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.
** On the latest installment of The Bellas Podcast, Nikki and Brie Bella dove into their time with WWE. Nikki spoke about the pay difference between men and women in the company during the Divas era and how she often went back and forth on wanting to speaking up more.
“When we were active, I definitely felt — I remember at times, I would know some of the guys that were making more than us but I knew we were bringing in more and that was really difficult and there was some of the women that were starting to become outspoken about it and it was hard because I really wanted to be [outspoken] and then in the back of my mind I kept hearing, ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ but [on] the other hand it’s like, ‘I’m working so hard, breaking my neck for this business and I’m more over than this guy and he’s getting paid more just because he’s a male’ and it was hard and there was so much more I wanted to do and then I broke my neck and it was like right when I felt like I was able to get that voice about pay, but I definitely remember that period of time that it was super frustrating, but we were raised that you have to be so grateful for everything and so that would always be my inner struggle.”
When it comes to how WWE handled the Divas era, Nikki Bella feels that there were multiple missed opportunities for WWE to capitalize off the women’s division. Nikki feels that had they done so, to this day they still could have a good portion of that fan base that were interested in the Divas division.
“And I think too why a lot of us didn’t speak up was we were lucky enough where the numbers weren’t a huge difference, because there were some of the top guys that were making a lot and I even understood that. I’m like, ‘Okay, they are the headliners’ and in our industry, they were still bringing in more people than us. It was more the mid-card guys, but I guess it wasn’t such a big difference. I felt like the one thing they lacked especially when we were [in] our prime with Divas, they didn’t capitalize on the women. They were so focused on the men that they lost a whole audience that they could still have today because they just didn’t believe in our mission or what we were doing or the changes we were making. I think we could’ve made an even bigger title wave, if the company was behind us even more. They were behind us but they could’ve capitalized in so many different ways and I think politics always come into play. I think in every industry, you have your favorites, you have who they wanna push, who they don’t but at times I’m like, ‘What they really could’ve done with this big group of women would’ve been so amazing worldwide.’ We did a lot but oh my gosh, we would always talk about that. I’m like, ‘They could’ve capitalized and used us even more,’ and they didn’t. They missed out a lot.”
The Bella Twins also commented on the backlash they received following the announcement of their Hall Of Fame induction. Both Nikki and Brie were amused by most of the comments they received but didn’t understand why they were getting so much hate from mainly male wrestling fans.
Nikki: “And it’s like the online ones and that’s why I’d always tell her [Brie], that’s like ten percent of the fan base. We call them smart marks in our industry and because of everything we would start to build and then also we were the mean girls. That was our characters so we were the bad, like legit heels, bad girls and they would believe everything that was being said in promos and don’t get me wrong, some of the girls that would get on the mic because of how they were with Brie and I, they would say stuff like — they’d just attack us in ways and fans would believe it and it’s crazy still to this day the hate we will get from…
Brie: “We got inducted into the Hall Of Fame this year for WWE. To have Vince McMahon call you and give you all these reasons why he wants to induct you, surreal. But we were trending two days straight because fans were disgusted.”
** Mickie James further spoke about her recent return to WWE on the latest episode of GAW TV with Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val. Mickie was candid about she and Natalya’s match being overshadowed by the Samoa Joe/Seth Rollins storyline and how she believes she may be viewed by the company in terms of value.
“Even when I was thinking about the segment as a whole, prior to, my only reaction as a whole when I saw it on paper was, ‘Wow.’ Like wow, because this, mind you, I’m like week two because I was already supposed to — there’s a whole other part to this that’s like, it’s whatever so I was so excited to come back and then I got really deflated the first time in that sense and then excited again going like, ‘Okay, now they’ve re-thought about it. They’ve recognized that I do have some validity in the business as far as whatever I feel I had done’ and to have that and then to be represented with I’m not gonna get an entrance and Nattie’s not gonna get an entrance. We pushed our angle hard I felt on social media and the avenues we had available to us to do that because it was kind of up to us to do it and I thought, ‘Well, you know what?’ This is real and I love and respect Nattie and I think this whole thing with them is so fun and exciting and innovative and a way to — because when you look at the business today, it’s so involved with social media and all these aspects. It’s not something that I’m super familiar with, so even to have the internet to outpour for me with something I’m not super savvy [with] in the whole world, it’s awesome. It makes you feel so good that what you’ve done in the business but it’s not like you just sit back because then when I looked at it, I go like, I already said, ‘This is not gonna get the reaction that you guys want. This is going to get heat but heat for all the wrong reasons and I feel in my heart that the response from this is not going to be what you guys are intending it to be. It’s going to be on the amount of disrespect for women as whole’ and I feel like this is not even a conversation that I feel I would need to have if I had a penis, and that’s the real, because I feel like there’s a certain amount of — regardless of whoever. Whether you like this person professionally or personally or whatever, you can’t really disregard what all they’ve done in the business to feed your own narrative and it doesn’t make sense and I just can’t… a piece of me goes, ‘Oh well, is that what they really feel about me? Or maybe I’m just looking at it from an ego standpoint instead of a business standpoint?’”
** WrestleTalk spoke with Ric Flair and Flair was asked if he thinks he’ll be appearing on WWE programming again in the near future. Flair believes he’d be on TV more if it were not for his pre-existing health conditions. He also made mention of a joke that his wife Wendy Barlow says which is that WWE doesn’t want Flair to pass away on their watch.
“Well, here’s the thing with me is that the WWE… it’s a dilemma with me. I think that I would be on TV more if it wasn’t for pre-existing health issues, and so it’s with Ric Flair… ‘Yeah, we’d love to have Ric here and we recognize what Ric can or can’t do,’ but it’s kinda like… my wife says it best. They don’t want me to die on their watch and with all the stuff that’s gone on in the last three years, it’s just — I take it as love, you know what I mean? I wish they’d fly me down just to entertain the guys once in a while but, I think they look at me as more of distraction,” Flair laughed.
During the interview, Flair heaped praise onto the trio of Zelina Vega, Andrade and Angel Garza. He stated that Zelina is the best manager WWE has had in a while.
“Of course I think the world of Manny, or Andrade, and Garza I think is a great kid and I think Zelina right now is the best manager that we’ve had in a while. I mean she’s excellent, she looks the part, she’s extremely athletic. I like it when she gets in the ring a little bit and she’s very strong on the microphone so…”
** Tim Storm joined the ‘Arm Drag Takedown’ podcast and discussed the possibility of retirement. At the age of 56, Tim is aware that he can’t go at it forever but doesn’t have a concrete date or plan to step away from the in-ring portion of the wrestling business.
“It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. Again, I’m just being honest with you. I’m 56 now. I think I started thinking about this at 40. At 40 I started saying, ‘I don’t know how much time I have left’ and it’s been 16 years, but… I don’t wanna get all depressed or depressing here but with this epidemic with the COVID and part of me feels like it has stolen the last — let’s say starting in January — I’m not laying this out as a fact but let’s say starting in January that I had a year left, well now we’re in August, and I’m not telling you that at the end of the year I’m done, but, at some point — I have people saying, ‘Oh, you could do this another year or two.’ I don’t know if I can or not. I don’t know if my body can. Mentally, I am nowhere near ready to be done but at some point physically, it takes a toll on your body and you gotta take that and I gotta take that in consideration. I don’t have a date, I don’t have a time, I don’t know. I don’t wanna be that guy that sticks around too long. I think with NWA, and again, we don’t know at this point where we’re going or when we’ll be back but I was going to move into some different roles and maybe even take on maybe wrestling once or twice, three times a year on big shows on pay-per-view, a pay-per-view model. We don’t know. I guess there’s always a possibility we may not make it back. I hope we do. I don’t think we’re done, but I don’t know what that will look like when that comes back so, I don’t have a plan. I wish I could — I don’t want to give you a concrete answer because I don’t wanna say I’m done yet.”
** Following his return to WWE on the 8/27 edition of NXT as a member of the commentary team, Wade Barrett’s profile has been added to the NXT roster page.
** ‘Metro’ spoke with MVP. MVP spoke about passing on knowledge of the wrestling business to the next crop of talents that was given to him. He was asked if he ever reflects on the series of matches he had with Chris Benoit for the United States Title and MVP said he thinks about it quite often.
“All the time, all the time. I draw from that experience, from those lessons when dealing with Apollo [Crews], Ricochet, Cedric Alexander and these younger guys I’m working with. And even to say, due to the circumstances surrounding it there’s just a huge emotional impact that it’s left on me.
Definitely I draw from those experiences and my first US Title feud when dealing with Apollo and our feud. I’m hoping that somehow I’m able to give to him what was given to me by Benoit, and elevate him in a similar fashion.”
** Jeff Hardy spoke with Daily Star about WWE incorporating his past addiction issues into his storyline with Sheamus. Hardy did not have an issue with it and doesn’t pay attention to any of the comments from those who felt like WWE was mistreating him.
“The stuff with Sheamus that’s happened most recently, I knew there was a great outcome in it. I knew that bar fight was going to be cinematic and good. All the stuff building up to that match, I just knew the outcome was going to be fantastic. And it’s good to face challenges like that because there’s so much negativity in the world. I’m not a social media guy at all, I don’t read comments or the negativity of people who thought it was wrong or that [WWE] were treating me [badly], I don’t read any of that. I’m just confident in myself to get through it, and when I get a feeling that something’s going to be good, I just run with it.
I’m always interested as everybody is different in so far as how the viewer feels watching at home, especially hardcore fans of mine. Even thinking back to the stuff with CM Punk when I was failing drugs tests, they turned it into a storyline and that’s what I mean when I talk about roller-coasters of good and bad. Throughout all of that, so long as I can continue to do good, especially with this, my last chance to get it right, it is going to inspire people around the world that I’ll never meet, that need to stay sober to survive. Hopefully I’m doing that through the television screen and helping people I’ll never know.”
Hardy revealed that he wrote an entire script of how the Bar Fight match against Sheamus would unfold and he presented it to the the powers that be but the majority of his script was not used.
“When the idea of the bar match was thrown out there, I wrote up a whole script of how the match would possibly go. Most of it never happened, but I do love [doing] that. A lot of that stuff I said in that first meeting of me and Sheamus in the bar was stuff I actually wrote… it felt good to have ideas that they liked and bring them to life, just from being involved in the recovery world.”
** Brian Pillman Jr. is making his AEW Dynamite debut tonight in a tag match with Joey Janela, Sonny Kiss and Griff Garrison and they’re taking on The Butcher, The Blade and The Lucha Bros. (Fenix & Pentagon Jr.).
** Xavier Woods joined D-Von Dudley’s ‘Table Talk’ podcast and it was mentioned how Woods was absent for the return of ‘Talking Smack’ on the WWE Network. Woods was scheduled to host the show with Kayla Braxton but he stated he wasn’t made aware until the post went up on social media.
“I was at home. I found out when y’all found out. So, it’s been adjusted so I’ll be there soon.
Things happen sometimes. It’s a very large company and you’ll find in any large company sometimes things get lost through the cracks. Things someone thinks they told somebody else but they actually didn’t get a chance to but that person thought that someone else told them so it’s a regular thing with a company that’s as large, that’s as successful as this so it’s not like a bad thing by any means. It’s just like a little, ‘Oops, okay cool.’ Now we’re on the train tracks again, let’s get it moving.”
Woods recalled taking the 3D from The Dudley Boyz on RAW in the Summer of 2015. Woods paid homage to D-Von Dudley with a signature twitch after going through a table but Vince McMahon was not too fond of Woods’ selling.
“We haven’t, we as in The New Day, we don’t get really chastised much when we do — we have been before, everybody has. But this made me nervous because everything was great, the crowd was losing their minds and I just go in the back, we’re all high-fiving, hugging. ‘Oh great, see you in the back’ and I see Vince just over there and he goes, ‘Hey, come here’ and so the three of us start walking over and he goes, ‘No, just Woods’ and I was like, ‘Oh, no… oh…’ So you know you start racking your brain like, ‘What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?’ And he goes, ‘Hey, great stuff out there taking the 3D through the table super high. It looked awesome but that sell, it’s not the 80s anymore kid, cut it,’ and like, ‘Okay, I got it.’ But, in my heart, I knew I did the right thing to pay homage to D-Von but I definitely didn’t do it again.”
** Chris Van Vliet spoke with Erick Rowan for an exclusive interview and Rowan recalled being unsure if he and Brodie Lee were getting called up from NXT to the main roster along with Bray Wyatt. Rowan said that Wyatt alerted them that they were coming to the main roster but Bill DeMott was not in line with those plans.
“Fast forward to when we get called up onto the roster, hence we always knew Bray [Wyatt] was getting called up to the roster. We didn’t know we were. We were told by Bill DeMott, me and Brodie [Lee] were told we weren’t getting called up. So, then they’re filming these vignettes and then were like, ‘Oh, well they’re gonna need you for the vignettes.’ But, are we getting called up? And then Bray’s like, ‘Yeah, you guys are getting called up’ and then Bill’s like, ‘No, you guys aren’t getting called up.’ It’s like what the hell?”
** Titus O’Neil partook in the ‘Heal America’ event to discuss racial inequality in America.
** WrestleZone’s Dominic DeAngelo conducted an interview with Scorpio Sky. Sky spoke about his stretch of matches on AEW Dark and expressed that he feels Lee Johnson is the future of All Elite Wrestling.
“But I also did get to wrestle young guys like Lee Johnson and I think Lee Johnson is the future of AEW. He’s young, he’s probably only about 22-years old, he’s got a good look, he’s got a good body, he’s athletic, he gets it, he listens and he’s gonna be a guy five, ten years from now, he’s going to be a big time player in this company.”
** Dominik Mysterio was a guest on the Gorilla Position podcast. Dominik is fresh off competing against Seth Rollins at SummerSlam and teaming with his dad the following night on RAW. Dominik shared that his mother Angie, who was involved in his SummerSlam match does not like to watch him perform in the ring.
“My mom, she doesn’t like watching me, because she doesn’t enjoy watching me get beat. Like the kendo stick beating, she didn’t watch it. She watched the first two hits and then she was like, ‘I’m done.’ So the fact that she was able to sit there and watch the match is pretty cool.”
Dominik was asked if there could be a match later down the line between him and his father. He said he does think it’ll happen but not anytime soon.
“I think you can. Just not as soon as people might want it. It’s gonna take a while. He’s gonna have to get under my skin and do something but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”
** Matt Hardy chatted with TV Insider ahead of the 8/27 edition of AEW Dynamite. Hardy was asked about the possibility of Jeff Hardy coming to AEW and reuniting The Hardy Boyz in the tag team division and here’s what Matt had to say in response to that:
“With the incredible deep division there is in AEW, I’d love to have my brother there to wrestle against the Young Bucks, Hangman Page and Kenny Omega, Private Party, FTR. There is such a deep roster. I’d love to do that one day if it was a possibility.”
Regarding Hardy’s arrival in AEW, he shared that one of the original plans was for him to do a cinematic match with Sammy Guevara but the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans on the back burner.
“In all actuality, when we first started doing all that, the original plan, I think, was to have the cinematic match with Sammy. I challenged Jericho, but the idea was for it to get pushed off to Sammy. Things went differently when North Carolina and other states went into lockdown. There was this six-week period where AEW literally survived on a day or two of shooting footage, which was pretty amazing. They did an incredible job. Kudos to the crew. We had to change course in many ways. From the very beginning, I was going to end up having a feud with Sammy, and Jericho was my bridge to get to that. As far as the Hardy Compound fight with Sammy, that may happen one day. We’ll see.”
** Scrump and Stank welcomed Nick Aldis onto the Pro Wrestling Tees podcast. Aldis shared a few names he pitched to get on NWA Powerrr and touched on the difficulties that can arise with bringing on America-based independent talents.
“Prior to the pandemic, I had been sort of kicking around names like Rampage Brown and Iestyn Rees, a few other British guys who I felt — Sha Samuels — guys who I felt fit the criteria for sort of what makes our show different. The sort of intensity, believable, rugged style and the mic skills, and then, state-side… I don’t know necessarily independent because let’s face it, I mean now, there’s so many companies that are signing guys to contracts that the minute that you get to a high enough level that you would be what I would consider to be high-caliber enough to be on our show, the chances are there’s any number of other companies that are looking to sign you as well so it’s like… but I can that say there were a few guys in MLW whose names come up a lot that I would be, ‘Hey, that would be great if we can make it happen one day’ like Hammerstone or Davey Boy Smith Jr. There’s still guys in Ring of Honor that we never got to wrap up. Me and PCO and there’s a few other guys in Ring of Honor who I think we’re very interested in trying to make a match happen with me because they’d seen the feeling that it got especially in Ring of Honor.”
** RAW Women’s Champion Asuka VLOG’d her 24 hours before defending her title at SummerSlam.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lOfJq-ykEQ[/embedyt]
** Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT spoke with Dominik Mysterio for an exclusive interview. Dominik recalled giving Vince McMahon a hug backstage following his match against Seth Rollins at SummerSlam.
“But the reaction backstage was crazy. I got very emotional, hugged my mom, hugged my dad, hugged Jamie [Noble], Seth – the whole deal. Everyone was very happy and clapping for me, so it was a surreal moment.
I definitely gave the bossman [Vince McMahon] a hug afterwards and thanked him for the opportunity. It was just a crazy experience. From seeing other people and other wrestlers finish their matches and walk through gorilla and hug Vince and stuff like that, having that be my turn to do it… I’m forever grateful.”
** ‘Top Rope Nation’ welcomed Black & Brave Wrestling Academy co-owner Marek Brave onto the podcast. One of the topics during the hour-long conversation was Seth Rollins and Marek’s feud in the AAW promotion. Marek discussed how he and Rollins were legitimately competitive with one another and there was a bit of healthy tension between them.
“You know something, a lot of people don’t understand is we were very, very close friends, but in a way, in real life, we were somewhat rivals in that aspect as well so there was a lot of real-life sudo-tension. Nothing ever too aggressive or violent or too much to the forefront at that point but we had a little healthy competition between us. People laugh when I say it now but at the time I was considered the better wrestler and I was considered the one who had a better shot at making it. Whatever that meant at that time. There was no expectation of making it to WWE in 2004, 2005. That just wasn’t something that happened for people on the independent scene at that point. But I was considered the guy that was gonna — ‘He was gonna be the one. He was gonna get to Ring of Honor, he was gonna get to Japan, he was gonna do this, that and the other,’ and obviously with my injury, that didn’t pan out. But, Seth is one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met in my entire life and so he didn’t like that. He wasn’t just gonna sit there and accept being considered number two behind me so there was always a healthy amount of competition between us and I think that helped to fuel that feud in AAW.”
** Part two of Nick Aldis’ interview with the Battleground Podcast was uploaded to the show’s podcast feed. Aldis spoke about Mickie James’ recent return to WWE programming and if he believes the turnout of her return is connected to his direct message to Bruce Prichard following comments Prichard made about him on his podcast. Aldis started off his response by sarcastically saying that an Executive of a publicly traded company could never be that petty.
“I don’t know man… you guys are a perfect example of the overall sentiment to that and times have changed. The fans have their own opinion, have their own voice and these sort of silly, petty kind of tactics and things, they see through them these days. I don’t think anybody saw that [and] thought, ‘Oh, Mickie James is a jabroni.’ Everyone saw that for what it was so, look man, she’s as good as any woman there is. She’s an all-time great and she doesn’t need me to fight her battles for her, that’s for damn sure and ultimately, she knows her worth and she can make anything work but… I think everybody in the world could smell that stench.”
** David Finlay and Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni guest appeared on the ROHStrong podcast.
** Anthem Sports & Entertainment’s ‘Fight Network’ inked a deal with SAWA Rights Management. By way of this deal, IMPACT Wrestling which is under the umbrella of Anthem will be available to watch in the MENA market.
** On August 26th, WWE filed their opposition to Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler trademarking the following names and phrases:
– No Flips, Just Fists
– Say Yeah
– Top Guys
– #FTRKO
– Shatter Machine
Harwood and Wheeler have until October 5th to respond.
** NJPW ‘Summer Struggle’ Results (8/27/20) Korakuen Hall
– Yota Tsuji def. Yuya Uemura
– YOSHI-HASHI, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto def. Tomoaki Honma, Satoshi Kojima & Yuji Nagata
– SHO, Toru Yano & Kazuchika Okada def. Jado, Gedo & Yujiro Takahashi
– SANADA, BUSHI & Shingo Takagi def. Minoru Suzuki, DOUKI & El Desperado
– Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi & Master Wato def. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.
– EVIL & Taiji Ishimori def. Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi
** Big Gold Belt Media conducted an interview with Eva Marie to promote the ‘Hard To Kill’ film. Towards the conclusion of their chat, Eva stated that she’s more than open to the idea of returning to WWE.
“Oh 100 percent. I mean WWE is my first love, they got me to where I’m at today, they have fully prepared me. I feel like anybody in the WWE is prepared for literally life in general because they’re savages. They’re on the road 290 days out of the year, they have to handle the physicality, you’re creating your character and then you’re performing in front of a live audience, plus that’s my home, that’s my family. Vince, Steph and Hunter took a chance on some nobody kid and I’m sitting here talking to you about a film with Bruce Willis that I’m in that drops today. I mean, so, if Vince picks up the phone and says, ‘Hey, this is the time,’ you tell me when and I’m there.”
** NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis and NWA World Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa are confirmed for the United Wrestling Network’s ‘Prime Time Live’ special on 9/15. According to PWInsider, the primary booking team will be Nick Aldis, David Marquez and Aron Stevens. Billy Corgan will have say regarding the NWA-based content. Announced for the debut show is Hammerstone versus EJ Sparks. Below is a preview of the show:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-u-ZZgXut8[/embedyt]
** Ruby Riott hosted a Q&A on her YouTube channel recently and one of the questions asked of her had to do with the potential pairing of herself and Shotzi Blackheart. A picture of the two made its way around social media and Ruby said that she wants people to stop tagging the both of them in posts just because they have green hair and tattoos.
“I like Shotzi, I do. She’s a great girl, very talented. Leave the girl alone. Just because we both have tattoos and green hair does not mean we need to be a tag team. Let her be her. Shotzi and I are two completely different performers. Let the girl live. Y’all need to pump the breaks with that one. My only tag partner that I want right now is Liv Morgan, and she [Shotzi Blackheart] is doing her own thing at NXT so y’all need to drop that, and stop tagging us in stuff trying to fantasy book that to happen because it’s just not right now so y’all need to pump the breaks.”
** Shawn Spears chatted with Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture. Spears shared that before he left WWE, the company offered him a coaching position and he explained why he was not too keen on accepting that offer.
“In terms of the coaching aspect and things like that, I’ve always been someone that prides themselves in helping young talent. I have a school in Florida for that exact reason. I believe in giving back to the industry of professional wrestling that has given me a great deal in my life. Having said that, I am not ready to be a coach in AEW. WWE asked me to be a coach 3 times before I left. I took that as a back-handed stab at my in-ring ability, meaning you’re probably as good as you’re gonna be, you’re probably past your peak, maybe we should transition into some coaching. I don’t feel that, I feel I have a great deal to give. I still have a lot to accomplish, I haven’t hit many of the goals I‘ve set for myself… I also haven’t been in the main event scene, so I haven’t had to break my body for 20 or 30 minutes every night for 5, 6, 7,10 years on a consistent basis. I probably still have easily another 5,6,7 years of in-ring ability if I choose to, with ease, because I feel fantastic… In order to stay ahead of the young talent, you have to pay attention. You have to see what young talents are doing, and I see what a lot of young talents are doing, they are taking a lot of risks, high risks, hoping for high rewards and with that comes a lot of high deal of danger/risks…”
While on the topic of All Elite Wrestling, Shawn Spears feels that he’s the most well-rounded performer in the company.
“I think in my time in AEW, I haven’t been put in a very prominent position. I came in very high profile against Cody, which anybody in that spot is gonna be high profile when you’re facing a guy like that but that was in a time when there was no AEW Dynamite yet that received a lot of attention. Since then I think I have shown a lot of versatility…and I ‘ve proven that I am pound for pound the most well rounded performer AEW has. I even put myself up against anybody on that roster in terms of being able to adapt to any situation on any given night, in any given moment and that just comes with nearly twenty years of experience and paying attention to the guys that I’ve tried to emulate throughout my career… I also feel I’ve earned trust, because I believe in doing the right thing, I believe in professionalism, I believe in putting on the best possible match regardless of the scenario for our audience.”
** Chris Featherstone of Sportskeeda hosted a Q&A session on Facebook with Eric Bischoff. One of the questions asked of Bischoff had to do with WWE’s storytelling and Bischoff explained why he feels that WWE is constantly hit or miss with their storylines.
“I knew WWE was gonna knock the ThunderDome concept out of the park. Better than everybody including the NBA. I knew they would, because they’re so good at that. What they’re not good at is basic, fundamental storytelling. They’re just not. I love them, I have many friends there, I have some friends there who I consider my closest friends in the world and who I love dearly. It doesn’t change that the storyline, the architecture, their approach to stories, their discipline with stories suck, and until somebody comes along and takes an honest look at storytelling and the structure of storytelling and the formulas that are used, it’s gonna be hit or miss forever. You’re gonna throw ten stories up against the wall and maybe one of them will hit, because there’s no rhyme or reason to it. There’s no methodology to it, there’s no model for it, no formula for it. It’s just simply throwing sh*t against the wall and hoping it sticks.”
** According to PWInsider, the Ohio Valley Wrestling television taping that was scheduled for 8/25 in Jeffersonville, Indiana was postponed due to interstate construction and the possibility of protests.
** Anthony Carelli announced that he’ll be keeping the Battle Arts Academy open after initially announcing that the school would be closing its doors. Dave Sciara and Adam Cocca of HWE are now going to be running the day-to-day operations.
** The Miz was the latest guest on New Day’s Feel The Power podcast. Miz spoke about teaming with Asuka in the Mixed Match Challenge tournament and how much he enjoyed working with the current RAW Women’s Champion.
“Honestly, it was a random pairing. I don’t even think I ever talked to Asuka before we started working together on the Mixed Match Challenge and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re with Asuka’ and we started talking and honestly, she didn’t understand what I was saying, I wasn’t understanding what she was saying but someway, somehow, we just clicked. It’s like speaking wrestling is a completely different language than English and Japanese. It’s different and when we came together, we would just speak wrestling wise and we would understand each other and she is so good at going off of something. She can feel an emotion and be able to relay that and so it would always be like, I don’t know. We would just figure out, ‘What’s our characters? Let’s see why we’re together and what we can do to try and make it fun’ and that’s exactly what we did and I had a blast working with Asuka. It was so much fun.”
** Ring of Honor’s Kellyanne spoke with Wrestling Inc. for an exclusive interview. She reflected on the WWE tryout she had at the age of 19 and how disheartening of an experience that was.
“When I was 19, I did my first WWE tryout. All I knew at that time was WWE. All I wanted to be was WWE. I went to the tryout. It was one of the most disheartening experiences of my life. They already knew who they wanted to hire. We were just there. So, we were literally wasting our time. Then after that experience, I was extremely unmotivated with wrestling in general. It was very hard for me to come back from that.
I started making a name for myself working for Shimmer, going to Europe, training and really enjoying wrestling for what it was and not concentrating on the end goal. I decided at the age of 19 that I didn’t care about WWE. I’m done. I don’t want to do it. I knew that all I wanted to do is be known for being good at wrestling. That’s what I care about. That’s what I love. To be honest, to see what WWE has become today. It’s not the wrestling I fell in love with and why I started wrestling. That was my brush with WWE. I had another small thing where they came down and watched us train. Canyon [Ceman] would fill me up with nice comments, but to no avail.”
** Kevin Kelly spoke with PJ Black to promote NJPW Strong. PJ shared that he’s not against the idea of moving to Japan full-time for a few years and thinks he’s on the path now to make that a reality.
“I even told him [David Finlay], I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll move to Tokyo for a year’ because I’ve lived all over the world. Pretty much every major city around the world, three different continents. I’d love to go live in Tokyo, even if it’s just for a year or two. Let’s see what happens. I think it’s a possibility. I think I’m on the right path right now and I’m having a lot of fun. I think I’m in the best shape of my life.”
** Daily DDT interviewed AEW’s Shawn Spears. Spears reflected on the past several years of his career, talked about the up and down emotions he had regarding the ‘Perfect 10’ character and at one point, feeling as though he was losing his passion for wrestling.
“It wasn’t that I felt I had anything to prove [after leaving WWE] because I was always very confident in my abilities. I always felt I could perform at any level and in any spot on the card – and I’ve been on every spot of the card, especially in my NXT days. At the height of the Perfect 10 character, it was tough to find a wrestling show anywhere, independent or not, that didn’t have people chanting ‘ten’ at some point in their shows, so it was a real cool little phenomenon that kinda caught fire. Once I moved to SmackDown, things kinda fizzled out, and fizzled out quick. After a certain point in time, creatively you become stifled. You look for outlets to keep ideas fresh and the more those doors close and the outlets get cut off, the passion gets cut off as well. I’ve been doing this 19 years in January and I’ve loved this all my life… but when I started to feel like I wasn’t loving wrestling anymore, I knew it was time for change. I’m much closer to the end of my career than I am at the beginning, so when I’m 75 years old and I look back at my career, how do I remember it? Do I want to remember that I stuck around for X amount of dollars and was miserable, or do I want to say, ‘You know what? I really enjoyed those last couple of years – I had a blast and don’t regret a moment of it.’ That was the overall consensus in leaving and that was the reason behind it.”
** 80s Wrestling Con is hosting a live virtual signing on September 14th featuring Sgt. Slaughter and Demolition (Ax & Smash)
** Topps DigiCon 2020 is taking place on August 27th-30th and a virtual Q&A session will be held with Drew McIntyre and Alexa Bliss.
** The first episode of ‘Women’s Herstory’ with Marti Belle and Allysin Kay is up on Allison Danger’s YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02maJFYu9AU[/embedyt]
** WCJB chatted with Dory Funk Jr. and talked to the pro wrestling Hall Of Famer about training one of his students named Jamal Hans. Comments from Hans are also included in the article.
** 7News in Miami has a story up about Dana Brooke and Ulysses Diaz giving back to their community.
** CBS Sports chatted with Pat McAfee about his match against Adam Cole at NXT TakeOver: XXX. McAfee recounted conversations he’s had with friends of his who are wrestlers that threw the idea out there that Pat would enjoy his time in the ring even more if fans were in attendance.
“For me, I never even really thought about it. I talked this morning on my show about how it was such a cool bucket list thing for me because I’ve dreamed about it since I was 10 or 11 years old. Now we’re at the point where, yeah, it was awesome. Do I want to do it again? I don’t know, I think? A lot of my friends that I have that are in the business are like, ‘Oh, wait until you see what it’s like in front of a crowd.’ I’m like, ‘Wait, I don’t know that-that’s going to happen.’ But they said, ‘No, you have to do it in front of a crowd.’ I think that’s all up in the air right now. I’m not 100 percent sure what’s going to happen. I assume Mr. H and I are going to have a conversation about that at some point. But right now, I’m just trying to enjoy the hell out of the moment and just enjoy that I was able to perform at TakeOver: XXX.”
** Xavier Woods was announced a member of the Dungeons & Dragons panel for PAX Online.
** Flickering Myth is doing a giveaway of a WWE Extreme Rules 2020 DVD.
** Paige did a live stream on Twitch.
** A recap of the day of Peyton Royce’s fitness competition was uploaded to her YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6SZsi-bY9E[/embedyt]
** David Finlay was a guest on the 8/26 episode of Wrestling Observer Live.
** TNT Champion Brodie Lee and NXT North American Champion Damian Priest were interviewed as a part of Sports Illustrated’s ‘This Week In Wrestling’ column.
** Ring of Honor uploaded the following match to their YouTube channel from Survival of the Fittest 2014:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsHAo_WqWT8[/embedyt]
** WWE’s Nathalie Mamo hosted a Q&A with The Big Show.
** Miro (Rusev) is scheduled to appear at the Virtual Crunchyroll Expo in September.
** Lil Tecca’s music video for his single ‘Royal Rumble’ is pro wrestling-themed.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgIKKDAPUvI[/embedyt]
** Today is the birthday of former World Heavyweight Champion The Great Khali. August 27th is also the birthday of former two-time WWE Women’s Champion Jazz.
** Ahead of his double title match at Jingu Stadium on 8/29, Tetsuya Naito did an interview with NJPW1972.com.
** David Arquette did an interview with WhatCulture and told the site he believes Jungle Boy is a future AEW World Champion.
** Drew McIntyre told Sport360 about his workout schedule/format.
** Corey Graves and Carmella recorded a new edition of their ‘Bare With Us’ podcast.
** Angelina Love was a guest on Taylor Wilde’s podcast.
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.
