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.
** A new episode of Gabby AF was rolled out featuring Q.T. Marshall. During the extensive chat, Marshall recounted wrestling CM Punk on a November 2021 edition of AEW Dynamite. He went to ask Punk why they were wrestling and was told that he wanted to wrestle a bad guy in Chicago that would not go into business for himself. Marshall went on to share that he gave Punk a suggestion for how he would start his All Out 2022 match against Jon Moxley. Punk did that and tore his triceps on a suicide dive. Marshall shared his history with Punk that dates to Marshall almost being trained by him at the Ring of Honor school.
We (CM Punk & I) always had great interactions. I mean, he asked to wrestle me in his hometown. I was getting ready to do a whole angle with Frankie Kazarian on (AEW) Dark, because I like Dark, because we’re doing our own storylines, no one’s watching; meaning, from the office. From the talent perspective, you could do whatever you wanted. The fans are watching. That’s what I liked about it, and as I was getting ready to go to the ring, they were like, ‘Hey! Hey! Come back! Come back!’ I’m like, ‘What?’ They’re like, ‘Hey, I need you to go cut a promo about CM Punk’ and blah, blah, blah. I was like, ‘What? Why?’ ‘He’s gonna do this thing with MJF, and you gotta do this promo. You’re gonna wrestle him next week.’ I’m like, ‘Why?’ And they’re like, ‘I don’t know. Go talk to him,’ so I did. I knocked on the door, I was like, ‘Hey, why are we wrestling?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, I just wanna wrestle a bad guy in my hometown, that’s not going to go into business for himself,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, well that’s me. That’s me.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I just wanna have fun, and you know?’ (Marshall asked if it would be a squash & Punk said they’d go 11 minutes) I was like, ‘Okay, that’s too long. No one’s gonna watch. But, okay.’ Everyone liked it — no, the fans hated it. Backstage, everyone liked it. I think he liked it. I loved it because we just did a lot of it out there. We didn’t have much to talk about because he was doing a 20-minute promo with MJF right before. So like I said, I always had great interactions with him. I felt bad because his match with Jon Moxley where he tore his triceps and then he did the infamous interview afterwards, the presser, we were talking about how to start the match and I told him, ‘Oh, if it were me, this is what I would do’ and he did it and that’s where he tore his triceps so like, I felt bad, after we spoke about it. Other than that… maybe (that’s why he hates me). I don’t know (Marshall joked). It’s a small world. You never know who you’re gonna run into. He was the first person that was supposed to train me. He doesn’t even know that. I went to the Ring of Honor school and something got misconstrued and I didn’t get to do my tryout that night and I remember being upset about it. I had money in my pocket and I drove right to the Monster Factory and gave ‘em my money. I was originally gonna go get trained — he was the head trainer… Yeah, I don’t know (how different things could have been). I could have been his sidekick or something. You never know. Or he would have thrown me out of the school… Probably hates me now so whatever (he laughed). Yeah, I don’t think he hates anybody.
He shared a recent interaction with Cody Rhodes that stemmed from Marshall quote tweeting William Regal’s post, which was a response to a comment about him ‘snaking out’ AEW. Rhodes told Marshall to stop tweeting. Q.T. messaged AEW President Tony Khan and said he’d delete the tweets, but Khan told him he was fine.
He (Cody Rhodes) told me to stop tweeting the other day. I just tweeted one thing. It was a thing that William Regal said and that was like, ‘Well, he’s telling the truth.’ He did just go to the ring every day and he started teaching people how to do — I didn’t read the bottom part. I didn’t read the bottom part and I don’t know the bottom part. The stuff about his calling Tony (Khan) and Tony’s mom, I didn’t read that. I was just reading the part of him teaching people how to wrestle, and that he never came in the office which was true. He never did. So, that’s what I wrote. As an office employee — and I figured that people would understand, as an office employee, he never came in the office. That’s all I was talking about. You would have thought I was stabbing Tony in the back and I was texting Tony like, ‘Hey, I’ll delete these.’ Like, ‘Nah, you didn’t do anything wrong.’ But then Renee (Paquette) tweeted it as well, but she’s adored by everybody. So Cody texts me like, ‘Hey, stop tweeting.’ I was like, ‘What did I do?’ And he’s like, ‘Just stop.’
In late 2023, Marshall announced his departure from AEW but he returned to the company in early 2024. Looking back at his departure, he shared that he was removed from an AEW group chat afterwards. He reached out to find out who removed him and Marshall has not spoken to that person since coming back. He added that said individual texted him a good luck message on the side when he announced he was leaving. Marshall closed by saying eventually, that person’s name will come out.
I was removed from a group chat. Real quick, before I go, I was removed from an AEW group chat. A lot (of people were in it). Now, mind you, I did publicly announce that I was leaving so I get it. But, I was still getting paid by the company… I’m still gonna work from home. I don’t have to do anything, but I still will help, I will do stuff, whatever, and then somebody removed me and I texted someone right away and they screenshotted who it was and that person that removed me, I have not said a word to since I’ve been back. Mhm (they’re still there) and I walk by them every show and I just pretend that they don’t exist to me. Because they’re the same person that texted me on the side and wished me luck. I don’t deal with fake people. Eventually, their name will come out. I won’t say it. They will do it to themselves. So, yeah, they probably know now because, one, they either did this and they know that they did it, or they realize, oh man, he hasn’t said hello to me. Literally, I just walk by and we’ve even done business together…
Earlier in the chat, Marshall told the story of his mother once DM’ing Tony Khan about him not having an action figure. He taught his mother how to delete the message.
The story behind that action figure is I just needed my mom to have an action figure so I had to make a deal with Major Figures and Matt Cardona and his team. Shoutout to them and you know, we had to do this all just so my mom could get an action figure because one time, she DM’d Tony Khan in his Instagram DMs. Luckily, he didn’t respond. He didn’t read it yet because it was in the requests and fortunately, he gets a lot of requests so, I had to show her how to delete the message and everything so — and unsend it… I told him about it anyway, and then I was supposed to get a figure I think, like, probably around this quarter that I was told but then last year when I left, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t ask ever since I’ve been back. Not really worried about it. I have one so that’s all that matters.
** The newest name to join All Elite Wrestling is Shelton Benjamin. He debuted at the Five Year Anniversary of Dynamite. Jim Ross said on his Grilling J.R. podcast that there’s no one in AEW that can ‘out-athletic’ Shelton Benjamin.
But Shelton’s in a league of his own. We don’t have anybody on the AEW roster that can out-athletic Shelton Benjamin. Anybody, in my opinion, and these are all just my opinions…
Elsewhere during the podcast, J.R. spoke about Mercedes Moné and said he has not felt her connection yet.
Mercedes Moné, I still haven’t felt her yet. I still haven’t felt her connection yet and I know that she’s got a lot of popularity and I know that people around the world know who she is. But I haven’t felt it. So sometimes I think she’s a cool babyface, and sometimes I think she’s a cool heel. But she’s pretty cool nonetheless.
** The first episode of O’Shea Jackson Jr. and T.J. Jefferson’s No-Contest Wrestling podcast was part one of their sit-down chat with CM Punk. Looking back at his exit from WWE in 2014, Punk explained why he did not do anything in wrestling afterwards such as going back to the independent scene.
So, when I left WWE in 2014, people could argue very much so in bad faith that, ‘Oh! He didn’t love the business because he didn’t go work the indies.’ What the f*ck was I gonna — what was I gonna do? (Co-host mentioned that he already worked the indies) It’s a little bit of that but then there’s also the part of like, who’s gonna pay me? Oh yeah, go back and work for 60 bucks. I’m married now. I got a — sorry. I say I got a mortgage but I didn’t because I bought my house cash (he laughed).
** An interview with Juice Robinson is up on the SHAK Wrestling YouTube channel. Robinson said he’s impressed by the growth of The Gunns (Colten Gunn & Austin Gunn). He added that himself and Jay White wanted to be paired with them.
I’m so impressed (by The Gunns). Those guys are, I mean, young in their careers, hungry, athletic. They’re fun, they’re funny. They light up a room, they’re a lot like their dad, and they’re a lot like their dad in the fact that they’re natural. So it’s like, you see a little bit of their dad come out. It’s great but, yeah, I think there’s no — there’s no limit on what they could do as just a tag team, let alone if they’re with Jay (White) or me in a trios but those guys as a tag team, the best is definitely yet to come. Definitely yet to come. Me and Jay wanted to be with those guys specifically. So, I’m really happy that everybody’s starting to kind of see what we saw right off the bat.
** In the latest Moné Mag write-up, Mercedes Moné recounted the praise that herself and Bianca Belair received from Vince McMahon after main eventing WrestleMania 37. She said it was the best praise she ever received from him, and he told them they deserved that spot.
It would only make sense to have this week’s Moné Memory feature Vince and memorable interactions with Vince post-match. I’m sure everyone has their share but I’ll share mine. At the NXT Brooklyn takeover match against Bayley, Vince came up to me and gave me a huge hug, saying how great our match was. But probably, the most memorable best praise I ever received from Vince was after WrestleMania and my main event with Bianca. He gave me the biggest hug, and I honestly think he was teary-eyed. He was so happy with our performance and said that we deserved the main event. It felt incredible inside to hear those words.
** A piece on Complex about Cody Rhodes that was written by Cameron Hawkins.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH is lowering ticket prices for their shows.
** Full Match – Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki for IWGP Heavyweight Championship at NJPW Royal Quest 2019:
** Psycho Clown was interviewed for the Straight Talk Wrestling podcast.
** There’s a feature on Trick Williams that was published by Payton Titus of The State.
** DDT Pro-Wrestling Results (10/3/24) from Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo, Japan
– Yukio Naya def. Yuki Ishida
– Jun Akiyama, Jun Akiyama & Kazuma Sumi def. Ilusion, Masahiro Takanashi & Toru Owashi
– Burning (Tetsuya Endo & Yuki Iino) def. Keigo Nakamura & To-y
– Kaisei Takechi & Makoto Oishi def. Akito & Kazuki Hirata
– HARASHIMA & Yuki Ueno def. Shinya Aoki & Yuya Koroku
– KO-D Six Man Tag Team Championships: DAMNATION T.A. (Daisuke Sasaki, KANON & MJ Paul) (c) def. Schadenfreude International (Antonio Honda, Chris Brookes & Takeshi Masada)
– KO-D Tag Team Championships: The 37KAMIINA (MAO & Shunma Katsumata) (c) def. Danshoku Dino & Makoto Oishi
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.
