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.
** At AEW Double or Nothing 2021, The Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana & Ortiz) bested The Pinnacle (Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, MJF, Shawn Spears & Wardlow) in a Stadium Stampede match. The Pinnacle was the focus of the latest FTR with Dax Harwood podcast and Harwood shared that Terry Funk was contacted to be featured in the bar scene in the Stadium Stampede. Tony Khan approved the idea but they did not hear from Terry until after the scene was shot. Harwood said Terry loved the idea and was apologetic that he returned the call so late.
I think my attitude was probably, at the time, maybe a bit combative. I mean I was excited to be in the main event of the pay-per-view (Double or Nothing 2021) or one of the main events of the pay-per-view. I was excited to do a Stadium Stampede because that is a staple in AEW. I was looking forward to that. I also wanted to make sure that our segment with Ortiz and Santana was the most realistic and brutal and hard-hitting part of it. I enjoyed the spot in the — I know it was a little bit entertainment, but I enjoyed the spot in the bar scene with us. What was supposed to happen in that bar scene — everything happened the way it was. We follow all the people inside the bar and man, I wish I could tell you all the names of all those extras because, one, none of them complained. Not one time did they complain and they worked their ass off dude. We stayed up until, I’m not kidding, 4 or 4:30 in the morning filming our segment and not one of those extras complained. They were bumping on the floor which they didn’t have to. They were bumping their ass off on the floor and I wish I had every individual name of those extras because they worked equally as hard as we did and so I thank them. If you’re listening and you were there, you get a chance to tag yourself on Twitter and tag me, please do and I’ll try to give you your just due because you did incredible. Thank you so much… We beat up everybody in the bar… We all come together at a table. Tully (Blanchard) comes over with the Vodka and pours four shots. We take the shots and then we flip the table over and start brawling but what was supposed to happen was when we flipped the table — because it also zooms in on Konnan… There was supposed to be two different things that were gonna happen here. I suggested we have Konnan there as the D.J., which we did which I thought was awesome. But also, when Cash (Wheeler) and I — we were supposed to film a scene where Cash and I were walking in the bar with Tully and we had just ran away from Ortiz and Santana. We walked in the bar and there was supposed to be a bar there and sitting at the bar was someone by himself with his back to us and we got the ‘OK’ from Tony (Khan) to do this. We just had to get up with him. We walk up to the bar, we sit down at the bar, with the guy at the bar and the guy at the bar was gonna be Terry Funk. He was supposed to say a line from ‘Road House’. I can’t remember what it was but he was supposed to say a line from ‘Road House’ and we were gonna take a drink with him or something and then comes Santana and Ortiz, then we got into the brawl and then we see Konnan. But then we see Konnan and we flip the table over to start the brawl. When we flip the table over, it was supposed to hit the first few seconds of D.M.X. ‘Party Up’ and that was supposed to start the big brawl inside and we were gonna play like 20 seconds of ‘Party Up’ but that (did not happen), I don’t know why. But yeah, so I really enjoyed it.
So we called Terry, Cash did. He called Terry and we couldn’t get ahold of him. Called him again, left him a message, couldn’t get ahold of him, couldn’t get ahold of him. Maybe a week later if that, Cash gets a phone call, he looks at it, he even screenshotted it but it said ‘Terry Funk’ so Cash answered and Cash explained everything to him and Terry was like, ‘Oh, I would love to do that’ and he said, ‘Ah well, I’m sorry. We already filmed it. We filmed it however many days before’ and said, ‘That’s why we were trying to get up with you’ and Terry was very apologetic. So he was down to do it but he called back a bit too late.
The story between The Pinnacle and The Inner Circle also took them through a Blood & Guts match. Harwood stated that he ‘had words’ with MJF after the match because MJF climbed to the top of the structure without any other members of the group and ‘got all the glory for himself.’
And let’s not forget MJF stood on top of the (Blood & Guts) cage without any other member of The Pinnacle. Got all the glory for himself… Oh yeah (we talked about it later). I think you (podcast co-host) know me a little too well to know that I wouldn’t go to the back and have words with.
Earlier in the podcast, Harwood opened up about him and Cash Wheeler’s friendship with Powerhouse Hobbs. Dax believes that Hobbs would agree that FTR helped him get a job with AEW. Harwood went on to share how both him and Hobbs helped one another through anxiety problems.
So that goes back quite a bit (FTR’s relationship with Powerhouse Hobbs). I think he’ll tell ya, that also combined obviously with his look and his talent and I’m not taking anything away from him but I think he would probably tell you the reason he has the job he has today is because of me and Dan (Cash Wheeler). We saw him when we were in Daily’s Place. I think he may have been working with Scorpio Sky who is an incredible talent too. Man, I miss him… He had this great match with Scorpio Sky, he had a great match with Orange Cassidy and I don’t mean a five-star, 30-minute, million kickouts at 2.99. What I mean is he came in to do a job and he had three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes to do the job and in those minutes, he showed both me and Dan something that we didn’t see AEW had at the time and you know, we pulled him aside afterwards and talked to him and told him how well he did and then we all just started talking and we exchanged numbers, we became very, very good friends. He’s one of my best friends in the business now. He called me on my way to Charleston last week and we talked for a while on the phone. He’s got an incredible life story, an incredible life story that I hope he tells and I think he will on the live event (FTR with Dax Harwood podcast in Los Angeles) and we’ve been through a lot of sh*t together. Whenever I was going through my anxiety, my anxiety issues, he and I talked every single day, multiple times a day and we checked up on each other because we were both going through them at the same time and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that and I’m sure we’ll talk about it on the live event too. So there’s a lot of history with Powerhouse Hobbs and FTR.
Circling back to The Pinnacle versus The Inner Circle, Dax brought up the segment from the March 31st, 2021 AEW Dynamite when The Inner Circle ‘took back control’ of their locker room. Dax felt the feud could have ended there because the redemption story was done and it ‘iced’ The Pinnacle.
I could not agree with you more (The Pinnacle/Inner Circle feud could have ended when The Inner Circle ‘took back control’ of their locker room). So real quick, I was bleeding. (Chris) Jericho took a picture frame off of the wall and while my back was turned, hit me in the head with the picture frame. I don’t know if you can still see it… And I was bleeding profusely and so yeah, what’s that? Two weeks after The Pinnacle had formed?
There’s no more threat, right? There’s no more threat. We’ve got the sh*t kicked out of us and the redemption story is over.
So, all the babyfaces beat up the heels and so a fan sitting at home, almost, I would say 99.9 percent of the audience has never had a wrestling match, right? And so after the good guys get the redemption and beat us up, why is there a match? Why did we have a match? The match is where they beat us up and that’s where they get their redemption eventually down the road. But, yeah, I think that we prematurely got iced, you know? We were so hot with that debut. That debut couldn’t have gone better I don’t think and then a couple weeks later, they got their redemption. So, my thought is why? Why is there a match after this? Because we’ve already been beat up. You literally put Wardlow through a table, I was busted wide open and Cash (Wheeler) got dumped into an ice bath which was a shoot ice bath. I got stabbed in the head with a piece of chair and then Max (MJF) got beat up so bad, he got his head flushed down the toilet, went through a f*cking drink gimmick, I can’t remember what it was. So yeah, what would we do from here? That was my thought, why? I think that we for so long have seen the WWE style of booking where the babyface always prevails, right? More often than not and it’s worked for years, it’s worked for Vince (McMahon) for years but more often than not, the babyface always prevails… I felt that put us back a few steps.
** The 60th edition of René Duprée’s Café De René livestream featured WrestlePro/Wrestle Pro Alaska promoter Kevin Matthews. As the conversation rolled on, Matthews told a story from when he was in Deep South Wrestling and Bill DeMott requested that he be in a match while knowing Matthews was not 100 percent. It was in that match that Matthews tore his bicep. Matthews claims that afterwards, Hardcore Holly came up to him and stated that he’d “f*ck him up’ if he threw Bill under the bus.
When Bill DeMott ultimately ‘resigned’, when he was pushed out when myself and all these others kept barking out stories and he got a little too hot and WWE had to pay him to leave. But, Bob Holly was one of the people who tweeted, kind of crapping on Bill and saying, ‘I can’t believe you’d do this’ and I saw red at that time because I was there for those six weeks, I think it was six weeks that Bob Holly was down there (in developmental) with us and he co-signed all of Bill’s bullsh*t, all of it and I’ll never forget when I tore my bicep and I was sitting there and I was in a sling and stuff like that and I was in the bleachers watching practice. Bob comes and sits next to me and he knew what Bill did. He knew he forced me in the ring and he knew that was on Bill’s ass and he sat next to me calmly, he’s asking me — I think he said am I on painkillers right now and stuff like that and I said, ‘Yeah, they prescribed me some stuff’ and in the calmest, coolest voice ever, he leans into me and he’s like, ‘If you throw Bill under the bus, I will personally f*ck you up.’ That’s what he said to me. Fast forward all these years later, he goes at Bill when the internet is attacking him, trying to kiss ass to get a job again and (it’s) like, you literally told me if I expose Bill, you’re personally gonna f*ck me up if I said anything to the office. People don’t know about that place man. Only the 30-something people to have walked through those doors really know about that place and what went down.
Looking back at Matthews’ time in IMPACT Wrestling, he stated that the reason he was put into a tag team was due to his body being banged up. Matthews said the taping schedule was rough on the mid-card talents on down in addition to being used on day rates. He recalled once shouting at IMPACT writer Jimmy Jacobs for adding more matches to his filled schedule.
Truth be told, the reason they put me in a team with Fallah (Bahh) and kept me in a team, my body was falling apart, because what people didn’t know, the way those (IMPACT Wrestling) tapings were structured, especially for the mid-card guys and down, there were six-day tapings and we were filming for like three months so every day was two weeks worth of TV plus these ‘One Night Only’ pay-per-views and these Xpolosion matches and those mid-card guys were the ones filling those spots. They’re not gonna put the EC3s and Eli Drakes and their top guys in those spots, because they were just filling ya up, bump carding. One time, I think it was four or five times in one day I wrestled. One day and it was brutal. It was the day I wrestled Matt Morgan, two enhancement guys, a tag match, a six man, it was crazy… That’s why (they) used the mid-card guys and down because we were on day rates. So it’s like, you can use them as much as you want. You’re not paying them any more but pay me per day, I’d be like, yo, give me some more matches, more matches. You got anymore to fill? I’ll wear a mask, I’ll do double (Matthews laughed).
My run could have been better but I was plagued with injuries so that’s why I also wanted to team with Fallah because my body was crippled and those matches played a big part in it too because I remember that one time, I had 16 matches in six days. It was insane and then I remember snapping out at — was it Jimmy Jacobs? Because I was told I would have X amount of matches and then the last day, I was sharing a room with him and dude, my knee, my back and I was getting up out of the hotel bed and I said, ‘Dude, all I have today –’ and this is right before. It’s like, the six-man tag, that six-minute six-man tag but six-minute TV, six-man tag, you’re in the ring for 27 seconds when it’s all said and done so, I can get through that and then he’s like — Jimmy Jacobs, I love him but I’m gonna do my best Jimmy Jacobs voice. He’s like, ‘Oh, well, yeah… You can (wrestle) Brian Cage too’ and I literally looked like this (eyes wide open) and I love Brian Cage and I would happily wrestle him any day of the week and I look up and I remember saying, ‘What the f*ck is going on!? This negligent f’ing company!’ I was throwing a tantrum in the room. They just kept adding more matches onto me and at this point I’m like, it’s painful to even walk. I did 16 matches, this is rough and I remember when I finally got home, for a couple of weeks, I mean it felt like I got hit by a truck and stuff like that so, yeah, it was pretty rough and it was rough on the body, the tapings were extremely rough because at that time, I was already 17 years in… I mean, if it was one or two matches per day like a lot of the others, I would have been great but, it was brutal, it was brutal. It’s not worth (it) financially, the brutality I was putting myself (through).
The team of Kevin Matthews and Fallah Bahh was a Sonjay Dutt idea. Matthews said the original plan was for him to turn on Fallah, but they clicked well as a duo, so the story was pivoted to keep them together.
Fallah’s the man. I don’t think Fallah (Bahh) realizes how much of a star he is and that’s what I always wanna strangle him about. Even at our shows in WrestlePro, the meet-and-greets will pass and I’m like, ‘Did you go out and sell anything?’ He’s like, ‘No. I don’t have t-shirts or 8 x 10s.’ ‘These people love you. You’re leaving so much money on the table! Get your ass out there!’ And stuff like that so, but, my run with Fallah in IMPACT, it’s so funny because we were so close beforehand, so close after and then they paired us together. That was Sonjay Dutt’s doing. When they put us together, it was supposed to be a short-term thing where I turned heel on him and then we clicked so well but they had already written in that I turn on him and then I challenge him and Scott Steiner comes and whoops my ass and that was the end of the program but, it went so well when we teamed together. It was funny, the skits were funny that after the Steiner thing, then Sonjay figured out a way for me to go to him and apologize and beg for one more chance so they got us back together so they extended that run because that run was funny. It was a lot of fun so, especially they involved Scarlett into the mix and stuff like that but yeah, there was a lot of good moments there.
** During episode #192 of The AJ Awesome Show, Nick Aldis stated that he’d be interested in facing Bryan Danielson, Roman Reign, GUNTHER and/or Drew McIntyre. When it comes to Reigns, Aldis feels he’d be an interesting contrast of character to Roman.
Well I would love to wrestle Bryan Danielson. I’ve never wrestled him in a singles match. We actually did do some tag team matches a long time ago when I was like a complete rookie. I think it was my first year in wrestling, in England. But obviously, he’s, as far as sort of an in-ring performer, he’s cream of the crop. Roman (Reigns) obviously. If you’re in this business, you wanna work with the alpha, the top guy and I don’t think I’m being unrealistic when I say that I could pose an interesting contrast of character to him and from a sort of credibility standpoint and a size standpoint and a personality standpoint. I think that I match up well with guys like him… GUNTHER is a name that gets thrown out a lot and I know that he was very complimentary of NWA Powerrr when we first started it and of me and what we had done and stuff like that and I was always very grateful to him for being gracious about that and now seeing, you know, what’s he sort of involved into, you sort of look at it and you think that would be a compelling matchup with the right circumstances. Drew McIntyre. I think that British fans, it would always be, with the right circumstances, you know, heavyweight English guy versus the heavyweight Scottish guy in Britain, that could always be an attraction and sometimes, you just wanna look at it from a simplistic point of view and it’s like, that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to make that one an attraction.
** While looking back at his final match event at the Tokyo Dome, Keiji Muto told Tokyo Sports his thoughts about IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada. Muto thought Okada was a wrestler who only had one form but thought he played the heel role well against GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya.
(Kazuchika) Okada was good (at my retirement event), wasn’t he? I didn’t think he was a wrestler who had so many options. He got into NOAH, and he was able to apply himself even in his speech. I thought he was a good heel, and I thought he was a wrestler with only one form, but he wasn’t.
** At PROGRESS Wrestling Chapter 150, Big Damo and Axel Tischer, formerly of SAnitY, reunited and they were interviewed by Wrestling with Johners following that reunion. Both spoke about how they are looking forward to being part of PROGRESS’ tag team division.
Tischer: Since the last time we tagged as SAnitY in WWE, a lot of things changed but, something will never change and that is our friendship. That’s our brotherhood that we have built up over all those years and it’s still like day one. So, but now there’s a threat to the tag team division here in PROGRESS that not only a well-oiled machine will enter this division and will challenge everybody. That’s also the thing, that we have the chance to mix it up again… We tagged before in PROGRESS. We had two matches, we won those matches, but now we have the chance for officially going into the ring and just present ourselves, not as, oh, those (two) tagged before, let’s get ‘em in a tag match, no. Let’s make it a unit again, let’s make it a team again and let’s kick some asses as a team again.
Damo: Just to touch on that, our goal would be, you know, with all these incredible tag teams here like Sunshine Machine, 0121, Smoking Aces, Lykos Gym, The (Young) Guns but you know, we kind of like ‘em. There’s so many incredible teams kicking around here and also other ones around Britain and Ireland. There’s so much kicking around right now and we would love to be able to get right in amongst that, get those f*cking titles and make them world traveling tag team titles, you know what I mean? That’s what we are (here to do) and that’s what we wanna do.
** As Masha Slamovich was speaking to the WrestleSlam Podcast, she stated that she’d be game for an IMPACT Wrestling versus STARDOM show. She feels it would be ‘box-office’.
Well, I’ve only got one little statement for you: IMPACT Knockouts versus STARDOM.
It’d be box office indeed. It would be the cream of the crop in my personal opinion. I mean, there’s just dream matches waiting to happen from the collection of wrestlers on either team.
** One-half of the reigning NWA World Tag Team Champions, Mecha Wolf, guest appeared on Busted Open Radio. He detailed the origins of his partnership with Bestia 666 and said it began in ‘The Crash’ promotion. Originally, Konnan, who was booking for the promotion at the time, did not want Bestia and Mecha tagging. Mecha expressed that the idea Konnan had for him was ‘classic’ and ‘crappy’.
So, we (Mecha Wolf & Bestia 666) started tagging about six years ago and it didn’t happen organically at all. It was one of those things where management, as far as The Crash at the time, they were looking for a guy to put with Bestia and Angel Garza or Garza Jr. and they’re like, ‘Man, let’s have Mecha be part of the team’ and at the time, Konnan was the booker. He did not want that to happen, because he wanted me to have my own little Puerto Rican faction and a classic, crappy idea. I fought it hard and we still did it and against Konnan’s wishes but it worked out. Seven years later, here we are. We’ve traveled all kinds of countries together representing not only the NWA, representing our brand and we have a great relationship. He handles a lot of the business stuff, I handle the wrestling stuff so it fits really well. He’s kind of really chill and I’m always up here so he kind of brings me down to that level and man, we have a really great relationship. The first few years as far as in-ring, it was hard because we were trying to decipher how to work with each other so we were stepping on each other’s toes for the first couple of years but now it’s like, we got it down, you know what I mean? Now, it’s like you can’t touch us in that ring and it’s really cool being with someone that not only is a great wrestler but also understands the final goal which is taking over the world.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 documentary:
** Keiji Muto appeared on NIPPON TV’s ‘Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?’ He competed for three million yen.
** Before Daisuke Harada’s retirement exhibition on March 9th, Pro Wrestling NOAH will be streaming matches of his on their YouTube channel.
** DDT Pro-Wrestling Results (3/4/23) Radiant Hall in Yokohama, Japan
– MJ Poe & KANON def. Soma Takao & Kazuma Sumi
– Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship Battle Royal: Kazuki Hirata wins
– HARASHIMA & Toru Owashi def. Kazusada Higuchi & Yuki Ishida
– Keigo Nakamura & Hideki Okatani def. Toi Kojima & Yuya Koroku
– Kotaro Suzuki & Tetsuya Endo def. Jun Akiyama & Yusuke Okada
– Ryota Nakatsu def. MAO
– Yuji Hino & Yukio Sakaguchi def. Yukio Naya & Takeshi Masada
** TJPW City Circuit Winter Results (3/4/23) Radiant Hall in Yokohama, Japan
– Suzume & Alice Endo def. Wakana Uehara & HIMAWARI
– Yuki Aino def. Kaya Toribami
– Mizuki def. Pom Harajuku
– Yuka Sakazaki def. Raku
– Miyu Yamashita & Moka Miyamoto def. Shoko Nakajima & Mahiro Kiryu
– Rika Tatsumi, Hyper Misao & Naho Tsunoda def. Miu Watanabe, Yuki Kamifuku & Haruna Neko
** Las Vegas Now had Sgt. Slaughter in-studio for an interview.
** Ahead of Friday Night SmackDown in Washington D.C., Charlotte Flair and Drew McIntyre visited Children’s National Hospital.
** Ice Ribbon Results (3/4/23) Ice Ribbon Dojo in Saitama, Japan
– Exhibition: Ibuki Hoshi def. Curry [1:0]
– Yappy def. Kiku
– Asahi & Chie Ozora def. Nao Ishikawa & YuuRI
– Tsuki Umino vs. Yura Suzuki – Time Limit Draw (10:00)
– Misa Kagura & Sumika Yanagawa def. Ibuki Hoshi & Kaho Matsushita
** Lio Rush is scheduled to do autograph sessions for New Japan Pro-Wrestling prior to their 3/5 and 3/6 shows.
** There’s an interview on Evan Mack’s YouTube channel with Ricky Starks.
** Brandon F. Walker of Barstool’s Rasslin’ show spoke to Britt Baker.
** AEW Revolution was previewed by Tony Khan on the AEW Unrestricted podcast.
** There’s an interview with Jeff Jarrett on the ‘CatchNewz’ YouTube channel.
** Bill Apter of ‘WrestleBinge by Sportskeeda’ spoke to D-Von Dudley.
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.
