November 7, 2024 • 20 mins
Welcome back, wrestling fans! After a two-month hiatus, The Ant-Man and Michael Glavin are back on the WrestleChat Podcast to talk wrestling—and everything else in between. This week, we dive deep into WWE's Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia, discussing how it broke tradition by blending ongoing storylines with impressive in-ring action. We explore the evolution of WWE’s international expansion, from the rowdy overseas crowds to potential upcoming Raw and SmackDown shows across the pond. Plus, we cover the longevity and success of the Bloodline storyline, which has transcended eras and captivated even non-fans. We also share insights on Vince McMahon’s rumored new venture outside of wrestling and the latest addition to the TKO Group: pro bull riding! Finally, we unpack WWE’s new initiative, WWE ID, a program endorsing specific wrestling schools as potential pipelines for the next generation of stars, and what this could mean for the indie wrestling scene. Get ready for a jam-packed episode full of laughs, surprises, and plenty of wrestling talk. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you’ll know when we’re back—whether that’s next week or next month! Follow the show on Instagram: ➡️ https://www.Instagram.com/WrestleChatPodcast Follow The AntMan: ➡️ https://www.Instagram.com/TheAntMan.co
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Man, I feel like it has been forever, because it
has actually been forever. If two months is forever. Welcome
back to the wrestle Chat podcast. My name is the
ant Man. His name was Michael Glavin. We're here to
talk some wrestling. Actually, we're just going to sit here
and we'll talk about wrestling and everything else, and hopefully
you guys tag along with us, and we appreciate you
doing that, whether you're listening or watching. Hit the subscribe
(00:25):
button and when we do another one, you'll be alerted.
Hopefully it's next week, it could be next month. The
way we can go, we have no idea. It's been
a busy world the last couple of months, but we
want to jump back into our wrestling talk. And over
the weekend there was Crown Jewel and ri Odd Saudi Arabia.
I get this confused. They do a couple of shows
(00:45):
in Saudi every year, right, this one's Crown Jewel. What's
the other one called?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, they've done they did the Greatest Royal Rumble, but
I think that was a one off.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's always Crown Jewel though, right.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's always Crown Jewel.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But I think you're right. I think there was another one.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'll just look, there was something in May I thought, WWE.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Saudi Show. Interesting show. I mean because for this I
feel like this one was the first time that they
held storylines and didn't just have matches they put together
to go over to Saudi. It's stuff that they were
doing here in the United States and kind of the
continuation of what you saw on Ron SmackDown. Kind of
they did build it up and something happened over there,
especially with the two title matches with not title versus title,
(01:29):
but champion versus champion on the guys and girls, and
brand new title belts being made that they don't wear.
They're going to stay in the museum that's over in Saudi.
But I like that part of it, but it felt
like the rest of it kind of just it fit
into the storyline, goes into it and coming out of it,
and oftentimes, I don't know how if you feel the
same way. It felt like before they would just kind
(01:51):
of do matches. Hey, here's a guy you haven't seen
it in a while, and here's another guy you haven't
seen it in a while. Let's put them in a
match and see how it goes over in Saudi. Arabia. Yep, No,
I'm not talking about Undertaker and Goldberg. No, no, not
not that at all.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know, to your same point previously, I'll take it
from a little bit of a different angle. For me,
it was that you couldn't take the pay per view
seriously because whatever they did put together didn't matter the match.
(02:28):
It was very clearly telegraphed that no titles were going
to change hands, even though a couple times I think
they did.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But the abstract nature of how it was booked just.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Gave you that feeling that this is cool and I'm
glad I have this to watch, but it doesn't feel consequential.
And so this, on the other hand, though, felt like
we were just rolling straight through storylines to continue them on,
and we didn't feel the need to over book the show.
(03:00):
It had the right number of matches with the right stakes,
and then you referenced it and then this champion versus
Champion thing. What a brilliant way to solve a weird
issue of Hey, we need to promise, you know, the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you know, a good show that matters,
(03:25):
but we can't culminate title changes or everything.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Always in Saudi Arabia. So how do we fix that?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, we take our best and we put on the
best exhibition with a nice belt and ring that we
can And I mean it, it just works. It's another
thing that's been done over the last year or two
that just works.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Think about this too.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
When it ended, there were consequences that leak over to
other things. I felt like it was always before it
was everything and every story ended. Yep, that was going
into Saudi Arabia stayed in Saudi Arabia. It is like
Las Vegas. Yeah, it supposed to stay there, right. This
one actually had things, especially like samy Zain and Roman
reigns and Soloska in that match, and after the match
(04:08):
was over all the stuff that happened in that, it
felt like, oh this isn't over. We're going to see
a lot more of this afterwards. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And to that point, I don't want to get off
topic here, but since you referenced it, could you imagine
us sitting here two years ago watching you know, the
formation in the dominant days of the bloodline and think
that two years later it would still be going on.
(04:37):
But unlike the nWo, we would actually care.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, okay, So something interesting. An old boss
that I had when I when I worked in radio
and Phoenix. We still talk. Great dude, Love him, Steve.
If you happen to be watching this one, love you,
budd And he was. He watched the Vince McMahon documentary
on Netflix, and of course he asked, Hey, have you
seen this yet? I like, yeah, well I watched it.
His takeaway from all of it was the incredible storytelling
(05:05):
that WW has always done. Now, I'll say this that
anytime that I would talk to him about wrestling when
he and I worked together, it was I don't like wrestling.
I don't care about wrestling. I don't care that you
care about wrestling. Maybe it wasn't that that demeaning at all,
but he definitely showed me that I don't give a
rip about this. And then he comes back around and
(05:26):
watches this and starts talking about storylines, and I said, Okay,
I don't know that you're going to get into this
and invest in it long enough to get the full story.
But they've been doing something with in essence somebody. He
would know the Rocks family for the past couple of years,
and it's called the Bloodline. I don't know how to
start this story. Let me see if I can find
a short synopsis that I can just say to you.
(05:48):
And I'm like, I don't even know how to do that.
Let's just say this. It's a family. All of them
are family. They're all related in some way, and they're
all trying to be the boss. And he's like, okay,
if you can find something, said it to me because
he was super interested in it, And that's somebody who
was not interested in wrestling at all got interested in
the Bloodline because ironically the Vinsman documentary.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, and it's so interesting too.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
There's so many things in there you said that could
you know, kind of rattle off on. But one thing
that came to my mind very randomly when you said
this is how powerful and how iconic does a storyline
have to be where you might make the suggestion that
(06:33):
it's not the post Vince era or the post reality
era or post PG era or whatever you want to
call it. You almost want to call it the Bloodline era.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I think you have to now.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And that's the thing, like, how successful and how much
care and talent does it take to be able to
do something? Now we're in what our third year of
the bloodline and there's there's nothing you have stuff take
Like DX, they went through a few iterations, kind of
(07:10):
died off, and then came back in kind of a
gimmicky way. It wasn't really the way it was back
in the day. MWO was consistent for a couple of years,
but they lost tractions so quickly when the Monday Night
Wars ended and or leading up to the Monday Night
Wars ending. But for the bloodline, it's just it just
(07:34):
hasn't stopped, and it's been good the whole time, and now.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
There's more of them. And the crazy part is there's
still more of them out.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
There, like gremlins. Somebody's watering them and they're all just
like at pop it up. Somebody watered another Grimlin. Here
comes another blood Line member. They're all popping up. You know.
Something else that came out of Saudi Arabia was we
didn't when they would do these in the past again,
it would just be that one off and nothing else
happened while they were over there. This time we got
a Monday Night raw from from the same place that
(08:04):
they that they did Crown Jewel and then after that
or on Monday Night. They started talking about we're gonna
start doing more of Monday night raws and smackdowns in
twenty twenty five overseas. England gets like a SmackDown and
a and a raw kind of kind of tours around
there and comes back home. That's going to be interesting,
especially in the age that we're in where you get
(08:24):
all the information up front, because those are going to
be taped obviously before they air here. There's a six
hour difference, I believe, going to England, and I have
a buddy that lives over their missionary who lives in England,
and so I kept his time zone in my phone,
so if we text, I know what time it is.
So that's going to be I don't know if they're
(08:46):
doing those on Sunday. I would imagine like if it
was a Monday Night raw, they're gonna do that on
Sunday night over there, so that it can happen, they
get it and then we get it the next day.
But social media, we're gonna know what happens. Maybe we
just stay off of it during that month that they're
they're touring over in England and Scotland and wherever else
they're going over there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, And I think to your point, I think the
wrestling influencers, news outlets, dirt sheets with WWE's expansion to
being more I mean, they've been global for a while, sure,
I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
They were Netflix changes that a lot though, right, And so.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
What they're doing is they're appealing to, you know, to
truly be more international base versus before it was hey,
we're going to go do this, but we need to
get back to our core group of people. The reality
is everybody's the core group of people now. And so
when you can add in those stops while you're because
(09:44):
I imagine there's a logistical you know, kind of leg
up too with saying, Okay, well we're already in this country,
let's just bust everybody for six eight hours do the show.
And honestly it probably saves money somehow while they make
money from doing that stuff overseas, you know, and so
(10:06):
it will be cool.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
What we've learned.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Over the last year is that these international markets that
they've broke into to do shows, they're just they're rowdy, man,
and they make the shows better and and being able.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
To do like a challenge too. It's a challenge when
they come back. Oh, we've got to We've got to
beat France.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Absolutely absolutely well beating France.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
They're still the leader, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And anyway, it all makes sense, and it's the continuing
expansion of of WWE truly going international.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
It's just a really cool thing to see.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I'd like to hear, you know, like when they move
over to Netflix, can you bring can they bring back
the one line from JR. That it used to be
in the open the world is watching like because legitimately
they are all watching on Netflix. When it moves over there,
the entire world can watch.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's great, That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That'd be cool that they brought that back. Some other
things that have happened, Vince McMahon is evidently starting a
new entertainment company staying away from wrestling. From what I
gathered now, none of this is confirmed, and it feels
like it's popped up in questionable places, and then I've
seen it also pop up in somewhat reputable places, so
it'd say that I think it's probably some truth to
(11:22):
him doing this. I even heard Eric Bischoff talking about
it a couple of days ago. What's he going to do?
Was it TV movies? I mean, if you're not doing wrestling,
what is this old wrestling guy going to do?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Why some of the dirt sheets that I read on
it almost made it seem like he was just going
to be the financier of the whole thing, Like it
was going to be like just not a production company,
but he was going to help underwrite or fund movies
and stuff like that. I don't know if that's executive
producing or I don't know, but it seemed more that.
(11:58):
But knowing him like we do as fans, he probably
wants to be involved in something. He's always been the
guy that wants to be working and doing things like that.
So it kind of makes you wonder, you know, like
you said, what is it? Maybe it's more than just
(12:19):
you know, funding movies. Is he wanting to creative? Is
it Vince the director?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Now?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Like what we know what? We wouldn't put a passing.
I really wouldn't. At this point, not only is he
getting into new stuff, TKO is reportedly getting into something
new and expanding that as well. If you've ever been
to a PBR event, pro bull Riders is one of
(12:45):
the I mean, if you think that going to wrestling
is exciting, you think that going to USC fight is unpredictable.
Throw a two thousand pound animal in the middle of that,
and that's what you get at PBR. Same attitude with
the two thousand pound bull full of testoster and ready
to horn somebody. Evidently, TKO Group is right in the
(13:08):
process right now of purchasing PBR, not the beer, but
pro bull Riders and trying to be a nice little
addition to that little portfolio UFC, WWE and PBR. That's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's pretty cool, you know, And it's blown my mind. Okay,
so I had I had no idea. I had not
read that. This is fresh for me, live in the moment,
and you think about the potential crossover of every single
one of those.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, because I can guarantee you.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
There's people in the in the PBR fan base that
don't watch wrestling and vice versa, you know, and but
it's all.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Within the realm of going that's pretty cool. I might
check that out. I'm telling you, man, I'm waiting for.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
That the WWE Network version two, you know, the TKO
to come out. Has it all If you're telling me
I can pay twenty thirty bucks a month whatever and
get all the stuff from those three places.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm in and I'll watch it now. Evidently you know so,
I don't know if you know this. Are you a
big rodeo guy. We've never heard slay this conversation. So
bull riders, bare back riders, saddle bronc riders, all of
that stuff, caf ropers, barrel racers. When they win, they
get a belt buckle. I think the belt buckle just
(14:35):
gets bigger in the PBR and becomes a title, and
now you have a PBR champ. So imagine in a
photo a PBR champ, a WWE champ, and a UFC
champ all holding their titles, and then we have more
replicas to buy. If you're just a giant fan.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, that'd be pretty sick.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
They're just you're just finding a way to invent new
things to make money on all the time, all the
state time. Let's wrap up on this one. W W
I D. How come nobody has thought of this before?
Or how maybe somebody's thought of it, but how come
it hasn't been implemented before?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
That's it's so interesting because it seems so simple. But
maybe maybe it was always about control. Maybe it was
I'll find my own people if they if I never
see them, then they must not be that important. You know,
Scouts can only do so much. It was an old
(15:32):
way of doing things. And I think we all know
that the forbidden door has been opened for a while now,
and I think you realize, hey, these people, these places
are not our enemies. We're so big, they're they're our
meal ticket. And I think embracing that our future, and
(15:52):
I think embracing that.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
It's just a game changer.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
But but to your your point, opening it up, it
so simple, and yet nobody did it till now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Well, and we kind of jumped a little bit, presuming
that you know what we're talking about. WWIDEA is the
independent stamp of approval on a school or an organization
that WWE is endorsing to say, hey, if you want
to be a pro wrestler, and maybe you already are
a pro wrestler, but you want to get here to
the big leagues, one of these two, three, four or
(16:24):
five schools or organizations is where you should go get
work or where you should go to school at, because
that's where we have our guys at, that's where we're
going to be pulling the talent from so go to
one of these places. It's smart, I mean because the
alliance that now has you also as the competition on
the other side. Now, I mean, I'm not going to
get in here and start bashing AW on this episode.
(16:47):
At least the crowds continue to shrink, continue to get smaller,
but they do have an incredible deal with Warner and
more eyeballs on it, and as you kind of have
that as a competition at least financially for the UH
for the guys and girls who are the talent on
those shows you can say hey, which I think is
(17:10):
very interesting. Cody Rhodes School is one of them, and
QT Marshall is one of the one of the coaches there.
He is under contract at ae W, but his school
feeds right into w w E.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Noil, that's really very interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, very get a little complicated. You've seen any on
the You've seen any downside to this at all?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I think it? Uh, well, yes and no. I think
I think what it's gonna do is it's gonna it
brings UH capitalism down to a lower level in the
wrestling community. I think, on one hand, if you're not
a w w E I D school. Yeah, you're gonna
have students, but are you going to have students that
(17:52):
are the same seriousness.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Right that they would if they went to a WWE school.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And it's interesting because I thought of this just now
from kind of earlier in our conversation, like WWE just
created their college football.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah they really did.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And and it's it's so interesting to start.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Good way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, like because now you've created all this competition to
go to these specific places, which is not only going
to financially benefit those places, but then WWE is helping itself.
And I'm sure there's money exchanging hands maybe down from
WWE to these places, but you've created an even deeper
(18:37):
ecosystem that will feed the global pro wrestling machine, not
just WWE, because now these other schools are going to
be competing to be WWE approved. What happens if AEW
starts doing this? I would say Ring of Honor, but
they're unfortunately owned by AW. But but to to my point, like,
(18:59):
if other promotions start popping up or this becomes a thing,
how does it affect the independent scene with booking shows
on independent scenes? Like there's all this stuff that's now
in play that it'll probably take us a couple months
to fully digest of how it's really going to affect
the whole picture at large, and.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
We're going to need like a year a cycle at least.
Guys moving in, going through, moving up, How does that look?
How does it affect them when they're on the indies
and they get called up by w they have shows
that they're lined up for, they're a champ at that
respective school, and they get get moved up. I mean, yeah,
it's great for them, but what about the actual promotion.
There's lots of things to consider there. And if you're
(19:40):
if you dive into the into the weeds of independent wrestling,
keep an eye on that see what happens, because there's
a lot of great indie wrestling right now and if
it will be interesting to see, like you mentioned, who
is a WWID school or organization and who is not
and how does it affect both? So that'll be cool
(20:01):
to watch. All right, So, uh, Friday Nights Backdown is
coming up tomorrow. It's back in the United States. Some
interesting stuff that came out of Crown Jewel we'll have
to watch for tomorrow as well as Monday, and then
next week we'll do our best to jump back on
here and chat some more wrestling. Michael, good to see
you again.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Good to see you as well.
Man, I feel like it has been forever, because it
has actually been forever. If two months is forever. Welcome
back to the wrestle Chat podcast. My name is the
ant Man. His name was Michael Glavin. We're here to
talk some wrestling. Actually, we're just going to sit here
and we'll talk about wrestling and everything else, and hopefully
you guys tag along with us, and we appreciate you
doing that, whether you're listening or watching. Hit the subscribe
(00:25):
button and when we do another one, you'll be alerted.
Hopefully it's next week, it could be next month. The
way we can go, we have no idea. It's been
a busy world the last couple of months, but we
want to jump back into our wrestling talk. And over
the weekend there was Crown Jewel and ri Odd Saudi Arabia.
I get this confused. They do a couple of shows
(00:45):
in Saudi every year, right, this one's Crown Jewel. What's
the other one called?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, they've done they did the Greatest Royal Rumble, but
I think that was a one off.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's always Crown Jewel though, right.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's always Crown Jewel.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But I think you're right. I think there was another one.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'll just look, there was something in May I thought, WWE.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Saudi Show. Interesting show. I mean because for this I
feel like this one was the first time that they
held storylines and didn't just have matches they put together
to go over to Saudi. It's stuff that they were
doing here in the United States and kind of the
continuation of what you saw on Ron SmackDown. Kind of
they did build it up and something happened over there,
especially with the two title matches with not title versus title,
(01:29):
but champion versus champion on the guys and girls, and
brand new title belts being made that they don't wear.
They're going to stay in the museum that's over in Saudi.
But I like that part of it, but it felt
like the rest of it kind of just it fit
into the storyline, goes into it and coming out of it,
and oftentimes, I don't know how if you feel the
same way. It felt like before they would just kind
(01:51):
of do matches. Hey, here's a guy you haven't seen
it in a while, and here's another guy you haven't
seen it in a while. Let's put them in a
match and see how it goes over in Saudi. Arabia. Yep, No,
I'm not talking about Undertaker and Goldberg. No, no, not
not that at all.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know, to your same point previously, I'll take it
from a little bit of a different angle. For me,
it was that you couldn't take the pay per view
seriously because whatever they did put together didn't matter the match.
(02:28):
It was very clearly telegraphed that no titles were going
to change hands, even though a couple times I think
they did.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But the abstract nature of how it was booked just.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Gave you that feeling that this is cool and I'm
glad I have this to watch, but it doesn't feel consequential.
And so this, on the other hand, though, felt like
we were just rolling straight through storylines to continue them on,
and we didn't feel the need to over book the show.
(03:00):
It had the right number of matches with the right stakes,
and then you referenced it and then this champion versus
Champion thing. What a brilliant way to solve a weird
issue of Hey, we need to promise, you know, the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you know, a good show that matters,
(03:25):
but we can't culminate title changes or everything.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Always in Saudi Arabia. So how do we fix that?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, we take our best and we put on the
best exhibition with a nice belt and ring that we
can And I mean it, it just works. It's another
thing that's been done over the last year or two
that just works.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Think about this too.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
When it ended, there were consequences that leak over to
other things. I felt like it was always before it
was everything and every story ended. Yep, that was going
into Saudi Arabia stayed in Saudi Arabia. It is like
Las Vegas. Yeah, it supposed to stay there, right. This
one actually had things, especially like samy Zain and Roman
reigns and Soloska in that match, and after the match
(04:08):
was over all the stuff that happened in that, it
felt like, oh this isn't over. We're going to see
a lot more of this afterwards. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And to that point, I don't want to get off
topic here, but since you referenced it, could you imagine
us sitting here two years ago watching you know, the
formation in the dominant days of the bloodline and think
that two years later it would still be going on.
(04:37):
But unlike the nWo, we would actually care.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, okay, So something interesting. An old boss
that I had when I when I worked in radio
and Phoenix. We still talk. Great dude, Love him, Steve.
If you happen to be watching this one, love you,
budd And he was. He watched the Vince McMahon documentary
on Netflix, and of course he asked, Hey, have you
seen this yet? I like, yeah, well I watched it.
His takeaway from all of it was the incredible storytelling
(05:05):
that WW has always done. Now, I'll say this that
anytime that I would talk to him about wrestling when
he and I worked together, it was I don't like wrestling.
I don't care about wrestling. I don't care that you
care about wrestling. Maybe it wasn't that that demeaning at all,
but he definitely showed me that I don't give a
rip about this. And then he comes back around and
(05:26):
watches this and starts talking about storylines, and I said, Okay,
I don't know that you're going to get into this
and invest in it long enough to get the full story.
But they've been doing something with in essence somebody. He
would know the Rocks family for the past couple of years,
and it's called the Bloodline. I don't know how to
start this story. Let me see if I can find
a short synopsis that I can just say to you.
(05:48):
And I'm like, I don't even know how to do that.
Let's just say this. It's a family. All of them
are family. They're all related in some way, and they're
all trying to be the boss. And he's like, okay,
if you can find something, said it to me because
he was super interested in it, And that's somebody who
was not interested in wrestling at all got interested in
the Bloodline because ironically the Vinsman documentary.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, and it's so interesting too.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
There's so many things in there you said that could
you know, kind of rattle off on. But one thing
that came to my mind very randomly when you said
this is how powerful and how iconic does a storyline
have to be where you might make the suggestion that
(06:33):
it's not the post Vince era or the post reality
era or post PG era or whatever you want to
call it. You almost want to call it the Bloodline era.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I think you have to now.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And that's the thing, like, how successful and how much
care and talent does it take to be able to
do something? Now we're in what our third year of
the bloodline and there's there's nothing you have stuff take
Like DX, they went through a few iterations, kind of
(07:10):
died off, and then came back in kind of a
gimmicky way. It wasn't really the way it was back
in the day. MWO was consistent for a couple of years,
but they lost tractions so quickly when the Monday Night
Wars ended and or leading up to the Monday Night
Wars ending. But for the bloodline, it's just it just
(07:34):
hasn't stopped, and it's been good the whole time, and now.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
There's more of them. And the crazy part is there's
still more of them out.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
There, like gremlins. Somebody's watering them and they're all just
like at pop it up. Somebody watered another Grimlin. Here
comes another blood Line member. They're all popping up. You know.
Something else that came out of Saudi Arabia was we
didn't when they would do these in the past again,
it would just be that one off and nothing else
happened while they were over there. This time we got
a Monday Night raw from from the same place that
(08:04):
they that they did Crown Jewel and then after that
or on Monday Night. They started talking about we're gonna
start doing more of Monday night raws and smackdowns in
twenty twenty five overseas. England gets like a SmackDown and
a and a raw kind of kind of tours around
there and comes back home. That's going to be interesting,
especially in the age that we're in where you get
(08:24):
all the information up front, because those are going to
be taped obviously before they air here. There's a six
hour difference, I believe, going to England, and I have
a buddy that lives over their missionary who lives in England,
and so I kept his time zone in my phone,
so if we text, I know what time it is.
So that's going to be I don't know if they're
(08:46):
doing those on Sunday. I would imagine like if it
was a Monday Night raw, they're gonna do that on
Sunday night over there, so that it can happen, they
get it and then we get it the next day.
But social media, we're gonna know what happens. Maybe we
just stay off of it during that month that they're
they're touring over in England and Scotland and wherever else
they're going over there.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, And I think to your point, I think the
wrestling influencers, news outlets, dirt sheets with WWE's expansion to
being more I mean, they've been global for a while, sure,
I mean, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
They were Netflix changes that a lot though, right, And so.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
What they're doing is they're appealing to, you know, to
truly be more international base versus before it was hey,
we're going to go do this, but we need to
get back to our core group of people. The reality
is everybody's the core group of people now. And so
when you can add in those stops while you're because
(09:44):
I imagine there's a logistical you know, kind of leg
up too with saying, Okay, well we're already in this country,
let's just bust everybody for six eight hours do the show.
And honestly it probably saves money somehow while they make
money from doing that stuff overseas, you know, and so
(10:06):
it will be cool.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
What we've learned.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Over the last year is that these international markets that
they've broke into to do shows, they're just they're rowdy, man,
and they make the shows better and and being able.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
To do like a challenge too. It's a challenge when
they come back. Oh, we've got to We've got to
beat France.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Absolutely absolutely well beating France.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
They're still the leader, I think.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And anyway, it all makes sense, and it's the continuing
expansion of of WWE truly going international.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
It's just a really cool thing to see.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
I'd like to hear, you know, like when they move
over to Netflix, can you bring can they bring back
the one line from JR. That it used to be
in the open the world is watching like because legitimately
they are all watching on Netflix. When it moves over there,
the entire world can watch.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That's great, That's great.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That'd be cool that they brought that back. Some other
things that have happened, Vince McMahon is evidently starting a
new entertainment company staying away from wrestling. From what I
gathered now, none of this is confirmed, and it feels
like it's popped up in questionable places, and then I've
seen it also pop up in somewhat reputable places, so
it'd say that I think it's probably some truth to
(11:22):
him doing this. I even heard Eric Bischoff talking about
it a couple of days ago. What's he going to do?
Was it TV movies? I mean, if you're not doing wrestling,
what is this old wrestling guy going to do?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Why some of the dirt sheets that I read on
it almost made it seem like he was just going
to be the financier of the whole thing, Like it
was going to be like just not a production company,
but he was going to help underwrite or fund movies
and stuff like that. I don't know if that's executive
producing or I don't know, but it seemed more that.
(11:58):
But knowing him like we do as fans, he probably
wants to be involved in something. He's always been the
guy that wants to be working and doing things like that.
So it kind of makes you wonder, you know, like
you said, what is it? Maybe it's more than just
(12:19):
you know, funding movies. Is he wanting to creative? Is
it Vince the director?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Now?
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Like what we know what? We wouldn't put a passing.
I really wouldn't. At this point, not only is he
getting into new stuff, TKO is reportedly getting into something
new and expanding that as well. If you've ever been
to a PBR event, pro bull Riders is one of
(12:45):
the I mean, if you think that going to wrestling
is exciting, you think that going to USC fight is unpredictable.
Throw a two thousand pound animal in the middle of that,
and that's what you get at PBR. Same attitude with
the two thousand pound bull full of testoster and ready
to horn somebody. Evidently, TKO Group is right in the
(13:08):
process right now of purchasing PBR, not the beer, but
pro bull Riders and trying to be a nice little
addition to that little portfolio UFC, WWE and PBR. That's
pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's pretty cool, you know, And it's blown my mind. Okay,
so I had I had no idea. I had not
read that. This is fresh for me, live in the moment,
and you think about the potential crossover of every single
one of those.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, because I can guarantee you.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
There's people in the in the PBR fan base that
don't watch wrestling and vice versa, you know, and but
it's all.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Within the realm of going that's pretty cool. I might
check that out. I'm telling you, man, I'm waiting for.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
That the WWE Network version two, you know, the TKO
to come out. Has it all If you're telling me
I can pay twenty thirty bucks a month whatever and
get all the stuff from those three places.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm in and I'll watch it now. Evidently you know so,
I don't know if you know this. Are you a
big rodeo guy. We've never heard slay this conversation. So
bull riders, bare back riders, saddle bronc riders, all of
that stuff, caf ropers, barrel racers. When they win, they
get a belt buckle. I think the belt buckle just
(14:35):
gets bigger in the PBR and becomes a title, and
now you have a PBR champ. So imagine in a
photo a PBR champ, a WWE champ, and a UFC
champ all holding their titles, and then we have more
replicas to buy. If you're just a giant fan.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, that'd be pretty sick.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
They're just you're just finding a way to invent new
things to make money on all the time, all the
state time. Let's wrap up on this one. W W
I D. How come nobody has thought of this before?
Or how maybe somebody's thought of it, but how come
it hasn't been implemented before?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
That's it's so interesting because it seems so simple. But
maybe maybe it was always about control. Maybe it was
I'll find my own people if they if I never
see them, then they must not be that important. You know,
Scouts can only do so much. It was an old
(15:32):
way of doing things. And I think we all know
that the forbidden door has been opened for a while now,
and I think you realize, hey, these people, these places
are not our enemies. We're so big, they're they're our
meal ticket. And I think embracing that our future, and
(15:52):
I think embracing that.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
It's just a game changer.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
But but to your your point, opening it up, it
so simple, and yet nobody did it till now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Well, and we kind of jumped a little bit, presuming
that you know what we're talking about. WWIDEA is the
independent stamp of approval on a school or an organization
that WWE is endorsing to say, hey, if you want
to be a pro wrestler, and maybe you already are
a pro wrestler, but you want to get here to
the big leagues, one of these two, three, four or
(16:24):
five schools or organizations is where you should go get
work or where you should go to school at, because
that's where we have our guys at, that's where we're
going to be pulling the talent from so go to
one of these places. It's smart, I mean because the
alliance that now has you also as the competition on
the other side. Now, I mean, I'm not going to
get in here and start bashing AW on this episode.
(16:47):
At least the crowds continue to shrink, continue to get smaller,
but they do have an incredible deal with Warner and
more eyeballs on it, and as you kind of have
that as a competition at least financially for the UH
for the guys and girls who are the talent on
those shows you can say hey, which I think is
(17:10):
very interesting. Cody Rhodes School is one of them, and
QT Marshall is one of the one of the coaches there.
He is under contract at ae W, but his school
feeds right into w w E.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Noil, that's really very interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, very get a little complicated. You've seen any on
the You've seen any downside to this at all?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I think it? Uh, well, yes and no. I think
I think what it's gonna do is it's gonna it
brings UH capitalism down to a lower level in the
wrestling community. I think, on one hand, if you're not
a w w E I D school. Yeah, you're gonna
have students, but are you going to have students that
(17:52):
are the same seriousness.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Right that they would if they went to a WWE school.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And it's interesting because I thought of this just now
from kind of earlier in our conversation, like WWE just
created their college football.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah they really did.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And and it's it's so interesting to start.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Good way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, like because now you've created all this competition to
go to these specific places, which is not only going
to financially benefit those places, but then WWE is helping itself.
And I'm sure there's money exchanging hands maybe down from
WWE to these places, but you've created an even deeper
(18:37):
ecosystem that will feed the global pro wrestling machine, not
just WWE, because now these other schools are going to
be competing to be WWE approved. What happens if AEW
starts doing this? I would say Ring of Honor, but
they're unfortunately owned by AW. But but to to my point, like,
(18:59):
if other promotions start popping up or this becomes a thing,
how does it affect the independent scene with booking shows
on independent scenes? Like there's all this stuff that's now
in play that it'll probably take us a couple months
to fully digest of how it's really going to affect
the whole picture at large, and.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
We're going to need like a year a cycle at least.
Guys moving in, going through, moving up, How does that look?
How does it affect them when they're on the indies
and they get called up by w they have shows
that they're lined up for, they're a champ at that
respective school, and they get get moved up. I mean, yeah,
it's great for them, but what about the actual promotion.
There's lots of things to consider there. And if you're
(19:40):
if you dive into the into the weeds of independent wrestling,
keep an eye on that see what happens, because there's
a lot of great indie wrestling right now and if
it will be interesting to see, like you mentioned, who
is a WWID school or organization and who is not
and how does it affect both? So that'll be cool
(20:01):
to watch. All right, So, uh, Friday Nights Backdown is
coming up tomorrow. It's back in the United States. Some
interesting stuff that came out of Crown Jewel we'll have
to watch for tomorrow as well as Monday, and then
next week we'll do our best to jump back on
here and chat some more wrestling. Michael, good to see
you again.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Good to see you as well.
Host
Anthony "The AntMan" Lay
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