POST IT NOTES
**Rewind-A-SmackDown is live at 11 p.m. ET tonight for POST Wrestling Café members. John Pollock & Wai Ting review Friday Night SmackDown, AEW Rampage, chat about the news stories from the day, and open the phone lines for Café members to call and share their thoughts.
**We have a small adjustment to our schedule this weekend. The UFC 281 POST Show will be streaming live at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte. The show will be live on the POST YouTube channel and available to download on the free POST Wrestling later that day.
**A new edition of POSTmarks will drop on Saturday with hosts David Meyers and Bruce Lord speaking with Kate from Montreal. The show is free to download from the POST Wrestling Café feed.
**John Siino will have coverage of the NWA Hard Times 3 event on the site this weekend and Eric Marcotte will have a report on UFC 281.
POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-SmackDown with John Pollock & Wai Ting (11 p.m. ET for Café members)
Saturday: POSTmarks with guest Kate from Montreal
Sunday: UFC 281 POST Show with Pollock & Eric Marcotte (Live at 2 p.m. ET)
Sunday: Wrestlenomics Radio with Brandon Thurston, Chris Gullo & Jesse Collings
WRESTLING NEWS
**Friday Night SmackDown takes place from the Gainbridge Fieldhouse tonight in Indianapolis, Indiana with the big tag title match where The Usos attempt to set the record for longest reigning WWE tag champions by beating the incumbents, the New Day. The show will also see the launch of the World Cup tournament, which is a tie-in with Fox, who are the host broadcasters of the soccer tournament of the same name that begins this month in Qatar. The winner of the tournament will challenge Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship. Below are the matches and segments announced for tonight’s show at 8 p.m. ET on Fox and Sportsnet 360 in Canada:
*WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championship: The Usos (champions) vs. Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods
*Santos Escobar vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
*Six-Pack Challenge: Liv Morgan vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Xia Li vs. Lacey Evans vs. Sonya Deville vs. Shotzi (winner receives the next title shot against Ronda Rousey)
*Start of the World Cup tournament
**WrestleTix reports that nearly 8,800 tickets are out for tonight’s SmackDown show, so it’s a strong number in the market and way up from the last time ran the building for Raw this past February, which drew just under 5,100.
**Below are the matches and segments to air on AEW Rampage tonight from this week’s tapings in Boston, airing at 10 p.m. ET on TNT:
*All-Atlantic Championship: Orange Cassidy vs. Lee Johnson
*Title Eliminator Tournament: Rush vs. Bandido
*Title Eliminator Tournament: Brian Cage vs. Dante Martin
*Nyla Rose’s Open Challenge
*Jungle Boy issues a challenge to Luchasaurus
**Dana White held a press conference in New York on Friday to announce a television deal for Power Slap. The league was created by White along with partners Frank & Lorenzo Fertitta and they are following the blueprint of Ultimate Fighter with a reality series that will launch in January on TBS. It is interesting to see the outlet they secured, although no financials were disclosed, it would seem to indicate that TBS is at least willing to spend money on an unproven niche product. It is not known where they will schedule the series on the TBS schedule but following the success of TUF airing after Raw, it makes all the sense in the world to pair this after Dynamite on Wednesday nights for the best chance of retaining viewers, although I see Power Slap having an extremely smaller niche appeal than MMA did seventeen years ago. It would also suggest that Warner Brothers Discovery was hearing pitches for Power Slap and Ring of Honor in a similar time frame. The series will run for eight episodes and will be one hour in length and they have begun casting for the series.
**This past August, AEW announced a distribution deal with Canadian French language broadcaster RDS to carry Dynamite. The deal calls for Dynamite to stream live every Wednesday on the RDS site and we were told that most weeks it also airs on either RDS 2 or RDS Info but not the main network and features a French commentary team. When we report the Canadian viewership figures it only covers the viewership on TSN 2 (as we always note in the stories) and we don’t receive the RDS numbers. We were told that during the first week of the deal, Dynamite did 15,000 viewers in Quebec but that included all the replays of the show. Quebec viewers also have access to the English language broadcast through TSN 2.
**The NWA presents its Hard Times 3 pay-per-view, which is an appropriate show title after the events of the past week. The story of Nick Aldis giving his notice to the company and public interviews by Aldis and Billy Corgan completely overshadowed any buzz for this event on Saturday night. The card is streaming on FITE TV for $24.99 with the following card:
*NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship: Trevor Murdoch (champion) vs. Matt Cardona vs. Tyrus
*NWA Women’s Championship: Kamille (champion) vs. Chelsea Green vs. KiLynn King
*NWA National Championship: Cyon (champion) vs. Dak Draper
*NWA Tag Team Championship: Bestia 666 & Mecha Wolf (champions) vs. Luke & PJ Hawx
*NWA U.S. Tag Team Championship: Jay Bradley & Wrecking Ball Legursky (champions) vs. Rush Freeman & Brady Pierce
*NWA Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Homicide (champion) vs. Kerry Morton
*MLW National Openweight Championship: Davey Richards (champion) vs. Colby Corino
*Hardcore War: Anthony Mayweather, JTG & The Pope vs. Mercurio, Jax Dane & Jake Dumas
*EC3 vs. Thom Latimer
*Mask vs. Mask: The Question Mark vs. The Question Mark II
*NWA Television Championship (vacant): AJ Cazana vs. Jordan Clearwater
*Voodoo Queen Casket Match: Max the Impaler vs. Natalia Markova
*Odinson vs. TBA
*The annual Nick Gage Invitational takes place Saturday night at 7 p.m. ET from Summit Park District, Illinois, and streaming on FITE+. The opening round matches will include John Wayne Murdoch vs. Big F’N Joe, Sakuda vs. Ciclope, Miedo Extremo vs. Cole Radrick, and Alex Colon vs. Sawyer Wreck vs. Hunter Freeman.
**The Good Brothers appeared on After the Bell with Corey Graves about returning to WWE, Paul Levesque reaching out to them for a return, and their releases in 2020.
**Bobby Fish is set to make his boxing debut this Sunday at the Global Titans event in Dubai, which is headlined by an exhibition contest between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Deji (the younger brother of KSI, who fought Logan Paul twice). Fish is fighting Boateng Pempreh, who is sixteen years younger than Fish but is 0-2 as a professional boxer with fights in 2019 and 2021 and was stopped in the second round of his last fight against Theophilius Dodoo. Fish, 46, does have an amateur kickboxing background.
**The Undertaker’s 1 deadMAN Show will be going to San Antonio, Texas over Royal Rumble weekend. WWE has added a show for Friday, January 27th at the Tech Port Center + Arena on the night before the Rumble event at The Alamodome. The one-man show hosted by Mark Calaway has previously been staged in Nashville, Wales, Philadelphia, and Boston over Survivor Series weekend.
**MLW is launching MLW Insider, which will stream on its YouTube channel and Pro Wrestling TV. The show will air each Tuesday and will be hosted by Alicia Atout, who will be previewing upcoming matches and interviewing various performers. The first episode will premiere next week.
**WWE has a house show in Peoria, Illinois on Saturday and is advertising New Day & Braun Strowman against The Usos & Solo Sikoa along with Ronda Rousey, Drew McIntyre, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Bobby Lashley & Matt Riddle scheduled to appear. Sunday’s show is in Madison, Wisconsin with the same six-man tag as Peoria, plus a Madison Street Fight between Drew McIntyre and Karrion Kross.
**Jonathan Foye has just released his second book, which covers Keiji Muto and specifically his jump to All Japan in early 2002 with Satoshi Kojima and Kendo Kashin and the next decade of his involvement with the promotion and assuming control after Motoko Baba. Foye’s first book was a really great insight into the All Japan split in 2000 that held to the exit of the majority of its talent led by Mitsuharu Misawa to form Pro Wrestling NOAH and how All Japan nearly went out of business but made several key deals with Genichiro Tenryu and New Japan to stay afloat during a tumultuous era. I just got a copy of the Muto book and will hopefully read it over the next week and can share my thoughts about it.
**The WWE stock closed at $75.32 on Friday.
TELEVISION REVIEW
Impact Wrestling (Nov. 10, 2022)
* The best thing on the show was a video package on Frankie Kazarian outlining his history in TNA/Impact Wrestling and never winning “the big one”. It included comments from members of the roster, past opponents, and his wife Traci Brooks. By the end of this video package, you not only wanted to see his match with Josh Alexander but it was a hell of a compelling argument that have Kazarian win the title and tell this story and can always have Alexander win it back when it’s time. This was excellent.
* On the production front, they had a solid week as there was another great video for Gisele Shaw that was done tongue in cheek. The video took comments from various people in the locker room, who were sharing their compliments for other stars, and then they dubbed Gisele Shaw’s name over their words to make it clear they had doctored the clips. This was to set up Shaw challenging Jordynne Grace in the main event for the Knockouts title. The two had a very good match and was the best match I’ve seen Shaw have with numerous near-falls and a strong ending with a powerbomb and Grace Driver as the champion retained. The show ended with the return of Masha Slamovich, attacking Grace with chair shots and was her first appearance since losing to Grace in a stellar match at Bound for Glory and suggests the rematch is coming.
* The ending of the X Division Tournament match between Speedball Mike Bailey and Trey Miguel was exceptionally lame. It was the standout match on the show going into the episode, but the finish ended it a sour note. Kenny King sat ringside and eventually got involved and took Miguel and threw him into the stairs as the referee called for the bell, disqualifying Bailey, who had nothing to do with the attack on Miguel. The idea is that King cost Bailey the match but the referee looked like a fool for seeing this plan for what it was and penalizing Bailey, and I just thought it was a silly finish that I would avoid.
* Chelsea Green lost her “Last Rodeo” match against Mickie James, who avenges that loss on her record. The major news was Green telling partner Deonna Purrazzo that she was going home. PWinsider.com reports that this was the write-off for Green from IMPACT Wrestling and therefore, the end of VXT, who had great chemistry together as a heel tandem.
* After being buried (literally not figuratively) PCO is alive and probably coming for Eddie Edwards.
* Next week’s show will include Sami Callihan vs. Eric Young in a Double Death Match, Tommy Dreamer vs. Steve Maclin, and Jessicka vs. Tasha Steelz on the night before the OverDrive event in Louisville, Kentucky.
MMA NEWS
**Headliner Alex Pereira made weight right at the deadline of Friday’s two-hour window and needed to use the box to make the championship weight for his fight with Israel Adesanya on Saturday night at UFC 281. Two fighters missed weight with Ryan Spann coming in at 206.6 pounds for his light heavyweight fight against Dominick Reyes and Michael Trizano weighing 147.6 pounds for his featherweight fight with Seungwoo Choi. Both fighters were penalized 20 percent of their purse, per MMA Junkie.
**UFC 281 takes place on Saturday night as the promotion returns to Madison Square Garden, a venue it has run every year (except 2020) since the sport was legalized and they staged UFC 205 in November 2016 with Conor McGregor defeating Eddie Alvarez to become a double champion. Some of the memorable UFC fights at The Garden have included Georges St-Pierre coming back after a four-year hiatus and moving up a weight class to win the 185-pound title from Michael Bisping in 2017 and turned out to be St-Pierre’s final fight, the same card saw Rose Namajunas win the 115-pound title accompanied by the famous call of “Thug Rose” by Daniel Cormier, Cormier defending his heavyweight title against Derrick Lewis in 2018 after sneezing and blowing out his back the day of the fight, Jorge Masvidal beating Nate Diaz for the BMF belt in 2019 with Dwayne Johnson in attendance to award the belt, and Justin Gaethje having a fight of the year with Michael Chandler last year.
Below is the card for Saturday’s show:
MAIN CARD (10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view)
*Israel Adesanya (185) vs. Alex Pereira (184.6) for the UFC Middleweight Championship
*Carla Esparza (114.8) vs. Zhang Weili (114.8) for the UFC Strawweight Championship
*Michael Chandler (155.8) vs. Dustin Poirier (156)
*Frankie Edgar (135.6) vs. Chris Gutierrez (136)
*Dan Hooker (155.8) vs. Claudio Puelles (155.2)
PRELIMINARY CARD (8 p.m. ET on ESPNews & ESPN+)
*Brad Riddell (155.6) vs. Renato Moicano (155.8)
*Dominick Reyes (205.4) vs. Ryan Spann (206.6)
*Molly McCann (125.4) vs. Erin Blanchfield (125)
*Andre Petroski (185.8) vs. Wellington Turman (185.2)
EARLY PRELIMS (6 p.m. on ESPNews, ESPN+ & Fight Pass)
*Ottman Azaitar (155.6) vs. Matt Frevola (154.8)
*Karolina Kowalkiewicz (115.6) vs. Silvana Gomez Juarez (115.6)
*Seungwoo Choi (145.6) vs. Michael Trizano (147.6)
*Montel Jackson (135.8) vs. Julio Arce (135.8)
*Carlos Ulberg (205.2) vs. Nicolae Negumereanu (206)
**The main card on Saturday is loaded with a big fight for the 185-pound championship as Israel Adesanya (23-1) faces an equal, if not superior, striker in Alex Pereira (6-1). The challenger holds two kickboxing victories over Adesanya with a close decision nod in 2016 and a vicious knockout win the following year. Pereira is only 3-0 since entering the UFC and has definitely been fast-tracked due to the history between them, which UFC has played up well and made for a compelling fight. It’s also a very winnable fight for Pereira, so it isn’t as though he’s undeserving and there are not many alternatives for Adesanya, who has nearly cleaned out the division. Adesanya has an enormous experience edge in MMA with his only blemish against Jan Blachowicz where he moved up in weight. UFC stats note that Adesanya lands 3.93 strikes per minute while Pereira lands a massive 6.93 per minute. In contrast, Adesanya absorbs 2.67 per minute and Pereira absorbs 3.36. The reach is nearly identical and neither fighter has a penchant for securing takedowns, although it will be noteworthy if one gains the striking advantage and a curveball is thrown as a defensive measure to take the fight off the feet, although one would doubt it, especially early in the contest. This is a tremendous fight and it’s been marketed effectively all week.
**Saturday’s card also marks the end of Frankie Edgar’s career, who is a sure-fire Hall of Fame inductee and had a compelling career fighting undersized throughout most of it. Edgar wrestled in college at a Division I school at 141 pounds and moved to MMA right as the UFC was exploding in 2005. After six fights and six wins, Edgar was signed by the promotion and debuted at UFC 67 against Tyson Griffin, who was a serious fighter at lightweight and Edgar surprised many when he won by a decision that night. Since the UFC didn’t have a featherweight or bantamweight division, Edgar competed at lightweight where he notoriously had to cut little or no weight for the division against guys that would bulk up and be the size of welterweights come fight time. His first loss was against arguably his most famous opponent Gray Maynard in April 2008 and they would meet twice more in their careers, which were classic fights. After the loss, Edgar won his next three fights and earned a shot against lightweight champion BJ Penn, who was in his prime and regarded among the top fighters in the world when their fight was made. Edgar traveled to Abu Dhabi and won the title at UFC 112 by unanimous decision but was close enough that they booked an immediate rematch, which Edgar was by decision again.
In January 2011, Edgar had an all-time legendary war with Maynard at UFC 125 where it was a miracle that Edgar survived the opening round and came back to earn a draw and an immediate rematch later that year. The third fight also saw Maynard come out of the gate fast and nearly ended Edgar in the first round but again, the champion rebounded and stopped Maynard in the fourth round. This rivalry was an incredible series of fights and the second fight should be in the Fight Wing of the Hall of Fame.
Edgar lost the title in a narrow decision loss to Benson Henderson in February 2012 and lost a rematch by split decision to Henderson in the same year. This led to Edgar moving down to featherweight where he challenged champion Jose Aldo and dropped another decision for his third straight loss.
Edgar rebounded at 145 pounds with wins against future lightweight champion Charles Oliveira, a third fight with BJ Penn who was well past his prime, Cub Swanson, Urijah Faber, and knocked out Chad Mendes. This led to an interim title fight where he lost to Aldo for a second time at UFC 200 with another decision loss. The tough fights continued with Edgar posting wins against Jeremy Stephens and shutting down the hype on Yair Rodriguez by dominating the fight with his wrestling.
In March 2018, Edgar was stopped for the time in his career with a knockout by Brian Ortega. Edgar rebounded against Cub Swanson and had his final title fight against featherweight champion Max Holloway in July 2019 where Holloway won by decision.
In his last three fights, Edgar has moved down to bantamweight and is coming off two brutal knockouts to Cory Sandhagen and Marlon Vera and has certainly lost a step in recent years as the 41-year-old recognized it is time to retire and wanted to have his last fight at The Garden, which he was granted against Chris Gutierrez, who is the favorite in the fight.
It is rare for a fighter to have the longevity Edgar has enjoyed and competed in three weight classes including becoming champion in the division he was greatly undersized in. The Gray Maynard fights will be closely tied to his legacy and Edgar remains one of the most popular fighters in the promotion’s history and among fellow fighters.
**The UFC has released episode five of its Embedded series for UFC 281.
*****
THE WELLNESS POLICY: Religion & Spirituality
Wai Ting, Jordan Goodman, and Neal Flanagan are back with The Wellness Policy to talk religion & spirituality.
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE
John Pollock & Wai Ting are back to review AEW Dynamite from Boston with Bryan Danielson taking on Sammy Guevara in a two-of-three falls match and Saraya’s comeback match is set.
*****
SHOT IN THE DARK
John Siino reviews this week’s editions of AEW Dark, AEW Dark: Elevation, IMPACT Wrestling, Women of Wrestling, NXT Level Up, NJPW Strong, NWA USA, NWA Powerrr, and WWE Main Event in under 15 minutes on Shot In The Dark.
*****
upNXT: Joe Blow
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman chat all about the November 8th, 2022 edition of WWE NXT featuring Kayden Carter & Katana Chance vs Nikkita Lyons & Zoey Stark for the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship!
*****
REWIND-A-RAW: Austin Theory’s failed cash-in
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw from Wilkes-Barre, the handling of WWE Crown Jewel, Raw is XXX, Logan Paul’s injury & all the latest news.
*****
WRESTLENOMICS: WWE praises Saudi government
Brandon Thurston, Jesse Collings & Chris Gullo talk about the latest wrestling business news, including WWE praising the Saudi government at Crown Jewel and Jeff Jarrett joining AEW.
*****
NJPW Battle Autumn POST Show: Ospreay vs. Naito
John Pollock is solo to review NJPW’s Battle Autumn 2022 featuring Will Ospreay defending the IWGP U.S. Championship against Tetsuya Naito.
*****
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