<v Speaker 1>It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters

<v Speaker 1>Sounds Off. I love you so, Mama monster, dude, I

<v Speaker 1>want your soulier woman. You got grown ass wrestlers in

<v Speaker 1>the back going on Twitter, come over here. Part is

<v Speaker 1>that Pet Patterson you have legs? The week I was

<v Speaker 1>ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up. Now

<v Speaker 1>I have been begging him for a job on every

<v Speaker 1>every platform I can, and I would another reason why

<v Speaker 1>you won't part me. Welcome to episode nine to fifty

<v Speaker 1>six of The Solemn Monster Sounds Off for Sunday, March

<v Speaker 1>twenty second, twenty twenty six. I am the Solemn Monster.

<v Speaker 1>You know. Sometimes when I do sad tweet, and I

<v Speaker 1>don't do it all the time, but when I do it,

<v Speaker 1>I end up with a whopper that could be in

<v Speaker 1>the running for sad Tweet of the Year. So it's

<v Speaker 1>very rare that I get two of them in one week,

<v Speaker 1>not one, but two tweet and deletes. I mentioned it

<v Speaker 1>a few weeks ago that former WWE executive vice president

<v Speaker 1>of Talent Relations, Zugative vice president of telet Relations, John Laurnidis. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>that guy who was named as a defendant in the

<v Speaker 1>Janelle Grant sex trafficking lawsuit and later on was dropped

<v Speaker 1>as a defendant when he agreed to provide evidence for

<v Speaker 1>her for her defense against Vince McMahon. The same John

<v Speaker 1>Laurnidis who claimed, or his lawyer did, that he too

<v Speaker 1>was a victim of Vince McMahon. I guess so we

<v Speaker 1>should all have sympathy for him. The same John Laurnidis

<v Speaker 1>who was married to the Bella Twins mother at the

<v Speaker 1>same time that he is said to have been having

<v Speaker 1>sex with Janelle Grant, and during which time their mother

<v Speaker 1>had surgery to remove a brain tumor. That John Laurinidis.

<v Speaker 1>He poked his head back up out of the hole

<v Speaker 1>that he's been living in to do a signing for

<v Speaker 1>Big Time Wrestling at their March Mayhem event last weekend.

<v Speaker 1>He also recently talked about how much he loves grooming

<v Speaker 1>young talent. I'll bet he does. He posted a photo

<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday from the signing on his x account with

<v Speaker 1>the caption amazing signing in matches at Big Time Wrestling

<v Speaker 1>this past Saturday. It was great to meet so many people. Now,

<v Speaker 1>upon a closer look a closer inspection of this photograph,

<v Speaker 1>it was very clear that the photo had been altered

<v Speaker 1>and it looked AI generated because there was someone or

<v Speaker 1>something in the background that looked like some deformed creature

<v Speaker 1>from another planet. People's fingers were all distorted. AI doesn't

<v Speaker 1>do fingers very well. It's not good with the fingering.

<v Speaker 1>I'll bet Johnny Boy thinks he is the sick fuck.

<v Speaker 1>And there were other things too, including one fan who

<v Speaker 1>was wearing a Hulkamania shirt that no one had ever

<v Speaker 1>seen before in their life. The real giveaway was just

<v Speaker 1>how many fans were all clustered up in the photo

<v Speaker 1>just to get an autograph from the former Dynamic dude.

<v Speaker 1>Ain't no way that many people were standing around waiting

<v Speaker 1>to get an autograph from John Loreneitis. I'm not buying it.

<v Speaker 1>They were already even standing in line. They were just

<v Speaker 1>kind of huddled around him like he was like wrestling

<v Speaker 1>Jesus or something. It was just so obviously fake that

<v Speaker 1>I can't believe he thought posting that was a good idea.

<v Speaker 1>But he was rightfully roasted and ultimately he deleted it.

<v Speaker 1>They shamed him into taking it down. It may be

<v Speaker 1>truly the saddest tweet that I have ever chosen. For

<v Speaker 1>this award. Like, there are bad tweets. There are offensive tweets.

<v Speaker 1>I'll get to that in a minute. There's just other

<v Speaker 1>horrible tweets. I don't know that I have ever featured

<v Speaker 1>one here, I've ever talked about one that was quite

<v Speaker 1>as sad as that one. That this man felt the

<v Speaker 1>need to insert people that don't exist into the photo

<v Speaker 1>just to make himself feel more popular than he really iss.

<v Speaker 1>Too bad he couldn't ai a brain into his head,

<v Speaker 1>or maybe he would have thought twice before posting that.

<v Speaker 1>But Laurenidis was not the only one who had a

<v Speaker 1>bad week on Twitter. Ricochet, after losing his aw national

<v Speaker 1>title lesson Revolution, he did more in one tweet to

<v Speaker 1>tarnish his legacy than Wwe ever did in the five

<v Speaker 1>years that he spent working there. Now I'm sure that

<v Speaker 1>many of you know by now Ricochet is chronically on

<v Speaker 1>social media. He spends a lot of his time replying

<v Speaker 1>to people's messages and throwing insults and jabs at a

<v Speaker 1>lot of them, who, to be fair, throw a lot

<v Speaker 1>of insults and hate at him, and whether you think

<v Speaker 1>he's deserving of it, I mean, there's a lot of

<v Speaker 1>hate that goes way overboard you know, there's one thing

<v Speaker 1>to criticize someone, and then you just get pure hatred

<v Speaker 1>and death threats and all kinds of horrible shit. He

<v Speaker 1>takes a lot of abuse, but that does not mean

<v Speaker 1>that you need to respond to all of it, because

<v Speaker 1>when you start responding to all of it, all you're

<v Speaker 1>doing is encouraging more of it. Now, some people defend

<v Speaker 1>it by saying, well, he's a heel, he's doing heel things,

<v Speaker 1>which is a very convenient excuse to use when he

<v Speaker 1>says something very very stupid. Oh, well, he's a heel,

<v Speaker 1>he's in character. It doesn't work, not in this case.

<v Speaker 1>It doesn't. And the fact that he takes a lot

<v Speaker 1>of abuse himself is no excuse for him to make

<v Speaker 1>an ass out of himself and act like a twelve

<v Speaker 1>year old. There are twelve year olds who have better

<v Speaker 1>self control than Ricochet does. After aw posted video of

<v Speaker 1>Ricochet having a meltdown backstage and throwing furniture around after

<v Speaker 1>he lost his national title, which I'm sure they would

<v Speaker 1>have aired on TV on Wednesday night had all of

<v Speaker 1>this not happened, a Twitter user named Sandy posted a

<v Speaker 1>comment underneath the video saying his acting hasn't improved with

<v Speaker 1>a bunch of laughing emojis, which is actually pretty tame

<v Speaker 1>compared to a lot of the shit that people post

<v Speaker 1>on there. She was making fun of his acting ability.

<v Speaker 1>She didn't call him a name, she didn't hurl any

<v Speaker 1>personal insults at him or his wife, she didn't call

<v Speaker 1>him bald, she didn't do any of that. And checking

<v Speaker 1>Sandy's profile, she's an older lady who happens to be

<v Speaker 1>a wrestling fan. She's a grandmother who happens to be

<v Speaker 1>a wrestling fan, and happens to suffer from multiple sclerosis,

<v Speaker 1>which is an insidious disease. And in response to this

<v Speaker 1>comment about his acting ability, Ricochet, who had to go

<v Speaker 1>to her profile to see in her bio that she

<v Speaker 1>suffers from MS, responded by saying, I'm glad you got MS.

<v Speaker 1>Sandy responded, well, if that makes you happy, have a

<v Speaker 1>great life. And with that, she was forced to lock

<v Speaker 1>down her profile and protect it, put it on private

<v Speaker 1>after what I'm sure was a deluge replies that she received,

<v Speaker 1>some of them probably even more vile than what Ricochet wrote.

<v Speaker 1>And the blowback was swift, and you would think that

<v Speaker 1>he would have realized to take it down because he

<v Speaker 1>had clearly crossed the line here. Not only did he

<v Speaker 1>not take it down, he doubled down on his stupidity,

<v Speaker 1>and he justified it by saying, it's so hilariou that

<v Speaker 1>the amount of little bitches who have tweeted and wished

<v Speaker 1>harm on me, who has wished even death said some

<v Speaker 1>of the most vile things to me and my wife,

<v Speaker 1>people who try and make fun of me every day.

<v Speaker 1>But those same little bitches can't take it when I

<v Speaker 1>do it back to people, fucking pussies everywhere. We all

<v Speaker 1>say things that we regret at one time or another,

<v Speaker 1>especially on social media. I respond to the occasional troll also,

<v Speaker 1>although not as much as I used to, because I

<v Speaker 1>learned it's a lot easier to just block and move

<v Speaker 1>on with my life or mute them. You can keep

<v Speaker 1>the follow and just mute them, because they almost always

<v Speaker 1>follow you. They don't like what you have to say,

<v Speaker 1>but they'll follow you. That's always very funny to me.

<v Speaker 1>But you can keep the follow and mute them, so

<v Speaker 1>they talk into the void and they have no idea.

<v Speaker 1>Every now and then, if I'm in a mood, I'll

<v Speaker 1>sing them back. But I've never told Grandma in my

<v Speaker 1>mentions that I'm glad she got a debilitating disease because

<v Speaker 1>she said my acting hasn't improved. Yeah, the thing of

<v Speaker 1>it is like Ricochet talks about all of the death

<v Speaker 1>threats that he's gotten in terrible things that people say

<v Speaker 1>about him. Had he said this about one of those people,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, it still would have been a stupid thing

<v Speaker 1>to say, but I actually don't think he would have

<v Speaker 1>gotten as much hate as he did for this. He

<v Speaker 1>directed his anger at the wrong person. So the tweet

<v Speaker 1>stayed up until Tuesday, when, after doubling down on the

<v Speaker 1>initial tweet, he posted an apology saying I took out

<v Speaker 1>my hatred for the IWC on Sandy and inadvertently others

<v Speaker 1>who were affected by MS. She didn't deserve it, and

<v Speaker 1>for that, I sincerely apologize. Moving forward, I'll do better,

<v Speaker 1>which is what he should have posted within fifteen minutes

<v Speaker 1>of the initial tweet going up. You know, the fact

<v Speaker 1>that he waited so long and even doubled down on

<v Speaker 1>it makes it seem like he only apologized because he

<v Speaker 1>was pressured into doing so, and I don't doubt that

<v Speaker 1>he was would be it by somebody in aw or

<v Speaker 1>someone else. You know. Dave Meltzer insists that AW had

<v Speaker 1>nothing to do with it, and that it was a

<v Speaker 1>longtime friend who advised him to delete the tweet. A

<v Speaker 1>former wrestler that he has great respect for who worked

<v Speaker 1>with him on the independent scene, Sean ross Sapp, said

<v Speaker 1>that he was told neither AW nor Warner Brothers Discovery

<v Speaker 1>made Ricochet apologize. AW officials told him after that it

<v Speaker 1>was the right thing to do. Maybe they should have

<v Speaker 1>done that a little bit sooner, you know, someone with

<v Speaker 1>common sense should have picked up the phone or texted

<v Speaker 1>him and said, you've embarrassed yourself and us with what

<v Speaker 1>you wrote, and you should take it down. He put

<v Speaker 1>his own ass in the jackpot with that tweet, and

<v Speaker 1>he's lucky that he didn't lose his job over it,

<v Speaker 1>because if he did, he would have had no one

<v Speaker 1>to blame but himself, not the IWC, not anybody else.

<v Speaker 1>And that's not to excuse again, the horrendous shit that

<v Speaker 1>people have lobbed at him. And Samantha Irvin, who deactivated

<v Speaker 1>her own Twitter account because of death threats and other

<v Speaker 1>verbal abuse that you know, people were sending her. She's

<v Speaker 1>posted some screenshots on her Instagram and it's disgusting. You know,

<v Speaker 1>there's no excuse for that, even for Ricochet, who actually

<v Speaker 1>said it. There's no excuse for sending them stuff like that.

<v Speaker 1>But him talking about all of the abuse that he

<v Speaker 1>gets does not make it all right for him to

<v Speaker 1>go online and act like a grouchy teenager who doesn't

<v Speaker 1>know any better. You know, TMZ had a whole story

<v Speaker 1>about it, as did The Sun in the UK, which

<v Speaker 1>I know is worth about as much as a fucking

<v Speaker 1>best of DVD for Johnny Ace. But still, this is

<v Speaker 1>not the type of publicity that AW was looking for.

<v Speaker 1>You know, they got some attention last weekend for the

<v Speaker 1>Ronda Rousy thing, only for it to be drowned out

<v Speaker 1>by the Ricochet stuff. I'm sure they were thrilled. And

<v Speaker 1>this gets into the hypocrisy of other wrestlers like Jay

<v Speaker 1>Briscoe and Trey Miguel being banned from appearing on television

<v Speaker 1>supposedly due to you know, intervention by wb D. You

<v Speaker 1>remember it came from above. Absolutely, there's hypocrisy there. No

<v Speaker 1>one is squeaky clean. But where is the line that

<v Speaker 1>you're not supposed to step over? I don't know, I

<v Speaker 1>don't know where this imaginary line starts and stops when

<v Speaker 1>you get into insulting large groups of people or people

<v Speaker 1>with certain illnesses. All I can say is, you can't

<v Speaker 1>say something like that in one breath and then in

<v Speaker 1>another one. Try to get sympathy from people for all

<v Speaker 1>the terrible things that are being said about you, as

<v Speaker 1>if one excuses the other, because then it's just an

<v Speaker 1>endless cycle. And I'm also reminded through this entire thing

<v Speaker 1>of the timeless tweet from Big Damo Killian Dane. It'll

<v Speaker 1>always be relevant forever and ever. Some wrestlers are just

<v Speaker 1>fucking stupid. I don't know what to tell you. If

<v Speaker 1>you want to support the sound off, you may do

<v Speaker 1>so on thesolomonster dot com ten dollars or more. We'll

<v Speaker 1>get your nickname. It a shout out. I want to

<v Speaker 1>say thank you to our PayPal producers for this week,

<v Speaker 1>who would never tweet something so horrendous. The Portland pop

<v Speaker 1>star Paul Hamilton. You want to find a good human being,

<v Speaker 1>that's Paul Hamilton, Big B Brian Bessera, The Diamond, Dallas

<v Speaker 1>Dance Machine, Harrison so At, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, Badass,

<v Speaker 1>Bernard Frederick Iowan Corn Farmer, Jesse Lamfear, the Chicago Slayer,

<v Speaker 1>Willie Aichord, night Stalker, and if Alsafar and Killshot Keith Hart.

<v Speaker 1>Thank you guys very very much. It was also good

<v Speaker 1>seeing some of you on Long Island last night for

<v Speaker 1>Super Clash. I caught the tail end of the Big

<v Speaker 1>Event Expo beforehand Demolition was there, twenty twenty six Hall

<v Speaker 1>of famers, just doing their thing. Rick Martel had the

<v Speaker 1>longest line of anybody there. It stretched on far beyond

<v Speaker 1>the time that it was supposed to be over. Like

<v Speaker 1>the last time that we did the Superclass show, after

<v Speaker 1>the Big Event ended, I remember the person who had

<v Speaker 1>the longest line by far was aj Lee and it

<v Speaker 1>was supposed to end at four o'clock and everyone's packing

<v Speaker 1>up and all the vendors are leaving in AJ's line

<v Speaker 1>is just stretching way, way, way, you know, almost to

<v Speaker 1>the entrance. And she hung around and stuck around as

<v Speaker 1>long as it took to sign for everybody. And so

<v Speaker 1>this time it wasn't aj Lee, it was Rick Martel

<v Speaker 1>because he doesn't do very many of these. You know,

<v Speaker 1>when you don't do many events, it's a very rare

<v Speaker 1>thing that he does any signings these days, so people

<v Speaker 1>wanted to come out and they wanted to see him, right,

<v Speaker 1>They wanted to see the model, and he had the atomizer,

<v Speaker 1>the arrogance atomizer with him. I'll have some news on

<v Speaker 1>Rick Martel later, but Mina was in the house. Mina

<v Speaker 1>Shirakawa at the Hog Show against Shatzi, continuing to build

<v Speaker 1>on her momentum from Dynamite Wednesday night with another win,

<v Speaker 1>non title, but that puts Mina now you would think

<v Speaker 1>squarely in the mix for a future title opportunity. We

<v Speaker 1>had Indy Heartwell against Diana Parrazzo, the acclaimed We're back

<v Speaker 1>together one night only against main event and first time

<v Speaker 1>ever Sammy Guevara against the Amazing Red. That was a

<v Speaker 1>fun one to call. Now we gear up for at

<v Speaker 1>Las Vegas Thursday night, April sixteenth from the Pearl Theater

<v Speaker 1>at the Palms Cause Resort. We are loading that show up.

<v Speaker 1>Matt and Jeff Hardy are back the Hog Tag Team champions.

<v Speaker 1>They will be in action Zillafa two against Big Bad

<v Speaker 1>Brody King Amazing Red against Bandido for the first time ever.

<v Speaker 1>I can't fucking wait for that one. So you can

<v Speaker 1>get your tickets at hog Wrestling dot Net. Tickets start

<v Speaker 1>as low as forty six bucks, which I think by

<v Speaker 1>Vegas standards is actually not bad. I will be there.

<v Speaker 1>It's been seven years since I've been to Vegas, so

<v Speaker 1>I'm looking forward to it. And then back at the

<v Speaker 1>Globe Theater. From one iconic theater to another. Was that

<v Speaker 1>two weeks later in Los Angeles Friday night, May first.

<v Speaker 1>Those tickets are on sale right now as well. We

<v Speaker 1>got some big things coming up. Unfortunately, we got some

<v Speaker 1>sad news to get into here, because the sad news

<v Speaker 1>broke on Friday that lover Boy Dennis Condrey, one of

<v Speaker 1>the founding fathers of the Midnight Express, one of some

<v Speaker 1>might even say thee greatest tag team of all time,

<v Speaker 1>died on Friday at the age of seventy six. He

<v Speaker 1>co founded the Midnights in nineteen eighty as a team

<v Speaker 1>with Randy Rose, the idea being that they would be

<v Speaker 1>out past midnight, partying all night, every night, which would

<v Speaker 1>explain why Shawn Michaels and Marty Gannetti used to be

<v Speaker 1>called the Midnight Rockers when they first got paired up

<v Speaker 1>Condre and Rose. They later added a third member, Norvelle

<v Speaker 1>Austin to make it a trio, and they operated under

<v Speaker 1>the Freebird rule whenever they would defend their titles and

<v Speaker 1>just rotate as needed. That is not the version of

<v Speaker 1>the Midnights though that most people remember. That would be

<v Speaker 1>Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton, who were put together by

<v Speaker 1>Bill wattson Mid South and they were managed by Jim Cornette,

<v Speaker 1>where they feuded with the Rock and Roll Express, Ricky

<v Speaker 1>Morton and Robert Gibson, and the rest is history. The

<v Speaker 1>most legendary tag team rivalry of all time, and it

<v Speaker 1>extended far beyond Mid South into the NWA and beyond

<v Speaker 1>for many many years, and there have been multiple incarnations

<v Speaker 1>of the Midnight Express only one incarnation of the Rock

<v Speaker 1>and Roll Express, but they had hundreds of matches together

<v Speaker 1>just up and down the roads across multiple territories. They

<v Speaker 1>also had a memorable feud with the Road Warriors which

<v Speaker 1>led to that infamous scaffold match at Stark eighty six

<v Speaker 1>where Coronett dropped down from the scaffold. Big Bubba Rogers

<v Speaker 1>was supposed to catch him, and somehow he missed and

<v Speaker 1>Cornett came straight down and blew out both of his

<v Speaker 1>knees and road Warrior Animal told a great story about

<v Speaker 1>that many years ago. You know Big Bubba Big boss Man,

<v Speaker 1>as I grew up knowing him. This was right before

<v Speaker 1>he became the Big boss Man. But boss Man and

<v Speaker 1>Hawk they were tight and they rode together. They loved

<v Speaker 1>to get high, and boss Man apparently got high as

<v Speaker 1>a kite the night before that match, and nobody could

<v Speaker 1>tell because at the time he wore sunglasses to the

<v Speaker 1>ring and all he did was stand there. So he's

<v Speaker 1>standing there in sunglasses and you wouldn't know anything was wrong. Now,

<v Speaker 1>Cornett is a r of heights. He doesn't even like

<v Speaker 1>to fly. He drives everywhere. But he's gonna take this

<v Speaker 1>fucking bump from the scaffold where he's trying to get away.

<v Speaker 1>He's trying to scamper off and now he's hanging off

<v Speaker 1>the side of it. It wasn't like he was thrown

<v Speaker 1>off like fucking Nick Foley off the hell in a cell,

<v Speaker 1>but you know he's hanging there from the side of

<v Speaker 1>the scaffold. An Animal yells down to boss Man. He's like,

<v Speaker 1>are you ready, And he's looking down like there's no

<v Speaker 1>way this guy's gonna catch him. Like, Cornett's gonna kill him,

<v Speaker 1>He's gonna land on him, He's gonna kill him. How's

<v Speaker 1>this gonna work? But he's like, are you ready? And

<v Speaker 1>then he tells Cornett to drop and boss Man is

<v Speaker 1>like three feet off, completely misses him, and he could

<v Speaker 1>hear the popping sounds that Cornett's knees made on landing

<v Speaker 1>because he came straight down again. He just blew out

<v Speaker 1>both of his knees. I want to say he had

<v Speaker 1>actually hurt his knee earlier in the show, but he

<v Speaker 1>did the spot anyway, and at that point everything just

<v Speaker 1>went to hell, and his knees were all fucked up.

<v Speaker 1>But then like him and Hawk, Animal and Hawk, they're

<v Speaker 1>just up there on the scaffold looking down, laughing their

<v Speaker 1>asses off, and boss Man is just standing there like,

<v Speaker 1>oh shit, Yeah, scaffold matches are very dumb. That's why

<v Speaker 1>you don't see them anymore. So Condrey was a part

<v Speaker 1>of all that. And then when Coandri left the NWA

<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty seven, he disappeared there for a few months.

<v Speaker 1>I think he had claimed many years later he had

<v Speaker 1>disappeared to address some personal issues, and he got replaced

<v Speaker 1>with sweet Stan Lane. And some people consider that to

<v Speaker 1>be the best version of the Midnight Express. Others think

<v Speaker 1>it's Condree and Eton. You know, it's a pretty rare

<v Speaker 1>thing to have a successful tag team like that and

<v Speaker 1>replace one member with another and they go on to

<v Speaker 1>be just as successful, if not more so. Like, that's

<v Speaker 1>not an easy thing to do. Tag team chemistry is

<v Speaker 1>a real thing. Some have it, some don't. But both

<v Speaker 1>versions also had Jim Cornett as their manager, which helped.

<v Speaker 1>You know, Cornett's one of the greatest of all time.

<v Speaker 1>It doesn't hurt having him in your corner and doing

<v Speaker 1>most of the talking for you. I mean, you talk

<v Speaker 1>about goat managers, you're looking to Bobby Heenan, Paul Hayman

<v Speaker 1>and Jim Cornett. That's your trio right there. Put them

<v Speaker 1>in whatever order you want to put them in. Those

<v Speaker 1>are the three greatest managers of all time. And funny enough,

<v Speaker 1>when Condrey resurfaced later in eighty seven, it was in

<v Speaker 1>the AWA with Randy Rose as the original Midnight Express

<v Speaker 1>and they were managed not by Cornett, they were managed

<v Speaker 1>by Paul e Dangerously and then they headed to the

<v Speaker 1>NWA for a feud with Eaton Lane and Cornett. So

<v Speaker 1>it was the og Midnights against the New Midnights Cornette

<v Speaker 1>against Paul E. You can imagine those promos, and it

<v Speaker 1>was a hot feud. They made a lot of money

<v Speaker 1>together and they drew well, and as the story goes,

<v Speaker 1>it was to build to a trios match with the

<v Speaker 1>managers involved at the Shytown Rumble in eighty nine, where

<v Speaker 1>the loser of the fall would be fired, And when

<v Speaker 1>Condrey realized that Randy Rose would be the one taking

<v Speaker 1>the losing fall and he would be shoot fired, he

<v Speaker 1>bailed and they had to substitute somebody else in there

<v Speaker 1>to finish the I don't remember who it was, but

<v Speaker 1>they put somebody else in his place, and they did

<v Speaker 1>the match, and I believe Randy Rose took the losing fall.

<v Speaker 1>So it all fizzled out there at the end. But

<v Speaker 1>after nineteen eighty nine, Condrey disappeared into retirement for many

<v Speaker 1>many years until two thousand and four, he and Bobby

<v Speaker 1>Eaton they started working independence together as the Midnight Express,

<v Speaker 1>and he wrestled on and off. I think he did

<v Speaker 1>some singles, but mostly tags all the way until twenty eleven,

<v Speaker 1>on a career that started way back in nineteen seventy three.

<v Speaker 1>It's a long time, over fifty championships to his name.

<v Speaker 1>Truly one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of all time.

<v Speaker 1>And I feel like someone like outside of those fans

<v Speaker 1>older than me or maybe in my age group, who

<v Speaker 1>were at least aware of who he was or had

<v Speaker 1>heard of The Midnight Express, as the years go on,

<v Speaker 1>that'll be forgotten about because he's not one of these

<v Speaker 1>glorified figures in WWE history. WWE has in many ways

<v Speaker 1>become the arbiter of wrestling history, at least on a

<v Speaker 1>kind of a mainstream like global scale, because they own

<v Speaker 1>all of these different tape libraries and they kind of

<v Speaker 1>have the They kind of dictate their own version of

<v Speaker 1>history and when they decide to tell it and what

<v Speaker 1>they tell and who they talk about, who they don't

<v Speaker 1>talk about. You know, it's why they put people in

<v Speaker 1>their Hall of Fame who never worked for WWE. Doesn't

<v Speaker 1>make any sense. Why would you put people in your

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame that never even work for your company.

<v Speaker 1>They pick and choose certain names because you know, they

<v Speaker 1>feel like, hey, we're the arbiter of history here. There's

<v Speaker 1>a lot of wrestling Hall of Fames and some that

<v Speaker 1>are even more prestigious than the WWE Hall of Fame

<v Speaker 1>in the eyes of some. But again on a grand scale,

<v Speaker 1>it's WWE, and they own all of this history when

<v Speaker 1>they put these video packages together. I mean they they

<v Speaker 1>tell the stories that they want to tell, you know,

<v Speaker 1>for better or worse. That's just the way that it is.

<v Speaker 1>He never worked for WWE. Condree never worked for them,

<v Speaker 1>and he's not in the WWE Hall of Fame. Somehow,

<v Speaker 1>the Midnight Express is not in. The Rock and Roll

<v Speaker 1>Express is in, and they even had Jim Cornett induct them,

<v Speaker 1>which didn't really make a whole lot of sense, seeing

<v Speaker 1>is how he feuded with them for so many years.

<v Speaker 1>But Cornett should be in there with the Midnights, and

<v Speaker 1>none of them are in. And I can only imagine

<v Speaker 1>it has to do with the deals that they make

<v Speaker 1>you sign when you go into the Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if it's a Legends deal or some

<v Speaker 1>other kind of deal. I don't know what kind of

<v Speaker 1>limitations they may put on what you can and can't do,

<v Speaker 1>and how you can and can't make money, you know,

<v Speaker 1>outside of what WWE can make off of you. But

<v Speaker 1>it's insane that they're not in there. And now Condrey

<v Speaker 1>and Bobby Eaton, they're not even alive anymore. I think

<v Speaker 1>stan Lane's the only one left outside of Cornett. But

<v Speaker 1>you'll have actually, I don't know where Randy Rose is.

<v Speaker 1>I don't hear his name mentioned anymore. But you'll have

<v Speaker 1>generations now with fans that have no concept of how

<v Speaker 1>big the Midnight Express was and the Rock and Roll

<v Speaker 1>Express was until they watched the Vault on YouTube. Or

<v Speaker 1>you need to be somebody who actually gives a shit

<v Speaker 1>about wrestling history, So you'll research online, you'll watch YouTube clips,

<v Speaker 1>you'll buy the books, you'll watch the shoot interviews. You

<v Speaker 1>know how many people really do that? I mean realistically,

<v Speaker 1>you know what I mean? So outside of that of

<v Speaker 1>that circle, it said that a lot of people will

<v Speaker 1>never know. But that's just how it goes, you know.

<v Speaker 1>CM punk in FTR. They paid tribute to Condrey in

<v Speaker 1>aw back in twenty twenty three. I think it was

<v Speaker 1>off the air. Condrey was in the crowd that night.

<v Speaker 1>They invited him into the ring and they were just

<v Speaker 1>putting him over and they let him speak to the audience.

<v Speaker 1>It was hard for him to speak without his voice Box.

<v Speaker 1>He had beaten throat cancer years before, but he spoke anyway,

<v Speaker 1>and it was a very cool and you could understand

<v Speaker 1>him and it was a very cool moment. And this

<v Speaker 1>had to be not long before Punk had his last

<v Speaker 1>match with Joe at Wembley, because I remember in that

<v Speaker 1>segment he had the aw title with the giant spray

<v Speaker 1>painted X on it over his shoulder. So it was

<v Speaker 1>during that time period. Dax Harwood is the one who

<v Speaker 1>actually announced the news of his passing on social media.

<v Speaker 1>The two of them were very close. He has said

<v Speaker 1>that Coandre would text him after his matches, letting him

<v Speaker 1>know things he liked and things he could improve on.

<v Speaker 1>He's also started to GoFundMe to help cover his funeral

<v Speaker 1>services to help his widow, Teresa. I saw Tony Kahn

<v Speaker 1>and Chris Jericho alone. Between the two of them, they

<v Speaker 1>dropped seven grand on the campaign. Others have contributed as well.

<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhoades, FTR, Nick All This, Michael Hayes. God did

<v Speaker 1>the Midnights ever work with the Freebirds? I feel like

<v Speaker 1>they did. I think they did there towards the end,

<v Speaker 1>now you know what, I know they did because I

<v Speaker 1>vaguely remember Cornette telling a story about Michael Hayes not

<v Speaker 1>wanting to sell for the tennis racket. So I'm almost

<v Speaker 1>positive it was long after the Freebirds I think had

<v Speaker 1>kind of passed their expiration date, but pretty sure towards

<v Speaker 1>the end there they did work together. That wasn't the

<v Speaker 1>only death this week. Chuck Norris died on Thursday, nine

<v Speaker 1>days after his eighty sixth birthday. I had just read

<v Speaker 1>on what was it Thursday on TMZ that he was

<v Speaker 1>rushed to the hospital in Hawaii. I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>he was living there, if he was vacationing there, after

<v Speaker 1>some sort of medical emergency. He was rushed to the hospital,

<v Speaker 1>but he was said to be in good spirits. And

<v Speaker 1>then came the news that he died on Thursday morning,

<v Speaker 1>and he became a spirit. The family isn't saying why

<v Speaker 1>or how they've chosen to keep that private, but I mean,

<v Speaker 1>the man was eighty six. I mean, a sudden medical

<v Speaker 1>emergency is not all that uncommon. I mean, his mother

<v Speaker 1>died not that long ago, I think a couple of

<v Speaker 1>years ago. Maybe she was like one hundred and four.

<v Speaker 1>You know, if you're on the younger side, you may

<v Speaker 1>only know him from the Chuck Narris jokes online and

<v Speaker 1>those Total Jim infomercials. But he was part of that

<v Speaker 1>eighties movies era with the big tough action heroes like

<v Speaker 1>Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Steven Segal missing in Action Delta Force,

<v Speaker 1>Lone Wolf McQuay missing an action in Delta Force. I guess,

<v Speaker 1>by default were my favorites. I wouldn't say I necessarily

<v Speaker 1>have a favorite Chuck Norris movie that I love to

<v Speaker 1>go back and watch. But I will tell you those movies, okay,

<v Speaker 1>were replayed constantly on television. And I'm not talking even cable.

<v Speaker 1>This is when I was younger, and they would have

<v Speaker 1>them on like here in New York. It would have

<v Speaker 1>been Channel eleven so WPIX, like on the weekend or whatever,

<v Speaker 1>and they would show those movies all the time. That

<v Speaker 1>is how I watched them. I didn't go to the

<v Speaker 1>theater to see them. It was just on TV. And

<v Speaker 1>there's Chuck Norris, you know, killing dudes and blowing shit

<v Speaker 1>up Walker Texas Ranger, which used to come on USA

<v Speaker 1>Network before Monday Night Raw, right. He became very popular

<v Speaker 1>with that show. I never watched the show, but I

<v Speaker 1>used to love the clips that Conan O'Brien would play

<v Speaker 1>on his late night show when he used to randomly

<v Speaker 1>pull down the giant lever. Everye would play the most

<v Speaker 1>absurdly corny clips from the show and just the best one.

<v Speaker 1>The best one was the Little Kid. I think it

<v Speaker 1>was Hayley Joel Osman telling the people. Walker told me

<v Speaker 1>I have AIDS and I'm just like, I don't know

<v Speaker 1>the context to eddie of this up. Just I see

<v Speaker 1>the clip, like everybody else of the audience, everyone's just

<v Speaker 1>fucking dying laughing because it's just the most ridiculous thing

<v Speaker 1>and you just can't help but laugh, especially without context.

<v Speaker 1>It sounds awful, but it just comes out of nowhere.

<v Speaker 1>I should go back and watch the show if it's

<v Speaker 1>always been that ridiculous. But he had a wrestling connection.

<v Speaker 1>I bring this up because WWE brought him in as

<v Speaker 1>the outside enforcer for the Undertaker Yoko Zuna casket match

<v Speaker 1>at the nineteen ninety four Survivor series. Yeah, we got

<v Speaker 1>two casket matches that year on pay per view between

<v Speaker 1>Undertaker and Yoko Zuna. I mean that is just diabolical.

<v Speaker 1>But WWE issued a statement on his passing saying WWE

<v Speaker 1>is saddened to learn that legendary Hollywood actor and pop

<v Speaker 1>culture icon Chuck Norris has passed away. A legend in

<v Speaker 1>the television and film industry. With iconic projects such as Walker,

<v Speaker 1>Texas Ranger, The Way of the Dragon, and many more,

<v Speaker 1>Norris became one of the most recognizable stars in Hollywood,

<v Speaker 1>with his martial arts background playing a key role in

<v Speaker 1>his films and shows. Norris made an iconic appearance. Way.

<v Speaker 1>We throw that word around quite a bit, don't we.

<v Speaker 1>At the Survivor series in nineteen ninety four, where he

<v Speaker 1>served as the special enforcer for the Undertaker's casket match

<v Speaker 1>against Yoko Zuna. During the match, Norris delivered a devastating

<v Speaker 1>roundhouse kick to Jeff Jarrett, helping the Undertaker win. Ww Yes,

<v Speaker 1>because the Undertaker, I mean he would have clearly lost

<v Speaker 1>that match had Jeff Jarrett gotten his way. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>of all the things that the Undertaker could overcome back then,

<v Speaker 1>I don't think that Jeff jar would have been something

<v Speaker 1>that the Undertaker could have really done anything with. He

<v Speaker 1>would have been finished if it wasn't for Chuck Norris

<v Speaker 1>taking down the great Jeff Jarrett double j Some memorable

<v Speaker 1>Chuck Norris facts for you, though. Did you know Chuck

<v Speaker 1>Norris's tears can cure cancer? It's true? Too bad he

<v Speaker 1>never cried. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. Once

<v Speaker 1>a cobra bit Chuck Norris's leg, and after five days

<v Speaker 1>of excruciating pain, the cobra died. Holy shit, is macho man,

<v Speaker 1>Chuck Narris. I just realized Chuck Narris can strangle you

<v Speaker 1>with a cordless phone. And this one may have been

<v Speaker 1>one of my all time favorites. The Boogeyman checks his

<v Speaker 1>closet for Chuck Norris. I don't know how long I

<v Speaker 1>must have spent reading those back in the day, but

<v Speaker 1>I could tell you I never got tired of him,

<v Speaker 1>and I don't think I ever will. Speaking of wrestling celebrities,

<v Speaker 1>we got another WWEE Hall of Fame announcement this week.

<v Speaker 1>They let ESPN break the news that the Worm Dennis Rodman,

<v Speaker 1>who never did anything of note with WWE. He did

<v Speaker 1>more in aw than he did in WWE, but in

<v Speaker 1>wrestling he is most well known for being a member

<v Speaker 1>of the New World Order. In WCW, he worked three

<v Speaker 1>matches for them. He will be inducted this year alongside

<v Speaker 1>Stephanie McMahon, AJ Styles and Demolition. Cindy Lauper denied yet again.

<v Speaker 1>I just don't get it. I don't understand. She's even

<v Speaker 1>doing her first ever residency in Las Vegas less than

<v Speaker 1>a week after wrestle Mania. She's doing like five or

<v Speaker 1>six shows. This would have been a natural tie in.

<v Speaker 1>She has denied ever turning down an invitation before. I

<v Speaker 1>know that was a rumor for many years. Oh, she

<v Speaker 1>didn't want to go in. She turned him down one

<v Speaker 1>year that I just I don't understand it. You talk

<v Speaker 1>about important celebrity tie ins and appearances in the history

<v Speaker 1>of that company. Mister T's already in. He was very

<v Speaker 1>instrumental in that first WrestleMania being a success. But so

<v Speaker 1>is Cindy Lauper. And not just WrestleMania, but even you know,

<v Speaker 1>the whole MTV tie in going back to like eighty four,

<v Speaker 1>the War to Settle the Score, like all that stuff.

<v Speaker 1>Any celebrity deserves to be recognized in that Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>It's her. But Rodman joining the nWo, I mean that

<v Speaker 1>was a big deal back then. He was a big

<v Speaker 1>part of that Chicago Bulls dynasty in the nineties. He

<v Speaker 1>won five NBA Championships with two teams, mostly with the Bulls.

<v Speaker 1>He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in

<v Speaker 1>twenty eleven. You know that first Voodoo Child entrance that

<v Speaker 1>Hollywood Hogan ever did with the limo pulling up to

<v Speaker 1>the United Center in Chicago, all the nWo guys coming

<v Speaker 1>out him and him and Rodman walking through the smoke

<v Speaker 1>out to the ring. Is Voodoo Child play? Like, that's

<v Speaker 1>an iconic entrance. You want to call something iconic? That

<v Speaker 1>an iconic wrestling entrance. Bash of the Beach ninety seven

<v Speaker 1>it was Hogan and Rodman against Lex Luger and the Giant,

<v Speaker 1>And then again at Bash of the Beach ninety eight

<v Speaker 1>he was tagging with Hogan, this time against DDP and

<v Speaker 1>Karl Malone, who played for the Utah Jazz. Also a

<v Speaker 1>big wrestling fan. Rodman actually skipped a team practice famously

<v Speaker 1>during the NBA Finals in ninety eight to make it

<v Speaker 1>appearance on WCW Monday Nitro, which was major news at

<v Speaker 1>the time. What a fucking coup for Eric Bischoff to

<v Speaker 1>get two of the most famous athletes at the time

<v Speaker 1>in all of sports in a match on pay per

<v Speaker 1>view at a time. By the way, when both teams

<v Speaker 1>that they played for happened to be facing each other

<v Speaker 1>in the NBA Finals, you can't ask for anything better

<v Speaker 1>than that. You would never see something like that today.

<v Speaker 1>It just would not be allowed. And the two of

<v Speaker 1>them even got into it a bit on the court

<v Speaker 1>during one of the games in the finals. I don't

<v Speaker 1>remember if it was Game three or four, whatever game was,

<v Speaker 1>which Bob Costas took as a chance to shit all

<v Speaker 1>over wrestling. I'll never forget him talking about how regrettably

<v Speaker 1>the two of them were scheduled to wrestle in one

<v Speaker 1>of those bogus events next month. Why Karl Malone wants

<v Speaker 1>to lower himself to that, is anyone's guests. Bob Costas

<v Speaker 1>has always come off to me as a pretentious prick.

<v Speaker 1>That pay per view was a big success for WCW,

<v Speaker 1>though it did almost six hundred thousand buys, second most

<v Speaker 1>all time for them, behind only Stark the year before

<v Speaker 1>with Hogan and Staying the match was garbage. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>everyone praised Malone for looking competent, but Rodman being so

<v Speaker 1>god awful that night I think made him look that

<v Speaker 1>much better. I don't remember Rodman being too bad in

<v Speaker 1>the first match in ninety seven, but the second one

<v Speaker 1>he was clearly either hungover or under the influence of something.

<v Speaker 1>It was embarrassing. At one point he was laying his

<v Speaker 1>head down on the turnbuckle and he looked like he

<v Speaker 1>was taking a Napmber Dean Malenko said Rodman is the only,

<v Speaker 1>maybe the only man in the history of the wrestling

<v Speaker 1>business to fall asleep during their match. I think the

<v Speaker 1>Pearl Jam incident happened around that time. I think it

<v Speaker 1>was a few days before that. For those of you

<v Speaker 1>who remember that whole story, he jumped up on stage

<v Speaker 1>during a Pearl Jam concert, no shirt on, no shoes.

<v Speaker 1>I think he was drinking out of a bottle of wine,

<v Speaker 1>and he stayed on stage with them for like forty

<v Speaker 1>five minutes before finally one of the band members just

<v Speaker 1>got sick of it and just told him, like, get

<v Speaker 1>the fuck off the stage, and so not a huge

<v Speaker 1>shock of a few days later, he showed up in

<v Speaker 1>no condition to perform. He had one more match. It

<v Speaker 1>was actually a singles match with Macho Man Randy Savage

<v Speaker 1>that was at Rode Wilde in ninety nine, which actually

<v Speaker 1>turned out to be one of Savage's last matches in WCW.

<v Speaker 1>It actually might have been his last pay per view

<v Speaker 1>match for WCW, and it was against Dennis Rodman, of

<v Speaker 1>all people, and Savage was just so broken down by

<v Speaker 1>that point. It was just sad to see him all

<v Speaker 1>just jacked up like that with the bad knees. But

<v Speaker 1>Rodman made two appearances for AEW, one on Collision and

<v Speaker 1>another one at All Out in twenty twenty three in

<v Speaker 1>the corner of the Acclaimed and Billy Gunn. He hit

<v Speaker 1>Satin him saying over the head with the guitar. Hogan

<v Speaker 1>would have been the appropriate one to induct Rodman into

<v Speaker 1>the Hall of Fame. Carl Malone would be the next

<v Speaker 1>one that would make sense, But something tells me that

<v Speaker 1>ain't gonna happen, nor should it. I don't know when

<v Speaker 1>that stuff came out about Malone, but I didn't even

<v Speaker 1>know about it until some years ago. When Malone played

<v Speaker 1>at Louisiana Tech. He was twenty years old. He impregnated

<v Speaker 1>a thirteen year old girl. He doesn't need to be

<v Speaker 1>doing anything with them at the Hall of Fame. Hogan's

<v Speaker 1>not there anymore. DDP was never a member of the nWo.

<v Speaker 1>I think you have either Kevin Nesh or Eric Bischoff

<v Speaker 1>in duck Dennis Rodman into the Hall of Fame now.

<v Speaker 1>It was three sixteen Day on Raw Monday Night in

<v Speaker 1>San Antonio, Texas. No stone Cold on the show. He

<v Speaker 1>was at home in Nevada getting ready for his next

<v Speaker 1>off road race. He loves the off road racing now,

<v Speaker 1>but he is still helping them do big business, even

<v Speaker 1>after all these years. They did a limited time sale

<v Speaker 1>in celebration of three sixteen Day where tickets across the board,

<v Speaker 1>including for both nights of WrestleMania, all the way through

<v Speaker 1>I believe the June nineteenth SmackDown in Kansas City. We're

<v Speaker 1>all thirty one point six percent off and it paid

<v Speaker 1>off for them in a very big way. How about

<v Speaker 1>that you lower the price of tickets and they move

<v Speaker 1>a lot faster. WrestleMania Saturday moved over nineteen hundred tickets

<v Speaker 1>during the promotion. WrestleMania Sunday moved over twenty two hundred tickets.

<v Speaker 1>So now instead of being eighteen percent behind where they

<v Speaker 1>were in sales for last year's WrestleMania, they're only about

<v Speaker 1>eleven percent behind. They closed the gap a bit, But

<v Speaker 1>according to wrestle Tics, they also moved over fourteen hundred

<v Speaker 1>tickets for this past Friday SmackDown in North Carolina, over

<v Speaker 1>one thousand for this week's show coming up in Pittsburgh,

<v Speaker 1>and almost thirteen hundred for the April third show in

<v Speaker 1>Saint Louis. I didn't even realize they were bringing SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>to Saint Louis. Oh Man, Randy Orton is going to

<v Speaker 1>be the biggest baby face in the building that night.

<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhoades doesn't stand a chance, although you kind of

<v Speaker 1>got that from watching SmackDown even this week. I'll get

<v Speaker 1>to that in a bit. But Roman Rains and Brocklesner

<v Speaker 1>they were back on Raw Monday night. I believe they're

<v Speaker 1>both going to be on the show tomorrow night, and

<v Speaker 1>but for I think one Raw, Roman is back, I

<v Speaker 1>think until WrestleMania. I think Brock might be on all

<v Speaker 1>the shows between now in WrestleMania. Don't quote me on that,

<v Speaker 1>but I believe that's the case. But Roman Reins and

<v Speaker 1>Cmpunk had their third face to face confrontation in the

<v Speaker 1>ring on Monday night, and it was not nearly as

<v Speaker 1>good as the first too. The first one is still

<v Speaker 1>the best one. The second one wasn't as good, but

<v Speaker 1>it was still enjoyable. The third one it was like

<v Speaker 1>fucking awful or anything, but it was. It was not good.

<v Speaker 1>It was not good. And this was the follow up

<v Speaker 1>to the comment that Punk had made to Roman at

<v Speaker 1>the end of their previous promo about how you know

<v Speaker 1>you're all alone now, Well, guess what, You're not gonna

<v Speaker 1>be alone for very long because I'm gonna bury You'm

<v Speaker 1>going to bury you next to your father. Right. So

<v Speaker 1>he didn't say anything awful about Sicca per se, but

<v Speaker 1>still invoking his dead father's name in that manner was

<v Speaker 1>very disrespectful. So the question was how would Roman Reigns

<v Speaker 1>respond to this, because he looked angry, he looked pissed

<v Speaker 1>off when we last saw him on TV, and he

<v Speaker 1>had been silent ever since. So I was expecting Roman

<v Speaker 1>to come out just full of rage and maybe maybe

<v Speaker 1>he would do to see I'm punk what Randy Orton

<v Speaker 1>ended up doing to Cody Rhoades the week before when

<v Speaker 1>he bloodied him up, and that didn't happen. Not only

<v Speaker 1>did that not happen, but Roman Rains played it off,

<v Speaker 1>or they wanted him to play it off as no

<v Speaker 1>skin off my back. I'm not gonna let Phil get

<v Speaker 1>to me. He was all smiles, he was yucking it

<v Speaker 1>up with the USO. He was laughing, he was making

<v Speaker 1>a mockery of it, pretending like it didn't bother him.

<v Speaker 1>And then the big kind of jab back at Punk.

<v Speaker 1>A lot of people thought that he was gonna mention

<v Speaker 1>Punk's dog Larry, who passed away a few months ago. Apparently,

<v Speaker 1>according to bodyslam dot Net, that was the plan. The

<v Speaker 1>segment initially was planned for a different creative direction. It

<v Speaker 1>was supposed to end with Roman bringing up Punk's dog

<v Speaker 1>who passed away back in November, in a quote darker

<v Speaker 1>response than wwe ultimately ended up going with. So whoever

<v Speaker 1>made the call to go in a different direction, Maybe

<v Speaker 1>it was Punk because Larry's death is still very raw

<v Speaker 1>with him. I mean, he gets very emotional if Larry

<v Speaker 1>is even mentioned. And I mean, you really don't need

<v Speaker 1>to go low like that. It's just when the segment

<v Speaker 1>was over a few weeks ago, it was like, Man,

<v Speaker 1>we're gonna get a Larry mentioned. It just felt like

<v Speaker 1>we're gonna get a Larry mentioned. And I wouldn't be

<v Speaker 1>shocked it was Punk who was like, you know what,

<v Speaker 1>I'd rather not do this. Why don't you just call

<v Speaker 1>me old and leave it at that? And that's what

<v Speaker 1>Roman did, right. Punk has played it cool this entire

<v Speaker 1>time and this promo, by the way, on Monday, if

<v Speaker 1>I had to give it to someone, I would give

<v Speaker 1>it to CM Punk. It was not Roman's best night,

<v Speaker 1>but Punk was playing it cool and everything, and he

<v Speaker 1>was like, I'm in your head, I'm under your skin.

<v Speaker 1>I've already won. I've already won our match of WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>and the match is still a month away. What got

<v Speaker 1>under Punk's skin and made him punch Roman in the

<v Speaker 1>face was the fact that Roman called him old. Apparently,

<v Speaker 1>you don't call CM Punk old. I mentioned back to

<v Speaker 1>the future when I did my review the other night.

<v Speaker 1>You call Marty McFly chicken, and that's it. That's it.

<v Speaker 1>That was the trigger for Marty McFly. You don't call

<v Speaker 1>him chicken. Apparently, you don't call Punk old. And he

<v Speaker 1>smacked Roman in the face for it, and Roman smiled

<v Speaker 1>and he looked up at him, and the idea of

<v Speaker 1>being that, oh, I've gotten in your head now, right,

<v Speaker 1>I know how to push you are buttons now is

<v Speaker 1>very lame. You know the fact that that was the

<v Speaker 1>trigger for CM Punk to punch him. The segment was

<v Speaker 1>a misfire, and so I hope whatever they have planned

<v Speaker 1>for these two going forward, I mean, these two are

<v Speaker 1>good enough to kind of pick up with it and

<v Speaker 1>get it back to a place where it feels like, Okay,

<v Speaker 1>this is really the WrestleMania main event, because it's pretty incredible. Honestly,

<v Speaker 1>how in the span of a week or so, how

<v Speaker 1>things have sort of flipped where a lot of people,

<v Speaker 1>myself included, feel like Cody Roads and Randy Orton all

<v Speaker 1>of a sudden after that Savage beat down the week

<v Speaker 1>before and then the blade job and Randy Orton just

<v Speaker 1>going all psycho on Cody Rhodes that that feels more

<v Speaker 1>like the real WrestleMania main event now than Roman against Punk.

<v Speaker 1>But that's the good thing about having this competition, which

<v Speaker 1>it kind of becomes a de facto competition here between

<v Speaker 1>these four guys, because you know that they're both on

<v Speaker 1>each side gonna want, you know, the build up to

<v Speaker 1>their match to be the best. They're gonna want people

<v Speaker 1>to be excited for their match the most. They're gonna

<v Speaker 1>want their match to be perceived as the real WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>main event, and competition tends to bring out the best

<v Speaker 1>in people, especially four men who I'm sure are highly

<v Speaker 1>competitive in nature to begin with. So I'm hoping that

<v Speaker 1>they can improve on what we saw and pick up

<v Speaker 1>with things with Roman and Punk on TV this week,

<v Speaker 1>seth Rollins came out at the beginning of the show

<v Speaker 1>on Monday night to with his putty. People came out

<v Speaker 1>to talk about the beatdown he put on Paul Hayman

<v Speaker 1>the week before, or was it the week before? It

<v Speaker 1>was the week before, Yes, it was a week before.

<v Speaker 1>These shows all run together now to me. Paul Hayman

<v Speaker 1>came out and he looked fucking terrible. He looked like

<v Speaker 1>he had been on a five day bender and he

<v Speaker 1>had been mugged on the street. Okay, he looked awful,

<v Speaker 1>and he came out to say I wouldn't miss this

<v Speaker 1>for the world, and he introduced brock Lesner and they

<v Speaker 1>wanted you to believe that. Okay, we just found out

<v Speaker 1>who seth Rollins's opponent is going to be for WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>The open Challenge is closed. Brock Lesner is not happy

<v Speaker 1>about what this man did to his advocate, and so

<v Speaker 1>now we have the WrestleMania match. That must mean that

<v Speaker 1>bron Breaker is not going to be back in time

<v Speaker 1>for WrestleMania. It also means, as you're watching this, that

<v Speaker 1>we're not getting Brock, Lesnar and Obafemi. So I was

<v Speaker 1>disappointed in that. But then they quickly swerved us because

<v Speaker 1>Brock comes out and then he put a beating on

<v Speaker 1>the putty people. He was throwing these guys around just

<v Speaker 1>as recklessly as I've ever seen, and some of the

<v Speaker 1>bumps these guys were taking were just brutal, until it

<v Speaker 1>was finally down to just Brock and Seth in the ring,

<v Speaker 1>and the lights went out and we heard the drum

<v Speaker 1>beat and here comes Obafemi. They swerved us. Maybe it

<v Speaker 1>didn't work on you, but it worked on me. And

<v Speaker 1>I was relieved when I heard Oba's music because I

<v Speaker 1>realized they did the right thing. We're going to get

<v Speaker 1>the right match at WrestleMania, the match that a lot

<v Speaker 1>of people wanted to see coming out of their confrontation

<v Speaker 1>in the Royal Rumble, and Obafemi comes down to the ring,

<v Speaker 1>Seth dips out. He's watching all of this now from

<v Speaker 1>the floor, Brock turns around and he gets propelled up

<v Speaker 1>into the air on Oba's shoulders in like a last

<v Speaker 1>ride power bomb position, and he gets dropped with the

<v Speaker 1>fall from grace and everybody is losing their minds and

<v Speaker 1>Oba is standing over him. He puts his foot on

<v Speaker 1>his chest. He points up at the WrestleMania sign and

<v Speaker 1>the match is official. At WrestleMania it will be Brock

<v Speaker 1>Lesner one on one with Oba Femi. Now it's starting

<v Speaker 1>to feel a WrestleMania season. Now we're getting set. Now,

<v Speaker 1>we're getting to a better place than we were a

<v Speaker 1>couple of weeks ago. And now we have that match

<v Speaker 1>locked in. What does that mean for Seth Rob And

<v Speaker 1>by the way, I should mention this also that brock Lesner,

<v Speaker 1>the way he sold this, his reaction, his facial expression

<v Speaker 1>when Oba's music was playing and he was you know,

<v Speaker 1>he was doing the strut on his way down to

<v Speaker 1>the ring was pitch perfect. And then selling for him

<v Speaker 1>taking the power bomb. You could even see him telling him,

<v Speaker 1>you know, talking up to Oba, hey, put your foot

<v Speaker 1>on my chest. U back. Lesler did an incredible job

<v Speaker 1>in this segment and Oba Femei you could see literal

<v Speaker 1>tears streaming down his face. He was so amped up,

<v Speaker 1>and he was so happy about this. This was the

<v Speaker 1>biggest moment for him yet in his career. And so anyway,

<v Speaker 1>that was just an excellent segment, an excellent way to

<v Speaker 1>open the show. What does that mean for seth Rawlins Well.

<v Speaker 1>According to Russelvoe's radio on fight Ful Select, there is

<v Speaker 1>a lot of optimism within WWE that bron Breaker will

<v Speaker 1>be medically cleared in time and ready for a return

<v Speaker 1>before WrestleMania forty two. On the chance that he is

<v Speaker 1>not cleared in time, WWE is said to have a

<v Speaker 1>backup plan in place for rollins at WrestleMania, the details

<v Speaker 1>of which are not available. I said it when the

<v Speaker 1>news first broke the bron Breaker had to undergo emergency

<v Speaker 1>surgery and hernia is no joke. It's I know, it's

<v Speaker 1>a painful thing, and it's you know, it's not the

<v Speaker 1>most pleasant recovery, and it takes time. And so wherever

<v Speaker 1>bron Breaker is in the healing process, and I'm sure

<v Speaker 1>he is itching to get back in time for wrestle Mania,

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure they all are. They need to make sure

<v Speaker 1>that he takes all the time he needs to recover,

<v Speaker 1>because that is not an injury that you want to

<v Speaker 1>be rushing back quickly from. And we know the way

<v Speaker 1>bron Breaker works, we know the way he wrestles. He's

<v Speaker 1>a very intense guy. I don't want to see this

<v Speaker 1>guy come back and then re injure himself or hurt himself.

<v Speaker 1>Even more so, I can understand like he wants to

<v Speaker 1>rush to get back in time for Mania, but I

<v Speaker 1>think he's far too important, and I would hope that

<v Speaker 1>they have impressed that upon him and that he will

<v Speaker 1>take whatever time he needs and if he doesn't make

<v Speaker 1>it back in time, then he doesn't make it back

<v Speaker 1>in time, They'll just come up with something else for

<v Speaker 1>Seth Rollins to do, which could very well be a

<v Speaker 1>tag team match with him in La Night taking on

<v Speaker 1>the Vision because the Vision logan Paul and Austin Theory

<v Speaker 1>are getting a shot at the USSOS and the tag

<v Speaker 1>team titles on Raw Tomorrow Night. Originally it was advertised

<v Speaker 1>not as a championship match. Now apparently it is a

<v Speaker 1>championship match. That seemed to be a sudden change in

<v Speaker 1>the last few days, which makes me wonder if they're

<v Speaker 1>gonna win those titles. On Monday Night and then defend

<v Speaker 1>them against Rollins in La Night. That could very well

<v Speaker 1>be a match that could certainly be the backup plan

<v Speaker 1>that they are talking about for WrestleMania. But until they

<v Speaker 1>get some more clarity, I guess on the bron Breaker

<v Speaker 1>situation in his status, everything with Rollins is still sort

<v Speaker 1>of in a state of flux. Speaking of which, being

<v Speaker 1>in a state of flux and not knowing what the

<v Speaker 1>fuck they're doing in WrestleMania that brings me to Gunther.

<v Speaker 1>Bodyslam dot Net reports that Gunther was originally slated to

<v Speaker 1>begin a program with Ray Mysterio, which would have culminated

<v Speaker 1>in a match of WrestleMania. The angle was to begin

<v Speaker 1>after Gunther attacked Dragon Lee on the March second episode

<v Speaker 1>of Raw. However, plans for Gunther against Mysterio are now

<v Speaker 1>uncertain because Ray suffered a rib injury in January. He

<v Speaker 1>suffered fractured ribs during a match with Austin Theory on

<v Speaker 1>the January twenty sixth episode of Raw, and he took

<v Speaker 1>part in the Royal Rumble the following Saturday, but has

<v Speaker 1>not wrestled since. So think about that he suffered broken

<v Speaker 1>ribs and then four days later or five days later,

<v Speaker 1>whatever it was, he was in the Royal Rumble match,

<v Speaker 1>And I don't know whether or not he'll be back

<v Speaker 1>in time for WrestleMania. I think it might be one

<v Speaker 1>broken rib on the web side, one on the right side,

<v Speaker 1>I think, is what I heard him say. Again, that's

<v Speaker 1>something that just takes time to heal. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>if he'll be able to make it back in time

<v Speaker 1>or not. My gut tells me he probably will. But

<v Speaker 1>he's also not as young as he used to be,

<v Speaker 1>and so broken ribs at any age, I'm sure are

<v Speaker 1>no fun, but it's probably worse when you're older. So

<v Speaker 1>it puts Gunther in this weird position now where we

<v Speaker 1>don't know whether or not he's going to have an

<v Speaker 1>opponent for WrestleMania. Just think about that statement. Think about

<v Speaker 1>what I just said there. How ridiculous it is that

<v Speaker 1>Gunther may not have a match at WrestleMania. Some people

<v Speaker 1>are workshopping ideas where maybe Paul Hayman could hire Gunther

<v Speaker 1>as like a hired gun, to take on seth Rollins

<v Speaker 1>if bron Breaker can't make it back in time. I

<v Speaker 1>don't really like that idea. I mean, Gunther is not

<v Speaker 1>the kind of guy. He's not a mercenary, he's not

<v Speaker 1>a hired gun. You could do it if you had

<v Speaker 1>no choice. I'd rather they wrestle each other than not

<v Speaker 1>be on the show at all. But I'm not really

<v Speaker 1>enamored with that idea. There is another idea that I

<v Speaker 1>floated on social media, and I know it's very pie

<v Speaker 1>in the sky and probably not going to happen, but

<v Speaker 1>it's one of those things where if it comes down

<v Speaker 1>to either him having a match or not having a match,

<v Speaker 1>I would much rather this be the match. Ilia Dragonov

<v Speaker 1>and Gunther have history together. They have history from NXT UK,

<v Speaker 1>from NXT. There's a lot of fans right now who

<v Speaker 1>may not be aware of it, but you could always

<v Speaker 1>educate them through video packages if need be. But they

<v Speaker 1>have history together, and they have had some fucking just

<v Speaker 1>brutal matches together, including one in front of no fans

<v Speaker 1>during the pandemic era where you could hear every slap,

<v Speaker 1>every chop, every grunt. You know. On the one hand,

<v Speaker 1>it's too bad that they couldn't do that match in

<v Speaker 1>front of a live audience, But on the other hand,

<v Speaker 1>there are some pros to that in terms of the

<v Speaker 1>soundtrack for the match was very unique and made it

<v Speaker 1>sound even more brutal. Somehow they bring out the best

<v Speaker 1>or the worst, I guess, depending on how you look

<v Speaker 1>at it in each other. Ilia. Dragonov has had his

<v Speaker 1>own story going out for many weeks where Carmelo Hayes

<v Speaker 1>would show up to SmackDown and expect that Dragonov was

<v Speaker 1>going to accept the open challenge for a rematch for

<v Speaker 1>the United States Championship, right that he lost, and Dragonov

<v Speaker 1>is always just coming up with excuses about how he's

<v Speaker 1>not ready, he doesn't deserve it. He's talked about being

<v Speaker 1>in his own head and I've got to get right.

<v Speaker 1>I'm just basically he's not in the right headspace. He's

<v Speaker 1>been ducking mellow for weeks with this nonsense, all these

<v Speaker 1>confidence issues, right, I gotta find myself and whatnot. And

<v Speaker 1>then on Friday night they went and did the match.

<v Speaker 1>All of a sudden, I guess Dragonov was like, I'm ready,

<v Speaker 1>and this was a match that looked like maybe they

<v Speaker 1>were to get them to WrestleMania. They did it on

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown on Friday night, and it was the best part

<v Speaker 1>of the show on Friday. It certainly in terms of

<v Speaker 1>the n ring. They had an excellent match and Carmelo

<v Speaker 1>Hayes beat him, you know, fair and square in the

<v Speaker 1>middle of the ring, and it's like, okay, well, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>there's no real reason to run this back again. Or

<v Speaker 1>maybe just maybe they wrapped it up quickly because maybe

<v Speaker 1>this is an idea they're actually considering. But why not

<v Speaker 1>have Illia Dragon of migrate over to Monday Night Raw

<v Speaker 1>with permission from Nick Aldis, with the idea that he

<v Speaker 1>finally realized in order to rediscover the best version of

<v Speaker 1>himself and to try to get back to his winning ways,

<v Speaker 1>he figured out what he needed. He needed to challenge

<v Speaker 1>the man who has given him the toughest battles of

<v Speaker 1>his career. Boom match made just in terms of the

<v Speaker 1>most basic explanation that you could come up with for

<v Speaker 1>why these two would have a match of WrestleMania that

<v Speaker 1>works and you can work with that. You could even

<v Speaker 1>have Gunther say no, you're not worth my time and

<v Speaker 1>then build to him eventually accepting the challenge, because there's

<v Speaker 1>no need for Gunther to have a match for the

<v Speaker 1>Intercontinental title or be fighting for any championships of WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>that he's not gonna win. So that's why I say, like,

<v Speaker 1>if he's gonna have an opponent one on one, and

<v Speaker 1>let's say it's not Seth Rollins and Ray is not

<v Speaker 1>back in time, why not ilia Dragonov, especially now that

<v Speaker 1>it looks like we may not be getting him in

<v Speaker 1>Mellow at WrestleMania for the US title because they already

<v Speaker 1>fucking gave it to us on Friday, which probably means

<v Speaker 1>dragon Of won't even be on the WrestleMania card. Put

<v Speaker 1>these two guys in the ring together, you have a

<v Speaker 1>story there. It's not just a random match. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>not totally random anyway, but you can actually build a

<v Speaker 1>story around this that ties into what Dragonov has been

<v Speaker 1>doing and saying on television now for the last couple

<v Speaker 1>of months. Let him go out there for fifteen minutes

<v Speaker 1>and have a fucking banger, and Gunther's gonna win. But

<v Speaker 1>even if Dragonoff goes out there and loses that match,

<v Speaker 1>if he brings Gunther to the brink, right, if they

<v Speaker 1>go out there and have the kind of match that

<v Speaker 1>you know those two can have, as far as Dragonoff goes,

<v Speaker 1>when it's all said and done, yeah, he lost but

<v Speaker 1>like he got his spark back, right, he found he

<v Speaker 1>found what has been missing even in defeat. Right, there's

<v Speaker 1>a lot you can learn about yourself. And then Dragonoff

<v Speaker 1>can kind of go on on SmackDown to do whatever

<v Speaker 1>they want to have him doing next. Why not, I'd

<v Speaker 1>love to see that match. I mentioned La Knight though.

<v Speaker 1>A little while ago, La Knight was in the news.

<v Speaker 1>He was doing an interview and he talked about that

<v Speaker 1>now infamous moment I guess. On the most recent season

<v Speaker 1>of WWE Unreal on Netflix, it was following the finish

<v Speaker 1>of the Men's Money in the Bank Ladder match. There

<v Speaker 1>was some stuff that was playing there at the end

<v Speaker 1>with him and Seth rollins on the ladder that did

<v Speaker 1>not go according to the plan. And when the match

<v Speaker 1>was over on Unreal, you see Triple H is sitting

<v Speaker 1>in the gorilla position and La Knight is kneeling down

<v Speaker 1>to listen to what he has to say because he

<v Speaker 1>has been summoned, and Triple H is being very animated

<v Speaker 1>in his response. It's not yelling at him, but he's

<v Speaker 1>kind of moving his hands around that he's he's explaining

<v Speaker 1>something to him. What he's explaining is what the finish

<v Speaker 1>was supposed to be and really what he was talking about.

<v Speaker 1>If you don't have the context, it looks like he's

<v Speaker 1>being reprimanded, he's being browbeaten and yelled at. But really

<v Speaker 1>it was just Triple H explaining, this is what we

<v Speaker 1>intended the finish to be, and here's why it was

<v Speaker 1>actually meant to help get you over even though you

<v Speaker 1>weren't gonna win. We were doing it in such a

<v Speaker 1>way that would keep you looking strong. That's basically what

<v Speaker 1>he was explaining to him. And the look on La

<v Speaker 1>Knight's face throughout all of this as he's listening to

<v Speaker 1>this and absorbing this and he's like biting his lip.

<v Speaker 1>He looks like a child who is being scolded by

<v Speaker 1>the school principle, and it just makes you feel bad

<v Speaker 1>for the guy. Well, La Knight had no idea that

<v Speaker 1>any of that stuff was being recorded and was going

<v Speaker 1>to make it onto the show, And so he did

<v Speaker 1>an interview with the bootleg keV podcast and he revealed

<v Speaker 1>that that moment on Unreal has led to him changing

<v Speaker 1>a few things about how he conducts himself backstage. He

<v Speaker 1>revealed that he no longer waits in the gorilla position

<v Speaker 1>after his matches, he goes right to the locker room

<v Speaker 1>and he doesn't speak to anybody at Gorilla because of

<v Speaker 1>what happened. He said, I have definitely shifted the way

<v Speaker 1>that I do some things. Because you had mentioned my

<v Speaker 1>appearance on Unreal. I was majorly holding my tongue in

<v Speaker 1>that scenario, if you could tell, because I had my

<v Speaker 1>own frustrations about that situation that partially had to do

<v Speaker 1>with the finish, but more so it had to do

<v Speaker 1>with an overarching theme that I don't need to get

<v Speaker 1>into the weeds about here. Read from that what you will,

<v Speaker 1>He said, I had no idea that I was on

<v Speaker 1>a microphone at that point in time, and so with

<v Speaker 1>that being the case, I don't even stop there in

<v Speaker 1>Gorilla anymore. When my match is over, my segment is over,

<v Speaker 1>I go straight through and I go to the locker room.

<v Speaker 1>If they want to talk to me about my match

<v Speaker 1>or whatever happened out there, sure let's talk about it

<v Speaker 1>when there's not a microphone or a camera around, because

<v Speaker 1>that's how it's always been. And with that being the case,

<v Speaker 1>and not going to stop in there and leave myself

<v Speaker 1>susceptible to that, good for him. He's not going to

<v Speaker 1>allow himself to be embarrassed because it was an embarrassing situation.

<v Speaker 1>The way people ran with it on social media, people

<v Speaker 1>twisted it into something that it wasn't necessarily but whether

<v Speaker 1>it was or it wasn't, it is not even really

<v Speaker 1>the point. It just made him look bad. He became

<v Speaker 1>a meme and he had no idea that he was

<v Speaker 1>being recorded at the time, you know, And like they

<v Speaker 1>tell the talent, look, just be aware, right, I'm sure

<v Speaker 1>they tell them, or they could just tell like there's

<v Speaker 1>cameras that are going to be generally around, But there

<v Speaker 1>are just certain moments like that where I can see

<v Speaker 1>you as a performer, if you're la Night not even

<v Speaker 1>giving a second thought to the fact that this conversation

<v Speaker 1>that you're you're crouched down in the corner here and

<v Speaker 1>you don't even realize that you're micd up. This whole

<v Speaker 1>conversation is going to be put on this Netflix show

<v Speaker 1>for the world to see. So one of the reasons

<v Speaker 1>that this show never should have been created in the

<v Speaker 1>first place. I mean, there are aspects of the show

<v Speaker 1>that I like, and it's nice to kind of be

<v Speaker 1>you know, let in a little bit more on how

<v Speaker 1>things work so you can have a better appreciation for it.

<v Speaker 1>But this is just voyeuristic bullshit that just creates this

<v Speaker 1>environment of just distrust with talent. In the back to Whed,

<v Speaker 1>they now have to wonder, is every conversation that we're

<v Speaker 1>having with our boss or with the agent being recorded

<v Speaker 1>and going to be thrown on television. I can't I

<v Speaker 1>can't be honest with them, or if they're a little

<v Speaker 1>too honest with me, people are going to see that.

<v Speaker 1>It's going to embarrass me. It's ridiculous. You know, there

<v Speaker 1>are certain moments where or certain places where those things

<v Speaker 1>should not be recorded, and certainly if they're going to

<v Speaker 1>be everybody in that room where in that conversation should

<v Speaker 1>be aware of that, and then they can make the

<v Speaker 1>call about whether or not they want that to make air.

<v Speaker 1>So I don't blame him for feeling that way. I

<v Speaker 1>would be upset too. And then on SmackDown, Cody Rhodes

<v Speaker 1>was not there coming off the heinous attack by Randy

<v Speaker 1>Orton the week before, but Orton was there. In fact,

<v Speaker 1>Orton was in multiple segments on the show. One of

<v Speaker 1>the things I liked about that show was how they

<v Speaker 1>kind of threaded the Orton stuff from not the beginning

<v Speaker 1>of the show, but when he came out to do

<v Speaker 1>his in ring promo, and then he was in several

<v Speaker 1>other segments in the closing ninety minutes or so that

<v Speaker 1>led to him putting a beat down on Matt Cardona.

<v Speaker 1>Because what had happened is Orton had come out earlier

<v Speaker 1>to cut his promo in the ring. We didn't learn

<v Speaker 1>a whole lot from the promo that we couldn't really

<v Speaker 1>surmise on our own watching the show the week before.

<v Speaker 1>Why he did what he did to Cody Rhoads, It

<v Speaker 1>was very simple. He thought he was wrestling Drew McIntyre

<v Speaker 1>or WrestleMania, and he knew that he had to go

<v Speaker 1>to that place, right that place he hasn't been to

<v Speaker 1>in a very long time, if he wanted to win

<v Speaker 1>Championship number fifteen. But then Cody went and took the

<v Speaker 1>belt back from Drew, and so now he was conflicted

<v Speaker 1>because he didn't want to murder his friend. What do

<v Speaker 1>I do? But when Cody said all those wonderful things

<v Speaker 1>about him and said I love you no matter what happens,

<v Speaker 1>it just it gave Orton permission and weight was lifted

<v Speaker 1>off his shoulders, and he did what he had to do.

<v Speaker 1>You know, he sent the message to Cody that he's

<v Speaker 1>willing to do whatever it takes to win the championship,

<v Speaker 1>not that he hates Cody or anything like that. Cody didn't.

<v Speaker 1>There wasn't like one thing that Cody said or did

<v Speaker 1>that made him like really angry or sent him off

<v Speaker 1>the deep end. It's just that I got to win

<v Speaker 1>number fifteen, and I got to go through you to

<v Speaker 1>do it, and it's just that simple. Didn't really come

<v Speaker 1>off as a very heel promo. But then in the

<v Speaker 1>back later, you know, he was confronted by Jelly Roll

<v Speaker 1>after Orton had bumped into Matt Cardona and he had,

<v Speaker 1>you know, knocked Cardona down and yelled at him and

<v Speaker 1>insulted him, called him a mark ass stooge and an

<v Speaker 1>indie nerd. Go play with your action figures. What a

<v Speaker 1>missed opportunity to tell him go play with your dolls.

<v Speaker 1>By the way, this is also like I can as

<v Speaker 1>I'm watching this, I get to see it in my head,

<v Speaker 1>like the conversation that was happening in the back before

<v Speaker 1>the show with Orton and Triple H or Triple H.

<v Speaker 1>He may have personally scripted that entire segment like that

<v Speaker 1>is just word for word what I am sure Triple

<v Speaker 1>H told him to say, and what Triple H actually

<v Speaker 1>believes and thinks of Matt Cardona in his head. I

<v Speaker 1>want you to go out there and call him an

<v Speaker 1>indie geek, and I want you to tell him go

<v Speaker 1>play with your fucking toys. Your toys. Eh. That was

<v Speaker 1>totally from Paula bec But then Orton was talking to

<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll. He was like, man, you know, I really

<v Speaker 1>feel bad about what I did to Cardona. This was

<v Speaker 1>after Jelly did this whole like inspirational speech about this

<v Speaker 1>is not the Randy Orton. I know, this is not

<v Speaker 1>the great human being and the great father and husband

<v Speaker 1>that I've come to know. Oh, and Norton said, man,

<v Speaker 1>I feel bad. I've known this man for a long time.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't mean to do that. What should I do?

<v Speaker 1>And he was convinced that, Okay, I have to go

<v Speaker 1>out there and apologize and I have to make it right.

<v Speaker 1>You could see where this was going. Matt Cardona came

<v Speaker 1>off as the biggest buffoon in the world because he's

<v Speaker 1>the only one who couldn't see it coming. But he

<v Speaker 1>went out to the ring and Orton was apologizing to him.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry I called you a fucking fucking nerd. Hell

<v Speaker 1>I love playing video games, like I'm sorry, brother, And

<v Speaker 1>it all ended with Randy Orton kicking him in the

<v Speaker 1>dick and putting a beat down on him, just like

<v Speaker 1>he did to Cody. And then the best part of

<v Speaker 1>this entire thing, he gets him back in the ring

<v Speaker 1>after beating him up outside on the announced desk and

<v Speaker 1>he places his left arm in a chair. He's going

<v Speaker 1>to pelmanize the arm, and Orton gets pulled away by

<v Speaker 1>Nick all this and all of these officials, and Cardona

<v Speaker 1>is laying there. He's laying there, looking over at his

<v Speaker 1>arm and looking over at Orton, and there had to

<v Speaker 1>be a good twenty to thirty seconds that went by

<v Speaker 1>of him just laying there like that until Orton broke

<v Speaker 1>free and he came over and he stomped on the

<v Speaker 1>chair and he broke the man's arm. So it just

<v Speaker 1>looked so ridiculous. Again, this whole segment Will Show made

<v Speaker 1>Cardona look like such a geek. And I wouldn't be

<v Speaker 1>shocked if it was designed that way, but like, come on, dude,

<v Speaker 1>Like if you're gonna make him lay there for that

<v Speaker 1>long at least at least make him like remove the

<v Speaker 1>chair and then have Orton come back and put the

<v Speaker 1>chair back on his arm and then stomp the arm,

<v Speaker 1>Like what do you lay in there like that for

<v Speaker 1>for thirty seconds? You get exactly what you deserve. He

<v Speaker 1>got his arm broken. Good, he deserved it. But that's

<v Speaker 1>how SmackDown went off the air. Now we apparently know

<v Speaker 1>that Cody road is going to be back on the

<v Speaker 1>show this Friday, and Orton is supposedly going to apologize

<v Speaker 1>to Cody, and I would hope that Cody is not

<v Speaker 1>nearly as stupid as Cardona was. In that segment to

<v Speaker 1>Cody is going to be back on the show this week,

<v Speaker 1>Orton was largely cheered. I mean, there were no overwhelming

<v Speaker 1>booze for this man, even after he broke Cardona his

<v Speaker 1>arm one more time, one more time. That's what they

<v Speaker 1>were chanting. They were chanting, Randy. These people don't want

<v Speaker 1>to boo Randy Orton. Cody Rhoads is gonna show up

<v Speaker 1>on SmackDown this week. There's gonna be a mixed reaction.

<v Speaker 1>He's gonna get cheers. He's gonna get booze. We have

<v Speaker 1>seen Cody in this position before. We saw it in

<v Speaker 1>the feud with John Cena, we saw it with Drew McIntyre.

<v Speaker 1>There are those moments where Cody when he he knows

<v Speaker 1>when to turn it on and he can have that

<v Speaker 1>fiery baby face promo that really gets the fans on

<v Speaker 1>his side and wins them over. It doesn't mean they're

<v Speaker 1>gonna suddenly boo Randy Orton. But do I think that

<v Speaker 1>Cody is just going to be universally booed between now

<v Speaker 1>in WrestleMania. I don't. I think he can get the

<v Speaker 1>people on his side. WrestleMania may be a different story.

<v Speaker 1>I feel like a WrestleMania it's going to be very

<v Speaker 1>tilted towards Randy Orton. And again, I don't think they

<v Speaker 1>have a double turn planned or something, you know, bold

<v Speaker 1>and wild like that. I just don't see it. But

<v Speaker 1>it's gonna be a challenge, you know. Once they decided

<v Speaker 1>to make this match, they had to know that it

<v Speaker 1>was going to be a challenge. Maybe they don't care.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe they don't care. Maybe they're like, hey, let the

<v Speaker 1>fans cheer and boo whoever they want, as long as

<v Speaker 1>they're reacting and as long as they're excited for the match.

<v Speaker 1>But it's going to definitely be a challenge for Cody.

<v Speaker 1>I think to win more of these people over as

<v Speaker 1>time goes on. But as things stand right now, just

<v Speaker 1>based on what we've seen over the last couple of weeks,

<v Speaker 1>I'm more interested and excited now for Randy Orton and

<v Speaker 1>Cody Roads than I am for Roman Reigns in CM PUNK.

<v Speaker 1>It's like a total one to eighty from the way

<v Speaker 1>that I felt a couple of weeks ago. That's how

<v Speaker 1>quickly things were able to turn, and they could turn

<v Speaker 1>back just as quickly depending on what they do on

<v Speaker 1>TV this week and how they follow it up. But

<v Speaker 1>now things are getting more interesting when it comes to

<v Speaker 1>some of these matches on the Wrestle Media card. Good.

<v Speaker 1>This is what I've been waiting for. They just have

<v Speaker 1>to keep it going because we still have another four

<v Speaker 1>weeks left to go until we get there. Two more

<v Speaker 1>WWE notes here. Santos Escobar, who recently fairly recently returned

<v Speaker 1>to Triple A, is gone again that with an injury,

<v Speaker 1>and he just underwent surgery to repair a torn triceps.

<v Speaker 1>This was just days after wrestling in a fatal four

<v Speaker 1>way at the Triple A Ray de Rayis tournament final

<v Speaker 1>against El Grande Americano, the og El Grande Americano, Kaiser

<v Speaker 1>and Laparca, and according to a recent report from Fightful Select,

<v Speaker 1>Escobar participated in the Ray de rays final despite battling

<v Speaker 1>an existing injury which worsened during the week. The injury

<v Speaker 1>originally occurred on the NXT House show tour while he

<v Speaker 1>was working with l e Ho Del Doctor Wagner Junior

<v Speaker 1>during Royal Rumble weekend a couple of months ago. And

<v Speaker 1>obviously in the four way match, you could tell something

<v Speaker 1>was off with Escobar. Obviously the existing injury got a

<v Speaker 1>lot worse. I don't know if he was aware of

<v Speaker 1>how serious the injury was and just kept going with

<v Speaker 1>it and kept it quiet. Like I would like to

<v Speaker 1>know some more details here. We may not find out,

<v Speaker 1>but I'm curious to know exactly what he knew and when,

<v Speaker 1>because if he knew he had some sort of tear

<v Speaker 1>in his arm and didn't say something about it, I

<v Speaker 1>can understand him not wanting to, but that would have

<v Speaker 1>been pretty fucking stupid. So I would like to think

<v Speaker 1>that he didn't know, and maybe he just thought it

<v Speaker 1>was something minor, and obviously now it turned into something major,

<v Speaker 1>to the point where he had to undergo surgery this

<v Speaker 1>past week. I believe on Thursday is when he had

<v Speaker 1>his operation, and that's going to probably be at least

<v Speaker 1>a five or six month layout now for him. He's

<v Speaker 1>going to be gone for quite some time, and whatever

<v Speaker 1>creative plans they came up with for him with him

<v Speaker 1>and Wagner now are just out the window, or at

<v Speaker 1>least they're on hold for a very long period of time.

<v Speaker 1>But I watched that match and people in the live

<v Speaker 1>chat were shitting on the guy for being gassed, or

<v Speaker 1>he's no selling, he's no selling everything. Some people did

<v Speaker 1>seem to recognize that he was injured. I mean, he

<v Speaker 1>definitely looked off, especially there was a move at the

<v Speaker 1>very end there where Laparka rolled into a cutter that

<v Speaker 1>he delivered to Escobar, and it looked horrible. I mean Escobar,

<v Speaker 1>he basically just dropped to his knees. He didn't even

<v Speaker 1>really take the move, and again people were just shitting

<v Speaker 1>all over him. Oh my god, he looks terrible out there.

<v Speaker 1>But it was pretty clear something was off and he

<v Speaker 1>may have been hurt. I didn't know he had an

<v Speaker 1>existing injury that predated the match. I thought he just

<v Speaker 1>got hurt during the match, but evidently now we know otherwise.

<v Speaker 1>So best wishes to him. I mean it sucks, you know,

<v Speaker 1>he re signed with the company. They made him apparently

<v Speaker 1>some blowaway offer late last year, so instead of leaving,

<v Speaker 1>he decided to stay. And then months went by of nothing.

<v Speaker 1>It was like he fell through the cracks and they

<v Speaker 1>had forgotten that they had resigned him, and then all

<v Speaker 1>of a sudden, he pops back up and he's in

<v Speaker 1>triple A and it's only a matter of weeks and

<v Speaker 1>now he's out again. So it's a terrible situation, but

<v Speaker 1>hopefully he'll be able to come back at one hundred percent.

<v Speaker 1>And Evil. I have mentioned Evil before, Evil possibly coming

<v Speaker 1>to WWE because he is no longer with New Japan

<v Speaker 1>Pro Wrestling. Now we have a report from the Super

<v Speaker 1>j Cast that suggests the former IWGP World Heavyweight Championed

<v Speaker 1>as well as multiple time Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi,

<v Speaker 1>are both very close to signing with WWE. Evil apparently

<v Speaker 1>wants to start in NXT to adjust to the WWE style,

<v Speaker 1>but WWE is said to be pushing for an immediate

<v Speaker 1>spot on the main roster, and Takahashi is supposedly tapped

<v Speaker 1>for an NXT start. So yeah, I mean Evil apparently

<v Speaker 1>has expressed interest in if he comes in starting with

<v Speaker 1>NXT instead of going to the main roster directly, and

<v Speaker 1>there are people that have have done the same thing.

<v Speaker 1>I think actually Maria Ay is one of those people.

<v Speaker 1>I think it was her choice to start with NXT

<v Speaker 1>because people just want to get their feet wet, they

<v Speaker 1>want to know how things work there, and it's probably

<v Speaker 1>worse for someone like Evil who's coming from a completely

<v Speaker 1>different country and a completely different way of doing things.

<v Speaker 1>You know, New Japan doesn't even have weekly television. At

<v Speaker 1>least Mariah May when she came over from AAW she

<v Speaker 1>was on television weekly and doing storylines. It's a very

<v Speaker 1>different type of culture. Shock if you're someone like Heromu

<v Speaker 1>or Evil who's coming over to WWE from where they were,

<v Speaker 1>so I can understand it if that's his mentality and

<v Speaker 1>why they're so insistent on him being on the main roster.

<v Speaker 1>I can't imagine him being earmarked for a major spot

<v Speaker 1>on the show. What the hell could be so urgent

<v Speaker 1>that they want him on the main roster and just

<v Speaker 1>completely bypassing NXT. I have no idea. The report also

<v Speaker 1>indicates that he would prefer to maintain his already established

<v Speaker 1>evil persona in WWE. Not with that name. He won't be.

<v Speaker 1>Not with Dan Housen calling himself very nice, very evil.

<v Speaker 1>That ain't gonna happen. This week's episode is sponsored by

<v Speaker 1>this new Harmony editor from Wix is super cool and

<v Speaker 1>very easy to use. If you're looking to create your

<v Speaker 1>own website, maybe you have before, maybe you even have

<v Speaker 1>one now, but you've never created one like this before.

<v Speaker 1>I can tell you that if only I had access

<v Speaker 1>to something like this years ago, I would not have

<v Speaker 1>had to shave years off my life editing code out

<v Speaker 1>of a text document. Wix Harmony is a hybrid website

<v Speaker 1>editor that offers the perfect blend of AI and dragon

<v Speaker 1>Drop tools. You can launch a prograde site by entering

<v Speaker 1>a single prompt and turn your words into a full

<v Speaker 1>blown website. And no, you're not just outsourcing everything to AI.

<v Speaker 1>You've got hands on design tools at your fingertips to

<v Speaker 1>help shape every detail of your site, no matter what

<v Speaker 1>your business may be. And you can stay stress free

<v Speaker 1>knowing that your Wix site is backed by ninety nine

<v Speaker 1>point nine to nine percent uptime and enterprise grade security,

<v Speaker 1>no add ons required. Wix Harmony includes your own AI

<v Speaker 1>agent named Aria that helps you create your site and

<v Speaker 1>takes care of different aspects of your business. For instance,

<v Speaker 1>you can generate images, product descriptions and blogs, or automate

<v Speaker 1>your email, marketing, SEO tasks and even inventory management, and

<v Speaker 1>enjoy easy domain registration with web hosting included. It's the

<v Speaker 1>new way to create websites. Now it's time to trust

<v Speaker 1>Wix with yours and see what they can do for you.

<v Speaker 1>Just visit wis dot com slash Harmony. That's wis dot

<v Speaker 1>com slash Harmony. Tony Khan was in the news this

<v Speaker 1>week for a bit of an old story here but

<v Speaker 1>in case people weren't aware. Tony Khan was one of

<v Speaker 1>many who made a bid for WWE during the sale

<v Speaker 1>process back in twenty twenty three. He tried to acquire

<v Speaker 1>World Wrestling Entertainment. Can you imagine if Tony Khan had

<v Speaker 1>bought WWE? The segments on Dynamite him standing in the ring.

<v Speaker 1>He did that for Ring of Honor when he bought

<v Speaker 1>Ring of Honor. The name on the contract, remember then

<v Speaker 1>it wasn't Shane, and he announced that he had acquired

<v Speaker 1>Ring of Honor. Imagine what he would do if he

<v Speaker 1>had successfully bought WWE, which there was zero percent chance

<v Speaker 1>by the way, of that ever happening. But let's just

<v Speaker 1>say he did. Oh my god, the meltdown on social media.

<v Speaker 1>I would have made five bags of popcorn and sat here,

<v Speaker 1>and it would have been awful. By the way. I

<v Speaker 1>don't care what you think of Tony Khan, how big

<v Speaker 1>of a wrestling fan he is, or how good he

<v Speaker 1>may or may not be for the wrestling business. Right

<v Speaker 1>he's got his fans, he's got his detractors. All that

<v Speaker 1>power being consolidated in the hands of one person would

<v Speaker 1>be fucking awful. So I think that would have been

<v Speaker 1>a bad thing for wrestling. But the story comes from

<v Speaker 1>postwrestling dot Com. Base ten, a company backed by aw

<v Speaker 1>owner Tony Khan, placed a bid on WWE when it

<v Speaker 1>was up for sale in twenty twenty three. According to

<v Speaker 1>court filings, the merger and acquisition process, which was ultimately

<v Speaker 1>won by Endeavor, is the subject of an ongoing shareholder lawsuit.

<v Speaker 1>The complaint originally filed in November of twenty twenty three,

<v Speaker 1>has recently been unredacted. Answers legal responses from the defendants

<v Speaker 1>to each paragraph of the complaint have also been unredacted.

<v Speaker 1>Those responses deny various aspects of the lawsuit's allegations, but

<v Speaker 1>affirmed the identities of the bidders, thereby disclosing the key

<v Speaker 1>suitors for WWE when it was put up for sale.

<v Speaker 1>In addition to Cohn's company an eventual winner, Endeavor, the

<v Speaker 1>bidders were Formula one parent Liberty Media, and private equity

<v Speaker 1>firm KKR. Liberty and KKR were widely understood to have

<v Speaker 1>made offers based on prior reporting in public filings, but

<v Speaker 1>this confirms both their participation and which bid prices correspond

<v Speaker 1>to each. Cohn's base ten bid, however, is public for

<v Speaker 1>the first time. The shareholders alleged that the merger process

<v Speaker 1>was unfair, that Endeavor was pre selected by McMahon because

<v Speaker 1>Endeavour's lead executive Ari Emmanuel assured McMahon's future with the company.

<v Speaker 1>The defendants deny that apt allegation, although Tony, by the way,

<v Speaker 1>the Ari Emanuel, who was in the news this week

<v Speaker 1>for allegedly pressuring the President to settle or force a

<v Speaker 1>settlement of the Ticketmaster Live Nation law suit. There was

<v Speaker 1>a class action suit that was about to go to trial,

<v Speaker 1>right because everyone's such a big fan of the big

<v Speaker 1>ticket Master Live Nation monopoly, and Ari Emanuel apparently wanted

<v Speaker 1>to see that settled. So thanks Ari. Although Tony Khan

<v Speaker 1>is not mentioned by naming the complaint, Base ten and

<v Speaker 1>All Elite Wrestling are, and their connection is made clear.

<v Speaker 1>The filing states Base ten is the owner of All

<v Speaker 1>Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion that plainly would enjoy

<v Speaker 1>significant synergies with WWE, while the complaint describes Base ten

<v Speaker 1>as the owner of AAW to be exact. Legal filings

<v Speaker 1>unrelated to this lawsuit show that AAW's parent company is

<v Speaker 1>a separate Con Family entity, beat Nick Investments. Both AW

<v Speaker 1>and Base ten are owned by by Con Family members,

<v Speaker 1>aside from a minority stake in the company held by

<v Speaker 1>Warner Brothers Discovery. Defendants in the shareholder class action lawsuit

<v Speaker 1>are McMahon, WWE President Nick con no relation to Tony Kahn,

<v Speaker 1>Chief content officer Paul Levec and former board members and

<v Speaker 1>executives George Barrios and Michelle Wilson. McMahon has separate legal

<v Speaker 1>representation from the rest of the defendants, the latter of

<v Speaker 1>whom are alleged to have cooperated with McMahon in violation

<v Speaker 1>of their fiduciary duties to shareholders. In their formal answers

<v Speaker 1>to the lawsuit filed under Seal more than a year

<v Speaker 1>ago and fully unredacted, now, for the first time, the

<v Speaker 1>non McMahon defendants affirmed the identities of the bidders and

<v Speaker 1>per share prices they respectively bid for WWE. Brandon Thurston's

<v Speaker 1>analysis shows that the offer in question from Cohn was

<v Speaker 1>the lowest of the four, valuing WWE at about six

<v Speaker 1>point nine billion dollars. The competing bids were significantly higher

<v Speaker 1>Endeavor at eight point biter five billion, Liberty Media between

<v Speaker 1>eight and a half and eight point nine billion, and

<v Speaker 1>KKR between eight and eight point seven billion. Structurally, Endeavor's

<v Speaker 1>bids stood out because it was an all stock transaction,

<v Speaker 1>meaning investors would receive TKO shares instead of cash. The

<v Speaker 1>other three offers were cash deals, while the bids other

<v Speaker 1>than base tens are overlapping in monetary value. Plaintiffs alleged

<v Speaker 1>that the competing offers, especially from Liberty and KKR, were

<v Speaker 1>not allowed to fully develop, precluding a truly competitive process

<v Speaker 1>in which the bidding would have gone higher. Both sets

<v Speaker 1>of defendants deny that claim and many of the suits

<v Speaker 1>other allegations the bids of Endeavor, KKR, and Liberty were

<v Speaker 1>strong enough that those parties were granted access to a

<v Speaker 1>data room where they had access to non public information

<v Speaker 1>about WWE, a standard practice at that stage of any

<v Speaker 1>major merger and acquisition process. There's no information in WWE's

<v Speaker 1>regulatory filings or material related to the merger to indicate

<v Speaker 1>that Tony Khan or any Base ten representative had access

<v Speaker 1>to that data room, possibly because Base Ten's offer was

<v Speaker 1>decisively the lowest of the four, so it did not

<v Speaker 1>advance in the bidding process. It is unclear whether aew

<v Speaker 1>status as a competitor to WWE was a factor. Oh,

<v Speaker 1>I'll bet it was. They don't want they don't want

<v Speaker 1>him having access to any information that's non public. The

<v Speaker 1>lawsuit over the merger is set to go to trial

<v Speaker 1>in June. If the plaintiffs prevail, they could win monetary

<v Speaker 1>damages that would be paid out to investors who held

<v Speaker 1>WWE shares during the relevant period. So how about that, you,

<v Speaker 1>Matt again, just picture that Tony Khan, who is running

<v Speaker 1>the number two largest and most successful wrestling promotion in

<v Speaker 1>the worlds or certainly in the country, ends up buying

<v Speaker 1>out Ring of Honor a number of years ago, and

<v Speaker 1>Ring of Honor has not really been you know, number

<v Speaker 1>number three or four for some time now. I mean

<v Speaker 1>maybe by default they would have been. But he buys

<v Speaker 1>that Ring of Honor, which was a dead promotion, and

<v Speaker 1>then I don't know how long after that, when did

<v Speaker 1>he buy Ring of Honor. Was that twenty twenty one

<v Speaker 1>or twenty twenty two. I think it might have been

<v Speaker 1>twenty one, So like two years later, let's say he

<v Speaker 1>tries to buy WWE again. I just get I just

<v Speaker 1>cannot imagine the shit stom that that would create, just

<v Speaker 1>on social media and the tribalism and everything. Oh my god,

<v Speaker 1>it would be. On the one hand, it would be

<v Speaker 1>so much fun to watch, but on the other hand,

<v Speaker 1>it would be just so awful because I don't care

<v Speaker 1>if you're if you are the nicest person in the world,

<v Speaker 1>or you have the greatest of intentions, or you're the

<v Speaker 1>biggest wrestling geek on the planet. No one entity, no

<v Speaker 1>one company person, I don't care who you are, should

<v Speaker 1>have that much control over one industry. I mean he would.

<v Speaker 1>He would dominate the wrestling industry. Tony Kahn would be

<v Speaker 1>the wrestling industry at that point. And you cannot be

<v Speaker 1>taken seriously as someone who was against the idea of,

<v Speaker 1>you know, monopolies or consolidating too much power of one

<v Speaker 1>place and be okay with something like that. You could

<v Speaker 1>be the biggest aw siko in the world and you

<v Speaker 1>might have a nice laugh at this, but even they

<v Speaker 1>would have to agree that this would have been a

<v Speaker 1>terrible thing, although we would have gotten one hell of

<v Speaker 1>a forbidden door pay per view out of it. As

<v Speaker 1>far as the rest of this stuff goes in the lawsuit, look,

<v Speaker 1>it's not about anything other than what you can prove.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know how this case is going to go,

<v Speaker 1>but it was pretty clear if you just paid any

<v Speaker 1>attention to this process, that there was something going on

<v Speaker 1>behind the scenes where you know, Vince McMahon saw a

<v Speaker 1>path through Ari, his friend Ari Emmanuel, and endeavor to

<v Speaker 1>sell the company for all this money and have a

<v Speaker 1>pathway where he could remain in power in some form

<v Speaker 1>or fashion, and that ended up not being the case

<v Speaker 1>strictly because of one person, and that person was Janelle Grant.

<v Speaker 1>If that lawsuit doesn't drop in twenty twenty four, Vince

<v Speaker 1>McMahon is still very much involved in TKO and wwa period.

<v Speaker 1>End of story. You know, he wanted to make the

<v Speaker 1>deal where he felt it would be advantageous to him

<v Speaker 1>most of all, where it would keep him in power.

<v Speaker 1>Whatever that looked like, maybe not, you know, in creative

<v Speaker 1>he wouldn't be sitting in Gorilla every week, although maybe

<v Speaker 1>eventually he would have made a return there. But that's

<v Speaker 1>why he made the deal that he did. You know,

<v Speaker 1>was there an understanding beforehand? Yeah? I believe there probably was.

<v Speaker 1>Can they prove that though? I guess that's what the

<v Speaker 1>trial will determine. Unless there's some sort of settlement, we'll

<v Speaker 1>find out. Aw Revolution last Sunday was an excellent show.

<v Speaker 1>I've already said my piece on the length of these

<v Speaker 1>shows and the repetitiveness of the blood and some of

<v Speaker 1>the stuff they do. You know, where every match on

<v Speaker 1>the card from the top all the way to the bottom,

<v Speaker 1>you know, is worked like it's the main event at

<v Speaker 1>the Tokyo Dome. Brian Danielson on commentary during the main event,

<v Speaker 1>said that AW should put a moratorium on Texas death

<v Speaker 1>matches for a while. I concur I mean, after what

<v Speaker 1>MJF and Hangman did to each other, I'm not sure

<v Speaker 1>how you even topped that sort of thing outside of

<v Speaker 1>shooting someone in the head or throwing a Molotov cocktail

<v Speaker 1>at them. And AAW introduced Molotov cocktails as a weapon

<v Speaker 1>in their Fight Forever game, so I wouldn't put it

<v Speaker 1>past them to try. But then we had the worst

<v Speaker 1>Dynamite of the year, coming off a hot show like

<v Speaker 1>they had last Sunday. It was like night and day

<v Speaker 1>watching that show on Wednesday. MJF was not on Dynamite physically.

<v Speaker 1>There were quite a few names missing from the show,

<v Speaker 1>as is usually the case after a pay per view

<v Speaker 1>where all of these guys just go out there and

<v Speaker 1>kill themselves. But the pre tape promo from MJF backstage

<v Speaker 1>of Revolution I thought after his match was great stuff.

<v Speaker 1>He was still all bloodied up and just sitting there

<v Speaker 1>leaning up against the wall. He said he owned the

<v Speaker 1>greatest dog collar match of all time, the greatest iron

<v Speaker 1>man match of all time, and now the greatest Texas

<v Speaker 1>Deathmatch in AW history. He's not wrong. Check check check

<v Speaker 1>on all three. Certainly in terms of AAW he checks

<v Speaker 1>all three. But who's next? Hangman is done for now.

<v Speaker 1>He can never challenge again for the AW World title,

<v Speaker 1>which is a very stupid thing to do. But he

<v Speaker 1>is taking time off now, says Fightful, and we're not

<v Speaker 1>going to be seeing him for a while. They did

<v Speaker 1>announce that Swerve Strickland is number one contender for the

<v Speaker 1>AW World title. Kenny Omega, though, who returned at Revolution

<v Speaker 1>but also wasn't there on Dynamite. He did a pre

<v Speaker 1>tape promo challenging Swerve to a rematch between the two

<v Speaker 1>of them where Swerve would put his number one contendership

<v Speaker 1>on the line, and in order for that to make

<v Speaker 1>any sense at all, Kenny is going to have to

<v Speaker 1>put something on the line too, right when you hear that,

<v Speaker 1>which is why they felt the need to have Swerve

<v Speaker 1>go out there and challenge him to put his EVP

<v Speaker 1>power on the line in their match, because otherwise, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>Swerve would have looked like a fucking idiot for saying, yes,

<v Speaker 1>oh girl, sure, I'll put my guaranteed shot at the

<v Speaker 1>world championship on the line against you, Kenny, who, like,

<v Speaker 1>why would he do that? Because you politely asked, Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>take your request and stick it up your ass. You

<v Speaker 1>want that, You're gonna have to put something sweet on

<v Speaker 1>the line. You gonna have to sweeten the pot in

<v Speaker 1>some way. He wants Kenny's EVP power. Now they haven't

<v Speaker 1>explained exactly what that entails beyond I guess the power

<v Speaker 1>to make matches. I guess. I mean, does he get

<v Speaker 1>a pay raise? Does he get his own parking spot?

<v Speaker 1>Does he get healthcare? In a four oh one? K right?

<v Speaker 1>I mean he would be an employee. He should, He

<v Speaker 1>should get all the benefits of being an employee, all

<v Speaker 1>the things that the talent don't get unless you're an EVP.

<v Speaker 1>We don't know, but the match has been made official.

<v Speaker 1>It will take place this Wednesday on Dynamite. So it

<v Speaker 1>looks like whoever wins is gonna get the shot at

<v Speaker 1>Dynasty next month in Vancouver. Kenny challenging for the world

<v Speaker 1>title in Canada. Man, it's very appealing, but there's storyline

<v Speaker 1>potential in Swerve becoming an EVP and just going around

<v Speaker 1>wreaking havoc on the show and getting revenge and all

<v Speaker 1>the people that have wronged him in the past. Darby Allen.

<v Speaker 1>He beat Gabe Kid in a coffin match on Wednesday.

<v Speaker 1>The dogs have already been put to sleep. They lost

<v Speaker 1>on Sunday, Kid lost on Wednesday. It's a hell of

<v Speaker 1>a week for those guys. What is there to say

<v Speaker 1>about the match that I didn't already say on Wednesday

<v Speaker 1>in the most entertaining way I could possibly think of.

<v Speaker 1>The stuff outside of the parking lot was pretty wild.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, Darby threw him in the trunk of his car.

<v Speaker 1>He drove the car over a ramp that flipped the

<v Speaker 1>car over. Then in the arena he put Kid in

<v Speaker 1>a straight jacket, which is where Darby belongs. There was blood,

<v Speaker 1>there was biting. I mean, we got all that in

<v Speaker 1>the Texas Death Match, So I mean this just seemed

<v Speaker 1>tame by comparison. Outside of the car stuff, every match

<v Speaker 1>on these shows feels like a Texas Death Match. But

<v Speaker 1>when it was over, Darby put MJF on notice said

<v Speaker 1>he's coming for that World Championship, So we can add

<v Speaker 1>Darby to the list of upcoming challengers for MJF. Will

<v Speaker 1>Osprey made his return at Revolution and then he had

<v Speaker 1>his return match on Dynamite against Blake Christian. Yeah, Tony

<v Speaker 1>Kahan getting Osprey back at the exact moment. By the

<v Speaker 1>way that they put tickets on sale for their return

<v Speaker 1>to Wembley Stadium was rather fortuitous, I would say. After

<v Speaker 1>the first day of the public on sale for all

<v Speaker 1>in London, the company moved nearly twenty thousand tickets on

<v Speaker 1>a setup of thirty seven thousand. Now that will obviously

<v Speaker 1>be increased as they sell more tickets, they'll open up

<v Speaker 1>more sections. It does not mean they are only expecting

<v Speaker 1>thirty seven thousand people to attend the show. Yeah, their

<v Speaker 1>first time there, the novelty of it all, their first

<v Speaker 1>stadium show, their first big show in the UK. They

<v Speaker 1>sold somewhere between seventy and eighty thousand tickets. I don't

<v Speaker 1>even I've given up to figure out what the fucking

<v Speaker 1>number was. I mean, I've heard, oh, no, it was

<v Speaker 1>eighty thousand, and then it's like, no, it was actually

<v Speaker 1>seventy two thousand. No, it was seventy five thousand. Fucking

<v Speaker 1>will Ospray went and got I think adyk tattooed on

<v Speaker 1>his body like why why whatever? The number was seventy thousand,

<v Speaker 1>eighty thousand. It was very impressive. Their second time at

<v Speaker 1>Wembley they were down to about fifty thousand, which is

<v Speaker 1>still a big success. I mean, you sell fifty thousand

<v Speaker 1>tickets to a stadium show, right, but not nearly as

<v Speaker 1>impressive as the first time. I don't know that they'll

<v Speaker 1>even hit that mark again, right. We'll see how fast

<v Speaker 1>tickets move once they started announcing matches for the show.

<v Speaker 1>We'll see if Osprey is in the main event and

<v Speaker 1>how much of a draw he really is. I think

<v Speaker 1>forty thousand. Honestly, if they could hit forty thousand, I

<v Speaker 1>think that would be a number they should be happy with.

<v Speaker 1>Ospray didn't do much in the match. He let Blake

<v Speaker 1>Christian do most of the flashy stuff. But after he won,

<v Speaker 1>Osprey sent a message to John Moxley and the Death

<v Speaker 1>Riders that he won't need a weapon to break someone's neck.

<v Speaker 1>He'll do it with his bare fucking hands. And this

<v Speaker 1>all ended with Pack locking him in the Brutalizer. Osprey

<v Speaker 1>then jump Pack in the aisle as he was leaving,

<v Speaker 1>and the two of them fought off to the back.

<v Speaker 1>So it's going to be one of these deals where

<v Speaker 1>he may have to work his way through different members

<v Speaker 1>of the Death Riders before he gets to Moxley. I

<v Speaker 1>think the goal should be the aw world title, not

<v Speaker 1>the continental title. You know, they were lucky enough to

<v Speaker 1>get him back in time for the Owen which is

<v Speaker 1>coming up in a few months, and then Wembley. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know why you wouldn't want to tell that story

<v Speaker 1>of him challenging for the world title. Adam Copeland and

<v Speaker 1>Christian Cage they came back as well at Revolution and

<v Speaker 1>then they came out on Dynamite to confront the Young Bucks,

<v Speaker 1>and Copeland said that they respect the hell out of

<v Speaker 1>the Bucks, and they're telling them, you know, don't don't

<v Speaker 1>hang your heads in shame ever, you know, because they've

<v Speaker 1>failed to beat FTR Revolution. He's telling them all these things,

<v Speaker 1>and he said, all that being said, we can relate

<v Speaker 1>to what you're going through because FTR didn't just attack

<v Speaker 1>you and your family, they attacked my wife as well.

<v Speaker 1>And he claimed that, you know, they've been waiting to

<v Speaker 1>find out if Beth was going to need some sort

<v Speaker 1>of spinal fusion surgery. And now that they're out of

<v Speaker 1>the woods on that, he's decided to come back for revenge,

<v Speaker 1>but it's not about breaking bones or anything like that.

<v Speaker 1>It's about taking the aw tag team titles. And at

<v Speaker 1>Dynasty in Vancouver, it's going to be FTR defending their

<v Speaker 1>championships against Cope and Christian, So that match is a

<v Speaker 1>Fish's one of the few matches right now that is

<v Speaker 1>actually if it might be the only match right now

<v Speaker 1>that's official for Dynasty. And you know, FTR came out

<v Speaker 1>with Stokely and Stokely sent them to the ring. They

<v Speaker 1>got their asses kicked. They had this visual at the

<v Speaker 1>end where Cope and Matt Jackson picked up one of

<v Speaker 1>the tag belts at the same time, and then Christian

<v Speaker 1>Nick did the same thing and they allowed Cope and

<v Speaker 1>to have the belts. They wanted to establish that there's

<v Speaker 1>going to be some combination of matches with these three

<v Speaker 1>teams in the months ahead. My guess is it will

<v Speaker 1>all culminate in a three way match with all of

<v Speaker 1>them involved in the same match, probably at Wembley at

<v Speaker 1>all In we don't have a lot that's obvious for

<v Speaker 1>Dynasty right now, and the show is three weeks away.

<v Speaker 1>Cop and Christian against the Bucks. That's about the only

<v Speaker 1>thing that's official we don't know who's wrestling MJF, although

<v Speaker 1>I presume we'll know after Omegan Swerve have their match

<v Speaker 1>this week Ospray against Moxley. It could be a direction

<v Speaker 1>unless they do Ospray against Pack on the pay per

<v Speaker 1>view and not before. Andrede Alitelo he was paid off

<v Speaker 1>this week to take out Darby Allen as a favorite

<v Speaker 1>to MJF, so Androde against Darby could be on that

<v Speaker 1>show as well. I don't know, We'll see how it

<v Speaker 1>plays out this week. But the other big thing that

<v Speaker 1>happened to Revolution last Sunday was the surprise appearance by

<v Speaker 1>Ronda Rousey. We had Ronda Rowsey making her a debut.

<v Speaker 1>This was after timeless Tony Storm beat Marina Shaffir. Ronda

<v Speaker 1>shows up and Tony's not even in the ring, right,

<v Speaker 1>She's on stage and Ronda suddenly is in the ring.

<v Speaker 1>And Ronda lives out in La so for her, she

<v Speaker 1>didn't have to travel very far. Actually, the one time

<v Speaker 1>I think she did something with Ring of Honor, she

<v Speaker 1>did a tag match. It was her and Marina Shaffir

<v Speaker 1>actually as a team. I believe that might have been

<v Speaker 1>also on the West Coast. Maybe she just doesn't want

<v Speaker 1>to travel. Maybe anytime aw comes to La Ronda will decide,

<v Speaker 1>you know what, I think I'd like to do something

<v Speaker 1>here on these shows. But Tony came back to the ring.

<v Speaker 1>We had a brief face off, they had to be separated.

<v Speaker 1>Marina Shaffir caught Tony with a sucker punch that knocked

<v Speaker 1>her out, and Marina left with Ronda, and the two

<v Speaker 1>of them have been friends for years. You know, Ronda

<v Speaker 1>has done three wrestling matches in the last three years

<v Speaker 1>since leaving WWE. One of them was for Ring of Honor,

<v Speaker 1>as I mentioned, but all three of them have been

<v Speaker 1>matches with Marina Shaffir. So if Ronda Rowsey was going

<v Speaker 1>to do anything in this company, it would likely be

<v Speaker 1>with her. But that's if Ronda wrestles at all, which

<v Speaker 1>wouldn't happen anyway, because Ronda's got a big Netflix fight

<v Speaker 1>coming up on May sixteenth with Gina Carano. Ronda has

<v Speaker 1>not even fought anybody in over a decade. Gina Carano,

<v Speaker 1>my god, I mean at the last time she had

<v Speaker 1>a fight, God, what year was it, two thousand and nine.

<v Speaker 1>So they put this this attraction together because Dana White

<v Speaker 1>and UFC they were like, yeah, no thanks, and so

<v Speaker 1>now they have Jake Paul's promotion is putting this together

<v Speaker 1>and it's gonna be this massive event because you know,

<v Speaker 1>there's gonna be a lot of eyeballs on that show.

<v Speaker 1>But I'm like, I'm watching this and it just it

<v Speaker 1>felt like, Okay, we're gonna get either a match with

<v Speaker 1>Ronda and Tony at some point or a tag match

<v Speaker 1>with her and Marina against Tony and Mina Sirikal. That

<v Speaker 1>appears to be off the table now because we had

<v Speaker 1>a report from Fight Full that timeless use Tony Storm

<v Speaker 1>is expected to be out of action for a very

<v Speaker 1>long time. They say aw is prepared for her to

<v Speaker 1>not be cleared to wrestle through twenty twenty six at

<v Speaker 1>a minimum. Now, that is without any word as to

<v Speaker 1>what the injury or the issue may be, if it

<v Speaker 1>even is an injury. A lot of people speculating she

<v Speaker 1>could be pregnant and only just found out about it.

<v Speaker 1>It's not a huge leap. I mean, just look at

<v Speaker 1>the way that was worded. Company is prepared for her

<v Speaker 1>not to be cleared to wrestle through twenty twenty six

<v Speaker 1>at a minimum, Like, what does that mean? Like it's

<v Speaker 1>the way it was phrased, I guess the way it

<v Speaker 1>was told to them. It certainly raises some eyebrows as

<v Speaker 1>to what this could really be about, but right now

<v Speaker 1>that's all it is. It's just speculation. But she's out.

<v Speaker 1>They shot an angle backstage where Tony was found laying

<v Speaker 1>unconscious with a pool of blood on the floor next

<v Speaker 1>to her head. So we got a who done at angle,

<v Speaker 1>who attacked Tony's Storm? Mina took her place in her

<v Speaker 1>no holds barred match that Tony was supposed to have

<v Speaker 1>with Marina on Wednesday, and she won. Mina actually won.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe we'll eventually find out it was Mina who attacked

<v Speaker 1>Tony Storm. For the time being, she's gonna steal all

<v Speaker 1>of her glory, so there will be no Tony Storm

<v Speaker 1>match tag team or otherwise with Ronda Rousey, which means

<v Speaker 1>there probably won't be any matches with Ronda Rousey and

<v Speaker 1>Dave Meltzer is saying it's all part of Ronda's vendetta

<v Speaker 1>with TKO and them passing on her fight with Gina.

<v Speaker 1>Her showing up in aw may have just been a

<v Speaker 1>way to needle them and get under their skin, you know, what.

<v Speaker 1>I hope that's all it is. Honestly, AW does not

<v Speaker 1>need Ronda Rowsey. I can understand. I can understand Tony

<v Speaker 1>Khin wanting to use her for publicity because Ronda's gonna

<v Speaker 1>go in there on May sixteenth and have this fight

<v Speaker 1>with Gene. It's gonna do big numbers on Netflix and

<v Speaker 1>if that does big box office, and especially if Ronda wins.

<v Speaker 1>I can see Tony Kahn saying, I want to be

<v Speaker 1>in the Ronda Rowsei business, and that might just be

<v Speaker 1>in appearance, it might be one match, whatever it is,

<v Speaker 1>if he knows that it will get attention for his

<v Speaker 1>company with someone who is in the news and just

<v Speaker 1>had this big fight and won or made all this

<v Speaker 1>money and they maybe they're going to do another one.

<v Speaker 1>I can understand him wanting to do something with Ronda Rowsey.

<v Speaker 1>AW does not need Ronda ROUSI. Her last run in

<v Speaker 1>WWE was fucking terrible. It's not all her fault. WWE

<v Speaker 1>deserves a lot of the blame for that as well,

<v Speaker 1>but she was not used well, she did not come

<v Speaker 1>off well. It was a very forgettable, very bad run.

<v Speaker 1>And she's going to come into AW and do what

<v Speaker 1>what's she gonna do. I mean, you could just save

<v Speaker 1>her for the occasional special match you get one or

<v Speaker 1>two out of it. You don't want her doing too

<v Speaker 1>much on TV. That's what did her in in the

<v Speaker 1>last WWE run. She was exposed. You don't want to

<v Speaker 1>expose her. You don't want to overexpose her. I don't

<v Speaker 1>think that Ronda Rousey is somebody that you know, the

<v Speaker 1>sickos in his hardcore fan base though really care to see.

<v Speaker 1>And the one thing about Tony con did say, which

<v Speaker 1>you want to about the guy, but he knows what

<v Speaker 1>that audience wants. He knows what his audience is looking for,

<v Speaker 1>what they like, what they don't like. I don't think

<v Speaker 1>he wants to go out of his way to do

<v Speaker 1>anything to upset them. And so if there's any blowback

<v Speaker 1>that he gets from that part of the fan base,

<v Speaker 1>I could see him saying, Okay, you know what, we're

<v Speaker 1>not going to do this. It's probably one of the

<v Speaker 1>reasons that we saw Rick Flair on TV and then

<v Speaker 1>he quickly disappeared. You know, he got a lot of

<v Speaker 1>shit for bringing Rick Flair into AW. I don't see

<v Speaker 1>the Rond de Rowsey thing really benefiting him in any

<v Speaker 1>meaningful way. When all is said and done, I think

<v Speaker 1>he might do more harm than good with his own fans.

<v Speaker 1>I don't really see him wanting to do that. So

<v Speaker 1>my guess is this ends up going nowhere. Josh Alexander,

<v Speaker 1>he was helped to the back during the Collision tapings

<v Speaker 1>with an apparent knee injury after teaming with Kenoski, Takeshta

<v Speaker 1>and l Clone against Mistico and Jet Speed for the

<v Speaker 1>trio's titles in a match that I believe is airing

<v Speaker 1>tonight on Collision. I think they split Collision up. Is

<v Speaker 1>that what they did? I think they had an hour

<v Speaker 1>of it last night and they have another one tonight

<v Speaker 1>and I think it's on tonight's show and we'll see

<v Speaker 1>what they air from it. But evidently during the match

<v Speaker 1>there was a sequence with Speedball Mike Bailey where Bailey

<v Speaker 1>hit Ultimo Weapon, which is a standing moon salt into

<v Speaker 1>the double knees. Alexander pulled his knees up, and PW

<v Speaker 1>Insider is told it looked like Alexander hurt his knee

<v Speaker 1>when Bailey came straight down on him and their knees

<v Speaker 1>connected and Alexander went to the floor. He did not

<v Speaker 1>return to the ring for the remainder of the match.

<v Speaker 1>He was done. Melter and the Observer said at press

<v Speaker 1>time the knee had not been checked out completely, so

<v Speaker 1>we don't yet know the extent of the damage. The

<v Speaker 1>knee has been bothering him for six years and he

<v Speaker 1>kind of knew at some point he would have to

<v Speaker 1>take care of it, and it appears now is that

<v Speaker 1>point you know? Brian Cage has been cleared to come back,

<v Speaker 1>So as another callous family member goes down with an injury,

<v Speaker 1>they get one back. Is he even still with them?

<v Speaker 1>I don't even know anymore. If they slip him back

<v Speaker 1>in there, I doubt anybody would even bat an eye.

<v Speaker 1>Mercedes Monet, she has lost even more gold. She dropped

<v Speaker 1>two championships at once at the Rev Pro High Stake

<v Speaker 1>show on Saturday in Wolverhampton. She was over in the UK.

<v Speaker 1>Monette was defeated by Alexis Falcon in a match where

<v Speaker 1>the Body Slams, Scandinavian Women's and Discovery Wrestling Women's championships

<v Speaker 1>were on the line, and so Monet is down to

<v Speaker 1>three women's championships now again. One of them is the

<v Speaker 1>owen Hart Foundation Belt, but As far as actual promotions title,

<v Speaker 1>she's down to three and she is scheduled to defend

<v Speaker 1>the WPW Women's title against the former champion, Jody Threat

<v Speaker 1>in Winnipeg on March thirty first, that's the night before

<v Speaker 1>AW presents Dynamite in that city. She still holds the

<v Speaker 1>APAC Women's Championship, which she won at a House of

<v Speaker 1>Glory show last November from nor Phoenix, Diana, and she

<v Speaker 1>also holds the PTW Women's Title, which is a promotion

<v Speaker 1>based out of Poland. So those belts are coming off

<v Speaker 1>her in rapid fashion, and it sounds like she's going

<v Speaker 1>to be making her return very soon to AW once

<v Speaker 1>she sheds some more goal. I don't know she's going

<v Speaker 1>to wait until all the belts are gone, or just

<v Speaker 1>maybe lose one more and still hold on to two

<v Speaker 1>of them. I'm not sure, but clearly she's going to

<v Speaker 1>be coming back very soon. Some other news and notes

<v Speaker 1>this made headlines this week. Ted Dbassi Junior acquitted of

<v Speaker 1>all charges against him in the fraud case that has

<v Speaker 1>been hanging over his head now for a number of years.

<v Speaker 1>His legal battle is now over and he was found

<v Speaker 1>not guilty on all thirteen charges that he was facing.

<v Speaker 1>On Friday, a Mississippi jury return not guilty verdicts on

<v Speaker 1>every charge Dbias was accused of, which ranged from embezzlement, conspiracy,

<v Speaker 1>wire fraud, and money laundering. I mean that's a pretty

<v Speaker 1>broad spectrum of charges there. The case stem from a

<v Speaker 1>welfare fraud scandal where the Dibiasse family and others, including

<v Speaker 1>NFL legend Brett Favre, were accused of inappropriately receiving millions

<v Speaker 1>of dollars in government funds. The charges against dbias could

<v Speaker 1>have seen him sentence to a potential maximum sentence of

<v Speaker 1>one hundred eighty five years in prison if convicted on

<v Speaker 1>all counts. The trial ran for several weeks with twenty witnesses,

<v Speaker 1>and at one point was paused due to a medical

<v Speaker 1>emergency related to Dbiasse's attorney. Court declined several attempts by

<v Speaker 1>DBIASI to have him mistrial declared, yeah, he was trying

<v Speaker 1>to get out of this as quickly as possible. The

<v Speaker 1>jury deliberated for four hours before determining the DBAs was

<v Speaker 1>not guilty on all charges. At the center of the

<v Speaker 1>scandal was a Mississippi official named John Davis, who was

<v Speaker 1>close friends with dBase and per w FTV News. In Mississippi,

<v Speaker 1>the welfare scandal came in light in or came to

<v Speaker 1>light in twenty twenty, when the former director of the

<v Speaker 1>Mississippi Department of Human Services, John Davis, was indicted on

<v Speaker 1>fraud and embezzlement charges alongside several others, including Ted Dbassi,

<v Speaker 1>Junior's brother former pro wrestler Brett Dbass. Federal indictments accused

<v Speaker 1>Davis of directing the federal dollars to two nonprofits, which

<v Speaker 1>then awarded sham contracts to various people and organizations, including

<v Speaker 1>several companies owned by dBase, for social services that were

<v Speaker 1>never provided. While I'm disappointed in the result of the trial,

<v Speaker 1>nothing changes the fact that seven people have already pleaded

<v Speaker 1>guilty to state or federal charges because of the welfare scandal,

<v Speaker 1>said Shad White, the state auditor. He told that to

<v Speaker 1>Mississippi Voice. My hope now is that the state's lawyers

<v Speaker 1>will be able to recover as much of the misspent

<v Speaker 1>money as possible in civil courts, so hard working taxpayers

<v Speaker 1>can see some accountability for what happened here. Yeah, there

<v Speaker 1>were seven other people who I think all pleaded guilty

<v Speaker 1>before they even went to trial, and Dbassi went to

<v Speaker 1>trial and now he was found not guilty. So that's it.

<v Speaker 1>This dark cloud that was hanging over him has now

<v Speaker 1>been lifted. And whatever you want to say about the

<v Speaker 1>trial and what was done and how it was presented

<v Speaker 1>and whether justice was truly served cases over. He's a freeman.

<v Speaker 1>People are already like, oh, Randy Orton can bring him in. Now,

<v Speaker 1>we can get a whole legacy reunion going in WWE. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I don't think so. He did post the video though,

<v Speaker 1>of himself his lawn and getting back. I guess to

<v Speaker 1>just normal everyday tasks that people do when they're found

<v Speaker 1>not guilty of thirteen charges. So there you go. Somehow

<v Speaker 1>he found a way out of it. And American Gladiators.

<v Speaker 1>That was always a favorite of mine. I used to

<v Speaker 1>watch American Gladiators back on the weekends when I was younger.

<v Speaker 1>I would watch Superstars on Saturday at twelve noon on

<v Speaker 1>the local Fox affiliate here in New York, and then

<v Speaker 1>at one o'clock it was American Gladiators time. So what

<v Speaker 1>a block that was. Man, you eat some pizza, you

<v Speaker 1>watch wrestling and American Gladiators from twelve to two on Saturday,

<v Speaker 1>and it was nothing better than that. Now, they had

<v Speaker 1>a revival of the show a number of years ago,

<v Speaker 1>Hulk Cogan was the host, and of course they had

<v Speaker 1>to amp it up, and you know the final stage,

<v Speaker 1>you had fucking fire and water and fucking armageddon, and

<v Speaker 1>it just you know, everything's got to be done up

<v Speaker 1>in such a big, elaborate way these days. Sometimes you know,

<v Speaker 1>simpler is better. But I bring all of this up

<v Speaker 1>because is once again reviving the series and American Gladiators

<v Speaker 1>will be hosted by The Miz and it is set

<v Speaker 1>to premiere next month. We now know when the show

<v Speaker 1>will finally air. Will arrive on Amazon Prime Video with

<v Speaker 1>three episodes Friday April seventeenth, that's the Friday before WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>Three more episodes will then debut on April twenty fourth,

<v Speaker 1>with the season closing out with four episodes on May first.

<v Speaker 1>And along with Miz hosting the series, several wrestling names

<v Speaker 1>are part of the Gladiator cast, including Aw's Wardlow, Remember him, Camille,

<v Speaker 1>remember her? This is where they all went. They all disappeared.

<v Speaker 1>It went to Gladiator Land. Former WWE wrestler Rick Boogs

<v Speaker 1>is on there. Jesse Godters and Jay Rod. American Gladiators

<v Speaker 1>first debuted in the late nineteen eighties and lasted for

<v Speaker 1>several seasons. The concept was later briefly revived in two

<v Speaker 1>thousand and eight. In a press release, Amazon noted the

<v Speaker 1>new series will feature both classic and new gladiator events.

<v Speaker 1>The iconic competition returns, with each episode featuring weekend warriors

<v Speaker 1>from across the nation stepping into the arena to face

<v Speaker 1>sixteen powerful new gladiators from classic events like Joust, Powerball,

<v Speaker 1>Hang Tough, and The Wall, The Wall Brother to high

<v Speaker 1>impact new challenges including the ring and collision. Every showdown

<v Speaker 1>demands pure grit, strategy and heart. Only one man and

<v Speaker 1>one woman will conquer the arena, claim one hundred thousand

<v Speaker 1>dollars and earn the title of American Gladiator Champion. Just

<v Speaker 1>what we need, more championships. I will be seated. I

<v Speaker 1>will be watching this. You know they mentioned Hang Tough,

<v Speaker 1>what they mentioned I mentioned the Joust, Powerball, the Wall,

<v Speaker 1>Those were all favorites of mine. But also can't forget Pyramid, Atlas,

<v Speaker 1>Fear with the giant balls that had to roll over

<v Speaker 1>the markers on the floor, and Assault. I love the

<v Speaker 1>sault I used to play the shit out of that

<v Speaker 1>in the American Gladiator's video game, and I missed that.

<v Speaker 1>You know, they used to have Action Park. It's a

<v Speaker 1>theme park that was out in New Jersey and for

<v Speaker 1>a while there they actually had the American Gladiator Course.

<v Speaker 1>They like recreated some of the American Gladiator games so

<v Speaker 1>you could do you know, the final Total Elimination or

<v Speaker 1>final Elimination whatever it was, and you could do the

<v Speaker 1>joust and it was super cool. I would have loved

<v Speaker 1>to have been on that show. I wouldn't have made

<v Speaker 1>it past the first round, but it would have been

<v Speaker 1>fun to try. I remember the Family Matters episode where

<v Speaker 1>I think it was Carl and Erkele, right, they competed

<v Speaker 1>against each other I think on American Gladiators. Good times

<v Speaker 1>and we'll end with this, yeah. I mentioned earlier the

<v Speaker 1>WWE Hall of Fame. I mentioned Rick Martel had tipped

<v Speaker 1>to Wrestling News Dot Coe for the write up here,

<v Speaker 1>but there was a story this week. Speaking on the

<v Speaker 1>Wrestling Nostalgia podcast, Bertrand Herbert, who serves as Rick Martel's manager,

<v Speaker 1>said that Martel has never been offered the WWE Hall

<v Speaker 1>of Fame, despite online rumors that he turned it down

<v Speaker 1>and that if the offer ever comes, he will personally

<v Speaker 1>make sure that Martell accepts the invitation. He said, no

<v Speaker 1>matter what Bruce Prichard said, he has never been offered

<v Speaker 1>the WWE Hall of Fame and if he is offered,

<v Speaker 1>I will make sure personally that he accepts the offer.

<v Speaker 1>Herbert said that Martel did turn down some WrestleMania access

<v Speaker 1>signing appearances in the past, including one in San Francisco.

<v Speaker 1>He said the idea of traveling from Quebec City to

<v Speaker 1>San Francisco for a few hours of signing for limited

<v Speaker 1>compensation with no official role or Hall of Fame invite attached,

<v Speaker 1>was not appealing to Martel. He suggested those declined appearances

<v Speaker 1>may have been conflated with a Hall of Fame refusal.

<v Speaker 1>He said the idea of travel willing to sign autographs

<v Speaker 1>maybe for a few hours, for not a lot of

<v Speaker 1>money and do all that traveling from Quebec City to

<v Speaker 1>San Francisco was a big no no for him, and

<v Speaker 1>especially to return to be asked to just sit around

<v Speaker 1>and have no official role or invite to the Hall

<v Speaker 1>of Fame. He didn't think it was the right timing.

<v Speaker 1>He also made a strong case for Martell's induction, pointing

<v Speaker 1>to his resume across multiple promotions whose tape libraries WWE

<v Speaker 1>now owns, he should be there. He said, three time

<v Speaker 1>tag team champion, the Model, one of the most memorable

<v Speaker 1>gimmicks in their history, and they owned the AWA library.

<v Speaker 1>He was the AWA World Heavyweight Champion compared to some

<v Speaker 1>of the guys already in the Hall of Fame. If

<v Speaker 1>he doesn't deserve it, I don't know who does. He noted.

<v Speaker 1>The WWE owns the footage from every major chapter of

<v Speaker 1>Martel's career, including his AWA championship reign, his WWE tag

<v Speaker 1>team runs with the canam Connection and Strikeforce. His run

<v Speaker 1>is the Model, and his WCW tenure. You know that

<v Speaker 1>should not be forgotten about because Martel made a return

<v Speaker 1>to WCW around ninety seven, ninety eight, and he had

<v Speaker 1>been out for several years, and he shows up and

<v Speaker 1>he's older now, and he was over as a babyface,

<v Speaker 1>and he was putting in the work man like. He

<v Speaker 1>had some great matches on television back then. I remember

<v Speaker 1>the stuff with Booker T and the television title, and

<v Speaker 1>he just kind of came out of nowhere. And I

<v Speaker 1>think that run gets forgotten about because it wasn't very

<v Speaker 1>long and unfortunately it got cut short due to a

<v Speaker 1>really catastrophic knee injury. But yeah, that WCW tenure there

<v Speaker 1>at the end should not be forgotten. But he said,

<v Speaker 1>they own everything for the AWAWWE and WCW, and they

<v Speaker 1>have Tony Geria and Tito Santana that can induct him.

<v Speaker 1>I think it's a no brainer to send the invitation. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>you know, unfortunately WWE when you have people like this

<v Speaker 1>who will lobby for it publicly, like Vader did for

<v Speaker 1>many years when he knew he was gonna die, and

<v Speaker 1>he talked about how it would have been so important

<v Speaker 1>to him and how much it would have meant to

<v Speaker 1>him to be in the Hall of Fame and to

<v Speaker 1>get that one last moment to be honored by his peers.

<v Speaker 1>And they let him die before they eventually put him

<v Speaker 1>in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, this year you had

<v Speaker 1>the Jumping Bomb Angels, great tag team. They should be

<v Speaker 1>in the Hall of Fame too. They were really innovators

<v Speaker 1>when it came to women's wrestling in that company very

<v Speaker 1>early on, and they were lobbying. They had like an

<v Speaker 1>online petition. They were putting out there a few months ago,

<v Speaker 1>and I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, but

<v Speaker 1>they were kind of lobbying for it. I feel like

<v Speaker 1>the minute you start doing that, WWE is like, okay,

<v Speaker 1>they go back to the bottom of the pile. They

<v Speaker 1>don't want to be told what to do. They wanted

<v Speaker 1>to come naturally. So I actually think it probably works

<v Speaker 1>against him to be doing that sort of thing. But

<v Speaker 1>he spent nearly six hundred days as AWA World Champion

<v Speaker 1>and was really one of the three big world champions

<v Speaker 1>in the country at the time. You had Hulk Hogan

<v Speaker 1>with the WWF belt, you had Rick Flair with the

<v Speaker 1>NWA belt, and you had Rick Martel with the AWA belt,

<v Speaker 1>probably the last of the AWA champions that really meant

<v Speaker 1>anything before things started going south. It was either him

<v Speaker 1>or Stan Hansen. You know, Hanson is the one who

<v Speaker 1>beat him for the belt. But that was the end

<v Speaker 1>of eighty five. I know by eighty six, Vern was

<v Speaker 1>already negotiating a possible sale of the company. So yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, Martel may well have been the last, the

<v Speaker 1>kind of last real champion of the AWA. But Herbert

<v Speaker 1>said that the disconnect is that Martel has been almost

<v Speaker 1>entirely absent from the wrestling world for years, and he

<v Speaker 1>doesn't rely on the business for income. Unlike many of

<v Speaker 1>his peers, Martel invested wisely during his career and his

<v Speaker 1>financially secure in retirement. That independence has made it difficult

<v Speaker 1>for people in the industry to understand why he has

<v Speaker 1>not been more active. Herbert said, he doesn't need to

<v Speaker 1>do those appearances, and that's hard for people in the

<v Speaker 1>business to understand. But for the guys outside of the business,

<v Speaker 1>not doing shows every weekend, being recognized by wwe mean something.

<v Speaker 1>He was there, he worked there, he helped build the

<v Speaker 1>company to where it is. For him, it's a recognition

<v Speaker 1>that means something. I think it should be done in

<v Speaker 1>the next few years, because obviously it's seventy years old,

<v Speaker 1>he's not getting any younger. Let's do it while he

<v Speaker 1>can still attend and enjoy and appreciate everything. Amen to that.

<v Speaker 1>Amen to that. You can't put everybody in all at once.

<v Speaker 1>But there are certain names that really stick out to you,

<v Speaker 1>like demolition for so long, where it's like, why have

<v Speaker 1>they waited so long? Like they're tempting fate by continuing

<v Speaker 1>to wait, And I just don't understand that I mentioned

<v Speaker 1>Cindy Lauper earlier. How are you going to have a

<v Speaker 1>celebrity wing of your Hall of Fame and not have

<v Speaker 1>somebody like that in there? Now, if they're not the

<v Speaker 1>ones who are saying no and turning down the invitation,

<v Speaker 1>what is the possible explanation for it? I don't know.

<v Speaker 1>But now the demolition is going into the Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>I'm going to shift my focus now to Rick Martel.

<v Speaker 1>I'm going to start the Rick Martel lobby. He doesn't

<v Speaker 1>have to lobby for it himself. We'll do it for him.

<v Speaker 1>But Rick Martel definitely belongs in the WWE Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, his manager here makes a great point considering

<v Speaker 1>some of the names in the Hall of Fame. How

<v Speaker 1>can you possibly say that Rick Martel does not belong

<v Speaker 1>in the Hall of Fame. But Rick Martel was there, man,

<v Speaker 1>He was there at the big event on Long Island

<v Speaker 1>yesterday and again he had that massive line for his

<v Speaker 1>signing and he seemed to be having a good time.

<v Speaker 1>Kind of went over to sneak a peek. I wanted

<v Speaker 1>to take a look at the guy. Seventy years old,

<v Speaker 1>he still looks good, looks good, he looks healthy. He's

<v Speaker 1>happy obviously outside the wrestling business doing his thing. I

<v Speaker 1>think I had heard he was in real estate or something.

<v Speaker 1>But good for him, man, good for him. Look, if

<v Speaker 1>he wants to make money, he makes convention appearances like this,

<v Speaker 1>like if he was going to be a wrestle Khan.

<v Speaker 1>And I don't know if he's supposed to be, if

<v Speaker 1>he's scheduled for wrestle kin of Vegas this year. But

<v Speaker 1>if he went around the Horn making these appearances and

<v Speaker 1>he brought that atomizer with him, you know, the arrogance canister,

<v Speaker 1>he'd make a fucking fortune, are you kidding me? Signing

<v Speaker 1>autographs and taking picture with that thing. He'd take a

<v Speaker 1>picture with the atomizer. He would be raking in. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>he'd be making bank on these appearances. He may not

<v Speaker 1>have to do it. I think it's cool for the fans.

<v Speaker 1>You want to be able to meet with him, So

<v Speaker 1>I hope he does more of them. It's just it's

<v Speaker 1>a very rare thing, which is why the line for

<v Speaker 1>him was so long yesterday. Anyway, we'll wrap it up there,

<v Speaker 1>get back to your mailbag questions next week or maybe

<v Speaker 1>on the Uncrowned Wrestling Show this Tuesday. I want to

<v Speaker 1>let everybody know that there is a new dedicated feed,

<v Speaker 1>so you can still get the show on the main

<v Speaker 1>Ariel hell Wani show feed. That's not going to change,

<v Speaker 1>but there is also now a dedicated feed specifically for

<v Speaker 1>the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. So there's all the MMA shows

<v Speaker 1>or you know, boxing shows, whatever Ariel has that he

<v Speaker 1>pushes out or on his main show channel. This one

<v Speaker 1>will have only the wrestling shows and it should be up.

<v Speaker 1>It should be populated by now pretty much everywhere Apple Spotify,

<v Speaker 1>So if you'd rather subscribe there or listen to it

<v Speaker 1>there by all means go ahead. As long as you're listening.

<v Speaker 1>We got episode seven coming up this Tuesday. I also

<v Speaker 1>wanted to mention this actually before we wrap up. I said,

<v Speaker 1>the other night, I don't know how it came up,

<v Speaker 1>but I mentioned the new scream movie, Scream seven, and

<v Speaker 1>I said, I hadn't seen it and probably wasn't going

<v Speaker 1>to because everybody was shitting on it and talking about

<v Speaker 1>how terrible it was. But then I couldn't resist, so

<v Speaker 1>I did watch Scream seven. The other day. I thought

<v Speaker 1>Nev Campbell was great. I thought The girl who played

<v Speaker 1>her daughter in the movie was also pretty good. And

<v Speaker 1>that's about it. Everything that people were saying about this movie, unfortunately,

<v Speaker 1>is one hundred percent true. It is easily the worst

<v Speaker 1>Scream movie of the entire Frame franchise. It will not

<v Speaker 1>be the last because it certainly didn't impact the box office.

<v Speaker 1>It did. It did like forty million or something. I

<v Speaker 1>think it's opening weekend, so I'm sure there's going to

<v Speaker 1>be a Scream eight, nine, and ten. But Scream seven

<v Speaker 1>was fucking awful. And the big reveal at the end

<v Speaker 1>as far as the killers and all that, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>I'm not going to get deep into spoilers or anything,

<v Speaker 1>but man, that was just fucking horrendous, absolutely horrendous. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>they took the most lazy, bare bones approach to this

<v Speaker 1>script and trying to figure out where to go with it,

<v Speaker 1>and you know who the big reveal should be at

<v Speaker 1>the end, and it was. It was like just a

<v Speaker 1>poor I don't say mockery of the past films, because

<v Speaker 1>I felt like they weren't trying to mock the past films,

<v Speaker 1>but it was just a cheap knockoff that did not

<v Speaker 1>have the heart and soul and humor and just everything

<v Speaker 1>that made the especially the early movies work, was just

<v Speaker 1>completely absent from this movie. And I just feel like

<v Speaker 1>I would have been better off not watching it at all,

<v Speaker 1>but got the better of me. I just couldn't help myself.

<v Speaker 1>I said, I saw all the other ones, I have

<v Speaker 1>to see this one too. It fucking sucked. It was terrible.

<v Speaker 1>It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen or anything

<v Speaker 1>like that, but it's not a movie I have any

<v Speaker 1>great desire to ever go back and watch ever again.

<v Speaker 1>Hopefully the movies I will see later this year will

<v Speaker 1>be better. I'm looking forward to the Street Fighter movie,

<v Speaker 1>the Mortal Kombat movie. What else is coming out this year? Oh,

<v Speaker 1>the Masters of the Universe movie. I'll probably see Toy

<v Speaker 1>Story five. I mean that that should have been over

<v Speaker 1>after Toy Story three, but I love me a good

<v Speaker 1>Toy Story movie. I think the Tablet is the evil

<v Speaker 1>villain in this movie, right, the evil Tablet. Maybe it

<v Speaker 1>We'll start to have AI Toy Story characters that could

<v Speaker 1>be the theme for part six. AI will be the

<v Speaker 1>villain anyway. Be well, stay safe. Every solle is a

<v Speaker 1>great rest of your week. Don't forget I'm gonna be

<v Speaker 1>live Monday night after Raw, Wednesday night after Dynamite, and

<v Speaker 1>Friday night after SmackDown for all the usual streams live

<v Speaker 1>on YouTube. We are very very close. We are less

<v Speaker 1>than one hundred subs away from ninety one thousand subscribers,

<v Speaker 1>so now it would be a good time to hop

<v Speaker 1>on there. Of course, Tuesday, the Uncrowned Wrestling Show will drop.

<v Speaker 1>Tuesday night, The Titans are back. Tuesday Night, Titans Live

<v Speaker 1>on YouTube. You got a lot of content coming your way.

<v Speaker 1>And then next Sunday, episode nine fifty seven of the

<v Speaker 1>Solemn Monster Sounds Off. Until then, take care, guys, the

<v Speaker 1>Solemn Monster Sounds Off. I had to sit here and

<v Speaker 1>listen to jelly Roll talk about how Wilson's mother knows

<v Speaker 1>all about his little Willie because when he was fat,

<v Speaker 1>he took the belly fat and put it on her back.

<v Speaker 1>We have someone who's here almost every stream, give me backshot,

<v Speaker 1>Solo Monster. That's nothing compared to the image of jelly

<v Speaker 1>Roll porking Kit Wilson's mom with his belly fat draped

<v Speaker 1>over her back. Eh, excuse me, but there are some

<v Speaker 1>glaring omissions to that. WrestleMania car. But I gotta watch

<v Speaker 1>Jelly roll out there talking about pork and Kit Wilson's mom. Eh,

<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna try to hold it in. I'm gonna try

<v Speaker 1>to hold it in. I'm gonna do my best. I

<v Speaker 1>make no promises. The Solo Monster Sounds off bringing you

<v Speaker 1>the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check out the

<v Speaker 1>weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and follow The

<v Speaker 1>Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and X The Solo Monster