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January 7, 2025 • 47 mins

Bryan talks RAW on Netflix and The Rock on NXT along with all the news.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition
of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Bye from San Francisco. I'm a sports byline broadcasting network.
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with your hosts
Brian Alvarez and Mike sempervv Right, you ready, You're ready,
Let's get it on now.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
How's it going everybody? Brian Alvarez here on or Wrestling
Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday,
New Pacific three Eastern Sundays, three Pacific six Eastern Saturday
Mornings with Jim Valley, Today Pacific one Eastern Sundays with
andrews Arian. And it is Tuesday here on the show.
And you know what that means. Well, we got a

(00:49):
lot to talk about. I don't want to be joined
today by Lancestorm. Lance watched Raw last night. It's on
Netflix now and so we're gonna talk about Raw on
Netflix as well as NXT tonight, which will feature an
appearance from the Rock. You heard that right, The Rock.

(01:13):
The Rock is on NXT in a building set up
for let me see what I got here. It's like
I can't even believe this. Really, It's not even like
they're running a thirteen thousand seat building that's all sold out.
It's like, I don't know a few thousand people there,
but The Rock is gonna be there. So anyway, I'll

(01:36):
find that here later, somebody texted me. But the point
is the Rock is on NXC. He may as well
be somewhere because I don't want to say it's as
bad as when Eric Bischoff signed with WWE and the
first thing he did was come out and hug Vince McMahon. Man,
let me tell you, when Rock showed up on that show,

(01:58):
it was like, this is the easiest, this is the
easiest storyline. With the Rock in the Ulafalla and solo,
his brother shows up and hugs his two rivals. There's
like two matches. There's two matches for the Rock at
Wrestle Media. There's Roman Reigns and there's Cody Rhodes. He

(02:21):
has been feuding with both, and he came out and
he hugged them. I don't know, man, I could talk
about this for weeks, but anyway, we'll get Lansan got
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Speaker 2 (05:38):
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
and Mike simperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Are the show, Bryan Alvarez here, Wrestling Observer Live, Lancestorm
joining us here today. First off, Lance, are you doing
I'm doing all right, all right, because I'm gonna need
a moment here, all right. First hop since seems to
be confused, I'll say this again. I mentioned this like
fifty times on this actual show yesterday. The prediction show
is tomorrow Wednesday, Okay. The Prediction show is Wednesday, So

(06:13):
get your prediction ready and be ready to call tomorrow,
not today, Wednesday, okay, And also on Wednesday, Max, please
also Wednesday. A couple of hours afterwards to Pacific five eastern.
We will be debuting after Dark Radio on Sports Byeline.

(06:34):
That will kick off Wednesday at two Pacific five eastern.
So a very very big day on Byline. We got
the one of the biggest shows we do all year,
the Prediction show that'll be at noon Pacific three Eastern
and after Dark Radio will be at two Pacific five Eastern.
And also, yes, for the fifty fifth time, as I
mentioned this countless times yesterday, after Dark Radio will be

(06:57):
just like this show twitch you Tube. It'll be on
whatever tune in radio all at all? Right, yes, Byeline,
it's on Byeline. Okay, gotta talk about the Rock, sure, okay, listen.
So and the Rock was like a bad guy last year, right,

(07:27):
a horrible person and great at it. He was an
incredible heel feuding with Cody and Roman. And after WrestleMania
he had that big confrontation with Cody teasing that they're

(07:47):
going to have this match where he gave him a gift,
a mystery gift. He put it in his hand, whispered
something in his ear and left the final boss The Rock. Well,
they debuted on Netflix. They booked Roman Reigns versus Solo
Socoa for the beads and I guess they're not beads.

(08:12):
They look like beads, but they're flowers, the ulafaulla. And
I mean, I'm not just mad because like I had
an idea they didn't do. But like this is idiot proof.
You do a match for the ulafaulla. Roman wins, but
like before he can put on the ulafaula, Rock attacks him,

(08:36):
takes the ulafaula and then we got Roman reigns in
the Rock all set up and it's like so easy,
and then it actually gets worse. Did you guys know
that the Rock did a social media post like the
day before or the day of raw? Are you guys
aware of this? He said that he had been named

(08:58):
a Samoan Heitch Chief twenty years ago. He said, after
twenty years of proudly carrying our culture with me around
the world, I can't wait to soon return back home
to Samoa. I already have chills thinking about it. Until then,
I'll come back home to WWE tomorrow night as we

(09:19):
make history on Netflix and begin a new and exciting era.
Tomorrow Night is dedicated to my grandfather, the High Chief
Peter Myvia, my grandmother Leah MYV and my dad Rocky
Soulman Johnson, and my ancestors who have all paid the way.

(09:40):
I read that and I was like, dude, like, there's
a match for the ulafalla to determine who will be
the tribal chief. Rock has just done a video about
his ancestry. Hello, So then this dude shows up and

(10:05):
the first thing he does is he puts over Cody
and he makes some jokes and Cody laughs. Then he
hugs him and he goes through the crowd again. Then
they do the match for the Ulafalla. Roman wins and
as he's celebrating before the beads get put around his neck,

(10:27):
here comes the Rock. I'm like, okay, obviously, well the
Rock gets this ulafalla and he looks at Roman Reigns
and you can hear the crowd like this is the thing.
You can hear the crowd buzzing. The crowd knew this
as well. And then he puts the ulafalla around Roman

(10:51):
Reign's neck. Do you realize that Dave has been talking
about how important this ulafalla is to the storyline for
like a year now and how it's this giant thing
and this big match and everybody cares about it. Well, dude,
he put the beads around this guy's neck and the
crowd didn't even pop like you could hear, and they
went what And then he hugged him and yes, I'm

(11:16):
sure at some point, the Rock probably is going to
turn on Roman Reigns. But dude, what was this raw?
This was like a raw to get all of these
fans that allegedly are like lapsed, the alleged lapsed fans,
the casual fans who are flipping like, so what's on Netflix? Oh,
it's raw. The idea here is to get these people

(11:39):
invested in WWE. So like, I don't care if he
attacks him tonight. I don't care if he attacks him
at the end of the month. I don't care when
the dude attacks him. Like, this was the show to
shoot the Angle, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month.

(12:00):
It's like that was the night. And so all of
these imaginary lapsed fans or you know, we've never watched
wrestling in since the eighties or whatever, see what's going on?
What did they see? Well, they saw that The Rock
is the best friend of Roman Reigns and Cody, Like,
I'm baffled. It's a classic example of there was an

(12:20):
easy way to do this, and let's think of a
more complicated way. Let's swerve the people first, and then
we'll shoot the Angle down the road. When like all
those people that tuned in for this show, they ain't
gonna be there. Do you guys remember SmackDown's debut on Fox?
Does anyone remember when SmackDown debut on Fox? The first night?
How many viewers they had? Do you remember? Lance?

Speaker 6 (12:41):
It was three plus million.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Four million viewers for the debut? Four million? Do you
know how many people watched Week two two and a
half It was like two point two million? Okay, half
the people that tuned in that first show didn't watch
the second show. Do you guys remember what Dynamite did

(13:06):
on their debut? It was like one point four one
point five million. The next week it was like eight. Okay,
whenever you have a debut, you're gonna lose half the
viewers every time. It happens. It happened with aw it
happened with SmackDown on Fox, and whatever they did on Netflix.

(13:27):
They're gonna have half of that next week. So you
can tell me all you want.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
You're a mark.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Obviously he's gonna attack the guy. Why are you listen?
I mean, you're probably right, but this was the show
to do it, not week two. So anyway, I don't care.
They're still gonna do well at WrestleMania. But like That
was your Eric Bischoff, Huggs Vince McMahon moment when he
first signs with WW It's like, why would you ever

(13:54):
do that? Why? I don't get it.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
My take wasn't that they're just gonna do it later.
My take was Rock always wanted to be a babyface
and he's trying again, or that.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
There's not gonna be a match. That was other people's takeaway,
like he's not doing mania, So like whatever they're doing,
that's the message people got out of it. Either he
blew off the two feuds or he's not doing mania.
Is that the message you want to send to the
biggest possible audience you're gonna get on Netflix? Not to me?

Speaker 6 (14:24):
Nope, that's what they did.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, what do you think about this show?

Speaker 6 (14:29):
Production wise? It was very very impressive, Like I haven't
watched Raw in ages, and I thought the show open
video package on the you know, the screen hung around
the ring was really great. The building looked impressive. But
I found the show really slow and really long, and

(14:53):
as someone who hasn't watched in a long time, there
was no angle, nothing really compelling to insist I watch
next week, Like I watched for three hours there was
four matches and yes, don't believe any angles.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yes, well you know I I talked about this on
the show last night and my good friend Paul Fontaine.
I like Paul a lot, but you know, Paul said,
I'll actually find it right here. He goes, he goes,
what are you talking about? They didn't promote anything for
next week? And he had like a list of matches
that they went over for next week. And the list

(15:36):
of matches was I mean, it was like a bunch
of matches that they'd been building up for a while,
and like nobody involved in the matches from for next
week were even on the show. It's like, how is
that going to get new people who tuned in excited
to watch the show next week when you've advertised a
bunch of matches of people that weren't even on the show,

(15:57):
Like you should have had things on the show to
shoot a goals so people tune in for the next
week's show, not a standalone show anyway. Whatever. Back in
the moment, Observer Live.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
and Mike simper Vivi on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
I have more to say, so listen. So does Max apparently. Yeah,
so here's here's a thing. I'll meet you for sequal.
You take care, old Max.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
There.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
So the thing to me is this, okay, like, what
what's what's the point of the raw debut on Netflix.
I watched the show. I didn't mind the show. I
mean it was it felt very long. But I didn't
watch it and go this show is is terrible. But
I did look at it as are we gonna hook

(17:02):
any new viewers with this show? Because if you look
at the success of WWE, and you can see it
watching the show. I mean these fans, I mean seventeen
thousand people. It was the highest and this is true,
it was the highest gate ever for an arena show
in the history of WWE. I mean they sold seventeen
thousand tickets at sky high prices for this show and

(17:23):
sold the place out. And you know, these fans, they're fans.
Whatever you personally, listener think of the show. Their fans
are eating this up, okay, And they have regained a
lot of fans that they lost in you know, the
twenty tens, and you know, up through twenty nineteen and
early twenty twenties, and how have they done that. They

(17:46):
didn't bring those fans back front with like one off
shows featuring old people. They got those fans back because
the weekly episodic storytelling is a thousand times better than
it was five years ago. Okay, So to me, if
you have a show like this where the idea is
we are gonna have a ton of new eyeballs on tonight,

(18:06):
to me, it's like, well, highlight what you've been doing well,
which is episodic storytelling and shooting angles. So Paul here
says there's no hook for next week. They did a
whole three minute segment running down the card for next week,
the finals of the Women's Intercontinental title tournament, Seamus versus Kaiser,
Gable versus e lucid Or who's probably Penta, and Damien

(18:28):
Priest versus Finn Valor in a street fight, and he
is correct, they did run all of that down. However,
those matches mean something to you if you are a
regular raw viewer watching the show every week. Okay, but
the idea here is we've got new people tuning in

(18:48):
or lapsed fans giving us another shot. Okay, So of
the lineup next week, the finals of the intercontinal women's
title tournament. We saw neither of the women on this show.
They may no appearances Seamous versus Kaiser, We saw neither
of these men on the show. They made no appearance.
Gable and a Luchador. We saw Gable on the show,

(19:10):
but all he said was I want a lucchador, and
they didn't tell you who the luchador was. Now we know.
But if you're a lapse viewer, a new viewer, et cetera,
you have absolutely no idea who this person is going
to be. You may not even know them when they
show up. And Damien Price versus Finnbller Street Fight, we
saw neither of these people on the show. They made

(19:30):
no appearances whatsoever. So if you're a new viewer, what
does any of that mean to you? Absolutely nothing. Instead,
you saw a show where Rock Blue off his feud
with Cody, they're friends, Rock Blue off his feud with Roman,
they're friends. All of the other matches had clean finishes.

(19:51):
They blew off all of those matches. It's like, what
is the incentive for a non fan or a new
fan or a lapsed fan to tune in next week?
Because of drone shots? Or great production. That is not
what brought people back. Even when WWE was at its worst,
they still had great production except for all the camera cuts.

(20:14):
So that was my issue with the show. They shot
this like a one off tune in one time and
then go back to whatever you're doing, as opposed to, hey,
you should start watching this. We got some good stuff
going on.

Speaker 6 (20:27):
And I would also state too that announcing all of
those matches, I believe we're done. At times where I
was like forwarding through, like I'm hitting that ten second
ahead thing because it's like they'll show celebrities in the crowd.
I'm like, I don't care, and then they'll show oh,
it's Kofey and Xavier standing in the crowd talking, but
it's like whatever, it's just more talking.

Speaker 7 (20:49):
I was.

Speaker 6 (20:51):
Skipping the vast majority of that because it was like
I just couldn't wait that long between matches. I was
just getting bored with just seeing people stand there.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Oh there was a lot of standing, and yes they
did show some of these people standing in the crowd,
but that is not shooting an angle or getting over
the characters, or getting over the rivalry or doing whatever
to make sure that you want to watch next week,
so very quickly, he can give some thoughts on this
as we go through the show, Lance. So it opened

(21:27):
up with, you know, Hunter did a promo, and then
Rock came out and Rock did a big promo being
a total babyface, and then he put over Cody Rhodes,
and then he put over Roman Reigns, and then he
hugged Cody in the crowd, and then he said he
would be watching the next match. This took about twenty minutes,

(21:48):
although ironically, of all the shows, the show where they
have no time constraints, they could have gone nine hours
if they wanted. This may have been the first time
in history Rock actually hit his timeque so that was ironic.
Then we had Roman and solo tribal rules. I said
to Dave that this was like a WrestleMania main event.
He said it was not. But let me tell you something.

(22:10):
Everybody go back and watch the Rock and Cody Rhoades
at WrestleMania in the main event. It was literally the
exact same match. It was slow early and then eighty
five million people ran in and then they went to
the finish. This match was exactly like the WrestleMania main

(22:33):
event with Cody and Roman reigns. But it was with
Solo Soca and it wasn't a bad match. It was
boring early, but like the people did get in all
the run ins, they did get into the near falls,
they did chant this is awesome. They chanted for Cody
to come out. Then they hit his music and he
went crazy. All of the baby faces did big dives,
and then Roman ends up spearing Solo and pinning him

(22:55):
clean in the middle of the ring. And then Yes,
the Rock came out. He put the ula far around
the neck of the of Roman Reigns. He hugged him
and that was that. Glad that feud's all blown off.

Speaker 6 (23:08):
Well, the thing is like, I haven't been watching and
I didn't watch Mania last year, so I really wasn't
aware of the previous angle, and this just felt like
the return much like Taker and Hogan. It's just like
a guy from the past came down endorsed the guy
from the future. Yay, great seeing you again. Nostalgia at Rock, Like,

(23:29):
that's more what it felt like to me as someone
who wasn't aware of all of the story of the
Roman bloodline with Rock, it just felt like Rock returned,
did a celebrity cameo appearance and endorsed the current guy
and left. That's what it felt like to me, not
being aware of the previous angle.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
And that's what it felt like to everybody watching this
show for the first time or coming back. Wow, he
likes that guy. Hey, at least this time when the
Rock acknowledged Roman reigns, fans didn't boom out of the
building like they did about six years ago. We had
all the celebs in the crowd. Then John Cena comes out.
This guy does a nine hour promo and the gist

(24:09):
of it is he's beginning his final run. He has
not won a match, he claimed in two thousand, four
hundred and forty six days, which is true, but also
not true. It's all semantics. He actually has not won
a televised singles match in twy four hundred and forty
six days. The last time he won a televised singles

(24:31):
match was Triple H at the Greatest Royal Rumble, which
was like twenty eighteen. However, he has won many televised
matches in multi person matches, and he's won many singles
matches on the road. But he's pretending he can't win.
Therefore he could never win that seventeenth title. But then
he remembers, well, golly, there's a Royal Rumble coming up,

(24:52):
maybe I should enter. So he is in the Royal
Rumble and he will never give up and that's that.

Speaker 6 (24:59):
But he said the Royal Rumble's basically a lottery. Like
to me, it's like, oh, it just it tells the narrative,
which I've complained about before, Like fans love the Royal Rumble,
but it's like you're saying that the most important match
of the year is just a lottery crapshoot that this
guy that hasn't won a match in six years could earn.
Like it just seems like a really weird story.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
And then we had a Logan Paul promo where this
this fella actually said, I am dedicating myself one hundred
percent to WWE. No more outside projects, no more side hustle,
one hundred percent WWE.

Speaker 6 (25:38):
It's a work, brother, It's more than work.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
So just just a lie, flat out. Why live Morgan
Rhea Ripley for the WE title? Originally they announced this
was the last woman Standing match, and uh, I had
some people on the internet going, well, you know, they
took the stipulation away because it would be too close
to tribal combat. And it's like they just figured that out.

(26:03):
They advertised both of these matches for weeks and weeks.
They didn't just figure that out. For whatever reason, they
just had a straight match. Ria beat her with the
uh riptide. Two of them, pinder them tried to make
up with her. Rhea kicked him in the Jimmy hit
him with the riptide, and then rode around the ring.
Actually she didn't. Undertaker came out in his motorcycle and

(26:25):
they posed together and then he left without her a
true gentleman. Adam Pierce.

Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yes, I just thought it was interesting that the match,
like Match one in match two were so similar, like
regardless of that they changed the steps so it wasn't identical.
It's like they both had outside interference. They both had
finishers kicked out of and then the babyface won by
hitting their finish twice and winning. It was very similar.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, then we had Adam Pearce meets with American Maid,
and this week Chad's story is there are rumors I
have trouble with luchadors. Get me the best luchador on
the planet next week, Pierce said, I have the perfect
luchador for you. So Hunter's pretty much said, it's who
you think it is. So unless you think it's someone

(27:16):
other than Penta, well that's who it is. Then we
had clips of the rock.

Speaker 6 (27:22):
Leaving, drinking, then driving.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
He did swig from a bottle of tequila and then
jump into his car.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
How does how does how does someone not realize that's
a bad idea?

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Well that's a great question, all right, we'll talk more
about this after the break Observer Live.

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Speaker 2 (31:08):
You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
and Mike semper VV on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
In the show Brian Alvarez here Wrestling Observer Alive like
simper VV also for US actually is not here. Lance
is here anyway, Jay Whu's and Drew McIntyre. I was
told yesterday that Jay's entrance was going to be incredible,
and it was. He actually probably has the most over
entrance in all of WWE right now. I mean, people
go nuts for this entrance, including Michael Cole, Pat McAfee.

Speaker 6 (31:44):
Yeah, they didn't help, but dude looked like a gigantic
star with that entrance. That was impressive.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
I thought Cole was gonna need a to fibrillator. God,
they're trying to dance on the table and Cole sounds
like he's about to die, and at McAfee goes be
an athlete, brother, He was not an athlete anyway. Jay
beat him, spared him. Actually no, he did a crucifix

(32:10):
after there was a Claymore attempt. It was a cool finish,
not a lot of heat. And he was basically getting
Jay a win back because he was the guy that
got pinned by Solo to try to get Solo over
better late than never for that match with Roman on
this show.

Speaker 6 (32:30):
Yeah, he keeked him off like a giant star. That
entrance was pretty darn impressive.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
We had a bunch of other stuff, including Paul saying
there would be a worldwide acknowledgment celebration for Roman. Apparently
that will be January twenty seventh, which is Monday Night Raw.
Roman is going to be a regular on Raw through WrestleMania,
so I'm sure by then, you know, we'll be down

(32:56):
to a normal Raw audience for rock showing up to
beat this guy up. Then we had everyone's main man,
Hulkgan coming out.

Speaker 7 (33:05):
Man.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
He came out his music. It's a big pop. Then
they turn the music off and everyone starts booing, and
then he goes, I've been in the business forty years.
Best part of my life being in WWE. They boo
had a lot of tag partners, but you, fans, you're
the best tag partners because you stuck with me through thicket.
Then they start booing. Louder I have some new beer.

(33:26):
He says. They bowed the beer, but you know they
like beers, so wasn't that bad? Name drops Randy Savage.
He got booed, Andre, he got booed and then he
goes and the best tag team partner Netflix, and man,
they booed the hell out of Netflix with all of
the Netflix execs there. So Hogan tears off his shirt.

(33:49):
He's got a Netflix shirt underneath, SLINKs to the back.

Speaker 6 (33:54):
This was a disaster.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
You don't say.

Speaker 6 (33:56):
Everything that they were trying to promote. He managed to
get booed. And if you get beer booed at a
wrestling show, you're really doing something. But yeah, I think
they need to really rethink their use of Hulk Hogan
because that was not good.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, I've seen a lot of people talking about, you know,
Hogan and Trump, And let me tell you something. There's
a lot of people or there's a lot of reasons
people don't like Hulk Hogan. And they did not boo
him on this show because of Trump. And I can
tell you that for a fact, because the Undertaker showed
up in his motorcycle and that guy didn't get booed
at all.

Speaker 6 (34:34):
Well, the thing is, Hogan didn't get booed with his
music playing Taker had the noisy motorcycle and his music
and he never spoke. They never gave anyone a chance.
Like I agree, I don't think Taker would have been
viewed as as Hogan was, but they were in a
much safer position with Taker because the crowd would never

(34:59):
get give them the chance to have silence to boo him.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
That is true. But I also did hear from a
lot of people who were in the building and they said, like,
nobody bowed the Undertaker. Everyone did boo Hogan. But I
did have people say it wasn't quite as bad as
it appeared on television because there were actually a lot
of people that were cheering him, but the people that
were booing him really didn't like him, and the booze

(35:24):
like drowned out all the people cheering.

Speaker 6 (35:26):
You could see people in the crowd giving him the
thumbs down and everything.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Oh yeah, they did not like Hulkogan.

Speaker 6 (35:31):
Yeah, well, there's lots of reasons why people don't.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Then the main event was Punk and seth Rawlins, and man,
I'll give him this. I mean, they worked really hard
to the point that Punk looked like he was gonna
die by the end, just like they're just you know,
it's one of those things. It's much harder to work
a fight, not like a fake like a Steve Austin
brawling in the crowd or whatever. But like when you're

(35:57):
kind of laying it in a little more and you're
giving a little more, try to make it a little
more real, so to speak, which they weren't like doing
it like it was a shoot. But you know they
do kicks of the face. We're like a little little tighter,
and you know they got I mean, Punk got tired Seth.
Seth didn't really get tired, but the fans were into it,
dueling chance and at the end, like the story was,

(36:22):
they kept hitting each other with each other's finishes, like
Seth kept hitting him with the GTS and then finally
he goes for this superplex in the falcon arrow. Punk
turns it into a GTS and then collapses to his knees.
I can't even believe this finish. Seth falls onto his
shoulders as he stumbles off the ropes, and I was like,
I don't know if this guy's gonna be able to

(36:43):
get up, And he actually did it the first time,
but he managed to get him up the second time
he hit that GTS and then he died. And so yeah,
he's on his way to I presume some sort of
title match on Night one or to a Mania left
to see which one. But it was a good main event.

(37:05):
It was a solid main event.

Speaker 6 (37:06):
Punk takes the Greatest Go to sleeps his own move.
He was giving a clinic on how to take his
finish because he would tuck his chin and lead with
his forehead and take that right in the head. It
looked awesome. And the one thing that I like, because
I'm a big proponent of this, it's like, whether he
was legit that tired or selling some It's like, if

(37:30):
you want a match to feel big and a win
to feel significant, you should look like you were in
a war at the end of it. Well, of course,
and these guys really did that, So I'm I'm a
fan of that, whether it was you know, one percent
selling and ninety nine percent legit or the other way around.
I don't think people should look fresh at the end

(37:51):
of a long battle, So kudos.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Well, we got NXT New Year's Evil tonight with Trick
Williams against Oba Femi and Eddie Thorpe and way Roxane
Perez and Julia for the NXT Women's title, which I
would say is like ninety nine percent a title change.
Lexus King Charlie Dempsey in a non Heritage Cup match
for the Heritage Cup because Ava is completely incompetent. We've

(38:16):
got Stephanie Vekir Kolonie, Jordan Kora, Jayden loloveis in a
Number one contenders match for the NXT North American title.
We have Fallon JC and Jasmine against Shatzi, Gigi and Tatum.
And yes, yes, The Rock is going to appear at

(38:38):
NXT tonight. Can you believe it?

Speaker 6 (38:41):
It'd be really interesting to see how many tickets they
move off of this. It will be maybe he'll show
up and give Avas some logistic pointers on making better decisions.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Okay, so here's the here's the update I got. The
NXT show is at the Expo Hall, not the Shrine.
They had seventeen hundred seats set up and they sold
those out. Oh so, but like the Rock is showing

(39:12):
up at an NXT show in front of one thousand,
seven hundred people, Okay.

Speaker 7 (39:19):
Go for it.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
Brother operating on the c dub.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Oh he's going to p operating all right. So I
don't think they'll sell any more tickets though, because I
don't think there are anymore.

Speaker 6 (39:27):
Are you gonna revamp your prediction of the massive female
call up now that SmackDown's going back to two hours.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Brett, I don't know, dude. I mean, they have to
call up some women because they don't have enough women
for two titles. But I don't know how many they'll
call up. I don't know what's going on, dude. I
can't answer this question for you. I'm flabbergasted.

Speaker 6 (39:45):
Yeah, and they have to call them up because they've
got so many women in nxt.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Roxane should be up immediately after losing to Julia. I mean,
debut you are and the Women's Royal Rumble, have a
win for all I care and h and let's go.

Speaker 6 (40:00):
Yeah. I would prefer a slower start. I like watching
people climb the ladder and not jump to the top
of it. But I agree she should be called up.
She's been there long enough.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
The three hour SmackDown debuted at one point five million viewers,
second on the primetime cable rankings point four five eighteen
to forty nine and uh yeah, good number. Can't wait
till it goes back to two hours. It's weird though,
because I mean, like the way it's actually amazing. It's

(40:32):
just amazing watching wrestling. I watch a lot of wrestling
you know what I'm saying. I think I watch more
than most because I think most people that like WWE
don't watch AW, and most of do watch AW don't
watch WWE, and most of what Anyway, the point of
this is, pacing is so important in these shows. That

(40:56):
SmackDown was a It was like a regular SmackDown show.
They did matches, they did interviews, they did angles, they
did video packages, and the fact is, like I'm not
saying it, it flew by because it didn't like the
main event. I really thought the main event dragged on

(41:17):
that show, and it had all the biggest stars, but
it was it was easy to get through. I got
through that show in ninety minutes, just and I only
skipped commercials, and I only skipped like if they did
a recap of something I already saw on the show.
Ninety minutes. I got through a three hour SmackDown and
it was just like, Okay, you know, I can I
can handle that. This raw show, golly I had. I

(41:41):
watched it in two parts. I watched. I watched like
an hour or so, and then like I put the
kids to bed and I watched another two hours or whatever.
And even though there was like a break in the middle,
I was like, God, I've been watching this show for
like seven hours. Is this show ever gonna end? And

(42:02):
part of it was just like God, there's so much
nothing happening that just causes time to like slow down.
Like I wanted to watch Jay's entrance, and I wanted
to watch like, you know, Roman's entrance and see the
production and everything, but there's just so nothing happening. And

(42:24):
it just went on for hours and hours and hours.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
And it was longer for me because we didn't get commercials.
We just got action the whole time.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, and those of you that didn't get commercials, you
also saw things we didn't see, Like there's a segment
where the New Day came out and got booed. We
never saw that. Really, No, it wasn't on the show
at all. And actually I can find because somebody actually
sent me a list. They go, you didn't talk about
this and this and this, and I was like what,
And then they explained all this stuff.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
Yeah, because oh here it is.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Here it is, so this guy goes I was listening
to you on Observer Radio this morning in your raw recap.
You missed so much stuff. I'm wondering if the US
version was different than the Canadian version. The Canadian one
had no commercials. It was three hours street non shop. Yes,
that's very different. We had tons of commercials in the US.

(43:16):
So what we missed was the New Day segment bashing
the crowd explaining why the tag match with Ray was off.
No idea cross and miss segment. Never saw it. Rhea
and Damon had a title celebration where Priest challenged Bellor
to a street fight next week. Never saw it, and
uh yeah, just never saw it. Wasn't on the show.

Speaker 6 (43:39):
Yeah, those were all like interview segments with like Jackie
Redman from Like a Box. I fast forward a lot
of them, but I saw them, and yeah, we would
get what felt like a pitch to commercial break and
the screen to go black for half a second and
then it'd come back and we just continue watching the show.
So we had if there was a commercial during a match,

(44:00):
we saw the whole match, and we saw all of
these other segments.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
This guy goes, you need ad free Netflix. I have
ad free. That doesn't mean commercial free. In the US.
When you're watching raw, they're gonna air commercials. It's like
a normal raw show. I am on Premium four K.
I'm in the US, and we get commercials during the show,
and everyone's like, you need a VPN. I don't want
to watch the whole show. I'm happy with commercials. God,

(44:27):
how much time do you think I have here? Jimminy Christmas? Anyway,
let's go to a break. You know what I like
breaks back in a moment. It's ever Live.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
and Mike semperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
All right, two things. First off, NXC sold out oney
seven and ninety three tickets for the Rock tonight, so
there's that. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out what
is going on with Netflix because like several people here said,
they got no ads the entire show.

Speaker 6 (45:34):
And.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Like, I'm on the highest tier, I'm on Premium four K,
no ads, I got commercials all night. They've got commercials
all night.

Speaker 6 (45:45):
Will there be commercials if you click on it today
and watch it on delay?

Speaker 2 (45:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Maybe it's because I watched it on delay, which is fine.
I don't care, but I probably should see all the segments.
I don't know. Man, weird all this technology. I could
barely even like I'll say one thing, like I got
on and apparently this wasn't a very widespread problem, but
I did google it, and there are many people that

(46:10):
do have this problem, like this Netflix, like they're password
sharing gimmick now. They it would not let me watch
on my phone or my iPad. It said this device
is not part of your household, and I was like, what,
I'm in my house. It's like, make sure you're on
the same wireless network. It's like, I am, well, not
let me watch it. The only thing it would allow

(46:32):
me to watch on was one TV on the on
the highest tier. And so the only way I could
figure out how to get around this is I had
to log out of everything. I had to try to
log in on the TV, use my iPad to take
a picture of the QR code to log into the TV,
and that allowed me to use my iPad for that moment.

(46:54):
But like, I don't know if that's gonna work next week,
and so I google it. It's like yeah, people with Apple,
I mean it's it's like and then the most annoying
thing is all of the things on the internet telling
you how to do it. They go go to Netflix
on the TV and go onto the left hand menu,
and they'll have this like thing there, which of course
wasn't there on my Apple TV. And then there's a
little thing that goes If that doesn't work, you're gonna

(47:15):
need to find another device. It's like what what? So anyway,
good luck everybody. Thanks Lance. I'll talk to y'all next time.
Prediction show tomorrow. Wrestling Observer Live. You have been listening

(47:49):
to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side
Network
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