By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

RADICAN’S DVD REVIEW SERIES
THE KEVIN STEEN SHOW WITH EDDIE “EDDIE EDWARDS” EDWARDS
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST *

The Kevin Steen Show, which is produced by Highspots, is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to watch in all of wrestling. Steen makes his guests feel comfortable and gets a lot more out of them than your average shoot interview where someone asks a wrestler a series of questions and doesn’t really follow up on them. Steen gets a lot of his guests, especially little stories that might seem insignificant, but are really fun to listen to.

Edwards was a solid interview and although he didn’t go as in-depth into his ROH career as I was expecting, Steen and Edwards shared a lot of funny stories about Edwards’s career in ROH and Japan. Steen’s interview style is very off the cuff and laid back, so the stories flow for the entire interview, which lasts a little over two hours.

There’s a hilarious discussion about sports at the beginning of the interview and it’s great how Jake Manning adds little text blurbs at the bottom of the screen in post-production that play on the topics Steen and Edwards are talking about. Steen doesn’t know much of anything about sports, but he and Edwards talk about what a rough time it had been recently for sports fans in New England, as this shoot was filmed after the Bruins had lost the Stanley cup, the Celtics lost Doc Rivers, Paul Pearce, and Kevin Garnett, and Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested on murder charges. Edwards talks about Hernandez and says he is equally as bad at murdering people as he is good at football and at the bottom of the screen the word “allegedly” pops up.

Steen uses Edwards’s Wikipedia page at certain points to bring up discussion points, which is pretty amusing. One thing that’s interesting is that Edwards’s real name hasn’t been added to his Wikipedia page yet.

Edwards talks about getting into wrestling and training at Killer Kowalski’s school. The head trainer when Edwards was learning how to wrestle was Slyck Wagner Brown. Edwards talks about Kowalski overseeing things and at one point tells a story about Kowalski getting into the ring and giving everyone the claw to the stomach. Edwards eventually had his first match 10 months after he started training and says he was booked in a Gauntlet match and did a horrible job of trying to be a heel. Edwards talks about getting into the ring, doing a kip up, and pointing to his opponent and saying, “Who’s this guy?” right before his opponent gave him his finish and he was eliminated right away.

The most interesting part of the interview is Edwards talking about training and then wrestling for NOAH in Japan. Edwards ended up getting into NOAH, but it wasn’t through ROH like most people would expect. Edwards actually was able to go over to Japan and train in the NOAH Dojo thanks to his then girlfriend Sumie Sakai. Edwards had been wrestling in low-level independent for five years when the opportunity to train in NOAH came about.

The discussion on NOAH eventually sidetracks into a funny conversation about Edwards’s various hairstyles as a wrestler. Steen discusses that the first time he saw Edwards, Edwards had braids. At one point a picture of a younger Eddie Edwards with very short braids is shown on the screen.

Edwards ends up discussing the rigorous training regimen in the NOAH dojo and difficult it was being the only American young boy there because he didn’t know what people thought of him. Edwards talks about how much it helped be physically prepared to be a wrestler, which was something he was lacking before going there to train. Steen tells a story about how brutal the training is in Dragon Gate in Japan, which he witnessed while on a tour there in Japan.

Eventually Steen ends up saying he would be in much better shape today if he had had the type of training that Edwards had in Japan. This all goes back to the first edition of the Kevin Steen Show where Steen promised to work on his conditioning. Steen still hasn’t started on working on his diet and conditioning, but he renews his pledge to start during the course of this interview.

Another funny story involves Edwards and Steen talking about being at dinner at a restaurant with Ricky Marvin, who is set to wrestle in ROH next month. Marvin is characterized as an intense person and Edwards and Steen recount a story about Marvin leaving the table to listen to a song on a speaker on the wall. They talk about how intense Marvin in and the story is really a treat to listen to and it’s one of those stories that you’re likely only to hear in a free-flowing conversation that Steen invites during his interviews in this series.

Eventually the topic of conversation turns to ROH and Steen tells a story about being shocked at how hard Edwards chopped him the first time he faced Edwards in a tag match. Steen says that even Generico had his mouth open on the apron because of the impact of Edwards’s chops on Steen. Edwards credits Richards for most of his success in ROH and elsewhere. Steen and Edwards talk in-depth about the American Wolves-Steen & Generico that began after Gabe Sapolsky was replaced as ROH booker by Adam Pearce. Steen and Edwards fill tell a lot of interesting stories about their feud and what it was like to work with Pearce that most ROH fans will likely find very interesting.

The ROH talk was interesting, but it cut off at “10th Anniversary.” I’ve heard a lot of details about the Edwards-Richards feud elsewhere and it was interesting to hear them again. At one point, Edwards and Steen talk about Pearce leaving ROH with Jim Cornette and Delirious taking over the booking. Steen says, “Hi Stacey” in reference to Cornette’s wife, who Steen claims watches interviews and lets Jim know what people are saying about him. They eventually talk about how Ken Shamrock was supposed to be involved with Dan Severn in the Edwards-Richards match at “Final Battle 2012.” It didn’t work out with Shamrock and ROH ended up using Severn, which was a total waste and Edwards indicates with his comments that he wasn’t very happy about the direction of his feud with Richards during this period. Steen makes fun of Cornette for still using Severn and sarcastically makes a comment about Cornette blowing a couple of grand on using his friend Severn in the feud.

Although the interview was over two hours, it felt like Steen and Edwards could have talked about so much more. They touch briefly on the birth of the Dojo Bros. and some of Edwards’s recent standout matches in PWG from 2012. Edwards had to leave to go on a tour of Mexico, so the final portion of the interview felt a bit rushed. There is a hilarious story about Edwards going to the airport after a night of drinking and getting his flight changed to go home on the same night he flew into a city for an ROH iPPV. The story is almost worth the price of admission for this release.

Steen says Edwards has a flight to catch and they haven’t even gotten a chance to talk about PWG. Steen said Elgin-Edwards at Failure to Communicate was amazing. Steen asks Edwards about the Dojo Bros. Steen said the birth of the Dojo Bros. was Edwards, Strong, and Cole were going to Vegas and they all wore pink to the airport. Edwards said they do it in PWX and they’re all fans of Workaholics. Edwards admits to stealing it from the show.

Overall thoughts: This release is well worth going out of your way to check out. Steen gets good interviews out of his guests and there are a lot of funny stories about Edwards’s career coming out of this interview. Highspots does a good job of making these fun shows with little text blurbs popping up on the screen and by using multiple camera angles, so it’s not just a static shot of Steen and Edwards talking throughout. Although this was a lengthy interview, I would have loved if there had been more time for Edwards to talk about his time in ROH from 2012-2013 and although there was some PWG talk, it didn’t last long. If you’re looking for an interesting interview with a ton of funny stories that’s easy to watch, look no further than here.

You can purchase “The Kevin Steen Show with Eddie Edwards” by clicking HERE or by visiting Highspots.com

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