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.
** Prior to her return to WWE, Mia Yim had been working in IMPACT Wrestling. She told MySanAntonio how appreciative she is of IMPACT’s Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore and Head of Talent Relations Gail Kim for how understanding they were when she told them about possibly heading back to WWE.
It was flattering (for Triple H to ask for me to come back), and it was honestly shocking, because this time a year ago, I would have never in a million years thought that I would be back. Triple H has always been super supportive, and he was always this way, even when I was at NXT with him. He always listened, and he took the time out to make sure that we were OK. I’ve always felt comfortable and secure with him. So, when he came back and was in charge, and he reached out like, ‘What do you think about coming back?’ I was still with IMPACT at the time, but I was just trying to decide what to do next, because I was on a short-term deal. My main goal in wrestling was to be able to take care of my family and make sure that my mom was OK. And in talking to Gail Kim and Scott D’Amore about it, I was like, ‘Listen, I need to do what I have to do to make sure that my mom is good. She’s about to retire. She lives by herself. I got to make sure she’s good.’ They were super supportive about it. And that was the deciding factor, was the fact that they were comfortable with it. Hunter, like I’m super comfortable with him, so it was it was an easy decision. And, of course, my husband was super supportive of what I chose.
** Episode #511 of The Doug Stanhope Podcast featured William Regal. He told the story of when he smuggled steroids in the early 1990s. It started when Regal was working a show in India and he was next door to a pharmacy. Regal stopped what he had been doing when he found himself surrounded by security guards at gunpoint in an Egypt airport.
This is before I moved to America. In 1992, for a few short months, I was an international drug smuggler and because, if you went out of the country to bring steroids back into England, as long as you had a receipt for it… Well, I did a little bit (of steroids) in my younger days but no, this was a smuggling incident. I actually didn’t do that many, believe it or not and I pretty much stopped when I came to America. But, if you had a receipt for 200 Pounds, you could bring in as much as you wanted. Well, I’d been to India in 1992 and just happened, next door to the — I wouldn’t say it was a ‘nice hotel’ but I was in India for a month and I can use an old gag here but it was five stars. You could see four of ‘em through the hole in the roof. It wasn’t exactly the nicest of places. Next door, there was a pharmacy and I went in there one day just looking for some cream because I had been wrestling on — this is 1992 India and the mats… I went looking for some stuff. There’s a little fella next to me and he said, ‘Oh, can I have some’ such and such and I did know a bit about steroids at the time and I went to the pharmacist, I said, ‘Do you have many of those?’ And he went, ‘Oh, as much as you want.’ So I knew the 200 Pound thing so I ended up getting — I had to buy two suitcases full. I bought two suitcases to fill because 200 Pounds in India, 200 English Pounds went a long way… This is in New Delhi. The airport there, it was so corrupt that you had to pay to get a job there because they fleece everybody that comes through the airport. Basically, they stop you at customs and if you’ve got any money, they say, ‘Right. You got to give us your money’ and you have to pay to get a job there. This was then and I don’t know about now, this is ‘92. So, the promoter that I was working for was a very famous Indian wrestler and also a Bollywood star. Well he put somebody in charge of looking after me and so I got treated very well there. I got two suitcases full of steroids and I never even went through customs. I just got took straight and put on the plane… So I go and get on the plane, I come home, I walk in my house in Blackpool, I call the fella who owned the gym. He’s dead now so it don’t matter. I won’t say his name anyway but he’s brown bread now so, I come in with two suitcases full. I call him up, it’s cost me 200 Pound. I know the price of them in England. I said, ‘Come around my house. I’ve got something for you,’ and I told him what it was. He said, ‘I’ll give you five grand for it.’ 200 English Pound turned into five grand within 20 minutes of me walking in my front door.
Well a month later, I’m going to Egypt for a week. So I go to Egypt for a week and I spent the majority of the time going around all these pharmacies because now, this fella that I’ve just sold these steroids to for five grand, gave me a list. He’d done research of what he could get at the pharmacies in Egypt.
So he’s told me to get this certain type. It was different from the ones I brought back from India. But it wasn’t as easy because I went into just one pharmacy in India and they supplied me with everything. So, I got into many, many pharmacies in Egypt in the five days and I got one suitcase full and it was still four grand worth because it was a higher quality steroid. So as we’re leaving, we wrestle three shows there in five days and I’m leaving… You just turned up at the airport and also, because always on these tours when I went outside of Britain, they always had someone to look after you. The promoter put somebody with you that spoke the language and look after you. We’re in a line going through security airport — this is in Cairo, yeah — you can see the bags going through and there’s a couple other lads with me. Two of them have got cases full, one of them, my close friend Dave, I tried to get him to bring a case through and he was having none of it because he’s not that way inclined… He’s just not a crook in any way, and that’s just the way he was and I said, ‘Bring one bag and I’ll give you the money for it. I’ll make you a chunk of money’ and he was like, ‘No. I’m not doing it, I’m not doing it, not doing it,’ and so he’s behind me and a couple of other fellas who’ve got cases full of stuff, three fellas in front of me. He’s just put his bag on the conveyor belt. It’s going through the machine. Now I can see the actual screen because in those days, it wasn’t like it is now. There was just a fella, an Egyptian fella, sat looking at the screen and I’m not paying any attention because as far as I know, it’s all legal as long as I’ve got 200 Pound receipts of what I’ve spent and the fella in England who owned the gym that I used to go to, he offered me five grand for this case before I even left. ‘So if you can get me a full case of this particular drug, you can have five grand’ so it’s a fair amount of profit to 200 Pound. So, this fella’s gone through. The next thing, the alarms are going off. I don’t know this fella. Three people in front of me. The alarms are going off, security is running out from everywhere with wooden batons, battering this fella to death and I mean just smashing the life out of him, and so I turn to the fella with us and I went, trying to be cool like Ray Winstone in a film, like in a gangster film… I said to the fellow that’s looking after us, I said, ‘What’s going on here?’ And when I say battering this fella to death, they were battering this fella to death with sticks. I mean smashing the life out of him in front of us. There’s blood flying everywhere, they’re just smashing him and dragging him away… In front of everybody. So I tried to say as cool as a cucumber, ‘What’s going on here?’ And he went, ‘Well, what happens is people come over here and buy stuff from Pharmacies and it’s a lot cheaper here’ and he’s understanding what they’re saying. He said, ‘He’s got a lot of Insulin in his bag’ and he said, ‘The problem with that, the reason it’s so cheap in this country is because, the Egyptian government sponsors the pharmacies. So, if you take something out of this country, you’re basically stealing from the Egyptian government.’ As he’s finished that sentence, you can see my bag going through the thing and you can see 500 vials of this stuff called Primobolan all lined up in this bag of mine. They’ve already finished with him (man getting beat up), they dragged him away but this is just in minutes. My bag’s going through, well, the people with the sticks have gone so the next thing is the people come running out with machine guns. So I’m surrounded now with 20 fellas with machine guns all pointed at my head and I’m not making this up. All pointed at my head and (it’s) just a lot of (alarm noises) going off and this fella’s going, ‘Oh, this is not good.’ This fella is with us is going, ‘This ain’t good at all’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a receipt for it.’ He said, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re stealing from the Egyptian government.’ Next thing, I assumed he was the Head of Security, Police, I don’t know. He comes walking over and this fella who’s with us, luckily, because they all know each other and they’re all cousins and they’ve got their airports sewn up, he walks over to him, starts talking to him and he comes over to me and he went, ‘He wants a present’ and I said, ‘Well, how much money do you got on you?’ And they paid us by check — or they’d actually had it drafted into our bank accounts that the actual wrestling money always get in. So I go, ‘I’ve got whatever, 40 pounds of stuff left with me.’ My friend who didn’t want anything to do with it, I said, ‘Dave, can you lend me some money?’ He was going, ‘You prick. I don’t want nothing to do with this and you’re dragging me into this.’ So he’s given me some money. Now there’s two fellas behind me who’ve got a case full as well. They haven’t even got there yet, they haven’t got to the security so they’re panicking a bit. But I’m, at the time, and to a degree still do, I put a stone face on… I’ve bungled this money which turned out to be 90 English Pounds. The fella who was looking after us took this money and went over to the Chief of Police or Security and just started talking to him and he went, ‘Okay, go through’ and he just let us through and I got onto the plane and I just melted into the seat and I thought, that’s the end of my international drug smuggling days. So that was the end of that. Not long after that, everything worked out and I ended up coming to America so I’ve never had to do any of that stuff since.
** Following his time at WWE coming to an end, D-Von Dudley sat down with Signed By Superstars for a virtual signing. One of the stories Dudley told was receiving an offer to join WCW while he was working for ECW. The call came from Raven who offered D-Von a spot in ‘The Flock’. He was presented with a six-figure deal but ultimately turned it down after a phone call with Bully Ray, Taz and Lou D’Angeli (Sign Guy Dudley).
Yeah, I did (get an offer from WCW while I was with ECW) … Raven called me. Scotty called me… I don’t remember the years but I remember he left a message on my answering machine. My wife says, ‘Raven called you.’ I was like, ‘Raven?’ So I called him back, I was like, ‘Hey Raven, what’s up?’ And he was like, ‘Hey, are you under contract with Paul?’ And I said, ‘Well no. Why?’ And he says, ‘Well I was wondering, maybe you’d wanna come to WCW and be part of The Flock?’… Just me (and not with Bully Ray) and I was like, ‘Well what about Bubba?’ Because I’m very new. I’m brand spanking new in ECW. This is when they’re doing the invasion (of ECW talents) and he goes, ‘Think about it. How much you making now?’ And at the time, I was making $75 a match, $150 a week with the fourth week of the month off. So he was like, ‘We’re gonna give you $250,000. That’s more money than you’ve ever made.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s true’ and he was like, ‘Well think about it. It’ll take care of you and your family,’ and then I remember hanging up the phone, I told my wife. She was like, ‘What do you wanna do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Something’s not sitting right with this’ and I remember Bubba, Taz and Sign Guy [Dudley] called me and said, ‘Did Raven call you? Did WCW call you?’ I was like, ‘No. Why? What’s up guys?’ And they were just like, ‘Tell me the truth. Did anybody call you?’ I was like, ‘No! Why? What’s going on?’ And that’s when they finally told me. They was like, ‘Well, WCW’s trying to invade the locker room, this and that. We need to know who’s on our side.’ I was like, ‘Nah, nobody called me.’ I didn’t know what to say at that point and then all of a sudden, I called Raven back. I was like, ‘Raven, this is D-Von calling you. Call me back.’ He called me back. ‘I’m gonna pass on this. Something’s not right about it…’ That’s exactly what he said (questioning why D-Von would turn the offer down). He goes, ‘But that’s more money than you ever made’ and I was like, ‘I get it but, something’s not right about this’ and sure enough, it was probably one of the best things I ever did.
In 2014, Team 3D (D-Von Dudley & Bully Ray) were inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame. He shared that the company gave him a used Rolex watch as a part of his induction. He stressed that-that has nothing to do with the current regime in IMPACT Wrestling.
TNA gave me a Rolex which I lost. I took it with me to the gym, I put it in my backpack.
That was probably worth five grand, but it was used. They gave it to us and something happened to it where I took it to the place to go get it fixed and a guy goes, ‘Whoever did the work on this shouldn’t have messed with these parts.’ I go, ‘What do you mean did the work on this?’ I said, ‘This is a brand-new watch.’ He was like, ‘No, it’s not. The parts in here are used’ and I just went, ‘What?’ I remember calling Bubba [Bully Ray], I go, ‘You’re not gonna believe this’ and I told him the story and he goes, ‘That’s why I took the money (instead of the Rolex gift)’.
Again, this has nothing to do with IMPACT. I was not a part of IMPACT. I was part of TNA, not IMPACT. So what they’re doing over there in IMPACT, I have no clue. But in TNA, I was there and it was something.
In part one of the signing, D-Von told the story of when he wrestled Ron Simmons in a Strap match. When he approached Simmons about the match, Simmons took an assertive tone with him about what would happen. Simmons ended up taking care of D-Von in the ring but prior to that, D-Von jokingly went to Bully Ray and asked if he was sure they couldn’t go back to ECW.
Funny story with this (image of Dudley Boyz standing over Ron Simmons). First time I’m actually meeting Farooq after laying him out with a 2×4. I go inside, I said, ‘Hello Mr. Simmons. How you doing? It’s D-Von.’ He goes, ‘Hello Devin,’ and I went, ‘Um, sir, it’s D-Von.’ ‘That’s what I said, Devin’ and from that point on, like I said in my (WWE) Hall of Fame speech, my name was ‘Devin’ when it came to Farooq… Tough is an understatement (to describe Ron Simmons). The man was a powerhouse… So I looked at him, I said, ‘Mr. Simmons, tonight, it’s me and you in a Strap match’ and he goes, ‘Okay. So it’s you and I?’ I go, ‘Yes, it is sir.’ He goes, ‘Okay. Let me see, so, who’s coming down to the ring first?’ ‘I guess we are.’ He goes, ‘Okay, you coming down first, okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do: You come down to the ring then here I come. They’ll put the strap on me and once the bell rings, I’ll just whoop your ass. I’ll just be beating your ass.’ I just went, oh my God. I said, ‘Thank you Mr. Simmons.’ I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ I walked out the room, I went back to Bubba [Bully Ray], I said, ‘You think there’s any way we could go back to ECW?’ (Dudley laughed) And when he hit me with that belt for the first time, I swear it was as sweet as it can be man. In other words, I didn’t feel anything, not a thing. But when you look back at it on TV, it looked like he was killing me.
** Among the guests to join the WWE Royal Rumble edition of Busted Open Radio were Dominik Mysterio and Sonya Deville. During the Dominik portion of the show, he shared that he feels a heel turn was not initially in the plans for him.
Mysterio: No, I didn’t think any of this was gonna play out the way it did (Mysterio said about his heel turn). It kind of all just happened so fast for me. The process for me, starting to wrestle and train and debut was all completely different in our eyes and what we had envisioned. So, me being a heel, I don’t think was ever in the plans, because my dad’s always been a big babyface and he’s never been the bad guy so I think seeing a different side of a Mysterio was what got the people intrigued.
When Deville joined the show, she touched on her MMA background and that being a focal point of her on-screen character before the likes of Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler joined WWE. Deville wanted to differentiate herself by adding more layers to her character other than just her MMA background.
Deville: A really important thing to me when Ronda [Rousey] and Shayna [Baszler] got signed was, okay, now there’s a lot of us. Because I was the first female to come from MMA into WWE but once they got signed, I was like, okay, it’s not the cool thing anymore, there’s a bunch of us and those girls are so badass so, I really took a lot of pride in trying to differentiate myself and add depth to my character so I wasn’t just the fighter. I didn’t wanna be defined by any one thing and be one dimensional and God forbid if that didn’t work out or there’s too many of us, then I would be left without a spot so, when I started developing the Sonya character in storylines in the past with other superstars and the Sonya you see now, I enjoy doing that because I knew that it meant I was giving myself more depth and more places to go with it.
Continuing on that front, Deville feels when she was doing the MMA fighter persona, people did not think she could hold her own on the microphone and now that she talks, people forget about the MMA background. She added that she can’t seem to have it both ways as far as those two things working in her favor.
Deville: It’s such a double-edged sword, right? Because when I was the badass MMA fighter, I don’t think people thought I had the ability to speak and explore the mic the way that I have in recent years so I’ve gained that respect in that facet and then they forget about the MMA so it’s like, you can only get one or the other and I feel like now, I’m falling into a groove where I’m able to kind of show them I can do it all, I am well-rounded, I can sit there and make my opponents feel terrible about themselves and wanna go cry to their moms. Yeah, I love it.
** As Kevin Owens was making the media rounds to promote the Royal Rumble, one of the outlets he spoke to was MySanAntonio. He was asked to recount his favorite Royal Rumble moment and he looks back fondly on the WWE Intercontinental Title match he had with Jon Moxley in 2016. Owens said that’s one of his favorite matches.
Oh man, my match with Dean Ambrose in (2016) was my first Royal Rumble. We had a Last Man Standing match. I thought that was fantastic. I really loved it. And it’s one of my favorite matches still to this day. And then later on that night, walking out and being in the Royal Rumble match and both me and Ambrose kind of dragging ourselves in the ring to be part of it. And then, Sami Zayn coming out that night as well as a big surprise and us getting to mix it up in the ring. That Royal Rumble was just a great night all around.
He went on to discuss the return of his ‘Prizefighter’ persona. Owens felt a nice reset would be appropriate. At the time of his main roster call-up, he was still NXT Champion and felt they hadn’t even scratched the surface of what could be done as ‘The Prizefighter’.
To me, it just kind of felt like we were in the midst a change and the fans were aware of it — the change in direction and the change in people in charge — and I felt like my character was also due for a bit of a change, coming out of the whole Elias-Ezekiel thing. I thought a nice reset would be appropriate, and I went from pondering whether I change and do something different, but then sometimes what’s old is new. When I got called up (to) the main roster, I was still in the middle of the NXT run, and I felt like we had barely scratched the surface of what we can do as that prizefighter character, so I figured, why not bring it back? And it’s been working so far.
** IMPACT Wrestling’s Head of Talent Relations, Gail Kim, shared with Women’s Wrestling Talk that the company is in conversations about doing more international shows. Gail highlighted the United Kingdom as a potential landing spot.
I mean, we are talking about doing them more internationally. That’s basically the next step that we would love to go because we used to go to the U.K. and do some tours and were talking about that before COVID and then when COVID hit, it really shut things down. It felt like just rebuilding all over again but I feel like now, we’re in the swing of things and these shows are being planned and yeah, hopefully we’ll get to see some more special shows in terms of maybe some joint ventures again, you never know. All-women’s pay-per-views and hopefully some international tours, because we’ve got some incredible U.K. fans over there and we never get to see them anymore so, love to see them.
** In the mid-1990s, Vader appeared on several episodes of the ABC series Boy Meets World. Series creator Michael Jacobs was interviewed by Darren Paltrowitz and said having Vader in the role he was in was perfect casting. Jacobs added that it was a plus for Vader to be an individual who was in-tap with his emotions.
No (other wrestlers were considered for that role in Boy Meets World). It was Vader. Mark Blutman, who is one of our writers — Vader was because of Ethan Suplee. Ethan was so magnificent in this series. This is a guy that was introspective and was supposed to be, basically just the bully’s intellectual and what was interesting was we wanted the physicality that Ethan brought to Ethan’s father for two reasons. We wanted to know where he came from and when we got together in the writers’ room, and Blutman said, ‘I wanna get Vader,’ everybody immediately knew that was exactly the right choice. The bonus was that Vader was this wonderfully emotional, lovely man who, boy I’ll tell ya, it was perfect casting.
** GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya is scheduled to take on IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada at Keiji Muto’s final match event at the Tokyo Dome. Kiyomiya looked back at the start of his ‘issue’ with Okada while speaking to Tokyo Sports. He feels he was being looked over by Okada at the NOAH versus NJPW show from the get-go.
From the moment I entered the ring (at the NOAH versus NJPW show), I felt I was being passed over. Even after the match started, he [Kazuchika Okada] didn’t look at me, so I felt like I was beaten, so I decided to fight back.
I never want to let Okada get away. I’m going to chase after him wherever he goes…
** MySanAntonio spoke to Piper Niven f.k.a. Doudrop and asked for her thoughts about the NXT UK brand closing and being rebranded as NXT Europe. She said NXT UK will always be in her heart and people put their everything into it and knows it’ll be the same for the relaunch.
NXT UK will always be a huge part of my heart and I feel like that show was so amazing. It produced so many great matches, and I know everyone put their heart and soul into it. I know that will be the case with NXT Europe. I am looking forward to having more people involved in it and it having more eyes on it. Hopefully I can visit some people and even have some matches.
** IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion and AEW World Trios Champion Kenny Omega spoke to Comicbook.com.
** There’s a feature story from the Associated Press about WWE’s Madcap Moss, real name ‘Michael Rallis’ and his younger brother, Nick Rallis, who’s a linebacker coach for the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles.
** DDT Pro-Wrestling ‘Sweet Dreams’ Results (1/29/22) Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
– Pre-Show Rumble: Fuminori Abe wins
– Pre-Show Four Way Tag Team Match: DAMNATION T.A (KANON & MJ Paul) def. DISASTER BOX (Kazuki Hirata & Toru Owashi) and Akito & Antonio Honda and Yuki Ishida & Yuya Koroku
– D Generations Cup 2023 Block A: Hideki Okatani [2] def. Kazuma Sumi [0]
– D Generations Cup 2023 Block B: Keigo Nakamura [2] def. Takeshi Masada [0]
– Toi Kojima, Yuki Ueno & Shinya Aoki def. Hikaru Machida, Thanomsak Toba & Yukio Sakaguchi
– Chris Brookes, HARASHIMA & Yukio Naya def. Jun Akiyama, Naruki Doi & Soma Takao
– KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championships: Burning (Kotaro Suzuki, Tetsuya Endo & Yusuke Okada) (c) def. Pheromones (Danshoku Dino, Koju Takeda & Yuki Ino)
– KO-D Tag Team Championship: The 37KAMIINA (MAO & Shunma Katsumata) (c) def. Makoto Oishi & Shiori Asahi
– KO-D Openweight Championship: Yuji Hino def. Kazusada Higuchi (c)
** TJPW ‘Futari wa Princess’ Max Heart Tournament Results (1/29/22) Fureai Cube in Kasukabe, Japan
– Mahiro Kiryu def. HIMAWARI
– Mizuki def. Wakana Uehara
– Three Way Match: Raku def. Haruna Neko and Yuki Aino
– Arisu Endo, Suzume & Yuki Arai def. Hikari Noa, Nao Kakuta & Kaya Toribami
– Futari wa Princess Max Heart Tournament Semi Final: Maki Ito & Miyu Yamashita def. Juria Nagano & Moka Miyamoto
– Futari wa Princess Max Heart Tournament Semi Final: Hyper Misao & Shoko Nakajima def. Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi
** To promote the 2023 WWE Royal Rumble, Bianca Belair and Dominik Mysterio were interviewed by Texas Public Radio.
** Jungle Kyona and Jaguar Yokota versus Unagi Sayaka and a mystery partner is scheduled for Pro Wrestling ZERO1’s March 5th show
** The ‘Good Karma Wrestling’ podcast feed has an interview with Matt Cardona.
** Comicbook.com pushed out their chat with L.A. Knight.
** Ice Ribbon Results (1/29/22) Shinkiba 1stRING in Tokyo, Japan
– Kiku & Sumika Yanagawa def. Misa Kagura & Saran
– Tsuki Umino def. Aiki
– YuuRI def. Yappy
– Yura Suzuki def. HisokA
– Hamuko Hoshi & Ibuki Hoshi def. Hikari Shimizu & Kaho Matsushita
– Asahi & Saori Anou def. Nao Ishikawa & Totoro Satsuki
** At a WWE Community event, Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair and Titus O’Neil spoke to Lucha Libre Online.
** Kofi Kingston guest appeared on The Ringer Wrestling Show’s ‘Cheap Heat’ podcast.
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.
