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.
** CBS Tampa reporter Ryan Bass noted on Twitter that Tampa, Florida mayor Jane Castor will meet with city officials about possibly postponing or cancelling major events due to the Coronavirus. The ‘City Of Tampa’ Twitter account tweeted out the following:
“Hello, at this time @WrestleMania is still planned to proceed on schedule. Please contact the @WWE with questions about cancellations. The City is currently monitoring the spread of coronavirus and will work with venues as needed.”
** R-Truth joined ‘The Mixed Tag Show’ podcast and during the conversation, Truth talked about his on-screen segment with Brock Lesnar on the lead up to the 2020 Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Truth stated that Lesnar did not know what he [Truth] was going to say and there was a bet backstage that Truth either could or could not make Lesnar laugh.
“That was like a little bet in the back everybody was doing. It was like, ‘Don’t tell Brock. We’re not gonna tell Brock what I’m gonna say.’ He didn’t even know what I was supposed to say, and he just knew how it was supposed to end but he didn’t know what I was gonna say and it was just like, ‘We got to see if you can make Brock laugh. He’s not gonna laugh. He never laughs. See if you can make him laugh’ and Paul [Heyman] was like, ‘Bet! I bet you he can do it’, and then I’m trying not to laugh, because I know Brock’s about to laugh when I say this. I’m getting up in your grill. I’m getting ready to do something to you. It’s finna be me and you, this and that. But actually man, Brock is actually one of the coolest dudes in the business. He’s Brock. He’s a beast, and he’s legitimately what he is.”
Truth was asked for his favorite WrestleMania moment and he pointed out when Roman Reigns defeated The Undertaker at WrestleMania 33. With Truth and Reigns being close friends, Truth said he was happy to see his friend get that special moment.
“Oh man, probably when my boy Roman Reigns beat Taker. I was happy for him. Me and Taker [are tight] now. I love Take. I love Taker, but I was happy for my boy. I was happy for my dog. He deserved that and… it blew his mind man. So it’s like, me being close to him like I am, I was happy to see him happy.”
While speaking about African-American representation in wrestling, R-Truth believes that things have definitely improved for people of color in the sport. He added that it’s exampled by the younger generation being inspired to get into wrestling by the current crop of black wrestlers.
“No, I think we’ve come a long way. As of now, you can go up there and see so many champions. Look at what Kofi just did, and my character, I’ve held a championship or title everywhere I went. Anywhere I went, whether it was independents or wherever, I’ve done that, and I think the world is gonna be the world, and it’s gonna change then it’s not gonna change. I think, like I said, its always been us to adapt and break stereotypes and break the norm and just evolve man. So it’s like, it was hard then but now its been so many doors that have been opened now and we’re making money now. We’re doing our thing now, we’re being seen now. So it’s like, so many our-colored kids come up to me and like, ‘I’m happy to see you.’ Those are some of the moments that take away my sacrifice because I’m like, ‘I just inspired this kid right here.’ See one of us on TV and feel like, ‘Hey, I can be that. I can do that.’”
** Appearing on next week’s WWE Backstage on FS1 are CM Punk and NXT Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley.
** Chris Dickinson took to Twitter to announce that he will no longer be appearing at ICW New York’s show during WrestleMania weekend in Tampa. Dickinson was scheduled to take on Mahashi Takeda in a No Holds Barred bout. On that same day, Dickinson is set to take on Minoru Suzuki at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport event.
Danny Demanto, the promoter for ICW New York released a statement and it read that Barnett pulled Dickinson from the event. Josh told Demanto that the main reason he was pulling Dickinson from the event is because of Chris’ match with Suzuki being earlier that day. Demanto described it as a “sh*tty power play”. He added that he tried to change Josh Barnett’s mind and that this was solely a Josh Barnett decision. Dickinson did state in his video that GCW promoter Brett Lauderdale had no issue with him doing the No Holds Barred match for ICW New York. Independent wrestler Alex Colon asked to fill in for Chris Dickinson and ICW New York granted him the match and he’ll now be taking on Mahashi Takeda.
** Sports Illustrated spoke to Lio Rush to promote his new single ‘Craved For Blood’. During the conversation, Rush opened up about his on-screen partnership with Bobby Lashley and how that transformed into a real-life friendship.
“I have a lot of respect for Bobby, and that grew even more over the time I spent working with him. We didn’t realize we’d have such a natural chemistry together, but we found that out very quickly. It caught on, and our success was really unexpected. It almost happened too fast. We tried to make the most of it we could, and people liked it. It was almost as if we weren’t the bad guys. The skits and promos were really entertaining. I would work with him again. There is a lot more we can do together. Bobby is such a talented guy.”
Rush was scheduled to compete in wXw’s 16 Carat Gold tournament but was pulled from the show. wXw management hosted a press conference and among the many topics addressed during the presser was Lio Rush. They apologized to those who bought tickets to see Lio in action and made mention that the ticket sales went up after he was announced and added that he was the biggest star in the tournament at the time. Rush commented on missing the 16 Carat Gold tournament and how much wXw means to him.
“I worked for wXw a few years ago, and I had so much fun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t travel for the show. A lot of factors caused that, and traveling is complicated right now. It’s unfortunate it happened, but hopefully someday soon I can go back to wXw. They’re family over there.”
** Game Rant published an article about a recent video on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel featuring Alexa Bliss and Liv Morgan.
** AEW Co-Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes joined The Bill Riley show on ESPN 700 to promote AEW Dynamite in West Valley City, Utah. Cody revealed that he and Ortiz will be kicking off tonight’s Dynamite in a singles match. Cody also talked about how the ‘American Nightmare’ nickname came about and shared that it latched on to him in New Japan Pro-Wrestling because his last name was not being pronounced the way that he wanted it to be pronounced.
“It’s funny because it’s such a nefarious name, and I couldn’t be the nicer guy. When I went to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, they really were into the history of wrestling. They gave me that moniker. They also couldn’t pronounce Rhodes in the way like ‘Rhodes’. They would say, ‘Rho-dez’, so we just started calling me the American Nightmare Cody and that stuck and I’ve carried it forward. I have the brand tattooed on my neck which turned a lot of heads at the most recent pay-per-view. But yeah, the American Nightmare. My dad would hate it. He would hate it, because he always thought I was too sweet.”
** Below is a video of Shayna Baszler and Dakota Kai playing ‘Overcooked 2’:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihK8vYoSuH8[/embedyt]
** The Collective and Game Changer Wrestling put out a statement on Twitter which read that all of their scheduled events for WrestleMania weekend will continue on as planned regardless of the decision that is made tomorrow concerning WrestleMania.
** Matt Hardy is slated to return to the ring for the Northeast Wrestling promotion on March 27th in Waterbury, Connecticut.
** While chatting with talkSPORT, NXT UK’s Ilja Dragunov expressed interest in facing Aleister Black and the current NXT UK Champion WALTER.
** WWE’s Angel Garza drew coverage from TMZ after he was kissed by a fan in attendance at Monday Night RAW in Washington DC. After Garza’s segment and match, he responded to a tweet which read that the Coronavirus is everywhere and what he allowed was not safe. Garza responded to the tweet and noted that the Coronavirus does not exist and everything is in people’s minds.
** Bar Wrestling announced the following shows: ‘The Terror That Flaps In The Night’ for April 8th and ‘Let’s Get Dangerous’ on April 9th.
** TMZ caught up with former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho and Jericho stated that Fozzy’s tour will go on despite the Coronavirus outbreak. He added that the only way the tour will be cancelled is if they are forced to cancel.
** WWE is being nominated for a Tubular award.
** WrestleCon announced that Matt Hardy will be hosting a tailgate party in Tampa, Florida during WrestleMania weekend.
** Lee Walker chatted with Jake “The Snake” Roberts about his appearance on last week’s AEW Dynamite. Roberts revealed that the promo he cut on Cody was off the cuff and added that being in the ring felt unbelievable.
“Its been 22 years since I stepped into a ring and it felt unbelievable man. It warmed my heart, it fired me up inside and those words, they just rolled out of my mouth. I wish I could say I thought of that interview but I didn’t. It’s just what came out.”
** Snickers are going to be the exclusive presenting partner for WrestleMania 36. The new deal between the two companies entails three pieces of custom creative and WWE wrestlers promoting Snickers’ ‘Fix the World’ campaign. Those commercials will air on RAW and SmackDown in the coming weeks. The third portion of the commercial will air during WrestleMania 36 on the WWE Network. Snickers will also be the exclusive presenting partner for WWE’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view in July and Skittles is the partner for WWE’s Hell In A Cell pay-per-view this year.
** While in Coventry for the NXT UK TV tapings over the weekend, Trent Seven, Nina Samuels, Xia Brookside and Ashton Smith played dodge ball with the kids of the Coventry Boys and Girls Club. CoventryLive has a story up about the topic.
** Jimmy Jacobs will be appearing for the Independence Pro Wrestling promotion in Kalamazoo, Michigan on March 14th.
** New Orleans’ FOX affiliate is hosting a sweepstakes and tickets can be won for Friday Night SmackDown on March 20th.
** PWInsider is reporting that after being arrested on March 4th in Richmond, Virginia for violating his house arrest, Teddy Hart will remain incarcerated until April 23rd.
** Sports Illustrated chatted with Bret Hart to reflect on the life and career of Owen Hart. The two parties specifically talked about Bret and Owen’s WrestleMania 10 match and Bret feels that-that match set the table for wrestlers like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk who are/were of similar stature to Bret and Owen.
“I think it certainly opened the door for guys, like Punk and Daniel Bryan, that did some great wrestling after my era. For our time, Owen and I was a great match. The hardest thing about the match with Owen that people overlook is that we’d never wrestled each other before. When you’ve never danced with someone before, you don’t know what you’re going to get. For our first match, that was a really good match.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hart shared that the majority of the finishes to his matches were his idea and the only one he can recall that wasn’t his was the WWF World Heavyweight Championship match against Bob Backlund at the 1994 Survivor Series.
“All the endings to my matches were mine. The only match I can think of, off the top of my head, that the finish was done the way I was told was probably that Survivor Series where I lost to Backlund. But that whole match was my match. It was a very complicated match. Vince laid the outline, and then was like, ‘Figure it out. This is how it’s going to happen.’ It had the towel and all that. Every single person’s timing was so important to the other wrestlers. There’s Davey Boy, my mom, my dad, Owen, Bob Backlund, myself. A lot of moving pieces. That’s what I love about that match as you watch it back. That was a complicated story to tell but it was smooth as butter, first time we ever did it, last time we ever did, and a great moment.”
** On April 23rd at Ring of Honor’s ‘Battlestar 2020’ event, ROH World Champion RUSH and Dragon Lee are teaming up to face The Briscoes. Also, The ROH website has a 10 Questions Q&A up with Bateman.
** Kiera Hogan did an interview with WrestlingINC.
** Revolution Pro Wrestling is presenting a pop up show on March 26th in London, England. It’s noted in the tweet that because of RevPro British Heavyweight Champion Will Ospreay’s schedule being cleared up, the pop up show is being presented.
** Juice Robinson was the latest guest to join Chris Charlton on the NJPW Official English podcast.
** Allison Munn, who is playing the role of Big Show’s wife in the Netflix series ‘The Big Show Show’ did an interview with Pop Culture.
** Sammy Guevara posted his new vlog:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AebeRLOb51g[/embedyt]
** AEW Women’s World Champion Nyla Rose was profiled by ‘Great Big Story’:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHhU65u-uPQ[/embedyt]
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling launched a website dedicated to their Wrestle Dynasty event that will emanate from Madison Square Garden on August 22nd. Pre-sale tickets for the show will be available on April 8th and tickets go on-sale to the general public on April 10th.
** IMPACT Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace tweeted out that she decided to pull herself out of her ‘Venom Championship Wrestling’ booking on March 14th. Jordynne noted that with her wedding being several weeks away and many elderly family members attending, she doesn’t want to take a chance with their health. At IMPACT’s Rebellion pay-per-view on April 19th in New York City, Tessa Blanchard is defending the IMPACT World Championship against Michael Elgin and Eddie Edwards in a three-way match.
** WWE applied to trademark “Apex Predator”, “The Deadman” and “The Phenom” for G&S Entertainment.
** IMPACT Wrestling is doing a storyline in-which a “hacker” is making his/her way into the company and said individual will be revealed on next week’s episode of IMPACT on AXS. Also, Chris Bey is debuting on next week’s show.
** Wild ‘N Out’s Twitter page posted a video of former SmackDown Women’s Champion Naomi on the show along with The Usos.
** Here’s the newest episode of AEW Dark and it features a tag team match between Jurassic Express (Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus) and Kip Sabian and Peter Avalon. Jimmy Havoc defeated Severino Corrente, Hikaru Shida defeated Abadon and the main event of the program saw Private Party (Marq Quen & Isiah Kassidy) take on Sonny Kiss and Brandon Cutler.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEOI9Ix8tBo[/embedyt]
** NJPW President Harold Meij has an article up on the official New Japan website and he addressed the company cancelling their next few weeks of events due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Meij thanked the fans of NJPW for supporting the company during this time.
** Ricky Starks was interviewed by Darren Paltrowitz and Starks talked about how he never saw himself as a mainstay on the independent scene. He said that he always wanted to be that at one point in time but always knew that he would end up on a grander stage.
“I don’t think I had a moment of — like an epiphany of that. I think, you know, straight up, I’ve always felt that. I never felt that I fit in into the indies, but this is the thing, I really wanted to. I really wanted to be that guy who’s like, ‘Yeah, I scourged and did all this on the indies and had to bust my ass’ and I just don’t think that I fit into that. I know some people may think otherwise but that’s just how I personally feel. So, I’ve always had the idea of like, ‘I belong on a bigger stage and I’m working towards that’, and then meeting Max [MJF] for the first time, and thinking that same thing like, ‘Woah dude, this is great’ and then having a match with him and being like, ‘Could you imagine us on a bigger scale having a match? That’s gold.’ So it’s something that I’ve always had instilled in myself just because no one else had ever told me. It’s something I needed to do for me but, yeah. I never had a moment when I was young. I’m destined. Always in my head I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna get there someday.’”
** ‘Independent’ interviewed soon-to-be WWE Hall Of Famer Dave Bautista and “The Animal” spoke about the fame he’s obtained throughout his professional career and says it can be very overwhelming and does not match his true lifestyle at all.
“It can get a bit overwhelming. Sometimes even now I want to crawl under a rock and hide. I live a very secluded life. It’s my way of hiding under a rock, I guess.”
** Flashpoint, the CS:GO gaming league has hired a former WWE writer to help instill more personality within some of the league’s players to make their streamed games more interesting.
** SPORTbible released a portion of their interview with NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin.
** Comicbook.com released their interview with Pete Dunne. Dunne stated that originally, he was not so sure about the pairing of himself and Matt Riddle but hindsight being 20/20, he’s happy with the opportunity and the decision.
“So yeah, we’ve been lucky enough to work with each other fairly often back at the independents and on large events for NXT but always on the opposite side until maybe a week or two before the Dusty Classic started, where we found ourselves on the same team on a live event, and it just felt like it jelled and worked. So the idea was put forward to put us together. I don’t know if I was too thrilled about it at the time, but its definitely been a really fun experience since then. Its been great to see how the audience has connected with us. Its sort of morphed into its own thing. Two completely unlikely characters coming together and, you know, its been fun. It’s exciting and it’s sort of refreshing my career.”
With Pete Dunne being a new father, he has a new perspective on life and he spoke about that during the interview. He said that his daughter has given him balance. He is also in the process of moving his family to Florida but also makes sure that his daughter is in England to visit fellow members of the family.
“Well, it’s just given me a great perspective and a great balance. Honestly, I didn’t necessarily have that before the baby was born. My 100% focus was on my career. It was on wrestling, always has been. But now I definitely feel like I have a right balance, that different perspective on life. Since NXT went weekly, we’ve been in the process of moving out to Florida full time so that’s the challenging part of it, but I like to spin that in a much more positive light and just say that already she’s one year old but she’s had the chance to see the world. She’s been back and forth between here and England and she’s, you know, she’ll get to see family in England and spend time there and come out here and be in the sunshine and stuff so I can really see what a great life has been forged for her because of pro wrestling, specifically because of working in the WWE.”
** WWE is touring South Africa from April 29th to May 2nd and in May in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company will hold tryouts. The tryout will last for two days and both men and women will have the opportunity to earn a contract.
** While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Vin Diesel spoke about the addition of John Cena to the Fast & Furious cast and what Cena has added to the film.
** DEFY Wrestling announced Low Ki vs. The Great Sasuke for their April 17th show in Seattle, Washington.
** EFFY announced that Nick Gage and Jimmy Llyod will be a part of The Bi-Curious Battle Royal at his Big Gay Brunch show during WrestleMania weekend.
** Fightful has an interview up with Danhausen:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4kv9OKEm7Q[/embedyt]
** The newest episode of WWE ‘The Bump’ premiered on WWE’s social media platforms and Mark Henry, Drake Maverick, Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish joined the show. Bobby Lashley called in from South Africa while he is doing media there to promote WWE’s live events next month in South Africa and the first-ever talent tryout that’ll be held there as well. During the show, a video aired which showed Malcolm Bivens sneaking his way into The Bump’s studio, and set for tonight’s NXT is a singles match between Dakota Kai and Mia Yim with the winner joining Chelsea Green in the field for the Ladder match at TakeOver: Tampa.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLqHaVZ4lbo[/embedyt]
** Luchasaurus turned 35-years old on March 10th.
** Bianca Belair made the rounds with the international media today and Metro released a portion of their chat with Belair.
** Ring of Honor released the following preview for their 18th Anniversary pay-per-view on March 13th:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mu9fSiHc_E[/embedyt]
** Here’s the newest episode of Matt Hardy’s ‘Free The Delete’ series featuring The Young Bucks burying Matt Hardy:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66h-QXtL8U[/embedyt]
** The WWEPC YouTube channel posted a highlight reel of the 2019 Winter Performance Center tryouts.
** Tokyo Joshi Pro announced the full match card for their show in Tampa, Florida on April 3rd and here are the matches as followed:
– Rika Tatsumi & Miu Watanabe vs. Miyu Yamashita & Hikari Noa
– Nodoka Tenma & Yuki Aino vs. Hyper Misao & Raku
– Three Way Match: Mizuki vs. Natsumi Maki vs. Yuki Kamifuku
– International Princess Championship: Thunder Rosa (c) vs. Shoko Nakajima
– Princess of Princess Championship: Yuka Sakazaki (c) vs. Su Yung
– Maki Itoh vs. Priscilla Kelly
– Konosuke Takeshita vs. Yuki Ueno
** NXT’s Bianca Belair chatted with Digital Spy about making her own ring gear:
“I’m the female version of my dad. He builds decks, he builds all types of chairs, my dad is really creative and really hands-on and so I really learned that from my dad. My mom used to sew when I was younger, so I used to do that a little bit. In CrossFit I really I stood out because I made all my outfits. That’s one thing that got me noticed by Mark Henry. So I learned that from CrossFit. You really stand out when you’re more hands on and you design your own gear, so I just carried that over into NXT. For me I like to do everything myself. No one’s going to do it better than me. I can’t explain to you what I want, only I can do it. I really get enjoyment and fulfillment out of making my own gear and being creative.”
** RUSH vs. Bandido is official for ROH’s ‘Pure Excellence’ show on April 10th. If RUSH is still ROH World Champion, the April 10th bout will be a Proving Ground match and if Bandido can win, he’ll earn a shot at the ROH World Title. Also, ROH announced KENTA and Tomohiro Ishii for the War Of The Worlds tour.
** Ahead of his NXT Tag Title defense on tonight’s NXT, Pete Dunne spoke with Phillip Martinez of Newsweek. Dunne spoke about his make-shift tag team with Matt Riddle and how he had to adapt to being a tag team wrestler after being a singles wrestler for a great portion of his career.
“The main challenge is being put into a tag team, where you’ve never done any tag team stuff before, even coming up with new moves and ideas. Also a challenging part is those vignettes. I’ve never been known for my talking, so its been exciting to be challenged in both of those areas. Having said that, it’s also come together kinda easily. As soon as we had that first tag team wrestling match, for us and the overall opinion seems to be, it felt like we were teaming for a long time. The benefit of being on television is not just the matches we put together, not just the TakeOvers, the championship match or the Dusty Classic stuff, but to have those vignettes go out to show a different side of yourself, especially for myself. Since I’ve been in the company, I’ve been having those big title matches in the UK or showing the more serious side of wrestling. But to show that we can do both, we can make people laugh and get people invested in our matches as well, its been a great experience.”
The NXT Women’s Championship is scheduled to be defended at WrestleMania 36 and Pete Dunne stated that if he had it his way, he and Riddle would be defending their NXT Tag Titles against Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) and/or Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake & Zack Gibson).
“If I had it my way it would be Moustache Mountain. To share a moment like that with those lads, or with anyone from the UK whether it’s the Grizzled Young Vets or people like that — being able to share the success that comes with the growth of NXT UK with lads from over there that I grew up with, either helped train or wrestled a million times, that’s what’s special.”
** A new episode of ‘WWE Day Of’ will premiere on the WWE Network this Friday and it’ll be focused around WWE Super ShowDown.
** WrestlingINC uploaded their interview with Alex Reynolds and John Silver of the Dark Order.
** The XFL’s Seattle Dragons vs. LA Wildcats game will be held in an empty stadium at CenturyLink Field, as ordered by Washington Governor Jay Inslee who addressed the Coronavirus outbreak.
** CBS Local Sports interviewed NXT Tag Team Champion Pete Dunne. Dunne gave his thoughts about NXT possibly taking their show to other venues for Wednesday nights and Dunne feels that there’s a two-sided argument to that because Full Sail is the home of NXT but it would also be nice to switch up the venue every now and then.
“So there’s two sides to that, right? When we travel every weekend and we’re out in these different towns, seeing the numbers that show up and how into the shows they are. I love the fact that we get to travel around and bring NXT to these fans in different towns that love what we do. But, at the same time, Full Sail has always been the home of NXT, so many great moments and memories have happened there. It would be a shame to see that go. I think, for me personally, a middle ground would be nice, where we still run out of Full Sail fairly often, but then, every now and again, like we’re doing tomorrow at the Performance Center, we change the scenery, the environment a little bit. But definitely, there’s positives to both sides.”
On the topic of possibly making the transition to RAW or SmackDown, Dunne doesn’t have interest in that at the moment. He stated that he’s not against the move, but for right now he’s focused on NXT and how he can further contribute to NXT UK.
“No, it’s always been the case for me that I want to stick around in NXT, at least for now. Not saying I never want to move to a different brand, but I feel like there’s still so much to do in NXT. It’s still fresh, it’s still new. Even though I’ve been a part of it for the past three years, it’s changed and stuff so many times, especially just going weekly on TV recently and NXT U.K. being so early in its beginning. I feel like there’s just still so much more to do here, and then as for my personal life aspect, I have a one-year-old baby and stuff now, so for that reason, with me being able to spend a little bit more time with them helps. It really is the perfect balance for me right now. I’m in love with it all.”
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.
