Various: Tony Khan on WWE Contacting AEW for Documentary Projects, Sat. NJPW Strong Card, Indies

AEW

Dec 10, 2021

Tony Khan Comments on WWE Contacting AEW to Use Their Talent for Documentary Projects

A recent episode of My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox podcast had AEW CEO Tony Khan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan revealing that WWE recently contacted him and AEW over being able to potentially use AEW talent for their upcoming documentaries projects.

“I heard from them recently. They were doing a lot of biographies and they wanted to use some of the people here and I think that’s the thing, it’s probably going to come out sooner or later in interviews, or they want to interview some of the people that wrestle here that used to wrestle there, and some people that have had a history in [promotions with] the other libraries that they own. So we’ll see, you know, I think — I’m open to talking. I heard from them and they were very nice.
We’ve heard from [WWE] a couple of other times. We did the thing last year — Chris Jericho did the thing with Steve Austin. That made sense to me because of Steve. I trust Steve and Chris completely. Steve’s a friend of mine.
As long as everything’s classy, and this, the way they approached me was very classy. So I have nothing bad to say about that. I don’t know if we’ll see that competition head-to-head, but I am considering some of these requests on some of these biographies. It was actually a very nice call I received the other day, but I’ve never actually talked to Vince himself.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Full Card for Saturday’s Episode of NJPW Strong

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced the full card for this Saturday’s Detonation Night 2 themed episode of NJPW Strong, which airs on New Japan World starting at 8PM EST.

Jonathan Gresham vs. Gabriel Kidd
Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors, & Ren Narita vs. United Empire (Will Ospreay, TJP, & Jeff Cobb)
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Brody King

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Former wrestler Blackjack Lanza, real name Jack Lanza, passed away this past Wednesday at the age of 86. Lanza was most known for being one half of the legendary tag team The Blackjacks with Blackjack Mulligan. Lanza’s career in wrestling spanned from 1961 to 1985 and included notable stints in American Wrestling Association, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Association, WWWF, and Georgia Championship Wrestling. Following his in-ring career retirement in 1985, Lanza worked as a backstage agent for WWE during the late 1980s and was their lead agent during the company’s iconic Attitude Era in the late 1990s.

Major League Wrestling recently announced that they will be debuting their new Azteca mini-series starting on January 6th on MLW’s YouTube channel and on January 8th on beIN Sports.

MLW also announced that All Japan Pro Wrestling talents Jun and Rei Saito will be making an appearance for the company at their Blood & Thunder event on January 21, 2022 in Dallas, Texas.

Tokyo Sports reported that Stardom generated their highest ever profits for a fiscal quarter at 200 million yen ($1.75 million) for their 2021 fiscal first quarter, which took place from July to September 2021. (English translation via PostWrestling.com)

During a recent interview with the Wrestling Observer Live, New Japan Pro Wrestling talent Gabriel Kidd revealed that he recently graduated from NJPW’s Young Lions system and is currently on excursion in the United States.

Pro Wrestling Guerilla recently announced that Kevin Blackwood and Lio Rush are the next set of official competitors for their upcoming Battle of Los Angeles 2022 tournament, which takes place on January 29-30, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

Fozzy recently announced that they have cancelled a concert that was originally scheduled to take place tonight in Swansea, Wales due to Chris Jericho recently feeling sick with a non-COVID-19 illness.

Beyond Wrestling reportedly will be ending their current season of Uncharted Territory at the end of this month and will be launching a new promotion on January 6, 2022, according to BodySlam.net. Cassidy Haynes reported that the current plan from Beyond’s owner Drew Cordeiro is for this new promotion to replace their Uncharted Territory series and for talent to be paid a portion of the gate from shows but no longer receive guaranteed pay as a trade-off for their contracts.

DDT Pro Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their Never Mind event on December 26th in Yoyogi, Japan: