Originally published at Khabib Nurmagomedov says WWE wants to bring Hasbulla in
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.
** Former UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov made the media rounds and was the focus of a press conference in Moscow. Khabib spoke about his friendship with internet sensation Hasbulla. He shared that WWE wants to bring Hasbulla in and is willing to pay him “big money” for an appearance (Quote courtesy of Championat.com).
Dana White himself called me and asked me where Hasbulla was. He asked me to bring him to Abu Dhabi. WWE, wrestling, also want him to come to them somehow. They want to pay him some big money to get him in the ring. He’s got a lot of popularity abroad.
Red Corner MMA caught up with Khabib as well and he listed several companies and organizations that are interested in bringing Hasbulla in such as WWE, NBA, NFL and the NHL. Nurmagomedov’s advice to Hasbulla is to move to the U.S. to capitalize on his popularity.
We talk about all this stuff with Hasbulla, he a visa and go to the U.S. This is my advice for him.
** Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott and Teasy welcomed AEW’s Eddie Kingston onto the Swerve City Podcast. Kingston looked back on what led him to AEW and how his run has turned out so far. Kingston recounted his first promo on Dynamite for the TNT Title open challenge with Cody Rhodes. It had to be re-shot because Kingston said ‘Rhodes’ while addressing Cody, but AEW did not have the ‘Rhodes’ name trademarked at the time.
I’ll tell you a funny story about this promo. First off, Taxi Driver is a great movie. It’s one of my favorites. The reason why I wore that shirt and the reason why Taxi Driver — when I knew I was doing it, I was putting a post about Taxi Driver was because in the movie, the guy who plays — Robert De Niro, he’s tired of fake society. He’s tired of Dirty New York so I was like, ‘Okay. I’m tired of wrestling. I’m tired of the people in wrestling. I’m tired of the fake people who are fighting Cody,’ you know what I mean? I put this all in my head just in case I had to cut a promo so then I just — that’s why I wore this shirt but, funny story about this promo and this is the second one, that was the second take. First take I called him ‘Cody Rhodes’ and they didn’t have the rights to Cody Rhodes so I’m doing this promo, I’m in the zone. Tony Khan comes up to me, he goes like this, ‘Hey Eddie, you –’ I go, ‘What the f*ck do you — oh hey. What’s up man? What are we doing? Oh, we got to start over? Okay cool.’
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kingston said Low Ki was an individual who helped him in several different ways and didn’t realize he was motivating Kingston.
At the time , my boy Low Ki was there with me and you know, people can say whatever they want to say about him, but he helped me focus. He was like, ‘What are you doing with your life? Now that you have this time off, what are you doing with your life?’ And he just asked me that and I was like, ‘Hmm’ and it just clear as day came to me like, ‘Okay, I wanna do this, this and this.’ He goes, ‘All right, get to work. You have time now’ and I got to work. I was doing squats every day. Every time I went out to have a — smoke a joint or something, I was doing 100 squats before I smoked the joint. Yeah, I’m gonna earn that or I’m gonna do 100 push-ups or whatever with the bands in the house.
No, Homicide is . Homicide’s my best friend and my mentor. Low Ki was just there in the house, you know what I mean? During the pandemic. I was helping him out, you know what I mean? So in turn, he basically helped me out without even knowing.
No, no, I never want to hear what the f*ck he has to say. To be honest with you, Homicide’s at least kind of nice to me with certain things. Low Ki’s like, ‘You suck, this sucks, that sucks, get better…’ He’s like, ‘You can’t do 100 squats’ and it’s like, ‘I just did it!’ ‘Do another 100. I bet you can’t do that.’ ‘Ah man, f*ck you. Fine’ and then you’re doing it and you’re like, ‘Why?’
Kingston wrote an article for The Players’ Tribune and he detailed how that opportunity came about. Eddie wants the main lesson from that article to be that you can always move forward despite the obstacles that can come your way.
To me, it was I got a phone call and they said, ‘Hey, they want you to talk about, you know, your depression or what you’ve gone through’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, all right.’ I don’t care, you know what I mean? Because the way I look at it is if I talk about it then that means someone else can talk about it which means someone else could talk about it and so on and so forth. Then it doesn’t become a stigma anymore and we don’t have to sit there and go, ‘Well, if you have feelings, you’re not manly.’ I grew up in an era where we weren’t allowed to have feelings. I’ll never forget — my father, even though he wanted us to — he wanted to be different than his dad, so he would say he loved us but would still be a little bit of holding back feelings. So for instance when his mother died, my grandmother died, I couldn’t cry unless I was by myself in my room. That was his rule because he was like, ‘We have to stay strong for the women.’
But they asked me to do it and I was like, ‘Yeah, why not?’ Because who cares? No , because who cares? Who gives a f*ck? Honestly at this point, it’s 2021. Let’s just have a good time.
But they told me to do it and I talked to a dude and then he ghost wrote it, and then sent it to me like eight times.
The guy sent me a bunch of emails about what he wrote and I had to edit stuff out, you know what I mean? And I just wanted the message to come across of, ‘Yeah, I did some dumb sh*t when I was a teenager, when I was in my 20s. Sh*t, I did dumb sh*t probably today.’ But the sun rises tomorrow no matter what and I gotta keep moving. What am I gonna do? Just sit and die in my house by myself? I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.
I just wanted the story to get across that even though I went through what I went through and it was more mentally and it was more, you know, more mental and emotional than physical. I went through what I went through and I kept going so why can’t anybody else keep going, you know what I mean? I don’t understand why not because I’m not special, I’m just me. I’m Eddie Moore, Eddie Kingston, whatever you wanna call me. I’m just me. I’m flesh and blood, you know what I mean? So why can’t everybody do it? That’s the way I look at it. But it’s also I have that Irish-Catholic guilt where I’m like, ‘I’m not better than nobody.’ You know what I mean? Other people can do it.
** Ahead of AEW Winter Is Coming, the reigning AEW World Champion Hangman Adam Page spoke to Renee Paquette on her Oral Sessions podcast. Hangman was asked if there were plans in place for him to have a program with the late Jon Huber (Brodie Lee). Page planted seeds on Being The Elite and even after Huber passed away, Page felt it would’ve been a disservice to all parties if he didn’t continue the story with Dark Order.
I wanted to thinking, might not be what anybody else is thinking. But you know, oh, I’ll do a BTE scene and plant a seed for it, see what kind of reaction it gets and then almost 99 out of 100 cases, I’m pretty confident in the seeds that I would plant, what reaction they are going to get and then I know that’s going to drive where the story goes on TV as well. When there’s a built-in reaction to something, you go with it and that’s what this company is, let’s be honest. AEW exists because of something like Being The Elite where we could have just these stupid ass storylines that — and Ring of Honor and New Japan started influencing the actual wrestling shows or in a lot of cases were more popular than the wrestling shows. I remember I’d be wrestling in Ring of Honor and people were chanting stuff from our little stupid BTE storyline. That’s why they were there, that’s why AEW exists, because of those kinds of things so I was planting seeds to do something with Brodie because I really wanted to and when he, I guess was ill or gone and we didn’t know what’s going on, I guess there were points where I felt like, ‘I don’t know. Should I keep going this direction? I don’t know what to do.’ But it felt it would have been a disservice to him and to all The Dark Order who are incredible people, to not keep going the only way that made sense regardless of where we would end up with it. Yeah, I’m very glad we did that.
When Hangman makes his way to the ring, the production team types a sarcastic or jokey message about Page on his lower third. Page has tried to find out who is behind it but he has not been able to do so.
No . There’s, I guess someone in the graphics truck who does all those. They clown on me all the time. I’m so pissed off about it. I tried to get snitches from the truck, I planted spies in the truck. I’m not sure that it’s in the truck and not back in the studio in Nashville or something like that. I can’t figure out who it is and I’m fed up about it.
At this point, I don’t know what to do about it. I’m the champion and I can’t get it fixed. So I guess they’re probably just gonna keep clowning on me for the foreseeable future. But, if I stop having lower thirds all together or they start being nice to me or normal, then you’ll know that I got ‘em.
Hangman reflected on the no-fans period of AEW programming. He said he hated it and thought it was the worst. One of the positives of the situation from Page’s perspective is the Stadium Stampede match from Double or Nothing 2020.
Wrestling during the pandemic sucked. It was the absolute worst. You would just be going hard for 15 minutes and no one gave a sh*t because there’s no one there to give a sh*t. So then you’re starting to think like, ‘Oh my God, I just did a superplex’ or whatever and no one gives a sh*t because there’s no one there. It’s just silence so you think, ‘I gotta hurry up and do something else’ because that’s how we’re conditioned as wrestlers. We respond and interact with the crowd that’s there and you take that away, I don’t know what wrestling is. It sucked. But, getting to do something like, was it Stadium Stampede or whatever? It was really fun, the opportunity to do something that, you know like when we did the first Stampede, would absolutely never work. If you told a live crowd that, ‘Hey, we’re gonna cut away from you guys and there’s gonna be a fight somewhere else.’ That, ‘We’re gonna show a movie on the screen,’ it would never work without the pandemic. But it was the perfect time for something like that and it was great and it’s not something that we’re all completely unfamiliar with.
** ‘Lehigh Valley with Love’ has an interview on their YouTube channel with Ring of Honor commentator Ian Riccaboni. He told the publication that he’ll be launching a wrestling series that will air on ‘Electric Service’ which is a local cable TV provider in Lehigh Valley. Riccaboni said the show will look at the history of pro wrestling.
I mentioned Service Electric earlier . I’m starting a ‘History of Pro Wrestling’ television show with Ryan Kelly who’s the General Manager, with Kris Fried, the local comedian. He’s gonna help write and produce the show as well.
Yes, it’s almost all Allentown . Although like I said, EC3 won the IMPACT Title in Bethlehem and there’s some fun things there so, yeah, that’s on track.
We have a lot of the episodes outlined. It’s just a matter of getting the interview subjects to — we want to make this as much of an in-studio as we can, leverage the Service Electric studios. You know, Mike Mittman’s gonna be helping out as well. He was the timekeeper at those tapings that we talked about.
Riccaboni went over the Final Battle event and some of the highlights, including IMPACT Wrestling’s Deonna Purrazzo returning to Ring of Honor. Riccaboni spoke about the up and down relationship between ROH and IMPACT over the years.
There were times I’ve been in Ring of Honor where Ring of Honor and IMPACT were oil and water, right? We didn’t get along, we tried to kind of double, you know, each use The Young Bucks and The Hardyz at the same time then there was a falling out so Ring of Honor got the match. Ring of Honor got Hardyz versus Young Bucks. Over the years, we’ve tried some collaboration, it hasn’t always worked but there was something about the women’s division that kind of opened up the bridge and we were able to kind of share talent throughout the summer, throughout the fall and I think that kind of movement and momentum and I credit that fully to Maria Kanellis and Bobby Cruise, the ring announcer who make the matches for the women’s division. I think that opened up some doors with first IMPACT and now with AEW because FTR committed to AEW and it’s such a — I think we’ve talked about this where it’s always been kind of a sore spot because AEW, they don’t — the first nine talent I believe that signed with AEW came directly from Ring of Honor so, it’s always been kind of a weird, kind of a scab…
As far as the number of surprises at Final Battle go, Ian believes that due to the nature of Final Battle and it being the company’s last event before their hiatus, companies and promotions were more open to participating.
I think so and you know, The Briscoes in my opinion are the number one tag team in the world. If it’s not The Briscoes, it’s The Young Bucks and FTR, if Briscoes-Young Bucks are 1A and 1B, FTR is maybe 1C. I mean they’re all in that top tier. So, to me, I think The Briscoes legacy was cemented and no matter what they go on to do, it’s going to be cool to see some fresh opponents for them and to see them on cable potentially so I do think that was a big thing.
The likes of Adam Scherr f.k.a. Braun Strowman and FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) showed up at Final Battle. Ian does not like to be spoiled when he’s on commentary but also wants to make sure he knows the surprise well enough to speak about them on commentary.
Well, it’s funny because as a commentator, I don’t like to know the surprises, right? And there was a big surprise in this match too , ‘Yeah, you’ll know who it is, you’ll know who it is.’
** While at L.A. Comic Con, Jay White talked to ‘That Hashtag Show’ for a one-on-one interview. White spoke about the NJPW STRONG product and feels that it doesn’t need the ‘forbidden door’ with talents from other organizations filtering in and out.
I think because it’s new . Christopher Daniels, he’s gonna be stepping through the open door to STRONG, I’m inviting people to STRONG. So I don’t think we need that forbidden door because we got the U.S. of Jay tour going on with the open door and the open invitation.
** The Busted Open Radio crew brought John Bradshaw Layfield onto the show to reflect on the life of the late John Lanza (Blackjack Lanza). JBL spoke about how Lanza was a part of a circle of individuals that Vince McMahon trusted. He said McMahon would always “lighten up” when he’d be around this select group of people.
Yeah, and it’s a loyal circle that Vince Lanza, from guys like Tim White, from Arnie Skaaland, from all those who helped him build this company that he knew he could trust.
In the late 90s, JBL and Barry Windham took on the roles of being presented as the second coming of The Blackjacks. JBL, Windham and Vince McMahon attempted to get Lanza to be their manager, but he adamantly denied the opportunity.
He the idea for the gloves, from him and Mulligan. At one point, we had stopped and we’d look around and put our gloves on and go back and it was starting to get over. I don’t know why they quit it or we quit it or whatever but, Jack was always helping me with different stuff because he understood it very well. You know, Stan Hansen took his induction into one of the Hall of Fames because you know, Jack was suffering at that time from ill health. So he knew the real rough, tough, cowboy style. So Jack knew the style I was trying to be and really helped me a lot.
** Longtime ROH ring announcer Bobby Cruise joined Dave LaGreca and Bully Ray on Busted Open Radio to reflect on the Final Battle pay-per-view and his time with Ring of Honor. As far as his future goes, Cruise is open to working in a secondary ring announcer role for a company. He used AEW as an example and said he’d have no problem being the second-string ring announcer.
I don’t know to be honest with you as far as women’s wrestling somewhere. So, and I wouldn’t do it without Maria. But I think it’s been a very fluid team this year so, there are some things I guess, some opportunities if my phone rings but, as of right now, I just don’t know.
** Mickie James guest appeared on Sports Guys Talking Wrestling to promote IMPACT Wrestling’s Hard To Kill event in January. Mickie discussed being a mentor during this current run with IMPACT and feeling like the “cool aunt” of the locker room.
I think that I have changed a lot since the last time I was there . You know, the first time I came to IMPACT, I was like really — I was kind of heartbroken from my first departure because I just freshly left WWE and it was still really fresh but I was also a lot younger and I just — I was having trouble like trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I had an opportunity to go to IMPACT and pretty much recreate myself and I was able to incorporate my music into my character, I was able to evolve from that crazy girl next door that would skip to the ring to a little bit more who I genuinely am I think as a person in ‘Hardcore Country’, and create and develop this awesome character but, now, coming back, there’s a whole new crop of talent, whole new crop of girls and they challenge me in different ways and it’s cool because I can mix it up and have different types of matches with them. You know, so I always love that challenge but, I feel like, whereas before, I kind came in as — on equal kind of playing fields. Now, coming back, obviously there’s just a lot — like the girls respect me and they love me but I feel like I’m more in a — a little bit of a mentor role. Like not a mom, but the cool aunt, you know what I mean?
** Chris Van Vliet pushed out his sit-down conversation with Jay White. The former IWGP Heavyweight Champion was asked how did being a part of BULLET CLUB change his career path. White thinks what he accomplished would have happened regardless but added that BULLET CLUB sped the process up.
Uh, I’m not sure about ‘changed it’ but I think it — I had said it definitely helped once it started going a certain direction and what I mean by that is in terms of it may not have changed is because in my mind, whether it was with BULLET CLUB or not, I was gonna do what I’ve done.
I think so . I think so definitely because you can’t deny what comes with being with BULLET CLUB. You know, the guys that have come through BULLET CLUB, the guys that have been tied to BULLET CLUB so then to have your name kind of put into that same sentence and stuff, that’s obviously always going to help you. So yeah, there’s a lot of eyes always on BULLET CLUB so, don’t get me wrong, it definitely sped it up.
While Jay White was on excursion, he worked closely with Alex Shelley and lived with him in the U.S. for a period. White explained how influential Shelley was and still is to his career.
. He was a very influential person on my career in terms of just learning, especially at the shows as well for Ring of Honor because we would often be teaming so just being able to learn from him when he’s in that leadership role and all sorts of stuff whether it’s at home, whether it’s talking about wrestling, whether it’s watching anything or it’s just things I’m — ideas I’m coming up with. I’d always ask his opinion and defer to his judgement because that guy knows what he’s talking about. So often, he would give me a piece of advice for a desired outcome and you do what he says and that exact outcome will happen exactly how you want it to as well so, yeah, he knows his stuff.
** Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer welcomed NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Trevor Murdoch onto Busted Open Radio. Trevor named Eddie Kingston and Bully Ray as potential opponents he would like to defend the NWA Worlds Title against.
Well there’s two guys . You were one of the guys I wanna wrestle. I’ve told you for a long time, you’ve been an inspiration for me when it comes to career-wise and what you’ve done, what standards you set for yourself and what obstacles you overcame to say, ‘I’m gonna be a f*cking champion. I want my f*cking moment.’ You’re one of the guys I wanna step into the ring with and test my metal against and see what I can do. Other than that, those are the only two names that I brought up recently and that’s — I want the best for that world title so I got to fight the best and in my opinion, you and Eddie Kingston are very similar in the fact of you have this, I don’t know, ‘Come here motherf*cker. You wanna keep coming? Okay.’ It’s a stubbornness, it’s an attitude of like, ‘I’m not gonna let this guy get one over on me.’ I like to wrestle guys like that because we both bring each other up.
** That Hashtag Show hosted New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s panel at L.A. Comic Con. Jay White, Fred Rosser and Gabriel Kidd were the NJPW representatives and Gabriel further spoke about the mental struggles he dealt with during the early stages of the pandemic. He feels like the wrestling community has been very supportive of him since he openly spoke about those struggles.
Yeah, 100 percent and New Japan about doing it because you know, the past few years, it’s been a whirlwind for everyone and people go through stuff and it’s a hard time, you know? So, and you know, people who are messaging me, people I’ve looked up to for years who I never thought experienced anything like that reaching out to me and you know, telling me their experiences and it just really — all these strangers as well. People who’d seen it and people who aren’t even wrestling fans, you know? People had seen it and I think it’s been for a long time a gray area in our industry and that people really don’t want to talk about mental health but the reality is it’s just as important as physical health, you know? You gotta stay sharp, you gotta stay in shape to be a wrestler but, there’s long tour rides, there’s long bus rides, you know, ten-hour bus rides and lonely hotel nights and you’ve got to be mentally right to be able to do that and it’s important that everybody is in the right headspace to do that and the more people are talking about it, you know? And yeah, I felt the love. It was very special to me and very grateful to anyone who reached out to tell me their story and just anyone who watched the video and you know, I think it’s a really important thing to me and like you said, it was just — I knew what I wanted to say but I didn’t have a way I was gonna say it. I just went out there and you know, let my mind talk for me but, yeah, 100 percent, the wrestling community has been very good to me since that video dropped.
** Serena Deeb is scheduled to go one-on-one with Hikaru Shida at AEW Winter Is Coming. Wrestling Inc. spoke to Serena ahead of the event and she expressed interest in wanting to wrestle AEW Women’s World Champion Britt Baker. Serena said Britt has improved in the ring and respects that she’s one of the AEW originals.
I have a lot of respect for Britt. She was trailing behind me a little bit career-wise, like in terms of timeline. I was at Shimmer, then I went on to WWE. Then she was at Shimmer and we’ve kind of never really met up until AEW. I think she is one of the best characters on our show. She’s put in a lot of work, she’s put in a lot of time and energy into her character. She believes in who she is and you can feel that and I think that’s why people really love her.
Right now it’s not really syncing up for us to have our one on one. But at some point, it’s going to happen. Professor vs. Doctor, I think there’s a lot of marketability there and I think her ring work has improved so much from day one in AEW. I also really respect the fact she was an O.G. She was one of the first ones there, she built this division, along with Shida, along with Nyla, Riho. They built this, they laid the groundwork.
** TNT released a clip from season two-episode one of ‘Shaq Life’. Episode one looks at Shaquille O’Neal’s AEW in-ring debut as he and Jade Cargill defeated Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet. Jade was interviewed for the show and she touched on the initial negativity that hovered around the match.
There’s a lot of negativity surrounding the match being that he is older and I’ve never had a match before. It takes a lot to be a pro wrestler and people don’t understand that. People think that this stuff does not hurt. It all hurts. People have died from this.
** Candace Cordelia of Pro Wrestling Illustrated conducted an interview with Thunder Rosa. Rosa’s Mission Pro Wrestling promotion has been running for several years. She explained that it was created due to lack of bookings and knowing she deserved an opportunity.
When I wasn’t getting booked and I were kind of like, ‘Maybe we should just create our own stuff and really start promoting new talent and see how that goes,’ right? And that’s what we did when we first started our first promotion. This second one was kind of like, again, I continue to see so many discrepancies in so many things and I saw some of the women that were so talented but they were never booked for, you know, you name it. I’m not into details, so, but it was definitely the lack of opportunities that were given to me at the moment and I said, ‘If I’m not given an opportunity, might as well create my own’ and that’s why we decided to invest in our women’s promotion.
Rosa is currently a part of the AEW roster. She spoke highly of Vickie Guerrero for going above and beyond when it comes to taking care of the locker room and being professional.
Oh, Vickie Guerrero! She, in our locker room, is a savior and she doesn’t have to clean the locker room, she doesn’t have to do none of that stuff, she doesn’t gave to go above and beyond. She does that because she cares for the business and I think it is so, so important that we continue to teach that to the new generations.
Going back to the topic of Mission Pro, Rosa detailed what she and her team look for in talents and how they expect those who are booked for shows to represent themselves and Mission Pro.
Well we’re really, we’re really — I’m kind of picky on who we would like last three, four years, I’ve noticed that a lot of the stuff that was taught to me seven years ago is not being taught or it’s like, ‘Well, I just come here to wrestle. I don’t need to do a bunch of stuff.’ No, you still have to do it. You still have to respect the place that you work.
** On the 10/29 edition of Friday Night SmackDown, Charlotte Flair went one-on-one with Shotzi. She reflected on the match while speaking to ‘Metro’ and said the fans’ reaction to the match announcement made her excited for it.
I just had a match with Shotzi – it was awesome. Actually, the fan reaction was what made me so excited for it. They’re so hungry to see new talent. I had an opportunity to face Doudrop, that was awesome. I know Zelina and I will face each other down the road. Liv Morgan.
** Miami Herald’s Jim Varsallone was present on the red carpet for the Sports Illustrated Awards. He has interviews with Sasha Banks, Bianca Belair, The Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins), Dana Brooke and Ulysses Diaz.
** Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson’s latest Vlog:
** K & S WrestleFest went live on Facebook with Ethan Page.
** SunSport spoke to WWE Champion Big E.
** Big Kon f.k.a. Konnor of The Ascension appeared on Terry and Gary’s Low Expectations Podcast.
** Liv Morgan was the latest guest on El Brunch de WWE.
** Tokyo Sports published a story about Naoya Ogawa, former pro wrestler and MMA fighter. Ogawa helped produce the documentary about Antonio Inoki that aired on NHK BS Premium in Japan.
** Melina and NWA World Women’s Champion Kamille joined Busted Open Radio.
** CBS 58 reporter Mike Curkov competed in a match with Austin and Colten Gunn on December 4th at Great Lakes Championship Wrestling’s ‘Blizzard Brawl’ event.
** ‘Metro’ caught up with Rhea Ripley and she told the story of losing her ring gear before a WWE house show.
** Fightful spoke to Brian Myers about his ‘Extreme Conversations’ 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.