Various: Santana & Ortiz on Turning Down WWE Deal, Tokyo Sports 2019 Awards, Indies

Santana & Ortiz Comments on Turning Down WWE Deal and Signing with AEW

Chris Van Vliet held a recent interview with Santana & Ortiz and one of the topics discussed included their reasons for turning down WWE’s contract offer and signing with All Elite Wrestling instead.

Ortiz – “We were about to turn down WWE. We sat down and didn’t want to burn a bridge. We never want to burn a bridge anywhere because that’s not how we do business. [Santana] had this whole spiel, ‘This is what we’re gonna say so we don’t burn a bridge.’ We go, we get cut off, and they’re like, ‘Listen, really think about your decision.’ We stop, hang up the phone, and are about to turn them down but it’s like ‘Damn, they’re really making this hard for us.”

Santana – “Pretty much they were like, ‘Write your own ticket and we’ll make it happen.”

Ortiz – “Before [AEW] was a thing, we were already in talks with [WWE]. We were either gonna stay in IMPACT, we might go to WWE or maybe Ring of Honor. In our head, we made a good amount of noise in IMPACT, but I feel like we needed to bring up our name a little more. We can go to WWE and cash it in now, but I feel like maybe we bring up our name value more and be more wanted by them. They were interested enough to offer us something and we had people there pulling for us to bring us in. But I feel like we would have got lost in the shuffle. When we first got the offer, it was like, ‘We’re not going to get into a bidding war with anyone.’ Then it was ultimately, ‘Alright, what do you want?’ It was only because of AEW. Honestly, the ultimate decision was, do we want to be apart of something that’s already establish or do we want to be apart of something new and make history. No matter what happens with AEW, we will always be apart of the first ever main event on the first ever television of AEW. Do we want to be apart of history or fade into black? Best case scenario, we’re going to be small fish in an ocean. There’s so many people [in WWE], it was gonna be an uphill battle. Not saying we wouldn’t be able to do it, but we could be apart of history and change. It’s changing wrestling for the better. No matter what happens with [AEW], it’s changing wrestling for the better.”

Full interview:

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Tokyo Sports Announces Winners of Their 2019 Wrestling Awards

Tokyo Sports announced the full list of winners for their annual wrestling awards earlier this week. For the fourth time in his career, Kazuchika Okada took Tokyo Sports’ top honor of MVP of the Year.

New Japan Pro Wrestling won the most awards at three, followed by All Japan Pro Wrestling with two awards, and Stardom, Pro Wrestling NOAH, and Dragon Gate with one award each.

Full list of Tokyo Sports 2019 Awards:

• MVP: Kazuchika Okada (NJPW)
• Best Bout: Kazuchika Okada vs. SANADA – NJPW King of Pro Wrestling 2019
• Best Tag Team: Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa (AJPW)
• Outstanding Performance: Kento Miyahara (AJPW)
• Fighting Spirit: Kaito Kiyomiya (Pro Wrestling NOAH)
• Technique: Kota Ibushi (NJPW)
• Rookie: Strong Machine J (Dragon Gate)
• Women: Mayu Iwatani (Stardom)

English translation via @STRIGGA

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Former WWWF wrestler Rene Goulet reportedly passed away this past May at 86 years old, according to The Cauliflower Alley Club. Prior to yesterday’s official announcement, Goulet’s family had remained quiet regarding his passing with not even WWE being informed ahead of time.

The National Wrestling Alliance released a new episode of their Ten Pounds of Gold series on YouTube featuring the upcoming NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship match between James Storm and Nick Aldis at their Into the Fire event this Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia.

Major League Wrestling announced that they have recently officially signed Matt Ryan to a backstage producer job in the company. Prior to his hiring, Ryan worked at MLW’s Opera Cup 2019 event last week and was also the co-founder of Capitol Wrestling.

Impact Wrestling announced two new matches for the card of their Hard to Kill event on January 12, 2020 in Dallas, Texas:
– Impact World Tag Team Championship – Rich Swann & Willie Mack vs. The North (Josh Alexander & Ethan Page) (c)
– Michael Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards