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.
** Paul Heyman sat down with Highspots Wrestling Network for a virtual meet-and-greet session. Heyman was asked what talent did he work with that he knew wouldn’t be a star and his answer was Ryback.
Ryback. Would you like to know why Ryback? Because he was a schmuck.
On the topic of the more underrated promos in wrestling, Heyman feels that The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins), Armando Alejandro Estrada and Austin Idol are underrated with their mic skills.
I think both answers would be The Street Profits. I don’t think — and they get a lot of credit for being great promos. I don’t think they’ve even scratched the surface of how great they are yet. Both of them [Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins]. The rhythm between the two of them is just magic. Armando Alejandro Estrada, one of the funniest human beings I’ve ever met in my entire life and never got a chance on a major platform to never show how great he was. I mean going back, Austin Idol. Austin Idol is terribly underrated in the history of this industry as to just how great of a promo he was. I got through my rookie year based on stuff that I learned from Austin Idol.
Looking back on his days in charge of ECW, Heyman thinks the Rob Van Dam versus Jerry Lynn rivalry does not get the credit it deserves and explained why he thinks that:
Rob Van Dam versus Jerry Lynn, because as much as people still to this day will give it a lot of credit for being some of the greatest ECW matches ever, I would suggest that the modern-day style that so many young stars are employing today is a derivative of what Van Dam and Jerry Lynn were doing back in 1999. So, in terms of it gets a lot of credit for being a lot of people’s favorite ECW matches but as a rivalry, I still don’t think it gets credit to this day for how influential on today’s product it truly is.
** Trish Stratus was the focus of a three-part interview series hosted by Monica Brant. Trish did a deep dive into her careers as a wrestler and a model. Trish retired from full-time in-ring competition in 2006 and she said that WWE offered her a five-year contract extension before she made her decision to retire.
He [physiotherapist/yoga instructor] would just basically work on my shoulder, work on everything, get me back and proper so that I could go back on the road and mess it up again and I would go to him each week and he would be like, ‘Well, we just can’t keep doing this. We can’t just keep fixing it and getting it messed up’ and I said, ‘I know’ and it was just looming that I have to do something about this, and then I don’t know, the timing of things. My contract was coming up, they wanted to re-sign me for another five years. I’d been in the industry for almost —
I’m sure they would’ve [changed it], maybe if I negotiated and said, ‘You know, I’ll do it for one or two.’ They probably would’ve gone there because I was really at the peak of my career. Like I said, I retired as champion. I was doing the thing. People are like, ‘What? She’s leaving?’ People did not expect it because why would you leave when you’re on top. I’m tired. When I looked at my career, I felt really satisfied looking at all the women that were readily available as workers, I had really worked with all of them. I felt like there was no stone unturned at that point and I just felt fulfilled. I felt good. I felt good with what I’d done so far and then, the real decision maker was my mom got diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and I just knew. I was like, ‘I can’t be on the road when she’s going through this. I have to be by her side’ and so the decision was easy for me and it just was like yeah and it was easier to break it to them too. Like, ‘I’m just leaving because I gotta be with my mom’ and so that was easier to sort of — and for the fans to go, ‘Why are you leaving us?’ I was like, ‘Well my mom’s sick, I need to go’ and they’re like, ‘Okay, that’s cool,’ and I was by her side and thankfully she’s cancer free and in remission and everything and all good so, yes, for sure.
In part two of the interview series, Stratus spoke about her arrival in WWF/E and giving up the living she was making as a model to become a full-time wrestler. She wanted to make sure WWF matched what she was already making and with that, she secured one of the largest contracts for a female talent in the company.
Well it was [a big contract] because of the fitness thing. It’s so funny because we had, as you know, we had a good income just by having — between your appearances and various media things and then your mail order business, right? Your fan mail business. So I had to say to them [WWF/E], ‘This is what I make so you’re gonna take me away from this industry so I need to make sure that’s obviously –’ you know, I had a lawyer with me as well. But yeah, I don’t really like to share numbers and stuff but I did have one of the highest contracts as a female coming into the WWE because of my background, because I had an established business so to speak, and then match it and then obviously give me a reason to wanna step away from it kind of thing so yeah, it worked out really well for me.
Stratus has been open in the past about how yoga helped alleviate the pain she put on her body over the years. A doctor told her early in her wrestling career that she had the back of a 50-year-old.
I had to train to perform and so it was about more stamina, agility and yeah and then you’re just on this rigorous schedule so learning how to balance how much training to do but knowing you’ll still have a physical bout that evening and then giving your body the right rest it needs and the travel on top. The travel is probably the worst. The travel was probably — I mean, you were either sitting in a car, cramped car right after being physical in a match and sitting in a car. Backaches and headaches were really common for much of my career. The turning point for my career too when I discovered yoga. Having herniated discs, was basically at one point having back spasms and the doctor just said, ‘Welp, you have degenerative disc damage. You basically have the back of a 50-year old so, maybe you wanna change some stuff up.’ I was like, ‘Umm, but that’s my job. What can I do?’
Fit Finlay is often credited for being an advocate for women’s wrestling in WWE at a time when the focus for women in the company was not on the in-ring work. Trish made sure to credit Fit for believing in her.
The guy, we have agents and producers that work with us behind the scenes for each, ‘You get your segment’ kind of thing and he knew. He kind of said he saw the fire in my eyes, his name was Fit Finlay and he saw the fire in my eye and he was like, ‘Oh okay, let’s –’ and I felt like because no one’s really paying attention to the girls, let’s do other stuff besides the girly, slappy stuff. Let’s do cool things that maybe would peak people’s interests.
** Axel Tischer, the former “Alexander Wolfe” has been making the media rounds before his WWE contract expires this month. The latest outlet he spoke with was the Alliance Pro Wrestling Network. Prior to WrestleMania 35, SAnitY (Tischer, Eric Young & Killian Dain) lost to Miz in a 3-on-1 Handicap match. Tischer said that SAnitY was close to being involved in Miz and Shane McMahon’s match at WrestleMania 35.
We were a part of that and we pitched more ideas in the end because we did not know that we’d get split after Mania 35 and we pitched a lot of ideas to be a part of [the] Mania 35 match, Miz and Shane [McMahon]. It was very close that we would be attached to the match but in the end, they just used us [SAnitY], so they kind of sacrificed and again, it’s nothing against The Miz. He’s a great guy, an awesome wrestler, everything but it’s like you have the least bad ass guy from the whole roster against in our opinion, the most psycho, psychopathic guys and [we] get kind of sacrificed [in the] storyline. Yeah, is what it is.
At the WWE Worlds Collide show in January of 2020, Tischer was a part of an eight-man tag match that saw Imperium (WALTER, Fabian Aichner, Marchel Barthel & Tischer) take on Undisputed ERA (Adam Cole, Roderick Strong, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly). During the match, Tischer was kicked flush by Bobby Fish and was knocked out. Axel praised WWE medical for how they handled the situation.
I got knocked out cold with that and you can see if you watch it back, [I’m] totally off. So Drake [Wuertz], he kind of saved my career. He got over me and he saw a lump on my neck. That’s when you get knocked out, the blood is not flowing properly. So he stopped it right away from [me] getting injured and he probably saved my career for another ten years or something. So then they pulled me out and I couldn’t come back right away so when you get knocked out, you will not wrestle but also I could not stand up so they had to carry me back. After five minutes, I was almost back 100 percent, I got told by medical but because of the medical progress, what they do, they cannot allow me to go back because I got obviously concussed. So which is good because WWE always tries to take care — not really try, they take care of the talents but they obviously try to take care as best as possible because a lot of times, referees, staff and even wrestlers get schooled. If something happens like that, stop moving, don’t do anything, don’t — when you’re in the heat of the moment, you need a referee like Drake for example who blocked Bobby [Fish] there from continuing doing something, doing his job because he didn’t realize it but he was very good at seeing it and just called for the medicals and they took care of me. They did like the tests and everything, reaction tests and most of the time you have different symptoms. You get super emotional or you get foggy and you sense different smells and everything and even if I got caught good, I didn’t feel anything so props to Bobby Fish. He caught me in a healthy way, in a good way. My jaw was great so [everything was fine in the end] but they couldn’t let me back.
As he waits for his WWE contract to expire, Tischer is in the process of moving his family back to Germany. He plans to work on the independent scene there.
I’m doing great, doing well. I’m in a happy place in my life, very positive because I’m about to move back to Germany which was the plan before but now I have to do it a little bit quicker than [it] actually was planned. So I’m ready to go back to Germany. I’m very positive, very happy about going back there, through the indie scene and work again as a freelancer. Of course it’s never great to get told [you’re being] let go or to get released, however you wanna call it and it sucks a bit to leave all the money behind but money’s not everything in life so I’m happy and my wife is positive about it.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Eric Young is currently unable to wrestle due to a torn ACL that he is recovering from. He is still appearing regularly on IMPACT programming and Young recently did a signing with K & S WrestleFest. He provided an update on how his recovery is going and said he should be healed up by late September or October.
It’s really cool to be part of that [IMPACT/AEW crossover], it’s a part of history. I haven’t been involved with it directly, but I imagine when I’m healed up, end of September, October, I’m going to be very involved. The door’s opened and I’m ready to walk right through it.
Young has been involved in wrestling since the late 90s. He explained that he and his significant other intends on traveling the world when his in-ring career is over. Young is not 100 percent interested in transitioning into a producer or coach role, but he’s sure he could call Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Scott D’Amore or John Laurinaitis to get that position.
I don’t think so. I think it is something that I’d be good at. I’ve trained guys. I’ve trained Cody [Deaner], Crazzy Steve, I trained Shawn Spears, Jake O’Reilly who worked for All Japan and is a big time guy on the independents in Ontario, [Canada]. Yeah, it’s something that I do like to do. But I feel like when I’m done in-ring, I’m probably gonna disappear and you probably won’t see or hear from me for quite a while. Me and my wife are planning to sell all our stuff and move out of our house, buy an RV. It’ll probably be a fifth wheel and a truck. Just traveling and she works remotely so she will keep her job and that will fund our adventures and that’s what I’m gonna be doing. I know that John Laurinaitis said anytime I want, I can produce for them [WWE]. I think if I asked Hunter, I can work at NXT if I want. Obviously with Scott [D’Amore] and them, I could work there. It’s something I think that I would be a valuable asset because of my experience, all the different things I’ve done. I’ve seen the card from every angle. I’ve been the opening match, I’ve been the popcorn match, I’ve been the main event, I’ve been in hardcore matches and tags. I was wrestling women before it was popular. Yeah, I’ve done lots of things and I love that about my career that I’ve seen it from a lot of different angles and I think it gives me a very wide sense of what’s really going on, it gives me an appreciation for the whole show because I’ve seen it, I’ve been a part of it from every angle. A lot of people can’t say that and that’s a cool thing where I’m singular that way.
IMPACT announced that a limited number of fans will be in attendance at Slammiversary on July 17th. Young spoke about how eager he is to have fans back at shows.
I don’t think there’s going to be like a huge number of fans because the studio is not a huge studio, but the fact that they put as many as they could and they were sold out in minutes, literally minutes so that’s — people are thirsty for it. You know, it’s gonna be a boom for all things entertainment, music, movies, wrestling. We really didn’t go anywhere. The TV product stayed, we never missed a beat there but as far as touring and live shows and wrestling in front of people has been few and far between for the last 15 months and I can assure you, I said this earlier, you guys are excited to be in the crowd and watch it live. No one is more excited than the guys who have been wrestling in front of nobody for 15 months. It sucks. It sucks, no other way to put it.
** Hannibal TV conducted an interview with Dan Madigan, former WWE writer for the SmackDown program in 2004. Madigan also wrote the script for the ‘See No Evil’ film starring Glenn “Kane” Jacobs. As the conversation went on, Dan shared the pitch that got him hired by WWE and it involved Stephanie McMahon having her soul possessed and Vince McMahon coming to save her.
I came up with an angle about masked wrestlers coming in from South America called The Covenant. They’re going to take over SmackDown because that’s what wrestlers do I guess and the whole idea is this group of masked wrestlers is gonna get the way clear for their leader called The Beast and they’re all masked wrestlers and the whole idea culminated with Stephanie McMahon tied into the ring, tied down to the ropes and her soul’s possessed and Vince McMahon is fighting his way through The Covenant, fighting his way through the crowd with Holy water going, ‘The power of Vince compels you. The power of Vince compels you,’ right from The Exorcist and I was gonna have the ring levitate and all this crazy sh*t and they read that treatment, they go, ‘This is crazy. This is an insane treatment’ and they hired me. That’s how it happened. It happened so quick, my head’s still spinning [from] how fast it went.
Madigan listed off several names who he enjoyed writing for and collaborating with in WWE. Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Nunzio and The Basham Brothers (Danny & Doug Basham) were the talents he named.
You know, ‘unofficially’, it was Eddie [Guerrero]. See, officially, I was told not to write for Eddie Guerrero. I was told by certain people, ‘He’s off limits, I’ll write for him’ and Eddie would call me and say, ‘Dan, they don’t know, can you?’ So I would always talk to — any time Eddie called me, we would talk and we talked about different things and he was just like the nicest person in the world. So unofficially working with Eddie was great but I think working with Kane was a lot of fun because you know, I got to know Glenn, I get to know this character, this bigger than life character, this monster. Then I get to work with Gene Snitsky and Snitsky was just another big, larger than life character, this real monster heel so I’m still friends with Snitsky and you know, these larger than life, villainous characters worked well for me. I worked well with Kurt Angle too. I think I said I’m a heel, that villain mentality to me gets the story going and these are the guys.
Working with Eddie was great, working with Kurt was great. Undertaker was great because you didn’t have to write a lot of stuff. I mean, three or four lines, it was perfect. He knew his stuff. Kane was always a lot of fun doing it. I had a lot of fun with Nunzio, Little Guido with The FBI. They were fun to work with. It was a lot fun to work with those guys. The Bashams were fun and they were very appreciative too, you know? You throw a guy a couple lines here and there, they’re like, ‘Hi man, thanks for thinking about me and stuff. Thanks for putting me on the show.’ I saw wrestling as a variety show. You’ve got all these high intensity matches then you’ve got matches that aren’t as intense, maybe you’ve got a humorous section because if you keep having a show with all these high-intensity matches, you’re gonna burn off the audience, you’re gonna burn off the wrestlers so, I always saw the show as being up and down. Humorous, fun matches, matches that are serious, real serious matches. Sort of give a amalgamation of different things to people. So I always had fun with everyone. Everyone I worked with, I tried to have the most fun out of it because it’s a new experience to me, it’s a new way of writing, every character is different.
One pairing that Dan wanted to put together on screen was the duo of Mark Henry and Viscera. If there was an issue with promo ability, he wanted to give them a manager.
I remember we had Viscera and Mark Henry and I wanted to put those two together. I remember I said, ‘There’s a killer, unbeatable team.’ I was gonna call them The Black Alps. These guys are unbeatable. I said, ‘You can just have these guys with a manager and they’re unbeatable’ and once again, if there’s a problem with the mic skills, you just sort of — small promos, have someone cut ‘em for them, give them a partner. Always hide the weaknesses. Another thing I learned from Paul Heyman: Bring out the strengths, hide the weaknesses.
Elsewhere during the interview, Madigan detailed how he came into the opportunity of pitching the ‘See No Evil’ film and writing it out for WWE. The initial reaction to it was a producer telling Dan that Vince McMahon would love the story.
And as I walked to my car, my manager at the time calls me and says, ‘Hey, the WWE Films, they want you to go down and pitch an idea for a horror movie.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s great. Do I have a couple weeks, at least a couple weeks to come up with an idea? Formulate an idea? I can come up with something.’ He goes, ‘No, no. They want you to come down tomorrow.’ ‘Tomorrow?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re good under pressure. You’ll come up with something’ so I said, ‘Alright’ and I think any writer in this business always has a horror script in the back of their head or has a zombie script, vampire script, any type of action script, you’re always working on something, you have to be. So when I went to the studio in Beverly Hills, I met with the producers and I didn’t know really when I walked in the room which way I was going to go. I had an idea, they wanted to use Kane. I knew they wanted Kane to be the first icon horror character so I started pitching this idea I had and the producer’s sitting there during the whole pitch like a statue. I mean I thought he was dead. I was, ‘Take this guy’s temperature. He’s not moving’ and I’m pitching, I’m trying to get the guy going, excited and stuff and if I was pitching on Easter Island, I’d have a better response, right? So I’m thinking, ‘Here’s a job I’m not gonna get’ and at the end, I hit the move, the story’s over, I go, ‘Ta-da!’ And he slowly blinks and goes, ‘Vince is gonna f’ing love this story! This is great.’ He just blew up.
** Stephanie McMahon appeared on CNBC’s ‘Squawk On The Street’ program to discuss WWE’s business growth and strategies going forward. McMahon was asked about the ticket and merchandise sale numbers as WWE is moving forward with resuming shows with live fans in attendance and here was her response:
Well the majority of our revenue is contractual through our media partnerships but then when you think about our live event business, it’s over a one hundred million dollar business for us annually. C.P.G. has continued to deliver very strong returns during the pandemic, especially given e-commerce actually offset the loss of live event ticket sales and live event merch so we look for key growth trends in both of those areas.
McMahon mentioned that WWE does not want to compete with the likes of Amazon, Disney and Apple on the technology front but they are focused on pushing out a great deal of content.
Absolutely. I think one of the key lessons that we learned is that we don’t wanna be competitive in the technology business against the likes of Disney and Apple and Amazon etcetera. You know, we want to be competitive in terms of content because we are storytellers and that is what we do best and that is what we’re going to focus on and we’re very grateful for our partnership with Peacock where we can now provide the best [of] our premium content for Peacock as well as, you know, move forward and double down and invest in our content and what we do best.
** The Wrestling Perspective Podcast brought CM Punk onto their show. Punk shared his thoughts about the current incarnation of the Roman Reigns character and feels that WWE is years late on this. Punk added that he thinks now, Reigns is exactly where WWE wants him to be.
Being a fan of pro wrestling is kind of the genesis of being creative but I think a lot of the times, the best stuff, you just kind of gotta go with the flow of it, you know? And I’ll use Roman Reigns as an example, because if we’re talking about good stuff, if the WWE does anything good, this is the one thing that they’re doing right is Roman Reigns. His character work, his in-ring stuff, it’s all great. But I feel like classic WWE, they’re always five years, ten years late. This is something that they should’ve done originally because they tried so hard to get this guy over as a babyface and they gave him x amount of Mania main events and they’re just like, ‘This is the guy, this is the guy, this is the guy’ and he never really had his moments until now. Maybe he needed that adversity and that backlash to finally be this guy but this is the one thing they’re doing right because what can you say bad about what Roman Reigns is doing right now? He’s far and away the best guy they have and when you talk about storylines, in-ring work and all that stuff, right now, he’s the total package so he’s exactly — like for the first time in his career and I’m not being mean to Roman Reigns, I just feel like he’s finally where they pushed him to be. It just took a minute, you know what I mean?
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling hosted a virtual meet-and-greet with Jushin Thunder Liger. Below are several highlights from the hour-long session:
– His WWE dream matches are KUSHIDA and Shinsuke Nakamura and Liger supports them. Another dream match for Liger is with John Cena.
– Liger says Tyler Breeze is a fundamentally perfect wrestler. He feels that most WWE talents are finely tuned and strict in the ring. All the performers there are fundamentally sound.
– Hiromu is the star of the Junior Heavyweight division but he’s injury prone. That’s the biggest challenge in his career going forward. Liger wants to see YOH move forward as a singles talent.
** Sports Guys Talking Wrestling welcomed Mark Henry onto the show. Henry is officially a member of All Elite Wrestling and will be working in several different roles for the company. Henry shared Vince McMahon’s reaction to the news that he would be joining AEW and McMahon was happy for Henry and said he’s going to do great things there.
There was multiple reactions. The reaction went to Vince [McMahon] when I told him and him saying, ‘Man, I hate to lose you. I really don’t wanna lose you. But, I know you’re gonna be great over there.’ He’s like, ‘You’ve done so much.’ He said, ‘I don’t ever wanna feel like I’m holding you back’ and I said, ‘Well I would have liked to have done it there but I’ve already made up my mind to leave now’ and he was like, ‘Brother go for it man. You can do it.’ He was proud of me for making the move and having the balls to say, ‘You know what? Ima bet on myself,’ because I’ve never had a safety net in my life. Every step that I’ve ever taken has been on a high wire. It was either fly or fail and I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve flown many, many times and now I’m gonna be flying for AEW.
Henry last wrestled in 2018 and when asked if he’ll be wrestling for AEW, he stated that if he is to do another match, it will definitely happen in AEW.
Well definitely. If I’m gonna do a match, I’m gonna do a match with AEW. I mean, whether it’s the first one, the second one or however many I feel like I got left in me. Definitely I’m gonna be there.
Prior to his new duties in All Elite Wrestling, Henry was working behind the scenes for the SWE Fury promotion in Texas. He explained why he is leaving the promotion completely and credited a part of that to Lacey Von Erich, who he described as a “cancer” to the promotion.
No, no, I’m done with SWE, and some of it is misfortune for them because, you know, they got Lacey Von Erich down there and I think she’s a wreck and a cancer to their company but that’s me giving my opinion. It’s no fact behind it that everybody else hates her or dislikes her or thinks that she’s a detriment but, anytime I see something that’s possibly dangerous in wrestling and I’m not meaning with the talent, I mean it with the crowd, with the business of professional wrestling. If somebody tries to put a black eye on the business of pro wrestling, they’re gonna have a problem with me. I speak my mind. I always have and I always will.
** The Miz and Maryse were interviewed by Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso. Miz spoke about his injury and said he doesn’t know how long he’ll be out, but he’ll still be appearing on TV regularly.
I’ll be out for a little bit of time. I’ve seen that I’ll be out nine months. I don’t plan on being out nine months. I was on TV last Monday, and I’m going to be on TV every week.
We always tell children not to try what we do at home because it’s a very dangerous sport, and I’m a person that had never been injured in a WWE ring for my entire career. I had a match, and did I get injured? Yes, the answer is yes, I did get injured. How long will I be out? To be completely honest, I don’t even know that. I’m just working on physical therapy, getting everything back to 100% so I can give the audience exactly what they want.
Maryse discussed her in and out involvement with WWE. She stated that she always makes comebacks and could have another on the horizon.
We always have something going on, from WWE to our production company. I’m in and out of WWE, and I’ve had a lot of comebacks, and I’ll probably have another comeback sooner than I even know. Whatever I do, it has to be perfect. I do everything I can to make the best product, like my beauty product, Pampers or with WWE. I want to make the best of everything that I’m given. I think that’s why we are so confident that our projects are going to be good.
** IMPACT Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo is taking on Lady Shani at AAA’s Verano de Escándalo event on July 3rd. The following month, Purrazzo is scheduled to face Faby Appache at Triplemania with both the Knockouts and Reina de Reinas Championships on the line.
** Nikki Cross made her return to Monday Night Raw on a May 2021 edition of the show. Prior to that, her last appearance was in February. She spoke to Digital Spy about what she was up to during that period she wasn’t on TV.
So the last few months I’ve been training in-ring as much as I can. I’ve been training four times a week, just doing everything I can to be the best competitor that I can be, working on different things and just introducing new moves to the move set. I’ve been studying as much tape as I can, watching a lot of matches. I’ve been watching a lot of Ricky Steamboat, a big favorite of mine. Or even watching older matches of my own just to say, ‘Okay, what can I do better? What can I maybe change, what I can improve on?’ Or to be like, ‘Let me keep that, that’s a great little move that that takes people off your feet.’ It’s been such an amazing period of growth for me as a performer and as a competitor and as a person and just really just throwing myself in and being immersed in a wrestling ring again.
** CBS 58 has a feature on Josiah Williams that includes an interview with him prior to his recent WWE departure. Williams remembered being brought into WWE to conduct backstage interviews and he does not think those went well.
And they [backstage interviews] were trash. They were really, really, really, really bad but they [WWE] still stuck [with me], saw something there and said, ‘Alright, let’s figure something out.’
It was Josiah’s ‘Wrestle and Flow’ videos that got him discovered by WWE. He never thought that his videos would lead him to his dream job.
They [WWE] discovered me through Wrestle and Flow and it was completely, completely unexpected and wild just because I always assumed it would be something maybe people on YouTube would enjoy but not that I would ever get my dream job because of it. I had no idea.
** Sportskeeda caught up with Chuck Palumbo for an interview. He recalled the beginning stages of the pairing of himself and Billy Gunn. Palumbo said Vince McMahon was set on him having blonde hair, so he had the stylists bleach Chuck’s hair to the point that his scalp began to bleed.
It came down to one night, and I think I’ve told this story before, I want to say it was in the American Airlines Arena. It was three or four in the afternoon when Vince came to us and he said, we’re going to make you guys this flamboyant tag team, wear robes, and I think he said platinum hair. Personally I said fine, whatever you guys need, I’ll take it and do the best I can with it. Then he said, it’s going to happen tonight. I’m like… we’re going to go live in a couple of hours, I have black hair *laughs* so they have the girls who travel with us that do the make up for the Divas and stuff like that. So they proceeded to bleach my hair over and over and over to the point where my scalp was bleeding. So by showtime, we were platinum blonde and we were out there.
** Below is the pre-show for NWA’s ‘When Our Shadows Fall’ pay-per-view. The pre-show did not air as scheduled on Sunday.
** Justin Grasso of Sports Illustrated got a comment from Philadelphia 76ers Center Joel Embiid about Triple H ringing the bell before the 76ers’ playoff game.
** The Miz will be a part of the 2021 MLB All-Star celebrity softball game.
** KENTA and Juice Robinson appeared on Highspots Wrestling Network’s Virtual Gimmick Table show.
** Episode 259 of Being The Elite:
** David Otunga made the media rounds to promote the ‘Baking Up Love’ film and appeared on a Central Illinois news outlet.
** Pro Wrestling Illustrated has an interview with Maki Itoh and Kamiyu. Itoh said she would like to return to AEW, but she prefers it to be on a more long-term basis instead of one show and then back to Japan.
** Bianca Belair and Montez Ford seeing their action figures in a store:
** Nikki and Brie Bella spoke to Hollywood Life about motherhood.
** Daily Star chatted with Rhea Ripley.
** Shingo Takagi & BUSHI vs. Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Titles from the 2019 NJPW 47th Anniversary Show.
** Hindustan Times ran their interview with Rey Mysterio.
** Matt Cross spoke to Lucha Libre Online for an exclusive interview.
** June 7th is the birthday of the late Howard Finkel who passed away in April 2020.
** Lance Archer was a guest on the Battleground Podcast.
** Jim Ross talked college football with R.J. Young on ‘The #1 Ranked Show’.
** Drew McIntyre talked to Mike Foss of WXYZ Sports about WWE’s show in Detroit, Michigan in August.
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.
