** Big Swole, who has been competing on AEW Dark for the past several weeks confirmed to Jeremy Lambert of Fightful and Fightful Select during an interview at WrestleCade that she is officially an AEW wrestler and has signed with the company.
** AAA Triplemania Regia Results (12/1/19) Monterrey, Mexico
– Cassandro, Dave The Clown, Demus & Lady Maravilla def. Big Mami, Dinastia, Mascarita Dorada & Pimpinela Escarlata
– El Hijo de LA Park, Hijo de Volador & LA Park Jr. def. Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr. & Tito Santana via DQ.
– Four-Way Tag Team Match: Taurus & Villano III Jr. def. Aramis & El Hijo del Vikingo, Brian Cage & Puma King, and Dulce Canela & Octagon Jr.
– Copa Triplemania: Nino Hamburguesa def. Abismo Negro Jr., Australian Suicide, Averno, Drago, La Hiedra, Mamba, Michael Nakazawa, Mr. Iguana, Murder Clown, and Super Fly
– AAA Reina de Reinas Championship — Five Way Match: Taya Valkyrie (c) def. Ayako Hamada, Faby Apache, Keyra and Lady Shani
– AAA Mega Championship: Kenny Omega (c) def. Dragon Lee
– Three-Way Match: RUSH def. LA Park and Pagano
– Mask vs. Hair Eight-Way Cage Match: Aero Star and Blue Demon Jr. and Chessman and Dr. Wagner Jr. and El Texano Jr. and Psycho Clown and Rey Escorpion def. Monster Clown [Mask]
** Shad Gaspard joined The Jobber Tears podcast for what was an in-depth interview. Gaspard revealed that while he was contracted to WWE, he did an internship at Paramount Studios to further educate himself about the inner workings of Hollywood.
“I basically, when I was on the road with WWE… whenever I was off the road, for that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I was at Paramount Studios interning, and I was the biggest, blackest intern you’d ever see. It was one of those things — I was shadowing these guys who are doing Transformers, they were doing G.I. Joe, they were doing all these other movies and I’m shadowing them, and people are like, ‘Oh that’s your bodyguard’ and they were like, ‘No, that’s actually our intern. He’s a WWE pro wrestler but when he’s not on the road, he’s interning, reading scripts for us. So I was getting my education in Hollywood, while I was in my career in WWE.”
Gaspard stated that WWE did not know about the internship and he dove into the discussion of being an independent contractor and not having to inform WWE of his outside projects.
“They didn’t know about that sh*t. Here’s the thing: I realized really early on in my career because I had a lot of old school guys mentor me that I don’t work for WWE. I work for me. That’s the equivalent of me being an independent contractor who comes and fixes bathrooms, and me asking you, the homeowner of 5150, if I can go fix the sink over at 5120. It don’t matter. That’s none of your business. Whoever’s sink I’m fixing, it’s my business because I’m an independent contractor. I understood that more than a lot of the talent.”
The former Cryme Tyme member talked about how some of the higher-ups in WWE did not want wrestlers talking to each other about pay. Shad shared that he learned the ropes from the likes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and The Undertaker about how to navigate WWE financially and mentioned that he made $200,000 per year more than his partner JTG.
“It’s not a contract that prevents that, it’s a mentality. So, when I got on the road, I was told, ‘Always ask what the house was, always ask what the door was, write it down on a ledger and write down what match you worked, and then compare your checks,’ and so I did that, and as I compared my checks, eventually I got a check that was lower than where I was placed when the house was a big house, and when I brought it to the attention of the accounting, they basically called me out on my sh*t and said, ‘Oh you don’t know what you’re talking about’, but then I sent them all my information and I said, ‘Well here’s the ledger, here’s the house. It should be this much’, and I knew they were like, ‘Oh, so sorry. We’re wrong,’ and the following week, I got pulled aside by Johnny [Laurinaitis] and he was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘Who told you to take a ledger down of the house and the draw’ and I said, ‘Old school guys did.’ The fu*king Undertaker’s, f*cking Rocky Johnson’s. They told me what I needed to do to protect myself, and he was like, ‘Alright cool. Don’t tell nobody else,” Shad laughed. “So that system of, they don’t want us talking to each other about how much we make. I was making $500,000 a year, and my partner [JTG] was only making $300[000]. See, but they didn’t want us talking, and when it came time for my partner to renegotiate, and I wasn’t around, he had to have a meeting with Hunter [Triple H], and literally, I’m on the phone with my partner during the meeting and he has his ear piece in and I’m like, ‘Nah, say no.’ They would separate us and then they’d be like, ‘Shad’s the aggressive one. Shad’s the one we can’t just get over on. If we work Jay a little bit, he’ll just say, F*ck it, alright.’”
Also, Shad Gaspard told a story about Matt Morgan injuring his ankle at a nightclub. When he was asked by John Laurinaitis how Morgan injured his ankle, Gaspard did not tell Laurinaitis exactly what happened and simply explained that Morgan was injured in the ring.
“Matt Morgan, you guys remember him? So, we’re in OVW. I used to be the guy that got everybody in clubs because I used to bodyguard for Mike Tyson, all those guys like that. So I got into every single club. So we all go out, we all get drunk and we’re in V.I.P. and this girl, she’s at the bottom of the VIP. It’s like two stories down and she’s like, ‘You guys are f*cking with steroids’, and Matt said, ‘Shut the f*ck up hoe.’ So she takes a bottle and she throws the bottle up there at us. Matt, he’s f*cking drunk as sh*t. He jumps from the V.I.P. down and lands right in front of her and he stands over her and goes, ‘What the f*ck!’ And then her boyfriend pops up, ‘Oh sh*t. I’m so sorry about her.’ So we all run down the stairs. We come down like, ‘What the f*ck is going on?’ And the guy’s like, ‘So sorry’ then he gets the f*ck out of there and I turn to Matt and go, ‘You ite?’ And he goes, ‘I think I f*cking snapped my ankle’, and he goes, ‘My ankle is f*cking hurt’, and we’re like, ‘Oh sh*t’ and then the next day he ices his ankle, he puts it in a bucket of ice. We have to go to practice the next morning, early in the morning, OVW. We gotta be at practice at 7 AM hitting the ropes, and we come together around 8 o’clock, 7:30 and so, we get to practice, his ankle was swollen huge, and there’s a camera in the arena that records everything, and so, we’re all hitting the ropes and I give Matt the iggy and he gets in the ring, and I go, ‘Matt, lock up.’ We lock up, and as we lock up, I step on his foot and shoved him backwards, and he goes, ‘Oh my ankle’, and I go, ‘Oh my God.’”
** DS Shin of Ring The Belle conducted an interview with AEW’s Nyla Rose. Nyla was asked about the criticisms of AEW’s women’s division and there not being storylines for the women while there is a heavy focus on the men’s singles and tag team divisions.
“I think it’s a valid concern, but I think people need to slow down, hold their horses. We’ve only been on TV for six weeks. We’re just as excited as you guys are. Absolutely, don’t get it twisted, but we have to establish everything. Absolute pandemonium you know? So we’re getting our ducks in a row. The first up, we got our World Champion lined up. Cool, you know what’s next? Tag team. He said right from the get-go, tag team is gonna be a very focused point of this promotion, so we established a tag team division. On the first show, we established who the Women’s Champion is so you knew some of the people coming into this so that could kind of take — I don’t wanna say, ‘Take a back seat’ but it’s kind of running in the background a little bit, but now, if you look on TV, we got three, four segments going. Things are picking up. Just be calm, be patient. There’s a method to the madness.”
Nyla also stated that AEW is a safe environment for wrestlers that are a part of the LGBTQ community. She said they have their family positives and negatives but it’s a welcoming environment overall.
“Absolutely, absolutely. I’ve said it a million times, I’ll say it a million more. It’s such a different environment. It’s very warm, very welcoming. Granted, when we’re running TV, everybody is a little stressed and like, ‘Get out of the way!’ But, no, it’s very warm, very welcoming, everybody feels like family. Like many families, we bicker, we fight, we handle that all in the ring but its been very welcoming.”
** Charlotte Flair applied to trademark “Ashley Flair” and “The Queen Of Wrestling” and Andrade applied to trademark “La Sombra” and “El Idolo”. @luchablog noted on Twitter that Andrade trademarked “La Sombra” in the U.S. but the Alonso family still has the trademark in Mexico.
** Former 5-time TNA World Tag Team Champion Hernandez did an interview with Super Luchas and shared his thoughts about Lucha Underground and there being no word on if the show will continue or not:
“Lucha Underground will always have a special place in the heart of all who fought there. [They] created new stars for the American audience and helped me reinvent myself as a solo competitor within the United States. It saddens me that it seems to have ended, but I am glad that it has impacted the career of so many fighters.”
Hernandez also spoke about his run in TNA and praised the company for the exposure that they gave him. He also shared that there was a plan in place to have him bring the AAA Mega Championship to TNA.
“TNA gave me the exposure I needed to showcase my talent internationally. It was a great workplace until it was decided that I would be an individual competitor. I broke my neck in 2009 on a television recording and the first thing they asked me was how I planned to pay it. Even after I had an MRI scan with my money to show them that I was injured, there were disputes because they did not want to reimburse me for expenses that occurred on their program and in their ring. It was awkward and ridiculous. It is true that they sent me to Mexico to work with AAA and become a powerful figure in the Latin market. The idea was to return with the Mega Championship to TNA. Obviously it did not happen due to the politicking between AAA and TNA. I don’t blame Dixie, but mainly the people she put in charge to coordinate the AAA and TNA agreement. It’s simple: why would I have to leave TNA and the United States to live in Mexico for nine or ten months away from my family and my children if nothing important was promised to me in return?”
** According to Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline, Samoa Joe is slated to do commentary on the December 2nd edition of Monday Night RAW.
** TMZ Sports caught up with Glenn “Kane” Jacobs and asked the Knox County Mayor who he thinks should be in the WWE Hall Of Fame that isn’t already and he nominated himself for that honor with a smirk on his face:
** Writer, producer and director David Sahadi has returned to IMPACT Wrestling after his exit from the company in 2017. As he made the news public on Twitter about his return, Sahadi noted that IMPACT is going to deliver what All Elite Wrestling promised but did not deliver which is “change”:
“In 2020, @IMPACTWRESTLING is going to give wrestling fans something they’ve long desired and something AEW promised but never delivered: CHANGE!”
Sahadi’s tweet garnered a response from AEW’s Nick Jackson and IMPACT’s Michael Elgin.
** Former writer for the SmackDown vs. RAW (2010, 2011) ‘Road To WrestleMania’ series, Justin Leeper uploaded a video to YouTube in which he talked about the issues surrounding WWE 2K20, false advertising of the patch notes and how WWE 2K21 is not in good shape according to his knowledge and those he has spoken to. POST Wrestling reached out to Visual Concepts and WWE 2K for a response to these claims.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icluPCghdA4[/embedyt]
** Brian “Road Dogg” James did an interview with Sportskeeda’s Lee Walker.
** ‘Arrow’ star Stephen Amell will be joining this upcoming Tuesday’s edition of WWE Backstage on FS1 to go to ‘Promo School’.
** Here’s a new edition of Rob Schamberger’s ‘Canvas 2 Canvas’ based around WWE’s Four Horsewomen (Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch & Bayley):
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JExKfiXrHLU[/embedyt]
** AEW World Champion Chris Jericho shared on Instagram that 10,000 bottles of ‘A Little Bit Of The Bubbly’ have sold in two days.
** According to WWE Network News, a new episode of ‘WWE Day Of’ is coming to the WWE Network next week and the forthcoming episode is based around the 2019 Survivor Series pay-per-view.
** Stardom ‘Goddess Of Stars’ Results (12/1/19) Osaka World Pavilion
– Jamie Hayter def. Leo Onozaki
– Andras Miyagi def. Saya Iida
– Riho & Starlight Kid def. Itsuki Hoshino & Saya Kamitani
– Arisa Hoshiki, Mayu Iwatani, Saki Kashima & Tam Nakano def. AZM, Bea Priestley, Momo Watanabe & Utami Hayashishita
– 10-Woman Elimination Tag Team Match: Oedo Tai (Hazuki, Kagetsu, Martina, Natsuko Tora & Natsu Sumire) def. Death Yama-san, Hana Kimura, Jungle Kyona, Konami & Zoe Lucas
** The main event of New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s ‘Showdown’ event from November 11th has been uploaded to the company’s English YouTube channel. BUSHI teamed up with Shingo Takagi and Tetsuya Naito to take on Gedo, Chase Owens and Jay White.
** AAW ‘Unstoppable’ Results (11/30/19) Chicago, Illinois
– Dark Match: Corey Storm def. Reilly MaGuire
– Ace Austin & Clayton Gainz def. Jake Lander & Travis Titan
– Hakim Zane (w/Karam) def. Myron Reed
– Killer Kross def. Josh Briggs
– Curt Stallion def. Eddie Kingston
– $10,000 Bounty Challenge: The Masked Good Brother #3 def. Nick Gage
– AAW Heavyweight Championship: Josh Alexander (c) def. Ace Romero
– AAW Heritage Championship: PACO def. Jake Something (c)
– ACH & The Besties In The World (Davey Vega & Mat Fitchett) def. Sami Callihan & The Rascalz (Trey Miguel & Zachary Wentz)
– AAW Women’s Championship: Jessicka Havok (c) def. Kris Statlander
** Dustin Rhodes was interviewed by Sportskeeda and talked about his decision to exit from WWE and making the move to AEW. Dustin thinks highly of his match with Cody from Double Or Nothing and talked about his role as a producer in AEW:
“With the WWE, I’d had enough. It was time for me to go. It had been such a long, storied career with the Goldust character and, do you know, I really thought that I was going to retire, and then I got pulled in and my passion got reignited when I wrestled my brother, and we had the match of the last decade, probably, if not the last two decades. It was such a story, a great match. The schedule is a lot different, so it takes some getting used to. We were on the road so much up there that you don’t have any time at home with your family and here, with AEW, I love it man! The scheduling is great. I leave Tuesday to go to the production meeting, Wednesday’s TV, come home Thursday and whatever else I want to do, I’m free to do – which I did not have that freedom to do anything that I wanted to do outside of wrestling up there. They made it very, very difficult and that’s one of the reasons why I left, and now here in AEW, I look forward to going to work every single week because I coach the girls. Me and Brandi [Rhodes], and Kia [Awesome Kong] and Kenny Omega. I hold this training session every Wednesday with the girls, I’m a backstage producer and coaching for promos, teaching these kids how to talk on camera, and to get them comfortable with a camera in their face – because some of them have never had the television experience so it’s a learning experience for them and also I had to have a little patience with them because this is their first time doing it and I love to teach so I consider AEW and these kids — they are kind of my kids man. I love them, and to see them shine, to see and get better, to see them progress in our company, AEW, it’s great, it’s a great feeling for me. I think they like me, I love being there, I love to help and I also have to still stay relevant myself with my character, Dustin Rhodes, coming back full-circle to where it used to be. Just a little bit different and giving it my last full attention here for the next few years as far as Dustin Rhodes is concerned in a wrestling ring. I’m not done. I’ve got a few years left and I’m looking forward to it but what I really like doing is teaching these kids man, because they are a sponge. They soak it up and they love it, and they’re all very passionate and hungry about this AEW venture that we are on. We’re knocking it out of the park every single week, we’re doing some amazing, compelling, compelling TV and it’s fun to watch.”
Dustin Rhodes echoed that AEW is an alternative to WWE programming. He says they aren’t looking to outdo NXT every week but are focused on putting out the best product that they can:
“You know, I don’t look at it as, ‘Okay, we need to focus on NXT.’ I look at it as we need to put out the best weekly television series that we possibly can every single week and we’ve been doing that. We have been doing that, our fan base is there and they are growing. We are an alternative to the WWE programming. We are something very, very special that the fans have commanded and wanted for a long time and we are giving it to them so me, personally, I’m not looking at NXT saying, ‘Oh, my God, they’ve done this-this week, we need to do this,’ and go back and forth. I don’t like that, I’m not focused on that, I’m focused on my kids, our kids here at AEW because they are the future right now to me and our company. We have to grow it and build it, and make it very, very successful in the next coming years.”
** Former Women of Honor World Champion Angelina Love was a recent guest on the Women’s Wrestling Weekly podcast.
** Dragon Gate ‘The Gate Of Evolution’ Results (11/30/19) Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
– Kzy, Susumu Yokosuka & Don Fujii def. Ho Ho Lun, Keisuke Okuda & YAMATO
– Ben-K vs. Jason Lee resulted in a no-contest.
– Big R Shimizu vs. Shun Skywalker goes to a time limit draw.
– Dragon Kid & Kaito Ishida def. Kota Minoura & Masaaki Mochizuki
– Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi def. BxB Hulk & Yosuke Santa Maria
– R.E.D. (Eita & H.Y.O) & Diamante def. Ryo Saito, Ultimo Dragon & Yasushi Kanda
** Mike Kanellis will be hosting a seminar at Eastern Panhandle Pro Wrestling’s show on December 20th.
** ‘Bloody Disgusting’ has a story up about “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt’s new custom WWE Universal Championship.
** Tommaso Ciampa was the most recent guest on Lilian Garcia’s ‘Chasing Glory’ podcast. Ciampa revealed that before he made the move to WWE, he was ready to commit to Ring of Honor but was told by ROH C.O.O. Joe Koff that no one would pay him more than $20,000.
“I remember going into negotiation with them and just saying, ‘Listen, I’ll sign five years. I’ll sign ten years. I’ll make my career right here in Ring of Honor if you guys show me that you’re looking to invest in me the way I’ll invest in you’ and the conversation, I thought it was going well and then it just took this real hard turn, and then there was this one moment where I remember talking with the owner at the time — still the owner I guess, Joe Koff, and it was just the two of us. It was in person, first time we really had the in-person negotiation and I told him this is how I feel and he told me, ‘Listen, no one’s gonna offer you more than $20,000’, and I remember just freezing and just going, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize you thought that of me.’ I felt like it was this demeanor. It was like light bulb, friendly, relaxed and I was like, ‘Oh, hey, we don’t have to do this anymore. My contract is coming up and I’m good. I’m gonna go somewhere else and find out if you’re right or not,’ and he immediately, ‘No! I didn’t mean it like that.’ It’s cool. I’m not mad at you. I don’t even care. I think I cared until that was said. I don’t care anymore. I didn’t understand that you guys just viewed me as like, my ceiling was not even above that mid-card, so I was like it’s fine and I went to Hunter that day because we were on the road somewhere. [I saw] Delirious and said, ‘Oh, just so you know, I discussed stuff with Joe and I wrapped up. I’ll finish my dates.’ I think WrestleMania weekend, wherever was coming up and I said that’ll be my last one and I’m done.”
While discussing possibly being called up to the main roster, the former NXT Champion expressed that he has no desire to go to RAW or SmackDown and if that was out of his control, he would retire from in-ring competition to take on a backstage role.
“I’ve fought the call-up. Like fought it hard. I remember Shawn [Michaels], because he was our coach at the PC for quite some time. He still helps out tons but, it was the time where myself, Johnny [Gargano], Aleister [Black] and Ricochet were doing some stuff on the main roster or whatever, and I just remember Shawn laughing at Johnny and I. He’s like, ‘I’ve never experienced this in my life when two guys are like keep your money. I don’t want it.’ I won’t [go to RAW or SmackDown]. I’m not kidding, to the extent of, I’ve communicated this and now it’s different. So before I just didn’t want to because I really believed in NXT and wanted to ride it. I wanted to see how far we could take it. Now its hit a whole different level of, there is that, but I have a little one at home, and my schedule is better in NXT then it would be on the road and I had neck surgery and I’m not freaking stupid. I get my window was smaller than it was and my bump card is ticking, and I just look at it like, if I’m doing 200 plus days a year on the road with RAW or SmackDown, or I’m doing a manageable load of 30-50 matches with NXT. Okay, so I can do four years of that in the time that I do one year on RAW and SmackDown. So how long can my career and portfolio grow here as opposed to going there. Now, its become a thing where I legitimately vocalized to them where like: If I have to go to RAW or SmackDown, then I’m gonna retire and I would love to produce or coach or be a part of it, but there’s no way I’m taking on that load and going, ‘Yeah, I’ll just have a six month run and then I’ll call it quits.’ I just won’t do it. It’s not worth it to me. It’s not worth it to my family.”
** ACH is challenging AJ Gray for the Crown of Glory Championship at Glory Pro Wrestling’s show on March 1st.
** Here are the full results from WWE’s Starrcade live event:
– Seth Rollins def. Rowan
– WWE Intercontinental Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura (c) def. The Miz
– The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins) def. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
– WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships – Fatal 4-Way Tag Team Match: Kabuki Warriors (Kairi Sane & Asuka) (c) def. Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks & Bayley and Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss
– Bobby Lashley def. Kevin Owens via DQ.
– Aleister Black def. Andrade (w/ Zelina Vega)
– Ricochet def. Andrade (w/ Zelina Vega)
– Randy Orton def. AJ Styles
– Roman Reigns def. King Corbin
– WWE Universal Championship – Steel Cage Match: “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt (c) def. Braun Strowman
** Chris Jericho and Eric Bischoff were recent guests on the ‘Keepin It 100 With Konnan’ podcast. During the conversation with Jericho, the AEW World Champion shared his thoughts about WWE’s Survivor Series pay-per-view. Jericho stated that he thought the show was really good but pin-pointed a promo between The Miz and Daniel Bryan that he felt was unauthentic.
“Even when I watch — I watched Survivor Series last night. I thought it was really good, but they had this promo with Daniel Bryan and Miz and it’s like, ‘For the sake of our children and our families, you have to stop The Fiend. The nightmare of The Fiend.’ Nobody talks like that. You could still put the guy over big time but not worry — what’s he gonna come to your house? Break in your house and steal your kids? It’s just not believable… and it’s cartoonish in a bad way. Like what we did last week with Scorpio [Sky] was cartoonish too as if the guy would allow himself to be talked into a championship match, but it worked because it was fun and you had the right characters to do it.”
Jericho said that if All Elite Wrestling had Roman Reigns in the company, Roman could possibly be more popular than he is right now in WWE and elaborated on why he believes that:
“If you had a guy like Roman Reigns in AEW, he’d be so over because Roman is, legit, a real cool dude. He’s a great guy, he’s super cool. He’s a guy you wanna hang out with, and they never portray him like that on the show. They always give him these promos to read, and the real Roman Reigns never really shines through, and it’s a shame. The real Seth Rollins never really shines through. These are guys — they have their own unique personalities so don’t try and write stuff for them. Have them go out there and say, ‘Here, listen, you have a title match. We want you guys to talk about the match. I want you to talk about how much it means to you’ or whatever. Just go out there and do it. You got four minutes. Let’s see what you got.”
After the conversation with Jericho wrapped up, Eric Bischoff joined the show and Bischoff briefly talked about his recent stint in WWE. He clarified that he signed an N.D.A. and could not dive too deep into the inner-workings of WWE but Bischoff shared that he knew his time with WWE would not last long from the start.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be for long. In a best case scenario, I didn’t see myself staying at WWE for more than two or three years tops. That was kind of the plan, and I figured for two or three years, if I can do something substantive, something meaningful, and leave the industry on a high note, that was a hell of an opportunity and I was willing to sacrifice the short term things that I enjoy for a little bit more of a long term game.”
** Justin Credible is making an appearance in Wilmington, Massachusetts to support the USMC Toys for Tots campaign.
** Former two-time WWF Tag Team Champion Dennis Knight (Phineas Godwinn) joined the ‘Perched On The Top Rope’ podcast and during the podcast, Knight talked about becoming a Tag Team Champion as a part of The Godwinns being a memorable moment of his career as well as getting to wrestle Vince McMahon the day that Owen Hart passed away.
“It was the greatest night ever. It’s very weird; I have two of my highlights in my career are both like an asterisk. The night that we won the belts in Madison Square Garden, the place was packed, it was great. It was also the infamous night they did the curtain call. Shawn, Hunter, Scott, Kevin, and all those guys. The other was I got to wrestle Vince McMahon before a pay-per-view, and unfortunately, that’s the night Owen [Hart] died. It was great until we showed up to TV the next day and told us we were dropping the belts. Hahaha too soon! We didn’t even make it home with them.”
Knight also donned the name “Mideon” as a part of the Ministry Of Darkness. He shared how The Undertaker approached him about the idea of joining the Ministry:
“My partner had broken his neck. He had to take time off, and Undertaker came up to me and said, ‘Hey, in a perfect world, I want to do this really dark gimmick.’ I didn’t write the stuff, but I did the ideas. Me and him talk still about once a week. He would say, ‘Just write stuff for yourself, and we’ll do it.’ The Ministry stuff was awesome. It went pretty far until it was getting over, then Corporate Ministry became a thing, and it kind of just went downhill from there. It didn’t work. We needed the entrance, the music, and the lights and everything.”
** FOX 17 has information up on their site about how to win tickets to Monday Night RAW in Des Moines, Iowa on December 16th.
** Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald conducted an interview with Tully Blanchard.
** Eric Bischoff appeared on the 400th episode of the ‘Pancakes & Powerslams’ podcast. Bischoff was the focus of a Q&A session and was asked who he would’ve liked to work with in WWE that he did not get the chance to work with:
“I wasn’t really watching the NXT roster too closely. There were certain talents there — Chad Gable, I dug him as a person and as a professional, loved Randy Orton’s work. I didn’t get a chance to work with Randy but I really, really, really admire his work. He’s flawless as a performer. I would’ve liked an opportunity to work with him but there were many others that I was hoping to get a chance to work with that I didn’t. Sheamus was another character that I would’ve liked to gotten my hands on, but there’s a lot of great talent there. Really is.”
** The New York Times has a story up about Saudi Arabia and there are notes in the article about WWE and their recent trip to Saudi Arabia for Crown Jewel.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling created a poll on the official Wrestle Kingdom website so that site readers can vote on the best matches of Jushin Thunder Liger’s career.
** Ice Ribbon ‘New Ice Ribbon’ Results (12/1/19) SKIP City Multipurpose Hall
– Satsuki Totoro def. Banny Oikawa
– Akane Fujita & Asahi def. Hiragi Kurumi & Miku Aono
– Maya Yukihi, Risa Sera & Ram Kaicho def. Maika Ozaki, Rina Yamashita & Syuri
– Triangle Ribbon Championship – Three-Way Match: Tequila Saya def. Matsuya Uno (c) and Tae Honma
– International Ribbon Tag Team Championships: Tsukasa Fujimoto & Tsukushi (c) def. Ibuki Hoshi & Suzu Suzuki
** One year ago today, the late Adrian ‘Lionheart’ McCallum became ICW World Heavyweight Champion.
** Tom Lawlor is taking on a member of The Von Erichs at MLW’s Opera Cup event on December 5th.
** Stock Daily Dish has a story up about independent wrestler Deonn Richardson who trained at the Black and Brave Wrestling Academy under former Universal Champion Seth Rollins.
** On the debut episode of New Day’s ‘Feel The Power’ podcast, Kofi, Big E, and Xavier Woods provided some background into what they were doing professionally prior to New Day and Woods talked about some of the obstacles he faced and originally being paired with Brodus Clay as a part of The Funkadactyls.
“So Kofi, killing it. Tons of title victories, tag team champion, U.S. Champion, I.C. Champion. Killing it. Everybody loved Kofi. E, came on the roster, killing it with Dolph [Ziggler], hammer-fisted AJ Lee in the chest one time,” New Day laughed. “He was killing it as I.C. champ. For me, I came from Georgia, wrestled on the independents. I was in TNA for a little bit, got released from TNA, wrestled at New Japan for like one shot and then got signed before I left so I couldn’t stay the whole time, but I’m in WWE, 2010. Everybody’s telling me, constantly, ‘Oh you gotta do something to differentiate yourself because we already have a Kofi. We have a Kofi’, and so in the story that Kofi was telling, us coming to Kofi was actually one of the harder things to do because my whole career [I] tried to separate myself from Kofi because I was always told, ‘Okay, we have a high energy black guy. You need to be something completely different’, and when I made it to the main roster, I wasn’t doing anything. I got put into an angle with Brodus Clay where I eventually stole his theme music and then The Funkadactyls, and it was just weird because it was kind of like the gimmick had run its course, and then they tried to give it to me, but in the back stories of the Funkasaurus, when [it] was given to Brodus, Brodus tried to convince them to give it to me because we’d run these practice matches so they could figure out how he’s gonna do all these dancing moves and they made us do them four weeks in a row because every time we sent a match, they said, ‘Oh no, Woods is doing this better than you.’”
“Because that was my thing at the time, and Brodus is like, ‘Well give it to him.’ So long story short, he gets the Funkasaurus thing. Once it runs its course they go, ‘Oh, here. You can have this’, and it’s like, wait! After you guys milked it for all the money with the merchandise, everything you could do with it in the ring, everything you could do with it backstage, now I get it?’ Thanks. But legitimately at the same time, thank you because it was an opportunity to be on TV.”
New Day were met with a handful of doubters during the beginning stages of their trio. Big E specifically mentioned Big Show as one of those doubters and Big Show even went as far as to say that Kofi was wasting his time with Big E and Woods.
“Talking about Big Show? We give credit to Big Show because he was the one person to apologize. Actually, the only one to apologize. Big Show said some terrible things to me and Woods and how Kofi was wasting his time, and it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t a time for jokes either. We’re all trying to get our careers off the ground. The fact that you would meet so much resistance by trying to better yourself and try to improve your career is wild to me, and like you said, in so many different facets from talents to backstage people, there’s so many people, and a lot of it, we heard was behind our backs but thankfully we have ears everywhere.”
** WWE is doing a super-show live event in Fresno, California on February 9th featuring talents from RAW and SmackDown.
** The first episode of ‘Being The Inner Circle’ has been uploaded to the Being The Elite YouTube channel:
** ‘Pain News Network’ wrote a story about wrestlers using stem cell therapy.
** Portland Trailblazers point guard Damian Lillard chatted with Complex Sports and talked about the ‘Attitude Era’ of the WWF:
** Chris Jericho spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated for an exclusive interview. During their chat, Jericho stated that he would’ve liked to see more video packages for his match against Scorpio Sky for the AEW World Title but thinks the match turned out just fine:
“Sky is a guy we’ve built up really well, and I was happy with it. In retrospect, I would’ve liked to have seen some video packages throughout the show really building up how big it was for Sky to have this championship match. We could have given him a little promo time in that respect, but those are things we noticed afterward. That being said, I thought the match was great. Guys like MJF, Darby Allin and Scorpio Sky have been in main event matches. We’ve made those guys into stars very quickly. It’s only been nine weeks of TV, so imagine where we’ll be after nine months?”
At the conclusion of Jericho’s match with Scorpio Sky, Jon Moxley made his way out in front of the live crowd and had a stare-off with Jericho. Jericho said their feud in WWE was good but Moxley was not as confident or as good in WWE as he is now right now in AEW.
“That feud in WWE was really damn good, but we’re both so different now. It won’t be the same. Moxley was never this confident or this good in WWE. As Moxley said in our ‘Talk is Jericho’ podcast interview, he didn’t know who he was in WWE. He was constantly at odds with the creative and at odds with himself. This is a completely new guy. Dean Ambrose was only a portion of his career. To me, Moxley is the real guy, and there is a new-look Chris Jericho with all this creative freedom in AEW, so it’s going to be very intense and it’s going to be a lot of fun. I know a lot of people have already said, ‘This is happening too quickly.’ Everybody needs to sit back, relax, and watch the story unfold. Trust me, we are not rushing anything. I wouldn’t allow it.”
** Jon Moxley had a sit-down discussion with Chris Van Vliet:
** Jim Ross will be appearing at the Illinois vs. Miami college basketball game on December 2nd to promote AEW’s upcoming show in Champaign, Illinois on Wednesday.
** Former two-time WWE Tag Team Champions Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins joined the PWTCast.
** NXT is hosting a live event in Nashville, Tennessee on January 24th.
** Quotes from Roman Reigns and Stephanie McMahon are featured in an article by The Business Journal.
** Alberto El Patron appeared on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show to promote his upcoming bout against Tito Ortiz.
** GameSpot interviewed Xavier Woods about UpUpDownDown.
** Boxing promoter Bob Arum told ‘BoxingScene’ that Tyson Fury’s eye is completely healed after it was cut open during Fury’s fight against Otto Wallin this past September.
** The following names have been announced for the 2020 Professional Wrestling Hall Of Fame:
Executive Division- Dory Funk Sr.
Referee Division- Dick Woehrle
Pioneer Era (1865-1942) — George Zaharias & Bobby Managoff
International Division – The Great Kabuki
Tag Team Division – The Sheepherders, The Bushwackers & The Kiwis – Butch & Luke Williams
Women’s Division – Luna Vachon & Debbie Combs
Television Era (1943-1984) – King Curtis Iaukea & Killer Karl Kox
Territory/Colleague Division – Killer Tim Brook
Modern Era (1985 – present) – Jake ” The Snake” Roberts & Magnum TA
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. El Samurai (April 30, 1992)
WH Park and Dylan Fox of The Eastern Lariat podcast have a fun discussion on the finals of the Top of the Super Junior III tournament from April 30, 1992, between Jushin Liger and El Samurai.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/12/01/thunderstruck-6-jushin-liger-vs-el-samurai-4-30-92-w-dylan-fox/
*****
BRITISH WRESTLING EXPERIENCE
Martin & Jamesie are joined by JP Houlihan of GRAPPL Spotlight to discuss all the European representation over Survivor Series Weekend including Pete Dunne’s two matches and WALTER. JP gives his live report from the Rev Pro British J Cup.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/29/bwe-11-29-19-rev-pro-british-j-cup-survivor-series-weekend-mail-bag/
*****
Café Hangout – Nov. 28, 2019
John Pollock and Wai Ting open up the phone lines for an entire hour taking your calls about any current topics in wrestling and MMA. We then review this week’s WWE NXT following up the brand’s dominance at Survivor Series.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/unlocked-live-link-for-todays-cafe-hangout-3-pm-et/
*****
REWIND-A-DYNAMITE 11/27/19: A Little Bit of the Foilies
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Dynamite featuring Chris Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky for the AEW title. We also discuss today’s news.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/rad-11-27-19-a-little-bit-of-the-foilies/
*****
upNXT 11/27/19: Prince Meet King
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman are back to chat all about the November 27 edition of NXT featuring a huge main event between Tommaso Ciampa vs Finn Balor.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/28/upnxt-11-28-19-prince-meet-king/
*****
ASK-A-WAI – December 2019
John Pollock and Wai Ting answer their patrons’ questions from the POST Wrestling Forum in the December 2019 edition of Ask-A-Wai.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/31885914
*****
RAR 11/25/19: “Twitter Seth”, Austin-Undertaker Interview
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw following the Survivor Series featuring Seth Rollins’ Town Hall. Plus, we discuss Steve Austin’s interview with The Undertaker on the Broken Skull Sessions.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2019/11/26/rar-11-25-19-twitter-seth-undertaker-austin-interview/
*****
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