<v Speaker 1>This is Mama Monster. I'm gonna keep the recording until

<v Speaker 1>you say it, so you've got to get through it

<v Speaker 1>or we're never going to be able to do this.

<v Speaker 1>I have to compose myself Jesus. But now, Happy Mother's Day.

<v Speaker 1>I love you. I love you. You are the best.

<v Speaker 1>Thank you very well. Get out of here. I have

<v Speaker 1>a show to do. Hey, this is Mama Monster and

<v Speaker 1>you're listening to the Solemn Monster sounds off. It's business time, baby,

<v Speaker 1>you are listening to solo Monster sounds off. I love

<v Speaker 1>your Mama Monster. I want your soul. You got grown

<v Speaker 1>ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter. Come over here?

<v Speaker 1>Is that you have legs? I was ninety nine percent positive.

<v Speaker 1>It was just chessed up. I have been begging him

<v Speaker 1>for a job on every platform I can, and I

<v Speaker 1>want to know the reason why you won't heark. Happy

<v Speaker 1>heavenly Mother's Day to Mama Monster and all the moms

<v Speaker 1>out there who are no longer with us, and happy

<v Speaker 1>Mother's Day to all the moms who are. It is Sunday,

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

<v Speaker 1>I can't say May tenth without talking about May tenth

<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety nine will always stand out to me because

<v Speaker 1>that is, to this day the highest rated episode of

<v Speaker 1>Monday Night Raw in the history of the show, in

<v Speaker 1>eight point one Nielsen rating. I still have the newspaper

<v Speaker 1>clippings talking about it because I was a psycho wrestling

<v Speaker 1>fan back then and I thought, hey, this is history.

<v Speaker 1>I should keep this, so I have it somewhere. Not

<v Speaker 1>the greatest episode, not by a long shot, you go

<v Speaker 1>back and watch it, but a great time capsule into

<v Speaker 1>what the Attitude era was, and by far the highest rated,

<v Speaker 1>largely because they went unopposed that night with no Nitro

<v Speaker 1>on to thank the NBA playoffs for that. On TNT,

<v Speaker 1>normally when one show would be pre empty, the other

<v Speaker 1>one would be expected to pick up some of their audience,

<v Speaker 1>but in this case they picked up about half of

<v Speaker 1>the usual Nitro audience, and so they had over eight

<v Speaker 1>million viewers. The main event that night peaked with over

<v Speaker 1>ten million viewers. Those are insane numbers, insane cable numbers

<v Speaker 1>that don't even seem real. It's no wonder they got

<v Speaker 1>a network TV deal for SmackDown a few months later,

<v Speaker 1>although SmackDown never did numbers like that, but a lot

<v Speaker 1>of the reason for this can be traced back to

<v Speaker 1>Ted Turner and the money that he poured into WCW

<v Speaker 1>back in the day, which lit a fire under WWE's

<v Speaker 1>ass in a way that nobody else had done before

<v Speaker 1>and frankly hasn't done since. Tony Kahn would be the

<v Speaker 1>closest thing, because he's another billionaire with enough money to

<v Speaker 1>fight them. But the landscape is just so different now

<v Speaker 1>compared to how it was in the late nineties. Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner passed away this week, and I'm gonna have a

<v Speaker 1>lot to say about him here in just a little bit.

<v Speaker 1>We got to talk about backlash from last night. How

<v Speaker 1>about that House of Glory shout by Michael Cole that

<v Speaker 1>was unexpected aw held collision last night? Lost in all

<v Speaker 1>the noise of backlash, there was an hour of collision

<v Speaker 1>in a most interesting venue and I loved it and

<v Speaker 1>I will talk about it. And Dark Side of the

<v Speaker 1>Ring is coming back. I will tell you when and

<v Speaker 1>what the subjects they are covering are for season seven.

<v Speaker 1>So it is a pack show this week. But I'll

<v Speaker 1>mention this first because I covered this in great detail

<v Speaker 1>at the time. That had happened last year. But the

<v Speaker 1>case against Rampage Jackson's son, Rajah Jackson has been closed.

<v Speaker 1>Finally have a resolution to this, and while I cannot

<v Speaker 1>say that it is surprising, it does not make it

<v Speaker 1>any less of a joke. This is after the incident

<v Speaker 1>of the Knox Pro show last August. It saw him

<v Speaker 1>climb into the ring during the show. All of this

<v Speaker 1>was being streamed, I think on his Kick channel. He

<v Speaker 1>has since been kicked from Kick and it showed him

<v Speaker 1>attacking Psycho Stu. He was pounding away on him even

<v Speaker 1>after it was clear that Stu was out cold and

<v Speaker 1>there were other wrestlers who tried to pull him up.

<v Speaker 1>Had other wrestlers not intervened to pull this man off

<v Speaker 1>of Psycho Stu, Raja may well have beaten that man

<v Speaker 1>to death. Even after they pulled him off of Stu.

<v Speaker 1>He wasn't done, like he was ready for more. He

<v Speaker 1>had a look in his eyes that was very, very scary,

<v Speaker 1>and he had been invited to the show as someone's guest.

<v Speaker 1>There was an incident outside prior to the show where

<v Speaker 1>Stu hit him in the head with an empty beer can,

<v Speaker 1>which Raja was not expecting, and Stu thought he was

<v Speaker 1>a wrestler and he thought he was a worker. He

<v Speaker 1>was wondering why he's not selling it. Stu should not

<v Speaker 1>have done that. It was very stupid. And he did

<v Speaker 1>apologize to Raja right after, and that's on video too,

<v Speaker 1>and he told him, look, I thought you were a worker.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry. So not to excuse Stu's actions here, but

<v Speaker 1>he did apologize to him for what happened. It seemed

<v Speaker 1>like it was over and done with. That's very different

<v Speaker 1>from what Raja did to him later in the night.

<v Speaker 1>The two things are hardly equal. Nor can he claim

<v Speaker 1>self defense. That doesn't apply here either. Everything is on video.

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

<v Speaker 1>seen in a wrestling ring. There are lots of people

<v Speaker 1>at fault here for allowing this to happen, but only

<v Speaker 1>one person who threw fists and nearly killed someone, and

<v Speaker 1>Knox Pro lost its WWEID designation because of it. Rakishi,

<v Speaker 1>who was one of the founders of the company and

<v Speaker 1>the school, although he wasn't present that night, he recently

<v Speaker 1>announced that he was stepping away from the school and

<v Speaker 1>the promotion without saying why. Well. Rajah cut a plea

<v Speaker 1>deal with the district Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, pleading

<v Speaker 1>no content test to one felony count of battery with

<v Speaker 1>serious bodily injury. He also admitted to two special allegations,

<v Speaker 1>including personal infliction of great bodily injury and engaging in

<v Speaker 1>violent conduct, and he will be sentenced in late June.

<v Speaker 1>His anticipated sentence is ninety days of actual jail time,

<v Speaker 1>two years of probation, and restitution of eighty one thousand dollars.

<v Speaker 1>We're not talking about somebody jaywalking here or getting caught

<v Speaker 1>with some weed on them. This was a violent crime

<v Speaker 1>and for that he gets three months in jail. Now

<v Speaker 1>I understand that this is how it typically works with

<v Speaker 1>a first time offense like this. These things often get

<v Speaker 1>pleaded out. California is hardly the only state where that happens.

<v Speaker 1>The fact that he's the son of a famous fighter,

<v Speaker 1>you know, does that have anything to do with they

<v Speaker 1>Probably not in this case, but you can never be sure.

<v Speaker 1>Him being a first time offender. The fact that happened

<v Speaker 1>in a wrestling ring, and it would be very easy

<v Speaker 1>to argue that it was all part of the show,

<v Speaker 1>or he thought it was part of the show. Right.

<v Speaker 1>They were doing an angle and he was supposed to

<v Speaker 1>run in and get involved. That part is true. It's

<v Speaker 1>just that once he ran in, he had an entirely

<v Speaker 1>different agenda and it went from work to shoot real fast.

<v Speaker 1>But when it comes to pro wrestling angles, this goes

<v Speaker 1>to a trial. I can see where some people on

<v Speaker 1>that Jerry might be skeptical about what happened. You know,

<v Speaker 1>I still have actual wrestling fans to this day who

<v Speaker 1>email me convinced that the Montreal screwjob was a work.

<v Speaker 1>What do you think a non wrestling fan is going

<v Speaker 1>to think hearing about something like this, psychostu I don't

<v Speaker 1>know if he would have wanted to pursue this. He

<v Speaker 1>may not have. You would think even without him, just

<v Speaker 1>having that video alone would make for a strong enough case,

<v Speaker 1>But maybe not this way. I guess they're guaranteed to

<v Speaker 1>dole out some sort of justice, which is better than nothing,

<v Speaker 1>but that still doesn't seem harsh enough. Now. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>saying twenty to life or lock them up and throw

<v Speaker 1>away the key, but I mean, fuck, I mean, how

<v Speaker 1>can you watch that video and think that ninety days

<v Speaker 1>is sufficient for doing something like that. I hope we

<v Speaker 1>never have to see anything like that. Ever again, and

<v Speaker 1>hopefully other indie promotions learn something from this when it

<v Speaker 1>comes to using outsiders for an angle like that, without

<v Speaker 1>vetting them or smartening them up first, you would at

<v Speaker 1>least hope that there are lessons to be learned here.

<v Speaker 1>If you'd like to make a PayPal donation, you may

<v Speaker 1>do so on the Sola monster dot com and to

<v Speaker 1>become a PayPal producer here ten dollars or more, we'll

<v Speaker 1>get you a nickname. In a shout out here on

<v Speaker 1>this show, I want to say thank you to Rachel

<v Speaker 1>from the Badger State. I appreciate your support very much.

<v Speaker 1>I appreciate the kind words. Thank you very much, as

<v Speaker 1>well as to the Portland pop star Paul Hamilton with

<v Speaker 1>the Big Bomb this week and on the SmackDown Stream

<v Speaker 1>on Friday Night. Man Paul is showing up and showing

<v Speaker 1>out here. Thank you, Paul Big b Bryant Bessara, the

<v Speaker 1>Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray,

<v Speaker 1>the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, Night Stalker, n f alsafar

<v Speaker 1>Q the Destroyer holding it down in the Windy City,

<v Speaker 1>as is Willie aiker Hy Maybe the two of you

<v Speaker 1>can become a tech team big time Boris Vainman, tough Guy,

<v Speaker 1>Tim Jen Zephyr, enjoy the movie Brother and killshot Keith Hart.

<v Speaker 1>Thank you guys very much. I also want to give

<v Speaker 1>a hat tip to Stevie Richards. I got a lot

<v Speaker 1>of people who tagged me in this this week. Apparently

<v Speaker 1>he did a video or it was a segment on

<v Speaker 1>one of his shows where he was talking about various

<v Speaker 1>wrestling YouTubers or personalities or people he listens to or watches,

<v Speaker 1>and Stevie's given the sound off a shout out or

<v Speaker 1>two in the past, and he did again here was

<v Speaker 1>very cool. I appreciate that. I'm glad that he enjoys

<v Speaker 1>the show or the clips anyway that he sees Stevie.

<v Speaker 1>Stevie does good work himself, So hat tipped to him,

<v Speaker 1>And thank you for everybody who tagged me in that

<v Speaker 1>and pointed that out to me. I appreciate it. Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner died on Wednesday at the age of eighty seven,

<v Speaker 1>and in twenty eighteen, he revealed that he had been

<v Speaker 1>diagnosed with Louis bodied dementia, which is the same disease

<v Speaker 1>that Robin Williams suffered from ultimately led to the end

<v Speaker 1>of his life. It's a progressive brain disorder that causes

<v Speaker 1>all sorts of horrible things. The terrorist inside my Husband's brain.

<v Speaker 1>That's the article that Robin's wife wrote after he died.

<v Speaker 1>I still remember reading it if you care to do so.

<v Speaker 1>It's heartbreaking to read what he went through all without

<v Speaker 1>knowing what it was that he even had. It wasn't

<v Speaker 1>until after he died that they even learned that he

<v Speaker 1>had the disease. But that's what Ted Turner had, and

<v Speaker 1>part of the reason any way, I would imagine why

<v Speaker 1>he lived the later years of his life out of

<v Speaker 1>the public eye, which stood in very stark contrast to

<v Speaker 1>the way he lived most of his life, although he

<v Speaker 1>was eighty years old there so, I mean, it's understandable

<v Speaker 1>that you would see him less and hear from him less.

<v Speaker 1>But this is a man who was dubbed the Mouth

<v Speaker 1>of the South for how outspoken he was, long before

<v Speaker 1>Jimmy Hart got the nickname, and he was best known.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sure you've seen it in a lot of the

<v Speaker 1>articles that have come out this week. Best known for

<v Speaker 1>starting CNN, the first twenty four hour news network at

<v Speaker 1>a time when none existed. He revolutionized the TV news industry,

<v Speaker 1>revolutionized the TV industry period with his superstation TBS, cartoon network,

<v Speaker 1>Turner Classic Movies. The man built a media empire. Bought

<v Speaker 1>the Atlanta Braves to have programming for TBS back when

<v Speaker 1>it was still a local station and before it became TBS,

<v Speaker 1>which kept the team in Atlanta because there were strong

<v Speaker 1>rumors at the time that the owners may be looking

<v Speaker 1>to move the team out of the city. Turner bought

<v Speaker 1>them to keep them in Atlanta so that he could

<v Speaker 1>air the games on his station. He could broadcast them

<v Speaker 1>nationally from coast to coast, which really wasn't a thing

<v Speaker 1>at the time, you know. He also brought in Bobby

<v Speaker 1>Cox to manage the Braves not long after he bought

<v Speaker 1>the team, and then rehired him many years later, during

<v Speaker 1>which time the Braves won a World Series. Granted they

<v Speaker 1>only won one, just have to point that out, but

<v Speaker 1>they did win a World Series. Bobby Cox also died

<v Speaker 1>this week, which is more than a little eerie that

<v Speaker 1>the two of them both lived well into their eighties

<v Speaker 1>and they died within days of each other. So my

<v Speaker 1>condolences to all the Atlanta folks. Out there. You know,

<v Speaker 1>as a Mets fan, we had to contend with Bobby

<v Speaker 1>Cox for many years. It was very frustrating, although to

<v Speaker 1>be fair, he was very fortunate to have the kind

<v Speaker 1>of pitching that those Braves teams had. But he is

<v Speaker 1>the greatest manager in the history of that franchise. Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner is the one who hired him and then fired him,

<v Speaker 1>and then hired him back. And Turner did the same thing.

<v Speaker 1>He bought the Atlanta Hawks to keep them in Atlanta.

<v Speaker 1>He gifted a billion dollar to the United Nations to

<v Speaker 1>form the United Nations Foundation because he believed that international

<v Speaker 1>engagement was necessary for the sake of humanity, and whatever

<v Speaker 1>you think of the UN, he clearly believed in its cause.

<v Speaker 1>No one pledges a billion dollars of their personal wealth

<v Speaker 1>to something that they don't believe in very strongly. He

<v Speaker 1>created the Turner Foundation, which provided grants to support environmental causes.

<v Speaker 1>He co created the Captain Planet character. I'm sorry to say,

<v Speaker 1>the first time I even really knew of Captain Planet

<v Speaker 1>was through some of the sketches on Robot Chicken. I

<v Speaker 1>wasn't really a Captain Planet guy, I guess. But he

<v Speaker 1>co created Captain Planet he rescued American bison from near extinction.

<v Speaker 1>All that to say, he wasn't just a one trick pony.

<v Speaker 1>He wasn't just a media executive. He wasn't just the

<v Speaker 1>owner of a baseball team. He had his hands in

<v Speaker 1>a lot of different things, and he put his money

<v Speaker 1>where his mouth was, even though his mouth got him

<v Speaker 1>into trouble more than a few times. You'll notice the

<v Speaker 1>one thing I haven't even mentioned yet was his ties

<v Speaker 1>to pro wrestling, because in the grand scheme of things,

<v Speaker 1>his involvement in wrestling was like a tiny sliver of

<v Speaker 1>his life. Wrestling only gets a passing mention in his book,

<v Speaker 1>and yet without exaggeration, he will go down as one

<v Speaker 1>of the single most important figures in the history of

<v Speaker 1>pro wrestling, so much so that even WWE gave him

<v Speaker 1>a graphic on SmackDown. You know, there was a time

<v Speaker 1>where that never would have happened, but a certain someone

<v Speaker 1>ain't there no more. I still wasn't sure they would

<v Speaker 1>acknowledge his death, So that was actually a pleasant surprise

<v Speaker 1>to see that on Dynamite, AW had a very classy

<v Speaker 1>tribune with Tony Shravanni in the ring. Would sting two

<v Speaker 1>people who were synonymous with that era when wrestling was

<v Speaker 1>on TBS and then later on you know on TNT

<v Speaker 1>in the Nitro days, Shravanni was the voice of the

<v Speaker 1>company and Sting was the face of it, him and

<v Speaker 1>Rick Flair. But there's a reason that they called Sting

<v Speaker 1>the franchise. He was the one guy who never left

<v Speaker 1>for WWE, not until many years after WCW was dead

<v Speaker 1>and buried. But Tony spoke, Sting spoke. They gave him

<v Speaker 1>a ten bells salute on TBS. It just felt right.

<v Speaker 1>Pro wrestling is not where it is today without Ted Turner.

<v Speaker 1>If he was not a fan of wrestling, if he

<v Speaker 1>didn't invest in it the way that he did, I

<v Speaker 1>don't know what wrestling looks like today, but it's probably

<v Speaker 1>not as big as it is now. I mentioned him

<v Speaker 1>airing Braves Baseball on what would later become TBS, but

<v Speaker 1>he also snatched Georgia Championship Wrestling away from a rival station.

<v Speaker 1>This was back in the early seventies and it did big,

<v Speaker 1>big numbers for him, so he added even more of it.

<v Speaker 1>And it was still a local station back then, but

<v Speaker 1>a few years later they started beaming it out on satellite,

<v Speaker 1>which is how people across the country had access to it,

<v Speaker 1>hence the idea of it becoming a superstation. And Wrestling

<v Speaker 1>was the first show on cable to hit a million viewers.

<v Speaker 1>It is very popular. And then there was Black Saturday

<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty four. If you've listened to this podcast

<v Speaker 1>for any length of time, you've heard me talk about

<v Speaker 1>Black Saturday. I even did a dark Side of the

<v Speaker 1>Ring review on the episode devoted to Black Saturday. In

<v Speaker 1>the Rise of Vince McMahon, the only show outside of

<v Speaker 1>WWE which was airing on USA Network at the time,

<v Speaker 1>and there had been another wrestling show on USA Network

<v Speaker 1>WWF got the slot, but the only other show outside

<v Speaker 1>of a Vince that had national cable was Georgia Championship

<v Speaker 1>Wrestling on TBS, and so Vince made an offer to

<v Speaker 1>Ted Turner to buy out the slot and Turner rejected him.

<v Speaker 1>So you can trace all of Vince's animosity towards Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner back to this moment. Someone had the audacity to

<v Speaker 1>say no to him, right, you don't do that. You

<v Speaker 1>don't say no to Vince McMahon. But there was a

<v Speaker 1>lot of turmoil behind the scenes with GCW at the time.

<v Speaker 1>Business was falling and Ole Anders is wondering where's the

<v Speaker 1>money going. There was a lot of shady shit going

<v Speaker 1>on behind the scenes. Jack and Jerry Briscoe and some

<v Speaker 1>of the other shareholders in Georgia had a secret meeting

<v Speaker 1>with Vince McMahon behind Olie's back. They never told Olie

<v Speaker 1>because Oly did not want to sell let alone to Vince,

<v Speaker 1>and behind his back they used their majority voting power

<v Speaker 1>to add a bylaw that the company could be sold

<v Speaker 1>without informing all of the shareholders or even allowing them

<v Speaker 1>to match any outside offers. So they sold their stock

<v Speaker 1>to Vince and that led to Black Saturday on TBS,

<v Speaker 1>where fans tuned in one day one morning expecting to

<v Speaker 1>see Gordon Soley's face, and instead they were greeted by

<v Speaker 1>Vincent Kennedy McMahon, who even brought Guerrilla mon Soon to

<v Speaker 1>the studio with him that day. I guess in case

<v Speaker 1>somebody wanted to kick his ass, he had Gorilla there

<v Speaker 1>with him his backup, or at least the so says

<v Speaker 1>Jerry Briscoe. No studio audience that people were used to seeing,

<v Speaker 1>no live matches. It was just Vince taking it to

<v Speaker 1>a bunch of taped WWF matches from around the country

<v Speaker 1>with his guys, and the fans were not happy about this.

<v Speaker 1>They flooded the phone lines they were expressing their outrage.

<v Speaker 1>Vince didn't give a fuck about GCW. He just wanted

<v Speaker 1>the time slot for his wrestlers, and he kept that

<v Speaker 1>slot for about a year. Ratings went down. Turner worked

<v Speaker 1>out a deal with Bill Watts to put Mid South

<v Speaker 1>Wrestling on TBS in a different time slot, which did

<v Speaker 1>better numbers than Vince's show did, and so Vince kind

<v Speaker 1>of saw the writing on the wall. He figured Turner

<v Speaker 1>was about to cancel the show. He worked out a

<v Speaker 1>deal to sell the slot to Jim Crockett Junior for

<v Speaker 1>a million dollars, which he famously told Crockett, I'm gonna

<v Speaker 1>make you choke on that million, and then you fast

<v Speaker 1>forward to nineteen eighty eight. Crockett's in debt, he's about

<v Speaker 1>to shut down his promotion. He's on the verge, he's

<v Speaker 1>on the brink, and Ted Turner buys the company from him,

<v Speaker 1>not because the other executives who worked for Turner wanted

<v Speaker 1>him to buy a wrestling company, quite the contrary, but

<v Speaker 1>because Ted Turner had a lower he felt this sense

<v Speaker 1>of loyalty to wrestling, which had been so instrumental in

<v Speaker 1>the early success of TBS, even when the company was

<v Speaker 1>losing money in the early nineties and WCW lost a

<v Speaker 1>lot of money. You know, there were executives at Turner

<v Speaker 1>Broadcasting in his ear telling him sell it or shut

<v Speaker 1>it down. He refused, he didn't want to hear it.

<v Speaker 1>And they were losing millions, right, not as many millions

<v Speaker 1>as they would lose later on, but still, if they

<v Speaker 1>were losing five million a year, eight million a year,

<v Speaker 1>it's a lot of money, you know, especially back then.

<v Speaker 1>And it sucks too, because nineteen ninety two was an

<v Speaker 1>incredible year for WCW that I didn't fully appreciate at

<v Speaker 1>the time because I wasn't watching it as much as

<v Speaker 1>I was watching the other product. But I go back now,

<v Speaker 1>and man, I mean even now on the WCW channel,

<v Speaker 1>it's like the WCW vault that they have on YouTube,

<v Speaker 1>and you look at some of the stuff they upload

<v Speaker 1>from ninety two and even ninety three, and you look

<v Speaker 1>at the talent roster that they had backed then, the

<v Speaker 1>matches they were producing. That is some of the best

<v Speaker 1>stuff that WCW ever put out in the history of

<v Speaker 1>that company, and yet they were losing so much money.

<v Speaker 1>But Ted Turner is the man who signed off on

<v Speaker 1>Eric Bischoff bringing Hulk Hogan into WCW. That was the

<v Speaker 1>first real shot fired as far as trying to compete

<v Speaker 1>with Vince McMahon because they had just signed away Vince's

<v Speaker 1>biggest star. Now he wasn't working for Vince anymore. It's

<v Speaker 1>not like he kind of in the middle of the

<v Speaker 1>night he went and rated Vince's top guy. Hogan had

<v Speaker 1>been Vince's top guy for many years, but at that

<v Speaker 1>point he was doing Thunder and Paradise. He wasn't wrestling anymore. Still, though,

<v Speaker 1>he signed away Vince's biggest star, who Vince had thought

<v Speaker 1>was on the downswing, trying to phase him down, phase

<v Speaker 1>him out right. Oh, he's washed, doesn't have as much

<v Speaker 1>value left. That's why he shifted to the new generation

<v Speaker 1>model with guys like Brett Hart and Shawn Michaels. And

<v Speaker 1>he wasn't wrong. I mean, he had to create new

<v Speaker 1>stars and Hogan was very passe to a lot of people.

<v Speaker 1>But to say he had no value, I mean to

<v Speaker 1>say that Randy Savage, who Vince also had no interest

<v Speaker 1>in anymore and using in a major way had no

<v Speaker 1>value as a draw was crazy, and so in nineteen

<v Speaker 1>ninety five Hogan's There, Savage is there. Turner wants to

<v Speaker 1>know why are our ratings lower than WWE, And he

<v Speaker 1>asked Eric Bischoff, what do we need to do to

<v Speaker 1>compete with them? And Eric said, well, they're in primetime

<v Speaker 1>on Monday nights. So Turner said, okay, give Eric an

<v Speaker 1>hour in primetime every Monday night on TNT, and thus

<v Speaker 1>WCW Monday Nitro was born. Nitro did not expand to

<v Speaker 1>two hours until the following year. It was actually a

<v Speaker 1>Memorial Day in nineteen ninety six, the same night that

<v Speaker 1>Scott Hall showed up. That's when Nitro officially moved to

<v Speaker 1>two hours. It may be that the two hours that

<v Speaker 1>Eric always refers to in that meeting. Oh you know,

<v Speaker 1>Ted said give Eric two hours. The only thing I

<v Speaker 1>could think of is maybe when he says this, unless

<v Speaker 1>again he's just forgetting is They did give WCW a

<v Speaker 1>replay every Monday night. There was a Nitro replay that

<v Speaker 1>would air the same night a few hours later, so

<v Speaker 1>it was the same show, but it was like the

<v Speaker 1>second hour technically was a replay. You hear him tell it,

<v Speaker 1>though you would think Ted gave him two hours of

<v Speaker 1>first run television every Monday night right out of the gate,

<v Speaker 1>That's not the case. It was almost a year before

<v Speaker 1>the show would move to two hours, and Turner more

<v Speaker 1>or less was hands off after that. When it came

<v Speaker 1>to WCW. He would check in on the ratings with

<v Speaker 1>Eric every Tuesday when the Nielsen numbers would come out,

<v Speaker 1>usually Tuesday, like late afternoon, but he left Bischoff to

<v Speaker 1>his own devices and Eric even He talked to Ariel

<v Speaker 1>Helwani this week about Turner's death, and he said that

<v Speaker 1>any decision up to a million dollars, he did not

<v Speaker 1>even need to consult anybody at Turner. He did not

<v Speaker 1>have to ask for a permission or approval. He just

<v Speaker 1>went and did it. If it was over a million,

<v Speaker 1>if it was a million one, he would have to

<v Speaker 1>run it up the flagpole. But he basically had an

<v Speaker 1>open check book from Turner to sign whoever he felt

<v Speaker 1>he needed, or make whatever changes he felt were necessary.

<v Speaker 1>And it was that Turner money that brought in Hogan

<v Speaker 1>and Nash and Savage and Hall and all of these

<v Speaker 1>different people, but like Hogan, Hall and Nash. Obviously that

<v Speaker 1>led to the creation of the nWo. And the creation

<v Speaker 1>of the nWo changed the business forever, and it led

<v Speaker 1>to WCW kicking WWE's ass for eighty three straight weeks

<v Speaker 1>in the ratings. They took WCW from a regional promotion

<v Speaker 1>losing millions of dollars to the number one promotion in

<v Speaker 1>the world making millions for a good two years or

<v Speaker 1>so before it all started to fall apart. I mentioned

<v Speaker 1>again they didn't lose as much money in the early

<v Speaker 1>nineties as they did in the late nineties. They got

<v Speaker 1>to a point where they lost over sixty million dollars

<v Speaker 1>in one year. That is quite the swing to go

<v Speaker 1>from being the number one promotion making millions to losing

<v Speaker 1>sixty million. I mean, that's quite the downfall. But Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner is the only man to take the fight directly

<v Speaker 1>to Vince McMahon and kick his ass in a way

<v Speaker 1>that nobody else had done. And this irritated Vince like

<v Speaker 1>you wouldn't believe Turner lived rent free in this man's head.

<v Speaker 1>Vince always talked about it like he was at war

<v Speaker 1>directly with Ted Turner. When the reality was ted, Turner

<v Speaker 1>spent very little time even thinking about Vince McMahon or

<v Speaker 1>really thinking about wrestling in general. Like Vince liked to

<v Speaker 1>think that he was more important than he really was

<v Speaker 1>outside of wrestling, and he couldn't stand that Turner was

<v Speaker 1>this big, successful medium mogul. But it's the story of

<v Speaker 1>Vince's life. He was always seeking validation outside of wrestling.

<v Speaker 1>Wrestling was a dirty word to him, right. He couldn't

<v Speaker 1>stand just being known as a wrestling promoter, and he

<v Speaker 1>failed each and every time outside of it, whether it

<v Speaker 1>was movies or football or bodybuilding bodybuilding supplements. I guarantee

<v Speaker 1>you there's still a warehouse full of Ico pro bottles

<v Speaker 1>in Connecticut somewhere. But Bischoff, using Turner's money, made lots

<v Speaker 1>of changes that Vince had no choice but to respond

<v Speaker 1>to and to adapt to. Where do you think in

<v Speaker 1>your house? Pay per views came from WCW started running

<v Speaker 1>monthly pay per views, so Vince followed suit, and then

<v Speaker 1>eventually he expanded those shows from two hours to three

<v Speaker 1>hours because that's what WCW was doing. Bischoff made sure

<v Speaker 1>Nitro had a real modern look and feel to it

<v Speaker 1>much better than what Raw looked like. Back then, Raw

<v Speaker 1>looked like shit compared to Nitro in those early days.

<v Speaker 1>Are you kidding me? And I say that as a

<v Speaker 1>WWF fan at the time who watched a lot more

<v Speaker 1>Raw than I did Nitro, But Nitro just looked cooler,

<v Speaker 1>and I always loved it when they would air the

<v Speaker 1>show outdoors at Universal or in Panama City Beach, you know,

<v Speaker 1>outside for those spring break shows. WWF wasn't doing it

<v Speaker 1>anything like that. So what happened We got Raw is

<v Speaker 1>War with the Giant Titan tron to update the look

<v Speaker 1>of the show all right, Bishop brought in the Cruiserweights,

<v Speaker 1>which were one of the highlights of Nitro every week.

<v Speaker 1>Eventually Vince started bringing in cruiserweights and international stars, and

<v Speaker 1>he made a big deal about signing Taka Michioku and

<v Speaker 1>had a press conference, and you think he did all

<v Speaker 1>that shit because he suddenly fell in love with those guys.

<v Speaker 1>Eric made Nitro live every week. Eventually Vince did the same.

<v Speaker 1>He had to. Eric was giving out spoilers for Raw

<v Speaker 1>on Nitro every week. That used to piss me off,

<v Speaker 1>like you wouldn't believe, because the first hour of Nitro

<v Speaker 1>was like early on anyway, was unopposed to Raw when

<v Speaker 1>it was two hours, so I would tune into Nitro

<v Speaker 1>and Bischoff was still doing commentary at the time, and

<v Speaker 1>he'd be sitting there going, all right, and on the

<v Speaker 1>other show, the big guy is gonna eat a super

<v Speaker 1>kick from the little guy. I'm like you, motherfucker. This

<v Speaker 1>is what would happen every single week. Everything Bischoff in

<v Speaker 1>WCW did, Vince followed suit and he tried to do

<v Speaker 1>it better. It motivated him to stop doing the same

<v Speaker 1>old shit. This is why you need competition. This is

<v Speaker 1>why competition is so I mean, there's a lot of

<v Speaker 1>reasons why competition is important, obviously for the talent as well,

<v Speaker 1>but that's one of the reasons because when you get

<v Speaker 1>lazy and you get complacent, you need somebody else to

<v Speaker 1>come along and do it better than you. Because nobody

<v Speaker 1>wants to look bad, nobody wants to be shown up

<v Speaker 1>by somebody else. Competition is the great motivator. And Vince

<v Speaker 1>would always portray himself as the victim. Right, he will, Oh,

<v Speaker 1>I'm not a billionaire with an open check book like

<v Speaker 1>billionaire Ted was right. That's where the billionaire Ted skits

<v Speaker 1>came from Like I said, rent free, Vince would write

<v Speaker 1>letters to Turner admonishing him for letting his wrestlers blade

<v Speaker 1>on television. He called it barbaric, and then he turned

<v Speaker 1>right around a few years later and he allowed his

<v Speaker 1>wrestlers to blade every week in the Attitude era. I

<v Speaker 1>guess yes, it was no longer barbaric to him, only

<v Speaker 1>when somebody else did. It was at barbaric at a

<v Speaker 1>time when his product was more family friendly. So it

<v Speaker 1>wasn't that he founded barbaric. It was that it's not

<v Speaker 1>fair that you can do it and we can't. So

<v Speaker 1>if we can't do it, then nobody should be allowed

<v Speaker 1>to do it. All the letters he wrote to Turner,

<v Speaker 1>some of which have been published over the years, All

<v Speaker 1>the letters that he wrote to Ted Turner, I doubt

<v Speaker 1>ted Turner ever responded to a single one of them.

<v Speaker 1>I don't even know if they made it to his desk. Meanwhile,

<v Speaker 1>all the things that he used to criticize and mock

<v Speaker 1>Turner for when it came to throwing his money around

<v Speaker 1>being a billionaire, Vince did the exact same thing even

<v Speaker 1>before he became a billionaire, Like just go back to

<v Speaker 1>the territory days. All the talent that he rated from

<v Speaker 1>other promotions. You think Holkomanias started in WWE, he nationalized it,

<v Speaker 1>he made it global. But that shit started in the

<v Speaker 1>Twin Cities with Verne Gangya, Hulkamania, Me and Gene Okerland,

<v Speaker 1>Bobby the Weasel, Jesse Ventura, on and on. All those guys.

<v Speaker 1>They were stars in the AWA before Vince signed them all.

<v Speaker 1>But yet he turns around in the nineties and he

<v Speaker 1>cries about Turner making money on the backs of stars

<v Speaker 1>that he created. Fast forward twenty five years. He's throwing

<v Speaker 1>high six figures in seven figure contracts of guys who

<v Speaker 1>he would never give that kind of money to, just

<v Speaker 1>to keep them from signing with AAW. He didn't mind

<v Speaker 1>throwing his money around then, and that's his right to

<v Speaker 1>do that. But the hypocrisy is it's so glaring. Not

<v Speaker 1>that Turner did anything wrong in his eyes, it's that

<v Speaker 1>somebody had the gall to do it to him. That's

<v Speaker 1>really what that was all about. But then it all

<v Speaker 1>came crashing down with I mean, the worst media merger

<v Speaker 1>in history in the year two thousand, the infamous Aol

<v Speaker 1>Time Warner merger. Turner lost all of his power after that.

<v Speaker 1>As I said before, WCW lost over sixty million dollar

<v Speaker 1>and at that point there was nothing he could do

<v Speaker 1>to save it. You know, he had always vowed to

<v Speaker 1>keep wrestling on his TV stations no matter what, but

<v Speaker 1>he wasn't in charge anymore. He lost control of all

<v Speaker 1>of his assets, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, the Braves, all of it.

<v Speaker 1>He lost billions of dollars. There was a period where

<v Speaker 1>he discussed the possibility of starting a new wrestling company.

<v Speaker 1>A bunch of people got together with him and the

<v Speaker 1>idea was that they would start a new company. They

<v Speaker 1>would get it back on TNT or TBS. But he

<v Speaker 1>was told that it would take about fifty million dollars

<v Speaker 1>to get it off the ground and really compete with

<v Speaker 1>Vince McMahon. And it's not that he didn't have the money,

<v Speaker 1>although he had a lot less money. It's not that

<v Speaker 1>he didn't have the money, but he didn't have as

<v Speaker 1>much of it as he used to and he wasn't

<v Speaker 1>willing to make that kind of investment. So he said no.

<v Speaker 1>And that was as far as his involvement in the

<v Speaker 1>wrestling world goes. That's pretty much where it came to

<v Speaker 1>an end. So I mean He should be a shoe

<v Speaker 1>in for any wrestling Hall of Fame just based on

<v Speaker 1>the influence that he had alone from putting it on

<v Speaker 1>his station in the seventies, buying Crockett Promotions in the eighties,

<v Speaker 1>starting the Monday Night War in the nineties. Honestly, outside

<v Speaker 1>of Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan, name me a more

<v Speaker 1>influential figure business wise in the history of pro wrestling.

<v Speaker 1>There is none. And you know what after Vince, because

<v Speaker 1>Vince is number one. But after Vince, if you want

<v Speaker 1>to Turner at number two and Hogan at number three,

<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't argue it. I wouldn't argue either one of

<v Speaker 1>those positions. But I would say this for someone as

<v Speaker 1>divorced from the day to day of the wrestling business

<v Speaker 1>as Ted Turner was, someone who didn't live it and

<v Speaker 1>breathe it every single day, he sure did leave his

<v Speaker 1>mark on it. We learned this week through TKO's financials

<v Speaker 1>that WWE president Nick Kahn signed a deal on Monday

<v Speaker 1>that will keep him in the role through the year

<v Speaker 1>twenty thirty. He will be paid two million dollars through

<v Speaker 1>the end of this year, and then three million dollars

<v Speaker 1>per year through the end of his contract, and if

<v Speaker 1>that sounds kind of low, which does. He's also eligible

<v Speaker 1>for annual bonuses of one hundred and fifty percent of

<v Speaker 1>his base salary for twenty twenty six and two hundred

<v Speaker 1>percent of his base salary in twenty twenty seven through

<v Speaker 1>the end of his deal. And he is making many

<v Speaker 1>more millions in stock awards. So for example, last year

<v Speaker 1>he earned over twenty four million dollars based off two

<v Speaker 1>million in base salary. So I think he's doing OK

<v Speaker 1>for himself. It's not ari emmanual money, but I think

<v Speaker 1>he's doing OK. But TKO announced their financials on Wednesday.

<v Speaker 1>Total revenues increased to nearly one point six billion dollars

<v Speaker 1>year over year, powered largely by WWE's four hundred and

<v Speaker 1>seventy five million and UFC's four hundred and one million.

<v Speaker 1>WWE's biggest first quarter driver was the Royal Rumble event

<v Speaker 1>held in Saudi Arabia. No surprise there. Mark Shapiro said

<v Speaker 1>they are firmly moving ahead with scheduled events in Saudi

<v Speaker 1>and the region for both WWE and UFC, even and

<v Speaker 1>despite a challenging environment. I love how they describe these

<v Speaker 1>things it's a challenging INVI, it's called a war. He

<v Speaker 1>confirmed Saudi Arabia's PIF will not withdraw their financial commitment

<v Speaker 1>to TKO as they did with Live Golf. Yeah, they

<v Speaker 1>pulled out a Live Golf made this big financial commitment

<v Speaker 1>and they pulled out. So some people were wondering if

<v Speaker 1>they were going to do the same with WWE, but

<v Speaker 1>he sounds pretty convinced that will not be the case.

<v Speaker 1>Shapiro said that they were not concerned about ticket performance

<v Speaker 1>whatsoever for wrestlemany of forty two, and that it was

<v Speaker 1>unrealistic to expect growth their year over years. So let

<v Speaker 1>me stop there for a second. Now, look on an

<v Speaker 1>earnings call, I would not expect them to say anything

<v Speaker 1>else but the idea that they were not at all

<v Speaker 1>concerned about ticket performance. And then you see what happened

<v Speaker 1>with Pat McAfee's involvement and Ari Emanuel being involved then

<v Speaker 1>and we got to get him involved here and Pat

<v Speaker 1>McAfee going on television to make a big announcement, the

<v Speaker 1>big announcement turning out to be a twenty five percent

<v Speaker 1>discount on all tickets for Night one. Fuck off with

<v Speaker 1>this notion that you weren't concerned about a ticket performance.

<v Speaker 1>Fuck off, nobody believes you. They said it was still

<v Speaker 1>one of the highest gates in WWE history and outperformed

<v Speaker 1>anywhere else that they could have held the show this year.

<v Speaker 1>And he also defended against the criticism of WWE creative,

<v Speaker 1>saying that they listened to all feedback, but what they've

<v Speaker 1>been hearing is not new criticism, so therefore it must

<v Speaker 1>not be valid. He said there is no magic formula

<v Speaker 1>and no magic serum to adding the commercial element into

<v Speaker 1>WWE's presentation, and that it's a trial and error. Over time,

<v Speaker 1>they have pushed boundaries for events, leading into or leaning

<v Speaker 1>into some more than others. I will say this though,

<v Speaker 1>when it comes to backlash, which I'm going to talk

<v Speaker 1>about here in a second. When it comes to backlash

<v Speaker 1>last night, it was noticeable that there was a lighter

<v Speaker 1>commercial element to the show, at least in terms of

<v Speaker 1>like the ring and just like the ringside area the ring,

<v Speaker 1>matt was not totally clean, but it was mostly clean.

<v Speaker 1>They had the giant WWE logo in the middle. The

<v Speaker 1>only logos they had beyond that were in each of

<v Speaker 1>the four corners. They had their ri odd season and

<v Speaker 1>that was it. You know, usually they'll have some sort

<v Speaker 1>of title sponsor in the center. I thought that was

<v Speaker 1>part of their deal with Logan Paul's Prime Energy drink,

<v Speaker 1>at least for the plees. Maybe it ran out. And

<v Speaker 1>then on the turn buckles it was just the WWE logo.

<v Speaker 1>You look at WrestleMania. It was a vastly different, vastly

<v Speaker 1>more commercial look. I noticed it last night. It was

<v Speaker 1>nice because we don't need the sensory overload all the time.

<v Speaker 1>I get wanting to have a title sponsor or something

<v Speaker 1>here and there. Maybe, but like they go overboard with it.

<v Speaker 1>Like he said, they're testing boundaries. They're pushing boundaries to

<v Speaker 1>the point where they're basically breaking and they're trying to

<v Speaker 1>figure out, okay, is too much, you know, too much,

<v Speaker 1>or maybe it's not enough. And it was noticeably less

<v Speaker 1>so last night. Hopefully that's a thing going forward. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if that was just a one time thing,

<v Speaker 1>but we'll see, but I was it was definitely noticeable

<v Speaker 1>to me last night. Now, there was a news side

<v Speaker 1>in this week about Ireland. Our friends over in Ireland

<v Speaker 1>they are making a competitive bid for a future WrestleMania.

<v Speaker 1>It says Ireland is well placed to put in a

<v Speaker 1>bid to host WrestleMania in the future. Maurice Shortall, the

<v Speaker 1>counselor for Kill Kenny Hey They Killed Kenny, told Irish

<v Speaker 1>Mirror that Ireland is in a good position to put

<v Speaker 1>in a competitive bid in light of their strong positioning

<v Speaker 1>as an international tourism brand. He said. As a globally

<v Speaker 1>recognized event with the capacity to attract tens of thousands

<v Speaker 1>of international visitors and generate substantial international media exposure, WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>presents a significant opportunity for Ireland to strengthen its position

<v Speaker 1>as a leading destination for major event tourism. The wider

<v Speaker 1>regional benefit to countries such as kilk or counties not

<v Speaker 1>countries such as Kilkenny, would be substantial, with strong potential

<v Speaker 1>for tourism spillover, increased domestic travel and enhanced international visibility

<v Speaker 1>for Ireland's secondary tourism destinations. So how about that WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>in Ireland. I can get behind that. I've never been

<v Speaker 1>to Ireland before. That could be very interesting. Have a

<v Speaker 1>lot of listeners in Ireland. Se Scoops reported this week

<v Speaker 1>that Alistair Black was in active negotiations with all Elite Wrestling,

<v Speaker 1>and then AW came out and denied to Fightful that

<v Speaker 1>they have entered into discussions with Alistair Black, who is

<v Speaker 1>still technically under contract with WWE, so they may have

<v Speaker 1>to deny it publicly. I mean, they don't need another

<v Speaker 1>mess like the one they had with Andrade when they

<v Speaker 1>just put him on TV. So I don't know, you know,

<v Speaker 1>maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle of maybe

<v Speaker 1>feelers have been sent out, maybe there's no active negotiations

<v Speaker 1>going on, I don't know. But in terms of him

<v Speaker 1>potentially going back to AAW, maybe this time with his wife,

<v Speaker 1>maybe Zelena comes over this time. Look, I mean, if

<v Speaker 1>he wants to work for a major promotion to make

<v Speaker 1>major money, his options are going to be very limited.

<v Speaker 1>I think if he or both of them wanted to

<v Speaker 1>just get out there on the independent scene, and they

<v Speaker 1>can work with pretty much whoever they want to without

<v Speaker 1>putting pen to paper and signing a formal contract. It's

<v Speaker 1>not like they're going to be hurting for money. I

<v Speaker 1>think they'll get a lot of opportunities. I think there's

<v Speaker 1>a lot of promotions that would love to work with

<v Speaker 1>him and bring him in or bring them both in.

<v Speaker 1>But yeah, he's not going to be making the kind

<v Speaker 1>of money you know, in some of these other places

<v Speaker 1>that he would if he was working either for WWE

<v Speaker 1>or if he was working for AW, So he may

<v Speaker 1>want to go back there. And I think Jim Ross

<v Speaker 1>on this podcast not too long ago, came out and

<v Speaker 1>said that, to his knowledge, there's no burn Bridges there.

<v Speaker 1>You know. It was a weird situation again because he

<v Speaker 1>was in the company for so many years and had

<v Speaker 1>very little singles matches, especially in his last few years,

<v Speaker 1>and he would get very upset about it when people

<v Speaker 1>started speculating on social media though maybe he's hurt. Maybe

<v Speaker 1>you know, he had a back injury, maybe his back

<v Speaker 1>is bothering him. And he had to come out and say,

<v Speaker 1>my back is fine, I feel fine. Don't ask me.

<v Speaker 1>I'm not the one you should be asking. As far

<v Speaker 1>as why he wasn't being you know, put out there

<v Speaker 1>more often in singles matches, So he never really got

<v Speaker 1>a straight answer about that. I don't know. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know what to make of that. It was a very

<v Speaker 1>weird thing him going back there. I can't imagine him

<v Speaker 1>being in a much better position than the one he

<v Speaker 1>was in previously. So if he left because he was

<v Speaker 1>unhappy and not just because he wanted to go work

<v Speaker 1>for Triple H since the whole creative situation had changed

<v Speaker 1>since he left the company, if he was genuinely unhappy

<v Speaker 1>with his position in AW, I don't know that him

<v Speaker 1>going back is going to make him any happier. You know,

<v Speaker 1>he's a talented guy. I think he could contribute, But

<v Speaker 1>if he does go back there, I really I don't

<v Speaker 1>see him being in a position any better than the

<v Speaker 1>one he was in before. Sources tall fightful select dot

<v Speaker 1>Com that on the day of the mass releases, WWE

<v Speaker 1>approached numerous talents and asked them to take pay cuts

<v Speaker 1>in order to remain with the company, and several of

<v Speaker 1>them were given two days to make that decision, not

<v Speaker 1>a lot of time. Brian Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live

<v Speaker 1>this week had this to say, from what I understand,

<v Speaker 1>these people who have been asked to restructure their deals

<v Speaker 1>are people who are upper midcardish, maybe even higher than that.

<v Speaker 1>The ones I've heard they've been around for a long

<v Speaker 1>time and they were making a lot of money. We're

<v Speaker 1>not talking about a guy like Roman Reigns or a

<v Speaker 1>guy like seth Rollins, those guys, the very tippy top

<v Speaker 1>main eventors. They're not going to be asking those guys

<v Speaker 1>to restructure their deals. If you are low on the card,

<v Speaker 1>you're probably not making enough that they're going to bother

<v Speaker 1>with you. So the reason that there's a specific window

<v Speaker 1>it appears people that are being asked to restructure is

<v Speaker 1>because these people sign pretty big money deals quite a

<v Speaker 1>while ago, and they've been making that money for a

<v Speaker 1>while and now they're not where they were. Their justification

<v Speaker 1>is things are very different now than when you sign

<v Speaker 1>this deal. Yes, we are asking you to take less money,

<v Speaker 1>but their argument is you're doing significantly less now. You're

<v Speaker 1>not doing four house shows a week, you're not on

<v Speaker 1>the road four days a week, paying for your transportation

<v Speaker 1>and your hotel and this, and that you're on the

<v Speaker 1>road one day a week. You're wrestling maybe twice a month,

<v Speaker 1>and we want to pay you less because you're doing

<v Speaker 1>less now. That is their mindset, And that's fine, except

<v Speaker 1>for the fact that you signed a contract for a

<v Speaker 1>certain amount of money and therefore they should honor the contract,

<v Speaker 1>plain and simple. I have no sympathy for TKA. Oh well,

<v Speaker 1>they're not running as many house shows anymore. Yeah, you

<v Speaker 1>know what, They're not running hardly any house shows anymore,

<v Speaker 1>and yet they're grossing more money than they ever have.

<v Speaker 1>They actually scaled back on house shows, but the company

<v Speaker 1>is making more money now than they were before. I

<v Speaker 1>have no sympathy for this company when it comes to

<v Speaker 1>the idea that they want to cut people's pay because

<v Speaker 1>we're not doing this and you're not working these shows.

<v Speaker 1>Tough shit. When the deal is up, you can offer

<v Speaker 1>them a significantly less deal and then it's up to

<v Speaker 1>them if they want to sign it or not. But otherwise,

<v Speaker 1>honor the fucking contract. Backlash was last night in Tampa.

<v Speaker 1>Not a whole lot to this show, with only five matches,

<v Speaker 1>no title changes, no major angles outside of Jacob Fatu

<v Speaker 1>snapping after the main event, and what may or may

<v Speaker 1>not have been a heel turn. But the show ended

<v Speaker 1>in less than three hours because they wanted it done

<v Speaker 1>before the UFC cards started at nine o'clock. I'm assuming

<v Speaker 1>and you get no pushback for me on that. I

<v Speaker 1>was live on YouTube by nine point thirty last night.

<v Speaker 1>The big announcement, though, that we did have on this

<v Speaker 1>show concerned John Cena and coming into this John Cena

<v Speaker 1>was really hyping this up on social media. There's going

<v Speaker 1>to be some big, epic, historic announcement. You'll want to

<v Speaker 1>tune in for this. And so he walked out there

<v Speaker 1>and he's in his pinstripe three piece suit, and I

<v Speaker 1>saw one person say that he is morphing into a

<v Speaker 1>real life Lance Catamaran from Southpaw Championship Wrestling, and now

<v Speaker 1>I can't unsee it. I actually said on my review

<v Speaker 1>that he's looking more like a younger Vince McMahon. But yes,

<v Speaker 1>he does look like Lance Catamaran now. And so shockingly,

<v Speaker 1>the announcement was not directly tied into Club WWE, which

<v Speaker 1>is their new fan service, their new fan club that

<v Speaker 1>they're rolling out. We still don't even know the annual

<v Speaker 1>membership fees or anything like that, but he's kind of

<v Speaker 1>the face of it right now as they've started to

<v Speaker 1>really turn up the hype machine for it. So a

<v Speaker 1>lot of people assumed it was going to be tied

<v Speaker 1>into Club WWE some sort of perk, but it also

<v Speaker 1>and it wasn't. But it also is not going to

<v Speaker 1>shake the very foundation, as they said of WWE. It

<v Speaker 1>isn't anything epic. They use these words to describe these things,

<v Speaker 1>and they never live up to expectations. But I also

<v Speaker 1>don't hate it. I don't hate what he announced quite

<v Speaker 1>as much as I see some people hating on it,

<v Speaker 1>although I do hate aspects of it, at least as

<v Speaker 1>the way he described them. This thing sounds like it's

<v Speaker 1>a work in progress, is what it sounds like. What

<v Speaker 1>it is. It will be an event, the John Cena Classic,

<v Speaker 1>based around the idea of WWE main roster stars wrestling

<v Speaker 1>NXT stars, so very similar to what he pushed for

<v Speaker 1>on his retirement show in December, and he also said

<v Speaker 1>that he will be introducing a new championship for it,

<v Speaker 1>which is exactly what we don't need. Sina said, the

<v Speaker 1>fans will get to vote on who the champion is

<v Speaker 1>going to be. Everybody competing. Everybody competing is going to

<v Speaker 1>be eligible to win the championship, So even if somebody

<v Speaker 1>doesn't win their match or matches, they can still earn

<v Speaker 1>the respect of the audience and win via fan voting,

<v Speaker 1>which sounds totally fucked if you're awarding a championship. So basically,

<v Speaker 1>it's a showcase for NXT talents to impress the fans

<v Speaker 1>and get over which is great and I have no

<v Speaker 1>issue with that, but it's just a popularity contest. If

<v Speaker 1>you're awarding a championship to somebody who goes out there

<v Speaker 1>and loses, then all it is is a popularity contest.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think it's necessarily tournament style. I don't remember

<v Speaker 1>him using that word. I see people calling it a tournament.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know where they're getting that from. It may

<v Speaker 1>end up being a tournament, but I don't believe he

<v Speaker 1>actually used that word. We don't know exactly what the

<v Speaker 1>format is going to be yet. It sounds to me

<v Speaker 1>like it's just going to be a series of matches,

<v Speaker 1>just like we had on Saturday Nights made event when

<v Speaker 1>we had Cody and Oba and we had Sol, Ruka

<v Speaker 1>and Bailey. Not necessarily tournament like, like fucking Mortal Kombat style. Well,

<v Speaker 1>we don't even know the when or where of when

<v Speaker 1>or where this show is taking place. There was no

<v Speaker 1>mention of it now. Their ple schedule is wide open

<v Speaker 1>right now in July, unless they're going to throw Evolution

<v Speaker 1>on there. Again, there's no ple scheduled outside of a

<v Speaker 1>Saturday Night's main event at Madison Square Garden, and maybe

<v Speaker 1>that's the place. I think July eighteenth, I believe it is.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe that's the place that they plan on doing it.

<v Speaker 1>This is not their first time dipping their toe in

<v Speaker 1>the fan voting waters. I mean, they did it with

<v Speaker 1>their Taboo Tuesday pay per views over twenty years ago.

<v Speaker 1>And the Taboo Tuesday concept was a fail because doing

<v Speaker 1>a pay per view on a Tuesday just isn't going

<v Speaker 1>to work. They tried it in nineteen ninety one, it

<v Speaker 1>didn't work. Then they tried it again in two thousand

<v Speaker 1>and four with Taboo Tuesday. Maybe how many Taboo Tuesdays

<v Speaker 1>did we have two? I want to say they did

<v Speaker 1>it twice, and then it converted over to Cyber Sunday,

<v Speaker 1>which was the same exact thing, but on a Sunday

<v Speaker 1>instead of a Tuesday. And then after that and Cyber

<v Speaker 1>Sunday was maybe a few years and they did away

<v Speaker 1>with the concept because it just doesn't work. It's a

<v Speaker 1>TV concept. To me, it's a TV gimmick. It's not

<v Speaker 1>a gimmick you use for pay per views, which is

<v Speaker 1>why I always hated those shows, because you don't know

<v Speaker 1>most of the matches that you're going into it. You're

<v Speaker 1>paying money for these shows This is pre WWE network,

<v Speaker 1>so you're paying whatever the f fifty bucks, whatever it is,

<v Speaker 1>and you don't even know what the matches are or

<v Speaker 1>most of the matches. I think it's fine to use

<v Speaker 1>as a TV gimmick like once a year, but that's

<v Speaker 1>all I would do with it, right. It makes the

<v Speaker 1>fans feel like they're part of the show if you

<v Speaker 1>trust that the voting is legitimate, which supposedly it always

<v Speaker 1>was with the Cyber Sunday stuff, but really, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>there's no way to prove it, and these days I

<v Speaker 1>wouldn't even trust it. I think this is something that

<v Speaker 1>Johnsena legitimately came up with on his own. I think

<v Speaker 1>he pitched it to them and they went for it.

<v Speaker 1>He's the one who pushed for NXT stars to wrestle

<v Speaker 1>WWE stars the same night that he wrestled go Bruce

<v Speaker 1>Pritchard supposedly wanted it to be a one match show

<v Speaker 1>built around John Cena against Gunther and nothing else, and

<v Speaker 1>it was seen his idea to do it the way

<v Speaker 1>that they did, which was for the better. I think

<v Speaker 1>he's still trying to navigate his post WWE career. I

<v Speaker 1>think he's still trying to figure out what his post

<v Speaker 1>in ring life with them is going to look like.

<v Speaker 1>And this is his way of giving back by shining

<v Speaker 1>a light on the men and women coming up. I

<v Speaker 1>know he's very big on Will Cruz, for example, who

<v Speaker 1>just debuted on NXT. He got his new name, Mason Rook.

<v Speaker 1>I think this entire thing is designed for him to win.

<v Speaker 1>To be honest with you, I'm sure he'll be a

<v Speaker 1>part of it. Kendall Gray, I mean people like that. Again.

<v Speaker 1>I like the concept of it. I don't know about

<v Speaker 1>the execution. You know, it doesn't have to be an

<v Speaker 1>NXT talent who gets voted in as the champion either.

<v Speaker 1>It could be a main roster star, I would assume.

<v Speaker 1>And I hope this isn't just the way to get

<v Speaker 1>a belt on someone like Obafemi without having him wrestle

<v Speaker 1>for a title that actually matters. We'll put the John

<v Speaker 1>Cena Classic Belt on him instead. I hope that's not

<v Speaker 1>what this is designed for. Hopefully, this championship they're creating

<v Speaker 1>is a once a year trophy type deal, you know,

<v Speaker 1>like the Andre Battle Royal or those Crown jewel belts

<v Speaker 1>that they keep under lock and key in Saudi that

<v Speaker 1>don't mean anything, and it's not something that actually gets defended,

<v Speaker 1>like aw does this with the owen Hart Tournament. You

<v Speaker 1>get a belt, but they don't get defended. If it's

<v Speaker 1>something like that, to me, then that's that's fine, right.

<v Speaker 1>I don't get the impression that it is meant to

<v Speaker 1>be something that's being defended during the year. I think

<v Speaker 1>that would be fucking terrible. But WWE wants John Cena

<v Speaker 1>involved in some capacity, and this is their way of

<v Speaker 1>keeping him happy and keeping him involved. And if Sena

<v Speaker 1>wants to use it as a way to get a

<v Speaker 1>new face or two over and up to the main roster,

<v Speaker 1>then that's fine. I just hope they flesh out the

<v Speaker 1>rules and the details a little bit better, because at

<v Speaker 1>the end of the segment, Seena himself was like, man

<v Speaker 1>I hope this works. Those are the words that he

<v Speaker 1>actually said, man I hope this works, even he's not

<v Speaker 1>sure if this is gonna work. I hope it works too.

<v Speaker 1>But you know it's your idea, dude, You've got to

<v Speaker 1>find a way to make it work. That's not up

<v Speaker 1>to us. Bron Breaker beat seth Rollins correct outcome in

<v Speaker 1>that match that actually had a good match that was

<v Speaker 1>the match they used to open the show in that

<v Speaker 1>first hour on ESPN two. A few you know, rough

<v Speaker 1>moments in the match, but I still thought it was

<v Speaker 1>good overall, and it was a win. That breaker I

<v Speaker 1>think needed more than Rollins. Obviously, they're going to run

<v Speaker 1>this back again. Rollins will probably win the next one,

<v Speaker 1>but I think they had the right outcome here. Trick

<v Speaker 1>Williams he retained the United States Championship over Sammy Zain,

<v Speaker 1>also on ESPN two. I thought it was better than

<v Speaker 1>their WrestleMania match. They got a little more time. But man,

<v Speaker 1>you know, after sitting through all the gingerbread shit on Friday,

<v Speaker 1>and if you tuned into my SmackDown review, then you

<v Speaker 1>know my thoughts on that whole thing. After all the

<v Speaker 1>gingerbread garbage from Friday, and then to tune in here

<v Speaker 1>and just watch Sammy lose again. I'm not sure what

<v Speaker 1>the point of any of that was. If Sammy was

<v Speaker 1>just going to go in there and lose. So now

<v Speaker 1>the Trick has beaten him twice, and this was really

<v Speaker 1>to let people know WrestleMania was no fluke. Trick is

<v Speaker 1>the real deal. Okay, great, I don't know what that

<v Speaker 1>means for Sammy going forward. But that's the end of this.

<v Speaker 1>As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to run

<v Speaker 1>this back again. He beat him twice. The fuck do

<v Speaker 1>we need a third match for So Trick is going

<v Speaker 1>to move on to somebody else. Whether that's Carmelo Hayes

<v Speaker 1>or somebody else, I don't know, because I get the

<v Speaker 1>impression the open challenges are done, and so is this feud.

<v Speaker 1>As far as I'm concerned, that Dan Hausen had a

<v Speaker 1>match on this show, it was going to be Dan

<v Speaker 1>Housen and a mystery partner against the Miz and Kit Wilson.

<v Speaker 1>A lot of speculation about who the mystery partner was

<v Speaker 1>going to be. Whenever you do a mystery partner gimmick

<v Speaker 1>like this again, people are going to have and expectations

<v Speaker 1>in their mind. But I was hearing some wild names.

<v Speaker 1>I was hearing because yeah, Dan Housen was like, I'm

<v Speaker 1>trying to get the legends the team with me. So

<v Speaker 1>there were some legends that people were floating. Shane McMahon,

<v Speaker 1>I saw his name out there. The big one was

<v Speaker 1>cm punk, and evidently the betting odds were betting on

<v Speaker 1>cmpunk being the partner I don't know why people thought

<v Speaker 1>realistically it was going to end up being him. I

<v Speaker 1>thought it was going to be jelly Roll more than

<v Speaker 1>CM Punk. I was happy to be wrong about that

<v Speaker 1>because I didn't want to see jelly Roll on this show.

<v Speaker 1>But I can't also say that I wanted to see

<v Speaker 1>El Trito back either, But that's who we got. His

<v Speaker 1>mystery partner turned out to be the famous Mexican mini

<v Speaker 1>Mascarita Segrata aka L Torrito Back in the day, I

<v Speaker 1>remember the days of El Turito and Los Matadors on

<v Speaker 1>Monday Night Raw. Maybe some of you have tried to

<v Speaker 1>put it out of your mind. So he was dressed

<v Speaker 1>up as a miniature version of Dan Housen. He emerged

<v Speaker 1>from this box. It was the cloning Machine. Dan Hausen

<v Speaker 1>had decided that in order to find a tag team partner,

<v Speaker 1>he needed to clone himself. So in addition to all

<v Speaker 1>of the comedy bullshit with the gingerbread Man on Friday Night,

<v Speaker 1>we had the Dan Housen stuff where he was in

<v Speaker 1>the back in his own little makeshift laboratory with all

<v Speaker 1>of his test tubes and everything, and he was trying

<v Speaker 1>to create this cloning machine. This cloning device and yes,

<v Speaker 1>this is this is how I spent my Friday night.

<v Speaker 1>Don't judge me. So here there's a giant box and

<v Speaker 1>who's a Bruce who once said famously, anything out of

<v Speaker 1>a box is automatically over, which wasn't the case with

<v Speaker 1>Dan Housen. When he first debuted by the way an

<v Speaker 1>elimination chamber, people have warmed up to him. So that's

<v Speaker 1>where Minnie Housen came from. And they had a match

<v Speaker 1>and I think people myself included, I was wondering like, okay,

<v Speaker 1>this is this is you know, a little red herring

<v Speaker 1>they're throwing at us, right, this is going to lead

<v Speaker 1>whoever the actual reveal is Nope, that was the actual reveal.

<v Speaker 1>So they did Dan Housen and his miniature partner against

<v Speaker 1>these two men. They had a comedy match Mascarita Sigrada.

<v Speaker 1>He's he's a talented wrestler, so he was doing had

<v Speaker 1>scissor takeovers and dives and all kinds of shit, and

<v Speaker 1>the fans were getting into it. Now, at first, the

<v Speaker 1>fans booed because once they came down to the ring

<v Speaker 1>in the match started, I think people like reality set

<v Speaker 1>in and they were like, fuck, this is the partner.

<v Speaker 1>You heard the booze from part of the crowd, and

<v Speaker 1>by the end of this, when it was over, the

<v Speaker 1>fans liked it and the fans were cheering, so they

<v Speaker 1>actually did win them over, at least the fans who

<v Speaker 1>didn't like it at first, they seemed to win them

<v Speaker 1>over by the end. I said last night, I go,

<v Speaker 1>you know what, I was sports entertained. This match had

<v Speaker 1>no business being on this show, on a so called

<v Speaker 1>premium live event with only five matches. That was my

<v Speaker 1>issue with it. It had no business being on the

<v Speaker 1>show considering all the other names who were left off

<v Speaker 1>this card, And to be honest with you, my issue

<v Speaker 1>with a lot of these premium live events is that

<v Speaker 1>there's nothing premium about them. You get some good wrestling matches,

<v Speaker 1>but there is nothing premium about these wweplis. So this

<v Speaker 1>should have been on smack Down. There should not have

<v Speaker 1>been on this show. Outside of that though, for what

<v Speaker 1>it was, for what it was meant to be, I

<v Speaker 1>was amused by it. I was entertained enough by it.

<v Speaker 1>I didn't hate this. I didn't you think, oh my god,

<v Speaker 1>this is the worst match I've ever seen. I've watched

<v Speaker 1>enough wrestling to know that this was by no means

<v Speaker 1>the worst match that I've ever seen. It served its purpose,

<v Speaker 1>it was fine, It was fine for what it was

<v Speaker 1>meant to be. And I'm just glad that we didn't

<v Speaker 1>get Jelly Roll or some other celebrity in this spot,

<v Speaker 1>to be honest with you. And of course Dan Housen

<v Speaker 1>won in the end, everybody was happy. There was a

<v Speaker 1>spot during the match where Minnie Housen ended up back

<v Speaker 1>in the cloning machine. Kit Wilson threw him in there

<v Speaker 1>thinking he got rid of the little guy. The door

<v Speaker 1>opened and basically he had cloned himself, and so now

<v Speaker 1>there was an army of Minnie Danausen's that were attacking

<v Speaker 1>Kit Wilson. Yes, I don't think I need to say

<v Speaker 1>anything else about this EO Sky against OSCA. This was

<v Speaker 1>the best thing on the show. It was this the

<v Speaker 1>main event and the Breaker Rollins match in that order.

<v Speaker 1>And this is also a match I was looking forward

<v Speaker 1>to for a very long time. Believe it or not.

<v Speaker 1>This actually went a shade longer than the main event did.

<v Speaker 1>They got slightly more time than Roman Reigns and Jacob

<v Speaker 1>Fato did, which just blows my mind. And come the

<v Speaker 1>end of this match and the way Oscar was behaving,

<v Speaker 1>I think maybe the reason why they made sure she

<v Speaker 1>got plenty of time is because she ain't going to

<v Speaker 1>be around anymore. But they went out there and they

<v Speaker 1>had a good match. I enjoyed that there was no

<v Speaker 1>last minute Kyrie saying Cameo. I was hoping for one.

<v Speaker 1>But I would also like to think that they did

<v Speaker 1>reach out to her and she just let all of

<v Speaker 1>their phone calls go to voicemail. I hope that's what happened.

<v Speaker 1>Plenty of we want Kyrie chance though, right from the

<v Speaker 1>opening bell, and they had a very good match and

<v Speaker 1>Eo picked up the win in the end, and so

<v Speaker 1>we didn't get the big Kyrie moment. What we did

<v Speaker 1>get was Osca embracing Eo when it was over all

<v Speaker 1>the bad blood just washed away and they embraced and

<v Speaker 1>Osca was clearly very emotional and she was waving to

<v Speaker 1>the crowd with a big smile on her face. And

<v Speaker 1>I said, like, when this was over, this had a

<v Speaker 1>certain vibe to it that made me think that we're

<v Speaker 1>not going to be seeing Oscar at least for a while,

<v Speaker 1>if not ever again as an active wrestler. Here on

<v Speaker 1>this show, and so Dave Meltzer mentioned a Wrestling Observer

<v Speaker 1>radio last night. This is the comment that he made.

<v Speaker 1>The story I heard is that she is semi retired.

<v Speaker 1>I haven't really gotten an exact meaning of what semi

<v Speaker 1>retired means, but I guess people were wishing her goodbye

<v Speaker 1>and things like that backstage. So I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>that means she's going to Japan and still wrestle. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if that means she's going to still do

<v Speaker 1>stuff here and there. But I was told semi retired.

<v Speaker 1>Something is definitely going on because Bailey, Charlotte Flair, Shinsky,

<v Speaker 1>Nakamura and others all very cryptically. We're posting photos with

<v Speaker 1>no context or anything to it, just posting photos. I

<v Speaker 1>think was it Knakamura's. Well, somebody posted like a photo

<v Speaker 1>of Oscar black and white, like the woman fucking died.

<v Speaker 1>But they're all posting these cryptic images. So clearly she's

<v Speaker 1>going away at least for a while. We don't know

<v Speaker 1>if she's retired. We don't know what semi retired would entail.

<v Speaker 1>I hear semi retired, and that just tells me that

<v Speaker 1>she would be available for special occasions and or maybe

<v Speaker 1>if she is done with WWE. She does work, you know,

<v Speaker 1>some events in Japan, and she'll wrestle from time to time,

<v Speaker 1>but she's not going to be full time anymore. You know,

<v Speaker 1>She's been doing this for a very long time. She's

<v Speaker 1>been in WWE alone, going back to the NXT days

<v Speaker 1>for about eleven years or so. Now. Yeah, I know

<v Speaker 1>she's in her mid forties or you know, in WWE

<v Speaker 1>speak her prime. So I would hate it if she

<v Speaker 1>just sort of hung it up and that was it,

<v Speaker 1>very unceremoniously, that was the end of Oscar. I mean, man,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, think of all the names over the past

<v Speaker 1>year that have stepped away, including you know, Goldberg, but like,

<v Speaker 1>you know whatever. But to add her name to the

<v Speaker 1>list would be a very sad thing because I still

<v Speaker 1>think that she has more to contribute. Realistically, WWE is

<v Speaker 1>not going to really focus on her. They haven't focused

<v Speaker 1>on her in years, so I'm not expecting another monster

<v Speaker 1>run like she had an NXT you know, a decade ago.

<v Speaker 1>But she definitely you watched that match last night with EO,

<v Speaker 1>she definitely has more to give. So I hope this

<v Speaker 1>isn't the end for her. I hope this isn't the

<v Speaker 1>end for her in WWE. We don't know what's going

<v Speaker 1>on exactly behind the scenes. Clearly though, she is going

<v Speaker 1>to go away for a while, because all of these

<v Speaker 1>people would not be posting these cryptic images and wishing

<v Speaker 1>her goodbye, I guess behind the scenes unless she was

<v Speaker 1>going to go away for a while. So we'll have

<v Speaker 1>to wait and see how that plays out. What EO

<v Speaker 1>is going to do now going forward, I don't know,

<v Speaker 1>but Live Morgan is going to need a challenger for

<v Speaker 1>the Women's World Championship. She really doesn't have anybody to

<v Speaker 1>work with right now. Soul Ruka looks like she's gonna

<v Speaker 1>be working with Becky Lynch. Who does Live Morgan work with?

<v Speaker 1>Who does Live Morgan defend the Women's World Championship against

<v Speaker 1>EO's right there. I don't think there's anybody else even

<v Speaker 1>on deck that makes sense right now for Live Morgan

<v Speaker 1>to work with Roman Reigns. He retained his World Heavyweight

<v Speaker 1>Championship over Jacob Fati in a good main event with

<v Speaker 1>a clean finish, no less, no outside interference, no bloodline bullshit,

<v Speaker 1>no usos. He must have got that Tonguan death grip

<v Speaker 1>applied on Roman five times, four or five times during

<v Speaker 1>their match, and it's such a deadly lethal maneuver. Roman

<v Speaker 1>got out of it every single time. Hell of a

<v Speaker 1>way to get it over a new finishing hold by

<v Speaker 1>using him multiple times, and you still can't win the match.

<v Speaker 1>But in the end Roman beats fat Tu just by

<v Speaker 1>the skin of his teeth. It was a hell of

<v Speaker 1>a battle it took to beat this man. And when

<v Speaker 1>the match was over, Jacob Fatsu lost his shit. He snapped,

<v Speaker 1>He reapplied the tongue in death grip another two or

<v Speaker 1>three times. He had to be pulled physically pulled off

<v Speaker 1>of Roman by officials and he was beating them up too.

<v Speaker 1>He threw Adam Pierce out of the ring at one point,

<v Speaker 1>and the final parting shot here on this show is

<v Speaker 1>Jacob Fatu standing over Roman's body, holding up the World

<v Speaker 1>Heavyweight Championship and being booed. So it felt like this

<v Speaker 1>was meant to be a heel turn here. Maybe it's not.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe it's just him being a wild man and he's

<v Speaker 1>kind of in that tweener territory, but that's what it

<v Speaker 1>felt like to me watching this. I like the finish.

<v Speaker 1>I liked the way they did it because Jacob was

<v Speaker 1>never gonna win. Realistically, he was not winning the title here,

<v Speaker 1>So then how do you do the finish? Sure, you

<v Speaker 1>can have a ref bump. You can have Jimmy and

<v Speaker 1>Jay run in, or Solo Socoa run in, or Royce

<v Speaker 1>Keys helping, you know, Jacob Fatu. There's any number of

<v Speaker 1>things you could do here. And you can overbook this

<v Speaker 1>to all hell, or you could let these two guys

<v Speaker 1>go out there for eighteen minutes and have a pretty

<v Speaker 1>good wrestling match with a clean finish and then shoot

<v Speaker 1>the angle when the match is over. And that's what

<v Speaker 1>they did. And now Roman is going to go away

<v Speaker 1>for at least a few weeks, and Jacob is now

<v Speaker 1>this unstoppable, dangerous monster that they have established him as.

<v Speaker 1>Roman is scheduled to wrestle at Clash in Italy. So

<v Speaker 1>I think we get the rematch at the end of

<v Speaker 1>this month. I don't even think we're gonna have to

<v Speaker 1>wait until June or July or anything like that. I

<v Speaker 1>think we're probably gonna get it on the thirty first,

<v Speaker 1>and then Roman, I don't believe, is scheduled again until

<v Speaker 1>the final raw of June's so then he would disappear

<v Speaker 1>for a month and then reappear I think on June

<v Speaker 1>twenty ninth, it is, And that doesn't sound too cool.

<v Speaker 1>If he's going to hold onto the World Heavyweight Championship

<v Speaker 1>and then vanish for another month, that sucks. But we

<v Speaker 1>are going to get a rematch between these two, maybe

<v Speaker 1>with a stipulation. Maybe at that point we get some

<v Speaker 1>bloodline involvement and they shoot some kind of big, a

<v Speaker 1>shocking twist, but shoots some sort of angle at that point.

<v Speaker 1>But as for last night, their first meeting, I thought

<v Speaker 1>it went well. And now we will see in the

<v Speaker 1>absence of Roman over these next few weeks, is thoughts

<v Speaker 1>you're going to continue to appear on both shows? Is

<v Speaker 1>it going to be exclusive to one show over the other?

<v Speaker 1>Are the officially moving him to Raw. We still don't

<v Speaker 1>know where CM punk is gonna land. He's been gone

<v Speaker 1>for a few weeks. There's still a lot of questions

<v Speaker 1>left to be answered. But when the show was over,

<v Speaker 1>I thought it was a good show in terms of

<v Speaker 1>the matches that we had. We had mostly good matches

<v Speaker 1>here on this show. It's just there's nothing premium about

<v Speaker 1>shows like this. They called them premium live events. I know,

<v Speaker 1>it's just a name because they're technically not pay per

<v Speaker 1>views anymore, so we have to come up with something

<v Speaker 1>else to call them. And they're called premium live events,

<v Speaker 1>but there's nothing premium about them. It really does feel

<v Speaker 1>like a glorified episode of Saturday Night's main event. This

<v Speaker 1>week's episode is sponsored by Wicks. Up until recently, I

<v Speaker 1>had no idea what vibe coding was, but if you

<v Speaker 1>stop and think about it, it's exactly what it sounds like.

<v Speaker 1>And now, thanks to wick Harmony, you can vibe code

<v Speaker 1>an entire website just by typing in what you want

<v Speaker 1>and through the power of AI, you'll get a website

<v Speaker 1>that mirrors what you've pictured in your head and is

<v Speaker 1>functional right out of the gate. But wix Harmony doesn't

<v Speaker 1>force you to use AI for everything. Oh no, no,

<v Speaker 1>no no no. You have options. You can still click

<v Speaker 1>and change whatever you want all on your own, or

<v Speaker 1>you can click on something then ask Aria, your AI agent,

<v Speaker 1>to change it for you. It's actually a really smart tool.

<v Speaker 1>It also solved the very annoying problem of having to

<v Speaker 1>prompt AI over and over again, even for the smallest changes.

<v Speaker 1>This is a lot more efficient and saves you a

<v Speaker 1>lot of time and aggravation. Join the millions of businesses

<v Speaker 1>that already use Wix and try wix Harmony for free

<v Speaker 1>right now at wix dot com slash Harmony. That's wix

<v Speaker 1>dot com slash Harmony. Over on the AEW side. On

<v Speaker 1>Dynamite Wednesday, Darby Allen successfully defended his aw World title again,

<v Speaker 1>this time against the TNT champion Kevin Knight. This after

<v Speaker 1>successful defenses against Tamaso Champa and Brody King and then

<v Speaker 1>again over Pack. Last night on Collision, which I have

<v Speaker 1>to say, I went back and I watched it after

<v Speaker 1>Backlash last night. It was a live one hour special

<v Speaker 1>from a very unique location. It was only an hour

<v Speaker 1>because the other hour of Collision came after Dynamite. On Wednesday,

<v Speaker 1>they did a three hour block, so I guess they

<v Speaker 1>didn't want to do a four hour block, so they

<v Speaker 1>saved the other hour for last night and they held

<v Speaker 1>it at the Sofi Center in West Palm Beach, Florida,

<v Speaker 1>which is an indoor golf course, hence the fair Way

<v Speaker 1>to Hell name for the show last night. The place

<v Speaker 1>has an indoor arena, a small arena, but it also

<v Speaker 1>has an indoor golf simulator, so they had a ring setup,

<v Speaker 1>but behind it was this wide open area with nothing

<v Speaker 1>but greens and a sand trap in the middle, which

<v Speaker 1>Darby Allen Impact fought in during their match. I fucking

<v Speaker 1>loved this. We need more of this. We need more

<v Speaker 1>unique wacky wrestling venues. Mall of America for the first

<v Speaker 1>nightro those old spring Break shows from Club Lavila with

<v Speaker 1>the pool next to the ring, the old Shotguns Saturday

<v Speaker 1>night shows that Vince used to do from Penn Station

<v Speaker 1>and Webster Hall. I love shit like that. This was

<v Speaker 1>one of the more unique venues for a wrestling show

<v Speaker 1>that I've ever seen. Tony Khan has said that he

<v Speaker 1>wants to make this an annual event, but he wants

<v Speaker 1>to add a charity golf tournament during the day that

<v Speaker 1>he would call Fairway to Heaven and then he would

<v Speaker 1>do Fairway to Hell would be the wrestling show in

<v Speaker 1>the evening, and he claims he's had talks with the

<v Speaker 1>PGA about collaborating with them. I think it's a great concept.

<v Speaker 1>Had a couple of people tweet me who went to

<v Speaker 1>the show. One guy paid one hundred bucks for his seat.

<v Speaker 1>He had a blast. Somebody else paid thirty bucks and

<v Speaker 1>had fun. I'd have more fun for thirty bucks too,

<v Speaker 1>if I spent thirty bucks over one hundred bucks. But

<v Speaker 1>I mean thirty bucks. You can't beat that. But Darby

<v Speaker 1>Allen be Pack last night after being tossed off a

<v Speaker 1>balcony fifteen feet down through a bunch of tables, and

<v Speaker 1>then Pack rushed down. He airlifted him back to the

<v Speaker 1>ring and then Darby still kicked out. It's all very absurd,

<v Speaker 1>but it's all very on brand for a Darby Allen match.

<v Speaker 1>I will say this, he has been having some fun

<v Speaker 1>matches during this run, but they are shotgunning these matches

<v Speaker 1>so quickly. It's plain his day because he is dropping

<v Speaker 1>the belt back to MJF before we even get to

<v Speaker 1>the month of June. Now, he was supposed to defend

<v Speaker 1>the title this Wednesday against Kazuchka Okada. That is not happening.

<v Speaker 1>Don Kallis last night said that Okada got called back

<v Speaker 1>to Japan on some personal business. I don't believe him,

<v Speaker 1>so taking his place will be Kenoski Takeshta, who he

<v Speaker 1>said now Takeshta was there and he said, I'm still

<v Speaker 1>gonna beat Okada at double or Nothing for the international title,

<v Speaker 1>but now I will also be the aw World champion.

<v Speaker 1>And then he looked into the camera he goes unlike Okada.

<v Speaker 1>So I can't wait to see Okada show up on

<v Speaker 1>Wednesday and cost him the title now and then flip

<v Speaker 1>them off and call him a bitch to add even

<v Speaker 1>more heat to their match. Maybe there is something going

<v Speaker 1>on with Okada. Hopefully Now this felt like an angle

<v Speaker 1>to me, but then the more I think about it,

<v Speaker 1>it's like Okata got himself a world championship match, so

<v Speaker 1>why would he voluntarily back out of it. Hopefully everything

<v Speaker 1>is okay, but I'm still expecting him to show up

<v Speaker 1>in fuck takesha Over at the end of that match.

<v Speaker 1>Darby did tell MJF this week that they are going

<v Speaker 1>to have a contract signing this week for double or Nothing.

<v Speaker 1>He is willing to give him the rematch he wants

<v Speaker 1>should Max choose to accept his stipulation for said rematch,

<v Speaker 1>which is that if MJF has to put something on

<v Speaker 1>the line, it will have to be his hair. Darby's

<v Speaker 1>been saying that MJF needs to put something on the

<v Speaker 1>line if he wants that rematch. He doesn't want to Scarf.

<v Speaker 1>He doesn't want the dynamite diamond ring, he doesn't want

<v Speaker 1>a million dollars that MJF offered to put up. He

<v Speaker 1>wants his hair. And I've rolled my eyes at this

<v Speaker 1>because it's like, all right, whatever, they've been building this

<v Speaker 1>stipulation that for weeks here. But it's not like they

<v Speaker 1>weren't going to do this match, right. They were always

<v Speaker 1>going to be running this back at the next pay

<v Speaker 1>per view, But now Darby is playing off of Mjf's vanity.

<v Speaker 1>They talk about his trips to Turkey for his hair

<v Speaker 1>transplant all the time on TV. Hangman made fun of

<v Speaker 1>him for multiple people talk about it. Now they're incorporating

<v Speaker 1>it into the story here by saying if you want

<v Speaker 1>this rematch, this is what you need to do. And

<v Speaker 1>then if Darby wins, he's gonna shave this man bald,

<v Speaker 1>and he's gonna take away something that very clearly is

<v Speaker 1>important to him. If he's gonna fly halfway around the

<v Speaker 1>world and spend thousands of dollars on it, then it

<v Speaker 1>must mean something to him. So that's why we're getting

<v Speaker 1>title versus hair at double or nothing. And it's not

<v Speaker 1>like we haven't seen hair stipulations in wrestling before, So whatever,

<v Speaker 1>it's fine. Mark Davis wrestled Jack Perry on this show

<v Speaker 1>and Mark David I was very happy to hear this.

<v Speaker 1>I had people tell me in the live chat when

<v Speaker 1>I was talking about Backlash last night, they go, Mark

<v Speaker 1>Davis is a champion. I go, what, he was already

<v Speaker 1>one third of the trios champions for like a week,

<v Speaker 1>but who gives a shit about the trios belts. Mark Davis,

<v Speaker 1>dunk Zilla is the new AEW National champion. He beat

<v Speaker 1>Jack Perry for the belt with an assist from Ricochet,

<v Speaker 1>who showed up looking like fucking Kerwin White. He shows

<v Speaker 1>up with a golf club, he hits Jack Perry in

<v Speaker 1>the back with it, referee didn't see it, and then

<v Speaker 1>Davis hits a pile driver and he pins him to

<v Speaker 1>win the belt. And I for one, am very happy

<v Speaker 1>for Mark Davis. I'm a fan of Mark Davis. I

<v Speaker 1>thought that you know him and Jack Jack Doyle, Jake Doyle,

<v Speaker 1>Jack Perry, Jake Perry, Jake Doyle, Jack Doyle, it's all

<v Speaker 1>the same shit. But when Jake Doyle went down with

<v Speaker 1>that injury back in January, I said, well, this sucks

<v Speaker 1>for Mark Davis because he's on the back burner now

<v Speaker 1>and Tony Khan has given him consistent television time. Again.

<v Speaker 1>He's a brawler. He goes out there. He's you know,

<v Speaker 1>the big guy type who goes out there and just

<v Speaker 1>brawls with people. He's not out there doing a lot

<v Speaker 1>of technical stuff. But I enjoy his matches, even though

<v Speaker 1>he fucking loses all the time. I generally enjoy the

<v Speaker 1>matches that he's in, and I was happy to see

<v Speaker 1>that Tony didn't just kind of put him, you know,

<v Speaker 1>back in catering and let him sit back there and

<v Speaker 1>wait for an opportunity. He's putting him on the shows consistently.

<v Speaker 1>He is actually one of the more focused, I would say,

<v Speaker 1>members of the Kallus family, especially now that Kyle Fletcher

<v Speaker 1>is out. He gets more screen time than most. And

<v Speaker 1>to see him, you know, hold a championship, of which

<v Speaker 1>they have many in this company. I don't know how

<v Speaker 1>long of a run he's going to have, and the

<v Speaker 1>national title hasn't really been established as anything terribly significant,

<v Speaker 1>but I'm happy for him. I'm happy for him. I

<v Speaker 1>was very very surprised, but also in a pleasant way

<v Speaker 1>to see him win that Championship last night, so that

<v Speaker 1>was good. Now, Jack Perry, after being screwed by Rikoshet

<v Speaker 1>in his title match, has now recruited Kenny Omega and

<v Speaker 1>the Young Bucks to join him, And I would presume

<v Speaker 1>the Hurt Syndicate and Chris Jericho against Rikochet and the

<v Speaker 1>Gates of Agony at double or nothing in what Ricochet

<v Speaker 1>had said was going to be a stadium stampede match.

<v Speaker 1>All of a sudden, this match has ballooned into something

<v Speaker 1>much larger that I thought it was going to be.

<v Speaker 1>Ricochet had a conversation last night with Don Kallus where

<v Speaker 1>Callous agreed to give him Mark Davis, and then they

<v Speaker 1>were going to go off and discuss other potential Callus

<v Speaker 1>family members who would join in. This fucking match has

<v Speaker 1>all of a sudden ballooned into at least seven on

<v Speaker 1>seven is what it looks like. Because the Hurt Syndicate

<v Speaker 1>showed up on Wednesday to come to Jericho's aid when

<v Speaker 1>he was being beaten down by Rikoshet and GOA, So

<v Speaker 1>you would assume Bobby Lashley's Shelton Benjamin They're going to

<v Speaker 1>be a part of this. So we're looking potentially at

<v Speaker 1>a team with Jericho, Bobby Lashley, Shelton, Benjamin, Kenny Omega,

<v Speaker 1>Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, and Jack Perry against Ricochet, Toto, Leona,

<v Speaker 1>Bishop Kahn, Mark Davis and then what with three more people,

<v Speaker 1>four more people. This is gonna be an absolute mess,

<v Speaker 1>is what this is good? Especially me taking notes watching

<v Speaker 1>that pay per view. There's gonna be an absolute mess.

<v Speaker 1>They've also added a four way to the double or

<v Speaker 1>Nothing car for the aw Women's World title. It'll be

<v Speaker 1>Tekla defending against Jamie Hayter, Chris Statlander and Hikarushita Statlander

<v Speaker 1>and Shida. They have their own story going on. Shida

<v Speaker 1>feels like she's on the verge of a heel turn.

<v Speaker 1>Hard for me to imagine her winning the belt. I

<v Speaker 1>would not be taking that belt away from Tecla right now,

<v Speaker 1>but something will probably go down with her and Statlander,

<v Speaker 1>I would imagine in that match. Since they have been

<v Speaker 1>telling that something's gonna happen between Speedball and Kevin Knight too,

<v Speaker 1>it just feels to me, I mean, I don't know

<v Speaker 1>about a Speedball heel tern, but actually, you know what,

<v Speaker 1>it feels more like a Kevin Knight heel term may

<v Speaker 1>becoming more than speedball. Some's definitely going down with those

<v Speaker 1>two in the not too distant future. There's something going

<v Speaker 1>on there. And the men's and women's brackets for this

<v Speaker 1>year's owen Hart Foundation tournaments will be announced this Wednesday

<v Speaker 1>on Dynamite, And so let's see if my idea is

<v Speaker 1>correct and the brackets set up a potential John Moxley

<v Speaker 1>will ospury final on the men's side, because that's where

<v Speaker 1>I feel like this is headed. Some other news and notes,

<v Speaker 1>I got some legal news and notes beyond the Rajah

<v Speaker 1>Jackson stuff I mentioned earlier. Former CMLL and Triple A

<v Speaker 1>star Quatrero was found guilty this week of domestic violence

<v Speaker 1>and attempted femicide against his former girlfriend current ww E

<v Speaker 1>star Stephanie Viquaire. He will be sentenced this coming Tuesday now.

<v Speaker 1>The alleged incident that led to all of this took

<v Speaker 1>place in mar of twenty twenty three and saw Quatrero

<v Speaker 1>arrested following a Triple A show after they had an

<v Speaker 1>argument in their apartment and he allegedly grabbed her by

<v Speaker 1>the throat and tried to strangle her, threw her backwards

<v Speaker 1>into a wall, where a heavy picture frame fell on her,

<v Speaker 1>causing additional injuries. Now he claims that she was violent

<v Speaker 1>towards him and the lead up to this. Charges were

<v Speaker 1>escalated from domestic violence to attempted femicide after authorities viewed

<v Speaker 1>photos of her neck injuries. You know, it's one thing

<v Speaker 1>to be charged to another to be found guilty of

<v Speaker 1>those charges, which he now has been, and that attempted

<v Speaker 1>femicide charge is a very serious one down there. For

<v Speaker 1>that alone, he faces up to thirty years in prison.

<v Speaker 1>Now he's likely not going to get the max, but

<v Speaker 1>let's say he does. Right, Let's just game this out

<v Speaker 1>here and say he gets thirty years, right, then you

<v Speaker 1>tack on another four to eight years on the domestic

<v Speaker 1>violence charge, and this guy could be facing up to

<v Speaker 1>forty years behind bars. Meanwhile, Stephanie also took out a

<v Speaker 1>restraining order previously against Lahiedra for harassment she currently wrestled

<v Speaker 1>for Triple A. Screenshots were posted of a conversation This

<v Speaker 1>is a while back with the care and Lahiedra, where

<v Speaker 1>Headra tried to convince her to cover up her bruises

<v Speaker 1>at the time and not go to the cops about

<v Speaker 1>what happened, and that her own boyfriend who happened to

<v Speaker 1>be Quatrero's brother had also hit her some piece of work.

<v Speaker 1>She sounds like a literal cover up. Just cover it

<v Speaker 1>up and keep your mouth shut. That's a hell of

<v Speaker 1>a thing to say from one woman to another in

<v Speaker 1>a domestic violence situation. And keeping with the subject of

<v Speaker 1>domestic violence and pieces of shit in Mexico, Alberto del

<v Speaker 1>Dipshit could very well land himself back behind bars after

<v Speaker 1>an incident at a show in Monterey on May first. Now,

<v Speaker 1>he wrestled on a tribute show to his father Dos Charus,

<v Speaker 1>and during the event, La Park joked about doctor Wagner Junior.

<v Speaker 1>I believe it was looking like a woman because there

<v Speaker 1>was a tag match of some kind, and he told Alberta,

<v Speaker 1>who he was teeming with, something to the effect of,

<v Speaker 1>I think it's a woman hit her. And apparently Alberto

<v Speaker 1>laughed at this and found it funny, as did many

<v Speaker 1>fans in the audience. So now lawyers representing his wife

<v Speaker 1>Mary Carmen Rodriguez, who he is accused of assaulting, are

<v Speaker 1>looking into whether his conduct on that show would be

<v Speaker 1>considered a violation of measures imposed by the judge when

<v Speaker 1>he was released last month, which includes staying away from

<v Speaker 1>his wife, attending therapy sessions, and undergoing periodic evaluations in

<v Speaker 1>an effort to prevent further incidents from occurring. Now, he

<v Speaker 1>was only released after a financial settlement was reached, but

<v Speaker 1>the case is still very much open. If it is

<v Speaker 1>found that he breached any of those conditions, he could

<v Speaker 1>be sent back to prison. Now that seems very unlikely,

<v Speaker 1>and I'm not sure. I'm not sure we're getting the

<v Speaker 1>full picture here. If he just laughed at a comment

<v Speaker 1>that somebody else made, or if he himself made comments

<v Speaker 1>that were in poor taste, I don't know. But why

<v Speaker 1>you would even want to put yourself in that position

<v Speaker 1>in the first place is beyond me. But we're also

<v Speaker 1>not dealing with somebody who's too bright if he keeps

<v Speaker 1>getting himself into trouble. Dark Side of the Ring Season

<v Speaker 1>seven is on the way, per a story in Variety

<v Speaker 1>this week. Now, I've covered every episode of the show

<v Speaker 1>from the previous six seasons. I've reviewed them here on

<v Speaker 1>the sound off. That will be no different for season seven.

<v Speaker 1>The new season kicks off on Tuesday, July seventh, at

<v Speaker 1>nine pm Eastern on Vice TV. They're gonna have two

<v Speaker 1>back to back episodes that night, and then new episodes

<v Speaker 1>airing weekly thereafter. It begins with a three part deep

<v Speaker 1>dive into TNA Wrestling and co founder Jeff Jarrett. I

<v Speaker 1>mean a deep dive into TNA that just those early

<v Speaker 1>days alone, that could be an entire season. I know

<v Speaker 1>Matt Hardy was on his podcast talking about I think

<v Speaker 1>he said he and Jeff did extensive interviews for this

<v Speaker 1>when they were both in Las Vegas and was talking.

<v Speaker 1>A lot of the talk about this is that it

<v Speaker 1>ends up being a redemption story which covers Jeff's battle

<v Speaker 1>with addiction and the loss of his first wife. Again

<v Speaker 1>I hear Jeff. I keep thinking Jeff Jarrett because Jared

<v Speaker 1>is the subject of this three part you know arc,

<v Speaker 1>but maybe Jeff Hardy is also going to be I

<v Speaker 1>don't know. Now I'm confused if what I've been reading

<v Speaker 1>about this being a story of redemption also ties into

<v Speaker 1>Jeff Hardy and not just Jeff Jarret. Because Jeff Jarrett

<v Speaker 1>also battled addiction and alcoholism, and you know, the loss

<v Speaker 1>of his first wife to cancer, and there was a

<v Speaker 1>lot of stuff that went on in his life. How

<v Speaker 1>much of Jeff Hardy's life is also going to be

<v Speaker 1>covered in this because Jeff Hardy has some history in

<v Speaker 1>TNA as well that would fit right into Dark side

<v Speaker 1>of the Rings. So I tell you what, I would

<v Speaker 1>not at all be surprised if they lump in the

<v Speaker 1>Victory Road debacle with staying into this. But apparently the

<v Speaker 1>idea is that it ends up being a redemption story

<v Speaker 1>and then it kind of leads into how TNA is

<v Speaker 1>now thriving on AMC network. So that's all going to

<v Speaker 1>be part of this story. And look, as far as

<v Speaker 1>Jeff Jarrett is concerned, he's got a long history in

<v Speaker 1>the wrestling business, and so you could probably just do

<v Speaker 1>a dark side on him alone, even apart from the

<v Speaker 1>TNA stuff. And all I could say is that I

<v Speaker 1>think they should definitely include those Global Force gold bars

<v Speaker 1>in there somewhere. I had fun with that one on

<v Speaker 1>the sound of back in the Day, talk about some

<v Speaker 1>of that Global Force gold. I should have bought some.

<v Speaker 1>It might be worth something now. Additional episode subjects include

<v Speaker 1>Paul Orndorf Big boss Man, whose family was interviewed for it.

<v Speaker 1>The boss Man one feels like the Earthquake one, where

<v Speaker 1>I don't think there's anything particularly dark about the man

<v Speaker 1>outside of the fact that he died so young. I

<v Speaker 1>know boss Man was only forty one when he passed away.

<v Speaker 1>But it's the same thing with John Tenta, where it's

<v Speaker 1>like you watch the episode and it's like a life

<v Speaker 1>well lived and he was beloved and then he got

<v Speaker 1>sick and he passed away. But there was nothing particularly

<v Speaker 1>dark about it, even though I enjoyed the episode. The

<v Speaker 1>boss Man one may fall into that same category Missy Hyatt,

<v Speaker 1>that one could get messy. Missy's gonna get messy. Zach

<v Speaker 1>Gowan Rick Wilson, the renegade who WCW brought in as

<v Speaker 1>the Ultimate Warrior knockoff for them. He was an exotic

<v Speaker 1>dancer before that and then later on committed suicide. That's

<v Speaker 1>a very sad story. He shot himself not long after

<v Speaker 1>WCW let him go. And there will be an episode

<v Speaker 1>devoted to the infamous death match between Samoa Joe and

<v Speaker 1>necro Butcher from IWA Mid South in two thousand and five,

<v Speaker 1>which is kind of random but a memorable match to

<v Speaker 1>be sure, even at under ten minutes. They're gonna get

<v Speaker 1>a forty five minute episode out of a sub ten

<v Speaker 1>minute match. It was very violent, it was very bloody.

<v Speaker 1>You know, these days, if you were to watch the match,

<v Speaker 1>just be another Wednesday on Dynamite. But back then it

<v Speaker 1>was quite the spectacle. And this was after Necro had

<v Speaker 1>just flown back from Japan, so on like a fifteen

<v Speaker 1>hour flight back from Japan. He had a head wound

<v Speaker 1>from a match he did over there, flew to West Virginia,

<v Speaker 1>I think it was gotten his truck, drove to Philadelphia

<v Speaker 1>at a wrestles Samoa Joe, and then the wound opened

<v Speaker 1>up during their match, which is where all the blood

<v Speaker 1>came from. But the whole thing was just a violent,

<v Speaker 1>violent spectacle. Now, last year there was talk that there

<v Speaker 1>might be a Trent Acid episode. Acid died of a

<v Speaker 1>drug overdose in twenty ten. He was a big name

<v Speaker 1>on the independent scene. I don't know if that was

<v Speaker 1>something that was pursued. I don't know if it was

<v Speaker 1>just a rumor. Maybe it was thought about and it

<v Speaker 1>fell through. I don't know. Not one of the ideas

<v Speaker 1>that I pitch. Everybody had their own list of potential

<v Speaker 1>ideas for season seven. I had mine. Not one of

<v Speaker 1>the ideas that I pitched for a season seven ended

<v Speaker 1>up being on the actual list. But I still think

<v Speaker 1>that they would make for good topics for an eighth season,

<v Speaker 1>and that is Rick rud Perry, Saturn, Ashley Massarrow, which

<v Speaker 1>is a very sad story, Takeshi Morishima, Crash, Holly, Larry Sweeney,

<v Speaker 1>buck Zoomov, and I hate even mentioning his name because

<v Speaker 1>that episode, I mean that episode. If they did an

<v Speaker 1>episode on buck Zoomov, it would be dark as fuck

<v Speaker 1>and it would actually be too depressing to watch. But

<v Speaker 1>it is called Dark Side of the Ring, so you

<v Speaker 1>can absolutely get an episode out of that guy. But

<v Speaker 1>you know, for all the people who think that this

<v Speaker 1>show jumped the shark years ago and not enough material,

<v Speaker 1>they're scraping the bottom of the barrel, like there will

<v Speaker 1>never be a shortage of material out of the wrestling

<v Speaker 1>business for a show like this, And it is still

<v Speaker 1>Vice's top show, so why would they want to end it.

<v Speaker 1>Let's get into some mailbag questions. You can email me

<v Speaker 1>the solom Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your

<v Speaker 1>name and where you are from when you write in.

<v Speaker 1>Julius from the Bronx says rip to Ted Turner. He

<v Speaker 1>contributed so much to TV, and in my opinion, his

<v Speaker 1>most important contribution was Cartoon Network, mostly because I'm too

<v Speaker 1>young to remember WCW, but I can still say Turner

<v Speaker 1>truly won in the end, living just long enough to

<v Speaker 1>see Vince McMahon's downfall. And as far as I've heard

<v Speaker 1>over the years, nobody has had anything bad to say

<v Speaker 1>about Ted Turner, and he certainly isn't the terrible human

<v Speaker 1>being that Vince turned out to be. Do you agree? Uh? Well,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'm not aware of any allegations of rape

<v Speaker 1>or sexual misconduct against him, like Vince had many many

<v Speaker 1>times over the years to say, no one has ever

<v Speaker 1>said anything bad about him though, or that he was,

<v Speaker 1>you know, squeaky clean. That's just not true. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>there were stories about him in college, you know, singing

<v Speaker 1>Nazi songs outside of a Jewish frat house and planting

<v Speaker 1>KKK signs outside of a black frat house, and I

<v Speaker 1>think Rolling Stone talked about that. And he was a

<v Speaker 1>cheating drunk who slept around on both of his wives,

<v Speaker 1>especially the first one, So I wouldn't portray the man

<v Speaker 1>as a saint. But was he ever accused of raping

<v Speaker 1>women or defecating on them? No, he wasn't. Mick writes

<v Speaker 1>in since his passing. I've seen people debating if Ted

<v Speaker 1>Turner should be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>What are your thoughts on this? And if he were

<v Speaker 1>to be inducted and get a full induction, who would

<v Speaker 1>do the induction? I would think that if it did happen,

<v Speaker 1>Lex Luger could be a good choice. Would Sting and

<v Speaker 1>Rick Flair being unavailable due to their aw ties. Luger

<v Speaker 1>was with Jim Crockett Promotions when it was sold to

<v Speaker 1>Turner and could talk about that transition and then talk

<v Speaker 1>about WCW under Turner and his support of wrestling. Should

<v Speaker 1>he be inducted yes, Will he be inducted? No? But

<v Speaker 1>if he was, there's no chance he gets a full induction.

<v Speaker 1>They would throw him into the legacy wing like they

<v Speaker 1>do everybody else who's passed away. But I'll say this though,

<v Speaker 1>if you ever got a full induction, the person to

<v Speaker 1>do it should be Eric Bischoff. To me, that's the

<v Speaker 1>only choice. Adam from Birmingham who never misses an episode

<v Speaker 1>of the SoundOff, he says, or the Uncrowned Wrestling Show

<v Speaker 1>or TNT look at this guy. I have a question

<v Speaker 1>regarding the aw World title and all in London. Provided

<v Speaker 1>MJF beats Darby to get the belt back, there's no

<v Speaker 1>doubt that MJF has had a positive effect on attendance,

<v Speaker 1>ratings and overall perception of the company. I imagine Will

<v Speaker 1>Ospray will challenge for the belt at all in with

<v Speaker 1>the success of MJF. Do you have him drop the

<v Speaker 1>title to Ospray now or do you wait another year,

<v Speaker 1>let the product thrive under MJF and build Ospray up

<v Speaker 1>even more for the eventual win next year. Or do

<v Speaker 1>you go sink or swim with Ospray? No, you go

<v Speaker 1>with Ospray. You're telling the story right now, in real

<v Speaker 1>time with Will Ospray right He's with the death Riders.

<v Speaker 1>They're trying to bring out the best version of himself.

<v Speaker 1>We're gonna get the owen Hart Tournament brackets on TV

<v Speaker 1>this week. I'm sure he will be in there. You've

<v Speaker 1>already laid out the story beats to get you to Wembley.

<v Speaker 1>I think now is the time. Which is not to

<v Speaker 1>say that MJF wouldn't get the belt back again at

<v Speaker 1>some point, or that he can't still be in the

<v Speaker 1>top mix, but I think it would be a mistake

<v Speaker 1>just to delay it for a year. Oh, we'll just

<v Speaker 1>wait another twelve months. A lot could happen in twelve months.

<v Speaker 1>You go with it now, Ryan from Perth, Western Australia,

<v Speaker 1>what do you think about the following with Cody and

<v Speaker 1>Gunther setting to clash soon? I agree that Gunther should

<v Speaker 1>win the belt at Clash in Italy. Then leading to

<v Speaker 1>Night of Champions, we have a Battle Royal on SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>with the winner facing Gunther and the winner of the

<v Speaker 1>Battle Royal is Ilyya Dragonov. And then for the men's

<v Speaker 1>King of the Ring final we get Oba and Cody

<v Speaker 1>is a final with Oba winning to face Roman at SummerSlam,

<v Speaker 1>and then for SummerSlam for the title we get a

<v Speaker 1>four way between Cody, Punk, Randy and Gunther. I if

<v Speaker 1>you're gonna have Cody and Punk in the ring, I

<v Speaker 1>would rather be one on one. The idea of doing

<v Speaker 1>Roman and Oba is something I've pitched. I'm not even

<v Speaker 1>sure they're doing King of the Ring at all this year.

<v Speaker 1>I hope they do, but now they got this John

<v Speaker 1>Cena stuff going on. I have no idea for even

<v Speaker 1>getting King and Queen of the Ring. If we do Oba,

<v Speaker 1>Femi should win Oba Femi should be challenging for the

<v Speaker 1>championship at Summerslim and if Gunther wins the belt from Cody,

<v Speaker 1>which I feel like he should do, if they're gonna

<v Speaker 1>do that match in Italy, I love the idea of

<v Speaker 1>Illia Dragon of being a challenger at some point, right,

<v Speaker 1>you'd have to really build him up for it. The

<v Speaker 1>guy's been off TV. It's ridiculous to me how he

<v Speaker 1>was being featured. They were telling a story with him

<v Speaker 1>and then he just vanished. So you would have to

<v Speaker 1>get him back on TV, start building him up again

<v Speaker 1>and feeding him wins, and then give me that match,

<v Speaker 1>Give me Gunther and Ilia for the WWE Championship at

<v Speaker 1>some point on some pl e this year. Maybe there's

<v Speaker 1>another international show coming after the Italy show, right, I

<v Speaker 1>guess we have a Night of champions in Riod, But

<v Speaker 1>forget that for a second. What would be the best

<v Speaker 1>place to do Gunther in Ilia for the title. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know. I don't think they have any other international

<v Speaker 1>shows after that until after SummerSlam. I don't know. I

<v Speaker 1>just feel like those two in like a big international

<v Speaker 1>ple title match would be fucking unbelievable. That'd be so great.

<v Speaker 1>I'm still kind of irked that we were deprived of

<v Speaker 1>Walter and Finn Balor in nxt UK on that Dublin

<v Speaker 1>takeover many years ago. Fucking Covid man it robbed us

<v Speaker 1>of that still bothers me. Eddie from Annapolis, Maryland, thanks

<v Speaker 1>for being my go to wrestling podcast. I'm also loving

<v Speaker 1>the addition of Uncrowned on Tuesdays. Thank you, Eddie. Given

<v Speaker 1>TKO's willingness to openly renegotiate contracts or outright terminate people,

<v Speaker 1>how long before we see wrestlers in general function like

<v Speaker 1>other pro sports, meaning they all have agents and signed

<v Speaker 1>for a certain number of years with guaranteed money. Also,

<v Speaker 1>are other companies like AEWTNA and such the beneficiaries of

<v Speaker 1>TKO's actions. Well, not if that change comes sweeping through

<v Speaker 1>the wrestling industry. I don't think they're going to see

<v Speaker 1>it the same way they are the beneficiaries of TKO's

<v Speaker 1>greed and TKO's actions. I think when you have these

<v Speaker 1>people who are going to leave of their own volition

<v Speaker 1>or are going to find themselves unemployed and they're going

<v Speaker 1>to need somewhere to work, you're going to have a

<v Speaker 1>wealth of talent that all of a sudden becomes available

<v Speaker 1>because either they got let go or at the end

<v Speaker 1>of their contract they don't want to be there anymore.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe they're not going to be offered the same amount

<v Speaker 1>of money, Maybe they feel like they're not being used

<v Speaker 1>the right way. Maybe they just don't like the way

<v Speaker 1>things are going. That is how AW and TNA and

<v Speaker 1>independent promotions are going to benefit from TKO's actions. As

<v Speaker 1>far as your first point, do we get to a

<v Speaker 1>point where it functions like other pro sports? No, No,

<v Speaker 1>I don't believe we will, because I feel like if

<v Speaker 1>those kinds of changes were gonna happen, they would have

<v Speaker 1>happened by now. And I think even people who are

<v Speaker 1>having their money cut are probably still making good enough money.

<v Speaker 1>Where there's just not this appetite to sort of band together,

<v Speaker 1>you know, all for one and one for all. It's

<v Speaker 1>this fallacy, it doesn't exist. I don't see it happening.

<v Speaker 1>You would need a ground swell of support, You would

<v Speaker 1>need some real heavy hitters. I feel like to be

<v Speaker 1>a part of it again, whether we're talking about unionizing

<v Speaker 1>or just kind of coming together for some sort of

<v Speaker 1>collective bargaining or whatever it may be. No, no, it's

<v Speaker 1>not gonna happen. We got some tag team questions because

<v Speaker 1>there are people out there who still love some tag

<v Speaker 1>team wrestling, unlike WWE. Saint Clair from Los Angeles with

<v Speaker 1>the New Day leaving, it got me thinking about tag

<v Speaker 1>team wrestling, and I have two questions. First, in WWE,

<v Speaker 1>what era do you think had the best tag team division?

<v Speaker 1>And is there a specific year or year do you

<v Speaker 1>think it was at its peak? For example, I would

<v Speaker 1>say the Attitude era and to me, ninety nine into

<v Speaker 1>two thousand stands out with teams like the Hardy's, the Dudley's,

<v Speaker 1>and Edging Christian. Also, what are the best tag teams

<v Speaker 1>or trios that weren't teaming up before signing with WWE?

<v Speaker 1>Tag teams are trios? I don't know. I mean a

<v Speaker 1>lot of the really great teams were already established. So

<v Speaker 1>that's a hard one to answer. But to your first point,

<v Speaker 1>the best tag team division to me, strongest tag team

<v Speaker 1>division to me, I still go to the Golden Era.

<v Speaker 1>I'm still looking at that kind of eighty five to

<v Speaker 1>ninety period like around then where you had think about

<v Speaker 1>who you had men. I mean, you had the heart

<v Speaker 1>foundation and you have the Bulldogs. You had the Killer Bees,

<v Speaker 1>who were actually a very good team. You had Strike Force,

<v Speaker 1>you had Demolition, and they had other teams too, like

<v Speaker 1>the Powers of Pain and some other teams that weren't

<v Speaker 1>terribly exciting. But you had the brain Busters and then

<v Speaker 1>they it was in ninety they brought in lod Money.

<v Speaker 1>Int came a little bit after that, like ninety late

<v Speaker 1>ninety one, early ninety two. But yeah, I mean, I

<v Speaker 1>know I'm missing a few. That Golden Era period of

<v Speaker 1>like mid to late eighties into the early nineties, to me,

<v Speaker 1>is still number one. If we're just talking WWE, that's

<v Speaker 1>number one. Number two I would actually go with the

<v Speaker 1>one that you just mentioned. There was a period of

<v Speaker 1>time in late ninety nine into two thousand in the

<v Speaker 1>Attitude Era where their tag team division was hot. I

<v Speaker 1>mean they had the Hardy's, they had the Dudley's, they

<v Speaker 1>had Edge and Christian, they had two Cool, they had

<v Speaker 1>the Apa, they had the Holly Cousins, and again there

<v Speaker 1>were probably others I'm not thinking of, So that would

<v Speaker 1>be number two. Golden Era would be number one for me.

<v Speaker 1>Joey from Melbourne, Australia. It looks to me like the

<v Speaker 1>current plan for the aw Tag Belts will be eight

<v Speaker 1>three way between the Bucks, FTR and Copen Christian probably

<v Speaker 1>at all in. But with the MotorCity machine Guns now

<v Speaker 1>released from WWE, would you consider them a good inclusion

<v Speaker 1>in the match and have a four way at all in?

<v Speaker 1>It really depends if they come in and when they

<v Speaker 1>come in. I know there's a Dynamite episode in Detroit

<v Speaker 1>in the MotorCity on July twenty ninth. I believe by

<v Speaker 1>then they'll be free and clear. I would be kind

<v Speaker 1>of surprised, to be honest with you, if they don't

<v Speaker 1>debut that night, and that would put them in the

<v Speaker 1>company a full month or so ahead of Wembley. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I mean you could get them in there. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know if Tony Kahan is looking to recreate the TLC dynamic.

<v Speaker 1>You know TLC had the initial TLC matches had three

<v Speaker 1>teams in them. I don't know if he wants to

<v Speaker 1>start adding a fourth team or a fifth team, So

<v Speaker 1>I don't know what he's gonna do. I mean you

<v Speaker 1>could do it. I think they would only make the

<v Speaker 1>match better, right, They're certainly not gonna make the match worse.

<v Speaker 1>HJC from the UK Sadly, I've only been a listener

<v Speaker 1>for the past year, but I love your content and

<v Speaker 1>I'm hooked. Thank you, brother, glad to have you aboard.

<v Speaker 1>With the potential incoming MotorCity machine Guns and now New Day.

<v Speaker 1>Oh see, we forgot about New Day too. We forgot

<v Speaker 1>about New Day. How are you gonna leave New Day

<v Speaker 1>out of that? If New Day is available, which they

<v Speaker 1>should be. Yeah, that's tough because if I was gonna

<v Speaker 1>put a fourth team in, there really should be New Day.

<v Speaker 1>Uh yeah, I don't know what a great problem for

<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahn to have though, But anyway, he says, with

<v Speaker 1>the potential incoming MotorCity machine Guns and now New Day,

<v Speaker 1>AW has the potential to do something special with their

<v Speaker 1>Tag Division. What are your thoughts on a UK football

<v Speaker 1>style division similar to the C two all year round,

<v Speaker 1>three points for a win, one point for a draw,

<v Speaker 1>ten minute TV time limit. First are the champions, in

<v Speaker 1>second place? Are number one contenders? Tag title matches on

<v Speaker 1>pay per views, third to six play off of third

<v Speaker 1>to sixth playoff for the occasional TV title match. You

<v Speaker 1>could even have a division and Ring of honor where

<v Speaker 1>tags can get promoted to the AW Division and vice

<v Speaker 1>versa with the aw Division relegations once a year. This

<v Speaker 1>requires dedicated booking, but I think it could be awesome.

<v Speaker 1>What are your thoughts? It's too complicated, it's not gonna work.

<v Speaker 1>It's not gonna work, like they're not going to commit

<v Speaker 1>to it, like he tried to do rankings two different

<v Speaker 1>times and he couldn't commit to it. And so I

<v Speaker 1>think it's a system that could work if it was

<v Speaker 1>implemented strictly. I think that it could work, but practically speaking,

<v Speaker 1>it's it's not gonna play out that way. They'll start

<v Speaker 1>doing it, they'll probably lose interest in it. And I

<v Speaker 1>also don't think you need to overcomplicate it. I really don't.

<v Speaker 1>I would be in favor of having something in place

<v Speaker 1>that helps promote certain teams from Ring of Honor, like

<v Speaker 1>you said, and I know they've relegated certain teams there,

<v Speaker 1>Big Bill and Brian Keith, and having some sort of

<v Speaker 1>system where they could go from Ring of Honor and

<v Speaker 1>formally be promoted to the Tag Team Division in AW

<v Speaker 1>and challenge for those titles. I think that's cool. I

<v Speaker 1>don't think we need to limit tag title matches to

<v Speaker 1>the pay per views only. Yeah, I just don't think

<v Speaker 1>it's necessary. I think having the Continental Classic and having

<v Speaker 1>rules for that, it's like they're g one every year.

<v Speaker 1>That's cool. I don't think we need more than that.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think we need to overcomplicate it. Chris from Dundee, Scotland.

<v Speaker 1>I recently watched a video on the WWE Vault channel

<v Speaker 1>about the Undertaker in two thousand and one, which included

<v Speaker 1>the ill fated invasion. What about this is an alternative

<v Speaker 1>booking in two thousand and one at Vengeance, instead of

<v Speaker 1>having a four man tournament, I would have had a

<v Speaker 1>six man elimination match with Jericho angle Austin Rock, but

<v Speaker 1>also Undertaker and Rob Van Dam. What do you think

<v Speaker 1>of this as a concept? Okay, so what he's referring

<v Speaker 1>to is, if you remember and Vengeance in OH one,

<v Speaker 1>we had a few title matches that built to Jericho

<v Speaker 1>becoming the undisputed champion against Austin in the main event.

<v Speaker 1>So instead you have one match, but it's an elimination match. Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>you know what. I like that. I like that more.

<v Speaker 1>The only thing is you then take away Jericho's ability

<v Speaker 1>to crow for years and years about how he beat

<v Speaker 1>Stone Cold in the Rock in separate matches in the

<v Speaker 1>same night. You can't take that away from him. He'd

<v Speaker 1>been talking about it for decades now. But yeah, I

<v Speaker 1>think having one six man match elimination style and throwing

<v Speaker 1>an undertaker in our actually would have been a lot

<v Speaker 1>of fun. I would have been down for that, not

<v Speaker 1>in Helen his sound. I'm not advocating for another six

<v Speaker 1>man Helen his cell by the way, but yeah, I

<v Speaker 1>think that could have worked. And another Chris, This one

<v Speaker 1>is from Central Florida, which is definitely not done de Scotland.

<v Speaker 1>Chris says, I was listening to a podcast with Sean Mooney.

<v Speaker 1>Shout out to Sean Mooney Man, that's awesome. He's had

<v Speaker 1>a couple of podcasts over the years. I know he's

<v Speaker 1>got one right now. I believe Steve fall is his

<v Speaker 1>co host. Shout out to Steve Man. I used to

<v Speaker 1>I used to enjoy watching Mooney and you know him

<v Speaker 1>doing his thing on those Colisseum videos. He hosted a

<v Speaker 1>whole bunch of Colisseum videos. That was a big Sean

<v Speaker 1>Mooney guy. I'm glad to see he's still in the

<v Speaker 1>trenches there talking about old school wrestling. But he was

<v Speaker 1>talking about how in nineteen ninety one, the Jake Roberts

<v Speaker 1>Randy Savage feud happened because of what happened with the

<v Speaker 1>Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam. Was the stuff with Jake Roberts

<v Speaker 1>Undertaker and Sid Justice at Savage and Elizabeth's wedding reception,

<v Speaker 1>all done on the fly after Warrior got fired for

<v Speaker 1>holding McMahon up for money at Summerslim. Or was Jake

<v Speaker 1>always supposed to get involved at the reception? I tried

<v Speaker 1>googling it, but there was not a clear answer. Well,

<v Speaker 1>first of all, I mean, the WWE narrative is that

<v Speaker 1>the Ultimate Warrior showed up in Madison Square Garden and

<v Speaker 1>held them up for money, and that's not exactly the

<v Speaker 1>way it played out. So that's number one. Number two,

<v Speaker 1>was Jake always supposed to get involved at the wedding reception?

<v Speaker 1>The simple answer is, I don't know. I don't know.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think it's ever been talked about. Maybe somebody

<v Speaker 1>could ask Jake about that, But I know that they

<v Speaker 1>had aired those vignettes on TV where Jake was trying

<v Speaker 1>to show the dark side to the Warrior and then

<v Speaker 1>turned on him, and they were obviously building to a

<v Speaker 1>match at some point between The Ultimate Warrior and Jake

<v Speaker 1>the Snake. I don't know that he would have had

<v Speaker 1>anything to do with Macho Man at that point. Possible.

<v Speaker 1>They just pivoted in a different direction. And even then

<v Speaker 1>they had to kind of pivot because Sid got hurt.

<v Speaker 1>Sid made the save at the wedding reception. You know,

<v Speaker 1>Savage was technically retired. He had lost a career ending

<v Speaker 1>match to the Warrior of WrestleMania. Sid Justice had just

<v Speaker 1>made his formal debut that night at Summerslim as a

<v Speaker 1>special referee for the main event. He showed up at

<v Speaker 1>the wedding reception, he made the save, and it was

<v Speaker 1>going to be him and Jake really feuding, and then

<v Speaker 1>Sid tore I want to say his bicep. I know,

<v Speaker 1>he tore something and he was back in time for

<v Speaker 1>the Royal Rumble match. But yeah, I mean there were

<v Speaker 1>a lot of injuries and weird things going on behind

<v Speaker 1>the scenes during that time period that kind of led

<v Speaker 1>to this happy accident that was the Macho Man Jake

<v Speaker 1>the Snake feud, which funny enough, is probably my If

<v Speaker 1>it's not my favorite, it's one of my top three

<v Speaker 1>favorite feuds of all time. I'm not even sure the

<v Speaker 1>fucking thing was supposed to happen. I'm not even sure

<v Speaker 1>the whole feud was supposed to happen. That's what's crazy

<v Speaker 1>about it. So yeah, I don't really have a clear

<v Speaker 1>answer either for you. Thank you guys though, for the questions.

<v Speaker 1>Keep emailing me the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com.

<v Speaker 1>Real quick here, I saw Mortal Kombat too this week.

<v Speaker 1>I am not going to spoil anything for you. There's

<v Speaker 1>no spoilers here. But I had gone back to see

<v Speaker 1>the first one from five years ago on the plane

<v Speaker 1>ride into LA a couple of weeks ago. So I

<v Speaker 1>was like, all right, I'm already now. I know what

<v Speaker 1>characters have been established for the second movie, and I

<v Speaker 1>like the first one well enough. I think the first

<v Speaker 1>one gets a lot of hate. It's not a great movie,

<v Speaker 1>but it's it's not as terrible as some people make

<v Speaker 1>it out to be. This was better than the first one,

<v Speaker 1>low bar, I know, but this was definitely better than

<v Speaker 1>the first one. I enjoyed this movie. I just thought

<v Speaker 1>it was dumb fun and there's some good comedy in

<v Speaker 1>there too, especially with Johnny Cage. So if you are

<v Speaker 1>on the fence about it or if you are going

<v Speaker 1>to be seeing it, you were wondering is it worth it? Yeah?

<v Speaker 1>I enjoyed it. Mortal Kombat is supposed to have some

<v Speaker 1>humor to it, so you get a good mix of

<v Speaker 1>action and humor in this movie. So I thought it

<v Speaker 1>was well done. I'm gonna be back with you next Sunday.

<v Speaker 1>We're gonna do this all over again, because it's gonna

<v Speaker 1>be episode nine to sixty three of the sound off,

<v Speaker 1>and in between now and then you get more of

<v Speaker 1>me because we got the raw post show tomorrow night

<v Speaker 1>on YouTube. Brand new episode of The Uncrowned Wrestling Show

<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday again. That drops every Tuesday on the arial

<v Speaker 1>Hellwani Show feed or the dedicated Uncrowned Wrestling Show feed,

<v Speaker 1>not this feed here. This is separate from that. But

<v Speaker 1>we've been kicking it, kicking it one am I Ross.

<v Speaker 1>We've been kicking ass with the Uncrowded Show. I even

<v Speaker 1>know what I'm saying. On Tuesdays, you guys have been supporting,

<v Speaker 1>keep supporting Tuesday Night. There will be no Tuesday Night

<v Speaker 1>Titans with me and JD on JD's channel. He is

<v Speaker 1>gonna be away instead. The plan is to do Tuesday

<v Speaker 1>Night Titans this week on Thursdays, so we're gonna push

<v Speaker 1>it back by two days. The initial still work, it's

<v Speaker 1>still TNT. That'll be Thursday night on his channel, Friday

<v Speaker 1>night the SmackDown post show, and then let's see there's

<v Speaker 1>no pay per views next week and okay, good, so

<v Speaker 1>then next Sunday will be episode nine sixty three. That's

<v Speaker 1>a full week of work right there. I appreciate all

<v Speaker 1>the support you guys throw my way. Keep it up

<v Speaker 1>until then, be well, stay safe, have yourselves a great

<v Speaker 1>rest of your week. Again, wishing a very happy Mother's

<v Speaker 1>Day to all the moms out there, and we'll do

<v Speaker 1>it all over again next Sunday. Until then, take care, guys.

<v Speaker 1>The Solemn Monster sounds off people like wins and losses

<v Speaker 1>don't matter anymore, and to that, I say, fuck off.

<v Speaker 1>You don't know what you're talking about. To get people over,

<v Speaker 1>they need to win matches. This goes to this argument,

<v Speaker 1>and I will argue until I'm bluing the fucking face

<v Speaker 1>with people wins and losses. I agree, you're not the

<v Speaker 1>end all be all, it's not the only thing. But

<v Speaker 1>to suggest wins and losses don't matter means you don't

<v Speaker 1>know anything about wrestling, and I was very happy. By

<v Speaker 1>the way, when the Miz did that interview with Chris

<v Speaker 1>van Vliet, I think it was he said the exact

<v Speaker 1>same thing. I agree with the Miz okay where the

<v Speaker 1>mis agrees with me. However you want to look at it.

<v Speaker 1>Wins and losses absolutely matter. The Solo Monster sounds off

<v Speaker 1>bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check

<v Speaker 1>out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and

<v Speaker 1>follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and X the

<v Speaker 1>Solo Monster. I love you so long.