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.
** Chris Jericho welcomed former Ring of Honor owner Cary Silkin onto his Talk Is Jericho podcast. Cary said that during his tenure as owner of ROH, they never turned a profit. He also dove into the company’s early pay-per-view distribution and television deals that were in place throughout his seven years as company owner.
Well, believe it or not, it [Ring of Honor] never, ever, ever made money. There was a few shows, WrestleMania weekends where we had good gates in Chicago. But if you looked at it on an annual level, it always lost money but I was trying and the first thing we did, beyond the DVDs and we were doing it ass-backwards because we had no TV. We met a guy named Ken Gelman and he was involved in, at the time, these recorded pay-per-views that were on like iNDEMAND, remember those? They had DISH Network so we did — we would record the so-called pay-per-view which wouldn’t air ‘till six weeks later. But dig this, the first couple of ‘em, we did like — I know these are small numbers but for us it was huge. We did like close to 15,000 buys. It was over the course of days and weeks, but it was impressive, but we needed TV and we were never able to get it until Andrew Simon from HDNET, now AXS? Okay, he approached us and I was like, ‘Wow. Finally.’ This is around 2008. So Andrew approaches us and he’s funding to do the TV tapings which was a big help of course but this was the problem and no disrespect to Andrew; little did I know that HDNET only had like three or four percent of cable penetration. They were available on the DISH Network. You know, channel 822. So, I thought the first time it aired, man, the DVD sales and the merch sales, the online sales are just gonna take off and I was wrong but still, I tip my hat to those guys. I appreciate what they did for us. The deal lasted like two years.
Silkin discussed selling the company to Sinclair Broadcast Group. When asked why he believes Sinclair showed interest in Ring of Honor, he thinks they wanted an additional hour of programming to present on their affiliate channels as opposed to paying for shows like Three’s Company or Seinfeld.
They [Sinclair Broadcast Group] wanted to produce an hour of TV for those, at the time, 70 or 80 affiliates as opposed to buying Three’s Company or Seinfeld, and they garnered revenue from the advertising I think and — but they got that hour of content and it never was uniformed. If they would’ve had every station play it at Saturday morning at 11, like the old days when you would watch wrestling then Roller Derby.
He spoke about the friendship he formed with The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson). Adam Pearce brought the duo into Ring of Honor and Cary recalled their rate being $75 a night. He’s happy to see what they’ve become in wrestling.
Two of my best children and my favorite guys were The [Young] Bucks and Adam Pearce brought The Bucks in. I remember him telling me — I go, ‘Where do they live?’ He goes, ‘California.’ He goes, ‘They’re only $75 bucks a night.’ I go, ‘But it’s California.’ He goes, ‘I got them on Spirit Airlines. It’s only eight stops.’ So The Bucks came in, I got to know them really well. I’m so happy for their success. I’m happy for everyone’s success. You know, it’s just been such a crazy, crazy ride.
** At the conclusion of NWA Hard Times 2, ‘The Pope’ Elijah Burke was hurt and had to be transported to a local hospital. He later provided an update on how he was doing. It was reported by PWInsider that the belief was that Burke suffered a concussion and was expected to be okay. Burke joined GAW TV and said he can’t have too much light on him and it’s something he’s been dealing with at every turn.
It’s crazy because I don’t have Zoom and I’m sitting here fiddling around with the buttons to make sure that I get it right. Sorry I can’t do too much light right now. Me and light, we don’t get along. Yeah, we couldn’t get along really well at the moment so, so sorry if anybody’s looking forward to having me put them over. I’m sorry, I can’t look up at the lights.
[Lisa Marie Varon mentioned that Mick Foley doesn’t want the flash to be on for camera pictures because it gives him a headache] And that’s really what I’ve been — I’m sure you guys probably know. I’ve been dealing with that at every turn so it’s been a real challenge so, just welcome to the dark side.
** K & S WrestleFest hosted a virtual signing with B-Fab a.k.a. Briana Brandy of the group formerly known as ‘Hit Row’. As she embarks on her post-WWE journey, B-Fab does intend to continue her in-ring career. She has wrestled in a total of ten matches since 2019.
I do [want to continue my wrestling career] because I love wrestling and when I came into it, I knew that I liked it but when I started training and everything, I fell in love with it so, I definitely would love to continue wrestling. I just wanna continue somewhere where I’m not gonna get hurt because people have to understand, wrestling is a very dangerous thing. It’s not something to just play with. The simplest things we do in wrestling, you could get seriously hurt so, with that, I’m very conscious of like wrestling for someone correct so I wouldn’t get hurt so that’s the main thing.
She would have liked for Hit Row to feud with The Bloodline (Roman Reigns, Jey & Jimmy Uso). B-Fab wishes that Naomi could have been added to The Bloodline so there would be a dynamic between them. She added that she would’ve liked to close out Hit Row’s NXT storyline with Legado Del Fantasma (Santos Escobar, Raul Mendoza, Joaquin Wilde & Elektra Lopez) inside WarGames where both she and Elektra would be in the match as well.
I would have [wanted to] eventually end up in a feud with [The] Bloodline. That was my ultimate thing to be in a feud with them. I would have loved if they would have added Naomi to [The] Bloodline and then we could have done like a lot of four-on-four stuff, intergender matches. I mean we could have done tons of things, you know? So that was the main thing and I also would have loved for us to have been able to fully finish our storyline in NXT with Legado [Del Fantasma] ending in WarGames. That would’ve been amazing too because it would have been four-on-four with the first intergender WarGames being me and Elektra Lopez in there as well. That would have been amazing.
In 2020, while WWE was presenting the Raw Underground segments, B-Fab conducted an interview with Adam Scherr (Braun Strowman). B-Fab shared that Shane McMahon asked her about doing the spot on the fly and she told Shane that she was comfortable on the microphone.
So, I don’t know if anybody saw but I got to do like a co-hosting moment for a second. It [Raw Underground] was only on TV for like a month or whatever but I got to do a co-hosting moment in the Raw Underground and I literally got picked right on the spot. I was just there to be part of the audience who like bangs on the ring on the side and who was there for the crowd and Shane [McMahon] comes up to me and he goes, ‘Hey, how comfortable are you on the mic?’ And I was like, ‘Super comfortable. Like very comfortable.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, cool. I might need a co-host for this’ so he’s like, ‘Just be ready’ and I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So I wasn’t expecting this to happen. I’m like, ‘Maybe in a couple of weeks, they’ll tell me to do it and whatever.’ Five minutes later, he comes back. He’s like, ‘Okay, you ready?’ I was like, ‘Right now?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, for sure, let’s go.’ He’s like, ‘So think of some questions to ask Braun Strowman in like an interview style and let me know what you got’ and it was like right on, it was just right on the spot. It was so amazing, it was so fun. It happened that week and then the next week, they ended up shutting it down but yeah, it was a lot of fun being there and everyone was going so hard. People were sweaty, it was really insane. I thought people were gonna get hurt, like the bad hurt. Like, hurt in the wrong way hurt because they were going so hard, there was no ropes on the ring of course. They were just doing brawl style so, it was really intense. Like shoot-style stuff. That was pretty cool.
** Shayna Baszler spoke to ‘Metro’ and she reflected on the tag team run she had with Nia Jax. Shayna touched on how helpful Nia was and being able to find her footing on the main roster while a part of the team.
As experienced as I am in one-on-one combat, she was far more experienced in being on Raw and SmackDown. So she would really help me, ‘You might wanna try this instead.’ She helped me find my footing for sure. When I came up, I didn’t know anybody so for a while she was the only one I was hanging out with just ’cause we were kind of forced to have this sort of relationship together.
I think that’s one of the best things that my tag team did, was show a completely different side to me. I was still trying to be comfortable and find my footing and get in the groove. Getting in this tag team and showing this side of me really helped me be comfortable. Now, if you look at my singles run when I first got called up, as compared to my singles run now, I think you can see there’s definitely a difference in comfort level and just how I carry myself in the ring.
** Former WCW talent Frank Parris (Air Paris) was the latest guest on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast. Paris signed with WCW in the early 2000s and he said the offer he received was one of the lowest financial offers the company ever presented to someone.
Oh yeah, it [WCW contract] was for three [years] initially. But it was very, very low money. I don’t wanna quote the numbers but I think it was probably the lowest contract they’d ever offered anybody. I think someone selling popcorn in the arena would have probably been making more than us but — but hey still, it was a piece of paper with my name and the WCW logo on it so, I mean, I was ready to sign it right away. Soon as I opened the FedEx, I was ready to start slinging ink on it.
Air Paris recalled hearing from Shane McMahon that when WCW shut down, the company was going to go dark and talents would work house shows under the WCW banner and things would resume with Eric Bischoff in power.
Oh, of course, yeah [WCW closing was a shock]. I mean we knew… we knew that stuff wasn’t great but nobody — and I was so far down the ladder as far as company hierarchy. Nobody owed me a explanation or anything on the situation and I didn’t ask for anything. We had heard that the most likely situation was — and this is actually coming I believe from Shane [McMahon] — that the company was gonna go dark for about six months and that Eric [Bischoff] was buying the company, we were gonna go completely dark and start doing house shows just to build, I guess suspense or intrigue or just buzz back around the product. Just go around doing house shows without needing TV to support, to get back interested in WCW and then it was gonna relaunch. Of course, we all know that didn’t happen and you know, WWE bought the company so…
He was last in action this past summer but is not currently thinking about wrestling again. He detailed his weight loss journey which saw him go from 249 pounds to 198 pounds.
No! Gosh no [I’m not thinking about wrestling again]. I’m thinking I wanna see my kids grow up. I’ll tell you, the weird thing about me was I was in a retail job and I looked up and I was weighing 249 pounds, me. Basically I didn’t hit 250 but I was 249 pounds and I said, you know, ‘We gotta figure something out’ because I was at the point where blood pressure was getting a little bit weird. I had seen DDP and he patted me on my gut and he’s like, ‘What are we gonna do about this?’ And I said, ‘Man, I like to drink some beers.’ He said, ‘You better start earning them’ and I said, ‘Yes sir.’ So, man I just looked at my little girls and I thought, ‘Man, you know what? If I don’t do something and I don’t change –’ I mean that was the heaviest I’d ever been. I didn’t realize because it’s so gradual how miserable I was carrying all that extra weight around. Tying your shoes is a chore with that. For me it was at that point and so I just honestly — just one day, I told my wife, I said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna build a gym in our building out back’ and I ordered a bunch of stuff and started training two days a week and then it was three days a week then it was four days a week then we got to six days a week and then the next thing you know, I was 198 pounds and had abs in the first time in life even though I was 145 pounds back in the day and went to the doctor and she’s like, ‘Man, everything’s great’ so it’s just one of those things where I’d gotten so far out of shape physically now, that’s why I ended up getting in shape at that point.
Paris competed on several of Doc Gallows’ ‘Lariato Pro Wrestling’ shows. He enjoys wrestling when he knows he won’t suffer any injuries during his match but if he is asked to participate in a match that’s too “serious”, he does not want to take the risk.
Brother, I’ll be honest, if I fall down now, you’ll have to help me up. I don’t think I can take a bump and get back up, you know, on my own. I’ve done a couple things with wrestling. Full transparency, I did a retirement match and I was so fat and I hated it, and so fast forward about a year-and-a-half later during COVID and Luke Gallows reached out to me about doing Talk ‘N Shop A Mania 1 and about doing one of the cameos. I think I was maybe the first cameo during their spoof of the Boneyard match with him and Karl Anderson and so I did that and he said, ‘Dude, you look great. We should wrestle’ and I said, ‘You’re an idiot dude. You’re insane.’ You know what I love about him? Is he’s the ultimate optimist. The thing about Gallows is he’s always happy and he’s always — there’s nothing that can’t be done, right? I think that’s one of the reasons those guys have been so successful after their initial release from WWE but yeah, he said, ‘Yeah, come do this match with me and we’ll do like a Hacksaw Jim Duggan match. It’ll be super slow, it’ll be like a WCW Saturday Night match’ and I’m like, ‘Okay. We can do it.’ So we get ready for the match and then the day of it, he’s like, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it.’ No Way Jose had just gotten released. He’s like, ‘We’ll do a tag match. It’ll be you and Aleksandr Koloff against me and No Way Jose’ and I hadn’t looked at boots in a year-and-a-half, almost two years. I hadn’t looked at a wrestling ring in this long and so I looked at my wife and I said, ‘Who in the world takes two years off and then goes, does an IMPACT Plus taping against two just — literally just released WWE guys?’ And she said, ‘I guess you do’ and I said, ‘I guess it’s me. I guess I do’ so went and did it and had fun with those guys and I’ve done several shows with Drew [Doc Gallows] on his Lariato Pro Wrestling that he runs out of Georgia that are IMPACT Plus tapings but, it’s always something easy, it’s always something safe where I’ll know that I’ll get to go home and not get hurt so, those are fun. If I can do those kinds of things, I absolutely will but anything that’s serious of where I would have to take a lot of chances man, I’m not sure I — my kids mean more to me than that does, the chance to wrestle does.
** On January 8th at IMPACT Wrestling’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view, Chris Sabin is challenging Jonathan Gresham for the ROH World Title. ‘Generation Of Wrestling’ welcomed Sabin onto their podcast and he spoke about his upcoming ROH World Title match.
It’s extremely cool [challenging Jonathan Gresham for ROH World Title] and it’s a huge opportunity because the list of people who have held the IMPACT World Championship and the Ring of Honor World Championship is very small. I think it may be three or four guys so, it would be quite a notch on my belt for my career and quite a history-making moment so yeah, it’s a really big deal.
I’m super excited. He’s such a sound, technical wrestler and I’ve been in the ring with him a little bit. It was multi-man matches we’ve only been in the ring together. We’ve never had a singles match but, you know, he’s a guy that it’s hard to really build a strategy against because he’s such a good wrestler and he knows so many counter holds and he’s just an intelligent wrestler overall so, he’s the kind of guy that you kind of just have to go in there with being very fluid and being like, ‘All right, I’m not gonna come up with a solidified game plan. I just gotta be ready for anything’ because that’s how good he is in the ring, you know? He can do almost anything so…
For many years, Sabin was a part of The Motor City Machine Guns alongside Alex Shelley. He explained what Shelley has meant to his career:
Oh, I mean he [Alex Shelley] was extremely important to my career. I worked side-by-side with the guy as a tag team for years and you know, he’s such a good wrestler and so talented that if you — I mean if you’re working side-by-side with someone like that and you don’t learn anything then you know, you’re probably doing things wrong, you know? So yeah, of course, of course he’s had a huge influence on my career and it’s been awesome tagging with him throughout the years and I don’t think either of us would be where we were if it weren’t for The Motor City Machine Guns. I think that really just propelled both of our careers to levels that might not have been possible [for] us individually on our own at the time so, yeah.
** Pro Wrestling Illustrated brought KiLynn King onto their ‘Mission Pro Week’ series and she looked back on her experiences with All Elite Wrestling. KiLynn recalled being welcomed into the company by Dustin Rhodes and Sonny Kiss. She also addressed the fan support she’s received from those who have been pulling for her to be signed by AEW
When I walked in [to AEW], I think Dustin [Rhodes] was the first person I saw and I went to go shake his hand and I was being very like professional and serious and he like moved my hand out of the way and he reached out and hugged me and I was like, ‘Oh, oh, hello sir’ and I was like, ‘I’m KiLynn’ and he was like, ‘I know who you are. I’m excited you’re here’ and that’s just — that was my first impression of AEW and it was just so wonderful and so pure and then that night when I found out that I was actually gonna have a match, I was in the ring with Penelope Ford and I was, again, I went back to the whole being serious and very professional and Sonny Kiss came, like was standing by the apron and she leaned in towards me and was like, ‘Girl, calm down. We’re so happy you’re here. You’re so welcomed here’ and so again, it was just another just very kind and pure embrace and it was my first time there, nobody really knew who I was and yet that was how they treated me and it was like that ever since. Even on the hard days where it’s just like, you know, I was trying to figure things out and trying to understand what my purpose was there. There was always people there that were like, ‘We want you here. It’s cool. Just keep working, people notice’ and yeah, that’s always just kind of been — again, it’s a lot of camaraderie and a lot of kindness because everybody there who works at AEW loves the product, they love the fans. We have some of the coolest wrestling fans in the world and every single week, we just wanna put on a great product that’s really just gonna keep their spirit and wrestling alive and that’s really one of the cool things about working there so, yes, yes, I know fans get a little crazy that I haven’t been signed but I wouldn’t change my experience for anything because there’s been so much growth and evolvement within my work since I started working there. All the minds that I’ve gotten to pick at and people I’ve gotten to talk to, I wouldn’t be the wrestler I am today. Like you go back and you watch my first match with Penelope and then you go back and watch my — what was the last match I had there?… Oh, the six-man that I had in Miami. Like there’s such a difference in the way — not even just the way I wrestle. Just the way I walk, the way I enter a ring, the way I respond to certain things that people do to me. It’s an incredible difference and no matter what happens with my career, I will always be very, very grateful to AEW and to Tony Khan for all of that.
** While chatting with ‘Metro’, Mickie James reacted to storyline pitch for herself and Chelsea Green to be paired up in WWE. It would have resembled the ‘obsession’ storyline that Mickie and Trish Stratus put together in the early 2000s. Mickie felt that with her and Chelsea, it could have been “money”.
Within the pitch of Chelsea Green on the way out, it would’ve been a perfect, magical re-circling way to build Chelsea and elevate her and make her a star as I was transitioning to find my foot into this other [backstage] role. For me, I felt like it was the perfect set of business but didn’t seem to hit on that level, and whatever. I don’t wanna say, ‘I get it’ because I don’t get it. I know that-that story would have been money and I know that would have ended up probably rivaling Trish and I’s angle, because it was going to mimic and mirror it, but in a different capacity so well.
** Giulia made her in-ring return at STARDOM’s ‘Dream Queendom’ show on December 29th. She had been out of action with a neck injury since September. Ahead of her return, she was interviewed by Tokyo Sports. She said she is no longer in pain and has had no issues in her daily life when it comes to the neck injury.
It doesn’t hurt or tingle. No problems at all with daily life. I’m starting to do some ukemi (falling techniques) and training for my return. I’m aware of the unbelievable strain on my neck when I do ukemi, now that I’m in a normal body [state] after 4 months off.
When Giulia was informed that she would be out of action, she became depressed. She went on to state that she was not worried about being overtaken by other wrestlers because there are plenty of talents in STARDOM who she’d like to be involved with.
I’m not in a hurry to be overtaken by other players. There’s a lot of interesting people coming up that I’m looking forward to getting involved with. When I was told that I would be out for a while, I was really depressed. Once the pain was gone, I resumed training, and it came back in a flash. The doctor said, ‘Just because you don’t have pain now doesn’t mean you’re cured,’ and I was devastated. Ah! Oh, yeah!
** Drew McIntyre made the media rounds and he chatted with Shakiel Mahjouri for CBS Sports. McIntyre shared that his match with Jinder Mahal at SummerSlam 2021 did not live up to his expectations. McIntyre and Mahal had to follow Becky Lynch versus Bianca Belair, which Drew feels took the wind out of the crowd.
No, definitely not. I didn’t expect Becky [Lynch] to return. The match prior gave the crowd that reaction, that moment. Then when they expected the lengthy match with Becky and Bianca [Belair], it took the wind out of the sales by having the match be 20-something seconds. To walk out after that, the crowd was a bit deflated. It wasn’t quite what I hoped [the] reaction was.
Perhaps it wasn’t what I was hoping for match-wise, but, it gave Drew McIntyre the big win on a big stage, a very dominant win. Even though sometimes I’m like, ‘I want to go out there and have the best match possible and do all the cool near falls and stuff,’ sometimes, you have to be saved from yourself and protect the character and elevate the character. That was about elevating Drew McIntyre and it did do that on a huge stage.
** The 88th edition of Hiroshi Tanahashi’s Ace’s HIGH series is up on NJPW1972.com. Tanahashi recalled sharing the ring with Charlie Haas in 2011 while NJPW was on a tour of the United States. He was impressed by Charlie and spoke about how deceptively big Haas was.
I watched quite a bit of WWE while Haas was in Team Angle. He definitely struck me as an impressive athlete. It wasn’t until I got in the ring with him though, that I realized how big of a guy he was. It wasn’t until I got up close to him that I realized he was huge. He had that balance of athleticism and power; for guys like him and Benjamin to be who they were, and still not quite get to the top of the top speaks to how competitive this world is.
He was a big guy who could go, so it felt like I was coming from underneath. It was a bit difficult to have a match built around me and win. But I was younger then, had better conditioning, so I was fine just going all out and relying on pure physicality. Now I play around more, I might take other routes to get the match over.
** Ahead of the NJPW versus NOAH show on January 8th, Sports Illustrated pushed out their interview with Keiji Muto. He’ll be in action on the show as he is set to team with Kaito Kiyomiya to take on Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada. Muto gave his thoughts about the upcoming match:
At Wrestle Kingdom III, the match before mine was NJPW vs. NOAH, with [Mitsuharu] Misawa and [Takashi] Sugiura entering the ring of New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Now I will be there in the ring of New Japan Pro-Wrestling as a wrestler of NOAH. I plan to do my best, and I hope the fans feel happy that Keiji Muto is a part of NOAH.
** Adam Cole talked all things AEW with ‘News4Jax’.
** Willow Nightingale guest appeared on Taylor Wilde’s podcast.
** The following video is from Thunder Rosa’s YouTube channel:
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Heath was interviewed by That Hashtag Show:
** El Desperado’s virtual meet-and-greet:
** WWE Champion Big E appeared on The Jboy Show.
** Gimme A Hull Yeah!’s interview with Matt Cardona is up on their YouTube channel.
** NJPW1972.com ran their interview with 2021 World Tag League winners YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto.
** WrestleZone has an interview with Mickie James.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Eddie Edwards turned 38-years-old today.
** Reality of Wrestling profiled their student Nathan Wasser:
** EC3 was featured in a GQ.com piece.
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.
