If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
** Joining Busted Open Radio was WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus. She reflected on her experience at WrestleMania 39 and being in the six-woman tag match. Trish feels people forgot how good she is and joked that she was apprehensive right before the match because the laugh in her theme song did not play.
What a unique dynamic, right? (Stratus said about the six-woman tag at WrestleMania 39) … Me and Lita being the past and then the present being Bayley and Becky (Lynch) and then IYO (SKY) and Dakota (Kai) being the future, right? So what a neat thing for the fans to be able to see… Man, I sat back and I was in awe of watching them work. I was just like, I love it, I love going back. I remember going back for the Royal Rumble and I was watching people work and I’m getting goosebumps thinking about it because it’s really interesting to see how people — how the brain works and how they put things together, you know? Was that fun Mickie (James)?… Kind of seeing how the younger minds so to speak. It was impressive to watch them. I was in awe on the apron watching the match unfold and then for me, I just do what I do. Like I said, I wanna do better than I did last time, right? So I do think people forgot (how good I am). Maybe I did too. Every time I go out there, I’m like, ‘Can I still do this? I don’t know,’ and I had a few obstacles… The callback to the outfit, that was super fun to do that and it was amazing. Honestly, surreal always but also, it just feels at home… I felt good, it feels like home to be on a stage in front of 80,000 people. I was a little apprehensive going in literally right before mostly because my giggle didn’t play and I felt that threw me off when I came out… But yeah, I was just like, ugh, I haven’t put in the work that I normally… I’m an over doer, I over-put in and Mickie knows this about me, I’m just details… So I knew I didn’t have that much time that I would have wanted to put in but I was still happy with how it all came out and I was pleased and then it was just this automatic energy that happens, we all know when you return, when you walk through the curtain. It’s like, oh, here we are. We’re at home.
** The newest episode of Dylan Postl/Hornswoggle’s Going Postl podcast featured longtime ring announcer Tony Chimel. At WrestleMania 19, Chimel introduced Limp Bizkit as ‘WWE’s favorite band in the whole world’ and said he hated doing that and it was his worst announcement.
By far, the f*cking worst announcement ever by me (was introducing Limp Bizkit at WrestleMania 19).
This is at WrestleMania, right?… In Seattle?… But (Mark) Yeaton, he goes, he’s like, ‘Chimel, they want you to introduce the band’ and I’m like, ‘Okay,’ and he’s like, ‘They want you to say, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome WWE’s favorite band in the whole world, Limp Bizkit’ and I’m like, ‘What? Who!?…’ So I had to make the announcement and it sucked, I hated it… It’s not INXS or ‘The Who’. Who the f*ck are these guys? (He laughed)
** At AEW Battle of the Belts VI, Billie Starkz challenged Jade Cargill for the TBS Championship. Starkz spoke to Wrestling With Honor and reflected on the opportunity.
It was a last-minute opportunity but one I’m so happy I had (challenging for TBS Championship). It’s definitely a rush to be on live TV in front of that large of a crowd.
** While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Shawn Spears further reflected on the chair shot to Cody Rhodes at AEW Fyter Fest 2019. Spears feels that it could have been capitalized on a bit more. He wishes him and Cody had the luxury of building their program on television.
I thought we could have capitalized on it a little bit more (chair shot to Cody Rhodes). When you come into a company like that, starting out, I don’t think we had TV at the time. That was the other thing about [it]. We had either just gotten it or we were in the works of getting it. I can’t remember the exact time. But a lot of people will say to me, do you think the match, you know, with Cody, ‘Do you think you should have won?’ Like coming in, and you know, ‘Do you think that would have propelled you?’ That’s not the match, no, because this match started on the internet. And we did the Road to’s on YouTube and stuff like that. And the big blow off was the match at All Out. I’m a big believer in when the good guy and the bad guy are having battles, it’s okay for the heel to win a few battles here and there. As long as the babyface wins the war. That was our babyface winning the war. Because we didn’t have the three months of television time to kind of bounce back and forth. There would have been five times more promos. That’s the part that kind of bugs me the most is I wonder what we could have done verbally against one another because again, he would have forced me to up my game or he would have left me behind. So I was looking forward to that aspect of things. We just didn’t have the luxury of television time.
When asked about ‘dream matches’ in AEW, Spears does not have any at this point in his career. He would like to share the ring with Wardlow in a singles match. He feels he can bring something extra out of Wardlow. He stated that the newly crowned TNT Champion is decorated but untapped.
There’s no one’s (that is a dream match for me). This doesn’t mean I don’t want to wrestle anybody. I’ve wrestled almost everybody I’ve set out to wrestle in my career in some way, shape or form, whether it be a live event when the cameras are off or on tour somewhere in some city that people have forgotten about or whatnot. I’ve been very lucky, very fortunate to wrestle a lot of people that I set out to wrestle. There’s no one that really jumps out at me. Because there’s still a lot of things I would like to do in AEW. But I had a blast wrestling as many people as I did there so far. Maybe Wardlow. I think Wardlow in a one-on-one singles, give us about 20 minutes and just let us wrestle, no cage, you know? I’ll take a cold match with Wardlow. Let’s do it on a Dynamite, Rampage can be 20 minutes. And let us just go, because that guy is still untapped. In my opinion, he’s very untapped. He’s been decorated. He’s a (three-time) TNT Champion and stuff like that. But you’ve seen a little bit of his athleticism, but he’s still untapped on what he can do. And I think I can pull it out of him. He is massive, sweetheart of a man, incredible talent, incredible human being.
** As NJPW play-by-play announcer Kevin Kelly was doing a virtual signing alongside Tom Brandi for 80’s Wrestling, Kelly recalled laying out how Dude Love’s heel turn on Stone Cold Steve Austin would play out. At the time, he met with Vince Russo and presented the idea to him. Russo went to Vince McMahon with Kelly’s pitch and it got approved.
Kelly: It was April ‘98, it was right after (Steve) Austin had won the title from Shawn (Michaels) at WrestleMania. Then, a couple of weeks, Vince (McMahon) had been doing the corporate champion thing, and (Vince) Russo was like, ‘I’m having writer’s block. I can’t come up with something. Let’s go eat lunch and we’ll talk about it. We’ll figure something out.’ So we went to A&W Root Beer at the Stamford mall and he’s like, ‘We gotta get to Mick Foley as Dude Love turning heel because it’s gonna be Dude versus Austin at the pay-per-view’ and I was just like, I was having this image of Steve really being annoyed at Vince McMahon for wearing the belt down to the ring, instead of presenting the belt to the new champion. That’d always been a time-honored tradition. But this time, he wears it around his waist like a cocky asshole and that would really annoy Steve Austin, and then I could hear the promo, Steve saying, ‘You keep talking about the corporate champion, you keep talking about the way you want the champion to be presented. You’re probably prancing around in your living room in your underpants with the belt around your waist saying, look at me Linda, I’m the corporate champion, I’m the corporate champion and that gives Steve Austin a hell of an idea. What you think is the corporate champion actually is you Vince McMahon. So tonight, I’m gonna give you an opportunity to become the corporate champion and we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is you meet me in this ring later tonight for the WWF Championship or the hard way is I kick your ass right here, right now,’ and Russo’s like, ‘Well yeah, that’s it’ and I said, ‘Yeah, and when the time is right, here comes Dude, woah brothers, peace and love, peace and love, kabong and we’re off to the races.’ Steve wins by DQ but who cares? It gets them where they wanna be, and he’s like, ‘Well I’ll try it’ and he went upstairs, pitched it to Vince, came back downstairs in 15 minutes. I thought he threw him out of the office. He said, ‘No, that’s it. That’s what we’re doing…’ It was neat then to see when you come up with something and then you see it. The creative part is pretty cool.
Elsewhere during the signing, Tom Brandi shared that he was scheduled to be in the Legends Battle Royal at WWE Raw’s 15th anniversary show in 2007. He was pulled after WWE lowered the number of participants in the match.
Brandi: So one time, they (WWE) did the Battle Royal in Connecticut. I forget what town it was in. Howard Finkel called and then it’s just like everything else. They called back a day later and said they changed the idea. They lessened the amount of guys… Live Raw, because I remember Flash Funk was in it, some of the guys. So, it would’ve been easy. You show up, but again, it was like everything else. Here was the time limit they had set up for it. 30 guys, they shortened it, then it was 20 guys so then I was on the short end of the stick and that was it. One time.
** Episode #112 of The Kurt Angle Show was centered around Angle’s World Heavyweight Championship win in 2006. Angle said before the WrestleMania 22 plans were locked in, he would have liked to wrestle Shawn Michaels in a rematch from WrestleMania 21.
They weren’t talked about yet (plans for WrestleMania 22) but my guess was a repeat with Shawn Michaels from WrestleMania 2005. We were doing a lot of work together and I would have been really excited about that, but definitely working Shawn again would have been the match that I would have picked for WrestleMania. Definitely. To be able to wrestle Shawn a second time at WrestleMania, that would have been incredible.
** Former ROH World Television and World Tag Team Champion Kenny King told Renée Paquette on The Sessions podcast that he would not be against having an opportunity with Ring of Honor in the future. He added that Claudio Castagnoli is someone he’d love to wrestle again.
I like what I see over there (in Ring of Honor). I would kill for another chance to face Claudio Castagnoli. He’s always been one of my favorites. I like what they got going on over there. You know, and if there’s an opportunity at some point to go over there, then I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to that or any other wrestling opportunities for the next couple of years while you still have me.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH has job openings in their sales and merchandise departments.
** Bryan Danielson co-hosted The Nikki & Brie Show with Brie Garcia.
** NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku Results (4/20/23) Nara Prefectural Convention Center in Nara, Japan
– Shota Umino & Oleg Boltin def. Yuto Nakajima & Master Wato
– House of Torture (EVIL, SHO, Yujiro Takahashi & Dick Togo) def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Hirooki Goto, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI
– United Empire (Francesco Akira, TJP & Great-O-Khan) def. Kevin Knight, KUSHIDA & Togi Makabe
– United Empire (Aaron Henare, Jeff Cobb, Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) def. TMDK (Kosei Fujita, Shane Haste, Mikey Nicholls & Zack Sabre Jr.)
– Taiji Ishimori, KENTA & David Finlay def. Jado, Hikuleo & Tama Tonga
– Tomoaki Honma, Toru Yano, Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada def. Tiger Mask, Ren Narita, El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki
– DOUKI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi & SANADA def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito)
** AEW World Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) are doing a meet-and-greet/signing during Maryland Championship Wrestling’s 25th anniversary weekend in July.
** Limited Stand hosted a virtual signing with Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Kaito Kiyomiya and Ninja Mack.
** There’s a column in Weekly Pro-Wrestling centered around World of STARDOM Champion Giulia. BBM Japan released excerpts from that column.
** At Dradition Pro Wrestling’s May 30th event, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi is tagging with AKIRA and Shiro Koshinaka and they’ll face Tatsumi Fujinami, Masakatsu Funaki and Hakushi.
** Zicky Dice was interviewed by Koffin Radio.
** NJPW’s pre-Best of the Super Juniors 30 press conference is taking place May 12th.
** Battleground Podcast welcomed Big E onto the show.
** Q&A edition of the ARN podcast.
** Jonah of Rewind, Recap, Relive has an interview with Kurt Angle.
** April 20th birthdays: Brian Myers.
If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
