Various: Dana White on Dana White on Indie Wrestlers Should Come To Power Slap & Joey Janela Responds Saying He Said “F*ck No” When Contacted, Eric Bischoff Announces Real American Freestyle Wrestling Will Launch Live Weekly Series in 1Q of 2026, Indies/Misc.

Aug 21, 2025

Dana White Comments on “Indie Wrestlers Should Come To Power Slap & Make A Sh**load of Money”, Joey Janela Responds Saying He Said “F*ck No” When Contacted for Power Slap

A recent episode of the Cutler Cast podcast featured UFC President and Power Slap owner Dana White as the guest. One of the topics discussed included White’s thoughts about how indie wrestlers should stop doing high-risk wrestling spots for low pay and come to Power Slap to make a “shitload of money” instead.

“There is a bunch of people out there that want to get into the AEW or WWE, right? These guys will fucking jump off a ladder onto a table full of tacks for $50 a night. You can come into Power Slap and make a shit load of money. These guys are all tough guys, big guys so we’re looking at these guys that wanted to be professional wrestlers and a lot of other athletes around the world to come into Power Slap.”

Following the release of the interview, indies and former AEW talent Joey Janela responded on Twitter stating that he was recently contacted by Power Slap and told them “fuck no” over their offer and bigger risk of suffering CTE.

“Nothing against anyone doing the powerslap deal props to you but they hit me up and asked me if I wanted to do it, & I said fuck no.
Was the money good yes, was the money good enough to give someone a free shot at jaw, The Embarrassment & CTE deluxe? Fuck no, I’ll take the $50 to launch myself off a ladder through the thumbtack table any day of the week..”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Eric Bischoff Announces Real American Freestyle Wrestling Will Launch Live Weekly Series in First Quarter of 2026

A recent episode of the 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff podcast featured co-host Real American Freestyle Wrestling co-owner Eric Bischoff providing an update on the current plans for his promotion after their upcoming debut event later this month.

“We’re going to launch a weekly, two-hour, live, Real American Freestyle series coming your way, first quarter, 2026. So there is so much great stuff going on here — by the way, that’s breaking news. I did an interview with the Boston Globe yesterday and I gave it to them, but that’s not coming out till I think Saturday. So, it’s a scoop as far as we’re concerned. 52 weeks a year, two hours a week, live. Real American freestyle action coming your way …
It’s gonna be so much fun. I can’t wait. I’m already looking past this event (on August 30th). You know, for the most part, the heavy lifting, for me, because I don’t oversee the whole company obviously but, the parts that I do oversee, the heavy lifting for me, it’s not done, but it’s getting close. So now I’ve got some bandwidth for the first time in about three months, and I’m starting to think about, okay, what’s next? I wanna stay ahead of this, so what’s the next big move? And Chad (Bronstein) and I have been talking a lot about it and we both agreed that the next big move is gonna be that weekly series, that live-action series every single week, and that’s something that we can pull off with the existing team we have in place… I’m already living in about July of 2026. In my head, I’m working in July. That’s how much fun this is.”

Bischoff also gave his thoughts about him being hopeful that people will be able to bet on Real American Freestyle Wrestling matches by the first quarter of 2026.

“Hopefully, by around the first quarter, you’re gonna be able to bet on Real American Freestyle, and that’s where it’s gonna get really exciting, and especially for the existing MMA audience, because no matter who you talk to in the world of MMA, they will tell you that wrestling, freestyle wrestling, call it what you will — wrestling is probably the most important foundation of MMA. So if you’re an MMA fan and you like to bet on MMA, don’t you think knowing a little bit more about wrestling is gonna matter?”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Thursday’s TNA Impact! show featured Jody Threat defeating Xia Brookside, Killer Kelly, Dani Luna, Rosemary, and Indi Hartwell in a #1 Contender Gauntlet match for the TNA Knockouts World Championship.

TNA Wrestling announced five new matches for the card of next week’s Impact! show on AXS TV and Sportsnet 360:

Trick Williams & AJ Francis vs. Mike Santana & Steve Maclin
The IInspiration (Jessica McKay & Cassie Lee) vs. Fatal Influence (Fallon Henley & Jazmyn Nyx)
Cedric Alexander & Leon Slater vs. The Hardys (Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy)
Eric Young vs. Myron Reed
Mara Sadé vs. Tasha Steelz

The National Wrestling Alliance recently announced that they will be holding a new NWA Powerrr tapings on September 5th at WEDU Studios in Tampa, Florida.

Former WWE talent Braun Strowman recently provided an update on Twitter about the future of his in-ring career following his release from WWE this past May. In a video posted, Strowman stated that he refuses to rule out a return to the ring in the future but he is currently using this time to try some new stuff in life and rekindle old relationships. Strowman also continued to tease a partnership with a tequila brand and stated that he will have more news on that front soon.

Coosa Valley News reported that Georgia-based indies wrestler David Joseph Mabry was arrested on August 19th for the second time since this past April over him sending nude photographs to an underage girl. It was reported that Mabry was arrested and charged with distribution of material depicting nudity or sexual conduct over him allegedly sending a photo of his exposed penis via a text message.

The New York Times recently released an article listing the most impactful sports TV play-by-play voices of the 21st century. In regards to pro wrestling, WWE’s Michael Cole and former WWE and current AEW’s Jim Ross were specifically mentioned for the list honors. The article stated “Michael Cole and Jim Ross also get a mention here. Yes, pro wrestling is not a sport; it is scripted athletic entertainment. But Cole and Ross fall under the aegis of play-by-play broadcasters for me and they delivered with verve and passion for their audience. Think about how many millions of people have heard their wrestling calls since 2000 between WWE/WWF, WCW, New Japan Pro Wrestling and AEW.”

In a recent interview with Fightful’s In The Weeds podcast, Revolution Pro Wrestling owner Andy Quildan dismissed the online rumors of Mercedes Mone having any significant amount of creative control in comparison to other talent who are booked for RevPro shows. Quildan stated “(laughs) It’s great isn’t it? So, Mercedes Mone has as much creative control as any wrestler in Revolution Pro Wrestling. I just find it is crazy the narrative that people create around all these wrestlers and everything. Look, quite frankly, reality is of this situation is the only reason that Mercedes Mone is in Revolution Pro Wrestling is cause she wants to be in Revolution Pro Wrestling. She doesn’t have to do anything she does not want to do, she is not contracted to be there. It’s the same as any other pro wrestler, we are an independent professional wrestling organization which means that no one who works with us is contracted, no one has to do anything that we say. Everything is a collaboration, that word again, collaboration. So we work together to create scenarios that work for everyone involved. I think that’s what makes Revolution Pro Wrestling so special because it’s not.. so obviously i have a vision,, I know what we want to get over line, it is very much a creative process. No more so, for example, if you look at WWE, they’ve got a writers room with god knows how many people in that writer’s room, basically the collaboration, instead of going to a load of people who aren’t ultimately involved with the outcome, the collaboration is between myself and the talents, so we get first hand ideas and first hand collaboration from the talent and that gives the talent a sense of ownership over what they’re doing and that just makes it all the more special for them because we all got involved in pro wrestling because we love this business, I always say this, it’s not something that anyone really gets into, you don’t go to a career’s day and they say ‘how about you get in the pro wrestling business’ that doesn’t happen right? So we all get into wrestling because we’re fans of professional wrestling so when we get the opportunity to create and use our imaginations and tap into our fandom, that’s when the most positive stuff happens and that’s why there’s such a positive energy around RevPro and what we’re doing and that’s why I genuinely believe we have one of the most fun and motivated locker room’s in the industry and I think so much of that is down to the collaboration between I guess myself and the talent and the ownership of which the talent can take over their own stuff.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Major League Wrestling recently announced one new match for the card of their Fightland 2025 event on September 13th in North Richland Hills, Texas: