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.
** A GoFundMe has been set up for the family of John “Xavier” Bedoya to help them assist with funeral costs and to help assist with his son’s future education.
** Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald interviewed former WWE talent Primo Colon. Primo was released from WWE back in April as a part of the company’s mass cuts and furloughs. Primo spoke about his departure from the company and said he understands it was a business decision and holds no ill will towards WWE.
“When you’re not used on TV, I mean who gets let go, released or furloughed, whatever you wanna call it, it’s very rare that you don’t expect it so, I mean if I was a businessman and I’m not using so-and-so, I don’t blame them. I have no ill will towards them. As a business standpoint, that was the right decision to do.”
While on the topic of WWE, Primo gave his thoughts about the NXT brand and talents coming from NXT to RAW and/or SmackDown. Primo feels that the surprise factor is not there when those NXT to RAW/SmackDown transitions happen because the fans are already privy to who said individual is and what they can do in the ring.
“The only drawback I have about it is when somebody debuts to the big leagues, being SmackDown or RAW, people already know them, so there’s no Ahhs, there’s no surprise, there’s no, ‘Who’s this?’ There’s no intrigue. Like okay, I wanna know who he is or who she is, what they’re about and what they’re capable of, because they’ve already seen it in NXT. So I think WWE kinda loses their surprise factor if you will.”
** An article was published on Major League Wrestling’s website which read that the SalivaDirect COVID-19 test will be available for MLW to use as they plan to resume producing shows. The test was developed by Yale’s School of Public Health.
“This new development in diagnostic testing will provide us with lab results within a few hours,” said MLW’s chief medical physician Dr. Nelson Sweglar. “This particular test is going to help contain the spread and allow for rapid tracing and isolation in a more realistic manner.”
Court Bauer added that this is something that they’ve been expecting for months.
** Wrestling Inc. learned that former WWE talent Dan Matha was arrested on 8/17. Matha was charged with failing to appear in court. As of this writing, it’s not known what he was originally scheduled to appear in court for. The site has his mugshot posted in the article.
** I have an interview up on my YouTube channel with former WWE Head of Security (1997-2011), James Tillis.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO5CVn8zpvo[/embedyt]
** El Phantasmo joined Tama Tonga on his ‘Tama’s Island’ podcast. Phantasmo talked about being in Canada over the past five or six months since the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States. Phantasmo shared that his U.S. Visa expired and it has yet to be renewed.
“I would rather live in Cali or Florida, personally. I love the heat, that’s my kind of thing. But then, you know, my U.S. Visa ran up and we haven’t been renewed so then, that’s a big logistical nightmare. So I don’t know. I really don’t know man. I have the power to move anywhere.”
As they were reflecting on their memories of wrestling in Japan, Tama Tonga recalled a time when he was fined by New Japan for putting his hands on a fan in attendance. Here was Tama’s recollection of that sequence of events:
“I like to push the boundaries. I saw a fan, he was like mouthing off in Japan and it’s a very… you know how Japanese fans are. They stay quite during the matches and they clap, and when somebody’s being rude, one guy’s yelling, you can hear him all around the arena. It’s just one guy and he’s very — he stands out like a sore thumb so I jumped the barrier one night and I went over and I grabbed him by the neck, but I didn’t… I was playing. See what happened was — I’m gonna explain. What had happened was the guy next to him was a sponsor, one of my sponsors so I just figured, ‘Oh this guy’s with us. He’s one of our dudes,’ and so I had planned it. I was coming in for a run-in later on after my match so when I did the run-in, I jumped over the fence and I ran over to the guy and he’s been mouthing off at everybody, just being real rude. I grabbed him by the neck. Now of course I didn’t choke him or nothing, and in Japanese I said, ‘Shut the f*ck up,’ and my sponsor next to him was just dying. He was laughing so hard and everybody around was laughing. Now of course, I got some major heat. Man I got reprimanded, I got taken into the office, I had to talk to President [Harold] Meij. I had to explain to him, I was like, ‘Yo, President, we’re heels. We gotta — sometimes you gotta make this sh*t believable. Make people believe that,’ you know.
So, long story short, I got fined and that was the end of that and I won’t be jumping over no barricades to choke somebody — fake choke somebody.”
In the early portions of the interview, El Phantasmo talked about his career in editing and being well-versed in various types of software. He worked for EA Sports and edited cartoons that were going up on the Netflix service. Phantasmo stated that he was making more money than some of the talents in NXT.
“So I was so excited to do that, to go do Ring of Honor dark shows with them [Established Canadian wrestlers] and stuff while they were all killing it. So I gotta pretty bummed out when I couldn’t get across the border. It was like a gray area where it was like I wasn’t doing anything illegal but I couldn’t prove to them that I was coming back to Canada. So that kinda bummed me out with wrestling and then I ended up getting a job editing cartoons, and I did that for like seven years. Like making cartoons for Netflix and we worked on a couple Emmy-award winning shows which was cool, and my whole big thing was I was making more money than guys in NXT or anything like that. So it was really hard at that point to leave that to go literally live on someone’s couch in St. Louis or something, or however you wanna make it.”
** Federal authorities are trying to seize the home of former two-time WWE Tag Team Champion Ted DiBiase Jr., according to court documents filed in June and obtained by the Clarion Ledger. In 2019, a state audit revealed that the DiBiase family received millions of dollars from Mississippi’s Welfare agency over the years. The Mississippi Department of Human Services were denying more than 98 percent of their individual applicants at the time.
Ted Jr.’s brother Brett worked for the Department of Human Services for a short period of time and was indicted for stealing up to $48,000 in welfare money. Brett DiBiase has not pleaded guilty to the charges. Scott Gilbert, Ted DiBiase Jr.’s attorney told the Clarion Ledger that Ted and his wife were one week away from finalizing the sale of their French colonial house before the paperwork was delivered to them. Clarion Ledger also discovered that Mississippi’s Department of Human Services gave Ted DiBiase Sr.’s church more than $2 million in welfare money.
** Seth Rollins did an interview with PEOPLE.com about he and Becky Lynch expecting their first child. Rollins was asked for his thoughts if his child were to gain interest in becoming a pro wrestler and here was Rollins’ response:
“Oh gosh, if they want to do that, that’s their business. I’ll support them in whatever endeavor they choose. At the end of the day, if they’re happy, I’m happy.
[The industry] has been so enriching in my life and has given me people that are my best friends, and it’s given me my wife. The value that it has added to my life has been something that I can’t even quantify. I couldn’t put it into words for you.”
Rollins also talked about the praise he recently received from John Cena. Rollins returned the favor and spoke highly of Cena.
“John is someone that I respect a lot as a performer, but also as a human being, so for my name to be at the forefront of his mind when asked about that, as someone who is worthwhile, it means a lot coming from him. I just have a lot of respect for him, for what he’s done for the industry, but also, he’s a great dude. To be thought highly of by him is cool, I do appreciate that a lot.”
** Xavier Woods, Big E and Kofi Kingston welcomed Naomi onto The New Day: Feel The Power podcast. During their conversation, Naomi reflected on the period of her career in WWE with Team B.A.D. (w/ Sasha Banks & Tamina). Naomi heaped praise onto Sasha Banks and talked about how she and Tamina knew that Sasha Banks was a star early on in their partnership.
“I just think at that time, we were just all in a point in our careers with Sasha and Tamina where we were just wanting more, wanting to grow and get better and there’s so much changing happening in the division and just knowing what such a superstar Sasha was and what she was going to be, without a doubt. It was just always a pleasure to work with her, to have insight from her. To me, Sasha is the best we have in my opinion. Just me and Tamina being in the game for a while, it was just a breath of fresh air to be working together and just struggling and trying to fight for things and I just think something we always had was respect with each other and we were just super excited to be working with each other. It was just really, really fun times and I got to work Sasha in NXT way before she became The Boss and really kicked off and I just always thought she was an amazing person and really admired her ability and her love and passion for wrestling so it was just exciting for us when she came to the main roster and we were able to hang together, ride together, vibe together. It was just always love and positivity and I just wanted [us] to uplift and help each other get through the main roster struggles and we just had fun man. We just made the best of everything and we just had fun and those videos [Team B.A.D. promos], at one point was really just all we had to look forward to doing.”
Naomi also reflected on her return at the 2020 Royal Rumble pay-per-view. She spoke about the significance of her wearing her natural hair out on that platform. She mentioned how at the beginning of her time in WWE, she was told not to wear her natural hair.
“Because I am black and I look the way I look and I talk the way I talk, there are people who connect with me differently and who identify with me because of those things so that’s something that I made sure I’m advocating for and I’m proud of and I remember in the beginning, I came in, I wanted to wear my natural hair and I was told, ‘We want you to look this way’ and I was shown one of my old [Orlando] Magic pictures when I had long, straight hair and that’s kinda like the look they were wanting me to go with and wanting me to have and I was just like, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ and I just knew that I can’t do it now, but to get in the door and to get where I need to go, I’m gonna look the part, be the part. Once I make it, I’m gonna be me and I finally feel like I got to that point where I was just like, ‘You know what? I don’t care. Like or don’t like it, I’m rocking my hair like this. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what y’all gonna do, but it’s going down in this [Royal] Rumble.’”
** Recent Ring of Honor signee Sledge was a guest on the Sports Guys Talking Wrestling show. He detailed how his signing with Ring of Honor came to be and said that he officially signed with the company back in February.
“About a week later, I got a text asking me if I was gonna be in New York for WrestleCon and for WrestleMania weekend and if I want to come to the G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden. I said, ‘Oh hell yeah. I’m there.’ At that time when I got there, I got pulled into the office and they offered me a tryout, I did the tryout in May — it was April? May? And then they offered me a [ROH] dojo spot and then I moved officially from California to Baltimore in September, busting my butt in the dojo, and then they offered me a contract in February. I just signed my deal at the end of February, with them.”
** The following note is from Fightful’s ‘Fightful Wrestling Weekly’ column concerning Matt Hardy’s reaction to Sammy Guevara after Guevara threw a chair at his head which opened a wound on Hardy’s forehead:
“We’re told the scene was ‘chaotic’ two weeks ago following the errant chair throw from Sammy Guevara. Nobody in AEW that we spoke to thought that the spot was intentional, but many thought that it was reckless. We heard that a usually mild-tempered Matt Hardy was heated after the incident and felt lucky that it wasn’t worse than it ended up being. There was heat on Guevara afterwards, even though he apologized, as the show was taped and the spot could have been done a number of different ways.”
** Dragon Gate announced their Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival show for November 15th.
** Former 11-time ROH World Tag Team Champions The Briscoes were the most recent guests on the ROHStrong podcast. Jay Briscoe was asked who he believes is the greatest tag team of all-time but he could not pick himself and his brother. Jay stated that he thinks The Young Bucks are at the top of that list.
“Man, I’m gonna be honest with you… the old me — I’m a new man come this podcast, but the old me would say The Road Warriors. But man I gotta say, them Jackson boys [The Young Bucks] is something else. I mean I’m just thinking because we wrestled them a hundred times and I loved every second of doing it with them. Probably a million times.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Jay Briscoe admitted that early in is career, he was not a fan of women’s wrestling but over the years, he has come to enjoy what the athletes can do more than the men at times.
“Man, I gotta be honest, years ago, I’m trying to remember how long ago it was because I used to be — and this ain’t nothing to be proud of but I used to not enjoy watching women wrestle, and that was just a fault of mine that thankfully I’ve outgrown and now, I almost like watching the women better than the men. So, and I think it’s kinda having the daughters and watching them grow up and watching them — they do just what the men do. They can’t help that the girls… and watching them grow up, now to the point to if they wanna do it, women’s wrestling, again, I’m not proud to say this but I used to disagree with it but now I really enjoy it and if they wanna do it, more power to ‘em.”
** According to PWInsider, there have been conversations internally within WWE since January to revive Talking Smack. It’s noted in the report that the revival may happen as early as this month.
** Seth Rollins was a guest on Metal Injection’s ‘Squared Circle Pit’ podcast.
** Orlando Sentinel has a story up about WWE’s ThunderDome announcement.
** Live English commentary is returning for NJPW’s ‘Summer Struggle’ event on August 29th at Jingu Stadium. Kevin Kelly and Chris Charlton will be on the call and the show is being headlined by Tetsuya Naito challenging EVIL for the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championships.
** Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture chatted with Mickie James following her in-ring return on Monday Night RAW. Mickie admitted that she was a bit disappointed with how her return unfolded.
“It feels good to be back, I feel better than ever, from a personal standpoint I feel great, I am excited to be back. I am excited about new opportunities, new matches. As far as my return I am a little bit disappointed, but you can’t win them all. You can’t knock it out of the park every time…The fan reaction has been amazing. I love them. I am so grateful, so grateful that my fans have always been loud and they’ve always been proud. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I let them do my work for me.”
Now that she is back, Mickie does want to have a legit singles program. She listed off names such as Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair as those who she’d like to work with in the future.
“I haven’t had the chance to have a true singles program, I think with the exception of Alexa [Bliss], everything has been tag team matches, everything has been an alliance or something. The story hasn’t really been about me for the most part except for my storyline with Alexa. So, I can’t wait to work with all of the girls, I wanna work with Bayley, I wanna work with Sasha, I wanna work with Becky Lynch when she comes back, I wanna work with Charlotte when she comes back. This is actually my first time really working with Nattie, like in a program kind of thing so I am excited about what we can do together. I mean I love Nattie, I’ve always thought Nattie is one of the best wrestlers we have.”
** Here’s the full lineup for this coming Friday’s episode of NJPW STRONG on NJPW World:
– Adrian Quest & Rocky Romero vs. Danny Limelight & The DKC
– Jay White & Chase Owens vs. Flip Gordon & Brody King
– New Japan Cup USA Finals: KENTA vs. David Finlay
** To commemorate the life of former ROH World Champion Xavier (John Bedoya), Northeast Wrestling uploaded his match with Jay Lethal from their ‘Wrestlefest’ show in 2007. Lethal and Xavier were scheduled to go one-on-one at Ring of Honor’s Past vs. Present show in March before the COVID-19 pandemic.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw4xu0B570A[/embedyt]
** WWE has filed trademarks for the following names: Malcolm Bivens, Mercedes Martinez, Primate Jay Melrose, Raquel Gonzales and Retribution.
** WrestleZone has an interview up with IMPACT Wrestling ring announcer David Penzer. Penzer shared the story of IMPACT Co-Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore CC’ing him in an email asking the staff for feedback on a recent set of tapings. D’Amore genuinely wanted feedback and jokingly took issue with Penzer for not responding to the email.
“One of the other cool things about IMPACT is, a lot of other promotions don’t want feedback. I’ll tell you a funny story—the first set of tapings that I worked, after creative is done they send out the formats out to the producers and the production people. Scott included me on that and he put up a [message] that said, ‘If you have any input on the shows please get it to us by tomorrow at noon.’ The next day at 12:30, I get a call from Scott D’Amore and he’s pissed off, he’s like, ‘What do you think, you’re too good to give feedback?’ [laughs] I said, ‘You were talking to me?!? I thought you were just being polite by CC’ing me on it, I didn’t think you wanted my feedback!’
He said we want everyone’s feedback, there’s no wrong questions or answers or input. There’s been a few things that I’ve brought up that people have agreed with, I’m just feeling my way around there and I don’t want to just walk in there and act like I know everything because I certainly don’t. Everybody has a say in IMPACT Wrestling. At the end of the day, we know the decision-makers make the decision and that’s why they’re there but it’s cool to be able to have your say and for people to listen to it without blowing it off.”
** NXT U.K.’s A-Kid was interviewed by Ringsiders Wrestling. One of the key takeaways that A-Kid has picked up from his time in WWE and being at the U.K. Performance Center is properly learning how to wrestle.
“I feel like that’s one of the best things about my time here in NXT quite honestly. Like obviously, when I signed, I was able to quit my job as a teacher and be a full-time pro wrestler which was a very good thing for me, but just being able to properly learn how to wrestle, that’s my biggest takeaway from this. It’s just the best. I never had that chance before and there’s not a better way to learn than being there in those four walls.”
** Here’s a clip from WWE’s ‘Timeline’ show on the WWE Network featuring Bret Hart discussing his on-screen feud with his later brother, Owen Hart.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPlkWWql3Dw[/embedyt]
** Kenny King and Caprice Coleman did an interview with Darren Paltrowitz.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N39FSq7HKg8[/embedyt]
** Bianca Belair hosted two Q&A sessions on her YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHKxwdPQGqA[/embedyt]
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH2wcA-srF8[/embedyt]
** Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture interviewed TJP. During their conversation, TJP shared his thoughts on how different IMPACT Wrestling is opposed to how it was when he was there from 2004-2013.
“When I left WWE last year, I had a lot of opportunities to go to a lot of different places. I really wanted to go back to Japan and Mexico, that was my primary goal when I was getting out. And IMPACT Wrestling, through Scott D’Amore reached out to me and a lot of the boxes were checked off. I mean they knew exactly what they wanted to do with the guys that they were reaching out to. I like that, you’re not flying blind and you know there’s intent involved and there’s mutual investment that they want to make with everybody they’re working with and their roster is incredible. I think that’s something that’s been understated until probably only recently. People are starting to realize how good this roster is. From top to bottom it’s so balanced and I’ve been in IMPACT Wrestling, TNA Wrestling before, from year one until now, every generation of it, and I’ve never been in this locker room when it was as balanced as this. People that open the show one night, can close it the next… there’s a lot of freedom there, people don’t feel creatively stifled. I don’t think anybody feels any sort of glass ceiling there, it brings an entire different energy that you can see through the camera…”
** Both Colby Corino and Brandi Lauren were featured on Monday Night RAW on 8/17 as a part of RAW Underground.
** Recently uploaded to the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel is a video of Tyler Breeze and Xavier Woods playing Rock, Paper, Scissors.
** Sports Illustrated spoke with UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic. When asked about the ‘Greatest Heavyweight of all-time’ conversation, Stipe admitted that it’s awkward to say but it’s something that he believes he’s at the top of the category in.
“It’s awkward to say, but I believe it,” said Miocic when asked if he is the greatest heavyweight of all-time. “I’ve done a lot in the division, defended the belt more times than anyone else. A lot of people are saying it, so I’ll go with it.”
** Mickie James took to social media to express her thoughts after her match on RAW against Natalya. Mickie was trending on social media because a great portion of her return match was focused on Seth Rollins and Samoa Joe’s confrontation.
** Trish Adora guest appeared on The PVDcast.
** Tampa Bay Times has a story up that’s partially about Titus O’Neil helping out his community in the Tampa area.
** Pro Wrestling Illustrated hosted a round-table discussion about intergender wrestling with Gail Kim, Ethan Page, Tasha Steelz, Trish Adora, Jamie Senegal and Heather Monroe.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAIMXrD7CIk[/embedyt]
** Tegan Nox joined Xavier Woods on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel for Superstar Savepoint.
** Kurt Angle is hosting FanRoom’s virtual interactive meet-up session on 8/22.
** August 18th is the birthday of Ring of Honor’s Brian Johnson.
** Kari Williams of SLAM Wrestling chatted with SMASH Wrestling commentator Scott Hunter. Scott shared the advice that Jim Ross gave him when he approached Ross for some insight about becoming a commentator. Ross told Hunter not to do it because of the time he’d spend away from family and how the wrestling business weeds people out quickly.
“[He said], ‘Don’t do it.’ He talked about all the time you’d be on the road, away from family, and I think part of it was it takes a special breed of person to be in this industry. It weeds a lot of people out pretty quickly.”
** David Finlay spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated ahead of the New Japan Cup USA tournament finals.
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.
