Various: Virgil Health Update, Tetsuya Naito on His Absence from Forbidden Door Event, Indies

WWE

Jul 5, 2022

Virgil Health Status Update

As noted before, former wrestler Virgil, real name Michael Jones, revealed earlier this year that he was diagnosed with dementia and stage two colon cancer. Virgil also revealed that he had recently suffered two strokes.

K & S WrestleFest held a recent virtual fan signing event with Virgil as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Virgil providing an update on the current status of his health.

“My shoulders get cramped all up, and you just can’t lift your arms all the way up like you usually do, and I think it comes from like… I took all my shots and stuff so I don’t really know where it really came from… Signing, your arms get tired.
Yeah [I’m feeling good]. I still work out with my little dumbbells. Got 45-pound dumbbells… little easy crowbar so [I] can still work out with it. But you still take your vitamins and stuff and take about three bottles of water a day.”

Virgil also gave his thoughts about those who badmouth Olive Garden and their cuisine.

“Those jerkoffs don’t know. They didn’t go to Olive Garden to do no eating. Go to Olive Garden, spend about a hundred dollars and you get some — about four big containers of meat sauce and you spread it all over that nice spaghetti right there and you have about 15 breadsticks. That’s all you need and your belly gonna grumble. It’s gonna growl.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

Tetsuya Naito Comments on His Absence from AEW & NJPW’s Forbidden Door Event

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Tetsuya Naito recently released a new article on NJPW’s official NJPW Diary website. In the article, Naito stated that the reason for his absence from AEW and NJPW’s Forbidden Door event last month was due to nobody had invited him for the show.

“Unfortunately I was not invited to the “AEW x NJPW” show that is being talked about all over the place. Not invited = not needed. Right? Because of that frustration, I haven’t watched any footage of this show. I’m genuinely upset about it.”

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling recently announced that they have pulled Willow Nightingale from the card of their Summer Sun Princess ’22 event due to visa-related issues. It was also announced that Ryo Mizunami will be replacing Nightingale for her scheduled match against Miu Watanabe at the event.

Major League Wrestling announced that they have recently signed a new television contract with Ayozat TV to air their programming weekly on the network in the United Kingdom starting on July 6th.

Lina Fanene, former Nia Jax in WWE, recently stated on Twitter that she is currently upset with Wrestling Entertainment Series for continuing to advertise her for their rescheduled debut event on July 9th in Nottingham, England despite her pulling out of the event.

Masked Republic announced that they have recently launched a Lucha Libre Agency to help manage indies bookings and deals for select Mexican-based lucha wrestlers.

Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced that they have pulled the scheduled GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match off the card of their Destination 2022 event on July 16th in Tokyo, Japan due to Chris Ridgeway currently dealing with visa-related issues. Prior to the announcement, Ridgeway and Yoshinari Ogawa had been scheduled to defend their tag titles against Eita and Kotaro Suzuki at the event.

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced that KUSHIDA and El Desperado will be making an appearance at their NJPW Strong themed High Alert event on July 24th in Charlotte, North Carolina.

AEW recently announced that Chris Jericho will be making a special guest appearance on the July 7th episode of Impractical Jokers on TruTV.

Starrcast recently announced a new match for the card of Ric Flair’s Last Match event on July 31st in Nashville, Tennessee: