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.
** Ariel Helwani sat down with Rey Mysterio to discuss NXT Halloween Havoc, MMA and Rey’s career in pro wrestling. Mysterio shared his thoughts about former UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez, who was released from WWE after a short stint with the company. Rey believes Cain will be back in wrestling.
“I really don’t — I can’t dig into the exact situation with Cain [Velasquez]. I do know for a fact that he’s very dedicated. He’s very passionate about Lucha Libre and about wrestling. I know this was one of his biggest dreams to be part of WWE. I honestly don’t think that he’s gone for good. I think he’s gonna make an appearance and a comeback, and it’s very hard to put a mask on someone that has created their own history within the UFC, like Cain. I think the best thing for him was to wrestle without a mask. Personally, that’s just my feeling towards it, because he’s [a] legend. He’s a legend inside the octagon so, I think that right now, Cain is… he’s on the sidelines but he’s not forgotten. I would really love and I think that him coming back would be huge.”
Santos Escobar paid tribute to Rey Mysterio at NXT Halloween Havoc by sporting tights that looked similar to Rey’s 1997 Halloween Havoc gear. It turns out that Mysterio sent the original tights to Santos.
“I actually sent it out to Florida because someone wants to do something very special tonight on NXT so, I sent it out.”
Rey was asked how many more years does he have left in wrestling. He said he’s taking good care of his body and that has added more years onto his career. He doesn’t have final day but when it comes, it comes.
“Well I started saying at the age of 40 that I had one-to-three years left. Now I’m 45 and I’ve been taking care of my body these last couple of years, with stem cell treatments, with Cryo[therapy], with hyperbaric chambers. All the necessary things that we didn’t have back in the day, so I think that added another five years to my career so, truly blessed to still be able to go. I remember saying as well, ‘Soon as my son is in, I’m out.’ Now my son is in, I’m enjoying this moment with my son. I’m able to share the ring with him and have the fans that have been my fans, convert to become his fans so, now, I’m not really gonna say how much time I have left but, whenever it’s time, it’s gonna be time.”
** Mick Foley guest appeared on GAW TV with Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val. Mick recounted either Trish Stratus or Mickie telling him that former WWE Head Of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis did not think anyone would remember Trish and Mickie’s history to the point where they could have a moment in the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match.
“One of the best stories I’ve heard and I wasn’t sure if this was Trish [Stratus] telling me this story or it was you Mickie [James], is that in the Rumble, there was some mention of you and Trish, Mickie and Trish doing some kind of a stare down, showdown and John Laurinaitis, ‘I don’t think anybody’s gonna remember,’ and the moment you two locked eyes — everyone’s got a Laurinaitis [impression], that’s an easy one, right? The moment you guys locked eyes, that entire arena came alive like, ‘Yes.’ I would be thinking to myself, ‘How dare you think they wouldn’t remember.’”
Mickie confirmed Foley’s story and elaborated on it. James said that it was said in a lackadaisical way but she still couldn’t grasp that she and Trish had to fight for that moment.
“Listen, I will say that we were never even supposed to be in the ring together, so it was almost like we had to fight to even be in the ring. I was gonna get eliminated well before Trish ever came out and I was like, ‘I really feel like we’re missing a really special moment of us being in the ring together, having this moment’ and it was totally like kind of blasé as like, ‘I honestly don’t think people are gonna remember, okay’ and then it was like, ‘Okay, we’ll get you two in the ring together’ and so we got in the ring together but I’m like, ‘Okay, if we get in the ring together but there’s not — I’m just gonna bump and feed when she comes in?’ And there’s not this moment which I was like, ‘That’s the moment. I don’t need to bump and feed. Why don’t we just wait for this moment?’ You know how it goes. Get to that but I was like, I couldn’t believe — I couldn’t believe and then it made me think for a second, because we always wanna believe that what we’ve done has meant something to a group of fans, but I honestly felt like, ‘Okay, am I just being egotistic or delusional that I think that this moment is gonna be really special and that we’re not capitalizing?’ I get that you have to build other stories and make sure those stories get over, but I think that it’s like, why would you miss out on something that is so special with the fans in a match that is so special to the fans? As far as being the females’ first Royal Rumble. So it’s like, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It was mind-blowing to me that we even had to fight so hard for it, but it’s also, we’ve been fighting this whole time in the business Lisa [Marie Varon]. We had to fight for everything and thank God for our Fit [Finlay] and for you [Mick Foley], people who advocated for female wrestling and really saw that women were more than just — I love women as eye candy too. I’ve always said those managerial roles and the girlfriend roles made the female wrestlers so special, but now — for a while that line got blurred and it just expected all the girls to know how to wrestle, or kind of wrestle good enough to have a decent, a good enough match and… so that kind of shift has changed but we don’t really have a lot of those girls that don’t wrestle anymore, except for strictly behind-the-camera type of thing.”
Mick Foley then shared a few words about Ohio Valley Wrestling owner Al Snow. Foley stated that when Al Snow would pitch former TNA Knockouts Champion ODB’s name to WWE, they would turn her down.
“But anyway, back to Al [Snow] and the women, every time he was asked by WWE, ‘Okay… who’s the next woman?’ He’d say ODB, and they would say, ‘No, we’re not interested,’ and could you imagine if OBD had come in?”
** wXw in Germany did a thread on social media about their forthcoming events and what’s to come in the future in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. All events up until February 28th have been postponed. Their Catch Grand Prix tournament will continue as it was taped in September. As far as their signature 16 Carat Gold tournament, one of their solutions is to postpone the tournament for six months to a year, change dates and venues or reduce audience numbers. They’ll reevaluate in January. Contact sports in Germany are banned until November, therefore the wXw Academy is closed until late November.
** Chris Van Vliet caught up with Chavo Guerrero for an exclusive interview. Chavo told the story of how the “Kerwin White” character came to life and the lengths he was willing to go with the character. Chavo stated that the basis of the character was to be a man of color who wanted to be white but is also mimicking white people. Chavo added that he pitched to come out in a KKK sheet as well.
“There was no conversation. I got off the plane in Japan and it was — I came to RAW, Vince McMahon looks at me and he goes, ‘Well hello Kerwin,’ and I’m like okay, so what’s going on? ‘Well today you’re going to denounce your Hispanic heritage and you’re going to become a white guy, [Vince laugh]’ and I was like alright. I had two options. You either say no and possibly go back on the back burner for a while, or get fired or you say, ‘Alright, let’s do it’ and at the time, the political climate was different and I literally told Vince, I go, I had a meeting with him. I said, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right.’ I’m supposed to be a brown guy playing a white guy, saying, ‘This is how you white guys are’ and they’re saying no, so the Hispanics hated me because I was denouncing my Mexican heritage. I had the whites because I was kind of making fun of them and they’re like, ‘That’s not how we dress.’ I’m like, ‘Oh yes you do’ and then — I would say, ‘If it’s not white, it’s not right’ and I had Caucasians going, ‘That’s not the way we are.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly how you are’ so, I had everybody hate me and a true heel wants everybody to hate them, and then I told Vince, I go, ‘Look, at the end of the day, I wanna come out in a white sheet’ and he was like, ‘Oh! Oh! Yes. I love it.’ Now of course, we never ended up doing it. It got too risque, a little too racist for a network.
I wanted to [come out in a KKK sheet], absolutely. I wanted to come out — I grew up in the time of wrestling that the more heat, the better. I wanted to fight my way back to the dressing room every night. I wanted to have to sneak out the back window, I wanted to be in the streets and people yell, ‘We hate you’ because that’s heat, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want them going, ‘Hey, it’s Chavo. Hey, what’s up?’ I want them to look at me and go, ‘God, we hate you’ and still to this day, and I was a heel. That’s what you have to do as a heel.”
** The Danny Havoc Creative Arts Foundation has launched. Matt Tremont is the President of the foundation and Alex Colon is the Vice President. Havoc passed away in May of this year and more information about the foundation can be found at this link.
** Last week on SmackDown, Chad Gable officially dropped the “Shorty G” name and he talked about donning the name over the past year on the WWE After The Bell podcast. Gable explained that he is not one to ask for an opportunity and then complain about it but it did get tough for him at times.
“I always ask for opportunity. I’ve been in Vince’s office, I talk to the writers, everybody. I’m asking constantly for opportunity, that’s what I want and when I finished the King of the Ring, it was explained to me that this is the direction we’re going. ‘We’re gonna be playing off this short thing going forward, including the Shorty G name,’ and look, I’m not the type of guy that’s gonna go in, ask for opportunity and when given it, complain about it or say, ‘I don’t want that opportunity. I want the opportunity I want.’ That’s just not my philosophy on life. I got what I wanted which was an opportunity. Now is it the perfect, ideal situation, what I wanted? No. In amateur wrestling, me being short was not a thing because I was on a team with 55 kilo guys, 60 kilo guys that are like 5’1 and not even 5’0 so like, I was on the taller end of all my other teams, you know what I mean? So, and it was fine at — I just got the opportunity I asked for. But, it started going a little off the rails when I’m doing segments or backstage things where I’m in the ring with guys that I’m taller than, or we’re doing an interview backstage and I’m the tallest person in the interview. I’m like, ‘Something ain’t quite right here.’ So look, I’m not gonna poo poo any opportunity that I’m given. I’m gonna try, I’m gonna give it every ounce of energy I have because I love this, I’m committed to this.”
Chad talked about the singles career he’s had since being split away from Jason Jordan. He looks back at his run in the King of the Ring tournament as a career highlight and feels that he came out of it strong.
“I always wanted to do singles stuff as well, and to be completely honest, the tag team stuff with Jason, we both wanted it to be — we wanted to be remembered as the greatest tag team, everybody does but it wasn’t going well. To be completely honest, we just weren’t having the success we wanted, so this to me was a chance to say, ‘Okay, well now I can finally try my hand at singles and show people that I can do this on my own as well.’ I went through a lot of waves too and trust me, I still am, and I’m still trying to find my way but I did some singles things and I have done some singles matches that I’m very proud of. I had matches with AJ [Styles] and other guys along the way that — but they’re just one-offs. I never had something I could grasp onto and really feel like we’ve got some momentum here, let’s keep it going here, until we finally got that with I think King of the Ring which was a chance for me and it’s always been this awesome chance for guys to kind of break out or for people to really break out and show themselves and man, I got that chance last year and it was like my favorite run, obviously as a singles guy that I’ve had since I’ve been with the company, and it felt very organic to me, which I feel most of the best things are. I don’t think anybody would have picked me to go to the finals of that tournament or me maybe even making it out of the first round, because I hadn’t been doing anything on RAW or SmackDown for a long time as a singles guy.”
Gable told the story from the beginning of his pro wrestling career and asking his wife to give him one year to make it to WWE and if he didn’t, he’d put his wrestling ambitions aside.
“So I retired in, let’s say August, was the Olympics when I wrestled. About October, I found a local wrestling school again, started training a little bit and I asked my wife to give me one year. I said, ‘Just give me 12 months to train, see how I like this stuff. Give me one year to make it to WWE and if I don’t, we won’t do it no more. We won’t even talk about it,’ and in November, it was 13 months. It took 13 months actually. One month over my limit but November of the following year, we were in Florida and I started with NXT.”
** KVUE.com interviewed The Undertaker to promote the premiere of the Brothers of Destruction documentary at the Austin Film Festival on October 29th.
** Scorpio Sky was the most recent guest on Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling podcast. Sky recalled doing extra work in WWE along with The Young Bucks and when John Bradshaw Layfield saw them in the locker room, he shook his head and yelled “TNA” because of their respective sizes.
“I remember sitting in a dressing room one time and it was me and The Young Bucks and one other guy, and obviously we’re four smaller guys and JBL walks past the dressing room, he looks in, he shakes his head and he keeps walking and you hear him go, ‘TNA! TNA! TNA!’ Because obviously we’re small guys so, it’s like TNA and so…”
** Mia Yim announced that she is suspending her Twitch stream for the time being.
** James Delow of Gorilla Position chatted with Big E recently. Big E talked about the on-going storyline between Roman Reigns and Jey Uso. Big E questioned where he would fit into the Universal Title picture because of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who Big E feels adds more intrigue to what people might want to see in the future.
“So it’s not just, ‘Hey, this is my family’ but they’re the famous family and everything they’re doing is so good and just knowing how big their family is and the fact that they have a guy named Dwayne Johnson, The Rock who’s also part of that family, adds more intrigue to what people might want to see down the line. So, as much as I want to insert myself into that world title picture with him and who knows? Hopefully I get that opportunity. You also see where some of that writing on the wall might be as well so, it’s been a really cool story.”
Big E discussed the pockets of freedom he feels that he has on SmackDown. He accredited a portion of that to Daniel Bryan who has advocated for Big E to the powers that be.
“I think it’s a different creative team. I’m not entirely sure what the differences are between the RAW and SmackDown creative team but, the nice part too is I feel like I have a voice with the SmackDown creative team. We’re able to go back and forth with some ideas and they’re actually listening and also, I have to give credit to Daniel Bryan because the run, the idea for the solo run was from him. Bryan is the reason. Not just like, ‘Hey, Big E –’ he’s actually a part of the process and he’s the one that said, ‘Hey, this is what we should do with Big E’ so, he’s been behind that and for that I’m really grateful but, it feels like an environment where I do have a voice. I’m not saying I get to do everything that I want to by any means, and I also think, I think RAW has a great roster as well, but I love our roster.”
** Thunder Rosa was a guest on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast. She reflected on the lead-up to her first MMA fight and she remembered people telling her to not “pull a CM Punk”, in terms of a popular pro wrestler coming over to MMA and not faring well.
“When you are fighting somebody that’s not as known as you are, you already had a following. If you lose like… that was a lot of the comments that I got, ‘Don’t pull a CM Punk.’ Many people were telling me that. ‘Don’t pull a CM Punk, don’t pull a CM Punk,’ and I was just like, people don’t understand the amount of training necessary for this kind of fight. It’s like you train for months to be in the cage for 15 minutes, and it could be over in 30 seconds, it could be over in like five seconds. So all that training and it could be over quick or you can go the distance which I did. I did three rounds and I lost by decision.”
Rosa feels that as far as the last three-to-four months go, she might be the most talked about female wrestler or wrestler period.
“In times of the pandemic, I would say, if not the only one, the only female wrestler or wrestler who is the most talked [about] for the last three, four months.”
** Bray Wyatt narrated a hype video for the Troy University football team.
The gates are awaiting
Come find me, before I find you
ⱠɆ₮ ₥Ɇ ł₦
🗣 @WWEBrayWyatt#DTW | #OneTROY ⚔️🏈 pic.twitter.com/9sLoH8dHgW
— Troy Trojans Football 😷 (@TroyTrojansFB) October 29, 2020
** Renee Paquette (Renee Young’s) cookbook, ‘Messy In The Kitchen: My Guide to Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Sipping Copiously’ will be released on May 18th, 2021.
** Multi-time WWE 24/7 Champion R-Truth joined D-Von Dudley’s Table Talk podcast. Truth spoke about the variety that he brings to WWE programming with his 24/7 Title skits but added that he can still go in the ring if need be.
“What I like about this, this whole thing man is they see so much wrestling on TV, they get so many matches, they get so many — they’re gonna get that. They don’t get this. They don’t get that 24/7 sh*t, you know what I’m saying? And when they do get a chance to see me, bro I still can go. I’m still a badass in the ring. I just haven’t had to put it down yet.”
** Charly Caruso is hosting a new podcast titled ‘This is How We Planet’.
** Inside The Ropes chatted with AEW’s Miro. Miro’s run in AEW thus far has been centered around his pairing with Kip Sabian. He feels that people want a quick turnaround right away and don’t want to wait for the story to play out.
“I think what we have done – and it’s not just the fault of wrestling, but just as a society, we want the quick turnaround right away – right then and there. We don’t like waiting for episodes to come week to week. We don’t want to wait the 30 minutes. We don’t want to even wait for the ads. We don’t want to wait for 30 second ads – because we just want the final product right then and there.”
** The latest episode of New Jack’s podcast is dedicated to the life of the late Tracy Smothers who passed away on 10/28.
** AEW Full Gear tickets go on-sale on 10/30.
** GIVEMESPORT released another portion of their chat with NXT Tag Team Champion Danny Burch. Burch reflected on his release from WWE in 2014 and shared what was running through his mind during that time.
“For me, when I got released the first time, I stepped outside the building, looked back and said to myself, ‘Until I hear 100% no, I will step back inside this building’. I did whatever I could. I went back home, moved back to the US and took that plunge. I walked away from British wrestling during it’s biggest boom period, put my head down and pulled my socks up. I destroyed the American indies, went everywhere I could go and got invited to the first-ever [WWE] United Kingdom tournament. I wasn’t taking no for an answer and as fate had it, I had the chance to come back.”
** Comicbook.com pushed out their interview with Raquel Gonzalez and during the chat, Gonzalez expressed her desire to work with either Nia Jax or Sasha Banks.
“I would love to go face to face with Nia Jax, of course, 100%. That would be, that’s something that I know one day will happen. If it’s not Nia Jax, even if it’s not for the Tag Titles, possibly even Sasha Banks because she’s so talented and again, she’s a veteran in the ring. She has this skill and I feel like that’s, that kind of a setup and that kind of a match is something that can push me to the next level and help me grow and evolve as a competitor as well.”
** The NXT UK Heritage Cup continues on 11/5 and Noam Dar will meet A-Kid. Also on that show, Gallus (Joe Coffey, Mark Coffey & Wolfgang) are taking on Sam Gradwell, Lewis Howley and Sam Stoker.
** Cameron Grimes did an in-character interview with Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS4Eh9qVNkw[/embedyt]
** The 2020 WWE Survivor Series event will kick off at 5 PM EST with the pre-show. The main show starts at 7 PM EST.
** Eddie Kingston’s second ‘Grindhouse’ show is set to take place on November 14th in Florida. The show will stream on WWNLive.com.
** The following excerpt is from Natalya’s latest write-up for the Calgary Sun. She reflected on her and Lacey Evans’ match that took place in Saudi Arabia in 2019:
In front of nearly 40,000 people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Lacey and I competed in the first ever women’s wrestling match in the country. After having the match, I have never been more confident that we can change the world, one person and one moment at a time.
I’ve thought so much about our match in Saudi Arabia and what it will always mean to me. It wasn’t about headlocks, dropkicks or “good versus evil.” We dreamed of an opportunity where we could open up new doors for women that have never been opened before and were able to turn that dream into a reality. We were able to move forward our WWE Women’s Evolution and most importantly, become a part of such a huge positive change in the world.
** NJPW Road to Power Struggle Results (10/29/20) Fukushima, Japan
– Yota Tsuji def. Gabriel Kidd
– Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto def. DOUKI, Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi
– Will Ospreay & Great-O-Khan def. Kazuchika Okada & Yuya Uemura
– BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi def. Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado
– Tomoaki Honma, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi def. Gedo, Jay White & KENTA
– SANADA & Tetsuya Naito def. Dick Togo & EVIL
** Below is Samoa Joe and Jushin Thunder Liger’s match from the 2005 TNA Bound For Glory event.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBXe0zBI5kI[/embedyt]
** John Silver of The Dark Order was the focus of a Pro Wrestling Junkies virtual meet-and-greet session.
** Chris Dickinson was a guest on The Joshi Pod.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH ‘Premium Prelude’ Results (10/28/20) Korakuen Hall
– Kinya Okada def. Yasutaka Yano
– Hajime Ohara & Naomichi Marufuji def. Junta Miyawaki & Mohammed Yone
– Kongo (Hao, Nio & Tadasuke) def. Stinger (HAYATA, Kotaro Suzuki & Yoshinari Ogawa)
– Go Shiozaki, Kaito Kiyomiya & Shuhei Taniguchi def. Kongo (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenou & Yoshiki Inamura)
– GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Atsushi Kotoge & Daisuke Harada (c) def. FULL THROTTLE (Seiki Yoshioka & YO-HEY)
– GHC Tag Team Championship: Sugiura-gun (Kazushi Sakuraba & Takashi Sugiura) (c) def. Manabu Soya & Masa Kitamiya
** Tracy Williams appeared on the Battleground podcast ahead of the ROH Pure Title tournament finals.
** NXT UK’s Ilja Dragunov did an interview with ‘Metro’.
** Oklahoman.com chatted with Jake Hager.
** Daily DDT caught up with Cameron Grimes ahead of the 10/28 episode of NXT.
** Gabriel Kidd published his latest blog for NJPW1972.com.
** Renee Michelle was a guest on The Jobber Tears podcast.
** Sportskeeda spoke with Jake Hager during his media tour.
** PopCulture.com caught up with Lilian Garcia.
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.
