Originally published at Shawn Michaels hopes NXT-TNA partnership is 'long-standing,' no rush for Worlds Collide event
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** As the NXT on CW premiere show inches closer, NXT overseer Shawn Michaels made the media rounds and guest appeared on The Ringer Wrestling Show. He reacted to the Instagram Explore page jokes that are often made on social media. It has to do with individuals expressing that they find the talents that come into NXT attractive, and assuming Michaels is finding the talent on his Instagram Explore page. He said he’s seen the jokes, but all the credit should go to the recruiting team.
As much as I wish it was, I don’t even know what the internet explore page is. I’ve seen that (the jokes) as well. I would love to take credit for that. We have just a phenomenal recruiting crew in place and they do just an unbelievable job of spanning the globe and certainly, the universities and other sports across this great nation, finding these young athletes and so, those tryouts, again, yes, we certainly boil it down and pick the ones that make it in the door here to the Performance Center in Orlando. But, it comes from a vast wide net cast out by the Talent Development crew, both in Orlando and in Stamford, reaching out to all these phenomenal athletes so… Nothing amuses me more than to think that I have that kind of time to do all that. But, there’s a whole great group of people behind the scenes helping us with that.
There was a chat about the NXT-TNA partnership. Michaels hopes it’s longstanding. Regarding a Worlds Collide type of event, he explained why he’s in no rush to do it.
Well look, I think obviously those things are possible (big blow off match or Worlds Collide event with TNA) but I will say, I look at this and hope that it is a long-standing relationship. In my personal opinion, I feel sometimes that if you go to those types of things too soon, oh, now you’ve gone through it and where do you go from there? So, right now, we’re enjoying this partnership. I think we’re enjoying very different matchups than we thought we’d be able to see here, in just a short amount of time. So, obviously excited about the future, excited about that relationship. I will say nothing’s ever off the table here in the WWE. Certainly in NXT. But I think, you know, we wanna go slower as opposed to faster.
** Ahead of her return to in-ring action at the Five Year Anniversary of AEW Dynamite, Britt Baker was interviewed by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp. She shared that AEW producer Sarah Stock helped her prepare for her comeback after dealing T.A.A. (Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm).
Love Sarah Stock. I pick her brain. She actually trained with me when I was coming back from all of my many injuries from T.A.A. and I think she’s incredible. I studied a lot of her Mexico matches actually and STARDOM matches and any time you have a fierce woman helping lead the charge in the back, sign me up. I hope I can be that one day.
** The Ringer Wrestling Show welcomed NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez onto their platform. The topic of the independent wrestling scene came up and Perez thinks it’s only a matter of time before Hyan and Raychell Rose get their big break. She mentioned that A.Q.A. is back in wrestling. Perez also shouted out Zayda Steel and San Antonio-based independent talent Kalientita.
I definitely keep up with the indies and there are so many, so many women. Hyan has been tearing it up for the longest time. She is amazing and it’s only a matter of time for her. Raychell Rose, same for her. A.Q.A., she was signed with NXT. She just came back to wrestling again so she’s gonna come back and kill it. I’ve heard of Zayda Steel. I’ve heard she’s doing amazing. Oh my God, so many. Kalientita, San Antonio, Texas, RCW, she’s amazing. I could go on and on but yeah, I am so excited for the future of women’s wrestling.
** There’s an interview with Bron Breakker that the TWC Show rolled out and as the conversation went on, Breakker spoke about the ‘Bron Cam’ that is used on Monday Night Raw. The name came about because the production team opted to have a roaming camera following Breakker around when he jets around ringside for a spear. He was told that they did not have a camera operator that can keep up with him on foot.
They did it once (‘Bron cam’) and I think the team came up to me and they were like, ‘We don’t think we’ve ever done that angle before’ and I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And they were like, ‘We don’t know positively if it’s the very first time but, as of recently, this is like your thing. We don’t have an angle that’s gonna catch you on the floor that we can adjust fast enough because we can’t catch you’ and I was like, ‘Why don’t we just call it the Bron Cam? From the sky,’ and so, me and Pat (McAfee) were sitting there and we were like, ‘We gotta have this. This has gotta be your gig. This is your deal now.’ So, that’s kind of where that started and yeah, just gotta keep kind of building on it.
It was the problem there for a couple times where I was running. I don’t know if I didn’t warn the crew, the guys on the floor or what. But, I remember getting to TV one day and we were trying to figure out what cameras do we wanna use for this and it was just like, ‘We can’t really catch you unless we do it from the sky, or else we don’t have anything on the floor that’s gonna work.’
** Guest appearing on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast was former Ring of Honor Director of Operations, Gary Juster. He’s currently working with Major League Wrestling in a part-time capacity. He spoke about his work with the organization and said he helps with the venue side of things.
Well as you mentioned, I’m doing some work for MLW. It’s a really good product. Excellent television production, some great people behind the scenes as well as talent. That’s kind of a part-time gig, and Court Bauer was nice enough to entice me to come out of retirement after Ring of Honor closed.
I think they have an excellent product. As I said, I think their TV production is really good. I was really impressed with it and like I said, it’s a really good group of folks so, it’s nice. It’s nice to be part of their team.
I help them out on the arena side, the venue side of things which is, for the most part, my expertise if you will from my years in the industry of booking venues, running venues, troubleshooting with venues, negotiating. Those types of things.
** Interviews with NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez and Women’s North American Champion Kelani Jordan on episode #85 of Going Ringside.
** NXT Champion Ethan Page promoted the NXT on CW premiere by speaking to News on 6.
** October 1st birthdays: AZM and NXT referee Darryl Sharma.
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.