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.
** Melissa Santos, who was the ring announcer for Lucha Underground and involved with the show’s production, guest appeared on the Lightweights Podcast. She shared that there were talks of Lucha Underground coming back, but it was a situation of there being too many hands in the pot ownership-wise.
Everybody wanted it (Lucha Underground) to come back, everybody wanted it to come back. There was talks about it coming back, however, there was just a lot of owners of Lucha Underground. Like M.G.M. was producing it, then it was on El Rey Network and then the people who bought it out was AAA and so there was just a lot and then I don’t think they could figure out how to make that work, unfortunately, because it was such an amazing thing and yeah, I’m always gonna think of it fondly. It was very cool.
Lucha Underground surviving in today’s wrestling landscape would depend on who is running it, according to Melissa. She added that it would have to be someone who is invested and was a part of the original show. Santos stated that she thinks she’ll be involved with Republic of Lucha 7 which is emanating from The Temple on June 1st.
I don’t know (if Lucha Underground could survive in today’s wrestling landscape). It depends on who’s running it. It would have to be someone who was there originally. It can’t just be a new production that are like, oh, we’re gonna do Lucha Underground because I watched it. It has to be people that were already invested in it and knew — that can get that heartbeat beating again, you know what I mean? Bring it back to life, because it’s one of those things, unless you were there, watching it from the inside, it’s not something that can be replicated because the reason why it was so good is because the people running it and producing it were so good at it. We need to have everybody. It would have to be the same people at least producing it. Duh (same ring announcer). By the way, there is a show that I think is happening in LA. It’s gonna happen in The Temple. They’re trying to make a whole kind of throwback to Lucha Underground so… I think I might be involved with it. It’s gonna be fun to be there at The Temple and just announcing. It’ll be kind of fun, it’ll be kind of fun.
Outside of wrestling, Melissa is going to be filming a horror movie in Ohio in September.
I’m also shooting a horror film in Ohio at the beginning of September I believe. I’m going to be playing a detective. I always play detectives. I don’t know. I’m not mad at it. I can’t really speak on who is attached to it because it’s between two main actors who’s gonna play one of the lead roles alongside me. But yeah, it’s exciting. It’s gonna have some names attached to it so I’m like, oh yay, I get to act again. Let me get back into my acting game because (she laughed) … I need to get with a coach because it’s been a while but, yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited. I get to be creative.
** The latest guest to appear on Sunday Night’s Main Event is Don Callis. He shared that he is going to release two books over the next several years. One is about leadership and management that is titled ‘Leadership Secrets of Don Callis’ and the second is about pro wrestling that is titled ‘Over is Over’.
I have two books coming out in the next two years. One is a leadership/management book, Leadership Secrets of Don Callis and the other one is a book about wrestling, but intellectualizing some of these concepts so, that book is called Over is Over and what that means — it’s a very cute double entendre — when you’re over, you know you’re over. So over’s over, but over is also OVER, like barely exists. So as an example, what people think now is someone who’s over, they’re not. Getting cheered, getting people saying ‘fight forever’ is not over. That’s a crowd reaction that you actually begged for. You notice when I go out in front of a crowd, I don’t acknowledge them. Why would I? Do I acknowledge the insects that are crawling on the ground when I walk? No. I maybe try to step over them but I don’t care what happens to them so, I’m the only one that doesn’t acknowledge the crowd, because being over means you walk out and you get… Swerve (Strickland) is over. He walks out, he gets a reaction. Will Ospreay is over, Orange Cassidy is over. These are all guys I’m very interested in by the way, in the future. But people go, ‘Oh yeah, I’m really over, because people cheered me.’ No, you’re not. If you’re over, you would have to do nothing to get a reaction. If you were over, they’d be selling so many t-shirts of yours, you’d run out. If you were over, people would be talking about you everywhere. There’s guys that are over and then there’s guys that think they’re over and it’s two very different things. By the way, you can’t have an entire company of people that are over. You start with getting one guy over and then you try to move it along.
Elsewhere in the discussion, Callis was asked if he could ever see himself being a babyface and he said he does not see it happening.
It’s only ever happened one time (Callis being a babyface). It’s not me, it’s not me in real-life. I was on an airplane the other day. Sitting in first class, person next to me, ‘Hey! You headed home?’ They didn’t know I was a wrestler or in the wrestling business or a celebrity or whatever you wanna call it and I just looked at them and I said, ‘What about my face makes you think that I wanna have a conversation with you?’ That’s not me, the wrestling person. That’s just me. I don’t wanna talk to people, I’m not interested in what they do. Again, do I have to hand out a card to people and say, I’m a high-functioning sociopath, ergo, I don’t wanna talk to you and I have no empathy for whatever you’re going through right now? Because we’re sitting next to each other doesn’t give you the right to speak to me. So, I am not that guy. I have been a babyface before in Thunder Bay, Ontario where I used to have a newspaper column back in the 90s and I used to run wrestling shows and because I was seen as the guy who brought wrestling back to Thunder Bay, I was a babyface. But, it was completely against every instinct I ever had as a human being; to be nice to people, to have to shake hands with people. I won’t shake hands with people anymore, I won’t take photos with people. My personal security has been breached on a couple of occasions in these situations and you know, with all due respect to fans, I don’t want some sweaty neckbeard… wanting to touch me, wanting to photo with me which I don’t know what they’re gonna do. So yeah, I’m just not that guy. It’s like (Chris) Jericho. Jericho is Jericho and then people either love him or they hate him for it, but he’s always been the same guy and there’s a correlation to why he’s been so successful. He knows who he is.
** Ahead of the All Together event, NJPW President Hiroshi Tanahashi spoke to Sports Illustrated. He reflected on the match he had with Nic Nemeth at Wrestling Dontaku. Tanahashi became even more excited to wrestle Nemeth when he saw his match against Tomohiro Ishii at Windy City Riot.
I got even more excited to wrestle Nic (Nemeth) after I saw his match with (Tomohiro) Ishii. He is a great pro wrestler.
** A virtual signing with Billie Starkz was hosted by RDP Promotions. She stated that she misses sharing the ring with WWE’s Shotzi.
Yeah, I do miss wrestling Shotzi. She’s awesome.
** There’s a new interview on The AJ Awesome Show YouTube channel with Alan Angels. As their chat rolled on, Angels stated that Alex Reynolds was the ‘mastermind’ behind Dark Order’s Being The Elite skits.
It’s funny, man, at the time — now I do my own vlog and I do skits online and stuff with Sammy’s vlog where I kind of think of my own things but when we were doing B.T.E. with The Dark Order, it was actually kind of Alex Reynolds that was doing a lot of the ideas. He was kind of the mastermind behind a lot of the stuff. Him and Brodie (Lee) of course when we first started were the two guys that had a bunch of the ideas, and then it was all of us that just kind of did the improv. We did all the improv while we were doing the skits. But Alex Reynolds was kind of the mastermind behind all those legendary B.T.E. bits that we did that everybody’s — like, remembers and they love. It was Alex Reynolds. He was kind of the mastermind behind it all.
Speaking about his work in TNA, Angels commented on his ‘Sound Check’ talk show and said he pitched that idea.
So with TNA, I feel like I have more freedom to pitch ideas and really just say, ‘I wanna do this.’ I do a talk show now. It’s called The Sound Check… The gimmick of it is that it’s a bad talk show. It’s purposefully bad. But I pitched that idea and I just thought it was so funny. So I’m glad I get to do that.
** Guest appearing on Busted Open Radio were newly crowned TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Champions Alisha Edwards and Masha Slamovich. The title win is Edwards’ first in TNA/IMPACT and she opened up about the win:
Well, I think we’re (Edwards & Masha Slamovich) feeling great. We brought the gold home to The System, me and Masha, literally the new tag champs so I think we’re good, we’re very good.
Surreal (is what the moment meant to me). I don’t think it’s actually hit us — well, I mean, Masha is used to this but, it’s my first title so, I think I’m just soaking it all up and enjoying every moment but, it feels great to be able to be the face of the division right now so…
** ‘Dishing the Dirt’ featuring Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre, Piper Niven and Damian Priest:
** Gail Kim guest appeared on Wrestling is Life is Wrestling.
** Sports Graphic Number spoke to IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani.
** Joining Busted Open Radio were Prince Nana and Chris Jericho.
** STARDOM Results (5/5/24) from Kumamoto-Jo Hall in Kumamoto, Japan
– Syuri def. Aya Sakura
– Three-Way Match: Saki Kashima def. HANAKO and Rian
– STARS (Hanan, Mayu Iwatani & Momo Kohgo) def. God’s Eye (Ami Sourei, Konami & Ranna Yagami)
– Empress Nexus Venus (Maika, Mina Shirakawa, Waka Tsukiyama & Xena) def. Queen’s Quest (AZM, Lady C, Miyu Amasaki & Saya Kamitani)
– Mei Seira, Suzu Suzuki & Sayaka Kurara def. STARS (Hazuki, Koguma & Saya Iida)
– Oedo Tai (Momo Watanabe, Natsuko Tora & Thekla) def. Natsupoi, Tam Nakano & Starlight Kid
– Saori Anou def. Yuna Mizumori
** Dragongate Japan Pro-Wrestling Results (5/5/24) from Dolphins Arena in Nagoya, Japan
– YAMATO, Susumu Yokosuka & Kagetora def. Kota Minoura, Ben-K & B×B Hulk
– Toru Owashi & BIGBOSS Shimizu def. KAI & ISHIN via disqualification
– Último Dragón, Madoka Kikuta, Dragon Dia & Ryoya Tanaka def. Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii, Yasushi Kanda & Problem Dragon
– U-T def. Strong Machine J
– Open the Twin Gate Championships: Dragon Kid & Naruki Doi def. Kaito Kiyomiya & Alejandro (c)
– Open the Dream Gate Championship: Luis Mante (c) def. Gianni Valletta
– Steel Cage – Survival 5-Way Match: JACKY ‘FUNKY’ KAMEI (1), Shun Skywalker (2), Kzy (3), Jason Lee (4), Hyo (X)
** World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana Results (5/5/24) from Post di Amistad in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan
– Ayako Sato def. Asuka Fujitaki
– Miran & Saran def. Deborah K & Mizuki Kato
– Nanami def. Yuma Makoto
– Haruka Umesaki & Kyoko Inoue def. Arisa Shinose & Himiko
** As Kyle O’Reilly was making the media rounds, he was interviewed by The Wrestling Classic.
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.
