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.
** Chavo Guerrero appeared on Rick Bassman’s ‘Talking Tough’ show. It was mentioned that the likes of Adam Pearce, Shane ‘Hurricane’ Helms and several other former colleagues or friends of Chavo are working with WWE in an agent or producer role. Chavo gave his take on why he hasn’t been back to the company since he departed in 2011.
“Well, few things. First of all, they haven’t asked. Second of all, I would have to give up too much to sit there and go back to WWE full-time. WWE takes — you have to give up what you’re doing in your life to do that and I have so many other things going on with Hollywood and my own ventures, my own cigar company, my own beer company, my podcast so it’s hard. I think it’d be hard for me to give up everything like that, so with me, I just, I don’t know man. Sometimes you just don’t have the best relationship with them sometimes, and also, I quit there. I left there and sometimes they don’t like when you leave there but that being set aside, it’s all about making money. If we can make money and Vince [McMahon] thinks like, ‘Hey Chavo, let’s bring you back in,’ make him money, make me money then it works out. If it doesn’t then it doesn’t. There’s no hard feelings. It is what it is. Everything that I’m doing now is really because of what I learned from Vince McMahon, so that’s the truth. You know, with TV production and camera work and directing and just everything like that is really learned from Vince. Now I’ve taken it and run with it a little bit but, really the basis all came from Vince.”
** NWA Words Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis guest appeared on ‘The Wrestling’s Cool’ podcast and further spoke about the forthcoming return of NWA Powerrr. Aldis said he’s “conservatively guessing” that Powerr will be back in the Spring.
“Depends on when we start up again. I would conservatively be guessing that we’ll be ready to do Powerrr again by the spring, and so I know who I — and it’s not up to me. I have obviously a fairly significant amount of influence, but I know who I would like to see on the show and there’s a few guys who I’ve reached out to and I’ve talked to Billy [Corgan] and Pat Kenney [Simon Diamond] and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea for this guy.’ But, I’m reluctant to say too much because one, given our track record of getting guys over and recognizing talent, the second I say their names, someone else is gonna try and sign them, and two because who knows what’s gonna happen with them between now and the spring? Some of them may end up signing a contract somewhere else so I don’t want to — I just don’t want that attention to go there.”
Aldis reflected on his TNA World Heavyweight Title win in 2013. He defeated Jeff Hardy to become champion but suffered a concussion during the match. He said it was Scott D’Amore who was the only person ringside that noticed he had a concussion. Drake Maverick watched over him throughout the night to make sure he didn’t have any issues falling asleep.
“I got a horrible concussion in that match. So I was really out of it and I was kind of just — I was like I’m on autopilot and the only guy that even noticed was Scott D’Amore, and he didn’t even work at TNA at the time. He was just there because he was my agent, he was my manager, like legit agent, and he was the only one who was actually paying attention and saw that I had a concussion. So I was on autopilot. [Rockstar] Spud, Drake Maverick, he stayed up with me all night in my hotel, keeping an eye on me because you know you have to be careful after a concussion about when you go to sleep. So he stayed up with me all night and I kind of remember bits of that, and he just kept saying, ‘Mate, you’re repeating yourself.’ But he was just going, ‘You ok?’ What a great dude he is. So bittersweet, because it’s very unnerving. That’s the only concussion I’ve had like that, and it was the first one I’d ever had. So it’s very unnerving when you get a moment like that and I always remember just later on thinking, ‘Oh God, what terrible timing.’”
There are talents that Aldis has his eyes on as far as people to recruit to the National Wrestling Alliance. One name within the organization who he feels could be a key player is Thomas Latimer. Aldis feels that Latimer has the most untapped potential in the wrestling business.
“Tom Latimer and I know he’s my best friend and he was the best man at my wedding and he’s like a brother to me. I think if he stays put with the NWA, I think you’re gonna see him — it’s gonna be a breakout year for him, and he’s the most untapped talent in my opinion in the industry and now I’m saying that, there’s open season on him. Someone go try and sign him but he believes in what we’re doing and in the vision too and I could see him being a major player with us.”
** PWInsider is conducting an interview with Madison Rayne this weekend. The site noted that she will discuss moving on from pro wrestling as the Hard To Kill pay-per-view will be her final appearance. Rayne is a former 5-time Knockouts Champion and a two-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion.
** In late November, former Ring of Honor and TNA talent Jimmy Rave shared that his left arm had to be amputated. Rave recently spoke to Cultaholic about the life and mental adjustments he’s had to make and opened up about those mental struggles.
“It’s hard to go from being able to do everything you want physically to not, you know what I mean? Like I can’t tie my shoes, you know what I’m saying? Stuff like that. And it’s just been super life-changing. You know, we were talking about stuff that I need to do to stay healthy and with this, I need to see a surgeon, an occupational therapist, a guy for the prosthetic and still see my mental health therapist.
That was the biggest thing for me in the hospital was they would have a mental health therapist there all the time. It just gets super depressing. I still haven’t really gone out to be around anybody. There was a show that I really wanted to attend this weekend but I just couldn’t bring myself to go and do it. So, it’s just been a hard thing to deal with.”
** WWE is scheduled to report their fourth quarter earnings and full year 2020 results on February 4th. Vince McMahon, President & Chief Revenue Officer Nick Kahn, Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon and Chief Financial Officer Kristina Salen will host the conference call.
** WWE announced this week that Drew McIntyre tested positive for COVID-19. McIntyre is scheduled to defend the WWE Championship against Goldberg at the Royal Rumble on 1/31. He was a part of CES 2021 and provided another update on how he is doing.
“Like I mentioned on Monday, I’m one of the fortunate ones that aren’t experiencing any symptoms, but I just wanted to reinforce, WWE wanted to reinforce to everyone how important it is to continue to listen to all the health guidelines, to wear your mask, practice social distancing and thankfully we are so strict in regards to our testing that the test found out that I was — that I tested positive and that we couldn’t risk having me in the building around our employees, affect their health and perhaps affect one of their family members’ health that’s more of the high-risk category. But, thankfully I’m feeling good right now.
Absolutely none [questions if he’ll be at the Royal Rumble]. I will be there. I’m following the doctor’s protocol, I will be there. I’m gonna face Bill Goldberg, somebody I watched as a kid. Very exciting for me.”
** The current WWE Intercontinental Champion Big E spoke with BT Sport and stated that he is hoping to be the most successful homegrown WWE talent from his era of wrestling in the sports-entertainment company.
“I’m trying to think of any talent, any other talent who’s been really successful who had zero previous experience. I wanna say my goal is to be the best male talent, the best homegrown male talent in WWE at least since I’ve been employed. I’m trying to think of the others. You know, because even like a guy like [John] Cena, he had done some indies. There’s some other guys like that who — but I don’t know if there’s anyone else, at least in my era. I guess like Brock [Lesnar] was signed to WWE and only been to WWE but someone who is signed since about 2009, that’s my goal because there aren’t that many. There’s a lot of football players who are brought in and weren’t very good. I’d have to think more. Maybe I’m not that high on the list but I’m proud of the fact that, you know, I definitely think it can be a good thing. It’s usually a good thing to have other experience, work other places but I was a guy who just came in, didn’t know anything else and thankfully, I’ve been able to work with so many different guys who are so talented. I feel like Cesaro and I — Cesaro’s like followed me through so much of my career and you learn from guys like that. Iron sharpens iron, so I really benefited from being able to work so many talented dudes over the last several years.”
** TMZ Sports caught up with The Miz and Asuka to promote WWE’s partnership with Cup Noodles. During the conversation, Miz talked about the turnbuckle collapsing this past Monday on RAW when Keith Lee pressed John Morrison into the corner. Miz stated that Morrison is fine but he [Miz] was initially cautious because the rope appeared to have wrapped around Morrison’s neck.
“You guys have no idea what it’s like to have front row seats to a ring breaking.
Can I be completely honest with you? I was thinking, ‘Thank God I wasn’t the one getting slammed into the turnbuckle.’ I’ve never seen anything like this before in my entire career in WWE. Yes, I’ve seen The Big Show suplex Brock Lesnar onto the ring and the ring absolutely collapses but I’ve never seen a turnbuckle collapse and that just goes to show the strength and determination of Keith Lee but also, how about this, John Morrison, after that happened, got up and was okay and he was walking around and was fine. That’s what amazes me. That’s the toughness of John Morrison. It’s pretty incredible. You can see the surprise on Keith Lee’s face, the surprise on my face. I just wanted to know if John was okay because if you see the ropes kind of wrap around his neck and I wanted to make sure his neck was okay and he is okay. He was able to finish the match. We didn’t end up winning the match, but as you can see, we were going up against two powerhouses in Sheamus and Keith Lee.”
** Steve Austin chatted with Jemele Hill and Cari Champion on their Cari & Jemele (Won’t) Stick To Sports show on VICE. It was stated by Jemele that Austin is appearing in the Brian Pillman episode on season three of Dark Side of the Ring. VICE issued a press release about the news.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl6FT3viC_I[/embedyt]
** Nick Gage needs to have surgery on his calf and he’s asking the public to help him raise money so he can go into surgery immediately.
** Sportskeeda caught up with Eric Bischoff for an interview. Bischoff spoke about AEW’s recent usage of celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and Shaquille O’Neal. He encouraged AEW to mold their own identity and continue using new ideas in that regard because the aforementioned celebrities have been exposed to wrestling fans.
“The more they try to compete with WWE and doing some of the same things that WWE is doing, for example, Shaquille O’Neal. I used Shaquille O’Neal for the very first time in wrestling in 1994. You know, Snoop Dogg has been around for a long time, and he has done a lot of things in WWE. He’s in the WWE Hall of Fame. So, that’s nothing new. I would look for; I would advise AEW to find new ways and different ways that haven’t been done before to establish themselves.
And if they are going to use celebrities, that’s great. I’m a big believer in using celebrities but using Mike Tyson, who was, you know, in WWE back in 1997, or whatever it was, 1998, and then using Shaquille O’Neal, who I used in 1994. Using Snoop Dogg, who has already been exposed quite a bit on WWE. Those aren’t new ideas. So, I would advise them to manage their own expectations, develop their own identity, and to look for a new way of presenting the product. Look for a new way to grow the audience as opposed to trying to replicate formulas that worked in the past.”
** Dirk Manning and Travis McIntire have put together a graphic novel about Tony Schiavone’s career in broadcasting that will release in March of this year.
** The season two premiere of Tama’s Island included a discussion about Kenny Omega, Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson and The Young Bucks reuniting on AEW Dynamite. Tama Tonga stated that-that is not Bullet Club and referred to them as “sellouts”.
“What got me triggered, right, is when I heard Kenny Omega going, ‘B-B-B-Bullet Club.’ You son of a b*tch you. The one guy that tried to dismantle us from the inside, split us into two, The Elite and Bullet Club. The guy who really tried to ruin Bullet Club is now using Bullet Club as an angle. Now, a reunion? How can it be a reunion when Bullet Club is still here. We ain’t never went nowhere. They should’ve called it something else like the ex-members. The ex-members reunion, alright? Because all of y’all have gone and when I say all of y’all, every single one of them who was in that, a different company, was in different other companies trying to do the same thing with Bullet Club. But they called it what? The Club, The O.C., Balor Club. I mean no matter what you guys try to do, you’re just not Bullet Club. Now here you are trying it again. Now, when you’re hash tagging that and calling it Bullet Club, that’s a slap in the face to us that’s still riding with Bullet Club in Japan. Now, if you’re the OGs, Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows and you’re promoting this as Bullet Club, damn dude. I mean come on now. That’s a slap in the face to us out there in Japan putting in the work. Y’all remember that guys? Remember those times that y’all were putting in the work with us? Y’all remember that, no? Now, hey, y’all can do your thing. Do whatever the hell y’all want, but do not call it Bullet Club because you are not Bullet Club and definitely now, now that you’ve got a reunion, you’re going to come into Japan and then what? Is that a reunion for us too? Nah, nah. Nah I’m pissed off man. You guys sold out. You guys sold out for the quick buck man. For the quick buck. But hey, I should’ve known that already. Once a sellout, always a sellout, you know? I should’ve known that. Ain’t that the code of the streets?”
Tama added that he doesn’t see how it could benefit him to appear on AEW or IMPACT programming for more than a brawl with The Elite.
“‘Tama, why don’t you show up on AEW?’ What the hell for? The hell would I wanna do that? Why would I wanna do that? Why would I wanna show up in IMPACT huh? We show up, we kick their ass and that’s end of story. That’s it. It wouldn’t be any other way. How does that benefit us?”
** Former 10-time WCW World Tag Team Champion Stevie Ray is hosting a face-off between Sami Callihan and Eddie Edwards before their Barbed Wire Massacre match at Hard To Kill.
** Jazz joined Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val on GAW TV. As of late, Jazz has been working for IMPACT Wrestling and she competed in their Knockouts Tag Team Title tournament. She also had a singles match with Jordynne Grace at the Genesis event. Jazz detailed how she got started in IMPACT:
“It’s been fun. I leave I think Tuesday to go back up for this month. It was weird because out of the blue, [Tommy] Dreamer called me and he was like, ‘I hear you’re retiring.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ He was like, ‘Instead of announcing it on a freaking podcast, you want to come on TV and announce it?’ I’m like sure. So he’s like, ‘Okay, let me get with the office here and I’ll get back with you.’ So he calls me back, he’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna have tag matches’ and blah, blah, blah and I’m like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘Dreamer, I’m fat, I’m crippled.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, I thought you were retiring just to retire.’ I’m like, ‘No dude, I’m really freaking crippled. My knees are gone. I can’t run, I can’t jump, I can’t do anything.’ He was like, ‘You’ll be okay.’ So I went there and everything, all the girls, of course I know mostly all of ‘em, you know? And it was just really, really — open their arms and very warm and welcome[d] me and Gail [Kim] was there. I haven’t seen Gail in… 20 years. Well I haven’t worked with Gail in 20 years. You guys know, once you’re on the indies for so long and you get to go on a bigger platform just to walk down the ramp, it just gives you just a good — it’s such a good feeling so…”
** Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards welcomed Serena Deeb onto the AEW Unrestricted podcast. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Serena was working as a Performance Center coach for WWE. When asked would she have left on her own if there was no pandemic, here’s how she responded:
“That’s a deep one. I’ve thought a lot about that too. I think the answer is no.
I think I just was really — I was embracing that chapter. It seemed like I was following the path of what seemed right in my life and you know, when I was offered the coaching job, it felt really right and I thought, ‘Well, I got to do a lot in this business, more than a lot of people’ and maybe I felt like it might be more of time to give back in that way. So, for me it was just a matter of kind of following the path and the path seemed like maybe that was right for me at that time, if that makes sense.”
Serena had the opportunity to wrestle in Japan during her career. One of the talents she worked with is current RAW Women’s Champion Asuka who Deeb feels she had her best match with in Japan.
“Who we now know as Asuka who went by Kana at the time, I think my favorite match in Japan was with Asuka and that was at Korakuen Hall which is just this amazing place to wrestle in Tokyo and yeah…”
** Jay White’s profile is no longer on the New Japan Pro-Wrestling English and Japanese roster pages.
** While speaking to Joey G of Wrestling Headlines about the RetroMania Wrestling game, Nick Aldis shared that he’s considering starting up a Twitch to stream the game.
“I don’t want anything I lend my name to-to be subpar. I want it to be…even if it’s not the biggest thing in the world…I want the people that do see it or do experience it to say, ‘Wow that was really good.’ I’m excited about it. It will probably lead to me finally getting on Twitch because once there’s a game that has a whole mode dedicated to me and what I’ve done…seems like a no-brainer.”
** Wrestling Inc. ran an article from their chat with Candice Michelle. While she was under contract to WWE as an in-ring performer, she had a clause in her contract that allowed her to take outside projects without approval from WWE.
“So I had a clause in my contract which allowed me to do that. Because I was coming from Hollywood, I just had a different type of contract from the average wrestler who comes from the indie scene or comes from the wrestling school. My website was off-limits and certain things on there were off limits that they weren’t allowed to take away from me or have control over, and GoDaddy just happened to be one of those.”
** Ring of Honor uploaded Adam Pearce’s match against Brent Albright for the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title to their YouTube channel.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agffy46_igw[/embedyt]
** On the 1/21 episode of NXT UK on the WWE Network, Kay Lee Ray is going to defend the NXT UK Women’s Championship against Jinny. In two weeks, the following match will take place to determine the next challengers to the NXT UK Tag Team Titles: Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews vs. The Hunt (Wildboar & Primate) vs. Ashton Smith & Oliver Carter vs. Pretty Deadly (Lewis Howley & Sam Stoker).
** U.K. outlet JOE has a feature up about WWE’s interest in Rugby players.
** Fandango chatted with Daily DDT ahead of the 1/13 episode of NXT and told the site he doesn’t dwell on the past when it comes to how he came onto WWE’s main roster with momentum but not much follow through.
“I try not to live in the past a lot and I try not to dwell on it too much because I’m so excited about the future. My advice to any young guys that come up and get a big push out of the gate: be prepared when they don’t have something for you. Be ready to pitch new ideas and something else to evolve into. Be ready for the next thing. Don’t bank on your one big push. Keep evolving your character, keep evolving your promos. That’s one thing I would tell 2013 me.”
Fandango returned to NXT in the summer of 2019 and he shared that it was him who requested to go to the brand.
“I’m actually the one who asked to go to NXT. I wanted to go there and I wanted to go back and team with Breeze. I think there was more left in the tank with both of us as Breezango and I knew going to NXT we’d get more time to go and show people what we can do in the ring. I think the Fashion Files on SmackDown was a good way for us to showcase our personalities and our abilities to cut promos and do backstage skits, which was great.
It’s cool to have such a diverse body of work, being able to show people you can be entertaining and do goofy stuff and be a good character, but I knew going to NXT would allow us to show that we can actually go in the ring. As I look at a complete professional wrestler, I look at their full body of work over their career. You can check off the boxes: comedy, the promos, and I think going to NXT has shown that we can both really go in the ring which means a lot to me because I take pride in that.”
** Natalya wrote about the forthcoming women’s Royal Rumble match for the Calgary Sun.
** Voting is open for the 2020 ROH awards.
** Doc Gallows and Blanco joined the Rewind, Recap, Relive show.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_AHpJA8IUU[/embedyt]
** Nash Carter (Zachary Wentz) and Wes Lee (Dezmond Xavier) spoke to NXT backstage correspondent McKenzie Mitchell after their NXT TV debuts.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V4-rcNQ9Ic[/embedyt]
** WhatCulture has an interview with Chris Sabin. Tony Quant has an interview up with Sabin.
** Xavier Woods and Tyler Breeze brought back their Battle of the Brands series.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xg4kzRSN8c[/embedyt]
** WWE provided a storyline update on Randy Orton after Alexa Bliss shot a fireball in his face on the 1/11 episode of RAW. Orton suffered “minor burns to the face” and an update on his condition will be provided on the next RAW.
** The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) joined The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQLh0w_2pao[/embedyt]
** Denise Salcedo chatted with Fandango.
** Wrestling Travel spoke with Chris Bey. Fightful has an interview with Bey as well.
** SoCal Val joined D-Von Dudley’s Table Talk podcast.
** Gabriel Kidd published his latest blog onto NJPW1972.com.
** Part one of Togi Makabe’s chat with NJPW1972.com is up.
** The following video is from Hikaru Shida’s YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-wI4Tjye4M[/embedyt]
** Velvet Sky has been added to the Virtual Basement game roster.
** NXT’s Kacy Catanzaro turned 31-years old on 1/14. Matt Riddle turned 35-years old today.
** Tasha Steelz was a guest on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast.
** That Hashtag Show welcomed Deonna Purrazzo onto their show.
** The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) spoke with FITE TV’s Josh Shernoff.
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.
