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 latest guest to appear on Wrestling is Life is Wrestling was Deonna Purrazzo. She looked back on her release from WWE and recalled the ‘great’ conversation she had with former WWE Senior Director of Talent Development, Canyon Ceman. He thought Purrazzo wanting to be out of WWE is what she wanted and she’d end up really happy. With hindsight, Purrazzo said she’s aware she was a part of the problem in terms of how she handled certain situations during her run there. She added that her 25-year-old self was looking to point fingers.
So when I got the phone call that I was released (from WWE), it was like, ‘What 203 number is calling me? I’m getting fired right now.’ But also, it was a great conversation with Canyon Ceman at the time because he was like, ‘I think this is what you want and you’re gonna end up really happy’ and I was like, ‘I think so too, so thank you.’ As negative as it was, it kind of ended — at least with Canyon who I had worked with for like seven years up until that point on and off. It ended up really positive and I think, yeah, I wouldn’t be me today and I wouldn’t be able to look back and be like, ‘I was part of the problem too.’ 25-year-old Deonna thought, ‘It’s them! It was them! It was them!’ And now, five years removed, I can be like, I had a lot to do with that (she laughed), and now I work to form better relationships and to act better and to be more professional and to bite my tongue a little bit more and I learned a lot from those worse times of my life.
** Joining a recording of the Wrestling With Johners Podcast was Session Moth Martina. In March 2022, Martina wrestled three matches for AEW. She thinks it was Jamie Hayter who got her on AEW’s radar. Martina had matches with Ruby Soho, A.Q.A. and Diamanté.
Well to be honest with you, I think it was Jamie Hayter that got me on it but, at the time, it was the beginning of 2022 and I had my Ring of Honor visa still, so I had a couple of months left of that which meant I could go to America and wrestle so I checked that everything would be kind of good to do, so I just had to use the last little bit of my Ring of Honor to try and just get seen by… you know, I had to try and just get seen and get in front of them. I obviously would’ve hoped that maybe it would’ve been picked up straight away but I’m glad I’ve just gone and I’ve gotten my foot in the door and they’ve seen somewhat of what I’m about and you can only hope that eventually they’ll see more.
** While doing a Q&A, John Bradshaw Layfield was asked for his opinion on the differences between the Baron Corbin he managed versus present day Corbin. He then talked about the stretch when he managed Corbin on WWE TV and said he does not know if that was supposed to be long-term or not.
It’s the same Baron Corbin, and no difference (JBL said when asked for difference between current version of Corbin & the version he managed). I liked Baron and I still like Baron and Baron’s a very talented guy. He’s won a lot of championships, André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner, he just won some judo competition. Baron’s a big, tough, athletic guy. Played pro football and people ask me all the time and generally, I would never answer because I don’t like talking about current storylines. I don’t think you should talk about — in my opinion — because I think it hurts if you’re involved and even though I’m not involved in that current storyline anymore but I answered it on Dutch Mantell’s podcast, so, I’m certainly gonna answer it on this one. I don’t know if the deal with Baron was supposed to be long-term or not. I had no idea. They asked me to come into Oklahoma and cut a promo. I’d have flown myself in for free to do that in Oklahoma (he laughed) … They love me so much, and then I just did some more stuff with him so I don’t know if it was cut off or if it was they never had long-term plans for it or not. I don’t know what happened. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed working with Baron and you know, people have said Baron’s been through a lot of iterations. Look at our roster from 1995 to the Attitude Era. Just a few years (earlier), Stone Cold was The Ringmaster, Triple H was an aristocrat, Kane was a dentist, Rockabilly, Road Dogg… And I was an acolyte and Scott (Hall) and Kevin (Nash), two of the biggest stars in wrestling history were Diesel and Razor (Ramon) so guys just go through migrations of characters. That means nothing. Baron’s been very successful in everything he’s done.
** KAKUTOLOG published the written version of their chat with Minoru Suzuki. As the conversation rolled on, Suzuki touched on fans being able to immerse themselves in memories and moments while wrestlers create them and then are on to creating the next thing. Suzuki stated that he does not live his life with the goal of winning championships. He feels his job is to get the prize and make things work. He recounted a fan reminding him that he held the ROH World Television Championship.
I don’t remember what happened (referring to a Budokan show in 2022). That’s the biggest difference between pro-wrestling fans and pro-wrestlers. Wrestling fans enjoy what they have seen, leaving it in their memories as a work of art. We are the ones who create them. We are creating one thing after another, so we don’t have time to be immersed in it.
I don’t live my life with the goal of winning championship belts or titles. My job is to capture something and make it work. Now that I think about it, a customer told me this, ‘Oh, you had the ROH Championship last year.’
** Coming off of his win over Colby Covington at UFC 296, UFC Welterweight Champion Leon Edwards chatted with Sports Illustrated. He talked about WWE with the outlet and stated that he wants to see CM Punk versus Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40.
I want Roman Reigns versus CM Punk. That’s what I want to see. I’m excited that Punk is back… I want Roman to win.
** Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val welcomed Trish Stratus back onto GAW TV.
** Joining NEWS9 Live was Satnam Singh:
** NJPW Road to Tokyo Dome Results (12/21/23) from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– Masked Horse & Masked Boltin def. Tiger Mask & Toru Yano
– T.M.D.K. (Kosei Fujita & Zack Sabre Jr.) def. Oskar Leube & Yuto Nakashima
– United Empire (TJP, Callum Newman & Francesco Akira) def. BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Gedo, Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors)
– HOUSE OF TORTURE (SHO, Ren Narita & EVIL) def. Master Wato, Tomoaki Honma & Shota Umino
– Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi def. Satoshi Kojima & El Desperado
– DOUKI, Yuya Uemura & SANADA def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Yota Tsuji & Tetsuya Naito)
– KOPW Championship – Whiskey Bottle Ladder Match: Taichi (c) def. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
– NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships: Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) def. United Empire (HENARE, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb)
** James Stewart of Stick to Wrestling welcomed Montez Ford onto the show.
** All Japan Pro Wrestling Results (12/21/23) from Shinkiba 1stRING in Tokyo, Japan
– Astronauts (Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura) def. Issei Onitsuka & Ryo Inoue
– Ren Ayabe & Yuki Ishikawa def. Hokuto Omori & Takahiro Katori
– Jun Tonsho, Kuma Arashi & Soma Watanabe def. Seigo Tachibana, Takanori Ito & Takuro Niki
– Three-Way Tag Team Match: Dan Tamura & Hayato Tamura def. Ayato Yoshida & Kazumasa Yoshida and Kouki Iwasaki & Towa Iwasaki
– Saito Brothers (Jun Saito & Rei Saito) def. Atsuki Aoyagi & Yuma Aoyagi
– Ryuki Honda & Yuma Anzai def. Imabari Towel Mascaras & Rising HAYATO
** Guest appearing on Straight Talk Wrestling was Chris Adonis.
** December 21st birthdays: Otis.
** Niko Exxtra conducted an interview with Jake Something.
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.
