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.
** Rhea Ripley guest appeared on Flash Morgan Webster’s ‘Wrestling Friends’ podcast. During their conversation, Rhea revealed that she was never supposed to win the NXT Women’s Championship from Shayna Baszler and plans changed when she made her initial appearance on NXT TV to kick off the program with Shayna. Once the powers that be backstage heard the reaction that Rhea got, they decided to do a DQ finish in their first match so the program could continue.
“So Shayna had pretty much gone through everyone in NXT, so I pretty much finished with NXT UK, handed it off to Piper [Niven] and I was coming into NXT to do that promo. So we were supposed to do a match later because everything was pre-recorded at that time, so we were supposed to do a match later on that night [for] a couple weeks after and I was supposed to tap out. That’s what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a one-off thing, I tap out, that’s it. So I went out, and as soon as my music hit, the whole Full Sail just erupted so loud. Like it was extremely loud. It was extremely loud! It doesn’t even sound that loud when you watch it back, but if you were there in person, it was insane and then I went into the ring, cut my promo the best that I have, and people popped so loud for that. Shayna left, I left, I came back and everyone backstage was just like, ‘Oh my God, that was really good.’ So anyways, Shayna and I, we go to get changed into our gear. Sara [Amato] comes running into the room, and Sara’s just like, ‘Guys, change of plans. Rhea got too much of a pop, we need to change the ending,’ and I was like, ‘Well, okay… like what are we gonna do?’ Shayna’s like, ‘We’ve been trying to tell you this for weeks. Every time we’re on a road loop, Rhea gets the biggest pop out of anyone’ and Sara’s like, ‘Yep! We believe you now. We need to change the ending.’
Legit, I was like, ‘Oh my God, so what’s happening?’ And they’re like, ‘So we’re gonna need to do a DQ so we can continue this some other time.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, cool. That’s cool with me, whatever.’” Rhea laughed. “So that’s why I hit her with the chair so we could continue it.”
Rhea recalled being in the ring with Tegan Nox when Tegan blew out her knee in the Mae Young Classic tournament. Rhea said that to this day, when Tegan Nox sells her knee, it gives her PTSD of the time when she heard Tegan in pain after seriously injuring her knee.
“Even just seeing her sell now, whenever she sells her knee. I remember she had the match with Kay Lee Ray at NXT UK and Kay Lee was working the leg and she was screaming in agony about her knee and it was giving me PTSD. It was such a horrible moment to be a part of.”
Conversing about the start of her run in WWE and the recruitment process, Rhea shared that she was contacted by the sports-entertainment company when she was 17 and they told her to reach back out when she was 21. Instead, WWE reached out to Rhea again when she was 20.
“So, I actually got an email from WWE when I was 17, and when I emailed them back all my information, they were like, ‘Oh crap, we didn’t know that you were that young.’ Guys, do I really look that old? Thank you, but yeah, they were like, ‘We didn’t know you were 17. Can you contact us when you’re 21?’ So then a couple years passed and I was 20 years old and ended up coming back and they emailed me again. They’re like, ‘Hey we know you’re not 21, but we have a tryout coming up and we want you to be a part of it.’ So I think I had a couple people put my name forward for the first one.”
** Siliana Gaspard, wife of Shad Gaspard released the following statement concerning the passing of Shad:
“Aryeh, myself, and the Gaspard and Chittick families would like to take this time to thank everyone for their prayers and support, as we mourn the terrible loss of our beloved Shad.
Shad was our whole world and we were his. There are not enough words to describe what he means to all of us. He was our heart, our soul, our protectors, our warrior. He was a bright force of nature, who brought joy to many through his joyous and gracious nature.
The outpouring of love from Shad’s friends, colleagues and fans has meant more to us than you can even imagine.
We’d like to once again thank the lifeguards, coast guard, divers, fire and police departments for their efforts.
Shad was and will always be our real life super hero.
Siliana Gaspard”
** Britt Baker was the latest AEW talent to appear on the AEW Unrestricted podcast with Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards. Britt spoke about Tony Khan allowing her to attend NXT shows to support Adam Cole but how that wasn’t reciprocated on the other side. Britt shared that WWE cleared Adam Cole to attend AEW’s New Year’s show in Jacksonville and Cole was present at the show.
“As we all know, I was in the crowd at TakeOver when he won the title for the first time, which, he’s — this is also annoying but he originally was told he can’t come to our shows. For ALL IN actually, he had a plane ticket booked, and then they told him, ‘You can’t go.’ So he still came to be supportful. He just watched it on his phone in the hotel and went to the after party afterwards but he wasn’t allowed to go, and then recently they’ve changed their tune and he was able to come to our New Year’s show and it’s great for him too because this is his family. The Young Bucks and Adam Cole go way back. They have been together long before Adam Cole and Britt Baker were together.”
Britt added that she hopes that one day, The Young Bucks, Adam Cole, Kenny Omega and the rest of the crew are able to reunite because of how close they are.
“It’s an on-going joke [Adam Cole being a ghost] they have, and Excalibur, they’re from the PWG family. It’s all one, huge, giant family and I hope there is a day in the future, in the near future where Adam Cole can be in a ring with The Young Bucks and Kenny and Cody and it’ll all come full circle and we can all be one giant, happy family again.”
Earlier in the podcast, Baker expressed her feelings about her profession becoming a running joke amongst wrestling fans. She said that she is hurt by it because it’s something she worked hard to achieve, only for it to be turned into a meme of sorts.
“And it was kind of heartbreaking to me that the fans kind of turned on, ‘Oh, she’s a dentist?’ And it became a joke and it was like a mockery, and that is crushing when you literally spent blood, sweat and tears and worked your ass off to become a dentist and a professional wrestler and it’s just a meme or something to joke about, that really sucked and that’s something I was beating myself up over so much because I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, now what!?’ That’s my thing. That’s what I worked so hard to do. That’s why I announce myself as Doctor Britt Baker, D.M.D. which by the way is redundant. You don’t need the ‘doctor’ and the ‘D.M.D.’ but I was like, ‘It’s professional wrestling. We have to do it big.’ So that was really hard for me at first. The joking, ‘Oh she’s a dentist, she’s a dentist’ and because for me, it’s not a joke. Those were the hardest years of my life. That’s the biggest accomplishment I will ever have and then it was actually Kenny [Omega] who, we were just training in the ring one day and he said, ‘How do you feel about becoming a heel?’ And I’m, ‘Sure, I’m up for anything. With that being said, I have zero experience at being a heel.’”
** Newly signed IMPACT Wrestling talent Tasha Steelz was a guest on Busted Open Radio with David LaGreca and Tommy Dreamer. Steelz reflected on the WWE tryout she had and said that the company wanted her to be a referee despite having an impressive tryout.
“And it was just so confusing because, when I went and did the tryout, I was just — from the moment we did promos first and the first day it was promos and I did my promo and I just blew everybody away. From all the coaches and other fellow wrestlers that were there helping out, they were just blown away by my promo. They were just so happy about it. They pulled me to the side a couple of times and just complimented me about it, and then just going on the rest of the three days, doing the drills, doing the exercises, having my in-ring match there because not too many people had in-ring matches so I was the second ladies match that was there and I was told it was the best one and just getting all these compliments and getting all this great feedback and having a couple of coaches telling me that like, they were interested at the time. It made me feel really good so it just made me feel like, ‘Okay now that I see that they’re interested, once I get back home, I have to just turn it up ten times more because I know probably they’ll be watching. They’ll be watching my social medias, they’ll be hearing it from other people like how I’m doing since my NXT tryout’ and it was just a couple months went by and I just get an email saying, ‘Hey, are you interested in being a referee?’ And it just kinda crushed me because I didn’t see myself as a referee. It was just I was more focused on becoming an NXT wrestler. My friends are there and this is what we wanted to do and I wanted to join my friends in being an NXT wrestler and when I got, ‘Hey, do you wanna be a referee?’ It was just like — I had a talk with William Regal and I just let him know my heart and my passion is with wrestling. This is all I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid, and to wipe it all away with being a referee, it wouldn’t feel good to me, so I turned it down and I said, ‘I know if this is the only way of getting in NXT, this is not my route’ and I let them know that I couldn’t do it.”
** On next week’s episode of NXT, NXT Champion Adam Cole will have a ‘live negotiation’ with William Regal so that Cole can ensure that Velveteen Dream stays away from Undisputed ERA.
** Masked Republic’s Lucha Central has launched the Lucha Central Podcast Network with bilingual content options. Below is a written preview of the podcast’s content topics:
“Long form Lucha Central Weekly shows in both English and Spanish which will give listeners a full recap of lucha libre happenings over the past week around the globe including news from Lucha Libre AAA, CMLL and top Mexico based independent wrestling promotions along with luchador related news from WWE, AEW, MLW, ROH, Impact Wrestling and beyond. Both versions of the Lucha Central Weekly podcast, English and Spanish, will be released on Friday mornings beginning May 15.
Additional weekly programming from the start will include English language variety show Straight Outta the Bodega hosted by Pro Wrestling Revolution star Papa Esco and promoter Gabriel Ramirez focusing on California independent wrestling, music and all things entertainment. In Spanish, La Mesa de los Márgaros brings together the most eclectic group of individuals on a sports podcast as a lucha libre host, photographer, dancer, doctor, referee and their special guests gather around a virtual table to discuss a variety of topics in their own irreverent signature style. Both Straight Outta the Bodega and La Mesa de los Márgaros will debut new episodes every Thursday beginning today, May 14.”
** The Undertaker joined Bill Simmons’ podcast to chat about his career in wrestling. Undertaker and Bill dove into the Montreal Screwjob and Undertaker shared his thoughts about that and how upset he was at the situation. He also spoke about his contract negotiations with WCW before he went to the WWF. Undertaker was told that no one would ever pay to see him wrestle and he admitted that-that comment stung him a bit.
“Well one, those guys down there told me before I went to WWE, WWF at the time, they said — I went in to renegotiate a contract, right? I’d been there about a year and my contract was coming to, so I go in and meet with Jim Herd who was running WCW at the time, Ole Anderson, Jim Barnett and I’m looking for just a little bit of a bump, just a little bump in pay. I’m still relatively green, I’ve only been for around a few years and I’m just looking for a little extra cheese, and they go, ‘No, I don’t think so. We’re gonna re-sign you at your current deal’ and they go, ‘Look, no one’s ever gonna pay money to see you wrestle. You’re a good athlete, a really good athlete, but no one’s ever gonna pay money to see you wrestle…’ Like, mhm… okay. That stung a little bit.”
Undertaker took on AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36 in a Boneyard match. In his ‘Last Ride’ documentary, footage was shown from several years ago with The Undertaker saying he’d love to work with AJ. Taker feels that AJ is amongst the greats when it comes to in-ring talent and grouped AJ with Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero as guys who were undersized but extremely talented.
“I think he’s probably the best out there today, AJ is.
AJ is probably the closest to Shawn [Michaels] that there’s been. He’s undersized, but you don’t… he has that ability. There’s only been a few people like Shawn and Eddie Guerrero, AJ. You don’t see the size disparity because that’s how good they are, and they understand, ‘Okay, I’m working with this giant dude. I’m gonna get thrown around. I’m gonna get hammered, but I’m gonna get my spots in here and I’m gonna take advantage of ‘em the best I can.’ They understood that and that’s why they’re so good and that’s why they can work with anybody, and I’ve always preferred — I think my best matches are [with] guys like Bret Hart and Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero and Shawn. My best matches were with smaller guys that got it and understood.”
Towards the end of the interview, Undertaker talked about creating social media pages and how bizarre it was for him to fully pull the curtain back on his character that he kept private for so long.
“So, I guess I got a social media account. It was probably less than two years, right? The writing was on the wall. I know I got more matches behind me than I do in front of me, and people are saying, ‘Dude, you need to get yourself out there because your wrestling career is coming to an end. Now it’s time to cash-in on the brand, the stuff that you didn’t do for all these years’ and I was like, ‘Eh’ and people were like, ‘No really, you need to do this and be prepared for post-WWE.’ So finally I got a social media and I opened an Instagram account. So I think I posted about something a couple years ago. I posted something about the [University of Texas] Longhorns beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. So kind of one of the first things I did that was out of character, so I’m scrolling through looking at comments and stuff like that and [somebody writes], ‘Well there goes my childhood. My childhood is ruined, The Undertaker is now on social media.’”
** Following the passing of Shad Gaspard, JTG shared a video of a memorial that was held for Shad.
** Spencer Love of Win Column Sports Network interviewed with Richard Holliday. Holliday opened up about MJF’s departure from MLW and now being full-time with All Elite Wrestling. Holliday feels that now is the time to show that the ‘Dynasty’ group can step up and its individual members can continue to thrive despite losing a key member.
“Well, it’s an opportunity for us to prove that we can still survive, and we can thrive. Maybe ‘survive’ isn’t even a good word, because thrive is really what we want to do. The Dynasty – what me, Maxwell and Hammer made the Dynasty – is we made it a brand. We made it something bigger than just three guys. People just talk about the Dynasty. How many people do you see on social media saying, ‘Dynasty bro!’ Like, it’s become something within pop culture almost, and now it’s our job, it’s my job, it’s Hammer’s job, and it’s Gino [Medina’s] job to make sure that we take the Dynasty to another level. I hand-picked Gino to be in the Dynasty. I felt like we needed the Latin demographic to be targeted, and I don’t think that anybody can represent it better than him. I think consumers are looking – it’s very eerily similar to the original Dynasty, where people were looking at Hammer and Max and saying, ‘Alright, these guys are going to carry it, let’s see what this Richard guy can do.’ Now, it’s like, ‘Richard and Hammer are going to carry it, let’s see what this Gino guy can do.’ Is it sink-or-swim for Gino? Potentially, but I know he’s gonna swim.”
** Josh Tariff has an interview up on his YouTube channel with IMPACT X Division Champion Willie Mack.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9erzyfGbyc[/embedyt]
** On the latest edition of WWE’s After The Bell podcast with Corey Graves, Seth Rollins was the featured guest and he addressed Jim Cornette’s recent comments about Becky Lynch announcing her pregnancy. Cornette made mention of Lynch being in a top spot and feeling that now was not the time, among other negative remarks. Rollins had the following to say in response to Cornette:
“Yeah, a little bit and it actually came from one of the more unlikely sources and I don’t really wanna take too much time to get into it because I don’t wanna focus on it but, it hurt my feelings on a personal level because Jim Cornette is someone who’s a legend in our industry and he’s someone that I personally worked with in my time at Ring of Honor, and for him to come out and say some real negative things, some real misogynist things about women in general and pregnancy in the industry, it kind of caught me off guard and it made me lose a lot of respect for someone that who a lot of people kind of already lost respect for and I was still holding on to hope that somewhere along the line there was a personal connection between Jim and I that he would think twice before making just egregious comments about women, about my wife that were just completely — I can’t even forgive them. I don’t even wanna repeat them.
On a grander scale, the mindset that has to go into that needs to be eradicated, all around. It’s just so disgusting and the more I sat and thought about, talked about it, I knew we had this appearance coming up and we were gonna have this conversation and I wanted to address it just because I wanna make it very clear that this is something I’m so proud of my fiancée, of Becky, of what she’s doing and the courage that it takes for her at this point in her career to make a decision — she’s 33 years old so, once you hit 35 for women, you start running risks with these pregnancies and so she made an incredibly tough decision. She went out there on national television, she had to say things the way she wanted to do and the fact of the matter is, she is the most talented woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life and she’s gonna be just fine being pregnant, making money, doing alright. So everything that Jim Cornette said is complete nonsense. Not just for her, but for women all around the globe.”
** The Undertaker joined the Pardon My Take podcast and the podcast covered some of the lighter/comedic moments of Undertaker’s career. He was asked why did his WrestleMania entrances take so long and here’s how Undertaker responded:
“So a lot of times, that would just depend on my opponent. Like if I was working with somebody that was pretty limited or I thought I was just gonna have just a really sh*tty match with, I was like, ‘Man I’m gonna get my money’s worth out of this entrance.’ So, there were times that I would take a little bit of extra time because I knew the match was gonna be horrible so, I figured I might as well give it to them on the entrance because they’re gonna be disappointed once this this bell rings.”
Undertaker also addressed the longstanding rumor that he’s afraid of cucumbers. He said that he’s not afraid of them, but just doesn’t like them and said if cucumbers are around him, he’ll likely leave the room.
“Ok let’s get this straight. Now we’ve had a good conversation. I’m not scared of cucumbers, I just don’t like cucumbers.
I’ll probably leave the room, but I’m not gonna run, and if they’re whole, that’s one thing but if they’re cut up, that’s just…”
** New York Post conducted an interview with Matt Hardy ahead of the ‘Stadium Stampede’ match at Double Or Nothing on Saturday. While speaking about Jeff Hardy, Matt expressed that he’s happy Jeff is healthy and doing well and added that Jeff has a “chunk” left on his WWE contract.
“Not really [It hasn’t been weird without Jeff]. Its been comfortable and I’m very confident with everything I’m doing. It would be nice to say, like well we can do this big angle and then Jeff and I team up and we wrestle The Young Bucks. That would be amazing and great and hopefully down the road that happens. He still has a big chunk of time left on his deal, but we’ll see what the future holds.”
Prior to debuting with All Elite Wrestling, there were rumors that Matt Hardy was going to be “The Exalted One” of the Dark Order which ultimately turned out to be Brodie Lee. Hardy says he was never going to be “The Exalted One”.
“I was never, and you can quote me on this, I was never, ever gonna be the Exalted One. I said, let me tease that. It makes sense and it can fit and I can play stuff off of it with my social media and making people go down a certain road and think a certain way.
We just decided like if Brodie Lee was just quiet and I can kind of do this, everyone is gonna be expecting me. We knew if he came out, anyone who was disappointed it wasn’t me or (that) I didn’t show up, they were still gonna get me 45 minutes later in the show.
It would have been amazing if it had been done before a live crowd. It would have been so, so cool, but it is what it is.”
Also, Hardy spoke about when he ran over Sammy Guevara in a recent main event on Dynamite. Hardy said that as soon as it happened, he looked at Kenny Omega and said that the clip and/or GIF was going to be everywhere.
“The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘That was awesome.’ Probably after I hit him I was like turning around, I told Kenny, ‘Oh my God, there is going to be so many GIFS and memes for this,’ and lo and behold we were right.”
** Alicia Atout of ‘A Music Blog, Yea?’ spoke with Cheeseburger for an interview. Cheeseburger said that the best moment of his eight-year career thus far was when he had the opportunity to wrestle inside Madison Square Garden at G1 Supercard.
“Yeah, definitely MSG, definitely MSG. I like that moment just because it wasn’t just a great moment for me, but for everybody that day. Like, from the Ring of Honor and New Japan guys just really knew it was a special moment. Getting to be one of the few wrestling companies… I think it was like a few decades or something when another company ran there besides WWE, because WWE, that was like their home and they always had that stranglehold on it, and then the fact that Ring of Honor got to go there with New Japan and we sold the place out and everyone got to be a part of it and it was just a really good family atmosphere. I can’t describe how everyone was feeling in the locker room that day. Ring of Honor’s such a good family. The locker room is so good and everyone just felt really good that day.”
** Ahead of the May 20th episode of NXT on the USA Network, Mike Johnson of PWInsider spoke with former NXT Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley.
** Below is a video of Matt Taven re-watching his first match in Ring of Honor:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_HBLLbqeNk[/embedyt]
** David Penzer welcomed Sammy Guevara onto his ‘Sitting Ringside’ podcast and Guevara told the story of how Chris Jericho first got eyes on him. It was when Sammy worked the NWA 70th Anniversary Show in the Fall of 2018 that led to Jericho alerting the powers that be that Sammy should be a part of what would be announced as All Elite Wrestling.
“So this is like even crazier, that NWA 70th show I was talking about, he for whatever reason was watching the live stream on FITE TV, and he saw my match where I was in a four-way match and I did a bunch of crazy things in that. Luckily I decided not to phone in it that night, because you never know who’s watching. Chris Jericho’s watching this, and he texted everybody basically saying, ‘Yo, who is this Sammy kid? We need to get him’ and that’s how I got in.”
** Highlights from WrestleZone’s interview with Sammy Guevara is up on their site.
** Independent wrestler ‘Abadon’ created her own YouTube channel.
** djvlad posted another clip from his sit-down interview with Mark Henry and Henry opened up about being referred to as a “Silverback” in WWE. Henry said that he went to Vince McMahon and told him that he did not want to be referred to as such and McMahon killed the nickname on the spot.
“Which I didn’t like and which I said to the writers, ‘You will not refer to this black man as a Silverback. I am not a primate,’ and the sh*t stopped.
Well Vince [McMahon] was the one like, ‘Hey, if you feel that way, tell them that’s not what you want to be portrayed as,’ and I said, ‘Well I don’t want to be portrayed as that.’ He said, ‘Okay, it’s killed,’ and I went from being a Silverback to being Mark Henry, The Strongest Man In The World and primarily because, I took time to stop pro wrestling and to go back and compete against the strongest men in the world to validate the fact that I was the world’s strongest man, not the world’s strongest primate.”
** Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated conducted an interview with Brodie Lee. Lee feels that for a great portion of his run in WWE, self-doubt hindered him a lot because of the lack of opportunities although his co-workers would tell him how good he is.
“Self-doubt played a huge role in my life for a long time in WWE. It makes you doubt who you are and what you are. I knew that I was a great professional wrestler and I knew I was one of the better ones in the locker room, and I had co-workers telling me that. But that wasn’t the decision that was made. I knew I was better than that, and that’s why I needed to get out of that environment.”
** Xavier Woods and Tyler Breeze did a live stream of their Battle Of The Brands series on SmackDown vs. RAW 2006:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-PgtP9iiA8[/embedyt]
** Pro Wrestling Sheet has an interview up with The Sandman in-which Sandman discusses his appearance in ESPN and Michael Jordan’s ‘The Last Dance’ docu-series. Sandman was in the hotel lobby in Utah when the Chicago Bulls arrived to their hotel after defeating the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals.
** Michinoku Pro Wrestling will be doing shows again on May 23rd.
** While speaking with Wrestling Inc., Matt Hardy said that during he and Jeff Hardy’s time in TNA Wrestling, there was an inter-promotional match being planned with The Young Bucks who were in Ring of Honor at the time. Hardy says the match was going to happen but Jeff Jarrett prevented it from happening.
“I stayed in contact with The Bucks the whole time since Ring of Honor. We actually had something set up in TNA/IMPACT with them where we were gonna do an inter-promotional angle. We were gonna go to the Hardy Compound and do The Hardys vs. The Young Bucks. We had a whole angle planned out but the thing that brought that crashing down was Jeff Jarrett. He was coming back into power under Anthem and Jeff was in a bad place in his life at the time. Fortunately, he’s turned things around and is doing great but then he was in a bad place and things fell apart.”
** Nikki and Brie Bella were guests on Maria Menounos’ ‘Better Together’ podcast and they revealed that season 7 of Total Divas is in production despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brie: “We all quarantined for 14 days, could have no contact with the outside world. It was such strict rules and regulations, and then once we all did the 14 days quarantine, then we all had to take Coronavirus tests, and then once those tests came in, then, we we all are together, but still quarantined, like all isolated.”
Maria: “With the crew?”
Nikki: “Yeah! Yeah.”
Brie: “It’s actually nice because we get to talk to other humans… I sometimes feel bad for them [the crew] because they have to be in protective gear all day: like masks, gloves, sanitizer. We don’t have to be in masks but we all check our temperatures.”
Brie and Nikki also paid their respects to late Shad Gaspard who passed away after he was caught in a rip current and told rescuers to save his son before they came and rescued him.
Brie: “Oh my gosh, Shad was one of the sweetest human beings. You know, at the time that we knew him, we were all on SmackDown. At a time too when women were getting a lot. But, I’ll say, Shad was one of those guys who was always so sweet and respectful to women, always made the Divas feel good. He always brought this light into a room.
Nikki: “You never [saw] him not smile. You never saw him angry. He literally always lit up the room. Shad was just one of those guys, til the very end, when people were still around him, like he would still stop by the WWE offices!”
Nikki and Brie discussed the 2006 Diva Search that they were a part of. That Diva Search will be profiled in a future episode of WWE’s Ruthless Aggression series on the WWE Network and Brie and Nikki shared their experience[s] in the contest:
Brie: “When we walked out, I’ll never forget we looked at each other like, ‘What just happened?'”
Nikki: “I got mad at Brie because she’s the one that really encouraged me to go, and here I thought I was gonna go fight girls, and then I got, like, torn apart, and I looked at her like, ‘What did you bring me to? Like, am I getting punked?’ That was so mean. It was awful.”
** This Friday, there will be a Zoom meeting so that the female athletes of All Elite Wrestling can explain what the ‘Heels’ project is.
** Tony Schiavone and Brandi Rhodes recapped the 5/20 episode of AEW Dynamite:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJYJqSDkT0[/embedyt]
** The 2010 WWE ‘Over The Limit’ pay-per-view was the focus of the latest ARN podcast. Arn Anderson recalled when he had a conversation with Dave Bautista and tried to convince him to stay with the WWE during that time.
“During the afternoon, I went and asked him for a few minutes and we sat up in the stands and I did my very best to talk Dave into staying. I said, ‘Dave –’ I just told him the truth. I said, ‘You have worked hard to go from a babyface that was as hot as you were to the heel that are you today. You have never been more over. Either way, heel or babyface than you are tonight. Please, do not leave. Go ahead and ride this thing out. We need you, it’ll be good for you.’ He looked right at me, he said, ‘Arn, I appreciate that and I think the world of you’ and I said, ‘Dave, this is me talking to you. This is not the office or WWE talking to you. This is your friend. Please reconsider,’ and he said, ‘I wanna do some other things.’”
** Former NXT UK Tag Team Champion Flash Morgan Webster appeared on the Notsam Wrestling podcast.
** Santana and Ortiz joined Konnan’s ‘Keepin It 100’ podcast and spoke about the cooperation between The Inner Circle to piece together the Bubbly Bunch segments that air on AEW Dynamite.
“Yeah, it was just all in a group text and Jericho and all of us, we all shot ideas and we figured it out and then, Jericho literally sent us, ‘Alright, this is what you’re doing this week.’ He pretty much sent out a script for us and I would have to shoot so many scenes, Santana would shoot so many scenes and the other guys would shoot it and then our production would put it all together and then put it on [TV], so it was pretty easy actually.”
** Mega Ran welcomed Lio Rush onto his ‘Random Encounters’ show.
** Part four of Hiroshi Tanahashi’s interview series on NJPW1972.com was posted to the site and in this specific portion of the series, Tanahashi revealed that when he was a teenager, he attended five nights of the G1 Climax on his own merit and for half of those days, he stayed in a 24 hour family restaurant to kill time.
** NJPW1972.com released part three of their chat with Kazuchika Okada.
** Jinder Mahal and The Singh Brothers re-watched Mahal’s WWE Championship win from Backlash 2017.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDaHnHzTz5Y[/embedyt]
** Nikki Bella was featured in a commercial for ‘Beyond Meat’ with the likes of Chris Paul, Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg.
** WWE will air the following video on next Monday’s RAW to celebrate Memorial Day:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvQ75n-Psj0[/embedyt]
** Next week’s WWE Backstage on FS1 will air at the 12 AM EST slot again.
** Tyler Bate did an interview with Mirror Sport and was asked about his WWE United Kingdom Championship match against Pete Dunne from TakeOver: Chicago in 2017. Bate was asked was he disappointed that he was dropping the title that night and he said not at all. Bate added that if someone cares when they win or lose in pro wrestling, they’re in the wrong profession.
“No, not at all. If you really care about winning and losing, then professional wrestling isn’t for you! You should probably go and be a mixed martial artist or something, where winning and losing actually matters. In what we do, it is about the bigger picture and the entertainment side of things. I understand, and I’ve seen people be very disheartened when it comes to losses, and for the most part that is just a very egotistical way of thinking. Professional wrestling isn’t about you, it’s about everybody.”
** Ronda Rousey has a video up on her YouTube channel of all the media she did to promote the ‘Mile 22’ film.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgkN3MBNoE8[/embedyt]
** The Houston Chronicle has an interview with The Undertaker.
** Tokyo Sports caught up with Jushin Thunder Liger and Liger talked about the cancellation of this year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament. He listed off some of the Junior Heavyweights that have come through New Japan Pro-Wrestling and impressed him with their abilities.
“Even if I was asked which competition impressed me, it was all. In every tournament, there are always great players in the times. After a few years, these players have become the world leaders in WWE. Eddie [Guerrero] and [Wild] Pegasus [Chris Benoit], more recently Ricochet, Devi-chan (Prince Devitt, now Finn Balor), and now KUSHIDA is playing. It’s a terrific series, with athletes of the level that the world wants every year. I think I was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame because [of the] Best of the Super Juniors.”
** A ‘Best Of Asuka’ catalog has been uploaded to the WWE Network.
** The Women’s Wrestling Weekly podcast welcomed Taynara Conti onto the show. Taynara was a part of the mass WWE releases/furloughs last month and despite the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down live events for fans, she said she has received a few offers to wrestle for different promotions.
“So, I have a couple offers to get back in the ring so I’m trying to think about it. As I said before, I don’t know much about the promotions and everything so I’m still looking at it and I want to wait a little bit more since I’m still [under] the non-compete contract with WWE, I can’t do much anyway.”
** To promote Double Or Nothing, AEW World Champion Jon Moxley spoke with Bleacher Report Live.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGAr85A9t-0[/embedyt]
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.
