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.
** Since 2020, Bayley and Bianca Belair have had eight one-on-one matches. They are scheduled to meet on the 1/12 Friday Night SmackDown. While on Gabby AF, Bayley spoke about her history with Belair and the fans’ reaction to them going one-on-one again. She stated that they’re married to each other on-screen and fans have to just relax and enjoy it.
Honestly, I know the fans are laughing at this that we’re doing this match again (between myself & Bianca Belair) and it is hilarious but it’s like, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero had a million matches together because they’re all just classics so of course, they just gotta sit down and relax and enjoy. I don’t know who else I would start my year with, than Bianca Belair. I ended my year with her, I gotta start my year with her. It’s like, we’re married to each other for a while. I think that IYO (SKY) started the year out hot for Damage CTRL. We’re on a winning streak. We’re 1-0 in 2024 so yeah, it’s a little bit of pressure to keep that going as fans know I don’t have the best win-loss record at the moment. But it’s a new year. New year, new me, Bayley A.F. and I’m gonna beat Bianca Belair.
** WWE host Megan Morant appeared on the Stick to Wrestling Podcast. She recounted her first chat with Michael Cole when she was reached out to about joining WWE. Morant was prepared to lie to Cole when he asked if she knew much about wrestling. Before she could tell him yes, Cole told her not to lie and it would not affect her whether she does or doesn’t know about it. The first ‘moment’ Morant had while watching the product was Bianca Belair catching her attention.
My name got passed around and somehow or another, I get an email from Michael Cole and he wanted to have a call and I said to my husband, he said, ‘Oh, do you wanna go do this?’ It was a Friday, I remember that and I said, ‘Um, yes! Of course!’ But before we go do’ whatever it is we were doing — I’ve completely forgot it now but, it was years ago — I said, ‘I have a call today with WWE.’ He was like, ‘What?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. I have a call with WWE.’ He’s like, ‘Who do you have a call with from WWE?’ I’m like, ‘Michael Cole’ and he’s like, ‘Megan, you realize he’s like the Joe Buck of wrestling?’ I was like, ‘Wait, what!? Oh my God.’ So, I had a call with Cole. He said, ‘How much do you know about wrestling?’ I was ready to lie and just say that I knew everything and before I could even get a word out, Cole said, ‘Please don’t lie. Tell me the truth. It’s not gonna hurt you either way.’ So, I said, ‘I’ve never watched before’ and he said, ‘Okay. I’ll give you a month and you can watch’ and it was right around this time of the year because the first week I watched was the Royal Rumble. So what a time to become a wrestling fan, watching the road to WrestleMania and I’m preparing for an interview by doing so. So it was really fun. I think my moment when I first sat down to watch the product was seeing Bianca Belair. She came off the screen to me and I see her whipping the braid and how strong she is. She’s hoisting other women over her head and I said, ‘Wow, if I was a little girl at home, I would wanna be Bianca Belair’ so that was a moment for me…
** The latest guest to join ESPR | Wrestling Podcast was Skye Blue. She remembers being in high school and watching Toni Storm matches in class. She said it’s wild that they’re now co-workers.
I remember being a kid in math class in high school watching Toni Storm matches. Not paying attention to school at all and being like, ‘Oh my God, I wish I could do that, I wish I could do that, I wish I could wrestle her’ and then I got here and I’ve wrestled her so many times and I’ve had my mom front row to watch me wrestle her so it is wild and for them to come up to me at work and be like, ‘Oh, here’s some feedback’ or, ‘Oh, I missed you. How are you?’ Just little stuff like that just means the f*cking world to me.
** To start off the newest AEW Unrestricted podcast, Aubrey Edwards detailed working on the new mobile game, AEW: Rise to the Top. For over a year, she’s been a part of the team that has brought the game idea to fruition. The developers are East Side Games and they pitched it to AEW. Aubrey mentioned that the game’s lead writer is Jamie Henwood, graduate of The Hart family Dungeon.
So, at the time this (podcast) releases, I am literally days away from releasing another video game technically. If you’ve been to an AEW live event, you’ve probably seen a video of Ricky Starks talking about pre-registering, pre-ordering for various iPhone or Android app called for AEW: Rise to the Top and it’s actually our newest mobile game and I’ve been working on it for over a year now at this point and it’s really great. It’s been developed by these guys, East Side Games. They’re based in Vancouver so it’s really great having meetings with people in the same time zone. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. But they’ve been experts in what’s called the idol game genre. If you’ve ever played the Trailer Park game Boys or any of the RuPaul Drag Race games, they’ve been doing those. So they’ve got this down to a science and then on top of that, the team they have involved is just so into wrestling. It seems silly because you would think, oh! If you’re making a wrestling game, you definitely are fans of wrestling. Not always a guarantee. Sometimes you end up getting an I.P. that you’re working with and you know nothing about. To have people that were already interested in wrestling that essentially pitched this game to AEW Games and we worked out the I.P. agreement, the lead writer on the game, Jamie (Henwood), she’s this awesome gal, she graduated from Stu Hart’s Dungeon. So, she understands wrestling. A lot of what I do for AEW Games is just a lot of I.P. approval type stuff. Just making sure our brand is represented in the best way possible given the confines of whatever the media is. So, I review all of the script, I oversee all of the art approvals, any sort of use of our logo and branding. All of that stuff kind of has to go through me and it’s been really great reading a script and not having to completely rewrite things because they understand character voices and how (Chris) Jericho says something is going to be different than the way Britt Baker says something and everybody has their catchphrases. It’s one of those games that I’ve been extremely proud to work on. Now we’ve been in test market for a couple of months which basically means we’re in smaller countries with smaller user base is just kind of putting some money into advertising here and there, seeing how the game performs, being able to tweak it, change some design stuff to make it more stickier and just make sure that when we do hit that worldwide release on January 17th that the game performs and is as good as possible so everybody downloading it that day has an awesome experience and I’m just really, really excited because shipping a video game is one of the hardest things you can do. It feels like a full-body experience. There’s an amazing quote from this guy who does this comic, Penny Arcade, that says, ‘No one likes to see sausage-making because it’s overall just like a really disgusting concept but the idea of making a game is the process of making sausage out of yourself,’ and I’ve never heard something more accurate. So that’s one of the many, many things that I’ve been working on and January 17th, available on iOS and Android worldwide, you can download AEW: Rise to the Top.
** Donna Kelce, mother of NFL players Travis and Jason Kelce, visited the WWE Performance Center in Florida and took a photo with Shawn Michaels.
** Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling is setting up a bowling tournament with TJPW wrestlers and WRESTLE UNIVERSE subscribers. It is taking place February 4th at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel Bowling Center in Tokyo, Japan.
** CM Punk on The Jackie Redmond Show:
** Guest appearing on ComicBook Nation’s Riptide Radio was Adam Copeland. He did an interview with Entertainment Weekly as well.
** Elijah, the former Elias is going on a tour with World Series Wrestling in the summer.
** TNA X Division Champion Chris Sabin was a guest on Straight Talk Wrestling.
** Joining Busted Open Radio was TNA Wrestling’s Moose.
** There’s an interview that Windsor Star conducted with WWE and NHL host Jackie Redmond.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (1/11/24) from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– Kota Minoura, Ben-K & B×B Hulk def. Madoka Kikuta, Dragon Kid, Ryoya Tanaka
– Gianni Valletta def. Daiki Yanagiuchi
– Naruki Doi & Shuji Kondo def. YAMATO & Punch Tominaga
– Kagetora, Kenichiro Arai, Genki Horiguchi, Don Fujii & Último Dragón def. U-T, Jason Lee, Strong Machine J, BIGBOSS Shimizu & Kzy
– Luis Mate def. JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI
– Open the Triangle Gate Championships: KAI, ISHIN & Yoshiki Kato (c) def. Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda
– Shun Skywalker def. H.Y.O.
** January 11th birthdays: Ava Everett & Natalia Markova.
** WrestleSlam posted their interview with Trey Miguel.
** Ahead of TNA Hard To Kill, Jody Threat spoke to Women’s Wrestling Talk.
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.
