It’s been 20 years since Brian Pillman’s death so on today’s show Jericho welcomes Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer to discuss Pillman’s career.

Meltzer says he knew Pillman for many years, dating back to when Pillman began training and wrestling in Calgary for the Hart family’s ‘Stampede Wrestling’. Even during that time Meltzer knew that Pillman was going places, and Meltzer adds that up until Pillman’s death they still spoke fairly regularly.

Meltzer informs that Pillman quickly climbed the ranks and soon made his way to WCW where he would begin tagging with Steve Austin as the Hollywood Blondes. Austin wasn’t overly excited about that pairing at first because he was a fairly successful singles competitor, and he looked at this as a demotion. Eventually they developed fantastic chemistry and became a great team.

After some time WCW officials broke them up and Austin was the recipient of another singles run while Pillman was forgotten about. Pillman then hurt his back and became somewhat depressed. He knew at that time that he had to change his style because his injured back couldn’t keep up with the in ring work he was accustomed to.

The post Talk is Jericho Recap w/ Dave Meltzer – Remembering Brian Pillman, The Gun Segment, Drug Abuse & Untimely Death, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show by commenting on the horrific attack that occurred in New York 16 years ago today. He sends his thoughts and prayers to all the families affected during that tragedy, and all the first responders who are suffering today due to their heroic efforts that day.

Taz was still wrestling with WWE at the time and was stuck in Houston when the attacks occurred. His wife and young child were still in New York, and it was a very scary situation knowing he couldn’t get home to be with them. At first he couldn’t get in contact with his wife but finally he was able to reach her, and he took comfort in knowing his wife and son were okay.

He continues by saying that Vince McMahon wanted to use his private plane to fly some wrestlers from the New York area home so they could be with their families, but his jet wasn’t allowed to take off. Eventually planes started flying again and Taz knew he’d have to get to the airport very early to make it through the lines, but even though he was 4 or 5 hours early, the lines were still out through the airport doors.

While waiting in line Taz received a call from a WWE employee who told him that there was a seat available on a larger plane that Vince McMahon chartered, in order to ensure more people could get out of Houston and get closer to home in the Northeast. Taz was very thankful for that, and it’s something he’ll never forget.

The post The Taz Show Recap – Remembering 9/11, McMahon’s Kind Gesture, Triple H’s Creative vs. Vince McMahon’s Creative, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

The Hardy Boys spoke with Sport Bible for a new interview. Here are some highlights:

Matt on seeing Vince McMahon for the first time after returning: “It was cool, it was very quick – the first time we saw him [Vince] physically face-to-face was in ‘Gorilla Position’ right before we went out and it was ‘Hey, good to have you home, hug, hug’ and then it was out to the ring to go and partake in a ladder match.”

Their favorite TLC Match:

Jeff: “I would say the spear [from Edge], Wrestlemania 17 because I had always wanted to hang from those things that held those titles and we finally got to do it. Just to see that come from my mind to reality was breathtaking, and for it to be so good, it’s one of the biggest things that stands out to me – that spear. I would say [it is] one of my craziest stunts for sure because that was a pretty long fall, but then the Swanton I did on Randy Orton years ago back in about 08 or 09, it was like 32 or 33 feet – that was pretty massive so that’s up there with the swantons but all the TLC matches I hold dearly and always will.”

Matt: “I liked the first tag team ladder match we had, the first TLC match we had in theory was the triple threat ladder match at Wrestlemania in 2000 – it was a great match, it was a spectacle but looking back because I’m older, there’s a lot of things that bother me from a psychology standpoint but we were just three young teams, it was our first Wrestlemania and we went out there and they said ‘Don’t worry about time, timing’s not an issue, we know you guys are doing a ton of crazy things, don’t rush’. We were literally given a spot on Wrestlemania and told not to worry about time – that doesn’t happen, that’s not a real deal. That match was great, it was a spectacle and one of my favourites. Summerslam that year it got a little better, I thought it was strong from a storytelling and psychology standpoint, and then I thought Wrestlemania 17 was even better – I thought it continued to improve and evolve as we got better.”

Eventually working in singles competition:

Jeff: “I think the brotherly feuding might be over, I don’t think people really want to see us fight each other but when you think back to the beauty of the Final Deletion, if ever something like that comes into play again then that’s the only way I see us doing something like that but it’s inevitable that we’ll go do our solo things before we’re done but right now it’s all about the tag teams.”

Matt: “Speaking from my perspective, I think right now our goal, especially starting, coming back, being reintroduced to the WWE universe after being away for a substantial amount of time, really was to be a tag team – we became famous for being a tag team. I think down the road there will be a potential for both of us doing our own things; we’re both strong singles personalities in many ways, and I think as performers we’ve grown as we’ve got older; we’ve got smarter. Just for starters, if we get to where we need to be, I think ‘Broken’ Matt Hardy against Bray Wyatt would be an amazing deal, and you look at him [Jeff] – him vs Seth Rollins, him vs Finn Balor, either one of us vs Roman Reigns – there’s a lot of cool, interesting combinations of guys who became stars in the last five or six years that we’ve never worked against, it’s totally like a fresh slate. So there’s a lot of potential forces as singles competitors also.”

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Russo says that WWE’s brand split is ‘atrocious’ in his opinion. When he almost returned to WWE in 2002, the first thing he said to Vince McMahon was, ‘You have to get rid of the brand split”. Eventually WWE took Russo’s advice and eliminated the brand split, but now a decade later they’ve returned to this failed concept yet again.

When he worked for TNA, he told Dixie Carter on multiple occasions that there were several performers on the roster that didn’t deserve to be there. He never thought he’d be saying that about WWE, but all these years later that’s the situation he finds himself in.

Russo decided to do a list of the 30 names that he’d want to work with, if he was writing a wrestling television show today. All of these people are stars, have the ‘It’ factor, and deserve to be on National television, unlike a lot of today’s performers.

Brock Lesnar & John Cena – He says that these two guys would have been just as popular in the attitude area as they are today, and they’re clearly in a league of their own right now. He does admit that he has an issue with the fact that Lesnar only shows up for a handful of dates a year, especially since he’s the Champion right now.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Building His Own WWE Roster, ‘Atrocious’ Brand Split, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.