Originally published at POST NEWS UPDATE: Sonya Deville open to the idea of winning a men's title in WWE - POST Wrestling | WWE AEW NXT NJPW Podcasts, News, Reviews
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.
** Forbes published their interview with Sonya Deville. Deville said that she is all for the idea of being involved in intergender wrestling in WWE and possibly winning a men’s championship.
“I’ve always been one for equality, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, religion, I firmly believe that that’s important and that’s part of the progression of the women’s evolution that’s taking place today. I mean, we’re in 2020, I think anything’s possible. And I would love to be one of the first women to kind of pioneer that concept.”
Sonya Deville addressed the #SpeakingOut movement on social media that saw many of women in wrestling share their respective stories of harassment and/or abuse in the industry. Sonya said we need to do better as a culture and offered solutions and advice for the situation at hand.
“I think that as a whole, as a culture, whether it be in wrestling or in any other avenue of life, we need to be better and we need to do better.
And I think that the way that I’ve done that and that I’ve seen it work from my experience is we need to create a conversation, and we need to create a public conversation worldwide. We’re all blessed with those platforms to be able to do so, and have our voice, to have our opinions. So I encourage everyone who has faced a horrid situation—like the ones that have been coming out—I encourage them to continue to speak out and do what they feel is right. Bring justice to their horrible situation. And I support them 100% and I love you guys. And I think you’re so brave. And our voices are the most powerful thing that we’re entitled to. So use it and use it for good.”
Sonya Deville will also be a part of GLAAD’s virtual awards ceremony with the likes of Lil Nas X, Dwayne Wade, Gabrielle Union and Dolly Parton.
** FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler) joined Bully Ray and David LaGreca on Monday’s installment of Busted Open Radio. Harwood revealed that he and Cash’s appearance on Jim Cornette’s podcast was not well received by those within AEW and said that they were “the biggest heels in the locker room” once that podcast hit people’s feeds.
“Just really quick off that, we did Cornette’s podcast not too long ago and we talked to Tony Khan and asked him if it would be okay if we did that, but no one else knew about that, and man when we got to TV, the next day after that podcast aired, we were the biggest heels in the locker room. Everyone, even our buddy MJF, everyone was so pissed off with us because they thought we went rogue and went on Cornette’s podcast to bury The Young Bucks and AEW. We were not a very well-liked pair in the locker room that day.”
Upon their arrival in AEW, Dax Harwood felt that the reception to them coming into AEW was not grand backstage from the younger talents. He feels that because of the way that he and Cash view wrestling and treat the business may have made things tense in AEW but they enjoy the competitive nature of wrestling and feel they can add a lot to AEW.
“I guess, just to kind of start off, just a couple of weeks ago after our match with SCU, we got an opportunity to get on the mic and talk a little bit and I started the interview off with, ‘We weren’t a welcome edition here to AEW’ and that was the honest to God truth. We walk into AEW and we knew this was gonna happen because we were former WWE guys but, we walk into there and there’s resentment from some of the younger guys there and I think it’s because of our attitude towards the business, our attitude towards professional wrestling and tag team wrestling and the rules and things like that. So, the backstage vibe at first was kind of tense and that’s okay with us. We thrive on that, we enjoy that. We enjoy the competitiveness of professional wrestling. If we’re all friends and we’re all trying to help each other out, at the end of the day, no one gets ahead. But myself and Cash, as a unit, as a tag team, we want to be the top — I don’t mean to make a pun of this but we do want to be the top guys at AEW. We want to help AEW grow and we want to make them a contender and a viable force in professional wrestling for years to come, for the fans and for the boys. So the locker room, I think, it can be at times a little buddy-buddy and we can come in and shake that up a little bit, I think that’s a good thing.”
Also during the podcast, Wheeler and Harwood spoke about their new finisher, “The Goodnight Express”. Harwood stated that they did not have to change the “Shatter Machine” name but they wanted to anyway and also, they’ve been using the spike piledriver on AEW programming and they did pitch to use that move in WWE, says Harwood.
“So, the Shatter Machine and now we have to call it the Goodnight — we don’t have to but we enjoy calling it the Goodnight Express. It’s a move that obviously we took from parts of another great tag team. You may have heard of ‘em and we just incorporated about it. He obviously didn’t want to use the piledriver at all and so we came to AEW and we started incorporating the spike piledriver just almost as a restart for us, and it’s something we want to incorporate into our matches. But for the Shatter Machine, no one has ever, ever, ever, ever kicked out of it. We learned that from listening to another great tag team that had the same kind of finisher with the same kind of premise. No one’s ever kicked out of it and we just want to take the spike piledriver and utilize it to its fullest extent and if no one can kick out of it, no one can kick out of that one as well. Just another move to the repertoire…”
** Lana tweeted out that both her parents have tested positive for Coronavirus. POST Wrestling would like to send our well wishes to Lana’s family.
** The latest installment of Tama Tonga’s ‘Tama’s Island’ podcast was centered around The Elite era of Bullet Club. Tama discussed the various clicks that were formed in Bullet Club such as The Young Bucks with either Adam Cole, Marty Scurll, Hangman Page, Kenny Omega or Cody Rhodes and those pairs being separate from Bullet Club in itself. Tama specifically talked about when Cody first came into the group after leaving WWE and working the independents and Tama did not get the hype behind Rhodes.
“It took time. It takes time for me. I can see things happen but I’m not gonna make a move. I wait until things build up and… it took me a couple years for it to really collecting and collecting before I go turn around and slap somebody. But, I always try to keep the peace, until that line, you can’t anymore. Now, obviously things have been building from guys coming in, the angles that was done between Adam Cole and also Cody Rhodes who’s a leader, and I thought to myself at the beginning of that when Cody came in from WWE, I just didn’t know what the hype was. What’s the hype? And to have that, ‘Bullet Club is fine,’ we were at that point already that we just kind of sat back and watched what was happening and just waited for our time to make our insert. Everything had already built up to that point, but they also had their super click.”
The multi-time IWGP Tag Team Champion touched on the topic of how Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling putting all their stock into The Elite eventually came back around to do them no favors and that eventually leading to the formation of All Elite Wrestling.
“But here’s the thing, here’s when I think it came back — because they used — so, Bucks and them, they were very smart. The Elite were very smart. They created a brand inside of a brand and knowing that Kenny was the front-man, they were gonna push him and so, they grew, Kenny and The Bucks grew The Elite. They used Cody, they had the perfect storm recipe coming in and once they got big enough using the Bullet Club platform, right? They were gonna jump. ROH spent too many money on them that they created storylines around them so when they left, they fell flat on their face, right? New Japan banked everything on Kenny and then once they realized what they were doing, they started to pull back. They pulled back and that’s where 2018 was the cause of the split because they kept feeding the machine. So, now here’s the thing: Here’s what I mean it came back and bit them in the ass, because now, they built this monster, AEW.”
The likes of Cody Rhodes, Tony Khan, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks and several others within AEW have talked about the potential partnership or working relationship with New Japan. Tama Tonga thinks it could work but it would have to happen sooner rather than later.
“100 percent. I think the sooner the better, because the longer we get away from it, it’ll start to wither away, the need for it. I think, so, as time stretches because everybody wanted the whole, the civil war at the very beginning but now it’s time, what two years after that? Its been two years? And we didn’t really do any kind of close-off so, or big build-up to. The build-up was that so now we’re just kind of descending. So, is there a time? Yes.”
Going back to Kenny Omega’s time as leader of Bullet Club, Tama said that he looked to Omega to guide the group but Omega focused in on leading The Young Bucks and fellow members of The Elite only.
“I was just trying to keep the peace, unify and maybe, I was looking to Kenny for leadership. I was looking for Kenny to take that charge and maybe that’ll give us some direction to go, and it just wasn’t coming from him. He’d rather give direction to his boys and that’s — I was trying to, ‘Come on Kenny. There’s more of us. There’s not just The Bucks’ but then other guys started coming from ROH and I could see now the divide and the guys, us guys in Japan were kinda just like chopped liver.”
Initially, Tama noticed the shift in Bullet Club when wrestlers in Ring of Honor were joining the group without Bullet Club (Japan) knowing about these new members. It was then when the shift occurred from Tama’s perspective and noticing that Bullet Club in America was becoming bigger than Bullet Club in Japan.
“Here’s the thing… things were happening, guys were being brought into Bullet Club without us even knowing or hearing about it. Guys from ROH. It kinda turned… there was just so much happening so fast in America, that Bullet Club was evolving quicker there than it was in Japan so, The Bucks and them only came a few times. We were with Kenny all the time, out there in Japan. But, the other guys were in ROH and they knew what was happening. They did their own thing. Once New Japan gave them the freedom to do what they want with Bullet Club, they kinda did.”
** Gorilla Position recorded an interview with NXT’s Karrion Kross.
** WWE is set to report their second quarter financials on July 30th. WWE Chairman & CEO, Vince McMahon, and Interim CFO, Frank A. Riddick will host a conference call beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET.
** The ‘Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’ re-released a video from their archives of an interview with former WWF Tag Team Champion John Tenta, also known as “Earthquake”.
** Taz revived the FTW Championship on the 7/8/20 edition of AEW Fyter Fest and he crowned Brian Cage as the new champion. According to PWInsider, the FTW Championship was never owned by ECW, therefore it never transferred over to under WWE’s ownership. The belt was designed, created and owned by Taz. Taz holds the copyright for the belt design and the title is indeed the original FTW Championship.
** Ahead of the 7/8/20 edition of NXT on the USA Network, Drake Maverick spoke with Newsweek and one of several topics covered during the interview includes Maverick’s release from WWE this past April. Maverick stated that if he were a part of that decision-making process, he likely would’ve released himself because he was being paid a lot of money and not being used.
“What was going on in my mind was that the job gave me a lot. I’ve said this before—I wasn’t being used on television, they were paying me a lot of money, I would have released me. I really would. You’re not getting any return on your investment, I would have released me too. Mentally I was thinking that this job, this company, has given me a lot and you basically had a vacation for two years aside from a couple of matches, you don’t have anything to be angry about. It’s business at the end of the day. You can take the approach of going in there, all guns blazing angry about the decision made or you can just be a professional and hopefully down the road they’ll remember your professionalism and want to work with you again. I just turned up everyday as I would every show, with great respect to everybody because I never entered the NXT locker room before, and I have great respect for everything they built there. has gone from Full Sail University to Takeovers to big arenas everywhere to a weekly show on the USA Network. The sacrifice that Tommaso Ciampa has made—he broke his neck and came back. All of that trying to build up the house that is NXT. The journey of Johnny Gargano, the amount of people who went through NXT on their way to RAW and SmackDown, I have great respect for that place, but it was about going in and showing that I can do whatever it is they want to the best of my ability. That was all it was. My mentality was being professional because you’ve been released, but it’s business. It’s a job and you want to work for this company down the road and the way the world is at the moment, you don’t know what’s going to happen. So let’s just be a pro, be a good person and take each day as it comes.”
Regarding the idea that Maverick’s entire release journey was a storyline, Maverick says people can have their own thoughts and opinions about it but he added that he still has the paperwork that WWE sent him to solidify his release.
“People have their opinions whether it’s positive or negative on everybody. But anyone who is discrediting that this wasn’t a genuine situation with my livelihood on the line, is very much mistaken. You can think of any conspiracy theory you want, but there’s no conspiracy theory. I was fired and I worked my ass off to get my job back. And if anybody wants to create a conspiracy theory on that, that’s up to them. Every day when I leave the house, I have the release paperwork that I received a day after I got the phone call framed on my wall next to the front door. And every day I look at it and it says, ‘Dreams don’t work unless you do’ right above it. Every day I look at that and it tells me not to be complacent and to bust my ass everyday to be where I want to be. And I think about that every day because I could have been gone and I’m just blessed that I was given the opportunity to still have those three matches in the NXT Cruiserweight Tournament. It is reality—if I would have sucked, it would have been a totally different story, but I didn’t. I’m confident in my abilities, I’m confident in the work and the person that I put out there.”
** North American Champion and NXT Champion Keith Lee made the media rounds following his double title win on July 8th. One of the outlets he spoke with was Newsweek and Lee shared what he thinks his trainer, “Killer” Tim Brooks would say to him in this moment. Brooks passed away on June 30th of this year.
“Oh man, you just gave me goosebumps. I think that in this moment, with him, he would smack me in the shoulder real hard and say, ‘You’ve done good kid. I told you so.’ And then he’d probably laugh at me and make a ridiculous joke.”
Lee heaped praise onto former NXT Champion Adam Cole. Lee talked about how good of a wrestler Cole is and the passion that Cole has for the business.
“Adam Cole is someone that in an alternate world, a parallel universe somewhere, he and I are best friends. He’s someone that mirrors my love for this sport. And I know that sometimes people aren’t able to see it because of the antics of Undisputed Era, but if you watch that match there were zero interruptions. That was a pure-blood, hot, spicy competition. And he was in there, man, and you could see it in his eyes. The guy breathes professional wrestling and he’s so good.
And yes, there are size differences and yes, there are visual oppositions, but what he can do in the ring—his intelligence, his ring awareness—he’s the epitome of a ring-savvy competitor. And when I tell you that you can feel his passion pulsing when you’re in the ring with him, I absolutely mean it. It’s ridiculous.
Dude, it’s not just NXT—this guy means something to this industry. He’s a special competitor and I was absolutely honored to share a ring with him and even more honored that he decided to take this match one-on-one. And I gained an entirely different respect for him because after that match, the man stood up and shook my hand.”
** Scheduled for next Tuesday’s Slammiversary go-home edition of IMPACT on AXS is a contract signing between Deonna Purrazzo and Jordynne Grace ahead of their Knockouts Championship match at the July 18th pay-per-view. Also, Moose is teaming with a mystery partner to take on Tommy Dreamer and Crazzy Steve. Ace Austin will make his return to IMPACT and there will be a 10-person tag match that’ll see Taya Valkyrie, Kimber Lee, Rosemary, Tasha Steelz and Kiera Hogan against Kylie Rae, Susie, Havok, Nevaeh and Alisha Edwards.
** Corey Graves welcomed Booker T onto the After The Bell podcast. Booker was open about the low ratings for WWE Backstage on FS1 and felt like the minimum number the show should’ve done was 500,000. Booker added that it may have helped if they covered independent wrestling on the program.
“And my thing was, I was always weary weekly, just because the ratings wasn’t what I wanted. I said with my star power and all the rest of the guys on the panel, our star power together man, we shouldn’t have no less than 500,000 per week. That should’ve been the low number for us. For me, I don’t think it was enough thought going into something like that. Everybody was just f*cking loving it. I’m like, ‘Man we gotta get these numbers up,’ and I thought stuff like that would intrigue not just the casual WWE viewer, but people that’s really thinking about, ‘Man, what is this business really, really truly all about?’”
** WWE Performance Center trainer Sarah Stock, who was furloughed by WWE this past April, was a guest on Taylor Wilde’s ‘Wilde On’ podcast.
** Sue Marasciulo, the mother of Trent Beretta, was interviewed by Sports Illustrated about her cameo appearance on night one of Fyter Fest last week. Sue spoke about Trent’s love for pro wrestling and seeing his passion for the sport early on in his life.
“I loved having that moment with my son. I used to drive him everywhere. He first started wrestling in this old garage when he was only 15. It was an hour from where we lived, but he was so insistent on going. The other kids were 19 and 20, so there was a big age difference, but he said, ‘I’ve got to do this,’ so I said OK.”
She drove both Trent and Chuckie T to the ring for their AEW World Tag Team Title match against Kenny Omega and Hangman Adam Page. She revealed that it was Trent’s idea for the cameo appearance and Trent flew to Myrtle Beach to get her and then they drove to Florida together.
“This was Greg’s idea. He texted me last week and said, ‘Hey Ma, how would you like to drive us into the ring on TV?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ He needed to check to make sure it was OK. Once he found out that it was, I said, ‘Sure, why not.’ So he flew into Myrtle Beach, and we drove into Jacksonville together. It was so much fun.”
** Wrestling Inc. welcomed Conrad Thompson onto their daily podcast and Conrad addressed Undertaker being pulled from Starrcast weekend in Las Vegas in May of 2019. In his explanation, Conrad shared that he wishes that wasn’t a part of Undertaker’s ‘Last Ride’ docu-series.
“Well, it’s unfortunate. I mean, I wish it wasn’t even a part of the documentary. He’s done so much and had so many great moments throughout his history and I wish there was none of that in there. I’m not saying that I’m disappointed that they did it. I’m just saying if that was even remotely a controversial topic or a dark spot or whatever – I don’t know what the circumstances were. We’ve always heard that he got a long term, essentially lifetime deal with WWE as a result of that and I’m happy for him if that’s the case. But I mean, he was going to get that either way. You know, I think that may have just been sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back or maybe it was what brought attention to it.
I mean, once upon a time we heard that the WWE accidentally forgot to renew The Rock’s contract once he was in Hollywood. You just assume that-that company can be so big at different times that maybe the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing. Once, unfortunately, Starrcast made a big splash with the announcement that we had the Undertaker, maybe that brought it to Vincent’s attention. ‘Oh, I’ve let this slip through. Let’s remedy that.’ He deserves it. If there’s an elder statesman of WWE who deserves to be deferential with that level of respect, it’s the Undertaker.”
As far as The Undertaker’s stage show that was planned for Starrcast, Conrad revealed that it was Bruce Prichard who was going to host the show.
“No, we talked about doing a stage show and the original idea was we would have Bruce host it because obviously Bruce is comfortable with Mark. Those two on stage telling old stories, I thought, would have just been tremendous because Bruce is a fantastic storyteller and obviously has a lot of history with Mark and they’re great friends for decades now.
So, it just felt like that would be a home run and that’s what led me to go out and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to call this Dead Man Talking and let’s trademark it.’ And then of course everybody assumed, ‘Oh, that must have been Conrad’s doing a podcast with Undertaker and he’s going to AEW.’ No, none of that was ever even remotely discussed.”
** Chris Featherstone went live on Sportskeeda’s Facebook page with Marc Copani, formerly known as Muhammad Hassan. Copani recalled when his character was in the beginning stages of being pulled from WWE programming and the conversation he had with John Laurinaitis that made him realize that the Muhammad Hassan character was finished in the sports-entertainment company.
“I don’t remember a conversation with Vince. I remember a conversation with Johnny Ace who was talent relations at the time and when it first happened, I know we weren’t really sure and they weren’t really sure exactly how it was going to play out and I remember that there was — I think the initial response was, ‘Well we’re gonna fight it and I think take the character out’ and again, it was the character, as it started, it was brilliant in the fact that it was an American who was being treated as an outsider. But once the pressure built and we knew that wasn’t gonna happen, it was Johnny Ace I had a conversation with and the only thing that really sticks out, it was kind of a whirlwind of a time back then but, I said something to the effect of, ‘I’m about to buy a house’ and he said, ‘Don’t buy the house’ and I think that’s when I was like, ‘Alright, well this isn’t gonna go in a positive direction for me’ and I wasn’t released right away obviously. It took a little bit of time but I knew at that point I was gonna be taken off TV.”
** In episode two of former TNA Knockouts Champion Taylor Wilde’s podcast, she welcomed Natalya onto the show. Natalya recalled making the decision to not come to the WWE Performance Center in either late March or early April as the COVID-19 pandemic began to rise case-wise in North America.
“Nobody that feels bad is going into the Performance Center. What was it? End of March, early April? I just didn’t feel good. I had like a 99.5 degree fever. WWE said, ‘No problem. We would rather air on the side of caution then have you come here not feeling 100 percent.’ But that was a responsible choice that I made, to say, ‘Ehh, I’m not feeling great. Let me sit back.’ So the company’s being super respectful and super supportive of us which gives us that feeling of, ‘Okay, no matter what, we’re all gonna get through this and we’re all gonna be okay’ but it starts with us taking care of ourselves. Wearing a mask, washing your hands…”
Natalya is also a writer for the Calgary Sun. She writes a column every week or every other week and she explained how she got the gig and how much she enjoys writing.
“I was approached about it by a journalist in Toronto actually. He’s a really talented journalist. He said, ‘Hey, I have a friend that’s an editor with The Sun and we know Bret used to do it for the Calgary Sun.’ So I’ve been writing a column for three-and-a-half years and I love it. It’s just so nice to have a platform once a week and also to write. So much of my life is wrestling and sometimes you just have to turn it over to something else and so for me to even think of one column a week, a topic that everybody can enjoy and I have one rule with columns, they have to be positive. They can’t be negative. So, it’s a really good challenge and it’s good to exercise my brain and just to kind of spread love.”
** Comicbook.com has an interview with AEW Co-Executive Vice President Kenny Omega. While speaking about AEW’s women’s division, Omega spoke highly of one of the newest additions to AEW’s women’s division, Abadon.
“I enjoy wrestling. I enjoy doing it as a living. I feel very blessed to be able to do it as a career. But what I like most about wrestling, isn’t the actual wrestling. I like the ability to tell any kind of story that you want. I like the fact that wrestling doesn’t necessarily have to be like mixed martial arts, where it’s always about just who wins. It doesn’t matter how you look, how you act, just if you win. In wrestling and you can have different characters, different motivations, you don’t necessarily have to fight for a title, you don’t necessarily have to have the strongest win/loss record to stand out to people.
When I see a character like Abadon, for someone, again, who loves and talking horror movies, and I see someone who’s committed themselves 100% to a character that appeals to people that are interesting, aside from wrestling. I know that-that’s like a real diamond in the rough and something that I want to see develop, something that I want to nurture. And I think that for people out there that want to be entertained through things aside from just wrestling, Abadon checks a lot of real cool boxes and I’m super excited to see her development.
That was a creation from the mind of the person themselves. Anyone could easily just say, ‘Oh, you’re a wrestler. Okay. We’re going to make you a zombie, okay?’ And if they’re not into it, if they’re not feeling it, you see that it projects through the screen and you can call it out right away, and it sucks. But for Abadon, for that character to be her, that is something that she wants to do. That is something that she feels comfortable in her own skin doing. You see the commitment behind the performance and that is so important.”
** Andrew Ward of ‘High Times’ chatted with Rob Van Dam, Paul London and Matt Sydal about the use of marijuana within professional wrestling. Rob Van Dam recalled Stephanie McMahon telling him that if he’s going to get high, the least he could do was be more discreet about it.
** Louis Dangoor of WrestleTalk conducted an interview with NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis. Prior to the allegations about NWA Vice President David Lagana coming the forefront via the #SpeakingOut movement, the organization was pushing out its weekly ‘Carnyland’ series on YouTube to make up for the NWA Powerrr series. During the interview, Aldis explained the original concept of Carnyland before Lagana and Billy Corgan developed the NWA Powerrr series.
“So the Patreon is set in our new, sort of fictional setting of Carnyland, which was… I guess was a sort of pie in the sky idea that Billy had even before the NWA stuff started. I think the original concept for Carnyland was gonna be some kind of website but you know, basically just kind of poking fun at some of the sort of obscure kind of nature of the wrestling business in general.”
Nick Aldis touched on the topic of him never going to WWE. Aldis linked that to a hypothetical person working their entire career for something, just so they can possibly put the fate of the rest of their career in the hands of one person.
“I get it all the time. ‘Well why don’t you go to WWE?’ Well ask them. But also, because if it seems to be this much of an issue, then what does it say about what my chances are of having success there if I did go, right? Because again, it’s really hard to explain to people that you dedicate your whole life to something and then to think your fate can lie in the hands of one person.”
Aldis also heaped praise onto former 6-time WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James. Aldis feels that James does not get the credit she deserves for being a bridge of sorts between the Divas era and the current era of women’s wrestling in WWE.
“As far as I know, she has been doing some of that and I know that it seems to be what they want her to transition into , eventually, and that seems like a natural fit in my opinion, just because she’s kind of bridged the gap in a lot of ways from the sort of Divas era to the current era so, but she was also — I don’t think she gets enough credit for this but she was really, in my opinion, kind of the mold of what they want their female stars to be now which was, ‘Yeah, you can be beautiful and have sex appeal’ and all of those things that obviously work for television. We don’t have to pretend to be so progressive and inclusive that we don’t enjoy attractive people being on our television screens. I don’t think that’s necessary but, that was never her selling point. Her selling point was her talent, her ability and her charisma and the fact that she looks great is a business so, and I think that she really kind of set the tone for what the sort of next generation of girls ended up becoming.”
** Georgia Smith, daughter of British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith, spoke with Wrestling Inc. When asked who she’d like to eventually induct her father into the WWE Hall Of Fame when the company has their ceremony for the 2020 class, she would either like Davey Boy Smith Jr., William Regal or Stu Bennett to speak at British Bulldog’s induction.
“I kind of want Harry to accept it. I think that is the plan. I may speak. I thought William Regal would have been a good one as well because those had history in WCW and knew each other and respected each other. I also thought Wade Barrett would be a good one because he was a big fan of my dad and from similar parts of England.”
** The Miz appeared on CBS Sports Radio’s ‘The DA Show Interviews’.
** Finn Balor donated 500 Euros to the Bray Wanderers Futbol club. Teams around the country have had to raise money to make up for the live attendance gate that they usually bring in when fans are able to attend games.
** Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson covered the 2010 TNA Victory Road pay-per-view for the most recent episode of 83 Weeks. Bischoff shared his thoughts about the Abyss character and feels that it was a downgrade version of The Undertaker and Mankind.
“But I think Chris Park is one of the kindest, gentlest, sweetest guys I’ve ever worked with. He treats everybody with the utmost respect. He puts 110 percent into everything you ask him to do. In fact, he worked so hard at it that you start feeling guilty you even asked him to do anything. He’s just that kind of a dude. But his character sucked, and it had nothing to do with the violence. It wasn’t original. He was like a K-Mart, Blue Light Special version of The Undertaker and Mick Foley. Like if Undertaker and Mick Foley had a child together, it would’ve been Abyss. It wasn’t original, it wasn’t as good as Undertaker. His character and the way he portrayed it wasn’t as good as Mick Foley. Mostly because Chris just wasn’t as good on the mic and the character isn’t original. People had seen it now. They’d been watching The Undertaker for how many years by 2010? They’d been watching Mick Foley be Mick Foley for how many decades at this point? And if you’re just doing a version — especially two super high-profile characters like Taker and Mick Foley and your character is somehow a derivative of one or both of them, you’re not gonna get over because you’re not original…”
** Wichita Falls, Texas outlet ‘News Talk 1290’ published a story about their hometown man, Keith Lee becoming NXT Champion on the 7/8 edition of NXT on the USA Network.
** Carmella chatted with E!’s Justin Sylvester on the ‘Just The Sip’ podcast.
** Cody Rhodes was a guest on truTV’s ‘Hot Ones’ show:
** Former AEW Women’s World Champion Nyla Rose chatted with Bleacher Report Live. Nyla was asked about the progression of AEW’s women’s division over the past year and here are her thoughts about the division:
“I think its been a steady progression. My personal biases aside, I am so proud of all the women in AEW. I’m so proud of everything they’re doing, all the creativity they’re bringing to the forefront, and whenever we get a few guests come through the door, these girls are busting their butts and they’re out there trying to show something, trying to prove something. Everybody’s hungry and it’s amazing to see such amazing work from so many people. Like nobody I feel has really kind of… for lack of a better expression, gotten lazy with anything. Everybody’s out there going full-throttle, giving it their all, leaving it all out there in the ring as we say. I’m so proud of everyone.”
** Natalya interviewed TJ Wilson for her latest column for the Calgary Sun. When Nattie asked TJ to pinpoint the favorite match that he’s been in, here’s what TJ shared:
“One match that really stands out though was teaming with Cesaro against The New Day in Europe on a live event and the crowd was going insane. I wish the match was televised. The first night of that tour we were all pretty tired from flying in from the U.S., but we weren’t going to ‘phone it in’ as we say. Cesaro and I were ‘bad guys’ at the time, but the fans ended up booing The New Day and cheering for us, which meant that we had to change our game plan on the fly in the ring in front of a packed arena. What it taught me was you could never go wrong if you put yourself in the audience’s shoes. It also taught me that life is not always about what you planned out, or what you thought it was going to be. Life is unpredictable. Most of the time, you have to just roll with the punches, literally.”
** SmackDown Women’s Champion and WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Bayley spoke with Newsweek for an exclusive interview. While on the topic of herself and Sasha Banks potentially having a feud with one another again, Bayley questioned how WWE would be able to present their weekly shows if she and Sasha were split apart or not working with each another.
“Well, it’s difficult to think about because it’s never going to happen. Everyone wants us to fight, but look at us. How are they going to run any shows without us together? They can’t do RAW without us, SmackDown without us, NXT without us. Why would we break up?
As much as it would be awesome and we’d main event, be on the marquee, the talk of whatever pay-per-view it’d be on—why would we do that when we’re making all this money on all these shows? That’s the wrong question, buddy.”
Bayley shared that with she and Sasha’s current title reign, this is what they were expecting their first reign to be like before they lost the titles at WrestleMania 35.
“Yeah, that’s definitely it. This is what we wanted the first time, literally competing on every single brand and the fact that we’ve been on NXT twice at this point and although we’ve only defended the titles once, we’ve shown our faces twice. We’ve already defended it on SmackDown and we got a championship match coming up next week, or this week—I can’t even remember any more—and we’re doing it on RAW and over and over again and that’s what we wanted. I think we kind of had to earn that respect from our peers or from the office and had to show them that we can actually do it, even though it’s killing us because we are literally working our butts off on every show. But it’s worth it and we want to make these titles so special.”
She spoke about her heel turn and the transition from the lovable character to trying to make the crowd and fans dislike her. Bayley says that at the beginning, there was this notion that she was going to be like John Cena and remain a positive and good character for the duration of her run in WWE. She added that it was a “scary” venture to embark on but feels that she made the right decision in the end.
“A little bit of both. When this first happened I had to, I think it was . So it was definitely a little scary and kind of got off to a rough start, but I feel I made the right decision in the end.”
Elsewhere in the interview, she revealed how she came up with the “Bayley Dos Straps” nickname and it came by way of assistance from Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins of The Street Profits.
“Honestly, I think I tweeted about it, but it’s such a ridiculous name that people say, ‘What the hell does that even mean?’ That’s where I’m trying to come up with things just to annoy people.
I was getting all these tweets about Becky and my timeline was filled with Becky. For reals, how am I going to get the attention on me and not think of Becky? So I was talking to the Street Profits, actually. ‘Guys, help me come up with a name.’ And we were just spit-balling names and dumb ideas. I’m Mexican, so it was like, ‘Can we say ‘dos?’ It’s Spanish, not even English,’ and somehow in the midst of the conversation we came up with Bayley Dos Straps. ‘That’s it. It’s ridiculous, I’m going to do it.’”
** Mandy Leon was the most recent guest on the ROHStrong podcast. During her time in Japan as a part of STARDOM’s 5STAR Grand Prix tournament in 2017, Mandy says she spent a great deal of time around the late Hana Kimura. Mandy shared kind words about Hana during the podcast and it was also mentioned that Ring of Honor is airing a Hana Kimura tribute episode this month on their syndicated television show.
“I did Hana. Yeah I did. That’s a rough one. I spent my time in Japan on that trip with Hana every single day and I worked with her mother, Kyoko Kimura a lot in Ring of Honor years prior. So, I know her as well and I know this is really rough on her and Hana was such a sweet, beautiful girl. I can’t even talk about it too much because I’ll get too emotional, but she’s… she just didn’t deserve to get bullied like that and I just wish I wasn’t so far away so I could’ve been there to tell her how much she was loved because she really was and she was such a beautiful girl. She’s a star. She really is a star and she wrestled at Madison Square Garden. She was one of the first women to wrestle at Madison Square Garden outside of another company, ever, so, and she really, just again, she was just a star. It’s unfortunate.”
** Former NXT Champion Adam Cole spoke with SuperSport ahead of his double title match against Keith Lee.
** Independent wrestler Taeler Hendrix wrote a feature about Bianca Belair for Fightful.
** Daily DDT ran their chat with Drake Maverick ahead of the 7/8 episode of NXT. Maverick reflected on his time as the manager of the Authors Of Pain (Akam & Rezar). Maverick feels that their time with Paul Ellering was so strong that it did him no favors when it came time for him to be with the duo because of the obvious comparisons.
“My initial thoughts were that they deserved better than me, I really did believe that. I thought Akam and Rezar were monsters, they were killers. I thought they were fantastic. When I got presented the creative for it and was told I had to wear the AOP outfit, I was like, ‘Okay, am I Spike Dudley to the Dudley Boyz?’ Then it was nothing like that. When I put the gear on, I had to have a seamstress to make it a Drake Maverick-size AOP suit because they’re just monsters and that outfit was still kind of big. Had they given it more time to develop it before we put it out there, I think it would have been a success. Their run with Paul would have had better than me because they deserved better than me. If Paul Heyman was their manager, gold. What they were doing with Seth Rollins, gold. I just think it was a bad fit and it wasn’t their fault. We all tried to make it the best we could. Some things just don’t work and you just move on. It is what it is.”
** Philip Lindsey has an extensive interview with Eel O’Neal on Daily DDT. The Prime Time Pro Wrestling Tag Team Champion opened up about his experiences as a black man in the wrestling business and some of the stereotypes that he’s encountered along his journey.
“Like, them and the commentary don’t know how to describe Black people as anything other than, like, ‘He’s athletic, and he plays this sport’ and he, you know, he’s not, can’t be intelligent. He can’t be intense. He can’t be mischievous. He can’t be devious. He has to be athletic. That’s it. He’s an athlete. Whereas, white characters had a lot of time to develop and bloom and say, ‘Oh, I’m this kind of person and I have this eccentricity and I can do this and that.’ And now, we’re seeing people take us seriously as performers and that allows us to take ourselves seriously and ask for what we want as performers and create characters. Like, GCW just ran a show and that was really close to all Black. Yeah, I’d say it’s probably about 60% Black workers out in whatever show GCW just ran outside. And the guys who are wrestling each other, at no point, feel like, ‘Oh, these are two of the same guys’ and that’s the myth that they always tell you when you’re booking when you’re talking to like an old school booker. It’s like, ‘Oh, you can’t put two Black guys together, because people will just be, like, oh, it’s just two Black guys.’”
** IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion SHO was the latest junior heavyweight to be interviewed by NJPW1972.com. SHO does not disagree with the notion that he and YOH are two different types of wrestlers. If he had to shift things around, he thinks YOH would be paired with Ryusuke Taguchi and he would be partnered with Robbie Eagles.
“I don’t know, I’m thinking a lot these days. Like we’re different types of wrestler. If YOH teamed with Ryusuke Taguchi, they’d make a great pair. Me, I don’t know, maybe a Robbie Eagles would be a good partner for me.”
** Mickie James spoke with Alicia Atout of ‘A Music Blog, Yea?’:
** Ahead of her IMPACT Knockouts Championship match against Jordynne Grace at Slammiversary, Deonna Purrazzo appeared on Vickie Guerrero’s podcast. Deonna revealed that the vignettes that aired during IMPACT’s show on AXS to promote her debut were filmed almost two years ago.
“Honestly, its been a mix. So that first video package was something I had filmed maybe almost two years ago now and I had pitched elsewhere and was kinda like, ‘Mhm, we don’t understand’ but the minute I sent it to IMPACT, they were like, ‘This is great. This is different. We can go somewhere with this,’ and then the second and all the kind of backstage stuff we’ve done now has just been a mix of this is what I see and them really understanding who The Virtuosa is and should be perceived as so, its been fun to kind of brainstorm with people like Jimmy Jacobs who are out there and eccentric and then get who I am and the writers who are invested in this story that we created with Jordynne so, its been a mix but its been really fun to be able to share my ideas and my creative opinions on who I would be, you know?”
** MLW’s Richard Holliday did an interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp and during their discussion, Holliday explained why he decided to extend his contract with MLW.
“The topic of my contract did come up, and it’s something they wanted to get done. They wanted to sign me obviously. They see the money in me, the investment and what I bring to the table. If I were the business owner, I’d make it my agenda to sign me as well. Why did I sign with MLW? I took a look at the industry as a whole and where it’ll be in five years, and I felt like Major League Wrestling was the best platform for me to stay with, so I did extend my contract. It is a mutually beneficial agreement, I will say that. There’s so much room for expansion, and I feel like I’m going to be the one guiding that ship.”
** The following clip is from Inside The Ropes’ stage show with Mick Foley:
** Ring of Honor is doing another trivia night on July 9th at 6 PM EST. To join, email [email protected].
** Kari Williams wrote a feature story about Ring of Honor’s Quinn McKay for SLAM Wrestling. This piece includes quotes from Jonathan Gresham, and McKay talking about how much WWE Hall Of Famer Beth Phoenix inspires her.
** Part two of Kenny Omega’s appearance on Mega Ran’s ‘Random Encounters’ podcast was uploaded to various services over the weekend.
** Kristen Ashly of Bell To Belles conducted an interview with NWA Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa. The basis of the interview was Rosa’s ‘Mission Pro Wrestling’ promotion that will feature, be produced and put together by women only. She was asked if she’ll be focusing on Mission Pro full-time while balancing an MMA career and her commitments with the National Wrestling Alliance.
“I am still training full-time for MMA, I’m an MMA fighter, too. And I’m going back to do three more fights for Combate Americas. So, as you can see, I’m like, I’m juggling all this stuff…But nothing is impossible, I mean, I see some of my peers, they have kids, they have a regular job, and they’re still able to accomplish so many things. You know, I mean, I’m a mother, I’m a wife, and I’m a professional wrestler and an owner of a business. I have a team, so I’m not doing things alone.”
** Tomoaki Honma was a part of an article published by Yahoo! Japan which includes stories from several Japanese athletes about how their respective wives have motivated them and pushed them in their professional and personal lives.
** Here’s the newest episode of Battle Of The Brands on the UpUpDownDown YouTube channel:
** Booker T reacted to his commentary stan account “Black Snow”:
** Spencer Love of Win Column Sports Network chatted with Dominic Garrini. Dominic shared that one of the names who vouched to the higher-ups in Major League Wrestling about bringing him in was AEW talent MJF. Dominic started off his response by speaking about his feud with Tom Lawlor.
“Yeah. So I’m freaking out. I’m freaking out because I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you broke your arm and we know it!’ And he’s more of (the) thinking that I have a concussion. I’m like, ‘No, dude, I’m totally fine. I just have like a massively thick skull.’ So he breaks his arm and then somehow, this dude being a cyborg that he is is back within two months to wrestle WALTER at Bloodsport. Him and I cornered each other on that Bloodsport. He cornered me during my match with Kyle the Beast, and then I cornered him against WALTER and from there, you know, we finished our feud out in AIW and then it was just always a really mutual friendship between us. Always talking, always that. He was one of the guys that really pushed for me in MLW when they were doing the initial Team Filthy run of him, Simon, and Fred Yehi, and he really wanted to add me. The other one that I always talk about really, really going to bat for me for MLW – and it didn’t work at first and then when I got there, he was really happy – was MJF. I’d met MJF on the indies and him I hit it off as friends, even though I don’t know if he has any friends. He was very into the idea of me being in MLW. This was obviously before AEW was a thing, but he had mentioned me to Court and then (it) just kind of (went) from there, but when I got to MLW, Tom was extremely happy. Tom was kind of working with the Von Erichs and Court pulled us aside and said, ‘Hey, do you guys think you guys can make this work if we make you guys a unit?’ And we were like, ‘Absolutely.’ And the thing Court was most marked by after the first, I think, three sets of promos we did was how great our chemistry was. And we have such a great chemistry because Tom are I are just really good friends.”
Dominic trained at the Absolute Intense Wrestling school in Ohio. Two of his trainers were Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae and Dominic talked about his respective experiences with both Candice and Johnny as trainers.
“My first day of training, and I got Candice later on, I said, ‘What did you think on the first day?’ Because she told me that Johnny and her had always made kind of the decisions on how the kids had done the first day, they said they knew I was going to make it because I came in wearing wrestling shoes, because a lot of kids come into their first day of wrestling training in, you know, Jordan’s, or they come in with a pair of really ratty tennis shoes. I had full wrestling shoes and like I had cardio above anybody they had seen at that point. Now, my cardio ended up getting eclipsed by a couple of our newer trainees that came in after me, but they knew that. So, then, when brass tacks came down, they ended up finding out about my martial arts background. Johnny was really keen, (because) he’d been working a lot with Drew Gulak in Evolve. So he was really keen on to, ‘You need to start watching Drew, you need to start watching Tracy Williams, watch what they do, because you’re gonna wrestle like them.’ He goes, ‘You’re not gonna wrestle like me.’ He wrestles a much more super-indie style. The only difference – the only similarity that Johnny and I have is Johnny and I are both self-admittedly not athletic. We both feel non-athletic, and then everybody else looks at us and calls us a****les because they’re like, ‘No, you’re athletic.’ So my biggest joke is always that I’m 20% athletic. My thing is like that’s always been my joke. When it came to training, Johnny was the nice guy, and Candice was the mean one. It was never Johnny being mean to me, it was always Candice being mean to me. Mom was the mean one, dad was the nice one. Dad would let you sneak off with dessert while mom took out your hand and said no. But no, I mean, they shaped all of us into what we’ve become. And one of the things that I really always respected about Johnny and Candice was a lot of people who are higher profile wrestlers, they end up being able to give their students everything. And then I think those students grow up a little less grateful for it. Johnny and Candice always – we say this. Johnny and Candice laid a cement foundation for a house, but they didn’t build the house for us. They made us build our own house. So, however we wanted to live, it was up to us to build that. And that’s how honestly me and Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham feel that they trained us.”
** Comicbook.com has an interview with The Big Show.
** The next portion of Hiroshi Tanahashi’s interview series is up on NJPW1972.com.
** Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald has audio up on his YouTube channel from Max Halloway’s virtual media presser ahead of his bout at UFC 251 on July 11th against Alexander Volkanovski.
** UFC President Dana White joined Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts on WFAN Sports Radio.
** Darren Paltrowitz of The Paltrocast spoke with Matt Hardy.
** Here’s a video of Cheeseburger watching back his first match in Ring of Honor:
** Game Changer Wrestling is returning to Indianapolis, Indiana on August 2nd for their ‘Keep in Touch’ show.
** Part two of BUSHI’s interview with NJPW1972.com is up on the site and in the interview, BUSHI discussed Hiromu Takahashi’s broken neck injury that he suffered at the G1 Special in 2018.
** BBC’s ‘Newsround’ section chatted with Drew McIntyre.
** Flash Morgan Webster went live on Instagram with NXT U.K. ring announcer Andy Shepard.
** Nyla Rose was the latest guest to join Tony Schiavone and Aubrey Edwards on the AEW Unrestricted podcast.
** Highlights from Ronda Rousey’s first ‘Rowdy League’ gaming session is up on her YouTube channel.
** Former WWE United States and Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin turned 45-years old today.
** The newest episode of GAW TV featured Melina.
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.