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This week's upcoming Wrestling Daft podcast sees comedian Rob Florence and former ICW World Heavyweight Champion Grado joined by the founder of Insane Championship Wrestling, Mark Dallas!
Ahead of the podcast dropping, the folks over at Wrestling Daft forwarded me their incredibly insightful interview with the mastermind behind one of the hottest wrestling promotions in the world.
Dallas has welcomed the likes of Mick Foley, Finn Balor, and even Triple H through the ICW ropes in the past, and the company's "working relationship with WWE" made the latter two of those happen.
Finn Balor replaced Foley when the Hardcore Legend was needed on WWE TV during his run as RAW General Manager, but WWE provided a very apt replacement, allowing Balor to appear for the company where he'd previously held the Zero-G Championship!
Mark Dallas has now opened up about the relationship between both promotions.
It's like a working relationship we've got just now. It's just the sort of thing where we kind of keep contact with each other and if they need talent or whatever, they know that we're a great place to cultivate talent to eventually go to WWE or NXT UK, and stuff like that. That's what it is right now.
People have asked, are we going on the [WWE] Network, and stuff like that. At this point in time, we are not on the Network. Will that change? I don't know. It might change in the future, it has been discussed but that's it.
Dallas would go on to state that it's not a certainty that ICW will end up on the WWE Network, but that there are other benefits.
People think it's a dead cert that we're going to go on the Network, but they've been talking about this for ages with different companies like EVOLVE, and all these rumours. It's not there yet, but I meet up with them once or twice a year, talk to them on the phone every now and again, and we try to help each other out.
Jeff Jarrett couldn't do the show, Shug's Hoose Party, in July, so I contacted them and they were like, "We'll send you someone from NXT, give us a list of who you want and we'll tell you who's available."
The talent who replaced Jarrett would end up being KUSHIDA, and Dallas also went on to reveal that, when Mick Foley was replaced by Finn Balor, the initial idea had been for William Regal to replace the Hardcore Legend. You can hear the entire podcast later today.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit the Wrestling Daft podcast and h/t Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.
You can follow Wrestling Daft on Twitter and Facebook and also subscribe to their podcast on Spotify. The full episode with Mark Dallas drops at 3:16pm GMT.
