POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Raw with John Pollock & Wai Ting
Tuesday: upNXT
Wednesday: Pollock & Thurston
Wednesday: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Wednesday: MCU H8R – Madame Web (POST Wrestling Café)
Thursday: Pollock & Ting – TALK (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown (POST Wrestling Café)
Saturday: Collision Course (POST Wrestling Café)
Sunday: Noche UFC with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte
Sunday: The N.W.A Podcast
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW opted to present a truncated press conference on Saturday after All Out. There was a panel chat before Tony Khan was introduced and fielded several questions with the most significant being his strongest wording of a pending renewal with WBD. When pressed to attach a percentage on the likelihood of an announcement in the next month, Khan pegged it at “Ninety percent” while noting the deal is not signed yet. The exclusive negotiating window ended weeks ago and opened the door for AEW to shop its rights although Khan has refrained from negotiating in public and continually praised WBD throughout the negotiating process. The keys will be the monetary figure and how many hours that will cover along with the possible streaming component with Max. No one can dispute the popularity dip for the brand over the past twelve months but also understand that WBD is focused on engagement for the product against today’s competition, not the competition on television from one year ago. More importantly, how will AEW’s audience compare two to three years from now when cable continues to display a downward trend, and whether AEW can plug a portion of that hole? With Dynamite as the flagship program, it is among the top-ranked cable programs every week. While the audience is down, it’s the equivalent of a baseball team winning 90 games and being in a tough division where it missed the playoffs, then winning 85 games the next year where the division is softer and qualifying. Yes, the team performed worse this year, but they aren’t playing against last year’s competition, they are being judged on today’s competition.
**Friday Night SmackDown averaged 274,700 viewers and 112,500 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360 in Canada. It was SmackDown’s largest audience in Canada since April 5 (going into WrestleMania weekend). The show ranked #5 among sports on Friday and was #3 in the demo behind the Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles and the CFL.
**The Toronto International Film Festival is ongoing. One of the films to receive a lot of praise is “The Last Showgirl” starring Dave Bautista with Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis and directed by Gia Coppola. The film premiered last Thursday and holds an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes among those who have viewed the film. Anderson plays a showgirl, who is informed that her show is being closed after three decades with Bautista playing her stage manager.
From The Guardian:
The best performance comes from Dave Bautista, as a former lover of Shelley’s who also runs her stage show, the former wrestler graduating into a surprisingly thoughtful character actor.
**AEW reprised a famous angle from 1989 with Jon Moxley suffocating Bryan Danielson with a plastic bag after his title defense at All Out. The angle was laid out really well with the tease of a cash-in by Christian Cage only to see Moxley appear alongside the BCC for the first time in months and hint at a reunion. Moxley thwarted The Patriarchy after being backed up by Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta, and PAC as Danielson smiled inside the ring. Moxley hugged and gave a kiss to Danielson as The BCC posed in the center of the ring and Castagnoli attacked with an uppercut. The stunned Danielson had the bag placed on his head as the crowd was stunned. Jim Ross sold this so well as he was disgusted over the action and was an example of an announcer saving the “big sell” for the angles that matter and showing that concern instead of overdoing it and it feels like just another heel turn. Yuta was excellent as the lone member to stand by Danielson as he was held back and forced to watch like it was a mob hit.
Ross was the link to the 1989 angle where Terry Funk committed the same act on Ric Flair at the Clash of the Champions 8 card, which infuriated fans in that era and forced TBS to send Funk on television to apologize. It followed Funk’s loss at the Great American Bash in July and led to their I Quit Match two months later in Troy, New York.
Danielson has an endless stream of opponents with all the defectors from the BCC and Moxley representing the big one. Christian Cage has a title shot to cash in (although has one year to use it), Darby Allin tentatively has the title match at Grand Slam in a few weeks, and Hangman Page should be figured into the title mix after beating Swerve Strickland. That isn’t even figuring in a rubber match with Zack Sabre Jr. or the long-teased match with Nigel McGuinness.
**Bret Hart will appear on WWE Raw at the Scotiabank Saddledome tonight for the season premiere. It airs against the first Monday Night Football game of the season with the San Francisco 49ers against the New York Jets. The game will be simulcast on ABC, ESPN & ESPN+ and includes the return of Aaron Rodgers with a large audience expected. WWE has announced the following for tonight’s broadcast including the first hour airing commercial-free:
*Braun Strowman vs. Jey Uso vs. Ilja Dragunov vs. Pete Dunne (winner challenges Bron Breakker for the Intercontinental title)
*Women’s Tag Titles: Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill vs. The Unholy Union
*Street Fight: The Wyatt Sicks vs. American Made
*Zelina Vega, Lyra Valkyra & TBA vs. Pure Fusion Collective
*Dominik Mysterio vs. Dragon Lee
*Drew McIntyre responds after attacking CM Punk
**The TKO stock closed at $114.95 on Monday.
**Matt Riddle and Tom Lawlor will have a Vale Tudo Rules match this Saturday on the beIN Sports TV taping portion of Fightland. Fightland and the TV tapings take place Saturday at Center Stage in Atlanta. Fightland streams live at 9 p.m. ET on MLW’s YouTube channel featuring Satoshi Kojima vs. Mads Krule Krugger for the MLW World Heavyweight title in the main event and the semi-finals of the Opera Cup.
**DEFY Wrestling returns to Washington Hall in Seattle on September 20 with DEFY By Design. The promotion has announced KENTA vs. Artemis Spender for the DEFY Championship, Vert Vixen vs. The Vipress, and Shelton Benjamin vs. Kevin Knight.
MMA NEWS
**Cain Velasquez is scheduled for his sentencing on October 18 in Santa Clara County. Velasquez pleaded no-contest to multiple charges including attempted murder for a February 2022 incident where he opened fire on a vehicle containing Harry Goularte. Goularte has been accused of molesting Velasquez’s son at a daycare run by Goularte’s mother. Instead of hitting Goularte, Velasquez struck his stepfather Paul Bender in the vehicle, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. MMA Fighting notes that Velasquez could face anything from probation to life in prison the latter unlikely given his plea. One of the strongest pieces of evidence that the attack was premeditated is that the District Attorney stated that a search on Velasquez’s phone revealed recent searches for “sexual assault case where victims family fights back” and “sexual assault cases where victims family retaliates.”
**Noche UFC, which will be the promotion’s largest undertaking, is this Saturday at The Sphere in Las Vegas. It is easily the most expensive show in UFC history with Dana White citing $20 million in production costs. Even with the gigantic ticket prices, the margins on this from a live gate perspective are not large. However, that’s not taking into account the unknown figure that Riyadh Season is paying for the title sponsorship, the pay-per-view revenue they receive from ESPN, and regular sponsorships. It has been repeated over and over that this is “one and done” for TKO with the idea forming in Dana White’s head after seeing a U2 concert in the new spacious venue. All year, this has been White’s pet project and there is an enormous curiosity to see how the show looks on television and no doubt, will be a surreal experience in person. The venue was not built with live sports in mind and it’s the first event of its kind at The Sphere. Due to the costs, I cannot fathom any fighter promoters attempting to replicate this including WWE where this would make no sense. The card will only have ten fights and has a legitimately strong main event between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili along with the rematch between Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko. It is unknown if the novelty of The Sphere will translate to pay-per-view buys but I cannot recall a UFC event where the production of a show has such an intrigue.
UFC COO Dana White was interviewed by John Morgan of Grind City Media and shared his thoughts going into Noche UFC: (Transcribed by MMA Mania)
You know, I won’t do outdoor arenas because of wind, bugs, rain, and lots of other things that can happen. This is still a controlled environment where on Sept. 14, sports and entertainment are truly gonna come together at the same time. Does it work? Is it great? Is it awesome? Does it suck? We don’t know. We won’t know until it’s over, but we’re gonna try it.
**Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stein has a story on UFC Chief Business Officer & EVP Hunter Campbell.
**This past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from the Apex averaged 39,000 viewers and 8,000 in the 25-54 demo for the main card on Sportsnet 360 in Canada. The prelims averaged 34,000 and 11,000 in the demo.
**The UFC card was highlighted by Sean Brady earning a strong decision win against former title contender Gilbert Burns over five rounds. Brady improves to 17-1 with wins against Burns, Kelvin Gastelum, and Michael Chiesa in the welterweight division. His lone loss is to current champion Belal Muhammad, who beat Brady by TKO two years ago. Natália Silva won her twelfth fight in a row beating former flyweight champion Jéssica Andrade by decision with the two also earning Fight of the Night honors.
**UFC 306 Embedded: Episode 1.
***
AEW All Out 2024 Review
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW All Out 2024 featuring Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page in a Lights Out Steel Cage Match.
***
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the final WWE SmackDown on Fox and the go-home edition of AEW Collision before All Out.
***
POST PURORESU
WH Park & Karen Peterson review NJPW Capital Collison featuring Mercedes Moné vs. Momo Watanabe for the STRONG Women’s title.
***
REWIND-A-WAI #164: WWE Beast in the East (2015)
John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE Beast in the East from July 2015 at Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japan featuring Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens for the NXT Championship and matches involving Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and Chris Jericho.
***
Subscribe to POST Wrestling
https://postwrestling.com/subscribe
POST Wrestling Forum
https://forum.postwrestling.com
Support our Patreon – The POST Wrestling Café
http://www.patreon.com/POSTwrestling
