Latest / Solomonster Sounds Off / Sound Off 948 - Why The Trey Miguel/AEW FIASCO Is Sad, Royal Rumble Predictions And More!

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Sound Off 948 - Why The Trey Miguel/AEW FIASCO Is Sad, Royal Rumble Predictions And More! · Solomonster Sounds Off

0:01
Speaker 1: It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters
0:05
Speaker 1: Sounds Off. I love you so, mama, monster dude, I
0:11
Speaker 1: want your soul. Mind a woman. You got grown ass
0:14
Speaker 1: wrestlers in the back going on Twitter. Come over here, party?
0:18
Speaker 1: Is that hot Patterson? You have legs? Weekend? I was
0:23
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent positive it was just chested up. Now
0:26
Speaker 1: I have been begging him for a job on every
0:29
Speaker 1: every platform I can, and I would have know the
0:31
Speaker 1: reason why you won't park. Welcome to episode nine eight
0:37
Speaker 1: of The Solo Monster Sounds Off here on a very
0:39
Speaker 1: snowy Sunday, January twenty fifth, twenty twenty six. It is
0:44
Speaker 1: a mess across multiple states. I know a lot of
0:47
Speaker 1: people are kind of blanketed in snow to varying degrees
0:52
Speaker 1: across the country. So wherever you may be, hopefully you
0:54
Speaker 1: guys are staying safe, staying indoors if you can, and
0:58
Speaker 1: listening to the SoundOff. Because we got a lot to
1:01
Speaker 1: talk about here this week, including some fallout from Saturday
1:05
Speaker 1: Night's made event last night in Montreal. We have a
1:08
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble preview and predictions as well for this coming weekend.
1:13
Speaker 1: News on the new planned WWE Championship match for WrestleMania.
1:19
Speaker 1: News on Powerhouse Hobbs or what used to be Powerhouse Hobbs.
1:23
Speaker 1: I've got thoughts on TNA on AMC episode two, which
1:26
Speaker 1: I did watch on Thursday. We're going to talk about
1:29
Speaker 1: the tre Migael situation. I'm going to give you my
1:31
Speaker 1: full thoughts on that, so I'm a real talk there
1:34
Speaker 1: and a lot more. I am almost done with WWE
1:38
Speaker 1: Unreal Season two. I got half of the last episode
1:41
Speaker 1: left to finish, and once I'm done with it, I'll
1:44
Speaker 1: give my thoughts on the season overall. So I'm probably
1:47
Speaker 1: not going to really touch on it this week, but
1:49
Speaker 1: I do want to say thank you for ninety thousand
1:52
Speaker 1: subscribers on YouTube. We hit that milestone earlier in the
1:56
Speaker 1: week and we are already marching towards ninety one thousands.
2:00
Speaker 1: A hearty thank you to all of you. And also
2:03
Speaker 1: one quick reminder here, House of Glory This coming Friday,
2:07
Speaker 1: City of Angels at the Legendary Globe Theater. It is
2:11
Speaker 1: our Los Angeles debut with androde Ldelo against the Amazing
2:16
Speaker 1: Red for the first time ever, and WWE Hall of
2:19
Speaker 1: Famer Kurt Angle will be in attendance. Doing a meet
2:21
Speaker 1: and greet as well. There are very limited balcony seats
2:25
Speaker 1: that are still available at hog Wrestling dot Net. I
2:29
Speaker 1: will not be there in LA this weekend. I had
2:31
Speaker 1: to hang back, especially with the Royal Rumble on Saturday
2:34
Speaker 1: being so much earlier in the day. But I will
2:37
Speaker 1: be back on the call for our New York return
2:39
Speaker 1: coming up on February twentieth, and we're gonna have some
2:42
Speaker 1: exciting news about that very soon. I don't want to
2:45
Speaker 1: let the cat out of the bag yet, but we
2:47
Speaker 1: got big things bruined. So go ahead and pick up
2:49
Speaker 1: those tickets. If you are out in LA and you
2:51
Speaker 1: are looking to check out House of Glory for the
2:53
Speaker 1: first time, I know you're gonna have a good time.
2:55
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a good show. I also want to
2:57
Speaker 1: say thank you to all of our PayPal producers for
2:59
Speaker 1: this week ten dollars for more we'll get your nickname
3:02
Speaker 1: and a shout out. I want to say thank you
3:05
Speaker 1: to these fine folks here, including big time Boris Vainman.
3:10
Speaker 1: He's a long time first time We have a lot
3:13
Speaker 1: of those here. It's always good to I hear from
3:15
Speaker 1: someone every now and then. Link with a mailbag question
3:18
Speaker 1: or something I've been lurking. I've been listening for ten years,
3:21
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and then finally they pop their head above ground.
3:24
Speaker 1: It's good to hear from you. Don't be a stranger.
3:28
Speaker 1: The Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Big b Bryant, Besera,
3:31
Speaker 1: The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soapp, night Stalker, Ni
3:35
Speaker 1: f Alsafar, Thank you for the double drop, Velvet Revolver,
3:40
Speaker 1: Robert Murray, the Iowan corn Farmer, Jesse Lambfear, What's going on? Jesse,
3:46
Speaker 1: the Wichita Workhorse, Clayton Nettleton, thank you for that proof
3:50
Speaker 1: of life, The Georgia Nightmare, Timothy Tillis Shooting Star, Cynthia Taylor,
3:55
Speaker 1: The Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, Fast Blast, Tim Banks Kill Shot,
4:01
Speaker 1: Keith Hart and DJ password Reset. Thank you guys so much,
4:07
Speaker 1: and do not forget with the Royal Rumble coming up
4:09
Speaker 1: next weekend. We have our Royal Rumble pool going on
4:13
Speaker 1: in the private group on Facebook. We have over nine
4:16
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty entrants and counting. The deadline to enter
4:20
Speaker 1: is this Thursday, January twenty ninth, at one pm Eastern time.
4:24
Speaker 1: It is being hosted by Julian cannon and to enter,
4:28
Speaker 1: it's free, free to play. All you got to do
4:30
Speaker 1: is find the pin post at the top of the group.
4:33
Speaker 1: It is a private group, so if you are not
4:35
Speaker 1: in there, you will have to apply for membership to
4:38
Speaker 1: try to be approved. But if you're in the group,
4:40
Speaker 1: go find that pin post on top. All you gotta
4:42
Speaker 1: do is hit the like button and if you like
4:44
Speaker 1: the post, you will officially be entered. Later in the week,
4:48
Speaker 1: I think on Friday, Julian is going to be issuing
4:52
Speaker 1: random numbers to everybody and depending on what number you draw.
4:56
Speaker 1: Let's just say hypothetically you draw number fifteen, that is
4:59
Speaker 1: your number for both the Men's Rumble and the Women's Rumble,
5:02
Speaker 1: which means if anybody wins either rumble from the number
5:05
Speaker 1: fifteen spot, you would win your pool, which was more
5:08
Speaker 1: for just bragging rights. But then everybody's names are going
5:11
Speaker 1: to be entered into a couple of ultimate rumble pools.
5:15
Speaker 1: Have to clarify with Julian again, I believe we're picking
5:18
Speaker 1: two different winners and I'll pick them at random on
5:21
Speaker 1: one of the upcoming live streams. There's prizes involved. It's
5:24
Speaker 1: a fun time, so go ahead because time is ticking down.
5:29
Speaker 1: We have to start with some sad news. Bobby Duncom's senior,
5:33
Speaker 1: who was a top heel in the nineteen seventies and
5:36
Speaker 1: early eighties and played briefly in the NFL before that.
5:39
Speaker 1: He played I think like a whopping four games, but
5:41
Speaker 1: he did play. He died on Wednesday at the age
5:45
Speaker 1: of eighty one. WWE posted the following announcement. WWE is
5:51
Speaker 1: saddened to learn that Bobby Duncan's senior has passed away.
5:54
Speaker 1: One of the most feared villains of the territories, the
5:57
Speaker 1: rugged cowboy from Austin, Texas, was as tough as they came.
6:01
Speaker 1: A graduate of West Texas State University, the same institution
6:05
Speaker 1: that produced Dusty Rhoades, the Funk Brothers, and many other icons,
6:10
Speaker 1: Duncan was selected by the Saint Louis Cardinals in the
6:12
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven NFL Draft and played four pro games.
6:16
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, carrying on the great tradition of
6:19
Speaker 1: Texas football stars turn pro wrestlers, Duncan entered the ring
6:23
Speaker 1: and became infamous for his wild street fights and brutal
6:26
Speaker 1: battles against legends like Bruno Sammartino, and Bob Backland. He
6:31
Speaker 1: was also a member of the iconic Heenan family, led
6:34
Speaker 1: by WWE Hall of Famer Bobby the Brain Heenan in
6:37
Speaker 1: the AWA. If you think that Don Kallis family has
6:41
Speaker 1: a lot of members, you never saw the Heenan family,
6:43
Speaker 1: at least with the Heenan family though it ran across
6:46
Speaker 1: multiple promotions and Bobby was actually out there taking bumps.
6:51
Speaker 1: But you know, Duncan worked everywhere. He worked most of
6:54
Speaker 1: the big names of that era, not just Sam Martino
6:57
Speaker 1: in Backland, worked a lot of the NWAS territories, the
7:00
Speaker 1: AWA where he held the tag team titles with Blackjack Lanza.
7:04
Speaker 1: They held them for almost a year. He actually tagged
7:08
Speaker 1: with a young Kurt Hennig who years later, and this
7:11
Speaker 1: was in the New Japan Tag League in nineteen eighty three.
7:15
Speaker 1: But this is the same Kurt Hennig who years later
7:17
Speaker 1: in WCW was part of a little crew you may
7:20
Speaker 1: remember called the West Texas Rednecks I hate Rap, but
7:25
Speaker 1: it was a group that also included Bobby Duncan Junior,
7:28
Speaker 1: his son, and unfortunately, in two thousand, Dunkham Junior died
7:32
Speaker 1: of a fentanyl overdose. But you go back to the seventies,
7:37
Speaker 1: you know, he was challenging Brunos, Sam Martino and Bob
7:40
Speaker 1: Backland on the regular, you know, for what was then
7:43
Speaker 1: the WWWF Championship. And he's also part of an interesting
7:47
Speaker 1: period in wrestling history, and I talked about this on
7:49
Speaker 1: the Sound of many years ago. On November thirtieth, nineteen
7:53
Speaker 1: seventy nine, Antonio Minoki beat Bob Backland in a match
7:57
Speaker 1: in Japan to win the WWF Championship, which it was
8:00
Speaker 1: a reign that WWE never officially recognized. Even when they
8:04
Speaker 1: inducted Enoch into their Hall of Fame in twenty ten,
8:07
Speaker 1: they never mentioned that he got a win over Backland
8:10
Speaker 1: and technically won the title, because then they would be
8:12
Speaker 1: forced to admit that Backland really did not hold the
8:14
Speaker 1: championship uninterrupted for whatever it was, five straight years, five
8:18
Speaker 1: and a half years. It would ruin their version of history.
8:22
Speaker 1: But it was the first day of Backland's tour in Japan,
8:27
Speaker 1: and so a week later they had a rematch in
8:30
Speaker 1: Tokyo that Backland won, but it was not without controversy
8:33
Speaker 1: because it looked like the referee reversed his decision and
8:36
Speaker 1: he handed the belt back to Anoki, who ended up
8:39
Speaker 1: vacating the title immediately after. So eight days later Madison
8:44
Speaker 1: Square Garden, Backland beats Bobby Duncan in a Texas deathmatch
8:49
Speaker 1: to win back What people in the arena did not
8:52
Speaker 1: realize was a vacant title because they never told the
8:55
Speaker 1: fans that the championship was vacant, and they had no
8:57
Speaker 1: idea that this happened, because at the time, what would
9:00
Speaker 1: they know, A right, I'm sure very few people in
9:02
Speaker 1: the building that night would have known. But in his book,
9:06
Speaker 1: Backland said the reason they did the title change in
9:08
Speaker 1: the first place was really as a favor to Anochie
9:12
Speaker 1: to keep him on the same level with gian Baba,
9:14
Speaker 1: who had a few runs with the NWA world titles.
9:17
Speaker 1: So really it was all just to satiate his ego
9:21
Speaker 1: more than anything else. So the fans in the garden
9:24
Speaker 1: that night had no clue that Backland wasn't the champion
9:27
Speaker 1: when he walked out to the ring. But other than
9:30
Speaker 1: him not having the title, you know with him when
9:32
Speaker 1: he came out, it was like any other Bob Backland
9:36
Speaker 1: title match, you know in Madison Square Garden. But I
9:38
Speaker 1: think my favorite Bobby Duncan's story is when he wrestled
9:42
Speaker 1: as an I shit you not. He wrestled as the
9:46
Speaker 1: Mummy for a very short period of time in the
9:49
Speaker 1: early eighties. It was It's a gimmicked wrestling as old
9:52
Speaker 1: as time, dating back to the I think the sixties.
9:55
Speaker 1: There have been many Mummies over the years and it
9:59
Speaker 1: never fucking works, but they do it anyway. Of course,
10:01
Speaker 1: we all remember the Yetay got the Yetay in WCW,
10:06
Speaker 1: but as the Mummy he feuded with Bruiser Brody and
10:10
Speaker 1: built to a cage match between the two of them.
10:12
Speaker 1: I don't think he wrestled for much longer after that,
10:14
Speaker 1: maybe a year or two and that was it. He
10:17
Speaker 1: was done. But hey, you know, when you get to
10:19
Speaker 1: the end of your career, if the money is decent enough,
10:22
Speaker 1: I guess you'll do almost anything. At least he was
10:25
Speaker 1: all wrapped up. I doubt the fans even knew who
10:28
Speaker 1: he was. WWE held its sixth Saturday Nights Made event
10:34
Speaker 1: last night since relaunching the show in twenty twenty four,
10:37
Speaker 1: and out of all six top to bottom, it was
10:39
Speaker 1: the best one that they've produced, with three matches. It
10:43
Speaker 1: was supposed to be four, but Cody Rhads and Jacob
10:46
Speaker 1: fought too. They brawled all over the building before Drew
10:48
Speaker 1: McIntyre took them both out, So we never actually got
10:51
Speaker 1: that fourth match that was advertised technically. But it was
10:55
Speaker 1: a very good show. And on the subject of Cody
10:58
Speaker 1: and faugh two, I had nothing but praise for the
11:01
Speaker 1: segment with them on SmackDown Friday night, and I did
11:03
Speaker 1: not have a whole lot to praise when it came
11:05
Speaker 1: to that SmackDown show. That show was largely just boring
11:09
Speaker 1: as shit. But the best thing on that show was
11:12
Speaker 1: the And it was pre produced that was supposed to
11:14
Speaker 1: be a sit down interview earlier in the day with
11:17
Speaker 1: Cody Rhoades and Michael Cole, and it didn't go very
11:20
Speaker 1: long before it Fatu walked in surrounded by officials and
11:24
Speaker 1: Nick all this just trying to make sure that things
11:26
Speaker 1: didn't get out of hand. But then they just went
11:28
Speaker 1: face to face and to you know, put some real
11:31
Speaker 1: heat on their match heading into the show last night,
11:33
Speaker 1: and it was fantastic. You know, you you got a
11:37
Speaker 1: real sense, more so in that segment than I think
11:40
Speaker 1: anything else he has done so far on the microphone
11:43
Speaker 1: of what Jacob Fatu can do on them. It was
11:46
Speaker 1: the best promo segment that he's been involved in since
11:48
Speaker 1: coming to the company. And the word I kept throwing
11:51
Speaker 1: around on Friday night when I was talking about this
11:53
Speaker 1: was authenticity. He's authentic, He's genuine. You don't get the
11:59
Speaker 1: sense when you're listening to him that he is being
12:03
Speaker 1: something that he is not. He's being himself. Obviously it's
12:07
Speaker 1: amped up, right, but that's the way it should be, right.
12:10
Speaker 1: That's what the Stone Cold used to talk about that,
12:12
Speaker 1: Oh it's just me, but you know what, the volume
12:13
Speaker 1: turned up and you know we saw remember when he
12:17
Speaker 1: first came in, he was not saying a whole lot
12:20
Speaker 1: and then he would grunt or whatever. So like now
12:23
Speaker 1: to be able to actually, you know, hear him cut
12:26
Speaker 1: real promos and to have him in the position that
12:29
Speaker 1: he is in now where he's mixing it up with
12:31
Speaker 1: top guys on the brand. Right, they don't get no
12:34
Speaker 1: bigger on SmackDown than Cody Rhoades. I know he's not
12:36
Speaker 1: the champion anymore, but he's still the face of that company,
12:39
Speaker 1: and so it's a great spot for him to be in.
12:41
Speaker 1: It's a time where I think SmackDown they really need
12:44
Speaker 1: guys like this to step up and be the top,
12:47
Speaker 1: you know, heels and babyfaces, because it's pretty thin on
12:50
Speaker 1: top on SmackDown, especially on the heel side, and Fat
12:54
Speaker 1: is not really a heel. I mean, the fans still
12:55
Speaker 1: largely cheer for him. I consider him more of a
12:57
Speaker 1: tweener right now. But I love that segment. I just
13:00
Speaker 1: thought it was great. And Cody was kind of throwing
13:02
Speaker 1: his background at him. You know, he used to be
13:04
Speaker 1: locked up. You cost me my championship because you weren't
13:07
Speaker 1: using your heads. You weren't thinking, just like you weren't
13:10
Speaker 1: thinking when you got thrown in prison. And you know,
13:13
Speaker 1: Jacob went into that for a little bit. So I
13:15
Speaker 1: thought that stuff was great and then we got to
13:17
Speaker 1: the match. Now, this match was put together on short notice, right,
13:20
Speaker 1: They didn't have a whole lot of time to promote it.
13:23
Speaker 1: But I was looking forward to it. But I said,
13:24
Speaker 1: coming into the show, right, what did I say on
13:26
Speaker 1: the podcast last week? I said, I did the predictions.
13:29
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not predicting either men to win this
13:31
Speaker 1: match because I cannot see WWE wanting to beat either
13:35
Speaker 1: one of these men, especially Cody coming off he already
13:38
Speaker 1: lost to Drew in three stages a hell and so
13:41
Speaker 1: sure enough. If I mean the bell never even rang,
13:44
Speaker 1: Fatu attacked him, you know, before the bell could even ring,
13:47
Speaker 1: in the middle of his entrance, and they ended up
13:50
Speaker 1: brawling all over ringside. They brawled into the crowd, they
13:53
Speaker 1: brawled up the stairs, they brawled onto the concourse over
13:56
Speaker 1: where the concessions are, back into the arena, until finally
14:00
Speaker 1: Drew and nobody could stop them. All these security geeks
14:03
Speaker 1: are trying to put a stop to it. They're getting
14:05
Speaker 1: beaten up left and right. And it took Drew McIntyre
14:08
Speaker 1: to finally put an end to things, you know, sending
14:11
Speaker 1: fought to flying through a table, and then he jackknife
14:14
Speaker 1: power bombs Cody through a table, and then finally it
14:17
Speaker 1: was over. But it was a very hot start to
14:20
Speaker 1: the show. It was wild, it was chaotic. The fans
14:23
Speaker 1: were going nuts for it. The fans were I mean
14:25
Speaker 1: literally in the middle of it. Of course they're going
14:27
Speaker 1: nuts for it. And I felt like it went long enough.
14:30
Speaker 1: It wasn't short, it went long enough where I didn't
14:33
Speaker 1: feel like I was cheated out of something. I mean, yes,
14:36
Speaker 1: there was no official match, but it went long enough
14:40
Speaker 1: where I felt like, Okay, this was good, right, this
14:42
Speaker 1: was a hot way to start the show, and it
14:44
Speaker 1: accomplished what they wanted to because it put more heat
14:46
Speaker 1: on Drew Right for putting an end to it. But
14:49
Speaker 1: also it protected both men. And I'm one of these
14:52
Speaker 1: people who believe the WWE goes way overboard on protecting people.
14:57
Speaker 1: You don't always I'm not saying everybody needs to beat,
15:00
Speaker 1: but I'm saying you don't always have to protect every
15:03
Speaker 1: top star that you have, and they do this way
15:06
Speaker 1: too often where it's like, you know what, every now
15:08
Speaker 1: and then, like a clean loss, a pinfall, it's not
15:10
Speaker 1: going to kill them. But I knew, I just knew
15:13
Speaker 1: they didn't want to beat either one of these guys,
15:15
Speaker 1: and so we ended up with not even a no contest.
15:18
Speaker 1: It just it never got started. But they protected both
15:21
Speaker 1: men in the process. And so now you come out
15:23
Speaker 1: of this and you look at this and you say, well,
15:26
Speaker 1: this looks like it's setting up a triple threat match. Yeah,
15:31
Speaker 1: it should. I'll talk more about that later, but that
15:34
Speaker 1: was the impression you get from this segment. At the
15:37
Speaker 1: end of it, we had Ria Ripley and Eosky. They
15:41
Speaker 1: retained their women's tag team titles over Live. Morgan and
15:46
Speaker 1: Roxane Perez and really outside of that one moment in
15:49
Speaker 1: the match where Rio was clearly late in breaking up
15:53
Speaker 1: a pin on Eo and the referee had to hold
15:56
Speaker 1: up their count and that did not look good. But
15:59
Speaker 1: outside of that little q there, I thought there was
16:01
Speaker 1: a very strong match. It was never boring, it was
16:04
Speaker 1: never slow. That was my big critique of the match.
16:07
Speaker 1: We saw on Friday night, they had a number one
16:09
Speaker 1: Contenders triple threat match for the women's tag belts, and
16:14
Speaker 1: I just I watched this match and I'm like, it
16:16
Speaker 1: looks like they're they're wrestling in quicksand it's like this
16:18
Speaker 1: is there's no urgency here. Yeah, there's something tangible on
16:22
Speaker 1: the line in this match, and there's no urgency and
16:24
Speaker 1: there was, you know, some sloppiness here, and I'm like,
16:27
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Because I had just watched a
16:29
Speaker 1: similar match, only it was for a shot at the
16:32
Speaker 1: TNA Knockouts Tag team titles on NXT on Tuesday night,
16:37
Speaker 1: which sold Ruka and Zaria one, and that was a
16:40
Speaker 1: much better match than the one we got on Friday
16:43
Speaker 1: here on the main roster. And that's not the first
16:46
Speaker 1: time that I felt that way about one of these
16:47
Speaker 1: women's tag matches on SmackDown. So I don't know what's
16:50
Speaker 1: going on there, but this was very good. No big
16:53
Speaker 1: surprise that Rhea and EO retained. We had Stephanie Vaquier
16:57
Speaker 1: making a cameo here she is back, which is great
16:59
Speaker 1: to say. She came out to fight off the interference
17:03
Speaker 1: of Raquel Rodriguez and Ria and EO now will defend
17:08
Speaker 1: the tag team titles at some point, I assume on
17:10
Speaker 1: an episode of SmackDown, if not this week, maybe next
17:14
Speaker 1: week against Julia and Keana James, who won that tag
17:19
Speaker 1: match I referenced from Friday Night, So that match is
17:21
Speaker 1: going to be coming up soon. But you know, with
17:24
Speaker 1: each passing week, Ria and EO, you know there's still
17:27
Speaker 1: the tag team champions. Are they going to take those
17:29
Speaker 1: titles into WrestleMania. I still don't think so. I still
17:34
Speaker 1: feel like they're going to drop them before Mania. Maybe
17:37
Speaker 1: we'll get Ria against EO. Because I'm still in my
17:40
Speaker 1: mind trying to figure out what do you do with
17:41
Speaker 1: these two, Like they're two of the most popular stars
17:43
Speaker 1: on the roster. You gotta have them in a meaningful match.
17:47
Speaker 1: You can't just keep them in tag team hell for
17:49
Speaker 1: the next three or four months. I mean, I know
17:52
Speaker 1: they've been trying to heat up the women's tag division,
17:54
Speaker 1: but just they're bigger than that. And even if there
17:57
Speaker 1: was nothing on the line, because if they do Rea
18:00
Speaker 1: against EO, maybe with the idea that Rhea finally gets
18:03
Speaker 1: that elusive win right over Eo Sky, that's big enough.
18:07
Speaker 1: You don't need a championship on the line in that match.
18:09
Speaker 1: That's a solid mid card WrestleMania level match that you
18:15
Speaker 1: can do on that show, even if there's no title involved.
18:20
Speaker 1: We also had one last battle between AJ Styles and
18:26
Speaker 1: Shinsky Knackhemore. This match was literally set up on twenty
18:31
Speaker 1: four hours notice and they went out there and they
18:36
Speaker 1: had the kind of match that was very cool to
18:39
Speaker 1: be able to see them have considering some of the
18:42
Speaker 1: past matches they've had. Now AJ had the chance to
18:45
Speaker 1: go out there in October and have one more classic
18:48
Speaker 1: with John Cena and they always had great matches together,
18:51
Speaker 1: but that was I was happy that we were able
18:53
Speaker 1: to see that match on the Sena retirement tour, right
18:55
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of shit that we had
18:57
Speaker 1: to sit through during that retirement tour. That one of
19:00
Speaker 1: the highlights of the entire tour. As far as AJ
19:03
Speaker 1: and Aackimore, there were very high expectations for their WrestleMania
19:08
Speaker 1: match in twenty eighteen, coming off the match they had
19:11
Speaker 1: two years earlier in New Japan or Wrestle Kingdom, which
19:15
Speaker 1: was a fantastic match, And maybe the expectations were too high.
19:19
Speaker 1: I don't know, but still, I mean, it wasn't like
19:22
Speaker 1: they had that match five years earlier. It was only
19:24
Speaker 1: two years earlier. And those guys could still I mean,
19:27
Speaker 1: they could still go now. But you know, physically, you know,
19:30
Speaker 1: there was no reason to think that they were past
19:32
Speaker 1: their prime or anything like that. It's the WrestleMania stage
19:36
Speaker 1: and so you think, man, these guys are going to
19:38
Speaker 1: go out there and they're gonna steal the show, right,
19:40
Speaker 1: They're gonna tear it up. And they didn't do that,
19:44
Speaker 1: and it was unfortunate because it's still talked about to
19:46
Speaker 1: this day, the disappointment of that match. So they went
19:50
Speaker 1: out there last night and they had if and I
19:52
Speaker 1: said this last night, if it was not the best
19:55
Speaker 1: match that they've had together in WWE, it was the
19:58
Speaker 1: second best match. Because I don't think that money in
20:00
Speaker 1: the Bank match gets enough love. It's funny I mentioned
20:03
Speaker 1: that on the review last night. I specifically mentioned Money
20:06
Speaker 1: in the Bank twenty eighteen because and I'm going to
20:09
Speaker 1: talk about what Knackamora posted last night which has caused
20:12
Speaker 1: some controversy. But he posted like a blog entry online
20:16
Speaker 1: talking about his relationship and his feud with AJ Styles,
20:20
Speaker 1: and in that post he actually singled out the Money
20:23
Speaker 1: in the Bank match from twenty eighteen and said that
20:25
Speaker 1: is his favorite match, or maybe in WWE, but that's
20:28
Speaker 1: his favorite match. And I'm like, see, no, I'm not crazy.
20:33
Speaker 1: So again, maybe this wasn't number one, but if this
20:35
Speaker 1: wasn't number one, then this is right behind it in
20:38
Speaker 1: number two. This was an excellent match they had last night.
20:41
Speaker 1: Look if this match happened in the Tokyo Dome, I
20:43
Speaker 1: don't think anybody would would be looking at it any
20:47
Speaker 1: differently than a great Tokyo Dome match. I mean, it
20:50
Speaker 1: was a back and forth battle all the way through.
20:54
Speaker 1: It was Nakamura's best match in a very long time,
20:58
Speaker 1: and in the end, aj Style, predictably, of course, gets
21:01
Speaker 1: the win. I loved the reenactment of the fist bump
21:04
Speaker 1: from Wrussell Kingdom. Both met on their knees fist bumping
21:08
Speaker 1: each other. I thought that was a great callback. So
21:12
Speaker 1: I loved everything about this. This was just it was
21:14
Speaker 1: just a great match. And I'm gonna have a lot
21:16
Speaker 1: more to say about aj here in a little bit.
21:19
Speaker 1: But in the main event, we had Sammy's Ain becoming
21:21
Speaker 1: number one contender for the WWE Championship. He will wrestle,
21:25
Speaker 1: he will challenge Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble. He
21:28
Speaker 1: got the win here over Damian Priest, Randy Orton and
21:33
Speaker 1: Trick Williams, and it was a good match. The outcome
21:37
Speaker 1: was exactly what I expected it to be, except for
21:40
Speaker 1: one small detail. I was actually quite surprised that Sammy
21:45
Speaker 1: got the pin on Damian Priest and not on Trick Williams,
21:49
Speaker 1: because I thought this was setting up for Trick to
21:51
Speaker 1: take that first loss, and it wouldn't have hurt him
21:54
Speaker 1: because he's in there with Randy Orton and Sammy's Ain,
21:57
Speaker 1: so he gets to beat in a fatal four way.
22:00
Speaker 1: It's not the end of the world. I think he's
22:03
Speaker 1: been kept very strong so far. He's only been on
22:06
Speaker 1: the main roster for all of a month. He's already
22:08
Speaker 1: he already feels like a superstar on SmackDown, but they
22:12
Speaker 1: protected him and they had and Damian Priest, let's be honest,
22:16
Speaker 1: is not really protected in the way that some of
22:18
Speaker 1: the top top guys are protected. So he was the
22:22
Speaker 1: one who ate the pin in that match. And again
22:24
Speaker 1: it was good. It was good. Everybody had a chance
22:27
Speaker 1: to shine here and there and kind of get their
22:28
Speaker 1: shit in predictable finish, but the correct one, and when
22:33
Speaker 1: the show is over, I just felt, you know what,
22:34
Speaker 1: it was an easy two hours to watch and top
22:37
Speaker 1: to bottom the best Saturday Nights of main event that
22:39
Speaker 1: they've done so far since the reboot, so I don't
22:41
Speaker 1: really have too many complaints about it. It was obviously
22:43
Speaker 1: setting up for the bigger show, which is what we'll
22:47
Speaker 1: talk about now, because with Saturday night's main event out
22:51
Speaker 1: of the way, the Royal Rumble, usually my favorite event
22:55
Speaker 1: of the year is this Saturday from RIODD Saudi Arabia,
23:00
Speaker 1: with an earlier start time of two pm Eastern. The
23:03
Speaker 1: outdoor stadium that they have been building from scratch, it's
23:07
Speaker 1: either done or just about done. I saw the photos
23:09
Speaker 1: of what it looks like, and compared to what it
23:12
Speaker 1: looked like three weeks ago, it's pretty incredible. What they
23:16
Speaker 1: were able to do in such a short period of time.
23:19
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to fit somewhere around thirty thousand people,
23:22
Speaker 1: so there'll be a lot of people there. I'm sure
23:25
Speaker 1: WWE is being paid a hefty sum for the show,
23:28
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why this has been the worst promoted
23:31
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble in decades, really since the first couple they did,
23:36
Speaker 1: which had virtually no promotion whatsoever. And the first one
23:40
Speaker 1: wasn't even on pay per view. It was a TV
23:42
Speaker 1: special that they created to counter program a Crocket pay
23:45
Speaker 1: per view. But the promotion for this show has been
23:49
Speaker 1: virtually non existent. It's just been awful. You know. We
23:52
Speaker 1: didn't even get anyone declaring for or talking about the
23:56
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble matches until Cody finally spoke up last week,
24:00
Speaker 1: and then that opened the floodgates for another I don't
24:03
Speaker 1: know ten or twelve people to declare on Raw Monday night.
24:07
Speaker 1: And as has been the case with the Rumble the
24:09
Speaker 1: last couple of years, we've got four matches announced. So
24:13
Speaker 1: let's run through them here and I'll give my quick
24:15
Speaker 1: predictions as we go along. It's always a dangerous thing
24:17
Speaker 1: to do, given we still have one Raw and one
24:19
Speaker 1: SmackDown left to go. But what the hell, We'll start
24:24
Speaker 1: with the thirty woman Royal Rumble match. They're gonna have
24:28
Speaker 1: to get creative with the full body suits so they
24:31
Speaker 1: don't all come out looking the same. It's gonna be
24:32
Speaker 1: hard to tell them apart out there otherwise. The names
24:36
Speaker 1: that have declared so far, and I am recording this
24:39
Speaker 1: on Sunday, here are the names that have declared so far.
24:41
Speaker 1: Ria Ripley, Eo Sky Live, Morgan, Roxane Perez, Raquel Rodriguez,
24:47
Speaker 1: Bailey Lyra, Valkyria, Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Naya Jacks, Lash, Legend,
24:54
Speaker 1: Chelsea Green, Jordan Grace, Julia Osca, and Kyrie, who says
25:01
Speaker 1: that she will do everything in her power to make
25:04
Speaker 1: sure that Oscar wins. So I'm assuming Kyrie is in
25:07
Speaker 1: and not just gonna be out there in her corner.
25:10
Speaker 1: I believe Kyrie is actually in the rumble itself. Becky
25:14
Speaker 1: Lynch has not entered yet, but I'm assuming she will.
25:17
Speaker 1: I think we get aj Lee as a surprise in
25:19
Speaker 1: the Rumble for sure. Maybe she eliminates Becky. I mean,
25:23
Speaker 1: she's so tiny it's hard for me to envision aj
25:25
Speaker 1: Lee eliminating anyone. But I mean, that's got to be
25:28
Speaker 1: the WrestleMania match, so it makes sense to get back
25:30
Speaker 1: to it here now aa Hail, Tatum, Pasley, and Lola
25:34
Speaker 1: Wes from NXT. They're all featured on the billboard outside
25:38
Speaker 1: the venue in Saudi, So maybe it means nothing, but
25:42
Speaker 1: we'll see. Just keep those names in mind because they
25:43
Speaker 1: could potentially pop up as NXT surprises. I would have
25:48
Speaker 1: expected names like Blake Monroe and sol Ruka to be
25:51
Speaker 1: surprise entrance. I'm still I'm still kind of expecting Soul
25:54
Speaker 1: Ruka to be in there. But I feel like we
25:57
Speaker 1: live in Roxanne and Raquel. There's gonna be something that
25:59
Speaker 1: goes wrong, more so at Live in Raquel that leads
26:02
Speaker 1: to one of them eliminating the other. Because what would
26:05
Speaker 1: this world be without more drama within the judgment day? Right?
26:09
Speaker 1: There always has to be drama within the judgment day.
26:12
Speaker 1: But I've got four names that I've settled on as
26:14
Speaker 1: the favorites to win. Jordan Grace is on my short list.
26:18
Speaker 1: She's not my pick to win, but she is in
26:21
Speaker 1: that top mix. I'd say that top three or four
26:23
Speaker 1: potential names to win. She has been heavily teased for
26:27
Speaker 1: an upcoming WWE Championship match with Jade car Gill, so
26:30
Speaker 1: much so that I think it'll happen before WrestleMania. But
26:33
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that she could win the Rumble and
26:36
Speaker 1: then you call her shot against Jade at WrestleMania if
26:40
Speaker 1: let's say certain other people who they want to put
26:43
Speaker 1: in there with Jade are not ready to come back.
26:45
Speaker 1: It's at least a possibility. So she's on my short list,
26:48
Speaker 1: as are Live Morgan Rea Ripley, and probably Live Morgan
26:53
Speaker 1: even more so now that she lost last night. Butlive
26:56
Speaker 1: Morgan Rea Ripley has to be in that mix. Woman
27:00
Speaker 1: who I think will return and win in the Royal Rumble,
27:04
Speaker 1: and that is Bianca Belair. She has been sorely missed,
27:07
Speaker 1: especially on that SmackDown side in that women's division. Oh boy, boy,
27:12
Speaker 1: could they use her back. And it's hard to believe
27:15
Speaker 1: it's been almost a year with the with the finger,
27:18
Speaker 1: with the broken knuckle that she has been out for.
27:20
Speaker 1: After that fucking great match, you know, match of the
27:23
Speaker 1: Year that that WrestleMania that those three went out there
27:26
Speaker 1: and had. This would be a great place for her
27:28
Speaker 1: to come back, pick up a big win, and then
27:32
Speaker 1: do the Bianca in Jade match at WrestleMania, which I'm
27:34
Speaker 1: sure you know, if they had their way, that would
27:37
Speaker 1: be the match. Now, for some reason, Bianca, you know,
27:41
Speaker 1: is not going to be back in time. There is
27:43
Speaker 1: still another big match, and they they've kind of teased
27:46
Speaker 1: it a couple of times before, but they still haven't
27:48
Speaker 1: done it. They've been saving it, and it does make
27:50
Speaker 1: me wonder if they're saving it potentially for WrestleMania in
27:53
Speaker 1: the event that Bianca is not cleared in time, and
27:55
Speaker 1: that's Charlotte Flair, because we're definitely going to get that match.
27:59
Speaker 1: I think it's point I see, Charlotte really is the
28:03
Speaker 1: backup name if Bianca can't come back, and then if
28:05
Speaker 1: you need to figure out a way to get Charlotte,
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, that title match she could always win, you know,
28:10
Speaker 1: the elimination Chambers, Like, she doesn't have to win the
28:13
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble to do it. I don't want her to
28:16
Speaker 1: win the Royal Rumble. She just won the Rumble last year.
28:19
Speaker 1: This would be what this would be her third Rumble.
28:21
Speaker 1: I think if she won, yeah, we don't need to
28:23
Speaker 1: see that, but I'm picking Bianca Belair. I'm hopeful she'll
28:27
Speaker 1: be there, and if she is, then she's definitely gonna win.
28:31
Speaker 1: AJ Styles he puts his career on the line against
28:36
Speaker 1: the ring general Gunther, looking to collect his third Infinity
28:40
Speaker 1: Stone after beating Goldberg and John Cena in their respective
28:44
Speaker 1: final matches. He is looking to make this AJ Styles'
28:47
Speaker 1: final match. They did an angle on Monday night where
28:51
Speaker 1: aj wanted a rematch with Gunther after the controversy at
28:54
Speaker 1: the end of their first match, and Gunther really had
28:57
Speaker 1: no interest in it. He said, there's no incentive for
29:00
Speaker 1: me to say yes. But then he had a thought.
29:04
Speaker 1: He said, actually, that's not true. I will give you
29:07
Speaker 1: the rematch that you want, but you're going to have
29:09
Speaker 1: to put something on the line, and what you're going
29:10
Speaker 1: to have to put on the line is your career.
29:15
Speaker 1: The idea that I've been telling you guys about this
29:17
Speaker 1: is how I was hoping it would go. Only in
29:19
Speaker 1: my head they would be doing this for WrestleMania. So
29:22
Speaker 1: when I saw they were shooting this angle on Monday
29:25
Speaker 1: for the potentially the Royal Rumble, I said, boy, that's odd.
29:29
Speaker 1: Why are they going to this so quickly? And it
29:32
Speaker 1: was like a show long storyline. AJ had to think
29:34
Speaker 1: about it, he had to call his wife, and he
29:37
Speaker 1: told Adam Pierce. Towards the end of the show, he goes,
29:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. I want the match, so
29:43
Speaker 1: it's official now. I saw that the Styles he tagged
29:49
Speaker 1: that would see m Punk in Brussels on one of
29:52
Speaker 1: the live events, and there was an image of them
29:55
Speaker 1: floating around online together in the ring, and I saw
29:59
Speaker 1: that picture, I'm like, man, it would be a sin
30:03
Speaker 1: not to get a CM Punk AJ Styles singles match
30:06
Speaker 1: this year before AJ hangs it up like we got
30:10
Speaker 1: that one last match with Punk and Sena last year.
30:14
Speaker 1: Punk and Aj. I can't remember if they if they
30:16
Speaker 1: did do it on TV at one point. I don't
30:18
Speaker 1: think they did, but I'm talking like it like a
30:20
Speaker 1: big match. It would be a sin not to get it.
30:24
Speaker 1: I would not even mind if it was a WrestleMania
30:26
Speaker 1: main event this year. Now. It may not be a
30:28
Speaker 1: match that would build towards the future or any story
30:31
Speaker 1: at all really beyond WrestleMania itself, but it would definitely
30:34
Speaker 1: be a WrestleMania caliber match, especially if Styles. Let's say
30:38
Speaker 1: AJ just kept putting his career up in multiple matches,
30:41
Speaker 1: kind of like what Rick Flair did in two thousand
30:43
Speaker 1: and eight. But it doesn't even have to be a
30:45
Speaker 1: WrestleMania match. I mean, they could do it in Chicago
30:47
Speaker 1: with the Elimination Chamber, right unless Punk is defending his
30:51
Speaker 1: title inside the chamber this year, aj winning the Rumble
30:55
Speaker 1: itself should he end up in there. To me, that
30:58
Speaker 1: doesn't make much sense because he either loses and retires
31:02
Speaker 1: or he beats Gunther, And if he beats Gunther, he's
31:05
Speaker 1: not coming back out of winning the Royal Rumble too.
31:08
Speaker 1: If anything, Gunther losing to aj Styles would make it
31:10
Speaker 1: a lot more likely that Gunther would be coming back
31:13
Speaker 1: out and winning the Royal Rumble. That would be the
31:15
Speaker 1: best way for him to get his heat back right away.
31:17
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's happening. I don't think Gunther
31:20
Speaker 1: is winning the Royal Rumble. But we got a potentially
31:24
Speaker 1: massive spoiler on this from of all people, Shinsky Nakamora,
31:30
Speaker 1: who I would like to think was like in the corner,
31:32
Speaker 1: you know, like deceptively going I'll get them back. I'll
31:36
Speaker 1: get them back for not allowing me to go to
31:38
Speaker 1: Tanahashi's last match. But I don't think this is something
31:41
Speaker 1: he would do, you know, intentionally to in any way
31:45
Speaker 1: harm AJ styles. But following their match last night, Knakamura
31:49
Speaker 1: posted a statement to Instagram about Aj and in that post,
31:53
Speaker 1: and it was a long post, and I encourage you.
31:55
Speaker 1: It's already been taken down, but you can find you
31:58
Speaker 1: know what he wrote and read it. But this was
32:01
Speaker 1: a passage in that post. During last year's Australia tour,
32:07
Speaker 1: at a house show in Melbourne, AJ gave a speech
32:10
Speaker 1: after the match. Listening to it, it was clear he
32:13
Speaker 1: was thinking, or thinking rather the fans, but somehow it
32:16
Speaker 1: also felt like he was hinting that retirement might not
32:18
Speaker 1: be that far off. The tour continued to Japan, and
32:22
Speaker 1: before the show's there, I asked him something. We were
32:25
Speaker 1: in a van on the way to the meet and greet,
32:26
Speaker 1: and I asked him, when are you going to retire?
32:29
Speaker 1: He answered the royal rumble, I've already decided. And again
32:35
Speaker 1: there was a lot more to the post than just that.
32:37
Speaker 1: It was a long read just about their rivalry and
32:40
Speaker 1: their friendship over the years. It has since been deleted.
32:45
Speaker 1: So did Knakamura have a brain fart or are we
32:50
Speaker 1: looking at some kind of story they're cooking up for
32:53
Speaker 1: season three of Unreal. I'm not sure. I don't know
32:57
Speaker 1: what to think with this company anymore. If he really
33:00
Speaker 1: was told to take it down, that's a massive fuck
33:04
Speaker 1: up on his part, and it makes me very sad
33:08
Speaker 1: because I've been I said it last night. I just
33:12
Speaker 1: I cannot believe that on what seven days notice or
33:17
Speaker 1: fort Tech has would be fourteen day whatever it is,
33:20
Speaker 1: on short notice like this, they would put this whole
33:22
Speaker 1: angle together where he's going to put his career on
33:24
Speaker 1: the line. Only a month after John Seena's retirement and
33:30
Speaker 1: the first pl of the entire year that Aj Styles
33:35
Speaker 1: would retire in Saudi Arabia at the Royal Rumble. I
33:41
Speaker 1: just I couldn't see it. I still it's hard for
33:44
Speaker 1: me to envision that, but it is looking increasingly likely
33:47
Speaker 1: that he may very well be retiring next weekend, and
33:51
Speaker 1: I I just can't wrap my head around that. Now.
33:54
Speaker 1: I know it's ten years to the very event that
33:56
Speaker 1: he debuted, but we're just we're so close to WrestleMania,
34:01
Speaker 1: and you would think they would want to put some
34:03
Speaker 1: distance between what we just saw with John Cena and
34:07
Speaker 1: then aj stepping away. Because I never really expected AJ
34:12
Speaker 1: to go the entire year, and I know AJ has
34:15
Speaker 1: said before he didn't want a John Cena type retirement tour.
34:18
Speaker 1: I mean I wouldn't either after looking at the way
34:20
Speaker 1: his tour was booked last year. But I at least
34:23
Speaker 1: thought they would find a way to get him to
34:25
Speaker 1: WrestleMania if his contract really was up in February, which
34:27
Speaker 1: is something he mentioned a while back. I'm sure they
34:30
Speaker 1: could negotiate some sort of extension, get him to Las Vegas,
34:34
Speaker 1: get him to WrestleMania and give him, you know, a
34:37
Speaker 1: proper sendoff on a major show like that, and then
34:40
Speaker 1: he can walk away if he wants. We're just we're
34:43
Speaker 1: so close, and there's still a few big matches left
34:46
Speaker 1: for him to have. I mentioned the Punk match and
34:48
Speaker 1: even those TNA teases a few weeks ago him staring
34:52
Speaker 1: at the TNA World Heavyweight title, of which they then
34:54
Speaker 1: took off Frankie Kazarian. Anyway, but like they've dropped a
34:58
Speaker 1: lot of hints there too, Like I just I want
35:01
Speaker 1: to believe that, like in their first match, I see
35:05
Speaker 1: the match playing out, and he's got Gunther on the ropes,
35:09
Speaker 1: so to speak, Like Gunther is throwing everything at this guy,
35:13
Speaker 1: and it's just not working. So again he takes the
35:17
Speaker 1: cheap way out and he does something to get himself
35:20
Speaker 1: disqualified because he senses that, you know, victory, victory may
35:25
Speaker 1: not be in the cards for him tonight, so he
35:27
Speaker 1: gets himself disqualified. So AJ wins. Technically, his career goes on,
35:33
Speaker 1: and then we can get one more match out of it.
35:35
Speaker 1: If you still want Gunther to be his last opponent,
35:37
Speaker 1: I mean, you can still do that. So that's what
35:39
Speaker 1: I want to believe in my in my brain, and
35:41
Speaker 1: that's how they get out of this. I'm still picking
35:45
Speaker 1: AJ Styles to win. It's it's looking more and more
35:51
Speaker 1: like it may be wishful thinking, but I'm sticking with
35:53
Speaker 1: AJ to win. I think more so just because I
35:57
Speaker 1: don't want to see him lose this match. I want
36:00
Speaker 1: to believe the Knackamorri post was a swerve, but reality
36:03
Speaker 1: is beginning to set in now that this could very
36:05
Speaker 1: well be it for the guy. Drew McIntyre. He will
36:10
Speaker 1: defend the WWE Championship, his first defense of this title
36:13
Speaker 1: that he took from Cody Rhoades. He'll be defending it
36:16
Speaker 1: against Sammy Zain, who won the fatal four way last
36:19
Speaker 1: night on Saturday Night's main event to earn this shot.
36:22
Speaker 1: They have been heavily teasing this match on television, and
36:26
Speaker 1: Sammy has gotten back to the story about how I'm
36:28
Speaker 1: gonna win the Big One. I'm going to become a
36:30
Speaker 1: world champion this year. You know. Drew McIntyre points out
36:34
Speaker 1: that Sammy is zero for eleven in matches with Drew
36:38
Speaker 1: and he's not worried. Why would this be any different.
36:41
Speaker 1: He tried to ambush him after the Fatal four way
36:46
Speaker 1: last night, that didn't work. He sent McIntyre out of
36:49
Speaker 1: the ring. So there's a lot of history here between
36:52
Speaker 1: these two. And I'm not going to tell you that
36:54
Speaker 1: it's impossible to conceive that Sammy's ain could win the
36:57
Speaker 1: championship in Saudi Arabia. But I'm just telling you he's
36:59
Speaker 1: not win the championship in Saudi Arabia. I do not
37:02
Speaker 1: see that happening. Drew McIntyre is going to retain. This
37:06
Speaker 1: is first defense. Drew McIntyre is not losing the title
37:10
Speaker 1: in his first defense to Sammy's name. This loss will
37:12
Speaker 1: feed into the larger story. Sammy will eventually win the
37:16
Speaker 1: Big One. It may be in Saudi, but it won't
37:19
Speaker 1: be until next year at WrestleMania. I do not think
37:22
Speaker 1: it is happening on this particular show. He should enjoy
37:26
Speaker 1: his win last night, because I don't believe that he
37:29
Speaker 1: will be enjoying any victories next weekend. So this one
37:33
Speaker 1: seems like it's pretty straightforward. I think Drew retains and
37:37
Speaker 1: then we have the thirty man Royal Rumble match and declaring.
37:41
Speaker 1: So far Cody roates Roman Reigns, who sent Actually I
37:47
Speaker 1: take that back, he didn't send anything in I said
37:50
Speaker 1: on Friday he could have at least sent in a
37:52
Speaker 1: video like a social media video declaring for the Royal Rumble.
37:57
Speaker 1: Didn't even do that. Instead, they put a graphic up
38:01
Speaker 1: on the screen letting us know that Roman Rains has
38:03
Speaker 1: declared for the Royal Rumble. Oh g, that's good to know.
38:09
Speaker 1: So he returned via graphic. So Roman Reigns will be
38:13
Speaker 1: in the Rumble Gunther. And it's a little unclear because Gunther,
38:16
Speaker 1: you know, when the promo with AJ on Monday talked
38:19
Speaker 1: about not wanting to take the match with Styles because
38:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to pull double duty at the Rumble,
38:25
Speaker 1: and then he had that change of hearts so is
38:27
Speaker 1: he still going to pull double duty? I assume so,
38:30
Speaker 1: but we don't know that for a fact. But Gunther,
38:32
Speaker 1: Jay Usso, Solo, Socoa, Ramys, Stereo, Dragon Lee, and Penta.
38:38
Speaker 1: So those are the only men's names that have been
38:41
Speaker 1: announced officially so far. Again, gun there, I'm fifty to
38:44
Speaker 1: fifty on now. Of course, you would expect all the
38:47
Speaker 1: members of the Vision to be in there on Raw
38:50
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night, Adam Pierce has invited bron Breaker to show
38:53
Speaker 1: up in Toronto for a chat, even though Pierce recently
38:55
Speaker 1: suspended him indefinitely. I think that chat is going to
38:59
Speaker 1: result and him being reinstated, but with a catch. That
39:03
Speaker 1: catch is that bron Breaker has to enter the Rumble
39:05
Speaker 1: in the number one spot. I think the Rumble is
39:08
Speaker 1: also where we get la Night back. We have not
39:11
Speaker 1: seen him since he got taken out by the Vision.
39:13
Speaker 1: I think he'll get a measure of revenge on at
39:16
Speaker 1: least one of them, if not some of them. Here
39:18
Speaker 1: I think we'll see brock Lesner. I do think that
39:21
Speaker 1: he'll be back in the Rumble. And we are going
39:23
Speaker 1: to see Obafemi making his official main roster debut. And
39:28
Speaker 1: I think Obafemi is going to eliminate Brocklesner to kick
39:32
Speaker 1: off a program with the two of them for a
39:34
Speaker 1: WrestleMania match. I think if they're going to be debuting
39:38
Speaker 1: Obafemi now and not waiting until after WrestleMania, you got
39:43
Speaker 1: to get him a big match of WrestleMania. Realistically, him
39:47
Speaker 1: winning the Royal Rumble would be a little too extreme
39:50
Speaker 1: for WWE. That would be a little too bold for WWE.
39:55
Speaker 1: But I do think you want to give him a
39:57
Speaker 1: really memorable moment in the Rumble, and I think Oba
40:02
Speaker 1: eliminating Brock to kick off a program between the two
40:07
Speaker 1: of them that would be a pretty big deal for him.
40:10
Speaker 1: So that's my prediction there now. If Breaker enters at
40:13
Speaker 1: number one, if I'm right about that, especially if he
40:15
Speaker 1: does not win the Rumble, I think they're going to
40:17
Speaker 1: give him the elimination record for this year and not Oba.
40:20
Speaker 1: Oba doesn't have to do much more, honestly than dump
40:22
Speaker 1: out Brock to really make a statement on this show.
40:27
Speaker 1: I think we'll see Dominique Masterio back here in the Rumble.
40:29
Speaker 1: I think we'll see Chad Gable as well, unless we
40:32
Speaker 1: get him back on Raw Tomorrow night first, but he'll
40:34
Speaker 1: be in the Rumble. Either way, I'm torn on whether
40:37
Speaker 1: Chris Jericho returns here or if they hold it off
40:40
Speaker 1: for TV next week, just because you know, maybe Jericho
40:43
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to just be one of many. Maybe they
40:47
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to eliminate him first write his first night
40:50
Speaker 1: back in, so they save it instead as a surprise,
40:53
Speaker 1: Like everyone's expecting Chris Jericho to be in the Rumble
40:56
Speaker 1: and then he's not. But then, like on Monday, they
40:59
Speaker 1: hit you with it. I know there's some kind of
41:01
Speaker 1: big elaborate entrance, because this is how Jericho has come
41:04
Speaker 1: back before, right, these big elaborate entrances, and then he
41:07
Speaker 1: walks out there. So I could see that. I could
41:11
Speaker 1: see them wanting to hold him back because they think
41:12
Speaker 1: it's a little, you know, too predictable. If he doesn't
41:17
Speaker 1: show up, it doesn't mean he's not coming in. I
41:19
Speaker 1: absolutely think he's coming in. But you know, I'm gonna
41:24
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that he'll probably be in the Rumble,
41:27
Speaker 1: but if he's not, then I would expect to see
41:30
Speaker 1: him on TV next week. Now. Look, I floated a
41:32
Speaker 1: wild idea a few weeks ago where Oba Femi does
41:35
Speaker 1: debut and win the Royal Rumble and then he goes
41:37
Speaker 1: on to win the world title of WrestleMania. I don't
41:39
Speaker 1: realistically think that they would do it now. He has
41:42
Speaker 1: also been it's also been said that he's going to
41:45
Speaker 1: be landing on Monday Night Raw, which would mean that
41:48
Speaker 1: Oba would be challenging CM Punk, where in my mind
41:52
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre would make more sense. So I don't see
41:55
Speaker 1: it happening. I would love to see it, but I
41:57
Speaker 1: don't see it happening. It would flip everything on its
42:01
Speaker 1: head and make a new star on day one. But
42:05
Speaker 1: these are predictions and not hopes and dreams except for
42:08
Speaker 1: the AJ styles mash a ha. But Oba is one of
42:12
Speaker 1: seven names that I could see winning this rumble, right.
42:14
Speaker 1: I had a much shorter list on the women's side.
42:16
Speaker 1: On the women's side, realistically, to me, it's only four names.
42:20
Speaker 1: But here I got seven potential names that could win
42:22
Speaker 1: the rumble, and Oba he's on the list. He's at
42:25
Speaker 1: the bottom of the list, but he's on the list.
42:27
Speaker 1: The other ones are And don't laugh when I say this, okay,
42:30
Speaker 1: I don't want you to have a laughing fit, especially
42:32
Speaker 1: if you're out in public somewhere La night. I know
42:37
Speaker 1: you're gonna laugh. There is at least a chance, right,
42:40
Speaker 1: not a very good chance, but there is at least
42:43
Speaker 1: a chance that this is actually building to some kind
42:47
Speaker 1: of big moment for him, and they have kept him
42:49
Speaker 1: out with the idea that he'll make his grand return
42:51
Speaker 1: in the Royal Rumble and he'll maybe it'll even come
42:54
Speaker 1: down to him in bron Breaker, and he'll be able
42:56
Speaker 1: to get that revenge on the Vision by eliminating them
42:58
Speaker 1: and winning the Royal Rumble and he can challenge the
43:00
Speaker 1: champion of his choosing and we get CM Punk against
43:03
Speaker 1: La Night at WrestleMania. I know it's like a fever dream,
43:08
Speaker 1: I know, but he's on my short list. He is
43:11
Speaker 1: on the list of potential winners here Gunther Gun there
43:16
Speaker 1: is another name. I don't see him winning, but you
43:19
Speaker 1: gotta have him. In the conversation, Jacob Fatu would love
43:23
Speaker 1: to see Jacob Fatu win the Royal Rumble. Bron Breaker
43:29
Speaker 1: has to be a favorite. Cody Rhodes has to be
43:33
Speaker 1: a favorite. Gonna win three Royal Rumbles in four years?
43:37
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think so. If Cody
43:41
Speaker 1: is challenging for any title of WrestleMania, he can get
43:43
Speaker 1: there by winning the elimination chamber. Cody Roads winning three
43:47
Speaker 1: Royal Rumbles in four years would be overkilled. It would
43:49
Speaker 1: be ridiculous. And then we have the man who ultimately
43:54
Speaker 1: I do believe is going to win the Royal Rumble,
43:58
Speaker 1: the otc Roman Reigns, And I know that's a very
44:03
Speaker 1: boring choice, but it's the choice that I'm going with.
44:06
Speaker 1: So basically, my predictions have not changed from sound Off
44:09
Speaker 1: nine to forty five. At the beginning of this month
44:11
Speaker 1: the Prediction Show, I picked Roman Reigns and Bianca bell
44:14
Speaker 1: Air to win the Royal Rumbles. I'm sticking with those picks.
44:16
Speaker 1: I think Roman rains wins the Men's Rumble. I think
44:18
Speaker 1: Bianca bell Air wins the Women's Rumble, which would mean
44:22
Speaker 1: that we are looking at Roman Reigns challenging Cmpunk or
44:26
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre or WrestleMania. What that means for Cody Rhodes,
44:31
Speaker 1: he could go for whichever title Roman is not chasing.
44:34
Speaker 1: Because one thing that I do not want to see
44:36
Speaker 1: at WrestleMania this year is Roman Reigns one on one
44:40
Speaker 1: with Cody Roads. We'll see that later this year when
44:43
Speaker 1: the Street Fighter movie comes out. Okay, you'll get your
44:45
Speaker 1: Cody and Roman match there. And based on what Dave
44:49
Speaker 1: Meltzer reported last week, Paul Leveck made the call to
44:52
Speaker 1: blow up plans for WrestleMania and to change plans for
44:56
Speaker 1: Cody Roman three and instead go with Drew McIntyre as
44:59
Speaker 1: the ww champion heading into WrestleMania. So anyone who doubts
45:04
Speaker 1: that plans change and mox melter for it, just watch
45:07
Speaker 1: WWE Unreal okay with their fucking whiteboards, and you'll know
45:12
Speaker 1: plans change all the time. They have preliminary plans. Oh,
45:15
Speaker 1: let's do this, No, let's do that. Of course, plans
45:18
Speaker 1: change all Is it really all that unbelievable to think
45:21
Speaker 1: in this company, of all places, especially under Vince But
45:24
Speaker 1: even now that plans change, Yes, plans change all the time.
45:28
Speaker 1: This would be one of those situations where I am
45:30
Speaker 1: very happy to see plans change now. The reason that
45:36
Speaker 1: levec supposedly made the decision is because he was worried
45:40
Speaker 1: that the fans would be fatigued from a third Cody
45:44
Speaker 1: and Roman match in four years. And yet bodyslam dot
45:48
Speaker 1: Net is reporting that as of this moment, as of
45:52
Speaker 1: right now, the plan for WrestleMania forty two is to
45:57
Speaker 1: have Drew McIntyre defend the WWE Championship against Cody Roads.
46:03
Speaker 1: And this is how you know that the Cody Roman
46:06
Speaker 1: quote unquote fatigue excuse is just that it is an excuse.
46:11
Speaker 1: It's not real. It's bullshit. Because if he's so worried
46:16
Speaker 1: about there being Cody and Roman fatigue, how the fuck
46:19
Speaker 1: do you justify running Drew McIntyre against Cody Roads for
46:24
Speaker 1: the fifth time since wressell Palooza. Are you kidding me?
46:31
Speaker 1: You gotta at least add Jacob fa too and make
46:33
Speaker 1: it a triple threat. If you're gonna do that, that
46:36
Speaker 1: I can live with. And that was certainly the impression
46:39
Speaker 1: coming out of Saturday Night's Made event last night. Now,
46:40
Speaker 1: there's still a ways to go before we get to
46:42
Speaker 1: WrestleMania triple threat match. Fine, but the idea of doing
46:47
Speaker 1: Cody and Drew one on one and you just had
46:49
Speaker 1: a three stages of hell match with these guys with
46:53
Speaker 1: multiple stipulations in the course of one match. That doesn't work.
46:58
Speaker 1: And so this again, this whole thing like no, well,
47:00
Speaker 1: the reason Paul Levec moved away from another Cody and
47:02
Speaker 1: Roman match of WrestleMania. You wonder why he moved away
47:04
Speaker 1: from that, It's because neither man wanted to lose to
47:07
Speaker 1: the other. If that match does not happen at WrestleMania
47:11
Speaker 1: this year, that is why that match is not happening.
47:15
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with this sudden realization that,
47:17
Speaker 1: oh my god, we might be tiring the fans out
47:20
Speaker 1: if we give them another Cody and Roman match and
47:23
Speaker 1: then at the same time you get a book another
47:25
Speaker 1: Cody and Drew match. Give me a fucking break. Do
47:28
Speaker 1: not buy that excuse. Now, another surprise that we could
47:34
Speaker 1: potentially see in the men's Royal Rumble match is Powerhouse Hobbes,
47:39
Speaker 1: who has officially signed with WWE. Meltzer says that nobody
47:43
Speaker 1: in aaw had anything negative to say about Hobbes, and
47:46
Speaker 1: that he made the decision based on what was best
47:48
Speaker 1: for his family, which would mean that he got more
47:51
Speaker 1: money to jump because I mean, schedule wise, he'd have
47:54
Speaker 1: the better schedule working for aw right if time away
47:58
Speaker 1: from his family was an issue, he would have the
48:01
Speaker 1: better schedule with AAW So that makes it sound like
48:04
Speaker 1: it came down to money, and I doubt very seriously,
48:07
Speaker 1: because look, he was said to have gotten a substantial
48:11
Speaker 1: offer from AAW to stay, like big money, big big money,
48:15
Speaker 1: and I doubt WWE was willing to give him more
48:17
Speaker 1: than what Tony Kah was offering him to stay. That
48:20
Speaker 1: tells me that he knew that he had hit his
48:22
Speaker 1: ceiling in AAW and he wanted to try to level
48:24
Speaker 1: up somewhere else. He probably took a pay cut to leave,
48:29
Speaker 1: or at least, you know, whatever he took was not
48:31
Speaker 1: as much as what he was being offered. But I mean,
48:34
Speaker 1: it's not like he's working for pennies. I'm sure he's
48:36
Speaker 1: doing very well for himself either way. But the idea
48:40
Speaker 1: that WWE and TKO they outbid AW if AW made
48:46
Speaker 1: such a substantial offer to him, like, I don't buy
48:48
Speaker 1: that for a second. He saw the writing on the wall,
48:51
Speaker 1: he had gotten as far as he was probably going
48:53
Speaker 1: to get, and he split. So he's already gotten a
48:57
Speaker 1: new name. They've already filed for I guess trademark applications.
49:02
Speaker 1: The name that he is going to be debuting with
49:04
Speaker 1: is rumored to be Royce Keys. Now I don't know
49:08
Speaker 1: where the Keys is from, but Royce is the name
49:10
Speaker 1: of his young son, so very much a Kevin Owens
49:14
Speaker 1: type of deal there. As far as the name, I
49:17
Speaker 1: think Royce Hobbs would have been a better name. But
49:20
Speaker 1: you know, if he debuts as Royce Keys, you know
49:22
Speaker 1: it's not a terrible name. Within a few weeks, nobody
49:25
Speaker 1: will even be talking about it. I could see him
49:27
Speaker 1: showing up in the rumble. There was someone on the
49:29
Speaker 1: SmackDown stream the other night who floated what I thought
49:32
Speaker 1: was an interesting idea and I don't hate it, which
49:34
Speaker 1: was to pair him up with Trick Williams as Trick's bodyguard.
49:40
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it because then you, I mean,
49:42
Speaker 1: you always have the eventual split and he turns into
49:45
Speaker 1: a monster babyface. And Trick is already a big deal
49:49
Speaker 1: on SmackDown, so you put even more heat on the
49:52
Speaker 1: guy by having him walking around. Having a bodyguard kind
49:55
Speaker 1: of makes him feel like a bigger deal too. But
49:57
Speaker 1: I told you last week, I said SmackDown has a
49:59
Speaker 1: may depth issue when it comes to top heels. They
50:03
Speaker 1: don't really have any outside of Drew McIntyre. Like, Trick
50:07
Speaker 1: is still very new. I mean, I guess Hobbs would
50:09
Speaker 1: be too, but Trick is still very new. Alistair Black
50:11
Speaker 1: hasn't really taken as a top heel yet and Solo Socoa.
50:15
Speaker 1: I mean, no one is taking him seriously as a
50:17
Speaker 1: top heel on that show, not when he's running around
50:20
Speaker 1: stealing people's lanterns. Hobbs. Coming to SmackDown as a heel
50:26
Speaker 1: on his own could really help that show, especially if
50:30
Speaker 1: they're going to be sending Oba to Raw. So that's
50:32
Speaker 1: the only thing. Like, I just feel like he would
50:34
Speaker 1: be more useful to smack Down if they introduced him
50:38
Speaker 1: straight away as a heel and really built him up
50:41
Speaker 1: as a major force on that show. But I don't
50:43
Speaker 1: hate the idea. If they wanted to introduce him as
50:45
Speaker 1: a heavy for someone, I think Trick would be the
50:47
Speaker 1: perfect person for that. So I'll be live next Saturday,
50:52
Speaker 1: not immediately after the Rumble. The Rumble's gonna be starting
50:55
Speaker 1: at two pm Eastern. I may not even be home
50:58
Speaker 1: in time to start the Rumble right at two o'clock.
51:00
Speaker 1: I have a funeral to go to that morning. I'm
51:04
Speaker 1: going to race home, I'm gonna watch the Rumble, I'm
51:06
Speaker 1: gonna eat dinner, shower up for you people, and then
51:10
Speaker 1: go live. So probably looking at maybe a nine pm
51:13
Speaker 1: start Eastern, So prepare accordingly, I expect to see you
51:19
Speaker 1: seated and ready. I don't want to be talking to
51:21
Speaker 1: myself for three hours. Tamaso Champa confirmed what was originally
51:26
Speaker 1: reported a few weeks ago, which is that his contract
51:29
Speaker 1: with WWE is coming to an end and he will
51:31
Speaker 1: not be renewing with them. On Wednesday, he posted the
51:34
Speaker 1: following statement on Instagram. In the very near future, my
51:38
Speaker 1: contract with the WWE will officially come to an end.
51:41
Speaker 1: I would like to thank every single person who contributed
51:44
Speaker 1: to the last ten years of this incredible journey. Camera crew,
51:48
Speaker 1: ring crew, hair and makeup, seamstresses, referees, creative producers, catering commentators,
51:54
Speaker 1: ring announcers, travel department, medical team, talent reps, and anybody
52:00
Speaker 1: that I may have missed. A very special thank you
52:03
Speaker 1: to all of the men and women who I have
52:04
Speaker 1: shared a Ringland locker room with nothing but love and respect.
52:07
Speaker 1: As I would be remiss not to give a special
52:10
Speaker 1: thank you to my Black and Gold family. You will
52:13
Speaker 1: forever hold an incredibly special place in my heart. To
52:16
Speaker 1: the fans who have shown love and support over the
52:18
Speaker 1: last two decades, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
52:21
Speaker 1: To my wife and daughter, you are my rock and
52:23
Speaker 1: my Forever Why I love you More. I spent the
52:27
Speaker 1: first decade of my career traveling the world on the
52:29
Speaker 1: independent scene. I spent the second decade of my career
52:32
Speaker 1: traveling the world with WWE. I have one decade remaining,
52:36
Speaker 1: and I'm beyond excited for whatever challenges lie ahead. I'm
52:40
Speaker 1: an incredibly lucky person, one of the few who has
52:42
Speaker 1: spent his entire adult life living out his childhood dream,
52:46
Speaker 1: and while that dream continues to evolve, I will continue
52:49
Speaker 1: to chase it. With that said, for the first time
52:51
Speaker 1: in over ten years, I am available for all appearances, signings,
52:54
Speaker 1: photo ops, seminars, movies, TV appearances, fitness collaborations, sponsorships, and
52:59
Speaker 1: so forth. Please email any inquiries to book Champa at
53:03
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. Oh, I assure you people are already
53:07
Speaker 1: reaching out to him. That man is going to do
53:09
Speaker 1: well on the independent scene, however much he chooses to work,
53:13
Speaker 1: and he's already filed to trademark the names Psychokiller and
53:16
Speaker 1: Psycho King. Psychokiller was the nickname he used on the
53:20
Speaker 1: indie scene before joining NXTA, and he used to come
53:22
Speaker 1: out to the song of the same name by The
53:24
Speaker 1: Talking Heads. Whether he signs a contract somewhere else like
53:28
Speaker 1: AW or TNA. I mean, I guess it all comes
53:31
Speaker 1: down to whether he wants to be tied down to
53:33
Speaker 1: another contract or how much freedom he's looking for to
53:36
Speaker 1: do other things like everything he just described there in
53:39
Speaker 1: his post. I just know, you know I can't handle
53:42
Speaker 1: another member of the don Kallis family. Please, for the
53:45
Speaker 1: love of God, do not go down that road. Now.
53:48
Speaker 1: Meltzer is saying that he is actually looking to work
53:51
Speaker 1: with New Japan. And look, they've been using or losing
53:55
Speaker 1: rather some people lately, like Evil Sonata. Evil reportedly gave
54:00
Speaker 1: notice and is not scheduled for any further dates. The
54:03
Speaker 1: belief is that Evil may be wwe bound. Sanada is
54:06
Speaker 1: taking an indefinite leave, and now there's talk that Hiromu
54:10
Speaker 1: Takahashi could be on his way out. And that's to
54:12
Speaker 1: say nothing of people like David Finley and Gabe Kid
54:15
Speaker 1: and Clark Connor's all right, we don't know where they're
54:18
Speaker 1: gonna end up yet. This would actually be a very
54:21
Speaker 1: good time for him to pick up some New Japan work.
54:24
Speaker 1: But I said on sound Off ninety five three weeks ago.
54:29
Speaker 1: I said this on nine forty five that I think
54:32
Speaker 1: TNA would be a good landing spot for him with them.
54:35
Speaker 1: They just debuted on AMC. They could absolutely use some
54:39
Speaker 1: more talent right now. He'd be a bigger fish in
54:42
Speaker 1: a smaller pond, and he would still have the freedom
54:45
Speaker 1: to work outside shots if he wants to. Right maybe
54:48
Speaker 1: not New Japan given their relationship with AAW, but still
54:53
Speaker 1: it may be an easier schedule if that's something he's
54:55
Speaker 1: looking for. I mean, WWE is not running many house
54:58
Speaker 1: shows anymore, so I don't really know that it would
55:00
Speaker 1: be all that different from his WWE schedule, but I
55:04
Speaker 1: do think TNA would be a good fit now. He's
55:06
Speaker 1: had injury issues in the past, including a next fusion
55:09
Speaker 1: that means he's on borrow time as far as his
55:12
Speaker 1: in ring career is concerned. But he's coming off a
55:15
Speaker 1: year where he had his two best matches on the
55:17
Speaker 1: main roster, those two TLC matches that he was a
55:19
Speaker 1: part of. The guy is a great wrestler. He can
55:22
Speaker 1: still very much go, but he clearly hit his ceiling
55:26
Speaker 1: in WWE. You know, in NXT he was the face
55:29
Speaker 1: of that Black and Gold brand. Triple h used him
55:32
Speaker 1: down there the way that he uses Cody Rhodes and
55:34
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns on the main roster, but he was never
55:38
Speaker 1: going to be pushed in any significant way. He was
55:40
Speaker 1: very clear. I don't think you know he would if
55:44
Speaker 1: he went to AW either. I should say that in
55:47
Speaker 1: TNA he would have a much better shot. But it
55:50
Speaker 1: all comes down to what he wants out of his
55:52
Speaker 1: career at this point and what he's looking for. Is
55:54
Speaker 1: he leaving because he wants to be higher up somewhere else,
55:58
Speaker 1: you know, wrestling for the World Championship. Is he leaving
56:01
Speaker 1: because he wants to dial things back a little bit
56:03
Speaker 1: and try other things before it's too late. I don't know,
56:08
Speaker 1: but the body of work that he put together in
56:09
Speaker 1: those Black and Gold days is among the best of
56:12
Speaker 1: anyone to ever come out of that brand. Like, if
56:15
Speaker 1: there's ever an NXT Hall of Fame, he's a first
56:19
Speaker 1: ballot entry for sure. Russell Votes is also reporting that
56:25
Speaker 1: there have been internal discussions within WWE about Stone Cold
56:29
Speaker 1: Steve Austin making an appearance in the near future. That's
56:33
Speaker 1: not a done deal, but they note that Austin's name
56:36
Speaker 1: has been circulating across multiple departments. I'm sure it is
56:42
Speaker 1: his merchandise still routinely cracks the top ten on WWE Shop.
56:46
Speaker 1: I'm sure his name is circulating pretty frequently in the
56:49
Speaker 1: merch department, but they're not saying what his role would
56:53
Speaker 1: be or whether this would be a one off. Now,
56:55
Speaker 1: they do have a Monday Night Raw emanating from San Antonio,
56:59
Speaker 1: Texas on March sixteenth, That is three sixteen day, so
57:05
Speaker 1: it's more likely this is a one off appearance for
57:07
Speaker 1: Raw that night. But they are, you know, bringing Wressellmania
57:11
Speaker 1: back to Las Vegas again this year. He was at
57:13
Speaker 1: last year's show because it's only a four hour drive
57:16
Speaker 1: from the Broken Skull Ranch where he lives. So cause
57:19
Speaker 1: he's in Nevada now, he's not in Texas anymore, so
57:22
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible they get him out for the show
57:24
Speaker 1: again this year. But I don't see him playing any
57:26
Speaker 1: kind of major role. I only hope this year he
57:29
Speaker 1: doesn't run anybody over with an ATV like he almost
57:32
Speaker 1: did last year. That could have been so much worse.
57:37
Speaker 1: But look, I'm look, I'm pretty pessimistic on the Austin
57:40
Speaker 1: stuff being anything more than that. Like in Ring he
57:44
Speaker 1: had a great sendoff against Kevin Owens in Dallas and
57:48
Speaker 1: you know, people still get their hopes up. He's going
57:50
Speaker 1: to come back again and wrestle Punk or wrestle this
57:52
Speaker 1: person or that person. And look, I mean, appearance wise,
57:56
Speaker 1: it's always fun to have him there and hear that
57:58
Speaker 1: glass shatter. But it just it was such a missed opportunity.
58:03
Speaker 1: It was just such a punch to the gut when
58:05
Speaker 1: that glass didn't shatter and he didn't give Rock that
58:08
Speaker 1: stunter in Philadelphia. And so now I'm just like, you know, whatever,
58:13
Speaker 1: if he shows up, he shows up. If he doesn't,
58:15
Speaker 1: he doesn't. They are promoting an Attitude Era edition of
58:19
Speaker 1: WWE two K twenty six and pre orders start January thirtieth.
58:24
Speaker 1: There is no release date yet. Typically though they released
58:26
Speaker 1: these games early March, like first or second week in March,
58:30
Speaker 1: and again three sixteen day, it lines up right around
58:34
Speaker 1: that time. So that would be my guess as to
58:37
Speaker 1: what this is. It could still be at Mania making
58:40
Speaker 1: an appearance of some kind. But I think your Stone
58:42
Speaker 1: Cold appearance is going to be March sixteenth, and I
58:44
Speaker 1: think they're going to tie it into the video game.
58:46
Speaker 1: I would not get my hopes up for much more
58:48
Speaker 1: than that. The ratings are in for the first episode
58:53
Speaker 1: of TNA Impact on AMC, and it's not great, but
58:57
Speaker 1: it's also not a disaster, unlike the show, which wasn't
59:00
Speaker 1: great and it was a disaster. Pro Wrestling Torch had
59:04
Speaker 1: the numbers. First viewership on AMC was one hundred and
59:07
Speaker 1: seventy three thousand, with the eighteen to forty nine demo
59:11
Speaker 1: number coming in at zero point four, which is not
59:15
Speaker 1: terrible in terms of viewership. Wayde Keller says that the
59:18
Speaker 1: show typically did around eighty thousand, sometimes more, sometimes less
59:23
Speaker 1: on Access TV, so one hundred and seventy three thousand
59:26
Speaker 1: would mean that they more than doubled what they were
59:28
Speaker 1: doing on Access, which is why I've always said there
59:31
Speaker 1: can be no growth so long as they are on
59:33
Speaker 1: Access TV, and they had to get on a bigger network. Now.
59:37
Speaker 1: This would not be inclusive of anyone who watched on
59:39
Speaker 1: AMC Plus or the TNA Plus streaming service, which had
59:44
Speaker 1: lots of issues that night and actually cut out. I
59:47
Speaker 1: think for most, if not everyone, early in the show,
59:50
Speaker 1: as the Hardys were on their way to the ring
59:51
Speaker 1: and it didn't get resolved until like the very end,
59:54
Speaker 1: I don't think there were many people who actually saw
59:56
Speaker 1: that show on TNA plus that night. The good news
1:00:00
Speaker 1: this is that they doubled what they were doing before.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: The bad news is that it was still lower than
1:00:03
Speaker 1: most people were thinking it would be, and it wasn't
1:00:07
Speaker 1: a good show. So whatever the drop off would have
1:00:10
Speaker 1: been for week two, I mean, we'll find out, but
1:00:12
Speaker 1: it may be even higher. If people didn't like what
1:00:14
Speaker 1: they saw, they should be thankful that more people didn't
1:00:18
Speaker 1: watch that show. But let's see how it's doing in
1:00:21
Speaker 1: a few weeks and that'll give us a better sense
1:00:23
Speaker 1: of what to expect. Tramie Gel is back in TNA,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: and it's like he never even left. Tramie Gell may
1:00:31
Speaker 1: have set the record this past week for the fastest
1:00:33
Speaker 1: hiring and firing in wrestling history, definitely in AW history.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: And I just find the whole thing to be really
1:00:43
Speaker 1: sad more than anything. So, as you know, all four
1:00:47
Speaker 1: members of the Rascals they left TNA. They sided with
1:00:50
Speaker 1: AW last week, Desmond Xavier, Zachary Wentz, Myron Reid, and
1:00:54
Speaker 1: tray me Gel. Two of the members saw their contracts expire.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Two others and I believe Miguel may have been one
1:01:01
Speaker 1: of them. We're not even working with contracts again, I
1:01:04
Speaker 1: could have that wrong, but they left and they signed
1:01:08
Speaker 1: with AW So Tony Khan swooped in and he signed
1:01:13
Speaker 1: all four and then on Dynamite last week they even
1:01:16
Speaker 1: got a graphic saying the Rascals are coming right. And
1:01:19
Speaker 1: then on Collision they aired a backstage segment where three
1:01:22
Speaker 1: of the Rascals they popped out of their dressing room
1:01:24
Speaker 1: and smoke came billowing out. You can imagine what they
1:01:27
Speaker 1: were doing in there. But Tray Miguel was not with them,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that's a little odd. I thought
1:01:33
Speaker 1: maybe he had travel issues or something, because the word
1:01:36
Speaker 1: was that all four of them were signed, and they
1:01:38
Speaker 1: were until they weren't. As it turns out, Miguel was
1:01:43
Speaker 1: signed and then he was promptly released. Dave Meltzer and
1:01:47
Speaker 1: Brian Alvarez they chimed in first, saying the decision to
1:01:50
Speaker 1: release Tray Miguel came from above, like God Almighty himself
1:01:56
Speaker 1: descended from the heavens to render his decision and then
1:01:58
Speaker 1: slowly ascended back up into the clouds. And at that
1:02:03
Speaker 1: point rumors began circulating that it had to do with
1:02:06
Speaker 1: homophobic comments that he made on Facebook five years ago
1:02:09
Speaker 1: in response to a troll, and I'm not going to
1:02:12
Speaker 1: repeat the comments, but in so many words he equated
1:02:16
Speaker 1: being unattractive to being gay, and that he called the
1:02:19
Speaker 1: guy an ugly bitch, and it was clear the guy's
1:02:23
Speaker 1: intent was to troll Miguel with whatever he said. He
1:02:25
Speaker 1: had a lot of profane shit on his own profile,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: but that doesn't excuse the comments that he made. See
1:02:32
Speaker 1: this is why it's best to not take the bait
1:02:34
Speaker 1: and engage with the trolls, because in a flame war,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: everyone gets burned and no one wins. Now. He apologized
1:02:42
Speaker 1: that same day and said, I am not anti LGBTQ. Plus,
1:02:47
Speaker 1: I made some very mean comments to a member of
1:02:50
Speaker 1: the community in regards to why they were a member,
1:02:53
Speaker 1: and it wasn't right or tasteful. Regardless of the comments
1:02:56
Speaker 1: made to get me to such an ugly place, I
1:02:59
Speaker 1: was wrong, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Two
1:03:01
Speaker 1: of my very best friends are members have said community,
1:03:04
Speaker 1: and I would take a bullet for either of them.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: I won't try to justify anything I said, but I
1:03:08
Speaker 1: will apologize like a man. If I offended you, then
1:03:12
Speaker 1: I am genuinely sorry. Please find it in your hearts
1:03:14
Speaker 1: to forgive me. If you can't forgive me, I do
1:03:17
Speaker 1: not blame you, but this world needs more love than hate,
1:03:20
Speaker 1: and I am sorry for contributing to the less desired
1:03:23
Speaker 1: of the two. So that came later that same day,
1:03:27
Speaker 1: and you hope that you know he's being sincere and
1:03:29
Speaker 1: what he said. And he did go on to find
1:03:32
Speaker 1: success in TNA, two time X Division Champion, tag Team Champion.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: He even made a few appearances in NXT with this
1:03:38
Speaker 1: whole NXT TNA partnership, and at no point were his
1:03:43
Speaker 1: past comments an issue for TNA featuring him or for
1:03:47
Speaker 1: WWE right putting him on their television. But it wasn't
1:03:50
Speaker 1: even the first time that he got himself in hot
1:03:52
Speaker 1: water for making offensive comments. The year before that, in
1:03:57
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, he lashed out at a popular independent wrestler
1:04:01
Speaker 1: at the time named David Starr. If you remember that guy,
1:04:05
Speaker 1: he turned out to be quite the piece of shit.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: He was the one who sparked the whole speaking out movement.
1:04:10
Speaker 1: Six years ago in wrestling, he was accused of sexual
1:04:14
Speaker 1: assault by his former girlfriend. Multiple women, in fact, came
1:04:17
Speaker 1: forward with various allegations against him. He denied the assault,
1:04:22
Speaker 1: but he admitted to being a shitty partner to all
1:04:24
Speaker 1: of them and a cheater and a gas lighter, and
1:04:27
Speaker 1: then he retired from wrestling when nobody wanted to work
1:04:29
Speaker 1: with him anymore, and then claimed that he went to
1:04:32
Speaker 1: therapy for sex addiction and whatever else he claimed he
1:04:36
Speaker 1: was seeking help. For. The point is this was the
1:04:39
Speaker 1: year before all of that other stuff happened, and in
1:04:43
Speaker 1: this instance, Trey Migel made anti Semitic comments towards Starr
1:04:48
Speaker 1: and also threat It wasn't just the comments he made,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: he threatened to repost a revenge porn video of him,
1:04:54
Speaker 1: which is pretty fucking bad. And I mean, I know
1:04:57
Speaker 1: it's David Starr, but still there's no justification for that.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: So Miguel has definitely used bad judgment in the past,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: there's no denying that. And you hope, if that's the
1:05:07
Speaker 1: worst of it, that he's learned from it. But that
1:05:10
Speaker 1: shit follows you around. It's like an odor. It's hard
1:05:13
Speaker 1: to wash off. Some people are able to forgive, others
1:05:17
Speaker 1: are not as forgiving. And again, it didn't impact his
1:05:21
Speaker 1: employment with TNA, it didn't stop WWE from using him,
1:05:24
Speaker 1: but it came back to bite him on the ass
1:05:26
Speaker 1: with aaw The first thing he posted in response to
1:05:29
Speaker 1: no longer being under contract with them was this taking
1:05:33
Speaker 1: a break from wrestling. Please respect my space and don't
1:05:36
Speaker 1: tag me in any posts or comments. Go support the
1:05:39
Speaker 1: rascals still. Then, as people began to speculate as to
1:05:44
Speaker 1: the reason why he was no longer with them, he said,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: I've made a lot of mistakes in my time. I've
1:05:50
Speaker 1: always apologized and did my best to put a better
1:05:52
Speaker 1: foot forward after. I don't preach hate, and I don't
1:05:56
Speaker 1: take any pride in being hateful. I'm a man of faith,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: I believe in forgiveness and only ever preach that I'm
1:06:02
Speaker 1: a different man today, Fightful Select said. The following tray,
1:06:06
Speaker 1: Miguel's AW release was implied to be a Warner Brothers
1:06:10
Speaker 1: Discovery decision in relation to a twenty twenty post that
1:06:13
Speaker 1: was homophobic in nature. The reaction in AW was one
1:06:16
Speaker 1: of frustration. A number of wrestlers felt like there were
1:06:19
Speaker 1: standards applied to AW talent that don't apply to other
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Feature WBD names who had made controversial comments. When Fightful
1:06:27
Speaker 1: Select reached out to Miguel's ex promotion TNA, it was
1:06:30
Speaker 1: clarified that they never had any problems with him, nor
1:06:33
Speaker 1: has Fightfull found any contacts in aw in favor of
1:06:37
Speaker 1: the release. Fightful had reached out to multiple WBD contacts
1:06:41
Speaker 1: for comment, when one of them replied that they cannot
1:06:43
Speaker 1: confirm the validity of the rumors. If it were an
1:06:47
Speaker 1: unhealthy pattern of behavior, that's cause for alarm, but that
1:06:51
Speaker 1: does not seem to be the case here. Well, there
1:06:56
Speaker 1: was no pattern of behavior with Jay Briscoe either. When
1:06:59
Speaker 1: he made homophobic comments in the past. It was after
1:07:02
Speaker 1: the Delaware States Senate passed the bill allowing same sex marriage.
1:07:07
Speaker 1: He wrote, try to teach my kids there's nothing wrong
1:07:10
Speaker 1: with that, and I'll fucking shoot you. That was a
1:07:14
Speaker 1: very dumb thing to say, even dumber when you're working
1:07:18
Speaker 1: for a company and hoping to get hired by other
1:07:20
Speaker 1: companies in the future. But he apologized for those remarks,
1:07:24
Speaker 1: and every time he would talk about it years later,
1:07:26
Speaker 1: he seemed genuinely remorseful for saying what he said. Now,
1:07:31
Speaker 1: you can believe what you want to believe, but to
1:07:34
Speaker 1: tell people that you're gonna shoot them over it is
1:07:36
Speaker 1: pretty fucking stupid, especially if you're a celebrity, whether you're
1:07:40
Speaker 1: an actor, an athlete, you're someone kids look up to right.
1:07:44
Speaker 1: It shouldn't happen, and he paid a price for it.
1:07:47
Speaker 1: They both did him and his brother. His brother was
1:07:49
Speaker 1: more collateral damage than anything else. You know, if Mark
1:07:53
Speaker 1: shared those same views, he was smart enough to keep
1:07:56
Speaker 1: that shit to himself. I have no doubt they would
1:07:59
Speaker 1: have been hired by WWE worry not for those comments,
1:08:02
Speaker 1: But anybody who knew Jay Briscoe and interacted with him
1:08:05
Speaker 1: in the years that followed will tell you that was
1:08:06
Speaker 1: a man that had deep regrets over what he said.
1:08:09
Speaker 1: And it's not the way that he conducted himself in
1:08:12
Speaker 1: his everyday life. But words matter, even when you think
1:08:16
Speaker 1: they shouldn't, or that enough time has gone by, or
1:08:20
Speaker 1: that people can change and they can grow and they
1:08:22
Speaker 1: can mature. Companies don't always see it that way. Television
1:08:26
Speaker 1: executives don't always see it that way, not when they
1:08:29
Speaker 1: have sponsors to answer to. I think it's less about
1:08:32
Speaker 1: their moral high ground and more about the almighty dollar
1:08:35
Speaker 1: is what really motivates them, and not wanting to do
1:08:37
Speaker 1: anything to jeopardize that. So the Briscoes were not allowed
1:08:40
Speaker 1: to appear on TBS or TNT, even as Tony kh
1:08:43
Speaker 1: used them in ring of honor right. He didn't sign
1:08:46
Speaker 1: them and fire them. He kept using them in ring
1:08:49
Speaker 1: of honor. He just couldn't use them on TV, and
1:08:51
Speaker 1: he tried everything that he could to get them on TV.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: There was someone at Warner Brothers Discovery who did not
1:08:57
Speaker 1: want the Briscoes on TV. An executive who told said
1:09:00
Speaker 1: at the Full Gear Scrum only a few months ago,
1:09:02
Speaker 1: after Mark won the TNT title, he said that person
1:09:05
Speaker 1: no longer works there. And then Jay Briscoe died, and
1:09:11
Speaker 1: the very next show, there is Mark Briscow tears in
1:09:14
Speaker 1: his eyes, He's trying to hold it together. He's wrestling
1:09:17
Speaker 1: Jay lethal and Tony Kahan put on this tremendous tribute
1:09:22
Speaker 1: to the life of Jay Briscoe's like a celebration of
1:09:25
Speaker 1: life a man who never made a single appearance on
1:09:29
Speaker 1: his television show. And I don't doubt that there is
1:09:32
Speaker 1: not a day that goes by where Tony doesn't look
1:09:36
Speaker 1: at Mark Briscoe when he comes to work and think, fuck,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: I really wish I could have had the Briscos together
1:09:42
Speaker 1: on my TV show. So can I believe that it
1:09:46
Speaker 1: came from someone above Tony Kahan's head? Sure? I can
1:09:50
Speaker 1: believe that because we've already seen it before. Do I
1:09:54
Speaker 1: think that's what actually happened here? I'm not as sure
1:09:58
Speaker 1: as I was earlier in the week when all of
1:10:00
Speaker 1: this first broke. According to Fightful, it's been chalked up
1:10:03
Speaker 1: specifically to the homophobic comments he made in twenty twenty,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: not the other comments. But if Tony Kahn did not
1:10:09
Speaker 1: want train Meegel in AAW, he would not have hired
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Trainmegel in the first place. He signed him because he
1:10:16
Speaker 1: wanted all four rascals. And what I believe happened is
1:10:20
Speaker 1: someone in AAW And there's all kinds of speculation as
1:10:23
Speaker 1: to who that person may be. We don't know. But
1:10:25
Speaker 1: someone in that company, be it a talent or someone
1:10:27
Speaker 1: who works behind the scenes, had it out for train
1:10:31
Speaker 1: Miguel and did not want him working there. Like I
1:10:33
Speaker 1: said before, even the Briscoes worked for Tony Kahan. He
1:10:36
Speaker 1: just kept them in ring of honor. He could not
1:10:38
Speaker 1: use them on TV, but he kept them employed. So
1:10:41
Speaker 1: someone there did not want train Megel working in that company.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: Did that then make it up to someone in Warner
1:10:48
Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery? Maybe I know That's what Sapp says. He
1:10:53
Speaker 1: says he asked everybody involved, and everyone got the same
1:10:56
Speaker 1: answer WBD, WBD. But Tony Khan the one with the
1:11:00
Speaker 1: relationship with those executives, not the talent, not the agents.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: Kenny Omega does not have David Zaslov's cell phone number,
1:11:09
Speaker 1: MJF does not have David Zaslov's personal email address. Right,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: eat shit, paramount and die forty one to eighty one
1:11:16
Speaker 1: at hotmail dot com. It certainly wasn't Tony Khan who
1:11:20
Speaker 1: told them, So we're left with two theories here. Either
1:11:23
Speaker 1: you believe that Warner Brothers Discovery did a background check
1:11:26
Speaker 1: on the Rascals and specifically singled out Trey Miguel right
1:11:30
Speaker 1: without flagging Zachary Wentz for the hot water that he
1:11:33
Speaker 1: got into a few years ago which got him canned
1:11:36
Speaker 1: from NXT. Or this stuff about the decision coming from
1:11:39
Speaker 1: above is a bullshit cover for someone getting in Tony's
1:11:43
Speaker 1: ear and telling him, Hey, you got to get rid
1:11:44
Speaker 1: of this guy. So Tony did a one tot eighty
1:11:48
Speaker 1: and he fired him. Under the guys that it came
1:11:50
Speaker 1: from above, And if that's their narrative that they're putting
1:11:54
Speaker 1: out there, I don't see how that does them any favors.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: To make Warner Brothers Discovery out to look like the
1:11:58
Speaker 1: bad guys here. I don't know for a fact which
1:12:01
Speaker 1: theory is correct. No one does, even if they tell
1:12:04
Speaker 1: you they do. No one does. No one knows. And
1:12:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure Tony Kahan will do his best Buddhist monk
1:12:09
Speaker 1: impression and he'll take a vow of silence like he
1:12:11
Speaker 1: does with everything else. I believe someone had it out
1:12:14
Speaker 1: for Trey Miguel and made sure those past comments killed
1:12:17
Speaker 1: any chance of him working for AAW. And that is
1:12:21
Speaker 1: very shitty now. So were the things that he said.
1:12:24
Speaker 1: I'm not excusing them, they were deplorable. If the decision
1:12:27
Speaker 1: really did come from someone at WBD, right, the ones
1:12:31
Speaker 1: paying AW hundreds of millions of dollars in media rights
1:12:34
Speaker 1: fees that they do not want this man on their TV.
1:12:38
Speaker 1: Tony could try to fight it, you know, he can
1:12:41
Speaker 1: ask why is there anything that can be done? Is
1:12:43
Speaker 1: there any sort of compromise here? But I mean, realistically,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: what else can he do, especially at a time when
1:12:50
Speaker 1: there's all of this uncertainty around the future of Warner
1:12:52
Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery and what might happen with AAW at the
1:12:55
Speaker 1: end of their deal. The last thing he wants to
1:12:58
Speaker 1: do is rock the boat and go to bat for
1:13:01
Speaker 1: fucking Tray Miguel, Like, is that really a hill he
1:13:05
Speaker 1: wants to die on? So it's at least plausible because
1:13:10
Speaker 1: we have seen this scenario play out before, And if
1:13:13
Speaker 1: it did come from above, what does that say about
1:13:17
Speaker 1: Aw's hiring practices? Like? Should he not be running these
1:13:21
Speaker 1: names pasted WBD first before he actually puts pen to
1:13:25
Speaker 1: paper and puts these people on his television to make
1:13:27
Speaker 1: sure they pass whatever kind of checks they need to do.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: Shouldn't there be a system in place for this? I mean,
1:13:33
Speaker 1: evidently not. You think he would have learned his lesson
1:13:36
Speaker 1: after the whole Andrade fiasco putting him on television and
1:13:40
Speaker 1: having him beat up Kenny Omega when he was still
1:13:42
Speaker 1: technically under contract to WWE. He hires all four of
1:13:48
Speaker 1: these guys and he starts promoting the group on TV.
1:13:50
Speaker 1: Did Tony not know about those past comments? I find
1:13:54
Speaker 1: that very hard to believe. If he did, why wouldn't
1:13:58
Speaker 1: he run this by them first to make sure that
1:14:00
Speaker 1: they're comfortable with it before signing them. That's what makes
1:14:03
Speaker 1: me very suspicious about this entire thing. So I think
1:14:07
Speaker 1: people absolutely have good reason to be skeptical about the
1:14:10
Speaker 1: excuse that's being given here. I just I don't think
1:14:13
Speaker 1: you can be speaking in absolutes about it. You can't
1:14:17
Speaker 1: because you don't know. But if it was Tony who
1:14:20
Speaker 1: made the call because someone who works for him got
1:14:23
Speaker 1: a you know, a bug up their ass and wanted
1:14:25
Speaker 1: this guy gone, then he should have stood his ground.
1:14:28
Speaker 1: I don't think the man should have lost his job
1:14:30
Speaker 1: over it. I don't. And it's shitty for him to
1:14:34
Speaker 1: have to see his friends all go to aw thinking, Hey,
1:14:36
Speaker 1: I'm going with them and they're all going to make
1:14:39
Speaker 1: more money, only to be the odd man out at
1:14:42
Speaker 1: the very last minute and have to go crawling back
1:14:44
Speaker 1: to the company. They did not want him in the
1:14:46
Speaker 1: first place, or at least they didn't want him enough
1:14:48
Speaker 1: to fight to resign him. Because Tray Miguel is already
1:14:53
Speaker 1: back in TNA. He showed up on Impact Thursday night
1:14:56
Speaker 1: as a surprise entrant in the Feast or Fired match.
1:15:00
Speaker 1: Evidently AMC has a different set of standards than Warner
1:15:03
Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery does. Tom Hannifin said that Miguel has re
1:15:07
Speaker 1: signed with the company, and he proceeded to pull down
1:15:10
Speaker 1: one of the four briefcases, which has either a shot
1:15:13
Speaker 1: at the TNA World title. Well, I mean, we know
1:15:16
Speaker 1: it's not that, because they already they already went and
1:15:19
Speaker 1: spoiled that for their own fans. I'll talk about that
1:15:22
Speaker 1: in a minute. But it could be a shot at
1:15:24
Speaker 1: the TNA International title, the TNA Tag team titles, or
1:15:28
Speaker 1: it could be a pink slip to be fired. And
1:15:32
Speaker 1: that fucking guy is going to be on suicide watch
1:15:34
Speaker 1: if he opens that briefcase and there's a pink slip
1:15:36
Speaker 1: in there after the week that he just had. I mean,
1:15:39
Speaker 1: can you even imagine he opens the briefcase up this
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Thursday only to find out he's been fired again. Hopefully
1:15:45
Speaker 1: he got himself a decent deal to re sign with them.
1:15:48
Speaker 1: I mean, the way people have been leaving that company lately,
1:15:50
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure. But whatever they re signed him for,
1:15:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's not what he would have been making
1:15:54
Speaker 1: in aw So. I mean, that's got a sting. So
1:15:59
Speaker 1: his break from wrestling did not last very long, and
1:16:02
Speaker 1: I'm glad he's at least gainfully employed again. Now, this
1:16:05
Speaker 1: is what he posted in the aftermath of all this.
1:16:08
Speaker 1: I planned it to step away from wrestling. After the
1:16:10
Speaker 1: week I went through, it was really hard on me
1:16:12
Speaker 1: mentally and emotionally. I didn't think I could do it anymore.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who had my back, especially TNA.
1:16:18
Speaker 1: I came very close to quitting. My heart was broken.
1:16:22
Speaker 1: I felt like wrestling hated me. To be quite honest,
1:16:24
Speaker 1: I hadn't felt a hurt or a loss like that
1:16:26
Speaker 1: in a very long time. I didn't answer calls or texts,
1:16:29
Speaker 1: and I spent a little over a week contemplating what's next.
1:16:32
Speaker 1: I felt like my dream died as quickly as it
1:16:35
Speaker 1: was realized. But it's in moments like this that God
1:16:38
Speaker 1: will show you how strong you actually are. But if
1:16:41
Speaker 1: it weren't for the support system that God has blessed
1:16:43
Speaker 1: me with, I don't know if I would have been
1:16:45
Speaker 1: able to turn that decision around. I'm not everyone's favorite wrestler.
1:16:48
Speaker 1: I don't strive to be. I strived to make a
1:16:51
Speaker 1: kid's dreams come true who had a very hard childhood
1:16:54
Speaker 1: and only ever wanted to be one thing, a pro wrestler.
1:16:57
Speaker 1: Words can't describe how eternally grateful I am for saving
1:17:01
Speaker 1: this dream for me and to the ones who encourage
1:17:03
Speaker 1: me to stick it out. I will forever be in
1:17:05
Speaker 1: debt to If you supported me through this, I love you.
1:17:08
Speaker 1: If you didn't, I still love you. There's no room
1:17:10
Speaker 1: in my heart for hate. Now with that being said,
1:17:13
Speaker 1: i have to show the world what I am made of,
1:17:15
Speaker 1: and I'm just thankful to still have that opportunity. Whether
1:17:19
Speaker 1: you have hate in your heart or just hate for
1:17:22
Speaker 1: one person online and you want to zing them back,
1:17:26
Speaker 1: you may post things and you go too far or worse,
1:17:30
Speaker 1: you show yourself for who you really are, right God knows.
1:17:34
Speaker 1: I've been disappointed by a lot of shit that wrestlers
1:17:36
Speaker 1: have done and said over the years, especially once I
1:17:38
Speaker 1: used to watch as a kid. I'm not sure which
1:17:41
Speaker 1: side of the fench train Miguel falls on. I don't
1:17:44
Speaker 1: know him well enough to say I take him at
1:17:46
Speaker 1: phase value that it's not a reflection of who he
1:17:49
Speaker 1: really is. But not everyone is going to be so forgiving,
1:17:53
Speaker 1: and comments like that may come back to haunt you
1:17:55
Speaker 1: and cost you a lot of money. So I did
1:17:59
Speaker 1: watch episode two of Impact on AMC and it was
1:18:02
Speaker 1: definitely an improvement from the first episode. But I mean,
1:18:06
Speaker 1: I think a test pattern would have been an improvement
1:18:08
Speaker 1: over that first show. Production wise, I thought it looked better.
1:18:11
Speaker 1: They opened with a little bit of a different shot.
1:18:13
Speaker 1: Tom Hanifin or Matt Raywall were standing ringside with the
1:18:16
Speaker 1: ring in the aisle right behind them, and they introduced
1:18:20
Speaker 1: TNA President Carlos Silva, only for Hanafin to ask him
1:18:24
Speaker 1: if he was proud of last week's debut on AMC,
1:18:28
Speaker 1: which had to be a rib on Silva, you know,
1:18:30
Speaker 1: forcing him to lie like that on camera. Then they
1:18:33
Speaker 1: opened with Cedric Alexander pinning Moose in what I thought
1:18:37
Speaker 1: was a good match, probably the biggest win of Alexander's
1:18:40
Speaker 1: TNA career so far, you know, looking at how they
1:18:43
Speaker 1: ended the show, this all tied into the big show
1:18:45
Speaker 1: closing angle, which I liked. Even if you don't love
1:18:48
Speaker 1: the angle that they did, I liked that they can
1:18:50
Speaker 1: at least tie things together like that. I liked the
1:18:53
Speaker 1: Mike Santana promo in the ring. It was something we
1:18:55
Speaker 1: didn't get to see on the premiere last week, was
1:18:58
Speaker 1: the Champion addressing his people. He's a great representative for
1:19:02
Speaker 1: that company and for that title. The elegance brand stuff
1:19:06
Speaker 1: is a drag on the show. Although it was better
1:19:08
Speaker 1: than what they did last week, and even better no
1:19:10
Speaker 1: Perez Hilton this week. Ash by Elegance had to vacate
1:19:14
Speaker 1: her title and step away from the ring a few
1:19:16
Speaker 1: months ago, if you remember, and it all sounded very bleak,
1:19:20
Speaker 1: like there was some sort of major medical issue that
1:19:22
Speaker 1: maybe forced her into an early retirement. But they shot
1:19:25
Speaker 1: an angle after Indy Hartwell's win over m By Elegance
1:19:29
Speaker 1: where it looked like Ash was about to split away
1:19:32
Speaker 1: from them. They were beating her up after the match
1:19:35
Speaker 1: Indy and Ash was trying to stop them and you know,
1:19:38
Speaker 1: baby face them, but it was all a swerve. And
1:19:40
Speaker 1: when the knockouts champion Lee Ying Lee ran out with
1:19:44
Speaker 1: Zia Brookside to even the odds, Ash attacked Lee and
1:19:50
Speaker 1: they're all still together. But the fact that she got
1:19:52
Speaker 1: physical and then she said she's back, she's like saying
1:19:55
Speaker 1: I'm back, I'm back. I take that to mean that
1:19:58
Speaker 1: she's cleared and whatever the issue was has been resolved.
1:20:00
Speaker 1: So that's nice to see. I don't want to ever
1:20:03
Speaker 1: see someone's career end that way. Then they had a
1:20:07
Speaker 1: Feast or Fired match, which is a TNA special. Now, look,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of it, it's a ridiculous concept,
1:20:13
Speaker 1: but I said last week. This show needs more TNA
1:20:16
Speaker 1: centric attractions, whether it's Ultimate X or whatever, something unique
1:20:19
Speaker 1: that they can do than nobody else does. Because it
1:20:22
Speaker 1: didn't feel like a TNA show last week. I said
1:20:25
Speaker 1: they have an identity issue. So they had the trusses
1:20:28
Speaker 1: with the four briefcases hanging in each corner. This is
1:20:30
Speaker 1: the match where Trey Miguel returned, Miguel, Eric Young, Steve Macklin,
1:20:35
Speaker 1: and Eddie Edwards. They all got briefcases. Now we wait
1:20:39
Speaker 1: until Thursday to find out what's inside those briefcases. Do
1:20:43
Speaker 1: they get a title shot of some kind or do
1:20:45
Speaker 1: they get fired. Trey Miguel is sweating bullets right now.
1:20:49
Speaker 1: I'll have more on this in a minute. They had
1:20:52
Speaker 1: some backstage segments. There was one in particular where this
1:20:55
Speaker 1: was really noticeable where Nick Nemeth was yelling at some
1:20:58
Speaker 1: guys for being marked and playing video game. One of
1:21:02
Speaker 1: the marks was Bde, who was a YouTuber turned wrestler
1:21:06
Speaker 1: that they recently signed. They never identified who the other
1:21:09
Speaker 1: guys were. They were just a bunch of random dudes.
1:21:11
Speaker 1: But Bde got up in Nema's face and the two
1:21:14
Speaker 1: of them are gonna end up having a match on
1:21:15
Speaker 1: TV this week, but it was hard to hear some
1:21:17
Speaker 1: of what they were saying because they had crowd noise.
1:21:20
Speaker 1: The crowd noise was up louder than the audio from
1:21:23
Speaker 1: inside the dressing room, so that's another production thing they
1:21:26
Speaker 1: need to fix, either eliminate the crowd noise from these
1:21:29
Speaker 1: segments altogether, or at least minimize it so that we
1:21:32
Speaker 1: can actually hear what's being said more clearly. Right, there
1:21:34
Speaker 1: was a similar issue. There was a promo in the
1:21:37
Speaker 1: back later from the Righteous after the main event where
1:21:40
Speaker 1: there was kind of a similar issue. Elena Black, the
1:21:45
Speaker 1: former Korra Jade, who debuted here last week. She did
1:21:48
Speaker 1: a short promo from the stage, and not a bad one,
1:21:51
Speaker 1: you know, as heel promos go. She gloated about being
1:21:55
Speaker 1: the only woman in the Knockouts division that matters because
1:21:57
Speaker 1: she got a million views in twenty four hours on
1:21:59
Speaker 1: Quote Socials. She's only on a one year deal with them.
1:22:05
Speaker 1: Daria Array, the former Sonya Deville, she revealed on Busted
1:22:07
Speaker 1: Open Radio that she's only got a six month deal
1:22:11
Speaker 1: with the company. So either talents don't want to commit
1:22:14
Speaker 1: long term to TNA with the hope of ending up
1:22:17
Speaker 1: in WWE, or aw or TNA is offering people short
1:22:21
Speaker 1: term deals to keep costs down. I feel like there's
1:22:24
Speaker 1: a little bit of both going on here. Mustapha Ali,
1:22:29
Speaker 1: he lost to Jeff Hardy in the main event. They
1:22:31
Speaker 1: had a good match. I get that Jeff is one
1:22:33
Speaker 1: of their two biggest stars. He and Matt are are
1:22:36
Speaker 1: the tag team champions, but I don't think he needed
1:22:38
Speaker 1: to be beating Ali. Yeah, Mustapha Ali is the best
1:22:41
Speaker 1: n ring performer on their roster. He's just the total
1:22:46
Speaker 1: package in terms of not only his work but his selling.
1:22:50
Speaker 1: I mean, he's the best they have. Losing to Jeff
1:22:53
Speaker 1: Hardy is not a killer, but I would want to
1:22:55
Speaker 1: protect him a little bit more. You know, he and
1:22:57
Speaker 1: his crew they lost on last week's show too, So
1:22:59
Speaker 1: then he come out here and he loses to Jeff
1:23:01
Speaker 1: Hardy and they actually close, not with the match that
1:23:05
Speaker 1: wasn't the true main event. They closed with an angle
1:23:08
Speaker 1: the reveal of the newest member of the System to
1:23:13
Speaker 1: replace the now retired JDC, who was there in the
1:23:16
Speaker 1: ring with them to introduce his replacement, Bear Bronson, as
1:23:20
Speaker 1: the newest member of the System. That Bear Bronson is
1:23:22
Speaker 1: hardly a major name to say for a big reveal
1:23:25
Speaker 1: like this in the show closing segment. I think he's
1:23:27
Speaker 1: had all of maybe two matches ever in TNA. His
1:23:30
Speaker 1: last match was a losing effort to Frankie Kazarian for
1:23:33
Speaker 1: the championship on Impact last month. I like Bear Bronson,
1:23:38
Speaker 1: He's a solid addition for the roster there. He came out,
1:23:42
Speaker 1: everybody hugged and then Eddie Edwards dropped and gave JDC
1:23:47
Speaker 1: a low blow, and Bear Bronson and Brian Myers they
1:23:51
Speaker 1: jumped Moose, Cedric Alexander, who beat Moose in the opener.
1:23:55
Speaker 1: He went out with a chair to fend them off,
1:23:57
Speaker 1: or so we thought. Actually nobody really thought that. He
1:24:00
Speaker 1: did exactly what most people probably thought he was here
1:24:03
Speaker 1: to do, which was hit Moose with a chair and
1:24:06
Speaker 1: turn heel. I don't know why you would shoot the
1:24:09
Speaker 1: same basic angle twice on the same show. We just
1:24:11
Speaker 1: saw the same thing earlier with Ashby Elegance, so I
1:24:14
Speaker 1: don't know why you would do that. But JDC and
1:24:17
Speaker 1: Moose they got beat up in all this, and there's
1:24:20
Speaker 1: a new system now with Eddie Edwards, Brian Myers, Bear
1:24:23
Speaker 1: Bronson and Cedric Alexander. It's not going to light the
1:24:27
Speaker 1: World on fire. But at least it's a big angle
1:24:29
Speaker 1: to close the show. It was a step up from
1:24:32
Speaker 1: last week. There's still work to be done, but it
1:24:36
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a TNA show without at least one lol
1:24:39
Speaker 1: TNA moment. People who were watching the show on the
1:24:42
Speaker 1: TNA Plus service, they got a little surprise, a little
1:24:45
Speaker 1: something extra when the show was over. Now, I don't
1:24:48
Speaker 1: think Impact is live again until March fifth. So on Thursday,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: they taped stuff for the next two weeks of TV
1:24:55
Speaker 1: and then they have an Impact taping I think on
1:24:58
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, which is a Saturday, So they'll probably take
1:25:02
Speaker 1: two more weeks of television there and then that'll get
1:25:05
Speaker 1: them to March fifth. But when the live show was
1:25:07
Speaker 1: over on Thursday, the audio feed continued on TNA Plus,
1:25:12
Speaker 1: so you could hear the audio, you could hear the commentary,
1:25:15
Speaker 1: you just couldn't see anything. And this happened. This was
1:25:17
Speaker 1: a good fifteen minutes after Impact went off the air,
1:25:22
Speaker 1: and we got some spoilers, So if you don't want
1:25:26
Speaker 1: any spoilers, you can skip ahead a few minutes. They
1:25:31
Speaker 1: announced the main event for their No Surrender pay per
1:25:35
Speaker 1: view on February thirteenth is going to be Mike Santana
1:25:38
Speaker 1: and Leon Slater taking on Nick Nemmath and Eddie Edwards,
1:25:43
Speaker 1: and it was revealed that Eddie Edwards is the one
1:25:46
Speaker 1: who pulled down the briefcase and feast Or Fired for
1:25:49
Speaker 1: a World Championship match. Now, there's also a storyline where
1:25:54
Speaker 1: dari Array encouraged Leon Slater to exchange his his X
1:26:00
Speaker 1: Division title for a world title shot the old option
1:26:03
Speaker 1: CE remember Options C that was introduced by Austin Airies
1:26:09
Speaker 1: many years ago. So the story is that everyone in
1:26:13
Speaker 1: that tag match on the thirteenth is going to be
1:26:15
Speaker 1: gunning for Mike Santana. I don't know if Leon Slater
1:26:18
Speaker 1: is actually going to go through with exchanging his title
1:26:20
Speaker 1: for a shot. He probably won't, but that's the story
1:26:23
Speaker 1: they're telling. After about fifteen minutes, someone realized, oh shit,
1:26:29
Speaker 1: the audio's going out, and they finally cut it off. Loltna, then,
1:26:37
Speaker 1: now and forever. So the world title briefcase is off
1:26:42
Speaker 1: the table as far as feast or Fire is concerned.
1:26:44
Speaker 1: If I had to venture a guess as to the
1:26:47
Speaker 1: other three, I'm gonna say tray me Gal gets an
1:26:51
Speaker 1: X Division title shot. Steve Macklin gets an international title
1:26:55
Speaker 1: shot and Eric Young gets fired. Those would be Mike Gaes.
1:27:00
Speaker 1: I don't know what the spoiler. I didn't read, if
1:27:02
Speaker 1: there were any other spoilers, I didn't even see them
1:27:04
Speaker 1: post it anywhere, so I don't know. I don't know
1:27:08
Speaker 1: anything else, but that would be my guess as to
1:27:10
Speaker 1: where those briefcases are going to end up. Tony Maglio
1:27:16
Speaker 1: had a story this week in The Hollywood Reporter titled
1:27:19
Speaker 1: aw not going to Netflix and Warner Brothers deal. I'm
1:27:25
Speaker 1: not aware of anyone actually thinking they were going to Netflix.
1:27:28
Speaker 1: I mean, that'd be like me saying, solo Monster not
1:27:30
Speaker 1: managing the New York Mets next season. Yeah, no, shit,
1:27:35
Speaker 1: not that i'd want the job. But I don't think
1:27:37
Speaker 1: anyone even had that as a thought in their head.
1:27:41
Speaker 1: But this is what the story says. In the early
1:27:43
Speaker 1: hours of Tuesday, January twentieth, Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery
1:27:47
Speaker 1: jointly filed a five hundred and nineteen page proxy statement
1:27:50
Speaker 1: with the latest update to their Hollywood Shaking deal. Basically,
1:27:54
Speaker 1: Netflix revised its offer for Warner Brothers Studios streaming in
1:27:57
Speaker 1: linear HBO to an all cash arrangement, just like rival
1:28:02
Speaker 1: paramounts losing proposition. Buried in the lengthy filing were some
1:28:06
Speaker 1: random nuggets about the landing spot for certain secondary WB rights,
1:28:11
Speaker 1: like the destination for Turner Classic movies. Sports rights will
1:28:14
Speaker 1: be especially mobile, and you can double that generalization for
1:28:18
Speaker 1: international markets. Though neither the phrase All Elite Wrestling nor
1:28:22
Speaker 1: the acronym AEW appeared once in the proxy, page fifty
1:28:27
Speaker 1: three foretold the future of the WWE competitor, Really, it
1:28:31
Speaker 1: was the absence of the words in the letters that
1:28:33
Speaker 1: informed some of this reporting. Following the close the clothes
1:28:38
Speaker 1: rather of the Netflix WB deal, All Elite Wrestling rights
1:28:41
Speaker 1: will extensibly remain with a Discovery aka the Global Linear
1:28:46
Speaker 1: Networks Company, though the league's weekly series and pay per
1:28:49
Speaker 1: view events are expected to continue streaming on HBO Max
1:28:52
Speaker 1: throughout the remainder of aw's current contract. AW'STV deal is
1:28:57
Speaker 1: tied to the basic cable channels TNT and TBS and
1:29:00
Speaker 1: expires at the end of twenty twenty seven or twenty
1:29:02
Speaker 1: twenty eight, depending on what becomes of the contract's fourth
1:29:05
Speaker 1: year option. At that time, AAW programming is likely to
1:29:09
Speaker 1: leave HBO Max and enjoining the upcoming Turner Sports streaming app.
1:29:14
Speaker 1: Of course, two or three years is an eternity in
1:29:16
Speaker 1: the current media landscape, and so much can change within
1:29:19
Speaker 1: that timeframe. There's even the possibility of a non exclusive
1:29:23
Speaker 1: arrangement in which both HBO Max and Turner Sports stream
1:29:27
Speaker 1: AW events. Perhaps the former gets the pay per views
1:29:30
Speaker 1: and maybe the latter gets the episodic TV shows, though
1:29:33
Speaker 1: WBD and AW will never say this out loud because
1:29:36
Speaker 1: at a less than ten percent stake, they don't legally
1:29:39
Speaker 1: have to. WBD owns a minority position in the ladder.
1:29:43
Speaker 1: That position will remain with the Global Linear Networks piece
1:29:46
Speaker 1: following the split and the close of the Warner Brothers
1:29:49
Speaker 1: sale to Netflix. All ELI Wrestling is majority owned by
1:29:53
Speaker 1: Tony Kahn, the son of Jacksonville Jaguars billionaire owner Shad Khan.
1:29:57
Speaker 1: Complicating matters further, AW is not tech chnically on the
1:30:00
Speaker 1: sports side of Warner Brothers Discovery. It has always been
1:30:04
Speaker 1: considered a piece of wbd's entertainment division, save its PR servicing,
1:30:09
Speaker 1: which is handled by Turner's sports communications team. Assuming HBO
1:30:13
Speaker 1: Max still exists as a standalone service and is not
1:30:18
Speaker 1: fully integrated into the Netflix app. At the expiration of
1:30:21
Speaker 1: Turner's AW deal, it likely won't put up much of
1:30:24
Speaker 1: a fight to keep AW. It stands to reason that Netflix,
1:30:28
Speaker 1: the home of WWE's Monday Night Raw in the US
1:30:31
Speaker 1: and the promotion's premium live events outside the US, has
1:30:35
Speaker 1: little need for AW, and should Netflix integrate HBO Max
1:30:39
Speaker 1: into its own service, it may not even be able
1:30:42
Speaker 1: to carry AW programming. Though unconfirmed, it is believed that
1:30:46
Speaker 1: WWE's parent company TKO incorporated a noncompete clause in its
1:30:51
Speaker 1: deal with Netflix. So on the point about Warner Brothers
1:30:58
Speaker 1: Discovery owning a minority steak in the company, this is
1:31:01
Speaker 1: not the first time that we've heard that. That has
1:31:04
Speaker 1: been rumored for years. It's just never been confirmed. In
1:31:08
Speaker 1: October of twenty twenty four, right, this is right after
1:31:11
Speaker 1: AAW renewed its media rightes deal with them, the Sports
1:31:16
Speaker 1: Business Journal said the same thing, that Warner had an
1:31:19
Speaker 1: ownership steak in AAW and when asked about it in
1:31:23
Speaker 1: the past, Tony Kahan has neither confirmed nor denied it,
1:31:27
Speaker 1: which he could easily do. I mean, if there was
1:31:29
Speaker 1: no truth to it whatsoever, he could simply deny it
1:31:31
Speaker 1: and say it's fake news. Right, that it's not true,
1:31:35
Speaker 1: And he's never done that. Instead, he declared that I
1:31:39
Speaker 1: am the controlling owner with one hundred percent voting power.
1:31:43
Speaker 1: So that tells me they've got a minority steak in
1:31:45
Speaker 1: AAW and it being less than ten percent makes sense
1:31:48
Speaker 1: because then they don't need to report it publicly. So
1:31:51
Speaker 1: I believe that I believe that part is true. The
1:31:55
Speaker 1: rest of this doesn't really tell us anything that we
1:31:57
Speaker 1: didn't already know or suspect, even though some people online
1:32:00
Speaker 1: we're making this out to be like some groundbreaking piece
1:32:03
Speaker 1: of investigative journalism. The situation is this AW is locked
1:32:09
Speaker 1: into its media rights deal through twenty twenty seven, with
1:32:13
Speaker 1: the option for WBD to pick them up for another
1:32:16
Speaker 1: year after that, and during that time they're going to
1:32:19
Speaker 1: be staying on HBO Max because of existing contracts. Now,
1:32:22
Speaker 1: at that point, AW could shift over to the new
1:32:27
Speaker 1: Turner sports streaming app it's going to be launching next
1:32:30
Speaker 1: year after Discovery splits off from WBD. Right now, like
1:32:34
Speaker 1: I watch Dynamite each week on HBO Max and it
1:32:39
Speaker 1: like to find Dynamite, I need to go to the
1:32:41
Speaker 1: sports tab. It's not even on the main page anymore.
1:32:44
Speaker 1: It used to be I have to I used to
1:32:45
Speaker 1: have to scroll down the main page. It's not even
1:32:47
Speaker 1: there anymore. I got to click on the sports tab
1:32:49
Speaker 1: and then boom, it says live, and I click it
1:32:51
Speaker 1: and I can watch. So whatever they consider them internally
1:32:55
Speaker 1: on HBO Max, they consider them sports because that's where
1:32:59
Speaker 1: the show is. Low Cad. Now in the article here
1:33:02
Speaker 1: you got Maglio. He surmises that should Netflix at some
1:33:06
Speaker 1: point shoot to integrate HBO Max into its own service,
1:33:09
Speaker 1: AW would be without a streaming home because again, there's
1:33:12
Speaker 1: little chance of Netflix picking them up, especially if there's
1:33:14
Speaker 1: an exclusivity clause with WWE. So at that point, Tony
1:33:18
Speaker 1: Kam would need to find a new streaming partner. Amazon
1:33:22
Speaker 1: could very well be a landing spot for them. I
1:33:24
Speaker 1: think there's a very good chance of that. WWE and
1:33:27
Speaker 1: TKO Obviously they're doing business with most everybody else, which
1:33:31
Speaker 1: you know, may limit their options. But it's not as
1:33:33
Speaker 1: if they don't have any options. But again, these are
1:33:36
Speaker 1: all things that we've already known. We've already been talking
1:33:39
Speaker 1: about this really since the news broke that Warner was
1:33:43
Speaker 1: looking to sell. So where are we. We're exactly where
1:33:47
Speaker 1: we were a week ago before this article got published.
1:33:51
Speaker 1: AW is safe for a while longer, and we just
1:33:53
Speaker 1: have to see how things shake out with Netflix and
1:33:55
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery. And of course you still have the
1:33:59
Speaker 1: embarrassment that is Paramount Paramount sky Dance, which is not
1:34:03
Speaker 1: giving up yet on the idea that the Netflix deal
1:34:05
Speaker 1: will either fall apart or it won't be approved. They
1:34:08
Speaker 1: seem to think that European regulators are going to block
1:34:11
Speaker 1: the deal, given how strict they've been about big tech consolidation.
1:34:15
Speaker 1: If they think the Europeans are going to block the
1:34:17
Speaker 1: Netflix deal, I don't know what makes them think that
1:34:19
Speaker 1: they would allow a Paramount deal. This is probably an't
1:34:22
Speaker 1: even bigger chance of them blocking them from making a deal.
1:34:26
Speaker 1: I think the Netflix deal goes through, but you know,
1:34:29
Speaker 1: they may have to make some concessions to get them
1:34:31
Speaker 1: to approve it. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers Discovery this week said
1:34:36
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of its shareholders have rejected Quote Paramount's
1:34:42
Speaker 1: inferior scheme. Their board has already rejected Paramount's offers eight times,
1:34:51
Speaker 1: and they still refuse to increase their offer. Unless they
1:34:55
Speaker 1: do that, this is going nowhere for them. If they
1:34:58
Speaker 1: increase their offer, then things might get a little more interesting.
1:35:02
Speaker 1: But it's the same fucking offer. Imagine being rejected eight times.
1:35:07
Speaker 1: You go up to the same girl and you ask
1:35:09
Speaker 1: her out on a date, and she rejects you, and
1:35:11
Speaker 1: you go back up to her seven more times, hoping
1:35:13
Speaker 1: that her answer is going to be different. What makes
1:35:16
Speaker 1: you expect that her answer is going to be any
1:35:17
Speaker 1: different than it was the first time. But that's it.
1:35:22
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the extent of the aw news this week,
1:35:24
Speaker 1: that the Tray Miguel stuff. I wish I had more
1:35:27
Speaker 1: for you, But when you get a show like the
1:35:28
Speaker 1: one we had on Wednesday, where it's, you know, a
1:35:30
Speaker 1: bunch of matches and not a lot of story progression,
1:35:33
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot to really talk about that
1:35:35
Speaker 1: I didn't already cover in the Wednesday review. I thought
1:35:37
Speaker 1: Kevin Knight looked great in the main event against Wart Strickland,
1:35:40
Speaker 1: but he lost and so did Speedball. So two thirds
1:35:44
Speaker 1: of the brand new trios champions were booked to lose
1:35:49
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. That should not happen, and Brody King was
1:35:53
Speaker 1: picking a fight with MJF who was out there scouting
1:35:56
Speaker 1: all the opposition all night long for his title, which
1:35:59
Speaker 1: I've already discussed this. I like the fact that They've
1:36:01
Speaker 1: set up multiple challengers for him. But you know, we
1:36:04
Speaker 1: already know Hangman is coming for the Bell, We know
1:36:07
Speaker 1: Swerve is coming for him, we know Samoa Joe and
1:36:10
Speaker 1: Kenny Omega are coming for him, you know. But nothing
1:36:13
Speaker 1: else really happened on Wednesday. They need to find a
1:36:16
Speaker 1: better balance this week with the in ring and the
1:36:17
Speaker 1: out of the ring stuff. Otherwise it's just a bunch
1:36:20
Speaker 1: of moves and barbed wire boards. Dow on TV this Wednesday,
1:36:25
Speaker 1: they're doing Swerve Strickland against Andrade. Chris Statlander is defending
1:36:29
Speaker 1: her AW Women's World title against tecla. FTR is putting
1:36:33
Speaker 1: their tag team titles on the line against Jake Doyle
1:36:36
Speaker 1: and Mark Davis of the Kallis Family, and Mark Briscoe,
1:36:40
Speaker 1: who was supposed to defend his TNT championship on Collision
1:36:43
Speaker 1: last night, but they had to cancel that taping in
1:36:46
Speaker 1: Texas due to bad weather, so they taped Collision after
1:36:50
Speaker 1: Dynamite instead, But I guess they left this match out.
1:36:52
Speaker 1: So on Wednesday we're getting Mark brisco defending the TNT
1:36:57
Speaker 1: title on TBS against l Clone. So those are the
1:37:03
Speaker 1: matches that are set up for Dynamite on Wednesday and
1:37:08
Speaker 1: some other news and notes real quick here. Former WWE
1:37:11
Speaker 1: star wild Man, Mark Merrow or Johnny B. Bad in
1:37:15
Speaker 1: WCW if that's more in your lane, tweeted out the
1:37:19
Speaker 1: following on Wednesday. I thought was kind of interesting. He
1:37:22
Speaker 1: tweeted this out along with an old royalty statement that
1:37:25
Speaker 1: he received from WWE in December of twenty nineteen. He
1:37:29
Speaker 1: basically he's been going through old wrestling memorabilia that he's
1:37:33
Speaker 1: looking to sell. I know. He posted a copy of
1:37:36
Speaker 1: the guaranteed contract he signed with WWE in nineteen ninety
1:37:39
Speaker 1: six and a copy of the letter from Linda McMahon
1:37:42
Speaker 1: talking about his fifty thousand dollars signing bonus. So, I mean,
1:37:46
Speaker 1: if you're interested in buying any of this stuff, you
1:37:48
Speaker 1: could just email him directly. Merrow Mark. That's Mark with
1:37:52
Speaker 1: a C. Merrow mark at yahoo dot com. But with
1:37:57
Speaker 1: his royalty statement, he posted this. He said, I've been
1:38:01
Speaker 1: asked many times what wrestlers actually make in royalties from
1:38:05
Speaker 1: the WWE, So let me give you a real example.
1:38:08
Speaker 1: I left the WWE years ago, and more than twenty
1:38:11
Speaker 1: years later, in twenty nineteen, I came across an old
1:38:14
Speaker 1: royalty statement when you look at how much money many
1:38:17
Speaker 1: wrestlers helped generate versus how little they are actually paid.
1:38:21
Speaker 1: It's honestly hard to believe on this statement, Even after
1:38:24
Speaker 1: being out of wrestling for over two decades, I was
1:38:27
Speaker 1: still partly responsible for thirty nine thousand, five hundred and
1:38:31
Speaker 1: ninety dollars and eighty one cents in revenue. My royalty
1:38:35
Speaker 1: payment for that seventy one dollars and forty seven cents.
1:38:39
Speaker 1: That's the reality for a lot of wrestlers. We helped
1:38:42
Speaker 1: build the brand, the characters, and the moments that fans
1:38:45
Speaker 1: still watch today, yet the compensation rarely reflects the value
1:38:49
Speaker 1: that was created. Now, that statement includes a breakdown of
1:38:54
Speaker 1: all of the DBDs that he would have been included in,
1:38:58
Speaker 1: as like an Owen Hart DVD's listed on there and
1:39:00
Speaker 1: a bunch of other ones, and he could be on there.
1:39:03
Speaker 1: I mean it could be a single match, it could
1:39:05
Speaker 1: be I mean, he could be featured on there for
1:39:07
Speaker 1: ten seconds, you know, on a single DVD. I'm not
1:39:09
Speaker 1: sure what the formula is that they used to break
1:39:11
Speaker 1: these things down, but I mean, and look, I'm not
1:39:14
Speaker 1: trying to be a dick here, but seventy one dollars
1:39:17
Speaker 1: sounds about right. I mean for what wild Man Mark
1:39:20
Speaker 1: Merrow should probably be paid for the one match he
1:39:23
Speaker 1: may have, you know, showed up in thirty years ago.
1:39:27
Speaker 1: You know. Now, a few months ago, Kevin Nash on
1:39:29
Speaker 1: his podcast talked about getting a royalty check that was
1:39:32
Speaker 1: half of what it should have been. The first thing
1:39:35
Speaker 1: he did was he picked up the phone and called
1:39:37
Speaker 1: up Sean Waltman and he didn't even say anything. As
1:39:41
Speaker 1: soon as Waltman got the call, he just said to Nash,
1:39:43
Speaker 1: you got your royalty check, huh, because he was pissed.
1:39:47
Speaker 1: And Nash said, the statements used to be itemized, which
1:39:51
Speaker 1: is probably the way it was in the Marrow one
1:39:55
Speaker 1: and the Marrow one. It's all itemized as far as
1:39:57
Speaker 1: you know what makes you know this much money and
1:39:59
Speaker 1: that much money. But that was in twenty nineteen, so
1:40:02
Speaker 1: they're under new ownership now now it's TKO crunching those
1:40:07
Speaker 1: numbers and sending those statements out. So if there's no
1:40:11
Speaker 1: more itemized breakdowns, then you don't know what earned what.
1:40:14
Speaker 1: You're just taking things at face value that you're being
1:40:16
Speaker 1: compensated appropriately. But Nash said that you know, Paul Paul
1:40:21
Speaker 1: is his buddy, and he's not gonna he's not gonna
1:40:24
Speaker 1: make any waves so long as his buddy is in charge,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: so he just rolls with it. But I mean, if
1:40:29
Speaker 1: these guys aren't getting itemized breakdowns anymore, I would want
1:40:33
Speaker 1: to know how they're coming to those calculations. I would
1:40:35
Speaker 1: at least pick up the phone and try to talk
1:40:37
Speaker 1: to somebody there. I would imagine, though, that Kevin Nash
1:40:40
Speaker 1: is getting more in royalties than wild Man Mark Merrow is,
1:40:44
Speaker 1: as he should. All right, let's take some mailbag questions.
1:40:49
Speaker 1: Says the snow. It's my air conditioner out something. It's
1:40:53
Speaker 1: really coming down. I haven't even looked out the window
1:40:56
Speaker 1: in the last few hours. I don't even I don't
1:40:57
Speaker 1: even want to see what it looks like outside. It's
1:41:00
Speaker 1: gonna be so bad. It's gonna be so bad. But
1:41:04
Speaker 1: you can email me the Solamaster at gmail dot com.
1:41:06
Speaker 1: Please include your name of where you are from. We'll
1:41:09
Speaker 1: start with Kine from Indiana, who was actually our pale
1:41:13
Speaker 1: Ragnarok from YouTube. I've always been a fan of horror
1:41:17
Speaker 1: and occult themes in my media, from games, books, and movies.
1:41:20
Speaker 1: When I first got into wrestling as a kid, the
1:41:22
Speaker 1: Undertaker and Kane were my favorites. I enjoyed the teleportation
1:41:26
Speaker 1: in and out of the ring by cutting the lights off,
1:41:29
Speaker 1: a trend that continued with Bray White and the Wyatt
1:41:31
Speaker 1: family and the House of Black. I was also a
1:41:34
Speaker 1: big fan of the Firefly Funhouse segments and the stuff
1:41:36
Speaker 1: that Bray was doing with the puppets at the time. However,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: one incident with Bray's character did not gel with me,
1:41:43
Speaker 1: and that was him stealing the powers from Cain and
1:41:45
Speaker 1: the Undertaker and using them to conjure lightning. Call it
1:41:49
Speaker 1: getting older, call it a bridge too far, but it
1:41:52
Speaker 1: seemed a bit hokey to me. That seemed a bit hokey. Tea.
1:41:57
Speaker 1: Not everything else you just described that seemed hokey to you,
1:42:02
Speaker 1: he said, with the Wyatt Six being a more grounded
1:42:04
Speaker 1: and realistic take on the whys of the Wyatt mythos,
1:42:08
Speaker 1: less teleportation and being possessed by cult leaders and more
1:42:11
Speaker 1: just outcasts and asylum patients running a muck. My question
1:42:16
Speaker 1: is do you believe there is a place in wrestling
1:42:18
Speaker 1: in the modern day for the supernatural gimmicks and characters
1:42:21
Speaker 1: when presented a certain way, or is that a production
1:42:25
Speaker 1: product rather of a bygone era. Well, I think the
1:42:29
Speaker 1: keywords there are presented in a certain way. I do
1:42:32
Speaker 1: think that there's room for some of that, but I
1:42:36
Speaker 1: think it needs to be kept to a minimum. I
1:42:37
Speaker 1: don't think it's something that should be exploited where we
1:42:41
Speaker 1: have multiple characters turning lights off and shooting fireballs out
1:42:45
Speaker 1: of their fingertips and stuff like that. I think it's doable,
1:42:49
Speaker 1: but you got to have the right character. You really
1:42:52
Speaker 1: need the right person for it. But you know, look,
1:42:55
Speaker 1: it's not thirty years ago, it's not forty years ago
1:42:58
Speaker 1: where that stuff was kind of novel, you know, like
1:43:00
Speaker 1: in WWE, And so I don't think this is more
1:43:04
Speaker 1: of a reality based there. I don't think that it's
1:43:06
Speaker 1: something that should be done but for maybe one person,
1:43:11
Speaker 1: you know. And then you look at the y at
1:43:12
Speaker 1: six right now, Yeah, I mean they're more grounded in reality.
1:43:14
Speaker 1: But they're not exactly light in the world on fire either,
1:43:17
Speaker 1: So I mean you could be more reality based and
1:43:20
Speaker 1: grounded in reality. That doesn't mean it's going to necessarily
1:43:23
Speaker 1: be presented in a great way. But yeah, I think
1:43:26
Speaker 1: with the right person it could work. It could work.
1:43:29
Speaker 1: That person can get over and George from Japan, our
1:43:34
Speaker 1: friend number one almost Sapien from YouTube. Right, So, how
1:43:37
Speaker 1: do you think Finn Balor's career would have been different
1:43:40
Speaker 1: if he had not been injured by Seth Rollins and
1:43:42
Speaker 1: kept the undisputed time. Well, it was the Universal time,
1:43:46
Speaker 1: just to be just to be a nerd here, it
1:43:49
Speaker 1: was actually the union. He was the first ever Universal champion,
1:43:53
Speaker 1: he said. Would he have been able to have the
1:43:55
Speaker 1: same level of success as Seth Rollins or would he
1:43:57
Speaker 1: have been fed to Goldberg like Kevin O was and
1:44:00
Speaker 1: never gotten near the main events scene. Ever, again, I
1:44:04
Speaker 1: don't think his career would have been radically different than
1:44:06
Speaker 1: the way it ended up. Honestly, he was never especially
1:44:09
Speaker 1: under Vince McMahon. He was never going to be booked
1:44:13
Speaker 1: as a top guy. That was not gonna happen. It
1:44:17
Speaker 1: would have been Roman Reigns, it would have been brock Lesnar,
1:44:19
Speaker 1: it would have been Bill Goldberg, it would have been
1:44:21
Speaker 1: Seth Rollins, it would have been braun stroman like. It
1:44:23
Speaker 1: would have been guys like that. Balor would not have
1:44:26
Speaker 1: been the Universal Champion long enough for Bill Goldberg to
1:44:30
Speaker 1: beat him. I think they would have transitioned that title
1:44:33
Speaker 1: from him to a heel for that heel to then
1:44:35
Speaker 1: drop it to Goldberg if they wanted Goldberg going into
1:44:38
Speaker 1: WrestleMania as the champion, I don't think they would have
1:44:41
Speaker 1: had Goldberg beating Finn Balor for it like as as
1:44:45
Speaker 1: upset as people were that he beat Owens for it
1:44:48
Speaker 1: in like twenty seconds. Owens was still a heel and
1:44:52
Speaker 1: it got a pop when he won the belt. Having
1:44:54
Speaker 1: him beat Balor for it as a babyface that would
1:44:56
Speaker 1: have backfired on them, So I don't think they would
1:44:58
Speaker 1: have done that, But I think Baaler would mo Us
1:45:00
Speaker 1: be in the same Spoties and now Sean from Wollongong, Australia.
1:45:07
Speaker 1: I've been rewatching a lot of Royal Rumbles and noticed
1:45:09
Speaker 1: how the newer stages use much longer ramps. By the time,
1:45:12
Speaker 1: well yeah, because they're doing mostly baseball stadiums. Now By
1:45:16
Speaker 1: the time some wrestlers reach the ring, it's almost time
1:45:19
Speaker 1: for the next entrant, which really hurts the flow. Shorter
1:45:22
Speaker 1: ramps like two thousand and eight and twenty ten worked
1:45:25
Speaker 1: much better. Faster entrances meant the wrestler who just entered
1:45:28
Speaker 1: actually had time to make an impact hit a few moves,
1:45:31
Speaker 1: have a quick showdown, create a moment, more action, less
1:45:34
Speaker 1: dead time. Curious what your take is on the modern
1:45:37
Speaker 1: long rams and whether they take away from what makes
1:45:40
Speaker 1: the rumble fun. Yeah, I mean, I see your point.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: I don't think they take away from the fun of
1:45:45
Speaker 1: the rumble. You're still gonna get those moments you'll notice,
1:45:48
Speaker 1: and I like, I think back to last year, they
1:45:52
Speaker 1: run to the ring now because the ramps or the
1:45:56
Speaker 1: aisles they are so long. They just run, so it's
1:46:00
Speaker 1: not like everyone is taking their sweet time coming down
1:46:03
Speaker 1: to the ring. They may walk out, but then they
1:46:04
Speaker 1: end up running to the ring anyway, So I don't
1:46:07
Speaker 1: think it makes that much of a difference. I mean,
1:46:09
Speaker 1: I see your point. I missed that short aisle in
1:46:12
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden that's not there anymore, by the way,
1:46:15
Speaker 1: they got rid of it. But yeah, I mean, it
1:46:18
Speaker 1: doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the Rumbles. Christian from
1:46:23
Speaker 1: Orange County, California. I'm a huge fan of the show.
1:46:26
Speaker 1: I've been listening to it every week for over ten
1:46:30
Speaker 1: plus years. What are your thoughts or personal experiences with
1:46:33
Speaker 1: watching nineties All Japan Pro Wrestling and two thousands Pro wrestling. Noah,
1:46:40
Speaker 1: I recently have been watching a ton of their Triple
1:46:42
Speaker 1: Crown title matches with Misawa, Kobashi, Kawata, Vader, Stan Hansen, etc.
1:46:48
Speaker 1: And also watching a ton of GHC Championship matches from
1:46:51
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling Noah. In terms of match quality, I truly
1:46:54
Speaker 1: believe this era has had the most incredible matches in
1:46:57
Speaker 1: the history of professional wrestling that every fan should watch
1:47:01
Speaker 1: one day. Well, I'll tell you this. I mean, those
1:47:05
Speaker 1: Kolbashi and Misawa matches are legendary. I didn't see them
1:47:10
Speaker 1: until I was much older because I had no exposure
1:47:12
Speaker 1: to any of that stuff when I was younger. I mean,
1:47:14
Speaker 1: I wasn't tape trading for all the All Japan stuff
1:47:18
Speaker 1: or the Noah stuff. It's you know, it's that Japanese
1:47:21
Speaker 1: strong style. It's a matter of personal taste. Some people
1:47:25
Speaker 1: don't like it. They think it's too stiff. They prefer
1:47:28
Speaker 1: a little more finesse in their wrestling, or more story
1:47:31
Speaker 1: based stuff like they would see on WWF for WCW.
1:47:35
Speaker 1: Because I grew up watching the weekly shows, right, I
1:47:38
Speaker 1: don't think there were weekly All Japan shows or weekly
1:47:41
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling Noah shows. You know, there's nothing episodic. It's
1:47:45
Speaker 1: just a completely different type of wrestling, but I liked it.
1:47:49
Speaker 1: I mean Vader. You mentioned Vader. Vader had a nice
1:47:52
Speaker 1: career resurgence in Japan after he left WWE in ninety eight,
1:47:56
Speaker 1: and it was nice to see after the terrible that
1:48:00
Speaker 1: his run ended there, the way they treated him. They
1:48:03
Speaker 1: treated him like fucking garbage on his way out, and
1:48:06
Speaker 1: he went out on pay per view ones and literally
1:48:08
Speaker 1: called himself a fat piece of shit on camera, and
1:48:12
Speaker 1: they turned him into a jobber. He went from jobber
1:48:17
Speaker 1: to triple Crown champion in the span I think of
1:48:19
Speaker 1: less than a year. Like if you only watched WWF
1:48:23
Speaker 1: Vader and never saw Japan Vader, do yourself a favor.
1:48:26
Speaker 1: Go find some of those matches. David from Allantown, My
1:48:33
Speaker 1: question is about Razor Ramone. I've been a wrestling fan
1:48:37
Speaker 1: since the eighties, and honestly, Razor Ramone was the first
1:48:40
Speaker 1: truly cool wrestler I ever saw. Before him, babyfaces felt
1:48:44
Speaker 1: cheesy and pandering, and heels were over the top movie villains.
1:48:48
Speaker 1: Razor was different. He didn't pander, he wasn't trying to
1:48:51
Speaker 1: be liked. He was just cool. The music, the gear,
1:48:55
Speaker 1: the chains, the toothpick, the swagger. He was a bad guy,
1:48:59
Speaker 1: but the crowd loved him anyway. To me, he felt
1:49:01
Speaker 1: more authentic than anyone else at the time. Even when
1:49:04
Speaker 1: Brett Sean and Diesel were on top, Razor still got
1:49:07
Speaker 1: massive reactions, sometimes the biggest of the night. I've heard
1:49:11
Speaker 1: over the years that Razor was supposed to be WWF
1:49:13
Speaker 1: champion at one point, possibly even over Diesel, but that
1:49:16
Speaker 1: he wasn't ready, or that Vince didn't trust him enough.
1:49:18
Speaker 1: Can you explain the real story behind that? Why did
1:49:21
Speaker 1: Razor never win the world title despite being one of
1:49:24
Speaker 1: the most over characters of that era. I've never seen
1:49:29
Speaker 1: it confirmed by any legitimate source, So I've never heard
1:49:33
Speaker 1: that story that he was supposed to win the WWF title.
1:49:36
Speaker 1: I don't believe that to be true. But I mean,
1:49:39
Speaker 1: Razor Ramon was cool. You're right on that. I mean,
1:49:42
Speaker 1: people these days they talk about aura. Oh, this guy
1:49:45
Speaker 1: has aura. He's aura farming when he comes out, right,
1:49:48
Speaker 1: this guy he had aura when he would walk out
1:49:52
Speaker 1: that Could he have held the world title and gotten
1:49:54
Speaker 1: a run with it, sure, but I think it was
1:49:56
Speaker 1: a combination of two things. For one, Vince already had
1:49:59
Speaker 1: his world champion. He had that belt on Diesel for
1:50:01
Speaker 1: a year, and then he had Brett Hart and he
1:50:05
Speaker 1: wanted to get the belt onto Sean Michaels, right, he
1:50:08
Speaker 1: was next in line. By the time Sean got the belt,
1:50:11
Speaker 1: Razor was already out the door to WCW, like the
1:50:15
Speaker 1: decision had already been made that he was leaving. So
1:50:19
Speaker 1: if the circumstances were different, if one or two of
1:50:22
Speaker 1: them went down with an injury or something like that,
1:50:26
Speaker 1: I think next up on the list would have been
1:50:28
Speaker 1: Undertaker and then Razor Ramone. Now the other thing is,
1:50:32
Speaker 1: by all accounts, Scott Hall. He liked to have a
1:50:35
Speaker 1: little too much fun outside the ring, so did Shawn
1:50:38
Speaker 1: Michaels back then, but he got away with it. Brett
1:50:42
Speaker 1: Hart would be very happy to tell you why he
1:50:44
Speaker 1: thinks that is. But as the years went on before
1:50:47
Speaker 1: he left for WCW, they probably didn't see him as
1:50:49
Speaker 1: someone who was reliable enough to put their world title on.
1:50:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was part of it. Jesse from Dallas, Texas,
1:51:00
Speaker 1: another favorite podcaster of mine, good mic work. Shout out
1:51:04
Speaker 1: to Greg was asked was asked this on his WrestleMania
1:51:08
Speaker 1: Q and A a few years ago. But what do
1:51:10
Speaker 1: you think is the best overall WrestleMania, meaning not your
1:51:15
Speaker 1: personal favorite, but what you think is the best Mania
1:51:18
Speaker 1: in terms of star power, build, presentation, and quality. Also
1:51:24
Speaker 1: buy or sell on these two grunge albums from the nineties,
1:51:27
Speaker 1: Facelift by Alison Chains or Nirvana's never Mind never Mind
1:51:33
Speaker 1: by on Nevermind in the Cell on Facelift. In terms
1:51:38
Speaker 1: of Mania, I mean, if you're going off star power,
1:51:43
Speaker 1: I mean, look, there's a case to be made for
1:51:44
Speaker 1: the first one. Honestly. I mean, you got Muhammad Ali
1:51:47
Speaker 1: on that fucking show. You got Muhammad Ali, mister T
1:51:50
Speaker 1: and Cindi Lauper, and then you got Hulk Hogan, you
1:51:53
Speaker 1: got Roddy Piper, you got Andre the Giant Bruno. Sam
1:51:57
Speaker 1: Martino was there in his son's corner, and for that
1:52:01
Speaker 1: time period, they really made it feel like a happening
1:52:04
Speaker 1: that night, like it wasn't just another Madison Square Garden show,
1:52:07
Speaker 1: because back then they were running Madison Square Garden basically
1:52:09
Speaker 1: every month. So I'm just saying you can make an
1:52:12
Speaker 1: argument for the first one. For me, nineteen was probably
1:52:18
Speaker 1: the one that had the most names. I mean, look
1:52:21
Speaker 1: who was on that card, Shawn Michaels, It was his
1:52:23
Speaker 1: first match back at WrestleMania in five years against Chris Jericho.
1:52:28
Speaker 1: He had Hulk Hogan against Vince McMahon. He had Stone
1:52:31
Speaker 1: Cold against the Rock for the final time. You had
1:52:33
Speaker 1: Kurt Angle against Brock Lesner, which was a match that
1:52:36
Speaker 1: I was really looking forward to. Plus he had names
1:52:39
Speaker 1: there like Flair right, Rick Flair, he was in Triple
1:52:42
Speaker 1: H's corner, Roddy Piper showed up during the Hogan Vince match.
1:52:48
Speaker 1: He had all those names, and you had all those
1:52:50
Speaker 1: big matches, and it's amazing to see the by Ray
1:52:54
Speaker 1: dip the way that it did, like as high as
1:52:55
Speaker 1: it was for WrestleMania seventeen and WrestleMania eighteen. There's this
1:53:01
Speaker 1: massive dip for nineteen and then it just shoots right
1:53:05
Speaker 1: back up for twenty. But that could be what happens
1:53:09
Speaker 1: when you mostly build the show around two old guys
1:53:12
Speaker 1: and Hogan and Vince, and Vince wasn't even a wrestler.
1:53:16
Speaker 1: But as far as my answer, here's my answer. My answer,
1:53:19
Speaker 1: seventeen would be the best top to bottom WrestleMania in
1:53:24
Speaker 1: terms though of what you asked me, and a lot
1:53:28
Speaker 1: of people may disagree with this. I think for me personally. Now,
1:53:31
Speaker 1: I know you said it's not my personal favorite WrestleMania,
1:53:34
Speaker 1: but just for me, I'm going with WrestleMania eight. I
1:53:39
Speaker 1: know we got deprived of Hogan and Flair on that show,
1:53:43
Speaker 1: but I loved the build. I thought the build was
1:53:45
Speaker 1: very strong for that show, especially for the Savage and
1:53:48
Speaker 1: Flair match once they made the switch. But you know
1:53:52
Speaker 1: the fallout from the ninety two Royal Rumble, the press
1:53:55
Speaker 1: conference to announce Hogan is the challenger and then Sid
1:53:58
Speaker 1: goes Heal, it gets Swing which Flare Imperfect and Bobby
1:54:03
Speaker 1: Heen and they were all teasing this big centerfold of
1:54:05
Speaker 1: reveal for Elizabeth at the show and how personal it
1:54:08
Speaker 1: got with Savage and Flair. You had the build to
1:54:12
Speaker 1: Undertaker and Jake the Snake with Undertaker going babyface and
1:54:15
Speaker 1: the funeral parlor segment where Jake slammed the lid of
1:54:18
Speaker 1: the casket on his hand. Bret Hart and Roddy Piper
1:54:23
Speaker 1: I love that show. And they were in the Hoosier Dome,
1:54:26
Speaker 1: so they had a big setting for it, right. It
1:54:28
Speaker 1: was the first Dome show since WrestleMania six, and they
1:54:33
Speaker 1: had now it was a heavily papered crowd. They claimed
1:54:37
Speaker 1: sixty two thousand people. I don't doubt they had sixty
1:54:39
Speaker 1: thousand people there. How many of those sixty thousand paid
1:54:42
Speaker 1: to get in, that's the question. But you know it
1:54:44
Speaker 1: was it felt like a big deal because they were
1:54:46
Speaker 1: back in a big building. But you had all these names.
1:54:49
Speaker 1: I mean, look at the roster. Look at the roster,
1:54:52
Speaker 1: Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, Randy Savage, Sid Justice, the Undertaker,
1:54:58
Speaker 1: of course Ultimate Warrior also return that night, Jake the Snake,
1:55:02
Speaker 1: Brett Hart, Roddy Piper, Ted d Biassi, Sean Michaels finally
1:55:08
Speaker 1: starting his singles push. It didn't have the celebrities, didn't
1:55:12
Speaker 1: have the mainstream promotion right that some of those other
1:55:16
Speaker 1: WrestleMania's had. But I always loved that show, and I
1:55:20
Speaker 1: loved all the big names of that era. Like just
1:55:22
Speaker 1: when I look at that show in terms of star power,
1:55:26
Speaker 1: for me, I got a show. Love to WrestleMania eight v.
1:55:32
Speaker 1: Brown from Chester, PA. Last year, I really was frustrated
1:55:36
Speaker 1: with the fan reactions to Jay Usso's rise, especially the
1:55:39
Speaker 1: constant talk about him being just a mid carter, that
1:55:42
Speaker 1: his brother was better, and that he didn't belong in
1:55:44
Speaker 1: the main event. The same thing happened the year before
1:55:47
Speaker 1: with Cody Rhodes when people were saying that he shouldn't
1:55:50
Speaker 1: be world champion and that he was still a mid
1:55:51
Speaker 1: card guy. Who the hell was saying that. I've always
1:55:55
Speaker 1: argued that in WWE, if you're a draw, selling merch
1:55:57
Speaker 1: and getting real reactions from the fans, should be pushed.
1:56:01
Speaker 1: Whether you're seth rollins in the ring, or even someone
1:56:03
Speaker 1: like oh Mos, crowd response should matter. But it seems
1:56:07
Speaker 1: like a lot of wrestling fans believe that if you
1:56:08
Speaker 1: were never world champion in WWE, you're permanently labeled a
1:56:11
Speaker 1: jobber or a mid carter. No matter how successful you
1:56:14
Speaker 1: became or become elsewhere, that label sticks forever. What truly
1:56:20
Speaker 1: makes someone a main event star. You've said before that
1:56:23
Speaker 1: you always saw Brian Danielson as a star, and I'll
1:56:26
Speaker 1: be honest, I didn't fully see him that way until
1:56:28
Speaker 1: his AW run showed just how much of an all
1:56:31
Speaker 1: time great he really is. That changed my perspective completely.
1:56:35
Speaker 1: So in your view, what separates a true main event
1:56:38
Speaker 1: player from someone fans refused to let escape that mid
1:56:41
Speaker 1: card label. I think it's not just your ability to
1:56:50
Speaker 1: do any one thing. You need to be able to
1:56:53
Speaker 1: do it all. You need to be a five tool player,
1:56:56
Speaker 1: as they say in baseball. You can't just be a
1:56:59
Speaker 1: great wrestler. It's not enough. Like there are hundreds of
1:57:03
Speaker 1: great wrestlers, very few of them will ever be a
1:57:05
Speaker 1: world champion, right. Even more so in the old days
1:57:08
Speaker 1: where they didn't have a gazillion titles, like you had
1:57:11
Speaker 1: one world champion in each territory, you had one world
1:57:13
Speaker 1: champion in each promotion, none of this two belt bullshit.
1:57:18
Speaker 1: It was very different back then. Just being a great
1:57:21
Speaker 1: wrestler is not enough. You need to be able to work.
1:57:24
Speaker 1: You need to be able to talk. You need to
1:57:26
Speaker 1: be able to communicate with the audience, to connect with
1:57:29
Speaker 1: them in some way. You need to be able to
1:57:31
Speaker 1: sell tickets. You need to be able to handle all
1:57:33
Speaker 1: the other responsibilities that come with being a main event player, right,
1:57:37
Speaker 1: and you need to do it consistently. How many guys
1:57:40
Speaker 1: over the years, let me ask you this, how many
1:57:43
Speaker 1: guys over the years have been given the chance to
1:57:46
Speaker 1: be champion or to be in the main event and
1:57:49
Speaker 1: then they fell right back down to the mid card. Now,
1:57:53
Speaker 1: sometimes politics might be involved, it might not be their fault, right,
1:57:57
Speaker 1: because for the longest time, like with Vince Career, was
1:58:00
Speaker 1: at the whims of one man, and if that one
1:58:03
Speaker 1: man didn't like you, that's it. You're done. But like
1:58:08
Speaker 1: I'll use Rakishi as an example because you mentioned jey
1:58:11
Speaker 1: Uso and I just talked about Rakishi last week. I
1:58:13
Speaker 1: was talking about the comments he made about WWE ticket prices.
1:58:18
Speaker 1: Rakishi has been around forever, right, He was a good
1:58:20
Speaker 1: talent in the Attitude era. He got over by dancing
1:58:24
Speaker 1: and shaking his ass, okay, wearing a thong on TV.
1:58:27
Speaker 1: That's how he got over. And in the Attitude era,
1:58:30
Speaker 1: they tried to push him as a top guy. It
1:58:33
Speaker 1: didn't work. Like within a few months he was right
1:58:36
Speaker 1: back to where he was in a company that had
1:58:40
Speaker 1: Stone Cold in the Rock and Kurt Angle and the Undertaker,
1:58:42
Speaker 1: all those guys. Rakishi didn't fit. He didn't stick, not
1:58:46
Speaker 1: as a top guy. Look at Alberto del Rio, he
1:58:51
Speaker 1: found great success in recent years as a top guy
1:58:53
Speaker 1: in Triple A. In WWE, they pushed him like a
1:58:56
Speaker 1: top guy. I never saw him as being on that
1:58:59
Speaker 1: same level as the very top guys in that company.
1:59:03
Speaker 1: Jack Swagger, He's another one they tried to push him
1:59:06
Speaker 1: as a world champion. It didn't work, Jinder Mahal. I
1:59:10
Speaker 1: mean there's tons of examples. We'd be here forever. Jay
1:59:14
Speaker 1: Uso sells a lot of merch and his entrance is
1:59:17
Speaker 1: very popular. People love to yeat okay, but then the
1:59:20
Speaker 1: bell rings and I'm sorry. He's not a main event guy.
1:59:23
Speaker 1: He had this great story that they told of a
1:59:27
Speaker 1: guy who was being told constantly, you can't be a
1:59:30
Speaker 1: world champion. You can't be a world champion. Right. The
1:59:32
Speaker 1: stuff with him in Roman in those early days of
1:59:35
Speaker 1: the blood Line that was fantastic. He had his story arc,
1:59:39
Speaker 1: but he was never gonna stick as a consistent headliner
1:59:42
Speaker 1: because there's just certain intangibles that he doesn't have that
1:59:45
Speaker 1: other guys do. It's the ability to go out there
1:59:47
Speaker 1: and deliver something above and beyond what anybody else on
1:59:51
Speaker 1: the show was doing night in and night out. That's
1:59:53
Speaker 1: not jay Uso. He has his role on the show,
1:59:56
Speaker 1: but there's only a finite number of spots at the top.
1:59:58
Speaker 1: Very hard to get there and to stay there. If
2:00:03
Speaker 1: they saw numbers that led them to believe that jay
2:00:05
Speaker 1: Usso should stay in the main event, he would still
2:00:07
Speaker 1: be in the main event. Merch numbers are not enough.
2:00:11
Speaker 1: Merch numbers are just a part of it. Like you
2:00:13
Speaker 1: could still sell a shitload of merch from the middle
2:00:15
Speaker 1: of the card, but you need more than that. All
2:00:19
Speaker 1: of those things. It's not just any one attribute. But
2:00:22
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to stay there. Like you can
2:00:25
Speaker 1: get there, but it's a lot harder to stay there.
2:00:27
Speaker 1: You have to have certain qualities that you know the
2:00:31
Speaker 1: company looks at you and goes, Okay, this is where
2:00:35
Speaker 1: we see him now, this is where he or she right,
2:00:37
Speaker 1: this is where we see them. Not everybody is going
2:00:41
Speaker 1: to fit that criteria. It's a very small group, like
2:00:45
Speaker 1: a very elite group of people at the very top.
2:00:50
Speaker 1: Joseph from salesby Texas. Have there ever been any transitional
2:00:54
Speaker 1: champions in history that you wish should have been champion
2:00:56
Speaker 1: longer than they were? For me? The first two reigns
2:00:59
Speaker 1: I think of are edges first title rain and Batista's
2:01:02
Speaker 1: reign in twenty ten. Well, I mean, first of all,
2:01:07
Speaker 1: neither of those were transitional title runs. With Edges first
2:01:11
Speaker 1: World title, he won it off John Cena and he
2:01:14
Speaker 1: lost it back to John Cena. So for it to
2:01:18
Speaker 1: be a transitional rain, he would have to lose it
2:01:20
Speaker 1: to someone different, right, Hence the word transition. You're the
2:01:26
Speaker 1: bridge between two people. You are transitioning the title from
2:01:30
Speaker 1: one person to another. So it's the same thing with
2:01:32
Speaker 1: Batista in twenty ten. He beat John Cena for the
2:01:35
Speaker 1: belt and then he lost it back to John Cena.
2:01:39
Speaker 1: But I agree, Hollywood, Dave should have had a longer
2:01:43
Speaker 1: run with it. Same for Edge, like they were the
2:01:48
Speaker 1: ratings were reflecting that people were excited to see someone new.
2:01:52
Speaker 1: They were excited to see Edge and Lida and have
2:01:55
Speaker 1: Edge with the championship, and they put the belt back
2:01:57
Speaker 1: on Sena anyway, and I know that really upset Edge.
2:02:01
Speaker 1: But like, same thing with the Undertaker in ninety one,
2:02:04
Speaker 1: Like it wouldn't count as him being a transitional champion
2:02:07
Speaker 1: because he won it off of Hulk Hogan and then
2:02:09
Speaker 1: he lost it right back to Hulk Hogan like a
2:02:11
Speaker 1: week later. But one of them, for me, one of
2:02:15
Speaker 1: the to your point, one of them would be Bob
2:02:18
Speaker 1: Backland in ninety four when he won the belt from Brett,
2:02:23
Speaker 1: Like once he started doing the crazy Bob stuff. I
2:02:27
Speaker 1: wasn't a fan of his matches. I thought his matches
2:02:29
Speaker 1: actually sucked honestly, I thought they were very boring. Crazy Bob, though,
2:02:34
Speaker 1: was a great gimmick, and I thought he deserved more
2:02:37
Speaker 1: than just three days with the championship before he lost
2:02:40
Speaker 1: it to Diesel. So that would be one example. Bray
2:02:45
Speaker 1: Wyatt in twenty seventeen, he should have held that title
2:02:49
Speaker 1: longer than he did. Ricky Steamboat with the Intercontinental title,
2:02:54
Speaker 1: he won it off of Randy Savage, he lost it
2:02:56
Speaker 1: to the Honky Tonk Man. He only had it for
2:02:59
Speaker 1: three months. That was far too short. Like the story
2:03:04
Speaker 1: has always been, he went to Vince his wife was
2:03:06
Speaker 1: about to give birth. He wanted some time off to
2:03:09
Speaker 1: be with her and to be with his son. I
2:03:11
Speaker 1: never got the impression he was asking for like six
2:03:13
Speaker 1: months or a year or anything like that, But he
2:03:16
Speaker 1: just wanted off for the birth of his son. I
2:03:19
Speaker 1: don't see why they had to take the belt off
2:03:21
Speaker 1: of him, but that's just how things were back then, right,
2:03:23
Speaker 1: And I guess at that time, if they were running
2:03:25
Speaker 1: house shows with like an A crew, a B crew,
2:03:27
Speaker 1: a sea crew, I mean they could be running three
2:03:30
Speaker 1: or four different towns any given night. They were headlining
2:03:34
Speaker 1: some of those shows with icy title matches. So I
2:03:37
Speaker 1: guess Vince just fell. Well, if you're not fully committed
2:03:40
Speaker 1: to this pal, I got to take the strap off you.
2:03:44
Speaker 1: So anyway, it went from Savage to Steamboat and then
2:03:47
Speaker 1: from Steamboat to the Hockey TNK Man. But one example
2:03:52
Speaker 1: of a good transitional champion is The Rock. The Rock
2:03:56
Speaker 1: won the undisputed title in two thousand and two great
2:04:00
Speaker 1: triple threat match against Kurt Angle and the Undertaker Undertaker
2:04:04
Speaker 1: was the champion, so technically he beat the Undertaker to
2:04:08
Speaker 1: win the title, and then a month later at Summerslim
2:04:11
Speaker 1: he dropped the belt to Brock Lesner And it was
2:04:14
Speaker 1: a much bigger deal for Brock to beat The Rock
2:04:17
Speaker 1: than it would have been for him to beat the Undertaker.
2:04:19
Speaker 1: So that's that's an example of what I see as
2:04:21
Speaker 1: a positive transitional rain Steve from Virginia buyer sell on
2:04:28
Speaker 1: who had the better matches. Steve Austin is a technical wrestler,
2:04:30
Speaker 1: or Steve Austin as a brawler. He was basically a
2:04:36
Speaker 1: brawler all throughout his WWE run, even in ninety six
2:04:39
Speaker 1: before he got hurt. I mean, seriously, think back to
2:04:42
Speaker 1: those Steve Austin matches in nineteen ninety six or early
2:04:45
Speaker 1: ninety seven, he was working more of a brawling style.
2:04:48
Speaker 1: So I'm going to buy on Austin the Brawler, the
2:04:52
Speaker 1: matches with Brett Hart, the Final four match at In
2:04:55
Speaker 1: Your House, the ten Man Tag at Canadian Stampede, the match,
2:05:00
Speaker 1: but the Rock, especially their X seven match, three Stages
2:05:06
Speaker 1: of Hell with Triple H and one over the Edge
2:05:09
Speaker 1: with Due Love, like these matches, Kurt Angle, the matches
2:05:12
Speaker 1: with Kurt Angle, all of those matches, those were his
2:05:15
Speaker 1: greatest matches. Those all came when he was a brawler.
2:05:21
Speaker 1: And actually most of the matches I just mentioned actually
2:05:23
Speaker 1: came after the neck injury. So I got to buy
2:05:26
Speaker 1: on the brawler Jason from the Bronx. We know Triple
2:05:30
Speaker 1: H can never step back into the ring because of
2:05:33
Speaker 1: his heart condition, But hypothetically, if he could wrestle one
2:05:37
Speaker 1: more feud in today's WWE, who would you put him against?
2:05:40
Speaker 1: And why? From a storytelling and a business standpoint, who
2:05:44
Speaker 1: makes the most sense. Well, I would have less than
2:05:48
Speaker 1: zero interest in even seeing a healthy Triple H back
2:05:51
Speaker 1: in the ring at this stage. Those last few matches
2:05:54
Speaker 1: he had were just not great. If he did come back, Honestly,
2:05:59
Speaker 1: story wine, business wise, the answer is cmpunk. There's unfinished
2:06:05
Speaker 1: business there, except WWE unreal kills it by showing you
2:06:09
Speaker 1: how lovey dove they are now behind the scenes. But
2:06:13
Speaker 1: in a perfect world it would be CM Punk. If
2:06:16
Speaker 1: not CM Punk, then Cody Rhodes. There's definitely a story
2:06:21
Speaker 1: to tell there and AJ Styles. Any of those three
2:06:27
Speaker 1: would work. Neil from North Carolina. I heard you say,
2:06:32
Speaker 1: WrestleMania at ten's main event should have been a triple
2:06:35
Speaker 1: threat match by Rent Cell on these nineties triple threats
2:06:40
Speaker 1: that we never got. Hul Cogan against the Ultimate Warrior
2:06:44
Speaker 1: against the Macho King in nineteen ninety, Demolition against the
2:06:48
Speaker 1: Heart Foundation against the Rockers in nineteen ninety, Steve Austin,
2:06:54
Speaker 1: Brett Hart and Shawn Michaels in nineteen ninety seven. Actually,
2:06:59
Speaker 1: I'll I'll throw one at you and I'm gonna buy
2:07:02
Speaker 1: on this one. Steve Austin, Brett Hard and Shawn Michaels
2:07:05
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight at Wrestle Media at fourteen. Because
2:07:09
Speaker 1: I've always believed that Brett never left. He would have
2:07:11
Speaker 1: done the honors. Finally, for Steve, Austin dropped the belt
2:07:15
Speaker 1: to him a WrestleMania in Boston, but then the question
2:07:18
Speaker 1: people always follow up with is, well, then what do
2:07:19
Speaker 1: you do with Shawn Michaels, And I'm like, I don't
2:07:21
Speaker 1: give a fuck, Like that should have been the match. Yeah,
2:07:26
Speaker 1: I mean, he wouldn't have had a match I guess
2:07:29
Speaker 1: listed for the card really because you would have done
2:07:31
Speaker 1: bretton Austin and Undertaker was already occupied with Cain, So
2:07:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess. I mean, they could have done
2:07:40
Speaker 1: Sean and Owen Hard. But can you imagine Sean Michaels
2:07:43
Speaker 1: being relegated to a mid card wrestle media matching? Is
2:07:46
Speaker 1: Owen Hart the uh the fit that he would have
2:07:50
Speaker 1: pitched if that was going to be his match. No,
2:07:53
Speaker 1: Ideally it would have been Brett, Sean and Stone Cold
2:07:56
Speaker 1: in a triple threat, and I think if Seawan didn't
2:07:59
Speaker 1: have the bad back, that would have been a hell
2:08:02
Speaker 1: of a fucking match. So you would have had the
2:08:04
Speaker 1: heat of having Brett and Sean and the promos they
2:08:07
Speaker 1: would have been cutting on each other because they don't
2:08:09
Speaker 1: like each other, and then you drop stone Cold in there,
2:08:12
Speaker 1: and obviously he has his history with Brett, but he's
2:08:14
Speaker 1: also got history with Sean from when they were tag
2:08:17
Speaker 1: team partners. That would have been a great one. I
2:08:21
Speaker 1: gotta buy on that. I would rent looking at these
2:08:25
Speaker 1: other two here, they're both from nineteen ninety. Huh, I man,
2:08:30
Speaker 1: I don't Hogan Warrior and Savage in the same match.
2:08:33
Speaker 1: That would have been big. That would have been big.
2:08:36
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna rent on Demolition Heart Foundation of Rockers,
2:08:40
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna sell on Hogan Warrior and Macho King
2:08:46
Speaker 1: and Joey from a story of Queen's not a wrestling question.
2:08:50
Speaker 1: He actually has a question about my Mets. So what
2:08:53
Speaker 1: do you think of the moves the Mets have made
2:08:55
Speaker 1: so far this offseason after losing so many players. I
2:08:58
Speaker 1: think they've recovered nicely and am optimistic about the season.
2:09:04
Speaker 1: I will say they have made some good moves. They
2:09:07
Speaker 1: have quelled a lot of the fears that people had
2:09:10
Speaker 1: about this season and if they would really be able
2:09:15
Speaker 1: to compete, because it was looking very bad there for
2:09:18
Speaker 1: a while. They've actually had a really good offseason though.
2:09:22
Speaker 1: They just added the starting pitcher that they needed right
2:09:24
Speaker 1: with the Freddie Perrault to trade. They added a big
2:09:27
Speaker 1: bat with Boba Schatt. I mean that guy can hit
2:09:31
Speaker 1: Luis Robert Jr. He's the center fielder. We still need
2:09:34
Speaker 1: a left fielder. I mean, what are they gonna They're
2:09:36
Speaker 1: gonna probably put what Baby Beaty is gonna be in
2:09:38
Speaker 1: left right. We need a left fielder. But we do
2:09:42
Speaker 1: have someone at third base who's never played third base,
2:09:45
Speaker 1: and we have a first baseman who's never played first base.
2:09:48
Speaker 1: So we'll see how that goes. We'll see how that goes.
2:09:51
Speaker 1: But I am more hopeful now than I was six
2:09:53
Speaker 1: weeks ago for sure. Anyway, good stuff. I'm gonna wrap
2:09:57
Speaker 1: this up here. If you have questions for the mail bag,
2:10:00
Speaker 1: you know how to reach me, the Solemn Monster at
2:10:02
Speaker 1: gmail dot com here on this snowy Sunday. Hopefully it's
2:10:08
Speaker 1: not too terrible where you are, but it's pretty fricking
2:10:10
Speaker 1: terrible outside right now. I'm happy I'm inside and I
2:10:14
Speaker 1: will be with you live tomorrow night for the Raw
2:10:17
Speaker 1: Post show. That's the go home raw before the Royal Rumble.
2:10:20
Speaker 1: We have Dynamite on Wednesday night and then SmackDown on Friday,
2:10:23
Speaker 1: so you can catch me live on all the YouTube streams.
2:10:26
Speaker 1: Of course, this Tuesday will be a brand new episode
2:10:29
Speaker 1: of Tuesday Night Titans, so it's gonna be a lot
2:10:32
Speaker 1: of content and then next Saturday, you're getting two podcasts
2:10:35
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be live after the Royal Rumble, not
2:10:38
Speaker 1: immediately after, but probably around nine pm Eastern, So that's
2:10:41
Speaker 1: what we're planning for. That'll be next Saturday, and then
2:10:45
Speaker 1: next Sunday, I guess is the first day of February.
2:10:48
Speaker 1: We're kicking off a brand new month with episode nine.
2:10:50
Speaker 1: Nine brand new SoundOff coming your way in just a
2:10:54
Speaker 1: week's time. So I want to thank you for all
2:10:56
Speaker 1: the love, thank you for all the messages about ninety
2:10:58
Speaker 1: k to thank you for all the PayPal support. You
2:11:01
Speaker 1: guys are awesome. Be well, stay safe and I'll see
2:11:06
Speaker 1: you back here for the Rumble and nine and a
2:11:09
Speaker 1: brand new month next weekend. Until then, take care, guys.
2:11:14
Speaker 1: The solemn Monster sounds I said, you know, boy, it's
2:11:16
Speaker 1: a good thing that EO is one of the best
2:11:18
Speaker 1: wrestlers in the world, which she is, because Hollywood is
2:11:21
Speaker 1: definitely not in her future. People really didn't like that.
2:11:24
Speaker 1: I said this on Twitter. Go watch aw we're the
2:11:28
Speaker 1: best storytelling and matches are where it's at. I was
2:11:31
Speaker 1: told this by someone with the name baby Oose says,
2:11:35
Speaker 1: proceed with caution now, as I told this person directly.
2:11:38
Speaker 1: I've screenshoted this for their therapist because they're going to
2:11:41
Speaker 1: need to add this to this guy's file. I was
2:11:43
Speaker 1: called a nerd by someone with Eosky fan account in
2:11:47
Speaker 1: their bio and a photo of eo as their avatar.
2:11:50
Speaker 1: This person said, you're such a nerd. If you want
2:11:52
Speaker 1: to see acting, go watch a movie. How dare you
2:11:55
Speaker 1: talk about acting on a television show? Fucking freak, But
2:11:59
Speaker 1: evidently you're not allowed to give your opinion here on
2:12:01
Speaker 1: social media unless you're willing to bathe in this woman's bathwater.
2:12:05
Speaker 1: The IWC folks truly the dumbest collection of characters on
2:12:09
Speaker 1: the face of the planet. The Solo Monster sounds off
2:12:13
Speaker 1: bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check
2:12:16
Speaker 1: out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and
2:12:19
Speaker 1: follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and x The
2:12:23
Speaker 1: Solo Monster I love you so long.