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.
** The latest guest to join Insight with Chris Van Vliet was NXT’s Lexis King. He spoke about using the ‘Pillman’ name for his on-screen persona and getting to a point where he felt like he was subtracting from it from his father’s legacy. He was not going to combat WWE for wanting to give him a different name.
Yeah (there was talk of me being ‘Brian Pillman Jr.’ in NXT). I don’t wanna get into details but when I first got there, everything was just… Brian Pillman Jr., yada, yada, yada, I had some talks. They gave me the whole, you know, ‘We can’t keep your name’ kind of talk and I thought, well, I don’t wanna make it seem like that’s a bad thing, and honestly, coming into it, I’ve always sort of fantasized about having my own wrestler name because my whole career, I’ve had his name. My whole life, I’ve had someone else’s name. I’ve been walking around for 30 years with someone else’s name. Brian Pillman is a name that my father made. He made that name on his own. There’s not much I can add to it… And I got to the point where I felt like I was sort of subtracting from it and I was sort of drawing away from his legacy because I am using his name and I was tired of being compared and everything so it’s like, as much as it was the company’s initial push for that, I was already kind of on board with that and I was excited for that and I wanted that to happen and I had people tell me, ‘Oh no, don’t let them change your name. You wanna keep all the intellectual’ yada, yada, yada and I thought, you know what? Screw it. I’m not gonna try to swim upstream. I’m gonna go with the flow, I’m gonna go with what the company wants, I’m gonna put the company first and foremost and if this is how we can not only benefit me by rebranding me and giving me a whole new identity to work with, but also, it shows the creative capacity for the company to work with its performers and build brand new — you know what I mean? Sure, they could have just said, alright, he’s Pillman Jr. and we play the clips of my dad playing football and boom, boom, boom and then it’s like, where do we go from there? But with Lexis King, and I say that with a lot of emphasis, Lexis King (he laughed) … we have so many places that we can go and explore my true personality which is not my father’s because he didn’t raise me and we have this sort of dark story where I am the son of my stepfather, right? Like, he influenced me, he raised me all by — terribly, he abused me and neglected me. But, that’s what makes me a King, right? I am a King because I was raised and influenced by that man and whether that means I have certain habits or tendencies that a guy like him would have and that’s who I am. I’m a lot less of a Pillman. I would be more of a Pillman if my father was around but he wasn’t so, internally, I am a King, I am Lexis King.
** Prior to her arrival to TNA Wrestling at Hard To Kill, Ash by Elegance f.k.a. Dana Brooke spoke to Trinity Fatu and Mickie James. They both told her that TNA would be the place for her. She said the following on Busted Open Radio:
Trinity (Fatu), she was a co-worker of mine back in WWE and I love the progression she had made and she was actually one of the girls I had spoken with, you know, before making an appearance on TNA and she’s like, ‘Girl, this is the place for you.’ She’s like, ‘You have so much untapped potential and TNA will be able to bring it out of you’ and another person that I had spoken with too was Mickie James and Mickie was like, ‘This is the place.’ She’s like, ‘Ash, you have so much potential and TNA is gonna bring it out of you and you’ll have a locker room of badass women to perform with.’
** While guest appearing on Busted Open Radio, R-Truth discussed being surprised by becoming WWE’s number one merchandise seller.
Now that was a shock (being WWE Shop’s #1 merch seller). That was a shock to me and I don’t get shocked too easy in this business. That was a shock to me.
** Ahead of his AEW World Title defense against HOOK on the 1/17 Dynamite, Samoa Joe was interviewed by Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated. He expressed that he’s looking forward to the match.
I’m very much looking forward to it (match against HOOK). This typifies what I want to see during my reign–I want these first-time matchups with something at stake. HOOK is quite the dynamic little athlete, and he’s been doing his best to make his case. His record speaks for itself, and we’re going to find out if he’s the truth or not.
** Sareee-ISM Chapter III Results (1/16/24) from Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo, Japan
– Mio Momono & Riko Kawahata def. Azusa Inaba & Tomoka Inaba
– Aja Kong & Jaguar Yokota def. Chi Chi & Kizuna Tanaka
– Takumi Iroha def. Miyuki Takase
– Kaoru Ito & Nanae Takahashi def. Hiragi Kurumi & Unagi Sayaka
– Sareee def. Chihiro Hashimoto
** Scheduled for DDT Pro-Wrestling’s April 4th show in Philadelphia are Konosuke Takeshita, Yuki Ueno, MAO and Kazuki Hirata.
** Shuji Ishikawa is departing All Japan Pro Wrestling at the end of January. He is scheduled to make his return to Pro Wrestling NOAH on February 15th. It’ll be his first match for the promotion since 2008.
** Daily Mail pushed out the written version of their chat with Carlito.
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.
