<v Speaker 1>It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monster
<v Speaker 1>Sounds Off. I love you so, mama, monster dude, I
<v Speaker 1>want your soul mind a woman. You got grown ass
<v Speaker 1>wrestlers in the back going on Twitter. Come over here party?
<v Speaker 1>Is that pet Patison you have legs? 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 want to know the
<v Speaker 1>reason why you won't. Park. Welcome to episode nine fifty
<v Speaker 1>nine of The Solemn Monster Sounds Off. It is Sunday,
<v Speaker 1>April twelve, twenty twenty six. I am the Solo Manster.
<v Speaker 1>We are less than a week out from WrestleMania A WrestleMania.
<v Speaker 1>The WWE is actively making worse with each passing week.
<v Speaker 1>I've never seen anything like it. But I've got the
<v Speaker 1>full lineups of what's happening on what night, and I
<v Speaker 1>will be diving into my predictions. AEW Dynasty is only
<v Speaker 1>a few hours away. I've got a final preview and
<v Speaker 1>predictions for that show. Lots of Vince McMahon talk this week.
<v Speaker 1>This is starting to get a little worrisome. Alberto Dell
<v Speaker 1>dipshit back in the news. I'm shocked, I tell you,
<v Speaker 1>by such behavior. And he always seemed like such a fine,
<v Speaker 1>upstanding citizen from everything we've ever heard about the guy
<v Speaker 1>Rick Flair was doing Rick Flair things again this week.
<v Speaker 1>I'll get into that. We got a lot on the
<v Speaker 1>plate this week, so I hope you guys brought your appetite.
<v Speaker 1>Some of you even brought those PayPal donations, and for
<v Speaker 1>that I am grateful. And if you would like to
<v Speaker 1>support the podcast, you may do so on the solomonster
<v Speaker 1>dot com ten dollars or more. We'll get you a
<v Speaker 1>nickname and a shout out. I want to say thank
<v Speaker 1>you here in this wrestle many a week to the
<v Speaker 1>Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Big b Bryant, Bessera, The
<v Speaker 1>Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soapp, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray,
<v Speaker 1>the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, Recon Russell, Bullwaar, they Russelled,
<v Speaker 1>thank you for the double drop, Night Stalker and if
<v Speaker 1>Alsafar kill shot Keith Hart and Big Time. Boris Weinman
<v Speaker 1>says this week your shows and podcasts have been fire
<v Speaker 1>and it's not even Friday. I know and now it's Sunday.
<v Speaker 1>We get the big payoff today. So thank you Boris
<v Speaker 1>and thank you everybody else. One last time here to
<v Speaker 1>promote the big show coming up before Wrestle Manie. It's
<v Speaker 1>after coming up this Thursday night at eight pm local time,
<v Speaker 1>House of Glory Culture Clash invades Las Vegas at the
<v Speaker 1>Pearl Theater at the Palms Casino Resort. I will be there.
<v Speaker 1>I will be on the call very much looking forward
<v Speaker 1>to this show. The Hog Tag Team champions Matt and
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Hardy we'll be defending their titles against the Good Brothers.
<v Speaker 1>Charles Mason defends the Hog World Championship against Michael Oku
<v Speaker 1>first time ever. Bandido takes on the amazing Red Brody
<v Speaker 1>King challenges Zillafa to another first time ever match. Shots
<v Speaker 1>He Blackheart defends r HOG Women's Championship against Charlie the
<v Speaker 1>debuting former Dakota Kai and Bang Bang. Ricky Sosa arrives
<v Speaker 1>in Hog, He takes on cash Flow, Ken Broadway and
<v Speaker 1>more So. Tickets are on sale right now hog Wrestling
<v Speaker 1>dot Net at the Palms and if you can't be
<v Speaker 1>there live and hopefully you can for those of you
<v Speaker 1>who are going to be in town. I mean, whether
<v Speaker 1>you're local or you're traveling in for WrestleMania stuff, it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a good night. But if you can't be
<v Speaker 1>there in person, we will be streaming live on Trailer
<v Speaker 1>TV Plus. In fact, you can go place your order
<v Speaker 1>right now on the order page. So it's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>a big night. I'm flying in on Wednesday, and then
<v Speaker 1>the event is on Thursday, and then I'm making my
<v Speaker 1>way back here to New York on Friday. So it's
<v Speaker 1>gonna be a very busy end of the week for
<v Speaker 1>yours truly. Now let's start with aew this week, since
<v Speaker 1>they do have a pay per view tonight. But before
<v Speaker 1>I get into that, I wanted to comment on the
<v Speaker 1>interview that Tony Kahan gave to Jonathan Coachman and Vince
<v Speaker 1>Russo this week on their Coaching Bro show. I thought
<v Speaker 1>Tony handled himself very well. He's clearly been either media
<v Speaker 1>trained or decided to train himself to be more disciplined
<v Speaker 1>with this stuff and not take de bait uncertain things right,
<v Speaker 1>turn the other cheek, kill him with kindness. Russo made
<v Speaker 1>a valid point, and yes, I actually just spoke those
<v Speaker 1>words out loud. He made a valid point when he
<v Speaker 1>told Tony, you know, you've got this huge opportunity right
<v Speaker 1>now with all the fans that are feeling disenfranchised with
<v Speaker 1>the WWE product, or maybe they're feeling priced out by TKO,
<v Speaker 1>and you have a real opportunity here to bring those
<v Speaker 1>fans into the fold in AEW. And he's absolutely right.
<v Speaker 1>I would be hammering home that affordability point NonStop if
<v Speaker 1>I were AW, not that your product is cheaper, right.
<v Speaker 1>You never want to use the word cheap to describe
<v Speaker 1>your product or your ticket prices, even if they are.
<v Speaker 1>You use the word affordable. And affordability is a big
<v Speaker 1>issue right now for a lot of people, and the
<v Speaker 1>cost of an AW ticket is just objectively more affordable
<v Speaker 1>than a WWE ticket right now, And then hammer home
<v Speaker 1>that one of AAW's strong suits is its focus on wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>You know, sometimes there's too much wrestling in any given night,
<v Speaker 1>but if that's what you're looking for, you're going to
<v Speaker 1>get more bang for your bucket an AW show than
<v Speaker 1>you will generally at a WWE show. You know, these
<v Speaker 1>are things that I have heard Kenny Omega talking about
<v Speaker 1>it recently, But they should have every one of their
<v Speaker 1>top talents that is out there, and I think MJF
<v Speaker 1>also has talked about it, but they should have every
<v Speaker 1>one of their top talents out there that are doing
<v Speaker 1>media for Dynasty talking about this stuff. But Russo's point
<v Speaker 1>was also, you know, step on their neck, go for
<v Speaker 1>the jugular, and Tony's response was, you know, he doesn't
<v Speaker 1>need to be that cutthroat, basically, but he does see
<v Speaker 1>that there is an opportunity there. And even people who
<v Speaker 1>told him, you know, not to come on their show,
<v Speaker 1>he told Russo, like you, Vince, I'm a Christian and
<v Speaker 1>I'm not going to hold a negga things that people
<v Speaker 1>said about me in the past, or of that AAW
<v Speaker 1>in the past against them for the rest of their lives.
<v Speaker 1>That's not what Jesus would do. And maybe he truly
<v Speaker 1>believes that, or maybe he just had a really savvy
<v Speaker 1>way of answering that question, because I'm sure he does
<v Speaker 1>hold things against certain people that have said negative things
<v Speaker 1>about AAW. But it was a really smart answer. But
<v Speaker 1>now is a great time for him to try to
<v Speaker 1>lure some of those fans over, like, hey, look, we've
<v Speaker 1>got a big tent over here. You know, there's plenty
<v Speaker 1>of room for everyone. I don't think the interview was
<v Speaker 1>radically different from others that he has done. He did
<v Speaker 1>give them over an hour. They did ask some questions
<v Speaker 1>that he has not been asked before, or people just
<v Speaker 1>have recently not had a chance to sit down and
<v Speaker 1>ask him. He addressed Chris Jericho's return to AAW, saying,
<v Speaker 1>I do know that Chris had a choice and he
<v Speaker 1>wanted to be in AW. He would be the best
<v Speaker 1>person to ask. But I know that I've been in
<v Speaker 1>communication with Chris and he definitely told me that he
<v Speaker 1>wanted to be at AAW and very specifically in Winnipeg
<v Speaker 1>on that date. We've had that circled for a long time,
<v Speaker 1>going back to last year, and it was a choice
<v Speaker 1>that Chris made that he would rather be in AW
<v Speaker 1>than wrestling anywhere else, and I think that's awesome. So
<v Speaker 1>I can't say for sure exactly what his mindset was,
<v Speaker 1>but I know that he definitely always has been consistent
<v Speaker 1>that he loves AW and he wants to be here,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm glad that he chose to be in AAW
<v Speaker 1>because that is a choice that he made. Because he
<v Speaker 1>was a free agent, he didn't speak to any time
<v Speaker 1>that he may have tacked onto Jericho's deal, and he
<v Speaker 1>specifically mentioned that Jericho was a free agent, right, that
<v Speaker 1>was the language that he used. Now, obviously his contract
<v Speaker 1>never officially expired, because if it had, they usually, you know,
<v Speaker 1>they pulled people from their roster page, and they never
<v Speaker 1>did that with Jericho. Jericho was on there consistently for
<v Speaker 1>the entire year that he was out. But that's what
<v Speaker 1>he said here. And also, you know, he said that
<v Speaker 1>they had Winnipeg right that Dayton Winnipeg for Dynamite last
<v Speaker 1>week circled dating back to last year. So my guess
<v Speaker 1>is that you know, Jericho sent out Field either directly
<v Speaker 1>or indirectly to WWE. He may have had conversations with
<v Speaker 1>them directly, and I think WWE wanted him for a
<v Speaker 1>retirement run. That's what I think they wanted him for,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't think Jericho is interested in that. But also,
<v Speaker 1>like he would not have had the kind of freedom
<v Speaker 1>to do outside things with WWE the way that he
<v Speaker 1>does now with AW So outside of getting that nostalgia
<v Speaker 1>pop from the WWE audience and having all new faces
<v Speaker 1>to work with, like if you're Jericho, it just made
<v Speaker 1>more sense to stay put and he probably got himself
<v Speaker 1>a much better deal out of it. So I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>that was all part of his plan, too, right, to
<v Speaker 1>drive up his value with all this talk that hey,
<v Speaker 1>he might go back to WWE, and Tony Kahn really
<v Speaker 1>wanted to keep him and said, hey, you know, basically,
<v Speaker 1>what's it going to take to keep you here in
<v Speaker 1>AAW And he was asked about their reliance on hardcore
<v Speaker 1>matches and violence on AW shows, like all the blood
<v Speaker 1>and syringes through the cheek, that sort of thing, and
<v Speaker 1>how that might turn off newer fans checking out the
<v Speaker 1>product for the first time. Tony said that there are
<v Speaker 1>some hardcore things that he thinks would not be a
<v Speaker 1>good idea and he will say no to. Now, think
<v Speaker 1>of all the shit that we see on these shows
<v Speaker 1>that he doesn't say no to. The stuff that he
<v Speaker 1>does say no to, what must what must those ideas
<v Speaker 1>look like? But he said there are some things that
<v Speaker 1>he first runs by the network. Right, there's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>something hardcore being done on TBS or TNT. But a
<v Speaker 1>lot of you know what Coach was describing happened on
<v Speaker 1>the pay per view, which is what Tony said, Like
<v Speaker 1>what you're talking about you know that took place on
<v Speaker 1>a pay per view talking about the Texas Death Match
<v Speaker 1>between MJF and Hangman, And that's a fair point. But
<v Speaker 1>you know they did do two blood and guts matches
<v Speaker 1>on television last year, one for the men and one
<v Speaker 1>for the women, and they have blood, you know, on
<v Speaker 1>almost every single show, every single week. We've seen the
<v Speaker 1>thumbtacks and the staple guns and the barb wire. We've
<v Speaker 1>seen that on television plenty of time, so it's not
<v Speaker 1>just on pay per view. Russo brought up brawl out
<v Speaker 1>and the scrum with CM Punk and how bad he
<v Speaker 1>felt for Tony looking at him squirming around up there,
<v Speaker 1>and he asked him if he learned anything from that experience,
<v Speaker 1>and Tony said that he did, but he never really
<v Speaker 1>elaborated on what those things were that he learned, other
<v Speaker 1>than to say that there are things he would have
<v Speaker 1>done and said differently. And I will always say that
<v Speaker 1>whole situation could have been avoided if he would have
<v Speaker 1>stepped in. Months earlier, when rumors first started circulating about
<v Speaker 1>CM Punk getting Cult Cabana banished from aw television, he
<v Speaker 1>got him banished to Ring of Honor. And if that
<v Speaker 1>wasn't true, then Tony should have addressed it because it
<v Speaker 1>was allowed to fester, and clearly it annoyed Punk, who said,
<v Speaker 1>I had nothing to do with any of this shit.
<v Speaker 1>And I can believe that CM Punk at no point
<v Speaker 1>went to Tony kh and said, hey, you got to
<v Speaker 1>get rid of this guy. But what I can believe
<v Speaker 1>is that is that Tony Khan decided, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>I know, there's no love lost here between these two.
<v Speaker 1>Punk's my guy, he's my top guy, he's my champion
<v Speaker 1>rights or he became champion later on. But to avoid
<v Speaker 1>any potential conflicts here, we're going to shift cult Cabana
<v Speaker 1>over here, or we're not going to use him on
<v Speaker 1>the show right now. I could absolutely believe that it
<v Speaker 1>was something that Tony Khan went and did on his own,
<v Speaker 1>and it annoyed the fuck out of CM Punk because
<v Speaker 1>the narrative became that Punk got Cult Cabana iceed or
<v Speaker 1>he got him fired or whatever. So to me, it
<v Speaker 1>goes all the way back to that. Or you can
<v Speaker 1>look at the workers' rights promo right the hangman page
<v Speaker 1>promo on cmpunk before their match A double or Nothing,
<v Speaker 1>which obviously touched a nerve with Punk and I think
<v Speaker 1>Tony should have stepped in gotten the two of them
<v Speaker 1>in a room. I don't think he realizes how serious
<v Speaker 1>the situation that was. I don't know that anybody did.
<v Speaker 1>But he could have put the flames out a lot earlier,
<v Speaker 1>and he didn't, and it turned into this uncontrollable blaze
<v Speaker 1>that almost burned down the entire company. Now, they asked
<v Speaker 1>him about his famous meeting with Shane McMahon at the
<v Speaker 1>airport in twenty twenty four. He said, I had one
<v Speaker 1>really pleasant conversation with Shane. Shane reached out to me
<v Speaker 1>and said I'd love to get together. Where are you
<v Speaker 1>going to be I was going to be in Dallas.
<v Speaker 1>I said, I can meet you here. We had a
<v Speaker 1>nice conversation. We talked for a few hours at the airport.
<v Speaker 1>I thought it was really strange that a photo came
<v Speaker 1>out from it. I thought it was pretty unusual. It
<v Speaker 1>could just be that somebody who worked at the airport,
<v Speaker 1>but I know I had nothing to do with it. It's
<v Speaker 1>very unusual. I talk to people all the time from
<v Speaker 1>all different media places. Shane is a very recognizable face
<v Speaker 1>in sports, in the world of wrestling. That could be
<v Speaker 1>what it is somebody recognized that we were in a
<v Speaker 1>room and wanted to take a photo. I'm in a
<v Speaker 1>lot of rooms with a lot of people, and I've
<v Speaker 1>only ever had that happen to me one time. I
<v Speaker 1>thought that was pretty unusual. You could see in the photo,
<v Speaker 1>I'm very surprised. I noticed that he wasn't as surprised
<v Speaker 1>in the photo. I've only had one really nice talk
<v Speaker 1>with him. I also thought it was quite impressive that
<v Speaker 1>in one conversation it somehow got out that I had
<v Speaker 1>talked to him. It was a pleasant chat, and he
<v Speaker 1>seemed like a really interesting guy. I don't think the
<v Speaker 1>role of being an on screen person on a wrestling
<v Speaker 1>show seemed like something he was particularly interested in, but
<v Speaker 1>he had a lot of interesting things and experiences that
<v Speaker 1>are totally different than mine. I don't think he went
<v Speaker 1>into it thinking I want to be a character on
<v Speaker 1>this guy's show. He really went out of his way
<v Speaker 1>to let us know that he had nothing to do
<v Speaker 1>with that photo leaking. But boy, it was sure strange
<v Speaker 1>that Shane didn't seem all that surprised by the photo.
<v Speaker 1>If you don't even have to read between the lines,
<v Speaker 1>you know he's saying it without saying it, you know
<v Speaker 1>what he was getting at there, and I think he's
<v Speaker 1>probably right. I think Shane wanted back in WWE, and
<v Speaker 1>he called the meeting to make sure that it would
<v Speaker 1>get out. He was never going to AAW. He never
<v Speaker 1>wanted to go to AAW and maybe he felt like
<v Speaker 1>he could actually learn something from the conversation, you know,
<v Speaker 1>like inside information or something. But I think he wanted
<v Speaker 1>word to get out and that it would put pressure
<v Speaker 1>on WWE to reach out to him about bringing him back.
<v Speaker 1>And it didn't work. And I'm glad he didn't end
<v Speaker 1>up as an on screen character in AW because the
<v Speaker 1>last thing AW needed or needs is a fucking McMahon
<v Speaker 1>on TV. But I also loved all these fans at
<v Speaker 1>the time who were like, yeah, but Shane is just
<v Speaker 1>the creative force that TK needs behind the scenes, right
<v Speaker 1>when there is absolutely no evidence of Shane McMahon being
<v Speaker 1>any sort of creative mastermind. I still don't know where
<v Speaker 1>or how that narrative got started, Like he may be,
<v Speaker 1>he may be a creative genius and we just don't
<v Speaker 1>know it. But some people were talking about it like
<v Speaker 1>this is exactly what Tony Kahan needs, And I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>based on what what evidence do you have to base
<v Speaker 1>this on raw underground Like it never made any sense
<v Speaker 1>to me. They asked him about the Brandon Thurston report
<v Speaker 1>from last week about him bidding on WWE back in
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty three, and it was funny, you know, listening
<v Speaker 1>to coach talk about how you know nobody else has
<v Speaker 1>asked him about this, Yes, because the report just came out.
<v Speaker 1>He hadn't done any interviews to my knowledge since the
<v Speaker 1>news came out. Okay, calm down, But he admitted that
<v Speaker 1>he did indeed make a bid for six point nine
<v Speaker 1>billion dollars, which he said was market value for WWE
<v Speaker 1>at that time. And he said, like if the company
<v Speaker 1>had sold for any less than that, if they sold
<v Speaker 1>for like six and a half billion, he would have
<v Speaker 1>been kicking himself for not trying. And he understood, you know,
<v Speaker 1>why they wouldn't grant him access to the room that
<v Speaker 1>the other bidders were allowed to go into so they
<v Speaker 1>could go through additional like financial records, confidential records for WWE.
<v Speaker 1>You know, he understood why they didn't want him in
<v Speaker 1>that room. But it's just one of those things where like,
<v Speaker 1>man if I didn't make that bid and the company
<v Speaker 1>sold for less than that, I'd be kicking myself, you know.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, he had nothing to lose. He was never
<v Speaker 1>going to get it, but he had nothing to lose,
<v Speaker 1>you know, by making a bid. But maybe the biggest
<v Speaker 1>takeaway from the entire interview was them asking him and
<v Speaker 1>Russo asked him, what's in the cup? Everywhere this man goes,
<v Speaker 1>every interview, every podcast, every scrum, he's got that fucking
<v Speaker 1>cup in his hand. It's like his emotional support cup.
<v Speaker 1>And he said it's black coffee. That was the biggest
<v Speaker 1>development to come out of this entire thing. Now we
<v Speaker 1>know what is inside the cup. Aw Dynasty is tonight
<v Speaker 1>from Vancouver, British Columbia. Are they still bringing signs to
<v Speaker 1>a WWE show saying bring WrestleMania to Vancouver. I haven't
<v Speaker 1>seen one of those signs in a long time. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>they realized, hey, we can't afford to go if they
<v Speaker 1>bring WrestleMania to Vancouver. On paper, it is a very
<v Speaker 1>strong card. I'm sure in execution it will be too.
<v Speaker 1>Their pay per views usually are. They're also usually very long,
<v Speaker 1>so I will not be live tonight if it started
<v Speaker 1>a couple of hours earlier I would, but I got
<v Speaker 1>a busy week coming up. I can't be going a
<v Speaker 1>bit at four o'clock in the morning again. I did
<v Speaker 1>that shit after SmackDown on Friday. At least WrestleMania starts
<v Speaker 1>at six each night, so that shouldn't be too bad.
<v Speaker 1>But on Collision last night, they added three new title matches,
<v Speaker 1>because of course they did. On the Zero Hour pre show,
<v Speaker 1>we have Jack Perry. He's going to be defending his
<v Speaker 1>national title against Mark Davis, and I had floated Davis
<v Speaker 1>as a pick to win the Casino Gauntlet for the
<v Speaker 1>TNT title, so I guess that's out the window now.
<v Speaker 1>This will be a win for Jack. Perry also added
<v Speaker 1>Meghan Bain and Lena Cross a Divine Dominion, we'll defend
<v Speaker 1>their women's tag team titles against Hi on in Maya World.
<v Speaker 1>That'll be another win for Divine Dominion. And already announced
<v Speaker 1>on the Zero Hour, Alex Windsor will take on Marina
<v Speaker 1>Shaffir of the Death Riders. Windsor is looking for revenge
<v Speaker 1>on the Death Riders for what they did to her fiance.
<v Speaker 1>I'm changing my prediction from last week. I had said
<v Speaker 1>that I think Alex Windsor gets the win here. I
<v Speaker 1>think Marina Shafir gets the win given that Windsor is
<v Speaker 1>doing the tag team thing right now. Plus I just
<v Speaker 1>think it's going to be a bad night for the
<v Speaker 1>Osprey family, so I'm going with Marina Shaffir. That just
<v Speaker 1>added to the main card the Dogs. David Finley gave
<v Speaker 1>Kid and Clark Conners, who are the brand new aw
<v Speaker 1>Trios champions. They beat Jet Speed and Mystico on Collision
<v Speaker 1>last night. They will have their first defense of those
<v Speaker 1>titles against the conglomeration Orange Cassidy, Roderick Strong and a
<v Speaker 1>mystery partner who I figure ends up being the returning
<v Speaker 1>Kyle O'Reilly, who said in an interview a few days
<v Speaker 1>ago that he was really hoping to return on the
<v Speaker 1>pay per view. He was born in the Vancouver area,
<v Speaker 1>he's from there. But they just put the belts on
<v Speaker 1>the Dogs last night, so I mean, why the hell
<v Speaker 1>would you take the belts off of them, right? I mean,
<v Speaker 1>even Tomaso Champa got to hold the TNT title for
<v Speaker 1>eleven days before they took it away from him, so
<v Speaker 1>this should be a win for the Dogs. Speaking of Champa, though,
<v Speaker 1>that brings me to the Casino Gauntlet for the now
<v Speaker 1>vacant TNT Championship. Tamaso Champa will be entering in the
<v Speaker 1>number one spot, Rouche will be entering in the number
<v Speaker 1>two spot, and we have no idea who else is
<v Speaker 1>going to be in this thing or how long it's
<v Speaker 1>going to go on. For the way these gauntlets work,
<v Speaker 1>first fall wins it. So the gauntlet could end after
<v Speaker 1>the first two guys are in there, or the gauntlet
<v Speaker 1>could end after twenty guys are in there. We just
<v Speaker 1>don't know. But this is on the heels of don
<v Speaker 1>Kallis making the announcement on Dynamite on Wednesday that unfortunately
<v Speaker 1>Kyle Fletcher is injured and is having surgery. He's in
<v Speaker 1>the hospital or he was, and the TNT Championship therefore
<v Speaker 1>is vacant. And what happened is he was injured during
<v Speaker 1>a tag team match on Collision. This was back on
<v Speaker 1>March twenty eighth. It was a tag team match. It
<v Speaker 1>was Fletcher and Mark Davis against the Rascals. I think
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned this last week. We all backwards at one
<v Speaker 1>point in the ring and his leg got caught underneath
<v Speaker 1>him and it was very clear that he hurt himself.
<v Speaker 1>We just didn't know how seriously he hurt himself. He
<v Speaker 1>finished the match, but obviously it was very significant and fightful.
<v Speaker 1>I believe was the first outlet that I saw to
<v Speaker 1>report that he had sustained a moniscous injury in addition
<v Speaker 1>to additional injuries, which sounds terrible. So we ain't going
<v Speaker 1>to see Kyle Fletcher for a very long time. So
<v Speaker 1>the TA and I'm very happy by the way. They
<v Speaker 1>didn't do the usual thing that Tony Kaan has done before,
<v Speaker 1>where we'll have an interim champion, like enough with the
<v Speaker 1>interim shit, So they did the right thing. They stripped
<v Speaker 1>him of the title. The title is vacant. I think
<v Speaker 1>the last time that we had one of these, I
<v Speaker 1>predicted a Jay White return, but I have not heard
<v Speaker 1>any updates on him in a while, and we haven't
<v Speaker 1>seen him since the Tokyo Dome in January when he
<v Speaker 1>was there to pay his respects to Tanahashi after his
<v Speaker 1>retirement match. But because this match was made on short
<v Speaker 1>notice due to an injury, I don't think there's some
<v Speaker 1>grand plan here to bring Jay White back at Dynasty
<v Speaker 1>and put the TNT title on him. You know, this
<v Speaker 1>was something very sudden in the last week that Tony
<v Speaker 1>Khan had to pivot. There's that word again, and he
<v Speaker 1>had to figure out, Okay, what are we going to
<v Speaker 1>do here? You know, how are we going to crown
<v Speaker 1>a new champion? So I'm guessing Jay White doesn't factor
<v Speaker 1>into any of that. I mean, even if he is
<v Speaker 1>ready to return, and again we don't know. I'll tell
<v Speaker 1>you who I'm going with to win the title. Since
<v Speaker 1>my boy Mark Davis is probably not going to be
<v Speaker 1>in this thing, I'm going to go with Kevin Knight.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to go with the Jet Kevin Knight because
<v Speaker 1>Kevin Knight is somebody who, at least for a little
<v Speaker 1>bit there, right, we went through this period over the
<v Speaker 1>last few months where he was getting a bit of
<v Speaker 1>a push, He was getting a lot of television time,
<v Speaker 1>he was racking up some wins. He was sharing the
<v Speaker 1>ring with some big names including Gokata and MJF And
<v Speaker 1>you know, Tony seems to think very highly of him,
<v Speaker 1>as he should. He's very talented, and I think that
<v Speaker 1>they will put the TNT Championship on him and give
<v Speaker 1>him a run with the title. I think the title
<v Speaker 1>would serve him well. Of course, It all depends on
<v Speaker 1>how he is booked as the TNT champion. He could
<v Speaker 1>be booked like shit and then it doesn't matter. But
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna go Kevin Knight. I think that he could
<v Speaker 1>really benefit from a win here winning the TNT title.
<v Speaker 1>Chris Jericho, he is back. He had a segment on
<v Speaker 1>Dynamite in Edmonton on Wednesday where he was about to
<v Speaker 1>sign his brand new aw contract and he was confronted
<v Speaker 1>by Ricochet and the Gates of Agony, and this all
<v Speaker 1>led to Jericho not only signing the contract but saying
<v Speaker 1>that there is a stipulation in the contract that allows
<v Speaker 1>him to choose his first opponent back in Vancouver at Dynasty,
<v Speaker 1>and like a Pokemon, I choose you. So we're getting
<v Speaker 1>Chris Jericho against Rikishe. I believe that's their first ever match,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't think Jericho is losing his first match back.
<v Speaker 1>It would be a nice show of Hey, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm here to put over the current crop of guys
<v Speaker 1>if he was to lose to Ricochet. But I think
<v Speaker 1>that Jericho is gonna win here because I think there's
<v Speaker 1>a greater plan to get him into the ring with
<v Speaker 1>Swerve Strickland I think Jericho and Swerve that's gonna be
<v Speaker 1>the first real big program for Jericho. I think once
<v Speaker 1>they're ready to go with it. I don't know if
<v Speaker 1>that's the double or nothing match. Maybe they save that
<v Speaker 1>for Wembley. I don't know, but I think we're going
<v Speaker 1>to see those two in the ring together very soon.
<v Speaker 1>And I think to get to that match, which that
<v Speaker 1>is a match, if they do it, that Swerve should
<v Speaker 1>be winning that, Jericho at least needs to win his
<v Speaker 1>first match back. So I'm going with Jericho for the
<v Speaker 1>w Here we have Androde Eliedelo. He is the hand
<v Speaker 1>picked member of the don Kallis family going in there
<v Speaker 1>to try to take out Darby Allen. That is the
<v Speaker 1>story here. MJF gave don Kallis a briefcase full of
<v Speaker 1>money and said take this guy out, and don Kallis
<v Speaker 1>chose Andrade to be that guy, and Androde is not
<v Speaker 1>very very happy about this, and they have dropped a
<v Speaker 1>lot of hints about where Androde may be going in
<v Speaker 1>the future. I think he's headed out of the don
<v Speaker 1>Kallis family very soon. He's very uncomfortable with some of
<v Speaker 1>the decisions that have been made. He didn't like that
<v Speaker 1>they were doing business with MJF. He seemed caught off
<v Speaker 1>guard when Callous made the announcement on TV that he
<v Speaker 1>was going to be the one to get into the
<v Speaker 1>ring with Darby. Androde pinned Jack Perry in the trios
<v Speaker 1>match that we had on Dynamite on Wednesday. It was Darby,
<v Speaker 1>Bandido and Perry on the other side, and they gave
<v Speaker 1>Androde the winning fall. I think to keep him looking strong,
<v Speaker 1>you know, going into a match here that I think
<v Speaker 1>he's losing, because it also furthers his story. If he
<v Speaker 1>can't beat Darby Allen, it's going to cause problems with
<v Speaker 1>him and the Callous family. And Darby has cut enough
<v Speaker 1>promos in recent weeks to where I think it's pretty
<v Speaker 1>it's a pretty safe bet he's getting the world title
<v Speaker 1>match at double or nothing. So I'm going with Darby
<v Speaker 1>for the win. We had the Young Bucks against Okada
<v Speaker 1>and Taqushta. We had some more forward movements with Okata
<v Speaker 1>and Takeshta. Whenever I see the two of them beefing
<v Speaker 1>on screen, I perk up. It's still some of the
<v Speaker 1>best segments on any of these shows. And so they
<v Speaker 1>were going at it on Dynamite on Wednesday and they
<v Speaker 1>had to be broken up by the other members of
<v Speaker 1>the Kallis family and Takesha said, look, I want that,
<v Speaker 1>and he was pointing at Okata's international title. I want
<v Speaker 1>to shot at that. And Callus said, look, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Kyle's in the hospital. He's been taken out, and we
<v Speaker 1>got to do it for Kyle. I need you to
<v Speaker 1>team up with Okada because Takesha wanted to have nothing
<v Speaker 1>to do with this guy, because I need you to
<v Speaker 1>do it for Kyle, Okay, I need you guys to
<v Speaker 1>be partners, and I'll tell you what you want to
<v Speaker 1>shot at the international title. You got it. You team
<v Speaker 1>up with Okada this Sunday and you'll get your match.
<v Speaker 1>And he didn't say when, and Okada didn't look happy
<v Speaker 1>about this, but they've already planted the seed there. It is,
<v Speaker 1>you know, to have a rematch between Okada and Takeshta,
<v Speaker 1>and we may not have to wait until August to
<v Speaker 1>get it, which is the best part. I think that
<v Speaker 1>probably is going to be the match at double or not.
<v Speaker 1>It may not be the last match between them, but
<v Speaker 1>it looks like we're probably gonna get Okada against t
<v Speaker 1>Keshta next month. In New York City and to get there,
<v Speaker 1>it makes more sense for the two of them to lose.
<v Speaker 1>So they're wrestling the Young Bucks, and I think also
<v Speaker 1>the Young Bucks are being positioned for another crack at
<v Speaker 1>the tag team titles at some point, probably against Cope
<v Speaker 1>and Christian. It just makes sense for the Young Bucks
<v Speaker 1>to go over. Here, we have Tecla defending the AW
<v Speaker 1>Women's World Championship. She is a primetime player now in
<v Speaker 1>that women's division. She signed a brand new contract a
<v Speaker 1>few weeks ago with AW when she still had a
<v Speaker 1>year left on her existing deal. Tony Kahm was so
<v Speaker 1>impressed by her, he said, look, I want to resign
<v Speaker 1>you right now for more money. That's how highly they
<v Speaker 1>think of Tecla. Techla's not losing this title anytime soon,
<v Speaker 1>but she's defending it tonight against Jamie Hayter. Techla's gonna win.
<v Speaker 1>Here's my other prediction. I think we get a surprise
<v Speaker 1>appearance tonight from Mercedes Monette, who we have not seen
<v Speaker 1>all year so far in AW television. The last time
<v Speaker 1>we saw her was on New Year's Eve when she
<v Speaker 1>lost the TBS title to Willow Nightingale. And she has
<v Speaker 1>lost every single one of her Independent championship. She is beltless.
<v Speaker 1>She has reached rock bottom. There is nowhere for her
<v Speaker 1>to go now but up, and I think it may
<v Speaker 1>be a while yet before she gets a crack at
<v Speaker 1>that title, but I think to reestablish herself and why
<v Speaker 1>she is back. We're going to see her show up
<v Speaker 1>and she's gonna confront Tekla when this match is over.
<v Speaker 1>We have John Moxley defending the aw Continental Championship against
<v Speaker 1>Will Ospray. The Continental title really doesn't even matter here.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the issue is a personal issue between Moxley
<v Speaker 1>and Ospray. The title was added though because now it
<v Speaker 1>is under Continental title rules, which means that everybody is
<v Speaker 1>banned from ringside, which means all the death Riders are
<v Speaker 1>banned from ringside, as well as Osprey's friends who we
<v Speaker 1>saw in Dynamite this week, the members of the United
<v Speaker 1>m We saw Callum Newman, the new IWGP World Champion,
<v Speaker 1>Mini Ospring, we saw Francesco Akira, we saw Henare. He
<v Speaker 1>brought them in from Japan. They just showed up on
<v Speaker 1>Dynamite this week and there was a backstage vignette they
<v Speaker 1>could aired on Collision. It was either on their Socials
<v Speaker 1>or a collision last night where they were in the
<v Speaker 1>back and he kind of went down the line and
<v Speaker 1>explained to everybody who they were, which you know, in
<v Speaker 1>theory would have been nice to air that on TV,
<v Speaker 1>but the way they did the angle, they showed up
<v Speaker 1>as a surprise, and so there was really no opportunity
<v Speaker 1>to do that without giving away like, oh, okay, the
<v Speaker 1>United Empire is here. But anyway, so none of these
<v Speaker 1>people are going to be allowed at ringside or to
<v Speaker 1>interfere in this match. That is why will Osbury wanted
<v Speaker 1>the Continental title to be on the line. I don't
<v Speaker 1>really think he gives a shit even in storyline about
<v Speaker 1>the Continental Championship. And I don't know what the time
<v Speaker 1>limit may be for this match. I mean, this is
<v Speaker 1>always the possibility they could go to a time limit draw.
<v Speaker 1>I don't see the benefit in putting this title on
<v Speaker 1>on will Ospray. He doesn't need it. It is not necessary.
<v Speaker 1>I think that John Moxley is winning. I think he's
<v Speaker 1>gonna beat will Ospray, and I think they're gonna circle
<v Speaker 1>back around to this in a month or two months.
<v Speaker 1>It could be a rematch of double or nothing. It
<v Speaker 1>could be the finals of the owen Hart Tournament, and
<v Speaker 1>that is where will Osprey will get his win back
<v Speaker 1>over John Moxley. And at that point he can now
<v Speaker 1>march towards Wembley in August, where he should be in
<v Speaker 1>the main event challenging for the AW World Championship. But
<v Speaker 1>I don't think he gets to the win. Here we
<v Speaker 1>have Adam Copeland and Christian Cage challenging FTR for the
<v Speaker 1>aw Tag Team titles. I mean, look, you know FTR
<v Speaker 1>they lost the first one, but they gave Copeland's wife
<v Speaker 1>a spike pile driver and then he vanished for months.
<v Speaker 1>Now they're back for revenge. They're in Canada. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's all been building to this moment. Adam Copeland and
<v Speaker 1>Christian Cage are going to leave the Rogers are re
<v Speaker 1>as the new AW Tag Team champions. And don't be
<v Speaker 1>surprised if we see a cameo tonight from Beth Coopland
<v Speaker 1>almost say Beth Phoenix from Beth Copeland, especially if she
<v Speaker 1>comes out to do something to Stokely Hathaway. I'm expecting
<v Speaker 1>to see her there tonight. And in the main event,
<v Speaker 1>MJF defends the AW World Championship against Kenny Omega. First
<v Speaker 1>time they wrestled a few years ago, it was a
<v Speaker 1>tremendous match on television. Now you're giving them the main
<v Speaker 1>event of a pay per view in Vancouver with Kenny
<v Speaker 1>going for the championship. There's a big deal. This is
<v Speaker 1>a big main event and honestly, you can't go wrong
<v Speaker 1>with either one of these guys. But boy, I think
<v Speaker 1>it would be a mistake to stifle mjf's momentum right
<v Speaker 1>now and take that championship off of him. I would
<v Speaker 1>keep the belt on him. I think they will keep
<v Speaker 1>the belt on him, So I'm going with MJF to
<v Speaker 1>retain in the main event. I don't know if there's
<v Speaker 1>going to be some kind of big angle or swerve
<v Speaker 1>at the end literally involved. I don't know. I just
<v Speaker 1>know that MJF is going to retain the AW World title.
<v Speaker 1>And I'll also say this, the champion's role call in
<v Speaker 1>this company right now is very heel heavy, and I
<v Speaker 1>think we need more babyfaces in those roles because right
<v Speaker 1>now it's just Willow and Jack Perry. Those are the
<v Speaker 1>only babyface champions in AW, you know, which is why
<v Speaker 1>I think Cope and Christian get the tag titles. Tonight,
<v Speaker 1>and I would go with someone like Kevin Knight to
<v Speaker 1>take the TNT title. I think that helps balance things
<v Speaker 1>out a little bit. But again, I will not be
<v Speaker 1>live tonight. I'll be watching the show live. I may
<v Speaker 1>be tweeting during the show, so you could follow me
<v Speaker 1>on there, but the full review my thoughts on Dynasty
<v Speaker 1>were going to save that for the Uncrowned Wrestling Show
<v Speaker 1>this Tuesday, and I'm sure we'll be talking about it
<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday Night Titans as well. Let's switch over to
<v Speaker 1>WWE here because we got a lot to get into
<v Speaker 1>and we're going to take it back to RAW on
<v Speaker 1>Monday night. Roman Reigns was not there this week, and
<v Speaker 1>I told you that last week. There were still some
<v Speaker 1>people who were surprised he wasn't there. I don't know why.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they announced his schedule many weeks ago, and
<v Speaker 1>this was the one Raw he was not advertised for.
<v Speaker 1>He'll be back tomorrow night. But CM Punk was there,
<v Speaker 1>and CM Punk went out there and he cut what
<v Speaker 1>some people are calling the pipe bomb two point zero.
<v Speaker 1>And I said this the other night, if you look
<v Speaker 1>at it for how explosive it was and the sheer
<v Speaker 1>number of people that he went after and then some
<v Speaker 1>of the specific things that he had to say. It
<v Speaker 1>was better than the OG pipe bomb. Now, obviously it's
<v Speaker 1>not nearly as impactful as the OG one. People are
<v Speaker 1>not going to be replaying this years from now the
<v Speaker 1>way they still do that one, And that one was
<v Speaker 1>coming from a place of just one hundred percent heartfelt
<v Speaker 1>emotion in a way that this one wasn't right at
<v Speaker 1>least not the stuff about Roman reigns. But I one
<v Speaker 1>hundred percent believed that when he was popping off about
<v Speaker 1>you know, Tko and ticket prices, that was coming from
<v Speaker 1>a place of genuine frustration that even a lot of
<v Speaker 1>the talent probably have for how outrageous these prices have gotten.
<v Speaker 1>But yes, we had cmpunk going off on Roman Rains,
<v Speaker 1>the Rock Vince McMahon without mentioning him by name on
<v Speaker 1>he called him the weird old man, Pat McAfee, Ari
<v Speaker 1>Emanuel Tko. He was pomping off, but it was his
<v Speaker 1>comments about Roman Rains that really stung. He threw more
<v Speaker 1>gas on the fire for their match of WrestleMania, which
<v Speaker 1>is the biggest difference between what Punk did on Monday
<v Speaker 1>and what they had Pat McAfee out there doing on Friday.
<v Speaker 1>They found a way to make this segment even worse
<v Speaker 1>than the one the week before on SmackDown. But the
<v Speaker 1>biggest difference is that the Night two main event of
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania is clearly Roman Reigns against CM Punk. The Night
<v Speaker 1>one main event of WrestleMania is now Cody Roads against
<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee featuring Randy Orton. It's like when somebody is
<v Speaker 1>laying down a new track and they bring in another
<v Speaker 1>artist right to sing a few balls right featuring So
<v Speaker 1>and So featuring T Paine featuring This Purse and featuring
<v Speaker 1>Lady Gaga featuring whoever, And the WrestleMania made event on
<v Speaker 1>Saturday is Cody and Pat featuring Randy Orton. That's what
<v Speaker 1>it feels like right now. That's where we are. Randy
<v Speaker 1>Orton has taken a back seat in his own match
<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania. This is now the Pat McAfee show, which
<v Speaker 1>really frames those comments that Triple H made on Unreal
<v Speaker 1>when he talked about you know a lot of fans
<v Speaker 1>seeing Pat McAfee as the face of WWE today, which
<v Speaker 1>is really said if he actually believes that, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>what does that say about your roster and your current
<v Speaker 1>top stars that fans would see Pat McAfee as the
<v Speaker 1>face of your company. SmackDown continues to reign supreme as
<v Speaker 1>the worst wrestling show on television. That show should not
<v Speaker 1>be archived on Peacock. Okay, that episode, it should be
<v Speaker 1>fired into the sun so that no one can have
<v Speaker 1>or accidentally watch it. Not even forty five minutes of
<v Speaker 1>actual wrestling on a three hour show, and none of
<v Speaker 1>it that we actually got all that great. So on
<v Speaker 1>a night like that, you look to other things to
<v Speaker 1>carry it. It's like, okay, well, we're very close to WrestleMania.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe they've got some really hot angles, some really great
<v Speaker 1>promos or personal issue or whatever it may be, to
<v Speaker 1>make up for the lack of wrestling right on the
<v Speaker 1>wrestling show, and you can't even look to that. I
<v Speaker 1>would excuse it if I could just look to all
<v Speaker 1>this other great stuff that's being thrown at us on
<v Speaker 1>the show. Instead, they gave us Pat McAfee. We had
<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee and we had Jelly Roll was back on SmackDown.
<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll was not happy about being dropped two weeks
<v Speaker 1>ago with an RKO, and he wanted to know if
<v Speaker 1>Pat was responsible for that. So we got some screen
<v Speaker 1>time with Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll. But coming into
<v Speaker 1>the show on Friday, Pat McAfee had promised a massive surprise.
<v Speaker 1>That's the word that he used. And I know better
<v Speaker 1>at this point. Some people don't learn their lesson. They
<v Speaker 1>never learn when it comes to these WWE announcements and
<v Speaker 1>people hyping shit up like that. You got to set
<v Speaker 1>your expectations, you know. I mean, I'm talking like on
<v Speaker 1>the floor. So it wasn't even that they promised this
<v Speaker 1>massive surprise and what they gave us was was a dud.
<v Speaker 1>But he promised it and what it turned out to be.
<v Speaker 1>He mentioned that Ram Trucks is the official sponsor of
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania this year, and he picked up the phone and
<v Speaker 1>he called Ram Trucks and he said, would you be
<v Speaker 1>willing to take twenty five percent off all tickets that
<v Speaker 1>are sold for Night one of WrestleMania from now until
<v Speaker 1>the end of Monday Night Raw And they said absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>So that's what the announcement was. The announcement was that
<v Speaker 1>they are doing another ticket sale because they are so
<v Speaker 1>desperate to move tickets here in this final week of
<v Speaker 1>this show that it's not enough to come up with
<v Speaker 1>all of these you know codes that you throw up
<v Speaker 1>on social media, and you can promote all of these
<v Speaker 1>ticket sales like that's fine, But they are now incorporating
<v Speaker 1>it into the television show. They were incorporating it into
<v Speaker 1>the storyline. This was part of a promo. This was
<v Speaker 1>not Michael Cole or Joe Tessitour Ringside or Corey Graves
<v Speaker 1>promoting the fact that, hey, guess what, for the next
<v Speaker 1>few days, tickets are twenty five percent off for night
<v Speaker 1>one of WrestleMania. No, this is now part of the
<v Speaker 1>story and the big surprise that they teased for days
<v Speaker 1>on social media is that their sponsor is basically going
<v Speaker 1>to subsidize a portion of people's WrestleMania tickets for night one.
<v Speaker 1>He also called WrestleMania Sunday ass and said nobody should
<v Speaker 1>be spending any money on those tickets. But he was
<v Speaker 1>pushing those Saturday tickets real hard, giving everybody the big
<v Speaker 1>discount at the same time that he is out there
<v Speaker 1>by the way flipping everybody off and insulting them, trying
<v Speaker 1>to get heal heat so that they won't boo Cody Rhoads.
<v Speaker 1>Even those slashing ticket prices is a babyface move. That
<v Speaker 1>makes a lot of sense. I'm still trying to figure
<v Speaker 1>that one out now. Brian Alvarez earlier in the week
<v Speaker 1>after Punk cut his promo on Monday and talked about
<v Speaker 1>lower the ticket prices. That was one of the things
<v Speaker 1>he was screaming about in his promo. Brian Alvarez was
<v Speaker 1>reporting that TKO is looking to lower ticket prices for
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania on through the summer. He was talking on Tuesday's
<v Speaker 1>Wrestling Observer Live. He said, what I can tell you is,
<v Speaker 1>immediately after this promo, the Lower Bowl tickets for WrestleMania
<v Speaker 1>dropped below two thousand dollars for the first time, So
<v Speaker 1>they did immediately lower ticket prices, not by a lot,
<v Speaker 1>but they did lower them. I was also told that
<v Speaker 1>not every show, but there are shows through the summer
<v Speaker 1>where they are planning to lower ticket prices. And obviously,
<v Speaker 1>if it's going to be in like a hot market
<v Speaker 1>where they're easily going to sell out, they aren't dropping
<v Speaker 1>prices for that, he says. As if it's a smaller
<v Speaker 1>show and a smaller market. You know, Seattle didn't sell
<v Speaker 1>out and the ticket prices were ridiculous. A show like that,
<v Speaker 1>they're going to lower the ticket prices through the summer.
<v Speaker 1>So depending on the market, what they think they can sell,
<v Speaker 1>lowering everything across the board. But for shows where they
<v Speaker 1>don't expect to sell out, they are lowering ticket prices. Well,
<v Speaker 1>that just sounds like smart business sense to me. If
<v Speaker 1>you're going to a market where you know you're not
<v Speaker 1>going to sell out, Gee, I wonder what we should do.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe we should lower the ticket prices and then maybe
<v Speaker 1>more people will buy tickets. Good good, What a concept then,
<v Speaker 1>perpw Insider. On Tuesday, Mike Johnson said that he was
<v Speaker 1>told the CM Punk promo was very similar to the
<v Speaker 1>og Pipebomb promo and that the company had a plan
<v Speaker 1>for what they expected him to say, but then he
<v Speaker 1>went out there and he cut a different promo from
<v Speaker 1>the heart. We have not heard of any fallout from it,
<v Speaker 1>but we are also told much of what Punk said
<v Speaker 1>mirrors backstage frustration among talent. Over the last several weeks,
<v Speaker 1>we've heard from several talents who have expressed frustration with
<v Speaker 1>the fact that tickets are priced so high, that there
<v Speaker 1>are so many left for the top show the year,
<v Speaker 1>and that while there are so many available seats, only
<v Speaker 1>two comp tickets are being granted to talent for the
<v Speaker 1>night that they are performing, anything additional they would need
<v Speaker 1>to purchase themselves. There were absolutely talents throwing their hands
<v Speaker 1>up in the air this past week over the inclusion
<v Speaker 1>of Pat McAfee and the Cody Roads Randy Yorton storyline,
<v Speaker 1>not just because it didn't make storyline sense, but due
<v Speaker 1>to a feeling that imagine involving those two in their
<v Speaker 1>history didn't need the extra element. McAfee's comments on SmackDown,
<v Speaker 1>which he has said were off the cuff and not
<v Speaker 1>scripted this was from his first promo, didn't help either.
<v Speaker 1>While we are told the Rhodes didn't sell the McAfee
<v Speaker 1>pivot to anyone, there was still a feeling of sympathy
<v Speaker 1>for him having to now carry that additional weight. As
<v Speaker 1>one talent said, leading into WrestleMania, one talent told me
<v Speaker 1>the punk comments leaned closely into how some in the
<v Speaker 1>locker room felt about McAfee's remarks on SmackDown. So this
<v Speaker 1>is not just you know a lot of fans who
<v Speaker 1>are just shaking their headed this entire thing. You have
<v Speaker 1>people who actually work for the company who feel the
<v Speaker 1>same way. And of course, of course they would, Why
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't they? In the segment on Friday, the latest segment
<v Speaker 1>we also had, besides the big massive surprise which turned
<v Speaker 1>out to be the ticket discount, we had more references
<v Speaker 1>to Marx and the IWC. Cody Rhodes came out to
<v Speaker 1>confront Pat McAfee and they verbally sparred more references to
<v Speaker 1>the Attitude era. Cody pointed out, you know that was
<v Speaker 1>thirty years ago and Randy Orton was in high school
<v Speaker 1>during the Attitude era. There was a reference to Cody
<v Speaker 1>sucking Triple H's ass and Levex spreading his ash cheeks
<v Speaker 1>for Cody. This dragged on and on and on until
<v Speaker 1>Randy Orton finally decided to show up. Do you remember him?
<v Speaker 1>You know, he's the guy wrestling for his fifteenth world
<v Speaker 1>title of WrestleMania this year. He beat up Jelly Roll
<v Speaker 1>in the back off camera and then dragged him out
<v Speaker 1>on stage. Cody ended up getting ambushed by both of them.
<v Speaker 1>He was left laying with Pat McAfee leaving with the
<v Speaker 1>WWE title over his shoulder. Do you realize that since
<v Speaker 1>Randy Orton attacked Cody Rhodes and blooded him up, all
<v Speaker 1>those weeks ago, we still have not gotten a single
<v Speaker 1>in ring promo with the two of them. We have
<v Speaker 1>had multiple ones with CM Punk and Roman Reigns, and
<v Speaker 1>none of them as good as the first one. But
<v Speaker 1>we've had multiple, two three different ones at this point,
<v Speaker 1>not a single one with Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton,
<v Speaker 1>two men who have a hell of a lot more
<v Speaker 1>history together than CM Punk and Roman Reigns do not one.
<v Speaker 1>We have plenty of Cody Roads and Pat McAfee, so
<v Speaker 1>much so that you would think that that is the
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania match. And in my review I called it the
<v Speaker 1>most pathetic segment in SmackDown history. I stand on that.
<v Speaker 1>I stand on that there have been bad segments, this
<v Speaker 1>one was the most pathetic that I have ever seen.
<v Speaker 1>They are begging people to buy tickets to WrestleMania. They
<v Speaker 1>are begging their fans please buy tickets. Pathetic, and people
<v Speaker 1>will justify this garbage by saying, well, solid monster, Pat's
<v Speaker 1>a heel. You're supposed to hate him, the same way
<v Speaker 1>that they did last year when John Cena said I'm
<v Speaker 1>going to ruin wrestling, and then every time we got
<v Speaker 1>some sort of terrible segment, they said well, he's here
<v Speaker 1>to ruin wrestling, so it makes sense like they will
<v Speaker 1>twist themselves into a pretzel all in the defense of
<v Speaker 1>bad television. It is amazing. It never ceases to amaze me.
<v Speaker 1>The Dave Meltzer reported earlier in the week that Pat
<v Speaker 1>McAfee was the first choice for the spot in this angle.
<v Speaker 1>It came directly from TKO head Ari Emmanuel, who also
<v Speaker 1>happens to be McAfee's agent. McAfee, though, turned it down
<v Speaker 1>at first, probably because he realized what a terrible fucking
<v Speaker 1>idea was. So then they were scrambling to find somebody
<v Speaker 1>else to occupy that spot until they were able to
<v Speaker 1>make a deal with McAfee. And he says this was
<v Speaker 1>not a WWE creative move. This was not a Paul
<v Speaker 1>Leveck move. It came over their heads and there's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of people not happy about it. One person told
<v Speaker 1>Melter it was the single most counterproductive thing the company
<v Speaker 1>has done in a long time. Boy, Yeah, you heard
<v Speaker 1>that word. I wonder where you heard that word. That
<v Speaker 1>was the first word I used when I talked about
<v Speaker 1>that segment last week. Counterproductive. That's exactly what that first
<v Speaker 1>promo was. The second one wasn't much better, but per
<v Speaker 1>wrestle votes, unfightful select During the week, they reported that
<v Speaker 1>WWE reworked some of the plans for this week's SmackDown
<v Speaker 1>after the reaction to the McAfee angle. It was said
<v Speaker 1>that ww WE went back to the drawing board to
<v Speaker 1>discuss any possibilities regarding the story. Sources stated that cmpunk's
<v Speaker 1>comments on Monday were an indicator of the shift and
<v Speaker 1>the plans becoming fluid throughout the week, as his comments
<v Speaker 1>were not part of the plan as of the Friday
<v Speaker 1>of the McAfee reveal. Don't you love it when corporate
<v Speaker 1>gets involved and you're forced to go back to the
<v Speaker 1>drawing board to figure out a way to try to
<v Speaker 1>make all of this shit work for one of your
<v Speaker 1>key angles at WrestleMania Now. Meltzer is also reporting that
<v Speaker 1>as part of the deal, Pat McAfee well team with
<v Speaker 1>Randy Orton against Cody Rhads in Jelly Roll at the
<v Speaker 1>Backlash pay per view on May ninth. At least as
<v Speaker 1>of plans that were confirmed to us by multiple people
<v Speaker 1>and were still in play at press time. Sound familiar
<v Speaker 1>because I talked about that very possibility last week. It
<v Speaker 1>just seems so obvious, considering Orton was the one who
<v Speaker 1>dropped Jelly Roll with that RKO, that this is where
<v Speaker 1>we were headed. And so with that, WrestleMania forty two
<v Speaker 1>is next weekend, back at the scene of the crime
<v Speaker 1>last year where John Cena left with Travis Scott after
<v Speaker 1>one of the worst main events in WrestleMania history, the
<v Speaker 1>night after one of the best. I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>ignore the fact that we got two great matches last
<v Speaker 1>year WrestleMania with the Night one Triple Threat and the
<v Speaker 1>Women's Triple Threat that open Night two, which saw Eo
<v Speaker 1>Sky enter as the Women's World Champion and leave as
<v Speaker 1>the Women's World Champion. And as I am recording this,
<v Speaker 1>she is not even on the card this year, not
<v Speaker 1>in the match. Hopefully that will change on Monday and
<v Speaker 1>they will make her against Oscar officials. Since both women
<v Speaker 1>teas didn't literally cut promos on each other last week,
<v Speaker 1>you know, talking about Ceo in Las Vegas. Hopefully that'll
<v Speaker 1>get added. The story has been ticket sales to the
<v Speaker 1>point where they have incorporated it into the actual television show.
<v Speaker 1>So for the people that are sick of hearing about it,
<v Speaker 1>too fucking bad. They decided to bring more attention to it.
<v Speaker 1>Blame them. They're gonna have a lot of people there.
<v Speaker 1>They're gonna have at least forty thousand people each night.
<v Speaker 1>That's no small feet. It's not like they're gonna have
<v Speaker 1>five thousand people in the building. But they're gonna be
<v Speaker 1>far short of what they did in that same building
<v Speaker 1>one year ago, at least in terms of paid attendance.
<v Speaker 1>Like if I were them, I would start handing out
<v Speaker 1>comps to all the casinos in Vegas right now to
<v Speaker 1>start giving out to their customers. The building holds sixty
<v Speaker 1>thousand with the stage, which apparently they're gonna be doing
<v Speaker 1>the stage reveal. I guess on Friday, they're not gonna
<v Speaker 1>come close to sixty thousand. I don't give a shit
<v Speaker 1>what they announced. It ain't gonna be sixty thousand. Last
<v Speaker 1>year they announced sixty one thousand for Night one, sixty
<v Speaker 1>three thousand for Night two, two thousand people more for
<v Speaker 1>Night two than Night one, and they had claimed that
<v Speaker 1>Night one was a sellout. So the math ain't math
<v Speaker 1>in whatever they announced. I would not take those numbers
<v Speaker 1>at face value regardless, But by showtime, I'm I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>it's going to look full how it sounds is going
<v Speaker 1>to be a completely different story, but they're eighteen percent
<v Speaker 1>behind where they were last year. SmackDown on Friday has
<v Speaker 1>the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which I am
<v Speaker 1>predicting will be won by Royce Keys, who debuted on
<v Speaker 1>Friday with a winover Burdo. I'm also predicting that Burdo
<v Speaker 1>will not be winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle
<v Speaker 1>rights my bold prediction. Burdo is not going to win
<v Speaker 1>the Battle Royal. And they're also giving us a street
<v Speaker 1>fight on SmackDown between the MFTs and the Wyat six,
<v Speaker 1>which I am absolutely devastated that I will not be
<v Speaker 1>here to watch. I'll be landing home from Vegas around
<v Speaker 1>that time, but I will be watching the Hall of
<v Speaker 1>Fame ceremony that night, which is streaming live on ESPN
<v Speaker 1>Unlimited at midnight Eastern. PW Insider says internally it is
<v Speaker 1>listed for three hours with Stephanie McMahon, AJ Styles, Demolition,
<v Speaker 1>Sid Vicious, Bad News Brand, and Dennis Rodman all being inducted.
<v Speaker 1>It's a strong class on the whole. Sid in Bad
<v Speaker 1>News they will not be getting proper inductions because they
<v Speaker 1>are part of the legacy class, so basically they're dead,
<v Speaker 1>so they don't get any speeches from anyone. But Sid
<v Speaker 1>Sun the other day said that Seth the Kid would
<v Speaker 1>down Syndrome, who used to live next door to Sid.
<v Speaker 1>Sid even brought him to the ring with him on
<v Speaker 1>an episode of Nitro in nineteen ninety nine to be
<v Speaker 1>his coach, you know, to be his manager for the night.
<v Speaker 1>He surprised Seth on a zoom call this week with
<v Speaker 1>the news that he is going to the Hall of
<v Speaker 1>Fame and WrestleMania, and Seth was very excited about the news.
<v Speaker 1>That was very cool. If I had to guess the inductors,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't know if any of these have even
<v Speaker 1>been announced yet. If any inductors have been announced, I
<v Speaker 1>haven't seen it. If they have, so these are just
<v Speaker 1>guesses for me. This is not anything that you know
<v Speaker 1>has been said or I've heard. I would say Eric
<v Speaker 1>Bischoff or Kevin Nash would make the most sense for
<v Speaker 1>Dennis Rodman, arn Anderson, Untully Blanchard to induct Demolition, Right,
<v Speaker 1>there's history, there are and I think we would give
<v Speaker 1>a great speech. I'm gonna say John Cena for aj
<v Speaker 1>Styles since Sena is going to be in town any
<v Speaker 1>way to host the show, host WrestleMania, not the Hall
<v Speaker 1>of Fame, and Triple H inducts his wife. I mean
<v Speaker 1>that one would seem to be a slam dunk to me.
<v Speaker 1>Then we have WrestleManias Saturday, with the first hour simulcasting
<v Speaker 1>live on ESPN two. The two ESPN matches will be
<v Speaker 1>the Usso's in La Night taking on logan Paul Austin
<v Speaker 1>theory and I show Speed, which is opening the show,
<v Speaker 1>and the unsanctioned match between Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fought.
<v Speaker 1>And by the way, Drew and his wife just lost
<v Speaker 1>their cat Chaz. I was very sorry to hear that.
<v Speaker 1>I would see a lot of photos that he would
<v Speaker 1>post on Instagram. I know he's a big cat dad,
<v Speaker 1>so again, very sorry to hear that. But the Usso's
<v Speaker 1>in La Night against the Vision and I show Speed.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going with the Ussos in La Night. I mean
<v Speaker 1>the death knell would be for I show Speed to
<v Speaker 1>pin La Knight. I put nothing past Paul Leveck in
<v Speaker 1>this case, but I'm gonna go with the Ussos in
<v Speaker 1>La Knight for the win. I show Speed is the one.
<v Speaker 1>I think of all the celebrity involvement we have at
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania this year or the build up to WrestleMania, he's
<v Speaker 1>the one that I like mine the least. I find
<v Speaker 1>him very entertaining. I think he has you know, he's
<v Speaker 1>done his part. You know, it's part of his angle.
<v Speaker 1>And again I have infinite respect for him after he
<v Speaker 1>took that spear at the Rumble last year from bron Breaker.
<v Speaker 1>And it's not like a main event feud or anything
<v Speaker 1>like that. You know, it's a mid card six man
<v Speaker 1>tag team match. The angle they shot at his house
<v Speaker 1>when La Knight crashed you know, the stream and then
<v Speaker 1>threw him into his camera and everything. I thought that
<v Speaker 1>was entertaining. So I really I don't mind Speed. I
<v Speaker 1>really don't. There's a comment to clip, but no, I don't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't mind speed. I don't think Speed's winning. I
<v Speaker 1>think that the ussos in La Night are going over
<v Speaker 1>here as they should, and that as far as McIntyre
<v Speaker 1>and FA two unsanctioned, only the second unsanctioned match ever
<v Speaker 1>in WrestleMania history after Triple Ah and Seth Rollins to
<v Speaker 1>wrestle Mania thirty three, which I don't remember being any
<v Speaker 1>great shakes, but these two were going to go out there,
<v Speaker 1>and it's gonna be on ESPN too. I don't know
<v Speaker 1>how violent it's going to get on ESPN. Probably not
<v Speaker 1>too violent. But boy, you know, I'm looking at this
<v Speaker 1>match and I'm like, too bad. We didn't get that
<v Speaker 1>fatal four way huh for the WWE Championship. We could
<v Speaker 1>have had Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, Drew McIntyre, and Jacob
<v Speaker 1>Fatou this weekend, And in hindsight, boy, that would have
<v Speaker 1>been a hell of a lot better, although knowing them,
<v Speaker 1>they would have found some way to work McAfee into
<v Speaker 1>that regardless. But Drew is gonna be going off to
<v Speaker 1>film his role in the next Highlander movie sometime in
<v Speaker 1>these next few weeks, and I don't know how long
<v Speaker 1>he'll be gone for. I mean, for all I know,
<v Speaker 1>he could be gone for a week. I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>but he's going off to film a movie role. So
<v Speaker 1>for that reason alone, I feel like Fat two is
<v Speaker 1>gonna win this match. I still maintained it was not
<v Speaker 1>Drew McIntyre who kicked his teeth out. I think it
<v Speaker 1>was Randy Orton. I think that will eventually lead to
<v Speaker 1>a program with Orton in Fatu within the next few months.
<v Speaker 1>But even better, you know what, maybe now they can
<v Speaker 1>say it was Pat McAfee who did it. Pat McAfee
<v Speaker 1>kicked Jacob Fatu's teeth out of his mouth. He did
<v Speaker 1>it to save the business. Maybe that'll be the new swerve.
<v Speaker 1>Stephanie Vicaire is going to defend the Women's World Championship
<v Speaker 1>against Liv Morgan now on Raw Monday night, Stephanie attacked
<v Speaker 1>Live from behind while liv was having a conversation backstage
<v Speaker 1>with Roxane Perez, and she hit her so hard that
<v Speaker 1>Live's head and Roxanne's head collided in violent fashion, to
<v Speaker 1>the point where like when it happened, I wasn't so
<v Speaker 1>much worried for Live as I was worried for Roxanne,
<v Speaker 1>because Live's head went right into Roxanne's face so hard
<v Speaker 1>and Roxanne went down and I was like, she killed her,
<v Speaker 1>She just killed this poor girl. As it turned out,
<v Speaker 1>both of them have these giant goose eggs on their forehead,
<v Speaker 1>like Live posted photos of hers on social media and
<v Speaker 1>it was it was just disgusting. And they were supposedly
<v Speaker 1>both placed in concussion protocol. There have been no updates
<v Speaker 1>since then about whether or not they actually were diagnosed
<v Speaker 1>with concussions or you know, what their status is. I
<v Speaker 1>had now Live has been out and about I mean,
<v Speaker 1>she's fine, you know she was. I saw she was
<v Speaker 1>at one of the basketball games the other day with
<v Speaker 1>Raquel Rodriguez, and she's been doing interviews and so she
<v Speaker 1>seems fine. Roxanne's been a little more low profile, but
<v Speaker 1>she's not the one with a championship match. At Wrestle Media,
<v Speaker 1>the concern was, is Live Morgan going to be okay?
<v Speaker 1>I think she will be. I don't think that this
<v Speaker 1>match is in any great jeopardy of not happening. But
<v Speaker 1>who wins, right who goes over here? I'm going with
<v Speaker 1>Live Morgan. I think it works best, especially should you
<v Speaker 1>know Raquel eventually split off as a babyface from the
<v Speaker 1>judgment day that she would feud with Live for the
<v Speaker 1>championship potentially, or you know, if my prediction comes true
<v Speaker 1>from earlier this year that Roxanne Perez is going to
<v Speaker 1>win the women's money in the bank briefcase, that could
<v Speaker 1>make for some interesting moments there with Roxanne walking around
<v Speaker 1>with that briefcase. If they're both still part of the
<v Speaker 1>Judgment Day. Stephanie's reign. I look. I like Stephanie Vicaire
<v Speaker 1>a lot, and she's a good wrestler. Her run on
<v Speaker 1>the main roster has been very underwhelming, you know, it's sad.
<v Speaker 1>I look back at what she and Julia were doing
<v Speaker 1>in NXT for those few months they were there together
<v Speaker 1>and compare it to what they have, especially Julia. I'm
<v Speaker 1>the main roster and I say that Julia is currently
<v Speaker 1>the United States Champion, and I still I look at
<v Speaker 1>it and it's said, it is said to see the
<v Speaker 1>run that she's had, and how how she's just not
<v Speaker 1>over and she's not even on the WrestleMania car. She's
<v Speaker 1>the one singles champion basically who does not have a
<v Speaker 1>title defense of WrestleMania. Stephanie's reign has been very underwhelming,
<v Speaker 1>and I think it would just make more sense to
<v Speaker 1>put the belt on Live Morgan. Yeah, there's more storyline
<v Speaker 1>potential there. There's also storyline potential if Live doesn't win
<v Speaker 1>and she gets cost a win, let's say by Raquel,
<v Speaker 1>because we've seen Live Morgan play a role in Raquel
<v Speaker 1>Rodriguez losing other opportunities before where Raquel has been in
<v Speaker 1>there with the champion. I believe Live was the one
<v Speaker 1>to eliminate Raquel from the royal rumble. Could Raquel turn
<v Speaker 1>on Live or play a role like accidentally on purpose
<v Speaker 1>tries to help her but it backfires and then Stephanie retains.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely I could see that happening, But I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to predict that the championship is being moved
<v Speaker 1>over to Live Morgan. This run that Stephanie has been
<v Speaker 1>on is just it's not hitting, you know, not for me,
<v Speaker 1>it's not And maybe you need to get her in
<v Speaker 1>there with somebody like Becky Lynch. Maybe that would help
<v Speaker 1>kind of light of fire under things, because you know,
<v Speaker 1>WWE is always going to give a priority to Becky
<v Speaker 1>and what she's doing. You know, Becky hasn't worked with Stephanie.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe Stephanie just needs, you know, a different opponent to
<v Speaker 1>work with. Liv just has more storyline stuff going on,
<v Speaker 1>I think with her own you know group. So I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, but I just feel like Live is going
<v Speaker 1>to walk out with that championship, So I got to
<v Speaker 1>stick with her from my prediction. Speaking of Becky Lynch,
<v Speaker 1>she is going to be challenging aj Lee for the
<v Speaker 1>women's Intercontinental title. This is AJ's first WrestleMania match in
<v Speaker 1>eleven years. But you look at the recent matches that
<v Speaker 1>they've been a part of. AJ beat her at Wressell Palooza,
<v Speaker 1>in the Mixed Tag, AJ's team beat Becky's team in
<v Speaker 1>War Games. AJ beat Becky straight up to win Intercontinental
<v Speaker 1>title at Elimination Chamber. I would say that Becky Lynch
<v Speaker 1>is due for a win over this woman, and I
<v Speaker 1>think it happens here. I think Becky regains the Intercontinental title.
<v Speaker 1>I think Jessica Carr is going to be the referee
<v Speaker 1>for their match again. I think she's going to factor
<v Speaker 1>into this finish in some way, not that she's gonna
<v Speaker 1>help Becky, but that there's gonna be some sort of
<v Speaker 1>spot that backfires anyway it leads to Becky winning the
<v Speaker 1>belt back. I think that's the way to go. Gunther
<v Speaker 1>one on one with seth Rawlins At this point, I'm
<v Speaker 1>just happy that they found a match for Gunther on
<v Speaker 1>the Wrestlevadia card. And how crazy is that to even say,
<v Speaker 1>given the last I don't know, six months, eight months,
<v Speaker 1>nine months that this guy has had and the last
<v Speaker 1>matches that we saw from Goldberg and Sena and aj
<v Speaker 1>Styles in the last face that they saw across the
<v Speaker 1>ring from them was Gunther, who has been on a
<v Speaker 1>tear ever since he started this whole career killer gimmick,
<v Speaker 1>and then at the beginning of month he dropped off
<v Speaker 1>the face of the earth because if reports are to
<v Speaker 1>be believed, he was going to be wrestling Raymisterio Wrestlemydia,
<v Speaker 1>but Raymisterio was not medically cleared, and it just got
<v Speaker 1>to a point where it's like, we got to find
<v Speaker 1>something meaningful for this guy to do since we don't
<v Speaker 1>know when Ray's going to get clear. Ray is now cleared,
<v Speaker 1>but they went in a different direction, and so we
<v Speaker 1>have ended up with a match that really doesn't make
<v Speaker 1>a lot of sense, I like at all storyline wise,
<v Speaker 1>it really makes no sense for this match to even
<v Speaker 1>be happening. But to me, like this is it's a
<v Speaker 1>match to get both men on the card because the
<v Speaker 1>people that they in an ideal situation they would have
<v Speaker 1>been working with either weren't cleared or they weren't ready
<v Speaker 1>to bring them back just yet. As far as Brown
<v Speaker 1>Breaker goes, because he is supposedly clear, they just didn't
<v Speaker 1>want to rush him back into anything. They want to
<v Speaker 1>dedicate proper time to a feud with him and Seth Rollins,
<v Speaker 1>and I get that that makes sense, So if nothing else,
<v Speaker 1>we're going to get what I expect to be an
<v Speaker 1>excellent professional wrestling match between these two, and then the
<v Speaker 1>will be some shenanigans at the end of it that
<v Speaker 1>tie into storyline stuff. Bron Breaker is going to cost
<v Speaker 1>Seth Rollins this match, Gunther is going to win, and
<v Speaker 1>Gunther's run of dominance can then continue until he gets
<v Speaker 1>that favor back from Paul Hayman that he sort of
<v Speaker 1>alluded to last week, which will eventually be a match
<v Speaker 1>with Brockleisner. Gunther wins. We have a fatal four way
<v Speaker 1>for the WWE Women's tag team titles Nia Jackson Lash Legend.
<v Speaker 1>They defend their titles against Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss,
<v Speaker 1>Bailey and Lyra Valkyria and the Bella Twins. There is
<v Speaker 1>some question about whether or not Nikki Bella's ankle is
<v Speaker 1>going to be okay. She is still not medically cleared.
<v Speaker 1>If the Bellas are in the match, then there's nothing
<v Speaker 1>to worry about. If the Bellas are not going to
<v Speaker 1>be in the match, there are rumors that the Kabuki
<v Speaker 1>Warriors could be substituted into their spot. This is what
<v Speaker 1>I feared. This is what I said over a week ago.
<v Speaker 1>I said, I think that this may be the way
<v Speaker 1>it works out. This could very well be why we
<v Speaker 1>have not gotten an announcement yet of an EO Sky
<v Speaker 1>match of WrestleMania, because they're waiting on this, which to
<v Speaker 1>me would be incredibly fucking stupid, because if let's say
<v Speaker 1>Nikki Bella can't get cleared, then yeah, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>it sucks for her sister, But you pull the Bellas
<v Speaker 1>and just keep it as a triple threat match. Why
<v Speaker 1>does it need to be a fatal four way for
<v Speaker 1>the tag team titles, especially if it's going to interfere
<v Speaker 1>with another potential story and another potential match that could
<v Speaker 1>be made for the show. You know, stick to that plan.
<v Speaker 1>If the Bellas can't go, the Bellas can't go, there's
<v Speaker 1>no need to substitute anybody into their place. You know,
<v Speaker 1>it's a championship match, so ideally you would want a
<v Speaker 1>team in there that has earned the right to challenge
<v Speaker 1>for those titles. The story has been about Naya and
<v Speaker 1>lash Bailey and Lyras Charlotte and Alexa. They've been going
<v Speaker 1>back and forth all these different and the Bellas, of course,
<v Speaker 1>all these different matches, and you're just gonna substitute another
<v Speaker 1>random team in there, like that doesn't even make any sense.
<v Speaker 1>But it doesn't matter anyway, because I don't think that
<v Speaker 1>the Bellas are winning. I don't think Charlotte and Alexa
<v Speaker 1>are winning. I don't think Naya Jackson Lash Legend are
<v Speaker 1>holding onto their titles. I'm going with Bailey and Lyra
<v Speaker 1>Valkyria to win the women's tag team titles. Bailey really
<v Speaker 1>got fucked over last year when it came to the
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania card, and they've had Lyra talking about that in
<v Speaker 1>storyline now in some of these promos, right we got
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna go to Adam Pierce and get us added
<v Speaker 1>to this match. We gotta make up for what happened
<v Speaker 1>to you last year at WrestleMania. And I think the
<v Speaker 1>ultimate makeup would be to put the tag team titles
<v Speaker 1>on these two women, who, by the way, are not
<v Speaker 1>a bad tag team. They're not a bad option to
<v Speaker 1>put the tag team titles on. But I think it'll
<v Speaker 1>be a nice moment for Bailey, a nice moment for
<v Speaker 1>the two of them, So I'm going with them to
<v Speaker 1>win the championships. And then in the main event, we
<v Speaker 1>have Cody Rhodes defending the WWE Champion against Pat I'm sorry,
<v Speaker 1>against Randy Orton, with Pat McAfee in his corner, clearly
<v Speaker 1>in his corner, because if you look at the graphic,
<v Speaker 1>they have added Pat McAfee to it like he's his manager.
<v Speaker 1>So Pat McAfee will be there, and man, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I just I look at this match on paper and
<v Speaker 1>I just think to myself, what could have been? What
<v Speaker 1>could have been on its own, this great feud, rich
<v Speaker 1>with history, and after that vicious attack a few weeks
<v Speaker 1>ago by Randy Orton, you know, Cody could have come
<v Speaker 1>back just full of rage and fire and just ready
<v Speaker 1>to fucking murder this guy. How could you do this
<v Speaker 1>to me, your brother? You stuck the knife in my back,
<v Speaker 1>and just like a deeply personal affair between these two
<v Speaker 1>has been turned into a clown show. Jelly roll There
<v Speaker 1>was no announcement made about Jelly Rolls involvement in this
<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania, but boy, he was all over that show
<v Speaker 1>on Friday. He was all over that segment on Friday,
<v Speaker 1>he came out to after he got laid out. I
<v Speaker 1>guess backstage by Orton. He got back up, he tried
<v Speaker 1>to come to Cody's aid, he got laid out again.
<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll is going to be part of this match
<v Speaker 1>in some way. I don't know if he will officially
<v Speaker 1>be added in the corner of Cody Rhoads. I could
<v Speaker 1>see him coming out late in the match to neutralize
<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee, which would be great because then we can
<v Speaker 1>get down to what this should have been all along,
<v Speaker 1>which is Cody and Randy one on one. So Pat's
<v Speaker 1>gonna get involved here, Jelly's gonna be involved here. It's
<v Speaker 1>all just so ridiculous. But remember the announcement that Pat
<v Speaker 1>McAfee made last week where he said that if Randy
<v Speaker 1>Orton does not win at WrestleMania, that we will never
<v Speaker 1>see or hear from Pat McAfee again in this business. Now,
<v Speaker 1>to me, yes, he's a heel. He could just be lying,
<v Speaker 1>But to me, that telegraphs that we're going to get
<v Speaker 1>a title change here in this match, because we all
<v Speaker 1>know that we ain't done with Pat McAfee. But even
<v Speaker 1>if he was done for the time b we will
<v Speaker 1>see Pat McAfee again. We're probably gonna see him a
<v Speaker 1>fucking back blash next month. The best case scenario here
<v Speaker 1>would be they retcon this entire thing. They have Orton
<v Speaker 1>win Number fifteen, and as soon as the match is over,
<v Speaker 1>he drops Pat McAfee with an RKO. He was a
<v Speaker 1>useful idiot. He got what he wanted out of him.
<v Speaker 1>He doesn't need him anymore. Do what Stone Cold said.
<v Speaker 1>He wanted to do a WrestleMania Is seventeen. He wanted
<v Speaker 1>to call an audible on the heel turn and give
<v Speaker 1>Vince McMahons stunner after he beat Rock to win the belt.
<v Speaker 1>I wish he would have. They can do that here,
<v Speaker 1>there's still time. Maybe Randy Orton could go into business
<v Speaker 1>for himself. Sorry, Pat, change of plans, You're going down.
<v Speaker 1>But then that would just turn him into the biggest
<v Speaker 1>babyface in the company. If he drops McAfee with an RKO,
<v Speaker 1>that's it. Super babyface Randy Orton. I think Randy Orton
<v Speaker 1>is winning number fifteen. I don't know what kind of
<v Speaker 1>shenanigans may be involved. I mean, obviously they'll involve McAfee.
<v Speaker 1>Could there be some sort of big reveal at the
<v Speaker 1>end of all this, I mean, there's all kinds of
<v Speaker 1>speculation about other people that could be involved in this angle,
<v Speaker 1>and are we going to get a WWE versus TKO
<v Speaker 1>angle out of it? And all of this stuff. All
<v Speaker 1>I can tell you is that I think Randy Orton,
<v Speaker 1>and I didn't feel this way a few weeks ago,
<v Speaker 1>but I do feel like Randy Orton is going to
<v Speaker 1>win number fifteen and they're going to end Night one
<v Speaker 1>with a big title change. So that's seven matches, and
<v Speaker 1>then as WRESTLEMANI is Sunday with the first hour simulcasting
<v Speaker 1>live on ESPN with in the opening contest brock Lesner
<v Speaker 1>versus Obafemi. They have done everything right with this up
<v Speaker 1>to this point. It's hard to believe that this has
<v Speaker 1>been booked by the same people that have given us
<v Speaker 1>some of the other shit that we have seen going
<v Speaker 1>into WrestleMania whether and I'm not even talking just about
<v Speaker 1>the McAfee stuff, but even just the way some of
<v Speaker 1>these other matches have been promoted and built and jade
<v Speaker 1>all all this stuff. They have gotten it right every
<v Speaker 1>step of the way so far with Obafemi and brock Lesner,
<v Speaker 1>and the only way they could fuck it all up
<v Speaker 1>is by having Brock Lesner win this match. And I
<v Speaker 1>think back to what John Cena said when he was interviewed.
<v Speaker 1>I think it was by Chris Van Vliet where he
<v Speaker 1>said the you know, the idea of him losing to
<v Speaker 1>Brock at Russell Paluza, which a lot of people were
<v Speaker 1>very upset about, but like it had to be done
<v Speaker 1>to And I forgot exactly the words he used, but
<v Speaker 1>it was something to the effect of, you know, to
<v Speaker 1>make Brock or to keep Brock strong, which again I
<v Speaker 1>think it was make Brock, And I'm just like, are
<v Speaker 1>you fucking kidding me? Right now? Keep him strong for what?
<v Speaker 1>Keep him strong for what? Keep him strong for this?
<v Speaker 1>You wanted to keep brock Lesner strong by having him
<v Speaker 1>squash John Cena? Okay, and just be Brock Lesner. That's
<v Speaker 1>fine if it builds to him putting over the new
<v Speaker 1>guy on the biggest possible platform. This is not just
<v Speaker 1>another pl match. This is not just another match of WrestleMania.
<v Speaker 1>They are opening for the first time in history in
<v Speaker 1>the forty plus year history of WrestleMania a part of
<v Speaker 1>this show. The first hour of this show is airing
<v Speaker 1>on ESPN. This is not ESPN two, this is not
<v Speaker 1>ESPN three, this is not ESPN de Portas, this is
<v Speaker 1>not ESPN Go fuck yourself. This is ESPN. So on
<v Speaker 1>the biggest possible platform, the right move to make would
<v Speaker 1>be to have Oba Femei in one night prove that
<v Speaker 1>he belongs. This is not a fluke. These people are
<v Speaker 1>not strutting, embarking and chanting his name for no reason.
<v Speaker 1>They are ready to embrace this guy as the next
<v Speaker 1>big thing, which is what they call Brock back in
<v Speaker 1>the day, and the way you do that is by
<v Speaker 1>having him beat Brocklesner and then establish this is no fluke.
<v Speaker 1>This guy has arrived. This guy is the real deal.
<v Speaker 1>This guy is going places, And by no means is
<v Speaker 1>it a guarantee that Obafemi is winning this match, especially
<v Speaker 1>not if the idea is that they want Brock to
<v Speaker 1>go unbeaten until he has his last match, which could
<v Speaker 1>be its SummerSlam. I don't have a great feeling about
<v Speaker 1>it if that's the case. But the only way they
<v Speaker 1>could fuck up everything they've done up until this point
<v Speaker 1>is by having him go in there and loose. And
<v Speaker 1>I'm not saying that it would be the end of Obafemi,
<v Speaker 1>but I'm saying that it would be a huge misstep
<v Speaker 1>if they did that. Obafemi should win this match. Obafemi,
<v Speaker 1>I predict, is going to win this match. Now, the
<v Speaker 1>other match on ESPN is the six Way Ladder Match.
<v Speaker 1>I actually think it's very smart to open the show
<v Speaker 1>with these two matches. Brock and Oba is the match
<v Speaker 1>that feels honestly like the biggest main events out of
<v Speaker 1>all of the main events on this show, and this
<v Speaker 1>isn't even a main event, but it feels like one.
<v Speaker 1>It's been the best booked, best promoted match so far,
<v Speaker 1>and it's the battle between these two big guys that
<v Speaker 1>are going to go in there and beat the holy
<v Speaker 1>hell out of each other. It's the perfect match to
<v Speaker 1>open that show, and then from that you go into
<v Speaker 1>the big car crash match. Right, six way Ladder match
<v Speaker 1>is gonna be all kinds of insanity and high spots.
<v Speaker 1>Penta will be defending his Intercontinental Championship after retaining on
<v Speaker 1>the Triple A Show last night against Vikingo, defending against Russev,
<v Speaker 1>Javon Evans, J D McDonough, Dragon Lee and raymys Stereo.
<v Speaker 1>Raymys Stereo is cleared. He is back. He is also
<v Speaker 1>fifty years old, and his first match back is a
<v Speaker 1>multi man ladder match. Good luck raymys Stereo, But raymis
<v Speaker 1>Stereo is not winning the Intercontinent. I mean, it would
<v Speaker 1>be ridiculous if he won the championship. It would be ridiculous, frankly,
<v Speaker 1>if anybody other than, in my opinion, anybody other than
<v Speaker 1>Penta or Javon Evans or to walk away as the champion.
<v Speaker 1>If Javon Evans was to walk out as the champion,
<v Speaker 1>what a great moment for him. And I feel like
<v Speaker 1>this could be He's gonna be like a human highlight
<v Speaker 1>reel out there. I can't be mad about Javon Evans
<v Speaker 1>winning this match. What would bother me, though, is that
<v Speaker 1>Penta has not had long enough with this championship. Penta
<v Speaker 1>should not be losing the title this soon. It's like
<v Speaker 1>the same way I felt about Champa with the TNT
<v Speaker 1>title in aw Right. He had eleven days with it
<v Speaker 1>and then they took it away from him. Why didn't
<v Speaker 1>make any sense to me? Pent is gonna win this match.
<v Speaker 1>I think it would be a mistake to take that
<v Speaker 1>championship off of him so soon he just won it.
<v Speaker 1>Why would you take it off of him like Javon Evans.
<v Speaker 1>You'll have plenty of opportunities to belt up Javon Evans.
<v Speaker 1>You don't have to rush the championship onto him just
<v Speaker 1>because it's WrestleMania. Penta should have his run. He's super over.
<v Speaker 1>He just won the championship. Don't take the title away
<v Speaker 1>from him. I mentioned the Triple A show last night.
<v Speaker 1>I saw that brawl. It was like a show long brawl,
<v Speaker 1>but the way it paid off there towards the end
<v Speaker 1>with Elgrande Americano Gable and El Grande Americano Kaiser was
<v Speaker 1>tremendous and it led to Kaiser announcing or throwing the
<v Speaker 1>challenge out to a mask versus mask match between the
<v Speaker 1>two of them, which at one time I had predicted
<v Speaker 1>for WrestleMania, and they didn't say it was going to
<v Speaker 1>be at WrestleMania. I assume it was announced for a
<v Speaker 1>future Triple A show because after the reaction this got.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, these American crowds, they don't deserve it, like
<v Speaker 1>you got to do that match in Mexico. I don't
<v Speaker 1>want to see this match of WrestleMania. I want to
<v Speaker 1>see this match in front of a hot crowd South
<v Speaker 1>of the Border because these two guys like Gable got
<v Speaker 1>so much heat last night when he came out, and
<v Speaker 1>Kaiser is super I mean, it is ridiculous how over
<v Speaker 1>he is with this gimmick, Like it would not make
<v Speaker 1>any sense right now to do this match of WrestleMania
<v Speaker 1>or on Raw or anything like that. You got to
<v Speaker 1>do this on a triple A show. I'm sorry. I
<v Speaker 1>do have one critique though, of this great brawl that
<v Speaker 1>they had last night. The only thing that could have
<v Speaker 1>made that brawl last night even better Pat McAfee. Not
<v Speaker 1>enough Pat McAfee last night. This week's episode is sponsored
<v Speaker 1>by WIS. I admit I'm a control freak. I like
<v Speaker 1>things done a certain way and I like to do
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<v Speaker 1>Try it now at wis dot com slash harmony. That's
<v Speaker 1>Wicks dot com slash harmony. We have Demon Finn Balor
<v Speaker 1>taking on Dominic Mysterio and on commentary we had Wade
<v Speaker 1>Barrett when they were running down the cart On SmackDown
<v Speaker 1>the other night mentioned that Balor when he's the Demon,
<v Speaker 1>he's he's practically unbeatable, except for the fact that the
<v Speaker 1>last two times we have seen the Demon, he lost
<v Speaker 1>both of those matches. The idea of him going in
<v Speaker 1>there and after all these years, dusting off the demon
<v Speaker 1>paint to lose for a third straight time is I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I would say, absurd, laughable, totally something I could see
<v Speaker 1>WW doing. But yeah, I mean that that would be
<v Speaker 1>pretty fucking terrible. Demon Balor for the win. This should
<v Speaker 1>be the easiest prediction to make on the entire show.
<v Speaker 1>Demon Balor for the win. Sammy's Ain is defending the
<v Speaker 1>United States Championship against Trick Williams, the United States Championship
<v Speaker 1>that he just recently won back from Carmelo Hayes. Carmelo Hayes,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, off the WrestleMania card. For all the
<v Speaker 1>work he's put in over the last few months, and
<v Speaker 1>he's been one of the shining stars on that SmackDown
<v Speaker 1>brand some great matches, has really gotten himself over his babyface.
<v Speaker 1>It was not enough to earn himself a spot on
<v Speaker 1>the wrestle Media card. He lost the title to Sammy's Ain.
<v Speaker 1>He already got his rematch. He lost that clean, clean
<v Speaker 1>despite what some people will say, Yes, it was a
<v Speaker 1>clean loss, and so there was no reason to add
<v Speaker 1>him into this match and make it a triple threat,
<v Speaker 1>and so he will not be a part of this.
<v Speaker 1>He's not going to interfere in this. He's not gonna
<v Speaker 1>have anything to do with this idea that I started
<v Speaker 1>talking about a few weeks ago, and I know now
<v Speaker 1>there's rumors and reports about this. I've been pushing this
<v Speaker 1>now for weeks because the first people were talking about
<v Speaker 1>a double turn with Cody and Randy, but I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>it makes more sense with Sammy and Trick, and I
<v Speaker 1>think there's a very real possibility that we are going
<v Speaker 1>to get the kickoff, at least the kickoff to this
<v Speaker 1>on Sunday. And here's why. You see and hear the
<v Speaker 1>reaction to Sammy's a. The reaction to Sammy has not
<v Speaker 1>been great now for a few months. Really. The first
<v Speaker 1>time that it really stuck out to me was the
<v Speaker 1>Royal Rumble. They were in Saudi and Sammy's always super
<v Speaker 1>over there and he went out there to wrestle Drew
<v Speaker 1>McIntyre for the WWE Championship, and the reaction to Sammy
<v Speaker 1>was very lukewarm. The reaction to the match was very lukewarm.
<v Speaker 1>People didn't buy into the idea that Samy's ay was
<v Speaker 1>actually gonna win this championship, and to be fair, it
<v Speaker 1>was Drew's first title defense. Of course you knew he
<v Speaker 1>wasn't gonna lose. But sammy's Ain's character has gotten as
<v Speaker 1>stale as bread that has been sitting out for fucking
<v Speaker 1>four weeks. It's no wonder that people are sick and
<v Speaker 1>tired of Sammy's a. He goes out there, he's always
<v Speaker 1>he looks so depressed, and he's always, you know, whining
<v Speaker 1>and complaining on the show about something, playing victim or
<v Speaker 1>you got Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton yelling at him
<v Speaker 1>and telling him that maybe you need to change, maybe
<v Speaker 1>that's why you're in the rut that you're in, and
<v Speaker 1>he's always so frustrated. There's no reason to cheer for
<v Speaker 1>Sammy's Ain. He's annoying. He's an annoying babyface, and nobody
<v Speaker 1>wants to cheer for that. So the reactions have gotten
<v Speaker 1>progressively worse. People like Carmelo Hayes. So when he beat Carmelo,
<v Speaker 1>that just made it worse. People like Trick Williams, even
<v Speaker 1>though he's supposed to be a heel and he's so
<v Speaker 1>arrogant and cocky and full of himself and you should
<v Speaker 1>want to see somebody knock his block off. But from
<v Speaker 1>the moment that they hit his music and he comes
<v Speaker 1>out with that great entrance, they shan't whoop that trick,
<v Speaker 1>and they love the guy. He's super charismatic. He's fun
<v Speaker 1>to watch. He's fun to listen to, the exact opposite
<v Speaker 1>of what Sammy's ain has been. So it's no wonder
<v Speaker 1>that people are reacting to these two and diametrically, you know,
<v Speaker 1>different ways. It was as bad as it's ever been.
<v Speaker 1>On Friday, Sammy came out, he was booed. This was
<v Speaker 1>not light booze. He was fucking booed. Trick Williams came
<v Speaker 1>out with Lil Yati, he was cheered, and Sammy was
<v Speaker 1>in his promo just saying like, what did I do?
<v Speaker 1>You know now they're incorporating to get into the story.
<v Speaker 1>What did I do wrong? What did I do to
<v Speaker 1>deserve this kind of reaction? He goes, well, I know
<v Speaker 1>my fans. I got my rider die fans out there.
<v Speaker 1>He got booed even more. Every time this man spoke,
<v Speaker 1>the booze got progressively worse. You don't need to do
<v Speaker 1>much to really turn my quote unquote turn them. But
<v Speaker 1>it really only works if sammye retains here, because that's
<v Speaker 1>the best way to put more heat on Sammy's Ain
<v Speaker 1>is to have him win, and he has to win
<v Speaker 1>by nefarious means. He can't just go in there and
<v Speaker 1>win with a halluva kick, Okay, that would be the
<v Speaker 1>worst thing you could do. He has to win by
<v Speaker 1>taking a shortcut that you would not expect this version
<v Speaker 1>of Sammy's Ain to take, right because he's so righteous
<v Speaker 1>and trying to do the right thing and be a
<v Speaker 1>good guy. If he's gonna win, he's got a cheat.
<v Speaker 1>Whether he uses the ropes, whether he uses a weapon
<v Speaker 1>behind the referees back, whether he hooks the tights, whether
<v Speaker 1>he rakes the eyes, whatever it is, he wins by
<v Speaker 1>nefarious means. I'm predicting a Sammy z Ain win here,
<v Speaker 1>and I think that's absolutely the right call. And what
<v Speaker 1>that will do is it'll accomplish two things. Number One,
<v Speaker 1>it will prolong their program because you could drag this
<v Speaker 1>out for a few more months. It will put more
<v Speaker 1>heat on Sammy's Ain to sort of solidify the heel turn,
<v Speaker 1>and it will drive people even more towards trick without
<v Speaker 1>Trick having to change anything about his character. He doesn't
<v Speaker 1>have to suddenly be a babyface. He doesn't have to
<v Speaker 1>really act any differently, he doesn't have to cut promos
<v Speaker 1>in a different way. He can continue to be himself.
<v Speaker 1>The people will just naturally gravitate towards him because they
<v Speaker 1>know he was screwed and they fucking hate Sammy's Ain.
<v Speaker 1>So make Sammy one of the biggest heels on Smackdan
<v Speaker 1>and by the time Trick does beat him to win
<v Speaker 1>that title, he'll be one of the biggest fan favorites.
<v Speaker 1>So when I say double Turn, it really is the
<v Speaker 1>beginnings of one, and I think it starts here. But
<v Speaker 1>to do it the right way, and I think to
<v Speaker 1>get it to work properly, Sammy's Ain has to win this.
<v Speaker 1>I don't see the rush and having to put the
<v Speaker 1>belt on Trick Williams here. It works better if Sammy wins.
<v Speaker 1>We have jade Car Gill against Rhea Ripley for the
<v Speaker 1>WWE Women's Championship. People are not gonna like me very
<v Speaker 1>much here. I'm promoting Sammy's Ain's gonna win, jade Car
<v Speaker 1>Gill's gonna win. But yes, I think jade Car Gill
<v Speaker 1>is gonna win. I think she's going to walk in
<v Speaker 1>as the champion. I think she is going to walk
<v Speaker 1>out as the champion. They just put Meechen and BFAB
<v Speaker 1>with her, and I know in the big picture they're
<v Speaker 1>not really considered serious players on that roster. But still
<v Speaker 1>she's surrounded herself right with some backup. Rhea Ripley took
<v Speaker 1>them both out on Smackdout on Friday, and she may
<v Speaker 1>well have Eo Sky in her corner, especially if EO
<v Speaker 1>doesn't have a match on this show now. Jade Cargill's
<v Speaker 1>run as champion has been unremarkable. It took over one
<v Speaker 1>hundred days before they even had her defend the title,
<v Speaker 1>which is completely ridiculous. The SmackDown women's division has been
<v Speaker 1>fucking decimated for a while now, and the idea of
<v Speaker 1>keeping the belt on Jade for another six months or
<v Speaker 1>something is like, oh man, it doesn't seem like that's
<v Speaker 1>gonna help matters. But also, if you put the belt
<v Speaker 1>on Rhea, yeah, you could say Ria is better than
<v Speaker 1>Jade or a better option than Jade. That doesn't magically
<v Speaker 1>make the smack That women's division better either. You still
<v Speaker 1>have to use the people that you have properly, but
<v Speaker 1>also call up some new faces or get back some
<v Speaker 1>new faces, which brings me to Bianca bell Air. Now,
<v Speaker 1>Bianca bell Air had surgery on her finger a couple
<v Speaker 1>of months ago. It really wasn't that long ago. I
<v Speaker 1>saw the initial videos she posted of her rehab, which
<v Speaker 1>just looks excruciating, and she hasn't really posted any updates
<v Speaker 1>since then. And there's been rumors flying around that there
<v Speaker 1>was one report it might have come from Coach about
<v Speaker 1>it she might get her finger ampu tit, which is
<v Speaker 1>just such fucking nuts. I don't know where people pulled this,
<v Speaker 1>they pulled this out of their ass. I think there's
<v Speaker 1>been no updates on Bianca bell Air. That could be
<v Speaker 1>a good thing, that could be a bad thing. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>maybe things are going well and they're getting ready for
<v Speaker 1>her to come back. Maybe things aren't going so well.
<v Speaker 1>We don't know, but I'm gonna say this. This is
<v Speaker 1>my this is my bit of fantasy booking. Here. We
<v Speaker 1>are going to see the return of Bianca bell Air
<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania. She's gonna come out during this match and
<v Speaker 1>again Meechen befab, I'm sure there'll be the they'll try
<v Speaker 1>to get involved. EO may be there, right, but it's
<v Speaker 1>still two on one. Bianca bell Air is going to return,
<v Speaker 1>and everybody thinks that she's coming out to even the
<v Speaker 1>odds right and help out Rhea Ripley. She's not coming
<v Speaker 1>out to help out Rhea Ripley. She's coming out to
<v Speaker 1>attack EO Sky and to attack Rhea Ripley, and she's
<v Speaker 1>going to assist Jade in retaining her women's title. Now
<v Speaker 1>you might ask why would she do this, Well, why
<v Speaker 1>has she been out for a year. This WrestleMania is
<v Speaker 1>going to mark exactly one year since the last time
<v Speaker 1>we saw Bianca bell Air in the ring. Why Because
<v Speaker 1>Rhea Ripley landed on her fucking hand and just has
<v Speaker 1>given her nothing but problems ever since with her knuckle
<v Speaker 1>and her finger and just mangled her fucking hand and
<v Speaker 1>she hasn't been able to wrestle. And she lost that match,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, She lost to Rhea and EO in
<v Speaker 1>that match, and she was injured and put on the shelf.
<v Speaker 1>She lost a year of her career. She hasn't forgotten
<v Speaker 1>about that. She holds it against them. She has every
<v Speaker 1>reason in the world to go after Eosky and Rhea Ripley,
<v Speaker 1>and so she and Jade are still going to be
<v Speaker 1>together for a while. I'm not saying that eventually there
<v Speaker 1>won't be some sort of rift that forms, and we
<v Speaker 1>do get Bianca against Jade, but I think that that's
<v Speaker 1>coming a lot farther in the future than anybody thinks.
<v Speaker 1>And in the meantime, you get Rhea or not Riach,
<v Speaker 1>you get Bianca and Jade and then Meetchen in BFAB
<v Speaker 1>and you've got your little crew there. Now, that might
<v Speaker 1>mean that Rhea Ripley is going to be staying on SmackDown.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what that means for EO sky uh,
<v Speaker 1>but that's my little bit of fantasy booking there where
<v Speaker 1>it would actually make more sense, if you think about it,
<v Speaker 1>for her to be against Rhea and not come out
<v Speaker 1>and do something to assist Ria. And in the main events,
<v Speaker 1>Cmpunk against Roman Rae. First time ever that this version
<v Speaker 1>of the World Heavyweight Championship is being defended in the
<v Speaker 1>Night two main events of WrestleMania. So for all the
<v Speaker 1>people last year who were like, ah, CM Punk didn't
<v Speaker 1>get a real WrestleMania main event because's Night he one,
<v Speaker 1>He's none ninety two as if the Rock being in
<v Speaker 1>the WrestleMania Maine event a couple of years ago wasn't
<v Speaker 1>a real Wrestlemaniam Maine event. Get the fuck out of here.
<v Speaker 1>But for all those people now, they have been silenced
<v Speaker 1>because cm punk will officially get his Night two Wrestlemanium
<v Speaker 1>main event. My fear. My fear is that Pat McAfee
<v Speaker 1>is going to be involved. And I'm not joking when
<v Speaker 1>I say this. Pat McAfee is going to be involved
<v Speaker 1>in this as well, given the shots that rang out
<v Speaker 1>this week with him and cmpunk. They've been taking shots
<v Speaker 1>at each other, and if that happens, I could see
<v Speaker 1>him or him and Randy Orton both screwing cm Punk
<v Speaker 1>out of the World Heavyweight title. Maybe with the idea
<v Speaker 1>that Roman reigns. He fits the bill of what McAfee's
<v Speaker 1>been talking about, right, He fits the mold of what
<v Speaker 1>a real champion should look like, not some corporate stooge
<v Speaker 1>like Cody, and not some tatted up hypocrite like cmpunk,
<v Speaker 1>not some five foot five guy wrestling in a forty
<v Speaker 1>five minute ironman. And I still have no idea where
<v Speaker 1>that came from. But Roman, really he looks the part right,
<v Speaker 1>he's the guy, and now we're getting into fantasy booking
<v Speaker 1>a potential TKO versus WWE scenario, which honestly doesn't even
<v Speaker 1>sound appealing to me, Nor does if that doesn't happen
<v Speaker 1>another bloodline reunion. I know there were people out there
<v Speaker 1>that get a tingle up their spine when they think
<v Speaker 1>of the possibility of an og bloodline reunion here, No
<v Speaker 1>thank you. I'd rather see no Roman reigns title win
<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania with another championship that he's never around to defend.
<v Speaker 1>We have been there before. We know what that looks like,
<v Speaker 1>and it worked for them last time. Business wise, they
<v Speaker 1>did big business with the Tribal leading the Bloodline as
<v Speaker 1>the undisputed champion. Right. The bloodline was very successful. I
<v Speaker 1>don't need to see an encore. I think the USSOS
<v Speaker 1>are gonna get involved here now. Whether they try to
<v Speaker 1>help Roman in it backfires, or they try to help
<v Speaker 1>Roman but then they swerve him and they turn on him,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but I do think they're going to
<v Speaker 1>play a role in this in some way. And I
<v Speaker 1>believe that CM Punk is going to leave WrestleMania is
<v Speaker 1>still the World Heavyweight Champion. So I think Randy Orton
<v Speaker 1>is going to win the WWE title, but CM Punk
<v Speaker 1>is going to retain his World Heavyweight title. Now there
<v Speaker 1>have been there has been a lot of people speculating
<v Speaker 1>about the possibility that next year we might finally get
<v Speaker 1>The Rock against Roman Reigns in Saudi Arabia WrestleMania forty three.
<v Speaker 1>Given Punk's shots at the Rock in his promo on
<v Speaker 1>Raw this week, it would make sense for the Rock
<v Speaker 1>to play a role here in the finish of this
<v Speaker 1>match and give his cousin the assist to win the
<v Speaker 1>ten And by the time we get to WrestleMania next year,
<v Speaker 1>if they want to do Rock against Rome, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they could always book a falling out between them. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not saying it has to be for the championship either,
<v Speaker 1>But again, I don't like doing this because this is
<v Speaker 1>getting into Rock territory, which is always a very dangerous
<v Speaker 1>thing to do, because we saw what happened last year
<v Speaker 1>where he showed up, he got people very excited, and
<v Speaker 1>then he dipped, and that played a role in how
<v Speaker 1>fucking awful the WrestleMania stuff ended up being last year. Right,
<v Speaker 1>Rock's a busy guy, can only be around so much
<v Speaker 1>so anytime you start talking about, oh, maybe the Rock
<v Speaker 1>will show up, the Rock'll get Even if the Rock
<v Speaker 1>does show up, we have no idea to what extent
<v Speaker 1>he would even be around, because the minute he shows
<v Speaker 1>up and the Final Boss is back, people get excited again. Right,
<v Speaker 1>that Final Boss character was great and people start thinking, oh, man,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I can't wait to see him. You know,
<v Speaker 1>what's he gonna say on TV this week, or what
<v Speaker 1>role is he going to play a backlash or you know,
<v Speaker 1>where's the story gonna go? And then inevitably they will
<v Speaker 1>end up disappointed when he is not around. It's like
<v Speaker 1>they use him as a tool for that viral moment
<v Speaker 1>or to get from point A to point B, and
<v Speaker 1>then it's like, Okay, my job is done here. It's
<v Speaker 1>like exactly what we saw last year. We need your Rock.
<v Speaker 1>We need you to help sell some more tickets for
<v Speaker 1>the Elimination Chamber. Right, mission accomplished, and we need you.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna have you as part of this major angle
<v Speaker 1>where John Seen is going to turn heel and we're
<v Speaker 1>gonna get that visual of the two you standing side
<v Speaker 1>by side this amazing moment. Right, you help get us
<v Speaker 1>to that point and then he left and it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>now it's in your hands. Now you got to finish
<v Speaker 1>the story all by yourself. Right, Rock is not needed here.
<v Speaker 1>People will be very excited if he shows up at
<v Speaker 1>the end of night one. They'll be very excited if
<v Speaker 1>he shows up maybe at the end of night two,
<v Speaker 1>and then reality will set in and we're gonna be
<v Speaker 1>right back to where we were last year. So I'm
<v Speaker 1>not getting into the business of predicting a Rock appearance
<v Speaker 1>on the show. I'm just telling you if it happens,
<v Speaker 1>how it inevitably is going to play out, and be
<v Speaker 1>very very careful if you get your hopes up to
<v Speaker 1>see Rock making appearance of Wrestlemaney. Now, there was somebody
<v Speaker 1>Nicholas shout out to Nicholas who sent me an email
<v Speaker 1>and I saw the subject line. It said the Rock
<v Speaker 1>wants another soul, and his his bit of fantasy booking
<v Speaker 1>here was Rock couldn't get Cody's soul last year, so
<v Speaker 1>he took one from Pat McAfee, promised him you know movies,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the next Rambo whatever, and promised them a
<v Speaker 1>whole bunch of other things. And so we find out
<v Speaker 1>that McAfee is doing what he's doing because he took
<v Speaker 1>the Rocks offer. The Rock bought Pat McAfee's soul, and
<v Speaker 1>since they you know, they're not gonna get Ari Emmanuel
<v Speaker 1>as an on screen character, it would bring it all
<v Speaker 1>back to the Rock, right, Hey, you know what? Could
<v Speaker 1>I see something like that being the case? Sure it's not.
<v Speaker 1>It's not the most out their idea. If the Rock
<v Speaker 1>wants another soul, have him bring soul Ruka to the
<v Speaker 1>main roster and have her kick Cody in the dick
<v Speaker 1>like everybody else does. Okay, Otherwise, no, I don't want
<v Speaker 1>more souls. So that's six matches. Maybe they add Eo
<v Speaker 1>against Oscar here, but honestly, at this point, it's more
<v Speaker 1>likely she's going to be a part of the Ria
<v Speaker 1>in Jade match. But they also have the Hall of
<v Speaker 1>Fame intros. They usually trot those guys out there. On
<v Speaker 1>Night two. John Cena is the host, so there could
<v Speaker 1>be some kind of segment with him. I could see
<v Speaker 1>him and Dan Housen doing something dumb. Just because there's
<v Speaker 1>six matches doesn't mean that they're adding more matches. There
<v Speaker 1>could be a segment. The biggest question to me, does
<v Speaker 1>John Cena wear the hat and the jeorts. He promised
<v Speaker 1>we would never see him again in that after he retires,
<v Speaker 1>he is he gonna go back on his word or
<v Speaker 1>is he going to show up at a suit and tie?
<v Speaker 1>But Night two looks to be the stronger of the
<v Speaker 1>two nights. These two shows, though, they're going to be
<v Speaker 1>made or broken by how they book those main event finished.
<v Speaker 1>It almost doesn't even matter. Like you could have great
<v Speaker 1>matches on Night one and Night two and people will
<v Speaker 1>be talking about what the finish is to brock and Oba,
<v Speaker 1>But it really comes down to these main events. How
<v Speaker 1>do these main events end? How does Night one end?
<v Speaker 1>How does Night two end? That is what people are
<v Speaker 1>going to be talking about when this WrestleMania is over.
<v Speaker 1>And Cody Roads, weeks ago before the Pat McFee crap started,
<v Speaker 1>made a comment that he was making a bold prediction
<v Speaker 1>that this WrestleMania would be the best WrestleMania, or one
<v Speaker 1>of them of all time. And look, when you if
<v Speaker 1>your expectations for WrestleMania are low coming into the show
<v Speaker 1>this year, that might be the best way, honestly to
<v Speaker 1>walk into it, because I think the talent will go
<v Speaker 1>out there and do what the talent does. As long
<v Speaker 1>as they're given the time to go out there to
<v Speaker 1>do what they do, they can go out there and
<v Speaker 1>have some really kick ass matches and this could end
<v Speaker 1>up being a much better show than people are expecting
<v Speaker 1>it to be, because I feel like there are a
<v Speaker 1>lot of people who are just very disillusioned with the
<v Speaker 1>WWE product right now and the build to this WrestleMania.
<v Speaker 1>They're not terribly excited maybe about WrestleMania. That doesn't mean
<v Speaker 1>it will end up being a bad WrestleMania. I do
<v Speaker 1>think you go into it, you keep an open mind.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not happy with a lot of the shit that
<v Speaker 1>they're doing right now. I've made that very clear, and
<v Speaker 1>I think what they have done up to this point,
<v Speaker 1>they have sabotaged one of their WrestleMania main events. But
<v Speaker 1>that doesn't mean that when this WrestleMania is over, I
<v Speaker 1>won't be sitting here going man, that was a fucking
<v Speaker 1>great show, or that was a hell of a lot
<v Speaker 1>better than I was expecting it to be regardless, despite
<v Speaker 1>all of the stuff that we've seen up until this point,
<v Speaker 1>and that's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that the
<v Speaker 1>matches deliver and that we can get some genuinely interesting
<v Speaker 1>and exciting storyline stuff coming out of this show that
<v Speaker 1>will lead us into the spring. Because WWE television, especially
<v Speaker 1>on Fridays in particular more so than Mondays, but on Fridays,
<v Speaker 1>the television has been horrendous. The television has been awful,
<v Speaker 1>and what I would like to see are stories that
<v Speaker 1>are set up now to bleed over into the coming
<v Speaker 1>months that will help make the television feel more interesting
<v Speaker 1>and feel more exciting and not make me when I'm
<v Speaker 1>watching it, sit here and WinCE and cringe at what
<v Speaker 1>I am seeing and hearing, because just because they try
<v Speaker 1>something out of the box, just because they're trying something different,
<v Speaker 1>does not mean that it is good. What we have
<v Speaker 1>been getting on SmackDown has not been good. Is the
<v Speaker 1>opposite of good, and I'm hoping that they could change that.
<v Speaker 1>There's no indication that that's going to change, but I'm
<v Speaker 1>hoping that they could change that and get their shit
<v Speaker 1>together because it has been awful and they're doing a
<v Speaker 1>disservice to their own talent by producing television that is
<v Speaker 1>as bad as it has been on Friday Nights. Something
<v Speaker 1>has to change coming out of this WrestleMania Now, Triple
<v Speaker 1>H appeared on Cody Rhodes is what do you want
<v Speaker 1>to talk about? Podcasts? And there was a lot of
<v Speaker 1>information that came out this week in a separate report
<v Speaker 1>from Post Wrestling, showing text messages between Paul Levec and
<v Speaker 1>Nick Cohn and even some with Vince McMahon going back
<v Speaker 1>to twenty twenty three that really showed that there was
<v Speaker 1>there was tension there where Vince was still trying to
<v Speaker 1>make his presence felt and the creative process and Levec
<v Speaker 1>was clearly not a fan of this. Also a lot
<v Speaker 1>of deleted messages by Nick Con. There's nothing suspicious about
<v Speaker 1>that at all. This is all part of that shareholder
<v Speaker 1>lawsuit against the company because there are shareholders who believe
<v Speaker 1>the WWE uh, you know, the fix was in when
<v Speaker 1>they chose to go with Endeavor for the sale of
<v Speaker 1>the company and it wasn't a fair process. So there
<v Speaker 1>were text message exchanges, especially between you know, Leveck and
<v Speaker 1>Nick Con that came out and there was a whole
<v Speaker 1>story about it this week. It was very interesting because
<v Speaker 1>one of the comments in there from Triple H to
<v Speaker 1>Nick Con was, if it wasn't for you, I would
<v Speaker 1>have been gone a long time ago. To me, that
<v Speaker 1>was the most interesting line out of everything. But the
<v Speaker 1>key to the entire thing is that, you know, again,
<v Speaker 1>Vince was trying to work his way back into the
<v Speaker 1>creative process, you know, towards the end of twenty twenty three,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't know how Nick Cohn honestly felt about it,
<v Speaker 1>but clearly, you know, Levec really did not want him around.
<v Speaker 1>And then was it a month later the beginning of
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty four is when the Janelle Grant lawsuit dropped,
<v Speaker 1>and that was the beginning of the end for Vince McMahon.
<v Speaker 1>That's really what we learned from that. Anyway, he was
<v Speaker 1>on the podcast with Cody Rhodes, which I imagine was
<v Speaker 1>you know, recorded several weeks ago, and he talked about
<v Speaker 1>how he considers WrestleMania forty Triple h does to be
<v Speaker 1>his first full WrestleMania as the chief content officer. But
<v Speaker 1>he did talk about Vince McMahon still directing traffic before that.
<v Speaker 1>He said, it's not like one day here it's yours
<v Speaker 1>and everything else went away. There were so many aspects of, hey,
<v Speaker 1>Vince is stepping away, You're going to take his spot.
<v Speaker 1>But he's chiming in, and he's still meeting with me
<v Speaker 1>all the time, and he's still directing traffic from the side,
<v Speaker 1>and there's no real clear moment for me. But I
<v Speaker 1>would consider Wrestlemannia of forty to be that, Yes, the
<v Speaker 1>only thing that is difficult in that transition you're trying
<v Speaker 1>to at the end of the day when people are like,
<v Speaker 1>but it's your direction, right, it's your decision, yeah, sort of,
<v Speaker 1>and you have to defend your position and you have
<v Speaker 1>to be able to sell that to people and explain
<v Speaker 1>it to people if it's a little bit not in
<v Speaker 1>your position or a little bit well, why did this happen?
<v Speaker 1>And you don't want to say, well because it wasn't
<v Speaker 1>totally my decision and not because you don't want to
<v Speaker 1>seem like you don't have that power, but you have
<v Speaker 1>to position it that way. So there was a lot
<v Speaker 1>of talk this week about those comments and what he
<v Speaker 1>meant by that, and the reality is, this is what
<v Speaker 1>he is saying. By Wrestlemannia of forty. Vince McMahon was
<v Speaker 1>no longer in the picture when it came to the
<v Speaker 1>creative process. We know he was still around when it
<v Speaker 1>came time for WrestleMania at thirty nine. Because those reports
<v Speaker 1>came out, we know that he had an influence over
<v Speaker 1>the finish of the main event between Cody and Roman.
<v Speaker 1>He wanted Roman Reigns to win at WrestleMania at thirty nine.
<v Speaker 1>That was not just a Triple H idea, though Triple
<v Speaker 1>A did end up going along with it. I talked
<v Speaker 1>about the Demon earlier. He's gonna be wrestling Dominic Mysterio
<v Speaker 1>or WrestleMania this weekend. He lost the last match we
<v Speaker 1>saw him in, which was Helen to Cell with Edge.
<v Speaker 1>Originally Baller was going to win that match. Supposedly that
<v Speaker 1>was a Vince McMahon call that Edge needed to win
<v Speaker 1>that match, and even Edge, I think supposedly felt you
<v Speaker 1>know differently about it, But that was a Vince call. Right,
<v Speaker 1>brock Lesner and Omas, right, do you think Triple H
<v Speaker 1>booked that match? Get the fuck out of here, Give
<v Speaker 1>me a break. Once Triple H really took over the Reins,
<v Speaker 1>we didn't see Omas again on television. Only recently did
<v Speaker 1>he pop up in Triple A. Omas is not a
<v Speaker 1>Triple H guy. He is a Vince McMahon guy through
<v Speaker 1>and through, so you could see his fingerprints all over it.
<v Speaker 1>That raw after WrestleMania at thirty nine, which was fucking awful,
<v Speaker 1>one of the worst post WrestleMania raws that they have
<v Speaker 1>ever done. Supposedly that was a Vince call too, where
<v Speaker 1>he came in like the Tasmanian and you know, he
<v Speaker 1>ripped everything up and changed everything and it was fucking terrible.
<v Speaker 1>So it was very clear that he still had influence
<v Speaker 1>at that point, even if he wasn't physically there, you know,
<v Speaker 1>every single week. By the time we got to the
<v Speaker 1>beginning of twenty twenty four, when the Janelle Grant lawsuit
<v Speaker 1>dropped and Vince had to step away, that was it.
<v Speaker 1>That was the beginning of the end. And Triple H was,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in the he was kind of in the
<v Speaker 1>trenches there when everything got blown up in preparation for
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania forty when they were going to do Rock and
<v Speaker 1>Roman and the fans rebelled against it, so they had
<v Speaker 1>to pivot and go a different way with it, and
<v Speaker 1>the Rock agreed to go Heal and we got the
<v Speaker 1>Final Boss and you know, Triple H doesn't deserve all
<v Speaker 1>the credit for that, but still he was overseeing that
<v Speaker 1>creative process when all of that was going on heading
<v Speaker 1>into WrestleMania forty and people look at that as one
<v Speaker 1>of the better WrestleMania build ups, frankly, that we have
<v Speaker 1>ever had once they decided to go in that direction.
<v Speaker 1>But there are still people who feel like, well, you
<v Speaker 1>know it was a Vince thing, and you know the
<v Speaker 1>bloodline stuff and everything else, Yes, that started under Vince.
<v Speaker 1>But this notion that like, and again this is getting
<v Speaker 1>into the Vince stuff where there are people that are like, man,
<v Speaker 1>Triple H is terrible. Bring back Vince, Bring back Vince.
<v Speaker 1>As if Vince was responsible for all of these wonderful
<v Speaker 1>things that we had a few years ago, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we were having all these different stories. This is the
<v Speaker 1>same Vince McMahon that was responsible for some of the
<v Speaker 1>worst fucking television that I have ever seen. If you
<v Speaker 1>want to go back five six, seven years, all of
<v Speaker 1>a sudden, what do you think happened here? He discovered
<v Speaker 1>the fountain of youth and he got you know, he
<v Speaker 1>got his youthful exuberance back, and all of these great
<v Speaker 1>ideas that had fallen out of his brain had suddenly
<v Speaker 1>come back into his head in the last few years,
<v Speaker 1>like I don't understand what people really think went on here,
<v Speaker 1>and this leads into what I was going to talk
<v Speaker 1>about here with Jim Ross. Jim Ross's podcast Grilling Jr.
<v Speaker 1>He was talking to Conrad Thompson. He talked about Triple
<v Speaker 1>H's recent comments that there was no real clear moment
<v Speaker 1>that he took over WWE creative and that Vince McMahon
<v Speaker 1>was still an influence during the times that he was
<v Speaker 1>supposedly gone from WWE Jr. Said he believes that Vince
<v Speaker 1>will be instrumental in this year's WrestleMania. He said, no
<v Speaker 1>matter what his other issues may or may not be,
<v Speaker 1>all of that stuff, it's still Vince. And I think
<v Speaker 1>anybody that's listening to this that have worked in WWE
<v Speaker 1>know full well that it's all about Vince and it
<v Speaker 1>will remain that way until they bury him. He's an
<v Speaker 1>awesome influence. And how's it going to hurt for Vince
<v Speaker 1>to chip in with an idea or two and a
<v Speaker 1>general direction. He was always very good with that. He
<v Speaker 1>was always really good at picking out somebody that he
<v Speaker 1>wanted to get over and having a plan to make
<v Speaker 1>that happen. And I think that's kind of where we
<v Speaker 1>are right now, there's some massively marquee matches, and I
<v Speaker 1>think that Vince is he's in the kitchen and he's
<v Speaker 1>making pies, and we're going to see how his pies
<v Speaker 1>taste sooner than later. No, No, I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>taste his pies. Nobody wants to taste Vince McMahon's pies.
<v Speaker 1>You keep your pies to yourself. So then when he
<v Speaker 1>was asked if he feels that Vince is going to
<v Speaker 1>return to WWE in any creative capacity, he said, absolutely,
<v Speaker 1>no doubt about it. I don't even have a question
<v Speaker 1>in my mind. It's the old cliche where there's smoke,
<v Speaker 1>oftentimes there's fire, and there's been a lot of smoke
<v Speaker 1>regarding VKM and WWE and what his future may or
<v Speaker 1>may not be, and how he can still contribute. He's
<v Speaker 1>a big picture guy and that takes a lot of
<v Speaker 1>detail work and planning, but he can do that. He
<v Speaker 1>can make all of that happen. And you know he's hungry. Well,
<v Speaker 1>evidently he's making pies. He says, I don't think there's
<v Speaker 1>any doubt in my mind that Vince will still be
<v Speaker 1>instrumental or will be instrumental, and this year's WrestleMania. As
<v Speaker 1>far as creative is concerned, He's not going to wait
<v Speaker 1>on anything. As John Wayne would say, we're burning daylight.
<v Speaker 1>Something's going to happen, and I believe that McMahon will
<v Speaker 1>be able to contribute to this year's WrestleMania. There's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of smoke out there right now, and I think
<v Speaker 1>through the haze that Vince McMahon will rise again to
<v Speaker 1>some level. And this may be main events, this may
<v Speaker 1>be titles or whatever. I don't know, but I can't
<v Speaker 1>see this much talk and speculation about Vince for there
<v Speaker 1>not to be something there. It may not be as
<v Speaker 1>active as I perceived that he might be, but I
<v Speaker 1>don't know. I just think that he's going to be
<v Speaker 1>involved in WrestleMania in some shape, form or fashion. And
<v Speaker 1>then he was asked if he felt that Ari Emmanuel
<v Speaker 1>Mark Shapiro would formally welcome Vince back, and he said absolutely.
<v Speaker 1>They would not be good businessmen if they weren't willing
<v Speaker 1>to entertain that idea because they realized that McMahon's a
<v Speaker 1>guy that built the whole damn thing. He has a
<v Speaker 1>vision that nobody else has. The minute that it gets
<v Speaker 1>out that Vince McMahon is back. Even if they try
<v Speaker 1>to keep it hush hush with the uproar online tagging
<v Speaker 1>all of their sponsors on social media, the entire thing
<v Speaker 1>would unravel. The entire thing would turn into a giant
<v Speaker 1>shit storm. And I don't understand why they would take
<v Speaker 1>that risk, even if they did want to bring the
<v Speaker 1>man back. That's what happened with Slim Jim last time,
<v Speaker 1>and they forced him out before it could turn into
<v Speaker 1>a five alarm fire. Now Jr. Is not wrong what
<v Speaker 1>he talks about. With all the talk lately of of Vince,
<v Speaker 1>there may be some smoke to the fire. I agree,
<v Speaker 1>it feels like there's something going on here. But he's
<v Speaker 1>talking about this like it's something that should happen, he's
<v Speaker 1>endorsing it. Nothing has changed. He still has scores of horrendous,
<v Speaker 1>disturbing allegations hanging over his head. With appending civil case
<v Speaker 1>that's either going to arbitration and getting settled or it's
<v Speaker 1>going to go to trial quote unquote, and it's gonna
<v Speaker 1>likely get settled anyway before it ever goes to court.
<v Speaker 1>But the man is forever tainted. He has damaged goods.
<v Speaker 1>And even if you can put all of that aside.
<v Speaker 1>He's eighty years old. He has lost his fastball. He
<v Speaker 1>lost his fastball a long time ago. People can bitch
<v Speaker 1>all they want to about paula vec and the WWE
<v Speaker 1>product today. Yeah, a lot of it sucks. But the
<v Speaker 1>idea that because they think TRIPLEH sucks, we need Vince
<v Speaker 1>McMahon back. This is the only way. He's a big
<v Speaker 1>picture guy. We need Vince McMahon back. I will never
<v Speaker 1>understand this. This is not the Vince McMahon of nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety seven. This is not the Vince McMahon of two
<v Speaker 1>thousand and seven. For all of his business acumen and
<v Speaker 1>all of his business instincts, his creative brain is fried.
<v Speaker 1>And they have proven that even without Vince McMahon, business
<v Speaker 1>can thrive, business can go on. The company didn't fall apart.
<v Speaker 1>They have allowed their greed to consume them and they've
<v Speaker 1>priced out a lot of fans. Would Vince have done
<v Speaker 1>that probably, Yeah, at some point all of the things
<v Speaker 1>that Vince never did before, pricing people out, slapping sponsor
<v Speaker 1>logos all over the ring mats. I think that some
<v Speaker 1>people believe that had he never left, or if he
<v Speaker 1>came back, things would suddenly go back to the way
<v Speaker 1>they were. They wouldn't he sold the company. He doesn't
<v Speaker 1>own it anymore. It's not his, it doesn't belong to him.
<v Speaker 1>He rushed into a sale because he didn't want his
<v Speaker 1>family to have it. He got burned by them. This
<v Speaker 1>was his revenge. I'll show them, I'll sell it to
<v Speaker 1>the highest better and then they'll keep me on and
<v Speaker 1>I'll still be around. He screwed himself on that one.
<v Speaker 1>He screwed himself and god knows how many women. After
<v Speaker 1>a while, you know, you lose track of all the NDAs.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's seven million dollar payout to that former
<v Speaker 1>women's wrestler that was never identified. That must have been
<v Speaker 1>a doozy. That's a lot of money. Vince McMahon is
<v Speaker 1>a scumbag, a very successful scum bag, and the greatest
<v Speaker 1>heel of all time in my opinion. A tremendous performer
<v Speaker 1>on screen, brilliant mind at times behind the scenes. I
<v Speaker 1>don't deny that, but he is toxic sludge and that's
<v Speaker 1>not anyone's fault but his own. Because he's a fucking
<v Speaker 1>weirdo and I'm tired of everybody coming at me with well,
<v Speaker 1>you know, we wouldn't be fans right now if it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't for Vince. He made wrestling what it is today.
<v Speaker 1>And and what's your point, like, did we enter into
<v Speaker 1>some sort of social contract that I'm not aware of,
<v Speaker 1>that we are forever in this man's debt? Like as
<v Speaker 1>a fan, I could say thank you, thank you for
<v Speaker 1>the memories, thank you for the moments, thank you for
<v Speaker 1>the network. I miss it every day. Thank you. Now
<v Speaker 1>go away. We don't owe him anything. Believe me, I've
<v Speaker 1>poured more more than enough money of my own into
<v Speaker 1>that company over the years as a fan. I paid
<v Speaker 1>my debt. I'm debt free. The man isn't owed a
<v Speaker 1>job for life, anymore so than any longtime talent or
<v Speaker 1>employee who worked for him who was let go or
<v Speaker 1>furloughed over the years and got kicked to the curb
<v Speaker 1>after twenty five, thirty thirty five years of service. People say, well,
<v Speaker 1>that's that's business. You're not owed a job for life.
<v Speaker 1>You're right, you're not, and neither is he. As they say, hey,
<v Speaker 1>it's just business, and it would be bad business to
<v Speaker 1>bring back Vince McMahon. Now, this week we had another
<v Speaker 1>chapter written in the story of Loltna. We've had many
<v Speaker 1>chapters to this book. This book is as big as
<v Speaker 1>Moby Dick this week. This is how it started. Per
<v Speaker 1>pw Insider. On Wednesday, they heard from multiple sources that
<v Speaker 1>former TNA champion Moose was set to perform at the
<v Speaker 1>Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling Multiverse show in Las Vegas on Friday,
<v Speaker 1>but after TNA approved the appearance, there was a change
<v Speaker 1>made and Moose was pulled from the event before MLP
<v Speaker 1>could officially announce him. The belief is Moose would have
<v Speaker 1>been in the ring with talents from another promotion, likely AW,
<v Speaker 1>and the stories making the rounds that TNA would not
<v Speaker 1>want their talents in the ring with talents from opposing promotions,
<v Speaker 1>especially if those events could stream live or be taped
<v Speaker 1>for future release. The concern, based on what we are hearing,
<v Speaker 1>seems to be centered around the idea that someone could
<v Speaker 1>conceivably show TNA to talent in a bad light or
<v Speaker 1>losing on rival programming. Whether that is a concern that
<v Speaker 1>AMC brought up now that they are carrying TNA or
<v Speaker 1>something TNA partner WWE voice concern over. PW Insider cannot
<v Speaker 1>confirm at this time. AW Collision and TNA Impact went
<v Speaker 1>head to head for an hour that overlapped last Thursday,
<v Speaker 1>with TNA's usual audience dropping off specifically during that hour. Again,
<v Speaker 1>whether there is a connection there is unknown at this time,
<v Speaker 1>but it is interesting timing. So that was several days ago,
<v Speaker 1>and then Dave Meltz was talking about how there's talk
<v Speaker 1>that the MJF Nick Nemeth match that was scheduled for
<v Speaker 1>the Creative Pro Show on May first, it was still on,
<v Speaker 1>but it could be in jeopardy, and the match between
<v Speaker 1>Ricochet and Leon Slater in Vegas this week that was
<v Speaker 1>scheduled for the Mark Hitchcock Super Show on April sixteenth
<v Speaker 1>could potentially be in jeopardy. Mark Hitchcock, for those who
<v Speaker 1>don't know, was a huge wrestling fan who used to
<v Speaker 1>design I think DBD covers and other artwork for High Spots,
<v Speaker 1>and they have a memorial show named after him in
<v Speaker 1>his honor after he passed away. I think there was
<v Speaker 1>an accident some time back, so that's who that is.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, Sean Ross Sapp then was reporting the TNA
<v Speaker 1>president Carlos Silva said that some TNA talent have been
<v Speaker 1>pulled from shows due to quote partner conflicts, and both
<v Speaker 1>PW Insider and Fightful Select reported that Moose had been
<v Speaker 1>pulled from MLP Multiverse after having previously been granted approval
<v Speaker 1>for the show, and it was also said there were
<v Speaker 1>growing concerns that TNA was moving towards a scenario where
<v Speaker 1>its talent would not be permitted to work with talent
<v Speaker 1>from AW or other companies at all. And in fact,
<v Speaker 1>what ended up happening is that the MJF Nick Nemmath match,
<v Speaker 1>which they were doing a hell of a job of
<v Speaker 1>really building up on social media and I'm busted Open Radio.
<v Speaker 1>They were really promoting that match hard, and I know
<v Speaker 1>it's a match both guys wanted for a long time.
<v Speaker 1>That match has been canceled, as was the rickshet Leon
<v Speaker 1>Slater match. But we got this statement here from Pat Buck,
<v Speaker 1>the owner of Creati Pro, which is where MJF trained
<v Speaker 1>and cut his teeth. So of course Creati Pro means
<v Speaker 1>something special to him. Of course he's going to be
<v Speaker 1>doubly upset about all this. But Pat Buck put this
<v Speaker 1>statement out the other day. He said, I don't usually
<v Speaker 1>speak on things like this, but this one's too ridiculous
<v Speaker 1>to ignore. TNA specifically, Carlos Silva forced a change to
<v Speaker 1>the main event of our Creative Pro show three weeks
<v Speaker 1>out after it was already approved and promoted. Not sure
<v Speaker 1>who that helps create a pro is a training school
<v Speaker 1>with a promotion focused on developing talent while running consistent
<v Speaker 1>live events, or a school dojo and a mom in
<v Speaker 1>pop business just with two dads. Live events are a
<v Speaker 1>necessary training tool, and they're disappearing even at the highest
<v Speaker 1>levels because they're not as cost effective and the money
<v Speaker 1>as in television. In a direct way, we are providing
<v Speaker 1>a service for you or talent to make money and
<v Speaker 1>keep their skills sharp. Do you not see that we
<v Speaker 1>train wrestlers for wrestling companies and now a wrestling company
<v Speaker 1>has stepped in and hurt another wrestling company that helped
<v Speaker 1>wrestlers get too wrestling companies makes perfect sense. Maybe I'm
<v Speaker 1>the one missing something. I'm annoyed as it's hard to
<v Speaker 1>ignore how unnecessary and honestly how cringe this situation is.
<v Speaker 1>And to be fair, talent wasn't pulled, but altering a
<v Speaker 1>main event match like that on our limited stage has
<v Speaker 1>had or has the same impact because MJF is still
<v Speaker 1>going to be on the show, and Nick Nemeth is
<v Speaker 1>still going to be on the show. They're just not
<v Speaker 1>going to be wrestling each other. But he says anyone
<v Speaker 1>who actually promoted shows understands that when something changes that
<v Speaker 1>affects another promoter's show, you make it right, whether that
<v Speaker 1>means sending talent, strengthening the card, or finding a way
<v Speaker 1>to return value. You don't just create the problem and
<v Speaker 1>walk away from it. That didn't happen here, and if
<v Speaker 1>any attempt is made now to make it right, it's
<v Speaker 1>a bit too late. You meet people with grace, not chaos.
<v Speaker 1>Creati Pro isn't a competing media company. It's a training
<v Speaker 1>ground that built its own platform to develop talent. No
<v Speaker 1>TV deal, no streaming, and we're not attached to any
<v Speaker 1>bigger company yet. Between creat a Pro slash Wrestle Pro,
<v Speaker 1>we run around twenty five events a year and reinvest
<v Speaker 1>back into us, our leases, rings and the equipment needed
<v Speaker 1>to put on the shows, equipment that at one point
<v Speaker 1>your company needed to rent to operate in this market,
<v Speaker 1>and at another point, when your company needed content additional matches,
<v Speaker 1>talent was placed on Creative Pro and Wrestle Pro shows
<v Speaker 1>because there wasn't enough content to support it. Did anyone
<v Speaker 1>let you know about a past positive relationship years ago
<v Speaker 1>your company used our students for extra work in a
<v Speaker 1>meaningful way. Now it looks more like carrot dangling ring
<v Speaker 1>crew and helping with catering. But that's an entirely different conversation.
<v Speaker 1>Creative pro has a pipeline and a support system to
<v Speaker 1>just about every major company in wrestling. Most people know
<v Speaker 1>that unless you ask the WWEID program, then we apparently
<v Speaker 1>don't exist. I'm willing to believe Carlos may not know
<v Speaker 1>who I am, and that's fine, but if you're in
<v Speaker 1>an executive position, you should probably understand the room you're
<v Speaker 1>operating in and the etiquette that comes with it. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>Tony Khan can give a quick crash course on how
<v Speaker 1>to protect your brand while still helping the overall scene.
<v Speaker 1>It's times like this I'm glad to work for someone
<v Speaker 1>who actually champions the entire sport, not tries to shrink it.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, I'm on the payroll, but these words are
<v Speaker 1>from experience, not influence. At the end of the day,
<v Speaker 1>will adjust like we always do. But if the goal
<v Speaker 1>is to grow this industry or even your own company,
<v Speaker 1>this isn't the way to do it, and then he
<v Speaker 1>signed it. Pat buck Create a pro founder and trainer,
<v Speaker 1>AWVP of talent Development and one of the adults in
<v Speaker 1>the room. And there may be some people who are
<v Speaker 1>going to discount what he said there, because yes, he
<v Speaker 1>does work for Tony Khan. He gets a paycheck from
<v Speaker 1>Tony Khan. But there was nothing in what he said
<v Speaker 1>there that was wrong, and you could understand his anger
<v Speaker 1>and you can understand his frustration. Nick Neammath commented, I'm
<v Speaker 1>busted Open Radio, sounding very dejected over all of this.
<v Speaker 1>He said, you know, I was really looking forward to this.
<v Speaker 1>I was really excited. But yes, as of yesterday, as
<v Speaker 1>I was flying in, I found out because of certain
<v Speaker 1>partnerships and brands, TNA President Carlos Silva had to make
<v Speaker 1>a difficult decision and protect a couple of brands down
<v Speaker 1>the line, and things are actually contractually obligated to happen.
<v Speaker 1>Can't just kind of do whatever we want, even though
<v Speaker 1>I think some things we approved or were approved at
<v Speaker 1>a different time. When it became the situation that it
<v Speaker 1>is now with a couple of different things happening at once,
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I'm crushed because I was very much
<v Speaker 1>looking forward to doing this, but it's unable to happen
<v Speaker 1>at the moment. And then he was also giving another
<v Speaker 1>interview later on to Youngstown Studio Productions, and he opened
<v Speaker 1>up a little bit more, saying, a lot of things
<v Speaker 1>happened to once our president. Carlos Silva is very open
<v Speaker 1>when it comes to a lot of things behind the
<v Speaker 1>scenes deals, things people don't always know about we put
<v Speaker 1>out there. He's very open to constantly being here, why
<v Speaker 1>here's why I can't do this thing. We had a
<v Speaker 1>phone call he said, because of certain deep into contractual obligations,
<v Speaker 1>certain companies might have crossover with certain other companies that
<v Speaker 1>we are with a rival or a streaming service or
<v Speaker 1>a cable company. And he says, because of the situation,
<v Speaker 1>and it's debatable, there's a few of them, we have
<v Speaker 1>to do the right thing now. It's going to be
<v Speaker 1>a hard choice, but long term it covers their butts
<v Speaker 1>legally for everything. MJF was not happy about any of this,
<v Speaker 1>and when the news broke that the match was off,
<v Speaker 1>he said, well, Nick Nemath and TNA are afraid of
<v Speaker 1>the AEW World champion. Shame old. Carlos doesn't care about
<v Speaker 1>the fans or his roster getting paid. I'll still be
<v Speaker 1>there at Creative Pro. Let's see if Nicky still has
<v Speaker 1>the balls to show up to Long Island. So those
<v Speaker 1>curious Carlos pulled them off the match prior to my tweet,
<v Speaker 1>and then he quote tweeted a post from Caul to
<v Speaker 1>Hallick that said report TNA president Carlos Silva unhappy about
<v Speaker 1>AW Collision airing at the same time as Thursday Night Impact,
<v Speaker 1>which is unconfirmed that that's the reason. But MJF replied
<v Speaker 1>to it and said it's called being preempted due to
<v Speaker 1>March madness. This guy is actively a dumb motherfucker. Congrats,
<v Speaker 1>you pay your talent shit then force them off shows
<v Speaker 1>where they can make money hashtag lol TNA. And the
<v Speaker 1>problem with that being the reason is collision gets bounced
<v Speaker 1>around because the sports all the time, right, they have
<v Speaker 1>the NCAA stuff on TNT. This was not some big surprise.
<v Speaker 1>This was right scheduled for many weeks and that's why
<v Speaker 1>collision got bounced. And so it doesn't make any sense
<v Speaker 1>that Carlos Silva or TNA would hold that against AW
<v Speaker 1>because collision got moved to a Thursday and one of
<v Speaker 1>the two hours overlap with their show and took some
<v Speaker 1>viewers like it doesn't even make any sense. It wasn't
<v Speaker 1>even an aw decision, so that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure that really is the reason here. But
<v Speaker 1>he wasn't done. MJF was not done. I told you
<v Speaker 1>he was hot. This guy, he was fucking pissed off.
<v Speaker 1>And on Thursday morning he called into Busted Open Radio,
<v Speaker 1>talked to Dave la Greca, and he dropped his own
<v Speaker 1>pipe bomb. I didn't think anything with top cmpunk's promo
<v Speaker 1>from Monday in terms of how scorched earth he went
<v Speaker 1>on different people, but then MJF just casually went and
<v Speaker 1>dropped one of his own. He said, I'm in a
<v Speaker 1>rotten mood. Okay, matter of fact, I'm in one of
<v Speaker 1>the worst moods I've ever been in in my entire life,
<v Speaker 1>and I feel horrible because I've got a living legend
<v Speaker 1>here in Natalia. Who's gonna have to listen to me
<v Speaker 1>rant and rave Natty. I apologize to start off to you.
<v Speaker 1>You're a wonderful woman. The only Canadian I've ever gotten to.
<v Speaker 1>I've not met you in person, but the only Canadian
<v Speaker 1>that I've gotten to know outside looking in that I
<v Speaker 1>don't think is a complete idiot and a talentless loser.
<v Speaker 1>What I love about this is, of course this is
<v Speaker 1>playing off the fact that he's wrestling Kenny Omega, who's
<v Speaker 1>a Canadian, this weekend, so he kind of ties it
<v Speaker 1>into that. But he says, now I'm able or now
<v Speaker 1>I'm about to talk about Dynasty. But before I do that,
<v Speaker 1>I want to say one more thing, Natty. What you
<v Speaker 1>and TJ are doing right now for wrestling in general
<v Speaker 1>is incredible, and I think it's awesome how much you
<v Speaker 1>guys are helping young talent. And now I would actually
<v Speaker 1>like to speak on young talent a little bit. Let's
<v Speaker 1>talk about TNA and the fact that they are pulling
<v Speaker 1>young talent off of shows when they're barely paying them
<v Speaker 1>any money. Whats so fucking ever? And telling them, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you can't wrestle because there's a guy from another promotion
<v Speaker 1>that's wrestling on this show. Does that help young talent grow?
<v Speaker 1>Does that help? Does that help young talent become better
<v Speaker 1>inside the squared circle? Moreover, does that help young talent
<v Speaker 1>put food on their plate and on their table so
<v Speaker 1>they can eat what Carlos Silva's doing is disgusting and
<v Speaker 1>if anybody supports him or that company at this point,
<v Speaker 1>it is very hard for me to wrap my head. Now,
<v Speaker 1>let's talk about the fact that Nick Nemath is completely
<v Speaker 1>terrified of me, and all of this, in my opinion,
<v Speaker 1>is just some blatant, weird conspiracy and excuse because he
<v Speaker 1>knows that if he gets inside that squared circle with me,
<v Speaker 1>he is done for. And then from there he seamlessly
<v Speaker 1>segued into a promo on Kenny Omega to promote his
<v Speaker 1>company's pay per view tonight or is he put it
<v Speaker 1>the biggest show happening in April. This man is fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>This man knows what he's doing. But I'll tell you
<v Speaker 1>one of the most embarrassing parts about all this. Last month,
<v Speaker 1>Nick Nemeth, and hyping up the match with MJF, said
<v Speaker 1>he thinks MJF is counting on Tony Khan to step
<v Speaker 1>in and cancel their match. I'm just like, holy shit,
<v Speaker 1>that age like milk, didn't it now? On the Dynasty
<v Speaker 1>media call on Thursday, Tony Khan said that MJF and
<v Speaker 1>Ricochet both asked him directly about the matches against TNA Talent,
<v Speaker 1>and Tony approved them. He said, I love it collaboration,
<v Speaker 1>and I was surprised to see those matches had been
<v Speaker 1>changed as a result of the other company not wanting
<v Speaker 1>their wrestlers involved. And he said MJF and Ricochet both
<v Speaker 1>came to him with the idea of working those shows
<v Speaker 1>and he had no issues with either one of them.
<v Speaker 1>Sean Ross Sapp said later that the issue is specifically
<v Speaker 1>dealing with TNA Talent against AW Talent, and he says
<v Speaker 1>TNA does not pay talent enough to keep them from
<v Speaker 1>doing indis basically at all. I mean, they can't say no,
<v Speaker 1>you can't do indies all of a sudden, because there's
<v Speaker 1>a lot of talents that work every fucking weekend doing
<v Speaker 1>indies and unless you start reworking all of their contracts,
<v Speaker 1>how are they going to make up for that lost income.
<v Speaker 1>This is specifically an issue with AW, and the question
<v Speaker 1>is why, why, all of a sudden is this an
<v Speaker 1>issue when it wasn't an issue before now. The answer
<v Speaker 1>that he gave to SAP was partner conflicts. When I
<v Speaker 1>hear partner conflicts, that means one of two things. It
<v Speaker 1>means either WWE or AMC and I don't think AMC
<v Speaker 1>gives a shit about TNA wrestlers wrestling aw talents on
<v Speaker 1>independent shows, So that only leaves one answer here, And
<v Speaker 1>this is a terrible look for TNA. It's a terrible
<v Speaker 1>look for Carlos Silva for a lot of reasons, pulling
<v Speaker 1>Leon Slater from a match on a memorial show. For one,
<v Speaker 1>pulling talent this close to the shows when things were
<v Speaker 1>already agreed upon previously and tickets were sold. But also
<v Speaker 1>they had no issue with Indy Hartwell beating Deanna Pirazzo
<v Speaker 1>last month in House of Glory or Jody Threat beating
<v Speaker 1>Mercedes Monet for her Winnipeg Pro Women's title. Only now
<v Speaker 1>weeks later does it become an issue. You know, it
<v Speaker 1>may have been WWE dropping the hammer and telling Carlos
<v Speaker 1>no more, but boy, that makes it look really bad. Right,
<v Speaker 1>Let's get these matches out of the way first, and
<v Speaker 1>then all of a sudden, no, we can't work with
<v Speaker 1>these people anymore. That's a bad look, right. Let the
<v Speaker 1>TNA stars get their wins and then pull everybody else
<v Speaker 1>after that. TNA had its rebellion show last night, and
<v Speaker 1>Carlos Silvaga booed on the pre show and they introduced him.
<v Speaker 1>He's become the villain in this story. Rightly or wrongly,
<v Speaker 1>He's the one who made the final decision. He felt
<v Speaker 1>it was more important to keep WWE happy, even if
<v Speaker 1>that meant fucking over a bunch of promoters and the
<v Speaker 1>fans who paid money to see those matches. And even worse,
<v Speaker 1>one of those promoters is Brian Myers, who works for TNA.
<v Speaker 1>They screwed over one of their own talents in the process,
<v Speaker 1>with no make good, no nothing. But you know who
<v Speaker 1>did get to play hero this week in this story,
<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahan Wressel Khan needed a new main event for
<v Speaker 1>their memorial show, and now they have one. It's going
<v Speaker 1>to be Ricochet and the Gates of Agony against Jet
<v Speaker 1>Speed and Michael Oku. Oku's gonna have a busy day,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, He's doing that match in the afternoon,
<v Speaker 1>and then a few hours later he's wrestling Charles Mason
<v Speaker 1>for the Hog World title. But that's a rematch from
<v Speaker 1>the Forbidden Door pre show last year. That was the
<v Speaker 1>match if you remember where too, Leona. He pounced Michael
<v Speaker 1>Oku over the top row and Oku took this horrendous
<v Speaker 1>landing where he almost broke his neck, Like I still
<v Speaker 1>don't know how he didn't. The way he landed was
<v Speaker 1>just sickening. But wressel Khan said, it took some exceptions
<v Speaker 1>to make this match happen on our little independent show
<v Speaker 1>to honor our friend, and we want to personally thank
<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahan and AW for allowing this to happen. When
<v Speaker 1>we lost our main event, we had several wrestlers, management
<v Speaker 1>and agents reach out and offer their help. Thanks to
<v Speaker 1>everybody that had a part in putting this one together.
<v Speaker 1>So all's well, that ends well in terms of at
<v Speaker 1>least they got a big match. I mean, it's not
<v Speaker 1>Ricochet against Leon Slater that would have been a kick
<v Speaker 1>ass match to have. But yes, I mean whatever is
<v Speaker 1>going on behind the scenes right now, and I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>it involves WWE and Carlos Silvin. The position that he's
<v Speaker 1>in has to make a decision about what is the
<v Speaker 1>most important thing here. He has to weigh the pros
<v Speaker 1>and cons. He's got this partnership, this multi year partnership
<v Speaker 1>with WWE, and WWE wants to start playing games, and
<v Speaker 1>he has to be subservient to his partner if he
<v Speaker 1>wants to maintain the relationship. I don't know about the
<v Speaker 1>Neemath was talking about there being legal and contractual obligations,
<v Speaker 1>but apparently those legal and contractual obligations didn't exist a
<v Speaker 1>few weeks ago. Only now, all of a sudden do
<v Speaker 1>they exist. And so as a result, he and TNA
<v Speaker 1>have been dragged. They have been raked over the coals
<v Speaker 1>all week long, and deservedly. So this is the price
<v Speaker 1>you pay. It is a terrible, terrible look for TNA
<v Speaker 1>in this case. And Tony Kahn read the room and said, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>I have the chance to do the funniest thing ever here.
<v Speaker 1>I could ride in on my horse and I could
<v Speaker 1>be the hero right riding in and saving the day.
<v Speaker 1>That's exactly what he did. Alberto Dell dipshit strikes again.
<v Speaker 1>He made a headline this week after the Mexican news
<v Speaker 1>platform La Saga reported that former WWE champion in TRIPAA
<v Speaker 1>Mega Champion Alberto Rodriguez aka Alberto del Rio aka Alberto L.
<v Speaker 1>Patron was arrested for alleged domestic violence in San Luis Poto,
<v Speaker 1>c which is located in north central Mexico. Their report
<v Speaker 1>states that authorities from the state's Civil Guard responded to
<v Speaker 1>an emergency call and proceeded to detain the former champion.
<v Speaker 1>The incident was allegedly triggered by a complaint filed by
<v Speaker 1>his wife, who accused him of physical aggression. His mugshot
<v Speaker 1>is also online. It's not hard to find. Just make
<v Speaker 1>sure you look for the most recent one, because there's
<v Speaker 1>been more than one that he's had now. Later on,
<v Speaker 1>the following statement was issued by San Luis poto C
<v Speaker 1>State Attorney General's Office regarding the arrest of Alberto. The
<v Speaker 1>Attorney General's Office of the State of San Luis poto
<v Speaker 1>C initiated investigations against Alberto n They put in quote
<v Speaker 1>marks who was accused of the probable crime of domestic
<v Speaker 1>violence against his romantic partner and events that occurred in
<v Speaker 1>the capital of San Luis Potosi. The accused was placed
<v Speaker 1>at the disposal of the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for attention
<v Speaker 1>to Women, family and sexual crimes after being arrested in
<v Speaker 1>flagrante delicto by agents of the State Civil Guard after
<v Speaker 1>a call for help made by the victim on the
<v Speaker 1>afternoon of Monday, April sixth. According to the victim's complained,
<v Speaker 1>upon meeting Alberto inside a home in the Lomas del
<v Speaker 1>Technologico subdivision. An argument ensued that led to the accused
<v Speaker 1>to commit various physical and verbal assaults against his partner.
<v Speaker 1>After the arrest carried out by the GCE agents, the
<v Speaker 1>accused was placed at the disposal of agents of the
<v Speaker 1>Public Ministry will be in charge of duly compiling the
<v Speaker 1>investigation file and presenting him before the judicial authority at
<v Speaker 1>the initial hearing where he will have to answer for
<v Speaker 1>the acts that he is accused of. Then we have
<v Speaker 1>an outlet here called in Obey Mexico, which identified the
<v Speaker 1>alleged victim as Del Rio's wife, Mary Carmen Rodriguez Lucero,
<v Speaker 1>and reported that she was under medical and legal protection.
<v Speaker 1>They reported that approximately one month before the April sixth incident,
<v Speaker 1>Rodriguez Lucero allegedly reached out to Mexican journalist Flora Rubio
<v Speaker 1>via WhatsApp and then walked the request back. Per Infobay,
<v Speaker 1>the message read, I went through a situation with my husband.
<v Speaker 1>It was an impulse on my part. I've changed my mind.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to cause trouble or make things bigger.
<v Speaker 1>According to Tele Diario Mexico, the arrest took place at
<v Speaker 1>a residence in the Lomas del Tech neighborhood of San
<v Speaker 1>Luis Proto Sea. After Rodriguez Lucero reportedly called nine one one,
<v Speaker 1>and they report that the victim was found with visible
<v Speaker 1>injuries to her face and arms. Del Rio was detained
<v Speaker 1>at the scene and turned over to police for investigation.
<v Speaker 1>Now del Rio is said to have had a closed
<v Speaker 1>door hearing on April ninth, where the judge ruled that
<v Speaker 1>he had to re main and preventive detention. Dave Meltzer
<v Speaker 1>in this week's Observer mentioned that when he was on
<v Speaker 1>the Lagrango reality show recently, and I had forgotten that
<v Speaker 1>he was on this big reality show after he left
<v Speaker 1>Triple A. I think the premise of it was a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of celebrities being forced to live together on a farm.
<v Speaker 1>But a rival of his on the show, Alfredo Adame,
<v Speaker 1>brought up Alberto's history, I guess his arrest history or
<v Speaker 1>domestic violence history on the show. This happened on the show,
<v Speaker 1>and Alberto spent the next episode saying how he had
<v Speaker 1>been wrongly accused and that every claim against him was
<v Speaker 1>proven false. His wife appeared on the episode backing him
<v Speaker 1>up and saying that he is nothing like that at all,
<v Speaker 1>which led to Adam apologizing to him on the show,
<v Speaker 1>and this was a major national news in Mexico. Flora Rubio,
<v Speaker 1>a host of Lagranga, said that Mary Carmen had reached
<v Speaker 1>out to her about Alberto about a month ago, but
<v Speaker 1>then changed her story hours later. Reporter said that he
<v Speaker 1>had heard from one of the neighbors about repeated incidents
<v Speaker 1>and police calls over the past month. According to Super
<v Speaker 1>Luca's local media reports now say that del Rio has
<v Speaker 1>obtained a conditional suspension of his sentence and has been
<v Speaker 1>released from jail after reaching a settlement agreement with his wife.
<v Speaker 1>And it was said that he had obtained his wife's
<v Speaker 1>forgiveness and paid one million pesos in restitution or around
<v Speaker 1>fifty six thousand dollars US. And there's a little more
<v Speaker 1>info on that now. The case is not closed. What
<v Speaker 1>happened is he appeared in court for a hearing that
<v Speaker 1>lasted about three hours. During that hearing, the judge determined
<v Speaker 1>that there was enough evidence to move forward with a
<v Speaker 1>case to trial on a charge of repeated family violence,
<v Speaker 1>and despite the ruling, del Rio's legal team requested an
<v Speaker 1>alternative resolution, which the judge approved, allowing the case to
<v Speaker 1>move forward under conditional suspension instead of keeping him behind
<v Speaker 1>bars now. As part of the agreement, he agreed to
<v Speaker 1>pay the fine that I mentioned, and the victim also
<v Speaker 1>granted legal pardon which allowed authorities to reprove his immediate
<v Speaker 1>release from custody, but it does come with some strict conditions.
<v Speaker 1>Del Rio must comply with various court ordered requirements over
<v Speaker 1>the next six months while the case remains under judicial
<v Speaker 1>supervision and a compliance verification hearing has been scheduled for
<v Speaker 1>October twenty ninth, where the court will review whether he
<v Speaker 1>followed those conditions. And at that point, I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if this all goes away or if they're going to
<v Speaker 1>continue to pursue charges. I don't know. But there were
<v Speaker 1>people who wanted him or expected him back in WWE,
<v Speaker 1>or at least in Tripaa, which is basically Mexican WWE.
<v Speaker 1>At this point, this guy always crashes in burns, so
<v Speaker 1>why would they want to take that headache on. I
<v Speaker 1>have no idea why people thought that was ever going
<v Speaker 1>to happen. He was never coming back, even when he
<v Speaker 1>said a few months ago he was claiming that, oh,
<v Speaker 1>we're having conversation. We're having talks. We're just waiting for
<v Speaker 1>the right time for WWE to bring me back. I
<v Speaker 1>don't believe those talks ever happened. I think he made
<v Speaker 1>it all up. I think they happened in his head.
<v Speaker 1>I think he's hearing voices the way Randy Orton does.
<v Speaker 1>Hopefully he doesn't hear Pat McAfee's voice. There will never
<v Speaker 1>be a right time for him to come back. For
<v Speaker 1>this very reason. While you always hear me call him
<v Speaker 1>Alberto del dipshit a leopard doesn't change his spots. Rick Flair,
<v Speaker 1>he says that WWE is trying to destroy his legacy.
<v Speaker 1>I guess he didn't want to miss out on all
<v Speaker 1>the news that was going on this week, and everybody
<v Speaker 1>was talking about this, that, and the other. He didn't
<v Speaker 1>want to be left out, so he sent out a
<v Speaker 1>tweet on Tuesdays saying that he is no longer allowed
<v Speaker 1>to have merchandise with Roots of Fight, a company that
<v Speaker 1>offers clothing based on legendary athletes across sports. Flair, who
<v Speaker 1>was still under contract with AEW, said that it was
<v Speaker 1>WWE's call for him to be removed. Now bred Hart,
<v Speaker 1>Roddy Piper Punk Raymysterio, Randy Savage, Andre the Giant Iron Chic.
<v Speaker 1>They all have items on the Roots of Fight website.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know why this is all of a sudden
<v Speaker 1>an issue, but man, WWE be fucking everyone shit up
<v Speaker 1>this week, aren't they. This is what Flare tweeted out
<v Speaker 1>of nowhere. Of course, every word first letter is capitalized.
<v Speaker 1>That's how you know it's a Rick Flair tweet. I
<v Speaker 1>woke up this morning with a blue moon in my eye.
<v Speaker 1>No sorry, I woke up this morning to find out
<v Speaker 1>that I am no longer allowed to be with Roots
<v Speaker 1>of Fight per WWE. Let me think I'm the only
<v Speaker 1>wrestler to ever be on thirty for thirty and ranked
<v Speaker 1>in the top twenty five of all time. An Emmy
<v Speaker 1>nominated documentary courtesy of the WWE, which I should have won,
<v Speaker 1>but I lost to a team, not an individual. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what the hell that means. Twenty one World Championships,
<v Speaker 1>but I always played by your rules and kept it
<v Speaker 1>at sixteen. Paid Vince McMahon back eight hundred thousand dollars
<v Speaker 1>when he said he would forget. I don't know, he's
<v Speaker 1>just going into random shit here. I was talking about
<v Speaker 1>the tax debt Vince Loan the money he paid the
<v Speaker 1>money back, he said, I honored it. Fortunately I still
<v Speaker 1>make one million dollars from the great Ryan Fiterman at
<v Speaker 1>Fiterman's Sports, five hundred thousand dollars from Rick Flair drip,
<v Speaker 1>and thank God for Tony Kahan. What more of my
<v Speaker 1>legacy do you want to destroy? WWE? You all grew
<v Speaker 1>up loving me and I set the bar. Now you
<v Speaker 1>are trying to kill me and diminish my legacy. Thank you,
<v Speaker 1>but it ain't happening. Nice try LFG. And then in
<v Speaker 1>a follow up pos Flair said that he would be
<v Speaker 1>interviewed by Yahoo's Sports this Monday, saying, now that you
<v Speaker 1>have officially pissed me off, listen to me live on
<v Speaker 1>Yahoo Sports Monday names and then he put a question mark, wait,
<v Speaker 1>I know everything. Then, just twenty four hours after this outburst,
<v Speaker 1>Flair posted a video. Somebody filmed the video of him.
<v Speaker 1>He was striking a very different, more conciliatory tone, saying,
<v Speaker 1>I just want to take this opportunity to thank Roots
<v Speaker 1>of Fight for letting me represent them over the years.
<v Speaker 1>It's a pretty cool thing to have. It's not as
<v Speaker 1>cool as being inducted into the Hall of Fame. But
<v Speaker 1>you'd be amazed at how many people admire and respect
<v Speaker 1>this brand. I think I've represented it well. People love it.
<v Speaker 1>I'm proud to have been a part of the organization.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not even mad at the people that took it
<v Speaker 1>away from me. I was at first, but I understand business,
<v Speaker 1>and business comes first. You always want to think that
<v Speaker 1>they'll make an exception, but sometimes exceptions just can't be made.
<v Speaker 1>So Roots of Fight, thank you for the honor and
<v Speaker 1>the privilege of representing you, and I look forward to
<v Speaker 1>seeing the next member of a great team. God bless
<v Speaker 1>and thank you. And I'm like, okay, you know, he
<v Speaker 1>he cooled off a little bit. Maybe he you know,
<v Speaker 1>got a phone call from someone I don't know, but
<v Speaker 1>very very different tone there from Rick Flair. But then
<v Speaker 1>later that same day he tweeted this, loved CM Punk's
<v Speaker 1>interview He's talking about. The interview from Raw really created
<v Speaker 1>a lot of interest in WrestleMania. Watch my pipe bomb
<v Speaker 1>interview on at Yahoo Sports Monday. Karma is a bitch
<v Speaker 1>never too old to learn a new phrase. Thank you,
<v Speaker 1>CM Punk. So now apparently he's back to being upset
<v Speaker 1>and I guess he's still gonna be on Yahoo tomorrow
<v Speaker 1>until he's probably not. I don't know what's going on here.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what's going on here, But now things
<v Speaker 1>seem to be making a little more sense because Roots
<v Speaker 1>of Fight posted a teaser just the other day hyping
<v Speaker 1>that it will soon be announcing some sort of deal
<v Speaker 1>with WWE. And again, they already have merchandise based off
<v Speaker 1>of a lot of different WWE personalities, including cmpunk. Rick Flair,
<v Speaker 1>of course, is under a contract to Tony Kahn and
<v Speaker 1>AW and so I'm sure that has something to do
<v Speaker 1>with what's going on here. I'm sure that this is
<v Speaker 1>just what Charlotte wanted to hear the week of her
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania match. I'm sure this is like, this is exactly
<v Speaker 1>what she was hoping for. WWE does not have to
<v Speaker 1>do much to diminish Flair's legacy. He's been doing a
<v Speaker 1>pretty good job of that himself over the last fifteen years.
<v Speaker 1>But man, WWE is really waving their dick around this week,
<v Speaker 1>aren't they. We got a busy week coming up, so
<v Speaker 1>hopefully you guys are ready. Hopefully you guys will be
<v Speaker 1>joining me for most of it. Just know there will
<v Speaker 1>be no SoundOff next Sunday. We're taking a break SoundOff
<v Speaker 1>episode nine to sixty. He will be back in two weeks.
<v Speaker 1>I say taking a break because if I'm going on
<v Speaker 1>a fucking vacation here. We got the Raw Post show
<v Speaker 1>coming up on Monday, live on YouTube. The Uncrowned Wrestling Show,
<v Speaker 1>episode ten. It's going to be dropping on Tuesday, and
<v Speaker 1>that will include my full thoughts and review for aw Dynasty.
<v Speaker 1>Then there's a brand Tuesday Night Titans with myself and
<v Speaker 1>JD that'll be on Tuesday Night. It's been doing tremendous
<v Speaker 1>numbers recently, let's keep that up. Then I fly out
<v Speaker 1>to Vegas on Wednesday for the House of Glory show
<v Speaker 1>on Thursday, so there will be no Dynamite and no
<v Speaker 1>SmackDown reviews this week. Saturday night, I'll be live on
<v Speaker 1>YouTube for my Night one WrestleMania recap. Same thing on
<v Speaker 1>Sunday for Night too. There just won't be a proper
<v Speaker 1>SoundOff that day. In between the two reviews and anything
<v Speaker 1>important that needs to be covered. If you know, I
<v Speaker 1>is some major story or something like that independent of WrestleMania,
<v Speaker 1>we'll save that for Uncrowned. The following Tuesday, including my
<v Speaker 1>thoughts on the Hall of Fame ceremony and anything else
<v Speaker 1>I want to talk about. So that's the schedule. That's
<v Speaker 1>the plan for this week and to the beginning of
<v Speaker 1>next week. So again, just be aware, no SoundOff next Sunday,
<v Speaker 1>but you are getting two WrestleMania reviews back to back,
<v Speaker 1>so there's gonna be plenty of content for you. We've
<v Speaker 1>been killing it on YouTube lately. Go subscribe over there
<v Speaker 1>Solo Monster Sounds Off. We are marching towards ninety two
<v Speaker 1>thousand subscribers on there, and we're killing it on the
<v Speaker 1>audio charts as well, whether you're listening on Speaker, Apple, Spotify,
<v Speaker 1>wherever it may be. Keep doing so. Share it with
<v Speaker 1>a friend they may enjoy it. Especially at this time
<v Speaker 1>of year. A lot of stuff going on. And that's
<v Speaker 1>all I got for you, So be well, stay safe,
<v Speaker 1>have yourselves a great week. Hopefully I get to see
<v Speaker 1>some of you in Las Vegas at the House of
<v Speaker 1>Glory show and then back here for WrestleMania next weekend
<v Speaker 1>with more sound up. Until then, take care, guys. The
<v Speaker 1>Solemn Monster Sounds Off. Dog shit. That is what SmackDown
<v Speaker 1>has become. This is a horrendous television show. I know
<v Speaker 1>they have The Real Housewives of Orange County and the
<v Speaker 1>Real Housewives of Trenton, New Jersey, the Real Housewives of
<v Speaker 1>Oshkosh Bagosh, Wisconsin, or whatever the fuck. I'm sure every
<v Speaker 1>single one of those shows are light years ahead of
<v Speaker 1>Friday Nights SmackDown. This is the worst show on television.
<v Speaker 1>You can gotta stick dynamite in this show, and I
<v Speaker 1>don't mean aw dynamite, actual dynamites, and blow the whole
<v Speaker 1>fucking thing up start all over again. This show sucks.
<v Speaker 1>The Solo Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
<v Speaker 1>and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
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