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.
** Chris Jericho welcomed QT Marshall onto his Talk Is Jericho podcast. QT recounted a period of his career when he was doing extra work for WWE. While working with the NXT brand, QT stated that there was a time when he turned down the chance to work with The Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar) who were released from WWE in September. Marshall didn’t want to work with them because he remembered Akam powerbombing another wrestler onto the head of AEW’s Anthony Bowens.
“After they [WWE] told me the tryout was gone, I went and got my neck fixed, so I had my surgery on my neck. I had two of my discs taken out and fused up and stuff, and then I went back to do more extra work because I was like, ‘There’s nothing else. What am I gonna do?’ And then I spoke to Regal again and he was like, ‘Listen, you’re kind of a liability’ and what happened was I got [in] as an extra at NXT and they wanted me to work with The Authors of Pain and I said no, because I didn’t have anything to lose except my life and my career. Super big [guys] and it was two-on-one. It was like me and another extra versus this one guy and I remember Scotty 2 Hotty came up. He was the agent. He was like, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be you two guys’ and I’m looking around and I asked the guy — he’s a nice guy too but I could see he had already hurt somebody. Actually, he hurt the guy that we just signed, Anthony Bowens. Yeah, because he powerbombed one guy onto Anthony Bowens’ head. [It was] the shorter one [Akam]. So I said to him, I was like, ‘Hey, what moves do you think you’re gonna do to us?’ And he was like, ‘Well what does it matter?’ I was like, ‘Well I was just curious.’ I was trying to politic but I’d also like to know what you’re — he was like, ‘Oh, we’ll I’ll probably powerbomb, then powerbomb the other guy on you and then I’ll DVD you guys.’ So the short of it was like, I literally just looked at him and I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ I looked at Scotty 2 Hotty, ‘Nope, not doing it’ and he was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘So I had this neck surgery’ and it turned into like, ‘Hey, don’t take the booking then’ which I was like, ‘You don’t even have to pay me. I’ll drive back to Atlanta now. I’m okay with it. Don’t ever book me again. It is what it is. We tried and I’ll get in the ring with anyone else. Put me with Bobby Roode, put me with these guys that aren’t gonna hurt me’ but, the kid who took my place got hurt. Yeah, he put him in a side headlock and he just picked him up and threw him into the aisleway. He didn’t mean to do it but he’s just so strong and I remember telling Albert [Matt Bloom], because he said, ‘We specifically choose you for this spot because you can sell’ and I was like, ‘Well I really appreciate it but here’s what’s gonna happen: I’m gonna take these moves and I’m either gonna get up and be okay and I’m gonna make two hundred dollars, or I’m never gonna walk again and I’m gonna make two hundred dollars.’ So to me, it’s just not worth it.”
QT also reflected on his time in Ring of Honor. He worked with them on and off throughout his overall time there but when he was under contract, he breached said contract by working an NXT taping two weeks before his contract was set to expire.
“Then, like my third match in, I got hurt on my neck then I broke my nose. Hangman [Page] and I had a match where I was supposed to squash him in four minutes. He broke my nose in 30 seconds. So I’m just bleeding everywhere, and he was 19 and I was like, ‘Hey man, I’ll let you get some stuff in, whatever you wanna do, of course.’ First thing, he breaks my nose and I started to get fat because I was injured and I had a lot of life stuff going on and then, I finally just asked for my release. I hated it that much where I was just like, ‘I don’t wanna be here. I’m making $150 a match’ and when they gave me the contract, I didn’t laugh but I said like, ‘Is this real?’ And they were like, ‘What do you mean? This is what the contract is.’ $150 a match? We work three times a month, that’s $450. This doesn’t pay for my car’ and they’re like, ‘What kind of car do you drive?’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter what kind of car I drive. It’s a Cadillac by the way but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a real job. I need to have my normal life.’ The reality of wrestling. So, when that happened, I asked for my release, they wouldn’t give it to me because I guess Shelton Benjamin had just asked for his release too and what happened was I was in Florida and NXT called. They needed someone, they were just starting to use extras and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m under contract — when the episode airs, I won’t be under contract anymore but I am right now’ and the girl at the office was like, ‘Hey, if you don’t care, we don’t care’ and honestly at the time, I was like, ‘I don’t care.’ She’s like, ‘And I’ll book you for the next six that you’ve asked for,’ because I had to, ‘Hey, my contract’s about to be up.’ ‘I see you’re in all these dates for extra work,’ you know? She’s like, ‘If you do this for us –’ so of course, right away, I do the match and it’s a taped NXT show. Before I’m even out of the ring, my phone’s blown up, Jeff Jones, who was working at Ring of Honor. Stooge Jeff Jones and we’re stooges now together but, right away he’s like, ‘Are you doing something you’re not supposed to be doing?’ And I was like, ‘What are they gonna do? Take my $150? Fire me. I asked for my release’ so, that’s kind of where — then when the WWE thing didn’t work out, it was kinda, ‘Oh, that was dumb.’ That was a little stupid but I was young and Delirious at the time, he understood. He was like, ‘Hey man, legally I have to be mad at you because you breached your contract, but your contract is up in two weeks. It is what it is, don’t worry about it. We’re just not gonna re-sign you as a punishment,’ and I just continued to work for them on and off after that.”
Back on the WWE front, he talked about his early negotiations with the company and specifically recalled conversations he had with William Regal. QT was told that his age was a part of the reason WWE wouldn’t bring him in full-time. The conversation came about as he was discussing the filming of his documentary.
“And then while that was happening, the WWE had offered me a Performance Center tryout. In the mist of him filming, they took it away. For age, all of the reasons.
Or if you do good [at the tryout], they might let you have a wrestling match, the reason that you’re there. They offered me the tryout at a SmackDown. I was an extra at a SmackDown. I did the five-minute match at 2 o’clock, in front of nobody which luckily I’ve been doing that in training for the past 12 years at the time. Scott Armstrong and William Regal [were watching] and Regal pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey. Long story short, we’ll offer you — in September, you’ll come down,’ yada, yada, yada. At the time, Danny Cage who owns the Monster Factory brought in Gerald Brisco to do a different tryout that he does every year and ends up getting guys signed all the time. I think what happened was Gerald had sent like four names in and he’s only supposed to send like one collegiate wrestler and he ended up sending like a bunch and they took mine out so I was like real livid at the time. Like, ‘What the f*ck?’
I think they were just like, ‘Eh, enough of this guy. We didn’t do it when he was living in Florida so why do it now?’ I still have the emails too when I asked Regal like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? I had the tryout, now it’s taken away. Is it because –’ and I guess I led him to the answer. ‘Like is it because of my age?’ And he was just like, ‘Yes, unfortunately. We’ll still use you as an extra,’ blah, blah, blah. [I was] 30. At the time, because even at the SmackDown he said, ‘If we hired you, how many people would order the Network for you?’ Because that was like when they were pushing the Network and I was like, ‘My mom, my dad. They might even share their password.’ I didn’t have an answer and he was like — and I specifically told him, I was like, ‘So if you’re telling me that I can’t work here because of that but I’m good enough to work here, I can live with that, deep down. As long as you can tell me my work is great, I’m happy with that’ but then I guess he felt bad so maybe that’s why we did the whole, ‘Well we’re gonna give you the tryout.’ I don’t know what the reason was.”
Earlier in the interview, Marshall talked about feeling that he has to prove himself to the fanbase of AEW to establish why he’s in the company. He also feels that there is a bit of nepotism that comes with being close with Dustin and Cody Rhodes.
“So, just being partners with Dustin [Rhodes], there’s a lot of nepotism and stuff that goes along with that and being friends with Cody and I always feel like I just — I need to prove myself. Even though I’ve been training in wrestling for 16 years. I don’t really need to prove myself but to certain fans I feel like I always do, right? And I always have to justify why I’m here. Even though I do a lot of stuff.”
** Sportskeeda caught up with Jacques Rougeau Jr. (The Mountie). Rougeau dove into his falling out with current WWE talent Kevin Owens in the early portion of Owens’ career. It came down to Rougeau not wanting talents that worked for him to work for other promotions because there would be injuries at times which would cause talents to miss his shows.
“We had a falling out, Kevin and I. One reason was because he didn’t respect the fact that my boys weren’t allowed to go and wrestle for other companies. And that was a rule that was very hard for the boys to understand because everybody wanted to go and learn and get a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But the thing was, I was doing tremendously well with my company, and I was selling out all my arenas with 3-4 thousand people, but with no TVs. And I was going from company to company and selling the market, that was no sex, no drugs, no violence, no girls in my shows. It was really oriented towards kids. But the thing was, all my shows were sold out. Not because it was easily done, I had to go work hard, but the thing was, he was such a great talent and the talent that I produced that I taught in the wrestling business and then came [and] did my shows is I went to every company and told them, I said, ‘Hey, wait till you see the match between the Spiderman and The Mummy. And wait till you see this match, Kevin Steen -‘ Kevin Steen was his name at the time, Kevin Steen against Gorgeous Mike. So I was selling all this talent to the companies where I was going. Many times at the beginning, the guys would go on a spot show on a Friday night and hurt an ankle or something. So they won’t be able to come to my 5000 people show, because they were in front of 25 people the night before and they hurt themselves.
All the time I was giving the experience, Kevin Owens just didn’t become a good talker and a good entertainer out of nowhere. He started in a business where there were 3-4 thousand people. So he knew right then how to deal with it. And believe me, the first night he went to the ring, I’m sure I had a lot of corrections to give to him, but that’s the way it was. But he was a good student, he was great. So, after we had our falling out, and the couple of boys who were against my policies, which I respected. I said, ‘Listen, if you want to go wrestle for other federations, do it, but I’m not going to be using you.’ And that was my choice. It was my company, my business, and I did 20 years of great success with my business like that. But I understand that my boys, I do. I understand the boys being upset that they can’t wrestle for another federation.”
** At the Cynopsis Digital Awards, WWE and Americares won in the category of Best COVID-19 Awareness campaign.
** Per ESPN’s Marc Raimondi, the Nevada state commission suspended UFC’s Niko Price for six months and fined him $8,000 for testing positive during a marijuana test. His bout against Donald Cerrone from September has been converted into a no contest.
** Christopher Daniels was the most recent guest on The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast. Daniels is still hoping to win the AEW World Tag Team Titles with Frankie Kazarian and although he’s “realistic” about his chances of doing so, he is far from done in the ring.
“I absolutely would love an opportunity to be AEW World Tag Team Champions with Frankie [Kazarian]. I think that if I went through AEW, if I was at the start of AEW and I didn’t have an opportunity to be a champion of some sort, I’d be disappointed but I’m also very realistic about my chances at this point. I feel like there’s, again, such a loaded roster of guys and we’re all fighting for that opportunity to be on Dynamite, to be a champion. The odds look long but at the same time, I’m not giving up. I’ve said it before, these aren’t my best days but they aren’t my last days either and so, it’s just a matter of time before I get an opportunity and you know, if everything falls my way, I’ll have some gold around my waist, me and Frankie.”
** AEW’s Dr. Luther was a guest on The Distraction podcast with Jeremy Lambert and Joe Hulbert. Luther was asked about the length of some of the AEW Dark shows and is it difficult to keep the energy up throughout the tapings.
“No because the show is so good and I’m not saying that to be an AEW homer. I’m just like, it really is a fun show and being there live, you always have that energy and the guys need that because obviously with all the restrictions we have now, we help give them energy but their energy in the ring from watching them feeds us too, and even though we’re out there for the whole show, when we have our dark matches later, the energy is still there because you have a match coming up and I always get pumped up for my matches no matter who I’m working against. It’s always fun and the adrenaline is always going so, yeah, sometimes they get to be long days but it’s always super fun and… it’s my job and it’s a great time.”
** As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, John Cena is set to release two new books that will consist of motivational quotes. One of the books will be for children, titled ‘Do Your Best Every Day to Do Your Best Every Day’ and he has put together a book for readers of all ages titled ‘Be A Work in Progress’. Both books include illustrations along with quotes that were inspired by John Cena’s Twitter feed. Both books are scheduled to come out on April 6th, 2021 and an audio version is coming out on the same day that is being put together by Penguin Random House Audio.
** Kevin Owens’ words about the late WWE Hall Of Famer Pat Patterson:
— Kevin (@FightOwensFight) December 2, 2020
** The WWE Network has a collection up of Pat Patterson’s matches and moments on their streaming service.
** Today’s episode of Busted Open Radio was a tribute show to Pat Patterson. David LaGreca, Tommy Dreamer, Mark Henry and Bully Ray were joined by Jimmy Korderas, Pete Gas and Jim Ross to discuss the life and career of Pat Patterson.
** AEW’s Anthony Ogogo called out Jake Paul on social media following Paul’s knockout win over Nate Robinson this past weekend. Ogogo’s boxing career came to an end at the age of 30 after having two operations on his left eye which ultimately left him blind in one eye.
** The Great Khali joined a farmer’s protest in India. The protest was to stand against farm laws in the country. The protest has been going on for seven days and talks between the farmers union and the government have been inconclusive.
** While speaking to WrestleZone, ‘Da Pope’ Elijah Burke told the site that when he returned to the National Wrestling Alliance, his intention was not to be a wrestler and now he’s the organization’s Television Champion.
“I like to tell people, especially those that follow me on social media, obviously they’re aware that Pope is in the ring and doing his thing. But as you said, that was not the plan. That was not Pope’s purpose or role in NWA when I came back for NWA Powerrr. And this, again, it’s well-known that my role was to get The Bouncers over the hump, be the mouthpiece, be their J.J. Dillon, be their Jimmy Hart, whatever the case you wanna make. And I think the biggest thing that got me back in there for Powerrr and the United Wrestling Network for the NWA was simply timing. And we all know how that works. Just timing, you know.”
** Philip Lindsey of Sportskeeda interviewed Leyla Hirsch.
** Fightful learned that NXT’s Robert Stone and his significant other purchased the F45 Training center in Baldwin Park, Florida. The two plan to open the facility in 2021. Social media pages including a website are already set up for the facility.
** Uli Latukefu, who is starring in the NBC series ‘Young Rock’ was interviewed by Sports Illustrated.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling pushed out the following promotional video to hype the Super J-Cup:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL_wtL-CW2c[/embedyt]
** Karl Fredericks announced that he is leaving the Los Angeles area where NJPW Strong is taped. Wrestle Kingdom 15 is scheduled to take place in January.
** El Desperado talked to NJPW1972.com about the remainder of his 2020 Best of the Super Juniors schedule. When BUSHI was brought up, Desperado responded with the following when BUSHI was called a “technician” in tag team matches:
“That sounds like a very nice way of saying he doesn’t stand out at all. He doesn’t stand out as a singles guy, doesn’t stand out in tags, so people say, ‘Oh, he must be working hard behind the scenes.’ You look at his career and what he’s done. If he’s seriously thinking of himself as a behind the scenes guy, he should quit wrestling.”
** Here’s the newest episode of WWE The Bump. Drew McIntyre will be on next week’s show.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yy3590onGI[/embedyt]
** Ring of Honor announced Mike Bennett vs. Vincent along with John Walters versus Tracy Williams in a Pure Rules match for next week’s ROH TV.
** Below is part one of SonaIsLife’s interview with Rocky Romero:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8MjyM-Iloo[/embedyt]
** Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald has an interview with Shotzi Blackheart.
** The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) were guests on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast.
** The newest episode of UNO with the UpUpDownDown crew:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_srvS6ovKg[/embedyt]
** IMPACT Wrestling announced Karl Anderson versus Ethan Page for their ‘Resolution’ show on 12/12. Also at that event, Rich Swann is defending the IMPACT World Championship against Chris Bey. Announced for next week’s IMPACT on AXS are the following matches: Eric Young vs. Cody Deaner, Brian Myers vs. TJP, Josh Alexander vs. Chris Sabin along with Taya Valkyrie & Rosemary vs. Deonna Purrazzo & Kimber Lee in the Knockouts Tag Title tournament.
** Longtime WWE official Charles Robinson is guest appearing on WWE’s After The Bell podcast with Corey Graves.
** NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Results (12/2/20) Osaka, Japan
– Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma def. Gabriel Kidd & Yota Tsuji
– Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match: DOUKI (1-6) def. Yuya Uemura (0-7)
– Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match: Robbie Eagles (3-4) def. Ryusuke Taguchi (3-4)
– Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match: BUSHI (4-3) def. Master Wato (4-3)
– Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match: El Desperado (5-2) def. Taiji Ishimori (5-2)
– Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match: SHO (5-2) def. Hiromu Takahashi (5-2)
** The latest edition of Hiroshi Tanahashi’s Ace’s HIGH series is based around former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Yoshihiro Takayama.
** Nikki and Brie Bella were guests on the ‘All Things Vanderpump’ podcast.
** “Bad Bones” John Klinger told Cultaholic that he wants to wrestle Cody Rhodes again.
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.
