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.
** 80’s Wrestling hosted a virtual signing with Four Horsemen manager and former WWE executive JJ Dillon. He dove into how Vince McMahon Jr. capitalized on television when it came to pro wrestling and Vince being able to strategically negotiate with television stations. Dillon recounted a multitude of promoters planning to meet in New Jersey to discuss how they could come together to stop McMahon from taking over.
It was [a surprise to get the call for the WWE Hall Of Fame] and I had worked very closely with Vince McMahon who to me is probably the most dominant individual along with Eddie Graham that I’ve been associated with, worked for, whatever, in our industry. When you look at — back in the day, before cable television and the internet, there were probably 25 pockets of wrestling all around the country and Vince McMahon was a visionary. He started with the Cape Cod Coliseum and he made that bigger and better than anybody ever thought it could and he had a vision that wrestling could be bigger and could be global and so he produced a television show and what happened was a lot of the promoters in the different little fiefdoms that they controlled had barter arrangements with the local television station. In other words, I will, whether it’s done in an arena or done in a studio, I’ll produce an hour of television, give it to you to air, there it is, it’s already done and there’s six, two minute commercials in one hour of television and the promotion would say, ‘I’m gonna give you an hour of finished television. You don’t have to do anything. Just put it on air and two of those spots, I’m gonna use to — if I have live events coming up in that area where it airs, I can pull it then’ or something and the other four are yours to sell so it’s pure profit because you have no cost at producing that hour and it got incredible ratings and so, it just — when [promoters] went in and started going to all of these little comfortable deals where a producer, television show gave it to the station to air and kept two of the commercial spots to promote their live events in the area, told the TV station, ‘You know, it’s getting great ratings and you can sell the other four.’ That worked really well for a while ‘till Vince McMahon came along and said, ‘Guess what? I’ll do the same thing except I’ll pay you for that’ and television people are very funny. You know it’s like, they were so comfortable with our other sweet deal ‘till Vince McMahon came along and said, ‘We’ll better it because we’re gonna also pay you for that hour,’ and so, it was the beginning of open warfare.
But again, Vince [McMahon] was a risk taker, he’s a visionary, he’s someone that I learned so much from. He’s a brilliant, brilliant man and the proof is where he then took that. Pretty soon, he controlled it all and what was amazing was all these promoters that had these barter deals said, ‘Oh my God.’ They all arranged to go — to meet and all get together up in… it was… in New Jersey, around Newark, New Jersey and they were gonna all come from all across the country to bring all their forces together and say, ‘Okay, how do we stop this threat?’ And what happened was all of these 25 different people coming together couldn’t choose a leader among them to speak for all of them and so, they were that close to — maybe if they somehow were able to put it together, they might’ve — I’m not even saying if that would have worked but they had a shot at stopping Vince and they couldn’t agree among themselves about who should be in charge and Vince just kept rolling along.
When Dillon began working in WWE’s Talent Relations department in the late 80s/early 90s, he was told that he had to be comfortable with accepting that the on-screen portion of his career is done while he focuses on his office role.
When I was approached [by WWE], Terry Garvin was the kind of the person who first made the overture to me and up to that point, I had been kind of an on-camera personality as well as being a manager. Kind of doing it all and Terry Garvin told me that there was a lot of interest in the WWE about me and I was at the point of my career where I knew that I had accomplished everything I wanted to as an in-ring talent and it wasn’t something I could do forever so there had to come a point and the fact that the WWE was interested in me and they made it clear, they wanted me for my — they said, this is Terry’s words, ‘Your attention to detail’ and just the experience that I had on so many levels and they didn’t really — it wasn’t that they didn’t feel that I would be a value as an on-air character but they felt what they were doing was so much — in other words, I had probably worked for 25 of the small promotions around the country and now here is a company that’s bigger than all the rest put together so everything that they did was on a much, much larger scale and wanting me to come into Talent Relations, then I couldn’t do justice to accepting that role and be an on-air talent at the same time so they made it clear that-that was a chapter of my life that I had to be willing to put that behind me and at that point to be honest with you, I had no problem doing that.
Dillon also managed Abdullah the Butcher and the pair would be featured together in Puerto Rico for the ‘World Wrestling Council’. Dillon said fans would throw cups at them that was filled with sand and urine.
They [the fans in Puerto Rico] would take paper cups, fill ‘em with sand, urinate in them and throw ‘em as bombs. Yeah, it was — of all the places… well no [I couldn’t see people actually urinating in the cups] but you can smell it, and it’s like yeah, heat over there was [crazy].
** Episode 32 of the ‘Get Funk’d’ podcast featured former WCW talent and ‘3 Count’ member Evan Karagias. Evan reflected on his friendship with the late Russ Haas. He recalled Russ having a heart attack while he was helping him move into an apartment. According to Evan, Charlie Haas did not want to take Russ to the hospital and told him to “shake it off” because they had a big match coming up the following week.
It was a little bit of a bad memory there because Russ [Haas] and I were best friends man and then he died and I remember seeing him have the damn heart attack right in front of me because I was moving in the apartment and they — y’all did a show or they did up in Louisville and he’d just helped me move a couch in and he’s going, ‘I don’t know man.’ He’s stretching and he said, ‘You know, it’s weird. Tonight in the ring, I had this pain in my chest and in my back’ and he went to stretch over this wall and then his arm just shot out and went straight into a heart attack man. It was — no, that wasn’t the day he passed away, no and I remember me and his wife Deedra and my wife Jenn were there and he’s sweating and it’s coming off his elbows and everything and ended up where Charlie [Haas] didn’t wanna take him to the hospital. He’s like, ‘Shake it off, you’ll be fine’ because their debut is Thursday and this was like on a Saturday or something, you know? And later on after Charlie left, me and Deedra packed him up and drove him to the hospital and he was having another heart attack sitting in the waiting room when they hooked him up on the machines.
Yeah, eventually he came back home and you know, they went and did a balloon on him to clean out his arteries and honestly I think they cleaned out the wrong one or it didn’t work or something but they ended up releasing him to go back to wrestle six months later and then two months after that, another heart attack, he died.
Evan does not look back fondly on his time with Heartland Wrestling Association, which served as a developmental territory for WCW and then WWE. Evan felt betrayed by then-Director of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis because he was let go from HWA after moving his family to the area. While Karagias was in WCW, he said Laurinaitis asked him to put him in favor with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.
Man, it [Heartland Wrestling Association experience] was terrible, for me. You know, because I was so stressed first of all. I mean here I have a house in North Carolina and then I moved up there and they told me it was just gonna be, you know, a couple weeks, maybe a month at most. After six months I’m like, you know — to keep my family, I wasn’t gonna live separate from the wife and kids so I ended up moving them there and then as soon as I got in and got settled, it wasn’t even a month later, they let us go so to me, that was a pretty sh*tty move and it was really sh*tty on Johnny Ace’s part and I don’t care what the boss says in a sense. Try to pull some strings and that was because you know, Johnny Ace was the same guy that was trying to get on at WCW, pretty much begging me to talk to Kevin [Nash] and Scott [Hall] because we were running at the time with them, or I was and Johnny wanted to, you know, ‘Put a word in man. I’m trying to get on here’ and so I’m thinking here’s this guy, I put a word in for him, yet — it was kind of messed up man.
If I learned anything, don’t trust anybody, you know what I mean? Because they’ll all — and I feel like that’s the difference between what I was saying earlier, our generation. This group here that we’re talking about from the [WCW] Power Plant, it’s not about names and egos and who’s got the most belts, who’s wrestled the most, who got the most TV time, it ain’t got nothing to do with any of that. To me, now we’re talking about guys that have been reunited and you know, it shows who they are and what they stand for as a person.
** JONAH, the former ‘Bronson Reed’ joined Wrestling Observer Live and as the conversation rolled on, JONAH was asked if there were hurdles that Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque had to jump over in WWE as an executive. JONAH recalled Levesque being frustrated that the writers didn’t get the ball rolling with him (JONAH) as an on-screen character in a quicker manner.
I think it comes down to there’s a lot going on, you know what I mean? You have writers trying to write different people into different spots and then at the same time in a place like that [WWE], you always have new talent coming in, some people swap out, things exchange, some people go to Raw, some people go to SmackDown so there’s always something happening and it seemed like week-to-week, not that I was forgotten about but it was always like, ‘Ah, next week, next week.’ Almost where like they wanted to keep me strong so they didn’t want me to look like I was just a, you know, one of the other run of the mill guys there. But they could’ve obviously got on the ball quicker and I know that from speaking with Hunter, he was frustrated that the writers didn’t do that but you have writers, you then have Hunter and Shawn [Michaels] to go through, you then have your match producers. It’s a lot of chefs in the kitchen I guess.
When he first got to NXT, there was a different head writer there who ended up leaving. JONAH said once the new team came forward, he was utilized more.
I feel like when I first was there [NXT], it was a different head writer. He then ended up leaving and when the new team sort of came forward, that’s when I was more utilized. I feel like some people buddy up to writers or stuff like that and of course you wanna be close with these people because you wanna be close with them creatively and the type of performer that I am, I always wanna put in my input. I can’t just copy and cut and paste what I do. I like to be creative. So, it does pay in people’s best interests to get along with these people but I found things started working better for me once myself and Hunter and I had a great relationship with Shawn [Michaels] as well. Once I was on board with those guys, like, that was where things took off.
Prior to signing with WWE, JONAH was a regular for Pro Wrestling NOAH. He’s always had his eyes on New Japan Pro-Wrestling but wanted to show loyalty to NOAH.
I’ve been a fan of New Japan Pro-Wrestling since I was a teenager, probably around 13, 14 years old was the first time I saw New Japan Pro-Wrestling and it was Jushin Liger and that made me a fan instantly. But I was also a huge fan of a company called Pro Wrestling NOAH and that’s sort of where I sort of got my first taste of Japanese wrestling as an actual pro wrestler so I wrestled in Australia for maybe five or six years before I actually got a contract with Pro Wrestling NOAH and I worked with them in 2013, ‘14 and ‘15 so I had my — I’m a very loyal pro wrestler so where I am, I’m very loyal to that company, same as I just was with NXT, I was with NOAH as well. I didn’t wanna — I obviously would love to work with New Japan but I wanted to keep my interest there. Then obviously, time goes on, I get signed to WWE, I now get released from WWE and I feel like it’s the right time for me as the Top Dog to go into New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
** Ahead of the 12/8 AEW Dynamite, Sports Illustrated published their interview with MJF. He touched on the comments he made on AEW TV about Britt Baker during his segment with CM Punk. MJF says his job is to make people dislike him and he’s not going to let social media dictate what he does.
There is no line. People tell me I’m a habitual line-stepper. I don’t care. My job is to make you dislike me, to make you so mad that you pray someone will shut me up. The fans don’t dictate what I say and do. There are people in my industry who care far too much about what people think of them, so they’re too afraid to push that envelope. They’re too afraid that someone will make an angry post about them on social media. I think that’s bulls—. I dictate what I do.
** AAA World Tag Team Champions FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) guest appeared on ‘Casual Conversations with The Classic’. The duo detailed how Tully Blanchard being their on-screen manager came to be. Harwood also shared that the AEW Tag Team Appreciation Night from 2020 was his idea. The segment involved FTR, The Young Bucks, Arn Anderson, Tully and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson).
Harwood: Yeah, it was pretty easy [to get Tully Blanchard to be our manager]. He was very, very excited. He had never seen any of our work before because when he was out of wrestling for 30 years, he stopped watching wrestling. He hadn’t watched it in years so Arn [Anderson] made him sit down with him and watch our matches on Arn’s iPad so they watched some matches of American Alpha —
Wheeler: That was our first day there wasn’t it?
Harwood: I think so.
Wheeler: Pretty sure it was.
Harwood: But they watched the matches with American Alpha, they watched some matches of — man I can’t remember the matches they watched but they watched some and he became a huge fan of ours and you know, I pitched to Tony [Khan], ‘Hey, why don’t we have this guy as our manager?’ Because we came in as quasi babyface at first but I was like, you know, I laid out this whole thing, the Tag Team Appreciation Night and I said, ‘This is when –’ I said, ‘Let’s don’t turn heel on The Young Bucks. Let’s save us touching for later.’ I said, ‘Let us turn heel on Ricky and Robert and get real sympathy from them but get real heat for us’ and then that transitions into Tully being our manager, he set up the whole thing and he was completely on board, Tony loved the idea and you know, it gives us a little credibility as a tag team to have one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all-time in our corner.
Winning the AAA Tag Titles was not something that Harwood or Wheeler expected to happen. Harwood wants to hold multiple titles at the same time including the IWGP Tag Team Titles.
Wheeler: Oh yeah, our goal is to win every tag team title in every company that we ever compete in. It wasn’t something like I ever thought might really be possible. I wasn’t sure where our careers would take us. It’s so hard to predict where you’re gonna be. When we were in NXT, I didn’t know where we would be five or ten years down the road. I just knew that I wanted to be wrestling and I wanted us to be doing what we loved and you know, it’s been going great but I never really thought like, ‘Okay, there’s gonna be a point in time when we’re gonna be wrestling for a company that knocks down the forbidden door and you can go do almost anything in the world for any of these major companies that are so historic and yeah, you wrestle there. You can win the AAA Tag Team Titles on Dynamite and then go to Triplemania and defend them or you can show up to New Japan like so many other guys have done out of the blue’ like Mox was doing. It’s just — it’s something we wanted to do. Obviously there’s still a lot of things we wanna do and titles we want to win but I wasn’t sure if it’d ever be something that was realistic.
Harwood: So many fans and so many people equate great tag teams to winning championships and there is some sort of honor in holding a championship because they trust you in it, you know? So, obviously we wanted to win the AAA Tag Team Titles. We didn’t know if that would ever happen, it did, we got the opportunity to do that and you know, next on our list is — next on our list is AEW. We wanna be the first-ever two-time AEW Tag Team Champions. But also, we wanna be the, you know, continue to be the only team to hold all the titles, aforementioned titles and the IWGP Tag Team Championships too.
** While he is on an overseas tour with Fozzy, Chris Jericho chatted with Newsweek and responded to the question of how long he will continue wrestling. Jericho doesn’t think about how much he has left to go and boiled it down to he’ll keep going as long as he feels like it.
I think a lot of times people always kind of want to put a bow on everything but it really doesn’t work that way. I think part of the reason I’ve had such longevity is that I go with the flow and I follow my heart. Did I ever expect to be 31 years on the job? I can’t say that I did, but I can’t say that I didn’t.
I don’t think when you’re 19, you really think about retirement. I never really said, ‘OK, I’m going to do it this long,’ and I still don’t. I don’t know how long I’m going to do the sport because I don’t think that way. When people ask, ‘How long are you going to do this?’ I say, ‘I don’t know. When I feel like I don’t want to do it anymore.’ I don’t feel that way right now.
He added that there’s no reason to stop and he’s enjoying helping the new crop of talents grow into their own. Jericho said if he wasn’t having fun, he would not be doing it.
There’s really no reason to stop for me because it’s fun for me to work with this whole new generation of stars that are growing into their own and helping them. I think when you kind of live in the now, it makes things a lot better, a lot more important and a lot more special in what you are doing. I think we’ve done a great job with that and we’ve really only just begun in a lot of ways. If I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t have fun with it, I wouldn’t f**king do it.
** Former Ring of Honor owner and current company ambassador Cary Silkin joined Kevin Eck on the ROHStrong Podcast. While reflecting on the history of Ring of Honor, Silkin spoke about Kenny King and feels that more could have been done with him after his time on ABC’s The Bachelorette. He added that there was a lot going on with The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes at the time, but King should have been repositioned.
And Kenny [King] and I, we’ve always had a good rapport, we’ve hung out, he’s a good guy, he could talk about all kinds of things and he’s ultra-talented, ultra-talented. He — he could’ve — with ROH — I’m not gonna start… All right, I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say. Kenny King, when he was on The Bachelorette, right? I mean he — there was so much stuff going on with ROH with The [Young] Bucks and Cody [Rhodes] and this one and that one and Kenny wasn’t positioned right but he should’ve been repositioned because he was — how many times do you get a guy on a national broadcast? I don’t know if it’s top ten but top 30 show. Anyway, but he’s always hung in, great talent. It should be — and I like the grudge aspect of it [King vs. Shane Taylor at Final Battle 2021] because when I think of Kenny King, not that he can’t go toe-to-toe and brawl but you know he can wrestle so, this should be another — man this is gonna be a good card.
The late Mark Smith (Bison Smith) was brought up and Silkin shared that he originally did not want to join ROH because of their “pint-sized” wrestlers. Smith worked for ROH from 2009 until 2010. He passed away in 2011.
Do you remember Bison Smith? Do you know what happened? He was wrestling in Puerto Rico for Luke Bushwhacker-Luke Williams was booking IWA [International Wrestling Association] and that’s how I met him and Bison Smith was also working for — I don’t know if it was NOAH or New Japan but one of the Japanese promotions and I wanted him to come to Ring of Honor. But he didn’t wanna come because of all of our ‘pint-sized guys’. The [Austin] Aries and the [Jimmy] Jacobs and you know, he’s like — he wanted to be envisioned fighting big guys. He wound up coming, he was great. He’s not with us anymore but he was a hell of a talent. It’s a name that’s gonna be lost to history…
** Tokyo Sports published a new edition of Jushin Thunder Liger’s column where he gives his take on the current happenings in the Japanese wrestling scene. He brought up Will Ospreay challenging for the IWGP World Heavyweight Title on day two of Wrestle Kingdom 16. Liger feels that-that match is going to determine Ospreay’s future as a wrestler and his position in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Ospreay, who will appear [on January 5th], hasn’t been to Japan for a while, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he’s changed. He has been saying, ‘I’m the champion’ without admitting that he’s not going to return to the ring, and maybe the company wants to make it black and white in the ring.
But of course, this is no fun for the other fighters. They wondered, ‘Why him all of a sudden?’ Ospreay has no choice but to prove that he is who he say he is by winning, and in a sense, this is a big gamble; I think this will be a hot main event that will determine his life as a wrestler and his position in New Japan.
Liger went on to name matches he would like to see at the NOAH versus NJPW show. He said he’d like to see EVIL share the ring with Naomichi Marufuji, Kenoh versus Tetsuya Naito along with suggesting several opponents for Keiji Muto including SANADA and Hiroshi Tanahashi.
In my personal opinion, I would like to see a match with EVIL if he is a genius like Naomichi Marufuji. It would be fun to see how he would do against a rough and tumble opponent who also has seconds.
Of course, Keiji Muto is also worth watching. I’m sure New Japan will have someone worthy of him, but I’m close to his age, so I’m hoping he can hold his own. He’s in a different organization now, but I think he’ll still want to do his best. I think it would be interesting to work with new wrestlers, and since he has a lot of stories to tell, I’d like to see him work with Hiroshi Tanahashi or SANADA. I’d like to see him in a singles match with Hiroshi Tanahashi or SANADA.
I’m also interested in who Kenoh will be fighting. I think Tetsuya Naito would be interesting. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how Naito would take on a guy who is good at striking? They are both anti-establishment, or have similar colors. Naito’s career has become much thicker in the past five years. I’d like to see him show off his depth against other organizations.
** On the 12/8 episode of AEW Dynamite, John Silver will be competing in front of his hometown crowd of New York and he’ll be taking on Bryan Danielson. Silver spoke to PWInsider ahead of the match and talked about how far Dark Order has come. There was a period when there was dissention amongst the group on-screen. Silver said the last thing he wanted was for Dark Order to split.
It’s so great. Anyone that’s ever met Brodie only has positive things to say about him. He’s such a great guy and he helped not just my career, but everyone in The Dark Order’s career, so much. So it’s great to carry that on. I see his family all the time, Amanda and the kids, I love Brodie and Nolan. So we get to see them all the time. So it’s good that we’re still in contact, still talk to them all the time. I think it’s just The Dark Order’s taken over. It just went from this little thing that it was just Stu and Uno. Then, it was me and Alex there. We had Brodie come and became this big thing and now it’s just something that’s a little twist on it. It’s a little different and it’s just great that we’re still going. Like the last thing I wanted to do was break up, so I’m glad we’re all still together. We all still get along. We still have a great time together. Not just in front of the camera, but behind the scenes, we’re also always having a good time. We’re all good friends. So it’s really cool that we get to still do The Dark Order, it’s great.
Last month, Silver went one-on-one with Adam Cole on an episode of Rampage. He feels that had it not been for their Being The Elite interactions, the match wouldn’t have happened.
It’s actually a funny story. I was doing it on BTE for a little while and I wouldn’t do it out [on-camera]. I guess I didn’t really have the opportunity to do too much on TV, but Tony calls me over and someone’s like, I forgot who it was, but they’re like, ‘Hey, Tony wants to talk to you.’ They said [it] like [seriously]. I’m like, ‘Oh no, what’d I do? What’d I do now?’ So I go up to Tony and he just says, ‘Where do you get off?’ And I’m like, ‘What?’
Yeah! I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what’d I do? I’m — I’m getting fired.’ He’s like, ‘You got all this charisma or personality and you’re so funny on BTE, but you’re not doing it on TV. Where do you get off?’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to. I thought I was supposed to be a spooky cult gimmick,’ and he’s like, ‘Well, let’s start doing it on TV.’ Khan watches and if stuff is working he’ll put it on TV, he likes to see what the crowd likes and what’s getting reactions. And just like when I had that match with Cole, if we didn’t do the whole ‘Budge’ thing, that match definitely would’ve never happened. So it’s definitely given me pretty much all my opportunities.
** Dana Brooke won her first championship in WWE when she captured the 24/7 Title in November. Brooke is still the champion and she was recently a guest on El Brunch de WWE and explained how much the title win means to her.
You know something? It’s just been an amazing, amazing end of 2021. I said it on Twitter about 15 days prior to my birthday, I said, ‘In my heart, I just want to wrestle.’ I love wrestling, I love being in front of the WWE universe and especially having fans back now, that just warms my heart and I love going out there and performing and I love inspiring people out there so that was one of my birthday wishes was just to wrestle. Another one was actually holding a title at the age of 33 and I see everybody always working towards opportunities and are always super driven for the next step and I always live my life as a champion every single day. I always wake up and I train and I set my mind that I’m gonna conquer each and every single day to the best of my abilities and that night, I always put my head down and I said, ‘Check, I did this. Check, I did that, check, I did this.’ I said, ‘I won. Today was a victory and tonight, I’m a champion.’ So I thought that the 24/7, you know, means everything to me because I try and live my life like a champion every single day and I saw that opportunity. I was like, ‘You know something? I don’t understand why these women don’t go after that 24/7 Champion Title.’ We can do everything the men can do and we work just as hard as these men do so I took that opportunity and I capitalized on it and you know, I manifested this. I said at 33, I wanna wrestle — at 32, I wanna wrestle. At 33, I wanna hold a title so this came a little bit early and I plan on holding [it] for a very long, long time and actually on Monday which was my actual birthday, on November 29th I got to wrestle. So it was the best birthday ever. It really, really, really, truly was and I always say that this is for everybody out there. It’s not just personally for me, it’s for everybody out there that lives their life like a champion each and every single day.
** Prior to NXT WarGames, Bron Breakker spoke to Timesnownews and expressed that on top of his world title and WrestleMania aspirations, he wants to be a reliable talent for WWE and someone the company can depend on.
It starts with me becoming the NXT Champion. I think that’s my first goal in sight right now. That’s objective number one. Then long-term, I want to be in WrestleMania. Whether that’s a Main Event, whether that’s being the World Champion going into the show, or whether that’s winning a Championship at WrestleMania. No matter what the scenario is, I want to be at WrestleMania. I want to be a reliable talent. I want to be dependable, somebody that the company can count on and put the weight of the world on my back and say, ‘This guy can do it.’
** On 12/9, JONAH (Bronson Reed) will be competing at the NJPW STRONG ‘Nemesis’ taping. He debuted at the Battle in the Valley show and while speaking to Fightful, JONAH recalled Rocky Romero being the first to reach out about working with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. That was followed by a conversation with D’Lo Brown about working with IMPACT Wrestling.
Rocky was the first one to…when it comes to when I was first released, a lot of people reached out because it was quite a shock and I had a lot of people from WWE, NXT, lots of people just reach out, but the first one who reached out to see if I was interested in working somewhere, was Rocky. That meant a big deal to me because I am one of those guys that doesn’t ever want to stop wrestling. This year, with immigration and being released, I didn’t wrestle for three months and it was so strange to me as someone who wrestles every weekend. He was the first one to reach out to me. From there, with dealing with IMPACT and other companies, I also relay stuff through Rocky as well. He’s a busy man. I could be wrong, but in one week he did New Japan STRONG, AEW, and IMPACT. Rocky was the first person to contact me and that was just after I was released, maybe a few days. I was in talks with IMPACT maybe a couple of weeks after that with D’Lo Brown. He is who I first touched base with, he contacted me. I was contacted elsewhere as well, but some things don’t work out and these are the places that I am.
** Major League Wrestling announced their ‘Azteca’ mini-series which kicks off January 6th.
** AEW’s Rebel partook in a virtual signing with East Coast Autograph Auctions and she reacted to a comment about her role in the TNA group ‘The Menagerie’ which consisted of Mike Knox, Crazzy Steve and Rob Terry (The Freak).
Aw, thank you [for saying I helped The Menagerie group in TNA]. I enjoyed it too. I was just so nervous because it’s like — it was my first thing in wrestling. So I associate a lot of nerves with doing The Menagerie but I really enjoyed it too.
** Cricket Wireless released a promotional video with The IInspiration (Jessica McKay & Cassie Lee) that was recorded while they were still with WWE.
** At Mick Foley’s stage show on December 13th, Thunder Rosa will be joining him.
** Z100’s Josh Martinez conducted an interview with MJF.
** Kiera Hogan is scheduled for Jonathan Gresham and Baron Black’s TERMINUS debut show on January 16th.
** Jon Moxley turned 36 years old today.
** The Tennessean has a story about Jeff Jarrett co-owing the Springfield (Illinois) Sliders Baseball Team.
** NJPW World Tag League Results (12/7/21) Okayama, Japan
– Kosei Fujita vs. Yuto Nakashima – Time Limit Draw (10:00)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Dangerous Tekkers (Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.) [14] def. Tiger Mask & Yuji Nagata [2]
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toru Yano [10] def. Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku [0]
– World Tag League Tournament Match: EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi [12] def. Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma) [2]
– World Tag League Tournament Match: United Empire (Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan) [14] def. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) [4]
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI [14] def. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens) [12]
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA & Tetsuya Naito) [14] def. Guerrillas Of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa)
** WOW (Women of Wrestling) is hosting tryouts on January 19th in Miami, Florida in conjunction with Coastal Championship Wrestling.
** Baron Black and Jonathan Gresham spoke to WrestleZone about their ‘TERMINUS’ promotion.
** Rikishi is doing an in-person meet-and-greet at Toomey Tools in Ocala, Florida on December 11th.
** 2point0’s Matt Lee is celebrating a birthday today.
** The following video is from Ringside Collectibles’ YouTube channel:
** JONAH’s NJPW entrance video and theme:
** ‘Metro’ pushed out their interview with Drew McIntyre.
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.
