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.
** ‘SquaredCircle’ on Reddit hosted an ‘Ask Me Anything’ with Amazing Red as the featured guest. Red was asked if he could see himself wrestling in AEW seeing as how House of Glory regularly uses AEW talents for their shows. Red said if the circumstances were right, for sure.
If the circumstances were right, for sure [I’d be open to wrestling for AEW]. Everything I was told before were now interesting to me. We’ll see.
He then went on to express what he is most excited about when it comes to the future of wrestling and what concerns him the most. He feels that it is easier to get noticed and there’s more creativity but with that comes more talent that needs to be trained more thoroughly before they get to those bigger stages.
Encourages: Wide-span of talent from all over the world, more creativity, a lot easier to get noticed
Concerns: With it being easier to be seen, there’s a lot of people that need more training before they get allowed to wrestle on bigger stages. As well as longevity.
Red looked at Eddie Guerrero as an inspiration in wrestling. He enjoyed watching those who made him feel. He credited Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns as being two talents who do the same for the audience.
I want to always grab the audience’s emotions. Every bit of it that you can. Eddie [Guerrero] made me see that. He made you like him, love him, hate him. He was one I could look at and say, ‘Hey, he’s not that far off from me. Small Spanish guy. If he can do it, I can.’ People who exemplify that today would be Brock, Roman. They make you feel. I always want to be invested.
Legendary [is what it was like to share the ring with Eddie Guerrero]. His aura is real. That is Eddie Guerrero. No matter what anyone says about him or how they put him over, he is a different human being. He is a spiritual dude and he’s one of the reasons my love for God increased.
If he could have one of his matches in video form that was not recorded, he would pick his WWE dark match against CM Punk in 2005. Red said there’s so much story in the aftermath of that and that match changed his life. Red did not know how many people did not want him around and it opened his eyes.
Me & CM Punk in a dark match in WWE [is a match I wish I had video of]. Because there’s so much story in the aftermath of that match. That day changed my life in wrestling.
I really saw people for what they were, and I didn’t know at this time how many people really didn’t want me around… (scared to lose their jobs, apparently because I showed up)
For a good portion of his career, Amazing Red wrestled in TNA/IMPACT Wrestling. He credited commentator Don West for motivating him and being the reason he was added to the TNA video game and had his own action figure.
He [Don West] was a cool dude. Always motivating me and putting me over. He’s the reason I have an action figure and was invited to the video game.
The question of who is the stiffest wrestler he ever wrestled was proposed to Red. He named Kurt Angle, but clarified that Angle was more snug than stiff. He said it was ‘real’ when he got in there with Angle and almost broke his collarbone during a lock up.
Kurt Angle wasn’t stiff, but he was very snug. Sh*t was real. Almost broke my collar bone on the lock up lol
He reflected on having an innovative style early in his career and now seeing that style being key in today’s wrestling landscape. Red said when he first started, there was a lot of hatred coming his way because he would blow the crowd up in the first match. He said he ignored all the advice he received during those days but now he appreciates it.
When it first came out, everyone hated it. A lot of times, they were right. I would start the show and do all my cool stuff, pop the crowd every time I hit any rope or buckle. Overdoing it on first match. Everyone down the card then hated me because I blew the crowd up. I was making the whole show struggle for no reason when I could have just done my part, told a story and then the show would benefit from it. It was a lot of hatred at first cause they knew we were gonna burn the crowd out. Which, they’re right. But all the vets always had advice and I ignored it at the time. Now, I appreciate all of it.
The ’Code Red’ finisher was created by Red and one name who he was surprised to see do the move was John Cena.
John Cena [was who I was surprised to see break out the Code Red], lol While I was with my son (who loves Cena) watching a ppv.
Red gave his side of the story about the creation of the Canadian Destroyer. He said the move was initially a mistake. Later on, Quiet Storm perfected it with Red. Chris Sabin saw them do the move in Ring of Honor and then passed it on to Petey Williams.
Yes, it was a mistake move with Joel Maximo (because I wanted to do everything into a flip… flipping powerbomb, flipping piledriver, flipping DDT) Then later on Quiet Storm perfected it with me. He did it in the ROH shows with me (that’s where Chris Sabin saw it and gave it to Petey Williams) Petey made it cool tho for sure
He commented on his favorite memory with Mercedes Varnado (Sasha Banks). Red noted that he has many and he loves her.
So many! [memories with Sasha Banks] She’s the best!! Love that girl. Dolphin for lyfe.
Towards the conclusion of the Q&A, Red named AEW’s Marq Quen as the funniest wrestler he’s ever trained. He commented on Quen’s athleticism and noted that the moment he saw Quen move around the ring, he knew he would be a star.
I can answer this in one word: [Marq] Quen. He gets to that level of funny that gets annoying. As soon as I saw him move, I was like, ‘He’s gonna be a star.’ Had a whole different look.
** The Wrestling Perspective Podcast has an interview on their YouTube channel with AEW producer Ace Steel. It is well documented that Steel has a close friendship with CM Punk and he shared that before Punk’s comeback in 2021, they worked together in the ring for a couple of days because Punk wanted to see how he felt and he trusted Steel.
I might be outing him here but now that we work at the same place, I don’t think it matters. CM Punk, before his comeback, rolled in the ring with me. He didn’t trust anyone else. He wanted to see how he felt, he wanted to see how things would go. We ran spots, we worked for a couple days in a row.
This interview was recorded prior to the regime change in WWE that saw Vince McMahon resign as Chairman and CEO of the company. Steel was released from WWE this past January. He said it was like pins and needles there. He touched on the stressful environment and expressed that a good chunk of people felt they were always being judged.
So I’m sure you’ve heard this enough or it’s pins and needles over there [at WWE]. It always has been. It always has been. I don’t know why the f*ck it’s that way. It doesn’t need to be. Everybody puts pressure on everybody there. It’s horrible, it’s a horrible feeling. I learned TV producing and how to call it to the truck and yada, yada because a guy like Adam Pearce said, ‘You need to learn that. You need to have those tools in your toolbox.’ William Regal said the same thing to me. I fought to do that. They wanted me to just be a coach. I think the fact they wanted me to be a coach more than anything because they needed the in-ring, but also they had seen so many people plucked away to be producers. I mean Adam Pearce, hardly in the P.C. two years, taken to the main roster. People shot gunned through. Now obviously, some are greenlit faster than others for such a job but, I fought to do that for my own well-being and I’m glad I did because walked from there right into another job where I was certainly capable of doing it and had the knowledge of that place. AEW is not that way. Now, I had a lot of friends in Kansas City that were extras there and I hardly got to talk to ‘em. I said hello, give ‘em a hug, ate a little catering with them but I had to freaking go because I’m busy. I have a busy day. It’s stressful because you want the show to come off great. It’s not stressful because you’re being judged. I don’t feel like I’m being judged. You always feel like you were being judged over at the other place and if anybody wants to dispute that, they can kiss my ass. Everybody always felt judged, up and down the line. I don’t care who you are, you always felt like you were being judged walking in there and that’s a sh*tty way to do business. Just is.
When it comes to his approach to producing, Ace uses a method that he learned from Harley Race. Even if he thinks an idea, spot or sequence is not good, he lets the talent find out for themselves if they’re headstrong about it and that way, it’ll allow them to trust him when he offers a critique or a different route to take.
I have a system and this is what Harley [Race] put in place and this is what he instilled in me is that he would give me chances to fail. He wouldn’t set me up to fail, but he would give me the chance to succeed or fail and if I did fail, I’d go back and sit down and he’d say, ‘I wanted to let you see for yourself.’ I do that. I do that. I hear some of the goofiest, God-awful spots sometimes or sequences and I’ll say, ‘Yep. Let’s do it.’ I might think in my head, that’s not good but I wanna build my rapport and trust with this person so they’ll look at me and go, ‘I kind of had this idea but I don’t think –’ or I’ll shake my head and go, ‘Don’t do that.’ ‘Okay, yes coach.’
** Jushin Thunder Liger’s latest blog post is published on Tokyo Sports. Liger gave his thoughts on the NJPW G1 Climax 32 tournament. Prior to the tourney, he predicted that Kazuchika Okada would win. Liger compared Okada to the late Jumbo Tsuruta and thinks he’ll go on to win next year’s G1 as well. Liger then heaped praise onto Tom Lawlor, who he feels can attract Japanese wrestling fans.
My prediction for the G1 championship, following the Best of the Super Juniors, came true. I’m afraid to say it myself, but Okada is a genius, as if he were the reincarnation of Jumbo Tsuruta. He has stamina, spring, height and wrestling ability. This hole [in his game], where is it?
He’s 34 years old and this is his fourth championship, right? Chono’s record is five times, so… he should win easily, right?… There hasn’t been a three-time winner in a row, right? I’m already predicting next year, three consecutive championships for Kazuchika. I’m looking at Kazuchika’s physique, he’s not muscular, he’s like the old Dory Funk Jr. If he was a wrestler during Dory Funk’s days, he would be the absolute champion of the NWA.
I would also like to see a match between Tom Lawlor and Minoru Suzuki. I think they will show more wrestling than the match between Zack Sabre Jr. and Great-O-Khan at last year’s G1. I think that Lawlor can attract Japanese fans with his wrestling alone, without having to perform like he did when he took off his denim again.
** Back in 2016, there was a rumor that circulated on social media that WWE wanted to bring Mike Knox back full-time. A fake Twitter account posing as Knox posted a message about the situation at hand. Knox was recently interviewed by Darren Paltrowitz and the rumor was brought up. He did not address whether it was true or not but said he would not have gone back because he was not in the right space to do so. He had been dealing with lingering injuries on top of the physical and mental toll that came with his first run.
Oh God no [Knox responded to the rumor that WWE wanted him back full-time in 2016]. I was a realist, you know what I mean? I always have been and back then, especially then, I was 330 pounds or 320. I hadn’t worked and my knees were really freaking bothering me. My neck was kind of screwed up. I was starting to forget sh*t because I had a lot of concussions and stuff and I was like, that’s it. I still wanna live an awesome life. I don’t wanna be, you know, have a head full of mush and two broke legs, you know what I mean? [Knox laughed] I wanna be able to run the streets and howl at the moon. I wanna be able to have a good time and I was just like… I started when I was 18. It was all I ever did and when I was at WWE or whatever and I left there, I was not in love with the business anymore. I was miserable, I hated it, you know? I wasn’t getting paid what I thought I should be getting paid. I was like, bare minimum. I was miserable, they weren’t using me. I was just going out there enhancing everybody, which is fine. We all have to do that but I thought I was being misled down a path with some different advice that I probably shouldn’t have taken but, as old as I am now, I know better. But when you’re this mark kid and somebody tells you to do something, you don’t do it half-assed. You dive in all the way so…
Knox continuously found himself back in pro wrestling and he jokingly credited Doc Gallows for that. He said Gallows would always trick him into getting back into wrestling and it has happened three times now.
I was doing a couple little things with [Doc] Gallows. That’s the only way I’d get back — he tricks me. It’s like the third time already [Knox laughed]. He tricked me into coming back after WWE, he tricked me into going to IMPACT. I didn’t know — he freaking tricked me bro and then, after all the stuff where I was hurt and stuff for the third time now, he’s tricked me again to coming back and working. But, I love him. I love him man. He’s my best friend.
** Bobby Fish was welcomed onto the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast and dove into AEW’s tag team division. Fish feels they have the depth to do a Crockett Cup-type event that is centered around tag matches.
Even the idea of Ring of Honor and The Briscoes and FTR and there were so many tag teams that I was chomping at the bit for us to be able to mix it up with, so much so that I thought like, man, we could do a Crockett Cup pay-per-view or something like that and I think people would be over the moon for it just because tag team wrestling is such a different thing. We’ve got, you know, this generation’s version of The Midnight Express, of The Four Horsemen or The Brain Busters, whatever you wanna call it, of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, of The Fantastics, of The Freebirds, of The Road Warriors. You’ve got all of this. In a slightly twisted way, I thought, man, this is just money waiting to be made and yeah, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that-that hasn’t happened.
He then spoke about the in-ring chemistry that he and Kyle O’Reilly have with The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson). He touched on their history together and said if the trigger does not get pulled in terms of the two duos not wrestling each other again, money is being left on the table.
We did it in New Japan and Ring of Honor for a couple years running [reDRagon vs. Young Bucks] and I think it was the similarities between us and The Bucks but what really made it pop was the difference. We’re so opposite of one another that there almost shouldn’t be chemistry, but the chemistry, it’s gross how good the chemistry is with us. So, yeah, if the trigger doesn’t get pulled on that, you’ve left money on the table because we could go a full year if not longer feuding with The Bucks and I guarantee you — we did it in Ring of Honor and New Japan and nobody got sick of it. It’d be the same thing now. We’re that much better and they’re that much better than we were then. We were still figuring some of that sh*t out at that time and now, it’s like riding a bike. Even when we turned on them, the bit that we did in-ring, it feels like, oh man, I know how to do this. I could sleep my way through this.
** To promote NWA 74, Billy Corgan spoke to Chris Van Vliet. Matt Cardona became a topic of conversation and Corgan heaped praise onto Cardona for continuing to promote the NWA after tearing his bicep and undergoing surgery. Cardona was the organization’s Worlds Champion at the time and was injured outside of the NWA banner, but Corgan said Matt is an independent wrestler and is free to do what he wants. He added that unless he’s going to sign Matt exclusively, he should do what’s best for him.
But in his darkest hour when he [Matt Cardona] is injured and there is a pay-per-view named after him, he is facing a five-to-six-month rehab, but the freak that he is, he is pretty much already rehabbed in three-and-a-half-months. The day he has the surgery, he holds up the 10 pounds of gold and says he will be at the pay-per-view. He doesn’t have to come, and I thanked him for that. I said thank you for everything you do and he said that it wasn’t a problem, he likes being here. That to me is why he is a champion. Yes, he is a champion because he is a star, a draw and a top level wrestler, but to me he is a champion because he is a great person to work with. He represents the company on every level behind the scenes and in front of the camera and to the public. Someone asked me how I felt that he got hurt on someone else’s show. Well that’s his life, I support that. By extension I support the effort of the other independent companies including Game Changer. Matt Cardona is an independent wrestler in an era where he should be an independent wrestler. Unless I am going to come in and break the bank to sign him to an exclusive contract, he should go out to do what is best for him and Chelsea. So yeah, I have no problem.
** The latest guest on Tommy Dreamer’s House Of Hardcore podcast is Masha Slamovich. She got started with IMPACT Wrestling at the Knockouts Knockdown event and to her knowledge, it was Mickie James who recommended her for that show.
Slamovich: To my knowledge, it was Mickie James [who recommended me for IMPACT Knockouts Knockdown] because she was the one who recommended me for EmPowerrr and she seemed very happy with my work thankfully so that’s how I ended up being the ‘Pick Your Poison’ match for Deonna Purrazzo at the Knockouts Knockdown.
As Masha and Dreamer were talking about death matches, Dreamer mentioned that in ECW, he and New Jack never had actual staples in their staple guns. They would either use gum or post-it notes in various ways.
Dreamer: In ECW with the staple gun that was made famous in ECW, the first place to do it. New Jack and then if it wasn’t New Jack, then it was myself. Do you know that we never had staples in the staple gun?
And when we would do it, we would — New Jack would sometimes take gum and put it like a dollar bill and put gum in your hair which we’d have to cut your hair or the sweat would just make it come out or sometimes when I would do it, I would take a post-it and flip it in half and have that post-it and just make the sound and the noise. He really would squeeze it but there was never, ever, ever staples in the gun.
** In the main event of IMPACT Wrestling’s Emergence show, Josh Alexander defeated Alex Shelley to retain the IMPACT World Championship. He reflected on that match during an interview with That Hashtag Show and recounted getting emotional as he spoke to the audience after the match.
I mean, facing my heroes, I’ve done it a bunch of times in the past, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve faced the likes of Samoa Joe and countless names along the way. I’ve been very lucky and Alex Shelley, obviously one of those names that, you know, qualifies as well as that whole story and build to that match was completely genuine. Everything I said from watching him on an independent show in 2005 to getting in the ring the next day and so on and so forth but, by the time it broke down to the end of that match and I grabbed the microphone, it’s not a planned thing, nothing’s written for me. They’re like, ‘If you wanna say something, say something’ and I just started talking and it was like, I guess the word is ‘verbal diarrhea’ or whatever they say. I’m just saying things and sometimes it makes sense and often times, fans watch this stuff and they try to criticize and look at it under a microscope like it’s some analytical promo or something like that but that’s just — that was just me talking straight from the heart and there was a point in there where I almost got — and I blame my kids because I never got emotional before I had kids but, I almost teared up and that was all in part because I — it was just a thought process when I was talking. I was talking about how Alex Shelley inspired me to get into a ring and I thought about me possibly inspiring somebody in the audience that night to do the same and just all the emotions flooded towards me and it was a cool moment for me because I often can’t think of that stuff beforehand but when they do happen, I get stuck in this completely genuine moment where it feels special and that night especially was special so…
** Eddie Kingston looked back on the match he had with Konosuke Takeshita while guest appearing on Under The Ring with Phil Strum. He stated that if he does not get the match with Akiyama, wrestling Takeshita, who works with Akiyama in DDT Pro is the closest he’ll get to it.
I loved every second of it [match with Konosuke Takeshita]. It’s a style that I enjoy, it’s a style that I’m still studying. The King’s Road or NOAH style or All Japan style, whatever you wanna call it, I’m still studying. I’ll never learn all of it, but that’s the point. I wanna keep learning but being in there with him was amazing. Also, it was kind of like one of my tests for me to see if I could beat this kid who’s a young up and comer who’s learning under one of my heroes and one of my dream matches, under Jun Akiyama so, he’s studying under him so if I don’t get the match with Akiyama, this is probably the closest I’ll get to him.
** At the age of 80, KY Wakamatsu is still active in the wrestling business. He started his career in Japan in 1973. He told Tokyo Sports that as long as his physical strength holds up, he wants to continue being involved in pro wrestling.
That is a question for you to decide after watching the matches. However, as long as my physical strength lasts, of course I want to be involved in pro wrestling, and I also want to give my all to the Congress. I am a multifaceted person. That is what I am committed to.
He mentioned that he is a member of the Japan assembly. He detailed his role as a part of that:
We have regular meetings four times a year to decide on the budget. If there is a delay in civic life in the city, such as a disaster or the need to increase the budget because of the recent increase in COVID cases, a special council meeting is held.
** Four-time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion Stan Hansen is scheduled to be present for the AJPW Triple Crown Title match on 9/18 that will see Suwama defend against Kento Miyahara.
** Tomohiro Ishii is going to team with Ultimo Dragon on October 9th to take on Don Fujii and Masaaki Mochizuki at Tenryu Project ‘Revolutionary Dragon Spirit’.
** On September 25th, Konosuke Takeshita is challenging Kazusada Higuchi for the KO-D Openweight Championship.
** NXT 2.0’s JD McDonagh spoke to SO Catch by Hal 2.
** Lucha Libre Online conducted an in-person interview with Taya Valkyrie.
** Brian Myers was the focus of a K & S WrestleFest virtual signing.
** Tom Lawlor commented on his time in Japan for the G1 Climax on the most recent ‘Filthy Four Daily’.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s John E. Bravo guest appeared on Busted Open Radio.
** August 23rd birthdays: DASH Chisako.
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.
