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.
** The focus of the latest Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast was The Hardys (Matt & Jeff Hardy) versus The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) from AEW Double or Nothing 2022. Hardy thinks coming out of that match, they would have continued working with Matt and Nick for a bit and likely went on to become AEW World Tag Team Champions.
Matt added that both The Hardys and The Bucks were interested in doing a ‘Too Sweet or Delete’ cinematic match. He still wants to do it and feels it could be one of the greatest cinematic matches.
I think so. I think we were going to do somewhat of a program with The Young Bucks following that match (at AEW Double or Nothing 2022). Obviously, we were already advertised for that Triple Threat Ladder match which was gonna be for the titles which would have seen us most likely crowned as the AEW World Tag Team Champions, and we really wanted to get in the Too Sweet or Delete, like a cinematic match with The Young Bucks. That’s something both myself and Jeff (Hardy) and those guys had wanted to do as well so, I don’t know. Maybe that’s something that can happen down the road or whatever but it could have happened then, especially because they were very much heels and we were a bunch of babyfaces at that time. So I think you would have seen a couple more interactions with The Hardys and Young Bucks but I think ultimately, it was gonna be The Hardys working against some younger teams in the months following that if we would have won the World Tag Team Titles.
Yeah, we still do (want to do a cinematic match with The Young Bucks). We’re still fans of it. I think it could go down as one of the greatest cinematic matches ever because, I feel like whenever I started talking with Matt and Nick and we start throwing around ideas and everybody’s being creative, it’s a great process and I think it would be one of the more entertaining cinematic matches ever had between two very established teams.
Looking back on the lead up to the match with The Bucks in 2022, Hardy said both sides desired in-ring promo time on TV but they could not get that so they did it on Being The Elite.
And you asking something about if I was worried about doing more stuff on B.T.E. than I was on TV (during The Hardys versus Young Bucks build), if you notice and I’ll probably say this with the exception of MJF, there’s not a lot of promo time on AEW television. So we knew there was never gonna be a point that we were gonna have six or seven minutes to do an in-ring promo with The Bucks and that is something that we kind of desired to do, we wanted to do. So we ended up doing it on B.T.E. and we made it work and it was there and we knew that we’d get to say and do whatever we wanted and that was obviously all us so, that’s why we ended up doing that one segment that you’re talking about on B.T.E. specifically.
Earlier in the conversation, Matt shared that when Jeff first arrived to AEW, they ‘petitioned’ to work with Private Party (Isiah Kassidy & Marq Quen).
Pretty early on (is when I remember the idea of The Young Bucks versus The Hardys in AEW being pitched). I remember because we were wondering if we were gonna get a few weeks to do something with Private Party which is something that myself and Jeff kind of petitioned for. We said, ‘Let’s get us a little angle with these guys and build up to a match and we’ll have a good, competitive match with them. We can move on to go and do other things too but let’s make these guys look as good as possible’ and I remember getting (a) call after Jeff had debuted and we were getting ready to go to TV the next day. He says, ‘Hey! Are you guys cool with wrestling Private Party tomorrow? Let’s go ahead and get this match done and taken care of’ and, ‘Sure, yeah, if you wanna do that’ so that happened pretty early on. But I think that’s always something that we can get back to later as far as that goes as well.
** As Bobby Fish was speaking to Tru Heel Heat’s SP3, he stated that Undisputed ERA felt they had a babyface run in them in WWE and he believes the company felt the same way.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think anybody wanted that (Undisputed ERA to split). I think that at some point, the powers that be thought, but I don’t think they were even sure that they wanted it at that point. I think the pandemic turned everything on its head, I think there were some things that went on with Pat McAfee who was kind of the entity that was gonna help us turn babyface with the WarGames and all stuff which we did. We definitely felt like and I believe WWE felt like we had a babyface run in us and who knows how long that’s gonna go before things would… Who knows? You can’t predict so, especially in pro wrestling. So I think that decision ended up being because they just ran out of other options and the pandemic and everything was, you know, no audiences and everything was changing… Hey, it’s just life. That’s how it goes and I’m a firm believer, my faith tells me that it’s his schedule, not ours and there’s a reason for this stuff and he was preparing us for something else. You know, not for the four of us to stay together and who knows? Who knows what that is? We may never know but I have faith that it’ll make sense.
Looking back on the formation of reDRagon, Bobby Fish said it was Delirious who put him and Kyle O’Reilly together. Fish credited Delirious from setting reDRagon up for success and added that he’s forever grateful to him.
They (ROH) were trying to split him (Kyle O’Reilly) from Davey (Richards) and I could come in as the entity that was like, maybe influencing him now and turning him against Davey and so, we did that and then, you know, here we are jumping Davey who Davey was the top guy for them at that point. So we’re instantly getting some of that rub and then it also gave Hunter’s idea — it was Hunter’s idea to put us together, Delirious…
Hunter really set us up for success. Delirious really set Kyle and I up for success so, for that, I will internally be grateful to the man.
** Ahead of challenging for the IMPACT World Championship at Against All Odds, Alex Shelley spoke to Darren Paltrowitz. He shared that he never thought he’d become a tag team specialist in wrestling.
No, no, not at all (was it ever my goal to be able to go between singles & tag wrestling). I really didn’t — I loved tag team wrestling as a kid, but I never thought I would be a specialist in that realm. I think it definitely lends itself to a certain type of skill set in wrestling… And I’ve had this conversation with KUSHI and Josh, or I’m sorry, (Chris) Sabin, but we’ve all kind of collectively agreed, one of the things that’s made us very, very good tag team wrestlers is being very, very good singles too. I think a lot of time if you get these guys who are tag team specialists but also accomplished singles guys, they’re really, really good at tag team wrestling versus the guys who might just be straight tag team wrestlers.
** NXT talent Yulisa Leon took to Instagram and shared the story of how Bianca Belair inspired her to become a wrestler:
For years, the Nuevo León High Performance Center was my home and my entire life @inde.nl I remember that by the year 2018 after having mentioned it so much, my parents had already accepted that their daughter would become a Wrestler in the future.
In that year 2018, I perfectly remember I finished my training week at the “Parque Niños Héroes”. I arrived home tired with my backpacks and I saw my father sitting at the computer, when suddenly I hear him say “mijaaa come I want to show you a video of a wrestler I just found, her name is @biancabelairwwe and she fights in WWE, she reminds me so much of you and she even did a movement similar to weightlifting”… (I quickly threw my training bag and ran to the computer to see). WooW I just loved what I saw, her strength and charisma, her story… That moment and that video were a key and important part of my motivation to make my transition to wrestling. I had to leave my country and leave behind 15 years of working for the Olympic dream to become a Professional Wrestler…
The surprises that life gives are wonderful… If someone, at that moment when I was watching your video with great enthusiasm, had told me that I would meet her and have the opportunity to tell her this anecdote, I would never have believed it.
I hope one day life gives me the opportunity to face her… Bianca, thank you for inspiring many women, to me you will always be the champion.
** While speaking to Sportskeeda WrestleBinge, Satnam Singh expressed interest in having a singles match with TNT Champion Wardlow and added that they’ve already discussed it together.
Wardlow is an amazing guy so I’d go work with Wardlow. Wardlow is a different person. I’d really like to work with him. One day, I can’t wait for that, and because he’s so jacked and he looks good and he’s tall, you know? And I feel like I can work with him and whatever I want to do with him, he can do whatever working with me and so I can do that, you know? But I think he’s really good. I talked to him already but we already talked sometimes and I’ll ask him, he said, ‘I have so many things I can do with you.’ I said, ‘Bro, I can’t wait for that day whenever I have my singles match with you.’
** WhatCulture released their chat with Matt Hardy. As the conversation rolled on, Hardy shared what The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) say to him whenever they see him:
Every time The Young Bucks come in, they go, ‘Oh, there he is. The living legend. He’s worth 10 digits. He doesn’t even have to be here but he decides to come on his own accord.’
** Captain’s Corner hosted a virtual signing with Steph De Lander and she spoke in-depth about learning to be herself in wrestling. She said there were multiple times when she realized she should go that route and those came before WWE, in WWE and after her time with the company came to an end.
I just kind of had this lightbulb moment. In real life with my friends, I’m so funny and so entertaining and I’m always the one trying to make my friends laugh and always really silly in that way and I just say the most ridiculous, off-the-wall sh*t all the time but then in wrestling, I never, ever did that and I think a big part of it was I was so concerned of being politically correct, presenting myself like a quote-unquote superstar and whatever that means and presenting myself a certain way for WWE even before I got there because that’s where I wanted to go. But then when I was on the outside, I was like, I don’t know who I am anymore. I lost myself and I also, you know, when you have your lines written for you by a 50-year-old dude who’s American and you’re a 25-year-old Australian girl, I don’t know how to connect with this so when I look back and I watch a lot of the backstage stuff that I did in WWE, I’m not really happy with my delivery because I found it hard to connect with a lot of that. So I was like, okay, how do I change that? And I’m like, sh*t, I think the answer is to just be myself because all of my favorite people and all of the people that really connect are themselves and it was a scary jump to make because you are opening yourself up and you are being vulnerable and you are having maybe some more opinions and all that kind of stuff so it was scary to do that but once I did that and it started connecting, I realized, oh, this is what I need to do. I need to be myself.
** The participants in Pro Wrestling NOAH’s 2023 N-1 Victory tournament will be revealed on June 22nd.
** There’s an interview with Bad Bunny on VIBE.com.
** NWA’s May Valentine is on the June 2023 cover of Forbes Morocco.
** Isiah Kassidy’s latest vlog:
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling released Yota Tsuji’s theme:
** Último Dragón’s storyline suspension from Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling has been lifted. He’ll come back to the promotion on June 10th. Dragón had been refusing to have a singles match against Diamante.
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (6/6/23) Aichi, Japan
– Yasushi Kanda & Susumu Mochizuki def. Ben-K & Minorita
– Masaaki Mochizuki def. Daiki Yanagiuchi
– Kota Minoura & B×B Hulk def. YAMATO & Ryoya Tanaka
– BIGBOSS Shimizu def. La Estrella
– Yuki Yoshioka, Dragon Dia & Madoka Kikuta def. Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi & Problem Dragon
– Diamante, H.Y.O, KAI & ISHIN def. Kzy, Jason Lee, Strong Machine J & U-T
** Proresu-TODAY published their interview with Jaguar Yokota. She revealed that her son is producing the show she’s promoting on July 18th.
** New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s press conference for the G1 Climax 33 is taking place July 14th.
** June 6th birthdays: Drew McIntyre.
** Peter Rosenberg of The Ringer’s Cheap Heat podcast interviewed Shayna Baszler.
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.
