Ian Riccaboni recently appeared on an episode of AEW Unrestricted, where he talked about a number of topics including working with Colt Cabana on commentary.
Riccaboni said, “Yeah, and the best thing about Colt was that he was a lot like my older brother Bill where he wasn’t afraid to call me out on my stuff. If I threw a joke and It didn’t land, he would tell me. If I was trying to be too funny and wasn’t serious enough, he would tell me. If I was being too serious and not lighthearted, he would tell me and he just has a real great feel for wrestling, which is very apparent when he wrestles or does anything involved in wrestling. He’s such a great person to break in with because he’s not afraid to deliver that type of feedback in a very straight forward way that makes sense but also doesn’t make you feel horrible.”
On his relationship with Cabana:
“I really enjoyed working with him, he’s become a great friend. He was at my house a couple of days before my daughter was born, he flew in to record episodes of Ring Of Honor in 2019 because they told me, ‘Hey, your wife is gonna have your daughter any day now, we don’t want you to miss it. Stay home, we’re gonna film these, cut them up, Colt will come to your house.’ There was like a 50% chance that Colt would’ve had to deliver our daughter Nora and he was so good at everything else that I would’ve trusted him to do so. He brought energy and enthusiasm. His first match in Ring Of Honor was at Final Battle 2002, so at that point he was 15 years into the company and he knows all the styles. He’s a great analyst because he can point out when someone has borrowed something from a style or technique.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
