August 10, 2023 • 11 mins
AEW Collision delivered some hard-hitting matches. I go over the highlights of the show including the insane match with FTR and we continue to shower Ricky Starks with praise on his heel work.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready, it's about to hit
the fan. Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays wrestling with Friday. Ladies
and gentlemen. Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. Paid big money for that,
(00:33):
so I hope it didn't. I hope it didn't suck.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. I'm Freddy Prince Junior.
You're stuck with just me today. I hope that's all
right with you. But I want to give some love
to AEW in particular Collision, because the match that I've
wanted to watch most since Collision debuted, I feel like
(00:57):
probably got the least amount of views because of when
it was scheduled and what was scheduled around it. You know,
there hasn't been Saturday night wrestling in a long time,
right since what Saturday Night Special? And I don't know
what their ratings are off the top of my head.
I think the last one, the number in my head
(01:18):
was somewhere around eight hundred thousand. I don't know why
that's in my head, but maybe because it's correct. Those
numbers don't necessarily mean squat. They're not really checking these
numbers and looking hard at them until about three to
four months after the fact was streaming and all that stuff,
and rewatches and social watches and all this other crap
that gets factored in. Now the analytics department look at
(01:40):
instead of just listening to what the social people are
saying or what fans are saying on social pages. It sucks.
It's awesome, like you could figure it out and people
at you know when they like something or when they don't.
But this was a tricky night for him because this
was Ricky Starks versus CM Punk. And we've said it before,
Ricky Starks is a star. All he's ever needed is
(02:02):
the right character and the right story and the right
person in that story. Yeah, and then enough time to
tell it. Not enough time told. With the Hobbs storyline,
the FTR Belt, that was that was too quick. Same
with winning the the Their Battle Royale. I don't remember
what they called it, but for him to get the
(02:22):
title shot against MJF, that storyline was too quick. The
match ended with controversy. He gets kicked in the balls
off a ref distraction. You refs need to step your
damn game up. And then he goes to collision, and
everybody's kind of like, well, what's going to happen? Man,
are people even going to watch? Okay, seem Punk's there
will get them to watch FTRS. Their tag team lovers
(02:44):
are going to definitely watch. Let's see what Ricky Starks
can do. And they put him in this story with
cmpunk right away, and he gets two shady victories over him,
boom boom, and calls out, whatever's in that red bag,
it's the title, Well, it's should be mine. I already
beat you twice. You're not even defending it. Why do
you have it? Just throw it away, get this trash
(03:05):
out of here. When he kicks it, it was beautiful,
by the way, and he's playing this heel that people love,
which is okay. I think in modern wrestling, there's nothing
wrong with that. Movies changed it up, Television changed it
up and got these bad guys slash good guys, good
guys that don't have the moral compass of the heroes
of the eighties. They're willing to play the criminals game
(03:27):
a little bit, and we appreciate them for that because
we know it's necessary in order to get vigilante justice.
So that's been permeating for so long, it was only
a matter of time before wrestlers started doing it. And
Ricky's not the first, but he's the latest to sort
of find something in that heel lover zone where to
(03:49):
quote the movie Phantasm, which I just rewatched lately, where
hot is love baby, like, that's what he is. It's
complimenting yourself in a way that you can't hate the
person for saying it. You just can't write even if
they're not telling the truth. They're saying it with this
like certainty, this certain smile that allows you to give
(04:13):
them latitude. And Ricky did that in two promos back
to back. And then he gets this match for the
Championship with Ricky the Dragon Steamboat as the special guest referee,
who I had the pleasure of meeting when I worked
at WWE, and he was the ultimate gentleman and just
one of the nicest guys that I met at that
company and just in general. So it was good to
(04:36):
see Ricky out there. But he gets this match, and
i'll spoil it for you, Seampunk wins of course, which
he had to. I'm not mad about that. He can't
just lose his spell the first time he's talking about
(04:57):
it that would suck falls and then Ricky Ricky Starks
beats up Ricky the Dragon steamboat whips him bell. It's brutal,
but he's made himself this sort of ultimate top heel
on collision and that's exactly what he make no mistake.
He is the top heel on collision. That's no easy task.
(05:18):
That's a lot of responsibility. I think he's handled those
little opening quick hits that they do well. When he
rolled up in the car and was like, I'm absolutely
sons of bitches. I don't remember what he said, but
he handled it well. Not all of the talent does
because they bring different energies and sometimes it's too soft
to open a show, right, Ricky played it cool and smooth,
and so it worked. But I don't know how many
(05:40):
people saw this match between college football the Jake Paul fight,
which everyone probably watched for free because that's what his
fans do. That sucks, by the way, and everyone watched
Summer Slam, and I don't know if the Summer Slam
crowd gets wrestled out right, they're like, okay, I gotta
take a break, or maybe they're hardcore and they're like Yo,
Let's power through. But this to me was their biggest
(06:03):
match and of one of their best shows since debuting,
and I just hope the right amount of high balls
saw it. I just feel like they may have been
a victim to bad scheduling because there was just too
much competition, and they're going to have to deal with
this during college football. Granted that there's good games in
their time slot, right there's a lot of games nobody
(06:24):
cares about except the thirty two hundred people that go
to that school because there's eighteen thousand colleges with football
teams for some reason. But they're going to have to
deal with that the same way Monday Night Raw has
to deal with Monday Night Football. The ratings always dip
every single time they stay out of commercial when Monday
Night Football goes into commercial, just so they can steal
a few thousand, one hundred thousand eyeballs if they can,
(06:47):
and they'll stay out of commercial as long as they
legally can, just to keep your eyes on there. So
Collision may have to do a little bit of that
if they're not already, but you're legally allowed to do
it for so long before you have to play Marshall
and I suggest they do. But it was still a
really cool match, a cool finish. I honestly thought Sampunk
(07:07):
was going to like cheat better than Ricky and be like, see,
now that's how you do it, bro. He got the
roll up and he got the count from Steamboat, which
I'm sure Starks will say was too it was too
quick of a count. But the other match that I
wanted to discuss is FTR, and I don't think I've
ever given them. I don't know if we've given them
(07:29):
any love on the show outside of like we respect him.
But these dudes wrestled Brian Cage and Big Bill and
they made cajun Bill are responsible for this too, but
they made them look like a team. I want to
watch Wreussell for the next ten years, right like, they
all four men did a great job in this match.
(07:52):
And I'm going to talk about FTR in a second.
But Big Bill and Brian Cage have something I don't
I think they know they have something, and they got
to figure out what it is because they looked awesome
as a team. I don't know if the face paint
and then the no face paint works, and I don't
know if Brian Cage needs face paint because his body
(08:14):
is so freaking perfect, totally shit, dude, what the hell?
He's like bigger than luf Igno and Lufa Rigno was
the incredible Hulk. He looks phenomenal. And Big Bill is
just a giant guy named Bill who doesn't have to
(08:34):
be as buff as Brian Cage, although he's in pretty
sick shape too, but he's seven feet tall, like he's
a freaking giant. They looked awesome, and there were even
a couple of times you knew they weren't gonna win,
but there were a couple of times where they were
able to suspend disbelief. Now let's talk about FTR, because
I know I haven't given him enough love. These dudes.
(08:54):
Here's the story they told. Okay, this is how sick
these guys are. Brian Cage starts to match against Cash
Wheeler and his mom's in the freaking crowd. He's like,
I think he's from South Carolina where the show was.
He starts against Brian Cage and Brian Cage is just
mauling him like a bear, just boom smashing him down. Boom.
Here's a shoulder blocks boom, here's a clothesline. You ain't shit,
(09:16):
and Wheeler's like, yo, I ain't shit. I got to
tag out. And then Dax Harwood comes in. He's like,
don't worry, bro, I got you. And Brian Cage is
like what you ain't got shit? Bow shoulder block? Why? Wow?
How clothesline? Pick you up? Swapam And then Dax Harror
was like, yo, this guy's crazy strong. If we gotta
we gotta work together. And then he's like, yeah, okay,
(09:37):
let's work together. So then they start doing quick tags
and get a little double action on you, Papa, and
then Brian Cage is like nahinet having it. Babo puts
them both down, and then the Brian Cage character starts
to get a little tired because big muscles use lots
of oxygen, which uses lots of energy, and all they
(09:57):
had to do was with stand this early storm from
this giant strong dude and a little big bill action
as well, but also another big dude uses lots more oxygen.
They're gonna get tired quicker. And as soon as they did,
U see FTR slowly start to take over this match
and they start doing these quick tags in and out
just double team and I'm sitting there watching this like, Yo,
(10:18):
this is like a full of fight scene in a
movie Man, like where Jackie Chan has to wait for
the big Russian guy to get tired before he could
beat his ass in the final act. I had so
much fun watching this man, these guys, this was next level.
And I don't know if they're putting together this kind
of match every week. I know that they're collision matches.
I've enjoyed all of them, but when I was watching
(10:40):
them on Dynamott, I just don't feel like they were
this or or I would have said something. Maybe I would.
Maybe I'm just a dumb ass. I don't know. Maybe
it's both both things can be true. But anyway, I
love the show. Simojo got like five second top out
Hunter Are bent to Coach was kind of cold blooded,
but at least he called out Cmpunk for all in
(11:00):
at Wembley Stadium to put a final exclamation point on
their feud. As you know, Siam Punk got the last
victory Simojo dominated him in Ring of Honor. That was
an awesome match to get made on the show, and
you had to see it if you wanted to see it.
And you gotta listen if you want to hear us
Every Thursday right here on unsanctioned Thursdays, I'm your host,
(11:23):
Freddie Prince Junior, Jeff I will return soon. We miss you.
This has been a production of Iheart'smichael Toura podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready, it's about to hit
the fan. Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays wrestling with Friday. Ladies
and gentlemen. Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. Paid big money for that,
(00:33):
so I hope it didn't. I hope it didn't suck.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. I'm Freddy Prince Junior.
You're stuck with just me today. I hope that's all
right with you. But I want to give some love
to AEW in particular Collision, because the match that I've
wanted to watch most since Collision debuted, I feel like
(00:57):
probably got the least amount of views because of when
it was scheduled and what was scheduled around it. You know,
there hasn't been Saturday night wrestling in a long time,
right since what Saturday Night Special? And I don't know
what their ratings are off the top of my head.
I think the last one, the number in my head
(01:18):
was somewhere around eight hundred thousand. I don't know why
that's in my head, but maybe because it's correct. Those
numbers don't necessarily mean squat. They're not really checking these
numbers and looking hard at them until about three to
four months after the fact was streaming and all that stuff,
and rewatches and social watches and all this other crap
that gets factored in. Now the analytics department look at
(01:40):
instead of just listening to what the social people are
saying or what fans are saying on social pages. It sucks.
It's awesome, like you could figure it out and people
at you know when they like something or when they don't.
But this was a tricky night for him because this
was Ricky Starks versus CM Punk. And we've said it before,
Ricky Starks is a star. All he's ever needed is
(02:02):
the right character and the right story and the right
person in that story. Yeah, and then enough time to
tell it. Not enough time told. With the Hobbs storyline,
the FTR Belt, that was that was too quick. Same
with winning the the Their Battle Royale. I don't remember
what they called it, but for him to get the
(02:22):
title shot against MJF, that storyline was too quick. The
match ended with controversy. He gets kicked in the balls
off a ref distraction. You refs need to step your
damn game up. And then he goes to collision, and
everybody's kind of like, well, what's going to happen? Man,
are people even going to watch? Okay, seem Punk's there
will get them to watch FTRS. Their tag team lovers
(02:44):
are going to definitely watch. Let's see what Ricky Starks
can do. And they put him in this story with
cmpunk right away, and he gets two shady victories over him,
boom boom, and calls out, whatever's in that red bag,
it's the title, Well, it's should be mine. I already
beat you twice. You're not even defending it. Why do
you have it? Just throw it away, get this trash
(03:05):
out of here. When he kicks it, it was beautiful,
by the way, and he's playing this heel that people love,
which is okay. I think in modern wrestling, there's nothing
wrong with that. Movies changed it up, Television changed it
up and got these bad guys slash good guys, good
guys that don't have the moral compass of the heroes
of the eighties. They're willing to play the criminals game
(03:27):
a little bit, and we appreciate them for that because
we know it's necessary in order to get vigilante justice.
So that's been permeating for so long, it was only
a matter of time before wrestlers started doing it. And
Ricky's not the first, but he's the latest to sort
of find something in that heel lover zone where to
(03:49):
quote the movie Phantasm, which I just rewatched lately, where
hot is love baby, like, that's what he is. It's
complimenting yourself in a way that you can't hate the
person for saying it. You just can't write even if
they're not telling the truth. They're saying it with this
like certainty, this certain smile that allows you to give
(04:13):
them latitude. And Ricky did that in two promos back
to back. And then he gets this match for the
Championship with Ricky the Dragon Steamboat as the special guest referee,
who I had the pleasure of meeting when I worked
at WWE, and he was the ultimate gentleman and just
one of the nicest guys that I met at that
company and just in general. So it was good to
(04:36):
see Ricky out there. But he gets this match, and
i'll spoil it for you, Seampunk wins of course, which
he had to. I'm not mad about that. He can't
just lose his spell the first time he's talking about
(04:57):
it that would suck falls and then Ricky Ricky Starks
beats up Ricky the Dragon steamboat whips him bell. It's brutal,
but he's made himself this sort of ultimate top heel
on collision and that's exactly what he make no mistake.
He is the top heel on collision. That's no easy task.
(05:18):
That's a lot of responsibility. I think he's handled those
little opening quick hits that they do well. When he
rolled up in the car and was like, I'm absolutely
sons of bitches. I don't remember what he said, but
he handled it well. Not all of the talent does
because they bring different energies and sometimes it's too soft
to open a show, right, Ricky played it cool and smooth,
and so it worked. But I don't know how many
(05:40):
people saw this match between college football the Jake Paul fight,
which everyone probably watched for free because that's what his
fans do. That sucks, by the way, and everyone watched
Summer Slam, and I don't know if the Summer Slam
crowd gets wrestled out right, they're like, okay, I gotta
take a break, or maybe they're hardcore and they're like Yo,
Let's power through. But this to me was their biggest
(06:03):
match and of one of their best shows since debuting,
and I just hope the right amount of high balls
saw it. I just feel like they may have been
a victim to bad scheduling because there was just too
much competition, and they're going to have to deal with
this during college football. Granted that there's good games in
their time slot, right there's a lot of games nobody
(06:24):
cares about except the thirty two hundred people that go
to that school because there's eighteen thousand colleges with football
teams for some reason. But they're going to have to
deal with that the same way Monday Night Raw has
to deal with Monday Night Football. The ratings always dip
every single time they stay out of commercial when Monday
Night Football goes into commercial, just so they can steal
a few thousand, one hundred thousand eyeballs if they can,
(06:47):
and they'll stay out of commercial as long as they
legally can, just to keep your eyes on there. So
Collision may have to do a little bit of that
if they're not already, but you're legally allowed to do
it for so long before you have to play Marshall
and I suggest they do. But it was still a
really cool match, a cool finish. I honestly thought Sampunk
(07:07):
was going to like cheat better than Ricky and be like, see,
now that's how you do it, bro. He got the
roll up and he got the count from Steamboat, which
I'm sure Starks will say was too it was too
quick of a count. But the other match that I
wanted to discuss is FTR, and I don't think I've
ever given them. I don't know if we've given them
(07:29):
any love on the show outside of like we respect him.
But these dudes wrestled Brian Cage and Big Bill and
they made cajun Bill are responsible for this too, but
they made them look like a team. I want to
watch Wreussell for the next ten years, right like, they
all four men did a great job in this match.
(07:52):
And I'm going to talk about FTR in a second.
But Big Bill and Brian Cage have something I don't
I think they know they have something, and they got
to figure out what it is because they looked awesome
as a team. I don't know if the face paint
and then the no face paint works, and I don't
know if Brian Cage needs face paint because his body
(08:14):
is so freaking perfect, totally shit, dude, what the hell?
He's like bigger than luf Igno and Lufa Rigno was
the incredible Hulk. He looks phenomenal. And Big Bill is
just a giant guy named Bill who doesn't have to
(08:34):
be as buff as Brian Cage, although he's in pretty
sick shape too, but he's seven feet tall, like he's
a freaking giant. They looked awesome, and there were even
a couple of times you knew they weren't gonna win,
but there were a couple of times where they were
able to suspend disbelief. Now let's talk about FTR, because
I know I haven't given him enough love. These dudes.
(08:54):
Here's the story they told. Okay, this is how sick
these guys are. Brian Cage starts to match against Cash
Wheeler and his mom's in the freaking crowd. He's like,
I think he's from South Carolina where the show was.
He starts against Brian Cage and Brian Cage is just
mauling him like a bear, just boom smashing him down. Boom.
Here's a shoulder blocks boom, here's a clothesline. You ain't shit,
(09:16):
and Wheeler's like, yo, I ain't shit. I got to
tag out. And then Dax Harwood comes in. He's like,
don't worry, bro, I got you. And Brian Cage is
like what you ain't got shit? Bow shoulder block? Why? Wow?
How clothesline? Pick you up? Swapam And then Dax Harror
was like, yo, this guy's crazy strong. If we gotta
we gotta work together. And then he's like, yeah, okay,
(09:37):
let's work together. So then they start doing quick tags
and get a little double action on you, Papa, and
then Brian Cage is like nahinet having it. Babo puts
them both down, and then the Brian Cage character starts
to get a little tired because big muscles use lots
of oxygen, which uses lots of energy, and all they
(09:57):
had to do was with stand this early storm from
this giant strong dude and a little big bill action
as well, but also another big dude uses lots more oxygen.
They're gonna get tired quicker. And as soon as they did,
U see FTR slowly start to take over this match
and they start doing these quick tags in and out
just double team and I'm sitting there watching this like, Yo,
(10:18):
this is like a full of fight scene in a
movie Man, like where Jackie Chan has to wait for
the big Russian guy to get tired before he could
beat his ass in the final act. I had so
much fun watching this man, these guys, this was next level.
And I don't know if they're putting together this kind
of match every week. I know that they're collision matches.
I've enjoyed all of them, but when I was watching
(10:40):
them on Dynamott, I just don't feel like they were
this or or I would have said something. Maybe I would.
Maybe I'm just a dumb ass. I don't know. Maybe
it's both both things can be true. But anyway, I
love the show. Simojo got like five second top out
Hunter Are bent to Coach was kind of cold blooded,
but at least he called out Cmpunk for all in
(11:00):
at Wembley Stadium to put a final exclamation point on
their feud. As you know, Siam Punk got the last
victory Simojo dominated him in Ring of Honor. That was
an awesome match to get made on the show, and
you had to see it if you wanted to see it.
And you gotta listen if you want to hear us
Every Thursday right here on unsanctioned Thursdays, I'm your host,
(11:23):
Freddie Prince Junior, Jeff I will return soon. We miss you.
This has been a production of Iheart'smichael Toura podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.