Since September 2014, Mike Bennett and Matt Taven have been linked at the hip, both personally and professionally. Whenever both have been under contract with Ring of Honor, Bennett and Taven have been inseparable. Their chemistry inside the ring is undeniable, and as Bennett described to me in our recent conversation for Love Wrestling, that bond extends to far more than just the confines of the squared circle.

“What is it that you love about working with Taven,” I inquired.

“You look at Ring of Honor, and objectively, there’s a lot of great professional wrestlers there. There could even probably be the temptation for you to, I guess, try something new at the buffet!

What keeps you going back to working with Matt Taven?”

“It’s one of those things where it just feels right,” commented Bennett. “I mean, like I said, he’s my best friend in the entire world. And I feel like with this run, and we’ve been asked this before, ‘is this like, ‘oh, it’s Kingdom or nothing?” and to me, it’s like, the Kingdom’s always there. The Kingdom was there when I left. The Kingdom’s still there, [and] we’ll team.”

“But,” he continued, “Matt’s gone on and done incredible things since I’ve left. He’s become the world champion. He led the group by himself. He’s done amazing things without me. So to me, I don’t want to pigeonhole him, and I know he doesn’t want to pigeonhole me. So there’s this idea that we’ll always be The Kingdom, we’re always going to be gunning for tag team gold. But at the end of the day, too, if there’s opportunities for me to go do something with the TV title, or him to go do something with the World title or me to go do something with the Pure title, we’re not going to get in each other’s way.

In fact, we’ll be in each other’s corner cheering each other on because that’s how we view it. That’s how we look at it. It’s kind of like we’re this group, we’re this team, that we have each other’s back. And, if the opportunity presents itself for tag team gold, let’s go get it. But Matt, if you have an opportunity to go be world champ, again, you go take that opportunity, and I’ll be the first person to cheer you on. So that’s kind of like where we’re at right now. And, I think that’s probably where we’ll always be for the rest of our careers. We’ll go our separate ways, but we’re always there. The Kingdom’s always there.”

Hearing the joy he spoke about Taven and The Kingdom with, I had to ask Bennett about his best friend’s winning of the ROH title in New York City just under two years ago.

“How cool was it to see him win the Ring of Honor World Heavyweight Championship at Madison Square Garden?” I asked excitedly.

Bennett responded with equal enthusiasm.

“Oh, it was the best!” he enthused. “In this industry, it’s very rare to – you have so many acquaintances in this industry, and you have very few friends. I happen to not only have a friend, but I’ve made my best friend in this industry. And not only that, but you also don’t – other people’s successes tend not to – like for me, when Matt won, I was just as excited as if I had won, maybe more. That’s how close we are. He’s family. When your brother goes and gets a promotion or does something really good, you’re just happy. You’re not jealous, you’re not envious, you’re just genuinely happy for your brother, your sister, your mom, or your dad or whatever, and that’s how I am with Taven.”

“He won and my excitement was just – I was genuinely just happy for him. I was like ‘that was well deserved.’”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotations used.

On Christmas Day 2019, Chelsea Green made her long-awaited WWE debut with an appearance on Monday Night RAW against Charlotte Flair. Months later, the Victoria, BC native would once again see her working with the Queen, teaming with Flair to take on Io Shirai and Rhea Ripley.

Teaming with one of WWE’s top stars right out the gate is quite the auspicious start to a career, and as part of our upcoming conversation for Love Wrestling, she and I chatted about her debut on RAW as well as the opportunities she got to work with a woman many consider the best in the business today.

I began by admitting that I was a bit surprised by her RAW debut. Unlike so many wrestlers prior, I commented, she hadn’t received weeks of vignettes or any of the traditional fanfare that usually comes with a main roster call-up.

“It’s funny because a lot of girls told me that that day when I was going out to have that match with Charlotte,” Green responded to me. “I was really excited! I didn’t care. I’m like, ‘I don’t care if this is my debut or not, I’m going to be on friggin’ RAW, and my family is going to get to see me, and all my friends and everyone that has seen me work so hard for six years, they’re going to see me on Monday Night freaking RAW! So, I don’t care what happened, but a lot of the girls did tell me like, ‘don’t worry, you know, this might seem like your debut, but actually, they’ll probably do this and then take you off TV and then repackage you,’ and stuff like that.

“So it has happened to a lot of people,” she said. “It’s just, we forget, right? In wrestling, we like to forget those things, and then we remember what we want to remember, which is the big, grand debuts and the storylines and things like that.”

After agreeing with her, I asked her about her experiences working both with and against Women’s Grand Slam Champion Charlotte Flair.

“I was a little bit nervous!” she admitted. “I don’t really get nervous about my opponents. I think with wrestling, it’s all hype, and if you believe the hype as a wrestler, it’s a little bit cringe-worthy. So I try to just go in, and everyone is equal because guess what, some of the least-hyped wrestlers are the best and vice versa. So I went in, and I tried not to think about who it was or who that name was. But, you know, I was nervous for my debut and everything.”

“It was really cool to look back on the moment and see the pictures and see that when Charlotte and I stood next to each other in the ring, we looked equal. I don’t know what it is about our statures, but we’re basically the same size. When you put us next to each other, it was kind of like chocolate and vanilla. It was the same thing! It was two tall, pretty built women that can put on a fight. I just loved the pictures that came from that.

And then to then a couple of months down the road, be able to team with her was – it was really, really cool. It was also – it was something that will go on my resume and kind of my track record. I didn’t think about that like, ‘oh, okay, yeah, I guess I was briefly Charlotte’s tag partner!

“

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.

Over the past few months, the hottest talk in wrestling has been the opening of the proverbial ‘Forbidden Door’ between promotions such as All Elite Wrestling and IMPACT. Traditionally, wrestling’s major promotions are hesitant at best to work with each other, with the WWE receiving the brunt of the criticism for their perceived lack of want to work with other wrestling organizations.

However, that hasn’t always been the case. Throughout their history, the WWE/WWF have shown they’re willing to co-promote shows and exchange talents with some of the world’s biggest promotions. One example of this was a late-90s excursion to All Japan Pro Wrestling by a number of WWF stars, including Vader, Bart Gunn, and the man now known as PCO, Pierre Ouellet.

When we recently chatted for Love Wrestling, the French Canadian Frankenstein shared some stories about his time in the Far East as part of the WWF talent exchange.

“I really enjoyed Kobashi,” PCO began when asked about his experiences in Japan. “The way he was with everybody. Like, he was one of the top Japanese guys. I mean, now it has changed a lot with, you know, talent from the US and from Canada, but back then some guys like Misawa or Kawada, the were really in their own corner and they wouldn’t mix up that much with anybody. I had matches with them where the ref was coming to me and telling me what I would have to do during my match against them. My full match at Budokan – what’s the name of the hall with 15,000 seats?”

“Korakuen Hall?” I floated to him, proven wrong seconds later.

“No, similar like that,” PCO responded before continuing the story.

“But, anyways, it’s something like that, but that’s not the name. I don’t know why I can’t give it to you. But, the main event was Vader and Kawada I think.

Anyways, I was like the third match on top of the bill. It was me and Taue and the whole match was called by a ref. So, it’s just weird.”

“Weird to say the least!” I laughed.

The former Ring of Honor Heavyweight Champion grinned before pressing on.

“Jun Akiyama was also super cool. I wrestled Jun Akiyama and Kobashi in a couple of tag matches, so they were cool. Every time that I’ve wrestled with Kobashi it was super, super nice, super cool. When he hits you with that lariat, though, every night, I’d get concussed kind of. My head was hitting the mat so hard that I’d seen stars. He was too cool, super cool. And, Akiyama was easy to work, too. I had a blast.”

“I teamed a lot with Vader. It was cool. He was super over at this time in Japan. He was one of the iconic names of Japan. So being his tag partner was like, it was cool. So I really enjoyed a month there in Japan. It was 18 days, the tour, but with some days in between. I was there my first time – no, my second time – for 30 days. That’s cool.”

“What is the relationship like with Vince McMahon nowadays?” I asked the French Canadian Frankenstein. “I’d have to assume working for a different promotion you wouldn’t talk all that often. But, you have mentioned in the past, you know, showing up at the Bell Center getting into see him. What is the relationship there now?

“I haven’t talked to him in a super long time,” PCO admitted. “The only person that I’ve talked to lately was Bruce Prichard before he got rehired because he was doing the gorilla position for MLW in 2018. So I had met him at Pro Wrestling Tees for a signing. We took some pictures together and it was cool to see each other and then after that, he became my producer for MLW.

And then, he left and went back to Vince. I haven’t heard of him since then, but there was some cool times with Bruce. When he wasn’t with WWE, he was different than when I met him when I worked for them at MLW. He was more like, cool and himself and didn’t have to play a role that much. I just had a great time around him. Other than that, all the other people that I know there, it’s because I’ve met them on the scene before I signed my contract, and then they got hired. Guys like WALTER, Riddle, some of the guys behind the scenes, but to tell people that I met them in 2019. I don’t know how Vince is like these days. You hear all kinds of stories from the boys, but to experience something myself I can’t really tell you.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes and transcriptions.