Latest / Podcast Championship Wrestling / Episode 38 You're Fired!!!!

Transcript

Episode 38 You're Fired!!!! · Podcast Championship Wrestling

0:00
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the least requested, least demanded, and the
0:04
least downloaded wrestling podcast pc W. This could be a long podcast, so
0:13
strapping and shut up and don't be a little bit about it. We only
0:22
grab up your our friends and this is the friendship batt'll never ever end.
0:33
This is a masters. Gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to another episode
0:57
of Podcast Championship Wrestling Pace c W. I am your host, Wayne.
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You also know me as semi dry Chicken, and we're gonna shake things up
1:04
a bit here. We're gonna do things a little different. We're not gonna
1:07
talk about the next pay per view. We're not gonna talk about any pay
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per view. Really. We get Scott a shipload of news and we decided
1:14
to squeeze an episode in here. We figure we got roughly two more weeks
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for the next pay per view, so we, you know, squeeze in
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an episode. It's gonna be a little different, though, still gonna be
1:26
the three man crew, but it's a little different. All right, Let's
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bring him on no days off, Dre. What's up, buddy? You
2:07
you would it do? PCW crew. I'm here with maybe about sixty seven
2:12
percent lungs and a sore throat. But I'm ready to rock. And even
2:16
even when you're sick, you show up, you know, I love it.
2:21
And and sore throat and all or say, did you say a sore
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throat? Yeah? Yeah, a little bit storm getting over a upper respiratory
2:30
infection. So just brace y'all ears because I might. I'm gonna try to
2:35
cover up as many costs as I can, but one might slip through,
2:38
Yeah yeah, And we'll do our best to our ability to edit that out
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if we can. Also, Doyle is not here this week. It's very
2:50
weird, Dreh not doing this at Doyle. We are like the Shield,
2:53
the three of us together. It's just that felt like the three man stable.
2:58
Uh. But you know, there was there was a point where Roland
3:01
Rains couldn't make it into the Shield name. They replaced him with none other
3:06
than Triple H for a night. So that's what we did. We slapped
3:10
on a PCW commentary vest on this guy and he's uh, he's gonna be
3:15
joining us in the booth for the rest of the evening. Here he is
3:19
from revisiting the media. Carlos, you left here and you had a different
3:49
entrance theme and you come back. You've been gone for a while, your
3:53
your gimmick has changed. You now have different theme music, you got your
3:58
own show. You're like the Cody Rhodes you know of this podcast. Yeah,
4:04
except for I actually planning on finishing my story because there's only so many
4:10
WrestleManias that can cover. Yeah, but thanks very much for having me on
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again here Wayne and Dre and look forward to breaking down some of these news
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uh uh articles and releases that have dropped recently. Oh my gosh, yesh.
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Yeah, let's let's rum up, play right into the meat of the
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of this fucking story here. Let's let's go with a shipload of news.
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Okay, So recently, I mean, unless you've been living under rock,
4:46
we all know about the merger of UFC and WWE becoming t KO. What
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a weird name, not weird, but I guess it kind of works for
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both companies, right t KO. I was kind of curious what the name
5:00
was going to be, uh, you know, but I think that works.
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Uh. I like the picture that they dropped with the two titles outside
5:12
the building. That was pretty cool. That was from pretty dope presentation.
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With the UFC belt and w W belt. That was cool. The name
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t KO, I mean, I guess it is what it is. It's
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kind of on nose without I guess being two corny. Although what counts is
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a t KO in wrestling? Yeah? Really, I guess when you don't
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get up like good miss and standing type of thing, or when the rev
5:39
calls you out on your feet, I guess if you don't answer the tin
5:43
count, get counted out of the ring or something out. I don't know.
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Yeah, well, I mean this is gonna be interesting this merger.
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Uh, you know, the company's value went up a lot. It seems
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like everybody who was involved financially made out pretty well, especially Vince. I'm
6:02
sure like there are bonuses all around. Uh, you know, Triple H
6:08
gott a bonus, Stephanie probably got a bonus. You know, but it's
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nice to see, you know that pro wrestling as a as sports entertainment it
6:20
survived COVID. You know, I honestly thought like that would have been,
6:25
you know, long during COVID, like all the other sports that we kind
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of lost there for a minute, I thought pro wrestling would have been one
6:31
of them. But they were able to you know, keep it going,
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and uh, it's it's it is nice seeing this, seeing the company grow
6:41
even bigger, knowing that it's going to be around for a lot longer.
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You know, there is no chance of pro wrestling dying out anytime soon.
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You know, it's it's promising this merger here. Yeah, at least being
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linked up with a big company like Endeavor and you know, paired up with
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UFC get under the t KO banner. Yeah, that should have shut some
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level of longevity. Yeah for a Wwe just just like in the olden days
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where we like to see you know, gladiators and stuff beat the shit out
7:14
of each other and we got an entertainment out of it, and still to
7:15
this day we love seeing, you know, two guys beat the shit out
7:18
of each other, whether it's in an octagon or you know, the squares
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circle with some story to it. So so along with this merger, I
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think we all knew there was gonna be ups and then there were gonna be
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downs. So we knew that there was gonna be a massive amount of firing.
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And boy did they fire some people in the corporate part of the company.
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They like, go over a hundred employees, I mean that's a lot
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one hundred employees. I mean think wherever you work now, letting you know
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a huge percent of your company just go. It's like I heard on their
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last day they had them work from home, so people, you know,
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didn't have to come in the office not knowing who was going to get let
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going on. Yeah, that's rough. Yeah, it damn it's rough.
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Like imagine that they're like, the mergers happened, all right, everybody log
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onto your laptops. Well, you know, the group chat was popping that
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day at WW Yeah, what are your usings? Aren't going to work today?
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U? You know, as fucked up? Yeah, as I was
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gonna say, as fucked up as it is. It kind of also makes
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this part of it makes sense because if they are going to be operating under
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the t k O banner from a corporate standpoint, there probably is a lot
8:46
of redundancy within both organizations that you simply don't need from the agating from a
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corporate business standpoint, like do you need you know, does UFC and W
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do do they both need? So individual social media coordinators? You know,
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that's probably some type of department that can be consolidated into one that just handles
9:09
both. Yeah, you know, things like marketing and other things from a
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like I said, from a corporate standpoint, can probably be be consolidated.
9:18
So it doesn't surprise me that there were a number of cuts at WWE.
9:22
The only thing I wonder about is on the other end. I wonder if
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there were a number of cuts in UFC on their corporated and yeah, I
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don't know. So if there's anybody out there with the UFC podcast, you
9:37
know, I'll let us know. Yeah, I actually have no idea because
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along with one of those corporates, Like, the only person you know that
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I think we all recognize is Daniel Warrior, the Ultiman Warrior's wife who got
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signed on as a writer. I mean, when I read that she got
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signed on as a writer, I thought that was ridiculous. And then what
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she got let go, I was like, oh, yeah, well it
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makes sense. So yeah, I wonder how much of a role and because
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I wonder how much of a role in writing she actually had, because seemed
10:13
like she took on multiple jobs within the company. Yeah, almost as if
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it was one of those things where it's like a little bit of like throwing
10:22
her a bone, you know, after losing her husband, so they gave
10:24
her a job within the company, doing multiple things, like she was writing
10:28
at one point. I think she did some other things on their more charitable
10:31
side, and then the Warrior Foundation and stuff like that. So and I
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guess with the t k O thing, it was like, yeah, we're
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just gonna have to cut that out. Yeah, yes, that's probably the
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more cold blooded side of business. Yeah. And then you know, every
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year it happens. I always find it after WrestleMania. I think they would
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do it, but to you, these cuts, and it's like the thing
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that sucks is like most of the time you kind of know it's coming,
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and it's not just one or two people, it's you know it's gonna be
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like five or more. And like with with social media, it gets dipped
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like you get you get right away, like you know, you'll hear one
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or two guys got cut, and then like at the end of the day,
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before the sun even goes down, it's like, here's the rest of
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them all at once, so slowly relate some and then all of a sudden
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it hits you all at once. So I'm going to read through the list
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as of right now, who got cut today and then we'll kind of break
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down some of these people here shocking for me kind of Dolph Zickler, Shelton,
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Benjamin A. Lias with Stafa Ali, Emma mad Cat moss All,
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Yeah, Top Dollar, Rick Boogs, Deva Cato, Bryson, Montana,
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Shanky, Mace Mansor, Quincy Miller, Dana Brook And I'm sure there's probably
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some NXT people that I may have missed. That's mean. If I didn't
12:22
miss anybody, let me know, or if it happens we still know the
12:26
rest, let me let me know. But as of now, that's who
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I got. Yeah, it looks like from what I'm seeing here, there's
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a this website Wrestling Inc. Dot com. Is you're pointing that there's uh,
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they believe that there's eighteen NXT talent that has been that have been released,
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but they're they're still chegging on the names. Yeah, okay, uh,
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let's talk about some of these. You know what like this year times
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there's always somebody on the really shocks me, right, like oh my god,
13:03
I can't believe they let you know, carry and cross go or or
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like Braun Strowman. You know there's something that that kind of shocked me that
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they let go but this year and not really. Uh. You know,
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a lot of these guys spent a lot of time in this company and some
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not so much. Some got sent back down the NXT and came back up
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again and still didn't work out. Uh. Dolph Zigglers probably the more shocking
13:31
one on this list, I guess, and Shelton Benjamin for me, if
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there was any But at the same time, be like, I feel like
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Dolphin and Ziggler are Dolph and Shelton Benjamin are two guys who could definitely do
13:46
better in another company. I don't I don't think I want to see him
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stop wrestling. I think they still got a few years left in him.
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H But yeah, they just they just had nothing for either of these guys.
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Dolf for the longest time. Shelton, you know, they had something
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when the her business was starting up, and then that kind of went came
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and gone. Dre. I mean, what do you think Dolphin, Shelton
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Benjamin, these two guys. Yeah, clearly those are the biggest names out
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of the lists. Yeah, probably for most people, especially long term fans.
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I think for me, Dolph Ziggler was probably the most surprising, whereas
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Shelton Benjamin was the most disappointing because you know, it's well documented on this
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show how much of a fan I am of Shelton Benjamin, how much I
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feel he's been arguably one of the most underutilized and underrated excuse me, wrestlers
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that w w's ever had, so and as long as long as they had
14:54
been with the company, like both of them, like Shelton Benjamin just crossed
14:56
twenty years. I believe this year Dolph Ziglan was approaching twenty years. You
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would have thought that those guys would have at least been like lifers at this
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point. They would ride out with ww until they decided to retire. And
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honestly, I think if it weren't for the merger, I think they probably
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would have been like, this doesn't strike me as this doesn't just strike me
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as a wrestling decision, as if you know, like these guys were let
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go by people who really were passionate about the business. This feels like it
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really came from corporate, like from TKO more or less, like as if
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they looked at it and they looked at the contracts and just looked at the
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math or looked at the return on investment or whatever for these guys and just
15:48
felt like they weren't worth keeping around, whereas some of the other people who
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were cut, you can kind of understand them being cut because you know,
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these are people who have been underutilized or never really broken through, like you
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know, people like Aliers, like she was more or less she had one
16:07
fleeting moment where she was a tag team champion with Rachel Rodriguez, I think
16:11
last year before she got injured. But even when she was wrestling, you
16:17
could tell like the abilities were just lacking to a certain extent. So,
16:22
you know, cuts like that, you don't don't surprise. You know,
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Top Dollar did not surprise me at all. You know, the moment he
16:30
almost killed himself trying to dive over the top rope and that became like that
16:36
moment went viral and he became the Botcher of the year, and then Michael
16:40
Cohl is openly clowning him on the mic, calling him flop Dollar. You
16:44
knew there was no turning back for that guy, Like there was no recovery
16:47
for him. Yeah, those days were numbered. I was surprised at all
16:52
of the group, thinking just him. A lot of people are saying that,
16:57
but I think they may still be holding on to uh be Fab and
17:04
what's the other guy named Adonnas don't think so, yeah, because I think
17:10
they may. They may be a possibility of repackaging them. Like from be
17:15
Fab. We hardly ever saw her wrestle, so yeah, I don't know
17:19
really what her wrestling ability is. She could be good, she might not
17:23
be good. You know, they may they may still have something for them
17:27
that they may choose to do. So I'm not terribly surprised that they held
17:32
onto those two. You know, if nothing else, they just need bodies
17:37
to fill out made event as long for as long as they can still continue
17:41
to air that show, which you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that
17:45
show ends up getting canned at some point. Now, now that look,
17:48
with ww's corporate overlords looking at the books, they might look at them like,
17:53
yeah, did this show don't serve no purpose? Gon trim that fat,
17:57
But for now it's still there, So Nick, who knows? You
18:03
know, guys like Madcap, you know, he would never really went anywhere
18:07
after being separated from Baron Corbyn. So yeah, Carlos, I mean,
18:15
like, where do you think these two guys would go Dolphin Shelton, Like,
18:18
do you think they could make well in a W impact wrestling? Where
18:22
do you see him going? Well, I don't know where exactly Dolph will
18:27
go because I know he's been working on a stand up I'm not sure if
18:33
he still wants to pursue doing that. I know his brother has been teasing
18:40
kind of like a run for him and then Dolph, you know, to
18:45
team up there and have like a tag team title run there. But who
18:52
knows if he'll actually go back into going into wrestling, nor if he will
18:56
try to still pursue his stand up comedy career. As far as Shelton Shelton
19:03
might do some good depends on a W. Probably he could start off in
19:11
the Ring of Honor because as much as an AW would probably suit him as
19:18
far as like maybe pushing him if he could just like pretty much like he's
19:25
an established talent. We all know his body of work, and it'd probably
19:30
be better for him right now to go for the Ring of Honor part of
19:37
the of it, because they do also showcase some talent not only as part
19:44
as the Ring of Honor like on a W but they have they're also their
19:48
whole collision on Saturday, and they tend to have more Ring of Honor talent
19:55
there and on display instead of having them exact most on the aw on its
20:00
own. Yeah. I mean, can you guys remember Dolph Sigler at his
20:06
peak. You know when he cashed in on Del Rio he won his title
20:10
and he wanted legit it wasn't given to him by Vicky Guerrero. Uh.
20:15
You know, Dolph has had a pretty damn good career. You know,
20:18
the fans have always loved Dolph Szigler. Yeah, he's always been popular with
20:23
the w W universe. Is just for some reason, Vince never saw money
20:27
in him or what. But he just never really gotta push despite how much
20:33
fans seem to love him. Because yeah, you remember how huge that pop
20:37
was when he cashed in yeah aj with him and uh yeah and yeah yeah
20:47
looking and then he ended up getting that that injury with his with his neck,
20:52
and I don't know if if it was something that had been stopped that
20:56
he could probably power through it, oh or like, because that was around
21:00
the same time that CM punk was having like a lot of people were having
21:04
medical issues and they weren't trusting, they weren't trusting the doctors or the trainers
21:11
that they had there, So I'm not sure if that kind of made a
21:15
rub Vince the wrong way and it's like, well, I can't have my
21:19
champion questioning my my health staff. You know. Gotta get it off of
21:23
him. Can't push him, can't push him? Yeah that sounds like him.
21:29
Uh yeah, Honestly, I'd be surprised. Honestly, I don't know
21:36
if a W would be best for Shelton Benjamin, especially just giving how far
21:41
along in his career. I mean, they and they have a habit of
21:47
bringing people in just for a brief up of the hype and then they just
21:51
get lost in the sauce and never heard from. Really, and I kind
21:56
of I don't want that for Shelton Benjamin. If anything, I think the
22:00
best place for him will better than a W, would probably be I hate
22:04
to say it, but probably Impact Wrestling. I think he'd probably get more
22:10
out of that, out of going to Impact than a WA. Even if
22:15
they did utilize him in the Ring of Honor. That could I agree with
22:18
you. That could be Carlos, That could be a route for him,
22:22
But well, yeah, really best case scenario I think in this at his
22:27
age I would love it if WWE resigned him as a trainer, if they
22:33
just released him from his you know contract as an active wrestler and decided to
22:37
resign him as a trainer. If now that's also if you see me,
22:42
if Shelton wants to stay with WWE and doesn't want to doesn't still have aspirations
22:48
as an active wrestler. Yeah, Now, if he still has aspirations as
22:52
of as an active wrestler, then by all means pursue that, whether it's
22:56
a w slash rink of honor or impact. But if he's willing to,
23:00
you know, call it a career more or less as an active wrestler and
23:03
just be a full time be a trainer with ww A performance center, just
23:08
to stay with ww I think that'd be great for him because he's still probably
23:12
one of the best technical wrestlers and that has a lot to offer to younger
23:18
talent as far as teaching them. Some other some other ones on here,
23:23
I want to talk about Elias Mustafa Ali Emma and Matt kat Moss. I
23:30
remember Elias was something that these guys like totally dropped the ball with, uh.
23:37
I mean, I remember Elia's being over as hell, you know,
23:41
as a heel. And I think when they started doing the Ezekiel stuff,
23:48
I think that's where they're kind of I personally think that's where they kind of
23:52
mess up with his gimmick, where his character, because it was hard to
23:56
kind of bounce back from that. You know, they change his look,
24:00
they changed this whole freaking gimmick. H Mustafa Ali. They tried pushing the
24:04
sky to the moon a couple of times. Uh, you know, giving
24:07
him his own stable and and everything, and he's had some pretty big matches.
24:14
Uh. You know, Aliyah, I wonder where Uhlia, Emma,
24:19
Emma and mad Cat moster a couple, so you know, yeah, it's
24:25
rough. Sometimes they do cut couples. We saw that with Maria Canellis and
24:30
her Man. Uh. I mean, it sucks, it happens, but
24:34
just two other people they kind of didn't really have anything for uh. And
24:41
you know that script Like, I'm gonna get my opinion on most of these
24:44
down the line. You know, Aliyah, she didn't get injured. I
24:49
wonder if she'd still be with the company. I feel like that really hurt
24:52
her and I think she was clear to come back for a while, and
24:57
they just told her to stay. Yeah, Dre, I gray with you,
25:03
agree with you with top Dollar, like uh, repackaged the other two,
25:08
the other two in the stable, and you know, maybe he was
25:11
the weak link. Maybe these guys will do a little bit better now now
25:17
dropping top Dollar uh Rick Booze. I think his peak was. I guess
25:22
when he was paired with Schinsky. After that, it's like, uh,
25:30
you know, dabic Cato. We saw him get called up before, and
25:33
then he teamed with Apollo and Annex and then he went to XT again,
25:38
so that wasn't shocking. I don't know who Bryson Montana was. Bryson Montans
25:45
that sounds familiar, No, not. He must have been some NXT talent.
25:52
Yeah, Shanky. I'm surprised they didn't put him with uh Gender Mahall
26:00
and his stable though in year Yeah, you know, uh, I get
26:07
it's just the guy. I guess there's a big guy too. They had
26:10
nothing to do nothing for him. I think they were like, well,
26:14
we're already two big guys and we have Gender. We can't have too many
26:18
big guys here. Yeah. I guess Mason Manstor doesn't shop me. There
26:23
were another part that was originally they were part of mum yeah, Maximum,
26:32
Maxim Maximum. Yeah before that, that didn't go over very well. Yeah.
26:41
He was one of those initial signings from when Vince was starting up the
26:45
whole Saudi Arabia thing. Yeah, oh yeah man, sorry, he was
26:48
undefeated for a while. Yeah, that was the that was the whole thing.
26:52
He's like, yeah, well we'll get this guy. He's your best
26:56
guy. I'll get him over and he was undefeated. I'll be under feed
27:00
it. I got you. Just pay me the one billion dollars. Yeah.
27:04
Yeah. And something it kind of when you really think about Mason Mansour
27:07
is that male mousing will really hurt them. Was pretty deadly being called up
27:15
because it pretty much took what their gimmick was but ten times better. Right,
27:21
so you know, losing they alreadyet lost La Knight as their mouthpiece and
27:25
they reverted him back to his La Knight you know persona. Then they're just
27:30
on their own with no direction. They took away Maurice put for her with
27:33
uh, you know, with Alpha Academy, so they're just on their own
27:38
with basically nothing to do, no direction. No, they never got any
27:42
real character development as Maximum Male Models. Then here comes pretty deadly or basically
27:49
them, but better with actual character development and you know, established characters.
27:55
So it's like, yeah, we dinner, so don't need y'all. Yeah,
28:00
who's do you guys? Know? Quincy Miller is because I was another
28:03
guy who was like I assume because I don't that is Yeah, But okay,
28:10
this one is probably a long time coming. You know, it sucks,
28:15
but I think this year really did her. End was Dana Brooke.
28:18
I think her getting knocked down the n XT and and shake it and yelled
28:23
at her and stuff. I think she's just done. I don't see Dana
28:27
Brooke trying to go to another I don't see her trying to go to anywhere
28:33
else. That's my opinion. But that was definitely a overdue kind of firing.
28:41
Yeah, I agree with you. I can't really see anywhere with you
28:45
would actually have any type of like opportunity to get a push unless Billy down
28:53
in NWA Billy Corgan feels like saying another talent, I'm there. I know
29:00
they, you know, they are kind of like thin and that particular federation
29:07
or resty promotion. But I still don't see how how she would like she
29:15
hasn't been there, but she doesn't have the name recognition to even give any
29:19
of those ladies down there any type of rub to help them get over.
29:23
What do you guys think was Dana Brooks like peak? Do you think when
29:29
she was pairing up with Charlotte or like whatever her peak was, it was
29:33
before I started watching a game, because I ain't seen nothing from her.
29:38
That's how it wasn't when she became the fifteen time twenty four seventh chim Oh,
29:45
yeah, I guess, or something like that, right, Yeah,
29:52
I guess. I mean, like for me, I liked when she was
29:56
with Charlotte, when Charlotte was coming up and then you know, they turned
30:00
on each other. But I think that was for me peque Dana Brooke.
30:04
But hey, yeah, I mean I can't really think off the top of
30:12
my head really anybody else who should have got let go? I mean it's
30:15
terrible to say, but I mean this sounds about right. This list,
30:21
I mean it is pretty long, it sounds about right. We really I
30:26
thought like we might lose Carrying Cross again. I thought maybe bron Strowman,
30:30
now that he's been off TV for a while with an injury. You know,
30:34
some people at Triple as kind of brought back and uh, I mean,
30:40
you gotta think maybe out of all the people he brought back, maybe
30:44
the most successful one may have been Chelsea Green. Thus far, m ain't
30:52
no doubt about that, just in a simple fact that she's developed character,
30:56
a unique character that makes her stand out from the rest of the women on
31:00
the roster. Is she not only has she developed that, she excels at
31:06
it way more than she excels at it enough to nobody to the point where
31:12
that's her character. Like anybody else that tried to do what she does,
31:18
then you know that that that yeah, kind of Karen Ish kind of socialite
31:26
type thing. They would basically probably be like, h Chelsea Green clone.
31:32
She's kind of solidified herself in that role which gives her security and which is
31:37
and she's honestly making the best of the tag team title that she has because
31:45
uh, like I said, losing what's our girl's name, de Ville DREI
31:52
you would have thought that would have been the end of it, but nevertheless,
31:56
but she wentaged to make this thing work with Piper Nivin and just like
32:00
not lose her character in the process of it, which I think is a
32:04
real testament to her and the work that she's done and the fact that you
32:07
can literally lose a tag team partner but the but you still remain strong as
32:14
an individual, which bowes well for her. And she's not half bad in
32:19
the ring at all either, So she's signing herself up to probably be a
32:23
probably a pretty major player in the women's division I could see in the in
32:28
the future. So yeah, she's good and established. I'm i'm I think
32:36
with some of these people that we thought make that you've talked about who may
32:38
have been cut but didn't get cut, I don't think they're necessarily safe because
32:46
I think if you look at some of the people that have been cut,
32:49
they kind of represent probably the bottom of the WWE. So if you didn't
32:54
get cut, but you were close to it, or maybe a name that
32:59
people thought would be, then that means you were probably maybe one tick above
33:02
the bottom. But now that the bottom is falling out, guess where you're
33:06
at Now now you're there, so you could potentially be even closer to the
33:12
chopping block than you were before. People like you know, like e Cedric
33:15
Alexander, which you know Shelton getting cut, but Cedric Alexander somehow still being
33:20
around honestly kind of surprising. But at the same time, I ain't gonna
33:24
say nothing too bad about Cedric Alexander because he's the reason I got those great
33:30
raw tickets two weeks ago, so I'm happy he's still around. And or
33:37
other people like Zaia League, who I'm personally a fan of. You know,
33:40
She's somebody that I'm happy to see survived at least today, because you
33:45
know, even even with all this, we're talking about today's because we still
33:50
don't know that this is it. It could still be more to come over
33:53
the you know, next day or two. I know. That's the worst
33:57
part is like we're just talking about you know this, Matt, you know,
34:01
you know this handful of cuts here, and then you know they cut
34:07
one hundred people the other day, so yeah, it could still happen.
34:12
It still happened. Uh, And that's what's scary, dude. And like
34:15
you said that, that floor falls out and now you're at the bottom of
34:19
the list, you know. You know, now I think of like a
34:23
whole new list of people of like who could be there now, and and
34:29
you did you know pretty good examples, Yeah, like Zhili or here.
34:36
Here's one that's that's kind of shocked me, Matt Riddle. I'm surprised Matt
34:40
Riddle made it by uh, with the controversy that's been with him the past
34:45
couple months, you know. And yeah, but but I think the I
34:52
think the the current the most recent thing with the New York Airport. Yeah,
34:57
that probably well, Honestly, even without that, I don't know that
35:01
he would have been cut because even with the controversy, he's still one of
35:05
their most noteworthy stars on the roster. Like, he's still a pretty solid
35:12
mid tier guy. So I think that alone would have saved him from these
35:17
type of cuts that happened today, even with his troubled pass. But I
35:25
still don't think he's completely into cleared because obviously there's an investigation being conducted by
35:30
I think NYPD and or whoever it was at the airport and ww as a
35:36
whole as well, So you know, that may have bought him some time,
35:40
but at the same time, pinning the results of that, they could
35:44
still decide at some point that maybe he's not worth the trouble or what have
35:50
you, and that he could still end up being cut in the future.
35:54
And Carlos what do you think, I'm by man riddle, Yeah, real,
36:00
but I think I think he's safe for now. I'm not sure how
36:05
long the previous contract he had because I remember, like during coronavirus pandemic,
36:13
he was due to have his contract expire and then they resigned him. So
36:19
who knows how far out more if it was like a three year, four
36:22
or five year extension after that, so I can see him still sticking around
36:30
and making it through there. That was checking the seat because I think I
36:37
believe that he has been like due to come back because he was I think
36:43
he was nursing like a little nagging injury, or maybe they might have kept
36:47
them off because of the issue with the New York Police, you know,
36:51
at the airport type of thing. I forgot that the riddle, So yeah,
36:58
I think that it was he was scheduled to make to appeard, I
37:00
think as some house shows, and I think he was scheduled to be on
37:02
Raw this past week, but they've pulled him, and I think it is
37:06
mostly because of the or possibly tied to the investigation that's currently being done,
37:13
which I wonder, like that kind of makes me wonder what they're finding out
37:19
in the investigation, because you would think if his claims were you know,
37:24
true or leaning towards that way, that you know he was in fact violated
37:30
or what have you, as he alleges, you would think that wouldn't be
37:34
a reason to keep him off television. Yeah, it has to be something
37:37
like, I know he's known to be a user of no enhancement substance a
37:46
hancing you know, not like physical enhancing drugs, but you know, psychedelic.
37:53
I guess we can say with that massive mushroom tastoo he has on the
37:59
side. Yeah, I just don't want to I don't want to your podcast
38:04
to get flagged for saying any type of specific things. But so I mean,
38:09
like you know, like uh, like you said mushrooms, weed and
38:15
all the other you know, hardcore stuff, maybe some cocaine and things like
38:20
that. So it could be that maybe since it's taking a while and he
38:24
was said that he was violated violated, maybe he had too much of a
38:30
certain substance going through that through airport security hidden in a particular area, whether
38:40
it was inside of him or Damn. I wouldn't I wouldn't speculating that deep.
38:45
I would just think I was just gonna leave it at the service that
38:49
you know, the investigation might have been turning up something that just wasn't quite
38:52
in his favorite I mean, but this has just been going for a while
38:55
though. That was the only thing that I would think that would keep some
39:00
or an investigation going for so long. Possibly maybe that or maybe just that
39:06
he wasn't telling the truth, and or maybe that he actually done, maybe
39:09
did something provocative to warrant them, you know, ending it up, hiding
39:15
him up, or what have you. Was necessarily thinking that, you know,
39:19
man had drugs and his booty hole or something like that. I love
39:22
how we're like forty five minutes in the podcast and somehow we got into Matt
39:27
Riddles shoving things up his butt. I love it challenging podcasts subject some some
39:34
things that have been going on in the past. Sometimes it takes a while
39:37
for all that to die off. Oh yeah, yeah, we know the
39:42
man has got no I was just there's other wrestlers that have been known to
39:46
be running things like that. Uh yeah, Do you guys have anything else
39:53
with the layoffs that you want to talk about before we move on to other
40:00
news? Now? I think that's pretty much it, though I have for
40:05
the layoffs is now is just you know, wish people the best in there,
40:09
whatever future endeavors they pursue. Yeah, well I have I have one
40:15
more like I mean, not like anything else, but when I want to
40:19
revisit Elias. Yeah, you know, do you guys think that he'll be
40:23
able to do anything anywhere else? Uh? You know, because you know
40:30
that gimmick it was kind of like not like a one note one, but
40:36
it didn't have any more depth to it besides, hey, just go out
40:38
there pretending to play music and just you know, based all over the audience
40:45
that that's here to see us tonight. Like, hey, we've seen variations
40:49
of this, right with wrestlers. These gimmicks were like that's all it was,
40:53
right, like, uh, I mean remember how hot fan Dango was
40:59
at one point? That was more like because it was like a troll job
41:05
to Vince though, because yeah, you know, he was trying to push
41:08
Fandango and then everyone was just like I think of it, like maybe like
41:13
he felt like a fad, like a phase, you know, because that's
41:16
how that's exactly how fan Dango was. Like he had a theme? Is
41:21
it that we all liked? He had a gimmick that we all liked and
41:23
he didn't get he got pushed, but then not too hard to the point
41:29
we're like where we you know, took this guy pretty serious. I mean
41:32
I didn't see Fandango going for like a world title anytime soon, but pushing
41:37
it to a point where like he was so over and then just it just
41:42
you know, just the gimmick just died. And maybe that's what it was
41:45
with the same here with the Lives, Like the gimmick was hot, everybody
41:50
loved it. It was at his peak, and then one small move,
41:54
one small tweak and then just you know, then you got like, you
42:00
know, kind of like adding Tyler Breeze just not as good as the original
42:05
or I don't know when we had changed him to Ezekiel. Yeah, Ezekiel
42:09
was more than a small tweak. Yeah, I'd say that was the hell
42:12
of the tweak that like you know, you had it and you were on
42:17
fire with it, and then you were like, let's try this, let's
42:21
spice things up, like no, like this is working, don't if it's
42:24
not broken, don't fuck with it, Liker, and like they have tendency
42:29
to do that, dude, Like you know, remember like when Russel was
42:31
like way over, like when he russ Day. You know, that man
42:37
came out on a tank at WrestleMania, Like that guy was when Lana was
42:43
his manager. That's when she was over at her most. Like that was
42:45
another like thing that I mean, he didn't have music or anything that like
42:50
we sang to, but like his gimmick was like so hot and so awesome.
42:53
And then like you know, he had this long United States title run
42:59
and then he had this after John Cena and I think kind of like after
43:01
his master John Cina's kind of like his where he started to go down and
43:07
you know, just yeah, I botched it after that after that, you
43:10
know. But I mean, I'm sure there's some other gimmicks that but those
43:15
are the ones that really come to mind. I Mean, i know they're
43:17
all different, but at the same time, I'm talking about the height of
43:21
the popularity of the gimmick to the slightest tweak and killing to the point where
43:25
it's like okay, like we try to get you over, we try to
43:30
even go back to your old gimmick. Like with Fan Dango, they try
43:32
to go back to his old gimmick, and people weren't you know, putting
43:37
their fingers in the air. They weren't We're done with this, this is
43:39
popular? Well, yeah, they lost it unfortunately in alts this case,
43:46
I think he has enough name recognition right that he can parlay that into some
43:53
sort of success outside of WWE. Yeah, obviously he probably can't use the
43:59
name unless his birth name was Alias, which I don't think it was.
44:02
He probably can't use Alias or Ezekiel, but there are plenty of other names
44:07
with let's start with the letter E that he can use if he wants to
44:13
try to continue on with that gimmick and some other promotion, or he could
44:16
try to. He may decide to repackage himself and come up with a whole
44:20
other character for himself. But he has enough name recognition that he should be
44:24
able to do decently on another promotion or on the indie circuit if he chooses.
44:30
And I think the same thing goes for what's you call it? Mac
44:35
hat Moss. I think he made a social media post where some people were
44:38
saying that triple As kind of buried him after separating him from Baron Corpin.
44:45
But he made a post I think saying something to the contrary, where like
44:47
actually my actually wonder after Triples took over, my price per match went through
44:52
the roof. So you know, a guy like him will be able to
44:57
command a much higher asking price on the indie scene if he decides to go
45:01
that route or with another promotion, just because of what his price per match
45:06
was under Triple H which I know seems kind of awkward to look at,
45:12
like how did your price per match go up? But you were being you
45:15
know, virtually non existent or not in use. But if you think about
45:21
the math of it, if it's he's at a certain dollar amount, you
45:25
know, the more matches he did under that dollar amount, than mathematically speaking,
45:30
the price per match would be down. But if you're you know,
45:35
we're working fewer matches for that same dollar amount, then it goes up.
45:38
Like you know, think about it. If you got like, you know,
45:43
twenty thousand dollars, but you work four matches, that's five thousand dollars
45:47
per match versus twenty thousand dollars, and you work ten matches, it's only
45:52
two thousand per match. You know, stuff like that could lead to these
45:55
guys, you know, being okay on the NDCNE or with another promotion.
46:01
I think another person in that list who also was very much victim of bad
46:07
time. It was Rick Boogs, who we touched on briefly because he had
46:12
a really great thing going, like you said, with Shinsky and the rock
46:15
star thing, and I remember he had to match with the USOS at WrestleMania
46:19
was a WrestleMania yea, and where you know he was gonna be built up
46:22
as this power guy and he was about the squad, both of them,
46:25
and then the knee buckled towards ACL and yeah, and he sadly never recovered
46:34
from that. By the time he came back, all that magic was gone.
46:38
So yeah, sometimes sometimes the entry bug just bites you at the really
46:43
at the worst time. I think that's unfortunately what happened with Rick Boogs.
46:50
Mhm, yeah, I completely agree. It's just unfortunate for him because he
46:54
said he got that WrestleMania moment. And I think you your breakdown of the
47:00
money and that that Madcap Moss reminds me of that TikTok that Wayne Head sent.
47:07
I think it was Wayne and the discord with with Maven breaking down how
47:14
much money he made and it was all based on there was two types of
47:17
contracts. There was the safe contract where it was just guaranteed money, this
47:22
is the amount that you're getting every year no matter what, or there's the
47:29
the I guess you call it kind of like the escalator one where it's like
47:34
if you're if you go to all the house matches like you mentioned Drake,
47:37
and then like depending on where you're placed on the pay per view card and
47:44
how much how much audience and pay per view buys came in, then you
47:46
would get a certain percentage based on where your match ended up being on that
47:51
pay per view card. So it could have been, you know, depending
47:57
on that model. Before that, he would have been making more money because
48:01
he wasn't you know, being pushed there out there a lot, especially when
48:08
he was out there with Baron Corbin doing that that tag team with him.
48:14
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean this sucks for all these people,
48:22
you know, kind of hope they do well. Yeah, I mean,
48:27
Emma has already been able. You know, she has been proven. She
48:30
has proven in the past that she's able to make her self work in the
48:35
indies when you know, when she came out as Tinil Dashwood over there and
48:40
made herself a name over there, an impact, and so if you have
48:45
a feeling that she'll be okay, it's just a matter of you know,
48:49
now she has to help her husband finding a way to make everything work over
48:52
there too. Yep. And it's nice as you know, we're at a
48:57
day and age where there's so many other wrestling companies is that are on TV
49:00
that they could go to that we could still get access and watch at some
49:04
point. You know, you you know, if you want to see Naomi
49:08
still wrestle at Trinity now she's over an Impact, you know, you want
49:15
to see Sossa Banks wrestle, well she's probably gonna end up in a w
49:17
so uh, you know, at least these people are still wrestling. Yeah,
49:24
and actually I think they've seen Page or sarrea tweet out at a at
49:30
uh Emma Once Emma had boasted that she was excited to go to Australia and
49:36
then she had to update it. U s Srea had a send a you
49:42
know, uh, you know, one of those wavy face emote waving hands
49:46
emojis and was like, hello lead to something, Yeah what what shit?
49:52
Like they're going to be going over there for pay per view and they like
49:55
let her go right before h M hmm wait, oh yeah, well what
50:02
what elimination Chamber was gonna be? What next year? It was Australia yea,
50:07
yeah, and she couldn't wait to go. Yeah. Well really,
50:10
if you think we really kind of got shafted, was uh Mustafa Ali because
50:15
I believe he was set to face Dominic Mysterio this this week d next weekend,
50:22
Yeah, next weekend at NXT no mercy. Yeah, I didn't know
50:27
that. That sucks. Yep, that ain't happening no more. Yeah,
50:31
they were hyping that up. During the first match of Row on Dominic was
50:36
facing Cody. That's Michael Cole was putting out there every little second he could
50:42
get that this is uh, you know, for the title, and that
50:45
Dominic is looking forward to defending this title against Mustafa Ali, and here we
50:52
are. Now. That's that's why this makes me. That's part of the
50:57
reason why I think a lot of this was more t KO than w W.
51:01
E. Yeah, because I don't it doesn't make sense that granted we
51:06
know w W does a lot of nonsensical things, but a nonsensical to the
51:10
point of literally cutting a guy that you have slated to be at a pay
51:15
per view match in two weeks now, especially not without some sort of you
51:20
know, smoking gun calls, like you know, the guy freaking is accused
51:24
of rape or some shit or something heinous. That's like, okay, you
51:28
gotta go now, but just trimming the fat type cuts. Yeah, that's
51:34
me that screams like somebody at t KO just counting the beans and saying him
51:38
him him him him made the call. Yeah, Like it's like like,
51:43
don't help putting it out the card subject to change. So that's probably what's
51:47
some accounting told the told the hunting like, well, you guys do say
51:52
card subject to change, right, So we could just write someone else to
51:55
go ahead and right, you'll figure it out. That's what you guys do
51:59
over there, don't you. You write these stories, you know you can
52:04
write them off. You can do, you know, do your little writing
52:07
thing that you guys do. Well. As for firings, that's it.
52:14
But I want to move on here to the other news that you got to
52:16
say. And I think the best way to transition from that subject to this
52:22
one. Yeah, oh that's not right, all right, So along with
52:37
them letting go all these employees, WW SmackDown is set to move from Fox
52:45
back to USA Network and the new deal uh their new five year contract deal.
52:52
The weekly show currently airs on Fox, but we'll move to its new
52:55
network home in October twenty twenty four when the Fox deals spires. SmackDown originally
53:01
began airing on Fox in twenty nineteen as a part of a five year deal
53:07
between the network and the WWE, and had previously aired on the USA Network
53:12
from twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen, and had a number of network homes before
53:15
they including Sci Fi cw UPN, and My Network TV. Oh God,
53:22
I remember that. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources
53:27
say the new deal it was worth roughly one point four billion dollars, up
53:32
from the one billion dollars Fox paid in twenty nineteen. As part of the
53:37
new deal for SmackDown, WWE will produce four primetime specials per year for NBC
53:45
Marketing. The first time that WWE will air in primetime on network is unknown
53:51
at this time exactly what form those primetime specials will take, if they will
53:57
feature live wrestling, or if they will be more documentary focused like ww programming
54:04
on any According to the individual with knowledge of this deal, the exact nature
54:09
of the special is being determined, so along with them making one point four
54:16
billion dollars, they decide to also cut the fat with tons of employees.
54:22
Uh WWI is making some money. What do you guys think about this?
54:30
This moved back to the USA network. I mean, for me, I
54:35
like it because I don't know, I kind of like everything rolled in the
54:39
one. I mean, we already get SmackDown commercials. We already get SmackDown
54:45
you know, uh recaps during rawl, so I might as well roll it
54:52
all together. And you know, it sucks. Is like even with having
54:59
like the The Rock on the other day, which by the way, awesome,
55:04
awesome magic on the wrestle media paying for tickets, you know, expecting
55:07
to see The Rock. No Rock, you just paid twenty dollars for tickets
55:12
for a SmackDown Holy shit? Right? And John Cena like both holy making
55:21
up for you know, Roman not being on the show. I would assume
55:25
trying to save some ratings, and you know they mean the ratings are pretty
55:30
good, you know, but then they try they couldn't top it at all.
55:36
For Raw, I mean the Raw following that sucks. I mean,
55:40
I think, who did we have show up on Raw? Dragon Lee.
55:45
Do you remember how excited you wear Carlos to see Dragon Lee. You called
55:49
me marking the fuck out. Oh my god, this is Dragon Lee.
55:52
Oh all right, I didn't calm down. As much as I am a
55:58
fan of Dragon Lee, I'm more of a fan of his brother Rush RuSHA
56:04
over there in a w you know. I have seen him rest a little
56:08
bit more, and yeah, he's a little bit more bigger than than Dragon
56:15
Lee. But I think if it wasn't for like I think he has like
56:22
a temper or someone of a chip by his shoulder. Yeah, because he
56:27
knows he's talented, and I'm talking about Rush, but I think something's backstage
56:30
sometimes get on his nerves or let it let's get to him, and that's
56:35
why. But he does have some good matches. Yeah, the I mean
56:42
I marked that out even though I kind of like had a feeling because I
56:45
saw Pat McAfee with The Rock earlier that day and I was like, okay,
56:51
so they're close, right, And then once I saw Pat McFee,
56:54
I'm like, okay, the Rock's got to be here, right because they
57:00
were hanging out earlier today, like right, like why would you not have
57:05
and you know, uh, mostly the reason why we're seeing not just for
57:10
the rating booths, but we're going to see The Rock at all. And
57:14
John Cena is because of the writers strike, which I heard actually maybe close
57:21
to ending today or this week. They're still they're still at the bargaining table
57:25
trying to hammering out those ends and ins and outs and things like that,
57:30
but they're very confident that it's going to end this weekend. Yeah and yeah,
57:35
I think I saw a report this morning. I said that they were
57:37
close to a deal at least on the writer's strike in but don't forget that
57:42
that's just the writers, that doesn't include sag screen actress guilts. There's still
57:45
that to work out afterwards. Now I'm kind of rolling this in there.
57:52
I mentioned it on the discord now that you know, we're seeing John Cena
57:57
and in some way, shape or form, uh saying with the Rock,
58:00
even though it was just for you know, probably one nine only who knows.
58:07
Within the I'd say within the next year, like we're probably gonna see
58:09
The Rock again, if not maybe for a match, you know. But
58:15
also Patista recently sat down with with ET Canada and spoke about a possible return
58:22
to the ring. Patitsas said, I had retired. Yes, I had
58:25
my retirement match against my mentor, my buddy Triple H. It was perfect.
58:30
But right now my schedule is open, and if and if they call
58:35
me and have something in mind, a segment, a moment, sure we
58:38
can do something. I think, you know, if they have the opportunity
58:45
to make a little money, go for it. I mean, if you
58:47
got an open schedule, go for it. I see as an opportunity that
58:52
a lot of actors don't get, you know, like uh, you know
58:58
the ones who were on the picket lines, who you know, they're not
59:01
going to get an opportunity to make some money like this, you know,
59:04
doing something completely different that it's not going to interfere with any real contracts that
59:09
think got going on right now, you know, because they're not you know,
59:15
it's sports entertainment. It's a totally different thing. But it's nice that
59:20
these some of these people didn't burn bridges. I don't know who else we
59:23
could see again. You know, it would be nice to see Edge come
59:29
back for little and do something else. But I heard the discussion with him
59:32
and money is just kind of far in between right now with him and the
59:37
company what do you guys think with the strike? Who who could possibly see
59:45
come back in the next year for something I wouldn't put Honestly, I wouldn't
59:52
put a whole lot of stock on seeing some big influx of people like making
59:58
returns to WW because of this, right, because like we already discussed these
1:00:05
to me, the screen the writer strike seems to be on the verge of
1:00:08
ending. So once that ends, then studios are immediately gonna at least get
1:00:15
shows crane back up, at least far as in the development phase of shows.
1:00:20
You know, once they get things developed, you know they're gonna be
1:00:23
wanting to higher actors for it. So people who are actors, even if
1:00:30
the set, even if the screen actors guilt strike is still going on,
1:00:32
people any you know wrestler slash actors are gonna at least keep themselves available and
1:00:39
not put themselves at risk of potential injury that could cost them a chance at
1:00:45
a role in the show that would be being developed. And this is assuming
1:00:50
that the screen actors gil strike would continue for any considerable length of time after
1:00:54
the writer strike gets resolved. You know, I do believe I think they
1:01:00
maybe farther apart as far as that one is. But at the same time,
1:01:05
once one domino falls, there's no telling how quickly the other one might
1:01:09
fall as well. So screen arctors guilt could also be resolved fairly shortly after
1:01:15
the writer strike gets resolved. So I wouldn't necessarily put a whole lot of
1:01:20
stock in seeing other, you know, past wrestlers like Fatisse or something like
1:01:25
that showing up as a result of these strikes. I think it's just a
1:01:29
matter of if the opportunity presents itself, then so be it. Like,
1:01:34
really, we only got the Rock because of convenience, because the stars just
1:01:37
happened to align, you know, like John Ceta seemed to make more of
1:01:42
an active commitment to like I'm gonna come back for a length of time and
1:01:46
do this, whereas The Rock is still busy with plenty of his other business
1:01:52
ventures and things that he's got going on, you know. Whereas and it
1:01:57
just so happened to be that Raw was in Denver, he appeared on the
1:02:00
Pat McAfee show, which was being filmed in Boulder, because The Rock was
1:02:07
in town, and The Rock along with ESPN, and it seemed like half
1:02:10
a fucking Hollywood was in town to attend the Colorado Colorado State game because you
1:02:16
know, Prime got college football about as hot as it's ever been, so
1:02:22
you know, the Rock was also attending that game, so he was in
1:02:25
Colorado. SmackDown is there. You know, the stars just happened to align
1:02:30
for that, which is why I think that that's definitely a one and done
1:02:34
thing, even though he got everybody buzzing when he was on Pat McAfee show
1:02:37
and talked about he'd be open to WrestleMania forty. But I think that's still
1:02:45
more. I thought i'd be the one making an awkward names the show man.
1:02:52
I was sure where that was coming from. The shape for my house.
1:02:57
Yeah, yeah, Like I said, I still think we're it's still
1:03:00
probably more on the side of that not happening again actually happening. Yeah.
1:03:07
But I wanted to touch back on the the ww move to USA from five.
1:03:15
I think Fox is going to regret that more than the WWE will because
1:03:22
this Fox kind of I think they shot themselves in the foot by trying to
1:03:27
be cheap because Friday Friday Night SmackDown, I'm pretty sure it was number one
1:03:34
and the Prime demographics practically every week for them, So you have a top
1:03:42
performing show weekend and week out, especially going into this fall season, which
1:03:50
admittedly it's the move isn't happening until October of next year, So in that
1:03:53
regard, they're they're good for this, but you have a top performing show
1:03:58
and prime demographics that eighteen to forty nine demographic, and you see and you
1:04:05
want to be cheap with it, Like it seemed like Fox didn't really respect
1:04:10
the show, like they didn't really respect ww w. W wanted to be
1:04:14
seen more as sports programming. Fox wanted to look at them more as like
1:04:18
a niche entertainment thing. So now, and they as a result, they
1:04:24
didn't want to pay them, even though they're doing ratings weekend and week out
1:04:30
and going up and doing numbers and you got the fucking bloodline on SmackDown,
1:04:34
the hottest thing in wrestling. You know, they was doing fucking numbers,
1:04:41
and y'all wanted to be cheap with it, Like, what is Fox gonna
1:04:44
fill they Friday night win? Now? What is Fox going to fill they
1:04:47
Friday and night win? Now? I think once when they come next year,
1:04:53
when that move happens and they see them, they look at them Friday
1:04:57
night numbers and that ship it goes in the fucking tour, they're gonna be
1:05:00
like, damn. They might have some second thoughts like maybe we should have
1:05:03
ponied up that cash to keep SmackDown on Fox Mars SmackDown, and how it's
1:05:09
going to do one USA. Yeah, I don't know that this would be
1:05:13
kind of interesting because, uh has a SmackDown always been almost always been on
1:05:18
network television as opposed to cable. Yeah, because when I was younger,
1:05:24
I didn't have cable growing up, so like I had antenna, and like
1:05:29
you know, SmackDown was one that I could get. I would have to
1:05:31
grow my friend's house rang down the street to watch raw on cable. So
1:05:35
yeah, I always got SmackDown for the longest time. It started off on
1:05:40
What UPN back in the day, then I became c W, and then
1:05:44
they went from CW to Fox I believe I'm not mistaken. I don't know
1:05:46
if they went anywhere else in between, but uh, yeah in USA.
1:05:53
Didn't we say that they were USA for about three years from like twenty sixteen
1:05:58
twenty nineteen or something. Yeah, yeah, are they okay? So those
1:06:01
those were there in the years I wasn't watching, But yeah, and my
1:06:04
network TV. Uh yeah, that was that was regular ant and anything too.
1:06:10
You know what my network TV, oh my tv Z Yeah yeah,
1:06:16
that will television good. So moving to USA now, granted, I guess
1:06:24
the benefit of USA is the fact that it's already associated with w W and
1:06:28
they already have that you know, connection. But I don't know. I
1:06:32
wonder again, I still think Fox is going to regret it more than WWE,
1:06:38
But I think WW might They might slightly regret a little bit of a
1:06:44
loss of viewers. Why don't just say regret. They will almost certainly experience
1:06:47
a bit of a dip in ratings by going from network television to cable.
1:06:55
Yeah, I can see that just because, you know, not everyone wants
1:06:58
to get cable, yeah, or wants to buy into a streaming service like
1:07:02
the YouTube TV or Sling TV or anything else just because. But if you
1:07:09
think about it, if you already have those type of services, because you
1:07:12
need something to watch Monday Night Raw and n XTA, which those two still
1:07:16
have to be settled now that SmackDown is is Universe NBC Universal also going to
1:07:24
pick up that one. Yeah, the one that I guess Raw and n
1:07:28
XT are bundled together. And then I also read that they're they had the
1:07:33
streaming rights for like video on demand streaming rights for those brands is also expiring
1:07:42
with Hulu. Well, so who picks them up too? Yeah? I
1:07:44
mean that's gonna be so good though for USA on their end because now they
1:07:47
hold all the cars, they hold all the ships they can hold specifically,
1:07:53
and this USC merger, I mean it's great for them, so business wise,
1:07:58
you know, it's a pretty good decision. Uh, you know if
1:08:00
if you're if you're on that end of defence, you know, they're making
1:08:04
out pretty damn well this week, right, Yeah, And as far as
1:08:09
yeah, I know, yeah, the streaming thing with Hulu set they expire,
1:08:13
I don't imagine that that would hurt them too Wow. Now, I
1:08:16
don't think that would hurt them too much because they would probably just shift it
1:08:20
over to Peacock now depending on how much they've I don't know how much income
1:08:28
or money they derived from those streaming views. But like, because the way
1:08:32
it is now, if you go on Peacock and try to look at raw
1:08:35
or SmackDown, yeah, it only has it up to maybe like a month
1:08:40
ago. And I think like the last the most recent episodes from like maybe
1:08:44
a month, a month and a half or what's on Hulu. So I
1:08:50
love the Hulu version. You know, if you've missed the raw or smacks
1:08:55
and you still want to catch it, like they cut out, it's there
1:08:58
next day and you can watch it without come ercals and stuff like that.
1:09:00
So yeah, that's that would suck. Yeah, with going over to Peacock
1:09:03
and the fact that you'd have to sit through commercials now if you want to
1:09:08
catch up on it. If you don't unless you have like the premium tier,
1:09:12
or if you are somebody who doesn't already have Peacock and you know you
1:09:17
were just getting your wrestling fixed through Hulu, then you lose out on that,
1:09:23
which sucks. But I'd be hard pressed. I can't imagine too many
1:09:28
fans of ww who don't have Peacock, if for nothing else, just the
1:09:33
pl e's. Yeah, so it'd just be a matter of just consolidating all
1:09:39
your w W viewership now into Peacock, as opposed to maybe splitting it between
1:09:44
Peacock for PLS and maybe Hulu for your raw and smack now. And then
1:09:48
again you're also happen to probably put up with commercials and ship during your row
1:09:51
viewership, so it go'ld be an inconvenience, I think more so than anything,
1:10:00
M Carlos, do you anything else you want to touch on this?
1:10:04
The only thing I can think of that might make it exciting is when UFC's
1:10:11
deal ends with ESPN, because they have that whole thing where you know,
1:10:18
they show the UFC and then you can buy within the ESPN app, you
1:10:24
can buy the pay per view, so they have the lead in using the
1:10:27
ESPN Plus, and then if you are really intrigued, you know, like
1:10:30
while wrestling used to have the buy in dark match that they show you before
1:10:34
while they're hyping up the pay per view, then you call your local cable
1:10:39
provide and in order the pay per view. So I wonder if if Endever's
1:10:45
deal is going to be up at the same time as the streaming rights deal
1:10:48
of Hulu, or if it's all going to be all bundled together raw NXT,
1:10:56
the streaming deal and whatever UFC Hunton is expiring or coming off ESPN's deal.
1:11:03
Huh, I would imagine it. I don't well, yeah, I
1:11:08
don't know what the lengths of those contracts are either, but M I think
1:11:14
it would. I think it would depend on how successful ESPN and Disney as
1:11:23
a whole feels that UFC deal is for them, because I feel like UFC
1:11:30
needs that deal with ESPN more than ESPN needs UFC, because I don't know.
1:11:40
Yeah, I know UFC is very popular, but I wonder how many
1:11:43
people are really tuning into those UFC pay per views through the ESPN Plus and
1:11:49
all that stuff. Okay, I just did some googling right now, and
1:11:56
it looks like as of March ESPN UFC uh signed a semin year deal,
1:12:08
so they're gonna be there for ESPN pers seven more years. Oh wow,
1:12:15
Well that's the thing to think about in the future. Uh. You know,
1:12:24
with the Rock being on the other day, Uh, he has he
1:12:28
had an interaction with Austin Theory, and I sent a meme of this Austin
1:12:31
Theory or not really a mean but a fact. Austin Theory is twenty six
1:12:35
years old and he's already worked with the Rock, Stokelcy Boston, Vince Wickmahn,
1:12:42
John Cena, brock Lessner Edge, and Ray Mysterio. And he's also
1:12:46
the youngest US champion of all time at twenty six. The only other person
1:12:53
I can remember that comes off the top of my head. And I've said
1:12:56
before that that achieved so much success associated young age would be Randy Orton.
1:13:05
Mm I mean, and he was with Evolution and uh yeah. So I
1:13:15
mean it's in a way it's been, like, I guess, a way
1:13:21
to see how Austin Theory can hang with the guys that have made it.
1:13:28
You know, The Rock, you know, pretty much made himself but got
1:13:32
himself technically his own show SmackDown named after him. We had John Cena,
1:13:39
who's the torch bearer of the Attitude era. So I mean, oh yeah,
1:13:45
aggression, They're sorry, thank you. And so has Theory pushed himself
1:13:54
forward in those like hand on matchups with like promo cutting or confrontation with them,
1:14:01
I don't think so. But at least he has been holding his own
1:14:08
a little bit better than when he was trying to have a promo with Roman
1:14:15
Rains and Rains was just roasting him and The Rock didn't. He did,
1:14:20
but he, you know, Austin Theory was more composed as opposed to when
1:14:29
he was you know, he didn't have any good snips or comebacks to give
1:14:33
back to Rains at the time. It looks like this one. He seemed
1:14:40
he still seemed like he was out of his league, but he didn't seem
1:14:43
more overwhelmed like when Rains was roasting him. You know, yeah, I'll
1:14:48
give you that. You're absolutely right about that. He did keep his composure
1:14:51
a little bit better with the Rock, even though he absolutely got eviscerated.
1:14:56
He did, you know, with equipping back, you know, even though
1:14:59
he was basically using Rocks his own phrases in the promo with the finally and
1:15:04
you know it doesn't matter, but yeah, he did at least get some
1:15:09
decent Mike time and kind of hold his own a bit, as opposed to
1:15:12
Roman range when he's just hitting with the Daddy's not here anymore. And yeah,
1:15:16
they just looks so small, Yeah yeah, I and it was just
1:15:21
like just go home, Yeah yeah, can you get hurt and just roll
1:15:28
out of the ring and just leave right there? Yeah, you're right about
1:15:30
that. However, I am still convinced that Austin Theory did something to piss
1:15:35
Triple h Off. I don't know what he did. I don't know if
1:15:39
they was at a party and that man just maybe maybe he was something hit
1:15:44
a Triple h kids and made a cry or if he smack smack Stephanie on
1:15:49
the ass or something. But I swear every time Triple H has the opportunity
1:15:55
to just eviscerate this man on camera, he does it. I feel like
1:16:01
I feel like like he like Triple Talk. That day, it was like
1:16:08
like Triple A hit him up, was like, hey man, I saw
1:16:10
your past show what you're doing tonight? And Rock was like got any ideas?
1:16:16
And then Triple As just sat there on the phone just gave that evil
1:16:19
grinch smile like like you can just see it here. Hat that evil Grinch
1:16:25
smile is like as a matter of a fact that I do, how fast
1:16:30
can you be down here in Denver? He's like, I'm already on the
1:16:32
way. Fail I talk when we get there. The pop was so good,
1:16:42
hit it out half of it because of everyone's saying asshole, so we
1:16:47
know what they were saying, right, but network television. But hey,
1:16:55
once they're on USA, they won't have to do that. Yeah true,
1:16:58
Oh nice. Uh let's see I guess a few other subjects here. Okay,
1:17:04
so a little bit of aw switching. You know, I'm gonna go
1:17:10
back forth a w some of you guys know that there's an altercation with see
1:17:16
him Punk backstage on the twenty seventh of August and he got let go.
1:17:21
H also more firings but on the other side. But uh so I said
1:17:32
this before. You know, we've seen a lot of people who we thought
1:17:36
that were fired that we never see him come back. You know, I
1:17:43
never thought Brett Hart would ever come back to WDB. I never thought Alternate
1:17:46
Warrior would come back to WDB. I thought at a point Stone called Steve
1:17:50
Auston after he took his ball in one home, wouldn't come back to WB.
1:17:56
But a lot of people will get you know, and buried the hash
1:17:59
of some shit and just want to do business and make money. Do you
1:18:02
think there's a snowballs chance in hell? Who will ever see see him Punk
1:18:09
back in the WW Well, it's professional wrestling, and so we know never
1:18:18
say never, So obviously you can't say that you'll there's obviously a snowball's chance
1:18:26
in hell that it will happen. Yeah, when who knows? I think
1:18:30
what's I think the bigger question is is it something that we can see happening
1:18:36
in the near future? Yeah, because that seems to be what some people
1:18:42
are out here trying to speculate or theorize that, you know, oh,
1:18:45
now that he's out, could he pop up in w W I think what
1:18:48
they're really saying is could he pop up in w W E in the near
1:18:51
future, like between now and WrestleMania next year or something like that, or
1:18:58
or like be that that's surprise posts WrestleMania return is or something like that.
1:19:03
And to that regard, I think no, the big hints that he's been
1:19:09
dropping is like, hey, I got nothing for the next two months,
1:19:13
and we know, like in two months we're getting you know, Survivor series
1:19:17
in Chicago, Like, stop fucking teasing me right now, you know?
1:19:26
Yeah? Again, I think that's him trying to keep him his name relevant
1:19:31
while he's out of wrestling, because we don't want be seeing him on a
1:19:35
w on AW. And again, the internet's gonna run rampant with could he
1:19:41
show up in the ww I And obviously people also gonna think look back to
1:19:46
when he showed up at RAW a few months ago and was you know,
1:19:50
meeting hanging out with some of the folk backstage, and apparently him and Triple
1:19:56
H had a bit of a meeting, and I guess they buried a bit
1:19:59
of the hatch it more or less, and then it's supposedly E Vince found
1:20:02
out he was there, and Vince had him escorted out or you know,
1:20:06
made him leave. So he can never say never. But I'm still not
1:20:12
banking on it. I think I think his name is still a bit too
1:20:18
toxic right now. As far as especially with the stuff that's come out about
1:20:24
with him with AWE, I don't know that. Granted, I hardly he
1:20:30
can. He can exercise that much way more influenced like that in a place
1:20:34
like aw than he could in a place like WW that. I think that's
1:20:40
a pretty much a given. Like he can't come around, come back into
1:20:43
w W E locker room and try to throw his weight around like he could
1:20:45
in a e W trip. Las would shut that ship down in a heartbeat.
1:20:50
I think somebody like Seth Rollins would shut that ship down. You know,
1:20:56
somebody like a cody like he ain't thrown around see him punk ain't thrown
1:20:59
amrout more waited it up? Yeah? Oh guy, and god forbid they
1:21:01
tried to. They dare put him all smack down. Ain't throwing that way
1:21:04
around with the job A chief backstage ain't happening. It's a little different since
1:21:12
you left a lot right, the same people are here. But but sadus
1:21:15
exactly, your status is not what it was. We're all give a damn
1:21:18
how many times you won that little spinning ass w W championship that was in
1:21:26
this now, buddy, I know, so he held it for her in
1:21:29
thirty four days, and that at that time, that was a long time
1:21:32
that was that was right, And now I think comparison, it's it's nothing.
1:21:38
Nothing, yeah, nothing like imagine trying I was champion thirty four days.
1:21:45
Roman looks at I'm like, oh, so you've done so You've done
1:21:50
a third of what I've done. I will, I will say, though,
1:21:54
I will come to his defense. He defended it a hell of a
1:21:58
lot more than Roman did. It did when he had it. I mean,
1:22:02
if I wish I could Carlos look it up how many times he defended
1:22:06
that title four it in thirty four days, I would believe in comparison it
1:22:11
would be pretty damn close. Pretty damn yeah. Because Roman, I mean
1:22:15
we what his last title defense was against Shake. He's had one title defense
1:22:21
since WrestleMania one. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Sure, but that's what you're
1:22:28
making right now is an argument for internet talk for the Internet wrestling community.
1:22:31
Yeah, yeah, that don't mean ship in that damn locker room because Roman
1:22:34
gonna be look at you like, bitch, I'm the face of this company
1:22:38
right now. I get it. I I totally get it. Mad like
1:22:41
backstage, like I ain't gotten to defend shit, defend my numbers, motherfucker
1:22:45
absolutely defend these ratings. Yeah, absolutely, dude, Uh you know that
1:22:54
mean but uh yeah, I think it's that. But at the same time,
1:23:00
if the money's there, if the money's right, an opportunity is there,
1:23:03
I could absolutely see it happening. Yeah, even if it's just for
1:23:09
like a brief thing, and if he's on a part time type contract where
1:23:15
he just he resigns but he only appears sporadically. He's not a week to
1:23:19
week competitor. So yeah, but do I see it happening anytime in the
1:23:26
near future. No, yeah, I don't see it happening between like between
1:23:30
now and WrestleMania. I don't see it happening. Carlos, what do you
1:23:34
think about phil coming back the cult of Personality? How do you feel about
1:23:42
you know, where do you think he'll go from here. Uh, you
1:23:45
know, with he did have. I believe he was on good terms with
1:23:49
UFC when he left. I mean he should might have been good terms with
1:23:56
the UFC when he left, because yeah, I mean, that's no chance
1:24:00
to do anything he lost. I think the three or four matches that you
1:24:05
know he was there for. As far as him coming back to the e
1:24:12
I'm sure it's probably something that's more than likely to happen, but I doubt
1:24:18
that anyone is actually in the locker room going to be excited for that to
1:24:25
actually happen, just because not only the issues that have been brought up happening
1:24:34
in a e W, but I mean Seth Rollins and now he's backtracking and
1:24:40
said that he would love to have another match, but he actively came out
1:24:44
and said that, yeah, we've always known that feels this way, and
1:24:48
you know, we wouldn't want him BA getting here, so there might be
1:24:54
something in the mix. And that's why Seth Rollins is like, well,
1:24:58
yeah, you know what, he may be a jerk, but it was
1:25:01
still pretty cool to have a match with him. So now I always say,
1:25:08
if Vince is still alive, which according to quote, he plans to
1:25:15
be alive until he's one hundred and twenty. Holy shit, I'm sure that
1:25:23
there's a way for him to reconcile. Now, if Vince is the one
1:25:30
that had Hunters and the papers to fire Phil on his wedding day, yes,
1:25:40
But if it was just Hunter doing it on his own and nothing to
1:25:45
do with Vince, then we might not get it because you know what kind
1:25:50
of a person you really had to hate a person to have them get their
1:25:55
papers to be fired on the day of their wedding. It's not like the
1:26:00
Godfather, where you ask for a favor on the day of your daughter's wedding.
1:26:05
But this the day of my daughter's wedding. You fired me on the
1:26:11
day of my daughter's wedding. But at the same time, think about it,
1:26:16
seth Rolins versus see him Punk. No, yeah, I'm not saying
1:26:20
yeah, I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't not want to see it,
1:26:24
But I just that is money you want to see if he were coming,
1:26:29
just all three. If you can name three, seth Ronins and Seahampunk,
1:26:33
let's let's get. Let's get really, honestly, I think that that's number
1:26:38
one first and foremost. Yeah, see Hip Punk Burke Seth Rowins versus See
1:26:43
Him Punk, that would be number one. Number two. I would think
1:26:47
maybe Seth Rolins and Cody Rose just because of their aw connection. Yeah.
1:26:56
After that, After that, I mean maybe maybe maybe you see Him Punk
1:27:02
versus Roman Reigns. Yeah, because the one thing that said that see Him
1:27:08
Punk has working for him is that he would not come if he were to
1:27:13
come back, he would not be just a guy on the roster. He
1:27:15
would not come back as a guy who would have to in any way or
1:27:19
shape or for him work his way up, unless he chose that he wanted
1:27:24
to work with an up and coming guy like on Austin Theory or something like
1:27:28
that, if he wanted to work a program with somebody like that, or
1:27:30
an l A Night or something like that. Other than that, yeah,
1:27:34
he's he's He's somebody that you put up against the top of your your roster
1:27:42
stack. Do you know who I want to see? Ella Knight. It's
1:27:45
a good one, all good points, but there's somebody on the roster I
1:27:48
want to see just for not for the in ring hype, but I mean
1:27:56
like the promos, which would be still good, but for just the wrestling
1:28:00
match itself. The the these guys are close to it in the same weight
1:28:04
class. Uh. I feel like with their technical wrestling ability, I think
1:28:10
it would be very good chine Gano, no, well good one. I
1:28:15
was thinking AJ styles. Yeah, I would like that shouldn't be in a
1:28:23
decent pay per view match. Yeah, yeah, I think that would be
1:28:28
a pretty good feud right there. They could either play face or he'll either
1:28:31
one of them on either end. You don't need no stable, you don't
1:28:36
need the the what the O c involved? But uh I had some other
1:28:47
A A W news. Did you guys see the match with You haven't brought
1:28:51
up the other big A news yet, but oh yeah, I'm getting into
1:28:56
it. I'm getting into it. I got two more things and if I'm
1:29:00
said that I missed it and you can fill it in. But John Moxley
1:29:03
had a match to the other night. He suffered an accussion during the match
1:29:06
against Ray Phoenix at Abe Dynamite Grand Slam on Wednesday night show. Moxley lost
1:29:13
that aw International Championship to Phoenix. The title change wasn't planned in advance,
1:29:19
but happened when Moxley called him audible after it getting hurt. I watched it,
1:29:28
Like I didn't watch the match, but I watched the clip. It
1:29:30
looks like he dropped him on his head and then he got up, you
1:29:33
know, because the ref counted hesitated on the third count checked. It made
1:29:38
it look like, you know, oh, you shoulders grown it up,
1:29:40
and you know, then he does it again. He does it again.
1:29:46
I didn't no one hart like pick up stokehold and pile drive him again.
1:29:51
You know, he did somebody's moves. He's just like dude, he caught
1:29:59
it houdible, Like, why would you even just attempt it again? You
1:30:03
couldn't, Like I what was I watching him? Uh? Fuck? Can't
1:30:09
they? What wrestlering was that? Oh Neville when he was in WW he
1:30:15
broke his ankle while wrestling Chris Jericho, and the way Jericho handled that match
1:30:18
and like, you know, ended it, you know, oh, it
1:30:21
broke my ankle and then just made it work. He didn't, hey,
1:30:26
let's do this, let's make your work harder or you know. And Jericho
1:30:30
also helped with Tripleachey towards squad, you know, to help finish the match,
1:30:35
end it, you know, right, professional exactly. You're not like
1:30:40
Cincaro where you broke your finger and you gotta call time out in the fucking
1:30:44
match. That was embarrassing if anybody remember that. But yeah, you know
1:30:53
Moxley dude, Like every time I watched a match that he's in, he's
1:31:00
it just seems like that's his new gimmick, that's his new thing. You
1:31:03
know, I'm gonna blade more than Rick Flair and mc fulltt ever bled like,
1:31:09
I'm gonna be the generation that remembers this guy who puts yours in his
1:31:15
head. I want to be the modern day Terry Funk. Yeah yeah,
1:31:21
all right, man, But then you just ship like this. But I
1:31:30
guess the big news right that, Oh yeah, just on the boxing there
1:31:36
some point, at some point, somebody's gonna have to sit down, Like
1:31:42
Tony Connor, somebody's going to sit down and talk with him, Like,
1:31:44
look, man, I get I appreciate you trying to bring excitement and all
1:31:48
this stuff to our product, but you gont have to dial it back.
1:31:51
You've got to tone it down a bit, and you got to start wrestling
1:31:55
safer because you know, you ain't no good to me if you out.
1:31:59
And because oh you wanted to have an extreme pile driver spot or something or
1:32:04
you wanted to bleed this week and you're bled a little too much and now
1:32:08
you you know, you out for a couple of weeks. Like you know,
1:32:13
if you if at some point that stuff loses its value, especially if
1:32:16
you do it all the time. You know, what made blood special back
1:32:20
in the day is that you didn't see it all the time. You know,
1:32:24
like if somebody actually got busted open and back and they were like,
1:32:27
oh shit, they bleeding, you know, then we kind of the pendulon
1:32:31
kind of swung a little too far the other way. We know, when
1:32:34
we got ECW where they did it all the time and it just became a
1:32:39
gimmick with them, and then a little bit in the attitude there where it
1:32:42
seemed like guys were kind of bleeding a little bit too much. And then
1:32:45
obviously we discovered things about you know, CTE and all that stuff, and
1:32:48
so we've swung back completely the other way, seemingly for good, at least
1:32:54
as far as wwe goes in terms of absolutely no blood and outlawing moves like
1:33:00
Paul Drivers and stuff like that. But just because they do have gone that
1:33:05
as far as to the extreme, doesn't mean that John Moxley should be doing
1:33:10
the exact opposite, Like they ain't gonna give you none of it. I'm
1:33:13
gonna give you all of it. It's like, dude, that's that alone
1:33:18
ain't enough to be a great wrestler, at least not in my eyes.
1:33:24
At some point, you should be able, if you're really that good,
1:33:26
you should be able to have a good match, tell a good story without
1:33:32
using the extreme stuff as a crutch, which to me kind of seems like
1:33:38
what he's become now. In aw, It's just I'm the guy that does
1:33:43
the extreme shit. It's become a bit of a crutch to him now.
1:33:46
And like I said, at some point Tony or somebody who had to sit
1:33:49
them down and tell them, like he may you need to dial it back,
1:33:56
Carlos, you got anything on this on mos? Yeah? Yeah,
1:34:00
I just with him. It looks like he was out from like the first
1:34:06
move that Ray Phoenix did, Yeah, from the ramp. And usually,
1:34:13
like if a spotlight that happens, the ref is supposed to check out.
1:34:17
You. I know we've unnoticed it, but maybe we you know, need
1:34:21
a reminder. But when the ref gets near, like a wrestler, if
1:34:27
he thinks they need help or he needs to check out on he'll be like,
1:34:30
just grab my hand and pinch it and the ref doesn't even go down
1:34:33
there had him and Ray Phoenix is actually the one that comes back and he
1:34:40
grabs Mox his hand and I guess Max gave him to squeeze and then they
1:34:44
kept going. But he was out for a while and maybe he never recovered.
1:34:48
And certainly getting that that modified pile driver done to him not once but
1:34:56
twice was probably not the best way that to happen. But that's also something
1:35:02
that the REF needs to be communicating with the people in the back and be
1:35:08
like, hey, John doesn't look good here. What do you guys want
1:35:12
me to do? We need to go home, We need to do what
1:35:15
we need to get, you know, like something needs to happen. And
1:35:20
as far as like getting the revs to be more aware of not only what's
1:35:30
happening, you know, with the spots, but also be aware of the
1:35:39
wrestler's health, because that's another reason why technically they're out there, because the
1:35:45
people in the back can't see everything up close and you're there there, you
1:35:50
know, the revs should be there and they should be also like also be
1:36:00
part of the match. And it's always good if a ref knows when they're
1:36:03
supposed to be active in the match, either by being distracted or taking the
1:36:09
bumps or helping them, you know, figure out the spots. You know,
1:36:13
if you could get a ref in there that also can help storytelle and
1:36:16
make the match better, that's great as fantastic. It makes everyone looks good.
1:36:21
And who knows that that ref maybe working main events and things like that.
1:36:26
You know, but if you keep, like I guess, blanking on
1:36:30
what your job is supposed to be, or you know, you're just not
1:36:34
able to look after no one's no one's gonna want to keep going out there
1:36:40
and trusting you to you know, like, hey, if I take this
1:36:43
spot and I look out of it, you know, I exqueeze your hand,
1:36:46
you know, like telling people in the back, I need to go,
1:36:49
we need to go, we need to figure out And then with him
1:36:54
pinning them and Maxley's not even attempting to move on the first time you take
1:37:00
that modified bio driver, the rev just stops the count. It's not like
1:37:04
you know, like you know, not like Gray picked them up and like
1:37:09
knowing that he's supposed to get up for that particular spot right like he's just
1:37:14
laying down, like he's out, And that's when you're just used counting.
1:37:18
You just go one, two, three, and they could finish, they
1:37:21
could find a way to book it and you know, recond it later.
1:37:26
But get everyone home and get everyone the medical attention that they need. All
1:37:32
right, let's get to the the choosiest for a that came from AW.
1:37:40
For those who know who she is, Jay Cargo, uh This uh PW
1:37:47
insider Mike Johnson report that this week that Cargo's AW contract was believed to have
1:37:53
expired and the plans were in place for her to report to the WW Performance
1:37:58
Center in Ohio, Florida. Dave Militzer Wrestling Observer later poor that WW has
1:38:04
already been making creative plans for her and view her likely to arrive in a
1:38:10
arrival as a big thing. Meltzer also know that while Cargo's signing with WW
1:38:16
wasn't wasn't officially locked in as a Monday, the company made her a substantial
1:38:23
financial offer compared to most other newcomers when they sign with the company. For
1:38:31
those who don't know, she joined, UH I think what AW twenty twenty
1:38:38
and she wants sixty oo been the first TBS champion at five hundred days or
1:38:45
five hundred and eight days, She's gonna have to still go. I think
1:38:54
her in ringwork is what's like the last piece of the puzzle for her.
1:38:59
She's gonna have to go maybe an NXT and work on it a little bit
1:39:03
so she could be on have the tools that she needs to be on the
1:39:06
same level as like Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Bianca Belair and you know
1:39:11
Ria Ripley. But like she's only thirty one, right, so she's still
1:39:16
got a lot of time left. And I think just you know, do
1:39:20
it right, and we'll take her as a serious threat to like some of
1:39:26
these women, you know, to the women's division, to the title.
1:39:30
I think that'd be great if she comes over, like that'd be an awesome
1:39:33
sign on Dre. You want to talk about this? Yeah, I think
1:39:45
I saw it. I did see it photo For all, I noticed date
1:39:46
and that it could have been photoshop, and I thought she was at the
1:39:49
Performance Center this week. I know it was speculated that she was set to
1:39:55
appear. I don't know if the photo I saw it was again legit or
1:40:01
not. But as far as her appearing in WWE, I think, yeah,
1:40:10
maybe if they wanted to play uh conservative to conservatively, then yeah,
1:40:15
you probably would start her with an XT, give her at least a short
1:40:20
run and n XT before moving up to the main roster so that, yeah,
1:40:25
she can adjust to the WW style and you know, refine her ring
1:40:30
skills a bit. I did see it the last match she had with in
1:40:35
a w Yeah, yeah, with Chris stat Lander for that. For what
1:40:42
it was in that match, she actually looked good to me in that match,
1:40:44
Like she didn't really look that green. I didn't see any moments where
1:40:48
she looked lost in the ring or looked or any major botches or anything like
1:40:54
that. So and that's an improvement over some matches I've seen from her in
1:40:59
the past. So credit to her for you know, improving her abilities in
1:41:03
the ring during her time in AW That being said, again, that doesn't
1:41:09
necessarily mean she's main roster ready for WWE. However, what would probably make
1:41:15
her start out immediately on the main roster is her name, her name recognition.
1:41:25
That alone would put her especially given how WW operates. I mean they
1:41:30
put Ronda Rousey straight on the main roster, not having wrestled a lick before,
1:41:39
so you know, Jay, someone like Jade Cargill would probably be I
1:41:43
think, arguably the biggest signing, the biggest, yeah, right, arguably
1:41:49
the biggest signing they've probably done since Ronda Rousey. I would think I can't
1:41:54
think of anybody that they right, yeah, yeah, obviously big biggest women's
1:42:00
wrestlers they signed since Rod Rousy. I can't think of anybody else that they
1:42:03
got, you know, yeah, I can't really probably be either. I
1:42:08
mean, we hear people coming back, like the possibility of Kyrie Same coming
1:42:13
back, but that's not on the same root as or somebody fresh like an
1:42:18
AW product, like straight AW product, you know. And yeah, and
1:42:25
unfortunately, big name, big name with female free agents isn't really a thing
1:42:32
as much in wrestling as it is with the men. Yeah, there's a
1:42:36
ton of like men out there who were like, if that person can sign,
1:42:40
it's a big deal because they're a big name free agent. They aren't
1:42:43
really that many out there that aren't former WWE talent already. Yeah, I
1:42:50
mean, now it's like we would just beginning people who left and are coming
1:42:57
back exactly, which we get, you know, I mean, right now,
1:43:00
like the only good ones would be if Naomi come back or sa Naomi
1:43:04
or Sasha Banks. Yeah, I mean on the other side that I'd be
1:43:10
clamoring for that used to be a WW superstar. But yeah, this one's
1:43:14
a big one. I think this would be great, but I mean crazy,
1:43:19
it's crazy, but like Becky Lynch is also down in NXT right now,
1:43:26
kind of sort of, it would be cool. I mean, if
1:43:29
that's your debut tan XT is to feud with Becky who's already champ like I'm
1:43:35
not. Maybe if you put her over on somebody like Becky like and then
1:43:41
keep her in NXT, like you would take her so serious day one,
1:43:44
like on the WW ground. Yeah, but that would be a hell of
1:43:49
a thing for NXT. But I don't know that they would waste a mash
1:43:53
like that on NXT. But you know, we've like I don't know,
1:43:59
like there's just been some crazy call up matters or first matters in the company
1:44:04
or something like that where it's like it's a big win like it mean,
1:44:09
it's not. It's not the realm of possibility of somebody winning a title in
1:44:13
their first debut match, right, No, they did, Gail Kim did
1:44:16
it. Yeah, Gail Kim did it Woman's title, but Carlos, what
1:44:23
do you j Also one did Kevin Owens, Like when he came to the
1:44:28
main roster he beat John Senior from the United States title I think or something
1:44:31
like that. Uh, Christian did it. Yeah, that's a there's a
1:44:38
bunch of people. Santino Morella. Oh yeah, Paige Santino won the intercommentut
1:44:45
tannel from UMAGA. Jeez, that's crazy. Huh what else do I got
1:44:55
here in news? Oh? I think about this. Yeah, I think
1:45:01
Like I said, I think she will probably start on the main roster almost
1:45:05
immediately, and what they'll probably do is pare her up with their best workers
1:45:14
who can say that way she can be She'll get a high profile fuse,
1:45:19
they'll get their return on their return on investment, and she'll be in there
1:45:24
with good workers who can one help her develop while also masking any shortcomings that
1:45:30
she may have while she adjusts to WWE style, Like depending well, it
1:45:36
would depend on whether it's they debuted her on Raw or SmackDown, But I
1:45:41
could see them debuting her on like if she debuted on raw, maybe not
1:45:47
immediately feuding with a Rea Ripley but I could see them putting her with a
1:45:55
Raquel Rodrigus and a feud, or I could see them debuting her are on
1:46:00
SmackDown, especially on SmackDown, and feuding with somebody like Bailey. But we
1:46:05
know Bailey can work with any damn body and pull a great match out anybody.
1:46:11
She's Bailey's one of their best workhorses. I could see them doing something
1:46:15
like that. I could also see them doing it because I feel like if
1:46:21
they if she is there, then assumming Jay Cargill is in the WW and
1:46:28
that is confirmed or you know, soon to be confirmed. I think you
1:46:33
can almost pencil in Jay Cargill versus Bianca Belair at WrestleMania forty. I think
1:46:42
that's the the first dream match that people think of with Jay Cargill in WW.
1:46:48
Jade versus Bianca. Sagine almost penciled that in, So they gotta buy
1:46:53
time from now until then, excuse me, otherwise I think they would do
1:47:01
a few like that immediately. So yeah, I mean, I completely agree
1:47:14
with Drey here said something that it's very exciting to see that Jade Cargoes coming
1:47:19
over and you know, now you have to do another build. But it
1:47:26
shouldn't have to be that long. If if she continues to have like maybe
1:47:32
one or two good pay per view showings on her NXT run, you know,
1:47:38
she will definitely get that call up. Oh yeah, so if we're
1:47:44
yeah, if we get her maybe coming in around well, the next pay
1:47:47
per view is uh for NXT is coming up at the end of the month,
1:47:54
so maybe her debuting afterwards, because we're we're having that Tiffany Stranthon versus
1:48:00
Becky match right for the championship. Yeah, so if she didn't show up
1:48:05
at the end, like to make her challenge towards Becky or Tiffany, whoever
1:48:13
wins, then you can pretty much see her probably coming in maybe later on
1:48:18
that Wednesday. So if she does like the two months like I'm saying,
1:48:23
so we'll see November December and maybe she gets done and then she'll get the
1:48:29
show main roster debut either before the Royal Rumbo, you know, and building
1:48:35
up her anticipation that she's going to join the Royal Rumbo or maybe maybe it's
1:48:40
a surprise entrant, right, Yeah, and then I did look, I
1:48:47
did finally get some numbers here on that sea and Punk Francis I'm not sure
1:48:58
exactly how accurate this is as far as this one guy says, but for
1:49:05
sure he had thirteen pay per view title defenses. Uh, and then he
1:49:11
had one hundred and forty one title defenses over the year. I wasn't able
1:49:21
to actually find like who he faced and see, you know who either was
1:49:28
a squash match or if it was a long field or things like that.
1:49:31
But yeah, one hundred one, one hundred and forty one. Yeah,
1:49:34
I mean he was about barely a third of the year. Slacker. No,
1:49:43
No, one hundred title defenses. No, you know what I mean,
1:49:49
Like I thought you expected him to have one, like one one a
1:49:54
day. No, No, I'm totally trolling. Okay, how many what
1:50:01
about Roman? How many how many matches do you think he's defended he's had
1:50:05
this year? Twelve? God, that's winning the title. I mean,
1:50:12
because I don't know, I'm just throwing out of the I think most of
1:50:18
his matches this year have been like either tag matches or or some type of
1:50:26
like triple threat match or something like that. I mean this year alone,
1:50:30
we can name all the title defenses he's had. Kevin O's at Royal Rumble,
1:50:33
Sam, He's ain't an elimination chamber and Cody Rose at WrestleMania jussoa SummerSlam.
1:50:39
Yeah, it says here just I Google like Roman Range Matches twenty twenty
1:50:44
three says he only wrestled nine matches this year so far twenty twenty two.
1:50:49
He wrestled fifty fifty two matches in twenty twenty twenty wrestles sixty one matches in
1:50:56
twenty twenty thirty three in twenty twenty. So yeah, that's the that's the
1:51:02
pandemic. You can't really count it, especially since he has dad, like
1:51:08
cancer or some type of medical issues. So, yeah, he had leukemia.
1:51:15
Yeah, that's a hell of uh, you know, that's a hell
1:51:18
of h a gift from the company, like, you know, for him
1:51:24
coming back. We didn't even think he was ever going to come back once
1:51:27
he said he had leukemia. But it's like back and like this is his
1:51:30
second chance. It's like, you know what, we'll give you the longest
1:51:34
reigning championship in the modern era. He's made it work, though it's not
1:51:39
like he's like he had a good contracts that only if I get to be
1:51:44
a Yeah, I mean it's been it's been worked better than when Brock Lesner
1:51:48
went champion, because everybody's like, oh my god, Brock's champion. But
1:51:53
then we won't see we won't see the title defending for like another year.
1:51:56
Yeah. And one thing that Roman has that puts him that separates him from
1:52:03
practically any other wrestler, damn sure, any wrestler of the modern era,
1:52:11
is that he is the only He is one of either the only one,
1:52:18
or you could say, maybe two persons or people who's been the face of
1:52:25
the company as a heel. Yeah, Hogan, Hogan, baby Face,
1:52:30
Austin baby Face, Rock baby Face, Sena baby Face, Roman Hell.
1:52:36
The only other person you could possibly name who has been the face of the
1:52:42
company as a heal would be Rick Flair in the WCW in the eighties,
1:52:51
Rick Flair in like the NWA in the late n WAWCW years of the end,
1:52:57
he was the face of that company before while staying then we're still coming
1:53:00
up and clearly the heell. But he's about the only one I can think
1:53:03
of that's on at least on that level. Yeah, Like Triple H was
1:53:10
a face of the company, but not the face. Undertaker a face,
1:53:15
Roddy Piper, a face you know, Hogan, you could maybe make an
1:53:20
argument for Hollywood Hogan and during the nWo days, but then again, he
1:53:27
was a face. You could arguably maybe say he was the face, but
1:53:33
you know, you could also say Sting was there right alongside him. So
1:53:41
yeah, that's that's something that Roman Reigns has that very very few other wrestlers
1:53:46
can say. Did you guys hear that some fans al Rady or In walking
1:53:57
into the performance center this week? Yeah, all that story briefly today,
1:54:02
but didn't like look into it further. Apparently he uh they called it like
1:54:09
like a little candid picture of him. Yeah, yeah, you know,
1:54:13
I did you think about We were just talking about Basista not too long ago,
1:54:18
about him coming back, and it made me think, like, you
1:54:20
know, all the guys from Evolution, like Rick Flair's retired, Triple is
1:54:26
just not retired. Batista's you know retired, so like Organs like the last
1:54:30
one, he was like the youngest guy of the group, and it's just
1:54:33
like, man, this guys he's he's wrapping up his career here. John
1:54:38
Cena's already just about you know, in and out, like he's you know,
1:54:42
pretty much done, like but he makes he does a few matches,
1:54:45
but I mean, like full time he's done, so is like I wonder
1:54:48
if this is the last full time run we're gonna get a Orgon, you
1:54:53
know, before he starts going into that legend satus where you know, you
1:54:58
get to see him if you're luck like we're not going to see him on
1:55:01
SmackDown every week with Matt Riddle, you know, so wrapping up this career,
1:55:08
if you could pick, like, you know, a handful of feuds,
1:55:11
what would you want to see with Oregon? For me, I kind
1:55:14
of want to see him either turn on Riddle or Riddle turns on him,
1:55:19
see that feud. I mean, that's a long time build, a long
1:55:26
time coming. Something's gotta give at some point if Riddle's got anything left,
1:55:30
you know, in the tank, you know, for considering we just talked
1:55:34
about the shit he's going through. But maybe another crack at the at Roman
1:55:42
reigns. I don't know, Like I I feel like I kind of got
1:55:48
cheated out of Orgon and brock Lesner, But I don't think I'm ever going
1:55:51
to get the proper feud that I want out of those two. But I
1:55:57
can't. I don't know who else I want to see maybe be someone the
1:56:00
singles and no longer than the tag but Trey, what do you think,
1:56:08
uh, in regards to what's specifically, what do you think like if we
1:56:15
see Orton and this is his last like run right, what kind of feud
1:56:20
do you want to see before he's done, before he wraps up his career's
1:56:28
thinking of? Or do you think you're you're pretty much seen them all?
1:56:30
Because Yeah, at this point, I'm kind of of the mindset that Orton
1:56:35
has kind of done it all, at least from a high profile perspective.
1:56:40
I don't think I necessarily want to see him with another title run. I
1:56:44
mean, we did that for a while. I would have been happy seeing
1:56:47
him come back and reform, you know, r K BRO with Matt Riddle.
1:56:53
But I think we've got enough separation from that where I think that ship
1:56:56
is sailed, So I'm not really I don't really have much interest in seeing
1:57:00
that thing rekindled anymore. I think at this point I would like to see
1:57:08
Randy Jorton probably do something where he's pretty much just elevating the next generation of
1:57:16
talent, see him working with working with up and working with those guys that
1:57:21
they think are next in the up and comers and helping to get them over,
1:57:28
you know, maybe work a few with La Night to help get him
1:57:30
over, work a few, work a match with Chad Gable get and help
1:57:33
get him over, and stuff like that. I think I'd be good with
1:57:39
that. And the only thing is, like, because I kind of thought
1:57:45
about it a little bit with the Rock when he had his uh, when
1:57:51
he had his Hollywood phase and he did that brief He'll turn where he was
1:57:57
a heell, but he was still really entertaining and was working programs with the
1:58:02
likes of like I think he's worked with like Ben Waugh and Guerrero and even
1:58:10
worked with Hurricane Helms where you know, he was letting some of these the
1:58:14
younger guys, some of the up and coming guys get over working programs with
1:58:17
him. Even Austin did that late in his career, work programs with those
1:58:21
guys. I'd want to see Randy Orton do that. I'd like to see
1:58:26
him help build up the next generation by helping get those guys over. So
1:58:32
yeah, because I can't think of any dream matches I would like to see
1:58:34
him have or anything like that. You know, I'd like to see him.
1:58:41
And some people might might not like that, because I know they would.
1:58:44
They would hate to see Randy Orton come back and just lose, lose,
1:58:46
lose. But he's he's at that point. He's at the point of
1:58:50
legends where you can lose and it doesn't affect your legacy at all. His
1:58:55
legacy is established. He's one of the all time greats. He's a Hall
1:58:59
of Famer. All that is set in stone. So he can come back,
1:59:05
challenge a gunter and lose, and then work a program with the Chad
1:59:11
Gable and lose to build him up, work a program with the La Night
1:59:15
and lose. Hell even work a program with Austin Theory and lose to him.
1:59:19
And maybe, you know, give Austin Theory the rub or the bump
1:59:25
that John Cena couldn't give him at WrestleMania. Maybe that maybe something like that
1:59:31
with Randy Orton would work. Yeah, you know, because you know not
1:59:35
to not to deviate too much. But I think with as I've given some
1:59:41
thoughts Austin Theory and him his lack of really getting over you know how with
1:59:46
a lot of guys, a lot of wrestlers, we see them as like
1:59:50
kind of just clean cut baby faces, and it doesn't seem to work for
1:59:55
him, and we're like they and people meet it, what's the first thing
1:59:58
people say? Oh, that person need they need to turn heal. They're
2:00:00
boring this clean cut baby face think isn't working. They need to turn heal.
2:00:04
I'm starting to wonder if maybe the opposite might be the case Frost and
2:00:08
theory, where him as a heel just isn't working, and maybe what he
2:00:14
needs to do is actually turned baby face. I thought about it trying to
2:00:18
picture him as a baby face. It's been all the long time since I've
2:00:21
seen him as one, right, and I think he just needs like the
2:00:26
proper foil to somebody who could be a better heel than him, so that
2:00:32
he can play the baby face roll dose no go on more than every everybody
2:00:43
hates him, but dominate on, but think about being a baby face is
2:00:45
about overcoming a greater threat. Dominic mysterio is not a great effect to Austin
2:00:50
theory. For all. As much as I maybe down on Austin theory currently,
2:00:55
I still think he's of a bigger stature than Dominic masterio. Even with
2:00:59
Domin mysterial being in the hottest faction in WW Right now, I would still
2:01:03
argue that Austin theory as a singles competitor is of a higher stature than Dominic
2:01:09
right now, right at least at least in my eyes. But somebody like
2:01:15
Randy Orton comes back as a heel and Austin theory is a face, I
2:01:20
think that's the type of you that could actually really get theory over to the
2:01:26
next level. So, like, that's the type of stuff I would want
2:01:30
to see from Randy Orton in a in a quote unquote final run. Carlos,
2:01:36
where do you think, Randy? I think, because like this could
2:01:45
be it, man. I mean, if it's if he gets medically medically
2:01:49
cleared, obviously it's gonna be his last run. He can definitely have a
2:01:56
few matches left in him. Depending on who they set him up with,
2:02:03
it's gonna be people that need to rub the people that need to get over.
2:02:08
That's a good good, A good one that Drey brought up as Austin
2:02:12
theory. If anything that Randy is able to do, good, He's able
2:02:16
to do that whole flip of either being a heel or being the face.
2:02:24
Yeah, he's able to adjust, you know, on the whim to like
2:02:30
compliment the guy he's gonna be facing, so maybe he can be the heel
2:02:38
and like, uh for Austin to have him do that face turn that Drey
2:02:45
thinks that might be able to help him. I just don't think that Austin
2:02:48
works either as a face because he has that he doesn't like. I watch
2:02:59
him and like, as much as they try to push him, he's like
2:03:02
he hasn't found what his character is yet. He tried doing that whole you
2:03:08
know, being vain, kind of being like the myths but a little bit
2:03:12
more extreme, being into himself and you know, bringing his phone to ring
2:03:17
sign and doing his selfie videos and then posting them and things like that.
2:03:23
But yeah, it's like it helped them, but it's still not like to
2:03:29
think that I think helped him get over with the crowd. And maybe he'll
2:03:35
find it if he does do a face run, but that that would be
2:03:40
interesting, as you know, as far as like Randy having his final tour
2:03:44
and helping another talent get over, I think another one that might help him
2:03:49
out to if we're doing who Randy needs to wrestle to get people over tour
2:03:58
is maybe a Johnny Gargano. You know, if if Johnny ever comes back,
2:04:08
I don't even know what's going on with him, but that'll help him.
2:04:14
Yeah. You know, Tomasa was putting up missing posters like two or
2:04:16
three weeks ago, and now he stopped looking for him, so well,
2:04:24
yeah, he's one of Friday's cuts. Knock on wood, I don't want
2:04:30
to jink. Yeah, So I mean that would also probably help him out.
2:04:33
I'm sure what happened that looks like they were going to reform the way.
2:04:38
Yeah when when you know, when we saw an indie come back,
2:04:43
uh, and then you know that would have been also probably a way to
2:04:47
bring back Boston with Dexter into the fold and bring that back. But yeah,
2:04:57
I think Johnny would need it because Johnny, as much as he's been,
2:05:01
like I guess, inching forward little by little, an injury always sets
2:05:08
them back, and missing all this TV time always sets them back because you
2:05:14
get all these newer people who like probably didn't watch him on NXT or didn't
2:05:19
watch him or know him from like coming up in the indies over there at
2:05:26
a pro wrestling, guerrilla wrestling and things like that over there in the California
2:05:32
indie scene and you know, where the more you're off the air, the
2:05:35
more people you'll have to get reintroduced to as far as you know, like
2:05:42
newer you know, kids are growing up or you know, beginning to watch
2:05:45
wrestling, you know, or a friend talks to another friend and they're like,
2:05:48
hey, you gotta watch this, or someone someone famous comes like The
2:05:51
Rock recently, and people are like, why did he show up on this
2:05:56
show? Calls SmackDown, and then people start watching it, and then I'll
2:06:00
be like, you know, like Johnny Gargano gets reintroduced and you're like,
2:06:02
who the hell is Johnny Gargano and why should it be impressed? And when
2:06:05
you look at him, you're like, he's not very impressive, but that'd
2:06:11
probably be a good one for him to go up against. And then,
2:06:15
uh, maybe depending on how much time. Yeah, you know, like
2:06:23
this feud keeps going or his like Grandy's time is maybe I'd like to see
2:06:28
him a goal gets brown Breaker. That's not a bad one. It's actually
2:06:31
a pretty good idea. Anything about bron Breaker. I mean, he's still
2:06:35
he's still he still needs to come up. He's been talking about him coming
2:06:40
up since the last year. Yeah, you know, and he still hasn't
2:06:45
happened. So I mean, like Randy has has had that persona where he
2:06:50
kind of gets pretty psychotic quote unquote, and you know brown Breaker has had
2:06:56
those moments. You're chasing the title, so that I think that'd probably be
2:07:00
a good way to help brown Breaker break in and get into the some type
2:07:05
of main event status when he comes up to the either rob or SmackDown.
2:07:15
Yeah, those are all good suggestions. Like I said, I hadn't even
2:07:18
thought about somebody like a bron Breaker or something like that. Yeah, imagine
2:07:21
somebody like him getting called up to the main roster and one of his first
2:07:26
fuses with a Randy Orton. Yeah, oh yeah, that could be definitely
2:07:30
a thing that could you know, you want to establish a guy off the
2:07:33
top is being, you know, somebody not to be trifled with. Yeah.
2:07:38
Yeah, Like especially if they bring him on to the main roster as
2:07:41
a heel with the same heel persona he has currently has an NXT. Yeah,
2:07:46
he'll bron Breaker versus a face Randy Orton, because obviously whenever Randy Ordon
2:07:53
comes back, he's going to start off as a face initially before he goes
2:07:56
He'll so yeah, especially he has that you know, tied legacy of his
2:08:03
dad Rick and then Scott, you know, and Randy's known as the legend
2:08:07
killer type of thing. So generational superstars. You know, it's not a
2:08:15
bad idea, dude, It writes itself fucking right, So I'm gonna get
2:08:20
Jet gpt on it and didn't put my name. Yeah, I think the
2:08:26
one thing I will say, you touched on about Austin Theory and saying that,
2:08:31
uh, yeah, you said he hasn't really found his uh character yet.
2:08:35
I think part of the reason why he hasn't found his character yet is
2:08:39
because he's been trying to be a heal And you think about a lot of
2:08:43
the superstars, they say that some of their best characters are just extensions of
2:08:50
themselves, just turned up a little bit. I think Austin Theory in real
2:08:56
life is probably a good dude, like probably a genuinely nice guy or something
2:09:01
like that. And that's not to say that he has to be like,
2:09:03
you know, the bubblegum baby face type thing. But I think because he's
2:09:07
such, he's probably such a genuinely nice guy in real life that him trying
2:09:11
to do the hell thing is a bit unnatural for him. And which is
2:09:18
why I think it's not it doesn't click, it doesn't connect as well,
2:09:22
because it's not it's not him, it's not who he really is, right,
2:09:28
And I think when you're when you're faking it like that, you know
2:09:31
people can see through it, or you can't really perform the role as well
2:09:37
as you can when you're just being an extension of yourself, which I think
2:09:43
might be maybe the case of with Austin theory, which is why again by
2:09:46
flow to the idea that I think he actually is one of the persons that
2:09:50
needs to go against the grain and actually needs to turn face in order to
2:09:54
get over, as opposed to and develop his character further, as opposed to
2:10:00
the traditional brief where somebody has to go heal to develop their character. For
2:10:05
this is the people's show, and you know what that means. Listen,
2:12:33
it's been a long time, right, a long time. But let me
2:12:37
go ahead and tell you what's your bitch ass up? You clearly don't know
2:12:52
how all this works. Finally, low Rock least come back to dan ber
2:13:50
Maybe I should try. Finally, good ignorant people get to see the Rock
2:14:01
and Austin back in the ring again. One last time, only this time
2:14:09
it's not born old stone Coat. It's a real Austin, a real ass
2:14:15
kicker, the Austin that is gonna go on and be so great. I'm
2:14:18
gonna be the entire Matt ross More. Yeah, that's how great. Well,
2:14:28
the Rocks says, it doesn't matter what the Rock says. You're seeing.
2:14:43
It actually does matter what the Rock says, and it actually does matter
2:14:52
more importantly than what the Rock says, what the people say. If you
2:15:00
bring up Stone Cold Steve Auston, that's the Rocks boy. But if he
2:15:03
were here right now, this, this is what he would say. If
2:15:07
you want to see me, Pete, this trapronis asked me to me?
2:15:09
How hell yeah? So you see the roof, just brew off the place
2:15:18
because we are live and as the Rock said, this at the Rock,
2:15:20
it's SmackDown and it's a rock show, and it matters what they say.
2:15:26
So you see how loud they just got right. So you want to talk
2:15:28
trash about Stone Cold, talk trash about pat talk, trash about the people,
2:15:33
Well the Rock says this, you're you're your Austin theory, right,
2:15:37
you're damn right right right right, and you're you're from you're from a town.
2:15:43
Is that right? You're damn right. Well, something else that I'm
2:15:50
damn right about is you clearly are an a hole. All right, welcome
2:16:01
back. We took a little break there. We needed it after that two
2:16:05
hour stretch. But we're gonna wrap things up here. But I got a
2:16:09
new segment here. When people get the opportunity to h they write into the
2:16:16
podcast on our website podcast Championship Wrestling at on podium dot com. We always
2:16:24
have a link in the Twitter the disorder. Yeah, we're putting it everywhere
2:16:31
weekend. But uh, anyway, somebody wrote in It was Andrea, and
2:16:37
I think she's just gonna ask general questions every every podcast because instead of asking
2:16:43
me, I was like, well, why don't she just ask the podcast
2:16:46
and we'll talk about it as a whole. So she says, how do
2:16:50
you feel about Naya Jack's returning and wrecking havoc on the women wrestlers along with
2:16:56
what she did to Ria Ripley? Uh yeah, good question. Nia Jacks
2:17:01
is back. So let's not I saw it a love. Let's not forget
2:17:07
about all the people that were let go that we talked about this episode,
2:17:13
all the money that was made. But somehow, some way, some way,
2:17:20
shape or form, Nia jacks has returned. I fear for everybody because
2:17:30
I like to I sent a comp a comp video of like all the people
2:17:35
that she hurt and she was a sloppy wrestler with and it it just it
2:17:41
sucks. And because I was like, as soon as I saw her,
2:17:46
like but the women's division on notice, I'm like, oh great, you
2:17:50
know she takes out Rhea and that was that was bad. I'm guessing like
2:17:54
a lot of other people who've seen it, when she came back, how
2:17:58
she was very stiff for her return And yeah, I mean we could talk
2:18:05
about this all night, like all the spots where where she was stiff with
2:18:09
her or sloppy with her, botched as we like to say on the show.
2:18:16
But then she came back again and put a couple of women on the
2:18:22
tag team division on notice, So that wasn't so bad. But how do
2:18:28
you guys feel about Nai jackstained back? Guy, dre Let's hear it.
2:18:33
Well, first things first I'll say is I believe in second chances. So
2:18:41
obviously her Ni Jackson's history with injuring her fellow competitors is well documented and well
2:18:48
discussed and been beating it to the ground. Yeah, And like I said
2:18:54
that being said, I believe in second chances. I hope she's learned from
2:18:58
that. I hope she's worked on her craft a bit and will be a
2:19:03
safer wrestler this time around. Right, So, with that out of the
2:19:07
way, as far as her return itself goes, I think so far they've
2:19:16
done good with it is by established quickly establishing her as a threat to everyone
2:19:24
in the women's division. I think one of the things, and including Rickell
2:19:31
Rodriguez and Rio Ripley, I think one of the things that we've bemoaned a
2:19:35
lot about Rio Ripley's title run since winning the thing in WrestleMania, aside from
2:19:41
just the lack of defenses, is the lack of credible people for her to
2:19:46
face in defense of that women's title. Yea, you know, the only
2:19:52
one that they've put up put her up against that's been a legitimate threat has
2:19:56
been Quel Rodriguez so far, you know. So now with Naia Jackson,
2:20:03
a picture that paints that that that brings us another competitor that compose a legitimate
2:20:09
threat to someone that likes of rear Ripley. I think it also sets the
2:20:15
stage for a rear Ripley face term because there's no way people are going to
2:20:22
be, you know, cheering for Niah Jack's over rear Ripley. Yeah,
2:20:30
that's just not happening. We've already seen that reaction. I think Nia Jacks,
2:20:33
regardless of how much people like her and nik it's just her reputation alone
2:20:37
that you know, from her previous run pretty much established that she was going
2:20:43
to be a heel when she came back, and which, you know,
2:20:46
for better or for worse, that's just what it is right now. And
2:20:50
we're Ripley's been getting cheered pretty much since her win at WrestleMania. They've just
2:20:58
been masking it or keeping it subdued to a bit by pairing her with dominic
2:21:05
Masterio, who was the most you know, reviled heel in the WWE right
2:21:11
now, and by keeping her with Judgment Day and Dominick Mysterio specifically, they've
2:21:18
managed to keep her as a heel and through her own actions as well.
2:21:22
I don't want to diminish the things that Dria has done herself to maintain her
2:21:26
heel heat, like you know, the attack I'll live Morgan and taking her
2:21:30
out and you know, sneak attacks and all other types of things to other
2:21:33
women. But still, despite all that, when her music hits, there's
2:21:41
still those audible cheers in the crowd. And even the last match she had
2:21:46
with Raquel at RAW two weeks ago in Norfolk, Virginia, which I saw
2:21:54
live from the second row, it was fucking awesome. During the ring introductions
2:22:00
to that match, Raquel Rodriguez got a more or less a lukewarm reaction that
2:22:07
it's a pretty mild, pretty tepid reaction, Like she got some cheers,
2:22:11
but they weren't really like the type of cheers you expect for a baby face
2:22:16
facing a heel the stature of a Ria Ripley. Then when Rio Ripley got
2:22:22
introduced, she got audible cheers. I can tell you that for a back
2:22:28
in the arena, she audibly got cheered more than Raquel Rodriguez, despite the
2:22:33
fact that she was supposed to be the heel in that match. So,
2:22:37
you know, they can only hold that tied back for so long, and
2:22:43
if they're they've decided that, you know, they just can't hold it back
2:22:48
anymore, or they want to, you know, maybe shake up things within
2:22:52
Judgment Day now that they've kind of hit more or less there the mountaintop as
2:22:58
a faction, short of, you know, one of them actually being a
2:23:01
world champion, which I discussed on the previous show. But if that's been
2:23:07
it and they want to shake it up a little bit, then Ria Ripley
2:23:11
becoming a face would be it. And she's got the perfect opponent to do
2:23:16
that against and Niah Jack's should they decide that whenever she goes back that she
2:23:22
wants you know, she want to get her lip back on Niah Jacks.
2:23:26
Yeah, So she fulfills that role perfectly right now. And they're, like
2:23:31
I said, they're doing a good job building her up as a or bookiecur
2:23:35
so far as being that big monster that's a threat to pretty much every woman
2:23:41
on the roster. I wonder how long My only questions I have about her,
2:23:46
at least ni Jacks specifically, is how long are they going to wait
2:23:50
before they put her into a major feud. I think they'll probably just continue
2:23:56
to have her steam roll through the lower and mid car talent for a while
2:24:03
before they put her into probably what I would guess would maybe be her first
2:24:07
few would probably be with Raquel Rodriguez. Yeah, that's the that's the easiest
2:24:13
clear cut face versus clear cut heel feud and allows them to buy more time,
2:24:18
keeping her away from rear Ripley to a certain extent before they eventually have
2:24:24
to somehow address that issue. So, and like I said, and I
2:24:31
hope that she is a safer wrestler this time around. And I believe it's
2:24:35
second chances, So I'm willing to give Nia Jacks the benefit of the doubt.
2:24:39
Carlos, how do you feel about this? Excuse me? Holding,
2:24:48
Okay, I'm not really thrilled with it. You know, Nia has proven
2:24:54
that she at times can get a little no loose, but you know,
2:25:05
like she can be a little careless when it comes to helping the action in
2:25:13
the ring. I guess you could say, you know, you know,
2:25:18
either by tossing someone the wrong way and then they land awkwardly on the turn
2:25:22
buckles or you know, accidentally punching someone directly in their nose and breaking it.
2:25:30
So she could prove to be more like safe and more careful as far
2:25:39
as you know, the punches or the pumps or the spots that they everything
2:25:45
is planned out. Hey, it's gonna be good for everybody. I don't
2:25:50
see why she's has to disrupt the tag team division type of thing where she's
2:25:56
you know, I understand she's a four to be reckoned with blah blah blah,
2:26:01
but like it doesn't make sense because Raya is not in the tag division
2:26:09
and hasn't been involved in any of these matches. So for me, so
2:26:15
far, it's not making sense. But hopefully they're able to reconcile this and
2:26:20
like said, it'll be like I can see what Drey brought up that she'll
2:26:26
be the first to go one on one with Raquel because that's the easiest,
2:26:31
you know, space versus healed thing. But I hope it starts leaving somewhere
2:26:35
soon because it like Riya being currently a heel and having no stakes in the
2:26:43
tag team division, these attacks and Piper and everybody else aren't making any sense
2:26:48
to me right now. Yeah, my my thinking when they did that was
2:26:56
just I didn't think it was necessarily like a tag team directed attack. I
2:27:01
think it was just there at least they're thinking of booking, was just having
2:27:05
her take out four women at once, and they just happened to use that
2:27:09
tag match to one kind of moved that little those uh stories, two individual
2:27:16
storylines forward a little bit with Shana Basler and Zoe start, you know,
2:27:24
just coming together a little bit more because obviously, the last time we saw
2:27:28
him, Shana was getting attacked and Zoe came out to for the save at
2:27:35
Raw the week before after they had their one on one match, whereas Zoe
2:27:39
put up a good fight against Shana, you know, but lost, but
2:27:43
Shana kind of acknowledged her afterwards and gave her a little bit of respect with
2:27:46
the little head nat like, okay, you got a little something. And
2:27:50
then the following week, you know, against Zoe makes the save when Shanea
2:27:52
gains attacked. And then this week they're teamed up in a tag team.
2:27:56
So that's just that storyline being progressed a little bit. And then obviously,
2:28:01
you know, Chelsea Green and Piper Nivin, you know, just furthering that
2:28:07
storyline of them just being the kind of unorthodox tag team champions and what have
2:28:11
you. So they end up in the thing a little bit and they just
2:28:16
kind of monkey wrench it all with Ni Jack's coming in and destroying them all
2:28:22
at once. It's just kind of I just saw it as just being like,
2:28:24
you know, multilayer storytelling and not just straightforward like Ni Jacks is attacking
2:28:31
the tag team division specifically. R m hm. Well she's here, I
2:28:43
mean, yeah, we're here. She's see whether we like it or not.
2:28:46
Yeah, she made the cut. I mean she like literally showed up
2:28:50
days before like these people all got fired actually like kind of in between,
2:28:58
I guess you could say, because oh, yeah, showed up. Yeah,
2:29:03
they said, yeah they should be signed for at least a month over
2:29:07
a month now, Yeah, yeah that's true. That's true. Wow.
2:29:11
So yeah. I mean, if you want to if you have a question
2:29:16
and you want to also ask us to talk about on here, you just
2:29:20
go to our website, you know, and on the side there it'll say
2:29:26
contact and if you want to would you like to answer a question right at
2:29:30
this particular time. Would you like to do that? Then just write it
2:29:33
in and we'll we'll talk about it here up on the show. And don't
2:29:37
forget to leave a nice review also on the website. We like to read
2:29:43
those out loud. Dred, do you have anything you want to plug or
2:29:46
anything that we may have missed tonight you want to talk about before you pass
2:29:52
out? Yeah, yeah, nothing's particularly I want to plug I just again,
2:29:56
I want to give a huge shout out out to Cedric Alexander and I'm
2:30:03
happy that he made the cut and thank him for the hook up on the
2:30:09
tickets because I didn't like that. I didn't even talk about it into too
2:30:13
much detail. But yeah, two weeks ago RAW was in Northern Virginia,
2:30:18
which is my local area, and one of my home girls who works in
2:30:24
the wrestling business, mostly in the independent scene, but she has friends in
2:30:30
WW one of whom was is was one of whom is Centric Alexander. So
2:30:35
she reached out and he managed to get us some tickets to the show,
2:30:43
to which I thought, we're going to be like CC, you know,
2:30:48
up in the upper deck or nosably section or something like that, and no,
2:30:52
lo and behold, I was in the second row at RAW. It
2:30:58
was fucking making awesome. Yeah, it was dope. Like I said,
2:31:03
When we got in and we were going to the seats, I'm thinking,
2:31:07
walked into the renup thing. We about to start heading up. She starts
2:31:09
walking down. I'm like, okay, all right, I'm following you.
2:31:11
Where were we going? And then we're getting closer and closer to the ring
2:31:16
and then she talks to one of the ushers and she's like, yeah,
2:31:18
I'm looking for seats such such as she points right there and I'm like,
2:31:22
oh shit, we're in the second motherfucking right. I was. Yeah,
2:31:28
at that point I got geeked. And you know, for the record,
2:31:31
that was my first ever live WW event too, and yeah, it was
2:31:35
fucking fucking It was fun, It was awesome. It was absolutely dope as
2:31:39
hell. I should have that's great. Yeah on discord was pretty cool.
2:31:48
Yeah. Yeah, I took as many pictures as I could. I wish
2:31:52
I would have taken more, and I've gotten some more videos, but you
2:31:56
know, my timing was bit off with the camera, where like I had
2:32:00
the camera up watching a cool moment happened, but didn't quite hit the record
2:32:05
button. Yeah that is. I still had a blast, and you know,
2:32:09
after a while, I kind of stopped trying to you know, record
2:32:13
to document everything and just sat back and just took it all in and just
2:32:16
enjoyed the experience. So yeah, it was fun. It was an absolute
2:32:20
blast. So shout out to my homegirln Nikki, and shout out to Cedric
2:32:28
Alexander again, thank you. For the hook up on the incredible seats dud
2:32:33
Awesome, Carlos Dude, thank you for like filling in for Doyle Sam right
2:32:41
coming to win to clutch he was in some hot water, you know.
2:32:48
Nah, funny guy joke. I mean, how do you follow up Drake,
2:32:56
I'm talking about Cedric Alexander picked them up with a nice seat at raw
2:33:03
Yeah, I guess the only thing I could do is just plug my show
2:33:07
when you are revisiting the mania WrestleMania rewatch that I do with my wife so
2:33:13
she's never watched any of these WrestleManias before. We're currently going to do WrestleMania
2:33:18
eight this Saturday at six pm Centro seven Eastern and do the math for you
2:33:26
West Coasters. But yeah, we're looking forward to breaking this down here.
2:33:33
Luckily, we have had the privilege of having Wayne On here to break down
2:33:39
WrestleMania six and more recently Doyle who did WrestleMania seven. So we are just
2:33:48
going and knocking these down with getting these hopefully either done by Rustlemania forty or
2:33:56
a little bit after WrestleMania forty, which we will be attending in Philadelphia,
2:34:05
So we're available on any of the audio podcast outlets Apple, Spotify, Spreaker,
2:34:13
and podecasts and things like that, but mostly our podcast is a video
2:34:18
podcast, So if you have nothing to do on Saturday, we're available on
2:34:26
Facebook Live and on YouTube live. Our Facebook pages Revisiting Mania. The YouTube
2:34:33
page is also Revisiting Mania, and we answer comments and questions also in real
2:34:39
time, so it's real fun. If you guys want to hang out with
2:34:45
me and my wife on Saturday, please for for you to do so,
2:34:48
that's awesome. I like that how you can do that. I think maybe
2:34:52
one day we could do one of like maybe like an old old wrestling movie,
2:35:01
like a movie that hass in it and do some commentary on on a
2:35:05
how terrible maybe like a w W film God like that couldn't demned. Yeah,
2:35:13
well I think I know. Like there's like a website you can put
2:35:16
him in and it'll put them all We'll put them all in and it'll jump
2:35:20
on them and like randomly pick one for us to watch. Okay, man,
2:35:24
we can just stare paces. I mean, I don't care if it's
2:35:31
like with to watch Marine six. I don't care if you didn't see the
2:35:33
first six. We're fucking watching it. And we're just gonna go to the
2:35:37
best of our ability, you know, right, wasn't The Marine by then?
2:35:43
Yeah? I think so. Uh yeah, yeah, it wasn't Becky
2:35:48
Lynch one of one of those two, maybe not as the start, but
2:35:52
a little maybe supporting role or something like yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
2:35:58
uh yeah. There's so many terrible ones then, but that would be fun.
2:36:05
Yeah, let's look forward to that and more things to Condemned. I
2:36:11
didn't I watched that recently yet. That's pretty nice. Out of all those
2:36:15
movies, I enjoyed The Condemned. Yeah, okay, yeah, I haven't
2:36:20
watched it in a while, so I'm I'm interested to see how that one
2:36:24
aged. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean I am age.
2:36:30
I'm talking like it's you know, like a forty fifty year old movie.
2:36:33
It's something like maybe twelve years old or something like that. Yeah. Man,
2:36:41
you think Doyle fixed this problem. I think he'll be on the next
2:36:46
episode if he hasn't fixed it by then, and then he's got other problems
2:36:52
besides hot water s. Yeah, if they ain't fixed by then, then
2:36:56
they should have called in a They should have been called in a professional We
2:37:00
said as much. Duct tape as we can do it. Uh, you
2:37:05
know, we'll probably have another episode like next week or so for the pay
2:37:11
per view coming up that has no matches really lined up. So yeah,
2:37:16
unless you guys are going to break down the nx T pay per view,
2:37:22
maybe, I don't know. Maybe let's see, Yeah, I see they
2:37:26
got a Carmelo Hayes taking on a dragging off again. I'm I might tune
2:37:33
into it just to see if that match was as good as their first encounter
2:37:37
that I saw from whatever the last pay per view was. It was a
2:37:41
great American Bash, the one that I saw, the one that was right
2:37:45
before Summer Slam or right around the time of Summer Slam with it. Yeah,
2:37:48
great American Bash is right around Summer Slam. Yeah, I think that
2:37:50
was. I think that was when I saw the I think that was the
2:37:52
pay per view. But yeah, like I said, that first match that
2:37:56
they had though was fucking great. Like that was a great match. So
2:38:03
that alone might be enough to make me tune into the next to this No
2:38:07
Way Out, which I think I think that's what the no No Mercy not
2:38:11
no no Mercy yea yeah, yeah, to There's No Mercy NXT show and
2:38:16
see if it's a just to see if that match, if they can match
2:38:20
or top what they did the first time around. Yeah, oh yeah,
2:38:26
it'll be interesting. I'm by discussing on the discord, which, by the
2:38:31
way, if you want to be part of our discord, just reach out
2:38:33
and I will send the link, or you could always find it on our
2:38:37
website at the very bottom of the page. Scroll to the bottom and then
2:38:43
there's a link to our discord. If you want to talk about wrestling all
2:38:48
day, every day, three am, you name it, we'll talk about
2:38:50
wrestling. We'll send wrestling memes. I think I want to make another section
2:38:54
where we can like I've got some wrestling memorabilia, like old T shirts and
2:38:58
stuff and seven funny like the general talk. I'm like, oh man,
2:39:01
I'm gonna like I had autograph stuff I want to take pictures of, like
2:39:05
I want to put it all in this one section on the discord. I
2:39:09
think that'll be cool. So yeah, definitely, especially it's with Doyle's recent
2:39:15
trip. Yeah. Yeah, he says he knows what kind of shampoo Jimmy
2:39:22
Hart uses, and do you know what, I believe him. I definitely
2:39:26
believe him. So it's a secret. Yes, I bet you sent because
2:39:35
he has no danger of him. I mean it's gotta be a combination of
2:39:39
head and shoulders and whatever coloring gets put in there too. Always paid him
2:39:46
for a videls how soon kind of guy? Maybe people Well know, until
2:39:52
Doyle comes back and someone asks him a question, I know it will be
2:39:54
a mystery. It'll be a fucking mystery. So you know, I I
2:40:03
got that's it man, Like that's all the news in Like that was a
2:40:05
lot of news just dropped all in one. Yeah. I let's see another
2:40:11
podcast cover that much news and that amount of time. It's crazy. So
2:40:20
wrestling news wise, Uh yeah, I think that's it. Guys. Let's
2:40:24
let's let's get out of here, go to sleep, all right, all
2:40:31
right, see you guys, yep on plays out here. We go later
2:40:37
your offense and this is official that will never ever end. His name is
2:40:45
job. Tell me what I wanted, Getty watch. I wish you'd stay.
2:41:00
It doesn't matter what your name. Oh yeah, let's screw you guys.
2:41:20
I'm going home. Bye haf A great time.