<v Speaker 1>Goods. Business time, Baby, you are listening to Solo Monsters

<v Speaker 1>Sounds Off. I love your mama, Monster, dude, I want

<v Speaker 1>your soul. Woman. You got grown ass wrestlers in the

<v Speaker 1>back going on Twitter. Come over here, Hotday. Is that

<v Speaker 1>pet patison you have legs? Weekend I was ninety nine

<v Speaker 1>percent positive it was just chessed up. Now I have

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

<v Speaker 1>I can, and I want to know the reason why

<v Speaker 1>you won't park. This is episode nine sixty one of

<v Speaker 1>the Solemn Monsters Sounds Off for Sunday, May three, twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty six, with a very jet lagged Solemn Monster crossing

<v Speaker 1>three time zones to California on Friday and then turning

<v Speaker 1>right back around and doing it again on Saturday, and

<v Speaker 1>then realizing, shit, I have no notes for Sunday. I

<v Speaker 1>can't sleep, I have to get to work, and so

<v Speaker 1>here I am. I caught up with SmackDown also, although

<v Speaker 1>I don't know why I bothered, I do have news

<v Speaker 1>about SmackDown though, as well as thoughts on the latest

<v Speaker 1>names gone from WWE. Yeah, that New Day story had

<v Speaker 1>me doing a double take the other day when I

<v Speaker 1>saw that pop up on my phone. I'm gonna be

<v Speaker 1>talking about that. I've got thoughts on Nick Conn's comments

<v Speaker 1>at that WWE town hall meeting. I've got a preview

<v Speaker 1>in predictions for Backlash next weekend. And at the very end,

<v Speaker 1>for those of you who may have missed it on

<v Speaker 1>the YouTube channel, I am including my Hulk Hogan Netflix

<v Speaker 1>documentary review. So there was a lot to dive into. First, though,

<v Speaker 1>I wanted to send my well wishes to Rebel from AW.

<v Speaker 1>This made me tear up when I watched her video.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, what this woman has been through over the

<v Speaker 1>last few years, I would not wish on anybody. She

<v Speaker 1>has not wrestled since twenty twenty four, even longer than that,

<v Speaker 1>in AW you'd have to go back to twenty twenty two,

<v Speaker 1>last time she had a match for them. But she's

<v Speaker 1>been with them this entire time. And starting about two

<v Speaker 1>years ago, she began experiencing some health issues and her

<v Speaker 1>doctors they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her,

<v Speaker 1>which is almost as bad as finding out that you

<v Speaker 1>have some terrible diagnosis. I mean, it's the not knowing

<v Speaker 1>and not being able to treat it. And she got

<v Speaker 1>to the Mayo Clinic, which I Believe. At one point

<v Speaker 1>she credited to Tony Kahan helping her get into I Believe.

<v Speaker 1>And finally she got diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma.

<v Speaker 1>And she had been in the hospital the year prior

<v Speaker 1>to that with what she thought was pneumonia. They put

<v Speaker 1>her on some anti fungal meds for a year. She

<v Speaker 1>had all kinds of infections and ruptures, and she had

<v Speaker 1>surgery to remove a mass on her lung and then

<v Speaker 1>she finally got the diagnosis from the Mayo Clinic that

<v Speaker 1>she had cancer, and she was treated for that cancer.

<v Speaker 1>She was still having very serious issues and it was

<v Speaker 1>getting worse by the week, and she had applied for

<v Speaker 1>a clinical study at m D Anderson Cancer Center but

<v Speaker 1>didn't qualify for it. But she was about to undergo

<v Speaker 1>surgery to remove the other masses on her lungs when

<v Speaker 1>she got hit with a far more devastating diagnosis. Her

<v Speaker 1>doctors have diagnosed her with als and this is what

<v Speaker 1>she said. First, I want to say thank you for

<v Speaker 1>all your prayers, because for those who know, I spent

<v Speaker 1>a two year medical journey trying to find out what

<v Speaker 1>is wrong, and finally our prayers have been answered. The

<v Speaker 1>thing is sometimes we don't hear the answer to our prayers.

<v Speaker 1>And so while I was waiting to have lung surgery

<v Speaker 1>for the masses on my lungs, the doctors that may

<v Speaker 1>have found finally found what's going on. The doctors have

<v Speaker 1>diagnosed me with terminal ALS. There is not a lot

<v Speaker 1>of research behind als, and we don't know how long

<v Speaker 1>I have but it explains why I have trouble walking

<v Speaker 1>and talking, and all my functions will soon decline. But

<v Speaker 1>now we can prepare for the future and what is

<v Speaker 1>to come. And I want to say thank you to

<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahan and aw for supporting the this medical journey.

<v Speaker 1>It has been a blessing that is unheard of. And

<v Speaker 1>from the bottom of my heart, thank you and thank

<v Speaker 1>you to all of you for your prayers. Please continue

<v Speaker 1>to pray for a peaceful journey and a peaceful passing.

<v Speaker 1>I love you. Yeah, I got emotional watching her video.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, how can you not. You can hear it

<v Speaker 1>in her voice. She's had trouble speaking for some time now,

<v Speaker 1>she can't walk on her own. She has to get

<v Speaker 1>around these days in a walker. ALS is about as

<v Speaker 1>bad of a diagnosis as you can get. It scares

<v Speaker 1>of this shit out of me just thinking about it.

<v Speaker 1>ALS destroys the nerve cells and the brain and the

<v Speaker 1>spinal cord. So that's why people with it end up paralyzed.

<v Speaker 1>They're unable to speak, they're unable to breathe at some

<v Speaker 1>point on their own, and your body just slowly starts

<v Speaker 1>to fail. It is just an insidious disease. ALS is

<v Speaker 1>what Steve Mango McMichael died from last year, and he

<v Speaker 1>was sixty seven. Rebel is only forty seven. At any age,

<v Speaker 1>it's a death sentence. It's just a matter of when.

<v Speaker 1>She says she doesn't know how much time she has left.

<v Speaker 1>And I can only wish that, if God forbid I

<v Speaker 1>ever have to face something even remotely like this, that

<v Speaker 1>I can do so with as much grace as she

<v Speaker 1>did in her statement. You know, she's a strong lady,

<v Speaker 1>and I wish her as much peace as possible. You know,

<v Speaker 1>given the circumstances, she's been getting a lot of love

<v Speaker 1>from her colleagues, and I know Tony Shavani said something

<v Speaker 1>on Collision last night there were fans in the crowd

<v Speaker 1>holding Rebel signs. I hope that continues, and I hope

<v Speaker 1>she sees it, and I hope she knows that she's

<v Speaker 1>got a lot of people thinking about her right now.

<v Speaker 1>Thank you guys for all the support this week. It

<v Speaker 1>is much appreciated, especially with all my travels of late.

<v Speaker 1>If you want to make a PayPal donation, you may

<v Speaker 1>do so on thesolo monster dot com. Ten dollars and

<v Speaker 1>more will get you a nickname and a shout out.

<v Speaker 1>First and foremost, I have to give a shout out

<v Speaker 1>to the angel of Anarchy, Lucas Kroll. Finally got to

<v Speaker 1>meet Lucas at the Hog Show on Friday. I got

<v Speaker 1>to thank him in person for his generosity, but I'll

<v Speaker 1>do it again here. Thank you, brother, it was great

<v Speaker 1>to finally meet you. The same goes for James Hollywood Herrera.

<v Speaker 1>Remember Deadpool Deadpool James Herrera, that's him and I finally

<v Speaker 1>got to meet him as well on Friday. And Max

<v Speaker 1>the Axe Volado, thank you for the drop this week.

<v Speaker 1>It was like a PayPal pow wow out in Los

<v Speaker 1>Angeles this weekend. I love it. The Portland pop star

<v Speaker 1>Paul Hamilton. Paul was not there in Los Angeles, although

<v Speaker 1>he was missed. Paul, thank you for that very kind

<v Speaker 1>don'no this Week, Big b Bryant Bessera, The Diamond, Dallas

<v Speaker 1>Dance Machine, Harrison Soet, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, The Chicago Slayer,

<v Speaker 1>Willie Eicherd, Big Time, Boris Weinman, c the Destroyer Pull

<v Speaker 1>No Punches. Alan Regassa says he's hoping to see Hog

<v Speaker 1>come to the Houston area. I can tell you that

<v Speaker 1>those discussions have happened, and it is a matter of when,

<v Speaker 1>it is not a matter of if, Especially with Zillah

<v Speaker 1>being from Houston, it only makes sense. Junkyard Jeff Richardson

<v Speaker 1>shout out to the astonishing Ashley Richardson. I hope you

<v Speaker 1>two are doing well. Night Stalker Nif Alsafar showing up

<v Speaker 1>as always as is kill Shot, Keith Hart and Recond

<v Speaker 1>Russell Bulwaar, who is rooting for the Mets to turn

<v Speaker 1>things around, even though he's not from New York. You know, Russell,

<v Speaker 1>it's a nice thought, but they've got the worst record

<v Speaker 1>out of all thirty teams in baseball. They lost their

<v Speaker 1>shortstop for at least another month, and their backup shortstop

<v Speaker 1>just broke his thumb last night sliding into first base.

<v Speaker 1>And he's on the DL now. So if anyone listening

<v Speaker 1>to this can play shortstop, let me know and I

<v Speaker 1>will pass word along to them. A World Series is

<v Speaker 1>not in the cards this year, and it's rare to

<v Speaker 1>come back and win it the following year when you

<v Speaker 1>have as much of a disaster as this year has been.

<v Speaker 1>But it's been done before, it's been done before. Anything

<v Speaker 1>is possible. But this year, this year is not possible.

<v Speaker 1>This year is a lost cause. Now. The reason I

<v Speaker 1>was in Los Angeles on Friday was for House of Glory.

<v Speaker 1>We had our second LA show at the Globe Theater,

<v Speaker 1>which is an iconic venue out there. It's hosted many

<v Speaker 1>wrestling shows before, many PWG shows in the past. This

<v Speaker 1>is my first time there, really, my first trip out

<v Speaker 1>to Los Angeles period. I mean, I was in Santa

<v Speaker 1>Clara many years ago for WrestleMania, but that was about it.

<v Speaker 1>And I got to meet Lucas and James and Max

<v Speaker 1>angel Osuquay. It was so good to finally meet Osaque

<v Speaker 1>in person. And I apologize, I know I'm missing a

<v Speaker 1>few more, but I'm so glad that you guys were

<v Speaker 1>able to make it out. It was the hell of

<v Speaker 1>a show to be on the call for It was

<v Speaker 1>funny at the beginning of the amazing Red Speedball Mike

<v Speaker 1>Bailey match which opened the show, you'll notice it took

<v Speaker 1>a little bit for the bell to ring to get

<v Speaker 1>things underway, and so a little inside baseball for you.

<v Speaker 1>It's because someone left the damn bell up in the

<v Speaker 1>balcony on the desk where we were doing commentary. And

<v Speaker 1>so the match is about to begin, and again I'm

<v Speaker 1>doing commentary and I look down at the desk and

<v Speaker 1>I realized the fucking bell and the hammer is still

<v Speaker 1>sitting there. And when the bell finally rings to start

<v Speaker 1>the match, that was me. That may be the first

<v Speaker 1>time in history that the play by play announcer in

<v Speaker 1>mid commentary also plays timekeeper, commentator, commissioner, timekeeper. Are there

<v Speaker 1>any other jobs you'd like to throw my way? That's

<v Speaker 1>going to be a bitch to fit all that on

<v Speaker 1>my business card. But it was a great night Red

<v Speaker 1>and Speedball. That was a highlight for sure. But really

<v Speaker 1>up and down the card you got some quality matches.

<v Speaker 1>Zillafat Too and Lance on Hawaii. They put their family

<v Speaker 1>feud to bed once and for all. Charles Mason, he

<v Speaker 1>retains the hog World championship over Jonathan Gresham. And what

<v Speaker 1>a comeback it's been for him, you know, suffering two

<v Speaker 1>strokes last summer, making his way back this year. We

<v Speaker 1>are going to be back in New York on May

<v Speaker 1>twenty second, that's a Friday night for Waging War with

<v Speaker 1>the Hardys. And then back in Chicago at Logan Square

<v Speaker 1>Auditorium on June nineteenth. And given that I had about

<v Speaker 1>twelve hours to kill between my two flights, I watched

<v Speaker 1>three movies. Okay. One of them was The China Syndrome.

<v Speaker 1>It's an older movie, great movie from nineteen seventy nine,

<v Speaker 1>Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Jack Lemon. I had that one

<v Speaker 1>sitting on my iPad for a while. I had never

<v Speaker 1>seen it before, so that was very good. I knocked

<v Speaker 1>that out. I knocked out the Mortal Kombat movie from

<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty one, I believe is when it came out

<v Speaker 1>right about five years ago. Because I plan on seeing

<v Speaker 1>the new one that comes out this week. I may

<v Speaker 1>not see it until next week, but Mortal Kombat two

<v Speaker 1>is coming out this week. Carl Urbin, he plays Johnny Cage,

<v Speaker 1>looks really good and I was told that you should

<v Speaker 1>really watch the first one before I watched the second one,

<v Speaker 1>and so I did, and I liked it. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>I know, so it got some hate. I didn't think

<v Speaker 1>it was a bad movie. I thought it was a

<v Speaker 1>fine little action flick. And then on the way back

<v Speaker 1>to New York, I finally watched The Batman. I never

<v Speaker 1>saw it. I never saw it after it first came out.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know why. I know. I saw that runtime

<v Speaker 1>and I was like, ew, Now the Dark Night is

<v Speaker 1>around two and a half hours, but it never felt

<v Speaker 1>overly long to me, and it's the greatest live action

<v Speaker 1>Batman movie ever made. It's my favorite movie of all time.

<v Speaker 1>So I thought, well, maybe this one won't feel like

<v Speaker 1>it either, and it'll be a good way to kill

<v Speaker 1>time on the plane if nothing else. Not the best

<v Speaker 1>conditions to watch it on my iPad, but I watch

<v Speaker 1>everything else on that iPad. I watched Raw, I watched

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown Dynamite all the plees like it sits right next

<v Speaker 1>to me on my desk, right next to the laptop,

<v Speaker 1>so I could work on my notes and watch the

<v Speaker 1>show at the same time. I don't have a big

<v Speaker 1>TV in here, so I'm like, what the hell, right,

<v Speaker 1>I mean most movies, unless I'm actually going to the

<v Speaker 1>theater to see them, I end up watching either on

<v Speaker 1>my laptop screen or the iPad screen, So what difference

<v Speaker 1>does it make? But lucky me the woman in the

<v Speaker 1>window scene. I was in the aisle see the woman

<v Speaker 1>in the window scene next to me would not pull

<v Speaker 1>her shade down even though three different people asked her to.

<v Speaker 1>It was the only row I think, on the fucking

<v Speaker 1>plane that had beaming light shooting out, so it was

<v Speaker 1>tough to see some of the things in some of

<v Speaker 1>the scenes. A lot of dark scenes obviously in this movie.

<v Speaker 1>But now that I've seen it, I thought Robert Pattinson

<v Speaker 1>did a good job in the role Jeffrey Wright. I

<v Speaker 1>didn't realize he was the commissioner. I mean, he's good

<v Speaker 1>in pretty much everything I've ever seen him in, And

<v Speaker 1>if I didn't already know that Colin Farrell played the penguin,

<v Speaker 1>I never would have guessed that was him. Under all

<v Speaker 1>the prosthetics. They nailed the tone that I would expect

<v Speaker 1>from a Batman movie, but even more depressing somehow, like

<v Speaker 1>Gotham is a depressing place as it is. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know why anybody would want to live there, and somehow

<v Speaker 1>they found a way to make it even more depressing.

<v Speaker 1>Someone described it to me this movie when they were

<v Speaker 1>telling me about it, as like a film noir, and

<v Speaker 1>that's pretty bang on for what this is. And you

<v Speaker 1>know what, it reminded me of a little bit. It

<v Speaker 1>reminded me of the old Dick Tracy movie. And I

<v Speaker 1>liked it. I thought it was good. I don't think

<v Speaker 1>it's the best live action Batman movie ever made. Dark

<v Speaker 1>Knight is in a league of its own. For me,

<v Speaker 1>that movie never lets me down. It never lets up

<v Speaker 1>all the way through. It keeps the suspense going the

<v Speaker 1>entire way through, right on until the very end. And

<v Speaker 1>to me, it has great replay value. I've watched it

<v Speaker 1>many times. I cannot see myself going back and watching

<v Speaker 1>this again. It's definitely longer than it needed to be

<v Speaker 1>two and a half hours. I think, like Dark Knight,

<v Speaker 1>that would have been more than enough to tell the

<v Speaker 1>story they wanted to tell. Because they lost me a

<v Speaker 1>few times in that last i'd say third of the movie.

<v Speaker 1>There were a couple times where it was like, you know,

<v Speaker 1>I started to I don't say lose interest, but they

<v Speaker 1>were kind of losing me there a little bit, but

<v Speaker 1>I like the little ad with the backstory for Bruce's father.

<v Speaker 1>And Pattinson's Batman voice is better than Christian Bale's. I'll

<v Speaker 1>give him that. It's the one thing in The Dark

<v Speaker 1>Knight that annoys me is that fucking voice. Although Bail

<v Speaker 1>is a much better Bruce Wayne than Robert Pattinson. And look,

<v Speaker 1>I hate to keep comparing the two. I know I

<v Speaker 1>shouldn't do that. I can't help with them. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>you see enough Batman movies you're going to compare them.

<v Speaker 1>It's just it's unavoidable. But it's a good movie. I

<v Speaker 1>just I can't sit here and rave about it, like,

<v Speaker 1>oh my god, I'm so pissed. I waited so long

<v Speaker 1>to see it. I'm glad I saw it, and I

<v Speaker 1>probably will see the new one when it comes out

<v Speaker 1>next year. But I don't ever need to watch this

<v Speaker 1>one again. It just it didn't grab me the way

<v Speaker 1>that I was hoping it would, and the ending didn't

<v Speaker 1>justify investing three hours in this basically the way I

<v Speaker 1>feel at the end of SmackDown every week. But I

<v Speaker 1>will happily watch The Batman over SmackDown. You give me

<v Speaker 1>the option of those two, I will watch The Batman

<v Speaker 1>ten times out of ten over SmackDown next flight, I

<v Speaker 1>take I'm gonna starred the Penguin series on HBO Max.

<v Speaker 1>They didn't do nearly enough with his character in the

<v Speaker 1>MOVIEO though maybe that was by design because they knew

<v Speaker 1>all along they were going to make a TV series

<v Speaker 1>out of it. But I'm going to check that out.

<v Speaker 1>That one looks good now. Last week, the big news

<v Speaker 1>was the two dozen or so talent cuts in WWE,

<v Speaker 1>which wasn't too much of a surprise given this usually

<v Speaker 1>happens after WrestleMania, but it was the sheer number of

<v Speaker 1>names and some names like Kyrie Sain being on there

<v Speaker 1>in the middle of a key storyline on TV, that

<v Speaker 1>was a hard one to wrap my head around. That

<v Speaker 1>just the timing of it. Dave Meltzer then speculated, which

<v Speaker 1>is all it was, that it may have been a

<v Speaker 1>case of Kyrie expressing her interest in returning to Japan,

<v Speaker 1>because that's what happened the last time she left the company.

<v Speaker 1>She wanted to go back home. Even if that was

<v Speaker 1>the case though this time around, and she was always

<v Speaker 1>going to, you know, be here temporarily. I mean, she

<v Speaker 1>has said that before. But even if that's the case,

<v Speaker 1>the timing of it doesn't make any sense. It was

<v Speaker 1>just so sudden. I reput those rumors seemingly to bed

<v Speaker 1>with a post on social media saying what I can

<v Speaker 1>say is, I know there's been a lot of speculation,

<v Speaker 1>but I truly love this work, my teammates and my fans.

<v Speaker 1>I've never walked away, and I've given my all and

<v Speaker 1>everything I do. I hope you're all doing well. So

<v Speaker 1>that makes it sound like, you know, more like it

<v Speaker 1>was not her decision. And even if wwe had knowledge

<v Speaker 1>of her desire to go back to Japan, as Dave

<v Speaker 1>says in this week's Observer, why get rid of her

<v Speaker 1>two weeks before backlash when you could at least pay

<v Speaker 1>off the angle on the show, Like, is there some

<v Speaker 1>rule that stipulates that all of the talents that you're

<v Speaker 1>going to release have to be released at the same time.

<v Speaker 1>You know, they can get rid of her anytime they want.

<v Speaker 1>Paula Beck and Nick con they put her name on

<v Speaker 1>that list, And I would still love to know why,

<v Speaker 1>because we have a match between EO Sky and OSCA

<v Speaker 1>coming up next weekend that isn't going to hit quite

<v Speaker 1>the same way now, and Mike Johnson in his PW

<v Speaker 1>Insider Q and A said that there has been a

<v Speaker 1>story bouncing around among talents in WWE that someone in

<v Speaker 1>the Tko realm, like the Shadow realm, isn't a fan

<v Speaker 1>of darker characters, and that's been blamed on why the

<v Speaker 1>Wyat's six and Alistair Black, for example, We're all let go,

<v Speaker 1>And also that one person even suggested to him that

<v Speaker 1>the Undertaker coming out as the American Badass and not

<v Speaker 1>as the dead Man since he retired is proof of this,

<v Speaker 1>where in actuality that is proof of nothing. Since Undertaker

<v Speaker 1>made it very clear when he retired that we would

<v Speaker 1>never see him again donning the dead Man gear. If

<v Speaker 1>we saw him on TV, it was going to be

<v Speaker 1>on his motorcycle. And I think outside of one appearance

<v Speaker 1>unrelated to WWE in Saudi Arabia a few years ago,

<v Speaker 1>because the Saudis are going to get what they want.

<v Speaker 1>If they want the dead Man, they're going to get

<v Speaker 1>the dead Man. So he did make one appearance to

<v Speaker 1>present some sort of trophy. I forgot what it was for.

<v Speaker 1>But outside of that, he's always come out on the

<v Speaker 1>motorcycle since he retired or just as the American badass

<v Speaker 1>that has absolutely nothing to do with TKO. So the

<v Speaker 1>fact that anybody in WWE would even think that immediately

<v Speaker 1>casts out on the rest of this story. All the

<v Speaker 1>spooky character banned nonsense. I don't believe that for a second.

<v Speaker 1>I think it's all bullshit. They did not want to

<v Speaker 1>pay them for doing nothing. WWE was doing next to

<v Speaker 1>nothing with these people. Collectively. That's a lot of money

<v Speaker 1>off the books for them now, and that's why they're gone.

<v Speaker 1>It all comes down to dollars and cents with these people.

<v Speaker 1>Case in point, the big news of the week. As

<v Speaker 1>shocking as it was to see Kyrie's name on that

<v Speaker 1>cutlass last week, this takes the cake here as the

<v Speaker 1>biggest shocker of all of them. The New Day Kofi

<v Speaker 1>Kingston and Xavier Woods gone from WWE, second longest reigning

<v Speaker 1>tag team champions on the main WWE roster in history,

<v Speaker 1>behind only the Ussos, and two guys who I figured

<v Speaker 1>were as close to lifers in that company as you're

<v Speaker 1>ever gonna find. Of course, we know, especially in the

<v Speaker 1>TKO era, there's no such thing as a lifer. They

<v Speaker 1>don't exist. They're like those unicorns that the New Day

<v Speaker 1>used to talk about. But truly, New Day will go

<v Speaker 1>down as one of the most successful, not even just

<v Speaker 1>tag team acts, but just successful groups in WWE history.

<v Speaker 1>Their longevity is unmatched. Even the Ussos broke up there

<v Speaker 1>for a while, and they're actual brothers. New Day stayed

<v Speaker 1>together for well over a decade since twenty fourteen. They

<v Speaker 1>made that company a lot of money, a lot of

<v Speaker 1>merch money. The Kofe Mania story in twenty nineteen was great,

<v Speaker 1>The payoff was great. Winning the WWE title of WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>I mean that story kind of came out of nowhere.

<v Speaker 1>Didn't end well for Kofe Kingston, but you know, he

<v Speaker 1>could always say that he won the ww Championship at WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>How many people can say that? Not too many. His

<v Speaker 1>name is on a very elite listen now, a list

<v Speaker 1>that includes names like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage and

<v Speaker 1>the Ultimate Warrior and Brett Hart, Sean Michaels, Stone, Cold

<v Speaker 1>Steve Austin. The Rock, I guess would have been on

<v Speaker 1>that list had he won the belt at sixteen and

<v Speaker 1>not at Backlash. Yeah. Shockingly, The Rock is zero for

<v Speaker 1>four in title matches at WrestleMania, but Triple H is

<v Speaker 1>on there, Daniel Bryan, John Cena, Cody Rhoades, all of

<v Speaker 1>these men have won that title of WrestleMania, and Kofee's

<v Speaker 1>name will forever be on that list. Kofe signed with

<v Speaker 1>them in two thousand and six, so twenty years ago.

<v Speaker 1>Woods he had been there since twenty ten. Biggie was

<v Speaker 1>a very big part of what made the New Day

<v Speaker 1>work and ever since he got dropped on his head

<v Speaker 1>and he was forced into an early retirement, New Day

<v Speaker 1>has never been the same. They kept it going, but

<v Speaker 1>it just wasn't going to work with anybody else. So

<v Speaker 1>once they dropped, and look, we can go back to

<v Speaker 1>when it looked like they were going to be adding

<v Speaker 1>Odyssey Joan and obviously that went nowhere because they got

<v Speaker 1>rid of Odissey Jones. Would that have gone on to

<v Speaker 1>become some big success. Would he have been able to

<v Speaker 1>successfully take that third spot in the group? Probably not

<v Speaker 1>looking at WWE Creative, probably not. We'll never know, but

<v Speaker 1>it was just never going to be the same, you know,

<v Speaker 1>without Big Ee in there. So once they just became

<v Speaker 1>a tag team only and not a trio, it just

<v Speaker 1>lost a lot of its luster. But also the longer

<v Speaker 1>you know that things go on for people get tired

<v Speaker 1>of it. It doesn't hit quite the same way anymore

<v Speaker 1>when you're doing the same shtick over and over again,

<v Speaker 1>unless you change it, if you evolve it, maybe you

<v Speaker 1>go from babyface to heel. Something has to change. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>you look at characters that have stood the test of

<v Speaker 1>time in that company over the I mentioned the Undertaker before.

<v Speaker 1>To his credit, the Undertaker, who had been there forever

<v Speaker 1>as an active performer, he just change. He evolved his character.

<v Speaker 1>And I'm not just talking babyface to heel. Heel to babyface.

<v Speaker 1>He evolved over the years. If you don't evolve, you

<v Speaker 1>die eventually. And so that was also a problem with

<v Speaker 1>the New Day. It's like you get tired of the

<v Speaker 1>same stick after a while if you don't change it up.

<v Speaker 1>But then came the heel turn. At the end of

<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty four, they were celebrating ten years of the

<v Speaker 1>New Day, and they turned it into a pissing contest

<v Speaker 1>about how abandoned they felt by Big E after he

<v Speaker 1>got hurt and how he wasn't there for them, and

<v Speaker 1>they because they had been having all these issues and

<v Speaker 1>it looked like Kofee and Woods were headed for a

<v Speaker 1>big breakup, a big fight, and then they just turned

<v Speaker 1>around and blamed it all on Big E, which was

<v Speaker 1>a stretch. I'm not going to say that it was

<v Speaker 1>some great storyline. I mean, it wasn't a great story,

<v Speaker 1>but they were able to take that and generate a

<v Speaker 1>ton of heat using Big Ee. They found a way

<v Speaker 1>to use Bigie to get heat on Kofee and Woods,

<v Speaker 1>and so it made for great TV that night. It

<v Speaker 1>was a different side of the New Day that we

<v Speaker 1>hadn't seen before, the more serious side. Right, finally we're

<v Speaker 1>going to drop the silliness that had kind of played

<v Speaker 1>itself out and get a little more serious here. It

<v Speaker 1>was time for a fresh coat of paint. And I

<v Speaker 1>thought for sure this meant that Big Ee was either

<v Speaker 1>cleared or they thought he was about to get cleared,

<v Speaker 1>and they were building to something with him, a wrestle

<v Speaker 1>Mania That return never came because Biggie was not cleared,

<v Speaker 1>and Biggie in fact is retired and he will never

<v Speaker 1>wrestle again. Not only was he not cleared, but they

<v Speaker 1>clearly had no plans on how to follow up on

<v Speaker 1>such a hot angle. And they let it fizzle out.

<v Speaker 1>One of the great fumbles of the Levec administration. They

<v Speaker 1>can come up with a great idea, but they don't

<v Speaker 1>know how to follow up with it and stick the landing.

<v Speaker 1>They know how to execute the initial idea and not

<v Speaker 1>much else after that. That happened in December of twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty four, not even three months later, they turned John

<v Speaker 1>Cena heel and the same thing, hot opening angle, absolutely

<v Speaker 1>no good idea on how to follow up on it,

<v Speaker 1>and it sucked. That is his greatest fumble is the

<v Speaker 1>Johnson Heel turn. The New Day turn isn't too far

<v Speaker 1>behind that, And looking back at it now now that

<v Speaker 1>I talk about it, like because they happened so close together,

<v Speaker 1>you know what, they would have been better off pairing

<v Speaker 1>New Day up with John Cena, like all the good

<v Speaker 1>guys are suddenly breaking bad. You know, they could have

<v Speaker 1>had a similar like similar motivations where they felt like

<v Speaker 1>people had turned their backs on them. I wouldn't call

<v Speaker 1>them lackeys for Sena, but I guess you could kind

<v Speaker 1>of look at it that way. But it would have

<v Speaker 1>put Kofe and Woods in a much more prominent position

<v Speaker 1>on the show and on those weeks where John Cena

<v Speaker 1>wasn't there because remember we only had what was it,

<v Speaker 1>thirty six dates, then they could have stood in for

<v Speaker 1>him like the USO's do when Roman isn't around. But see,

<v Speaker 1>this would have required some actual forethought to be put

<v Speaker 1>into it, and I don't get the sense there's a

<v Speaker 1>whole lot of advanced planning going on when they come

<v Speaker 1>up with some of these ideas, Like they get really

<v Speaker 1>excited about it, like, hey, we got this great idea,

<v Speaker 1>and again they can execute it, but then they have

<v Speaker 1>no idea what to do next, like the dog catching

<v Speaker 1>the car. Now what didn't help that the tag team

<v Speaker 1>division is dead in this company and clearly is not

<v Speaker 1>a priority for them. New Day had not had a

<v Speaker 1>pl match together since WrestleMania last year, and the only

<v Speaker 1>reason they even got that was because their match was

<v Speaker 1>tied into a video game sponsorship that they had. You

<v Speaker 1>remember that was with them against the Viking Raiders and

<v Speaker 1>there was some fucking game I don't remember what it was.

<v Speaker 1>Literally the only reason that match even made the wrestle

<v Speaker 1>Media card last year because at the time it would

<v Speaker 1>have made a lot more sense for the SmackDown team.

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown was killing it in the tag team division. And

<v Speaker 1>I remember looking at this going, wait a minute, you

<v Speaker 1>put the raw tag team title match on the Wrestle

<v Speaker 1>Media card and you bumped the SmackDown guys to television,

<v Speaker 1>And it didn't make any sense until you realize now

<v Speaker 1>they had a video game sponsorship. That's why they got

<v Speaker 1>on the show. So what the hell happened here? Well,

<v Speaker 1>Brian Alvarez is reporting that in the case of the

<v Speaker 1>New Day, it was their decision to leave only after

<v Speaker 1>TKO came to them about restructuring their existing contracts. Evidently

<v Speaker 1>they didn't like those deals that were being offered to

<v Speaker 1>them and they did not agree to this, and instead

<v Speaker 1>they requested their release and it was granted and per

<v Speaker 1>fight for the belief is that they had just signed

<v Speaker 1>brand new contracts last year, which were not due to

<v Speaker 1>expire until two thousand and thirty, so their deals weren't

<v Speaker 1>even up. They were still in year one of a

<v Speaker 1>five year deal for each of them, and it sounds

<v Speaker 1>like TKO wanted them to take a pay cut and

<v Speaker 1>they said, no, we're going to take our business elsewhere,

<v Speaker 1>thank you very much. Now please let us go, And

<v Speaker 1>so they're bound by the same ninety day period that

<v Speaker 1>anybody else on the main roster would be if they

<v Speaker 1>were given their release again, it's technically a ninety day

<v Speaker 1>notice of termination. They will still be paid for those

<v Speaker 1>ninety days, at which point they will be free to

<v Speaker 1>sign wherever they wish. Kofe and Woods, I mean, look,

<v Speaker 1>they make well into the seven figure range. They were

<v Speaker 1>being paid a lot, and they were doing very little

<v Speaker 1>on TV. So it's very possible that ww and TKO

<v Speaker 1>looked at the roster and they saw the New Day

<v Speaker 1>and they say, well, we're not getting a lot of

<v Speaker 1>return in our investment here. Whose fault is that? It's

<v Speaker 1>not their fault. It's not a failure of the New Day.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure if it were up to the New Day,

<v Speaker 1>they'd booked themselves in fucking multiple segments on the show

<v Speaker 1>every single week. That's the failure of WWE and TKO.

<v Speaker 1>You signed these men to top dollar contracts and you

<v Speaker 1>treated them like bottom dollar bitches who you would parade

<v Speaker 1>out there most of the time during commercial breaks. And

<v Speaker 1>if that's all you were going to do with them,

<v Speaker 1>then you shouldn't have signed them for that much money

<v Speaker 1>in the first place. It's not like TKO just acquired

<v Speaker 1>the company last year. We're in year three now of

<v Speaker 1>this new ownership. Why were they offered so much money

<v Speaker 1>to resign if they had no plans for them? Why

<v Speaker 1>was Santos Escobar who rejected their offers to resign and

<v Speaker 1>allowed his contract to expire last year? Why was he

<v Speaker 1>offered so much more money to lure him back in

<v Speaker 1>only for them to fire him six months later At

<v Speaker 1>a time, mind you, when he is out injured after

<v Speaker 1>two surgeries, since the first one apparently got botched up,

<v Speaker 1>he had to go under the knight for a second time.

<v Speaker 1>Why is no thought put into how they actually plan

<v Speaker 1>to utilize these talents before signing them, instead of just

<v Speaker 1>throwing money at them just to keep them from leaving

<v Speaker 1>and going somewhere else, and then giving them the thought

<v Speaker 1>that they had some level of job security, only to

<v Speaker 1>turn around and say, you know what, on second thought,

<v Speaker 1>we don't want to pay you that much money. Goodbye.

<v Speaker 1>But this is how Endeavor operates. Look at what happened

<v Speaker 1>when they bought the UFC. They fired Chuck Lddel and

<v Speaker 1>Matt Hughes, two UFC Hall of famers who Dana White

<v Speaker 1>put on the payroll after they retired. He put them

<v Speaker 1>in some kind of executive position. It was largely ceremonial,

<v Speaker 1>but it was like their way of saying thank you

<v Speaker 1>for your service. And as soon as Endeavor took over,

<v Speaker 1>they were shit can They were the first on the

<v Speaker 1>chopping block. They don't care about that sort of thing.

<v Speaker 1>It is purely business for them. They don't care how

<v Speaker 1>long you've been there. They don't care what your contributions

<v Speaker 1>have been, or how well liked you may be with

<v Speaker 1>your peers or the fans. You know, the sweat equity

<v Speaker 1>that you've put in. They don't give a shit. This

<v Speaker 1>isn't the first time that somebody in the history of

<v Speaker 1>wrestling has been asked to renegotiate their deal in the

<v Speaker 1>middle of their contract. I mean that's not like an

<v Speaker 1>it's not exclusive to Endeavor or TKO. I mean sometimes

<v Speaker 1>it works the other way, and if somebody gets super

<v Speaker 1>over or the company is really happy with the work

<v Speaker 1>they're putting out, they may be asked to renegotiate at

<v Speaker 1>a higher salary so they can lock them in for

<v Speaker 1>more years. That's what happened just recently in aw with Tecla.

<v Speaker 1>I think she was one year into what may have

<v Speaker 1>been a three year deal, and apparently Tony Kah went

<v Speaker 1>to her and said, hey, want to offer you more

<v Speaker 1>money and lock you in for longer. So she signed

<v Speaker 1>a higher money deal. She was maybe a year into

<v Speaker 1>her existing one. So it can go the other way too,

<v Speaker 1>although that's rare. I mean, usually you hear about it.

<v Speaker 1>It's the other way around. I mean. Brett Hart was

<v Speaker 1>famously asked to renegotiate the twenty year contract that he

<v Speaker 1>signed with Vince McMahon. He was a year in and

<v Speaker 1>on a twenty year deal. Times were tough for WWE

<v Speaker 1>in nineteen ninety seven, so he went to Brett and

<v Speaker 1>he asked Brett to, you know, restructure his deal in

<v Speaker 1>a way that would defer a lot of the money

<v Speaker 1>that he was owed to the back end of the deal,

<v Speaker 1>basically take a pay cut for a while. And Brett

<v Speaker 1>told him to go kick rocks, and he was right, mean,

<v Speaker 1>think about it. Put yourself in his shoes. If times

<v Speaker 1>are that tough and things are very dire, and the

<v Speaker 1>company was very close in ninety seven to one point

<v Speaker 1>to having to file for bankruptcy, and your boss comes

<v Speaker 1>to you and says, hey about that deal that you

<v Speaker 1>signed last year, all that money, he owed, why don't

<v Speaker 1>we defer that to the back end of the deal? Right?

<v Speaker 1>You don't even know if the come but he's going

<v Speaker 1>to be around a year from now. You may not

<v Speaker 1>end up getting that money. You'd have to be an

<v Speaker 1>idiot to say yes to that. I don't blame him

<v Speaker 1>for saying no. He told him to go kick Rocks,

<v Speaker 1>as was his right, so Vince gave him permission to

<v Speaker 1>go negotiate with WCW. He goes, look, I'm gonna have

<v Speaker 1>to breach your contract and I'll give you permission to

<v Speaker 1>go negotiate with Turner, which is what he did. And

<v Speaker 1>then all of a sudden, which Bread didn't want to do,

<v Speaker 1>but then he signed with them, got himself a sweetheart deal.

<v Speaker 1>And then after that, all of a sudden, Vince came

<v Speaker 1>back to him and said, hey, you know what, We've

<v Speaker 1>turned things around. Don't need to worry. I can afford

<v Speaker 1>to pay you. It's like, what the are you fucking

<v Speaker 1>kidding me? I already signed with them, But these things,

<v Speaker 1>they become a lot easier to understand when you realize

<v Speaker 1>that they don't really care about you. That's why Vince

<v Speaker 1>famously never liked to deal with lawyers or agents. I

<v Speaker 1>want to deal with the talent directly. I don't like lawyers.

<v Speaker 1>I don't like agents. Of course he doesn't. He's the

<v Speaker 1>fucking head of the company. No CEO loves to deal

<v Speaker 1>with lawyers or agents because with your lawyer or your agent,

<v Speaker 1>their priority is you, not your employer. They're supposed to

<v Speaker 1>look out for your best interests. Your employer's goal is

<v Speaker 1>to look out for their own best interests. You're a

<v Speaker 1>distant number two. So when you think about it like that,

<v Speaker 1>these things become a little bit easier to understand. Make

<v Speaker 1>no mistake, New Day chose to walk not because they

<v Speaker 1>didn't want to be there, but because wwe didn't want

<v Speaker 1>them there anymore. Bad enough, because if they did, they

<v Speaker 1>never would have asked them to restructure their deals in

<v Speaker 1>the first place, knowing that this would likely be the

<v Speaker 1>end result. Now they can say, well, you know, they

<v Speaker 1>chose to lead, we didn't fire them, which is technically true,

<v Speaker 1>but I mean it's still bullshit. Well, the way I

<v Speaker 1>see it, this is the best thing that could have

<v Speaker 1>happened to those two guys. Honestly, Now they have the

<v Speaker 1>freedom to control their own destiny. And they are going

<v Speaker 1>to clean up. Like PW Insider says, there's already a

<v Speaker 1>lot of excitement as I'm sure there is in AAW

<v Speaker 1>about the possibility of them coming in. We've already he's

<v Speaker 1>seen a number of AW talents on social media posting

<v Speaker 1>all sorts of things about New Day. Even MJF was like, Oh,

<v Speaker 1>it's a new Day, Yes it is. They're all excited

<v Speaker 1>about this, the New Day against the Young Bucks. Amean,

<v Speaker 1>are you kidding me? That's a dream match for those

<v Speaker 1>two teams. They've been talking about it for years. Kenny

<v Speaker 1>Omega has wanted to work with those guys for a

<v Speaker 1>long time. They I don't remember what video game convention.

<v Speaker 1>It was something street Fighter related probably, but they all

<v Speaker 1>ended up in the same place once a few years

<v Speaker 1>ago doing video game shit and everybody was losing their

<v Speaker 1>minds about it, like, oh my god, one day this

<v Speaker 1>is going to be a dream match. Well guess what

<v Speaker 1>that dream is about to become a reality. They have

<v Speaker 1>contracts ready and waiting for them. All they need to

<v Speaker 1>do is put pen to paper after their ninety days

<v Speaker 1>are up, and just in time for Wembley Stadium. By

<v Speaker 1>the way, that's a no brainer to me. You add

<v Speaker 1>in the MotorCity machine Guns, and WWE just did more

<v Speaker 1>for Tony Kahn's Tag Team Division than they did for

<v Speaker 1>Nick cons. The WWE Tag Team Division is dead. Two

<v Speaker 1>sets of tag belts for a division that, if you

<v Speaker 1>were to merge them together from Raw and SmackDown, would

<v Speaker 1>still be near the bottom of the all time list

<v Speaker 1>of worst tag team divisions in history. Meanwhile, aw could

<v Speaker 1>be looking at a division in a few months that

<v Speaker 1>has the Young Bucks, the New Day FTR, the MotorCity

<v Speaker 1>machine Guns, the Hurt Syndicate, and about half a dozen

<v Speaker 1>other teams. I can't even name them all right now,

<v Speaker 1>not to mention for a New Day got the independent circuit,

<v Speaker 1>You've got the gaming conventions. I mean, think of all

<v Speaker 1>the things that these guys are going to have the

<v Speaker 1>freedom to start doing in a few months. WWE did

<v Speaker 1>these two guys a favor. They should send Ari Emanuel

<v Speaker 1>and Mark Shapiro a gift basket full of bootios. Instead

<v Speaker 1>of wasting away the rest of their careers in ad

<v Speaker 1>breaks on Netflix, They'll actually be able to write their

<v Speaker 1>own ending to their story. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods,

<v Speaker 1>though they chose to leave two men who did not

<v Speaker 1>choose to leave as we know, but they are in

<v Speaker 1>fact on their way out. You can add them to

<v Speaker 1>the cutlist are J C. Matteo and Tongaloa. Yes, the

<v Speaker 1>Great Tongaloa gone from WWE. Talatoga he missed SmackDown last week.

<v Speaker 1>That wasn't a good sign, but apparently he was in

<v Speaker 1>concussion protocol, which is why he was back on the

<v Speaker 1>show this week. But the MFTs were down to two

<v Speaker 1>on Friday. I don't know where Tomatonga was on Friday night,

<v Speaker 1>but we had Solo Socoa and we had Talatanga on

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown wrestling the USOS in the main event of SmackDown,

<v Speaker 1>because of course they did. It's not enough to have

<v Speaker 1>the key storyline on Mondays. We need more bloodlined lore

<v Speaker 1>on Fridays because this company is devoid of any fresh ideas. Look,

<v Speaker 1>you know my thoughts on the MFTs. The group was

<v Speaker 1>very boring. They're few, but the Wyatts was boring. It

<v Speaker 1>made for boring, terrible television, but that is how WWE

<v Speaker 1>chose to present them and utilize them on TV. Jeff

<v Speaker 1>Cobb debuted with them last year of Backlash, so he

<v Speaker 1>fell just short of one full year on TV. And

<v Speaker 1>you mean to tell me that in that year that

<v Speaker 1>Jeff Cobb was with this company, this is the best

<v Speaker 1>they could come up with for the guy. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>saying he was lighting it up on TV every week

<v Speaker 1>with his charismatic personality. If it was there, he never

<v Speaker 1>got a chance to show it. But slapping that dumb

<v Speaker 1>face paint on him and keeping him as a mute

<v Speaker 1>was not going to get him over. What got him

<v Speaker 1>over in New Japan or in Lucha Underground where they

<v Speaker 1>put him under a mask was his work in the ring.

<v Speaker 1>In w w E, this is more of an emphasis

<v Speaker 1>on characters and personalities and promo time. He never even

<v Speaker 1>got that, So I was excited to see what he

<v Speaker 1>could do when he first came in, with guys like

<v Speaker 1>Seamus and Drew McIntyre and Bronson Reid and Sammy Zain

<v Speaker 1>and Penta and so on. He had one match with

<v Speaker 1>La Knight in his street clothes, his first match in

<v Speaker 1>a match with Our Truth, and two fucking matches Jimmy

<v Speaker 1>Usso that's it in one year. That was it the

<v Speaker 1>entire year he was there. The rest were tag matches

<v Speaker 1>with the MFTs, most of which came against the Wyatts.

<v Speaker 1>That is how Jeff Cobbs spent his one and only

<v Speaker 1>year in WWE. But I also pointed out when the

<v Speaker 1>rumors first started flying last year about the possibility of

<v Speaker 1>him signing with the company. How you know he was

<v Speaker 1>forty two years old right now he would be forty three,

<v Speaker 1>I think going on forty four this July, and for

<v Speaker 1>him it may have been an hour never type of

<v Speaker 1>deal where and I think the MotorCity Machine Guns would

<v Speaker 1>fall into the same category. Why did they choose WWE

<v Speaker 1>over AW even though AW seemed like it would be

<v Speaker 1>a better fit. Right, They never worked for WWE, and

<v Speaker 1>they're not getting any younger. It's now or never, right,

<v Speaker 1>I have to try this because if I don't, I

<v Speaker 1>don't want to look back years from now and say, man,

<v Speaker 1>what could have been? I missed my shot to see

<v Speaker 1>how I would do in WWE. And it may have

<v Speaker 1>been that way for Jeff Cuss Well, he tried it.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't work out, but he's gonna have plenty of

<v Speaker 1>opportunities out there for him after these ninety days are up.

<v Speaker 1>He moved from Japan to the United States. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know that he would want to move back there. I

<v Speaker 1>know he lived over there for seven or eight years,

<v Speaker 1>so I don't know if a full time return to

<v Speaker 1>New Japan would be in the cards for him, But

<v Speaker 1>aw does have the working relationship with New Japan. If

<v Speaker 1>he ends up there, he could still work some New

<v Speaker 1>Japan dates if he wants to. Tondaloa. He debuted Backlash

<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty four in spectacular fashion. Okay, he didn't

<v Speaker 1>get out from under the ring fast enough to break

<v Speaker 1>up one of the near falls in the match. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>what can I say? You know, I mean, you can't

<v Speaker 1>be surprised by this. I was surprised when they first

<v Speaker 1>brought him back, and good for him. He got a

<v Speaker 1>short run out of it. But I mean, this never

<v Speaker 1>felt to me like it was going to be a

<v Speaker 1>long term thing. Now. WWE held a town hall on Monday,

<v Speaker 1>and WWE President Nick Cohn was a among the executives

<v Speaker 1>in attendance. You mentioned there that Paul Levek is going

<v Speaker 1>to continue in his role as the head of Creative.

<v Speaker 1>This was according to sources who viewed the town hall

<v Speaker 1>and inform Post Wrestling, who had the story Post Wrestling,

<v Speaker 1>which also obtained audio of the call, and it was

<v Speaker 1>mentioned there that a number of us is a Nick

<v Speaker 1>conspiegg A number of us, including Mark Shapiro and Andrew Schlimer,

<v Speaker 1>who's the CFO of TKO. We're able to get Paul

<v Speaker 1>Leveck to extend with us in a multi year deal.

<v Speaker 1>As we've seen though with all of these talent releases,

<v Speaker 1>whether you're a talent or an executive, doesn't usually matter

<v Speaker 1>how many years you signed for. The minute they want

<v Speaker 1>to get rid of you, you're gone. But he also

<v Speaker 1>addressed Nick con did online criticism of WWE because he

<v Speaker 1>was prompted by a question that was read by Mark

<v Speaker 1>Shapiro asking how WWE is addressing quote concerns about over

<v Speaker 1>commercialization and creative direction, which are two very valid things

<v Speaker 1>to criticize WWE for. But he pushed back on recent

<v Speaker 1>criticism of WWE's product, and Nick Con does what Nick

<v Speaker 1>Con always does, and he characterized it as coming from

<v Speaker 1>a vocal minority. He said to me, if you make

<v Speaker 1>business decisions based on online sentiment, just know that you're

<v Speaker 1>going to be making said decisions on a minority percentage

<v Speaker 1>of voices, a vocal minority. Allow me to give you

<v Speaker 1>an example. Now, let me stop it before I even

<v Speaker 1>get into the rest of this bullshit, let me stop

<v Speaker 1>right there. Nobody is saying the wwe should make important

<v Speaker 1>decisions or all of their important decisions based strictly upon

<v Speaker 1>online sentiment or what people are saying on X at

<v Speaker 1>any given moment. Right, nobody is saying. Nobody that you

<v Speaker 1>should take seriously is saying that. But as you'll notice here,

<v Speaker 1>as I get into these examples that he gives, he

<v Speaker 1>makes these very broad generalizations, like you can't expect us

<v Speaker 1>to make decisions based on what people are saying on X.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, come on, now, that would be ridiculous, as

<v Speaker 1>if there is no valid criticism of the current products

<v Speaker 1>or their business model, or any sort of valid criticism

<v Speaker 1>to at least consider that maybe there is a segment

<v Speaker 1>of your fan base who feels a certain way, who's

<v Speaker 1>up in their feelings for whatever reason about your product.

<v Speaker 1>But because it's a vocal minorities he describes it, it's

<v Speaker 1>basically irrelevant and we don't even pay any attention to

<v Speaker 1>it because Nick con has said, I don't read any

<v Speaker 1>of that stuff, right, That's what he has said before.

<v Speaker 1>But then he goes on to produce various examples of

<v Speaker 1>what he is referring to. He goes, allow me to

<v Speaker 1>give you an example, and he was reading online. Now,

<v Speaker 1>maybe one of his assistants put this together for him,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but he read. What he said was

<v Speaker 1>a comment about Roman Reigns from six years earlier. He said,

<v Speaker 1>but I can't remember the last time the WWE universe

<v Speaker 1>hated a wrestler this much. He will never work reading

<v Speaker 1>what I have to assume is a tweet. This was

<v Speaker 1>from when Roman was still doing the big dog stuff.

<v Speaker 1>So then he goes on to recount the negative fan

<v Speaker 1>reaction to Roman after his Royal Rumble win in twenty fifteen,

<v Speaker 1>and again credit to Post Wrestling for this story here.

<v Speaker 1>But con made a comment. He said, when Roman Reigns

<v Speaker 1>won the Royal Rumblin twenty fifteen, fans went to Twitter

<v Speaker 1>with the hashtag cancel WWE network. It trended for two days.

<v Speaker 1>Now let me stop there. Same thing applies. If you

<v Speaker 1>were to read off every hashtag that people start on

<v Speaker 1>social media, right, you would come up with just hundreds

<v Speaker 1>of them for various things that they want to see.

<v Speaker 1>Cancel this fire this person, push this guy. They conveniently, though,

<v Speaker 1>you know, he gives an example like this, Well, you

<v Speaker 1>know there was a cancel WWE network hashtag and you

<v Speaker 1>know it trended for two days and next to nobody

<v Speaker 1>actually canceled the WWE network. Why doesn't he talk about

<v Speaker 1>the hashtag give Divas a Chance, which I think was

<v Speaker 1>from that same year. I didn't see anything here in

<v Speaker 1>this little transcript of him mentioning the give Divas a

<v Speaker 1>Chance hashtag, which they themselves acknowledge. It's part of their

<v Speaker 1>documented history now when they pat themselves on the back

<v Speaker 1>for the Divas Revolution in twenty fifteen, when they called

<v Speaker 1>up all these women from NXT and they got rid

<v Speaker 1>of the Butterfly Belt and they brought back the Women's Championship.

<v Speaker 1>Is that not an example of this so called vocal

<v Speaker 1>minority actually making a difference, a positive difference in this company. Now,

<v Speaker 1>we don't talk about that. We only talk about the

<v Speaker 1>bullshit like cancel WWE Network. He read another tweet, why

<v Speaker 1>does WWE insult fans like this with a bum like

<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns. Then he read a response that was related

<v Speaker 1>to bad Bunny. I'm losing my mind. Why is bad

<v Speaker 1>Bunny in the WWE? Bad Bunny single handedly ruined the

<v Speaker 1>Royal Rumble. This is from a commet that referred had

<v Speaker 1>to be from the twenty twenty two Royal Rumble, by

<v Speaker 1>the way, I mean compared to especially the recent like

<v Speaker 1>Pat McAfee stuff and everything that we had to sit through.

<v Speaker 1>I don't recall there being quite as much disdain for

<v Speaker 1>the involvement of Bad Bunny, especially heading into that match

<v Speaker 1>and coming out of that match that he had at

<v Speaker 1>Backlash a few years ago in Puerto Rico with Damian Preeze,

<v Speaker 1>which was fucking awesome, but he found one of the

<v Speaker 1>Bad Bunny tweets where people were shitting on him at

<v Speaker 1>the time. Then there's this one on the Rocks return

<v Speaker 1>to WWE. The people don't want the People's champion. The

<v Speaker 1>Rock came back one too many times and now people

<v Speaker 1>are sick of him. Again, Let's think back two years ago,

<v Speaker 1>because some of us have selective memory. Here, the Rock

<v Speaker 1>came back, The Rock was gonna wrestle Roman reigns at WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>They had Cody Rhoades win the Royal Rumble. With knowledge

<v Speaker 1>that this is what was going to happen, they still

<v Speaker 1>had Cody win the Royal Rumble. All for Cody Rohase

<v Speaker 1>to go out there on television looking like his dog

<v Speaker 1>died and voluntarily hand over his title match a WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>A Roman reigns, and so the Rock, of course hears

<v Speaker 1>and sees all of the negativity online in what I

<v Speaker 1>was told was a vocal minority. You would think, why

<v Speaker 1>would the Rock care about this? We're just the vocal

<v Speaker 1>minority here. He doesn't give a shit about what we

<v Speaker 1>have to say. Evidently he does, and the people around

<v Speaker 1>him were like, hey, this is kind of bad for

<v Speaker 1>your image here, and to his credit, the Rock said,

<v Speaker 1>we got to change this. We got to go a

<v Speaker 1>different way. That's how we ended up with the Final

<v Speaker 1>Boss and the build to that Wrestle Media a couple

<v Speaker 1>of years ago actually turned out to be a hell

<v Speaker 1>of a ride. We have not seen anything like that since.

<v Speaker 1>Does that happen though, if people don't react negatively to

<v Speaker 1>it on social media? The answer is no. The answer

<v Speaker 1>is no, But that doesn't never get mentioned here. So

<v Speaker 1>then Nick con he cited criticism of John Cena, says,

<v Speaker 1>on John Cena's retirementur, who needs a John Cena retirement tour?

<v Speaker 1>Haven't we seen enough of him? John Cena's retirementor was

<v Speaker 1>so random. Yes, he's actually using examples now to deflect

<v Speaker 1>from the horrendous booking of one of the biggest stars

<v Speaker 1>in the history of their company, his booking in his

<v Speaker 1>final year. It's the fans' fault because they were just

<v Speaker 1>shitting all over this, on and on and on and

<v Speaker 1>on with this. And so when you see this, you

<v Speaker 1>realize just how disingenuous he really is being, because Nick

<v Speaker 1>con is not a stupid person. He knows exactly what

<v Speaker 1>he's doing here. He is deflecting away from genuine criticism

<v Speaker 1>about the state of this product. Right, the company's still

<v Speaker 1>making all this money, right, they're talking about all these

<v Speaker 1>different records that they keep shattering. But the fact is

<v Speaker 1>the on air product has not been this bad in

<v Speaker 1>a very long time, especially on Fridays. Monday is a

<v Speaker 1>more enjoyable, tolerable show generally. But let's not sit here

<v Speaker 1>and pretend that the WWE product right now, man, it's

<v Speaker 1>on fire. No, it's a dumpster fire. It's not on fire.

<v Speaker 1>Or if it is on fire, it's not in the

<v Speaker 1>way that you mean. But like the over commercialization of

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania this year, are you trying to insinuate that it's

<v Speaker 1>a vocal minority that are saying that. Did you not

<v Speaker 1>have people on fucking television on ESPN that were saying

<v Speaker 1>the same thing. You have people coming out of WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>people you had legends and Hall of famers who worked

<v Speaker 1>for your company or used to work for your company,

<v Speaker 1>who said the same fucking thing. The show felt soulless,

<v Speaker 1>So Kevin Nash said there were a lot of people

<v Speaker 1>who were talking about the over commercialization of WrestleMania this year.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't feel like a WrestleMania. It felt like a

<v Speaker 1>commercial that was interrupted by the occasional wrestling match. But

<v Speaker 1>to hear him talk about it, it's like, no, you know,

<v Speaker 1>these criticisms don't really hold any water because it's a

<v Speaker 1>very vocal minority that's saying it, and you and I

<v Speaker 1>both know that is complete bullshit and he is being

<v Speaker 1>completely disingenuous when he says that. Now, also at this

<v Speaker 1>town hall, there were other things discussed, including the situation

<v Speaker 1>in Saudi Arabia because they're going to be going back

<v Speaker 1>to Saudi Arabia at the end of June for Night

<v Speaker 1>of Champions, and Nick Cohn said that they are monitoring

<v Speaker 1>the situation in the Middle East, given that that show

<v Speaker 1>is coming up here in a couple of months, actually

<v Speaker 1>not a couple of months, coming up in the end

<v Speaker 1>of June next month. But according to audio obtained by

<v Speaker 1>Post Wrestling of the internal call, con stated that WWE

<v Speaker 1>would only run Night of Champions in Saudi and would

<v Speaker 1>not hold the surrounding Raw or SmackDown events there, which

<v Speaker 1>is something they usually do. Locations for what would be

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown and Raw respectively on June twenty sixth and June

<v Speaker 1>twenty ninth are not currently announced. He said, We're only

<v Speaker 1>going to go if it's safe or if we're allowed there.

<v Speaker 1>We are monitoring with our heads of security internally and

<v Speaker 1>with our government affairs folks externally. If US citizens were

<v Speaker 1>allowed in at this moment in time, it is declared

<v Speaker 1>and deemed safe, then we will all be going there.

<v Speaker 1>Saudi is deeply desirous of getting WWE back there and

<v Speaker 1>getting events restarted, especially those that come from the United States.

<v Speaker 1>They also seem to acknowledge the challenge of running WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>in the same location back to back years. He said,

<v Speaker 1>that was ultimately my decision. Maybe we don't do that

<v Speaker 1>one again. In terms of back to back, but ultimately

<v Speaker 1>it ended up being a successful event. And that's about

<v Speaker 1>as much of an admission as you're ever going to

<v Speaker 1>get from him. So that's saying a lot where he's

<v Speaker 1>basically like, yeah, maybe we won't do that again. We

<v Speaker 1>made a lot of money, which, yeah, that's the whole

<v Speaker 1>reason they went back. I mean, they got some sweet

<v Speaker 1>tax incentives. That's why they went back to do Vegas again.

<v Speaker 1>And they pulled it, you know, yanked it away from

<v Speaker 1>New Orleans. But you're in between the lines there he's

<v Speaker 1>basically saying, yeah, that was my call, and maybe we

<v Speaker 1>don't do that again. But then he also had a

<v Speaker 1>little teaser to the stay there about the location announcement,

<v Speaker 1>and there's no sense of when this announcement will be made.

<v Speaker 1>It will probably be leaked at some point, but the

<v Speaker 1>location not for next year, but for twenty twenty eight

<v Speaker 1>for WrestleMania. This is what he said, Wait until you

<v Speaker 1>hear the announcement on where we're going to be for

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania in twenty twenty eight. And he offered no further

<v Speaker 1>hints or anything about the location. But then we also

<v Speaker 1>get this this week from Post Wrestling, The Nashville Convention

<v Speaker 1>and Visitor's Corps confirmed to Post Wrestling on Thursday that

<v Speaker 1>the organization, which serves as the city's tourism agency, is

<v Speaker 1>making an effort to bring WrestleMania to Nashville, and when

<v Speaker 1>asked by posts about the possibility of Mania coming to

<v Speaker 1>Nashville in twenty twenty eight, a communications representative for the

<v Speaker 1>agency wrote back to us and said, we are working

<v Speaker 1>on a future date with them. This follows reports from

<v Speaker 1>both Brian Alvarez and Wrestle Volts Radio on Fightful Select

<v Speaker 1>that have recently stated the WWE is in active negotiations

<v Speaker 1>re guarding a future WrestleMania possibly taking place in Nashville, Tennessee.

<v Speaker 1>If finalized, WWE would take its biggest event of the

<v Speaker 1>year to the new Nissan Stadium, the future home of

<v Speaker 1>the NFL's Tennessee Titans. The seventy thousand seat capacity venue

<v Speaker 1>is scheduled to open next year, and city officials hope

<v Speaker 1>that an announcement regarding the event could be made very

<v Speaker 1>soon that comes. According to fight Full, if WWE hosts

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania in Nashville, it likely won't be for some time.

<v Speaker 1>Next year's show is scheduled in Riod and then WWE

<v Speaker 1>is also expected to eventually give New Orleans, Louisiana another Mania,

<v Speaker 1>although it has not been specified how long they will

<v Speaker 1>have to wait before getting that event, because again, they

<v Speaker 1>were originally going to host the event this year. The

<v Speaker 1>latest reports aren't the first time that news has surfaced

<v Speaker 1>about Nashville trying to bring WrestleMania to the city. Earlier

<v Speaker 1>this month, tourism groups and others involved with trying to

<v Speaker 1>attract the event to Nashville told Fox seventeen that they

<v Speaker 1>were hoping to be the host city in twenty twenty seven,

<v Speaker 1>but that it did not work out for the event.

<v Speaker 1>And I mentioned that last week where it was kind

<v Speaker 1>of weird. There was a story about that that came out.

<v Speaker 1>It was like, yeah, we already knew this, like it

<v Speaker 1>was announced for Saudi a long time ago, and it

<v Speaker 1>was almost like Nashville had just found out that it

<v Speaker 1>fell through. So that was a little weird the way

<v Speaker 1>that Nick con was hyping up the announcement here. I

<v Speaker 1>would be very surprised if it was just Nashville. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>no offense to Nashville. I'm sure it's a beautiful city,

<v Speaker 1>but he's talking about this like, wait until you find

<v Speaker 1>out where this is going to be. And it's like

<v Speaker 1>if they announced New Orleans or they announced in Nashville,

<v Speaker 1>it's like, oh, all right. Like I heard that, my

<v Speaker 1>first thought was London, and I'm sure there's a lot

<v Speaker 1>of UK fans out there dying for a WrestleMania They

<v Speaker 1>were also hoping and are still hoping for the same thing.

<v Speaker 1>The more I think about it, though, do you really

<v Speaker 1>think that WWE would want to run back to back

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania is outside the US. I mean, it would be

<v Speaker 1>hard for me to imagine that coming out of Ria.

<v Speaker 1>They wouldn't want to bring it back here and then

<v Speaker 1>maybe after that go back overseas. But then again, I

<v Speaker 1>mean they're motivated by money. They would run Saudi Arabia

<v Speaker 1>and Uzbekistan back to back if the offer was big enough.

<v Speaker 1>TKO Financial Officer Chief financial Officer Andrew Schleimer spoke at

<v Speaker 1>the town hall about the company's use of AI. This

<v Speaker 1>became a big story during the week. Yeah, I saw

<v Speaker 1>the company's use of AI myself when I saw that

<v Speaker 1>Tsaria and sol Ruca segment from NXT on Tuesday Night.

<v Speaker 1>They were doing Tuesday Night Titans on JD's channel, and

<v Speaker 1>everybody in the chat was like, this is terrible AI

<v Speaker 1>soul Ruka. I'm like, what, like, is there a fucking

<v Speaker 1>hologram or something on TV of sol Ruka. So I

<v Speaker 1>went back and I watched it after and dude, it's

<v Speaker 1>fucking terrible. It looked like something out of a video game.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't even look like her. Then the sees are

<v Speaker 1>partying for AI. It looked like something that James Cameron

<v Speaker 1>would put together, although he would want to have nothing

<v Speaker 1>to do with WWE, I'm sure. And it's like, really

<v Speaker 1>like this, this is the future of vignettes on these

<v Speaker 1>television shows. You have all of this money, and you

<v Speaker 1>have all of this talent, and you resort to this

<v Speaker 1>bullshit for your heype packages. I mean, we're not talking

<v Speaker 1>about a graphic or a thumbnail or anything like that.

<v Speaker 1>We're talking about a full ass promo video. I don't

<v Speaker 1>really understand what the purpose of this is. It just

<v Speaker 1>looks fucking terrible. But that's not the use of AI

<v Speaker 1>that we're necessarily talking about here. Andrew Schleimer. He noted

<v Speaker 1>that they've only run tests and pilots and are still

<v Speaker 1>in the early stages of their usage of AI when

<v Speaker 1>it comes to WWE. He cited the use of AI

<v Speaker 1>for data and analytics on WWE and UFC consumers, as

<v Speaker 1>well as minor uses to enhance broadcasts. Mark Shapiro called

<v Speaker 1>the company's embrace of AI a major priority, emphasizing how

<v Speaker 1>AI could help employees become more efficient and productive, and

<v Speaker 1>he noted how the UFC uses AI for fighter rankings

<v Speaker 1>and explain We's use of it this way, Nick Con

<v Speaker 1>and Triple H are using AI for storylines with WWE.

<v Speaker 1>What's resonating, what superstars are resonating, what pockets of the

<v Speaker 1>country are they resonating. That helps us with obviously our content,

<v Speaker 1>our editorial, our creative our mapping, our touring, and of

<v Speaker 1>course maximizing revenue and getting our product out to the

<v Speaker 1>fans most in need of it, most in need of it.

<v Speaker 1>Nobody needs WWE, that's number one. WWE. It's like when

<v Speaker 1>they were one of the only businesses to be deemed

<v Speaker 1>an essential business in the pandemic. Give me a fucking break.

<v Speaker 1>I don't care what your thoughts were about, you know,

<v Speaker 1>wrestling going on during the pandemic, And look as somebody

<v Speaker 1>who covers this for a living and is also a fan.

<v Speaker 1>I was very grateful to have wrestling when there wasn't

<v Speaker 1>anything else going on. All the other sports were shut down,

<v Speaker 1>other television shows were in reruns, right Hollywood shut down.

<v Speaker 1>As a wrestling fan and a content creator, it was

<v Speaker 1>great that we had wrestle during the pandemic. But like

<v Speaker 1>in the State of Florida, the idea that you would

<v Speaker 1>deem WWE in essential business is a fucking farce. You

<v Speaker 1>have to admit that nobody needs WWE. But I knew

<v Speaker 1>this was going to make headlines here, and sure enough

<v Speaker 1>it did. And you have all these people who were like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>this is proof that WWE is using AI to you know,

<v Speaker 1>write their storylines. And that's not how I read this,

<v Speaker 1>you know, I read this as they're using it for analytics.

<v Speaker 1>They're using it for you know, to determine what's working

<v Speaker 1>and what's not, what's what's resonating, as Shapiro said, with

<v Speaker 1>audiences and what's not. They're not actually utilizing AI in

<v Speaker 1>the writer's room to write the stories themselves. Although as

<v Speaker 1>bad as their television is gotten, I can see why

<v Speaker 1>people would think that they have AI writing their shows,

<v Speaker 1>But this is not the big you know, breaking news story.

<v Speaker 1>I think some people were making it out to be,

<v Speaker 1>which is not to say that at some point we

<v Speaker 1>won't hear the They are starting to sort of toy

<v Speaker 1>with that. I mean, I think in the past they've

<v Speaker 1>said that they kind of toyed with it just to

<v Speaker 1>see what the output would be and it was fucking terrible.

<v Speaker 1>But no, we're not yet at the stage where they're

<v Speaker 1>just having AI write all of their storylines for them.

<v Speaker 1>And if you're someone who works for WWE as a writer,

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure that you are pushing back on that very hard,

<v Speaker 1>because the last thing you want is for AI to

<v Speaker 1>take your job away from you, which is happening unfortunately

<v Speaker 1>in a lot of other industries right now. Some other

<v Speaker 1>news here, all future nxtplees have found a new home,

<v Speaker 1>actually two new homes. First, the CW Network and WWE

<v Speaker 1>announced that all NXT premium live events will be airing

<v Speaker 1>exclusively on the CW, beginning with the Great American Bash

<v Speaker 1>later this summer. The CW will broadcast twenty plees in

<v Speaker 1>their entirety live on both coasts over the next several years,

<v Speaker 1>including Stand and Deliver, Deadline of Vengeance Day, with the

<v Speaker 1>addition of those ples. The network is now the exclusive

<v Speaker 1>home for all NXT programming, and that word exclusive is

<v Speaker 1>doing a lot of heavy lifting, because the day after

<v Speaker 1>this was announced, came word that those same plees, as

<v Speaker 1>well as the weekly NXTCW show, will also be available

<v Speaker 1>on ESPN Unlimited for domestic subscribers. This is part of

<v Speaker 1>a deal for all CW sports programming to air on

<v Speaker 1>ESPN Unlimited, so basically those two parties made their own deal.

<v Speaker 1>Can it really be NXT's exclusive home though? If they're

<v Speaker 1>airing in two different places, that's not really what exclusive means.

<v Speaker 1>The NXT events will stay on the ESPN Unlimited service

<v Speaker 1>for thirty days and then they will disappear, so they

<v Speaker 1>won't be archived there for very long, but you will

<v Speaker 1>still be able to find them on the CW's streaming service.

<v Speaker 1>You know. Stand and Deliver aired on WWE's YouTube channel,

<v Speaker 1>and the live numbers were not great. Was somewhere in

<v Speaker 1>the one hundred and fifty thousand range, although last I checked,

<v Speaker 1>the video was now up over eight hundred thousand views. Selfishly,

<v Speaker 1>I wish they would have kept it on YouTube like

<v Speaker 1>they do with those weekly Triple A shows because it's

<v Speaker 1>free and it allows for easier access. But I mean,

<v Speaker 1>whatever they're making off the deal with CW is obviously

<v Speaker 1>more than they think they will make off of the

<v Speaker 1>ad revenue from YouTube. Those Google ad Sense checks just

<v Speaker 1>weren't going to cut it for them, I guess. But

<v Speaker 1>the bigger programming news of the week was SmackDown moving

<v Speaker 1>back to two hours. Bodyslam dot Net broke the news

<v Speaker 1>saying sources indicate to body Slam that Smackdom will be

<v Speaker 1>leaving the three hour format and going back to two

<v Speaker 1>hours in a few weeks. Excuse me as I do

<v Speaker 1>my happy dance. I'm gonna do the Dance of Joy.

<v Speaker 1>All you Perfect Strangers fans, you remember Balki and the

<v Speaker 1>Dance of Joy. I'm doing it right now. You just

<v Speaker 1>can't see it. Brian Alvarez on X said, WWE's contract

<v Speaker 1>with USA Network stipulates three hour shows from January until

<v Speaker 1>the end of June every year, so this will be

<v Speaker 1>an ongoing thing, and we have two more months of

<v Speaker 1>three hour shows to survive. July through the end of

<v Speaker 1>December will be two hours. So the first three hour

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown that was in January of twenty twenty five, and

<v Speaker 1>it was on July fourth last year that the show

<v Speaker 1>reverted back to the two hour format, and then again

<v Speaker 1>this year at the beginning of January it went right

<v Speaker 1>back to three hours. So this is going to be

<v Speaker 1>an ongoing thing every year, which sucks. But I'll take

<v Speaker 1>my victories where I can get them. Two more months

<v Speaker 1>of this shit, but then we'll be back to two

<v Speaker 1>hours on Fridays, which means I can go live on

<v Speaker 1>YouTube an hour earlier. Of course, the thing of it

<v Speaker 1>is as great as this news is, as happy as

<v Speaker 1>I am. This does not mean the show is going

<v Speaker 1>to all of a sudden get better, but I will

<v Speaker 1>always say it, two hours of bad television is always

<v Speaker 1>going to be better than three hours of bad television.

<v Speaker 1>At the end of the day, it still comes down

<v Speaker 1>to creative It comes down to the talent that you have,

<v Speaker 1>the hand that you have to play. Who is availed

<v Speaker 1>and what are we going to do with them? Whether

<v Speaker 1>the show is an hour, two hours, three hout I

<v Speaker 1>was going to say four hours. I don't want to

<v Speaker 1>give them any ideas no matter how long the show is.

<v Speaker 1>What dictates how great the show is or how terrible

<v Speaker 1>the show is is how are you utilizing the talents

<v Speaker 1>that you have at your disposal, what are the stories

<v Speaker 1>that you are telling, Who are you pushing, who are

<v Speaker 1>you not? This doesn't change any of that. What it

<v Speaker 1>does do it takes an hour away, which means there

<v Speaker 1>may be certain talents who ordinarily would get a spot

<v Speaker 1>on the show who now either won't or it's going

<v Speaker 1>to be a lot harder for them. And I got

<v Speaker 1>a couple of comments, not too many, but a couple

<v Speaker 1>of comments. You know, Oh, the hypocrisy of criticizing the

<v Speaker 1>company for releasing talents, but then you're happy that there's

<v Speaker 1>one less hour of TV. And I always say it

<v Speaker 1>comes down to this, You're never going to be able

<v Speaker 1>to get it, except maybe you're very very top guys.

<v Speaker 1>You're never going to be able to get everybody that

<v Speaker 1>you want to on the show every single week. Not

<v Speaker 1>everybody has to be on the show every single week.

<v Speaker 1>There is a way you look at the active roster.

<v Speaker 1>You decide, Okay, what talents do we want to use,

<v Speaker 1>what stories are going on, and then you rotate talents

<v Speaker 1>in and out as needed. That might mean every other week.

<v Speaker 1>It might mean that somebody shows up for three weeks

<v Speaker 1>Missus two and then comes back whatever they are able

<v Speaker 1>to come up with, there is a way to rotate

<v Speaker 1>people in and out as opposed to I don't know.

<v Speaker 1>I'll just throw a name out there for you, someone

<v Speaker 1>like Ray Phoenix on SmackDown, who simply never shows up

<v Speaker 1>on the show. Do you honestly believe that if SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>was going to continue to be three hours until the

<v Speaker 1>end of the year, that all of a sudden, Ray

<v Speaker 1>Phoenix is going to magically show up on the show

<v Speaker 1>every single week? Where is he now? The show has

<v Speaker 1>been three hours for many months. What were they doing

<v Speaker 1>with the MotorCity machine guns before they fired them? What

<v Speaker 1>are they doing right now with Ray Phoenix? What are

<v Speaker 1>they doing with Los Garza, all these middle of the

<v Speaker 1>card people right now? That some of these folks who

<v Speaker 1>post shit like this are like, oh yoh, the hypocrisy

<v Speaker 1>of it. What about these folks who are not going

<v Speaker 1>to have that extra hour of television time? What does

<v Speaker 1>that mean if they're not being used anyway, It's an

<v Speaker 1>hour less for them to be sitting on their ass

<v Speaker 1>in the back. It doesn't change anything. So yes, I

<v Speaker 1>would much rather the show be two hours than three hours.

<v Speaker 1>They still have to get their shit together and figure

<v Speaker 1>it how to actually used these people. I see Ray

<v Speaker 1>Phoenix now wants to challenge for one of the championships

<v Speaker 1>in TRIPLEA good. I hope they put the belt on him.

<v Speaker 1>I hope they do. At least there he'll be used

<v Speaker 1>because it's not like he's doing anything on SmackDown right now.

<v Speaker 1>This won't change that. No CM Punk on WWE television

<v Speaker 1>this week. He was not on Raw, he was not

<v Speaker 1>on SmackDown. But we're still talking about his very eventful

<v Speaker 1>trip to Las Vegas where he had that outstanding main

<v Speaker 1>event on Night two of WrestleMania, lost his World Heavyweight

<v Speaker 1>Championship to Roman Reigns, and apparently had a few other

<v Speaker 1>matches that we were not aware of. Because now there

<v Speaker 1>is a second fan that is a QCM Punk of

<v Speaker 1>shoving him in Las Vegas over WrestleMania a weekend. Now,

<v Speaker 1>shortly after WrestleMania their there were reports that came out

<v Speaker 1>about Punk slapping, and we saw the video of Punk

<v Speaker 1>slapping a phone out of a fan's hand in the

<v Speaker 1>lobby of had to be the MGM Grand because they

<v Speaker 1>were filming his wife and Bailey. They were kind of

<v Speaker 1>hugging and saying goodbye to each other, and this person

<v Speaker 1>was following them around for a period of time, and

<v Speaker 1>Punk saw this and he went over and he slapped

<v Speaker 1>the fucking phone out of the guy's hand because he

<v Speaker 1>was right up in their shit. Well. TMZ is now

<v Speaker 1>reporting that a separate incident in Las Vegas led to

<v Speaker 1>another fan calling nine to one one on Punk. On Friday,

<v Speaker 1>TMZ published audio from a nine to one to one

<v Speaker 1>call placed on Monday, April twenty at featuring a man

<v Speaker 1>speaking in Spanish and communicating through an interpreter. In the audio,

<v Speaker 1>he accuses Punk of pushing him and chopping him in

<v Speaker 1>the chest. So, so I was here waiting for the

<v Speaker 1>WWE Superstars, and I was trying to get a picture

<v Speaker 1>and maybe an autograph from them. When I got close

<v Speaker 1>the star CM, Punk pushes me and chops me from

<v Speaker 1>my chest. Man said this took place at twelve thirty

<v Speaker 1>in the morning at the MGM Grand He also stated

<v Speaker 1>that he did not need medical attention. When asked if

<v Speaker 1>he felt Punk was intoxicated, which is just fucking hilarious,

<v Speaker 1>the man replied that his face was red and his

<v Speaker 1>eyesight was full of anger. His eyesight was full of

<v Speaker 1>Now I mean this was translated to it interpreted, and

<v Speaker 1>I'm wondering if this article was translated from fucking AI

<v Speaker 1>asked if Punk had a weapon, the man responded none,

<v Speaker 1>He only had a briefcase on his left hand. The

<v Speaker 1>idea of an intoxicated yet straight edge CM Punk wandering

<v Speaker 1>the lobby of the MGM Grand after this epic WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>main event, because this would have been that night, early

<v Speaker 1>in the morning, and he's walking around just filled with

<v Speaker 1>rage and drugs and booze and god knows what else.

<v Speaker 1>And this poor guy was just trying to mind his

<v Speaker 1>own business and get a photo in an autograph and

<v Speaker 1>CM Punk comes over and chops him in the chest.

<v Speaker 1>He called nine to one one for this. This is

<v Speaker 1>what people are calling nine to one one for. They're

<v Speaker 1>calling the cops for what? Because you were an asshole.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, look, I've taken Punk to task before for

<v Speaker 1>beating up coworkers, but I'm I'm on his side when

<v Speaker 1>it comes to this stuff. Now, we don't have any

<v Speaker 1>video of what happened here, to be fair, although after

<v Speaker 1>seeing video from the first incident, I'm willing to bet

<v Speaker 1>that this guy hit He wanted autographs and photos yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure he was sitting there very or standing there

<v Speaker 1>very politely off to the side, waiting for his photo

<v Speaker 1>and his autograph. But here comes see I'm punk, filled

<v Speaker 1>with rage and drugs, you know, roaming and ravaging through

<v Speaker 1>the lobby of the MGM grant looking for people to

<v Speaker 1>slap and punch and bump into me. A fucking break.

<v Speaker 1>Call nine one one for real emergencies. Okay, don't call

<v Speaker 1>nine one one for this bullshit. Don't be like this moron. Now,

<v Speaker 1>he wasn't on TV this week. Roman reigns and Jacob

<v Speaker 1>fought too. They were though. I got another segment between

<v Speaker 1>them the end of Raw Monday Night, and Jacob actually

<v Speaker 1>put the Tonguan death grip on Roman rains. They're actually

<v Speaker 1>building this up as like a big finish, so this

<v Speaker 1>is going to play into their match now with backlash,

<v Speaker 1>and he puts Roman down with he didn't you know,

<v Speaker 1>knock him out or anything, but he just physically put

<v Speaker 1>him down on the mat with the Tonguan death grip

<v Speaker 1>and Roman looked like he was sweat and bullets. Now,

<v Speaker 1>apparently I found out after the fact that there was

<v Speaker 1>some sort of issue with the air conditioning in the

<v Speaker 1>venue on Monday night, So that may have had something

<v Speaker 1>to do with why Roman was. I mean, he just

<v Speaker 1>went from standing there to one tonguan death grip. Later

<v Speaker 1>he looked like he was just dripping buckets and then

<v Speaker 1>he grabbed the mic and he said Jacob. He yelled

<v Speaker 1>for Jacob, who was on his way out of the building,

<v Speaker 1>and he says, you want me a backlash, He got

<v Speaker 1>me a backlash. And the fans are booing Jacob fatu.

<v Speaker 1>They were booing him. Why. I don't know, other than

<v Speaker 1>they are just brainwashed that Roman reigns. He's the OTC

<v Speaker 1>and you know, he's the best thing since sliced bread,

<v Speaker 1>and so we have to boo Anybody who comes after

<v Speaker 1>Roman reigns now has to be booed. I guess. So

<v Speaker 1>that that was very weird. Now. Jacob was back on

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown again also on Friday, but before the show, WWE

<v Speaker 1>posted video on their social media of him on the

<v Speaker 1>phone backstage with a mystery caller. Stop me. If you've

<v Speaker 1>heard this shit before, it's just it's unbelievable. They really

<v Speaker 1>are creatively bankrupt. All they do is run the same

<v Speaker 1>shit back over and over and over again. But after

<v Speaker 1>a while people stop expecting a different result, I mean

<v Speaker 1>the usual engagement farming accounts of course, will post their

<v Speaker 1>typical slop. You know who's on the phone with the

<v Speaker 1>little googly eyes emoji or a fire emoji. Oh we're

<v Speaker 1>eating good tonight, this is fire, let them cook. Shut

<v Speaker 1>the fuck up. Oh it's this person. Oh it's that person.

<v Speaker 1>It's xilophad too. Do you realize they never resolve the

<v Speaker 1>last mystery angle they did with Jacob for who kicked

<v Speaker 1>his teeth out? I mean he accused Drew McIntyre. Drew

<v Speaker 1>always denied it. We still never got confirmation of what

<v Speaker 1>happened with that angle. Now they're running another mystery angle

<v Speaker 1>with him now. The key to happiness in life is

<v Speaker 1>to find someone who loves you as much as Triple

<v Speaker 1>H loves his mystery angles. Last time it was Pat

<v Speaker 1>McAfee on the phone. Maybe this time it can be

<v Speaker 1>Stephen A. Smith. I see he's been in the news lately.

<v Speaker 1>There's lots of celebrities out there for them to choose

<v Speaker 1>from for their next crappy storyline. Also on Monday, we

<v Speaker 1>had not one, but two open challenge or challenge announcements.

<v Speaker 1>We had an actual open challenge with Becky Lynch, who

<v Speaker 1>ended up putting her Intercontinental title on the line against Eosky,

<v Speaker 1>and they had a very good match. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>if that gimmick is going to continue. It should not

<v Speaker 1>because later in the show, Oba Femi after his very

<v Speaker 1>quick battle with Grayson Waller and now without New Day

<v Speaker 1>there if I'm Grace and Waller maybe out answering my phone.

<v Speaker 1>But Oba Femi got on the mic and he said,

<v Speaker 1>from now on, we're gonna start the Oba Femi Open Challenge.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know why you would want to have two

<v Speaker 1>open challenges on the same show. The Oba one would

<v Speaker 1>trump the Becky one. So if they're going to continue

<v Speaker 1>to do this, hopefully they'll get rid of the Becky

<v Speaker 1>one and they'll just do the Oba one. And it's like,

<v Speaker 1>you know, the week before, Trick Williams and Lil YACHTI

<v Speaker 1>were on SmackDown talking about the end of the US

<v Speaker 1>Title Open Challenge, and as soon as they end one,

<v Speaker 1>they pop up with two fucking more. You can't win.

<v Speaker 1>You just can't win. I'm not even really against the

<v Speaker 1>idea of doing one with Oba Femi. I'm against the

<v Speaker 1>idea of doing them as much as they do them,

<v Speaker 1>but doing one with Obafemi is not like the worst

<v Speaker 1>idea in the world. And I pitched this the other day.

<v Speaker 1>You know, Wwe just confirmed Night of champions for Saudi

<v Speaker 1>Arabia at the end of June, as they did last year,

<v Speaker 1>and we had the finals of the King and Queen

<v Speaker 1>of the Ring on that show, right, Cody beat Randy

<v Speaker 1>become King of the Ring. I think this year that

<v Speaker 1>spot should belong to me and then it should be

<v Speaker 1>Oba Femi challenging Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight title

<v Speaker 1>at SummerSlam, and you go with the Brock push, because

<v Speaker 1>if anybody was worthy of the Brock Push, I would

<v Speaker 1>say Obafemi he fits that bill. Some people think it

<v Speaker 1>might be too soon. Look, if you wanted to hold

<v Speaker 1>off until Wrestle Many in next year, fine, that's that's great.

<v Speaker 1>But my question would be, especially under this current creative regime,

<v Speaker 1>what do you do with Obafemi over the next year.

<v Speaker 1>If he is not being featured in the World Championship picture,

<v Speaker 1>then what realistically do you have him doing on the show.

<v Speaker 1>I don't trust these people. They've done right by him

<v Speaker 1>so far, but that could go south very quickly. There's

<v Speaker 1>nothing wrong with taking somebody that you really believe in

<v Speaker 1>and you see is the next big thing and pushing

<v Speaker 1>him to the mood. It doesn't have to be a backlash.

<v Speaker 1>But SummerSlam is still a few months away. There is

<v Speaker 1>time to build him up for that. It's an idea now.

<v Speaker 1>On SmackDown, Ricky Saints made his main roster debut and

<v Speaker 1>he came out at the beginning of the show to

<v Speaker 1>interrupt Cody Rhodes. Ricky Saint ain't going to be beating

<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhods anytime soon to win the WWE Championship. He

<v Speaker 1>came out there they were in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He did

<v Speaker 1>not get a great reception. He got a very lukewarm reception.

<v Speaker 1>So maybe not the best place to debut him. But

<v Speaker 1>I do like the idea of pairing him up right

<v Speaker 1>out of the gate in a big segment with your

<v Speaker 1>top star. I mean, they've done this a lot recently,

<v Speaker 1>Live Morgan in Soul Ruk as an example, Rhea Ripley

<v Speaker 1>and J. C. Jane, even Brock and Oba. Right, you're

<v Speaker 1>trying to establish the new Guard as big players and

<v Speaker 1>people that the fans should want to see as opposed

<v Speaker 1>to just debuting them the traditional way against lower level talents,

<v Speaker 1>which I still think you can do. By the way,

<v Speaker 1>you don't have not everybody can debut against the world

<v Speaker 1>champion in their first match, but like they've done this

<v Speaker 1>a lot recently. Jacy Jane even got a pinfall win

<v Speaker 1>on Friday over Charlotte Flair, and good for her. Jac

<v Speaker 1>Jane is very good. But the match between Cody and Ricky,

<v Speaker 1>they made a match after the opening promo segment. They

<v Speaker 1>made a match between them, non title obviously for later

<v Speaker 1>on in the show. Ricky took up brutal landing on

<v Speaker 1>that Crossroads for the finish before he got pinned, And yes,

<v Speaker 1>he got pinned, but it's fine. It's Cody Rhodes, It's

<v Speaker 1>the WWE champion. If you expected any other outcome here,

<v Speaker 1>you're an idiot. But he took a crossroads and man,

<v Speaker 1>the way he landed, you know, this guy already broke

<v Speaker 1>his neck once. I didn't need to see it twice.

<v Speaker 1>That was brutal. But then as soon as the match

<v Speaker 1>is over, Gunther shows up and he attacks Cody and

<v Speaker 1>puts him down with a sleeperhold. He picks up the

<v Speaker 1>wwee Championship and he holds it high above his head.

<v Speaker 1>And it makes me wonder because there were some murmurs

<v Speaker 1>about this, not just storyline, but that Randy Orton may

<v Speaker 1>have an injury. He may have a legitimate injury of

<v Speaker 1>some kind coming out of WrestleMania. He may have had

<v Speaker 1>one going into WrestleMania. We don't know, And I just

<v Speaker 1>I think about that now because to not follow up

<v Speaker 1>on that punt kick from the end of Night one

<v Speaker 1>would be creative malpractice unless they were forced to pivot

<v Speaker 1>away from Orton into something else, because otherwise it just

<v Speaker 1>doesn't make any sense. Cody is still wearing the wounds

<v Speaker 1>on his face, he still has a black eye. They're

<v Speaker 1>crediting it to the punk kick. Again. I didn't think

<v Speaker 1>it happened with the punk kick. It happened with one

<v Speaker 1>of the punches that Orton threw at him in the match.

<v Speaker 1>But still he got punk kicked in the fucking skull.

<v Speaker 1>If not backlash, you would have expected that to be

<v Speaker 1>the clash in Italy match, and that clearly is not

<v Speaker 1>going to happen now, which makes me think Randy might

<v Speaker 1>be heard and also gunther the idea that Randy's not

<v Speaker 1>heard they're just giving Cody something to do until they're

<v Speaker 1>ready to plug Randy back in there. Gunther, of all

<v Speaker 1>people should not be used as a placeholder contender for

<v Speaker 1>somebody else. So then moving on to Cody, and Gunther

<v Speaker 1>tells me Orton is going to be gone for a

<v Speaker 1>while now. The question is is this the favor that

<v Speaker 1>Paul Hayman owes to Gunther. Hayman, you could see him

<v Speaker 1>in the background on Friday night. He was speaking with

<v Speaker 1>Nick all this earlier in the show during one of

<v Speaker 1>the backstage segments. Maybe it's not so much that he

<v Speaker 1>got him a title match, because Hayman would have I mean,

<v Speaker 1>he would have no such power to get that done.

<v Speaker 1>He's not even on SmackDown. Why would all this give

<v Speaker 1>a shit? Maybe it's as simple as he got Gunther

<v Speaker 1>a transfer from Raw to SmackDown and he is now

<v Speaker 1>full time on Friday nights, because why waste a favor

<v Speaker 1>on trying to get him a title match. Cody Roach

<v Speaker 1>just gave a whole last speech the other week, welcoming

<v Speaker 1>people to step up to him. Right, I'm not hard

<v Speaker 1>to find, but I'm hard to beat. Right, isn't that

<v Speaker 1>what he said? It's like his new catchphrase. Why the

<v Speaker 1>fuck would gun There need Paul Hayman to get him

<v Speaker 1>a title match when he could just ask for one himself.

<v Speaker 1>A transfer to SmackDown that would make a little bit

<v Speaker 1>more sense. And if that's the case, then you've got

<v Speaker 1>to move Jacob fought To over to Raw full time

<v Speaker 1>after Backlash. It's got to be an even swap. Raw

<v Speaker 1>has to get something in return if they lose gun there,

<v Speaker 1>because right now we have someone from SmackDown challenging for

<v Speaker 1>the World Heavyweight title on Raw, and we have someone

<v Speaker 1>from Raw going after the WWE Championship on SmackDown. None

<v Speaker 1>of this shit makes any sense. This sounds to me

<v Speaker 1>like they got some bad news about Randy Orton and

<v Speaker 1>they had to make a quick change. Because on Monday,

<v Speaker 1>we saw La Night backstage interrupt a Gunther promo like

<v Speaker 1>they were teasing a Gunther La Night match, and Gunther

<v Speaker 1>was also talking about wanting to be the World Heavyweight Champion.

<v Speaker 1>Now all of a sudden, he's attacking the WWEE champion

<v Speaker 1>on SmackDown, and I'm sure La Knight somewhere breeds a

<v Speaker 1>sigh of relief. Disaster is averted for him, But that's

<v Speaker 1>a pretty sudden change, and if they had a pivot

<v Speaker 1>to somebody else, I don't hate the move, because it's

<v Speaker 1>not like they had anybody else lined up for Cody

<v Speaker 1>right now. Gunther wasn't challenging Roman Reigns anytime soon, and

<v Speaker 1>he wasn't getting in the ring anytime soon with Obafemi.

<v Speaker 1>A move to SmackDown is not a bad thing. It

<v Speaker 1>also would put him on the same brand with Iliadre.

<v Speaker 1>I'm just saying. I'm just saying, but that makes it

<v Speaker 1>very interesting now who wins the match, because Gunther has

<v Speaker 1>not taken a loss since they started the whole career

<v Speaker 1>killer gimmick. I hate that gimmick. I would be happy

<v Speaker 1>for them to move away from it, But for him

<v Speaker 1>to fight Cody and lose, I don't see what that accomplishes.

<v Speaker 1>He has to win, even if all it does is

<v Speaker 1>set up Cody to win the belt back from him

<v Speaker 1>at Summer Slim. Moving Gunther over to SmackDown just to

<v Speaker 1>wrestle Cody and lose again, because remember Cody already beat

<v Speaker 1>him once at Crown Jewel a couple of years ago.

<v Speaker 1>I don't see how that makes any sense, But I

<v Speaker 1>could see this headlining Clash in Italy on the thirty first,

<v Speaker 1>and I think if they do that match as I

<v Speaker 1>sit here now, and we'll let the story play out

<v Speaker 1>over the next week and find out if he is

<v Speaker 1>full time on SmackDown of what's going on. But I

<v Speaker 1>look at that and I go, that's got to be

<v Speaker 1>a gunther win right there. Let's talk about backlash. Backlash

<v Speaker 1>is this coming Saturday in Tampa, with the first hour

<v Speaker 1>kicking off at six Eastern simulcasting live on ESPN two.

<v Speaker 1>We have five matches currently scheduled. Let's assume they have

<v Speaker 1>two on that first ESPN hour. And let's say you're

<v Speaker 1>one of those people who doesn't get ESPN Unlimited for free,

<v Speaker 1>like this guy here, they expect you to pay thirty

<v Speaker 1>bucks for the other three matches. You can fuck right

<v Speaker 1>off with that. You have got to be out of

<v Speaker 1>your mind now. One match that I would have assumed

<v Speaker 1>was going to be on the Backlash card if you

<v Speaker 1>would have told me or asked me coming out of WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>and now we know that it will not be Stephanie

<v Speaker 1>Vequer against liv Morgan because they wrote Stephanie off television

<v Speaker 1>on Monday night. She has a legitimate sprain of her

<v Speaker 1>ac joint in her shoulder, so she's going to be

<v Speaker 1>out for a little bit. I didn't read anything about

<v Speaker 1>her needing surgery or anything like that, but Wrestle Votes

<v Speaker 1>Radio did have a report that the internal speculation is

<v Speaker 1>that she could be out for a minimum of six weeks.

<v Speaker 1>That's a minimum, and there is said to be optims

<v Speaker 1>and that she could be back in time for Summer Slam.

<v Speaker 1>SummerSlam is the very beginning, like first and second day,

<v Speaker 1>I think of August, so she's gonna miss a chunk

<v Speaker 1>of time. As of this moment, they'll live. Morgan is

<v Speaker 1>not on this show, but these are the matches that

<v Speaker 1>we know of. We know that EO Sky will finally

<v Speaker 1>get her one on one match with Osca. Now I've

<v Speaker 1>been looking forward to this match for a long time.

<v Speaker 1>I still think it's going to be a very good match.

<v Speaker 1>This will not hit quite the same way, though, because

<v Speaker 1>we are not going to be getting the payoff that

<v Speaker 1>we were all hoping to get unless they pull a

<v Speaker 1>last second Ron Killings on us here and then Kyrie

<v Speaker 1>makes a shocking appearance and helps EO win the match.

<v Speaker 1>You can't discount that one hundred percent, but that seems

<v Speaker 1>very unlikely at this point, so it's just hollow. You know,

<v Speaker 1>it'll be a good wrestling match. I'm still looking forward

<v Speaker 1>to it, but it's just, you know, it is what

<v Speaker 1>it is. You know there was a story there, now

<v Speaker 1>there isn't, and it's like, let's do the match and

<v Speaker 1>then coming out of the match, I guess we'll just

<v Speaker 1>kind of move into a different direction with these two women.

<v Speaker 1>But I'm going with EO for the win. Dan Housen

<v Speaker 1>was laid out by them Is and Kit Wilson on

<v Speaker 1>SMACKD on Friday night, and he is going to have

<v Speaker 1>to find a partner, a partner of his, choosing for

<v Speaker 1>a tag team match against the Miz and Kit Wilson. Now,

<v Speaker 1>this feels like a spot designed for Royce Keys to

<v Speaker 1>step in and whoop some ass. Instead we'll get jelly roll.

<v Speaker 1>Either way, Team Housen wins. I don't mind the Dan

<v Speaker 1>Housen stuff, but fucking hellman, Like, there is not a

<v Speaker 1>single women's title match on this show, women's world titles

<v Speaker 1>or mid card titles, but they have time for this shit.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe they'll add Soul Ruka against liv Morgan tomorrow night

<v Speaker 1>on Raw. Maybe they'll add that to the pl I

<v Speaker 1>don't know. Soul is on the show tomorrow night. She's

<v Speaker 1>gonna be signing her raw contract. But when you really

<v Speaker 1>think about it, right, four women's championships, not counting the

<v Speaker 1>tag belts, and not a single one announced for this show.

<v Speaker 1>But they have time for this. We have sammy's Ain

<v Speaker 1>challenging Trick Williams for the United States Championship on SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>Friday night. I didn't again watch the show live because

<v Speaker 1>I was coming home from Los Angeles after the Hog Show,

<v Speaker 1>so I watched SmackDown after the fact. I was not

<v Speaker 1>aware of the gingerbread stuff. This was all new to

<v Speaker 1>me when I watched the show back and I see

<v Speaker 1>Sammy Zain in the ring with a giant gingerbread man.

<v Speaker 1>It's nobody's in the costume. I don't know what they

<v Speaker 1>had underneath, a pole or a mannequin, probably a mannequin,

<v Speaker 1>whatever it was. He beat the shit out of the

<v Speaker 1>gingerbread man was ripping shit off of his face, and

<v Speaker 1>Trick Williams, the United States Champion, had to do a

<v Speaker 1>run and he had to make the save for an

<v Speaker 1>inanimate object. And then later on in the back. They announced.

<v Speaker 1>They told Trick the trainer or the doctor, whoever it was,

<v Speaker 1>came out of the locker room and he wanted to know, no,

<v Speaker 1>what's his condition? What's up with the gingerbread Man? And

<v Speaker 1>the guy just shook his head. They did everything they could,

<v Speaker 1>they could not save the gingerbread Man. And then later

<v Speaker 1>in the show we had an in memoriam graphic rest

<v Speaker 1>in pieces for the gingerbread Man. Countless wrestlers that have

<v Speaker 1>actually worked for this company don't even get a graphic

<v Speaker 1>when they die, but the gingerbread Man he gets one.

<v Speaker 1>So now they're going to be doing a funeral I

<v Speaker 1>think on TV this week for the gingerbread Man. Yes,

<v Speaker 1>I will say. When they had Joe Tests and Wade

<v Speaker 1>Barrett at the booth narrating over the in memoriam graphic

<v Speaker 1>for the gingerbread Man, with that dramatic, sad solemn music

<v Speaker 1>playing in the background, I did find that amusing. That's

<v Speaker 1>about the only aspect of this that I found amusing.

<v Speaker 1>I am going to go in a way that is

<v Speaker 1>probably going to be different than most people. I think

<v Speaker 1>that Sammy's aing wins back the United States Championship. If

<v Speaker 1>I'm booking this, I'm putting the bell back on Sammy.

<v Speaker 1>I think you go with Sammy for the win, and

<v Speaker 1>I think you just continue to play this out. I'm

<v Speaker 1>trying to kind of revert back to the idea that

<v Speaker 1>I had for WrestleMania, or I thought Sammy should win there,

<v Speaker 1>and you drag this out, you stretch this out a

<v Speaker 1>little bit longer, and then you know, eventually you give

<v Speaker 1>Trick the win. Instead, they just put the belt on

<v Speaker 1>Trick in a very kind of nothing seven minute match

<v Speaker 1>on the card, and he got his moment and his

<v Speaker 1>parents were there and that's great, but it wasn't really

<v Speaker 1>anything special. And now I'm like, Okay, well they're still

<v Speaker 1>working together here, and they're still doing the angle with

<v Speaker 1>Sammy's ain where he's acting like a babyface or thinks

<v Speaker 1>he's a babyface, but the fans are booing him. Lean

<v Speaker 1>into that as much as possible. That's kind of what

<v Speaker 1>they did on Friday with having him beat up the

<v Speaker 1>gingerbread may right. Keep leaning into that, have him cheat,

<v Speaker 1>have him take a short cut, have him bust out

<v Speaker 1>some gingerbread cookies and hit Trick Williams in the fucking

<v Speaker 1>eye with one of them. When the referees not looking

<v Speaker 1>whatever it is, put the US title back on him

<v Speaker 1>and let Trick chase after him to try to get

<v Speaker 1>it back. You might even be able to stretch this

<v Speaker 1>out all the way to Summer Slim if you want.

<v Speaker 1>I'm not saying you have to go that far with it,

<v Speaker 1>but it's possibility. Right Summer Slam is a few months

<v Speaker 1>away to the beginning of May, I think, or the

<v Speaker 1>beginning of August. We're in the beginning of May. You

<v Speaker 1>could get away with it. To me, I think it

<v Speaker 1>would actually make things more interesting now if you put

<v Speaker 1>Trick in the position to Chase, and you would help

<v Speaker 1>solidify the babyface turn. He came out there on Friday

<v Speaker 1>Night and it's like, I'm still not sure exactly what

<v Speaker 1>he's supposed to be on this show. I think this

<v Speaker 1>would help kind of fill that role out a little

<v Speaker 1>bit more and help better define it by having him

<v Speaker 1>in Chase mode. So I'm going with Sammy's ain to

<v Speaker 1>win the United States Championship bron breaker and actually to

<v Speaker 1>go back to that for a second, you know what,

<v Speaker 1>if they do stretch this out to SummerSlam, it would

<v Speaker 1>remind me very much of the Randy Orton Christian feud

<v Speaker 1>from twenty eleven that also started around like late April

<v Speaker 1>right May, some time after WrestleMania went. Orton beat him

<v Speaker 1>to win the title, and they kind of went back

<v Speaker 1>and forth with it, but they got a few months

<v Speaker 1>out of it until the big payoff at Summer Slim.

<v Speaker 1>No reason you can't do the same thing here with

<v Speaker 1>Sammy's A and Trick Williams, Seth Rollins and bron Breaker.

<v Speaker 1>They had a face to face at the beginning of

<v Speaker 1>ron Monday Night, a promo segment. It was fine. It

<v Speaker 1>wasn't anything you know that you have to go out

<v Speaker 1>of your way to watch or anything. They both got

<v Speaker 1>their digs in at each other and they made the

<v Speaker 1>match official. I don't see this. I know Seth lost

<v Speaker 1>already at WrestleMania because of Braun. I don't see this

<v Speaker 1>as a match that bron Breaker could really afford to lose.

<v Speaker 1>You know, for him, it's his first match back from injury,

<v Speaker 1>and I don't see the benefit in having him go

<v Speaker 1>in there and lose to Seth Rollins at his first

<v Speaker 1>match back. I'm going with bron Breaker for the win,

<v Speaker 1>even though I don't expect this to be the end

<v Speaker 1>of this between them, but I'm going with Breaker for

<v Speaker 1>the win. And then in the main event, we have

<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Jacob Fatu.

<v Speaker 1>They ended up going to this a hell of a

<v Speaker 1>lot faster than anybody thought they would. I hate to

<v Speaker 1>see Jacob lose this. I don't think though, that he

<v Speaker 1>is walking out with the belt. I do think there

<v Speaker 1>is a path for that. The Ussos were curiously absent

<v Speaker 1>when Fa Tu put that Tonguan death grip on Roman

<v Speaker 1>on Monday Night, even though we know they were backstage

<v Speaker 1>they were there, they never came out to help Roman,

<v Speaker 1>and then multiple times on SmackDown over the last couple

<v Speaker 1>of weeks, the Ussos have come out during Jacob's segments,

<v Speaker 1>but they have kept them apart. They have not attacked

<v Speaker 1>each other. There's been no physicality with them. The setup

<v Speaker 1>is there for a shock title change and the USOS

<v Speaker 1>aligning with Jacob Fatu, a backlash, and then you have

<v Speaker 1>this which is only going to fuel that speculation. Roman

<v Speaker 1>Reigns is no longer being advertised for any raw dates

<v Speaker 1>in the month of June. He has been wiped from

<v Speaker 1>the calendar. Originally he was listed for Turin, Italy on

<v Speaker 1>June first, Paris, France on June eighth, Baltimore, Maryland on

<v Speaker 1>June fifteenth, and London, England on June twenty second. So Italy, France,

<v Speaker 1>Baltimore and London, which one of these is not like

<v Speaker 1>the other. That's kind of a random stop in the

<v Speaker 1>middle of an international tour. Don't you think let's just

<v Speaker 1>throw Baltimore in the middle of all of that? Now,

<v Speaker 1>Roman did say that we were going to see him

<v Speaker 1>full time through the summer, so it looks like that

<v Speaker 1>may no longer be the case. Something happened. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know what it is now. There are fans that are

<v Speaker 1>speculating that this was only done to make people think

<v Speaker 1>that font two was going to win the title of Backlash. No,

<v Speaker 1>I don't think that has anything to do with it,

<v Speaker 1>or else they would not have announced him for those

<v Speaker 1>dates in the first place and had people buying tickets

<v Speaker 1>thinking that they were going to be seeing Roman Reigns live.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's what this is now. There's also

<v Speaker 1>speculation on social media about TKO possibly asking Roman to

<v Speaker 1>take a pay cut like they did with The New Day,

<v Speaker 1>and he's actually dropping the belt to Jacob and leaving

<v Speaker 1>the company rather than restructuring his deal. They would never

<v Speaker 1>allow that to happen. The entire reason they even put

<v Speaker 1>the belt back on him in the first place is

<v Speaker 1>because they think he is one of the only real

<v Speaker 1>draws that they have and they want him front and

<v Speaker 1>center on these shows. You really think that they're gonna

<v Speaker 1>let him walk away? Come on, now, use your brain.

<v Speaker 1>I think there is definitely something going on with the USSOS.

<v Speaker 1>I just I can't sit here and predict a Jacob

<v Speaker 1>fought to title win. I think Roman keeps it and

<v Speaker 1>then whatever happens, I think they'll use it, you know, postmatch,

<v Speaker 1>they'll use it to further the bloodline stuff. But I'm

<v Speaker 1>going with Roman reigns to retain the World Heavyweight title,

<v Speaker 1>and that's the card as of right now. Still one

<v Speaker 1>Raw and one SmackDown left to go. They could potentially

<v Speaker 1>add a sixth match. I mean, I was just speculating

<v Speaker 1>maybe Live Morgan and soul Ruka gets set up just

<v Speaker 1>to get a women's title match on the show. They

<v Speaker 1>have none right now. Hopefully we'll get that six match, though.

<v Speaker 1>I will be on YouTube after the show for the

<v Speaker 1>live review on Saturday. This week's episode is sponsored by Wicks.

<v Speaker 1>I know there's quite a few of you who listen

<v Speaker 1>to this podcast who are small business owners as I am,

<v Speaker 1>and I don't have an active Detica website at the

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<v Speaker 1>jump back in feet first soon because wix Harmony is

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<v Speaker 1>free right now at wis dot com slash Harmony. That's

<v Speaker 1>Wicks dot com slash Harmony. TNA president Carlos Silva has

<v Speaker 1>commented on TNA pulling talent from independent matches recently. Last month,

<v Speaker 1>several matches involving wrestlers from TNA who were in the

<v Speaker 1>ring or supposed to be in the ring with people

<v Speaker 1>from AW they got pulled even though they were originally

<v Speaker 1>approved by both companies. That included the MJF Nick Nemath

<v Speaker 1>match that was planned for Creator Pro this weekend. In fact,

<v Speaker 1>I think that match was supposed to take place and

<v Speaker 1>Leon Slater against Ricochet at the Mark Hitchcock Memorial show

<v Speaker 1>over WrestleMania week. Those matches were canceled. There was another

<v Speaker 1>match I think planned involving Moose that was never announced

<v Speaker 1>but was also pulled. So Carlos Silva appeared on Sirius

<v Speaker 1>XM's Busted Open Radio on Wednesday and he was being

<v Speaker 1>interviewed by Dave Lagreca, and when asked why TNA talents

<v Speaker 1>were pulled from working with aw wrestlers on indies, he

<v Speaker 1>said this, All of these business decisions are tough. I

<v Speaker 1>don't like being called a little bitch on social media

<v Speaker 1>more than anybody else. But it's okay. You do take

<v Speaker 1>the good with the bad, and you've got to make

<v Speaker 1>some hard decisions. My job sometimes is to make hard

<v Speaker 1>decisions for the fans and all of you and Mike

<v Speaker 1>referring to Michael Bokikio, Wrestle Kan and our locker room,

<v Speaker 1>We're going to make decisions that are good for TNA.

<v Speaker 1>You've got to protect TNA. Now, by the way, let

<v Speaker 1>me stop there for a second. Michael Bokikio actually was

<v Speaker 1>interviewed about this, but I think by Poe's Wrestling shortly

<v Speaker 1>after they pulled Leon Slater from that match with Ricochet,

<v Speaker 1>and he was he was clearly angry. I mean, he

<v Speaker 1>was trying not to show it, but you could tell

<v Speaker 1>he was just fed up with the whole situation, and

<v Speaker 1>he admitted publicly he goes guys like Leon was not

<v Speaker 1>losing that match. So I ask you if Leon Slater

<v Speaker 1>was going in there and winning, or at least not

<v Speaker 1>losing to Ricochet. Then that was something, frankly that you know,

<v Speaker 1>would have been nice for Dave to follow up on

<v Speaker 1>and say, well, actually, you know, Michael kind of came

<v Speaker 1>out with his own interview and said that Leon wasn't

<v Speaker 1>losing that match. Now, maybe that's something that wasn't communicated

<v Speaker 1>to Carlos Silva. I find that hard to believe, but

<v Speaker 1>I suppose it's possible. But I would have loved to

<v Speaker 1>have seen a retort to that. And the follow up question,

<v Speaker 1>naturally would be how does that hurt TNA, if anything

<v Speaker 1>that would help DNA, But that question never got asked.

<v Speaker 1>But anyway, so Silva continued. He says, you know, Kevin

<v Speaker 1>Plank and under Armour used to say, you've got to

<v Speaker 1>protect this house. It's a real slogan. We've had some

<v Speaker 1>other folks come at us and they've moved into our nights.

<v Speaker 1>This is in reference to an episode of Collision recently

<v Speaker 1>airing on TNA Impacts Night of Thursday. Said they've made

<v Speaker 1>some decisions. They being aw they've tried to block us

<v Speaker 1>in arenas and venues. That stuff is real and it's

<v Speaker 1>out there. No it's not and it's okay because everyone's

<v Speaker 1>got to make decisions for their business. But we're also

<v Speaker 1>not just going to lie down and not make decisions

<v Speaker 1>that are good for our business. Unfortunately, sometimes those decisions

<v Speaker 1>are tough. We're very thoughtful about them, and we try

<v Speaker 1>to do the best we can to make good when

<v Speaker 1>we have to make those decisions. In the case of

<v Speaker 1>Nick and Leon and a few of the matches they

<v Speaker 1>had to get shut down, we tried to make good

<v Speaker 1>and make calls and take care of the businesses as

<v Speaker 1>best as we could. It was my decision, and I

<v Speaker 1>take full ownership. And that was basically the gist of

<v Speaker 1>the quote. Now, wrestle Khan Mike Bokikio did confirm that

<v Speaker 1>TNA reimbursed the promotion for Leon Slater's travel and hotel

<v Speaker 1>accommodations after that match got pulled, and good on them

<v Speaker 1>because that's the least they could do. But they did

<v Speaker 1>do that. They did at least reimburse them for that.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know as far as the people who bought

<v Speaker 1>tickets expecting to see that match, I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>there were people who as for refunds. There may have

<v Speaker 1>been a few. I don't know, and I don't know

<v Speaker 1>that TNA reimbursed those refund But you know, let me

<v Speaker 1>go back to this point that he made, because this

<v Speaker 1>is the second time now that he's made reference to

<v Speaker 1>folks moving in on their night. I don't buy this

<v Speaker 1>excuse at all. I think it's one hundred percent bullshit

<v Speaker 1>because this is not the first time recently that TNA

<v Speaker 1>has been faced with AAW running collision on a Thursday.

<v Speaker 1>It's not like collision on a Thursday is some new

<v Speaker 1>phenomenon that's never happened before. But for the last few weeks,

<v Speaker 1>the one time that it happened, and when it does happen,

<v Speaker 1>it's not Tony Kahan or AW saying hey, you know what,

<v Speaker 1>I think we should move collision to Thursday this week.

<v Speaker 1>Typically it's because they get bumped from the weekend because

<v Speaker 1>they have some sort of sporting event. And I would

<v Speaker 1>imagine it's ultimately not a Tony khn call. It it's

<v Speaker 1>a Warner Brothers Discovery call. It's or a TBS call

<v Speaker 1>or a TNT call or whatever it is. He makes

<v Speaker 1>it sound like this is something that's actively, you know,

<v Speaker 1>being done to harm impact by AW. And so the

<v Speaker 1>more he uses this excuse. I just sit here and

<v Speaker 1>I go, what is he covering for? Because it doesn't

<v Speaker 1>even make any sense to hold them responsible for a

<v Speaker 1>decision that's being made above their head does not hold water.

<v Speaker 1>Every time he says this, he mentions they've tried to

<v Speaker 1>block us in arenas and venues. That's new, that's something

<v Speaker 1>he's never said before. But he says it's out there.

<v Speaker 1>That's something that's real, and it's out there. No, it's not.

<v Speaker 1>That's the first time any of us have heard about this.

<v Speaker 1>If it's legitimate, it would have been nice to hear

<v Speaker 1>a little more information about that, even if there's specific

<v Speaker 1>venues or examples that he feels like he doesn't want

<v Speaker 1>to give. Again, I don't know why that wasn't a

<v Speaker 1>follow up question like oh really, like that's the first

<v Speaker 1>time we're hearing about this. Can you shed some more

<v Speaker 1>light on that? And that mean it's up to him

<v Speaker 1>whether or not he wants to answer the question. To me,

<v Speaker 1>that was the most interesting thing to come out of

<v Speaker 1>what he said there in that interview, and it was

<v Speaker 1>just sort of glossed over. It's like, how do you

<v Speaker 1>you know? Follow up on that? Let's find out some

<v Speaker 1>more information about that, and instead he just kind of

<v Speaker 1>spews it and he just goes on. I would find

<v Speaker 1>that very hard to believe, but I sure would love

<v Speaker 1>to know more about that if that sort of thing

<v Speaker 1>is happening. We've heard of WWE doing shit like that

<v Speaker 1>in the past. Now. Will Ospray recently spoke to Josh

<v Speaker 1>Martinez of Z one hundred Radio here in New York.

<v Speaker 1>He was asked about this whole situation. Ospray has worked

<v Speaker 1>for TNA in the past. He said, TNA, of all people,

<v Speaker 1>who the fuck do you think you guys are. I'm sorry,

<v Speaker 1>all the fucking talk that they were giving about being

<v Speaker 1>number two and you want to get permission for these

<v Speaker 1>guys to do that match and then pull them. I

<v Speaker 1>think that's cowardly shit. I think that says everything about

<v Speaker 1>what you view your talent, as you view them as

<v Speaker 1>less than aw talent, and that they don't want to

<v Speaker 1>grow and they don't want to develop, and they don't

<v Speaker 1>want to give back to the fans. So Silva spoke

<v Speaker 1>to Josh Martinez as well. Later on, he was asked

<v Speaker 1>about Ospray's comments, and this was his response. Business is business.

<v Speaker 1>Every pro wrestling business is going to protect themselves and

<v Speaker 1>we're going to continue to do that. What I would

<v Speaker 1>say to the fans is I got a lot of heat,

<v Speaker 1>and it's okay. The fans can bring the heat, but

<v Speaker 1>there is only one reason that I did it, and

<v Speaker 1>that was to protect TNA and have our house protected.

<v Speaker 1>If people are going to come at us, we're going

<v Speaker 1>to do things to protect TNA. We were asked when

<v Speaker 1>we were looking at our TV deal, what would be

<v Speaker 1>the best night. We started looking at all the nights,

<v Speaker 1>and we said, everyone has their nights. We're on Thursday night.

<v Speaker 1>We should be on Thursday night. So if someone is

<v Speaker 1>going to come on to Thursday Night against us, we're

<v Speaker 1>going to take that seriously. If someone is going to

<v Speaker 1>block us from going into a venue because they are

<v Speaker 1>not allowed to talk to us because another organization is there,

<v Speaker 1>we're going to take that seriously. That's the kind of

<v Speaker 1>stuff that happens. When I hear all of the chatter,

<v Speaker 1>I smile. It's okay, Will Osprey and everyone can come

<v Speaker 1>at me, but we're going to do what's best for TNA,

<v Speaker 1>our champions and the fans. So again he's still harping

<v Speaker 1>on the this whole thing about somebody else invading their

<v Speaker 1>space on Thursday, is if this was a decision that

<v Speaker 1>was made on the part of this company to try

<v Speaker 1>to destroy TNA and encroach on their territory. And if

<v Speaker 1>that really, I mean, like, if you take what he

<v Speaker 1>is saying here at face value and you say, Okay,

<v Speaker 1>the only reason that he did this is because of that,

<v Speaker 1>That's the dumbest fucking reason I could possibly think of.

<v Speaker 1>Hearing he had Matt Hardy, who was just in studio

<v Speaker 1>with Ariel Helwani this week. Matt Hardy's position is that

<v Speaker 1>he says, in his honest opinion, if we are partners

<v Speaker 1>with WWE, and WWE has kind of laid it out

<v Speaker 1>how we're working together with TNA, and AAW is kind

<v Speaker 1>of its own entity, we probably from that point on

<v Speaker 1>should have said, if you're doing any bookings, we probably

<v Speaker 1>shouldn't do TNA or TNAAW things, is what he's referring to.

<v Speaker 1>He says, that would have been my guess. These things happen,

<v Speaker 1>and I think in these finishes they had things that

<v Speaker 1>they were going to work work out for both parties.

<v Speaker 1>When it was all said and done, it probably should

<v Speaker 1>never have been set, is what I would say from

<v Speaker 1>the beginning, and I think going forward that would be

<v Speaker 1>the case now, and you know what, that's a perfectly

<v Speaker 1>legitimate opinion to have. If it's going to potentially create

<v Speaker 1>problems politically, then you're absolutely right, and from now on

<v Speaker 1>there should no longer be any TNA versus AW matches.

<v Speaker 1>That does not change the fact that these matches were approved. Basically,

<v Speaker 1>what he's saying is he would have handled it a

<v Speaker 1>different way. Yeah, I think a lot of people would

<v Speaker 1>have handled it differently, and going forward, that makes all

<v Speaker 1>the sense in the world. But these matches were approved.

<v Speaker 1>That's why people got so upset about this. That's why

<v Speaker 1>the promoters were so upset, because they had locked these

<v Speaker 1>matches in and they had approval from both companies that

<v Speaker 1>it was going to be okay, only for it to

<v Speaker 1>be snatched away the week of when they had already

<v Speaker 1>sold tickets for those matches, and then to get some

<v Speaker 1>sort of bullshit excuse where it has to do with

<v Speaker 1>the night of the week some other show was working.

<v Speaker 1>You'll notice Matt didn't say anything in there about that.

<v Speaker 1>Only Carlos Silva is talking about the Thursday Night. Thursday Night,

<v Speaker 1>AJ Francis he went on social media, he was praising

<v Speaker 1>Carlos Silva's recent explanation for pulling Leon Slater and he

<v Speaker 1>and when he was asked if Carlos was wrong for

<v Speaker 1>pulling his talents, he said no, because nobody had a

<v Speaker 1>problem with aw not allowing Powerhouse Hobbs to lose to

<v Speaker 1>me at a fourth Rope event, even though the next

<v Speaker 1>night in the same building, I was in a sold

<v Speaker 1>out main event against Nicknamath for the TNA World title cut.

<v Speaker 1>That victim bullshit out. Every company protects interests, which of

<v Speaker 1>course is completely ignoring everything that Carlos Silva has been

<v Speaker 1>saying in these interviews about the legitimate reasons why they

<v Speaker 1>pulled those talents from those shows. He didn't address that.

<v Speaker 1>He didn't address the Thursday night garbage or any of

<v Speaker 1>this other bullshit. You know, again, he works for TNA.

<v Speaker 1>I understand he's going to be part of the TNA team.

<v Speaker 1>You know, raw, Raw, He's going to cheerleader for them.

<v Speaker 1>I understand it. The whole situation was just handled very

<v Speaker 1>poorly from the very beginning. And it's not a stretch

<v Speaker 1>or an offensive thing to say that if the matches

<v Speaker 1>were approved in the first place, you should have allowed

<v Speaker 1>those matches to go on, and then going forward, if

<v Speaker 1>you want to, you know, have a new policy that

<v Speaker 1>doesn't allow for these matches to happen, then that's fine.

<v Speaker 1>That's fine. But people are twisting themselves into pretzels here

<v Speaker 1>to try to make excuses and stand up for Carlos

<v Speaker 1>Silva in this situation. And he's talking about how he's

<v Speaker 1>been beaten up but that's okay, I'll be the bad

<v Speaker 1>guy here and everything. Yeah, Well, because the situation is

<v Speaker 1>fucked you fucked up. It's a bad look for you,

<v Speaker 1>and it's a bad look for TNA, and there really

<v Speaker 1>is no legitimate defense of this. But I sure would

<v Speaker 1>love to hear more about this whole notion of them

<v Speaker 1>being blocked from running in certain venues that it doesn't

<v Speaker 1>really sound kosher to me, but I'd love to know

<v Speaker 1>more about that if that is a legitimate thing that's

<v Speaker 1>been going on. Let's take some mail bad questions, and

<v Speaker 1>then we're gonna get into the audio from my hulkog

<v Speaker 1>and Netflix documentary review that I promise you guys, you

<v Speaker 1>can email me the Solo Monster at gmail dot com.

<v Speaker 1>Please include your name of where you are from when

<v Speaker 1>you write in Robert from Massachusetts with last week's roster cuts.

<v Speaker 1>Is there a reason why WWE does not utilize Triple

<v Speaker 1>A or its relationship with Pro Wrestling Noah more often

<v Speaker 1>to let underuse talent work on excursions with partners. It

<v Speaker 1>seems like a great idea to allow wrestlers to polish

<v Speaker 1>their skills, do more character work, etc. Ludwig Kaiser is

<v Speaker 1>over big as El Grande Americano, Lolavice and dom or

<v Speaker 1>Champions in Triple A. They send NXT talent over to Japan,

<v Speaker 1>but Omas was in Noah for almost two years. There

<v Speaker 1>was only so much time on Rossmackdown and NXT, and

<v Speaker 1>apparently only so much the writers can do. Yeah, I

<v Speaker 1>think that would be a great idea. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>if that's what they necessarily want to be paying people

<v Speaker 1>to do, is to pay them to go on excursion

<v Speaker 1>to work somewhere else. They're just more likely to cut you,

<v Speaker 1>so they don't have to pay you if you're not

<v Speaker 1>being utilized. But they're the ones who are not utilizing you.

<v Speaker 1>It's a whole fucked up situation. Omas was apparently, you know,

<v Speaker 1>doing really well for himself over in Japan. He was

<v Speaker 1>one half of the GHC Tag Team champions, and very

<v Speaker 1>very suddenly they pulled him and they wanted him back

<v Speaker 1>in the States. He never actually lost the title. He

<v Speaker 1>had to sort of vacated for him to come back

<v Speaker 1>and do absolutely nothing. And I know he's doing stuff

<v Speaker 1>in Triple A now, but this was before he even

<v Speaker 1>showed up in Triple A. I still don't know why

<v Speaker 1>it was so important that they pull him from his

<v Speaker 1>Noah commitments to come back to the States to do nothing.

<v Speaker 1>But yeah, that's a great example. Ludwig kaiser Man, he's

<v Speaker 1>super over. He's one of the hottest baby faces in

<v Speaker 1>all of Mexico right now. So I agree with you

<v Speaker 1>one hundred percent. If there are certain talents who are

<v Speaker 1>open to the idea, you can't force them to go

<v Speaker 1>overseas and go work for some other promotion if they

<v Speaker 1>don't want to. But if it's something that they are requesting,

<v Speaker 1>or if it's something that they're open to and you

<v Speaker 1>are not doing anything with them, then absolutely why not.

<v Speaker 1>You know, you forge these partnerships. Why not take advantage

<v Speaker 1>of them, let them go over there, let them and

<v Speaker 1>not just hone their skills. I mean, some of these

<v Speaker 1>guys don't necessarily need to hone their skills, but just

<v Speaker 1>to try to get something going and maybe they get

<v Speaker 1>hot and maybe that can somehow translate back here to

<v Speaker 1>the States when you eventually bring them back. I don't

<v Speaker 1>see any harm in asking them, Hey, would you be

<v Speaker 1>interested in this, Aaron from Cape Girardo, if you could

<v Speaker 1>snap your fingers and instantly bring one wrestling division back

<v Speaker 1>to life or make it amazing again. Which would you pick?

<v Speaker 1>Tag team division, cruiserweight division, hardcore division. I assume you're

<v Speaker 1>talking about WWE specifically, because other promotions their tag team

<v Speaker 1>division is thriving. In WWE, their tag team division is shit.

<v Speaker 1>So I would go tag team division. We don't need

<v Speaker 1>a cruiserweight division. We got enough cruiserweights on the shows

<v Speaker 1>where we don't need a division to pigeonhole them into.

<v Speaker 1>And the hardcore division, I mean maybe in WW I suppose, yeah,

<v Speaker 1>it would be nice to get some more of that

<v Speaker 1>old school sort of hardcore title. I mean, it really

<v Speaker 1>ties more into the whole twenty four to seven concept.

<v Speaker 1>I think it was a moment in time. I was

<v Speaker 1>going to say, though, like inn aw, we certainly don't

<v Speaker 1>need a hardcore division. The whole company's a hardcore division. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, I don't think any of this is necessary

<v Speaker 1>other than trying to reignite the tag division. I think

<v Speaker 1>the others are kind of pointless honestly at this point.

<v Speaker 1>Marco from Seattle, Washington. My friend and I were discussing

<v Speaker 1>Kurt Angle's career the other day, and we both agreed

<v Speaker 1>that his best years in ringwise were in TNA. But

<v Speaker 1>in talking about which company and brand we associated him

<v Speaker 1>with the most, while he said TNA and I said WWE,

<v Speaker 1>we both agreed that SmackDown was the first show that

<v Speaker 1>we thought of when thinking of him and his WWE run.

<v Speaker 1>That's when it hit me that, aside from the short

<v Speaker 1>period from junevo five to January of six that he

<v Speaker 1>was on Raw and the month or so he was

<v Speaker 1>in ECW, he was always a SmackDown guy. Whenever I

<v Speaker 1>picture Kurt Angle on Raw five, something just feels off

<v Speaker 1>to me. Are there any other wrestlers you would say

<v Speaker 1>you associated with Raw or SmackDown during that first era

<v Speaker 1>of the brand split, or even a particular company so

<v Speaker 1>much so that when they got drafted to the opposing

<v Speaker 1>brand or went to a different promotion, something just did

<v Speaker 1>not feel right about it to you. Yeah, we're gonna

<v Speaker 1>feel that way about the New Day in a few

<v Speaker 1>months when they show up on Dynamite. I mean the

<v Speaker 1>initial red and yellow Hogan in WCW just felt wrong

<v Speaker 1>to me. Bret Hartch in WCW always felt wrong to me, Sting,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, he was the franchise guy in WCW, and

<v Speaker 1>even for all the years he spent in TNA, it

<v Speaker 1>was when he went to WWE, it just felt it

<v Speaker 1>felt weird, right, It didn't feel right within WWE. Seeing

<v Speaker 1>Roman reigns on Raw is still a little bit weird

<v Speaker 1>to me because the bloodline stuff was associated with SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>for so long, literally for years. But the biggest one

<v Speaker 1>would be Shawn Michaels. I mean it's on Michael's when

<v Speaker 1>he came back in two. He stayed on Raw the

<v Speaker 1>entire time that he was with the company in that

<v Speaker 1>second run. I remember reading the taping days for SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>conflicted with his Bible study class, and that's why he

<v Speaker 1>was on Raw and not SmackDown. Whatever it was. He

<v Speaker 1>was a raw guy and he never went to SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>full time that I can recall, But if he had,

<v Speaker 1>I would imagine that would have felt a little bit weird.

<v Speaker 1>And Andrea from Saint Paul, Minnesota. Are you angri or

<v Speaker 1>at Triple H and Nick con for ruining WWE or

<v Speaker 1>David Stearns for ruining the Mets? Which is more tortuous

<v Speaker 1>to watch for you right now? Mets baseball or weekly

<v Speaker 1>WWE shows? Oh man, that's a tough one, she says. Personally,

<v Speaker 1>I'm entertained by the Mets collapse. It's like watching a

<v Speaker 1>cyber truck explode and watching its TACKI owner have a

<v Speaker 1>complete meltdown over it. I didn't love the Mets, taking

<v Speaker 1>two out of three from my twins. Raw and SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>are borderline unwatchable to me. I usually check out your

<v Speaker 1>recaps clips on social media. The Uncrowned Wrestling Show is great,

<v Speaker 1>by the way, Well, thank you, Andrew. I appreciate that

<v Speaker 1>there'll be a new episode coming up this week. Hopefully

<v Speaker 1>you'll be tuned in for that. I mean, which one

<v Speaker 1>is more torturous to me? I mean they're both. They're

<v Speaker 1>both pretty torturous right now, but both of them have

<v Speaker 1>their their moments where I can actually kind of laugh

<v Speaker 1>at it. I think I quote tweeted something the other day.

<v Speaker 1>It was a clip from the Mets game, one of

<v Speaker 1>the recent ones where I don't even remember the exact play,

<v Speaker 1>but they fumbled the ball around so much that somebody

<v Speaker 1>I think went from first to home. It was like,

<v Speaker 1>how the hell did that happen? It should It's just

<v Speaker 1>one of those things that should not have happened. But

<v Speaker 1>only the Mets. And then for WWE. I mean again,

<v Speaker 1>they have their moments where I get great entertainment value

<v Speaker 1>out of the product lately, but unfortunately, more often than not,

<v Speaker 1>I really can't say that it's pretty torturous to sit

<v Speaker 1>through three hours of SmackDown, though not as much watching RAW.

<v Speaker 1>I would say watching the Mets right now is more

<v Speaker 1>torturous unless we're comparing it to SmackDown. Then I would

<v Speaker 1>really have to stop and think about it. But keep

<v Speaker 1>emailing me the solom Monster at gmail dot com, and

<v Speaker 1>you could also subscribe on the YouTube channel Solemn Monster

<v Speaker 1>Sounds off over ninety two thousand, two hundred subs and

<v Speaker 1>counting as we climb towards ninety three. I will be

<v Speaker 1>live this week, I think for all the usual streams

<v Speaker 1>right Monday night, Wednesday night, Friday night, Tuesday, brand new

<v Speaker 1>episode of the Uncrowned Wrestling show. I believe that's episode thirteen.

<v Speaker 1>Tuesday Night back with JD on his channel for Tuesday

<v Speaker 1>Night Titans. So it should be a pretty normal week,

<v Speaker 1>I believe in terms of the content. And then back

<v Speaker 1>here with you next Sunday for episode nine sixty two

<v Speaker 1>of the Solemn Monster Sounds Off. That'll be the Mother's

<v Speaker 1>Day episode of the sound Off next weekend. Now, I

<v Speaker 1>did mention that the Hulkogain Netflix documentary review it dropped

<v Speaker 1>the week before last. I had a chance to watch

<v Speaker 1>all four episodes. I he did not have time to

<v Speaker 1>talk about it on the sound Off last week, so

<v Speaker 1>I did something separate for the YouTube channel, and I

<v Speaker 1>talked about it a little bit as well on Uncrowned,

<v Speaker 1>but I spent more time on it in the YouTube

<v Speaker 1>exclusive clip that I put up, and I had some

<v Speaker 1>people ask me even earlier today on Twitter, Am I

<v Speaker 1>gonna include the audio here in the sound up? I said, sure,

<v Speaker 1>So what we're gonna do here to close things out?

<v Speaker 1>It's about thirty minutes long. I will include my full

<v Speaker 1>review of the Hulkgan Netflix documentary Real American give you

<v Speaker 1>my thoughts on what I liked what I didn't like,

<v Speaker 1>what I thought was missing. I will point out the

<v Speaker 1>creators of the documentary, they said that they have enough

<v Speaker 1>unused footage to produce more episodes, even though it looks

<v Speaker 1>like that's not going to happen. So Brian Storkel, he

<v Speaker 1>was the director of the project, and he was on

<v Speaker 1>the Ham Radio show on Friday and he said, there's

<v Speaker 1>definitely more that you could cover. I mean, there's so

<v Speaker 1>many things that got cut out, but we decided on

<v Speaker 1>four parts and like that, it's four hours worth and

<v Speaker 1>we just put in the best stuff or the stuff

<v Speaker 1>that we could fit. I think there's so much more, though,

<v Speaker 1>but he says there is definitely or there has definitely

<v Speaker 1>been no talk at all of using that footage to

<v Speaker 1>produce any additional episodes. And you will know, like if

<v Speaker 1>you watch it, you will notice that there is definitely

<v Speaker 1>some glaring omissions from the documentary but on the whole.

<v Speaker 1>As far as what I thought about it, I will

<v Speaker 1>leave you now with my review of Real American and

<v Speaker 1>again I will see you guys back here for more

<v Speaker 1>SoundOff next Sunday. So until then, take care, guys, enjoy

<v Speaker 1>the review. Like I'm sure many of you I grew

<v Speaker 1>up a hulkamaniac. I became a wrestling fan during a

<v Speaker 1>period where Hogan was on top of the world nationally,

<v Speaker 1>he was the biggest star in wrestling. It was the

<v Speaker 1>peak of the Hulkamania boom. I had all the toys,

<v Speaker 1>you know, the action figures, the wrestling buddies, all that stuff,

<v Speaker 1>and all the other personalities as well, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior,

<v Speaker 1>Andre the Giant Jake, the Snag, million Dollar Man, Mister Perfect.

<v Speaker 1>It was the golden era of wrestling. But Hogan was

<v Speaker 1>the guy. And then you see where his career took

<v Speaker 1>him over the years, where you know, the red and

<v Speaker 1>yellow stuff started to wear thin. Then he goes heel

<v Speaker 1>reinvents himself. We have this whole other wrestling boom. Then

<v Speaker 1>he's back to the red and yellow. Then he comes

<v Speaker 1>back to WWE briefly and then leaves again. Then later

<v Speaker 1>on TNA and a lot of really sad stuff later

<v Speaker 1>on in his life, a lot of itself inflicted. And

<v Speaker 1>he wasn't the Hulk Hogan that you remember from when

<v Speaker 1>you were a kid. Right. Rarely does that happen, I think,

<v Speaker 1>where when you are a kid, these people that you

<v Speaker 1>watched on television or these people that you looked up to,

<v Speaker 1>they kind of maintain that image, right, you learn more

<v Speaker 1>about them, you learn more about the people behind them.

<v Speaker 1>They fall on tough times, they get broke, or their

<v Speaker 1>body breaks down, whatever the case may be. And it's

<v Speaker 1>a very sad story. So I watched this Hulk Hogan,

<v Speaker 1>real American Netflix docu series. I wanted to see what

<v Speaker 1>kind of job they would do, what they would cover,

<v Speaker 1>what they wouldn't cover. Four parts, I would say, totals

<v Speaker 1>around four hours or so, give or take maybe a

<v Speaker 1>little bit more, which was not nearly enough to cover

<v Speaker 1>all of the aspects of this man's life and career.

<v Speaker 1>And there's a lot of talking heads, you know, they

<v Speaker 1>talk to a lot of people. You know, it's missing

<v Speaker 1>comments from some of his contemporaries who worked with him,

<v Speaker 1>squabbled with him, were friends with him, and enemies, you know,

<v Speaker 1>Macho man, Randy Savage not around anymore. Andre, I mean

<v Speaker 1>Andre has been gone for ages, Roddy Piper, unfortunately, there

<v Speaker 1>were a lot of people who simply are no longer around.

<v Speaker 1>But they did interview a whole bunch of people. I

<v Speaker 1>may be leaving a few out, but just to give

<v Speaker 1>you a sense of some of the names. Eric Bischoff, Booker,

<v Speaker 1>t Ted d Biassi, Jim Duggan. He's not in there

<v Speaker 1>a lot, but he is in there. Brett Hart, Jimmy Hart.

<v Speaker 1>Hogan's family member is obviously his ex wife, his son, Brooke,

<v Speaker 1>his daughter, is not interviewed for this, but they use

<v Speaker 1>audio from previous interviews with her instead. Jerry Lawler is

<v Speaker 1>in there, Paul Leveck, Kevin Nash, Bruce Pritchard, Jake Roberts,

<v Speaker 1>Jesse Ventura, Donald Trump. Christopher Lloyd is in there. If

<v Speaker 1>you remember that they co starred in Suburban Commando together,

<v Speaker 1>which I'm not afraid to admit again. In my younger

<v Speaker 1>days of fandom, No Holds Barred and Suburban Commando, those

<v Speaker 1>VHS tapes were played a lot in my household, so

<v Speaker 1>that was cool to see Christopher Lloyd, doctor Emmett Brown

<v Speaker 1>here in this. Warner Herzog pops up in here. The director,

<v Speaker 1>I'm like, okay, that was kind of random. Vince McMahon

<v Speaker 1>is not interviewed for this, but like Brooke, they use

<v Speaker 1>audio from him from previous interviews. There's no mention anywhere

<v Speaker 1>in this of Hogan's second wife, Jennifer, who he was

<v Speaker 1>married to for over a decade, and I've seen her

<v Speaker 1>credited with helping him get clean and sober when he

<v Speaker 1>was deep into his addiction. She's not mentioned at all,

<v Speaker 1>so she doesn't even exist. Kevin Nash I mentioned that

<v Speaker 1>he was interviewed for this, and Kevin Nash has chimed

<v Speaker 1>in and said that he was interviewed for about three

<v Speaker 1>hours and he went in depth on a lot of topics,

<v Speaker 1>and he ended up getting like thirty seconds of airtime

<v Speaker 1>in the documentary. And I would imagine it was the

<v Speaker 1>same with others that they spoke with, which is disappointing

<v Speaker 1>to hear. And I understand stuff gets, you know, cut

<v Speaker 1>out and edited down for time reasons, but I mean,

<v Speaker 1>if you're being interviewed for three or four hours and

<v Speaker 1>they're putting you in there for twenty five seconds, you're

<v Speaker 1>gonna be a little upset. But it featured the last

<v Speaker 1>interview with Hogan on camera before he passed away. He

<v Speaker 1>sat with them for twenty five hours and he was

<v Speaker 1>supposed to come back for a follow up interview a

<v Speaker 1>few months later, and in that time is when he

<v Speaker 1>ended up passing away. He had gone in for a

<v Speaker 1>neck procedure. There were complications during the procedure. I know

<v Speaker 1>there were reports that they had accidentally severed his frenic nerve,

<v Speaker 1>which I believe regulates breathing in the body. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know if it was a case of malpractice. They was

<v Speaker 1>taught that maybe the family would file a malpractice lawsuit.

<v Speaker 1>They still have not done. So something went wrong during

<v Speaker 1>that procedure and we never heard from him again. We

<v Speaker 1>never saw a picture of him. He never posted a

<v Speaker 1>video on social media to let people know he was

<v Speaker 1>okay because he couldn't. And there were a lot of

<v Speaker 1>friends and family members who were covering for him and saying, oh,

<v Speaker 1>you know, he's getting better, but the reality is he

<v Speaker 1>wasn't getting better, and then he passed away a couple

<v Speaker 1>months later. I thought, on the whole, the documentary was

<v Speaker 1>well done if you were looking for them to cover

<v Speaker 1>the key aspects of his life and career. And the

<v Speaker 1>addition of all the home movie foot had a lot

<v Speaker 1>of home movie footage in there from Linda. I would

<v Speaker 1>presume it gave an insight into him that we've not

<v Speaker 1>seen before. It's just stuff that has never been publicly,

<v Speaker 1>you know, visible before, so it was nice. You get

<v Speaker 1>to see a different side of him and the family aspect,

<v Speaker 1>so that was nice. And I also like the use

<v Speaker 1>of music for some of the montages they use like

<v Speaker 1>Real Wild Child by Iggy Pop and Broken Wings by

<v Speaker 1>Mister Mister, like as a child of the eighties. That

<v Speaker 1>was much appreciated. But I felt like the way they

<v Speaker 1>synced it up to certain parts of the documentary was

<v Speaker 1>very well done. But it is definitely for a more

<v Speaker 1>casual audience who may have heard the name Hulk Cogan

<v Speaker 1>or they watched him as a kid, but then they

<v Speaker 1>fell out of it. Maybe they don't know too much

<v Speaker 1>about the man. It didn't dive too deeply into the negative,

<v Speaker 1>but they didn't shy away from it either, Like you

<v Speaker 1>can't not talk about his divorce, you can't not talk

<v Speaker 1>about the steroid stuff. The Hogan knows best to backle

<v Speaker 1>his prescription drug abuse, the sex tape, like that's all

<v Speaker 1>touched upon. It would have been nice to have more

<v Speaker 1>on his time in the AWA, you know, working for Verngania,

<v Speaker 1>which is really where the whole Comania stuff started, and

<v Speaker 1>it's why yeah, and also why he left and what

<v Speaker 1>was behind that and the way Vince kind of you know,

<v Speaker 1>got him like in the middle of the night to

<v Speaker 1>come on over and then that's where the whole national

<v Speaker 1>expansion started. But it's a WWE produced documentary, so of

<v Speaker 1>course they're not going to give you Awa too much

<v Speaker 1>credit for anything. But there were other things also, and

<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna just kind of jump around here. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>going to dive too deeply into anything specific, but this

<v Speaker 1>is just top of mind stuff. You know, they showed

<v Speaker 1>Hogan when he left WWE and he went to WCW,

<v Speaker 1>the ticker tape parade and all that. The very first

<v Speaker 1>match he had was that Bash of the Beach match

<v Speaker 1>in ninety four Rick Flair, and they put the World

<v Speaker 1>Heavyweight title on him. And they're showing Hogan's first match

<v Speaker 1>in WCW and they're painting it as you know, Oh,

<v Speaker 1>this is so sad, Like they have Cody Rhodes talking

<v Speaker 1>about like how old he looked, and David Schumacher is

<v Speaker 1>on there talking about how tired the was, and that

<v Speaker 1>became true, you know, as time went on, those early

<v Speaker 1>Red and Yellow years in WCW. After a while it

<v Speaker 1>was just them bringing in a bunch of guys that

<v Speaker 1>Hogan could just be right. That's where the whole dungeon

<v Speaker 1>of doom thing came in. And so yeah, as time

<v Speaker 1>went on, I mean that that was true. But like

<v Speaker 1>the way they were talking about this here, you would

<v Speaker 1>think that this entire thing, like from the moment he

<v Speaker 1>came into the company, was just one huge misfire, when

<v Speaker 1>in reality, you know, that match with Flair, a Bash

<v Speaker 1>of the Beach was one of the better matches that

<v Speaker 1>he had in WCW and was actually very successful for them.

<v Speaker 1>It showed that Hogan still had a lot of drawing

<v Speaker 1>power left even though Vince McMahon had written him off.

<v Speaker 1>You know, they were talking in the documentary about how

<v Speaker 1>Vince had moved on and he didn't want to use

<v Speaker 1>Hogan anymore. I guess didn't see the value in him.

<v Speaker 1>And yet he goes to WCW and WCW sure saw

<v Speaker 1>the value in him, and they did very well with

<v Speaker 1>that pay per view, So that was certainly a choice.

<v Speaker 1>They're framing of things WWE's framing of things because this

<v Speaker 1>was a WWE produced documentary, right, they were cooperating on this.

<v Speaker 1>They gave the director full access to their vault and

<v Speaker 1>a lot of footage, so they absolutely had input into this.

<v Speaker 1>Their framing of things can be very frustrating. And I'll

<v Speaker 1>give the Shawn Michaels documentary on Peacock as an example.

<v Speaker 1>I saw that recently as well, and I thought it

<v Speaker 1>was very good. But they talk about the Montreal screwjob

<v Speaker 1>and they frame it in the documentary the way that

<v Speaker 1>you would expect WWE would frame it, where it was

<v Speaker 1>like this big betrayal and he was going to the competition,

<v Speaker 1>he was leaving them, he was going to the competition,

<v Speaker 1>and he was going to leave with the belt and

<v Speaker 1>show up on Nitro with the belt. And they have

<v Speaker 1>you know, Bruce Pritchard in there saying that, well, you

<v Speaker 1>know Brett was able to get a deal with WCW.

<v Speaker 1>He was our champion and his final date was going

<v Speaker 1>to be in Montreal at Survivor Series, which is not true.

<v Speaker 1>That is not at all true. But it's their retelling

<v Speaker 1>of the truth. And it's just stuff like that that

<v Speaker 1>just drives me up the wall. But you know, look,

<v Speaker 1>the winners in history, they get to set the narrative,

<v Speaker 1>They get to tell history the way they want to

<v Speaker 1>tell it. People are going to watch this stuff and

<v Speaker 1>they're gonna take their word of face value, and they're

<v Speaker 1>gonna think, well, this must be the way it went down,

<v Speaker 1>and in fact, that's not the way it went down.

<v Speaker 1>They're leaving out some very important details, and so there

<v Speaker 1>was a little bit of that in this documentary as well.

<v Speaker 1>You know, when they talked about the Summer Slam two

<v Speaker 1>thousand and five match that Hogan had with Shawn Michaels,

<v Speaker 1>they left out some important context as to why Sean

<v Speaker 1>was comically over selling for this guy, and they portrayed

<v Speaker 1>it as well. Hogan was old and he couldn't do much,

<v Speaker 1>and so Sean felt he had to make the match entertaining,

<v Speaker 1>which is not totally untrue, but it is completely neglecting

<v Speaker 1>all of the behind the scenes stuff that was reported

<v Speaker 1>to be going on heading into the match and that

<v Speaker 1>were being played, which would have been nice for them

<v Speaker 1>to mention, right, just to give it that added context.

<v Speaker 1>Sean got out politicked by the Master. It's basically what happened.

<v Speaker 1>He who has creative control usually gets what he wants,

<v Speaker 1>and Hogan did not want to do the job for HBK.

<v Speaker 1>The idea was that there would be two matches between them.

<v Speaker 1>I think one of them was I think The rematch

<v Speaker 1>was going to be a cage match the following month

<v Speaker 1>and they would each win one, but Hogan wasn't much

<v Speaker 1>interested in running it back again after he won. Jesse

<v Speaker 1>ventra I mentioned his name. He was one of the

<v Speaker 1>talking heads in the documentary. He was great in this

<v Speaker 1>and very complimentary of Hogan and his accomplishments. But to

<v Speaker 1>leave out why they had their falling out and why

<v Speaker 1>Jesse has been so critical of him over these years

<v Speaker 1>was crazy to me considering the potential impact that it

<v Speaker 1>had on WWE and really wrestling as a whole if

<v Speaker 1>you think about it. Had he been successful in his

<v Speaker 1>efforts to unionize the roster, and I'm sure a lot

<v Speaker 1>of you know the story, but for those of you

<v Speaker 1>who don't, and this is the reason why I think

<v Speaker 1>it would have been worth mentioning. Wouldn't be shocked if

<v Speaker 1>Jesse did mention it. And that's some of that footage,

<v Speaker 1>like the Kevin Nash stuff that got left on the

<v Speaker 1>cutting room floor. But again, the two of them were

<v Speaker 1>very tight, like Hogan and Jesse. Then they came up

<v Speaker 1>in the Twin Cities. They worked for Vern in the AWA.

<v Speaker 1>Clearly they both took a lot of inspiration from superstar

<v Speaker 1>Billy Graham and probably a little bit of Dusty Rhodes

<v Speaker 1>and they were friends. And when Jesse left the company,

<v Speaker 1>you know, he had issues with Vince McMahon over royalties

<v Speaker 1>and he sued him and there was a deposition and

<v Speaker 1>Vince had to sit down for a deposition. Right under oath,

<v Speaker 1>you got to tell the truth, but in the deposition

<v Speaker 1>you can have your lawyer ask anything you want. So

<v Speaker 1>there was a break and Jesse said, you know, find

<v Speaker 1>out from Vince who ratted me out that I tried

<v Speaker 1>to get the boys to unionize. Because back in eighty six,

<v Speaker 1>this was right before WrestleMania two, there was some event

<v Speaker 1>out in La Vince wasn't there, and Jesse stood up

<v Speaker 1>in the line and he tried to convince these guys

<v Speaker 1>that they needed to ban together and unionize. Jesse he

<v Speaker 1>may have already filmed Predator by that point and got

<v Speaker 1>his SAG card and probably knew about all this stuff

<v Speaker 1>and is like, well, we should have this in wrestling. Well,

<v Speaker 1>the very next day he got a very angry phone

<v Speaker 1>call from Vince McMahon, who somehow found out that he

<v Speaker 1>had tried to unionize and he wanted to know to

<v Speaker 1>find out from him, you know, who ratted me out?

<v Speaker 1>And without any hesitation whatsoever, the lawyer asked Vince. Vince

<v Speaker 1>didn't even he didn't even blink. He was like hul

<v Speaker 1>Cogan told me. And Jesse was floored. He had no idea.

<v Speaker 1>He was friends with Hogan for all these years and

<v Speaker 1>had absolutely no idea that it was Hogan who snitched

<v Speaker 1>on him, and that really changed his entire viewpoint of

<v Speaker 1>hul Cogan as a human being. And that's really why

<v Speaker 1>he was so critical of him for so many years.

<v Speaker 1>So that wasn't talked about here at all. But think

<v Speaker 1>about it, right, Think about if Jesse's efforts had been successful.

<v Speaker 1>And that's a big if, right, because there have been

<v Speaker 1>opportunities over the years for wrestlers to unionize if they

<v Speaker 1>wanted to, and clearly they don't, or it would have

<v Speaker 1>happened by now, but at the time, who knows. You know,

<v Speaker 1>if he was successful, how different things might look. And

<v Speaker 1>you could say that Hogan had a direct impact on that, right,

<v Speaker 1>It's pretty important. Brett Hart, he was a talking head

<v Speaker 1>in this also no fan of Hulk Hogan's, but like Jesse,

<v Speaker 1>he gives the man credit where it's due, right, But

<v Speaker 1>he also doesn't hold back because Brett Hart has no

<v Speaker 1>problem telling you exactly how he feels about people. And

<v Speaker 1>he certainly does that too in the documentary. Now, outside

<v Speaker 1>of the documentary, there was an interview that the director

<v Speaker 1>Brian Storkel had given and I thought it was cool

<v Speaker 1>to mention here he was talking about Brett. Brett is

<v Speaker 1>or was very good with like these cartoon illustrations that

<v Speaker 1>he would draw in the locker room. And Brett had

<v Speaker 1>said that he gave an illustration many years ago that

<v Speaker 1>he did to Hogan and it was signed by most

<v Speaker 1>of the roster, and Hogan was, you know, blown away

<v Speaker 1>by this and he thought it was such a great gesture. Well,

<v Speaker 1>I guess they found the illustration. It was framed and

<v Speaker 1>it was in his storage unit. This is after Hogan

<v Speaker 1>passed away. And Nick Hogan said, yeah, you know, my

<v Speaker 1>dad had that picture on the wall framed for so

<v Speaker 1>many years. It meant so much to him. So the

<v Speaker 1>director texted Brett to let him know, and he said

<v Speaker 1>Brett was really happy to know that because he wasn't

<v Speaker 1>sure if Ulk just kind of threw it away right

<v Speaker 1>after he gifted it to him. So I thought that

<v Speaker 1>was kind of a cool story. They got Trump to

<v Speaker 1>sit down for this. He said that they pulled him

<v Speaker 1>out of a big Russia meeting. M good to see

<v Speaker 1>he's got his priority straight to be pulled away for this,

<v Speaker 1>you know, for such a big get. He didn't offer

<v Speaker 1>anything of any real value here. They can say, hey,

<v Speaker 1>we got the sitting US President to sit for an interview, right,

<v Speaker 1>So I guess that's kind of cool. But yeah, he

<v Speaker 1>could have offered something interesting from his experiences with Hogan,

<v Speaker 1>and he just spoke in these very broad strokes, wouldn't

<v Speaker 1>do the Hogan finger wag when the producer or whoever

<v Speaker 1>it was, you know, kind of playfully asked, hey, you

<v Speaker 1>want to do the finger point and he didn't do it.

<v Speaker 1>He didn't do it because he doesn't know what it is.

<v Speaker 1>Like I guarantee you, he has no idea what the

<v Speaker 1>finger wag even is. So he didn't really offer anything here.

<v Speaker 1>In the last episode they had Hogan, this was after

<v Speaker 1>he gave his speech for Trump at the RNC. He

<v Speaker 1>played a voicemail that Trump left for him on his

<v Speaker 1>phone that he was obviously proud of, and he was

<v Speaker 1>showing it off outside of that there was really nothing there.

<v Speaker 1>But it was interesting to learn that Hogan going to

<v Speaker 1>TNA was an Eric Bischoff idea. It was something he

<v Speaker 1>put together, something he negotiated to save Hulk, who was

<v Speaker 1>drowning financially coming off the divorce from Linda, because he

<v Speaker 1>had no money. He was broke, but his body was

<v Speaker 1>so ravaged by that point, you know, Bischoff would have

<v Speaker 1>to help help him out of bed in the morning.

<v Speaker 1>This man was taking fentanyl leg it was candy. He

<v Speaker 1>was stuffing him under his gums. He had three hundred

<v Speaker 1>milligram fentanyl patches on his legs. He had fifteen hundred

<v Speaker 1>milligram fentanyl lollipops that he would suck on. He was

<v Speaker 1>in so much pain. He should have been dead from

<v Speaker 1>all the fentanyl that he was taking. Now, they didn't

<v Speaker 1>mention the rape accusation against him in ninety five by

<v Speaker 1>the woman. Now I didn't think they would, but in

<v Speaker 1>that last episode, when they were getting into the negative

<v Speaker 1>stuff and a lot of his skeletons, I was curious

<v Speaker 1>if they would mention this. She was a publicist for

<v Speaker 1>his Postamania restaurant. This would have been the weekend before

<v Speaker 1>the nitro debut at the Mall of America. They were

<v Speaker 1>in Minneapolis, and she alleged that she was sexually assaulted.

<v Speaker 1>She wanted a public apology, she wanted a million dollars.

<v Speaker 1>He turned around and sued her and her lawyer for extortion,

<v Speaker 1>and then the case got settled out of court. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how much traction that got nationally. I know

<v Speaker 1>locally it was a big story. Nationally, It probably made

<v Speaker 1>a few headlines, but they squashed that pretty quickly, so

<v Speaker 1>that was never brought up here. But again, I didn't

<v Speaker 1>think it would be nothing on the John Graziano stuff,

<v Speaker 1>and I understand that had more to do with Nick

<v Speaker 1>than it did Hulk. Nick is all over this thing,

<v Speaker 1>and he's portrayed like a saint, and it was a

<v Speaker 1>big news story involving the family at that time, and

<v Speaker 1>I remember talking about it on the sound off. This

<v Speaker 1>would have been I don't know, two thousand and nine,

<v Speaker 1>I mean somewhere around then. And I really I never

<v Speaker 1>looked at Hogan or his wife or his son the

<v Speaker 1>same after that. Less so Brooke. I never really had

<v Speaker 1>an issue with her. She seemed like she at least

<v Speaker 1>had a decent head on her shoulders. Unlike everybody else

<v Speaker 1>in that family. But this was the story that just

<v Speaker 1>it really like made me angry when I first heard it.

<v Speaker 1>And for those of you who don't know, many years ago,

<v Speaker 1>Nick was drag racing with his friend Jehan grazse Giana

<v Speaker 1>was in the passenger seat, and he had an accident.

<v Speaker 1>Nick was fine, his friend was not, and his friend

<v Speaker 1>suffered a traumatic brain injury. Hasn't been this I don't

<v Speaker 1>even know if he's I think he's still alive, I'm

<v Speaker 1>not sure, but was never the same after that and

<v Speaker 1>was going to require twenty four hour, round the clock

<v Speaker 1>care for the rest of his life, like very very

<v Speaker 1>very serious injuries. So he ended up in jail. Nick

<v Speaker 1>did for a period of time, and the jailhouse recordings

<v Speaker 1>came out where Hogan was on the phone talking to

<v Speaker 1>his son who was in jail, and he's freaking out

<v Speaker 1>and Nick is already thinking about like all these ideas

<v Speaker 1>for when I get out, Like you know, he wants

<v Speaker 1>like a reality TV deal, we'll call it reality well

<v Speaker 1>and like this this is how his mind is working.

<v Speaker 1>But the really egregious stuff, because you could always argue, well,

<v Speaker 1>you know, Hulk was just indulging his son who was

<v Speaker 1>freaking out. He was trying to calm him down and

<v Speaker 1>put his nerves at he But then there's audio on

<v Speaker 1>there where Hulk is basically like throwing this Graziano kid

<v Speaker 1>under the bus and saying, boy, you know, he must

<v Speaker 1>have done some real bad stuff or he must have

<v Speaker 1>been a really bad person for God to lay all

<v Speaker 1>this shit on him. Basically victim blaming. That's basically what

<v Speaker 1>he was doing. His son turned his friend into a vegetable,

<v Speaker 1>and they're blaming the victim. And then there were the

<v Speaker 1>other racist comments on there where he's kind of joking

<v Speaker 1>around with Nick and saying, you know, hopefully we don't

<v Speaker 1>get reincarnated as two black guys, and I mean just

<v Speaker 1>really really like disgusting stuff. That said a lot about

<v Speaker 1>that family, and none of this was ever mentioned, and

<v Speaker 1>this did make news. This did make headlines. I understand

<v Speaker 1>there may be certain things they don't want to talk

<v Speaker 1>about or they refuse to talk about. If you want

<v Speaker 1>to have their cooperation, you have to agree to leave

<v Speaker 1>certain things out. To me, that was a glaring omission

<v Speaker 1>in that final episode when they were going into all

<v Speaker 1>of the family drama. The Hogan knows best stuff, his marriage, failing,

<v Speaker 1>the sex tape, everything else that they do cover his

<v Speaker 1>racist comments from the sex tape without ever saying what

<v Speaker 1>those comments were or giving any kind of context, Like

<v Speaker 1>you would never know if he just said one word

<v Speaker 1>or several things that he said, which is what it was.

<v Speaker 1>And that's pretty crazy because it colored no pun intended

<v Speaker 1>so much of the way people viewed him in the

<v Speaker 1>last decade of his life. Again, there are just certain

<v Speaker 1>things where, Okay, this is important enough that we should

<v Speaker 1>spend a little more time on this. Him being booed

<v Speaker 1>at the Netflix debut when Monday Night Raw came to

<v Speaker 1>Netflix in LA and they do show highlights of it,

<v Speaker 1>some backstage highlights and then highlights of Hogan walking out

<v Speaker 1>there with Jimmy Harton being booed out of the building.

<v Speaker 1>And they had Paul Avec interviewed and he admitted that

<v Speaker 1>he thought there was a chance there was a good

<v Speaker 1>chance the crowd in LA would boo this man out

<v Speaker 1>of the building, and he put him out there anyway.

<v Speaker 1>And I know Vince McMahon told TMZ after Hogan died

<v Speaker 1>that he would never have done that. I would never

<v Speaker 1>have put him in that situation in the first place right,

<v Speaker 1>basically throwing shade at the way the Triple h handled

<v Speaker 1>that situation, and Hogan claimed didn't bother him because the

<v Speaker 1>producer asked him, like, did that bother you? Getting that reaction?

<v Speaker 1>He goes, no, it didn't bother me, and he, you know,

<v Speaker 1>he claimed he looked at it as a wrestler getting

<v Speaker 1>great heat, and I could have gotten back in the

<v Speaker 1>ring and I would have gotten great he brother. Yeah. Meanwhile,

<v Speaker 1>Jimmy Hart said that it did bother Hogan. Of course

<v Speaker 1>it did. He wasn't out there as a heel, like

<v Speaker 1>this isn't nineteen ninety seven anymore. He was roundly rejected

<v Speaker 1>by a building full of people as he tried to

<v Speaker 1>shill his beer like Undertaker, could hardly contain his joy

<v Speaker 1>when he first talked about that on his podcast. It

<v Speaker 1>was embarrassing and that will forever be remembered as his

<v Speaker 1>final appearance on a wrestling show. But the documentary has

<v Speaker 1>the usual Hogan lies and exaggerations that he became known for.

<v Speaker 1>You know, him talking about how Dusty Rhodes was such

<v Speaker 1>a big hero of his and influence on him. I'm

<v Speaker 1>sure Dusty was an influence on him, especially in terms

<v Speaker 1>of his promos, Like the way he talks about this,

<v Speaker 1>he would think he was a little kid looking at

<v Speaker 1>Dusty on TV for the first time, and like Dusty

<v Speaker 1>wasn't that much older than Hogan, Like they were that

<v Speaker 1>far apart in age, and like Hogan, I think it

<v Speaker 1>was his second book, talked about like he was six

<v Speaker 1>years old and he was looking for like wrestling on

<v Speaker 1>TV every week, and his hero was Dusty Rhodes, the

<v Speaker 1>American Dream And like when Hogan was six, Dusty would

<v Speaker 1>have been what twelve thirteen something like that, Like it's ridiculous,

<v Speaker 1>you know. They talked about the famous story of hero

<v Speaker 1>Matsuda breaking his ankle and training. Hogan sprained his ankle

<v Speaker 1>on the first day of training and he came back

<v Speaker 1>and was trying to work on it, and Matsuda saw

<v Speaker 1>it was all fucked up, it was all black and blue,

<v Speaker 1>and said you should probably sit out for about a week.

<v Speaker 1>And then he came back to hear Hogan tell the

<v Speaker 1>story he broke his ankle on purpose. He came back

<v Speaker 1>six weeks later and showed, I want to do this.

<v Speaker 1>I'm serious about this, And there were a lot of

<v Speaker 1>people who were really fucked up like they would intentionally

<v Speaker 1>break people's arms and legs and break bones to try

<v Speaker 1>to run them off. But like Jerry Briscoe was there

<v Speaker 1>that day. He's told the story at least once before

<v Speaker 1>on a podcast and said, no, this is the way

<v Speaker 1>it actually happened. But it sounds a lot better if

<v Speaker 1>you tell people, oh, yeah, this guy broke my leg

<v Speaker 1>and I came back, and as a story, it makes

<v Speaker 1>for a better story. But he made a comment in

<v Speaker 1>this because they showed some highlights of him on the

<v Speaker 1>Arsenio Hall Show in ninety one. I guess it would

<v Speaker 1>have been when he lied about his steroid juice when

<v Speaker 1>Arcinio and his producers thought he was coming on the

<v Speaker 1>show to do the exact opposite, so they were not

<v Speaker 1>very happy with him. But in the course of talking

<v Speaker 1>about Arcinio Hall, he made a comment about how he

<v Speaker 1>got Arcinio Hall his job. Now I'm going to need

<v Speaker 1>Arcinio Hall to chime in on social media and fact

<v Speaker 1>check this one, because if I was drinking something when

<v Speaker 1>he made that comment, I would have spat it up

<v Speaker 1>all over my fucking screen. But one of the more

<v Speaker 1>I would say honest sort of confessions from him that

<v Speaker 1>I can one hundred percent believe and I agree with it.

<v Speaker 1>He admits that he wishes he would have retired after

<v Speaker 1>his WrestleMania eighteen match with The Rock, and if you

<v Speaker 1>think about it, that would have been the perfect sendoff

<v Speaker 1>for him. And like him and Rick Flair are both

<v Speaker 1>very similar in that regard, in that there are two

<v Speaker 1>of the biggest names in the history of the business

<v Speaker 1>and should have been regarded as wrestling royalty like right

<v Speaker 1>up until the day they died. Right, but they each

<v Speaker 1>did more to tarnish their own legacies than anybody else

<v Speaker 1>ever could for a lot of reasons, right, but they

<v Speaker 1>also didn't know when to let go. Eighteen in Toronto

<v Speaker 1>would have been a great finale for Hogan, twenty four

<v Speaker 1>in Orlando would have been a great finale for Flair,

<v Speaker 1>and it was supposed to be, right, but he's got

<v Speaker 1>alum to pay to, like sixteen X wives, so he

<v Speaker 1>had to work and he went to TNA. That's to

<v Speaker 1>say nothing of his last match a few years ago

<v Speaker 1>where he almost died in the ring. He told Ariel

<v Speaker 1>Helwani last week that he had a heart attack in

<v Speaker 1>the ring that night. I know he said that before,

<v Speaker 1>but he still talks about it like he's bragging about it.

<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, I had heard a heart attack that night.

<v Speaker 1>I had two heart attacks in the ring that night.

<v Speaker 1>Like these will be the final lasting images of these men,

<v Speaker 1>Hogan being booed out of the building at the raw

<v Speaker 1>Netflix debut and Flair almost croaking in the ring. It's sad,

<v Speaker 1>but they are a product of their own choices. Like

<v Speaker 1>nobody is perfect, right, people are flawed. They're flawed creatures.

<v Speaker 1>Hogan is no different. But people are entitled to feel

<v Speaker 1>the way they want to feel about the man. For

<v Speaker 1>a lot of people, they want to look at Hogan

<v Speaker 1>and they will always look at Hogan as this mythical

<v Speaker 1>figure that they grew up with. They want to remember

<v Speaker 1>Hulk Hogan is that guy from their youth. And you

<v Speaker 1>can do that, and that's how a lot of people

<v Speaker 1>are going to choose to remember this man. But there

<v Speaker 1>are a lot of people out there. You can't ignore

<v Speaker 1>what they have learned about Hogan over the years. Because

<v Speaker 1>guess what, when you get older and you become an adult,

<v Speaker 1>you hear things, you see things, You'll learn things, right

<v Speaker 1>the mask slips a little bit. You'll learn things that

<v Speaker 1>maybe you wish you didn't learn, but you do. And

<v Speaker 1>so it's hard to reconcile that person from the one

<v Speaker 1>that you now know. But that's life, right. We all

<v Speaker 1>learn things we probably wish we didn't know. But you

<v Speaker 1>can't run from me, you can't ignore it. This is

<v Speaker 1>who he was. I can still look back fondly on

<v Speaker 1>those old days. I can go back and watch old

<v Speaker 1>Hogan matches and promos. I can give the man his

<v Speaker 1>flowers for doing something that no other wrestler has done. Right.

<v Speaker 1>He ushered in two boom periods for two different companies

<v Speaker 1>ten years apart, as a babyface and one is a heel.

<v Speaker 1>And for that alone, he is on Mount Rushmore. But

<v Speaker 1>it was sad to see how broken down he was there.

<v Speaker 1>By the end, we all get old. We're also not

<v Speaker 1>three hundred pounds jumping up in the air crashing down

<v Speaker 1>on our tailbone every single night, year after year after year.

<v Speaker 1>Especially back then, in those old boxing rings that WWF had,

<v Speaker 1>they were like landing on concrete. They had no give

<v Speaker 1>to them. By the end, I mean he was getting

<v Speaker 1>around with a walking stick like Gandalf. This man was

<v Speaker 1>the face of the superhero era for a lot of

<v Speaker 1>older fans. This comic book character come to life with

<v Speaker 1>the exaggerated physique and the big muscles, and to see

<v Speaker 1>him and so many of these guys later in life

<v Speaker 1>all crippled up in pain. It's the antithesis of what

<v Speaker 1>we grew up with. And that's a hard pill to

<v Speaker 1>swallow when you watch stuff like this. But on the whole,

<v Speaker 1>I thought the director did a very good job with

<v Speaker 1>the documentary. If you're kind of on the fence about

<v Speaker 1>whether or not to watch it, there may be parts

<v Speaker 1>of it that he don't enjoy. But I think if

<v Speaker 1>you're an older fan, or if you were familiar with Hogan,

<v Speaker 1>you know, back back in the day, I enjoyed the

<v Speaker 1>trip down memory lane. As far as the earlier stuff goes,

<v Speaker 1>I enjoyed some of the like the whole movie footage,

<v Speaker 1>and then when it gets into the stuff later in

<v Speaker 1>his life, again, I have sympathy for the guy as

<v Speaker 1>far as the pain, the physical pain that he was in,

<v Speaker 1>which I don't wish on anybody. In terms of a

<v Speaker 1>lot of the other stuff that he ended up going through,

<v Speaker 1>and a lot of the controversies and chaos around his

<v Speaker 1>family life and all that stuff. You know, Look, we

<v Speaker 1>make choices. In life, and sometimes, you know, those choices

<v Speaker 1>will come back to bite you on the ass. And

<v Speaker 1>in a lot of cases, that's exactly how it played

<v Speaker 1>out for hul Cogan. The highs were very high and

<v Speaker 1>the lows were extremely low. But at the end of

<v Speaker 1>the day, he's going to go down as one of

<v Speaker 1>the key figures in wrestling history. You know, again, tied

<v Speaker 1>into two of the biggest business booms that wrestling has

<v Speaker 1>ever seen. You know, he was a very big part

<v Speaker 1>of that, and that in addition to all of the

<v Speaker 1>other stuff that came later in his life, that is

<v Speaker 1>part of his legacy. The solemn monster sounds off dog shit.

<v Speaker 1>That is what SmackDown has become. This is a horrendous

<v Speaker 1>television show. I know that they have the Real Housewives

<v Speaker 1>of Orange County, and the Real Housewives of Brenton, New Jersey,

<v Speaker 1>the Real Housewives of Osh Bagosh Wisconsin or whatever the fuck.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure every single one of those shows are light

<v Speaker 1>years ahead of Friday Night SmackDown. This is the worst

<v Speaker 1>show on television. You gotta stick dynamite in this show,

<v Speaker 1>and I don't mean aw dynamite, actual dynamite and blow

<v Speaker 1>the whole fucking thing up and start all over again.

<v Speaker 1>This show sucks. The solom Monster sounds off bringing you

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