AEW: GOA on Their Current Partnership With Ricochet, Eddie Kingston on WWE vs. AEW Tribalism from Fans & AEW All Out 2025 Being Counterprogrammed by WWE, MVP on Potential Retirement Match Plans

Sep 19, 2025

GOA Comments on Their Current Partnership With Ricochet

A recent episode of Fightful’s In The Weeds podcast featured GOA’s Toa Liona & Bishop Kaun as the guests. One of the topics discussed included Liona and Kaun’s thoughts about their current partnership with Ricochet and how he does not treat them as just being “background dancers” in the group.

Toa Liona – “For me and him, we’re tired of being background dancers. Yeah, we’re ‘muscle,’ but we’re way more than that. Ricochet saw that. Even from our first beginnings and having conversations when the group started forming about what we wanted to get out of it. ‘Whatever you need, we’re here for you.’ In our vision in this group, we see three singles stars coming out of this. We’re willing to do whatever it takes. In the meantime, Ricochet, whatever you need, we’re here to make things work. For him to believe in us and step up for us in the sense of talking and helping us get in certain situations where in the past, we didn’t. Nothing to Swerve and Nana, but at that time, it wasn’t our time. Everything happens for a reason. I love Swerve and Nana, we told great stories and everything was phenomenal. We got to showcase what we could do, which led to this opportunity. I’m not going to be resentful of what could have happened. I’m excited and grateful for what is happening. Both were great experiences, but onto new and better things.”
Bishop Kaun – “Honestly, respectfully to Swerve, I feel like we had to try and appease him. With Ricochet, he has to appease us.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Eddie Kingston Comments on WWE vs. AEW Tribalism from Fans & AEW All Out 2025 Being Counterprogrammed by WWE

CBS Sports held a recent interview with Eddie Kingston. One of the topics discussed included Kingston’s thoughts about the WWE vs. AEW tribalism from fans and how he hopes fans don’t cut themselves off from enjoying wrestling over it.

“We’re independent contractors, dog. Why would anybody want places to close? I don’t want a place to close. Am I going to talk sh*t about WWE? Yes. Why? Because I’m not there and I’m with the other team right now. That’s it. There’s no hatred. I got friends there, dog. And I don’t have a lot of friends, but the people who I do consider my friends — some of them are there. You think I want them out of a job? Hell no. Because then they’re going to come for me for money, and of course I’m a sucker for them, so I’m going to give them money and then I’m going to be broke. And I don’t want that.
Like I tell people, man: leave taking shots to the boys. Let the boys do it, because it’s fun for us, you know what I mean? That’s it, you know what I’m saying? It’s fun for us. But fan-wise? Don’t cut yourself off from enjoying wrestling.”

Kingston also gave his thoughts about what it means to him that AEW considers his in-ring return from injury a significant part of their All Out 2025 card and WWE’s counterprogramming of AEW’s show.

“Humbly, it’s flattering that they think I matter that much, that I can help that much. I don’t think too highly of myself. Not because it’s a beat yourself up thing. I was taught that the meek shall inherit the Earth. So you gotta be humble. So I’m very humbled that they believe I can help in whatever bullsh*t war or bullsh*t thing that’s going on. Because all it is, is bullsh*t, you know what I mean? It’s competition, and it’s one place wanting to monopolize. And there’s another place that doesn’t want to monopolize — for now. Because you know how once people get power, it changes. So let’s not get it twisted. I’d like to think if the shoe was on the other foot, things wouldn’t go down like that, you know, the way it is. But power corrupts, man.
But, anyway, I’m very flattered about that. And at the end of the day, guess what? You know who wins? Who really wins in all of this? Pro wrestling fans.”

MVP Comments on His Potential Retirement Match Plans

Yahoo Sports’ Uncrowned held a recent interview with MVP. One of the topics discussed included MVP’s thoughts about his potential plans for a retirement match for his in-ring wrestling career.

“I’ve talked to Tony Khan about this, and he’s a great guy to work for, and I enjoy the relationship that I’ve developed with him. I told him that I’m not retired yet, but at some point I would like to have a feud with someone that I can have the good old-fashioned ‘if I lose, I’ll retire’ angle, so I can go out on my back and give some young, deserving and willing talent the opportunity to say, ‘I retired MVP.’
Right now, there are so many talented guys that I respect that I think are awesome, but I don’t have anybody [picked out], because, like I said, I’m not ready to retire yet.”