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.
** The newest edition of Brian Hebner’s Refin’ It Up podcast featured a conversation with Tony Chimel. Chimel detailed the roles he takes on for AEW at their house shows. He said it was Rafael Morffi, AEW’s Vice President of Live Events and Touring that got his foot in the door.
Well, they (AEW) started running some live events so I was at one of those just the other day on Saturday. But I’ll help out. I’ll do numerous things. Rafael Morffi’s the one that got my foot in the door and he does like 20 different things. I kind of help him out. It’s kind of like (Steve) Rubin, do a little bit of (Mark) Carrano, a little bit of market rep stuff, a little bit of production stuff. I was helping this other girl, Lexy (Nair), who was ring announcing her first show the other day at Tupelo, Mississippi. She did a great job. You know, giving her pointers with announcing and stuff like that so, do a little bit of everything, you know? Which is nice and I’m not on the road 20 days a month so that’s a good thing as well and it still keeps me active and doing a little bit of that and working here at home. It’s a nice little mix right now.
** Rick Rubin invited Paul Heyman onto his Tetragrammaton podcast. Heyman covered his time at the helm of ECW and recalled Vince McMahon calling him on the day that Taz debuted for WWE at Royal Rumble 2000. Heyman shared that Kurt Angle was concerned Taz might shoot on him in their match.
When Taz debuted in WWE, at the Royal Rumble in Madison Square Garden which was the perfect setting for a debut and the highlight of his entire WWE career because it was all downhill from there, that Vince McMahon called me (he laughed). I was actually in the studio. We were editing, doing a Sunday edit for ECW and Vince McMahon called me and he says, ‘Do you mind if I ask what the f*ck you’re feeding these guys?’ And I said, ‘What does that mean? I don’t know’ and he goes, ‘What the f*ck are you planting in their f*cking heads? I’ve heard of your f*cking Kool-Aid before but what the f*ck?’ And I said, ‘Okay. What issue do we have here Vince? Aren’t you supposed to be running the Rumble today?’ And he tells me the story that Kurt Angle — now this is not Kurt Angle after fighting all the self-admitted addictions. This is not Kurt Angle with the gazillion injuries that he suffered putting on amazing performances as a pro wrestler, sports entertainer, WWE superstar. This is Kurt Angle, with the exception of the neck injury that he had going into the Olympics and which was still… oh man, healthy Kurt Angle. Legitimate milk drinking Kurt Angle at the time. Kurt Angle, maybe only two people on the face of the planet that could hold their own with him in a shoot fight, you know? Maybe, and Kurt Angle went up to Vince in The Garden and said, ‘Vince, what do I do if this guy shoots on me?’ And Vince at first thought it was a political question like, am I allowed to defend myself? Am I allowed to shoot back? Because I’m Kurt Angle and I’ll tie him and his family and his friends and his neighborhood and all of Brooklyn up in knots all by myself while eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of milk because I’m Kurt Angle and then Vince realized, no, he’s really asking what happens if Taz shoots on me because I’ll be in trouble because that’s Taz and Kurt says, ‘Yeah. Have you seen this guy in ECW? Do you listen to him?’ And Vince thought Kurt was gonna go, hahaha! Yeah! Don’t worry about it, it’s fine and Kurt was legitimately concerned what would happen if Taz would shoot on him. Like, hey, I’m gonna have to fight for my life out there with this guy. This guy’s capable. That was the presentation of Taz (in ECW). We made him believe he was that guy.
ECW’s first pay-per-view was Barely Legal in 1997 and it featured Taz versus Sabu. Heyman detailed his mindset regarding that program and said when Sabu returned to ECW in 1995, he always wanted to get to the Taz match but was not going to do it unless it was on pay-per-view.
Taz and Sabu and Tommy Dreamer and Raven (are some of the longest storylines I’ve been a part of creating). Multiple years. We were doing things in the very first — well, when we brought Sabu back, the idea was to build to the first pay-per-view with Sabu versus Taz. I wasn’t giving the match away until we got on pay-per-view. No matter how many years it took.
** While appearing on Phil Strum’s Under the Ring podcast, Rocky Romero shared that Minoru Suzuki will sometimes send him videos of how the crowds outside of Japan react to his ‘KAZE NI NARE’ theme song. Romero added that Suzuki is baffled by it.
For KAZE NI NARE, when Minoru Suzuki walks into a room or into the arena, I don’t know, it’s just really, really cool and Suzuki has sent me videos where he’s all over the world and he’ll shoot me a clip where he’s like, just baffled by it every time. You know, it starts in America but sometimes in Mexico they’ll do it or like, in England they’ll do it and it’s just really, really cool and I think it means a lot to the Japanese wrestlers to have that impact outside of Japan.
** As Robbie Eagles was listing off Australians in wrestling that have made names for themselves, he told the Keepin’ It Strong Style podcast that he’s waiting on Grayson Waller to get his in-ring opportunity on SmackDown.
And then you’ve got all the (Australian) guys in WWE. Like even Grayson Waller, someone that I don’t appreciate his attitude a lot, but he has done fantastic things, landed on SmackDown, and I’m just waiting for his first opportunity to get into the ring and show that audience what he’s all about.
He mentioned that someone he’s eager to share the ring with is newly crowned IMPACT World Champion Alex Shelley. Eagles either wants a tag match against Motor City Machine Guns or a singles against Shelley. He mentioned that IMPACT Wrestling is coming to Australia in late June and they have a joint show with New Japan Pro-Wresting in August.
We (Eagles & Mat Diamond) very much based ourselves on the Motor City Machine Guns. We took to them for inspiration like a lot of young tag teams did during that sort of mid-2000s, early 2010s and Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin are actually coming to Australia twice this year. So if there’s potential for myself and Mat Diamond to have that dream match that we never thought was possible with the Machine Guns, I’m gonna take every opportunity to make that happen. Whether it’s in Wagga Wagga or whether it’s in Sydney, it doesn’t matter to me. As long as it happens and guys, Wagga Wagga is not close to my house. It’s not an easy drive. It’s a pretty long trek to get to but, if I gotta get in my car and get myself there to make that match happen, I’ll do it so, you know, Multiverse United is a thing. IMPACT and New Japan have a working relationship and you’ve got a New Japan pro wrestler sitting at your doorstep when you’re coming here so, I’d like to make that happen and then if there’s an opportunity for me to have a one-on-one match with Alex Shelley, that’s like the dream match for me because anyone that’s known me, even before I was a burgeoning pro wrestler, he was one of my guys that I first looked at when I first caught indie wrestling and I went, ‘He’s it. That’s who I wanna be’ and it’s a bit embarrassing to say that now because he’s someone that I look to as a peer but he was definitely someone that captivated me early on.
** NXT’s Jakara Jackson joined Dr. Beau Hightower and shared that fellow WWE talent Zelina Vega has given her plenty of advice.
Oh my gosh, so I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Zelina Vega. She’s one person that I most definitely have had opportunities to chat with and she’s definitely put me on game with a lot of this and so she’s helped a girl out.
** Joining Talk Is Jericho were Dark Side of the Ring co-creators Evan Husney and Jason Eisener. Jason spoke about Magnum T.A.’s Dark Side episode and mentioned that they pulled him from a Tales From the Territory panel because they did not want him to gloss over his story. They wanted to save that for his own Dark Side of the Ring episode.
Magnum T.A., that story is another one that’s been kind of heavily requested I would say from like a fan, viewer point of view on that one and when we were doing (Tales From the) Territories and we were working on the Jim Crockett Promotions episode, we literally were slated to have Magnum be a part of that. Then I kind of got this feeling where I was like, man, his story is so good that I don’t wanna just have him do a five-minute little spiel on it. I think we should really do it justice. So we actually kind of pretty much took him off the panel and just was like, let’s save your story for a much bigger thing which I’m so glad we did and it was also logistically tough because he would’ve had to travel cross-country for us which I don’t think would have been ideal, just given his situation.
** Ron Simmons and AEW’s Shawn Dean appeared on Busted Open Radio.
** At All Japan Pro Wrestling’s June 15th show, Kento Miyahara and Yuma Aoyagi are challenging Kenoh and Manabu Soya for the AJPW World Tag Team Championships.
** Keiji Muto, Go Shiozaki and Yoshiki Inamura are appearing on Tokyo TV’s ‘Dekamori Hunter’ television show on July 16th.
** STARDOM Results (6/13/23) Loisir Hotel Toyohashi in Aichi, Japan
– Koguma & Saya Iida def. HANAKO & Aya Sakura
– Natsuko Tora & Starlight Kid def. Saya Kamitani & Lady C
– Mariah May & Xena def. Maika & Thekla
– Giulia & Mai Sakurai def. Mina Shirakawa & Waka Tsukiyama
– Mayu Iwatani, Hazuki & Momo Kohgo def. Utami Hayashishita, AZM & Miyu Amasaki
– Syuri, MIRAI, Ami Sourei def. Saki Kashima, Momo Watanabe & Ruaka
– Saori Anou, Suzu Suzuki & Mei Seira def. Tam Nakano, Natsupi & Yuna Mizumori
** NJPW New Japan Road Results (6/13/23) Shirakawa City Central Gymnasium in Shirakawa, Fukushima, Japan
– Ryohei Oiwa vs. Oskar Leube – Time Limit Draw (10:00)
– Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma def. Boltin Oleg & Yuto Nakashima
– House of Torture (EVIL, Dick Togo, Yujiro Takahashi & SHO) def. YOH, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI
– United Empire (Aaron Henare, TJP & Francesco Akira) def. BULLET CLUB (Gedo, Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney
– BULLET CLUB (Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin) def. Ryusuke Taguchi & Hirooki Goto
– Kazuchika Okada, Master Wato, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Tiger Mask, El Desperado, Shota Umino & Ren Narita
– Just 5 Guys (SANADA, TAKA Michinoku, Taichi, DOUKI & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI, Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji)
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.
