Latest / Solomonster Sounds Off / Sound Off 949 - A Royal FUMBLE For WWE And HONEST THOUGHTS On WWE Unreal Season 2

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Sound Off 949 - A Royal FUMBLE For WWE And HONEST THOUGHTS On WWE Unreal Season 2 · 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 soulier woman. You got grown ass wrestlers in
0:15
Speaker 1: the back going on Twitter. Come over here? Is that
0:18
Speaker 1: Pet Patterson? You have legs? I was ninety nine percent
0:24
Speaker 1: positive it was just chessed up. Now I have been
0:26
Speaker 1: begging him for a job on every every platform I can,
0:30
Speaker 1: and I would have know the reason why you won't park.
0:34
Speaker 1: This is episode nine of the Solo Monsters Sounds Off.
0:38
Speaker 1: It is Sunday, February first, twenty twenty six. I am
0:41
Speaker 1: the Solemn Monster. The Royal Rumble has come and gone,
0:45
Speaker 1: not one of the better royal rumbles that WWE has
0:48
Speaker 1: ever produced. Now it is over and we are on
0:50
Speaker 1: the road to WrestleMania, so hopefully things will start to
0:53
Speaker 1: get really interesting and pick up on TV. We had
0:57
Speaker 1: talked about this Royal Rumble, and I also have this week,
1:00
Speaker 1: as I told you, I I was watching WWE Unreal
1:04
Speaker 1: Season two, so I've watched all five episodes. I'm going
1:07
Speaker 1: to have a full overview with my thoughts on Unreal,
1:10
Speaker 1: so that'll be coming up a little bit later. We
1:12
Speaker 1: got some aw news and notes, and then some mailbag questions,
1:16
Speaker 1: so it's going to be a good Sunday. I want
1:18
Speaker 1: to say thank you to everybody who attended the House
1:20
Speaker 1: of Glory debut in LA. We were making our Los
1:23
Speaker 1: Angeles debut Friday night, City of Angels at the Iconic
1:26
Speaker 1: Globe Theater. I was not able to be there, but
1:29
Speaker 1: from all accounts we had a hot crowd, a packed house,
1:32
Speaker 1: a great show. I'm looking forward to seeing it. There
1:35
Speaker 1: were some internet issues, unfortunately, the stream did not go
1:39
Speaker 1: as planned on Triller, but I know they are working
1:41
Speaker 1: on getting the footage of the full event up as
1:43
Speaker 1: soon as possible, hopefully in the next few days. So
1:46
Speaker 1: we apologize for that, but looking forward to seeing that
1:50
Speaker 1: event and of course the next event. Next time we
1:52
Speaker 1: are going to be live, it's going to be back
1:53
Speaker 1: in New York City on February twentieth, back in Queen's
1:56
Speaker 1: at the NYC Arena, and we have the AEW World
2:00
Speaker 1: Champion mjf making an appearance. You can get your tickets
2:05
Speaker 1: right now hog Wrestling dot Net. That's going to be
2:08
Speaker 1: a big one. If you would like to make a
2:10
Speaker 1: PayPal donation and support the show, you may do so
2:13
Speaker 1: on the solomonster dot com. The link is at the
2:15
Speaker 1: top of the page. Ten dollars or more, we'll get
2:17
Speaker 1: your nickname and a shout out. I don't want to
2:19
Speaker 1: say thank you to a few people, including Recon Russell
2:23
Speaker 1: Bulwaar Russell, My goodness, thank you. What's going on? Brother?
2:27
Speaker 1: Ms Madness, Michelle Mills. Holy crap. I did get your emails,
2:32
Speaker 1: A very kind message and obviously I appreciate your support
2:36
Speaker 1: now and always. Big B Bryant, Bessara, the Portland pop Star,
2:41
Speaker 1: Paul Hamilton, The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soepp, Velvet Revolver,
2:47
Speaker 1: Robert Murray, I'm glad you made it through that ice storm,
2:51
Speaker 1: The Chicago Slayer, Willie chord Iowen Corn Farmer, Jesse Lamfeir,
2:56
Speaker 1: Night Stalker and if Alsaphar Killshot, Keith Hart and Max
3:01
Speaker 1: the Axe Volado says he had a fun time with
3:04
Speaker 1: his brother Kevin at the Hog Show in La. Wish
3:08
Speaker 1: you could have been there, Yeah, man, I wish. I
3:11
Speaker 1: wish the timing didn't work out, but I am sure
3:14
Speaker 1: it will not be our last time in La. Also
3:17
Speaker 1: show your role, Chris Ludag. You could check out his
3:20
Speaker 1: what could have been in Wrestling series on YouTube. Some
3:23
Speaker 1: of his recent videos include what could have been if
3:26
Speaker 1: Kurt Angle had stayed in WWE in two thousand and six.
3:30
Speaker 1: I can answer that one. He would have ended up dead.
3:34
Speaker 1: That's what would have happened. Thankfully that did not happen.
3:39
Speaker 1: But also what if the Nexus had debuted on SmackDown
3:43
Speaker 1: instead of Raw? And a bunch of other videos as well.
3:46
Speaker 1: Search for Chris Luddeck by name on YouTube. That's lud
3:50
Speaker 1: e Cke and his channel shall be the first thing
3:54
Speaker 1: that pops up. And there's one other thing also, This
3:57
Speaker 1: is very cool I wanted to mention here, and that
3:59
Speaker 1: is wressel Rave has announced a first time ever match
4:03
Speaker 1: and it is a very unique one because it pits
4:06
Speaker 1: the reigning WWEID Men's Champion against a current aw star.
4:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of the tribalists will react perfectly rationally
4:16
Speaker 1: to this. It all goes down on Saturday, February seventh,
4:19
Speaker 1: with the Bounty Hunter Brian Keith in the main event
4:23
Speaker 1: taking on WWEID Champion Cold Brew Cappuccino Jones for the
4:29
Speaker 1: first time ever. It happens at four to three eats
4:33
Speaker 1: in Tomball Texas. It's the tom Brawl. I love it.
4:38
Speaker 1: It'll be a full night of action with more match
4:40
Speaker 1: announcements in the days to come, but don't wait. Get
4:43
Speaker 1: your tickets now go to wravemirch dot com along with
4:48
Speaker 1: exclusive merchandise that you can pick up while you are there.
4:51
Speaker 1: You could also like and subscribe on the official wrestle
4:54
Speaker 1: Rave YouTube channel for full event and match uploads featuring
4:58
Speaker 1: commentary from Walker Stellar. It's the voice of New Japan
5:01
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling, a wressel. Rave continues to do big things
5:05
Speaker 1: in the Houston area. I hear a lot about them,
5:08
Speaker 1: and not just Houston, but really Houston and beyond. So
5:12
Speaker 1: check them out again. Wravemirch dot com for tickets for
5:16
Speaker 1: the tom Brawl, just coming up this Saturday. The Royal
5:20
Speaker 1: Rumble was yesterday in Riod's, Saudi Arabia, inside of a
5:26
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand seat stadium that did not exist a
5:28
Speaker 1: month ago. As Triple H said, it was a parking lot.
5:32
Speaker 1: It was a strip of dirt in his words, And
5:35
Speaker 1: they worked around the clock to get this thing up
5:38
Speaker 1: and so they were ready to go. And I will
5:39
Speaker 1: say as far as the stage and everything, it was
5:41
Speaker 1: very elaborate. It looked like a WrestleMania type of stage right.
5:45
Speaker 1: They obviously put a lot of money and a lot
5:48
Speaker 1: of time into it, although there were other issues with
5:51
Speaker 1: the stadium, which I'll get to. But I had number
5:54
Speaker 1: four in our Royal Rumble Facebook pool, which was Naya
5:58
Speaker 1: Jacks in the women's rumble and then raymus Stereo entered
6:03
Speaker 1: at number four in the men's rumbles. So I didn't
6:05
Speaker 1: win shit, but hopefully you did. I know, Julian put
6:09
Speaker 1: some prizes up in our rumble pool. I got to
6:12
Speaker 1: pick the winners. Though we have the ultimate rumble pool winners.
6:15
Speaker 1: I'll have to choose probably on the raw post show
6:19
Speaker 1: stream tomorrow night on YouTube. We'll bust out the randomizer
6:23
Speaker 1: and pick some winners. We do it for fun every year.
6:26
Speaker 1: I believe this year we had over eleven hundred entrance
6:29
Speaker 1: in the rumble pool in the Facebook group. And thank
6:32
Speaker 1: you again to Julian for all of his effort in
6:35
Speaker 1: putting that together. I also want to say thank you
6:37
Speaker 1: to the three thousand plus that hung out with me
6:41
Speaker 1: last night live on YouTube. We went over four hours,
6:44
Speaker 1: which I didn't even realize, longer than the pl itself,
6:47
Speaker 1: and had more fun than we did watching it, or
6:49
Speaker 1: at least I know I did. This was not one
6:52
Speaker 1: of the better Royal Rumbles that WWE has ever done.
6:55
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a total throwaway garbage show
6:58
Speaker 1: like some people think. I mean, there's some extreme opinions
7:01
Speaker 1: on this show. It was not great. It was not amazing.
7:04
Speaker 1: What was the website? Look, everyone's entitled to their opinion.
7:08
Speaker 1: There was some review I won't say where, and they
7:11
Speaker 1: said the show was amazing. I said, were you watching
7:14
Speaker 1: the same show that I was watching? Or have the
7:16
Speaker 1: standards really fallen that far? Amazing is not a word
7:20
Speaker 1: I would use to at least not in a positive way.
7:23
Speaker 1: Maybe in a negative way some of the stuff on
7:25
Speaker 1: the show. But amazing is not a word I would
7:28
Speaker 1: use to describe the Royal Rumble. But you know, it
7:30
Speaker 1: was not without its moments, very much a mixed bag.
7:33
Speaker 1: We had a women's rumble that outshined the men's rumble,
7:36
Speaker 1: mainly in the second half, and had more story beats
7:40
Speaker 1: to it than the men's match did. We had a
7:42
Speaker 1: great final match for aj Styles against Gunther, followed by
7:47
Speaker 1: a lackluster WWE Championship match and a disappointing men's rumble
7:52
Speaker 1: with the safe, predictable outcome. And while predictable does not
7:55
Speaker 1: always mean bad, I always say it. In this case,
7:59
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it good. Not when the winner shows
8:01
Speaker 1: up half a dozen times a year on TV. We
8:05
Speaker 1: got to get away from that. Let me just take
8:08
Speaker 1: it from the top. I'll give some quick overview thoughts
8:10
Speaker 1: here if you want some more in depth thoughts on video.
8:12
Speaker 1: Of course, the full video review is up on YouTube.
8:15
Speaker 1: But the Women's Royal Rumble is what they opened the
8:17
Speaker 1: show with. Not a big surprise there, and liv Morgan
8:22
Speaker 1: is your twenty twenty six Women's Royal Rumble winner, and
8:28
Speaker 1: somewhat in my mentions said this, and I laughed when
8:31
Speaker 1: I saw because it's so true. You had the women
8:33
Speaker 1: out there all looking like they were ready to go
8:35
Speaker 1: skydiving in their jumpsuits. I don't know why I didn't
8:39
Speaker 1: put two or two together, but when I read that,
8:41
Speaker 1: I said, that's so true. That's exactly what they look like. Now.
8:45
Speaker 1: I mentioned the stage stage looked nice. What did not
8:49
Speaker 1: look nice were the led lights in this new stadium
8:54
Speaker 1: that they had on the back of each and every seat.
8:57
Speaker 1: And I know that the arena out there in LA
9:00
Speaker 1: where they had the first Raw on Netflix last year.
9:02
Speaker 1: I think they have something similar, but I don't remember
9:05
Speaker 1: it being this awful. They have these led lights when
9:08
Speaker 1: you are looking and I don't know how it is
9:10
Speaker 1: when you're there in the building, but when you are
9:11
Speaker 1: watching this on TV, it looks like there is nobody
9:16
Speaker 1: in those seats. It looks like it makes the building
9:20
Speaker 1: look practically empty when you look out into the crow,
9:24
Speaker 1: which is a horrible look. I know what that looks like. Okay,
9:26
Speaker 1: we all lived through the Thunderdeve Mara, the pre thunderdel
9:29
Speaker 1: era during COVID. I don't want to go back to that.
9:32
Speaker 1: I don't want to be looking out and see what
9:34
Speaker 1: appears to be empty seats all over the place for
9:37
Speaker 1: one of the biggest shows of the year. So just aesthetically,
9:40
Speaker 1: it looked fucking terrible, and thankfully as the women's rumble
9:44
Speaker 1: went on pretty early on in the match, they pretty
9:47
Speaker 1: much figured out like, wow, this is really bad, so
9:49
Speaker 1: they turned the lights off. I actually don't think there
9:52
Speaker 1: were that many people there for the women's Rumble. I
9:54
Speaker 1: think what did Michael Cole say on Friday for SmackDown,
9:57
Speaker 1: because they were in the same building. I think he
9:59
Speaker 1: made the comment like, I'll a late arriving crowd. Maybe
10:01
Speaker 1: that's what it was. It was definitely more full there
10:04
Speaker 1: by the end of the show. But yeah, hopefully they
10:08
Speaker 1: take a lesson from the led light stuff. I don't
10:11
Speaker 1: even know where WrestleMania is being hosted in Saudi next year.
10:14
Speaker 1: If it's that same venue or a different place, it's
10:17
Speaker 1: probably a different place, a bigger one. Yeah, hopefully they
10:21
Speaker 1: ditched that, because even when they would put the lights
10:23
Speaker 1: back on for the entrances, I don't know. I mean,
10:26
Speaker 1: I guess they were going for something fancy. I just
10:28
Speaker 1: think it looks stupid. Now. The final three in the
10:32
Speaker 1: women's Rumble where Live Morgan, Tiffany Stratton and Sol Ruka.
10:37
Speaker 1: And I actually thought that the finish was very well done.
10:40
Speaker 1: Soul Ruka had a very strong night. They're all out
10:43
Speaker 1: on the apron though for the final sequence, and sol
10:47
Speaker 1: Ruka made a rookie mistake. She went to go execute
10:50
Speaker 1: her finish on the apron. Now, if you know her finish,
10:53
Speaker 1: the Soul Snatcher, you would look at this and go, well,
10:56
Speaker 1: how is that going to go? That's not gonna end
10:58
Speaker 1: well for soul Ruca. Sure enough, it didn't and she
11:01
Speaker 1: went for the move and Tiffany basically just pushed her
11:03
Speaker 1: off and down to the floor she went, and then
11:06
Speaker 1: Live Morgan came flying in with an oblivion that sent
11:08
Speaker 1: Tiffany to the floor. Hence liv Morgan wins the Royal Rumble.
11:12
Speaker 1: More than half of this match was just terribly uninteresting.
11:17
Speaker 1: It was a bore. Where it got great was the
11:20
Speaker 1: last I would say ten or fifteen minutes or maybe
11:22
Speaker 1: even ten to twelve minutes. That was the best part
11:26
Speaker 1: and it cleared anything they did in the men's rumble. Now,
11:30
Speaker 1: I said coming into this that Bianca bel Air was
11:32
Speaker 1: my pick to win. I made that very clear. But
11:35
Speaker 1: I also said that if Bianca was not there, then
11:38
Speaker 1: Live Morgan was going to win the Royal Rumble. So
11:41
Speaker 1: in this case, it was, I guess, kind of a
11:43
Speaker 1: predictable finish, but a predictable finish. I don't have an
11:46
Speaker 1: issue with this, as predictable finishes go. I have no
11:49
Speaker 1: issue with her winning. As of this moment, she will
11:53
Speaker 1: be challenging Stephanie Vequier or Jade Cargill at Wrestle Media.
11:57
Speaker 1: But remember Riquel Rodriguez is getting a championship match with
12:00
Speaker 1: Stephanie on Raw Tomorrow night, They're gonna be having a
12:02
Speaker 1: Philadelphia street fight, so we could, in theory end up
12:05
Speaker 1: would Live Morgan against Raquel for the title of WrestleMania.
12:08
Speaker 1: And there was a spot in the Rumble where Raquel
12:10
Speaker 1: was eliminated by Live, so there's definitely gonna be some
12:14
Speaker 1: fallout from that come Raw tomorrow night. Now, the three
12:17
Speaker 1: big surprises for me in the women's Rumble or no
12:22
Speaker 1: Bianca Bellair, no aj Lee. I was sure we would
12:26
Speaker 1: see her in there doing something with Becky Lynch, And
12:30
Speaker 1: the return of bre Mode Brie Bella to the biggest
12:36
Speaker 1: pop of just about anything on the entire show. And
12:39
Speaker 1: I'm not even exaggerating when I say that, Like, if
12:43
Speaker 1: you would have told me coming into the show that
12:44
Speaker 1: Bribella was going to be on the show, that in
12:47
Speaker 1: and of itself wouldn't have surprised me. If you would
12:49
Speaker 1: have told me that Bribella was going to be on
12:51
Speaker 1: the show and get the biggest pop of just about
12:53
Speaker 1: anything on the show, then I would have said, you're
12:56
Speaker 1: on drugs. But there she was, and everyone's doing the
12:59
Speaker 1: yes chance, doing the yes kicks. Everybody was as loud
13:04
Speaker 1: for that as they were for anything else in the
13:06
Speaker 1: entire Women's Royal reumbele unbelievable. And I said, like, if
13:10
Speaker 1: this was meant to be a one off, and I'm
13:12
Speaker 1: pretty sure it wasn't, But if it was meant to
13:15
Speaker 1: be a one off, or let's do it once and
13:17
Speaker 1: see how it goes, there ain't no way they're keeping
13:20
Speaker 1: that as a one off. After the reaction that she got,
13:23
Speaker 1: the Bellows are going to be challenging for and probably
13:25
Speaker 1: winning the women's tag team titles of wrestle Metia. I
13:28
Speaker 1: know that's always been a goal of theirs. They want
13:30
Speaker 1: to win the women's tag team titles, which didn't exist
13:32
Speaker 1: back when they were together in the company. I'm sure
13:35
Speaker 1: they're going to be involved in that. At WrestleMania, the
13:39
Speaker 1: nxt surprises were j C. Jaane, the NXTO Women's Champion,
13:44
Speaker 1: sol Ruka, Lola Weis, and Kellannie Jordan. Of the names
13:49
Speaker 1: they really put over here in this match, sol Ruka
13:52
Speaker 1: lasted close to an hour. I thought they put her
13:54
Speaker 1: over huge. Lash legend was in there and I said
13:57
Speaker 1: coming into this that she's going to get the monster spot.
14:00
Speaker 1: That's what I thought, That's what I would do, And
14:03
Speaker 1: she got the most eliminations in the match. They gave
14:05
Speaker 1: her the monster spot and they were all impactful ones too.
14:08
Speaker 1: It wasn't like she was just throwing out Ivy Nile
14:10
Speaker 1: and Maxine Dupree and Selina Vega. Like she eliminated Charlotte Flair,
14:14
Speaker 1: who went about an hour and entered at number one.
14:18
Speaker 1: She eliminated EO. Sky, she eliminated Jordan Grace, She eliminated
14:23
Speaker 1: both Bellas at the same time and got heat for it.
14:28
Speaker 1: So Lash, I thought, came away from this looking good,
14:32
Speaker 1: and now we have a lot of fallout coming out
14:33
Speaker 1: of this match because they did. And this is what
14:35
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, I said different story beats. You had
14:39
Speaker 1: Charlotte Flair accidentally eliminating Alexa Bliss, you had liv Morgan
14:43
Speaker 1: dumping out Raquel Rodriguez. You had Kyrie Saine who vowed
14:46
Speaker 1: coming into this, I will do whatever it takes to
14:48
Speaker 1: make sure that Oscar wins the Royal Rumble, and she
14:51
Speaker 1: inadvertently eliminated OSCA from the match. So we had more
14:57
Speaker 1: story elements and potential story elements coming out of this.
15:01
Speaker 1: Then we got in the men's match. If I had
15:03
Speaker 1: to rank this out of ten, I would go maybe
15:07
Speaker 1: maybe six and a half. On the women's rumble, I'd
15:11
Speaker 1: go higher for the last like, you know, five or
15:13
Speaker 1: ten minutes, but on the whole I would go about
15:15
Speaker 1: six and a half out of ten. And then we
15:19
Speaker 1: had aj Styles putting his career on the line against Gunther.
15:24
Speaker 1: Out of ten, this was a solid eight and a
15:26
Speaker 1: half right here. Aj Styles comes into this match and
15:31
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions about whether or not, you know,
15:35
Speaker 1: he is actually going to lose this early in the year,
15:38
Speaker 1: and if he does lose, is that the end of
15:40
Speaker 1: his career or is that the end of his WWE career?
15:43
Speaker 1: Right there's still a lot of questions coming out of this.
15:45
Speaker 1: We don't know all the answers. But because of that stipulation,
15:49
Speaker 1: it added a lot of drama to this match, and
15:51
Speaker 1: it added a lot of drama to every near fall
15:54
Speaker 1: in this match. And very early on they told the
15:56
Speaker 1: story where aj his ribs were hurt and Gunther dropped
16:01
Speaker 1: him on top of the announced desk and he sliced
16:03
Speaker 1: his arm up pretty good, his forearm, he had a
16:05
Speaker 1: gash on there. He was bleeding all over the place.
16:08
Speaker 1: And there were just tons of great near falls here
16:10
Speaker 1: in this match until Gunther just started blistering him and
16:13
Speaker 1: brutalizing him with chops in the corner to the point
16:15
Speaker 1: where the referee, you know, it looked like he might
16:18
Speaker 1: disqualify him for not backing off. But Aj, you know,
16:22
Speaker 1: he showed that fighting spirit. He tried a few comebacks.
16:24
Speaker 1: It got great reactions each time. People did not want
16:27
Speaker 1: to see AJ Styles lose this match, and in the end,
16:32
Speaker 1: AJ Styles did in fact lose the match because coming
16:36
Speaker 1: into this show, you look at this and go what
16:38
Speaker 1: have like, what have they done here? Like they booked
16:42
Speaker 1: themselves into a corner unless AJ's just going in there
16:45
Speaker 1: and losing, because how else do you do this unless
16:47
Speaker 1: you do some sort of cheap DQ or countouts. It's
16:51
Speaker 1: kind of like a back door way for AJ's career
16:53
Speaker 1: to go on. I mean, there were ways that you
16:56
Speaker 1: could have done it, but it just like booking wise,
16:58
Speaker 1: put them in a very tough position unless they just
17:01
Speaker 1: go with the most obvious finish, which is that AG
17:03
Speaker 1: is just gonna go in there and fucking lose. They
17:06
Speaker 1: did the gimmick where if you remember the John Cena
17:09
Speaker 1: match at Saturday Night's main event, they did the gimmick,
17:13
Speaker 1: which is very old school in WWE where the arm
17:16
Speaker 1: is dropped once, and the arm is dropped twice, and
17:20
Speaker 1: the arm almost drops three times, but the baby face
17:23
Speaker 1: throws the arm up in the air, still showing signs
17:25
Speaker 1: of life, right the old Hogan thing. They did that
17:28
Speaker 1: with Sina in that match. Here they did the arm
17:32
Speaker 1: drop once in the referee call for the stoppage. So
17:36
Speaker 1: again I think there needs to be more consistency in
17:39
Speaker 1: that type of stuff, because I know I wasn't the
17:41
Speaker 1: only one asking that question. How come they did it
17:43
Speaker 1: one way a month ago and then this month it's,
17:45
Speaker 1: you know, a totally different situation. I don't know it. Basically,
17:49
Speaker 1: it's it's a work and they could just change the
17:51
Speaker 1: rules as they go and do whatever the fuck they want.
17:54
Speaker 1: It's not a great answer, but that's that's the answer.
17:57
Speaker 1: But the arm drops, he's in the sleeper, he's going
18:00
Speaker 1: nowhere to go, and Dan Engler calls for the bell
18:02
Speaker 1: and the crowd is sitting there in just stun silence.
18:08
Speaker 1: And a week ago I would not have believed it
18:12
Speaker 1: myself that this was truly going to be the end
18:14
Speaker 1: of AJ and WWE. Not this soon, not this early
18:17
Speaker 1: in the year, when there's money on the table, if
18:20
Speaker 1: not in an entire year like they did with Cina,
18:24
Speaker 1: certainly heading into WrestleMania, maybe heading into SummerSlam. There's other
18:29
Speaker 1: big matches for him to do. He's a more proper sendoff.
18:32
Speaker 1: It was almost like this could be a way for
18:33
Speaker 1: them to kind of course correct and do better by
18:36
Speaker 1: AJ and a way they didn't do by John Cena
18:38
Speaker 1: last year. But it can't be over this soon. It's January,
18:41
Speaker 1: it's the Royal Rumble, you're this close to WrestleMania. But
18:46
Speaker 1: then I saw what they were doing in the last
18:48
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and the way they were speed running
18:51
Speaker 1: through all of these different things. You know, the fact
18:53
Speaker 1: that they went to this match with Gunther with this
18:56
Speaker 1: stipulation instead of holding off for Wrestlemanie like that should
19:02
Speaker 1: have told me right there. I still wasn't convinced, But
19:05
Speaker 1: the fact they were going to that stipulation this soon
19:08
Speaker 1: was like, hmm, it's a little soon to be going
19:11
Speaker 1: to the career being put on the line, and then
19:14
Speaker 1: the Shin Skan Nakamora thing being put together on short
19:17
Speaker 1: notice so that they can get one last match in together.
19:19
Speaker 1: That was another tell. And then of course Knackamora went
19:22
Speaker 1: and spoil. As we look back on it now, Knockamora did,
19:25
Speaker 1: in fact spoil that this was going to be the
19:28
Speaker 1: end for AJ and WWE, and then he quickly took
19:30
Speaker 1: that blog post down. But it was Monday night where
19:34
Speaker 1: I was just, you know, fully, you know, convinced he's done.
19:38
Speaker 1: He really is done. You know, the fact that he
19:40
Speaker 1: came out and they just put that match together with
19:44
Speaker 1: him and Cmpunk for the World Heavyweight Championship with no
19:46
Speaker 1: advanced promotion or notice or anything like that. It's like, hey,
19:49
Speaker 1: you know what, tonight it's going to be you and
19:51
Speaker 1: me for the world title. It's like, wow, I mean
19:53
Speaker 1: they're just giving everything away. Something must be going down. Yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: what's going down is that he's done. So coming into this,
20:01
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a shock to see him go out,
20:04
Speaker 1: but you know, it's still you watch that and the
20:07
Speaker 1: look on people's faces. There were a lot of people
20:09
Speaker 1: who were not convinced that this was going to be
20:11
Speaker 1: the end, and they were very sad and they were
20:13
Speaker 1: very depressed and disappointed. Styles got to his feet and
20:19
Speaker 1: the fans were just showering him with applause. He slowly
20:23
Speaker 1: removed his gloves. He went to lay them down on
20:25
Speaker 1: the map, but he just couldn't do it. He put
20:27
Speaker 1: them back on and everybody cheered. I think they again,
20:30
Speaker 1: I think they thought he was changing his mind. I'm
20:32
Speaker 1: not done yet, but he just put them back on
20:35
Speaker 1: to do one final salute, you know, to each side
20:37
Speaker 1: of the ring. I really wouldn't read too much into that.
20:41
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we'll see him giving a retirement speech
20:44
Speaker 1: on Raw tomorrow night. But this was everything that the
20:48
Speaker 1: John Cena match with Gunther should have been. You know.
20:51
Speaker 1: AJ fought tooth and nail all the way through, right
20:54
Speaker 1: until the very end. All the abuse that he took,
20:56
Speaker 1: he kept fighting back, right the bloody arm and everything
21:00
Speaker 1: right up until the very end. He gave everything that
21:02
Speaker 1: he got until he just went out. You know, I
21:06
Speaker 1: called it last night the emotional spectacle that I was
21:09
Speaker 1: hoping it would be. This was everything that I would
21:11
Speaker 1: hope that a match like this would be. Is the
21:13
Speaker 1: exact opposite of what we got on Saturday Night's main event. Now,
21:17
Speaker 1: Triple H during the Rumble post show, said this, He said,
21:23
Speaker 1: obviously we expected it. Later in the year, we had
21:26
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations about it. AJ is one of
21:28
Speaker 1: those people that absolutely wants to give back and be
21:30
Speaker 1: a part of this business. I don't want to speak
21:33
Speaker 1: for him, but the conversations that he had with me,
21:35
Speaker 1: he made it very clear that he was just done
21:37
Speaker 1: with the end Ring. There's a point where you just
21:40
Speaker 1: reaching your career where you say I don't want to
21:42
Speaker 1: do this anymore, and when your heart goes no matter
21:44
Speaker 1: how good you are, he hasn't lost a step. But
21:47
Speaker 1: when you say I'm just at a place where I
21:49
Speaker 1: don't want to do this anymore, it's time before you
21:52
Speaker 1: get hurt, before you get told you're not allowed to
21:55
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I think he was there, and that's
22:00
Speaker 1: the question. Is he really done? I don't know. I'm
22:04
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty on it right now. Is he truly
22:09
Speaker 1: done or does he want to go on more of
22:12
Speaker 1: a proper retirement tour that sees him back in TNA,
22:17
Speaker 1: Because he has said before he would love to do
22:18
Speaker 1: one more match in TNA. He just didn't know if
22:20
Speaker 1: it was something that was you know, with WWE, that
22:23
Speaker 1: was in the cards. So it's not like he wouldn't
22:25
Speaker 1: want to do it. Do we see him wrestle at
22:28
Speaker 1: least one more time? In TNA. Do we see him
22:30
Speaker 1: wrestle in aw It still seems far fetched, but it
22:33
Speaker 1: seems a lot less far fetched now than it did
22:35
Speaker 1: six months ago. Where he goes around and has an
22:39
Speaker 1: actual tour where he's wrestling guys that he hasn't worked
22:42
Speaker 1: with in twenty years, right, or maybe he works with
22:45
Speaker 1: some people he's never worked with ever before. I'm looking
22:50
Speaker 1: at this and I'm hoping that's the case, because I
22:52
Speaker 1: think that would be incredible. I Mean, you talk about
22:54
Speaker 1: the year of AJ Styles, that would be the year
22:56
Speaker 1: of AJ Styles, just to see him, yeah, like the
22:59
Speaker 1: tour Superstar one last time, you know, going around and
23:04
Speaker 1: doing the thing. And it doesn't have to be for
23:05
Speaker 1: the entire year, of course, But I'm I'm just I'm
23:09
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty right now, and whether or not that's
23:11
Speaker 1: actually what we're going to see, you know, him putting
23:13
Speaker 1: the gloves back on and not leaving them in the ring,
23:15
Speaker 1: him not leaving his boots in the ring, which is
23:18
Speaker 1: something we saw Scena do with his sneakers, right? Is
23:21
Speaker 1: there a reason for that? Should we read into that
23:23
Speaker 1: that he's done here? But he's not like done done,
23:26
Speaker 1: He's not fully done yet. I don't know, but you know,
23:29
Speaker 1: if by chance we just saw the last match of
23:31
Speaker 1: his career, it was a hell of a match for
23:33
Speaker 1: him to go out on. I know some people are
23:34
Speaker 1: going to quibble about it not being back in the
23:36
Speaker 1: States or on a big show like WrestleMania. It was
23:38
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia at the Rumble. It was ten years
23:42
Speaker 1: to the Royal Rumble where he debuted. I mean, so,
23:46
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of poetic in that way. And look,
23:49
Speaker 1: I mean, Triple H said it. I'm sure that's one
23:52
Speaker 1: hundred percent shoot where they were hoping and expecting that
23:56
Speaker 1: it would go deeper into the year because of course
23:58
Speaker 1: they see the dollar signs they did with John Cena,
24:01
Speaker 1: and in a perfect world, they would not be you know,
24:04
Speaker 1: they would not want to see AJ's career end this
24:06
Speaker 1: early in the year. So I one believe that that's
24:11
Speaker 1: the case, but maybe it was just AJ's decision. I
24:15
Speaker 1: just can't do this anymore. I don't want to do
24:17
Speaker 1: this anymore. I'm done. I'm finished. And I pointed this
24:23
Speaker 1: out last night. I mentioned the spot in the tag
24:25
Speaker 1: match where it was him and Dragon Lee. It's Saturday
24:27
Speaker 1: night's main event on the sena show against Javon Evans
24:30
Speaker 1: and Leon Slater where he went for the phenomenal forearm
24:34
Speaker 1: and he slipped. You know, he botched the spot and
24:36
Speaker 1: it really wasn't in the grand scheme. It wasn't a
24:39
Speaker 1: big deal, and I thought Leon Slater covered for it
24:41
Speaker 1: very well. But I could see something like that kind
24:47
Speaker 1: of affirming in AJ's mind, like you know what this
24:51
Speaker 1: this is it, I'm right on this, Like I can't.
24:54
Speaker 1: I can't accept going out there and having more matches
24:58
Speaker 1: where maybe I have a slip up like that and
25:00
Speaker 1: people start to look and say, oh, there's a pattern here,
25:03
Speaker 1: or people look at that and go, oh, you know, Aj,
25:04
Speaker 1: he's not quite what he used to be. I can
25:07
Speaker 1: see that. I can see him not wanting to be
25:09
Speaker 1: that guy and wanting to go out now and you know,
25:13
Speaker 1: in a great match against someone like Gunther and letting
25:16
Speaker 1: that be you know what people remember him for. And
25:19
Speaker 1: he's had a fucking incredible career, you know, a world
25:23
Speaker 1: champion everywhere that he has been. I mean, he found
25:27
Speaker 1: that to find the success that he found in three
25:29
Speaker 1: different promotions, right a world champion in TNA, a world
25:32
Speaker 1: champion in New Japan, and I would even argue that
25:35
Speaker 1: that was the shortest run in a major promotion in
25:38
Speaker 1: his career. And I still feel like that Bullet Club
25:41
Speaker 1: run with him as the IWGP champion was his best
25:45
Speaker 1: and then a world champion in WWE in his first year.
25:48
Speaker 1: No less, when you look back on his first year
25:50
Speaker 1: in the company, he was actually a pretty incredible year.
25:54
Speaker 1: But not many people can say that they've done that.
25:56
Speaker 1: Some but not many. And Gunther, you know, with the
26:01
Speaker 1: career killer stuff. You know, look, I don't know how
26:05
Speaker 1: long they're going to drag that on for. I don't
26:06
Speaker 1: know how long they can drag that on for. How
26:08
Speaker 1: many other careers are they're left for him to kill? Right,
26:11
Speaker 1: Randy Orton's not going anywhere anytime soon. I don't think
26:14
Speaker 1: Brock is either. Frankly, who else is there? I think
26:19
Speaker 1: it's getting a little old. I would just protect him
26:23
Speaker 1: as much as I can, and hopefully when the time
26:25
Speaker 1: comes for him to lose to someone they you know,
26:27
Speaker 1: can really benefit from it. There's no sense in someone
26:30
Speaker 1: who already is an established name being the one to
26:33
Speaker 1: ultimately beat Gunther. It has to be someone new, it
26:37
Speaker 1: has to be someone who it will help level them
26:40
Speaker 1: up to a level that they are not currently at,
26:43
Speaker 1: and that's the best you can hope for with it.
26:46
Speaker 1: This like career killer. I'm going to retire this guy
26:49
Speaker 1: and that guy, you know, collecting all the Infinity Stones. Eh.
26:53
Speaker 1: To me, I'm already tired of it. I don't think
26:56
Speaker 1: he needs to keep doing that. We had Drew McIntyre
27:01
Speaker 1: successfully defending his WWE Championship going twelve and oh against
27:08
Speaker 1: sammy' z ain and I missed it the first time.
27:12
Speaker 1: I did go back to rewatch certain parts of the show,
27:15
Speaker 1: and I can't believe I missed this the first time.
27:17
Speaker 1: Mark Nash was doing the introductions in the ring for
27:19
Speaker 1: this match, he forgot which title he was announcing. I
27:24
Speaker 1: started laughing. He was about to go this is for that.
27:28
Speaker 1: You can see like he had a quickly glance down
27:30
Speaker 1: at his card. They undisputed, and look, Mark Nash seems
27:35
Speaker 1: like a really nice guy. I think he did an
27:36
Speaker 1: interview with Chris van Vliet many months ago and he
27:40
Speaker 1: came down as like a fan and very down to earth.
27:43
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying he's a bad ring announcer, but
27:46
Speaker 1: there's he is to me, the very definition of someone
27:50
Speaker 1: who tries too hard. That's how it comes across to
27:53
Speaker 1: me when he does some of these announcements, like he's
27:55
Speaker 1: too over the top with it to the point where
27:58
Speaker 1: it will actually affect it, like his voicel crack sometimes.
28:02
Speaker 1: But just I don't know the way that he does
28:03
Speaker 1: some of these announcements. He tries way too hard and yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: so I just thought it was funny that he briefly
28:12
Speaker 1: forgot which championship he was about to announce, which could
28:15
Speaker 1: have been very embarrassing. But these guys went out there
28:17
Speaker 1: and you know, they had a match that had no heat,
28:22
Speaker 1: which was surprising because of how popular Sammy's Ain is
28:25
Speaker 1: and here he is going after the top title in
28:27
Speaker 1: the company, and people were just very indifferent towards it.
28:32
Speaker 1: The crowd was not reacting in a way that made
28:35
Speaker 1: you think that they saw this as either a big
28:38
Speaker 1: deal or saw this as Sammy's Ain having a realistic
28:41
Speaker 1: shot of walking out as the champion. And it never
28:43
Speaker 1: felt that way. It never felt that way, and it
28:46
Speaker 1: was never going to feel that way. I don't know
28:48
Speaker 1: that they could have done anything, frankly, in the lead
28:50
Speaker 1: up to this show, given that they only anointed Sammy
28:53
Speaker 1: as the number one contender, like a week ago and
28:56
Speaker 1: Drew just won the belt. This was his first defense.
28:59
Speaker 1: I don't think anything they could have done to convince
29:01
Speaker 1: me or most other people that Drew McIntyre wasn't walking
29:06
Speaker 1: out of Riod as the WWE champion. That coupled with
29:09
Speaker 1: the placement of the match coming right after that emotional
29:13
Speaker 1: rollercoaster that we just had with aj Styles retiring and
29:16
Speaker 1: people being very upset about that, those two things conspired
29:20
Speaker 1: together to make for a very dull match, Like in ring.
29:24
Speaker 1: It was fine, it was solid, but that's all it was.
29:28
Speaker 1: And it ended with Drew hitting not one but two
29:31
Speaker 1: Claymore kicks and retaining the title. This was the comedown match. Yeah,
29:37
Speaker 1: there was a period of time like twenty years ago,
29:39
Speaker 1: or it would always there would always be a women's match.
29:41
Speaker 1: They would stick the women's match in there because they
29:43
Speaker 1: knew that people were going to go to the concession stands,
29:45
Speaker 1: they were going to go to the bathroom, they were
29:47
Speaker 1: not going to be terribly interested, and everybody was waiting
29:51
Speaker 1: for the main event, right, So it's kind of weird
29:53
Speaker 1: here to see the WWE Championship match in that spot.
29:57
Speaker 1: Somebody actually compared this to Brock Lesner defending the title
30:02
Speaker 1: against Bob Holly at the Royal Rumble in two thousand
30:06
Speaker 1: and four. I guess it would have been I kind
30:10
Speaker 1: of I wouldn't go that far, but I see what
30:13
Speaker 1: you're trying to say there. It was devoid of any
30:15
Speaker 1: real heat and the idea that Sammy's Ain is going
30:19
Speaker 1: to go into WrestleMania next year in Saudi and maybe
30:22
Speaker 1: complete his story there and win his first World championship
30:26
Speaker 1: on that show. I think that story is still very
30:28
Speaker 1: much alive. I think they them telling the story consistently
30:31
Speaker 1: over and over again and having him go out there
30:33
Speaker 1: on TV and say that I'm going to be a champion.
30:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a champion has to at some
30:37
Speaker 1: point be leading somewhere. But I'm watching this and I'm like,
30:41
Speaker 1: I don't have any interest in seeing that. Like I
30:44
Speaker 1: find myself souring on the idea with each passing year
30:49
Speaker 1: of Sammy's Ain going to the main event of wrestlemaniaan
30:52
Speaker 1: winning the World Championship. I'd rather see other people. I'd
30:55
Speaker 1: rather see newer faces involved in the title scene. I'm
30:58
Speaker 1: just I'm rapidly lose interest in that is an idea,
31:03
Speaker 1: and then we had the Men's Royal Rumble match, they
31:07
Speaker 1: spoiled the number one entrant on Friday Night, bron Breaker
31:11
Speaker 1: ended up entering at number two, even though the graphic
31:14
Speaker 1: they put on screen briefly on the SmackDown Friday Night
31:17
Speaker 1: showed bron Breaker number one in the Royal Rumbles, so
31:19
Speaker 1: they had to do something. So instead of number one,
31:22
Speaker 1: he ended ended up entering at number two and Oba
31:26
Speaker 1: Femi was number one. And as Braun is walking to
31:29
Speaker 1: the ring with Paul Hayman, he gets jumped by another
31:32
Speaker 1: masked man. We have a problem here in WWE, and
31:35
Speaker 1: you would think that security would be beefed up in
31:37
Speaker 1: these situations, but we have had multiple masked individuals cloaked
31:43
Speaker 1: in their hoodies that are always running out there and
31:47
Speaker 1: attacking people. And there is something in that Triple h.
31:50
Speaker 1: It just loves sending these guys out there in hoods.
31:53
Speaker 1: And so we were deprived of a proper face off
31:56
Speaker 1: between bron Breaker and Oba Femi because this mass individual
32:00
Speaker 1: not only attacked bron Breaker, he stomped him. And then
32:04
Speaker 1: once Braun was deposited into the ring, Opa Femi immediately
32:08
Speaker 1: eliminated bron Breaker. So you talk about a waste of
32:12
Speaker 1: bron Breaker in the Royal Rumble. I presume this is
32:16
Speaker 1: going to lead to something worthwhile, but until I see
32:19
Speaker 1: what that is, I'm watching this going wow, that's that's
32:22
Speaker 1: quite a choice there as far as how to utilize
32:24
Speaker 1: bron Breaker on this show. Raymisterio, who was hurt on
32:28
Speaker 1: Raw Monday Night, we weren't even sure if he was
32:29
Speaker 1: going to be in the Rumble. He did appear. He
32:32
Speaker 1: entered at number four, twenty years after he last won
32:37
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble, and somebody said, man, I saw you
32:40
Speaker 1: tweet that out, and I hadn't watched the show yet.
32:43
Speaker 1: I thought you were tweeting that because Raymisterio had won
32:46
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble again. I said, no, no, no, there's
32:52
Speaker 1: a better chance I think of me winning the Royal
32:53
Speaker 1: Rumble than Raymisterio winning another one. But no, Raymisterio of
32:56
Speaker 1: twenty years though, you believe that twenty years later, he's
33:00
Speaker 1: still in there now. He was moving around a little
33:04
Speaker 1: slower than maybe normally he would be, but the fact
33:08
Speaker 1: that he's even able to go out there and just
33:10
Speaker 1: fly around and do all the shit that he does
33:13
Speaker 1: is pretty incredible. Now. Cody Rhodes he entered pretty early.
33:17
Speaker 1: What was he number ten or eleven? I think it
33:19
Speaker 1: was number eleven, So for him, for a big name
33:22
Speaker 1: like that, he entered pretty early. This year, he threw
33:24
Speaker 1: out Trick Williams with no fanfare at all. We had
33:28
Speaker 1: brock Lesner entering, I believe in number twenty two, and
33:32
Speaker 1: we got a very brief confrontation that was teased between
33:36
Speaker 1: brock Lesner and Obafemi. And instead of Obafemi eliminating brock
33:41
Speaker 1: Lesner is what I pitched coming into this match, they
33:45
Speaker 1: did the exact opposite, and they had brock Lesner eliminate
33:48
Speaker 1: Oba Femi because Oba had gone after Logan Paul, he
33:52
Speaker 1: took his eye off the ball, and so brock dumped
33:54
Speaker 1: him out. Now, if we end up getting that WrestleMania
33:57
Speaker 1: match out of it that I'm hoping we do, and
33:59
Speaker 1: Oba wins, which he absolutely should, then it's fine. But
34:04
Speaker 1: I thought that this was completely asked backwards of the
34:06
Speaker 1: way that they did this, especially when you look at
34:09
Speaker 1: the way that they wasted brock Lesner's elimination. Now, before
34:14
Speaker 1: I even get to that, there was something in this match.
34:16
Speaker 1: It was brief, and it was in the grand scheme
34:18
Speaker 1: of things, not a big deal, but it pissed me
34:20
Speaker 1: off because Ilia Dragonov has been pushed as you know,
34:24
Speaker 1: this tough as nails guy, the man Dragon on SmackDown.
34:28
Speaker 1: He's going out there every week and he's having these
34:30
Speaker 1: killer matches and he's always fucking bleeding. He's so intense.
34:33
Speaker 1: He's the most intense guy on the WWE roster, right,
34:36
Speaker 1: but he's getting over through his matches and his n
34:39
Speaker 1: ring work, and lord knows they need more stars on
34:44
Speaker 1: Smackden and more guys like that to get over. So
34:47
Speaker 1: the first time that we've had any sort of interaction
34:49
Speaker 1: with him in Brock Lesner and you could have some
34:51
Speaker 1: fun with that, but of course we can't have that,
34:53
Speaker 1: So what do you do? They have a spot in
34:55
Speaker 1: the corner where Ilia Dragonov is absolutely just lacing into
34:59
Speaker 1: Brock with these chips, which is something that we see
35:02
Speaker 1: him doing on television every single week, and it's one
35:04
Speaker 1: of It's like Gunther and the Chops, right, It's one
35:07
Speaker 1: of his signature moves, and Brock is no selling his
35:11
Speaker 1: entire offense and like literally is looking at him and
35:14
Speaker 1: laughing at him, and then he just dumps him out
35:17
Speaker 1: like a jabron I fucking hated that, And to me,
35:22
Speaker 1: that was like a microcosm of everything that is wrong
35:25
Speaker 1: with WWE when it comes to the way that some
35:27
Speaker 1: of these bigger names and elder statesmen are booked relative
35:32
Speaker 1: to some of the newer guys on the roster. Fucking
35:35
Speaker 1: hated that. But speaking of things I hated, we had
35:38
Speaker 1: jay Uso entering at number twenty five. Now, jay Uso
35:41
Speaker 1: won the Royal Rumble last year. This could be my
35:43
Speaker 1: maya culpa here. Jay Uso entered the Royal Rumble last year,
35:46
Speaker 1: and I said, coming into that rumble, I said I
35:48
Speaker 1: didn't he wasn't my pick to win, but I did say, hey,
35:52
Speaker 1: keep your eye on jay Uso. He could be a
35:54
Speaker 1: dark horse to win this thing. Because at the time
35:57
Speaker 1: I said that, I mean, people look back on it
35:59
Speaker 1: now and probably like, well, you know, I'm sure there
36:01
Speaker 1: were a lot of people saying that. When I said it,
36:04
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in the wilderness, like there
36:06
Speaker 1: were not a lot of people who shared that opinion.
36:09
Speaker 1: But just the way that he was being booked, it
36:11
Speaker 1: felt to me like, you know what he's got, He's
36:12
Speaker 1: got a real chance, Like don't count him out. And
36:15
Speaker 1: then he went and he won the Royal Rumble, and
36:17
Speaker 1: then I was in a position to have to defend
36:19
Speaker 1: this because to me, it was like he was over
36:23
Speaker 1: and you could see why the company would want to
36:26
Speaker 1: push him in a major way to try to capitalize
36:28
Speaker 1: on his popularity, and there was a story there where
36:31
Speaker 1: he could go into WrestleMania and challenge for and finally
36:34
Speaker 1: win the world championship, which he had tried to before,
36:38
Speaker 1: and he failed and he tried, and he failed every
36:40
Speaker 1: time he was in the ring with Gunther, even I
36:42
Speaker 1: think for the Icy title. I think they wrestled for
36:45
Speaker 1: the ice and maybe they didn't, but they had prior
36:48
Speaker 1: matches and he just was unsuccessful. And so at least
36:51
Speaker 1: there's a story there that you can tell. I wasn't
36:54
Speaker 1: advocating that I wanted to see jay Uso as the
36:56
Speaker 1: World heavyweight champion. That's just how it worked out. But
36:58
Speaker 1: I look back on that whole period now and it's like, man,
37:02
Speaker 1: that's fucking terrible. It really was. It was just it
37:05
Speaker 1: was awful. But anyway, he comes yeating through the crowd,
37:09
Speaker 1: and it took forever for him to get down to
37:12
Speaker 1: ringside as this was going on, as he is still
37:16
Speaker 1: making his entrance and everyone's attention is turned to this
37:20
Speaker 1: guy yeating through the crowd in the ring. Cody Rhodes
37:24
Speaker 1: and La Knight team up to close line and eliminate
37:28
Speaker 1: brock Lesner out of the ring, and then Jay gets
37:34
Speaker 1: in the ring and the music stops, but he's gotta
37:38
Speaker 1: run it back again, and so he runs it back
37:41
Speaker 1: again until Roman Reigns comes out and he puts a
37:44
Speaker 1: stop to all of the silliness, and you know, because
37:47
Speaker 1: he was also like, oh yea, let's run it back again,
37:49
Speaker 1: and then he just fucking punched him in the face.
37:52
Speaker 1: But I watched this entire thing and I'm like, are
37:54
Speaker 1: you fucking kidding me? Who is booking this nine? They
38:00
Speaker 1: have different producers who all have a hand in this,
38:02
Speaker 1: and I'm sure Triple H does as well, But they
38:04
Speaker 1: have a lot of different opinions and a lot of
38:07
Speaker 1: different voices that are involved in booking various parts of
38:09
Speaker 1: these Royal rumble matches. So I don't know who the
38:13
Speaker 1: culprit was in particular, who was responsible for this entire
38:17
Speaker 1: sequence here, this whole sequence really from the time that
38:21
Speaker 1: Obafemi was eliminated by brock lesnar On through Jay usso's
38:26
Speaker 1: forever entrance was one of the worst stretches, maybe the
38:31
Speaker 1: worst stretch that I have ever seen in a Royal
38:34
Speaker 1: Rumble match, and I have seen every single Royal Rumble
38:38
Speaker 1: match going back to nineteen eighty eight. Okay, that's a
38:40
Speaker 1: lot of rumbles. That was by far the worst stretch
38:43
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen. This is what I thought of
38:46
Speaker 1: that stretch. You can flush that entire sequence down the
38:50
Speaker 1: fucking commode, and whoever was responsible for that should be
38:54
Speaker 1: ashamed and never put in that position again. Apparently, Shane
38:59
Speaker 1: McMahon when he came in few years ago and tried
39:01
Speaker 1: to help out and assist and produce behind the scenes,
39:04
Speaker 1: was so awful that his own father sent him home
39:06
Speaker 1: and basically fired him. So if they could do that
39:09
Speaker 1: to Shane McMahon, yeah, you can do that to whoever
39:14
Speaker 1: was responsible for that. Sit them down next time you
39:17
Speaker 1: put a match like this together, because this was awful.
39:22
Speaker 1: Number thirty was Gunther and they had a spot here
39:26
Speaker 1: because Randy Orton was twenty nine. Well, I mean, Randy
39:31
Speaker 1: Orton hasn't been twenty nine in about fifteen years, but
39:34
Speaker 1: he entered at number twenty nine. But they did a
39:35
Speaker 1: spot where Cody and Randy were working together and Randy
39:39
Speaker 1: was holding Gunther for Cody to hit a Cody cutter,
39:41
Speaker 1: but then Gunther moved and so Cody inadvertently dropped Randy
39:45
Speaker 1: with the Cody cutter. I assume that'll play into things.
39:49
Speaker 1: At some point they did a spot where Cody was
39:51
Speaker 1: almost dumped out, but he was skinning the cat. As
39:54
Speaker 1: he is skinning the cat and trying to make his
39:55
Speaker 1: way back in, Drew McIntyre flies in from out of
39:58
Speaker 1: nowhere and Claymore's and right in the side of the
40:00
Speaker 1: head and eliminates Cody. Rhodes and Jacob Fatu is looking
40:06
Speaker 1: down glaring and McIntyre. Roman then dumps out of distracted
40:09
Speaker 1: fa Tu. The final four in this match were Roman Reigns,
40:13
Speaker 1: Randy Orton, Gunther, and Logan Paul. This was the third
40:17
Speaker 1: time that Logan Paul was in the final four of
40:21
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble match. Last year he was in the
40:24
Speaker 1: final three. I mean, what are we doing here? He
40:29
Speaker 1: stumbled badly by the way on that buckshot into the ring.
40:33
Speaker 1: If he can't stick the land and that's not the
40:34
Speaker 1: first time that's happened. If he can't stick that landing,
40:37
Speaker 1: and make it look good. He needs to find another
40:40
Speaker 1: move before he tears his knee out, because if he
40:43
Speaker 1: keeps doing that, it's only a matter of time he's
40:45
Speaker 1: gonna tear knee out. But at that point, you look
40:48
Speaker 1: at the final four and you already know it's either
40:50
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns or Randy Orton, and neither one was honestly
40:54
Speaker 1: a very appealing choice, especially as you know, primarily part
40:57
Speaker 1: time guys these days. Randy Orton he'll show up for yeah,
41:00
Speaker 1: maybe a couple months, and then he'll disappear for like
41:02
Speaker 1: three or four. Roman Reigns, I mean, we all know
41:06
Speaker 1: what kind of schedule he's on. Those were our options
41:09
Speaker 1: here because Logan Paul wasn't winning and Gunther wasn't winning.
41:13
Speaker 1: Once Orton got thrown out, it was down to Roman
41:16
Speaker 1: and gun Through. The match was effectively over. We were
41:18
Speaker 1: just waiting for Roman to toss his ass out, which
41:20
Speaker 1: he did, and so Roman rains wins his second Royal Rumble. Now,
41:27
Speaker 1: these surprises were La Knight, Mister Iguana, and La Parca
41:31
Speaker 1: from Triple A, who nobody cared about. They got no reaction.
41:35
Speaker 1: Chad Gable was back as El Grande Americano to go
41:38
Speaker 1: with the other El Grande Americano Kaiser Americano, and we
41:43
Speaker 1: had the debuting Powerhouse Hobbs and he comes out. They
41:47
Speaker 1: actually put the name Powerhouse Hobbs on the screen and
41:50
Speaker 1: Michael Cole on commentary said, you know, he used to
41:53
Speaker 1: be Powerhouse Hobbs, but now he's Royce Keys, Royce Keys,
41:56
Speaker 1: which we already knew he had heard that was the
41:58
Speaker 1: name he was going to be going with. He made
42:01
Speaker 1: his debut here, so I guess Jim Ross was right.
42:04
Speaker 1: Jim Ross was convinced that we're going to see him
42:06
Speaker 1: in the Rumble, not because anybody told him anything, but
42:08
Speaker 1: why would you sign a guy like that this close
42:11
Speaker 1: to the Royal Rumble and not debut him in the
42:14
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble. So he got in there and he actually
42:19
Speaker 1: the first thing he did was eliminate a former world
42:21
Speaker 1: heavyweight champion in Damian Priest. I don't think he was
42:24
Speaker 1: in there for that long, but what they had him
42:26
Speaker 1: in there doing, I thought that as debuts go, it
42:29
Speaker 1: was fine. I mean, he was not going to be
42:31
Speaker 1: the most protected or the most featured guy like an
42:35
Speaker 1: Oba Femi was. But if you were going to debut
42:37
Speaker 1: him in the rumble. You want to at least give
42:39
Speaker 1: him a few eliminations and it just make him look good.
42:42
Speaker 1: And I thought to that extent that that's what they
42:44
Speaker 1: did here. Now, of course, we wait to find out
42:46
Speaker 1: which brand he's going to end up on. I think
42:47
Speaker 1: SmackDown would be a good landing spot for him. But
42:51
Speaker 1: no Chris Jericho, because I know a lot of people.
42:53
Speaker 1: I was fifty to fifty on it. I think I
42:56
Speaker 1: said the other day, like I could also see them
42:59
Speaker 1: or Jerich being like, hey, why don't we save you
43:02
Speaker 1: this big return first time back in seven or eight
43:07
Speaker 1: years for a different time, so that you know, it
43:10
Speaker 1: could get all the attention. And he's not just one
43:12
Speaker 1: of thirty guys in the rumble. So there was no
43:16
Speaker 1: Jericho in the match, there was no dirty dom I
43:19
Speaker 1: thought Dominic would be back here. Dominic is going to
43:21
Speaker 1: be back on the Triple A show next week. I
43:23
Speaker 1: guess he's going to be confronting El Grande Americano. I
43:26
Speaker 1: don't know if he's medically cleared. I don't know if
43:29
Speaker 1: he's going to do anything physical on that show. The
43:31
Speaker 1: fact that he wasn't in the rumble tells me he's
43:33
Speaker 1: not cleared. So he wasn't there. Joe Henry. I thought
43:37
Speaker 1: we might see Joe Hendry. He was not there. Actually,
43:39
Speaker 1: there was no one from TNA. Now that I think
43:41
Speaker 1: about it, they didn't and I think they've had well
43:44
Speaker 1: when Hendry was in there last year, right, he was
43:46
Speaker 1: the champion. He was still with TNA. We've had the
43:50
Speaker 1: knockouts champion appearing in the Rumble a couple of times,
43:53
Speaker 1: you know, Jordan Grace and Mickey James. So yeah, there
43:56
Speaker 1: was no one from TNA and either Rumble. And maybe
43:59
Speaker 1: the most surprising, even more so than Jericho not being
44:02
Speaker 1: in there, no Kit Wilson, and Kit Wilson was there.
44:07
Speaker 1: He was in Riod, but he was not in the
44:11
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble. Now he's been getting over with this stupid
44:13
Speaker 1: theme song of his and how they didn't have him
44:16
Speaker 1: in the Rumble to do some sort of comedy spot
44:18
Speaker 1: and get an entrance at least, I have no idea.
44:20
Speaker 1: Apparently it was very important to have mister Iguana to crickets.
44:25
Speaker 1: He should have come out with a cricket on his
44:27
Speaker 1: shoulder instead of an iguana, because that's what he got
44:29
Speaker 1: coming out to the ring. It was more important to
44:31
Speaker 1: have guys like him and Laparka in there than it
44:34
Speaker 1: was Finn Balor or Kit Wilson who actually probably would
44:37
Speaker 1: have gotten a big response coming out to that music.
44:42
Speaker 1: Maybe the Undertaker had to agrease some palms and lobby
44:45
Speaker 1: to get his triple A guys on the show. I
44:48
Speaker 1: don't know. Somebody else who was not in the Royal
44:51
Speaker 1: Rumble was Alistair Black. He was in Saudi Arabia. He
44:55
Speaker 1: flew all the way there, I guess with the idea
44:57
Speaker 1: that he would be in the Rumble, and then they
44:59
Speaker 1: decided we're not going to have him in the Rubble.
45:01
Speaker 1: We're going to bring him back on SmackDown in a
45:03
Speaker 1: different way. And I made this comment during the review
45:07
Speaker 1: last night. You know, when I look back at what
45:11
Speaker 1: guys like Black and Russev we're doing in aaw and
45:18
Speaker 1: as awful as their runs, and especially Miro, as awful
45:22
Speaker 1: as things ended up being, It's like, man, you know,
45:25
Speaker 1: if they come back to wwey it can't possibly be
45:28
Speaker 1: any worse for him, right because we never even saw
45:30
Speaker 1: him on television. It was ridiculous. Somehow, somehow these two
45:36
Speaker 1: guys are in a worse position in WWE so far.
45:39
Speaker 1: Then they were working for Tony Kahn in aaw for
45:42
Speaker 1: all the faults with their booking and what he was
45:44
Speaker 1: doing or not doing with them, and it was awful.
45:47
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. I don't see how you can
45:50
Speaker 1: honestly look at the runs that these two guys have
45:52
Speaker 1: had so far since they have come back home to
45:54
Speaker 1: WWE and honestly sit there with a straight face and
45:57
Speaker 1: tell me that they're better off for doing so booking wise,
46:00
Speaker 1: better off creatively for having come back than they were
46:03
Speaker 1: in AW At the very least, they're flat. At the
46:06
Speaker 1: very least, it was just a lateral move and they
46:09
Speaker 1: are in no better place now so far than they
46:12
Speaker 1: were in AW And I never would have thought I'd
46:15
Speaker 1: sit here saying that, But that's the reality of the situation.
46:20
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Rusev comes in, He's instantly dumped out of
46:23
Speaker 1: the ring. You want to tell people not to give
46:26
Speaker 1: a shit about somebody, you go ahead and book them
46:29
Speaker 1: the way that you book guys like Russev and Ray
46:31
Speaker 1: Phoenix in that Royal rumble last night. Ridiculous. But let's
46:37
Speaker 1: go back to Roman Reigns here, because Roman Reigns made
46:40
Speaker 1: some news this week even before he won the rumble.
46:43
Speaker 1: He was on Pat McAfee show, and he had a
46:46
Speaker 1: message that he was going to be sending out here
46:49
Speaker 1: to the members of the WWE roster. He addressed his
46:52
Speaker 1: schedule during the McAfee show and cut what clearly was
46:57
Speaker 1: mostly an in character promo, but in the promo he
47:01
Speaker 1: challenged everyone else in WWE to step up. He said,
47:05
Speaker 1: there's always a mindset of that. Responding to whether or
47:09
Speaker 1: not it feels like WWE will always be his show,
47:12
Speaker 1: he says, but to be completely honest and transparent, two
47:14
Speaker 1: years ago, it all changed around, and what I've been
47:17
Speaker 1: doing out there hasn't exactly been the same as what
47:20
Speaker 1: I've done before. And the way I look at it is,
47:22
Speaker 1: I'm a generous tribal chief. I give the people plenty
47:25
Speaker 1: of time. These young talents, they say, we hog all
47:28
Speaker 1: the TV time. They'll complain about one thing, and then
47:32
Speaker 1: I leave an opening. I give them plenty of space
47:34
Speaker 1: to create whatever type of superstardom they want. Get over, kids,
47:38
Speaker 1: Get over you know what I mean. And we're two
47:41
Speaker 1: years here now and we haven't advanced, we haven't evolved.
47:45
Speaker 1: We have great leadership and Nick Kahn, God bless him,
47:48
Speaker 1: what a businessman. He's a genius. But we have to
47:51
Speaker 1: be able to keep up with that creatively. And that's
47:53
Speaker 1: why people like me, people who are striving to be
47:56
Speaker 1: the very best, the greatest, the goats. I just can't
47:59
Speaker 1: sit aroun and see mediocrity, not when I set it
48:02
Speaker 1: up for everybody to just slam it home, because we're
48:06
Speaker 1: on Netflix, for crying out loud. You got to capitalize.
48:09
Speaker 1: We have people playing around and trying to figure it out,
48:12
Speaker 1: and I got the formula. I know how to cook
48:14
Speaker 1: it up. So it's been a tough couple of years
48:16
Speaker 1: for me. But at the same time, when you come
48:18
Speaker 1: off such a hell of a run, you've got to
48:21
Speaker 1: kind of pump the brakes for a second. Now, clearly,
48:25
Speaker 1: again this was in character, but it was laced with
48:27
Speaker 1: some hard truth about creative. And I will point out
48:31
Speaker 1: to you. You'll notice who he did not mention there,
48:35
Speaker 1: Paul Eveck. He mentions Nick Cohn, great businessman, what a genius,
48:41
Speaker 1: but we need the creative to back it up. But
48:45
Speaker 1: note how Roman said, I give them plenty of space
48:47
Speaker 1: to create whatever type of stardom they want. Get over
48:51
Speaker 1: and we're two years here now and we haven't advanced
48:54
Speaker 1: we haven't evolved. He's right about one thing. They have
48:57
Speaker 1: not evolved. Roman Reigns is the man who declared for
49:00
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble via a graphic on TV. He won
49:04
Speaker 1: the whole damn thing. And it's funny to listen to him,
49:07
Speaker 1: whether it's in character or not, telling the younger guys
49:10
Speaker 1: get over. We have an advance. You need to get over,
49:13
Speaker 1: because here's a guy who was pushed very hard from
49:16
Speaker 1: day one, despite not being over at the level they
49:19
Speaker 1: were hoping he would be. As a babyface, they tried anyway,
49:22
Speaker 1: and they were shoving him down your throat, whether you
49:24
Speaker 1: like it or not. And they pushed him anyway at
49:26
Speaker 1: the expense of others on that roster, and he became
49:29
Speaker 1: the poster child and the fans rebelled. And it wasn't
49:33
Speaker 1: until he went away and he came back as a
49:35
Speaker 1: heel that everything started to click. He won the Royal
49:39
Speaker 1: Rumble once before. That was eleven years ago. He got
49:41
Speaker 1: booed out of the building. I remember they bowed the
49:43
Speaker 1: rock all because he got in the ring. All he
49:46
Speaker 1: did was raise Roman's hand and he got booed. It's
49:49
Speaker 1: been eleven years of Roman Reigns in WWE, and here
49:54
Speaker 1: he is again about to break his own record with
49:56
Speaker 1: the most Wrestlmania main events. What kind of message does
49:59
Speaker 1: that send? Triple H on the post show said, Roman
50:04
Speaker 1: is going to take some time to think about his
50:07
Speaker 1: choice for a WrestleMania opponent, and he doesn't know when
50:12
Speaker 1: he'll show up next. Maybe he can announce his choice
50:16
Speaker 1: in a few weeks in the form of an on
50:18
Speaker 1: screen graphic, or he can send out some sort of
50:21
Speaker 1: smoke signal and let everybody know he's made his choice. Yeah,
50:27
Speaker 1: good choice there, WWE. So now Roman Reigns is going
50:31
Speaker 1: to WrestleMania everybody, and he's either going to be wrestling Cmpunk,
50:34
Speaker 1: which honestly is the biggest I mean outside of him
50:37
Speaker 1: in the Rock of course, it's the biggest match they
50:38
Speaker 1: could do. And it's a match one on one that
50:41
Speaker 1: we still haven't gotten. Closest we got to it was
50:43
Speaker 1: the Triple Threat from last year that had Seth Rollins involved. Yeah,
50:48
Speaker 1: it was last year. He was on a podcast and
50:50
Speaker 1: he was talking about how the only way to elevate
50:51
Speaker 1: the World Heavyweight Championship would be for him to hold it.
50:55
Speaker 1: If you give it to me, I'll elevate that title. Otherwise,
50:58
Speaker 1: it's always going to be little brother to the WWE Championship.
51:02
Speaker 1: So perhaps that will be part of the story if
51:04
Speaker 1: he chooses to challenge cmpunk, which he should, and then
51:08
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre. Look, there's still a very good chance Drew
51:10
Speaker 1: McIntyre is not going to walk into WrestleMania as the
51:13
Speaker 1: WWE Champion. We still have the Elimination Chamber coming up
51:16
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and Cody Roads got eliminated from the Royal
51:20
Speaker 1: Rumble last night because of Drew McIntyre. So you know
51:22
Speaker 1: that Drew McIntyre has a bullseye on his ass and
51:25
Speaker 1: Cody ain't done with him yet. And I'll tell you
51:27
Speaker 1: one thing right now, if they were going to do
51:30
Speaker 1: another singles match between Cody and Drew, you cannot do
51:33
Speaker 1: that at WrestleMania. If you had to do one on one,
51:36
Speaker 1: do it at the Elimination Chamber. Just get it over with,
51:39
Speaker 1: have Cody beat him and get it over with, honestly.
51:44
Speaker 1: But Cody could very well beat him at the Elimination
51:46
Speaker 1: Chamber and walk into WrestleMania as the defending champion. And
51:49
Speaker 1: if Triple h is saying that Roman's going to take
51:52
Speaker 1: some time to make his decision. We may not get
51:54
Speaker 1: a decision for another month. We may not get a
51:57
Speaker 1: decision until after the elimination chamber, and they could still
52:00
Speaker 1: give us Cody Roman three for all to talk about
52:04
Speaker 1: how leavec made the choice. He didn't want to tire
52:06
Speaker 1: the fans out give him another Roman and Cody match,
52:09
Speaker 1: third time in four years. We could very well still
52:12
Speaker 1: end up with Cody Rhoads and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.
52:16
Speaker 1: They did a little tease in the Rumble last night
52:18
Speaker 1: where they came face to face. At one point they
52:20
Speaker 1: were eyeballing each other. That also would be a mistake.
52:24
Speaker 1: As big of a match as that would still be,
52:26
Speaker 1: we don't need to see it again in the main
52:28
Speaker 1: event of WrestleMania. We don't need to see Cody Rhods
52:31
Speaker 1: and Drew McIntyre one on one again and doing that
52:35
Speaker 1: in the main event of WrestleMania, not without inserting Jacob
52:38
Speaker 1: Fatu and or Randy Orton. You have to involve either
52:41
Speaker 1: one or both of those guys just to add a
52:44
Speaker 1: little different spice and flavor to the match instead of
52:47
Speaker 1: going back to the well one on one between those two.
52:50
Speaker 1: So for Roman, who do I think he's going to
52:52
Speaker 1: pick probably Cee Mpunk. I think he should pick CM
52:54
Speaker 1: Punk And sure, that's a big match. But the idea
52:57
Speaker 1: of Roman Reigns going to the main event of WrestleMania
53:00
Speaker 1: again to challenge for a championship, I just don't see
53:03
Speaker 1: how in the long run that is beneficial to anyone.
53:06
Speaker 1: I could see in the short term, you have a
53:07
Speaker 1: big name like Roman in the manium main event. But again,
53:11
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns will make maybe half a dozen appearances all
53:14
Speaker 1: year long. Do we really need someone like him back
53:18
Speaker 1: in the main event challenging for or god forbid, winning
53:21
Speaker 1: again the championship. No, we don't, But that's the situation
53:27
Speaker 1: that we now find ourselves in. That's my issue with this,
53:29
Speaker 1: Above and beyond anything else. Roman had thirteen hundred days
53:33
Speaker 1: as the WWE champion. For that reason alone, I would
53:36
Speaker 1: be perfectly fine with him being a special attraction and
53:39
Speaker 1: not consistently, you know, having this need in your brain
53:42
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, we have to have him in
53:44
Speaker 1: a championship match. Who can he wrestle for the championship
53:46
Speaker 1: on the show? How about no One? How about he's
53:50
Speaker 1: like the new Undertaker. You kind of treat him that
53:52
Speaker 1: way where he can be a big attraction on the show,
53:55
Speaker 1: and you leave that other spot open for someone else
53:58
Speaker 1: who can benefit from it, who has not had ten
54:01
Speaker 1: or eleven WrestleMania main events to their name in the
54:04
Speaker 1: way that Roman. I don't, dude, it's so ridiculous. I
54:06
Speaker 1: don't even know off him what the exact number is.
54:09
Speaker 1: I know he's got the record. He had two of
54:11
Speaker 1: them a couple of years ago in Philadelphia. He was
54:14
Speaker 1: in the Night one main event and the Night two
54:16
Speaker 1: made events. So is Cody, I guess. But he's got
54:18
Speaker 1: more Wrestlemaniam Maine events than anybody else alive or dead.
54:23
Speaker 1: But we keep going back to this well and it
54:25
Speaker 1: just feels wrong. I'm not saying the guy's not over.
54:28
Speaker 1: He's still a superstar, right. He got big cheers from
54:32
Speaker 1: the fans there in Saudi Arabia. They love their OTC.
54:35
Speaker 1: But there is just something that it's like you take
54:38
Speaker 1: one step forward and two steps back. I see a
54:41
Speaker 1: lot of new names from NXT that were part of
54:43
Speaker 1: that show last night. Either they were just called up
54:46
Speaker 1: or they're still in NXT andy. They'll be on the
54:49
Speaker 1: main roster soon. And it gives me hope for the
54:51
Speaker 1: future when I see people like Obafemi and I see
54:54
Speaker 1: people like Trick Williams and soul Ruka, and I'm like,
54:57
Speaker 1: you know what, the future is bright. They have a
54:59
Speaker 1: lot of really talented men and women and hopefully we
55:02
Speaker 1: will start to see them doing big things on the
55:04
Speaker 1: main roster so that they can be in these spots
55:07
Speaker 1: and we don't have to rely on people like this
55:10
Speaker 1: to win the Royal Rumble in the future. Randy Orton
55:12
Speaker 1: would not have been much better. Randy Orton winning the
55:15
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble would not have been much better than Roman
55:18
Speaker 1: Reign's wing. That's my biggest issue with it. As predictable
55:21
Speaker 1: as it was, it was just not a great choice
55:24
Speaker 1: to be given. And when the Rumble was over, I
55:26
Speaker 1: felt like, men, it's funny Roman using that word mediocrity
55:29
Speaker 1: in that interview on McAfee show, because mediocrity is a
55:32
Speaker 1: great word to describe the twenty twenty six Royal Rumble.
55:35
Speaker 1: Very mediocre. But hey, Brimode got over and was the
55:40
Speaker 1: most popular thing on the show, so hey, hat tip
55:43
Speaker 1: to her. I'll give her her flowers. Brie Bella got
55:46
Speaker 1: the biggest reaction of anything on the entire show, and
55:50
Speaker 1: If that doesn't sum up the Royal rumble this year,
55:52
Speaker 1: I don't know what does. WWE announced Backlash for Tampa,
55:58
Speaker 1: Florida on May nine, and not Puerto Rico, as Post
56:01
Speaker 1: Wrestling suggested back in December, was the front runner for
56:04
Speaker 1: the show. Actually, Post Wrestling posted an update on their
56:07
Speaker 1: original article, saying on January thirty first, Paul Levek announced
56:10
Speaker 1: that Backlash would be taking place on May ninth and
56:13
Speaker 1: Tampa and not Puerto Rico. Post Wrestling reported this story
56:17
Speaker 1: based on multiple sources, including one stating that San Juan
56:21
Speaker 1: was listed on the company's internal calendar for that date.
56:25
Speaker 1: So that's too bad because that Backlash crowd in twenty
56:28
Speaker 1: twenty three is still one of the best crowds in
56:29
Speaker 1: the history of that company and made that show a
56:33
Speaker 1: very memorable one. That was the night that I think
56:35
Speaker 1: Bianca and Eo opened the show and had a banger
56:39
Speaker 1: of a match, and then of course Bad Bunny and
56:41
Speaker 1: Damian Priest. I think that was the one with Cody
56:44
Speaker 1: and Brock in the main event. So they're not going
56:47
Speaker 1: to San Juan. Maybe they'll go there for a different show,
56:50
Speaker 1: but it will not be for Backlash. Although I do
56:52
Speaker 1: think that they are supposed to be running Italy. I
56:54
Speaker 1: think for a PL the end of May, so I
56:57
Speaker 1: don't know if that's still kind of hanging out there
56:59
Speaker 1: as I don't think that's been confirmed yet, but that
57:02
Speaker 1: was the belief that they were going to be having
57:04
Speaker 1: a PL in Italy, possibly at the end of them month.
57:08
Speaker 1: So we will see if that happens. But the other
57:12
Speaker 1: news out of WWE this week had to do with
57:14
Speaker 1: the NXT general manager Ava. She is gone from WWE,
57:19
Speaker 1: and she released a statement on Friday revealing that Tuesday's
57:23
Speaker 1: episode of This Past Tuesday was her last with the
57:26
Speaker 1: company and that she decided not to renew her contract.
57:29
Speaker 1: She said, this past Tuesday was my last appearance on
57:32
Speaker 1: NXT and subsequently WWE. Thank you to all who have cheered,
57:36
Speaker 1: watched and supported me through my journey. While my decision
57:39
Speaker 1: to not renew my contract was very difficult, it's also
57:43
Speaker 1: a new turning point in my life. It has been
57:45
Speaker 1: an honor and a privilege to be Ava now. In
57:48
Speaker 1: a statement, the company wished Ava real name Simone Johnson,
57:52
Speaker 1: of course she is the daughter of the Rock. They
57:55
Speaker 1: wished her all the best in her future endeavors and
57:57
Speaker 1: said WWE thanks and applauds Simon own Garcia Johnson for
58:01
Speaker 1: her stellar work as Ava and beyond. Her passion, dedication,
58:04
Speaker 1: and impact were felt across the entire NXT and WWE community.
58:09
Speaker 1: We wish her the very best in all future endeavors.
58:14
Speaker 1: So this was very much out of left field, especially
58:18
Speaker 1: because she was still very intertwined in a lot of
58:23
Speaker 1: different stories on the program on NXT and to that end,
58:29
Speaker 1: Dave Meltzer and Brian Alvarez on Observer Radio, we're talking
58:32
Speaker 1: about this last night. This is what Meltzer said. I've
58:34
Speaker 1: talked to and heard from several people, and the general
58:36
Speaker 1: thing was that she just didn't want to do it anymore.
58:39
Speaker 1: There was no compelling reason. It was just one of
58:42
Speaker 1: those things where her parents own a studio and they
58:45
Speaker 1: thought that she's probably gonna end up working there. She
58:47
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do it. One person had contacted me
58:51
Speaker 1: and mentioned that Tatiana Duma of its Dumas, we'll say Dumas.
58:57
Speaker 1: I know Lita was Amy Duma, so I don't know
58:59
Speaker 1: if that's how you pronounce her name, but anyway, that's
59:03
Speaker 1: her girlfriend. Apparently she was cut recently, which he says,
59:07
Speaker 1: we did not hear just a couple of weeks ago.
59:11
Speaker 1: They weren't quite saying that's why she quit, but it
59:13
Speaker 1: was something that people said, and maybe it had something
59:18
Speaker 1: to do with it, maybe it didn't. I don't know.
59:20
Speaker 1: It was her decision. It's not like they were going
59:22
Speaker 1: to get rid of her or anything like that. And
59:24
Speaker 1: then Alvarez mentioned that there was no mention on Tuesday's
59:27
Speaker 1: episode of NXT that she would be leaving soon, and
59:29
Speaker 1: in fact, there was an angle involving her and Tony
59:32
Speaker 1: DiAngelo that's been playing out in recent weeks on television.
59:36
Speaker 1: So that's what makes this sound very sudden. Whether or
59:39
Speaker 1: not it's tied into her girlfriend being cut, people will
59:42
Speaker 1: speculate on that. But it was her call and she's gone,
59:46
Speaker 1: and that means that there is now an opening on
59:48
Speaker 1: NXT for a new general manager. So if anybody knows
59:51
Speaker 1: any authority figures out there who might be able to
59:53
Speaker 1: fill that spot, you should go ahead and let them know.
59:57
Speaker 1: Maybe they can audition for the job, or they could
1:00:00
Speaker 1: just bring William Regal back, but he's a little bit
1:00:02
Speaker 1: busy right now doing scouting and whatever he's doing for
1:00:05
Speaker 1: a Triple H. I don't know if he would have
1:00:06
Speaker 1: time to go back to NXT. He was. He's still
1:00:09
Speaker 1: the best NXT general manager they've ever had, so if
1:00:13
Speaker 1: they wanted to go back to a mister Regal, I
1:00:15
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't mind that. But I'm also not watching NXT
1:00:18
Speaker 1: week to week, so at the end of the day,
1:00:19
Speaker 1: I just don't give a shit, but I wish her
1:00:21
Speaker 1: all the best. Let's talk about WWE Unreal. I finished
1:00:27
Speaker 1: all five episodes of WWE Unreal Season two on Netflix,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: and season two was very much like season one in
1:00:35
Speaker 1: that if you are not a WWE fan and you
1:00:39
Speaker 1: come into this cold, I think you'll find it all
1:00:42
Speaker 1: very interesting as far as like how the sausage is made,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: and you'll come away from it with a greater appreciation
1:00:47
Speaker 1: for what goes into making the show what it is.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: By the show, I mean like WWE in general, right
1:00:53
Speaker 1: from the talent to the production, to the writing and
1:00:56
Speaker 1: everything in between. I don't think that this is a
1:00:59
Speaker 1: show that is making very many new fans, though. I
1:01:03
Speaker 1: think it's more than likely it's existing fans that are
1:01:06
Speaker 1: going to be watching because they always want to know
1:01:07
Speaker 1: what's going on behind the scenes. Many times, what's going
1:01:10
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes is more interesting than what's going
1:01:13
Speaker 1: on on camera, and that remains my biggest issue with
1:01:16
Speaker 1: the show. Nobody. Look, nobody is forcing me to watch this, right,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: I wanted to, and I wanted to review it here
1:01:22
Speaker 1: on my show, so I watched it. But I just
1:01:25
Speaker 1: hate how much they give away. Like I know k
1:01:29
Speaker 1: Fave is dead, and we know, you know, wrestling is
1:01:31
Speaker 1: a collaboration, it's a show. We all know that, but
1:01:34
Speaker 1: not every magician needs to give away every trick that
1:01:38
Speaker 1: they do. And I feel like today's wrestling they give
1:01:42
Speaker 1: too much away and they throw it in your face
1:01:45
Speaker 1: too much that it's all just a show, to the
1:01:47
Speaker 1: point where they promote this during the actual shows, where
1:01:50
Speaker 1: if I didn't want to watch on real it's still
1:01:53
Speaker 1: being thrown in my face any given night by Michael Cole. Hey,
1:01:57
Speaker 1: we're taking to the writers the writer's room. Then these
1:02:00
Speaker 1: people really don't hate each other, Like I hate being
1:02:03
Speaker 1: beaten over the head with it during Raw and SmackDown.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: That's my biggest gripe. But that doesn't mean that the
1:02:10
Speaker 1: show is without its benefits, Like I like the focus
1:02:12
Speaker 1: on people like Penta and Chelsea Green at different points
1:02:17
Speaker 1: during the season. The cameras follow them around and not
1:02:20
Speaker 1: just backstage, but like at their home or Penta has
1:02:23
Speaker 1: I guess it's his school or Jim and he's training
1:02:27
Speaker 1: kids to become wrestlers and his daughter was there, Like
1:02:30
Speaker 1: that was very cool. That kind of stuff really helps
1:02:33
Speaker 1: shine a light on their personalities in a way that
1:02:35
Speaker 1: we don't get to see on the weekly shows. So
1:02:38
Speaker 1: I think it could be useful for some talents in
1:02:40
Speaker 1: that way. But I do have to say I think
1:02:42
Speaker 1: the biggest sin with a show like this in today's
1:02:46
Speaker 1: modern WWE it's just how boring it is compared to
1:02:51
Speaker 1: what a show like this would have looked like twenty
1:02:53
Speaker 1: or thirty years ago. Like I'm glad we didn't have
1:02:56
Speaker 1: this thirty years ago to kill the illusion, but like
1:02:59
Speaker 1: if we did, if there was an Unreal in the
1:03:02
Speaker 1: mid nineties or the late nineties, it would have been
1:03:06
Speaker 1: so much more entertaining, Like it would have been so
1:03:08
Speaker 1: much more interesting with actual conflict on the show. You'd
1:03:13
Speaker 1: have people that really did hate each other or were
1:03:16
Speaker 1: looking to step over each other to make it to
1:03:18
Speaker 1: the top. Like imagine the Brett Hart and Sean Michael
1:03:20
Speaker 1: stuff playing out on a show like Unreal. You almost
1:03:23
Speaker 1: wouldn't even believe it was real. You would have to
1:03:26
Speaker 1: think it was all manufactured. But no, those guys really
1:03:28
Speaker 1: did not like each other there for a period of time, so, like,
1:03:32
Speaker 1: you know, real personality clashes behind the scenes. Here, it's
1:03:36
Speaker 1: just like the way they portray it. It's just one big,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: happy family. Everyone's just happy to be there. Everyone is
1:03:43
Speaker 1: always looking for for Triple H's affirmation, and after a
1:03:47
Speaker 1: while it's like, all right, we get it, like watching
1:03:51
Speaker 1: CM Punk and Triple H all lovey dovey together. Like
1:03:55
Speaker 1: in many ways, this show came a couple of decades late,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: when it would have been a more interesting back then.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Everything now is just too polished. It's too sanitized. It's
1:04:04
Speaker 1: too nice and neat. They have scenes from these creative
1:04:08
Speaker 1: meetings that are just not very interesting, like this, very
1:04:11
Speaker 1: little conflict, very little pushback on anything, or at least
1:04:15
Speaker 1: that's what they choose to show us. Of course, they
1:04:18
Speaker 1: edit the shit out of this, so who knows what's
1:04:19
Speaker 1: left on the cutting room floor. But yeah, there's like
1:04:22
Speaker 1: a few scenes where they make road Dog this season
1:04:25
Speaker 1: look like a blithering idiot, but to his credit, like
1:04:28
Speaker 1: at least he's offering ideas that he believes in, right,
1:04:31
Speaker 1: he just doesn't have any sort of follow up to them.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: Like when he gets called out on stuff, he doesn't
1:04:35
Speaker 1: have a good rationale for it. So what happens is
1:04:37
Speaker 1: he just comes off his reactionary like a fan online,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: this is what I think we should do. Oh okay,
1:04:45
Speaker 1: but if we do that, then what happens here? Oh
1:04:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. You're probably right, you know we shouldn't
1:04:50
Speaker 1: do it. Then forget I said anything like Okay, boy,
1:04:55
Speaker 1: what a great creative meeting. This is like there were
1:04:58
Speaker 1: multiple things said in those creative meetings that just made
1:05:00
Speaker 1: me shake my head. So, I mean, it's hard to
1:05:04
Speaker 1: know where the fiction ends and where the fact begins.
1:05:06
Speaker 1: With this show. They absolutely manufacture things, you know, for
1:05:09
Speaker 1: the sake of it's reality TV, So I mean, what
1:05:12
Speaker 1: else do you expect? But I do believe a lot
1:05:14
Speaker 1: of the reactions that we see from the talents are genuine.
1:05:17
Speaker 1: Like Lyra Valkyrias, she was in tears after her summer
1:05:21
Speaker 1: slide match with Becky Lynch. They had a bad match, Like,
1:05:24
Speaker 1: just objectively, it was not good, the only bad one
1:05:27
Speaker 1: I've seen them have. But it was the big blowoff
1:05:30
Speaker 1: to their feud, remember the zip ties and all the
1:05:32
Speaker 1: stuff with the weapons and the plunder. They did a
1:05:34
Speaker 1: plunder match and it didn't work. When what made their
1:05:39
Speaker 1: matches great with letting them go out there and fucking wrestle,
1:05:42
Speaker 1: they decided to do a garbage match and it shit
1:05:45
Speaker 1: the bed. So I think it came right after also
1:05:49
Speaker 1: a TLC match that night and that didn't help matters.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: But like you see how devastated Lyra is that they
1:05:56
Speaker 1: just had a bad night. Even John Cena comes over
1:05:59
Speaker 1: to her to give her a pep talk and try
1:06:01
Speaker 1: to lift her spirits, but like there's no convincing her,
1:06:03
Speaker 1: Like she's she's not buying it. She knew it was bad,
1:06:06
Speaker 1: and you feel bad for her, you know, watching her
1:06:08
Speaker 1: talk about it, because you can see how much it
1:06:11
Speaker 1: bothers her that they couldn't go out there and in
1:06:14
Speaker 1: the capper to this big program they had really just
1:06:19
Speaker 1: kind of put a nice bow on it and have
1:06:21
Speaker 1: this great blowoff, and instead it's like, oh, you know,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: that wasn't good. And that's one of the stories they
1:06:27
Speaker 1: focus on this season is Becky Lynch's return and her
1:06:32
Speaker 1: program with Lyra. All the way through SummerSlam, they cover
1:06:36
Speaker 1: Our Truths contract expiring and not being renewed, Naomi winning
1:06:41
Speaker 1: money in the bank and that eventually cashing in to
1:06:43
Speaker 1: become the World champion, and the fake seth Rollins injury
1:06:47
Speaker 1: that led to his world title win at SummerSlam. One
1:06:51
Speaker 1: of the more ridiculous moments, and this was in the
1:06:54
Speaker 1: very first episode, has Bruce Pritchard in a creative meeting
1:07:00
Speaker 1: as they are talking about Backlash and the match between
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Gunther and Pat McAfee, suggesting that it would be too
1:07:07
Speaker 1: predictable for Gunther to just go in there and beat
1:07:11
Speaker 1: Pat McAfee. Now, mind you, he made this argument while
1:07:17
Speaker 1: the cameras were rolling, so he was you know, was
1:07:20
Speaker 1: he just doing it for the cameras or did he
1:07:22
Speaker 1: really think that anything other than what they ended up
1:07:25
Speaker 1: doing was the right outcome for that match. The fact
1:07:28
Speaker 1: that it was even suggested that McAfee might possibly beat Gunther,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: even on a fluke, is so batshit crazy, like, especially
1:07:38
Speaker 1: when you remember that Gunther had just tapped out to
1:07:41
Speaker 1: the yeat Man at WrestleMania. He had just tapped out
1:07:44
Speaker 1: to Jay Uso. Can you imagine after tapping out to
1:07:46
Speaker 1: jay Usso and losing the World Heavyweight Championship, the World
1:07:50
Speaker 1: Heavyweight Championship if On the very next pl they had
1:07:55
Speaker 1: Pat McAfee steal a win off of Gunther, Like, if
1:07:58
Speaker 1: you wanted to kill Gunther dead, then that's exactly what
1:08:02
Speaker 1: you would do. You could just tape a sign on
1:08:05
Speaker 1: his back too that says kick me, and he could
1:08:07
Speaker 1: walk everywhere he walks with the sign people are kicking
1:08:09
Speaker 1: him in his ass. Just because something is predictable does
1:08:14
Speaker 1: not make it bad or it doesn't mean that you
1:08:17
Speaker 1: don't do it. You can come up with ways to
1:08:20
Speaker 1: dress it up and make it exciting and make people
1:08:23
Speaker 1: believe that maybe it could happen. Give McAfee a couple
1:08:26
Speaker 1: of hope spots, but in the end, you do what
1:08:30
Speaker 1: makes sense. You don't do something just to shock people. Thankfully,
1:08:34
Speaker 1: there was another writer in the room, their VP of
1:08:36
Speaker 1: creative who was the voice of reason here, and he said,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: I don't know why Gunther would be losing to our
1:08:41
Speaker 1: color commentator, and then he's going to have to go
1:08:44
Speaker 1: out there on TV the next week, and Pat's going
1:08:46
Speaker 1: to be sitting ten feet away and Gumphther's not gonna
1:08:48
Speaker 1: do anything about it. Like when you think about it
1:08:51
Speaker 1: like that, it's pretty damn silly. Then there's the art
1:08:56
Speaker 1: Truth stuff. He was going to be working a match
1:08:59
Speaker 1: with Johnson. This was their match on Saturday Night's main event.
1:09:02
Speaker 1: Road Dog, who has been tight with Truth going back
1:09:05
Speaker 1: over twenty years. I mean, he's the reason Truth got
1:09:08
Speaker 1: his job in WWE. He tells Triple H that Truth
1:09:11
Speaker 1: wants to shave his head for the match with John Cena,
1:09:14
Speaker 1: and Triple H cannot understand why, and road Dog doesn't
1:09:18
Speaker 1: react well to this. He goes literally, he goes, oh,
1:09:22
Speaker 1: everything is the shits. I can't wait for this to
1:09:24
Speaker 1: just be over with. If Triple H keeps pushing, he doesn't.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: He just doesn't understand what Truth cutting his hair before
1:09:32
Speaker 1: the match is supposed to accomplish, which, to be fair,
1:09:35
Speaker 1: it would have been at a left field, but it's like,
1:09:38
Speaker 1: why not use that as a way to put more
1:09:40
Speaker 1: heat on John Cena, like with this floundering heel turn
1:09:44
Speaker 1: that he ended up having for the most part, like
1:09:46
Speaker 1: everyone loves our Truth, why not have the match John
1:09:50
Speaker 1: Cena wins and then after the match have seen a
1:09:54
Speaker 1: cut Truth's braids off, and then he could hold him
1:09:57
Speaker 1: up like a trophy like that would gotten him some heat.
1:10:01
Speaker 1: This was never brought up during the meeting, at least
1:10:04
Speaker 1: not on camera. This was never This was never broached.
1:10:08
Speaker 1: It's a truth and seeing that they have their match,
1:10:10
Speaker 1: everything goes fine. And then Truth is taking his daughter
1:10:14
Speaker 1: to dance class one day and he says he gets
1:10:16
Speaker 1: a phone call telling him that he's released, which is
1:10:19
Speaker 1: when he put that tweet out letting everybody know that
1:10:21
Speaker 1: he just got released. And this is why no one
1:10:23
Speaker 1: is safe, by the way, even someone like Miss, and
1:10:26
Speaker 1: I think it was with Chris van Vliet, he interviewed
1:10:28
Speaker 1: Miz and Miss said that even he worries about getting
1:10:32
Speaker 1: that call one day, about getting swept up in some
1:10:35
Speaker 1: mass wave of releases. No one is immune from losing
1:10:39
Speaker 1: their job. No one signs a lifetime contract with WWE,
1:10:44
Speaker 1: no one is owed a job for life. But there
1:10:47
Speaker 1: are just certain talents that you would just never think
1:10:50
Speaker 1: would be let go. They're too well liked. They're a
1:10:52
Speaker 1: great utility player for them to plug in wherever the
1:10:54
Speaker 1: company needs them, or they're there for comic relief, you know,
1:10:58
Speaker 1: whatever their role may be on the show. That's our truth,
1:11:02
Speaker 1: that's the miz. So when Truth said he got released,
1:11:05
Speaker 1: it was shocking, and it was very upsetting to a
1:11:08
Speaker 1: lot of people, especially on their own roster. The way
1:11:12
Speaker 1: Triple H explains it, Truth's contract was coming due and
1:11:15
Speaker 1: there was a breakdown in communication between the two sides
1:11:17
Speaker 1: on what a new deal would look like, which, if
1:11:20
Speaker 1: you read between the lines, they were offering less money
1:11:24
Speaker 1: and Truth did not want to take less money, so
1:11:26
Speaker 1: they were letting him know, we're not going to renew
1:11:28
Speaker 1: your deal, right, that's their position. He said that Truth
1:11:32
Speaker 1: went and put that tweet out when the hope was
1:11:35
Speaker 1: from their end, like we'll tell him that, okay, we're
1:11:38
Speaker 1: going to let your deal expire, and then he'll come
1:11:41
Speaker 1: back to the table and say, ohh wait a minute,
1:11:43
Speaker 1: hold on a second here, let's talk this out. Let's
1:11:46
Speaker 1: make a deal. So they put it back on him
1:11:50
Speaker 1: that he was unwilling to accept where they were offering him.
1:11:54
Speaker 1: But he says that Truth was not He was never
1:11:56
Speaker 1: not under contract, He was never technically fired because his
1:12:01
Speaker 1: contract still wasn't up yet. And Road Dog agrees with
1:12:05
Speaker 1: this and says Truth being released made perfect business sense
1:12:09
Speaker 1: because of how old Truth is. Maybe you're not going
1:12:12
Speaker 1: to get the same return on your investment, but Honestly,
1:12:16
Speaker 1: what have they done with him in the last five
1:12:18
Speaker 1: years that was going to be radically different in the
1:12:20
Speaker 1: next five, Like unless you wanted an easier schedule, I
1:12:23
Speaker 1: don't know how much easier it can get, seeing as
1:12:26
Speaker 1: how they barely do any house shows anymore. I mean, honestly,
1:12:29
Speaker 1: neither side really came off well here, I thought, because
1:12:32
Speaker 1: truth says well, you know, when I got the phone call,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: I took it to mean that I was fired, which
1:12:37
Speaker 1: technically wasn't true. And he put the tweet out. You know,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: was he looking to get sympathy out of it and
1:12:42
Speaker 1: rile people up to let the company know how they feel.
1:12:45
Speaker 1: Maybe if he was, it was a great strategy because
1:12:48
Speaker 1: it worked, and based on the way they've used him since,
1:12:52
Speaker 1: it's clear that they had no special plans for him.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: Either his contract was going to lapse and he was
1:12:57
Speaker 1: going to be done, or he was going to take
1:12:59
Speaker 1: what they were on offering, and he would have been
1:13:01
Speaker 1: in the exact same spot he's always been in. So
1:13:04
Speaker 1: they shot the angle where he cut his hair on TV,
1:13:07
Speaker 1: and you know, he was gonna be all serious ron killings,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: and then it never went anywhere, and now he's back
1:13:13
Speaker 1: to being goofy and telling and talking to Nick all
1:13:15
Speaker 1: this about his balls on TV every week, and the
1:13:18
Speaker 1: real reason by the way that he cut his hair.
1:13:21
Speaker 1: He admitted he was going bald, so we got that
1:13:25
Speaker 1: little reveal like I love hell at the very end
1:13:27
Speaker 1: of that episode. It's like just truth looking into the camera.
1:13:30
Speaker 1: You know why I cut my hair because I was
1:13:31
Speaker 1: going bald. And that's how it ends. They featured Naomi
1:13:36
Speaker 1: and they briefly talked about her and Sasha Banks walking
1:13:39
Speaker 1: out when they were the women's tag team champions in
1:13:42
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Triple H said that he wasn't involved
1:13:45
Speaker 1: at the time, so he didn't have much to really
1:13:47
Speaker 1: say about it, and they more or less glossed over
1:13:49
Speaker 1: the whole thing. It's one of those domino effect things
1:13:52
Speaker 1: that when wrestling, where I look back at that, you know,
1:13:55
Speaker 1: the Sasha and Naomi walk out. That's what led to
1:13:58
Speaker 1: CM punk tweeting about workers' rights. He tweeted in support
1:14:03
Speaker 1: of them when they walked out, and he mentioned workers'
1:14:06
Speaker 1: rights in his tweet. Hangman Page then threw back in
1:14:09
Speaker 1: his face the whole workers rights thing in that infamous
1:14:13
Speaker 1: promo on Dynamite, which eventually played a role in Punk
1:14:16
Speaker 1: crashing out of brawl Out. That wasn't the only thing,
1:14:19
Speaker 1: because there was also the cult Cabana stuff, but it
1:14:22
Speaker 1: was a big part of why Punk had that meltdown.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: And so it makes you wonder, like, if Punk doesn't
1:14:27
Speaker 1: tweet that out and Hangman doesn't bring it up, does
1:14:31
Speaker 1: all of that other stuff go down the way that
1:14:33
Speaker 1: it did. We'll never know. It'll forever be one of
1:14:37
Speaker 1: those great what ifs. The third episode is where they
1:14:41
Speaker 1: featured Penta and also Chelsea Green and imagine my surprise
1:14:45
Speaker 1: when they started showing footage of Chelsea's match with Penta
1:14:49
Speaker 1: in Luca Underground. I was transported back there for a minute,
1:14:52
Speaker 1: and I missed it all over again. You hear Matt
1:14:56
Speaker 1: Striker on commentary and they're showing you footage. They're showing
1:14:59
Speaker 1: you highlight from this. I wonder who owns that footage
1:15:01
Speaker 1: that they were able to show that, but yeah, they're
1:15:05
Speaker 1: so they're showing this and they had a killer match. Actually,
1:15:08
Speaker 1: Chelsea goes it will never happen again because you can't
1:15:11
Speaker 1: redo perfection, and I'm just watching that. I'm like, really,
1:15:15
Speaker 1: is that what it is? Is that why we're never
1:15:18
Speaker 1: going to see it again. So there's a creative meeting
1:15:21
Speaker 1: where road Doug pitches putting the United States title back
1:15:24
Speaker 1: on Chelsea. Triple H, though, wants to know who does
1:15:28
Speaker 1: she work with if you do that, because all you
1:15:30
Speaker 1: have are Meechen, Bfab, and Zelena, all women. He says
1:15:35
Speaker 1: that she's already worked with anyone outside of those names,
1:15:39
Speaker 1: and she has to lose, right, this is what they're saying.
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Road Doug looks like he takes this shit very personally
1:15:45
Speaker 1: whenever one of his ideas gets shot down. And I
1:15:48
Speaker 1: love how Triple H correctly points out the lack of
1:15:50
Speaker 1: women for her to work with, like where is the
1:15:53
Speaker 1: voice in the room? Though that says to him, well,
1:15:55
Speaker 1: why haven't we called anyone new up yet? From NXT
1:16:00
Speaker 1: might help solve that problem. But it's the comments that
1:16:03
Speaker 1: Michael Hayes makes about Chelsea Green and the way in
1:16:06
Speaker 1: which he says them that really rubbed me the wrong way.
1:16:10
Speaker 1: Michael Hayes talks about how entertaining Chelsea is like he's
1:16:13
Speaker 1: trying to put her over while at the same time
1:16:15
Speaker 1: burying her by saying that she's entertaining, but she's not
1:16:20
Speaker 1: built for nor should she be in a Charlotte Flair
1:16:24
Speaker 1: role or a Tiffany Stratton role, because Chelsea's job is
1:16:28
Speaker 1: to help make those people. And just the way that
1:16:32
Speaker 1: he said it, it did not come across like it
1:16:36
Speaker 1: didn't come across as well, this is her role now,
1:16:39
Speaker 1: that's her job now. But at some point maybe she
1:16:42
Speaker 1: can be that person. It came off as in his
1:16:44
Speaker 1: own words, she's not built to be that person, like
1:16:47
Speaker 1: this is her ceiling and this is her role, and
1:16:51
Speaker 1: this is as good as it's ever going to get.
1:16:54
Speaker 1: And if he honestly believes that, then he shouldn't be
1:16:56
Speaker 1: in the position that he's in because Chelsea Green absolute
1:17:00
Speaker 1: slutely has what it takes to be a world champion
1:17:02
Speaker 1: in that division one day. She's already very popular, so
1:17:07
Speaker 1: it's not a matter of like, oh, she can't get
1:17:09
Speaker 1: over in that role. Yeah, I mean with her, it's
1:17:13
Speaker 1: very comedic the stuff they have her doing on TV.
1:17:16
Speaker 1: It would not be that difficult if you wanted to
1:17:18
Speaker 1: come up with a story for Chelsea. Word something happens
1:17:21
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, shit gets a little more
1:17:23
Speaker 1: serious with her because we've seen her do that before. Dude,
1:17:27
Speaker 1: on this fucking episode. In the footage from Luca Underground
1:17:31
Speaker 1: that they were showing like we know she's got it
1:17:33
Speaker 1: in her and I'm like listening to him say this stuff,
1:17:37
Speaker 1: and I'm like, fuck that she absolutely can. He's right
1:17:43
Speaker 1: about that not being her role right now. Right now, Yes,
1:17:47
Speaker 1: her role is to elevate other people, but that shouldn't
1:17:49
Speaker 1: be her only role. That shouldn't be the only thing
1:17:52
Speaker 1: that she's good for. Like she's gotten as far as
1:17:55
Speaker 1: she's ever gonna go. And to hear him say that
1:17:57
Speaker 1: really irk the shit out of me, and I thought
1:17:59
Speaker 1: it was a real slap in her face. Bobby Rude
1:18:04
Speaker 1: An Abyss they got more screen time this season as producers.
1:18:08
Speaker 1: If you remember last season, Abyss was so eager to
1:18:13
Speaker 1: please Bruce Pritchard, especially that first raw on Netflix. He
1:18:16
Speaker 1: was like a little kid, like letting down Bruce was
1:18:20
Speaker 1: the worst thing in the world, like he was letting
1:18:22
Speaker 1: down his dad. And he comes across as very likable
1:18:25
Speaker 1: and very affable, but just very how shall I say this,
1:18:31
Speaker 1: He comes across as very over eager, Like there were
1:18:34
Speaker 1: times where he's talking to Triple H or Bruce at
1:18:37
Speaker 1: Gorilla about something, asking over and over and over again, like,
1:18:40
Speaker 1: oh was that okay? Was that okay? Is that what
1:18:41
Speaker 1: you wanted? You know, like, this is what we were
1:18:44
Speaker 1: trying to do. Did you like it? Did you like
1:18:45
Speaker 1: it was that? Okay? And they they're sitting there and
1:18:48
Speaker 1: they have a look on their faces like, oh God,
1:18:50
Speaker 1: this guy again. Like they had a look on their
1:18:53
Speaker 1: faces like they were annoyed with him and they wanted
1:18:55
Speaker 1: him to go away. And I kind of felt the
1:18:58
Speaker 1: same way, honestly, Like I can see where when he
1:19:02
Speaker 1: turns his back to go walk away, they probably make
1:19:04
Speaker 1: fun of him behind his back or something like they
1:19:06
Speaker 1: would totally do that. But he just really wants to
1:19:09
Speaker 1: do a good job, but he wants to make his
1:19:10
Speaker 1: boss proud. And then there's Bobby Rude. It's very clear
1:19:13
Speaker 1: that he's become someone that they really like and trust
1:19:15
Speaker 1: in big situations. He was one of the very few
1:19:17
Speaker 1: people they actually clued in about the fake seth rollins
1:19:20
Speaker 1: injury at Saturday night's main event. I love, by the way,
1:19:24
Speaker 1: all of the TNA influence that they now have backstage.
1:19:27
Speaker 1: You got Bobby Rude, you got Abyss, you got p. D. Williams.
1:19:32
Speaker 1: But Abyss was overseeing the men's money in the bank
1:19:35
Speaker 1: match last year and they had a plan finish with
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Seth Rollins in La Night. They had it all mapped
1:19:40
Speaker 1: out and as the match progresses, Abyss is in the back,
1:19:43
Speaker 1: he's on headset, he's all hyped up, they're hitting their cues.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: Everything's going great. And then the ending got screwed up
1:19:51
Speaker 1: and it didn't go the way that they had discussed it.
1:19:54
Speaker 1: And there was supposed to be a face to face
1:19:56
Speaker 1: at the top of the ladder with Night on one
1:20:00
Speaker 1: side of the ladder Rollins on the other side, and
1:20:02
Speaker 1: it was going to be this big dramatic thing where
1:20:03
Speaker 1: he kind of knocks Rollins down a few steps or
1:20:07
Speaker 1: maybe knocks him off the ladder, and it's like, oh shit,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: he might actually La Night might actually win this right
1:20:12
Speaker 1: to bring the crowd back up, But then Rollins will
1:20:15
Speaker 1: race back up the ladder. You're just playing with people's emotions, right.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: They had this whole thing all mapped out, and then
1:20:22
Speaker 1: ultimately Seth stomps him, and then he goes back up
1:20:24
Speaker 1: and he grabs a briefcase. But they wanted it to
1:20:27
Speaker 1: be a real struggle for a while to build a drama.
1:20:29
Speaker 1: It didn't work out that way. It did not work out,
1:20:31
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I don't know who's to
1:20:34
Speaker 1: blame for that. My impression was La Night that maybe
1:20:36
Speaker 1: he just blanked on what the spot was. I don't
1:20:39
Speaker 1: know if it was him or Rollin, I don't know.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: It just it did not go the way that they
1:20:42
Speaker 1: wanted it to go. And Triple H is not thrilled
1:20:47
Speaker 1: and poor Abyss like he had to be shitting himself.
1:20:51
Speaker 1: Triple H had to put his mind at ease and
1:20:54
Speaker 1: just remind Abyss like, look, the talents are out there.
1:20:58
Speaker 1: They're the ones who have to do the work. Okay,
1:21:00
Speaker 1: I'll put this on you. It's not your fault. And
1:21:01
Speaker 1: he's right, like when shit goes sideways like that, or
1:21:04
Speaker 1: if someone forgets their spot, that's on them, Like, you
1:21:08
Speaker 1: can't blame the producer for that. It's like a coach
1:21:10
Speaker 1: who calls a play. It's up to the players to
1:21:12
Speaker 1: go out on the field and actually carry out and
1:21:14
Speaker 1: execute the play. And it's a great play, it should
1:21:18
Speaker 1: win the game. But if the players don't execute or
1:21:22
Speaker 1: they drop the ball, that's not the coach's fault. But
1:21:25
Speaker 1: that's where the clip comes from. That I saw people
1:21:28
Speaker 1: sharing on social media completely out of context of La
1:21:31
Speaker 1: Knight kneeling down at Guerrilla while Triple Ah brow beats him.
1:21:35
Speaker 1: People online were making it seem like the reason Night
1:21:38
Speaker 1: looks so dejected is because he was told he was
1:21:40
Speaker 1: losing when that clip came after the match, and the
1:21:45
Speaker 1: reason that he was upset is because he botched the
1:21:48
Speaker 1: finish and Triple Ah is explaining to him like that
1:21:51
Speaker 1: the way the finish was designed, it was designed for
1:21:54
Speaker 1: you to try to make you look strong even though
1:21:57
Speaker 1: you were losing. It was designed to make you look
1:21:59
Speaker 1: a strong possible. And I had no problem with the
1:22:02
Speaker 1: way the Triple H spoke to him, or the fact
1:22:04
Speaker 1: that he was sitting down and La Knight had to
1:22:06
Speaker 1: crouch down to like be at his level. It's like
1:22:09
Speaker 1: like this is what people were complaining about online. I
1:22:12
Speaker 1: am convinced that people there are people who wake up
1:22:14
Speaker 1: in the morning looking for things to get upset about,
1:22:19
Speaker 1: like the shit that I get upset about, and I
1:22:21
Speaker 1: get upset about a lot of shit like that just
1:22:23
Speaker 1: comes organically. It's just like something pisses me off, I'm
1:22:27
Speaker 1: gonna tell you about it. But I don't wake up
1:22:29
Speaker 1: in the morning and brush my teeth and think, you know,
1:22:31
Speaker 1: what could I be pissed off about today, Like, I
1:22:34
Speaker 1: don't need to do that because I already know there's
1:22:36
Speaker 1: gonna be a good five to ten things they're gonna
1:22:38
Speaker 1: piss me off. But like, are we really bashing Triple
1:22:42
Speaker 1: H for sitting in his chair and La Night crouching down?
1:22:45
Speaker 1: Like is this what we're doing now? They covered the
1:22:50
Speaker 1: period from Saturday Night's main event up until SummerSlam and
1:22:55
Speaker 1: Jelly Roll. He got a lot of FaceTime in the
1:22:57
Speaker 1: fourth episode he came off I thought, very well, very likable.
1:23:01
Speaker 1: He's obviously a huge fan, He's very humble, and we
1:23:04
Speaker 1: already knew this, but this did confirm that it was
1:23:07
Speaker 1: his idea to lose in the Summer Slam match with
1:23:11
Speaker 1: him and Randy Orton against Drew McIntyre. Logan Paul, he
1:23:14
Speaker 1: wanted to put the heels over a lot of times.
1:23:17
Speaker 1: In these celebrity matches, it goes the other way. I
1:23:19
Speaker 1: don't want to say every single time, but I would
1:23:21
Speaker 1: say ninety five percent plus of the time when you
1:23:26
Speaker 1: have a celebrity match, the celebrity goes over. Look at
1:23:30
Speaker 1: mister t Look at Lawrence Taylor at WrestleMania eleven, Look
1:23:34
Speaker 1: at Floyd Mayweather, at WrestleMania twenty four, Snookie Johnny Knoxville
1:23:40
Speaker 1: against Sammy's Aye David Arquette in WCW won their fucking
1:23:45
Speaker 1: world title. Kevin Fetterline still owns a win over John
1:23:49
Speaker 1: Cena that John Cena, by the way, never avenged and
1:23:52
Speaker 1: now he never will. I'm surprised we didn't see him
1:23:55
Speaker 1: during that retirement tour. The Rollins injury angle, they came
1:24:00
Speaker 1: most people in the dark about it, including the referee.
1:24:03
Speaker 1: Medical had to know, so the doctors were aware, as
1:24:07
Speaker 1: was La Knight, which if Seth Rollins had his way,
1:24:10
Speaker 1: La Knight would not have known. Rollins did not want
1:24:12
Speaker 1: Knight to know, like he was like, why does he
1:24:14
Speaker 1: have to know? And Triple H correctly points out, like
1:24:18
Speaker 1: how shitty that would be, and how if the shoe
1:24:20
Speaker 1: was on the other foot and nobody clues you in,
1:24:23
Speaker 1: like you would be beside yourself with rage, and Rollins
1:24:26
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you're probably right, but like imagine being
1:24:30
Speaker 1: La Night. You're wrestling this guy, you think he's legitimately hurt,
1:24:33
Speaker 1: and they rush you, know, they rush you to the finish.
1:24:35
Speaker 1: You feel terrible, only to then find out they worked
1:24:38
Speaker 1: you like you were one of the marks in the crowd.
1:24:43
Speaker 1: You got worked. Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off about that.
1:24:47
Speaker 1: You want to play with the fans emotions, that's fine,
1:24:50
Speaker 1: that's what wrestling does. They play with your emotions. You
1:24:53
Speaker 1: don't do that with the talent. And they showed Triple
1:24:57
Speaker 1: H telling the timekeeper and his headset or someone to
1:25:01
Speaker 1: let the timekeeper know, like, do not ring the fucking
1:25:03
Speaker 1: bell until I tell you to do so. Don't ring
1:25:06
Speaker 1: the fucking bell. It's like a bizarro version of Montreal.
1:25:10
Speaker 1: It's like the inverse of Montreal. Don't ring the bell.
1:25:14
Speaker 1: It's like John Cena when he went heeled. Instead of
1:25:16
Speaker 1: never give up, it's like telling all the little kids,
1:25:19
Speaker 1: don't ever give up? Right, all the make a wish stuff,
1:25:22
Speaker 1: all the wonderful stuff that John Cena did, and then
1:25:24
Speaker 1: when he went heel, I saw people mocking up these
1:25:27
Speaker 1: these illustrations of John Cena, like in a hospital telling
1:25:30
Speaker 1: kids to give up. This is horrible, but I still laughed.
1:25:35
Speaker 1: So anyway, I love the stuff with EO Sky and
1:25:38
Speaker 1: the build to her main event with Rhea Ripley at Evolution,
1:25:41
Speaker 1: which was one of the best matches all year. In
1:25:43
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, I love Triple H putting over Eo
1:25:46
Speaker 1: so strongly, and he made the comedy goes if something
1:25:49
Speaker 1: happened to the roster and I had to start from scratch,
1:25:52
Speaker 1: a fucking plane crash or something, and I had to
1:25:55
Speaker 1: start from scratch. If you just gave me EO Sky,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: I would be good, which is pretty high praise. And also,
1:26:03
Speaker 1: speaking of things online that people made a big deal about,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: I gotta mention this people online. I know Vince Russo
1:26:09
Speaker 1: was one of these. He was fucking apoplectic about this.
1:26:11
Speaker 1: But there were people online who made a big deal
1:26:13
Speaker 1: about EO Sky coming back to Gorilla after the match,
1:26:16
Speaker 1: and they were all so very happy because the match
1:26:19
Speaker 1: was awesome, and she jumps up into Triple H's arms
1:26:22
Speaker 1: for a big hug. She was just so happy with
1:26:24
Speaker 1: how the match went. And like people are like, oh,
1:26:28
Speaker 1: this is how inappropriate this is, and they're sharing pictures
1:26:31
Speaker 1: of the hug, and I'm like, again, is this what
1:26:34
Speaker 1: we have chosen to be mad about today? Is this
1:26:37
Speaker 1: what we woke up and decided, Hey, we're gonna die
1:26:39
Speaker 1: on this hill. It's not that deep. It's really not.
1:26:43
Speaker 1: Vince McMahon would literally book himself to make out with
1:26:46
Speaker 1: all of the divas on TV. If Eo Sky jumping
1:26:50
Speaker 1: into Triple H's arms for a hug in a moment
1:26:53
Speaker 1: of joy is the worst in front of all the cameras.
1:26:55
Speaker 1: By the way, it's not like they went off into
1:26:57
Speaker 1: the fucking broom closet and did this. If we're jumping
1:27:00
Speaker 1: into Triple Ah's arms for a hug in a moment
1:27:03
Speaker 1: of joy is the worst thing that this man does.
1:27:05
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's not, but if that's the worst
1:27:07
Speaker 1: thing he does, I'm not going to be fake outraged
1:27:10
Speaker 1: over it. The last episode covered Summer Slam, with Seth
1:27:16
Speaker 1: doing the surprise cash and Cody winning the belt back
1:27:19
Speaker 1: from John Cena. They recognized the WrestleMania match was no
1:27:23
Speaker 1: good and they wanted to make up for it, which
1:27:25
Speaker 1: they did. That match was awesome, but the reason they
1:27:28
Speaker 1: turned Sena so suddenly two days before their match was
1:27:31
Speaker 1: because Cody was going to be away for six weeks
1:27:33
Speaker 1: filming Street Fighter, because they had an idea to do
1:27:36
Speaker 1: something after SummerSlam so Cody would win the belt back.
1:27:39
Speaker 1: Scena still heal, but then Sena maybe comes to his
1:27:42
Speaker 1: aid in like an angle on TV, and he turns
1:27:45
Speaker 1: a baby Face that way, but they had to do
1:27:46
Speaker 1: it sooner because Cody wasn't going to be around. But honestly,
1:27:50
Speaker 1: like it was best to just rip the band aid
1:27:52
Speaker 1: off and just get it over with a few other
1:27:56
Speaker 1: observations here about this season. I don't remember it being
1:27:59
Speaker 1: this latent. This really hit me watching this. I don't
1:28:03
Speaker 1: remember it being this blatant in the first season, but here,
1:28:07
Speaker 1: like they would cut back to the gorilla position for
1:28:10
Speaker 1: some of the matches and you'd see the producers are
1:28:12
Speaker 1: on headset and they're producing, and you would see like
1:28:15
Speaker 1: Bobby Rude or Abyss on headset giving I presume the
1:28:20
Speaker 1: referee cues about what move was coming next, And I'm
1:28:24
Speaker 1: not even talking about like the finish, just like the
1:28:27
Speaker 1: next spot. Like, I didn't realize just how much they
1:28:32
Speaker 1: micro manage every little thing, right down to the individual
1:28:36
Speaker 1: moves in every match. That's crazy to me. Like I
1:28:41
Speaker 1: can understand giving them the heads up on big spots,
1:28:43
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that you get the right
1:28:44
Speaker 1: camera shot or like the right crowd shot for it,
1:28:49
Speaker 1: but every little move, like I can see why so
1:28:51
Speaker 1: many wrestlers prefer the house shows to TV because they're
1:28:54
Speaker 1: able to go out there and just fucking work like
1:28:58
Speaker 1: actual pro wrestlers, call shit on the fly, go out there,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: have fun, try new things. You don't have to like
1:29:03
Speaker 1: run every little move by someone before you go out there.
1:29:06
Speaker 1: It makes total sense to me. And then, as with
1:29:10
Speaker 1: season one, they had the whiteboards in the writer's room
1:29:13
Speaker 1: in some of the episodes giving insight into some of
1:29:15
Speaker 1: the things that were planned that ended up not happening.
1:29:18
Speaker 1: So the original King and Queen of the Ring finals
1:29:20
Speaker 1: at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia were supposed to
1:29:24
Speaker 1: be Cody Rhoads against Russev, which is just laughable looking
1:29:29
Speaker 1: back at it now, especially after the way he was
1:29:31
Speaker 1: booked in the Royal Rumble last night, Cody Roads against
1:29:35
Speaker 1: Russev and Rhea Ripley against Julia. That would have been
1:29:40
Speaker 1: a big spot for Julia. Instead she ended up not
1:29:43
Speaker 1: even being in the tournament, and Rhea got bounced out
1:29:45
Speaker 1: of the opening round and they got Jade Cargill in
1:29:49
Speaker 1: there in the finals against Oscar and Jade then went
1:29:52
Speaker 1: on to challenge for the title at SummerSlam and she lost.
1:29:55
Speaker 1: Russev also ended up getting bounced in the opening round,
1:29:59
Speaker 1: with Jay Usse advancing and we got Cody Roads against
1:30:02
Speaker 1: Randy Orton in the finals, which was definitely the bigger match,
1:30:05
Speaker 1: but it seems they had a bigger push in mind
1:30:07
Speaker 1: for Russev and they soured on him pretty early on
1:30:10
Speaker 1: into his return. Then for SummerSlam, early plans had Roman
1:30:15
Speaker 1: Reigns wrestling bron Breaker, which would have been bigger than
1:30:19
Speaker 1: the tag match they did. But I actually don't mind
1:30:21
Speaker 1: them doing Roman against Bronson Reed first because now it
1:30:25
Speaker 1: sets up a much bigger match down the road first
1:30:28
Speaker 1: time ever between Roman and Braun. They had seth Rollins
1:30:32
Speaker 1: penciled in here against Sammy Zain, Finn Balor as the
1:30:36
Speaker 1: Demon against Dominic Mysterio, which gives away what the plan is,
1:30:40
Speaker 1: by the way, for the eventual Baler Babyface term when
1:30:43
Speaker 1: he finally wrestles dom I think that's probably the WrestleMania
1:30:46
Speaker 1: match this year. We probably get the Demon jay Uso
1:30:50
Speaker 1: against Russev, which just proves my point that Russev was
1:30:54
Speaker 1: clearly earmarked for a much bigger push and they soured
1:30:57
Speaker 1: on it for whatever reason. Rhea Ripley again Osca Trish
1:31:01
Speaker 1: Stratus was supposed to have a match against someone she
1:31:04
Speaker 1: ended up not being on the show at all. They
1:31:06
Speaker 1: actually ended up doing less with her than I thought
1:31:08
Speaker 1: they would last year, considering it was twenty five years
1:31:11
Speaker 1: of Trish Stratus and WWA. I know she was in
1:31:13
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble, she had that tag match with Tiffany
1:31:18
Speaker 1: I think, right, Yeah, they teamed up an elimination chamber,
1:31:22
Speaker 1: and then she wrestled Tiffany for the title at Evolution,
1:31:26
Speaker 1: and that was a very rushed match with no build.
1:31:30
Speaker 1: But that was it, you know, That's all they did
1:31:32
Speaker 1: with Trish Last year. They were going to do Becky
1:31:34
Speaker 1: against Bailey for the Intercontinental title and Liv Morgan tagging
1:31:39
Speaker 1: with Riquel Rodriguez against the Bella Twins. So literally the
1:31:44
Speaker 1: entire card ended up changing. Outside of the top two
1:31:48
Speaker 1: title matches, which were CM Punk against Gunther and John
1:31:52
Speaker 1: Cena against Cody Rhodes, everything else changed, and comparing what
1:31:57
Speaker 1: they did to what they wanted to do, the original
1:32:01
Speaker 1: card was stronger than what they ended up giving us,
1:32:03
Speaker 1: although Liv got hurt so she wasn't going to be
1:32:05
Speaker 1: wrestling regardless. So if you're not a fan of them
1:32:09
Speaker 1: pulling back the curtains so much for this stuff, if
1:32:11
Speaker 1: you really hate that, then this is not the show.
1:32:13
Speaker 1: For you. But if you dig some of the backstage stuff,
1:32:16
Speaker 1: or you know, a look the creative process to the
1:32:19
Speaker 1: extent that what they're showing you is genuine, then it's
1:32:22
Speaker 1: an easy watch. And you do gain a greater appreciation
1:32:25
Speaker 1: for certain individuals, like the producers and what goes into
1:32:29
Speaker 1: their roles, because they don't get the kind of love
1:32:31
Speaker 1: that someone like Triple h gets because he's front and
1:32:34
Speaker 1: center with everything, like he's the face of it. So
1:32:37
Speaker 1: you get a window into who these other guys are,
1:32:39
Speaker 1: what their contributions are to the show. I spied Molly Holly.
1:32:45
Speaker 1: She was also in some of the episodes, she wasn't
1:32:48
Speaker 1: really featured. She's someone who I would like to see
1:32:50
Speaker 1: them maybe do more of a deep dive into what
1:32:53
Speaker 1: her role is and her history with the company and
1:32:56
Speaker 1: in wrestling. You just sort of saw her here and
1:32:59
Speaker 1: there in the back. But she's another one. She's worked
1:33:01
Speaker 1: as a producer now for them for a number of years,
1:33:04
Speaker 1: and in many ways they're the unsung heroes, you know,
1:33:07
Speaker 1: because they make some very significant contributions to the shows,
1:33:12
Speaker 1: and in most cases, you will never know about it.
1:33:14
Speaker 1: You will never hear about it, you will never know
1:33:16
Speaker 1: about it. They don't get credits at the end of
1:33:17
Speaker 1: the show like Paul Leveck and leaf Fitting do at
1:33:20
Speaker 1: the end of every episode. I was hoping in season
1:33:24
Speaker 1: two they would focus on the announcers also, but they
1:33:27
Speaker 1: didn't really do that outside of Pat McAfee, and he's
1:33:31
Speaker 1: barely even an announcer for them anymore, although supposedly he's
1:33:34
Speaker 1: going to be coming back soon, whatever that means. It's
1:33:37
Speaker 1: already been renewed for a third season. This season ended
1:33:40
Speaker 1: after seen his match at Summer Slam, with Brock Lesner
1:33:43
Speaker 1: coming out at the end, So Brock is going to
1:33:46
Speaker 1: factor into the next season, and the main story is
1:33:49
Speaker 1: going to be the final months of John Cena's retirement tour,
1:33:53
Speaker 1: so that'll be dropping sometime this summer. I would be
1:33:56
Speaker 1: surprised if this AJ styles retirement stuff is in one
1:34:00
Speaker 1: of the top stories in season four, not three, but
1:34:04
Speaker 1: probably season four, although I guess that'll depend on whether
1:34:07
Speaker 1: or not he leaves and goes and works somewhere else.
1:34:09
Speaker 1: Then I guess it won't be, but otherwise we could
1:34:11
Speaker 1: probably expect to see some stuff on AJ in season four.
1:34:16
Speaker 1: On the aw front, they have a mini tournament set
1:34:20
Speaker 1: up to decide on who will be mjf's next challenger
1:34:24
Speaker 1: at Revolution for the AW World Championship. We had a
1:34:28
Speaker 1: match on Dynamite on Friday night between Swerve Strickland and
1:34:33
Speaker 1: Andrade l Edelo and it was actually an excellent main
1:34:36
Speaker 1: event and Andrade picked up the win. He got a
1:34:39
Speaker 1: big win, the biggest win of his AW run past
1:34:41
Speaker 1: or present over Swerve. And now the match is set
1:34:44
Speaker 1: up for Kenny Omega to challenge Andrade on Dynamite in
1:34:49
Speaker 1: Las Vegas this Wednesday. So the way this is going
1:34:51
Speaker 1: to work is Hangman Adam Page is going to meet
1:34:54
Speaker 1: the winner of the Kenny Omega Andrade match from Dynamite
1:34:57
Speaker 1: this week. And I'm happy they're doing that match match
1:35:00
Speaker 1: because obviously when he came back to the company, Andrade
1:35:03
Speaker 1: attacked Omega and there was no follow up to it whatsoever.
1:35:06
Speaker 1: So at least we're going to get some kind of
1:35:07
Speaker 1: closure there and I'm sure Omega will beat him. Omega
1:35:11
Speaker 1: would then go on to wrestle Hangman at their Grand
1:35:15
Speaker 1: Slam Australia show, which is going to be a special
1:35:18
Speaker 1: edition of Collision. I believe that is Valentine's Day. They're
1:35:22
Speaker 1: taping that in Australia. I don't know how that's going
1:35:24
Speaker 1: to come off, because apparently they used to have TV
1:35:26
Speaker 1: in Australia. I don't believe they have TV in Australia anymore.
1:35:30
Speaker 1: So I haven't checked out how ticket sales are doing,
1:35:32
Speaker 1: but I do wonder how that might impact their ticket
1:35:35
Speaker 1: sales over there. So we're probably going to get Hangman
1:35:37
Speaker 1: and Omega on that Grand Slam Australia show. The winner
1:35:41
Speaker 1: of that match would then go on to challenge mjfort
1:35:44
Speaker 1: Revolution on March fifteenth for the AW World Championship. The
1:35:47
Speaker 1: reason why Hangman doesn't apparently have to wrestle anybody to
1:35:50
Speaker 1: get to Grand Slam unless I misunderstood all of this
1:35:55
Speaker 1: and he's got to wrestle someone from the Kallis family.
1:35:57
Speaker 1: But I think he's basically got to buy into that match.
1:36:01
Speaker 1: I believe the idea. What I believe is that he
1:36:03
Speaker 1: was probably gonna be wrestling Samoa Joe. And they mentioned
1:36:06
Speaker 1: on TV on Wednesday that Samoajo suffered a non contact
1:36:09
Speaker 1: injury during training, and they didn't specify what the injury was.
1:36:14
Speaker 1: Apparently it's not a cover. He really did get hurt.
1:36:17
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's not too serious. But it's serious enough that
1:36:20
Speaker 1: he's not going to be cleared probably for a little bit.
1:36:22
Speaker 1: And so if they can't do Hangman against Joe, then
1:36:25
Speaker 1: I guess Hangman is just gonna go to Australia to
1:36:28
Speaker 1: meet the winner of this match coming up on Wednesday. Meanwhile,
1:36:31
Speaker 1: MJF is going to be wrestling Brody King on Dynamite
1:36:34
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas this week in an eliminator match. So
1:36:38
Speaker 1: they do a lot of these eliminator matches in AW
1:36:40
Speaker 1: where basically you got to beat the champion twice if
1:36:42
Speaker 1: you want to become the champion. In this case, I
1:36:46
Speaker 1: don't mind it because there is a story that is
1:36:49
Speaker 1: attached to it. This is not some randomly announced eliminator match.
1:36:53
Speaker 1: Brody King has been teasing that he's coming after MJF
1:36:56
Speaker 1: now for weeks, and so I'm fine with it. The
1:36:59
Speaker 1: idea is that if he can beat MJF on Wednesday
1:37:02
Speaker 1: at Grand Slam Australia, he will then challenge MJF for
1:37:06
Speaker 1: the AW World title. That's two big matches they've already
1:37:10
Speaker 1: set up for Dynamite this week. The other thing, and
1:37:13
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this on Wednesday, but Don Callous in
1:37:18
Speaker 1: the opening segment because Kenny Omega came out. He beat
1:37:21
Speaker 1: Rocky Romero and he could beat Rocky Romero with his
1:37:24
Speaker 1: eyes closed, so it was a quick match. And then
1:37:27
Speaker 1: Hangman came out and Swerve came out, and then Callous
1:37:31
Speaker 1: came out on stage to cut a promo and it
1:37:33
Speaker 1: looked like he was chewing gum and as he was speaking,
1:37:37
Speaker 1: the gum almost fell out of his mouth. That's how
1:37:41
Speaker 1: I took it. And then somebody sent me a link
1:37:45
Speaker 1: back to the segment and said, hey, he lost his
1:37:48
Speaker 1: dentures in the middle of the promo. I said what,
1:37:52
Speaker 1: So I watched it over again and yeah, that ain't
1:37:54
Speaker 1: no piece of gum. Like in the middle of his
1:37:56
Speaker 1: promo his dentures fell out. I thought it was gum.
1:38:02
Speaker 1: He was struggling, like he put the microphone up to
1:38:05
Speaker 1: his mouth to try to cover his mouth. And it
1:38:07
Speaker 1: was like, wow, Okay, that explains that, because it got
1:38:10
Speaker 1: a little weird there for a little bit. So that
1:38:13
Speaker 1: was kind of funny. Now, now Davis and Doyle Mark
1:38:16
Speaker 1: Davis and Jake Doyle there of course a new tag team.
1:38:19
Speaker 1: They are part of the Kallis family and they challenged
1:38:23
Speaker 1: FTR for the aw Tag team titles on Wednesday. Davis
1:38:27
Speaker 1: and Doyle haven't been together for very long, but I
1:38:29
Speaker 1: like the team and I like that, you know, Jake Doyle,
1:38:33
Speaker 1: the former Jake Something is being given something to do
1:38:36
Speaker 1: here in aaw and then they go out there and
1:38:39
Speaker 1: they have the match. And unfortunately, in the middle of
1:38:41
Speaker 1: this match, there was a spot on the apron where
1:38:44
Speaker 1: Cash Wheeler went to give Doyle a DDT on the
1:38:48
Speaker 1: apron and as the move, he's in mid move here
1:38:52
Speaker 1: Doyle's right arm, he's still holding onto the top rope,
1:38:57
Speaker 1: but his body is brought down for the DDT, and
1:39:00
Speaker 1: as soon as Wheeler hits the move, Doyle pops up
1:39:04
Speaker 1: and you can hear him mouthed the words I just
1:39:06
Speaker 1: tore my bicep and we didn't see him again for
1:39:09
Speaker 1: the rest of the match. And then ultimately Davis went
1:39:11
Speaker 1: on to lose because John Moxley and the Death Riders
1:39:13
Speaker 1: got involved. He got hit in the head with the
1:39:15
Speaker 1: Continental title. This was all payback for Davis and Doyle
1:39:19
Speaker 1: jumping Moxley earlier in the show. Right, what's good for
1:39:22
Speaker 1: one is good for the other. So they cost the
1:39:25
Speaker 1: Callous Family potentially the tag team titles, but it's been
1:39:28
Speaker 1: confirmed that, in fact, Jake Doyle did suffer a torn biceps,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: and we don't know if he's going to have surgery,
1:39:35
Speaker 1: if he's going to try to heal it. I guess
1:39:37
Speaker 1: with just rehab. Either way, he's going to be out
1:39:42
Speaker 1: for a while. I mean, that's months that we're not
1:39:44
Speaker 1: going to see him, and if he has surgery, then
1:39:47
Speaker 1: he's gonna be out even longer. He'll be out probably
1:39:49
Speaker 1: a good six or seven months. So that fucking sucks.
1:39:52
Speaker 1: I feel bad for the guy. He just debuted here
1:39:55
Speaker 1: and they were just getting this team going and then
1:39:58
Speaker 1: this happens. And from Mark Davis, it was a new
1:40:02
Speaker 1: partner for him because Kyle Fletcher obviously is off doing
1:40:04
Speaker 1: his own thing, and he had his own injury that
1:40:07
Speaker 1: he came back from not too long ago, and then
1:40:09
Speaker 1: they start this new team and now all of a sudden,
1:40:11
Speaker 1: he just lost the partner. Now, the good news for
1:40:14
Speaker 1: him is that there are seventeen other members of the
1:40:16
Speaker 1: don Kallis family. All you got to do is plug
1:40:18
Speaker 1: somebody else into that spot, So you can plug in
1:40:22
Speaker 1: Lance Archer if you want to, and he can be
1:40:24
Speaker 1: part of this new team, or Josh Alexander or anybody really,
1:40:28
Speaker 1: but that really sucks. The big thing though, on Dynamite
1:40:31
Speaker 1: was the debut of Tamaso Champa. Boy that was quick
1:40:37
Speaker 1: in a deal that was agreed to on Monday, per Fightful,
1:40:40
Speaker 1: so this all came together very quickly. He made his
1:40:43
Speaker 1: debut on AW Dynamite, so basically AW gets Tomasso Champa
1:40:47
Speaker 1: and WWE gets Powerhouse Hobbs. But Mark Briscoe was out
1:40:51
Speaker 1: there extending an open challenge for the TNT title on Collision.
1:40:54
Speaker 1: When the lights went out, we saw a beating heart
1:40:57
Speaker 1: up on the utron, some new badass music. We saw
1:41:00
Speaker 1: the words Psycho Killer, and then it changed to Tomaso
1:41:04
Speaker 1: Champa and he emerged and got a very good response
1:41:07
Speaker 1: from the crowd. And Champa explained the move from WWE
1:41:11
Speaker 1: to AW two Sports Illustrated in his own words, It's
1:41:15
Speaker 1: something I've been leaning towards for quite some time. I
1:41:18
Speaker 1: don't know that I can say there's one sole factor
1:41:21
Speaker 1: that led to it or caused it. I think it's
1:41:23
Speaker 1: one of those things where your contract is coming to
1:41:25
Speaker 1: an end, you naturally have discussions. So he said, those
1:41:29
Speaker 1: discussions started at home with his wife and daughter. They
1:41:32
Speaker 1: collectively sat down as a family and discussed where the
1:41:35
Speaker 1: best place would be for him to continue his career. Ultimately,
1:41:38
Speaker 1: the decision was made to part ways with WWE after
1:41:42
Speaker 1: a decade long tenure. He said, if I wrestled in
1:41:45
Speaker 1: the nineties, I would want to be a part of
1:41:47
Speaker 1: ECW early two thousands, you want to be a part
1:41:50
Speaker 1: of Ring of Honor. I was lucky that I got
1:41:52
Speaker 1: to do that a little bit twenty ten's. I think
1:41:54
Speaker 1: for me, at least, I wanted to be a part
1:41:56
Speaker 1: of NXT Black and Gold. And when I looked at
1:41:59
Speaker 1: the landscape professional wrestling in the twenty twenties, the answer
1:42:02
Speaker 1: was aw man, that's what I want to be a
1:42:06
Speaker 1: part of. So he showed up. He accepted the challenge.
1:42:12
Speaker 1: They had their match on Collision last night. I did
1:42:14
Speaker 1: go back and watch them as a very good match,
1:42:17
Speaker 1: and I was hoping that they would do a title change,
1:42:20
Speaker 1: because why debut this guy in such fashion and then
1:42:23
Speaker 1: just have him lose. And they did the title change.
1:42:25
Speaker 1: We have a brand new TNT champion and his name
1:42:28
Speaker 1: is Tamaso Champa. So that's a very good kickoff for
1:42:32
Speaker 1: him that He also in that interview with Sports Illustrated
1:42:35
Speaker 1: said that he was unable to fully bring his Psycho
1:42:39
Speaker 1: Killer persona to WWE's main roster. He said, there were
1:42:42
Speaker 1: a lot of times I tried, and for one reason
1:42:45
Speaker 1: or another over the years, it just wasn't something that
1:42:47
Speaker 1: I could do. But for Tony Kahn and the whole
1:42:50
Speaker 1: crew to just collaborate the way they did and have
1:42:52
Speaker 1: open arms and see the vision and just allow it
1:42:55
Speaker 1: to breathe and have a chance, I'm already thinking six months,
1:42:58
Speaker 1: twelve months ahead on the evolution of the Psycho Killer.
1:43:02
Speaker 1: And he went on to say that he is a
1:43:04
Speaker 1: better performer now than he was when he was in
1:43:06
Speaker 1: Black and Gold. And I think this right here is
1:43:09
Speaker 1: kind of the key quote that really clues you into
1:43:12
Speaker 1: his mindset as far as why he made this jump.
1:43:15
Speaker 1: He said, for a long time, I had to listen
1:43:17
Speaker 1: to people telling me, not so much directly to my face,
1:43:20
Speaker 1: but more so online that twenty eighteen was prime Champa
1:43:26
Speaker 1: and he basically said that it makes him sick. I
1:43:29
Speaker 1: think he said that in another interview that he did,
1:43:31
Speaker 1: but here he said that I'm one hundred times better
1:43:34
Speaker 1: now than I was then. That was nothing, That was
1:43:37
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. I finally have a shot to find out
1:43:39
Speaker 1: if I am as good as I think I am.
1:43:43
Speaker 1: And it was in another interview that I saw with
1:43:46
Speaker 1: him on YouTube where he said the same thing, and
1:43:48
Speaker 1: he said that it made him absolutely sick to hear
1:43:51
Speaker 1: people saying that he goes in every facet, I am
1:43:53
Speaker 1: better now than I was then. In terms of my
1:43:55
Speaker 1: in ring, I'm a better in ring performer, in terms
1:43:58
Speaker 1: of my storytelling ability, better storyteller now. In terms of
1:44:02
Speaker 1: my promos, I'm a better promo. Like in every single category,
1:44:06
Speaker 1: I am better now than that version of Tamaso Champa.
1:44:08
Speaker 1: And he has to constantly listen to people reminisce and
1:44:11
Speaker 1: romanticize about the great days of Champa when he was
1:44:14
Speaker 1: at his peak in twenty eighteen in NXT. And so
1:44:18
Speaker 1: if he honestly believes that he is a better performer
1:44:20
Speaker 1: now and more well rounded performer now than he was,
1:44:23
Speaker 1: then sure you can see where that would really get
1:44:26
Speaker 1: under his skin and it would bother him. Like in
1:44:28
Speaker 1: his head, he had to know that if he stayed
1:44:30
Speaker 1: in WWE, nothing was going to change. Like the last
1:44:34
Speaker 1: things that he was really doing, he was doing this
1:44:36
Speaker 1: story where people were going around on SmackDown calling him
1:44:39
Speaker 1: a Jackass and turning it into comedy. And the last
1:44:44
Speaker 1: match he had, of course, he had a killer match
1:44:46
Speaker 1: with Ilia Dragonov I think right when he still had
1:44:49
Speaker 1: the belt or was it Carmelo Hayes. I think it
1:44:51
Speaker 1: was Ilia Dragonov and they had that killer match together.
1:44:54
Speaker 1: But you know for a fact that if he were
1:44:56
Speaker 1: to re sign with WWE for another three or four years,
1:44:59
Speaker 1: ain't nothing going to be different for him. He had
1:45:02
Speaker 1: his role on the show, the Psycho Killer, all these
1:45:05
Speaker 1: ideas he had for himself. If it didn't happen by now,
1:45:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to happen a year from now or
1:45:10
Speaker 1: two years from now. He had to make a choice,
1:45:12
Speaker 1: and if it really made him sick to his stomach
1:45:14
Speaker 1: to hear people saying these things like, man, if I
1:45:17
Speaker 1: stay here, they're always going to think that I peaked
1:45:20
Speaker 1: out in twenty eighteen. They're not going to have any
1:45:22
Speaker 1: concept of how good I really am. Now I've got
1:45:24
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else and prove this to them. And
1:45:27
Speaker 1: I agree with him wholeheartedly. If that's what was in
1:45:30
Speaker 1: his head and in his heart, he had to leave.
1:45:32
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't have to go to AW He
1:45:34
Speaker 1: could have gone to TNA. He could have gone to Japan,
1:45:36
Speaker 1: apparently he has an interest maybe in wrestling with New Japan.
1:45:40
Speaker 1: He could have worked indies every weekend and been killing
1:45:42
Speaker 1: it on there, just to go out there and show people.
1:45:45
Speaker 1: I'll show you, I'll show you Peak Champa, right, but
1:45:49
Speaker 1: he chose to go to AW in AW. I don't know,
1:45:53
Speaker 1: you know, is he going to work indies? He might not.
1:45:55
Speaker 1: He may end up being exclusive to AW. Some people
1:45:57
Speaker 1: only do AW, some people work indies. I guess time
1:46:01
Speaker 1: will tell. But he made his choice because this is
1:46:04
Speaker 1: where he wanted to be, and I'm glad that. You know,
1:46:07
Speaker 1: he seems to be a lot happier now for it. Creatively,
1:46:11
Speaker 1: it looks like he'll have a lot more freedom to
1:46:14
Speaker 1: collaborate on certain things that he would not have had
1:46:16
Speaker 1: in WWE. And I would say as far as getting
1:46:18
Speaker 1: a head start on things, him winning the TNT title
1:46:21
Speaker 1: less than a week after debuting, it's a pretty good
1:46:23
Speaker 1: way to start things out. And I'll tell you another
1:46:26
Speaker 1: great way to start things out his entrance music. I
1:46:30
Speaker 1: talk about the importance of entrance music. We just had
1:46:32
Speaker 1: a Royal Rumble last night, where again, like in the
1:46:34
Speaker 1: women's Rumble, especially you have women coming out to the
1:46:37
Speaker 1: most generic sounding garbage and it's hard even to identify
1:46:41
Speaker 1: who the music is attached to. Sometimes. In AW, Mikey
1:46:45
Speaker 1: Ruckis is the one who was responsible on very short notice.
1:46:48
Speaker 1: He had like a thirty six hour window to whip
1:46:52
Speaker 1: up new theme music for Tamaso Champa and he was
1:46:55
Speaker 1: able to do that. And the music is badass. It's
1:46:58
Speaker 1: a great thing. Like I thought, the whole presentation from
1:47:01
Speaker 1: the beating heart and everything right on into the music
1:47:04
Speaker 1: when he walks out was spot on. I just thought
1:47:07
Speaker 1: it was. It was very well done. I want to
1:47:11
Speaker 1: give a shout out to John Kiernan and on his
1:47:14
Speaker 1: Ropes and Rips podcast he had Joe Altier on as
1:47:18
Speaker 1: his guest. He's the vocalist for the band Brand New Sin,
1:47:21
Speaker 1: and he's the voice that you hear in big shows
1:47:24
Speaker 1: themes in WWE and AW. He is the vocalist on
1:47:28
Speaker 1: Champa's new AW theme which is called My Shadow Nos.
1:47:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's on Spotify yet. If not,
1:47:34
Speaker 1: it should be soon. But he's the voice that you
1:47:36
Speaker 1: hear at the beginning of the song. And considering it
1:47:39
Speaker 1: all came together on very short notice, I think it's
1:47:42
Speaker 1: a great piece of business. So so far, so good.
1:47:45
Speaker 1: It's only been a week, it's only week number one.
1:47:48
Speaker 1: I don't know where Champa ultimately will fall in the
1:47:50
Speaker 1: pecking order there. I'm not saying he's going to be
1:47:52
Speaker 1: a world champion, but I think he'll be able now
1:47:55
Speaker 1: to go out there and actually show what he can
1:47:58
Speaker 1: do and not feel like he's sort of trapped in
1:48:01
Speaker 1: a little box like this is your role, and this
1:48:04
Speaker 1: is what your role on the show is, and you
1:48:06
Speaker 1: can't go out there and have these killer matches. You
1:48:09
Speaker 1: can't go out there and do this. You can't go
1:48:10
Speaker 1: out there and do that. And now hopefully he'll have
1:48:13
Speaker 1: the ability to do so. Hopefully he'll be able to
1:48:15
Speaker 1: go out there and have those kinds of matches. And
1:48:19
Speaker 1: top female wrestling prospect Bozilla is going to miss quite
1:48:23
Speaker 1: some time because she suffered a completely torn acl that
1:48:27
Speaker 1: will require surgery. She took to Instagram on Thursday to
1:48:31
Speaker 1: confirm the news that she sustained the injury in a
1:48:34
Speaker 1: January eleventh match at Stardom's New Year Stars event in Tokyo.
1:48:39
Speaker 1: She noted that she was able to make it through
1:48:41
Speaker 1: the rest of the match. It was a five on
1:48:44
Speaker 1: four handicap match, but in the course of working the match,
1:48:47
Speaker 1: her knee completely gave out. At the very end, she said, honestly,
1:48:49
Speaker 1: it still doesn't seem real. I'm deeply devastated and still
1:48:52
Speaker 1: struggling to find the right words. I wish this wasn't true,
1:48:55
Speaker 1: but unfortunately it's reality. And she credited the Stardom team
1:48:59
Speaker 1: for their head that night, and she has begun her
1:49:03
Speaker 1: road to recovery. She has no idea when she's going
1:49:05
Speaker 1: to be back, how long she's going to be out
1:49:06
Speaker 1: for the surgery still has not happened yet, but she
1:49:10
Speaker 1: said the next chapter will be the road to recovery.
1:49:12
Speaker 1: And I hope to keep you or keep your continuing
1:49:15
Speaker 1: support through this chapter of my life. So she's been
1:49:20
Speaker 1: very impressive. She's very young, only twenty two years old.
1:49:23
Speaker 1: She was a standout. If you remember Forbidden Door last summer,
1:49:26
Speaker 1: that four away with Mercedes Monette and Persephone and Alex Windsor.
1:49:31
Speaker 1: She was probably the standout, honestly of that match. And
1:49:35
Speaker 1: I think recently she has been doing a lot of
1:49:38
Speaker 1: tag team stuff over in Japan with Meghan Bain. But
1:49:42
Speaker 1: best wishes to her. That's a tough injury to come
1:49:44
Speaker 1: back from. But I'm sure she'll be back all right.
1:49:47
Speaker 1: Let's take some mailbag questions. You can email me the
1:49:50
Speaker 1: solom Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name
1:49:53
Speaker 1: of where you are from when you write in. Connor
1:49:56
Speaker 1: from Wingcoat, Pennsylvania. With the WWE and ESPN partnership, it
1:50:02
Speaker 1: got me thinking. For years, ESPN barely acknowledged WWE or
1:50:06
Speaker 1: pro wrestling. I always assume that if ESPN ever got involved,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: it would be used to help legitimize wrestling to the
1:50:12
Speaker 1: broader public, presenting it closer to real combat, a real
1:50:17
Speaker 1: combat sport like boxing, kickboxing or UFC instead of the
1:50:21
Speaker 1: usual it's fake argument that non fans love to fall
1:50:24
Speaker 1: back on, especially now with UFC and TKO under the
1:50:27
Speaker 1: same umbrella. That's where I get conflicted with today's WWE product.
1:50:32
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel very competitive or physical most of the time.
1:50:35
Speaker 1: We rarely see high intensity matches or true wars anymore.
1:50:39
Speaker 1: And on top of them, most of WWE's top stars
1:50:42
Speaker 1: barely wrestle on weekly TV Cody Roman, Gunther. They're presented
1:50:47
Speaker 1: more as attractions than active competitors. If the goal of
1:50:51
Speaker 1: a partnership with ESPN is to legitimize wrestling to new
1:50:54
Speaker 1: audiences from a combat and athletic perspective, Do you think
1:50:58
Speaker 1: WWE is actually the right company for that role? And
1:51:01
Speaker 1: if it were up to you, which promotion do you
1:51:03
Speaker 1: think would have been better suited to bring in new
1:51:06
Speaker 1: fans and viewers through hard hitting, physical match driven wrestling WWE,
1:51:13
Speaker 1: aw TNA, NXT or New Japan. Well first, NXT is
1:51:21
Speaker 1: not technically a promotion, but that's splitting hairs. I think
1:51:25
Speaker 1: you're coming at this the wrong way, though. The goal
1:51:28
Speaker 1: of this ESPN partnership, at least from ESPN's perspective, has
1:51:33
Speaker 1: nothing to do with legitimizing pro wrestling. They don't care
1:51:37
Speaker 1: about legitimizing pro wrestling. If they did, they would have
1:51:39
Speaker 1: been covering it like a sport years ago. It's not
1:51:43
Speaker 1: a sport though. It's not a straight sport anyway, right,
1:51:46
Speaker 1: which is why they wanted nothing to do with it.
1:51:48
Speaker 1: This is a partnership based on making money. WWE is
1:51:52
Speaker 1: a business partner for them. WWE is making a lot
1:51:55
Speaker 1: of money right now, and they're generating a lot of
1:51:58
Speaker 1: social media engagement. WWE is also year round entertainment. They
1:52:02
Speaker 1: have no offseason like every other sport does. So that
1:52:06
Speaker 1: was all very appealing to ESPN, and they made a
1:52:09
Speaker 1: deal for that reason, to make money. It's a business arrangement,
1:52:12
Speaker 1: nothing more and nothing less. They can dress it up
1:52:14
Speaker 1: anyway they want to. This has very little to do
1:52:17
Speaker 1: with legitimizing pro wrestling. It is about using WWE's popularity
1:52:21
Speaker 1: to generate more eyeballs and more subscriptions for their streaming service.
1:52:27
Speaker 1: And that's it. Now. If the goal was to partner
1:52:31
Speaker 1: with a product that would offer something competitive and physical,
1:52:35
Speaker 1: AW would be a better fit. They'll give you more matches.
1:52:38
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll give you so many matches you don't
1:52:40
Speaker 1: even have time for all of them. But if they're
1:52:42
Speaker 1: looking for a product that's meant to appeal to more
1:52:44
Speaker 1: non wrestling fans, like you mentioned, trying to hook in
1:52:47
Speaker 1: like a new audience, then WWE is the right partner
1:52:50
Speaker 1: for them because non wrestling fans they don't give a
1:52:53
Speaker 1: shit about wrestling matches. I know some people are not
1:52:56
Speaker 1: going to want to hear that, but they don't. And
1:53:00
Speaker 1: this partnership is not likely to generate many new fans.
1:53:03
Speaker 1: It's just not. The ones that it does generate are
1:53:06
Speaker 1: more likely to tune in because of the characters and
1:53:08
Speaker 1: the stories, and WWE is more driven by that than
1:53:12
Speaker 1: AW is. Right, doesn't mean that you know they're telling
1:53:16
Speaker 1: interesting stories, but I do think a non fan or
1:53:19
Speaker 1: a casual at best fan, you know, who's willing to
1:53:22
Speaker 1: give wrestling a chance or maybe kind of likes it,
1:53:25
Speaker 1: but they don't really pay too much attention to it,
1:53:28
Speaker 1: they're going to find the WWE product more appealing. That's
1:53:31
Speaker 1: what I think. The AW product is not cater to
1:53:34
Speaker 1: non fans. It does not cater to casual fans. They've
1:53:37
Speaker 1: made that very clear. Those shows are geared to one audience,
1:53:41
Speaker 1: hardcore wrestling fans. They are not generating any new fans.
1:53:45
Speaker 1: They're trying to give the hardcore fans the type of
1:53:48
Speaker 1: wrestling that they they being. Tony Kah thinks they like
1:53:54
Speaker 1: or feel like they're not getting it from the other guys.
1:53:57
Speaker 1: WWE gives you four matches on a fucking premium live event.
1:54:01
Speaker 1: AW gives you closer to fourteen than they do four
1:54:06
Speaker 1: and wrestling fans may love that, but someone who's not
1:54:08
Speaker 1: a fan and maybe wants to sample it, it's too
1:54:10
Speaker 1: overwhelming for them and they don't they don't know enough
1:54:14
Speaker 1: about who these people are, you know, where the stories.
1:54:17
Speaker 1: The WWE product is a lot slower and more dumb
1:54:20
Speaker 1: down for those people. It's easier to follow, and you
1:54:25
Speaker 1: have the big elaborate entrances with the fancy production and
1:54:28
Speaker 1: the drones and everything else that goes into the presentation.
1:54:31
Speaker 1: It's a product that's more likely to appeal to someone
1:54:33
Speaker 1: who is not a big fan than AW would be.
1:54:37
Speaker 1: And it's definitely not TNA. I mean TNA is trying
1:54:40
Speaker 1: to be WWE at that point. They're gonna at that
1:54:43
Speaker 1: point if you're someone who's trying to sample wrestling here,
1:54:47
Speaker 1: like you're just gonna watch WWE, You're not gonna watch
1:54:49
Speaker 1: a smaller version of WWE with worse production values. So
1:54:53
Speaker 1: you could take TNA off the table, and then New
1:54:55
Speaker 1: Japan you could take them off the table too. There's
1:54:57
Speaker 1: no way that they're partnering with a non American product,
1:55:00
Speaker 1: Like the last thing ESPN is going to put money
1:55:02
Speaker 1: into is a partnership with the Japanese promotion, especially one
1:55:05
Speaker 1: that does not do weekly TV, because how does that
1:55:08
Speaker 1: benefit them? They're a touring promotion, a cold a touring
1:55:13
Speaker 1: promotion that happens to have special events, and they barely
1:55:17
Speaker 1: do any of them in the US anymore. I would
1:55:19
Speaker 1: be surprised if New Japan runs more than half a
1:55:21
Speaker 1: dozen shows over here in the States in all of
1:55:24
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. So at the end of the day,
1:55:27
Speaker 1: WWE really is the best fit for ESPN. Speaking of
1:55:32
Speaker 1: New Japan, though we've got miles from Arizona, What is
1:55:37
Speaker 1: your take on the current state of New Japan? Since
1:55:39
Speaker 1: their top stars like Kazuchka Okada, will Ospray, Kenny Omega,
1:55:43
Speaker 1: the Young Bucks, Hiroshi Tanahashi, etc. Have all either left
1:55:47
Speaker 1: or retired from the promotion. I mean the current state
1:55:51
Speaker 1: of New Japan is that they are in a rebuilding phase.
1:55:54
Speaker 1: That's why they had to put the IWGP belt on
1:55:56
Speaker 1: Yotasuji at the Tokyo Dome. It's time beyond time for
1:56:01
Speaker 1: them to make some new guys at the very tippy
1:56:04
Speaker 1: top of the card like it's it's crazy that they
1:56:08
Speaker 1: have waited so long to really put their muscle, even
1:56:12
Speaker 1: behind someone like Suji in that role. These guys have
1:56:15
Speaker 1: been aging out and leaving though for years. This is
1:56:17
Speaker 1: not like a new phenomenon, like it's snuck up behind them,
1:56:20
Speaker 1: Like they didn't sneak up on them like this has
1:56:22
Speaker 1: been This has been very visible. We knew that this
1:56:26
Speaker 1: is where things were headed because people have been leaving
1:56:28
Speaker 1: now for the last few years, and you could tell like,
1:56:31
Speaker 1: oh shit, Nido and Tanahashi like they're the only ones
1:56:34
Speaker 1: that are left, and guess what, now they're not even
1:56:36
Speaker 1: there anymore. So now they have no choice but to
1:56:40
Speaker 1: try to get new stars over. And the key there
1:56:42
Speaker 1: is keeping those new stars. It's not enough to just
1:56:45
Speaker 1: make them. You've got to keep them from leaving to
1:56:48
Speaker 1: go to WWE. You've got to keep them from leaving
1:56:50
Speaker 1: and going to Awaw's taken a lot of former New
1:56:53
Speaker 1: Japan talents and they made that choice. It's not like
1:56:57
Speaker 1: Tony snuck in like a bank robber and stuffed them
1:57:00
Speaker 1: a sack and stole them and brought them back to
1:57:01
Speaker 1: the States. Okata was going to make more money working
1:57:05
Speaker 1: for Tony Kahan. Probably easier on his body too. Ospray Jy.
1:57:12
Speaker 1: I mean, we can go up and down the list
1:57:14
Speaker 1: of all the names that have migrated over from New
1:57:16
Speaker 1: Japan to AW. So they're in a rebuilding phase right
1:57:20
Speaker 1: now and it's still a very cold product compared to
1:57:23
Speaker 1: what it was, you know, five ten years ago, and
1:57:26
Speaker 1: they just have to hope that these new names will
1:57:28
Speaker 1: get over and that maybe they can see some sort
1:57:31
Speaker 1: of resurgence at some point. But this is what happens
1:57:34
Speaker 1: when you just waste so much time and take so long,
1:57:37
Speaker 1: or maybe the guys that you wanted to push weren't
1:57:39
Speaker 1: quite ready for that role yet. But this is what happens.
1:57:43
Speaker 1: It's just going to take time. I hope it all
1:57:45
Speaker 1: works out. I hope they can, you know, get a
1:57:48
Speaker 1: hot streak going. I mean, they they did big business
1:57:51
Speaker 1: for Russell Kingdom this year, but that was based entirely
1:57:54
Speaker 1: off of Tanahashi's retirement. Tanahashi's a he's done, it's over.
1:58:00
Speaker 1: The question was always going to be when you wake
1:58:01
Speaker 1: up the next morning, now what, Well, now you got
1:58:06
Speaker 1: to hope that these newer, younger names they stick around
1:58:09
Speaker 1: and they can get over. But even still, I mean,
1:58:12
Speaker 1: I think Clark Connors I talked about this recently, like Evil,
1:58:15
Speaker 1: for example, Evil's gone, Evil's probably coming to WWE. But
1:58:19
Speaker 1: wherever Evil goes, they already announced, like Evil is has
1:58:22
Speaker 1: left the company, and he won't be the only one.
1:58:25
Speaker 1: Clark Connors, it's believed that he is signed with AW
1:58:28
Speaker 1: I think he was on the collision last night wrestling
1:58:31
Speaker 1: Darby Allen Gabe kid right, He's still there, but he's
1:58:35
Speaker 1: kind of splitting his time. Who's he gonna sign with
1:58:38
Speaker 1: David Finley. There's still a lot of questions about guys
1:58:41
Speaker 1: over there, but they're in every building phase. Sean from
1:58:46
Speaker 1: Byron Illinois. I'm writing this ahead of the Royal Rumble.
1:58:49
Speaker 1: Like you, I believe this has been one of the
1:58:50
Speaker 1: worst builds to the event, with even part timers like
1:58:53
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns and brock Lesnar entering the Rumble in lazy fashion.
1:58:57
Speaker 1: It seems WWE maybe putting in minimal effort because the
1:59:00
Speaker 1: event is in Saudi Arabia, they already have the guaranteed revenue,
1:59:04
Speaker 1: and they likely expect a backlash from US fans to
1:59:07
Speaker 1: who understandably won't travel for it. Looking ahead, what can
1:59:10
Speaker 1: WWE do to make the best of a difficult situation
1:59:13
Speaker 1: regarding WrestleMania being held in Saudi Arabia next year? Fans
1:59:18
Speaker 1: may be unsupportive as soon as the WrestleMania sign drops.
1:59:22
Speaker 1: What is the most effective way for them to promote
1:59:25
Speaker 1: the event and get viewers excited despite the location. There's
1:59:30
Speaker 1: really nothing they can do other than just try to
1:59:34
Speaker 1: promote the matches in the strongest way possible. It's the
1:59:39
Speaker 1: same advice that I would give for WrestleMania every year.
1:59:41
Speaker 1: I'd give it for WrestleMania this year in Vegas. It's
1:59:44
Speaker 1: all they can do. Like, they've already announced they're running
1:59:48
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. Some people are not going to like that.
1:59:51
Speaker 1: Nothing the WWE says or does is going to change that.
1:59:55
Speaker 1: And they've already made the commitment to Saudi. They're getting
1:59:57
Speaker 1: paid a fuck ton of money. Whatever the dollar amount is,
2:00:00
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to be in one hundreds of
2:00:01
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. And that's why they're doing it. That's
2:00:04
Speaker 1: why this whole relationship started in the first place. It
2:00:06
Speaker 1: was a relationship built on a mound of money that
2:00:10
Speaker 1: the company was going to be able to make. It
2:00:12
Speaker 1: was a business decision. So they're taking their business to
2:00:16
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia for WrestleMania next year. Right, it's set in stone.
2:00:21
Speaker 1: Nothing is going to change that. So what can they do?
2:00:24
Speaker 1: Just put together the strongest card possible and get people
2:00:27
Speaker 1: excited to want to tune in. And that's all you
2:00:30
Speaker 1: can do. The people who are not going to watch.
2:00:32
Speaker 1: You ain't going to convince them to watch because they
2:00:34
Speaker 1: have very strong reasons for not wanting to watch, so
2:00:38
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about that. Just put together
2:00:41
Speaker 1: the strongest possible card and the strongest matches in the
2:00:43
Speaker 1: strongest build that you can to get people excited and go,
2:00:47
Speaker 1: you know what, I really want to see this show.
2:00:48
Speaker 1: I think I'll tune in. And that's it, very simple.
2:00:54
Speaker 1: We got Waldough. I want to make sure I pronounced
2:00:57
Speaker 1: this correctly. Waldough from Strumsoon, Yemtland, Sweden. Man. I hope
2:01:05
Speaker 1: I said that right. I'm gonna be very impressed with
2:01:07
Speaker 1: myself if I said that right. But he's been listening
2:01:09
Speaker 1: for eleven years. Back in twenty fifteen, I stayed up
2:01:13
Speaker 1: until five in the morning to watch the Royal Rumble,
2:01:16
Speaker 1: only to see Big Show and Caine in the final three.
2:01:19
Speaker 1: I was so angry at the booking that night, but
2:01:21
Speaker 1: that frustration led me to your Royal Rumble twenty fifteen review,
2:01:24
Speaker 1: and I've been a regular listener ever since. See at
2:01:27
Speaker 1: least something good came out of that Royal Rumble. Do
2:01:30
Speaker 1: you think Vince McMahon regrets selling WWE to TKO before
2:01:34
Speaker 1: the Janelle grant lawsuit became public. Would it have benefited
2:01:37
Speaker 1: Vince if the story had come out before the sale?
2:01:40
Speaker 1: And do you think that he would still have been
2:01:42
Speaker 1: in charge today if the timing had been different, I
2:01:45
Speaker 1: honestly don't. I don't think it's the sort of thing
2:01:48
Speaker 1: that he would be able to continue to lead the company.
2:01:52
Speaker 1: Would he be fully out in the way that he
2:01:55
Speaker 1: is now? Maybe not? And I could see him wanting
2:01:57
Speaker 1: to kind of snake his way back in, and he
2:01:59
Speaker 1: probably would have been able to, So things probably would
2:02:03
Speaker 1: be different. But in terms of like he would have to,
2:02:05
Speaker 1: especially when the lawsuit first dropped, it was a bombshell
2:02:09
Speaker 1: and the stuff that's in there, you can't be the
2:02:11
Speaker 1: face of this company with that sort of shit hanging
2:02:15
Speaker 1: over you and the company. It just it rubs off
2:02:18
Speaker 1: on the company. It's a stain on the company itself.
2:02:21
Speaker 1: And if for no other reason, to try to shield
2:02:23
Speaker 1: the company from that while this stuff is still pending,
2:02:26
Speaker 1: you have to go away, even if just temporarily, you
2:02:30
Speaker 1: have to go away. So I don't think that would
2:02:33
Speaker 1: have changed. But would he already be back, you know,
2:02:37
Speaker 1: would he or would he have a plan ready to
2:02:39
Speaker 1: go as soon as this is all settled and taken
2:02:42
Speaker 1: care of to come back into power, probably because you know,
2:02:45
Speaker 1: if it were up to him, he'd still be sitting
2:02:47
Speaker 1: in that chair with that headset on his head. I
2:02:53
Speaker 1: got Karen from Denver. My question is about money in
2:02:56
Speaker 1: the bank. Over the past years, I've heard you talk
2:02:58
Speaker 1: about being tired of the concept, and honestly I get it.
2:03:02
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels like the briefcase puts more pressure on
2:03:04
Speaker 1: the winner and the audience than it should, especially when
2:03:07
Speaker 1: the cash in fails or the wrong person wins. We've
2:03:10
Speaker 1: seen failed or disappointing runs with winners like Damian Sandou,
2:03:13
Speaker 1: Baron Corbin Austin theory, and then there are choices that
2:03:17
Speaker 1: felt unnecessary or outright wrong like John Cena, brock Lesnar
2:03:23
Speaker 1: or even the Otis win. A lot of the time,
2:03:25
Speaker 1: it turns into fans waiting all year, not if someone
2:03:28
Speaker 1: will cash in, but when, and that gets staled very fast.
2:03:32
Speaker 1: What would you think about the briefcase being defended like
2:03:35
Speaker 1: a championship until the actual cash in the idea would
2:03:39
Speaker 1: be that the briefcase could change hands throughout the year.
2:03:41
Speaker 1: It could create edge of your seat matches, similar to
2:03:44
Speaker 1: the US Open Challenge on SmackDown and keep the concept
2:03:48
Speaker 1: fresh all year long. That way, instead of knowing who's
2:03:51
Speaker 1: going to cash in months in advance, the mystery becomes
2:03:53
Speaker 1: who will even have the briefcase by the time we
2:03:55
Speaker 1: get to the end of the year. The holder could
2:03:58
Speaker 1: always change, which keeps fans invest that it makes the
2:04:00
Speaker 1: eventual cash and feel more epic and unpredictable. Now, I
2:04:07
Speaker 1: always say that the last thing we need in either
2:04:10
Speaker 1: of these companies are more championships. But since the gimmick
2:04:15
Speaker 1: already exists and it's not going anywhere, I don't hate
2:04:18
Speaker 1: the idea. You know what it would also do. It
2:04:21
Speaker 1: would force the holder to then make a decision is
2:04:24
Speaker 1: it worth it for me to hold on to this
2:04:26
Speaker 1: briefcase or should I cash it in as soon as possible,
2:04:30
Speaker 1: Because the longer I hold on to it, I could
2:04:31
Speaker 1: potentially lose this thing. So it would force the holder
2:04:36
Speaker 1: into an earlier cash in instead of just being very casual.
2:04:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to hold it all year long. Well, I mean,
2:04:41
Speaker 1: you can hold it all year long, but then you
2:04:43
Speaker 1: might lose it. So I don't hate the idea, because
2:04:48
Speaker 1: money in the bank's not going anywhere. Your money in
2:04:50
Speaker 1: the bank is still a very successful concept for them.
2:04:54
Speaker 1: This would add a new wrinkle to it, and I
2:04:59
Speaker 1: don't hate it. I would consider it. Dak in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
2:05:05
Speaker 1: Do you think a wrestling company should introduce a title? No?
2:05:11
Speaker 1: Next question, Oh, let's finish this. Do you think a
2:05:15
Speaker 1: wrestling company should introduce a title that acts in a
2:05:18
Speaker 1: similar manner as the Gift of the Gods Championship in
2:05:21
Speaker 1: Luca Underground. Now, it doesn't need to be exactly the same,
2:05:24
Speaker 1: and that you have to assemble seven medallions. But having
2:05:27
Speaker 1: a title that sole purpose is to be vacated for
2:05:30
Speaker 1: a shot at the world title with one week's notice.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: Do you think there is value in having a title
2:05:35
Speaker 1: like that in today's wrestling world? I don't. I don't.
2:05:39
Speaker 1: And that gets into the fact that, again, we already
2:05:41
Speaker 1: have enough championships. Money at the bank at least already exists.
2:05:44
Speaker 1: So like what we just talked about now is adding
2:05:48
Speaker 1: a new wrinkle to a gimmick that already exists and
2:05:50
Speaker 1: is going to be there no matter what. Adding new
2:05:53
Speaker 1: championships to me is pointless. We have so many of
2:05:57
Speaker 1: them already. Look at it. I mean like you HADEMI
2:06:00
Speaker 1: and NXT right, he didn't lose his championship, he just
2:06:04
Speaker 1: decided to surrender it and go to the main roster
2:06:07
Speaker 1: and move on to bigger and better things. And so
2:06:10
Speaker 1: I think, you know, if you're an intercontinental champion, if
2:06:13
Speaker 1: you're a United States champion, there's just sort of this
2:06:15
Speaker 1: implicit understanding that at some point you would maybe trade up,
2:06:20
Speaker 1: and so if you lose it, then maybe you would
2:06:23
Speaker 1: kind of elevate yourself into the world title picture. Maybe
2:06:27
Speaker 1: that's a dated concept. I don't know. It's not like
2:06:30
Speaker 1: I see Chelsea Green, who has been the US champion,
2:06:34
Speaker 1: or Julia who is the US champion, being tapped to
2:06:38
Speaker 1: challenge for the world title anytime soon. But I would
2:06:42
Speaker 1: just do a better job of booking my existing mid
2:06:44
Speaker 1: car titles and make them make them mean something like
2:06:47
Speaker 1: they used to in that people who hold them, after
2:06:51
Speaker 1: they're done holding them, it is a stepping stone for
2:06:53
Speaker 1: them to something bigger and better. I don't think you
2:06:57
Speaker 1: need to introduce another belt in order to do that.
2:07:02
Speaker 1: A hunter from Columbus, Kansas. My question is a simple
2:07:05
Speaker 1: one that still gets asked almost four years later since
2:07:08
Speaker 1: her debut, and that is why doesn't Tony Kahan use
2:07:11
Speaker 1: Athena regularly on Dynamite. There has to be something politically
2:07:16
Speaker 1: going on, because it just baffles me how she hasn't
2:07:19
Speaker 1: done much in her four year stint in AAW outside
2:07:22
Speaker 1: of Ring of Honor. I wish I had a better
2:07:25
Speaker 1: answer for you. I don't. I don't. The only thing
2:07:29
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to is that he had hopes
2:07:31
Speaker 1: that Ring of Honor would already be on TV somewhere,
2:07:34
Speaker 1: and he was counting on her to be one of
2:07:36
Speaker 1: the top two faces of the brand. And here we
2:07:40
Speaker 1: are and Ring of Honor still has no TV show.
2:07:42
Speaker 1: They're still on Honor Club and Athena you know, she'll
2:07:46
Speaker 1: show up in AW from time to time, but she's
2:07:50
Speaker 1: still you know, she's still the face of Ring of Honor.
2:07:52
Speaker 1: And what that really means and the grand scheme of
2:07:55
Speaker 1: things here, I don't think it means much. It just
2:07:58
Speaker 1: feels like a waste to me. I wish I had
2:08:01
Speaker 1: a better answer for you. Is there something politically? I
2:08:04
Speaker 1: don't think so. I don't think there's anything politically going on.
2:08:08
Speaker 1: I just that's what I believe. I believe he expected
2:08:12
Speaker 1: there to be an ROHTV show by now and needed
2:08:15
Speaker 1: her for that show. In his mind. That's why he
2:08:18
Speaker 1: hasn't taken the belt off her. She's still the champion.
2:08:20
Speaker 1: She's been champion for over a thousand days. I mean,
2:08:24
Speaker 1: where's the finish line here? What's the end goal for
2:08:27
Speaker 1: this rain? Is there even an end goal? Is it
2:08:29
Speaker 1: open ended? I have no idea David from Essex UK
2:08:36
Speaker 1: buy or sell AJ Style's career in WWE or aj
2:08:40
Speaker 1: styles career in TNA. Well, I mean he spent about
2:08:45
Speaker 1: the same amount of time in each, like maybe a
2:08:49
Speaker 1: year or so more in TNA. TNA is what set
2:08:52
Speaker 1: the groundwork for what he was able to do in
2:08:54
Speaker 1: New Japan and then in WWE, like it laid the
2:08:58
Speaker 1: foundation in Ring in Ring, his best body of work
2:09:02
Speaker 1: was in TNA. There was also a lot of bad
2:09:05
Speaker 1: stuff that he was involved in, right like them making
2:09:08
Speaker 1: him cosplay as the new Rick Flair, the Claire Lynch
2:09:12
Speaker 1: stuff was awful and I wish he would have come
2:09:16
Speaker 1: over to WWE sooner. Like Brett Hart said the same thing.
2:09:20
Speaker 1: What was it twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. It was towards
2:09:23
Speaker 1: the end of his TNA run and Brett said that
2:09:27
Speaker 1: aj was the best wrestler in the world and he
2:09:29
Speaker 1: needed to leave the Bush League. He needed to leave
2:09:32
Speaker 1: Bush League TNA and go to the big time because
2:09:36
Speaker 1: he didn't want him to waste his life in TNA.
2:09:38
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it. He thought aj was wasting his
2:09:42
Speaker 1: life in TNA, and it got bleak there for him
2:09:46
Speaker 1: those last few years. But I still think his greatest
2:09:50
Speaker 1: body of work is in TNA. So I'm going to
2:09:54
Speaker 1: buy on his TNA career and I'm going to sell
2:09:57
Speaker 1: on his WWE career. That's part of his WWE career
2:10:01
Speaker 1: by far. I mean to me, it's not even close.
2:10:04
Speaker 1: Is the program with John Cena, That three match series
2:10:09
Speaker 1: that they had is still the gold standard for him
2:10:11
Speaker 1: in WWE. But like in TNA, I mean the matches
2:10:15
Speaker 1: with Samoa, Joe, Kurt Angle, Christopher Daniels, Abyss, I'm sure
2:10:21
Speaker 1: I'm missing a whole bunch like that's what defined his career.
2:10:27
Speaker 1: Jim from Pennsylvania. I've seen some discussion online about how
2:10:30
Speaker 1: important Triple Ah really was during the Attitude era. WWE
2:10:34
Speaker 1: revisionist history seems to portray him as big and as
2:10:38
Speaker 1: a vital part of that era as much as Austin
2:10:41
Speaker 1: and Rock. While plenty of people on the line have
2:10:43
Speaker 1: called him a glorified mid Carter who only achieved bigger
2:10:46
Speaker 1: success due to Austin getting injured and fully retiring from
2:10:49
Speaker 1: full time work. I was born while the Attitude Era
2:10:53
Speaker 1: was in full swing, so I don't know for sure
2:10:54
Speaker 1: how big Triple Ah felt during that time. How important
2:10:58
Speaker 1: was Triple H really during the Attitude Era and where
2:11:01
Speaker 1: would you rank him in terms of the era's biggest names.
2:11:05
Speaker 1: Triple H was not that big of a deal during
2:11:07
Speaker 1: the Attitude era as like a main eventor DX was
2:11:11
Speaker 1: a big deal. And I actually thought the best version
2:11:14
Speaker 1: of DX was the second one, which is the one
2:11:16
Speaker 1: that he led. I thought that was the better version
2:11:20
Speaker 1: of DX, even than the original one. So as part
2:11:23
Speaker 1: of DX, he was a big deal on his own.
2:11:27
Speaker 1: He wasn't that big of a deal he really was.
2:11:30
Speaker 1: It really did not happen, like the switch did not
2:11:32
Speaker 1: get flipped until two thousand and he had that street
2:11:37
Speaker 1: fight of Madison Square Garden with Cactus Jack, and that's
2:11:41
Speaker 1: where everything started to fall into place for him as
2:11:43
Speaker 1: a main event. That's where I started to really buy
2:11:46
Speaker 1: into him as a main eventor in that company. And
2:11:49
Speaker 1: so that was still during the Attitude era, But you know,
2:11:52
Speaker 1: I feel like what you're asking me here is like
2:11:54
Speaker 1: peak Attitude era when Austin before the injury, Austin Rock
2:11:58
Speaker 1: and Mankind Undertake or Minute Street like all that kind
2:12:01
Speaker 1: of stuff. He was not on the level of Austin
2:12:05
Speaker 1: In Rock. Let's just put it that way. He was
2:12:08
Speaker 1: a level below. I would even have a Foley way
2:12:12
Speaker 1: ahead of Triple H. As far as his importance to
2:12:15
Speaker 1: that era, I mean, it's to me, it's not even comparable.
2:12:18
Speaker 1: I mean, Foley was a far more important part of
2:12:22
Speaker 1: that Attitude era than Triple H was. I mean, look
2:12:25
Speaker 1: at the work that he did in putting over guys
2:12:27
Speaker 1: like Rock and Austin. Part of the reason they were
2:12:29
Speaker 1: able to get over the way they were is because
2:12:30
Speaker 1: Foley was right there to work with them and put
2:12:32
Speaker 1: them over. And that's to say nothing, of course, of
2:12:36
Speaker 1: the stuff that he did with the Undertaker, but that
2:12:38
Speaker 1: kind of predated the Attitude era. So where he ranks,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: I mean, he's below Rock and Austin and Foley maybe four.
2:12:47
Speaker 1: You got Undertaker as well. For me, he's four or
2:12:50
Speaker 1: five on the list. He's top five, but he's at
2:12:53
Speaker 1: the bottom of the top five. Daniel from Los Angeles,
2:12:58
Speaker 1: who do you think is ww's big I guess what
2:13:00
Speaker 1: if when it comes down to them getting behind a
2:13:03
Speaker 1: wrestler who had gotten organically over with the crowd, who
2:13:07
Speaker 1: do you think would have been successful if they were
2:13:09
Speaker 1: allowed to get the ball and have a run with it. Myself, personally,
2:13:13
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have seen Damian Sandow win
2:13:16
Speaker 1: the world title from Sina when he cashed in his
2:13:18
Speaker 1: money in the bank in twenty thirteen. I enjoyed his work.
2:13:21
Speaker 1: He reminded me of an old school, pompous, arrogant heel,
2:13:24
Speaker 1: kind of like Nick Bockwinkle. He could have been the
2:13:27
Speaker 1: superior world champion. I like Damian Sandou and I think
2:13:32
Speaker 1: he could. He could have had a better run. He
2:13:36
Speaker 1: was never going to be a superior world champion, like
2:13:40
Speaker 1: he was not going to be at that level. But
2:13:44
Speaker 1: to answer your question, I'll spit out a current name
2:13:46
Speaker 1: at you. We just saw him last night, in fact,
2:13:49
Speaker 1: and the Royal Rum will make his return. La Knight.
2:13:53
Speaker 1: How's that for a name. He's in the middle of
2:13:57
Speaker 1: his run, his run's not even done yet, and I
2:13:58
Speaker 1: already have him as a what if? So La Night
2:14:02
Speaker 1: is one sosorrow is another sosorrow is like sand Out,
2:14:08
Speaker 1: not a guy who I think would have gone on
2:14:10
Speaker 1: to become a world champion and had like a long run.
2:14:13
Speaker 1: But in a company that had two world titles, could
2:14:16
Speaker 1: he have been World heavyweight champion and gotten a short
2:14:18
Speaker 1: run with it? Yes, and forget the title for a second.
2:14:22
Speaker 1: There was no reason that they could not have pushed
2:14:24
Speaker 1: him as one of Paul Hayman's guys and eventually tried
2:14:28
Speaker 1: to build to something with him in brock Lesner. I
2:14:30
Speaker 1: always felt like that was a missed opportunity not doing
2:14:32
Speaker 1: that match. I think you got to have mister Kennedy
2:14:36
Speaker 1: on that list, someone who should have had a lot
2:14:38
Speaker 1: more success than he did. I mean, he was over
2:14:41
Speaker 1: enough as a heel and I think he could have
2:14:43
Speaker 1: been a babyface where he would have been a big
2:14:46
Speaker 1: star for them, but things happened and it just didn't
2:14:48
Speaker 1: work out that way. So are those are some names
2:14:50
Speaker 1: that come to mind? And Jesse from Dallas, Texas? What
2:14:56
Speaker 1: is some of the worst merch that you can remember
2:15:00
Speaker 1: bwe ever producing? And have you watched the teasers for
2:15:04
Speaker 1: Avengers Doomsday and if so, what are your expectations for
2:15:07
Speaker 1: this movie. I have not seen the teasers, so I
2:15:10
Speaker 1: cannot comment on it, but oh, what a question. There
2:15:13
Speaker 1: have been so many bad shirts. You know. The absolute
2:15:19
Speaker 1: best worst shirt that they ever made, it has to
2:15:24
Speaker 1: be the APA one, always pounding ass, bar and grill.
2:15:30
Speaker 1: Find me one that's worse than that. It's the bar
2:15:33
Speaker 1: and grill part that really puts it over the top,
2:15:35
Speaker 1: Like there's an actual bar and grill somewhere out there
2:15:38
Speaker 1: where you can just start pounding ass. I would think
2:15:41
Speaker 1: that would be a health department violation myself. I would
2:15:45
Speaker 1: not want to eat at that place. But I mean,
2:15:47
Speaker 1: there's just there's so many of them. I remember the
2:15:49
Speaker 1: Sinkara one made them look like a giant penis. The
2:15:54
Speaker 1: test one test he had a shirt that said I
2:15:57
Speaker 1: love my testicles on the front. I gotta be careful,
2:16:00
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be saying that too loud, but yes, that
2:16:02
Speaker 1: was a real shirt that they saw. Imagine being a
2:16:04
Speaker 1: kid wearing that to school. Carlito had a shirt I
2:16:09
Speaker 1: remember it was yellow and it had an apple on
2:16:11
Speaker 1: It had an apple saying do you spit or swallow?
2:16:16
Speaker 1: There was a nevill shirt. The Nevill one was it
2:16:19
Speaker 1: was offensively bad just because of how lazy it was.
2:16:22
Speaker 1: There was nothing offensive on it. But I remember they
2:16:25
Speaker 1: did a shirt for him. They put so little effort
2:16:28
Speaker 1: into it. Even he called it out on Twitter. He
2:16:31
Speaker 1: called his own T shirt and atrocity. It was so bad.
2:16:36
Speaker 1: And then as far and I know you were asking
2:16:40
Speaker 1: for about WWE shirts, but I got to include this one,
2:16:44
Speaker 1: and it's an aw shirt. It is among the worst
2:16:46
Speaker 1: shirts that I have ever seen. It's the one with
2:16:49
Speaker 1: Britt Baker's face on it when she had a black eye. Like,
2:16:53
Speaker 1: who the fuck would walk around wearing that? Who would
2:16:57
Speaker 1: walk around with a shirt that just has this rectangle
2:17:00
Speaker 1: regular image of a woman on it with a black eye.
2:17:04
Speaker 1: I mean, given the state of the world right now,
2:17:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were some fucking people out there who
2:17:08
Speaker 1: would love to walk around with a shirt like that.
2:17:09
Speaker 1: Those are enough people I care to associate myself with.
2:17:12
Speaker 1: But who would spend money on that? Who thought that
2:17:15
Speaker 1: was a good idea? We could probably do a whole
2:17:19
Speaker 1: show on nothing but just bad wrestling shirts. But those
2:17:21
Speaker 1: are the top ones that come to mind for me. Anyway,
2:17:24
Speaker 1: keep emailing me the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com.
2:17:27
Speaker 1: Thank you again for everyone who hung out with me
2:17:30
Speaker 1: and supported in a big way on the Royal Rumble
2:17:34
Speaker 1: stream last night. The full video full review is up
2:17:37
Speaker 1: on the YouTube channel right now and climbing rapidly towards
2:17:41
Speaker 1: forty thousand views, So thank you for that. Next time
2:17:44
Speaker 1: I'm Live with You is going to be actually back
2:17:46
Speaker 1: on YouTube tomorrow night. It's gonna be a big raw.
2:17:48
Speaker 1: It's the first raw coming out of the Royal Rumble.
2:17:51
Speaker 1: We'll see if anybody declares for the Rumble. Not that
2:17:53
Speaker 1: I'm expecting Roman to be there, but we'll see if
2:17:55
Speaker 1: anybody declares, and if anybody else pops up who maybe
2:17:59
Speaker 1: did not pop up in the Royal Rumble itself. But
2:18:01
Speaker 1: I'll be live for the full review normal time on YouTube,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: and then of course Tuesday Night Titans, we'll be talking
2:18:07
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble among other things on Tuesday night. Wednesday
2:18:11
Speaker 1: night on the channel will be the Dynamite Post Show,
2:18:15
Speaker 1: and they got a couple of big matches on that show.
2:18:17
Speaker 1: And then Friday night will be the first SmackDown coming
2:18:20
Speaker 1: out of the Rumble. And then back here with you
2:18:22
Speaker 1: next Sunday for episode nine. Fifty Holy shit, fifty more.
2:18:28
Speaker 1: We hit a thousand. It's getting close. We still got
2:18:32
Speaker 1: a little bit of time, but it's getting close, so
2:18:35
Speaker 1: what is that? Another year? All right? Fifty two weeks
2:18:38
Speaker 1: in a year, fifty more episodes to go. We'll get there,
2:18:42
Speaker 1: so that'll be next Sunday. Until then, be well, stay safe,
2:18:45
Speaker 1: have yourselves a great rest of your week. Bundle up
2:18:47
Speaker 1: wherever you may be. It is bitter cold here in
2:18:49
Speaker 1: New York. I think it's ten degrees outside. And then
2:18:52
Speaker 1: come on back next Sunday. We'll do it all over
2:18:54
Speaker 1: again for nine to fifty until then, take care, guys.
2:18:59
Speaker 1: The Solomons sounds off. Duffsvid says, why shouldn't you play
2:19:02
Speaker 1: poker with a plumber because a good flush beats a
2:19:05
Speaker 1: full house every time? And I give you a flood,
2:19:09
Speaker 1: he said, flushed. I had to give you a flash, Ashley,
2:19:12
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm dealing with right now. Actually, I
2:19:14
Speaker 1: have a toilet here that will not stop flushing. It's
2:19:18
Speaker 1: just going and going and going and going and going,
2:19:21
Speaker 1: and it will not stop. And I go, what the
2:19:23
Speaker 1: fuck am I supposed to do? So I turn the
2:19:25
Speaker 1: water off. I know how to do that, and I'm
2:19:27
Speaker 1: waiting for this plumber to return, and I have no idea,
2:19:30
Speaker 1: and I try to put the water back on and
2:19:31
Speaker 1: the flushing just continues. That's kind of annoying. Where's T. L.
2:19:35
Speaker 1: Hopper when you need it? The Solo Monster sounds off,
2:19:39
Speaker 1: bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check
2:19:42
Speaker 1: out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and
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Speaker 1: follow The Sola Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and X The
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Speaker 1: Solo Monster. I love you so long.