NXT's Cruz Montana Interview, plus Previews of All In: London and Heatwave | No-Contest Wrestling

Cruz Montana signed his WWE contract standing next to the table in his living room where he keeps his father's ashes.

"I did it. I did it, Pops," he remembered thinking. "And I hope you're proud."

That is the moment the No Contest Wrestling Podcast got out of him on episode 99, and it explains most of what follows. Montana told O'Shea Jackson Jr. and TJ that the last 30 days have felt like a whirlwind that made him look back on 20 years, and that he feels better than ever.

The name itself is a tribute. Montana and his father bonded over music and movies, and one of the films they watched together, at an age Montana concedes was too young, was Blood In, Blood Out. He took both halves of the name from characters in it.

Cruz, in that movie, loses everything. He gets hurt, becomes addicted, loses family and opportunity, and then slowly wins it back.

"I almost had a connection to that with my own life," Montana said. He dealt with addiction. He could have lost his family and his career. He went to rehab, did the work, and got those things back.

Montana, the other half, was the shot caller inside the prison, a man focused on educating his people and changing how Latinos in that system were seen.

"That, I feel like, is what I represent."

He talked about the night he appeared with OTM in his own city and the crowd erupted, which the hosts had flagged at the time as foreshadowing. It landed harder than a pop, because it was the same building where his father last saw him wrestle live.

Asked what keeps him going after resetting at so many promotions, Montana gave three answers. His daughter. A line from his father, that the top of one mountain is the bottom of another. And geography, because he still lives in the Bronx.

"I live in a nice apartment, I live in a nice building, but two blocks away, I'm in the gutter," he said. Walking the same streets he has walked since he was a kid is what keeps him hungry. He approaches every match like the fridge is still empty.

He also relayed advice he once got from Kobe Bryant, when he felt stagnant despite being happy and wondered whether wanting more made him ungrateful. Bryant told him to hold onto that feeling, because it was the only thing that kept him moving.

Montana still commutes. Mondays he flies to Orlando, sometimes training, sometimes doing pretapes or media. Tuesdays are television all day. Wednesdays he is back at the Performance Center building camaraderie and learning, because in his view anyone who is not taking advantage of the minds in that building is doing it wrong. Wednesday afternoon he flies home and is a dad.

On the WWE difference, his answer was one word: structure. He remembers sitting in the stands at his first NXT show and watching the machine run.

"This is the WWE for a reason," he said. "Everything is super structured."

The hosts pushed further on that, describing the NASCAR pit crew that operates around the ring during a match, everyone in an earpiece, nobody missing an angle. TJ nominated the cord guy as MVP.

Montana named Grayson Waller and Tony D'Angelo as the two he has felt instant chemistry with, and was blunt about the terms of engagement. He told Waller he was coming as hard as possible and expected the same in return.

He was also asked about the promo Waller dropped on his return, which caught a lot of the NXT locker room in their feelings.

"Good. That was the purpose," Montana said. If that did not light a fire under you, nothing will. He said he approached people directly and asked whether they were going to prove Waller wrong or prove him right. As for himself, he does not talk. His accolades do.

All of it points at NXT Heatwave, where Montana challenges in a fatal four-way for the NXT championship against Waller, D'Angelo and Zilla. The hosts framed D'Angelo as the mountain you have to climb, and Montana as a former world champion who has already been to the top elsewhere.

Then came All In London, which the show described as AEW's WrestleMania, at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, August 30th.

Willow Nightingale defends the AEW women's championship against Mercedes Moné, which the hosts said is worth the price of admission alone. Kenny Omega defends the men's world title against Will Ospreay in front of his home crowd, and that one split them cleanly.

"My heart's saying Ospreay goes over at home," one of them said. "But my head's like, yo, this is Kenny Omega."

Christian Cage and Adam Copeland defend the world tag titles against the Young Bucks. TJ admitted he enjoys the Bucks despite his reputation, and that Edge and Christian are all-time favorites, and could not call it. The sentimental case is that the road in front of Cage and Copeland is far shorter than the road behind them, plus the crowd singing Metalingus.

The casino gauntlet for a future world title shot features Andrade El Idolo, MJF and Tommaso Ciampa, with participants still to be determined by a battle royal. The read there was simple: when MJF is in an AEW gauntlet, you assume MJF.

The Continental Challenge Cup final comes out of Moxley versus Claudio Castagnoli and Kyle O'Reilly versus Nigel McGuinness, and the hosts took a moment on McGuinness, one of the great scientific wrestlers of his era whose career was derailed by medical issues at the exact moment he and Bryan Danielson were the two men WWE was looking at.

Divine Dominion meets the Brawling Brutes for the women's tag titles. Kevin Knight faces Darby Allin, falls count anywhere, for the TNT championship, which they flagged as a sleeper match of the night, because Allin will do anything and Knight's stock keeps rising.

Kyle Fletcher defends the International championship against Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada, a card item that also functions as a tongue twister, attempted three times, with mixed results.

The trios match has Hangman Page, Bandido and Brody King defending against opponents to be determined.

Two shows, one weekend, two televisions.

Episode 100 arrives next Wednesday, and it is Becky Lynch in studio, the first woman to main event WrestleMania.