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.
** Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp conducted an interview with Lita, Gail Kim and Christy Hemme upon the announcement of their KAYfABE wrestling series that they are launching. Christy shared that although the show will be female-centric, males will be included in the program.
“It’s female-centric, it’s female-led, it will be primarily female however, we will definitely have men in there. I always say that everything should be story-driven and called for so if the story is calling for a man which we need — stories need men… and having men in the ring. I don’t see that not being a part of the show.”
During the conversation, Lita talked about her time as a producer/writer in WWE. She explained how she got the opportunity to earn that experience and how she’ll use that knowledge to help grow KAYfABE.
“You mentioned Tough Enough which kind of started my production journey. So I did just sign up to do the show to be a trainer, but we only shot a couple days a week and it was shot in Florida, I was living in San Francisco and so I had an apartment in Florida — didn’t go back and forth every week. That led me to just hanging out in the editing bays, hanging out with the producers, hanging out in the production meetings and just really getting into the nuts and bolts of how you put everything together and take it apart and finding a lot of stimulation in that, and then I got in with the production meetings and really got with Kevin Dunn and he taught me so much which then led me to producing RAW and SmackDown. So, I really was excited to join up with these women to be on the production end and the creative end, because I found so much stimulation, I had so many opportunities in my career in front of the camera. When I got to help people to become their best self in front of the camera, it was really stimulating to me and so that feels [like] a really good spot to be in here.”
** The next inductee into the 2020 WWE Hall Of Fame will be revealed on the 3/3 edition of WWE Backstage on FS1.
** WWE wished Matt Hardy well in his future endeavors with a post on their official website. The post included some written highlights of Matt Hardy’s career. Matt Hardy posted a video to his YouTube channel on March 2nd at midnight and confirmed that he let his contract with WWE expire.
** Andy Williams (The Butcher) joined ‘The MetalSucks’ podcast. The topics varied from music to pro wrestling. Williams dove into his run in AEW and shared that after MJF and Jungle Boy’s match on the February 12th edition of Dynamite, the two were not happy with their respective performances in the match.
“Dude, fu*king Jungle Boy, last night, Jungle Boy wrestled MJF, and as a wrestling fan, we’re literally watching — that’s gonna be Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in ten years. Those dudes are gonna rule the f*cking wrestling world and they don’t even know it yet, and to see them beat themselves up at 22 and 23 years old — like MJF was really beat up over that. After that match, he was just like, ‘Did I f*cking do this right? Was I too slow on this?’ And I’m f*cking killing this kid’s f*cking character right now, but, you have to tell him that. It’s like, ‘Dude, you’re so young and all you’re doing is… think of a wrinkly bed sheet. All you’re doing is smoothing it out. Every time you guys touch, you’re gonna smooth it out, you’re gonna smooth it out, and then by the time you guys have your big moment, whenever that is, all those wrinkles are gonna be smoothed out and then you’re just gonna be second nature man.’ That is amazing. If you think about it, because all you’re doing is just, you’re triangulating a scenario and you’re just making it more and more perfect every single time you touch, and nobody has that opportunity. No one does anything perfect the first time.”
Williams spoke about the positivity in the AEW locker room. He stated that there is no trash-talking and everybody wants to build each other up. He also finds it mind-blowing in some aspects that Dean Malenko has become an associate of his.
“For me, and I can only use my [situation] for instance. That dog eat dog thing — AEW’s locker room is so healthy. Everyone builds everybody up. There’s no sh*t talking, there’s really no political structure. Dude, Dean Malenko fu*ks with me. You know what I mean? He’s throwing jokes at me and if you do something funny in the ring or not funny but something that would be a botch or something like that, when you come back, no one’s yelling at you. They’re laughing going, ‘Holy sh*t dude. That was really funny.’ It’s not like… I don’t know. Just everyone is there to help you get better and be better because they know that if the product grows, we’re all gonna grow with it. It’s not like, ‘Hey, let’s push this guy to the moon and hopefully someday we’ll get our shot.’ It’s like, ‘Oh sh*t, it’s Jungle Boy’s time. Let’s f*cking push this motherf*cker. Let’s go. How can I help?’ So, it’s pretty awesome.”
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling announced the dates and locations for the Best Of The Super Juniors tournament:
– May 12, 13, 14: Korakuen Hall
– May 16: Yamagata Big Wing in Yamagata
– May 17: Morioka Takaya Arena in Iwate
– May 18: Iwaki Municipal General Gymnasium in Fukushima
– May 19: Sendai Sun Plaza Hall in Miyagi
– May 21, 22, 23: Korakuen Hall
– May 24: Kamisu Disaster Prevention Arena in Ibaraki
– May 27: Saku-shi General Gymnasium in Nagano
– May 28: Nagoya International Convention Center in Aichi
– May 29, 30: Osaka City General Gymnasium in Osaka
– June 1: Item Ehime in Ehime
– June 2: Takamatsu City General Gymnasium in Kagawa
– June 4: Korakuen Hall
– June 6: Ota Ward General Gymnasium in Tokyo
** Marty Scurll has been added to the field of competitors in the ROH Pure Title tournament. Fred Yehi will be debuting for the company in the tournament Also, Tasha Steelz and Mandy Leon are slated for the ROH Women’s World Title tourney.
** Bray Wyatt, Titus O’Neil and Shane McMahon were present at the Tampa Bay Vipers’ XFL game over the weekend.
** Set for this Wednesday’s episode of AEW: Dynamite in Colorado is a tag team match featuring Darby Allin and the new AEW World Champion Jon Moxley taking on Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara.
** Brock Lesnar is being advertised for the March 23rd RAW in Fort Worth, Texas.
** Jazz will be in action for the ‘Pro Wrestling EPIC’ promotion based in Alton, Illinois and she’ll be taking on Seishin.
** WWE released the following clip from the FCW documentary that is set to premiere on the WWE Network after the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view on March 8th:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OqE_Tn9Pzg[/embedyt]
** While chatting with The Daily Orange, Big E shared that the biggest struggle for him early on in his wrestling career was discovering how to be naturally entertaining.
“I would say that, early in my career, I had trouble being entertaining. I grew up an introvert in a sports background, where the goal is to physically overwhelm your opponent. There, it’s not about hospitality, it’s not about connecting with the fans. So, switching things up was difficult but also because the entertainment industry was something that I was never involved with. It took me a while, but it took me by surprise that I was able to start showing my personality. Now, I get so much fulfillment going out there and looking around seeing people smiling or laughing.”
** R-Truth is set to perform at Braun Strowman, EC3 and Drake Maverick’s ‘Magic City Live’ event during WrestleMania 36 week in Tampa, Florida.
** Several Jewish news outlets such as ‘Jewish Telegraph Agency’ and ‘STL Jewish Light’ covered Goldberg’s WWE Universal Championship victory.
** Set for this Friday’s SmackDown in Buffalo, New York is a Firefly Fun House segment. On last week’s show, “The Fiend” challenged John Cena to a match at WrestleMania which was soon made official.
** The eSports Observer released another portion of their interview with Xavier Woods. The former multi-time SmackDown Tag Team Champion reflected on New Day’s battle with The Elite (Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks) at E3 in 2018. Woods thinks the experience was awesome and in regard to that happening today, Woods doesn’t think it’s a possibility due to the two working for competing wrestling companies.
“Being able to do all that stuff with Kenny and The Young Bucks at E3 was awesome, because people thought this would never happen and they let me handle it in the way that I wanted to handle it, which was ‘very wrestling’. We did a contract signing, announced our teammates one-by-one, and tried to build the hype for it. So I was grateful for that, again, because like I said, I’m trying to bring more wrestling energy into the gaming space.” Woods continued, “It’s like a common sense thing. Their company probably wouldn’t let them be on my channel and my company probably wouldn’t think it’s a good idea that we do something like that.”
** According to PWInsider, former WCW and WWF wrestler Mark “Van Hammer” Hildreth will appear in court on March 9th for his DUI arrest in January in Boynton Beach, Florida. Hildreth’s car struck a five-year old child and the impact sent the child to the hood of the vehicle. The young child suffered internal injuries and “road rash”.
** ‘What’s on Netflix’ has an article up with details about Big Show’s Netflix series.
** Kazuchika Okada hosted a Q&A on his Instagram story and was asked when he becomes a free agent, would he join AEW or NXT and Okada responded: “TNA”.
** Darren Paltrowitz of the Paltrocast and Sportskeeda interviewed Create-A-Pro’s Patrick Fitzpatrick.
** TMZ caught up with UFC Hall Of Famer Chuck Liddell and Liddell stated that he’s officially retired from MMA for now and did share interest in a potential pro wrestling career.
“I’m officially retired right now, for now.” Liddell continued, “Oh of course, I’d still do WWE. I’d still do pro wrestling. That’d be a lot of fun. I’d like that.”
** Sport Relief has information up about how tickets to a WWE live event can be won.
** ArkLatexHomepage has a sweepstakes going where the winners can win tickets to a WWE show.
** Mirror Sport pushed out their interview with former IMPACT Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie. Taya opened up about what her run as Knockouts Champion meant to her and how TNA’s women’s division differed from WWE’s women’s division of old.
“I watched the Knockouts for years, even before I was even in professional wrestling and for me, these were women that were really putting on [great] matches, you know? There was such a difference at the time when you compared a Knockouts match to a Divas match. The Knockouts were given more time, they were allowed to be creative and they had different kinds of stipulation matches that you didn’t see in WWE. For me to be the longest reigning Knockouts Champion of all time, and to be in a category with all these women that I looked up to, and continue to look up to, is surreal.”
** Flip Gordon is challenging for the ROH World Championship at Supercard Of Honor. The championship match will be finalized after RUSH defends the ROH World Title against Mark Haskins at ROH’s 18th Anniversary Show on March 13th.
** Drew McIntyre appeared on Good Day New York to promote Monday Night RAW in Brooklyn, New York.
** Here’s AEW’s ‘Road To Denver’ video ahead of Dynamite on Wednesday:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy6POkRjhpg[/embedyt]
** wXw tweeted out that Alex Shelley informed them that he will not be making the trip to Germany for the 16 Carat Gold tournament due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Here’s the message that Shelley sent to wXw:
“To anyone who cares: I will not be coming to wXw this weekend. I have my own ideas of what the Corona Virus is and why it exists (Transmitted by fish and bat? Xenosuperbug that just so happened to shut down a major economic force? Pangolins are my favorite animal. you bastards!) but two things that are very real would be the fact that it makes people sick and has caused immense risk within the travel industry. Logistically and biochemically. As many of you know, I work. I have a regular job. Like you. And many of my patients need me. Some of them are also very immunocompromised. Even if I don’t get sick, I could be a potential vector. As much as I want to finally wrestle in a legendary venue against someone awesome. I have to do what’s right by my ethical compass. I hope you understand. If your mother. brother, lover, any other sucker was being treated by a clinician, I believe we can agree we would want them to knowingly minimize their risk of exposure to an epidemic. Thanks for your understanding and support. Slay rad.”
wXw also announced that WWE pulled Lio Rush from the tournament and Jeff Cobb is taking Lio’s spot in the tourney.
** Newsday has an in-depth feature up about MJF and it features quotes from MJF’s parents and AEW commentator Jim Ross. In the piece, there is a note about a run-in that MJF had with a doctor after his father had open heart surgery and here’s how the exchange unfolded according to MJF:
“[The] surgeon walks in, makes eye contact with me, and he goes, ‘MJF, what are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Mind your business’, and he turned around and he left, and my dad looked at me, he said, ‘That guy just saved my life. You can’t talk…’ And I’m like, ‘Dad, whatever.'”
MJF’s father, Steven Friedman followed up with:
“Well, he is a [jerk], to be honest. Whether he’s good or bad, he’s just, he’s Max. You know, in school, out of school, in the ring, on camera. He knows what he’s all about, and that’s who he is, so love it or leave it I guess.”
** 2 Cold Scorpio is taking on Sugar Dunkerton at GCW ‘For The Culture’.
** Moose spoke with TV Insider recently and during their chat, Moose shared his thoughts about Tessa Blanchard being the IMPACT World Champion and while he’s not keen on inter-gender wrestling, he respects what Tessa has done and is doing.
“It has created some buzz. In the past, I haven’t been a big supporter of inter-gender wrestling because I believe most people don’t do it right. It doesn’t have the same dynamic of a man wrestling a man. That’s another conversation for another day, but I’m happy for what Tessa has done. She has pushed the limits and showed people women are allowed to be in the ring with males. She has done a good job with it. I just wish it was done overall in a different way with inter-gender wrestling. Just tell a different story, use your creativity.”
In his almost four years with IMPACT Wrestling, Moose has not won the top prize in the company. He said personally, it does not bother him because it’s just a prop but the character Moose would love to be IMPACT World Champion.
“No. I’m not worried about it at all. At the end of the day, it’s a prop. If I’m in character, I would say Moose would love to be a world champion. Being a world champion is something Moose is set on doing in 2020. There is a pride in it. Outside of it, I’m just happy to be part of the story each week on TV.”
When asked how does he see his relationship with IMPACT progressing, Moose revealed that he’s in IMPACT for a “little bit longer, at least”.
“I’m in IMPACT for a little bit longer, at least. I’m happy where I’m at. I do believe IMPACT Wrestling is the place to be. It’s only going to get better.”
** Guerrillas Of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) joined Chris Charlton on NJPW’s Official English podcast.
** Killer Kelly vs. Allysin Kay is official for Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 3.
** Big Japan Pro-Wrestling ‘Ikki Tousen’ Results (3/3/20) Tokyo, Japan
– Dark Match: El Lindaman & Kazuki Hashimoto def. Kota Sekifuda & Tatsuhiko Yoshino
– Fluorescent Lighttubes Death Match: Abdullah Kobayashi, Drew Parker, Kankuro Hoshino & Yuko Miyamoto def. Masaya Takahashi, Ryuji Ito, Toshiyuki Sakuda & Yuki Ishikawa
– Akira Hyodo, Yasufumi Nakanoue & Yuya Aoki def. Orca Uto, Takuho Kato & Takuya Nomura
– Ikki Tousen Strong Climb 2020 Block B: Quiet Storm def. Hideyoshi Kamitani
– Ikki Tousen Strong Climb 2020 Block A: Ryuichi Kawakami def. T-Hawk
– Ikki Tousen Strong Climb 2020 Block C: Yuji Hino def. Ryota Hama
– Ikki Tousen Strong Climb 2020 Block D: Kazumi Kikuta def. Jake Lee
– Ikki Tousen Strong Climb 2020 Block A: Daichi Hashimoto def. Yoshiki Inamura
– BJW Tag Team Championship: Daisuke Sekimoto & Kohei Sato (c) def. Shigehiro Irie & Yuji Okabayashi
** Andy Malnoske has a segment up on MyTwinTiers about his experience working WWE’s house show over the weekend in Elmira, New York.
** WWE is returning to Regina, Saskatchewan on April 25th and on the 26th, they’ll be in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
** Boston.com chatted with Christopher Nowinski and during their discussion, Nowinski further opened up about the concussion he suffered during his time in WWE that he still suffers from to this day. Nowinski said leaving WWE was difficult but he could no longer deal with the head trauma he was dealing with.
“Leaving it was difficult. I left it slowly. I was injured in 2003, [and] after a year of symptoms I decided I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t deal with another year of that suffering… it was a slow death. All this banging of my head for 18 years was detrimental. When I started hitting my head at 5 years old, it was normal and no one ever told me not to. It was totally accepted by the culture. I would have adults hit soccer balls at my head and ask me to use my head to hit them back.”
** Prior to the 3/2/20 episode of Monday Night RAW going live, Shelton Benjamin defeated Curt Hawkins, and Akira Tozawa bested Eric Young and those matches will air on WWE Main Event. After the show, Drew McIntyre defeated Erick Rowan in a dark match but he originally called out Randy Orton to come face him.
** Drew McIntyre appeared on HOT 97 with Ebro and Peter Rosenberg.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9HLbuBMMEs[/embedyt]
** Per PWInsider, Mick Foley, Bobby Lashley and Rusev were all backstage at RAW in Brooklyn. Also, a handful of students from Pat Buck and Kevin Matthews’ WrestlePro promotion were used as extras. There was a talent meeting held to further alert the performers about the Coronavirus outbreak and what they can do to protect themselves on the road.
** NJPW1972.com released part two of their interview with Tiger Hattori. During their chat, Hattori spoke about more U.S.-based wrestlers wanting to make the transition to New Japan a decade ago. He told of the story of when he met D-Von Dudley and Bully Ray in Japan and Hattori described Bully Ray as annoying.
“That was when I came back for the second time, I think? There were a few people in the company who weren’t exactly welcoming at that time. Anyway, I went to Roppongi, and there were a lot of foreign wrestlers hanging out there who were being booked by All Japan. Bernard, and that guy, oh, what’s his name? Annoying guy, works in ROH, wears street clothes when he wrestles?” Bully Ray, the interviewer asked. “Yeah, him and his partner D-Von. There were quite a few guys who wanted to work in New Japan.”
Hattori revealed that he handled majority of the international bookings for New Japan talents. He said that Jushin Thunder Liger had the most requests and he doesn’t know who’ll take the reigns on that front from Liger but added that Tetsuya Naito does get a lot of requests.
“I often get the requests from promotions overseas, asking about certain wrestlers, and I handle that stuff. It’s hard for Japanese wrestlers to hash out their payoffs and schedules with foreign promoters otherwise. He had it hard, did Liger [ talking about Liger’s international travel schedule]. But he didn’t complain, much. He definitely had the most booking requests. I don’t know who’ll step up in that position now. Naito gets a lot of requests though.”
Tiger praised New Japan’s respective dojos in Japan and California. He said that their system is the opposite of WWE, being that wrestlers coming from the Japan dojo can succeed in the United States but not vice versa.
“Not just Japanese, but guys from abroad as well. Then you’ve got Katsuyori Shibata teaching the young kids really well in America too. You come through the Dojo system and you’re good to work absolutely anywhere in the world. That’s what the WWE would like to be able to do with their Performance Centers, right? There’s a lot of people that were brought up in Japan that can be a success in the States, but the other way around, that’s not common at all.”
** IMPACT Wrestling formally announced their new deal with Discovery India so that 12 IMPACT Plus specials a month can air on DSPORT and DSPORT HD.
** Arn Anderson and Conrad Thompson hosted a Q&A session for the latest edition of the ‘ARN’ podcast. Anderson was asked about Bray Wyatt’s run in WWE thus far and the conversation led to Arn talking about the team of Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt and their eventual WWE Title match at WrestleMania 33. Arn stated that Orton and Wyatt were very over with the crowd and there is sort of a on-going thing in WWE where if talents are getting over without any assistance from the office, that project gets shut down.
“They were over and they were getting over strong as a team. I was there for it. It was tremendous. Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt made a great team, and it was gonna be one of those things that we talk about on this show all the time, when something gets hotter than it was expected to get and it starts to boil and percolate but without any help from the office, lot of times it just gets shut down, because it gives those talents too much stroke, too much power and this was one of those situations because I was there and I saw it, and I had a lot of their matches at TV. They should’ve still been partners when that match went down at WrestleMania.”
** Below is a video of Dakota Kai and Dio Maddin playing #killallzombies:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TgLJ5tiS9M[/embedyt]
** Booker T and Brad Gilmore took to their ‘Hall Of Fame’ podcast to discuss Matt Hardy becoming a free agent:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EB_hzCxNJw[/embedyt]
** While speaking with Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda, William Regal opened up about how he’s been able to make the GM role his own and how he approaches the role.
“For me, it’s not really a role because it’s what I do, which makes it very different than whenever I’ve done this role before. Although it’s not exactly what I do, it is in a lot of ways, if that makes any sense. It’s the first time that has probably been… when I played that role anyway, where I am actually a big part of that and, fortunately for me that I am. The way NXT has been from day one when I was asked to do it, ‘Don’t put me on camera. I do not need to be on camera unless it’s absolutely necessary. This isn’t about me, it’s about the talent,’ and everyone that works in NXT, that’s what we think. It’s about the talent but you do need the odd person. I might not be the most whatever in the world but I’ve built credibility with the audience. That means something. So, I can sort of have that thing about me and I always wear a nice suit as well, which is important. If it’s done right, and from the feedback and from what I hear, people seem to think we do it right on the show. With Johnny Saint, it’s to give credibility. In the history of British wrestling, there’s no more credible guy that can actually have the respect of everybody that ever meets him, but also the wrestlers. He is a huge part of why wrestling is the way it is today. If it’s done right, it is very valuable. I’ve done it a lot. I think its always worked when I’ve done it, and there was times and I’ve seen it, its been okay, and times it’s not. It’s a long answer but, if it’s used right, it can work.”
** Davey Boy Smith Jr. will be present at All Star Wrestling’s show on March 28th in Vancouver, British Columbia.
** Here’s the trailer for the series ‘Cannonball’ on the USA Network that will be hosted by The Miz, Rosci Diaz and Simon Gibson.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtrbTV-v6I[/embedyt]
** WrestlingINC chatted with Moose to promote IMPACT Wrestling’s TV tapings in Cobb County, Georgia.
** ‘Daily Caller’ posted their interview with Glenn “Kane” Jacobs.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tcmnyAonJk[/embedyt]
** SPORTbible pushed out their interview with Samoa Joe.
** Sasha Banks and Sam Roberts are guest appearing on this week’s WWE ‘The Bump’.
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.
