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.
** Former ROH World Television Champion Shane Taylor joined Jason Powell on the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast. Towards the end of their discussion, Taylor gave a detailed answer when speaking about how black athletes and fans are treated in pro wrestling. He feels that black fans have been forgotten about to a certain extent and feels it’s deeper than a company signing an African American talent just to appease a certain demographic.
“I feel as though wrestling has forgotten about the black fan, the black community, and it has nothing to do with having people on your roster or even having some of them win minor championships. We’ve seen that, it’s awesome, but it seems like a lot of the time, it’s just placating. Like, ‘Hey, we’re bringing out your people for the show for you to cheer for, yay!’ People want more than that. The Rock was so amazing and a trailblazer because he was able to be a great ambassador for multiple communities. Kofi’s the same way. His win was so important and was so inspiring for so many because it was something that people didn’t think would happen, and again, there’s a whole rabbit hole of things that we could get into as far as colorism and self-hate and things that we talked about but to see someone that was of African heritage and born there, dark-skinned. To see someone like yourself reach the pinnacle inspires people. That makes them believe, that gives them hope, and to be able to do that, helps so many people come to wrestling or become fans of wrestling, even if they’re just fans of Kofi. They are there to see him, so by proxy, you’re gonna see who he’s in the ring with and maybe that will inspire them to look into other things. So I take me winning my championship in the same seriousness. I’m able to show, ‘Hey, we can be more than what this sport tells you what you can be, what society tells you-you can be, what they tell you what your options are, what they tell you that your limits are. We can be more than that, and we don’t have to buy into this… you can buck the trends, buck the system, buck the stereotypes. You can create and build your own legacy the way you see it,’ and I think when you gauge African-American fans especially, they are looking for that, they are starving for that because a lot of them are tired of seeing the same characters and most of them will just stop watching wrestling because they’re tired of it.
I want to bring them back to wrestling and show them what it looks like, show them what it should be, show them what it can be, and to me, that’s what inspired me to say the things I say, do the things that I do because I want there to be a better experience for everyone, but especially for people that look like me or children that look like me to go, ‘Hey. I’m no way saying that I’m a role model, but I am telling you that you can be successful,’ and I know sometimes that’s all people need is the hope that they can do something, that they can be more than their surroundings… that they do have greatness in them.”
** WWE issued the following press release about their annual meeting with stockholders being adjourned due to COVID-19 concerns:
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) today announced that it intends to convene and then immediately adjourn, its Annual Meeting of Stockholders due to the rapidly evolving public health concerns relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and governmental actions related thereto, including the State of Connecticut’s Executive Order No. 7H dated March 20, 2020. The Annual Meeting is scheduled to occur at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday April 16, 2020. The Annual Meeting will be convened and then immediately adjourned to a time and place that will be announced at the meeting and by press release. The record date will remain February 20, 2020. Stockholders should comply with applicable restrictions and not attend the Annual Meeting on April 16.
** The MGM Grand Garden Arena that is set to host AEW’s Double Or Nothing pay-per-view on May 23rd has suspended all operations for the time being. The Double Or Nothing event is still listed on their website for May 23rd.
** According to Law 360, Ric Flair’s bid to trademark “The Nature Boy” was rejected. The Trademark Trail and Appeal Board stated that the nickname is too similar to the clothing line “Nature Boys” and both are attempting to sell merchandise using the name.
** The ‘Orchard Park Bee’ published a story about their hometown guy Rob Gronkowski winning the WWE 24/7 Championship at WrestleMania.
** The following video was uploaded to the WWEPC YouTube channel which documents Rhea Ripley’s road to WrestleMania 36:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMDM6UxDGFs[/embedyt]
** Irish Mirror has an interview up with RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch.
** The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka & Kairi Sane) are challenging Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships on Friday Night SmackDown. The new Universal Champion Braun Strowman is also set for the show.
** Edge joined Corey Graves on the latest edition of WWE After The Bell. While chatting about Edge’s return to in-ring competition, Corey Graves said that watching Edge’s WWE 24 documentary on the WWE Network had him thinking about going to visit Dr. Maroon to get a checkup. That thought stuck with Graves for quite some time after he watched the documentary.
“If you’re listening to this and you haven’t already gotten your eyes on it, pause this, go watch that first. It was really well done. Hats off to everybody involved in it. It was an awesome look, and you and I have gotten along for quite some time and watching it, honestly man, it was inspiring and I would say at two, three different points I went, ‘Man, I live in Pittsburgh now. I should go find Dr. Maroon.’ It just gave me that urge to do all this all over again. I don’t know whether or not that’s a possibility but, the thought was planted in my brain for quite some time so…”
Edge went on to speak about his Last Man Standing match against Randy Orton. He said he has seen the feedback that their match was too long but he says that he is focusing on the positive feedback. He added that those same people complained that Brock Lesnar and Goldberg wrestled for four minutes in their respective matches at WrestleMania 36.
“Well, and it wasn’t even anything we realized. We were just going, and again, just ad libbing and fighting and so, by the time it was done, someone told me it was like 42 minutes long. I was like, ‘Really? Man, okay. Well damn, cool. My wind is good.’ But I am, I’m very, very proud of it and I’ve heard there’s feedback that it was too long and it’s this and it’s that. Listen, all of the feedback I’ve gotten personally, to myself or to my social media feeds has been all positive. When I have Bret Hart call me and tell me that he loved it because it looked like a fight, well I don’t care what anybody else says from that point on because his opinion to me, has more weight than absolutely everyone anywhere. Nobody’s gonna top his opinion to me, and if he liked it and he thought it was a fight, good. Mission accomplished. I mean, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. It’s wrestling, it’s art, it’s subjective and whatever blows your hair back but, Randy and I have broad shoulders and we can weather the weight of a minuscule militia of mouths and tents who’ll just wanna complain about everything, right? Complain about the length of a wrestling match during a pandemic. Like, really? Come on, but they’re are also the same people that are gonna complain that Bill [Goldberg] and Brock [Lesnar] go four minutes so… I just think there’s a segment of people that enjoy not enjoying things and go on negatives but I focus on positives and the fact that after nine years, I was able to claw my way back here and I’m healthy enough to do this and to go 40 minutes and take a DDT into the bed of a truck with a triple fusion, man… I came home… once I got out of quarantine, I hugged Beth, I hugged the girls and nothing’s gonna dull my shine at this point. I’m on top of the world.”
The WWE Hall Of Famer also listed off a handful of names that he’s hoping to work with in the future. From NXT, he specifically mentioned Velveteen Dream and the NXT North American Champion Keith Lee.
“Velveteen Dream man. With the way he’s got his character dialed in, the way I could play off of that and…. he’s so young! To get him so young and be able to try and teach him some expert tools, my God that would be so much fun. Keith Lee man. A guy like that who I don’t think has worked somebody yet that knows how to present him the way he should be presented, if that makes any sense. I think Brock knows how, and you saw two minutes of that, so that’s fun.”
** 205 Live’s Jack Gallagher appeared on The A-Side Live Chat on MMAFighting.com.
** The New York Championship Wrestling promotion and some of their talents were profiled by ‘Observer-Dispatch’.
** AJ Styles booted up his live stream on MIXER recently. Styles shared his thoughts about all the recent events regarding WrestleMania and his match with The Undertaker. Styles first clarified that his shoulder is fine after suffering a separated shoulder in the 2020 men’s Royal Rumble match. As far as the Boneyard match goes, Styles is happy with how it came out and when it comes to doing more matches like that, he thinks less is more and those types of matches should not be happening often.
“I was very pleased with it. I think the majority of wrestling fans, WWErs, everybody was happy with that. For every 100, there’s maybe two or three that didn’t like it. It was different, I understand. Though I’ve heard tonight was also a different match on NXT.
I think as far as cinematic matches go, I think less is more. If we do these all the time, then I think they’re not special. So we gotta watch out with how many matches we do. I think… every now and again, it’s a good thing. As great as it was, I don’t think it’s something we should do a lot because we’ll ruin it. I’m not saying the matches but, it’s special.”
Styles said that while taping the Boneyard match, nothing had to be taped more than once and everything was shot straight through.
“Zero, none. It was pretty much straight through. We never did any retapes and there was some cut scenes obviously, where you stop and go but it was just different angles, but if they didn’t have that shot, we didn’t redo it. We just went with what we got.”
The former two-time WWE Champion was asked for his favorite opponent from his time in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Style looked back to his bouts with Hiroshi Tanahashi and praised Tanahashi as an in-ring performer.
“My toughest match in Japan? Tanahashi was always, I thought, my toughest match. He’s unbelievable. So smart. Nothing but good things to say about him.”
** Lita, Gail Kim and Christy Hemme provided an update on their KAYfABE project and stated that the project will happen although they came up short on their fundraiser goal.
** While speaking with Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald, Sonya Deville shared that upon her tryout with WWE, she had no intention of leaving MMA to jump into pro wrestling.
“I had no plans on leaving MMA for WWE, none at all. I was like, ‘I’ll go to the tryout. If I do the show, I do the show. It’s a good opportunity.’ But I fell in love and I had to make a really hard decision when I got signed to WWE. My mind was already made up. I already knew that I had fallen in love once again with a new sport and that was sports-entertainment and wrestling and so, at that point it was an easy decision but at first, it was tough because I had loved MMA so much.”
** Paige did a live stream on her Twitch channel with Peyton Royce, Natalya, Renee Young, Nia Jax and Billie Kay. During their chat, Nia Jax talked about coming to the defense of Alexa Bliss when Alexa was working with an opponent that went unnamed and continued to get hurt. Nia said that Alexa did not want to complain to the higher-ups so Nia spoke up on behalf of Alexa to stop her from consistently getting injured.
“I remember back when — I’m not gonna mention any names but, Lexi, other than Lexi’s name,” Nia laughed. “But when Lexi was working an angle and she was continuously getting hurt in a certain angle with somebody, and I remember her not saying anything, specifically because she wanted to be a team player. She was so nervous, she wanted to be a team player. She didn’t wanna be somebody who like, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’ but, me personally, from the outside looking in, I was so angry. I was like, ‘No, she can not do this anymore.’ I personally would not allow her to get back in the ring to get hurt again. I had to go to the higher-ups and I had to put down a stern foot and say, ‘Listen, Lexi is five-foot-nothing, 100 pounds getting thrown around like a little rag doll and injured every night.’ I was like, ‘Put me in. I’m a 6’0, 300 pound b*tch. I can handle it.’ So I understand there’s a certain thing of being quiet and taking it and being like, ‘No, I wanna be a team player’ and then there’s the other side where it’s like, ‘Sh*t dude, I can’t allow to see one of my good friends — not only my good friend but my co-worker who I want to be here in five years so I can continue to work her, like getting hurt.’ Like I need to stand up and be there for her and make sure that her life is gonna be okay when she’s done here.”
** Taz, Jim Ross and Excalibur recapped the April 8th episode of AEW Dynamite.
** Sporting News pushed out their interview with Johnny Gargano ahead of his victory over Tommaso Ciampa on NXT.
** Jake Roberts appeared on a recent edition of The Wrestling INC Daily Podcast and Jake revealed that he is currently in Atlanta quarantining in a Marriott hotel and has been there for quite some time. Roberts was previously living with Diamond Dallas Page and due to the Coronavirus outbreak, Dallas told Jake that if he left the property, he couldn’t come back. Jake ultimately decided to leave the property to go appear for AEW.
“I’m stuck in a hotel. Of all damn places to be stuck, I’m stuck in a damn hotel. I’m on the 16th floor at the Marriott in Atlanta and the restaurant’s shut down so I’m having food brought to me and…
I’m quarantined. I’m quarantined in here. I was living with Dallas [DDP]. Whenever all this started, Dallas was one of the first people to say, ‘Hey man, I’m locking down and if you leave, you can’t come back.’ Well, AEW wanted me to come out so, what’d I do? I went and did [it] but then I couldn’t go back to Dallas’ house because he had a baby in the house and nobody needs to get sick, especially not a baby, and he took the hard line and said, ‘Dude if you leave, you can’t come back.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I gotta do this Dallas. It’s for AEW and I wanna help these guys.’ So, now I’m paying for it brother.”
In regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, Roberts believes that the pro wrestling industry should go on hold. He commended AEW for taping a bunch of content to fill TV time over the next couple of weeks and/or months but still believes that the business needs to be put on hold until further notice.
“Yes, I think it should happen. I really do man. We gotta buckle down, and if you look on the television and still see live wrestling then that tells me people aren’t buckling down. As much as I hate it, we gotta do what’s smart and I’m not a doctor or anything but that’s all I hear on television. We got to go home. Just go home and stay there until this sh*t’s gone and it sounds to me like AEW is doing that too. The last taping they did, I know they taped a lot of matches so they [did] several weeks of shows and it seems that’s what they were kind of doing too. Trying to get guys to go home and taking care of business, keeping everybody safe.”
** Prime Time Pro Wrestling Heavyweight Champion O’Shay Edwards joined Wrestling Observer Live.
** Here’s episode 13 of Battle Of The Brands on SmackDown vs. RAW 2006, via the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXSP461Uxuk[/embedyt]
** ‘Maxim’ has a feature up about Carmella’s ‘Capo Cagna’ wine.
** Leading up to next Tuesday’s edition of WWE Backstage on FS1, the John Cena, Evolution and Brock Lesnar episodes of the Ruthless Aggression series will air on FS1.
** GiveMeSport published highlights from an international media call with Charlotte Flair.
** This weekend, BT Sport will be airing a replay of night one and night two of WrestleMania 36.
** WWE profiled Snitsky and chatted with him about life after his career in WWE.
** Extra.ie conducted an interview with RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch. While speaking about wrestlers making the transition from pro wrestling to MMA, she said Brock Lesnar is a successful example of that and apparently hinted at CM Punk’s transition not being so successful.
“Yeah, I think Brock Lesnar has proved that-that transition can work quite well, although there has been another example of it that hasn’t worked quite well (CM Punk) [CM Punk note mentioned in the article but Becky did not say his name directly], but we won’t go there. For me personally, it wouldn’t be for me. I love what I do because this is the sport that I grew up in, that I’ve been doing since I was 15 years old, so I’ll stick to what I’m good at. But, when the MMA people come in, it turns out that I’m really good at beating them too.”
Lynch also gave a shout out to NXT UK’s Valkyrie and said she wants to face her one day.
** Here’s a clip from a recent episode of Total Bellas on E! and in this clip, Nikki Bella’s father questioned Artem Chigvintsev on if he and Nikki’s relationship is legit.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mktlCVROTw[/embedyt]
** Taz was the latest guest to join Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone on the AEW Unrestricted podcast. Taz spoke about departing from ECW to go to WWE. He recalled a conversation he had with Vince McMahon prior to officially exiting ECW and telling Vince that he was going to be losing to a lot of guys on his way out and here’s Taz’s recount of how McMahon reacted:
“I didn’t bail with the belt. I did jobs on the way out for two months. I told Vince right before I signed the deal, I go, ‘You know Paul’s gonna have me put guys over left and right.’ I go, ‘I have to do it Vince.’ Vince said to me, ‘You damn right.’ He goes, ‘Do it. Do whatever he asks, that’s your job. That’s business. Leave the right way and leave the place in a good spot’ and that was old school ethics by me, by Vince. Paul knew I would do the right thing, but sh*t, I mean for those couple of months on my way out the door, he had me lose to f*cking everybody which I had no problem with. But it was like it was a strain with our relationship, and that was hard because he believed in me when no one else believed in me.”
Taz also spoke about his WWE debut at the 2000 Royal Rumble pay-per-view against Kurt Angle. Taz stated that he knew he was doomed in WWE when he heard the reaction from the crowd because from his point of view, WWE was not fond of guys who already made their name outside of the company and by him getting that reaction, it solidified that he made a name outside of WWE.
“When I wrestled Kurt [Angle] at the Garden, when I came out, like when I heard that pop, I knew I was f*cked. I knew I was doomed. I knew it. I knew it because it was massive and again, it was before the big craze of the internet and all that sh*t and people didn’t know I was gonna be there. It was a legit surprise and a legit pop in the world’s most famous arena, and the reason I know I was doomed is because that pop did not come from WWE. I was a made guy before I got to WWE, and WWE at that time — they never would admit it then and they won’t admit it now; they don’t want made guys. They wanna make guys. So that’s what happened. So as I’m walking out with the towel on my head looking bad as a motherf*cker, I’m saying to myself, ‘Oh my God, shut up. Don’t cheer, don’t pop. Just boo me, do something. Don’t do nothing.’ Even though it was an awesome feeling, I knew I was…”
** Vince Russo joined Busted Open Radio to chat about the ‘Brawl For All’ episode of Dark Side of the Ring and to defend himself against Jim Cornette’s comments that were made about him on the episode.
** This month, WWE filed to trademark “The Fiend”, “Feel The Glow” and “Rated R Superstar”.
** MLW Executive Producer Salina de la Renta guest appeared on Women’s Wrestling Weekly and she shared that she’d like to manage Rey Mysterio in the future. Also, Salina said that she’s in a long-term agreement with MLW and plans on stepping back into the ring this year.
“Well as soon as this comes back, I’m gonna go back on MLW. Definitely gonna be there for quite some time. I definitely made a long-term commitment and I love it there. You’ll definitely see more of me, hopefully more of my episodes. The one thing I’ve been working on that I would say — you’re the first guys to hear about it, is I want to get back into the ring. I wanna wrestle, and probably this year you’ll see me wrestle.”
** Bianca Belair turned 31-years old on April 9th.
** A new trailer for Quibi and WWE’s ‘Fight Like A Girl’ series has been uploaded to Quibi’s YouTube channel.
** Natalya published her latest column for the Calgary Sun and she wrote about some of her favorite matches at WrestleMania 36 and her choices were Edge vs. Randy Orton, and AJ Styles and The Undertaker’s Boneyard match.
** WWE is promoting a live concert hosted by Elias that will be taking place on Instagram Live at 6 PM EST.
** Jerry Lawler tweeted that he’s going to be on next Monday’s WWE RAW.
** The current NWA National Champion Aron Stevens was the most recent guest on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney podcast. Stevens recounted his time in WWE and specifically spoke about when he knew he was finished with the company. Stevens said during the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal when he came out, the crowd would continuously cheer and root for him during his time in the match. He was eliminated from the bout by Shaquille O’Neal and when Stevens got the back, he said no one could even look him in his eyes.
“Because I was told to go out there [and] not to show personality. I go out there and they hadn’t seen me on TV in months, and I show up and they start, you know, 100,000 people start coming up. Shaq threw me out, they booed Shaq, and I go to the back and it was like no one could look me in the eye.”
** The ‘Kaizen Pro Wrestling’ promotion in Canada announced that due to the new modeling projections that came out today from the Canadian Health Department, all events from June to August are being cancelled which affects their shows in June and July. Refund information can be found in the hyperlink above.
** While chatting with ‘Metro’, The Big Show said he’d be interested in doing a Firefly Fun House match with Bray Wyatt and reliving his storied career in WWE.
** Nikki Bella did an interview with PEOPLE.com about her baby shower being cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
** Chris Van Vliet conducted an interview with former ROH World Champion Matt Taven. Taven was asked what were some of the factors that has kept him with Ring of Honor for so long and Taven went into detail and explained that he’s always been a fan of guys who like to play for one team and one team only.
“You know, there’s so many different things. I’ve always been a fan of those guys that stick with one team forever. The Larry Birds. Like in my mind, Michael Jordan never played for the Wizards. That’s just ridiculous. You know, Magic Johnson. It’s just like those guys that are synonymous, they brand themselves basically with their team logo and it’s always been something that’s been on my mind, but there’s been a million things that have shown that Ring of Honor has been there for me time after time. I’ve made a million mistakes. I’ve done a million dumb things and it seems like Ring of Honor always kind of, instead of pushing me down, picked me up and there was one thing in particular that happened. When I got injured four years ago, I blew out my ACL at a time that was — if people knew what was going on backstage. It was just complete chaos because Mikey and Maria [Kanellis] were going to TNA or they were at least in the midst of their contract stuff. Me and [Adam] Cole, there was talks of us [doing] something else and boom, I blowout my ACL, and my contract is about to expire. It’s about to expire like Mike’s and so Mike knows that he’s going elsewhere. I thought I was staying but all of a sudden, I’m hurt before my contract expires and Ring of Honor comes to me and they say, ‘You know what? We’ll honor our deal the way it was until you’re back and we’ll take care of things from there’ and I was like, from a guy that really killed himself on the indies and you never know when that next paycheck is coming. In the indies, you’re lucky if you get a hotdog and a handshake after you wrestle, and to be in a scary situation where you’re like, ‘I’m about to be a free agent and hurt. What am I to do? How do I sell myself to people? People will just say, Oh, well just tell us when you’re healthy again. Well, I have to eat in the meantime from now [until] I get back in the ring.’ The bills still keep coming in so for Ring of Honor to say, ‘Hey man, we want you to be here, we’ll take care of you. You’re a part of our family.’ I never forgot that for a second and I never will.”
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.
