Former WWE writer and founder of MLW Court Bauer was a recent guest on the Masked Man Show podcast.
During his appearance on the show, Bauer discussed handling backstage conflict and how those tensions can sometimes manifest themselves in the ring. The topic is relevant these days thanks to the heat generated from CM Punk’s incendiary comments following AEW’s All Out 2022 pay-per-view event, and the subsequent altercation that resulted in numerous suspensions. Bauer dished on his own experiences with similar events in the past.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
How drama backstage can affect production: “WWE had it happen once or twice, it happened, shockingly, over a girl. It’s really rare that I’ve seen that in my time in wrestling. In MLW, we didn’t have it backstage, we’ve never had that kind of problem. We’ve had a few shoots, the guys who usually have their problems, it’s in the ring. We’ve had that happen. It gets solved very quickly in the ring and then the match continues. Often, you lose a little bit of the match quality because things went off the rails.”
Discussing when real heat actively affected a show: “We have Penta and Fenix and the Hart Foundation, that was one time. Penta and Fenix had just signed an AEW contract, and they were also our tag team champions. They were slotted to be on a live special that night and they didn’t really go well with dropping the belts that night. I had to go to the hotel and talk them into it. The Hart Foundation saw me leave the building the day of TV to go to the hotel, and they knew something was up. When we got back, I had the Lucha Brothers and they were agreeable to doing the honors and stuff, but things were tense going into that match. The match went down and, inexplicably, I think it was Fenix threw a few live rounds and unleashed them on Davey Boy Smith. I’m watching in the back and when these kind of things go down, you’re basically just sitting there with your popcorn. There is nothing I could really do because it happened so fast. If I ran to the ring, it would have been over by then. Davey just basically bear claws him a few times, takes him down, mounts him, Penta is running off the ropes, and stops, and is shocked. Davey Boy just holds him and settles him down.”
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