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.
** The newest episode of the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast featured an interview with Killer Kross. He mentioned that a story recently leaked that he was in conversations with Tony Khan and AEW. Kross stated that the idea/concept that was pitched to him was better suited for someone else but he would be interested in appearing for AEW under the right circumstances.
Kross did not detail what that idea/concept was, but it was reported by Fightful Select that Kross was planned to face Wardlow on the May 4th AEW Dynamite. Former IMPACT Wrestling talent W. Morrissey ended up being revealed as the mystery opponent.
There was a story that leaked recently about me being in conversations with Tony Khan and AEW. Like, some conversations are meant to be private and I like the guy. I’m not gonna go out there and discuss what was said but, there’s a lot of people that upon getting that phone call would just take his money and maybe they’re in a position where they absolutely have to. I’m not gonna do that to him. I have too much respect for him and the place and my friends that work there to just take the money and come in and do something that I am absolutely certain in that conversation is less than what I’m actually capable of doing for him and with everybody else. I’d rather be upfront and honest and just say I think that this idea or this concept would be better suited for somebody else. I know what I can do and I’m not interested in doing anything less than my best work and it’s like I told you, I’m not in this to do this to set myself up for retirement. It’s not why I’m doing this. I’m doing this because I love it so, I wanna be engaged and really care and be able to feel and know that when people see that I’m gonna be involved in doing something, that it’s gonna be, you know, my best work so, I don’t wanna be pigeonholed by anything so, I’d definitely be interested and open to working there but, in the right setting under the right circumstances.
Both Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux were released from WWE in November 2021. Kross stated that they thought they would be with WWE for the remainder of their careers and would have preferred that to be the case. He added that the company wanted him to change quite a bit; citing being told to not perform certain moves in the ring.
I was really disappointed [that we were released from WWE]. Her [Scarlett Bordeaux] and I both thought we were gonna be lifers there, we loved it. We would have preferred to be if I’m being honest with you. We loved it there, we loved everybody. We got along with everybody. I was disappointed on that level but at the same time, I was also relieved to be gone under the circumstances that I was performing under because I would compare it to a comedian going on stage in front of a hot crowd, it’s the crowd they’re working their whole careers to get in front of and then the promoter basically tells the comedian that he can’t do his best of jokes and he’s gotta wear this and he’s gotta wear that and it’s like, this is their art, this is their craft and you’re amputating essential parts of what brings them to life through bringing the audience to life and it was just strange things that were deducted from. They wanted me to change the order of my finishing moves, they wanted me to stop doing the forearm to the back of the head, even though it’s not to the back of the head. It’s worked but there was just weird things. They didn’t want me to cue it up, they were suffocating my cutoffs and my hopes and there was so — it was so micromanaged and suffocated. My work was suffocated. So I was relieved, you know? But again, disappointed. I really would have liked that to have worked out and I was game to do whatever they needed me to do.
As Kross ventured into discussions about his run on the main roster, he feels his character and presentation could have worked without Scarlett if the changes were explained to the audience. He said Bordeaux could have gone the singles route as well and found success.
A lot of people, they try to pinpoint what it was that was missing or what didn’t work and whatnot [during the WWE main roster run]. At the end of the day and I say this with all due respect to my wife, the character could have worked on Raw without her. She could have been her own separate star on the same show or another show, women’s champion. She could have put her own spin, like make wrestling sexy again with her IMPACT stuff. She could have — she’s a very, very creative person and she was acquiescing to a lot of my ideas to create some sort of parallel simpatico, but she has many layers too. We could have been separate stars on our own and the gladiator thing could have worked if it made sense for people watching, if there was an explanation why the character was wearing a helmet, wearing suspenders, where she went and what the character’s motives are on the show. It could have worked, as silly as the outfit was and I didn’t mind the outfit. I always go on record to say that. I felt comfortable in it, but it just didn’t make any sense.
There was a point when members of the WWE creative team were asking Kross if he’d be interested in reuniting with Scarlett on the main roster as they were wondering why she was not with him on-screen.
I remember the writers, the writers were asking me every week, they were like, ‘So… what do you think about doing what you were doing back in NXT with Scarlett? Would you be interested in doing that?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah. Why are you asking me that?’ They’re like, ‘We’re just wondering why you’re not doing it’ and I’m like, ‘You’re f*cking wondering why?’ I’ve expressed interest on reprising continuity. Not even for my own sake but for the sake of the fans who watch the shows. Continuity is extremely important in wrestling.
On 7/19/21, Kross made his Monday Night Raw debut as NXT Champion and lost to Jeff Hardy in a singles match. When the change in his character presentation was brought to his attention, Kross said initial plans included having new music and a giant ‘X’ burning during his entrance.
[Kross laughed] Well what I was told was this [main roster presentation] was going to be an upgraded version of what I was previously doing in NXT, ‘upgraded’. A bigger and better version of what I did and they said they wanted to give me new music and they wanted to switch up my entrance a little bit. They wanted to incorporate more of my original logo which was the ‘X’. It was a red X. They wanted to start doing some sort of form of an X. They talked about putting a giant ‘X’ in the building on fire and they talked about going in a direction a little bit more with like an evil gladiator and then we got this mock-up of this outfit and it looked cheap and horrendous and I said, ‘Surely this is just a concept. This is not what they’re actually gonna try to manufacture or engineer because this is a billion-dollar company, this looks like trash.’ Sure enough, the day comes, we get the costume and I was like, boy, I don’t know about this. No new music, [Scarlett Bordeaux’s] still singing the song. No new entrance, no ‘X’ on fire, none of that and they just rushed the character out there with no explanation of what was going on.
Prior to that loss to Hardy, Kross had not been pinned in WWE. Although he is flattered that he was able to have an undefeated streak, he does not think it was something crucial that his character needed to have.
I was flattered to get a run like that [in WWE where I was undefeated]. Most people, their whole entire careers never see anything like that. People who do 25, 30 years in this business will never, ever get near anything that the company, you know — of course the company created for me to be on. I mean, was it important for the character? I mean the character is the character. The character’s always gonna be how I present it. It definitely helped the equity of the character in the eyes of the audience, that’s for sure. But as in for the identity of the character, I feel like there were many layers that people unfortunately didn’t get to see unless they’ve been with me for a long time and seen what I’ve created. There was so much more that I could have done. So like I said, layers man, so many different layers to show people the self-destruction of the character, how the character deals with the demise of it’s legacy, how he chooses to recover that, does he lose his identity not being the undefeated guy? These are all characters within that character that I could have shown people but in terms of being undefeated, I mean it was awesome but I don’t think it was essential for the character to get over whatsoever at all because I wasn’t undefeated before I got to WWE and my merch sales were pretty good, so, I was pretty busy [Kross laughed].
Elsewhere during the conversation, Kross looked back on the two tryouts he had with WWE before being signed and not being brought into the company despite receiving positive feedback from Canyon Ceman and William Regal.
I had done two tryouts [with WWE]. One in my first year and oddly enough, I don’t know if I’ve ever said this in an interview, it was Bill DeMott’s last day of work. He was at the tryout, it was in Columbus, Ohio at the Arnold [Sports Festival]. We were doing a tryout publicly where they were trying to just kill us, you know, in front of everyone at the Arnold to show how tough pro wrestling was. Corey Graves was hosting it as well. I’ve never even talked to him about that. I should’ve brought that up. Maybe I will sometime but, I did a tryout publicly and William Regal and Canyon Ceman came up to me after the tryout the first time around, they said, ‘You represented yourself and this company excellently. We’re gonna be in touch.’ They were like, ‘Hey, do you have any skeletons in your closet? Are you really crazy? Have you really actually killed people? Because your problems are pretty convincing’ [Kross smiled] and I said, ‘No. Everything will check out. I’m good to go.’ I said, ‘But don’t tell anybody.’ But yeah, it was — and then I don’t know what happened. I know nothing about Bill DeMott’s departure. There’s a million stories about it. I don’t know. That whole tryout got thrown out the window and it could have been for purposes over my head to understand, you know what I mean? In terms of who’s overseeing what and evaluations, I don’t know but he basically just said, ‘Hey, the only thing we need you to do –’ Canyon said this to me, he’s like, ‘Just keep picking up more reps, more experience. I can tell that you’re a very self-motivated person that doesn’t need somebody behind you to push you. I know you’re gonna keep doing this. The longer we wait, the more money you’re gonna make when we finally sign you.’ He’s like, ‘So this isn’t no, it’s just not right now and I have no reason to lie to you. It would work against me to fish you along here.’ He’s like, ‘You got it, let’s stay in touch’ and years went by and a second tryout came around and it was right before season four of Lucha Underground and I was like, oh my God, you know, I’m in AAA right now, making [a] good living. I was bodyguarding at the time, all my finances were in order, I was living in Vegas and I was like, do I really wanna do this tryout? Because if I go to the tryout and I get signed, I’m probably gonna have to move. It’s gonna disrupt the whole course of this but it’s WWE. This is where I would ideally like to go. I have all these other jobs so, I go on to do the tryout and it was the most stress-free tryout ever because I knew I was going back to a very comfortable life and I had season four coming up with Lucha and they told me, you know, the same exact thing that they told me the first time around. They were like, ‘You’re just not what we’re looking for right now in terms of what’s going on in the ring.’ They’re like, ‘We’ve got — we’re looking for a specific type thing’ and I didn’t take it personally because I was kind of okay with that.
** Homicide was the most recent guest on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast. He talked about how early in his career, he wanted to change his ring name so he could get more opportunities because people were not fond of the name ‘Homicide’. It was Konnan who encouraged him to keep the name.
We [Homicide and his friends] was watching ECW, Public Enemy, I didn’t even know who these guys was and I was saying to myself, they’re from the hood? Oh, they’re horrible. I could do better. I said, all right, be yourself. Okay, so what’s gonna be my name? You know, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice or something? And some guy on ‘Cops’ on the run for homicide. He said, ‘How about Homicide?’ And I’m like, ‘That’s the most stupidest name ever. All right, whatever’ so, I became Homicide… and I’m still Homicide. Now I’m still trying to change my name and it gets back to me that my friend Konnan, Mexican living legend, I tell him, ‘Konnan, I need to change my gimmick because I need to make some money, get some sponsors and they don’t like the name Homicide because it represents murder. I don’t know, what should I do?’ He was like, ‘F*ck that. Keep that name. That name is you.’ I’m like, ‘Word?’ ‘Yeah, keep that name’ and I kept it and I’m still Homicide.
This past January, he was inducted into the Indie Wrestling Hall of Fame. He reflected on how special of an honor that is for him and recalled the emotions he felt while giving his speech.
Yeah man, like I said, that’s one of my greatest moments too [Indie Wrestling Hall of Fame honor]. If you look at the tape, I blacked out. I had a speech in my head, I had sponsors and I just blacked out and I didn’t even know what to say. For the first time, got on the microphone and I wanted to say a lot of things like a lot of thank yous and man, it was one of those moments like I don’t wanna drop [an] f-bomb and I said, ‘F*ck. I’m sorry that I cursed’ and I was just straight — it was just me, it was just Dee. It wasn’t Homicide, it was no character. I choked up, you know? I couldn’t believe that I was part of it. To me, that’s real. I don’t give a damn what anybody say, to me, that’s real. There’s one, it’s called the Cauliflower Hall of Fame, to me, that is real. But this first-ever Independent Hall of Fame man, to me, that is real. I don’t care what anybody say and yeah man, I got choked up. You seen the video. I blacked out and I turned my back in the beginning. I was banging on the stool, I was like, ‘Man, I can’t believe this is happening’ and I had so many f*cking friends there like CM Punk came through, Chris Dickinson came through, it was so many great guys and they was watching me be part of that and the next day, I wrestled [Jon] Moxley for the world title for GCW at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I’m like, man, it was so cool.
** Golden Ring Collectibles hosted a virtual signing with Melina and she expressed that she wants to write a book about her wrestling career and what she has experienced in the business.
For me, I really wanna write that book. I really need to do that because, I just feel like, sometimes I go to places and people still think I’m the heel character or the rumors I get that were written in the dirt sheets. I still — I’ll read stuff, it’ll pop up on my timeline and I’m like, people are still saying stuff like that? It’s the weirdest thing. I’m like, do people not see a person for who they are by how they act? How they interact with people? Who their friends are and stuff? You can tell. So, I don’t know, but I feel like if I could write a book and it’s gonna be in a journal style, like where it’s about my feelings, what I felt, what I saw, what I thought from my heart, that hopefully people can see what I went through and everybody around me, what my beliefs are, to see the real me as well as how this business is and how life can be for not just people who wanna be in wrestling but everybody. We all struggle across the board. Everybody does no matter what your careers are and we all need to be more understanding to each other.
Melina most recently wrestled in May for WrestlePro. She would like to come back to the ring for matches with Sasha Banks, Naomi, Asuka and Natalya.
Oh my goodness, I always stay with the same of like, of course I wanna go back [into the ring] for Sasha [Banks]. That needs to be settled. But then I always think it’d be fun with Naomi because I love her. Nattie, I still feel like we never had — I never had a great — the run that we deserve, a feud that we deserve with Nattie and I. I know we could kill it. I wish I could go back and have a match with Nattie. So those ones and Asuka.
As a part of the 2022 women’s Royal Rumble match, Melina made her return to WWE. She feels that-that moment healed all her wounds from wrestling and she felt appreciated.
It was fun, it was fun [2022 women’s Royal Rumble]. Of course I wasn’t in there long so, but leading up to that, that’s the only moment I needed. It made me feel like it healed all my wounds that I had from wrestling in that one moment in time. That sound that you heard, I felt it. I felt all the love, I felt all the appreciation. That’s something I could never just describe to anybody but I wish that everybody could feel that. I wish that I could take that energy and take that love and show each and every person because each and every person deserves to have that kind of — that feeling in their life.
** AEW Unrestricted has a new episode on the podcast feed with Marina Shafir as a guest. In April, Marina challenged Jade Cargill for the TBS Championship and she discussed how much she enjoyed working with Jade. She described Cargill as ‘open-minded’ and ‘professional’.
It was the first time that we’ve [Shafir & Jade Cargill] wrestled and you know, I just really respect her because she really leans into the things that she is good at and those things are very strong. She’s got a six-pack mouth, an eight-pack mentality. She gets it done and she knows what a job entailed and that I have a lot of respect for [in addition to having respect for] her. But, what made it interesting was I’m not from there, I’m coming up through there and she has come from the beginning. It was nice for us to kind of have that be the edge about us and I really enjoyed putting all that stuff together and she was very open-minded and professional and she’s just trying to understand this just like everybody else.
Marina told the story of when her son threw a water bottle at the monitor in Gorilla Position after she lost her AEW debut to Kris Statlander. He was upset that she lost and told Statlander afterwards that Marina was going to choke her out.
So my son was in the back and I lost [in my AEW debut], which was relieving for me but he is not the biggest fan of losing. He’s a very passionate kid and he threw a water bottle that was half-full at the TV in Gorilla and started crying and when I came into the back to hug him, let him know that I was okay, he was just devastated. I’ve never seen him that upset about me wrestling and losing. He was just broken. Yeah, it was just one of those scenarios when people were coming up to me and telling me like, ‘You did a really good job, you did a really good job,’ you know? And just congratulating my effort, but he doesn’t understand. It’s winning and losing. He’s just — oh my God, he was so upset and Kris [Statlander] being the good sport she is came up to me and was like, ‘Your mom did a really good job’ and he just looked at her crazy and looked at me and then looked down and was like, ‘My mom’s gonna choke you out.’ She was just like, ‘Okay! Gotta go. This is where I leave’ and he’s my biggest fan and that was very heartwarming for me. Very heartwarming to see how passionate he was for me.
It was at a Championship Wrestling from Atlanta taping in late 2021 that Marina met ‘Captain’ Shawn Dean. After chatting with her, Dean invited her to an AEW Dark taping so she could make her debut for the company.
So I got let go [from] WWE and you know, I let my emotions kind of do their thing there for a minute and then, I just tried to get as much work as I could and I tried to land any opportunity that I felt was right for me because this sh*t has to make sense at this time… I just wanted to take every opportunity and understand what would make sense for me and what didn’t make sense for me. I did get a lot of experience in NXT and I feel like I was exposed to a lot of people who tried to push me to lean into the psychology of things and let things make sense and be interesting and that’s okay and I just wanted to be able to use that muscle. I was wrestling for Championship Wrestling Atlanta. I had met Captain Shawn Dean there after one of my matches and he just came up to me with questions and very inquisitive and like, he wasn’t somebody that just came up to me and like, ‘You did so amazing! That was f*cking brilliant!’ He was just talking to me. He’s like, inquisitive, like, ‘Where were you going with this when you were here?’… And I’ve had a lot of experience with coaches and professionals and I usually — usually the people who come up to you with questions and are inquisitive about what and why something was going on, they’re usually — I don’t know — better receivers of information because then they actually wanna hear the answer and they wanna understand and I guess that’s why they call him ‘Captain’, right? But he extended an invitation to Dark and my first Dark was Kris [Statlander] and that’s how that happened.
** Next spring, Keiji Muto is planning to retire from in-ring competition. Tokyo Sports received comments from Kenta Kobashi about Muto’s retirement plan. Kobashi said he was surprised to hear the news and went on to reflect on the way he ended his in-ring career.
I was surprised [that Keiji Muto is choosing to retire]. I thought he would never retire. I hope he completes his retirement tour and exits the ring on his own feet at the end. I’m sure the various organizations will cooperate with him, so I’m sure something will come out of it. I hope that this will be a retirement match that will lead to the future. I had a sense of mission that I had to do the retirement match that Giant Baba and Misawa couldn’t do. I wanted young fighters to think, ‘If I work hard, I can do this.’
** On the latest edition of ‘Throwing Down w/ Renee & Miesha’, Renee Paquette spoke about Paige’s announcement that she’ll be finishing up with WWE in July. Paquette discussed their friendship and said she’s surprised WWE did not use Paige for an on-screen role in the past several years.
When I first started in WWE, I feel like I met her almost right away and I just instantly felt this kinship, like sisterhood with this chick. She’s just the coolest, most like — this chick’s a star. She’s one of those people that just has that energy, has that personality so as much as this is like, I’m sure a shock to the system, I’m really excited for her to see what’s next. You know, she’s been at home, she’s been with this injury, she’s not been on TV for some time and it always honestly blew my mind that WWE didn’t have her on as she was the General Manager of SmackDown for a little while. She was great in that role. I loved her in that role. But to not use her in some kind of on-camera position makes no sense to me. She’s got such a beautiful look, she’s so engaging, she’s so entertaining so, I’m excited for that door to close and to see what this new chapter is gonna be for her because anything she does, she succeeds at. She’s f*cking awesome so I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this woman.
** While on Complex’s Unsanctioned show, Mercedes Martinez explained what SHIMMER has meant to her career and added that she does not know where she would be in wrestling if it was not for the promotion becoming a part of her journey.
You hit these plateaus in your career where you just hit it to the next gear and that was that point in my career [first SHIMMER show] where I stepped on the pedal and I hit it right into the next gear and after that, every couple years, I kept hitting the pedal and I kept changing gears but that was the first one, that was that first gear that I needed in my career where it kind of propelled my career into where it is now. It just kind of just kept going and you know, SHIMMER, that’s my career. I think that’s a lot of people’s career when they started at the beginning. It’s something special. I hold it very dear to my heart and I will always put it over.
Like I said, it’s just one of those promotions that you don’t know how it’s gonna take to everybody until you do it and I’m just blessed that I was a part of it and no one can say that SHIMMER did not enhance their career because it did. SHIMMER was — everyone was looking at SHIMMER after that first show and then the second show and then as the years [have] gone, everybody, it’s like SHIMMER, you have to be at SHIMMER. If you wanna be somebody, you gotta be at SHIMMER, you gotta wrestle these girls. It was the place the go, it’s the place to be if you wanna enhance your career and that’s built on that first show and man, I really don’t know how my career would have turned out if it wasn’t for SHIMMER because that was where a lot of my best matches happened. It really was and like I said, I worked for many women’s companies. I worked for N.E.C.W. [New England Championship Wrestling] who had Sumie Sakai and I was their girl to go to. I helped build that division and then went on my separate ways. It was always I would build the division and then keep it moving because you can only stay in one promotion for so long, but SHIMMER, I stayed there forever and I still went back, last October. I still go back to that promotion because that’s the promotion that helped define the career and define women’s wrestling to what you see today.
** G4tv and WWE are collaborating on a project:
Wait…what?!😳
Did you catch that tease by @AustinCreedWins and @MissGinaDarling at the end of our stream?
What do you think it is? We might have more next week, so stay tuned to #UUDD and @G4TV 😏 pic.twitter.com/OItT5p698X
— UpUpDownDown (@UpUpDwnDwn) June 16, 2022
** DDT Pro Wrestling ‘King of DDT’ Tournament Results (6/16/22) Tokyo, Japan
– Pre-Show: Burning (Yusuke Okada & Yuya Koroku) vs. Masahiro Takanashi & Toi Kojima – Time Limit Draw (10:00)
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Masahiro Takanashi def. Tetsuya Endo
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: HARASHIMA def. Hideki Okatani
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Naomi Yoshimura def. Chris Brookes
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Yuki Ueno def. KANON
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Daisuke Sasaki def. Yuji Hino
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Yuki Ino def. MAO
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Jun Akiyama def. Yukio Sakaguchi
– King Of DDT 2022 First Round Match: Kazusada Higuchi def. Yukio Naya
** Daily DDT pushed out their written interview with NXT 2.0’s Joe Gacy.
** The newest Battle of the Brands episode:
** NJPW New Japan Road Results (6/16/22) Utsunomiya, Japan
– TAKA Michinoku def. Ryohei Oiwa
– Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask def. Akio Fujita & Clark Connors
– Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru def. Yuto Nakajima & Tomohiro Ishii
– YOH, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto def. HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo, SHO, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL)
– United Empire (Aaron Henare, Francesco Akira & TJP) def. Jado, Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi
– Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI def. Gedo & Taiji Ishimori
– Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Togi Makabe & Kazuchika Okada
** Tru Heel Heat’s SP3 conducted an interview with Chris Sabin:
** To promote IMPACT Wrestling Slammiversary, Straight Talk Wrestling welcomed Gail Kim onto the show.
** Lucha Libre Online has an interview with Josh Alexander.
** Former Reality of Wrestling Heavyweight Champion Rex Andrews appeared on ‘The Be Someone’ podcast.
** Fightful pushed out the written version of their chat with Steve Maclin.
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.
