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.
** J.D. Drake joined Josh Nason of F4WOnline on his ‘Punch-out’ show. JD has been working with AEW for over a year. He dove into how he feels about his run in the company so far and expressed that he’s having the time of his life. He added that he would have liked to pick up more wins and is hopeful things get better and he’ll make sure that happens.
Well, I’m never satisfied, ever, ever. I feel myself and Anthony Henry are one of the best tag teams you still haven’t seen yet. You give us the opportunity and we’ll become a household name. That’s just end of discussion, period. But, to say that I am disappointed with my run [in AEW] would be the furthest thing from the truth. I am living the dream that I shouldn’t be — I should’ve never had the opportunity to live, especially according to what others have told me in other companies, in other places, that I wasn’t fit to compete for them. Yeah, hold my beer and watch. It’s been the time of my life. Literally, five-year-old me is thoroughly excited that I get to wrestle on television and be known by fans all over the world and work with guys like Arn Anderson and Jake Roberts, Dustin Rhodes, Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross, Dean Malenko, Jerry Lynn. The list goes on and on and on. Guys that I used to watch when I was a kid, they’re now my co-workers. How can I be upset about that? Would I have liked to have won more matches in that time period? Well of course. But, I’m still able to step foot into a professional wrestling ring for a company that is the second largest company in America, will soon be the largest company in America. In my opinion, the best company in America and do the thing that I love the most — well, next to raising children and being a husband. I absolutely love professional wrestling. I love performing, I love teaching and I can’t say anything but good things about my run here. Hopefully it gets better, I’m gonna make sure it gets better and before I’m done, you guys are gonna see the real me.
During the 10/11 episode of NXT, Josh Briggs hit a move on Malik Blade where they were on the outside of the ring, Briggs popped him up against the ropes and clotheslined him on the way down. J.D. Drake took to Twitter and noted that Briggs should at least let people know where he got the move from. During the podcast appearance, Drake clarified that it was a joke and he does not have an issue with it. He talked about Angelo Dawkins using ‘The Silencer’ finisher that Drake stakes claim to creating. Dawkins has publicly credited him for the move.
All right, listen internet, listen internet, I am not upset that Josh Briggs did a move that he’s seen me do a million times in the same company that we worked for together. It actually made me smile when he did it. That was light-hearted joking. ‘Hey Josh, at least let ‘em know where you got it from.’ Let me give you another instance. The move that Angelo Dawkins does, ‘The Silencer’, that’s mine. I created that one. I will go to my grave saying I created that one. 2002, I hit it in training on a guy I consider to be one of my best friends in my entire life, wrestled under the name Marshall Simmons. You will not know him unless you wrestled on the North Carolina indie scene. But, I hit it in training, that was my finish for 20 years, 20 years. I used to start it in a cradle versus going straight for the ground. I don’t get mad when people use my stuff, I don’t. Joe Gacy did the same spot in NXT. If you don’t believe me, go back and look it up. I will try my best to go back and find a clip if I have to. It doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It was a little light-hearted joking, that’s all it was and then stir a pot and piss off some damn fans, internet wrestling community which is always fun. But hell, it looked good. I can’t be upset about it. He popped somebody up on the rope and clotheslined their head off. That’s what you’re supposed to do, good job. Mine is a forearm shiver. When you pop ‘em against the ropes, I don’t hit a clothesline, I punch them in the face or I hit ‘em with my forearm in the face. I have footage of me hitting this move in 2015 and literally, looked at the guy before the match and said, ‘Hey, if you charge me on the floor and I got my back to the apron, I can pop you up on the ropes and punch you on the way down.’ He said, ‘Yeah, that sounds like a cool spot, let’s do it.’ We did it and it’s been a staple of my move-set since 2015, that’s seven years. Pretty good long time. But no, quit trying to make something out of nothing internet wrestling community. Nobody was mad. Dirt sheets too.
** The Business of the Business podcast welcomed Game Changer Wrestling promoter Brett Lauderdale back onto the show. He discussed GCW’s involvement in AAA Triplemania on 10/15. He said plans started to change as the show date got closer that ultimately saw GCW regulars Joey Janela, Alex Colon and Gringo Loco ambush Mega Champion El Hijo del Vikingo.
It’s fun seeing our guys in those elements and just seeing how they fit in. But, yeah, so Triplemania was cool and when we first made plans to actually go to Triplemania, we were really just planning to go just to kind of watch the show and as we got closer and we were in contact with some of the people from AAA, some of the plans changed and they continued to change right up until the afternoon of the event which you may have seen, I’m assuming you saw, the night actually ended with people from — some of our guys beating the sh*t out of [El Hijo del] Vikingo at his post-show press conference so, we’ll see where that takes us.
He spoke about what lies ahead for GCW World Champion Nick Gage. Brett thinks Nick is also valuable outside of the ring and described him as a non-traditional coach. He added that Gage does very well merchandise-wise and keeps the morale up in the locker room.
I think with Nick [Gage], there’s a lot of things that Nick is valuable in ways that are more than just being in the ring. He’s a locker room leader… he’s like a non-traditional coach in a lot of ways if that makes sense. He’s not the type of person that’s gonna give you — he’s not gonna be a producer in the sense that he’s gonna put together their matches from start to finish but, he will go and help you get prepared for your matches and he will fire you up and he will motivate you in ways that sometimes are even more valuable than the role of a producer and a lot of guys just love that about him, you know? He’s literally a difference maker in the locker room. Aside from that, he is the face of the company outside of even wrestling… He’s an ambassador in a lot of ways. As we’ve seen, he can go months without wrestling on a show but just being there is a big deal. He’ll cut the promo that opens the show and fires people up and then a lot of the times when we go off the air, he’ll come back out and close the night and thank everybody for coming which people love. Again, that’s one of those things that it’s really fun to watch him do that because you get to see a real genuine side of him when he does that. I’m referring to when we’re off the air but just to see how fans kind of eat it up and he interacts with them, knowing we’re outside of the show itself, it’s just cool to see and yeah, Nick has value beyond an active wrestler and financially, bottom line speaking, he will always be good at selling merchandise whether he’s wrestling or not. He’s like Hulk Hogan of the indies in that people are gonna be buying M.D.K. shirts from here to eternity as long as he’s around.
** John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) and Gerald Brisco brought Bill Watts onto their Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw show. While looking back at his time as an active in-ring performer, Watts claims that Vince J. McMahon had a strategy of taking business from his partner(s) in the town and/or area he was running in.
[Bruno] Sammartino was a fun guy. If it was a double main event, say in Pittsburgh, well really it’s about Sammartino. He’s the only one that drew all the money. But he would tell Phil Zacko who would make all the payoffs it was a true main event that I was in, so I would get good money too. So pretty soon, he and I would go to settle up on our pay together and we worked out some signs to where we skipped a lot of dates and then we’d pick up this… because we were both under contract and I was the only guy that challenged their contract, Vince [McMahon Sr.] had never had anybody challenge a contract so here is what’s the deal, if I was wrestling, say Bobo [Brazil], they’d pay Bobo $2,000 and pay me $4,000. Then I would kick back $1,000, but I still made $1,000 more. But what it was for Vince was a way to steal money from his partner in the town. They were smooth, they were smooth and we liked it … [along with Toots Mondt working with Vince Sr.], there was a Jewish guy, Herbie Freeman in the office. He was a tough, old shooter they said. Good guy, they were good guys and then Phil Zacko promoted Baltimore in another place and then there was another older guy, Jewish guy, I can’t think of his name but he was a nice guy.
Throughout Watts’ time in wrestling, he was also able to work with Vince K. McMahon. He said Vince and Eddie Graham had the same philosophy when it came to booking and brought up a note about booking out to WrestleMania and filling in the gaps. He recalled several occasions when there were frank discussions between himself and Vince about what he did to the territories.
Vince [McMahon] Jr., I worked for him for three months. I wanted to see what he was about and I’m telling you, he is brilliant, he’s a workaholic. He and I could book the way Eddie Graham and I could book because he had the same philosophy. You book out there to WrestleMania and then you decide the steps to get there but you decide where you’re going afterwards and Eddie used to do that on the Bayfront. He’d said, ‘Okay, you’re getting the Bayfront up but then you don’t have anything to come back to Tampa Tuesday. So from now on, you plan on coming back to Tampa on the Tuesday as your target date.’ So Eddie had a way of teaching but Vince had it inherently. He’s an unbelievable booker. Do I like what all he’s done? No. I think he hurt the business in a lot of ways. Matter of fact, he and I had a lot of frank discussions. I said, ‘You know, if you were smart, you’d left a few businesses in the business to feed you.’
As the conversation moved along, Watts spoke about his up and down relationship with Dusty Rhodes. He claims that when he went to WCW, he was asked if he could fire Rhodes. Watts said he was not going to do that just to do it but he and Dusty had to have an understanding of how things were going to work.
My first deal down there [Florida] was Dusty [Rhodes] going behind my back to Eddie [Graham], and Eddie really liked Dusty and I just said, ‘Eddie, I got Dusty coming in.’ Dusty came in and I handed him the book. I said, ‘You’re the new booker you fat sh*t.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘You’re going behind my back to Eddie so either I’m firing you or you’re the new booker’ and Dusty looked at Eddie and then Eddie said, ‘Well then fire him.’ So that settled that one and I love Dusty. I love Dusty, although his ego couldn’t stand me to be around him when he wasn’t working directly for me because he couldn’t B.S. me but I love the guy. Matter of fact, part of the deal when I went to Turner Broadcasting was could I fire Dusty and I said, ‘Sure. But I’m not gonna fire him just to fire him.’ So I went in to see Dusty when I first got there and said, ‘Here’s the deal,’ but I said, ‘I want your talent, but I’m the boss. If you can handle that, you stay, otherwise you’re gone’ and he stayed and he was good. He was good so I never had a — I love Dusty. It was easy to create for him.
** As a part of Advertising Week New York, Becky Lynch and WWE Vice President of Digital Media, Steve Braband were the focus of a panel (video courtesy of Nicole Plaza on YouTube). Lynch touched on the future of WWE’s women’s division and highlighted the NXT roster along with Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan.
I mean, I look at NXT and this is no discourse towards the men but I look at the women, I go, oh, that’s the future, that’s the future. That’s where the engaging characters are, that is incredible athleticism. Some athleticism that I never in a million years would be capable of and I think you can see the interest in what the women are doing down there and so I think it’s the future and I look at our women’s roster now and I go, you know, between me [Lynch laughed] and you got Bianca Belair, you got Rhea Ripley who’s just incredible and is so young and you got Liv Morgan and you have all these incredible women just getting started. It’s awesome. I’m very excited about it.
Looking back at WrestleMania 38, Lynch expressed her thought that she and Belair stole the show and the weekend with the match they had.
I think any time that I’ve gone out there maybe as an underdog, or my match has gone out there as an underdog and we’ve stolen the show, that feels like a career highlight. One of my most recent ones was WrestleMania against Bianca Belair. Didn’t walk out the winner but we stole the show, we stole that weekend and that felt like an accomplishment.
** Before retaining the NXT Championship at Halloween Havoc, Bron Breakker sat down with Dave LaGreca of Busted Open Radio for an interview. Bron talked about J.D. McDonagh and said J.D. has made him a better wrestler.
You know, I respect J.D. McDonagh as well. I think JD’s a great performer and in a lot of ways, J.D. has made me better. Just, he’s made me a better wrestler in so many ways I think and I think a lot of credit should go to him and his style and everything is just different and it’s a little bit crazy…
** On the latest episode of Tama’s Island, Tama Tonga told the story of when NJPW’s Togi Makabe punched a ‘top wrestler’ in the face for taking advantage of a Young Lion in the ring.
Especially [Togi] Makabe. Makabe is one dude I really love, I really respect because he’s that guy if he sees some unfairness happening especially with senpais and kōhais or young boys, he’ll love to straighten out those senpais. I’ve seen him punch, freaking drill another grown wrestler in his face. Just punched him straight in his face because that grown wrestler — I’m not gonna drop the names but that wrestler came back after a match with a young boy and all that top wrestler did was just put himself over and man, he walked through that curtain bro and Makabe was waiting for him… I could hear it in his Japanese like, what are you doing? You just gonna go out there and squash him? How’s he gonna learn anything if all you’re gonna do is take advantage of him? Well he punched him straight in the face twice. I was like, ‘Oh! Oh shoot!’ I said, ‘Yeah! That’s my dawg. That’s what’s up Makabe. F*ck him up.’ I love him. He’s the best.
** MLW CEO Court Bauer was at the center of a conversation on Busted Open Radio that had to do with talents filtering in and out of MLW over the years. Bauer brought up that the likes of Jacob Fatu, Davey Richards and others have been re-signed. On the topic of former MLW World Middleweight Champion MJF, Court says there came a point where it was healthy for him to move on.
Just this year, renewed [Alexander] Hammerstone, we renewed Alicia Atout, Davey Richards. Like two years ago, we signed [Jacob] Fatu to a long-term contract so it’s like we’re keeping all our guys and I think that’s happened because guys like Hammer, Fatu, they were available when AEW started, they did tryouts at the Performance Center and they just slept on ‘em. They got a look from us, we put ‘em through our system, they thrived, they enjoy it, they love it and I think there is something — look at Tommy Dreamer in ECW. There was a sense of loyalty because Paul [Heyman] gave him that spotlight and I think the same thing happened here in MLW. It’s like, we gave him the spotlight, we showed him the love and I always say look, as we grow, you’re gonna grow. When we paid them in 2018, 2019 is radically different as we sign these deals like with Pro Wrestling TV and grow our global footprint and we’re able to spend more money. It’s not like I’m flying a private jet. I’m putting the money back in their pockets to the best of my ability while still being responsible with the company. It’s a balance but I think that’s why they always punch their tickets with renewal. That’s a big part of it. As for Max [MJF], I look at the time he was here, he was here for like three years and he was fantastic. At the end of that run though, he had basically gone through the whole roster and we refreshed the roster a few times, it was like a healthy moment for him to move on and I think there are times when there are guys, they do need to move on to keep fresh.
** Prior to NXT Halloween Havoc, Comicbook.com pushed out their written interview with Apollo Crews. He discussed returning to NXT and how this run has brought that inner passion back for wrestling as some of it had faded away and he viewed it solely as a job.
Yeah, it’s crazy for me. It’s so different coming back. It’s one of those things… Am I going to be accepted? Does it matter if I’m accepted or a bunch of different feelings, but it’s like that stepping into a whole new locker room where even though I’ve been here for some time, it’s still a brand-new situation. But it’s been fun. It’s been really fun and the moment I came back, we got right into it. I had a tag with Solo against Grayson and Carmelo and we went out there and had some fun. So it’s been really fun just to have the opportunity, almost a second chance at my career to I guess go back to where it began and find myself again I guess you could say. And just having that opportunity, it’s been a blessing and I’m really enjoying myself. It’s nice because I’ve gotten to become a fan again, you know what I mean? And really, not that I stopped being a fan, but the love, the passion had kind of faded away a little bit. Now that that’s back, it’s nice because I want to watch wrestling again. I want to interact and I want to be a part of everything that’s going on. It’s great, and it feels good because for a while there I just got stuck not really doing anything and nobody wants to be in that situation. So it’s been a blessing and I’ve been having a lot of fun.
** In The Kliq rolled out their interview with C.J. Perry (Lana). CJ was asked about the ‘Rusev Day’ period of Miro’s career. She gave her take on if she thinks it ended too early and for her, it boils down to Vince McMahon viewing Miro a certain way and had a certain creative vision for what he thought Miro should be.
I feel like that Vince [McMahon] had an idea of how he wanted — the simplest way of putting it for all the listeners that might not be as familiar with wrestling is Vince McMahon is — was the director, the Steven Spielberg and just like any television show or movie, there’s casting and it comes down to the exec of the network to the showrunner and if they see you — if they wanna cast you as a villain, that’s their choice and I think at the end of the day, Vince loved Miro as a villain and so that was really the bottom line of the struggle is like, he wanted him to be his ‘Bulgarian Brute’, 300 pound crazy villain and you know, it was his company, still is so and that was his creative vision and I think that was always the conflict of it.
** A comic book that Hiroshi Tanahashi is the focus of is being released on October 25th.
** To promote WWE Crown Jewel, Alex McCarthy of Inside The Ropes spoke to Logan Paul.
** Jonathan Hood of ESPN Chicago welcomed Ric Flair onto the show.
** NXT’s Grayson Waller made a cameo appearance on The Black Announce Table podcast.
** NJPW Battle Autumn Results (10/23/22) New Aomori Sports Park in Aomori, Japan
– DOUKI def. Akio Fujita
– Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr. def. Yuto Nakajima & Alex Zayne
– United Empire (Aaron Henare, Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan) def. Togi Makabe, Toru Yano & Ryohei Oiwa
– Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI def. David Finlay, Tiger Mask & Ren Narita
– Taichi, El Desperado & TAKA Machinoku def. Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & KENTA
– SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi def. Master Wato & Tomoaki Honma
– Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI & Titán) def. TJP, Francesco Akira & Gideon Gray
– NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships: HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi & SHO) (c) def. Hikuleo, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi
** DDT Pro-Wrestling ‘God Bless DDT’ Results (10/23/22) Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– Pre-Show — Two On Five Handicap Match: Danshoku Dino & Yuki Ino (w/ Yumehito Imanari) def. Akito, Antonio Honda, Makoto Oishi, Sanshiro Takagi & Toru Owashi
– Kazuki Hirata def. Kazuma Sumi
– DAMNATION T.A (Daisuke Sasaki, KANON, Minoru Fujita & MJ Paul) def. Hideki Okatani, Saki Akai, Shunma Katsumata & Toi Kojima
– Hikaru Machida & Soma Takao def. HARASHIMA & Takeshi Masada
– Burning (Jun Akiyama, Yusuke Okada & Yuya Koroku) def. Osamu Nishimura, Shinichiro Kawamatsu & Yuki Ishida
– Chris Brookes, Naomi Yoshimura & Yuji Hino def. MAO, Tetsuya Endo & Yukio Naya
– DDT Universal Championship: Yuki Ueno (c) def. Koju Takeda
– KO-D Openweight Championship: Kazusada Higuchi (c) def. Yukio Sakaguchi
** All Japan Pro Wrestling Results (10/23/22) EDION Arena in Osaka, Japan
– TAJIRI & Yoshitatsu def. Black Menso-re & Izanagi
– Voodoo Murders (Jun Saito & Rei Saito) def. Yuji Nagata & Yuma Anzai
– All Asia Tag Team Championships: Dan Tamura & Hikaru Sato (c) def. Seigo Tachibana & Yusuke Kodama
– STRONGHEARTS (El Lindaman, Issei Onitsuka, Shigehiro Irie & T-Hawk) def. Hokuto Omori, Jake Lee, Ryo Inoue & Yuma Aoyagi
– Shuji Ishikawa, Takao Omori & The Bodyguard def. Kento Miyahara, Oji Shiiba & Rising HAYATO
– AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Championship: Atsuki Aoyagi (c) def. Minoru
– AJPW World Tag Team Championships: Voodoo Murders (KONO & Suwama) def. Ryuki Honda & Shotaro Ashino (c)
** AEW’s Julia Hart was interviewed by That Hashtag Show.
** There’s a feature on News 12 Bronx about Traevon Jordan, one-half of the tag team Waves And Curls.
** Glasgow Live caught up with Solo Sikoa and Karrion Kross to promote WWE’s upcoming European tour.
** The final NJPW ‘Road to Tokyo Dome’ events are scheduled for December 22nd and 23rd at Korakuen Hall.
** PWInsider’s interview with Cora Jade.
** Dak Draper appeared on Sports Guys Talking Wrestling to chat NWA Hard Times 3.
** October 23rd birthdays: Carmella, Daiji Ozawa (Pro Wrestling NOAH).
** Kay Adams welcomed Pat McAfee onto her ‘Up And Adams’ show.
** Wrestling with Johners released his post-match interview with Joseph Conners that was conducted at a Wrestle Carnival show.
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.
