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.
** The #SpeakingOut movement that occurred over the summer saw a number of individuals come forward and share their respective stories of sexual abuse and/or harassment within pro wrestling. The fallout of #SpeakingOut in Europe led to a number of in-ring performers being named as abusers and/or harassers. On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, the movement put a hold on the British wrestling scene and it became an issue at a Parliamentary level.
WWE’s Pete Dunne spoke to Daily Star and expressed how he felt hearing the stories. Although the British wrestling scene was greatly impacted, Dunne feels it is not over for British wrestling.
“It was horrible to hear these stories come out and everything that came with that because British wrestling was, alongside my own career, something I was trying to build. The whole time, I was trying to give back as much as I could, but with the pandemic and, of course, the Speaking Out stuff, that combination has really hurt British wrestling. But that doesn’t mean that it’s all over for British wrestling. Things are starting to move back to normal and [Speaking Out] is now at a Parliamentary level which is great. I was doing the best I could, and so were a lot of people, but it’s above us, and we need people who actually know how to make the correct changes. I am glad it is in their hands… hopefully from here it can only move in the right direction and people are aware of the changes that need to be made. Fingers crossed, in a year’s time, British wrestling looks completely different.”
Dunne shared what changes he would like to see and revealed that he’ll be one of the names present to meet with a cross-party group of MPs about #SpeakingOut.
“There are small changes that, as a talent, I would love to see. At every show there should be first aiders there, and even if it’s something as simple as a DBS check. The only thing I can recommend and see are those small, simple changes that are kind of no brainers. Anything above this, as I say, I’m so glad it has moved to a Parliamentary level. I get to have a meeting involved with the people involved in that party and they’re passionate about finding some kind of change. I really do want to urge people to listen to them and talk to them. Even though people perceive someone like me as the forefront of British wrestling, I am not qualified to suggest changes and whatever else, it’s completely above me. All I can say is that I fully support any positive, professional change to the industry. I want it to be better and, of course, safer. Fingers crossed they’re the people to do it, so I urge people to reach out to them and listen to what they’re saying.”
** IMPACT Wrestling Co-Executive Vice President Don Callis joined Busted Open Radio and Callis was asked about the on and off-screen relationship[s] between himself and Kenny Omega. Callis feels that Omega has become more comfortable on-screen since they’ve been paired together.
“If you think about it — I don’t wanna speak for Kenny. We haven’t spoken about this but I think if you look at it, being the top guy in Japan is a very different proposition than coming in, being the face of a brand new wrestling promotion that everybody’s talking about. I think Kenny just, for the last year didn’t feel totally comfortable and totally like he could be himself. One of the nice things about family is you know, when we get together with family for dinner or to go to Church or whatever we do, we feel comfortable. We feel we can be ourselves and I think because of the bond that Kenny and I have goes back two decades or more, I think Kenny feels he can be himself, when I’m there and so I think we feed off each other and Dave Meltzer has described it over and over as a Heenan-Bockwinkel type of dynamic where both parties feed off the other one and it’s made to be a superior tandem and I think that’s what we’ve seen is Kenny, I think Kenny’s comfortable and he’s comfortable being himself.”
Callis spoke highly of the team at IMPACT Wrestling for reaching the milestone[s] that they did on 12/8. He said that he and Scott D’Amore were always of the belief that slow and steady wins the race.
“Look, the team at IMPACT does a great job. Everyone from Ed Nordholm to Scott D’Amore, myself, guys like Tommy [Dreamer], D’Lo [Brown], many other people, people on the creative team do a great job and I think Scott and I have always said, ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ and we’ve tried to make those sorts of changes and tried to put on a product and you don’t hit on everything obviously, but it’s a process and I think that I’ve been excited about IMPACT Wrestling for a long time and I think you’re right. I think the people, once they find it, they realize this is a great show. In terms of the trending and the accolades and the metrics around Tuesday night which are huge, I guess I would say the same thing to fans of AEW, you’re welcome.”
** Bleacher Report has an extensive interview up with Goldberg. One of the topics covered during the chat was Goldberg’s in-ring future. He said that although he’s in his 50s, he doesn’t see himself hanging it up anytime soon. Goldberg is under contract to WWE for two more years.
“We always have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I’m 53 years old, I’ll be 54 here in a couple of weeks. Hey, as long as my body can still do it, I’m still going to do it. It’s very tough because being a power wrestler at this age, I’m not the person I was back in the past. You have that sense of, ‘Oh, am I ruining my legacy?’ Well, you know what? I still have to put food on the table for my family.
There are a lot of things that come into consideration, and at the end of the day, I’m a businessman. I do what I got to do to stay afloat and stay out there. I don’t see myself hanging it up any time soon, but then again, I also don’t see myself wrestling until I’m 60.”
Goldberg opened up about his relationship with Vince McMahon. Initially, he was not a fan of McMahon as Goldberg thought everybody was out to “get him” during his first run in WWE. Over the years, Goldberg has grown to respect Vince.
“I hated him in the beginning, and now I’d die for him. Let’s be perfectly honest. I don’t think there’s a bigger swing of judgment than I have had since I’ve been in WWE. I went into the business at WWE with unrealistic expectations. I went into WWE with my back against the wall, thinking everyone was out to get me. It was a tough situation for me to exist in, and it was almost an impossible situation for me to coexist in on a positive note. With that first year out of the way, I’ve grown as a wrestler. I’ve grown as a human being, and I’d like to think that Vince and I have grown as friends.”
The current RAW Women’s Champion Asuka was undefeated in WWE from 2015 to 2018. Goldberg commented on Asuka’s streak and tipped his hat to her for what she accomplished.
“I thought it was something that wasn’t going to be replicated for a while, unbeknownst to me that Asuka came out with her streak. Hey, hats off to her for doing what she did, but I thought it would be unique for a longer period of time than it actually was.”
** Per the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Vince McMahon ordered that some talents head to the WWE Performance Center to work on their in-ring ability with Adam Pearce and Drew Gulak. PWInsider added that the likes of Otis, Keith Lee, Dabba-Kato, Dio Maddin and Omos are ‘refining’ their in-ring styles at the PC at the request of McMahon.
** Corey Taylor, formerly of ‘Slipknot’ and whose theme song is being used for the 2020 WWE TLC pay-per-view told ‘Metro’ about the “toxic fanbase” that pro wrestling has. He specifically recalled the first time he noticed the shift in how fans viewed the product was when Brock Lesnar faced Goldberg at WrestleMania XX.
“You talk about toxic fandom – I feel like that kind of started with wrestling. When kayfabe died, it really became a competition of who could find out the best bits backstage. I remember the horrendous f***ing moment of Goldberg-Lesnar I, when they were both leaving the company. People knew about it months in advance – why they didn’t change the card, I’ll never f*cking know. But that was the most painful five minutes of my life. Sitting there going, ‘Nobody enjoys this, all the fans are just f***ing booing the s**t out of these guys.’ It completely took it away!
That was the first real hint to me that there was something going on. People were trying too hard to know what was going on. Whether it was the pretense of it or just that selfish notion of being able to say, ‘Well I knew all along.’ Those people ruin so many f***ing good things, I just wish they would shut the f**k up. I swear to God, it’s awful!”
** The 12/11 episode of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX will be WWE’s first show from the new ThunderDome location of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. FOX 13 has a feature up about the new home of the ThunderDome and the outlet spoke to WWE Executive Kevin Dunn about the setup.
“We are proud to have reimagined the in-arena atmosphere and provide an interactive experience like nothing else in sports and entertainment with the launch of WWE ThunderDome.”
** Ring of Honor’s Director of Operations Gary Juster chatted with Wrestling Inc. and further spoke about ROH’s plan to run weekly live television in 2020. The company had a tentative start date of July to make the transition.
“We had, fortunately from our corporate owners, been given the go-ahead, and you’ve seen now, create a new set to really upgrade our look. We had plans to do a live show, and we had a big plan for 2020, and then everything came to a screeching halt in early March when the pandemic took over. We were tentatively looking at that (a live weekly TV show) to start in July, and of course, like I said, everything got sidelined.”
** WWE added a catalog to the WWE Network which includes highlights and matches from the late Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister’s run in WWF.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s 49th Anniversary show is scheduled for March 4th, 2021 at Budokan. The show was originally supposed to take place in March of this year but was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Also, Kevin Kelly, Rocky Romero and Chris Charlton will be inside the Tokyo Dome to call Wrestle Kingdom 15.
** Wrestling Inc. caught up with longtime WWE official Mike Chioda for an interview. During their conversation, Chioda talked about the 1-2-3 Kid versus Razor Ramon moment. Chioda said that before the match, Scott Hall told him that the slow count would not be an option for this match.
“That was great. There was probably, I want to say, maybe 500 – 1,000 people in that arena but what a wrestling vibe that was. That was an amazing match being from a perspective of some young kid coming in, which became X-Pac, and he was the 1-2-3 Kid. Razor came up to me all day long because he loved how I counted. A lot of false-count finishes. One, two, kick out. Not today, you’d be on the same page as almost counting three and kicking out.
He says, ‘Man, I want you to make this the fastest count ever.’ He really didn’t want to do the job because I don’t think they were that great of friends at that point yet. They became good friends. He was like, ‘I want you to count as fast as you can. It’s your ass if you don’t count fast. You’ll make me look stupid sitting there for a long three.’ That’s when it was old school man. They cared about their character and cared about who they were doing a job to. We’ll be talking about that someday on AdFreeShows, a watch-along, hopefully coming up someday.”
** While speaking with Digital Spy, Montez Ford reflected on the segments he and Angelo Dawkins were a part of with The Viking Raiders (Ivar & Erik). Ford stated that there where times when they would be filming from 9 in the morning until six in the morning the next day.
“It was like filming a Marvel movie! I remember one of the days we filmed from nine in the morning to six the next morning just going, going, going. The whole experience was just so fun because those guys are fantastic to work with, great people as well. So it’s always fun to get to work with people you also know on a personal level because it just makes everything easier to do when you get on camera.”
** Pat McAfee was a guest on the Swerve City Podcast. For several years, Pat was a part of the NXT TakeOver kickoff shows and he spoke about how those opportunities came about and how that led to him competing in the ring.
“So I go [to an NXT live event] and they’re like, ‘Hey, you wanna get involved or whatever in a match?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ So that kind of like set the seed a little bit then a couple months later, I got a call from Michael Cole and he’s like, ‘Hey, you wanna come do a show down [at] WrestleMania weekend for NXT?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity just to get in here,’ and I do kickoff shows now for a couple years or whatever, you know? I was on the kickoff shows for a lot of years so, everybody that says I’m an outsider, I’m an outsider and sh*t like that, I’m like, ‘Yo, I’ve been sitting on these kickoff shows for years’ like asking, ‘Is there any way I could potentially — I think I’m supposed to be in there. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here’ so, Mr. HHH, I think he finally caught wind that I wanted to get involved. We started a conversation, everything like that, and I had trained a bit because I have a wrestling ring at my house I bought whenever I was potentially intoxicated, like my second, third year in the NFL.”
** Kevin Kelly caught up with Rey Horus to chat about the NJPW Super J-Cup.
** ProWrestling.com ran their interview with Christian Casanova to promote his appearance in the ‘Vacationland’ Cup. Casanova was asked about his in-ring experiences with Myron Reed and shared all positive words about the current MLW World Middleweight Champion.
“Myron is one of those people – he reminds me a lot of myself in the sense that no matter who you put him in there with, he’s going to have a good match. I know he’s confident in himself the way I’m confident in myself. He’s not going to let anybody make him look bad, but he’s gonna make you look even better than you are. When you’re both really good, the sky’s the limit. That was both of our mindsets, to go in that match and make each other look as good as possible, while making ourselves look better. When you get in the ring with people who elevate you to that limit, it’s magic. Myron and I have great chemistry, and we got along great. We’re both very competitive against each other. Healthy competitive, like we want to see each other win, but he’s gonna have to earn that win. We went at it like we were both genuinely trying to win and prove that we’re better than each other.”
** ACH vs. Tom Lawlor in the semi-finals of the Opera Cup is scheduled for the 12/16 episode of FUSION.
** WWE expanded their partnership with IB Sports in South Korea. A new multi-year deal was agreed upon. RAW and SmackDown will continue to air on the platform and joining the lineup will be NXT.
** Sting appeared in the ‘Islander’ band’s ‘Crazy Crazy World’ music video.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2dd2MLkY5s[/embedyt]
** In Jon Moxley’s first post-WWE interview with Chris Jericho, he spoke about the program he had with EC3 before departing the sports-entertainment company and how he hoped to get more out of it. EC3 recently spoke with Fightful and feels that from what Moxley said, there’s still a window open for them to do something together in the future.
“Seeing that, the mention of that means there’s a wide-open facility to tell an amazing story with him down the road that is real, resonates, emotional, has moments. In theory an EC3—deranged, shaved head, psycho boy—who’s lost it all can very well blame Jon for everything he experienced because of his deciding to leave the company, of his deciding to talk about me outside of it. If that means we wind up rolling around in glass and barbed wire and throwing each other off things and just beating the living sh*t out of each other for the entire world to see, hopefully in a packed arena someday, that’s really cool.”
** As a part of their investor presentation, Disney announced that a Guardians of the Galaxy live action special will be filmed featuring Dave Bautista. Bautista is continuing his role as “Drax”.
** Cody Rhodes joined Lexy Nair on her ‘Outside The Ring’ show.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVJthwsnwQ[/embedyt]
** A mini documentary about Kurt Angle’s release from WWE in 2006 will premiere on the 411 Mania YouTube channel.
** Denise Salcedo of Instinct Culture spoke to Renee Paquette.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_uOKpPkgQ[/embedyt]
** Sonny Kiss turned 27-years old on 12/11. Referee Rick Knox has a birthday today as well.
** Ring of Honor posted a video of the ten greatest moments to ever take place at a Final Battle pay-per-view.
** Adam Cole, Cesaro and Xavier Woods played Among Us.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSAJrsrIw6g[/embedyt]
** The following video is from the WWEPC YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo-nEQkD2Jg[/embedyt]
** The latest guest on ‘Shot of Brandi’ was Fuego Del Sol.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr5r0w5855A[/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.
