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.
** Season two of Heels on STARZ is underway and IMPACT Wrestling’s Savannah Evans confirmed she is a part of the season. Evans told Southern Wrestling Autographs that she wants to do more work like that. She knows SAG is currently dealing with a lot but hopes to one day get SAG certified.
Last summer, and I’ll talk about it because it’s about to air, I got to do little cameos on the show Heels. I was able to do that and I’m sure they are just, you know, a one second, there she is… But yeah, just to be able to do it was cool and I would love to do more work like that, you know what I mean? So I’m gonna be looking into that. It was classified as stunt work because we were wrestling. We were rolling around in the ring. So doing more stunt work I think is something I could definitely get used to. I know that SAG is going through a lot right now but I would eventually like to get SAG certified. That kind of thing but yeah, the new season of Heels I think just started last Friday. So, if anyone loves that show, keep an eye out in the background for me somewhere.
I’m definitely a character and you’ll notice when you see me (Evans responded to the comment that she could play herself on a show). But I think that’s part of the fun too is getting to play other types of characters and building your résumé that way. Like yes, I can play this but I can also be this too.
** Joining the Great North Wrestling Podcast was five-time TNA World Tag Team Champion Hernandez. He recounted having dark matches for WWE in the early 2000s and on one occasion, he was asked by an agent to do his topé over the top rope. When Hernandez returned backstage, he said it was like a ‘morgue’. He explained that at the time, The Undertaker was the only person doing that move. Hernandez described the situation as ‘uncomfortable’.
One time, I wrestled Joey Abs in San Antonio. They always gave me nice matches. They were always great to me, they were always nice to me, super respectful. They always gave me the last match before Raw starts live. So everyone’s in their seats, the crowd’s red hot and I remember Tony Garea, one of the agents, told me, ‘Hey man. I notice you do that big topé over the top rope. Can you do it tonight?’ I go, ‘Sir, I’ll do whatever y’all want me to,’ you know? (Hernandez laughed) I want a job. So I’m wrestling Joey Abs, the match before Raw. I get beat up, did my comeback, I do my dive and hit it in front of 20,000 Mexicans, with the last name Hernandez. I can’t get higher than that. I go to the back. It was like a morgue. No one would look at me, no one would talk to me, nothing because if you remember, before 2015, every place had a certain move-set that wrestlers respected and they don’t do those moves. So at the time, only Undertaker did that move, the big dive. So, I didn’t do that dive because I wanted to, I did it because I was asked to. But, of course I was the guy — they wouldn’t look at me. I mean for about 20 minutes, it was super uncomfortable and they thought I went into business for myself but I mean, I’m just like you guys. I know what I can do and I know what not to do and to make sure I don’t get unnecessary heat so, it was awkward for that whole time.
Following a TNA World Heavyweight Title match against Sting in 2009, Hernandez suffered a broken neck in the post-match angle when he took a suplex from Scott Steiner and landed on his head. Four months went by before Hernandez realized his neck was broken.
They (TNA) did some screwing with the Main Event Mafia stuff and they had me wrestle Sting, it went to a DQ, then Main Event Mafia beat me up and then, Scott Steiner threw me on a suplex. I landed straight on the top of my head. At 300 pounds, I didn’t realize it. Four months later, I finally get an MRI, I have a broken neck. I had to get a C5, C6 neck fusion.
There was a point during Hernandez’s TNA run where he gave the ‘Border Cross’ finisher to Gail Kim. It was Gail’s idea to take the move and Hernandez said she probably took it the best. He spoke about how tough Gail was.
That (Gail Kim taking Border Cross finisher) was a huge, huge deal, both for myself, L.A.X. and Gail because Gail, she’s always been an awesome competitor, always. But, they weren’t focusing that much on the girls at the time so she volunteered for that. I go, ‘My God.’ I go, ‘I’m 300 pounds. This young lady’s probably 100, maybe 105. If she dies on national TV, I’ll never be on TV again.’ I never threw her one time… I showed how to pick her up and all that. She took it like a champ and man, after she took that bump, it turned L.A.X. into super killers and turned her into the perfect babyface for the Knockouts division so, it killed two birds with one stone. It worked out perfect for both of us… No (she didn’t get hurt). She’s a warrior. She probably took the best one.
The group ‘Mexican America’ was established in TNA and it included Hernandez, Zelina Vega, Sarah Stock and Anarquia. Hernandez stated that Anarquia did not want to take criticism and people looked at him to fix that. He responded by saying he couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. Hernandez does not look back fondly on that time in his career. He shared that the original partner he was supposed to have did not come into the company and to this day, he’s still trying to figure out what happened.
That’s when we did the Mexican America gimmick. The partner they had scheduled for me got his visa and all that stuff. Did not work out. I don’t know why and I’m still asking questions. So they gave me Anarquia, the lowrider guy from OVW and that was bad. He’s a solid guy, solid deal, solid performer but he’s never been on major television before and that was Spike (TV). I don’t care what anyone says… He did not want to take criticism. He wanted to, ‘Oh, I’ve been on O.V.W. TVs. I know what to do’ and he didn’t know what to do and then so everyone looks back at me. Am I supposed to fight him and make him do it? It was a very uneven run that I had with Mexican America.
** Dave LaGreca and Sam Roberts welcomed Alpha Academy’s Maxxine Dupri onto Busted Open Radio. She shared that former NXT talent Danielle Kamela f.k.a. Vanessa Borne helped her prep for her WWE tryout in 2021. Dupri was hired after the tryout and thinks those training sessions with Kamela were crucial to her doing well at the tryout.
I was on Instagram and I was looking at my friend’s story and she had posted Vanessa Borne from NXT, Danielle Kamela and she was a (Phoenix) Suns dancer before me and we had a mutual friend and so I ended up DMing her and she met up with me before the tryout and just helped prep me and thank goodness for her because I don’t know if my outcome would have been the same. But it was really great to have those couple sessions with her just to be like, ‘Okay, this is what you’re gonna have to do, this is how you prepare’ and I think that was crucial to me doing well at the tryout.
** Joining Brandon Hudson, John Shull and James Paxson for an interview as the featured guest was Zach Gowen. The former WWE talent expressed that what he’s most proud of in his wrestling career is the team he formed with Gregory Iron on the independents. It brought Gowen’s passion for wrestling back and prior to their team getting started, he had been considering retirement.
In terms of professional wrestling, the one thing I’m most proud of is the tag team I developed with Gregory Iron who is the only wrestler in the world that has Cerebral Palsy and together, we are The Handicapped Heroes and a completely, kind of organic friendship started first. He lives in Cleveland so the proximity was there and then around 2012, ‘13, we just started traveling together and I, at this point in my life, I was really considering not wrestling anymore, until I linked up with Greg and he really reignited that passion and that love for professional wrestling and doing that tag team without any sort of machine behind me, without any sort of corporate push, completely organic and to have the effect on the audience we had and the matches that we had were really, really good too. So for me, it was the tag team with Gregory Iron and that may sound kind of weird because it’s like, alright, well you wrestled John Cena or you wrestled Vince McMahon on pay-per-view and I go, yes, that’s true. However, doing the thing with Greg was 100 percent us and our creative and our drive and our marketing and our matches that we wanted to have. To me, that was a little more special.
** Pro Wrestling NOAH N-1 Victory Results (8/6/23) Yokohama Budokan in Yokohama, Japan
– Shuji Kondo, Seiki Yoshioka & Stallion Rogers def. G.L.G. (Anthony Greene, YO-HEY & Tadasuke)
– N-1 Victory B Block: Manabu Soya (2) def. Katsuhiko Nakajima (0)
– N-1 Victory A Block: Jack Morris (2) def. Yoshiki Inamura (0)
– N-1 Victory B Block: Lance Anoa’i (2) def. Yuma Anzai (0)
– N-1 Victory A Block: Yuki Yoshioka (2) def. Masa Kitamiya
– Naomichi Marufuji, Hi69 & Atsushi Kotoge def. Kazuyuki Fujita, AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki
– N-1 Victory B Block: El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. (2) def. Daiki Inaba
– N-1 Victory A Block: Adam Brooks (2) def. Kenoh
– N-1 Victory B Block: Go Shiozaki (2) def. Saxon Huxley
– N-1 Victory A Block: Jake Lee (2) def. Timothy Thatcher
** STARDOM Results (8/6/23) from Hamamatsu, Japan
– Thekla & Giulia def. Momo Watanabe & Rina
– Mariah May & Megan Bayne def. Natsupoi & Yuna Mizumori
– Mayu Iwatani, Saya Iida & Koguma def. Lacy C, Hina & Miyu Amasaki
– 5STAR Grand Prix Blue Stars: Mina Shirakawa def. Hanan
– 5STAR Grand Prix Blue Stars: AZM def. Saori Anou
– 5STAR Grand Prix Red Stars: Natsuko Tora def. Syuri
– 5STAR Grand Prix Red Stars: Tam Nakano def. Hazuki
** AJPW Summer Action Series (8/6/23) Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall in Chiba, Japan
– Naruki Doi def. Ryo Inoue
– Dan Tamura, Ryo Kawamura & Takuro Niki def. Aigle Blanc, Chicharito Shoki & Ren Ayabe
– Kengo Mashimo def. Hokuto Omori by referee’s decision
– Satoshi Kojima def. Takao Omori
– Chihiro Hashimoto, Shuji Ishikawa & Yuu def. Ayame Sasamura, Maya Yukihi & Taishi Takizawa
– Tornado Bunkhouse Death Match: Atsushi Onita, Hikaru Sato & Miss Mongol def. SAKI, Unagi Sayaka & Yoshitatsu
– Ryuki Honda & Yuji Nagata def. Voodoo Murders (Jun Saito & Rei Saito)
– Kento Miyahara def. Ayato Yoshida
– AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership: Rising HAYATO def. Atsuki Aoyagi
– AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship: Yuma Aoyagi (c) def. Suwama
** Daniel Cormier conducted an interview with Seth Rollins.
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.
