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.
** While IMPACT Wrestling ran events out of Chicago in August 2022, producer, referee and 30-plus year veteran Scott Armstrong refereed the Knockouts World Title match at Emergence and officiated again at the television tapings. Armstrong addressed his status with IMPACT during his appearance on Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw. He said he just did that weekend, adding that the door for a return was left wide open. Armstrong stated that he was treated like a king.
No [I’m not still working with IMPACT Wrestling]. I went and did a weekend with them and did one of their — I took a referee shirt because I didn’t know if I was gonna referee or not. I just, you know the deal, take your gear and even at my age, I still took my gear and they said, ‘Hey Scott, we’re going to shoot our TVs tomorrow night but tonight, we were wondering if you would want to referee the Women’s Championship?’ Their IMPACT Championship and I went, ‘Oh, dude, I’d be honored’ and then in my head, I’m thinking, oh, I haven’t refereed in nine or ten years and I start thinking, man, can I do that? Dude, you ain’t seen nobody stretch so much before I walked out there and them girls went about 20 minutes and about 30 false finishes. So I’m down, up, down, up. I was gassed when I came back but, look, they treated me the whole — like from Scott D’Amore who runs the show, he’s got a really awesome staff and his writers and honestly, I have to say they treated me like a king. After the two days and getting home and talking, it’s just, in my world right now, not the fit for me… The deal before I started, I said, ‘Hey, so can you give me a bunch of dates?’ He said, ‘Well why don’t we date before we go steady?’ And I went, ‘I like the way you said that’ and so, I told him, say, ‘Hey dude, it ain’t really breaking up if we never went steady’ so, look, the door was left wide open. ‘Please, any time’ and it’s just me, right now… look, I’ve been around this a long, long time and if I was my half my age, I’m sure I would have jumped in with both feet…
There was a point during Armstrong’s time with WWE when he played the role of the referee that was in the pocket of ‘The Authority’ which consisted of Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, Stephanie McMahon and Seth Rollins among others. Scott enjoyed that time of his career and said the paychecks rose during that run as well. He touched on the uprise of Bryan Danielson and playing a role in that story.
Prior to the beginning of that [Armstrong’s on-screen heel run], that was another long-term booking thing that I was involved in… We did it in the WrestleMania [30] build-up I guess. Hunter came up to me and just said, ‘Hey Scott, we’re gonna –’ you know, I was already into my 50s and my hair, needless to say, very gray and he just said, ‘So hey, we’re gonna — want you to be a producer, but while you’re learning how to do that, you can come into all these meetings. We’re gonna write you off of TV and we’re gonna make you the heel referee and we’re gonna do it with Daniel Bryan and there’ll be a — down the line, there will be a fast count’ and I mean, it was all calculated and I just went — in my mind I’m thinking, man, to be at the end of your on-camera career, you know what I mean? And for a guy like me who literally has loved this business since youth, to end his career in front of the camera as a referee involved in a storyline to be written because at the end of the whole deal, Hunter says, ‘I just can’t trust you anymore and you’re fired’ and so, and they took me off of TV so to be able to be written in a storyline to end up, you know, transforming into the producer behind the scenes, man, for me, career-wise, it felt storybook, you know what I mean? So, as far as the people, oh my God dude. Screwing Daniel Bryan, they were so behind him. Oh my gosh, screwing him — I mean, on Twitter, I’d get, ‘If I see you somewhere, I’m gonna beat the sh*t out of you’ [Armstrong laughed]. You just laugh and think, God, I need to watch what I’m doing and where I’m going by myself.
It was fun to be involved. I’ll have to admit, the paychecks did rise up just a little bit during that run so I definitely appreciate it, my kids appreciate it, that’s for sure. But career-wise, I truly did. It was awesome and Daniel Bryan, look man, you guys know, he’s a straight up good dude.
Scott is the son of the late ‘Bullet’ Bob Armstrong, who passed away in August 2020. Scott recounted when Bob was taking care of his significant other all the way until her last days. All the while, Bob had been dealing with cancer that claimed his life eight weeks. Scott said his father was active and worked out every day despite the battle he was facing.
He literally loved her ‘till the very end [Scott said about his father and mother] and look, she was at the end — not to go on a depressing ride here but at the end of her life, he was taking care of her every minute of every day and eight weeks after she passed away, he passed away. He had cancer the whole time and he never [complained]… but he would still come up to my house and get a workout and sweat and I’d say, ‘Here dad, let me spot.’ He goes, ‘No, I got it, I got it.’
** During Kenny Omega’s appearance on Busted Open Radio, he reflected on his program with Chris Jericho in New Japan Pro-Wrestling that culminated at Wrestle Kingdom 12. Omega recommends that to anyone who is not familiar with his work. He believes it gave people a sample of what it could be like if everyone worked together.
I could probably say maybe my whole storyline with Chris Jericho out there [in Japan] would be a great place to start [if someone is not familiar with my work] because you’re gonna get a little bit of what we’re used to here in North America with the storytelling aspect to it and sort of the ‘drama’. It was a story that sort of spilled over into social media which is also very current and topical and then we’re kind of mixing of both worlds where it was the Japanese strong style and the style that Chris had brought and we had met at a very famous location in the Tokyo Dome in front of, I think it was 45 or 48,000 people. So an incredible atmosphere and I think that’d be a great way to show kind of a little of what I’m all about because it really is just a mix, an amalgamation of everything. I don’t represent one style or claim that I’m one certain style of wrestling. I just try to take the best of my surroundings and make the best of it and appropriate to the scenario that I’m in. But with Chris, that was a very special time where we could kind of make a worldly statement for professional wrestling or at least try to, from where it’s, you know, where I came from was beautiful wrestling and where you came from was beautiful wrestling and heck, when we put it together, it still ends up being beautiful wrestling and pretty exciting and cool because it was a match that people thought could never happen and I think it gave people a taste of how fun and neat it could be if everyone just kind of worked together.
** To promote WWE Clash at the Castle, Sporting News caught up with Wade Barrett. He shared that when he was an active in-ring performer in WWE, he pitched for a stadium show in Europe. He added that he did not see the upcoming show coming at all.
I’ve got to be honest with you, I didn’t see this coming at all. In my own career, I was pushing for a long time to get an event in London or Manchester, Cardiff or Glasgow, wherever. One of these big stadium shows is really difficult to pull off. First of all, there’s different laws in different countries and logistically, getting everyone over there is tough enough. The reason I thought it would be almost impossible is because I remember as a kid watching all the premium live events in WWE at midnight in the U.K. and they would end at 3 AM. That’s just the time difference. I thought to myself, they can’t have the shows in the UK because it is going be on at a strange time in the US. I think the world has changed now. The world has got a lot smaller with the advent of recent technology and developments. I think it’s really exciting now that the fans over in Cardiff, Wales, and across the U.K. and Europe are going to get this opportunity to experience it firsthand without having to fly all the way over to the US. I’ve been to so many WrestleManias and, when I’m there, it seems like almost 50 percent of the fans are flying over from Europe. I think it’s great that for once they’re getting the easy ride here. There will even be plenty of U.S. fans flying over to Clash at the Castle just to visit and get the U.K. experience. I think it’s great. I hope they enjoy it. It’s going to be one hell of a show.
** A conversation about mic skills was held during Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s chat with Eddie Kingston. Kingston said he enjoys the mic work of WWE’s Roman Reigns, The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods), Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Yeah [I like Roman Reigns’ mic work]. I love the high chief, whatever the gimmick is, head of the table — there you go, ‘Head of the table’ I think. Yeah, of course. That’s why he’s the top guy, that’s why he’s the guy. There’s a reason for it. If he could not speak or capture you emotionally, he would not be up there. Of course I love all the dudes in The New Day. They’re entertaining, they can all talk. Kevin Owens, he’s a talker, he can go. There’s so many good people out there. Sami Zayn’s another one. I could go through the whole roster and tell you a lot of them are great talkers and they can go.
Elsewhere during the conversation, he joked about when Sonjay Dutt would put promo material together for the trio formerly known as ‘The OGz’ (Eddie Kingston, Homicide & Hernandez). Kingston said they would ask Sonjay what episode of ‘The Wire’ did he recently watch that would make him present the lines that he did.
There’s certain ways New Yorkers — there’s New Yorker-speak. There’s certain words New Yorkers would never use so when I’m reading something or whatever, I’m like, I would never say that. At IMPACT — I’m gonna bury Sonjay Dutt a little bit. I love him, I love him but I’m gonna bury him. At IMPACT when I was there, he would write stuff for me and Homicide and Hernandez and we would all look at it and be like, ‘What are you doing?’ We would all look at it and be like, ‘What episode of The Wire have you watched this week to make you think I’m gonna say that?’ One time, he put something about, yeah, you guys, something about Queens and you know, being a New Yorker, I’m from Yonkers, Homicide’s from Brooklyn. We looked at him like, yo, what are you trying to say? We’re not from Queens. We got really offended and people didn’t understand why but we did so…
** The newest episode of ‘Drinks With Johnny’ featured AEW’s Brody King. King is a member of House of Black and he feels they are the best “full product” in AEW and have something for everyone.
The fans can definitely guarantee that the House of Black is gonna turn some heads and we’re gonna drop some jaws with, you know, our gear, our entrance and our match[es] and our work rate and I truly believe that we are the best full product in AEW as far as like, we have something for everyone and we can kind of deliver on all of it.
House of Black is out of the AEW Trios Title tournament, but he shared his thoughts about the belts and said it was exciting to see those introduced.
I mean, I am a former Ring of Honor Six-Man Tag Team Champion. Also, New Japan has a 6-Man Tag Team belt so it’s like, the places that I’ve come from have always had kind of a faction-based thing where the Six-Man Tag Team Titles is a thing so, it was very exciting when AEW announced that because obviously, I’m well versed in that area and I believe, like I said, House of Black is second-to-none to anybody and I think that we can hang with the best of the best, whether it’d be The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega or it’d be the United Empire or Best Friends.
At All Out, Brody, Malakai Black and Buddy Matthews are taking on Sting, Darby Allin and Miro. King said it’s been incredible working with Sting and he’ll often receive messages from friends of his who grew up watching Sting wrestle.
Working with Sting now, the amount of… I have a photo of me choking Sting out and the amount of my friends that are my age that texted me were like, ‘Dude, when I was 12 years old, all I cared about was Sting and it is insane to watch you do that now, to be wrestling Sting,’ and it’s not missed on me. The fact that I get to do these things with such an icon of the business is incredible. I never thought that I would be at that moment but, you know, all of these things that I never thought that I would do somehow end up happening.
** Dave LaGreca and Tommy Dreamer welcomed Wade Barrett onto Busted Open Radio. When Barrett received the offer to be a full-time commentator for the NXT brand, Drew McIntyre was someone he spoke to about the opportunity and McIntyre sold Barrett on NXT.
He [Drew McIntyre] was somebody who actually called when I got the offer to come back to NXT as a commentator. I had a chat with Drew, sounded him out, ‘How did you feel about NXT? Was it everything it’s cracked up to be?’ And he sold it massively to me, told me how amazing it is and I gotta tell you, he was absolutely right.
Earlier in the conversation, Barrett heaped praise onto NXT 2.0 play-by-play commentator Vic Joseph. Wade said he gives Joseph a hard time but thinks he’s superb at what he does and gives him a lot of freedom.
I’ll tell you what, I absolutely love my gig on NXT. I’m doing color commentary alongside my play-by-play guy who is Vic Joseph. You’re right, I’m having an absolute blast with that guy and I give him a hard time every week on the show. Don’t tell him I said this, I think he’s an absolutely superb play-by-play guy and he gives me a lot of freedom to go out and try and entertain and be the color guy that I’m supposed to be so, I love my gig. What an environment NXT is.
** With the announcement of NXT Europe, multiple NXT UK talents have finished up with WWE and are now free agents. Eddie Dennis is one of the names who is no longer with WWE. He commented on his time in NXT UK during his chat with SoCal Val.
It’s been absolutely terrific [Dennis said about his time in NXT UK]. Anyone who’s followed it has known I’ve been in various different things. I’ve been involved in two TakeOver events in Blackpool, pivotal moments in my career.
** SportsPro hosted a webinar for their ‘Insider Series’ and WWE’s Vice President of Digital Media, Steve Braband was a speaker. He commented on the company’s usage of TikTok and how helpful the platform is when promoting events such as SummerSlam and WrestleMania.
I think the key word is ‘additive’. It really is for us as well as we’re not trying to steer eyeballs in one direction. We’re just trying to get people to consume the WWE product wherever they’re consuming content. That’s literally television, if that’s YouTube, if that’s TikTok, we want to be there and we want to be at the forefront of their brains and be there so if they are looking for us, they can find us. As far as ‘additive’ goes to our linear broadcast, we’ve put on WrestleMania every year and we put on SummerSlam every year and those events are so important to us as a company and a business that TikTok helps us from an innovation standpoint to do fun things to help promote those events. For WrestleMania this year, we went live on TikTok to have a live shopping integration where we debuted a Randy Orton title for the first time, never before seen. We did that as promotion for the new title but also promotion for WrestleMania as well. We, at SummerSlam, promoted and did a contest where a TikTok human being — it didn’t have to be an influencer. You could have four followers, you could have 100,000 followers — entered a contest to be a ring announcer and announce the participants in a match at SummerSlam. So TikTok… other digital and social platforms as well but specifically TikTok allows us to be innovative around our big pillar events throughout the year to add to — tune into WrestleMania, our biggest event of the year or SummerSlam. We wanna make sure we’re not leaving any stone unturned and making sure that we’re not just gonna rely on the traditional word of mouth or, ‘Hey, we know WrestleMania’s every April’ which I’m sure everyone on the phone already does and this year, it’s in Los Angeles. We wanna make sure we are innovating to drive towards those big events for us and TikTok allows us to do that for sure.
** While guest appearing on the Battleground Podcast, Ricky Starks commented on his promo on Powerhouse Hobbs to promote their match at AEW All Out. Starks further explained why his neck injury was so scary and touched on the feeling of knowing he had no control over what happened to him.
It’s an emotional thing to talk about my neck, because I don’t think people really understand the severity of it and I don’t give a sh*t what anyone says. To me, that was a very personal and scary thing that happened to me and especially, I wasn’t even in control of that. So, that’s the scary part of it. Having it taken away from you and you not being in control of the situation. So when I talk about it — that’s why I rarely like to talk about it because of it being so personal, because, you know, this is really all I have in a sense. I didn’t play any sports or I didn’t do anything else, I only did wrestling and to kind of feel like, you know, when I broke my neck, to feel like, hey, you didn’t even have a chance to come off the line and now you’re already out. That right there is scary and I don’t really expect people to relate to that but f*ck man, that — ah. Let’s get onto something else.
** To celebrate Mickie James’ birthday, her best accolades and accomplishments were recounted on GAW TV with Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val. Mickie and Lisa talked about their Steel Cage match in TNA/IMPACT from 2010. Varon suffered a hyperextended elbow and worked through the remainder of the match. James said she wanted to end it early, but Varon insisted they continue.
James: We worked through a lot of stuff but, a lot of people don’t know this, but Lisa [Marie Varon] hyperextended her elbow about halfway through the match and I wanted to go home and I was like, ‘Oh man’ and she really — if you go back and watch it, there’s this point when I go and I throw her over the top rope and then there’s like this much room… and she went to go put her hand down and it hyperextended out and then she literally could not use her arm, that one arm for the rest of the match.
Varon: Hey Mickie, do you remember seeing that video of Sid Vicious, when he jumped off the second rope and his leg — I did not wanna look at my arm. I thought it was dangling from my body and you guys were yelling at me; you and Earl Hebner.
James: I’m like, ‘Let’s go!’ And you’re like, ‘No, no, no! Finish it.’
Varon: ‘No, no. I’m not rolling up, I’m not rolling up’ and then Mickie was like kicking me, kicking me. I’m crawling up. I didn’t know —
James: That’s the only part that anybody would have ever known that something was off was that because I’m legit telling her to get the hell down. Like no, I don’t wanna do this because I knew her arm was hurt and I was like, I don’t want you to get hurt, you know what I mean? I’m like, ‘No, no! Get off!’ And she wouldn’t do it.
Varon: And she’s kicking me in the chest… I’m not [a machine]. It’s freaking ego and we’re doing a Cage match and we’re main event, and she’s kicking me in the chest hard, hard, hard… You can see if you watch it back, Mickie, when you go to the top to Lou Thesz me, you can watch it back and you can see me go like this [winks], because I’m not gonna let you drop. I go, ‘I got you.’
James: I knew that part because it was like that head scissors. Remember I was gonna give you the head scissors off the cage and then after — I’m sitting here kicking her so hard trying to get her off and now I’ve blown myself up because she won’t get off.
Varon: I wouldn’t let go, with one hand.
James: She’s like, ‘No, we’re freaking doing it’ so I went to go scissors her and go but then we were like weird, you know… and then her elbow and just, I think I was nervous because I was like, ‘Please don’t hurt yourself more’ and it was a little bit wonky. She almost turned it into a powerbomb, didn’t you?
Varon: No. I just wanted to make sure I caught you because we didn’t know — but I remember you landing on me and you go, ‘I love you’ and I go, ‘I love you too’ and then I go, ‘Are we dark? Are we dark?’ And then lights went out… and then I started crying, remember that?
** There’s an interview on the Tokyo Sports website that Yuji Nagata was the focus of. While speaking about NJPW’s Great-O-Khan, Nagata expressed his opinion that O-Khan is the living embodiment of the strong style that New Japan has been losing.
Aside from his face, he has become a very good wrestler. He has grown in accordance with his features. He is the best embodiment of the strong style of wrestling that New Japan has been losing.
** Dating back to 2020, Serpentico and Luther have been tagging in AEW. Serpentico told the Wrestle Buddies podcast that he and Luther offer something different as a duo and wants to continue teaming with Luther as long as Luther wants to team with him.
So, I started out as a singles wrestler. I think for the most part, when you start training and do your first few matches, you do serve as a singles wrestler and then you get paired with someone and that takes off, then you do that. So I did start off as singles wrestler when I first started out and then as when I joined AEW as well. But I do think as a team, Luther and I have something different to offer the entire tag team landscape. Our act is completely different to everybody else’s, right? Not every day — yes, you’ve seen teams that use each other as weapons but usually seldom see teams that don’t wanna be used as weapons and they still use you against your will… and maybe this is done before. I’ve just never seen it before. So that’s something I enjoy doing. I enjoy telling that story depending on — no matter who we wrestle, we kind of interweave that story with anybody and it’s my favorite type of wrestling is how you tell your stories. Moves are great, all that’s great but it’s the moments that sets you apart from everything else and I wanna team with Luther as long as he wants to team with me… apart from him, you know, throwing me into the wall a couple times a match.
** Per PWInsider, Bull Buchanan is scheduled to be at the WWE Performance Center for the duration of next week. Buchanan is the father of NXT UK Tag Team Champion Brooks Jensen.
** This past April, Samira Shah finished up with WWE as the company’s principal legal adviser. She is now serving as Senior Vice President, Legal, General Counsel and Assistant Secretary for the New York Road Runners which is a nonprofit organization whose mission statement is to “change the world through running”. Law.com reached out to Shah to ask why she left WWE. They did not receive a response.
** WGN News Now has a feature story on their site about the fundraiser for Steve ‘Mongo’ McMichael.
** October 26th has been added to the list of dates that vocal crowd noise will be allowed at NJPW events. The venues for the 9/5, 9/6, 10/16, 10/26 and 11/2 shows will be filled to 50 percent capacity.
** AEW President Tony Khan was interviewed by Yahoo! Sports.
** At DDT Pro-Wrestling’s press conference on 9/1, Toru Owashi spoke and said there is a generational shift going on within DDT and in the future, there might not be much room for wrestlers over 40 in the company.
** 3-time WWE Divas Champion Eve Torres was contacted about hosting a self-defense class for Nurses in California.
** Below is footage from a sit-down conversation between Keiji Muto, Great-O-Khan and NOSAWA Rongai.
** At NJPW Royal Quest II, SANADA will be present.
** On 8/25, Alex Abrahantes filed a trademark for ‘The Hype Man’.
** NJPW’s Shingo Takagi was interviewed for a feature in a fitness magazine.
** This month on the AAW Redefined podcast, Jake Something was the featured guest.
** Comicbook.com caught up with Nick Aldis and he reflected on his NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title match against Cody Rhodes at ALL IN which took place four years ago today.
** ‘Independent’ published the written version of their interview with Drew McIntyre.
** Dirty Dango, Kamille, Doug Williams and Thom Latimer have been announced for ‘Exposure Wrestling’ in Wales.
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.
