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

<v Speaker 1>Sounds Off. I love your photo, Mama monster dude, I

<v Speaker 1>want your soul. Mind a woman. You got grown ass

<v Speaker 1>rustlers in the back going on Twitter. Come over here,

<v Speaker 1>het me. Is that hot patison you have legs? Week?

<v Speaker 1>I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.

<v Speaker 1>Now I have been begging him for a job on

<v Speaker 1>every every platform I can, and I want to know

<v Speaker 1>the reason why you won't. Park Welcome to episode nine

<v Speaker 1>seventy five of these Solemn Monsters Sounds Off for Sunday,

<v Speaker 1>August ninth, twenty twenty six. I am the Solemn Monster.

<v Speaker 1>Congrats are in order for Bianca bel Air and Montese Ford,

<v Speaker 1>who brought a new bouncing baby boy into the world

<v Speaker 1>last week. Romeo Leonardo Allen Crawford. I had these photos

<v Speaker 1>on my timeline last week of Bionca. She was looking

<v Speaker 1>like she was about ready to pop, and she did.

<v Speaker 1>She'll probably have abs again by the end of the week,

<v Speaker 1>So congrats to them, and congrats to everyone who had

<v Speaker 1>a hand in making High Intensity the success that it

<v Speaker 1>was for House of Glory on Friday night, jam packed

<v Speaker 1>standing room only inside the NYC Arena High Intensity was

<v Speaker 1>my first event with Hog back in twenty eighteen, so

<v Speaker 1>it holds a special place for me, and to see

<v Speaker 1>how we have only grown since then has been very

<v Speaker 1>cool to see. It was also our first time streaming

<v Speaker 1>one of our shows live and free on YouTube, and

<v Speaker 1>it was a big hit. We maxed out around four

<v Speaker 1>thousand viewers live, not bad I would save for our

<v Speaker 1>first time out. I know we picked up a few

<v Speaker 1>thousand new subscribers from Friday morning to where we are

<v Speaker 1>well even by Saturday morning, let alone by now, we're

<v Speaker 1>closing in on seventy thousand views and counting on the

<v Speaker 1>stream and it won't be our last. I'm hoping we

<v Speaker 1>can do the same for our upcoming shows in LA

<v Speaker 1>and Chicago next month, but we'll have more news on

<v Speaker 1>that very soon. And I know there was some complaints

<v Speaker 1>about the audio. There were some audio issues and we're

<v Speaker 1>gonna do our very best to get that sorted for

<v Speaker 1>the future. Just know that we are aware of it.

<v Speaker 1>But top to bottom, it was just a fun night

<v Speaker 1>of wrestling and a very newsworthy night of wrestling with

<v Speaker 1>Amazing Red beating Zilla FA two to open the show

<v Speaker 1>and win the Crown Jewel Championship, the one title that

<v Speaker 1>Red had never won in House of Glory. That makes

<v Speaker 1>him only the second person to win the Grand Slam,

<v Speaker 1>Charles Mason being the other. And after the match you

<v Speaker 1>may have seen, because this made news on all the

<v Speaker 1>wrestling news sites, Red got on the microphone and simply

<v Speaker 1>wish Zilla good luck. You can make of that what

<v Speaker 1>you will. You've seen the reports of Zilla being spotted

<v Speaker 1>at the WWE Performance Center. We know Zilla has family

<v Speaker 1>in that company. Jacob Fatu is a former Hog World champion.

<v Speaker 1>You know, Zilla has been with us for three years now,

<v Speaker 1>and to be able to call his matches as he

<v Speaker 1>has matured in that ring, I mean, it's been a

<v Speaker 1>lot of fun to watch. It's been a pleasure, yea,

<v Speaker 1>whether it was his Crown Jewel title defenses or his

<v Speaker 1>aw World Championship match with mjf earlier this year. One

<v Speaker 1>of the nicest people in the locker room, always very respectful.

<v Speaker 1>Every time we would see each other, always came over

<v Speaker 1>with a you know, like a hug and his smile

<v Speaker 1>like that just that energy about him, and I look

<v Speaker 1>forward to seeing what that next chapter looks like for him,

<v Speaker 1>because I'm sure He's gonna kill it wherever he goes.

<v Speaker 1>We had a surprise appearance by a Hook making his

<v Speaker 1>hog debut. Not the last time you're going to be

<v Speaker 1>seeing him in an hog ring. He's already been announced

<v Speaker 1>for our LA show next month. We had the Blackheart

<v Speaker 1>Leo Rush, our new Cruiserweight champion, with a win over

<v Speaker 1>Darren Richardson. I could not sit back and let things

<v Speaker 1>go down the way they did. I had to restart

<v Speaker 1>that match. I'm glad I did. Darren got what he deserved.

<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, but he did. Steph Delander and Man's they

<v Speaker 1>made a surprise appear and so I cleared it with

<v Speaker 1>SDL that she could be there, but she never said

<v Speaker 1>anything about Man's being there with her. So we're going

<v Speaker 1>to have to have a chat about that. Getting involved

<v Speaker 1>in Shatzi's match her title defense against Shana Basler, as

<v Speaker 1>did Leo Rush. He came to Shatzi's aid here, I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how he got under the ring. We had

<v Speaker 1>already seen him earlier in the show. He already wrestled.

<v Speaker 1>What a weird duo that is two blackhearts. Speaking of blackhearts,

<v Speaker 1>Midas Black that's ha Rt. That's the kind of black

<v Speaker 1>heart we're talking about. He's been training with Natty and

<v Speaker 1>TJ in the Dungeon for months. He and his tag

<v Speaker 1>team partner Jay Lyon, they've been on the rocks for

<v Speaker 1>a while now. It all came to a head Friday night.

<v Speaker 1>They beat the holy hell out of each other, only

<v Speaker 1>for dual Focus, the rookie team out of our sister promotion,

<v Speaker 1>Legacy Pro Wrestling, who got a shock win over Midas

<v Speaker 1>and Lion many many months ago, and that did not

<v Speaker 1>help Midas's downward spiral that he has been on ever since.

<v Speaker 1>They came out to try to put a stop to

<v Speaker 1>things when Midas took a chair to his partner, only

<v Speaker 1>for Lyon to put a chair in their backs, and

<v Speaker 1>just like that, main event is back together, although not

<v Speaker 1>in the way we all had hoped. In my reaction

<v Speaker 1>probably the same as your reaction initially seeing it, like

<v Speaker 1>what the hell is this about? These guys beat the

<v Speaker 1>shit out of each other for twenty minutes, and all

<v Speaker 1>of a sudden they're back together. But you know, look,

<v Speaker 1>brothers fight, and sometimes that's what you need to do.

<v Speaker 1>You already got to throw down, and you got to

<v Speaker 1>beat each other up, and then you put your differences

<v Speaker 1>aside and you come back together. And I guess that's

<v Speaker 1>what we're seeing here. We have to wait and see

<v Speaker 1>what they have to say about that. But we had

<v Speaker 1>the Hardys Matt and Jeff retaining their Hrog tag team

<v Speaker 1>titles in a three way over Ricky Sosa and Casey

<v Speaker 1>Navarro and the Hog team of Idris Jackson and Angel

<v Speaker 1>Jacques managed by the Good Doctor. If you ever listen

<v Speaker 1>to House of Glory show, you'll hear him in the

<v Speaker 1>booth with JD and myself, Doctor Hillary P. Wisdom that

<v Speaker 1>the piece of work that he is. That's two of

<v Speaker 1>his guys. And in the main event, Charles Mason over

<v Speaker 1>four hundred and twenty days as the Hog World Champion,

<v Speaker 1>takes the cheap way out as he has done many

<v Speaker 1>times before, over Eddie Kingston. Anything to hold on to

<v Speaker 1>that world championship. But we have a little thing called

<v Speaker 1>the Matt Travis Memorial Battle Royal now Matt Travis for

<v Speaker 1>those who don't know, he was a student of Amazing

<v Speaker 1>Reds and the Hog Academy, one of our bright young stars.

<v Speaker 1>Back in twenty nineteen when he was struck and killed

<v Speaker 1>in a terrible accident he was only twenty five years old,

<v Speaker 1>and he would have turned thirty two this past week,

<v Speaker 1>and every year in his honor, we host this Battle

<v Speaker 1>Royal in his name, with the winner getting a contract

<v Speaker 1>to cash in for a title opportunity of their choosing

<v Speaker 1>at any point over the next year. Red won it

<v Speaker 1>last year and he waited the whole year until Friday

<v Speaker 1>to call his shot ahead of time. He called it

<v Speaker 1>ahead of time for a match with Zillah and he

<v Speaker 1>won the Crown Jewel title well Friday night. It was

<v Speaker 1>Joey Silver getting his hand raised, and he did not

<v Speaker 1>waste any time using that contract on Mason after the

<v Speaker 1>main event to win the Hog World Championship and end

<v Speaker 1>this long suffering nightmare. Joey came within a hair of

<v Speaker 1>winning that title back in May. I have not seen

<v Speaker 1>a crowd in that building on their feet for a

<v Speaker 1>near fall like that in a very long time, like

<v Speaker 1>they badly wanted him to take that championship away from him,

<v Speaker 1>So there was something very poetic to seeing him be

<v Speaker 1>the one to finally take that belt off Mason. You know,

<v Speaker 1>jo Joey has worked very hard to get to this point,

<v Speaker 1>someone who had never been in the world title picture before.

<v Speaker 1>But you know, I has always been a fan favorite

<v Speaker 1>in House of Glory. Calls himself the King of Candy,

<v Speaker 1>the Sultan of Sweets, always tossing candy out to the

<v Speaker 1>crowd like it's all in good fun. But on Friday,

<v Speaker 1>that sweet tooth Man it led him to the biggest

<v Speaker 1>win of his career. What a sugar rush that was.

<v Speaker 1>So thank you again to all of you who joined.

<v Speaker 1>Maybe maybe it was your first time checking out a

<v Speaker 1>House of Glory show. Yeah, look, it's independent wrestling. We

<v Speaker 1>don't have a weekly TV show. You're going to get

<v Speaker 1>a mix of attractions that you know, maybe we just

<v Speaker 1>put together for one show. We get a big name

<v Speaker 1>or a couple of big names in, but we also

<v Speaker 1>have stories that carry over from show to show. It's

<v Speaker 1>a mix of both. And one leg up that we

<v Speaker 1>have is the ability to book matches that you can't

<v Speaker 1>see necessarily on any television show, and the ability to

<v Speaker 1>book talents from different promotions, which is why you can't

<v Speaker 1>see some of these matches on TV, or even if

<v Speaker 1>they're just wrestling on the same card, maybe not against

<v Speaker 1>each other, the fact that they're even booked on the

<v Speaker 1>same show and they're rubbing shoulders in the locker room, right,

<v Speaker 1>That's a cool thing. Sometimes we have to work within

<v Speaker 1>the limitations that we have on that sort of thing.

<v Speaker 1>But you're not going to find very many places that

<v Speaker 1>have a mix of talent known and unknown and big

<v Speaker 1>names like we have on our shows. So I feel

<v Speaker 1>like there's something for everyone in that regard. I'll be

<v Speaker 1>in Los Angeles for our next event, Fallout, Friday night,

<v Speaker 1>September fourth. I know JD will be there as well.

<v Speaker 1>We'll be on the call together for that one. We've

<v Speaker 1>got the proto star Kyle Fletcher, the reigning AEW Winternational

<v Speaker 1>Champion on the show. Hook will be in action. More

<v Speaker 1>will be announced than the days and weeks to come.

<v Speaker 1>And then September twenty fifth, which is a very busy

<v Speaker 1>wrestling weekend in the Windy City between WWE tripleaaw we

<v Speaker 1>get to kick things off in Chicago that Friday at

<v Speaker 1>Logan Square Auditorium with Wendy City Warfare. And you can

<v Speaker 1>find tickets for all of these events right now online

<v Speaker 1>at hog Wrestling dot net. Thank you guys for the

<v Speaker 1>PayPal support, those of you who drop some donos this week.

<v Speaker 1>I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, and

<v Speaker 1>you could always do so on the solomonster dot com

<v Speaker 1>ten dollars and more, we'll get you a nickname in

<v Speaker 1>a shout out. You'll find the link at the top

<v Speaker 1>of that page. Thank you to Rachel from the Badger State.

<v Speaker 1>Cheers to a great August, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton,

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

<v Speaker 1>Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, The Chicago Slayer, Willie Iikert. Hopefully

<v Speaker 1>I'll be seeing him the end of September. Big Homie,

<v Speaker 1>John Burton, John, what's going on? Man's good to hear

<v Speaker 1>from you, Big Time, Boris Weinman, Q The Destroyer, Nightstalker,

<v Speaker 1>Ni f Alsaphar kind of a big deal, Corey Blake,

<v Speaker 1>The Georgia Nightmare, Timothy Tillis Say Timothy, thank you, brother

<v Speaker 1>kill Shot Keith Hart and happy birthday to a couple

<v Speaker 1>of Chris's. We have Chris from Dundee, Scotland, who's been

<v Speaker 1>listening since twenty fifteen, and Chris from Bethlehem and his

<v Speaker 1>friend Heather, the hardest working person he's ever had the

<v Speaker 1>pleasure of working with there you go. Happy birthday to

<v Speaker 1>all of you. One of the most legendary names in

<v Speaker 1>the history of pro wrestling passed away this week at

<v Speaker 1>the age of eighty five. Dory Funk Junior was in

<v Speaker 1>hospice care when he died on Tuesday. That's according to

<v Speaker 1>his wife, Marty. The two of them were married for

<v Speaker 1>forty years, although they were together for much longer than that.

<v Speaker 1>One of the longest reigning NWA World's Heavyweight Champions of

<v Speaker 1>all time at four years, second only to Luthes, with

<v Speaker 1>a career as a wrestler, an owner, a booker that

<v Speaker 1>spanned more than six decades. The man was born into

<v Speaker 1>the business. His father, Dorry Funk Senior, was a wrestler.

<v Speaker 1>His brother, Terry is one of the greatest of all time.

<v Speaker 1>Terry and Dorry were the first brother duo to win

<v Speaker 1>the NWA World Championship, and together they were also one

<v Speaker 1>of the best tag teams of their era. They were

<v Speaker 1>both inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame together by

<v Speaker 1>Dusty Rhodes in two thousand and nine. They got about

<v Speaker 1>five minutes total between the two of them for their inductions.

<v Speaker 1>Imagine giving Terry Funk two and a half minutes to

<v Speaker 1>speak on his career. Terry was more of a wild

<v Speaker 1>man in the ring, more of a brawler. Dorry was

<v Speaker 1>more known as like the technical of the two. He

<v Speaker 1>was what you would call more of a finesse guy.

<v Speaker 1>But they enjoyed great success in Japan, and Dorry, at

<v Speaker 1>least I don't know about. Terry served as a talent

<v Speaker 1>liaison of sorts for Giant Baba in all Japan for decades.

<v Speaker 1>He was responsible for booking the foreign talents. I remember

<v Speaker 1>them working together in the WWF in the eighties as

<v Speaker 1>Terry and hass Funk. I don't know the reason exactly

<v Speaker 1>for Dorry's name change, but I'm gonna take a shot

<v Speaker 1>in the dark here. It could have to do with

<v Speaker 1>Vince McMahon's dislike of the junior part of someone's name,

<v Speaker 1>because he himself was a junior and whenever somebody called

<v Speaker 1>him junior he hated it. When Ramisterio came to WWE,

<v Speaker 1>he was no longer Ramisterio Junior, right, So that's just

<v Speaker 1>me speculating. But anyway, he went from Dorry to haas

<v Speaker 1>they were on the WrestleMania two card against the Junkyard

<v Speaker 1>Dog in Tito, Santana, and then a month after that

<v Speaker 1>they wrestled Hulk Hogan and the Junkyard Dog on Saturday

<v Speaker 1>Night's main event, and apparently he hated the road schedule

<v Speaker 1>enough that he left after six months, which is when

<v Speaker 1>they replaced him with Jimmy Jack Funk. No relation. It's

<v Speaker 1>like Lance von Eric May if you want sort of

<v Speaker 1>the equivalent, and think about how brutal that WWF schedule

<v Speaker 1>must have been back then for him. This guy was

<v Speaker 1>once the traveling Champion for the NWA. Like, how bad

<v Speaker 1>must it have been for him to go? You know what,

<v Speaker 1>peace out, I'm done with this. Although to be fair,

<v Speaker 1>he was a lot older by that point. You know,

<v Speaker 1>when you get to a certain age, the road is

<v Speaker 1>a lot rougher than it used to be. But in

<v Speaker 1>the nineties, man, this guy, he was kind of all

<v Speaker 1>over the place, you know, not only in Japan. But

<v Speaker 1>he worked one pay per view for WCW. That was

<v Speaker 1>Slambury ninety three, which was billed as a Legends reunion show,

<v Speaker 1>and he wrestled Nick Bockwinkle. And he worked matches in

<v Speaker 1>ECW for a few years off and on, including a

<v Speaker 1>no ropes barbed wire match with Terry against Public Enemy

<v Speaker 1>at heat Wave ninety four and as the store goes,

<v Speaker 1>as a legend has it, Dory didn't even know it

<v Speaker 1>was booked to be a no ropes, barbed wire match

<v Speaker 1>until he got to the ECW arena that day. I

<v Speaker 1>don't know how true that is. I hope it's true

<v Speaker 1>because that's just such a great story. But he had

<v Speaker 1>a cameo in the nineteen ninety six Royal Rumble. He

<v Speaker 1>would have been fifty five years old then. I would

<v Speaker 1>love to know the thought process behind that when they

<v Speaker 1>pitched that idea, like, Hey, we're in the new generation

<v Speaker 1>phase of our company, let's bring in Doriy funk Junior

<v Speaker 1>to be in the Royal Rumble. But he also played

<v Speaker 1>a key role in developmental for the WWF during the

<v Speaker 1>Attitude era with his Funken' Dojo, which was more of

<v Speaker 1>it was more like a finishing school to get talents

<v Speaker 1>ready for TV, and every month from January of ninety

<v Speaker 1>eight to January of ninety nine, they would hold these

<v Speaker 1>camps at the company headquarters in Stamford, Kurt Angle being

<v Speaker 1>one of the people who trained there, Edging Christian the Hardys,

<v Speaker 1>Mark hann and a bunch of others also trained there,

<v Speaker 1>and then occasionally they would have veteran guys maybe who

<v Speaker 1>were coming back from an injury. They would train their

<v Speaker 1>Earthquake William Regal doctor death and he was still flying

<v Speaker 1>overseas to work matches in all Japan all the way

<v Speaker 1>through twenty seventeen. The man was seventy six years old.

<v Speaker 1>And then after Terry died a few years ago, oneita,

<v Speaker 1>you know he has this new FMWE promotion. You've heard

<v Speaker 1>of FMW before. This is FMWE the E standing for explosion.

<v Speaker 1>They got Dorry out of retirement at the age of

<v Speaker 1>eighty three to work I shit you not a double

<v Speaker 1>cell explosion deathmatch. He could barely get around the ring.

<v Speaker 1>That match was elder abuse, but he was in there.

<v Speaker 1>Take it exploding barboire batshots to the back and tribute

<v Speaker 1>to his brother, God bless him. I've seen very little

<v Speaker 1>in the way of footage of Dory in his prime,

<v Speaker 1>and that includes his years as the NWA champion. I've

<v Speaker 1>seen a lot more of his brother. But his brother

<v Speaker 1>was also very good at sort of reinventing himself, especially

<v Speaker 1>as like a hardcore icon later in his career, and

<v Speaker 1>Terry always cut a great promo like Terry Funk was

<v Speaker 1>a great promo guy. I've never heard anybody talk about

<v Speaker 1>great Dory Funk Junior promos. That wasn't his strength, right,

<v Speaker 1>His strength was in the ring. But Terry's promos, I mean,

<v Speaker 1>you can find them all over YouTube in different places,

<v Speaker 1>and so I feel like he's remembered more fondly. But

<v Speaker 1>of the two in ring bell to bell, Dorry was

<v Speaker 1>probably the better of the two. In terms of wrestling,

<v Speaker 1>Terry was the more charismatic of the two. I think

<v Speaker 1>it would be fair to say that. And Brooks Jensen

<v Speaker 1>from NXT, who's always posting about old wrestling matches. If

<v Speaker 1>you look at his x account and matches like today

<v Speaker 1>at the PC, I'm watching this match and it's always

<v Speaker 1>old school stuff. He tweeted about Dorry's passing, and then

<v Speaker 1>there was a follow up tweet where he said, not

<v Speaker 1>gonna lie. I was hoping to see more of our

<v Speaker 1>current talent in pro wrestling show some appreciation for a

<v Speaker 1>pioneer like Dori Funk Junior. Now, I mean, let's be honest, Okay,

<v Speaker 1>Like at the PC alone, how many of those people

<v Speaker 1>do you think would even know who Dory funk Is right,

<v Speaker 1>or Terry for that matter. I'm sure some of them do,

<v Speaker 1>but like on average, how many of them would even

<v Speaker 1>know who these people are? Right? I mean, this is

<v Speaker 1>the era of Sgt. Slaughter. Okay, I still can't get

<v Speaker 1>over that, by the way. It's sad, but like that's

<v Speaker 1>just the reality of it. You know, you have more

<v Speaker 1>and more people being recruited who either didn't grow up

<v Speaker 1>as a wrestling fan, or they did, but they're young

<v Speaker 1>enough that their frame of reference growing up was Stone

<v Speaker 1>Cold in the Rock or John Cena and Randy Orton

<v Speaker 1>is probably a better example. But we do live in

<v Speaker 1>an age where, unlike when I was growing up as

<v Speaker 1>a wrestling fan, and probably a lot of you, if

<v Speaker 1>you weren't tape trading, which I wasn't doing, you didn't

<v Speaker 1>have access to shit. You had access to whatever the

<v Speaker 1>company's put out. You got a fucking blockbuster video to

<v Speaker 1>go rent a colise and video or something you know

<v Speaker 1>that was that was it, or something you recorded off

<v Speaker 1>pay per view or off television on your VHS tape.

<v Speaker 1>That's it. That's all you had. And YouTube didn't exist,

<v Speaker 1>so you couldn't just log on and watch any match

<v Speaker 1>that you wanted or do a deep dive into someone's career,

<v Speaker 1>and now you can. We take all of this shit

<v Speaker 1>for granted, but holy shit, like we remember a time

<v Speaker 1>where none of this existed. If you would have told

<v Speaker 1>young Solo Monster, hey, guess what, one day, there's gonna

<v Speaker 1>be like a twenty four hour fucking streaming channel of wrestling,

<v Speaker 1>or there's gonna be a twenty four hour vault channel

<v Speaker 1>on YouTube, or you're gonna be able to go on

<v Speaker 1>one website and type in whatever it is that you're

<v Speaker 1>looking for and you'll be able to watch a full

<v Speaker 1>match or a full show. I would never leave my house.

<v Speaker 1>I would never I would be that fucking meme, that

<v Speaker 1>wrestling fan meme of the guy you know, sitting the

<v Speaker 1>fucking cheetos all over the keyboard, fucking carpol tunnel, fucking

<v Speaker 1>you know wrap on my wrist, and I would never leave.

<v Speaker 1>It would be the most amazing thing ever. But I mean,

<v Speaker 1>think about it. It's the only way that these people

<v Speaker 1>like Dory and others are going to be remembered years

<v Speaker 1>from now. But you have to want to seek that

<v Speaker 1>stuff out. That's why sharing those old stories, you know,

<v Speaker 1>those tales from the territories, if you will, is so important.

<v Speaker 1>That's why when I do my Dark Side of the

<v Speaker 1>Ring reviews, or when I used to do you know,

<v Speaker 1>this week in Wrestling History, and maybe one day that'll

<v Speaker 1>make a return. I'm trying to put some distance between

<v Speaker 1>the last time I did it. But that's why I

<v Speaker 1>love talking about that stuff, because I like talking about

<v Speaker 1>old wrestling, and you share those stories and then other

<v Speaker 1>people will tell those stories. And this is from a

<v Speaker 1>fans perspective, you know. Then you have wrestlers who will

<v Speaker 1>tell stories and shoot interviews and stuff, and I eat

<v Speaker 1>that shit up. How many of those stories are true

<v Speaker 1>or embellished? I mean, that's another story. But that's why

<v Speaker 1>all that kind of stuff is so important, because out

<v Speaker 1>of sight, out of mind, if you don't share those stories,

<v Speaker 1>they get lost forever. At SummerSlam last weekend, let's take

<v Speaker 1>it back to the modern era Oba Femei. He beat

<v Speaker 1>Brock Lesner inside helen a cell and when it was over,

<v Speaker 1>Lesner put him over as the future. I'm the past,

<v Speaker 1>He's the future, he said, and it felt like the

<v Speaker 1>right time for him to finally step away. He had

<v Speaker 1>passed the proverbial torch. Actually WrestleMania felt that way too,

<v Speaker 1>but they decided to get a three match program out

<v Speaker 1>of it, and that would be I guess more beneficial

<v Speaker 1>to OBA that way. But Lesner also teased retirement after

<v Speaker 1>that WrestleMania match, only to come back a few weeks later.

<v Speaker 1>Now we know how these wrestling retirements usually go. John Cena,

<v Speaker 1>I can believe that he's retired when he says he's

<v Speaker 1>never going to get back in the ring again. I

<v Speaker 1>believe him aj Styles. I fully believe that he'll be

<v Speaker 1>back in the ring again at some point, very likely

<v Speaker 1>to tag with his son Avery. But on Tuesday, Brock

<v Speaker 1>Lesner went on the Pat McAfee show, and someone said,

<v Speaker 1>I forgot who it was. Someone said to me, oh,

<v Speaker 1>he should have gone on WWE Radio and announced it, right,

<v Speaker 1>give that a nice boost, which is true. If they

<v Speaker 1>really wanted to put over this new radio thing, they

<v Speaker 1>should have had him go on Busted Open to announce it.

<v Speaker 1>But Brock does what Brock wants to do. He's friendly

<v Speaker 1>with Pat, He's been on his show before, and I mean,

<v Speaker 1>to be fair, it is a much bigger audience. Well,

<v Speaker 1>he videoed in to announce that he is officially retired

<v Speaker 1>from pro wrestling and everything else. He said, he's wrapping

<v Speaker 1>it all up in one package. Pro wrestling, mma, football,

<v Speaker 1>you name it. He's done, he said. When Obafemi slammed

<v Speaker 1>me at WrestleMania, I was like, I can't do this again.

<v Speaker 1>I was like, I think I'm done, but I still

<v Speaker 1>had some fuel in the tank. But Saturday, for Brock Lesner,

<v Speaker 1>that's it. That's it for me in the Squared Circle

<v Speaker 1>and for everything else too. So I just want to

<v Speaker 1>give a shout out to everybody in the universe that

<v Speaker 1>has followed me since I was a little kid, all

<v Speaker 1>the way till Saturday. I was just a farm kid

<v Speaker 1>from South Dakota with a big dream and a big

<v Speaker 1>heart and a big ash chip on my shoulder. And yeah,

<v Speaker 1>I'm just grateful, grateful to be forty nine years old

<v Speaker 1>and to have been able to do what I did

<v Speaker 1>in this lifetime. And then blah blah blah goes on

<v Speaker 1>from there. Reportedly, there are people within WWE who do

<v Speaker 1>not believe that Brock is done. I'm sure there are

<v Speaker 1>a lot of people outside of WWE who feel the

<v Speaker 1>same way. I don't know. This is the first time

<v Speaker 1>that he's actually come out publicly and said the words

<v Speaker 1>like I'm retired. Two years ago, he was untouchable because

<v Speaker 1>of the Janelle Grant lawsuit and they didn't want to

<v Speaker 1>do anything with him. It was still fresh in people's minds.

<v Speaker 1>He wasn't actually named in the initial suit. I mean

<v Speaker 1>there were references to someone that sounded like him. His

<v Speaker 1>literal name was never mentioned in the initial suit. He

<v Speaker 1>wasn't accused of anything illegal. Later on, in her amended lawsuit,

<v Speaker 1>she did name him outright, and maybe it wasn't for

<v Speaker 1>committing any crimes, but it didn't paint him in the

<v Speaker 1>best light. I think that's the polite way of saying

<v Speaker 1>that he was likely going to wrestle Gunther at WrestleMania

<v Speaker 1>that year. We're talking two years ago now, and he

<v Speaker 1>ended up being sidelined for a couple of years, during

<v Speaker 1>which time he was paid his full salary to sit

<v Speaker 1>at home and just wait it out until TKO was

<v Speaker 1>ready to bring him back. And since his return, you

<v Speaker 1>look at what he has done. He squashed John Cena again,

<v Speaker 1>he took part in his very first Wargames match. He

<v Speaker 1>had one of the more underwhelming eliminations in Royal Rumble history.

<v Speaker 1>La Knight says he's got a great story to tell

<v Speaker 1>about that one day. I hope he gets to tell it.

<v Speaker 1>And then the three matches with Oba Femi, you know,

<v Speaker 1>to put him over on his way out, and there's

<v Speaker 1>no doubt that Oba benefited from that. You know, whatever

<v Speaker 1>credibility Brock you know, still has, beating him in four

<v Speaker 1>minutes of WrestleMania, that was huge for obat him inside

<v Speaker 1>Hell and a Cell, to me is less impressive because

<v Speaker 1>the match was lacking. But now he gets to be

<v Speaker 1>the man who ended Brock's undefeated streak inside the cell.

<v Speaker 1>There's nothing left for him to do. I mean, there

<v Speaker 1>was nothing left for him to do when he disappeared

<v Speaker 1>after losing to Cody at SummerSlam in twenty twenty three.

<v Speaker 1>He still has value, but I think he brings less

<v Speaker 1>value now to WWE than at any other point that

<v Speaker 1>he has been with the company since he came back

<v Speaker 1>in twenty twelve. You know, Vince McMahon, he rang out

<v Speaker 1>that sponge for all it was worth and he got

<v Speaker 1>the most out of Brock that he could possibly get.

<v Speaker 1>Lesner when he came back to the company was so

<v Speaker 1>much more of a bigger star than he was the

<v Speaker 1>first time because of the UFC run. You know, he

<v Speaker 1>brought an authenticity to the product that it was sorely lacking.

<v Speaker 1>Right from his very first match back at Extreme Rules

<v Speaker 1>against Sina, there was nobody else like him on the roster,

<v Speaker 1>and frankly there still isn't even Oba. Oba's a big dude,

<v Speaker 1>but he he doesn't have the credentials, He doesn't have

<v Speaker 1>the background that brock Lesner does, and plus the guy's

<v Speaker 1>an athletic freak. He felt real. He felt real in

<v Speaker 1>an unreal world where so many wrestlers they don't feel real.

<v Speaker 1>It feels like they're out there playing a part that

<v Speaker 1>was never brock right. And there are a few people

<v Speaker 1>like that on the show even now where I could

<v Speaker 1>be like, all right, this guy, there's an authenticity to him,

<v Speaker 1>punk Owens like you could find a few people like that,

<v Speaker 1>but there aren't very many, and that was certainly not

<v Speaker 1>what Brock ever was, which is why I think his

<v Speaker 1>matches always had that big fight feel to them. As

<v Speaker 1>far as what he's going to do, I will always

<v Speaker 1>be of the mindset that brock Lesner is a businessman first,

<v Speaker 1>and if the right business opportunity were to come along

<v Speaker 1>for one more match. Do I think he would say

<v Speaker 1>no to that? No, I mean it would have to

<v Speaker 1>make him, It would have to make sense to him.

<v Speaker 1>If he doesn't want to do it, he's not going

<v Speaker 1>to do it. It's entirely up to him. But do

<v Speaker 1>I think he's completely closed off to the idea that

<v Speaker 1>he wouldn't even listen to any sort of offer. No,

<v Speaker 1>I don't believe that for a second. So I mean,

<v Speaker 1>I'm not prepared to sit here and say that. Well,

<v Speaker 1>I guess, g GOLLI we're never going to see a

<v Speaker 1>Brock Lesner match ever again. I feel like we're not

<v Speaker 1>going to see one for a very long time. But

<v Speaker 1>forever is a long time. As far as my favorite

<v Speaker 1>Brock matches go, I actually have a lot of them,

<v Speaker 1>you know, from his first run, the first Hell in

<v Speaker 1>a Cell match that he had with the Undertaker, his

<v Speaker 1>Summer Slam match, and his Iron Man match on SmackDown

<v Speaker 1>with Kurt Angle. I always liked those matches more than

<v Speaker 1>the WrestleMania match. I don't know if it's just that

<v Speaker 1>the finish of that match being botched the way it

<v Speaker 1>was kind of marred it for me. But the Summer

<v Speaker 1>Slam match was excellent, The Iron Man match was great.

<v Speaker 1>The No Way Out match with Eddie Guerrero or Eddie

<v Speaker 1>won the title, that's a classic. And then you look

<v Speaker 1>at his second run, you know, the return match, the

<v Speaker 1>first match back after what was it eight years with

<v Speaker 1>John Cena at Extreme Rules was so different than any

<v Speaker 1>other pay per view main event that this company had

<v Speaker 1>ever produced up to that point. That's why I love

<v Speaker 1>it so much, even if I hated the finish, the

<v Speaker 1>Last Man Standing match that he and Roman Reigns had

<v Speaker 1>at Summer Slim twenty twenty two with the Tractor. If

<v Speaker 1>that's not their best match, it's their second best match

<v Speaker 1>together since their first one at WrestleMania thirty one. They

<v Speaker 1>started strong and they ended strong, and everything in the

<v Speaker 1>middle was not nearly as good. In fact, some of

<v Speaker 1>it sucked, like their other two WrestleMania matches. For example,

<v Speaker 1>those were bad, okay, thirty four more so than thirty eight,

<v Speaker 1>which is the one where they unified the titles. But

<v Speaker 1>they were both part of an excellent fatal four way

<v Speaker 1>at Summer Slim in twenty seventeen with Samoa, Joe and

<v Speaker 1>Braun Stroman. I mean, that was great. So were the

<v Speaker 1>two Survivor Series matches that Brock had with AJ Styles

<v Speaker 1>and Daniel Bryant. I leaned towards the AJ match, especially

<v Speaker 1>the finish, but you could flip a coin with those

<v Speaker 1>two matches. I love them both. His Summer Slim squash

<v Speaker 1>of John Cena was memorable because I never seen anything

<v Speaker 1>like that before, like a top top star, the top

<v Speaker 1>star like John Cena was willingly allowing himself to be

<v Speaker 1>squashed that way in a pay per view main event.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, the whole thing was just a spectacle. His

<v Speaker 1>match with Goldberg at WrestleMania at thirty three that was

<v Speaker 1>exactly what their Wrestlemantia A twenty match should have been.

<v Speaker 1>The best match of those two ever. Had the Triple

<v Speaker 1>Threat at Royal Rumble twenty fifteen with John Cena and

<v Speaker 1>Seth Rollins. And what I would consider to be his

<v Speaker 1>best match, the best against the Beast at SummerSlam twenty

<v Speaker 1>thirteen CM Punk against Brock Lesner. Now, as far as

<v Speaker 1>his entire career, what would I consider to be his

<v Speaker 1>best match. It's that match or the Eddie match. To me,

<v Speaker 1>it's between those two. I leaned towards the Punk match

<v Speaker 1>and then you've got various moments the ring collapse with

<v Speaker 1>him in Big Show on SmackDown, him pushing Zach Gowan

<v Speaker 1>or his stunt double in a wheelchair down a flight

<v Speaker 1>of stairs. I'm gonna be very disappointed if that doesn't

<v Speaker 1>make it into Gowan's Dark Side of the Ring episode,

<v Speaker 1>because that's the season finale this year. Brock coming out

<v Speaker 1>dancing with the Mariachi Band on TV before the matter

<v Speaker 1>that he boombox Brock after winning money in the bank.

<v Speaker 1>I hated him winning money in the bank, but then

<v Speaker 1>I saw him as Boombox Brock and it almost made

<v Speaker 1>it worth it. Almost that was the best part about

<v Speaker 1>him winning money in the bank. And then, of course

<v Speaker 1>I'm dancing around the biggest moments of them all, him

<v Speaker 1>ending the Undertaker streak at WrestleMania. I don't think there

<v Speaker 1>will ever be another moment in wrestling like that where

<v Speaker 1>the live audience is just standing there in stuns silence

<v Speaker 1>the way that they were that night, over something that

<v Speaker 1>had been built up over so long, like over so

<v Speaker 1>many years, just ending in three seconds like that. I

<v Speaker 1>disagreed with the move then I disagree with it now,

<v Speaker 1>but it is still one of the most shocking moments

<v Speaker 1>of all time. He will forever be the man who

<v Speaker 1>put the one in twenty one and one. So he's

<v Speaker 1>a first ballot Hall of Famer, I mean whatever that

<v Speaker 1>means in the context of the WWE Hall of Fame.

<v Speaker 1>Obviously there are no ballots. I don't think he goes

<v Speaker 1>in next year. There's already some speculation that maybe they'll

<v Speaker 1>induct him as part of Saudi Mania next year. I

<v Speaker 1>think that would be too soon, and I would be

<v Speaker 1>surprised if he would even make the trip all the

<v Speaker 1>way over there just to be inducted and not do

<v Speaker 1>anything else. Right, they'd have to pay him a hell

<v Speaker 1>of a lot more than whatever they usually pay these

<v Speaker 1>people to go in last I remember, I think they

<v Speaker 1>got paid five thousand dollars or something. You could add

<v Speaker 1>some zeros onto that. Maybe Brock will make the flight

<v Speaker 1>to Saudi, But then again, we don't even know where

<v Speaker 1>the Hall of Fame is taking place. I'm assuming it's

<v Speaker 1>going to be over there. It might not be. There's

<v Speaker 1>no guarantee that it even happens in Saudi next year,

<v Speaker 1>right Wrestle MANI is in Saudi. Maybe they do the

<v Speaker 1>Hall of Fame here in the States. Maybe they don't

<v Speaker 1>do it over WrestleMania weekend. We still don't even have

<v Speaker 1>any fucking dates for WrestleMania. All they said is April

<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty seven. I think they're waiting to see what

<v Speaker 1>moves other people make before they announce the dates. They've

<v Speaker 1>already announced. There's going to be an NXT show on

<v Speaker 1>one night of WrestleMania and then a Triple A show

<v Speaker 1>on the other night. Since WrestleMania with the time zone

<v Speaker 1>difference is airing so much earlier here in the States,

<v Speaker 1>they're going to have a couple of other events that weekend.

<v Speaker 1>But it's the same thing. We have no dates. We

<v Speaker 1>have no actual dates for any of these shows. I

<v Speaker 1>imagine they have the dates on hold. They're just waiting

<v Speaker 1>as long as they possibly can to publicly announce them.

<v Speaker 1>We got some event news this week. Next Year's Royal

<v Speaker 1>Rumble is officially coming to Arizona in February of twenty

<v Speaker 1>twenty seven. The announcement was made by Dana White, of

<v Speaker 1>all people, at a press conference on Tuesday, which I'm

<v Speaker 1>sure he loved because supposedly he's always hated pro wrestling.

<v Speaker 1>He's got to be gritting his teeth through this shit.

<v Speaker 1>He revealed that the show will be held at State

<v Speaker 1>Farms Stadium in Glendale, home of the Arizona Cardinals, and

<v Speaker 1>the show is part of a three year deal TKO

<v Speaker 1>has struck with the Arizona Sports and Events Alliance that

<v Speaker 1>includes events from WWE, UFC, ZOOFA, Boxing, and the Professional

<v Speaker 1>bull Riders League. This marks the first time since twenty

<v Speaker 1>nineteen that the Royal Rumble has been held in Arizona.

<v Speaker 1>That one was at Chase Field. Wrestle Votes Radio on

<v Speaker 1>Fightful Select reported on Thursday that WWE seriously considered expanding

<v Speaker 1>next year's Royal Rumble to a two night event. However,

<v Speaker 1>as things stand, the expectation within the company is that

<v Speaker 1>it will remain a one night event, possibly for the

<v Speaker 1>final time. There is significant interest within WWE to eventually

<v Speaker 1>turn the show into a multi night event. Well, color

<v Speaker 1>me shocked. They still did in the range of seventy

<v Speaker 1>thousand or so fans between both nights of Summerslim this year,

<v Speaker 1>even though they were way down from what they did

<v Speaker 1>last year. So as long as they still feel like

<v Speaker 1>it's financially worth it for them to run two nights,

<v Speaker 1>a half empty stadium is not going to stop them.

<v Speaker 1>Wrestl Votes also reported that a source with a direct

<v Speaker 1>knowledge said SummerSlam twenty twenty nine will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

<v Speaker 1>If you remember, WWE had announced an agreement with the

<v Speaker 1>Indiana Sports Corporation in June of twenty twenty four that

<v Speaker 1>would bring a WrestleMania, a Summer Slam, and a Royal

<v Speaker 1>Rumble to Lucas Oil Stadium. So it looks like this

<v Speaker 1>will be the Summer Slam. Oh I sounded like Brent

<v Speaker 1>Hart there for a second. And after promoting that Becky

<v Speaker 1>Lynch and Finn Balor would be guests on the Irish

<v Speaker 1>sports show Off the Ball to make a massive announcement,

<v Speaker 1>that was the word they use. We got massive news

<v Speaker 1>coming in this set of all kinds of speculation about

<v Speaker 1>maybe a ple coming to Ireland. It ended up not

<v Speaker 1>being so massive, as the two of them announced that

<v Speaker 1>Ireland will be hosting Monday Night Raw for the first

<v Speaker 1>time from the Three Arena in Dublin on January twenty fifth,

<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty seven. They already had their first SmackDown last August,

<v Speaker 1>so now they'll be getting Raw. I thought, maybe you

<v Speaker 1>know a clash in Ireland or something. Raw seems a

<v Speaker 1>little underwhelming, right or maybe not to the fans in Ireland.

<v Speaker 1>I know I've got listeners over there. Would you guys

<v Speaker 1>consider this massive news? You let me know. Raw on

<v Speaker 1>Monday was not in Ireland, but it was the fallout

<v Speaker 1>from SummerSlam and one of the best raws of the

<v Speaker 1>entire year. It was a show that actually felt more

<v Speaker 1>like a Raw after WrestleMania than the actual Raw after WrestleMania,

<v Speaker 1>minus the crazy crowds that we used to get. We

<v Speaker 1>had Albafemia on the show, coming off as big win

<v Speaker 1>over brock Lesner, and he made a speech in the

<v Speaker 1>ring that just paraphrasing here was talking about leading a

<v Speaker 1>new generation, leading this new generation of talent as the

<v Speaker 1>old guard will fall. And then as he was leaving

<v Speaker 1>speaking of the new guard, out came the Vision because

<v Speaker 1>they had a match coming up, and bron Breaker came

<v Speaker 1>face to face with Obafemi. We got a very tense

<v Speaker 1>stare down between the two of them. Bron Breaker would

<v Speaker 1>not take his eyes off of Obafemi. Even after Obafemi

<v Speaker 1>had left and bron had gone to the ring, he

<v Speaker 1>would not stop looking at the entranceway, and they really

<v Speaker 1>heavily leaned into the idea that these two were going

<v Speaker 1>to be in a match, not down the road or

<v Speaker 1>like long term, this is a future WrestleMania main event.

<v Speaker 1>It is. But there was another segment later in the

<v Speaker 1>show in the back where Breaker went up to Paul Hayman,

<v Speaker 1>who has not had any affiliation of late with the vision,

<v Speaker 1>but hopefully they'll keep him and Breaker together. A Breaker

<v Speaker 1>went over to him to be like, hey, did you

<v Speaker 1>see what just happened out there? Haman was the weird

<v Speaker 1>thing about it was Hayman was just standing there for

<v Speaker 1>the entire show, apparently standing in the back watching the

<v Speaker 1>show on a monitor, because they came back to him

<v Speaker 1>a second time later in the show for this segment

<v Speaker 1>with Breaker. He was still standing there, but Oba Femi

<v Speaker 1>had walked by Hayman earlier and they kind of they

<v Speaker 1>acknowledged each other, and Oba told him, hey, when you

<v Speaker 1>see brock Lesner, thank him for what he said and

<v Speaker 1>what he did, and Hayman said, I will, I will,

<v Speaker 1>And so Breaker was like have you seen Oba? Where's Oba?

<v Speaker 1>And Hayman's like, well, how would I know? And Breaker

<v Speaker 1>was like, well, I'm sorry I thought he was your

<v Speaker 1>new best friend. So everything that they did on Monday

<v Speaker 1>would lead you to believe that this is going to

<v Speaker 1>be a match very soon. I don't know on the

<v Speaker 1>next pl e or when exactly, and I'm here for

<v Speaker 1>it because that's the kind of big match that I

<v Speaker 1>would like to see. We know that Oba is the

<v Speaker 1>anointed one. Brock Braun at one point felt like the

<v Speaker 1>anointed one. He's taken a real back seat this year.

<v Speaker 1>He's really been cooled off. But the way he was

<v Speaker 1>on Raw Monday night, I mean, he the first time

<v Speaker 1>he's felt like a killer in the longest time. He

<v Speaker 1>murdered Oh Henry. He had that look in his eyes,

<v Speaker 1>he had the crazy eyes you know. For Oba, I'm

<v Speaker 1>all for it. I'm all for it. I was hoping

<v Speaker 1>that they would do it, maybe give us a little

<v Speaker 1>preview of it in the King of the Ring tournament,

<v Speaker 1>but they didn't have the balls to do it. So

<v Speaker 1>I love this and hopefully it is leading to something

<v Speaker 1>relatively soon, the first of what I'm sure will be

<v Speaker 1>many battles between the two of them in years to come,

<v Speaker 1>and we'll see how Paul Hayman fits into this whole thing.

<v Speaker 1>I don't think it's a situation where at the end

<v Speaker 1>of all this, Oba Femi needs Paul Hayman. Obafemi does

<v Speaker 1>not need Paul Hayman bron breaker, though I would like

<v Speaker 1>to see them keep the affiliation with him and Haman

<v Speaker 1>Hayman doesn't need the rest of the Vision. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know what they're gonna do with Bronson Reid when he

<v Speaker 1>comes back, but hopefully they at least keep that affiliation.

<v Speaker 1>We also had the returns of Becky Lynch and Stephanie

<v Speaker 1>Vicaier to add some much needed depth to the women's

<v Speaker 1>world title scene. On that show, they were both going

<v Speaker 1>after Live Morgan and then they turn their attention to

<v Speaker 1>each other, So we have a lot of tension now

<v Speaker 1>between all three women, and this is great. This is

<v Speaker 1>already a big improvement over what we had with Live

<v Speaker 1>Coming out of WrestleMania. Chad Gable, he's the new Intercontinental Champion.

<v Speaker 1>He got promo time in the ring and a tag

<v Speaker 1>team match with Penta against the Judgment Day, which Gable won.

<v Speaker 1>And by the way, given that I am talking about

<v Speaker 1>the Judgment Day here, we now know that Dominic Mysterio

<v Speaker 1>will be defending his Triple A Mega Championship against Algondi

<v Speaker 1>Americano at Triplemania. We just don't know which night of

<v Speaker 1>Triplemania yet has to be Night two in Mexico City

<v Speaker 1>and not Vegas, right, it has to be. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>they got more tickets to sell at the MGM Grand

<v Speaker 1>now that they moved the show out of the Luxore.

<v Speaker 1>But I mean, if you're going to have Elgrandi Americano

<v Speaker 1>win the championship, how are you not going to do

<v Speaker 1>that in Mexico City? I mean, come on. But there

<v Speaker 1>was also a rapport from False Finish that sources indicate

<v Speaker 1>Dominic Mysterio is frustrated with the difference in his booking

<v Speaker 1>between WWE and Triple A. One source noted that Mysterio

<v Speaker 1>believes he should be booked in a more serious way

<v Speaker 1>on WWE television as he is currently holding the most

<v Speaker 1>important championship in Triple A. No lies detected. If that's true,

<v Speaker 1>He's not wrong. I mean, dom has been booked like

<v Speaker 1>an absolute joke ever since he he beat quote unquote

<v Speaker 1>beat John Cena last year at Survivor Series. Look at

<v Speaker 1>what they've done with him. The guy holds the most

<v Speaker 1>important belt in that company. In Triple A and he

<v Speaker 1>is coming off a twenty four hour period where he

<v Speaker 1>lost a match to Danhusen, who he's been feuding with

<v Speaker 1>now for months, and then being pinned by Chad Gable

<v Speaker 1>in a tag team match on Monday Night Raw. He

<v Speaker 1>has totally stalled out on the main roster. I mean

<v Speaker 1>at this point, the judgment day stuff is doing more

<v Speaker 1>harm than good for him. That's why I joked in

<v Speaker 1>my Summer Slam review the Undertaker, you know, watching that

<v Speaker 1>human money. He's on a pole match at SummerSlam. Has

<v Speaker 1>got to be gritting his teeth now, you know, to

<v Speaker 1>say anything, stop himself from saying anything, because that's his

<v Speaker 1>champion in there, being jobbed out to the comedy clown.

<v Speaker 1>I just I don't understand it. I really don't. He

<v Speaker 1>has every right to be pissed off and frustrated right now.

<v Speaker 1>We had the return of Big Casts. We knew it

<v Speaker 1>was coming. They've been running vignettes now for many weeks.

<v Speaker 1>Eight years away. He came back. He's already towering over everybody.

<v Speaker 1>He's in the best shape of his career. He attacked

<v Speaker 1>Javon Evans. He made it clear later on though in

<v Speaker 1>the back nothing personal against Javon, but there's going to

<v Speaker 1>be more bodies and I'm going to be stacking up

<v Speaker 1>as time goes on. No sign of Enzo it looks

<v Speaker 1>for the time being anyway, it looks like they're giving

<v Speaker 1>him a big singles push, probably as a heel, and

<v Speaker 1>I think that's great. I think that's absolutely the right move.

<v Speaker 1>And then we had Roman Reigns, the world heavyweight champion,

<v Speaker 1>who was there on Raw Monday night. He was confronted

<v Speaker 1>by La Knights and La Knight has been talking shit

<v Speaker 1>about Roman Reigns in the Bloodline now for months and

<v Speaker 1>months and months, so it only made sense that, hey,

<v Speaker 1>if Roman Reigns is in the middle of the rain,

<v Speaker 1>why would La Knight not come out and confront him?

<v Speaker 1>And Roman had a great line about, you know, you

<v Speaker 1>call yourself the megastar. You're wearing a Walmart watch. He's

<v Speaker 1>showing off his own watch, which apparently legitimately goes for

<v Speaker 1>five hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. Whether or not

<v Speaker 1>he paid that himself or it was gifted to him,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but he was wearing it on his wrist.

<v Speaker 1>I know he's a big watch of ficionado, but La Knight.

<v Speaker 1>Otherwise I thought had a really good night. You know.

<v Speaker 1>He had a lot of great barbs in there on Roman.

<v Speaker 1>And even later on in the back when Roman was leaving,

<v Speaker 1>he told his family. They were like, hey, you want

<v Speaker 1>us to go after La Night. He's like, no, no

<v Speaker 1>one puts their hands on him. He's mine. I'm going

<v Speaker 1>to take care of him myself. And again this is

<v Speaker 1>after a night in the promo, said, you know when

<v Speaker 1>you and I wrestled years ago for the championship, I

<v Speaker 1>had to contend with all of your family, all your cousins. Yes,

<v Speaker 1>but I see what you did at SummerSlam with Seth Rollins.

<v Speaker 1>You did it all by yourself. I want that what

<v Speaker 1>you did with Rollins. I want you to give me

<v Speaker 1>a fair fight one on one for the championship. And

<v Speaker 1>Roman went off on him and said, that's not how

<v Speaker 1>we do things around here. You got to earn this.

<v Speaker 1>You haven't even want to torn to me. You haven't

<v Speaker 1>won a battle royal. You go to the back of

<v Speaker 1>the line until you've earned an opportunity. So then when

<v Speaker 1>Roman left, he told his family, nobody puts his hands

<v Speaker 1>on him. And then Night comes scrolling by after he's

<v Speaker 1>wheeling his luggage as he's leaving, and he's just laughing.

<v Speaker 1>He's just this great mood. So I heard that somebody

<v Speaker 1>said you can't put your hands on me. Jay Uso

<v Speaker 1>gets up at his face and he goes, you better

<v Speaker 1>be careful or else Daddy might come back and put

<v Speaker 1>you across his knee. Just buried the shit out of

<v Speaker 1>jay Uso in this segment. That's just fucking glorious. So

<v Speaker 1>it looks like they're going to take their time and

<v Speaker 1>you'll probably put Night in a position to win something,

<v Speaker 1>to earn the right to be number one contender for

<v Speaker 1>the World Heavyweight Championship. And I'm like, this is the

<v Speaker 1>spot for him to be in. I like this, but

<v Speaker 1>not everybody does. I'll get to that here in a second.

<v Speaker 1>But that was not the last time we saw Roman

<v Speaker 1>because after the main event, which had Jacob fought to

<v Speaker 1>beating Royce Keys in a street fight, Roman came out

<v Speaker 1>because Roman had told him earlier in the show, what

<v Speaker 1>is this Royce Keys going around talking about your family,

<v Speaker 1>your brothers right him and Jacob, The only family you

<v Speaker 1>have is right here in front of you, and that

<v Speaker 1>guy is not part of the bloodline. So Jacob went

<v Speaker 1>out there and he beat him up, and Roman comes

<v Speaker 1>out and basically gives him the nod of approval. Roman

<v Speaker 1>goes to the back. The camera follows him. We got

<v Speaker 1>a little cliffhanger ending on raw. He goes to the

<v Speaker 1>gorilla position. The camera pans over and who is waiting

<v Speaker 1>to talk to Roman rains but Ramus Stereo and he

<v Speaker 1>went over to Rome and he introduced himself and said,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if you're aware, but I'm the new

<v Speaker 1>general manager of Triple A. And Roman says, well, now,

<v Speaker 1>I know, right, let's just bury Triple A now. And

<v Speaker 1>Ray said, in so many words, basically, you know, I

<v Speaker 1>have something I want to discuss with you, like like

<v Speaker 1>a business proposal. And off they go. And my first

<v Speaker 1>thought when they went off the air on Monday was, boy,

<v Speaker 1>they want him on that World's Collide show in Chicago,

<v Speaker 1>the one that's going head to head with All Out.

<v Speaker 1>And I was already thinking Punk for sure would be

<v Speaker 1>on that show, you know it's in Chicago, but like

<v Speaker 1>putting Roman on there as well, I mean that would

<v Speaker 1>just be maniacal. But then I thought more about it,

<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, you know what, Roman doesn't even have

<v Speaker 1>to be on that show, or he doesn't have to

<v Speaker 1>wrestle on that show. He could send the USOS to

<v Speaker 1>wrestle the Lucha Brothers because the whole point of the

<v Speaker 1>show is World's Collide. So you have WWE talents, right,

<v Speaker 1>wrestling Triple A talents. That's a big time match, a

<v Speaker 1>big attraction that's never been done before. What better place

<v Speaker 1>to do it? I mean, WrestleMania would be a great

<v Speaker 1>place to do it, but they're not going to do it,

<v Speaker 1>So that would be my pitch for Worlds Collides. You

<v Speaker 1>book a Lucha Brothers in usso's match for the first

<v Speaker 1>time ever. Right, That's not what the payoff was to

<v Speaker 1>that cliffhanger ending though, but I still think things are

<v Speaker 1>set up perfectly to do Brothers against Brothers at the

<v Speaker 1>end of next month. And here's why. Okay, they can

<v Speaker 1>still do this. The announcement turned out to be from Raymisterio.

<v Speaker 1>We found out later that when Raw comes to Mexico

<v Speaker 1>City on September fourteenth at Arena CDMX, which is where

<v Speaker 1>Night two of Triple Mania is taking place the night before,

<v Speaker 1>and I believe SmackDown the friday before that, Roman Reigns

<v Speaker 1>will be wrestling on that show in Mexico City, and

<v Speaker 1>he will be defending his World Heavyweight Championship, the first

<v Speaker 1>time that Roman Reigns will be defending a title on

<v Speaker 1>TV in four years since that match on SmackDown with

<v Speaker 1>Matt Riddle back in twenty twenty two. That was a

<v Speaker 1>great match too. He'll be defending the title against the

<v Speaker 1>winner of a tournament featuring the best lutradors from Raw, SmackDown,

<v Speaker 1>and Triple A, and the tournament kicks off tomorrow night.

<v Speaker 1>On Raw, Penta will be challenging Laredo Kid, and then

<v Speaker 1>on the August fifteenth episode of Triple A Television, Laparca

<v Speaker 1>is going to be wrestling Psycho Clown. The winner of

<v Speaker 1>that match is going to meet the winner of the

<v Speaker 1>Penta Laredo Kid match at a later date. Then, on

<v Speaker 1>the August seventeenth episode of Raw, Dragon Lee wrestles l

<v Speaker 1>e Hodel, Doctor Wagner Junior, and Ray Phoenix wrestles El Fiscal,

<v Speaker 1>the son of the late Abismo Negro, who met a

<v Speaker 1>very sad ending. He was only thirty seven years old

<v Speaker 1>when he died. The winner of that match will meet

<v Speaker 1>the winner of the Dragon Lee Wagner match, which means

<v Speaker 1>that we could be setting up for brother versus Brother

<v Speaker 1>Ray Phoenix against Penta in the finals of this tournament. Now,

<v Speaker 1>after the shit that this company pulled with their King

<v Speaker 1>of the Ring tournament this year, I'm not certain that

<v Speaker 1>they give that to us. It could be Penta against

<v Speaker 1>Dragon Lee in the finals, which would also be great,

<v Speaker 1>not saying it'd be a bad match. The same Dragon Lee,

<v Speaker 1>by the way, who has been wrestling or is if

<v Speaker 1>he'll be wrestling in this tournament with a torn ligament

<v Speaker 1>in his thumb that he suffered in a tag team

<v Speaker 1>match on Raw a few weeks ago. Dragonly is great,

<v Speaker 1>and again a final of him in Penta would kick ass.

<v Speaker 1>But Penta against Phoenix would be even better. It's got

<v Speaker 1>it either way. It's got to be Penta wrestling Roman

<v Speaker 1>in Mexico City. I love this. I love that we're

<v Speaker 1>getting a title defense from Roman on TV. I see

<v Speaker 1>some people complaining that, oh, it's it's predictable. We all

<v Speaker 1>know Roman's not losing the title, so what is he

<v Speaker 1>not supposed to defend the title at all until Saudi

<v Speaker 1>Mania next year? Because we're also sure he's not losing

<v Speaker 1>the championship until then does he just not defend the

<v Speaker 1>belt at all? Or I was gonna say until he

<v Speaker 1>loses it at WrestleMania next year, unless they pull a

<v Speaker 1>Cody at thirty nine and they have him beat Oba

<v Speaker 1>the first time, right to build a twenty twenty eight.

<v Speaker 1>But I just I don't understand that logic. Like I'm

<v Speaker 1>hearing the same shit with the La Night stuff. These

<v Speaker 1>people bitch and moan that they've got La Night in

<v Speaker 1>the mid card when he should be wrestling for the championship.

<v Speaker 1>Now he's gonna be wrestling for the championship, and that's

<v Speaker 1>still not good enough for them. Oh, we know he's

<v Speaker 1>gonna lose so wide bother right, So here's the reality

<v Speaker 1>of it. They don't care about La Night being in

<v Speaker 1>the main event. They just want the belt on him.

<v Speaker 1>Anything else is unacceptable. Meanwhile, if they had La Night

<v Speaker 1>doing anything right now other than coming out to confront

<v Speaker 1>Roman Reigns, they would be whining that he's being buried.

<v Speaker 1>You just can't win with some of these people. I

<v Speaker 1>think this is great. We got Roman defending on TV

<v Speaker 1>in Mexico, we got Roman defending at Money in the Bank.

<v Speaker 1>He's just been announced for Survivor series, so at least

<v Speaker 1>he's sticking around, you know, somewhat. He's not gonna be

<v Speaker 1>on TV every week. But Roman against Penta match that

<v Speaker 1>we've not seen before. It's a great spot for Penta

<v Speaker 1>to be in and to tie it back to my

<v Speaker 1>original idea for World's Collide, depending on how that match ends,

<v Speaker 1>you know, at Roman and Penta, you can use that

<v Speaker 1>to set up a tag team match for World's Collide

<v Speaker 1>with the USO's and the Lucha Bros. Now the Bloodline,

<v Speaker 1>they're not necessarily booked a straight heels, so I don't know,

<v Speaker 1>you know that they would just have the Bloodline beat

<v Speaker 1>them up afterwards and then have Phoenix run out to

<v Speaker 1>make the save. I don't know how they would do it,

<v Speaker 1>but you can absolutely use it as a way to

<v Speaker 1>set up that tag team match SmackDown on Friday Night.

<v Speaker 1>I was not around to watch it live because of

<v Speaker 1>my House of Glory obligations, so I didn't get a

<v Speaker 1>chance to do a stream, so you get my thoughts

<v Speaker 1>on it now. Not as good as Raw. I'm kind

<v Speaker 1>of in the middle on it because they did a

<v Speaker 1>good job of establishing the post summer slim directions for

<v Speaker 1>the top names I love the first interaction between c

<v Speaker 1>I'm Punk and Kevin Owens. That was the highlight of

<v Speaker 1>the show outside of that weak shove that Owens gave

<v Speaker 1>him at the end of it, and the same with

<v Speaker 1>Cody Rose and Randy Yorton that was not as good,

<v Speaker 1>but I still liked it. And they introduced Tatum Pasley

<v Speaker 1>to the main roster, which will make all the Tatum

<v Speaker 1>fans happy, probably less so the other women in that division,

<v Speaker 1>seeing as how they already have too many women on

<v Speaker 1>the SmackDown roster sitting in the back collecting dust like

<v Speaker 1>antique artifacts. They also only had three matches on the show.

<v Speaker 1>They had a grand total of thirty minutes of wrestling

<v Speaker 1>on this two hour show, compared with fifty minutes of

<v Speaker 1>wrestling on Monday, which has the extra half hour of airtime.

<v Speaker 1>But the matches on Raw actually got more time than

<v Speaker 1>a lot of the matches at SummerSlam did. One of

<v Speaker 1>those matches on Friday was a rematch from SummerSlam with

<v Speaker 1>Baron Corbin defending his newly won United States Championship, which

<v Speaker 1>unfortunately still has the fucking fur on it. Defended that

<v Speaker 1>title again against Trick Williams, and they had Corbin go

<v Speaker 1>over on him again with a belt shot to the head.

<v Speaker 1>That's twice that they have had baron Corbin, Pin Trick Williams,

<v Speaker 1>and then in the back. Later Carmelo Hayes was able

<v Speaker 1>to finally find the building and he jumped Corbin in

<v Speaker 1>the back and those two were going to meet for

<v Speaker 1>the US title in Boston this Friday, not far from

<v Speaker 1>where Mello grew up. Corbin, by the way, was advertised

<v Speaker 1>on last night's episode of MLW Fusion as defending his

<v Speaker 1>MLW tag team titles with Dye Jack against the Good

<v Speaker 1>Brothers on next week's episode, So that match was actually

<v Speaker 1>tape back in May. It's only airing now. No spoilers.

<v Speaker 1>I won't give away any spoilers. Don't worry. If you

<v Speaker 1>see a match graphic, by the way, floating around on

<v Speaker 1>social media that shows the US title photoshopped on Corbin's

<v Speaker 1>other shoulder, someone else did that. That is not the

<v Speaker 1>graphic that aired on the actual MLW show last night.

<v Speaker 1>I had to go back and check it out myself

<v Speaker 1>just to make sure. And no, that did not air

<v Speaker 1>on the show. They would get a cease and desist

<v Speaker 1>so fast. If that belt popped up on their show.

<v Speaker 1>Then we had Chelsea Green, who won the interim Women's

<v Speaker 1>Championship at SummerSlam. She was introduced on this show as

<v Speaker 1>the WWE Women's Champion with no mention of the interim label.

<v Speaker 1>And I assume that's because Rheo Ripley just had surgery

<v Speaker 1>to repair her torn meniscus. She tried to avoid it,

<v Speaker 1>she felt it was the best course of action. So

<v Speaker 1>instead of her possibly being back in the ring any

<v Speaker 1>week now, the hope supposedly is that she might be

<v Speaker 1>back in time for the Royal Rumble. And it's so

<v Speaker 1>there's your early favorite to win the Royal Rumble. But

<v Speaker 1>she said, life update. After just fourteen or just under

<v Speaker 1>fourteen years in wrestling and doing sports my entire life,

<v Speaker 1>it's caught up to me. Surgery was never a first

<v Speaker 1>option for me, but it got to the point that

<v Speaker 1>it was needed. First one down, hopefully no more. I've

<v Speaker 1>survived and now it's time to start thriving again so

<v Speaker 1>I can get back to what I love to do.

<v Speaker 1>See you all down the road. Chelsea was out there

<v Speaker 1>for her championship celebration and she invited her friend Tiffany

<v Speaker 1>Stratton out to join her. And Tiffany said, look, I

<v Speaker 1>have something to talk to you about, but before she

<v Speaker 1>could say what that was, they were interrupted by Fatal

<v Speaker 1>Influence and Jace Jane said that if it wasn't for Tiffany,

<v Speaker 1>she would have been in the SummerSlam Ladder match and

<v Speaker 1>she would have become the women's champion. So she's going

<v Speaker 1>to take something from Tiffany, that being her US title,

<v Speaker 1>and Stratton said that she would give Jace a shot

<v Speaker 1>at the title if Fatal Influence gave her and Chelsea

<v Speaker 1>a shot at the women's tag team titles right now,

<v Speaker 1>and Jace accepted now with Tiffany coming out and saying

<v Speaker 1>what she said here, you know that, Hey, Chelsea, I

<v Speaker 1>have something I have to talk to you about. Are

<v Speaker 1>they teasing her wanting a shot at the title? If so,

<v Speaker 1>maybe we're looking at a Stratton heel turn soon, which

<v Speaker 1>I think would be the right move, although now it

<v Speaker 1>may all be moot. More on that in a minute.

<v Speaker 1>This led to a tag team match, and I don't

<v Speaker 1>know that I can adequately put into words how productive

<v Speaker 1>this was. Chelsea got caught with a rolling encore by

<v Speaker 1>jac Okay, who was outside the ring, and so she

<v Speaker 1>hit her from the floor. That led to Chelsea being

<v Speaker 1>picked up and nearly killed by the other two that

<v Speaker 1>almost dropped he rud on her fucking head. They dropped

<v Speaker 1>her with their fatal flaw finish, and Chelsea Green, the

<v Speaker 1>new women's champion, was pinned in the middle of the

<v Speaker 1>ring by Fallon Henley. Awful dreadful booking here, But that

<v Speaker 1>wasn't even the worst of it. As it turned out,

<v Speaker 1>Chelsea was injured, likely on the finish, although we don't

<v Speaker 1>know for sure where it happened, but she looked out

<v Speaker 1>of it. Some people thought maybe she got concussed. In fact,

<v Speaker 1>she was not concussed. She confirmed on her IG last

<v Speaker 1>night that she suffered a broken orbital bone in her face.

<v Speaker 1>She said, I did get injured last night. Stuff happens.

<v Speaker 1>It's live television, it's wrestling, it's an occupation hazard. I

<v Speaker 1>ended up in the emergency room and I have a

<v Speaker 1>broken orbital bone. It looks amazing all things considered. It

<v Speaker 1>feels awful, but it looks pretty amazing. I have no

<v Speaker 1>idea what that means for me. You know, usually you

<v Speaker 1>guys have seen me like play into every single injury,

<v Speaker 1>but this feels different. This feels very different. It feels frustrating.

<v Speaker 1>I'm upset. I feel like if I didn't have bad luck,

<v Speaker 1>I'd have no luck at all. So I just need

<v Speaker 1>to take a little bit of time to process this

<v Speaker 1>and kind of heal from obviously the head trauma that's

<v Speaker 1>going on right now, and then we'll see what happens.

<v Speaker 1>We're just going to take it day by day so

<v Speaker 1>world domination continues. We've just had a minor blip. Let's

<v Speaker 1>hope it's just the minor blip for her sake, because

<v Speaker 1>depending on the severity of it or if she might

<v Speaker 1>need surgery, she could be looking at significant time out

<v Speaker 1>of the ring. If it's not that bad, maybe she

<v Speaker 1>only misses a few weeks of TV. And then she

<v Speaker 1>pops up with a face mask right like the one

<v Speaker 1>that she used to wear when she had her broken nose,

<v Speaker 1>one of her many broken noses. Chelsea Green has broken

<v Speaker 1>her nose five times, and now she can add an

<v Speaker 1>orbital break to go with it. This woman does not

<v Speaker 1>need a regular face mask. She needs whatever the fuck

<v Speaker 1>Leonardo DiCaprio had on his face and the man in

<v Speaker 1>the Iron mask that now makes two straight matches for

<v Speaker 1>fatal influence where one of their opponents suffered broken bones,

<v Speaker 1>and so now we are left with the women's championship

<v Speaker 1>in limbo once again after they just crowned an interim champion.

<v Speaker 1>We need an interim title for the interim title, which

<v Speaker 1>may not be interim anymore, but they never clarified it

<v Speaker 1>for us, so we don't even know. There never should

<v Speaker 1>have been a fucking interim title in the first place.

<v Speaker 1>Then Rhea had surgery. Chelsea Green she should be the

<v Speaker 1>sole women's champion right now, and hopefully they don't take

<v Speaker 1>the belt off of her, because that would be terrible,

<v Speaker 1>you know, unless they get a really bad injury report

<v Speaker 1>and she's going to be gone for months and months,

<v Speaker 1>then they have no choice. Failing that, though, this does

<v Speaker 1>not need to be a deal breaker for Chelsea Green again.

<v Speaker 1>People have worked with orbital injuries and a protective mask.

<v Speaker 1>Rhea Ripley did that a couple of years ago, heading

<v Speaker 1>into Wargames, she also broke her orbital bone, missed a

<v Speaker 1>few weeks, came back with a mask on, and they've

<v Speaker 1>already set a precedent with Jade Cargill and liv Morgan

<v Speaker 1>going over the one hundred day mark without defending their titles,

<v Speaker 1>So for the time being, Chelsea's title should be safe,

<v Speaker 1>and when she's ready to come back, Fallon Henley should

<v Speaker 1>be first in line for a title shot because they

<v Speaker 1>had Fallen Henley one half of the Women's Tag Team

<v Speaker 1>Champions pin the WWE Women's Champion, so that should earn

<v Speaker 1>her a title shot. But like her first matches Champion

<v Speaker 1>World Champion, she gets pinned and injured in a tag

<v Speaker 1>team match. That's not very good start to her reign.

<v Speaker 1>It's not a good start for her when she wins

<v Speaker 1>the world title. On the very next show, they have

<v Speaker 1>Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill wrestling in the main event,

<v Speaker 1>and she's stuck in a mid card tag team match

<v Speaker 1>and takes the losing pin. The booking is horrendous, and

<v Speaker 1>that tells you how seriously they viewed Chelsea Green as

<v Speaker 1>their women's champion. Everything about this was terrible. The other

<v Speaker 1>victim of fatal Influence, Bribella, posted an update this week

<v Speaker 1>about her injury, saying her doctor says that she does

<v Speaker 1>not need surgery for her broken shoulder blade. She said

<v Speaker 1>the doctor was like, it's really hard to break your scapula.

<v Speaker 1>No one does surgery on scapulas if you really want it.

<v Speaker 1>There is one doctor that can do it. But honestly,

<v Speaker 1>it's like breaking your ribs in a way. You just

<v Speaker 1>wait until they slowly heal, and so that's what I

<v Speaker 1>have to do. I do want to say that it's

<v Speaker 1>nobody's fault my injury. It's part of the business. I

<v Speaker 1>broke it on the stairs when I got the cannonball,

<v Speaker 1>but it was weird because when it happened, I instantly knew,

<v Speaker 1>and she said WWE officials did tell her to stay

<v Speaker 1>out of the match after she got hurt, but she

<v Speaker 1>insisted on staying in. She said she'll undergo X rays

<v Speaker 1>every two weeks to monitor her recovery and will not

<v Speaker 1>begin physical therapy for another two weeks. She says she's

<v Speaker 1>out three to six months, but really it all depends

<v Speaker 1>on how her shoulder heals, so it's going to be

<v Speaker 1>a while so for the time being. Now, based on

<v Speaker 1>the Nicky Bella video package that aired on Friday, we're

<v Speaker 1>getting a singles feud between Nicky Bella and Page Oh Boy.

<v Speaker 1>Then in the main event, we got the first singles

<v Speaker 1>match between Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill. It wasn't great.

<v Speaker 1>Charlotte had the match one with a figure eight when

<v Speaker 1>Meechen and b Fab caused a distraction. This led to

<v Speaker 1>the return of Alexa Bliss and her Lily Doll and

<v Speaker 1>then the lights went out and when they came back

<v Speaker 1>on Tatum Pasley from NXT was standing on the top

<v Speaker 1>rope and wiped out both of them on the floor

<v Speaker 1>with a high cross body, and then Charlotte wiped out

<v Speaker 1>Jade with a terrible looking supernatural selection and Pinter. So

<v Speaker 1>they've introduced Tatum to the main roster as an ally

<v Speaker 1>of I assume Charlotte and Alexa, but at least Alexa,

<v Speaker 1>which is not a bad spot for her to be

<v Speaker 1>in at all. But here's what I don't understand. I

<v Speaker 1>don't understand the logic behind calling up even more women

<v Speaker 1>on SmackDown when they already have women in that division

<v Speaker 1>drowning with nothing to do. Blake Monroe still has not

<v Speaker 1>had a formal debut yet, Julia and Keana James are

<v Speaker 1>floating face down waiting for their bodies to be pulled

<v Speaker 1>out of the water. And then you got Jordan Grace.

<v Speaker 1>She's working a Psycho sid benefit show in a few

<v Speaker 1>weeks that his son is hosting. At least it's for

<v Speaker 1>a good cause. It's to benefit local animal shelters. But

<v Speaker 1>she's certainly not doing anything on television these days. And

<v Speaker 1>now it appears that Lola Ice is following Tatum up

<v Speaker 1>from NXT. She said her goodbyes after losing to Kendall

<v Speaker 1>Gray and their NXT underground match. They've already filed to

<v Speaker 1>trademark the term Vice City, which they can do because

<v Speaker 1>it's specific to pro wrestling, So that sounds like it

<v Speaker 1>would be for her, And if she gets called up,

<v Speaker 1>the belief is that she would probably end up on

<v Speaker 1>SmackDown because that's where Damian Priest is and the two

<v Speaker 1>of them are an item. They're in a relationship and

<v Speaker 1>they try to keep couples together if they can. Doesn't

<v Speaker 1>always work out that way, but if that's what they

<v Speaker 1>intend to do, it's like how many more people are

<v Speaker 1>they going to toss in there? You know, soul Ruka

<v Speaker 1>is going to have a mystery partner on Raw tomorrow

<v Speaker 1>night against Rakeel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez. That would be

<v Speaker 1>a better spot to debut Lola. I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>they'll do it though, but until they can figure out

<v Speaker 1>how to make use of the women they already have

<v Speaker 1>on that show. Stop adding new ones. But really this

<v Speaker 1>show was all about the top two programs right now.

<v Speaker 1>CM punkin Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton.

<v Speaker 1>Cody came out at the beginning of the show. He

<v Speaker 1>wanted Orton to face him in the ring, and he

<v Speaker 1>was very upset, as he should be, because Randy Orton

<v Speaker 1>cost him the WWE Championship last weekend. He got CM

<v Speaker 1>Punk instead, and Punk comes out. He says, sounds like

<v Speaker 1>you wanted to ask me a question because his name

<v Speaker 1>was invoked, and Cody asked, did you know how you know?

<v Speaker 1>That would have been great if he would have asked

<v Speaker 1>him that now. He said, did you know about Orton's return?

<v Speaker 1>And Punk said he knew nothing about Orton? And he goes, look,

<v Speaker 1>if you want to, you and me, we can two

<v Speaker 1>man power trip this thing and go backstage. A wee

<v Speaker 1>could beat Orton's ass, and Cody declined. He said, look,

<v Speaker 1>I'll beat him up myself right now. The ring is

<v Speaker 1>yours and he went to go leave. He's halfway down

<v Speaker 1>the aisle and Punk said to him, what Cody had

<v Speaker 1>said to Punk after WrestleMania all those many months ago,

<v Speaker 1>just say when. And at that moment, Kevin Owens comes

<v Speaker 1>out and he had to pass Cody on his way

<v Speaker 1>to the ring. Cody actually handed the mic off to him.

<v Speaker 1>Obviously the last time we saw Kevin Owens and his company,

<v Speaker 1>he and Cody, they were feuding for months over the

<v Speaker 1>championship and we got the Return of the Winged Eagle

<v Speaker 1>and all that. So they shared a stare down. Owens

<v Speaker 1>made his way to the ring and finally we're gonna

<v Speaker 1>get this face talk, face to face, this face off

<v Speaker 1>between Kevin Owens and CM Punk and Owens walks right

<v Speaker 1>up to him and they're actually talking shit off mike,

<v Speaker 1>so we can barely hear what they're saying. Before they

<v Speaker 1>finally started talking into the mike. Nick Aldos was there

<v Speaker 1>and they were like. Owens is like, look, I told

<v Speaker 1>you that I would be professional about it. Just back off.

<v Speaker 1>It's okay, it's all good. Punk wanted to know if

<v Speaker 1>Owens wanted to wrestle, and Owens said, that's all I've

<v Speaker 1>wanted to do. I spent seventeen months on the sidelines

<v Speaker 1>wondering if I would ever be able to do this again.

<v Speaker 1>But he also said, you know, over time people have

<v Speaker 1>come up to him and said, oh, see him, Punk,

<v Speaker 1>He's a change man. Punk though, was proving him right

<v Speaker 1>by offering Cody a shot over him because he's now

<v Speaker 1>the number one contender, and Owens called Punk an arrogance sociopath.

<v Speaker 1>Punk said, I'm the best in the world. Some people

<v Speaker 1>don't like that, but I back it up every single

<v Speaker 1>time in the ring, and he talked about how you

<v Speaker 1>benefited from my arrogance. You benefited from the things that

<v Speaker 1>I'd been through. When I came here, there were people

<v Speaker 1>calling me skinny fat. You think they were knocking down

<v Speaker 1>doors at the time to sign Kevin Owens to sign

<v Speaker 1>someone like you to a WWE contract. He said Owens

<v Speaker 1>would be working a nine to five job every day

<v Speaker 1>and working weekend indie dates without him, and that Owens

<v Speaker 1>should be grateful for him. Owen said, you're right, but

<v Speaker 1>you also showed me what not to be thank Punk

<v Speaker 1>because it showed him how not to let this business

<v Speaker 1>turn him into a miserable piece of shit like Punk.

<v Speaker 1>And that's where all this and the officials came in

<v Speaker 1>and Owens gave him a week shove, which I didn't

<v Speaker 1>think was needed. The rest of this though, I thought

<v Speaker 1>this was great. Now. I wouldn't say that it was

<v Speaker 1>healish vibes from punk so much as it was just

<v Speaker 1>punk being punk. Right. The man's got a chip on

<v Speaker 1>his shoulder. And I love the part about him paving

<v Speaker 1>the way for people like Owens because he's not wrong.

<v Speaker 1>See I'm punk and Brian Danielson, both them getting over

<v Speaker 1>the way they did in WWE in the early twenty tens.

<v Speaker 1>That is what paved the way for the company opening

<v Speaker 1>its doors to more independent talent like Kevin Owens, like

<v Speaker 1>sammy's Ay, like Finn Balor. That whole black and Gold

<v Speaker 1>era of NXT was littered with independent talents, and littered

<v Speaker 1>also with guys who frankly like them. At a different

<v Speaker 1>point in time, they never would have been hired. They

<v Speaker 1>would have been paid five hundred bucks to do jobs

<v Speaker 1>for the bigger stars. But the disdain that both men

<v Speaker 1>had for one another in this segment, more so Owens

<v Speaker 1>for Punk came through very nicely here. I just loved

<v Speaker 1>the idea, and I told you, guys I shared last

<v Speaker 1>week for those who didn't know the whole ring of

<v Speaker 1>honor T shirt story from many years ago. That's as

<v Speaker 1>far back as the heat goes. I don't know if

<v Speaker 1>there was other stuff since then. Obviously Owens is good

<v Speaker 1>friends with the Young Bucks and so maybe you know

<v Speaker 1>he's got no love for Punk because of that. But

<v Speaker 1>the heat supposed heat between them or from Owens towards Punk,

<v Speaker 1>stems from that incident and Ring of Honor back stayed

<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and five, and I just loved the

<v Speaker 1>idea of there being heat between them over Owen's wearing

<v Speaker 1>a T shirt and a Ring of Honor match over

<v Speaker 1>twenty years ago, and here we are. Punk even took

<v Speaker 1>if you noticed, Punk even took a little dig at

<v Speaker 1>what Owens was wearing when he got in the ring.

<v Speaker 1>I love it. But later on Owens told Nick All

<v Speaker 1>this he wants his title match in Toronto on the

<v Speaker 1>August twenty first episode of SmackDown. Toronto is also the

<v Speaker 1>place where Owens last wrestled. That was an elimination chamber

<v Speaker 1>last year when he beat Sammy's Ain, the same Sammy's

<v Speaker 1>Ain who later wanted Owens to admit here on this

<v Speaker 1>show that you screwed me when you returned at SummerSlam

<v Speaker 1>returning the way you did. You screwed me, You stole

<v Speaker 1>my title opportunity. I want an apology, and Owens gave

<v Speaker 1>him a half hearted one, but he said, you would

<v Speaker 1>have done the exact same thing if you were in

<v Speaker 1>my shoes. Okay, you would not have said no to that.

<v Speaker 1>And Sammy told them, don't expect me to stop chasing

<v Speaker 1>what I want just because it happens to be what

<v Speaker 1>you want. An ominous threat there. I hate that we're

<v Speaker 1>probably getting Sammy interfering in that match in some way.

<v Speaker 1>I would love to see them put the belt on

<v Speaker 1>Kevin Owens. I doubt that they will, but I would

<v Speaker 1>love to see it. How many opportunities has Owens had

<v Speaker 1>to become WWE champion, He's always fallen short. He's failed

<v Speaker 1>every single time, whether it was against Cody, whether it

<v Speaker 1>was against Roman. Now he's going to get a shot

<v Speaker 1>against Punk and it's only their first match. You know,

<v Speaker 1>with any luck, we'll get more than one. I'm just

<v Speaker 1>saying I would love it. I would love it if

<v Speaker 1>they surprised us with a title change on that show.

<v Speaker 1>But he already told Cody, you know, just say when

<v Speaker 1>that's probably the WrestleMania match next year, Punk and Cody

<v Speaker 1>running it back. But I do like that everything is

<v Speaker 1>revolving around the title. You know, that's how it should be.

<v Speaker 1>Everyone wants to be the champion. Punk and Cody and

<v Speaker 1>Randy and Ko and Sammy Dunther wherever the hell he is.

<v Speaker 1>The Orton and Rhodes promo later in the show. It

<v Speaker 1>wasn't as good as this one. I still liked it

<v Speaker 1>well enough. Cody was all fired up, he was all

<v Speaker 1>pissed off again, as he should be. Orton would not

<v Speaker 1>get in the ring to fight him, so they spoke

<v Speaker 1>from afar and Cody said that you owe me an

<v Speaker 1>explanation for what you did at SummerSlam. Orton basically said,

<v Speaker 1>I don't know you a damn thing, and he said,

<v Speaker 1>you asked for this, you gave me permission. This is

<v Speaker 1>going back before the WrestleMania match. You wanted the best

<v Speaker 1>version of Randy Orton, and he gave Cody the best

<v Speaker 1>version of himself a WrestleMania and he got beat But

<v Speaker 1>in that moment, I guess you know, the voices came

<v Speaker 1>back in his head. That's when he gave him the

<v Speaker 1>punt kick, and now he knows the worst version of

<v Speaker 1>Randy Orton is what he needs to be if he's

<v Speaker 1>ever gonna win number fifteen, and he vowed to do

<v Speaker 1>whatever it takes to make sure that Cody is never

<v Speaker 1>WWE champion again. And Cody said he's no longer held

<v Speaker 1>to the standards of the WWE Championship. He no longer

<v Speaker 1>has to be the good guy because Orton is the

<v Speaker 1>last legend standing, which is which is kind of true.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, think about it. John Steen has retired, AJ

<v Speaker 1>Styles has retired, brock Lesner is retired, Undertaker's long gone, Cain,

<v Speaker 1>Big Show, Jericho. I mean, those guys have been gone

<v Speaker 1>for years. It's down to Randy Orton. And he said

<v Speaker 1>that the only question left to answer is who can

<v Speaker 1>kills you? Because Orton used to be the legend killer,

<v Speaker 1>So who kills you? That last line was stone cold.

<v Speaker 1>I like that. Cody's saying he no longer has to

<v Speaker 1>be the good guy indicates an attitude shift, not necessarily

<v Speaker 1>a heel turn is coming, although it should it's not

<v Speaker 1>because I saw some people before I even had a

<v Speaker 1>chance to watch the show. I just checked social media

<v Speaker 1>real quick after the Hog Show, and people are like, oh,

<v Speaker 1>Cody's He's going heel or it's you know, it's happening,

<v Speaker 1>and I'm like that. That wasn't really my takeaway necessarily

<v Speaker 1>from this. I saw it as more of an attitude shift.

<v Speaker 1>This is not heal Cody, but if it gives him

<v Speaker 1>a harder edge and we get to see a different

<v Speaker 1>side of him, I'm all for it. You know, the

<v Speaker 1>current version of Cody Roase just continuing to do what

<v Speaker 1>he's been doing is fucking boring. But now they get

<v Speaker 1>a second bite at the apple, these two without Pat

<v Speaker 1>McAfee being involved. So I liked the key parts of SmackDown,

<v Speaker 1>but on the whole, a weaker show than the one

<v Speaker 1>we got on Monday. And before I move on here,

<v Speaker 1>this would be a good place to mention this week's

<v Speaker 1>sad tweet, which actually ties into one of the legends

<v Speaker 1>that I just mentioned, AJ Styles or sad tweets, I

<v Speaker 1>should say. So. AJ Styles got into it on social

<v Speaker 1>media over the last couple of days with independent wrestler

<v Speaker 1>Arik Cannon, who wrestled AJ twice way back in two

<v Speaker 1>thousand and four. Cannon's been around for a couple of

<v Speaker 1>decades now. He even got a shout out from cmpunk

<v Speaker 1>on the SummerSlam post show last weekend. Funny enough, the

<v Speaker 1>two of them exchanged words on X after Canon threw

<v Speaker 1>some shade at Ajsun Avery for allegedly not helping as

<v Speaker 1>far as whether it was the ring or setting up

<v Speaker 1>chairs at a GCW show last Saturday, which is something

<v Speaker 1>that you know, especially if you're new to the business

<v Speaker 1>or if you're a student or a trainee or someone

<v Speaker 1>like that. You know, at a lot of these independent ships,

<v Speaker 1>who do you think sets up the ring? Right, who

<v Speaker 1>do you think sets up the chairs? They don't have

<v Speaker 1>a dedicated crew necessarily doing that sort of thing. It's

<v Speaker 1>the wrestlers. And obviously Avery Styles is brand new to

<v Speaker 1>the business. I don't know how old he is. He's

<v Speaker 1>obviously still very young. And so that's what this was

<v Speaker 1>all about. But it started when fight Full, I think,

<v Speaker 1>on their account, had posted a quote from Natty Natty

<v Speaker 1>Knightheart on X where she had praised Avery and Marcus

<v Speaker 1>Mathers and Marcus Mathers is fucking awesome, by the way,

<v Speaker 1>praising Avery and Marcus Mathers for that GCW mesh they

<v Speaker 1>had in Minneapolis, because she was there to see it

<v Speaker 1>in person, and she says she wanted to get Avery

<v Speaker 1>at her school at the Dungeon, and that he is

<v Speaker 1>willing to pay his dues as a young wrestler, and

<v Speaker 1>so Canon he couldn't resist, and he wrote, as someone

<v Speaker 1>who watched this kid skirt away from helping with a

<v Speaker 1>single thing at this very show, I would just like

<v Speaker 1>to say l O fucking l orl aj Stiles saw

<v Speaker 1>this and he quote tweeted that, and he wrote he

<v Speaker 1>was paid to wrestle at GCW, not help you put

<v Speaker 1>up and take down the ring. That sounds like your job.

<v Speaker 1>You just sound like a jealous douche, to which Cannon replied,

<v Speaker 1>I have all the respect in the world for you, Aj.

<v Speaker 1>I understand why you would defend your son and it

<v Speaker 1>is admirable, But the fact remains he can stay AJ's kid,

<v Speaker 1>continue to skirt responsibility and paying his dues, or he

<v Speaker 1>can earn the respect of his peers and stand on

<v Speaker 1>his own as Avery. Styles then replied, you don't ask

<v Speaker 1>someone to have dinner at your house and have them

<v Speaker 1>do the dishes. He was asked to wrestle at GCW.

<v Speaker 1>Although grateful for the opportunity, a vet would have talked

<v Speaker 1>to him professionally or at least face the face, and

<v Speaker 1>Cannon replied again, writing a twenty plus year vet and

<v Speaker 1>promoter asked him to help with the chairs twice. Instead

<v Speaker 1>of helping, he hid in the locker room until everything

<v Speaker 1>was done. My two sents isn't going to affect his future.

<v Speaker 1>But with all due respect, you stating that he doesn't

<v Speaker 1>need to help is only doing him a disservice. And

<v Speaker 1>then there was this reply from someone unrelated to the

<v Speaker 1>two of them, but someone named Nick Santrizos, who I

<v Speaker 1>take at worked the show. This was in response to aj.

<v Speaker 1>He said, your kid was a dickhead. Everyone else helped,

<v Speaker 1>but he couldn't lift a chair. None of our media

<v Speaker 1>team got so much as a handshake from your brat.

<v Speaker 1>But he's begging us for photos. Should we invoice you

<v Speaker 1>since he uses everything else of yours? I assume he

<v Speaker 1>uses your wallet. Fucking dick. Wow. Yeah, I mean, look,

<v Speaker 1>this really should have been dealt with offline. I'll let

<v Speaker 1>the wrestlers listening to this way in with who they

<v Speaker 1>think is in the right and who they think is

<v Speaker 1>in the wrong. Care I'd be very curious. I think

<v Speaker 1>Cannon is the one who also took a shot at

<v Speaker 1>dominic mysterio many years ago go teaming with his dad

<v Speaker 1>on TV. I just don't think he likes it when

<v Speaker 1>those less experienced than he is get opportunities based on

<v Speaker 1>what gene pool they came from. That's my sense of that,

<v Speaker 1>which I mean, look, I can understand that, but AJ

<v Speaker 1>really comes off badly here, Like I get him sticking

<v Speaker 1>up for his kid, but this is not the way

<v Speaker 1>to do it. He's only making it worse. It's like

<v Speaker 1>daddy has to fight his battles for him. This kid's

<v Speaker 1>career is just getting started. The last thing he needs

<v Speaker 1>is to have a stink on him from something like this,

<v Speaker 1>or you know, to develop a reputation. But in any event,

<v Speaker 1>they both win the award for said tweet. I bought

<v Speaker 1>plenty of ribbons off Amazon. I bought them in bulk

<v Speaker 1>so they can each get one to pin on their chest.

<v Speaker 1>Today's episode is sponsored by HYMNS. I know for many

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<v Speaker 1>dot com. So remember when I told you about the

<v Speaker 1>latest twist in Paramount's attempt to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery

<v Speaker 1>The METEA rights partner for AW a coalition of state

<v Speaker 1>attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. They both

<v Speaker 1>filed lawsuits in mid July seeking to stop the merger,

<v Speaker 1>and after a judge issued to temporary restraining order pausing

<v Speaker 1>the deal, Paramount agreed to stand down until a trial

<v Speaker 1>ruling or until June of twenty twenty seven, whichever comes first.

<v Speaker 1>So Paramount then proposed a November trial because it's in

<v Speaker 1>their best interest to wrap this up as soon as possible.

<v Speaker 1>The states and the writers they proposed an April start

<v Speaker 1>date because they needed more time to prepare. Well. There

<v Speaker 1>were two big developments this past week. On Thursday, the

<v Speaker 1>UK gave regulatory approval for Paramount to acquire Warner Brothers

<v Speaker 1>Discovery after assurances from Paramount that it would preserve editorial independence,

<v Speaker 1>invest in UK programming, and protect children's networks. But before that,

<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday, a judge set a March twenty twenty seven

<v Speaker 1>trial day to resolve this whole thing. And that is

<v Speaker 1>really really bad for Paramount because originally they wanted this

<v Speaker 1>deal done by the end of September. They wanted it

<v Speaker 1>done by the end of the summer, and instead they're

<v Speaker 1>stuck in limbo now for at least seven more months.

<v Speaker 1>And the reason this is bad for them is because

<v Speaker 1>it's going to cost them a lot of money. Under

<v Speaker 1>the merger agreement, the company must pay WBD shareholders around

<v Speaker 1>seven million dollars for every day after September thirty that

<v Speaker 1>the deal has not closed. So a March trial date

<v Speaker 1>means Paramount will own north of a billion dollars in

<v Speaker 1>what they call ticking fees before a ruling ever comes down. Now,

<v Speaker 1>those ticking fees, they don't actually get paid to the

<v Speaker 1>shareholders unless the deal ultimately closes. But here's the wrinkle

<v Speaker 1>in this. If Paramount wins at trial, right the state

<v Speaker 1>ags and the writers, they can appeal that decision. That

<v Speaker 1>appeals process could take as long as a year and

<v Speaker 1>a half. It would almost certainly take several months at

<v Speaker 1>a minimum. That's if Paramount wins. If Paramount loses, and

<v Speaker 1>there's a very good chance they will, Paramount can appeal

<v Speaker 1>the ruling, and again the appeals process would take a

<v Speaker 1>lot of time. That is time that the Ellison family

<v Speaker 1>does not have because as of June fourth, twenty twenty seven,

<v Speaker 1>and it is written into the merger agreement that David Zaslov,

<v Speaker 1>the head of Warner Brothers Discovery, if he sees fit

<v Speaker 1>to do so, could wash his hands of the whole deal.

<v Speaker 1>And if he does, Warner Brothers Discovery would collect a

<v Speaker 1>seven billion dollar termination fee from Paramount, and they don't

<v Speaker 1>have a damn thing to show for it. I don't

<v Speaker 1>see how this deal gets done. Now. They could always

<v Speaker 1>reach some sort of settlement before then, right before the

<v Speaker 1>trial date, but the ones blocking this merger, they seem

<v Speaker 1>to have their heels pretty well dug in on this.

<v Speaker 1>I don't see how this deal happens. I think that

<v Speaker 1>trial day just killed this deal dead. That's what I

<v Speaker 1>think now. Tony Kahan has talked publicly about his friendship

<v Speaker 1>with David Ellison, the Son, and how optimistic and excited

<v Speaker 1>he is at the prospect of Paramount buying the company.

<v Speaker 1>Whether he really means that or he just feels like

<v Speaker 1>he has to say that to keep AW in good

<v Speaker 1>standing with them, only he knows. But if Paramount doesn't

<v Speaker 1>get it, that it's more uncertainty for aw's future if

<v Speaker 1>someone else steps in to buy it, especially if that's

<v Speaker 1>someone is Netflix given that they have a business relationship

<v Speaker 1>with WWE, or no one gets it and they just

<v Speaker 1>get stripped for parts. Yeah, the funny thing is a

<v Speaker 1>lot of this has to do with CNN, and Netflix

<v Speaker 1>did not want CNN when they first pursued this deal.

<v Speaker 1>They didn't want any of the linear networks at all.

<v Speaker 1>They were only interested in the movie Studio and HBO Max.

<v Speaker 1>That's all they were going to buy. So it is

<v Speaker 1>entirely possible even if this deal falls apart, that Paramount

<v Speaker 1>could still end up getting CNN anyway if they really

<v Speaker 1>want it, and for a lot cheaper than this deal

<v Speaker 1>would cost them. But that's where things stand. Stay tuned,

<v Speaker 1>I guess as the World Turns Grand Slam Mexico on

<v Speaker 1>Wednesday had a hot crowd, one of their best all

<v Speaker 1>year at Arena Mexico, with eight matches and nothing in

<v Speaker 1>the way of backstage segments. I said on the post

<v Speaker 1>show stream that it felt like a pay per view

<v Speaker 1>with commercials, so basically a wweple if wwepls actually allowed

<v Speaker 1>more than six minutes for most of their matches. They

<v Speaker 1>advertised it as a two and a half hour show.

<v Speaker 1>They lied. They ran Jeschi of three and look, if

<v Speaker 1>you're into great wrestling matches with a hot crowd, this

<v Speaker 1>may be the best TV all year. But again, there

<v Speaker 1>wasn't much else to it. You know, it was pretty

<v Speaker 1>straightforward stuff. The biggest surprise to me was no Kenny

<v Speaker 1>Omega at Arena Mexico. I was very surprised that he

<v Speaker 1>wasn't there. Will Osprey was there though in the main

<v Speaker 1>event against Mark Davis, and I was enjoying it until

<v Speaker 1>they hit one too many pile driver kickouts by Osprey.

<v Speaker 1>I hated that they still had a very good match, though,

<v Speaker 1>second time this year those two have closed Dynamite with

<v Speaker 1>a great match. The big angle was the return of

<v Speaker 1>MJF for the first time since he lost his world

<v Speaker 1>title of Beach Break. He came out to attack and

<v Speaker 1>bloody up androte Aldelo, who won the right to enter

<v Speaker 1>the Casino Gauntlet it all In in the number one spot.

<v Speaker 1>MJF took back his Dynamite Diamond ring. He split Andrade open.

<v Speaker 1>He called himself the true champion, the only true champion right.

<v Speaker 1>He still had the Triple B with him, and he

<v Speaker 1>announced that he would be having a qualifying match this

<v Speaker 1>Wednesday for the right to enter the Gauntlet at all

<v Speaker 1>In in the number two spot, which sets up a

<v Speaker 1>potential MJF Andrade start at Wembley in the gauntlet match.

<v Speaker 1>Mjf's already won one of these gauntlet matches before he

<v Speaker 1>used that contract to win back the world title last

<v Speaker 1>year at World's End. You know, having Mercedes Monet win

<v Speaker 1>back to back owen Hart tournaments and have MJF win

<v Speaker 1>back to back casino gauntlets would be pretty lame. I

<v Speaker 1>just think that would be very lame. Without knowing who

<v Speaker 1>else is in that gauntlet match, I would say the

<v Speaker 1>two cancel each other out and somebody else wins, and

<v Speaker 1>then MJF and Andrade go on to have their singles match,

<v Speaker 1>maybe at all Out. That's my early read on things,

<v Speaker 1>but we'll see how the true World Champion angle plays

<v Speaker 1>at If it's like when cmpunk came back after brawl Out,

<v Speaker 1>he had the aw title belt with the X spray

<v Speaker 1>painted on it as the real World Champion, We'll see

<v Speaker 1>if it's something like that. They've already switched the trios

<v Speaker 1>belts again after going from the Conglomeration to the Demand.

<v Speaker 1>The Demand then dropped him to Hangman, Page, Brody King

<v Speaker 1>and Bandido, which is a much better trio than the Demand.

<v Speaker 1>That's an upgrade there, but those trios belts are worth

<v Speaker 1>about as much as the Mexican peso these days compared

<v Speaker 1>to the dollar, although the dollar is not as strong

<v Speaker 1>as it used to be either. Chris Jericho. He came

<v Speaker 1>out dressed and also billed as Corrazon de Leone, which

<v Speaker 1>is what he used to wrestle as at Arena Mexico

<v Speaker 1>when he worked there from ninety three to ninety five.

<v Speaker 1>I believe, Yeah, it should have been ninety five because

<v Speaker 1>that's around the time I think he started wrestling in ECW,

<v Speaker 1>but that was for a trios match that he was

<v Speaker 1>part of, tagging with Mystico and Darby Allen. Mystico got

<v Speaker 1>the big entrance with the crowds singing along, so did

<v Speaker 1>Adam Copeland, who had never worked Arena Mexico before, so

<v Speaker 1>he was able to cross that off his wrestling bucket list.

<v Speaker 1>He wrote on Instagram the next day, what a night. Finally,

<v Speaker 1>after thirty four years, I was privileged to step into

<v Speaker 1>the wrestling cathedral, Arena Mexico and Man, Mexico, you did

<v Speaker 1>not disappoint. I felt the vibrations in my bones when

<v Speaker 1>I came out. It had been eighteen years since I

<v Speaker 1>last performed in Mexico and to finally do an in

<v Speaker 1>front or in those hallowed halls the perfect way to

<v Speaker 1>cap off my love affair with Lucha Libre and Mexico.

<v Speaker 1>I'll take last night to the grave with me. Gracias Mexico.

<v Speaker 1>The next one to mark off his list comes it

<v Speaker 1>all in. It's gonna be wrestling at Wembley Stadium for

<v Speaker 1>the first time in his life. The Maple Leaf Gardens

<v Speaker 1>and the Tokyo Dome. Those were the other two venues

<v Speaker 1>that he had on his list. This list I keep

<v Speaker 1>referring to. By the way, it was very similar to

<v Speaker 1>what Cody did many years ago when he left WWE.

<v Speaker 1>He took picture of himself, or not of himself, but

<v Speaker 1>of a list that he had put together of all

<v Speaker 1>the different opponents that he wanted to wrestle, and that

<v Speaker 1>sort of went viral on social media. So this was

<v Speaker 1>Copeland's version of this. He posted that up last week.

<v Speaker 1>The only name, as far as opponents, the only name

<v Speaker 1>on that list that I noticed was Kenny Omega, but

<v Speaker 1>he listed a whole bunch of different venues and so

<v Speaker 1>those were the other two. And he's going to be

<v Speaker 1>able to cross off Maple Leave Gardens, which is not

<v Speaker 1>Maple Leave Gardens anymore. It's got a different name. But

<v Speaker 1>he's going to debut for Maple Leaf Pro on October

<v Speaker 1>third against former t ANDA World champion Steve Macklin. So

<v Speaker 1>he's going to be able to cross that building off

<v Speaker 1>and then all that's left is the Tokyo Dome. Get

<v Speaker 1>ready for some strong style Copeland at Russell Kingdom next year.

<v Speaker 1>Eddie Kingston, by the way, he had to board a

<v Speaker 1>three am flight after the HG Show Friday night to

<v Speaker 1>make it to Colorado Springs for his Continental Cup match

<v Speaker 1>on Collision last night with Jake Doyle, which he won

<v Speaker 1>by the way, and so he advances. It took two

<v Speaker 1>spinning backfists and a dragon sleeper to do it, but

<v Speaker 1>the first ever continental champion is moving on here in

<v Speaker 1>this tournament. He wasn't the only one. Claudio Castignoli he

<v Speaker 1>advanced with a win over Ace Austin and Orange Cassidy

<v Speaker 1>advance with a win over Matt Sidell. So this coming Wednesday,

<v Speaker 1>Dynamite is in Las Vegas as his collision. Next weekend

<v Speaker 1>on Dynamite they're doing Jay White against David Finley and

<v Speaker 1>John Moxley against Jack Perry. And then on Saturday's collision

<v Speaker 1>next week is Roderick Strong against Kyle O'Reilly, So both

<v Speaker 1>members of the Conglomeration are going to be wrestling each other.

<v Speaker 1>Hetchesero against Brian Cage and Nigel McGinnis gets in the

<v Speaker 1>ring against Katiori Shabata. And so after next weekend, the

<v Speaker 1>remaining eight men, they're going to be entered into a

<v Speaker 1>blind draw to determine who is wrestling who in the

<v Speaker 1>next round of the tournament. The semi finals will end

<v Speaker 1>up taking place on I guess that would be the

<v Speaker 1>go home episode of DNAD they're doing Dynamite in Glasgow, Scotland,

<v Speaker 1>and then the finals for the Cup and the Championship

<v Speaker 1>were taking place at all in London at Wembley Stadium.

<v Speaker 1>Dark Side of the Ring this week covered the fall

<v Speaker 1>of the renegade Rick Wilson, who for a period of

<v Speaker 1>time in WCW played the role of an ultimate Warrior

<v Speaker 1>knockoff and got to rub shoulders with big names like

<v Speaker 1>Hulk Cogan and Rick Flair, some of the biggest names

<v Speaker 1>in the business, in a spot that he was nowhere

<v Speaker 1>near ready for and that realistically he was never going

<v Speaker 1>to be able to be successful in. They set this

<v Speaker 1>man up to fail from day one with that gimmick. Unfortunately,

<v Speaker 1>his story turned tragic years later after he was let

<v Speaker 1>go by WCW and he took his own life. So

<v Speaker 1>it certainly fits the criteria for Dark Side of the Ring.

<v Speaker 1>Among the faces they interviewed for this episode were his

<v Speaker 1>ex wife Kimberly, Eric Bischoff, arn Anderson, Marty Jannetti, father

<v Speaker 1>James Mitchell, who has been a good addition, i think

<v Speaker 1>to the rotating list of talking heads this season, and

<v Speaker 1>John Pollock of Post Wrestling, who added some good insights

<v Speaker 1>his ex said that he always wanted to be a

<v Speaker 1>famous pro wrestler, and she thinks that his desire to

<v Speaker 1>be famous had a lot to do with some sort

<v Speaker 1>of validation that he was seeking in his life. He

<v Speaker 1>once confided in her that his mother resented him for

<v Speaker 1>having him so young. She was only fifteen when she

<v Speaker 1>gave birth to him. I mean, like, that's his fault.

<v Speaker 1>He didn't even know who his biological father was, so

<v Speaker 1>he grew up feeling very isolated and very unwonted. And

<v Speaker 1>then we find out that he dealt with some sort

<v Speaker 1>of abuse from his stepfather, but he ended up growing

<v Speaker 1>his hair out, he built his physique up, and then

<v Speaker 1>he joined his friend's exotic dance troupe called Ultimate Fantasy.

<v Speaker 1>So think Chippendale's Dancers. That's basically what it was. And

<v Speaker 1>actually they didn't mention this in the episode, but Slam

<v Speaker 1>Wrestling has a story on him from a few years ago.

<v Speaker 1>They were so successful that Chippendale's actually picked them up

<v Speaker 1>as a road show. And I don't know why. It

<v Speaker 1>only just hit me now that the word ultimate was

<v Speaker 1>in the name of the groove. That's pretty fucking eerie.

<v Speaker 1>But his name in the group was Rio, which would

<v Speaker 1>be his name once he started wrestling on the independence

<v Speaker 1>Rio Lord of the Jungle, So I guess he was

<v Speaker 1>sort of like a Tarzan type. That's the name he

<v Speaker 1>went by for the one dark match that he had

<v Speaker 1>in the WWF against the Brooklyn Brawler. But I guess

<v Speaker 1>they weren't interested in him, I mean to be fair,

<v Speaker 1>Even before he went to WCW, he was already dressing

<v Speaker 1>like the Warrior with the tassels and everything else on

<v Speaker 1>the indies, and he just looked so much like him

<v Speaker 1>that everybody saw it. You know what blew my mind

<v Speaker 1>was seeing the footage in the episode, which I never

<v Speaker 1>even knew existed, of The Warrior himself endorsing him on

<v Speaker 1>the microphone and praising him at an independent show that

<v Speaker 1>would have been around the same time. It couldn't have

<v Speaker 1>been long after he had that tryout match with the WWF,

<v Speaker 1>and so they have footage of Warrior putting him over

<v Speaker 1>and saying imitation is the sincerest form of FLO. They

<v Speaker 1>didn't get into it in the episode, but the reality is,

<v Speaker 1>you know, WCW, they tried to get the real Ultimate

<v Speaker 1>Warrior as early as nineteen ninety five. Hogan and Jimmy

<v Speaker 1>Hard they tried to bring him in. Ninety five probably

<v Speaker 1>would have been the perfect time to get him in. Honestly,

<v Speaker 1>with all the goofy gimmicks that they had at that time,

<v Speaker 1>the Dungeon of Doom and all that kind of stuff.

<v Speaker 1>I mean, Hogan and Warrior, they could have just destroyed

<v Speaker 1>the whole roster. Ninety Five was a bad year in

<v Speaker 1>wrestling for gimmicks all around, But in The Observer at

<v Speaker 1>the time, Meltzer reported that Warrior was asking for two

<v Speaker 1>and a half million dollars per year. W CW in

<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety five was in no position to be doing

<v Speaker 1>that right for anybody except maybe Hogan, And so that's

<v Speaker 1>what set the wheels in motion for the Renegade, who

<v Speaker 1>got his name from a very popular TV show at

<v Speaker 1>that time of the same name. I used to watch

<v Speaker 1>Renegade with Lorenzo Lamas Lorenzo Lamis and Kathleen Kinmont. The

<v Speaker 1>only reason I know that name because I remember her

<v Speaker 1>from Halloween four. I still remember her kill scene in

<v Speaker 1>that movie. But you want to know how the Renegade

<v Speaker 1>came to be, Here's how the Renegade came to be.

<v Speaker 1>I'll give you a little background here. Wendell Robinson was

<v Speaker 1>an ex wrestler. I think his wrestling name was Wendell Weatherby,

<v Speaker 1>but his name was Wendell Robinson. He was a wrestler

<v Speaker 1>term promoter in the Northeast. He served as the Warriors'

<v Speaker 1>personal chauffeur when he worked for the WWF. He drove

<v Speaker 1>limos I think for a few of the top guys,

<v Speaker 1>but he got very close with the Warrior. And you know,

<v Speaker 1>he even took care of Warrior's house out in Arizona.

<v Speaker 1>He lived there when Warrior was on the road. Robinson

<v Speaker 1>happened to mention Rick Wilson to Jimmy Hart in a

<v Speaker 1>conversation that they had on the phone once, and he

<v Speaker 1>sent Jimmy a video of his matches, and Jimmy couldn't

<v Speaker 1>believe how uncanny the resemblance was between the two of them.

<v Speaker 1>And he told Hogan, hey, look look, we got our

<v Speaker 1>ultimate Warrior here. And that's how it came to be

<v Speaker 1>that he got his big break in WCW. So he

<v Speaker 1>could thank the Warrior, he could thank the Warriors old

<v Speaker 1>driver for that. But they aired vignettes on TV with

<v Speaker 1>Hogan teasing an ultimate surprise. Gee I wonder who the

<v Speaker 1>fans will think it is. He actually did, literally in

<v Speaker 1>one of the vignettes, say hey, Rick Flair, this surprise

<v Speaker 1>is not the Ultimate Warrior. And I guarantee you that

<v Speaker 1>had more to do with legal reasons than anything else.

<v Speaker 1>It's like when Bischoff had Halan Nash at the Great

<v Speaker 1>American Bash admit that they were not working for the WWF,

<v Speaker 1>like they were in double agents who were coming into invade.

<v Speaker 1>But then he talked about having an Ultimate Surprise. It

<v Speaker 1>was like, let's just get the formalities out of the

<v Speaker 1>way and just say, oh, yeah, it's not the Ultimate Warrior.

<v Speaker 1>But then we'll spend the rest of the promo with

<v Speaker 1>the guy behind Hogan. You can barely see him. It's

<v Speaker 1>like a silhouette. They have all of this dry ice

<v Speaker 1>and smoke that's like obscuring him. And he's still using

<v Speaker 1>the word ultimate. It's like, he's not the Ultimate Warrior,

<v Speaker 1>but we want you to think it's the Ultimate Warrior.

<v Speaker 1>Why they thought that this would go over well is

<v Speaker 1>a question? Better asked the Hogan, Who's dead or Jimmy

<v Speaker 1>Hart who was not interviewed for this. But this was bad,

<v Speaker 1>like fake Razor and Diesel bad, but they debuted him

<v Speaker 1>with Hogan. There's no higher spot on the card to

<v Speaker 1>be in other than the spot that Hogan's in. I mean,

<v Speaker 1>they threw this guy right into the deep end of

<v Speaker 1>the pool and Tom and told him to swim. Only

<v Speaker 1>problem is they never taught him how to swim. But

<v Speaker 1>he debuted at the uncensored pay per view in ninety five.

<v Speaker 1>This was the night that Hogan Invader. Oh my god.

<v Speaker 1>I've talked about this before, probably in This Week in

<v Speaker 1>History at some point, but they had a match on

<v Speaker 1>pay per view. Hogan Invader had a strap match, an

<v Speaker 1>Indian strap match, a non title Indian strap match where

<v Speaker 1>the object was to drag your opponent into all four

<v Speaker 1>corners of the ring. Except somehow Rick Flair ended up

<v Speaker 1>being strapped to Hogan at the end of it, and

<v Speaker 1>Hogan dragged Flair to all four corners and won the match.

<v Speaker 1>Don't ask me, don't ask me. The answer is because

<v Speaker 1>Rick Flair was always willing to do the jobs that

<v Speaker 1>no one else was welcome to. Nineteen ninety five WCW.

<v Speaker 1>Then you throw the Renegade in there, which went over

<v Speaker 1>like a lead balloon. It was quite the night and

<v Speaker 1>for working such a big angle and working with guys

<v Speaker 1>like Hogan and Flair. Renegade was only making about five

<v Speaker 1>hundred bucks a night, which I would imagine his travel

<v Speaker 1>alone ate into a good chunk of that. But it

<v Speaker 1>was too much too soon for the guy, you know,

<v Speaker 1>and being a great value Ultimate Warrior didn't help. It

<v Speaker 1>was also very clear that he was brought in to

<v Speaker 1>eventually be fed to Hogan. I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm

<v Speaker 1>positive that that was the end result of all of this,

<v Speaker 1>had he not flamed out as quickly as he did.

<v Speaker 1>Let's bring this guy in and let's see what happens,

<v Speaker 1>and if, by chance, he happens to get over and

<v Speaker 1>he has some success, eventually we'll turn him heel and

<v Speaker 1>it's like Hogan will get his win back over the Warrior,

<v Speaker 1>and it won't even be the Warrior, but we'll build

<v Speaker 1>this guy up as like a monster for Hogan to slay.

<v Speaker 1>I guarantee you that was the thought process behind it.

<v Speaker 1>Even Steve Austin refused to do a job for him

<v Speaker 1>at a worldwide taping. And I think eventually he did

<v Speaker 1>wrestle him, and I think they had a terrible match.

<v Speaker 1>But you know, he probably wasn't very well liked by

<v Speaker 1>some of the people backstage. It had to be more

<v Speaker 1>out of resentment than anything else, because by all accounts,

<v Speaker 1>he was a nice enough guy. I've never heard anybody

<v Speaker 1>say anything bad about him, like, oh he was disrespectful

<v Speaker 1>or he had a big chip on his shoulder or

<v Speaker 1>anything like that. By all accounts and stories that people

<v Speaker 1>have told, he kept to himself. You know, he didn't

<v Speaker 1>have a big head like the van Hammer stories that

<v Speaker 1>I shared with you guys after van Hammer passed away recently.

<v Speaker 1>It didn't sound like a bad guy. But you know,

<v Speaker 1>he was a little full of himself when they first

<v Speaker 1>started pushing him in WCW. But Arn Anderson actually funny enough,

<v Speaker 1>Arn Anderson, that's part of the van Hammer story, I think. Right,

<v Speaker 1>he was going to be in a match with Arn

<v Speaker 1>and a bunch of other people, and Arn was like,

<v Speaker 1>who the hell are you? You know, who do you

<v Speaker 1>think you are? Arn Anderson was the star of the

<v Speaker 1>episode here. When he talked about his match with Renegade

<v Speaker 1>at the Great American Bash in ninety five, which was

<v Speaker 1>not great. Arn makes it sound like it's like the

<v Speaker 1>worst match ever, right, I mean, it might have been

<v Speaker 1>for Arn Anderson. But I mean, I've seen worse. It

<v Speaker 1>is not the worst match ever. It's not good, but

<v Speaker 1>it's not the worst match ever. But when he's talking about,

<v Speaker 1>you know, trying to work with the guy, he said,

<v Speaker 1>when he works with you, he expects you to know

<v Speaker 1>how to wrestle. He expects you to be a pro wrestler,

<v Speaker 1>not a dick dancer. But the way he said it,

<v Speaker 1>this will be it'll be clipped for years to come.

<v Speaker 1>It's like, I expect you to be a professional wrestler,

<v Speaker 1>n a dick dancer. I can't even do it justice.

<v Speaker 1>Like the way he said it was just fucking hilarious.

<v Speaker 1>It might actually be better than the glock promo in

<v Speaker 1>adw He might have topped Armed Anderson here with this one. So, yeah,

<v Speaker 1>if you're gonna work with Arn Anderson, he expects you

<v Speaker 1>to know how to wrestle and not to be a

<v Speaker 1>dick dancer. But they put the television title on Renegade

<v Speaker 1>that night, and Arn went to the back and he

<v Speaker 1>said the first person that he saw or who greeted

<v Speaker 1>him was Paul Orndorf, who was the subject of the

<v Speaker 1>next Dark Side of the Ring episode that's coming up.

<v Speaker 1>Orndorf tells him that that match was the shits, and

<v Speaker 1>then Orndorf had to job to the Renegade at Bash

<v Speaker 1>at the Beach the following month. That match was probably worse.

<v Speaker 1>Orndorf was only a few months away from retirement himself,

<v Speaker 1>at least for a few years. But the fans weren't

<v Speaker 1>buying this guy. They were not buying what WCW was

<v Speaker 1>trying to sell. They were cheering for the Heels over him.

<v Speaker 1>And when they weren't cheering the Heels, they were booing Renegade.

<v Speaker 1>They soundly rejected him, and WCW knew it. Hogan knew it.

<v Speaker 1>So Hogan backed away from the guy. I got nothing

<v Speaker 1>to do with his brother. That don't work for me.

<v Speaker 1>Brother Hogan was the whole reason they brought him into

<v Speaker 1>the company in the first place, Hogan and Jimmy Hart.

<v Speaker 1>And so what did they do after he dropped the

<v Speaker 1>TV titled to DDP At Fall Brawl, It was an

<v Speaker 1>episode of Nitro in November. He got squashed by Kevin

<v Speaker 1>Sullivan and then Jimmy Hart poured water all over the

<v Speaker 1>man's face. He wiped off his face paint and he's

<v Speaker 1>yelling at him, you're a nobody. You're nothing, You're just

<v Speaker 1>plain old rick. Total humiliation on live TV. And there's

<v Speaker 1>something unnerving about Jimmy Hart being the one to do this,

<v Speaker 1>as he was the one who brought this man into

<v Speaker 1>WCW in the first place, and because the gimmick never

<v Speaker 1>got over, it's not like him doing that. So the

<v Speaker 1>guy got any heat to get heat, the fans have

<v Speaker 1>to care about the person that you're getting heat on.

<v Speaker 1>It was just done to embarrass the guy, and even

<v Speaker 1>if that wasn't their intent, that's how it came off.

<v Speaker 1>This guy's career was over before it even started, but

<v Speaker 1>they didn't give up on him right away completely. They

<v Speaker 1>tried him in a tag team that didn't work. The

<v Speaker 1>guy they paired him off with, Joe Gomez, is just

<v Speaker 1>as bad as he was. He remained employed though for

<v Speaker 1>a few more years. They just didn't do anything with

<v Speaker 1>him because he was so inexperienced, and by that point,

<v Speaker 1>how could they The guy was damage goods. He wasn't

<v Speaker 1>even behind the face paints anymore. Everybody could see him,

<v Speaker 1>they knew who he was. What else are you going

<v Speaker 1>to do with this guy outside of putting a mask

<v Speaker 1>on him and with his physique, they'd probably know right

<v Speaker 1>away who it was. So we started drinking, which is

<v Speaker 1>something he really wasn't into previously. Maybe a drink here

<v Speaker 1>and there. This was different. Skip ahead to ninety eight

<v Speaker 1>and WCW finally gets the real Ultimate Warrior to come in,

<v Speaker 1>which Bishoff justifies by saying, well, he had name value,

<v Speaker 1>and we also had the story of Hogan having lost

<v Speaker 1>the match to him years earlier a WrestleMania, so it

<v Speaker 1>made sense to bring him in. Translation, Hogan wanted to

<v Speaker 1>get his win back and beat him. That's the real

<v Speaker 1>reason that he was brought into WCW. They actually used

<v Speaker 1>Renegade as a body double for some of Warrior's segments.

<v Speaker 1>So they do Hogan against Warrior at Halloween Havoc and

<v Speaker 1>it sucks. Just a complete disaster, right down to Hogan

<v Speaker 1>botching up the fireball spot. Not to be fair to

<v Speaker 1>Warrior and not that I think the match would have

<v Speaker 1>been much better if he was healthy, but he did

<v Speaker 1>work that match with a bicep tear that he suffered

<v Speaker 1>during the Wargames match when they did the smoke, and

<v Speaker 1>that he wasn't in Wargames, but in the course of

<v Speaker 1>the Wargames match, they did the smoke and mirrors, magic stuff.

<v Speaker 1>All of the smoke suddenly started billowing from under the ring.

<v Speaker 1>And when I mentioned the body double, there was a

<v Speaker 1>moment in there where I think Renegade is kind of

<v Speaker 1>playing him but you can't see his face. Then the

<v Speaker 1>real Warrior comes running out out from like the aisle

<v Speaker 1>down to the ring and gets into the cage, and

<v Speaker 1>they did this whole thing. But in the course of

<v Speaker 1>doing this, he tore his bicep and he fucked up

<v Speaker 1>his ankle I think when he busted out of the cage.

<v Speaker 1>So he was hardly one hundred percent going into that

<v Speaker 1>Halloween Havoc match. But Jim Mitchell and John Pollock, they

<v Speaker 1>both made great points. Rick Wilson was a nicer guide

<v Speaker 1>than the Ultimate Warrior was, And as a wrestler, if

<v Speaker 1>you're really being honest, it's not like he was that

<v Speaker 1>much worse. Like was Warrior really like light years better

<v Speaker 1>than he was? I mean, he was better, but was

<v Speaker 1>he that much better? Probably not. And also Wilson came

<v Speaker 1>a lot cheaper than Warrior did, but Warrior had the

<v Speaker 1>name recognition, And so here's the deal. Wilson just wasn't

<v Speaker 1>good enough to be a top guy in pro wrestling

<v Speaker 1>at that time, and maybe not any time, but certainly

<v Speaker 1>with the talent they had at that point in time,

<v Speaker 1>he was not in that conversation, whether he was Rick

<v Speaker 1>Wilson or Renegade or anything else. Some guys are just

<v Speaker 1>not that good and maybe they have the body, but

<v Speaker 1>they don't have the charisma or they don't have the

<v Speaker 1>aptitude for it. He didn't have it, so even without

<v Speaker 1>the renegade gimmick, he would have had a short shelf life.

<v Speaker 1>But you know, jacking someone else's gimmick when you can't

<v Speaker 1>even do it better than they did, and when that

<v Speaker 1>person was a major star, no less you're dead on arrival,

<v Speaker 1>you have no shot. And it wasn't his fault. It

<v Speaker 1>was a huge opportunity for him. Anybody in his boots

<v Speaker 1>would have said yes to it. He didn't do anything wrong,

<v Speaker 1>He did what was asked of him, but he was

<v Speaker 1>in a no win situation and they knew it. They

<v Speaker 1>set that man up to fail. His downfall was getting

<v Speaker 1>popped for steroids. Though back then they were very selective

<v Speaker 1>with their drug testing in WCW and their enforcement of

<v Speaker 1>such testing, and it sure sounds like they tested him,

<v Speaker 1>knowing he would fail so they could avoid his contract

<v Speaker 1>and get rid of him. I don't know why they

<v Speaker 1>would even bother going through the trouble, given hell little

<v Speaker 1>money he was supposedly making, but his firing from wc

<v Speaker 1>to be fair, now that I think about it, there

<v Speaker 1>was a report way back when maybe it was Meltzer Keller,

<v Speaker 1>I don't remember who it was. Supposedly though, they did

<v Speaker 1>end up signing him at some point during his run there,

<v Speaker 1>whether it was the beginning or the middle of those

<v Speaker 1>four years or so that he spent there three and

<v Speaker 1>a half years. He may have signed a two year

<v Speaker 1>deal for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year,

<v Speaker 1>so he may have been under a decent contract, So

<v Speaker 1>maybe they would have had an incentive to just look

<v Speaker 1>for a reason to get rid of him, because otherwise

<v Speaker 1>it's like, what's the point if he's making little money,

<v Speaker 1>Just let the deal run out, you know, use him

<v Speaker 1>as a job guy and just job him out. I

<v Speaker 1>don't even know why they would bother going through the trouble,

<v Speaker 1>but his firing from WCW that really did a number

<v Speaker 1>on him mentally, and he spiraled into a deep depression

<v Speaker 1>and he got out of wrestling, he became friends again

<v Speaker 1>with his ex wife, and then he met a girl

<v Speaker 1>named Susie who they attempted to contact for this episode,

<v Speaker 1>but those attempts went unreturned and unanswered. Susie was a

<v Speaker 1>stripper that Rick met who worked at the Gold Club

<v Speaker 1>in Atlanta, which I assume is the same Gold club

<v Speaker 1>that was mobbed up where the owner was indicted years

<v Speaker 1>ago for racketeering and prostitution and money laundering and a

<v Speaker 1>bunch of other things. The infamous Gold Club that Eric

<v Speaker 1>Bischoff went to probably more than once, but went to

<v Speaker 1>once with his wife. He ended up having to testify

<v Speaker 1>about it at the trial. He admitted under oath that

<v Speaker 1>he and his wife left the club once with a

<v Speaker 1>stripper and the three of them went to a hotel

<v Speaker 1>room where he watched his wife have sex with her.

<v Speaker 1>Oh man, I remember Scott Steiner's Twitter rant. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know how many of you remember this well. I don't

<v Speaker 1>even know what year it was. It was over a

<v Speaker 1>decade ago. Scott Steiner went on a Twitter rant about

<v Speaker 1>Bischoff and his wife and how the only reason they

<v Speaker 1>got caught in that whole thing is because Eric was

<v Speaker 1>a bad tipper, which I don't know if that's true

<v Speaker 1>or not, but that's what Scott Steiner was claim in

<v Speaker 1>on him. Steiner did not give a fuck, but anyway,

<v Speaker 1>so Wilson starts dating Susie the Scripper, who was the

<v Speaker 1>life of the party apparently, and one time Rix's X

<v Speaker 1>is talking to him on the phone and he just

<v Speaker 1>sounded like he was on something. She had never heard

<v Speaker 1>him like that before. Not long after that, February twenty third,

<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety nine, police find Wilson dead from a self

<v Speaker 1>inflicted gunshot wound to the head and his ex wife

<v Speaker 1>and I don't even know why I keep calling her

<v Speaker 1>his ex wife. They identified her as ex wife on

<v Speaker 1>screen in the on screen graphic in the episode. I

<v Speaker 1>don't believe they were ever actually divorced, though I think

<v Speaker 1>they were more separated, but she told Slam Wrestling that

<v Speaker 1>after they reconnected and spoke on the phone a few times,

<v Speaker 1>they had planned to see each other again, which was

<v Speaker 1>also mentioned in the episode here. But not long after

<v Speaker 1>that she apparently got served divorce papers and then I

<v Speaker 1>think two weeks later he turned up dead. So again

<v Speaker 1>I don't know how accurate it is to say ex wife,

<v Speaker 1>even though I know they identified her as such. But

<v Speaker 1>she got a copy of the police report, which she

<v Speaker 1>still has, and she was reading from the police report

<v Speaker 1>here in the episode, and it included testimony from Susie

<v Speaker 1>who claimed that Rick abused her. So she went to

<v Speaker 1>go get a gun. I guess maybe he kept one.

<v Speaker 1>She claims that he took the gun away from her,

<v Speaker 1>put the pistol in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

<v Speaker 1>That was her account of things, So that's really all

<v Speaker 1>the police had to go on, and they ruled it

<v Speaker 1>a suicide, and she told police that he had been

<v Speaker 1>despondent over losing his job with WCW four months earlier,

<v Speaker 1>and when he died, he was only thirty three years old,

<v Speaker 1>very very young. So not one of the stronger episodes

<v Speaker 1>this season. I did learn some things about the man

<v Speaker 1>that I didn't know before. As far as his upbringing.

<v Speaker 1>WCW does not come across well in this episode, but

<v Speaker 1>they did keep him employed for almost four years. It's

<v Speaker 1>not like after they shit can the Warrior knockoff stuff,

<v Speaker 1>and you know Jimmy Harp wiped the face paint off

<v Speaker 1>his face, that they just fired him. So it seems

<v Speaker 1>like they at least tried to give him a chance

<v Speaker 1>to improve, or they tried to salvage something with the guy,

<v Speaker 1>and it just never happened, you know. I know they

<v Speaker 1>sent him to the power plant for a period of time.

<v Speaker 1>I don't know if he just stopped going, but it

<v Speaker 1>didn't seem to make much of a difference. He just

<v Speaker 1>wasn't at the level of the other talent that they had,

<v Speaker 1>and they had a lot of really talented young guys

<v Speaker 1>on that roster at the time. You couple those younger

<v Speaker 1>names and the cruiserweights and all that with the marquee names,

<v Speaker 1>and where does a green guy like Renegade fit in,

<v Speaker 1>you know, doing jobs until they fire him? Basically, I

<v Speaker 1>mean it sounds harsh, but there's no lies in what

<v Speaker 1>I'm saying here, and that's exactly what ended up happening.

<v Speaker 1>And he had just had a very difficult time accepting that.

<v Speaker 1>You know, there are hundreds of wrestlers, thousands that have

<v Speaker 1>tried to make it and failed, and they don't all

<v Speaker 1>go down the same path that he did. So he

<v Speaker 1>clearly had other issues going on in his head or

<v Speaker 1>in his life that contributed to what happened. I don't

<v Speaker 1>know if it's fair to lay it all at the

<v Speaker 1>feet of WCW, but they certainly played their part in

<v Speaker 1>the whole thing. You know, they used him, it didn't

<v Speaker 1>work out, and so he outlived his usefulness to them.

<v Speaker 1>And it's tragic that at thirty three years old he

<v Speaker 1>felt like his life wasn't worth living anymore when there's

<v Speaker 1>lots of life to be lived outside of wrestling, but

<v Speaker 1>when you're in that world, you don't always think that way.

<v Speaker 1>You know, he grew up a wrestling fan. He wanted

<v Speaker 1>to be a pro wrestler, and to be thrust into

<v Speaker 1>the position that they put him in that quickly and

<v Speaker 1>just have it taken away from you just as quickly,

<v Speaker 1>it messes with your head. And it sounds like his

<v Speaker 1>childhood didn't set him up well to be able to

<v Speaker 1>handle that kind of rejection and disappointment. And that's a

<v Speaker 1>real shame. But we got three episodes left to go

<v Speaker 1>this season. Up next is Paul Orndorf, then it's Missy

<v Speaker 1>Hyatt and they close with Zach Gowan. I hope they

<v Speaker 1>tell the story of John laur and iis initially hiring

<v Speaker 1>the wrong one legged wrestler. Yeah, that actually happened, and

<v Speaker 1>we'll end it there. I do have a big backlog

<v Speaker 1>of mailbag questions and a bunch of new ones that

<v Speaker 1>came in this week. But I had to turn the

<v Speaker 1>AC off to do the show, and it is just

<v Speaker 1>boiling hot. I mean it is ninety plus outside, it's

<v Speaker 1>probably one hundred plus in here, so I can't take

<v Speaker 1>another twenty or thirty minutes. We're gonna save this for

<v Speaker 1>next time. Keep sending in your questions The solomn Monster

<v Speaker 1>at gmail dot Look at this, I'm dripping all over

<v Speaker 1>the equipment, the solom Monster at gmail dot com. And

<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna be live on YouTube for all the usual

<v Speaker 1>streams this week. We're back to normal Miss SmackDown last week,

<v Speaker 1>but this week I'll be live for the Raw post show,

<v Speaker 1>Dynamite post show, and then the SmackDown post show this

<v Speaker 1>coming Friday. Brand new episode of The Uncrowned Wrestling Show

<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday. There's all some other stuff and news and

<v Speaker 1>notes I didn't get to you here. We'll get into

<v Speaker 1>that on Tuesday, plus Tuesday Night Titans with myself and

<v Speaker 1>JD on Tuesday Night, so you got a full week

<v Speaker 1>of content coming up. I appreciate the hell out of

<v Speaker 1>you for all the support recently. We had a huge

<v Speaker 1>month of July on YouTube in particular. I'm hoping that

<v Speaker 1>we can replicate that here in August. So far, so good,

<v Speaker 1>so hopefully I'll see you guys on those streams and

<v Speaker 1>then back here next weekend. Brand new episode of the

<v Speaker 1>Sound Up, episode nine seventy six. So until then, be well,

<v Speaker 1>stay safe. If you miss the HG High Intensity Show,

<v Speaker 1>it is up. The replay is up on the YouTube channel.

<v Speaker 1>You can go check it out, leave a comment, leave

<v Speaker 1>a like, and I'll see you back here for more

<v Speaker 1>sound Off next weekend. Until then, take care, guys. The

<v Speaker 1>Solemn Monster Sounds Off. They were advertising the new line

<v Speaker 1>of LJN figures. They had like Hogan and Dusty and

<v Speaker 1>Logan Paul and John Cena, right, I think those are

<v Speaker 1>the first four. And they announced that they're coming out

<v Speaker 1>with a Heart Foundation two paths. That drew my attention

<v Speaker 1>because when I was a kid, I never did have

<v Speaker 1>the Heart Foundation ones, and so somebody reminded me of

<v Speaker 1>this earlier and they said, hey, they just open up

<v Speaker 1>the pre sales and they're available if you want to

<v Speaker 1>jump on there and buy them. I'm like oh shit.

<v Speaker 1>So I jump on Target dot Com earlier today and

<v Speaker 1>there they are. They got the Heart Foundation, they got

<v Speaker 1>brother Love. Who gives a fuck about brother Love? And

<v Speaker 1>I click on the Heart Foundation one and it looks

<v Speaker 1>like it's in the stock and I go add to

<v Speaker 1>cart and it won't let me add to cart. It

<v Speaker 1>says items sold out. I said items sold out. It

<v Speaker 1>was just available that quickly gone, gone, gone with the wind. Actually,

<v Speaker 1>I was shocked at the ship date. They're not even

<v Speaker 1>shipping until May of next year. But it doesn't matter

<v Speaker 1>because they're already gone. Ridiculous. It doesn't even look like Brett.

<v Speaker 1>I was very mad about this, and then they have

<v Speaker 1>to have a commercial for it. Fuck off. LJN. The

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