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

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

<v Speaker 1>want your soul mind a woman.

<v Speaker 2>You got grown ass rustlers in the back going on Twitter.

<v Speaker 1>Come over here, hot May is that pet Patison you

<v Speaker 1>have legs?

<v Speaker 2>Week I was ninety nine percent positive it was just

<v Speaker 2>chessed up. Now I have been begging him for a

<v Speaker 2>job on every every platform I can, and I want

<v Speaker 2>to know the reason why you won't.

<v Speaker 1>Park. Welcome to episode nine to sixty of The Solemn

<v Speaker 1>Monster Sounds Off. It is Sunday, April twenty six, twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty six. I am the Solemn Monster. So the official

<v Speaker 1>x account for Luca Underground, which had been dormant for

<v Speaker 1>the last seven years, all of a sudden sprang to

<v Speaker 1>life on Friday with one tweet a video teaser showing

<v Speaker 1>a Luca mask on the ground, followed by the word

<v Speaker 1>moss with a question mark at the end. They posted

<v Speaker 1>the same thing on their YouTube channel with the title

<v Speaker 1>coming soon. And for anyone thinking, oh, it may just

<v Speaker 1>be an announcement of all the old episodes coming to

<v Speaker 1>YouTube or some other streaming platform, that was my first thought.

<v Speaker 1>But if you look at the pin comment on their

<v Speaker 1>YouTube teaser. It's a comment from a fan saying, please

<v Speaker 1>tell me this is a return, and the official account

<v Speaker 1>not only liked the comment, they pinned it to the top.

<v Speaker 1>So it would be a cruel thing to do if

<v Speaker 1>this wasn't really a return of some sort. By the way,

<v Speaker 1>you can watch all the episodes from all four seasons

<v Speaker 1>of Lucha Underground for free if you go to the

<v Speaker 1>website archive dot org. If you weren't aware of that,

<v Speaker 1>you may have to do some searching, but all four

<v Speaker 1>seasons are there. The actual files are uploaded, no commercials

<v Speaker 1>or anything, so enjoy, but consider my curiosity peaked. I

<v Speaker 1>was a big Lucha Underground fan, as you guys know.

<v Speaker 1>I reviewed every episode here on the sound off and

<v Speaker 1>it still bothers me that we never got a proper

<v Speaker 1>ending to the show. We never got closure. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know what a modern day version of Luca Underground would

<v Speaker 1>even look like. You know, it had some money behind it, obviously,

<v Speaker 1>the cinematic style. Without that, it isn't really Luca Underground.

<v Speaker 1>And a lot of the names on that show are

<v Speaker 1>now in WWE and AW A lot of the old

<v Speaker 1>names from the show actually reacted to the teaser. Chelsea Green,

<v Speaker 1>she reacted with the ies Omoji tie of Valkyrie. She's like,

<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry what Willie Mack and Evalise they posted old

<v Speaker 1>photos from them on you know, when they were on

<v Speaker 1>the show, So I don't know. I mean even the

<v Speaker 1>actor who played Dario Quato, who was the best part

<v Speaker 1>of the show. He's with MLW now. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>that it even is a revival. We shall see, but

<v Speaker 1>they have my attention. WWE got everyone's attention this week

<v Speaker 1>with their annual post WrestleMania talent cuts, and there were

<v Speaker 1>a lot of them, including a few surprising names. One

<v Speaker 1>name in particular that had me stunned. I have a

<v Speaker 1>lot to say about that. Rick Flair's interview on Ariel

<v Speaker 1>Helwani show was a total train wreck, and I was

<v Speaker 1>there for it live in person watching it all play out.

<v Speaker 1>I'll talk about that. Lots of NXT call ups this week,

<v Speaker 1>and Darby Allen's first week as AW World Champions, so

<v Speaker 1>there's a lot to dive into. I will say I

<v Speaker 1>just finished the Hulk Hogan Netflix docuseriies I am going

<v Speaker 1>to review it this week. I am gonna have to

<v Speaker 1>save it though for YouTube and maybe uncrowned on Tuesday

<v Speaker 1>because I just finished it and I didn't have enough

<v Speaker 1>time to put any real notes together on it. But

<v Speaker 1>there's a lot there, so just give me some time

<v Speaker 1>on that. I do think it is worth watching. I

<v Speaker 1>enjoyed parts of it, but there was a lot that's

<v Speaker 1>wrong with it. We're missing from it. And I'm not

<v Speaker 1>even just talking about missing content, but context to certain

<v Speaker 1>things that get glossed over. If you'd like to make

<v Speaker 1>a PayPal donation and support the show, you may do so.

<v Speaker 1>The solom monster dot com is the place to go.

<v Speaker 1>You will see the link at the top with the

<v Speaker 1>page ten dollars for more, we'll get you a nickname.

<v Speaker 1>In a shout out, I want to say thank you

<v Speaker 1>first and foremost to Rachel for the very generous drop

<v Speaker 1>and for her help in getting the Adventure of Hardy

<v Speaker 1>the Horse into her local library there in Wisconsin. I

<v Speaker 1>love it, love it. Let's get Hardy into as many

<v Speaker 1>libraries as possible. Shout out to gravedigger Brandon de Blanc,

<v Speaker 1>thank you for the mania donation. Drop brother the Portland

<v Speaker 1>pop star Paul Hamilton, Paul, thank you, my friend, Big

<v Speaker 1>B Bryant Bessera, The Diamond, Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison's Soep,

<v Speaker 1>Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, and the Chicago Slayer Willie Iichord. Again,

<v Speaker 1>there was no sound off last week, which was kind

<v Speaker 1>of weird because I feel like, through Health, Fire and Brimstone,

<v Speaker 1>I'm always doing a SoundOff every Sunday. But with all

<v Speaker 1>the mania madness last weekend and two very late reviews,

<v Speaker 1>I said, it didn't really make a whole lot of

<v Speaker 1>sense to torture myself and try to crank out sound

<v Speaker 1>off before Night two of WrestleMania started. So some of

<v Speaker 1>these folks here, they actually donated twice over the past week,

<v Speaker 1>so I want to say thank you for that. But Nightstalker,

<v Speaker 1>nif Al Safar, big Time, Boris Weinman, I'm glad you

<v Speaker 1>enjoyed the WrestleMania coverage, Killshot, Keith Hart Q the Destroyer,

<v Speaker 1>thank you very much. I hope it's warming up there

<v Speaker 1>in Chicago. I'm going to be back there in June,

<v Speaker 1>so maybe i'll see you there. Normally, when we go

<v Speaker 1>to Chicago for House of Glory, it's in the winter,

<v Speaker 1>it's in the fall. I'm pretty sure this is our

<v Speaker 1>first summer show, so hopefully it warms up there in Chicago.

<v Speaker 1>Iowen corn Farmer Jesse Lamfeir, who just got some bad

<v Speaker 1>news recently, and Jesse, I'm sorry to hear that. I

<v Speaker 1>know it's kind of turns your world upside down over there.

<v Speaker 1>But you got this, brother. You know, life throws a

<v Speaker 1>lot of shit our way. Some of it we have

<v Speaker 1>control over, some of it we don't. In your case,

<v Speaker 1>it sounds like something that can be reversed, and I

<v Speaker 1>hope that you can work to towards that. Just try

<v Speaker 1>to keep a positive attitude. I mentioned House of Glory.

<v Speaker 1>I just want to comment on this real quick because

<v Speaker 1>last Thursday I was in Las Vegas for Hog Culture

<v Speaker 1>Clash at the Pearl Theater at the Palms Casino Resort.

<v Speaker 1>In my opinion, certainly one of, if not the biggest

<v Speaker 1>show that we have ever done. We have a sold

<v Speaker 1>out crowd, those people were amped up. We had a

<v Speaker 1>lot of great matches. I don't know that I've had

<v Speaker 1>more fun than I have calling that match with JD

<v Speaker 1>when it was amazing. Red and Bandido in the ring

<v Speaker 1>together one on one, just doing their thing. But we

<v Speaker 1>had brody king on the show against Zilla, and we

<v Speaker 1>had the Hardy's on the show. Everyone goes crazy for

<v Speaker 1>the Hardy's and just up and down the cart Shatzi

<v Speaker 1>and Charlie the former Dakota Kai. It was just a

<v Speaker 1>lot of fun and it's upright now Triller TV. Plus.

<v Speaker 1>We have been posting some of the matches though on

<v Speaker 1>our YouTube channel, so I would highly recommend that you

<v Speaker 1>go check that out. I enjoyed my time in Vegas.

<v Speaker 1>It's all just too short these trips. I'm basically in

<v Speaker 1>and out. I try to enjoy it as best I could.

<v Speaker 1>I got to meet some of you guys there, which

<v Speaker 1>is always fun. It just never seems to be enough.

<v Speaker 1>But we're not done yet, because this coming Friday, House

<v Speaker 1>of Glory is back in Los Angeles at the Globe Theater.

<v Speaker 1>Glory at the Globe. I missed the first LA show.

<v Speaker 1>I will not be missing this one. I have my

<v Speaker 1>flight booked. I'm going back out to the West Coast.

<v Speaker 1>On Friday. We have the Amazing Red for the first

<v Speaker 1>time ever, stepping into the ring with Speedball. Mike Bailey.

<v Speaker 1>Zillafont two finally gets his hands on Lance on Hawaii

<v Speaker 1>Crown Jewel Championship will be on the line. I can

<v Speaker 1>tell you this time there will be no bailing out

<v Speaker 1>on this match. Lance is getting in the ring, whether

<v Speaker 1>he wants to or not. If he ever wants a

<v Speaker 1>shot at that title, he better get his ass into

<v Speaker 1>that ring. We've got most of Ali in action, thunder

<v Speaker 1>Rosa will be making her Hog debut, and a lot

<v Speaker 1>more so. There are very limited balcony in general admit

<v Speaker 1>tickets available very limited. Go to Hog Wrestling dot Net

<v Speaker 1>if you want to pick up those. And again, I'm

<v Speaker 1>looking forward to being in La. I have not been

<v Speaker 1>to God, I don't think I've been to California since

<v Speaker 1>WRESTLEMANI at thirty one. That was the last time I

<v Speaker 1>was there, and what was that Santa Clara. Anyway, hopefully

<v Speaker 1>I get to see some of you West Coast folks

<v Speaker 1>out there. That'll be on Friday, and then I'm coming

<v Speaker 1>right back on Saturday. And I ain't missing a SoundOff

<v Speaker 1>next weekend, so you don't have to worry about that.

<v Speaker 1>We had a death in the wrestling world last week.

<v Speaker 1>Mark Hildreth, better known as heavy Metal Van Hammer from

<v Speaker 1>his WCW days, died at what is believed to be

<v Speaker 1>the age of sixty six. Mark Merrow announced the news

<v Speaker 1>on social media, saying, it is with a heavy heart

<v Speaker 1>that I share the passing of our dear friend Mark Hildreth,

<v Speaker 1>known to many as Van Hammer. At this time, we

<v Speaker 1>are still awaiting answers regarding the cause, pending an autopsy.

<v Speaker 1>Mark was a fighter in every sense. Life through at

<v Speaker 1>Shriff challenges his way, but he had a resilience about him.

<v Speaker 1>He always found a way to rise, to push forward

<v Speaker 1>and keep going. I have so many incredible memories with

<v Speaker 1>him that I'll carry forever. We first met while he

<v Speaker 1>was vacationing in Venice, Florida, working out of a local

<v Speaker 1>gym or working out at a local gym. Not long after,

<v Speaker 1>I got the call from Dusty Rhodes to come to

<v Speaker 1>his office the next day, and Mark didn't hesitate. He

<v Speaker 1>drove me eight hours so I could sign my very

<v Speaker 1>first contract with World Championship Wrestling. That's the kind of person.

<v Speaker 1>He was loyal, selfless, and always there when it mattered most.

<v Speaker 1>He went through wrestling school together with me, chased the

<v Speaker 1>same dream, and before long he earned his own contract.

<v Speaker 1>We even lived together in Atlanta, training, grinding and building

<v Speaker 1>a life around the passion that we both shared. We

<v Speaker 1>were also chosen to help promote WCW for the United

<v Speaker 1>Kingdom tour, doing countless personal appearances, television spots, and even

<v Speaker 1>promotional work alongside Gladys Knight. Those were unforgettable moments times

<v Speaker 1>I'll never forget. My heart goes out to his family, friends,

<v Speaker 1>and the fans who supported him throughout his journey. Rest

<v Speaker 1>in peace, my friend. You will always be remembered. De

<v Speaker 1>Malenko and Dan Spivey, they are credited with having trained

<v Speaker 1>him van Hammer. He debuted for them in nineteen ninety one.

<v Speaker 1>He was playing, as you can surmise from his nickname,

<v Speaker 1>a heavy metal guitar player gimmick, which probably wasn't the

<v Speaker 1>best idea because he couldn't play the guitar worth of shit,

<v Speaker 1>but that was his gimmick, and after his initial run there,

<v Speaker 1>he was there for a few years. He was brought

<v Speaker 1>back in nineteen ninety seven as a member of a

<v Speaker 1>Ravens flock, and what I knew of Van Hammer came

<v Speaker 1>after the fact, because I wasn't watching enough of WCW

<v Speaker 1>back in the early nineties to even see the guy much.

<v Speaker 1>And then when I did see him, or what I

<v Speaker 1>saw of him. It wasn't very good, but he looked great.

<v Speaker 1>You know, physically, the guy was put together, which is

<v Speaker 1>why I'm kind of surprised he never ended up working

<v Speaker 1>for Vince McMahon. He did get a couple of tryout

<v Speaker 1>matches for them in ninety three, so I mean, just

<v Speaker 1>imagine how bad he must have been looking in the ring,

<v Speaker 1>looking the way he did physically for them not to

<v Speaker 1>sign him. But right out of the gate, you know,

<v Speaker 1>there was a lot of resentment towards him in WCW

<v Speaker 1>from the other wrestlers because he came in with a

<v Speaker 1>guarantee in the low six figure range, which was a

<v Speaker 1>lot of money back then. Not that it's not a

<v Speaker 1>lot of money now either, but obviously, you know, wrestling

<v Speaker 1>salaries have risen with the big companies. But yeah, to

<v Speaker 1>get a guarantee back then in the low six figure range,

<v Speaker 1>this was a guy who only had two matches under

<v Speaker 1>his belt. That's how new he was. You know, Dusty

<v Speaker 1>Rhoades is the one who signed him. He even called

<v Speaker 1>him at one point the next Hulk Hogan. That's like

<v Speaker 1>Vince McMahon thinking Tom McGee was going to be the

<v Speaker 1>next Hogan after Brett Hart worked with him and made

<v Speaker 1>him look so good, but then he had to wrestle

<v Speaker 1>other guys and he was the shits. But even making

<v Speaker 1>that kind of money, you know, the other wrestlers, they

<v Speaker 1>forced him to dress in the locker room with the

<v Speaker 1>rest of the job guys right instead of the more

<v Speaker 1>established talents, even though he was making a lot more

<v Speaker 1>than those job guys were making. Mick Foley said that

<v Speaker 1>he was actually a nice guy, but he got a

<v Speaker 1>ton of heat by making wild statements like he would

<v Speaker 1>go around saying, oh, I'm here to save the company.

<v Speaker 1>Arn Anderson actually tells a great story where him, Steve Regal,

<v Speaker 1>Steve Austin, Brian Pillman, and I think one other person.

<v Speaker 1>They're all huddled up. I don't know what the event was.

<v Speaker 1>Van Hammer makes his entrance and he pushes his way

<v Speaker 1>into the group and he says, what's up, guys, van

<v Speaker 1>Hammer here, I'm WCW's ultimate warrior. I'm here to save

<v Speaker 1>the company. And Arn says he waited for the punchline,

<v Speaker 1>but it never came, and then the entire group just

<v Speaker 1>burst out into laughter. It just sounds like this guy

<v Speaker 1>came in with a chip on his shoulder and he

<v Speaker 1>just couldn't read the room. But after wrestling, I know

<v Speaker 1>he battled some bad substance abuse problems, seemingly had cleaned

<v Speaker 1>himself up in more recent years. You know, the most

<v Speaker 1>famous story that I know of involving van Hammer. For

<v Speaker 1>all the stories that you read about and you watch

<v Speaker 1>shoot interviews over the years, and there's certain stories that

<v Speaker 1>just kind of stay with you. The most famous one

<v Speaker 1>that I know as it relates to van Hammer, actually

<v Speaker 1>this two of them. The first one, Mark Merrow, tells

<v Speaker 1>when he first signed with WCW, he had no place

<v Speaker 1>to live, and so van Hammer let him live with

<v Speaker 1>him at his apartment. So Marrow comes home one day,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if it was during the day, if

<v Speaker 1>it was at night. He comes home and van Hammer

<v Speaker 1>is not there, but the cops are there, and evidently

<v Speaker 1>they were raiding the apartment looking for drugs. So they

<v Speaker 1>see Marrow and they got like, you know, guns on him,

<v Speaker 1>hands her up, like don't shoot, you know, So they

<v Speaker 1>arrest him, They take him to jail, They put him

<v Speaker 1>in a holding cell the whole nine yards. They got

<v Speaker 1>it all cleared up later and he was released because

<v Speaker 1>he had nothing to do with any of this. But

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure the same can't be said for his roommate.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure that scared the shit out a marrow. But

<v Speaker 1>the most famous story, it's got to be from DDP.

<v Speaker 1>He's Christmas party. This was in nineteen ninety six and

<v Speaker 1>DDP and Kimberly, they hosted a party at their house.

<v Speaker 1>Van Hammer shows up, probably hammered. I don't even know

<v Speaker 1>if he was invited or if he crashed the party.

<v Speaker 1>I have no idea. I would imagine he was invited,

<v Speaker 1>but probably drunk as a skunk. And he starts ranting

<v Speaker 1>about like little Mexican wrestlers and how WCW was wasting

<v Speaker 1>its time pushing them, because you know, ninety six, that

<v Speaker 1>would have been the early days of nitro and you

<v Speaker 1>would have started seeing a lot of those cruiserweight matches,

<v Speaker 1>you know, with guys like Raymisterio and Hoving Tude and

<v Speaker 1>the Viano's Viano four, Viano five, all those guys. So

<v Speaker 1>he's ranting on the Mexican wrestlers, and then from the

<v Speaker 1>Mexicans he takes aim at British wrestlers, and William Regal

<v Speaker 1>and Dave Taylor happened to be standing nearby and they

<v Speaker 1>overheard him. I assume that's what triggered Regal's reaction, or

<v Speaker 1>maybe he mouthed off to them about something else. I

<v Speaker 1>don't remember, but Regal got involved. One thing led to

<v Speaker 1>another and he headbuts van Hammer, busts his nose open

<v Speaker 1>and everything. Van Hammer falls to the floor. There's, you know,

<v Speaker 1>competing versions of what happened to whether or not he

<v Speaker 1>was knocked unconscious. Kimberly Ddp's wife comes over to Regal

<v Speaker 1>and tells him, I think you better leave. So Regal left.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think he was ever invited to another Christmas

<v Speaker 1>party again after that, but at least he got a

<v Speaker 1>hell of a story to tell. Eric Bischoff on one

<v Speaker 1>of his podcasts, said that he couldn't have happened to

<v Speaker 1>a nicer guy, although he did bring van Hammer back

<v Speaker 1>to WCW the following years, so he couldn't have disliked

<v Speaker 1>the guy that much if he brought him back. I

<v Speaker 1>would like to see the WWE Vault, If anyone from

<v Speaker 1>their Vault team is listening to this, I would like

<v Speaker 1>to see them release those two dark matches that he

<v Speaker 1>had in nineteen ninety three. I know one of them

<v Speaker 1>was against Virgil. The other one was against Damian Demento.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure they can dig him up for us to see. Unfortunately,

<v Speaker 1>this is the time of year posts WrestleMania where WWE

<v Speaker 1>releases a whole bunch of people and it sucks. But

<v Speaker 1>it's just the way it works, where if there are

<v Speaker 1>people like out of developmental who aren't progressing as quickly

<v Speaker 1>as they would like, or you're a main roster talent

<v Speaker 1>that isn't being utilized, or they feel like you're not

<v Speaker 1>bringing in a value to the show, you're not connecting

<v Speaker 1>with the audience, you are likely going to end up

<v Speaker 1>on the cut list. And I hate seeing people lose

<v Speaker 1>their jobs, but there is going to be roster turnover.

<v Speaker 1>You can't just keep hiring people and hiring people and

<v Speaker 1>not getting rid of people. You can't just keep adding

<v Speaker 1>and adding and adding and not subtracting. At some point,

<v Speaker 1>I think we all understand that, but I look at

<v Speaker 1>some of the names on the list and it just

<v Speaker 1>aggravates the shit out of me because in some cases

<v Speaker 1>they weren't given the chance to showcase all that they

<v Speaker 1>could do, or they were on television being used in

<v Speaker 1>a key storyline, and then they got cut anyway for

<v Speaker 1>no apparent reason other than TKO said, hey, you got

<v Speaker 1>to bring the budget down to whatever the number is

<v Speaker 1>right side who stays and who goes. And it's jarring

<v Speaker 1>that it typically happens right after WrestleMania, when the company

<v Speaker 1>is gloating about how much money they just made or

<v Speaker 1>the new gate records that they just set, when we

<v Speaker 1>just had a report out from Post Wrestling revealing that

<v Speaker 1>as of twenty twenty two, WWE talent was paid around

<v Speaker 1>fifteen percent of the company's total revenue one hundred and

<v Speaker 1>ninety five million dollars on talent, including developmental wrestlers on

<v Speaker 1>one point two billion dollars in overall revenue, less than

<v Speaker 1>what UFC fighters were paid as of a few years ago.

<v Speaker 1>And we hear a lot about low fighter pay in

<v Speaker 1>the UFC, which also happens to be owned by TKO.

<v Speaker 1>And you compare this to major sports leagues like the NFL,

<v Speaker 1>the NBA, MLB, and that number is closer to fifty

<v Speaker 1>percent of revenue that they're paid. And those sports all

<v Speaker 1>have off seasons, but they also have unions and collective

<v Speaker 1>bargaining agreements, which wrestlers do not have. So it's jarring

<v Speaker 1>to see around two dozen names on the cut list

<v Speaker 1>all at once. But that's what happened with the latest

<v Speaker 1>Black Friday wave of releases. These are the names that

<v Speaker 1>we know of so far. It's possible they're not done cutting.

<v Speaker 1>Hopefully they are, but we don't know for sure. But

<v Speaker 1>among the names were Alistair Black and Zelina Vega, husband

<v Speaker 1>and wife no longer with WWE. The same Alistair Black

<v Speaker 1>who owns Pinfall wins this year over Randy Orton and

<v Speaker 1>Sammy Zan. The same Alistair Black who Paul Leveck brought

<v Speaker 1>back to the company only a year ago, and I'm

<v Speaker 1>sure he wasn't brought back on a one year deal.

<v Speaker 1>The same Alistair Black, who, according to a report this

<v Speaker 1>week from Mike Johnson to pw Insider, was to at

<v Speaker 1>one point have played a pivotal role in Night one

<v Speaker 1>of WrestleMania this year before TKO decided to step in

<v Speaker 1>and the idea of using Pat McAfee came to life.

<v Speaker 1>Johnson was told that a pitch for Randy Orton's WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>role back in January involved Alistair Black tormenting him, trying

<v Speaker 1>to bring out the old Randy Orton, and we saw

<v Speaker 1>echoes of this on television, so they clearly had that

<v Speaker 1>direction for where they were going with this, with the

<v Speaker 1>idea that the two of them would possibly then have

<v Speaker 1>a match at WrestleMania, Cody would probably end up wrestling

<v Speaker 1>Drew McIntyre for the WWE title. Black would likely beat

<v Speaker 1>Randy Orton, which he ended up doing on TV instead,

<v Speaker 1>but he would beat Orton at WrestleMania after Orton would

<v Speaker 1>hesitate to finish him off with the punk kick that

<v Speaker 1>hesitation would cost him, and then later on that night,

<v Speaker 1>after Cody's main event, Orton would come back out he

<v Speaker 1>would give Cody the punk kick, proving that Alistair Black

<v Speaker 1>was right all along and that the Apex Predator version

<v Speaker 1>of himself was always there, just beneath the surface. And

<v Speaker 1>he says it's unclear how far the pitch actually progressed

<v Speaker 1>through creative but echoes of the original plan appear in

<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee's role, including the return of the Apex Predator

<v Speaker 1>and Orton closing Night one by punk kicking Cody in

<v Speaker 1>the skull. And instead, Black was left off wrestle media

<v Speaker 1>completely and he was tossed into the meaningless Andre the

<v Speaker 1>Giant Memorial Battle Royal un SmackDown the night before. So

<v Speaker 1>to go from potentially beating Randy Orton at WrestleMania to

<v Speaker 1>being fired less than a week after WrestleMania, that's a

<v Speaker 1>real punk kick to the balls. And it makes me

<v Speaker 1>wonder and this is just me speculating here, but it

<v Speaker 1>makes me wonder if they released him or if they

<v Speaker 1>released his wife and he chose to leave with her,

<v Speaker 1>like which came first? Which phone call came first? Right,

<v Speaker 1>let's see what they have to say about it. But

<v Speaker 1>either way, that's the whole thing is completely fucked. Zelena,

<v Speaker 1>for her part, was very upset with Seawn Ross Sappa,

<v Speaker 1>fightful for breaking the news of her release before she

<v Speaker 1>had the chance to let her fans know. Now, she

<v Speaker 1>said that she got the phone call directly from someone

<v Speaker 1>at TKO at five h nine pm on Friday afternoon.

<v Speaker 1>In the past, these calls have typically come from Stanford.

<v Speaker 1>This time, she said it came from TKO, and I

<v Speaker 1>think Sean waited a few hours, like two or three

<v Speaker 1>hours before reporting it. But she was very upset about

<v Speaker 1>this and she said fuck you to him for doing so.

<v Speaker 1>She was clearly upset about losing her job. You could

<v Speaker 1>hear it in her voice, and it's understandable. But Sean

<v Speaker 1>did nothing wrong here. There's this whole narrative like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>fuck this guy. He did nothing wrong here, and he's

<v Speaker 1>been getting a lot of shit for it online because

<v Speaker 1>of what she said. But the man breaks news for

<v Speaker 1>a living. He reports on the news.

<v Speaker 3>It's not his job to wait until all twenty three

<v Speaker 3>or twenty two or twenty four people who got fired

<v Speaker 3>first jump on their social media to make a comment

<v Speaker 3>about being let go.

<v Speaker 1>You know, he gets the news, he verifies it, and

<v Speaker 1>he reports it. Now, if he had gotten the news

<v Speaker 1>and reported it before she herself had learned of being fired,

<v Speaker 1>that would have been different. But that's not what happened here.

<v Speaker 1>So again, I understand that she's upset, but throwing Sean

<v Speaker 1>under the bus for doing his job and reporting the

<v Speaker 1>news is also pretty fucked. Evidently she never liked him

<v Speaker 1>even prior to this. I don't know what the beef

<v Speaker 1>was there between them or from her end. All I

<v Speaker 1>can comment on is this case here and Sean did

<v Speaker 1>nothing wrong. If she wanted to reach out to him

<v Speaker 1>and ask him specifically as a courtesy, please don't say anything,

<v Speaker 1>because I'm planning on putting a statement out. She could

<v Speaker 1>have done that. I don't know that she did, But

<v Speaker 1>then it would have been Mike Johnson, or it would

<v Speaker 1>have been Dave Meltzer, or it would have been Corey

<v Speaker 1>from bodyslam dot net who would have reported it anyway.

<v Speaker 1>So on this I don't see where this man did

<v Speaker 1>anything wrong. Now, this other issue of her saying that

<v Speaker 1>she got the call directly from TKO, A lot of

<v Speaker 1>people have cited this as some sort of proof that

<v Speaker 1>these releases came from the TKO side and Paul Levac

<v Speaker 1>had nothing to do with it. I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>these people are actually stupid or if they're just pretending

<v Speaker 1>to be, Because you would have to be operating a

<v Speaker 1>few crayon shy of a full box to believe that

<v Speaker 1>Triple H had no input into who was least on Friday.

<v Speaker 1>There is zero chance that he had no input into

<v Speaker 1>what names ended up on that cutlist. As the chief

<v Speaker 1>content officer, as the man who's responsible for the overall

<v Speaker 1>creative direction of their television shows, he's the one deciding

<v Speaker 1>which talents to use and where on these shows. Ari

<v Speaker 1>Emmanuel is not coming in. Mark Shapiro is not coming

<v Speaker 1>in and telling Triple H to get rid of Alistair

<v Speaker 1>Black and Zelina Vega. They are not coming in and

<v Speaker 1>telling Triple H to get rid of Apollo Cruise. I

<v Speaker 1>guarantee you they don't even know who the fuck Apollo

<v Speaker 1>Cruise is. It's like this Mark Shapiro audio that leaked

<v Speaker 1>this week from he had a chat with students at

<v Speaker 1>the University of Alabama and he was asked by one

<v Speaker 1>of the students there about TKO's role in WWE creative

<v Speaker 1>with all of these celebrities and influencers that were used

<v Speaker 1>going into WrestleMania, and Shapiro said, TKO has complete control,

<v Speaker 1>so we're responsible. We're spending a lot more money to

<v Speaker 1>market the brand, and when you do that, you're going

<v Speaker 1>to win some folks over, but you're also going to

<v Speaker 1>chase some folks away. And people took that literally like

<v Speaker 1>they run creative, like you would think that Mark Shapiro

<v Speaker 1>himself was sitting in on the writer's room meetings every

<v Speaker 1>single week, or he had an agent sitting in there

<v Speaker 1>for him, approving and rejecting every idea right down to

<v Speaker 1>what Mac Cardona and Maxine Dupree are doing on television

<v Speaker 1>that week. No, that is not what he meant. TKO

<v Speaker 1>has total control and that they can poke their heads

<v Speaker 1>in whenever they feel like it. As we have seen

<v Speaker 1>before with the Rocks involvement last year and as we

<v Speaker 1>saw with Pat McAfee's involvement this year. They certainly have

<v Speaker 1>the power to fuck things up when they want to.

<v Speaker 1>But total control does not mean that they're running the

<v Speaker 1>day to day operations of WWE Creative. They own the company,

<v Speaker 1>of course they have total control. That doesn't mean that

<v Speaker 1>they use it on a regular basis. And a lot

<v Speaker 1>of people misconstrued that and ran with his narrative that

<v Speaker 1>just isn't based in reality. Now, what may be happening

<v Speaker 1>here is that someone like Triple H he gets the

<v Speaker 1>order that, hey, we need to trim the budget by

<v Speaker 1>x amount. We need to trim the fat, so find

<v Speaker 1>us ten or twenty people to get rid of, or

<v Speaker 1>anyone with a big contract. Let's say that we're not

<v Speaker 1>doing a whole lot with right now, so we can

<v Speaker 1>meet those goals. Sometimes it's your contract that really ends

<v Speaker 1>up being your downfall. You know, they brought you back

<v Speaker 1>to the company, or they signed you on a high

<v Speaker 1>dollar deal. You're gonna be in the crosshairs unless you're

<v Speaker 1>one of like the very very top guys. But it's

<v Speaker 1>his job. It's now Leveck's job. Him and the people

<v Speaker 1>around him who I'm sure give him feedback, Bruce and

<v Speaker 1>Michael Hayes and maybe Paul Hayman whoever else to look

<v Speaker 1>at these rosters and decide who stays and who goes.

<v Speaker 1>But I assure you these are absolutely decisions that Triple

<v Speaker 1>H has input into and has to approve before they

<v Speaker 1>pass those names along to the people who ultimately are

<v Speaker 1>making those phone calls. It's like in the past, guys

<v Speaker 1>would get released, right, but they wouldn't blame Vince McMahon

<v Speaker 1>for it. Oh, Vince liked me. I had a good

<v Speaker 1>relationship with Vince. It wasn't Vince, it was somebody else, right,

<v Speaker 1>there was somebody else who had it out for me.

<v Speaker 1>Aj Styles had heat with Paul Hayman because he blamed

<v Speaker 1>him for Anderson and Gallows being fired years ago. Even

<v Speaker 1>Gallows and Anderson had to acknowledge Vince's the one ultimately

<v Speaker 1>who made the call. If Vince wanted to keep us,

<v Speaker 1>Vince could have kept us because he was the final boss.

<v Speaker 1>He had the final say, even if he had other

<v Speaker 1>people in his ear, but certain guy, Oh, well, you know,

<v Speaker 1>I don't blame Vince for this. I mean, he really

<v Speaker 1>liked me. This isn't his fault. What are you talking about?

<v Speaker 1>It was his company, of course it's his fault. It's

<v Speaker 1>like a cult. But now it's Paul leavec. Which is

<v Speaker 1>why I was stunned when I saw Kyrie Sain's name

<v Speaker 1>on this list. This to me was the most surprising

<v Speaker 1>and egregious name of them all, more than Alister Black.

<v Speaker 1>This woman just picked up a win over Eosky on

<v Speaker 1>the raw before WrestleMania, and she was the centerpiece of

<v Speaker 1>this ongoing story with EO and Oscar where EO has

<v Speaker 1>been tormented or Oscar rather has been tormenting this poor

<v Speaker 1>woman for months, like a toxic relationship. And it looked

<v Speaker 1>like we may finally be headed for a payoff to

<v Speaker 1>all of this, possibly at WrestleMania EO versus Oscar. Right,

<v Speaker 1>maybe this is where Kyrie finally stands up to Oscar

<v Speaker 1>and she breaks free. And then they left all three

<v Speaker 1>of these women off WrestleMania altogether in terms of a match.

<v Speaker 1>And so I'm left to wonder if this had something

<v Speaker 1>to do with it, you know, was there something going

<v Speaker 1>on where maybe Kyrie's contract was expiring soon and they

<v Speaker 1>were trying to negotiate something new. Did they make her

<v Speaker 1>an offer that she refused? Or am I just trying

<v Speaker 1>to make sense of a senseless situation where we had

<v Speaker 1>this woman who was a key part of an ongoing

<v Speaker 1>storyline on television who is now gone, which means we

<v Speaker 1>get no payoff to that story. Like Oscar has been

<v Speaker 1>yelling at Kyrie and be rating Kyrie for I don't

<v Speaker 1>even know how many months now. You know, the EO

<v Speaker 1>thing was only really introduced recently, but this has been

<v Speaker 1>playing out for so long, and now we get no

<v Speaker 1>payoff to this. EO posted a long statement on x

<v Speaker 1>about Kyrie, but the way the first paragraph was phrased,

<v Speaker 1>and it could just be the translation, but she says,

<v Speaker 1>I understand that everyone as an athlete eventually faces a

<v Speaker 1>turning point when thinking about their life and their career,

<v Speaker 1>but I feel so heartbroken that it came at such

<v Speaker 1>an unexpected time. Coming at such an unexpected time is

<v Speaker 1>putting it mildly. I mean, you even have people who

<v Speaker 1>work for the company, like Jackie Redman, tweeting out, you

<v Speaker 1>know hashtag we want Kyrie. So I don't think this

<v Speaker 1>is something Kyrie herself had any input into, even though

<v Speaker 1>I guess you could kind of read the way that

<v Speaker 1>was phrased by EO that maybe maybe it didn't. I

<v Speaker 1>don't think it did. I may just be grasping at

<v Speaker 1>straws here trying to figure this one out, because I

<v Speaker 1>don't get it. Even if you wanted to get rid

<v Speaker 1>of this woman, why get rid of her before finishing

<v Speaker 1>the story? Was her contract that much of a burden

<v Speaker 1>on the books that you had to lump her in

<v Speaker 1>with all the rest of these people like she brought

<v Speaker 1>no value to the show. She tweeted, I'm truly grateful

<v Speaker 1>to have people like you by my side talking about

<v Speaker 1>her fans. Thank you for always being with me. I'll

<v Speaker 1>set sail in my own time. Until then, I love you.

<v Speaker 1>This one. I just don't understand. I really don't. The

<v Speaker 1>entire Wyatt six group is gone, Bo Dallas, Eric Rowan,

<v Speaker 1>Dexter Loomis, Joe Gacy, and Nikki Cross. MJF has already

<v Speaker 1>tweeted out Joe Gasey rules, it's crazy to think that

<v Speaker 1>they devoted an entire attraction to them at Universal Studios

<v Speaker 1>for their Halloween horranights six months ago and now in

<v Speaker 1>ninety days, they're all going to be unemployed. And my

<v Speaker 1>good buddy Noah the Mark shout out to Noah. He

<v Speaker 1>was trying to convince me to actually come down to Florida,

<v Speaker 1>to come down to Orlando to do the Wyatt six attraction.

<v Speaker 1>I just wasn't able to make it happen, and now

<v Speaker 1>I guess I never will because there is going to

<v Speaker 1>be no more Wyat six attraction. Yeah, the thing with

<v Speaker 1>the Wyatts, and I know this has been a very

<v Speaker 1>polarizing one. It's been one a lot of people are

<v Speaker 1>very upset about this. I think it was very cool

<v Speaker 1>that bo Dallas was given the chance to pay homage

<v Speaker 1>to his brother. This was basically the Wyat six was

<v Speaker 1>like a love letter to Bray Wyatt. It was his

<v Speaker 1>opportunity to take these characters and these ideas that his

<v Speaker 1>brother had breathed life into and give them a second

<v Speaker 1>lease on life, right and sort of not even expand

<v Speaker 1>the universe necessarily, but just sort of bring it back

<v Speaker 1>to life and just see how far he could take it.

<v Speaker 1>And they made that debut on rawback in twenty twenty four,

<v Speaker 1>which got a lot of people talking. And I know

<v Speaker 1>some people hated it because it was just so over

<v Speaker 1>the top and maybe they don't like that kind of

<v Speaker 1>stuff in their wrestling, all the supernatural stuff, and there

<v Speaker 1>was like it was like something out of a horror movie,

<v Speaker 1>you know, going through the gorilla position and there's blood

<v Speaker 1>on the walls and Chad Gable looked like he was

<v Speaker 1>shot in the head. And I thought it was very

<v Speaker 1>well done. It was a hell of a way to

<v Speaker 1>make a debut. I mean, you just massacred the you know,

<v Speaker 1>half the roster. The problem was always going to be, though,

<v Speaker 1>how do you follow up on that. I'm almost positive

<v Speaker 1>at the time when I talked about it and I

<v Speaker 1>praised that initial debut, I said, the key is going

<v Speaker 1>to be in the follow up and how do you

<v Speaker 1>humanize these characters? They never evolved as characters, and you

<v Speaker 1>could talk about their merch and I don't know what

<v Speaker 1>their merch numbers were these days because they were barely

<v Speaker 1>featured on TV. But the act was not nearly as

<v Speaker 1>over as some people I think like to credit them

<v Speaker 1>as being, or have convinced themselves that they were I'm

<v Speaker 1>not saying that they weren't popular, but I don't think

<v Speaker 1>they were popular right now to the extent that some

<v Speaker 1>people thought they were. And the more I look at

<v Speaker 1>the y at six and what they were doing with

<v Speaker 1>these guys, I don't think it was ever going to

<v Speaker 1>work without Bray was a tribute act to Bray Wyatt,

<v Speaker 1>and I don't think without him it was ever really

<v Speaker 1>going to have legs beyond that initial debut, especially again,

<v Speaker 1>if they're not going to evolve these characters and have

<v Speaker 1>them kind of branch out and do their own thing.

<v Speaker 1>Dexter Loomis, Joe Gacy, Nicki Cross. This was never going

<v Speaker 1>to have the kind of success that I think some

<v Speaker 1>people were hoping it would have. It just wasn't. Nicki

<v Speaker 1>Cross is the one that I don't really understand because

<v Speaker 1>Nicky Cross, I mean, she was on ice as an

<v Speaker 1>in ring performer for two years. We're not talking about

<v Speaker 1>her being out with an injury. We're talking about her

<v Speaker 1>being under a mask, and they just don't put her

<v Speaker 1>in the ring to have any wrestling matches. Her stock

<v Speaker 1>went way down, and unfortunately for her, that made her

<v Speaker 1>more expendable, because did they really need Nicky Cross. No,

<v Speaker 1>they didn't. She wasn't doing anything on the shows. But

<v Speaker 1>I have no idea why she wasn't put in any

<v Speaker 1>sort of matches for such a long period of time

<v Speaker 1>like that. I just I don't understand that. You know,

<v Speaker 1>Eric Rowan, when they brought him back to the company,

<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of that had to do with

<v Speaker 1>him having an impressive showing in an aw pay per

<v Speaker 1>view pre show match that he was a part of

<v Speaker 1>I forget. I want to say it was revolution a

<v Speaker 1>few years ago. I don't remember, but you know, he's

<v Speaker 1>another one where could they have done more with him? Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>they could have. Absolutely. Part of the problem is, again,

<v Speaker 1>we never really got to hear from any of these people.

<v Speaker 1>They would come out and you know, Uncle Howdie would

<v Speaker 1>have the lantern and this fucking story with the MFTs,

<v Speaker 1>which I have to tell you made me not want

<v Speaker 1>to see any of these people on my television screen.

<v Speaker 1>This story dragged out for so long and it was

<v Speaker 1>so fucking horrible and so boring, and there was no

<v Speaker 1>I mean, you look at it, and there was no

<v Speaker 1>real sense of like, hey, there's a great payoff to this,

<v Speaker 1>or like what are we getting out of this? Other

<v Speaker 1>than just boring Bland television. They're fighting over a lantern.

<v Speaker 1>It's the same shit every single week. They get the

<v Speaker 1>lantern back, they take the lantern back on the MFT side,

<v Speaker 1>and the Wyatts get the lantern back, and we go

<v Speaker 1>back and forth like this until finally I guess they

<v Speaker 1>paid it off by having the MFTs in the most

<v Speaker 1>anti climactic way possible just beat them. Nobody seemed to care.

<v Speaker 1>This was on the SmackDown before WrestleMania, and evidently that

<v Speaker 1>was the blowof for the Wyat six and they knew it.

<v Speaker 1>But this is the great storytelling that they were doing

<v Speaker 1>with the Wyat six. Is there any doubt as to

<v Speaker 1>why this was not going to work? They did not

<v Speaker 1>know what to do with them, and to be fair,

<v Speaker 1>you're very limited in what you can do with a

<v Speaker 1>group like that. I think to some extent they had

<v Speaker 1>the same problem with Bray, Like what do you do

<v Speaker 1>with like the Fiend character? For example? Seth Rollins has

<v Speaker 1>talked about how like it was difficult to work with

<v Speaker 1>him as that character because you're going into it, you're

<v Speaker 1>not going to come out of it any better off

<v Speaker 1>than you were going in. You know, it's a hard thing.

<v Speaker 1>I think in today's day and age especially, and maybe

<v Speaker 1>this they would have found more success in nineteen ninety four.

<v Speaker 1>But I think in today's day and age, this was

<v Speaker 1>always going to have a shelf life. This was always

<v Speaker 1>going to have a ceiling unless you took these individual

<v Speaker 1>characters and you tried to evolve them in some way.

<v Speaker 1>Uncle Howdy like there were people I would get questions,

<v Speaker 1>is Uncle Howdy a future WWE champion? And I'm like, no,

<v Speaker 1>no he's not. But like Dexter Loomis or Joe Gasey,

<v Speaker 1>do I think they could contribute to SmackDown or Raw?

<v Speaker 1>Could they be players? Could they be wrestling one day

<v Speaker 1>for the United States Championship the Intercontinental Championship? Sure, but

<v Speaker 1>not like in the state that they were in. We'd

<v Speaker 1>have to hear from them more. And Dexter Loomis's whole

<v Speaker 1>thing was we never heard from him. I don't even

<v Speaker 1>know what the voice the guy's voice sounds like since

<v Speaker 1>he joined WWE. I'd have to go back to his

<v Speaker 1>t toa days and listen to what he sounded like

<v Speaker 1>when he was Sam Shaw. But that was kind of

<v Speaker 1>his whole gimmick. Even in NXT, he was a mute,

<v Speaker 1>but like a Joe Gasey or again I go back

<v Speaker 1>to Nicky Cross. Like these people, they put them under

<v Speaker 1>these masks and they gave them the spooky entrance and

<v Speaker 1>that's it. That's where it ended. And I'm telling you, man,

<v Speaker 1>that's only going to go so far. After a while,

<v Speaker 1>you got to change it up and do something different. Now.

<v Speaker 1>Is that WWE's fault for not giving them the ability

<v Speaker 1>to do something different? Were they pitching ideas and being rejected?

<v Speaker 1>Maybe we'll hear from some of the members that they

<v Speaker 1>were trying to pitch ideas and they were falling on

<v Speaker 1>deaf ears. But you were only going to be able

<v Speaker 1>to coast on that gimmick for so long. It was

<v Speaker 1>never going to work unless you did something different. There

<v Speaker 1>was nothing different there that made them expendable. The MotorCity

<v Speaker 1>Machine Guns, Alex Shelley, Chris Saban very talented tag team.

<v Speaker 1>I'm glad they at least had the chance to get

<v Speaker 1>a run in WWE. I mean, they were together for

<v Speaker 1>almost twenty years before they even came to the company.

<v Speaker 1>Right out of the gate, they put the tag team

<v Speaker 1>titles on them, which meant that there was only one

<v Speaker 1>place for them to go, which was down, which is

<v Speaker 1>exactly where they went. And part of the problem with

<v Speaker 1>the machine Guns, well, there's two problems. Number One, again,

<v Speaker 1>I like him, but they were not really getting over

<v Speaker 1>with the WWE audience. They would be out there, the

<v Speaker 1>people really weren't reacting too much to them. It could

<v Speaker 1>be a product of just the fans not being into them.

<v Speaker 1>It could be a product of them not being featured

<v Speaker 1>in a meaningful way on the show. The second problem

<v Speaker 1>was that they were part of a dead tag team division.

<v Speaker 1>That's it. I mean, where were they going to go

<v Speaker 1>in the SmackDown tag Team Division? Nowhere? They were going

<v Speaker 1>to go down to the depths of Hell because that

<v Speaker 1>tag team division, and it's not much better on Monday Nights,

<v Speaker 1>is fucking dead. Tag Team wrestling when it comes to

<v Speaker 1>the tag team titles is dead in WWE, and they

<v Speaker 1>don't seem to be in any great rush to do

<v Speaker 1>anything to really fix it. So the machine Guns were doomed.

<v Speaker 1>They had nowhere to go. Alba Fire, she's been playing

<v Speaker 1>one of Chelsea Green's secret hervis agents. She's gone. Not

<v Speaker 1>really a shock, I mean they weren't really utilizing her much.

<v Speaker 1>She did post on social media, Kaylee Ray would batter

<v Speaker 1>Alba fire just say, oh, I'm sure the old Kaylee Ray,

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure would kick her ass. I think she'll do

<v Speaker 1>well though, wherever she lands. Zoe Starck has been released,

<v Speaker 1>although it is being reported that she had been medically

<v Speaker 1>cleared recently to return to the ring. This was from

<v Speaker 1>that horrific injury. She tore her acl MCL and meniscus

<v Speaker 1>on raw last May coming off the top rope. The

<v Speaker 1>way that she landed, her leg bent, her knee bent,

<v Speaker 1>It's one of the most disgusting things that I've ever

<v Speaker 1>seen in a wrestling ring. And so she's gone, and

<v Speaker 1>this is a very shitty situation here now. Initially, when

<v Speaker 1>the news verse broke, I just posted a comment, you know,

<v Speaker 1>about her being released while she has been out recovering

<v Speaker 1>from an injury. Then I think Sean posted a follow

<v Speaker 1>up saying that she had actually been medically cleared just recently,

<v Speaker 1>or she had been medically clear to had been waiting

<v Speaker 1>for her return. And then I had all the just

<v Speaker 1>all the people, Oh where you know she was? She

<v Speaker 1>was medically cleared, you know, quote tweeting, Oh she was.

<v Speaker 1>This guy's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

<v Speaker 1>She was medically clear. You know, the peanut gallery was

<v Speaker 1>out on social media, and I'm like, okay, sure that

<v Speaker 1>that came out after I saw, you know, the initial news,

<v Speaker 1>But also does that make it any less shitty? I

<v Speaker 1>actually think it makes it more shitty. Doesn't change my

<v Speaker 1>thoughts on this. It's a shitty situation because here's a

<v Speaker 1>woman who, if you were following any of her posts

<v Speaker 1>on social media on ig she went through a very

<v Speaker 1>rigorous rehab, and I think that there were some setbacks

<v Speaker 1>even earlier this year, like in January, there were some

<v Speaker 1>potential setbacks, but then she you know, kind of got

<v Speaker 1>over those and everything was going well. And then we

<v Speaker 1>come to find out she's been cleared and she's about

<v Speaker 1>to make her return to the ring. And think about

<v Speaker 1>like the initial injury, as awful as it was, and

<v Speaker 1>then all of this rehab and you get yourself to

<v Speaker 1>a point where, Okay, I get that call or I

<v Speaker 1>get that diagnosis from the doctor that you're medically cleared,

<v Speaker 1>you can get back in the ring. And now you're

<v Speaker 1>all nervous and excited and you're amped up because you

<v Speaker 1>want to get back to what you do you want

<v Speaker 1>to get back to your job, You want to get

<v Speaker 1>back in the ring, only to find out, guess what,

<v Speaker 1>that job has now been taken away from you at

<v Speaker 1>a time when they have two women's mid card titles

<v Speaker 1>because Zoe, when she got hurt in May of last year,

<v Speaker 1>those women's Icy in US titles had not been around

<v Speaker 1>for even six months at that point, and now she's

<v Speaker 1>out of a job. Instead, those two titles are on

<v Speaker 1>two former women's world champions. Becky Lynch she got the

<v Speaker 1>belt back at WrestleMania, the Icy Belt, and then Tiffany

<v Speaker 1>Stratton just took the title from Julia on SmackDown on

<v Speaker 1>Friday Night. So people like you know, Zoe Stark are

<v Speaker 1>kind of left in a lurch anyway, because they have

<v Speaker 1>the belts now on two former world champions, which I'm

<v Speaker 1>not really sure what the point of that is, but whatever.

<v Speaker 1>So now she will have to get back in the

<v Speaker 1>ring somewhere else. And she posted I think she posted

<v Speaker 1>as I didn't pull it on social media, just grateful

<v Speaker 1>about her time and thankful for all of her fans.

<v Speaker 1>I feel bad for her. I think she deserved an

<v Speaker 1>opportunity to at least get back in the ring for

<v Speaker 1>them to show them what she can do and maybe

<v Speaker 1>she could contribute and be a valuable member of the

<v Speaker 1>women's division on either one of those shows. She had

<v Speaker 1>put so much work in She got hurt in their ring,

<v Speaker 1>first of all, and she had put so much work

<v Speaker 1>into making her comeback that to kind of pull the

<v Speaker 1>rug out from underneath her was very shitty. Apollo Cruise

<v Speaker 1>survived eleven years in WWE, even had a couple of

<v Speaker 1>title reigns, one with the United States Championship, the other

<v Speaker 1>with the Intercontinental title, which included a WrestleMania match where

<v Speaker 1>he won the title in that Nigerian drum fight. Remember that,

<v Speaker 1>Remember Commander Aziz, he is now gone from WWE. He

<v Speaker 1>is someone who I think is going to do very

<v Speaker 1>well on the independen scene. You bring back Uhan Nation,

<v Speaker 1>you let that man go out there and wrestle and

<v Speaker 1>let him do what he does best, and I think

<v Speaker 1>he's going to be just fine. But I'm kind of surprised,

<v Speaker 1>honestly that he even survived as long as he did,

<v Speaker 1>considering the way he was used or not used. He

<v Speaker 1>survived a lot of these waves of just mass cuts

<v Speaker 1>over the years, and he had well over a decade

<v Speaker 1>in the company. You know, good for him. Santo's Escobar

<v Speaker 1>his name was also on the list, and this is

<v Speaker 1>also a weird one. Now Escobar is actually out injured

<v Speaker 1>as we speak. He has had two surgeries recently. Evidently

<v Speaker 1>he hurt himself in January. I don't know if he

<v Speaker 1>either didn't know he was hurt or didn't think he

<v Speaker 1>was hurt that badly. But he had that four way

<v Speaker 1>match at the Triple A Show, the Rey de Reyis

<v Speaker 1>Show on March fourteenth, and he did not look good

<v Speaker 1>at all. He looked injured in that match. And it

<v Speaker 1>turns out that he suffered a torn triceps. I believe

<v Speaker 1>the injury was and he had surgery to repair it. Ve.

<v Speaker 1>He just had a second surgery. There was some sort

<v Speaker 1>of ulder nerve issue and so he just underwent surgery

<v Speaker 1>to repair that. That sounds like Tommy John surgery to me.

<v Speaker 1>Isn't that Tommy John surgery what a lot of baseball

<v Speaker 1>players get. It has to do with the older nerve. Well,

<v Speaker 1>I know in baseball, if you have Tommy John surgery,

<v Speaker 1>you're basically done for a year and a half as

<v Speaker 1>a wrestler. I don't think you need to be out

<v Speaker 1>unless he's thinking about throwing a ninety five mile an

<v Speaker 1>hour fastball. I don't think he'll need to be out

<v Speaker 1>for a year and a half. But nonetheless, he's on

<v Speaker 1>the shelf right now, and I just I look at Escobar.

<v Speaker 1>Here's a man who allowed his contract to expire last year.

<v Speaker 1>From what I can recall of that story, I know

<v Speaker 1>I covered it here on the sound Off, I believe

<v Speaker 1>they wanted to keep him. They made him an offer

<v Speaker 1>and he basically said, no, I'm not interested, and he

<v Speaker 1>was going to allow his contract to expire and then

<v Speaker 1>we'll see where he goes. Right, he'd become a free agent,

<v Speaker 1>and they came at him pretty hard with I guess

<v Speaker 1>a follow up ball for and apparently they threw a

<v Speaker 1>whole bunch of money at him. They gave him a

<v Speaker 1>big fat pay raise, and there were stories like he

<v Speaker 1>wanted some assurances from them about, you know, his creative

<v Speaker 1>direction and that they would have something for him. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if he ever got those assurances, but he

<v Speaker 1>got a lot more money and so he ended up staying.

<v Speaker 1>Everybody thought he was gone. It's like, just when I

<v Speaker 1>think I'm out, they pulled me back in and so

<v Speaker 1>he re signed with them, and then we heard nothing.

<v Speaker 1>Literally months went by and there was one report that

<v Speaker 1>said that, oh, he kind of fell through the cracks,

<v Speaker 1>but now they were coming up with creative plans for

<v Speaker 1>he fell through the cracks, really and then he popped

<v Speaker 1>up in Triple A and didn't do a whole lot

<v Speaker 1>before he got hurt here. So I don't really again,

<v Speaker 1>how they make some of these decisions. It just confounds me.

<v Speaker 1>They wanted him so badly, and now because I guess

<v Speaker 1>he's hurt and he's of no use to them, they've

<v Speaker 1>decided to cut him. And my point from earlier, if

<v Speaker 1>he got a big fat contract to re sign with

<v Speaker 1>them that put him in the crosshairs. I'll bet it

<v Speaker 1>was that contract that did him in, and that's why

<v Speaker 1>he ended up on this list. Now from NXT in

<v Speaker 1>the performance Center, Andre Chase is gone. He found some

<v Speaker 1>success with the Chase University gimmick, which was very unlikely

<v Speaker 1>to find the kind of success it did in NXT

<v Speaker 1>on the main roster if they ever wanted to bring

<v Speaker 1>it to the main roster. That's the same way I

<v Speaker 1>felt about Tony DiAngelo and the whole gimmick he was

<v Speaker 1>doing with the mafioso boss. The best thing he ever

<v Speaker 1>did was go away and come back and reinvent himself

<v Speaker 1>and just ditch that gimmick, because if he ever wants

<v Speaker 1>to be on the main roster with that gimmick, it

<v Speaker 1>was never going to work. It was always going to

<v Speaker 1>have a very short shelf life. Dante Chen is gone,

<v Speaker 1>the first wrestler from Singapore ever signed by WWE. He

<v Speaker 1>tweeted saying five years, one hundred and forty seven matches,

<v Speaker 1>Thank you, WWE. One hundred and forty seven matches in

<v Speaker 1>five years really isn't a whole lot, so he hasn't

<v Speaker 1>exactly been working a bunch for them. Ira may Steele,

<v Speaker 1>who won a gold medal in the twenty twenty Tokyo Olympics,

<v Speaker 1>is also gone from WWE. She was the first female

<v Speaker 1>winner from season one of LFG. I'm not really sure

<v Speaker 1>what the point of LFG is if you're just gonna

<v Speaker 1>go ahead and turn around and cut the person who won.

<v Speaker 1>It's supposed to be legends and future greats, right, isn't

<v Speaker 1>that the whole purpose of the show. She went in

<v Speaker 1>season one and then all of a sudden they just

<v Speaker 1>cut her and she's gone. What the fuck is the point.

<v Speaker 1>I pointed this out the other night when I mentioned

<v Speaker 1>her name, I said it was very eerie. Last month,

<v Speaker 1>she put a tweet out that caused some controversy because

<v Speaker 1>she was basically talking about a dream or a nightmare

<v Speaker 1>that she had had where she ended up getting released

<v Speaker 1>by WWE. I think in the dream, like she went

<v Speaker 1>off to go, you know, wrestle some amateur thing without

<v Speaker 1>telling WWE, and then they found out and they fired

<v Speaker 1>her for it. But it turned out to be just

<v Speaker 1>it was just a dream. Some people reported on it

<v Speaker 1>as if she had been released by WWE, and then

<v Speaker 1>WWE had a clarify and say, no, she's still under

<v Speaker 1>contract anyway, This just happened last month and now she

<v Speaker 1>really is gone. So I guess that nightmare turned into

<v Speaker 1>a reality. But the other names on the list Serena, Linton, Tyson, DuPont, Tyreek, Igway,

<v Speaker 1>Chris Island, Malik Blade, who I know tore his ACL

<v Speaker 1>a couple of years ago. He had that tag team

<v Speaker 1>with Idris Enafe, which came to an end. I guess

<v Speaker 1>when he got hurt and Idris was kind of repackaged

<v Speaker 1>as a single Star, and by the time Malik came back,

<v Speaker 1>I think Idris was gone. I think Idris actually opted

<v Speaker 1>to leave the company himself. So yeah, Malik Blade was

<v Speaker 1>not doing a whole lot. Trill London also gone, and

<v Speaker 1>Luca Crucifino, who I think was doing stuff at the moment,

<v Speaker 1>and Evolve gone from WWE. And so with these releases, right,

<v Speaker 1>more than twenty of them, most of the names that

<v Speaker 1>Triple H brought back to the company since taking over

<v Speaker 1>as the head of creative are now gone. Bronson Reed

<v Speaker 1>is still there. He's the best positioned out of everybody.

<v Speaker 1>Russev is still there, as are Mechen and beefab but

<v Speaker 1>Alistair Black, Carrion Cross and Scarlett Braunz, Stroman, Dakota Kai,

<v Speaker 1>Kyrie Sayin Bo Dallas, Eric Rowan, Dexter Loomis Gallows and

<v Speaker 1>Anderson Top Dalla Ashanti Di Adonis. They're all gone, And look,

<v Speaker 1>wrestlers will always be coming and going. I can look

<v Speaker 1>at the list we got on Friday and say, I'm

<v Speaker 1>not surprised by most of them, but there's always going

<v Speaker 1>to be a few names that are just very frustrating

<v Speaker 1>to see on there because you feel like man they

<v Speaker 1>didn't get a fair shake, or they didn't do enough

<v Speaker 1>with this person, or they were in the middle of

<v Speaker 1>a story and now that has no closure. For those people,

<v Speaker 1>this is not the end for them. I saw Steph

<v Speaker 1>Delander post that getting released from WWE was the best

<v Speaker 1>thing that ever happened to her career, and it doesn't

<v Speaker 1>have to be the end of the story. Some of

<v Speaker 1>these people may not want to hear that right now,

<v Speaker 1>but I think it's a good message for them too

<v Speaker 1>here because they do have options and they can make

<v Speaker 1>their way back there if that's what they choose to do.

<v Speaker 1>That's why some of the names on this list this

<v Speaker 1>is not their first time getting released. They were brought

<v Speaker 1>back at some point. There are lots of options out

<v Speaker 1>there to find work. Hopefully they all do. Where do

<v Speaker 1>I want to see some of them land, I don't

<v Speaker 1>want to do the whole Oh, they should go here,

<v Speaker 1>they should go there. TNA has an active working relationship

<v Speaker 1>with WWE, so if your goal is to eventually get

<v Speaker 1>back to WWE, TNA might be a good option for you.

<v Speaker 1>But there are also a lot of stories about talent

<v Speaker 1>not getting paid a whole lot, or being on per

<v Speaker 1>appearance deals. Right, and for some people that may not

<v Speaker 1>be what they're looking for. Tony Kahan he owns AW

<v Speaker 1>and Ring of Honor, and they also have working relationships

<v Speaker 1>with lots of promotions CMLL New Japan, which are options too,

<v Speaker 1>by the way, But there are plenty of frustrated people

<v Speaker 1>who work in aw who are not getting enough television

<v Speaker 1>time right. But they do have the ability to work

<v Speaker 1>in these which is a luxury that you don't have

<v Speaker 1>when you work for WWE. It all depends on the

<v Speaker 1>individual and what it is that they're looking for. But

<v Speaker 1>I promise you WWE's loss will end up being someone

<v Speaker 1>else's gain. And on the flip side of all of this,

<v Speaker 1>PW Insider broke the news on Friday after confirming this

<v Speaker 1>is the same day that the releases were announced, but

<v Speaker 1>they confirm with numerous sources in Japan that former IWGP

<v Speaker 1>World Heavyweight Champion Evil real name Takaki Watanabe has officially

<v Speaker 1>signed with WWE. Thirty nine year old Evil has landed

<v Speaker 1>in WWE. Now. There have been rumors about this for months,

<v Speaker 1>this is the first official confirmation of his signing and

<v Speaker 1>the expectation in Japan is that he will be or

<v Speaker 1>he will not be keeping the evil ring name. See,

<v Speaker 1>they should let him keep it, and then he and

<v Speaker 1>Danausen can become a tag team and they can call

<v Speaker 1>them very nice, very evil. I think they would get over.

<v Speaker 1>But he's got a decorated resume. He's a very weird one.

<v Speaker 1>He's a weird case because if you look at like

<v Speaker 1>his in ring accomplishments, like how he's been used, like

<v Speaker 1>in New Japan. Not only is he an IWGP World

<v Speaker 1>champion back in twenty twenty, but he was an intercontinental champion,

<v Speaker 1>he was a never openweight champion, four times tag team champion,

<v Speaker 1>New Japan Cup winner, right the leader of the House

<v Speaker 1>of Torture. He's a pretty big name out of that company.

<v Speaker 1>But that faction, that's exactly what it was. It was

<v Speaker 1>absolute torture. And with the constant interference that we see

<v Speaker 1>in WWE matches, I can see why they would be

<v Speaker 1>interested in signing him. I think he'll fit right in there.

<v Speaker 1>But whether or not he hits NXT first or the

<v Speaker 1>main roster, we'll see. I mean again, he's almost forty

<v Speaker 1>years old. I don't know how much time they would

<v Speaker 1>want him spending an NXT or It's something he would

<v Speaker 1>maybe want to start in NXT. Aj styles even just

<v Speaker 1>recently said that if it were up to him, he

<v Speaker 1>would require every new signee, no matter who they were,

<v Speaker 1>to start out in NXT because he wishes he had

<v Speaker 1>started out there, because he sees the benefit in, you know,

<v Speaker 1>helping get you situated. And it's not just knowing like

<v Speaker 1>where to look and where the cameras are positioned, but

<v Speaker 1>he just thinks it would be very helpful to someone new,

<v Speaker 1>and in his case, he was someone who had years

<v Speaker 1>and years of experience doing things a certain way, and

<v Speaker 1>he would recommend that if somebody is coming in they

<v Speaker 1>start in NXT. That could be where Evil starts. But

<v Speaker 1>let the games begin. As far as guessing what his

<v Speaker 1>new name is going to be, I thought his name

<v Speaker 1>would be Good. I mean, they can go the opposite

<v Speaker 1>way and from Evil. He could just be good. They

<v Speaker 1>want to be cute, they could put an E on

<v Speaker 1>the end. Let's call him good. I don't fucking know,

<v Speaker 1>let's figure out what to call evil. This week's episode

<v Speaker 1>is sponsored by WIS. You know, we hear a lot

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<v Speaker 1>to talk about this. You know, I've been doing the

<v Speaker 1>Uncrowned Wrestling Show now for over two months. Every Tuesday.

<v Speaker 1>You guys have been killing it, supporting and spreading the word,

<v Speaker 1>which I greatly appreciate. But on Wednesday I had the

<v Speaker 1>chance to link up with some of the team and

<v Speaker 1>to meet Ariel Helwani and Eric and Connor and the

<v Speaker 1>entire team shout out to them and getting the grand

<v Speaker 1>tour of the studio and the offices of Yahoo, and

<v Speaker 1>it was very cool. And of all the days to

<v Speaker 1>drop in, I found out that Rick Flair was going

<v Speaker 1>to be on Ariel show that day. So the end

<v Speaker 1>of all this, they invited me to sit in. The

<v Speaker 1>show was about to begin, and they invited me to

<v Speaker 1>sit in on things in the control room. Pull up

<v Speaker 1>a chair and we'll put a headset on you and

<v Speaker 1>you can watch part of the show if you want.

<v Speaker 1>And the best way that I can describe this Rick

<v Speaker 1>Flair interview is that it was like watching a train

<v Speaker 1>derail mint in real time, going off the tracks. But

<v Speaker 1>that's Rick Flair, right. It doesn't matter what tom to

<v Speaker 1>day it is. You know, he's gonna have a drink

<v Speaker 1>in his hand, as he did in this interview, and

<v Speaker 1>he's gonna open up about things that you weren't even

<v Speaker 1>planning on asking him about. He'll just go off on

<v Speaker 1>a tangent, and it can make for a very entertaining interview,

<v Speaker 1>if nothing else. Entertaining and embarrassing all rolled up into one.

<v Speaker 1>He was all over the place. This interview ended up

<v Speaker 1>lasting almost an hour, and among the things that he

<v Speaker 1>discussed was not being allowed to attend last year's WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>in Las Vegas after making threats towards Ludwig Kiser, who

<v Speaker 1>Flair referred to as Tiffany Stratton's husband, even though they

<v Speaker 1>were never married. They're not even an item anymore. But

<v Speaker 1>he told Ariel, I threatened to beat up Tiffany Stratton's

<v Speaker 1>husband last year, and I wasn't allowed to go. A

<v Speaker 1>twenty four year old kid being threatened by a seventy

<v Speaker 1>six year old man. And I can't go to WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>Are you kidding me? That English kid, he's going to

<v Speaker 1>go as far and wrestling as a gnat. He'll be

<v Speaker 1>a fly on the wall in a year. So let's

<v Speaker 1>stop there, because there's just so much wrong with this.

<v Speaker 1>First of all, he was Stratton's boyfriend, not husband. Second

<v Speaker 1>of all, he called him a twenty four year old kid.

<v Speaker 1>He was a thirty four year old man at the

<v Speaker 1>time or thirty five. I think thirty four. Either way,

<v Speaker 1>a full decade older than Flaire thought he was. And

<v Speaker 1>he's German, He's not English, although I guess the accents

<v Speaker 1>all sound the same to Flair. They probably do anyway,

<v Speaker 1>when you're on your fourth vodka and cranberry, it all

<v Speaker 1>sounds the same. He explained that they had that thing

<v Speaker 1>where Tiffany made a smart remark about Ashley's divorces, which

<v Speaker 1>we both know she's not smart enough to have written.

<v Speaker 1>Somebody gave her the script, and then he implied, I'm

<v Speaker 1>just going based on social media. He was implying that

<v Speaker 1>he wouldn't mind a one off with Ashley. And I went, okay,

<v Speaker 1>I need your number, which I can get anybody's number

<v Speaker 1>I want, any minute of any day. And I called

<v Speaker 1>him and I said, hey, when I see you, I'm

<v Speaker 1>going to beat the shit out of you. So he

<v Speaker 1>went like a little bitch, told Hunter, and I wasn't

<v Speaker 1>allowed to go. Where is he now? Is he even

<v Speaker 1>on the roster. He has no idea that Kaiser is

<v Speaker 1>killing it right now in Triple A. He's one of

<v Speaker 1>the hottest baby faces in Mexico. And when Ariel pointed

<v Speaker 1>out to Flair that Kaiser was wrestling in Mexico. Now,

<v Speaker 1>Flair said, oh, I'm sure he is. I hope he stays.

<v Speaker 1>But what he's referring to here, it all stems from

<v Speaker 1>that promo leading into wrestle Media last year that went

<v Speaker 1>off the rails with Tiffany and Charlotte, where Tiffany made

<v Speaker 1>a crack about Charlotte's divorces and Charlotte was very gotten

<v Speaker 1>to by this statement. Clearly did not know it was coming,

<v Speaker 1>so there's no way that it was scripted for her,

<v Speaker 1>and Charlotte didn't know how to respond, so she made

<v Speaker 1>that cringey comment about Kaiser sliding into her DMS. But

<v Speaker 1>evidently Flair was banned from WrestleMania. This is, according to him,

<v Speaker 1>which is what happens when you threaten physical harm to

<v Speaker 1>one of the talent. Okay, number one, you're probably not

<v Speaker 1>going to get an invite. Actually, though, you're not going

<v Speaker 1>to get an invite to a WWE event when you

<v Speaker 1>are under contract to another organization, which is a fact

<v Speaker 1>that Flair neglected to mention multiple times in this interview,

<v Speaker 1>like when he said that he felt disrespected that WWE

<v Speaker 1>never got back to him about inducting Dennis Rodman into

<v Speaker 1>the Hall of Fame this year. He claims Rodman asked

<v Speaker 1>him to do the induction, which I mean, holy shit,

<v Speaker 1>what a disaster that would have been Rick Flair after

<v Speaker 1>a night of drinking in Las Vegas with a live

<v Speaker 1>mic in his hand, trying to put someone else over.

<v Speaker 1>I give it three minutes before he would be lapsing

<v Speaker 1>into chapter and verse on all the women who rode

<v Speaker 1>Space Mountain in nineteen eighty six. It would be a

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame speech about himself. It would be twenty

<v Speaker 1>minutes before Rodman even came out. But he said he

<v Speaker 1>spoke to the powers that be a WWE and told

<v Speaker 1>them that he wants me to induct him into the

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame, and he never got a call. Well, yes,

<v Speaker 1>there's probably many reasons he didn't get a call back,

<v Speaker 1>but one of them was because you're under contract to

<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahn. You technically work for AW. I know AAW

<v Speaker 1>doesn't exactly have him doing anything right now, but as

<v Speaker 1>far as anybody knows he is under contract to AAW,

<v Speaker 1>why would WWE allow him to induct anybody into their

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame. He never mentioned that fact. He didn't

<v Speaker 1>mention it because he clearly feels that he is wrestling royalty.

<v Speaker 1>This is the other thing that comes across here in

<v Speaker 1>this interview. He should be held to a different standard

<v Speaker 1>than everybody else because he's Rick Flair. I mean, he

<v Speaker 1>said as much about the Roots of Fight stuff. Recently,

<v Speaker 1>he had to back out of his merchandising deal with

<v Speaker 1>Roots of Fight, their brand, which just announced its own

<v Speaker 1>deal with WWE. So I'm sure that had something to

<v Speaker 1>do with it, because Flair works for aw and he

<v Speaker 1>wasn't happy about this. He said he was hoping they

<v Speaker 1>would make an exception for him. In this interview with Ariel,

<v Speaker 1>he flat out said there should be a red carpet

<v Speaker 1>for me, a red carpet to the front row. And

<v Speaker 1>that's how I feel about it. With my contributions in

<v Speaker 1>this business and the work that I put in, hours

<v Speaker 1>and hours of trying to make wrestling something that it

<v Speaker 1>is today, and I got to have problems with politics.

<v Speaker 1>Give me a break. I'm not mad at anybody. I

<v Speaker 1>understand it's politics. Now, it's too much politics and not

<v Speaker 1>enough wrestling. Flair is going to go down as one

<v Speaker 1>of the greatest of all time. Okay, No, matter what,

<v Speaker 1>same as Hulk Hogan. They both stain their legacies in

<v Speaker 1>the last twenty years more than anybody else could ever

<v Speaker 1>do to them. But they are still two of the

<v Speaker 1>biggest names in the history of the business. They should

<v Speaker 1>have been wrestling royalty, but they were their own worst enemy.

<v Speaker 1>The mask slipped and people started to see a side

<v Speaker 1>of them that wasn't pretty. Maybe people would be more

<v Speaker 1>willing to roll out the red carpet for him and

<v Speaker 1>make exceptions for him in certain situations if he didn't

<v Speaker 1>embarrass himself so much or run the risk of embarrassing them.

<v Speaker 1>But in his mind, he's the legendary Rick Flair, and

<v Speaker 1>how come people aren't bending over backwards for me? Ariel

<v Speaker 1>asked him about Tony Kahn, and Flair put him over

<v Speaker 1>as one of the best people he's ever known. He said,

<v Speaker 1>Tony khn is one of the greatest people I've ever

<v Speaker 1>met in my life. And you know what, I wouldn't

<v Speaker 1>be surprised because he has the money to do it.

<v Speaker 1>If he doesn't buy WWE one day, the con Family's

<v Speaker 1>got more money than God. You know that, right. That's

<v Speaker 1>nine billion dollar price tag on WWE. That's nothing to

<v Speaker 1>Shad Khan. But more than that, Tony has provided an

<v Speaker 1>opportunity for guys who would never get a chance to

<v Speaker 1>work anywhere else because the WWE is a very difficult,

<v Speaker 1>very selective organization, and Tony has offered all of these

<v Speaker 1>opportunities and he pays the guy's good. All he cares

<v Speaker 1>about is making a product and making sure the people

<v Speaker 1>are happy. He's a very personable guy. It's funny him

<v Speaker 1>bringing all of this up when just recently it came

<v Speaker 1>out that Tony in fact did make a bid to

<v Speaker 1>buy WWE in twenty twenty three for about seven billion dollars.

<v Speaker 1>And while I am sure he is a very nice

<v Speaker 1>guy and he would not over commercialize the product the

<v Speaker 1>way that TKO has, No one person should hold that

<v Speaker 1>much power over an entire industry. I would like to

<v Speaker 1>think that even the hardest of hardcore AW fans would

<v Speaker 1>agree that Tony Kahn owning WWE and AW would be

<v Speaker 1>a bad thing. We should not be concentrating that much

<v Speaker 1>power in one place. I don't care who you are.

<v Speaker 1>This week is a great example of why that is.

<v Speaker 1>By the way, with those WWE cuts, if Tony Khn

<v Speaker 1>owned all the major wrestling companies and you had a

<v Speaker 1>falling out with him and you left AW. It's very

<v Speaker 1>rare that AW will get rid of somebody. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>you have to really fuck up for them to fire you.

<v Speaker 1>But whether they fire you or you did they let

<v Speaker 1>your contract lapse, right, and let's say you're gone, or

<v Speaker 1>if you left WWE and you wanted to go to

<v Speaker 1>AW right, but Tony owns both of them. Boy, your

<v Speaker 1>options are going to be real limited now, aren't they.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know why anybody would see that as a

<v Speaker 1>good thing. Flair was asked his thoughts about the audience

<v Speaker 1>at the Hall of Fame during Stephanie McMahon's speech, breaking

<v Speaker 1>out into a thank you Vince chant, and he said

<v Speaker 1>they should all be thanking Vince. Everybody, everybody in the

<v Speaker 1>world that likes wrestling should be thanking Vince McMahon. And

<v Speaker 1>when asked if he's been in touch with Vince recently,

<v Speaker 1>he said he hasn't been. He said, I feel like

<v Speaker 1>there's so much going on that I would be wasting

<v Speaker 1>his time. He knows how I feel about him. He

<v Speaker 1>lent me eight hundred thousand dollars in unlike what people portray,

<v Speaker 1>it was not for the irs. It was to help

<v Speaker 1>me get through three divorces at one time. Boy, three

<v Speaker 1>divorces at once. Wow. And the thing of it is,

<v Speaker 1>he says, they hate hearing this. I paid him back

<v Speaker 1>every dime when he called me and said that I

<v Speaker 1>can write this off, don't worry about it. I paid

<v Speaker 1>him back because I didn't want to let him down.

<v Speaker 1>He claims he took his entire paycheck for his final

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania match against Sewn Michaels, and he gave it right

<v Speaker 1>back to Vince. Vince. So look, Vince was good to

<v Speaker 1>Flair even when he he did not have to be.

<v Speaker 1>By and large, from all the stories and everything, Vince

<v Speaker 1>McMahon was always very good to Rick Flair. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>surprised that Rick Flair feels he owes this man a

<v Speaker 1>debt of gratitude. None of this is surprising. But also

<v Speaker 1>in the interview and again I told you went off

<v Speaker 1>the rails here he took aim at Stevie Richards, whose

<v Speaker 1>name he couldn't remember, or claimed he couldn't remember. He

<v Speaker 1>took aim at dutch Man Tell, whose name he couldn't remember.

<v Speaker 1>He called him by his zeb culter name in WWE.

<v Speaker 1>He even went after James Romero, whose name he definitely

<v Speaker 1>didn't know. He called him the peanut shell, he said,

<v Speaker 1>ZEB and Stevie Richards and that little jack off God,

<v Speaker 1>I call him the peanuts shell, the guy that does

<v Speaker 1>the interviews for ZEB. I mean, if I look at

<v Speaker 1>my page, I get punks like fucking Stevie what's his name?

<v Speaker 1>Stevie Richards and Zeb Culter whatever his name is. For

<v Speaker 1>a guy that has suffered serious health problems, not as

<v Speaker 1>serious as mine, I would keep my mouth shut because

<v Speaker 1>if you don't have a legacy, you can't talk about

<v Speaker 1>a legacy. I'll tell you a great story. You'll love it.

<v Speaker 1>We're in Marietta, Georgia, and Lex Luger used to always

<v Speaker 1>speak of himself and the third person. And he looked

<v Speaker 1>at Jack Mulligan, who was the agent, and he goes,

<v Speaker 1>why would a Lex Luger wressele a dutch Man tell?

<v Speaker 1>And now I understand why Luger said it. Who in

<v Speaker 1>the fuck is dutch Man tell a fuzzball with serious

<v Speaker 1>health problems that should mind his own business. And Stevie Richards,

<v Speaker 1>My pinky finger is bigger than his neck. The man

<v Speaker 1>is on Ariel Helwani show to talk about wressell Mania

<v Speaker 1>from three days earlier and what's going on in his life.

<v Speaker 1>And he's ranting about fucking James Romero and Stevie Richards

<v Speaker 1>over what fuck if? I know, because Stevie told the

<v Speaker 1>story once about Flair disrespecting him at a bar when

<v Speaker 1>he worked for TAA. I don't know if that's the

<v Speaker 1>clip that got him hot. I mean, Stevie told that

<v Speaker 1>story years ago. But this man gave these guys free

<v Speaker 1>publicity on Ariel show for what reason? I have no idea.

<v Speaker 1>But then the best part about this when he gets

<v Speaker 1>asked if that bothers him when they talk about him,

<v Speaker 1>which it clearly does, he says, no, No, it doesn't

<v Speaker 1>bother me. I laugh at it. He says, how could

<v Speaker 1>it bother me? Who were they? I was just in

<v Speaker 1>Vegas and I talked to Donald Trump on the phone.

<v Speaker 1>Do I give a shit about those guys? They don't

<v Speaker 1>even have Donald's number. And I can call Charles Barkley,

<v Speaker 1>I can call Shack, I can call somebody famous. I

<v Speaker 1>can call Mark Wahlberg. I mean, I can call anybody,

<v Speaker 1>because I've earned their respect. Darius Rucker, Kid Rock Snoop dog.

<v Speaker 1>I have all their numbers right here on speed dial.

<v Speaker 1>These guys don't know anything and don't know shit. But

<v Speaker 1>the only way they make a dime, and I'm sure

<v Speaker 1>it's a minimal amount of money, is by cracking on

<v Speaker 1>people that are successful. And the older you get, the

<v Speaker 1>more successful you stay, and the more relevant you stay,

<v Speaker 1>the more jealous they get. This is not the flex

<v Speaker 1>that he thinks it is, by the way, to throw

<v Speaker 1>it all these names out there. I like how he

<v Speaker 1>still refers to it as speed dial myself. You know,

<v Speaker 1>every number in your phone is speed dial. Okay, you

<v Speaker 1>just tap their name like this. This guy still has

<v Speaker 1>a fucking rotary phone at home. But he joked. He joked.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe he joked, I don't know. He could have been serious,

<v Speaker 1>But he joked that he hooked up with more women

<v Speaker 1>than Wilt Chamberlain did, who once claimed that he slept

<v Speaker 1>famously with twenty thousand women in his lifetime. Flaire says

<v Speaker 1>he beat that record by the time he was thirty nine,

<v Speaker 1>and he goes, they weren't all tens. There were a

<v Speaker 1>couple of heavyweights along the way, but it was a

<v Speaker 1>small town. I don't remember their names. And I don't

<v Speaker 1>want them to remember mine. Now. Ariel did ask him

<v Speaker 1>before this all descended into just complete madness what he

<v Speaker 1>thought of his daughter's match oft WrestleMania, and he said

<v Speaker 1>he didn't like it. He said, I didn't like her

<v Speaker 1>match at all. And I think that Ashley needs to

<v Speaker 1>be and I know she enjoys her relationship with Alexa,

<v Speaker 1>but if Ashley is not in a title picture right now,

<v Speaker 1>in my life and as a spectator, without her in

<v Speaker 1>the main event in a singles match, and I think

<v Speaker 1>basically he was saying he kind of doesn't have any

<v Speaker 1>interest if Charlotte is not wrestling for a world title now.

<v Speaker 1>The next day, he did a little cleanup on Aisle

<v Speaker 1>five on those comments, tweeting, out of course first letter

<v Speaker 1>capitalize in every word. I want to make something very

<v Speaker 1>clear to everyone after yesterday's podcast with Ariel Helwani. Number one,

<v Speaker 1>I'm more than thrilled to see Charlotte wrestling with her

<v Speaker 1>friend Alexa Bliss. I've never seen her happier. So let's

<v Speaker 1>clear that up. Okay, So all you people out there

<v Speaker 1>that are misconstruing Flair's own words and using his own

<v Speaker 1>words against him, don't do that Number two, I enjoyed

<v Speaker 1>her in singles matches because I feel like she's able

<v Speaker 1>to put more of her talent on display. Number three,

<v Speaker 1>no one will ever criticize or make any attempt to

<v Speaker 1>judge my daughter's or say anything about them except Rick Flair.

<v Speaker 1>Number four. I wish we could all just put everything

<v Speaker 1>behind us, and please don't report something on me unless

<v Speaker 1>it is one hundred percent true. He wishes he could

<v Speaker 1>put all of this stuff behind him, Yet he's the

<v Speaker 1>one who brought most of this stuff up unprompted, and

<v Speaker 1>he goes after people, and the fact is based on

<v Speaker 1>some of the things that came out of his own

<v Speaker 1>mouth in that interview, especially the Kaiser stuff. The biggest

<v Speaker 1>source of misinformation here is Rick Flair himself. So the

<v Speaker 1>next time you sit down for that Thanksgiving dinner and

<v Speaker 1>your drunk uncle starts telling embarrassing stories, just be grateful

<v Speaker 1>he's not doing the helicopter with his dick and bragging

<v Speaker 1>on the Internet about all the heavyweights that he is

<v Speaker 1>shacked up with over the years. There was a lot

<v Speaker 1>of talk this week coming out of WrestleMania about the

<v Speaker 1>security situation at the MGM. Grand Or lack thereof that

<v Speaker 1>was the official talent hotel this year for WrestleMania. Per

<v Speaker 1>Fightful Select, a lot of talent raised concerns about the

<v Speaker 1>lack of proper security, and when asked about the situation,

<v Speaker 1>several wrestlers responded to fight full with what security. One

<v Speaker 1>WWE source claimed that certain fans cross boundaries during meet

<v Speaker 1>and greet sessions where they attempted to initiate hugs with

<v Speaker 1>the talents, and this was strongly discouraged, not just for

<v Speaker 1>per reasons, but also due to health concerns. One wrestler

<v Speaker 1>believed that things were getting worse because of these sky

<v Speaker 1>high ticket prices set by WWE under TKO and fanatics.

<v Speaker 1>They believe that they are no longer financially accessible to

<v Speaker 1>fans who want to meet them and normally pay for

<v Speaker 1>meet and greets, and the inaccessible prices could be a

<v Speaker 1>reason behind the fans getting aggressive, which, by the way,

<v Speaker 1>even if that were true, that is no excuse for

<v Speaker 1>fans behaving in the way that their behavior. You're just

<v Speaker 1>let's not make excuses for these people. But a lot

<v Speaker 1>of fans use their kids to get us to sign things,

<v Speaker 1>says one former WWE champion. If we don't they put

<v Speaker 1>their phones in our face and they try to guilt

<v Speaker 1>trip us. Another WWE superstar claimed, it's WrestleMania and there

<v Speaker 1>are wrestling fans in town. What do people expect now?

<v Speaker 1>I saw a video of Randy Orton getting mobbed in

<v Speaker 1>the lobby. I saw video of Drew McIntyre getting mobbed.

<v Speaker 1>The CM Punk incident is the one that got the

<v Speaker 1>most attention from TMC. This was Sunday night after his

<v Speaker 1>main event match with the Roman Reigns. His wife aj

<v Speaker 1>She was seen hugging Bailey in the lobby of the

<v Speaker 1>MGM grin like they were saying goodbye. There was a

<v Speaker 1>fan who had been following them with his phone out

<v Speaker 1>and even after they moved to a different area, like

<v Speaker 1>they kind of walked towards the elevators to you know,

<v Speaker 1>get some privacy, and the fan followed and he continued

<v Speaker 1>to film them, and he got all up in their space.

<v Speaker 1>Bailey even told the guy to go away, and she

<v Speaker 1>tried to push his phone away, and that is when

<v Speaker 1>Punk stepped in and he smacked the phone right out

<v Speaker 1>of the guy's hand. It even bounced off the floor.

<v Speaker 1>Then security stepped in to get in between everybody. Punk

<v Speaker 1>looked like he wanted to kill this guy. He was

<v Speaker 1>having Wembley flashbacks. TMZ reached out to the fan who

<v Speaker 1>said he's not going to sue Punk and he's not

<v Speaker 1>going to press charges and put him in jail. He

<v Speaker 1>just wanted apology. Oh really, now, is that right? He's

<v Speaker 1>lucky he didn't get punched in the mouth. See that

<v Speaker 1>Punk would have to answer for if he put his

<v Speaker 1>hands on the guy, but he didn't. He smacked the

<v Speaker 1>phone out of his hand, and he deserved it. He

<v Speaker 1>was being an asshole. You know. To me the moment

<v Speaker 1>on the video where Bailey signals that she's not cool

<v Speaker 1>with this guy invading her space and getting so close.

<v Speaker 1>That changes the whole dynamic. Like you were warned, you

<v Speaker 1>opted not to heed that warning. You don't get to

<v Speaker 1>then turn around and play victim here. I'm sure there

<v Speaker 1>will be no apology forthcoming, nor should there be. Punk

<v Speaker 1>did nothing wrong. Only a few minutes before this happened

<v Speaker 1>same hotel, Damian Priest had to step in to help

<v Speaker 1>one of the female wrestlers who was surrounded by this

<v Speaker 1>group of fans wanting autographs and pictures, and they were

<v Speaker 1>kind of closing in on her Sean Waltman said that

<v Speaker 1>he was physically assaulted. He was even stalked in the bathroom.

<v Speaker 1>Booker t said that there was a fan filming him

<v Speaker 1>in the bathroom at the MGM Grand. You know, usually

<v Speaker 1>for WrestleMania, WWE books out an entire hotel for the talent,

<v Speaker 1>so you don't have fans who have access, you don't

<v Speaker 1>have fans running around there. But they couldn't do that

<v Speaker 1>in Vegas at the MGM because there's a casino there,

<v Speaker 1>so you can't well lock down the entire hotel because

<v Speaker 1>it would impact their casino business. But this is where

<v Speaker 1>TKO and WWE they need to step up and they

<v Speaker 1>need to pay extra for security for their talent for

<v Speaker 1>an event like WrestleMania where you know it is going

<v Speaker 1>to be a zoo and if you can't lock down

<v Speaker 1>the hotel the way that you normally do, then dip

<v Speaker 1>into those deep pockets that you have and pay to

<v Speaker 1>protect your talent or And I don't know if this

<v Speaker 1>is the case with MGM, but I know some of

<v Speaker 1>these casinos they have another hotel attached to them. You

<v Speaker 1>don't have to stay at the resort itself. For example,

<v Speaker 1>for House of Glory. We had our shows at the

<v Speaker 1>Pearl Theater. The Pearl Theater is at the Palms, Okay,

<v Speaker 1>the Palms Casino resort. I could have booked a room there. Instead,

<v Speaker 1>I booked a room at the Palm's Place hotel, which

<v Speaker 1>is connected to the Palms. You just have to do

<v Speaker 1>a little bit of walking to get there, and it

<v Speaker 1>was a lot quieter over there than it would have

<v Speaker 1>been staying at the Poms itself in terms of foot traffic.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if that would have been doable at MGM.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if there's another hotel connected or in

<v Speaker 1>the back, but if it was, I don't know why

<v Speaker 1>they didn't just book the talent in the adjacent hotel there.

<v Speaker 1>But this is not something to cheap out on. It's

<v Speaker 1>one thing to hear Kevin Nash complain about there being

<v Speaker 1>no food backstage at the Hall of Fame for the

<v Speaker 1>talent because they were too cheap to spend money on catering. Right,

<v Speaker 1>they had some bags of chips, a couple of bananas

<v Speaker 1>in a tangerine. That's all they had. Okay, that's one thing,

<v Speaker 1>but when you're dealing with safety, that's a whole other

<v Speaker 1>ball of wax. There are boundaries that you do not cross.

<v Speaker 1>This is not the same as seeing a wrestler and

<v Speaker 1>politely asking, oh, can I get a picture? Can I

<v Speaker 1>get an autograph? And if they say no, or if

<v Speaker 1>they ignore you, you just move on like a normal

<v Speaker 1>fucking human being. These are throngs of people, hordes of them,

<v Speaker 1>all congregating in one place, shoving their phones in people's faces.

<v Speaker 1>I forget who it was. I think it was rear Ripley,

<v Speaker 1>and it might have been in Saudi. It might have

<v Speaker 1>been on one of the Saudi shows. But there was

<v Speaker 1>a fan video and she was outside somewhere. I think

<v Speaker 1>she was up against the car and it might have

<v Speaker 1>been an uber or if it was them, maybe it

<v Speaker 1>was a limo. I don't know what it was. But

<v Speaker 1>she was literally pressed up against the car and there

<v Speaker 1>was a whole group of people surrounding here, and I

<v Speaker 1>don't remem remember there being anybody around, And so I

<v Speaker 1>can only imagine if you're a talent, especially you know,

<v Speaker 1>a female talent, if you have all these guys that

<v Speaker 1>are like, you know, their fucking tongues are wagging and

<v Speaker 1>they're just the kind of it's like something out of

<v Speaker 1>the Walking Dead, where you know the walkers are making

<v Speaker 1>their way towards you, right, and now there's so many

<v Speaker 1>of them and they're slowly creeping towards you, like I

<v Speaker 1>can only imagine like what a situation like them must feel,

<v Speaker 1>and how helpless you are when it gets that bad.

<v Speaker 1>We're not talking about a couple of people here again.

<v Speaker 1>These are hordes of people that are shoving their phones

<v Speaker 1>in people's faces and demanding autographs and photos, and when

<v Speaker 1>it's very clear the talent does not want to give

<v Speaker 1>them one, they follow them and they get all up

<v Speaker 1>in their business. Like imagine being one of those wrestlers

<v Speaker 1>trying to get up to your room and there's only

<v Speaker 1>one way up and one way down. There's no secret

<v Speaker 1>back entrance, and so you're waiting for the elevator. Are

<v Speaker 1>you going to get in that elevator and run the

<v Speaker 1>risk of being trapped inside with these people and no

<v Speaker 1>security around. You're just asking for something bad to happen,

<v Speaker 1>Like there have been too many stories recently, especially with

<v Speaker 1>the women, about creepy stalker fans even showing up at

<v Speaker 1>their homes. Like this isn't something to play around with,

<v Speaker 1>the talents, are there to work for you. If not

<v Speaker 1>for you telling them to be there, they would not

<v Speaker 1>be there. Protect your talent. The Fox affiliate in Nashville

<v Speaker 1>reported this week that WWE says it is taking WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>forty three to Saudi Arabia in twenty twenty seven, after

<v Speaker 1>leaders with the Tennessee Titans and Nashville tourism groups initially

<v Speaker 1>said it would be coming to the new Nissan Stadium

<v Speaker 1>next April, with construction set to be complete at the

<v Speaker 1>future Titans home in February of twenty twenty seven. WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>forty three would have been one of the first major

<v Speaker 1>events of the Dome Stadium drew to Nashville. The date

<v Speaker 1>didn't work out. We were looking at future years that

<v Speaker 1>a representative of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>they're reporting on this as if WWE just announced WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>for Saudi Arabia next year. This was announced months ago.

<v Speaker 1>So the list grows longer of cities that are owed

<v Speaker 1>a WrestleMania in the future. We have New Orleans, we

<v Speaker 1>have Indianapolis, and now Nashville. But WWE is coming back

<v Speaker 1>to Saudi Arabia at least once. And probably twice before

<v Speaker 1>they even get to WrestleMania next year. The company confirmed

<v Speaker 1>this week that Night of Champions will be held in

<v Speaker 1>Riod on June twenty seventh. This would be their second

<v Speaker 1>trip to Saudi this year after the Royal Rumble. There

<v Speaker 1>was talk of them maybe pulling out with all of

<v Speaker 1>the hostilities going on in that region right now with

<v Speaker 1>the Iran War. We had Iranian drones that struck the

<v Speaker 1>US embassy in Riod just last month. But WWE they

<v Speaker 1>bring a lot of money in for these shows. They

<v Speaker 1>bring in a minimum fifty million dollars for every Saudi

<v Speaker 1>show they run, and significantly more I'm sure for the

<v Speaker 1>Royal Rumble and for WrestleMania next year. It would take

<v Speaker 1>a nuclear holocaust I think for them to pull out

<v Speaker 1>of these shows. Night of Champions was held in Saudi

<v Speaker 1>last year as well, is where they did the last

<v Speaker 1>ever match between John Cena and Cmpunk. That is John

<v Speaker 1>Cena's all time favorite moment in wrestling that he was

<v Speaker 1>involved with, not the match that the two of them had,

<v Speaker 1>but Punk's apology to the Saudi people on the pre show,

<v Speaker 1>to that one fan on the pre show. That is

<v Speaker 1>John Seena's favorite moment of his career. I'm still amazed

<v Speaker 1>that these were actual words he strung together in a sentence,

<v Speaker 1>but it's real. Hey, maybe if Punk apologizes to that

<v Speaker 1>fan that harassed his wife in Las Vegas, that could

<v Speaker 1>be the second greatest moment of John seen his career

<v Speaker 1>and he wasn't even involved. So as of now, we

<v Speaker 1>have Backlash on May ninth in Tampa, Saturday Night's main

<v Speaker 1>event in Fort Wayne, Indiana on May twenty, third, Clash

<v Speaker 1>in Italy one week later on the thirty first Night

<v Speaker 1>of Champions in Riot on June twenty seventh, a two

<v Speaker 1>night Summer Slim in Minneapolis on August first and second,

<v Speaker 1>and then Money in the Bank in New New Orleans

<v Speaker 1>on September sixth. That's the make good, by the way,

<v Speaker 1>this year for New Orleans not getting WrestleMania, they get

<v Speaker 1>money in the Bank. Now, let's talk about some Ron

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown notes here and some NXT call up notes, because

<v Speaker 1>there was some news this week coming out of WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>including Cody Rhodes who got all fucked up. His eye

<v Speaker 1>was all messed up coming out of that WrestleMania Night

<v Speaker 1>one main event, and Meltzer had reported that he was

<v Speaker 1>put in concussion protocol, which I think most people would

<v Speaker 1>have surmised that even if he did not have a concussion,

<v Speaker 1>they do have a concussion protocol, and so he probably

<v Speaker 1>ended up in there, and there's no indication he actually

<v Speaker 1>got a concussion. He did post Cody did on his

<v Speaker 1>Instagram stories this week. He says, you won't lose the

<v Speaker 1>eye has to be the most positive yet absurd thing

<v Speaker 1>I've heard in a doctor's office. Well, I don't is

<v Speaker 1>it positive? I mean, I guess yes, not losing your

<v Speaker 1>eye would be positive, But the implication there is that

<v Speaker 1>there may be there may be other injuries and issues

<v Speaker 1>with the eye. But you know, he had Cody and Randy,

<v Speaker 1>and Cody beat Randy Orton. He's still the WWE champion.

<v Speaker 1>They wrote off Pat McAfee and I've talked about what

<v Speaker 1>a fucking disaster the whole lead up was to it.

<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll, who had a role in that story and

<v Speaker 1>actually in the main event of WrestleMania this year, he

<v Speaker 1>admits that he and Pat McAfee they had no business

<v Speaker 1>being involved in the WrestleMania main event, and he addressed

<v Speaker 1>McAfee directly in Jelly Roll's YouTube vlog and he was

<v Speaker 1>kind of reflecting on everything. I think he was backstage

<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania and he said I had one goal tonight

<v Speaker 1>and I kind of succeeded. Pat, I love you man.

<v Speaker 1>Neither one of us had any business here. Pat McAfee, meanwhile,

<v Speaker 1>we come to find out, is the one who decided

<v Speaker 1>to end the Angle at WrestleMania. So if it felt

<v Speaker 1>like it was ended prematurely, there's a reason for that.

<v Speaker 1>Because Pat McAfee said peace, I'm out, and there was

<v Speaker 1>an item in the Observer This week, Randy Orton was

<v Speaker 1>scheduled to beat Cody Rhoads for the WWE Championship, likely

<v Speaker 1>with Pat McAfee's help, to set up a tag team

<v Speaker 1>match for Backlash where it would be Randy Orton and

<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee against Cody Rhodes and Jelly Roll. However, McAfee

<v Speaker 1>asked to end his run and later said that he

<v Speaker 1>was out of wrestling forever after the show. The belief

<v Speaker 1>in WWE was that he didn't like the negativity of

<v Speaker 1>the fans, not the heel heat, but the negativity plus

<v Speaker 1>even worse, the negativity of the angle from so many

<v Speaker 1>of the talents It wasn't negativity on McAfee personally, but

<v Speaker 1>so much of the talent did not like the angle

<v Speaker 1>and felt that Cody versus Randy had a strong storyline

<v Speaker 1>dating back to Orton being Rhodes's mentor and McAfee and

<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll being involved took away from the stronger story,

<v Speaker 1>which is only what I've been talking about now for

<v Speaker 1>weeks and probably every other fucking person who watched the show.

<v Speaker 1>The talent are not stupid. They saw the same thing,

<v Speaker 1>he says. Plus, it was well known the story did

<v Speaker 1>not come from WWE created, but it was Ari Emmanuel

<v Speaker 1>behind it. So when he asked out, the decision was

<v Speaker 1>made to go in a direction of punk versus Roads

<v Speaker 1>and not go with Randy Orton as champion. And on

<v Speaker 1>his ESPN show on Monday, McAfee said this, He said,

<v Speaker 1>the good news is the business doesn't need to be

<v Speaker 1>saved after all, and good for them and good for me.

<v Speaker 1>I finished my story. I came up in the Indies.

<v Speaker 1>Iwa East Coast, I went through developmental n XT. I

<v Speaker 1>was a wrestler trained well I mean that's I mean technically,

<v Speaker 1>I guess technically yes, but I was a wrestler trained

<v Speaker 1>by Rip Rogers, the same guy that trained everybody that's

<v Speaker 1>retiring kind of currently out of OVW get to WWE, commentated,

<v Speaker 1>Lucky to Do That, did pre shows, Lucky to Do That,

<v Speaker 1>wrestled Lucky to Do That. Managed. It's been a hell

<v Speaker 1>of a run. Thank you Wrestling. It was an honor

<v Speaker 1>to be over there. The wrestling business just kind of

<v Speaker 1>rear view mirror, and so the wrestling business, I'd like

<v Speaker 1>to say, thank you, thank you so much. Look, I

<v Speaker 1>can't speak for everybody, but I speak for myself when

<v Speaker 1>I say I did not have any issue personally with

<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee or with Jelly Roll. In fact, when Jelly

<v Speaker 1>Roll had that tag team match, that match at SummerSlam

<v Speaker 1>last year, I put him over and said, men, you know,

<v Speaker 1>he played his role perfectly and the crowd enjoyed the

<v Speaker 1>match and it was great for what it was supposed

<v Speaker 1>to be. And McAfee, you know, when he was around

<v Speaker 1>doing commentary, he could be very grating on the nerves,

<v Speaker 1>but he had his moments, you know, and they would

<v Speaker 1>bring him in, he would disappear, he would do college

<v Speaker 1>game day, then he would come back. But the thing

<v Speaker 1>with McAfee is that the fans. Generally, the fans loved him,

<v Speaker 1>you know, they would hit his music, he would come out.

<v Speaker 1>He was a big babyface to the WWE audience. And

<v Speaker 1>by involving him in this angle at the time that

<v Speaker 1>they did, in the way that they did, they turned

<v Speaker 1>him heal and not just in storyline, they turned him

<v Speaker 1>heal to much of the audience. So whatever good will

<v Speaker 1>this guy had curried with the fans, they fucking ruined

<v Speaker 1>it with this entire storyline. And it just got to

<v Speaker 1>a point where I didn't want to see these people anymore,

<v Speaker 1>because again, they had no business being involved. These two

<v Speaker 1>guys are not stupid. They're genuine wrestling fans. McAfee, as

<v Speaker 1>he said, had a little bit of history in the

<v Speaker 1>wrestling business, but he was a fan. He is a fan.

<v Speaker 1>Jelly Roll is a fan. And so yes, they're not stupid.

<v Speaker 1>They see and they hear what people are saying about

<v Speaker 1>them on social media and what people are saying about

<v Speaker 1>them on the Internet and on YouTube and all these

<v Speaker 1>different places, and I'm sure they agree. I'm sure that

<v Speaker 1>they look at it and go, this is not right.

<v Speaker 1>That's why McAfee supposedly turned the idea down. Initially, he

<v Speaker 1>didn't want to do it. I don't know what ultimately

<v Speaker 1>got him to change his mind. Probably Samula, not that

<v Speaker 1>he needs it, but he's not a stupid person. He realized, like,

<v Speaker 1>this is not working this, I shouldn't be here. Jelly

<v Speaker 1>Roll literally said the words, we should not be here,

<v Speaker 1>we should not be a part of this. Kudos to

<v Speaker 1>them for recognizing it. But I said this on X

<v Speaker 1>for all the talk of the IWC, which is something

<v Speaker 1>we heard McAfee saying in his promos, and it is

<v Speaker 1>such a stupid term to even use anymore, because what

<v Speaker 1>the hell does it even mean. I mean, people generally

<v Speaker 1>will use it to describe a segment of the wrestling

<v Speaker 1>audience that talk about wrestling, I guess online or on

<v Speaker 1>social media. But IWC, it's just such a stupid fucking term.

<v Speaker 1>But for all the talk of the IWC being such

<v Speaker 1>a vocal minority, right, don't listen to them, you know,

<v Speaker 1>they just there's a vocal minority. Their opinion doesn't matter.

<v Speaker 1>It's about the masses, right, And there is something to that.

<v Speaker 1>But every time you hear somebody say that, I want

<v Speaker 1>you to remember this situation. Do not ever let that

<v Speaker 1>stop you from calling out shit that sucks, because it

<v Speaker 1>absolutely has an effect. I'm not saying that this alone

<v Speaker 1>is the reason why, oh my god, they dropped the

<v Speaker 1>whole story, but clearly it had an impact, even if

<v Speaker 1>it was a case where McAfee looked at it and go, man,

<v Speaker 1>I don't like what people are saying about me here,

<v Speaker 1>I'm getting it from all angles here. I don't need

<v Speaker 1>this shit. And he goes to WWE, who's full steam

<v Speaker 1>ahead because Nick con Is said I don't look at X,

<v Speaker 1>I don't look at social media. I don't give a

<v Speaker 1>shit about it. But guess what the people that work

<v Speaker 1>for him they do. And if Pat McAfee and Jelly

<v Speaker 1>roll and they saw all of this being said about

<v Speaker 1>them and they have egos like everybody else, all it

<v Speaker 1>takes is them going to Nick con and going to

<v Speaker 1>Paulovek or going to Ari Emanuel and saying I don't

<v Speaker 1>want to have anything to do with this anymore. This

<v Speaker 1>is a mistake, and all of a sudden the story

<v Speaker 1>gets dropped. So don't ever let anybody tell you that, oh,

<v Speaker 1>because you're in the IWC and because you're posting a

<v Speaker 1>comment on YouTube or on X that your opinion doesn't matter.

<v Speaker 1>This sucked. The people involved knew it sucked, and they

<v Speaker 1>decided to change their mind because they didn't like all

<v Speaker 1>of the negativity. Sometimes the negativity is what they need

<v Speaker 1>to hear. Sometimes the negativity works, and in this case,

<v Speaker 1>I'm glad it did. We did have a bunch of

<v Speaker 1>NXT call ups on the post wrestle many episodes of

<v Speaker 1>her on SmackDown this week, which was expected and it

<v Speaker 1>was also much needed and welcome. Raw has Ethan Page,

<v Speaker 1>Sol Ruka, and Joe Hendry, who's going to be in

<v Speaker 1>concert tomorrow night. They are now joining the Monday Night

<v Speaker 1>Raw roster. I love all three names being added to RAW.

<v Speaker 1>I think these are great additions to the roster. Ethan Page,

<v Speaker 1>especially if he's not Intercontinental Champion within six months, I'd

<v Speaker 1>be very surprised. Soul Ruka is fantastic. She's going to

<v Speaker 1>be a huge star. She wrestled liv Morgan. She wrestled

<v Speaker 1>the Women's World Champion her first night in on Monday

<v Speaker 1>and they had a fun match, and then she went

<v Speaker 1>and wrestled Zaria in a last woman's Standing match on

<v Speaker 1>NXT the very next night, and she took a nasty

<v Speaker 1>spill from the Crow's nest in the performance center and

<v Speaker 1>they had two tables down below, and the spot was

<v Speaker 1>that Zaria was going to shove her and she was

<v Speaker 1>going to fall backwards through two tables, two slim gym tables.

<v Speaker 1>She went through the first one and the back of

<v Speaker 1>her head clipped the edge of the second one, and

<v Speaker 1>it was very scary. It was a very nasty spot.

<v Speaker 1>I think I even mentioned this to JD the other day.

<v Speaker 1>We were on Tuesday Night Titans. We were talking about

<v Speaker 1>it as it was happening because NXT was on during

<v Speaker 1>our show, and I said, I saw the clip and

<v Speaker 1>it reminded me exactly. First thing I thought of was

<v Speaker 1>on Raw years ago when La Resistance they picked up

<v Speaker 1>Spike Dudley and same spot, although I think it might

<v Speaker 1>have just been one table outside the ring, and they

<v Speaker 1>were picking him up and they were going to power

<v Speaker 1>bomb them outside the ring like a double power bomb

<v Speaker 1>through the table. Somehow they undershot the table and Spike

<v Speaker 1>hit the floor, but on his way down the back

<v Speaker 1>of his head smacked the edge of the table. It

<v Speaker 1>was just nasty. That's exactly what happened here. In this case.

<v Speaker 1>Soul Ruka ended up needing eight staples in the back

<v Speaker 1>of her head to close the wound. Otherwise she seems

<v Speaker 1>to be okay. I was very, very scary. So those

<v Speaker 1>are the additions to Monday Night Roll. We're not sure

<v Speaker 1>about Jacob FO two because Jacob Fatu now showed up

<v Speaker 1>on Raw and he's going to be challenging most likely.

<v Speaker 1>It's not official yet, but we'll find out tomorrow night.

<v Speaker 1>He'll be challenging Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship

<v Speaker 1>at Backlash. That does not necessarily mean that Jacob is

<v Speaker 1>going to be full time on Raw going forward. He

<v Speaker 1>could still be on SmackDown, so we'll put a question

<v Speaker 1>mark on that. CM Punk the way he was talking

<v Speaker 1>and his promo with Cody Rhodes, and also you kind

<v Speaker 1>of look at the lay of the land on Monday

<v Speaker 1>Night Raw right now, and if Roman is going to

<v Speaker 1>be the champion and they're not doing Roman in Punk again,

<v Speaker 1>Punk has no business being on Monday Night Raw. My

<v Speaker 1>guess is Punk ends up on SmackDown, but there was

<v Speaker 1>no hint of that on SmackDown this week, But it

<v Speaker 1>would make all the sense in the world to move

<v Speaker 1>him over from Mondays to Fridays SmackDown what we do

<v Speaker 1>know is that they now have all three members of

<v Speaker 1>Fatal Influence Jacy, Jane Fallon, Henley, Laney Reid. They are

<v Speaker 1>now on SmackDown jac In her first night Like Soul

<v Speaker 1>on Raw Wrestling Live, Morgan Jace was wrestling Rhea Ripley

<v Speaker 1>on Friday Night and Fatal Influence was out there Jace

<v Speaker 1>in particular, for a promo, and the heat that they

<v Speaker 1>were was just off the charts, so much so that

<v Speaker 1>she had to keep stopping her promo to insult the crowd.

<v Speaker 1>And it was hard to hear like what like Lady

<v Speaker 1>Reid said. I couldn't even tell you because I could

<v Speaker 1>barely hear what she was even saying. The heat was

<v Speaker 1>so loud in the building. And then I'm looking at

<v Speaker 1>some of the crowd and like, people aren't really moving

<v Speaker 1>and reacting in the first several rows, and so I'm

<v Speaker 1>not sure if they were piping in some noise. There

<v Speaker 1>was clearly a lot of legitimate noise coming from the fans,

<v Speaker 1>and I've seen some fan video since then. There were

<v Speaker 1>people who listened to the sound of who messaged me

<v Speaker 1>and said I was there and I could tell you.

<v Speaker 1>I can't speak to what wwe may have been tinkering with,

<v Speaker 1>but it was loud in the building, so it looks

<v Speaker 1>like most of the heat was legitimate, which is great.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't carry over into the match that lay or

<v Speaker 1>Lacey that JC had with Rhea, but hopefully they can

<v Speaker 1>continue to get reactions like that because as a heel,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, my god, those are the kind of reactions

<v Speaker 1>that you would die for. So that's gonna give the

<v Speaker 1>women's division on Friday is a huge shot in the arm.

<v Speaker 1>And Blake Monroe finally is on her way to the

<v Speaker 1>main roster. They ran a vignette for her coming soon.

<v Speaker 1>The glamour is coming soon. They didn't specifically say coming

<v Speaker 1>soon like with the SmackDown logo. I assume she's coming

<v Speaker 1>to SmackDown. I guess if they air the same vignette

<v Speaker 1>on Raw Tomorrow night, then maybe not, but I assume

<v Speaker 1>she's gonna be on Friday nights. And making his SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>debut this Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ricky Saints will be

<v Speaker 1>reunited now on the same show with his former Team

<v Speaker 1>TAZ partner Royce Keys, who's also a new member of

<v Speaker 1>the SmackDown roster, and Rhya Ripley by virtue of her

<v Speaker 1>winning the women's championship from Jade Carr Gilla WrestleMania. She

<v Speaker 1>is now officially on SmackDown. So these are the kinds

<v Speaker 1>of shakeups that were needed, and you could do them

<v Speaker 1>without the need for a draft show. There's more moves

<v Speaker 1>I think that will be made. They could definitely move

<v Speaker 1>some other pieces around. I mentioned punkin Fatu. We'll see

<v Speaker 1>ultimately where they land. But this is great And as

<v Speaker 1>far as SmackDown goes again, Blake Monroe, if she does

<v Speaker 1>end up there, all three members of Fatal Influence, Rhea

<v Speaker 1>now moves over. She's the champion. She could work with

<v Speaker 1>Jordan Grace, she could work with Keana James, she could

<v Speaker 1>work with Julia. There are different people not named Charlotte

<v Speaker 1>Flair for her to work with, and it gives me

<v Speaker 1>hope when it comes to SmackDown. It's a very cautious

<v Speaker 1>optimism because the show is just not good. But my

<v Speaker 1>hope is that by moving some names around here, it

<v Speaker 1>will freshen things up a little bit. Page also is

<v Speaker 1>one of those new names on the roster. What's old

<v Speaker 1>is new again now and I don't know where she

<v Speaker 1>will end up because she's one half of the women's

<v Speaker 1>tag team Champions and they can float between shows. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if she'll ultimately settle on SmackDown, if she'll

<v Speaker 1>settle on Raw her and Bribella though they are the

<v Speaker 1>tag team champions in Page sat down for an interview

<v Speaker 1>with Stephanie McMahon on her podcast, and she explained how

<v Speaker 1>her comeback even came about and the role that Jelly

<v Speaker 1>Role played in this, because she had appeared on a

<v Speaker 1>live episode of Jelly Roll's Jelly Roll's Wife Bunny. I

<v Speaker 1>guess that's her name, Bunny and Jelly Okay, all right, anyway,

<v Speaker 1>she was on Bunny Rolls podcast, I guess. And it

<v Speaker 1>turns out that the Rocks agent, Brad Slater, was also there,

<v Speaker 1>and Jelly Roll asked him how come WWE hasn't brought

<v Speaker 1>Page back yet, and one thing led to another, and

<v Speaker 1>that led to a meeting between Page and Nick Cohn.

<v Speaker 1>She said, so he calls Nick and within thirty minutes

<v Speaker 1>Nick had said, sure, let's get a meeting with her.

<v Speaker 1>A week later, he flies to La to the WWE offices.

<v Speaker 1>Out there. I went and met him for about ten minutes.

<v Speaker 1>Great guy, Love him, big fan of him. Super smart,

<v Speaker 1>he's got a business brain on him. I thought I

<v Speaker 1>would be intimidated by him, but going in there, he's

<v Speaker 1>easy going and he goes two things, your neck has

<v Speaker 1>to be okay and we have to do a drug test.

<v Speaker 1>And I was like, fair enough. I was like, hey,

<v Speaker 1>I can control the drug test. I'm clean as a whistle.

<v Speaker 1>And so I was like, I don't know how my

<v Speaker 1>neck has been. It's been a few years since I

<v Speaker 1>got it checked. The last time I got it checked

<v Speaker 1>it was perfect, So I'm not really concerned about it.

<v Speaker 1>And so the next week I fly to Birmingham. And

<v Speaker 1>she also talked about in the interview how she's eight

<v Speaker 1>years sober now. She said her first stint in WWE,

<v Speaker 1>it was a bit of a mess. She failed a

<v Speaker 1>bunch of drug tests, and Stephanie even admitted there was

<v Speaker 1>a lot of concern for her within the company during

<v Speaker 1>that time because they could see her going down a

<v Speaker 1>very bad road and the neck issues are ultimately will

<v Speaker 1>led to her not being medically cleared. That's why they

<v Speaker 1>had her as a general manager, and she was a

<v Speaker 1>manager for a while. They were trying to find other

<v Speaker 1>things for her to do because her neck was just

<v Speaker 1>such that they were not going to give her to

<v Speaker 1>give her her clearance, that's how she ended up in

<v Speaker 1>aw They obviously had no issue with her being back

<v Speaker 1>in the ring, as she won a world title while

<v Speaker 1>she was there, but she said to get cleared for

<v Speaker 1>her WWE return. She had a ten hour appointment in

<v Speaker 1>Birmingham and she said it was a couple of things.

<v Speaker 1>She was very emotional, she started crying and everything once

<v Speaker 1>she got the news. She said, it was a couple

<v Speaker 1>of things. The fact that my neck was good, and

<v Speaker 1>the last time I was in WWE, my neck wasn't

<v Speaker 1>and I had to retire and I had to miss

<v Speaker 1>out on all of these massive things like the Royal

<v Speaker 1>Rumble and Elimination Chamber. I didn't get to be a

<v Speaker 1>part of them, even though I was part of the

<v Speaker 1>group that helped kind of ignite that. And it's just

<v Speaker 1>the fact that I'm going to be okay. So she

<v Speaker 1>entered into contract negotiations for her return, and Nikki Bella

<v Speaker 1>happened to get hurt. One thing led to another and

<v Speaker 1>she ended up being the substitute and now she's a champion.

<v Speaker 1>So it's a you know, look, it's a kind of

<v Speaker 1>a happy ending for her. I mean, she's not at

<v Speaker 1>the end of her career by any means. She's still

<v Speaker 1>in her early thirties. But when you consider where she

<v Speaker 1>was back then, and it did look like she you know,

<v Speaker 1>from the outside looking at it looked like this, this

<v Speaker 1>girl is going down a very bad path, and it

<v Speaker 1>seems like she's gotten her act together, and I think

<v Speaker 1>that she could absolutely contribute to that division. There are

<v Speaker 1>a lot of women that she has not had the

<v Speaker 1>chance to work with, and let's see what she can contribute.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, she really wasn't doing a whole hell of

<v Speaker 1>a lot for the majority of her aw run, but

<v Speaker 1>let's see what she can do. In WWE. We saw

<v Speaker 1>Bianca bel Air make her return at WrestleMania to announce

<v Speaker 1>that she was pregnant. So she is not going to

<v Speaker 1>be back in the women's division anytime soon. Montese Ford,

<v Speaker 1>who had a little something to do with that. He

<v Speaker 1>posted on social media. He said, gain some weight, made

<v Speaker 1>a baby, kept it a secret for six months, trained

<v Speaker 1>eight weeks, lost the Weight, finished, the album completed, eight million.

<v Speaker 1>Honeydewes returned to Monday Night Raw after Mania. The King

<v Speaker 1>is back, so I did not know that Bianca Bella

<v Speaker 1>Air was six months She didn't look six months pregnant

<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania. It looked like maybe she had only gotten

<v Speaker 1>the news maybe two or three months ago, But apparently

<v Speaker 1>she's already six months along. And again, hopefully everything works

<v Speaker 1>out well and the baby is healthy. And again congrats

<v Speaker 1>to the two of them. I'm gonna miss seeing her

<v Speaker 1>in the ring, but hopefully she'll make her way back

<v Speaker 1>at some point. But as far as montes Ford goes,

<v Speaker 1>we haven't seen the Street Profit since October. That was

<v Speaker 1>the last time we saw them on television, and that

<v Speaker 1>was on SmackDown. They were wrestling two guys that aren't

<v Speaker 1>even employed anymore, at least not in the next eighty

<v Speaker 1>sum odd days, Joe Gacy and Dexter Loomis. So now

<v Speaker 1>they're on Raw. I guess they're going to try to

<v Speaker 1>inject some new life into the Raw tag team division

<v Speaker 1>with the Street Profits. I mean, God bless them, I

<v Speaker 1>wish them luck, but these tag team divisions on both

<v Speaker 1>these shows, I mean, they need a lot of help,

<v Speaker 1>and adding the Street Profits is not going to be enough.

<v Speaker 1>But it looks like they're going to be working the

<v Speaker 1>Vision soon and we'll see if they add any more team.

<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to think from NXT, is there any team?

<v Speaker 1>Is there any tag team right now in NXT for

<v Speaker 1>the people who watch NXT week to wee that you

<v Speaker 1>would look at and go, Okay, these guys are ready.

<v Speaker 1>These guys can be called up. Like I know they

<v Speaker 1>got the Dark State guy. I don't know what's going

<v Speaker 1>on with dark State right now. I think there's some right,

<v Speaker 1>some drama, I believe with the members of Dark State.

<v Speaker 1>They have Hank in Tank. I don't know if Hank

<v Speaker 1>and Tank maybe are ready for a call up. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know. I don't I'm not aware of any like

<v Speaker 1>great tag teams that are on the brink in NXT

<v Speaker 1>right now that can really be called up right now

<v Speaker 1>and make that much of a difference. But I just

<v Speaker 1>feel like they have to do something. It's awful, Like

<v Speaker 1>there is no reason to have two separate sets of

<v Speaker 1>tag team titles. There really hasn't been a reason since

<v Speaker 1>they split them, but right now there's no reason to

<v Speaker 1>have two separate sets of tag team titles. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>they could just have one, just like the women champions

<v Speaker 1>that float and just have you know, some tag teams here,

<v Speaker 1>some tag teams there, and let them go back and forth,

<v Speaker 1>because it is just a dreadful situation on these shows.

<v Speaker 1>Right now, let me just talk about AW here for

<v Speaker 1>a little bit. Not a lot of AW news this week,

<v Speaker 1>but one thing I did not get to talk about

<v Speaker 1>because there was no sound off last Sunday, so I

<v Speaker 1>talked about it a little bit on Wednesday. But Darby

<v Speaker 1>Allen is the new AW World Champion. Of course I

<v Speaker 1>wasn't here for Dynamite, and so we have a world

<v Speaker 1>title change on TV. But yes, MJF. After his exhaustive

<v Speaker 1>forty minute win over Kenny Omega, Dynasty rolled into Dynamite

<v Speaker 1>in Everett, Washington, and in two minutes lost the AW

<v Speaker 1>World Championship to Darby Allen. And I wanted to wait

<v Speaker 1>until I had the chance to watch the entire show

<v Speaker 1>from start to finish, and I did, and I liked

<v Speaker 1>the basic story they told of Darby. Obviously he's in

<v Speaker 1>his hometown, but he comes out at the beginning of

<v Speaker 1>the show and he's cutting this emotional promo on MJF

<v Speaker 1>and they set the matchup for the main event, which

<v Speaker 1>was a good hook for people to stay tuned in

<v Speaker 1>for the remainder of the show. They had other talents

<v Speaker 1>on the show saying go get him Darby, and then

<v Speaker 1>Sting shows up and he's given him the big endorsement

<v Speaker 1>in the back. It's not showtime, it's your time. Go

<v Speaker 1>out there and win the title. This would have been

<v Speaker 1>a great build up to, like a big pay per

<v Speaker 1>view main event. It felt rushed because it was you know,

<v Speaker 1>they had Darby beat Androdde at Dynasty. I guess that

<v Speaker 1>was their way of solidifying him as the number one contender,

<v Speaker 1>But Darby Allen was super cold, you know, going into

<v Speaker 1>this match. But for the one night in terms of

<v Speaker 1>like a one night build, they did a good job

<v Speaker 1>with it and Darby wins the championship. Now, him squashing

<v Speaker 1>MJF in the way that he did, which is not

<v Speaker 1>going to hurt MJF at all because he's MJF. He's

<v Speaker 1>a fucking heel. He's been on social media ever since

<v Speaker 1>complaining about how unfair it was and he wasn't ready

<v Speaker 1>and he got kicked in the dick. And again it's MJF.

<v Speaker 1>This will not hurt him at all. If it was

<v Speaker 1>anybody else, I might not be so sure about that

<v Speaker 1>because this is the second time this year that your

<v Speaker 1>world champion, top heel in the company has been squashed

<v Speaker 1>in a matter of a couple of minutes. To do

<v Speaker 1>that once you might be able to get away with it,

<v Speaker 1>but to do it twice, that that to me is

<v Speaker 1>the fucked up part. I would not have done it

<v Speaker 1>that way. But they put the belt on Darby, they

<v Speaker 1>had the big celebrations, sting came out good for Darby.

<v Speaker 1>Darby is not going to have this title for very long,

<v Speaker 1>and you could already see it because he's the fighting Champion.

<v Speaker 1>He's going to put that title on the line every

<v Speaker 1>single week. His first week on Dynamite, here is champion

<v Speaker 1>on Wednesday and he's putting the title on the line

<v Speaker 1>against Tamaso Shampa and they go out there and they

<v Speaker 1>had an excellent match, one of the better TV matches

<v Speaker 1>of the year so far. Champa thought so much of

<v Speaker 1>it that on social media after he referred to Darby

<v Speaker 1>as his wrestling soulmate, he said, last night I encountered

<v Speaker 1>my wrestling soulmate. I have a hunch that we will

<v Speaker 1>be doing this many more times over the next decade.

<v Speaker 1>Thank you, aw thank you Portland, Thank you Darby. Mark

<v Speaker 1>my words, it might not be this month, it might

<v Speaker 1>not be this year. Hella might not even be in

<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty seven, but there will come a time when

<v Speaker 1>I hold that AW World title. Here's a great man.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, there was one dumb spot where I think

<v Speaker 1>he did the the air raid crash to Darby to

<v Speaker 1>the outside on the floor. I mean, that was pretty stupid,

<v Speaker 1>but it's Darby, so I'm sure it was his fucking idea.

<v Speaker 1>But they had a great match that in the will

<v Speaker 1>Ospury match that he had with Mark Davis. I love

<v Speaker 1>that match. On Wednesday, Leo Rush was also on Dynamite,

<v Speaker 1>a rare Dynamite appearance. He's got this new like it's

<v Speaker 1>like black Gollum. This this weird gimmick that he's doing,

<v Speaker 1>which I kind of like because it's different. It's not

<v Speaker 1>something that you usually see on AW television. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>I could absolutely see this on WWE television, you know,

<v Speaker 1>playing it out for comedy, but I don't know. In AW,

<v Speaker 1>it's just it's a break from the usual. He's putting

<v Speaker 1>everything into this character, and I hope that they give

<v Speaker 1>him more television time to kind of expand it and

<v Speaker 1>maybe explain why he is suddenly acting like a fucking lunatic,

<v Speaker 1>which they have not done. Just one day, snap their

<v Speaker 1>fingers and all of a sudden, Leo Rush is a lunatic.

<v Speaker 1>He's not in crew anymore. With act Andretti the other

<v Speaker 1>thing also Samboa Joe was back on Dynamite this week

<v Speaker 1>and on Collision last night. Anthony Bowens was brought into

<v Speaker 1>the Ops, which I think the Ops had had run

<v Speaker 1>its course. But if they're gonna bring in new members,

<v Speaker 1>I mean Anthony Bowens. I like it because Bowens is

<v Speaker 1>a talented guy and they have done nothing with him.

<v Speaker 1>You know, when they split up the acclaimed Max Castor

<v Speaker 1>at least was doing the Open challenges and he got

<v Speaker 1>that dumb chant over and then Bowens he was like

<v Speaker 1>the five tool player, and I mean he was trying

<v Speaker 1>to do his own thing, and it's like aw just

<v Speaker 1>gave up on it. It's like Tony Kahn lost interest.

<v Speaker 1>All Right, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go play with

<v Speaker 1>my other toys over here. And it could be a

<v Speaker 1>chance now for Bowens. I guess maybe is a heel.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I mean I think the Ops. Maybe

<v Speaker 1>the Ops is not a heel faction considered a heal

<v Speaker 1>faction anymore. I don't know, but it's something for him

<v Speaker 1>to do where maybe he can finally have the chance

<v Speaker 1>to true breakout as a single on his own. I'm

<v Speaker 1>not saying it's going to happen, but at least for him,

<v Speaker 1>it's an opportunity. But Darby, he's defending his title again

<v Speaker 1>on Dynamite this week against Brody King, who came out

<v Speaker 1>after his win on Wednesday congratulated him but said I

<v Speaker 1>told you I like you or whatever it was he said,

<v Speaker 1>but I'm I'm coming after that world championship. So already

<v Speaker 1>he's got another title match lined up. So I am

<v Speaker 1>willing to bet dollars to donuts this guy's going to

<v Speaker 1>be defending that belt every single week until he drops

<v Speaker 1>it to MJF at double or nothing. But whenever he

<v Speaker 1>drops that title, Darby Allen was never meant to be

<v Speaker 1>a long term AW world champion. Darby Allen is going

<v Speaker 1>to go out there and he is going to do

<v Speaker 1>exactly what he did in my opinion when he was

<v Speaker 1>the TNT champion, he had two runs his TNT champion

<v Speaker 1>I think it was the second time he didn't have

<v Speaker 1>the belt for very long, but he was defending it

<v Speaker 1>every single week on TV and ultimately that's what cost that.

<v Speaker 1>That's why he didn't have it for very long. And

<v Speaker 1>I think it's going to follow the same story here

<v Speaker 1>with the world title. But Darby told MJF there's not

<v Speaker 1>going to be a rematch with you and me until

<v Speaker 1>you put something on the line, And it just so

<v Speaker 1>happens that MJF is challenging Kevin Knight for the TNT

<v Speaker 1>title this Wednesday, and I really hope that the idea

<v Speaker 1>is not to have MJF win the TNT title just

<v Speaker 1>to make it title for title at the pay per view.

<v Speaker 1>I really hope that's not the plan because to me,

<v Speaker 1>that does nothing for Kevin Knight. It's unfortunate what happened

<v Speaker 1>to Kyle Fletcher, but with injury comes opportunity. You put

<v Speaker 1>the championship on Kevin Knight, you obviously think the world

<v Speaker 1>of this guy. Let him have a proper run with it.

<v Speaker 1>We already had Tamaso Champa debut. He held the title

<v Speaker 1>for like eleven days and then they took it away

<v Speaker 1>from him. You can do the same thing with Kevin Knight.

<v Speaker 1>How does that help Kevin Knight, and what does the

<v Speaker 1>TNT title need to be involved in the world time

<v Speaker 1>main event at Double or Nothing? So hopefully that's not

<v Speaker 1>what Darby is referring to. And I don't know what

<v Speaker 1>else MJF could put on the line. I'll bring back Hangman,

<v Speaker 1>I don't. I mean, what else could he put on

<v Speaker 1>the line the Diamond Ring. Darby doesn't give a shit

<v Speaker 1>about the ring, but he just so happens to have

<v Speaker 1>a TNT title match this week. I mean, you start

<v Speaker 1>putting two and two together and you can kind of

<v Speaker 1>see where this is headed. Double or Nothing is going

<v Speaker 1>to be taking place May twenty fourth, Louis Armstrong Stadium

<v Speaker 1>in Queens. Darby and MJF very likely going to be

<v Speaker 1>the main event. So we know that Okata and Takeshta

<v Speaker 1>for the international title, which I'm very much looking forward to,

<v Speaker 1>and FTR we now know we'll be defending the aw

<v Speaker 1>Tag team titles against Adam Copeland and Christian Cage in

<v Speaker 1>what was a New York City street fight and now

<v Speaker 1>it will be an I quit New York City street

<v Speaker 1>fight where if Copeland and Christian don't win the titles,

<v Speaker 1>they will retire as a team. No, I don't know

<v Speaker 1>if this match has enough stipulations. Guys, it's a street fight,

<v Speaker 1>it's an I quit match, and if Cope and Christian

<v Speaker 1>don't win, they're no longer a tag team. Maybe we

<v Speaker 1>can come up with a couple of more steps to

<v Speaker 1>throw in here. But that's what we know so far.

<v Speaker 1>As far as the Double or Nothing card, which is

<v Speaker 1>still a month away, apparently tickets are selling well. I think,

<v Speaker 1>I want to say maybe I don't know. Twelve thirteen

<v Speaker 1>thousand is the capacity that they're probably going to have there,

<v Speaker 1>and I think the last number I saw was like eleven,

<v Speaker 1>so they should be able to pack that place in

<v Speaker 1>pretty well if they would have run it in the

<v Speaker 1>other stadium where they usually do Grand Slam Arthur Ash.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think they can because I think it's actually

<v Speaker 1>under construction. But had they run Arthur Ash, I don't

<v Speaker 1>see any way that they packed that place. And this

<v Speaker 1>one's a little bit smaller. But those are the matches

<v Speaker 1>we know of so far. That's your aw update. That's

<v Speaker 1>what I got for you. I hope you guys were

<v Speaker 1>sports entertained. Let me get to some of your questions though.

<v Speaker 1>In the mailbag, you could always email me the Solemn

<v Speaker 1>Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name and

<v Speaker 1>where you are from when you write in. Molly Molly

<v Speaker 1>Molly Moly from Toronto. I agree that these roster cuts

<v Speaker 1>make no sense when they were in the middle of

<v Speaker 1>a story. But my question is, why don't you ever

<v Speaker 1>hear about a member of the Bloodline family losing their job.

<v Speaker 1>There were plenty of reasons of one of them losing

<v Speaker 1>There were plenty of reasons for one of them to

<v Speaker 1>lose their job, like Jimmy and Jay's DUI, Well you're

<v Speaker 1>going back aways now, but they all get to stay.

<v Speaker 1>Why is there a double standard for these people. People

<v Speaker 1>can screw up and get to stay, while people do

<v Speaker 1>nothing and they get released. Yeah, I mean, look, I

<v Speaker 1>don't know what to tell you other than you are

<v Speaker 1>always going to have more chances to fuck up when

<v Speaker 1>you are someone that has a certain perceived value or

<v Speaker 1>name in the company. A Kyrie Saying, for example, or

<v Speaker 1>a Santos Ascobar or a Zoe Stark is not going

<v Speaker 1>to be as protected or valued by management as the

<v Speaker 1>ussos or as I mean, take take your pick of

<v Speaker 1>whatever main event, top talent you want to think of.

<v Speaker 1>CM Punk Drew McIntyre, Jacob fat too, Like these are

<v Speaker 1>these are names that they clearly either see big things

<v Speaker 1>four or they're already on top. And so if they

<v Speaker 1>fuck up, they're going to get a chance to, you know,

<v Speaker 1>kind of make up for it, or get a chance

<v Speaker 1>to redeem themselves or get a slap on the rist.

<v Speaker 1>Don't do that again, that's not going to happen if

<v Speaker 1>you're somebody lower on the totem pole there. And I'm

<v Speaker 1>not saying that's fair, It's not fair, but that's just

<v Speaker 1>the way it is. That's the reality of it. It's funny,

<v Speaker 1>you know, you mentioned the bloodline and I was thinking, like,

<v Speaker 1>have there been any members in recent years anyway that

<v Speaker 1>were that were released? Now? I know Lands on Hawaii,

<v Speaker 1>he was in developmental, he had a bad injury. I

<v Speaker 1>think came back. They did let him go, but like,

<v Speaker 1>have they let any of them go? And I the

<v Speaker 1>name Tamina popped in my head because I know she

<v Speaker 1>is or partsimoent and I thought for sure that Temina

<v Speaker 1>was no longer in WWE. Evidently she is still under

<v Speaker 1>contract to WWE as far as anybody knows, and she

<v Speaker 1>has not worked a match for them in three years.

<v Speaker 1>I know as of last summer she was still under contract,

<v Speaker 1>so I assume she still is. I can't explain that one,

<v Speaker 1>but again, it all comes down to perceive value. And

<v Speaker 1>also there are times where it helps to have a

<v Speaker 1>friend or a family member that may be on the

<v Speaker 1>board or maybe you know, in a place high up

<v Speaker 1>on the food chain that I'm sure doesn't hurt. Jerry

<v Speaker 1>from San Antonio, Texas. I'm not saying anything about Vince

<v Speaker 1>mcmahonon the whole situation he's in right now, but Triple

<v Speaker 1>H did just admit after Vince's quote retirement in twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty two, he was still involved with Creative. Do you

<v Speaker 1>think Vince being involved as a filter for Triple H

<v Speaker 1>helped Triple H ground his creative more and that's why

<v Speaker 1>we got good storytelling from twenty twenty two to twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty four. I'm not saying one way or the other

<v Speaker 1>that Vince is good or bad for the business, but

<v Speaker 1>do you think it was best for Triple H to

<v Speaker 1>filter his ideas through Vince? First of all, there's no

<v Speaker 1>evidence that that's what was happening. The extent to which

<v Speaker 1>he was involved in Creative, it seems was very limited.

<v Speaker 1>So I don't want to say that all of Triple

<v Speaker 1>H's ideas were being filtered by Vince or run by Vince.

<v Speaker 1>Some of them may have been. And look, I'm sure

<v Speaker 1>there were times where Vince could probably be a good

<v Speaker 1>filter as he was for the other Vince for Vince

<v Speaker 1>Russo when they worked together. Imagine some of the kooky

<v Speaker 1>ideas that we didn't get we might have gotten during

<v Speaker 1>the Attitude era if he was completely unfiltered. We kind

<v Speaker 1>of saw some of that in WCW where he was

<v Speaker 1>completely unfiltered. So do I think that it could have

<v Speaker 1>been a good thing for him to kind of have

<v Speaker 1>some of his ideas filtered by I'm not. I can't

<v Speaker 1>sit here and tell you no, but I can tell

<v Speaker 1>you that WWE is better off for not having Vince

<v Speaker 1>McMahon involved in the company right now, whatever you think

<v Speaker 1>of Triple H and the current creative regime there, Vince

<v Speaker 1>McMahon does not need to be involved. They do not

<v Speaker 1>need to run ideas by him to be filtered, because

<v Speaker 1>having him there at all is going to do more

<v Speaker 1>harm than good. And that's my position on Vince McMahon.

<v Speaker 1>Davante from Mount Vernon, New York. With Oba Femi just

<v Speaker 1>getting the biggest win of his career WrestleMania, there's a

<v Speaker 1>lot of talk about what's next. Some fans are saying

<v Speaker 1>he should win King of the Ring, Others he should

<v Speaker 1>go all the way and win the Royal Rumble and

<v Speaker 1>face Roman. It next year is WrestleMania. If you had

<v Speaker 1>the pen, how would you book Oba Femi going into

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania next year? You know, I got a similar question

<v Speaker 1>from Kevin who asked me, you know, do they run

<v Speaker 1>Oba and Roman at SummerSlam or do they hold it

<v Speaker 1>off for next year. I am a fan of giving

<v Speaker 1>Oba the Brock push from two thousand and two. Rock

<v Speaker 1>came in like just a bat out of hell right

<v Speaker 1>after WrestleMania. I think it literally was the raw after WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>and that was in April of two thousand and two.

<v Speaker 1>By August, he beat the Rock and he was the

<v Speaker 1>undisputed champion. And I think you could definitely follow that

<v Speaker 1>same blueprint with Oba. But I also think that if

<v Speaker 1>you wanted to hold off on Oba winning, let's say

<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania next year, that's okay too. I'm actually okay

<v Speaker 1>with either one. But if we wait that long. I worry, like,

<v Speaker 1>what does he do in the meantime, Like a year

<v Speaker 1>is a long time. All Oba did on the raw

<v Speaker 1>after Mania this year was come out and just say

<v Speaker 1>a few words. He said, the ruler, you know, the

<v Speaker 1>ruler is here. Whatever it is that he said, and

<v Speaker 1>that was it. There was no hint of what he

<v Speaker 1>was going to be doing. There was no hint of

<v Speaker 1>who he was going to be working with. I look

<v Speaker 1>at the raw roster and I kind of struggle to

<v Speaker 1>find that many people I think that he could be

<v Speaker 1>working with, and you keep it interesting long enough before

<v Speaker 1>you even get to a point where he's challenging for

<v Speaker 1>the world Todd. I do worry about that. If it

<v Speaker 1>were up to me, I would probably belt him up

<v Speaker 1>at Summer Slim, Big two night Summer Slam Show, Big

<v Speaker 1>Stadium showed this year Roman Oba. That's a huge match.

<v Speaker 1>I think they're probably gonna want to do Roman and Gunther.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know that I see them blowing that match

<v Speaker 1>off before Summer Slim. That's probably going to be the

<v Speaker 1>Summer Slam match right now as I sit here, if

<v Speaker 1>I had a venture, I guess so. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>what they plan on doing with Oba. But if it

<v Speaker 1>were me, I go with the Brock push. He's the

<v Speaker 1>guy right now. He's the guy right now, and I

<v Speaker 1>just don't think that they have enough for him on

<v Speaker 1>that roster to delay this another year without potentially cooling

<v Speaker 1>him down. That's my concern there. Who does he work

<v Speaker 1>with Jason from Queens Now? Is I in Shanghai, China?

<v Speaker 1>Despite seeing Rhea and Live potentially tease another clash and

<v Speaker 1>made me realize that we actually have Roman and Cody

<v Speaker 1>as champions at the same time. Assuming Roman does indeed

<v Speaker 1>drop the title by the summer, and with Crown Jewel

<v Speaker 1>potentially being set for the fall, Cody might avoid having

<v Speaker 1>to see Roman again. But for the first time ever,

<v Speaker 1>we are getting Cody versus Roman week to week as

<v Speaker 1>their respective champions on weekly TV. By the summertime, who

<v Speaker 1>do you see coming out with their better or with

<v Speaker 1>better rivalries and matches. I mean, we were coming out

<v Speaker 1>of a WrestleMania main event where Roman Rangers had one

<v Speaker 1>of the best matches of his career. So as long

<v Speaker 1>as he's in there with the right person, Roman has

<v Speaker 1>shown he can go out there and have excellent matches,

<v Speaker 1>and Cody has also shown that he can go in

<v Speaker 1>there and have excellent matches, even if this year wasn't

<v Speaker 1>one of those years. The prospect of Cody and Punk

<v Speaker 1>is more appealing to me than basically anything you could

<v Speaker 1>do with Roman outside of Roman and Oba, Roman and

<v Speaker 1>Gunther would be very good, but I don't get as

<v Speaker 1>excited for that as I do the idea of Cody

<v Speaker 1>and Punk. So if they go in that direction and

<v Speaker 1>we get Cody and Punk going into Summer Slam and

<v Speaker 1>not WrestleMania next year, I gotta go with Cody. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>to me, that's just more interesting to me than you know,

<v Speaker 1>more bloodline drama and whatever they could be doing. I

<v Speaker 1>feel like right now with Roman, but I think both

<v Speaker 1>of them are going to go out there, and I

<v Speaker 1>think they're both gonna have great matches. They have great

<v Speaker 1>matches with each other. You know, these two guys can

<v Speaker 1>go as long as they're going to be there week

<v Speaker 1>to week, right, and they come up with good opponents

<v Speaker 1>for them. I think that we're going to be getting

<v Speaker 1>a lot of good stuff from both of them. It

<v Speaker 1>just comes down to creative as it always does. I'm

<v Speaker 1>not worried about their in ring. Javari from Ohio been

<v Speaker 1>listening to you since twenty fifteen. There's no doubt that

<v Speaker 1>the Undertaker WrestleMania win streak is one of the greatest

<v Speaker 1>ideas in wrestling history, and I feel like since historak ended,

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania has been missing an attraction like that. Do you

<v Speaker 1>think ww WE could revive the WrestleMania win streak gimmick

<v Speaker 1>when they knew her talent? And if so, do you

<v Speaker 1>believe Oba Femi would be a great choice for that

<v Speaker 1>or should WWE let the idea of a WrestleMania streak

<v Speaker 1>rest in peace? Yeah? I think they should just leave

<v Speaker 1>it alone. You're never going to be able to replicate

<v Speaker 1>what the Undertaker did, like it will never happen, So

<v Speaker 1>to me, there's no point in running it back. If

<v Speaker 1>it can't be as good as the original, then what

<v Speaker 1>the hell is the point of doing another one. I

<v Speaker 1>also feel like it would just restrict the creative if

<v Speaker 1>they have to book Let's say Oba, oh well, we

<v Speaker 1>can't beat him this year. Yeah, we got a streak

<v Speaker 1>that we're starting, so every year now you go into

<v Speaker 1>it where Oba can't lose. Oba can't lose, right or

<v Speaker 1>whoever it could be, anybody I don't like that the

<v Speaker 1>streak was never an idea. It was never a thought

<v Speaker 1>in their head when the Undertaker first started wrestling a

<v Speaker 1>wrestle media. It was something that they lucked into. It

<v Speaker 1>really was if Undertaker wasn't hurt and had wrestled a

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania ten, he wasn't hurt then, but he had time off.

<v Speaker 1>Had he wrestled at WrestleMania ten, the streak might have been.

<v Speaker 1>The streak might never have been a thing. If he

<v Speaker 1>wasn't hurt and he had a match at WrestleMania two thousand,

<v Speaker 1>the streak may never have been a thing. They lucked

<v Speaker 1>into it. After a while, they're like, hey, we got

<v Speaker 1>this going on here, maybe we should run with it.

<v Speaker 1>It was like a happy accident. Just leave it alone.

<v Speaker 1>We don't need another streak at WrestleMania. Brett from Buffalo

<v Speaker 1>do you think a Japanese style pro wrestling company that

<v Speaker 1>is more focused on tournaments and in ring storytelling could

<v Speaker 1>ever work in the United States. I'm a huge fan

<v Speaker 1>of New Japan and would love to see that style

<v Speaker 1>adapted for an American audience. So you're saying a Japanese style,

<v Speaker 1>You're not saying a Japanese company working in this country

<v Speaker 1>because that it's never going to blow up in any

<v Speaker 1>kind of major way. But if you're saying like a

<v Speaker 1>new japan style company but here in the States, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>do I think it could work. Yeah, it could work.

<v Speaker 1>I mean there'd be an audience for it. I think

<v Speaker 1>it would be a very niche audience. I don't think

<v Speaker 1>it would ever grow into anything big enough to have

<v Speaker 1>like a TV deal or anything like that necessarily. I

<v Speaker 1>mean I look at something like Josh Barnett and the

<v Speaker 1>Blood Sports stuff which he just ended, and I think

<v Speaker 1>he was trying to blow it up bigger and maybe

<v Speaker 1>trying to get you know, TV or sponsors or whatever,

<v Speaker 1>and it didn't work out. But he had a good

<v Speaker 1>thing going there. People seem to genuinely enjoy those shows,

<v Speaker 1>and I think they would sell well. But it was

<v Speaker 1>a very niche thing, and I feel like something like

<v Speaker 1>that would be as well. So you know, when you

<v Speaker 1>say could it work with an American audience, Sure, but

<v Speaker 1>like how big of an audience are you are you

<v Speaker 1>looking at? I don't think the audience would be that

<v Speaker 1>big for it because I just feel like in this

<v Speaker 1>country they have a certain expectation or a certain vision

<v Speaker 1>of what pro wrestling is supposed to look like, and

<v Speaker 1>I just I don't see it blowing up into anything big.

<v Speaker 1>I think a they already do stuff like that. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>they have like the Continental Classic, which is kind of

<v Speaker 1>like their version of the g One, and you kind

<v Speaker 1>of already have it there and there's an audience for it.

<v Speaker 1>So is there really this thirst for another company to

<v Speaker 1>come along and basically do the same thing. Maybe on

<v Speaker 1>the independen scene, but that's probably it. William from Calgary

<v Speaker 1>Dave Meltzer gave the CM Punk and Roman Reigns WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>main event a five star rating. Where would you rank

<v Speaker 1>that match for your greatest WrestleMania main events of all time?

<v Speaker 1>You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this. Most

<v Speaker 1>of the greatest matches in WrestleMania history, like my favorite matches,

<v Speaker 1>they weren't even the main event. So I don't think

<v Speaker 1>it's crazy to say that Roman and Punk could be

<v Speaker 1>a top ten main event in WrestleMania history. It's not

<v Speaker 1>top five for me, you know. Top five. I'm thinking

<v Speaker 1>Roman Cody at forty. I'm thinking Shawn's last match with

<v Speaker 1>Undertaker at twenty six, even though twenty five was better.

<v Speaker 1>The Triple Threat with Daniel Bryan winning at WrestleMania at thirty,

<v Speaker 1>Austin Rock at X seven, Hogan Warrior at the sky Dome.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry that will forever be a favorite of mine.

<v Speaker 1>The work rate may not have been as well, or

<v Speaker 1>it may not have been as good as some of

<v Speaker 1>these other matches, but Hogan Warrior, as far as a spectacle,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, what we saw last weekend was not. It

<v Speaker 1>was not the same kind of spectacle. Is it a

<v Speaker 1>top ten main event? Though? Yeah? I think it would

<v Speaker 1>probably land in there somewhere, not top five for me,

<v Speaker 1>but top ten. Yes, I think it would land in

<v Speaker 1>the top ten. But again, most of my favorite WrestleMania matches,

<v Speaker 1>they weren't even the main event. You know, the Brett

<v Speaker 1>Owen Match, the Ladder Match, Brett Hart and Steve Austin,

<v Speaker 1>Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle, Shawn Michael's Undertaker Part One,

<v Speaker 1>a lot of others too, me Savage, Themeboat. These were

<v Speaker 1>not main events. They probably should have been. In some

<v Speaker 1>cases where they were not main events, Rock Hogan, right,

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania eighteen would be another one. Feisal from Kuwait says

<v Speaker 1>we're all safe and sound and praying that this meaningless

<v Speaker 1>regional war ends soon. I hope so, dude, it's all

<v Speaker 1>just so ridiculous. I wanted to ask, can you recall

<v Speaker 1>in your lifetime a top baby face that remained over

<v Speaker 1>throughout their career without the crowds ever turning on them?

<v Speaker 1>I thought of Stone Cold, but to be fair, his

<v Speaker 1>run might not have been long enough for crowds to

<v Speaker 1>tire from him. Is it really possible for a top

<v Speaker 1>baby face to remain over no matter what in this

<v Speaker 1>day and age? Given how over talents like trick Oba

<v Speaker 1>and Javan are right now, I truly hope they can

<v Speaker 1>sustain that popularity without the fans turning on them. If

<v Speaker 1>Sammy and even Danielson in early twenty twenty one couldn't

<v Speaker 1>maintain their popularity, nobody is safe. I mean, have there

<v Speaker 1>been people, Yes, I mean there's been a lot of them, actually,

<v Speaker 1>Dusty Roads, Ricky Steamboat, Junkyard Dog, the Warrior, staying RVD.

<v Speaker 1>I mean there have been plenty of them. But today

<v Speaker 1>it's a lot harder. Today, it's a lot harder today.

<v Speaker 1>I think you need to be able to read the

<v Speaker 1>room and feel like, Okay, the tide may be turning.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe I step away for a little bit. Like there

<v Speaker 1>are certain guys like even Hogan at times during his

<v Speaker 1>career who was good at that, and he would duck out.

<v Speaker 1>He would step away and then come back right because

<v Speaker 1>he knew, like, I don't want people to get sick

<v Speaker 1>of me, and then I can make this big, spectacular comeback.

<v Speaker 1>I think you need to read the room. I think

<v Speaker 1>you need to avoid over exposure and not get burned

<v Speaker 1>out where people just don't want to see you anymore.

<v Speaker 1>There are ways to prevent the fans from getting burned out,

<v Speaker 1>but it's a lot harder now than it was back then.

<v Speaker 1>I can't tell you it's impossible, but it's a lot harder.

<v Speaker 1>Fans are very fickle, and the minute they tire of you,

<v Speaker 1>they will turn against you. It may not even be

<v Speaker 1>your fault, right, It may just be the creative and

<v Speaker 1>how you're being used, but they will turn on you

<v Speaker 1>at the drop of a hat. And Chris from Bethlehem.

<v Speaker 1>Do wrestlers get to carry around their championship belt outside

<v Speaker 1>of TV and live events and bring the belt home

<v Speaker 1>and not hand them back to the company until they

<v Speaker 1>get to TV and has there been a situation when

<v Speaker 1>the champion misplaced their belt and never found it. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how it is now. I'm pretty sure it

<v Speaker 1>works the same way. The answer is yes, I think

<v Speaker 1>they do, or they can if they want to take

<v Speaker 1>the belts home with them, because they travel with them,

<v Speaker 1>they make personal appearances, they do media shots. They got

<v Speaker 1>to have the belt with them. But I believe they

<v Speaker 1>have replica belts on hand at TV if they need

<v Speaker 1>to use them. There are times even now where I

<v Speaker 1>can tell just watching the show, like that's a replica belt.

<v Speaker 1>Like you're on television and you're using a replica belt,

<v Speaker 1>Like sometimes the straps are so stiff, Like that's one

<v Speaker 1>of the d giveaways to me. It's not like you know,

<v Speaker 1>TV ready leather. It's like that faux leather. And yes,

<v Speaker 1>there have been lots of examples of wrestlers losing their belts.

<v Speaker 1>The most famous is probably Bruno San Martino. Back in

<v Speaker 1>the sixties, he was the world champion and he left

<v Speaker 1>the belt in the backseat of his car. He was

<v Speaker 1>in New York. He went to go have a dinner somewhere,

<v Speaker 1>probably an Italian restaurant somewhere and he left the belt

<v Speaker 1>in the car and somebody broke into the car and

<v Speaker 1>they stole the belt and it was never recovered. Chris Jericho,

<v Speaker 1>he famously lost his aw World title when he was

<v Speaker 1>out eating at a long horned steakhouse, although he did

<v Speaker 1>find the belt. Somebody found the belt on the side

<v Speaker 1>of the road. I'm pretty sure what happened there is

<v Speaker 1>the limo driver, I think left the belt on the

<v Speaker 1>roof of the car without realizing it, and they drove off,

<v Speaker 1>and I think the belt just went flying off the roof.

<v Speaker 1>That's what I think happened. And this isn't exactly the

<v Speaker 1>same thing, but I always loved the story of Stone

<v Speaker 1>Cold tossing the Rocks Intercontinent title off the bridge on

<v Speaker 1>an episode of Raw Into the River. I'm pretty sure

<v Speaker 1>it was actually an old tag team title belt, not

<v Speaker 1>the Intercontinental title. I think there might have been a

<v Speaker 1>jump cut in the video where like he's holding the

<v Speaker 1>IC title, but he didn't actually throw it. I think

<v Speaker 1>they swapped out an old tag belt or something and

<v Speaker 1>he threw it into the river. And allegedly the story

<v Speaker 1>always was that there was a fan who found it,

<v Speaker 1>or maybe it wasn't a fan. I know somebody found

<v Speaker 1>it and offered to sell the belt back to WWE

<v Speaker 1>for like five thousand dollars, and they just told him

<v Speaker 1>just keep it because we can make a new one

<v Speaker 1>for a lot cheaper. So someone still has an old

<v Speaker 1>Tag Team belt sitting in their house somewhere, although I

<v Speaker 1>don't know what condition it would be in if it

<v Speaker 1>was sitting at the bottom of the river. It uh,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know, may have gotten a little saggy. Anyway,

<v Speaker 1>Thank you guys for the questions. Keep them coming. The

<v Speaker 1>Solo Monster at gmail dot com. I did want to

<v Speaker 1>mention this because there's a whole bunch of movies coming

<v Speaker 1>out this year that I'm very excited to see. And

<v Speaker 1>there were two trailers that dropped this week, both of

<v Speaker 1>which I wasn't expecting. One was a teaser trailer for

<v Speaker 1>the new Clayface movie, which DC is putting out. I

<v Speaker 1>had no idea they were even making a Clayface movie.

<v Speaker 1>And it's like a minute long, it's just a teaser trailer.

<v Speaker 1>It is sick, it's disgusting, and I love it. It's

<v Speaker 1>the first really like straight horror movie that I've seen

<v Speaker 1>put out by one of these like either Marvel or DC.

<v Speaker 1>This straight up horror, like it's body horror. It's coming

<v Speaker 1>out a week before Halloween, which is the perfect time.

<v Speaker 1>I love what I saw. I actually don't even want

<v Speaker 1>to look at the full trailer when it gets released.

<v Speaker 1>I'd rather just kind of go into it knowing just

<v Speaker 1>the bare minimum. So I'm really excited for that. And

<v Speaker 1>then they put the full trailer out for the Coyote

<v Speaker 1>Versus ACME movie. This is the movie that I covered this.

<v Speaker 1>I talked about this on the sound off at the

<v Speaker 1>time because John Cena has a pretty important role in

<v Speaker 1>that movie. I think he's the villain, a villain's CEO.

<v Speaker 1>He might be the ACME CEO in the movie. And

<v Speaker 1>it was a Warner Brothers Discovery project, and the movie

<v Speaker 1>was never going to get released. They decided that they

<v Speaker 1>were going to get some sort of tax break by

<v Speaker 1>not releasing it and either just put it in a

<v Speaker 1>vault and lock it away forever or have it destroyed.

<v Speaker 1>And there was a lot of pushback on this, a

<v Speaker 1>lot of people very upset, And I said, like, imagine

<v Speaker 1>being someone who you know, you worked on the movie,

<v Speaker 1>either you acted in it or you were just someone

<v Speaker 1>behind the scenes. And spent hours and hours and hours

<v Speaker 1>editing and producing it, and now it's never going to

<v Speaker 1>see the light of day. Like how infuriating that would be.

<v Speaker 1>And so anyway, one thing led to another, and they

<v Speaker 1>did end up I think, selling it to someone else.

<v Speaker 1>They bought the movie, and now it's being released. It's

<v Speaker 1>actually getting a theatrical release at the end of August.

<v Speaker 1>So we saw the trailer and it's very like who

<v Speaker 1>Frame Roger Rabbit esque. It's this mix of live action

<v Speaker 1>and cartoon, so it kind of reminds me of that,

<v Speaker 1>and it looks fun. It looks fun. I'm probably gonna

<v Speaker 1>go see it when it comes out. I hope people do,

<v Speaker 1>because I feel like this is a movie that needs

<v Speaker 1>to be supported, just to show them, hey, you fucked up,

<v Speaker 1>you know, by by not releasing it when it should

<v Speaker 1>have been released. So that's coming out of the end

<v Speaker 1>of August, and a lot of other good shit man

<v Speaker 1>coming out soon. I'm looking for Mortal Kombat in a

<v Speaker 1>few weeks. So we're eating good as far as these

<v Speaker 1>movies go. I am going to go get a bite

<v Speaker 1>to eat myself right now, and I'm going to be

<v Speaker 1>back with you next Sunday. When I get back from

<v Speaker 1>LA that's going to be episode nine sixty one of

<v Speaker 1>the sound Off. I'll probably do Backlash predictions on that

<v Speaker 1>show because Backlash is the following weekend. And then this

<v Speaker 1>week I will be live on Monday night for the

<v Speaker 1>Raw post show, brand new episode of The Uncrowned Wrestling

<v Speaker 1>Show going to be dropping on Tuesday, and then Tuesday

<v Speaker 1>night I'll be live on YouTube with JD for Tuesday

<v Speaker 1>Night Titans Wednesday the Dynamite post show. I will not

<v Speaker 1>be doing a SmackDown review this week. Sadly, I will

<v Speaker 1>not see Ricky Saints' debut live. I'll have to watch

<v Speaker 1>it later on because I will be literally in Los

<v Speaker 1>Angeles doing commentary for House of Glory Glory at the Globe,

<v Speaker 1>which will be streaming on Triller TV Plus. And you

<v Speaker 1>can still pick up some very limited tickets I believe

<v Speaker 1>that are available hog Wrestling dot Net. I hope I

<v Speaker 1>get to see some of you there, and like I said,

<v Speaker 1>back here next Sunday for episode nine to sixty one.

<v Speaker 1>So until then, be well, stay safe. Thank you again

<v Speaker 1>for ninety two thousand subscribers on YouTube, and I'll see

<v Speaker 1>you back here next week for more SoundOff and all

<v Speaker 1>this week because the work never ends until then. Take care, guys.

<v Speaker 1>The Solemn Monster Sounds Off. Dog shit. That is what

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown has become. This is a horrendous television show. I

<v Speaker 1>know they have the Real Housewives of Orange County and

<v Speaker 1>the Real Housewives of Brenton, New Jersey, Real Housewives of Bigosh, Wisconsin,

<v Speaker 1>or whatever the fuck. I'm sure every single one of

<v Speaker 1>those shows are light years ahead of Friday Night SmackDown.

<v Speaker 1>This is the worst show on television. You've got to

<v Speaker 1>stick dynamite in this show, and I don't mean aw dynamite,

<v Speaker 1>actual dynamites, and blow the whole fucking thing up and

<v Speaker 1>start all over again. This show sucks.

<v Speaker 2>The Solo Monster Sounds Off bringing you the good, the bad,

<v Speaker 2>and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus

<v Speaker 2>content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,

<v Speaker 2>and x.

<v Speaker 1>The Solo Monster dom Shit