<v Speaker 1>It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters
<v Speaker 1>Sounds Off. I love your solo Mama monster dude, I
<v Speaker 1>want your souldier a woman.
<v Speaker 2>You got grown ass rustlers in the back going on Twitter.
<v Speaker 1>Come over here, hotday? Is that pet patison you have legs? Weekend?
<v Speaker 1>I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.
<v Speaker 2>Now I have been begging him for a job on
<v Speaker 2>every every platform I can, and I want to know
<v Speaker 2>the reason why you won't.
<v Speaker 1>Park. Welcome to episode nine sixty eight of The Solo
<v Speaker 1>Monster Sounds Off or Sunday, June twenty first, twenty twenty six,
<v Speaker 1>the first day of summer. You know, it's felt like
<v Speaker 1>summer for a month already, but now it's official. It
<v Speaker 1>was nice in Chicago too, you know, having been to
<v Speaker 1>Chicago in the winter a few times, it was a
<v Speaker 1>lot nicer to be there in June. But that's where
<v Speaker 1>I was on Friday for House of Glory, sold out
<v Speaker 1>yet again at Logan Square Auditorium. You think we've outgrown
<v Speaker 1>that venue. I think we have. We may have to
<v Speaker 1>do something about that soon. Well what a fun show,
<v Speaker 1>you know, really, I was talking to j D about
<v Speaker 1>it when the show is over, in my opinion, our
<v Speaker 1>best Chicago show to date. Nick Nemeth, who could very
<v Speaker 1>well walk out of slam Aversary next Sunday as the
<v Speaker 1>new TNA World Heavyweight Champion, falling to Charles Mason, he
<v Speaker 1>will not be walking in as the Hog champion. Mustafa
<v Speaker 1>Ali he defended his TNA International title against Rich Swan,
<v Speaker 1>probably the best match on the entire card. Shatzi with
<v Speaker 1>her broken arm, got her revenge on Steph Delander to
<v Speaker 1>hold onto her women's championship. I mean they were fighting
<v Speaker 1>all over the place. Raheem Royle, one of our more
<v Speaker 1>popular young stars, diving fifteen feet off the balcony right
<v Speaker 1>in front of us, down onto the pile and somehow
<v Speaker 1>stuck the landing, same thing he did in Las Vegas.
<v Speaker 1>That was insane. I'm doing commentary and I'm asking where
<v Speaker 1>the hell did Royal go? And I look to my
<v Speaker 1>right and there he is, crouching down, and at that
<v Speaker 1>point I knew it's like, oh shit, he's gonna jump,
<v Speaker 1>isn't he? He's gonna jump? Yep? He sure? Did you know?
<v Speaker 1>Leo Rush made a surprise appearance in that same Suicidal
<v Speaker 1>sixth Way and the pop that he got coming out.
<v Speaker 1>Holy shit. See this is why I say it's working.
<v Speaker 1>It's not for everyone, you know, the black Heart stuff
<v Speaker 1>that he's doing, but I enjoy the hell out of
<v Speaker 1>it whenever I see him on Dynamite because it's just
<v Speaker 1>so different than anything else that you would see on
<v Speaker 1>that show. And he's so committed to it. That's the thing.
<v Speaker 1>If you're gonna do something like this, you gotta be
<v Speaker 1>committed to it. That it's getting over a week by
<v Speaker 1>week is not a surprise to me. It is getting over.
<v Speaker 1>He's more over now than he ever was when he
<v Speaker 1>was just Leo Rush and he's the new Ring of
<v Speaker 1>Honor television champion as well. He had the belt with
<v Speaker 1>him and everything. People were going nuts with the guy,
<v Speaker 1>and for the first time ever, it did not disappoint
<v Speaker 1>Ricky Sosa picking up a win over Amazing Red, who,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, is returning to TNA next weekend for
<v Speaker 1>the first time in fifteen years, back to his roots,
<v Speaker 1>competing in an Ultimate X match, the man who pioneered
<v Speaker 1>the X division, and he and Ricky had a good one.
<v Speaker 1>Sosa is a big kid when you see him in person.
<v Speaker 1>WWE is gonna have stars in their eyes for that
<v Speaker 1>guy it's six foot four? Are you kidding me?
<v Speaker 2>So?
<v Speaker 1>Thank you Chicago and everybody I had the chance to meet.
<v Speaker 1>And that awesome chocolate chip cookie from Johnny and his family.
<v Speaker 1>That cookie was as big as my fist. I didn't
<v Speaker 1>think I would finish it, but I waxed the entire thing. See.
<v Speaker 1>If I live by one philosophy in life, it is
<v Speaker 1>the more carbs, the better. I cannot imagine a life
<v Speaker 1>worth living without them. Next time We're with you Live
<v Speaker 1>is going to be Friday night, August seventh, back in
<v Speaker 1>New York City for High Intensity. High Intensity is a
<v Speaker 1>special one for me because I first started with hog
<v Speaker 1>at High Intensity in twenty eighteen. The Harti's are going
<v Speaker 1>to be back, Ricky Sosa is coming back for his
<v Speaker 1>New York City debut, and the Mad King returns. Eddie
<v Speaker 1>Kingston will be there live. You know, he announced last
<v Speaker 1>year that this is his final indie run. He's only
<v Speaker 1>doing one or two indie shots a month until November
<v Speaker 1>and then he's finished, So this may very well be
<v Speaker 1>the last time that we get to see him in
<v Speaker 1>a House of Glory ring. We will not be streaming
<v Speaker 1>the event on Treiller TV. We made the announcement the
<v Speaker 1>other day. House of Glory will no longer be on
<v Speaker 1>Treiller going forward. We will have an announcement soon on
<v Speaker 1>where you'll be able to watch high intensity if you
<v Speaker 1>can't be there live. I know where we're headed and
<v Speaker 1>where we're not headed. All I will say is that
<v Speaker 1>this next show is going to be a lot more
<v Speaker 1>accessible to all of you than the shows usually are.
<v Speaker 1>So if ever, there was a show that you wanted
<v Speaker 1>to drop in and check out, this would be the one.
<v Speaker 1>We got a lot of TNA news to get into
<v Speaker 1>this week. There may be more TNA news here in
<v Speaker 1>this episode than I have ever had in a single
<v Speaker 1>episode in all the years, all the nineteen years nearly
<v Speaker 1>that I have been doing this podcast. There's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of it. But first, I would like to take this
<v Speaker 1>moment to announce that I too have left TNA. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it seems like everyone's leaving, doesn't it. There was a
<v Speaker 1>big talent name that chose to leave the company this week,
<v Speaker 1>and their head of creative is gone, among others. That
<v Speaker 1>may not be such a bad thing, actually, but that's later. Plus,
<v Speaker 1>the finals are set for the King of the Ring
<v Speaker 1>and Queen of the Ring tournaments, and I've got predictions
<v Speaker 1>for Night of Champions, which is coming up next weekend.
<v Speaker 1>I've even got thoughts on the new Toy Story movie,
<v Speaker 1>so a lot to get into. First though, I want
<v Speaker 1>to say thank you to everybody who supported this week,
<v Speaker 1>be it on YouTube or via PayPal. If you would
<v Speaker 1>like to do so, you can do so the Solo
<v Speaker 1>Monster dot com. You'll see the PayPal link at the
<v Speaker 1>top of the page. I want to say thank you
<v Speaker 1>to our PayPal producers for this week, including Rachel from
<v Speaker 1>the Badgers State. Thank you. She's hoping to have a
<v Speaker 1>celebration for the Brewers this fall, just like the Knicks did. Hey,
<v Speaker 1>you know what, keep hope alive. Anything's possible and may
<v Speaker 1>be unlikely, but anything's possible. The Portland pop Star Paul Hamilton,
<v Speaker 1>Big b Bryant, Bessera, The Diamond, Dallas A Dance Machine,
<v Speaker 1>Harrison Soapp, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, Big Time, Boris Weinman,
<v Speaker 1>Q The Destroyer, Tough Guy, Tim Gen Zephyr. It's good
<v Speaker 1>to hear from your brother. Badass Bernard Frederick. He says
<v Speaker 1>his favorite podcaster is number one Solo Monster. Well, I
<v Speaker 1>mean of course, number two Chris van Vliet and number
<v Speaker 1>three Dave Logreca. Hmm, would Logreca be considered to podcaster
<v Speaker 1>though he's a radio host. I don't know about podcaster.
<v Speaker 1>The Chicago Slayer Willie Chord, Hey, I missed you guys
<v Speaker 1>on Friday in Chicago. Rebel J. Leonard, thank you my friend,
<v Speaker 1>night Stalker, nif Al Safar and Killshot Keith Hart and
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to share this as well. I got a
<v Speaker 1>piece of feedback from someone who has become a fan
<v Speaker 1>of The Uncrowned Wrestling Show, which I do on Tuesdays
<v Speaker 1>for Ariel, and he just writes in he goes, hey, man,
<v Speaker 1>just wanted to just wanted to say I never heard
<v Speaker 1>of you before this show. Now I watch it every
<v Speaker 1>week and it's the only wrestling podcast I listened to.
<v Speaker 1>Says You're a great man, appreciate the content, telling it
<v Speaker 1>how it is. I quit watching weekly WWE TV last
<v Speaker 1>Summer Slam and only stuck to AW so your recaps
<v Speaker 1>are nice to listen to. WWE's not really for me anymore,
<v Speaker 1>but your show is great. Thanks again. That's funny, man.
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes all it takes is just like one message and
<v Speaker 1>a given day to really like put a smile on
<v Speaker 1>your face. And this was a very This is a
<v Speaker 1>very busy, very hectic week, especially heading into the show
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago and flying out to Chicago on Friday and
<v Speaker 1>trying to balance that with all the other shit that
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing. I just it was a tweet, actually a
<v Speaker 1>double tweet. When I saw that tweet, I said, man,
<v Speaker 1>you know, for all the shit that I have to
<v Speaker 1>sift through sometimes in the replies and stuff, you get
<v Speaker 1>a message like that. It makes it all worth it.
<v Speaker 1>So I love hearing it. If you're not checking out
<v Speaker 1>the Uncrowned Wrestling Show, please do so that drops each
<v Speaker 1>and every Tuesday. We now have a full card for
<v Speaker 1>Night of Champions this coming Saturday, and we know the
<v Speaker 1>four names in the finals of the King of the
<v Speaker 1>Ring and Queen of the Ring tournaments on Raw last Monday,
<v Speaker 1>or as I now call it, as the Bloodline turns.
<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns presented Jacob fought with his own Ula Fallow. Jacob,
<v Speaker 1>he says, was always on the outside. Now he's on
<v Speaker 1>the inside. He's the inside man now. And the ussos
<v Speaker 1>did not seem to like that. Roman was showing so
<v Speaker 1>much love to Jacob Jacob is basically Roman's attack dog.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's like he's his first lieutenant. He beat up
<v Speaker 1>eric Andre on Monday, who was in the front row
<v Speaker 1>and is in the new Street Fighter movie with Roman
<v Speaker 1>that comes out later this year. Eric Andre is now
<v Speaker 1>threatening revenge on Roman reigns over what Jacob did to him.
<v Speaker 1>What's he gonna do? Send Jason Momoa after him. That'd
<v Speaker 1>be like putting me an Orange Cassidy in the ring together.
<v Speaker 1>You wouldn't be able to tell us apart. Even the
<v Speaker 1>bellas would be like, holy shit, do they look alike?
<v Speaker 1>So then on SmackDown, Jacob was back and he told
<v Speaker 1>Solo he was making a mistake not taking Roman up
<v Speaker 1>on his offer to rejoin the family, and Solo's answer
<v Speaker 1>was still no. I should point out that Tomatonga told
<v Speaker 1>So to stay in the back during their Tag Team
<v Speaker 1>Championship match with Damian Priest and Art Truth on Friday,
<v Speaker 1>since he's so preoccupied with his own family drama, and
<v Speaker 1>Solo did exactly what Tama told him not to do,
<v Speaker 1>which has come out during their match and it wound
<v Speaker 1>up costing them a win. Priest and Truth retained the titles,
<v Speaker 1>and all I could think watching this was maybe I
<v Speaker 1>have it all wrong. Maybe we're not headed for a
<v Speaker 1>bloodline civil war again. Maybe Solo does end up rejoining
<v Speaker 1>the family because they're disbanding the MFTs, which would be
<v Speaker 1>very bad news for Tomatanga and Taalatanga if that were
<v Speaker 1>to happen. I mean, if you catch my drift. But
<v Speaker 1>I'm starting to wonder if all of this pushback that
<v Speaker 1>we're getting from Solo like a tell Roman, you know, basically,
<v Speaker 1>I'm not joining fuck off, And you know, if he's
<v Speaker 1>he's going to keep coming after me, I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>come after him. All this bluster and bravado and all
<v Speaker 1>of this talk from Solo. Maybe in the end they
<v Speaker 1>do get the og family back together. I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>because again, as things currently stand, the MFTs are just
<v Speaker 1>they're not strong enough and it's not interesting enough in
<v Speaker 1>terms of doing group on group to see them build
<v Speaker 1>some kind of big match, whether it's wargames or anything else.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, sure they could always throw in a you know,
<v Speaker 1>Royce Keys or add a new member, but they're just
<v Speaker 1>they're not strong enough. It's a dead group, it's a
<v Speaker 1>dead faction. Maybe they realize that, maybe they know that,
<v Speaker 1>how could they not, maybe this is going in a
<v Speaker 1>different direction. Meanwhile, we had Jay Usso wrestling Javon Evans
<v Speaker 1>and the semi finals of The King of the Ring
<v Speaker 1>on Friday, and the match was perfectly solid. I actually
<v Speaker 1>thought it was probably the best thing on the show.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what that says about the rest of
<v Speaker 1>the show. It was not a particularly egregious episode of SmackDown.
<v Speaker 1>I've seen worse. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.
<v Speaker 1>They used the rib injury that Evans sustained on Monday.
<v Speaker 1>Isn't out for him in losing. I thought he looked
<v Speaker 1>good even in defeat. But he was wrestling Austin Theory
<v Speaker 1>on Monday when he came off the top rope for
<v Speaker 1>an og cutter and bron Breaker absolutely destroyed him with
<v Speaker 1>a spear on the way down. So he came into
<v Speaker 1>this match with busted up ribs. You can tell that
<v Speaker 1>story and you can try to protect the kid, but
<v Speaker 1>to do it in back to back matches on Friday
<v Speaker 1>the way they did I just thought was overkill. You know,
<v Speaker 1>we went from the injured ribs with Javan to the
<v Speaker 1>injured knee with Charlotte Flair, which I'll get into. It's
<v Speaker 1>like they're so terrified to beat most of their big
<v Speaker 1>names without giving them some And I'm not saying Javon's
<v Speaker 1>a big name in the way that Charlotte or like
<v Speaker 1>the biggest stars are, but like Charlotte is an example
<v Speaker 1>of that, they're so terrified to beat these people they
<v Speaker 1>have to give them some sort of injury. Like it's
<v Speaker 1>no wonder that there's so many fans on social media
<v Speaker 1>who think anytime a wrestler lose this is a match,
<v Speaker 1>they're buried. Oh my god, I can't believe this guy
<v Speaker 1>lost a match on Monday. They're buried, right, instant burial,
<v Speaker 1>dead in the water. WWE is complicit in this. They
<v Speaker 1>have fostered an environment that allows the fans to think
<v Speaker 1>that way. Or baby faces, especially top baby faces, simply
<v Speaker 1>cannot lose clean with only rare exceptions, like it'll happen
<v Speaker 1>from time to time, but it's very rare, right. It's
<v Speaker 1>why I laugh when I hear someone like aj Styles,
<v Speaker 1>as he did last week, say wins and losses don't matter,
<v Speaker 1>and look, it's Aj Styles, Okay, one of the greatest
<v Speaker 1>wrestlers of his generation. His opinions on wrestling carry a
<v Speaker 1>lot of weight, more than mine, more than yours. But
<v Speaker 1>he also came into WWE as a top name who
<v Speaker 1>was already established. He was headlining pay per views with
<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns, he was beating John Cena multiple times in fact,
<v Speaker 1>winning world championships. A loss for him, in his mind
<v Speaker 1>probably wasn't all that big of a deal. Ro Doug
<v Speaker 1>is another one on the wins and losses Now, wins
<v Speaker 1>and losses don't matter. Others like The Miz have come
<v Speaker 1>that and said wins and losses absolutely matter. Right, everyone
<v Speaker 1>has their opinion on it. We can debate this until
<v Speaker 1>we're all blue in the face. But for a company
<v Speaker 1>that had multiple people working there who believe wins and
<v Speaker 1>losses don't matter, nobody ever bothered to tell the writing
<v Speaker 1>team because the way they protect so many of these people.
<v Speaker 1>If wins and losses truly did not matter, they wouldn't
<v Speaker 1>take such great pains to protect them the way they do.
<v Speaker 1>And I never intended for this to be a soapbox
<v Speaker 1>rant here. It's just something I noticed that they did
<v Speaker 1>in back to back tournament matches on Friday, and it
<v Speaker 1>made me think of that, especially with the AJ comments
<v Speaker 1>last week. So yes, Jay USO is moving on to
<v Speaker 1>the finals and Night of Champions. He's gonna meet Oba Femei,
<v Speaker 1>who beat Dominic Mysterio on Raw. This was always going
<v Speaker 1>to be the end result once j won that four
<v Speaker 1>way match last week and also on Raw, Eo Sky
<v Speaker 1>beat Rakel Rodriguez to advance to the finals of the
<v Speaker 1>Queen the Ring tournament, which brings us back to SmackDown.
<v Speaker 1>I'm bouncing back and forth here your boy is bouncy.
<v Speaker 1>Charlotte Flair and liv Morgan they got to close the
<v Speaker 1>show on Friday night. I did not like this match.
<v Speaker 1>I did not like this match in a boat. I
<v Speaker 1>did not like this match with a goat. I did
<v Speaker 1>not like this match wearing my coat. I did not
<v Speaker 1>like this match. I just didn't think it was very good,
<v Speaker 1>and I think WWE kind of put it in that
<v Speaker 1>spot expecting the fans to see it as a much
<v Speaker 1>bigger deal than it felt like, especially with that reaction
<v Speaker 1>that it got. But Charlotte was attacked backstage beforehand by
<v Speaker 1>Jade Cargill, Meechen and BFAB. After Charlotte and Jade, they
<v Speaker 1>had a confrontation, and Charlotte basically after they were done
<v Speaker 1>talking Charlotte said, get out of my way, I gotta
<v Speaker 1>go to the ring, and as soon as she started
<v Speaker 1>walking towards Gorilla, they attacked her from behind. Jade went
<v Speaker 1>after Charlotte's knee, the previously surgically repaired knee. Nick all
<v Speaker 1>this begged her not to go out there. Charlotte insists,
<v Speaker 1>did the heroic baby face that she is. Now, I've
<v Speaker 1>got to I've got to go out there. And this
<v Speaker 1>all got very melodramatic with all this, and Alexa Bliss
<v Speaker 1>and the doctors rushed over to check on her later
<v Speaker 1>in the match when she was outside, you know, holding
<v Speaker 1>her knee, and they were ready to call it off,
<v Speaker 1>that the doctor was gonna go ahead and tell the
<v Speaker 1>timekeeper to call the match off. They kept telling her
<v Speaker 1>it's not worth it, and Charlotte told him it's worth
<v Speaker 1>it to me. And then one more single leg crab
<v Speaker 1>later and evidently it wasn't worth another knee operation because
<v Speaker 1>Charlotte finally tapped out. And that sends liv Morgan, the
<v Speaker 1>Women's World Champion, to the finals of the Queen of
<v Speaker 1>the Ring against Eo Sky next weekend, and then there
<v Speaker 1>is the WWE Championship for the second time this year.
<v Speaker 1>I missed a WWE title defense on SmackDown because I
<v Speaker 1>was working in Chicago, but I watched it when I
<v Speaker 1>got home, and as overbooked as was what they did,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't hate it. It caused some chaos on a
<v Speaker 1>show that could use a little bit of chaos because
<v Speaker 1>it's usually pretty lifeless and boring. Sammy' z ay was
<v Speaker 1>the special guest referee for this when Sammy had to
<v Speaker 1>at one point physically pulled Gunther off of Cody when
<v Speaker 1>he refused to release the sleeper hold after a rope break.
<v Speaker 1>Gunther was not pleased about this push, king to shove. Literally,
<v Speaker 1>Sammy slapped him, so Gunther power bombed him, which is
<v Speaker 1>not the smartest thing to be doing when you're trying
<v Speaker 1>to win the championship is to power bomb the referee.
<v Speaker 1>Another referee runs out, Gunther had the match one. A
<v Speaker 1>little while later, Sammy pulls the new referee out to
<v Speaker 1>the floor. He was well within his rights to disqualify
<v Speaker 1>gun there, but he opted not to do so. Instead,
<v Speaker 1>Gunther was holding onto the top rope on a sunset
<v Speaker 1>flip attempt by Cody. When Sammy got back in the ring,
<v Speaker 1>he kicked the hand free, Cody rolled him up. Sammy
<v Speaker 1>fast counted and he gave Cody the wind to retain
<v Speaker 1>the title. They really came into this week wanting you
<v Speaker 1>to believe that Sammy was going to screw over the
<v Speaker 1>Golden Boy. But he played it straight. He played it
<v Speaker 1>right down the middle until Gunther put his hands on him.
<v Speaker 1>Nick All, this was furious at Sammy. They were arguing
<v Speaker 1>at Gorilla. Gunther was there too Cody. Meanwhile, you can
<v Speaker 1>see Cody on the flat panel that was mounted on
<v Speaker 1>the wall of the Gorilla position, and Cody was still
<v Speaker 1>out in the ring and he had a mic and
<v Speaker 1>he was calling for a rematch. He was demanding a
<v Speaker 1>rematch even though he already won. So Gunther he takes
<v Speaker 1>out Sammy and then he looks over at nick All
<v Speaker 1>this and tells him to restart the match. All this
<v Speaker 1>is okay, and Gunther runs out to the ring. He's
<v Speaker 1>got a new impartial referee with him. So this was
<v Speaker 1>our third Cody and Gunther match, if you count clash
<v Speaker 1>in Italy fourth, if you want to go all the
<v Speaker 1>way back to Crown Jewel two years ago. If you
<v Speaker 1>do that means that Gunther is now zero for three
<v Speaker 1>in matches with Cody before this one here got started.
<v Speaker 1>So the match gets restarted all of three minutes before
<v Speaker 1>Sammy runs in. He catches Gunther with a halluva kick.
<v Speaker 1>Cody ducked out of the way because Gunther had him
<v Speaker 1>in a sleeper hole. He was kind of backed up
<v Speaker 1>in the corner. Here come Sammy and Cody ducks and
<v Speaker 1>guntherer ate the kick, which I presume means the match
<v Speaker 1>was just thrown away and it was not a disqualification
<v Speaker 1>win for gun Through. I mean they didn't care enough
<v Speaker 1>to announce it one way or the other. They never do.
<v Speaker 1>And later in the show, Cody went to all this
<v Speaker 1>to ask for a triple threat match at Night of
<v Speaker 1>Champions against Gunther and Sammy so he could put this
<v Speaker 1>thing to bed once and for all, and all this agreed.
<v Speaker 1>So we ended up with exactly the match that I
<v Speaker 1>figured we were going to be getting on that show.
<v Speaker 1>They just took the long way to get there. It's
<v Speaker 1>rare that we get a WWE title match on TV,
<v Speaker 1>let alone two of them back to back like that.
<v Speaker 1>The second match, I mean, the second match wasn't even
<v Speaker 1>a match as much as it was an angle. If
<v Speaker 1>they would have saved Cody against Gunther for Riodd with
<v Speaker 1>the same situation here Sammy is the referee, they did
<v Speaker 1>the same finish. That would have been amongst the worst
<v Speaker 1>title match finishes of the entire year. If they would
<v Speaker 1>have done that on the pl this would have been awful.
<v Speaker 1>So this was the place to do it. If you
<v Speaker 1>were going to do a finish like that, you do
<v Speaker 1>it on TV. You build to the bigger match on
<v Speaker 1>the bigger show. Now we have what should be a
<v Speaker 1>hell of a match when you consider who the three
<v Speaker 1>men are who were involved here, the match itself. To me,
<v Speaker 1>that's a main event. That's a worthy main event for
<v Speaker 1>a Night of Champions, Which brings us to Night of
<v Speaker 1>Champions with the first hours simulcasting live on ESPN at
<v Speaker 1>one pm Eastern, since they're in Saudi for this show,
<v Speaker 1>I'll be live on YouTube probably right after it ends.
<v Speaker 1>I'm inclined not to wait. I sometimes wait until maybe
<v Speaker 1>like eight pm or so and then go live. I'll
<v Speaker 1>probably just go live within half an hour of the
<v Speaker 1>show ending. We had six matches on the show last year.
<v Speaker 1>We have six matches on the show this year. Since
<v Speaker 1>two of them were tournament finals, and you've got to
<v Speaker 1>have more than two or three titles on a show
<v Speaker 1>called Night of Champions, you kind of had to have
<v Speaker 1>at least six matches, and these are the matches right now.
<v Speaker 1>Tiffany Stratton is going to be defending her Women's United
<v Speaker 1>States Championship against Jade Cargill. And the only reason this
<v Speaker 1>match is even happening here is because Rhea Ripley got hurt.
<v Speaker 1>Otherwise she would be defending her title in this spot.
<v Speaker 1>I do believe once they bumped Rhea off the poster
<v Speaker 1>for the show, they replaced her with Tiffany, so it
<v Speaker 1>became pretty clear Tiffany was going to be wrestling on
<v Speaker 1>this show. This is the fourth or fifth time now
<v Speaker 1>I've lost track that these two have squared off. None
<v Speaker 1>of those matches were particularly memorable, so I don't have
<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't say I have high hopes for this. It
<v Speaker 1>might be okay, but I don't have high hopes for this.
<v Speaker 1>Tiffany beat her at SummerSlam last year to retain the
<v Speaker 1>world championship. Jade then took it from her in November
<v Speaker 1>at Saturday Night's main event that kicked off her title run.
<v Speaker 1>You would you would, I mean, you would have to
<v Speaker 1>imagine after what happened to the end of the show
<v Speaker 1>on Friday. It was a direct result of an attack
<v Speaker 1>by Jade Cargill that Charlotte Flair failed to advance in
<v Speaker 1>the Queen of the Ring tournament, failed to make it
<v Speaker 1>to the finals of this tournament. Why would Charlotte not
<v Speaker 1>want to pay that back. That's what I'm expecting. I'm
<v Speaker 1>expecting Charlotte to be there in Riod and if she is,
<v Speaker 1>I'm expecting that she is going to play some kind
<v Speaker 1>of role in Jade Cargill not winning this match and
<v Speaker 1>not winning the championship. Tiffany will retain no matter what happens.
<v Speaker 1>Tiffany's going to retain because I don't see the point
<v Speaker 1>in putting the belt on Jade for what. Because they're
<v Speaker 1>going to do Jade and Charlotte at Summerslim and you
<v Speaker 1>want there to be a belt on the line, I
<v Speaker 1>don't think that's necessary. Although that is going to be
<v Speaker 1>the Summer Slim match, and that's been rumored for a while,
<v Speaker 1>but it's the one that makes the most sense. After
<v Speaker 1>what we saw on Friday, we know the match is
<v Speaker 1>taking place, Summerslim would be the best place for That'll
<v Speaker 1>be Charlotte and Jade. It will not be for the
<v Speaker 1>US title, though the Men's United States Championship will be
<v Speaker 1>on the line. Trick Williams is going to be defending
<v Speaker 1>against Ricky Say. Here's my question, do you think Lil
<v Speaker 1>Yati is making the trip to Saudi for this show?
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I don't know, but Trick Williams is
<v Speaker 1>going to put his title on the line against Ricky says,
<v Speaker 1>who beat Carmelo Hayes on SmackDown to win the right
<v Speaker 1>to challenge for the title. I still think we're gonna
<v Speaker 1>end up getting a triple threat at some point, probably
<v Speaker 1>Summer Slim with Hayes included, although I wouldn't mind a
<v Speaker 1>straight singles match with Mellow and Trick. I just feel
<v Speaker 1>like we're probably gonna get that on SmackDown, or we're
<v Speaker 1>going to get that on Saturday Night's main event, and
<v Speaker 1>nin will end up getting the three way. So they'll
<v Speaker 1>have to figure out a way to make it all
<v Speaker 1>make sense, because if Trick goes in there on Saturday
<v Speaker 1>and just beats him, you know, he just beats Ricky,
<v Speaker 1>then that would seemingly finish Ricky off of the time being.
<v Speaker 1>As far as title contention goes. But I mean, they
<v Speaker 1>could always figure out a way where it makes sense
<v Speaker 1>to get all three of them in the ring together
<v Speaker 1>and do a triple threat. I don't think Trick is
<v Speaker 1>losing the championship here. He might at Summer Slam, but
<v Speaker 1>I don't think he's losing it here. Seth Rollins will
<v Speaker 1>go one on one. He will try to put this
<v Speaker 1>to rest once and for all, his feud, his bad blood,
<v Speaker 1>his issues with the Vision, his issues with bron Breaker.
<v Speaker 1>They are going to do it inside of a steel cage,
<v Speaker 1>and the question is really the bigger question is coming
<v Speaker 1>out of this match, what is the direction for Seth
<v Speaker 1>Rollins at Summerslim. Because to me, the only direction that
<v Speaker 1>really makes sense for Rollins on that show, and you
<v Speaker 1>got to imagine they're going to want him in a
<v Speaker 1>big match, is Roman Reigns. Now, that's what I was
<v Speaker 1>thinking right up until this week. Anyway, that was where
<v Speaker 1>my head was at Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins for
<v Speaker 1>the World Heavyweight Championship at Summerslim, and that may well
<v Speaker 1>be where we end up going. However, I have a
<v Speaker 1>different take on where they may be going. Where I
<v Speaker 1>kind of hope they're going with Roman. I'll get to
<v Speaker 1>that in a little bit. I still think Seth Rollins
<v Speaker 1>gets to the win here. I think at the end
<v Speaker 1>of all this, Rowlins is going to win the feud.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever plans they have for him are likely bigger than
<v Speaker 1>what bron Breaker will be doing at Summer Slim and
<v Speaker 1>so so I think it's if that's the case, if
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna have Rollins in a title match or some
<v Speaker 1>kind of big match on that show, it's probably more
<v Speaker 1>important for him to win this. I think Rollins wins
<v Speaker 1>the cage match. Now we have the Queen of the
<v Speaker 1>Ring Finals, where it will be the Women's World Champion,
<v Speaker 1>Live Morgan taking on EO Sky, two members of the
<v Speaker 1>raw roster. Live Morgan being in this tournament is ridiculous.
<v Speaker 1>We all agree on this. It's stupid. It's just dumb.
<v Speaker 1>And they try to have her go out there and
<v Speaker 1>explain why by saying, well, I want it all, I
<v Speaker 1>want it all. Why not, right, I want every championship. Okay, fine,
<v Speaker 1>it's fucking lame. She really was a waste of a
<v Speaker 1>spot in this tournament. And here's the other thing. The
<v Speaker 1>idea of the woman who won the World Championship at
<v Speaker 1>WrestleMania and has defended it exactly zero times since then.
<v Speaker 1>I don't give a shit what the excuse is. Oh, well,
<v Speaker 1>they thought Stephanie was going to be around, so she
<v Speaker 1>would have defended against Stephanie by the name. Okay, fine,
<v Speaker 1>but she didn't and they had no plan B. This
<v Speaker 1>has been the worst Women's Championship run in the history
<v Speaker 1>of that title. The woman who won the title at
<v Speaker 1>Mania and has defended it exactly zero times. The idea
<v Speaker 1>that we are supposed to, I guess, get somewhat excited
<v Speaker 1>about is that now there's the prospect of her winning
<v Speaker 1>this tournament and potentially unifying the two world titles at
<v Speaker 1>Summer Slam. Not only does that not get me interested
<v Speaker 1>in seeing that match at Summer Slam, it actively makes
<v Speaker 1>me not want to watch it because that just sounds
<v Speaker 1>fucking terrible. So we can't have any of this. So
<v Speaker 1>whoever's going to win here, whoever was going to be
<v Speaker 1>on the opposite side of live, was always going to
<v Speaker 1>be the presumptive winner. And I'm very happy that that
<v Speaker 1>person is EO Sky because she was my pick to
<v Speaker 1>win anyway. I wanted her to win. Queen EO is
<v Speaker 1>what we need. Queen EO is what I believe we
<v Speaker 1>are going to have on Saturday. Now. If Rhea Ripley
<v Speaker 1>is out for a while and this turns out to
<v Speaker 1>be a serious knee injury, that complicates things. Unless the
<v Speaker 1>plan is to just have EO win the tournament and
<v Speaker 1>then challenge liv Morgan to a rematch at SummerSlam. That's
<v Speaker 1>what I'm predicting ends up happening. We're gonna get Queen
<v Speaker 1>EO and then after the match, not during the match,
<v Speaker 1>after the match, maybe on Raw that Monday night. That's
<v Speaker 1>where we finally get the return of Stephanie Vicaire. I
<v Speaker 1>think the play here is to just do a straight match.
<v Speaker 1>I don't see her getting involved in the match, especially
<v Speaker 1>because they may be doing something similar in the men's side.
<v Speaker 1>I think to do that in the men's and the
<v Speaker 1>women's matches would be stupid. Stephanie coming back, EO choosing
<v Speaker 1>live That could then create a very interesting little triangle
<v Speaker 1>heading into Summer Slim. And remember Stephanie and EO they
<v Speaker 1>have history. It was EO who's Stephanie beat at Wresselled
<v Speaker 1>Palooza last year to win that championship. You know, does
<v Speaker 1>Live even make it to SummerSlam as the champion or
<v Speaker 1>is it gonna be Stephanie. Do we end up with
<v Speaker 1>a three way on that show? I'd be okay with that.
<v Speaker 1>EO might not be if she wins Queen of the
<v Speaker 1>Ring and ends up having to fight for it in
<v Speaker 1>a three way, but anything to get Stephanie and EO
<v Speaker 1>back in the ring together is fine with me. I
<v Speaker 1>love their first match, but I think Eosky is going
<v Speaker 1>to win the tournament. Then we have the King of
<v Speaker 1>the Ring tournament, and we have Obafemi taking on jay Uso.
<v Speaker 1>It comes down to what WWE has clearly staked as
<v Speaker 1>the future of this company, the man that they are
<v Speaker 1>building everything around against the yeat Man. When Raw ended
<v Speaker 1>on Monday and Obafemi stood in the middle of the
<v Speaker 1>ring again bringing up brock Lesner by name. This is
<v Speaker 1>after calling him a bitch, and this time he questioned
<v Speaker 1>his manhood. He expected him to show up on Monday
<v Speaker 1>and try to screw him out of a win, but
<v Speaker 1>he was a no show. Right, it could still happen
<v Speaker 1>as soon as tomorrow night, because the idea that I
<v Speaker 1>pitched a few weeks ago is still possible. There's still
<v Speaker 1>time for this to happen. To see Brock Lesnar's show
<v Speaker 1>up on Raw and take Obafemi out of the tournament
<v Speaker 1>before he even gets on the plane to fly to
<v Speaker 1>Riod And I'm sure those fans would be disappointed not
<v Speaker 1>to see him if he wasn't there. But hey, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>this is a sold show for WWE. They get their
<v Speaker 1>fifty million dollars guaranteed either way, they don't have to
<v Speaker 1>worry about selling tickets. Brock showing up tomorrow and taking
<v Speaker 1>him out of the tournament to then open up a
<v Speaker 1>wildcard spot for Night of Champions to be filled by
<v Speaker 1>someone like Cmpunk is still possible, but I will admit
<v Speaker 1>those hopes are dimming by the hour. I have to
<v Speaker 1>just look at what we have in front of us,
<v Speaker 1>and if it's Obafemi against jay Uso, I do not
<v Speaker 1>care to see Obafemi losing to jay Uso. I do
<v Speaker 1>not care to see jay Uso challenging for the championship
<v Speaker 1>at SummerSlam against any of those three in the main event, Cody,
<v Speaker 1>Gunther or Sammy's Ain, even with all of their history together,
<v Speaker 1>that is not a main event that appeals to me.
<v Speaker 1>If we get Oba against jay Uso. Obafemi needs to
<v Speaker 1>win that match. Brock Lesner can show up, he can
<v Speaker 1>attempt to screw Oba out of the crowd, but fail.
<v Speaker 1>Oba wins anyway. Brock is stunned, he can't believe it,
<v Speaker 1>and we get Oba and Brock on Night one in Minneapolis,
<v Speaker 1>and then Oba challenging Roman for the championship on night two.
<v Speaker 1>I talked about that. I think in the mailbag last week.
<v Speaker 1>It's not ideal. It would not have been the way
<v Speaker 1>that I would have laid everything out. I think burnout
<v Speaker 1>is a very real thing. If you do all of
<v Speaker 1>that in one weekend, and there's a good chance that
<v Speaker 1>Oba would win one and not the other. And by
<v Speaker 1>the way, that doesn't necessarily mean he beats Brock and
<v Speaker 1>loses to Roman. It could be the other way around,
<v Speaker 1>which would then set Lesner up for a title match
<v Speaker 1>coming out of SummerSlam, and then Oba could finally put
<v Speaker 1>him down once and for all. I'm not saying any
<v Speaker 1>of this is ideal. What I'm saying is that Obafemi
<v Speaker 1>should not be loose to jay Usso full stop, period,
<v Speaker 1>end of story. And if that's the match and there's
<v Speaker 1>no Chickanay and there's no big swerve, He'd better fucking win.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going with Oba to win the crown, and Cody
<v Speaker 1>Rhodes will defend the WWE Championship against Gunther and Sammy
<v Speaker 1>z Ain. Sammy z Ain has parlayed this whole last
<v Speaker 1>real good guy thing on SmackDown into what has been
<v Speaker 1>I think a pretty entertaining run for himself, probably the
<v Speaker 1>most entertaining thing on the entire show week to week
<v Speaker 1>at the moment. And Cody and Sammy, to me, is
<v Speaker 1>really where the issue is, and that's a match that
<v Speaker 1>I would like to see Gunther and I can't even
<v Speaker 1>believe I'm sitting here and saying this. You know, six
<v Speaker 1>months after he retired AJ Style, seven months after he
<v Speaker 1>retired John Cena, and there was all this buzz around
<v Speaker 1>Gunther in the career killer stuff, which was always going
<v Speaker 1>to have a short shelf life. You can only do
<v Speaker 1>that for so long. But they had done such a
<v Speaker 1>good job of really you know, keeping him strong and
<v Speaker 1>keeping him unbeaten for a period of time there, and
<v Speaker 1>it just feels like it was all for nothing. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to say I feel, you know, vindicated,
<v Speaker 1>sitting here, but here we sit now six months later,
<v Speaker 1>and having him be the one to beat John Cena
<v Speaker 1>in the way that he did, which some people anyway
<v Speaker 1>thought was going to be this big, massive thing. It
<v Speaker 1>turned out to me not a damn thing. Nothing. There's
<v Speaker 1>nothing right now about Gunther that feels like he is
<v Speaker 1>above everybody else, like he's in this rare space that
<v Speaker 1>only select people end up in, and now he's just
<v Speaker 1>looked at differently than everybody else. I might have said
<v Speaker 1>that months ago, but it doesn't feel that way now.
<v Speaker 1>Now he finally truly feels like just another guy on
<v Speaker 1>the show. And that's sad because it didn't have to
<v Speaker 1>be that way. But I feel like whatever aura was
<v Speaker 1>there coming out of all that has been squandered, and
<v Speaker 1>we are now looking at a situation where if he
<v Speaker 1>was to lose this match, he will have lost to
<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhoads in Italy, he will have lost to Cody
<v Speaker 1>Rhoads on Friday, and he will have lost to Cody
<v Speaker 1>Rhodes here at Night of Champions, not even saying anything
<v Speaker 1>about two years ago at Crown Jewel when he lost
<v Speaker 1>to Cody Roads there as well. Cody may just become
<v Speaker 1>the guy that Gunther can't figure out. Gunther may never
<v Speaker 1>beat him at this rate, so it's not ideal for
<v Speaker 1>Gunther to lose again here. But I'm looking at this
<v Speaker 1>and I'm going, solo Monster, I'm talking to myself, solom Monster,
<v Speaker 1>what is the outcome that you would like to see here?
<v Speaker 1>Like as a fan, I'm looking at this and I'm going, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>there should be a hell of a match. But who
<v Speaker 1>do I want to win? Who do I want to
<v Speaker 1>be the champion coming out of this match? Gunther winning
<v Speaker 1>the championship to me, you know right now, it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>do much for me. Cody retaining the title, that's boring.
<v Speaker 1>The person who should walk out of Riata as the champion,
<v Speaker 1>and what a reaction I'm sure he would get. Given
<v Speaker 1>where the show is being held, is Sammy's a I
<v Speaker 1>would like to see Sammy's ain win the WWE Championship
<v Speaker 1>on Saturday. Maybe it throws a monkey wrench into their
<v Speaker 1>plans for Summer Slam. Maybe Sammy doesn't hold it for
<v Speaker 1>very long. Maybe Samy holds it for a few weeks.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that would be great. I would like
<v Speaker 1>to see him hold on to it for a little
<v Speaker 1>bit longer. I'm not saying give him a long super
<v Speaker 1>long title run or anything, but more than two or
<v Speaker 1>three weeks would be ideal. But still like, this could
<v Speaker 1>go any number of ways, but at the moment, Sammy's
<v Speaker 1>ain is the most compelling character on that show, right
<v Speaker 1>even if you don't think he's terribly compelling. Out of
<v Speaker 1>everything that is going on right now on SmackDown, he
<v Speaker 1>is the de facto most compelling character on SmackDown. He
<v Speaker 1>is the one where like, the stuff that he's interested
<v Speaker 1>into me is the best part of the show. I
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't have said that six months ago. Him winning the
<v Speaker 1>championship to me makes things a little more interesting on
<v Speaker 1>SmackDown then they would be if Gunther won the belter
<v Speaker 1>of Cody just retained again, Oh how exciting. So I
<v Speaker 1>would put the belt on Sammy and then you could
<v Speaker 1>build to a singles match at Summer Slim between Cody
<v Speaker 1>and Sammy for the WWE Championship. You can keep this
<v Speaker 1>issue between them going for a little bit longer because
<v Speaker 1>Cody Rhodes is not going to be left out of
<v Speaker 1>the Summer Slim main event. He will be in the
<v Speaker 1>main event on one of those two nights, him against
<v Speaker 1>Sammy's Ain. To me, you could absolutely headline one of
<v Speaker 1>those two nights with that match, more so than you
<v Speaker 1>could if it was sammy'sz Ain against jay Usso or
<v Speaker 1>Gunther against jay Usso. Give me a fucking break, nobody
<v Speaker 1>is asking for that. Cody against Sammy, I'd be okay
<v Speaker 1>with that. But if Sammy is coming in as the
<v Speaker 1>defending champion, or if maybe Cody was and Sammy won
<v Speaker 1>it from him there, I guess that would be okay too.
<v Speaker 1>But for this weekend, I'm focused on this match here.
<v Speaker 1>You're going to close the show with it, right, because
<v Speaker 1>we know Roman's not defending his title, He's not wrestling
<v Speaker 1>on that show. That's how you close out Night of Champions.
<v Speaker 1>The SmackDown this week is being taped on Tuesday and
<v Speaker 1>I believe on two Day in London to air on Friday,
<v Speaker 1>and it's normal time slot. That will be the final
<v Speaker 1>three hours SmackDown. The show is back to two hours
<v Speaker 1>as of July third. Get the party hats, everybody the
<v Speaker 1>party hats and the kazoos. We're going to have a celebration.
<v Speaker 1>It's going to be a fourth of July Bash that weekend.
<v Speaker 1>As we celebrate the return of two hour smackdowns. What
<v Speaker 1>a wild week for TNA, and not in the best
<v Speaker 1>of ways, although I guess time will tell creatively if
<v Speaker 1>it ends up being a net positive for them. TNA
<v Speaker 1>started the year with a brand new TV deal on
<v Speaker 1>AMC network. Right, it gave them their highest level of
<v Speaker 1>visibility since the Spike TV days on Access TV. They
<v Speaker 1>were in a death loop, right, they were never going
<v Speaker 1>to grow. But with the AMC deal and these unverified
<v Speaker 1>reports that it could be worth as much as thirty
<v Speaker 1>million dollars over three years or ten million dollars a year,
<v Speaker 1>there was reason to be optimistic that this be a
<v Speaker 1>positive step in the right direction for a company that
<v Speaker 1>has survived a lot of turmoil over the years, and frankly,
<v Speaker 1>a lot of self inflicted wounds that would have killed
<v Speaker 1>most other companies, and yet TNA finds a way to survive.
<v Speaker 1>If TNA was around when the dinosaurs roamed free and
<v Speaker 1>the meteor hit and wiped them all out, TNA would
<v Speaker 1>have survived. They would have found it tucked away under
<v Speaker 1>a rock or something, okay, narrowly escaping the impact. If
<v Speaker 1>nuclear winter blanketed the world, there would be TNA standing
<v Speaker 1>over there in a fucking hazmat su wandering around. This
<v Speaker 1>company will never die. It'll get sold at some point,
<v Speaker 1>and what happens then is anyone's guess. I guess it
<v Speaker 1>just depends on who buys it. If WWE buys it,
<v Speaker 1>unless they think they can maintain the AMC deal and
<v Speaker 1>make money that way, they really wouldn't have any reason
<v Speaker 1>to keep it alive anymore. Actually, on that note, Blake
<v Speaker 1>Avignon is the sports business reporter who first valued the
<v Speaker 1>AMC deal at thirty million, and was also the one
<v Speaker 1>who claimed that there was a sixty day termination clause
<v Speaker 1>in their deal with WWE that was activated with the
<v Speaker 1>announcement of the AMC deal, So take that for what
<v Speaker 1>it's worth. But this week he reported on his ex
<v Speaker 1>account that Len Asper of Anthem he has a floor
<v Speaker 1>for a potential TNA sale, so a value in which
<v Speaker 1>he will not go under if he is going to
<v Speaker 1>sell the company, and that floor is said to be
<v Speaker 1>in the forty to fifty million dollar range, which includes
<v Speaker 1>toxic debt on Anthem's books that any buyer would be
<v Speaker 1>expected to absorb. He said Scott Demore had offered around
<v Speaker 1>ten million to buy the company in twenty twenty four,
<v Speaker 1>including whatever debts TNA had, and that Anthem rejected the
<v Speaker 1>offer outright with no counter So if that report is
<v Speaker 1>to be believed, that's what Anthem would be looking for
<v Speaker 1>in any potential TNA sale for TKO or for Tony Kahn.
<v Speaker 1>They have the resources for that, But would it even
<v Speaker 1>be worth it to them? Like is TNA worth fifty
<v Speaker 1>million dollars? I mean it comes down to this, how
<v Speaker 1>much is that tape library work? Because that's the only
<v Speaker 1>real asset that you would be acquiring if you bought
<v Speaker 1>TNA right the IP like TNA Impact or Bound for
<v Speaker 1>Glory or slam Aiversary that doesn't hold any real value.
<v Speaker 1>So what are you really getting for that amount of money?
<v Speaker 1>Like at the end there, Vince McMahon was able to
<v Speaker 1>buy WCW for four point two million dollars right twenty
<v Speaker 1>five years ago. That was for everything, all in the IP,
<v Speaker 1>the tape library, some talent contracts, all of it. Four
<v Speaker 1>point two million dollars, even in its darkest days. If
<v Speaker 1>you set aside the money that they lost and just
<v Speaker 1>looked at the company and its assets, WCW was far
<v Speaker 1>more valuable that TNA has ever been in its twenty
<v Speaker 1>four years of existence, and so the idea of them
<v Speaker 1>getting fifty million dollars is laughable to me. But all
<v Speaker 1>that to say, they started the year off in a
<v Speaker 1>good place, with the chance to create an awareness around
<v Speaker 1>the product, to drive interest in their show, and they
<v Speaker 1>got off to a hurra And this start with that
<v Speaker 1>terrible AMC debut. I just remember I think the following week,
<v Speaker 1>what show was It might have been one of their
<v Speaker 1>pay per views, might have been Genesis. But Tom Hannifin
<v Speaker 1>had Carlos Silvett ringside, Who's gonna interview him? And Carlos
<v Speaker 1>was talking about his wonderful debut on AMC, and I
<v Speaker 1>think he was getting booed, and I'm like, oh, this
<v Speaker 1>is so bad, this, this is so terrible. After that,
<v Speaker 1>they were able to study the ship, they were able
<v Speaker 1>to overcome those growing pains. But in the time since then,
<v Speaker 1>I wouldn't say the ratings have shot up. They've gone up,
<v Speaker 1>they've gone back down recently, but they've done a very
<v Speaker 1>poor job of generating real interest in the product or
<v Speaker 1>doing anything to try to make themselves stand out from
<v Speaker 1>everybody else. There's already so much wrestling on TV. Just
<v Speaker 1>from the big two players that there's really nothing about
<v Speaker 1>the TNA product that feels like you have to go
<v Speaker 1>out of your way to see or that you don't
<v Speaker 1>already get from the other two. You know, part of
<v Speaker 1>the problem is that TNA has no brand idea, Y like,
<v Speaker 1>what do they stand for? What do they have to
<v Speaker 1>offer that nobody else does. I can't answer that. What
<v Speaker 1>we do know is, by virtue of this working relationship
<v Speaker 1>with WWE, they're going to have first DIBs on most
<v Speaker 1>of the TNA talents that they want to sign away
<v Speaker 1>from them. And as we saw with wrestlemany a week
<v Speaker 1>and that whole fiasco in Las Vegas, they have a
<v Speaker 1>new master that they now have to serve. Because I
<v Speaker 1>don't buy the excuse that Carlos Silva was peddling as
<v Speaker 1>to why they had to pull talents from certain shows,
<v Speaker 1>the idea that because AAW ran Collision on a Thursday
<v Speaker 1>night and one hour of the show overlapped with Impact
<v Speaker 1>on AMC, this was some sort of declaration of war,
<v Speaker 1>a decision minds you, that AAW had nothing to do
<v Speaker 1>with because they got preempted to a different night because
<v Speaker 1>of sports. Something that's happened many times before, but this
<v Speaker 1>is the excuse that was given and its horseshit. It
<v Speaker 1>is a complete lie. WWE does not want TNA talent
<v Speaker 1>working with AW talent, and or TNA does not want
<v Speaker 1>TNA talent working with AW Talent for fear that it
<v Speaker 1>may ruffle WWE's feathers. But either way, the common denominator
<v Speaker 1>here is WWE and it created this horrible backlash against
<v Speaker 1>TNA and specifically Carlos Silva, who took a lot of shit.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this turned into a gigantic pr nightmare for them,
<v Speaker 1>and it gave Tony Con the chance to swoop in
<v Speaker 1>like the Knight in Shining Armor, so that these companies
<v Speaker 1>could use AW talent on their shows instead and look
<v Speaker 1>like the good guys. It was a complete misfire on
<v Speaker 1>TNA's part. But there's another issue, which is the number
<v Speaker 1>of talents that have chosen to leave TNA over the
<v Speaker 1>course of the last I don't know, twelve to eighteen months.
<v Speaker 1>It is a staggering number. Names like Joe Hendry and
<v Speaker 1>Jordan Grace. They seemed destined for WWE. It felt like
<v Speaker 1>they had done all they could do in TNA, and
<v Speaker 1>how much WWE was using them in NXT. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>those two felt inevitable. Especially with Joe Hennywe was able
<v Speaker 1>to negotiate him out of his TNA deal early to
<v Speaker 1>bring him in. And boy, they sure have done a
<v Speaker 1>whole lot with those two on the main roster, haven't they.
<v Speaker 1>Josh Alexander was another one who had an option year
<v Speaker 1>they rolled over, even though he didn't want them to.
<v Speaker 1>He wanted to test out free agency, so he stayed
<v Speaker 1>an extra year and he got the hell out of
<v Speaker 1>there as fast as he could. But just in the
<v Speaker 1>months since the AMC deal was announced, they've lost Steve Macklin,
<v Speaker 1>a former TNA world champion, all four rascals who went
<v Speaker 1>to AW until tray Meegell got fired before he could
<v Speaker 1>even debut, and then he went back to TNA. Tray Miegel,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, just re signed with the company this week.
<v Speaker 1>Just to be fair, There are people that have re
<v Speaker 1>signed or signed lately. Miguel is one of them. Ali
<v Speaker 1>is another one. Tasha steeles no word on how long
<v Speaker 1>any of these deals are for. They tend to be
<v Speaker 1>short term deals because TNA can't afford to pay people
<v Speaker 1>that or they don't care enough about TNA to make
<v Speaker 1>a law longer term commitment because they hoped to land
<v Speaker 1>somewhere else. I think Elena Black was another one. She
<v Speaker 1>may have signed for a year, maybe that was last year.
<v Speaker 1>But these constant short term deals are a killer because
<v Speaker 1>how can you ever invest in someone and build them
<v Speaker 1>for the future when they may have no future with
<v Speaker 1>your company, Like, you're not going to build around someone
<v Speaker 1>who signs a ninety day deal. But they lost most
<v Speaker 1>of the rascals. Jake Doyle is gone, Danny Luna wanted out,
<v Speaker 1>Mila Grace wanted out, The Inspiration opted not to re sign.
<v Speaker 1>This is to say nothing of names like Mike Santana,
<v Speaker 1>the reigning TNA World Heavyweight Champion, whose contract is said
<v Speaker 1>to be up next month. He's likely on his way
<v Speaker 1>to WWE Leon Slater. They held back from allowing him
<v Speaker 1>to break the record for the longest raining X Division
<v Speaker 1>champion ever because they probably figured there's a good chance
<v Speaker 1>he's gone in the next few months when his deal
<v Speaker 1>is up. You know, losing Santana and Slater would be
<v Speaker 1>a huge blow to that roster. Even losing one of
<v Speaker 1>them would be a big blow. Losing both of them
<v Speaker 1>would be a body blow, Like, what is going on
<v Speaker 1>in this company that this company cannot retain all of
<v Speaker 1>this talent. This company signed a supposedly multimillion dollar television
<v Speaker 1>deal and started on AMC this year. They have a
<v Speaker 1>partnership with the biggest wrestling company in the world, and
<v Speaker 1>they're actively choosing to leave and go elsewhere. They are
<v Speaker 1>bleeding talent, and it comes down to one thing. It
<v Speaker 1>comes down to money. At the end of the day,
<v Speaker 1>this is a business, and if they feel like they're
<v Speaker 1>not being paid what they're worth, they have no incentive
<v Speaker 1>to stick around. Follow the money. It's the old, tried
<v Speaker 1>and true phrase and it applies here to follow the money.
<v Speaker 1>They're following the money right out the door. There's some
<v Speaker 1>talented WWE names that are going to be free agents,
<v Speaker 1>you know, as their ninety day windows expire over the
<v Speaker 1>next month or so. It would benefit TNA to pick
<v Speaker 1>some of them up. But can they afford them, Will
<v Speaker 1>any of them want to go there? That's the question.
<v Speaker 1>But you can add another name to the list the
<v Speaker 1>voluntary departures now, as comes the news that former TNA
<v Speaker 1>World Champion and Knockouts Champion Tessa Blanchard is gone from
<v Speaker 1>the company. She appears to have been caught in the
<v Speaker 1>middle of a promotional war, as she is not only
<v Speaker 1>working for TNA for years, but for CMLL, the same
<v Speaker 1>CMLL that has a working relationship with AW and you
<v Speaker 1>add to that CML and Triple A, which is now
<v Speaker 1>partially owned by WWE. They have been at war with
<v Speaker 1>one another for decades, and it looks like things came
<v Speaker 1>to a head where, according to Tessa herself, TNA said
<v Speaker 1>that she could no longer work for both TNA and CML.
<v Speaker 1>She had to make a choice one or the other,
<v Speaker 1>and she chose CML, which books her more and pays
<v Speaker 1>her more than TNA does, so it was a no brainer. Gee,
<v Speaker 1>I wonder what should I do? Should I stay with
<v Speaker 1>the company that hasn't done anything with me over the
<v Speaker 1>past twelve months, that pays me less and hardly books me,
<v Speaker 1>or should I basically stick with the company that books
<v Speaker 1>me more and pays me more. G I wonder? She
<v Speaker 1>explained it a video on her YouTube channel that as
<v Speaker 1>time went on and business evolved, leadership change partnerships, change
<v Speaker 1>network deals changed, the direction of the company just shifted. Eventually,
<v Speaker 1>I was asked to make a decision to either continue
<v Speaker 1>with TNA or continue with CMLL. Now, she did say
<v Speaker 1>that TNA offered her or they made an offer to
<v Speaker 1>her to stay. Fitfel says that she was halfway through
<v Speaker 1>a three year deal and sources within TNA claimed that
<v Speaker 1>they were going to rework her deal to offer her
<v Speaker 1>more money due to CMLL paying her more, but she
<v Speaker 1>still chose to leave. I know she's also engaged to
<v Speaker 1>ask fiene Hay. I believe it is who wrestles for CMLL.
<v Speaker 1>She built a whole life for herself down there, even
<v Speaker 1>years ago when she was married to Daga. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I think she was living down in Mexico City, So
<v Speaker 1>it's not surprising to me that you know, she would,
<v Speaker 1>you know, gun to her head, she had to make
<v Speaker 1>a decision. TNA hasn't done jack shit with her over
<v Speaker 1>the past year that she would choose to leave, and
<v Speaker 1>maybe that's by design because it was very telling. For
<v Speaker 1>all of the TNA talents that WWE has used on
<v Speaker 1>NXT or NXT talents who have worked with TNA wrestlers
<v Speaker 1>on their shows, Tessa was never involved in any of that.
<v Speaker 1>They never used her a single time, which tells you
<v Speaker 1>about what interest WWE would have in using Tessa Blancher,
<v Speaker 1>probably even less interest from Tony Kahan in doing anything
<v Speaker 1>with her, and aw works with CMLL. But I don't
<v Speaker 1>think you're going to be seeing her on any of
<v Speaker 1>these forbidden door shows in the future. You know. The
<v Speaker 1>racism allegations have followed her around now for a year,
<v Speaker 1>the incident with La Rosa and Negra. It doesn't matter
<v Speaker 1>if they're cool with each other. Now, every now and
<v Speaker 1>then somebody will post a photo of them from like
<v Speaker 1>Wressel Connors some things, shaking hands and smiling and oh,
<v Speaker 1>everything's okay now. Like that did lasting damage to this
<v Speaker 1>woman's chances of ever rehabilitating her image, especially the way
<v Speaker 1>that she handled things in the aftermath of all of that,
<v Speaker 1>all the denials, no contrition, that only made things worse.
<v Speaker 1>If she had shown even the slightest bit of remorse
<v Speaker 1>after all of that, it would have done wonders for her.
<v Speaker 1>Things might have turned out differently for her. But she
<v Speaker 1>never did. Because here's the thing, whatever you think of
<v Speaker 1>all of this stuff, people have shown in the past
<v Speaker 1>that they are willing to be very forgiving when it
<v Speaker 1>comes to certain things. If there is the perception that
<v Speaker 1>the person is truly sorry for what they said or
<v Speaker 1>what they did, or they were making efforts or inroads
<v Speaker 1>to try to make amends for whatever it may have been.
<v Speaker 1>And that was never anything that Tessa attempted. She just
<v Speaker 1>denied everything, and she fought against it, and it was
<v Speaker 1>the worst thing that she possibly could have done. Like,
<v Speaker 1>just if you look at it from a pr perspective,
<v Speaker 1>it was the worst move that this woman could have made.
<v Speaker 1>Because now if all of a sudden she comes out
<v Speaker 1>and says all the right things, well years have gone
<v Speaker 1>by right now, she's just trying to rehab her image.
<v Speaker 1>So it's a no win situation for her. The bullying
<v Speaker 1>allegations from multiple other wrestlers, many of whom now work
<v Speaker 1>in that women's locker room by the way in WWE
<v Speaker 1>and probably would not want her there. Now, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>saying that they would have a mutiny on their hands.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody would fall in line like good little soldiers and
<v Speaker 1>they would be team players if they wanted them to
<v Speaker 1>work with her. But she pissed off a lot of people,
<v Speaker 1>right We're not just talking about one isolated incident where
<v Speaker 1>she spit on someone and uttered a racial slur, which
<v Speaker 1>is bad enough. She gained a reputation, and that's a
<v Speaker 1>hard thing to shake. Even the Wow Women of Wrestling
<v Speaker 1>Revival that was supposed to be like a rehabilitation project
<v Speaker 1>for her. She was going to be the face of it,
<v Speaker 1>she was going to be the star of it, and
<v Speaker 1>that went sideways. There was a time when she was
<v Speaker 1>a can't miss prospect for WWE. A future WrestleMania match
<v Speaker 1>was written in the stars with Charlotte Flair. She fumbled
<v Speaker 1>it all and I think when it became clear that
<v Speaker 1>WWE had no interest in bringing her in, that made
<v Speaker 1>it a lot easier for her to go back to
<v Speaker 1>TNA two years ago, who she did not leave on
<v Speaker 1>the best of terms in twenty twenty, but they brought
<v Speaker 1>her back anyway in the dark of night. I said
<v Speaker 1>it at the time, like you know someone is radioactive
<v Speaker 1>when the company sees fit to bring them back silently
<v Speaker 1>and they don't even tell anybody, even their own talent.
<v Speaker 1>Everybody was in the dark about this. They were smuggling
<v Speaker 1>contraband in over the border. That's how they brought Tessa
<v Speaker 1>Blanchard back to TNA. She went back to TNA because
<v Speaker 1>she had no better options and the closest that she
<v Speaker 1>may ever get to. Going to WWE would be in
<v Speaker 1>my opinion, if she ever were to leave CMLL, I
<v Speaker 1>could see them bringing her into Triple A. I could
<v Speaker 1>see Undertaker salivating over the prospect of booking her in
<v Speaker 1>Triple A as one of their top names, and that
<v Speaker 1>could be sort of a back doorway for her to
<v Speaker 1>work with main roster talents who they could bring down
<v Speaker 1>to wrestle her. Even that seems very unlikely because the
<v Speaker 1>loyalty that she has to CMLL. But there's really no
<v Speaker 1>need for WWE or for AW to bring her in
<v Speaker 1>because for all of the controversy that it would cause,
<v Speaker 1>and she's a racist chance that would ring out in
<v Speaker 1>some of these arenas, the value just is not in
<v Speaker 1>it for them to take that kind of risk. As
<v Speaker 1>talented as she is. This was a mess of her
<v Speaker 1>own making. And if she's built a life for herself
<v Speaker 1>in Mexico and she doesn't seem to have those same
<v Speaker 1>issues in CMLL right, which is coming off one of
<v Speaker 1>the biggest business years that company's ever had. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>CMLL was one of the hottest promotions anywhere in the world,
<v Speaker 1>then there's no reason for her to go anywhere else.
<v Speaker 1>But that was just Tuesday. That was on Tuesday in TNA.
<v Speaker 1>Then came Wednesday, and another name that you could add
<v Speaker 1>to the list of the departed from TNA is their
<v Speaker 1>head of creative Tommy Dreamer, who also happens to be
<v Speaker 1>one of tessa's biggest defenders. The same Tommy Dreamer who
<v Speaker 1>once told Hongaloa that he thought he would be a
<v Speaker 1>huge star for them and even reminded him of The Rock,
<v Speaker 1>Although to be fair, there was a time where I
<v Speaker 1>thought Sunny Siaki reminded me of The Rock and he
<v Speaker 1>was going to be a big star for them as well,
<v Speaker 1>and that didn't happen either. But on Wednesday, Dreamer revealed
<v Speaker 1>I'm Busted Open Radio that he and TNA president Carlos
<v Speaker 1>Silva had come to an agreement to mutually part ways. Now,
<v Speaker 1>if you listen to what Dreamer said, or if you
<v Speaker 1>watch the clip of him making the announcement, it sure
<v Speaker 1>don't sound like it was mutual. This guy was gutted
<v Speaker 1>over this. He looked like a man whose wife had
<v Speaker 1>just told him she wants a divorce and she already
<v Speaker 1>went and changed all the locks to the house and
<v Speaker 1>left his shit laying out all over the lawn. He said, yesterday,
<v Speaker 1>I had a great conversation with Carlos Silva and me
<v Speaker 1>and TNA are no longer in a relationship. Yes, yes, ladies,
<v Speaker 1>he is single and ready to mingle. We've mutually agreed
<v Speaker 1>to part ways. I've given so much of my life
<v Speaker 1>that company. I don't have any ill will or malice.
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to survive and I want it to be
<v Speaker 1>the best that can be. I love this business. It's
<v Speaker 1>hard because I'm not going to be able to see
<v Speaker 1>the people that I helped. I had a lot of
<v Speaker 1>people help me follow my dreams, and I love that
<v Speaker 1>part about the business of what I did. It was
<v Speaker 1>a twenty four hour job. I think I had it
<v Speaker 1>for close to ten years, off and on. I've been
<v Speaker 1>in and out of there, but I love going to work.
<v Speaker 1>But everything comes to an end. I'm not crying because
<v Speaker 1>I'm mad or I'm emotional, but I know I'll be okay,
<v Speaker 1>and I hope TNA will be okay. Fightful Select is
<v Speaker 1>reporting that road Dog Brian James has been discussed as
<v Speaker 1>Dreamer's potential replacement on the creative team. Oh Boy, here
<v Speaker 1>we go. Dave Meltzer says the company has been in
<v Speaker 1>contact with road Dog for weeks now, but it wasn't
<v Speaker 1>known that he would be replacing Dreamer, only that he
<v Speaker 1>might join Dreamer on the writing team and per pw Insider,
<v Speaker 1>the belief among those we've spoken with is that currently
<v Speaker 1>Delirious we'll head up TA Creative. There's always a chance
<v Speaker 1>there are more names brought onto the team with the
<v Speaker 1>departure of Tommy Dreamer, but we are told Delirious is
<v Speaker 1>the point person moving forward. You know, It's it's fascinating
<v Speaker 1>to me how it's always the same five or six
<v Speaker 1>guys in wrestling who get recycled for these positions, Like
<v Speaker 1>there's nobody else in the world that could do this,
<v Speaker 1>Like I know, wrestling is still a very niche thing,
<v Speaker 1>relatively speaking, and there's no off season. It's fifty two
<v Speaker 1>weeks a year. It's a very stressful job. There are
<v Speaker 1>there are injuries, people leave, there's visa issues. They fuck
<v Speaker 1>up even the best laid plans. Like I'm not saying
<v Speaker 1>it's easy, but why does it seem like there's only
<v Speaker 1>six people like Max who are qualified to book a
<v Speaker 1>major pro wrestling show in twenty twenty six, Like no
<v Speaker 1>wonder everything feels the same look. I can only speak
<v Speaker 1>to Dreamer's abilities as a booker so much. I can't
<v Speaker 1>say he's the worst. He's definitely not the best. I
<v Speaker 1>think Wrestle House was his idea during those pandemic era
<v Speaker 1>Impact shows. I did enjoy that, right, We got some
<v Speaker 1>fun character work there, so I'll give him that. But
<v Speaker 1>a creative change was probably needed in this company, to
<v Speaker 1>say the least. I don't know that Delirious is any better,
<v Speaker 1>But with Dreamer, I gotta be honest with you, it
<v Speaker 1>could just be that the dude was burned out. He
<v Speaker 1>still wrestles multiple weekends a month. He's got the busted
<v Speaker 1>open gig, he's got to watch all the current wrestling.
<v Speaker 1>He's doing the TNA stuff, you know. Whenever I see
<v Speaker 1>him in those awful segments that TNA does, Whenever they
<v Speaker 1>sign somebody new and Dreamer is there, he's always he
<v Speaker 1>always looks so bored and uninterested, to the point where
<v Speaker 1>I'm wondering, like, why is he even out there? Like
<v Speaker 1>when Fabian Eichner signed his contract, Eichner is smiling and
<v Speaker 1>Carlos Silva is smiling. He's got his t toa hat on,
<v Speaker 1>like he's going to camp, and there's a Dreamer with
<v Speaker 1>his arms crossed, looking like a kid with his eye
<v Speaker 1>on the clock, waiting for the belt rings that he
<v Speaker 1>can get out of class. Like, what the fuck is
<v Speaker 1>he even doing in these segments? Maybe he was burned out.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I don't think much of Dreamer after
<v Speaker 1>him comments on that Dark Side of the Ring episode
<v Speaker 1>on the plane Ride from Hell where he defended Rick
<v Speaker 1>Flair doing the helicopter with his dick, and he defended
<v Speaker 1>him against the evil female flight attendants who dared claim
<v Speaker 1>that Flair forced himself on them. It was what he
<v Speaker 1>said in the way he said it in that episode, like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>come on, it is all in good fun, and well,
<v Speaker 1>if that's how she felt, maybe she should have, you know,
<v Speaker 1>shouldn't have taken a payout, and she should have prosecuted thing,
<v Speaker 1>so the fullest extent of the law. And he's rolling
<v Speaker 1>his eyes as he's saying all this stuff, not realizing
<v Speaker 1>that the reason that the one flight attendant didn't press
<v Speaker 1>charges is because her husband pushed for a settlement to
<v Speaker 1>spare their kids the embarrassment of a trial, and the
<v Speaker 1>airline that she worked for pushed her to keep quiet.
<v Speaker 1>Because they handled flights for other sports teams and it
<v Speaker 1>would be bad for business if it turned into a
<v Speaker 1>whole public thing. None of this matters to Tommy Dreamer, though,
<v Speaker 1>It's just Rick being Rick. Come on, have a laugh,
<v Speaker 1>right this was said by a man with two daughters,
<v Speaker 1>mind you, right, fucking disgusting. I'm not shedding any tears
<v Speaker 1>over time. I dreamer of being gone from TNA. Neither
<v Speaker 1>are some other people in the business. Apparently. I saw
<v Speaker 1>the one referee, this guy Perch, who said that Dreamer
<v Speaker 1>pulled him aside one day at TNA to tell him
<v Speaker 1>that he was going to do everything in his power
<v Speaker 1>to make sure he didn't earn a job in the
<v Speaker 1>wrestling business. I have no idea what prompted that. I
<v Speaker 1>would love the context for that, or why Dreamer would
<v Speaker 1>have said that. But yet Carl Bravo of Shane Taylor
<v Speaker 1>Promotions and Ring of Honor, he came out on X
<v Speaker 1>He said Dreamer once told him years ago that he
<v Speaker 1>was talented, but he couldn't hire him because he didn't
<v Speaker 1>know if he can market a quote cocky black guy
<v Speaker 1>to the world. Amazing. I could think of a few
<v Speaker 1>cocky guys who Happened to be Black that have made
<v Speaker 1>plenty of money in wrestling. Some of them are even
<v Speaker 1>on television right now. This week's episode is sponsored by Wicks.
<v Speaker 1>So you've got a little online storefront where you sell stuff.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome. Nothing better than being a business owner or
<v Speaker 1>working for yourself, but you better make damn sure the
<v Speaker 1>user experience on your website is going to keep people
<v Speaker 1>coming back for more. That's why it's so important to
<v Speaker 1>have a website that people want to bookmark and continue
<v Speaker 1>to visit. This is where Wix's Harmony editor comes to
<v Speaker 1>the rescue. Wix Harmony is an AI website builder that
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<v Speaker 1>your needs. The AI component is the difference maker here,
<v Speaker 1>but it's not the only component. It's not the only
<v Speaker 1>way for you to build your site. You still have
<v Speaker 1>the ability to edit manually and create the look and
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<v Speaker 1>use Wix and try wix Harmony right now to see
<v Speaker 1>for yourself at wix dot com slash harmony. That's wicks
<v Speaker 1>dot com slash Harmony. But Dreamer wasn't the only behind
<v Speaker 1>the scenes name to get the acts on Wednesday. Sammy
<v Speaker 1>Callahan is gone too. He retired from the ring last August.
<v Speaker 1>He worked as a producer for them backstage. He actually
<v Speaker 1>wore many hats behind the scenes. He also runs Wrestling Revolver,
<v Speaker 1>which is one of the more well known indie promotions
<v Speaker 1>out there. He tweeted this thought I was getting called
<v Speaker 1>today to be offered a position in creative Nope, I've
<v Speaker 1>parted ways with TNA. Oh well, onward to the next adventure.
<v Speaker 1>Check out my company, Wrestling Revolver. TNA issued a press
<v Speaker 1>release later that day build as an update from Anthem Sports,
<v Speaker 1>saying TNA Wrestling Today announced a workforce reduction designed to
<v Speaker 1>streamline operations and sharpened strategic focus and profitability. TNA's creative
<v Speaker 1>leadership team will see an immediate shift. Tommy Dreamer, who
<v Speaker 1>has worked in TNA's creative and talent relations departments, is
<v Speaker 1>leaving the company as TNA and Dreamer mutually agreed to
<v Speaker 1>part ways. Sure thing. TNA Wrestling also has come to
<v Speaker 1>terms on the release of Tessa Blanchard. We wish Tessa,
<v Speaker 1>Tommy and others the best in their future endeavors. Wow,
<v Speaker 1>look at that they and others. Sammy Callahan never even
<v Speaker 1>gave Callahan a mention. Now. He went on Busted Open
<v Speaker 1>Radio the next day to explain the sequence of events
<v Speaker 1>and how he didn't exactly go out quietly. There was
<v Speaker 1>a Zoom call where he got fired. When he found
<v Speaker 1>out that Dreamer had been let go. He thought he
<v Speaker 1>was going to be added to the creative team. He
<v Speaker 1>basically thought he was going to get Dreamer spot. And
<v Speaker 1>he says there were even talent in TNA who texted
<v Speaker 1>him that they wanted him in that role. And TNA
<v Speaker 1>informed him that there was going to be a conference
<v Speaker 1>call they wanted him on that afternoon. This is what
<v Speaker 1>he said. So I get on the Zoom and they
<v Speaker 1>start talking and I was like, in my mind, maybe
<v Speaker 1>this is still you know, maybe I'm getting added, and
<v Speaker 1>then it came to We're sorry, we're going to have
<v Speaker 1>to part ways, and I kind of went off. I
<v Speaker 1>am not one of the people that you usually goes
<v Speaker 1>off like this. I tried not to be very profanity laced,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't think it was a thing of screaming
<v Speaker 1>or yelling, but I stated my case. The people on
<v Speaker 1>that call were like, oh, well, this is this. I
<v Speaker 1>was like, well, you're going to listen to me now,
<v Speaker 1>Like I've given my life to that company. There have
<v Speaker 1>been multiple times where I could have left that company.
<v Speaker 1>I broke my leg for that company. I was world
<v Speaker 1>champion for that company. I love TNA. I didn't particularly
<v Speaker 1>want to go work for another company. TNA was my
<v Speaker 1>end all be all at the end of the day,
<v Speaker 1>and I had good relationships with everybody, and I stayed
<v Speaker 1>in my case. I was like, Hey, this is why
<v Speaker 1>I think you're making a terrible mistake. This is why
<v Speaker 1>I think this isn't happening right now. I am not
<v Speaker 1>the guy. And I was told as part of that
<v Speaker 1>Workplace Reduction Act, I like it. He makes it sound
<v Speaker 1>like it's some sort of like congressional Act. The Workplace
<v Speaker 1>Production Act was passed this week, but he says that
<v Speaker 1>should not be me. I was like, that's not me.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, that's not me. That should not be me
<v Speaker 1>in a million years. After the call Callahan, he says
<v Speaker 1>he did send a text message to Carlos Silva admitting
<v Speaker 1>that he handled things poorly. He thought he was going
<v Speaker 1>to be a lifer in TNA, and he clarified that
<v Speaker 1>he wasn't just a producer for them. He helped run
<v Speaker 1>the merchandise division. He worked in the marketing department, he
<v Speaker 1>was an agent. He did all of these things. A
<v Speaker 1>tel Bust opened that he did feel a creative overhaul
<v Speaker 1>was needed. He thinks pro wrestling in general needs to
<v Speaker 1>be more willing to embrace ideas from the younger generation
<v Speaker 1>and that since Debuwing on AMC, TNA has played it
<v Speaker 1>safe creatively in a way that has been detrimental to
<v Speaker 1>the promotion. Now. Bully Ray was on with him and
<v Speaker 1>said that older generations have never been willing to give
<v Speaker 1>up their spots in pro wrestling, and Callahan said, why
<v Speaker 1>does pro wrestling have to be like that? Why can't
<v Speaker 1>it be synergy? Why can't one generation and it doesn't
<v Speaker 1>seem like this happens in wrestling instead of being like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I'm taking the keys from you, Why isn't it Hey,
<v Speaker 1>I know pro wrestling from this generation. I'm extremely smart.
<v Speaker 1>I have all of these connects. But this younger generation,
<v Speaker 1>they understand the analytics, They understand what a younger fan
<v Speaker 1>base wants. Why can't that be meshed together into one
<v Speaker 1>perfect unit. By the way, Callahan calling out TNA for
<v Speaker 1>playing it safe on the same show where Bully Ray
<v Speaker 1>seems to agree with him, is so fucking funny to
<v Speaker 1>me when you remember that Bully has been doing Busted
<v Speaker 1>Open shows with Tommy Dreamer for months, all while Dreamer
<v Speaker 1>was heading up creative for that very company. That's just
<v Speaker 1>it's priceless, absolutely priceless. Now. Nick Nammoth, he wrestles for TNA.
<v Speaker 1>He was also on Busted Open because he co hosts
<v Speaker 1>on there, and on Thursday morning, he had this to
<v Speaker 1>say about Dreamer leaving the company. He admits that he's
<v Speaker 1>a little biased because he's friends with Dreamer. He said,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what the situation is. I like that
<v Speaker 1>I don't have inside business stuff. I just happen to
<v Speaker 1>know everybody at work, so I think for the most part,
<v Speaker 1>I think morale building together to get that TV deal
<v Speaker 1>couldn't be any higher. And then as we move on,
<v Speaker 1>it's got to drop down just a little bit, and
<v Speaker 1>then it's like, oh, it was like, man, some people
<v Speaker 1>are leaving. What are we doing? I don't know exactly
<v Speaker 1>what's going on. Most importantly, I really think the locker
<v Speaker 1>room is such a huge aspect. That's what got me
<v Speaker 1>to sign on to TNA, and I thought we were
<v Speaker 1>in a really good place. But I think the last
<v Speaker 1>couple of months it's been a little weird. Backstage, it's
<v Speaker 1>been different and I don't exactly know why, and I
<v Speaker 1>can't put my finger on it. Mike Johnson says the
<v Speaker 1>production side at this workforce reduction was hit pretty hard.
<v Speaker 1>Also numerous exits. I saw that their digital producer, Luke
<v Speaker 1>Parrin I think his name is he was let go
<v Speaker 1>as well. He ran and edited all of the content
<v Speaker 1>for TNA Plus and YouTube for about five years. He
<v Speaker 1>shot all of their tiktoks and vertical shorts. At one
<v Speaker 1>point he led their photography team. He said in October
<v Speaker 1>he asked to be taken off the road to focus
<v Speaker 1>on directing work in Toronto and he would be editing
<v Speaker 1>TNA content from home, So it sounds like he had
<v Speaker 1>other interests anyway, or release he has something to fall
<v Speaker 1>back on, you know, for all the talk of them
<v Speaker 1>getting thirty million dollars out of this AMC deal or
<v Speaker 1>that it was worth thirty million, right because being worth something,
<v Speaker 1>and how much money they're actually being paid for it,
<v Speaker 1>if any that's a different story. I'm starting to wonder,
<v Speaker 1>and this is just me spitballing here, I'm starting to
<v Speaker 1>wonder if they're getting any money out of this deal
<v Speaker 1>at all. Like I'm not saying it's a time buy
<v Speaker 1>per se, but like, are they getting anything out of
<v Speaker 1>this deal? You would think that they would be, but
<v Speaker 1>this is TNA. I mean, stranger things have happened. If
<v Speaker 1>people think that they're making thirty million dollars off this deal, right,
<v Speaker 1>they have no incentive to come out and deny it
<v Speaker 1>because that only helps them. If people think, oh, they
<v Speaker 1>think we're making thirty million dollars off this deal, We're
<v Speaker 1>just going to keep our mouth shut and let them
<v Speaker 1>think that. But I'm just I'm thinking that they don't
<v Speaker 1>have the kind of money coming in that we were
<v Speaker 1>all led to believe, you know, lost in all of this,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, is the report from PW Insider. The
<v Speaker 1>TNA is working towards an agreement with Ohio Valley Wrestling
<v Speaker 1>that would see OVW effectively become a developmental system or
<v Speaker 1>a feeder system for TNA, much the same way TNA
<v Speaker 1>has become a feeder system for WWE. But they expect
<v Speaker 1>the agreement to be signed very soon. You know, with
<v Speaker 1>all the talent leaving, they're going to need OVW to
<v Speaker 1>fill out some of the open spots they're going to
<v Speaker 1>have on their television show. But it just makes you wonder,
<v Speaker 1>you know, what kind of money are they really getting
<v Speaker 1>out of this AMC deal with the need for them
<v Speaker 1>to be making cuts like this and not signing enough
<v Speaker 1>talents to longer term contracts. When you hear about the cuts, right,
<v Speaker 1>you can't not think about the possibility of a sale.
<v Speaker 1>It's what you do before one. You cut costs, you
<v Speaker 1>tidy up the books. That doesn't mean the TNA is
<v Speaker 1>prepping for a sale. I know Matt Hardy chimed in
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't think TNA is being sold, although he thinks
<v Speaker 1>in the next four to five years that could very
<v Speaker 1>well happen. But like if the right offer was made.
<v Speaker 1>Believe me, anything is for sale if the right offer
<v Speaker 1>comes along. Is this being done with an eye towards
<v Speaker 1>that in the future very possible. The long held rumors
<v Speaker 1>that WWE is part of its deal with TNA, has
<v Speaker 1>the option to buy the company and they have the
<v Speaker 1>right of first refusal if they wanted to sell, So
<v Speaker 1>if WWE didn't want it, then they could sell to
<v Speaker 1>somebody else. But my guess is that WWE would just
<v Speaker 1>buy it themselves and then strip it for parts. They
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't want it falling under someone else's control, not as
<v Speaker 1>long as Tony Kahan is around. If you're a fan
<v Speaker 1>of TNA, not just kind of sum it up like this.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a fan of TNA, you just hope for
<v Speaker 1>the best when it comes to Creative coming out of Slammiversary,
<v Speaker 1>because all of their TV is already taped heading into
<v Speaker 1>that pay per view coming out of it, it's the
<v Speaker 1>start of yet another new era for a company that
<v Speaker 1>has been through a lot of them over the years.
<v Speaker 1>This is now the post Dreamer era of TNA, and
<v Speaker 1>whether it's Delirious or road Dog or whoever, for the
<v Speaker 1>sake of the talent who worked there, you hope they
<v Speaker 1>can get their shit together and they could come up
<v Speaker 1>with a plan to help elevate the right people and
<v Speaker 1>make the shows as entertaining as they can. This company
<v Speaker 1>is not defined by one person. There are many that
<v Speaker 1>have come and gone there. You just hope that the
<v Speaker 1>next one can do a better job than the one
<v Speaker 1>who came before them. Some quick aw notes. First, on
<v Speaker 1>Jim Ross, who showed up at Double or Nothing last month.
<v Speaker 1>We hadn't heard from him in a while. He did
<v Speaker 1>commentary for the John Mox League Kylo O'Reilly match for
<v Speaker 1>the Continental title. I know after the fact he talked
<v Speaker 1>about on his podcast wishing that he had been able
<v Speaker 1>to call more matches. If he would have known that
<v Speaker 1>that's all Tony was going to have him doing, he
<v Speaker 1>would have had a conversation with him about it. He
<v Speaker 1>just loves doing commentary, He loves being a part of it.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like he's at his age and he's had
<v Speaker 1>a lot of health issues, and obviously he lost his
<v Speaker 1>wife many years ago. I feel like for him in
<v Speaker 1>his mind, it's almost therapeutic to be able to go
<v Speaker 1>out there on those occasions when he can and do
<v Speaker 1>commentary for a match here and there. He wants to
<v Speaker 1>be part of something, and I can understand that. The
<v Speaker 1>problem is that over the last few years he has
<v Speaker 1>fallen so many times, like multiple times. And he actually
<v Speaker 1>talked about it on that trip to New York for
<v Speaker 1>Double or Nothing. On his podcast, he talked about falling
<v Speaker 1>and he suffered a back injury just before that trip,
<v Speaker 1>and he just was feeling awful and he was planning
<v Speaker 1>on seeing a doctor to try to figure out what's
<v Speaker 1>been going on with his legs. Whire his legs so,
<v Speaker 1>you know, unsteady. But he also mentioned that doctors were
<v Speaker 1>doing tests to see if he was suffering from dementia
<v Speaker 1>or Alzheimer's. And I don't know what the update is
<v Speaker 1>on that. I haven't heard him comment on that, but
<v Speaker 1>he popped up on X the other day to talk
<v Speaker 1>about the fact that he has been hospitalized for over
<v Speaker 1>three weeks. I mean, it seems like come out of
<v Speaker 1>Double or Nothing, he probably went right into the hospital,
<v Speaker 1>he said, day twenty two in the hospital in Norman,
<v Speaker 1>watching Omaha with my sooners. Thanks for everyone's kind thoughts
<v Speaker 1>and prayers. Don't count me out just yet. I'm still fighting.
<v Speaker 1>And Mike Johnson, a PW Insiders, said that Jr. Is
<v Speaker 1>believed to have suffered a fall after returning home from
<v Speaker 1>double or nothing, and so that's yet another fall. And
<v Speaker 1>you keep hearing these stories and look as therapeutic as
<v Speaker 1>it may be for him to travel still and go
<v Speaker 1>out there and work, it just sounds to me like
<v Speaker 1>that's just a very bad idea. The problem is that
<v Speaker 1>even at home he's still falling. He really needs somebody
<v Speaker 1>who can be there with him twenty four hours a day,
<v Speaker 1>like round the clock, like a nurse's aid or so,
<v Speaker 1>or at least maybe not twenty four hours. But I
<v Speaker 1>don't get the sense that he has anybody kind of
<v Speaker 1>looking after him, which he could definitely use. He's had
<v Speaker 1>a lot of health issues and challenges that he's had
<v Speaker 1>to overcome. Is going to continue happening, though, until one
<v Speaker 1>day he falls his phone's not there, and then what's
<v Speaker 1>he going to do? Right, That's already happened a few
<v Speaker 1>times where he's fallen and his phone wasn't on him
<v Speaker 1>and he laid there for hours, and you just, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you hate to think about somebody walking in on him
<v Speaker 1>and finding him one day, and you know it turns
<v Speaker 1>into a tragic situation. So I don't know what he's
<v Speaker 1>in the hospital for specifically this time. Hopefully he's getting
<v Speaker 1>whatever care he needs. Hopefully those other tests come back negative,
<v Speaker 1>because that would be awful if he tested positive for
<v Speaker 1>some sort of dementia. But clearly he's having issues with
<v Speaker 1>his legs and keeping his balance and this is just
<v Speaker 1>going to keep happening. He really should not be traveling.
<v Speaker 1>FTR is taking a break from aaw for the first
<v Speaker 1>time in over a decade. Dax Harwood took to Instagram
<v Speaker 1>the other day to post this. He says, since the
<v Speaker 1>summer of twenty fourteen, the revival FTR, Dawson and Dash,
<v Speaker 1>Dax in Cash, whatever you want to call us, we've
<v Speaker 1>had the pedal to the metal. Aside from my bicep
<v Speaker 1>tear in twenty seventeen, we've taken no time away from
<v Speaker 1>the job we've dreamed of having. Physically and mentally. We
<v Speaker 1>both became exhausted. We were two of the very bests
<v Speaker 1>or two of the very few. Sure it is my
<v Speaker 1>best talents that traveled and worked on both Collision and Dynamite.
<v Speaker 1>I have fought through three hematomas on my lower back,
<v Speaker 1>another bicep tear that I decided not to have surgery
<v Speaker 1>on a laborum tear from my groin to my hip,
<v Speaker 1>a shoulder that needs replacement, and probably a laundry list
<v Speaker 1>of other things. I'm too afraid to get checked out.
<v Speaker 1>For the first time in twelve years, we've decided to
<v Speaker 1>step away and take some time for ourselves and our families.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure when we will be back, what we
<v Speaker 1>are going to do, how much longer we have, or
<v Speaker 1>if we even need to prove anything at all anymore,
<v Speaker 1>although he did say they were going to be working
<v Speaker 1>two dates later this summer. There's going to be a
<v Speaker 1>match against the Good Brothers in Kentucky on August twenty second,
<v Speaker 1>and a date for rev Pro on August twenty ninth. Now,
<v Speaker 1>if you remember, about a month ago now, bodyslam dot
<v Speaker 1>net had a report that FTR was approaching their option
<v Speaker 1>year in AAW. They had signed four year deals back
<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty three, and they reported at the time.
<v Speaker 1>Sources close to the situation describe FTR as believing their
<v Speaker 1>value and consistency over the last several years should place
<v Speaker 1>them among aw's top tier acts financially. There has also
<v Speaker 1>reportedly been at least preliminary interest from WWE communicated through
<v Speaker 1>mutual contexts as the situation continues to draw attention internally,
<v Speaker 1>and like I remember reading that report and thinking, boy,
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like this is it's a very strategic report,
<v Speaker 1>Like somebody definitely wants to get the word out there
<v Speaker 1>so Tony Kahn will see it that you know, they
<v Speaker 1>feel like they should be among the highest paid. They
<v Speaker 1>are getting interest in WWE potentially, you know, basically like
<v Speaker 1>re sign us for more money and we'll stay. Was
<v Speaker 1>kind of the message out of that. I'm taking this
<v Speaker 1>at phase value, you that they really are just taking
<v Speaker 1>a break to heal up and be with their families
<v Speaker 1>for a while. Maybe there's nothing creatively for them to do.
<v Speaker 1>But how much of this is going to play into
<v Speaker 1>the fact that they apparently have an option year coming
<v Speaker 1>up and they're probably looking for a better deal. Right again,
<v Speaker 1>I said it earlier when I was talking about the
<v Speaker 1>TNA stuff. It is a business. Follow the money. If
<v Speaker 1>they feel like they can make more money somewhere else,
<v Speaker 1>or if they feel like they're not being compensated in
<v Speaker 1>the way that they should be, or they other people
<v Speaker 1>on the roster are making more than us, and look
<v Speaker 1>at all the you know, the great matches we've had
<v Speaker 1>and the injuries and everything. Then you know they're going
<v Speaker 1>to make whatever decision they have to make based upon that.
<v Speaker 1>I cannot imagine them going back to WWE, though, even
<v Speaker 1>for more money and being happy there. So I still
<v Speaker 1>think AW is their best option unless they just want
<v Speaker 1>to go fully independent. It's not like they're going to
<v Speaker 1>be hurting for work on the independent scene. They can
<v Speaker 1>go overseas, they can make a lot of money. But
<v Speaker 1>if they go to WWE, WWE does not value tag
<v Speaker 1>team wrestling. FTR is all about tag ta wrestling. Like
<v Speaker 1>the two don't jive. It's like oil and water. They
<v Speaker 1>don't go together. They're going to be miserable there. I
<v Speaker 1>can't imagine them wanting to leave and go to WWI.
<v Speaker 1>Now Forbidden Door is next Sunday. We're a week away
<v Speaker 1>from how many Forbidden Doors is this? Now? First one
<v Speaker 1>was what in twenty twenty two? Right? This would be
<v Speaker 1>the fourth or fifth one. Now they're in San Jose
<v Speaker 1>and the card. I don't want to say the card
<v Speaker 1>is complete. The card is never complete. When you still
<v Speaker 1>have the go home shows on AW television, there's always
<v Speaker 1>going to be more matches added here, but we had
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of new ones that were added. I'm just
<v Speaker 1>going to read the card here. I don't even know
<v Speaker 1>that I'm going to do predictions yet for everything. I
<v Speaker 1>may save that for the Uncrowned Wrestling show on Tuesday.
<v Speaker 1>But there was a report from Fightful Select that noted
<v Speaker 1>multiple talents across the different promotions involved here were still
<v Speaker 1>unaware of their plans for the show. Talents that Fightful
<v Speaker 1>spoke with shared that some of them have not been
<v Speaker 1>told about their plans, although some talents claim that this
<v Speaker 1>was not out of the ordinary and they would find
<v Speaker 1>out about their matches on the week of the event.
<v Speaker 1>And that is the nature of a lot of these
<v Speaker 1>forbidden door shows, isn't it. There are matches on the
<v Speaker 1>card that just feel very thrown together at the last minute,
<v Speaker 1>and so not surprising that some of the talents themselves
<v Speaker 1>would not even know what the hell they're doing or
<v Speaker 1>if they're even on the show. But this is the
<v Speaker 1>lineup as it currently stands. We have let me let
<v Speaker 1>me start from the bottom here because on the Bay
<v Speaker 1>in pre show, they've announced the women's tag team champions
<v Speaker 1>Divine Dominion, Meghan Bain and Lena Cross are going to
<v Speaker 1>be defending against Thunder Rosa and Olympia from CMLL. The
<v Speaker 1>Young Bucks are going to be taking on El Sky
<v Speaker 1>Team Mystico and Mascarriderata and Unbound Company Shingo Takagi and Titan.
<v Speaker 1>It's going to be a three way tag team match,
<v Speaker 1>a little bit of that forbidden door flavor in there.
<v Speaker 1>Showta Umino, the new IWGP Global Champion, is going to
<v Speaker 1>be defending against Pack Omega one on one with Zach
<v Speaker 1>Saber Junior, Adam Copeland and Christian Cage defend their AW
<v Speaker 1>Tag team titles against the Dogs David Finley and Clark Connors.
<v Speaker 1>We got John Moxley defending the Continental Championship against Bandido.
<v Speaker 1>Tecla is going to put her AW Women's World Championship
<v Speaker 1>on the line against Starlight Kid, who was very good.
<v Speaker 1>See that. To me, that's a forbidden door match right there.
<v Speaker 1>Tekla has been doing everything she can to really push
<v Speaker 1>this hole, like her versus Stardom few. She's literally spat
<v Speaker 1>on the logo, She's beaten up the president. She appeared
<v Speaker 1>at the Stardom Show in Japan the other night again
<v Speaker 1>tormenting their president, Taro Okada, she attacked him, she tried
<v Speaker 1>to shave his head. So they've done a good job
<v Speaker 1>with this. This really does feel like there's bad blood there,
<v Speaker 1>and so that's gonna be the aw Women's championship match. Now.
<v Speaker 1>Also on this show, we have the finals of the
<v Speaker 1>men's and women's owen Hart Foundation tournaments, and on the
<v Speaker 1>women's side, the question was who would Mercedes Monet be
<v Speaker 1>wrestling on that show. Now, it seemed pretty clear that
<v Speaker 1>the big match to do would be Mercedes against the Athena.
<v Speaker 1>We haven't seen that match in a very long time,
<v Speaker 1>right well over a year, and Mercedes won that one.
<v Speaker 1>And now the big tournament final, the winner goes on
<v Speaker 1>to Wembley Stadium to wrestle for the World Championship, and
<v Speaker 1>this could be Athenis chance to get a win over
<v Speaker 1>Mercedes and then maybe Mercedes could win the belt at Redemption,
<v Speaker 1>we can get a title match. There's yeah, you're going
<v Speaker 1>through all these different ideas in your mind. Meanwhile, we
<v Speaker 1>have the wrong person involved because Athena is not even
<v Speaker 1>going to the finals of this tournament because she wrestled
<v Speaker 1>Maya World on collision in Maya World Shock the World
<v Speaker 1>for the second time in this tournament, although this was
<v Speaker 1>a much bigger surprise than her beating sky Blue. But
<v Speaker 1>back up a little bit here. So this was supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be Serree's spot. Serie had a neck injury. She
<v Speaker 1>announced it she was taking a month off. Tony Kahan
<v Speaker 1>announced her anyway for the owen Hart Tournament, and she
<v Speaker 1>fle and she had to be cleared first by the
<v Speaker 1>aw medical doctors and she wasn't, and so Maya World
<v Speaker 1>was a substitute force Toree Maya World. Also, earlier that
<v Speaker 1>week she had lost her brother in a terrible accident,
<v Speaker 1>only twenty five years old. She was grieving. Tony Kahm
<v Speaker 1>was like, be home with your family. She said, no,
<v Speaker 1>I need to be here. So she got a win
<v Speaker 1>and it was a feel good win. And the match
<v Speaker 1>with sky Blue was you know, it was a fine match.
<v Speaker 1>But I didn't really give a second thought to the
<v Speaker 1>idea that she would make it beyond the semi finals.
<v Speaker 1>I said, yeah, she beat sky Blue, that's fine, but
<v Speaker 1>she's not gonna beat Athena. I mean, come on now,
<v Speaker 1>she's the forever Ring of Honor Women's Champion, and yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is forbidden door. You want to do the biggest
<v Speaker 1>possible match on that show. They have their match on
<v Speaker 1>Collision and she beats Athena, and Athena had a look
<v Speaker 1>on her face. I think Athena actually posted the meme.
<v Speaker 1>It was like her shocked face next to Pikachu's shocked face.
<v Speaker 1>She was stunned, She couldn't believe it, and she was
<v Speaker 1>making like, you know, she was paying respect to her.
<v Speaker 1>When it was over and Mercedes came out, they ended
<v Speaker 1>up putting a beating on Maya World. So Mercedes and
<v Speaker 1>Athena are working together, and Maya World is now going
<v Speaker 1>to go to Forbidden Door next weekend and challenge Mercedes Monae,
<v Speaker 1>a match that she has in the past. Set is
<v Speaker 1>her all time dream match for her. It's a dream
<v Speaker 1>come true to be in there with Mercedes, and I
<v Speaker 1>have no doubt knowing that and knowing Mercedes her track
<v Speaker 1>record on these pay per views, they're going to go
<v Speaker 1>out there and they're going to have a killer match.
<v Speaker 1>So that's great. I'm still expecting them to have a
<v Speaker 1>killer match. I look at this though, we were robbed
<v Speaker 1>of an Athena Mercedes final, which is very upsetting to me,
<v Speaker 1>but at the same time it makes me wonder, by
<v Speaker 1>the way, if Willow Nightingale was supposed to go to
<v Speaker 1>the finals against Athena or Serie, if that was the
<v Speaker 1>plan here, because there have been a lot of changes
<v Speaker 1>in this tournament. You know, Willow got replaced by Mercedes,
<v Speaker 1>and it's a legit hitimate injury that Willow has. So
<v Speaker 1>Mercedes was, as far as we know, not even supposed
<v Speaker 1>to be in this tournament unless you would have been
<v Speaker 1>slotted in somewhere else at the last minute. So she
<v Speaker 1>gets put in there when she wasn't even supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be in there, and Siri had an injury she couldn't go,
<v Speaker 1>Maya World gets the spot. Now she's going to the finals.
<v Speaker 1>Look at the people that we have in the finals
<v Speaker 1>of this tournament. Both women that are in the finals
<v Speaker 1>of the Owen Heart Tournament were not even announced for
<v Speaker 1>the tournament when the bracket was initially announced. Like Mercedes
<v Speaker 1>wasn't even in the tournament, Maya World wasn't in the tournament,
<v Speaker 1>and now they're wrestling in the final. If like it'd
<v Speaker 1>be one thing if there was one person in the
<v Speaker 1>finals who wasn't originally in the bracket. To have both
<v Speaker 1>of them, though, like that is very strange the way
<v Speaker 1>it all worked out. Now, I had Mercedes losing to
<v Speaker 1>Athena in the finals, and I can't help but think
<v Speaker 1>the end result here is still going to be the same.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like Tony Kahan has decided to go all
<v Speaker 1>the way here with my world because whether it would
<v Speaker 1>have been Athena or now Maya Mercedes. She still has
<v Speaker 1>one belt. She's still walking around with that owen Hart belt.
<v Speaker 1>Now I know she doesn't defend it well, she kind
<v Speaker 1>of is defending it in this tournament. She still has
<v Speaker 1>one belt left. She lost all of her other championship.
<v Speaker 1>She was the belt collector, thirteen belts Monette. One by
<v Speaker 1>one by one, she lost all of those belts. She
<v Speaker 1>still has one left. She's got to lose that belt.
<v Speaker 1>Someone has to take it from her. And I think
<v Speaker 1>now it's going to be Maya World. I think Maya
<v Speaker 1>World is going to go to all in and challenge
<v Speaker 1>for the championship. I feel like Tony Khan has made
<v Speaker 1>that decision. Now, maybe Mercedes wins and then she'll wrestle Tekla.
<v Speaker 1>It's very possible, and I'm sure Mercedes and Techla would
<v Speaker 1>have a hell of a match, right unless Techla loses
<v Speaker 1>the belt to somebody else before then. But all of
<v Speaker 1>this just seems to be setting up a Maya World
<v Speaker 1>feel good win in the Owen Heart Tour. And I
<v Speaker 1>can understand Tony looking at this and going, Okay, we
<v Speaker 1>have to we have to strike. We have to strike
<v Speaker 1>right now. Right, There's a lot of emotion around Maya
<v Speaker 1>and there's this great story to follow of her having
<v Speaker 1>all this unexpected success. She wasn't even supposed to be
<v Speaker 1>in the tournament. Let's just go all the way with her.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, is that is that the match that
<v Speaker 1>you know people are are going to want to see
<v Speaker 1>at Wembley Stadium? Yeah, I don't know, But you know what,
<v Speaker 1>look at it a different way. This is an opportunity
<v Speaker 1>here for Tony to make a new star, right we
<v Speaker 1>talk about that, We talk about like what new stars
<v Speaker 1>are being made here. If coming out of this tournament,
<v Speaker 1>Maya World becomes a real player in the women's division,
<v Speaker 1>then credit to them. They will have made a new
<v Speaker 1>star out of it. So let's see. Maybe maybe at
<v Speaker 1>the end of the day, it'll all be worth it
<v Speaker 1>for that reason alone, because I just feel like with
<v Speaker 1>that one belt left, it would actually make more sense
<v Speaker 1>for her to lose it, and in order for her
<v Speaker 1>to lose the owen hart belshe has to lose the tournament.
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<v Speaker 1>Now on the men's side, we have swerved Strickland taking
<v Speaker 1>on will Ospray that right there could easily be the
<v Speaker 1>main event of this show. It will not be the
<v Speaker 1>main event of this show. It'll be my main event.
<v Speaker 1>They had a great match two years ago for the
<v Speaker 1>championship on this very same pay per view. I have
<v Speaker 1>no doubt that this match is gonna go out there
<v Speaker 1>and steal the show, and it's going to be a
<v Speaker 1>hell of a fucking match. But there's no way will
<v Speaker 1>Osprey is not winning this match. Will Osprey is going
<v Speaker 1>to Wembley Stadium. He will be challenging for the championship.
<v Speaker 1>This can go no other way, and the main event
<v Speaker 1>as it currently stands is the twelve man six on
<v Speaker 1>six steel cage match MJF, Kevin Knight, Kyle Fletcher, Jake
<v Speaker 1>Doyle and Andrade l Edelo representing the don Kallis family
<v Speaker 1>taking on Mark Briscoe, Kyle O'Reilly, Orange, Cassidy Roderick Strong,
<v Speaker 1>Darby Allen and Kenoski Takeshta. They all had a big
<v Speaker 1>twelve man tag by the way on Dynamite on Wednesday
<v Speaker 1>that the Heels won. Of course, the Heels won because
<v Speaker 1>the Heels are fucking losing on the pay per view
<v Speaker 1>because Mark Briscoe has to win to get his championship match.
<v Speaker 1>That's how that's gonna go. But MJF is also nursing
<v Speaker 1>a hyper extended knee. His knee was all wrapped up
<v Speaker 1>on Wednesday. I mean, it's not like he's going to
<v Speaker 1>be cowering in the corner for thirty minutes, but this
<v Speaker 1>is a way to at least protect him in so
<v Speaker 1>much as he won't have to do as much as
<v Speaker 1>he would if it was a singles match. And that's
<v Speaker 1>the way the card looks so far. I mean, on paper,
<v Speaker 1>there's plenty of matches that could end up being a
<v Speaker 1>show stealer. It's just again this whole forbidden door concept.
<v Speaker 1>As I've been saying, the bloom for me and was
<v Speaker 1>off the Rows a couple of years ago. You know,
<v Speaker 1>most of these matches when you look at them, these
<v Speaker 1>are ADW matches. Now they've tried in the last several days,
<v Speaker 1>they have added a bunch of matches that have that
<v Speaker 1>forbidden door flavored to them that we're kind of thrown
<v Speaker 1>together at the last minute here. So it's going to
<v Speaker 1>be a good show. I just I can't get excited
<v Speaker 1>for it in the way that I used to Jericho
<v Speaker 1>and Champa. By the way which I thought might happen
<v Speaker 1>on this show is not happening a forbidden door. They
<v Speaker 1>had a segment on Collision where they made it official
<v Speaker 1>for the Beach Break episode of Dynamite, which is coming
<v Speaker 1>up on July eighth from Clearwater, Florida. That's that location.
<v Speaker 1>They're going to be running by the beach. It's outdoors visually,
<v Speaker 1>it's probably going to look great. So that's where that
<v Speaker 1>match is going to be taking place. And the Duke
<v Speaker 1>of Dorchester, Duke Dougherty real name Pete Doherty, passed away
<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday, the age of eighty five. The Cauliflower Alley
<v Speaker 1>Club made the announcement. They said, as per his friend
<v Speaker 1>Danny Davis, the CA is saddened to hear the unforgettable
<v Speaker 1>Pete Doherty has passed away the age of eighty five,
<v Speaker 1>known to fans everywhere as the Duke of Dorchester, a
<v Speaker 1>true character in professional wrestling who brought charisma along with
<v Speaker 1>a larger than life personality to every arena he stepped into.
<v Speaker 1>We send our condolences to his family and friends. He
<v Speaker 1>was generally used as an enhancement talent in the Northeast
<v Speaker 1>throughout the seventies and eighties, although he did challenge for
<v Speaker 1>all the WWF titles at different points, including an intercontinental
<v Speaker 1>title match against Tito Santana. He had a WWF title
<v Speaker 1>match against Bob Backland, and he was from Dorchester, Massachusetts,
<v Speaker 1>which is where the whole Duke of Dorchester nickname comes from.
<v Speaker 1>Some notable matches for him he lost to the Junkyard
<v Speaker 1>Dog on the very first Saturday Nights main event, and
<v Speaker 1>he wrestled in the last non televised King of the
<v Speaker 1>Ring tournament in nineteen ninety one as a replacement for
<v Speaker 1>Kerry von Erik. He lost to the eventual winner, Breught
<v Speaker 1>the Hitman Heart only took about thirty seconds in the
<v Speaker 1>opening round, and he wrestled his last match in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety two against the Latin Fury better known as Conan.
<v Speaker 1>I can't vouch for the Duke when it comes to
<v Speaker 1>in the ring. I only saw some very scattershot matches
<v Speaker 1>of his. I'm sure he was a perfectly capable worker
<v Speaker 1>of that era. What I knew of him was his
<v Speaker 1>commentary on some of those WWP shows that aired on Nessen,
<v Speaker 1>probably from the Boston Garden. I assume he would do
<v Speaker 1>color commentary for those shows, and I thought he was
<v Speaker 1>fucking terrible. Like I'm sorry, I don't mean to speak
<v Speaker 1>ill of the dead. I just have to be I
<v Speaker 1>don't know when I'm going to be able to talk
<v Speaker 1>about the Duke of Dorchester again, so I'm just going
<v Speaker 1>to say what's on my mind here. I just got
<v Speaker 1>to be honest. I mean, his voice on those shows
<v Speaker 1>was like nails on a fucking chalkboard. I know he
<v Speaker 1>was a heel and he was playing up the heel shtick,
<v Speaker 1>but like whenever there was a match on Primetime wrestling
<v Speaker 1>or maybe an old coliseum video and I heard his
<v Speaker 1>voice on there, it would just ruin the entire match
<v Speaker 1>for me, like I did not want to watch the match.
<v Speaker 1>God that I hate his commentary. He had one of
<v Speaker 1>those voices that was just it was unmistakable, I'll say
<v Speaker 1>that much. He had one of those voices that when
<v Speaker 1>you heard it, you do exactly who it was. It
<v Speaker 1>was definitely a sound that was unique to him. I'm
<v Speaker 1>sorry he passed away though, But this comes after the
<v Speaker 1>death of Eddie Andandlman on Monday, another famous name out
<v Speaker 1>of New England. I talked about him on the Uncrowned
<v Speaker 1>Wrestling show on Tuesday. Andlman was a Hall of Fame
<v Speaker 1>sports radio host out of Boston who created the King
<v Speaker 1>of the Ring. Never worked in the wrestling business, but
<v Speaker 1>he was friendly with the McMahon's. He came up with
<v Speaker 1>the idea for them to do a tournament as a
<v Speaker 1>charity event to help raise money for various children's nonprofits.
<v Speaker 1>This would be the first King of the Ring tournament
<v Speaker 1>that was ever held in nineteen eighty five. In those days,
<v Speaker 1>it was a non televised deal on the house shows
<v Speaker 1>for many years. He was on the Lapse Fan podcast
<v Speaker 1>a few year years ago. He claimed that first event
<v Speaker 1>raised more than one hundred thousand dollars. They did King
<v Speaker 1>of the Ring tournaments every year until the first one
<v Speaker 1>on pay per view every year except for nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>and nineteen ninety two for some reason. But then in
<v Speaker 1>ninety three they brought it to pay per view and
<v Speaker 1>Brett Hart won his second one because he had won
<v Speaker 1>the one prior to that in nineteen ninety one. All Right,
<v Speaker 1>mailbag questions, we got a lot of them. You could
<v Speaker 1>email me the Solomn Monster at gmail dot com. Please
<v Speaker 1>include your name and where you are from when you
<v Speaker 1>write in. You want to have a chance of hearing
<v Speaker 1>your question read here on this global podcast. It goes
<v Speaker 1>all over the world. I have been led to believe.
<v Speaker 1>In fact, I can't prove this, but I have been
<v Speaker 1>led to believe that the signal here from this show
<v Speaker 1>is even beamed out to the other planets in the
<v Speaker 1>Solar System. There could be beings on Jupiter right now,
<v Speaker 1>on Saturn in Uranus that are listening. Yes, there there
<v Speaker 1>could very well be aliens in Uranus that are listening
<v Speaker 1>to this podcast right now. Doug from Santa Barbara, California.
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to get your thoughts on WWE making Cindy
<v Speaker 1>Lauper their San Diego Comic Con twenty twenty six exclusive
<v Speaker 1>action figure. It's a pretty cool set, but my first
<v Speaker 1>thought when I heard about this was she must have
<v Speaker 1>signed some sort of WWE deal for them to produce
<v Speaker 1>her figure. You've been harping for years wondering why she
<v Speaker 1>has never been inducted into the Hall of Fame when
<v Speaker 1>she was so integral in WrestleMania. Just wanted to get
<v Speaker 1>your thoughts on her getting her recognition and maybe a
<v Speaker 1>Legends deal was signed and this is the first step
<v Speaker 1>to an induction. I did see it, and I saw
<v Speaker 1>the video of her reaction to the set and taking
<v Speaker 1>the toys out and playing with them, and that was
<v Speaker 1>kind of cool. That does not mean, though, that she
<v Speaker 1>necessarily signed a deal with WWE. She may have been
<v Speaker 1>approached directly by Mattel and maybe they have to get
<v Speaker 1>WWE's blessing for it. But you know, she may have
<v Speaker 1>been approached by the toy company specifically and made the
<v Speaker 1>deal directly with Mattel, So it doesn't mean that she
<v Speaker 1>signed a Legends deal or anything like that. She absolutely
<v Speaker 1>deserves to be recognized in their Hall of Fame. But
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that this makes that any more or
<v Speaker 1>less likely than it was before. Like, I definitely don't
<v Speaker 1>see it happening next year with Mania being held in
<v Speaker 1>Saudi Arabia. But it's still a mystery to me. You
<v Speaker 1>know why it hasn't happened already when she's been open
<v Speaker 1>about never being offered a spot. There was this rumor
<v Speaker 1>for years about like, oh, she turned them down once,
<v Speaker 1>and then it was on Twitter she was responding maybe
<v Speaker 1>to something land Storm said, and she said no, that
<v Speaker 1>never happened. The offer was never made. You know, mister
<v Speaker 1>T is in there, but not her. Very weird. Both
<v Speaker 1>of them were equally important to the success of that
<v Speaker 1>first wrestle Media, maybe Lawper even more so than mister T,
<v Speaker 1>because through Lauper's involvement, we got the rock and wrestling
<v Speaker 1>stuff on MTV and everything that came from that, which
<v Speaker 1>then led into the first WrestleMania. So I think there's
<v Speaker 1>an argument to be made that if they're not equally
<v Speaker 1>as important, she may be more important than even he was.
<v Speaker 1>Was Anton from London. With Jay getting into the final
<v Speaker 1>of the King of the Ring, I had a thought
<v Speaker 1>around if the match ended up being Jay versus Cody
<v Speaker 1>for the WWE Championship. Could you see the Rock returning
<v Speaker 1>and costing Cody the title? There's the obvious storyline ties,
<v Speaker 1>But with WrestleMania being in Saudi next year, I don't
<v Speaker 1>think it's be too much of a stretch for them
<v Speaker 1>to want Rock there. Could they plant the seeds for
<v Speaker 1>a Rock versus Cody match there? If Rock is going
<v Speaker 1>to make an appearance in Saudi next year, we'll have
<v Speaker 1>nothing to do with anything that happens at Summerslim. Rock
<v Speaker 1>is not going to be appearing at Summer Slim. The
<v Speaker 1>answer is no. Chris from Manteca, California, I have a
<v Speaker 1>question or an idea for Forbidden Door. I do agree
<v Speaker 1>with you that it's lost its luster and just isn't
<v Speaker 1>what it was a few years ago. With that being said,
<v Speaker 1>what if Tony updates it by making it similar to
<v Speaker 1>a Survivor series type show. You could fill the card
<v Speaker 1>with some elimination type matches in regular matches, but I
<v Speaker 1>think it would be more effective than the current format.
<v Speaker 1>They could so move the pay per view to a
<v Speaker 1>slower time in the year for all of the promotions
<v Speaker 1>so they have time to do a proper build. I
<v Speaker 1>know on Tuesday on The Uncrowned Wrestling Show, you made
<v Speaker 1>the point that New Japan has lost a lot of
<v Speaker 1>their big names. It was something I originally didn't think about,
<v Speaker 1>but maybe they could use this to showcase some of
<v Speaker 1>the younger guys in aw instead of some of the
<v Speaker 1>top stars. Curious what your thoughts would be if you
<v Speaker 1>take the top stars out of it and nobody's gonna care, Like,
<v Speaker 1>that's the whole point. The top stars have to be involved.
<v Speaker 1>The closest thing to a real forbidden door match that
<v Speaker 1>we have on that pay per view next Sunday is
<v Speaker 1>Kenny Omega against Zach Saber Junior, precisely because it's two
<v Speaker 1>of the biggest names in either company facing off and
<v Speaker 1>going one on one. So no, if you use it
<v Speaker 1>as an exhibition exclusively for younger talent, I'm not saying
<v Speaker 1>that that's not cool at all, but you're not going
<v Speaker 1>to build an entire pay per view around that. It's
<v Speaker 1>going to fail. It's just not going to work. As
<v Speaker 1>far as having some sort of Survivor Series style matchup. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, look, if you wanted to take like the
<v Speaker 1>Blooding Guts concept and take that and use that on
<v Speaker 1>the Forbidden Door show where you take five or six
<v Speaker 1>people from AAW and then five or six from New
<v Speaker 1>Japan and maybe one year it's five or six from
<v Speaker 1>AW and then five or six from CML. Or I
<v Speaker 1>guess you could always do like a three a three
<v Speaker 1>way thing where you could have five AAW, five New Japan,
<v Speaker 1>five CML. Only problem there is if you're going to
<v Speaker 1>do a whole pay per view call Forbidden Door and
<v Speaker 1>you're taking fifteen of the biggest of the biggest names
<v Speaker 1>and putting him in one match. But I mean, it's
<v Speaker 1>not like they don't have talent to make other matches
<v Speaker 1>on the undercard work. Yes, I actually think that would
<v Speaker 1>be more in line with sort of an US versus them,
<v Speaker 1>you know, kind of of thing. But that's not really
<v Speaker 1>really what Tony. I don't know, he doesn't really portray
<v Speaker 1>it that way, so I don't know if that's even
<v Speaker 1>something they would want to do. But look, if he's
<v Speaker 1>going to keep the concept around, I'm all for trying
<v Speaker 1>to come up with new ways to freshen it up.
<v Speaker 1>That could be one way of doing it. But yes,
<v Speaker 1>part of the problem is New Japan has lost a
<v Speaker 1>lot of its big names. So like you think of
<v Speaker 1>like the five names that New Japan would pick, Let's say,
<v Speaker 1>to go up against five, but the very best that
<v Speaker 1>AAW has to offer. Who would those five names from
<v Speaker 1>New Japan be? Right? You would think a Shota Umiino
<v Speaker 1>because he's kind of the new guy they're building around
<v Speaker 1>as their champion. Callum Newman just held the championship for
<v Speaker 1>a few months, Shingo Takagi, Zach Saber Junior, and then
<v Speaker 1>I don't know who did you round out that team with.
<v Speaker 1>It doesn't hit quite the same way as it would
<v Speaker 1>have a few years ago, does it. You know, when
<v Speaker 1>they when they still had Tanahashi and Nito and some
<v Speaker 1>people that are in AW right now who are still
<v Speaker 1>working in New Japan. It just doesn't hit the same way.
<v Speaker 1>I just question how much of a real draw that
<v Speaker 1>would be. Derek from Arkansas. With all the talk about
<v Speaker 1>tournaments lately, what did you think of the Survivor series
<v Speaker 1>Deadly Game. This is one of the first pay per
<v Speaker 1>views I had on VHS as a kid, and still
<v Speaker 1>to this day, one of my favorite pay per views
<v Speaker 1>that WWE has ever done. With the Austin stuff Taker
<v Speaker 1>versus Caine getting a first round by and the Rock
<v Speaker 1>turning heel at the end. I thought it was great
<v Speaker 1>storytelling throughout the tournament. It was even a fun triple
<v Speaker 1>threat tag team title match with the Outlaws, the Headbangers
<v Speaker 1>and Mark Henry and d Lo Brown. I thought it
<v Speaker 1>was cool at the time. It's not the sort of
<v Speaker 1>thing that I really cared to go back and rewatch
<v Speaker 1>from start to finish. It's a lot of short matches,
<v Speaker 1>so you're right about the storytelling aspect. It was definitely
<v Speaker 1>a tournament that was more about telling the Austin story
<v Speaker 1>and the Rock story. Austin was trying to win and
<v Speaker 1>get a title shot. He got screwed in the middle
<v Speaker 1>when Shane McMahon turned heel and then with Rock. It's
<v Speaker 1>so weird, you know, coming out of SummerSlam that year,
<v Speaker 1>the fans just turned in babyface. He lost that ladder
<v Speaker 1>match of Madison Square Garden to Triple h and he
<v Speaker 1>didn't do anything different. The fans just gravitated to him
<v Speaker 1>because he was fucking cool. And for about two months there,
<v Speaker 1>two or three months, he and Austin were basically a
<v Speaker 1>one and a two as far as the top babyfaces
<v Speaker 1>in the company. But when you have an A one
<v Speaker 1>as strong as Austin, right, It's having an A two
<v Speaker 1>babyface like that is less important than having an A
<v Speaker 1>one heel. So it was the right move to make
<v Speaker 1>because Rock is the corporate champion. As the heel, he
<v Speaker 1>was just so great and he got to work with
<v Speaker 1>Austin and so we got a lot of great stuff
<v Speaker 1>out of it. So yeah, I mean, I'll give you
<v Speaker 1>that the storytelling aspect was there, but I mean in
<v Speaker 1>terms of I don't know, I mean, in terms of
<v Speaker 1>what people look for in a tournament. Are you looking
<v Speaker 1>for great wrestling matches? Are you looking for big angles
<v Speaker 1>and swerves and surprises? I would like to have a
<v Speaker 1>nice mix of both. To be honest with you, we
<v Speaker 1>didn't really get a lot of great wrestling in that tournament.
<v Speaker 1>But at the time I thought it was cool. I
<v Speaker 1>wasn't really I wasn't really a fan of not having
<v Speaker 1>any traditional Survivor Series elimination matches because they did the
<v Speaker 1>whole tournament in one night, so you didn't have time
<v Speaker 1>for anything else. So I mean, it's not my favorite show.
<v Speaker 1>Jamie from Los Angeles. With the recent reports of boso
<v Speaker 1>Enzo and cas, I don't know, why, I said, Boso Boso,
<v Speaker 1>I did it again, Enzo and Enzo and Cass potentially
<v Speaker 1>coming back. I'm gonna leave that in. I'm not even
<v Speaker 1>gonna edit that out. Do you think rather than bring
<v Speaker 1>them back as a tag team, it should be a
<v Speaker 1>manager wrestler duo. I honestly thought Enzo would have been
<v Speaker 1>better in that role back in twenty seventeen instead of
<v Speaker 1>going to two zero five Live and getting betrayed by Cass. Rather,
<v Speaker 1>I thought he should have managed Cass and potentially formed
<v Speaker 1>his own faction like Bobby Heenan and manage other wrestlers.
<v Speaker 1>Could you see Enzo as a manager? One hundred percent?
<v Speaker 1>One hundred percent. We were just having a conversation about that,
<v Speaker 1>JD and Jesse and me after the House of Glory show.
<v Speaker 1>He went out to a bar for a drink after
<v Speaker 1>and I don't even know how he got on this subject.
<v Speaker 1>I think Jesse maybe brought up Enzo and I said
<v Speaker 1>Enzo was miscast. Enzo really should have been a manager.
<v Speaker 1>I think that would have been a role he would
<v Speaker 1>have thrived in. And so I agree, And you know,
<v Speaker 1>Big we don't know where Big Bill's gonna go. Big
<v Speaker 1>Bill's contracts supposedly was up at the end of May,
<v Speaker 1>and here we are now June twenty. First, I haven't
<v Speaker 1>heard anything about Big Bills, so I don't know what's
<v Speaker 1>going on with him. But let's say he becomes a
<v Speaker 1>free agent and wwe wanted to bring him in. I'd
<v Speaker 1>like to see him get a singles run instead of
<v Speaker 1>him doing that, because again, the tag team division is dead.
<v Speaker 1>This is the problem. Bringing in one new team or
<v Speaker 1>two new teams is not going to work. Like they
<v Speaker 1>would have to have five or six, maybe not even
<v Speaker 1>five or six, like four or five new teams, real
<v Speaker 1>tag teams that they can bring up or bring in
<v Speaker 1>if they wanted to really inject some life into their
<v Speaker 1>tag team division. They don't have that. So let's say
<v Speaker 1>they put Enzo and cast back together right after the
<v Speaker 1>first few weeks, who do they have to work with? Like,
<v Speaker 1>by putting them in the tag team division, you have
<v Speaker 1>already set the ceiling on those two so incredibly low
<v Speaker 1>that it's unfair to the two of them. I think
<v Speaker 1>a Big Bill push with Enzo is his mouthpiece, would
<v Speaker 1>actually be a great idea. Que the Destroyer from Chicago.
<v Speaker 1>Do you think when fans say they only boo him
<v Speaker 1>or her because they think it's cool. It's a cop
<v Speaker 1>out defense for a babyface when a crowd is starting
<v Speaker 1>to sour on them or not fully get behind them.
<v Speaker 1>As a kid, I had to watch John Cena beat
<v Speaker 1>all of my favorites and I hated it, so I
<v Speaker 1>started booing him ever since. It wasn't because it was
<v Speaker 1>the trendy thing to do. It was because I thought
<v Speaker 1>he sucked and usually found the heel to be the
<v Speaker 1>more interesting character. BOYQ, he hasn't minced his words here.
<v Speaker 1>It feels like not having a babyface, especially now, get
<v Speaker 1>you or not liking a babyface, get you labeled as
<v Speaker 1>some kind of mark or kill joy when you're really
<v Speaker 1>just reacting to the product as you see it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's definitely a cop out sometime. I mean there are
<v Speaker 1>times where fans I feel like are just trying to
<v Speaker 1>be too cool for school and they will go against
<v Speaker 1>the grain just to be contrarian. I think that happens also,
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, I mean, look, the fans are going to
<v Speaker 1>react to the people they like, and they're going to
<v Speaker 1>react a different way to the people they don't like.
<v Speaker 1>And so if they don't react to somebody the way
<v Speaker 1>that you want them to automatically. Ah, the fans are
<v Speaker 1>just you know, they're being marks right. Yes, absolutely, that happens,
<v Speaker 1>one hundred percent. Kevin from Sycamore, Illinois. You've mentioned in
<v Speaker 1>the past in ninety four that you could have given
<v Speaker 1>Owen Hart a title run, even if it was a
<v Speaker 1>short one. At what time could a Razor Ramone title
<v Speaker 1>win have possibly worked? So, yes, I have said that.
<v Speaker 1>I have said that there was a period in between
<v Speaker 1>King of the Ring and SummerSlam where you could have
<v Speaker 1>given the belt to Owen and had Owen go into
<v Speaker 1>the cage match at Summer Slam defending against Brett and
<v Speaker 1>had Brett win the belt back there, and so Owen
<v Speaker 1>would have had I don't know, a month or six
<v Speaker 1>weeks or something. You absolutely could have done that. But
<v Speaker 1>that's the thing about Razor Ramone. I don't think there
<v Speaker 1>was a good time to put the belt on Razor. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>when he first came in as a heel, he wasn't
<v Speaker 1>world championship material. He was still a relative unknown. He
<v Speaker 1>was too new, and he went babyface pretty quick after that.
<v Speaker 1>I mean he came in it was like the fall
<v Speaker 1>of ninety two. I want to say late summer, early fall,
<v Speaker 1>and by the middle of ninety three, not even a
<v Speaker 1>year later, he was already a baby face. So I
<v Speaker 1>don't think that there was a good time for him
<v Speaker 1>to be champion from ninety two to ninety six. Now,
<v Speaker 1>had he stuck around and Knock gone to WCW, maybe
<v Speaker 1>he goes heel again, at some point, drops some of
<v Speaker 1>the Razor stick, gets a short heel run his champion.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe maybe Hall takes the belt off sewn at Survivor
<v Speaker 1>Series instead of Sid Right, that could have worked, maybe
<v Speaker 1>for a short run. Anything more than that. By that point,
<v Speaker 1>you know, his addiction problems were getting worse. And would
<v Speaker 1>they have trusted him with it. I mean they trusted
<v Speaker 1>Shawn Michaels and he was all fucked up. But Scott Hall,
<v Speaker 1>you know, great as he was, he was not Shawn Michaels. Right,
<v Speaker 1>very few people would be able to say that. So
<v Speaker 1>I don't think there was a good time for him
<v Speaker 1>to be the world champion while he was still there.
<v Speaker 1>You know, Vince put the belt on Diesel because he
<v Speaker 1>was big and he saw his next big star. Well
<v Speaker 1>he could have given the belt to Razor then, right.
<v Speaker 1>People might say that, Well, sure, but Razor wasn't someone
<v Speaker 1>that you were going to build your company around. You
<v Speaker 1>weren't going to make him your top guy. That's what
<v Speaker 1>Vince was looking to do. He tried to make Lex
<v Speaker 1>Luger the next Hulkgan. It didn't work. Brett Hart was
<v Speaker 1>popular with the fans, but I don't think Vince ever
<v Speaker 1>truly saw him as being that guy either, Right. I'm
<v Speaker 1>just it's being practical here and just looking at it
<v Speaker 1>through the lens of how I think Vince McMahon would
<v Speaker 1>have seen him at the time. But if you wanted
<v Speaker 1>to include him on your list of guys you never
<v Speaker 1>won a world title but should have. You know, I
<v Speaker 1>won't argue with you if you have Scott Hall somewhere
<v Speaker 1>on there. But you just have to keep in mind
<v Speaker 1>that at least part of the reason he was probably
<v Speaker 1>never considered for such a spot had to do with
<v Speaker 1>his own reputation. Molly from Toronto. There is that old
<v Speaker 1>phrase in wrestling, the man makes the title and not
<v Speaker 1>the title makes the man. Is there ever a time
<v Speaker 1>when it was the opposite, when the title did make
<v Speaker 1>the man or woman? This is my best David Schultz impression.
<v Speaker 1>There ps a little side story. The other day, I
<v Speaker 1>was babysitting my three year old niece and was watching
<v Speaker 1>your podcast. She asked, who's that. I told her he's
<v Speaker 1>the guy behind Heardy the Horse book that I got
<v Speaker 1>you for Christmas. She thought I was on a zoom
<v Speaker 1>call with you and was trying to say thank you
<v Speaker 1>and didn't understand why you weren't replying back. So I'll
<v Speaker 1>say it again, thank you. She loved it. See that's adorable.
<v Speaker 1>Tell her I said, you're welcome. I love hearing that.
<v Speaker 1>I believe it's true that it's more than It's more
<v Speaker 1>the man makes the title. It's not the other way around.
<v Speaker 1>John Cena, for example, with the US title in twenty fifteen,
<v Speaker 1>I think that's a good example of that. Gunther with
<v Speaker 1>the Intercontinental title in twenty twenty two. I mean, that
<v Speaker 1>thing had fallen off a cliff until they put it
<v Speaker 1>on him, and he helped bring a level of prestige
<v Speaker 1>to that title that had been missing for a very
<v Speaker 1>long time. Cody with the TNT title right Roman reigns
<v Speaker 1>right now with the World Heavyweight Championship because now that
<v Speaker 1>he's got that belt, you know, that makes it the
<v Speaker 1>top title in the company. First time that title gets
<v Speaker 1>the WrestleMania Night two main event is because Roman Reigns
<v Speaker 1>was winning it. I think that says it all, But
<v Speaker 1>I mean there are exceptions. I think. I mean, I
<v Speaker 1>think Triple H is probably the best one I could
<v Speaker 1>think of in two thousand, like ninety nine two thousand,
<v Speaker 1>where the title helped make the man that and mcfoley
<v Speaker 1>the title and mcfoley helped make Triple H. And if
<v Speaker 1>I don't if I had to throw one more in,
<v Speaker 1>uh you know, maybe Diesel title makes the men. I
<v Speaker 1>think that could be applicable to Diesel in ninety five,
<v Speaker 1>really cementing him as a main eventor Malik from Queens,
<v Speaker 1>New York. I was thinking what if King of the
<v Speaker 1>Ring had stuck around after two thousand and two? So
<v Speaker 1>I decided to list the wrestlers that I thought would
<v Speaker 1>win two thousand and three. John CENAH four, Randy Orton
<v Speaker 1>OH five, Chris Jericho O seven, Bobby Lashley OH nine,
<v Speaker 1>Jeff Hardy twenty eleven, CM Punk twenty twelve, Alberto Del
<v Speaker 1>Dipshit twenty thirteen, Daniel Bryan twenty fourteen, Dolph Ziggler twenty sixteen,
<v Speaker 1>Finn Balor twenty seventeen, Shinsky Nakamora twenty eighteen, Samoa Joe
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty, Rollins twenty twenty two, Kevin Owens and twenty
<v Speaker 1>twenty three La Night. That's funny. Sure, I'd be cool
<v Speaker 1>with those all, But maybe Jericho in five. I think
<v Speaker 1>Mohammed Hassan would have made for a better choice, just
<v Speaker 1>given the push that he was getting at the time.
<v Speaker 1>I think he would have gotten great heat for becoming king,
<v Speaker 1>and Jericho didn't need it to get that match that
<v Speaker 1>he had with John Cen at SummerSlam that year. But
<v Speaker 1>then if you do here's the thing though, if you
<v Speaker 1>do that right, if you do the Hassan angle in July,
<v Speaker 1>the terrorist angle, boy, they would have been in a
<v Speaker 1>real pickle if he was the King of the ring.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how they would have gotten out of that.
<v Speaker 1>Patrick from London just wondered what happened to George the
<v Speaker 1>security guard who worked at Madison Square Garden. Did you
<v Speaker 1>see him after the phone incident in late two thousand
<v Speaker 1>and nine when you accidentally passed up being seated right
<v Speaker 1>now to the Orton Kofe table spot. Also, are you
<v Speaker 1>ever in the UK? Your British fans would love to
<v Speaker 1>meet you, and I would love to meet my British fans.
<v Speaker 1>But I've not been to London, I've not been to Europe.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna have to change that at some point. Are
<v Speaker 1>you sure it was George by the way, and not Frank.
<v Speaker 1>I thought it was Frank who tried calling me or
<v Speaker 1>texting me, and I didn't see it until later on. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>because he worked in Madison Square Guard. He didn't just
<v Speaker 1>work in Madison Square Garden. He worked other events as
<v Speaker 1>well at that time. That's really where I knew him
<v Speaker 1>from were those other events, and we became very friendly.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know about the Garden, I mean, but as
<v Speaker 1>far as I know, he is still working those other events,
<v Speaker 1>although he's up there in Age now. I really should
<v Speaker 1>check in and see how he's doing. But yeah, man,
<v Speaker 1>I was. I was kicking myself for that one. I
<v Speaker 1>could have been right there for the big Boom drop spot.
<v Speaker 1>I could have been literally right there though late two
<v Speaker 1>thousand and nine. You're one of the ogs, aren't you. Man,
<v Speaker 1>Patrick's been listening for a long time. I talked about
<v Speaker 1>that on the SoundOff Freaking Lifetime ago. Lee from Thorn
<v Speaker 1>Gumbald uk Man. You guys in the UK have some
<v Speaker 1>funny Would that be a city? I don't even know
<v Speaker 1>what that would be. I know in Canada their provinces
<v Speaker 1>Thorn Gumbald. Would that be a town? Would that be
<v Speaker 1>the city? I don't know. Been listening twelve years and
<v Speaker 1>by far my favorite podcast question is about the World
<v Speaker 1>Cup or football in general. Are you watching it and
<v Speaker 1>have you been caught up in any buzz about it
<v Speaker 1>with it being held over your side of the water.
<v Speaker 1>I myself hope England does well, but I think the
<v Speaker 1>heat will prove difficult. Well, I know they got a
<v Speaker 1>big win over Croatia the other day. I don't have
<v Speaker 1>like a favorite team. I don't follow it really. I
<v Speaker 1>feel kind of left out because everyone's so excited about
<v Speaker 1>the World Cup, and I feel like I should, I
<v Speaker 1>should try to get into it. I feel like I
<v Speaker 1>would have fun with it, but I just I'm not
<v Speaker 1>really I'm not really familiar with any of the key
<v Speaker 1>play I mean, I know Messy obviously, but I'm not
<v Speaker 1>really familiar with any of the key players or who
<v Speaker 1>the favorites are. I don't even know who the favorite
<v Speaker 1>is this year. I mean, I think England is probably
<v Speaker 1>up there right, probably in the top five maybe, But no,
<v Speaker 1>I haven't been following it as closely as I probably should.
<v Speaker 1>But I think it's really cool how like into it
<v Speaker 1>everybody gets for their team and their country. I think
<v Speaker 1>that's cool. Zach from Liberty, Kentucky. I just wanted to
<v Speaker 1>say I'm enjoying your movie reviews. I'm always or it's
<v Speaker 1>always good to take a break from just the wrestling
<v Speaker 1>stuff and talk about something else that you love doing,
<v Speaker 1>and that is watching movies. I'm thinking about seeing the
<v Speaker 1>new Supergirl movie in a couple of weeks, and I'm
<v Speaker 1>definitely seeing Clay Face when it comes out. I'm also
<v Speaker 1>a huge Batman fan, so my question is by Rent
<v Speaker 1>and sell on these iconic Batman villains, the Joker, the Penguin,
<v Speaker 1>and the Riddler. Well, the answer is Joker, Riddler, and
<v Speaker 1>then Penguin in that order, although I still have to
<v Speaker 1>watch the Penguin series on HBO Max. You know, they
<v Speaker 1>just announced that they're not bringing it back. They're not
<v Speaker 1>renewing it for a second season, so I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if that's a bad thing or if the first one
<v Speaker 1>is better off on its own as like a mini series.
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna watch it anyway soon. But yes, I am
<v Speaker 1>a movie fan. I am a movie fan. And on
<v Speaker 1>that note, we have a question from Sufi from Malaysia.
<v Speaker 1>Now that you're catching up on films, I'm curious your
<v Speaker 1>thoughts on Iron Lung. Like Obsession in back Rooms. It's
<v Speaker 1>made by a YouTuber named Marketplier and it's independently made
<v Speaker 1>with self funding, self acting, writing, and directing. It's based
<v Speaker 1>on the indie horror game of the same name, and
<v Speaker 1>market Plier was a fan of it, so that's why
<v Speaker 1>he wanted to make a film out of it. Also,
<v Speaker 1>is there a horror genre or subgenre that you are
<v Speaker 1>not a fan of or doesn't click with you. I
<v Speaker 1>have not seen Iron Lung. This is the first I'm
<v Speaker 1>actually hearing of it. I will I will look into it.
<v Speaker 1>As far as subgenres, I would say splatterpunk is not
<v Speaker 1>really my thing, or a torture porn if you will.
<v Speaker 1>That's that's not what SAUW was at the beginning, but
<v Speaker 1>it's sort of degenerated into that over time. Although I
<v Speaker 1>never watched Saw X and people say that was one
<v Speaker 1>of the better sequels, but like I saw, Hostile wasn't
<v Speaker 1>really a fan terrifier, Like I'm just I'm not super
<v Speaker 1>into the hyper gory stuff where it just feels like
<v Speaker 1>it's hyper gory for the sake of shocking you. So
<v Speaker 1>that's one subgenre that doesn't really click with me. And
<v Speaker 1>I would say folk horror is another one, like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the stuff that's tied into like ancient settings and ancient rituals,
<v Speaker 1>you know that sort of thing. Not really big on
<v Speaker 1>that either, But I am a fan of most everything else.
<v Speaker 1>You know, slashers, sci fi horror, body horror like Playface
<v Speaker 1>is a body horror movie. I can't wait to see
<v Speaker 1>that one. It comes out in October. I still haven't
<v Speaker 1>seen The Substance, though I have that on my watch list.
<v Speaker 1>But on the subject of movies, I did mention that
<v Speaker 1>I saw Toy Story five the other day. I have
<v Speaker 1>seen all the previous ones. I saw Toy Story four
<v Speaker 1>in theaters and my god, people were just they were
<v Speaker 1>they were in tears as I looked around the theater.
<v Speaker 1>I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have
<v Speaker 1>a couple streaming down my own face, even though I
<v Speaker 1>thought going into it that do we really need a
<v Speaker 1>Toy Story four? And then everyone's fucking bawling their eyes out.
<v Speaker 1>So of course I was going to see the new
<v Speaker 1>Toy Story movie. It has been three hundred and sixty
<v Speaker 1>three episodes since I have reviewed a Toy Story movie
<v Speaker 1>on this podcast, seven years, which is probably the average
<v Speaker 1>age of the people who should be seeing these movies.
<v Speaker 1>But they've been cranking them out since nineteen ninety five,
<v Speaker 1>So of course the people who saw them in nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety five are going to want to go see these also,
<v Speaker 1>and they're thirty years older now, probably seeing it with
<v Speaker 1>their own kids, which is really cool. I don't have
<v Speaker 1>that luxury, but I still go and see them. Here's
<v Speaker 1>the thing about the last movie. I feel like the
<v Speaker 1>last movie. I mean, look, the last movie gets a
<v Speaker 1>lot of love, but there are a lot of people
<v Speaker 1>who think, oh, it's you know, it wasn't as good
<v Speaker 1>as the other ones. And they debuted Fourky in that movie, right,
<v Speaker 1>Fourky was the new character in the fourth movie or Sporky. No,
<v Speaker 1>it was foky. Fourky was a spork that's what it was.
<v Speaker 1>The new character in this or one of them. And
<v Speaker 1>this movie is smarty Pants. And when you see the
<v Speaker 1>movie and you hear the voice you'll probably be able
<v Speaker 1>to figure out who does the voice over for it.
<v Speaker 1>And so I thought that this movie is very similar
<v Speaker 1>to the other Toy Story movies and that it has
<v Speaker 1>its emotional moments. It has its emotional moments. They know
<v Speaker 1>how to get you right in the fields, right when
<v Speaker 1>the time is right. It doesn't seem to matter how
<v Speaker 1>many years go by and how much old are I
<v Speaker 1>might get. I just I will always go and see
<v Speaker 1>a new Toy Story movie. If they do Toy Story six,
<v Speaker 1>which I'm sure they will, I'll be there to see it.
<v Speaker 1>And really, they could continue to do these movies infinitely,
<v Speaker 1>or at least until you know, we don't have Tom
<v Speaker 1>Hanks and Tim Allen anymore, because once you lose those two,
<v Speaker 1>you can't really do Toy Story anymore. But you know,
<v Speaker 1>the thing about Toy Story is the reason it works.
<v Speaker 1>And I said this in my review on my letterbox,
<v Speaker 1>like they have heart at its core. Like these movies
<v Speaker 1>they have heart. They make you care about these characters,
<v Speaker 1>even though it's an animated movie and there are a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of fucking toys, right, They make you care about
<v Speaker 1>these characters. And whether they make you laugh, they make
<v Speaker 1>you cry, whatever it may be, and I will say
<v Speaker 1>that for me, this Toy Story is the weakest of
<v Speaker 1>all five movies, because the first one, to me is
<v Speaker 1>and will forever be, the best out of all of them.
<v Speaker 1>But this was still an excellent movie, and I think
<v Speaker 1>I ranked it four stars. Look, it's the weakest of
<v Speaker 1>the five, and I still gave it four stars. So
<v Speaker 1>I mean, what does that tell you. I was curious,
<v Speaker 1>like I actually looked up the ratings for each of
<v Speaker 1>them on Rotten Tomatoes, and it's amazing. Like it's got
<v Speaker 1>to be the only movie franchise that has gone five
<v Speaker 1>films and every film is at least like ninety four
<v Speaker 1>ninety five percent fresh like it. It's crazy, but it
<v Speaker 1>speaks to the quality of these movies. And so I
<v Speaker 1>will simply leave you with this. I'm going to repeat
<v Speaker 1>something I said on that episode of the sound Off
<v Speaker 1>when I reviewed the fourth one, because I think the
<v Speaker 1>same thing applies here. This is a movie that did
<v Speaker 1>not need to be made, but I'm very happy it was.
<v Speaker 1>That's the best endorsement I can give. If you want
<v Speaker 1>to follow me on Letterbox, by the way, I'm on
<v Speaker 1>there at the Solemn Monster. I've been enjoying it. People
<v Speaker 1>told me you got to get on there, so I
<v Speaker 1>created this account. Now I'm like addicted to it now,
<v Speaker 1>I mean like chiming in on stuff. I'm watching stuff
<v Speaker 1>that isn't even necessarily new. I finally saw the movie
<v Speaker 1>Contagion the other day, which came out in twenty eleven.
<v Speaker 1>And my god, if you saw a Contagion, I look,
<v Speaker 1>it came out in twenty eleven. I didn't see it
<v Speaker 1>until now. Okay, we're talking like after COVID. Holy shit,
<v Speaker 1>did they not predict that or what in that movie?
<v Speaker 1>And that ending threw me for a loop. So I
<v Speaker 1>saw that. I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which
<v Speaker 1>somehow I hadn't seen until just now, and you know,
<v Speaker 1>with with Donald Sutherland, and I enjoyed that. So as
<v Speaker 1>I watch more of these, I'll make sure I rate
<v Speaker 1>and review them. Anyway, keep emailing me the Solo Monster
<v Speaker 1>at gmail dot com, and I will be back with you.
<v Speaker 1>Next Sunday will be a brand new episode. That'll be
<v Speaker 1>nine sixty nine. It's it's actually gonna be a very
<v Speaker 1>busy day next Sunday. I'm gonna do the sound off
<v Speaker 1>as normal. But Slammiversary is airing at four pm Eastern.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's a three pm pre show, but at
<v Speaker 1>four pm Eastern. Next Sunday Slammiversary and then that night
<v Speaker 1>and has the Great American Bash airing on the CW
<v Speaker 1>Network for free, competing with aw Forbidden Door, and that's
<v Speaker 1>on pay per view, although I think that pre show
<v Speaker 1>starts at seven. Great American Bash starts at seven, and
<v Speaker 1>the main card for Forbidden Door starts at eight. I'm
<v Speaker 1>not planning on being live after Forbidden Door, just so
<v Speaker 1>you know. I will be live though after Night of
<v Speaker 1>Champions on Saturday. That's a little more manageable. That's at
<v Speaker 1>one o'clock Eastern. As soon as Night of Champions is
<v Speaker 1>over next Saturday, come on by the YouTube channel. I'll
<v Speaker 1>be live for the review, so you're getting a double
<v Speaker 1>podcast from the next weekend. But otherwise I think everything
<v Speaker 1>is pretty much normal. We got the RAW post show
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube on Monday night. Actually, no, that's not true.
<v Speaker 1>Raw is in London tomorrow. I forgot about that. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>there at the two. So Raw is going to be
<v Speaker 1>airing at two pm Eastern on Netflix, which means I
<v Speaker 1>will go live probably immediately after Raw. So figure five
<v Speaker 1>o'clock Eastern time. Tomorrow we'll do an earlier raw stream.
<v Speaker 1>I almost forgot about that brand new episode of The
<v Speaker 1>un Crowned Wrestling Show on Tuesday. You know where to
<v Speaker 1>find that, the Ariel Helwani show feed or the dedicated
<v Speaker 1>feed that we have now for the un Crowned Wrestling Show.
<v Speaker 1>Tuesday night will be a brand new installment of TNT
<v Speaker 1>with JD Tuesday Night Titans. Wednesday is the Dynamite Post show,
<v Speaker 1>and then Friday, even though it's a tape show, we
<v Speaker 1>will go live for what is going to be the
<v Speaker 1>final three hours SmackDown. Maybe you know they had a
<v Speaker 1>funeral for the gingerbread Men a few weeks ago, maybe
<v Speaker 1>we should host a funeral for three hour Smackdowns on Friday.
<v Speaker 1>So everybody wear your best attire, bust out the black suits,
<v Speaker 1>and if you have anything you'd like to say, if
<v Speaker 1>you have a speech that you want to prepare, super
<v Speaker 1>chats will be open. So I will see you all
<v Speaker 1>there to pay your respects and then back here next
<v Speaker 1>Sunday for a brand new sound up. So until then,
<v Speaker 1>be well, stay safe, haby still have's a great week
<v Speaker 1>and I will see you back here for more next
<v Speaker 1>time on the sound off until then, Take care, guys.
<v Speaker 1>The Soln Monster sounds off. Duffs Vid says, why shouldn't
<v Speaker 1>you play poker with a plumber? Because it did? Flush?
<v Speaker 1>Beats a full house every time, and I give you
<v Speaker 1>a food, said flushed. I had to give you a flush, Ashley,
<v Speaker 1>kind of what I'm dealing with right now. Actually, I
<v Speaker 1>have a toilet here that will not stop flushing. It's
<v Speaker 1>just going and going and going and going and going,
<v Speaker 1>and it will not stop. And I go, what the
<v Speaker 1>fuck am I supposed to do? So I turn the
<v Speaker 1>water off. I know how to do that, and I'm
<v Speaker 1>waiting for this plumber to return, and I have no
<v Speaker 1>idea and I try to put the water back on
<v Speaker 1>and the flushing just continues. That's kind of annoying. Where's T.
<v Speaker 1>L Hopper when you need it?
<v Speaker 2>The Solo Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
<v Speaker 2>and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
<v Speaker 2>content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
<v Speaker 2>and X The Soln Monster.
<v Speaker 1>I love you so long,
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