Originally published at IMPACT Wrestling had interest in Anthony Bowens & Max Caster
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 Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) of All Elite Wrestling were guests on Busted Open Radio. Tommy Dreamer, who works with the IMPACT Wrestling creative team told the duo that there was interest in them from IMPACT and that interest began with Brian Myers pitching their names.
“You know, I’ll tell you this, I’ll let you in on a little inside. We were losing The Rascalz and wrestling, we know when contracts are coming up happen and everything happens for a reason but just the fact that you go so long in wrestling and then all of a sudden, the doors open up for you and to tell you a quick story, Scotty 2 Hotty was the next Shawn Michaels. He looked just like Shawn Michaels, and he was plugging away for the business for a long, long time and in the same week, he had job offers from ECW, WCW and the WWF, and from doing it for like six-to-eight years and then for the same week to have all these people clamor for him, it’s pretty, pretty cool so you guys, I know at least had options where I didn’t even know if you guys knew that other people were plugging for you and it was based upon your talent.”
Bowens was supposed to work with AEW in some capacity prior to the pandemic. He stated that he was supposed to be at their Blood & Guts event in New Jersey.
“Right after we spoke , from what I understand, I was supposed to doing something at the Blood & Guts show or at least be there so I was like, ‘This is my moment, this is my time’ and then 30 minutes later, ‘All shows cancelled’ and I was like, ‘No! No, not again’ and then something similar happened in June then finally I was able to get down here and then a couple weeks later the good news came.”
** On the latest episode of GAW TV with Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val, Mickie further discussed her broken nose that she suffered several months ago. Initially, Mickie did not share when or what match she broke her nose in but on the recent episode of their YouTube series, Mickie said it occurred during a match with Asuka.
“I did it with Asuka’s knee, to my face because I was committed. I wanted to make it look good. Still real to me damn it! But yeah, it just kinda hit me right here and just kind of knocked my nose… it was cute, it was real cute.”
Former ROH World Champion Jay Lethal was a guest on GAW TV and he recalled working with SoCal Val in TNA. There was a storyline involving Val, Lethal and Sonjay Dutt and Lethal detailed one of the pre-tapes that Vince Russo wanted to coordinate for said storyline.
“There’s one part of that whole storyline where Sonjay every time we see each other. It’s when he had started the ‘Set Val Free Fund’ and he had these little kids following him and there was one pre-tape where Vince Russo wanted the kids to massage Sonjay’s feet, and he was like, ‘Okay, can I keep my shoes on? Because it’s creepy’ and Vince Russo was like, ‘Nope. You gotta take the shoes off.’ It was so — oh my God. But yeah, we laugh about it all the time. So creepy.”
** John Arezzi tweeted out that Sylvano Sousa passed away due to complications from COVID-19. Sylvano competed for the NWA, Stampede Wrestling and the WWF. He also was a regular in All Japan Pro Wrestling in the mid-70s. Below is Arezzi’s message:
Sad news. RIP to the man who was my partner on January 10, 1979 when we took on the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. We will miss you Sylvano Sousa, who died today from complications related to COVID-19.
** WWE is promoting The Undertaker on Cameo for a limited time only ahead of Survivor Series. There are only 30 Cameo videos available for a purchase of $1,000 each. WWE issued a third-party edict for talents to remove themselves from platforms such as Twitch and Cameo. WWE is still doing virtual meet-and-greets before pay-per-view events featuring talents.
** Jimmy Traina welcomed The Undertaker onto the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast to promote his appearance at Survivor Series. Undertaker stated that he does not know what he’ll be doing on the show other than making an entrance and addressing the fans who’ve supported him throughout the years.
“You got about as much knowledge as I do. Only thing I can safely say is at some point, I will make an entrance and go to the ring and address the WWE universe and that’s about as much as I know right now tell you the truth.
We got no details other than… November 22nd to the day is my 30-year anniversary. Obviously, it has been 30 days of The Undertaker, it’s been quite a bit, it’s been humbling but I honestly, I’m dealing with Vince McMahon here and there’s no one that Vince McMahon loves to play a practical joke on or rib more so than The Undertaker so, I’m going in with crazy expectations of what potentially could happen to me on Sunday.”
Undertaker was asked to recount a time when he and Vince McMahon disagreed on something that McMahon wanted to go through with. He spoke about the Punjabi Prison match that he had with Big Show and how McMahon later admitted that Undertaker was right about how the bout would turn out.
“We had — and I’m sorry I don’t remember all the details to it but it centered around the first Punjabi Prison match, and he was just steadfast in how — because Khali wasn’t able to do it so Big Show ended up being in the match and he was just steadfast that he wanted this bump through the door and I kept telling him, I said, ‘This is gonna look like crap, it ain’t gonna work the way you see it. I’ve been on this thing, this structure all day. It’s just not gonna happen that way.’ ‘Oh, it’ll be great, it’ll be great.’ ‘I’m telling ya, it’s gonna suck’ and you know, there’s a spot in that match if you look back where I jumped from one — so there’s two parameters, right? So I jumped from one to the outside one which would have been the perfect time for me to get out and it would’ve been — the people would’ve lost their mind, and they did. As soon as I jumped, the people went crazy but I had to go back around and get to the finish the way — so, one of those I gave up on and it did, it stunk. It was so bad. But to his credit, he did come to me and say, ‘You were right, I was wrong. We should’ve done it your way.’ That was very far and few between. There were a few other things but that was probably one of the more contentious ones.”
** Jason Powell welcomed MLW founder Court Bauer onto the Pro Wrestling Boom podcast. MLW’s Restart kicked off on 11/18 on the organization’s YouTube channel and fubo Sports. Bauer stated that he originally wanted FUSION to air on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays, but the network wanted to slot MLW on Wednesdays and originally wanted them at the 8 PM EST spot.
“And so, closing that deal to have to pick.”
Bauer said there have been plenty of conversations with All Elite Wrestling when he was asked about the idea of a talent exchange. He explained that it has to be mutually beneficial for all sides in order for it to happen.
“We’ve had plenty of conversations with folks over there all the time and every conversation is kind of a different discussion about a different thing so, we’ve had very positive experiences with them and I think you look at 2021 and all the possibilities, I think there’s a lot of interesting opportunities with AEW or with other places even, to do some form of a shared ecosystem. Now I don’t wanna get too specific but there’s always a possibility. I think there just has to be a realistic balance of the transaction of all sides and how it has to be mutually beneficial to your fans, your business, their fans and their business and if it is, great. That’s what you hope for. It’s easier said than done in general because of the state of wrestling, right? Things can get very complicated but I think there definitely could be a pathway to that for sure.”
As far as the latest set of tapings, Bauer stated that MLW has enough content to get them into 2021 before they’d have to tape again.
“More weeks of TV than I hopefully will need. But I really — I’m always gonna be more cautious with these things than optimistic so we mapped out… significant amount of TV and whether it airs or not, we’ll see but we get into 2021 with this TV cycle.”
** AEW President Tony Khan made the media rounds and one of the outlets he spoke with was Sporting News. When asked about his boasting of AEW’s cards and shows, he recounted one time he felt like he did the talent a disservice and that was classifying Jon Moxley and Jake Hager’s empty-arena match as the greatest of its kind.
“So there’s a lot of fun stuff coming up the rest of the year, and I would just say stay tuned. I’m not worried about the backlash at all, because whenever I’ve proclaimed something’s going to be good — I’ll go back. I’ve never talked about this in an interview. I will say there was one time I did the guys a disservice, but it was just my own personal opinion. I feel like I set the expectations too high for them — but I thought it was great — for the Jon Moxley and Jake Hager match in April. I thought it was awesome. They beat the s— out of each other, and they they put on a great match — a true empty-arena match without even the other workers out there to watch them. And what they did, I thought was awesome, and we were all just raving about it when it was done. But on TV the way I presented it — it was in April, there was not COVID testing available to us yet, and I didn’t feel good about putting JR in a booth with anybody, and the technology has gotten more reliable since then. I probably should have given JR a partner for starters, and I liked the idea of JR calling it with an old-sport feel. I’ve learned a lot in seven months. Those guys had a great match, Jon and Jake, and there was something really good in there, and it’s probably my fault how I presented it, because the match they had was awesome. And I told everybody I thought it was the best empty-arena match. I loved the match, but I get that not everyone did. So that’s subjective on a wrestling match, but there’s some things that are not subjective, that are just binary. And as far as binary, is this going to be big or not stuff for the rest of the year? There’s some big stuff.”
On the topic of celebrities coming onto the show, Khan stated that he is looking forward to the possibility of working with Mike Tyson again after Tyson’s fight against Roy Jones Jr.
“Hopefully when Mike gets out of there with Roy Jones Jr., I’d love to do stuff with Mike again — he’s a good friend, and he’s always been very good to me, and I have a lot of respect for him, and I hope Mike comes out of this fight OK. Similar to Michael Jordan, I think there’s a mystique around Mike Tyson where nobody has ever replicated it, and it’s been over 20 years since he was in his peak, and still nobody can touch that mystique. So I think he has that.”
** WWE posted a job application in search for a lead writer for RAW and SmackDown.
** The Screen Actors Guild labor union tweeted out that they had a powerful conversation with former WWE talent Zelina Vega. Vega added that the conversation was indeed powerful and thanked them for it. Vega was released from WWE this past Friday and before her release was formally announced, she tweeted that she supports unionization. POST Wrestling’s own John Pollock reported that the release was already known about internally before Vega tweeted her comment.
** The TNT Champion Darby Allin was interviewed by Comicbook.com prior to the 11/18 episode of AEW Dynamite. Darby talked about his daredevil-style vignettes and stated that he normally doesn’t tell those at AEW about his filming plans until it is filmed and ready for television.
“No, because sometimes I just don’t tell them until I show them the vid. So a lot of times people can’t see what I’m up to. Like when I jumped off the bridge. It’s like, ‘Hey man, I’m here. I’m alive. I’m walking around now. So hopefully we can use these.'”
** The Young Bucks sat down with Wrestling Inc. to promote the release of their new book. Matt and Nick recalled doing extra work for WWE and being taken care of by Shawn Michaels. They also recounted John Laurinaitis acting as if he’d never met them after Michaels told him to take care of Matt and Nick.
“Like Matt said, we were young, naïve little kids, so for our hero, at the time, to take care of us like that, it blew our minds,” Nick said. “On that day, we were like, ‘Oh my God, I guess we’re getting signed to the WWE.’ And the next day Shawn wasn’t at SmackDown, and we completely got kayfabed by whoever was in charge.
It was Johnny Ace. He took us over to Johnny Ace, and Johnny Ace, he’s the head of talent relations. He’s like, ‘You got to take a good look at these kids. Marty says they’re good. They’re good. Take a hard look at them,’ and Johnny’s just like, ‘Yeah, I will Shawn.’ And then the next day, he just totally kayfabed us. He didn’t even act like he remembered us from the day prior.”
** Former 5-time TNA World Tag Team Champion Davey Richards sent out a series of tweets explaining why he stepped away from pro wrestling. He shared that he’s had 14 total surgeries on his right knee and he recounted being in IMPACT and their doctor telling him that he had the knee of a 70-year old. His thread of tweets can be read here.
** Chris Van Vliet sat down with JTG for an exclusive interview. JTG reflected on he and Shad Gaspard’s WWE television in-ring debut and after their match, he was lectured by an unnamed WWE Hall Of Famer who claimed that JTG used his signature taunt.
“I got into trouble with a veteran, a Hall Of Famer. He accused me of stealing — what do you call it? His taunt. You watched my first match, me and Shad debut match and when I came out, I was just hype. My hands were all over the place. As you can see, my chain fell off and I was just in my zone. I’m not even thinking and then I have my match and then, after the match we had a segment with Booker T. It went great, and then I’m on cloud nine. I’m like, ‘Life is great right now. I just performed — had a live match, it went great, at Staples Center, L.A.’ I wasn’t living in L.A. at the time. I was still living in Kentucky so L.A. to me was like oh my gosh and then I just did a backstage segment with Booker T and Sharmell, King Booker and that went great, everybody loved it, I’m on cloud nine like life is great, and then a certain Hall Of Famer comes up to me and said, ‘I told you already about your hand gestures and keeping your mind –’ and he just belittles me in front of… I’m on cloud — I’m just up there and that is brought right back down. I got humbled real quick like, ‘I didn’t… what?’ And then… I calmed down. What am I gonna do? I’m the new guy. Do you think I’m gonna yell at this, say something back to this Hall Of Famer? All I could do was like — in my head, he’s wrong but I’m gonna be the professional, apologize and it won’t happen again. I couldn’t come out — I waited for some time to pass by before I could let loose again but I had to be on my P’s and Q’s.”
** While speaking with The National’s ‘Arts & Culture’ section, The Undertaker talked about The Corporate Ministry group that he was a part of and he felt like it began to get “cheesy”.
“The Corporate Ministry, to me, got a little cheesy, but what am I going to do? It started out really cool and we just kind of added way too much stuff to it. Vince got involved, then Shane and it was just like a little too much.”
** SPORTbible spoke with Shawn Michaels and Michaels did an extensive interview with the site about The Undertaker. Michaels feels that Undertaker has earned the right to have this farewell at Survivor Series and if he decides to, he can wrestle somebody shortly after.
“We haven’t had the opportunity to sit and chat about that but like with a lot of things, he keeps a lot of things close to his chest. It’s his decision. I don’t care if we celebrate 30 years and two weeks later he decides to have a match against somebody. He can do whatever he wants, he’s earned it. I’m thrilled if he does and equally if he doesn’t. He loves this line of work, everything about what he’s done shows that and I think we just appreciate what he’s given us and let him conduct himself as he chooses.”
** New York Post pushed out their interview with WWE Champion Drew McIntyre. He dove into his forthcoming match against the Universal Champion Roman Reigns at Survivor Series. While speaking about Reigns, McIntyre said he genuinely respects Reigns and wanted to be like him at one point.
“Then to come back and see how he developed into this top-tier superstar, who didn’t just put the work in-in the ring, which he did, but outside the ring. As he talks about, there are all these different levels to being a superstar, a top superstar is 24/7 and he was putting in the work. He kept his head down, he never complained. I was like, ‘Wow I look up to this guy. I have so much respect for this guy. I want to be like him.’ Because when I returned to WWE, even though I wrestled much longer than him, I wanted to be just like him.”
Drew McIntyre has been interacting with Sheamus on WWE television over the past several weeks. The two broke into the business together and McIntyre said they’ve been discussing the idea of a program together for ten years.
“So it’s probably about at least like 10 years ago we started talking about the possibilities for Drew McIntyre and Sheamus. So we now have 10 years extra that we can add into the backstory here. We’ve been dreaming about working together and bringing in the real story for a long time because the fans can tell when something’s real and when it’s not real.
We are basing things in truth as much as possible. We are bringing in our real-life story, our real-life feeling to those backstage segments and if we can take that somewhere interesting where we’re teaming together. I keep pushing for that. Everyone keeps saying, ‘When’s he gonna Brogue kick Drew?’ What? Brogue kick Drew? I get the dynamic that he’s the bad guy on the show and I’m the good guy on the show, but when we’re together you can just see that friendship and that friendship just overrides everything else that’s going on with us and that creates an extra layer to the characters.
Why couldn’t we keep together while still doing our own things on the side and keep that relationship going? Why don’t we do some damage, have some fun? People would enjoy us beating the crap out of everyone, except for our opponents. And then maybe down the line, when it was right, we have the match. Let’s build this thing. Let’s not jump right into it.”
** The Undertaker’s appearance on ‘Hot Ones’:
** Murphy appeared on After The Bell with Corey Graves and talked about his time as a member of RAW and SmackDown respectively. Murphy shared that it was Paul Heyman who asked for him to come to RAW.
“Wrestling Roman Ali the week after that, killed that, off TV. Like what’s going on? I feel like I gave two of the best matches of the year, back to back and then I’m not seen again, and then Paul Heyman wanted me on RAW, and much respect to Paul for — he pulled me aside and he said some real kind words to me and he wanted me to come to RAW and asked if there’s anything holding me to SmackDown. I said, ‘Hey, I just want to put my best foot forward.’”
** Comicbook.com pushed out their interview with Leon Ruff. Ruff was asked about his North American Title win against Johnny Gargano and shared that the entrance ramp spot where the title fell from his waist was planned.
“No, it was planned. I remember Triple H came up with it and we did it in rehearsal, and when I did it, everyone started laughing. Everyone enjoyed it, so it was like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to do it’. I enjoyed it. I was excited. I knew it was coming and I was like, ‘Oh man, I can’t wait for this. I cannot wait’, because I knew my mom and everybody that I know was watching. They know how goofy I am, and I just couldn’t wait for them to see that goofy moment.”
** ‘Metro’ pushed out their interview with RAW Tag Team Champion Kofi Kingston. Kingston talked about Big E’s singles run and New Day’s upcoming match against The Street Profits at Survivor Series.
** Ring of Honor uploaded Adam Cole and Lio Rush’s match from ‘Road to Best In The World’ to their YouTube channel.
** Liv Morgan has a documentary coming to the WWE Network on November 29th titled ‘Liv Forever’.
** NJPW World Tag League Results (11/19/20) Korakuen Hall
– Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma def. Yota Tsuji & Yuji Nagata
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan (2-1) def. Chase Owens & Bad Luck Fale (0-3)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: FinJuice (David Finlay & Juice Robinson) (2-1) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toa Henare (0-3)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (2-1) def. EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi (2-1)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano (2-1) def. YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto (1-2)
– World Tag League Tournament Match: Shingo Takagi & SANADA (2-1) def. Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. (2-1)
** For her latest blog post on the Calgary Sun website, Natalya wrote about the Survivor Series pay-per-view and SmackDown’s women’s division.
** Newly signed AEW talent Jade Cargill was on the AEW Unrestricted podcast. Jade talked about her in-ring training and currently not being comfortable with the high-flying portion of wrestling.
“I’m not a top rope person. If I could do that stuff I would but if anything, I’m the person that would be doing the throwing. I’m more of a person that’s very dominant and you’ll feel my presence more than you’d see it I would think. I’m more of a Nyla Rose, very strong. I’m not a grappler or anything like that. I’ll just pick you up and bodyslam you. Trust me, if I could do the top rope things, I probably would do it every blue moon. I actually want to work on it so let’s just see how that develops. I’m still very new at the business, clearly so let’s just see how that goes. I would love to do it though. I’m all for new things.”
** Stephanie McMahon was a park of Adweek’s Sports Marketing Summit.
** Here’s a clip from a recent episode of Pawn Stars:
** Xavier Woods livestreamed the new Spider Man game on PS5.
** SunSport caught up with Shawn Michaels and he told the publication that he was a bit upset when The Undertaker lost his WrestleMania streak.
** Click here to listen to the newest episode of The Bellas Podcast.
** IMPACT Wrestling is celebrating IMPACT World Champion Rich Swann on their streaming service with ‘Rich Swann Month’.
** Darby Allin spoke to Bleacher Report Live.
** Miro posted a clip from his Twitch stream during-which he played NBA 2K21 on PS5.
** Gary Cassidy of Inside The Ropes spoke with Trent Seven.
** Titus O’Neil appeared on FOX 10 in Phoenix to promote the Kindli app.
** Great-O-Khan did an in-character interview with NJPW1972.com.
** WWE SuperCard Producer Adam Plotkin chatted with Comicbook.com.
** Inside The Ropes uploaded their chat with Darby Allin to YouTube.
** Trish Adora was a guest on Cultaholic’s ‘Desert Island Graps’ podcast.
** Josiah Williams paid tribute to The Undertaker.
** The following video is from The Major Wrestling Figure YouTube channel:
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.