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.
** Madusa (Alundra Blayze) currently works behind the scenes for the National Wrestling Alliance. She shared on the The Tyrus and Timpf Podcast that initially, she was hesitant about taking the position because she did not think anyone would listen to her.
Pat [Kenney] just came straight out and called and said, ‘Duce, you’re missing your calling. You need to be here behind the scenes’ and just, you know… and Pat was cool. I was like, ‘Ah, I don’t know man. People aren’t gonna f*cking listen to me.’ You know, that’s how I felt.
** Episode #75 of The Kurt Angle Show was centered around Angle’s return to WWE TV after WrestleMania 19 and winning the world title at Vengeance 2003. Angle talked about Team Angle (Kurt, Shelton Benjamin & Charlie Haas) disbanding and said he wanted the group to continue even if he was no longer involved. Angle had ideas in mind of maybe Brock Lesnar being part of it seeing as how he was once an amateur wrestler.
Yeah, yeah, I was upset [that Team Angle disbanded] because I thought that this faction would be one of the best factions in the history of the business if we went two, three, four years. I thought Team Angle was really special. I thought we had something great, I thought we could build on it, bring in more wrestlers eventually. Maybe even, you know, it wasn’t gonna happen but maybe Brock Lesnar join it for a little bit because he was an amateur wrestler so it was all about amateur wrestlers, bringing them in and I think Team Angle would have become bigger and bigger and it would have continued on, even when I left and retired, I was hoping that Team Angle continued on with amateur wrestlers. So that was my focus, that’s what I wanted to do but unfortunately, that’s not what was in the plans with Vince McMahon.
Kurt and Brock Lesnar’s rivalry was highlighted during the podcast and Angle shared that the original plan was for them to wrestle several more times after SummerSlam 2003. Angle was going to beat Lesnar two times in a row, Lesnar would win the Iron Man match and there was going to be a fifth match as well.
They wanted the second biggest pay-per-view of the year [SummerSlam 2003] to be a rematch from WrestleMania 19, Brock Lesnar versus Kurt Angle. So they added Big Show to Vengeance to make it a Triple Threat so that Brock and I could wrestle for the world championship at SummerSlam and it’s gonna go further. After that, they wanted me to beat Brock two times in a row because Brock was gonna beat me a month after that in an Iron Man match on SmackDown and then we were tied two to two and we were gonna have a rubber match, the fifth match to see who was the best. So, who would win three wins to two and I broke my neck again so, the story died out and it never happened. They didn’t say [who was going to win the fifth match]. I could imagine I was. I imagine I would’ve.
When Angle returned in June of 2003, he did not want to be a babyface and was concerned about Team Angle because they were heels and had steam behind them. Angle expressed that he wanted to remain aligned with them at that point in time.
I was in touch with Vince [McMahon for my 2003 return] and Vince basically is creative, so, you know, he was the one I kept in touch with. But what they did is they did a promo video about me making my way back. It was a really cool video. I think the song was called ‘Clocks’ and they showed my neck injury and the surgery and me making my way back and showing some of my great moments in the past in WWE. It was a really cool video and that started the whole process of my comeback and then when I came back, it was right there at the show and that’s when I did my promo and the fans went absolutely crazy. It was awesome.
I didn’t wanna be a babyface and the reason is because I liked being heel better. Don’t get me wrong, I like babyface, I like doing it. But, I was concerned about Team Angle and what that was gonna — what was gonna happen with Team Angle because those guys were heels and they had a lot of heat and I didn’t know if they were gonna turn them babyface or if they weren’t ready to be babyface so I wanted to stick with Team Angle at that particular time and it just wasn’t gonna happen.
** ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan completed his 39th and final radiation treatment for his cancer.
** The ‘All Real Wrestling Podcast’ has an interview with Blake Christian. Throughout 2022, Christian has called out Johnny Gargano following his matches at GCW shows. Christian said he’ll continue to call out Gargano.
I’m also thinking about Johnny Gargano who has left hints here and there, so I’m definitely gonna keep calling him out.
Christian is a regular for Game Changer Wrestling. He feels he owes a lot to GCW and would not have the spotlight he has on him without the promotion.
Like I said, GCW, I owe a lot to these guys. Without them, I probably would still be grinding. Like maybe I would have wrestled for them by now but I don’t think I would be where I am today or in the spotlight that I am in today.
** Logan Paul welcomed Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque onto his IMPAULSIVE podcast. As their discussion rolled on, Levesque spoke about the late Scott Hall and the intricate details he learned from being in the ring with Hall.
Scott Hall, one of my really close friends, you know, unfortunately passed but like, I learned — he’s so underrated in this business. I learned so much from him, because he would be the guy that like, you know, he just talked like Eeyore, but he would be like — afterwards, he would say sh*t, say something like, ‘Why are you getting up so fast right there when we do that thing? It makes no sense, and dude, lay there and just let them come and they’re gonna rumble,’ you know? And then the next night, we’d get out there and he’d be like, ‘Don’t move,’ and we’d lay there and all of a sudden, the people would be going ape sh*t and I’d be like, oh my God, boom, light would go off.
** In the main event of AEW Fight For The Fallen, Daniel Garcia defeated Bryan Danielson via referee stoppage. Garcia expressed to the Battleground Podcast that his win over Danielson is the biggest non-title win in AEW history.
I’m just coming off the biggest win in AEW history, the biggest non-title win to ever happen in AEW. I don’t care who anybody else has ever beat, what pay-per-view it was on, what special event it was on, me beating Bryan Danielson is the biggest non-title win to ever happen in AEW. No question, like period, finito, curtains, that’s it and I’m just gonna keep building off of that.
Looking back at what he’s done over the past year, Garcia feels he is the MVP of All Elite Wrestling. He said people are starting to catch up on what Tony Khan realized about him.
Definitely, definitely. I think when it comes to AEW, I’ve been the MVP over the past year since I got here. It’s about to be my year-long anniversary at AEW. I’ve had the most televised main events over the past year. Every opportunity that they’ve given me, I have knocked it out of the park. Right when I got to AEW, people are going, ‘Oh, who’s Daniel Garcia? Why is he getting so many main events?’ Once a main event happened, the next one happened, the next one happened and you saw how high of a level I was performing at, everybody knew why I was getting put in those situations. Tony [Khan] can see talent and Tony can pick out talent and he was able to see my talent very early on and other people are just starting to catch up to what Tony is seeing right now.
At Death Before Dishonor, Garcia unsuccessfully challenged Wheeler Yuta for the ROH Pure Championship. He said it was a hard-fought bout and he and Yuta have plenty of years left to share the ring with one another.
It was really painful [match against Wheeler Yuta at ROH Death Before Dishonor]. That was mostly what I remember about the match. My neck was all hurt from getting palm striked in the neck, my back hurt from getting put in the Walls of Jericho but, it was a very hard-fought match. I think that we had a lot more in the tank that we could have exhausted, but I got a feeling — correct me if I’m wrong — I got a feeling we’ll have plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to exhaust these feelings that we have for each other over the next probably 20 years.
** While talking to Kevin Walsh on ‘SportsGrid’, AEW President Tony Khan spoke about AEW’s partnership with DraftKings.
Well we’ve got a great relationship with DraftKings. Certainly have worked together closely in the NFL and DraftKings involved in many sports. I work in sports, not just in football and wrestling but I also own a company in Boston where I am right now called TruMedia Networks and we provide analytics and engineering services to 25 out of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs and a number of media partners. So, working in sports all over the world is one of my big interests and with pro wrestling, there’s absolutely a connection with the gambling world and with DraftKings. We found a great partnership and DraftKings has supported a lot of the big AEW pay-per-view events and a lot of the biggest AEW Dynamite shows like AEW Blood & Guts on TBS recently… In general with big shows, DraftKings has come in and offered odds on not just who wins and loses but also a lot of prop bets within the wrestling matches so it’s a lot of fun.
** Former ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champion Bill Carr (Dutch) was the most recent guest on Phil Strum’s Under The Ring podcast. Carr was in WWE developmental in the early 2000s and he reflected on being there with Roman Reigns since Reigns’ first day. Carr said it was clear that Reigns would become a star and recalled when the current Undisputed WWE Universal Champion would come over to his apartment so they could write their weekly reports about Monday Night Raw.
I was there from literally day one with him [Roman Reigns]. As soon as he walked through the door, you take one look at him and you’re like, okay, this guy’s gonna be a star and sure enough, but you know, since we started on the same day, we kind of stuck by each other for a while because I mean, nobody knows anybody down there, this is a new environment for everybody. So you gotta — whoever you trust, you gotta keep close. You know the wrestling business, sometimes it’s shady and messed up but you know, the ones you trust, you keep close to you so we gained a trust right off the bat and he was married with a kid and making $500 a week so it was tough for him to, you know, afford certain things so every Monday, we would have to watch Raw and do a report. So he would come over to my apartment and we’d watch Raw together every week because he couldn’t afford cable at the time and he would always say he thinks he’s getting fired. He was like, ‘I don’t know. I have a feeling, I think I’m gonna be let go.’ I’m like, ‘You are the last person that is going to be let go in this group here. You got to have some confidence’ and that confidence, as you can see now is there but I knew right from day one that this guy was going to be the face of WWE at some point.
While Carr was in developmental, he had the chance to work closely with Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes envisioned Carr being something similar to Ray Traylor Jr. (Big Bossman).
He [Dusty Rhodes] said the first thing he saw in me was Ray Traylor/Big Bossman. That’s who I was and that’s who he wanted me to be. But then, like management for WWE had other ideas and wanted me to go more Texan like a Stan Hansen I guess or Bobby Duncum and they wanted me to be billed from Texas. I’m from New York, I can’t do a southern accent too well so I wasn’t gonna really try to pretend there.
** After reaching an agreement with TNA Wrestling in 2012, Samuel Shaw (Dexter Lumis) was sent to developmental. While on Tommy Dreamer’s House Of Hardcore podcast, Shaw shared that he was making $1,300 a month at the time.
I was getting paid $1,300 a month [while in developmental for TNA Wrestling] and that was it. They didn’t cover any moving expenses which, you know, I get it. It was just sign of the times I guess but I would have taken it for less just because I was hungry, eager to prove myself and make it in this line of work so whatever I had to do, I knew it was gonna be a grind, I knew it was gonna be difficult but hey, I made it work.
He secured his TNA Wrestling contract through his performance in the ‘Gut Check’ series. Shaw credited Doug Williams for making him look great and feels Williams put him in a good position to get the job. When first invited onto the show, Shaw was of the mindset that TNA wanted to bring someone on that they could say ‘no’ to.
So I think it was just me being around a lot [is how I got recognized by TNA] and they would stick me in dark matches and I think Dixie [Carter] developed — I think she saw something in me, she liked me and I think Eric Bischoff was around by the time I got hired there. I did the Gut Check thing where I had a dark match with Doug Williams two weeks prior and it was just eh. It was just OK and I was like, ah sh*t, I think I blew it. But then I get a call and they were like, ‘Hey, we wanna use you for Gut Check’ and I think the past two or three people that they used for Gut Check, they had said ‘yes’. So, I went into it with the mindset like, they need a ‘no’ so I think they’re like, oh, we can use this guy and he won’t shine and it’ll be a good TV segment where we can say no so that was the mindset that I had. I was like, I’m gonna prove them wrong. So I went out, had this match with Doug and man, anytime I see Doug Williams, I always thank him because he’s the one I feel like put me in a good position to get a job. He bumped his ass off for me and made me look like a million bucks. It was a very short match and it parlayed off into another story they had and I remember just getting to the back and Eric Bischoff’s right there and he just looks at me and he’s like, ‘Sh*t!’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And he’s like, ‘You did fantastic. That was amazing’ and I thought I was in trouble at first but, and then I see Dixie and then she’s just like, ‘That was awesome.’
** WWE named Craig Stimmel as their Senior Vice President and Head of Global Sales & Partnerships.
** The August 6th edition of NJPW STRONG is going to be a two-hour special to celebrate two years of the show. Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni is hosting.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling is hosting an exclusive event for their ‘Team NJPW’ members to celebrate the 20-year anniversaries of Toru Yano and Ryusuke Taguchi.
** While in Japan for the G1 Climax, Tom Lawlor joined the ‘Midnight Harley & Wraith’ show.
** FOX 13 welcomed Titus O’Neil onto their show.
** The Sports Courier has an interview with Paul Wight.
** Lucha Libre Online posted their chat with The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson).
** A story about a wrestling promotion in Thailand.
** Rob Schamberger’s ‘Canvas 2 Canvas’ episode that spotlights NXT 2.0’s Cora Jade:
** August 2nd birthdays: Theory.
** There’s an interview with P.J. Black on the ‘Shooting The Sh*t UNCENSORED!’ podcast feed.
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.
