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** In the main event of the 9/4 WWE Raw, GUNTHER defeated Chad Gable to retain the Intercontinental Title and is now the longest-reigning WWE Intercontinental Champion in history. Cody Rhodes shared on the The Dale Jr. Download podcast that Gable and GUNTHER received a standing ovation in Gorilla Position after their match. Rhodes added that he hopes Gable finds the I.C. Title eventually.
Rhodes did the dark match after Gable versus GUNTHER and says he felt bad because Gable was having his moment with the audience. He was told to go out and raise Chad’s hand and Rhodes stated that if Gable told him off, he would’ve understood.
If you get a standing ovation in Gorilla, you made it. Chad Gable and GUNTHER had this amazing main event (on Raw) and they came back and there’s nothing we can do but clap for that, that piece of business.
Bringing family to a show, it’s as real as it gets, you know? And Chad did amazing and I do hope that Chad finds the Intercontinental Championship. I hope he finds it. Amazing, amazing. True athlete, real Olympian, amazing but, those moments, again, it’s hard to tell in what we do what is real and what isn’t, and when it’s in the middle, it’s so sweet and so good. That’s as real as it gets (Gable’s daughter crying after he lost). His daughter wanted to see that and have that moment. I felt bad because they sent me out after to raise his hand and I gotta do the dark match but man, I feel bad. You’re getting your time and your moment here. Had I gone out there and (he) told me to F off, I would’ve been totally, no problem. I’m gonna get in the ring. But he’s an amazing, amazing athlete. But that’s where it gets real. My sister and my mom, they know, if we’re coming, expect he could get absolutely dog walked right in front of us and they’re gonna shoot us, they know we’re here, you know? They’re ready for it and my mom is indifferent. She watched Dusty for so many years. She’s seen it all. Brock (Lesnar) beat me half to death in front of her and I could see her. We used to call her ‘stern face lady’. He’s gonna get up, you know? He’ll get up, he’s gonna be alright but yeah, family at the shows is always tricky.
Earlier in the conversation, Rhodes gave his opinion on the spot in wrestling when a referee hears a chair shot but did not actually see it. He thinks a lot about his theater teacher, Howard Fine, while in ring. Cody said with that in mind, a better way to do that spot would be driving the chair to the gut or to the neck so there’s no noise for the referee to hear.
I still talk to Howard (Fine) today and I still think about Howard a lot of times in the ring. For example, referee, right? Referee’s behind you and somebody hits somebody with a steel chair. How’d the referee not hear it? Howard’s the type of find a different way to do that spot. Find a different way. You hit the guy in the gut with the chair, then there’s no noise. You snub him in the side of the neck, something — there’s these little things that just because wrestling is so broad and sports-entertainment hits such a broad — it doesn’t mean we can’t be at a higher level of storytelling and psychology so he’s in my head a lot.
** To start the latest episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho spoke about the passing of Windham Rotunda a.k.a. Bray Wyatt and paying tribute to him at the Fozzy concert in London, England.
We go the airport and get ready to fly from Atlanta to Heathrow. Right as we’re about to take off, I get the message that Windham Rotunda had passed away, Bray Wyatt. At one point in time, we were really, really close friends and not that anything happened but you know, you don’t see each other for a while and kind of drift apart because he’s in one company and I’m in another. But we always had a great relationship and I always complimented and spoke to him about his ideas and obviously I worked with Bray dozens of times throughout the years in WWE around the world. We even had a cage match where I jumped off the top of the cage. The crazy age of 44 years old or 43 years old and how insane it was that Jericho’s up there doing that. I’d do it now at 52, especially with someone like Bray who I could trust and Bray was a creative faucet. So many ideas that he had, he would just keep pouring them out; here’s an idea, here’s an idea. It’s not about that idea from a couple ideas ago so, just a great guy and left us way too soon and like I said, it hit me on the plane ride. I got really sad during the plane ride because you take off and it’s just, here we go, it’s another flight and another day at the office, then it really hits you, oh my gosh. He’s really gone. I’m never gonna see him again so, kind of a sad flight…
(At the Fozzy concert in London), it just washed over me to say a few words about Windham and dedicate the show that night, the Fozzy show to Windham and the Wembley show to him which was pretty emotional. Of course, people start singing, ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’ which is his ring song, kind of calling card, his trademark and that was really great to see. Of course, all the sites are posting it and I didn’t do that to get social media postings but yeah, just a great gig with Fozzy…
** To promote Friday Night SmackDown, Zelina Vega appeared on ‘Our Daily Show!’. She dove into the in-ring chemistry she has with Rhea Ripley. Vega said the only other person who she’s had that level of chemistry with is Andrade El Idolo and called Ripley her ‘perfect opposite’. She added that she’s starting to feel the same way about IYO SKY.
Rhea Ripley (is someone I match up great with in the ring). Because that girl, oh my God. The thing is when we got to do Backlash — and I’ve heard her do this interview and it was funny to me because even she knows, she was like, the way she said it was, ‘I wanted to smile for her, but I wouldn’t do that. I saw her crying and she doesn’t do that. Zelina does not cry so she’s usually an angry little gremlin all the time so, you know, to see her emotional clearly meant a lot to her’ and I was like, man, if you even know that, I wonder how the fans think of something that happened that way, you know, how it happened at Backlash but, for her and I to get in there and just — I can read her like no other person. I can feel her movements and she doesn’t even have to do or say anything. I know what she’s doing right away. I can look in her eyes and I know what she’s going for and the only other person that that’s really happened with was Andrade (El Idolo). I knew from the second that he moved a certain way or looked a certain way, I knew what he was going for and I knew what I had to be there for and with her, it’s the same thing. It’s the yin and yang, you know? And I feel like she’s my perfect opposite and the more I get to work with IYO (SKY), the more I’m starting to feel that way about IYO because I mean, my God, when I was in STARDOM in 2016, I wanted to wrestle IYO so bad because I remember watching her thinking, man, she’s so good, she’s so cool and I never got to do it when we were in STARDOM. I never got to do it so, fast forward, we actually got to have our match during the tribute show to Bray Wyatt and we both came back from that like, ‘Wow. That was really amazing’ and obviously, the gravity of it with doing it for Bray but, I also realized it in that moment, like wow, we work really well together and I can’t wait to do it again.
** Going into the 9/6 AEW Dynamite, Ruby Soho was interviewed by WFYI. She expressed how much fun she’s having being a heel as a part of The Outcasts with Toni Storm and AEW Women’s World Champion Saraya.
It’s a blast (being a heel). It’s my favorite thing in the world. I enjoy it thoroughly. And like I said, I think it does take the pressure off of having to be liked. You can just kind of go out there and have fun. And alongside Toni Storm and Saraya, it’s an absolute blast. They are two women that I idolized. And they are two women that I have a great deal in common with. We’re all three at very similar points in our career, where we just want to have fun at wrestling and I think that-that translates onstage and on TV. I think because all we do is just try and get ourselves into trouble.
** Joining Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val on GAW TV was IMPACT Digital Media Champion Kenny King. He looked back on the Pit Fight match he had with ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey on a January 2023 episode of IMPACT on AXS.
The Pit Fight match was just the culmination of some serious beef between ‘Speedball’ (Mike Bailey) and I and you know what? When the competition is that high, Speedball is a world-class athlete, world-class pro wrestler and it was over the X Division Championship but sometimes over championships, you know, become second to actual personal competition. So it became one of those things. Speedball is a very accomplished martial artist. A lot of people try to sleep on my martial arts skills but they don’t know I got taekwondo and capoeira and jiu-jitsu under my belt as well and it was one of those things where I had to Kenny King it up a little bit. I may or may not have gone to his dojo and beat up a few of the students. Details are sketchy. We don’t know.
It was one of those things where I was very happy and really excited to kind of have that — it’s (the) first time something like that has ever happened in IMPACT Wrestling, a match with no ropes and I’m an 80s kid so Kickboxer and Bloodsport and all of those things run through my veins and my pop culture brain. So to be able to do that in a great venue like Center Stage Atlanta, the fans were amazing. The presentation of it, it looked great on TV and it was an absolute war. Me and Speedball went in there and we tore it up.
** Fiterman Sports is hosting a private signing with John Cena.
** FOX News published a story about Ric Flair discussing Windham Rotunda’s passing.
** Notes from a marketing conference that Hiroshi Tanahashi and NJPW President Takami Ohbari were a part of are available to read on Proresu-TODAY’s website.
** A piece on Shingo Takagi is included in a health and training magazine.
** Tokyo Sports published an article with comments from Kazuchika Okada.
** Appearing on Everyone Talks To Liz Claman was Ric Flair.
** Guest appearing on ‘Short and to the Point’ was Raquel Rodriguez.
** September 7th: Tristan Archer.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (9/7/23) Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– Kzy & Strong Machine J def. Kota Minoura & B×B Hulk
– U-T, Jason Lee & JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI def. Último Dragón, Punch Tominaga & Kagetora
– Three Way Match: Don Fujii def. Masaaki Mochizuki and Konomama Ichikawa
– H.Y.O., KAI & ISHIN def. Shuji Kondo, Ryu Fuda & Daiki Yanagiuchi
– Naruki Doi, Eita & Takashi Yoshida def. Susumu Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda & Mochizuki Junior
– BIGBOSS Shimizu def. Ben-K
– YAMATO, Dragon Kid & Takuma Nishikawa def. Madoka Kikuta, Yuki Yoshioka & Dragon Dia
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.
