Various: Tom Pestock Comments on His Wrestling Career Future & Confirms New “Bishop Dyer” Ring Name Plans, PCO Update & More TNA News, Indies/Misc.

Jan 23, 2025

Tom Pestock Comments on Future of His Wrestling Career & Confirms His New “Bishop Dyer” Ring Name Plans

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Tom Pestock, former Baron Corbin in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Pestock’s thoughts about the future of his wrestling career and confirmed his plans to wrestle under a new ring name of “Bishop Dyer.”

“I would love to go to New Japan, for multiple reasons. The door never closes with WWE, either. As far as AEW, their fans like AEW in the sense that it is its own entity and built from the ground up. I don’t want to be, if I want there, out of respect for that world, I wouldn’t want to be just another WWE guy that came in because they left WWE. I would rather go do New Japan for a year or more. Who know, maybe I just love it and I stay there for the rest of my wrestling career. If I ever did go that route, I would want to clear that, ‘Oh, he’s just a WWE guy coming over.’ Baron Corbin is dead, as far as we know. New name, new moniker, new character. I love wrestling. I love the creativeness of it, the freedom, performing in front of an audience and getting that live feedback in the moment. There is nothing better. If I want to go into the movie world, I filmed a movie last week and it’ll be out in 2026. You have to wait for that. I like that instant gratification of a wrestling audience. You know in the moment what they’re feeling and how they’re feeling about it. Nothing beats that. It’s like being a rock star. It’s so cool and so fun. It’s what I love to do …
I want to go here, here, and here. I want to go to New Japan. TNA has called. Maybe there is something there. NWA. I’m open to it all because I love wrestling and if I can go somewhere and be in front of fans. I know that I don’t want to sign a contract right now because I like this ability. I’m going to roam.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

TNA News & Notes

Thursday’s live TNA Impact! show in San Antonio, Texas featured WWE Hall of Famer Tully Blanchard making a surprise on-screen appearance. Blanchard was shown in the crowd during Tessa Blanchard’s promo segment on the show. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that TNA had filmed material with Blanchard and his daughter Tessa backstage.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that TNA management reportedly was very pleased with how the broadcast of their first live Impact! show in eight years had turned out. TNA officials reportedly were happy that the broadcast came off without any major issues. TNA officials reportedly are currently hopeful of running one live Impact! show per month going forward but these plans have not been locked into stone.

As noted before, this past Sunday’s The People vs. GCW event for Game Changer Wrestling in New York City, New York featured TNA Wrestling and indies talent PCO giving a shoot rant speech against TNA and attempted to destroy the TNA Digital Media Championship. PCO later provided an update blaming his issues with TNA’s management for the cause of his incident. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that those spoken to close to PCO stated that the current belief is that TNA had a new deal on the table for him until just a few weeks ago. Johnson reported that the exact reason for things breaking down beyond the two sides is currently not known beyond it likely being something money-related based on PCO’s anti-TNA rant promo.

TNA recently removed PCO’s profile from their roster page on their official website.

As noted before, Frankie Kazrian announced on Thursday that he recently signed a new contract with TNA to remain in the company for the foreseeable future. TNA confirmed that they have signed Kazarian to a new deal.

As noted before, TNA and indies talent Crazzy Steve made his official in-ring debut appearance for AEW in a dark match that was held prior to the start of Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Knoxville, Tennessee. Fightful Select reported that their sources within TNA stated that Steve had left the company last year and his departure was an “amicable” decision. It was reported that TNA officials do not have any plans for a potential return for Steve despite him being “well liked” within the company.

TNA announced three new matches for the card of next week’s Impact! show on January 30th:

Eric Young & Josh Alexander vs. Sinner & Saint (Judas Icarus & Travis Williams)
Wes Lee vs. Ace Austin
Mustafa Ali vs. mystery opponent
Nic Nemeth to appear

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Former WWE and current Major League Wrestling talent Donovan Dijak announced on Twitter that he will be launching a new wrestling school called Dijak Wrestling Academy in two weeks.

WrestleCon announced that Joe Hendry will be making an appearance for the company at their WrestleCon Indianapolis convention on January 31st to February 1st in Indianapolis, Indiana.

CIMA, El Lindaman, T-Hawk, Seiki Yoshioka and Shigehiro Irie announced that they have officially disbanded their STRONGHEARTS group after seven years together.

Former NXT UK talent Sam Gradwell recently announced on Twitter that he will be out of action for the next six to nine months due to him recently undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL injury he suffered in 2024.

In a recent interview with Tokyo Sports, Sareee, former Sarray in WWE, gave her thoughts about the potential of her holding and event from her Sareee-ISM promotion in the United States in the future. Sareee stated “I’m really happy and I want to hold an event in America in the future. I want to show a Sareee that’s not the WWE Sarray.“

In a recent interview with the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle gave his thoughts about the online “Perc Angle” nickname and meme for him and how it actually hurts his feelings to be called it. Angle stated “I know that fans, it’s almost like they want me to feel good about it. The fans are having fun with it. Because I was the best wrestler jn the business, so they want to say that Kurt Angle was Perc Angle. That’s why he was doing it, because he was all perked up. The thing is, I didn’t use painkillers while I was wrestling. I did them in the morning, and then at night, I would wrestle, and then I did painkillers after I got done wrestling. So I never wrestled high. Yeah, I was in a lot of pain. I got introduced to painkillers in 2003 after I broke my neck the second time. Not only did they mask the pain, but for me, they made me feel really good. I knew I liked it. I was drawn to it, like wow, this makes me feel energetic. So I know that’s kind of the euphoric feeling you get with that, but I loved it, and I knew right away that I’m gonna have a problem with these … I stayed clean for 14 years. Time always helps. When you’re not in trouble and you’re out of going against the law, you show that you’ve got your shit together, people start to forget it. The only time they remember is when they say, ‘Hey, remember Perc Angle.’ So that’s one of the things that I still have to deal with, but I understand it. For the fans, it’s more of a term of endearment. ‘How great was Perc Angle? He was awesome.’ So I know they’re not saying it to try to hurt my feelings. [Asked if it hurts his feelings]. Yeah, but I know they don’t mean it, and for that, I’m okay with if they say it. I don’t want them to say it to my face, but it is what it is. It’s a time when I was in a dark situation in my life, and that is the part I don’t want to remember, all the trouble I got into, the divorce I had, and a lot of things that were going on in my life that I don’t want to remember anymore.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Game Changer Weekly podcast, Game Changer Wrestling owner Brett Lauderdale gave his thoughts about the potential of GCW running another event at the Hammerstein Ballroom in the future. Lauderdale stated “Are there plans to go back to Hammerstein? I don’t have a contract right now for another date, but there’s no plan not to go back to Hammerstein. I think it’s just going to be a matter of if there’s a right time, right moment scenario that pops up again. You know, I still really love that place. It’s a special place for me. It’s a special place in wrestling, in my mind anyways. And, yeah, I don’t know. I would like to go back there someday, but whatever. We’ll see what the future holds.” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)

GCW recently announced that Amazing Red is the next official competitor for this year’s JCW Jersey J-Cup tournament on February 15-16 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

GCW also recently announced one new match for the card of their Up All Night event on January 31st in Indianapolis, Indiana:

The Cogar Brothers (Otis & Atticus Cogar) vs. Janelasus (Joey Janela & Megan Bayne)

Ring of Honor recently announced two new matches for the card of next week’s ROH TV show on January 30th on HonorClub:

ROH Women’s World Television Championship – Leila Grey vs. Red Velvet (c)
ROH World Television Championship Proving Ground match – Lee Johnson vs. Komander (c)