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.
** Proresu TODAY conducted an in-depth interview with NOAH’s Kaito Kiyomiya. The former GHC Heavyweight Champion recalled his first time going one-on-one with Keiji Muto (The Great Muta) and suffering a concussion during the match. Kiyomiya and Muto’s first singles match took place in August 2020.
The event [moment of doubt] was the match. The first time I fought Muto-san, I really felt helpless. I had a concussion, and I don’t even remember giving myself up at the end. I lost the match without remembering, and I thought, ‘What the hell?’ That’s when I started to feel impatient, anxious, a little scared of wrestling and many other things. I was determined to crawl out of it, but I couldn’t seem to get my bearings… Then, in a match against NOSAWA, I got my head broken by a chair. After that, I had another match with NOSAWA, and that was when I really started to wonder what wrestling was all about. After that, I had another match with NOSAWA. At that time, my emotions came out in a big way. I was always concerned about the opinions of the people around me, and I thought that if I did something like this, it would make the people around me happy. But at that time, I knew what I had to do to defeat my opponent, and that’s what I wanted to do the most.
Kiyomiya is in his early 20s. He shared that he deals with knee issues and is careful to not let those injuries affect his matches. He keeps up with his physical condition and if there is something he’s weary of, he checks in with NOAH’s trainer to make sure there are no lingering injuries.
I check my physical condition frequently, and if there is even a slight deviation, I contact NOAH’s trainer to make sure the injury doesn’t linger.
I also have a lot of knee injuries, and if they keep happening, I feel like I’m losing my mind, so I’m careful not to let them affect my matches.
He looked back on the matches he’s had with Yoshinari Ogawa which is a student-teacher type of rivalry. Kiyomiya feels he was able to learn the meaning of a match from Ogawa but revealed that he was depressed around the time of one of their two singles matches. The specific match he’s referring to was a key factor in Kiyomiya deciding to continue his career in NOAH.
I really don’t know about this [that I take a lot of techniques and fighting spirit from veterans]. As for the match between me and Ogawa-san, he really brought out the basic techniques that I wanted to emphasize, didn’t he? He asked me, ‘If you do this, what will you do next?’ I felt like we were communicating during the match. I really felt the meaning of the match, not just the match.
To be honest, I was feeling really depressed at the time of the match, so I was able to just get into wrestling, and I had a lot of fun. That was probably a very important match for me to continue my wrestling career in this organization called NOAH.
** Coming out of his release from WWE, Taylor Rust worked multiple Ring of Honor shows including their Final Battle pay-per-view. Rust shared with Ringsiders Wrestling that he was supposed to enter contract negotiations with ROH in 2022. The company’s announcement to go on hiatus until April shelved those plans.
As soon as I got released [from WWE], Ring of Honor was right there. They were immediately accepting me back with open arms, you know? I’d talked to them maybe about a day or two after everything happened and they were like, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re totally here for you. We can talk contract negotiations in the early part of 2022’ so it was no issue. The news of Ring of Honor obviously not having a certain future anymore has changed a lot of the wind in my sails and we’ll see kind of how the year 2022 goes for me now I guess. Hopefully it’s not the end of Ring of Honor but if it is, then this last show at Final Battle will definitely be a good one at least.
Rust reflected on his time working with PWG and recalled when Chris Hero and Cesaro were lobbying to get Ricochet into the promotion.
All these guys that you look at today who are, you know, stars of today’s wrestling scene, being at the top there in PWG or just getting their breakout in the independent scene through PWG. I mean I remember, also, Claudio Castagnoli [Cesaro] had this guy he wanted to bring in. He’s like, ‘This kid’s a great worker. He’s gonna really do something.’ He wanted — and him and Chris Hero were trying to get him into PWG so he could help get his name bigger and it was Ricochet and then he brought in Ricochet and from that point on, he just — he blew up I remember and that Ricochet became a star.
** SP3 of Tru Heel Heat has an interview with IMPACT Knockouts Champion Mickie James. While at WrestleMania 37, James had a feeling that it might be her last time in the locker room as a WWE talent. Several days later, she was released from the company.
At Mania [37], I got this — whatever. I was getting the vibe and I go like, ‘Hmm, this kind of feels like it might be my last time in this locker room as a talent. This is really weird.’ Like I just kind of had this moment in the hotel or in the locker room and I’m just kind of like, ‘Hmm.’ I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to enjoy the rest of it. I’m just gonna enjoy it and embrace it and I love these girls and I love the locker room and I love the company and I love my time there and I’m just gonna take it and see what happens’ and it really was like pretty quickly that I was gone but then, I just felt, you know, for me it was different. Like I wasn’t ready to — I wasn’t hungry just to get out on the scene and start wrestling and prove to everybody, and I kind of had put my eggs in this, I want this because this is what a lot of my conversations were about or at least I wanted to do this thing for women [NWA EmPowerrr] and to highlight women’s wrestling and see if I could make this successful, at least, if nothing else to prove myself right or wrong, right?
** The latest guests on Freddie Prinze Jr.’s ‘Wrestling with Freddie’ podcast were The Bella Twins (Nikki & Brie Bella). Prinze Jr. went over Nikki and Brie’s contributions to the women’s division in WWE and recalled Vince McMahon saying the reason the women’s division got more TV time is because of the attention that The Bellas brought to the Total Divas show.
Prinze Jr.: And then the two of you sold a show to E! called ‘Total Divas’ and this show started getting a lot of traction and a lot of people started viewing and all of a sudden it was getting a higher rating than some of what WWE was putting out there and I watch — and this was right after I left the company and I’m watching the matches, I’m like, ‘Man this feels like a longer match’ but I didn’t time it and then all of a sudden and I’ll never forget this, you two were wrestling against Nattie and someone and there was a commercial break and I literally was like, I jumped off the couch and Sarah [Freddie’s wife] was like, ‘What?’ ‘I’ve never seen the women get a commercial break in a match before in my life’ and I wasn’t joking. I couldn’t remember that happening so I went back to the company a second time and I talked to Vince [McMahon] a lot about this and that was the reason, I know this for a fact because he said the words. That was the reason that the women’s matches started getting more time and you guys can be super humble about this if you want or you can just be real the way I’m being real but the foundation that women are wrestling on today and other people have tried to take a lot of credit or maybe put more spotlight on themselves than they deserve. Like Ronda [Rousey] said some stuff that was weird to me where I was like, ‘I don’t know if you’re as aware of your influences or not.’ But, the reason women’s wrestling is at where it’s at today is because of what you two built and then the other women that you brought into that show helped also build but that’s why there are women headlining WrestleMania, that’s why there was an Iron Woman match in NXT, that’s why all the women are allowed to do so much more with their bodies as far as work and it’s — and I’m not joking, it’s 90 percent because of the concrete that y’all laid down before.
Elsewhere during their conversation, they talked about some of the talents currently in WWE’s women’s division and Nikki said she’s glad that Liv Morgan is being spotlighted. She added that Liv should have been given a chance a year ago.
Nikki: Like I’m happy they’re finally giving Liv [Morgan] a chance. They should’ve gave Liv a chance a year ago.
** Griff Garrison of The Varsity Blonds joined the ‘Culture State’ podcast. Griff spoke about him and Marcus Kross almost signing with Ring of Honor pre-pandemic. Griff’s agent, Bill Behrens was first to reveal that information. Griff expanded on the story and confirmed that due to Kross’ ACL injury and the pandemic going into effect, the opportunity faded.
Yeah, we [Griff & Marcus Kross] did almost sign with Ring of Honor so we had a few — we had like three matches, three or four matches probably over the course of I would say two or three months there where we wrestled. We wrestled The Tate Twins (Brandon & Brent Tate), we wrestled The Briscoes for the tag titles and we wrestled Dalton Castle and Joe Hendry in Atlanta and then after that, Delirious kind of pulled us to the side and was like, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about signing you guys,’ that sort of thing. But, unfortunately the next day, Ring of Honor was in Concord at some place and me and Marcus were wrestling a couple of guys and he ended up tearing his ACL in his knee and so I mean which really didn’t go good and then he tried — he didn’t know it for sure like right off the bat and then we wrestled at a show in Baltimore the next month in February for Ring of Honor and he messed it up even worse, and then on top of that, I’m pretty — yeah, that was 2020. So on top of that, when COVID hit, they kind of shut down for a while so, I mean yeah, we were promised stuff at Ring of Honor, just didn’t work out and then I mean, it kind of worked out for the better because you know, I am where I am now and then Marcus is getting better. He’s gonna be up in the big leagues any day now I feel like so, I think it worked out better for both of us in the long run.
When Garrison first joined AEW, he felt like he didn’t belong because of the talents he was surrounded by that are established names in wrestling.
Oh yeah, like the first time I went [to AEW], I was like, ‘I don’t know if I belong here.’ Like all these guys are walking around. It’s like I’ve watched them on TV and it’s just like — they’re famous and they’re so good at what they do and it’s just like, ‘I can’t say that,’ you know? It’s just like I have to keep to myself and just kind of do my own thing and it was weird. I tell this story a lot: The first time I went though, I was nervous to say anything. Obviously I’d go up and say hi to people but like, people would come up to you and say hi, like just your first time being there and it’s just like, these people are so busy and it’s just like they have so much going on for them. To take a second out of their day to say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ To the kid that’s there for the first time, it was really cool. But, yeah, definitely had more intimidation moments with the first few times I went to AEW than probably training so…
** Before Shawn Daivari returned to WWE as a producer, he worked dates for MLW and IMPACT Wrestling. During Tommy Dreamer’s House Of Hardcore podcast, he recounted having a conversation with Shawn during which he told him to accept the WWE return offer. IMPACT Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore told Daivari to head back to WWE as well after Daivari asked why IMPACT wouldn’t pay him more to stick around.
He [Shawn Daivari] was so upset that like — I don’t want to say he was upset that he got re-hired but he was like, ‘Why won’t IMPACT give me more money?’ I was like, ‘There’s no more money to be had!’ I go, ‘Go take the WWE job.’ He goes, ‘That’s what D’Amore said.’ ‘Go to WWE. You’ll eventually get let go there so then you can tag with [your brother].’
** Due to travel restrictions, Adam Brooks was not able to make his official Ring of Honor debut as a contracted talent. He resides in Australia and was informed about the news of ROH’s hiatus at 4 o’clock in the morning. Brooks was invited onto ‘The Wrstling Podcast’ and said this entire situation has been out of his control and while it is unfortunate, he feels the only thing he could’ve done is move forward.
Well, look, it’s — it was pretty unfortunate but, the way I looked at it [ROH going on hiatus], it was like, it was out of my control. There was nothing I could do, you know? When I got woken up at 4:30 in the morning to do this big Zoom call with everyone, to find out this news and then they tell us this news, I kind of sat there just giggling to myself being like, ‘You know what? That would be right. You would finally get signed somewhere, you would finally think you’re about to get your big break and then this global pandemic would stuff it up and you can’t travel, and then, oh yeah, the whole company’s done. They’re all gone. Everyone’s released’ and I’m sitting there going, you know, there’s nothing I can do about it. So, it’s just a timing thing. It sucks because I really wanted to be there. I was really excited to start that next chapter. But yeah man, you know, it’s affected everyone. Not just me. There’s been guys that have been there for years and I’m sure it’s hit them a lot harder. For me it was just kind of you know, a bit of a giggle, you know? ‘Yeah, that would be bloody right,’ you know? Back to square one for me. It is what it is. There’s so many options now which is great and I do hope that ROH can sort of bounce back and relaunch and restructure as they seem to be planning to do but you know, we just don’t know how things are financially with everything, you know? So look, it is what it is man. It’s sort of motivated me a bit to just be like, ‘All right, well that didn’t work out. Let’s just see what happens now.’
** Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald interviewed Ruby Soho. Ruby shared that she is eager to wrestle Serena Deeb in AEW, noting that she has always been one step behind Serena in each of the promotions they’ve worked for together.
I have never been so excited about wrestling anybody as I have all the women on the [AEW] roster, for all different reasons. But if I had to choose one, it’s one that I have had my eye on for quite some time and that’s Serena Deeb. Serena has kind of been a hero of mine, you know, and an inspiration throughout my career and I’ve kind of been one step behind her in each promotion that we’ve worked for on the independents and otherwise and so kind of been nipping at her heel for the last ten years or so-so I would be honored to be able to step into the ring with her. She’s just truly incredible.
** Stephanie McMahon and Shelley Zalis’ ‘Women in the Business of Sports’ show:
** The NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and WWE are partnering up to push out limited-edition championship belts and merchandise. On January 1st, WWE is presenting their ‘Day 1’ pay-per-view from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
** ‘Rolling Out’ caught up with King Woods.
** George ‘Iceman’ Menezes, owner of Destiny Wrestling in Canada, guest appeared on Straight Talk Wrestling.
** WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Queen Zelina spoke to Newsday.
** Keiji Muto is celebrating his 59th birthday.
** Vince McMahon, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Nick Khan were included on Variety’s list of the 500 most influential business leaders in global media.
** Lucha Libre Online’s interview with Australian Suicide:
** NJPW Road to Tokyo Dome Results (12/23/21) Korakuen Hall
– Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi def. Ryohei Oiwa & Yuto Nakashima
– Taichi, TAKA Michinoku & Zack Sabre Jr. def. Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Kosei Fujita
– Toru Yano & Yuji Nagata def. Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
– House Of Torture (Dick Togo, EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi) def. Tomohiro Ishii, YOH, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima
– BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, El Phantasmo, KENTA & Taiji Ishimori) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Tomoaki Honma, Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask
– Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) def. United Empire (Aaron Henare, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb)
– BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi vs. DOUKI & El Desperado – Time Limit Draw (30:00)
** Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated spoke to Diamond Dallas Page about the launch of Page’s new podcast with Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts. Page shared that he wanted to play the role of ‘Wild Bill’ in the show ‘Heels’.
** Jonathan Gresham vs. Josh Woods vs. Simon Grimm from ROH ‘The Elite’ 2017:
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.
