During the latest edition of the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Shawn Spears commented on the spot at the AEW Double or Nothing pay-per-view event where his underwear had Tully Blanchard’s face on them. He claims Tully didn’t know about it beforehand. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On wearing Tully on his underwear at Double or Nothing: “It was mainly designed to be a comedy bit. But it was designed, you know — it was a last-minute addition to the card, for one. We, I think I did a new segment trying to set it up on a Wednesday, and the match happened on a Saturday. But I also sat back, and if you look at the totality of that card, it was stacked from start to finish. And you know, when you got the Stampede match, and you got the TNT Championship final, and then you got the ladder match. You have so many different elements of professional wrestling on one card. How can you be different, or how can you at least fit into this card with the time allotted, which I believe was about five-to-seven minutes. And this is one of those things where, the beautiful thing about AEW is talent has freedom to go ahead, go out and do what you want.”
On keeping the underwear a secret: “Now the boxers I didn’t tell a lot of people about. I told our cameramen. I didn’t even smarten up the announcers. Tony, you know that. I didn’t smarten up anybody. And that includes a lot of the EVPs, they didn’t know. Tony didn’t know either. It was just something that I went out and did on PPV. Because in my mind, I was going to get people talking about me one way or the other. That’s just one way of, in my opinion, trying to stand out. Trying to have a memorable moment, good or bad, whether it’s a swing and a hit or swing and a miss. One way or another, I want people talking about me along with this pay-per-view.”
On the criticism of the spot: “So, in retrospect, that might not have been the best way to go, or it might have been a very entertaining way to go. I felt if, you can find me a better entertaining five to eight minutes? Knock yourself out. Would have it been suited better for TV? Probably. It was probably not a PPV quality match or segment. Probably would have fit better on TV. Because at the same time, I have to remember people are paying a lot of money to watch this PPV. And that might not have been something that they were looking to see. Or expecting to see, or wanted to see. So going forward as a performer I need to keep that in mind.”
On Blanchard not being aware about the underwear: “He didn’t know either. I did not smarten him up as well. Nobody knew. But to your point, we had a couple conversations afterwards, because he hasn’t been seen on TV. Obviously, the whole pandemic and thing kind of shut down a lot of people, and he couldn’t be seen for what, eight weeks? So that’s the first time people have seen him, and they see him in that capacity. He wasn’t he wasn’t too thrilled.”
On Blanchard’s promo after: “To your point Tony, he — I mean, I’ve watched it back on a few occasions, and it’s probably one of the best promos that I have been a part of, or seen, in probably a couple years. I got goosebumps kind of thinking about it now, because you know, this is Tully Blanchard. This is a Hall of Famer, this is one of the greatest of all time. And he still has it. He — you know, I never questioned it for a second. But if you don’t watch that and get motivated, or fired up, or if you don’t feel something then you don’t have soul. But I got the message loud and clear, and I think you’re right. I think we fell into something.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
