STEELCHAIR Wrestling Magazine #24

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// NJP H O R / / E W W

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NDERGR U A H C U L / / T PAC // AEW // IM

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D I V DA R R STA IT’S BULLSHIT TO SAY THE ONLY WAY THAT WOMEN WOULD BE RECOGNISED IS IF THEY WRESTLE MEN

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APRIL 2019

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DIAMOND

S A L L DA PAGE GAIL KIM SCAN TO ORDER IN PRINT

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MARCH VULTUREHOUND RVIEW 43 EY2018INTE R.I.P THE YES MOVEMENT // THE LEGACY OF GIANT BABA // BAYL

m o r f w o n r e d r o m o .c l e t r a c g i .b d vulturehoun

WELCOME

WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR

ello and welcome.

This issue we had the chance to chat with WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page.

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“The Greatest Knockout of All Time” Gail Kim also returns to the magazine to discuss all things Impact.

We welcome our new Features Editor James Truepenny who takes an in depth look at the legacy of Giant Baba.

Current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Bayley chatted with us about Ronda Rousey and Fighting With My Family.

Our cover star this issue is David Starr who talks CM Punk, living in Britain and womens wrestling.

For more wrestling from the team visit: VultureHound.co.uk

EDITORIAL DAVID GARLICK EDITOR / DESIGN david@vulturehound.com

JOZEF RACZKA ONLINE EDITOR JAMES TRUEPENNY FEATURES EDITOR VICTORIA TEZANGI LIST EDITOR STEPH FRANCHOMME NEWS EDITOR LEE HAZELL COPY EDITOR

DAVID GARLICK @davidgarlick

Copyright 2019 SteelChair Magazine. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of SteelChair Magazine.

Requests for permission should be directed to: info@steelchairmag.com.

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DANIEL BRYAN

R.I.P THE YES MOVEMENT-THE NEW DANIEL BRYAN WORDS: ASHLEY ROSE | PHOTO: WWE he New Daniel Bryan, declares the “Yes Movement” is deceased. After low blowing AJ Styles for the assurance to gain the WWE Championship he began to refer to himself as “The Planet’s Champion” and discarding the most pertinent title in WWE history. Bryan replaced it with a more economically simplistic title that does not use leather.

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The planet’s champion continues to use whatever means necessary to keep his economical title. Daniel Bryan is showing a side of greed, unrefined and overzealous regarding his beliefs. The longer he clasps to the title, the more dominating he becomes in forcing his beliefs. Principles in which he displays to the WWE Universe every week. He shows disgust towards them and their decision in uneconomical choices, repulsion with everyday diet selections.

As Bryan continues with his heel turn, he continues to push his environmentalist views in attempts to take from the audience. The wrestling fandom continues to loath The New Daniel Bryan and his direct views of the world. Claiming that we as people are nothing but consumers and we pollute the world with our lack of self-respect or respect for the planet. We continue to disrespect him because we are disrespecting the planet with plastic and consumer greed. He states that the fans are fickle and undeserving of his time.

Bryan will continue to wrestle dirty in the ring and will call it a required necessary performance strategy.

Bryan will choose his villainous style over others and remind everyone he does not need anyone. In his mind he is truthful. He only needs himself and his environmentalist views because the fans do not grasp the full picture.

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HEEL TURN

THE HEEL TURN COLUMN

WORDS: LIAM O'ROURKE ollowing months of speculation about who Daniel Bryan’s opponent would be at WrestleMania, a most unlikely turn of events - a substitution with little forethought, has energised the fanbase into backing perennial midcard act Kofi Kingston, leading to an intriguing WWE Title match on April 7th. But while excitement is abound on the surface, a deeper look at the mechanics of why this has worked reveals an ugly truth about the company, the talent and the fans themselves.

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After all, there was no clamour for a Kofi Kingston megapush before Mustafa Ali went down, was there?

Don’t get me wrong, I approve of taking a flyer on a guy and running with the ball when the fans take to it (which they clearly have), and WWE has played this very well at time of writing.

However, the fact that WWE has been able to slide Kofi into this spot so seamlessly says a lot. It perfectly illustrates one of the biggest obstacles the company faces right now, at a time when Vince McMahon is desperately looking for a solution to sliding ratings and attendance, and an inability to capture that long-lost casual wrestling fan. The problem I speak of, of course, is the inability to create true superstars that break through the malaise and capture the imagination of the masses. And by masses, I don’t mean the WWE die-hards who travel

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the country to attend the pay-perviews every month.

With WWE’s track record of 50-50 booking, title overload, meaningless stop-start pushes, and the rotating and churning of talent rendering them irrelevant, they’ve created an environment and television product without any sense of hierarchy, a crucial concept for wrestling. So long as you’re a featured player in WWE, you can be anything - from an undercard luminary to a tag team star to a singles player to a World Champion, all with a snap of the fingers. Nothing is off-limits, anybody can be anything they need at almost any time. Unfortunately, that also means that accomplishing the once-loftiest of goals isn’t really that big of a deal any more.

We can’t look back at this as a long-term problem without feeling a twinge in our collective conscience.

Money In The Bank cash-ins taking people without the disposition for true stardom all the way to the top and all the way back down to the middle when it doesn’t work. In the last 13 years, only once has the winner of the Royal Rumble won in the final match at WrestleMania.

Full-timers competing for the top titles while playing second fiddle to stars of the past being promoted ahead of them. Jinder Mahal goes from jobber to long-time champion and back. We’ve all seen and mentally noted this collection of foibles in the past decade plus, and as fans who truly love the game, we shake our heads and continue. Well, not including the ones who stop

watching, of course.

Regrettably, in an attempt to shock, evolve, and frankly throw shit at the wall, the usual narrative devices a wrestling company would historically use to elevate somebody are now useless. Case in point - if Kofi Kingston actually wins the WWE World Title at WrestleMania...what does it really mean? He’ll get a great moment, and the fans already watching will be happy. Will it make a dent in the ratings? Absolutely not. And that’s not a shot at Kofi, it’s pointing out reality - it feels like nothing is going to.

In the modern WWE, winning a title doesn’t make a star, because nobody believes the belt means anything.

Winning a big match doesn’t make a star, because we’ve seen everybody win and lose, rise and fall, constantly. We’ve seen fan-led “revolutions” behind people like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan this decade, and while it worked to appease the fans, the dirty little secret behind them is that they didn’t actually move numbers up at all. Becky Lynch and Kofi Kingston, the year’s fan-selected stars, are going to follow the same path.

Another issue is that those lightening-in-a-bottle moments, when a talent feels like they’re on the cusp of becoming a genuine headliner, become so inauthentic and blurred with this live audience as the litmus test for success. You know, the same folks who sat on their hands for Daniel Bryan’s return to the ring and Styles Vs. Nakamura at

interchangeable. To devalue the titles so badly that you can pluck Kofi Kingston out of thin air and get away with putting him in a World Title match six weeks before Mania .

Then again, maybe it shouldn’t be something we dwell on too much.

After all, so prestigious is Kingston’s match that it’s probably going, at best, fourth from the top. Maybe if it’s really special, it’ll start the show.

Let’s face it, the WWE World Title is equal in value to the Intercontinental Title in the late 80s, not the WWF Title in 1998, and gauging the events surrounding it as if it were one, not the other, is a critical error.

WrestleMania last year, but went wild for Nicholas the tag team champion.

They chanted “You Deserve It” at Nia Jax, and “This Match Sucks” at Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. To them, it doesn’t really matter who wrestles Bryan at Mania. It could have been anybody.

That’s not to blame the fans in any way. I’ve been guilty of laying a lot of criticism at the feet of the live WWE fan in the past (and rightly so), but this is one instance where I don’t feel they’re culpable at all. They pay their money, their obligation to progressing WWE business is complete. It just reflects that this fanbase, that often fancies themselves smart and to be the most passionate fans of WWE, has been conditioned by the company to see everybody at the same level,

regardless of who they are or what they do, and they don’t even realise it. They’ll cheer louder for some right now, but if they weren’t there, would it really make a difference to them? Will this level of enthusiasm for Becky and Kofi sustain in six months time like it does a true star?

History shows that this current audience can’t tell the difference, they aren’t cheering for the same reasons people did when those cheers correlated closer to a move in business numbers.

For the WWE, think of the extraordinary incompetence it takes to convince wrestling fans that once in a lifetime performers with the talent and/or charisma of an AJ Styles, a Daniel Bryan, a Shinsuke Nakamura, a Samoa Joe, a Seth Rollins, etc...are completely

Not to sound horribly cynical, but WrestleMania is going to come and go this year. It may be a very good show. The crowd will be made happy when the people that are supposed to win finally do. The real work begins the day after for Vince McMahon. On that day, he’ll need to develop a formula to reinstall importance and consequence to the television shows currently devoid of any. The brand can never be the star, it’s a fallacy. The stars are the stars, and WWE has fostered an environment that’s impossible to make new ones.

The new TV deals are near, and if McMahon can’t stop the bleeding that caused his freak-out, spurof-the-moment NXT call-ups and creative team changes in February, his company could be in line for a major humiliation, because the Fox Network ratings won’t lie for him.

And deep down, he knows it.

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WORDS: HUMZA HUSSAIN | PHOTO: OLI SANDLER

DAVID STARR few hours before the opening bell of Revolution Pro Wrestling’s New Year’s Resolution show in Guildford, David Starr sat down with SteelChair Magazine to discuss all things professional wrestling. “My favourite wrestler’s favourite wrestler,” “The Cream in Your Coffee,” and… the guy that’s “really good at Twitter” gave his honest thoughts on a range of topics like intergender wrestling, WWE stopping their UK talent from working indie shows, and his unique journey to becoming an honorary Brit.

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Although he let loose on the fans just a few hours later by being the dastardly heel, RevPro’s Cruiserweight champion refrained from insulting us during our chat. He gave us one hell of an interview before putting on a hell of a show in the ring.

This interview will start with a compliment…

That’s a good start to the interview (laughs).

You’re great in the ring, but what really stands out is your personality and charisma. And, of course, your many nicknames. So what sparked this dream

DAVID STARR

Y A W Y L N O E H T Y A S O T IT’S BULLSHIT D E IS N G O C E R E B D L U THAT WOMEN WO N E M E L T S E R W Y E H IS IF T APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 09

DAVID STARR of becoming a professional wrestler, was it the in-ring performances or larger than life characters like Superstar Billy Graham?

Superstar Billy Graham is my number one favourite because he stood out in a time where no one was doing the things he was doing.

Now people would say those things are semi-cliché. He created the cliché of the bodybuilder wrestler, the tanned wrestler, and the eccentric wrestler. In reality, it’s him and Gorgeous George. So I was always attracted to those kinds of athletes. Like Floyd Mayweather, he’s a piece of trash human being, but he’s a great athlete and a great sports personality.

But the first thing that got me into wrestling was WrestleMania 12 with Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, which was a clash of personalities that delivered on the in-ring competition. Everything felt legit, and weirdly enough on that same show, you had Goldust and Rowdy Piper producing the most colourful match you could think of, and that’s not what stood out. What stood out to me was the Shawn and Bret match, even as a five-year-old.

The thing that ultimately pushed me to become a wrestler though was CM Punk’s ‘Summer of Punk’ in WWE.

You said that you had become disinterested in wrestling and the CM Punk promo brought you back. That promo was in 2011, and you started wrestling in 2012, so that was the turning point for you to pursue this dream?

The Punk promo reinspired me

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to want to become a professional wrestler. When I was five years old, and I saw Bret vs. Shawn, I said I wanted to be a pro wrestler.

I started amateur wrestling when I was seven years old because I wanted to be a pro wrestler. I literally thought it was going to be like pro wrestling.

For years, people kept telling me I was too small or I had to be on steroids to be a wrestler, so I kind of just put it behind me. Then when there was that kind of exodus of megastars that I grew up with or I had become accustomed to, I didn’t pay attention the way I did before.

Then all of a sudden, my good friend who lived around the corner from my house hit me up and asked me if I wanted to watch RAW. It’s weird.

CM Punk wearing his Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt sits down on the rampway and cuts that promo.

Then when the mike got cut off, my friend and I looked at each other wondering what happened. Punk’s storytelling, his promos, he got

you to buy into everything he was selling, and when I saw Punk do that, someone who isn’t necessarily the biggest, it was inspiring. So I decided I’m gonna do it.

You mentioned the amateur wrestling. How much did that help you in professional wrestling?

Because we’ve seen how beneficial that has been for some wrestlers.

It helps. Although, my first closeknit trainer said my amateur wrestling background was not going to help me at all in pro wrestling.

He proved to be, for the most part, a bit of an idiot. I think it helped on how to move, and understanding how to move another human being’s body, I think that’s kind of important. I’m legitimately amazed by pro wrestlers that I know that are successful, and they’ve never played a contact sport. It amazes me that they can just pick up pro wrestling.

So I think amateur wrestling helped

me in that way, and it made me tougher, as it helps you adjust to being beat up constantly (laughs).

Some people may not know this, but you’ve had a lot of short stints in companies like Impact Wrestling, ROH, and even WWE. Is it a little strange for you that your home is now in the UK, both professionally and personally?

Yes. Since the summer of 2017, I’ve been pretty much full time in the UK, and now I have a flat with my name on it which is a little different.

It’s weird because I still have to adjust to when my Dad asks me if I’m coming home anytime soon, and I tell him I’ll be home, but I’m referring to Philadelphia. When I talk to my girlfriend, who is here, and she asks me about coming home, then “home” becomes my flat (laughs).

Your journey is a little different.

Usually, it’s the Brits going to America, whereas you have come here to the UK. Well, now it has gotten to the point where the UK scene is the hottest scene in the wrestling world right now. There’s not even an argument to be made. In the States, everything is so spread out, so it’s not easy for someone here to go to the States because where are you going to go? You have to be in a region, and you have to hope that region is running wrestling all the time. Here, someone can just get a train to this place or bus to this place, even flying to Europe is cheap. It’s a lot easier to get more work here, and there are a lot more weekday shows.

I also think the fans here see wrestling as more of a social event,

as opposed to an exclusionary club, which seems to be the case in the States where people come to wrestling shows, and they are there for wrestling. My girlfriend noticed that when she came to the States with me. She went to shows here like Fight Club and Progress, and she saw all these shows that are kind of a party where people are hanging out, having a good time.

If you don’t like wrestling, you can still have a good time at a wrestling show here. In the States, it’s possible, but it’s more like you have to be a wrestling fan.

Can you compare what the wrestling scene was like here in the UK from when you started to now? And were you aware of the UK scene?

I didn’t know anything at all. I didn’t watch wrestling outside the main companies. It was about six months into my career, and then I watched CZW, and when I fell in love with the CM Punk character, I looked up Ring of Honor. Then I started watching TNA when Bobby Roode had his nine-month run as champion. So I watched TNA, a little bit of Punk in ROH, but I didn’t watch past that. Then I watched CZW, Dragon Gate, and the bubble kept expanding.

I was not really aware of the UK scene, and then when I was fortunate enough to come over here in 2017, that’s when I started to learn the history of Kris Travis and World of Sport. Training with Tim Thatcher, I learned more about Pancrase style. Then I saw Marty Jones and Terry Rudge wrestle, which made me go “wow,” because that is sport wrestling. And that’s what I think of the British wrestling scene. But I was not aware of it too much until I was actually wrestling.

Would you ever consider going to WWE, perhaps as part of their 205 Live brand?

It’s not something I want to do or need to do. I think when you dive into it; there are a lot of things.

I’m still a rebellious, anti-corporate kind of guy. So I have that struggle in my head, and then I have people in my family who tell me to get enough money, so I don’t have to do anything at all. I want to do it, but I want to do it the right way, and they say “there’s no right way to make money!” (Laughs) So is WWE a goal? No. Is it something that if it happens, it will be cool? Sure. I would answer any phone call for a big opportunity, and I would discuss it and think about it. But I’m happy doing what I’m doing now. I don’t have a contract anywhere, which means I don’t have any insurance, because it’s nice to have a contract where you know even if you get hurt, you’ll still be getting paid. That’s cool, but that’s the danger of being purely independent.

So I wouldn’t say it’s a goal. If it happens, it happens. Same with New Japan or All Elite Wrestling, if it happens, it happens. As long as I can support myself and live relatively comfortably, that’s pretty much it.

Well, you’re basically British now, so maybe you could do NXT UK? (Laughs) I suppose. You never know what’s going to happen. As opportunities approach, I think about it, I look at it, and I figure out what I’m going to do from there.

RevPro’s British Heavyweight Championship was on the line at APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 11

DAVID STARR the Tokyo Dome this year. That’s essentially the second biggest platform other than the WWE, what do you think that will do for RevPro moving forward?

gave the fans that big moment. So that’s really cool.

why RevPro is doing so well today?

I’m just happy to be a part of anything that feels special. Even the build-up to the match with Ishii just felt special.

It’s massive. It might be the biggest thing to have happened to Revolution Pro. It’s a step forward.

Even having the head official Chris Roberts being there officiating that match, that stuff is very important, and just a building block for relationships to get more cemented.

What’s it like working with guys like Ishii and sharing a locker room with someone like Minoru Suzuki?

I think it’s important to tap into these markets and not ignore them.

WWE will most likely not come here, and if they do, it’ll probably be a house show. But they wouldn’t give you a show with real substance, and RevPro takes the chance and does that. So is it important? Of course.

Every fanbase is important. If there are people that want to buy your product, you should go and make it available to them.

That was basically what happened with Ring of Honor, they had a bunch of New Japan guys, and then all of a sudden, you see Ring of Honor guys going to New Japan.

Then ROH titles were seen on New Japan shows. It’s a slow moving process.

Now you’re going to have Zack (Sabre Jr.), who is a regular at New Japan, walking around with the title that has the RevPro logo on it. And you already had Ishii doing the same, which instantly gave it credibility, especially with the Japanese fanbase. It’s just the next step. It’s big for Revolution Pro, and a great thing for professional wrestling. Another powerful partnership that provides people with the opportunity to make a living doing what they want to do.

Was it cool being a part of the match where they announced Zack vs. Ishii?

I think it was cool because if I beat Ishii that night, it would have been crazy because New Japan stars like Ishii do not lose often. It would have also been the first time the cruiserweight champion merges the title with the heavyweight title. So when Ishii won, you had something else that kind of came in and still

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It’s super cool because you see these guys that everybody’s talking about, and you are there, personally speaking to them. You have to be professional about it, but I do take times where I sit back and think about how wild it is that I’m talking to these people. It’s good to keep a level head because you are working with these people. You’re all professionals. No one’s better than anybody, and we’re all on the same show.

But it is cool to know that there are certain people that you can text as a friend. I’ve done that with my brother before. I’ll screenshot some text conversation with a wrestler he knows, and he’ll find it crazy that I’m friends with him (laughs). It’s important to keep that side because if I’m not in the main event of a show, I’ll get to enjoy the show after my match. I can pull myself away from being a wrestler and just being a fan.

RevPro’s desire to go to markets that companies like WWE will never pursue is quite admirable. Like tonight, for example, Guildford, and you guys aren’t just coming for a random show, it’s a stacked card with Jay White, Will Ospreay, yourself and more. Do you think this is

What was your reaction to the announcement that WWE’s UK talent could no longer work for other British promotions?

It’s no surprise. You can see it building. And the fact that WWE did something that was unprecedented, unless you go way back, when, in rare cases, they would rent out their talent. But this didn’t happen very often where these guys that are under contract to WWE were able to wrestle on indie shows. Then you had people that saw them on TV or the Network, and they would see them on a local poster and realise they could see them for fifteen pounds. So that brought more eyes, and those fans may come to see them, but then they get attached to another wrestler or the show as a whole.

Guys like Pete, Trent, and Tyler, they’ve done a lot for this scene because I’m fairly certain those guys pushed WWE to let them do those shows for a while. So they did everything they could to keep this life flowing into the UK market, and now it’s up to us to take it and bring it even higher. But overall, it didn’t surprise me. At some point; WWE has to protect their investment. They are paying these guy’s salary, and they don’t want

them to get hurt somewhere else, and there’s a high chance of injury in this sport. There’s logic to people being upset, but it’s up to the next person to step up. People have to take advantage of these new spots that have become available, and there’s so much talent that hasn’t been focused on because these guys were there, and these guys were demanding a lot of money, so that opens up a budget. Now there’s more money for more wrestlers.

Them being there and helping build this huge fanbase, and then leaving these spots for us to come and take and make more money, it’s only helped further create more of a wrestling middle class.

Finally, you’ve been involved in intergender matches before.

You wrestled Tessa Blanchard, and you were famously the WSU tag champion…

Fighting for equal rights (laughs).

We were saying that women’s wrestlers are the same as men’s wrestlers, so why can’t men pursue a women’s title? Right? We’re all the same. They’re wrestlers. We’re wrestlers, let’s wrestle. That’s it (smiles).

Triple H recently said that he doesn’t feel the need to focus on intergender wrestling; he believes it’s more shock value, and it doesn’t necessarily empower women or help them.

What empowers women is wrestling other women and stealing the show. Do you agree with that or should WWE push intergender wrestling?

it that way. But I also don’t think it’s something that has to happen all the time. It’s bullshit to say the only way that women would be recognised is if they wrestle men. I think that’s nonsense because there are plenty of women who can have plenty of good matches with other women that can stand out, and steal the show.

Sasha and Bayley, we sit here and think about which one of their matches won match of the year a few years ago because they’ve had so many good matches. It just proves the point. All that matters is telling a good story. But I’ll say this, the fact that WWE has gone away from intergender wrestling so much, made the Ronda and Triple H moment at WrestleMania so much bigger. It was nuts! And the fact Triple H didn’t have so much of an ego, and he just let Ronda beat the shit out of him, I mean, that’s probably what would happen in real life (laughs). But it’s not real life, and they still told that story that way. It was great.

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I think it’s ridiculous that the argument of domestic violence gets brought up when it comes to intergender wrestling. It’s completely ridiculous. I also hate the fact that some won’t have a man hit a woman because they’re afraid of domestic violence, but they are perfectly fine with showcasing women attacking men physically. The victims of domestic violence, for the most part, are women, but if you’re saying sexes shouldn’t hit each other, then stick to the principal.

But I don’t think WWE needs to do intergender wrestling to show that women can hang with men. I think that’s nonsense because women can show how great they are by wrestling women.

I don’t necessarily think it’s shock value. I don’t know if I’d categorise

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GIANT BABA

THE LEGACY OF GIANT BABA WORDS: JAMES TRUEPENNY aba did not start out as a wrestler, born with Gigantism he became a towering spectacle of the aptly named Yomiuri Giants professional team at the age of 19 in the late fifties.

Around this time Rikidozan was revolutionising the way wrestling was presented in Japan and Baba was recruited into the early classes of the Japan Wrestling Association Dojo. Alongside Antonio Inoki he would become one Rikidozan’s key protégé. His greatest success would come as a solo wrestler. He was the rising star of the company, set to take over from Rikidozan upon the senior wrestler’s retirement.

That moment came quickly, with controversy and tragedy. Seemingly having slighted a Yakuza, Rikidozan was stabbed at a nightclub and would later die from his septic wounds. Japan Wrestling Association, the company that had been a vessel for Rikidozan’s meteoric rise was rudderless, and a power vacuum was created with top stars Inoki and Baba most likely to take the hot seat.

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JWA would go on for a decade with Baba as its lead star but by 1973 the writing was on the wall as Antonio Inoki and then Baba formed New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling respectively.

Baba was still a vital star to the fledgling promotion, but he also took a lot of the talent associated with JWA, as Inoki did with NJPW.

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That loyalty would become a Baba trademark. He could be forgiving and understanding if it didn’t interfere with his business, but in the coming years the biggest crime in Baba’s book was starting up in opposition to Baba himself.

The NWA chose Baba, who was close with the US promoters at the time, as the represented territory in Japan and the wrestling itself did not look unlike the TV products of the Texas promotions. AJPW was strong related to Big Time Wrestling out of Dallas and the Amarillo office run by Dory and Terry Funk, by the mid seventies Terry and Dory were taking on a large selection of AJPW rookies for their excursion tours.

Gaijin talents flourished too, men like The Destroyer and Abdullah The Butcher would become big draws, Billy Robinson would bring a scientific aesthetic to All Japan, but the main draw would still be Baba. He would also become an NWA Champion, taking the belt from his close friend Harley Race; it solidified Baba as a World stage player that helped the All Japan cause no end.

Baba also cultivated younger stars. Noted amateur Jumbo Tsuruta joined the stable and grew exponentially in the late seventies and early eighties. Former Sumo Genichiro Tenryu would join the company and young High School Dropout Atsushi Onita would become his assistant, but as he worked his way through the eighties, Baba realised things would have to change. New Japan was the place to be by then. A hot Junior

division was blowing roofs off of buildings, the charismatic Tatsumi Fujinami was proving to be an heir to the Inoki thrown and all round badass Riki Choshu was providing an alternate look for what the Ace of a Japanese company could be.

Baba decided that it was time for wholesale change. The first major change came from Riki himself.

As he left New Japan with his own stable to form a new company, Baba saw the potential in a cross promotion with the former New Japan stars and so began one of the first Invasion angles in Japanese wrestling.

Once the draw from that had died down and Choshu had gone back to New Japan. Baba pulled up the drawbridge. He forsook his relationship with the NWA by the late eighties. New Japan were happy to pick up the endorsement, he then concentrated his efforts on a home grown roster of talent matched with handpicked Gaijin’s that could work Baba’s style. The company coalesced around Tsuruta, Tenryu and Stan Hansen in the main event. Announcing that the company’s three major titles would be unified into what would become known as the Triple Crown. With Tsuruta, Tenryu and Hansen in the title picture, it established All Japan in a decidedly different direction.

With a loaded roster that Baba kept adding too judiciously, enabled high quality matches from the top to the bottom of the card. While all this was going on and Baba began to transition to the next generation of stars, there was tension at the

top. Stan Hansen was secure in his place as lead Gaijin, and Tsuruta had re-invented himself from the stable charismatic grappler of the eighties to an unparalleled work horse in the early nineties. Tenryu had gone in a different direction, forming the stable Revolution he became neither face nor heel, but still hugely popular. Business was brisk as the fans sensed and then saw something special happening in All Japan but where the fans saw opportunity, Tenryu saw a dead end street. He felt he had been an architect of All Japan but wanted more, with the equally frustrated Great Kabuki by his side for creative help, and backed by a large optical firm he began his own company Super World Sports.

Fuyuki and contribute heavily to an incredible Junior Division. Headed up by Ultimo Dragon, the division was so strong it could support a tag team title, a first that was soon copied by every major promotion in Japan.

His new company built on the All Japan traditions, putting a greater emphasis on factions, which of which was put together via background or long term associations and was built around big name matches. Their first foray to the Tokyo Dome involved a Tenryu vs Hulk Hogan headlining match which sold out the building. The help from the WWF, he beefed up the roster with The Undertaker, The Rockers and The Hart Foundation making regular visits. The big match dynamics couldn’t last forever and by 1995 SWS was closed down, Megane Super pulling their funding amid a recession. Wrestling and Romance or WAR, as well as a host of smaller promotions, took its place.

Modeled on the SWS approach and keeping the WWF association, WAR may have been a smaller scale production, but it had a more consistent presence in Puroresu.

Gedo and Jado came to WAR as a journeyman Junior tag outfit, they would become perennial six man champions with Hiromichi

Atsushi Onita had found his place in All Japan as a charismatic Junior Heavyweight Ace in the early eighties but mounting injuries curtailed his ability to fly. He returned to wrestling working some of the first indie dates Japan ever saw in 1989, the positive response of the fans at Korukean Hall led him to believe there were possibilities of a long term return. He became obsessed with the shoot style that had enveloped the wrestling world thanks to Akira Maeda and the UWF and leant back on his roots as a southern brawler during his excursion days. Applying the Jerry Jarrett/Jerry Lawler mentality to his King’s Road base, and with the help of high profile Martial Artists like Masashi Aoyagi he founded Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. Japan’s first mainstream mixed gender company that built its cards around violence and a needs must talent roster.

The early days of the company had a heavy MMA influence, but when Onita added Barbed Wire to the mix it caught the fan’s imagination.

FMW went from not filling K Hall at

Eventually cross promotion, especially with New Japan would become the company’s forte until it winked out of existence as Tenryu made his way to the IWGP Heavyweight title and couldn’t spare the time to promote. The roster didn’t dissipate; it became part of Tenryu Project, a company that leaned even more heavily on dream matches. WAR was not the first start up promotion by a former All Japan star however.

its first attempt to putting 36,000 into Kawasaki Baseball Stadium in under five years without television exposure. Onita would quietly add another All Japan stand out, Tarzan Goto as his second lead Babyface and on/off opponent, giving an even deeper King’s Road cut to the company.

The exodus to WAR and to a lesser extent FMW had an unintended consequence for All Japan. The clearing out at the top of the card meant that Baba had to redefine the company quickly and effectively.

Baba called on four young talents to fill the void. Babyfaced Akira Taue, perpetual underdog Kenta Kobashi, former Revolution member Toshiaki Kawada and Matsuhiro Misawa. Misawa had been tasked with becoming the second Tiger Mask when All Japan bought the rights to the Anime. While not as aerial as the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama, he was innovative, and transcended the character, but in the story and in real life he wanted more. On May 14th 1990 he commanded his tag partner Kawada to remove his mask making a bold statement in front of a rabid crowd. Moving up to Heavyweight a near decade long run of growth both artistically and financially for the company began as Baba expertly fed the four wrestlers into each other. They would become the Four Pillars of Heaven and King’s Road would reach its zenith. A style of wrestling built on precise story telling where your position in the company dictated your approach to the match. A less experienced wrestler would have to logically apply a longer series of moves to finish off a more experienced opponent. Moves would not be repeated because if they didn’t work the first time, why would you use them again? Moves came from

APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 15

GIANT BABA

the traditional wrestling playbook; big suplexes, DDTs and Pile Drivers.

Necks would become thick in anticipation of that deadly offence.

It would also become a wonderful platform for nontraditional promotions as its reliance on the story of the match enabled more drama, ideal for big spot barbed wire matches where tension was key. It was wrestling heaven, but it’s leader was not long for the world by the end of the decade. Giant Shohei Baba died a victim of cancer in 1999. The wrestling world mourned, but his legacy as a leader, booker and creative thinker had only just begun.

BJW, Wrestle-1, and NOAH represent three strains of the King’s Road learning tree. BJW, has built itself to be one of the most artistically diverse and financially stable outfits in all of wrestling.

Pro Wrestling NOAH was formed out of a battle for the very soul of the King’s Road philosophy, and at one time it was THE promotion in Japan. The third path of King’s Road was taken by Wrestle-1. This is the story of what happened after Baba. Or at least with BJW, what happened towards the end of his imperious money making phase.

Big Japan Pro Wrestling was started in 1995 by Shinya Kojika and Kendo Nagasaki (no, the other Kendo Nagasaki). Having seen the growth of Death Match wrestling first in FMW and then in W*ING and the IWA, they wondered if something similar could be achieved on a smaller budget. Building a tight and we’ll trained roster, they focused on storytelling over production.

The result was that while the matches are sometimes contrived to fit the environment, the long term growth of the company was assured. Over time, they built up stars like Jun Kasai and Abdullah

16 STEELCHAIR APRIL 2019

Kobayashi. Kasai became such a big star he was able to start his own deathmatch company Freedoms.

They also branched out into more traditional wrestling forms and today stack two rosters, one for Deathmatches and one for Strong Style. A thriving Junior Division also exists. They also explored working agreements, first with New Japan, then CZW and eventually a long term agreement with DDT and K-Dojo which enabled them to have greater exposure and offer more diverse matchups.

NOAH was a whole different story and takes us back to All Japan after the death of Baba. Motoko Baba, Shohei’s widow found herself in charge of a large empire, and she had strict instructions from her husband and within her own wrestling philosophy to keep All Japan pure. It was a closed door policy to collaboration, and to keep the King’s Road style. However the one downfall of King’s Road is that it makes it harder for younger talent to break through. With such a prescribed match structure, the unexpected can’t happen and while the Four Pillars of Heaven, Taue, Kawada, Kobashi and Misawa were gunning strong, they’d wrestled each other into a corner. Taue, Misawa and Kobashi were itching to try something new, however upon Baba’s death, Motoko named Misawa President of the company so long as he kept to the tradition of All Japan, but tensions arose almost immediately. After a year of struggle with his new role, he couldn’t take the restrictions placed upon him. He and over half of the roster quit the company to form Pro Wrestling NOAH. Relying on the tested and true tropes of King’s Road but with a liberal mixing of guests from

outside promotions it would become a smash hit. Elevating men like Jun Akiyama, Naomichi Marufuji, home built stars like Takeshi Morishima, Kenta (better known to western fans as Hideo Itami) and Go Shiozaki, but also brought in stars like Yoshihiro Takayama and Minoru Suzuki.

As Misawa said he wanted to try something different, but he also kept the principals of his mentor.

Dynamic fights built on logic and conclusive match results. Count Outs and Disqualifications were the cheap way out.

Motoka Baba knew she was in deep trouble and it would take a bold maneuver to right the company.

So what do you do when the unthinkable happens? Giant Baba vowed he would never let Genichiro Tenryu wrestle for his beloved promotion ever again. Motoko Baba, backed into a corner and lacking star power hired him more or less on the spot. Tenryu would come in and make a run at the Triple Crown reclaiming the prize that he had helped forge a decade before.

Then long time Junior Heavyweight mainstay and Masanobu Fuchi turned up on a New Japan card declaring he was going to tear the walls down between the two companies. Riki Choshu, then booker of NJPW, welcomed him with a handshake and a smile. It stopped the bleeding, but Motoko needed a long term vision and after two years she found her man. By 2001, Keiji Mutoh had built a new faction that was truly revolutionary.

Featuring fighters from different companies and even from MMA, Bad Ass Translate Trading took wrestling into a whole different set of possibilities and rested on Mutoh’s personal philosophy of wrestling; Wrestle Love. All wrestling and every tradition is equally valid,

so we should be fans of wrestling.

On the 30th Anniversary of the founding of All Japan, Motoko Baba handed her husband’s company lock stock and barrel to Mutoh.

Mutoh would helm the company for a decade, but would eventually stand down in favour of Nobuo Shiraishi in 2012. Mutoh was due to be put back in charge under new owners Speed Partners, but negotiations broke down and as a result Mutoh resigned. He would go on to form a new company called Wrestle-1. The wrestlers loyal to Mutoh like Kaz Hayashi, Seiya Sanada (now just SANADA in NJPW), and Minoru Tanaka joined the new company and All Japan was left to rebuild. Thankfully they had an ace up their sleeve. Unhappy at NOAH, Atsushi Aoki, Go Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru, jumped to All Japan and they would be the backbone of storylines in the year up to Mutoh’s departure. Shiraishi would hand over to Jun Akiyama in 2014. Akiyama has tillered the company using a model of steady growth in much the same way as BJW, concentrating on homegrown stars and limited special attractions.

These four companies have the most direct line to the King’s Road legacy and while relations have been frosty down the years, there has been a thaw in the last twelve months. NOAH and All Japan copromoted last year which featured a debate on the history of the two companies between Naomichi Marufuji and Toshiaki Kawada.

Kawada admitted it was probably the first long conversation he’d had with one of Japanese wrestling’s biggest stars purely because as a rookie in All Japan he had been associated with a rival faction and therefore Kawada did his best to

ignore the rookie to protect kayfabe.

Throughout this series we’ve explored the historic perspective of Baba’s work, but how does this impact on the real world of wrestling today? Jay Bradley made his Pro Wrestling NOAH last year and has also had time in Wrestle-1, I talked to him about the experience. “I loved working with NOAH and hope to be back in Japan in the future. AJPW & NOAH have had huge influences on my style especially the gaijin heavyweights. So working NOAH or AJPW was always a goal of mine.”.

He also knows what makes the King’s Road style stand out; “Strong mat grappling, strikes, suplexes, submission holds. Very little over the top characters. Strong, tough athletic men attempting to assert their dominance of will onto their opponent. .” Jay grew to prominence as Ryan Braddock in the WWE and Aiden O’Shea, Billy Corgan’s Chicago connection bodyguard in Impact Wrestling, so when I asked him the difference between the Majors in America and Japan he was very direct. “NOAH is much more athletic based, produced from a sports standpoint and perspective. Impact is very North American style which is heavy on entertainment and a hybrid of many styles worldwide.”.

Dann Read is a promoter and booker for the XWA and Pro Wrestling EVE, his understanding of Baba has stood him in good stead in his career. “The main things that I always read up on Baba, and I still don’t know enough, was his booking philosophy and his structure.” Dann begins, “I think the key thing that stood out was how far in advance he seemed to plan, I loved the call backs. If you watch EVE you’ll see there are a lot of call backs to things, I don’t believe in stuff being done for the

sake of being done.” That logical booking approach has bled through all of the derivative companies to some extent. “Although She 1 (EVE’s annual singles tournament) is clearly a take on the G1, the importance of that style and theory of booking is far more influenced from All Japan than New Japan. If you look at the 2017-18 run up to Wrestle Queendom and right up to now there are numerous call backs going on but you can clearly see the Charlie Morgan/Sammii Jayne storyline that has more to it at now you look back at it, there are bits going on even now. So that when Charlie’s story with Sammii was complete she had something to move on to.”

Baba’s ideas and philosophies may have been strict and defined in ways that were perhaps to constraining, but the biggest bonus to King’s Road is that it is an unbeatable storytelling platform. It affects all the wrestling you see in Japan, Tomohiro Ishii is a King’s Road guy, so is SANADA, as is Yoshinobu Kanemaru. So is Kassius Ohno, and Cesaro. The premier storytellers in Pro Wrestling history, whether it be Daniel Bryan, Gedo, Vince McMahon, Harley Race, and indeed Ric Flair have worked with or under on the path of King’s Road in its many forms, and to quote Flair, when it comes to Baba, they all pay homage to The Man.

APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 17

KENNY OMEGA

WORDS: ASHLEY ROSE NOVA | PHOTO: OLI SANDLER

KENNY OMEGA IN-RING RETURN AND THE REBIRTH OF CANADIAN WRESTLING f something is predetermined, is it not relevant?

Can we resurrect the art of the finish? A title being held at a smaller promotion compared to a larger one, is it not as applicable?

I

Some of the finest and highest in-ring champions come from Canada. Canadian wrestling has been one of the oldest grounds to

18 STEELCHAIR APRIL 2019

ingrain wrestling tradition in the minds of fans with ambassadors like Chris Jericho, Stu Hart, Bret the Hitman Hart, Owen Hart, Rowdy Piper, Edge, Lance Storm, Davey Boy Smith Jr, Don Callis to name a few.

On March 22, 2019, the Canadian wrestling promotion PCW (Premier Championship Wrestling) announced The Best Bout Machine, Kenny Omega would be attending their 17th Year Anniversary Spectacular. PCW is the premier

home promotion of one of the supreme superlative pro-wrestlers to have ever stepped into the squared circle.

In addition to making this announcement. PCW also announced that they would be making a return and addition to their Hall of Fame. Jason Geiger would be inducted in that hall of fame. Geiger was trained by Don Callis. He also debuted in 1999 and has a 2-1 professional record in mixed martial arts with a black belt in Brazilian Jitsu.

Premier Championship Wrestling is one of the most relevant Canadian promotions to premier since March 3, 2002. The promotion has been home to some of the purest inring competitors gifted in strong style and technical wrestling.

Competitors with the willingness to put their bodies through radical actions to satisfy a loyal fan base.

The loyal cultivating audience attempts to purchase what tickets they can. PCW stars perform as much as they can at public events and their main home, Doubles Fun Club. The PCW fan base can only be described as devoted they are invested in the show. They will wait all month long to be one of the few 400-500 people that can fit in the building. The audience becomes invested in the Suspend Of Disbelief of the psychology of each match that takes place in the white roped 16 x 16 ring.

PCW has a list of premier talent that can only be seen in Canada.

They are a promotion known for giving wrestlers their start and welcoming veterans and putting on shows lacking in size but not struggling in knowing how to sell or what to work creatively.

The current roster has a mix of different styles. There are your technical wrestlers and eccentric ones as well. You have several champions that have come and gone from the promotion. Some that remain and some continuing to develop themselves. One of the few interesting things about this promotion is the precise ability some of the talent has for a smaller promotion.

The Glitch in the System, Jay Walker who can raise your loathing of him as a heel but also could become the underdog. He can play on your emotions as a casual

viewer and you think for once I understand why that performer is the way he is. He could only be pushed down for so long and told he could never become anything more than who he is.

His opportunities taken or ruined by another person. Outside of the ring, he becomes one of the most inspirational people with his podcast, interactions with people, and Vlogs of behind the scenes of wrestling. After winning his golden ticket he will have a chance to become a champion again after so long and face Alix Vanna.

Alix Vanna, debuting in 2013 and trained by Lance Storm, won the PCW Premier Cup Winner in 2017.

He is also noted to have been a 2x PCW Canadian Champion, and a 2x NXW Heavyweight Champion and a former member of the promotion’s faction Gentlemen’s Club. Jackie Lee was added to the London Dynasty when Scorpio attacked Gentlemen’s Club due to him being kicked out.

Gentlemen’s Club also consisted of The London Dynasty (Leo & David London) and Jackie “The Jet” Lee. Leo London of the London Dynasty has one of the most impressive championship runs in the promotion. Known in Canada as a technical ace, his style consists of technical submission wrestling.

He could adapt to any opponent in the ring. He can execute a nearperfect LaBell Lock, Calf Slicer, Double Stomp, Spider Superplex, Black Sunday, Orienteering with Napalm Death, along with others.

He’s a five-time PCW Tag Team Champion with David London, once with wJames Beaver, an NXW Heavyweight Champion, NBW Mid-Canadian Champion, C4W X-Division Champion, Gold Dragon Wrestling Tag Team Champion -w/ David London, CWF Tag Team

Champion, and many more.

The PCW Tag belts at one time were also held by a young up and coming Kenny Omega. In August 19, 2004, Kenny Omega & Rawskillz teamed to face Shaun Houston & Chris Raine. This is how Omega & Rawskillz gained the PCW Tag Team championship.

Kenny Omega’ Canadian accomplishments include being a four-time PCW Heavyweight Championship, a four-time PCW Tag Team Championship, three times w/Chris Stevens, once w/Rawskillz, an NWA Canadian X Division Championship, the 2005 & 2007 Premier Cup Tournament Winner and CWF Heavyweight Champion.

Kenny Omega has made several appearances for his home promotion. This is the promotion where it all began. Where he learned his fundamentals and began to develop his art. PCW will also be featured in the Kenny Omega documentary Omega Man: A Wrestling Love Story, one of the most heavily anticipated wrestling documentaries.

It is unclear who the Best Bout Machine’s opponent will be when he arrives in his home country of Canada but one thing is for sure, he will be arriving ready and strongminded.

Kenny Omega is one of the most impactful wrestlers in the business today. His style will continue to inspire and stand out for future generations to come. Omega’s style is not just Strong Style but a mix of different influences that can only come from experience and cultural perceptive. The cultural perceptive he showed in wrestling is partly influenced by his roots coming from Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

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k u . o c .

R I A H C L E STE Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more from SteelChair Magazine. Click here to visit the channel

WORDS: STEPH FRANCHOMME | PHOTO: IMPACT WRESTLING

GAIL KIM he Greatest Knockouts of All Time. When you think about Gail Kim, these words are the first any wrestling fan will say. The 7-time Knockouts Champion cemented her legacy in being a trailblazer of the Knockouts Division when way before other companies did, TNA/Impact Wrestling decided to treat her female wrestlers as the true fighters they were. Gail Kim retired last year the same way she made her career, on her own terms.

With a huge smile on her face, fully aware of the chance she had been given. But Impact was not ready to let her go as Gail Kim is now the producer of the current Knockouts Division, the same baby she was one of the originators of.

T

We had the chance to chat with the

TNA/Impact Wrestling Hall of Famer about the wrestler she was, the producer she has become, and the fighter she will always be. What she did with a huge smile on her face, as always.

On being dubbed The Greatest Knockouts of All Time “I’m just truly grateful that I got the closure to my wrestling active career that I wanted. I think that a lot of wrestlers don’t get to achieve that. They don’t get to maybe go out the way they wanted. Or maybe sometimes people have careers where it’s ended abruptly by an injury. Or some other reason. So, I’ll always be appreciative that I got to end my career just on a great note.

And with feeling calm and satisfied.

I really hope for all the wrestlers out there that they can have the same.

GAIL KIM

AND THE STATE OF THE KNOCKOUTS DIVISION: AN IMPACT LEGACY I hate when people—in the male category, let’s take Christian—we never saw him get a proper send-off.

I just want to see those people that gave so much to the business get that proper exit out so that they can have closure and be content. I was very fortunate to have that in my career.

On transitioning from wrestler to producer “Becoming a producer was a natural progression for me. I was always concerned about how I was going to feel after I retired. Whether I was going to be depressed, was I going to miss it? I think in the last couple of years of me being active, I kind of started helping the other girls and I guess it was a natural progression. I think because of my physical being and feeling like my back was hurting

APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 21

GAIL KIM me, it was a kind of a reminder all the time of why I retired, so I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would.

I think also being a producer agent helps me. I’m so fortunate to be able to stay in the business so I don’t have to miss it. I think also going from being a wrestler to an agent was a big change because I felt very confident as a wrestler, not that I don’t feel confident as a producer but it’s actually a learning process for me. Yes, I know wrestling but now, I got to learn a whole new role, so I think that was challenging but pretty much they threw me into it from day one and I think that’s the best way to learn.

On being a female agent and producer “I will say that I am one of the few women in these meetings or the collaborations of the show, that’s mostly a lot of the guys. Then I come in on TV days and do my part, but I will say, as a woman and I think no matter how, because the leadership that we have right now is so great and the product that we’re turning out right now is so great and positive, that it’s less of a challenge.

I will say it’s just really enjoyable but truthfully I think because of just wrestling, in general, being more a male-dominated business, I’ve always felt this from Day one.

“From the moment I got into the business, it was always a fighting challenge to fight for the women and I will say it’s definitely gotten better throughout the years, especially currently the guys are so open to hearing our thoughts and this whole women’s revolution that’s been happening in the past couple of years has definitely helped but I think as a company like Impact/ TNA, even from back then, had always respected the women. I think the challenge for us was always just fighting to be the best,

22 STEELCHAIR APRIL 2019

so it’s a challenge within ourselves, not necessarily with the company.

They’ve always been very openminded, supportive, and they’ve always made us an important part of the company. I have a very vested interest in the Women division, I feel like it’s my little baby that I want to nurture and make the Knockouts division the best in the world.

On the State of the Knockouts Division “This generation of Knockouts are currently starting to just come together nicely because we all went through a transition period when I retired. I feel like we’ve found our flow and the girls all have something very different to offer. It reminds me of the first generation of Knockouts when it was myself, ODB, Awesome Kong, Traci Brooks.

There was a different flavour for each fan, someone that they can maybe perhaps relate to or just admire.

Everyone had a different character and I loved it. I love how we now have a variety of characters, wrestlers, and sexiness too. I truly believe that there’s a place in wrestling for a little bit of everything. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and I just love playing up to different aspects of all of them.

“I feel like we’ve gone through some different phases, I feel like the Knockouts Division has always been consistent from the day that Impact/TNA created this division.

Having a various amount of girls or sort of various types of girls and characters, they’ve never strayed from that, they’ve never tried to go. They’ve stayed really consistent in making wrestling the priority, keeping the characters true to who they are and I feel like that’s the winning formula for us. Rosemary is the most popular Knockout and she’d been injured for a long time,

but people just absolutely love her.

She’s not that typical Knockout or Diva or whatever you would see years ago and I love this evolution of wrestling, that you can relate to or connect with different people or gorgeous characters.

On what the Division is made of “Even before she was with the company, we were talking about Kiera Hogan. I just absolutely adore her and see so much potential in her. I truly do connect with her and feel her when she’s doing interviews and cutting promos. In terms of her wrestling, I feel like she’s at this point where she’s starting to improve and I think she’s only going to get better.

“Jordynne Grace obviously made a mark. I think a lot of people who didn’t know Jordynne saw her at All In. I had seen her at a seminar before that and I knew that she was very, very passionate about wrestling. She was the one that stuck out to me as being the most passionate because she just had this incredible knowledge of wrestling and wanted to just badly get to that spot of being on TV. I had no idea she had been working for eight years. She is a polished individual.

Until the day that I retired, I always tried to learn and get better and see the best and I think that’s what we’re going to see from her.

“Taya Valkyrie has been wrestling for a long time. She has paid her dues.

She was trained by Lance Storm.

She went down to Mexico and lived there for five years. I mean she is fluent in Spanish. She’s just come so far and she was kind of far away from us this past year because of some issues with travel and immigration. But when she came back, I have to tell you that she came back as a new woman. I was really excited to see her and she has blown us all away. I mean the fact that she has become the Knockouts Champion in such a short time since her return says a lot on her.

On the Knockouts Division being featured more prominently on TV “I’m so proud because we’ve gone through ups and downs. I feel like the Knockouts have kind of always been that consistent for Impact Wrestling/TNA back then. They’ve always done really well and we’re always in. The company has just done an amazing job of knowing that, including them and really wanting them to be a part of that show very frequently. The Knockouts are very special and, in a maledominated world, it’s always the females who are always going to kind of stand on. The girls have been doing an amazing job, especially lately.

On what the Division could become

“I want the girls to have the best match, I want them to steal the show, and I always felt that way as an active wrestler. Truth be told, maybe some women can prove me wrong, but I think an Ultimate-X match is a lot of upper body strength and I’m not sure how many girls can execute it to that degree, and I feel like we would be compared to the X Division. Maybe if we come up with something similar, but not the same, I think that would be more realistic. For me, if I had a magical match that I was so proud of, and I had to work the same person after that again, it was always about topping that last thing and being the best. If I didn’t feel like I could, I wouldn’t want to disappoint or be less than. In that Ultimate X match, I don’t know if we would be able to surpass those division guys because they are so super athletic.

“I think that the sky is the limit. I would like a different style much so that they don’t get compared to the guys because I always want the best and I want them to blow everyone away. I think as long as the girls feel comfortable and feel that they can exceed everyone’s expectations, I don’t see them turning down any type of match or challenge, so I hope that we get to see it. I would say, in my years with TNA/Impact, I had Steel cage matches, Last Knockout Standing, Ladder matches, Street fights, no DQ. I mean we’ve had it all for years so I don’t see why we wouldn’t continue, maybe with Iron Women matches or Intergender ones.

On making the Tag Team Knockouts division back “I think Impact has been really great at making most of the girls, if not all of the girls, a part of the show, and so we have two storylines going over to fuse going on at once so that’s

great to see. At the moment, with the state of the Knockouts, I feel like they don’t necessarily need the tag team titles right now because the story is interesting enough. I think that, if we add some more girls, that could maybe be a discussion that could come up.

On wrestling one more match “That’s a hard question to answer.

I guess I would say it depends on the circumstances and how far I’m pushed. Also, I think it goes, honestly, by how my body feels at that moment because still to this day, since I retired last February, my back has given me a lot of problems, on and off. I pretty much look normal in day-to-day life, but that doesn’t mean I can have a wrestling match. If I did feel good and the circumstances did arise, I wouldn’t object to it. There are a lot of factors that play into it, I want to see how bad the fans want to see it because that’s what it really comes down to, do the fans want to see it.

On Impact Wrestling being her legacy “I think a lot of people know that Impact/TNA gave me my opportunity and, without them, I wouldn’t have had the career that I had. So, of course, I have a vested interest and I’ve always said TNA and Impact, whether ten years ago to today, has always been a family, truly a family effort and it’s almost a better feeling to be part of some group that is fighting together to be the best and you just have more of a satisfying feeling. I’ve always been very loyal and I’ve always enjoyed my time here. I’ve been the happiest here, so all I want to do is contribute and give back to this company and help it come to the next level that it needs to get to.

APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 23

ROMAN REIGNS

WORDS: DAVE ADAMSON | PHOTO: WWE

ROMAN REIGNS: “HE MUST BE LYING BECAUSE I FEEL HE IS”

W

WE and Roman Reigns are lying about The Big Dog having cancer.

That’s pretty much how a section of social media responded before the announcement that Roman Reigns was coming back to WWE in the runup to WrestleMania.

“There’s no other fanbase like you guys,” Reigns said on his return to RAW, announcing to the WWE Universe that he was in remission.

He was terrified, insecure and “didn’t really know if (I) wanted to share that secret with the world” and who can blame him? He didn’t know how fans would react and, whilst there was a huge amount of support, there’s been a recent flurry of vocal distractors calling into question the “truth.”

With near conspiracy theory levels of engagement, people had ideas and expressed those ideas online, taking tenuous evidence (he’s got hair, he was filming a movie, he’s not emaciated, he doesn’t look like a cancer sufferer) as proof of their version of the truth. Many cited it as a grab for publicity, especially in the wake of AEW, and a ploy for a push in ratings.

There’s certainly a groundswell of dislike towards Roman Reigns amongst a niche of wrestling fans, though in these modern times it’s more likely to be aimed towards the character of Roman Reigns and the way WWE use him as opposed to the

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man himself; after all, the “smarter fans” must be able to separate the art from the artist.

The problem with any “fake cancer” story, especially one so heavily covered in legitimate media, is that there would have irreparable damage done to the WWE’s reputation had they genuinely been lying. It would effectively destroy any goodwill amongst the public, especially in their other charitable concerns. It would have soured their relationship with the TV networks that show RAW and SmackDown Live and with the all-important sponsors that have a great influence over what WWE can and can’t do on television.

Suddenly, there was an influx of cancer specialists who happen to be wrestling fans. All of whom were vocal in their belief in their knowledge, without actually realising that not everyone is affected in the same way, not all cancer needs chemotherapy and that, importantly, cancer is complex.

Even Leukaemia Care, the UK charity and support group, weighed in on

the online commentary – “We do not KNOW what type of leukaemia he has. Therefore, NONE of us are in a position to question his treatment, how he should look, etc.” That statement, in itself, must have come as something of a surprise to those making judgement online.

Anyone who has known anyone who has cancer knows how brave they are, how it completely alters their lives and how much they have to go through every day. Being clear of cancer is a huge weight off their shoulders, but the fear of relapse will always play in the back of their minds, and their inner strength and the closeness of their support group is what drives them forward.

“He must be lying because I feel he is” is churlish at best and a poor mindset to take with any victim when we don’t really know that person.

To accuse anyone who has cancer of lying, without sound evidence to back it up, is a horrific thing to do. Would they shout “fake” if their nearest and dearest were to announce that they’ve got cancer?

RONDA ROUSEY

MEME-ORABLE MELTDOWN OR KAYFABE QUEEN? WORDS: SCOTT HAMMOND | PHOTO: WWE onda Rousey’s recent ‘Ronda On The Road’ YouTube video got the wrestling community talking (and meme-ing), with the current RAW Women’s Champion stating that she was going to ‘disrespect the sport they all love’, and followed up with ‘wrestling’s scripted, it’s made up, its not real’.

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This lead to the big debate on whether Rousey was pushing her potential WrestleMania main event feud with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair to the next level, or she simply lost her cool and talked badly of the industry that she is currently employed in.

Rousey’s character and appeal are making fans want to see her lose the Women’s title, but given her star power and potential placement on a card already set in stone, repercussions would be in short supply, even if the WWE didn’t appreciate the outburst.

On the flip side, this was great publicity and added extra heat to an already well built feud. Rousey’s popularity has waned in recent months, with the ever vocal smart fans booing Rousey on TV and placing their support behind the ever popular underdog Becky Lynch. Knowing that Rousey is a huge fan of professional wrestling, this strikes me as a great publicity stunt. The shots continue to be fired, even this close to WrestleMania, with Lynch tweeting out that she has been asked to go easy on Rousey and husband Travis Browne because they are getting ‘upset’.

Regardless of what side of the fence that you stand on, most will agree that this adds a great dynamic to a feud that has already had spatters of realism thrown in via social media. If the match lives up to the buildup, we could see a history defining WrestleMania for the Women’s evolution in professional wrestling’s elite company.

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BAYLEY

WORDS: HUMZA HUSSAIN | PHOTO: WWE

Interview:

BAYLEY ayley is without a doubt one of the most beloved superstars in WWE today.

Her honesty and love for wrestling are infectious, and it does not hurt that she’s torn down the house at major shows on more than one occasion. She’s also a part of the prestigious ‘Four Horsewomen’ group with Becky Lynch, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks, and made history by competing in the first ever Iron Woman match and becoming one-half of the first-ever WWE women’s tag team champions.

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However, since moving to the main roster, it’s fair to say Bayley has had her fair share of ups and downs. From defending the RAW Women’s title in a fatal four way at WrestleMania in 2017 to not

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being involved in the title picture for months. Things haven’t always been easy for the ‘Huggable one,’ but now she looks to be heading to ‘The Grandest Stage Of Them All’ with her best friend Sasha Banks to defend their tag titles in the firstever women’s tag team title match at WrestleMania.

We had the pleasure of joining the former RAW Women’s champion on a WWE media call. Bayley discussed her frustration prior to winning the tag team titles, wrestling Ronda Rousey, and also shares her thoughts on the new film Fighting with My Family.

Before your victory at Elimination Chamber, and perhaps before you even knew the WWE tag titles were a thing in WWE, you seemed to be in a strange position being in and

out of different feuds. Was there ever a period of frustration for you because you were not involved with the Ronda Rousey’s and Alexa Bliss’ of the world in the title picture?

Yeah, it’s always a little frustrating.

You always want to be in the conversation. I knew with Ronda Rousey coming to RAW that it was going to overshadow everything else. You know, Ronda’s kind of the talk of the town, and she’s the champion and things like that. So I was a little bit prepared, but it’s always frustrating to sit back. I was lucky that I was on RAW every week, going back and forth with Sasha and things like that. But I was not fighting for anything I believed in, and it was like I was just there.

I think that’s where my patience comes in. I am a very patient

person. I am patient, but I never lose focus. And now I’m here as the tag champion. You have to stay persistent, and trust, and believe, that’s all you can do. And that’s what I did.

Did you ever try pitching any ideas during this time or did you do your best with what came your way?

A little bit of both (laughs), you kind of have to do both.

We mentioned Ronda Rousey.

What was your experience like working with Ronda and what do you think of her run thus far?

Working with her was very different.

It was just what I expected. It was very competitive. You know, she didn’t train like we do, and I don’t

train like she does (laughs). She put me in things where I didn’t even know what was going on.

She’s a different athlete. She’s the complete, elite athlete, and I’m glad we got to have that match together because it tested me. I felt like I needed that at that time.

And I think she’s done so much for us. If I talk to a stranger about what I do, and if I mention WWE, they’ll bring up Ronda Rousey. So I think she’s brought in a lot of attention and a lot of eyes, and I think that’s an awesome thing for us. It also shows that WWE is tough because she’s not the greatest at it, she’s great, but she’s not the greatest. She’s learning how hard it is, and I love to see that. People can say whatever they want about us, but it’s a very difficult sport and lifestyle.

Fighting with My Family, it said that it was “the film wrestling fans have been waiting for.”

Would you agree with that statement?

Yeah, I think so. I think it gave a good insight into what we go through, and the struggle it takes to make it this far. And it was just a good look inside Paige’s life. I remember when I first met her and learning about how she trained with her family, and I’ve also wrestled her Mum. Back in the day, I used to wrestle her Mum for SHIMMER. So knowing what her Mum went through, and what Paige has gone through, their type of lifestyle is like no other. It was awesome for fans to learn that about her, and then to kind of see the backstage of our everyday life.

In the VultureHound review of APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 27

CHASE OWENS

WORDS: JAMES TRUEPENNY | PHOTO: COPYRIGHT NJPW

A SHINING JEWEL: CHASE OWENS IN NEW JAPAN hase Owens looks like a star these days. Picking up wins and earning himself a shot at Juice Robinson’s US Title, he looks, acts and wrestles like a contender. While he is no stranger to championships, that hasn’t always been the case in recent years for the 12-year veteran. While a lot of his contemporaries to his position took more established routes, the New Japan Dojo, or via NXT, his was from a path less travelled.

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He is an unapologetic southern wrestler, sticking to a slick fastpaced/big impact moveset. His was a style forged in the armouries and community centres of the Deep South. Trained by Ricky Morton of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, his connections came from the southern promoters that formed the backbone of the NWA up until Billy Corgan’s takeover of the erstwhile governing body of wrestling. He would be NWA Junior Heavyweight Champion three times, a belt held in the past by such luminaries as Danny Hodge and Nelson Royal. Taking the title in a tournament win in Kingsport, TN in 2013, it would be the start of great things for the new champion.

Around this time, newly minted President of the NWA, Bruce R. Tharpe was trying to restructure the organisation to have a bigger presence in world media. Having worked out a talent swap agreement with New Japan Pro Wrestling that would see the NWA Heavyweight title

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change hands on many shows in Japan, it made sense then that the Junior title should be defended too.

Owens would make his NJPW debut at King of Pro Wrestling in October of 2014, defending the title against a then-struggling babyface BUSHI who had yet to find his groove in New Japan. He would drop eventually the title to Jushin Thunder Liger but would be invited to the 2015 Best of Super Juniors tournament to represent the NWA. He would take a respectable four wins in the tournament, but without doubt, he’d impressed the right people.

Within the storyline of New Japan, Bullet Club was a one Junior faction and they needed a hand when it came to the Super Jr. Tag Tournament, so a quick negotiation with Bruce R. Tharpe, lawyer at large, ensured the services of Chase for the foreseeable future. He would join Kenny Omega but bow out in the first round to Roppongi Vice. In the next year, he would replace Nick Jackson in the Best of Super Juniors. No matter what, Bullet Club and New Japan needed the utility player from Bristol, Tennessee.

His overall usefulness would be on show by December where he would reprise his team with Omega in the Heavyweight World Tag League.

Having done respectably well in that tournament, it was clear that he was far more useful as a slow burn heat getter in the Heavyweight division than in the state of the art, high tempo juniors. Applying some Southern Heel tag and singles

psychology to Bullet Club’s already loaded bag of talents made a refreshing change. He was back on more or less every tour in 2017, forming an occasional and utilitarian tag team with Yujiro Takahashi, but eventually teaming with Bad Luck Fale in the World Tag League.

2017 was the beginning of the end for Bullet Club, or so it seemed. Cody and Kenny Omega were at odds over leadership for most of the year as Kota Ibushi rekindled his friendship with Kenny and reformed The Golden Lovers tag team. Throughout the winter of ’17 and into ’18, layers were added to the story with Kota becoming an associate member and the split into the Elite and OG factions. Kenny and Kota eventually settled with the OGs, and by Honor Rising, Omega had his pick of longstanding partners. In a six-man tag that main evented that year’s tour he didn’t have to choose, he took both on an emotional roller coaster ride against Cody and the Bucks.

Whilst he was pinned, Chase looked at home with five of the six biggest players in the wrestling industry. He was also proving to be very popular.

The OGs had become the faces in the feud, and whether he was tagging with Kota, Kenny or Hangman Page, the Crown Jewel was welcomed with open arms by New Japan fans who recognise hard work and talent, especially when it reaches the main event level, but all good things, as they say, must come to an end.

At the Cow Palace, things took a dark turn. After Kenny Omega successfully

defended his IWGP Heavyweight title against Cody, the Firing Squad, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa and Haku destroyed The Elite. The last two down to make the save, Yujiro and Chase got a satisfyingly big pop but were also on the receiving end of a beating. They became members of the Bullet Club Elite but as the majority of the group failed to reign with New Japan, going on to form AEW, it left Chase and Yujiro out in the cold. They were in The Elite, but their allegiance remained with New Japan. When it came to World Tag League, Chase was also out of the picture. A clashed date with a US indie show kept him out of the tournament.

With the rest of The Elite gone, Chase and Yujiro were announced as returnees to Bullet Club, the pair had been the backbone of the group for a long time and it turned out in the storyline had been undercover agents, partly responsible for encouraging Cody, Kenny and The Bucks to leave, and now ready to take up their place in the Cut Throat Era. Another change would come in the fact that he signed a contract, no longer the subject of tour-to-tour bookings, New Japan saw him as a vital part of their company and treated him accordingly.

He was announced for the New Japan Cup, in his first appearance in the tournament and in the first round he went up against IWGP US Heavyweight Champion Juice Robinson and won.

With style. He would go out in the second round, but a clean pin on a champion in New Japan usually ensures a title shot, Chase would make his challenge a few nights later, laying Juice out with a chair. They are set to meet at the New Japan Cup final night on March 24th. A major singles title match on one of the biggest shows of the year, not bad for a guy who ground his way into the spotlight and looks determined to stay there. Rocky Romero called him “The little engine that could.� On the Art of Wrestling Podcast, but now he is in the upper echelon, he has found his natural home.

DDP

“IT’S OKAY TO WANT TO BE RICH AND FAMOUS. YOU JUST CAN’T WANT IT FIRST.”

Interview:

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e’ve seen many professional wrestlers find successful careers after their days in the ring come to an end. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has gone onto become the biggest star in Hollywood, Mick Foley has written books and done stand up shows, but there is arguably no former wrestler who has helped as many people change their life for the better than former WCW champion Diamond Dallas Page. Not only did he help change the life of Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, but he has also now partnered with the NFL Alumni to work with retired football players.

Kent is friends with a guy named Kyle Richardson who played for the Ravens for about seven or eight years, and Kent was telling him about the program, and he loved it.

And I always say, it’s not about who you know, it’s about who is willing to say they know you.

Stop all the negativity. When Jake did his Hall of Fame speech, he said he wasted a lot of his youth, and so it was all about getting him to stop beating himself up. So he went from saying “I’m a loser” to “my history is not my destiny,” and there is a whole chapter on that.

So Kyle tried it, and he told me that it would be amazing for all the retired guys on the Alumni.

Kyle phoned Bart Oates, who is the president of the overall Alumni, and next thing you know, I’m on the phone with him. But it took over a year though, figuring out how we’re going to do this. I didn’t want any money out of it; just having the affiliation is huge for me. If you can make a difference on the level we do, it’s pretty rewarding.

Now with DDPY, they’re not just getting the DVD’s, the DDPY App, the cooking shows, and the motivational Monday’s, but I wanted to give them a workbook. All my successful people did what I told them to do, that’s why I use Arthur and Stacey as an example, normal people who went from dark places to positive places. It all comes down to the story we tell ourselves from A to Z and explaining how you do it in your everyday lives. That’s really why I wrote it.

In an exclusive interview with VultureHound, Dallas Page discusses DDPY’s new partnership with the NFL Alumni, his new book Positively Unstoppable, and his thought process behind writing the book. He also delves into Cody Rhodes career, AEW, and Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch. DDP pulled out all the stops to ensure VultureHound, and its readers feel the “bang!”

Before you started to work on Positively Unstoppable, did you look around and see all the other wrestling autobiographies and think, “I want to do something different?”

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You announced DDPY’s partnership with the NFL Alumni, how did that come about?

Oh, man, I’ve been working on it for so long. More than anything, it’s putting it out there in the universe that I want to work with the guys that are beat the f**k up (laughs).

I try to take care of all those guys.

Anybody who put their body on the line for the fans whether it’s football players or country singers, I try to do it. So a good friend of mine,

I didn’t really think about the other wrestling books because there have been so many of them, and my original one, Positively Page, was one of the first wrestling autobiographies. I had to do some memoirs throughout Positively Unstoppable because I’m using examples of overcoming adversity.

I brainstorm so much of my stuff with my business partner Steve Yu, who is the director of The Resurrection of Jake The Snake Roberts, and one of the main things we said is let’s use Jake and Scott Hall.

With Jake and Scott, I was trying to get them to stop living in the past.

One of the things that is great about the book is it’s so simple; anyone can follow it and benefit from reading it. Especially the story where you detail an argument you had with your wife Brenda, and you tell her to change her mindset. It was incredible because it was so simple, and it makes you think.

I said to her you can literally change your mindset, and she said: “Bullshit, that’s crazy.” You really can do it, in an instant, but you have to want to do it. You have to change what you’re focusing on, and you have to stop telling yourself all that negative shit, and it can literally just go away (laughs).

But then you have to work on it. You have to put in the work, and I say that all the way through.

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DDP Like my boy, Cody Rhodes, doing something super special right now.

But I’ve been watching his whole life, I’m like the uncle (laughs), watching everything he’s doing.

When he was at All In, he had one of those weightlifting belts on, and on the back of it, he had four very important words: “Put. The. Work.

In.” The people that say they don’t have the time, it’s bullshit, stop going online, and get your shit done first.

Also, you had Mick Foley write the foreword, which was great.

But at this point, you could have chosen a lot of people to write that foreword. What led you to pick Mick over say, Jake or Chris Jericho?

You know, I tried to get Mick to do the program five times, and then, one day, he called me up out of the blue and told me that he didn’t want anyone to know yet, but he had been doing the program.

He was doing his own version of it because I always say make it your own, and he was down forty pounds. He said he wanted to lose fifty pounds and announce it on Austin’s show, and I told him that was awesome. Then he got to a hundred pounds down.

Mick had to change the story he told himself on such a different level. Mick is one of the smartest guys I know, I mean, brilliant. And it took him a long time, but then he got it. Chris Jericho never had to change the story he told himself.

He gets owning it at a different level (laughs). That would have been my second choice because Chris put me on the map, he gave me a different level of credibility with the boys, and I don’t forget that.

But I also thought Mick would be

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the most entertaining too, and I would have never guessed he would tell a story about going twenty-five years back in time and him talking to a ghost. What a creative way to do it, I think it’s one of the best forewords I’ve ever read.

Rey Mysterio, that man is still moving like he’s twenty years old. But he said on a recent podcast with Lillian Garcia he talked to you about DDPY on the Jericho Cruise, has he reached out to you yet?

He is a phenom. I don’t know how he’s able to do what he is doing, and I know he is sore because we talked about it. I set him up with the app, I don’t know how much he is doing it, I don’t know, but he’s a freak of nature. Eventually, I’m going to get all of them, all the guys who are willing to put the work in. And Rey’s one of those guys, but he’s just so busy. So we’ll see. I love watching that kid work, but he’s not even a kid anymore, he’s in his forties (laughs).

All Elite Wrestling, they’re already making big moves in the world of wrestling. The All In crew is taking over; they’ve signed Chris Jericho and PAC. It’s early days, of course, but what do you think we can expect from AEW in a year or a few years time?

You know it’s interesting because I did an interview with Cody a little over a year ago, and I just wanted to bring people up to speed with where he was at and what he was doing. Also, I wanted to give him Dusty’s coat, which Dusty gave to me. And it’s really amazing how much his life changed over that one year. This year, we did it again. I did a motivational Monday on my DDPY app with Cody, and it was pieces of our interview, and it was looking at how much your life can change in one year when you’re owning it.

He’s one of the guys I watch, and Drew McIntyre’s one of my boys. I have to watch his stuff. He’s a great kid, does my program religiously.

Once he hurt himself, he called me and asked me to set him up with the app. I told him he needs to come up here and spend some time with me. So he started doing it, and then he came up, and he was blown away by how much I just tweaked everything and helped take it to a different level.

Cody has been around me since he was eight years old, and I don’t mean around like we just say “hey, how are you doing?” I’ve been mentoring him for f*****g twenty years. He’s one of my favourite people on the planet. So seeing what they have done, and how it’s all come together over this last year has been amazing. It was so cool to be backstage at All In and watching him talk to the boys before the show and telling them to have fun.

He’d hear people out if they had an idea, but he told them how to do it because he had a vision.

He actually drove seven and a half hours to work out with me. Stayed with me for five hours, turned around and drove seven and a half hours back. That’s the kind of work ethic McIntyre has.

He and I spoke before All In; we talked about how it might be his one chance to do a show like that.

Obviously, that’s not the case now.

It’s turned into this thing with Tony Khan, and they are doing something

that is ridiculously extraordinary.

They’ve got their Double or Nothing show, and I think they have another show planned, and they are working on their TV show. I don’t know exactly where that is right now; we help him shoot videos that he needs because our quality is so high. We help him do that, just because he’s my boy.

I don’t get involved any more than just being a sounding board for him. I think there is a lot of potential there, but it will all come down to what the TV looks like.

The biggest thing for him is the fans, and keeping that one on one relationship, and having that interaction with them. That’s going to be interesting to watch as they move forward because as they get bigger and bigger, then it’s tough to be so relatable. So far, he’s a hundred percent relatable.

Becky Lynch has taken the wrestling world by storm, and she’s even going toe to toe with John Cena, and everyone is behind the idea of Lynch vs. Ronda main eventing WrestleMania this year. Do you think that’s the match that needs to be in the main event?

Well, I think there’s no bigger draw than Ronda (laughs). I heard her say in an interview one time that everything in her life prepared her for this (wrestling), and Becky can go out there and have a hell of a match with her. She (Becky) is like a female Jake Roberts. She has all the tools. She’s got an amazing look.

Has all the tools in the ring, and she is believable as a son of a b***h, but she can also make her opponent look unbelievable. Ronda’s still finding her way, she’s doing very

well, and she’s going to be amazing.

So I think they can carry it, but they never do one main event at WrestleMania anyway, there is always a couple of them. It’s not all on one match. But when it was Rock vs. Hogan - that was the main event (laughs). When it was Austin and Rock - that was the match. But since then, they’ve spent a lot of time having a couple of featured matches because they have such a big talent pool. But they could absolutely be one of the main events at Mania.

We mentioned Ronda Rousey.

You were one of the few that really went out of your way to tell everyone she was going to deliver at last year’s WrestleMania. How satisfying is it for you to see where she is now?

She’s a world class athlete. And she didn’t just come in and think, “Oh, I think I’ll wrestle now.” She’s a fan.

So when you grow up a fan and you use the moniker of ‘Rowdy’ that was made famous by Roddy Piper, and Roddy gives you his blessing to use the name, that’s something.

So I knew she had all that in her.

And again, work ethic at a different level. And I’m really surprised her husband, Travis Browne is not down at the WWE performance centre, because he loves wrestling too.

He’s money. He actually sent me a picture a few months ago of him and Ronda doing DDPY in the ring.

Her whole Four Horsewomen do the program. They’ll put up videos of them doing DDPY. Those girls at the P.C work so hard and I was really excited to see Lacey Evans get the call up to the main roster. We became good friends, and I mentor her, she does the program all the time. I have so much respect for what these girls are doing.

The bottom line is after all this time, everything we’ve been doing, it’s finally taking off. There is a quote that I use which says: “It’s okay to want to be rich and famous.

You just can’t want it first.” There is a lot of work that goes into being rich and famous. It’s the message that I try to put out there, just put the work in, keep moving forward, and anything is possible.

Positively Unstoppable is now available in Hardcover, Kindle, and Audio format

APRIL 2019 STEELCHAIR 33

GO-HOME SHOW

WORDS: ALAN BOON | PHOTO: NJPW

GO-HOME SHOW WITH ALAN BOON t’s rare that a wrestling company changes the whole industry before they’ve even done a show, but All Elite Wrestling (which, let’s get this out of the way, is a terrible name for a wrestling promotion) have turned the wrestling business on its head.

Sure, the people behind AEW (which, again, is a terrible initialism) knocked it out of the park with last year’s All-In show in Chicago, but all we’ve seen so far, officially, from the promotion is a bunch of press conferences. That’s been enough, though, to cause ripples right across worldwide graps.

AEW is the brainchild of The Elite – Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks – and Cody Runnels. Eager to explore their freedom after leaving New Japan Pro-Wrestling, they’ve found a wrestling fan with lots of money in Tony Khan, and thus a promotion was born. Wrestling Fans With Lots Of Money are an industry staple.

They don’t tend to stay Wrestling Fans With Lots Of Money for long, because the quickest way to lose a million dollars is to try and start up a wrestling promotion.

Still, Tony Khan – who is backed by his dad, Shahid, who owns both Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC – seems know enough about business and professional wrestling to stand a chance of not losing his fortune, having subscribed to The Wrestling Observer for his whole life – the graps equivalent of a degree in finance. Which he also has.

AEW’s first show will be in Las Vegas

I

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in May, called Double Or Nothing, and sold out its 12,000 seats in just FOUR minutes, with an estimated 43,000 people trying to get a ticket.

This is all for a promotion that doesn’t have a TV show, which has long been thought a prerequisite for a successful wrestling company, but which also betrays a thinking that is trapped in the twentieth century.

AEW’s real impact has been on its competitors, with the major players having to make some unreasonable adjustments to their business models to try and counter the effect of the upstart company. The rump of AEW’s talent came from New Japan, and although the wrestlers were keen to stay involved in NJPW alongside starting AEW, the political landscape of the business meant that couldn’t happen. New Japan has an US affiliate – Ring of Honor – and the way business is done in Japan means that they would rather eat shit than renege on a deal.

So New Japan lost some of its top talent, but more importantly they lost most of their drawing cards for their US expansion. The realisation that The Elite were not going to be a part of the joint NJPW/ROH show at Madison Square Garden led to 4000 tickets being offered on the secondary market, almost 25% of the capacity of the famous old venue, and first day ticket sales for July’s G1 Climax opener in Dallas – an actual, proper New Japan show, with matches that actually mean something – topped out at just 1500.

All that is before you factor in the rushed ascendance of Jay White to the IWGP title, playing a role that was written for Kenny Omega,

but without the Canadian’s unique charisma.

Among US companies, AEW’s major effect has been on contracts. Ring of Honor have made some quite strange signings, eager to tie up some – any!

– kind of talent that has any buzz, and has leant on its relationship with Mexico’s CMLL – the third point of a triangle with New Japan – to ensure that Major League Wrestling doesn’t get access to the top Mexican wrestlers.

Further up the scale, WWE has begun signing a ton of talent to its developmental outfits, with Trevor Lee, ACH, and even Stokely Hathaway joining the plethora of stars that have been stolen away from the indy wrestling circuit in the last two years. Furthermore, with a few notable exemptions, they are refusing to release unhappy wrestlers under WWE contract, for fear that they will become marketable for their competition, which AEW is clearly seen as.

AEW may turn out to be a damp squib. Wrestling history is littered with false starts, hilarious implosions, and sad fade-outs. But even if it does – and I wouldn’t bet on that, at least not in the shortto-medium term – they’ve made a massive impact by just threatening to exist. If that changes the business for the better – and at the top level, we’re probably just talking about forcing Vince McMahon to care about his product and wrestlers for fear of decent competition, then it’s a Very Good Thing. I can’t say I’ll be watching every AEW show, but I’ll be silently cheering them on from the sidelines.

m o r f w o n r e d r o m o .c l e t r a c g i .b d vulturehoun