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.
** Dark Order’s Alex Reynolds joined the Dynamite Download podcast and reflected on the early stages of his run with Dark Order. Reynolds became slightly frustrated at points because he and John Silver were not used on AEW Dark or on Dynamite. In Reynolds’ mind, it got to a point where he thought they were going to be fired from or replaced in AEW.
It goes hand in hand with us literally starting to do BTE stuff and that started with us just out of pure — I wanna say part-frustration and part-desperation. Brodie [Lee] had just wrestled [Jon] Moxley at Double Or Nothing. He had nothing next, like after that. John [Silver] and I would barely be used on [AEW] Dark, to the point where we thought we were getting fired or replaced because they brought in 10 [Preston Vance] during the Georgia shows because we couldn’t make it and then we were able to come back down and they debuted 5 [Alan Angels]. Now both of them are getting wins on Dark and we still haven’t won a match and it’s like the whole point of The Dark Order like, ‘Oh join us. Stop losing, start winning.’ So we’re like, ‘Oh cool. Once we join this group, we’re gonna start winning matches.’ Nope, we’re just gonna keep losing. So, we were kind of miserable and I don’t — it wasn’t like a bitter frustration, but we felt like we were just there not contributing anything. So, and I hated being upset and bummed out at my dream job, you know? This is what I worked so hard for. Now I’m just coming to work not wrestling, coming out for an entrance or two and going home and just pouting the whole time. I didn’t wanna do that. So, I had just thought of, ‘Alright, maybe we can just do stuff for BTE. Maybe we can add a little comedy aspect. Me and John [Silver] can kind of just try to recruit people for The Dark Order and just tell them how much it’ll help them and they’ll start winning,’ and the funny part is this that they just always look at us and be like, ‘You guys haven’t won a match yet.’
** Kurt Angle guest appeared on Highspots Wrestling Network’s Virtual Gimmick Table show. While discussing his early days in pro wrestling, Angle feels that he has not had a bad match since he started.
Since I started, I’ve never really had a bad match. I’ve actually — and don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t the one to get the credit for it. It was a lot of the wrestlers, when I started, they would talk me through the matches. So I didn’t know enough to call the match or memorize it beforehand so they showed me how to work properly, the real way by calling it in the ring and I would just listen and when you’re a good listener, you end up becoming a good follower, you end up becoming a good leader so I followed for a couple years then I started leading and it worked extremely well.
** Bret Hart was the focus of Pro Wrestling Junkies’ latest virtual meet-and-greet. Bret shared that he’s been working on a book about his life in wrestling.
I remember those memories and I kind of thought about trying to write and sort of recreate what it is that I love about wrestling as a kid and bring back my… just what I believed in wrestling and why I loved it so much and tie it in with my childhood stories about growing up in a family with 12 kids and my dad’s a famous wrestler and just the whole sort of life that I had. I had such a great life and I’ve been working on that for a while and it’s a long ways from being completed and it may never get done but I think that it’s — I’ve got all this time, sitting down here doing nothing. I might as well try and do something constructive so that’s something I’m working on.
One of the questions asked of Bret was who does he wish he had the chance to wrestle. He listed off a handful of names including Rey Mysterio, who Bret feels is in the conversation for the greatest in-ring performer of all time.
“There’s lots of guys. I really wish I could’ve had one match with John Cena, especially as the [Canadian], bashing the States and all that. He would’ve been — if John Cena would’ve come along in let’s say 1997, it would’ve been perfect for me. Randy Orton, I would’ve loved to have worked with him, either face or heel. Rey Mysterio I think, and I’ve joked with him a few months ago and I texted him and I said, ‘You are the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.’ Rey Mysterio is second to none, for sure the greatest masked wrestler there ever was, phenomenal wrestler. Just one of those guys I have so much respect for. If I could’ve just worked with him one time, it would’ve been an honor for me. Let’s see, who else? I would’ve liked to have some kind of a bikini match or something with The Bella Twins. Handicap match would’ve been something,” Bret laughed. “Brock Lesnar, I’ve always heard nothing but the greatest things about everyone that ever worked with him, that he’s really a total pro in the ring and one of the best. In contrast to someone like Goldberg, Brock is a real skilled wrestler and knows how to work and I would’ve loved to have had the chance to work with him. There’s a lot of guys I would have loved to work with. CM Punk, he’s probably at the top of my list. I mean, I don’t know as a heel or babyface which one would have been better but either one would have been fun. Daniel Bryan is again, another one, second to none, phenomenal wrestler. I got nothing but respect for him. Drew McIntyre, would’ve been an honor to work with him on any level. I think I would have wanted to be a bad guy or a heel working with him but, it could’ve gone either way.”
WWE has a docu-series coming out in collaboration with A&E. Hart stated that he’ll be a part of the series and representatives from A&E are visiting him to shoot interviews.
I’m also doing an A&E documentary that they’re doing [with] a lot of the wrestlers but they’ve been working on one with me. In fact, they’re [coming] up here later in the week and [we’ll] shoot some more interview questions, and I hope for fans anyway, these documentaries that A&E are planning on doing or got in the works with different wrestlers, that I hope mine is a really good one and somehow it brings new life to fans that have seen me do so many interviews go, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that about him. This is something different.’ I’m sick of Bret Hart. I’m sick of me maybe as much as fans are but hopefully there will be something new in there. Like, ‘Oh, you gotta see this new A&E documentary. It’s something special.’ I’m happy to do anything that keeps me alive into wrestling and keeps fans remembering.
** WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Shayna Baszler joined Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast. During their conversation, Shayna opened up about her interactions with Vince McMahon at length and her adjustment to the style of wrestling that is presented on a Raw or SmackDown opposed to NXT. Baszler mentioned Vince McMahon telling her that he didn’t want any pro wrestling from her initially.
You come with this image that he’s [Vince McMahon] this unhinged, crazy guy but he’s always so nice and critiques me really well. I don’t know. He’s never been the way you imagine that you built up this monster in your mind so much.
When I first started wrestling on Raw, he gave a talk that was like, ‘Look, you have something different to offer, you have a unique look. The thing you have to start learning now that you’re on Raw is that your work rate is shown on pay-per-views and at NXT, so don’t get so hellbent on weekly Raw TV, because that’s where we build the story for the work rate that you can do on a pay-per-view.’ So he’s like, ‘You’ve got this thing. I don’t want you to do any pro wrestling. Got it?’ Okay, got it. So I have this match and it looks like I’m just going off the map and beating someone up, he loves it, the next week I do it again, he loves it. The next week I have a match with Nattie and I’m like, ‘Listen, Nattie,’ who’s way more experienced at this than me obviously. Nattie’s trained with me in an MMA gym, so I was like, ‘Listen, let’s just shoot around a little bit and then we’ll get to what we need to get to.’ We do it, he hates it. We go in the back and he’s like, ‘Well [it] looked like you guys were just fighting each other.’ So he makes us do it again. This is when we were doing the stuff at the PC and we were recording some episodes and doing some live. So he goes and makes us do it right away again and I’m just flabbergasted. I’m still new up there so I don’t know how stuff is, and Nattie’s like, ‘I got you, we’ll do this.’ So we go and we do a match that she basically calls to me and it’s a normal match, you know? And we go in the back and he loves it and I’m so confused at this point. I’m like, ‘Man, we did like headlock takeover, drop down leapfrog. I don’t understand,’ and so I go and I sit outside Vince’s office for a long time because I’m like — it’s scary and you’re asking the guys outside the office like, ‘Is he in a good mood today?’ So I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna — I don’t know. It’s nerve racking, he’s the boss and anytime you go to the principal’s office, it’s scary, right? So I go in there and I don’t even know — I don’t even know what I wanted out of it. I think it was just to get it off of my chest. But I was like, ‘Man listen, I know I have something that no one else has. I know I can bring a certain legitimacy to this that no other female has. I don’t know how to figure it out week-to-week yet. Just give me a chance’ and I was like, ‘You’ll never have to worry about me being in shape. If you want me to go out there and wrestle the same match 100 times, I’ll do it, I’ll figure it out. Just give me time. I’m just letting you know I’m aware I don’t have it. Just give me time. I’ll make you money’ and he was like, ‘Can’t wait.’ I think it was finally when I started working with Sasha [Banks] and Bayley where I think in the ring I stopped trying so hard to impress Vince and just started feeling comfortable in my stuff and it was finally where it started being like, ‘That’s it’ and going in the back and being like, ‘Is that more?’ And he’s like, ‘You’re getting it.’ So it has been this big learning curve, but I think feeling that comfort in what I am and not necessarily — and this is leaving out a whole bunch of like — like Randy Orton being like, ‘Don’t worry about the fans saying it’s boring.’ Just giving advice and AJ Styles giving advice, like all these guys but, it has been a hard balance and it’s something I’m constantly struggling — I have this old school style, but also I can’t necessarily do it the way they did it back then because it’s wrestling today so it’s been this — it’s still a juggling process, you know?
** Wrestling Inc. ran an article from their interview with Ric Flair. Flair was candid was about his lack of communication with Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and Ole Anderson over the years. He said one of the reasons they haven’t reconnected is because he didn’t hear from them when Reid Fliehr passed away and also didn’t hear from them while he [Ric] was in the hospital.
That’s one of the reasons Arn and I aren’t close. How do you not text? We don’t do anything anymore. We don’t talk. When it’s close to his (Reid) birthday, I get emotional. Like I said, one of the greatest. It’s got nothing to do with business. You just struggle with the people who you think will be there for you, and the people that you don’t think will be there are. Nothing’s bigger than the love of your children.
I wasn’t just saying it about Arn. I didn’t hear a word from Tully, didn’t hear a word from Barry. I didn’t hear anything from Ole. He’s mad at the world. Arn just comes to mind because he was so close to the family. Then when I was sick, not a word. You spend 10 years being so close with these people, and you just wonder what really matters at the end of the day. It means nothing apparently.
** ‘Metro’ pushed out their interview with Jon Moxley. During the conversation, Moxley told the story of when he and Ric Flair got drinks and it resulted in Flair being arrested in a airport.
Getting drunk with Ric Flair, he gets arrested at the airport and he’s walking round telling people I got him arrested at the airport. I’m like, ‘OK Ric! I wasn’t twisting your arm to order double Bloody Marys at 2.30 in the morning.’ I’m like, ‘I’m hanging out with Ric Flair, this is crazy, what kind of life am I living?!’ I’ve been very blessed to transport myself into the universe that I watched and wondered over as [a] kid. Sometimes I have to be like, ‘What the hell is going on? How did this become my life?’ But it’s pretty cool!
Moxley went on to talk about his interactions with Jim Ross and Sting in AEW. He reflected on the thought of how people could remember him in the later stages of his life and here’s how he responded:
When I think about, ‘Oh how are people gonna remember me in 50, 100 years when I’m dead?’ I don’t give a s**t, I’ll be dead, what does it f***ing matter? I’m not worried about my ranking on anybody’s list. I’m just worried about having the best experiences, having the best matches and the best true freedom of expression that I can, while I can.
** AEW’s The Butcher (Andy Williams) guest appeared on the Wrestling Perspective podcast. Butcher is currently in a team with The Blade (Braxton Sutter). Butcher is a co-founder of the ‘Every Time I Die’ band and said he hopes to create a theme for himself and Blade by the end of the year.
Yeah, I was going to try and do it with ours but we literally only had six days to come up with something. So I couldn’t get into a studio and do something in six days so Mikey Rukus, the guy who writes all the stuff for AEW, he had something in mind. We kind of gave him our indie music which was the band called Twitching Tongues, and kind of mimic what they did a little bit. It was very stomp-y. Two big dudes just going to a ring instead of — I really thought about it and Mikey had it tuned up and I had him tune it down and then slow it down and then it’s now, the music’s like awesome. When I hear it, I’m pumped about it. So, I always wanted to write my own entrance, but at the same time it’s like it’s one less thing I have to worry about, which will be rad. It’s kind of rad, but at some point in time, I would like to. Maybe by the end of the year I’ll have something.
He talked about his transition from wrestling in front of crowds to now wrestling for a number of people in attendance but mostly for those watching from their own personal spaces. He feels that when crowds do come back in full for AEW events, those who wrestle that night will shed a tear.
That’s still my favorite part of wrestling is like the creative part. Coming to Jacksonville every week, it’s tough but I also like — I think it’s a learning experience to wrestle for the people at home, and it’s only gonna make me a better wrestler on TV to do that now because I only have to pay attention to the TV instead of a live crowd where I might miss something and look at the crowd and pay attention to that crowd. Now, I get to pay attention to that and then when the crowd comes back, it’s gonna be so explosive man. The energy’s gonna be so crazy. The energy’s gonna be crazy. Every single person on this roster that wrestles that night is going to cry in the ring, I guarantee it.
** WWE and A&E officially announced their ‘Biography’ and ‘WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures’ shows. Both programs premiere on April 18th.
** Mosh of the former WWF Tag Team Champions The Headbangers joined the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast. He and Thrasher began working for the WWF in November of 1996. They were working on part-time deals until the summer of 1997 and during that stretch before signing full-time, they became champions and got their own action figures.
Honestly, I think it was [Howard] Finkel [that told us we were getting action figures], because they took us in to get pictures. Real pictures, like profile pictures. We’re like, ‘What are these for?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, these are for your action figures’ and we were like, ‘Action figures?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, you guys didn’t know you had action figures coming out?’ And we’re like, ‘No,’ and at this point, again, we were still part-time. We weren’t even full-time yet.
Yeah, first WrestleMania, we went over. Again, we were still part-time so we signed a part-time deal in November. I don’t think we signed a full-time deal for about six or seven months — no it had to be like June or July, when we first signed.
** ABC Action News has a story up about Big E, Andreas Hale and Jonathan Davenport’s ‘Our Heroes Rock’ animated series.
** Kevin Owens took to social media to thank WWE’s production staff.
Thank you. pic.twitter.com/HtSJS4Pr3G
— Kevin (@FightOwensFight) February 23, 2021
** Nick Dinsmore, who played the Eugene character on WWE television for several years joined Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast. In 2007, Dinsmore was released from WWE and he shared why he was initially let go from the company:
Non-compliance. I failed a drug test. I’d had a prescription a long time ago. It was a prescription medicine and when I went to get [a] prescription — the doctor killed himself, and the Walgreens was like, ‘We don’t keep records past a year.’ So I had no documentation.
Former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz took five months off from creative to write a script for Eugene that would be used in a WWE Studios film. That opportunity fell through for Dinsmore but he believes that chance to be in a film was given to Big Show as he starred in the movie ‘Knucklehead’.
I think one of the reasons Eugene did so well is because Brian [Gewirtz] did write for me and he liked it, and he took that time off and he wrote this big script and he comes to me and he goes, ‘We’re gonna make a movie. We’re gonna put you in a movie.’ I’m like, ‘Holy cow.’ He’s telling me about all these capers that are gonna go about Eugene trying to get in the wrestling business and at one point, ‘We’re gonna have you wrestle a bear.’ ‘A Bear?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What are you gonna do?’ ‘Well we’re just gonna put somebody in a suit.’ ‘No, you gotta get one of them Hollywood bears,’ and the only bear at the time was the one that was in Semi-Pro and he ended up killing his trainers so maybe that’s a good thing. But then the movie didn’t work out and they slipped Big Show in that role. Knucklehead. I believe so [that was for me]. Like everything I’ve seen was the stuff they told me was gonna be in the movie.
** Due to Hiromu Takahashi being out of action for six months with a torn pectoral muscle, he and BUSHI are out of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title match at the 2/25 Road to Castle Attack show. It’ll now be Taiji Ishimori and El Phantasmo defending against Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado.
** Outsports caught up with independent wrestler AC Mack. He dove into wrestling becoming more inclusive over the years with more Black and brown athletes coming into the fold and being open about their sexuality.
I’m starting to see more Black and Brown faces at the shows, which is cool… Representation matters. They’re showing up because they have more people to look up to. They see Ashton Starr, Joe Black, David Ali and Owen Knight. The more we push out there, the more they will come.
When I debuted in Beyond Wrestling, there was a guy… that hit me up afterward and said, ‘It was really cool to see you. I’m so glad you’re here. I hope you come back.’ He flat out said, ‘I want to see more Black wrestlers.’ He kept saying that. It was just one guy but seeing that just made my entire experience going to Beyond. We just want to do that on the regular. It’s as simple as that. We don’t want to take anything from anybody. We just want to add to what we already love.
** On 2/18, Chris Jericho applied to trademark “Corazón de León” which is the name he donned while wrestling in Mexico.
** CBS Sports caught up with The Miz and he discussed getting to share his WWE Title win with longtime friend John Morrison:
John brings out the best in me. He motivates me and makes me think outside the box. His brain works differently than anybody I’ve ever met. He is just an incredible friend. He’s the brother I never had. I love being next to him in the ring and being able to share this with him.
** Wide World Of Sports ran their interview with Indi Hartwell. She detailed how she kept in contact with WWE early in her career despite the company rejecting her. She said she kept sending them progress updates and eventually was hired.
I knew that I wasn’t ready at the times they were saying no. So, it was obviously for a reason and that’s what I tell people: ‘Keep at it because one day, no might turn into a yes.’ Every six months I would check in with them and let them know about my progress and finally in April of 2019, these scouts saw me wrestling in Brooklyn, New York – I was traveling – that’s how I got signed. You literally just don’t give up because if you know you’re meant to do something, you just keep at it. Because that’s what happened to me and I’m sure that’s what happened to a lot of other people [at the WWE].
** Sports Illustrated caught up with new WWE Champion The Miz. Miz said he does not plan on being a transitional champion like most expect him to be.
I do not plan on being a transitional champion. That idea only fuels my fire, and hearing it is nothing new.
It makes me think back to when I cashed in the Money in the Bank contract and won the belt in 2010. People thought I would lose, but I didn’t. Instead, I won the WWE championship. When I won, I heard I was only going to be a transitional champion, but I went on to main-event WrestleMania and I won, as a bad guy, in the main event, which never happens. Ten years later, I heard the same thing: I’d never win the title. So this is another opportunity for me to prove people wrong, which is what I plan on doing.
** MuscleManMalcolm chatted with ‘Angry Miz Girl’ to get her reaction to Miz winning the WWE Championship for a second time.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enjiy6laFGo[/embedyt]
** The Angle Podcast welcomed IMPACT Wrestling’s Moose onto the channel for an interview. They discussed the online reaction to Moose being added to the ‘Hard To Kill’ main event with Rich Swann and Chris Sabin taking on Kenny Omega, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson. Moose said he wasn’t surprised by the reaction to his performance.
I mean, I wasn’t surprised by it [the reaction]. Kenny Omega, he has all my respect. I love him as a wrestler. I don’t know him much, but I will say he is top five best wrestlers in the world and I understand why just being in a match with him, just the way his mind thinks but, the way my mind thinks is it was just another day at the office. I know how good I am and I just had to do what I know that I can do and what I practice every time I go in the ring and when I do every week, but it’s one of those things where I pick my spots to do stuff so a lot of fans who don’t watch AXS TV on the regular, those are not the spots where I pick to do all the stuff I know I could do, and being in the ring with Kenny Omega, knowing we was gonna have the most eyes we’ve ever had in our company history and pay-per-views for the last few years, I felt that was a good spot to, ‘You know what? Let me pull out some of [this] stuff out the bag,’ to show these guys that Kenny Omega is not only the best wrestler in the world, one of the best wrestlers in the world, in this ring and there’s another guy called Moose so… it’s all about picking your spots.
** To promote his ROH World Championship match against RUSH, Shane Taylor appeared on Good Morning Washington.
** Rob Schamberger’s latest Canvas 2 Canvas episode is about The Hurt Business.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlArVvWRyfU[/embedyt]
** Below is the full lineup for the 2/26 edition of NJPW Strong:
– TJP, Clark Connors, The DKC & Kevin Knight vs. Brody King, ACH, Logan Riegel & Sterling Riegel
– Ren Narita vs. Chris Dickinson
– IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Championship: Jon Moxley (c) vs. KENTA
** All Japan Pro Wrestling Results (2/23/21) Korakuen Hall
– Izanagi & Zeus def. Akira Francesco & Alejandro
– Baliyan Akki, Osamu Nishimura & Yoshitatsu def. Black Menso-re, Ryuji Hijikata & Takao Omori
– All Asia Tag Team Title #1 Contendership Three Way Match: Atsuki Aoyagi & Rising HAYATO def. Evolution (Dan Tamura & Hikaru Sato) and Hokuto Omori & Yusuke Kodama
– Jun Kasai & Tomoya Hirata def. Ryuki Honda & Shuji Ishikawa by DQ
– Jake Lee, Koji Iwamoto & TAJIRI def. Koji Doi, Kuma Arashi & Shotaro Ashino
– AJPW World Tag Team Championships: Kento Miyahara & Yuma Aoyagi (c) def. Abdullah Kobayashi & Daisuke Sekimoto
– AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship: Suwama (c) def. Kohei Sato
** AWrestlingGal has an interview up with Deonna Purrazzo.
** The Great Khali is attending an International Mixed Martial Arts event on April 17th.
** Sheamus joined the Sports Guys Talking Wrestling show.
** Karl Fredericks chatted with Ringsiders Wrestling.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhje9g2n5BM[/embedyt]
** The Miz made the media rounds and while speaking to TMZ Sports, he expressed that he feels he belongs on WWE’s Mount Rushmore.
** The following video is from the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsyRWLvpE8I[/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.
