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.
** During Kenny Omega’s latest Twitch stream, a multitude of different subjects came up as he took questions from the live chat. Omega touched on the similarities between himself and Seth Rollins in the ring. He thinks highly of the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Early in their careers, they hung out and traveled together a lot.
And again, being a fan of Seth (Rollins) and actually… not intentionally but Seth and I have kind of very similar styles. I think our outlooks to wrestling are pretty similar too. Maybe a little different now but, I remember when we were both doing our thing in PWG, and we traveled a lot together actually, back in the Ring of Honor days. We were all always hanging out together. I’d sort of found a bit of kindred spirit a little bit. We had very similar music tastes. I was of course a little more into nerdier stuff than Seth. I’m a huge gamer as you guys may or may not know. But no, we were both very much invested into telling stories using our natural athletic ability.
Speaking about Roman Reigns, Omega called him an incredible champion. He thinks it took a lot for Reigns to stick to his guns and take backlash from the fans. He credited Reigns for upping his game.
I think Roman (Reigns) has been an incredible champion and company spokesperson. I think he did his job immaculately and I think it took a lot of guts and intestinal fortitude (for) him to stick with a lot of the backlash and hatred he received over the years from fans and otherwise. He really stuck to his game, upped his game, got better and better with each and every performance, and I think if it weren’t for his incredible growth as a champion, you wouldn’t have had such an emotional finale to the most recent WrestleMania. So I have the utmost respect for Roman. I think he was the one of the greatest WWE Champions that you just wanted to see someone win the belt off of, which is very important. It’s important to wanna see your champion hold the belt, but it’s also important to have a champion where you can’t wait until someone just actually takes it off of ‘em, you know what I mean? So I think in that regard, he was one of the greatest.
He would also speak highly of newly crowned WWE Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn. He praised what Zayn has been able to do as a babyface in his current iteration and as El Generico. Omega’s favorite match of the two-night WrestleMania XL was Zayn versus GUNTHER.
Sami Zayn… I would say he’s the most versatile, flexible wrestler and he’s proved over the course of not only his indie career, but, he’s proven it as Sami Zayn of course as well, and then when you put those two together, when you have someone who’s shown, under a mask, be one of the greatest sympathetic babyfaces but then also take the mask off, have him use his face, use his voice, use his body language and then also become the greatest sympathetic babyface. That to me is describing someone who is one of the greatest going and if you ask me, when you take out the pomp and circumstance and all sort of the cool throwback stuff that was in the main event of night two, my favorite in-ring match of WrestleMania was Sami versus GUNTHER. That’s just my opinion though and that’s me being a fan of in-ring stuff. The result was fantastic, it was emotional for me, obviously being a very good friend of Sami in real life and of course, the overall result of the grand finale and it was a very happy ending as well and it seemed everyone (was) extremely pleased with that too which I’m happy for. If the shoe’s on the other foot and those guys were bad guys, heels if you will, I would’ve loved for them to get the complete opposite reaction. I would have loved for people to be up in arms and really mad because they’re doing their job as a heel… So, I would say for me, the friends that I was watching for, more or less, but the ones that had very big nights, they killed it so I’m very happy about that.
There was another point during the stream when Omega began talking about celebrities in wrestling. A chat user mentioned that Logan Paul is a ‘fantastic wrestler’ and Omega responded with the following:
‘Logan Paul’s a fantastic wrestler’. Great. I’m glad you think so and I’m glad he’s able to convince you such a thing. However, could Logan Paul walk into New Japan and do a G1 where he’d have to walk in every night and have an actual banger? No. He absolutely could not. Is he gonna get there between now and — I mean, it depends on his commitment level and not only that, does it matter? No. He’s clearly setting his roots down in WWE and that’s where he wants to succeed and that’s where he wants to be a star and that totally makes sense. So for the WWE style and what they’re willing to do for him, give him time, allow him to grow, develop… get more familiar with his surroundings, take the time to have him have everything up in here (his head) to make sure that when it comes time to perform what it is that they’ve rehearsed, what they’ve scripted, that he’ll be able to pull it off as though he just showed up to the arena, you know, how the old timers did back in the day. The Terry Taylors and the Terry Funks.
Looking over to ROH Supercard of Honor, Omega believes Athena versus Hikaru Shida stole the show. He added that he enjoyed Eddie Kingston versus Mark Briscoe and the happy moment that took place post-match.
I thought Athena stole the show with (Hikaru) Shida at the last ROH pay-per-view. I enjoyed Eddie (Kingston), Eddie’s match in the main event. That was a cool moment. Really emotional to see The Briscoes, and I do mean both of them, be able to have their moment being the heavyweight champion. It was great, emotional, wonderful. But, yeah, I thought Shida-Athena was a wonderful match at ROH so I’m glad that Athena actually gets an opportunity and a platform to do all of the things that she can do in ROH.
Circling back to the start of the stream, Omega shared memories of the late Akebono. He recounted working with him in a tag match for DDT Pro-Wrestling. Akebono was okay with Omega attempting to lift him up for the One-Winged Angel and encouraged Omega to genuinely try. He told Omega that he would not try to hold his weight down on him.
First things first, this is a really important thing that I really wanna get off my chest before we start anything today. I wanna say, just rest in peace to a legend, Akebono. When I was doing my junior heavyweight run over in All Japan Pro Wrestling, he was just an incredibly kind, funny guy that always treated me with the utmost respect. He was always fun to hang out with, eat with, go out with sponsors too. Very nice guy, and he’s very funny and… funny story, if I’m talking about the funny thing of Akebono. We once did a match actually in DDT. It wasn’t a one-on-one but, it was a multi-man shindig and there was a time in the match when I was gonna have the opportunity to possibly pick him up for the One-Winged Angel and I said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna try to pick you up. Probably won’t’ and you know, whatever, ‘Your partners can come in. Mess me up’ or whatever, and I remember he said, ‘No, no, no. Go for it. Go for it man because I wanna see if you can do it. You’re strong.’ I’m thinking, Akebono? This guy is like 7’5, 650 pounds or whatever it was. He’s like, ‘No. I’m not gonna resist you. If you can pick me up, I think it’d be the coolest thing in the world’ and I’m thinking, man, I’ve never put that on a bar, let alone picking up live human weight. But, there is such a thing as adrenaline and you can do crazy things under adrenaline. But, the history books will state and they will show that Akebono was my one single failed One-Winged Angel attempt. I was even able to get Satnam (Singh) up. I could not get Akebono up though and I was like, at my physical prime back then. Now I’m just like, I’m nothing. I am nothing. Not even an athlete. I’m barely even super jacked anymore. Well I still am a little bit. So again, rest in peace Akebono. You will be missed. Great guy, great human being. Accomplished so much in this life. Not just in professional wrestling… The actual legitimate sumo Yokozuna. Of course, crossed over to K-1, did professional wrestling, had his own WrestleMania moment. Just, he did a lot, he did a lot. Fantastic career, fantastic human being. Definitely deserved it.
** On an episode of Sunday Night’s Main Event, Eric Young confirmed he’ll be hosting a vinyl records show on AXS TV and it’ll probably air in October.
Like I was saying earlier, I have a new vinyl records show that’s gonna come on AXS in probably October… You’re getting the exclusive. They had planned on maybe doing it in April. But, they wanted to push it back. I haven’t seen it yet but, all my responsibilities for it are done. It’s basically, I’m at a record shop. We did half the episodes here in Nashville and half the episodes in LA. A famous musician or comedian or actor will come into the shop that’s also passionate about vinyl records. They go through and pick out their top-five and then we break it down basically and then after, I sit down and do a longform podcast with them which is my favorite part. Yeah, basically hosting the show.
Reflecting on his time in WWE, Young expressed how much it meant to him to work with Shawn Michaels. He remembers wrestling Shawn Spears at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio and Michaels being the agent for their match. Young shared that Michaels almost shed tears because he liked the match so much.
One of my favorite wrestling memories is, I mean, there’s no secret, I’m a massive Shawn Michaels guy. I was writing articles at the time for ESPN and I wrote an article about my love for him and how our lives intersected and he has no idea that it happened… very, very memorable for me, and one of my very first (WWE) pay-per-views, I was wrestling Shawn Spears, a kid I trained, in San Antonio and our producer for that match was Shawn Michaels. He almost cried, he liked it so much and that’s insane, right? It’s just insane.
** Joining Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard was John Cena. While speaking about his acting career, Cena remembers in 2009 when he and his agent were invited to hear a pitch for a movie titled ‘Maniac Cop 5’. After hearing out the pitch, Cena and his agent looked at each other and said they’re probably never doing movies again. Cena shared that early in his venture into acting, he took pay cuts.
One of the last bad movies I did, I was like, ‘Man, I never wanna do this again’ and then I remember a WrestleMania in Houston, Texas, where a producer wanted to meet myself and my agent, now-manager and they got us into a room and they pitch us a movie called ‘Maniac Cop 5’ and you’re talking B (level movies), this was down into the below F range and we heard their pitch out, left the room and I looked at him. We tell this story all the time. I’m like, ‘Damn, we’re never doing movies again.’ He’s like, ‘Nope. We’re never doing movies again’ and he confidently — he didn’t pat me on the back, nah, just wait it out. No. ‘We’re never doing movies again. That’s okay. We’re gonna find other avenues.’ So, this is 2009, ‘10, I’ve been on the road 300 days a year… For me, yes (I did take a pay cut to film movies early in my acting career).
** As Ace Steel was doing a virtual signing for K & S WrestleFest, he reflected on doing extra work for WWE and being part of an on-screen segment with Nick Dinsmore (Eugene) and Eric Bischoff in which he would get his head shaved. Steel was offered $500 from John Laurinaitis to go through with getting his hair cut. Steel did an impression of Laurinaitis’ voice without actually saying who the ‘unnamed higher-up’ was that offered him the money. Afterwards, when Steel saw his trainer Harley Race, Harley said he would’ve told them to “f*ck off” if they asked him to cut his hair.
But on this day, I was the only guy walking around with hair on my head (as an extra talent at WWE). All the extras that came up were all bald or had short hair, from my recollection… An unnamed higher-up official was like, ‘Hey kid, looks like you can use a haircut…’ I said, ‘Uh, I’m not really into cutting my hair but –’ he’s like, ‘Well, I’ll give you 500 bucks’ and I said, ‘Sold.’ I’d sell my freaking hair for $500. To which, I wanted to consult Harley (Race) since he had booked me and I had been going to Japan and that was my look and Harley was actually in Japan at the time so when he got back, he’s like, ‘Why did you let ‘em cut your hair?’ And I was like, ‘I didn’t wanna do you wrong boss.’ ‘I would’ve told them to f*ck off.’ I’m like, ‘Well, sorry boss. I wanted to do you right and not make you look bad…’
** Roots Of Fight posted the following featuring CM Punk and Rey Mysterio:
** There is going to be a wrestling legends reunion and celebration for Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler in Evansville, Indiana in May.
** PWMania rolled out their chat with Deonna Purrazzo.
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.
