow and is available through ECW Press.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Nate Milton (11:05 p.m. ET on POST YouTube)
Tuesday: upNXT with Davie Portman & Braden Herrington (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark with John Siino (upNXT feed)
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with John & Bruce Lord (10:05 p.m.)
Thursday: MCU L8R – Moon Knight Ep. 3 with WH Park & JP Houlihan (Patreon)
Thursday: The British Wrestling Experience with Benno & Andy Ogden
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John & Kate from Montreal (10:05 p.m. for Patrons)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio with Brandon Thurston & Chris Gullo
POST DAILY NEWS SHOW
ESPN’s Marc Raimondi joined the show on Monday to discuss UFC 273, the scoring of Sterling vs. Yan, Khamzat Chimaev, attending WrestleMania Weekend, his recent interview with Tony Khan & more.
WRESTLING NEWS
**There is no significant update regarding Shinjiro Otani, who suffered a serious injury during Sunday’s main event with Takashi Sugiura on the Zero1 card at Sumo Hall. Otani took a German suplex into the turnbuckle and was unable to move his limbs. The ropes were taken down and fans were asked to exit the building. Zero1 president Takahito Kami gave the following update to Tokyo Sports on Monday:
It hasn’t changed. He’s conscious, but can’t move his limbs. Currently, he’s being treated by a doctor. As for the official diagnosis, we are waiting for a reply from the hospital.
**WWE Raw takes place from Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit, Michigan tonight and will feature Cody Rhodes’ first match on Raw in six years when he takes on The Miz. Below are the matches and segments announced for tonight’s episode at 8 p.m. ET on the USA Network:
*Women’s Tag Team Championships: Sasha Banks & Naomi (champions) vs. Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan
*Cody Rhodes vs. The Miz
*Rey Mysterio vs. Veer Mahaan
*AJ Styles vs. Damian Priest
*The VIP Lounge with MVP & Omos
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reports that Tommaso Ciampa is in Detroit for tonight’s episode of Raw and has officially been called up to the main roster. Ciampa wrapped up his time in NXT losing to Tony D’Angelo at Stand & Deliver last weekend in Dallas.
**Last week’s episodes of AEW Dynamite and Rampage have been added to New Japan World for its Japanese subscribers. The episodes have Japanese language options with commentary from Haruo Murata and Shingo Takagi.
Translation thread: Interesting bits from Shingo's commentary
– He once saw Adam Cole's match in person at Tokyo Dome (probably the ROH title match against KOR) so he remembered the "BAYBAY" catchphase
– He might wanna do "Shingo Takagi BAYBAY" when the fans can cheer in Japan https://t.co/V6PbFjQJpD— Kuma #HazukiCinderella (@golden_kuma) April 11, 2022
**The U.K.-based 1PW (One Pro Wrestling), which ran from 2005-11 is coming back this October. The company issued a press release announcing a return for October 1st at the Doncaster Dome in England featuring Rob Van Dam, Ruby Soho, and Mickie James on the card. The group is partnering with FITE TV to broadcast the event and make its back catalog of shows available on the streaming platform.
**Lavie Margolin has an attendance analysis of the first quarter of 2022 for all the major independent groups along with IMPACT Wrestling, MLW, and NWA. The major non-WWE and AEW events of the quarter included Big Time Wrestling drawing over 3,000 for a show in Ohio last month and over 1,000 for a January show in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Northeast Wrestling was the other major drawing independent with over 1,600 in January in Poughkeepsie and over 2,200 in Waterbury two weeks ago featuring The Hardys. Game Changer Wrestling held its biggest show in its history in January at the Hammerstein Ballroom, but promoter Brett Lauderdale shared with Margolin his theories on a potential hangover effect for the shows following the Hammerstein event.
**For those in Canada, TSN’s schedule is listing AEW’s Battle of the Belts II event for this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on TSN3.
**Larry Sweeney (Alex Whybrow) died on this date in 2011 after taking his life at the age of 30. Sweeney was an incredibly charismatic performer that would have thrived in the industry in a different era including modern-day where mouthpieces are more valued.
**All Japan Pro Wrestling’s Champion Carnival tournament began over the weekend with shows on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Today’s show at Korakuen Hall drew 430 fans with the tournament matches seeing Yoshitatsu over Kuma Arashi, T-Hawk over Shotaro Ashino, Suwama over Takuya Nomura, and Jake Lee over Shuji Ishikawa in the main event. After three events, T-Hawk leads the A Block with four points while Nomura is on top of the B Block with four points.
**On Sunday’s Stardom show in Osaka, there were two second-round matches in the ongoing Cinderella tournament. Hazuki beat AZM while World of Stardom champion Syuri went to a 10-minute draw against Himeka.
**This Friday, the WWE Network will be releasing the latest edition of The Broken Skull Sessions with Steve Austin interviewing Bully Ray.
**Sarah Rowe has announced she will be part of the Control Your Narrative (CYN) events on May 13th in Cleveland and May 14th in Detroit.
**IMPACT Wrestling has posted the full match between Alex Shelley and Speedball Mike Bailey from the Multiverse of Matches card at WrestleCon, which the promotion is touting as a “match of the year”.
**Being the Elite Ep. 302: “Young Bucks vs. FTR 2”.
**Phil Strum has an interview with NWA president Billy Corgan on Under the Ring: Pro Wrestling Conversations.
MMA NEWS
**The biggest story coming out of UFC 273 was the rise of Khamzat Chimaev, who secured the biggest win of his career defeating #2 ranked Gilbert Burns by unanimous decision. It will be a contender for “Fight of the Year” with the second round one of the best rounds we’ll see this year. The third was very close with Chimaev attacking Burns with a flurry of strikes with Burns’ back against the cage. Burns mounted a comeback in the final minutes, but it was not enough and Chimaev received three scores of 29-28 and won the first and third rounds. The next step is an interesting one with Dana White stating beforehand that if Chimaev won, he would want to put together a fight with Chimaev and Colby Covington. Covington is the second-best welterweight in the world and would be another sizable test for Chimaev. While Leon Edwards is due for a title fight with Kamaru Usman, there is no doubt the biggest star in the division for Usman to fight is Chimaev. You could book Chimaev against Covington, but if Covington wins (which is very possible), it’s unlikely they go with a third fight involving Usman and Covington (providing Usman is still champion). In theory, there are two welterweight fights on the table yet the biggest one without debate is Usman against Chimaev and you are rolling the dice by having them fight other opponents first.
**The most debated decision from Saturday was Aljamain Sterling’s split decision against Petr Yan to have sole claim to the bantamweight title. The fight came down to the first round, which was a close round. Sterling out-landed Yan in significant strikes with 19/40 connecting compared to Yan’s 13/26. I watched the round twice and my first impression was Sterling winning the round close while on second viewing the quality of shots by Yan did seem superior, even if he landed fewer. The second round was a 10-8 for me in favor of Sterling, who not only secured a dominant position but also delivered a lot of damage with his striking, but each judge scored it 10-9 for Sterling. Beyond that, it was very clear that Sterling won round three, and Yan won the last two rounds. After the fight, Sterling called out T.J. Dillashaw, who was in attendance.
**An interesting comparison is that in Saturday’s fight, Aljamain Sterling was 2/22 on takedowns (including 0/10 in the final round), although those two takedowns were huge in rounds two and three. In the first fight, he was 1/17 on takedowns. The big difference was the wrestling from Yan, who was 7/7 on takedowns in the first fight in March 2021 and didn’t even attempt one takedown in the rematch.
**Henry Cejudo has stated he is planning to return after a two-year retirement. Cejudo was tweeting after UFC 273 with his manager Ali Abdelaziz telling ESPN that Cejudo plans to re-enter the USADA testing pool, which typically requires a six-month testing window before a retired fighter can return. Cejudo, 35, held the flyweight and bantamweight titles in 2020 before vacating the 125-pound belt and announcing his retirement after his title defense against Dominick Cruz at UFC 249 in May 2020. Cejudo would be a significant opponent for either Aljamain Sterling or Alexander Volkanovski, providing the UFC would put him into a championship fight immediately. In the ESPN story, his manager believes Cejudo can win the titles at both 135 and 145 pounds and become the first fighter in the UFC to win a title at three different weight classes.
**Marc Raimondi at ESPN reported over the weekend that a rematch between Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk is expected for UFC 275 on June 11th in Singapore. It will be a rematch of the greatest women’s fight of all-time when the two had a five-round classic at UFC 248 in March 2020 that Weili won by split decision. Since that fight, Weili has lost back-to-back fights to current champion Rose Namajunas while Jedrzejczyk has not fought since. The report states that verbal agreements are in place with UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell telling the outlet that bout agreements will be sent soon.
**Bellator 277 is the big card this weekend with the rematch between A.J. McKee and Patricio “Pitbull” Freire for the featherweight championship. McKee submitted Pitbull last July to win the title and the Featherweight World Grand Prix. This Friday’s card in San Jose will also feature the finals of the Light Heavyweight World Grand Prix between champion Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderson. Aaron Pico will go for his sixth consecutive victory when he competes against Adil Edwards on the Showtime main card.
ON THIS DATE
Edge announces his retirement on Raw in 2011. He would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame the following year and make sporadic appearances on television over the next several years while focusing his attention on acting. After being cleared, he made his return at the Royal Rumble in 2020 and has been a semi-regular performer with the company since then:
Mitsuharu Misawa takes on Jun Akiyama in 2001 as part of the tournament to crown the first GHC heavyweight champion:
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: WrestleMania business, WWE’s proxy statement; Tony Khan on ROH, bots
More business news coming out of Wrestlemania as Brandon Thurston is joined by Chris Gullo who returns from his week in Dallas
*****
UFC 273 POST SHOW: Volkanovski vs. Jung, Sterling vs. Yan
Phil Chertok and Eric Marcotte are back to review UFC 273 featuring two title fights, including Alexander Volkanovski vs. The Korean Zombie.
*****
NJPW Hyper Battle POST Show
John Pollock is solo to review NJPW Hyper Battle 2022 as Kazuchika Okada defends the IWGP world heavyweight title against Zack Sabre Jr.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
Wai Ting & Kate from MTL review AEW Rampage featuring a bloodbath between Jon Moxley and Wheeler Yuta, and WWE SmackDown featuring the main roster debut of Gunther and other NXT call-ups.
*****
MCU L8R: Moon Knight Ep. 2
Wai Ting & WH Park discuss Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight Episode 2: “Summon the Suit” as Steven Grant struggles to uncover the many layers behind his mysterious identity.
*****
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