Select Portions: AEW/Indies, Smackdown Notes, More

- We’ve had questions regarding AEW and indie dates. We haven’t heard of AEW reducing indie dates, but with the expanded schedule on the horizon, many AEW talent could be more active within the company on weekends, leading to less indie dates.

- Malakai Black had a travel issue that contributed to not making the Water City Wrestling Con and ACW show in Wisconsin. Swoggle, who runs the company, told the crowd Black wouldn't take a later flight after his initial one was delayed

- LWO are scheduled for Smackdown, though they’re not advertised. They’re at least slated for a backstage segment.

- Karrion Kross & Scarlett are to continue the Shinsuke Nakamura feud tonight.

- Fightful’s In The Weeds is interviewing indie wrestler Josh Bishop today at NOON ET.

- OTT did a podcast about having AEW talent pulled from their show, and passed along the following transcript:

In regards to this podcast, Joe reached out to fans earlier in the week in a fan Facebook group and asked for questions for the upcoming interview.

When asked at the start of the show by Aonghus McAnally “How are you” Joe said “I’m good, since Scrappermania has been done and completed I rested up and recovered from the trauma”. On top of all the drama surrounding the shows which we will touch on, OTT produced 3 shows that weekend, Friday in Wolverhampton, Saturday in Dublin in the National Boxing Stadium, a 2200 seater venue, and Sunday in Belfast. When asked about producing these 3 shows and undertaking such a massive task, Aonghus asked simply “Are You mad” Joe replied “I like the challenge. But yes I’m a little bit crazy, I always say I think you have to be a little bit crazy to be involved in the wrestling business.”

The show had a lot of, hiccups if you want to call them that. Firstly, Scrappermania is one of the 2 biggest shows in Ireland each year, the other being OTT’s anniversary show usually in October/November. In 2020, just 3 days before the show, the country went into lockdown due to COVID and the show unfortunately had to be cancelled. That show had Jon Moxley, as the reigning AEW champion at the time headlining. This was the redemption show. The managed to secure Moxley back after 3 years of waiting. However, a month out from the show, after OTT announced Moxley on their show, sold tickets on the back of his booking, and meet and greets to fans, AEW announced a series of House shows. The first of which would take place on March 18th in Troy, Ohio, the same day as OTT Scrappermania, and at the top of the bill “Ohio’s Own Jon Moxley”.

Following on from that a couple of weeks later, Joe Cabray announced that unfortunately Moxley would not be on the show but AEW had promised 2 replacement talents. Those talents were Pac and Eddie Kingston. Eddie had unfortunately had to pull out of OTT shows previously in January due to the Funeral of Jay Briscoe being on the same weekend. However, on the day of the first show in Wolverhampton, the 17th March, OTT released that Eddie would not be able to attend the shows due to contracting COVID, and that he was currently isolating. There was much speculation at the time among wrestling fans and media if this was legitimate.

But the fun didn’t end there for OTT and Joe Cabray. OTT, which turned out to be a very unfortunate circumstance, had Davey Richards booked for their 3 shows that weekend. While show number 1 in Wolverhampton on the 17th of March was underway, news was starting to break around the world that Davey Richards had been released from his school and other promotions, due to some unsavoury acts in his personal life. Joe was then forced to make the decision, to cut Davey from the remaining shows that weekend.

Quotes:

Aonghus:

So the first one and maybe most controversial one but let’s get in and do it straight away. How do you feel about the way AEW handled the Moxley Situation, and Is there a chance of booking Eddie Kingston again as he seems to always miss overseas bookings, such as Progress this weekend, but I’m not gonna comment on that. But talk to me about how you feel AEW handled the Mox situation.

Joe:

I think like everyone, I woke up that morning and had 20, 25 screenshots of the poster, and people saying have you seen this? I reached out to Moxley and he was like, you know were gonna sort this out and from that time it just seemed to take forever. When it became apparent that he was gonna have to pull, it just again dragged on and dragged on for replacements. At the same time, I completely understand you’ve fans travelling to these shows from even outside of Ireland, and they’re asking questions. And they want answers which is completely understandable, but you don’t have the answers because its just dragging. I suppose I can see it from AEW’s point, you know, they’re paying the contract, but at the same time we’re an independent company with a business class flight of €9,000 booked. We are, booked already hotels, paid internal flights, paid hotels, work visas. You’re kind of looking at it as an advertisement saying, we’re pretty deep in this.

Getting replacements as well, you know, it was what it was. But at the same point we’ve spoken to Delta. Delta have allowed us flight credit in Jon Moxley’s name until December 31st 2023 I think. So we spoke to AEW, AEW kind of, they understand that it was a bad situation for all involved, they’ve expressed about making it up to us. I’ve good faith in AEW that they’re gonna come right and do some sort of makeup, whatever that may be. That’s where it stands, I’d be quite hopeful as well.

Aonghus:

That’s what I was gonna ask, am I allowed hope Joe? Am I allowed hope? If the credit is still, you know, December 31st this year. If you were a betting man, are we saying chances are good?

Joe:

As I said, I think my faith in AEW is good. They understand there was a lot of money just dropped on this. And then you have the Eddie Kinston situation, which is just more money just dropped. Which is no reflection of AEW, but you know, I think I’ve said it, it was probably the most stressful time of my life.

Aonghus:

Yeh, and a tough pill to swallow with Eddie. A replacement, a guy who has been a fan favourite here in OTT. To lose him at the last minute was a tough one.

Joe:

Eddie is, I love Eddie, and I think he’s always been an absolute pleasure to have in the locker room. You would never hear people speaking badly about Eddie. And I can kind of understand the January issue, of having to pull. But I’m gonna say, I don’t believe the COVID test failure 2 hours before he is supposed to get on a flight. I just don’t buy it. And that was a real tough one, because Eddie is supposed to be the make up (For Moxley and for his missing appearance in January) to the fans, and he pulls literally less than 24 hours before the show. I don’t know what’s going on with Eddie; I know he has a hernia issue at the moment. I just hope that whatever is going on with him, you know, that he gets sorted. Will we bring him in again? I don’t think so, I calculated it again last night, I think we dropped €3,500 on lost flights, hotels, work visas. It’s just too much to try to justify tying it for a third time. It’s a lot of money to an independent wrestling company, to just drop €3,500 like that on someone.

Aonghus:

That’s a lot of tickets sold

Joe:

Yeh, lost flights, again lost work visas, lost hotels. It’s just too much you know. As I said I’ve always had a good relationship with Eddie and he’s always been a pleasure to have in the locker room. But I think that, that was a massive let down.