Originally published at Sonya Deville in no rush to transition out of her current role on WWE TV
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.
** Sonya Deville and NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose spoke to PopCulture.com’s Brian Jones for an interview. Deville was asked if she’s eager to get back to wrestling and she responded by saying she’s not in a rush to transition back into her in-ring role full-time. Sonya expressed that there’s gratification in her current role.
Deville: Um, you know, I’m a fighter born and raised so obviously I love to fight and I love to throw down but a lot of people also don’t know one of my first passions was acting and performing and you know, I used to host a show in L.A. before I got signed so, so talking and using my voice is also something I really get a lot of satisfaction doing and a lot of gratification so I’m just enjoying where I am. I’m not eager or in some sort of rush to be anywhere else. I feel really present in this moment and in this role.
Both Sonya and Mandy touched on their feud that concluded at SummerSlam 2020. Sonya is proud of what they did and feels like they upped their stock from lower mid-card talents. They both are interested in the idea of teaming together again.
Deville: I’m so proud of what we did over — was it two summers ago now? Oh my God, it was last summer . I’d definitely never say never to that.
Rose: Yeah, there’s always hope. Fire and Desire. If we’re never a tag team again, you know, inside the ring, we’re always a tag team outside of the ring so, that we know for sure.
This past July was when Mandy Rose made her return to NXT. Sonya shared that she’s heard nothing but positive reactions to Mandy from those at NXT 2.0. She said there’s an appreciation there for Rose because of her experience on Raw and SmackDown.
Deville: All I hear backstage and all I hear from people over there in NXT is how helpful Mandy is and how humble she is and just how great it is to have someone down there with a different perspective and it’s not better or for worse but it’s just she has a different perspective because she was on Monday Night Raw, she was on SmackDown, she’s been on numerous pay-per-views so she has that kind of like… television experience with Raw and SmackDown that’s a little bit different than NXT so, I think it’s really cool that you’ve completely reinvented yourself and completely evolved down there and just taken an opportunity and made lemons into lemonade and it’s just so cool to see and I’m just so proud of you.
** Scarlett Bordeaux was the focus of a K & S WrestleFest virtual signing. She said Killer Kross and Jeff Hardy’s first match on Raw was originally supposed to be a ten-minute match but was cut down to one minute.
Originally, I can say this, the match was supposed to be ten minutes. The first match with him and then they get out there and it’s, ‘You have 90 seconds.’ Time got cut. That happens all the time out there.
While in NXT, Scarlett would bring an hourglass to the ring to signal Kross’ arrival. On one occasion, Bordeaux had to visit a doctor because when the hourglass broke into pieces, a piece of glass got stuck in her eye.
Funny story about that hourglass. I had to go to the doctor after one of these hourglass scenes because the broken hourglass pieces, we dumped it in the pillowcase in one of the scenes and the dust went into my eyes and I didn’t even realize it. It was kind of bothering me and I got home later and there was a piece of glass in my eye when I tried to take off my eyelash. I had to go to the doctor the next day so that’s a little secret.
In 2016, Scarlett was featured on Monday Night Raw as an enhancement talent for Nia Jax. Scarlett sported a Sasha Banks t-shirt and the commentary team presented her as a ‘big fan’ of Banks. Bordeaux recounted herself and Banks laughing about it backstage because they started wrestling around the same time.
Sasha which I was always a fan of Sasha but it’s funny because we started around the same time. The whole story with that was I was supposed to be her biggest fan and she’s why I started wrestling but, her and I were laughing about it backstage because she was like, ‘You know, we started around the same time.’ It’s fine.
** The Asylum Wrestling Store’s latest virtual signing featured Vickie Guerrero and Luke Williams (Bushwhacker Luke). While Vickie was listing off some of AEW’s producers and agents, she mentioned that Serena Deeb helps agent the women’s matches.
Guerrero: Agents, there’s BJ and then there’s Dean Malenko, Jerry Lynn.
Serena Deeb helps with the women. She’s awesome, and there’s Dustin Rhodes and oh my gosh, there’s… Billy Gunn will be doing some. It’s really — we’re pretty well-staffed. Lot of variety to choose from.
Bushwhacker Luke said Butch Miller (Bushwhacker Butch) wants to come to the U.S., but he resides in New Zealand. The COVID-19 restrictions are tight in the country, which makes it difficult for them to take bookings as a duo as they normally would.
Luke: He’s to come over. He lives in New Zealand. But due to this COVID thing, New Zealand, you read about New Zealand about how they locked the whole country down all the time? Now it’s a 120-day waiting list to get back in. The last two years, we’ve had 26 bookings; bing, bing, bing, bing. All of them a month-and-a-quarter and then more now I think and we still can’t get him over here.
Vickie later provided an update on the book she’ll be releasing. The book is finished and is currently being reviewed by the editor. She added that the pandemic slowed down the process.
Guerrero: I am writing one . It’s going through the editor right now so, with COVID, things got really slow for the last two years with the publishing companies but it’s in the process. I’ve written it. We’re just going through it and cleaning it up so, hopefully it’ll be really soon.
** Brian Myers and Mike Mondo a.k.a. Mikey from the Spirit Squad partook in a virtual signing for K & S WrestleFest. Myers recapped why The Major Brothers presentation came to an end in WWE and Vince McMahon thinking that Myers and Cardona were real brothers.
Myers: thought we were shoot brothers and then when it all came up that we already joined Edge, he goes, ‘What? They’re not brothers?’ Like that’s f*cking stupid and that’s when he said come up with new names and we came up with Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder. So that was never part of our plan. It just kind of fell into our lap.
The Spirit Squad was involved in Vince and Shane McMahon’s feud with D-Generation X. There was a segment when The McMahons and Spirit Squad had “feces” dumped on them. Mikey said it was a combination of dog food, corn, Hershey bars and more items.
Mikey: It was a mixture of a lot of sh*t pretty much! Dog food, corn, Hershey bars, you name it . It actually made Mitch gag for shoot. It was sh*t but not sh*t pretty much.
It has been over ten years since Mikey has heard from fellow former Spirit Squad member Nick Mitchell (Mitch). Myers said the last time he saw Mitchell was during WrestleMania 25 week in 2009.
Mikey: Mitch, no idea . Fell off the face of the earth.
Myers: He’s on a milk carton. That’s where Mitch is.
Mikey: I haven’t heard from Mitch since ‘06 since my run ended with The Squad back then. I don’t know where he is, where he’s at. Hopefully he’s doing well though.
Myers: The last time I saw Mitch was Mania ‘09 week. We went to some club, maybe him and Torrie Wilson were like running or something. They like hosted some kind of —
Mikey: Really? I think they were doing a clothing company for a while.
Myers: Or they threw the party or something I remember and never saw him again.
** Episode #100 of D-Von Dudley’s Table Talk podcast is up on the podcast’s YouTube page. The first of several guests to join the show was Booker T. After being involved in wrestling for 30 years, Booker said he currently has no desire to wrestle again. He explained that he does not have the itch for it anymore and it’s best to leave things where they are.
Yeah, forget about it. I stay in this kind of shape because I stay away from the wrestling ring. Even when I do the Kickoff show, right? You will not find me within 50 yards of the wrestling ring. I haven’t been in a WWE wrestling ring since 2014 and I got a phobia about getting back in the ring. That was a great life for me, but I don’t have any itch to scratch anymore man. Life was good then but I’m embracing where I’m at right now in life, being a boss, you know what I mean? And taking charge and trying to create, you know, memories and moments for the next generation but you know man, we had our time in the sun man. We had our time. It’s no reason to try to go back and rehash greatness and touch that. No reason.
Booker spoke about Xavier Woods donning the King of the Ring character. He feels that if anyone can pull it off, it’s Woods but added that it’ll always be difficult to take on that role because he set the standard for it.
I said Xavier , it’s Xavier because when you get a role like that, you gotta be able to laugh at yourself. You can’t really take it too serious but you gotta take it serious at the same time if you are to be a believable and revered and in fear at certain times-king. But, I look at Xavier and I knew it would be a problem for him to actually walk in the shoes of King Booker because, I really believe this and I’m not just giving myself a pat on the back or anything. I think I broke the mold when I became King Booker and no one will ever be able to play that role ever again without someone thinking about King Booker first and I know a lot of times, fans have their favorite and there’s been a lot of Kings of the Ring and some people may say they like this king more than they like that king but if they really look at themselves in the mirror, they know who is the best.
Martin Wright (The Boogeyman) appeared at the conclusion of the podcast. He detailed how his ‘Boogeyman’ character came to be and it was formulated because he wanted to distract people from the teeth he was missing. Wright had an incident during a training match where he lost a row of teeth. In the initial stages of The Boogeyman character, he remembered walking into Vince McMahon’s office with a bag full of insects but worms were the only insect that was approved.
But I came up with the idea, I want to make people distracted from looking at my teeth and not once since my long 20-some-odd career as this character — well almost 20. We’re at 19 years. Year what? 2004? Throughout my whole career, no one’s ever focused on me not having teeth and they office with like a bag of roaches, crickets, you know, maggots. ‘Hey, no, no, no, no. We can’t do all that,’ you know what I’m saying? Because if one of these creatures, crickets, scatter out and get away, you know in the arena, we would have to pay an infestation clause so the worms, the only thing that you know, it’s not going to get away like a roach or a cricket or anything else or any other insect so that’s how it boiled down to the worms but I wanted that pouch to be filled with all types of edible, just disgusting insects, you know? Just to distract people from focusing on that negative, that experience and it actually worked.
** Prior to Xia Li’s SmackDown in-ring debut, she chatted with Daily DDT and shared that she was not made aware of her move to Friday Night SmackDown and found out when she received an abundance of messages on her phone.
Actually, I found out while I was eating at home. I just hear my phone go beep, beep, beep and there were many messages. I’m thinking, ‘What just happened? Why is it so busy? Oh, I got drafted!’ That’s how I found out. Before that, I was having some dark matches at SmackDown, so I know that’s the test. My friends told me about .
The vignettes that aired on SmackDown to hype Xia’s debut is her real story. Xia said she was surprised that the information she relayed to WWE was put out there in animated form.
They asked about my background and about my family, so I told them my story. That vignette is a real story about my real life. I’m really happy they put my real story on TV and there’s a lot of feeling there. When they it, I cried. If I have that feeling, they will have that same feeling. Also, I had a dream, like a superhero dream, when I was a child, so this is kind of my dream come true with a superhero dream on TV. I’m very happy that they have this whole package for me and they did an amazing job. I’m surprised they did this whole package for me. I didn’t know. I found out at the same time as you. When it came up, I’m sitting in the back like, ‘Oh my God, so good!’ They did an amazing job. I really appreciate that.
Towards the final stretch of her NXT run, Xia was a part of Tian Sha with Boa and Karen Q, who played the role of ‘Mei Ying’. She enjoyed that period of her career and feels it was creative.
I very much enjoyed that time with my partners Mei Ying and Boa. It was very fun to do that. I think that started at the end of last year. With them, we had similar but different vignettes, and that part I really liked, too. The new character is coming out and we were working together on it and it was creative.
** Luchasaurus sat down with K & S WrestleFest for a virtual signing. He feels that he could shift his character to a heel if that was asked of him and said when he gets time in the ring, his move-set can lean towards the heel side of the spectrum.
I could do it in Dallas when he was the kind of hometown hero and they were — it was very short but I could tell though, if I started really beating him up, they would’ve given me a little bit more of a heel reaction and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is kind of a fun.’ I mean, I like doing that kind of offense. My offense is powerful, kind of like ‘kill you’ stuff when I have time and I don’t get a lot of time because I’m doing hot comebacks and stuff like that but when I do it’s kind of like methodical, slow, brutal strikes which is easy to put the heat on someone so I think I could do well with that role if ever given it but at the same time my character is kind of like a — one of those rare big men babyfaces I think that the crowd just really likes to cheer for and I’d hate to take that away before it’s due so, hopefully no time soon but you know, we’ll see.
One match that Luchasaurus is still hoping to have in AEW is a singles match with Kenny Omega and he thought he would’ve wrestled Omega at some point this year. Luchasaurus thinks Omega is the best and would like to see what Omega could bring out of him in the ring.
Well, singles match with Kenny Omega is still my dream match. I thought that might happen this year but then they went a different direction so, there’s still a chance for that to happen next year sometime when he comes back. But that for sure would be the dream match but, I think he’s the best of all-time so, yeah.
And I think he brings the best out of everybody he wrestles so that’s why it would be really cool to see what he could bring out of me.
Luchasaurus went on to mention that AEW-contracted talents are discouraged from signing certain items when those signings are not administered by AEW or taking place during a formal signing/meet-and-greet.
If I’m just at a random restaurant or anything, if you just find me on the street, want an autograph, fine but if you’re seeking out the hotel, airport, those are the two places where I don’t like to do ‘em. We’re actually discouraged from doing them by AEW because it’s typically collectors and we have no way to defer if they’re not but they don’t want us to do that because they want us to save things like this or for the show so, it’s the premeditated seeking out at the airports and hotels that I don’t like to sign.
** Fightful pushed out their conversation with Jimmy Hart. He reflected on being a part of WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome. Hart accompanied Adrian Adonis to the ring for his match against ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper. There was a point during the match when Piper struck Hart on the outside and legitimately cracked Hart’s jaw.
Matilda the dog. I had the megaphone and one day I was in the ring with the microphone, the siren went off when it did, Matilda attacked me, you know? She was pretty rough in the ring. I got my jaw broken at WrestleMania 3. I was doing that match with—well, I had three matches—but one of the matches was with Adrian Adonis against ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper. When Piper gave me that shot on the outside, it cracked my jaw. Didn’t tell people about it, but I had to chew gum very, very gentle for a while. But, that was a good shot.
** Prior to Ring of Honor Final Battle, lead commentator Ian Riccaboni appeared on Jason Powell’s Pro Wrestling Boom podcast. Riccaboni talked about Ring of Honor’s hiatus and said he missed the Zoom call that ROH officials held to alert talents about the situation at hand. Ian found out the news shortly after tending to matters concerning his non-wrestling related business.
Yeah, I actually was not able to attend the Zoom call . I maintained employment throughout the day and then complete my Ring of Honor duties at night and during the weekends and I was actually on a can’t miss call. I was on a call, a quarterly business review for one of my clients and I have four days a year that I absolutely can’t do anything or go anywhere and this happened to be one of those days where I had to be on this call and my client, they’re great folks and my team at work are great but I — so I just couldn’t miss it and on that news, I got to communicate really good news. On that call, I got to communicate how well my team was doing. I managed about 200 people and how wonderful we were doing and how compliant we are in the Pharma space and how we’ve lowered S.O.P. deviations and how productivity was through the roof and you know, this, that and all wonderful news and then the minute that video call ended, I looked down at my cell phone and I got a message from Cary, Cary Silkin and it just said, ‘Not good’ and so I kind of found out immediately after the call that — the news and then I asked to speak to Delirious and he’s our Executive Producer and we kind of had a cathartic call and the next day, and then I spoke to Greg Gilleland, our General Manager and I let him know that if there was a place for me, I would love to continue to be the voice of Ring of Honor but yeah, I found out shortly after the call because it happened to be on one of the four days a year that are non-negotiable. Other than the birth of my daughter, those meetings are the only reason I’ve ever missed a Ring of Honor event.
The last portion of Ring of Honor’s new in-ring content airs on December 25th. Ian stated that it was difficult for him to say goodbye in the final moments of that episode.
I can pull back the curtain a little bit. I’ve already had to say goodbye as weird as that sounds because we filmed television, our first-run television, for the time being, ends December 25th on Christmas day and after that, we are going to be airing some repurposed content, some historic content. We’re maintaining our time slots as far as we know, as far as we’ve been told and we already started working on some of those episodes as well. But the hardest part so far was saying goodbye on that Christmas episode and to me, it’s both a blessing and a curse because it’s — sometimes it’s good not to know when the end is coming and other times, it’s more appropriate to have that closure and to be able to have that moment to thank everybody, to thank Cary Silkin, to thank Hunter Johnson , to thank Gabe Sapolsky, to thank everybody that’s been involved — Doug Gentry — in the genesis and the growth of Ring of Honor; Joe Koff, Greg Gilleland, you name it and so, to have that kind of moment, to have the ability to say goodbye whether it’s bye for now or bye for longer, that was such an honor for me to have the last word on Ring of Honor television.
At the conclusion of ROH’s broadcasts, Riccaboni shouts his signature “Happy Wrestling” line. It was former ROH World Tag Team Champion Colt Cabana who helped Ian come up with that sign-off.
So, when Colt and I first got together — so Colt Cabana was my longtime partner, just under three years together so Colt and I had called probably 150 episodes of television, numerous pay-per-views and the list goes on and on. He was my partner with Kevin Kelly for the first pay-per-view and Kevin had just given his notice following that pay-per-view and that’s why they were getting me prepared and they had me jump in on that and lead the broadcast but the next month, in Baltimore, I explained to Colt, I said, ‘Man, the reason I got into this was, you know, I always loved SportsCenter, I love anchors, I love how they have different hooks like put the biscuit in the basket, aloha means goodbye, all those quick zingers to put into the highlights’ and I said, ‘There hasn’t been too many wrestling guys that have attempted something and kind of branded themselves like that’ and we went back and forth and we talked about what it would mean to maybe overdo it as some commentators do and what it might mean to strike a nice balance and his suggestion was to come up with a sign-off and he and I sat together, we had a list about ten of ‘em at Jimmy’s Seafood in Baltimore, Maryland after the tapings and he said, ‘What about Happy Wrestling?’ And I said, ‘All right, I like it.’ So, I just started closing every event and every TV episode and most TV episodes with that, you know? And that’s been kind of my tagline for five years and it’s been nice so yeah, Colt, Colt is definitely the one that’s responsible for that and he helped kind of brand that and made it something that’s a bit of a tag for me so yeah, and that same night, it was kind of bromantic if you will because he approached me. He said, ‘Hey, if I wanna do this, if you and me were together, you know, I wanna be your commentary partner. Who do I talk to?’ And so, he kind of asked me out that night to be commentary partners in a way so, that night was a lot fun. It was really memorable and we had a good time; myself, Jay Lethal, Jay White, had Jeff Jones, couple of the guys. We had a real good time and ‘Happy Wrestling’ was born.
** Edition #119 of Cultaholic’s Desert Island Graps show featured the current IMPACT X Division Champion Trey Miguel. Trey discussed the pressures of being X Division Champion, noting that Josh Alexander traded the title in to challenge for the world title. Trey feels that he has to build the title back up.
Well I feel pressure over the fact that no one lost this . The fact that Josh Alexander was the previous champion and thought that competition ran dry so he gave it up. How do you fill those shoes? You know what I mean? It felt like it was deserted. It didn’t feel like it was vacant, it felt like it was like, ‘Eh, this isn’t cutting it.’ I feel like I have to build this thing up again. That’s a lot of pressure. You know, I mean, forget the list of guys that have held it which is exponentially intimidating. They were all some of my favorite wrestlers and some of the most way-paving professional wrestlers that we know today but, f*ck man. Someone said, ‘This isn’t enough. I’m giving this up for something bigger.’ I gotta build that up a little bit, I gotta give this thing some prestige, I gotta put on the best matches in my entire life right now. Make this something people care to watch get defended.
Miguel won the title at IMPACT’s Bound For Glory pay-per-view. He had a spray paint-type of entrance where he moved his hand as the letters were be colored in on the entrance video. He shared that-that entrance was inspired by Taya Valkyrie’s IMPACT entrance video.
I’ll tell you where I actually got the idea from too . Aside from the Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie because he actually does tag in that movie which I thought was — if I could figure out a way to do this, that’d be really cool. But, Taya Valkyrie, when she was at IMPACT, her titantron was a video of someone spray painting a wall saying — and it said, ‘Wera Loca’ and I remember thinking, ‘Dude, if they just put Wera Loca up there and had her spray paint it, that would be even sicker’ and it never was a thing and then unfortunately, she left and no one was doing anything like that and I was just like, ‘This is too perfect for the Miles Morales character. Let me shoot this idea. It’s something that I think would work’ and honestly, while I was sitting on the idea, I had someone else shoot me the idea. My buddies at Collar And Elbow were at one of the tapings. They’re like, ‘Dude, you know what? We thought about this thing that’d be so sweet’ and when they told me, I was like, ‘Dude, I literally pitched that months ago. That’s so crazy that you said that.’ I said, ‘But now that you said that, I can validate that it’s a good idea and that I’m not stupid!’ We’re running back to the office.
Continuing on the topic of the Bound For Glory entrance, Trey forgot how the animation played out. He credited Senior Producer Josh Matthews and Director of TV Production Eric Tompkins for getting him back on track before his music hit.
Right before I did it for the first time .
** Highspots Wrestling Network hosted a virtual signing with Scarlett Bordeaux. She mentioned that both Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair would come to the WWE Performance Center to work with talents.
I wore these wearing these shoes. So, they would come and help us out at practice. So, these are very, very special shoes to me.
** SLAM! Wrestling has an extensive interview on their site with The OGK (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett). The duo went into ROH Final Battle on 12/11 and put the ROH World Tag Team Titles on the line against The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe). Taven and Bennett heaped praise onto The Briscoes. Bennett credited Mark and Jay for lending credibility to Maria Kanellis-Bennett’s on-screen character prior to this current ROH run.
Taven: The Briscoes are Ring of Honor. You open up page one, it’s the Briscoes, you open up the last page, it’s the Briscoes. So it’s one of those things where I feel honored, no pun intended, that this is the way that it could be the end. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I would be disappointed if it wasn’t OGK and the Briscoes. We always bring out the absolute best in one another. Like me and Michael always talked about it. There’s an animal rage that comes over us.
Bennett: It’s ridiculous.
Taven: When we’re across the ring from the Briscoes. I mean, right here in Atlanta, it was me, Mike, Maria and Cole until eight in the morning. We literally almost missed my flight because I was getting six staples in my head from a match with the Briscoes. The whole Kingdom’s sleeping in the waiting room on top of one another.
Taven: Nothing encapsulates the kind of camaraderie that we have with one another more because, like, we’ll always be there for one another. And it’s like when we see each other, it’s like nothing’s ever changed. So for what could be the end, you look at it as a mixed bag. Could this open up other doors where more pieces of The Kingdom come back together? Could this be the end? I don’t know. I know we’ll always stick together. If this is the end, there’s no other team I would pick besides the Briscoes.
Bennett: They’re the Briscoes, they’re day one, team one, they are Ring of Honor. And what they did for me and Taven, it’s one of those things.
Taven: They put us on the map.
Bennett: Yeah, they put us on the map, and I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t say this too, though. Maria always gives the Briscoes credit for giving her credibility too. Because at the time, she was the stupid diva coming to Ring of Honor and she was trying to change that perception to legitimate manager Maria Kanellis. The Briscoes gave her that platform to treat her like a legitimate threat. And here’s these two redneck badass boys from Sandy Fork, Delaware, giving Maria Kanellis the respect of like, ‘Oh s—, this girl’s nothing to f— with.’ Pardon my language. It’s one of those things where like she says, there’s exact moment she was in the ring, I think it was Tennessee, she was in the ring cutting a promo over Jay Briscoe after we laid him out. She talks about, ‘Jay Briscoe laying down and allowing me to stand over him was a moment I’ll never forget.’ That’s what they did for us and that’s the Briscoes I want people to remember. If this was my last match ever, I’d be okay with it, because it’s the Briscoes, Ring of Honor, Final Battle. There’s nothing better.
** Kenta Kobashi and Masahiro Chono have been added to the selection committee for the Tokyo Sports Awards.
** Bianca Belair recapped her experience at the Sports Illustrated Awards alongside Montez Ford, Sasha Banks, Angelo Dawkins and Dana Brooke.
** To promote WWE’s live event on December 12th, Nikki A.S.H. appeared on FOX 17.
** Screen Rant published their interview with Xia Li.
** Mickie James, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val welcomed Renee Paquette onto GAW TV.
** Tokyo Sports published an article about Io Shirai, Meiko Satomura, Akira Tozawa and Ikemen Jiro getting together and posting a group photo on social media.
** AEW’s Eddie Kingston and The Butcher (Andy Williams) are celebrating birthdays today.
** TMZ Sports talked to The Miz about the Cleveland Browns.
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.