Latest / Solomonster Sounds Off / Sound Off 952 - How John Cena ALMOST WON TITLE #17 In 2021, Chamber Predictions!

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Sound Off 952 - How John Cena ALMOST WON TITLE #17 In 2021, Chamber Predictions! · Solomonster Sounds Off

0:01
Speaker 1: It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monster
0:05
Speaker 1: Sounds Off. I love your mama, Monster dude, I want
0:11
Speaker 1: your soul. Woman.
0:13
Speaker 2: You got grown ass rustlers in the back going on Twitter.
0:16
Speaker 1: Come over here. Part is that pet patison? You have legs?
0:22
Speaker 2: I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.
0:25
Speaker 2: Now I have been begging him for a job on
0:28
Speaker 2: every every platform I can, and I would have know
0:30
Speaker 2: the reason why he won't hurt me.
0:33
Speaker 1: I cannot believe that after digging our away out of
0:38
Speaker 1: the last snowstorm, all of this shit is finally mostly
0:43
Speaker 1: melted away, not entirely, but mostly. And in a few
0:48
Speaker 1: hours here we're about to get hit by a blizzard
0:51
Speaker 1: in New York City, twenty inches of snow and fifty
0:56
Speaker 1: mile an hour wind gus blowing that shit all over
0:58
Speaker 1: the place. I feel so defeated, just all that shoveling
1:05
Speaker 1: last time. I just feel so defeated right now. This
1:10
Speaker 1: is episode nine point fifty two of The Solemn Monster
1:13
Speaker 1: Sounds Off for Sunday, February twenty second, twenty twenty six.
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm the snowy solom Monster. I'm gonna try to take
1:22
Speaker 1: my mind off all of that What a show on
1:25
Speaker 1: Friday night. And no I'm not talking about SmackDown, I'm
1:28
Speaker 1: talking about House of Glory, no turning back. We were
1:31
Speaker 1: sold out, packed in at the NYC Arena with two
1:34
Speaker 1: huge main events. Charles Mason defending his HG World Championship
1:39
Speaker 1: against androde l Idelo a tremendous match, Andrade keeps killing it. Mason.
1:45
Speaker 1: I don't know what these companies are waiting for. Much
1:48
Speaker 1: as I hate the guy, he should be under contract
1:51
Speaker 1: somewhere even better because it gets him away from me
1:55
Speaker 1: and MJF. It was good chatting him up before the show.
1:59
Speaker 1: Defending the AW World Championship against Zillafa two. And I
2:04
Speaker 1: misspoke what I said that this was the second defense
2:06
Speaker 1: of the AW World title in an hog ring. It
2:09
Speaker 1: was the second time that we have had the AW
2:11
Speaker 1: World Champion in an hog ring. It was the first
2:14
Speaker 1: actual defense of that title in House of Glory against
2:18
Speaker 1: o were Crown Jewel Champions Zillafa two. You know you
2:22
Speaker 1: hear all these stories online about Zilla. I can't speak
2:25
Speaker 1: to any of that. What I can tell you is
2:27
Speaker 1: that he has been working with us now for nearly
2:29
Speaker 1: two years, and in that time he has been nothing
2:33
Speaker 1: but great to work with, always respectful, always up for
2:36
Speaker 1: whatever you know is put in front of him or
2:38
Speaker 1: asked of him. And for a guy with less than
2:41
Speaker 1: three years in the ring, it's been fun to see
2:43
Speaker 1: him grow during that time, you know. And he came
2:46
Speaker 1: this close to taking that title. Boy, that would have
2:49
Speaker 1: changed the Revolution card next month, wouldn't it. But in
2:52
Speaker 1: the end, mjf retains and he even did something that
2:55
Speaker 1: you rarely see when the match was over, he put
2:58
Speaker 1: Zilla over on the mic, and that says a lot
3:02
Speaker 1: right there. But it was supposed to be Zilla defending
3:05
Speaker 1: his title against Lance on Hawaii. On that show, Lance
3:08
Speaker 1: pulled out. I don't know what this guy is doing.
3:10
Speaker 1: I mean, who pulls out of a championship match like that?
3:13
Speaker 1: Seems a little scared. But he did show up during
3:16
Speaker 1: the match. He got kicked in the face for it.
3:18
Speaker 1: We'll make that match happen very soon. We're going to
3:20
Speaker 1: be in Chicago on March sixth, and then back on
3:22
Speaker 1: Long Island March twenty first, and then back to Los
3:26
Speaker 1: Angeles in May. There may be something before then, as well.
3:30
Speaker 1: We'll see. It's always a good time. I may be
3:33
Speaker 1: a bit partial, but even if I wasn't a part
3:35
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, you watch these shows, you watch
3:37
Speaker 1: these clips, you see everyone having a blast, and you
3:40
Speaker 1: don't even have to sell your first born or your
3:43
Speaker 1: kidney just to buy a ticket to get in. Shout
3:47
Speaker 1: out to Geronimo who was in town all the way
3:49
Speaker 1: from England. It was good to meet your brother. Shout
3:52
Speaker 1: out to my partner in crime on Tuesday nights, jd
3:55
Speaker 1: Back on commentary. It was like no time had passed
3:58
Speaker 1: at all, and Johnny Tory, who is a great dude
4:01
Speaker 1: and has been a great partner to work with. You
4:03
Speaker 1: can catch the pre show with myself and Sam Laturna
4:06
Speaker 1: for free on the Hog YouTube channel if you just
4:09
Speaker 1: want to see more of me or Sam. Probably Sam
4:13
Speaker 1: more than me, I mean, let's be honest, and the
4:16
Speaker 1: full replay is up for it purchase on Triller TV.
4:19
Speaker 1: I also want to thank you guys for supporting my
4:21
Speaker 1: newest endeavor, the Uncrowned Wrestling Show, as part of Ariel
4:26
Speaker 1: Helwane's Uncrowned network of shows. He just announced this week
4:29
Speaker 1: that the Inside Boxing Show is coming to Uncrowned, which
4:33
Speaker 1: is a big get. If you're a boxing fan, you
4:35
Speaker 1: know he's got all the bases covered, all the combat
4:37
Speaker 1: sports bases. He's got MMA, obviously, he's got boxing, now
4:43
Speaker 1: he's got wrestling. Right. That's where I come in, and
4:46
Speaker 1: I want my show to be the best of the bunch,
4:48
Speaker 1: So support share download brand new episode to drop every
4:53
Speaker 1: Tuesday evening on the Ariel Hellwane Show Feed wherever you're
4:56
Speaker 1: listening to the sound off right now, be at Apple
4:59
Speaker 1: podcast spot or wherever you can find ariels feed as well.
5:03
Speaker 1: That is where the show can be found. We're two
5:06
Speaker 1: episodes deep so far. Episode three come in this Tuesday.
5:10
Speaker 1: Email me or tweet me with your questions for the show.
5:13
Speaker 1: Just use the hashtag uncrowned so I know it's for
5:16
Speaker 1: that show specifically and I will do my best to
5:20
Speaker 1: get it on the pod. If you'd like to make
5:22
Speaker 1: a PayPal donation, you may do so the solomonster dot com.
5:25
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you to all of these
5:27
Speaker 1: fine folks and shout them out here for all the
5:30
Speaker 1: world to hear. The Diamond Dallas dance Machine. Look at this,
5:33
Speaker 1: he dances his way to the top. Arison's soap Velvet Revolver.
5:38
Speaker 1: Robert Murray, the Portland pop star Paul Hamilton victory guaranteed,
5:43
Speaker 1: Vincent Cooper, Iowen Corn Farmer, Jesse Lamfeir, The Chicago Slayer,
5:49
Speaker 1: Willie Aichord, The Georgia Nightmare, Timothy Tillis Shooting Star Cynthia Taylor,
5:54
Speaker 1: night Stalker, nif Alsafar Killshot, Keith Hart and Time Boris Weinman.
6:02
Speaker 1: I'm glad you enjoyed the Hog Show brother, Hopefully many
6:05
Speaker 1: more to come. If you missed this year's Royal Rumble,
6:10
Speaker 1: and you didn't miss much, but if you missed the
6:12
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble, I mean outside of the aj styles and
6:14
Speaker 1: gunther thing, but if you want to watch it or
6:17
Speaker 1: most of it for free without an ESPN Plus subscription,
6:20
Speaker 1: ESPN is airing a condensed version of The ple tonight
6:25
Speaker 1: at eight pm Eastern on the main ESPN channel. Wressell
6:29
Speaker 1: Votes says that the decision is part of a broader
6:32
Speaker 1: effort to promote upcoming wwepls and allows ESPN to evaluate
6:38
Speaker 1: viewership data for an over the air presentation of the product.
6:42
Speaker 1: It's too bad that product couldn't be better because this
6:44
Speaker 1: was not one of the better Royal Rumbles. But free
6:48
Speaker 1: is free, So if you want to watch some wrestling
6:50
Speaker 1: on a Sunday Night. There you go. Some sad news
6:54
Speaker 1: this week. Kerwin Sylphie's died on Tuesday at the age
6:58
Speaker 1: of seventy five. He was the main director of WWE
7:03
Speaker 1: programming from the time he started there in nineteen eighty
7:06
Speaker 1: five all the way through twenty twenty, when he was
7:10
Speaker 1: one of the many people furlough during the pandemic. I
7:14
Speaker 1: think that was around the same time they released Mike Kiyota,
7:17
Speaker 1: who had been with the company for decades. So all
7:21
Speaker 1: of those major shows that I grew up on in
7:22
Speaker 1: the eighties. I mean, if he started there in eighty five,
7:25
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly when in eighty five he would
7:27
Speaker 1: have started, if he was there for the first WrestleMania
7:30
Speaker 1: or if he came in right after, but eighty five,
7:32
Speaker 1: his word, all began as far as the big national expansion.
7:36
Speaker 1: I guess eighty four really, but eighty five was the
7:39
Speaker 1: first WrestleMania. So he goes back all the way to
7:42
Speaker 1: that point in time, and so he would have been
7:45
Speaker 1: directing all of those early Saturday nights made event shows
7:47
Speaker 1: on NBC and so that's old school. And Bruce Pritchard
7:53
Speaker 1: has said that Sylphie's had a great eye for the
7:55
Speaker 1: introductory vignettes that you would see on TV for new talents,
8:00
Speaker 1: all those vignettes they shot for like Mister Perfect and
8:03
Speaker 1: the Million Dollar Man. He would have been either responsible
8:07
Speaker 1: for it or a part of that in some way.
8:09
Speaker 1: The Kerwin White character that Chavo Guerrero played Kerwin Silphie's
8:14
Speaker 1: is where the name Kerwin came from. For it. I
8:17
Speaker 1: saw this on social media. It is what Adam Pierce
8:19
Speaker 1: wrote when I started working on Ron's SmackDown back in
8:23
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. You were so patient and accommodating as I
8:26
Speaker 1: found my way, always a steady, calm voice, with your
8:30
Speaker 1: trusty mini notepad in hand, ready to take note of
8:33
Speaker 1: what we had cooked up. Okay, what do you got, Adam,
8:37
Speaker 1: You would ask me as you went around the room
8:38
Speaker 1: listening teaching. I learned to see what we do through
8:42
Speaker 1: your director's eye, to understand camera placement in a way
8:45
Speaker 1: that I hadn't before. And I always wondered how you
8:48
Speaker 1: always stood so calm under intense fire. Cool is the
8:51
Speaker 1: other side of the pillow experience, red wine talent, all
8:55
Speaker 1: of the above, I surmise, thank you for letting a
8:57
Speaker 1: punk kid sit under your learning Tree, my gud, my
9:01
Speaker 1: eye is twitching as I say Learning Tree. And though
9:05
Speaker 1: I'm no connoisseur, and the next time i have a
9:07
Speaker 1: taste of the Veno, it will be in a toast
9:09
Speaker 1: to you. Taz posted a nice message on x about Sylphie's, saying,
9:15
Speaker 1: I can't explain what a super person and great director
9:18
Speaker 1: Kerwin was. I worked with him for many years in WWE,
9:21
Speaker 1: on the road and in studio. His passion for great
9:24
Speaker 1: TV in the wrestling business was strong. This man once
9:27
Speaker 1: was working in the studio through an actual heart attack
9:31
Speaker 1: and kept working. Very sad to hear this. I hope
9:35
Speaker 1: they put him in their WWE Hall of Fame. He
9:38
Speaker 1: belongs prayers and support to his family. Rip He would
9:43
Speaker 1: certainly be someone that belongs in a company hall of
9:46
Speaker 1: fame considering how much of an impact he had on
9:49
Speaker 1: their company. I agree with that, but I mean, you know,
9:53
Speaker 1: the name Kerwin, Sylphie's won't sell them any tickets, so
9:55
Speaker 1: he's probably off the list. That's not what their hall
9:58
Speaker 1: of fame is for. But AW had a very classy
10:01
Speaker 1: tribute to him on Dynamite with Tony Shavanni talking about
10:04
Speaker 1: working with Sophie's in nineteen eighty nine. That was the
10:07
Speaker 1: one full year he worked in WWE and Brian Danielson,
10:11
Speaker 1: I mean, he was moved to tears. He could barely
10:14
Speaker 1: speak while praising him for his help when he came
10:17
Speaker 1: into WWE. He said he knew nothing about television production,
10:21
Speaker 1: so that was very nice of them to carve out
10:23
Speaker 1: some time on their show for that. I'm sure that
10:25
Speaker 1: was something Shavanni probably asked for, like on Nitro in
10:29
Speaker 1: ninety nine when Bobby Heenan asked for time to talk
10:32
Speaker 1: about Guerrilla Mond. Soon, even though he never worked for WCW,
10:36
Speaker 1: John Cena made an appearance on the No Contest Wrestling
10:41
Speaker 1: podcast with Osja Jackson Junior and TJ. Jefferson. He gave
10:45
Speaker 1: them over two hours talking all sorts of stuff, but
10:49
Speaker 1: among the more interesting nuggets to come out of the interview,
10:52
Speaker 1: I just I grabbed a few bits and pieces here
10:56
Speaker 1: from what I read and what I heard, But this
10:59
Speaker 1: one was the interesting to me because this is something
11:02
Speaker 1: that I was hearing for the first time, and I
11:03
Speaker 1: think he was sharing it for the first time. But
11:06
Speaker 1: in the interview, John Cena claims that he was supposed
11:08
Speaker 1: to win and lose his seventeenth World Championship at SummerSlam
11:14
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, and the finish got changed when
11:18
Speaker 1: brock Lesner was suddenly booked to return on the show.
11:22
Speaker 1: This is what he said that night was supposed to
11:25
Speaker 1: go very different. In the last moment, we had a
11:27
Speaker 1: surprise guest booked and he came out after the match
11:31
Speaker 1: was over. Now let me pause here for a second.
11:34
Speaker 1: The match that he's referring to was it was John
11:36
Speaker 1: Cena against Roman Reigns, So it was like the battle
11:39
Speaker 1: of the past era of WWE against the present era
11:43
Speaker 1: of WWE. And they had only wrestled on televised once before.
11:48
Speaker 1: This was I don't know, maybe five or six years
11:51
Speaker 1: prior to this. It was a while back, and honestly,
11:55
Speaker 1: of the times that I have ever seen John Cena
11:57
Speaker 1: and Roman Reigns and the ring together one on one,
11:59
Speaker 1: and it was really just those two times. I never
12:02
Speaker 1: thought the matches were anything great, you know, but at
12:05
Speaker 1: the time, you know, it was booked as this big
12:06
Speaker 1: Summer Slam main event, and I mean Mark key wise, yes,
12:10
Speaker 1: it was a big time main event, but that's the
12:11
Speaker 1: match that he's referring to here. So he said, at
12:15
Speaker 1: the last minute, a surprise guest was booked to come
12:17
Speaker 1: out when it was over, and that being brock Lesner.
12:20
Speaker 1: He said, they didn't secure Brock until five pm that day.
12:24
Speaker 1: I was going to win seventeen. We were going to
12:27
Speaker 1: have someone come out and restart the match, and Roman
12:30
Speaker 1: was going to take it back. The way we put
12:33
Speaker 1: together the match was we were going to give them
12:35
Speaker 1: a hell of a match. Everything out the door, no rules,
12:38
Speaker 1: no nothing, tons of finishers, all this stuff because I
12:41
Speaker 1: was going to win, and then Roman was going to
12:43
Speaker 1: take it back. So you have this hard fought battle
12:46
Speaker 1: and then through a nefarious set of rules, the matches restarted.
12:50
Speaker 1: Then we secure Brock and talent Relations comes and says,
12:54
Speaker 1: I need to see you. We're switching the finish to
12:56
Speaker 1: what Roman over? Y yep, clean, yep, Okay, what do
13:04
Speaker 1: you want to do? Let me just talk to Roman
13:06
Speaker 1: and Paul. I go in and they're like, you got
13:08
Speaker 1: the news. I said, I got the news. What do
13:11
Speaker 1: we do? I said, one spear, that's it. Whatever match
13:16
Speaker 1: you want to have, that's fine. You beat me with
13:18
Speaker 1: your finish once. I love Paul. Paul Hayman has been
13:21
Speaker 1: a great mentor. He gets it and he recognizes somebody
13:24
Speaker 1: who sees it. It's not about them, It's about the story.
13:27
Speaker 1: This is going to make Roman better because they're having
13:30
Speaker 1: him win so he can go on to bigger and
13:32
Speaker 1: better things. And it switched right there. We're on the
13:35
Speaker 1: West coast, so it's like an hour before the thing.
13:38
Speaker 1: It happens to everyone. It happens from the top of
13:40
Speaker 1: the car down to the bottom. They will switch, they
13:43
Speaker 1: will cut your time, they will give you different creative
13:46
Speaker 1: It happens all the time. So I didn't flip out
13:49
Speaker 1: when Travis didn't want to do it anymore, and when
13:51
Speaker 1: Rock chose to go another way. It happens. I saw
13:54
Speaker 1: Steve Austin leave, I saw him get fired. I was
13:56
Speaker 1: there when they fired him in Atlanta. It happens all
13:59
Speaker 1: the time. But I was supposed to win seventeen that night,
14:05
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, Travis not wanting to do it
14:07
Speaker 1: anymore and Rock choosing to go a different way. Shore
14:11
Speaker 1: fuck things up last year. That is true, But I
14:14
Speaker 1: have to correct something, so put my little nerd glasses
14:17
Speaker 1: on here. First of all, Austin wasn't fired in Atlanta.
14:21
Speaker 1: He walked out in Atlanta. They didn't fire him, but
14:25
Speaker 1: they did have to rebook the show, so brock Lesner,
14:28
Speaker 1: instead of beating Stone Cold to qualify for the King
14:31
Speaker 1: of the Ring in an unadvertised match, which would have
14:35
Speaker 1: been very stupid, he ended up beating Bubba Ray Dudley instead,
14:40
Speaker 1: and they if you remember, they rushed the power Struggle
14:43
Speaker 1: storyline with Vince McMahon, he had a match that was
14:45
Speaker 1: not planned in the main event that night, he wrestled
14:48
Speaker 1: Rick Flair and then he became the sole owner once
14:51
Speaker 1: again of WWE. So that's how that all went down.
14:56
Speaker 1: But Second SummerSlam twenty twenty one is the night that
14:58
Speaker 1: Ponytail brock Dave when he returned after the main event,
15:02
Speaker 1: or a cowboy broc I mean, whatever you want to
15:04
Speaker 1: call him. And I remember again that match was I
15:07
Speaker 1: don't know. I just felt like the match was pretty underwhelming.
15:10
Speaker 1: It didn't help if you remember this that they added
15:13
Speaker 1: the stipulation twenty four hours before on TV that if
15:16
Speaker 1: Roman loses. Roman said, if I lose, like it's Vegas,
15:21
Speaker 1: it's all or nothing, right, I either leave with the
15:24
Speaker 1: title or I leave WWE. And so it makes me
15:29
Speaker 1: wonder about this story because if that were the case,
15:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they could have just had Roman
15:35
Speaker 1: go back on his word. I mean, he was a heel,
15:38
Speaker 1: but I mean that was the stipulation. Roman loses, then
15:41
Speaker 1: he leaves, and here see it is claiming that he
15:44
Speaker 1: was winning. He was winning number seventeen until five o'clock
15:46
Speaker 1: that day and then everything changed. But yeah, he did
15:50
Speaker 1: say through a nefarious set of rules. So I mean,
15:53
Speaker 1: I guess there would have been some sort of loophole there.
15:55
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm listening to him talk about this
15:58
Speaker 1: id and it's like, oh God, like, thank god that
16:02
Speaker 1: didn't happen. That would have been awful, What an awful idea.
16:06
Speaker 1: And here I thought him winning seventeen the way he
16:08
Speaker 1: did last year was bad. Imagine the record being set
16:13
Speaker 1: only for him to lose it right back ninety seconds later,
16:17
Speaker 1: Like that would have been fucking terrible. Like I'm listening
16:21
Speaker 1: to this, I'm like, boy, did we dodge a bullet?
16:24
Speaker 1: And also, here's the other thing that would have bothered
16:26
Speaker 1: me about it, like number seventeen. Had he won the
16:29
Speaker 1: title that night, it would have been the universal title.
16:33
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just it wouldn't have felt right
16:34
Speaker 1: to me. Can you even call that a world title.
16:37
Speaker 1: It's a universal title. It's technically not a world championship,
16:44
Speaker 1: but like, if he was gonna do it, if he
16:45
Speaker 1: was ever gonna win number seventeen, I'm glad it was
16:47
Speaker 1: the WWE title because for it to have been the
16:50
Speaker 1: universal title, I don't know that just would have felt
16:52
Speaker 1: wrong to me. But he also revealed a few things
16:56
Speaker 1: about his retirement tour. He said that Aj Styles was
17:00
Speaker 1: not his original opponent for Crown Jewel in Perth. He
17:04
Speaker 1: was initially set to wrestle Drew McIntyre on that show,
17:07
Speaker 1: but the decision was made to give the fans a
17:10
Speaker 1: feel good moment instead. He said, Aj was supposed to
17:13
Speaker 1: be Drew, but it pivoted. We wanted to give them
17:16
Speaker 1: a feel good moment because they were listening to the
17:18
Speaker 1: data points they listened to. You guys, they do It's real,
17:22
Speaker 1: He says, Oh really, see. I think it's more likely
17:26
Speaker 1: they realized that they botched up a good part of
17:29
Speaker 1: this whole retirement tour and they were like, hey, we
17:32
Speaker 1: better throw the fans a bone here and make them happy.
17:36
Speaker 1: And it does feel that way because there was no
17:38
Speaker 1: build up to it on TV. They literally just they
17:41
Speaker 1: kind they built it up on social media to make
17:43
Speaker 1: it sound like the fans were voicing their opinions, so
17:47
Speaker 1: they were like, Okay, fine, we're going to give you
17:49
Speaker 1: this match. But like they were planning the match long
17:52
Speaker 1: before Johnson to put that tweet out asking people if
17:55
Speaker 1: this was the kind of match that they would want
17:57
Speaker 1: to see, so that the people would feel like it
17:59
Speaker 1: was something that they willed into existence, which, hey, you know,
18:03
Speaker 1: smart on their part to try to convince the fans
18:05
Speaker 1: of that, I guess, But I think it's more likely
18:08
Speaker 1: they realized, like, Okay, we got to give them something
18:10
Speaker 1: really special here, you know, to make up for some
18:13
Speaker 1: of the bullshit that we've done. But also I think
18:17
Speaker 1: it just came down to him only having limited dates.
18:19
Speaker 1: As far as why we didn't get that match with
18:21
Speaker 1: him and Drew McIntyre. I'm glad we got Sena naj
18:24
Speaker 1: It was a great match Sena and Drew and the promos,
18:29
Speaker 1: you know, because Drew was on his promo game, that
18:32
Speaker 1: would have been something. But I think that, more than anything,
18:35
Speaker 1: just came down to the limited number of dates that
18:37
Speaker 1: he had. You know, I wouldn't like, you have to
18:40
Speaker 1: do the match with Randy Orton at some point, so
18:43
Speaker 1: they did it at Backlash in Randy's hometown of Saint Louis.
18:46
Speaker 1: You have to do John cnncmpunk at some point, so
18:50
Speaker 1: they elected to do it in Saudi Arabia Night of Champions.
18:53
Speaker 1: Like you can quibble about the dates or the locations
18:55
Speaker 1: for it. They did do those matches, though those matches
18:59
Speaker 1: had to happen at some point, but like when it
19:01
Speaker 1: came to the ar Truth stuff or or you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: he was in some tag matches with Logan Paul, Like
19:07
Speaker 1: there were times where if they wanted to, they could
19:09
Speaker 1: have you know, flipped it to sna versus Drew, but
19:11
Speaker 1: then it would have been heel against heel. Turning him
19:14
Speaker 1: heal didn't help things. Asina also said the original plan
19:19
Speaker 1: had been for him to turn back Babyface during his
19:22
Speaker 1: match with Cody Rhoades at SummerSlam, rather than doing it
19:26
Speaker 1: on the go Home Show. I guess that was two
19:28
Speaker 1: nights before. Yeah, I mean that came out of fucking nowhere. Literally,
19:34
Speaker 1: like a switch got flipped, and it's like we got it.
19:37
Speaker 1: We got to get out of this, so let's get
19:39
Speaker 1: him back to being a baby Face as quickly as possible.
19:42
Speaker 1: He also confirmed that the decision for and I think
19:44
Speaker 1: this was kind of understood. I don't know if he
19:47
Speaker 1: I don't remember if he flat out said this in
19:49
Speaker 1: the interview he did with Cody after he retired, but
19:52
Speaker 1: he did confirm that the decision for his character to
19:55
Speaker 1: smile and tap out in the match against Gunther was
19:59
Speaker 1: his own de decision. And I've already litigated this and
20:03
Speaker 1: I've already made my thoughts on it very clear. It
20:05
Speaker 1: was a very polarizing finish to that match, and my
20:09
Speaker 1: mind has not changed now. If John Cena wanted to
20:11
Speaker 1: do that finish, then you know what. It's his retirement
20:13
Speaker 1: match and he got to do what he wanted to do,
20:17
Speaker 1: so good for him. Objectively, As a fan watching that match,
20:22
Speaker 1: I thought it was a terrible finish. But if you
20:25
Speaker 1: feel otherwise, I'm happy for you now. Sina says that
20:29
Speaker 1: Bruce Pritchard is the one who pitched for his final
20:33
Speaker 1: night on Saturday Night's made event to be a one
20:36
Speaker 1: match show. He said, I remember Bruce Pritchard, who was
20:40
Speaker 1: a great friend of mine, came up to me and
20:42
Speaker 1: was like, for your last show, I'm thinking about a
20:44
Speaker 1: one match show. I said, you will kill the audience
20:48
Speaker 1: you will absolutely murder the live event audience. Now, WWE
20:52
Speaker 1: is great at production. If you were watching at home,
20:55
Speaker 1: that would have been great, but the win would have
20:57
Speaker 1: been out of the sales in DC. I said, no,
21:00
Speaker 1: fuck that, do two or three minute packages here and there,
21:03
Speaker 1: but let's get some matches. Let's bring in some marquee guys.
21:08
Speaker 1: And that was the right way to go. I thought
21:10
Speaker 1: it was smart being able to showcase newer faces like
21:13
Speaker 1: Obafemi and Soul Ruka from NXT, right, Javon Evans and
21:17
Speaker 1: Leon Slater, who I mean technically is not a WWE guy.
21:20
Speaker 1: I mean he will be at some point, but I
21:22
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it brought some variety to the show.
21:25
Speaker 1: And he's not wrong. I mean, you had a pack
21:27
Speaker 1: building that night, and to do one match for the
21:30
Speaker 1: entire two hours or whatever it was like that would
21:32
Speaker 1: have been ridiculous. Now. He also provided an explanation for
21:37
Speaker 1: his decision to end his career in December rather than
21:41
Speaker 1: waiting for a WrestleMania moment. He said that his choice
21:45
Speaker 1: was driven by a data centric approach to the WWE
21:48
Speaker 1: business model, and he noted that while the roads to
21:51
Speaker 1: WrestleMania traditionally begins in January. December has historically been a
21:55
Speaker 1: month in limbo for the company, suffering from lower viewership
21:58
Speaker 1: and softer live attendance is due to holiday spending and travel,
22:02
Speaker 1: and he explained that he intentionally pitched December to Nick
22:05
Speaker 1: Con and Triple H to address a recurring weakness in
22:08
Speaker 1: the annual calendar, and by scheduling a retirement event in
22:12
Speaker 1: the middle of December, specifically during the quote dry zone
22:15
Speaker 1: between Survivor Series and Royal Rumble, he aimed to drive
22:19
Speaker 1: fourth quarter profitability. He said, retiring at WrestleMania is selfish.
22:24
Speaker 1: It doesn't do anything for the business. We retire in December,
22:27
Speaker 1: our weakest month, and we take the middle of December
22:30
Speaker 1: the dry zone, that desert from the end of Survivor
22:34
Speaker 1: Series to the beginning of the Rumble. We put it like,
22:36
Speaker 1: right in the middle of December, let's show a profit
22:39
Speaker 1: in Q four. You know, the one thing you can
22:43
Speaker 1: never say about John Cena is that he is not
22:45
Speaker 1: a company guy. And in all of these interviews and
22:48
Speaker 1: every time he listened to him speak over the years
22:51
Speaker 1: and when he was on top, this is how he
22:53
Speaker 1: would speak. You know, he had an eye towards Okay,
22:56
Speaker 1: what's the gate and know how of the merch numbers,
22:59
Speaker 1: and he was very you know, he was very invested.
23:02
Speaker 1: And on top of that, I'm sure a lot of
23:04
Speaker 1: it was because he wanted to know how he was doing.
23:06
Speaker 1: You know, obviously, you know, how are we selling here?
23:09
Speaker 1: Is everything working out? Okay? But he always came across
23:12
Speaker 1: as someone who, you know, had an eye towards, you know,
23:16
Speaker 1: what's best for the company and how's the company doing overall?
23:19
Speaker 1: And he had an interest in the numbers and things
23:21
Speaker 1: that maybe, you know, other people on the roster didn't
23:24
Speaker 1: think about or didn't care about. So I'm not surprised
23:28
Speaker 1: to hear him say something like that. It's not even
23:30
Speaker 1: quite frankly, a stupid thing what he's saying. It really
23:33
Speaker 1: is a dead period. Like you can look on the
23:35
Speaker 1: calendar and there are multiple dead periods during the year,
23:38
Speaker 1: and I would argue that post wrestle media, right, is
23:41
Speaker 1: not usually a terribly exciting period. That period post SummerSlam
23:46
Speaker 1: September October, that's kind of a dead zone. And then
23:51
Speaker 1: you have post Survivor series where it's the holiday season,
23:54
Speaker 1: we're heading into New Years, and yeah, there's usually not
23:58
Speaker 1: a whole lot going on. We're counting down the until
24:00
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble. But it also makes you wonder why
24:03
Speaker 1: WWE turned down Scene is offered to work more dates
24:06
Speaker 1: last year. I mean that still boggles my mind. Like
24:08
Speaker 1: he wanted to do a full year, he wanted to
24:10
Speaker 1: do two hundred and twenty dates. I'm not even sure
24:12
Speaker 1: WWE has that many dates anymore. Now, that was probably
24:16
Speaker 1: too many, Okay, for forty eight year old John Sena
24:18
Speaker 1: to work two hundred and twenty dates is ridiculous. They
24:21
Speaker 1: wanted him for thirty six, which sounds like too little.
24:25
Speaker 1: I don't know why they couldn't meet in the middle somewhere.
24:28
Speaker 1: But I say this because Post Wrestling and Brandon Thurston
24:31
Speaker 1: had a story this week about just how much money
24:34
Speaker 1: those thirty six dates generated at the gate for WWE
24:39
Speaker 1: last year. Now, we cannot know for sure that John
24:42
Speaker 1: Cena was solely responsible for how many tickets that were
24:46
Speaker 1: sold at each of these events. I mean, they did
24:48
Speaker 1: have other stars on the card, right, They had Cody Rhodes,
24:51
Speaker 1: and they had they might have had Roman for some
24:53
Speaker 1: of them, and Rhea Ripley and people like that. But
24:56
Speaker 1: this isn't even all of them. This is just based
24:59
Speaker 1: on the event available data. For twenty of the events
25:02
Speaker 1: that he was on, they accounted for more than eighty
25:05
Speaker 1: million dollars in ticket sales, and it helps when you
25:10
Speaker 1: charge astronomical ticket prices too. Has got to point that out,
25:15
Speaker 1: and his retirement show in December set the all time
25:18
Speaker 1: arena gate record for WWE at six and a half
25:21
Speaker 1: million dollars. This is from the story. As WWE continues
25:26
Speaker 1: to break gate records, we now know John Cena's retirement
25:29
Speaker 1: show drew the biggest live gate for an arena event
25:32
Speaker 1: in company history and likely the highest such gate and
25:35
Speaker 1: all of pro wrestling history, even when taking inflation into account.
25:39
Speaker 1: Ticket sales for the Saturday Nights main event show on
25:42
Speaker 1: December thirteenth in Washington, DC totaled six million, five hundred
25:46
Speaker 1: and fifty three thousand, eight hundred eighty three dollars. This
25:49
Speaker 1: is according to live event trade publication Pollstar, by a
25:54
Speaker 1: wide margin that surpasses the earlier records said at the
25:57
Speaker 1: beginning of last year, when the premiere of Raw on
26:00
Speaker 1: Netflix sold almost four point nine million in Inglewood at
26:05
Speaker 1: the Intuit Dome and with seventeen thousand plus tickets sold,
26:08
Speaker 1: in the Capitol One Arena Forsino Seni Final match, a
26:11
Speaker 1: loss to Gunther. The average ticket sale was three hundred
26:15
Speaker 1: eighty three dollars, a figure that likely does not include
26:18
Speaker 1: ticketing fees that fans paid. The average ticket sale for
26:21
Speaker 1: the launch of Raw on Netflix was an even three
26:24
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Only WrestleMania events in recent history have had
26:28
Speaker 1: higher known average ticket prices, and until last year, when
26:32
Speaker 1: taking inflation into account, no WWE arena event, and possibly
26:36
Speaker 1: no arena event in history, had surpassed the gate of
26:38
Speaker 1: WrestleMania five. That event, headlined by Hulk Hogan and Randy
26:42
Speaker 1: Savage in nineteen eighty nine, drew a gait reportedly worth
26:47
Speaker 1: one point six million dollars at the time, which today
26:51
Speaker 1: would be the equivalent to four point two million. Yeah,
26:54
Speaker 1: you know that doesn't get talked about enough, like the
26:56
Speaker 1: kind of business that Hogan and Savage did for that WrestleMania.
26:59
Speaker 1: But you know what, it's not a surprise to me.
27:02
Speaker 1: Like there's a reason why my favorite story in wrestling
27:05
Speaker 1: history and it's the one, it's one of the it's
27:07
Speaker 1: the biggest one that I grew up on. Not long
27:10
Speaker 1: after I started watching wrestling was the Mega Power storyline.
27:15
Speaker 1: It was the meeting of the madness in the Mania, right.
27:17
Speaker 1: It was Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man in that
27:19
Speaker 1: handshake and Elizabeth in between them. They were the two
27:23
Speaker 1: biggest babyfaces in the company at that time, and they
27:27
Speaker 1: came together. You know, of course, if they came together today,
27:30
Speaker 1: they would have been tag team champions. That's not how
27:33
Speaker 1: it worked back then. But that storyline, I mean, they
27:36
Speaker 1: came together in eighty seven, right, it was later in
27:38
Speaker 1: eighty seven, and they didn't split until early eighty nine,
27:43
Speaker 1: so they had all that time to play that storyline
27:46
Speaker 1: out Savage winning the title and the jealousy and Hogan
27:50
Speaker 1: lusting for Elizabeth, which he did. He was a fucking heel.
27:53
Speaker 1: I just was too young to realize it. But now,
27:55
Speaker 1: of course I realized Macho Man was right about every
27:58
Speaker 1: fucking thing. Hogan was all always a heel. But that
28:01
Speaker 1: was just such a great story and such a great
28:04
Speaker 1: payoff to it. The night that they broke up and
28:07
Speaker 1: the Megapowers exploded, and then it just built very nicely
28:10
Speaker 1: into that WrestleMania match. And to think that after all
28:14
Speaker 1: these years, you know, the money they made in the
28:17
Speaker 1: record they set that night up until recently still stood
28:20
Speaker 1: the test of time. It just goes to show you
28:21
Speaker 1: the kind of business they did with that story. But
28:25
Speaker 1: the last little piece here it says of Seena's thirty
28:27
Speaker 1: eight appearances for WWI I thought it was thirty six.
28:30
Speaker 1: Here it says thirty eight. We have data for twenty
28:33
Speaker 1: of them. The credit for drawing those crowds can't solely
28:36
Speaker 1: go to Sena, and any notion about who drew what
28:38
Speaker 1: in modern times raises the inevitable question about how much
28:41
Speaker 1: credit must go to WWE's brand before any individual wrestler.
28:46
Speaker 1: That said, it is worth noting that those twenty events
28:48
Speaker 1: alone during Scena's retirement towards were more than eighty million
28:51
Speaker 1: in ticket sales, which does not include Elimination, Chamber, Clash
28:55
Speaker 1: in Paris, SummerSlam and Survivor series, of which sales data
29:01
Speaker 1: is not currently available. So to sum that up for
29:06
Speaker 1: all to talk about the creative follies of the retirement tour,
29:11
Speaker 1: and they botch this and they shouldn't have done that,
29:14
Speaker 1: and the heel turn, and they made a lot of
29:16
Speaker 1: mistakes and it could have been a hell of a
29:18
Speaker 1: lot better than it was. WWE ain't crying over it,
29:23
Speaker 1: because even with you know, not the strongest creative, and
29:27
Speaker 1: I'm being generous when I say that they still made
29:29
Speaker 1: money hand over fist. They made so much money of
29:34
Speaker 1: John Cena, and I think they could have made even more,
29:37
Speaker 1: which again which I go back to them only telling him, hey,
29:41
Speaker 1: we only need you for thirty six dates. But that's
29:44
Speaker 1: something they don't have this year going into WrestleMania. They
29:48
Speaker 1: don't have the Rock and they don't have John Cena
29:50
Speaker 1: and a big retirement tour, so they're not going to
29:54
Speaker 1: be able to lean on that this year in the
29:55
Speaker 1: way that they did last year. But whatever you want
29:57
Speaker 1: to say about the creative as far as the tour itself,
30:00
Speaker 1: doesn't change the fact that they made a shit ton
30:02
Speaker 1: of money off of it. Raw on Monday Night was
30:06
Speaker 1: a bore, and SmackDown had a few things I liked,
30:09
Speaker 1: But I'm still waiting for the on ramp to the
30:11
Speaker 1: supposed road to WrestleMania. I'm waiting for it to get
30:15
Speaker 1: really interesting. I suspect I'll be waiting until after the
30:17
Speaker 1: elimination Chamber plays out and when Roman Reigns returns to
30:21
Speaker 1: tv LA night, he continues to feud with the Vision
30:25
Speaker 1: eight months after he started. He is no better off
30:28
Speaker 1: for it now than he was before. In fact, he
30:31
Speaker 1: walked out there on Monday to challenge them to a
30:33
Speaker 1: six man tag team match with the Ussos, where he
30:35
Speaker 1: proceeded to get his ass kicked for most of it
30:37
Speaker 1: and then his team lost. Now we wait for brock
30:41
Speaker 1: Lesnar to emerge from his lair tomorrow night. What he'll
30:45
Speaker 1: be doing and why he is there five days before
30:47
Speaker 1: the elimination Chamber. We don't know. They did not advertise
30:51
Speaker 1: him or mention him on TV at all, only on
30:53
Speaker 1: their social media a few weeks ago. That came right
30:56
Speaker 1: from WWE. This is not just internet rumors. On the
30:59
Speaker 1: wdas Twitter account, they said, hey, February twenty third in Atlanta,
31:03
Speaker 1: the Beast is back and they haven't said anything about
31:06
Speaker 1: it ever since. You know, on a show with the
31:09
Speaker 1: one final chamber qualifier tomorrow for the men and one
31:13
Speaker 1: for the women, and the men's qualifier has jay Usso,
31:17
Speaker 1: Bronson Reid, and El Grande Americano Gable forget Gable and
31:23
Speaker 1: I think cross read off the list. He's the one
31:25
Speaker 1: lone member of the Vision left to be screwed over.
31:28
Speaker 1: By the mass Man, right he stomped out Logan Paul
31:31
Speaker 1: on Monday, the mass Man did. He already screwed bron
31:35
Speaker 1: Breaker out of the Royal Rumble match. I think the
31:37
Speaker 1: mass Man caused Bronson read his qualifier tomorrow, which leaves
31:41
Speaker 1: Jay Usso, and if this lineup stays as is, then
31:46
Speaker 1: I think Jay qualifies. But I'm still hung up on
31:51
Speaker 1: Brock being there this week of all weeks, like there's
31:54
Speaker 1: got to be a good reason for it, and I'm wondering,
31:57
Speaker 1: Here's what I'm wondering. Okay, follow along with me here.
32:01
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if Gable gets taken out of the match
32:05
Speaker 1: by Lesner and Brock ends up taking his spot and
32:08
Speaker 1: winning to get him that last spot in the men's chamber,
32:11
Speaker 1: So a rare in ring TV appearance for the Beast,
32:15
Speaker 1: and that gets Brock into the chamber with Randy Orton,
32:17
Speaker 1: Cody Rhodes, La Knight, Javon Evans, and Trick Williams who
32:22
Speaker 1: qualified on Friday over Carmelo Hayes and Damian Priest, and
32:26
Speaker 1: with Brock in the chamber, they can kickstart his feud
32:29
Speaker 1: for WrestleMania. If this is in fact the plan with
32:32
Speaker 1: La Knight, because that was the rumor last week. Dave
32:35
Speaker 1: reported it in The Observer, and I think it's got legs.
32:40
Speaker 1: Where there is smoke, I believe there is fire. Look.
32:42
Speaker 1: Opa Femi wrestled Kit Wilson for the second time on
32:45
Speaker 1: SmackDown this week. He already has a match lined up
32:49
Speaker 1: next Friday with the mizz and they were teasing something
32:53
Speaker 1: with him and Russev on Raw last Monday when they
32:55
Speaker 1: ran into each other in the back. Call me crazy,
33:00
Speaker 1: but I'm not getting the sense that he's wrestling brock
33:02
Speaker 1: Lesnar at WrestleMania this year. Now. They're also advertising aj
33:07
Speaker 1: Styles for a tribute in Atlanta tomorrow night, his home
33:10
Speaker 1: state of Georgia. They're even flying in talent from SmackDown
33:14
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. Gunther's chamber hopes were
33:18
Speaker 1: dashed by Dragon Lee in his match on Monday, and
33:22
Speaker 1: I had secondhand embarrassment for Dragon Lee coming out to
33:25
Speaker 1: no reaction to blast Guntherer in the head with the
33:28
Speaker 1: ring bell, which led to Javon Evans picking up the
33:30
Speaker 1: win over Dominic Mysterio. So he's in the chamber. They're
33:33
Speaker 1: building to a Gunther Dragon Lee match, and I don't
33:35
Speaker 1: know if it's going to be added to the Elimination
33:37
Speaker 1: Chamber card because again Paul levec is allergic to putting
33:40
Speaker 1: a fifth match on this show, or if it'll be
33:43
Speaker 1: a raw match, But they could use the segment with
33:45
Speaker 1: AJ Tomorrow to help make that match feel like a
33:48
Speaker 1: bigger deal. You know, Gunther crashing the ceremony. To me,
33:51
Speaker 1: that feels like a given. And you know, I've been
33:55
Speaker 1: racking my brain trying to figure out, like, what is
33:58
Speaker 1: the play for Gunther rests? And I've heard names mentioned
34:02
Speaker 1: for potential opponents for him. There's still some people who
34:05
Speaker 1: think him and Randy Orton could be a WrestleMania match,
34:07
Speaker 1: him and Raveisterio could be a WrestleMania match, And I'm like, eh,
34:11
Speaker 1: that's my reaction. Eh, But maybe the play for gun
34:16
Speaker 1: Through at WrestleMania is staring us right in the face. Now. Look,
34:20
Speaker 1: I get that it would be a cheap way around
34:23
Speaker 1: the retirement stipulation at the Royal Rumble, But what if
34:26
Speaker 1: they ran it back at WrestleMania with Gunther and AJ Styles,
34:31
Speaker 1: but this time they run it back as an unsanctioned match,
34:35
Speaker 1: Like I'm just looking at potential attractions for the show. Okay,
34:38
Speaker 1: AJ coming back to try to get revenge on Gunther
34:42
Speaker 1: not in an official match, would be a nice hook
34:45
Speaker 1: for WrestleMania, and it would give AJ a proper sendoff
34:48
Speaker 1: on the biggest stage possible win or lose, you know. WWE.
34:52
Speaker 1: They put out a twenty minute vlog on their YouTube
34:54
Speaker 1: channel a few days ago. They were following AJ around
34:57
Speaker 1: ahead of his Royal Rumble match with gunther Th and
35:01
Speaker 1: in that video, he admitted that everybody wants to retire
35:04
Speaker 1: at WrestleMania, and he was planning on doing exactly that
35:08
Speaker 1: until he got hurt. That was in October of twenty
35:10
Speaker 1: twenty four. He had that SmackDown match with Carmelo. Ohyes,
35:13
Speaker 1: he injured his foot. He had that Liz Frank injury.
35:17
Speaker 1: I think it was like a ligament injury, but it's
35:19
Speaker 1: like right in the middle of your foot and it's
35:21
Speaker 1: a very painful, very difficult injury to recover from and
35:24
Speaker 1: it takes time. You got to be patient. And he
35:27
Speaker 1: was only out for a few months, but by the
35:29
Speaker 1: time he came back, they were two months out from WrestleMania,
35:33
Speaker 1: where he, in his mind months earlier, had decided, Okay,
35:36
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a little retirement thing and call it
35:38
Speaker 1: quits at Mania. But now he comes back, there's only
35:42
Speaker 1: two months left, and he said he felt like it
35:44
Speaker 1: didn't feel right to come back just for two months
35:48
Speaker 1: and then retire. So then he started thinking, well, you know,
35:51
Speaker 1: what better way to go out than on the pay
35:53
Speaker 1: per view where I debuted. Now it may be a
35:57
Speaker 1: wishful thinking on my part, but I do think that
35:59
Speaker 1: that would be good way around the retirement stipulation from
36:01
Speaker 1: the Rumble. But have him actually retire at WrestleMania. That's
36:06
Speaker 1: when the gloves come off at the very end and
36:08
Speaker 1: he lays them down on the mat. And I know,
36:12
Speaker 1: I know, Solemn monsters talking crazy again, Brocklesner wrestling on
36:16
Speaker 1: Raw aj Styles getting that Mania send off. I can't
36:21
Speaker 1: help it. It's how my brain works. But then there's
36:24
Speaker 1: the crate. We have to talk about the crate, the
36:27
Speaker 1: mystery crate that showed up on Raw Monday night. Adam
36:30
Speaker 1: Pierce didn't know what to make of it. But on
36:33
Speaker 1: the crate it says delivered to wwe do not open
36:37
Speaker 1: until two twenty eight, twenty six, which happens to be
36:40
Speaker 1: this Saturday, the date of the elimination chamber, and he
36:43
Speaker 1: told Eli the delivery guy to ship the crate to
36:47
Speaker 1: smack down. Let Nick all this deal with it, and
36:50
Speaker 1: all this didn't want to deal with it either. On
36:51
Speaker 1: Friday and he told them get rid of it. Fucking
36:55
Speaker 1: Triple h and his mystery angles, like we literally had
36:58
Speaker 1: them in back to back seg on Monday night, you
37:00
Speaker 1: had the mass Man and then the Mystery Crate, like
37:04
Speaker 1: in the Levech household when the kids ask mom and Dad, hey,
37:07
Speaker 1: what's for dinner? Like, no matter what day of the
37:09
Speaker 1: week it is, you can bet it's a mystery meet night.
37:14
Speaker 1: Like last year, TKO was worried about slow ticket sales,
37:17
Speaker 1: so they called The Rock to save the elimination. Shamer
37:21
Speaker 1: saved the elimination Shamer. I mean they still had fucking
37:24
Speaker 1: probably twenty eight thousand tickets sold, you know, but if
37:27
Speaker 1: we don't have thirty one or thirty two, it's a failure.
37:30
Speaker 1: So fucking ari Emanual gets on the phone to call
37:32
Speaker 1: the Rock personally and say hey, we need you. And
37:36
Speaker 1: so it ends up with you know, Cody Soul. That
37:38
Speaker 1: was the whole thing last year, was Cody Soul. Now
37:41
Speaker 1: it's the Mystery Crate, and look it's a hook. It's
37:45
Speaker 1: a hook for the show, and people are talking about
37:48
Speaker 1: it online, and it's not one that's being really focused on.
37:52
Speaker 1: If you'll notice from Monday and Friday, it's being treated
37:55
Speaker 1: as sort of a comedy thing in the background, which
37:59
Speaker 1: probably rules out big name popping out of there. I mean, really,
38:02
Speaker 1: no name should be popping out of there. It's a
38:04
Speaker 1: fucking crate, and the idea that Chris Jericho would be
38:07
Speaker 1: in there for twelve days but nothing more than a
38:10
Speaker 1: bottle of water and a box of pop tarts is
38:12
Speaker 1: absurd unless they pry the damn thing open and his
38:16
Speaker 1: dead body falls out of it. But if it is
38:18
Speaker 1: a person, it will not be Chris Jericho. Based on
38:21
Speaker 1: the latest update that we have from Fightful Select, which
38:24
Speaker 1: is reporting that the belief from those around Jericho, so
38:28
Speaker 1: they have not been told that this is the way
38:30
Speaker 1: it is. It's not confirmed, but the belief from those
38:33
Speaker 1: around Jericho and inaw is that his contract was frozen
38:37
Speaker 1: after he took time off from the company in twenty
38:39
Speaker 1: twenty five. A variety had reported in October of twenty
38:43
Speaker 1: twenty two that Jericho signed a three year extension which
38:47
Speaker 1: would include increased responsibilities behind the scenes, and that he
38:51
Speaker 1: would now serve as a producer and creative advisor, with
38:54
Speaker 1: the deal keeping him in AW through December of twenty
38:57
Speaker 1: twenty five. But Jericho is still on the roster page
39:01
Speaker 1: on the AW website, you know. Whereas when someone's deal
39:04
Speaker 1: is up, usually like with Powerhouse Hobbs, they're pulled from
39:07
Speaker 1: the page right away. Jericho was never pulled, you know. Now. Look,
39:12
Speaker 1: promoters have frozen contracts before. Usually it's due to injuries.
39:16
Speaker 1: Wwe did it with Ray Mysterio many years ago. Yeah,
39:19
Speaker 1: if you're gone long enough, they could tack time on
39:22
Speaker 1: to the end of your contract. I think that was
39:24
Speaker 1: the situation with Ray Phoenix in AAW and I can
39:28
Speaker 1: understand it maybe in certain circumstances, if there's an injury
39:31
Speaker 1: that is so bad it lasts for like the majority
39:34
Speaker 1: of someone's contract. Like if you have a two year
39:36
Speaker 1: contract and you're out for eighteen months with a terrible injury.
39:40
Speaker 1: You know what, I get it, and you're being paid
39:42
Speaker 1: the entire time. I get it. Or if you have
39:44
Speaker 1: an injury that again it's it's multiple injuries and it
39:48
Speaker 1: eats up most of the time in your contract, like
39:50
Speaker 1: a recurring problem. But generally speaking, I think it's a
39:54
Speaker 1: pretty shitty thing to extend their deals out like that,
39:57
Speaker 1: or even worse if they're hell healthy and they can
40:01
Speaker 1: be used but they're not being used for some reason.
40:04
Speaker 1: Like that was my issue with people like Ray Phoenix
40:06
Speaker 1: and Ricky Starks in AAW where they weren't even being used.
40:10
Speaker 1: They were sitting on the bench, you know, Ricky finally
40:14
Speaker 1: started popping up on some indies. In Jericho's case, if
40:18
Speaker 1: it was his choice to leave and take time off
40:21
Speaker 1: and go on tour with Fozzy and film movie roles
40:24
Speaker 1: and do whatever he was doing, there may well be
40:26
Speaker 1: a clause in his contract that accounts for this kind
40:29
Speaker 1: of stuff, right, But that would have been his choice.
40:31
Speaker 1: It's not like he got hurt and he had to
40:33
Speaker 1: be sidelined for six months with an injury. So if
40:37
Speaker 1: it was his choice, then I have less sympathy and
40:39
Speaker 1: I can understand it. You know, Hey, I think I'm
40:42
Speaker 1: just I'm gonna go take nine months off. I'll still
40:44
Speaker 1: get paid, but I think I'm gonna take some time
40:46
Speaker 1: off here and then I'll leave and I'll go to WWA. Like, yes,
40:50
Speaker 1: I can understand AAW freezing or extending his deal if
40:53
Speaker 1: that's how it played out. But we don't know, right well,
40:56
Speaker 1: we're just speculating here. We don't know. We don't know
40:58
Speaker 1: what the deal was or for how much longer he
41:03
Speaker 1: will remain under contract to AAW, but it will not
41:06
Speaker 1: be him inside that crate. And I said, the only
41:09
Speaker 1: way that this makes any sense is if the reveal
41:12
Speaker 1: is for someone or something silly. And then you guys
41:16
Speaker 1: in the live chat on Monday, you start shouting at
41:18
Speaker 1: me dan Hausen, dan Hausen, and you reminded me I
41:23
Speaker 1: remember now that dan Hausen's AW deal was set to
41:27
Speaker 1: expire this month. Now, he had wanted out of his
41:30
Speaker 1: deal earlier if they weren't going to use him, and
41:32
Speaker 1: they refuse to let him go supposedly, and that's bullshit.
41:35
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't agree with that at all.
41:38
Speaker 1: If you have no plans for the man, then just
41:41
Speaker 1: let him walk. I mean, it's not like we're talking
41:43
Speaker 1: about someone who's going to move the needle here. We're
41:45
Speaker 1: not again, we're not talking about Jericho. We're not talking
41:47
Speaker 1: about John Moxley or Kenny Omega. We're talking about fucking
41:50
Speaker 1: Dan Hausen. So the Dan Housen thing I don't agree with,
41:53
Speaker 1: but yes, Dan Hausen may be a free agent very soon.
41:56
Speaker 1: He's still listed on their roster page, which tells me
41:58
Speaker 1: he's not free yet. Now there is another possibility. Finn
42:03
Speaker 1: Balor is challenging Cmpunk for the World Heavyweight Championship in
42:06
Speaker 1: Chicago this weekend, and I have been saying that I
42:09
Speaker 1: think that we see the Demon back at WrestleMania if
42:12
Speaker 1: he wrestles Dominic for the Intercontinental title. And I don't
42:15
Speaker 1: know if he is or not. You know, pent to
42:17
Speaker 1: want a match on TV this week and they said
42:19
Speaker 1: that he now is in line for a shot again
42:22
Speaker 1: at the Intercontinental title. They did not say when. I
42:25
Speaker 1: don't know if that means WrestleMania. What if it's the
42:28
Speaker 1: Demon inside the crate? Like what if for his entrance
42:33
Speaker 1: for his match with CM Punk the crate it's just
42:36
Speaker 1: sitting on stage and he pops out of it and
42:39
Speaker 1: it's the Demon, right, because that would at least be
42:42
Speaker 1: a surprise that people would probably enjoy seeing, like they'll
42:46
Speaker 1: totally pop for the Demon if he appears. The only
42:51
Speaker 1: thing is how wise would it be to bring the
42:54
Speaker 1: Demon back only to lose to CM Punk? Not very wise?
43:00
Speaker 1: Especially because the last time we saw the Demon, actually
43:02
Speaker 1: the last two times I think we saw the Demon
43:05
Speaker 1: against Roman and then against Edge of wrestle Media. He
43:08
Speaker 1: lost both time. Supposedly he was gonna win, or Edge
43:12
Speaker 1: wanted him to win. Vince did not want the Ballor
43:15
Speaker 1: to win, and that's why Balor lost to WrestleMania. But yeah,
43:18
Speaker 1: that would not be very wise if they brought the
43:21
Speaker 1: Demon back just for him to lose, and they planned
43:24
Speaker 1: on keeping him as the Demon for a WrestleMania match,
43:27
Speaker 1: not the way that I would bring him back. That's
43:29
Speaker 1: the only reason I think it doesn't really work. But
43:32
Speaker 1: I wanted to put that out there as a possibility
43:34
Speaker 1: because I do think it is something that people should
43:38
Speaker 1: consider as a possibility for what or who is inside
43:41
Speaker 1: that crate. Now on SmackDown, Drew McIntyre was supposed to
43:46
Speaker 1: be sent home, but he was in his own luxury
43:49
Speaker 1: box at the top of the show, interrupting Cody Rose's
43:53
Speaker 1: promo and riling up Jacob Fatu, who ended up beating
43:56
Speaker 1: up a bunch of security guards and he had to
43:58
Speaker 1: be calmed down, and he brought up the same point
44:02
Speaker 1: did Jacob that I made last week that they now
44:05
Speaker 1: have an inn for him in the title match of Wrestlemane.
44:08
Speaker 1: Even though he didn't qualify for the Elimination Chamber. He
44:11
Speaker 1: had that match won last week like he had Sammy's
44:15
Speaker 1: Ain't dead to rights and that's when Drew McIntyre threw
44:18
Speaker 1: a Claymore kick. It fought too and interfered in the match.
44:22
Speaker 1: So he absolutely has, you know, good reason to go
44:25
Speaker 1: to Nick Aldis and say, hey, I deserve a shot
44:27
Speaker 1: at the title too. This guy cost me a shot
44:30
Speaker 1: inside the chamber. And by the way, Jacob was on
44:34
Speaker 1: Busted Open Radio and he mentioned that he had eleven
44:38
Speaker 1: teeth pulled with that dental surgery that he had a
44:42
Speaker 1: few months ago. That's why he was gone eleven teeth.
44:46
Speaker 1: Don't tell Dan Housen that maybe Dan, hey, you know what,
44:50
Speaker 1: I just had an epiphany. Maybe Danausen is the one
44:53
Speaker 1: who knocked all of his teeth out, and he's going
44:54
Speaker 1: to pop out of the crate and all the teeth
44:55
Speaker 1: they're going to be in a jar. Holy shit, I
44:58
Speaker 1: think I may have just solved the miss three. Now
45:02
Speaker 1: now we know what Jacob Fatu is gonna be doing
45:04
Speaker 1: at Wrestledmandia. But yeah, eleven teeth though, that's almost half
45:08
Speaker 1: the teeth in his mouth. Now. He didn't say why.
45:12
Speaker 1: He didn't get into why he needed eleven teeth pulled.
45:14
Speaker 1: But uh, kids, do do yourself a favor. Make sure
45:20
Speaker 1: you brush and floss. Okay, it's not enough to just
45:22
Speaker 1: do one or the other. I know you think it is. Oh,
45:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna brush twice a day, three times a day,
45:27
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You gotta brush, you gotta floss. Trust me,
45:30
Speaker 1: it's gonna save you a lot of grief later in life. Now.
45:34
Speaker 1: Drew also caused Randy Orton his match against Alistair Black
45:37
Speaker 1: in the main event. Black got a win over Randy Orton, which,
45:41
Speaker 1: you know, you would think, wow, that's a pretty big deal.
45:45
Speaker 1: Is it gonna really mean a whole lot to him?
45:47
Speaker 1: Probably not, because it was Drew McIntyre who gave him
45:50
Speaker 1: the assist, And that's where the real story is, that's
45:53
Speaker 1: where the focus was. It was almost like Black pennying
45:55
Speaker 1: Orton was like an afterthought, and Cody came out to
45:59
Speaker 1: chase Drew off into the crowd. He didn't realize that
46:01
Speaker 1: Black had, you know, kicked Randy in the face when
46:04
Speaker 1: he got back in the ring. And he pinned Randy.
46:06
Speaker 1: I mean, Cody didn't really do anything wrong there, but
46:08
Speaker 1: they keep dropping hints, and you had Black telling Randy,
46:13
Speaker 1: you know, you need to go back to your rootst
46:15
Speaker 1: You gotta go back to being the real Randy Orton.
46:17
Speaker 1: Right the last last week he mentioned two thousand and
46:20
Speaker 1: nine Randy Orton. Are we going to see that Orton
46:25
Speaker 1: in the chamber with Cody. I would say the most
46:27
Speaker 1: compelling part of the elimination Chamber would be that men's
46:31
Speaker 1: match coming down to Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. But
46:37
Speaker 1: I think they run a very big risk of the
46:38
Speaker 1: crowd siding mostly with Randy Orton in that scenario in Chicago,
46:42
Speaker 1: which I mean, it would look terrible if Cody just
46:45
Speaker 1: beats him and becomes number one contender for the WWE
46:48
Speaker 1: title your top babyface, and then he gets booed out
46:51
Speaker 1: of the building in Chicago. That would be a bad look.
46:55
Speaker 1: But I'll talk more about this in a minute here.
46:58
Speaker 1: Tomatonga and Ilia Dragon I want to talk about some
47:02
Speaker 1: of this stuff because again for the Hog Show, I
47:04
Speaker 1: wasn't here to do a SmackDown review on Friday. Tomatanga
47:07
Speaker 1: and Ilia dragonov they had a match. It was going
47:10
Speaker 1: along fine until the usual bullshit with the MFTs and
47:15
Speaker 1: then the Uncle Howdie promo after calling out Solo Sokoa,
47:20
Speaker 1: I wish we could fast run this to the finish,
47:22
Speaker 1: give him his lantern back, and let's just move on
47:24
Speaker 1: from the Wyats and the MFTs. But I'm actually going
47:28
Speaker 1: to have a word of praise here for this. We
47:30
Speaker 1: are actually getting some limited character building with Tomatonga because
47:34
Speaker 1: later on in the back Solo Socoa is after all
47:37
Speaker 1: the other MFTs leave the room. He's praising Toma's loyalty
47:40
Speaker 1: and he says, look, I know you're going to be
47:42
Speaker 1: the next the United States Champion, but we need to
47:44
Speaker 1: focus on the Wyatts right now. And so when he left,
47:48
Speaker 1: Tomatonga is still sitting there by himself. Shinsky Nakamorra walks
47:52
Speaker 1: in and he tells Toma that the MFTs are holding
47:56
Speaker 1: him back and he can prove that he's his own
47:58
Speaker 1: man by facing him again without the help of the MFTs.
48:02
Speaker 1: Leave your family tree in the forest. He said, that
48:06
Speaker 1: line goes hard. I like that, but this is what
48:10
Speaker 1: I've been looking for. It's not a lot, it's not
48:13
Speaker 1: a lot, but it's something with the MFTs, like for
48:15
Speaker 1: so long, they've not given us any reason to care
48:18
Speaker 1: about these people, Like it's nothing like the bloodline at all.
48:23
Speaker 1: Just give me a reason to care about the relationship
48:25
Speaker 1: between the different members or know more about who they are,
48:28
Speaker 1: like hear from them more. I barely even remember what
48:31
Speaker 1: Jeff Cobb's voice sounds like. Like we never hear from
48:34
Speaker 1: the guy. So it's not a lot, but it's something
48:38
Speaker 1: at least now. We also got a run of the
48:41
Speaker 1: Mill promo from Jade Cargill, which is a good way
48:43
Speaker 1: to describe her title run so far, and another run
48:46
Speaker 1: in with Charlotte Flair. As Charlotte was on her way
48:49
Speaker 1: out for her Elimination Chamber qualifying match, Jade was leaving
48:53
Speaker 1: and Jade was getting all up in her face, and
48:56
Speaker 1: it was very smart to do this because it made
48:59
Speaker 1: for a shock when Charlotte did not win her match.
49:03
Speaker 1: They made you think, here, okay, they're building something here
49:06
Speaker 1: for WrestleMania, and I actually still think they are. But
49:10
Speaker 1: Charlotte wrestled Naya Jackson Keana James, and it was Keana
49:14
Speaker 1: stealing a win off of Charlotte. When Charlotte had Naya
49:17
Speaker 1: in the figure eight you know, she bridges up Keana
49:20
Speaker 1: slid underneath Charlotte. She hooked her arms over into a
49:23
Speaker 1: crucifix for the pin. I thought the finish was very clever.
49:26
Speaker 1: It was surprising, but I pointed out the other night,
49:29
Speaker 1: I said they were very babyface heavy in the chamber.
49:32
Speaker 1: So far, Osca is the only heel to qualify, So
49:35
Speaker 1: now they have two. You know, it makes sense to
49:37
Speaker 1: get at least one more in there. But that means
49:40
Speaker 1: that Alexa Bliss is in the chamber now and her
49:42
Speaker 1: tag team partner is not. And it also means that
49:45
Speaker 1: Jade Cargill will not be facing It seems like Jade
49:48
Speaker 1: Cargill will not be facing Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania, and
49:51
Speaker 1: we know that Bianca Belair will not be facing her either.
49:55
Speaker 1: Ten months after being forced out of the ring with
49:58
Speaker 1: an injury beyond Ika had surgery this past week to
50:01
Speaker 1: fix her finger, and she's already doing physical therapy to
50:04
Speaker 1: heal up, and it looks like she may have finally
50:06
Speaker 1: found a fix for the problem. She posted on Instagram
50:10
Speaker 1: a bunch of photos, including one very gory one of
50:13
Speaker 1: her finger opened up during surgery. She said there was
50:17
Speaker 1: video too, but I guess that was a little too gory,
50:20
Speaker 1: so she didn't post it, but she said this ten
50:23
Speaker 1: months post injury, eight months of rehab, five doctors later,
50:27
Speaker 1: and we are finally here. Now I can finally start
50:30
Speaker 1: to put this behind me. Thank you so much, doctor
50:33
Speaker 1: Desih for hearing me and fixing me. Fingers and joints
50:36
Speaker 1: are complicated, frustrating, confusing, essential. If you don't get it,
50:41
Speaker 1: consider yourself lucky, and I hope you never have to
50:43
Speaker 1: find out. Maybe one day I'll go into detail. But
50:46
Speaker 1: it's a lot thank you to those who have sent
50:48
Speaker 1: so much love my way and continue to do so.
50:52
Speaker 1: So that's great news that she's finally on the mend.
50:54
Speaker 1: It sucks that she's not going to be back in
50:56
Speaker 1: time for WrestleMania, but that means no Bianca, seemingly no Charlotte.
51:02
Speaker 1: Those were the two obvious matches for Jade. Now Jade
51:05
Speaker 1: ran into Meetchen and b fab in the back later
51:09
Speaker 1: I mean as if, I mean they'll be watching Jad's
51:13
Speaker 1: WrestleMania match on a monitor in the back. But that
51:16
Speaker 1: means we're looking at Tiffany Stratton, Alexa Bliss, Oska, Rhea Ripley,
51:21
Speaker 1: and Keana James with one spot left to fill in
51:25
Speaker 1: the chamber and that will happen tomorrow night between EO, Sky,
51:29
Speaker 1: Rakel Rodriguez and Kyrie Sing. Now it should be EO.
51:34
Speaker 1: I want EO on that show on Saturday. I cannot
51:37
Speaker 1: rule out Raquel. Raquel is absolutely a possibility. Kyrie is not.
51:42
Speaker 1: Liv Morgan has been saying that she's not going to
51:44
Speaker 1: be rushed into making a decision on which championship she's
51:47
Speaker 1: going to be challenging for at WrestleMania, but then they
51:49
Speaker 1: announced that she's going to be making her decision tomorrow night,
51:52
Speaker 1: so she's had a change of heart apparently. And if
51:55
Speaker 1: it was a case where one of them would be
51:57
Speaker 1: winning a title before Mania and the other would be
51:59
Speaker 1: able to challenge for it, there would be more drama
52:03
Speaker 1: there as far as like Raquel and Live, but I
52:05
Speaker 1: mean there really is none. EO should be in that
52:08
Speaker 1: match now. Ria Ripley wrestled Julia on Friday Night. It
52:12
Speaker 1: was originally scheduled to be EO against Julia, but that
52:15
Speaker 1: got changed at the last minute and there was no
52:17
Speaker 1: reason given for why. Though EO was on the show.
52:20
Speaker 1: She even did a run in, so it's not like
52:22
Speaker 1: she wasn't there. I'm wondering, though, I'm wondering if maybe
52:27
Speaker 1: they're saving that match for Italy because WWE announced this
52:31
Speaker 1: week it's first ever pl E from Italy. It will
52:35
Speaker 1: be and this is a hell of a creative name here,
52:39
Speaker 1: Clash in Italy scheduled for the city of Turin on Sunday,
52:43
Speaker 1: May thirty first at the Analpe Arena. They say it's
52:46
Speaker 1: part of a larger European tour that includes shows in Italy, Spain, France,
52:50
Speaker 1: Portugal and the UK in May and June. So they
52:55
Speaker 1: said three raw episodes, two smackdowns and fives are taking
53:01
Speaker 1: place in addition to the pl So get those VPNs ready, everybody, boy,
53:06
Speaker 1: That Express VPN link is gonna come in real handy again. Now,
53:10
Speaker 1: Backlash is already scheduled for May ninth in Tampa, so
53:14
Speaker 1: that means two ples in the same month. But I
53:17
Speaker 1: mentioned this here because Julia spent time there as a child.
53:21
Speaker 1: You know, her father is Italian and she worked for
53:24
Speaker 1: her parents when she was younger in their Italian restaurant.
53:28
Speaker 1: I wonder how many WWE fans would even know that.
53:31
Speaker 1: You know, she's got Italian blood in her but why
53:34
Speaker 1: not EO against Julia on that show? I mean, unless
53:37
Speaker 1: they're saving it for WrestleMania, but I mean that just
53:40
Speaker 1: seems unlikely. The match with Rhea and Julia, like the
53:44
Speaker 1: one earlier with Tomatanga and Ilia Dragonov, it was going
53:47
Speaker 1: along well enough and it got ruined by Nya Jackson
53:51
Speaker 1: Lash Legend running in for the DQ. EO then ran
53:54
Speaker 1: out to make the save. They're defending their tag team
53:57
Speaker 1: titles by the Way again next week against Nia and Lash.
54:01
Speaker 1: Putting Julia in the ring with names like Rhea, Ripley,
54:04
Speaker 1: and Eosky, that's something they need to do more of,
54:06
Speaker 1: and they need to make her more of a threat
54:08
Speaker 1: as the United States Champion. They need to be using
54:11
Speaker 1: her better in general, and evidently Julia agrees. Based on
54:14
Speaker 1: something she reposted on IG the other day. Fan wrote
54:18
Speaker 1: the WWE needs to just let Julia be Julia. Ever
54:21
Speaker 1: since she was called up, it's felt like road Dog
54:24
Speaker 1: has been trying to book her into what he thinks
54:26
Speaker 1: she should be instead of what she is, and she
54:30
Speaker 1: reposted this, so it sounds like those frustrations are starting
54:35
Speaker 1: to come out. And I don't blame her, I mean,
54:37
Speaker 1: she needs to be more of an ass kicker, like
54:40
Speaker 1: we've seen this before, if you've seen any clips or
54:42
Speaker 1: matches of hers in the past, WeDo, she has it
54:44
Speaker 1: in her to be an ass kicker, but it's not
54:46
Speaker 1: in their image of what they see her as it's
54:49
Speaker 1: not in their image of what she should be. Right
54:52
Speaker 1: to portray her that way would mean that they need
54:54
Speaker 1: to push her harder than they're obviously prepared to do.
54:58
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, when they first put Keana
55:00
Speaker 1: with her, over time it became very clear that it
55:03
Speaker 1: was less about helping Julia by having someone cut promos
55:06
Speaker 1: for her and it was more about getting Keana more
55:09
Speaker 1: visibility on TV. Like the pairing has not really benefited
55:13
Speaker 1: Julia in any meaningful way. The approach that they have
55:17
Speaker 1: taken has not worked so far. The crowd reactions dictate
55:21
Speaker 1: that the crowd reactions tell you, but her working with
55:25
Speaker 1: bigger names like this would help, so she needs to
55:28
Speaker 1: be doing more of that. The real standouts on the
55:31
Speaker 1: show though, on Friday, were the backstage interactions between Cody Roads,
55:35
Speaker 1: sammy's Ay, and Trick Williams and the elimination Chamber qualifier
55:38
Speaker 1: with Trick Mellow and Damian Priest. But let me talk
55:42
Speaker 1: about the backstage stuff first, because Cody Rhads was walking
55:45
Speaker 1: and he ran into a very dejected Sammy's ain Sammy
55:48
Speaker 1: Zin seems to be dejected on most weeks. I hope
55:50
Speaker 1: this man is seeing a therapist. But he bumps into
55:53
Speaker 1: Sammy's a and he tells him, look, You've got nothing
55:56
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of. This is after Cody beat him
55:59
Speaker 1: in last week's SOO Triple Threat qualifier, and Sammy said
56:02
Speaker 1: he knew he didn't have anything to be ashamed of,
56:04
Speaker 1: and if anybody did, it was Cody. Sammy said he
56:08
Speaker 1: helped Cody Drew McIntyre Rader feared in the match, and Sammy,
56:12
Speaker 1: if you remember, he gave Drew a claim war kick
56:14
Speaker 1: and then Cody snuck up behind him and he gave
56:16
Speaker 1: him a crossroads and he said Cody stuck a knife
56:19
Speaker 1: in his back. My favorite part of this is when
56:21
Speaker 1: he said this, he made a motion of a knife
56:24
Speaker 1: going through his chest. So Sammy's saying clearly skipped out
56:29
Speaker 1: on his anatomy class in school. But Cody said, look,
56:33
Speaker 1: I took advantage of an opportunity to be the champion again.
56:37
Speaker 1: Sammy hasn't taken those same opportunities and that's why you've
56:40
Speaker 1: never been a world champion. And Sammy said, look, that's
56:43
Speaker 1: easy for you to say you're the Golden Boy. Nobody
56:47
Speaker 1: chose me like they chose you. He said, Cody got
56:50
Speaker 1: to finish his story, and Sammy's been trying to finish
56:54
Speaker 1: his story for ten years now. Sammy said that Cody
56:57
Speaker 1: doesn't know what it's like to constantly try to do
56:59
Speaker 1: the right thing. And Cody yelled at him and said,
57:01
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? The right thing? How I
57:04
Speaker 1: tried to do the right thing in Germany in three
57:06
Speaker 1: stages of hell when Jacob Fatu showed up, and it
57:09
Speaker 1: cost me everything. And Cody said, Sammy could walk into
57:13
Speaker 1: the locker room right now and beat everybody in there.
57:15
Speaker 1: The only thing in your way is you, and he
57:18
Speaker 1: walked off. And after he walked off, Trick Williams walked
57:23
Speaker 1: in and you could hear the fans in the arena.
57:26
Speaker 1: They popped as soon as he popped up on screen.
57:27
Speaker 1: He entered the picture and he laughed, and he said,
57:29
Speaker 1: with friends like Cody Rhodes, who needs enemies? And he
57:33
Speaker 1: said that he was going to do something tonight that
57:35
Speaker 1: Sammy's ain could never do, and that's get the job done.
57:38
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it, and off he went. Trick Williams
57:42
Speaker 1: bullying Sammy's ain will never get old to me, like
57:44
Speaker 1: he seems to derive so much pleasure from it. You know,
57:49
Speaker 1: my heart says Trick against Mellow at Mania for the
57:53
Speaker 1: US title, but my head says it's going to be
57:55
Speaker 1: Trick against samy'san. I think that's gonna end up being
57:58
Speaker 1: the match. After Trick left, Sammy called out, Now, normally
58:03
Speaker 1: this is where this segment would end, your typical WWE
58:06
Speaker 1: backstage segment. It would cut off here and cut back
58:08
Speaker 1: to the arena, but they kept it going, and he's
58:10
Speaker 1: calling out to Cody, who I guess is a very
58:12
Speaker 1: slow walker here, because Cody was still walking up not
58:16
Speaker 1: too far up ahead. So he ran over to Cody
58:18
Speaker 1: to catch up to him, and he apologized to Cody,
58:24
Speaker 1: and when he apologized to him, you could hear the
58:26
Speaker 1: live crowd boo. And he said, it's only a matter
58:30
Speaker 1: of time before you become champion again. And he told
58:33
Speaker 1: Cody just remember that you had a little help along
58:35
Speaker 1: the way, and Cody said, I don't forget. So this
58:39
Speaker 1: was great, you know, this was great. Storytelling here, and
58:42
Speaker 1: I love the way they transitioned from Cody to Trick
58:44
Speaker 1: and back to Sammy chasing down Cody. But of course
58:47
Speaker 1: he got booed, like the fans are trying to tell
58:50
Speaker 1: sammy' zane to stop being a pushover, like this is
58:53
Speaker 1: why you will never be world champion. Now, Sammy is
58:56
Speaker 1: not wrong in the things that he says. He has
58:58
Speaker 1: nothing to apologize for, yet he always wilts. He wilts
59:01
Speaker 1: like a flower. You know, for a minute there, it
59:03
Speaker 1: looked like Sammy was realizing that his old friend Kevin
59:06
Speaker 1: Owens was right about Cody. He almost had it, and
59:09
Speaker 1: then he apologized. You know, I've been talking about the
59:13
Speaker 1: possibility of Sammy winning the Big One at WrestleMania next
59:15
Speaker 1: year in Saudi right as a possible direction there. But
59:19
Speaker 1: there's a story to be told a lot sooner than
59:21
Speaker 1: that with him and Cody after Cody wins the belt back.
59:23
Speaker 1: Assuming Cody wins the Belt back, I know we still
59:26
Speaker 1: have to get Cody and Randy, and I'm going to
59:27
Speaker 1: talk about that in a second here. But the other
59:30
Speaker 1: idea would be coming out of WrestleMania, Sammy's ain't going
59:33
Speaker 1: heel and embracing his bad side against Cody for the
59:37
Speaker 1: world title this year, forget next year, like that is
59:40
Speaker 1: something they could do. They don't need Sammy to be
59:43
Speaker 1: a babyface when he finally wins the big one. It
59:45
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a big babyface win at WrestleMania,
59:48
Speaker 1: you know, like it was with Cody. It doesn't have
59:50
Speaker 1: to be that way. He just needs to ditch the
59:52
Speaker 1: self righteousness and just do whatever it takes and evolve
59:56
Speaker 1: this character. But Trick's qualifier was the best man on
1:00:00
Speaker 1: the show, and he won clean, decisively and clean He
1:00:03
Speaker 1: pinned Priest, a former world champion, to do it, not Mellow,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: who is the United States champion, which keeps hope alive
1:00:09
Speaker 1: that they will be fighting for that title soon. Trick
1:00:12
Speaker 1: has become a highlight of the show every single week
1:00:14
Speaker 1: for me. In short order, but I mentioned Carmelo Hayes.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: He told the Good Karma Wrestling Channel that while he
1:00:21
Speaker 1: thinks these US title open challenges have been a good
1:00:23
Speaker 1: showcase for him, he agrees with the sentiment from fans
1:00:26
Speaker 1: that they need to bring back storylines to the title
1:00:28
Speaker 1: picture instead of just doing one off title defenses. This
1:00:32
Speaker 1: is what he said to be honest, I think the
1:00:34
Speaker 1: Open Challenge is becoming a little bit more. I know
1:00:37
Speaker 1: people have been talking about storylines. I do want to
1:00:40
Speaker 1: bring storylines back because I do feel like there's a
1:00:42
Speaker 1: period where guys should just be able to pull up
1:00:44
Speaker 1: every Friday and automatically get a title shot. Because if
1:00:49
Speaker 1: I didn't get until the Open Challenge opened, I had
1:00:53
Speaker 1: to earn one, he said, and it took a lot.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: If you guys remember, I was battling Andrade freaking every week,
1:00:59
Speaker 1: just killing ourselves to get an opportunity for an opportunity,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: So you know what I mean. I'd like to bring
1:01:04
Speaker 1: that back.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: Now.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: The Open Challenge has been one of the biggest highlights
1:01:10
Speaker 1: on Friday nights now for months, you know, and we
1:01:13
Speaker 1: have had some horrible, boring, dull, do nothing SmackDown shows
1:01:19
Speaker 1: mixed in with some good ones, but mostly bad and boring,
1:01:23
Speaker 1: which is the worst kind of television that you could have.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: At least, if it's gonna be bad, make it so
1:01:26
Speaker 1: bad it's good. It's not even that. So the Open
1:01:29
Speaker 1: Challenge is at least when you would have Sammy's Ain
1:01:32
Speaker 1: defending or Elia Dragon of defending or Carmelo Hayes defending,
1:01:36
Speaker 1: it was the highlight of the show in most weeks
1:01:38
Speaker 1: because they were going out there just having killer matches.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: And look look at where Carmelo Hayes is now is
1:01:43
Speaker 1: compared to six months ago, Like he's gotten himself over.
1:01:46
Speaker 1: He's actually getting reactions now whereas he wasn't getting these
1:01:50
Speaker 1: kinds of reactions months ago. So it's worked out well
1:01:53
Speaker 1: for him. I still enjoy the Open Challenge. I've been
1:01:55
Speaker 1: saying that it's fine to keep doing it until a
1:01:58
Speaker 1: heel wins the title. Let's say Trick. If Trick is
1:02:01
Speaker 1: the one to beat Melo to win the US title,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: whether it's WrestleMania, whether it's television, whenever it is. Once
1:02:07
Speaker 1: the heel takes that championship away from the babyface, there's
1:02:10
Speaker 1: no incentive for the heel to keep this open Challenge going.
1:02:13
Speaker 1: They're keeping it going in the spirit of John Cena
1:02:15
Speaker 1: and in the spirit of respecting what John Cena started.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Trick Williams has no respect. He's shown that. So as
1:02:21
Speaker 1: soon as he wins that championship, the first thing he
1:02:23
Speaker 1: should announce on SmackDown the following week is that the
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Open Challenge is hereby closed. And then you move away
1:02:29
Speaker 1: from the Open challenge gimmick, and like Melo says here,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: you get back to the story aspects because you need
1:02:36
Speaker 1: to have that. It can't just it can't always be
1:02:39
Speaker 1: about just random matches. It works for a period of
1:02:41
Speaker 1: time if you're doing the open challenge, but you can
1:02:45
Speaker 1: only do that for so long. It is going to
1:02:47
Speaker 1: get old, and as soon as the heel wins that belt,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: they need to shut that shit down and get back
1:02:52
Speaker 1: to exactly what he's talking about here. He's not wrong.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: This week's episode is sponsored by Wicks. Years ago, when
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Speaker 1: That's wix dot com slash Harmony. Elimination Chamber is this
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Saturday in chicag And before I get into my predictions,
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I talked last week about anger from establishments in Las
1:05:06
Speaker 1: Vegas over WWE and TKO blocking them from hosting WrestleMania
1:05:11
Speaker 1: watch parties within a fifty mile radius of Allegiant Stadium.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: This is an effort to force people to buy tickets
1:05:17
Speaker 1: to the show. Emails have already gone out to people
1:05:21
Speaker 1: who have bought tickets for some of these watch parties
1:05:23
Speaker 1: of various places, letting them know that they're canceled. So
1:05:26
Speaker 1: it's being enforced, or I mean being enforced to the
1:05:29
Speaker 1: extent that these establishments are not going to risk getting fined,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: so they're sending out cancelation notices. Well, it sounds like
1:05:36
Speaker 1: this may be a new policy going forward for all pls,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: or at least the ones they're struggling to sell out,
1:05:42
Speaker 1: because the same thing is now happening in Chicago for
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Elimination Chamber. Per Fightful Select, several venues in the market
1:05:50
Speaker 1: have been informed that they cannot host watch parties for
1:05:53
Speaker 1: the event based off the last wrestle Tics update that
1:05:58
Speaker 1: I saw on Friday morning, there's an awful lot of
1:06:01
Speaker 1: blue dots on that seating chart on the floor, Like,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: there's so many floor seats that are still available. I
1:06:07
Speaker 1: don't even want to know what those seats are going for.
1:06:11
Speaker 1: But they have fourteen, eight hundred and ninety five tickets
1:06:13
Speaker 1: distributed for the show on a setup of seventeen thousand,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: which is a strong number. It's just it's not a
1:06:20
Speaker 1: sellout yet, but it's a strong number. But the cheapest
1:06:23
Speaker 1: ticket for Nosebleeds is listed at two hundred and sixty
1:06:26
Speaker 1: one dollars, and again, I don't think that's inclusive of taxes. Again,
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the watch party ban, it's just pure greed. I mean,
1:06:34
Speaker 1: that's all it is. No one I want you to
1:06:37
Speaker 1: think about this. No one in their right mind who
1:06:41
Speaker 1: is going to an Elimination Chamber watch party with their
1:06:44
Speaker 1: friends at fucking Applebee's is suddenly going to go. Oh man,
1:06:49
Speaker 1: I guess I'll have to pay four hundred bucks now
1:06:52
Speaker 1: to go to the United Center and sit in the
1:06:53
Speaker 1: upper deck to watch the show. Like, no one is
1:06:57
Speaker 1: doing this now right now. It's a blackout. At some
1:07:02
Speaker 1: point you watch watch them agree to let them show
1:07:05
Speaker 1: these PLI it might not be for this one, but
1:07:08
Speaker 1: watch them allow them to show the plees but for
1:07:11
Speaker 1: some ridiculously like astronomical licensing fee that would basically be
1:07:15
Speaker 1: the equivalent of charging people who attend the same prices
1:07:19
Speaker 1: that they would charge for tickets to the actual show.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: Because that's probably what's coming up next. Like formula one
1:07:26
Speaker 1: tried this a few years ago in Vegas. They were
1:07:28
Speaker 1: threatening to block views and obstruct views of the races
1:07:32
Speaker 1: unless they paid, like establishments, hotels, bars, millions of dollars
1:07:37
Speaker 1: in fees. Here's something like fifteen hundred bucks ahead. And
1:07:42
Speaker 1: who do you think that those establishments, those hotels and
1:07:45
Speaker 1: restaurants would be passing that cost onto? Right? There was
1:07:49
Speaker 1: such an uproar over it. They ended up slashing it
1:07:51
Speaker 1: down to like fifty thousand dollars per establishment. And I
1:07:55
Speaker 1: don't know how it is now. This again, this was
1:07:57
Speaker 1: a few years ago, but don't be surprised they end
1:08:00
Speaker 1: up taking a similar route at some point, you know,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: instead of asking, you know, why why are tickets not
1:08:06
Speaker 1: selling well? Or why are they not selling as quickly
1:08:09
Speaker 1: as they were before? You know what we should do
1:08:11
Speaker 1: instead of asking the obvious question, Let's figure out other
1:08:14
Speaker 1: ways that we can make up for it by shaking
1:08:16
Speaker 1: people down. Yeah, yeah, that'll work. Now for the card,
1:08:22
Speaker 1: we still have two more qualifying matches tomorrow night, so
1:08:25
Speaker 1: these predictions are pending what happens there. If they change,
1:08:29
Speaker 1: I will talk about it on the Uncrowned Wrestling Show
1:08:31
Speaker 1: this Tuesday. We have the great reveal. I already gave
1:08:35
Speaker 1: you my thoughts, right, Dan Housend or Demon Balor. I
1:08:38
Speaker 1: think it ends up being one of those two. The
1:08:41
Speaker 1: Women's Elimination Chamber with Tiffany Stratton, Oska, Alexa Bliss, Rhea Ripley,
1:08:47
Speaker 1: Keana James, and the winner of Eosky, Raquel Rodriguez and
1:08:51
Speaker 1: Kyrie Saying tomorrow night, I'm going with Eosky to qualify.
1:08:55
Speaker 1: I think she gets in, and I'm going with Alexa
1:08:58
Speaker 1: Bliss to win the Elimination Chamber match. I'm going to
1:09:03
Speaker 1: tell you why Charlotte Flair did not qualify for the Chamber.
1:09:08
Speaker 1: And I know there are people who were looking at
1:09:10
Speaker 1: this and going, well, you know, they must be building
1:09:13
Speaker 1: for Charlotte to wrestle Alexa instead, because there have been
1:09:16
Speaker 1: hints right about some issues they've had, and Charlotte's been,
1:09:21
Speaker 1: you know, trying to make it work and everything, but
1:09:23
Speaker 1: there's been some tension there. But they're in a tough
1:09:26
Speaker 1: spot right now because they do not have an obvious
1:09:28
Speaker 1: great challenger for Jade car Gill of WrestleMania. And I
1:09:32
Speaker 1: do not think Jade Cargill is losing that championship like
1:09:35
Speaker 1: Riea Ripley did last year before they get to WrestleMania.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: I do not see that happening. She is going to
1:09:40
Speaker 1: walk into WrestleMania as the champion. So what is the
1:09:44
Speaker 1: best option here, Ria Ripley. You know, when they there
1:09:47
Speaker 1: was another little face off between her and Jade and
1:09:50
Speaker 1: he was backstage on Friday, and the fans popped, like
1:09:54
Speaker 1: the fans would love to see Riho Ripley challenge Jade
1:09:57
Speaker 1: for the title. I just don't see it happening. I
1:09:59
Speaker 1: don't see them moving Rhea Ripley over to SmackDown. I
1:10:02
Speaker 1: don't see them pulling her away from Eo Sky and
1:10:04
Speaker 1: whatever Eo is going to be doing in WrestleMania, because
1:10:07
Speaker 1: otherwise Rhea would be would be, you know, the marquee
1:10:10
Speaker 1: choice here. I don't see it being her. I think
1:10:13
Speaker 1: Alexa wins the chamber, and I think that Charlotte is
1:10:17
Speaker 1: going to end up working her way into this situation.
1:10:20
Speaker 1: I think that the match for WrestleMania may well be
1:10:24
Speaker 1: a three way with Jade defending against both Charlotte Flair
1:10:28
Speaker 1: and Alexa Bliss, and I think Charlotte and Alexa they
1:10:31
Speaker 1: start to have issues. Those issues can spill over into
1:10:34
Speaker 1: the World title picture where Alexa qualifies, so she's got
1:10:37
Speaker 1: a guaranteed shot. Charlotte was playing it cool the other night, like,
1:10:41
Speaker 1: you know, she lost, but I'm okay, I'm okay, but
1:10:44
Speaker 1: she's not okay, and then I think that kind of
1:10:47
Speaker 1: blows over onto television in the next few weeks, and
1:10:50
Speaker 1: somehow she works her way into that title picture and
1:10:54
Speaker 1: we get a triple threat, and the issues with Charlotte
1:10:57
Speaker 1: and Alexa, they're gonna end up canceling each other out
1:10:59
Speaker 1: in that match, and that's how Jade is going to
1:11:02
Speaker 1: escape WrestleMania is still with her championship, but I think
1:11:05
Speaker 1: that's where we're headed here because I don't see that
1:11:08
Speaker 1: one obvious challenger for Jade instead of just doing Charlotte
1:11:12
Speaker 1: and Alexa non title on the undercard. I think you'll
1:11:14
Speaker 1: work both of them into the title match. I think
1:11:17
Speaker 1: that's the match for WrestleMania. Now. Becky Lynch is going
1:11:21
Speaker 1: to defend her Women's Intercontinental title against aj Lee. This
1:11:24
Speaker 1: is AJ's first singles match in eleven years. I saw
1:11:28
Speaker 1: that segment, the promo segment with them on Monday night.
1:11:31
Speaker 1: It was not good. It was not good, and it
1:11:34
Speaker 1: certainly did not do anything to get me excited to
1:11:38
Speaker 1: see this match between them on Saturday. But they're going
1:11:41
Speaker 1: to have a match, and look, I'm not really a
1:11:44
Speaker 1: big fan honestly of taking the belt off of Becky
1:11:46
Speaker 1: and putting it on aj I don't think aj needs it.
1:11:49
Speaker 1: I don't think that's Frankly, I just don't think that's
1:11:51
Speaker 1: the right move to make. I question, if you put
1:11:54
Speaker 1: the belt on her now, is she even going to
1:11:55
Speaker 1: defend it on television between now in WrestleMania. But it's
1:11:58
Speaker 1: very clear to me that this is the first of two,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: at least two matches that we're going to get between
1:12:02
Speaker 1: the two of them, and aj Lee is clearly not
1:12:04
Speaker 1: full time, and we don't need titles on people who
1:12:08
Speaker 1: are not going to be on television every single week.
1:12:10
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So if you wanted to get the Intercontinental
1:12:13
Speaker 1: title onto aj Lee, then the place to do it
1:12:17
Speaker 1: is her adopted hometown here of Chicago. And when this
1:12:22
Speaker 1: show is over, I think you got AJM Punk walking
1:12:24
Speaker 1: out of there, both with hardware over their shoulders. If
1:12:28
Speaker 1: aj is going to get the belt, I would much
1:12:30
Speaker 1: rather her get it here than WrestleMania. I'm going with
1:12:32
Speaker 1: Ajlee to win. You want to put the championship on her,
1:12:35
Speaker 1: do it now. I mean that'll just drive Becky even
1:12:39
Speaker 1: further off the brink of sanity. And then when you
1:12:42
Speaker 1: run it back at WrestleMania, maybe with a step put
1:12:44
Speaker 1: the belt back on Becky and be done with it,
1:12:47
Speaker 1: and then Becky can defend against other people. What I
1:12:50
Speaker 1: would rather not see is aj winn it at Mania
1:12:54
Speaker 1: and then we don't even know if she's going to
1:12:55
Speaker 1: be around. How often are we going to even see
1:12:58
Speaker 1: her on TV? If she's going to be around, then
1:13:01
Speaker 1: that's fine, then go ahead and do it at Media.
1:13:03
Speaker 1: But I'm picking her to win here because I think
1:13:05
Speaker 1: that's the better way to go. Cmpunk defends his World
1:13:09
Speaker 1: Heavyweight Championship in his hometown of Chicago against Finn Balor
1:13:15
Speaker 1: Will it be Finn balor, will it be Demon Balor?
1:13:17
Speaker 1: I don't know, but one thing I can tell you
1:13:20
Speaker 1: is that cmpunk is not losing the World Heavyweight Championship
1:13:24
Speaker 1: in Chicago ahead of a Wrestle Media showdown with Roman Reigns.
1:13:28
Speaker 1: Cmpunk is going to win this match and in the
1:13:31
Speaker 1: men's elimination chamber, currently we have Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: l A Knight, Javon Evans, and Trick Williams, jay Uso,
1:13:40
Speaker 1: Bronson Reed and the og El Grande Americano. They're going
1:13:43
Speaker 1: to be fighting for that final spot tomorrow night. I
1:13:45
Speaker 1: am going to say that brock Lesner knocks Gable out
1:13:49
Speaker 1: of his spots. He's not even in the match, but
1:13:53
Speaker 1: he takes his spot. He ends up winning the match
1:13:56
Speaker 1: because the alternative is jay Uso yeading inside the chamber
1:13:59
Speaker 1: and ain't nobody needs to see that. So brock Lesnar
1:14:02
Speaker 1: is going to qualify for the elimination That that's my
1:14:05
Speaker 1: bold prediction here. Brocklesnar is going to qualify for the
1:14:08
Speaker 1: elimination chamber, and then inside the chamber, brock is going
1:14:13
Speaker 1: to get eliminated by La Knight or some combination of
1:14:16
Speaker 1: Night and somebody else It could be Knight and Cody,
1:14:19
Speaker 1: just like it was of the Rumble, only to then
1:14:21
Speaker 1: destroy La Knight, which then leads to La Night being
1:14:25
Speaker 1: eliminated from the match. That then sets things in motion
1:14:29
Speaker 1: for the WrestleMania match that nobody asks for. Again, i
1:14:32
Speaker 1: am not advocating for a brocklesnar La Night match of WrestleMania.
1:14:36
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I think there's a very real chance
1:14:38
Speaker 1: that's going to be the match. And how do you
1:14:41
Speaker 1: get there? What do you do to set things in
1:14:44
Speaker 1: motion to get from point A to point B? That's
1:14:47
Speaker 1: how I think it goes down the chamber Bo'm booking this.
1:14:51
Speaker 1: The chamber then comes down to two men, Cody Rhodes
1:14:54
Speaker 1: and Randy Orton, and Cody Rhodes wins the elimination chamber,
1:15:00
Speaker 1: and the show ends with an angry Randy Orton, and
1:15:04
Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't look so angry, maybe he's kind of
1:15:07
Speaker 1: fighting off demons in his head, and Cody's looking for
1:15:10
Speaker 1: a handshake and it looks like Randy's going to give
1:15:12
Speaker 1: him one, but then Randy drops Cody finally with an
1:15:16
Speaker 1: RKO out of nowhere and maybe even a punt kick
1:15:21
Speaker 1: take him off TV for a couple of weeks. Oh
1:15:23
Speaker 1: my goodness, what does this mean now for WrestleMania? Right,
1:15:26
Speaker 1: Cody's guaranteed his shot, but you've also got Jacob Fatu,
1:15:30
Speaker 1: and you've got Randy Orton beefing with Cody and Drew.
1:15:32
Speaker 1: All four men they don't like each other. And if
1:15:35
Speaker 1: we don't get a fatal four way in Las Vegas,
1:15:38
Speaker 1: we at least get a three way with FA two involved,
1:15:41
Speaker 1: and Randy could be Cody's first program coming out of WrestleMania.
1:15:45
Speaker 1: But I think we need to finally get a resolution
1:15:48
Speaker 1: to who attacked Jacob Fatu. That storyline has still not
1:15:53
Speaker 1: been resolved. I know that Jacob thinks that Drew did it.
1:15:57
Speaker 1: Drew has always maintained I didn't do it. I wouldn't
1:16:00
Speaker 1: lie to you. If I was going to attack you,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: I'd do it to your face. I'd be on television
1:16:04
Speaker 1: gloating about it that I kicked all your teeth out.
1:16:07
Speaker 1: I didn't do it right. And we haven't heard anything
1:16:10
Speaker 1: about this story, this mystery. It just it was like dropped.
1:16:16
Speaker 1: But I think they circle back around to it. If
1:16:18
Speaker 1: Randy Orton turns on Cody Rhodes at the end of
1:16:20
Speaker 1: the elimination chamber. Then coming out of that show, I say,
1:16:24
Speaker 1: we end up getting the reveal that it wasn't Drew
1:16:27
Speaker 1: McIntyre who kicked Jacob in the mouth and knocked all
1:16:30
Speaker 1: eleven teeth out, it was Randy Orton with a punt kick,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: and that cements the heel turn because him dropping Cody
1:16:39
Speaker 1: with an RKO on its own, that ain't going to
1:16:41
Speaker 1: be enough to get this guy booed, Like some people
1:16:43
Speaker 1: will boo him, but a lot of people are going
1:16:45
Speaker 1: to cheer him for it. But if it comes out
1:16:47
Speaker 1: that he attacked Fa too like people like Jacob, it
1:16:50
Speaker 1: gives people more of a reason to boo Randy. Like
1:16:53
Speaker 1: some people just aren't going to boo him no matter what,
1:16:55
Speaker 1: and they'll always pop for the RKO out of nowhere.
1:16:57
Speaker 1: But you give people a better reason to boo this man.
1:17:03
Speaker 1: And then you can do a four way at WrestleMania
1:17:05
Speaker 1: for the title, right, Or you could do Cody against
1:17:07
Speaker 1: Drew and Randy against Jacob in separate matches. But I
1:17:10
Speaker 1: don't want to see Cody against Drew one on one,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: Like I'm going four way, you give me the option
1:17:15
Speaker 1: three way, four way, I'm doing multi Man all the
1:17:18
Speaker 1: way over, Cody against Drew one on one, and then
1:17:22
Speaker 1: who's to say that Cody even needs to win the
1:17:24
Speaker 1: belt back at WrestleMania. You do a fucking four way match,
1:17:27
Speaker 1: give the belt to Randy Orton and let Cody keep
1:17:31
Speaker 1: chasing for it. Coming out of WrestleMania, Him and Jacob
1:17:33
Speaker 1: could chase after Randy because now they have reasons to
1:17:36
Speaker 1: hate Randy Orton. You got Orton back in that mix
1:17:40
Speaker 1: right there. He's got that championship and they're chasing after him.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: That's how I see it going down. And I will
1:17:47
Speaker 1: be live on YouTube when that show is over, so
1:17:49
Speaker 1: we'll have the full Elimination Chamber recap next Saturday. You'll
1:17:52
Speaker 1: get a bonus podcast from me next weekend. Suck some
1:17:57
Speaker 1: AW news here because it became official this week via
1:18:01
Speaker 1: the New York Post after Andrew's Aarien of the mat
1:18:05
Speaker 1: Men Wrestling podcast broke the news last week that AW
1:18:09
Speaker 1: Double or Nothing will be held at Louis Armstrong Stadium
1:18:12
Speaker 1: in Queens, New York. But now we know the actual
1:18:15
Speaker 1: date from the Post. They say it's going to be Sunday,
1:18:17
Speaker 1: May twenty fourth, so we figured it was going to
1:18:20
Speaker 1: be Memorial Day weekend. That's usually when double or nothing
1:18:23
Speaker 1: is held. We just didn't know if it was going
1:18:25
Speaker 1: to be Saturday or Sunday. Now we know it will
1:18:27
Speaker 1: be Sunday and Louis Armstrong Stadium. It's in the same
1:18:31
Speaker 1: tennis complex where aaw is held Grand Slams in the
1:18:35
Speaker 1: past from Arthur Ash. This is a little bit smaller,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: has a capacity of around fourteen thousand figure with a
1:18:42
Speaker 1: stage and setup. They're probably looking at maybe to max
1:18:45
Speaker 1: at around ten or eleven, which they should easily be
1:18:47
Speaker 1: able to do. And if you want tickets, they go
1:18:51
Speaker 1: on sale to the general public on Monday, March ninth,
1:18:54
Speaker 1: that is the on sale date. Let's talk about Dynamite
1:18:57
Speaker 1: from this past week. I thought it was a very
1:19:00
Speaker 1: strong show with an excellent main event, an excellent main event,
1:19:04
Speaker 1: and a big angle to close the show. Wasn't just like, oh,
1:19:06
Speaker 1: we got a great wrestling match. We actually got a
1:19:08
Speaker 1: big heel turn in a big angle to write Kenny
1:19:11
Speaker 1: Omega off television. When it was all said and done,
1:19:14
Speaker 1: Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega they went one on one
1:19:17
Speaker 1: for the first time ever and they had a killer match,
1:19:22
Speaker 1: just a great match and Swerve won the match. At
1:19:26
Speaker 1: one point, Swerve pulled referee Aubrey Edwards in the way
1:19:30
Speaker 1: of a V trigger And yet there are still people
1:19:33
Speaker 1: out there who don't believe that this man has fully
1:19:36
Speaker 1: turned heel. He pulled Aubrey Edwards in the path of
1:19:40
Speaker 1: a Kenny Omega V trigger and she was knocked unconscious.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: But he beats Kenny Omega, and still for the people
1:19:49
Speaker 1: who don't think it was a full heel turn, that
1:19:52
Speaker 1: wasn't enough. He beat the piss out of Omega when
1:19:54
Speaker 1: the match was over, and evidently when they went off
1:19:56
Speaker 1: the air, he continued the assault until the Young Bucks
1:19:59
Speaker 1: ran out to make the save. If again, in case
1:20:02
Speaker 1: you were wondering, was this a heel turn or not?
1:20:05
Speaker 1: And the fans boot him and the fans treated it
1:20:07
Speaker 1: as such, So it was, you know, a major angle,
1:20:11
Speaker 1: but the match itself, you know, it's funny. We just
1:20:13
Speaker 1: came off the match with Tomaso Champa and Kyle Fletcher
1:20:15
Speaker 1: last week and I said, that's the best TV match
1:20:18
Speaker 1: of the year so far. Well, now we have a
1:20:20
Speaker 1: new best TV match of the year so far, which
1:20:22
Speaker 1: is Kenny Omega against Swerve Strickland. So I love what
1:20:26
Speaker 1: they did there at the end of the show, Swerve
1:20:29
Speaker 1: looked in the camera at one point after he gave
1:20:31
Speaker 1: Omega verte breaker off the steps that he had moved
1:20:34
Speaker 1: over by the announced desk, he gave him a verte
1:20:36
Speaker 1: breaker through the announced desk. He he looked dead in
1:20:39
Speaker 1: the camera and said, I needed this. I needed this, right,
1:20:41
Speaker 1: he needed to find his edge again. But think about it,
1:20:44
Speaker 1: like when they had their promo on television the week
1:20:46
Speaker 1: before and Swerves calling himself, you know, the most dangerous
1:20:50
Speaker 1: man in all of aw and Kenny laughed him off. Right,
1:20:55
Speaker 1: He looked this man dead in the face and basically said,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: now the most dangerous man in aw right now was
1:21:00
Speaker 1: rody king with a wink and a nod towards the
1:21:03
Speaker 1: chance that he gets everywhere he goes. But he basically
1:21:06
Speaker 1: laughed him off and said, no, you're not so, Swerve went,
1:21:10
Speaker 1: I mean, he just went full throttle on this guy
1:21:13
Speaker 1: and just absolutely killed him to prove a point. And
1:21:17
Speaker 1: so now Kenny Omega is going to be off TV
1:21:20
Speaker 1: for a while, And the only question is for how long?
1:21:23
Speaker 1: Because it definitely felt like they're writing him off with
1:21:25
Speaker 1: the idea that he won't be a revolution that's not guaranteed.
1:21:29
Speaker 1: Now we know that he's going to be in Japan
1:21:31
Speaker 1: the week of Revolution, he is committed to I don't
1:21:34
Speaker 1: know what his role is, if he's like an MC
1:21:36
Speaker 1: or if he's playing in the tournament. I don't know
1:21:39
Speaker 1: what exactly what his role is. There's some sort of
1:21:41
Speaker 1: a Capcom is having a Capcom Cup event and people
1:21:45
Speaker 1: are going to be playing I think Street Fighters six.
1:21:48
Speaker 1: But he committed to this event a long time ago,
1:21:51
Speaker 1: I think like well over a year ago, and supposedly
1:21:54
Speaker 1: they're still trying to work it out that maybe he can,
1:21:57
Speaker 1: you know, exit early and be back in time to
1:21:59
Speaker 1: get to Los Angeles for the show. But even if
1:22:02
Speaker 1: he can end up making an appearance, like, he's clearly
1:22:04
Speaker 1: not going to be able to be booked in a
1:22:06
Speaker 1: match on that show. So I'm not expecting him back
1:22:10
Speaker 1: at least until Revolution, and he's likely not going to
1:22:13
Speaker 1: be in a match on that show, So that's why
1:22:14
Speaker 1: they had to do what they did. But I think
1:22:16
Speaker 1: He'll Swerve is the best version of Swerve with that
1:22:19
Speaker 1: harder edge. I mean, you know, maybe over time he
1:22:23
Speaker 1: ends up being a tweeter, but this was a full
1:22:24
Speaker 1: on fucking heel turn that we saw on Wednesday night,
1:22:29
Speaker 1: and it's interesting and I'll talk about Hangman here in
1:22:32
Speaker 1: a second, but because you would think Hangman is certainly
1:22:34
Speaker 1: not going to be very happy about seeing Kenny Omega
1:22:36
Speaker 1: get killed by Swerve Strickland. Now, Hangman had a segment
1:22:41
Speaker 1: in the ring with MJF because we know Hangman is
1:22:44
Speaker 1: now number one contender for the AW World title that's
1:22:46
Speaker 1: going to be the match at Revolution, and they're in
1:22:49
Speaker 1: the ring together and they're cutting to promo on each
1:22:51
Speaker 1: other and MJF is saying, I hate you, I hate you,
1:22:56
Speaker 1: and Hangman says, I'm gonna really show you how serious
1:23:02
Speaker 1: I am about beating you for that championship at Revolution,
1:23:06
Speaker 1: and how confident I am. It tells MJF that if
1:23:10
Speaker 1: I cannot beat you to take back the AW World title,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: then I will never again challenge for the AW World Championship.
1:23:19
Speaker 1: He didn't say so long as you're the champion. He said, ever,
1:23:23
Speaker 1: I will never again challenge for the world title, And
1:23:28
Speaker 1: that didn't work out so well for Cody Rhodes the
1:23:30
Speaker 1: last time they tried a stipulation like this. He also
1:23:35
Speaker 1: was pitching the idea of it being a Texas Death match.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: The fans were chanting Texas Death. MJF said, give me
1:23:42
Speaker 1: a week to think over stipulation and if I agree
1:23:45
Speaker 1: to this, and even said on social media he said,
1:23:47
Speaker 1: we both pitch a stipulation. We both have to agree
1:23:50
Speaker 1: to the stipulation. Hangman has given his word that if
1:23:54
Speaker 1: we do, he will never challenge for the world title again.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: On Wednesday, we decide on the stipulation four hour match.
1:24:02
Speaker 1: They talked about Texas Death so much that it feels
1:24:06
Speaker 1: like it needs to be something else, or it needs
1:24:08
Speaker 1: to be a combination of Texas Death and something else
1:24:11
Speaker 1: for them to I mean, they're dragging it out for
1:24:13
Speaker 1: another week when again Hangman flat out demanded Texas Death
1:24:18
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. So there's going to be some other little,
1:24:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, hook or some kind of detour added
1:24:26
Speaker 1: here by MJF on Wednesday. But the stipulation that I'll
1:24:30
Speaker 1: never again challenge for the world title so long as
1:24:33
Speaker 1: I'm here in aw I'm not a fan of it.
1:24:35
Speaker 1: I understand why they would want to do it. It
1:24:37
Speaker 1: is a hook for the show because now you're gonna
1:24:40
Speaker 1: have people thinking fuck. I mean, there's MJF is losing
1:24:43
Speaker 1: the title. I mean, it's the only way they got
1:24:46
Speaker 1: to put the belt on Hangman. Now, you know, he's
1:24:49
Speaker 1: still he's one of the top names in the company,
1:24:51
Speaker 1: he's still relatively young. I'm sure he's still going to
1:24:53
Speaker 1: be there for many more years. Why would you box
1:24:56
Speaker 1: yourself into a position like this, especially if he's gonna lose, right,
1:25:00
Speaker 1: What do you do?
1:25:01
Speaker 2: Then?
1:25:02
Speaker 1: That there are ways around it that the easiest would
1:25:06
Speaker 1: be if he loses. The easiest would be for him
1:25:08
Speaker 1: to just go back on his word at some point
1:25:10
Speaker 1: if they ever want to turn him heel again. The
1:25:13
Speaker 1: easier way around it, which did not exist when Cody
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Rhoads was still there, would be if he loses at Revolution,
1:25:21
Speaker 1: would be to have him win the Casino Gauntlet match
1:25:23
Speaker 1: at Wembley Stadium, which would guarantee him a shot at
1:25:27
Speaker 1: the aw world title. It kind of reminds me of
1:25:31
Speaker 1: ninety three. Lex Luger went on to They completely changed
1:25:36
Speaker 1: his whole gimmick, right, he became the all He went
1:25:38
Speaker 1: from the narcissist to the all American hero. I mean,
1:25:40
Speaker 1: you talk about doing a oneint eighty in terms of
1:25:42
Speaker 1: your your character or your gimmick, and they put him
1:25:46
Speaker 1: on a fucking bus and they sent him around the
1:25:48
Speaker 1: country and they built everything up with the idea that
1:25:51
Speaker 1: this man's going to win that world title at the
1:25:53
Speaker 1: Palace of Auburn Hills, at suver Slam, he's going to
1:25:56
Speaker 1: beat Yoko Zuna. And he goes in there and he
1:25:59
Speaker 1: knocks yokos Zuna unconscious out of the ring, and of
1:26:01
Speaker 1: course Yoko Zuna is big as a fucking house. No
1:26:04
Speaker 1: one's lifting him up and putting him back in the ring,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: and he gets counted out, and this fucking idiot is
1:26:10
Speaker 1: jumping up and down and celebrating, and wrestlers come out
1:26:12
Speaker 1: and put them on their shoulders, and balloons and confetti
1:26:15
Speaker 1: are falling, and even young Slabanster is watching this, going, boy,
1:26:18
Speaker 1: these people are fucking dumb. The hell are you celebrating?
1:26:22
Speaker 1: You didn't win anything. Not only that, but the stipulation
1:26:24
Speaker 1: going into the match is that Lex Luger can never
1:26:27
Speaker 1: again challenge for the WWF Championship if he does not
1:26:30
Speaker 1: win the title from Yoko Zuna. Well, he did not
1:26:33
Speaker 1: win the title from Yoko Zuna. Now the way around
1:26:36
Speaker 1: that was you have to win the Royal Rumble, which
1:26:39
Speaker 1: he did. He co won the Royal rumble with Brett Hart,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: and that's how he got a title match of WrestleMania
1:26:44
Speaker 1: the following year. So in this case, you got this
1:26:46
Speaker 1: contract that now they're doing the gimmick with the casino gauntlet.
1:26:50
Speaker 1: You win the contract, you got a guaranteed title match.
1:26:53
Speaker 1: You can't cash in like money in the bank. Now
1:26:55
Speaker 1: you got to give at least a week's notice. But
1:26:57
Speaker 1: that would be the way around it, Like there are
1:26:59
Speaker 1: ways around the stipulation. Is it is not a foregone
1:27:02
Speaker 1: conclusion that, oh, this means MJF is losing his title
1:27:05
Speaker 1: at Revolution. No he's not. I don't see that happening.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: But really, what the story here should have been? And
1:27:14
Speaker 1: MJF brought this up in his promo. They had two
1:27:17
Speaker 1: matches last year. MJF lost both of those matches. He
1:27:21
Speaker 1: could not beat Hangman and it drives him absolutely nuts.
1:27:25
Speaker 1: And that's the story that even though he's the champion,
1:27:29
Speaker 1: he's coming into this match of Revolution with something to
1:27:32
Speaker 1: prove because he's got two losses that he just he
1:27:35
Speaker 1: can't shake. He has to beat this man. He knows
1:27:38
Speaker 1: he can beat this man. He's the one guy he
1:27:40
Speaker 1: could not conquer. To me, that was story enough. But
1:27:45
Speaker 1: they wanted to have a big hook for this match.
1:27:49
Speaker 1: But to go back to what I talked about before
1:27:51
Speaker 1: with Kenny and Swerve, like, who's one guy that you
1:27:54
Speaker 1: would think would have a problem with what Swerve did
1:27:57
Speaker 1: to Kenny Omega Hangman page. Now, if Hangman wins the title,
1:28:03
Speaker 1: Hangman defending against Swerve at Dynasty, that's a very appealing
1:28:07
Speaker 1: main event. But I just think it would be crazy
1:28:10
Speaker 1: to get the belt off MJF right now on the
1:28:12
Speaker 1: run that he's on, and he's still early on into
1:28:14
Speaker 1: this run. More likely, I think is that we see
1:28:18
Speaker 1: Swerve costing Hangman a win against MJF because if his
1:28:22
Speaker 1: goal is to get back the championship, he's clear in
1:28:24
Speaker 1: the deck. He already took Kenny Omega out of the picture,
1:28:28
Speaker 1: and he's got to make sure that Hangman doesn't win
1:28:30
Speaker 1: that belt back before he does. That's a lot more
1:28:33
Speaker 1: likely to me. And yes, I mean that would then
1:28:37
Speaker 1: set up a battle between two heels with MJF and Swerve.
1:28:40
Speaker 1: But I mean it's not like it can't be done,
1:28:42
Speaker 1: and it's a match we still have never gotten one
1:28:44
Speaker 1: on one. It's actually a fresh match we still haven't
1:28:46
Speaker 1: gotten MJF. And Swerve one on one. I mean, some
1:28:50
Speaker 1: people might have said the same thing about MJF and Androte.
1:28:53
Speaker 1: They wanted Androte to beat Hangman in Australia and they
1:28:56
Speaker 1: wanted him to get the shot at Revolution and they're
1:28:59
Speaker 1: still teasing it. It was wild for me to see
1:29:02
Speaker 1: footage on Collision last night from backstage at the at
1:29:05
Speaker 1: the House of Glory show with MJF searching for Andrade
1:29:10
Speaker 1: after Andrede came out during mjf's title defense against Zillaphah Too.
1:29:14
Speaker 1: He ran down the ramp. During the match, MJF was
1:29:17
Speaker 1: about to use the big burdbery belt as a weapon,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: and Andred ran down and just grabbed it. He snatched
1:29:23
Speaker 1: it right away from him and then he passed the
1:29:25
Speaker 1: belt to Zilla for Zilla to use as a weapon.
1:29:28
Speaker 1: But they're airing this on Collision last night and they
1:29:31
Speaker 1: shot that. It was funny because I went to go
1:29:33
Speaker 1: when the show was over. I went to go find
1:29:36
Speaker 1: MJF and I saw him like storming down the stairs
1:29:40
Speaker 1: and I couldn't imagine what was going on here, and
1:29:42
Speaker 1: I guess he was going to confront Andrade, so I
1:29:46
Speaker 1: kind of held back here. But he goes down the
1:29:48
Speaker 1: stairs and Andred's in the dressing room there and they're
1:29:52
Speaker 1: cutting promos on each other backstage at the NYC Arena.
1:29:57
Speaker 1: And this is what aired on TNT last night. That
1:30:00
Speaker 1: was wild to see. But Androdi said, I still have
1:30:02
Speaker 1: my sight set on that title, and I said this
1:30:06
Speaker 1: on the Uncrowned Wrestling Show on Tuesday, and I mentioned
1:30:08
Speaker 1: it on TNT as well. That should be the Grand
1:30:11
Speaker 1: Slam Mexico match in a few months, because I know
1:30:15
Speaker 1: they're planning on going back to Arena Mexico. I presume
1:30:17
Speaker 1: that would be in June. That's what they did last year.
1:30:20
Speaker 1: They're going back to Arena Mexico and they're doing a
1:30:23
Speaker 1: big show down there, and assuming MJF is still the champion,
1:30:27
Speaker 1: that is the best place to be doing that match
1:30:29
Speaker 1: in my opinion, not Revolution, So I like that they
1:30:34
Speaker 1: have different options here for where to go with all
1:30:37
Speaker 1: of this coming out of that pay per view. Is
1:30:39
Speaker 1: the plan to do MJF and Kenny at double or
1:30:42
Speaker 1: nothing or is Kenny the longer term plan for all
1:30:45
Speaker 1: in Wembley in case will Osprey is not cleared in
1:30:48
Speaker 1: time to take part in the o in for a
1:30:50
Speaker 1: shot at the title. We're seeing these weekly will Ospray vignettes,
1:30:54
Speaker 1: which I don't know that they would be running them
1:30:56
Speaker 1: unless they had a sense that he's going to be
1:30:57
Speaker 1: back soon. But it still seems kind of early to me,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if
1:31:03
Speaker 1: they're planning something big for him at all In, then
1:31:05
Speaker 1: I would hope and assume they have some sense that
1:31:07
Speaker 1: he's going to be medically cleared a lot sooner than
1:31:10
Speaker 1: that because the Owen. Trying to think, when did the
1:31:13
Speaker 1: Owen start last year? All In last year was in July.
1:31:18
Speaker 1: This year it's in August, so the Owen would have
1:31:21
Speaker 1: started in May, right late May or early June. So
1:31:27
Speaker 1: the Owen probably this year wouldn't be starting until mid
1:31:29
Speaker 1: mid to late June. So I mean, there's time. There's
1:31:32
Speaker 1: time if you want Osprey back to be in the Owen.
1:31:36
Speaker 1: They had a TVs title four away with Willow Nightingale
1:31:39
Speaker 1: retaining over Meghan Bain and oh gosh, who else was
1:31:44
Speaker 1: in the match? Meghan Bain? I just blanked on who
1:31:47
Speaker 1: the other two people were. Mina Sirkawa, hold on a second,
1:31:52
Speaker 1: and Marina Shafir. There you go. I just had a
1:31:54
Speaker 1: brain fart there. I thought it was a fun match,
1:31:58
Speaker 1: and I thought Meghan Bain was the one who came
1:32:00
Speaker 1: out of it looking the strongest, and she didn't take
1:32:02
Speaker 1: the losing fall. Mina did big surprise, I know, but
1:32:08
Speaker 1: I thought that Meghan bane was positioned well to get
1:32:11
Speaker 1: a single shot next. I think that might be the
1:32:13
Speaker 1: Revolution match. If it's me, that is the Revolution match,
1:32:15
Speaker 1: and I put the belt on Meghan Bain. Bain got
1:32:18
Speaker 1: a quick squashwaing over Beca on Collision last night, John
1:32:23
Speaker 1: Moxley and Kenoski Takeshta. It is confirmed they will have
1:32:26
Speaker 1: a rematch for the Continental title at Revolution, but this
1:32:30
Speaker 1: time there will be no time limit, and I've said
1:32:33
Speaker 1: I think that there should be a title change in
1:32:35
Speaker 1: that match, and you begin to build to the eventual
1:32:39
Speaker 1: match with Okada Champion against Champion title for title to
1:32:43
Speaker 1: unify those two titles again. You got to get back
1:32:46
Speaker 1: to that story. We got to get back to Takeshia
1:32:48
Speaker 1: and Okata soon FTR and the Young Bucks. We now
1:32:53
Speaker 1: know it is confirmed they will be meeting for the
1:32:56
Speaker 1: aw World Tag team titles at Revolution. This will be
1:32:59
Speaker 1: the first time on TOO that these teams are wrestling
1:33:02
Speaker 1: each other since Dynasty two years ago, so at least
1:33:07
Speaker 1: there's been some distance there. It's honestly, it's not a
1:33:10
Speaker 1: match that I would like to see, just because we've
1:33:14
Speaker 1: seen it so many times before. But there's been no
1:33:17
Speaker 1: other clear team that's really been built up and established
1:33:20
Speaker 1: for this spot right now. And they've lost a few
1:33:23
Speaker 1: teams due to injury right including the Hurt Syndicate, Jurassic Express,
1:33:28
Speaker 1: Mark Davis and Jake Doyle just got put together and
1:33:30
Speaker 1: they're done now because Doyle's out with an injury, So
1:33:33
Speaker 1: they've lost a few teams now. In collision. Last night,
1:33:36
Speaker 1: the Rascals did beat FTR in an eliminator match, which
1:33:40
Speaker 1: puts them in contention now for the titles. I don't
1:33:43
Speaker 1: know that in all the times that AAW has done
1:33:45
Speaker 1: these fucking eliminator matches, has there ever been a time
1:33:50
Speaker 1: where a challenger won the eliminator match and then went
1:33:54
Speaker 1: on to get their rematch and actually won. I'm almost
1:33:58
Speaker 1: positive that in every single instance, if they've won an eliminator,
1:34:01
Speaker 1: they've lost in the actual title match. I don't think
1:34:05
Speaker 1: it's happened the other way around. But the Rascals did win,
1:34:09
Speaker 1: and this puts them in contention now for the titles.
1:34:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if the plan is to add them
1:34:14
Speaker 1: to the match at Revolution, I wouldn't think so, but
1:34:18
Speaker 1: they're in the mix now. And at the end of
1:34:21
Speaker 1: the show last night on Collision, they shot a big
1:34:24
Speaker 1: angle where FTR was actually wrestling the Rascals. They lost
1:34:29
Speaker 1: Gates of Agony and Ricochet ran out to attack the
1:34:32
Speaker 1: Young Bucks, and FTR turned their attention to the Young
1:34:36
Speaker 1: Bucks family. At ringside, the Jackson family were in the
1:34:42
Speaker 1: front row and they proceeded to Actually it was Stokely
1:34:46
Speaker 1: Hathaway in his wheelchair who threw powder at Papa Buck,
1:34:51
Speaker 1: the Young Buck's father. And I don't know if you
1:34:54
Speaker 1: noticed this, but Papa Buck he spat right in Stokely's eye. Disgusting,
1:35:01
Speaker 1: but yeah, he got some powder to the face. And
1:35:04
Speaker 1: then they grabbed the Young Buck's younger brother. Malachi, if
1:35:08
Speaker 1: you would have stood this guy in a lineup with
1:35:11
Speaker 1: twenty other people and told me to pick out the
1:35:13
Speaker 1: guy who I think is the Young Buck's younger brother,
1:35:16
Speaker 1: and you put a gun to my head and says
1:35:18
Speaker 1: you better make the right choice. We're gonna give you
1:35:20
Speaker 1: five chances here. I'd be dead right now. There's no
1:35:24
Speaker 1: fucking way I would have picked this guy out of
1:35:26
Speaker 1: a lineup, but apparently he's their younger brother, and they
1:35:28
Speaker 1: dragged him over the barricade and they dragged him into
1:35:30
Speaker 1: the ring and they proceeded to give brother Buck a
1:35:35
Speaker 1: spike pile driver. So, like they did with Beth Phoenix
1:35:39
Speaker 1: months ago, they back to FTR attacking family members to
1:35:42
Speaker 1: put more heat on the angle. The only difference between
1:35:45
Speaker 1: that and this is that we're actually getting the fucking
1:35:47
Speaker 1: match here. Thunder Rosa was back on Dynamite and a
1:35:52
Speaker 1: backstage segment with Chris Statlander and they were being interviewed
1:35:56
Speaker 1: by Renee and Statlander mentioned that she's still not clear
1:35:59
Speaker 1: to wrestle for a few weeks, but she's coming for
1:36:01
Speaker 1: Tecla and Rosa said, well, I am cleared. I'm officially
1:36:05
Speaker 1: cleared as of today, and I don't like what's been
1:36:07
Speaker 1: happening to you. And she said that she wanted a match,
1:36:10
Speaker 1: and Statlander warned her of what Tecla is capable of,
1:36:13
Speaker 1: so on Collision, Rosa worked her first match since the
1:36:16
Speaker 1: Casino Gauntlet at all In Texas that was back in
1:36:19
Speaker 1: July and it was a singles went over Julia Hart
1:36:23
Speaker 1: from the Triangle of madness. She had been out dealing
1:36:27
Speaker 1: with an unspecified injury, and then I know she publicly
1:36:31
Speaker 1: mentioned that she and her husband of fourteen years they
1:36:35
Speaker 1: split in November, so she's obviously been dealing with some stuff.
1:36:40
Speaker 1: But she opened up in an interview that she gave
1:36:42
Speaker 1: on Off the Ropes on Busted Open Radio about not
1:36:46
Speaker 1: being sure if she would ever wrestle again and come
1:36:48
Speaker 1: back from this injury. She said, this is going to
1:36:50
Speaker 1: be the second time that I had been gone for
1:36:52
Speaker 1: a long period of time. I've been out for eight months.
1:36:55
Speaker 1: Physical therapy was key for me to come back, and
1:36:58
Speaker 1: the way that I came back, and it was rough,
1:37:02
Speaker 1: and just the fact that I had to take smaller
1:37:04
Speaker 1: steps to even do simple things. It took me a
1:37:07
Speaker 1: while and it was very scary. Everything that I'm doing,
1:37:09
Speaker 1: I'm doing to prove to myself that I still got it,
1:37:12
Speaker 1: that I deserved this spot. But I get an opportunity again.
1:37:16
Speaker 1: Life gives me an opportunity again to do something that
1:37:18
Speaker 1: I have worked so hard for the last twelve years.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: It's important not to give up, especially during dark times,
1:37:24
Speaker 1: because this injury believed me. It was dark. There were
1:37:28
Speaker 1: some moments that I was like, I'm probably never going
1:37:30
Speaker 1: to wrestle again. And again she didn't reveal what the
1:37:34
Speaker 1: injury is. I know she had a very serious back
1:37:38
Speaker 1: injury a number of years ago, and here, you know
1:37:40
Speaker 1: she's talking about taking small steps and stuff. I mean
1:37:43
Speaker 1: that screams back injury to me. But again she didn't
1:37:46
Speaker 1: specify what the injury was. But it was good to
1:37:48
Speaker 1: see her back on TV. You know, she's a former
1:37:51
Speaker 1: world champion. There, she was in the mix for a
1:37:53
Speaker 1: little while and then they kind of phased her down.
1:37:57
Speaker 1: But I know she's been through a lot of injury
1:37:58
Speaker 1: woes and so getting her back, it's just it's another
1:38:01
Speaker 1: face to add to a division that is pretty stacked
1:38:04
Speaker 1: right now. You know, when you look up and down
1:38:06
Speaker 1: the women's division that they have, it is a very
1:38:08
Speaker 1: strong division. I mean, not everybody is being utilized or
1:38:11
Speaker 1: utilized maybe in the way they should be, but they
1:38:15
Speaker 1: have no shortage of talent right now in the aw
1:38:18
Speaker 1: women's division. Let's take some quick mailbag questions. You can
1:38:22
Speaker 1: email me the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com. Please
1:38:26
Speaker 1: include your name of where you are from when you
1:38:28
Speaker 1: write in Taylor and Sacramento. I'll bet the weather in
1:38:32
Speaker 1: Sacramento is a hell of a lot better than it
1:38:34
Speaker 1: is in New York right now, because I know kfab
1:38:37
Speaker 1: is dead, but AW can be such an incredibly frustrating
1:38:41
Speaker 1: company to watch. It was at Dynamite and Sacramento Omega
1:38:45
Speaker 1: versus Swerve was fun and I enjoyed the heel turn.
1:38:48
Speaker 1: After the young Bucks run off Swerve, they helped Kenny
1:38:51
Speaker 1: into the ring. Kenny is sitting there. He had just
1:38:54
Speaker 1: been in a grueling match, choked with a chain vertebraker
1:38:57
Speaker 1: through a table, killed, no medical staff around. What does
1:39:01
Speaker 1: Matt Jackson says? Kenny sits there he is glad to
1:39:04
Speaker 1: be a good guy again so that he could talk
1:39:06
Speaker 1: to the crowd nicely and say he loves us. I
1:39:09
Speaker 1: can't believe it. Can we just have a little k
1:39:11
Speaker 1: fabe please? Then Kenny takes the mic, saying that he
1:39:14
Speaker 1: wasn't planning on standing here or sitting here like this
1:39:17
Speaker 1: after the match tonight, and the crowd laps. I try
1:39:20
Speaker 1: not to roll my eyes out of my head. I
1:39:22
Speaker 1: really don't know how AW expects people to care about
1:39:25
Speaker 1: their show when they don't even seem to care about
1:39:26
Speaker 1: their own big angles. If this writes Kenny off TV,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: then it will be confirmed that paying actual money to
1:39:32
Speaker 1: see their show live is a bad decision if you
1:39:36
Speaker 1: actually want to be invested in their product, character stories
1:39:38
Speaker 1: in Magic, Well, I got news for you, brother, k
1:39:42
Speaker 1: Fabe died a long time ago. This sort of thing.
1:39:46
Speaker 1: If this happened on TV, then of course, like that
1:39:50
Speaker 1: would be the dumbest thing in the world. They did
1:39:53
Speaker 1: it off the air, and they wanted them to go
1:39:56
Speaker 1: out there and pop the crowd right and give the
1:39:59
Speaker 1: fans you what they wanted to see. So yeah, I
1:40:02
Speaker 1: would probably roll my eyes in my head too, But
1:40:05
Speaker 1: it happened off the air, Like, no one on television
1:40:07
Speaker 1: is gonna see any of that. The last image they
1:40:09
Speaker 1: had was Swerve Strickland killing Kenny Omega through a table.
1:40:13
Speaker 1: And what happens after the show when the live cameras
1:40:16
Speaker 1: stop rolling to them, It doesn't matter. It's for the
1:40:19
Speaker 1: live house. You know. They're trying to send the fans
1:40:22
Speaker 1: home happy after they just saw Kenny Omega killed. So
1:40:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I get your point, but like, I don't know,
1:40:27
Speaker 1: just something like that doesn't bother me as much as
1:40:31
Speaker 1: if they did shit like this on TV. Like when
1:40:34
Speaker 1: you have promos, people cut promos on TV and they
1:40:37
Speaker 1: use inside terms like heel or baby face like that.
1:40:41
Speaker 1: That drives me fucking nuts. You know, supposed to be
1:40:44
Speaker 1: a good guy, supposed to be a bad guy, you know, like,
1:40:46
Speaker 1: don't talk about that shit on TV. That kind of
1:40:49
Speaker 1: stuff just drives me nuts. Stuff like this off the
1:40:52
Speaker 1: air when the show is over, there isn't a single
1:40:54
Speaker 1: person who bought a ticket to go to that show
1:40:55
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Who's gonna see Kenny Omega and Matt Jackson
1:40:59
Speaker 1: or Nick Jackson cutting promos and talking about being good
1:41:01
Speaker 1: guys and bad guys and say, you know what, I'm
1:41:04
Speaker 1: not coming to the show next time. Like I guarantee
1:41:07
Speaker 1: you the aw audience they are, they're gonna be first
1:41:11
Speaker 1: in line to buy tickets to that. And Tony knows that.
1:41:15
Speaker 1: So I mean, to me, I get your point, but
1:41:17
Speaker 1: to me, it's not a big deal. Eric from Los
1:41:20
Speaker 1: Angeles has been a fan since the early fifties episodes
1:41:24
Speaker 1: and just for some perspective here we are now in
1:41:27
Speaker 1: the nine fifties, so he's been with me for a while, says,
1:41:32
Speaker 1: I'm a big Stephanie Vquer fan. That being said, do
1:41:34
Speaker 1: you think WWE made a mistake by not putting the
1:41:37
Speaker 1: world title on Raquel then having Live pick Raquel for
1:41:41
Speaker 1: a world title match of WrestleMania. No, I think that
1:41:44
Speaker 1: would have actually been a bad idea because you're gonna
1:41:48
Speaker 1: have Raquel, who's a heel, win the title, and then
1:41:51
Speaker 1: have Lived, who's a heel, challenge her for the Championship
1:41:55
Speaker 1: of WrestleMania. Like that's first of all, that's not doesn't
1:42:00
Speaker 1: scream like Marquis WrestleMania title match, But like, why would
1:42:03
Speaker 1: you do that? Why would you? I don't understand why
1:42:06
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to have a babyface in that match,
1:42:10
Speaker 1: Like it should be Stephanie or Rhea or somebody in
1:42:12
Speaker 1: the Ekadurrihea because we've already seen Rhea and Live so much.
1:42:16
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, Lookie, Stephanie's run on the main
1:42:19
Speaker 1: roster has been very disappointing. She had a really good
1:42:22
Speaker 1: match with EO right when she I guess won the championship,
1:42:27
Speaker 1: and I can't think of a single thing she's said
1:42:29
Speaker 1: or done otherwise that really stands out to me. Since
1:42:31
Speaker 1: she's been up on the main roster outside of the
1:42:33
Speaker 1: one really good match she had with EO, that's about it.
1:42:36
Speaker 1: Like I look at what she was doing in NXT,
1:42:38
Speaker 1: and then I look at the way that she's been
1:42:40
Speaker 1: booked on TV, and it's like night and day. It's
1:42:44
Speaker 1: been very very disappointing, very very underwhelming, And I actually
1:42:49
Speaker 1: do think they need to get the belt off of
1:42:50
Speaker 1: her as soon. Probably at WrestleMania they'll take it off
1:42:52
Speaker 1: of her, but that's still the right match to do.
1:42:55
Speaker 1: You don't do live in Raquel's the WrestleMania match. I
1:42:58
Speaker 1: think that'd be a mistake. And Malachi from Northeast Philly.
1:43:03
Speaker 1: Over the years, I've noticed a pattern in WWE. Once
1:43:06
Speaker 1: Vince would lock on his top baby face, it's almost
1:43:09
Speaker 1: impossible for another one to truly get a turn. We
1:43:11
Speaker 1: saw it with Hogan, Sina Roman, and now Cody. That
1:43:15
Speaker 1: got me thinking about Cain. In two thousand, when Cain
1:43:18
Speaker 1: returned with Paul Bahar, he felt like pure money. He
1:43:21
Speaker 1: was a badass, dominant and had an aura that felt
1:43:24
Speaker 1: different from everyone else. But Steve Austin still had the
1:43:27
Speaker 1: top spot in a chokehold. If you were the booker,
1:43:31
Speaker 1: could that version of Cain have been a real draw
1:43:34
Speaker 1: in a true top guy? Curious to hear your thoughts
1:43:37
Speaker 1: on whether Caine ever truly had a ceiling or if
1:43:39
Speaker 1: it was always going to be limited by who Vince
1:43:41
Speaker 1: had already chosen. You know, that version of Kin when
1:43:45
Speaker 1: he came back in early two thousand was fucking amazing.
1:43:50
Speaker 1: Like I mean, the guy that was probably physically the
1:43:53
Speaker 1: best shape that I've ever seen him in, and he
1:43:57
Speaker 1: still had the old school mask that the coloring was
1:43:59
Speaker 1: a little bit different, but he was He still looked
1:44:01
Speaker 1: like old school original Cain, but he had updated the
1:44:05
Speaker 1: look enough to where at least he made kind of
1:44:08
Speaker 1: freshened it up a little bit and made a change
1:44:09
Speaker 1: to it. But he would go out there in the
1:44:11
Speaker 1: one handed choke slams and he was laying waste to guys.
1:44:14
Speaker 1: Remember Tombstone Tory and all that stuff. He was super over,
1:44:20
Speaker 1: but he was not Steve Austin or the Rock. You know,
1:44:23
Speaker 1: he still had a mask on, and I don't remember
1:44:25
Speaker 1: at that point if he was actually cutting promos through
1:44:28
Speaker 1: the mask or if he was still like ah, I
1:44:30
Speaker 1: don't remember, but he wasn't Stone Cold, he wasn't the Rock.
1:44:36
Speaker 1: He was never going to be like the top guy
1:44:38
Speaker 1: you mentioned Cody and Roman like that was never going
1:44:40
Speaker 1: to be Kane Cain was always going to be a
1:44:43
Speaker 1: supporting player, but you asked, like, what was his ceiling?
1:44:47
Speaker 1: He could have been a world champion for an extended
1:44:49
Speaker 1: period of time, not just twenty four hours. And even
1:44:53
Speaker 1: if you go to two thousand and three when the
1:44:55
Speaker 1: mask came off and then we had bald Kine who
1:44:58
Speaker 1: was like let out of the back of an end
1:45:00
Speaker 1: mulence and chains that version of Kane also you could
1:45:03
Speaker 1: have absolutely made him a world change. Like a dominant
1:45:06
Speaker 1: world champion for a period of time is a heel
1:45:09
Speaker 1: until the big baby face takes the title from him.
1:45:12
Speaker 1: But in two thousand, like there was a reason why
1:45:15
Speaker 1: Austin and Rock and those guys were on top because
1:45:17
Speaker 1: they were draws. Kane was not a draw the way
1:45:19
Speaker 1: that those guys were. Could he have been. I don't
1:45:23
Speaker 1: think he would have been drawn the way Rock and
1:45:26
Speaker 1: Austin were, and because they would go out there and
1:45:29
Speaker 1: cut promos and stuff. It's just the character that he
1:45:32
Speaker 1: was portraying. He would always be, or he could have
1:45:36
Speaker 1: been as champion, that guy at the top that Austin
1:45:40
Speaker 1: and Rock would have to chase to get the belt back.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: He was never going to be the number one guy.
1:45:45
Speaker 1: To answer your question, but he should have been in
1:45:47
Speaker 1: that top mix for a long time, and again he
1:45:50
Speaker 1: could have had a title run. And yeah, absolutely, but
1:45:53
Speaker 1: remember in two thousand they were building up triple h
1:45:56
Speaker 1: as like the new dominant heel in the company, and
1:45:59
Speaker 1: we didn't we have multiple championships. We had one World
1:46:02
Speaker 1: champion and then the Intercontinental champion, the tag team champion,
1:46:06
Speaker 1: maybe the European champion. If that character had come along
1:46:11
Speaker 1: today where we have a WWE title and we have
1:46:13
Speaker 1: a World heavyweight title, then you put the World Heavyweight
1:46:15
Speaker 1: title on Kane right or one or the other. But
1:46:19
Speaker 1: back then you didn't have that, so you had a
1:46:22
Speaker 1: very limited number of spots open as far as the
1:46:24
Speaker 1: competition was concerned for that championship, it's just a product
1:46:28
Speaker 1: of his time. But could they have done more with
1:46:30
Speaker 1: him in that spot or put a belt on him? Absolutely,
1:46:32
Speaker 1: I mean that guy was super fucking over. I mean,
1:46:34
Speaker 1: go back and look at that return. I always point
1:46:36
Speaker 1: that match out. It was a ten man tag at
1:46:38
Speaker 1: Reunion Arena in Dallas. It was February seven, two thousand,
1:46:41
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive that's the date, and it was Rock
1:46:44
Speaker 1: and Cactus jacking too Cool against Triple h and the Radicals,
1:46:48
Speaker 1: and that was the night Paul Bear walked out in
1:46:49
Speaker 1: that red suit. He looked slim, and Caine came out
1:46:53
Speaker 1: and fucking choke slammed everybody and like, my god, like
1:46:56
Speaker 1: look at this guy. He's a monster. But people loved
1:47:00
Speaker 1: it and they were cheering for him, so you know
1:47:03
Speaker 1: that he could have been a much bigger attraction. But
1:47:06
Speaker 1: he was never going to be. He was never going
1:47:09
Speaker 1: to be Austin or Rock. He was never going to
1:47:10
Speaker 1: be the guy, the top babyface that the ceiling was.
1:47:13
Speaker 1: He would never be that. But he could have been
1:47:16
Speaker 1: champion anyway. Keep emailing me the Solo Monster at gmail
1:47:20
Speaker 1: dot com. Don't forget a brand new installment of The
1:47:23
Speaker 1: Uncrowned Wrestling Show is coming your way on Tuesday evening.
1:47:27
Speaker 1: Make sure you are subbed to the Aeriel Helwani show feed.
1:47:31
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about YouTube. I'm talking about the podcast feed.
1:47:34
Speaker 1: That is where the show is going to drop. You'll
1:47:36
Speaker 1: see the Survivor series old school style logo and you'll
1:47:40
Speaker 1: know that it's wrestling time and you guys can tune
1:47:42
Speaker 1: in and support. I want that to be the biggest
1:47:45
Speaker 1: show on the network. We'll talk about all the wrestling
1:47:48
Speaker 1: news of the week and some stuff that I did
1:47:50
Speaker 1: not cover here on the Sound of Today, and whatever
1:47:52
Speaker 1: happens on Raw tomorrow night, I can't talk about it
1:47:55
Speaker 1: because it hasn't happened yet. So we'll see if my
1:47:57
Speaker 1: predictions shift for Elimination Chamber, and I'm going to take
1:48:00
Speaker 1: more of your questions on that show as well. So again,
1:48:03
Speaker 1: Uncrowned Episode three is coming up on Tuesday. I will
1:48:05
Speaker 1: be live on YouTube all the usual nights Monday night,
1:48:09
Speaker 1: Wednesday night, Friday night, Saturday night next weekend for the
1:48:13
Speaker 1: Elimination Chamber. Tuesday night over on JD's channel, we'll have
1:48:17
Speaker 1: our live installment of Tuesday Night Titans. So you got
1:48:20
Speaker 1: a lot of content coming your way this week, and
1:48:23
Speaker 1: I just want to remind everybody I am trying to
1:48:26
Speaker 1: be and going to be more active with the shorts content,
1:48:29
Speaker 1: not just on YouTube, but on TikTok. I am on TikTok,
1:48:32
Speaker 1: so follow me on there at solom Monster. Sounds Off
1:48:36
Speaker 1: is my handle, so go follow me on there, thus,
1:48:39
Speaker 1: solom Monster on Instagram, at solom Monster on x those
1:48:44
Speaker 1: are all the places to go, you guys know. And
1:48:48
Speaker 1: I'll be back next Sunday. That's going to be I
1:48:50
Speaker 1: guess what was that March first? I think that might
1:48:52
Speaker 1: be the first March episode. I just forget February is
1:48:55
Speaker 1: the shortest month on the calendar. But next Sunday will
1:48:58
Speaker 1: be episode nine fifty of the Solo Monster sounds off,
1:49:02
Speaker 1: and we should have a lot to discuss coming out
1:49:06
Speaker 1: of the chamber and coming out of the crate. We
1:49:09
Speaker 1: will find out what comes out of the crate. So
1:49:10
Speaker 1: be well, stay safe if you are in New York
1:49:14
Speaker 1: or the East coast, if you're going to be affected
1:49:17
Speaker 1: by this storm that is about to barrel in here,
1:49:20
Speaker 1: stay safe. This is not going to be fun. I'm
1:49:24
Speaker 1: going to be stranded here probably for the entire week.
1:49:27
Speaker 1: But wherever you may be, be safe and I'll see
1:49:29
Speaker 1: you back here next Sunday. Until then, take care, guys.
1:49:33
Speaker 1: The solomn Monster sounds off. Backstage, we had Fraxium and
1:49:37
Speaker 1: the MotorCity machine guns. Holy shit, they live. So they're
1:49:40
Speaker 1: walking along backstage and Candice Lare approaches that. She said,
1:49:43
Speaker 1: look at what happened to Johnny, And we see Johnny Gargano.
1:49:46
Speaker 1: He is lying face down on top of a box
1:49:49
Speaker 1: that has marked NXT I want you to imagine flying
1:49:52
Speaker 1: all the way to work and you get there and
1:49:55
Speaker 1: you find out, okay, boss, what am I doing tonight?
1:49:58
Speaker 1: And your job after flying all the way in here
1:50:00
Speaker 1: is to lay face down on top of a box
1:50:04
Speaker 1: for two minutes and say nothing. I don't even think
1:50:06
Speaker 1: he'd blink. He looked catatonic as he was laying there.
1:50:10
Speaker 1: And that's it. That's all he did on this show.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: That was his only task today, fly into work and
1:50:15
Speaker 1: lay on top of a box. I mean, look, I
1:50:17
Speaker 1: guess it's not bad work if you can get it.
1:50:19
Speaker 2: The Solo Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
1:50:23
Speaker 2: and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
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Speaker 2: content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
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Speaker 2: and X The Solo Monster.
1:50:33
Speaker 1: I love you so long.