During a recent appearance on Sportskeeda’s “WrestleBinge” podcast, AEW wrestler Orange Cassidy lavished praise on his boss, AEW President and CEO Tony Khan. He said,
“Tony Khan is incredible; his generosity, his openness to professional wrestling and different types of professional wrestling. His ability to identify great professional wrestling and allowing those professional wrestlers to do what they do best. He’s extremely generous. Throughout the pandemic, he was a person that the whole company and their families relied on and he did not sway from holding us all up, so yeah, he’s the best.”
Shota Umino recently spoke with Proresu-TODAY to comment on his match with Claudio Castagnoli at NJPW x AEW Wrestle Dynasty on January 5 and wanting a match with Jon Moxley. He said,
“Claudio is with the Death Riders now, but from when I was a Young Lion, he and Moxley did a lot for me. When I went to America he helped me out and when he was here in Japan we went to dinner and had a lot of long conversations. But I don’t agree with what he and that faction are doing right now. I have the same thoughts about Moxley, but Moxley didn’t show and Claudio will. If I don’t beat Claudio, I can’t get to Moxley. After I beat Claudio, I don’t know, maybe it’ll be PAC and Wheeler Yuta in my way first, but I will absolutely do whatever it takes to fight Moxley. I have to take all the anger I have for Moxley and throw it at Claudio. They have taught me a lot, so the best way to repay them for that is use what they taught me to beat them. In the end though, what’s most important to me right now is beating Zack [Sabre Jr].”
And finally, Masked Republic sent out the following press release today to tout Vampiro’s comic book:
Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse #1 Wins Debut Issue Of The Year – Beating Out Uncanny X-Men, Absolute Batman, TMNT and more
Comic book podcast and website collective Nerd Initiative announced the winners of their prestigious fan-voted annual awards last night and up against some incredibly popular competition from the world’s largest comic book publishers, Masked Republic Comics and Massive Publishing’s Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse #1 stunned the comic world taking home the award for “Best Debut Issue.”
The star studded livestream included acceptance speeches from Patton Oswalt & Jordan Blum on behalf of their series Minor Threats (Dark Horse) and Josh Gad on behalf of his series The Writer (Dark Horse) as the two comics tied for Best Limited/Mini Series.
Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse debuted in October to rave reviews. Critic scores average above 9.0 for all three of the monthly issues in comic shops now with issue four hitting shelves on January 29th. But, even the praise of fans and critics didn’t guarantee the series centered around lucha libre legend Vampiro the top spot in this immensely deep field.
The other nominees for Best Debut issue included
Marvel Comics’ Phoenix #1, Uncanny X-Men #1 and Storm #1
DC Comics’ Absolute Batman #1 (which won Best DC Comics Series), Absolute Wonder Woman #1 and Black Canary: Best of the Best #1
Image Comics/Ghost Machine’s Red Coat #1 (which won Best Ongoing Series), Hyde Street #1 and Rook: Exodus #1
IDW Publishing’s TMNT #1 and Monster High: New Scaremester #1
Dark Horse Comics’ Kill All Immortals #1
DSTLRY’s Life #1
and Clover Press’ Armored #1 (which won Best Kickstarter)
“Shocking the world!” Mickey Smith, Nerd Initiative host said on the livecast as the results were revealed. Ken Maney, Nerd Initiative Editor-In-Chief, added “This may be a big upset for some of the fans (but)…Vampiro, if you haven’t checked it out, is absolutely amazing.”
The action-horror series was co-created by Masked Republic’s Kevin Kleinrock and series writer Michael Kingston with art by El Terrorifico Dr. Napalm (Martin Pouso) and lettering and layout by Jacob Bascle. It is published by Massive Publishing as part of their Masked Republic Comics imprint. Earlier this month, it was announced that Masked Republic and Trioscope Studios had formed a pact to develop the seires for television.
Masked Republic Comics had two additional nominations in the award balloting. Michael Kingston was nominated for Best Writer for his work on the Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse series and Luchaverse: Catalyst was nominated for Best Event. Massive Publishing was nominated for Best Publisher as well.
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