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.
** Following New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s ‘Wrestling Dontaku’ event, company President Takami Ohbari spoke to the press about the attendance number for the show. The Fukuoka PayPay Dome has a capacity of over 30,000 but there were slightly over 8,000 people in attendance.
I think there were many people who wanted to come but could not. At this stage, I think they’ve enjoyed wrestling with the people on the other side of the screen. But from here on out, we will not use COVID as an excuse. From here on out, we intend to fill each event to capacity.
** IMPACT Wrestling television producer David Sahadi joined Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows on the Talk’n Shop podcast. Sahadi left WWE in the early 2000s and began to help Jeff Jarrett and TNA with their weekly pay-per-views. Sahadi claims that when WWE found out, people in the company could not contact him or it would be grounds for immediate termination.
When WWE found out [I was working with TNA], it was like, nobody can talk to Sahadi. I don’t care if you’re a friend, blacklist. You can not call me, you can not text him, you cannot email him or that will be grounds for immediate termination. Yeah, because in their minds, I joined the competition. I’m just like, I joined for three months just to help launch them onto the monthly pay-per-views while we wait and get on Spike TV, and [they were looking at that as] betrayal, but it wasn’t. I was just helping out Jeff [Jarrett] who I’ve worked with a lot of times. Yeah [I had known Jeff for years]. Jeff’s the reason why I joined.
Sahadi went on to talk about his pitch to Vince McMahon about bringing a grittier feel to the WWF/E product. He said this conversation took place at the beginning of the Attitude Era.
I pitched Vince [McMahon] the ‘attitude spot.’ ‘I know what you’re thinking, I’m not really an athlete, I’m just a wrestler. Well I did this, I did that. I played college football for N.C. State. I actually played for the Dallas Cowboys. I played basketball at University of Tennessee,’ that was Taker and I read the copy to Vince. This was the beginning of the Attitude Era. You know, this box, then it became the screens on stage and Vince didn’t get it and Kevin Dunn said, ‘You should go anyway and show it to him’ and then once Vince saw that, he loved it. The titantron on the stage, he didn’t understand why we wanted a screen that takes up the entire stage. We said, ‘We can play entrance videos in there, you can do interviews with people that are backstage live on-screen.’ No, I didn’t come up with the tron, Chris [Kaiser] and Kevin Dunn did that. I came up with the whole attitude and doing things differently and you know what? We’re getting our asses kicked man. We gotta do something different, outside of the box. Let’s make this f*cking product feel real. It’s like get cameras backstage a lot without even telling some of the talent, you know? A fight, goes back there and it was real and fans felt that and I knew we had fans when they said things like, ‘Okay, I know wrestling is fake but, Vince and Stone Cold really hate each other don’t they?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, they really hate each other man.’ I’m like, hook, we got them. They took the bait.
** Inside The Ropes released their interview with Naomi that was conducted at the pre-WrestleMania 38 press junket. Naomi discussed the possibility of turning heel and said she’s not against it but would want it to be natural. She’s of the same train of thought when it comes to the idea of joining The Bloodline (Roman Reigns, Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso).
I’m definitely not opposed to it [turning heel] and I think that it’s so important in our business to grow and evolve but, if it ain’t there organically then I don’t want it and I don’t want it to be something just for the sake of doing it. Just, okay, we’ve seen her in the ‘Glow’ for this long. Let’s just go heel, see something different. I really believe in it evolving naturally there.
No [I don’t think it would be forced for me to be in The Bloodline]. It definitely works but I think just right now, there has to be a way to get me there because I’m so not affiliated with them right now on the show, you know what I mean? So, and they’re killing it. The faction is incredible. Like, if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Naomi added that it is a bit weird she’s not a part of The Bloodline because she’s always around the trio and Paul Heyman off-screen.
I do [get the Paul Heyman wisdom] and it is a little weird that I’m not in it [The Bloodline] because I’m always there with them. I’m always there, I’m always around, I’m always, you know, annoying them so, maybe later down the road or maybe there’s somewhere for me to come in with the boys, with Jon and Josh [Jimmy & Jey Uso], who knows? But definitely something I would look forward to. I would want it to be the right time, you know? And done properly.
** During an ‘Ask Me Anything’ edition of Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, he stated that if he had received the offer to work for WCW instead of Vince Russo, Prichard said if he would’ve accepted, he would have helped speed up the process of WWF/E acquiring WCW.
I don’t know if I would’ve accepted [an offer from WCW] first of all, but… I don’t know. You know what I would’ve probably tried to do? Is I probably would’ve tried to expedite the acquisition a lot sooner.
The topic of Vince McMahon taking ‘Stunners’ came up and Prichard was asked if he thinks he can take a better ‘Stunner’ than McMahon. Here was his response:
Today? Probably not [Prichard cannot take a better ‘Stunner’ than Vince McMahon]. Yeah, the thought of my knees coming down on the mat at the same time, that’s one of those things that probably ain’t gonna happen any time soon so…
Elsewhere during the show, Prichard expressed his thoughts about Tom Magee and why Magee was not able to find greater success as a wrestler. He feels that Tom did not have a personality and lacked in-ring psychology. If Prichard could do anything differently concerning Tom’s time in WWF, he would have sent him to wrestling school.
Tom Magee didn’t have any personality and to answer, yes, I was around [at the time] and Tom, really nice guy but if there wasn’t someone that was extremely talented in the ring across from Tom, Tom could do moves but Tom had no psychology and I don’t think that Tom really liked the business that much.
Yes, send him to school [would be what I would’ve done differently with Tom Magee]. I don’t know that-that ever would have instilled the passion needed to truly be a success. I think that comes with time and that comes with love of what you do, so I’m just not sure that we could have overcome that hurdle.
Prichard got his start in the wrestling business through Paul Boesch’s promotion in Houston, Texas. He told the story of when Bruiser Brody won one of the promotion’s titles before leaving the territory. It was assumed that Brody took the title with him, but the title had been in the trunk of Prichard’s car the entire time. He gave Brody a ride following his last match for the promotion.
So when Frank [Bruiser Brody] was leaving the — ah, it had to be Dallas. Nah, it might have been San Antonio. Doesn’t really matter, I think it was Dallas. His last match in the territory was in Port Arthur, Texas for us and I had been driving with Frank… yeah [Paul Boesch’s promotion] and we had a show in Port Arthur so I’m — Brody’s riding with me and I’m going back to Houston and I dropped him off at his hotel and he says, ‘Goodbye Bruce. I’ll see you down the road’ and I said, ‘Okay man, see you next week.’ He says, ‘No, I’ll see you down the road’ and he left the territory. The next day, he was gone. Well, that night in Port Arthur, Texas, Brody had won the prestigious United States Brass Knucks Championship of the world… and the ‘Golden Triangle,’ because that was Port Arthur, Beaumont and what the hell is it? Oh, Orange. ‘Beaumont’, we called ‘blow snot Texas’ but anyway, so, I say goodbye, I don’t really think that much of it. Next week, oh yeah, find out that Frank left the territory and I went, oh, damn man. I gave him his last ride [from] his last match, you don’t think anything of it because Brody left territories all the time. He was there one minute, on to the next. About — and they said, ‘And he took the belt!’ I’m thinking, I don’t ever remember Brody wearing a belt. Usually, he wore elastic shorts and everything. I didn’t see him wear a lot of pants that required a belt [Prichard joked]. Turns out he had taken the championship, the American Brass Knuckles Championship of the world and the Golden Triangle and I’m thinking, son of a b*tch. He got the championship. Again, I don’t think anything of it. About six, eight months later, man, I’m cleaning my car. You know, doing the ‘ole clean everything out, ya open up the trunk and throw everything out of the trunk and then you’re gonna neatly put things back in, it’s gonna be in order and there’s a brown paper bag all the way back, kind of like wedged up in the back of my trunk. I pull it out, kind of heavy. It is the United States Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship of the world and the Golden Triangle in that paper bag, and I’m thinking to myself, oh sh*t, and I’m thinking, self, if you bring this back now, they’re gonna think that, why didn’t you bring it back eight, nine months ago? Whatever it was and I’m looking at it going, nobody knows I have it. They all think Brody left with it. This was — and if you look it up, if you look up pictures of Fritz Von Erich with the American Championship, that’s — it’s just a plain silver plate and it had [a] United States kind of map on it and it’s as plain and plain could be. We had spruced it up, we put a pair of brass knuckles on it to make it the United States Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship of the world and Golden Triangle. So we spruced it [up], made it nice-like and all. But, I wouldn’t — so I kept it.
** Chris Van Vliet conducted an in-depth interview with Tino Sabbatelli. The former WWE contracted talent discussed his brief stint in AEW and being contacted to return to WWE following his AEW debut. Before being released for a second time, Tino heard that he would be moving to Raw or SmackDown. He added that there was some respect lost after Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque did not contact him following his second release.
So then AEW comes into play, AEW calls me. Billy Gunn calls me and says, ‘Sabby, show up to Jacksonville.’ They don’t tell me anything, I show up and I see my name on the board. I’m like wow, I have a match? I mean OK, I will do it. So I had this match on AEW Dark, it was a tag team match, but they didn’t tell me anything. They didn’t offer me anything, it was a vague trip. But that same week coach Bloom texted me and said congratulations. I shot him a text back saying, ‘Thank you but I didn’t sign anything.’ The next day Triple H reaches out to me. It’s funny, Canyon and coach Bloom was trying to set up the meeting with Triple H for 2 months, but because he is so busy, it would get pushed to the back burner. I was getting so offended, but I know they were pushing for it, but it was funny that he reached out when I appear on AEW. So he reaches out and we meet and he says, ‘You know what? You’re the only person we are going to offer to bring back.’ I was honored and privileged, but I asked for one thing, an opportunity. Everybody was saying, ‘Wait until Vince sees this.’ And, ‘Wait until you get that push.’ But it never happened because of the surgeries and just bad timing. But here we go, they sign me and they bring me back. Triple H goes, ‘Tino, come back to the PC, get the ring rust knocked off.’ So I come back to the PC late 2020 and I am in every main event of the house shows in the PC to rehearse. They had me against Ciampa, Thatcher, every skillset. I kept getting put off like, ‘Oh next week…’ I started getting a bit upset because I came back for the opportunity. Then I hear, ‘You are not right for NXT. We are going to put you on Raw or SmackDown. You don’t fit on this brand.’ I just want the opportunity. Again, this is the first time in my career I felt confident in the ring. I can call matches on the fly and wrestle anyone. Triple H told me I looked and talked like a million bucks, now I think I can wrestle anybody.
I heard for years that I am a Vince guy, OK well put me in front of Vince. Two weeks [after Jamie Noble told me that he would let Vince McMahon know about my skills], I get a phone call from Canyon and I get released again. I’m like hold on, I thought the phone call was that I would be going to Raw or to SmackDown. For 3 months they were saying I was going right up. Me and Canyon had a great relationship, and I could tell that he couldn’t tell me the reason. He was like, ‘I am sorry, this is devastating to me.’ Then he hangs up on me. I’m like hold on, I didn’t have to come back, it was a man-to-man handshake, and now I am gone? I didn’t get an answer, that was what hurt me the most. I was in the main event for the right-hand men for Vince McMahon, where is the disconnect. I lost the respect because I didn’t get a call or text from Triple H, I don’t respect that. He and numerous other people told me I had main event star level talent. But I don’t get a shot, nothing?
Sabbatelli recounted conversations he had with Levesque during which Lesvesque expressed that he saw Sabbatelli as a big star. When he returned to WWE, Levesque said he wanted the timing to be right with Tino and to make sure all the stars aligned.
But for me, I bought in and dedicated my life to it. I get going and I don’t know what to expect. I develop this character that is me but just turned way up to a person that you wish you could be. So I started getting booed out of arenas, so I’m like this is good.
Fast forward a bit and Triple H approaches me. He said, ‘Listen Tino, you look like a million bucks, talk like a million bucks and carry yourself like a million bucks. But I really want your wrestling to be a million bucks. When you are a package like Tino, if you can’t wrestle then it will expose you and you can’t be the star that you really are.’ I took that personally and I really honed in, and that craft is hard! It’s not something you can just teach overnight, there are so many aspects. It really wasn’t easy, if you are an explosive athlete, it is the opposite in the ring. You are moving fast, but you have to act like you are not moving fast. So I said to Triple H, ‘OK I’m up for the challenge.’ He says, ‘I’m going to team you up with Riddick Moss, he is good at what you need to work on and you are good at what Riddick Moss needs to work on.’ I’m like perfect, let’s team us up. It was another alpha presence, so we were butting heads at first, but for me, I was grateful. He taught me so much about tagging, psychology and how the pace of a match goes. I knew we didn’t really want to do it at first, but as my career came, it really, really helped.
Fast forward 3 years and I came to this realization. I was 35 and I gave everything that I had to WWE, so I wanted to sit down with Triple H and ask what was the plan. So I sat down with Triple H for 45 minutes in Atlanta, and I will never forget it. He said, ‘Listen Tino, I see you as a huge star. We just want the timing to be right with you because of the background and what you have accomplished. With your background, we want to make sure that all the stars align and the timing is right.’ So I bought into this. He then said, ‘This is what we are going to do. We are going to break you up on TV with Riddick Moss.’ Here we go, that happens and I am in 3 main events.
** Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson welcomed fellow IMPACT Wrestling talent Johnny Swinger onto their Talk’n Shop podcast. Johnny recounted asking for his release from WCW for a potential opportunity at working for WWF/E. Swinger said money influenced his decision because he spoke to Edge and Christian Cage and found out what they were being paid, so he left his guaranteed WCW deal but was not brought in by WWE.
I’m talking to Edge about some stuff and he’s got The Brood going on. They had just split up The Brood. Him and Christian [Cage] go babyface and they were looking for someone else to go with Gangrel, literally for like — it was a SummerSlam pay-per-view. It went back and forth for a while. [Vince] Russo was involved. That’s when his name first started coming up with being a writer. Before that, we never heard of him. So those guys told me what they were making and I was just like, oh my gosh, I gotta get a piece of that, right? You know what I mean? So I was completely consumed with that. So I’m waiting by the phone and you know how they just — they rebook stuff and they don’t tell you. It didn’t come through for whatever reason, but I had that money in my brain. Like Jesus man, the money these guys are making. I thought I was making good money in WCW until I heard what they were making, so that was probably a bad thing for me when I found that out and I was just obsessed with going there after that so I’m like, screw it. I’m just gonna ask for my release and I’ll go offer myself to them and yeah, so I gave up a good guarantee in WCW to go get a tryout with WWF and I did a couple dark matches, right? And it was positive but there was no, ‘We’re gonna sign you.’ They actually brought me to Stamford. Flew me to LaGuardia here, picked me up, put me at the hotel there and I worked out with Tom Prichard for a couple days. They just never called and that’s when Raven’s like, ‘Ah, why don’t you go to ECW and get over there?’ And I’m thinking, I’m gonna get over in ECW? Me? Johnny Swinger? The basic wrestler and sh*t? Because we used to watch ECW at midnight when we were in WCW and yeah, ‘These guys are nuts. We’ll never go there though.’ Me and Disco [Inferno] and those guys, ‘We’re never gonna work there. Haha, haha, haha.’
** Major League Wrestling CEO Court Bauer joined Busted Open Radio and commented on MLW’s talent pool. He mentioned that it is an organization that billionaires such as AEW’s Tony Khan first discovered some of their spotlighted talent at.
And our track record, we’re the place where Tony Khan first saw MJF and he saw a lot of his other talent and this is the promotion that the billionaires watch for a reason. There’s a lot of gems in MLW.
** The latest episode of Out of Character with Ryan Satin featured The Miz. At the 2021 WrestleMania Backlash event, The Miz suffered a torn MCL in his match with Damian Priest. He looked back at that injury and detailed how the injury occurred.
Torn MCL [at WrestleMania Backlash 2021]. First time I ever had anything happen so, Damian [Priest] went off the top rope and hit me with his kick, but as he hit, he kind of landed — it was just an odd, weird thing. It wasn’t Damian, it wasn’t me, it was just a weird thing that happened where he fell and he fell like this on my knee. He’s 240 pounds, like that on your knee. I just heard ‘snap’ and I was like uh oh. So, I was like, all right, do I stop this match here? And I was like, well no, I’m The Miz. I can do it. By the way, so then I try to stand because — and I don’t know if you’ve ever had a torn MCL or ACL but when you — it’s like you’re walking on a noodle and all I’m thinking is — I don’t know what it is. I know that everything’s — but I wanted to do a running knee and I had to jump off of this leg which is the injured leg and I was like, well, if I’m really gonna tear it, I’m really gonna tear it right now. Did it, didn’t end up doing that. We ended up getting to the finish, one, two, three. Soon as that got done, I was like, I hobbled to — I don’t like people seeing me injured, like ever, ever! I always feel like you’re a shark and whenever there’s blood in the water, a shark will come and get it and I don’t like people seeing me weak I guess you could say and granted, it’s probably as strong as you are but I don’t like that. So, I went to the trainer’s room, everyone had to get out and they were like, ‘It’s either an ACL or MCL. You’re either out for eight weeks or you’re out for a year’ and went there — that’s a nerve-racking night. Luckily, I went to the place, they said it’s an MCL. I was like, ‘Good. Thank you very much.’
As the conversation rolled on, The Miz heaped praise onto Chad Gable for being able to roll with the punches in WWE and make the best of what he’s been given. He thinks that Gable could be a main eventer and someone who draws for WWE.
A lot of times, you’ll go down to a developmental territory or someone will ask advice and I’ll go, ‘Oh, you’re a wrestler. What’s your character?’ ‘Uh, I don’t know. I’m kind of this guy.’ No, you shouldn’t be ‘kind of,’ shouldn’t be ‘kind of.’ You should know exactly — if you wanna be a WWE superstar, you better know exactly who you are going in there because guess what? When you get here, they’re probably gonna change it. But, they know you can find something into it so they’ll give you something else and go, ‘Hey, we liked what you’re doing here. Try this, try this.’ You know who I love that I watched go from here to here to here? And anything they threw at him, he’d just take it and go, okay. Okay, I can do it. Who do you think? Do you have a guess? Yes [Chad Gable], exactly, right. So Chad Gable, first came in with Jason Jordan, right? Amazing tag team, incredible. Didn’t click, didn’t get to the upper echelons but won things and did stuff and was in there, then they took him and said, all right, you’re gonna be a singles competitor. You’re gonna be ‘Shorty G’ and everyone was like, what!? What!? Honestly, sometimes it’s just to see, I see something in you. Let’s see if I can get something out of you. Let’s see if we can find something that’s different than everybody else and most times the fans or the critics will be like, ‘Why are they doing this? This guy went to the Olympics.’ We’re just trying to find something here. In my mind, that’s what they’re doing. So then he did it and he went, he took it and he — I thought he did exceptional at it. He didn’t get to the upper echelons or whatever but he took that character and made something out of it and now you look at Chad Gable, guess what? He found his voice. He found his character and now you look at him and you go, oh wow, this is a money maker. This character is a money maker. I look at that and I go, he’s ready, he’s prepared. Now he just needs the battles to work himself up, work himself up and every time they take something and it’s like, ah, you won’t be doing this, you won’t be doing that, just take it with a grain of salt. Be like, all right, no problem. Whatever you give me, I’m gonna make it gold and that’s what he’s been doing and as he keeps doing that and doing that and doing that, we’re gonna see Chad Gable be a contender and a superstar and I think a main eventer, a person that puts asses in seats so, I think if he keeps working at it and keeps going and keeps going, he’s gonna be something even more special than he already is.
The Miz further spoke about the tag match with Bad Bunny at WrestleMania 37. He credited Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque for giving him advice before the match because Miz was having trouble figuring out how to go about the match.
I was having trouble with the beginning of that Bad Bunny match [at WrestleMania 37]. Was trying to figure out, all right, like, I’m a WWE superstar, this is a celebrity. He’s a music person. He’s coming into my world and he’s just gonna be able to do things? And Triple H is the best at being like, ‘Yeah, but what if you do this?’ And I’ll go, ‘Oh’ and sometimes that’s all you need. Just a little bit of advice and then he sat down with me for like 20 minutes and after that 20 minutes, I knew exactly what needed to be done. So we went out there and just killed it.
In a separate interview, AJ Styles named Miz as the best heel in pro wrestling. Here’s what Miz had to say in response to Styles:
Wow. Do you want Mike’s answer or The Miz’s answer [to AJ Styles saying I’m the best heel in WWE]? Mike’s answer, okay. Mike’s answer is it’s an honor honestly. Ever since the first time AJ stepped foot into WWE, I was like his first competitor, the first person to go up against him and as soon as — sometimes, you can feel it. You just know a person in WWE. Now everyone could be like, ‘Yeah, well it’s AJ Styles.’ That doesn’t always happen when people come from outside of WWE into WWE. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and a special person and a special superstar and as soon as I got in the ring with AJ, I was like, oh, he’s gonna be something in WWE. He’s going to be one of the biggest stars out there. Just, you could feel the energy, you could feel the passion, you could feel just the electricity that surrounds a person, aura, you know? And so you just know and I knew right away, but yeah, anytime someone says, ‘Ah, he’s a great heel, he’s a great bad guy,’ it’s like yeah, but the reason why is because everything I do, I feel like I have motivation and sometimes people just do things just to do it, The Miz doesn’t.
** The newly crowned two-time TNT Champion Scorpio Sky guest appeared on Throwing Down w/ Renee & Miesha. Sky spoke highly of Dan Lambert and Paige VanZant who he shares the screen with on AEW Dynamite. Scorpio recalled telling Lambert that he should get Paige more involved in wrestling once he noticed Paige being more interactive during her early AEW appearances.
Well I’ll start with Dan [Lambert]. Dan is a lifelong wrestling fan and it shows. He’s really, really good at what he does, he’s great at pissing people off, he’s really creative with his interviews and he just — I feel like this is something he’s wanted to do for a long time. I don’t know if everyone knows this but he has over 100 ring-used championship belts. Just a diehard. You guys that know him know. He loves the business and then Paige [VanZant], she’s so new but she’s picking up on it so fast. From the very beginning, when she came a few times with Austin [Vanderford] and Dan and the others, I kind of watched some of the things and more so the mannerisms and paying attention to the crowd and that sort of thing that she was just naturally doing and I was adamant, I kept pushing to Dan, I was like, ‘You gotta get her here. She’s good. She can do this’ and I think she’s gonna pick up on it really quickly and from what I heard, she is. She’s training with Gangrel who’s fantastic. But you can’t teach personality, you can’t teach charisma, you can’t teach star power and that’s something she already brings to the table and she’s an incredible athlete, a badass, you know and I think she’ll pick up on the wrestling part very quickly and it’s gonna be great for AEW to grab another star.
Coming up in June is the NJPW x AEW ‘Forbidden Door’ show. Sky expressed that there are plenty of options, but the question is who from New Japan wants to face him.
Man, anybody [Scorpio responded when asked who he’d like to face at ‘Forbidden Door’]. All those guys are good. You know, someone asked me that question backstage a few weeks ago and I was just like, ‘Yeah, the real question is who wants to face me? I’m the champ, this is my ground’ so, yeah, anybody that wants it, they can get it. I’m the can man. Let ‘em come to me.
** On April 30th, Tom Lawlor and Jon Moxley went one-on-one at DEFY Wrestling’s ‘Wild Ones’ event. Lawlor took to his ‘Filthy Four Daily’ show to discuss the match and described his experience working with Moxley.
Two guys beating the sh*t out of each other [Lawlor vs. Jon Moxley at DEFY ‘Wild Ones’]. Blood flying everywhere. I don’t know when the replay will be up on Pluto TV, but if you have a chance and you enjoy professional wrestling and you enjoy two guys — if you enjoy fighting, if you enjoy bloodbaths, if you enjoy horror movies, this may be the match for you. So, when it’s up on Pluto TV, on Pro Wrestling Channel on demand, on DEFY on demand, on whatever it is, give it a shot and check it out. For those of you who are wondering, you are fans, you’ve been watching wrestling for a long time and you know, you like this Jon Moxley character, this Dean Ambrose guy, he is as advertised. I am pretty sure — I am no psychologist, but I think he is some sort of crazy person after dealing with him and wrestling him in this match.
It’s kind of like, you know, I’m in the back, and we’re going over the match and I’m like, is this gonna be any good? Is this gonna be terrible? Are we gonna be on the same page whatsoever once we get out there? Is this guy just like a wild animal? Is he gonna forget every single thing we’ve talked about back there? What the hell is gonna happen? And yeah, I will say it is like wrestling a wild animal in a lot of ways. You do not know when he is going to strike. He may just attack you at any moment which is not a bad thing in the context of professional wrestling. But yeah, I had a good time. For bleeding everywhere and you know, battering each other, being beaten up. I’m still picking blood out of my beard three days later.
** Ahead of the Undisputed ROH Women’s World Title match on the 5/4 AEW Dynamite, Deonna Purrazzo was interviewed by Sid Pullar III of Tru Heel Heat and talkSPORT. She reflected on becoming ROH Women’s Champion and brought up the days when she would email former ROH C.O.O. Joe Koff with data and analytics in hopes of bringing more attention to the women’s division.
Um, everything (laughs). It was really special to me because I fought for that championship to be just like a figment of someone’s imagination. And for someone to see the vision that myself and other women that helped create the Women of Honor division back then. We saw a championship, we saw a division, we saw this vision for what Women of Honor could be that no one else saw. And it was for years until I left Ring of Honor before I went to NXT, for three years I fought. I could not tell you the amount of emails that I sent to Joe Koff with like data from our YouTube and from our Twitter and from Instagram being like people really want to pay attention to this. You need women, we are the best wrestling on the planet, women are included in that and here’s why and here’s the statistics. I fought way beyond just fighting in the ring for Women of Honor to be something that someone to believe way beyond myself and Mandy [Leon] and a few other people. For better or for worse, I got what I wanted so it was a very long journey, but I believe everything happens for a reason. And you know the place that Ring of Honor was in when I won the Ring of Honor Women’s Championship was a bit uneasy. We didn’t know what’s to come and if I can say this about myself, I was the best fit to carry the division in such an unknown time period. And now, I’m carrying the championship onto AEW Dynamite on Wednesday. So this seven year journey has come full circle to me. Wrestling is the only thing that makes me really emotional and I already had to cry about it.
** During Jim Varsallone’s sit-down interview with Steve Maclin, Maclin reflected on his singles match with Trey Miguel at IMPACT Wrestling’s Hard To Kill show. He feels that he and Trey had the best match on the show.
Same process usually. It was just fun to get the match together [Maclin vs. Trey Miguel at IMPACT Hard To Kill] and Trey and I, like we get in the wrestling world behind the scenes, we gel very easily and it’s very good to come up with things that way but, just for a performing standpoint, we both wanted to bring the best out of each other and I thought we did that and I thought, to me, we had the best match of the night. I know there were a lot of great matches on the card, but I still thought we had probably the best story on the card itself to wrap up the story we’ve been telling for the feud we have.
After Hard To Kill was over, Maclin and Deonna Purrazzo watched their respective matches back and they both critiqued each other’s matches and gave feedback.
Oh, we [Maclin & Deonna Purrazzo] watched it right — soon as I got to the hotel, Deonna and I, we watched [it] right back on the pay-per-view and she watched her match back and we both give critiques to each other, what could be different or this or that, what could be better and then of course we watch mine and she fell asleep and then I watched my match. So yeah, I was very proud watching it back and it was one of those — I always tend to watch my stuff back just because it’s the only way to get better; what was good, what was bad and just it was one of those matches where I really didn’t wanna nitpick so much and just enjoy watching it back as well, especially listening to the crowd at Hard To Kill in Dallas. They were on fire the whole night.
** Cezar Bononi was the most recent guest on the All Real Wrestling Podcast. Bononi hails from Brazil and recalls fellow wrestlers from his home country wanting to see him fail when it was made public that he would be joining WWE.
When I left Brazil, I had a little bit of heat with the other wrestlers because I wasn’t training and I was picked by WWE so, everybody wanted me to fail and a lot of people said that I was not even going to have a match on TV and I remember as soon as I left, that match, [I] was so happy that I did something that people [doubted] me and that changed something [in] me and made my head go in a different direction so right now, I need to seek this feeling. I need to find meaning in everything I do because I want it more. I just don’t want to be here and wait for something. I gotta do something, I gotta create, I gotta get there. I need this more, I need this energy, I need all this.
** Atsushi Onita’s scalp was burned during a deathmatch he recently competed in.
** XPW Wrestling is hosting a tournament on June 25th to crown their first women’s champion. The field currently consists of Taya Valkyrie, NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille, Sage Sin Supreme, Lindsay Snow and Chelsea Green.
** ‘Dead Meat’ had Chris Jericho on the channel to discuss the film ‘Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers.’
** Busted Open Radio announced that Mickie James is going to be co-hosting the show on Wednesdays with David LaGreca and Tommy Dreamer.
** Shinya Aoki, who wrestles for DDT Pro-Wrestling is scheduled to fight Kade Ruotolo at ONE Championship’s May 20th show.
** Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling Results (5/3/22) Korakuen Hall
– Princess Tag Team Championships: Mizuki & Yuka Sakazaki (c) def. Hikari Noa & Nao Kakuta
– Exhibition – Reika Saiki’s Retirement Match: Arisu Endo vs. Reika Saiki – Time Limit Draw (3:00)
– Mahiro Kiryu & Yuki Kamifuku def. Haruna Neko & Kaya Toribami
– Suzume def. Juria Nagano
– Miu Watanabe, Rika Tatsumi & Yuki Arai def. Pom Harajuku, Raku & Yuki Aino
– Maki Ito & Miyu Yamashita def. Hikaru Shida & Moka Miyamoto
– Princess Of Princess Championship: Shoko Nakajima (c) def. Hyper Misao
** Following the 5/3 Tokyo Joshi Pro show, Maki Itoh expressed her desire to have a singles match with Hikaru Shida in North America.
後楽園ホール試合後コメント🎙
山下「メチャクチャ楽しかった。志田さんとはシングルをやってみたい。もかに関しては未来が楽しみ。」伊藤「（志田に）舐められたのがメチャメチャ悔しい。アメリカでやりたい」#tjpw pic.twitter.com/Xqhgop9zmh
— 東京女子プロレス (@tjpw2013) May 3, 2022
** Entertainment Tonight caught up with Nikki and Brie Bella.
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.
