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.
** Four-time NBA All-Star Rasheed Wallace was a guest on Underdog NBA and told the story of when he ordered over 40 big gold belts for his Detroit Pistons teammates, management and staff after they won the NBA Championship in 2004. Wallace said everyone was thrilled with the gift and recounted how they decided to wear the belts for their championship ring ceremony on opening night.
So, check this, so I ordered these (big gold belt), I would say probably two weeks after we won the title and they came about a month-and-a-half later. I ordered one for everybody, you know? Our G.M., Assistant G.M., trainers, couple of the media guys and of course the team and so, all in all, I think it was about 40-something belts and so they came throughout the summer and I just sat on ‘em. I didn’t say nothing to nobody like, yo, I got something for y’all, this and that, right? So, it was the night before the opening game. I talked to the security. I was like, ‘Yo,’ I said, ‘When I come in tomorrow, I’ma call you when I get to the loading dock because I’ma need ya help. Bring one of the big carts out with the wheels and sh*t.’ He’s like, ‘Alright.’ So, call him, ‘Aye, meet me outside.’ So all you saw was long ass boxes. So he’s like, ‘Man, what the f*ck is this?’ I’m like, ‘You gonna see, watch’ and so, went into the locker room and I hid the belts, guys went and do their thing, their whole routine. Go out and shoot, get taped, this and that so, after L.B. (Larry Brown) did his meeting and everything, I was like, ‘Yo, I got something for y’all.’ I was like, ‘Jerry, I need your help.’ I was like, ‘I got something for y’all that we can go out there with’ and man, we rolled out these bins and I passed everybody their box and they opened this and the championship belts, like oh man. You should’ve seen the jubilation on everyone’s face in that locker room. It was awesome man, it was awesome and then I was like, ‘Yo, we gotta wear these out.’ So we was like, ‘Alright’ so what we did was we put on our full warmup, right? And we just left the jackets off and then we put the belts on and then put our jackets over the belt so everybody ran out. We’re in the layup line and then, Ben (Wallace) was like, ‘Yo, y’all ready?’ We was like, ‘Yeah’ and then we took our jackets off and everybody seen the belts. They was like, ‘Oh!!!’ All you seen was f*cking cameras flashing and sh*t like that. Yo, it was awesome.
** When Ricky Starks first arrived at AEW, he was told that the network did not want him using the ‘Stroke Daddy’ nickname. He shared that information while being interviewed by Alicia Atout.
And then for some reason, I used it (‘Stroke Daddy’ nickname) one time in a promo or something like that on the indies and I kind of just went with it. I think at the time, I was like, who cares? I’m just gonna call myself whatever I want and that came up with it and you know, I tried to — when I first started at AEW, the very first day, I was told, ‘Hey, the network said you can’t use that name.’ I said, ‘Oh, that sucks. Okay.’ But, at last year’s Revolution pay-per-view, I brought back my patented jersey that I had so, who’s to say that the nickname won’t make a comeback?
It’s so weird because some people hate it. Some guys, ‘Are you kidding me? How dare you call yourself that’ and just these fake masculine guys who call it gay and all this other stupid sh*t.
** Guest appearing on AEW Unrestricted was Nigel McGuinness. He believes he would not have a career in wrestling if he did not take on the British style. He received advice from William Regal that led to him learning the style. Early in Nigel’s career, he was struggling and Regal told him to go back to England and learn the British style. It was that way of wrestling that got Nigel hired to Ring of Honor.
I had a great basis, a great grounding, I had great professionalism as well (in the early stages of my career) but I didn’t have the British style and I didn’t have any way of really sort of standing out. So, I’d taken a couple of tours back there. The best advice I ever got in this industry was William Regal who was good enough to watch my match at the second Brian Pillman Memorial Show and tell me that I needed to go back to England to learn the British style and without that, I’ll tell ya, I wouldn’t have had a career, I wouldn’t have made a dime in this job certainly so that was the best advice and I will always be grateful for him for telling me that. But even then, I still wasn’t advancing that much and I was splitting my time between England and America.
I just did the British stuff (when I got to Ring of Honor) and to speak to William Regal, that was what got me hired there. Just a little British stuff which was nice and pretty and that got me onto the shows and then once I was on the shows, I watched every single match from the beginning till the very end.
On the 7/15 episode of AEW Collision, Nigel McGuinness and Ian Riccaboni were on the call for the 2-out-of-3 Falls World Tag Team Title bout between FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) and Bullet Club Gold (Jay White & Juice Robinson). McGuinness described it as the ‘epitome’ of pro wrestling.
No, not really (I didn’t approach FTR vs. Bullet Club Gold’s 2-out-of-3 Falls match any differently than I would another match). You love, you salivate a match with that length. Often times, the difficulty with TV wrestling, certainly from where I came from is the matches, often times, are so short. You get into it, you got a couple of minutes then there’s a break, there’s a couple more minutes then you gotta do this and you gotta do this, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not a lot of time to really dig your teeth into stories but when you got 58 minutes, obviously there’s breaks involved as well but still, and the pacing and the build that those guys are able to do, they lend to that storytelling ability so I was super excited about it. I knew it was gonna be good. I didn’t know it was gonna be that good but you have those moments and I had them as a wrestler as well where there’s that fine line between sports and entertainment and I think everybody knows what I’m talking about there, right? And sometimes, that line is muddied just enough to where you step over and for that second, it’s wow. It’s as real as real can be and your hair stands on end and you’re just like, this is it. I think I even remember saying on Saturday night, ‘This is pro wrestling and doesn’t it make you proud?’ That’s the epitome of the art form. That’s what it was to me.
** Hitting The Turnbuckle conducted an interview with Steph De Lander. She told the platform that she had been trying to get into Game Changer Wrestling for six months before Matt Cardona came along and brought her into the promotion.
I was hitting up Brett (Lauderdale) from GCW for six months basically trying to get booked. ‘Hey, please,’ this, that, whatever. ‘I wanna work with you.’ I was like, ‘Joey Janela, f*cking get me in.’ Someone get me in just because I knew it was the hottest sh*t and that was the place that you needed to be if you were on the indies. So I was putting in a lot of effort in trying to get in there and then Matt (Cardona) eventually, finally got me in…
** An in-depth interview with KAIRI is on the web Sportiva site. She recounted what she was feeling when it came time for her to join WWE. KAIRI was worried about leaving STARDOM where she was comfortable and established to go start somewhere new.
In STARDOM, I was the president of the wrestlers and had a white belt as the Wonder of STARDOM Champion, so I had stability. I’m throwing all of that away and starting from scratch again. I was worried for more than half-a-year because I was jumping into the WWE, a society that is based on meritocracy.
** While guest appearing on Brian Hebner’s Refin’ It Up podcast, Tasha Steelz looked back at her Ring of Honor debut in a dark match at Supercard of Honor 2017. Originally, she was not going to be on the show, but she sent multiple emails to those at ROH and eventually heard back about an opportunity.
When I debuted for Ring of Honor, it was a Supercard of Honor. I actually was not even supposed to be on the card. I literally was emailing anyone and everyone from Ring of Honor saying, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be down there and if there’s any opportunities, I don’t care if it’s a dark match. I am willing and able to give myself to help out anything’ and I got a phone call saying, ‘Hey, we got an open match. Are you still coming down?’ ‘Hell yeah.’ Got my match and there it is.
** OZ Academy Tag Team Champions Jaguar Yokota and Mayumi Ozaki have applied for the Guinness World Record for oldest female pair to win Tag Team Titles in pro wrestling. Yokota is 62 and Ozaki is 54. Guinness is in the process of confirming the record. If it is made official, the certifier will be invited to OZ Academy’s show at Korakuen Hall on August 20th to formally announce the results.
** A chat between Tetsuya Naito and soccer player Naomichi Ueda:
** Cream Stew, the comedy duo, welcomed Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi onto their show.
** The newest episode of Kevin Hart’s ‘Hart to Heart’ show on Peacock featured Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as the guest.
** Cody Rhodes appeared on NBC TODAY.
** An interview with IWGP World Heavyweight Champion SANADA.
** Carmella spoke to Distractify.
** Guest appearing on Busted Open Radio were Lady Frost and Jimmy Hart.
** Going into WWE SummerSlam, Shayna Baszler was interviewed by News18.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (8/3/23) Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– King of Gate Tournament Semifinals: BIGBOSS Shimizu def. Madoka Kikuta
– King of Gate Tournament Semifinals: H.Y.O. def. Kota Minoura
– Susumu Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda & Mochizuki Junior vs. Shun Skywalker, KAI & ISHIN – (Double Count Out)
– Naruki Doi, Ben-K, Minorita & B×B Hulk def. Dragon Kid, Punch Tominaga, Yoshiki Kato & Daiki Yanaiuchi
– Don Fujii & Masaaki Mochizuki def. Shuji Kondo & Takashi Yoshida
– YAMATO, Kagetora, Yuki Yoshioka, Dragon Dia & Eita def. Kzy, Strong Machine J, U-T, Jason Lee & JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI
– King of Gate Tournament Finals: Kota Minoura def. BIGBOSS Shimizu
** WWE backstage correspondent and host Sarah Schreiber was interviewed by Jim Varsallone.
** InStyle published a piece on WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley.
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.
