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.
** Bleacher Report chatted with Dolph Ziggler ahead of the 7/27/20 edition of Monday Night RAW. Ziggler spoke about the times when he considered leaving WWE and then there were also times when he was excited to work with certain talents in the company which had a bit of an influence on his decision to stay.
“There would be months or years that went by that I went, ‘OK, when this contract runs out, no matter what they offer me, I’m going to get out of here and go make a name for myself and see if they want me back or if they’re begging to have me back or maybe I don’t want to come back.
There’s been different points where I go, ‘Well, I’m now working with X person, Y person, and Z person and I know I can make them better. I’m going to stay this time and figure things out.’ In the old days, you used to bounce around territories and found out about yourself, and that’s how you made things work.”
Recently on Instagram, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson commented on WWE’s post of Dolph Ziggler with the WWE Championship on his shoulder. Ziggler discussed what it meant to him to have Johnson endorse him.
“I don’t see how it couldn’t [resonate with you]. He’s the biggest star in the world, no matter what he does and no matter how you see him. The cool thing was I’ve seen him as someone who’s studying wrestling when he was wrestling and I go, ‘This guy makes moves here, he does things here, he captures everyone’s eye no matter what whenever he can.’
He could be a famous movie star right now and say he was bad at wrestling at some point. I’d think, ‘Well, it’s cool he’s a big star and sees something in me. But, you know what, I don’t think he knows what the hell he’s talking about wrestling-wise.’ But that is not the case. He knows what it takes. He knows how to be great. He’s The Great One.”
** Daniel Dockery of Crunchyroll.com chatted with Xavier Woods.
** Pro wrestler and promoter Walt McDonald passed away. McDonald competed regularly for IPWA in Virginia and he wrestled for Tod Gordon in ECW. McDonald went under the alias’ “Big Slam Vader” and “Crybaby Waldo”. McDonald’s wife confirmed the news of his passing via her Facebook page.
“Our sweet gentle giant is gone.
A wrestler until the end, he only gave in when his body did. That was Walt, or as he would say, “The Big Slam” ❤
His last days were peaceful, just as we prayed. In fact, he was the most peaceful I’ve seen him in years. His passing was so peaceful, I can’t describe it. God is faithful.
I am so incredibly grateful to have a part of him that lives on in my son.
He was so proud of Walter and loved my daughters as if they were his own blood. He was truly their “Papa” for the last 19 years.
He is now reunited with all of those he loves and I believe there is great rejoicing in heaven this day!
I love you all and I appreciate the great outpouring of love and support that I have received. Though I’ve been unable to respond to everyone, I’ve read every single message. I know Walt would be so happy to know how loved he was.
RIP My husband and friend. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Blue Meanie also put out a tweet about McDonald’s passing.
** Drake Maverick spoke with News18 to promote NXT on the USA Network. Maverick reflected on his time as General Manager of 205 Live and said he learned a lot from a former head writer of 205 Live who is now the head writer for Monday Night RAW.
“I really enjoyed being the GM. And I learned so much from a professional aspect with the team I was dealing with – the head writer of 205 at the time is now one of the head writers on Monday Night RAW – so things I learned from him, prepared me for things going forward. Like what the company expects – how they expect your delivery, what they want your delivery to be, what the cadence of a GM is. This was something I had not done before and I learned so much. I [was] put in a position where I’d have to watch every match and I’d be biting to get in there because I am not retired, but no one here in WWE had seen me in the ring; so a lot of time it was – from a backstage point – who is this guy? I know what I am doing, and I practice each week and it was just having that inkling that I wanted to get back into the ring, but that role was one of the most favorite roles that I have ever done, it really was.”
** The latest installment of Arn Anderson’s podcast focused in on the 2015 WWE Battleground pay-per-view. Arn spoke about former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz’s contributions to the company and the influence he had during his time in WWE as far as fellow writers and the powers that be trusting him.
“Well I’ll tell you the difference, to his credit and there were some things that would be written by every writer from him to Ed Koskey, you name it. Everybody’s been in that seat that I disagreed with at some point, and I had no problem voicing that because I would always tell ‘em, ‘I don’t really agree with this and here’s why.’ It was never, ‘Hey this sucks.’ ‘Okay, what would you do?’ ‘Well I don’t have the answer.’ I never had one of those scenarios. But Brian was a pretty solid writer. He had an idea for the show and in those days which was better for everyone intended, he would write a show, we would get to TV, we would read through the show and it wouldn’t be spending two hours picking it apart to come up with alternative ideas. We pretty much just used that as our template and we tried to, from a wrestling perspective, put those ideas into place and it made everyone have a much easier job instead of just changing and re-changing and what it evolved to and is now. Changing at the last minute, re-writing the show five times on Monday afternoon while you’re waiting to see what you got and before you can go to work and just all those headaches. When Brian was writing, we pretty much stuck with what he had written and went with it and it just went for a calmer, more stable environment.”
** Ric Flair revealed to the New York Post that his wife, Wendy Barlow contracted COVID-19 and Flair told the publication that he does not have the virus. Flair recently joined Booker T’s ‘Hall Of Fame’ podcast and provided an update on Wendy’s health and how she’s been battling the virus over the past three weeks.
“She’s doing great, much better. Not 100 percent but she’s doing much better. It’s been… over three weeks now but it’s just a nightmare. All of a sudden, it just came on her and then of course you backtrack and figure out where it came from and she was just real sick. I took her to the hospital twice and took [an IV] once just to make sure she was okay and you never know and of course they release her both times after keeping her for a couple hours but, you can’t be careful enough. Everything in the world that I live in lately is just double think, double check and cross-examine. It’s brutal.”
** Part three of William Colosimo’s interview with Minoru Suzuki is up on The MMA Community forum. The interview was translated by Taiki Yamamoto. Suzuki was asked about his match against Apollo Sugawara in 1991 that turned into a legit fight in the middle of the ring. Suzuki recalled being scolded by both Karl Gotch and Yoshiaki Fujiwara in their own respective ways.
“Gotch told me that he would never train with me again. He said he didn’t want to train with someone weak like me. ‘Why didn’t you put him down? I don’t want to have anything to do with someone so half-assed. Don’t ever show your face to me again.’ On the other hand, Fujiwara scolded me about for not being a professional and not being able to complete the match. These were from two different directions and I was in panic mode. I remember that clearly. Looking at it now, it was my responsibility to complete the mission in the meaning of what both Gotch and Fujiwara said. I wasn’t able to complete it in either meaning then. The conclusion is that I was weak, so oh well.”
** ESSENCE Magazine profiled Sasha Banks and they have an interview with her up on their YouTube channel. In the five-minute clip, Banks discussed her break from WWE in mid-2019 and discovering who she was and learning to love herself during that time off.
“This past year, I took a break from WWE actually because I had to take a step back and realize who I was. For so long, I was just consumed with Sasha Banks and living this crazy, fast lifestyle. You know, never having days off and just consuming myself with wrestling. That’s all I’ve known since I was ten. So I really had to go back and realize, ‘Who’s Mercedes behind all of this? Behind the blue hair, behind the makeup, behind The Legit Boss, The Standard, all the nicknames and when I took that break, I really figured out who Mercedes was again and I realized that I do love wrestling and that’s okay but it’s a beautiful thing to grow because I was a child when I got signed pretty much. I got signed when I was 20 and when the only thing you know is wrestling, you kinda have to take a step back and realize, ‘What’s next in the future?’ And I wanted to figure that out because I started to not like myself. I looked in the mirror and I was just like, ‘Wow, you really lost light in your eyes and you need to smile again’ and I’m smiling again and I feel like I’m still gonna go through my ups and downs but I have to learn how to love myself first and I think that’s what I’ve really figured out this past year is just to love who you are, to be okay if people don’t like you and talk about you because you gotta live your life for you. You know, be happy.”
** Bully Ray and David LaGreca welcomed Jon Moxley onto Busted Open Radio. Moxley discussed his history with deathmatches and catching up on a handful of those match types recently. He also spoke about his Unsanctioned Lights Out match against Kenny Omega from Full Gear in November of 2019. Moxley shared that there was a lot more that he and Omega had planned for the match that they did not get to display.
“I saw the drive of Kenny Omega and how he was when he was [given] a concept or you present him with a challenge, whether it’d be a 60-minute match or a mixed tag match or whatever. He wants to take that concept to the absolute limit and be the absolute best at every single style of wrestling. So he wanted to go balls out and I was like, ‘Really? We can do that?’ There was so much stuff that we had talked about, that we had ideas to do that was way crazier than what we even did. We scaled it back a little bit, and I realized like the night before. We were talking about it a little bit and I was like, ‘Oh man, we’re going all in. Like this is gonna be like… the most violent mess on American TV in some years.’ I even knew like the night before, I was thinking like, ‘Oh man, a lot of people are gonna be pissed about this.’ But I went, ‘Screw it. You’re all in or you’re all out.’ I was like, ‘This doesn’t offend me at all. I’m all into this. Let’s do it.’”
** New Zealand outlet ‘Stuff’ conducted an interview with Dakota Kai.
** Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated interviewed WARHORSE ahead of his TNT Championship match against Cody on Dynamite. WARHORSE credited his fans for getting him this opportunity and said none of this would be happening without them.
“None of this happens without my fans. People kept getting louder and louder, and they kept blowing up Cody about the match. Them getting riled up and fired up got me on television.”
** Doc Gallows chatted with David Penzer on his ‘Sitting Ringside with David Penzer’ podcast. Among the many topics that were discussed, one of the topics were the difference between the WWE and IMPACT Wrestling locker rooms. Gallows explained that there was nothing bad about WWE’s locker room and accredited that change of the guard to the likes of Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt and several other talents. His biggest gripe was with some of the powers that be who gave off the feeling that those beneath them in the company should be afraid of them power-wise.
“I’ll say this, I was not a fan of Gallows, Anderson and AJ Styles joining WWE in 2016. I’ve said that publicly because I thought we had a good thing going in Japan. But I got there and was pleasantly surprised because the locker room of old had changed, the old guard was gone. It wasn’t everybody was supposed to be walking around on eggshells. I give big credit to Roman Reigns for that. Some of my other buddies like Bray Wyatt and some of the other guys who’ve become big stars there. It was a fun locker room, it was a cool locker room. It wasn’t the locker room vibe necessarily in WWE. It was the vibe of some of the people who were in charge who kinda still liked that, ‘We’re gonna lead through fear and it’s an iron fist and everybody’s supposed to be scared of everything’ but, you have a different set of eyes on that when you’re 22 and you’re 34, 35. Like, I’m not scared of these motherf*ckers or what they think and I’m not gonna cower around everybody and all that stuff. But that being said, I love the vibe of the IMPACT locker room. I love the vibe of, ‘Hey, let’s help each other, let’s pull each other up. Hey, I don’t think that was necessarily the best thing to do there.’ Then give the opinion to the guy because at the end of the day, what do we wanna do? We got great buzz this weekend. We wanna keep great buzz, we wanna keep eyes on this show. So, I mean, I gave a piece of advice at one point. [Tommy] Dreamer gave me a piece of advice at one point. We can’t be close-minded. We’re all learning. The boys were cool, we’re fun. Nashville’s a great city. It’s not all the way open so I couldn’t have as much fun as I wanted which is probably a good thing. But yeah, I loved the vibe of that locker room, loved the vibe of the show, loved the vibe of the tapings. I mean let’s be honest, we put in a hell of a lot of work. We do three episodes a day.”
** William Regal announced that Johnny Gargano vs. Roderick Strong has been added to the 7/29 WWE NXT episode.
** Caleb Konley shared a photo of Kris Statlander just a short time before she went to have surgery on her ACL.
** WWE announced a storyline fine for Nia Jax after she struck multiple WWE officials on RAW as she was brawling with Shayna Baszler.
** NXT Tag Team Champions Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel were the most recent guests on the Swerve City Podcast.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMrIXPrlbUA[/embedyt]
** Ric Flair revealed that he’s starring in an animated series that is being created by ‘Shoguns Entertainment’.
** Ring of Honor Director of Operations, Gary Juster was the latest guest to appear on the ROHStrong podcast with Kevin Eck. During their chat, Juster spoke about his involvement with the ALL IN show back in September of 2018 and the role he played in bringing that event to fruition.
“Yeah, because of my experience in dealing with arenas and arena managers and making deals with arenas, I was able to make the deal with the Sears Centre, with the General Manager there. Do the ticketing, scale the house. Basically do all the front of house type-duties that have to be done to put an event in place. So yes I did that and as you know, it turned out to be a huge success.”
** A compilation of Daniel Bryan’s best matches in WWE have been put into a folder on the WWE Network.
** vladTV released his full interview with New Jack. Towards the end of the interview, New Jack was asked if he believes WWE is a racist company, judging by the way they portray black wrestlers. Here was his response:
“Yeah, because they always got the black guy doing stupid sh*t. They come out dancing and tap dancing and wearing dresses and eating cereal and all that silly ass sh*t…”
** AEW’s Sammy Guevara turned 27-years old today. Independent talent Christi Jaynes has a birthday today as well. July 28th is also the birthday of Nick Jackson. NXT’s Xia Li turned 32-years old on 7/28. WWE also celebrated the birthday of Noam Dar.
** Ricochet appeared on ‘The Lookout’ on RNC Radio to discuss all things anime and the most recent stretch of his WWE career.
** On Booker T’s post-Extreme Rules edition of his ‘Hall Of Fame’ podcast, Booker questioned how different Dolph Ziggler’s career would be if he spent the majority of his time in WWE trying to be like a Roman Reigns opposed to trying to “steal the show”. Here’s how Ziggler responded to those comments while speaking to the New York Post:
“Sadly that’s really ignorant to say, I think, because after 10 years in a row of not being world champion, I said I have to justify me working here and tearing up every match I’m in and stealing that show every night. So I said, I made a little pivot to go, ‘I’m out there to steal the show and set the bar’ and ‘follow that idiot’ and that’s what I got to live on because it was the only thing that really kept me going. Because you don’t get to be a little bit more selfish in the ring and then you get to be Roman Reigns. That’s not how this business works. You’re picked. No matter what you do, no matter how you work, no matter how awesome you are or how bad you are, you get picked and then you hope for the best and you hope if that doesn’t work out you’re the next one picked.
So that’s pretty ignorant I think of him to say, for Booker T, because being good at wrestling and choosing to be a little bit more greedy in a match doesn’t put you in the Roman Reigns position. Not only that, but when your boss tells you, you are not in that position, you need to be a smaller guy who scraps and steals and crushes and rakes eyes and steal roll-ups here and there because you are not even in that build. Because if I were to be the guy, I’m clearly a smaller guy, it would be based on sneaking wins, Ric Flair-esqe in the 80s going long distances. So we’re not even similar characters.
So being told, say you’re in a match with Drew McIntyre, he’s a big badass guy who’s gonna beat you up. But if you win, you’re gonna sneak an eye rake and roll him up and set the world on fire. So that’s just not knowing how the business works saying that-that way. It’s unfortunate because for about 10-12 years of the last 15, I’ve tried to be the guy because I’m someone who can talk, you can go on to a school and talk, can go talk to stockholders, can get in the ring, can be outside the ring, can do movies, can do TV. And you go, I’ve done everything in my power. So if you have a five minute match on Raw and get one more move in, that does not change your position in the hierarchy of wrestling.”
** Major League Wrestling announced a content, distribution and sales partnership with WAVE.tv.
** WWE has a job listing up for an Executive Director in their Saudi Arabia office.
** Taylor Wilde appeared on the Sunday Night’s Main Event podcast and during the interview, Taylor was asked for her thoughts about the #SpeakingOut movement on social media and here’s what she had to say about what transpired a little over a month ago:
“In any industry, there has been some repression to some extent, male versus female and especially in fields where it’s historically male or predominantly male-based, there’s gonna be some sort of imbalance in justices. I think it’s 2020, I think women have proven themselves at this point. I hope that we’re moving forward, that there are changes. I can’t say I experienced anything that these women have been speaking of in the wrestling industry, but sure, I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it and I don’t think anyone should suffer alone and if this is a healing process, if this is a learning curve for those up and comers then go girl. I support my sisters. Speak up, say what you need to say. No one should have to go through these things alone but, me personally, I haven’t experienced any of it.”
** Scott Fishman of TV Insider chatted with the new IMPACT World Champion Eddie Edwards. Edwards opened up about how much it means to him/has meant to him to have his wife, Alisha Edwards on the road with him through the good and the bad.
“[At] first, you never know how it’s going to go when you start working with your wife or husband. We spend time at home together and now at work we’re going to be with each other 24/7. For us, it was a pleasant surprise and great opportunity to travel together. I’m used to these 4 a.m. trips to the airport, long flights by myself. So it’s awesome to have her by my side and also have someone to go through the difficult stuff between injuries. Now at home, it’s nice to have her by my side and also have her there for the victories. I couldn’t do all this without her because I wouldn’t be as comfortable and happy as I am in life. Having her by my side is a very special blessing. Working with her in storylines and angles is a whole different level. We really never thought we’d be able to do that. We tried to make the most of it and enjoy it in the moment because who knows how long all of it will last.
The great thing about Impact is the back and forth between creative and talent. For us, it was the same way. We would come up with ideas together. We’d bounce these ideas [off each other] and go to creative with [the results]. We’re a team, so to be able to do that together and [achieve the] success [we’ve had] is a great thing.”
** Here’s the latest upload to Lacey Evans’ YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY-5ROR348E[/embedyt]
** Part two of El Desperado and DOUKI’s joint-interview with NJPW1972.com is up on the site.
** The Miz was a guest on the 411 Wrestling Interviews Podcast and stated that he and John Morrison are working a new song.
** Josiah Williams has a video up about how he collaborated with Shawn Spears to create Spears’ AEW theme song.
** Netflix’s G.L.O.W. received three EMMY nominations. Betty Gilpin, who plays Liberty Bell was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. G.L.O.W. was also nominated for Outstanding Production design for a narrative program (half-hour) for the episode “Up, Up, Up” and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama (Half-Hour) for the episode “The Libertines.”
** Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture spoke with Vickie Guerrero for an exclusive interview. When asked what would she like to see incorporated into AEW’s women’s division, Vickie stated that she would like to see Women’s Tag Team Titles and talents being sponsored by clothing lines.
“I’d like them to have a bigger belt. I think that would be so neat to have, and also different titles like Women’s Tag Team Championship titles, I think that would be great. I wanna see more attention to them, more opportunities. I think this is a great start. AEW is only a year old, they’re in a good place right now, what they’ve done so far has attracted me and I am a fan first and so to be part of this team and any ideas I can have or anything I can add to it– I am honored, I really am and grateful.
And I would love to see a women’s calendar come out, anything that is good for the women — I would like for them {the women} to be sponsored by a clothing line…They have AEW Heels already that Brandi Rhodes started, which is amazing. I can’t wait to get on the next call with them, so there’s a lot of things that are focused on just for the women and I think that’s important because the women’s evolution has been brought in so many directions that AEW is going to be really close to picking up their own style and their own outlets to expose the women.”
** Peyton Royce uploaded a new video to her YouTube channel featuring Billie Kay.
** IMPACT World Champion Eddie Edwards chatted with Sportskeeda’s Gary Cassidy.
** To celebrate Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s birthday, Motorhead collaborated with him and WWE on a new product line.
** WWE Champion Drew McIntyre continued to make the media rounds and spoke with Malaysia outlet ‘Astro Arena’.
** Tama Tonga hosted a Q&A session for the latest installment of the Tama’s Island podcast.
** ‘It Lives, It Breathes’ & John Kiernan released Brian Myers’ new wrestling theme:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvmlYHpY2Hg[/embedyt]
** A 14-acre waterfront development site is being marketed in Stamford, Connecticut near WWE headquarters.
** The Miz appeared on Good Day Sacramento to promote the USA Network series ‘Cannonball’.
** Below is a video of Chelsea Green reading negative tweets about herself:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJU8SzbVzJA[/embedyt]
** Stonecutter Media has multiple CZW specials premiering on PPV and video-on-demand outlets on August 1st and here’s the full press release regarding that information:
AS SUMMER HEATS UP, SO TOO DOES THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES!
The Battle of the Sexes has been fought for eons, and CZW has their own version! Witness the all-out mayhem as Juicy Product takes on Chicks Using Nasty Tactics in August’s CZW Girlz: Battle of the Sexes! Also, in the hottest month of the year, be sure to check out the blockbuster matches in CZW: Extreme Ultra Violence. Here’s the details on the CZW shows available on cable and satellite providers across the land beginning in August:
CZW: Extreme Ultra Violence – Featuring four star-studded matches! Jimmy Lloyd vs. John Wayne Murdoch; Big F****in’ Joe vs. Casanova Valentine; The Rep vs. BLK Out; The Office vs. Mance Warner & Mitch Vallen!
CZW Girlz: Battle of the Sexes – Featuring three awesome battles! Kasey Catal vs. Jimmy Lloyd; The Juicy Product vs. Chicks Using Nasty Tactics; Dan O’Hare/Maria Manic/Jimmy Lloyd/Mitch Vallen vs. The Office!
Every month, CZW brings their greatest, bloodiest, ultraviolent matches to your cable or satellite provider, and you can order the shows on demand or on pay-per-view. Check your on demand guide for all the shows available. Or go online to your cable or satellite provider’s website to order on pay-per-view. CZW – every month on demand and on pay-per-view – the wrestling you want right at home.
CZW – Like Nothing Else!
** Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston played each other in TEKKEN 7.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx5XtLWzFxs[/embedyt]
** Ohio Valley Wrestling has a new episode of their weekly series up on their YouTube channel.
** Footage from Brie Bella’s maternity shoot is up on The Bella Twins’ YouTube channel.
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.
