Select Portions: AEW News, Sting, Fuego, WWE Travel (Patreon)

- In asking around about the road to Sting's retirement match, there were some backstage that had pushed for Darby Allin to take the bump at the end of the Daily’s Place tag team match instead of Sting, but Sting was insistent. Obviously he's been fine in the follow up.

- Jenn Pepperman was at AEW Dynamite this past Wednesday. We're not told if she was working or observing.

- As mentioned this weekend, QT Marshall was back at work at AEW Collision. Even though he's not expected to wrestle, he had promo pictures taken in gear and was in incredible shape.

- The WWE travel to Australia for some went to California, Hawaii, then Australia. There were some that ended up taking 4-5 legs of a flight to get back home. 

- Fightful will be speaking with Deonna Purrazzo, Daniel Garcia, Michael Oku & Amira this week. Let us know if you have any questions. 

- Triple H showed up at Undertaker's One DeadMan show in Perth. 

- No surprise: we've been told both Cody Rhodes and Rhea Ripley merch did really well at Elimination Chamber. We're working to find out some internal rankings. 

FUEGO DEL SOL Interview Notes (Originally aired on In The Weeds - February 23, 2024)

- Fuego faces Blake Christian for the GCW World Title at GCW To The Top on Friday, Feb 23. On Christian, Fuego says he's been watching him since his second year in pro wrestling.

- Fuego says takes note of up and coming wrestlers in the South and says he competes with himself and those who come up through that area.

- If he wins the GCW World Title, he intends to be everywhere and be a true spokesperson for GCW, whereas Blake Christian currently does not.

- On the topic of handling Pirates, Fuego says he knows how to communicate and handle pirates.

- Growing up on the coast means he's well adept to treasure hunting, especially since he has kids.

- Since departing AEW, Fuego says one big difference is the lack of large scale promotion that's offered by a company like AEW, and the need to self-promote more, paired with maintaining relevance in the indie scene.

- Post-injury, Fuego said he's only now fully hitting his stride and he wants to work hard and be a consistent part of the GCW roster and continue getting his foot in the door of bigger and better things

- When asked his HOTTEST wrestling take, he refuses to say that he thinks Cody will lose at WrestleMania 40, but he DID think that WWE fumbled having the options for Rock vs. Cody AND Roman vs. Cody available to them, but praises the pivot made despite having Cody win the Royal Rumble

- Independent Wrestling Star Fuego Del Sol, AEW star Sammy Guevara, and WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes are a pat of a group chat and they talk all the time

- Fuego says Sammy and Cody are giant figure and belt marks, but they also talk about their children and Cody recently called Sammy Guevara a fake Dragonball Z fan and it made Fuego's entire day.

- Fuego was backstage at RAW and SmackDown in October 2023, spending time on Cody's bus and they were able to catch up.

- Fuego says that Cody played a big part in many AEW stars' hiring and acsention, and that Cody still appreciates those who continue reaching out to him despite Cody no longer being an AEW EVP. 

- "FUCK THE TRIBALISTS!" Fuego grew up watching TNA, WWE as much wrestling as he could get, but says that Stan Twitter culture creates a larger echo chamber.

- Fuego says Fuego II is "missing, presumed dead" but adds that their 4 matches took the world by storm. He does add that the matches happened because Fuego II (who was definitely not Cody Rhodes in a mask) wanted a reason to stay in ring shape since he was only cutting promos on TV at the time.

- Fuego adds that Fuego II's addition was helpful for him because it guaranteed him a spot on TV for a few weeks, and once Cody left, it hurt his TV appearances and standing overall.

- Cody Rhodes' definition of the word "over" is something Fuego thinks about often. Whether it's about moving tickets, merchandise and ratings, or the idea of momentum from crowd reactions - they're different variants of the concept.

- Fuego wants to fight Speedball Mike Bailey, puts over his cardio and tells a story about watching his match vs. Matt Cardona at WrestleCade

- Other wrestlers he wants to face include Jonathan Gresham (who he faced late last year), Alex Shelley, Kevin Knight and Leon Slater.

- Fuego is a massive T-Pain fan, and when he met him backstage at AEW, he said his goal was to have T-Pain follow him on Twitter by the end of the day.

- He says they talked about their new music, Twitch, and when he raided T-Pain on Twitch, T-Pain's wife recognized him on screen and it made his day.

- Mia Khalifa followed Fuego at one point on Instagram, they followed each other and then mutually unfollowed each other later.

- Fuego says Cole Radrick is not good at Rocket League

- On the topic of Vlogging, Fuego says he was doing behind the scenes content and then saw Maven's success with that genre but didn't want to be seen as "ripping off Maven" despite being different timeframes and companies.

- Fuego believes YouTube vlogs are dying out, pointing to BTE becoming Being The Dark Order, and that YouTube is getting tired of vlogs. He also hates editing.

- Fuego says he came up with Alan Angels' TNA show "The Sound Check", and he loves being a part of the creative/backstage process in wrestling

- Fuego says he spoke to Scott D'Amore prior to Scott's dismissal from TNA, and he was passed off to Gail Kim & Tommy Dreamer, the latter of whom said he's kept Fuego in mind

- Fuego has also been in touch with William Regal about NXT work, saying Regal has said nice things about him, and that hopefully they'll be working together very soon.