Sound Off 907 - Time To Talk CHANGING The Royal Rumble And DRAMA Hits The Hogan Family! - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo. Monster
sounds off. I love you so mama monster, dude.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I want your soul.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Woman.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
You got grown ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Come over here.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I have the best move set.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You have legs. They've made Solo a monster.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I was ninety nine percent positive. It was just chessed up.
Now I want out of my contract if I don't
care what I want.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Wwe uploaded the very first NXT live show that I
ever went to to its NXT Vault channel on YouTube
this week. It was Wrestleminni a thirty one weekend in
San Jose, and it never aired on TV anywhere, so
this is the first time it's been released. It is
worth checking out. It's the first time that Kenta busted
out a GTS since he had been re christened as

(00:55):
Hideo Atammi, and the place went nuts for it. We
got a Charlotte Flair against Sasha Banks match, one of
their earliest matches against each other, Finn Balor against Adrian Neville.
That's the era of NXT where I started watching. I
do miss that time. I did a roundtable in San
Jose the next day that's sound Off three seventy five

(01:16):
if you ever want to listen to it. This, however,
is soundof episode nine to oh seven, five hundred and
thirty two shows later. Here we are for Sunday, March thirty,
twenty twenty five, almost ten years ago to the day
that I did that show in fact, and oh do
we have a lot to get to this week, including

(01:37):
a major shakeup in TNA. Ciam Punk gets his Wrestlemanium
main event, the first match inducted into the WWE Hall
of Fame. Got to talk about where that is. Thoughts
on Sony Kahan celebrating Dynamite passing Nitro soon. That's been
a hot topic this week. Early predictions for Dynasty next Sunday,
all the drama that's spilled out into the open this

(01:59):
week involving the Hogan family. Yes we have another Hogan update,
and yes, the Dark Side of the Ring reviews are
back and I've got a full review on the Helena
Cell episode with Mick Foley. Mandy Rose is in the news.
Just a ton of stuff to get to. If you
would like to support the podcast, you may do so
on the solom monster dot com. You'll see the PayPal

(02:21):
link at the top of the page. Ten dollars or more,
we'll get you a nickname in a shout out, and
I cannot go on until I shout out all of
these fine PayPal producers, including the Diamond Dallas Dance Machine,
Harrison Soe, app Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, and just in
a little while ago, a huge drop, a very generous
drop from m Mills, which I cannot say thank you enough.

(02:44):
You may remember the name m Mills from many of
our YouTube streams. She is always supporting and I just
want to say thank you very much. The Portland pop
Star Paul Hamilton, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Eicker, Night Stalker,
Nay f Alsafar, the Wichita Workhorse, Clayton Nettleton, Kill Shot,
Keith Hart with the Double Shot. Thank you, Keith, Tough Guy,

(03:09):
Temjen Zephyr, Hey Temjin. My advice to you just keep
working hard. That's it, brother, just keep working hard. Big
Homie John Burton, two time NWA East Brass Knuckles Champion
and former pre show co host for Impact Wrestling, showing
some love for the sound off this week, and Rebel
Jay Leonard Happy birthday, brother. I hope it was a

(03:30):
great one. Whatever number it is, you are forever young.
Two big announcements this week from House of Glory. First,
we are expanding our wrestling academy to the Sunshine State.
Hog Orlando is coming soon to the Orlando O Viedo area,
and we'll also feature live events as we do here
in New York. So stay tuned for more details on that.

(03:52):
We've got Hog North and now we're gonna have Hog South,
and from the Sunshine State to the Lone Star State.
Glory is making its Texas debut the night before aew
all in Friday, July eleventh, at the Haltam Theater in
Haltam City, Texas. It's just a twenty minute drive to
Globe Life Field in Arlington, where all In is the

(04:13):
next day. Tickets go on sale this Friday at Hog
Wrestling dot Net. I'll start with the TNA news this
week because there was a big management shakeup on Tuesday.
Per pw Insider, there were a number of exits from
Anthem and TNA Wrestling. On Tuesday, TNA President Carlos Silva

(04:34):
issued a memo to Anthem staff announcing the departure of
eight people. One of the most shocking departures was Ariel Schnerer,
who was executive producer of TNA and effectively the head
of Creative. Shneer had been with Anthem, TNA and the
Fight Network for many years. With his departure, Hunter Johnston,

(04:55):
the former Delirious from Ring of Honor, will now head Creative,
which he did in Ring of Honor for many years.
I know Jim Cornett has been complimentary of him whenever
he's asked about Delirious. They work together when Cornett was there,
and it's rare that Cornett doesn't have a bad word
to say about somebody, or at least it feels that way.

(05:15):
All I'll say on Delirious is that I did not
enjoy Ring of Honor during his run as booker nearly
as much as I did when Gabe Sepolski was booking.
You know, Adam Pierce took over from Gabe after Gabe
got fired, and then Pierce got fired not long after that.
He had picked Delirious to be his assistant. So that's
how Delirious ended up getting the job. When Pierce got fired,

(05:38):
he slipped into the role. The same thing happened when
they fired Cornett. It was supposed to be Cornett running
things when you know they were kind of expanding. Whatever
year that would have been twenty eleven maybe, and when
he got canned, I forget he was either fired or
demoted to a lesser role, whatever it was. Guess who
wound up is the head booker again, delirious the luck

(06:00):
this guy has. Now Here we are fifteen years later,
someone gets fired and look who's waiting in the wings
to take over as the head of creative. So he's
got a mixed track record. Tommy Dreamer will remain on
the creative team as well, but he'll also be heading
up talent relations because the other shocking departure was Gail Kim,

(06:21):
former Knockouts Champion TNA Hall of Famer. She's been working
behind the scenes in talent relations and as a producer.
Gail's been with the company off and on for twenty years,
all the way back to two thousand and five, and
she was one of the trailblazers of that Knockouts division.
It was the matches that she had with Awesome Kong
that helped put that division on the map. She very

(06:44):
well liked, very well respected among the people that worked there.
Matt Hardy on his podcast, said that he was shocked
to learn about her firing. There may have been some
very upset knockouts venting their frustrations as well, not even
may have. I mean they didn't mention her by name
in their social media posts, but they'd been posting angry
emojis and whatnot, so clearly a lot of very unhappy

(07:06):
people about this news. They also vented their unhappiness after
Scott the Moore got fired, and in the end nothing
came from it. I doubt it's going to be any
different this time. Rob Klingman, who was their chief revenue officer,
is also gone, as is Michael Shuchenko, who worked in
their digital department. He'll be departing TNA on April thirtieth,

(07:27):
having worked there for two years. Karen Clevitt, who worked
on their TNA Plus service, Romy Glazer who worked in marketing,
and Sebastian Dashtrani, who worked on the live events and
will also be leaving the company. Raphael Morphy, who had
been doing consulting work for them and trying to build
the company's live event business, was also announced as moving

(07:47):
on now. Morphy previously worked for both WWE and AW
and he is said to have been involved in the
company's great success of late, including the big houses that
they had in El Paso. I knew of Morphy from
when he worked for the New York Cosmo soccer team.
He was their main point of contact with MCU park.
When I was doing PR work for the Brooklyn Cyclones,

(08:08):
the Cosmos played some games at the ballpark for I
think about one season. I didn't deal with him too
much outside of some emails that we exchanged, but he
seemed like a nice guy, clearly very competent at his
job given all the places that he's worked, But unlike
years ago when he actually worked there, this sounds like
it was just the consulting role that he had. He'll

(08:30):
simply just focus on the other work that he's doing.
Although I don't know why you would want to lose
somebody like that, especially when they seem to have been
doing well on the live events end. But in a statement,
Carlos Silva said, today we announced a restructuring resulting in
staffing changes at TNA Wrestling. These decisions are always difficult,
but it became apparent that we needed to make adjustments

(08:51):
to our business strategies. We are grateful for those who
have worked there or worked here and thanked them for
their years of dedication to the company. Fine. We want
our fans to know that we are committed to producing
the absolute best product and highest quality content that we can,
and we appreciate their continued support. So in an update
from Fightful Select, Sean ross Sapp said on the subject

(09:14):
of the Gail Kim firing, it was a unanimously unpopular
move based on those we spoke to, with at least
one talent saying that it made the decision for them
to not remain in the company when their deal was up.
At least one person said they actually weren't surprise because
Gail has been very outspoken creatively and would sometimes butt

(09:35):
heads with people in control. Another person indicated that the
same thing was the case, but also said that's what
you want out of a person in her position, somebody
who will advocate for a better show. Were told that
Kim was very direct about her complaints when she felt
like things could have been handled better or more professionally.
She was not involved in creative and had been pushing

(09:57):
heavily for the Knockout's division to do more. After the departure,
of Scott Timore. One longtime name in TNA said they
believe Anthem is going for a major regime shift with
the departures of Scott de Moore, Gail Kim, and Josh Matthews,
names that had been around for ages. They pointed to
the revolving door at TNA of presidents and the differing

(10:17):
visions between them. Those that we spoke to claimed the
decision was TNA president Carlos Silva's and he told Gail
that she was fired, but did not provide a reason
besides changes. Sources in AW and WWE both said that
they expected Kim to get interest across the wrestling world,
and a few said that they were going to immediately
push for such. Were told that she does plan to

(10:38):
continue in wrestling. Kim has no non compete and can
appear for any wrestling company she wants or work wherever
she wants to immediately. One alleged TNA insider named b Q,
who has covered TNA online for years, claims that Gail
butted heads with new TNA president Carlos Silva, but she

(11:00):
also did not get along with Ariel Schneerer. They did
not like each other, and the continued backstage turmoil led
both of them to give Silva an ultimatum, and so
he had to pick a side one or the other,
and instead of picking aside, he fired them both, which
honestly is not an unreasonable way to handle things, like

(11:21):
if you have a dispute between two people and it's
clear they cannot coexist, or you've got pros and cons
with both of them, instead of showing favoritism towards one
side or the other, getting rid of them both and
eliminating the problem altogether. It's not lol TNA. It's a
business decision that I can kind of understand. Gail posted

(11:43):
the following message on her Instagram. I just wanted to
say thank you to the fans, friends, and especially my
peers for all the support that you have given me
over the last few days. I've received such an enormous
amount of love and it really has helped process this
change for me more than any I'm grateful for all
the years and opportunities that I was given to help
build something I always dreamed of. The Knockout's Division is

(12:06):
and will always be my heart and all the women
who were a part of it. Thanks to the incredibly
hard working and passionate TNA talent and crew that I
have had the pleasure of working with. This will not
end my passion or my love for wrestling. And this
is not the end of Gail Kim. In the wrestling world,
you don't put in seventeen years in one company and
stop when you are this passionate. I look forward to

(12:28):
sharing my journey and I'm taking some time for myself
and prepare for what's ahead, looking forward to the future.
And one last thought, more women in leadership roles, not less,
And she put a bunch of question marks at the
end of it. You know, it goes without saying she
would be an asset to any promotion that scoops her up.

(12:49):
WWE and AW both should already be reaching out to her,
and I don't think it's going to be very long
before we hear about her signing a deal with somebody.
The question, though, has come up to me about whether
this is a sign that Anthem is preparing to sell
TNA to WWE. Are these moves being made to cut
costs ahead of selling the company, And there were a

(13:12):
lot of signs with WWE years ago that they were
looking to cut costs and tidy things up for a
possible sale. I talked about that on a lot on
the podcast, and eventually the endeavor deal happened. You know,
it wasn't an immediate thing. I mean, there were moves
that were being made when Vince McMahon first brought Nick Connon,
which would have been what twenty twenty, and over a

(13:33):
two or three year period, we would hear stories about, yeah,
they're trying to kind of clean up the books and
get some costs, you know, off the books. And there
were a lot of people who looked at that and said, oh,
you know, this might be a sign that they're looking
to sell. And then sure enough, eventually they did. But
it wasn't like it was an overnight thing in this case.
I don't see this as any kind of sign that

(13:53):
they're looking to sell to WWE right not in the
immediate future. I think we need to pump the brakes.
Why would WWE want to buy TNA right now? Why
would they even want to? All right, let's think about that. Well,
it only makes sense if the idea is not to
continue running it as a separate entity, but to acquire

(14:13):
the video library and acquire all of their international distribution deals,
of which TNA has many I can see those being
of value to them. Obviously, the library would be of
value to them. They could easily monetize that. We've already
got the WWE Vault and the WCW Vault on YouTube.
We're probably going to get an ECW vault at some point,

(14:35):
and they could just throw up a TNA Vault channel
and they can rake and add money from that and
make money that way. Outside of that, I don't know
why they would even bother. It was only a couple
of months ago they issued a press release announcing a
multi year partnership with TNA. Selling the company is not
an overnight thing. If they had any intention to buy
the company, I don't think they would have announced the

(14:56):
multi year partnership with them. But why would they? Why
buy it and run it as a separate entity? All right,
That's why Tony Khan went and bought Ring of Honor.
Had he not done that, wwe would have bought the
Bones of ROH. They would have picked off, you know,
whatever they wanted as far as the trademarks and the
video library. So many of their guys came through Ring

(15:17):
of Honor. There's going to be a guy in the
Night one Wrestle Media main event, who was in Ring
of Honor and a world champion there, and then they
would have taken it and put it on the shelf.
They weren't going to run it as a separate entity,
or if anything, maybe we would have roh On two
B instead of Evolve, but that would be it, right,
So Tony Cohn's like, no, he loved Ring of Honor.

(15:39):
He had a passion for Ring of Honor. He swept
in and he bought the company and he's been trying
to run it as a separate entity ever since. But
there's no benefit in that to WWE doing that With TNA,
they have NXT, they have EVOLVE, they have LFG, they
have all of these things already. They don't need another
division to add to their developmental system. They have a

(16:02):
good thing going as it is, where they can send
some of their less experienced talent to get more reps
and they can have a pipeline to new talent so
that after they're done in TNA, they bring them into
WWE and none of this costs them a thing. It's
like outsourcing a branch of their developmental to somebody else
and letting them pay the talent, all without the costs

(16:24):
and overhead that are involved in keeping TNA alive. It's
its own brand. So no, I don't think they're preparing
to sell to WWE. I can't rule it out and
say it'll never happen. Right a year, two years, three
years down the road. Anything's possible. But no, I don't
think these moves were made with a sale in mind.
If Gail Kim was butting heads with their executive producer
and it was easier in their mind to just get

(16:46):
rid of both of them, then in their view, so
be it. And for all the other people that are leaving,
they are bringing in new people to replace most, if
not all of them. You know, it sounds to me
like typical corporate restructuring, But losing someone like Gail Kim
is a big loss for them, and their loss is
going to be somebody else's game. Let's skip over to WWEE.

(17:08):
We got our second John Cena appearance on Raw this
week in Glasgow, and his second appearance went mostly like
the first one, where he healed on the fans and
he had nothing to say. Once Cody Rhodes came out,
he did mention breaking the record and winning a seventeenth
World Championship this week, and how he's going to ruin wrestling.

(17:28):
He's going to win the title and make people forget
the name Rick Flair and he's going to retire with
it as the last real champion in WWE. And he
also brought up the Spinner Belt that he introduced many
years ago and all the negative comments that it got
at the time from all the wrestling fans. You thought
that it was a toy and he was disrespecting tradition

(17:49):
with it, and how that was the worst thing that
they could have done because now he knows how much
the title means to them. He's going to win their
precious title and leave with it. Right, That was the
premise behind this entire promo here At least he didn't
promise to bring the Spinner Belt back. That was my fear.
But Cody came out and it was more of the

(18:10):
same from the week before. With no response from John Cena.
He said nothing. They tease the fight, but he ducked
out of the ring. YO. Him saying he's going to
win the title and retire with it only makes me
think that he's not winning the title of WrestleMania. But
We've got one more appearance from Seena tomorrow night in London.
Cody will be there. Will they give us the same

(18:30):
segment three weeks in a row? I hope not. This
is not resonating with me the way that I was
hoping that it would. It's been pretty paint by number
of stuff so far. And right now, John Cena is
not scheduled for any other shows after tomorrow until WrestleMania,
and it would be ridiculous if we don't see him
again unless they really give us something big tomorrow night.

(18:54):
But right now, you know Sena is fing He's feuding
more with the fans than he is Cody Rhodes. There
needs to be more of a focus on him and
Cody and why he did what he did to Cody
at the Elimination Chamber. Forget the fact that the Rock
hasn't been mentioned one time this entire series of segments,

(19:15):
and he was the catalyst for all of this. But
let's get things going here, like Scene is not wrestling
the fans a WrestleMania, He's wrestling Cody Rhodes. That Angle
of Elimination Chamber was so good it'll go down as
one of the most shocking moments in the history of WWE.
Since then, they have given us the bare minimum of
what they could give us, and I don't want to

(19:36):
hear Oh, you need to give it time. It's it's
been one full month already, dude, it's been a month
TikTok times of wasting. If Sina really wants to get heat,
he should tell those fans in London tomorrow that he
takes back what he said about London getting a WrestleMania
and he's going to use his influence with the Rock

(19:58):
and TKO management to make sure that's Saudi Arabia gets one.
Before they do, they may carry him out of there
in a body bag. If he says that Rhea Ripley
is getting her rematch with Eo Sky for the Women's
World Championship tomorrow night. I don't know why she's owed
a rematch before WrestleMania when it was made clear that
whoever won their last match would be defending the title

(20:19):
against Bianca bel Air. But there isn't a whole lot
about this angle that really has made sense, including Adam
Pearce making Bianca the special referee for that title match,
which even Bianca said, I've never been a referee. I
don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to referee,
to which Adam Pierce told her, well, you've got a
week to learn.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Why would he want someone so inexperienced to officiate a
not only so inexperience, but clearly someone who has issues
with both women more so Rhea Ripley to officiate a
title match with WrestleMania implications. But that's how we get
to the Triple Threat match, because Bianca is not counting

(21:03):
the fall for Rhea Ripley. Now, on SmackDown, they held
the contract signing for the Triple Threat match with Roman Reigns,
CM Punk, and seth Rawlins. Punk was looking through the
fine print for something we didn't know what, and Roman
Reigns told his wise men let him know, and Paul

(21:24):
Hayman told Punk what you're looking for, it's in there,
which was that for the first time in his life,
CM Punk will be closing the show at WrestleMania. He
is finally getting his WrestleMania main event. And I said
it last week as soon as the match was announced.
That's your Night one main event, right there. Three of

(21:46):
the biggest stars in the entire company, in the entire industry, right,
including Punk and Roman against each other for the first time,
and the history between all of these guys. This right
here is your main event for Night one, Good and
Jay Usso and it's not the ladies. I'm sorry, but
it's not. This is the right choice Punk and Roman

(22:08):
they had, or punkin Hayman. Rather, they had tears in
their eyes as Hayman broke the news to him, Roman
took credit for it. He wanted Punk to say thank you.
Rollins was furious that Roman had a hand in giving
Punk the one thing he was hoping to deny him,
saying that Punk doesn't deserve it. You'll never see someone
so angry to find out that he's in the WRESTLEMANIAM

(22:29):
main event. But that was seth Rollins. He himself only
just got his first proper main event last year in
the tag team match for Roman Reigns. This is going
to be his tenth WRESTLEMANIAM main event, including two of
them last year alone, and the next closes his hul
Cogan with eight and they closed the show on Friday

(22:49):
with the great Cliffhanger line from Punk to Roman to
thank you. But that's not the favor that I'm owed
And it was so great the way they did this too,
because first they had Hayman hit you with the news
that Punk was getting the main event, so you assume, oh,
that must be the favor. But then at the very
end they dropped the bomb on you that oh, that's

(23:09):
not the favor, and then they immediately go off the air,
leaving you wondering, what the hell is the favor? I
thought that was brilliant the way they did that. So
what is the favor? Is it Punk requesting Hayman be
his wise man for the match? Eh? I mean, that
would be underwhelming after all the suspense if that's all
it is. Is it the winner being added to the

(23:32):
WWE title match on Night two? Now, that wouldn't make
much sense because why would Haman even have the stroke
to make something like that happen, especially after what Punk
said about the Rock after the Elimination Chamber. Making this
a Number one contenders match, though, with the winner getting
a future championship match, that is absolutely something that they
should do, and I floated this on the post show

(23:55):
on Friday night. Let's say the winner does get added
to the Night too main event. Let's just say they do.
And I know, yes, another triple threat match, but if
they can find a way to explain that, I wouldn't
even bother telling the fans what the favor is until
after the main event on Night one is over. Punk

(24:16):
wins and then he closes WrestleMania by announcing that the
favor was the winner gets added to the main event
of Night two, and that's how they go off the air.
That would be one hell of an ending, But I
still say, you know, it's better to save the Punk
match with Cino one on one for another pl e. Look,
Roman and Punk would be a huge mega match that

(24:38):
they can do, and I would imagine that we'll get
it one on one at some point, but they're effectively
already giving it away in the form of a triple threat.
So I'm not in love with the idea that they
would do the exact same thing twenty four hours later
with John CNNCM Punk. That belongs on another show as
its own standalone main event, and it has to happen

(25:00):
before they turned John Cena back Babyface, because everything that
Punk said about him all those weeks ago means absolutely nothing.
If John Cena reverts back to being a babyface before
they do the match with him in Punk, So that
match has to happen at some point in these next
few months, but I would much rather it happened one
on one than happen, you know, at the last minute

(25:22):
as part of a triple threat. I'm just saying, if
that ends up being what the favor is, I wouldn't
even tell anybody. I would just have Punk win and
then do the big reveal at the end of the show.
But what that does confirm is that Jay Usso will
not be closing the show, nor will Charlotte Flair. And
I do think it's time we have a conversation about

(25:44):
changing what the winner of the Royal Rumble gets, because
this is not the first time the person who wins
the Royal Rumble does not actually close the show at WrestleMania.
But this is the first time since they started having
two Rumbles and they moved to the two night format
that neither winner is closing out Night one or Night two,
and I think it's time that they amend things by

(26:05):
stating that the winner of the Royal Rumble gets a
guarantee championship match of WrestleMania and leave out the main
event park going forward like that worked for many years.
I know that was a big part of the attraction
of winning the Royal Rumble. Things have changed, and you
and I both know if you are not closing the
show at WrestleMania, you are not really the main event.

(26:29):
They've had quote unquote main events and Royal Rumble winners
open the fucking show on what planet? Is that a
main event?

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Right?

Speaker 1 (26:38):
But they've gotten away with it for many years. You
and I both know it's bullshit. And the way people
look at it is whatever match closes the show that
is the main event on that particular night. And I
feel like we go through this every other year. You know,
how come the winner of the Royal Rumble isn't you know,
headlining Mania. They said, the winner goes to the main event.
The main event, isn't the opener, The main event, isn't

(26:59):
the Night eight one main event, It's the night too
main event, Right. We go through this all the time.
This can all be avoided by simply not saying that anymore.
It's enough to say that the winner gets a world
title match against the champion of their choosing at WrestleMania.
That's a pretty big deal and just leave it at
that full stop because it is just not accurate to

(27:20):
say it any other way. They can even use this
on Raw tomorrow. Have Gunther be upset about how the
World Heavyweight Championship is not being defended in the main
event and it's all Jay USO's fault. Put this all
on him, right, It just proves what I've been saying
all along that Jay isn't at my level and now
he's bringing me down to his. Right. Now, Jay has

(27:42):
dragged Gunther down and so he takes it out on Jimmy,
which is how we end up with Gunther destroying Jimmy
tomorrow because the two of them are having a match.
I would lean into it, use the main event stuff
to play off of Gunther's anger. Right, what should have
been his first Resdisselmania main event has been taken away

(28:02):
from him thanks to Jay Uso. Now, the other news
coming out of SmackDown is that matches are now being
inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. They are billing
them as Immortal moments, and I don't know if that
means it's going to be limited to only WrestleMania matches
since WrestleMania is the Showcase of the Immortals or if

(28:24):
all matches are eligible. But this is actually an idea
that I was asked about once before on the podcast
many years ago in the mailbag, and I thought it
was silly, and I still think it's pretty silly because
now you're going to end up with people being inducted
into the Hall of Fame five or ten times. But
I get why they're doing it. It's a good way
to bring some of the big names back for the

(28:46):
ceremony so they could sell tickets. Case in point. First
match being inducted as part of the ceremony on April
eighteenth is the submission match from WrestleMania thirteen between Brett
Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and they announced both
Brett and Stone Cold will be in attendance for the ceremony.
And I know there's been talk of Ken Shamrock maybe

(29:08):
being inducted this year. If he doesn't get inducted, they
should have him do the induction for this since he
was the guest referee for that match. I mean, truly,
you know I was gonna sit here and say, well,
one of the greatest matches of all time, but fuck it.
I'll say it the greatest match in WWE history when
you take into account the quality of the match itself

(29:31):
and the rivalry between those two coming into it, and
you combine that with the historical significance of that match,
the greatest double turn of all time, and the impact
that it had on the career of Steve Austin. Right,
there is no stone Cold Steve Austin without Brett Hart
and without that match. The blood, the iconic shot of

(29:53):
the blood dripping down Austin's face as he tries to
fight out of the sharpshooter, Brett going back after him.
When the match, which was over, Shamrock with the waistlock
takedown out of his boots. He got Brett Hart way
up in the air. Austin then, refusing help, gets to
his feet all by himself. He leaves to cheers after
entering to booze. People talk about Austin three point sixteen

(30:16):
right in the speech at the King of the Ring,
it was this match, this match is what set him
on his way to what he would become, and what
he would become is one of the biggest stars in
the history of the business. And it's also a match
that has incredible replay value. I can pick up with
it any time and never get bored with it. I mean,
it's everything I love about pro wrestling, and I believe

(30:38):
it is the greatest match in the history of that
company in maybe the most important year in the history
of the company, because that was the turning point for them.
People don't realize how close they came to bankruptcy, but
they pulled out of it, and the creative had a
lot to do with that. That year gave us this match.
It gave us the first Hell and a Cell with
Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker. It gave us the debut Cain.

(31:00):
It gave us the Montreal Screwjob, which gave us the
birth of mister McMahon. You know, it gave us the
Rise of the Rock. It gave us a lot of
different things, such a huge year. So it's a well
deserved choice. And if Hogan wasn't such a fuck up
and a shitty person, I guarantee you Hogan against Andrea

(31:20):
WrestleMania Iree would have been the first match inducted and
it would have been appropriate too. The man who those
first seven or eight WrestleManias were built around the name
most synonymous with WrestleMania, but he has so badly tarnished
his legacy they can't even celebrate him in the way
that you know they would like to because he's so

(31:43):
toxic right now, especially after that reaction on the Netflix premiere.
There was no way any match with him in it
was going to be the first one going in this year.
Hogan versus Andre will go in one day. There's no
denying how iconic that matches, as is Randy Savage against
Ricky Steamboat. I just watched that match again the other day.

(32:03):
It's so fucking good, the pace that they were working at.
You just didn't see matches like that back then, not
in WWEE You didn't the first Helen a Cell, the
latter match from WrestleMania ten Undertaker and Mankind Helen is Cell,
John Cena against CM punkin Money in the Bank twenty eleven,
Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker from WrestleMania twenty five. I mean,

(32:24):
we could be here all day. Ye know, they're gonna
have to induct two or three matches a year otherwise
you'll never get to all of them. But Brett Hart
becomes the first ever three time WWE Hall of Famer
with this induction, and I would say, you know, given
how many classic matches he's had, he may become the
first ten or fifteen time a Hall of Famer. When

(32:45):
all is said and done, he'll have more rings than
Brady does. He'll have more rings than he's got fingers
on his hands. But I do wonder if this might
replace the annual celebrity inductee because they still haven't announced
one yet. But there's still a few weeks, so we'll
know soon enough. Today's episode is sponsored by Better Help.
Did you know that traditional in person therapy can cost

(33:08):
anywhere from one hundred dollars to two hundred and fifty
dollars per session. That can get real costly, real fast.
But with Better Help online therapy, you can save on
average up to fifty percent per session. With Better Help,
you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you
big on cost and time. Therapy should feel accessible, not

(33:29):
like a luxury or something that you have to pay
a premium for. With online therapy, you get quality care
at a price that makes sense and can help you
with everything from anxiety to everyday stress. I say it
all the time when I talk about this if you
pay for a gym membership to lift weights or do cardio,
you need to look at taking care of your mind
as something that's every bit is important. Your mental health

(33:51):
is worth it, and now it's within reach. The benefits
of therapy are legit and they can be a game
changer for you whatever may be troubling you. Therapy can
tea things like positive coping skills and how to set
boundaries in your life. And it isn't just for people
that have experienced trauma in their lives. There's no problem,
big or small that you can't talk about, and oftentimes
just talking about it can start you down the right

(34:13):
path to get the answers and solutions that you're looking for.
With over thirty thousand therapists, better Help is the world's
largest online therapy platform, having served over five million people
all over the world. And it's convenient too. That's what
makes it even more appealing to so many people. You
think those five million people don't have busy lives like
you do. They find a way to make it work,

(34:35):
and they don't have to try too hard either, because
Better Help makes it easier for them with the click
of a button, even better. You can switch therapists at
any time if you choose. It's good to have options.
Your well being is worth it. Visit Betterhelp dot com
slash Solom Monster today to get ten percent off your
first month. That's Better Help h e LP dot com

(34:59):
slash Solomon Monster AW is celebrating a milestone episode of
Dynamite on April sixteenth that they are calling spring Breakthrough,
and they are also doing a live collision that Thursday
called spring Breakthrough because they absolutely do not want to
run head to head with WrestleMania, so they're doing a
live Thursday show instead. But Dynamite that week will be

(35:23):
there two hundred and eighty ninth episode and that will
surpass WCW Monday nightros two hundred and eighty eight episodes
as the longest running weekly primetime wrestling show in the
history of Turner Sports. WCW Saturday Night did not air
in primetime, so even though it aired for longer, I
guess it doesn't count. And the show will emanate from

(35:45):
the MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, Massachusetts. What
a missed opportunity, you know, to do a spring break
type episode like WCW used to do I know Club
Lavilla isn't open anymore, but they totally should have done
like an outdoor spring Break episode somewhere. Of course, this
kicked up a lot of angry tweets online from people

(36:06):
who think this is just Tony Kahan dunking on Eric
Bischoff because Bischoff talks a lot of shit about him
and his company and he shouldn't be talking because Dynamite
can't hold a candle to Nitro. Blah blah blah. Yes, Nitro,
even at its worst, was still pulling numbers bigger than
what Dynamite does today and actually bigger than anything Dynamite

(36:26):
has done in five years on the air. And yes,
Nitro also went head to head with Monday Night Raw
and pulled those numbers up against Raw, even beat Raw
for eighty three straight weeks in the ratings. If you
put Dynamite up against Raw or SmackDown right now, it
would get slaughtered. It would fare about as well as
TNA did when they tried the same thing in twenty ten,

(36:48):
and that didn't last very long. Nitro changed the business.
Dynamite did not change the business, but it did make
the business better because it gave the fans a second
promotion to follow on a major cable network, something that
we didn't have since the TNA days on Spike TV.
You know, Dynamite did not revolutionize the wrestling business though
in the way that WCW Monday Nitro did, and I

(37:11):
don't think anybody is saying that it did not, even
Tony Khan. All Tony Khan is doing is promoting his show,
and he is using this milestone as an excuse to
do that, which is why I don't see anything wrong
with him doing so. Like I just laugh that all
the people who are upset about this or who are

(37:32):
hurling comments and insult to Tony Khan for this, Like
I don't take it seriously because I see it for
what it is. It is a promoter promoting his show.
That's his job. And also, do you not think the
fans online wouldn't be drawing attention to this anyway the
closer we get, Like, you don't think the fans don't
realize how close Dynamite is to passing Nitro's episode total

(37:56):
You don't think that they're not going to be talking
about this whether or not Turner and Tony Kahan started
promoting it all he's doing is leaning into a conversation
that the fans are going to be having online anyway,
and it is an achievement that he should be proud of.
You know, as I said on TNT the other night,
Eric Bischoff does not like Tony Khan ever since Tony

(38:17):
made that comment about Ted Turner not knowing one percent
of what he knows about pro wrestling and if he did,
WCW would still be on the air, I think it's
a stupid thing for him to have said. Ted Turner
didn't run WCW. He owned it, but it's not as
if he was booking the matches and making the day
to day decisions. The biggest decision he ever made was

(38:38):
to give Eric an hour of live television every Monday night.
People forget even Eric forgets what he tells the story
that they gave him. They gave him two hours. Nitro
didn't go two hours until the night Scott Hall debuted
in nineteen ninety six. Before that, it was an hour long.
And that was the biggest decision that Ted Turner ever made, right,
I mean that, and signed off on bringing Hulkgan into

(39:01):
the company. Bischoff was offended by that comment. And he
has had a hate boner for Tony ever since. So
if this is Tony con'sway of somehow sticking it to
Eric Bischoff, I mean, I wouldn't even waste my time
with him, but I say, good, have at it. All
I see is a promoter promoting the fact that his
show is about to reach a new milestone, and I

(39:23):
don't see anything wrong with him doing so. I think
people need to find something else to be fake angry about. Now.
Per Entertainment Weekly, Sorea is leaving AW, I say per
Entertainment Weekly. She has since announced it herself, but they
broke the story. She announced that she is parting ways
with the company in the first episode of her new

(39:45):
Rule Breakers with Sorea podcast, and as she explains it,
I'm here to tell you that me and Aw's relationship
has come to an end. I had an amazing time there.
There's no bad blood between us. I had such a
magical time. And she explains that she wanted to take
a couple of months off around the holidays for personal reasons,

(40:06):
and then I got to thinking, what is there left
for me to do in wrestling right now? Right now,
there's really no storylines where I would fit in, and
she also clarifies that her departure has nothing to do
with Tony Kahan. It's just me thinking that I don't
fit in right now. I feel like I might be
taking someone else's spot, someone who could be doing something

(40:28):
really special. That's not to say that I will never
come back to AAW. I absolutely love it, but I'm
taking a little step back and focusing on myself for
a bit and putting my energy into the podcast with
all of the crew here. And she later tweeted, it's mutual,
but I loved my time at AW and I had
such a blast with the girls there. It'll hold a

(40:48):
special place in my heart. Tony was a great I
don't know what that Tony was a great boss. I
assume she means AW is great. I feel so lucky
to be a part of this fan for a couple
of years. Mike Johnson reports that her contract was set
to expire in the fall. I'm surprised they never did

(41:09):
the obvious program with her and Mercedes MiNet, even if
it was just like one last program before Sirea leaps.
She just disappeared from television and we never saw her again. Yeah,
she came back to wrestling with a lot of fanfare
in twenty twenty two. After wrestling her last match in
WWE in twenty seventeen, they would not medically clear her

(41:31):
to wrestle. After that, AW did, and she won the
Women's World Championship at Wembley in her home country. After that,
she didn't do a whole hell of a lot, right
there were the outcasts with her and Tony Storm and
Ruby soho. Just you know, based on the name that
she has and as popular as she used to be there,

(41:54):
I could see WWE wanting to bring her back, although
there's no guarantee their doctors would clear her. Just because
she was cleared and wrestled somewhere else doesn't mean that
they're going to clear her. I mean, they probably would,
but we don't know that. One of the reasons why
she left the one to AW. But I don't see
her as someone that WWE needs to go out of
their way to sign. You know, their women's division is

(42:16):
just fine with or without Soreya. I really don't see
her making a huge impact one way or the other
right now. It sounds like she wants to step away
from wrestling altogether. It doesn't sound like she's just leaving
AW to go right to WWE. But I'm sure she'll
end up back there at some point. I mean I
can almost guarantee it. Whether she's wrestling or doing something else,

(42:36):
you know, she will end up back in WWE at
some point. Someone else who's in a contract year is
former AW Women's World champion Mariah May. That is, according
to a report from fight Full select per multiple staffers,
wrestlers and higher ups, May's AW contractor is believed to
expire later this summer. It is unknown if her current

(42:58):
deal has any option years attached to it. However, one
source within AAW said that they would be shocked if
there weren't as a deal as short as the one
she signed is uncharacteristic considering the push that she received
she won last year's owen Hart Tournament, later defeating Tony
Storm to capture the AW Women's World title at All
in London. Fightful notes that while May's contract is said

(43:22):
to be up this summer, AW is looking to retain her,
yet no shit word of May's pending contracts that is
reportedly spread in AAW in recent weeks, specifically after she
lost her title rematch against Tony Storm earlier this month
at Revolution. Unlike Sorea, Mariah May is a must have.

(43:43):
Mariah May is someone that Tony Kahan must re sign
at all costs because she is fantastic and she's going
to get paid, you know, no matter where she lands.
But I think she stays right where she is, and
if so, then she will be joined by an old
friend of hers very soon. Because it was also to
announce this week that Mina Shirakawa, the Lovely Mina, is

(44:05):
leaving Stardom, where she called home since twenty twenty, and
leaving Japan to move to the United States and work
for All Elite Wrestling, and she has already been a
part of the AW roster on and off for some
time now. At a press conference on Wednesday, Shirakawa confirmed
reports that her contract with Stardom expires at the end

(44:25):
of the month. However, she will continue to wrestle for
the promotion throughout much of April, concluding with Stardom American
Dream twenty twenty five in Las Vegas on April seventeenth
and April eighteenth, Shirakawa announced that she will join AW
after leaving Stardom. Last we saw her on AW television
was the December eleventh Winter Is Coming episode of Dynamite

(44:48):
where she lost too Funny Enough Mariah May in her
bid to become the AW Women's World Champion. Mina is great,
Mariah is great, and they should both be a part
of that women's the for many years to come. We
are seven days out from AAW dynasty in Philadelphia and
the card has mostly taken shape. So let's run through

(45:11):
the confirm and not yet confirm matches and give some
early predictions, knowing that we will obviously still have a
Dynamite and the Collision to go before the pay per
view next weekend. The Hurt Syndicate are very likely defending
the AW Tag Team titles against Big Bill and Brian Keith,
although that is not yet official. Chris Jericho is growing

(45:31):
very impatient with his men and wants them to win matches,
and MVP told them on Wednesday that if they can
actually win a match first, they might even get a
shot at the tag team titles. So last night on Collision,
they beat Top Flight. Originally it was going to be
the Hurt Syndicate against the Murder Machines, but Brian Cage
suffered a knee injury at an indie show, so they

(45:54):
pivoted to the Learning Tree. I imagine that you know,
this match gets made on Wednesday and Lashly and Benjamin
will retain. It looks like this Learning Tree stuff is
finally winding down soon. Speaking of the Learning Tree, also
not official yet, but Chris Jericho on Wednesday issued the
challenge to a title versus mask match for the Ring

(46:14):
of Honor World Championship against Bandido at Dynasty. And you
know they have a Ring of Honor pay per view
coming up on May second Supercard of Honor, but Bandido
is not losing his mask. So I say Bandido wins
the title here and then we probably get one more
match between them at Supercard of Honor, and when Jericho

(46:34):
loses there no thanks to Big Bill and Brian Keith,
that may be where the implosion happens. Daniel Garcia defends
the TNT Championship against Adam Cole. They have already had
two matches so far this month. The first one went
to a no contest, their last one went to a
time limit draw, so this time it'll be no time
limit and no interference allowed. And I just love how

(46:57):
these companies. They have the power to make it no
interference stipulation for a match. It's like, well, then why
wouldn't they make every match no interference? Just one of
those little wrestling inconsistencies. But I'm going with Adam Cole
here to win the title. Daniel Garcia is He's a
fine wrestler, but that's it. The company is filled with

(47:18):
great wrestlers. There's absolutely nothing about him that stands out.
I think they gave him the title because he re
signed and that's it. And I think the TNT title
has really been dragged down the last several months. Garcia
is also the kind of babyface who is better off
chasing than he is defending. So it's time. It's time

(47:40):
to get that title onto somebody else. The Death Riders
defend THEAW Trio's titles against Adam Copeland and FTR. There
is trouble in Paradise with rated FTR. I like the
sit down interview they did with Tony Schavanni on Wednesday.
Dax Harwood has been acting very heeling. He's very up

(48:01):
in his feelings. Cash Wheeler has not been. He's been
trying to keep his friends together on the same page
so they could win the titles. Harwood lost to Wheeler
Udah on collision last night, clean no less, and he
didn't take it very well. He put his hands on
referee Paul Turner. After the match, security had to come out.
Wheeler came out, the other Wheeler, his Wheeler, Dax Wheeler,

(48:26):
Dax Wheeler, Cash Wheeler. Good Lord, Yes, Dax Wheeler came
out to confront Cash Harwood. But anyway, Harwood thought it
was a member of security that was trying to pull
him away, so Harwood shoved him down. Only then when
he turned around did he realize his mistake and he
tried to help his partner up, but Wheeler wasn't having

(48:47):
any of it. I'm not buying any of this at all.
I think FTR are turning together on Copeland. The only
question is does it happen during the match next Sunday
or does it happen after they lose. Is it going
to be a legitimate attempt to win the trios titles
they fail and they snap and take it out on
Copeland or is this some kind of big, elaborate swerve

(49:10):
which really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if
they wrestle the fucking fifteen minute match, only to then
turn on Copeland. I feel like when the Horsemen turned
on Sting. But I'm gonna say it happens after they
lose and the Death Riders retain. FTR goes heel and
this is how we eventually get to a Copeland Christian
reunion against FTR in Texas at all in, I think

(49:35):
that's the destination. Kenny Omega defends the aw International Title
against Ricochet and Speedball Mike Bailey is going to be
a great match. I think everybody pretty much figures that,
and also figures that Kenny Omega is not losing the
International Championship. All roads lead to champion versus champion title

(49:57):
for title, probably a unification which is exactly what it
should be in Texas between Omega and Okata, who isn't
even on this show, So it'll be a great match.
The only question is it's not so much who wins,
it's who takes the pin, and in this case, I'm
gonna say it's Ricochet, and that's their way of protecting

(50:19):
Mike Bailey by not having him take his first direct loss.
But Kenny Omega is retaining this title one hundred percent timeless.
Tony Storm defends the AAW Women's World Championship against the
undefeated Megasists Meghan Bain, who has the champion's numbers. She
pinned Tony and the tag team main event on Wednesday

(50:41):
with her finish, then on Collision last night, she dropped
Tony on the championship belt with her finish her f five.
Tony opened the show last night with a promo and
they had this great tight shot where she was right
by the ropes and she was talking into the camera.
Spotlight was on her, and because the camera shot was

(51:01):
so tight, we didn't see Penelope Ford coming. She was
on the apron and she came. All you see is
a boot come into camera view and she boots her
right in the face. That was a fantastic shot the
way they did that. But this has been all Megan
Bain so far, you know. And again we have two
shows left, so maybe Tony will stand tall in the end.

(51:24):
But it's hard for me to imagine Tony Storm being
dominated like this week after week and then losing the title.
Maybe we don't get a decisive finish, right, so they
could run this back again, but I'm going to go
with Tony Storm to retain I'm not prepared to say
that it's going to be just a straight up clean win,
but I do think Tony retains. You know, if they

(51:45):
really wanted to create a new face for this division,
then they would go all the way and they would
put the title on Bain and keep her undefeated. But
I think Tony goes into all in with the championship.
They have done a commendable job thought acting Bain and
making her out to be a legitimate threat to the title.
And John Moxley defends the AW World Championship against Swerve

(52:09):
Strickland one year to the very event where he won
his first AAW World title. I am not one hundred
percent convinced that they are changing the title. I want
to believe that they are going to do the right thing, though,
and the right thing is to get that fucking belt
off of Moxley. So I am with some hesitation here,

(52:32):
I am picking Swerve Strickland for the win. I think
Swerve becomes a two time AAW World champion. There are
any number of people that he could defend that title
against in Texas, including Hangman Page, will Ospray, MJF all names,
by the way, who are not scheduled for a match
right now. At Dynasty. There's no Osprey, there's no Hangman,

(52:53):
there's no MJF. There's no Okada, there's no Taqushta, not
even Mercedes, although that may change this week because last
night on Collision, it finally happened. It finally happened, the
Ring of Honor Forever championed. Athena made her return to TV,

(53:14):
and not Ring of Honor TV behind a paywall, I
mean actual cable television with actual viewers. After insulting the
person who trained Billy Starks as somebody who knows nothing
about pro wrestling, you knew that this was setting up
in athena debut return, whatever you want to call it,
to TV, she confronted Mercedes, the two of them got physical,

(53:37):
Mercedes was able to avoid an O face, and later
on in the back last night, Athena announced that she
too was entering the Owenhart Foundation Tournament, which Mercedes had
already announced that she was entering, and in fact, we
had six names announced for the women's bracket last night Mercedes, Athena,
Billy Starks, Jamie Hayter, Chris Statlander, and Under Rosen, which

(54:01):
would leave two spots open, and you could easily fill
those two spots just by plugging in two former winners
of the Owen, Mariah May and will o' nightingale, or
if you want, you can get Harley Cameron in there.
You know, they also have Penelope Ford and they have
Julia Hart, so I mean, it's not like they don't
have people, but this lineup is already stacked just with Mercedes, Athena,

(54:24):
Hayter and Statlander alone, and on the men's side, Will Osprey, Hangman,
Page Jay White, they've all entered themselves. I think MJF
has to be in there. So I love how Tony
Khan is actually loading these tournaments up in a way
that he hasn't before. The full brackets will be announced
this Wednesday on Dynamite. We still have not been told
when the tournaments are going to actually begin, or when

(54:47):
and where the finals are taking place. The last two
years they've held the finals in Calgary at the Saddle Dome,
but there are no Calgary dates on the calendar now.
Assuming the Owen is kicking off right after Dynasty, have
Mercedes in Athena face off either in the opening round
or in the semifinal round. And have them go to
a time limit draw so that way neither woman takes

(55:08):
a loss and that's their first match, and then you
build to an Athena title win at All in in July. Now,
how you go about doing it really depends on timing. Right,
They've got a Ring of Honor pay per view on
May second. The biggest match that they could headline that
show with would be Athena defending the Ring of Honor
Women's World title or do title versus title against Mercedes.

(55:35):
Do they want to do that on a Ring of
Honor pay per view or do they want to save
that for double or nothing? Both shows are in the
month of May, right, The Ring of Honor show is
at the very beginning of the month. The aw show
is towards the end of the month. Either way, I
see this as a three match series. They draw in
the first, Mercedes wins the second, and Athena beats Mercedes

(55:57):
to win it all in Texas. She's a tech this girl.
It would just feel right to do it there, And
I know there are a lot of people saying, Mercedes Hogan,
She's gonna beat Athena, collect another belt and then move
on to Tony's Storm. They have convinced themselves that this
is the way it's going to work. Mercedes is not
moving on to Tony Storm before dropping the TBS title.

(56:20):
And she is going to drop the TBS title to Athena.
And I know there are people saying nop, nope, She's
not going to drop it until she breaks Jade Cargills record.
Jade car Gill's been the TBS champion for five hundred
and eight days. Well, Mercedes is only around like three
oh eight. So for her to break Jade's record and
become the longest reigning TBS champion of all time, that

(56:43):
would take her through what October. Can't keep the TBS
title on her until October. The story is right there.
They got this big stadium show coming up. The stage
is set. I think people are freaking out for no reason.
That's how I see it playing out, and in the end,
Athena will be the TBS Champion. Now, in this week's

(57:05):
Hulk Hogan Updates, this one focuses more on drama involving
the Hogan women. But before we get to that, let's
talk about the Hulkster first. This is the more lighthearted
part of this segment. You may have heard that boxing
legend George Foreman recently passed away, and while he doesn't
really have any tie ins to the pro wrestling world,

(57:27):
which is surprising given all the other boxers who have
gotten involved in wrestling over the years, I don't know
why he never did, but he is part of a
famous tall tale told by Hulk Hogan about what ended
up becoming the George Foreman grill. This is a story
that I've told on the sound off before. It's one
of the legendary Hogan fables. As a little boy, I
enjoyed Aesop's fables. As an adult, I love me a

(57:50):
good Hogan fable, and on this one he has had
different versions over the years. There was the one that
he told on Hogan Knows Best where he said that
his kids were always upset that he would pick them
up late from school, so one day he got there
early and then when he got home, and even that
he's told different versions where he got there early and

(58:12):
he had all kinds of candy and treats for them
waiting in the car. But then in other versions of
the story he went to McDonald and he got hamburgers
and French fries. I don't know what he's feeding these
fucking kids, but even that, there have been different versions
of it, but you know, he got there early, and
then when he got home, he had a voicemail waiting

(58:33):
for him from one of his lawyers telling him that
he had a grill and a blender that he could promote,
and he was calling Hulk first to see if he
wanted the grill before going to George Foreman with it.
And when he called the lawyer back, he said George
had already taken the grill and four hundred and fifty
million dollars later. The rest is history. So later he
told another version of the story where he was having

(58:56):
a chat with his agent who was telling Hulk that
he should put his name on one of these kitchen appliances,
and he had this meatball maker, and Hulk loved the
idea of the meatball maker, and when the agent asked him, well,
what about this other thing, Hulk told him, ah, I
go ahead and give it to your other client. And
of course this never happened. The real story is that

(59:17):
Henry Holmes was Foreman's lawyer, and he also happened to
be Hogan's lawyer for many years and Henry Holmes has
said that it was the It was Foreman that the
grill maker who made the product always wanted for the deal.
But you hear Hulk Cogan tell it he was their
first choice. But that was never the case. He was
never their first choice. He was never a choice. But

(59:41):
that grill sat in Foreman's house until he finally decided
to try it one day and his wife told him, oh,
I already did and it actually works. So why do
I bring all this up? This week, Pablo Torre, who
used to work for ESPN, on his Pablo Torre Finds
Out podcast, talked about the Foreman grill story, you know,

(01:00:01):
in light of his passing, and he actually got a
statement from the family of the Foreman grill maker, Michael Boehm,
and in the statement, the family said, George Foreman was
the only celebrity our dad approached about endorsing the grill.
We don't know who started the story about Hulk Hogan
being approached, but oh I could, I could I know

(01:00:21):
exactly who started that story. He's got an abnormally orange complexion.
But they say, we don't know who started the story
about Hulk Cogan being approached, but it isn't accurate now.
They also went to Henry Holmes, who said that his
recollection of events is different than Hogan's and that the

(01:00:42):
agent involved at the time, this guy named Sam, had
two other celebrities in mind for possible merchandising deals and
possibly for the grill, one being Pamela Anderson and the
other being Chuck Norris, but ultimately it was George Foreman
who got the grill. So in none of these versions
of the story is Hulk Hogan even mentioned, other than

(01:01:03):
in his own mind. But we also had a lot
of drama this week involving the female members of the
Hogan family. And honestly, when this was just the one
video from Linda, I was like, Eh, I'm not even
gonna mention this. But now there's been so much back
and forth. It's just blown up into this big story.
And it began with what really was a cry for

(01:01:24):
help on Instagram from Linda Bolea Hulk's ex wife. This
made headlines on TMZ. This woman is an absolute mess.
In this video, she looks like the fucking Lady Elaine
puppet from Mister Rogers Neighborhood. She's crying and moaning about
the fact that her daughter hasn't spoken to her in

(01:01:45):
almost eight years, before calling her ex husband a liar
and a sex addict. I can think of another word
to describe her ex husband, but she didn't use it.
But before I get into her daughter's response to all this,
and there has since been a bitter back and forth
between them. This is from the video that sparked the

(01:02:06):
entire thing from Linda Hogan. I am home by myself
today again as usual. I'm okay with most things, but
today something hit. I don't know what, but I look
terrible because I've been crying. And yesterday I went to
try to go have botox and shit and they bruised me.

(01:02:26):
Like I don't know, but it's been fifteen years since
I left Hulk Hulk Hogan, and my family is in
the worst mess. Brooke doesn't talk to us. She's had twins,
she got married, she didn't tell us she had twins.
She didn't tell us. She had a huge fight with Terry.
I don't know how that reflected on to me, but
she cut me out too. I haven't talked to her

(01:02:47):
for seven years, almost eight years now. God bless Nick.
He's still such a good boy. Yes, Yes, he's such
a wonderful boy. Maybe she can get engaged to another
one of his friends. You know, after she and Hulk
got divorced, she got engaged to her son's twenty one
year old friend. He was twenty one, she was fifty.

(01:03:11):
They started dating when he was nineteen. They ended up
calling the wedding off shocker. Had they gotten married, that
would have made him Brook's stepfather, and Brooke was a
year older than him. No wonder she wants nothing to
do with this fucking family anymore. But she wasn't finished.
I've never put a Facebook post out like this with

(01:03:33):
my ugly face and my crying face, but I have
to be honest about what I went through in my
marriage with Terry as Hulk Hogan, and what it entailed
and what it has caused over the years. He's a
complete liar. He is a sex addict. Yet he marches on, Oh,
I'm promoting my own beer, real American beer. She made
sure to get the plug in real American beer. Yeah,

(01:03:56):
look at me, whoo. Yeah, he's such a hero, and
then she gives him a thumbs down in the video.
I've given him more opportunities to come back and make
us a family. It's been twenty years and I'm still
this sad. Somebody please explain that. I don't know. It
just doesn't get better. I do love living alone. I

(01:04:18):
don't ever want to be married again after him, trust me.
So that was Linda Hogan. So then Brooke, who is
no longer going by the Hogan name. But well I'm
not she wouldn't go by Hogan, but you know the
Bolean name. But her married name of Brooke Olexi. She's married.
If you don't know, she's married to Steven Olexi, who

(01:04:38):
used to play in the NHL for the Capitals and
the Penguins. She has dropped off the face of the
earth in recent years because she had twins and didn't
want to be in the spotlight anymore. Plus she wanted
to get away from her family. She took to her
Instagram to address her mother's rant. And this is very long,
but I think it's it's worth reading the entire thing.

(01:05:01):
I try very hard to ignore issues surrounding my family
in hopes that I might have peace in my life. Sadly,
I've intentionally made myself smaller in my professional career in
music and TV, simply to dodge the public negativity surrounding
my family that has continuously and relentlessly overshadowed anything I do.
If it were just me, I would continue to take

(01:05:23):
the hits and shrink even smaller to avoid the dangers
of speaking publicly. But I have my own family now
and it's affecting more than just me at this point.
It was a recent video posted by my mother that
was concerning enough for people to send to me that
has made me feel the need to address the tip
of a very large iceberg that is my immediate family.

(01:05:43):
What little I am addressing does not even scratch the
surface of what I've dealt with my entire life. I
will start by saying this video is mild compared to
behavior that I have witnessed for the greater portion of
my life. This also comes in addition to false claims
that she's previously posted than delete it. That being said,
she has been through a lot, a lot of trauma

(01:06:04):
and pain. My heart breaks for her. You can't control
how others treat you, but you can control how you
treat others and cope with things. Too many times I
have ignored things said about me and haven't spoken my truths.
Even so, I will keep things as vague as possible
to continue to protect people that should have protected me.
Most importantly, I have completely separate reasons for going no

(01:06:28):
contact with each of my parents. No contact with my
mom has nothing to do with my dad, and no
contact with my father has nothing to do with my mother.
This also pertains to my dad's second and third now
current wife. This decision was made based purely on how
they have each dealt with me directly my entire life.
What I am about to say is not pointed at

(01:06:49):
either person and is in no particular order when it
comes to who did what. It is my own personal
truth and you can do your own math. I have
been extra dreemly, verbally and mentally abused since childhood. Sadly,
it would frequently turn physical, and sometimes it's not by
the person that you would assume. Abuse comes in all

(01:07:12):
shapes and sizes. This vicious pattern has robbed me of
any sense of self esteem and confidence that I have
been trained to pretend to have. It took me many
years to figure out the things that were seemingly done
quote for me, really benefited someone else in a greater capacity.
Up until adulthood, I've received berating and vile text messages,

(01:07:33):
verbal public reamings with unbelievably hurtful words said to me
that cannot be forgotten. I've been asked to defend poor
behavior to the public and have done so out of love,
only to find that I was misinformed, manipulated, and lied to.
Still to this day, I have faced constant ridicule for
those poor decisions of others. I've watched others benefit financially

(01:07:56):
off of my suffering and embarrassment caused by their selfish
behavior while it caused my life to crumble. I continued
to stay strong and silent. I was expected to and
did forgive massive blows to my career in personal life,
nasty behavior, omissions of truth, blatant lies, manipulation and repetitive
errors in hopes of renewing previous family bonds. I have

(01:08:19):
been used as a pawn, a buffer, and been treated
like I'm downright stupid. No child or human should ever
experience something like this. Feeling in justice, not speaking my truth,
dealing with smear campaigns, flying monkeys, enablers of flying monkeys,
enablers of this behavior, watching fake win over what's real,

(01:08:40):
and losing other family members and friends in an attempt
to stop gossip and ongoing drama is also a painful
side effect of this decision that I deal with daily.
Many people witnessed this behavior and never took action or
took a stand for me, But I did watch them
stick around for the freebies, the money, and association to fame,

(01:09:01):
all of which I chose to give up and was
never important to me in the first place. I guess
some don't speak to avoid getting caught in the crosshairs
as well. I can't blame them. My family is very
skilled at war. I so badly wanted to see good
in them, protect, help and start anew, just to be
disrespected again and again. I long for a normal family,

(01:09:24):
but it never came. I've repeatedly held my hand out
to help them, only to have them pull me into
the darkness with them. I've set boundaries that were not respected,
and at this point I can truly do no more.
So here I am as an adult with a loving
husband and two beautiful children of my own, and what
I can do is take control. I have been to therapy,
I am doing the work. I am breaking the chain.

(01:09:47):
It ends with me. Each individual, on their own has
given me more than enough reasons over the years to
make this extremely hard and painful decision to end contact.
As much as I not only understand and have empathy
for their own s ruggles, I absolutely love them with
every fiber of my being, which deep down I think
they know. My heart hurts every day and not a
day passes. It does not affect me. Inside of me,

(01:10:10):
there is a little girl who desperately wants and needs
her mom and dad. No one wants this, to feel
so much pain and not have parents, but their behavior
became more painful than their absence. I hope one day
they realize, appreciate, and respect why I have chosen to
remain as quiet as possible, not exposing specific names and
details of certain experiences to still try to protect them.

(01:10:34):
It is not something easy to handle, feeling like you're
on an island. Many don't know that years ago I
waited tables to build my own business with zero financial
help from others. But I have worked hard. My whole
life cycles must be broken. I feel God has given
me the strength and duty to do so. At this point,
my husband, my children, and my relationship with God is
my priority. There have been more than enough chances in

(01:10:57):
reprieves given. It has to stop. It ends now. I
will not let the false narrative continue past this point.
Please heed my warning. I am choosing peace, but do
not mistake my kindness or silence for weakness. There are
families without food, parents with sick children, real hardships going
on in the world, and our family was more than blessed,

(01:11:19):
and everyone chose to play their cards differently. Accountability is
a game changer. Life is so precious. I want so
much to be able to enjoy what's important my children
in my life. I've worked so hard to create and
protect and I hope that everyone can give me the
chance to do that without injecting any more poison into it.

(01:11:41):
And you know, as someone who lost both of his parents,
you know part of me looks at this and wants
to say, you know, mend those broken fences, right. You
never know what you have until it's gone. Your parents
aren't going to be around forever. But just because they're
your parents, just because you're bound by blood, does not

(01:12:01):
mean that you are obligated to them for the rest
of your life, especially if you feel like they're making
your life worse and not better, and if they're not
acting like parents if they're acting like a spoiled brat.
What she's alleging here is abuse, which is very serious.
I have a lot of respect for her cutting out
the toxicity for the sake of her own family and

(01:12:23):
you know, dropping out of the spotlight and doing her
own thing. Now, it wasn't twenty four hours later after
Brooke released that statement that Linda responded on her Facebook
page and so what did she do? This woman who
bemoans the fact that her daughter, her only daughter, will
not speak to her for eight years, and that she

(01:12:46):
doesn't even get to see her grandchildren? Right, So what
is her solution to all that? It is to attack her?
This is what she said. Seems narcissism runs deep in
this family. Brooke is a narcissist, just like her dad,
going out and spewing lies to everyone. And I'm supposed
to defend my truth against that. I'm not about to

(01:13:07):
do that. It seems to me that she doesn't want
the truth being revealed to her new husband and his
family about who she was and things in her past.
I think I spanked Brooke once. Yeah, I called her
a couple of names, but by no means ever treated
her the way that she's painting it. They had cell phones.
She could have posted horrible things about me back what

(01:13:28):
all of this was supposedly happening. But she didn't because
nothing was happening. But when she took her dad's side
after the divorce and wrote the Wonderful Mom song and
went to all the tabloids because Terry was using her
as a tool, her memory is completely skewed about the
treatment that she received growing up in our household. And
you can talk to anyone, you can ask anybody, you

(01:13:48):
can ask Terry. None of that stuff ever happened. It's
her angle to keep her family away from her now
revealing who she used to be. After drinking a half
bottle of vodka, she was so drunk she broke my
collar bone and cut my lip and insisted everyone take
her to the hospital because she was poisoned. And she wasn't.
She was just drunk. There's many stories like that. I'm

(01:14:10):
not going to go on, but I'm going to defend
myself against these ridiculous allegations, or not defend myself, she says,
and said I'll do that in court if she keeps
it up. And as I read this, it reminded me
so much of Vicky Guerrero's response to her daughter two
years ago, when her daughter accused her stepfather of sexually

(01:14:32):
assaulting her on the Jericho Cruise in twenty twenty. I
was on that cruise. She's creepy to even think about.
She said that she wasn't the only one either, but
that was their story to tell. Chavo chimed in at
the time on social media and said that he had
been helping Sherilyn privately ever since, basically throwing his full
support behind the daughter, and so Vicky's horrendous response to

(01:14:56):
all of this at the time was to attack her
daughter as an narcissist and as a drunken whore in
so many words, is basically what she called her, and
threatening to take her to court sound familiar. I had
to do a double take to make sure I wasn't
reading Vicky's old post. And nowhere in Vicki's post, by

(01:15:17):
the way, did she ever deny her daughter's claims, which
was very interesting all things considered. I actually thought Brooke
did a good job though, of keeping it civil and
holding back on her mom. It sounds like she could
have said far worse about her, but she opted not to.
But Linda decided to go scorched earth, and she decided
to go into attack mode. This is a woman who

(01:15:37):
is completely oblivious to the fact that she may be
part of the problem here. Evidently she doesn't think so.
And so Brooke responded again, saying, first of all, it
appears my mother may not have actually read what I wrote.
She absolutely did make false claims like she had never
met my husband and she doesn't even know what his

(01:15:58):
name is, and then deleted it. She went on to
claim that despite her mom saying that she hasn't spoken
to me for a number of years, she has a
picture with her and my husband together on a day
that we did lunch together. I did not ask for this,
nor did I even want to make a statement, But
I also couldn't let people continue to speak for me.
My name is continuously brought up in the constant drama

(01:16:19):
of my family. My post did not directly accuse anyone
of the behaviors mentioned, So if she's triggered by something
I think that speaks volumes. She is, however, making a
serious accusation against me directly that has zero validity, and
that I take seriously. I have plenty of people who
know the truth, and I know the truth, so I
am not afraid I showed compassion for her in my post.

(01:16:41):
At this point, I think her response says more about
her than it does about me. So Brooks's husband responded
to all of this next, I mean, this is just
this cascading drama here, which is one thing after another.
So he responded on Instagram that he could take no
more or of seeing his wife's name drag through the mud,

(01:17:02):
and this is what he wrote. I cannot stand by
and allow anyone to continue to hurt not only the
most amazing person I am fortunate enough to call my wife,
but also the distorted sense of power and relevance the
media can sometimes grant individuals. The claim that my wife
broke Jane Doe's collar bone he doesn't want to name
her was laughable to those who know the truth. I

(01:17:24):
myself have only had one sip of alcohol in my life,
and that was to celebrate a Stanley Cup Championship victory
the age of thirty two. My wife will have the
occasional cocktail or a glass of wine, but neither of
us have ever used drugs or any other substance. That
may alter reality, so it should be understood that the
suggestion that my wife is a party girl or a

(01:17:44):
drunk comes shortly after the assertion that I had never
met Jane Doe and that she didn't know my name,
despite the fact that we sat at the same lunch
table and even took a picture together. And he also
dismissed claims that the couple tied the knot without the
knowledge of the fing family, called it unfair because they
were reportedly left with no option when another party involved

(01:18:06):
said they don't do weddings or funerals, and while he
doesn't name the other party, it is implied that that
person is Hulk Cogan. He says, Unfortunately, it was the
only viable option when another party involved said I don't
do weddings or funerals anymore, which is perplexing considering that
same person has attended multiple weddings since then, and even
a wedding of their own. He went on to share

(01:18:29):
instances highlighting who Brooke is at her core for those
who may still have doubts about his wife's character. In
one example, he says, this individual, presumably Hulk, refused to
attend a Stevie Nicks concert, with Brooke making a false
claim that they do not attend concerts anymore, even though
they have since been spotted at concerts, sporting events, and

(01:18:51):
comedy shows. In another example, he claims that Brooke renovated
and designed a home for the individual again presumed to
be her dad for free, hoping to only watch a
sunset together, which this person refused to do by walking away,
so she watched it by herself. My wife made a final,
resolute decision. She asked to be removed from all future

(01:19:13):
financial involvement, requesting her release from documents that had her
in a substantial fiduciary and financial position once certain events transpired.
She said to me, if I can't have honesty and
time with them, I don't want anything. And it goes
on from there. It's a much longer statement, but he's

(01:19:34):
standing up for his wife, and even as I am
sitting here recording this, I noticed before there has been
even more that has come out. The one thing is
apparently Hulk and his wife posted on his Instagram a
video that he very quickly deleted because I don't think
it's there anymore, but of course you could always find
it on social media. Will live on forever, But it

(01:19:54):
was meant to be a funny video. It's him, It's
Hulk and his wife sitting in a restaurant somewhere with
two giant bags of popcorn, and they're looking at something
and they're obviously it's reference to all the ongoing family drama.
They're making light of it, which is a wonderful reaction
to all of the things that your own daughter had
to say. But I think that's enough for today. It

(01:20:16):
sounds like she simply had enough of her parents shit
and decided to cut all ties, even financial ones that
she might benefit from, just to leave that part of
her life behind and try to have some semblance of normalcy.
And I say good for her. She always seemed like
the most sane out of that entire bunch. But it's
said that she's raising a family and cut her parents out.

(01:20:39):
But if I had parents like that, I wouldn't want
them around my kids either. There are iconic matches in
wrestling that will live forever, right, matches that are going
to be talked about and dissected, And one of the
most famous of them all is the Helena Cell match
between Mankind and the Undertaker at the King Ring in

(01:21:00):
nineteen ninety eight. I can remember exactly where I was
when I watched that show. I was in my living
room watching with my brother and my father. I was
sitting on the floor right in front of the TV.
My dad was sitting on the recliner behind me. And
when Mick Foley got thrown off the top of that cell.
My father wasn't one to sell like a shock or

(01:21:21):
fear or anything like that. If he was watching wrestling,
yeah he may laugh at something, but on this night,
he was shocked. I was shocked, right, everybody was shocked
by what they saw. When you see this three hundred
pound man flying through the air from sixteen feet up
and there's no net, there's no one there to catch him.
Although who the hell is going to catch him from

(01:21:42):
sixteen feet up. I'm getting my ass out of the
way if that's the case. But it's still one of
the craziest things that I've ever seen, and little did
I know that it would get even crazier as the
match progressed. The word I would use to describe this
match is it was inexperience, and it was sort of
a dividing line in the career of mcfoley because there's

(01:22:03):
pre cell and there's post cell. Yeah, that man took
a lot of bumps and a lot of punishment in
his career long before he ever scaled that cage, but
the abuse that he took that night in Pittsburgh is
something that likely took years off his life. Forget his career,
his life, and I do worry about the long term
effects and what mcfoley is going to sound like and

(01:22:27):
be like ten years from now. And that's just me
as a fan. What must his family think? How concerned
must they be? And that was one aspect to this
episode of Dark Side of the Ring, the first one
of the new season, season six, that makes this something
other than just a rehash of a match that we've

(01:22:48):
heard about already six thousand times. It's the human toll
on the man and his family. Mcfoley is not a
crash test dummy. Mcfoley is a human being who is
lucky that he made it out of there alive that night,
despite his own stupidity and the stupidity of the company
that allowed him to do it in the first place,
and even after that first bump, they allowed the match

(01:23:11):
to go on, all in the name of creating a
lasting moment on a television show where grown men and
women play fight with each other. Like I'm a wrestling fan.
I've been a wrestling fan my whole life, but even
I can sit here and admit how fucking dumb it
all really was. Right. It was memorable, for sure, but
at what cost, not only to Mike Foley, but to

(01:23:33):
all the other wrestlers and people that you know, kids
that got into the business thinking that they had to
do the same thing to get over or they had
to somehow find a way to top what Folly did
that night. That is part of his legacy too. He
owns that, and for me, that's where the dark part
of this Dark Side of the Ring episode really comes

(01:23:55):
into play. I reviewed every episode of this show through
the first five five seasons. This will not go down
as the best episode they've ever done, just because the
source material has been analyzed to death and there really
wasn't too much new to add. But I thought they
did a good job of covering all the key aspects
and adding some comments from you know, not only Folly himself,
but his wife, his daughter, two of his sons. It

(01:24:19):
was sort of a combo hell and a cell nck
Foley episode because it also covered his his career in general.
Some of the other matches, like the I Quit match
with the Rock at the Royal Rumbland ninety nine, which
is another example of destroying his brain in ways that
we're not even really aware of yet. It was supposed
to be five chair shots to the head. It ended
up being eleven share shots to the head. It doesn't

(01:24:40):
matter when the Rock is out there swinging for the
fences like he's Barry Bonds. But Chris Jericho is back
as the narrator for this season. Jim Ross and Jim
Cornett were both interviewed for this as was Al Snow.
He's been friends with Mick for years. They are constantly
cracking jokes on each other. There is no joke that

(01:25:01):
Mick Foley could ever tell about Al Snow that is
ever going to top the question that one guy sent
into Al's You Shoot with Sean Oliver, where he said,
I hope I'm remembering this right, but the guy said,
you know. Al is quoted as saying that a good
match is the one that draws the most money, and so,
by Al's very own logic, would it be fair to

(01:25:23):
say that Al snow never had a good match in
his entire career. Like the screenshot of that as like
they're looking at the screen and they have the question
on the screen, like it will forever live rent free
in my head. It is one of the greatest things
that I have ever seen. Like I don't even remember
what Al's response was to the question. I don't even care,

(01:25:44):
Like it's just the greatest moment in you shoot history,
followed only by rvd's impersonation of Shawn Michaels. That's number two.
Collette Foley, Mick's wife, talked about how he would watch
twelve hours of Japanese wrestling a day. That woman must
have the patience of a saint. But he felt Japan
is where he can make a real living for himself

(01:26:05):
doing all the hardcore shit, and he did. He did
death matches in Japan with Terry Funk. Jim Ross is
the one who went to bat to bring him into
the WWF. Vince McMahon wanted nothing to do with him,
and ultimately he relented. He told JR. Look, if he
doesn't work out, basically it's your ass. And also I'm
going to bring him in, but I'm putting him in

(01:26:25):
a mask, and that's how Mankind was born, or Mankind
the Mutilator, as the original name was that they wanted
to give him before they shortened it. And Jr. Said,
you know, he recognized the need for Undertaker to have
a new opponent, and Mankind would end up as the
Undertaker's greatest rival. I know a lot of people are
going to say Kin and I understand why they would

(01:26:46):
say that with the story that they created for them.
But to me, Mankind is and will forever be the
Undertaker's greatest adversary because he was really the first guy
they brought in who felt like an equal to the Undertaker,
like someone that had his number. He beat him in
their first match at the King of the Ring in
ninety six, and then he beat him again and took

(01:27:08):
his manager from him at SummerSlam, and then came the
Buried Live match and their Revenge of the Taker match
after WrestleMania at thirteen. I enjoyed all of those matches.
You know. He's also the one who brought that dead
Man character to the first really great matches that he
ever had. He was the Joker to Undertaker's Batman, not Kane.

(01:27:31):
It was Mankind but Foley said they had seven pay
per view matches and ten television matches together and then
his character had sort of plateaued and he needed to
try something different to add to his legacy. Enter Hell
in a Cell one of the most famous matches of
all time, and it wasn't even supposed to happen. This
is what they didn't mention in the documentary. Foley was

(01:27:53):
coming off two straight pay per view title matches with
Stone Cold Steve Austin as Dude Love and he lost
them both. But according to Bruce Prichard many years ago
on his podcast, the plan was for them to run
it back one more time with the King of the Ring.
I don't know why because Austin beat him pretty decisively
in their last match, which is a great match by
the way, they're over the Edge match, But that was

(01:28:16):
the plan. Vince McMahon then changed his mind, as he
was known to do, and he wanted to shake things up,
so he put Austin together with Cain in a first
Blood match, and Cain got to win the title for
twenty four hours. That's one of the things I miss
about WWEE today. It's like they're afraid to shake things up.

(01:28:36):
We'll have Roman reigns as champion for three and a
half years, and Cody now is coming up on a
year as champion, and they do other things too that
just so often it just feels like the status quo.
You know, it shouldn't take the Rock coming back to
shake things up. But that left Folly with no opponent,
so they put him back together with the Undertaker, even

(01:28:58):
though they had already done five papers matches together. And
fully told Bruce, like, how the hell am I supposed
to top what Taker and Sean did in the first Hell
in a Cell? And he said, yeah, he says the
same thing that I say, which is that Shawn Michaels
against the Undertaker is still the greatest Hell in a
Cell match of all time. And there's been more than
fifty of them now, including a pretty great one a

(01:29:20):
Bad Blood a few months ago, but the original is
still the best one. But Foley was trying to figure out,
like what he could do to try to top it,
so he went to his mentor. He went to Terry Funk,
and Terry was just joking when he told Mick, you
know what you should do. You should start on top
of the cell and get thrown off fully didn't take

(01:29:40):
it as a joke. He took it as a challenge. Now,
all he had to do is convince Undertaker and Vince McMahon.
Somehow he managed to convince Vince. I don't know how
he did, but he convinced Vince to let him do it.
Undertaker was not sold on the idea, but eventually he relented.
He was probably just thinking, can I even climb up

(01:30:00):
on top of that thing? Because Undertaker came in with
a broken ankle. It didn't mention that either in the episode.
All the focus was on Foley's injuries, but Undertaker came
into that hell in a cell match with a fractured ankle,
and Jim Ross claims that he had no idea the
spot off the top was coming. He liked to be
kept in the dark about what was going to happen.

(01:30:22):
The top panels on the cage they're held together by
zip ties, and the zip ties are popping off, like
just in the opening minute of the match from the
weight of them walking on them. They almost fell through
right then and there. And Mick was going to try
supplex up there, and he said that Undertaker cut that
shit off real quick because he was worried that they

(01:30:44):
would both fall through that I didn't know. I mean
to listen to Mick tell it. You could see where
he goes to supplex him and undertaker stuffs the attempt,
But to hear him tell it, the plan may have
been for him to actually suplex him on their Undertaker's like, yeah,
fuck that, that's not happening. And then came the toss,
and really it is the most iconic single moment in

(01:31:07):
company history. I would argue behind only Hogan slamming Andre
at wrestle Mania three, Hogan slamming Andre at WrestleMania three,
that is the moment. Number two is that sight of
Folly flying off the top of the cell. I've seen
it a thousand times. It never ceases to amaze me.
How he didn't kill himself, or how he didn't kill

(01:31:28):
somebody else. At least they gave the Spanish announcers a
heads up that something was gonna happen. Hugosavinovich has said
that about an hour before the show, they were told
that Foley was going to fly off, so it's not
as if, you know, they kept them in the dark,
and then Foley just launched himself. But still they didn't
have a lot of time to react, like you've got
a three hundred pound body hurtling down towards you and

(01:31:51):
he's fallen fast. It's a miracle that they didn't get killed,
or that Folly didn't land on any of the fans
in the front row, or even worse, land on the barricade,
because if that had happened, you know, Meltzer would have
had a full obituary for him the following week and
the Observer. But he hit just enough of the Spanish

(01:32:12):
announced table to sort of cushion the blow a little bit,
and then he hit the floor, and of course we
got the iconic JR. Call, you know, good God Almighty,
they killed him, and as God is my witness, he's
broken in half and he's laying there on the floor
with a dislocated shoulder. Although that was the least of
his injuries in this match, he also dislocated his jaw,

(01:32:32):
He was severely concussed, He had three teeth dislodged, one
of which ended up sticking out of his fucking nostril.
In the episode, JR. Claims one of the doctors that
he talked to after told him that Folly actually swallowed
the tooth, but he was breathing so heavily that he
sucked it back up through his nose.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
I'll believe him only because I have no other idea
of how fucking tooth would end up sticking out of
someone's nostril like that. So I'm not really at a
position that to be like, oh, I don't believe that,
because I don't know how else it would have happened.
And at that point, if they would have ended the match,
you would totally understand. Yeah, you would have been disappointed
because the match just started, but you would understand. But

(01:33:15):
halfway down the aisle, Folly gets up off the gurney
and this son of a bitch starts climbing back up
with a dislocated shoulder. Undertaker's already halfway down the cage.
Now he starts climbing back up with a broken ankle,
no less. And I can remember watching this. I can
remember this rush of adrenaline that I got. I'm not

(01:33:38):
even in the match, I'm just watching the match, and
I got like a like a rush of adrenaline watching it,
thinking like, if they're going back up there, how the
hell are they going to top?

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
We just saw right, you know, they're not just gonna
climb down gracefully, like why are they going back up?
And then came the second bump, which was somehow even
worse than the first one. Undertaker choke slams him, and
it's really less of a choke slam and more of
a shove down through one of the cell panels all

(01:34:11):
the way down to the canvas, sixteen feet down. And
those old rings were like concrete when you landed. They
had no give to them. It was absolutely terrifying. There
was a chair that was up there with them that
fell through when mankind did, and part of the chair
smacked him in the face on the landing. Folly was out.

(01:34:34):
He was legitimately out. It was either forty five seconds,
whatever it was. He was out, out, out cold, even
though he was moving and twitching around. I thought he
was dead. Undertaker legitimately thought he was dead. Terry Funk
in the past has said that that top part of
the cell was rigged to sag a little bit and

(01:34:56):
Folly would then kind of slowly roll off and then
crashed down to the mat. But everybody involved claims it
was never supposed to just give out The way that
it did. That part wasn't planned, and so the first
one rushing into the cage to make sure that he
was alive is doctor Francois Petite, who was really less

(01:35:18):
of a doctor and more of a probably like a
Cairo practor or a messuse for Vince McMahon. He also
played sub Zero in the first Mortal Kombat movie, which
is pretty wild. I always played the arcade games as
sub Zero. He was my guy. I would shoot that
ice puddle on the ground and just wait until the

(01:35:40):
opponent got close enough for me to spam them with uppercuts.
Good times. But they actually found him and they interviewed
him for this episode. Now. They didn't stop the match
after the first bump, which he was lucky to survive.
They didn't stop the match after the second bump, which
he was even luckier to survive, so they allowed the
match to continue. How this man is even able to stand,

(01:36:04):
I'll never know. There's a point there where he gets
to his feet, an undertaker gives him a punch and
he just like it wasn't even him selling it. He literally,
like in slow motion, just sort of fell like crumbled
to the mat and you could see Undertaker is clearly
trying to communicate with him, like let's go home, Like

(01:36:25):
let's just take this home, and Foley's like, no, I mean,
he's on dream Street, but he just really wanted to
get to the thumbtack spot. This was the first time
thumbtacks were introduced into a WWE match. You know, it's
funny listening to clips of Cornett on his show every
now and then whenever somebody does like a hardcore match

(01:36:45):
or a thumbtack spot or a flaming table spot, or
John Moxley does it pretty much anything, and the way
he shits all over it, you won't really hear him
shit on Folly because of the reverence that he has
for that man. But it was people like Mick Foley
doing stuff like this that played a part in all
the hardcore shit that we see on TV today, including
an AAW. Not that deathmatch wrestling didn't exist before Cactus Jack,

(01:37:10):
but like Foley is the one who really popularized it
at the highest level and brought it to the four
more than any other single person, at least here in
the US. He influenced a generation of kids far more
than most do you know who do this type of stuff.
So Folly gets slammed onto the thumb tacks, but he

(01:37:30):
doesn't get all of it, so he tells the referee
to tell the Undertaker to choke slam him onto the tax,
which he does and then comes to the tombstone and
mercifully the match is over. And I can't believe what
I just watched, you know, Jim Ross says, in twenty
five years, he's never witnessed anything that even closely resembles this,

(01:37:51):
and I believe him. It's not hyperbole. There's nothing that
he ever saw working for Bill Watts in Mid South
or for WCW let alone WWE that ever came close
to what he saw in this match, and he had
a ringside seat for it. And Foley was so out

(01:38:11):
of it that in the back later he kept asking
the Undertaker like did we use the tax? Did we
get to use the tax? And he's asking this while
they are pulling thumb tacks out of his body, like
he had no idea, and so they portrayed it like.
He also got this great reaction when he was leaving
because he didn't want to be carried out, so he

(01:38:33):
gets to his feet. He was being helped by like
Terry Funk and some of the referees, but he wanted
to walk out on his own power. And they make
it out like he got this great ovation, but if
you really go back and watch it, it's not like
he got a standing ovation. It's more like polite applause. Right.
It was hardly a standing ovation like he would get
today today. Forget about it. I think him a five

(01:38:54):
minute ovation. You deserve it, and this is awesome and
all this other nonsense. But it wasn't anything like that.
And he wasn't even done for the night. They sent
him back out during the main event between Steve Austin
and Kane, and he took more bumps. His night wasn't over.

(01:39:14):
Dislocated John shoulder, bruised kidney, fifteen stitches in his upper lip,
A nice, big, healthy dose of CTE. Was it worth it?
Six months later he was WWE Champion for the first time.
He would probably tell you it was, but was it really?

Speaker 3 (01:39:34):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
I met Foley two weeks after this match. They sent
him Owen Hart, Mark, Henry and Ludovashan into our luxury
box at the Metal Ends for Monday Night Raw, the
first Rye ever went to live, and they sent them
into the luxury box. They did autographs, and they took
pictures and just hung out with us for about fifteen
twenty minutes. And he was in rough shape. And if

(01:39:57):
anybody deserved a long vacation after that match, it was him.
But there was no vacation. It was just on to
the next And here in this episode they jumped ahead
to the e quip match at the Royal Rumble with
the Rock. Rock was supposed to bash him in the
head with the steel chair five times. He got a
little carried away and he ends up taking eleven unprotected

(01:40:21):
chair shots to the head with his hands cuffed behind
his back, so it's not even like he could put
his hands up even if he wanted to. All while
his wife and kids, his little kids, are sitting in
the crowd watching in horror, like if you saw Beyond
the Mat many years ago when it came out, like
it's all documented in there. And as Cornett said here,

(01:40:42):
he got brain damage for a fucking wrestling angle on television.
Mick's daughter Noel, she says that she has no memories
of watching her dad on TV. She figures that she's
just sort of blocked it all out due to the trauma.
You know what would she have been back then, six
seven years old. She's practically in tears in this saying

(01:41:03):
how much she hates the eye quip match anytime anybody
brings it up, like she just she hates it to
this day. I have no idea why Mick or his
wife thought that it would be a good idea to
have his kids in the crowd to watch him get
his brains beaten and five times, eleven times it doesn't matter,
I know, and beyond the mat he felt really bad
about it when he saw their reaction in the back after,

(01:41:24):
but like, why would you even allow that? Why would
you think that's even something that should be done? And
then at the end of the episode to focus more
on mixed concern about his future health and his family's
concerned about his health. These are the real life consequences
of all the abuse that he put his body and
his brain through over all these years. Like, I'm really

(01:41:44):
happy that Mick is still as lucid and as articulate
as he is, because I'm not gonna lie. I thought
he would be a punch drunk mess by this point.
I'm surprised the man even knows his own name. One
of the reasons he does is One Man Shows is
because he he says, it helps keep his brain sharp.
It's like mental gymnastics for him because he is scared

(01:42:06):
to death of how he is going to end up.
And he really is a cautionary tale for any aspiring
pro wrestler that there is a price to be paid
for not taking care of yourself and taking the kind
of bumps that he took. You know, the wrestling business
is better off for not allowing people to do the
type of things that Nick Foley did. And maybe it's
still the wild West in some companies where they let

(01:42:28):
you do whatever the hell you want and nobody has
the spine to tell them no. But Mick took all
of this punishment. You know, in WWE back then, in
WWE like today, they would never allow this type of shit, never,
and that's a good thing. So they talked about how
Mick started forgetting where he lived when he would be driving,

(01:42:51):
and he said that he didn't he didn't like what
the WWE neurologist told him. I can only imagine what
that conversation was like. So he booked an appointment with
his own and that neurologist told him that you should
never wrestle again. He was unequivocal about that. And Noel
brings up CTE and admits that they don't know how

(01:43:12):
her dad is going to be doing in ten years
or in twenty years. And she says that she and
her dad, they were at the WWE warehouse not that
long ago, and they came across the cell from that night.
She made it sound like it was the actual hell
in a cell cage that they used in Pittsburgh that
night and Mick, I guess, wasn't expecting it to be there,

(01:43:33):
so he walked over to it and he touched it,
and it was the first time she saw her dad cry.
And you know, Foley says he's lucky that he's even
here after that match, but he says he doesn't know
if he would have done anything different. You know, if
they did know then what they know now about concussions,

(01:43:54):
and it's one of those things. And yes, you know,
there's been a lot of concussion research and nobody was
talking about CTE or knew what it was back then.
That's true, But I've heard like guys in the old
ECW who took all those bumps and abuse, chair shots
to the head. You know, talk about this before, and
it's just it's just ridiculous to me, Like they talk
about it in some cases as if well, I had

(01:44:14):
no idea that getting bashed in the fucking head with
a chair as hard as possible would possibly lead to
issues down the road. It's like, even in nineteen ninety nine,
I guarantee you people knew that taking bumps like this
and taking shots to the head was probably not a
good thing. So, I mean, you're not going to learn
too much in the way of new information if you've

(01:44:36):
already had the chance to read Foley's book, or if
you've heard him and the Undertaker talk about the match before.
But I like the added insight from Foley's family. It's
sobering to listen to them talk about their fear of
what the future holds, but there's not a whole lot
that they can really do about it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:54):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):
It's kind of like whatever will be will be. At
this point, he knew the risks, He felt the need
to take those risks because in his mind, it was
the only way for someone who looked like him to
get noticed and to get himself over and it worked.
He was one of the most popular names and important
figures of the Attitude era. Steve Austin needed an opponent

(01:45:15):
coming out of his title win at WrestleMania. Mick Foley
was there to put him over twice. He worked with
The Rock after he won his first world title. He
helped bring out a sinister side of The Rock that
we had not seen before. Same goes for Triple H.
He helped elevate Triple H to main event status with

(01:45:35):
their street fight at Madison Square Garden and their Hell
in a Cell match. He put that man over twice.
He breathed new life into the Undertaker character. He gave
him his greatest rival. He worked with a young Randy
Orton later on to give him one of the most
memorable matches of his career. He was very giving in
his career, but he gave his body and he gave

(01:45:58):
his health to wrestling more than anything. And nowhere is
that more evident than in that Hell and a Cell
match with the Undertaker, which, now that they're inducting matches
into the Hall of Fame, is without a doubt going
to be inducted in the next few years. This Tuesday's
episode is all about Ludvig Borga, the man who ended

(01:46:21):
to Tanka's two year undefeated streak. I have a feeling
that is the least that we're going to be hearing
about in this episode. I'm more interested to hear about
all this stuff about him that you know, doesn't get
talked about and that a lot of people don't know
outside of wrestling. He actually is a very fascinating figure.
Maybe not the nicest guy, but a very fascinating figure
who I think will make a good topic for Dark

(01:46:42):
Side of the Ring. All right, let's get to your
mailbag questions. If you've got some, send him on over
the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com. You got a
bunch of them this week. Please try to include your
name and where you are from this one here, we're
gonna kick things off here with an audio question, and
this one was submitted by keish.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
Hey solo keysh Here. Since it's WrestleMania season, my friends
and I were discussing what three WrestleMania matches would you
show somebody that has never seen wrestling a day in
their life. We came up with this list. Rock versus
Hogan at WrestleMania eighteen. The Undertaker versus Sewn Michaels at
WrestleMania twenty five and Cody Rhoads versus Roman Reigns at

(01:47:26):
WrestleMania forty. What would your three matches be?

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):
Okay, so we're sticking to WrestleMania matches only I would
show them Brett Hart against Steve Austin from WrestleMania thirteen.
I would show them TLC two from WrestleMania X seven.
And I would agree with you on Cody Roads and
Roman Reigns from WrestleMania forty. Because here's the deal. I

(01:47:50):
think you want some variety here, right, especially for a
non fan. You don't want to just show them a
bunch of great technical wrestling matches. Hard Austin is just
this great, intense fight between two men. The TLC match
gives them that insanity that I think will really hold
their attention. I would especially love to see the look

(01:48:11):
on their face when Edge spears Jeff Hardy off the ladder.
And last year's main event is one of the greatest
that they've ever done. You know, I've said it's like
the Avengers Endgame of WWE. Even a non fan who's
not familiar with all the stories they're gonna see John
Cena come out, the Rock, the Undertaker, and just all
of the insanity at the end, and they're gonna be hooked.

(01:48:34):
And once they're hooked, that's when you can show them
Savage and Steamboat and you know, Kurt Angle and Sean
Michaels and brock Lesnar against John Cena at Extreme Rules
and John Cena and Sea I'm punking money in the
bank and so on and so forth. Daniel from Chicago,
This WrestleMania build has been mid The Sena turn has

(01:48:57):
not hit like I thought it would. The Rock being
Gonda doesn't help scene, and not mentioning it also has
not helped. Kind of makes me wish it was CM
Punk who turned heel. He wanted the main events so
bad that he was willing to sell out. Then comes
the favor to keep Cody Road strong. You have Paul
Hayman helped Punk cheat to win. What are your thoughts.

(01:49:18):
I think it could have worked. I think it could
have worked. We have to see this through to the end,
though I do. I just I want to like the
scene of heel stuff more than I'm liking it right now.
I kind of hate the fact that I don't like
it as much as I thought I would, which is
why I keep saying like I'm just really hoping that
they kick it into next gear. Maybe maybe, now that
the European tour is coming to an end, the Rock

(01:49:39):
will be back and they'll they'll try something different than
what we've been seeing. I don't know, but I have
no doubt in my mind that if they went with Punk,
and especially if they went with your idea and we
ended up getting a Hayman Punk, like a permanent reunion
between the two, I think that would have been great.
Justin from Chicago. I love how all the Chicago questions

(01:50:01):
are about CM Punk. I echo the sentiment that while
the triple threat match is worthy of the Night one
main event, it feels somewhat lackluster with nothing on the line.
So how about this. It's announced that the winner of
the match gets a title shot against the top champion
of their brand, while the wrestler who gets pinned cannot
challenge for their brand's top title for the rest of
twenty twenty five. Rollins ends up pinning Punk to win

(01:50:24):
the match and goes on to defeat Jay Usso at
Money in the Bank to win the World Heavyweight Championship.
As a result, Punk begins his downward spiral, knowing that
Seth is the champion and he can't do anything about it.
This culminates in Punk cashing in his favor with Paul Hayman,
which is to facilitate a move to SmackDown. This would
build to an eventual match with John Cena for the

(01:50:45):
undisputed WWE Championship as the nine two main event for SummerSlam.
You can then start a proper program with Punk and
Rains heading into the Fall, as both men will be
on the same brand. What do you think, Yeah, I
mean it could work. I just you're gonna move Punk

(01:51:06):
over to SmackDown. That's a big name for Raw to lose,
you know, without getting somebody in return. So you can't
just move Punk over and now you're gonna have Punk
and Cody and Roman, you know, all on the same show,
and then Raw has rollins Like I'm sorry, but that's
hardly fair. So that part of it would have to

(01:51:27):
be worked out. I just the whole idea of like, oh,
you can't challenge for the rest of the year, Like,
I'm not a huge fan of that, you know, But
as far as like him and seen ed SummerSlam and
then kind of progressing into a singles program with him
and Roman. I think that would be fine. It's just
the other stuff that you would have to work out.

(01:51:48):
We got the Mount Vernon kid Christopher Bennett from the
YouTube channel. Are you going to talk about the Mandy
Rose debacle that she has been spewing on her Twitter
claiming that she was a double champion and yet she
doesn't know the difference between unification and holding two separate titles. Well,

(01:52:08):
you sent the question in, so I guess I will.
The whole thing is stupid. You know, Mandy talks about
how she makes ten times more money doing OnlyFans than
she ever made wrestling, and yet she's arguing with wrestling
fans online over semantics about whether or not she or
Stephanie Vicaire was the first ever women's double champion. She

(01:52:31):
wasn't She unified the NXT UK Women's Championship with the
NXT Women's Championship. The moment that she pinned Blair Davenport
in that triple threat match with Mako at Worlds Collide,
the titles were unified as one. Stephanie Pinjulia and became
a double champion at Roadblock, she defended both belts individually

(01:52:52):
on TV this week. That's the difference. Stephanie is a
double champion. Mandy Rose was not. This is all very dumb.
Jonathan from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was wondering what
your take is on some people saying that Adam Copeland
coming back from retirement was a mistake. I've heard Jim

(01:53:13):
Cornett say that him coming back has ended up tarnishing
his legacy to a large degree. Meanwhile, other people like
Tony Schavani have argued that there's nothing he can do
to ruin what he accomplished in WWE, and Sean ross
Sapp also said some of Copeland's booking was ultimately out
of his control. Do you think Copeland coming back to
wrestling was a mistake in hindsight or do you think

(01:53:35):
this is all blown out of proportion. I mean, Sewn
may be talking about Copeland's booking being out of his
control when it comes to the ballor match of WrestleMania
thirty nine. I guarantee you though his booking the last
couple of years that ain't out of his control. I'm
sure he has a lot of say into what, especially
in AAW, into what he's doing. So to that extent,

(01:53:59):
I don't think that still applies. Do I think Copeland
coming back was a mistake. No, and I'll tell you why,
because he gets to go out on his own terms.
This is a man who thought his career was over.
He was told you're never going to be cleared, You're
never going to wrestle again, so that's it. And at
the time he was told that there was no such

(01:54:19):
thing as AAW and so in twenty eleven he thought, well,
that's it. I just wrestled my last match. Then he
had the opportunity to come back. And I can't fault
the guy for coming back and wanting to end his
career on his terms instead of being forced into an
early retirement because some doctors said, hey, you can't wrestle anymore.

(01:54:40):
But one thing I can say is I cannot say
that his return has really benefited anybody, you know, least
of all himself. It certainly hasn't really added to his legacy,
you know. I think the best thing that he's been
a part of was the program with Seth Rollins. Is
like the matches they had were all great, All three
of them and Edge one two out of the three.

(01:55:00):
By the way, So since he came back, even in WWE,
he has been booked very strong and even stronger in AW.
Has he ruined his legacy? No, I can't sit here
and say that. You know, he's able to go out
there and on his terms, he's obviously having fun, you know,
going out there and working with different people and working

(01:55:21):
with his friends. And when he's done, which I think
in the past he said maybe you know, in the
next couple of years, you know, he'll wind down and
he'll get to end his career on his own terms
the way that he wants to. He got to work
with his best friend again, you know, as enemies, and
soon enough they're going to be working together again as
tag team partners. I have no doubt. In fact, I'll

(01:55:43):
say it right now, they're gonna be the AW Tag
Team Champions, and I think they He'll look back and say,
you know what, that's pretty cool that I had the
chance to come back and do all that. But I'm
not going to sit here and pretend like it's added
so much to his legacy. It really hasn't. But how
can I here and say that it was a mistake
for him to come back when the guy was out

(01:56:03):
for nine years and you know, he obviously is still
passionate about this and he just wanted to come back
and end things on his own terms. I can't, I
can't say that was a mistake. Jared from Orlando, Florida.
If Cody Rhoads wasn't the one who dethroned Roman Reigns,
buy sell and rent on, who you would have chosen

(01:56:24):
to be the one to do it. Drew McIntyre at
Clash at the Castle, Sammy Zain at Elimination Chamber, and
Jay Uso at SummerSlam twenty twenty three. Well, I mean
it's it's either Drew or Sammy. It's a I'm gonna
sell on jay Uso, you know, I hm, it really

(01:56:45):
should have been Drew a Clash at the Castle, but
obviously the story with Sammy being the honorary oose and
then finally splitting away from them and then they're in
they're in Montreal for the Elimination Chamber. I really don't
think you could go wrong with either one. But as
far as like, if we're looking to annoint the next guy,

(01:57:07):
not just have a moment, but like really whoever beats Roman,
that's gonna be our guy going forward. It's Drew McIntyre.
It would not have been Sammy's Sammy's ay, and it
would have been for the moment, and maybe he would
have had a few months and then that would have
been it. Drew should have been that guy we got Clifford.

(01:57:30):
This is something I've been thinking about for a while.
I love Randy Savage, and I thought he was wasted
in WCW. Once Hogan left the WWE, it should have
been Randy as his replacement. Instead, Vince tried to retire
him early and led to his departure. What if this
didn't happen? What Evince allowed Randy to continue his career
and we got Savage in the new generation attitude and

(01:57:52):
maybe even the beginning of the ruthless aggression era. How
do you think the macho man would fare? And could
he have been just as big, if not bigger than Hope?
All Right, so I'll start with the last question. The
answer is no, Hogan was the right guy at the
right time. Hogan was this larger than life, colorful personality,

(01:58:12):
which is not to say Savage wasn't a very charismatic guy,
and a colorful personality, but there was just something about Hogan.
Vince ran with Hogan and it was the right guy
to run with, and they did tremendous business with it,
and Hogan was able to parlay that into a very long,
I can't even say illustrious anymore, but a very long

(01:58:33):
career for himself. I can't say that I think Savage
would have been as big as Hogan, because I don't
think he would have been. But as far as him
sticking around, what I would have seen him doing and
his brother talked about how Randy wanted to work a long,
extended program, maybe over like a two year period, and
maybe it would have been off and on, but he

(01:58:54):
wanted to work a program with Sean Michaels that would
have paid off. I think of WrestleMania ten, and he
would have put Seawan over. I mean, that's what Landy claims.
We'll never know for sure, because you know, we just
it never happened, right, and we never had the chance
to ask Randy about it. But I think that's along
the lines of what he would have been doing. I
think he would have been working with Brett, he would
have been working with with Sean. I think the WrestleMania

(01:59:17):
nine made event could have and should have been Brett
Hard against Randy Savage, and then he could have gone
on to work a program with Shawn Michaels, and yeah,
he would have worked with he would have worked with
these guys. I don't I don't see him lasting into
the Ruthless Aggression era. I just think his body was
was failing him at that point, his knees. And I

(01:59:40):
mean if you saw Savage those rare appearances that he made,
like in the early two thousands, I mean, he was
like a totally different person. You know, he was doing
more and more steroids. The older he got, he was
so big and just muscled up. He could barely do
anything anymore. Yeah, it's like, I don't know. I mean,
I guess he was just very vain and just wanted

(02:00:02):
to look that way. But I don't think that benefited
his n ring style. So I think Savage would have
been phased down during the attitude era. I don't think
he would have lasted into Ruthless Aggression. But no, there
was absolutely still value in Randy Savage as kind of
the elder statesman, top guy in WWE, and he could

(02:00:23):
have worked with all the new generation guys and into
the beginning of the Attitude era. I mean, imagine Randy
Savage against Steve Austin, Randy Savage against Mankind, Randy Savage
against Triple H. Right, the Rock Rock wanted to work
with Savage, he wanted to do a WrestleMania match with
him in two thousand and five before his contract expired

(02:00:45):
in that little clerical oversight, and that was the end
of their relationship for several years. But honestly, I don't
think Savage would have done it. I think by that
point Savage was basically a recluse. But imagine that in
like ninety eight r ninety eight, ninety nine. It would
have been great. Vince just didn't see the value in it.

(02:01:06):
Kevin in Albany, New York. As an on screen character.
Has Stephanie McMahon ever been a babyface? I guess you
could say the past year she is, but she's not
an on screen character. Yes, she was a babyface when
she first started appearing on the show in nineteen ninety nine.
She literally had a babyface, but now she was a

(02:01:29):
face again after that when she was the general manager
on SmackDown. So the answer is yes, he says. I know,
back in the day it wasn't common for characters to
change sides. But with that in mind, any wrestlers in
recent memory or the past couple of decades that have
only been a heel. So I had to think about this,

(02:01:49):
and so you said heel because I was going to Originally,
when I read this, I was going to say, you know,
Ricochet is a heel now in aw but he was
a babyface his entire run in WWE. Raymisterio in WWE
has always been a babyface. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat is
the number one example of somebody who stayed babyface his

(02:02:09):
entire career. You know someone that has stayed heal from
the last few decades. I think that Gunther would qualify
carrying cross right, even going back to his NXT run,
he was a heel. Wade Barrett, right, he's doing commentary
on SmackDown every week now, but when he was wrestling,

(02:02:31):
Wade Barrett was always a heel. He never really turned babyface.
I don't recall him. I mean unless you count the
bad News Barrett stuff, which people I think found funny
and they may have enjoyed it. But he wasn't a babyface.
He was still a heel Jordan from Washington, DC. With

(02:02:51):
it being John seen as last year in pro wrestling,
I was curious on what you think are his five
best Wrestlemandium matches. I feel like for a guy with
as long of a catalog of great matches as he has,
not a lot of them have been at the biggest
show of the year. What say you, boy? You can
say that again. His best matches most definitely did not

(02:03:12):
happen to WrestleMania. Maybe he can change that this year
with Cody. His best Wrestlemanium matches came against Shawn Michaels
in Triple H at twenty three and twenty two. After that,
it's his match with Batista at twenty six, his first
match with the Rock at twenty eight, and the Triple

(02:03:35):
Threat match with Randy Orton in Triple H at twenty four.
I can't include the Firefly Funhouse match with Bray because
that wasn't a wrestling match, right. I can't judge that
the same way that I would judge any of the
other matches that he's had, But those would be my five.
You know, his match with Austin theory was terrible. His

(02:03:56):
match with the Miz was awful. I mean, it would
have been perfectly adequate as a television match, but as
a WrestleMania main event, it was one of the worst
of all time. John Cena has had classic matches at
a lot of shows. He's had classic matches at the
Royal Rumble, He's had classic matches and Money in the
Bank and SummerSlam. Probably at SummerSlam, I would say more

(02:04:16):
than any other single event, and that includes the night
that brock Lesnar just squashed him, and twenty thirteen against
Daniel Bryan, in twenty sixteen against aj Styles. If you
want to throw in his twenty eleven match with Cmpunk,
it wasn't as good as their Money in the Bank match,
but I'll allow it. He just doesn't have a WrestleMania

(02:04:38):
classic the way the most other Hall of Fame guys
do Hogan, Savage, Brent Sean, Austin Rock, Undertaker, Kurt Angle,
even Cody Rhodes, Right, they all have at least one
great classic match at WrestleMania. You know. Seeing his first
match with the Rock was a big deal, had a

(02:05:00):
big fight feel to it. I was there for it
and it did big business. I remember it well, but
it's just not an all time classic. Jason from Jersey,
I would like to hear who you think was more
justified or laid out a better case for how wrong
they were done. The Macho Man had about a year

(02:05:22):
of his partner, Hulk Hogan trying to overshadow his spotlight,
taking over his WrestleMania forced celebration, then overstepping the boundaries
with his woman, Miss Elizabeth. He didn't just make up complaints.
Macho presented a video showing everything he was saying about
Hogan being an habitual line stepper. The other option is

(02:05:42):
Brett Hart with everything that led him giving his turn
to Blind Eye rant On Raw Michaels cost him the
title at the December ninety sixth In Your House, Austin
illegally eliminates him from the ninety seven Royal Rumble. Austin
cost him the title the night after the Final four
in Your House, then the promo in the cage in
the fight with Vince. Who would you say had more

(02:06:04):
right to make the change that they did, Macho attacking
Hogan or Brett badmouthing the company and the American wrestling fans.
I mean just Savage alone, for the fact that Hulk
had lust in his eyes for the man's wife. That's
it right there. You got to throw hands if you
want to look at the bigger picture, then I mean

(02:06:26):
you just listed like four or five different reasons that
Brett hard had to be upset. So I mean it
with Savage, it really was just Hogan was just a look.
I guess Linda was right. I guess Linda was right
in her in her her Instagram video when she said
that Hulk was a liar and that he was he

(02:06:48):
was a liar and what does she say a sex addict?
I think Randy Savage proved that many years ago. But
who had the greater case for being wronged? I mean Brett.
But again, I think that Hogan putting his hands all
over the man's wife for that reason alone, I don't
think too many people would blame Savage for doing what

(02:07:10):
he did. Marcus from Wittenberg, Germany. Since I'm not a
native speaker, maybe I'm missing something. But one thing I
always wondered, what actually is a nature boy? What does
it mean? Multiple people used that moniker, but none of
them look like they came out of nature. Shouldn't a

(02:07:32):
nature boy be more like Skinner from the early nineties. Well,
you know what, you have a point there, Marcus. I
really can't argue with your logic there. Skinner was the
alligator man. He definitely came from nature. I just took
the whole nature boy thing is like someone who had

(02:07:52):
like natural ability, because, like you said, there were so
many people who used it, Buddy Rogers and Buddy Landell
and Rick Flair, and I think there were one or
two other people, And I think it was just a
case of like naturally, you know, naturally gifted. I can't
say that I've ever actually looked up if there's a

(02:08:12):
formal definition for what is meant by nature, but I
don't think there is. But that's just how I looked
at it. But actually I think your logic makes more sense.
I think it should be somebody who is from nature
and Molly from Toronto, Canada. You've mentioned some of your
favorite movies that have wrestlers in them or star in them,
but what are some of your favorite TV shows that

(02:08:33):
have wrestlers in them. It could be a show you
never watched before, but you just watched that one episode
because a wrestler was in it, like that seventy show
when The Rock was on it. Yeah, I didn't see
that one, but for me, it's King Kong Bundy. King
Kong Bundy was on Married with Children. That's my favorite.
He actually did two episodes several seasons apart, like two

(02:08:54):
totally different characters. So the first time it had to
be the first or second season of the show. He
played a member of PEG's family, Al's wife and the
family members came to visit. I think he was Uncle Otto.
He was one of the family members. I remember the

(02:09:14):
end of that episode he put his head through the door,
and then it was many seasons. Like later in the series,
they did a wrestling episode where Bud Bundy had to
wrestle King Kong Bundy in a He was wearing a
bumble Bee costume. Bud was not King Kong Bundy. That'd
be fucking hilarious, but Bud was wearing a bumble Bee costume,

(02:09:36):
and I think the premise of the episode was that
he would have to wrestle King Kong Bundy and beat
him wearing the costume. If you wanted to get accepted
into No Ma'am, which was like the men's group that
his father was part of I think that was the premise.
But yeah, so King Kong Bundy would be my favorite.

(02:09:58):
And of course, I mean, how can I not mentioned
Brett Hart on The Simpsons and Vader on Boy Meets World.
There you go, so great stuff. Keep it rolling. The
Solemn Monster at gmail dot com is where you can
reach me. Of course, you could also reach me and
tweet me on x at Sola. Monster is where I
am most active when I am active on social media.

(02:10:21):
Of course, you could also subscribe to the YouTube channel.
And if you already are not subscribed, then I don't
know what the hell you're waiting for. Make sure you
go ahead and change that. We recently passed eighty five
thousand subscribers, so we're already climbing towards eighty six. I
will be live this week on Monday night for the
Raw Post Show, Wednesday night after the Final Dynamite before Dynasty,

(02:10:43):
and then Friday night after SmackDown, which they're back on
American Soil this week. They're going to be in Chicago
on Friday night. We have a last man Standing match
between Jacob fought I and Braun Stroman on that show.
And even though he wasn't announced. I find it hard
to believe that you're in Chicago and that they're not
gonna have CM punk there. Maybe he won't be on

(02:11:04):
the show, maybe he'll just be in a dark match,
but I would be shocked if he's not on that
show in some way. And then back here next Sunday,
because it is going to be episode nine oh eight
of The Solo Monster Sounds Off. And then we got
Dynasty that night, a Sunday pay per view next weekend,
so there's gonna be a lot going on. Of course,
you can catch me live over on JD's channel on

(02:11:25):
YouTube Tuesday Night Titans. We've been killing it there, so
plenty of content coming up this week. I hope you
will join. Thank you for all the support, Thank you
for tuning in this week. Leave some feedback. I want
to know what you thought of the episode. Be well,
stay safe, have yourselves a great week as we roll
on into the month of April, and I will see

(02:11:48):
you for nine to oh eight next Sunday. Until then,
take care, guys. The Solemn Monster Sounds Off John Moxley,
in case you couldn't tell, it's still the aw World
Heavyweight Champ that means we have another month of this
death Rider's bullshit and I could barely stomach. Swore of
Strickland is going to Dinas. He will challenge John Boxley
for that title, and he better fucking win. He's the

(02:12:09):
right man for the job. Honestly, anybody would be the
right man for the job. The Maytag man would be
the right man for the job right now. The Orcan
man would be the right man for the job. Right now.
I could walk out my front door, right now, I
could go five blocks down the street. First fucking guy
that I see, maybe he's got a bottle of beer
in a brown paper bag, whatever it is, I'll grab him.
He would be the man for the job. I would
have preferred the Rizzler come out and sign his name

(02:12:32):
to that contract and pin John Moxley to win the
AW World title. I would have taken Big Boom Aj
as the AW World champion. Can you imagine the heads
that would explode if that happened. Anybody but what they're
doing now, Anybody but Moxley, anybody but the death Riders stuff.
We need to move on from this.

Speaker 3 (02:12:53):
Well, Solo Monster sounds off, bringing you the good, the bad,
and the Ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
content for subscribers, and follow The Sola Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
and X the Sola Monster.

Speaker 1 (02:13:07):
I love you so long.

All Episodes

Sound Off 907 - Time To Talk CHANGING The Royal Rumble And DRAMA Hits The Hogan Family!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sound Off 907 - Time To Talk CHANGING The Royal Rumble And DRAMA Hits The Hogan Family!