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

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

<v Speaker 1>want your soul a woman.

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

<v Speaker 1>Come over here, hot May is that pet Madison? You

<v Speaker 1>have legs? The weekend I was ninety nine percent positive

<v Speaker 1>it was just chessed up. Now I have been begging

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

<v Speaker 1>and I want to know the reason why you won't

<v Speaker 1>part me. Welcome to episode nine to sixty six of

<v Speaker 1>These Solemn Monsters Sounds Off for Sunday, June seventh, twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty six. I am the Solemn Monster. Nick Fever has

<v Speaker 1>taken over the city and they are headed to Madison

<v Speaker 1>Square Garden tomorrow night. It's too bad that the NBA

<v Speaker 1>has a game tomorrow. They're gonna get crushed by Monday

<v Speaker 1>Night Raw on Netflix. Boy, I feel sorry for them,

<v Speaker 1>but the Knicks have won thirteen straight games being uncursed

<v Speaker 1>by Dan Hausen. Now I'm just gonna say this, if

<v Speaker 1>they win the championship, WWE is coming to Madison Square

<v Speaker 1>Garden on July eighteenth for Saturday Nights main event. If

<v Speaker 1>Dan Housen's music hits on that show. It's gonna be

<v Speaker 1>like Austin in the nineties. Okay, they're gonna rename it

<v Speaker 1>the Dan Housen Pop if he comes out on that show.

<v Speaker 1>I'm telling you right now. He cursed another team, by

<v Speaker 1>the way. They showed him on the big screen last

<v Speaker 1>night during Game three of the Stanley Cup Finals between

<v Speaker 1>the Carolina Hurricanes and the Las Vegas Golden Knights, and

<v Speaker 1>he cursed the Hurricanes, who then lost the game in

<v Speaker 1>double overtime five to four. Now they trail in that

<v Speaker 1>series two games to one. They almost blew it though.

<v Speaker 1>Vegas was up four zip when Carolinas scored three goals

<v Speaker 1>in the span of forty seconds, and then they scored

<v Speaker 1>again to tie it, which sent it to overtime. But

<v Speaker 1>Vegas was able to hang on. They went up five

<v Speaker 1>to four. See that's the power of Dan Hausen. This

<v Speaker 1>is getting a little creepy now, I can't lie. Also,

<v Speaker 1>I saw the trailer for season seven of Dark Side

<v Speaker 1>of the Ring. They got Tony Kahan for the show

<v Speaker 1>this season. I don't know for which episode, probably one

<v Speaker 1>of the Jeff Jarett TNA ones. There's three of them.

<v Speaker 1>To open the season. But he's in there, and Jim

<v Speaker 1>Cornett is back. He always does a great job contributing

<v Speaker 1>to these things. We are exactly one month away, one

<v Speaker 1>month from today from the premiere date, which means the

<v Speaker 1>Dark Side of the Ring reviews are coming back next month.

<v Speaker 1>I can't wait for that. You know what I can't

<v Speaker 1>wait to do. I can't wait to thank all of

<v Speaker 1>you who contributed this week in support of the show.

<v Speaker 1>I appreciate it very much. If you would like to

<v Speaker 1>make a PayPal drop get your name shouted out here

<v Speaker 1>on the show, you may do so. Go to the

<v Speaker 1>solomonster dot com. You'll see the PayPal link at the

<v Speaker 1>top of the page. Ten dollars or more, we'll get

<v Speaker 1>you a nickname and a shout out like Rachel from

<v Speaker 1>The Badger's State. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed chasing

<v Speaker 1>those waterfalls, even though TLC said that you should never

<v Speaker 1>do that. Big b Bryant Vissera, the Portland pop Star,

<v Speaker 1>Paul Hamilton, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Chicago Slayer, Willie

<v Speaker 1>iicherd Q, The Destroyer, Big Time Boris Weinman, Knight Stalker,

<v Speaker 1>NIF Alsafar and kill shot Keith Hart with the double drop. Keith,

<v Speaker 1>I appreciate that. Quick reminder. This not this coming Friday,

<v Speaker 1>but Friday, June nineteenth, House of Glory returns to Logan

<v Speaker 1>Square Auditorium in Chicago. We have our Hog Inferno Show.

<v Speaker 1>First time ever, Ricky Sosa debuts to take on the

<v Speaker 1>Amazing Red. That's going to be something. Shatzi Blackhart puts

<v Speaker 1>her Hog Women's Championship on the line. Boys. This is

<v Speaker 1>a grudge match against Steph de Lander after some of

<v Speaker 1>the high jinks that have gone on recently and also

<v Speaker 1>just announced must have fun Ali. He wanted it, he

<v Speaker 1>made the call, and I have made the match official.

<v Speaker 1>He will be defending his TNA International Championship on this

<v Speaker 1>Hog Show against Rich Swan, so that is official. Gringo Loco.

<v Speaker 1>He's going to be teaming with the debuting Vengador, who

<v Speaker 1>he has worked with elsewhere but never an Hog. Very

<v Speaker 1>limited tickets are still available at Hog Wrestling dot Net

<v Speaker 1>and JD and I will be in Chicago to call

<v Speaker 1>the action live on Triller TV Plus, so it should

<v Speaker 1>be a good time. Of course, there's something else going

<v Speaker 1>on on that night as well in wrestling, which I

<v Speaker 1>will talk about later, But last week I talked about

<v Speaker 1>Vince McMahon and Nick Kahn being sanctioned by the judge

<v Speaker 1>and the ongoing WWE shareholder lawsuit. They were sanctioned for

<v Speaker 1>destroying evidence. I mean, let's not sugarcoat it. They were

<v Speaker 1>destroying evidence and they thought they could get away with it,

<v Speaker 1>and they got called out on it. Text messages that

<v Speaker 1>were supposed to be preserved and were deleted anyway, which

<v Speaker 1>then shifted the burden of proof away from the plaintiffs

<v Speaker 1>and onto the defense, which was going to make their

<v Speaker 1>case a lot harder. And the plaintiffs were seeking damages

<v Speaker 1>ranging from as little as four hundred and sixty million

<v Speaker 1>dollars to as much as nine hundred and forty nine

<v Speaker 1>million dollars. So that trial was supposed to commence this

<v Speaker 1>week tomorrow, in fact in Delaware, was supposed to go

<v Speaker 1>four days, and key names like Vince McMahon, Nick con Ari,

<v Speaker 1>Emmanuel Mark Shapiro, Paul levec they were all expected to

<v Speaker 1>have to testify under oath. It was on the docket

<v Speaker 1>full speed ahead, and then it was pulled from the calendar.

<v Speaker 1>And now we find out that the trial has been canceled.

<v Speaker 1>This according to court administrator Tamara Burton, in response to

<v Speaker 1>an inquiry from Brandon Thurston, who has been all over

<v Speaker 1>this story, I can't say I'm shocked. I think they

<v Speaker 1>knew mcmahnon con. They really screwed up here, you know,

<v Speaker 1>the signal chat stuff. It was a very embarrassing mistake

<v Speaker 1>and there was a very good chance they were going

<v Speaker 1>to lose that case, and they didn't want to have

<v Speaker 1>all of these high profile executives dragged into court to testify.

<v Speaker 1>So I'm sure there is a settlement at least being discussed,

<v Speaker 1>if it hasn't already been reached, and they will buy

<v Speaker 1>their way out of this so they can just put

<v Speaker 1>this to bed once and for all. And if the

<v Speaker 1>judge in the Janelle Grant case rules that her case

<v Speaker 1>is going to be going to trial and that arbitration,

<v Speaker 1>I would expect a very similar result there as well.

<v Speaker 1>This stuff is just too embarrassing for them not to settle,

<v Speaker 1>you know. But nothing changes in TKO Land. Like even

<v Speaker 1>if this would have gone to trial and they lost,

<v Speaker 1>Let's say, it's not as if they lose the company, right,

<v Speaker 1>they'd have to pay through the nose and then after

<v Speaker 1>that it would be business as usual. If they lost

<v Speaker 1>a lot of money, they would just cut people. They

<v Speaker 1>would make cuts, and life would go on for them.

<v Speaker 1>But in this case, it looks like their arrogance was

<v Speaker 1>their undoing, and so they're going to pay whatever they

<v Speaker 1>need to pay, and they're going to move on, just

<v Speaker 1>like they did with that thirty nine million dollar payout

<v Speaker 1>to their investors over misleading them about their dealings with

<v Speaker 1>Saudi Arabia. That was another case a few years ago.

<v Speaker 1>When you have enough money, you can pay to make

<v Speaker 1>anything go away or anyone now. I didn't get a

<v Speaker 1>chance to talk about the Triple A show last weekend

<v Speaker 1>because I had to record the sound off a day

<v Speaker 1>early thanks to Clash in Italy being in the middle

<v Speaker 1>of the day on Sunday. I did talk about it

<v Speaker 1>at length on The Uncrowned Wrestling Show though on Tuesday,

<v Speaker 1>which is where that show comes in very handy in

<v Speaker 1>situations like that. It's right at the top of the show.

<v Speaker 1>I encourage you to go back and check it out

<v Speaker 1>if you missed it, but I will give you the

<v Speaker 1>cliffs Notes version here. I loved it, and there has

<v Speaker 1>been no better spectacle. Just start to finish soup to

<v Speaker 1>nuts entrances to exit in anywhere in wrestling all year.

<v Speaker 1>The closest thing would be Tanahashi's retirement match against Okada

<v Speaker 1>at the Tokyo Dome, which was also very emotional, just

<v Speaker 1>the pure emotion of it all. That postmatch was also

<v Speaker 1>very special, with all the names coming out to the

<v Speaker 1>ring to pay respect to Tanahashi and then him celebrating

<v Speaker 1>in the air guitar and then him on the parade

<v Speaker 1>float around the around the stadium like all that was great.

<v Speaker 1>That's the closest thing that I could think of. But

<v Speaker 1>in terms of the level of just pure hatred and

<v Speaker 1>animus between two people that didn't have it in the

<v Speaker 1>way that this match did. The match it was so great.

<v Speaker 1>They replayed it on Netflix. It was so great at

<v Speaker 1>the end of Raw and Monday Night, they kept pushing

<v Speaker 1>that replay boy over and over again. So all told,

<v Speaker 1>when you add up the total number of views that

<v Speaker 1>it got on the various YouTube channels WWE's channel, Triple

<v Speaker 1>A's channel, the solmost Fox channel, which has almost a

<v Speaker 1>million subscribers, we're talking well over three million views. Somewhere

<v Speaker 1>between three and four million views at a minimum. That

<v Speaker 1>does not include whatever it did on Netflix on Monday

<v Speaker 1>or since Monday. So a lot of people saw that

<v Speaker 1>match more than what normally watched wrestling these days. You

<v Speaker 1>saw why that match had to happen when and where

<v Speaker 1>it did. WrestleMania would not have been the right place

<v Speaker 1>for the United States would not have been the right

<v Speaker 1>place for it. Those fans were invested in a way

<v Speaker 1>that the fans here simply were not. You could see

<v Speaker 1>it whenever these guys were on Raw. It was just

<v Speaker 1>another feud, It was another match. Even just the idea

<v Speaker 1>of seeing an American masquerading around as a Mexican luchador

<v Speaker 1>feuding with a German who was masquerading around as the

<v Speaker 1>American fake luchador, all in the name of Mexican pride

<v Speaker 1>like it is a completely ridiculous premise. It should have failed.

<v Speaker 1>It should have been nothing more than a comedy feud

<v Speaker 1>that wrapped up in six weeks, and instead it turned

<v Speaker 1>into this cultural phenomenon down there, and it created a

<v Speaker 1>legitimate star in El Grande Americano Kaiser gott to be

<v Speaker 1>specific here, El Grande Americano Kaiser. That doesn't happen if

<v Speaker 1>Chad Gable doesn't tear his rotator cuff and need surgery.

<v Speaker 1>Best thing that ever happened to either one of these

<v Speaker 1>guys was Gable getting hurt. As weird as that is

<v Speaker 1>to say, it was a happy accident, you know. For Kaiser,

<v Speaker 1>he spoke the language, which was a big reason why

<v Speaker 1>he got over the way he did. Gable couldn't have

<v Speaker 1>done that. He spoke to them, literally spoke to them,

<v Speaker 1>and they've embraced him in a way that nobody could

<v Speaker 1>have ever predicted. In my opinion, he should keep that

<v Speaker 1>mask on for the rest of his career and never

<v Speaker 1>take it off. He will never be as over as

<v Speaker 1>Ludwig Kaiser than he is right now as El Grande

<v Speaker 1>Americano undertaker Jeremy Borash. They all deserve credit for running

<v Speaker 1>with this and creating this really special night. I didn't

<v Speaker 1>think the rest of that Triple A show was anything special.

<v Speaker 1>It was good, it was fine. You know, Ray Phoenix

<v Speaker 1>and Laredo Kid got eleven minutes for their match. They

<v Speaker 1>should have gotten more. But that was about as much

<v Speaker 1>of a one match show as we've seen in a

<v Speaker 1>very long time, probably since Saturday Night's main event last December.

<v Speaker 1>Because we all knew that was about John cenas final match, right.

<v Speaker 1>We got some other cool things on that show, but

<v Speaker 1>let's be honest, it was all about one match. It

<v Speaker 1>was about John Cena against Gunther. It was a one

<v Speaker 1>match show. But the match itself was just fantastic, just

<v Speaker 1>this great dramatic pro wrestling match with tons of cameos

<v Speaker 1>from people that had been part of this storyline going

<v Speaker 1>back many months. The blind comedian Pimpyinella s Carlotta, returning

<v Speaker 1>Kaiser's girlfriend who was fired but showed up in the

<v Speaker 1>front row with a ticket. Ryo and Bravo and Julio

<v Speaker 1>and Bruto and the blood. I mean Gable more than Kaiser.

<v Speaker 1>Gable is just bleeding like a faucet because he knew,

<v Speaker 1>right this may be the only chance in this company

<v Speaker 1>that I get to use the blade, I'm gonna make

<v Speaker 1>the most of it. And so, after thirty three minutes,

<v Speaker 1>blood dripping down his face, as he pulls the mask

<v Speaker 1>off to reveal the worst kept secret in wrestling. You know,

<v Speaker 1>he says his name, which really is still his work name,

<v Speaker 1>but his his other name, and his birthday and where

<v Speaker 1>he's from the sort of thing that you would see

<v Speaker 1>with the traditional unmasking in Lucha libre, and for what

<v Speaker 1>started as comedy, they treated it at the end with

<v Speaker 1>the respect that it deserved. And he hands the mask

<v Speaker 1>off to Kaiser and he announces that somehow someway, I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how, I don't know when I will be

<v Speaker 1>back in Triple A and he gets cheered like a hero.

<v Speaker 1>He entered as the villain, but he left a hero.

<v Speaker 1>You cannot have asked for a better ending than that. Now,

<v Speaker 1>I wish the announcers were all there together live. I've

<v Speaker 1>seen differing accounts about whether or not Corey Grays was

<v Speaker 1>legitimately there and then flew to Italy, or if he

<v Speaker 1>did this, if he did commentary remotely from Italy at

<v Speaker 1>three o'clock in the morning for the show, which is

<v Speaker 1>what I think happened. Raymisterio was there live. JBL clearly

<v Speaker 1>was not. He was sitting in his bunker in Texas

<v Speaker 1>or wherever he lived New York. I don't fucking know.

<v Speaker 1>I don't fucking care. But they usually do the commentary

<v Speaker 1>for the shows remotely. You could tell just by listening

<v Speaker 1>to it, and you could tell when they do it

<v Speaker 1>doesn't sound the same. Their calls on some of the

<v Speaker 1>spots are off by a few seconds because there's a delay,

<v Speaker 1>and when they're in studio like that, something else I've

<v Speaker 1>noticed it ends up muting the crowd noise a little bit.

<v Speaker 1>So I just wish they would have found a way

<v Speaker 1>to get all three of them together to call the

<v Speaker 1>show from ringside, even if it meant subbing Wade Barrett

<v Speaker 1>in for Corey Graves on commentary with Michael Cole in Italy.

<v Speaker 1>You know, because if ever there was a time for

<v Speaker 1>them to be there live for a big show, this

<v Speaker 1>was it. You know. This is going to go down

<v Speaker 1>as one of the best matches this company has ever produced.

<v Speaker 1>I think they should have been there at ringside for it.

<v Speaker 1>But that would be my only real critique about any

<v Speaker 1>of this. Now. Chad Gable did not appear on Monday Night.

<v Speaker 1>They did plug the shit out of the replay of

<v Speaker 1>that match about half a dozen different times, but he

<v Speaker 1>did show up on SmackDown in a couple of backstage segments.

<v Speaker 1>He was there to meet with Nick all this, but

<v Speaker 1>not before having this tense face off. No words were exchanged,

<v Speaker 1>just kind of staring at each other, him and Sammy's

<v Speaker 1>before all this ushered him into his office for a chat.

<v Speaker 1>And I don't get the sense they're setting up anything

<v Speaker 1>with him and Sammy. This was just their way of

<v Speaker 1>kind of showing him initially on screen. Later on, we

<v Speaker 1>saw Gable in the back looking for Ray Phoenix. Ray

<v Speaker 1>Phoenix was just hanging out backstage with his new Triple

<v Speaker 1>A Cruiserweight title. He was talking to Axiom and Nathan Fraser,

<v Speaker 1>and so then Gable walks over. He says, can I

<v Speaker 1>just talk to Phoenix alone? And he did what Roman

<v Speaker 1>Reigns could never do with his own family. He asked

<v Speaker 1>for forgiveness for his past transgressions and because he mocked

<v Speaker 1>Lucha libre right, but he says he has learned to

<v Speaker 1>respect it, and he wanted to fly all the way

<v Speaker 1>to Italy just to look Ray Phoenix in the eye

<v Speaker 1>and ask for forgiveness, and Phoenix gave it to him,

<v Speaker 1>but he also cautioned him, I'm not the only luchador

<v Speaker 1>that you need to be asking forgiveness from. And so,

<v Speaker 1>as I said in my SmackDown review, he's talking about Penta,

<v Speaker 1>He's talking about his brother, and so are we looking

<v Speaker 1>at Chad Gable challenging Penta for the Intercontinental title. At SummerSlam,

<v Speaker 1>because I think that's the play, and if it's not,

<v Speaker 1>it should be. Now Penta is defending that championship tomorrow

<v Speaker 1>night on Raw. They're going to be in Paris. He's

<v Speaker 1>defending it against raymys Stereo. So I don't expect Penta

<v Speaker 1>to be losing the championship. Although look, I mean, if

<v Speaker 1>they wanted to give raymys Stereo one more token run

<v Speaker 1>with the IC title, I'm sure it would get a

<v Speaker 1>huge reaction in Paris. Look at the reaction he got

<v Speaker 1>on Raw in Italy this past Monday. The fucking hardcam

<v Speaker 1>was shaking when he tagged in. It was him and

<v Speaker 1>Dragon the Lee against Ethan Page and Russev, so they

<v Speaker 1>could do it. I'm not anticipating it. I don't really

<v Speaker 1>see the point of doing that. Ray's already got the whole,

<v Speaker 1>you know, the GM gig with Triple A. He doesn't

<v Speaker 1>need the Intercontinental title. But they're gonna have that match.

<v Speaker 1>It should be good and Penta will win, and then

<v Speaker 1>the question becomes who's next. Right I mentioned Ethan Page.

<v Speaker 1>I think he ultimately ends up with that championship than

<v Speaker 1>not too distant future. I think he's perfect for that

<v Speaker 1>Intercontinental title. But even more than that, you know, we're

<v Speaker 1>in a position now where we're heading into this two

<v Speaker 1>night Summer Slam us Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and guess

<v Speaker 1>where Chad Gable was born. Guess where Chad Gable is from, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

<v Speaker 1>And so you could not have set up a better

<v Speaker 1>place for a Chad Gable win over Penta or whoever

<v Speaker 1>to win the Intercontinental Championship. It's in his hometown. If

<v Speaker 1>the timing had worked out better, To be honest with you,

<v Speaker 1>I would have had him in the King of the

<v Speaker 1>Ring tournament. I would eleap frog right over this Intercontinental

<v Speaker 1>title stuff. And I would have had him in the

<v Speaker 1>King of the Ring. You talk about taking advantage of

<v Speaker 1>like the moment and the momentum that he has immediately

<v Speaker 1>coming out of that Mass versus Mask match that again

<v Speaker 1>was so great they replayed it on Netflix, which was

<v Speaker 1>not the original plan. I would have had him in

<v Speaker 1>the King of the Ring, give him the crown, let

<v Speaker 1>him challenge Cody Roads at SummerSlam, but it's too late

<v Speaker 1>for that. So this is the next best thing. If

<v Speaker 1>they were ever gonna get serious about a Chad Gable push,

<v Speaker 1>this is it. There's no more excuses, there's no more delays,

<v Speaker 1>there's no more well, I don't know. Let's wait and

<v Speaker 1>see all that bullshit is over. It's over. The single

<v Speaker 1>most underutilized, underappreciated talent on the entire WWE roster, and

<v Speaker 1>there are a lot of them, is Chad Gable. And

<v Speaker 1>Chad Gable ain't getting any younger. This is the point

<v Speaker 1>I made the other night. What is he now forty?

<v Speaker 1>If not he's forty ish. When he joined the company,

<v Speaker 1>he was thirty. Because American alpha man, that goes back

<v Speaker 1>to like twenty, that's gotta go back twenty fifteen, twenty

<v Speaker 1>sixteen at XT it's been a decade. What are you

<v Speaker 1>waiting for? You were just handed another opportunity to do

<v Speaker 1>something with this guy. Take it. It's now or never.

<v Speaker 1>It's up to Triple H. Don't fumble this raw On

<v Speaker 1>Monday Night saw Jacob fa Tou acknowledge Roman reigns and

<v Speaker 1>join the New bloodline. Hopefully this goes better than the

<v Speaker 1>New Coke many years ago. He even dropped to a

<v Speaker 1>knee on bended knee, he acknowledged his tribal chief, so

<v Speaker 1>he loses too straight and then bows down to the winner.

<v Speaker 1>You talk about coming out of a month weaker than

<v Speaker 1>you went into it. I trust that there is a

<v Speaker 1>longer payoff in mind here that will end with Jacob

<v Speaker 1>taking Romans spot, maybe even as soon as summer slim.

<v Speaker 1>We may not even have to wait months and months

<v Speaker 1>and months to see it, because Jacob, here's the thing

<v Speaker 1>about it, Jacob Fatu is part of the Bloodline, legit.

<v Speaker 1>He's part of the family. Roman looks out if nothing else,

<v Speaker 1>Roman looks out for family. We know that. So I

<v Speaker 1>have to believe that Fa too is going to come

<v Speaker 1>out on the other end of this stronger on the

<v Speaker 1>back end. But that's for later. For the time being,

<v Speaker 1>he's in a worse position than he was in before,

<v Speaker 1>and here we are running it back again with the

<v Speaker 1>Bloodline now. He also had a really good main event

<v Speaker 1>with Seth Rollins against bron Breaker, who was all banged

<v Speaker 1>up after his match. There's fan video out there of

<v Speaker 1>him limping around at the hotel afterwards. He's fine. He

<v Speaker 1>wrestled unsmacked Down a few days later, and I think

<v Speaker 1>he had a couple of street fights at the live

<v Speaker 1>events on the European tour in between with Seth Rollins,

<v Speaker 1>but they had a hell of a match. I thought

<v Speaker 1>it was better than the one they had a backlash

<v Speaker 1>Breaker won that one, Rollins won this one. So they're

<v Speaker 1>all tied up at one win apiece. And it wasn't

<v Speaker 1>lost on me watching Oba Feme lose clean a Clash

<v Speaker 1>in Italy. That we also had Jacob Faughtu lose at

<v Speaker 1>Clash in Italy and then bron Breaker lose on Raw

<v Speaker 1>the next night. This was not lost on me. Brock Lesner, Roman, Reigns,

<v Speaker 1>and Seth Rollins all picked up wins. We're going to

<v Speaker 1>party like it's twenty fifteen all over again. Actually, you

<v Speaker 1>know what, It kind of reminds me of Fully Loaded

<v Speaker 1>in two thousand, which was an excellent pay per view,

<v Speaker 1>but if Fully Loaded, it was kind of like even

<v Speaker 1>at that time, I remember it was sort of like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>it's like the new generation facing off with the old generation,

<v Speaker 1>but like the current generation. Because they had Rock and

<v Speaker 1>Ben wih in the main event for the title that night,

<v Speaker 1>and then they had Jericho against Triple H and a

<v Speaker 1>last man Standing match, and then they had Undertaker against

<v Speaker 1>Kurt Angle. And in two thousand, these were all new guys.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, Angle and Jericho had debuted for them later

<v Speaker 1>in ninety nine. Benwa had come in earlier that yearon

<v Speaker 1>Benwah wasn't a rookie or anything. But in the year

<v Speaker 1>two thousand, those three guys had not even been there.

<v Speaker 1>They had not even been on television for a full year.

<v Speaker 1>So they were the new guys, and it was almost

<v Speaker 1>like a test. Let's put each of them in a

<v Speaker 1>pay per view match against these more established talents and

<v Speaker 1>see how they do. And then you kind of look

<v Speaker 1>at the results of all of those matches. Undertaker beat

<v Speaker 1>Kurt Angle, Triple beat Chris Jericho, Rock beat Chris Benoir,

<v Speaker 1>and all of those cases except one where you know,

<v Speaker 1>if you look a little bit longer down the road,

<v Speaker 1>it didn't end up well. But in all three of

<v Speaker 1>those cases they all went on to have I would

<v Speaker 1>say a fair amount of success in WWE. I can

<v Speaker 1>only hope for the same. I can only hope for

<v Speaker 1>the same here for Obafemi, for Jacob Fatu, and for

<v Speaker 1>Bron Breaker. That it's a similar situation minus the ben

<v Speaker 1>was stuff years later now, because Rollins and Breaker are

<v Speaker 1>all tied up to one win apiece. What they could

<v Speaker 1>have done, they could have rematched them in the finals

<v Speaker 1>of the King of the Ring if they wanted to,

<v Speaker 1>but that would have been another win for Seth Rollins,

<v Speaker 1>and we know that's not happening now anyway, after what

<v Speaker 1>we saw on Friday. Now, Paul Hayman also got speared

<v Speaker 1>through the barricade by accident by bron Breaker, so he's

<v Speaker 1>likely going to be off TV for a bit. You

<v Speaker 1>can add Hayman, I guess to the Visions injured list now.

<v Speaker 1>That makes Paul Hayman, Logan, Paul, and Bronson Reid. Bronson Reid,

<v Speaker 1>by the way, who got rear ended in his car

<v Speaker 1>this week, thankfully and his family are okay, and he

<v Speaker 1>sat on social media. People stop driving on your damn phones.

<v Speaker 1>Pay attention. People have kids in their cars. I co

<v Speaker 1>sign that, put your fucking phones down and pay attention

<v Speaker 1>to the road. On SmackDown, Gunther was on the warpath

<v Speaker 1>after the Italian screwjob last weekend. He had his foot

<v Speaker 1>underneath the bottom rope. The referee didn't see it and

<v Speaker 1>he got pinned. Now, we all saw replays of it

<v Speaker 1>immediately after. It was clear as day, So too did

<v Speaker 1>all of the viewers that would have been watching at

<v Speaker 1>home on ESPN. Who get to see instant replay in

<v Speaker 1>sports all the time, but in pro wrestling, instant replay

<v Speaker 1>doesn't mean shit. They're probably watching this going how come

<v Speaker 1>the referee didn't just restart the match? Well, that's pro

<v Speaker 1>wrestling for you. And Cody Roads came out and he

<v Speaker 1>agreed with Gunther. He said he got screwed and he

<v Speaker 1>was ready to throw down right then and there, but

<v Speaker 1>then Sammy's Aim came out. Things degenerated from there. They

<v Speaker 1>all started brawling. Now later in the show, we learned

<v Speaker 1>that Gunther's lawyers had been in touch with Nick all this,

<v Speaker 1>and next week Gunther gets to pick the stipulation for

<v Speaker 1>their rematch, which will then take place not at Night

<v Speaker 1>of champions but on the June nineteenth episode of SmackDown.

<v Speaker 1>June twenty sixth, by the way, is when the show

<v Speaker 1>is supposed to revert back to two hours. I'm counting

<v Speaker 1>down the days, but June nineteenth, I'm gonna be in

<v Speaker 1>Chicago for House of Glory, so I will not get

<v Speaker 1>to see the match live. The last time they had

<v Speaker 1>a WWE Championship match on SmackDown was March sixth, Cody

<v Speaker 1>Rhodes beat Drew McIntyre to win the belt back. I

<v Speaker 1>was also in Chicago for House of Glory that night.

<v Speaker 1>See now Triple h is counterprogramming against Hog. This is

<v Speaker 1>starting to piss me off. I'm feeling that Tony Kahn rage.

<v Speaker 1>It is very interesting how they have kind of weaved

<v Speaker 1>Sammy's Zain into this, and it tells me the reason

<v Speaker 1>that they're doing the rematch on the nineteenth and not

<v Speaker 1>saving it for the twenty seventh, I think is one

<v Speaker 1>Night of Champions is The reason they're not saving it

<v Speaker 1>for that show is because we may be getting a

<v Speaker 1>triple threat match at Knight of Champions and we've got

<v Speaker 1>the finals of the King of the Ring that night,

<v Speaker 1>which means the winner may be challenging for the WWE

<v Speaker 1>Championship at SummerSlam. Yeah. Again, based on what we've heard

<v Speaker 1>on television, Gotta Live Morgan talking about how she's going

<v Speaker 1>to be a double champion, that's why she's in Queen

<v Speaker 1>of the Ring, and Roman Reigns is telling jay usso, hey,

<v Speaker 1>you go get the other belt. So that tells me

<v Speaker 1>the rules have changed this year and that the winner

<v Speaker 1>could very well challenge the champion of the other brand

<v Speaker 1>if they want so. You got all of these things

<v Speaker 1>that are sort of culminating there on that show. So

<v Speaker 1>I don't know what they're gonna do. I can't imagine

<v Speaker 1>they take the belt off Cody at this point and

<v Speaker 1>that he's not in the title match in August, which

<v Speaker 1>would seem to not vote very well for Gunther's chances

<v Speaker 1>of winning the championship. But speaking of the King of

<v Speaker 1>the Ring, that was the other highlight of the show

<v Speaker 1>on Monday night, the fatal four way first round match

<v Speaker 1>with Obafemi, Penta, Carmelo Hayes and Solo Socoa. No one

<v Speaker 1>needed a strong night coming off his first loss, and

<v Speaker 1>he got it. He looked like a monster out there.

<v Speaker 1>He got the win. The fans were solidly behind him.

<v Speaker 1>They could have beaten him without taking the loss if

<v Speaker 1>they wanted to, given that it was a four way,

<v Speaker 1>and they chose not to do it. I'm glad they didn't.

<v Speaker 1>I think that would have been a cheap way out.

<v Speaker 1>But now he's either winning this tournament or Brocklesner is

<v Speaker 1>screwing him out of that crown. It's got. It's one

<v Speaker 1>of the other Oba was to have met the winner

<v Speaker 1>of the bron Breaker, Dominic Mysterio trick Williams and Damian

<v Speaker 1>Priest four way on SmackDown Friday Night, which I thought

<v Speaker 1>for sure was going to be bron breaker, especially coming

<v Speaker 1>off that loss on Monday Night in the main event.

<v Speaker 1>But we got our first upset of the tournament and

<v Speaker 1>they gave it to Dominic Mysterio. They really want to

<v Speaker 1>keep Hope alive for this whole king Dom Queen Live thing,

<v Speaker 1>don't they. And look, there is something to be said

<v Speaker 1>for not going with the predictable outcome. It definitely was

<v Speaker 1>not predictable. But an oba Femi domint Mysterio match does

<v Speaker 1>not interest me nearly as much as an Obafemi bron

<v Speaker 1>breaker match would interest me. Right now, Look, the fans

<v Speaker 1>are gonna have fun, I think watching Dom out there

<v Speaker 1>running for his life trying to figure out how the

<v Speaker 1>fuck am I gonna get out of this because it's

<v Speaker 1>a total mismatch now. I mentioned this in my SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>review on Friday Night. A couple of years ago, there

<v Speaker 1>was a post wrestling report that said that Dom was

<v Speaker 1>supposed to eliminate brock Lesner from the Royal Rumble, which

<v Speaker 1>would then lead to a singles match between them in

<v Speaker 1>Australia at elimination chamber, and that tracks because they basically

<v Speaker 1>just gave the Brock spot in the rumble that year.

<v Speaker 1>It's a bron breaker and Dom eliminated breaker instead, and

<v Speaker 1>had we gotten Brock and Dom, it would have been

<v Speaker 1>a glorious squash. Right, it's the same premise as what

<v Speaker 1>we have now, where Okay, you know he's not gonna win,

<v Speaker 1>He's gonna it's like the lamb being led to slaughter.

<v Speaker 1>But the fun part is trying to figure out how's

<v Speaker 1>he gonna weasel his way out of this. Right, this

<v Speaker 1>is giving me those vibes. But the difference is that

<v Speaker 1>was not a King of the Ring match. And so

<v Speaker 1>if Oba gets screwed and Dom, let's say where to

<v Speaker 1>somehow make it to the finals, that would be terrible

<v Speaker 1>because we know he's not winning the crown. He's got

<v Speaker 1>zero percent chance of that happening. You've just killed your

<v Speaker 1>final match if you do that, which makes it a

<v Speaker 1>lot more likely that Oba is going to do what

<v Speaker 1>we all expect him to do. He's going to kill Dom,

<v Speaker 1>He's going to fly to riod and he's going to

<v Speaker 1>wrestle probably seth Rollins. I would say in the finals

<v Speaker 1>of this tournament, and that is likely where they save

<v Speaker 1>the brock Lesnar interference to get him on the Saudi Show.

<v Speaker 1>They're also leaning very heavily into the Judgment Day stuff.

<v Speaker 1>You know, Dom went to the Semis, Raquel Rodriguez is

<v Speaker 1>going to the Semis and the Queen of the Ring,

<v Speaker 1>so like, it's all about the Judgment Day right now.

<v Speaker 1>Now we look at the other side of the men's bracket,

<v Speaker 1>Seth Rollins against Javon Evans, against Talatanga, against Ricky Saints.

<v Speaker 1>They had Talatanga Pin Royce Keys on SmackDown Friday Night.

<v Speaker 1>That's the only win that Tallatanga should be getting. God

<v Speaker 1>forbid they do Taalatanga and jay Uso in the semi finals,

<v Speaker 1>they may as well call the entire tournament tribal combat.

<v Speaker 1>That should be a Rollins win, and then he would

<v Speaker 1>meet the winner of the jay Usso La Knight, Royce Keys,

<v Speaker 1>Finn Balor four Way, Finn Balor, by the way, who

<v Speaker 1>has officially been traded to SmackDown traded for who? They

<v Speaker 1>didn't say. They specifically use the word traded, which implies

<v Speaker 1>that one goes this way and then one comes back

<v Speaker 1>the other way. I don't know. Maybe Jacob Fatu counts

<v Speaker 1>as the trade since he's basically on raw now, but

<v Speaker 1>that'll be the last of the first round matches on

<v Speaker 1>the men's side that takes place on SmackDown next Friday.

<v Speaker 1>I'm thinking it's Rollins against jay Uso. I mean, La

<v Speaker 1>Knight is the possibilities. Sure, I feel like we should

<v Speaker 1>all know better though with La Knight I'm gonna have

<v Speaker 1>more on La Night in a few minutes. Roman Reigns

<v Speaker 1>on Monday, though, told jay Usso go win the King

<v Speaker 1>of the Ring and go challenge for the other belt

<v Speaker 1>at SummerSlam. So again that when I talk about them

<v Speaker 1>changing the rules, I don't believe King of the Ring

<v Speaker 1>has worked that way in the past. So that's kind

<v Speaker 1>of an interesting little wrinkle that they have added. Look,

<v Speaker 1>I can't see jay Usso getting bounced out of the

<v Speaker 1>first round though after Roman gave him that little pep talk.

<v Speaker 1>I think he loses in the next round and that's

<v Speaker 1>how we get Rollins against Oba at Night of Champions

<v Speaker 1>In the Queen of the Ring, Eo Sky advanced to

<v Speaker 1>the semi finals on Monday with a win over Julia

<v Speaker 1>Roxanne Perez and lash legend Eo was the correct choice,

<v Speaker 1>and so now she's going to revisit her rivalry with

<v Speaker 1>Raquel in the next round, who won a four way

<v Speaker 1>on Friday over Bailey, j C Jane and Keana James.

<v Speaker 1>Now on the other side of the bracket tomorrow Night

<v Speaker 1>Live Morgan, the women's World Champion fifty days, is the

<v Speaker 1>women's World Champion, not a single title defense. Now Jade

<v Speaker 1>Cargill has her b because Jade did double that without

<v Speaker 1>a single title defense. But again, it's not Jade's fault

<v Speaker 1>and it's not Live's fault. You could blame the people

<v Speaker 1>that are behind the creative direction of these individuals holding

<v Speaker 1>championships and carrying them around and not defending. And I

<v Speaker 1>understand that they're waiting for Stephanie to come back, but

<v Speaker 1>still you've had this woman doing nothing. She's been a

<v Speaker 1>fucking manager ever since WrestleMania. This has been truly the

<v Speaker 1>worst Women's World Championship reign in the history of that belt.

<v Speaker 1>And the funny thing is it has nothing to do

<v Speaker 1>with liv Morgan. It's not even her fault, but it

<v Speaker 1>is by far the worst World championship. And I thought

<v Speaker 1>Stephanie's run was very underwhelming. This is worse than that.

<v Speaker 1>But liv says she's gonna win the crown and then

<v Speaker 1>she's gonna win the other belt from Ria Ripley. At

<v Speaker 1>Summerslim she's gonna be in there with Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss,

<v Speaker 1>and Chelsea Green, and they're pushing that maybe Livin Raquel

<v Speaker 1>could meet in the finals. I think this is where

<v Speaker 1>we see Stephanie Viquerre return. She costs live Morgan a win,

<v Speaker 1>and then really it's either Becky or Alexa who I

<v Speaker 1>think move on to the next round. That could go

<v Speaker 1>either way. I'm gonna go with Alexa Bliss because the

<v Speaker 1>winner then meets the winner of the match this Friday

<v Speaker 1>with Charlotte Flair, Jade Cargills, sol Ruka and Lyra Valkyrie,

<v Speaker 1>and I'm thinking we get a Charlotte Flair Alexa Bliss

<v Speaker 1>semi final. But they could also have Becky advance, and

<v Speaker 1>they could have Soul Ruka advance and they could rematch

<v Speaker 1>them in the semis if they want, and then Becky

<v Speaker 1>could go to the finals to wrestle Eo. So I

<v Speaker 1>would say things are a little less predictable on the

<v Speaker 1>women's side, but I'm pretty confident Eo Sky will make

<v Speaker 1>at least make it to the finals. I mentioned La

<v Speaker 1>Knight a minute ago. La Knight was backstage on Raw

<v Speaker 1>Monday night. He was giving Adam Pierce hell for cozying

<v Speaker 1>up to Roman Reigns in the Bloodline. He's talking about

<v Speaker 1>Roman's Ufalafa. It was actually very entertaining, as was his

<v Speaker 1>interview with Chris van Vliet this week. It was a

<v Speaker 1>very good watch. I encourage you to go check it out.

<v Speaker 1>One takeaway is that he feels his crowd reactions are

<v Speaker 1>not as strong as they used to be because creatively,

<v Speaker 1>he's been a man without a direction. This was his

<v Speaker 1>full quote. I think there were a lot of people

<v Speaker 1>leaning on the idea that that was going to be

<v Speaker 1>a fad. There were a lot of people leaning on

<v Speaker 1>the idea that that was going to be a flavor

<v Speaker 1>of the month, that that was going to be a

<v Speaker 1>passing thing. Here we are in twenty twenty six. I

<v Speaker 1>walked in the ring last night. Now you could argue, yeah,

<v Speaker 1>maybe the reactions are not quite as big as they

<v Speaker 1>were at that time. I'm going to tell you why

<v Speaker 1>that is in a second. But if you notice last night,

<v Speaker 1>I still circle around. I get the thing, and I

<v Speaker 1>stand there and they still chant the name. Now, you

<v Speaker 1>could say that's programming, you could say that's passion, you

<v Speaker 1>could say it's whatever it is. Bottom line is it's

<v Speaker 1>still there. However, the reason it's not as big as

<v Speaker 1>is is because right now I'm just kind of a

<v Speaker 1>man without a country, so to speak. Oh, he's like

<v Speaker 1>Sergeant Slaughter in nineteen ninety two. I don't have a

<v Speaker 1>set trajectory at this moment. If you look at last year,

<v Speaker 1>last summer when I started, all of a sudden, me

<v Speaker 1>and Seth were going at it for the title, it's

<v Speaker 1>me and the vision there it is renewed again. So

<v Speaker 1>it's a matter of just making sure I've got direction,

<v Speaker 1>I've got somewhere to go, and I've got somewhere that

<v Speaker 1>people care about, something that people can sink their teeth into.

<v Speaker 1>That then takes it up from an eight to a

<v Speaker 1>ten and beyond. And so I think that's really just

<v Speaker 1>the key to the whole thing. And it's kind of

<v Speaker 1>crazy that it's kept on this long when I don't

<v Speaker 1>think a lot of people were counting on that being

<v Speaker 1>the case. From an outsider perspective, you look at here's

<v Speaker 1>this force that came in, and I took this thing

<v Speaker 1>by storm. And people make comparisons. They say Steve Austin

<v Speaker 1>got real hot and Daniel Brian got real hot. You

<v Speaker 1>could even say Obafemi whatever. You look at these things.

<v Speaker 1>But all these guys, by the time they had gotten

<v Speaker 1>hot and started getting the big pops, they had had

<v Speaker 1>big victories, big pushes, they had had titles, even Austin.

<v Speaker 1>Austin didn't really start getting the mega pops until he

<v Speaker 1>was already champion. Like it started building up and he

<v Speaker 1>was the Intercontinental champion, he was tag team champion, all

<v Speaker 1>that stuff, But it wasn't like the crazy megapops that

<v Speaker 1>you got in like ninety eight, ninety nine, Daniel Bryan's

<v Speaker 1>same thing. He'd already been multiple time Intercontinental champion, tag

<v Speaker 1>team champion. What was I doing? I was middle bottom

<v Speaker 1>of the card, getting beat every week. But I had

<v Speaker 1>thirty seconds, sixty seconds to talk. And when you look

<v Speaker 1>at it from I'm able to take that and then

<v Speaker 1>become the number one merch seller. I'm able to be

<v Speaker 1>you know, all of a sudden, now I'm the favorite

<v Speaker 1>for money in the bank. All of a sudden, Now

<v Speaker 1>I'm the guy that the people are demanding, not because

<v Speaker 1>I was pushed in that direction, not because the machine

<v Speaker 1>got behind me. At some point, the machine had to

<v Speaker 1>get behind me. You can't deny that. At some point

<v Speaker 1>you want to talk about undeniable, that was me. But

<v Speaker 1>at the same time, there's still some resistance, Yes there is.

<v Speaker 1>Anybody with two functioning eyeballs can see that there is

<v Speaker 1>still some resistance. We could talk about why that is right.

<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of reasons why maybe WWE has been

<v Speaker 1>you know, gun shy on La Night. He's not the

<v Speaker 1>flashiest guy in the ring. But let me just say this,

<v Speaker 1>he's not the flashiest guy in the ring. But I

<v Speaker 1>do see people like, oh well, maybe if La Knight

<v Speaker 1>learns how to wrestle, he would get a push or

<v Speaker 1>La Knight's not that good La Knight. I don't know

<v Speaker 1>where people are pulling this shit out. What like orifice

<v Speaker 1>they're pulling this out of La Knight. As a wrestler,

<v Speaker 1>he's fine. He's not a bad wrestler. Yes, he's not

<v Speaker 1>will Osprey in the ring, but this idea that, oh well,

<v Speaker 1>he can talk and he's got charisma, but he's not

<v Speaker 1>a great wrestler. I don't know where this narrative is

<v Speaker 1>coming from. It's not like every time he goes out

<v Speaker 1>there and has a match he shits the bed, right.

<v Speaker 1>There isn't anything about him in the ring that's gonna

<v Speaker 1>be dynamic. There isn't anything about him in the ring

<v Speaker 1>that's like overly exciting, nothing flashy. Maybe that works against him,

<v Speaker 1>But this whole notion of him being a bad wrestler,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know where this comes from, but it needs

<v Speaker 1>to stop. It could also be he's forty three years old, right,

<v Speaker 1>He's no spring chicken anymore. Whatever it is, he's not

<v Speaker 1>wrong when he says that the machine has never fully

<v Speaker 1>gotten behind him. They have been resistant to pushing him

<v Speaker 1>to that highest level, even when he was getting the

<v Speaker 1>reactions that he was getting. You know, he was sort

<v Speaker 1>of straddling that line, but they never fully committed to

<v Speaker 1>keeping him there because they don't see him as that guy.

<v Speaker 1>For whatever reason. It's like, all right, we'll push this guy.

<v Speaker 1>There's something there, but we'll still keep him at an

<v Speaker 1>arm's length. Like the money in the bank stuff is

<v Speaker 1>probably the biggest example of that. Like two three years

<v Speaker 1>in a row where people thought he was going to

<v Speaker 1>win and he had it literally fingertips away and then

<v Speaker 1>they took it away from him, and it was very

<v Speaker 1>deflating for a lot of people who are hoping to

<v Speaker 1>see him at least win the briefcase. Now it's La Night,

<v Speaker 1>so like he'd win the briefcase and then he would

<v Speaker 1>have probably a Baron Corbin cash in. Just because he

<v Speaker 1>wins money in the bank does not guarantee that he

<v Speaker 1>would end up being world champion. But they couldn't even

<v Speaker 1>give him the briefcase right now. If you're an La

<v Speaker 1>Knight fan, that's incredibly frustrating. He has been without a

<v Speaker 1>direction for a while. He was not a priority for them.

<v Speaker 1>He still isn't now. I don't know if this stuff

<v Speaker 1>with the vision, not the vision, but with the bloodline

<v Speaker 1>is leading anywhere meaningful. But they seem to have some

<v Speaker 1>sort of direction now for him because he keeps bringing

<v Speaker 1>it up every single week. He's yelling at him, Pierce

<v Speaker 1>trying to tell him, like, you're gonna let these guys

<v Speaker 1>gain power again, what are you doing? He's trying to

<v Speaker 1>warn him. He's out there confronting the USO's I don't

<v Speaker 1>know where it's leading other than probably more disappointment. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>let's be honest, but the reality is, like to first

<v Speaker 1>make him a world champion or get him to where

<v Speaker 1>his fans want to see him get to, he's probably

<v Speaker 1>aged out, which sounds crazy when you consider most of

<v Speaker 1>their top guys are also in their fucking forties, but

<v Speaker 1>they've already been champion multiple times. That's the difference. You

<v Speaker 1>could talk about Roman Reigns being forty, Cody Rhodes being forty,

<v Speaker 1>Drew McIntyre being for like all these guys, Damian Priest,

<v Speaker 1>he's been a world heavyweight champion. All these guys have

<v Speaker 1>already been there, and so they continue in some cases

<v Speaker 1>maybe not Priests lately, but like they continue to sort

<v Speaker 1>of mill I mean punks mpunk's what forty seven, forty eight. Again,

<v Speaker 1>there's multiple examples of this, but they've already been to

<v Speaker 1>the top of the mountain. La Knight is not. He's

<v Speaker 1>in that same age range, but he never got there

<v Speaker 1>in the first place. They'd first be pushing him now

<v Speaker 1>as a world champion when they never did before, and

<v Speaker 1>that's the biggest difference. So when I say he's probably

<v Speaker 1>aged out, not because I don't want to see him

<v Speaker 1>as champion. Always too old, I'm just saying, like, in

<v Speaker 1>their mind, I could see that sort of being well,

<v Speaker 1>you know, it's it's kind of too late for the guy,

<v Speaker 1>but like, you know, we'll push him anyway, but we

<v Speaker 1>won't push him at that level. And I think that's bullshit.

<v Speaker 1>But to first get him there now probably is not

<v Speaker 1>going to happen. I wasn't joking when I said, like

<v Speaker 1>months ago and I said that him falling off the

<v Speaker 1>top rope an elimination chamber and that elimination chamber match

<v Speaker 1>was the death knell for him. I really think it

<v Speaker 1>was like I could picture people sitting back there, certain

<v Speaker 1>people at Gorilla watching that and it just sort of

<v Speaker 1>like shaking their head or laughing or just looking over

<v Speaker 1>at this guy. And you know, say, I told you

<v Speaker 1>like I could see that sort of thing happening, because

<v Speaker 1>when he fell off the top rope, I'm like, oh man,

<v Speaker 1>it's sort of a metaphor, you know, for his career.

<v Speaker 1>In many ways, it was sort of the perfect illustration

<v Speaker 1>of his run where he reaches the top, like literally

<v Speaker 1>the top rope, and he gets to work with some

<v Speaker 1>of the top guys, but then he falls off. Now,

<v Speaker 1>I still think he's got a main event level. He'll

<v Speaker 1>run in him. They're not gonna push him his baby face,

<v Speaker 1>and I know people still like him, they still cheer

<v Speaker 1>for him. It's like, why would you turn him heel.

<v Speaker 1>I'm just saying I think at some point he has

<v Speaker 1>got a main event caliber heel run in him. People

<v Speaker 1>love to say his name. He's still popular. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know how much merch he sells these days, but I'm

<v Speaker 1>telling you, a heel La Knight could do him some

<v Speaker 1>good now. He also revealed that he nearly came into

<v Speaker 1>NXT as Eli Drake, which was the name that he

<v Speaker 1>used in TNA and in the NWA. He said, when

<v Speaker 1>I first signed to NXT and twenty twenty one, they

<v Speaker 1>were like, we want to bring you in as Eli Drake.

<v Speaker 1>I'm like, great, perfect, and then three days before they're like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>never mind. Hunter wants to change it. He wants to

<v Speaker 1>start completely fresh and new. And then that's when between

<v Speaker 1>all of us we came up with La was from me,

<v Speaker 1>Night was from them, and there we had La Night.

<v Speaker 1>I know, in this business, you want to keep a

<v Speaker 1>simple name. He says. They pitched La Donovan at one

<v Speaker 1>point and I was like, ah, that's awful. No, that's

<v Speaker 1>so awful and terrible, and I feel like it pigeonholes

<v Speaker 1>me and it's shit. I'm forever a douche man. All

<v Speaker 1>the people listening to this right now named Donovan are

<v Speaker 1>just in shambles listening to this. He goes, I can't

<v Speaker 1>do that. But you want a simple name, what do

<v Speaker 1>you do with La Donovan? Finally we settled on La Night.

<v Speaker 1>You know, somehow I think getting the crowd to chan

<v Speaker 1>La Donovan, Yeah, it just doesn't work. It just doesn't

<v Speaker 1>work the same. Right. That would have been terrible. But

<v Speaker 1>then we have WWE president Nick Kahn, who was a

<v Speaker 1>guest at the Sports Business Journals caa World Congress of

<v Speaker 1>Sports event in Los Angeles back on April fifteenth, but

<v Speaker 1>for whatever reason, it was only released this week. Released

<v Speaker 1>the video was of his appearance, and so it made headlines.

<v Speaker 1>As part of that interview, and this is why it

<v Speaker 1>made headlines. He claimed that things ended up happening at

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania forty in Philadelphia two years ago exactly the way

<v Speaker 1>they were supposed to. Boof shit. Oh, I'm sorry, I

<v Speaker 1>just hate I hate when I sneezed like that on

<v Speaker 1>the air. Sometimes it just comes out. I can't help it.

<v Speaker 1>This is the WrestleMania where Cody Rhoades finished his story

<v Speaker 1>on Night two. This is after he lost a tag

<v Speaker 1>team match on Night one with Seth Rollins to Roman

<v Speaker 1>Reigns in The Rock, a loss that Cody still has

<v Speaker 1>yet to avenge, by the way, but it almost didn't

<v Speaker 1>happen at WrestleMania. After Cody won the Royal Rumble. If

<v Speaker 1>you remember, he voluntarily surrendered his main events spot at

<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania to The Rock so that The Rock could wrestle

<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns and we could get the big dream match.

<v Speaker 1>And then the fans rebelled against it, and rather than

<v Speaker 1>run the risk of the match and the build being

<v Speaker 1>sabotaged by all the Cody cry babies, as Rock called them,

<v Speaker 1>Rock made the call to turn heel instead, and the

<v Speaker 1>Final Boss was born and Cody got to finish his story.

<v Speaker 1>They even produced a documentary where Rock admitted that the

<v Speaker 1>fan backlash directly resulted in them pivoting to a different

<v Speaker 1>direction because the last thing he ever wanted to do

<v Speaker 1>was upset the fans. We can't have that, so why

<v Speaker 1>don't we do this? But to hear Nick Khan talk

<v Speaker 1>about it. That was always the plan the way it

<v Speaker 1>worked out. Yes, just like Daniel Bryan main eventing WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>thirty and winning the championship was always the plan, he

<v Speaker 1>said by the away, The plan was always how it

<v Speaker 1>ended up in Philly two years ago. Sometimes it's a

<v Speaker 1>predetermined outcome in wrestling. You want to throw the fans off,

<v Speaker 1>you want to let things bake, and then boom, it

<v Speaker 1>ends up the way that we wanted it to end up.

<v Speaker 1>It never changed. That was just online rumors and gossip

<v Speaker 1>that we were changing. It never changed. We convinced Dwyane

<v Speaker 1>Johnson to come back. He's on our board of directors.

<v Speaker 1>It was a tag team match. He's about the same

<v Speaker 1>age that I am, so two years ago, let's say

<v Speaker 1>he was fifty. He was obviously in phenomenal shape. He

<v Speaker 1>did everything that we asked of him and then some.

<v Speaker 1>But that was always the result that we were looking for. Now,

<v Speaker 1>I want you to keep in mind this is coming

<v Speaker 1>from mister Langis himself. Okay, mister, let's make sure all

<v Speaker 1>of our messages are encrypted and then deleted. Even though

<v Speaker 1>we were warned by our lawyers to preserve all of

<v Speaker 1>our messages. This is who we're supposed to believe, the

<v Speaker 1>picture of honesty that he is. It is impossible for

<v Speaker 1>them to admit that many times things don't go according

<v Speaker 1>to plan, whether it's their own fuck up or injuries

<v Speaker 1>or just circumstances, and you need to pivot, you need

<v Speaker 1>to change course. So long as you end up in

<v Speaker 1>the right place, none of that really matters. But they

<v Speaker 1>just cannot bring themselves to admit that they always need

<v Speaker 1>to control the narrative. All you need to do is

<v Speaker 1>look at Cody Rhodes and his creative at WrestleMania for

<v Speaker 1>the last few years. It has changed every single year

<v Speaker 1>since he headlined the first time with Roman Reigns. Now,

<v Speaker 1>if some reports are to be believed, I don't know

<v Speaker 1>that this was ever confirmed, but it was certainly talked

<v Speaker 1>about that Cody was supposed to go over originally in

<v Speaker 1>Hollywood at thirty nine, until Roman Reigns pitched a different

<v Speaker 1>outcome that Vince McMahon loved and he went for it. Right,

<v Speaker 1>We're gonna make Cody overcome some adversity before he eventually wins.

<v Speaker 1>I think I should win, and then he should win,

<v Speaker 1>and so things got changed. Then you have forty they

<v Speaker 1>were going to do Rock in Roman because they finally

<v Speaker 1>got the Rock after all of these years, to commit

<v Speaker 1>to doing a match WrestleMania. And once the Rock commits

<v Speaker 1>to doing a match, it doesn't matter what else you

<v Speaker 1>have planned, right, you know it's going out the window.

<v Speaker 1>Until Rock saw the social media reaction online, he read

<v Speaker 1>the room he had already had some pr blunders. I

<v Speaker 1>don't think he wanted another one, and he said, you

<v Speaker 1>know what, on second thought, I got a better idea,

<v Speaker 1>and we saw how that played out. Forty one was

<v Speaker 1>the Sena and Cody stuff, with the ill fated John

<v Speaker 1>Cena heel turn and the Travis Scott cameo. We don't

<v Speaker 1>need to relitigate all of that. And then forty two,

<v Speaker 1>what should have been a straight wrestling match between Cody

<v Speaker 1>Rhoads and Randy Orton turned into celebrity deathmatch with Pat

<v Speaker 1>McAfee and Jelly Roll in the build up, where the

<v Speaker 1>actual wrestlers took a backseat to the celebrities. Really, Randy

<v Speaker 1>Orton more so than Cody Rhodes. They fuck with this

<v Speaker 1>guy's matches every single year, But we're supposed to believe

<v Speaker 1>that it's a whole part of some well orchestrated plan.

<v Speaker 1>Cody himself has said that if the fans knew what

<v Speaker 1>the original plan was actually going to be with him

<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania forty, they would have been even more angry.

<v Speaker 1>They would have been livid. Brian Goertz said the same thing,

<v Speaker 1>and he's Rock's right hand man, He's the man on

<v Speaker 1>the inside. He said, the fans would have hated the

<v Speaker 1>og plan more than anything else in life. But then

<v Speaker 1>Cmpunk got hurt coming out of the Royal Rumble and

<v Speaker 1>they had the infamous segment where Cody brings out the

<v Speaker 1>Rock on SmackDown and just the dominoes began to fall

<v Speaker 1>from there. I know there was a very strong rumor

<v Speaker 1>at that time, if you remember around that same time period,

<v Speaker 1>that the plan was to do an injury angle with

<v Speaker 1>Cody after he won the Rumble as a way to

<v Speaker 1>keep him off of WrestleMania altogether. That may have been it.

<v Speaker 1>That may have been the plan they're talking about, but

<v Speaker 1>it's never been confirmed. Maybe Cody can tell us in

<v Speaker 1>his book someday. But to believe Nick Cohn is to

<v Speaker 1>believe that it's everyone else who's lying, lying in these interviews,

<v Speaker 1>lying in their own documentary that they made. They're the

<v Speaker 1>liars and he's the truth teller. He's more full of

<v Speaker 1>shit than a toilet bowl at a taco bell. The

<v Speaker 1>thing is, what they ended up doing at forty was brilliant,

<v Speaker 1>the way that the night one main event bled into

<v Speaker 1>the night two main event, like it worked out great.

<v Speaker 1>I don't understand this incessant need to lie about how

<v Speaker 1>they got there. I mean, I guess it's an ego thing.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know. It's like the constant harping on social

<v Speaker 1>media as being a vocal minority of fans. I've heard

<v Speaker 1>two or three different interviews where Nick Cohn has said this,

<v Speaker 1>he doesn't even look at social media. I don't look

<v Speaker 1>at social media. I'm not on it. I don't pay

<v Speaker 1>attention to it. And we don't book our product based

<v Speaker 1>on social media. And nobody is saying you should book

<v Speaker 1>strictly based on social media. Right. That's painting with a

<v Speaker 1>very broad brush. But he's always like, oh way, I

<v Speaker 1>don't look at social media. We don't pay any attention

<v Speaker 1>to it. TRIPLEH did an interview where he said the

<v Speaker 1>Internet is just the opinion of a few people, like

<v Speaker 1>there's only fifteen people on the internet. The funny thing is,

<v Speaker 1>there are far more WWE fans on the Internet than

<v Speaker 1>there are and the actual arenas. Even if you were

<v Speaker 1>to add up their total attendance for the entire year,

<v Speaker 1>there are still more fans on the internet. As he

<v Speaker 1>calls it, oh, we ignore it, we ignore it, we

<v Speaker 1>ignore it. Yet they can never seem to shut up

<v Speaker 1>about it for something they don't pay any attention to,

<v Speaker 1>they sure do talk about it a lot. In that

<v Speaker 1>same interview, Nick Conn referred to Shawn Michaels as a

<v Speaker 1>guy named Shawn Michaels when he was talking about who

<v Speaker 1>runs their developmental because you know, he was addressing a

<v Speaker 1>non wrestling audience, and but just the way it came out,

<v Speaker 1>it was so funny, like, yeah, some guy named Shawn

<v Speaker 1>Michaels runs our developmental. That Shawn Michaels guy. Released the

<v Speaker 1>video on social media this week announcing that the NXT

<v Speaker 1>Great American Bash is going to be taking place on Sunday,

<v Speaker 1>June twenty eighth at seven pm Eastern Time, airing live

<v Speaker 1>on the CW network, which will be the first ple

<v Speaker 1>as part of their deal with the CW to air

<v Speaker 1>all nxtplees going forward in the US on the CW

<v Speaker 1>it will be airing internationally on Netflix. That is the

<v Speaker 1>same day that TNA is running its Slammiversary pay per

<v Speaker 1>view at three pm Eastern, which, according to Matt Hardy,

<v Speaker 1>the company specifically moved to avoid competing directly against NXT,

<v Speaker 1>and AAW is airing its Forbidden Door pay per view,

<v Speaker 1>which has a seven pm Eastern start time as well.

<v Speaker 1>That's for the pre show. So WWE has chosen to

<v Speaker 1>go head to head with Forbidden Door. They could have

<v Speaker 1>picked any other nights. They specifically chose that one and

<v Speaker 1>we all know why. But it will not make a

<v Speaker 1>lick of difference to the AW audience because none of

<v Speaker 1>them were watching NXT anyway, anymore so than the NXT

<v Speaker 1>fans were planning on watching Forbidden Door. Now. On the

<v Speaker 1>AAW side, when Mick Foley signed with AW, I told you,

<v Speaker 1>I said there was a zero percent chance that he

<v Speaker 1>does not wrestle for them. Absolutely one hundred percent he

<v Speaker 1>would be back in the ring at least one more

<v Speaker 1>time because he knows the WWE will never clear him,

<v Speaker 1>they will never let him back in the ring again.

<v Speaker 1>Tony Khan will well wrestle votes Radio and Fightful Select

<v Speaker 1>this Week reported on Thursday that, according to AAW sources,

<v Speaker 1>Mick Foley had his mind made up that he would

<v Speaker 1>wrestle once more and that it would take place in

<v Speaker 1>AW and the report also noted that if Foley is

<v Speaker 1>cleared to wrestle, and I can't imagine he won't be,

<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahn would be very eager to book him for

<v Speaker 1>a match now. Foley appeared on the Aerial Helwani show

<v Speaker 1>this week, saying that he views himself as a kind

<v Speaker 1>of a Swiss army knife in AAW who can help

<v Speaker 1>in a variety of different ways, even as a manager,

<v Speaker 1>potentially for some mid card babyfaces or mid card heels,

<v Speaker 1>and in the ring in a match. He said, it's

<v Speaker 1>definitely crossed my mind. You know, the cinematic matches have

<v Speaker 1>opened the door for guys whose cardio may be suspect.

<v Speaker 1>But I'll tell you what, this loss of one hundred

<v Speaker 1>pounds has made my life so much easier. Like I

<v Speaker 1>used to have to stop a couple of times just

<v Speaker 1>walking up a moderate hill, and now I don't even

<v Speaker 1>realize I'm walking up hills when I do them because

<v Speaker 1>I'm not really getting winded like I used to. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know. I think that clearly, if I had a match,

<v Speaker 1>it would have to be a match that would avoid

<v Speaker 1>trauma to the head. Luckily, there's a whole lot of

<v Speaker 1>me to traumatize below the neck. So I think I

<v Speaker 1>have one last good match in me. I just believe

<v Speaker 1>all the stars would have to align, All the stars

<v Speaker 1>would have to align, and it would have to make

<v Speaker 1>sense if I can come up with enough of those

<v Speaker 1>types of moves that allow me to risk a little

<v Speaker 1>bit less while still giving fans a good match, and

<v Speaker 1>if I feel like I'm up to it, then maybe

<v Speaker 1>a couple of years down the road we will look

<v Speaker 1>into that. Stranger things have happened. I'm going to make

<v Speaker 1>a prediction right now, it will not take a couple

<v Speaker 1>of years for McK foley to have a match at AAW.

<v Speaker 1>I would not be shocked if he had a match

<v Speaker 1>this year, but certainly by next year we will see

<v Speaker 1>AAW hosting a mc foley return match. One hundred percent guaranteed,

<v Speaker 1>it will not take a couple of years down the

<v Speaker 1>road to make it happen. Now, fourteen years ago, horologists

<v Speaker 1>told him flat out, you should not ever wrestle again.

<v Speaker 1>This is why he had to stop riding roller coasters,

<v Speaker 1>which he loved to do. He would always tour all

<v Speaker 1>these different theme parks. I don't know if he still does,

<v Speaker 1>but he doesn't ride the roller coasters anymore if he does,

<v Speaker 1>because he would get concussed just by riding the roller coaster.

<v Speaker 1>But this is wrestling, right doctor. They say stuff all

<v Speaker 1>the time and wrestlers routinely ignore them. It's why they're

<v Speaker 1>wrestlers and they're not fucking brain surgeons. Nck Foley should

<v Speaker 1>not be wrestling, but he's going to and Tony Khan

<v Speaker 1>is not going to say no. He's made that very clear.

<v Speaker 1>He's going to be marking out over it. So hopefully

<v Speaker 1>they do it in a way that is similar to

<v Speaker 1>what WWE did with Brett Hart in twenty ten, where

<v Speaker 1>he never took any shots to the head, never took

<v Speaker 1>a soup plex, he never did anything where his head

<v Speaker 1>would take any impact. I think that might have been

<v Speaker 1>a condition of his Lloyd's of London insurance policy no

<v Speaker 1>shots to the head, because there was a whole controversy

<v Speaker 1>over that at the time where I think they didn't

<v Speaker 1>want to pay or whatever. But that's what they should

<v Speaker 1>do with McK foley, and honestly, a tag team match

<v Speaker 1>would probably make a lot of sense. I could see

<v Speaker 1>him in Darby as tag team partners, just like Darby

<v Speaker 1>and Stingwore. Let Darby take all the wacky bumps, let

<v Speaker 1>Darby take all the real punishment. But me personally, I

<v Speaker 1>just cannot envision any scenario under which I would be

<v Speaker 1>dying to see Mick Foley back in the ring. I mean, God,

<v Speaker 1>bless him. Hey, if this is what he wants to do,

<v Speaker 1>he's going to do it. He's going to do it,

<v Speaker 1>and they're going to allow him to do it. But

<v Speaker 1>I just hope they do it in a safe way. Now.

<v Speaker 1>I thought Dynamite on Wednesday was a really good show.

<v Speaker 1>Really good title defense by MJF against Rusche, A real

<v Speaker 1>good one with Kevin Knight and Speedball for the TNT title.

<v Speaker 1>Not even the best that they could do, but it

<v Speaker 1>was still good. One hell of a promo from Mark Brisco.

<v Speaker 1>We had the return of Mercedes Monet, who had a

<v Speaker 1>solid outing with Alex Windsor in the Owen Hart Tournament,

<v Speaker 1>and a batshit crazy main event between Will Ospray and

<v Speaker 1>Mark Davis also in the Owen which broke down into

<v Speaker 1>an overbooked spectacle that turned out to be a lot

<v Speaker 1>of fun. It's not the sort of ending that we

<v Speaker 1>get very often on an aw show. You can't do

<v Speaker 1>that sort of thing all the time, but in the

<v Speaker 1>context of the Kallus family against the Death Riders, it worked,

<v Speaker 1>and even though we all knew what the finish was

<v Speaker 1>going to be, it created some late drama in what

<v Speaker 1>otherwise would have been a very predictable you know, hidden

<v Speaker 1>blade finish one, two three or arm bar submission game over.

<v Speaker 1>So they tried to pat it with some other shit

<v Speaker 1>to try to make it a little less predictable. Now

<v Speaker 1>I mentioned MJF. He just won the belt back from

<v Speaker 1>Darby Allen a double or nothing. No one expected a

<v Speaker 1>title change here, but they're continuing a theme from the

<v Speaker 1>beginning of the year where there is a lot of

<v Speaker 1>competition around the World Championship, with people coming for Mjf's

<v Speaker 1>head and a lot of people praise that at the

<v Speaker 1>beginning of the year, right, it was nice to see

<v Speaker 1>so much focus and emphasis on the world title. That's

<v Speaker 1>the way it should always be. Well to me, this

<v Speaker 1>is no different. There's a ornament going on right now

<v Speaker 1>to decide who gets to challenge for that very title

<v Speaker 1>at Wembley Stadium. That's gonna be Will Ospry. But Kenny

<v Speaker 1>Omega still has his sights on the world title, as

<v Speaker 1>does the TNT champion Kevin knight Right. He wants to

<v Speaker 1>be Jet two belts. He keeps calling himself that Androde

<v Speaker 1>is calling out mjf Rouche had his shot on Wednesday.

<v Speaker 1>Mark Briscoe just called his shot and he's got a

<v Speaker 1>pinfall win on pay per view over the champion dating

<v Speaker 1>back to last year. MJF wasn't the champion back then,

<v Speaker 1>but now he is, and so Briscoe wants his shot

<v Speaker 1>before he got hurt. We even had Kyle Fletcher putting

<v Speaker 1>mjfun noticed that he was coming for the world title,

<v Speaker 1>and that looks like it's on the back burner for now.

<v Speaker 1>I don't need to see him doing what Darby Allen

<v Speaker 1>did in defending the title every single week like a

<v Speaker 1>revolving door. But where there are opportunities to have MJF

<v Speaker 1>Wressell and to promote a world title match on your

<v Speaker 1>television show, it makes the shows more exciting rather than

<v Speaker 1>just having him come out and cut the same promo

<v Speaker 1>for four weeks straight to build to one match. There's

<v Speaker 1>nothing wrong with world title defenses on TV, you just

<v Speaker 1>need to be strategic about it now. We got a

<v Speaker 1>pre match promo from Rouche before his match on Wednesday,

<v Speaker 1>androde even walked in and gave him a little pep talk.

<v Speaker 1>Then they had their match in MJF one Rush passed

<v Speaker 1>out in a LaBelle lock after flipping them off. But

<v Speaker 1>evidently he did not come out of that match on

<v Speaker 1>scathe because on Thursday, Beyond Wrestling announced that MJF suffered

<v Speaker 1>a hyper extended knee on Dynamite and would not be

<v Speaker 1>able to wrestle Bobby Orlando on their Friday show on

<v Speaker 1>Rhode Island or in Rhode Island. I'm so used to

<v Speaker 1>Long Island, on Long Island, in Rhode Island. Whatever. As

<v Speaker 1>a replacement, Beyond was able to bring in Andrade, and

<v Speaker 1>they also got Leo Rush and they got Wheeler Unis,

<v Speaker 1>so they made up for it, and the promoter even

<v Speaker 1>said that he had people in WWE exploring options on

<v Speaker 1>how to help them out. Brian Alvarez is saying the

<v Speaker 1>injury is legit, the knee is swollen. Aw is hoping

<v Speaker 1>it's not serious. Fightful says it happened during a spot

<v Speaker 1>in the corner where Rusche delivered a knee. It's being

<v Speaker 1>regarded as a freak accident. There's no heat on him

<v Speaker 1>over it. Hopefully a hyper extension is all it is,

<v Speaker 1>because losing him would be a disaster, especially a couple

<v Speaker 1>of months out from all in, That would be terrible.

<v Speaker 1>Mark Briscoe got a quick win over Leo Rush who's

<v Speaker 1>getting over with the black car gimmick, or he's getting

<v Speaker 1>it more and more over each week. Now they're doing

<v Speaker 1>a thing where if you don't move, he can't see you.

<v Speaker 1>He can't see you whoever he is. And I said,

<v Speaker 1>it's like it's like red light, green light. Like if

<v Speaker 1>he turns away, you can run, but if he turns

<v Speaker 1>back around, you got to stay perfectly still. It's getting over?

<v Speaker 1>Like is it getting over in a way? There there were,

<v Speaker 1>you know, more chants for him. I felt like this

<v Speaker 1>week than I've heard recently. Is it getting over in

<v Speaker 1>a way where Tony Khan can make money off of it?

<v Speaker 1>The way the WWE has made money off Dan Housen

<v Speaker 1>and turned Dan Housen into a cash cow. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know about that, but if you listen to the crowds.

<v Speaker 1>It is getting over bit by bit. He just needs

<v Speaker 1>insistent time on television, specifically on Dynamite, and maybe some

<v Speaker 1>backstage stuff with him, you know, would be nice. It's wacky,

<v Speaker 1>but I dig what he's doing. I know it's not

<v Speaker 1>for everybody, and there's some wacky shit that I hate,

<v Speaker 1>but I dig what he's doing. He'll get more over

<v Speaker 1>with it than he would if he just walked out.

<v Speaker 1>There was Leo Rush. You got to admit that if

<v Speaker 1>you just kept coming out his Leo Rush, he ain't

<v Speaker 1>gonna get over. At least with this he might get

<v Speaker 1>over more. But after the match, we got a promo

<v Speaker 1>from Mark Brisco to sell us on the idea of

<v Speaker 1>him challenging MJF for the World Championship, because it's not

<v Speaker 1>ideal that so much time has passed since the last

<v Speaker 1>time they feuded. I mean we're talking September of last

<v Speaker 1>year when he beat MJF and that Tables and Tax match.

<v Speaker 1>That was all out right Now we're in June, so

<v Speaker 1>it's cooled off. How do you heat it back up?

<v Speaker 1>That's how the way that he did in that promo

<v Speaker 1>on Wednesday, that's how you do it, talking about losing

<v Speaker 1>his brother three years ago and how he never knew

<v Speaker 1>if he would ever feel that joy again in wrestling

<v Speaker 1>until the conglomeration came in. They took him in, they

<v Speaker 1>made him part of their family, and then MJF started

<v Speaker 1>running his mouth about him and his family and his brother,

<v Speaker 1>and he came to hate this guy. He's never hated

<v Speaker 1>anybody in wrestling more than he hates MJF. But he

<v Speaker 1>beat him, He shut him up, and then MJF disappeared

<v Speaker 1>and his heart was full again. But then he came

<v Speaker 1>back and it just made him angry all over again,

<v Speaker 1>even worse now that he's the world champion, right and

<v Speaker 1>he's going on and on, he's looking right in the camera.

<v Speaker 1>This was fucking great. His best promotion is coming to

<v Speaker 1>aw It still doesn't feel like a big pay per

<v Speaker 1>view title match to me, but I think on a

<v Speaker 1>show like Forbidden Door, they're not relying on that match

<v Speaker 1>to headline the show. That's not gonna like that headline

<v Speaker 1>spot at Forbidden Door. If they do this match of

<v Speaker 1>Forbidden Door, that headline spot is not going to belong

<v Speaker 1>to MJF and Mark Brisco. It's going to belong to

<v Speaker 1>will Osprey and Swerve Strickland in the finals of the Owen.

<v Speaker 1>I would be shocked if anything other than that closes

<v Speaker 1>that show. When they had the Owen Final a double

<v Speaker 1>nothing last year, That's what closed the show is will

<v Speaker 1>Ospray and Hangman Adam Page. So they can get away

<v Speaker 1>with doing MJF against Mark Brisco on that pay per

<v Speaker 1>view if they want to. The bigger question is does

<v Speaker 1>well There's two questions. Number One, how injured is Mjf's

<v Speaker 1>knee is going to take him out of wrestling at

<v Speaker 1>all at Forbidden Door? But beyond that, does MJF mega

<v Speaker 1>to Wembley as the champion at all? Because they have

<v Speaker 1>their Redemption pay per view in Montreal next month, right

<v Speaker 1>July twenty sixth. If we get MJF against Kenny Omega,

<v Speaker 1>let's say that's the match that gets booked on that show.

<v Speaker 1>Omega wins the title. He's got to win the title.

<v Speaker 1>Why would you do Kenny Omega and MJF at Dynasty

<v Speaker 1>in Vancouver and have him beat Kenny to run it

<v Speaker 1>back in Montreal a few months later and have him

<v Speaker 1>beat Kenny again. It doesn't make any sense. It's all

<v Speaker 1>in the name the name is Redemption. Omega gets his redemption,

<v Speaker 1>that would then deny us, though, of an MJF Andrade

<v Speaker 1>match that they've been teasing a lot. Because Grand Slam Mexico,

<v Speaker 1>which is where I think the match should happen, that

<v Speaker 1>has now been confirmed for Arena Mexico, but not until

<v Speaker 1>August fifth, Wednesday, August fifth, which is after Redemption. So

<v Speaker 1>if MJF were to lose that championship on that pay

<v Speaker 1>per view, then we don't get MJF and Andrede on

<v Speaker 1>that show. Now, if Andrede does challenge for the title

<v Speaker 1>on that show, maybe it's against Kenny Omega, which kind

<v Speaker 1>of still works because the last time they wrestled, Andrede

<v Speaker 1>pinn Kenny Omega. But I mean, Androdi's going to walk in.

<v Speaker 1>There is this huge babyface if he gets that title

<v Speaker 1>match on that show, and I just think it works

<v Speaker 1>a lot better if MJF is in that spy right

<v Speaker 1>as hated as he was the last time we saw

<v Speaker 1>him wrestling at Arena Mexico. Holy shit, that's old school

<v Speaker 1>heat that he was getting. But Tony Kahan has to

<v Speaker 1>put together a card for August that he thinks is

<v Speaker 1>going to sell the most tickets. They've only got twenty

<v Speaker 1>five thousand tickets sold so far for Wembley Stadium. Wembley

<v Speaker 1>Stadium fits a hell of a lot more than twenty

<v Speaker 1>five thousand. That's a lot less than what they move

<v Speaker 1>by this point ten or eleven weeks out. The last

<v Speaker 1>couple of times that they went to Wembley Stadium last

<v Speaker 1>time they ended up doing about fifty four thousand. They

<v Speaker 1>got a lot of ground to make up if they're

<v Speaker 1>gonna come anywhere close to what they did last time. Now,

<v Speaker 1>right now, there's no card announced. There's not a single

<v Speaker 1>match that's been announced so far. For all In, as

<v Speaker 1>he puts one together, he has to keep that in mind.

<v Speaker 1>What matches are going to get people excited enough to

<v Speaker 1>buy a ticket. Is that Kenny Omega against will Ospray?

<v Speaker 1>Or is that MJF against well Ospray? Or is that

<v Speaker 1>Kenny Omega against them JF against well Ospray. Is it

<v Speaker 1>MJF against Mick Foley? Is it the New Day against

<v Speaker 1>the Young Bucks first time ever? Right, he's got a

<v Speaker 1>lot of options for what he can do on that show.

<v Speaker 1>This week's episode is sponsored by Wicks. If you run

<v Speaker 1>a business, you probably have a website. If you don't,

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<v Speaker 1>wis dot com slash harmony. Kevin Knight is the newest

<v Speaker 1>addition to the ever expanding don Kallus Family. You can

<v Speaker 1>start your own wrestling promotion just by building your roster

<v Speaker 1>out of don Kallus family members. Kevin Knight is now

<v Speaker 1>one of many as opposed to being one of one.

<v Speaker 1>And he'll be fine because Tony Kahan likes him and

<v Speaker 1>he's been pushing him all year. He's not gonna stop now.

<v Speaker 1>In fact, Tony loves the Callous Family so much it's

<v Speaker 1>probably the best endorsement that he could give the guy.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, look at how much fucking television time they

<v Speaker 1>get every single week. They're all over the shows, the

<v Speaker 1>Callous Family. I mean, look, it's worked out pretty well

<v Speaker 1>for Okada and Takeshta and Kyle Fletcher, even Mark Davis Androte.

<v Speaker 1>I can take it or leave it. He's probably better

<v Speaker 1>off for being with them rather than being on his own.

<v Speaker 1>But he hasn't benefited from it like those others I'm

<v Speaker 1>talking about Androte right now. But he hasn't benefited in

<v Speaker 1>the way that the other people have. This is going

<v Speaker 1>to be a way to see thing. I just think,

<v Speaker 1>you know, Kevin Knight, he just went heal, He just

<v Speaker 1>went heel and they didn't even give him a chance

<v Speaker 1>to stand on his own two feet. It was just

<v Speaker 1>straight to the callous family. Now, Knight says that Callus

<v Speaker 1>is the one who can bring him to the promised Land,

<v Speaker 1>right because he wants to be Jet two belts. He's

<v Speaker 1>out there putting MJF on notice. The only problem is

<v Speaker 1>Don Kallas has not managed an aw world champion since

<v Speaker 1>Kenny Omega, and that was five years ago. So how

<v Speaker 1>come nobody ever brings that up? Like, where is Kevin

<v Speaker 1>Knight getting this from it? He needs Don Kallus to

<v Speaker 1>help get him a world title. Uh. Mercedes Modet is

<v Speaker 1>back for the first time this year. She returned as

<v Speaker 1>the wildcard in the Owen against Alex Windsor. It surprised

<v Speaker 1>me for this reason. If Mercedes was going to be

<v Speaker 1>the wildcard, why bump that match from the pay per

<v Speaker 1>view last month? That would have been a better place

<v Speaker 1>to do it in New York. But I'm glad she's back.

<v Speaker 1>It's a big name for them to get back in

<v Speaker 1>that division, and now it sets up a final at

<v Speaker 1>Forbidden Door. You would think between Mercedes and Athena. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>how could it be anything else? Now, I said, the

<v Speaker 1>other night, Mercedes goes back to back, she wins the

<v Speaker 1>OZ and again is she gets Tecla at all? In

<v Speaker 1>some of you guys countered with this. Athena beats Mercedes

<v Speaker 1>in the final, which means that they each have one

<v Speaker 1>win over each other. Athena is the one who goes

<v Speaker 1>to London. Mercedes gets Tecla at Redemption instead, and maybe

<v Speaker 1>maybe she wins a Battle Royal or something for the

<v Speaker 1>number one contender spot. Mercedes then wins the championship from

<v Speaker 1>Tecla in Montreal and she defends against Athena in London

<v Speaker 1>in the rubber match between them. I don't hate that.

<v Speaker 1>I don't hate that at all, except that you know,

<v Speaker 1>Tecla gets iced out of the title match then. But

<v Speaker 1>I mean, look, even if she drops the belt in July,

<v Speaker 1>like July August, that's a solid five or six months

<v Speaker 1>as champion for Techlo. Like, that's a healthy run. Not

<v Speaker 1>everybody needs to hold the belt hostage for a year.

<v Speaker 1>I fully expect Tecla is going to drop that belt

<v Speaker 1>by Wembley at the latest anyway. So I mean, I

<v Speaker 1>don't hate the idea. You may be right. You may

<v Speaker 1>be right, and I'll tell you something else. Here's another

<v Speaker 1>thing that supports your theory. Mercedes was never supposed to

<v Speaker 1>return in the Owen. The only reason she ended up

<v Speaker 1>in the Owen is because Willow Nightingale got hurt. And no,

<v Speaker 1>I don't believe that her injury is a work. They

<v Speaker 1>wouldn't do that to her and pull her off that

<v Speaker 1>New York show where she has all of her family there.

<v Speaker 1>So if the idea was for Mercedes to come back

<v Speaker 1>after the Owen, it is entirely possible that she was

<v Speaker 1>going to win the title from Tekla before London anyway

<v Speaker 1>and walk in defending against the winner of the Owen

<v Speaker 1>Hard Tournament. And then we had the will Osprey Mark

<v Speaker 1>Davis semi final match in the Owen closing the show,

<v Speaker 1>and what a match. It was. Second week in a

<v Speaker 1>row that Mark Davis has closed Dynamite in the main event.

<v Speaker 1>This guy continues to give us quality output every single week.

<v Speaker 1>He has made the most of the time he's been given.

<v Speaker 1>He maximizes his minutes once that bell rings, we got

<v Speaker 1>a ref bump and then all hell broke loose. Trent

<v Speaker 1>Barretta and El Klone ran out to attack Ospray. Here

<v Speaker 1>comes Daniel Garcia and Wheeler Youda to fight them off,

<v Speaker 1>and then Lance Archer shows up, but then Claudio shows

<v Speaker 1>up and takes him out. Brian Cage takes out Claudia.

<v Speaker 1>Then Pack takes out Cage, and then Jake Doyle runs

<v Speaker 1>out and he pulls the referee out of the ring.

<v Speaker 1>Before Osprey can win, Marina Shaffir jumps on Doyle's back

<v Speaker 1>he tosses her down. Moxley shows up, Paradigm Shift enter

<v Speaker 1>Kyle Fletcher with the screwdriver, but here's Takash Dea to

<v Speaker 1>put a stop to that. And then a few more

<v Speaker 1>near falls later. I mean the pile driver one annoyed

<v Speaker 1>me because Davis murdered him with this great pile driver,

<v Speaker 1>and Osprey just kicked out the guy with the bad

<v Speaker 1>neck just kicked out. But Osprey gets the win with

<v Speaker 1>his new death Ground finish, which is a little something

<v Speaker 1>he picked up from the Death Riders. It's fucking arm bar.

<v Speaker 1>Twenty three minutes this went, and it was a lot

<v Speaker 1>of fun. It was a lot of fun, just great

<v Speaker 1>stuff here hot ending to what I thought overall, WI

<v Speaker 1>a strong show. Now some other news and notes. A

<v Speaker 1>few weeks ago, I told you guys about the x

<v Speaker 1>account and the YouTube channel for Luca Underground all of

<v Speaker 1>a sudden coming back to life after years of inactivity,

<v Speaker 1>and they were teasing something. They were teasing a return

<v Speaker 1>of some kind. Well that's something turned out to be

<v Speaker 1>the slow rolling of the old episodes to their YouTube channel.

<v Speaker 1>There is no rebirth of Luca Underground. There is a

<v Speaker 1>I don't know what what would you call this? Not

<v Speaker 1>a rebirth, but it's sort of a replay I guess

<v Speaker 1>of the best of the first two episodes from season

<v Speaker 1>one have already been uploaded, which is awesome right easy

<v Speaker 1>access for anybody who wants to watch them now, but

<v Speaker 1>it'll take time before they get them all posted. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if they're going to do one a week.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know what the schedule is. Fight Ful Select

<v Speaker 1>also had news this week that MGM and Amazon hold

<v Speaker 1>a controlling interest in Luca Underground, with Amazon having acquired

<v Speaker 1>MGM in twenty twenty two. The belief is that Amazon

<v Speaker 1>is very happy with the library and does not have

<v Speaker 1>any real interest in selling it, despite past inquiries about

<v Speaker 1>such a deal. So all of the teasers were just

<v Speaker 1>to generate a buzz for them uploading the old episodes

<v Speaker 1>to YouTube, so I guess they can monetize them with ads.

<v Speaker 1>Nobody should have been expecting anything else, really, because I mean,

<v Speaker 1>who would even be available anymore for them to use

<v Speaker 1>if they wanted to reboot the show. I mean, those

<v Speaker 1>first few seasons are not going to be topped, right,

<v Speaker 1>Just enjoy the classics. All you really need to do

<v Speaker 1>is subscribe to the WWE Vault, the WCW channel, and

<v Speaker 1>the Luke Underground channel on YouTube, and then keep listening

<v Speaker 1>to the SoundOff. Subscribe to the solomn moster sounds of

<v Speaker 1>those four channels. That's it, That's all you need. You're

<v Speaker 1>all set. And I never bought WWE two K twenty six,

<v Speaker 1>but if you did get a load of this, there

<v Speaker 1>is a new character that you can play. The CEO

<v Speaker 1>of Take two, the parent company and publisher of the

<v Speaker 1>WWE two K series. His name is Strauss Zelnick. He

<v Speaker 1>is the latest addition to the list of playable characters

<v Speaker 1>in WWE two K twenty six. Right down to his

<v Speaker 1>own unique entrance, using Frank Sinatra's classic My Way as

<v Speaker 1>his entrance music, which cannot be used for any other

<v Speaker 1>superstars in the game. So yes, this man paid for

<v Speaker 1>the rights to the song to be able to use

<v Speaker 1>it exclusively for himself. And I don't put much stock

<v Speaker 1>in these stupid scores, but for those of you who

<v Speaker 1>do care. He's also rated a seventy seven overall in

<v Speaker 1>the game, which is higher than William Regal, Ring of

<v Speaker 1>Honor era CM Punk and nineteen ninety seven Eddie Guerrero.

<v Speaker 1>He's also rated higher than Johnny Gargano, but I mean

<v Speaker 1>that tracks because all he does is lay around on

<v Speaker 1>a crate. Anyway. This is the same Strauss Zelnick, by

<v Speaker 1>the way, who has a pending lawsuit against him alleging

<v Speaker 1>fraud and second rual misconduct. You can now play him

<v Speaker 1>in the game. That His addition comes after Zelnik spoke

<v Speaker 1>to IGN recently about the success of two K twenty

<v Speaker 1>six and his desire to improve the two K games

<v Speaker 1>overall quality. He said, I do think there's ongoing opportunities

<v Speaker 1>to improve the quality of the game. I do think

<v Speaker 1>that we can get consumers more of what they want

<v Speaker 1>and I know our team at Visual Concepts always wants

<v Speaker 1>to do better. We're never in the business of patting

<v Speaker 1>ourselves on the back. We believe that arrogance is the

<v Speaker 1>enemy of continued success, and I think that I think

<v Speaker 1>that title could be double or tripled the size that

<v Speaker 1>it is. As long as we delight customers and as

<v Speaker 1>long as we give them something new and not expected

<v Speaker 1>that's consistent with the brand that they love, that is

<v Speaker 1>our job. Now, let me ask all of you who

<v Speaker 1>have purchased two K every year, maybe you still play it.

<v Speaker 1>You know more about the games in the series, and

<v Speaker 1>I do, I'm not consistent with it. Would you describe

<v Speaker 1>it as a delight to play two K? Would you

<v Speaker 1>describe it as something new every year when a new

<v Speaker 1>version of the game comes out, Because that's not what

<v Speaker 1>I hear from people that every year they give you

<v Speaker 1>something new, that every year it's just such a delight.

<v Speaker 1>But that's their goal. They're not doing their job, he says,

<v Speaker 1>unless they are delighting you and giving you something new

<v Speaker 1>every year. I have a suggestion, maybe start by not

<v Speaker 1>adding yourself to the fucking game. Although on the plus side,

<v Speaker 1>that means you could also beat the snot out of

<v Speaker 1>him now, so feel free to bust them wide open.

<v Speaker 1>He's got more important things to worry about anyway, because

<v Speaker 1>Take two is the company behind the Grand Theft Auto games,

<v Speaker 1>and GTA six is due to be released on November nineteenth,

<v Speaker 1>until it gets pushed back again. Hi, I'm not trying

<v Speaker 1>to jink that. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that

<v Speaker 1>that date is not etched in a stone tablet, okay,

<v Speaker 1>So don't get your hopes up too much. Whatever he

<v Speaker 1>paid for the rights to that Sinatra song, though, he'll

<v Speaker 1>make that back on GTA pre sales in thirty seconds,

<v Speaker 1>so I don't think he's too concerned about that anyway.

<v Speaker 1>Let's take some questions. We got a big old mail

<v Speaker 1>bag here. I want to hear from you guys. Thesolomn

<v Speaker 1>Monster at gmail dot com is where you can write

<v Speaker 1>in with your name and where you are from. We're

<v Speaker 1>gonna start with Mike from Delaware, Ohio. I always love

<v Speaker 1>it when two states are just merged together. I was

<v Speaker 1>bored and did some research. He says, for about eighty

<v Speaker 1>five percent of this decade, a Shield member has been

<v Speaker 1>a world champion in WWE AW or New Japan has

<v Speaker 1>there ever been another group or stable that has dominated

<v Speaker 1>the main events scene of wrestling or of wrestling to

<v Speaker 1>the extent that they have? Not that I could think of.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, there have been some big factions before. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>you could say the nWo, just because it ended up

<v Speaker 1>having so many big names in there. So if you

<v Speaker 1>look at the overall scope of their career, I mean

<v Speaker 1>you had Hogan, you had Sad, you had Bret Hart,

<v Speaker 1>I mean Staying technically joined the nWo eventually. Scott Hall

<v Speaker 1>was never a world champion anywhere, but Nash was. It's

<v Speaker 1>the only thing I could really think of. It's it's

<v Speaker 1>pretty incredible when you think about it. T Dub from Virginia.

<v Speaker 1>I've been a fan since the TV tracks days and

<v Speaker 1>finally decided to send an email. Due to all of

<v Speaker 1>the confusion surrounding the upcoming inclusion of Laparca in WWE

<v Speaker 1>two K twenty six, Gee, I wonder if Laparca's score

<v Speaker 1>is higher than strauss Zelnik. He says, first off, the

<v Speaker 1>original WCW Laparka currently wrestles as La Park due to

<v Speaker 1>him leaving Triple A and the company owning the character.

<v Speaker 1>The second Laparka then took over the gimmick for many years,

<v Speaker 1>even appearing in the video game Lucha Libre Triple A

<v Speaker 1>Heroes del Ring. He would unfortunately pass away in January

<v Speaker 1>of twenty twenty due to a terrible injury from a match.

<v Speaker 1>This leads us to Laparca three, who is making his

<v Speaker 1>video game debut, and with all of that, everything should

<v Speaker 1>be more transparent than Seamus in the early twenty tens.

<v Speaker 1>Leave the jokes to me t dub, but that's very insightful.

<v Speaker 1>So there you go. If you were wondering about the

<v Speaker 1>confusion around the lapark and now you know Green from

<v Speaker 1>Morocco and Mauritania. My question is simple, with all the

<v Speaker 1>hype and good faith around Chad Gable right now, do

<v Speaker 1>you think that he could win a world title in WWE?

<v Speaker 1>I'm the main roster, not Triple A, And do you

<v Speaker 1>think the WWE could actually go through with it? Do

<v Speaker 1>I think he could win a world title? Absolutely? Do

<v Speaker 1>I think WWE would go through with it? Absolutely not.

<v Speaker 1>Can't answer it any more directly than that. Carlos from

<v Speaker 1>New York. With the recent report that WWE sees Ilia

<v Speaker 1>Dragedov as an interchangeable piece in the mid card and

<v Speaker 1>not a top guy. What do you think caused them

<v Speaker 1>to slot him that way? Do you think Ilia becomes

<v Speaker 1>a to eventually? So I want to clarify this because

<v Speaker 1>there was no report. I think context is very important here.

<v Speaker 1>This is another example of something that Meltzer said on

<v Speaker 1>his radio show, on his podcast that was quoted as

<v Speaker 1>fact or a report quote unquote, when if you watch

<v Speaker 1>the video and I did, he was answering a question

<v Speaker 1>just like I am answering a question right now, and

<v Speaker 1>he's giving his thoughts about how he thinks wwec's Ilia Dragon,

<v Speaker 1>of which could be right or it could be wrong,

<v Speaker 1>but it was his opinion. That's very different than saying

<v Speaker 1>that there was a report. Right. It's not a case

<v Speaker 1>where somebody in WWE told Meltzer, hey, we don't see

<v Speaker 1>this guy as anything more than a mid carter. He'll

<v Speaker 1>never be a top guy. Now that being said, I

<v Speaker 1>don't think they see him as someone who can draw

<v Speaker 1>real money for them, like a top guy. Do I

<v Speaker 1>see him as someone who could be a top guy. Yes,

<v Speaker 1>he has the potential to be that right building a

<v Speaker 1>brand around him. No, he's not going to be a

<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhods. He's not going to be a cmpunk, He's

<v Speaker 1>not going to be a Roman reigns, but to be

<v Speaker 1>world champion one day and to work with other main eventters. Absolutely.

<v Speaker 1>He reminds me of Chris Benoan that way, like the

<v Speaker 1>smaller guy who's technically sound, he's technically excellent, and he's

<v Speaker 1>super intense in the ring. Ben Wa was a world

<v Speaker 1>champion when they had two world titles. There is no

<v Speaker 1>reason that Ilyya Dragonov cannot be a world champion at

<v Speaker 1>a time when they have two world titles. He brings

<v Speaker 1>an intensity to what he does that nobody else in

<v Speaker 1>that company brings. That's what makes him unique, right. There

<v Speaker 1>are a lot of great wrestlers on the roster, but

<v Speaker 1>what makes him unique, what makes him stand out his intensity. Right,

<v Speaker 1>His selling when he's in there feels like this guy's

<v Speaker 1>in a fucking battle. Every time he's in there, he's

<v Speaker 1>battle tested. It's what made his matches with Gunther work

<v Speaker 1>so well. And if you gave those two a chance

<v Speaker 1>to replicate that on the main roster, they would tear

<v Speaker 1>the house down. Guaranteed. It's gonna be a crime if

<v Speaker 1>we never get a main roster match between Gunther and

<v Speaker 1>Ilia DRAGONOV and I don't just mean some random fucking

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown match. I mean, like a pl match doesn't have

<v Speaker 1>to be a main event. But if we don't get

<v Speaker 1>that at some point, then these people are out of

<v Speaker 1>their mind, especially now they're on the same brand. Chris

<v Speaker 1>from Toronto I had a question about tag team wrestling

<v Speaker 1>in WWE. One narrative was that Vince McMahon hated tag

<v Speaker 1>team wrestling. I believe there was a quote somewhere from

<v Speaker 1>Vince saying something to the effect of why the hell

<v Speaker 1>would I pay four guys for one match, or something

<v Speaker 1>to that effect. Paul London and Brian Kendrick also tell

<v Speaker 1>a story about the time they visited WWE headquarters and

<v Speaker 1>Shane McMahon said they haven't cared about tag team wrestling

<v Speaker 1>since the Legion of Doom. Do you feel like this

<v Speaker 1>feeling was passed on to his son in law. It's

<v Speaker 1>weird because he was the same guy booking teams like DIY,

<v Speaker 1>The Ascension, Enzo and Cast, the Vaude, Villins, FTR, et cetera.

<v Speaker 1>In Black and Gold n XT. Now, I have no

<v Speaker 1>idea what's going on with the main roster tag team division.

<v Speaker 1>What do you believe would fix the division. It says

<v Speaker 1>ps every morning I get up to drive to a

<v Speaker 1>toxic job, but I stick through it for my fiance

<v Speaker 1>and I. You now seem to have a show damn

<v Speaker 1>near every day between this, the arial Helwani thing, the

<v Speaker 1>JD thing, and all of the streams. It's good to

<v Speaker 1>have these podcasts in the cars and outlet during a

<v Speaker 1>very stressful twenty twenty six. So thank you for all

<v Speaker 1>that you do. Well, Chris, I'm sorry that the job

<v Speaker 1>is so toxic. I know there's a lot of them

<v Speaker 1>out there, but hey, if the shows can help pass

<v Speaker 1>some time and take your mind off it, then I

<v Speaker 1>love hearing that. As far as tag team wrestling and WWE, look,

<v Speaker 1>if they wanted to place a focus and emphasis on

<v Speaker 1>tag team wrestling, it would not be very difficult for

<v Speaker 1>them to do that. It's just a matter of you know,

<v Speaker 1>they have their whiteboard, right, We've seen that whiteboard on

<v Speaker 1>WWE unreal in the writer's room, right, Start scribbling down

<v Speaker 1>teams on the whiteboard that you want to use to

<v Speaker 1>populate your tag team division. Let's see how many of

<v Speaker 1>them you have actual tag TIS teams, and then just

<v Speaker 1>take stock of where you are. It's like, okay, we

<v Speaker 1>have four real teams, we have seven real teams, and

<v Speaker 1>then what makeshift teams do we have or is there

<v Speaker 1>a makeshift team or two in mind that we would

<v Speaker 1>like to be part of this Who do we have

<v Speaker 1>an NXT who's out there in the free agent market

<v Speaker 1>right now who we might want to add to the

<v Speaker 1>tag team division in this company or bring back to

<v Speaker 1>the tag team division in this company. That's the first

<v Speaker 1>thing that you do. And then if you insist on

<v Speaker 1>having two sets of tag team belts, then you're going

<v Speaker 1>to have to divide them up. But I think that

<v Speaker 1>they don't have enough for that, and so I still

<v Speaker 1>maintain they should re merge the two tag team titles

<v Speaker 1>into one. You only need one set of men's tag

<v Speaker 1>team championships, just like you have one set of women's

<v Speaker 1>tag team championships, and you have one giant tag team division,

<v Speaker 1>and they could do their thing un raw, they could

<v Speaker 1>do their thing on SmackDown, but you have the traveling

<v Speaker 1>floating champions across brands, and that's the first order of

<v Speaker 1>business right there. Because they simply do not have a

<v Speaker 1>big enough division or big enough focus on either division

<v Speaker 1>to sustain having two sets of tag team belts. You know,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'm watching SmackDown on Friday night. Our Truth

<v Speaker 1>must have a legitimate injury because he hasn't been wrestling

<v Speaker 1>in weeks, but he and Damian Priest are the tag

<v Speaker 1>team champions, and Damian Price has been mostly doing singles matches.

<v Speaker 1>He was part of a four way match and the

<v Speaker 1>King of the Ring on Friday. Our Truth is just

<v Speaker 1>sort of milling around in the back, and then we

<v Speaker 1>saw Our Truth get confronted by the Viking Raiders or

<v Speaker 1>the war Raiders, whatever the hell they are these days.

<v Speaker 1>They just won the Triple A tag team titles last weekend,

<v Speaker 1>so they show up, they got their Triple A tag belts,

<v Speaker 1>they get no pop. Chad Gable shows up in the back,

<v Speaker 1>and the crowd in the building in Italy, then Bologna,

<v Speaker 1>they go crazy for him. They show the war Raiders

<v Speaker 1>on screen and nobody gives a shit, and why should

<v Speaker 1>they because when was the last time we even saw

<v Speaker 1>them on raw SmackDown, Right, It's been long enough, and

<v Speaker 1>even when they were there, nobody cared even then. But

<v Speaker 1>they show up with their Triple A tag team titles, like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>we got these belts? Now. So now we're forced to

<v Speaker 1>be reckoned with and they're talking to our truth about

<v Speaker 1>how you let us know when you want to do

<v Speaker 1>the WWE Tag Team titles against our TRIPLEA tag Team titles,

<v Speaker 1>and I go, So this is what we've been reduced to.

<v Speaker 1>Here we have a makeshift team on SmackDown holding the

<v Speaker 1>WWE Tag Team titles and now they are teasing a

<v Speaker 1>match against Now it's one of their teams, but they

<v Speaker 1>now hold tag team belt from a different company, and

<v Speaker 1>they're teasing that is the next direction potentially for the

<v Speaker 1>tag team champion. They're like, this is the state of

<v Speaker 1>where we are right now, at least on SmackDown. Raw

<v Speaker 1>is no better. They got the belts on the Vision

<v Speaker 1>that wasn't even the team when they won the belts,

<v Speaker 1>Logan Paul got Hurts, and now bron Breaker has a belt,

<v Speaker 1>and who do they have to work with? Probably a

<v Speaker 1>bunch of other makeshift teams. Again, the division in this

<v Speaker 1>company is in shambles right now. You've got to just

<v Speaker 1>start from the ground up. But if they really cared

<v Speaker 1>about tag team wrestling, and we saw that they did

<v Speaker 1>not that long ago. We saw at the beginning of

<v Speaker 1>last year end of twenty twenty four into the beginning

<v Speaker 1>of twenty twenty five, and you saw that Tag Team

<v Speaker 1>Division on SmackDown Man and they were hot. They were hot.

<v Speaker 1>It was the hottest thing going on smack then, in

<v Speaker 1>the way that the US Title Open Challenges eventually became

<v Speaker 1>the hottest thing on SmackDown. Before that, it was the

<v Speaker 1>Tag team division. And they tried to weave some stories

<v Speaker 1>in there with the team. I mean, they weren't very

<v Speaker 1>compelling stories, but they at least were making an effort.

<v Speaker 1>But you had Phraxium, and you had DIY, and you

<v Speaker 1>had the Street Profits, and you had the MotorCity machine Guns,

<v Speaker 1>and you had Lost Guards, and I'm sure I'm missing

<v Speaker 1>one or two others. They have demonstrated that they can

<v Speaker 1>do it. They just choose not to because tag team wrestling,

<v Speaker 1>in their mind, doesn't sell, so they deemphasize it. They're

<v Speaker 1>all about making money. They're motivated by making money. If

<v Speaker 1>the Tag Team Division or tag team wrestling demonstrated to

<v Speaker 1>them that they can make money off of it, or

<v Speaker 1>the numbers spiked because they look at all these metrics,

<v Speaker 1>then they would put a greater emphasis on it. But

<v Speaker 1>it doesn't mean that they should just give up on it.

<v Speaker 1>And if you're gonna give up on it, then you

<v Speaker 1>certainly don't need two sets of tag belts. Chris from

<v Speaker 1>Northern New Jersey. I've been hearing that AW has been

<v Speaker 1>getting better. To me, AAW has been the same since

<v Speaker 1>it's a inception, great in ring wrestling, lots of dream

<v Speaker 1>match scenarios. I believe it hit a low point with

<v Speaker 1>a combination of the CM punk stuff and the Death

<v Speaker 1>Rider's story with Moxley's reign of terror. Is AW really

<v Speaker 1>getting better or is the wrestling getting more and more

<v Speaker 1>disenchanted with WWE and TKO. I think he's talking about

<v Speaker 1>the fans getting disenfranchised with the product. I think it's

<v Speaker 1>a combination of both. You absolutely have fans who are

<v Speaker 1>disenfranchised with the WWE product right now, but they're not

<v Speaker 1>ready to give up on wrestling. They're looking for an alternative.

<v Speaker 1>So I've said, this is Tony Kahn's opportunity to strike.

<v Speaker 1>You know, WWE Believe me, they're still making a lot

<v Speaker 1>of money, but there are definitely fans who have tuned

<v Speaker 1>out who I think were also turned off by how

<v Speaker 1>commercialized WrestleMania was this year and they're looking for an alternative.

<v Speaker 1>They want to watch pro wrestling, but this is not

<v Speaker 1>their version of pro wrestling that brings them joy anymore.

<v Speaker 1>So if I'm Tony Kahan, hey we got a big

<v Speaker 1>tent over here. You're all welcome, you know, come on

<v Speaker 1>and dip your toe in the water, that sort of thing,

<v Speaker 1>I think that's part of what's going on. I do

<v Speaker 1>think AW. You know, they kind of peeked out and

<v Speaker 1>then they kind of dropped off a little bit, and

<v Speaker 1>the CM punk stuff didn't help. With Brawl Out and

<v Speaker 1>all the controversy around that that spilled over into twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty three, and the product just wasn't as exciting. It

<v Speaker 1>just wasn't as interesting to me. No, it's no different

<v Speaker 1>than WWE or any other company that has its peaks

<v Speaker 1>and valleys. You can give me all the fucking dream

<v Speaker 1>matches you want to, but that doesn't mean it's going

<v Speaker 1>to be an exciting television show. So AW has gone

<v Speaker 1>up and down like any other wrestling company has, but

<v Speaker 1>right now they seem to be on an upswing. They

<v Speaker 1>have some momentum. They're selling tickets a little bit better

<v Speaker 1>than they were a year ago. You could see it

<v Speaker 1>in some, not all, but like some of these markets.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, the pay per views do well as far

<v Speaker 1>as the pay per view attendance and the pay per

<v Speaker 1>view buys, and that's still like the bread and butter

<v Speaker 1>of their business. They're the last ones really as far

<v Speaker 1>as major promotions that are still in the pay per

<v Speaker 1>view business. But it goes up and down. It does

<v Speaker 1>feel like it's on an upswing. Now. Hopefully they can

<v Speaker 1>continue that momentum. We need a healthy alternative. Derek from

<v Speaker 1>Arkansas wanted to get your thoughts on this. I think

<v Speaker 1>they could improve SmackDown by having Becky drop the Intercontinental

<v Speaker 1>title to Soul Ruka. You could tell this question came

<v Speaker 1>in before last weekend. Have Seth Rollins lose to bron

<v Speaker 1>Breaker ha ha ha huh and then move them both

<v Speaker 1>over to the blue brand leaf font two on Raw?

<v Speaker 1>And I feel like if you move Seth, maybe you

<v Speaker 1>want to leave Punk on Raw. However, I think an

<v Speaker 1>eventual three way feud of Rhodes, Punk and Rawlins for

<v Speaker 1>the WWE Championship would be money. I don't you know.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think they are not the ones that I

<v Speaker 1>would move. I don't think they have to be moved.

<v Speaker 1>I do think Punk should end up on SmackDown. I

<v Speaker 1>do think the big money match there eventually is going

<v Speaker 1>to be Cody and Punk, and I don't know that

<v Speaker 1>they do that at SummerSlam this year. That seems a

<v Speaker 1>little quick. Remember what cmpunk said to Cody the last

<v Speaker 1>time we saw him on TV. He said, you never

<v Speaker 1>know when an opportunity might fall out of the sky.

<v Speaker 1>And the only implication from that is money in the bank.

<v Speaker 1>So are they setting up for a CM punk money

<v Speaker 1>in the bank win? Which if CM Punk was to

<v Speaker 1>win money in the bank, he would have to be

<v Speaker 1>the all time record holder, right, He's already won it twice,

<v Speaker 1>hasn't he. I don't think anybody's ever won it three times.

<v Speaker 1>But that was kind of what I and a lot

<v Speaker 1>of other people kind of got out of that promo.

<v Speaker 1>And so I think eventually we get to Cody in Punk.

<v Speaker 1>It just it's probably something we're gonna have to wait

<v Speaker 1>a while to actually see. Jim from Pennsylvania. Four years ago,

<v Speaker 1>Tony Kahan established the Ring of Honor Hall of Fame

<v Speaker 1>with a very strong and appropriate inaugural class that included Samoa, Joe,

<v Speaker 1>Brian Danielson, CM Punk, and the Briscoes. But for whatever reason,

<v Speaker 1>we've heard nothing about the ROH Hall of Fame or

<v Speaker 1>potential inductee since then. Tony is a busy guy, but

<v Speaker 1>I seriously think he forgot that he established a Ring

<v Speaker 1>of Honor Hall of Fame in the first place. What

<v Speaker 1>would be the next four names that you would induct?

<v Speaker 1>He said. My four would include Adam Cole, Nigel McGinnis,

<v Speaker 1>Christopher Daniels, and the Kings of Wrestling. You know, I

<v Speaker 1>had completely forgotten about the Ring of Honor Hall of

<v Speaker 1>Fame until you brought it up. I think Tony khn

<v Speaker 1>did forget. That's crazy that he launched this thing four

<v Speaker 1>years later. That's still the only class we've had that

<v Speaker 1>I think he legitimately forgot. We have to remind him.

<v Speaker 1>Let's use this as an opportunity to remind him. Hey, Tony,

<v Speaker 1>you got a Ring of Honor, Hall of Fame. Why

<v Speaker 1>are you putting more people in? Well, I'll say this though,

<v Speaker 1>if that ends up being the only class that Tony

<v Speaker 1>ever puts in, that's a hell of a class. Like

<v Speaker 1>he got those initial names right. I think Nigel McGinnis, though,

<v Speaker 1>would be just a gimme as far as the next

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame class is Concerned Strong is another name

<v Speaker 1>that comes to mind. Look, there are names that make

<v Speaker 1>sense that are just not gonna happen for political reasons,

<v Speaker 1>you know, like l Generico Kevin Steen should absolutely be

<v Speaker 1>in a Ring of Honor Hall of Fame. They're not

<v Speaker 1>gonna be in there any more so than Chris Jericho

<v Speaker 1>or the Big Show are going into the WWE Hall

<v Speaker 1>of Fame until they leave. Aw But like Generico Steen,

<v Speaker 1>I said, Roddy, Nigel, Jay Lethal, Jay Lethal belongs in

<v Speaker 1>the Ring of Honor, Hall of Flame, Hall of Flame,

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame. Actually a Hall of Flame would be

<v Speaker 1>pretty cool. So so yeah, those are some of the

<v Speaker 1>names right there that you can put the young bucks

<v Speaker 1>in there. I don't think they have to go in

<v Speaker 1>next Chris Hero and Claudio is the Kings of Rest Like.

<v Speaker 1>I like that. I'd be cool with that, But I

<v Speaker 1>think before that you would have to look at names

<v Speaker 1>like Roddy and Nigel and Cult Cabana, God the Homicide

<v Speaker 1>I was there for homicide title all those years ago.

<v Speaker 1>That was a big deal when he won the championship.

<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of names that he could put in there.

<v Speaker 1>I think he legitimately forgot, because so did I. I

<v Speaker 1>can't believe it's been four years. Aaron from Boston. I

<v Speaker 1>was thinking about the Undertakers WRESTLEMANI a streak and it

<v Speaker 1>got me wondering who in the current erow would be

<v Speaker 1>your top candidates to beat the streak, or if you

<v Speaker 1>would prefer not to break the streak, who would be

<v Speaker 1>the most intriguing opponents to challenge him? Assume it would

<v Speaker 1>be late twenty twenty. Tens Taker, not old man Taker, well,

<v Speaker 1>I mean tribal chief Roman Reigns would be the most

<v Speaker 1>obvious one, especially if it was during his run as champion,

<v Speaker 1>a title versus streak, right, that would have been a

<v Speaker 1>big draw. Gunther is the other obvious one. I think

<v Speaker 1>even Undertaker has said that Gunther is his guy, like

<v Speaker 1>that's the guy he most wishes he was able to

<v Speaker 1>get in the ring with. I would throw and Drew

<v Speaker 1>McIntyre in there. I think that would be a good one,

<v Speaker 1>and maybe Oba Femi Julius from the Bronx. How come

<v Speaker 1>Elijah Burke did not wind up becoming a bigger star

<v Speaker 1>than he was. It seemed like he had a lot

<v Speaker 1>of potential. Do you think if Burke came along a

<v Speaker 1>decade later, that he would have had a better shot

<v Speaker 1>at becoming a big name. Maybe not if all of

<v Speaker 1>the rumors about him being a diva backstage are true.

<v Speaker 1>I know Ciampunk famously named him as the worst opponent

<v Speaker 1>of his entire career, like he was the one that

<v Speaker 1>he hated being in the ring with the most, and

<v Speaker 1>he called him a diva. Apparently the guy could be

<v Speaker 1>up his own ass backstage a little too much and

<v Speaker 1>that rubbed people the wrong way. I can't say if

<v Speaker 1>that's how he was. I mean, I never met the guy.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe he was just advocating for himself and that's what

<v Speaker 1>rubbed people the wrong way. But I think it's safe

<v Speaker 1>to say that it was less a matter of him

<v Speaker 1>not having any talent and more an issue of him

<v Speaker 1>having heat with the wrong people. So if that's true

<v Speaker 1>and he came along a decade later, he would probably

<v Speaker 1>get heat with those people too. I don't think it

<v Speaker 1>would be any different. Jose from Medicine Lake, I wanted

<v Speaker 1>to ask you why why you think Sting never gets

<v Speaker 1>blamed for his WrestleMania loss to Triple H. The match

<v Speaker 1>layout and finish have been criticized by fans for years,

<v Speaker 1>but nobody blames Sting for agreeing to it. Even Scott

<v Speaker 1>Hall said at the time that he and Hogan were

<v Speaker 1>shocked at Sting willingly agreeing with the actual finish. If

<v Speaker 1>Sting really wanted the Undertaker match, you would think that

<v Speaker 1>he would make it a caveat in order to sign first,

<v Speaker 1>instead of being a good soldier and assuming that he

<v Speaker 1>would eventually get it. Where do you stand on this? Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I mean, yeah, he deserves some of the blame for that,

<v Speaker 1>I guess because he could have pushed back on it.

<v Speaker 1>I could see why he wouldn't because he was the

<v Speaker 1>new guy, you know. I mean the first thing you do,

<v Speaker 1>your first match, you're coming in, you're going to be

<v Speaker 1>at WrestleMania, and already you're trying to politic your way

<v Speaker 1>out of the finish. I never got the impression from

<v Speaker 1>many stories anybody's ever told that Sting was like a

<v Speaker 1>big political guy, that Sting was somebody who was really

<v Speaker 1>changing match finishes or being a pain in the ass

<v Speaker 1>to work with, or pushing back on creative that he

<v Speaker 1>was given. So kind of like John Cena in that regard.

<v Speaker 1>So I think that was part of it. Could he have,

<v Speaker 1>you know, advocated for himself a little bit better? Yes,

<v Speaker 1>he does. He doesn't get the lion's share of the

<v Speaker 1>blame for that, but you could argue that, sure he

<v Speaker 1>should have stood up for himself a little bit more.

<v Speaker 1>You know, the position that he was in, he could

<v Speaker 1>have done that. Brendan from Long Island. If you could

<v Speaker 1>pick a team for a three or four month feud

<v Speaker 1>with bron Breaker and Bronson Red leading up to a

<v Speaker 1>pay per view match, which would you choose FTR L A.

<v Speaker 1>Knight and Scott Steiner, Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens or

<v Speaker 1>Cia I'm Punk and Ricky Saints. It's kind of a

<v Speaker 1>random question for a feud with bron Breaker and Bronson Reed.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'm so inclined to go with l. A.

<v Speaker 1>Knight and Scott Steiner just because the Scott Steiner promos

<v Speaker 1>on Bronson Reed would be hilarious. I'm gonna go with

<v Speaker 1>Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens. Jason from Sacramento, California. I

<v Speaker 1>wanted to get your thoughts on Mick Foley's heel Turn

<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and six. Personally, I really enjoyed that run.

<v Speaker 1>It wasn't on the level of Hollywood Rock, but it

<v Speaker 1>reminded me of that character shift in the sense that

<v Speaker 1>it was relatively short lived but very impactful. Seeing Folly

<v Speaker 1>go from the lovable underdog to this bitter, resentful veteran

<v Speaker 1>who felt underappreciated by the fans was a refreshing change

<v Speaker 1>of pace. I especially enjoyed his work with Rick Flair.

<v Speaker 1>The promos felt personal and fully seemed to be taking

<v Speaker 1>shots that went beyond a typical wrestling storyline. Looking back

<v Speaker 1>twenty years later, what were your thoughts on that heel

<v Speaker 1>turn and did you enjoy it at the time and

<v Speaker 1>has your opinion changed over the years. Also regarding the

<v Speaker 1>Folly and Flair feud, were there any genuine feelings of

<v Speaker 1>heat between the two or were they simply good at

<v Speaker 1>making their rivalry feel real? Oh, it was very real.

<v Speaker 1>So like the Folly heel turn in two thousand and

<v Speaker 1>six is one of those things that I think kind

<v Speaker 1>of gets forgotten about. I thought it had its moments.

<v Speaker 1>I enjoyed the stuff with him and Edge as partners

<v Speaker 1>leading into the One Night Stand pay per view. The

<v Speaker 1>stuff with Flair I wasn't really a big fan of,

<v Speaker 1>although the match they had at Summerslim that year was

<v Speaker 1>really actually pretty brutal, But there was legitimate heat between

<v Speaker 1>them years earlier, and it's themed from something that Foley

<v Speaker 1>wrote in his first book. He wasn't a fan of

<v Speaker 1>Flair's booking in WCW in the early nineties. He said

<v Speaker 1>Flair was every bit as bad on the booking side

<v Speaker 1>as he was great on the wrestling side. And so

<v Speaker 1>years later in his book, Flair took a shot at Foley,

<v Speaker 1>which is where he called him a glorified stuntman. I

<v Speaker 1>know Foley was not happy about it. Now, supposedly Foley

<v Speaker 1>got to read a copy of the original manuscript for

<v Speaker 1>Flare's book and what he said about Foley and there

<v Speaker 1>was even worse. So Foley was not a fan. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how he got a copy of it. But

<v Speaker 1>Foley was not a fan of Rick Flair. And there

<v Speaker 1>was an incident I want to say it was in

<v Speaker 1>two thousand and four backstage at raw where Flair punched

<v Speaker 1>him in the face. Folly had walked up to him.

<v Speaker 1>Flair put his hand out for a handshake. Folly would

<v Speaker 1>not shake his hand, but he had a book and

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if it was mixed book or I

<v Speaker 1>assume it was Flair's book. He had a copy of

<v Speaker 1>the book, he wanted Rick to sign it so that

<v Speaker 1>he could auction it off for charity, and because Foley

<v Speaker 1>didn't shake his hand, he punched him in the face,

<v Speaker 1>which sounds like a perfectly rational response, and the two

<v Speaker 1>of them had to be pulled apart. Yeah, we get

<v Speaker 1>pull apart brawls on TV every week, and apparently we

<v Speaker 1>get them backstage as well. So to answer your question

<v Speaker 1>on that, I wasn't a huge fan of it, but

<v Speaker 1>I will say if you were looking for promos that

<v Speaker 1>came across as like men, this sounds like these two

<v Speaker 1>guys really don't like each other. It's because at the

<v Speaker 1>time they really did not like each other. James from

<v Speaker 1>Staten Island. Are there moments in wrestling that meant a

<v Speaker 1>lot to you as a fan that most people don't

<v Speaker 1>talk about. For me, that moment is from twenty ten.

<v Speaker 1>It was during the feud between the Undertaker and Kane,

<v Speaker 1>where Kin had just beaten Undertaker in a street fight,

<v Speaker 1>and on the next SmackDown we have the return of

<v Speaker 1>Paul Bear. I will be the first to admit that

<v Speaker 1>their matches during the time were really nothing to be

<v Speaker 1>excited about. But that moment where Undertaker knelt down and

<v Speaker 1>Paul raised the urn high above his head, and the

<v Speaker 1>lightning and the music and everything gave me chills because

<v Speaker 1>it reminded me of their original run from when I

<v Speaker 1>was a child. I think that they're the greatest manager

<v Speaker 1>wrestler combo of all time. There's just something about Undertaker

<v Speaker 1>and Paul bar together that always felt right sure. I

<v Speaker 1>mean I felt the same about brock Lesner and Paul Hayman.

<v Speaker 1>You know, they're like peanut butter and jelly. They just

<v Speaker 1>go together so well for wrestling moments. I wouldn't say

<v Speaker 1>it's something people talk about all the time, but I've

<v Speaker 1>always loved after the Mounty lost to the Big Boss

<v Speaker 1>Men at summerslimon ninety one, the jailhouse match they had

<v Speaker 1>when they cuffed the Mounty and they drag him out

<v Speaker 1>in the paddy wagon or or drag him out to

<v Speaker 1>the paddy wagon and then they drive him to the

<v Speaker 1>precinct and they fingerprint him and they take his photo

<v Speaker 1>and then they throw him in the cell with the

<v Speaker 1>guy in the leather jacket. Mounty was just fantastic in

<v Speaker 1>that like that. That always makes me laugh whenever I

<v Speaker 1>go back and watch that, or when a ripoman stole

<v Speaker 1>Macho Man's hat, like just so, it's so ridiculous. It's

<v Speaker 1>just such a silly, stupid little story for like one

<v Speaker 1>week on maybe two weeks on raw, but like, how

<v Speaker 1>can you not laugh at that?

<v Speaker 2>Uh?

<v Speaker 1>Ted Dibiassi walking into the jewelry shop to pick up

<v Speaker 1>his new million dollar belt. He's wearing a fucking cape

<v Speaker 1>and he swings the door open. He just yells I'm here,

<v Speaker 1>like the top of his lungs. He's scared everybody shitless

<v Speaker 1>in the store, Like, dude, There's so there's so many

<v Speaker 1>little moments and like little gems like that that I

<v Speaker 1>can't possibly remember them all. But those are those are

<v Speaker 1>a few of them. Anyway, keep emailing me the Sola

<v Speaker 1>Monster at gmail dot com. I saw the Masters of

<v Speaker 1>the Universe movie this week. I saw it on Friday

<v Speaker 1>before SmackDown, and again, no spoilers here, but I enjoyed it.

<v Speaker 1>I really did. I wrote up a little review for

<v Speaker 1>it on my letterbox to count at the Sola Monster

<v Speaker 1>on there, and they let you rate the movies as well,

<v Speaker 1>from like one star to five stars. The only movie

<v Speaker 1>I've given five stars to this year so far as obsession.

<v Speaker 1>I gave Back Rooms four stars. I give Masters of

<v Speaker 1>the Universe four stars. But you got to remember, like

<v Speaker 1>when I was a kid, for me, he men and

<v Speaker 1>ThunderCats were the shit, Like that was life. I had

<v Speaker 1>the toys, I had the sword, I had this inflatable

<v Speaker 1>battle cat that I would ride around the house in.

<v Speaker 1>I had everything. And then the cartoon was what I

<v Speaker 1>grew up on. And then in eighty seven is when

<v Speaker 1>the live action movie with Dov Lunggren was made, and

<v Speaker 1>I remember, like I liked it, but it's so weird,

<v Speaker 1>like when we look back when we were younger and

<v Speaker 1>we have these memories. The thing that really stands out

<v Speaker 1>to me about that movie is in that movie, Courtney

<v Speaker 1>Cox is a character in that movie, and as I recall, God,

<v Speaker 1>I haven't seen that movie in years, but I think

<v Speaker 1>her parents, her parents die in that movie, and I

<v Speaker 1>remember that making me very sad. For whatever reason, that

<v Speaker 1>like that has stuck with me for all these Yeah,

<v Speaker 1>maybe because my parents have since died and I know

<v Speaker 1>how sad that made me, I can kind of relate

<v Speaker 1>to it even more now, Like I don't know, but

<v Speaker 1>like I liked the movie, but there were just things

<v Speaker 1>about the movie that that kind of bothered me. This

<v Speaker 1>movie was to me, this movie is better than that.

<v Speaker 1>This is a better live action he Man movie than

<v Speaker 1>that one was. I think they're pretty faithful to the

<v Speaker 1>og material. If you were a fan of like the

<v Speaker 1>cartoon from back then, and you get a lot of

<v Speaker 1>the character, not all the characters. You get a lot

<v Speaker 1>of the characters in the movie. They're not afraid to

<v Speaker 1>poke fun at some of the more ridiculous names. I

<v Speaker 1>will tell you right now, there are multiple instances of

<v Speaker 1>Fisto jokes in this movie, because there is a fucking

<v Speaker 1>character named Fisto. And I'm sorry, like there is. As

<v Speaker 1>an adult, you cannot hear that and just your mind

<v Speaker 1>does not go to a dirty place and you can't,

<v Speaker 1>like not help but look at that and just laugh

<v Speaker 1>at how ridiculous it is. Dude, you have two characters

<v Speaker 1>in this movie interacting with each other. One is called

<v Speaker 1>Fisto and the other is called ram Men. Okay, like,

<v Speaker 1>come on, the people who created these characters, they knew

<v Speaker 1>exactly what they were doing. Okay, you have he Men,

<v Speaker 1>you have Fisto, You have ram men, so you're gonna

<v Speaker 1>get jokes in the movie, and then so they blend

<v Speaker 1>the humor in there. It's not a comedy, but there's

<v Speaker 1>definitely comedic elements to it. If that bothers you, then

<v Speaker 1>I guess you won't like it. But the action scenes

<v Speaker 1>I thought were very well done. There's a lot of

<v Speaker 1>really good action scenes in the movie. Skeletor one of

<v Speaker 1>the all time great villains. I thought they did him

<v Speaker 1>justice in the movie. I think he looks great, sounds great.

<v Speaker 1>I know what's Jared Letto behind Skeletor. I don't really

<v Speaker 1>care for him. You don't see him though, Like if

<v Speaker 1>you didn't know Jared Letto was cast as Skeletor, then

<v Speaker 1>you would never know he's even in the movie. So

<v Speaker 1>I thought they did well by him. And I said

<v Speaker 1>this in my review on Letterbox, I said, the only

<v Speaker 1>thing about the movie I really didn't like was Alison

<v Speaker 1>Brie as Evil Lynn. And it's not really a knock

<v Speaker 1>on her. Maybe it's just the way they had her

<v Speaker 1>portray the character. I hated that character, or at least

<v Speaker 1>her portrayal of it. That's the one big thing about

<v Speaker 1>the movie that I hated. But Outside of that, I

<v Speaker 1>had a really good time. You know, it's a fun movie.

<v Speaker 1>I will say, if you're planning on seeing it, you

<v Speaker 1>got to stick around for the credits. There's like three

<v Speaker 1>post credit scenes. Is like one and then in the

<v Speaker 1>middle of it there's another scene, and at the very

<v Speaker 1>end there's another one. So if you care about that

<v Speaker 1>sort of thing they went, they went all more here

<v Speaker 1>on these movies. Stick around for that. But I had

<v Speaker 1>a good time. I had a good time with it.

<v Speaker 1>There's there's a scene in the movie, like I don't

<v Speaker 1>want to give too much away, but there is a

<v Speaker 1>scene in the movie with it's not really like a

<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't call it. It's not a dream sequence, but

<v Speaker 1>we get like flashes of skeletor in these like real

<v Speaker 1>life situations, including like Jim bros. Skeleton. Like I was

<v Speaker 1>not expecting this, and it was the best, like my

<v Speaker 1>favorite scene in the entire movie, and it was like,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know, fifteen seconds maybe. But it also made

<v Speaker 1>me kind of long for there to be some sort

<v Speaker 1>of sketch comedy show where they would start doing skeletor skits.

<v Speaker 1>It's one of the things I used to love about

<v Speaker 1>Robot Chicken whenever they would parody skeletor stuff. It's fucking hilarious.

<v Speaker 1>We need something like that now, like some sort of

<v Speaker 1>live action sketch show where it's just skeletor but in

<v Speaker 1>like everyday situations, like in the office, in traffic. I'm

<v Speaker 1>telling you, man, there's comedy gold in there. And if

<v Speaker 1>somebody who is already doing this I'm like ig or

<v Speaker 1>TikTok and I'm not aware of it, please turn me

<v Speaker 1>onto this. I would love to know. But I had

<v Speaker 1>fun with it. I think you will too, especially if

<v Speaker 1>you're a fan of the source material. And so this

<v Speaker 1>week now we have this new Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day,

<v Speaker 1>which some people are saying is his best work in

<v Speaker 1>twenty years. So I'm going to see that, and then

<v Speaker 1>the new Toy Story movie. I feel like I'm required

<v Speaker 1>to see it like I saw the first four. There

<v Speaker 1>has yet to be a bad Toy Story movie. I

<v Speaker 1>think they should have ended it after three, but four

<v Speaker 1>was great. I'm sure five will be fun. And then

<v Speaker 1>the big one I'm looking forward to is in August,

<v Speaker 1>the end of Oak Street. That looks tremendous. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>sure about this Odyssey movie. Everyone's talking about The Odyssey,

<v Speaker 1>which is this new Christopher Nolan movie. I may see it.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I mean favorite movie of all time

<v Speaker 1>he directed, so I mean, I gotta give him credit

<v Speaker 1>for that at least. But it's like over two and

<v Speaker 1>a half hour. It's like The Batman all over again.

<v Speaker 1>I'm like, does this movie need to be this long?

<v Speaker 1>I'll tell you what, one more thing on the Masters

<v Speaker 1>of the Universe movie, This movie did not need to

<v Speaker 1>be as long as it was. It was a two

<v Speaker 1>hour and twenty minute movie. This movie did not need

<v Speaker 1>to be two hours and twenty minutes. I will say

<v Speaker 1>that it was a little overly long, but I still

<v Speaker 1>enjoyed it anyway. You never know what I'm gonna sound

<v Speaker 1>off on here on the I always said, from like

<v Speaker 1>the beginning, there was a reason why I never put

<v Speaker 1>the word wrestling in the title of the show, because

<v Speaker 1>I could just sound off on it. I could talk

<v Speaker 1>about the Nicks, I could talk about movies, can talk

<v Speaker 1>about anything. I could talk about Greek mythology. We'll save

<v Speaker 1>that for next week. We'll save that for episode nine

<v Speaker 1>sixty seven. That's the next time I'm with you here

<v Speaker 1>for an episode of the Flagship show. Of course, during

<v Speaker 1>the week, I'll be live on YouTube for the Raw

<v Speaker 1>Post show on Monday, Dynamite on Wednesday, SmackDown on Friday.

<v Speaker 1>You know, Game three is on Monday night. A lot

<v Speaker 1>of people aren't gonna give a shit about Monday Night Raw.

<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure what I'm doing yet. Raw is in

<v Speaker 1>Paris and I don't remember now. I think it's a

<v Speaker 1>God is it a two pm East? I think it's

<v Speaker 1>a two pm Eastern start again or is it three pm?

<v Speaker 1>I get that mixed up with the London show later

<v Speaker 1>in the month. It's either two or three pm Eastern.

<v Speaker 1>I went live abround eight o'clock this past Monday. I'm

<v Speaker 1>probably gonna do the same thing again, but I don't know, man,

<v Speaker 1>I kind of want to check out the game. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know what I'm doing. I'll definitely be live. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know if it's going to be eight o'clock or

<v Speaker 1>eleven o'clock. I'll let you guys know. Maybe we'll stick

<v Speaker 1>to the normal time. But then Dynamite, I think everything

<v Speaker 1>is normal this week. SmackDown on Friday is I think

<v Speaker 1>back in the States, so that's back to its normal

<v Speaker 1>time there, and then nine sixty seven next weekend to

<v Speaker 1>do it all over again. So until then, be well,

<v Speaker 1>stay saved, have yourselves a great week, and I will

<v Speaker 1>see you back here for more sound off next weekend

<v Speaker 1>and on the streams on YouTube all week long until then,

<v Speaker 1>Take care, guys. The Solemn Monster crashes out. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know why we are still sitting here and why we

<v Speaker 1>are watching La Night and the Ussos still after all

<v Speaker 1>this time feuding with the Vision rinse repeat with this shit.

<v Speaker 1>Do you realize how long La Night has been feuding

<v Speaker 1>with the Vision for the first time that he started

<v Speaker 1>getting into the ring with members of the Vision June

<v Speaker 1>of last year. Money in the bank eight months, nine months,

<v Speaker 1>and he's certainly no better off for it. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>it's almost like there's not a creative thought in their

<v Speaker 1>head when it comes to some of these people. And

<v Speaker 1>you know, I just realized something here. If that match

<v Speaker 1>happens at.

<v Speaker 2>Wrestle Manie, I was gonna sit here and say, well,

<v Speaker 2>at least if he wrestles brock Lesner at wrestle Mania,

<v Speaker 2>at least it's someone different, right, But technically, if he

<v Speaker 2>were to wrestle Brocklesner, would brock Lesner not be technically

<v Speaker 2>considered part of.

<v Speaker 1>The Vision, he would still be working with the Vision.

<v Speaker 1>Fuck God, I'm not going to make it. I'm not

<v Speaker 1>going to make it. Through this review, The Solo Monster

<v Speaker 1>sounds off bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

<v Speaker 1>Check out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers,

<v Speaker 1>and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and x

<v Speaker 1>The Solo Monster. Fuck