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A PUNK RETURN, TALENTS OUT THERE FOR PROMOTIONS TO SIGN, INTERVIEWING ULTIMATE WARRIOR, DOCUMENTARIES AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2018-12-07 10:00:00

With Roman and Braun out, how long before WWE makes the call for CM Punk to return?

That's a hell of a bridge to rebuilt.  I haven't heard ANYTHING about those two sides having any sort of communication, much less Punk being interested in returning to work for them.

Earlier this week I found myself watching a lot of old wrestling on You Tube.  Man how I miss the days of old WCW (late 80’s) World Class, and Memphis wrestling territories. Talk about great stories.  Anyway, I ran across a video interview with Warrior (I guess that is what his name was then).  Where he pretty much buried WCW and his WCW run.   Is this you doing the interview?  It sure does sound like you.  When is this from?  What's the story here?

It was indeed me interviewing Warrior.  The interview took place in October 2004.  RIngside Collectibles hired me to interview Warrior and the content is theirs.  It was an interesting night, to say the least and I think about it every time I am in Times Square and walk past the hotel where it was filmed.  What I remember is that Warrior was very tired when we filmed as his flight had been delayed 2-3 hours from Arizona and every time we took  a break, he retired to another room to call his family.  He was nothing but gracious during the shoot, even when we challenged each other during the interview.  He asked for my contact information afterwards, but never reached out.  

That interview was actually the second time I interviewed Warrior, by the way.  The first time was for this website, during which he yelled at me that he would never be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.  We all know how THAT worked out!

Ring of Honor is hiring a bunch of new talent lately.  Who would you like to see get a try?

There are a ton of great talents out there who I'd love to see get hired somewhere and be given a chance, including Bandido, Flamita, Luke Hawx, Ace Austin, Papadon, John Silver, Alex Reynolds, Leyla Hirsh, Randy Summers, Brandon Watts, Josh Briggs, Mike Verna, Penelope Ford, JT Dunn, David Starr, Buku Dao, EC Negro, Matt Lancie, BLK OUT, MJF, Stokely Hathaway, Wheeler Yuta, Skylar and Matt Tremont who could all fill different roles and different characters for promotions - and those are just American talents off the top of my head.  You add in the European scene, Canadian wrestlers, etc. and the overall list becomes larger.  

 There's probably about 100 others I could name off the top of my head.  There's an incredible wealth of names out there who haven't even been tapped on a larger scale, some veterans who have slipped through the cracks and some young and upcoming fresh talents.  That's why when people lose their minds over talents signing with larger companies, I don't understand why they worry. 

There's always going to be a new generation of names coming up and what happens is that when something gets hot, it inspires others to want to get involved.  ROH inspired people to get in the business.  I think the current women's division has inspired a lot of women to get into the business.  I think All In inspired people to want to get involved.  I am pretty excited about the next generation.  I just hope that some of them seek out the veterans and elders to help them learn some of the things that worked in the past to get people over, because that stuff can still work as well.  But, there's always going to be talent who develop and  sign, whether that be ROH or elsewhere.

It's been awhile since we've seen a great wrestling documentary.  What would the subject be for the next great one if it was up to you?

I've heard rumblings of a Roddy Piper documentary being worked on.  If that is true, that would be my pick.  I think he has an incredible life story and while a lot of it meshes with the crazy fiction of his life and character, he's certainly a worthy subject.  If I had to pick one subject, it would be Piper or Terry Funk.  I'd love to see someone do one on Funk's acting roles.

I see they are selling sessions for AXXESS here in Phoenix.  What does this mean?  What constitutes the session?  One autograph?

When you buy a ticket to AXXESS, unless its a VIP ticket, there's  no guarantee of any autographs.  The session is just that - admission into the event from start to finish for that session.  On Saturday, there are three sessions, so you would need to buy three tickets.  

I saw my local Barnes & Noble is selling signed copies of the Shinsuke Nakamura book.  It's not a WWE book, so how did they get these signed?

In asking around, I was told the publisher came to terms with WWE for Nakamura to sign 500 copies of the book.

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