Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/12/01/post-news-update-highlights-from-tony-khan-aew-media-call/
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.
** AEW President Tony Khan held a media call on 12/1 to promote the ‘Winter Is Coming’ show that is being headlined by Jon Moxley versus Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship. Here are several highlights from the call via PWInsider:
– Tony Khan was asked about Brodie Lee’s whereabouts. Khan stated that he can’t comment on Lee “not being here” but he’s excited to have Brodie back soon hopefully and added that he’s one of AEW’s top talents.
– While talking about signing more talents during the COVID-19 pandemic, Khan said there were cuts that he could have and should have made but he did not want to because of the pandemic. He talked about AEW Dark and putting thought into splitting it into two different shows where one would be more of a developmental and the other would be for established talents.
– Khan said that AEW has a $175 million deal with TNT.
– When asked if Jon Moxley will be working Wrestle Kingdom 15, Khan said that Moxley will not be doing so.
** Kevin Quinn, former Sr. Editor, Director of Editing, Technical Director, Director and VP of TV Technology for WWE was recently let go from the company. He hosted an A.M.A. on Reddit and one of the questions asked of him was what was the craziest thing he’s had to edit from a show and here was his response:
Jerry Lawler was accused of statutory rape and we had already shot 3 hours of program. We had to remove him from every show already shot. It took 2 over-nights.
Quinn was presented a question about Chris Benoit and what it was like putting together the Monday Night RAW show after Benoit’s death. He simply noted that it was difficult.
Elsewhere, Kevin talked about working with Vince McMahon and addressed if Vince is how people make him out to be on the negative front.
Vince invited me and my wife to both of his kids’ weddings. He loves the people that help him take care of the company. He’s very personable behind the scenes. But business is business.
When asked who was one of the more polite wrestlers, Quinn named Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The Rock got a plaque made for the production crew to thank them for advancing his career.
The Rock made a plaque that still hangs this day in the TV Production facility thanking all of the people behind the scenes that helped make him what he is.
** Xavier Woods spoke to IGN about his signing to G4 to be a host. Woods talked about representation and the talks he’s had with G4 about representation being important as they continue to rebuild.
“With me being the first host, I automatically look different than everybody else that they very much understand that representation is important. They understand that in the past 15, 10 years… the makeup of who is in the gaming space has been changing.”
** The return of the Slammy Awards is being advertised on the WWE Network’s Twitter account. Also, Drew McIntyre will be appearing on Broken Skull Sessions with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
** On the latest episode of Renee Paquette’s ‘Oral Sessions’ podcast, Josh Barnett was the guest and at the conclusion of the interview, Renee chatted with Jon Moxley. It was during this portion of the interview that Moxley told the story of how he was supposed to get in the cage at Bellator 235 to cut a promo on Josh Barnett to promote Bloodsport. Barnett ended up getting sick and was pulled from the card.
“What happened was, we were gonna go to Honolulu, little vacation and it just so happened that Josh is fighting Bellator in Honolulu, and we’re having dinner with Josh, Erik Hammer and the crew the night before and everything is fine. So at this point, I’m scheduled to wrestle Josh Barnett at Bloodsport in April. This is I believe December. This is an advantageous opportunity to get some press behind this thing, right? So Josh says like, ‘Yeah, so after the match or whatever, I’ll do a promo and then that’s when you jump –’
I was assuming he was . I wasn’t even willing to entertain the idea. Yeah, because I thought about doing that. I thought about saying — because I was stressed. Like if he got knocked out, I wouldn’t jump in the cage and start talking sh*t so Josh says, ‘After the match, we’ll cut a little promo, you jump in the cage and basically just do our business, promote Bloodsport, do whatever you wanna do, and we’ll just make sure that everybody’s aware of it and you don’t get arrested’ or whatever but, wasn’t really clear on any details or whatever so I’m not gonna be a wuss. If I said I was gonna fall through with it, I was gonna fall through with it even if I got arrested but we never really got a chance —
Yeah so I was set to jump in the cage at Bellator and start talking some sh*t. Security or cops be damned or… ‘I hope the whole Bellator locker room doesn’t empty and beat the f*ck out me.’”
While on the podcast, Josh Barnett talked about his philosophy behind Bloodsport and why he presents it in the serious tone that he does.
“One of my things about this, it’s not trying to be like, ‘My wrestling is better than every other wrestling.’ That’s no, no, no,” Barnett said. “I want what we do to draw the fans in and remove all that expectation stuff, all of the predictability. I want people to have to really pay attention. I don’t care if they’re popping during the match. If they’re so glued to watching that they’re hardly making any noise, totally works because I want what they see to mean something to them. I want it to matter, I want them to be drawn into it. That’s the whole point. I don’t what people to be able to turn their eyes away. I want them to stay glued on the screen, glued on their seats and really giving a sh*t about what these guys are doing.”
** The Women’s Wrestling Talk podcast welcomed NWA World Women’s Champion Serena Deeb onto the show. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Serena had been coaching at the WWE Performance Center for several years but she always had the feeling that she wasn’t done wrestling.
“To be honest with you, while I was coaching and I absolutely loved my coaching job and I loved — it really let me grow as a human being so much so I’m super grateful for it. But the whole time I was coaching, I had a feeling that I may not be done wrestling but obviously I was embracing that chapter and that role in my life and so, there was this part of me that was like, ‘I don’t feel done. In my heart, I don’t feel done’ and then there’s this other part in me that was just trying to be super present with that job and embracing what that was bringing into my life. So, I think there was always a large portion of me that didn’t feel done, still had something to contribute in the ring but all of this with AEW and NWA happened really fast and it’s been great, it’s been fun but, yeah. It was slightly unexpected and also amazing.”
Serena saw many of talents come through the Performance Center but one that she knew would become a star from the jump was Rhea Ripley.
“There’s experiences with both. There are some people that just naturals and wrestling just clicks with. Rhea Ripley’s an example of that. She was somebody that just from the second I saw her, I was like, ‘This girl’s gonna be a star. She’s gonna do big things in this business’ and watching the growth of someone like her in the time I was there was really rewarding, and just proud. I see her killing it from afar and I just — that was somebody that was just a no-brainer. It just made sense.”
** Ring of Honor’s Shane Taylor was a guest on the Pro Wrestling Illustrated podcast. Shane commented on the idea of ROH potentially bringing fans back for their forthcoming events if manageable. Shane wants things to be safe and secure for all involved before that happens.
“I go about it with the same perspective as the protocols for the wrestlers. I want us to be 100 percent sure that we are doing everything possible to ensure everybody’s safety first, right? I don’t want to — if that means not having fans for a little while longer until things clear up and we know it’s safe, then that’s what it needs to be. Because again, people are here for entertainment. They’re not here to be worried, they’re not here to be scared. They’re supposed to be able to leave all of that at the door when they come in to see us. So, I don’t want them worrying about if someone sneezes, ‘Oh man, is that COVID?’ I want to make sure that protocols are in place first and once we’re sure, okay, we can do this and have people be healthy, the performers and the fans, then we can start to have fans.”
** TNT Champion Darby Allin was interviewed by WhatCulture and Darby believes that at some point, he and Sammy Guevara are going to headline an AEW pay-per-view with a title on the line.
“Absolutely. Yeah. You heard it here first, mark my words. We are going to be fighting for the championship one day. The TNT Championship, the world championship, whatever championship it is in AEW, me and Sammy are going to main event a pay-per-view. I guarantee it. He’s too hungry and I’m too hungry and man, we got a lot in common with that. But yeah man, you give us the ball and you ain’t never gonna see that sh*t again.”
** Gerald Brisco discussed in-depth with Wrestling Inc. what his night consisted of on the evening of the final WCW taping.
** PWInsider noted that Sonjay Dutt is now working as a producer for the NXT brand full-time.
** While speaking about the 2010 WWE TLC pay-per-view during the latest installment of the ARN podcast, Arn Anderson talked about Daniel Bryan’s in-ring ability and how quiet Bryan was backstage during the early portion of his run with WWE.
“I think Daniel Bryan will tell you. After the first time or two that I saw him work, pulled him aside, he was very, very quiet. Quiet kid, very humble. He walked those halls, you didn’t even know he was in the locker room. He was very quiet and I said, ‘Hey, I’m a big fan of your work’ and I wasn’t blowing smoke because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I meant it and I could tell even then, he had that quality of talent that he could go out, make no bones about the fact that he’s not 6’3, 275 but let you know during his storytelling of that match that he was okay with having to fight his way uphill and having to overcome the odds and that immediately endeared the audience to him because now, he wasn’t getting shoved down anybody’s throat. He was having competitive matches with everybody that he went to the ring with, win or lose and he was and he is just very talented.”
** WWE won ‘Platform of the Year’ at the SportsPro OTT Awards.
** Due to a prolonged lockdown in Germany, the wXw Academy will remain closed until at least early 2021. wXw Shogun season three tapings for January have been postponed. New wXw storyline content cannot be produced until the end of February at the very least.
** The ‘Sabotage Wrestling’ promotion based out of Texas noted that they are postponing the remainder of their events going forward as the COVID-19 cases have gone up in the state.
** Director of Operations for the National Wrestling Alliance, Maureen Tracy announced that December 1st is her last day with the organization.
** Comicbook.com ran their interview with Keith Lee. While on the topic of his new theme song, Keith thinks WWE noticed that his fan-base was not happy with the theme he was given upon his arrival on RAW. He detailed the conversation he had with the powers that be about creating a new one.
“I think that the office paid attention to the disgruntled fan base of mine, and they gained respects for their outspoken nature, and said, ‘Okay, Keith. Can you do something for music that doesn’t involve your old song?’ And I said, ‘Sure. If you give me a couple days, I’ll write it up. And then if you want, I can go to the studio and knock it out.’ That’s exactly what happened. I wrote something, and within a few weeks I went in and recorded it, and just kind of sat on it until I felt like there was a decent time to play it. I think people were even happier with this music than the old music.”
** Here are new videos from the All Elite Wrestling YouTube channel:
** Below is the premiere episode of NWA’s ‘Shockwave’ series:
** UPROXX ran their interview with Xavier Woods.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling announced the match lineup for the 12/4 episode of NJPW Strong:
– The DKC vs. Sterling Riegel
– Alex Zayne vs. Blake Christian
– Elimination Tag Match: Brody King, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, ACH & Karl Fredericks vs. BULLET CLUB (KENTA, Jay White, Tanga Loa, Tama Tonga & Hikuleo)
** Fightful has an interview with Shotzi Blackheart.
** The Young Bucks were on Jamie Kilstein’s podcast.
** Ken Shamrock chatted with Comicbook.com.
** Here are the results from the latest ROH TV episode:
– Pure Rules Match: Josh Woods def. Jay Lethal
– Mike Bennett guest appears on ‘Trending with Matt Taven.’
– Brody King def. Shane Taylor
** There is a ‘Best of’ catalog on the WWE Network for New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods).
** Per Showbuzz Daily, the 11/26 episode of Miz & Mrs. on the USA Network brought in 380,000 viewers, ranked 41st in the cable ratings and did a 0.12 in the 18-49 demographic.
** The newest episode of Reality of Wrestling television:
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.