POST IT NOTES
**A programming note that Rewind-A-Raw will not be taking place tonight. Instead, we are doing the show live on Tuesday at Noon ET on the POST YouTube channel as Braden Herrington and I will discuss attending the show in Toronto and take your feedback.
**Our UFC 278 POST Show is up for everyone with over an hour discussing Saturday’s card and Leon Edwards winning the UFC welterweight title. This was Phil Chertok’s last show and I wanted to thank him for all his help doing these POST Shows over the past four years. Phil will still be involved with the POST Discord and other areas of the site. The next UFC POST Show will be on Sunday, September 11th with Eric Marcotte and I reviewing UFC 279 with Nate Diaz vs. Khamzat Chimaev.
**This month’s edition of The N.W.A. Podcast with Nate Milton, Kris Ealy & Andrew Thompson is out with the three discussing all the major changes at WWE and the key news stories from the past several weeks.
**Braden Herrington of upNXT is on The PWT Cast today with Scrump.
POST SCHEDULE
Tuesday: Rewind-A-Raw w/ John Pollock & Braden Herrington (LIVE at Noon ET)
Tuesday: upNXT with Braden Herrington & Davie Portman
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite with Pollock & Bruce Lord
Wednesday: Shot in the Dark w/ John Siino
Thursday: MCU L8R – She-Hulk Ep. 2 (Patreon)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown w/ Pollock & Kate from Montreal (11 p.m. ET)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio
WRESTLING NEWS
**WWE returns to Toronto at the Scotiabank Arena tonight for Raw. It will be one of the largest attendance figures for Raw this year with nearly 14,000 tickets out for the show and will probably hit capacity by show time. They are advertising:
*Edge vs. Damian Priest – this is Edge’s first match in Toronto since February 2011 with Edge expected to be the biggest star on the show. During Judgment Day’s promo last week, it was established that Finn Balor and Rhea Ripley would not be ringside. I would expect this one gets a lot of time and it’s the biggest match for Priest since WrestleMania last year.
*Women’s Tag Title Tournament: Alexa Bliss & Asuka vs. Dakota Kai & IYO SKY
*Trish Stratus to appear – she was on the Ontario house shows over the weekend in Kingston and London
**WrestleTix reports that under fifty tickets were left for Raw, so the building will be packed tonight with capacity listed at 13,836.
**Will Ospreay wrapped up two nights of main events for RevPro’s tenth anniversary weekend at York Hall over the weekend. On Saturday, Ospreay defeated Speedball Mike Bailey in a highly touted match featuring two contenders for Wrestler of the Year (although Ospreay has created some distance between the rest of the contenders over the past week). On the second night, Ospreay lost the British Heavyweight title to Ricky Knight Jr., ending his reign that goes back to February 2020. Ospreay has had singles matches with Juice Robinson, Tetsuya Naito, Kazuchika Okada, Speedball Mike Bailey, and Ricky Knight Jr. over six days and now heads to the U.S. for a Trios match on Dynamite with Aussie Open against Death Triangle in Cleveland. This has to be one of the greatest weeks of matches any wrestler has put together.
**The following matches will stream on AEW Dark Elevation tonight at 7 p.m. ET and were taped in Charleston last week:
*Death Triangle vs. Rosario Grillo, Manscout Jake Manning & Dean Alexander
*Josh Woods & Tony Nese vs. Andrea Guercio & Logan James
*Julia Hart vs. Hayley Shadows
*Hikaru Shida & Skye Blue vs. Emi Sakura & Maki Itoh
*Ruby Soho & Ortiz vs. Queen Aminata & Mikey Midas
*Anna Jay A.S. vs. Nikki Victory
*Dante Martin vs. Jackson Drake
*Dark Order vs. D’Mone Solavino, Alexander Apollo & RC Dupree
*Serena Deeb vs. Megan Meyers
**SLAM Wrestling has a story on the passing of British star Bert Royal (Herbert Faulkner), who recently passed away at the age of 91. Royal followed in the steps of his father Lewis into professional wrestling with Royal working alongside his brother Vic as The Fabulous Royal Brothers. Royal was born December 5, 1931, and had the distinction of wrestling in the first match that was broadcast on ITV in November 1955. After wrestling, he got into politics and was elected to the Turton District Council.
**For NXT 2.0 on Tuesday night, they are advertising Tiffany Stratton vs. Wendy Choo in a Light Outs match, Cameron Grimes vs. Javier Bernal, and Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen defending the NXT UK tag titles against Gallus. With the Worlds Collide event on September 4th, they only have two episodes to put that card together and I’d imagine most of the key matches will be known by the end of Tuesday’s show.
**New Japan Pro Wrestling and Stardom are holding a press conference late tonight at 1 a.m. ET regarding the November 20th event at Ariake Coliseum.
**NJPW is advertising the return of cheering crowds with reduced capacity crowds at Korakuen Hall on September 5th and 6th. The first night at Korakuen Hall has Kazuchika Okada & Hiroshi Tanahashi facing JONAH & Shane Haste in the main event the second night has Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi against El Phantasmo & KENTA.
**The next tour for New Japan runs from September 2nd until September 25th and culminates with a card in Kobe with Will Ospreay defending the IWGP U.S. title against David Finlay in the main event. The September 25th show will include three title matches.
**Instead of King of Pro Wrestling, the big Sumo Hall show in October will be called Declaration of Power as a nod to the tour names of New Japan’s first year of operations as it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. The October 10th card will be headlined by Jay White against Tama Tonga for the IWGP title and Kazuchika Okada vs. JONAH in rematches from the G1.
**IMPACT Wrestling is holding two nights of shows on Friday, August 26th & Saturday, August 27th at The Factory in Dallas. On the first night of Lone Star Stampede, they are advertising The Good Brothers vs. Matt Taven & Mike Bennett for the IMPACT tag titles, Deonna Purrazzo vs. Masha Slamovich, and Aussie Open vs. Motor City Machine Guns. For Saturday, they have announced The Good Brothers vs. Motor City Machine Guns.
**The N-1 Victory tournament has two more round-robin cards this weekend before the finals on September 3rd. In the A Block, GHC champion Kenoh and Hideki Suzuki are tied with seven points while Kazuyuki Fujita, Go Shiozaki & Masato Tanaka each have six points as the contenders going into the final weekend. The B Block has Takashi Sugiura and Satoshi Kojima tied at eight points, Kaito Kiyomiya and Katsuhiko Nakajima are tied with six points, and then Masa Kitamiya and Maskatsu Funaki have four points. Each participant has two matches remaining, so the field is wide open. Kenoh’s only loss of the tournament has been to Masato Tanaka and had a draw with Hideki Suzuki. GHC National champion Funaki has lost to Kiyomiya, Kitamiya & Kojima.
**DEFY was in Seattle this past Saturday with Ricky Gibson & Eddie Pearl beating Christopher Daniels & Swerve Strickland and The Bollywood Boyz to win the DEFY tag titles, Bobby Fish beat Yuya Uemura, Coyote Azteca beat Halcon Negro, Killer Kelly (who just returned on IMPACT) over Ava Lawless, Guillermo Rosas over La Estrella & Adriel Noctis in a triple threat match, and Cody Chhun beat Alex Shelley. The promotion’s next card is October 8th in Portland featuring Christopher Daniels vs. Swerve Strickland.
**DEFY Wrestling has also announced that Minoru Suzuki will be on their October 29th card in Seattle, Washington at Washington Hall. They have not announced their opponent yet.
**Braun Strowman was in Saudi Arabia over the weekend to attend the fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua. The rematch saw Usyk win by split decision to retain his various heavyweight championships.
**WWE is releasing a new Table for 3 episode this Friday on the WWE Network featuring Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, and Zelina Vega.
**PAC turns 36 years old today, Jimmy & Jey Uso (Jonathan & Joshua Fatu) are also turning 36, Apollo Crews turns 35, and Stevie Ray of Harlem Heat and Paul Ellering also have birthdays today.
MMA NEWS
**UFC 278 drew an announced attendance of 18,231 and a gate of $4,297,655 to the Vivent Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, which are incredible figures for a card headlined by Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards.
**The card is going to go down in history for the memorable win by Leon Edwards in the final minute of the five-round contest with Kamaru Usman and handing Usman the second loss of his pro career and first in the UFC. Edwards was seconds away from a decision loss and appeared lifeless between rounds as his corner was screaming at him to go for it and not let this title opportunity slip away. Edwards had success in the first round becoming the first person to take Usman down in the UFC and won the first round. Usman turned it around with his striking and ease of takedowns on Edwards over the next three rounds. In the final minute of the fight, Edwards connected with a highlight reel head kick that dropped Usman and put him out as Edwards became the new champion. It isn’t the biggest upset in UFC history as Edwards was a quality opponent, but it is one of the greatest comebacks you’re going to see and an all-time memorable end. The loss ends Usman’s title reign that began in March 2019 and he defended the title five times during that stretch.
**With the unbelievable ending, and Usman’s incredible title reign, it’s nearly a certainty that the third fight between them would be next. Dana White was already talking about the fight as a possibility for Wembley Stadium in London but was cautious because of the unpredictability of the rain in an open-air stadium. The only way the rematch wouldn’t be next is if Usman wasn’t ready to go within the timeframe of wanting Edwards to fight. Outside of Usman, the next contender would be Khamzat Chimaev, if he beats Nate Diaz in three weeks. While it’s a difficult fight to justify given his standing in the weight class, Jorge Masvidal has a renewed life at welterweight after losing two fights to Usman and has a history with Edwards from the backstage altercation in London in 2019.
**Paulo Costa won one of the most dramatic fights in recent memory with a three-round decision victory against Luke Rockhold. The fighters were competing at elevation on Saturday with Salt Lake City more than 4,200 feet above sea level and it played an impact in several fights. No one seemed to be as exhausted as Rockhold, who was visibly blown up after the first round and leaning over with his hands on his knees. He also had his nose busted open in the first round, which would have affected his breathing. His long-time training partner Daniel Cormier noted on the broadcast that he had never seen Rockhold so tired before. He gutted his way to the end of the fight and Costa got tired as well but the only round that was close was the second and most had it 30-27 for Costa, including all three judges. After the fight, Rockhold said he can’t keep doing this and that he’s old, which most acknowledged as his retirement, although he didn’t specifically state that. If it is his final fight, it signals an end of an era with the big guns at AKA with Rockhold, Cormier, Cain Velasquez, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Josh Thompson all retiring.
Rockhold won the Strikeforce middleweight title and came over to the UFC after Strikeforce was dissolved. He lost his debut fight in the company to Vitor Belfort and Rockhold was among the most outspoken against TRT usage and fought Belfort during that insane year where he was allowed an exemption to use TRT. Rockhold climbed back and would become UFC middleweight champion in December 2015 when he beat Chris Weidman in a very anticipated fight among the two top middleweights in the sport. The title reign was short-lived as a rematch was set for June 2016 less than three weeks before the fight, Weidman had to pull out, and Michael Bisping took the fight on short notice. Bisping pulled off the major upset and won the title. Since the title loss over six years ago, Rockhold only fought four times including a move to light heavyweight where he was knocked out by Jan Blachowicz in July 2019, which was his last fight until this past weekend.
**MMA Junkie spoke with Paradigm Sports Management’s Tim Simpson about the need for fighters to have proper management and discussed the plans for several of the group’s top fighters including Israel Adesanya.
**The UFC is off this weekend and returns on September 3rd with their debut in France. The card is headlined by a heavyweight contest between Ciryl Gane and Tai Tuiavasa and includes former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker taking on Marvin Vettori.
**The UFC 279 card on September 10th in Las Vegas was largely a one-fight show with Khamzat Chimaev taking on Nate Diaz. At Saturday’s post-fight press conference, Dana White stated that Tony Ferguson vs. Li Jingliang has been added to the show. Outside of those fights, the depth is very low on this card to the point that if either fighter in the main event was injured, it would be hard to see them running this on pay-per-view. Now, with Ferguson added, he could always be called on as a backup.
ON THIS DATE
Mitsuharu Misawa won the Triple Crown for the first time on this date in 1992 defeating Stan Hansen at Budokan Hall. Misawa would hold the title for nearly two years before losing to Dr. Death Steve Williams in 1994. Misawa would hold the Triple Crown five times over the next eight years before the exodus to form Pro Wrestling NOAH.
WWF presented SummerSlam from the Target Center in Minneapolis. The show featured the return of Jesse Ventura, who was the Governor of Minnesota at this point and received a lot of criticism for taking as booking with the company. The main event saw the insertion of Mick Foley, who returned from knee surgery and won the WWF title from Steve Austin in a triple threat match that included Triple H. The next night on Raw, Hunter pinned Foley to win his first WWF championship with title changes on consecutive nights. Overall, this was a poor show with The Rock vs. Billy Gunn in a Kiss My Ass match that signaled the end of Gunn’s summer-long singles push after winning King of the Ring and was back to teaming with Road Dogg shortly after.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: WWE Q2 2022 results; NXT UK shutdown
WWE’s Board’s investigation into wrongdoing by Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and the company culture is “substantially complete”. The NXT UK brand is being discontinued as WWE announces it will launch NXT Europe in 2023.
*****
The N.W.A. Podcast: “Game Recognize Game”
The Advocates are back to break down August’s biggest news stories including the regime change in the WWE, the true strength of Bobby Lashley, Amari Miller’s comments regarding Sasha Banks, and more.
*****
UFC 278 POST SHOW: Usman vs. Edwards 2
John Pollock and Phil Chertok review UFC 278 card featuring Leon Edwards knocking out Kamaru Usman, Paulo Costa & Luke Rockhold have a wild fight, and more.
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Kate from Montreal review SmackDown & AEW Rampage and discuss CM Punk & Hangman Page, NXT UK cuts, and Dynamite ratings.
*****
MCU L8R: She-Hulk Episode 1 Review [FREE]
In this free episode from the POST Café, WH Park & Rich Fann (PW Torch) are joined by Rich’s wife Melissa Fann – an attorney and a patient comic show watcher – to review the first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY #19: Modern Psychotherapy
Jordan Goodman and Neal Flanagan are back with The Wellness Policy to discuss modern psychotherapy: What it is, the various professionals who offer it, and the contemporary types of approaches to its practice.
*****
G1 CLIMAX 32 POST SHOW: Final Night
John Pollock & Bruce Lord review the final night of the NJPW G1 Climax 32 with Kazuchika Okada taking on Will Ospreay to determine the tournament winner.
*****
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