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.
** Joining Bully Ray and Mark Henry on Busted Open was Booker T. He stated that it would be a travesty for The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) to not get a shot at WWE.
I don’t know what’s gonna happen on the horizon but right now, I think it’s (WWE-TNA relationship) going great. I really do. I look at a lot of these guys that’s been out there. You hear names, like right now, The Motor City Machine Guns and those guys been around forever. It’d be a shame, it’d be a travesty for those guys not to get a shot in WWE and get a chance to have that experience at least one time.
Elsewhere during that chat, Booker was asked to look back on the 2001 WWF/WCW/ECW Invasion event. He said he knew it was a setup to ultimately bury WCW and have Kurt Angle take his title. Booker pinned Angle in the 10-man tag main event.
It was a setup. That’s all it was (Booker said about his match at WWF/WCW/ECW Invasion). It was a setup, it was a setup. Come on guys… I’m just keeping it real. Let’s be real here. This is Busted Open, right?… I remember it vaguely. I can say that. I remember it vaguely because at that time, coming into WWF, WWE now, I knew what it was all about. I truly did. I knew it was about burying WCW and raising the flag and saying we won the war. I knew that night was pretty much nothing more than a setup for me to go ahead and work with Kurt Angle, Kurt Angle’s gonna take my title and I’ll never see it again and that’s pretty much what happened. That’s pretty much what happened. I’m serious, I’m serious, that’s pretty much what happened. For me, I was trying to concentrate on what it was gonna take to make it in that company. I tell my students all the time, ‘You gotta know how to make it in the locker room before you have a chance to make it in the ring.’ So my focus was definitely not on the invasion angle, I must say that. It truly wasn’t. My focus was, how am I gonna fit into this company with all these superstars and you know, weather the storm? Which, the storm was at the beginning because everybody that came from WCW, I felt, was in for it, they was gonna get it. It was all about being tested and for me, I was looking for what the test was and how I was gonna pass it more than anything.
** Guest appearing on Busted Open was newly crowned TNA X Division Champion ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey. He was asked who he would book himself against if he could have any match he wanted and he named Kevin Owens as the opponent, especially if it could happen in Montreal. Bailey and Owens have wrestled twice for the C4 promotion in Ottawa, Ontario.
I am booking myself against Kevin Owens (if I could have a match against anybody of my choosing). He and I, just before he left for WWE, had some amazing matches. I think his last match in C4, which is a company in Ottawa that gave me some really big opportunities that really launched my career and I think he and I, 10 years down the road, even better at this point would really make for something special. Especially if it could happen right here in Montreal.
** NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez was the focus of a Pro Wrestling Illustrated interview and during the conversation, she looked back at her time with Ring of Honor and feels it helped prepare her for WWE.
It was awesome being there (in Ring of Honor). It definitely got me ready for the WWE. I feel like if I didn’t have that experience, maybe I wouldn’t have kind of been pushed on that rocket like right when I got here. I learned so much being there, from working in front of nobody to working in a stadium. Definitely got me ready for the WWE.
Further speaking about ROH, she touched on the last ROH TV taping in 2021 prior to the hiatus and the company ultimately being purchased by AEW President Tony Khan. It was at that taping that Perez got a call from William Regal about an opportunity with WWE.
Oh my gosh, so I vividly remember getting the call and getting told that Ring of Honor was no longer going to be a thing, essentially after a few months of me being there. I was still champion. I was gonna have no job, no contract. So I actually clearly remember the last Ring of Honor tapings. I was pretty sad, because everything was coming to an end. I didn’t really know what the future held but I had high hopes. I remember watching the matches that were going on that day after I had mine and I got a call from a number I did not have saved in my phone so, I walked outside and I was like, ‘Hello?’ And the person goes, ‘Hello. This is William Regal from the WWE. Do you have a minute…?’ My heart dropped, I completely freaked out. I had never gotten a call from the WWE ever, until that point, and that’s the day that he asked me, ‘Hey, we love your work. We wanna see if you would like to come for a tryout in December and see if you would like to be a part of the team’ and I could not believe it. That was honestly the best day of my life. It could have been the worst day but it was the best day. It was, like, just everything fell into place exactly how it was supposed to and yeah, after that, I was signed to the WWE.
** The signature shoe for The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson) was released by Reebok in May 2024. The current AEW World Tag Team Champions spoke to Sneaker History about how that collaboration came to be.
Nicholas: That was what? Two years in the making almost? Just about. We had heard that they (Reebok) wanted to do a deal with us after our first release, signature shoe we had with Diadora went so well. They contacted us, what? Pretty quickly after that, right Matt?
Matthew: Right away. Right away.
Nicholas: And they had interest and we didn’t realize how long the process takes because now, like I was saying, two years later, we finally had ‘em released but, after that shoe went so well, they wanted to do something with us and we couldn’t believe it. Matt went into detail a little bit about how we used to wear Pump’s back in the day so, it was full circle for us. That was bucket list. Like, okay, the first release was cool but Reebok is a big deal. It’s a little bit bigger than what we had just worked with and I would have never thought we would have our own.
Matthew: I remember the beginning stages. They were like, ‘What kind of aesthetic you looking for?’ And, ‘What are you thinking of?’ And I pretty much put up an entire storyboard of ideas and I must’ve sent them 10 or 12 different ideas of colorways and I asked them which silhouette they wanted. We kind of brainstormed and they were cool. They were open to collab with everything and I sent them old pictures of gear that we’d worn, just so they can get a feel for what The Young Bucks aesthetic is and I wanna say we nailed it down almost immediately. Within a few days, they sent me a mockup of what they could do and I had to alter a couple things but, we were like 90 percent there and we knocked it out pretty quick but, it must’ve been a year. I was like, ‘Are we still doing this project?’ And then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah. We’re good. This is just how long it normally takes’ and I remember seeing a pair for the first time and it was like Nicholas said, it was one of those bucket list moments where I was like, ‘Woah.’ We had the Diadora but this is a sneaker that I literally wore back when I was a backyard wrestler in the ring and I have a picture of myself in 2002 or three, wearing a pair of these sneakers so, just to come back and do it all those years later, 20 something odd years later and to have our own logo on there, it’s one of those things where it’s like, man, I don’t know if we’re ever gonna be able to beat this.
** Flash Garments and Swerve Strickland released the ‘Big Pressure’ remix featuring Bun B and Westside Gunn.
** The dates for the next season of Pro Wrestling NOAH’s MONDAY MAGIC series are October 21st, October 28th, November 11th, November 18th and November 25th. All shows will take place at Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo.
** Great-O-Khan and BUSHI will participate at Dragongate’s August 24th show in Kobe, Japan.
** May Valentine announced that she’ll be at NWA 76 on August 31st.
** July 23rd birthdays: Nathan Frazer.
** Part two of McGuire on Wrestling’s chat with D’Lo Brown.
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.
