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.
** Episode #56 of the Swerve City Podcast featured Britt Baker as the guest. Baker looked back on the promo segment she had with Ruby Soho on the lead up to their match at Dynamite Grand Slam in 2021. Britt feels that exchange with Ruby made her step up.
Baker: One of my favorite promos I ever did was an in-ring promo with Ruby [Soho] and we were going back and forth. It was so intense and so fire but it was like, it really made me up my game because everything she was coming at me with, I was like, no one’s really did that for me in a promo before. Normally I feel like I’m on my own with the promo. It’s just me and [Tony] Schiavone and then it’s fun but then she’s coming at me and it made me up my game because it’s like, Ruby, don’t sleep on her. She’s a talker.
Britt would go on to heap praise onto members of AEW’s women’s division such as Willow Nightingale, Kris Statlander, Anna Jay and Jamie Hayter. She expressed that the consensus in AEW is that everyone knows how talented Statlander is but the injuries have set her back. Baker added that Willow is her favorite person to watch in wrestling and she’s envious of how Willow knows who her character is so early into her TV run.
Baker: So it’s not even that this person — that I’m more experienced than them, it’s just that this person has had setback after setback and that’s Kris Statlander. Stat is such a superstar and it’s these injuries are driving everybody insane. Obviously for her but for all of us. It’s like, she is it. She is such a rock star, such a superstar. Same thing obviously, Jamie Hayter. She just got a later start to TV than the rest of us but that’s dumb because she’s a rock star. She’s a rock star. That’s my main girl. Anna Jay, who is literally a baby, has been learning professional wrestling matches on live TV basically. She’s so inexperienced but she’s a star and she’s improving so insanely fast, and she’s so hungry to learn. Anna Jay, she walks out with Chris Jericho now. For some people, that might get to your head and be like, oh, I don’t need to keep working. She always wants to work, she wants to learn. I have nothing but respect for Anna Jay.
Oh my God, Willow [Nightingale], I’m obsessed with her. She’s my favorite person to watch [in] wrestling right now.
I’m actually envious of Willow because when I watch her, she’s just so early on in TV wrestling. She knows who she is. She knows who Willow Nightingale is and for me, that was so hard for me at first to figure out who I was and what was gonna click with myself, what was gonna feel authentic. She’s got it and she’s been on TV how many times? That’s so impressive to me.
WWE’s Charlotte Flair was brought up and Britt mentioned that on social media, she’s often compared to Flair as far as their standing and presentation within their respective divisions. Britt sarcastically said people are mean for comparing her to one of the best women’s wrestlers of all-time.
Baker: And I do get compared to Charlotte [Flair] all the time on Twitter which like for me, I’m like, okay, cool. One of the best women’s wrestlers of all-time. You’re so mean for calling me that [Baker said sarcastically].
As the parties on the podcast were talking about Adam Cole, Swerve Strickland expressed that he would not be where he is professionally if it was not for Cole helping him get his foot in the door.
Strickland: But he’s [Adam Cole] also one of the ones that will pull you up too. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. No seriously, because we’re Lancaster, Pennsylvania guys, so it was his recommendation for me to come up to CZW. So, if it wasn’t for him, I would not be here.
Earlier in the conversation, Britt shared that in her AEW entrance video, the x-ray of the teeth that pops up on the screen are her actual teeth.
Baker: That’s my teeth [in my entrance video]. On the titantron when it comes out, it’s my mouth, it’s my teeth.
** AEW TNT Champion Wardlow guest appeared on ‘Eat, Sleep, Podcast, Repeat!’ He looked back on one of his two moments from AEW Revolution when he handed the Dynamite Diamond ring to CM Punk to help him defeat MJF in their Dog Collar match. Wardlow says it’s possibly the best moment of his career.
Yeah, man, that was possibly the best moment of my career [helping CM Punk defeat MJF at AEW Revolution], which is crazy because earlier that night, I won the Revolution Ladder match and that was the biggest moment of my career. It felt amazing so it’s crazy that-that was even overshadowed by this moment because when I sat that ring down and I turned around and walk back up the ramp, the reaction from the crowd was so powerful and I just knew in that moment that we did it. We did it and this is gonna be bigger than what I could have ever imagined.
He talked about how the crowd reactions for him have grown since he was first introduced on AEW programming. Wardlow recalled when his vignette aired at All Out 2019 and said the arena was silent for it.
I take a lot of pride in the fact that — even on the indies, I wasn’t necessarily very popular. I only worked in a small region. So to be somebody that shows up on TV that basically no one has heard of to now be where I am today, TNT Champion, thousands of people chanting my name in these arenas every week, it is so surreal and such a blessing because I remember my first vignette that they played, All Out 2019 and it was just me, a little video of me with a girl where I beat some dudes up in a parking lot and you know, ‘Wardlow coming soon’ and the arena goes silent, and now three years later they’re chanting my name. It’s a beautiful thing.
** While on The Masked Man Show, MLW CEO Court Bauer was asked for his thoughts about the backstage troubles in AEW. Bauer said Tony Khan is going to have to determine how he wants to go about his leadership role. Bauer also touched on the mistakes he made as a young booker in wrestling.
I think every organization, especially of that size when you have like a million guys under deals, it’s like, you need to have infrastructure, WWE has infrastructure. On top of that, that system you have… if you do X, Y is gonna happen. There’s consequences and it’s been defined and you know, sometimes it’s a little greyer because that’s wrestling so I think, you know this is one of those moments where I think the locker room is gonna learn what are the consequences if we do this? Are there consequences? And now the onus is on Tony Khan to determine how he wants to dictate his leadership role. How does he want the boys and the girls to look at him? Is he gentle but understanding? Is he firm but fair? What is that? And that just comes with experience of trying to figure out how to balance being the best boss you can be but also running a company, giving the fans what they want, they demand and those big cool matchups you have. It’s not an easy seat to be in and every podcast and every Twitter account tries to put someone — say how they would do it. It’s not that easy, but only with time and experience, you really understand how to do it right. I mean, I can say from my experience, when I struggled and look back at a lot of the mistakes I made as a young booker and promoter and I remember going to guys like Dusty [Rhodes] or Terry Funk or Gary Hart and it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t get it. What am I doing wrong?’ And you seek out that knowledge and they’ll tell you. Sometimes in wrestling, the problem is they’ll tell you but there’s a political agenda behind it. So you gotta learn who you can learn to bake a good cake [from] after you baked a few bad ones. It’s all part of just, you know, putting yourself out there and surrounding yourself with great people. Guys like Jim Ross are there, you got great people. So, I think it’s just a matter of we’ll see how this plays out, stay tuned, you know? I think at some point, we’re either gonna see this thing get resolved or they’ll move on and people will go their own ways. I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball.
The topic of heat in wrestling came up and Bauer expressed his thought that Muhammad Hassan was afraid of the heat although there were a lot of reasons why things went the way they did with Hassan in WWE that was out of his control.
I think the biggest thing is having a show where the viewer watches it, they’re having fun, but there’s also heat [Bauer stated when asked how to keep MLW in the eyes of viewers in this wrestling space] and that’s one of the things I liked about MJF. He was fearless when it comes to heat. When I was at WWE, there was a guy named Hassan, Muhammad Hassan. He was scared of the heat and there’s a lot of reasons that thing blew up. It was a lot of reasons. There was a lot of things that went into that going away, including I think Undertaker and some piano wire. But you know, when your guy’s scared of the heat, it’s so hard to get it up and running and I think heat is important in wrestling.
** For episode #100 of The Wrstling Podcast, Chris Brookes joined the show. He recalled his mindset before the opportunity to go to DDT Pro-Wrestling came about. Brookes felt stagnant in the U.K. and had considered the idea of stepping away from wrestling.
I was already feeling like I was kind of stagnating in England. Like I got as far as I was gonna get. I was in a comfortable position, regularly working for the top companies and stuff but I felt like I wasn’t necessarily getting better or going to get better if I stayed there and then when I went to DDT [Pro-Wrestling], it was like, oh, this is a challenge again now. This is — look at the people around me and I’m like, the level here is so high and I didn’t think I was on that level and it was like, that’s motivation to keep trying to get better and stuff whereas for maybe like the last year or so when I was in England, it was just — it was like I said, again, there was the talk of NXT and NXT U.K. and things like that but I had no interest in doing any of that and I was like, well, what’s next? If I hadn’t have got that opportunity with DDT and the chance to go over, there was times when I was even sort of considering, oh maybe I’ll just do another year and maybe wrap it up and then doing something else, because I just… I wasn’t particularly interested is going to America. I didn’t wanna do the NXT UK thing. I thought this kind of schedule in Japan was impossible and I would never be able find myself in the position to do it and I was just like, well, what is there really left to do? If you’re already doing PROGRESS, you’re already doing RevPro, you’re already doing the OTTs every now and then or whatever. It’s like, ah, what’s next? I was like, I don’t think there is anything next otherwise. So I was like, mhm, don’t know. But no, all worked out in the end.
When AEW was promoting their Fight Forever video game at the Tokyo Game Show in Japan, Chris wrestled at the events on behalf of DDT. He said all the representatives from AEW were cool people, adding that majority of the crowd in attendance did not know much about wrestling.
Yeah, it was fun to do [AEW Fight Forever Tokyo Game Show]. I only found out about it like four days before so, it was quite a surprise. I didn’t really have much time to think about it but then it’s one of those things where it’s cool to do, it’s nice to do because it’s like, oh, it’s an AEW-branded show and an AEW-branded ring and stuff but it’s like a video game convention and the majority of the audience either — there was some DDT fans that knew it was happening and stuff like that so they came along and watched and then primarily, it’s just people who have no concept or real prior interest in wrestling. They’re just at the games convention because they wanted to go see all the — try out all the new demos, things like that, get freebies and like, oh, they’re like, oh, there’s just a wrestling ring there. We’ll go and watch it so it’s like, it’s interesting. It’s good for me to do because obviously, just that association is good for your profile I suppose, your metaphorical stock as it were. But in terms of doing it, yeah, it was doing wrestling for people who have no idea what wrestling is mostly so, it’s not comparable to — it’s hard to count for like, oh, you did an AEW thing kind of but, similarly, not really at all because it isn’t in front of an AEW audience and there was a couple of office people there I think and obviously, I got to wrestle Christopher Daniels and that was really cool and fun and he was great to wrestle so, the people I did meet that were from AEW, they were all nice, they were all cool. I don’t know if it’s necessarily any indication of something that would lead to something else. I haven’t really thought a lot about it either [Brookes laughed]. It’s just like, oh, that’s nice to do, that’s fun to do. That was cool. I got to wrestle Christopher Daniels so that’s cool and I wrestled [Konosuke] Takeshita so, that’s always fun. But yeah, fun. It was fun.
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling is under the CyberFight umbrella with DDT. Brookes shared that he pitched the names of Alex Windsor and Rhio to the office when they asked what talents from the U.K. would he recommend coming over to Japan. Both Windsor and Rhio made their TJPW debuts this year.
Yeah, I guess so [I’m involved in the process of assisting talents from the U.K. getting over to Japan]. Rhio and Alex Windsor for Tokyo Joshi, they were suggestions that I made to the office and I don’t know if they’d seen them previously, already had been thinking about it but, they asked, ‘Who would you recommend as girls from the U.K. to come over?’ Those two were on the list.
** IMPACT Knockouts World Tag Team Champion Jessicka Havok appeared on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast. She touched on her new on-screen character and expressed that it feels good to have proven to herself that she can get over with the crowd and not have to be the monster-esque character. Havok said she’s currently having the most fun she’s had in a while in wrestling.
I have to say, I was really, really nervous [about this character change] but then it was weird because the first time I’d had an interaction as ‘Jessicka’ with Taya [Valkyrie] and Rosemary, we’re filming. The three of us have such a fun dynamic with who we are anyway because we’re all so different but if you watch us interact, even off-camera, behind the scenes, it’s such a chemistry that cannot be taught and honestly, there was like a handful of fans that initially were like, this is so freaking stupid but then I saw those same fans a few weeks later like, okay, this is — sorry to say it but this was sick. So it was cool because I kind of proved to myself that I can get over without having to be this character, this big scary whatever. There’s more layers to me as a person and as a performer and being able to do this and I have to say, this is the most fun that I’ve had in such a long time. So, it’s been really cool to just kind of be more myself and have more fun on TV and let the fans in on kind of how I am outside of this ‘Havok’ character.
** The latest guest on Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore Podcast is Johnny Swinger. They recounted a moment from the Call Your Shot Gauntlet at IMPACT Wrestling’s Bound For Glory pay-per-view when Swinger joined in on an ECW reunion with Dreamer, Rhino and Bully Ray. Dreamer and Rhino were having trouble containing their laughter and Bully was unsure if Swinger worked in ECW or not.
Dreamer: We do the Battle Royal [at Bound For Glory] and per by design, Bully [Ray] then Dreamer then Rhino and we do the shield and I have received so many GIFS of it and so many pictures of it. When you [Johnny Swinger] pop up and you do [get in] the ring, you’re like, ‘Yeah daddy! ECW, the band’s back together.’ Dude, I had to put my head down. Rhino’s like, ‘This is awesome’ and Bully, this is part of the equation that I’ll let everybody in. He turns to me and he goes, ‘Was he even in ECW or was that when I left?’ And I go, ‘It was when you left’ and he goes, ‘What? Seriously, was he in ECW?’ I go, ‘Yes, you worked him’ and he goes, ‘Really!?’ [Dreamer laughed] And he then goes, ‘Why is this so over?’ And I go, ‘Because he’s over.’ I go, ‘This is the best’ and he goes, ‘All right, let’s eliminate him’ so we throw him out but that was a real conversation and the whole time, Rhino is just chuckling and laughing and you’re in 100 percent gimmick the whole time. I loved it because it was a designed moment that we got the people for and just the way you popped up right at the perfect moment, oh, it was freaking great.
Swinger: It’s hard to plan those kinds of things and hope it works and I’ll admit, I knew it would work but it worked better than I thought it would work.
Dreamer: Dude, I designed it. It was just like, I couldn’t believe how big it got over.
Swinger: Ask me 20 years from now, ‘What’s your favorite spot?’ That’s the greatest spot ever.
At the proceeding IMPACT TV tapings, Swinger took on Dirty Dango in a match that aired on 10/20 on ‘Before the IMPACT’. Dreamer said the match was a locker room sell out.
Dreamer: The next night, Bound For Glory is over, we have some issues, the show’s been delayed because of the ambulance. Last match of the night is another locker room sell out and I’m sitting there, I’m like — because I had to wrestle, I had to produce, I had to agent. I’m running all over the place and I run up and I see all the wrestlers around the monitor at Gorilla Position. I’m like, ‘Is this Josh Alexander versus Bobby Fish? Who is this?’ [Dreamer laughed] And it’s [Johnny] Swinger versus Dirty Dango a.k.a. Fandango and when I tell you not only did that match deserve the locker room sellout, it was so worth it. One of my favorite spots I’ve ever seen was when the two of you were holding each other hostage with the double axe handle, double Polish hammer and the fans start going, as you’re both threatening to hit each other by running across the ring and then the fans start going, ‘Ohhh.’ It was the best thing I ever seen.
Swinger: It was his idea… He said, ‘You think this is too hokey?’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? That’s not even possible.’
Dreamer: Dude, that double axe handle square off, face-off was the best thing and all the boys are just popping in the back but it’s a testament, it’s just a different way to entertain and you’ve always got that.
** WWE’s third quarter conference call has been moved from November 3rd at 8:30 AM EST to November 2nd at 5 PM EST.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH formally announced their return to Nippon Budokan for January 1st, 2023.
** While speaking to ‘Metro’, JBL talked about his friendship with Eddie Guerrero.
** To promote the 10/24 Monday Night Raw in Charlotte, North Carolina, Austin Theory appeared on WCNC-TV.
** Yahoo! Lifestyle conducted an interview with C.J. Perry (Lana).
** ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan is going to be speaking at The Linda WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio in Albany, New York. He’ll be doing a Q&A as well.
** Kurt Angle was interviewed on ‘The Bubba Army’ show.
** October 25th birthdays: 2 Cold Scorpio.
** Ahead of NWA Hard Times 3, Dak Draper spoke to WrestleZone.
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.
