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** Joining the Midnight Wrestle & Kingdom podcast was Rocky Romero. He feels his in-ring career will begin to slow down in three-to-four years. In the meantime, Romero would like to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. He said he won the belt as ‘Black Tiger’ but not as Rocky Romero.
My personal goal at the moment is — obviously, now I’m 41 years old so, I feel like my in-ring career is gonna start to slow down in the next three-to-four years so, I want to — so last year, I took a step back from New Japan, right? To really focus on New Japan STRONG and not coming to Japan as much as I like. But also to give opportunities to new talents so they can have an opportunity in Japan because if I stay, maybe, you know, Kevin Knight doesn’t get an opportunity to be in the Best of the Super Juniors. But, if I, at almost 41, I decided, okay, I’m gonna take an excursion away from New Japan and try to be the ambassador for New Japan Pro-Wrestling worldwide; to work with AEW, to work with TNA, to work with CMLL. So that’s been my primary goal last year and I’d like to continue that this year and focusing on our partnerships and focusing on New Japan in America. But I still would like one opportunity to try to become IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion because that’s still something that I couldn’t accomplish as Rocky Romero. I was able to accomplish (it) as Black Tiger, but, that was almost 20 years ago and if I ever got the opportunity again, I would love to be champion.
** Evan T. Mack welcomed Mercedes Moné onto The Kick Rocks Wrestling Podcast. She was asked about Bayley’s progression and her winning the 2024 WWE women’s Royal Rumble. Mercedes expressed how proud she is of Bayley’s success and said she does a lot for WWE’s women’s division. She added her thought that Bayley should main event WrestleMania 40.
I mean, she’s (Bayley) gonna love this that I’m putting her over. Usually, I’m the one that’s being put over because I beat her all the time (she jokingly said). But I am nothing but so proud and so happy for her and to be the person from afar and backstage, I get to see her from afar do all this and see all the hard work and hear her talk about her dreams and her hopes and what she wants to do in that business and to see it come through and to see so much magic that-that woman can make. She does so much for that division and I am just beyond proud to know, to me, that she is going to main event WrestleMania because that’s how it should be. I am just beyond the moon for her because she had just… she had a crazy just past three years, coming from the pandemic, getting injured. Seeing her go through that, make her return and make her return with IYO SKY and Dakota Kai, who Dakota was fired. She got a call the day before being like, ‘Would you like to be a part of this group that Bayley would want you to be a part of?’ It’s like, she is just so selfless and cares so much that I just love cheering her on and I can’t wait to see her just go.
** While in Australia, theaminshow spoke to Kevin Owens and during their chat, Owens compared GUNTHER’s WWE Intercontinental Title reign to Roman Reigns’ Undisputed WWE Universal Title reign.
The obvious possibility (for something major happening at WrestleMania 40) would be Cody Rhodes finally beating Roman Reigns for the title. However, I feel like there’s another pretty serious moment that could go down. GUNTHER’s been on a run of a lifetime. Pretty much, to me, probably as impressive or maybe even more impressive than Roman Reigns’ title reign because GUNTHER has been there every week defending the title and this is no slight on Roman at all. I’m just saying in terms of sheer defense. GUNTHER’s really doing something special with his title so whoever challenges him at WrestleMania, if they were to walk out with the Intercontinental Title, that’s a huge moment on its own I think…
** To promote wXw’s 16 Carat Gold tournament, Michael Oku guest appeared on Wrestling-Infos.de Podcast. He reflected on his match with Will Ospreay at Revolution Pro Wrestling’s 2024 High Stakes show. Oku said it was the most pressure he’s ever felt.
So, physically, preparing for that match (against Will Ospreay at RevPro High Stakes 2024), it was going to the gym more often than I’ve ever done before, doing cardio more often than I’ve ever done before. That’s arguably the easy bit. It’s the mental aspect of preparing. There’s so much pressure that comes with not only doing a rematch of a match of ours that was already critically acclaimed. But, the weight of expectation that this is Will Ospreay’s last independent match. Everybody’s coming here to say goodbye to him, to see him in that last match and by everyone, I mean literally, Tony Khan came to see that match. So that’s a lot of pressure that comes onto you, and that was the hardest part. Just trying to make sure that I was calm but I was focused to do my best and to do what I know I can do, even though that’s what happens. You doubt yourself but, I had to just stay the course and just believe in myself and know that I can hang with Will Ospreay and I can be there, a part of something really, really special… 100 percent, 100 percent (it was the most pressure I’ve ever felt). I’ve never been more nervous. I kept thinking to myself, I can’t mess up, it can’t be bad. But here’s the thing, with a Will Ospreay match, if they say the match was good, that means it was bad (he laughed). It needs to be great. Otherwise, something went wrong and it won’t be Will’s fault. It’ll be the other person he’s wrestling’s fault. So I knew I needed to be at the top of my game in terms of my wrestling, in terms of my appearance and my gear. I wanted to make sure I did my best to match up with him and I feel I did just that.
** Music City Multi Con presented a panel with Ron Simmons, Scott Steiner and Jimmy Hart. Scott shared that him and Rick Steiner refused to fight each other in WWF/E’s Royal Rumble match. That comment stemmed from Scott speaking about the story from Bruce Prichard that he was being thought of to win the 1993 Royal Rumble after departing WCW.
I mean I heard those talks too but that was after the fact (story of Scott coming into WWF & winning 1993 Royal Rumble). Those discussions weren’t held with me, so I had no knowledge of that.
Maybe if they wouldn’t have presented it that way (I would have been open to the idea of splitting up The Steiners). But, if they would have just said, we want to split you and your brother up, I wouldn’t have done it. They actually wanted us to fight in the Royal Rumble and we refused to do it. I wasn’t ready to leave the tag team scene until eventually when I did, because at that point, we had wrestled everybody and spinning our wheels so it was time to make a change, plus, I was ready to make a change.
** Jewish Telegraph Agency and The Jerusalem Post published articles about Paul Heyman being announced for the 2024 WWE Hall of Fame class.
** The latest guest on Insight with Chris Van Vliet is Maxxine Dupri.
** An interview with Dani Luna is up on the ComicBook Nation YouTube channel.
** March 7th birthdays: Tyler Bate.
** DownUnder The Ring chatted with Seth Rollins.
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.
