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.
** Joining the BWGS Pod on location from Australia was Rhea Ripley. The WWE Women’s World Champion credited Ruby Soho for being a source of inspiration. When Ripley first arrived to WWE, she felt she was not being her true self. When Ripley saw Soho’s tattoos and presentation, she took inspiration from that. Soho gave Ripley advice as well.
The Rhea Ripley that we all saw in the first Mae Young Classic, I was 20. I was so young and I just wanted to please everyone. I was so scared of doing anything different or anything that I thought was different. But the Rhea Ripley you see today is what I was on the inside. I didn’t let it out because I felt like I had to fit a specific mold to be in the WWE. It was a time where females weren’t big and bulky, they didn’t have tattoos. They all had the long hair and I’m glad for someone like — I don’t actually give her enough credit. But Ruby Riott, she was the first one that I really looked at and was like, wow, she’s covered in tattoos. She’s got short hair, she looks super cool and I remember tagging with her quite a few times on the coconut shows which are like the non-televised (shows) and she helped me just bring out that side of me that was me and a lot of other people did too but, I also had to sit down with myself at a specific time and just be like, yo, wake up. Stop being fake. I hate fake people and I was one and I was like, just don’t care what anyone thinks about you. If they don’t like you, they don’t deserve to be in your life. So I just kind of decided to be myself. I cut my hair short. At the time, we had to get tattoos approved (she laughed). I mean, we still sort of do. I just get away with it… so I wore pants as a way to get leg sleeves. That was my little loophole.
Speaking about her finishing move, ‘The Riptide’, she said Shane Haste helped her discover it. She remembers working on it with Haste and Tegan Nox at the Performance Center.
Shane Haste actually helped me with this one (Riptide finisher). Another Aussie boy… I think he was the one that actually found it and he showed me. He’s like, ‘We should try this’ and I remember going and we had this squishy ring at the Performance Center. It was legit like a pillow. It was fantastic… I would much rather land on that than the black little mats on the floor that I used to learn on. But I remember going there with Shane and Tegan Nox and just trying it over and over and over again and just trying to perfect it and it’s come a long way because even in NXT U.K., I used to do it and sit down with it and that hurts. I don’t like the feeling of that on my butt to be completely honest, and then I started doing it and going down to my knees and my knees aren’t great anyway but it’s so much better than falling on your ass over and over again.
** During John Cena’s appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, he looked back on the Firefly Fun House match he had with Windham Rotunda (Bray Wyatt) at WrestleMania 36. Cena still has the original draft write-up of the match and confirmed that originally, him and Rotunda were going to have a standard match prior to the COVID-19 pandemic happening. The night before filming the match, Cena was still piecing it together. Before the match aired, Cena texted Rotunda and expressed how nervous he was, especially after seeing The Undertaker and A.J. Styles’ Boneyard match on night one.
Yeah, yeah (Windham Rotunda & I were going to have a standard match at WrestleMania 36 originally) and then things happened and I remember three days before we filmed the Firefly Fun House match, it was the last TV taping where they came in and they were like, ‘You’re gonna have a Firefly Funhouse match’ and I remember there’s three people in one of the conference rooms in NXT with me. I said, ‘What’s a Firefly Fun House match?’ They said, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s like, ‘Great. What can we do?’ And that was like, oh man, again, control the controllable. ‘I wish we had an audience.’ Performers are like, ‘I wish there could be blood. I wish we could do chair shots to the head, I wish we could swear, I wish I could flip people off.’ Control the controllable, use the tools in your tool belt. How do we make something entertaining over a two-day period with no audience? And they gave us a stipulation. Everybody else just has a regular match and it’s your stip, it’s your stip. It’s not a Doctor of Thuganomics match or Hustle, Loyalty, Respect match. That’s completely different. You have these definitive characters, you have all this ammunition, you have all this personality and that’s what people really radiate towards. Holy sh*t, we can make this a meta look at my life, and we can get away with it. What do we have up in the warehouse? We have the fist, the blue cage. I can get some n.W.o. stuff. Dude, we can make this work and I remember this (is) the only match I’ve ever written from start to finish and my poor wife, I made her print it out and I’m writing and giving her paper and she’s, ‘What is this? What does it even mean?’ ‘Just print it! I just need it!’ And somewhere I still have the original draft in my handwriting of the Firefly Fun House match. But man, Bray couldn’t have been better. He knew what was up and he knew the whole thing. I wrote it like the night before, so I’m trying to text these guys like, ‘I got something weird,’ and I think I might have sent a picture of the draft and I still, in my phone — and I don’t have it with me but I have it saved; a text that I sent him the night of the match, especially after we saw The Undertaker’s match the night before, ‘Oh man, they crushed it,’ and there was a whole lot more physicality. We got one punch and I text him how nervous I was but I wanted to thank him for being so brave and trusting me and I think I couldn’t have done any more and I think we gave it our best shot and hopefully it works, and that was an effort that I am very proud of.
** A new interview with Trish Stratus was pushed out by Jamal Niaz of Monopoly Events. Stratus thinks it’d be cool to face Lita at WrestleMania or go after the Women’s Tag Titles together.
That would be fantastic (to face Lita at WrestleMania). It’d be really great. Also, there’s two thoughts, right? There’s like, we can go back and she can get her payback, whatever, and that moment because for a rivalry that spanned decades, literally, because to this day, we are still fighting, still at odds, we never had a WrestleMania moment. Isn’t it so crazy to think of? Sometimes we go, ‘I can’t believe we didn’t ever have a WrestleMania moment.’ We’ve had Triple Threats and we’ve been involved but, yeah, so I think that’d be really cool. I think it would be really cool, and also, I don’t know, wouldn’t it be neat if Trish and Lita were Tag Team Champions? I think it’d be cool… If she can stop — I forgot why I’m mad at her. Anyway, whatever, if she stopped being whatever I was mad at her for. She’s just gotta stop that.
** Prior to NXT Roadblock, Tony D’Angelo chatted with ComicBook Nation and spoke about Adriana Rizzo adding a new dynamic to The Family.
Absolutely (it’s new energy in The Family with Adriana Rizzo being added). It brings a whole new dynamic to the group and she is a little fireball. She’s an athletic freak. Her past accomplishments in college, you know, like 10-time All-American or something in track, you know? Something crazy. Holds a couple school records. But, now that we have a woman that can represent The Family and potentially go for the women’s NXT Championship down the line and all that good stuff, it brings a lot of light and brings a lot of new publicity to The Family so, I’m happy, the underboss is happy and we’re helping big Riz along and pushing her to make sure she makes it so (he laughed)… but she’s great.
** A tribute show for the late Kurtis ‘Mad Kurt’ Chapman at this link.
** Social media influencer Jaden Laing received a WWE tryout offer.
** John Cena appeared on Funny Marco’s ‘Open Thoughts’ show:
** Prior to WWE Elimination Chamber, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and Rhea Ripley guest appeared on SEN WA.
** To promote his upcoming WWE Hall of Fame induction, Paul Heyman chatted with The Philadelphia Inquirer.
** Southern Cross Combat has interviews with Kevin Owens and Becky Lynch.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wresting Results (3/5/24) from Radiant Hall in Yokohama, Japan
– Dragon Kid, B×B Hulk & Kagetoa def. Madoka Kikuta, Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanakai
– Gianna Valletta def. Punch Tominaga
– Takashi Yoshida & Masaaki Mochizuki def. Jason Lee & Ho Ho Lun
– Shun Skywalker, KAI & ISHIN def. Kzy, U-T & JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI
– Strong Machine J, BIGBOSS Shimizu, Kota Minoura & Ben-K def. Luis Mante, Hyo, YAMATO & Susumu Mochizuki
** March 5th birthdays: Kenzie Paige and Jordynne Grace.
** Sportsday WA welcomed Drew McIntyre onto the show.
** The Battleground Podcast has an interview with Omos.
** Nick Dinsmore (Eugene) is doing a show on April 11th in London, England.
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.
