Various: Brian Gewirtz on Tales from the Territories, Amazing Red on Canadian Destroyer Origin, Indies

Aug 25, 2022

Brian Gewirtz on Creation of Vice TV’s Upcoming Tales From The Territories Series

As noted before, VICE TV announced earlier this month that a new wrestling-based television series called Tales from the Territories will debut on their network this October.

VICE.com held a recent interview with Seven Bucks Productions’ Senior Vice President of Creative Development and former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz. One of the topics discussed included Gewirtz’s thoughts on the process that led to the creation of the new series.

“I was always a big fan of documentaries. I remember my friends wanting to see, you know, Lethal Weapon 2, and I wanted to see the new Errol Morris movie. And Dwayne’s a big documentary fan too. He tweeted about Dark Side of the Ring, and obviously, he’s a huge fan of it, and I was like, “I like that show too. Let’s meet Evan and Jason, the creators of that show.” We clicked right away, because we’re all huge, huge, wrestling fans, and we’re all huge documentary fans. After talking to Dwayne about it, we were like, “How do we take the success of Dark Side of the Ring and translate it into another docuseries but not focus on the dark of it?” There’s also so many great, crazy, fun stories, especially with the territories in the 70s and 80s. Each region had its own empire, basically, and so many of these amazing stories are only known within wrestling circles and inner circles. With Dwayne having his dad and his grandfather as wrestlers, and having been both in the Hall of Fame, and his grandmother being the first female promoter in Hawaii, he is instilled with the stories of the territories.
I helped Evan and Jason based on my relationships with some of the wrestlers. I reached out to one of my heroes and one of Dwayne’s heroes as well, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, because we needed him if we were going to do an episode on the Calgary Stampede territory. And part of the reason he wanted to come on the show was because we got Abdullah the Butcher to be on the show—there’s not nearly enough television shows with Abdullah the Butcher talking. There’s so many legends that I was fortunate enough to have a relationship with at WWE, and then to see them outside the WWE environment without restrictions… I was lucky enough also to be at the tapings of those roundtables. Yes, I’m on headset, and I have a run sheet in front of me and everything, but for the most part, I’m just a fan leaning back and being like, ‘This is so cool.'”

Amazing Red on Origin of the Canadian Destroyer

Indie wrestler and former Impact Wrestling talent Amazing Red held a recent Ask Me Anything session on Reddit. One of the topics discussed included Red revealing that the creation of his Canadian Destroyer was entirely by accident during a match he had with Joel Maximo.

“Yes, it was a mistake move with Joel Maximo (because I wanted to do everything into a flip .. flipping powerbomb, flipping piledriver, flipping DDT) Then later on Quiet Storm perfected it with me. He did it in the ROH shows with me (that’s where Chris Sabin saw it and gave it to Petey Williams) Petey made it cool tho for sure.”

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Former National Wrestling Alliance President Howard Brody reportedly passed away this past Wednesday, according to PWInsider. Mike Johnson reported that Brody’s cause of death was due to an infection he suffered from a recent quadruple bypass surgery.

Game Changer Wrestling announced that Jonathan Gresham will be making an appearance for the company at their Shooting Star event on September 23rd in Los Angeles, California.

Stardom recently revealed the official design for their upcoming new IWGP Women’s Championship.

Pro Wrestling NOAH recently announced that fans will be allowed to verbally cheer at their October 30th event in Ariake, Japan. It was also announced that social distancing and other COVID-19 precautions will be followed at this upcoming event. This will be NOAH’s first event in the past two and a half years to allow verbal cheering from those in attendance.

Wrestling commentator Lenny Leonard recently announced on Twitter that he will be stepping away from his wrestling career due to personal-related reasons.

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced that they have pulled Alex Coughlin from their upcoming Burning Spirit tour in Japan due to Coughlin still needing more time to rehab from his left leg injury. It was also announced that The DKC will be Coughlin’s replacement for this upcoming tour of events.

NJPW also announced four new matches for the card of their Autumn Action event on September 11th in Las Vegas, Nevada:

Tomohiro Ishii vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor
Homicide, Wheeler Yuta, & Eddie Kingston vs. Jay White & The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson)
Rocky Romero vs. Shingo Takagi
Blake Christian & Mascara Dorada vs. Mistico & Alex Zayne

DDT Pro Wrestling General Manager Hisaya Imabayashi recently announced that he will be leaving the company at the end of this year. Imabayashi stated that the official reason is due to the difficulties of having to take care of his elderly parents while continuing his regular duties for the company. (English translation via PostWrestling.com)

DDT Pro Wrestling also recently announced a new match for the card of their September 25th event in Tokyo, Japan: