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.
** BT Sport caught up with the current UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya. He was asked about the possibility of him working with WWE in some capacity and Israel said it’s never something he has spoken to WWE about directly, but there’s definitely a possibility it could happen.
I’ve never spoken to them about it directly but I speak to a few — well a couple of guys from the Attitude Era, my era. Never spoken about it but yeah, growing up, that was before I even knew what the UFC was or that it existed. That was definitely a dream of mine or path to I guess being where I’m at right now in the public eye was being a WWE superstar so yeah, definitely is a possibility.
** Sportskeeda hosted a Q&A with former WWF Intercontinental Champion Ahmed Johnson. He reflected on becoming the first Black Intercontinental Champion in WWF/E history:
I was happy man. I was so happy man to be the first African-American to win that belt. God I was happy, and I thought that the world belt was coming next and that’s when the falling out [with Vince McMahon] stuff started happening.
Johnson was candid about his experiences with The Kliq (Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash & Sean “X-Pac” Waltman). Ahmed says Michaels was not big on The Rock becoming world champion and even lobbied for Ahmed not to win the world title.
Shawn, Shawn Michaels was one, and Shawn didn’t want anybody to have the belt to be honest with you and they were saying because I was so new that I hadn’t put my time in to have the belt. That’s not the way Vince [McMahon] seen it.
Yeah [Shawn would lobby for me not to be champion], and probably, I don’t know who else was behind him. Probably the whole Kliq was behind him saying I was too new.
Jealousy, just out of pure jealousy. Well I think it more had to do with racial stuff too, because there had never been a Black world champion. I heard through the grapevine that he said that the people wasn’t ready for that.
The segment involving Johnson and Goldust during which Goldust kissed Ahmed was discussed. Ahmed said Dustin Rhodes was not actually supposed to make actual contact with him but Rhodes “pulled a fast one”.
Was it planned? He [Goldust/Dustin Rhodes] pulled a fast one on me. We had discussed in the back where he was supposed to put his hand over my mouth and kiss his hand, but he didn’t do that. He wanted to kiss me and he knew I couldn’t do nothing because we were live on TV and everybody’s watching. So he was doing it and I was like, ‘I’m gonna kill you man when I get up. I’m gonna kill you.’
We joked about it man. He’s a good dude.
During Ahmed’s run in the WWF, he was paired with The Nation of Domination for a period of time and he explained why Vince McMahon decided to take him out of the group:
It was good but it was just too many powerhouses in one stack, you know what I’m saying? It was too many. Like Vince [McMahon] said, Vince called us all in the office and he said, ‘Okay, Ahmed, I’m gonna take you out of The Nation’ and we was like, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because, nobody is gonna believe that you, Farooq, Mark Henry and The Rock can all be beat at one time. Who’s gonna beat that team there?’ I don’t even think The Heartbreak Crew [Hart Foundation] could’ve did that.
** Lisa Marie Varon (Victoria) returned to WWE as a part of the 2021 women’s Royal Rumble match. She guest appeared on D-Von Dudley’s Table Talk podcast and when asked if she thinks she could come back for a full-time run, she said it’s something she would be interested in.
I would be interested in that but I would need notice to go, ‘Hey Lisa, we’d like to bring you back in six months’ or something like that. Let me go train with Chavo [Guerrero]. He’s in California, let me go train with Rikishi or someone here in California where I can just go to a ring and just get into ring shape again, you know what I mean? Because you can’t do that with exercise equipment and weights, it’s impossible. You need to get in there, run some spots, just keep on going, take a bump, but just like… you know you never say never in this business, right D-Von? Because we always end up coming back, you know? But, and it’s always in your blood. It’s always gonna be in your blood. You think you’re retired, but there’s just something you’re like when, ‘Ah, they wanna bring me back for this.’
Varon looked back at her time in the women’s Royal Rumble match. She admitted that she got exhausted quickly and recalled telling Naomi to push her to the outside for a rest period.
I remember I told Naomi, I go, ‘Sh*tcan me, sh*tcan me, get me out’ and she goes, ‘What?’ And she goes, ‘This is not your elimination.’ I go, ‘No, just underneath the rope.’ We have to go over the top rope to get eliminated and I went out and the referee goes, ‘Are you okay?’ And I go, ‘Dude, I’m blown up dude. Oh my God.’ Holy moly, I forgot the adrenaline, just the excitement and you’re already nervous to begin with because you want people to remember you, not now they were like, ‘Oh my God, she’s still freaking badass and she still has it. Why did she retire?’ You want them to question why you’re retiring and you don’t wanna let anybody down, you know what I mean? So there’s a lot of pressure coming back as a veteran, more so. You don’t want anybody to feel sorry for you, at all.
** Kurt Angle spoke to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania outlet KDKA Fan N’Ation and he feels that the biggest accomplishment of his pro wrestling career was defeating The Rock for the WWF Championship at the 2000 No Mercy pay-per-view.
I just had great chemistry with The Rock and my first world title, I beat him for the world title. That was the biggest accomplishment in my pro wrestling career was beating The Rock for the world championship.
** Crimson and Slice Boogie are scheduled to appear at the NWA’s Back for the Attack pay-per-view on March 21st.
** Lucha Libre Online posted their interview with former WWE Tag Team Champion Cliff Compton, also known as “Domino” of the tag team Deuce and Domino. Cliff shared several WWE storyline ideas that he was almost a part of during his second run with the company in 2010. He said he was considered for the original NXT show and for the Straight Edge Society that consisted of CM Punk, Serena Deeb and Doc Gallows.
I kept in touch with John Lauraunitis who was still — he was the Executive Head of Talent Relations and he wanted to bring me back. I was still pretty young at the time, and he said, ‘But we don’t wanna have you do Domino. We want you to do something else. What that is, we don’t know.’ So I had a couple of meetings with them and he wound up sending me to FCW for a couple of weeks and the original plan — remember when they had the NXT group before and it was just on TV and they had mentors and all that stuff? He had thought I would be good on that and they wanted to have, I think originally, my memory’s not as good as it was but they were gonna have five rookies and then five guys who had been in the WWE and were gonna be coming back. I was going to fall into that category. That idea just never panned out again. So, we kind of just left on, ‘Well, we’d like to bring you back but there’s no reason to have you sit in developmental because you don’t need to be there’ and I just said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ It just didn’t work out, it didn’t work out and there was a couple of other instances. I was considered for the Straight Edge Society briefly. That didn’t really pan out obviously, but there were a couple of times where I was pretty close to signing full-time. It just didn’t happen unfortunately, but everything happens for a reason. I started to do some other stuff with Ring of Honor and whatnot and I just — it would’ve been interesting but it just didn’t happen.
The duo of Deuce and Domino were managed by Cherry on-screen. There came a point when Maryse came into the fold and attempted to push Cherry out and modernize the Deuce and Domino characters but the story was never completed.
That’s an example of there was an idea and it was with Maryse and she was kinda gonna intervene with Deuce and Domino and in storyline and she wanted to push Cherry out and Maryse was a very — in those days, her character was very — she was pretty shrewd. She was mean, she was beautiful, she knew it and she wanted to push Cherry who was Deuce’s girlfriend and my sister and she was gonna manage us and the original idea was she was gonna modernize Deuce and Domino, take us — because with Deuce and Domino, we didn’t think we were in the 50s. We clearly knew it was 2008, it was just our look, but she was gonna kind of fancy us up and it was gonna be a much bigger deal than it turned out to be. It just didn’t pan out and that happens so much in that line of work so there was this long couple of months storyline with Maryse and Cherry and there were talks of feuding with different teams and we were gonna be swapping managers but it never really panned out and it just kind of fizzled which is unfortunate but that happens in WWE. Every wrestler will tell you that happens. I wish the original plan happened because it was gonna be a lot of fun. It just, it never panned out unfortunately and it just kind of — Deuce and Domino just kind of broke up and everyone was like, ‘Well what happened?’ And they just didn’t go with the original plan but that happens all the time. It happens to everybody.
Cliff Compton reflected on winning the WWE Tag Team Titles alongside Deuce. He credited Brian Kendrick and Paul London for being helpful along the way and also discussed what Vince McMahon expected out of the Deuce and Domino characters.
Yeah, that was surreal and that was in Milan, Italy. Brian [Kendrick] and Paul [London] were two of the most talented wrestlers I’d ever been in the ring with and it was so cool to me because our styles couldn’t be anymore different. They were the clean-cut babyfaces who could do all these incredible moves and with Deuce and Domino, the office or Vince [McMahon] in particular, he didn’t want us doing a lot of moves. He was like, ‘You guys are brawlers. You kick, you punch, you rake the eyes.’ He didn’t see Deuce and Domino as being seasoned wrestlers who could do fancy moves. He’s like, ‘That’s not very realistic’ and we agreed. So, some people might have said, ‘Well they’re not very good wrestlers’ but, the characters were guys from technically the other side of the tracks. We were thugs, we were brawlers so to wrestle with Kendrick and London, I thought it was such a good dynamic because they were these clean-cut guys and we were these thugs basically but no, winning the titles was an unbelievable moment that I’ll never forget. It was pretty early. It was three months in and I was very grateful that Brian and Paul were so helpful in the early days because some of the early matches, it takes a while to get used to your opponents and we worked a lot of live events or house shows with them and I would work with Paul and Brian a lot, not just in the ring. I would talk to them in the back, they really looked out for me and wanted to see me succeed which sometimes in that business, that doesn’t happen a lot. But I was always grateful to Paul and Brian for being so good to me and willing to put us over for the tag team titles because yes, they had the longest reign. I think it’s been broken since then but at the time it was a big deal and at the time, WWE wasn’t really big on tag team wrestling. It wasn’t a focal point I should say, so I mean, it was crazy though.
** Christian Cage is scheduled to appear on the 3/10 episode of AEW Dynamite.
** During his ‘Hall Of Fame’ podcast, Booker T spoke about Christian’s arrival in All Elite Wrestling and if he thinks he’ll see Christian on a FOX Sports program again that has to do with WWE:
I don’t know man. Would there be a conflict of interest or anything like that? Perhaps. I don’t know man but there again, if it was the last time him and I worked together on WWE Backstage, I just wanna say I’m gonna miss him because Christian was always like my right hand man. He was always a guy that, you know, I always just loved to be around. He was always the guy that was gonna be, not the sore thumb at the party. He was gonna be the one that was gonna be laughing and making everybody else follow along as well.
** According to Showbuzz Daily, the March 8th episode of Straight Up Steve Austin on USA Network brought in 753,000 viewers. Charlotte Flair was the guest on this week’s show. The program did an 0.25 in the 18-49 demographic and ranked in at #8 in the top 150 shows on cable television last night.
** Sportskeeda chatted with Toni Storm ahead of her NXT Women’s Title match against Io Shirai. Storm discussed the possibility of NXT Women’s Tag Team Titles being introduced as a part of William Regal’s two ‘game-changing’ announcements and she’s all for the idea.
If that happens, like, that’s going to change the entire division. I mean, we’ve got more women than we ever have. So it’s going to be entertaining as hell. Like if that’s the case… it might as well just be all women (laughs).
** Josh Alexander did an interview with The Angle Podcast and during their conversation, Alexander was asked about Ethan Page’s departure from IMPACT Wrestling and what his next steps will be in IMPACT as a singles talent.
I mean, everybody’s gotta walk their own path man. I can’t control any of that stuff. R.I.P. Ethan Page, he passed away at Hard To Kill. That Karate Man murdered him and that was the end of that and you just gotta brush yourself off and move on so, I’m gonna put my best foot forward and my goal right now is to be X Division Champion because all those guys that I looked up to, they started in the X Division and they moved on from there so, I’m gonna try to knock that X Division Championship off my bucket list before I move on to the World Heavyweight Championship.
** The Wrap ran their interview with WWE Champion Bobby Lashley ahead of the 3/8 episode of Raw. Lashley is the third Black WWE Champion in the company’s history and he spoke about what that means to him.
Yeah, it is [history]. It is. And I’ve been learning more and more about how huge it is the last few days. Just my son also, my son looks to me, my son sees me. And my son is really big into football. And kids like my son, they look around at somebody to emulate in idols, and everything like that. And it kind of makes him feel really good, too, not just being Black, but being Black and being my son. So it’s huge for me. And when I was growing up too — and it doesn’t really matter what race you are, because you always look at somebody as a person first — but when I was growing up, there were different people that I would take a little special liking to, of course, just growing up. Just because they are Black, they are like you, and you can see yourself in them. So I think it’s very important that I won it.
The topic of a potential Brock Lesnar match came up. Lashley has stated in various media appearances that he doesn’t know why the match hasn’t happened. He added that he once spoke with someone close to Brock and they told him it was just not the right time.
I have no idea… The thing with Brock is everybody has been saying that basically from the day that I came into wrestling. They were like, ‘Oh man, there’s Brock! Him and Brock. Brock! Brock! Brock!’ The whole entire time. And I really do not know. I know I spoke with somebody that was really close to him and they just said, no, it’s just not the time. The only one I can really ask in that manner is (Paul) Heyman, because no one else really talks to Brock, that I know of, I don’t talk to Brock, I really don’t even know Brock that much. If he were to come back and [have] a match, I think it would be phenomenal, I think it would be great. But I think even a bigger match, because you can’t just overstep Drew (McIntyre), Drew beat him last year at WrestleMania. Drew is, if you wanted to paint a picture of a champion, that’s what they look like. So beating Drew is the one. So I think a triple threat with the two of those guys would be an incredible thing. It would be crazy. Normally, I wouldn’t go for a triple threat, but something like that is, hm, who wins that? And what does that lead to afterward. So that’s always a huge deal also, but then me and Drew still have some business left unattended, because I kind of beat him the other day, so I’m sure he’s going to want to deal with that… The one thing that I think is cool is that the match that everybody thinks Brock and I will have, Drew and I will have.
Or if he came back, I would love to take both of them. One and then the other. I love it. How I like it is, I know what kind of person Drew is… Drew loves to fight, so I know that’s going to be an amazing match once we have it. But the thing with Brock, I think, there’s just a lot of similarities. There’s only a few people that have come into wrestling that look like I do or look like Brock does but then has that realism of actually having a background in amateur wrestling. So it’s like, man, this is what wrestling is, a competition between two Goliaths like this. And I know everybody wants to see it happen and I’m sure it will happen sooner or later. I just don’t know. I think that’s a question to ask Heyman.
** WrestleZone posted their chat with Matt Hardy. While on the topic of the ‘Big Money Matt’ character, Hardy discussed how it came to fruition. He looked back on his time delving deep into the character in TNA/IMPACT Wrestling and recognizing that The Hardy Boyz duo was played out.
So ‘Big Money Matt’ there [IMPACT Wrestling] was my first time really delving into it, but whenever I brought it back in AEW, it was much like the same scenario in some ways because I feel like myself and my brother, what we’d done as The Hardy Boyz at that point, especially for me, it was played out and it was time for me to change it and do something different, and that was doing Big Money Matt.
** Sonny Kiss was the focus of Pro Wrestling Junkies’ latest virtual meet-and-greet session and she shared that her favorite part of being in AEW is the company allowing her to be in the women’s locker room while being a part of the male talent roster.
AEW is an amazing promotion. I love that I get to be me. My favorite, favorite part is that they allow me to be the gender fluid person that I am so I would probably say the fact that I get to be in the women’s locker room but on the male roster. So, it’s literally just allowing me to embrace who I am as a person and that’s probably my favorite, favorite part, and the comradery for sure.
** Shayna Baszler was interviewed by ‘Arabian Business’ and during the conversation, she discussed being someone that young female athletes look up to. Baszler opened up about not having the “stereotypical look” of some of her fellow roster members in the women’s division but knowing that there are young children out there who identify with her.
It’s crazy to think about still, because I still think I’m just a kid from the Midwest. But I have had, more so than the actual kids stopping me, I’ve had people tell me that their daughter, or their niece or young girl in their life has mentioned that they look up to me.
I’m not saying this in a way to insult myself, but I don’t have the stereotypical look of some of the women superstars, with bikini photoshoots and sexual appeal on that end. I think there’s a lot of young girls out there that see that and think, that’s not them. That was me, of course, not in a way that upset me, but it just didn’t identify with me.
I’ve been told there’s a lot of girls that look at me and see that she doesn’t wear a whole bunch of make-up, she doesn’t do these photoshoots, she’s like me. Even amongst girls looking at the example of women wrestlers, I think I appeal to an even more niche vain along those lines.
** Cody Hawk, who trained former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley was a guest on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast. Hawk spoke about what it was like to train Moxley and how Moxley was a natural at a young age.
Yeah, well Jon [Moxley] came to me, he was only 16-years old and at that point in time, Les [Thatcher] was still running the training school [Heartland Wrestling Association] and he wanted to train and Les wouldn’t let him, said he was too young and for him to come back when he was 18. I told him that if he wanted to hang around and push a broom and clean up and help set up and tear down that I would find a way to get him into the training school before he was 18. So he did. He hung around and he did all the odd jobs and everything and within a month or two, he was training and going, and he was just real easy to train because he had a plethora of knowledge in his head. He was a true student of the game, a true wrestling fan. So, training him was very easy. It came very natural for him, mainly because I think he was a wrestling fan and he had been watching wrestling his entire life and tape trading and that kind of stuff was a big deal back then and he was a big tape trader, trading tapes of Japanese wrestling and ECW Wrestling and things that we couldn’t necessarily get on television here in Ohio.
** While speaking to The Angle Podcast, Moose feels the only thing that was preventing him from reaching the next level in his wrestling career was his physique.
Because I think the last few years in professional wrestling, I’ve been basically just going off of talent, and talent has taken me very far and a good buddy of mine, actually a real, real good buddy of mine EC3, I know we had this feud and it was about controlling your narrative and that feud not only taught me how to look at my wrestling in a different aspect in the ring but to also look at my whole body of work and I think the one thing that was holding me back of being the total package was the way I looked. My talent is a star caliber — it’s a talent of a star caliber player but the way I looked wasn’t. I mean I’m great at talking, I have great presence, I’m really good in the ring and the only thing that was holding me back was the way I looked physically. So as soon as I worked on that side of me, then no doubt you could call me a total package in professional wrestling so…
** IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann chatted with Sportskeeda ahead of his title defense against Moose at Sacrifice. Swann stated that he would love to do a title versus title match with the AEW World Champion Kenny Omega.
You know, I’d love to put my World Heavyweight Championship on the line against AEW’s World Champion, Kenny Omega. With just that interaction that we had at Hard to Kill, when we finally met… I knew that if it was just us in that ring? I think we would create magic.
** Lio Rush will be issuing a “special invitation” on the 3/10 MLW FUSION.
** The following matches were announced for the 3/12 edition of NJPW Strong:
– Adrian Quest & Barrett Brown vs. The Riegel Twins (Logan & Sterling Riegel)
– New Japan Cup USA Qualifier: Hikuleo vs. Jordan Clearwater
– New Japan Cup USA Qualifier: Fred Rosser vs. JR Kratos
** Joey G of WrestlingHeadlines spoke to Josh Barnett for an exclusive interview.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObYliRDQpIY[/embedyt]
** John Layfield, Gerald Brisco, Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin caught up with one another.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwq18UaY90[/embedyt]
** Ricky Starks talked to Bleacher Report Live prior to AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view.
** MJF joined Louis Dangoor and Alex McCarthy on Wrestling Daily.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPqljBRHPi8[/embedyt]
** Tasha Steelz joined Taylor Wilde’s podcast.
** IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann was a guest on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast.
** NJPW ring announcer Makoto Abe’s interview is up on NJPW1972.com.
** AEW official Aubrey Edwards turned 34-years old on 3/9.
** The following video is from the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjj23zkxri8[/embedyt]
** Moose appeared on The Turnbuckle Tavern podcast.
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.
