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.
** Joining Mark Andrews’ My Love Letter to Wrestling podcast was Xavier Woods. He looked back on signing with TNA/IMPACT Wrestling in 2007 while he was still in college. Woods received the contract offer six months out from his graduation. He expressed to Jeff Jarrett that he wanted to finish school and if wanting that took the offer off the table, he understood. Jarrett suggested putting Woods on a quarterly schedule and then bringing him on full-time once he graduated.
I was still in college when I got signed (to TNA/IMPACT Wrestling) so, my goal was to get signed before I graduated. That was what I was dead set on so I was wrestling all throughout college trying to get looked at and I got to do some stuff with TNA. Bound For Glory was like their WrestleMania and sight unseen, they just went off of A.J. (Styles) because I had trained with A.J. a little bit a couple months prior and they needed a guy to tag with Truth so A.J. was like, ‘Yeah, I got a guy’ and they let me come in, like I said, without even seeing any matches. They just trusted A.J. and I was on their opening match for Bound For Glory. No contract, no anything and so I did well enough and they offered me a deal and this was one of the hardest phone calls I ever had to make. So it was to Jeff Jarrett and I was like, ‘Well, I wanna sign this so bad. This is what I want more than anything in the world but I have six months left in school and I have to graduate. That’s not a question, and if that takes it off the table, I completely understand but I have to graduate.’ He was like, ‘Oh, that’s fine. Could you do like a quarter schedule? And then we’ll just put you a full quarter when you graduate.’ I was like, ‘Uh, yeah, sure.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, cool’ and then I was in TNA while I was still in college so, I remember we were in the dorms or in our apartments and my debut was coming on and we’re watching and we’re freaking out and we’re just… all my friends in college and we’re like, ‘Yeah!’ It was crazy.
** WWE Money in the Bank 2018 was the focus of an episode of Brian ‘Road Dogg’ James’ Oh…You Didn’t Know podcast. It was brought up that no SmackDown talents won either of the Money in the Bank Ladder matches that year. James was the head writer of SmackDown at the time. He recalled Vince McMahon telling him to “fight for your show” so he did just that when it came to pitching ideas.
Yeah, it’s definitely something I bring up (a SmackDown talent winning 2018 Money in the Bank). I mean, I think if you don’t bring it up, you’re selling yourself short and your show short and look, another Vince-ism he (Vince McMahon) gave me was, ‘Fight for your show. It’s your show. What do you want to do?’ And so I would pitch what I wanted to do and make him tell me no. ‘No, we’re not doing that,’ and, ‘Okay. That’s what I wanted to do for my show. I want the ratings to be –’ you know what I mean? So, I fight for it and I thought I was giving them some of what they wanted. It felt pretty good, you know what I mean? It felt pretty good. You always have the naysayers and they’re the loudest so that’s a trick and I ain’t learned it yet, to drown those out.
Elsewhere in the conversation, James dove into the mutual competition between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair and what he liked about it. James stated that going for the same spot as your friend at the same time does not end well in wrestling. He said he used their competitiveness to bring something extra out of them. James added that it was a friendly rivalry that sometimes crossed over to scratching and clawing for a spot.
Well I think you (podcast co-host) said it best and this is a little inside baseball and this is as far as I’m gonna go but mutual competition indeed (between Becky Lynch & Charlotte Flair). It was competition and I’ll tell you what I loved about it. If I wrestled my brother, if I wrestled Jeff (Jarrett), if I wrestled Billy (Gunn), if I wrestled Truth, we would probably be stiffer than everybody, on everybody. It would just be tighter and snugger and faster and umph because we would just be bringing it because we love the other mother-brother and we wanna impress said brother, you know what I mean? And so we’re bringing it, they’re bringing it and it feels good. It got that way and I think it went a hair over that and I think it was because of, man, these are two superstars who are really on the cusp of something special and they’re on the same brand and they’ve been best friends and they’re going through it together, and in this industry, if you’re going for the same spot with your best friend, I don’t know anything good that comes out of that. Having said that, it was a time and place where it was very competitive between these two. I used that to get these matches and this kind of energy out of ‘em because I believed both of them… It was a friendly rivalry that crossed the line sometimes into scratching and clawing to get that spot and there’s a healthy — look, Shawn (Michaels) and Bret (Hart) did it too, you know what I mean? And after they got older and wiser, they realized that was heat of the moment… It’s good TV bro, that’s what it is and these characters both are gonna be superstars and so, when you shoot two rockets off at the same time, they might bump into each other.
** Independent talent Jeremy Prophet was defeated by Powerhouse Hobbs on episode #2 of AEW Collision. Prophet guest appeared on McGuire on Wrestling to recap his experience and shared that he received encouragement from Cody Rhodes prior to the opportunity.
It’s great to know that I have someone like The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes who, you know, to me is maybe the biggest star in WWE and will still take the time to communicate with me, to text me, that we can still have conversations. Even right up to… the day before AEW (Collision), I told him I have this opportunity coming up and he’s a former E.V.P. in the company, asked him for advice and he was right there getting back to me all the time. It’s something that I try to pay forward with other talent…
** On September 9th, Atsushi Onita is participating in an explosion match for DDT Pro-Wrestling at Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan. Onita suggested having Jun Akiyama as his opponent.
** To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Mick Foley and The Undertaker’s Hell in a Cell match at King of the Ring 1998, WWE had both Hall of Famers sit down and watch the match together.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of their unforgettable #HIAC Match, Hall of Famers @undertaker and @foleyispod reunite to watch arguably the most talked-about match in WWE history. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/lRgNZJmUXx
— WWE (@WWE) June 26, 2023
** A feature on Gisele Shaw via NBC Chicago:
** All Japan Pro Wrestling ‘Dynamite Series’ Results (6/26/23) Shinkiba 1stRING in Tokyo, Japan
– Dan Tamura & Hikaru Sato def. Black Menso-re & Kenichiro Arai
– Rising HAYATO vs. Yutani – Time Limit Draw (15:00)
– Manabu Soya def. Takao Omori
– Fuminori Abe, Takuya Nomura & Ryo Inoue vs. Hokuto Omori, Naoki Tanizaki & Naruki Doi – Time Limit Draw (20:00)
– Kento Miyahara def. Kotaro Suzuki
– Jun Saito & Rei Saito vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Suwama – Double Count Out
– Master Wato, Ryuki Honda & Yuji Nagata def. Atsuki Aoyagi, Yuma Aoyagi & Yoshitatsu
** ‘Metro pushed out their chat with A.J. Styles.
** WWE Raw commentator Kevin Patrick appeared on Out of Character with Ryan Satin.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (6/26/23) Miyagi, Japan
– Madoka Kikuta & Yuki Yoshioka def. KAI & H・Y・O
– Yasushi Kanda & Genki Horiguchi def. Kagetora & Problem Dragon
– Shun Skywalker, Diamante & ISHIN def. Strong Machine J, JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI & Último Dragón
– Susumu Mochizuki & Masaaki Mochizuki def. Ryu Fuda & Dragon Kid
– YAMATO, Ben-K, B×B Hulk & Kota Minoura (w/ Minorita) def. Kzy, BIGBOSS Shimizu, Jason Lee & U-T
** Swerve Strickland and Teasy welcomed Christian Cage onto the Swerve City 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.
