September 5, 2024 • 20 mins
This week on Unsanctioned Thursdays we’re continuing to dive deep into the world of factions in professional wrestling. From the Corporation, Judgement Day, to AEW’s Inner Circle we have you covered. Plus, is the Bloodline the best faction of all-time?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
But this was formed in the nineties, and I love
the Blue Duty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I love the title of Job Squad.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
By the way, By the way, the Job Squad is hysterical.
Al Snow is hysterical. He used to get away with
tons of shit on TV. He had his mannequin head
named Head, and he would go out and go, what
is everybody on the crowd?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
What tonight? Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Shit?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So abouts? I hit the fan.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Welcome to on sanction Thursday's interrestling with Freddy?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What's up? Everybody?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. We're continuing our countdown, so to speak, countdown.
It's not in any particular order. That's the third time
I've said that, and I promise I won't again with
me again. It's mister Jeff Dye. Reready, Prince Junior. Let's
start the show, all right, Jeff. Now, not all factions
are serious. Yeah, some factions are built to lose, not
(01:11):
to win, not to take over, but to give everything up.
One of these was the Job Squad, and there's definitely
been more than one. But the Job Squad consisted of
Al Snow, Bob Holly, Gilbert, the Blue meanie in another faction?
Is he as great as Rick Flair?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
No, But this was formed in the nineties, and I
love the Blue meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The job Squad.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
By the way, By the way, the job Squad is hysterical.
Al Snow is hysterical. He used to get away with
tons of shit on TV. He had his mannequin head
named Head, and he would go out and go, what
is everybody on the crowd?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What tonight? On Zero Trouble? A blow job joke?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Like that's that They got away with that in the
nineties on on I don't know if it was network TV,
but cable.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I mean, that's pretty edgy.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You're not allowed to say anything anymore anywhere. That would
never get away. There's no way you could get away
with that. Now you would have mom groups with nothing
to do on blogs. So these guys would go out
there and they literally had a slogan for those who
aren't aware of them. It was called pin me and
pay me, And that was like, it's so behind the
(02:29):
fourth wall. It was so fairis Bueller like looking at
the camera and letting the crowd, letting the audience into
his like inner monologue and his thoughts, like I thought
it was so next level to just sort of like
put it out there like that, like, yeah, man, I
don't you have a shit, And somehow we still cared
about them. Now, I'm not saying they're one of the
greatest factions of all time, but they're worthy of note.
(02:49):
I think there should always be room for comedy and wrestling,
and I thought they were great at that go ahead.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The name alone is worthy of praise because I always
tell people when they ask, oh, you have a wrestling
park with Freddy Prince Junior, say, oh, yeah, you should
listen to it. But if you're not a big wrestling fan,
just so you know, you know, we talk about wrestling,
so if you want to hear about me and Freddy's lives,
you're not going to get a ton of that on
our podcast. And also there's a little bit, yeah, a
(03:15):
little bit sometimes, but like a lot of the terms
we might use, like strap or pl e or putting
over or jobber or any of these kind of or
mark any kind of these wrestling words.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You kind of like, there's the jobber is the best one, dude,
That's the best word out of all wrestling terms for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And they put a wrestling term just right, and then
it were the job squad we get we would, So
it was really kind of like ahead of its time
of like being inside baseball, but also.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Like letting the fan. I just think the name is great.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Pin me and pain me as a jobb or is
like it's just so perfect, say like I'd love to
have seen who pitched that or how it got pitched
or that. I imagine there was a lot of chuckles
in the writer's room of like, oh, that's a good idea,
like get a.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
The wrestlers came up with it.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I wrestlers came up with it and then pitched it
and got it through and then it started getting written.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But I'm at the wrestlers.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
It feels like an indie idea, like I'm a jobb
or baby pin me and pay.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Me, Like it feels like like I'll bet al Snow's
on social media.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We should just reach out and you come up with
that shit really good.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I love it so much, but obviously not my favorite faction,
but a very worthwhile mention.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
There was also the Corporation, and this was another Attitude
era one which I came in near the end of
the Corporation when the Rock was turning on them and
was no longer the corporate Rock. But this was led
by Vincent Kennedy McMahon and it had the Rock, had
Big Boss Man and had Ken Shamrock. You know, they
were the authority of the of the w W because
(04:42):
they had Vince And it was basically a catalyst for
Stone Cold to have beef with people and beat the
crap out of everybody during like his highest moment in
wrestler was probably the highest in wrestling based on the numbers.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That they were doing back then.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
But it gave him the ultimate antagonist, right, and this
was more of you know, everyone hates their boss at
some point in their life. Well, who gets to actually
punch their boss in the face. One man, one man
on the whole planet gets to actually punch their butty.
Now you could do with Jeff. You could punch our
bosses in the face, but you get fired. Stone Cold
(05:17):
Steve Austin could kick you in the nuts, punch you
in the face, pour beer all over your head, do
whatever he wants to you. And the next week that
dude is at work and everything's cool and he's getting
a paycheck, and it made him the coolest son of
a bitch ever. Yeah, ever, it's why he's almost everyone's
number one favorite except me. Like it's I genuinely believe
(05:39):
that to this day. He got to beat the shit
out of his boss and go to work the next
day and get a check that was the exact same
size as the one last week, and it makes him
the coolest son of a bitch ever. So the Corporation,
I would say, not a successful faction because they had
to go against the great One. Not the great one,
that's the rock, one of the greatest ones ever, Stone Cold.
Steve Auston, did you like the Corporation or were you
(06:00):
not watching back then?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I thought it was fine. I think that they served
a purpose.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
You might as well have called them the job Squad,
you know what I'm saying, Like it was the same thing.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So that was yeah, that's good in our jobber theme
perfectly fit exactly what it needed to do. So good
for them and good for Stone Cold. A couple more
(06:35):
that will briefly gloss over.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
We had the Ministry of Darkness that was led by
the Undertaker. I always prefer Undertaker by himself or a
little bit with Brothers of Destruction, but Undertaker solo is
always my favorite. We mentioned the Spirit Squad. AEW had
the Inner Circle with Chris Jericho, Samy Gevara, j Hager,
Santana and artist that was prominent before I was really
watching AW so I kind of only got the end
(06:59):
of that. But here's one that's a little more new
that we love, and it's The Judgment Day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Jeff.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yes, The Judgment Day debuted with Edge Adam Copeland putting
a spotlight on some wrestlers that he didn't feel we're
getting enough shine, that he respected very much, and they
turned on him and gave us some pretty sick matches.
Damian Priest versus Edge in Toronto. You guys should watch
(07:27):
that match. It's like fight choreography. It's really cool. Edge
is no longer there, he's Adam Copeland in AEW. But
the Judgment Day stayed and Rea Ripley and Damian Priest
and Finn Balor and Dominic Mysterio like, I don't I
can't say like, and this person made it work because
they've all made it work. JD McDonough taken shots for
(07:49):
everybody out there. Somebody's got to do that job, and
he does it better than anyone with that huge freaking
melon just blow gets kicked in the head every week.
Can't take a concussion because it's like, who Leo says,
our Chavez a skull, It's thicker than the average skull.
But dude, I freaking love the Judgment Day. I love
Dominic Mysterio. I still think he's just a misunderstood young
(08:09):
man and real Ripley is the shit.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
That's all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'll let you take it away.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
No, I agree with everything you just said. I like
also that they feel like a time capsule. The Judgment
Day feels like when wrestling was at its height of
like nineties ish. It has this kind of like SLC
punk kind of like we we the music they listen
to the look of it is very hot topic ish,
(08:36):
you know, like kind of like you know, like.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
That it's a picture. That's it. I mean, like it
has hot topic.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
But it works, like you said, and it isn't any
one person. It's kind of like everything they do works,
and I like it where it's also making stars, you know,
like Finn was probably bigger before he came to Judgment Day,
but you can't say that about Damian Priest. Damien pri
this is a star now, and he started with them
with that Rio Ripley. It was a star in the making,
(09:05):
and now she's easily, in my opinion, the best female wrestler.
And that is that came out of Judgment Day Dom.
I was on this exact podcast talking trash about Dom
every single week, and now he's one of my favorite wrestlers.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And that the guy may do.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
He's absolutely brilliant and all of them are great, and
it's not like Finn got worse or anything, but I
think that Finn is just, you know, that's that's where
he's at right now, and then he's gonna do it again, hopefully.
But I think that the Judgment Day rules, and I
like every single decision they've made.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Two time Raw Tag Team Champions, two time SmackDown Tag
Team Champions, WWE Tag Team Champion, You Undisputed, one time
Ria Ripley SmackDown Women's Champion, also Royal Rumble winner Dominic Mysterio.
This title kind of sucks, but he was at XD
North American Champion, two times count Damian Priest, winner of
(09:58):
the twenty twenty three Men's Money in the Bank contract,
and the World Heavyweight Champion, eventually losing it. To Kunther,
that's pretty good accomplishments for only being around a couple
of years too. Oh yeah, Like that's a legit faction
all day long, all right, you guys. Next up a
little more comedy, well, gloss over three MB because that's
(10:22):
a that's a forgetable time in wrestling. But that was
Heath Slater, Drew McIntyre, and Gender Mahaal. That was twenty twelve,
shortly after I had left the company for the second time.
I like all those guys, that just was the wrong
thing for all of them. Look where Drew McIntyre's at now,
and look what they had him frigging doing before he
left the company and had to be like, yo, I
got to get the f out of here. They do
not see it in me. And then he leaves, comes back,
(10:43):
he's the same dude. He's still solid on the mic,
he's still super humongous, he still wrestles like a stud.
Now he's you know, top one of the top dudes.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
But another comedy bit that I personally love, I know
not everyone does, but it was Santino Morella and Vladimir Coslaw.
Now listen, this was a two man faction. I might
throw Beth Phoenix in there for a little bit because
she had, you know, the love affair with Santino when
she was winning all.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The matches for him. But these two dudes.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I happened to work there then, and Santino had this
thing where if he wasn't able to make the other
person in this in the skit laugh, then he didn't
think he did a good job. And so all he
wanted to do is make you break character. And sometimes
we would do a segment like three four times and
he would be completely different every single time because all
he wants to do is find a way to make
(11:33):
you laugh. And there'd be times where we got it
like three times. I'm like, dude, it's really good, and
if he breaks, I'm not going to send it anyway.
He's like, no, no, no, if he breaks, you gotta send it.
You gotta send it. And we'd be like, all, r
I do one more time, and Tony would do it,
or Santino would do it one more time, and like,
you know, make John Cena break, or make Flat break,
or make he made me break. When we when I
hosted the General Manager spot it came out. He's like,
(11:56):
mister Junior, let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I was right away and she's still.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Whatever he called me. It was something like that. But
they were super funny and I just wanted to give
them a little love. I know that it's not worthy
of most people's lists, but that's my honorable mention. I
know you have an honorable mention.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yes, go ahead, and I feel like it's fitting for
our podcast. The faction that doesn't get in Left Love
because the Attitude era was so popular is the low
Spa Equas.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The Puerto Rican group.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Salvio Vega was the leader.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
They would come out.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And what was interesting about them to me was that
they were heels right, so they would come out and
like all these for a lack of better term, you know,
poor white trash kind of wrestling fans would be like.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Boom, say us say, well, this is.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Nineteen ninety eight. I don't know if anybody's aware of
how like the world works, but Puerto Rico has been
part of our country since eighteen ninety eight. That's equally
one hundred years. It's a perfect one hundred years that
Puerto Rico has been a part of America, and people
are going boom America, Puerto Rico, USA, USA, and then
(13:15):
you got them chanting USA because the Canic because they
went back and forth with the Heart Foundation, they went
back and forth with the Nation of Domination, they went
back and forth with all these things that were going
on in WB.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
At the time.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
But it was it's just so funny because they were
a great faction and they were also banking on the
confusion that is the American government and territories, which I
just thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But also, Savio Vega was a start dude. I liked.
Saveo was the man dude. Savio was cool as hell.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, he's a good wrestler, and it was very underrated
for like that era. In my opinion, I agree. The
other guys didn't really pop much. They didn't have huge
wrestling careers at least.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Sorry, not every faction has to pop. You just have
to have, you know, the report serves their purpose.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Well, gloss over the Mean Street Posse with Shane McMahon.
Great music. They did have good music, and we'll finish.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
With something current and with the potential to go on forever.
One of the most beautiful families in professional wrestling. We're
going to close out with the Bloodline with its different factions,
with its different leaders, with the fights going on back
and forth, with the stars that it's already been able
to make wear wolves and with Solo Soca enforcers that
(14:43):
we didn't even know if they could talk to being
the leader of it, to Roman Reigns losing his championship
to Cody, to returning back and not even having the
necklace to wear. They literally gave us, Like Sampunk and
Drew mac entire months back, gave us a reason to
fight over a bracelet. These men have given us a
reason to fight over a necklace. Like that's what it
(15:03):
soon will be, fighting over pinky rings and belly button
piercings and things like that, as long as they root
it in organic stories and everything the Bloodline's done has
been organic. You can stretch that word a little bit
with the Sammy's ain era, but he was still really
effective in that storyline, even though it wasn't one hundred
percent believable because you're like.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Man, they just punk this guy out. I love this storyline.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's hard to put it as like a top three
for me because there's so many great ones and I
don't want to be like just caught up in the moment.
You almost have to look at it when it has
like a lull and look back and be like, wow,
this was really great. But I think it's still gonna
make it into my top three because I just from
where it could go from here and the amount of
(15:48):
like Samoans that are in the wrestling business, and you
never know who's gonna pop, like you never know where
you're going to find your next star. I just think
it has so much potential that I think it makes
my top three.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Dude, I think it's a lot of the factions right.
There's no the Main Street Posse. He's not still going on,
you know, the the dx's be sick, a lot of
sweater vests.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The DX is over, nWo is over.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
So it's easy for us to look back on these
things that were either twenty years ago, maybe longer, or
maybe they only lasted a year or five years. The
bloodline is something that is so good that we could
be this could live on for so long and in
the short time that we've already had. The bloodline, which
is why it might make my top three is because
it's it's given us a great Paul Hayman has reinvented
(16:36):
himself by being part of this bloodline.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Same as he felt sorry for Paul Haymen, we felt
sorry for us.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Now good it is. That's how good the story is.
We got the Rock back, and now the Rock makes
sense coming back to wrestling because it is his bloodline.
And so there's so many good ways that we've gone
with us. We get to see young guys and we
don't feel like it's weird that they're just being put
right at the top of the wrestling hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Because they are in their It's yeah, they've never felt weird.
It's in their blood. We go there in the bloodline.
That's how this works.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So there's so it's it's the gift that keeps giving
and it's branching off like a nice tree. It also
kind of ties back these older guys who you know,
are getting really up there in age, but like we
get to honor them, and we get to honor the family,
and we get to like see this stuff. But it
also great's great storylines, great inner turmoil with the family. Also,
who is the family feuding with I think it's the
(17:27):
gift that keeps giving, and I think that it has
the legs to maybe be the greatest faction of all time.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I love that, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's so funny, like wrestling has tried to do like
Italian mob type factions and it's never worked once.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I think it works so well with the Samoan family
acting mobbish based on everything you just said, Like, it's
just it's so organic, it's so truthful because they're really
living that life. Yeah, it is. It is that life
that is the family business. It's like the family business
(18:05):
is being a professional wrestler at some level. The stars
sometimes are not sometimes somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Yeah, wrestling is Southern White American, Canadian, Mexican and Samoan
and so Japanese. Oh yeah, and Japanese. Sorry so, but
we kind of honor the luchador tradition. We honor the
Heart family and all the Canadian part of it. We
honor the obviously the American Park because we watch most
(18:32):
of our wrestling in America and we make all these
guys move to America to do this job, and we
honor all of the things that I just mentioned. Japan
it gets all the respect even to this day of
like that's real technical wrestling, whereas with the Samoan.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
We were late to the game of honoring that.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
You know, we made one of the Samoans dressed up
like a Japanese guy and wave a Japanese flag.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
He never even been to Japan.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
That was a guy that Yoko Zuno was a Tongan
or I think he was a Pacific islander of some sort.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, you're you're you're right, I still know which one.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
So it's it feels perfectly natural, and it feels like
it's about time, and it also feels like unforced, like
you were saying.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It just feels like this is perfect. We're honoring this family. Honestly,
just dead on, dude, it's all.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, it's because before that, all you'd ever hear commentary
wise about sim Oens was oh, I wouldn't hit him
in the head. They've got extremely hard heads, and that
was the end of the legacy. And now it's like
the most honored legacy in wrestling with and it feels
they finally have that. Yeah, it does feel good. All right,
you guys, thanks for listening to Thursday's episode, the episode
that you guys asked for. But I'm Ava Jeff, I'm
(19:37):
Freddie Brinz.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Junior. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
This has been a production of Iheart's Michael Toura podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
But this was formed in the nineties, and I love
the Blue Duty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I love the title of Job Squad.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
By the way, By the way, the Job Squad is hysterical.
Al Snow is hysterical. He used to get away with
tons of shit on TV. He had his mannequin head
named Head, and he would go out and go, what
is everybody on the crowd?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
What tonight? Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Shit?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So abouts? I hit the fan.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Welcome to on sanction Thursday's interrestling with Freddy?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What's up? Everybody?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Welcome to unsanctioned Thursdays. We're continuing our countdown, so to speak, countdown.
It's not in any particular order. That's the third time
I've said that, and I promise I won't again with
me again. It's mister Jeff Dye. Reready, Prince Junior. Let's
start the show, all right, Jeff. Now, not all factions
are serious. Yeah, some factions are built to lose, not
(01:11):
to win, not to take over, but to give everything up.
One of these was the Job Squad, and there's definitely
been more than one. But the Job Squad consisted of
Al Snow, Bob Holly, Gilbert, the Blue meanie in another faction?
Is he as great as Rick Flair?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
What?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
No, But this was formed in the nineties, and I
love the Blue meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The job Squad.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
By the way, By the way, the job Squad is hysterical.
Al Snow is hysterical. He used to get away with
tons of shit on TV. He had his mannequin head
named Head, and he would go out and go, what
is everybody on the crowd?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What tonight? On Zero Trouble? A blow job joke?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Like that's that They got away with that in the
nineties on on I don't know if it was network TV,
but cable.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I mean, that's pretty edgy.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You're not allowed to say anything anymore anywhere. That would
never get away. There's no way you could get away
with that. Now you would have mom groups with nothing
to do on blogs. So these guys would go out
there and they literally had a slogan for those who
aren't aware of them. It was called pin me and
pay me, And that was like, it's so behind the
(02:29):
fourth wall. It was so fairis Bueller like looking at
the camera and letting the crowd, letting the audience into
his like inner monologue and his thoughts, like I thought
it was so next level to just sort of like
put it out there like that, like, yeah, man, I
don't you have a shit, And somehow we still cared
about them. Now, I'm not saying they're one of the
greatest factions of all time, but they're worthy of note.
(02:49):
I think there should always be room for comedy and wrestling,
and I thought they were great at that go ahead.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
The name alone is worthy of praise because I always
tell people when they ask, oh, you have a wrestling
park with Freddy Prince Junior, say, oh, yeah, you should
listen to it. But if you're not a big wrestling fan,
just so you know, you know, we talk about wrestling,
so if you want to hear about me and Freddy's lives,
you're not going to get a ton of that on
our podcast. And also there's a little bit, yeah, a
(03:15):
little bit sometimes, but like a lot of the terms
we might use, like strap or pl e or putting
over or jobber or any of these kind of or
mark any kind of these wrestling words.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
You kind of like, there's the jobber is the best one, dude,
That's the best word out of all wrestling terms for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And they put a wrestling term just right, and then
it were the job squad we get we would, So
it was really kind of like ahead of its time
of like being inside baseball, but also.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Like letting the fan. I just think the name is great.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Pin me and pain me as a jobb or is
like it's just so perfect, say like I'd love to
have seen who pitched that or how it got pitched
or that. I imagine there was a lot of chuckles
in the writer's room of like, oh, that's a good idea,
like get a.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
The wrestlers came up with it.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I wrestlers came up with it and then pitched it
and got it through and then it started getting written.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But I'm at the wrestlers.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
It feels like an indie idea, like I'm a jobb
or baby pin me and pay.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Me, Like it feels like like I'll bet al Snow's
on social media.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We should just reach out and you come up with
that shit really good.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I love it so much, but obviously not my favorite faction,
but a very worthwhile mention.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
There was also the Corporation, and this was another Attitude
era one which I came in near the end of
the Corporation when the Rock was turning on them and
was no longer the corporate Rock. But this was led
by Vincent Kennedy McMahon and it had the Rock, had
Big Boss Man and had Ken Shamrock. You know, they
were the authority of the of the w W because
(04:42):
they had Vince And it was basically a catalyst for
Stone Cold to have beef with people and beat the
crap out of everybody during like his highest moment in
wrestler was probably the highest in wrestling based on the numbers.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That they were doing back then.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
But it gave him the ultimate antagonist, right, and this
was more of you know, everyone hates their boss at
some point in their life. Well, who gets to actually
punch their boss in the face. One man, one man
on the whole planet gets to actually punch their butty.
Now you could do with Jeff. You could punch our
bosses in the face, but you get fired. Stone Cold
(05:17):
Steve Austin could kick you in the nuts, punch you
in the face, pour beer all over your head, do
whatever he wants to you. And the next week that
dude is at work and everything's cool and he's getting
a paycheck, and it made him the coolest son of
a bitch ever. Yeah, ever, it's why he's almost everyone's
number one favorite except me. Like it's I genuinely believe
(05:39):
that to this day. He got to beat the shit
out of his boss and go to work the next
day and get a check that was the exact same
size as the one last week, and it makes him
the coolest son of a bitch ever. So the Corporation,
I would say, not a successful faction because they had
to go against the great One. Not the great one,
that's the rock, one of the greatest ones ever, Stone Cold.
Steve Auston, did you like the Corporation or were you
(06:00):
not watching back then?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I thought it was fine. I think that they served
a purpose.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
You might as well have called them the job Squad,
you know what I'm saying, Like it was the same thing.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So that was yeah, that's good in our jobber theme
perfectly fit exactly what it needed to do. So good
for them and good for Stone Cold. A couple more
(06:35):
that will briefly gloss over.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
We had the Ministry of Darkness that was led by
the Undertaker. I always prefer Undertaker by himself or a
little bit with Brothers of Destruction, but Undertaker solo is
always my favorite. We mentioned the Spirit Squad. AEW had
the Inner Circle with Chris Jericho, Samy Gevara, j Hager,
Santana and artist that was prominent before I was really
watching AW so I kind of only got the end
(06:59):
of that. But here's one that's a little more new
that we love, and it's The Judgment Day.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Jeff.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yes, The Judgment Day debuted with Edge Adam Copeland putting
a spotlight on some wrestlers that he didn't feel we're
getting enough shine, that he respected very much, and they
turned on him and gave us some pretty sick matches.
Damian Priest versus Edge in Toronto. You guys should watch
(07:27):
that match. It's like fight choreography. It's really cool. Edge
is no longer there, he's Adam Copeland in AEW. But
the Judgment Day stayed and Rea Ripley and Damian Priest
and Finn Balor and Dominic Mysterio like, I don't I
can't say like, and this person made it work because
they've all made it work. JD McDonough taken shots for
(07:49):
everybody out there. Somebody's got to do that job, and
he does it better than anyone with that huge freaking
melon just blow gets kicked in the head every week.
Can't take a concussion because it's like, who Leo says,
our Chavez a skull, It's thicker than the average skull.
But dude, I freaking love the Judgment Day. I love
Dominic Mysterio. I still think he's just a misunderstood young
(08:09):
man and real Ripley is the shit.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
That's all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'll let you take it away.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
No, I agree with everything you just said. I like
also that they feel like a time capsule. The Judgment
Day feels like when wrestling was at its height of
like nineties ish. It has this kind of like SLC
punk kind of like we we the music they listen
to the look of it is very hot topic ish,
(08:36):
you know, like kind of like you know, like.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
That it's a picture. That's it. I mean, like it
has hot topic.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
But it works, like you said, and it isn't any
one person. It's kind of like everything they do works,
and I like it where it's also making stars, you know,
like Finn was probably bigger before he came to Judgment Day,
but you can't say that about Damian Priest. Damien pri
this is a star now, and he started with them
with that Rio Ripley. It was a star in the making,
(09:05):
and now she's easily, in my opinion, the best female wrestler.
And that is that came out of Judgment Day Dom.
I was on this exact podcast talking trash about Dom
every single week, and now he's one of my favorite wrestlers.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
And that the guy may do.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
He's absolutely brilliant and all of them are great, and
it's not like Finn got worse or anything, but I
think that Finn is just, you know, that's that's where
he's at right now, and then he's gonna do it again, hopefully.
But I think that the Judgment Day rules, and I
like every single decision they've made.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Two time Raw Tag Team Champions, two time SmackDown Tag
Team Champions, WWE Tag Team Champion, You Undisputed, one time
Ria Ripley SmackDown Women's Champion, also Royal Rumble winner Dominic Mysterio.
This title kind of sucks, but he was at XD
North American Champion, two times count Damian Priest, winner of
(09:58):
the twenty twenty three Men's Money in the Bank contract,
and the World Heavyweight Champion, eventually losing it. To Kunther,
that's pretty good accomplishments for only being around a couple
of years too. Oh yeah, Like that's a legit faction
all day long, all right, you guys. Next up a
little more comedy, well, gloss over three MB because that's
(10:22):
a that's a forgetable time in wrestling. But that was
Heath Slater, Drew McIntyre, and Gender Mahaal. That was twenty twelve,
shortly after I had left the company for the second time.
I like all those guys, that just was the wrong
thing for all of them. Look where Drew McIntyre's at now,
and look what they had him frigging doing before he
left the company and had to be like, yo, I
got to get the f out of here. They do
not see it in me. And then he leaves, comes back,
(10:43):
he's the same dude. He's still solid on the mic,
he's still super humongous, he still wrestles like a stud.
Now he's you know, top one of the top dudes.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
All right.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
But another comedy bit that I personally love, I know
not everyone does, but it was Santino Morella and Vladimir Coslaw.
Now listen, this was a two man faction. I might
throw Beth Phoenix in there for a little bit because
she had, you know, the love affair with Santino when
she was winning all.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The matches for him. But these two dudes.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I happened to work there then, and Santino had this
thing where if he wasn't able to make the other
person in this in the skit laugh, then he didn't
think he did a good job. And so all he
wanted to do is make you break character. And sometimes
we would do a segment like three four times and
he would be completely different every single time because all
he wants to do is find a way to make
(11:33):
you laugh. And there'd be times where we got it
like three times. I'm like, dude, it's really good, and
if he breaks, I'm not going to send it anyway.
He's like, no, no, no, if he breaks, you gotta send it.
You gotta send it. And we'd be like, all, r
I do one more time, and Tony would do it,
or Santino would do it one more time, and like,
you know, make John Cena break, or make Flat break,
or make he made me break. When we when I
hosted the General Manager spot it came out. He's like,
(11:56):
mister Junior, let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
I was right away and she's still.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Whatever he called me. It was something like that. But
they were super funny and I just wanted to give
them a little love. I know that it's not worthy
of most people's lists, but that's my honorable mention. I
know you have an honorable mention.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yes, go ahead, and I feel like it's fitting for
our podcast. The faction that doesn't get in Left Love
because the Attitude era was so popular is the low
Spa Equas.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The Puerto Rican group.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Salvio Vega was the leader.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
They would come out.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And what was interesting about them to me was that
they were heels right, so they would come out and
like all these for a lack of better term, you know,
poor white trash kind of wrestling fans would be like.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Boom, say us say, well, this is.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Nineteen ninety eight. I don't know if anybody's aware of
how like the world works, but Puerto Rico has been
part of our country since eighteen ninety eight. That's equally
one hundred years. It's a perfect one hundred years that
Puerto Rico has been a part of America, and people
are going boom America, Puerto Rico, USA, USA, and then
(13:15):
you got them chanting USA because the Canic because they
went back and forth with the Heart Foundation, they went
back and forth with the Nation of Domination, they went
back and forth with all these things that were going
on in WB.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
At the time.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
But it was it's just so funny because they were
a great faction and they were also banking on the
confusion that is the American government and territories, which I
just thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
But also, Savio Vega was a start dude. I liked.
Saveo was the man dude. Savio was cool as hell.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, he's a good wrestler, and it was very underrated
for like that era. In my opinion, I agree. The
other guys didn't really pop much. They didn't have huge
wrestling careers at least.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Sorry, not every faction has to pop. You just have
to have, you know, the report serves their purpose.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Well, gloss over the Mean Street Posse with Shane McMahon.
Great music. They did have good music, and we'll finish.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
With something current and with the potential to go on forever.
One of the most beautiful families in professional wrestling. We're
going to close out with the Bloodline with its different factions,
with its different leaders, with the fights going on back
and forth, with the stars that it's already been able
to make wear wolves and with Solo Soca enforcers that
(14:43):
we didn't even know if they could talk to being
the leader of it, to Roman Reigns losing his championship
to Cody, to returning back and not even having the
necklace to wear. They literally gave us, Like Sampunk and
Drew mac entire months back, gave us a reason to
fight over a bracelet. These men have given us a
reason to fight over a necklace. Like that's what it
(15:03):
soon will be, fighting over pinky rings and belly button
piercings and things like that, as long as they root
it in organic stories and everything the Bloodline's done has
been organic. You can stretch that word a little bit
with the Sammy's ain era, but he was still really
effective in that storyline, even though it wasn't one hundred
percent believable because you're like.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Man, they just punk this guy out. I love this storyline.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's hard to put it as like a top three
for me because there's so many great ones and I
don't want to be like just caught up in the moment.
You almost have to look at it when it has
like a lull and look back and be like, wow,
this was really great. But I think it's still gonna
make it into my top three because I just from
where it could go from here and the amount of
(15:48):
like Samoans that are in the wrestling business, and you
never know who's gonna pop, like you never know where
you're going to find your next star. I just think
it has so much potential that I think it makes
my top three.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Dude, I think it's a lot of the factions right.
There's no the Main Street Posse. He's not still going on,
you know, the the dx's be sick, a lot of
sweater vests.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The DX is over, nWo is over.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
So it's easy for us to look back on these
things that were either twenty years ago, maybe longer, or
maybe they only lasted a year or five years. The
bloodline is something that is so good that we could
be this could live on for so long and in
the short time that we've already had. The bloodline, which
is why it might make my top three is because
it's it's given us a great Paul Hayman has reinvented
(16:36):
himself by being part of this bloodline.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Same as he felt sorry for Paul Haymen, we felt
sorry for us.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Now good it is. That's how good the story is.
We got the Rock back, and now the Rock makes
sense coming back to wrestling because it is his bloodline.
And so there's so many good ways that we've gone
with us. We get to see young guys and we
don't feel like it's weird that they're just being put
right at the top of the wrestling hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Because they are in their It's yeah, they've never felt weird.
It's in their blood. We go there in the bloodline.
That's how this works.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So there's so it's it's the gift that keeps giving
and it's branching off like a nice tree. It also
kind of ties back these older guys who you know,
are getting really up there in age, but like we
get to honor them, and we get to honor the family,
and we get to like see this stuff. But it
also great's great storylines, great inner turmoil with the family. Also,
who is the family feuding with I think it's the
(17:27):
gift that keeps giving, and I think that it has
the legs to maybe be the greatest faction of all time.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I love that, dude.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's so funny, like wrestling has tried to do like
Italian mob type factions and it's never worked once.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I think it works so well with the Samoan family
acting mobbish based on everything you just said, Like, it's
just it's so organic, it's so truthful because they're really
living that life. Yeah, it is. It is that life
that is the family business. It's like the family business
(18:05):
is being a professional wrestler at some level. The stars
sometimes are not sometimes somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Yeah, wrestling is Southern White American, Canadian, Mexican and Samoan
and so Japanese. Oh yeah, and Japanese. Sorry so, but
we kind of honor the luchador tradition. We honor the
Heart family and all the Canadian part of it. We
honor the obviously the American Park because we watch most
(18:32):
of our wrestling in America and we make all these
guys move to America to do this job, and we
honor all of the things that I just mentioned. Japan
it gets all the respect even to this day of
like that's real technical wrestling, whereas with the Samoan.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
We were late to the game of honoring that.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
You know, we made one of the Samoans dressed up
like a Japanese guy and wave a Japanese flag.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
He never even been to Japan.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
That was a guy that Yoko Zuno was a Tongan
or I think he was a Pacific islander of some sort.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, you're you're you're right, I still know which one.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
So it's it feels perfectly natural, and it feels like
it's about time, and it also feels like unforced, like
you were saying.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It just feels like this is perfect. We're honoring this family. Honestly,
just dead on, dude, it's all.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, it's because before that, all you'd ever hear commentary
wise about sim Oens was oh, I wouldn't hit him
in the head. They've got extremely hard heads, and that
was the end of the legacy. And now it's like
the most honored legacy in wrestling with and it feels
they finally have that. Yeah, it does feel good. All right,
you guys, thanks for listening to Thursday's episode, the episode
that you guys asked for. But I'm Ava Jeff, I'm
(19:37):
Freddie Brinz.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Junior. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
This has been a production of Iheart's Michael Toura podcast Network.
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