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.
** Andreas Hale of Sporting News conducted an interview with Rich Swann. Swann is set to challenge Eric Young for the IMPACT World Title at Bound For Glory. Swann was asked about the situation involving his significant other Su Yung (Vanessa Riggs) that led to him being released from WWE. Swann touched on the fact that he was in a Southern area along with the variables of a Black man arguing with an Asian woman in said area.
“You know, I never like to bring race into it because it’s a very strong subject in this country, especially with athletes. With this situation, I’m not going to say it was different from most racial profiling incidents because we were in a very, very Southern area of Florida which was certainly Confederate-like. And then there is what my wife was wearing at the time, which was her bloody makeup and gear. It occurred to me that we were clearly in the wrong part of town.
There are so many scandals in professional wrestling. People have lost their job in this business. I can’t say that I was screwed (by the WWE). I have to take responsibility for my own negligence, being where I was and what happened that night. I can’t put that on anybody else. My life is great now and I can’t be mad at anybody.”
Rich Swann could become the second Black IMPACT World Champion in the company’s history. Rich was asked what it would mean to him to join Bobby Lashley on that list:
“It means a lot. Bobby Lashley was the first and to have the opportunity to challenge for the championship when it is even rare to see an African American even headline a pay-per-view; it makes my heart soar. I’m able to be in this position to make everyone who supported me proud.”
Following his release from WWE, Rich was planning on quitting the business. It was current IMPACT Head of Talent Relations, D’Lo Brown that convinced Rich to stick around.
“After I was released, I was at New York Comic Con. Maybe three weeks prior with all the social media backlash I thought it would be best if I stepped away from the business for good. Appearing at New York Comic Con to do a signing was going to be my last event. I didn’t know who was going to be there but I remember people were supporting me and asked me not to quit wrestling. I left my table for a bathroom break. When I returned, D’Lo was near my table. He told me that I was a good person, too young to retire and to think about what I was doing because the business needed more people of color in it. I didn’t even know he knew about me. All those words he told me was the final straw. I wasn’t going to quit. I decided to go to an Impact taping a month after that to see if they wanted to use me and, lo and behold, here we are today.”
** WWE Champion Drew McIntyre chatted with David LaGreca and Bully Ray on Busted Open Radio. At the conclusion of the interview, McIntyre joked that after RAW went off the air, he and Randy Orton broke into a song and dance. McIntyre’s joke was in reference to Chris Jericho and MJF’s musical-like performance on this week’s Dynamite. In that same conversation, McIntyre jokingly added that Jericho and MJF stole it from he and Orton.
“Especially these past few months with the Randy Orton feud. This [has] really kind of cemented me as a top-level main-event performer. Everything Randy and I have been able to achieve. It’s such a rarity to keep a feud going for three months. [This thing] is obviously gonna come to a head this Sunday at Hell In A Cell but I have been very proud I’ve been able to keep up with Randy, we’ve done pretty much everything there is to do. We’ve fought an unlimited number of times. The end of RAW this week, I know some people were on the fence about it but realistically what we were gonna do — is he gonna drop me again? Is he gonna beg off again? Are they gonna fight for the millionth time? But if the cameras kept rolling, you would’ve saw what would have happened. Is everyone ready for what happened when the cameras went off? Randy Orton and Drew McIntyre broke into a song and dance guys and you missed it!” McIntyre laughed.
** Joey Ryan has filed another lawsuit and his most recent was on October 20th against former Ring of Honor talent Pelle Primeau. In the filing (via PWInsider), Ryan is seeking millions of dollars in damages from Primeau who took to social media and Twitch to address Joey Ryan after Ryan was named by multiple individuals in the #SpeakingOut movement for sexual assault and harassment. The lawsuit alleges that Primeau has made 26 statements since June that has presented Ryan in a bad light and has interfered with Ryan’s finances and caused him emotional distress.
** Here are two notes from the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
– On October 28th, WWE talents are scheduled to attend a mandatory meeting/counseling session on how to maintain healthy relationships. Total Life Counseling are the hosts of the session. The first session will be a presentation for all talents and the second session will be for smaller groups. The second presentation is being done to give talents the chance to ask questions and participate in conversations.
– Ring of Honor is planning to do another set of television tapings in December.
** Bell To Belles chatted with former wXw Women’s Champion Killer Kelly. Kelly was asked about quietly departing from NXT U.K. earlier this year and she described the move as one of the scariest and exciting times of her career.
“Leaving NXT UK was probably one of the most scariest and exciting experiences I’ve ever had. I picked up my phone and wrote my plan, and I was bound to have the most amazing 2020 ever, with a lot of shows, tours, etc. Now I guess it’s time to try to do it all over again!”
** Kairi Sane will be a guest commentator on the Japanese announce team for the Hell In A Cell pay-per-view.
** Bleacher Report has an in-depth feature up about Rich Swann.
** talkSPORT spoke with Mick Foley for an extensive interview about some of Foley’s greatest rivalries in WWE. While speaking about Vince McMahon, Foley shared that he recently met up with McMahon for a “top secret” meeting.
“I just saw Vince a couple of weeks ago for a top secret meeting – details to follow – but I don’t think many people have looked into the trust factor Vince had in me.”
Foley recounted his feud with Randy Orton and said that initially, he pitched to Vince McMahon to win the Royal Rumble that year and go on to challenge both RAW and SmackDown’s world champions in a three-way at WrestleMania. McMahon was not keen on the idea.
“The whole feud with Randy was my idea. I pitched to Vince, I said, ‘I’ve got an idea. I haven’t been on TV in four years, what if I entered the Royal Rumble, won it, and because I haven’t been on RAW or SmackDown I challenge both champions to a triple-threat at WrestleMania, win that to become Undisputed Champion?’ Vince looked at me and said, ‘Mick, I have no interest whatsoever in doing that.’ So I said, ‘OK, I’ve got this idea for me and Randy Orton…’ So I guess I was the guy that really saw something in Randy and thought I could [tell] a compelling story. I think as far as long-term storytelling goes, that’s the best I’ve ever been at it.”
** Santana and Ortiz of All Elite Wrestling were guests on Chris Jericho’s ‘Talk Is Jericho’ podcast. The duo reflected on their Parking Lot Brawl with Best Friends (Trent & Chuckie T) that headlined a Dynamite in September. Santana shared that they had to convince Trent’s mother Sue to give the middle finger at the end of the match because she was hesitant to do so.
“And having to convince her the whole day, because she didn’t wanna give us the finger,” Santana said. “Yeah, we were like, ‘That’s taking the match from here to like way up there,’ you know what I mean? That’s the icing on the cake.”
Ortiz talked about the final stretch of he and Santana’s run in IMPACT Wrestling. The two were still negotiating with IMPACT and wanted more money but IMPACT was not willing to commit to them just yet.
“We were actually, at the time, we were trying to negotiate with IMPACT,” said Ortiz. “We were like, ‘Hey, we need a little bit more money,’ and they were kind of going back and forth with us which I understand, they’re running a business so they’re not just gonna outright give us exactly what we want. So, just honestly with that, just going back and forth with that and then knowing that we had other options and also, WWE was an option at the time, because [Jeremy] Borash now works there and that was our in. So yeah, so we were just like, ‘Okay, what are we gonna do?’ And then, when it came up and we were maybe at like, I’d say a couple of weeks out from leaving IMPACT, we still didn’t know. We were like really sitting there and trying to make the decision and they were like, ‘Alright, just stay for one more year,’ you know what I mean? ‘Just do one more year and whatever and we’ll figure something out’ and we’re just like, ‘Eh…’ But then we were going over in our heads, what are we gonna do? We’re gonna just stay here and just — people are gonna turn on us and then, what about if we stay here and they kinda feel like we’re gonna leave and maybe they bury us, or something sh*tty happens and I was like, ‘Hey, we’re willing to do business the right way, we’ll lose on the way out, we’ll put over whoever you wanna put over.’ But, yeah, we just felt like it ran its course and we love the people there, we love working there, but yeah, we just felt like we needed to grow. We felt like we were big fish in a small pond and not that we weren’t being challenged, but we wanted the challenge of trying to work our way up.”
** WWE’s No Mercy (2000) pay-per-view was the topic of Jim Ross’ latest podcast. Ross recalled not feeling well during that show and mentioned that he didn’t take off because in the mind of Vince McMahon, that’s considered “blatant weakness”.
“Yeah, I was a little under the weather. You just don’t call in sick. That’s the kiss of death. That’s a blatant weakness in Vince’s eyes and that’s a thing as a talent, you never wanted to be perceived as was weak, and you couldn’t hold your end up, you couldn’t carry your share of the water. So I worked that show a little under the weather but you know, the adrenaline really helps a lot in those situations. You get 14,000-plus in a building, it’s packed, they’re excited, you got all your stars coming back. I needed to be on that show and I needed to be able to contribute in the best way I could, that was to get talent over. So yeah, I wasn’t feeling great that night but hey, I passed a kidney stone one time doing a pay-per-view.”
** Teddy Hart was booked into Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, Texas because he was named a fugitive from justice on May 5th of this year. Last month, PWInsider reported that Hart, real name Edward Annis was sentenced to ten days imprisonment in Richmond, Virginia for violating house arrest.
** Talking Smack is airing on FS1 following the 10/23 SmackDown. It was previously announced that WWE Backstage was airing after SmackDown.
** Former UFC Bantamweight and Flyweight Champion Henry Cejudo was interviewed by ESPN. Henry stated that Kurt Angle wants him to join WWE and there could be some potential things in the works with the sports-entertainment company.
“[Angle] wants me in the WWE. He wants me to do some things there. There could be some potential things with the WWE, as well. There’s a lot, man. C’mon man – you think I’m out here picking my nose?”
** Chris Van Vliet caught up with Matt Sydal for an interview. Sydal reflected on his slip up at AEW All Out while trying to hit the Shooting Star Press. He talked about what was going through his mind in the moment and after it.
“I am so lucky I didn’t get injured. I mean, that was the craziest turn of events that happened. I can say I’ve jumped off that rope thousands of times and zero times have I had a slip like that, zero. This was the first one. This is also the first time there were fireworks exploding in the background and there’s a million excuses but I’m not gonna take ‘em. That was just — it didn’t go well but what did go well for me was like I said, the universe had my back on this one because when I slipped, I just basically reached back with my arm and as I would’ve rotated directly onto my head which we already discussed my neck injuries which are — it wasn’t until January — in March I started feeling okay but I haven’t been taking German suplexes, I haven’t been practicing getting dropped on my head because of my neck injury, and if you look at the rotation, that was set up for a pogo stick on my dome. I mean, that’s the rotation. I reached my arm out, the rope was there and basically it kept me from turning over onto my head and I just turned partway, landed on my back and then kinda rolled onto my head and so that — it was just super scary. It was like life flashes before your eyes type-scary. Just a moment where like there was — I didn’t even know there were 20 other guys in the ring at that moment. It was just like it all went [blank], condensed into a little dot and man yeah, when I landed and I was fine, I was like, ‘Alright, alright.’ You know how I told you about how I get very emotional in matches? Let’s just say I had a lot of emotions flowing right there and I was not happy, I was very upset. I was like, ‘What just happened?’ And then Will Hobbs comes over to me and he’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ I’m like, ‘Get off of me, I’m fine,’” Sydal laughed. “So mad. Don’t touch me, I’m mad.”
** Big E did an interview with FOX Sports and discussed New Day’s split and the direction he’s moving in. On the topic of Big E needing a shift in his character now that he’s solo, he doesn’t feel that he needs to do a complete 180 but there will be times when he is serious.
“But, in the same vein, I don’t want to lose what made me special, what made me unique. Because I feel like you’re gonna find powerhouses who are taller, who are bigger, who are faster, who can do things that I can’t do, but I don’t think you can find another Big E. I don’t think you can find someone who has my combination of look, talking ability, presence. I don’t think you can find an exact copy to fill my shoes. That’s just how I feel. And I want to make sure that I stay in that lane. Because when I looked around in 2012, man. There was the Brocks. There was Mark Henry. There was The Ryback. I was kind of filling a similar lane and, to me, it’s always about trying to find a niche or an avenue that no one else is occupying right now. That’s important to me.”
** Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful spoke with Bret Hart. One of the topics covered during the interview was Bret’s 20-year contract with WWF/E. Bret clarified that there was an option for him to become an agent towards the tail end of that contract and feels that WWE lost out on what he could’ve brought to the table as a talent and agent in the late 90s to early 2000s.
“Maybe. It was all optional. I was going to work in some facet of the office. I was actually — if my memory serves me right, I think I was gonna take Pat Patterson’s job, and work with the matches and I don’t know that-that would’ve been ideal for me, just because of the work involved. It was probably something that at that time, it was like who knows what I’m gonna do? How many years of wrestling. I know that I still believe I had a lot of contributions to be made to the company and I would’ve been an asset to them over the years for ideas and just logic, things like that but, it didn’t happen. But, I think that was more their loss than mine.”
** The following video is from WWE’s YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jU9AMbtM0[/embedyt]
** Gail Kim did an interview with Forbes (audio courtesy of the Pro Wrestling Bits YouTube channel). Gail listed off several names who she would have liked to compete against including Deonna Purrazzo, Kylie Rae, Sasha Banks and Asuka.
“Oh man, there’s so many girls. Like let’s just — I mean, I don’t wanna pick any of the girls, just specifically on the roster but let’s look at the title match that we have for Bound For Glory with Deonna Purrazzo and Kylie Rae. Those are two people I’ve never faced. They are what’s hot in our generation right now. I mean they’re in a title match at Bound For Glory and I expect nothing but for them to steal the show to be honest. Those are absolutely two girls that I would have love to have gotten in the ring with, and of course there’s obvious ones like a Sasha Banks or Charlotte, Charlotte Flair or Bayley or any of those girls, Asuka. There’s just so many girls, even on the indie scene. There’s so many companies to work for now, that a lot of these girls, even when they have potential, are hired, but even with all these opportunities, I still see a lot of girls with so much potential and bright futures when I look at any show on the indies. You know when I’m watching a SHIMMER or a RISE or anything like that. One of my favorite things to do is to scope out the future talent.”
** Daily Star conducted an interview with Mick Foley and during the interview, Foley touched on his disappointment with his ‘Boiler Room Brawl’ match with The Undertaker at SummerSlam 1996.
“It’s an interesting point,” he admits, on the idea of how the match might have been presented today. “I think it could have been a very memorable cinematic match. It was actually a disappointment to me in the sense that I thought the lack of commentary hurt it. I understand that it was considered a compliment to not do commentary over a 17-minute match, but I thought it did hurt the match. It injured both me and The Undertaker! It resulted in me hurting my back pretty badly and The Undertaker developing a really nasty staph infection. So I was always disappointed with the way the match came across, but I thought the last few minutes, where we were out in front of the live crowd, was really wild. The turn, when Paul Bearer turned on The Undertaker, it really helped cement Mankind as a character that WWE fans should be taking seriously for a long time to come.”
** It’s official that on tonight’s episode of SmackDown, Otis will defend his Money In The Bank contract in court against The Miz. SmackDown is airing on FS1.
** Dany Garcia talked to Yahoo! Finance about the relaunch of the XFL in 2022. Dany discussed how she and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson navigate their business relationship seeing as how they were once each other’s significant other.
“First of all, you have to have respect. Like, you have to agree there is no going forward, if you’re going to carry what didn’t work with you… if the answer is yes and you have respect, you actually can do it.”
** Lewis Howley and Sam Stoker talked to talkSPORT about signing with NXT UK. They shared that they signed their contracts in January.
** The press conference in its full length to announce the 2021 Giant Baba memorial show has been uploaded to the Proresu-Today YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLRfsCsJfHI[/embedyt]
** Teddy Long was a guest on The Shining Wizards podcast and Teddy revealed that he and Mark Jindrak will be on the next Talk’n Shop A Mania pay-per-view. Also during their discussion, Teddy shared that Kevin Sullivan (WCW) is helping with booking for the SWE Fury promotion in Texas.
Teddy reflected on his time in WWE and he recounted his role in the company being described to him as something similar to Don King.
“When I first went there, they told me they wanted me to be like Don King. Now that’s what they told me, and I said to them, ‘I mean, whatever you guys want. That’s fine with me’ so what happened is I just walked out on TV and I started doing my own thing and I’m looking up for Vince McMahon to like it. So I had no problem with anything that I was asked to do.”
** Dayton 24/7 spoke with SmackDown Tag Team Champion Montez Ford.
** Titus O’Neil was named the Grand Marshal of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
** On the Bound For Glory pre-show, Dezmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz are taking on The Deaners (Cody Deaner & Cousin Jake).
** Actor James Lock told ‘Metro’ that he was recently contacted by WWE about coming into the company. Metro reached out to WWE and the company noted that there has been no contact whatsoever but they are interested in monitoring Lock’s progress.
** The Swerve City Podcast’s first episode on the WWE Network is up featuring Drew McIntyre.
** Newshub caught up with Jey Uso ahead of Hell In A Cell.
** 20 years ago today, Rodney Anoa’i (Yokozuna) passed away.
** Daily Star ran an article which includes NXT UK’s Jinny, Isla Dawn, Ashton Smith, Sam Stoker and Lewis Howley talking about how Drew McIntyre has inspired them.
** NJPW ‘Road to Power Struggle’ Results (10/23/20) Korakuen Hall
– Yuya Uemura def. Yota Tsuji
– Great-O-Khan & Will Ospreay def. Gabriel Kidd & Kazuchika Okada
– Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI def. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki
– Tomoaki Honma, Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Gedo, KENTA & Jay White
– SANADA & Tetsuya Naito def. Dick Togo & EVIL
– NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships: YOSHI-HASHI, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto (c) def. DOUKI, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.
** Ohio Valley Wrestling announced that they’ve partnered with Qatar Pro Wrestling.
** Doc Gallows chatted with Fightful.
** Dark Order’s John Silver joined Brandi Rhodes’ ‘Shot of Brandi’ series.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Q2p_ScTiU[/embedyt]
** An Albany, New York outlet spotlighted Bobby Fish for being interviewed by Sports Illustated. Fish talked about his high school football days in the Albany area.
** The Miz and John Morrison did a Q&A for Cricket Wireless.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MWJ7sVzGSw[/embedyt]
** Drew McIntyre was a guest on 103.5 KISS FM.
** Sports Illustrated did a Q&A with Kris Statlander.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Moose appeared on the Sports Guys Talking Wrestling podcast.
** Billie Kay hosted a Q&A on her YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJpUZCvW-wA[/embedyt]
** Jessicka Havok spoke with PWInsider.
** Vicente Beltran was a part of an international media call with Mick Foley.
** Carmella turned 33-years old today.
** Ruby Riott uploaded a new video to her YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8x6m4LZUtE[/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.
