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.
** Going into Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite, Tony Khan guest appeared on the Battleground Podcast. He addressed the criticism that there is ‘too much’ Ring of Honor on Dynamite. Khan said he’s amused by it because there’s almost been no ROH on Dynamite in recent weeks outside of ROH World Champion Chris Jericho, adding that Jericho should be on any wrestling show he wants to be on.
I saw somebody saying they thought there was too much Ring of Honor on Dynamite and I thought that was amusing because there’s almost been no Ring of Honor on Dynamite in recent weeks, other than Chris Jericho and frankly, Chris Jericho should be on any wrestling show in the world he wants to be on. So, on Rampage though, we have had a variety of them and new wrestlers and I think that’s going to be good for our business because these pay-per-view shows that Ring of Honor has done has been really successful for us. We’ve made good money and the grosses of those shows frankly have been in line with what I paid for the entire business. So, I would say it’s been a very successful relaunch and now I think we’ll have, potentially, some of our best pay-per-view numbers yet with Final Battle, especially with such a big, headline world championship match like Chris Jericho versus Claudio Castagnoli in a high-stakes Ring of Honor World Title match and that is going to cap off what is going to be a huge week of wrestling for us here at AEW.
AEW World Tag Team Champions The Acclaimed (Max Caster & Anthony Bowens) will meet FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) on the 12/7 Dynamite. Khan spoke highly of The Acclaimed, their rise and the inclusion of Billy Gunn into their on-screen presentation.
Well, Acclaimed have only been a tag team for a couple of years. They’ve only been a team for a few years now. So, with a few years under their belt, I think they’ve done an incredible job because just under two years ago in Jacksonville, Acclaimed teamed up for the first time ever on AEW Dark and they worked their way up from Dark onto wrestling matches on TV pretty regularly and they didn’t win every single match but they made a big impression and I think they have quickly earned a place at the top of tag team wrestling. I completely agree with what you said [podcast co-host]. I might not have put them at the top of the wrestling at the very beginning but I do think really, very quickly, with the guidance of Billy Gunn, he has helped guide them to the top of the sport. Billy’s a great mentor for them, he’s also very popular. I think their popularity was skyrocketing pretty quickly and Billy Gunn was clearly the right person at the right time for The Acclaimed and it’s all just come together quickly. It was the perfect combination of things and most of all, it was the hard work of Max Caster and Anthony Bowens to become the AEW World Tag Team Champions.
** As Rob Van Dam was doing a virtual signing for K & S WrestleFest, he was asked if AEW has ever contacted him about coming in and Van Dam simply responded, “Yes”.
** Joining Richard Deitsch on the newest edition of his Sports Media podcast was Renee Paquette. She dove into her approach and process for doing on-screen interviews in AEW. Paquette mentioned that along with Sonjay Dutt, Don Callis is helping oversee things backstage.
I mean honestly, when we get ready to do any interviews [in AEW], Sonjay Dutt, he’s one of the producers there at AEW, he’s kind of overseeing a lot of stuff. Don Callis, also one of those guys that will be overseeing stuff in the back as well and we’ll kind of get together and be like, ‘What is the story here? What are we trying to push forward?’ Kind of what are the circumstances? We kind of string something together in terms of what are the bullet points we’re trying to get here? And then it’s off to the races.
Elsewhere during the chat, Paquette spoke highly of Sami Zayn and how much she is enjoying what he is doing with The Bloodline in WWE.
While we’re talking about it [The Bloodline], a quick little nod to Sami Zayn who I… oh my God, this guy is like — I have loved Sami for quite some time. He is a good friend of mine. Being able to watch when he started at NXT, coming in, what’s Sami Zayn gonna do? Who’s he gonna be? What wrestling do we get to see? All those great things but getting to know Sami Zayn as a human being and now getting to see that make its way on-camera for fans to see and love and to see how well it works is amazing. It’s really one of those things of that preparation and timing has just worked out so great for him to just add that extra layer to everything going on with The Bloodline to just lighten it up a little bit but yet still adding an extra layer of tension. It’s fantastic.
** The latest episode of ‘The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy’ podcast was centered around Jeff Hardy’s return to WWE in 2006. As the conversation was ongoing, the Chris Benoit memorial show on Monday Night Raw was brought up. Matt shared that he declined to do a testimonial because he was among those who were suspicious about the entire picture regarding Benoit’s death.
I was asked to do a testimonial [about Chris Benoit]. But I said, ‘I’m okay’ and I declined to do it because as the day was going on, as you know, more info started coming out and they weren’t really sure about how his family died and there were just some guys that were suspicious that it could be foul play. So I was one of those guys who declined to speak just to be safe. It was a very sad day, obviously, extremely sad and just remarkably eerie in every way possible because of what we were there to do that day with the Vince [McMahon] storyline, explosion angle and then to have that real-life scenario set in on you like that, it was so crazy man. So yeah, there were guys who did do testimonies and it is what it is. That was meant to celebrate Chris Benoit’s wrestling career and his life. It’s just very sad and unfortunate how it all ended with him and I don’t know, it’s inexplicable to even try and explain why that happened or how that happened or could ever happen and just at the end of the day, it’s heartbreaking and just sad.
During Jeff Hardy’s run in TNA from 2004-2006, there were situations when management from the company would contact Matt because they were unable to get ahold of Jeff and he would miss flights. Jeff would ultimately be released from the company. Matt said his brother was not in the best headspace at the time and had been struggling with addiction. Matt added that the first time Jeff went to rehab was during their last WWE run.
That could have been part of the problem [Jeff Hardy not being in a good head space which led to his release from TNA in 2006] but also part of the problem was he wasn’t where he needed to be in life. He was still slipping. He had done some backsliding and you know, it’s just one of those things, all during that time, that entire run, there were times where he was really good but I was always concerned and I was always worried about him and I remember there was one point when he missed some of those flights and I was getting called. A guy who works for WWE, from TNA, they’re like, ‘Hey! Where’s your brother? Where’s your brother at?’ From several people in management or whatever and you know, then I would try to do whatever I could to locate him and whatnot. There was a time during that point where I told Jeff, I said, ‘Dude, I’ll tell you right now, if you’ll go to rehab, I’ll pay for it. I want you to be okay, I want you to be healthy, I want you to be good.’ That’s how concerned I was about him during that time. But, in Jeff’s defense, once Jeff said he was done and he was gonna quit doing what he was doing at that time, he did. He did and he ended up like half-assed quitting cold turkey, which is crazy. A lot of guys can’t do that, but Jeff was able to do that then… Yeah, yeah, [we’re talking about] substances. A lot of recreational stuff too at that time so this was one of the scariest times of my life as far as being concerned about my brother and his actual health… He did not [take me up on the offer to go to rehab] … He did not, no [Jeff didn’t go to rehab during that time]. The first time he ever went was when he was forced to go during our last WWE run when he went there which was for alcohol.
On the lead up to Jeff’s eventual return to WWE, Matt recounted Jeff coming to a SmackDown/ECW taping and meeting with Vince McMahon. After Jeff took some tests, he was back with the company a few weeks later.
I think it just started, small talks with myself and Michael Hayes [about Jeff Hardy coming back to WWE which led to 2006 return]. We would always talk about Jeff and he would always, you know, check in on how Jeff was doing and whatnot and how [are] things going with him. So I would imagine that’s when the conversations started. We started talking a little more once Jeff was free, he was good. I’ll never forget he came to a Roanoke, SmackDown-ECW taping, which I was working on SmackDown at that time and came backstage, met with a lot of the higher-ups and met with Vince [McMahon] and we kind of all just sat down to see if we could work something out and they ended up doing some testings and measures on Jeff and he ended up passing with flying colors and everything seemed to be good and lo and behold, a few weeks later he ended up re-signing.
** The AEW World Trios Titles became a topic of discussion during Brody King’s appearance on The Sessions with Renée Paquette. King feels it’s only a matter of time before House of Black goes after the belts.
I feel like it’s a matter of time. Timing is everything and we’re just waiting, we’re waiting for our time. They’re wrapped up in the best-of-seven series currently but, I feel like with time, you will see House of Black go after those titles and take those titles at some point.
When Brody was signed to Ring of Honor, he worked behind-the-scenes for television shows and one of those shows was ‘The Neighborhood’ on CBS which Cedric the Entertainer stars in. Brody recounted taking some of the cast to GCW L.A. Confidential and that was the event where David Arquette was cut open with a light tube while wrestling Nick Gage. Brody said the cast was excited about what they saw at the show.
When I was in Ring of Honor, I was working on the show ‘The Neighborhood’ that’s currently on CBS I think, Cedric the Entertainer’s show. A couple of the people that are on that show, a couple cast members found out that I was a wrestler and they were just super interested in that. This is like right when I got signed to Ring of Honor so I had a couple indie dates. There was a GCW show in L.A. and I was like, ‘Hey, do you guys wanna come out to a wrestling show?’ And they’re like, ‘Sure…’ So they come to the show and it was the show that David Arquette wrestled Nick Gage [King laughed].
I don’t think that they realized that David almost died in the match but they were like, ‘That was insane! I can’t believe David Arquette was here.’ Then they were also blown away by me being a wrestler so it was like, we go back to set, they’re bragging to Cedric. It’s like, ‘Yo! You gotta check him out!’ It was funny because this was at the time where AEW I think first started getting TV and first started blowing up to everybody and they were like, ‘Yo, you gotta get on this AEW stuff’ and I’m just like, ‘Yeah, I know, I want to.’ It was funny and now, we still follow each other on social media and when I got announced for AEW, they were just like, ‘Yo! What’s up?’ Kind of gave me props for that.
When asked who he’d like to mix it up with in AEW, Brody named Samoa Joe. He shared that Joe is probably his favorite wrestler of all-time and considers Joe to be a ‘perfect wrestler’.
Samoa Joe [is who I’d like to share the ring with in AEW]. Not to sound like a fanboy, he’s probably my favorite wrestler of all-time, stylistically and just the type of person that he is, the type of wrestler that he is, the way he looks. I think that he is the perfect wrestler. I would just love to test myself against him.
Looking back on his program with Darby Allin, King feels Allin is his greatest opponent and thinks their story is far from over.
Darby’s definitely my greatest opponent and I’m sure that our story is far from over.
** Former WWE Intercontinental Champion Carlito was the focus of a K & S WrestleFest virtual signing. He looked back at his return to WWE in 2021 for the men’s Royal Rumble match. He said originally, he was scheduled to do Raw Legends Night in early January but that was cancelled to save him for the Rumble.
Originally, I was supposed to do the Legends Night a couple of weeks before that and then they canceled me and said, ‘No, we’d rather have you in the Rumble’ so, that was actually even better for me. Yeah, it was great. What sucked was people not being there. People don’t even know if I exist now… So yeah, it would have been cool to be in front of a WWE crowd again but, other than that, it was pretty fun. I met new people, saw some old timers. It was weird. The first half-hour was kind of weird and then after that, it was like I’d never left, you know what I mean?
Carlito appeared in the Netflix series GLOW. He was asked how he got the role and he said he auditioned like everyone else and was selected.
Thank you very much [Carlito responded to a compliment about his role in G.L.O.W.]. I just auditioned like everyone else. I auditioned and somehow, they picked me.
** A conversation on Busted Open Radio was held by Dave LaGreca and AEW’s Mark Henry about the future of William Regal. Henry heaped praise onto Regal and described him as an ‘enforcer’. He thinks there needs to be more Regals in the wrestling business.
I feel like [William] Regal just is that [can be someone’s right-hand man]. But Regal is more of an enforcer. So many people respect his tutelage and his knowledge… They question him but not like, ah, I don’t know about that idea. They try to make his idea work if that makes any sense and there needs to be more Steve Regals in the business and not as many guys that just wanna get their sh*t in and get over with the boss.
** The Bob Culture Podcast caught up with JTG for an interview and he told the outlet that he’d be interested in facing Jon Moxley. JTG added that there have been times when Moxley has sized him up.
I would definitely love to wrestle Mox. I think that would be a good match, you know? A match that you didn’t know you wanted to see but you wanna see now. I saw him size me up a couple of times backstage. There’s mutual respect but I did see him size me up so I did see you Mox so, I got my eye on you too [JTG laughed].
** As NJPW’s Super Junior Tag League tournament is ongoing, NJPW1972.com released their interview with TJP and Francesco Akira. TJP touched on his relationship with Will Ospreay and how that led to him joining United Empire. Prior to being with the group, TJP had been teaming with the L.A. Dojo talents on STRONG. He felt that they weren’t going to be teachable by him anymore.
I said at the start that things have a process, and I tend to have a process about planning my future. I felt at the time, it was time for a change. I’d spent a lot of time with the guys in the LA Dojo and it felt like they were going their own way for better or worse. They weren’t going to be teachable by me anymore, and Will and I had been friends for years, even before I was in WWE and he went to New Japan.
** NJPW is looking to fill the position of a translator for their website. They want someone or a group of individuals who can translate the words from English-speaking and foreign talents into Japanese text. It is a remote position.
** Naomi posted photos and videos of herself and Jade Cargill at an Atlanta Hawks game.
Oh what a night! 💚 @Jade_Cargill 🏀 #atlantahawks pic.twitter.com/yfJGKTiSdB
— Trinity Fatu (@NaomiWWE) December 6, 2022
Strong women don't have 'attitudes,' we
have standards.
– Marilyn Monroe – @Jade_Cargill you’re amazing 🥹😘💚 pic.twitter.com/Vf2T3hTX57— Trinity Fatu (@NaomiWWE) December 6, 2022
** On January 14th, Eddie Kingston is going to challenge for the United Wrestling Network World Championship.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH donated to the Kumamoto, Japan earthquake relief fund.
** GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion Dante Leon was interviewed for a video on Pro Wrestling NOAH’s YouTube channel. There’s an interview with Jack Morris on the channel as well.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Savannah Evans joined Taylor Wilde on the ‘Wilde On’ podcast.
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.
