Sound Off 910 - WWE Makes A BOMBSHELL Acquisition And WrestleMania Night 1 Fallout! - Solomonster Sounds Off

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monster
Sounds Off. I love you so, Mama, monster, dude, I
want your soul. Woman, you got grown ass wrestlers in
the back going on Twitter. Come over here, he may
is that pet patison you have legs? Week I was

(00:23):
ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up. Now
I want out of my contract if I don't care
what I want. This is episode nine to ten of
the Solemn Monster Sounds Off for Easter Sunday, April twentieth,
twenty twenty five. I want to wish you very happy
Easter to all celebrating It also happens to be night

(00:45):
two of WrestleMania forty one. We are now halfway through WrestleMania.
I am a very sleepy Solemn Monster coming off of
a very late night one review and we killed it
last night. Hopefully we'll do the same tonight. But I'm
I am going to have some thoughts on WrestleMania Night one,
which was the big news of the weekend, but hardly

(01:06):
the only news. Hardly the only big news of the weekend.
There was actually a huge news story that broke yesterday
involving WWE that I'm going to get into here at
a few minutes. We got a lot of stuff to
get into. There's a lot of other news and notes.
I got news and notes on aw as well as
New Japan, which had some big news of its own,
and then a little bit later on, probably at the
very end of the review, I'm going to be including

(01:28):
my full WrestleMania nine documentary review, Becoming a Spectacle WrestleMania
and nine, the making of is now on Peacock. I
did watch it, I did review it on YouTube. It
went up during the week. Not everybody is on YouTube,
and I didn't have a chance to include it in
the podcast last weekend, so you're going to get it
this week, and so the full review will be up

(01:51):
towards the end of the show for those of you
who want to tune into that. I got some great
feedback on that and hopefully you will enjoy it. But yeah,
a lot to get into here on a very busy weekend,
and I thank you for joining me for your WrestleMania coverage.
If you would like to make a PayPal donation, as
many of you did this week, you guys blew me
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(02:14):
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(02:36):
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(02:57):
Stalker and if Al Safar the Which It's Clayton Nettleton,
The Georgia Nightmare, Timothy Tillis, Best Ending Game, Trey Porter, Kilshot,
Keith Hart Nemesis, Nathan Moyers, who says that John Cena
is going to tap out tonight. A bold prediction there

(03:17):
from Nathan. I don't know about tapping out. What would
he tap out to? Cody is not known as a
submission specialist and CPIA Prince, thank you very much for
the nice words. Thank you all. It was very very
nice to see all of the support this week, not
only on YouTube, but here for the main show as well.

(03:38):
This Friday, House of Glory presents Isolation at the NYC
Arena with Kenoski Takeshta making his Hog debut. He's going
to be taking on our world champion Mike Santana and
the TNA Knockouts Champion Masha Slamovich makes her Hog return
as well. Bell time is eight pm. Tickets are available

(04:01):
at Hog Wrestling dot Net or you can stream the
show live on Triller TV. Plus. I will not be there.
I'm flying to Chicago for a wedding, and so there
will be no SmackDown review. I mean, there wouldn't be
anyway I would be at the Hog show if I
was here. But there will be no SmackDown review this Friday,
which sucks because I know it's going to be the
biggest smacked out of the year coming out of WrestleMania.

(04:23):
But just be aware of that. There will be no
SmackDown review on Friday night. There will be no new
SoundOff next Sunday. So I just want to make everybody
aware of that. That means I'll be back here in
two weeks with episode nine to eleven. If you send
in any paypals this week for Roll Call, send them
on in and I will include them on the next show,
So there's no worries there. I got to start with

(04:46):
the bombshell announcement yesterday that was made on the WrestleMania
kickoff show that WWE has purchased one of the two
biggest Lucha libreate promotions in Mexico, Triple A, which was
founded in nineteen ninety two. When Antonio Pena, who was
the booker for CMLL, split with them, he took Conan

(05:08):
with him. He took a lot of the young CMLL
talent with him. I talked about this once before, I
think in this Week in History segment, CMLL being the
biggest promotion in Mexico and the one that happens to
work with AW right now. In fact, AW just announced
their first show ever in Mexico just this week, is
going to be held at Arena Mexico. It's going to

(05:29):
be an episode of Dynamite on June eighteen. But that
news has been completely overshadowed by the announcement that Triple
A is now under TKO ownership Triple H and Michael Cole.
They were joined on set on the pre show by
Triple A President Mariceella Penya her Son, Triple A General
Manager Dorian Rodan Pena Triple A star Vikingo was there,

(05:53):
which was wild to see Triple H introducing Vikingo, Raymis Stereo,
Dragon Lee, Joachim Wilde, Cruis del Toro, Penta, Ray Phoenix,
Santos Escobar, Angel and Berdo Andrade and Stephanie Viquier. We're
all flanking Triple H and Michael Cole and all of
the executives on set. Triple A is where Raymisterio got

(06:15):
his first break in Wrestlingum he goes back to the
very first year and he was on that first World's
Collide pay per view in nineteen ninety four that Triple
A produced with WCW. And on that note, the other
part of their announcement was the return of World's Collide,
which will be a cross promotional event with WWE and
Triple A or NXT and Triple A. But I'm sure

(06:37):
they'll have main roster talent on the show since they
were present for the announcement, and I think all three
logos are in the I think it's WWE, NXT and
Triple A. I believe all the logos are represented in
the poster. Saturday, June seventh, at three pm Eastern time,
that's noon local time, from the Kia Forum in Los Angeles,

(06:58):
which is a big building. So they're definitely using main
roster names on that show. They shot an angle last
night at WrestleMania to set up Vikingo against Algreande Americano
if they want to do it. Not saying they will,
but they They certainly did something on the show last
night that would be very easy to put that match
together if they wanted to do so. I'm guessing a

(07:20):
three pm start time, which is noon local time, because
June seventh has been rumored as the date for Money
in the Bank, also in Los Angeles, which makes more sense. Now.
We have no details beyond that. As I sit here
right now, we do not know anything as far as
what kind of money is involved. We don't know how
they intend to run the promotion going forward, how much

(07:42):
influence they're going to have over creative if they're going
to be cutting people, you know, Alberto del Rio works
for Triple A, even though he got suspended recently for
six months. I think it was only in Tijuana, but
he was suspended for getting into a fight in the
crowd at a show. So Dell dipshit still doing Dell
dipshit things. You know, what does that mean for his

(08:04):
future there? I don't know. I believe Marty Scull still
works for Triple A. We don't know. The answer is
we don't know right now. You know, when WWE bought WCW,
you remember they grabbed the IP and the tape library
and a handful of contracts, not a lot of big names,
and they chose not to run it as a separate entity,
even though that was the original plan. They bought Evolve

(08:27):
about five or six years ago from Gabe Sapolski, but
same thing. It was just the name in the library,
and now they're using the Evolved name for one of
their developmental shows. I don't think they're closing down Triple A,
but how it's going to be run going forward will
be very interesting to see. You know. At the post
show scrum last night, Triple H said he's looking to

(08:50):
keep quote traditional lucha libre as traditional lucha libre and
help it grow. And I saw Luca blog made a
great point. The problem is that Triple A never was
traditional lucha libra. It was founded on the idea that
lucha libre needed to change. And it's like they're trying
to say the right things, but they seem to know

(09:11):
very little about what they're actually talking about. I've heard
people say that as far back as the nineties, you know,
Triple A was trying to be more like WWE or
WCW than they were so called traditional lucia libre. They
do a lot of wacky stuff. So if you're a
fan of the current Triple A product, and I don't
know how many people are anymore, because Triple A has

(09:33):
not been doing great, I mean they're not CMLL CMLL
is the top lucha promotion in the certainly in that country,
if not the world. Yeah, there's been talk of money
issues with Triple A, issues with Conan's booking. They sound
like a company that's been looking to make a deal
for a while. And what it does is it gives

(09:55):
WWE a huge presence now in a market that they
did not traditionally have a big presence in. This is
part of their global expansion. I've talked about this before.
Remember that map that Triple H showed at some conference.
I don't remember what the event was, but there was
this giant map many years ago with all the different
places they wanted to expand NXT. It was their plans

(10:18):
for a global territory system. It was their plan for
world domination. This was actually was twenty eighteen. It was
a couple of years before Triple H had his heart issue.
You know NXT Europe, which never got off the ground.
But this is what the vision was. And now they
have a pipeline to a ton of lucha talent, which

(10:39):
gives them a competitive advantage over everybody else, just like
the WWEID program gives them a competitive advantage when it
comes to recruiting indie talent. Right They've got first dibbs
now early on the people they might want to bring in.
Trust me, this has more to do with benefiting WWE
than it does benefit lucha libre. Okay, if you think

(11:02):
they give a shit about traditional lucha libre, you've got
a lot to learn. But what it also does is
it puts WWE now in direct competition with CML, which
is the oldest promotion in the world. This is basically
a declaration of war on CMLL, Triple A and CML.

(11:22):
They already didn't get along, but this takes it to
a whole new level, and it makes more sense now
why CMLL would want a partner with AW. But this
is only just the beginning. We're going to see more
of this as the months and years go on. They're
going to go from partnership mode to acquisition mode when
it suits their needs. So right now they have a

(11:43):
multi year partnership with TNA, and I think that works
for them. I really don't see the need for them
to acquire TNA right now, but it could be a
precursor to them doing just that at some point. Same
with Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan, right they have a
partnership with them, has the partnership with New Japan. AW

(12:03):
has worked with Stardom, So WWE goes and works with Marigold.
It's all very interesting, isn't it. That's not a coincidence. Now,
it was WrestleMania Week, so there have been tons of
WWE names out doing press and giving interviews to various outlets,

(12:23):
and what a shit show it turned into talking about
politics and Vince McMahon and aew, these people have spent
more time talking about Tony Kahn than they have WrestleMania yet.
John Cena speaking with The New York Times, doubling down
on his love and affection for Vince McMahon, which is

(12:45):
nothing new. I mean, he already did this once before
on the Howard Stern Show. We know how he feels,
and you know, if he wants to publicly profess his
love for Vince, he's certainly entitled to do so, just
as people are entitled to be repulsed by it. And
he chose to say what he said. He wasn't prodded on,
like how do you feel about Vince McMahon. The question

(13:06):
was how does it feel to be at the end
of your career without Vince being around for it? And
he went out of his way to profess his love
for the men because that's how he really feels, and
of course he does. He was homeless at one point.
He was sleeping in his Lincoln town car when he
first drove out to la to make it big. He
went from being homeless and sleeping in his car to

(13:29):
being a multi millionaire because Vince McMahon chose him to
be the face of his company. Now he's a big
movie star, he's making more money than he'll ever be
able to spend. Of course he's going to love that man.
But I have far more respect for people like Seth
Rollins and Kevin Owens and Brett Hart who also made

(13:49):
millions working for Vince McMahon and have had the decency
to say, you know what, if the allegations are true,
it's disgusting and the people involved should get what's coming
to them. I think that was what Seth said. That's it.
That's really all that needs to be said. And the
fact that some people are not able to bring themselves
to do that is disappointing, but it's not surprising. Now.

(14:14):
Nick Con was a guest on the Bill Simmons podcast,
and Simmons asked him whether he feels WWE has a rival,
and specifically citing AW when he says that, you know,
he feels their moment came and went and they're firmly
number two now, to which Con responded like this, We're
always the underdog at WWE. We always feel that people

(14:40):
underestimate us, that we are looked down upon, and we
like it that way. Bet against us. We prefer that
and allow us to show you what we can do.
If you look at the stock price now, it's far
in excess of what it was when we all started
together five years ago, and we're quite proud of that.
At the same time, we have to keep re earning
our keep on a daily basis here, so we feel

(15:02):
like it's a good moment, but we feel like there
is a lot of room for growth. You know. It's
one thing to say that there's room for growth. It's
another to frame yourself as the underdog, which of course
is laughable, he said, in terms of the other wrestling
promotional company, which is certainly one way of putting it.

(15:22):
They have a lot of talented wrestlers, and we're happy
about that. When contractually they're able to be talked to
and have conversations with. Assume a number of them will
come over, and nothing but respect for the father who
finances it and owns the Jaguars and all of those
other things. Wow, if you want to know how little

(15:44):
respect they have for Tony Kahan, just the contempt that
they have for him and for what he has done
with aw there it is. I mean, it's all laid
bare right there in that quote, like even the stuff
would not inducting Lex Luger into the Hall of Fame
this week, Like they could have made the first contact

(16:06):
and reached out to Tony to see if he would
allow Sting to do it. You know, Luger was very
public and said he told the company he specifically asked
for Sting he was his first choice to be his inductor.
But they never did because they cannot even bring themselves
to pick up the phone and reach out. They have
such a disdain for them. I mean, it just jumps

(16:28):
off the page, and hey, fair play. It's not like
Tony Khan hasn't taken shot to them before, you know,
calling them the Harvey Weinstein of pro wrestling and all that.
But there's a lot of bitterness and pettiness on both
sides of the coin. Him saying he respects the father
who finances it implies that he has no respect for

(16:48):
the son who is only using daddy's money. You know,
as if Tony was just laying on the couch eating
Cheetos and watching reruns of Beavis and butt Head when
he got the idea to start aaw I mean, this
is right out of the Vince McMahon playbook. Vince did
the same thing in the nineties, only back then it
was Eric Bischoff spending Ted Turner's money and throwing shade

(17:10):
at them for that. You know, maybe they're upset that
they have to pay their talent a lot more now
than they used to, because guess what, that's what competition does.
That's why I've always said competition is a great thing.
You don't even have to watch AW. Just be happy
that competition exists. You don't have to watch a single
second of Dynamite to be able to appreciate the fact that,

(17:32):
you know what, it's a good thing that there is
at least one other promotion with a national presence or
a global presence that can compete on some level, even
if only for talent, that can compete with WWE. And
maybe that's what they're ultimately really upset about, because Tony
has the money to throw around to compete for the

(17:54):
same talent. Because remember, whatever you think about WWE being
so much bigger and stronger than AW, they're both competing
for talent from the same talent pool. You know, WWE
is competing with AW every single day for the same talent.
You saw some of those talents on the WrestleMania card
this year. You saw some last night. You had Ricky

(18:16):
Starks at stand and Deliver Ray Phoenix on WrestleMania. And
when you have a competitor with money to throw around,
what it does is it forces you to spend more
money even when you don't want to. That's why you
heard the reports about WWE allegedly, and I have to
stress allegedly this wasn't something that was said publicly, but

(18:36):
there were reports last year. You know, they were throwing
shade at Swerved Strickland getting so much money from AW
on his new contract when he resigned with them last year.
How they're paying him so much more above market value
and so much more than what he's worth. It's going
to force them to have to do the same thing.
I'm sure that's part of it. I'm sure that's part

(18:57):
of the disdain they have for this man. You know,
you had Stephanie Viccaier on a radio show this week
talking about how she turned down more money from AW
to sign with WWE, and when WWE found out, they
told her to go sign with them, like they weren't
going to be able to match what Tony was offering,
but it was Shawn Michaels who convinced her not to

(19:19):
do it. Is her going out there and saying that
part of a concerted effort on WWE's part to put
stories like that out there, to tell people, Hey, the
grass isn't always greener on the other side. We may
not offer you the same amount of money those guys are,
but look at what we've done with Stephanie. Look at

(19:39):
all the success that she's had so far, Look at
what we can do for you. Maybe maybe it is.
But even if it's not part of some concerted effort,
I'm sure they love her putting that story out there.
So when Simmons then warned nick Con about signing too
many people to the point where others in the roster

(20:00):
may end up sitting in the back and not being used.
You know, you only have so many spots to go around,
this was nick CON's response, Look, that's something we won't do.
We won't sign and bench people. We sign people who
we want to use. And when Simmons pointed out that
that's happened in the past in WWE, maybe before CON's time,

(20:22):
he said, perhaps, but in terms of the other wrestling
promotional company. If another entity signs and benches people, that
is not something that we would do. So two things
on that. First of all, he's being disingenuous when he
says that we don't sign people just to bench them
like AW does. He's obviously referring to people like Ricky

(20:43):
Starks and Phoenix and Miro, all of whom are now
with WWE. Bigie the other day let the cat out
of the bag and he flat out said that Russev
was back with the company, even though nothing's been announced.
We may see him tonight. It's not like Tony Kahn
literally signed all of those people and then never used
them like you can throw Camille in there too. All

(21:04):
of them were used at one time or another, but
then yes, they ended up on the bench and they
were never heard from again. The Camille thing is still
something I don't understand. I mean, they even went out
of their way to not talk about her when they
were promoting Queen of the Ring, which she started had
a pretty significant role in, but they used her for

(21:24):
a few months and then they took her off TV.
Ricky Starks, he won the FTW title, He won the
owen Hart Tournament, he even got a win over Cmpunk,
who just headlined WrestleMania last night. He was one half
of their tag team champions, and then he got benched
when Tony realized that he wanted to leave and go
to WWE. Same thing with Ray Phoenix. And there's no

(21:46):
excuse for keeping people on ice for months on end
just because you think, oh, they want to leave, you know.
And I'm glad he ended up giving them all an
early release from their contracts. They would still be sitting
at home right now if he had not done that.
So he's being somewhat disingenuous when he says that in
the way that he does, but he's also a hypocrite.

(22:06):
That was the most hypocritical part of the entire interview
when you have someone like Omas being called back from
Japan so urgently, he had to vacate his half of
the GHC tag team titles right just to come home
and do what exactly nothing. They've done nothing with him
on TV, and even before that they were doing nothing

(22:27):
with him then, like legitimately, the last time he competed
in a WWE ring was last year's Andre the Giant
Battle Royal, And I know Muda had said he wanted
him there in Noah, but I wouldn't be surprised if
that was something that Omas himself lobbied for to go
over there. You know, send me to Japan. If you're
not going to use me, this guy wants to use me,

(22:49):
Send me to Japan. I can improve, I can learn.
It's not like they have him working house shows, which
for him is something he could probably benefit from. They
hardly even do how shows anymore. Fucking Alexa Bliss comes
back at the Royal Rumble, gets one of the biggest
reactions of anybody on the entire show. Then she works
the elimination chamber, and then she hasn't been seen since,

(23:12):
and all because why one member of the Wyat six
got hurt sucks to be the other four people in
the group. They haven't been seen or heard from either.
Maybe they will this week coming out of WrestleMania, right, Hicculeo.
What the fuck ever happened to Hicculeo? He got signed
last year, he hasn't been seen or heard from since.

(23:33):
Did he get lost on his way to the PC?
Did he get kidnapped in the NXT parking lot? And
nobody bothered to send a search party to find him.
You know, I saw seandros Sap. He had a great idea.
These wrestlers need to start working with their agents to
get inactivity clauses included in their contracts. I think that's
a great idea. I don't know what the language would

(23:54):
have to be on that, but I think that's something
that should be explored in both companies. At least in
AAW though, you do have the ability to get yourself
booked on the indies, so you can still work somewhere.
If let's say Tony isn't using you, you could still
technically work somewhere else. In WWE. That's very rare, but
I think that's a great idea, honestly, that should be

(24:14):
explored with both companies. It is interesting, though, you know
how things have flipped from four or five years ago
when people were fleeing WWE to come to AAW and
now it's the reverse. And as was the case with AW,
if WWE is not careful, they're going to sign so
many people that they will have no choice but to
make roster cuts. I think that's exactly what's going to

(24:37):
end up happening, possibly as soon as post WrestleMania. I mean,
they do cuts periodically anyway, but you're going to see
a wave of them if this keeps up. And then
you had Triple H mister Hall of Fame being interviewed
by Peter Rosenberg and going off on fans who criticize

(24:57):
the product. I always love this. He also talked about
websites that leaks surprises and how they ruin it for
everybody else. See that I can understand, but he specifically
popped off on websites and on podcasts like this one
and people who consider themselves critics. He wishes he could
tell all of the critics to fuck off with being

(25:20):
a critic and just be a fan. Just watch the
product and be a fan. Just shut up and enjoy
the ride, basically, and then he used this terrible movie
analogy to try to make his point. I'm sure he
thought it sounded good when he came up with. It
sounds to me like someone isn't getting the glowing praise

(25:40):
that he got last year for the WrestleMania build, and
it's gotten under his skin because I didn't hear this
out of his mouth last year. Only now after he's
been taking it on the chin for the bill to
this year's show, he sounded awfully defensive this week. There
are critics and then there are so called critics who

(26:04):
deal in bad faith. Okay, you have those two. I
think you have way more of those with AAW than
you do the WWE product, Because for all the things
that I could criticize AW for and I have, there
are people who will literally shit on the product no
matter what, like without even watching it. It's just very
bizarro behavior. So I just find that to be pathetic.

(26:26):
But there's nothing wrong with being a critic, Like just
speaking for myself, I'm not someone who's critical for the
sake of being critical. I will criticize something when it
deserves to be criticized, and I will praise it when
it deserves praise. You know. I don't come on these
shows and feel obligated to criticize something. If there's something
let's say, if there's a show that I absolutely just

(26:46):
unabashedly love from top to bottom, which was not Night
one of WrestleMania last night, but let's say there is,
And I think, man, if I don't find something to hate,
they're gonna skewer me for being a dick rider, right.
I don't think like that if I like the show,
I love the show. I'm going to tell you I
love the show, and if that's what they want to say,
then so be it. I get it the other way too,

(27:09):
where there'll be a show that I hate and then
I'm oh, you're just a hater. You just hate on everything.
You just hate for the sake of hating, right. I
always say when I get it from both sides, I
know I'm doing something right, but I'm just giving my opinions.
You could agree with them, you can disagree with them,
but that's what I do. No different than sports talk radio,
or movie critics or literally every other fucking form of

(27:31):
entertainment on the planet. I don't know why Crado's over
here things wrestling should be any different. Like I get it.
He wishes Kfae was alive and well and that we
could go back to the Stone Age where there was
no internet. I would also love to go back to
when I was seven watching wrestling and didn't know that
half the roster was made up of absolute fucking brain
dead idiots in real life. But that's not how life works.

(27:55):
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(29:19):
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the Shawshank Redemption came up. One of the greatest films

(29:41):
ever made. And it's not even available on Netflix in
the US right now, but you know where you can
stream it on Netflix right now in Australia and Italy
and Japan. So guess what I did. I traveled sort
of to Japan for the first time by connecting to
a server in Tokyo, and I was able to watch
the movie glitch free, no issues at all. It was

(30:04):
a show I recently watched. I only got through a
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it was a TV series called Hannibal with Laurence Fishburne
about Hannibal lecter and his relationship with a profiler who
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so I had to connect to a UK server to

(30:25):
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(30:49):
slash solom Monster. Don't forget to use my link at
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extra four months of ExpressVPN free. Last night was WrestleManias Saturday,
which was a very middle of the road show capped
off by an excellent main event with Seth Rollins beating

(31:10):
Roman Reigns and CM Punk and pinning Roman Reigns after
a triple cross by Paul Haman, who leaves with Seth
Rollins at the end of the night. He didn't just
double cross Punk, he double crossed his tribal chief as well,
which ends a five year partnership that completely transformed Roman's career.

(31:31):
It was the beginning of the Tribal Chief and the
death of the Big Dog when they linked him with
Haman for the first time, and they got more mileage
out of it than I thought they would. I mean,
they lasted together about as long as The Undertaker and
Paul Behar did five years right before Paul Bhar turned
on him, something about people named Paul you can't trust them.

(31:52):
But CM Punk finally got his WrestleMania main event, and
it's up there with his Hell and a Cell match
with Drew McIntyre as one of the best matches he's
had since coming back to the company. I still put
the Hell at a Cell match above this one, but
it's right behind that one. Punk was on the mass
Man Show this week. He said WWE is trying to
get him to side a five year deal and he's

(32:12):
not sure. I don't know if he's got five more
years of matches like this one in him, but this
one was great. And he also said that if he
was in TRIPLEHS spot, he would have had Rhea Ripley,
Bianca Belair and Eo Sky main event WrestleMania, although he
didn't say which night. Obviously he's referring to his spot
in Night one because Cody and John Cena were always

(32:33):
going to get Night two. But it's funny, you know what,
the whole narrative of him wanting to headline WrestleMania. He
did want to headline WrestleMania twelve years ago, and he
said the reason he wanted to main event wrestle Media
was because when you main evented, you got paid more money.
Today you don't have that issue, you know, And he's
making a lot more money now that he was back
then anyway, But you don't get a big bonus, you know,

(32:55):
for main eventing WrestleMania, I don't think. And he makes
plenty of money as it is, so he really legitimately
does not give a shit whether he made events WrestleMania
or not. That's just the storyline. But it was the
highlight of an otherwise very mid show. The match itself had.
It was a lot of dramatic near falls, a lot

(33:16):
of finishers spam. Some people like that, some people don't.
It doesn't always bother me. There are times it really
just depends on the match. It's kind of a case
by case thing with me. If they structure the match
in a certain way, they tell a certain story, I
can overlook it. Did they go overboard with the near falls? Yeah? Probably,

(33:37):
But like the Osprey and takeshta match from Dynamite this
week where you had that same issue, Like, I loved
it and it didn't really it didn't take me out
of the match. It didn't bother me. The fans certainly
didn't seem to mind. They were hanging onto every near fall,
but really all built to Paul Hayman's involvement. What was
Paul Hayman going to do at the end of this match?

(33:58):
And sure enough a chair and Roman is on the
mat and he's looking out at Hayman. Punk's on the mat.
He's looking at at Hayman and they both want Hayman
to hand him the chair. What is he going to do?
And he slides the chair to Punk and it looks
like he's made his choice, and then he climbs into
the ring, so that right there, screamed angle alert, something's

(34:20):
about to go down because why is he getting into
the ring. And Punk is limping over towards Roman who's
on the mat. He's going to hit him with this chair,
and then Hayman drops to his knee and he delivers
a low blow to CM Punk, which I don't believe
is the first time that that's happened. I know he
hit him in the head with the latter once at

(34:41):
one of the Money in the Bank shows. I want
to say he gave him a low blow too, but
I don't remember. But you would think this guy would learn.
So this is the second time now that Paul Hayman
in his career has turned on CM Punk. And it
looked like he was going to hand the chair off
to Roman Reins, which he did, and he was just
going to be back with Roman, and Roman really laid
into Punk with that chair, and then Hayman looked over

(35:02):
and saw Seth Rollins pulling himself back up to his feet,
and he starts telling Roman, my tribal chief, look, look
the shield. The shield right, because Seth was in the
same position that Roman was in years ago with his
back turned. And now Roman can dish out the same
thing to Seth as Seth did to him when he
broke up the shield, and he's getting ready to do so.

(35:26):
And that's when Paul Hayman he lowers the boom, and
boy did he ever on Roman Reins. He gave him
a low blow the likes of which I have not
seed it a very long time. He got all up
in Roman's business. I mean he got all of it.
I mean he was going back and forth. And so
Roman Reigns now goes down to the mat and this

(35:47):
all leads to seth Rolins pinning Roman Reigns and winning
the triple Threat match, and Paul Hayman had a big
fat smile on his face. He had made his decision.
We don't know how long it advanced, but he made
his vision clearly long ago, it looks like. And the
two of them left together. So I thought the way
that they executed it was was flawless. It came across

(36:11):
just great. What are the all time like WrestleMania's shocking moments?
Even if you saw it coming, it was just executed
very well. And with nothing on the line coming into
the match, you kind of felt like something big has
to go down here at the end, and they did.
They gave you the biggest possible thing they could do
with no title on the line. So now where to next?

(36:32):
Is this going to be tied into tonight's main event,
because we got John Cena and Cody Rhodes yet to
come tonight. It's only hours away from now, and I
was left last night with the impression that this may
tie into that in some way. I'm trying to connect
the dots here, and maybe I'm connecting dots that aren't there,
but I just feel like this is going to play
into the main event tonight in some way. Are we

(36:53):
looking at Seth Rollins assisting John Cena in winning Number
seventeen tonight and an alliance of Sina Rollins and Hayman?
So I do think Rock is going to be on
the show, you know? Is that what we're looking at?
Are we looking at some kind of new unholy alliance here?
Is this going to force Roman Reigns and see I'm
Punk and Cody Rhodes to put all of their differences

(37:15):
aside and come together to fight them off. And I
got to give a shout out to the Wickerman on
Twitter who wrote me with the idea that, you know,
if Roman and Punk do team up eventually to fight Rollins,
if he needs a partner, maybe Drew McIntyre can fill
that spot, because who hates Roman and Punk? As much

(37:36):
as he does. So there's a lot of fun possibilities
here if they explore them. I'm approaching this with great
caution because what we got coming out of See is
He'll turn an elimination chamber was anything but fun. It
was very underwhelming, That's what that was. But the potential
is there for them to do some fun stuff coming
out of this. Now. We also had three title changes

(37:59):
on the showuz So is the new World Heavyweight Champion
with a win over Gnther. Not only did he beat
Guther and win the title, he tapped him out a
little too quickly. Gunther tapped out almost immediately in the sleeperhold.
So that was my one thing I didn't like about it.
But jay Uso is now the new world champion, and
so with Rollins going heel with Hayman, and Rollins is

(38:23):
a raw guy, he should be the one to take
that title away from jay I don't see jay Uso
having that title for very long. In fact, I think
he may have just wound up with the championship to
be a transitional champion just to get the belt onto
South because you need a babyface to do that, which
is why Gunther losing it makes sense that and for
the story they told with Jay, Gunther had to lose.

(38:45):
I know that upsets a lot of people because they
didn't want to see Gunther lose to this guy. They
didn't want to see him lose to the yeat Man.
It's a day of mourning for all the Gunther fans
out there. But he had to with the story they
were telling, he had to lose. If Jay went in
there last night zero for three and lost again, he
was done for as a top guy that anybody could
take seriously. At that point, he really does just become

(39:07):
the yeat Man and nothing more. Like he had to
go in there's like the Rocky story. He had to
go in there and get his redemption and finally win
and prove that he could hang. And that's what they did.
But yeah, I said this in my review last night
and again the full review where I get into more
in the weeds on this that's up right now on

(39:27):
the YouTube channel. I'll put the audio out separately. But
you know what I said was this, to me, the
whole Jay Uso thing was more about the moment. It
was more about the payoff. It's the dog catching the
car and then once the dog catches the car. It's
like the dog doesn't know what to do because he
got the car, Like you already saw the best part.

(39:49):
That's how I look at this Jay Usa thing. I
look at it as a situation where he's not meant
to have any sort of lengthy title run. We already
saw the peak. The peak was last night, that great moment,
been in front of you know, sixty thousand people. His
brother comes out and embraces him at the end of
the match. It's very much like Kofe Mania in twenty nineteen.
Kofe Mania took the world by storm and they leaned

(40:11):
into it, and he had this match with Daniel Bryan
at WrestleMania thirty five, and it was this great moment
when he beat Brian and won the championship. You have
people in the crowd crying, and Kofe's family's in the
ring with him. His son is in the ring. The
New Day guys are in there, and Kofe had been
even then. He was kind of like the elder Statesman.
He had been there for so long. So it was
this great moment. But I don't know that anybody honestly

(40:33):
expected Kofe Kingston to go on and have some kind
of tremendously successful, long, historic, memorable championship run. It was
all about the moment. They capitalized on the emotion of
the moment. They didn't have some kind of long term
plan for him as the champion. Now he had the
title for six months. It was a very uneventful six months,

(40:56):
but he held it for six months, and then of
course they did him dirty with the way he lost it.
But that's really all it was going to be. It
was about the moment, and it's the same thing I
feel with jay Uso. It's about the moment. And now
it's just a matter of when how soon do they
take that title off of him and put it, most
likely on seth Rollins. I give it until summerslim of

(41:17):
the absolute latest. I'm not even sure he'll make it there.
I feel like backlash would be too soon. But he's
not going to have that title for very long. The
jay Uso story arc, though, from five years ago to now,
has been pretty fun to see because you remember those
empty arena shows they were doing when the Bloodline story
really began, and it was all about you know, Jimmy

(41:38):
Usso he got hurt at WrestleMania thirty six, wrestling in
that empty building and he tore his ACL. And so
many times with these tag teams, one guy gets hurt,
the other guys fucked, the other guy's just sitting on
the shelf until his partner is ready to come back.
And in this case, and I'm sure you know Jay
being part of that family, you know Roman, you know

(42:00):
he had family going to bat for him. Not everybody
has that, but they kept him on TV and they
incorporated him into this bloodline story and that's where we
first got to see this character development in jay Uso,
which is something I never expected because I never saw
jay Usso doing more than what he was doing. But
to go from that to where he is now winning

(42:21):
a world championship at WrestleMania five years later is pretty
cool stuff. You know, whatever you think of him as
a wrestler. And if Jimmy doesn't tear his ACL at
WrestleMania that year, I don't think any of this happens.
But we had three title changes. That was one. The
other one was the New Day beating the war Raiders
to win the World tag team titles, a very very
basic match, really nothing out of the ordinary. About it.

(42:46):
Nothing overly special about it. The other tag team title match,
they're doing that on TV on Friday. They're doing a
TLC match for the WWE tag team titles that did
not get the WrestleMania treatment that is going to be
on SmackDown this Friday. This match was chosen for the
WrestleMania card instead. It was what it was. Jacob thought

(43:06):
to the new United States Champion with a win over
La Night. They had the second best match I thought
on the entire show, the first of many titles to
come for Jacob. And then there was Charlotte and Tiffany.
Charlotte Flair and Tiffany Stratton for the WWE Women's Championship.
I was very curious to see how these two would
work together. And there's gonna be a lot of differing

(43:28):
opinions on this match, whether or not Charlotte was taking
liberties with Tiffany, Tiffany was taking liberties with Charlotte. One
thing I will say is when this match was over,
Tiffany more than Charlotte looked like she was in a fight.
She had a bruise on her forehead, it looked like
she may have chipped a few teeth. Apparently her teeth
were fine. I guess maybe it was lipstick that rubbed
off on her teeth, but she just when they put

(43:49):
her on camera, she just looked like, Okay, this woman
was in a real struggle here in this match. But
she won, and Tiffany Stratton is still the women's champion,
and she got a clean pinfall win in the middle
of the ring over Charlotte Flair, which was refreshing to see,
and it was the right finish. It was not the
finish I was expecting at all, so it was a

(44:11):
pleasant surprise for me. But I already see the comments
that you know, they were shooting on each other or
Charlotte was sandbagging her. I didn't get the impression that
anybody was taking liberties with anybody else. They definitely worked
a very snug match. It felt very gritty. I also

(44:31):
didn't think it was all that great. I see some
people saying, oh, this was the match of the night
or the second match of the night after the main event.
I hey, to each their own. I really didn't like
this match. I think it was a good match for
Tiffany as far as her being able to say that
she beat Charlotte that's a nice feather in her cap.
But I was kind of bored watching the match. This

(44:52):
is not a match that will have any replay value
for me whatsoever. And whether or not this was one
and done and they're going to kind of separate these two,
or if this is the first in a series of
matches they're going to have, we'll find out. On Friday,
I was not a fan of this, and they had
Ray Phoenix subbing for Raymistereo, trading one Ray for another

(45:13):
against Elgonde Americano because Raymisterio got hurt on SmackDown on
Friday night. Apparently he tore his groin, which sounds very painful,
and so he was out and about. He was on
the pre show and everything. He was part of the
Triple A announcement on the pre show set on Saturday.
It's not like he's hobbling around on crutches or anything,

(45:35):
but he was not medically cleared. So instead they put
Ray Phoenix in there, and so here he goes into this.
Ray Phoenix just debuted two weeks ago. He was in
purgatory for months in aaw he got his early release
that sounded like he was released from prison. He got
paroled and so he ends up in WWE. He only
debuted in Chicago two weeks ago, and on less than

(45:58):
twenty four hours notice. He goes from not having a
match at WrestleMania to being in a singles match on
the WrestleMania card for the very first time. And it's
very cool that both him and his brother are going
to have their debut WrestleMania matches in the same year.
Penta will make his debut tonight, so that's very cool.
But it was on short notice because you know, Mysterio

(46:19):
couldn't go. Phoenix and El Gdandi. They went out there,
they had a good match. I probably I would have
that behind the main event and behind the US title match.
I thought this was the third best match on the show.
I wish it had more time. It got barely ten minutes,
if even that. I think some of the matches got
short changed here. This was one of them. But you know,

(46:41):
they had a good match for what it was. They
did the plate gimmick, the metal plate under the mask,
and Elgonde Americano wins, which he had to. So yeah,
it's not ideal that Ray Phoenix went in there and lost,
but again, it's fine. Because Ray Phoenix was not even
supposed to be on the Wrestle Media card. I am
sure nobody is happier about the fact that he was
able to get onto this card. I'm sure he feels

(47:03):
badly for Raymysterio, but believe me, nobody is happier that
he got his WrestleMania moment than Ray Phoenix. I don't
think he gives a shit that he lost this match
because he wasn't even supposed to be in the match,
and Elgreande Americano had to win. It's part of his
whole gimmick. He's using the loaded mask. Eventually, they will

(47:24):
do a mask versus mask match, whether it's him in Phoenix,
whether it's him and Raymisterio or the Kingo or whoever
it ends up being, and he will lose the mask.
This was not the time for him to lose, so
I don't have any issue with what they did here.
They had to come up with a plan B, slotting
in Ray Phoenix or Dragon Lee that would have made

(47:45):
the most sense. They decided to go with Ray Phoenix.
I have no issue with it now. Tonight is Night
Too of WrestleMania, which on paper looks like the stronger
of the two nights, and I certainly hope it ends
up being the better night. Overall. What we have here
is Randy Orton is going to have an open challenge.
Here's another plan B. We were supposed to get Randy

(48:05):
Orton and Kevin Owens. Kevin Owens went down with a
neck injury. I did see him. I saw him in
the crowd of the Hall of Fame. So he's there,
has not had his surgery yet. Supposedly he was getting
a second opinion from another doctor that Randy Orton recommended.
But he's out. And no, I don't think it's an
angle and Owens is going to show what would even

(48:26):
be the fucking point of that. But who is going
to be the mystery opponent answering the open challenge? It
doesn't look like it's going to be Nick all this.
I feel like if it was going to be all this,
there would have been some kind of hint towards that
on Friday, and there really wasn't. It's not impossible, but
I'm not expecting it. Solo Sokoa. I don't think it's
going to be him. They kind of got away from

(48:47):
that this week. So who does that leave Alistair Black.
It looks like is going to be returning on SmackDown
this Friday. We actually got a date in the latest
vignette for this mystery person, whoever it is. The Smoky
vignettes that have been airing now for weeks, so it
looks like they're saving his debut for Friday, which I
think is absolutely appropriate. You know, you just wait until

(49:10):
those post rawn SmackDown shows. You could debut somebody new.
That's perfect who ends up in this spot though you're
doing an open challenge, it needs to be somebody either
a big name or it needs to be someone who
is returning or debuting, but someone the people will know,

(49:30):
somebody that will get a reaction when they come out
or when they're music hits. And I think Russev fits
the bill. We know Rusev is back, he's back under contract.
It's only a matter of how do they re debut him.
I think Russev gets the spot, so yeah, he will
go in there and likely lose, because I don't think
Randy Orton should be losing. I think whoever answers this

(49:53):
open challenge is going to lose. But I don't have
an issue with Rusev. Losing as much as I would
if it was Black. I just feel like Black has
the higher ceiling. I wouldn't be beating him in his
first match. If riceb goes in there and has a
competitive match and loses to Randy Orton, you know, off
An RKO, who cares like it's not going to kill him,
It's fine, It's really not a big deal. He's my pick.

(50:17):
I think it's going to be him AJ Styles against
Logan Paul. I've got aj winning in that match. Then
we have Live and Raquel defending the women's tag team titles.
They were supposed to defend the titles against Bailey and
Lyra Valkyria, who won a gauntlet match on SmackDown last week.
They survived the entire gauntlet. They wrestled like five other

(50:39):
teams and they won. And Bailey they shot an angle
yesterday where she was attacked by a mystery attacker backstage.
She was laid out on the ground holding her shoulder
and it didn't look like she was going to be
medically cleared. And by the way, it was so ridiculous
the way they did this, because they cut to the
back and Bailey is on the ground and then Lyra

(51:00):
shows up, Oh my god, what happened? And Adam Pierce
comes in and immediately they're talking about how okay, you've
got twenty four hours to find her replacement, Like, she
hasn't even been diagnosed. How do they know that Bailey
can't go? No doctor has seen her yet, They've already
eliminated her from this match. So she got double fucked

(51:21):
in this angle. And so now Lyra is going into
WrestleMania with no partner, and Adam Pierce has given her
twenty four hours to find someone. Gee, I wonder who
that will be, especially with all the talk in the
last few days about Becky Lynch being on her way
back soon. Gee, I wonder who it will be. The
last time we saw Becky on TV, she was buddying
up with Lyra Valkyria. In fact, the last time we

(51:43):
saw Becky in a match was against liv Morgan when
Live beat her in the cage and then Live was
gloating that she retired. Becky Lynch makes all the sense
in the world. This is how they're going to re
debut Becky Lynch. This is how she returns. They're going
to challenge for the tag team titles as far as
what they're gonna do here, I didn't think that they

(52:05):
would bring Becky back just to have her lose in
this situation. But there was somebody and I forgot who
it was last night, who pitched an idea, and I
actually the more I think about it, the more not
only do I like it, but I think there's a
very good chance we see it, which is that Becky returns.
We come to find out that it was Becky who

(52:25):
attacked Bailey, and Becky ends up going heel on Lyra
and then Livin Raquel would retain the tag team titles.
And what it does is it sets up a program now,
an actual proper program, which is something that Lyra has
not had since winning the championship for the Intercontinental title,
because I don't need to see Becky lynn shed A

(52:47):
wrestling for the world title right out of the gate,
but her working with Lyra, and even if she wins
the Intercontinental Championship, I don't think that would be a
bad idea. Put the title on somebody that has big name,
and at the end of it, she puts Lyra over
in the biggest way possible. What a win that would
be for Lyra. You could do a whole proper program

(53:10):
with the two of them. I could see that happening.
Now where that leaves Bailey, I have no idea. I
do feel bad for her now, Bailey is not hurt.
This is not a cover for a real injury. Apparently
they've had this idea in mind for weeks. So I
assume Bailey must have known that she was not really
going to be wrestling a WrestleMania but even so, she
was announced, you know, for a WrestleMania match. I'm sure

(53:31):
it's very shitty for her. There's no defense of it.
I mean, it's a shitty situation for her, But they
have their idea. We'll see how it plays out tonight.
I don't know if Bailey will be there. She'll have
her arm in a sling. If she's not going to
be on the show at all, I have no idea,
but it's going to be Becky. Do they have Becky
as a heel or a face? I don't know, But

(53:51):
I like that idea about her going heel and then
being revealed as the attacker, and that way when Bailey,
you know, heels up and is ready to come back,
you know she can work with Becky as well, we
have Drew McIntyre and Damian Priest in a Sin City
street fight. This could be a sleeper match on the
show tonight, and I feel like these two were going

(54:11):
to have something to prove going out there. It's just,
you know, it's a mid card match on the show.
How happy they are about being in the spot they're
in where it kind of feels like, Hey, we didn't
have anything for these guys to do, so we'll just
sort of put them together. You know. I don't know,
but I kind of feel like they're going to have
something to prove going out there, and this should be
a Drew McIntyre win. Bron Breaker defends the intercom Meental

(54:35):
Championship in a four way match against Penta in his
first WrestleMania Dominic Mysterio and Finn Balor. I'm going with
Dirty dom to win the title. I think he steals
the pin on Balor to do it continues their story
gets the title off Breaker without him having to be
pinned Penta. He'll be fine. I think Dominic Mysterio wins

(54:57):
the title. Eo Scott defends the Women's World Championship at
a triple threat match against Rhea Ripley and Bianca bel Air.
I got EO walking out with the championship, she's walking
in the champion. I think she's walking out the champion.
I don't see Bianca bell Air going on Monday Night Raw.
In fact, I think Bianca is going to be thrust

(55:18):
right back into this whole story with Naomi and Jade
on SmackDown. In fact, I think Naomi will be making
her presence felt in this match, and that will be
part of what costs Bianca. So I fully expect to
see Naomi and EO is going to retain the championship.
And in the main event, John Cena goes for number

(55:38):
seventeen in his very last WrestleMania match against Cody Rhoades,
And you would think for somebody who has been in
this company as long as he has and has had
as many WrestleMania matches in WrestleMania main events as he
has had, that he would have some more you know,
classics to his name, But he doesn't have as many
as you would think. So this is his last chance

(55:59):
to go out there at forty six or seven or
whatever he is and try to have one of the
better wrestle Media matches from like a match quality standpoint
that he's ever had, because I mean, he's had big
matches before. You know, he's wrestled The Rock and you
know he's had big wrestle media matches, but he hasn't
had that many great ones. He really hasn't. And Sena

(56:21):
as an in ring performer is not what he used
to be. He's not. I can't remember the last truly
great John Cena match that I saw. It's been many,
many years. I think he's got a great opponent in there,
and Cody Rhodes, I think you have enough smoking mirrors.
Is the Rock going to be there? Is the Rock
going to get involved? Is Seth Rollins or anybody else

(56:41):
gonna get involved? This could end up being a great match,
or this could end up being a disappointment. I don't
think it's going to be a disappointment, but we'll see.
I just I remember watching his match with Austin Theory
and thinking, man, that sucked, right, So we don't know
what we're gonna get out of Sena at this point.
Singles match. It's not a tag match, it's not a

(57:02):
chamber match, it's not a royal rumble like he looked
fine in the elimination chamber, you know, but he was
one of six guys, and he was either the last
guy or one of the last guys out of the pods.
So you can't judge that in the same way that
you would judge a singles match. So this is gonna
be a test to see what kind of John Cena

(57:23):
are we gonna get in a big, main event singles
match like this. I hope it's the best John Cena
that we've gotten in a long time, because I have
him winning number seventeen, making history and leaving as the
WWE Champion. There's gonna be some kind of big angle
they shoot at the end of this show. I would

(57:43):
be shocked if the Rock is not there. Fucking Travis
Scott may be there. I'm still trying to connect the
dots and thinking that we're gonna have some kind of
tie in to last night's main event with this one.
There's gonna be some kind of big angle they shoot here.
Whatever it is, I think Sena stands tall in wins
number seventeen, and we won't have to wait very long

(58:04):
because we're only a matter of hours away here as
I am recording this, So I hope you will join
me live on YouTube immediately after night two is over.
We had upwards of forty three hundred people live last
night on YouTube. Let's see if we can top that tonight.
And I did watch NXT Stand and Deliver. I didn't
take any notes. I was doing work while I was

(58:25):
watching it, trying to get all prep for the show.
But I did see it. I enjoyed it. I thought
it was an excellent show. In fact, I think NXT
Stand and Deliver top to bottom is a show was
better than Wrestlemni a night one that was a great
main event. Oba Femei retaining the NXT championship over Trick
Williams and Javon Evans. I love the women's four way.
Stephanie Vaquier still the NXT Women's champion with a win

(58:47):
over Julia, Jada Parker, and Jordan Grace, all of whom
when the time comes, I think are gonna do very
well on the main roster. I think Jada Parker needs
some more time and some more seasoning in NXT. But
I mean they could call Stephanie, Julia, and Jordan up
tomorrow and they would fit right in in either women's
division on Raw or SmackDown and they would kill it.

(59:10):
So that was a great match. Ricky Saints still the
NXT North American Champion with a win over Ethan Page.
I thought they had a good match, and they had
a ladder match to Cranny brand new NXT Women's North
American Champion. As ladder matches go, I thought this was
a good one. Again, it's hard to differentiate yourself because
I were just so numb to seeing these types of

(59:31):
matches and all the big spots and hoping they don't
kill each other. Soul Ruca though, was the winner. She's
the new champion. Sol Ruka is awesome. That's soul Snad.
I love that soul Snatcher. She's another one. When the
time comes, she's gonna be a big, big player on
that main roster. And Nathan Fraser and Axiom are no
longer the NXT Tag Team Champions, losing the titles to

(59:55):
Hank and Tank. See this surprised me. I was not
expecting a title change here. What I saw here from
Hank and Tank though very impressive. They're a fun, big
man team and they are the new tag team champions.
And then they had the DiAngelo Family against their new
Dark State group, and you had stacks turning on Tony

(01:00:19):
d I mean whatever, I'm not fully into the whole
di Angelo family drama here. I've seen bits and pieces
of it, but I'm not as invested in the story
as maybe some of you are. But again, what I
saw of the show, everything was at least good, if
not great, and as a show collectively it was better
than Wrestlemani at Night One. Today's episode is sponsored by

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(01:02:32):
website for full details and important safety information. I was
actually gonna start the show with some big New Japan news,
but then the WWE Triple A news broke. But there
was big New Japan news because in just the last
week we got the news that three names are headed
for the exits, including one of the biggest stars in
the promotion. Tetsuyaito, Boushi and Jeff Cobb are all leaving

(01:02:57):
New Japan Pro Wrestling. Cobb was not a huge surprise
because there was a talk last month that he was
possibly leaving. But Nito, I mean, that's a different story.
Nitto was a huge shock. New Japan announced on Wednesday
that they were unable to come to terms on a
new contract with the former five time IWGP champion, six
time Intercontinental Champion, three time G One Climax winner. He

(01:03:20):
will continue to make appearances through their May fourth Wrestling
Duntaku show in Fukuoka. Their statement reads as follows. In
recent weeks, conversations have been ongoing between New Japan Pro
Wrestling and Tetsua Nito regarding Nito's future wrestling activities. As
a result of those conversations, both parties have mutually agreed
not to renew Nito's contract with New Japan Pro Wrestling.

(01:03:43):
Both parties have arrived at this decision after careful consideration
and lengthy conversation. Nito's contract ends on the best possible
terms with NJPW, which joins fans in wishing him further
success in any and all future endeavors. They call it
a failure to reach a contract extension, while Meltzer and

(01:04:05):
Sean Ross sap they claimed Nito has been working without
a contract recently. Brian Alvarez says the impression he got
was that he simply wanted a lot more money than
they were willing to pay him and fight full Select
reports that Nito had been exploring his options over the
past month or so and he is not expected to
join AW. I can't imagine WWE having any interest in

(01:04:28):
him at this stage. I mean, they did in twenty eighteen,
and supposedly they made him an offer that he turned down,
but I mean that was seven years ago, and he
was he was pretty washed even then. Now imagine him now.
I mean he's still a big name, but to their audience,
you know, the WWE audience, he's not going to mean anything.
You know, physically, he's just completely washed. His knees are shot.

(01:04:50):
He's had the eye issues. He's had three surgeries on
his right eye, and I think he's had one on
his left. And he admitted to Tokyo Sports in December
that people talk about his knees, but it's his eyes,
you know. That of the biggest issue. I've talked about
this before. He was having issues with triple vision. You know,
when he looks down, he sees a flat surface and

(01:05:10):
he sees a slanted one. So working in the ring,
especially when he tries to run, it's a challenge for him.
He can't trust his footing in there. And so he
had surgery on his left eye because of the macular
degeneration he has in the right one, and he could
only see straight if he shut one eye because they
were imbalanced, so that most recent surgery was to try
to balance them out. So he had surgery to make

(01:05:32):
the healthy eye worse just so the two would match up.
But there are limits on the number of surgeries that
he could have on the right eye, and he's already
hit that limit. He can't have any more. But this
is very different than when WWE brought in Shinsky Nakamora.
You know, I just I don't know what Nito adds.
If let's say they were to bring him in in

(01:05:54):
Knew Japan. He's a legend and he sells a ton
of merchandise, all that Llied Jane merch which is why
this is a big blow to New Japan. But if
the issue was money, you know, whatever New Japan was
offering him, I don't know that he's going to get
that from any other Japanese promotion, Like what other promotion
is going to be able to pay him what he's
looking for? Where else is there for him to go?

(01:06:17):
You know, he could freelance over there if he wants to,
Like Minora Suzuki does. Suzuki freelance is there? He does?
Indis over here. I saw Minora Suzuki had a match
with Yoshihiko the blow up doll the other night. Yeah,
she made the doll bleed. I didn't see how it happened,
but I saw the doll had blood on it, which
figures when you're in there with Suzuki Nito could do

(01:06:40):
something like that. You know, who's to say he still
doesn't work shots here and there with New Japan, right,
that's certainly possible. It doesn't have to be a permanent break.
But I mean if this was like five, six, seven
years ago and Naito became a free agent, he would
be getting big offers to go elsewhere today. With his
body in the shape it's in, I mean, he could
work in He's gonna make a killing, But as far

(01:07:02):
as big money from a major promotion outside of Japan,
I just don't know where he's gonna go. You know,
that match he had with John Moxley at Forbidden Door
last year was the worst thing on the entire show.
It was sad watching that. His match with Hromu Takahashi
at the Tokyo Dome this year that was not good either.

(01:07:22):
I mean I was just bored watching it. He just
can't go at a high level anymore. It's sad watching
the old guard age out or leave. You know, Okata
was a gigantic loss for them. Tanahashi is retiring at
the Dome next year, and he's not the same performer
either that he used to be. Nitho's been falling apart
for years now. He's out the door. Nakamora, I mean

(01:07:46):
they lost him years ago, and Shabata. Then you have
the foreign talent. They've lost will Ospray and Jay White.
It's sad to see. And meanwhile, his fellow LIJ member
Bushi is also so finishing up with New Japan on
May fourth. He's been with the company since twenty twelve.
He is said to be leaving, possibly strictly out of

(01:08:07):
loyalty Tonito. Bushi is not a star at Nito's level,
but he's been with the company for a long time,
and he had been announced for the upcoming Best of
the Super Juniors, which I assume now is not going
to happen. Jeff Cobb is also leaving, and that news
comes barely a week after he won the IWGP Tag

(01:08:28):
team titles as part of United Empire. New Japan wrote
this on its website. New Japan Pro Wrestling has come
to terms with the departure of Jeff Cobb at his request.
With Cobb one half of the IWGP Tag Team Champions,
those titles have now been vacated. Cobb's final match in
New Japan will take place in Corkinhall on April nineteenth
against Hiroshi Tanahashi. New Japan Pro Wrestling profoundly apologizes for

(01:08:51):
the sudden nature of this news and joins fans in
wishing Cobb the best in all of his future endeavors.
And he did wrestle Tanahashi yesterday and lost, so the
suddenness of it clearly caught them by surprise. Although there
have been reports that New Japan knew he was leaving
and going to WWE even before they put the tag

(01:09:13):
belts on him, they just may not have known that
they were going to pull the trigger and pull him
as quickly as they did, so they appeared to have
been caught off guard by this. Otherwise, I don't really
know why they would have put the championship on him,
and supposedly he was scheduled to challenge Hiroki Goto for
the IWGP title on May fourth, and that is obviously

(01:09:35):
not happening now. Cobb is a very good wrestler. He
has been with New Japan for many years. He lives
in Japan, but he's also turning forty three in July,
and he probably realized, Hey, this could be my last
chance to make some big money working for one of
the two major promotions in the States, so he is
said to be WWE bound. He worked his final match

(01:09:57):
last night, so I would assume he's freeing clear to
appear in WWE as soon as tonight. But that doesn't
mean he's going to be at WrestleMania. I don't think
he's going to be at WrestleMania. Maybe the Raw after
MANI or the SmackDown after Many, assuming he goes straight
to the main roster. Very interesting that he would choose
WWE over AAW given that he has worked matches for

(01:10:18):
AW before. But it could be just as simple as Hey,
you know what, this is a challenge that I would
like to try. They want me. I can make good
money there. I've never worked there before. I've already done
this other place. Could be as simple as that. This is, also,
by the way, the third time in recent months that
WWE has signed someone quick enough that it forced that

(01:10:39):
person to have to surrender a championship that they held
for another promotion. Okay, look at Stephanie Vecaierre. Last summer,
she was a double champion. She held the CMLL women's
title and women's tag team title when WWE signed her
and they booked her. They booked her debut in Mexico
on the same night that CMLL wanted her to drop

(01:10:59):
at least one of those titles and do business on
her way out. WWE, if they wanted to, they could
have allowed that to happen. They don't give a shit.
They don't. Not only do they not give a shit,
they booked her for a show in Mexico that very
same night. So instead of dropping the titles, she was stripped.

(01:11:21):
Omas I mentioned him earlier. Omas. They sent him to
Japan to work for Pro Wrestling Noah. He became one
half of the GHC Tag Team Champions. He was booked
like a monster. He destroyed everybody he worked with, only
for WWE to call him back before he had the
chance to drop the titles. So what happened? They had
to be vacated and what was so urgent that WWE

(01:11:42):
needed him back? They have not used him since. I mean,
by all accounts, he was enjoying his time there. I
don't think it was a case where he was dying
to come back, and if it was so, what they
would have had him drop the belts on the way out.
But again WWE, they don't care. They don't give a
shit Noah. Noah is not going to say anything because
they're just happy that they could have any kind of

(01:12:04):
working relationship with WWE. Ricky Starks the day after the
news broke that he finally got his aw release, he
showed up on NXT television. This was just after he
had won the DeFi Wrestling title. He ended kent To's
six hundred and twenty six day reign as the DeFi Champion.
Three weeks later, the title had to be vacated because

(01:12:27):
WWE would not let him drop it. Now here we
have Jeff Cobb having to vacate the IWGP Tech Team title.
If Cobb was working without a contract, or even if
he was and it was about to expire with all
the talk about him possibly leaving, then it was very
stupid of New Japan to put a title on him

(01:12:47):
in the first place. They kind of set themselves up
for that. But again, it just illustrates how little regard
WWE has for other promotions. You know, when it comes
to this stuff, when it comes to doing quote unquote business,
the only business they care about is their own and
how it affects them. And I think it's very important
when you hear about these stories or even the Triple

(01:13:08):
A stuff, and we don't know how that's all going
to work out or what their plans are, but I
think it's very it's very important to look at that
from that perspective. How can this benefit WWE. That is
the number one priority that they have, and they should be.
They should be concerned about how this is going to
benefit their own company, But at the end of the day,
that's really all they care about. Now, let's talk about

(01:13:32):
some AW here, because there are some AW news and
notes I need to get to. It looks like a
former AW Women's World Champion may soon be leaving the
company and headed to WWE, as in Mariah May Dave
Meltzer and Brian Alvarez first reported this week that Mariah,
who has not worked a match since forre loss to

(01:13:53):
Tony Storm at Revolution, wants to go to WWE, and
the belief is that her contract is up sometimes this summer.
Alvarez said he's of the impression that she signed a
two year deal and that even within AW the belief
is that she is headed to WWE as soon as
she becomes available. For his part, Mike Johnson on PW
insiders said that Mariah still has significant time left on

(01:14:16):
her deal, with one source believing her deal could run
through November of this year, while another believe there may
be additional time beyond that. And he also noted that
there was a rumor making the round within days of
her program with Tony Storm, ending that she had requested
her release from her AW deal, but he just wasn't

(01:14:37):
able to confirm the accuracy of that rumor, so he
didn't run with it, and she obviously hasn't gotten her
release yet even if she did ask for it. Then
there's Fightful Select, which had a report saying that even
though Mariah did not make her AW debut until November
of twenty twenty three, she was actually signed in August
of that year, and it was indeed a two year deal,

(01:14:58):
which means she could potentially be a free agent in
less than four months unless they either reach a new
deal or they extend her I guess like an option
year because she hasn't missed any time due to injury
that I'm aware of, so they couldn't tack on any
injury time. You know, usually you hear about three year deals,
five year deals with AW or even WWE. I mentioned

(01:15:20):
before Cmpunk said that they want to sign him to
a five year contract. I wonder if Mariah asked for
a two year deal on purpose for this very reason.
You know, she grew up a wrestling fan. She grew
up a WWE fan. You know, back then there was
no AAW and this is one of the competitive advantages
that WWE has over aw just their mere existence. You know,

(01:15:41):
for so long, you have a lot of guys and
girls who grew up wanting to be a superstar in WWE.
What do you want to do when you grow up.
I want to be a WWE superstar because that's what
they watched on TV and they want to be at WrestleMania.
There's a photo of Mariah in the parking lot outside
WrestleMania when the show came to Dallas, the year that

(01:16:02):
Steve Austin came out of retirement to wrestle Kevin Owens.
She was there. That was the year before she signed
with AAW. And if it's her dream to work for WWE,
and look, she'd knows she's gonna get paid either way,
then it may not matter what Tony Kan offers her.
If her heart is set on going there, then that's
where she's going to go. It doesn't mean that Tony shouldn't,

(01:16:25):
you know, she just lay down and let her go
without making an offer and give her a nice pay
raise or something. But you know, money is not the
end all be all for some people. Look at Jade Cargill,
Tony wanted to keep her. They were negotiating, and she
wanted a bigger offer. So what did he do. He
increased his offer. He actually came up to a number
that was higher than what she originally asked for, and

(01:16:48):
she still left and went to WWE. There's only so
much you can do. I'm sure Tony is going to
make her a great offer to keep her if he
hasn't already. But if she wants to, then she's going
to leave now. There's also the possibility that she's really,
really smart and she's using this to leverage a better
deal and she ends up staying in aw That's also possible. Yeah,

(01:17:13):
she's only twenty six years old. It's not like she
isn't going to end up in WWE at some point.
It doesn't have to be right now. But the fact
that she hasn't been featured on TV at all in
six weeks. Since she wasn't included in the owen Hart Tournament,
which she won last year, that should have been a
sign that something was going on. You know, Tony has
demonstrated that when someone wants out or he thinks they

(01:17:35):
want to go to WWE, he will not hesitate to
pull them off television and bench them until their contract
is up. He did it with Ricky Starks, he did
it with Penta, he did it with Ray Phoenix, and
they all ended up in WWE. If he loses her,
that is a big loss for that AW women's division
because Mariah is I think she's fantastic. She's not afraid

(01:17:57):
to get down and dirty in the ring. I mean
this woman taped her fits then dipped it in glass
in her last match. Okay, she can do that stuff.
She's not afraid to get hardcore. But she's also just
a really good wrestler. She's got incredible sex appeal, she's
got incredible charisma, she's a great heel. I mean, this
woman slapped her own mother across the face at Wembley

(01:18:18):
last year. She's part of one of the best storylines
in AW history with Tony Storm. They played that out
for months before that savage attack on Tony one of
the best dynamite endings you'll ever see. If I'm surprised
about anything, it's that her friend Mina Mina Shirakawa, she
just announced that she's leaving New Japan or New Japan.

(01:18:39):
She's leaving Japan to sign with AW, and now Mariah
may be leaving, so they'll be like two ships passing
in the night. But if Mariah does go to WWE,
she'll do very well and it'll be a blow to AW.
But it's not as if they don't have a lot
of other talent in that division, with Tony Storm and
Mercedes and Athena and Chris Statlander and Jamie Hayter and

(01:19:01):
Willow Nightingale, Megan Bain, Billy Starks. She's a star on
the rise, Harley Cameron. I'd say Deanna Pirazzo, but they
barely use her, So I mean they're gonna be fine. Yeah,
But Mariah is the kind of talent that you could
build around in that division. There is something to be
said for too much too soon, you know. Less than

(01:19:22):
a year after she debuted, she won the world title,
not even the TBS title, the world title, and she
had the great story with Tony. After that, it's like
where is there to go? Really, everything else just feels
like a lateral move. Megan Bain is another example, only
you know Meghan Baine didn't win the title, but she
got a shot at Tony pretty damn quick. So if

(01:19:43):
there's a story that makes sense, then I say do it.
But I do think it will give Tony Khan pause
the next time somebody comes in how quickly they get
pushed to the top, for fear that if you give
them everything, they may feel like they have nothing left
to really achieve. A this week announced its first ever
show in Mexico, So then, of course WWE goes and

(01:20:06):
buys a Mexican promotion. You can't make this shit up.
You just can't make this shit up. But they announced
their first show in Mexico, and where it is taking
places I think is actually very cool. They're going to
be running a live episode of Dynamite from Arena Mexico,
which is owned by CMLL and is one of the
more legendary wrestling venues in the world. No US promotion

(01:20:28):
has ever run a show like this at Arena Mexico before.
CMLL has rented the building out to other promotions in
the past, but for a US company, this is a first.
It'll be AW Grand Slam Mexico on Wednesday, June eighteenth.
Tickets go on sale April twenty sixth. They're not running
any pay per views in June. It was the same

(01:20:49):
thing in February. They ran Grand Slam Australia instead, and
so this time it's Grand Slam Mexico. And I am
sure it will include talent from CMLL because on the
poster they show me Mystico and Masacadrata. They also show
Hologram Commander, Kenny Omega and will Osprey. They also confirmed
the location for this year's Forbidden Door pay per view

(01:21:11):
on Sunday, August twenty fourth. We already had the date,
so we knew the show was taking place on the
twenty fourth in London, we just didn't know where it
will be. Emanating from the Two Arena featuring talent from
AW New Japan and CMLL and the O two was expected,
but apparently because WWE already had a contract with the

(01:21:31):
arena for shows last month that was during its European tour.
In the contract, it stipulated that no other wrestling promotion
could announce a date in the building for two weeks
after their last show, so AW wasn't allowed to make
any announcement until this week. But with that we also
got some terrible what I think is terrible news. AW

(01:21:52):
is running back to back weeks with a four hour
block of programming Kill me now. Actually, they already announced
the first four hour block two weeks ago, but I
missed it. But when they announced the second one this week,
I noticed that there was another one schedule for the
week before. So on Wednesday, June fourth, they're going to

(01:22:14):
be airing four straight hours I assume on TBS, basically
with Dynamite and Collision back to back from Denver, Colorado.
That will be their fighter Fest special, which would be
the first one they've done in two years. Again, they
have no pay per view in June, so we're getting
fighter Fest and then we have Grand Slam Mexico two

(01:22:35):
weeks later. But in between those two, on Wednesday, June eleventh,
is another four hour block of television just announced. They're
calling it Summer Blockbuster from Portland, Oregon, so another back
to back Dynamite and Collision in the same night. The

(01:22:56):
reason for this is that Collision is not going to
be airing on a Saturday from May twenty fourth to
June twenty first. I assume it has to do with
sports programming airing on TNT. They've got the NBA and
the NHL Playoffs coming up. Whatever the reason, they're experimenting,
and I don't like this experiment. I don't like this

(01:23:17):
one bit. You know what I did like, though, I
actually really liked Dynamite. On Wednesday night, they had their
Dynamite Spring Breakthrough show, which was one of the best
episodes of aw television that they have ever produced. It
wasn't just the best Dynamite of the year, it is
one of the best episodes of Dynamite that they have
ever done. And it emanated from the MGM Music Hall

(01:23:39):
at Fenway in Boston, which was a very cool, very
intimate venue. We have new Trios champions, the Death Riders
have been dethroned and in the place of Hook, who
was not medically cleared. And the last we saw Hook,
he was in the main event the week before vomiting
in the middle of the ring. So whether it was
a concussion or something else, he was not medically cleared

(01:24:02):
for a reason, and so in his place, teaming with
Samoa Joe and Katiori Shabata was Powerhouse Hobbs, who is
now I guess he's the newest member of the Ops
because he is now one third of the Trioch champions.
And they did this finish in a way. It was
very much and I said this in the review on Wednesday,
it was very much patterned after Lex Luger beating Hollywood

(01:24:25):
Hogan on the one hundredth episode of Nitro. This this,
by the way, was a milestone episode for them, just
like Nitro was that night. This was the two hundred
and eighty ninth episode of Dynamite, which officially surpassed WCW
Monday Nitro's two hundred and eighty eight episodes. But on
that one hundredth episode of Nitro back in ninety seven,

(01:24:47):
Luger submitted Hogan with the torture rack and won the championship.
It's one of the all time great moments on Nitro.
And I mean the place just erupted. I think they
were in Detroit. The Roster came out to celebrate with him,
and finally someone had gotten one over on the nWo,
even though we all knew the direction was still Hogan
against Sting, So a lot of people probably weren't expecting

(01:25:10):
there to be a title change on that show, but
it was just this great celebratory moment, right and like
here we know the ultimate direction here is not Samoa,
Joe and John Moxley in Texas at all. In but
you could absolutely do that match a double or nothing.
You could do that match on TV between now and
then with Joe as sort of a lame duck challenger.

(01:25:31):
That's what it felt like to me. When the show
was over, and then on Collision the next night they
had a live Thursday Collision in the same venue, Moxley
challenged Joe to a match. The champion issued the challenge
to the challenger, which at least here makes sense since
Moxley is pissed off and embarrassed that he got Not
only did he get beaten by this man, he got submitted.

(01:25:52):
Joe put him to sleep. That's how they won the
trios titles. So now he wants to get Joe back
in the ring, and he said he would even put
the a to be a world title on the line.
So when this match happens, it will only be the
second match these two have ever had. The only other
match they had was on Raw back in twenty seventeen,
and that was a match that Joe won. There's so

(01:26:13):
much time though, between now and double or nothing. I
could see this being a television match and then Moxley
ends up being a part of anarchy in the arena
at the pay per view instead, and maybe Joe too.
Maybe Joe will be on the baby Face team. But
they're definitely having a championship match. We just don't have
a date on that yet. But the way they structured
that main event and everything, it was very well done.

(01:26:35):
And they had the roster just like Nitro in ninety seven.
They had members of the roster come out and they
were popping bottles and celebrating, and Joe did a promo
when the show went off the air, and so it
was this great moment for the people in the venue.
If they wanted to turn hook Heel right, because I'm
thinking about Hook now and we don't know when Hook
is going to be back. He could be back this week.
If they wanted to turn Hook Heel out of this

(01:26:58):
him being the one to Joe after feeling betrayed by
Hobbs taking his spot, that could be one way to
go or hook could just simply come back and now
they have four members of the Ops instead of three.
But I'm just saying if they wanted to turn him
heel out of this, that would be, I think, the
way to do it. They also had a bunch of
owen Hart Foundation Tournament matches and we had for the

(01:27:21):
very first time Mercedes Monette and Athena one on one,
and they had an excellent match. I did not realize
until later. I didn't mention it during the review because
I just didn't realize it that they took that finish,
that roll up finish that they did right out of
the match where owen Hart pinned the Rock to win
his first Intercontinental title, or at least it wasn't exact,

(01:27:44):
but it was a very similar finish, and I'm sure
that wasn't unintentional given this as the owen Hart Tournament,
So that was very cool. But this is one of
the best matches Mercedes has had yet in AW. I
don't know if I would rank it above her last
match with Chris Statlin, but it's up there as one
of the best matches that she's had, so even in

(01:28:05):
their first match where you know, they weren't given everything away.
They still went out there and had a great match,
which is why I hope they turned this into a
series with at least one more match, if not two
more matches, because I know they got even better matches
in them. I know there's a story there to tell. Instead,
when the match was over, they were teasing that Mercedes
would be wrestling Tony Storm. Tony Storm was up in

(01:28:26):
the crowd. They were looking at each other, very heavily
teasing that match. Because the winner of this tournament will
challenge Tony for the title in Texas. Tony for the
title in Texas. That's a lot of teas. But that's
what they're going to be doing at all in and
they may have teased it, but I'm still hopeful that's
not what they're going to do. I just don't think

(01:28:47):
that's the right move to make. I think the right
move to make would be to run things back with
Mercedes and Athena, and you could save Tony for someone else,
like a Jamie Hayter. I would have Jamie Hater win
this tournament and set that matchup for Texas, and there's
history there between those two. Maybe Athena gets involved in
the finals and cost Mercedes the Cup. I mean, it's possible.

(01:29:10):
I didn't really catch it right away, Mercedes grabbing her
tights on the roll up at the end of their match.
It almost looked like she was just grabbing her ass.
To me, I didn't necessarily look at it as oh,
she's got the tights, because when the match was over,
the announcers didn't even mention it. They didn't even really
focus on it, like she cheated or anything. They just
quickly pivoted to Tony Storm in the crowd, and they

(01:29:32):
really didn't say anything about it. But I mean, I
suppose Athena could have an issue with how that all
went down and could end up getting involved. We had
will Ospray and Knoski Takeshta on the men's side of things,
and they absolutely tore the house down. They found a
way somehow to top their match from Revolution last year,
which was one of the best matches all year. These

(01:29:53):
two went out there, they just fucking killed it. It
was great Osprey advance as he goes to the finals.
We had the debut of Josh Alexander. He was the
wild card against Hangman Adam Page. He lost, even though
it was his first match. But what I do like
is that he joined the don Kallis family, and I
just think that's gonna be a good move for him.

(01:30:13):
Ospray against Hangman in the finals, I think that's the
way it's shaping up. I could see Hangman being involved
in anarchy in the arena though at double or Nothing,
and they run back Ospray and Fletcher on that show
instead in the finals one more time. But what good
would it do for Fletcher to just go out there
and lose again to Ospray. Also with Ospray against Hangman,

(01:30:38):
you have the drama of not being sure who's winning,
because I could plausibly see either man challenging for the
title in Texas. I still think it's going to be
well Ospray, but you can make an argument that Hangman
wins and the Cowboy rolls into Texas to challenge for
the championship and try to be the savior of the
entire company. It could go either way. Spray wins though,

(01:31:01):
and we get Swerve and Hangman in a tag team
against the Young Bucks. But there's just more drama and
unpredictability if it's Ospray against Hangman than there is if
we get Ospray against Fletcher again and the Hurt Syndicate.
They had a tag team title defense on the show
against the Gates of Agony. We had a segment with
them in MJF who continues to court them and is

(01:31:23):
trying to become a member of the Hurt Syndicate. Is
this leading to a Pinnacle reunion or actually somebody suggested
a Dynasty reunion from the MLW days with Richard Holiday
and Alexander Hammerstone. The thing is Hammerstone recently returned to MLW,
so I'm not sure how likely that is. His contract

(01:31:45):
with TNA ended a couple of months ago, he went
right back to MLW. I mean, I guess that doesn't
mean he's signed there. He could be on a per
appearance deal. But ultimately, I don't know where this is going.
It feels to me like MJF is going to end
up with his own group to go up against the
Hurt Syndicate. It's been an interesting story. I don't know
where it's going, but I like the element that Bobby

(01:32:08):
Lashley just doesn't trust this guy at all, and it's
MVPUS trying to talk him into it. Like, look, look,
I agree with you, but if there's anything amiss, then
we'll put a beating on him. And so Lashley now
is starting to warm up to it. But that's what happens, right,
He starts to warm up to it, and that's when
he gets fucked over, and then we end up with

(01:32:29):
whatever the feud is going to be. But from from
top to bottom again, this was an excellent episode of Dynamite.
It was better than any of the WWETV shows this week.
Dynamite was a clear and easy number one. And if
we get more Dynamites like that, if we can get
shows like that on a more consistent basis, and if
they're fortunate enough to end up in front of a
crowd like the one we had on Wednesday, you know,

(01:32:51):
people talk about restoring the feeling with Dynamite, that would
go a long way towards restoring that feeling. I mean,
not every week can be a Grand Slam Home, but
I would like to see more shows like that because
that show is fucking great. All right, So again, tonight
is WrestleMania Night too, and I'm gonna be live on
YouTube with the full recapt talking about the entire show

(01:33:13):
and all the happenings and what goes down in the
main event. I hope you'll be able to join me.
We had a late night last night, but it was
a fun night again. We had upwards of forty three
hundred people at the peak. Hopefully we can top that tonight.
I will be back with you live tomorrow night as
well for the Raw post show, the Big Raw after WrestleMania,
and for Dynamite on Wednesday. There will be no SmackDown

(01:33:35):
review this Friday. More importantly, there will be no podcast
next Sunday, so expect to get a new podcast episode
nine to eleven in two weeks because I will be
away in Chicago next weekend. If anything changes on that front,
I will be sure to let you guys know on
X what I'm gonna do right now is I'm going
to include my WrestleMania nine documentary review, which went up

(01:33:59):
on YouTube several days ago, but I wanted to include
it here as well. I know a lot of people
wanted to know my thoughts on the documentary. They enjoyed
the documentary. I did two but I did have a
lot to say about it, and so right now We're
gonna end this week's show with my full review. The
making of WrestleMania nine and I will see you live

(01:34:20):
tonight on YouTube for Night two of the WrestleMania Review.
When I heard that WWE was releasing a documentary on
WrestleMania nine, I geeked out because this is the kind
of stuff that speaks to me. This is the kind
of thing I wanted out of the WWE network when
it launched. A lot of people call WrestleMania nine the

(01:34:41):
worst or one of the worst of all time. Eleven
is the worst, twenty seven was bad, twenty nine was
abysmal outside of the Undertaker see on punk match nine
is among the worst, for sure, but I can't call
it the worst. It's got a certain charm to it,
even though most of the match is sucked. It didn't
feel like a WrestleMania, but it's got its own unique

(01:35:03):
identity that no other WrestleMania has outside of I guess
the empty Arena one they were forced to do for
thirty six, Peacock dropped a nearly two hour documentary called
WrestleMania nine Becoming a Spectacle, and I really enjoyed it
for all of the unseen footage, mostly, you know, more
than anything else. We even got a shot of a
young Nick Kahn, who now runs the entire company. He

(01:35:26):
was working for Caesars as an usher for the show,
and I know he's talked about it before, but I've
never actually seen a freeze frame of him working the show.
But there he was. They had a camera following people
around in the days leading up to the show as
they constructed a small arena. Really is what they did
in the parking lot of Caesar's Palace. That's where they

(01:35:47):
did WrestleMania nine in the parking lot. And these thirty
tapes have been sitting in their vault since nineteen ninety three,
a vault that has over five hundred and seventy five
thousand hours of footage. Like, my god, the fun I
could have spending a week in that vault just going
through just random tapes. But the real stars of the

(01:36:08):
show aren't even the talent so much. It's all of
the crew and the production members responsible for putting on
the show. These are sort of the unsung heroes of
WWE who don't get the credit. Like literally, they didn't
even get any on screen credits back then, the way
Paul Levec and leaf Fitting do now. At the end
of every raw and smackdout episode. They're the ones who
made everything happen and brought that show to life, and

(01:36:30):
we get the chance to hear from them and see
them in action and in the planning stages of the show,
which is fascinating to watch. I also love that George
and Adam still work for WWE after all these years.
If you were watching WWE television in the I'd say
mid nineties, George and Adam were the two like obsessed

(01:36:52):
WWE super fans that they would show. Sometimes they would
feature them in commercials. I think they even presented at
the the Slammy Awards Once. They weren't paid actors, they
actually worked for the company. It was either on the
production end or their home video department. I know Adam
at one point was responsible for some of the promo
packages that we would see because Shawn Michaels thanked him

(01:37:13):
by name once for always making him look good. George
Germanacos and Adam Panucci. George is featured in this documentary
right from the get go. He's the one playing the tapes.
He's the one sitting in the archives playing the tapes
for us and giving us a little intro before each
one to let us know what we're about to see.
He works in the archives for WWE. He's got the

(01:37:35):
best job. Adam Panucci is not featured in this documentary,
but when I saw George, I immediately thought of Adam,
who is currently their head of global production. You know,
ninety three is an interesting time. Business was in the
shitter really for both companies that year, WWEN, WCW It
was really ninety two and ninety three. But there was

(01:37:57):
a lot of good stuff from those years. You know,
even in WCD, Vader as the champion. His matches would Sting.
They had that great War Games match of Wrestle War
with Sting Squadron against the Dangerous Alliance, which I still
say is the greatest War Games match of all time.
Rick Rude, after he left WWE, had a really good
run there, and then you look at WWE. You know,

(01:38:18):
ninety two is Rick Flair's first full year, really his
only full year. During that initial run, we got the
greatest Royal Rumble of all time. I really liked WrestleMania eight.
It's one of my favorite manias. He had SummerSlam at
Wembley Stadium, eighty thousand fans. They couldn't do that kind
of business in the States, but they were still very

(01:38:38):
popular overseas. You know, the buildings were not full during
that period. It was the land of a thousand gimmicks.
Everybody had to have a gimmick, and it felt like
they were in a period of transition, especially from ninety
two into ninety three, and a lot of that was
out of necessity. You know, Vince McMahon had the federal
government breathing down his neck. The steroid stuff. A lot

(01:38:59):
of those giant physiques magically started to shrink or people
just disappeared altogether. The era of Hulkamania was over. It
felt like it was over, and they were ushering in
a new era with guys like Bret Hart and Sean Michaels,
and they brought in Raised Ramone into Tanka. It just
felt different. And that's the thing about this documentary. It

(01:39:21):
feels like they're stuck between these two eras and they're
not quite sure yet what they want to be. Because
for all the new faces, by the time WrestleMania is over,
they're back to the oldest face of all and it
feels like they're taking a step backwards. When they were
trying to move forward, But there are times watching this
where they go way over the top talking about the

(01:39:44):
significance of WrestleMania nine. You know how without WrestleMania nine,
Mania as it is today doesn't exist, which is completely laughable.
If WrestleMania and nine never happened, WrestleMania exists today exactly
the way that it does, with all the bells and
whistles and pageantry and everything that comes with it. What

(01:40:05):
it was was the first WrestleMania they did that had
a specific theme. You know. They billed it as the
world's largest toga party. So they created this venue and
they kind of did it up like something out of
ancient Roman times. They had Caesar and Cleopatra. They had elephants,
and they had vultures and all kinds of animals. It
was the first WrestleMania with a custom set. That is true.

(01:40:30):
A lot of the WrestleManias that came before it had
much bigger crowds because they hosted it in much larger
venues in WrestleMania three, WrestleMania six, WrestleMania eight, even the
year before. But for the most part, they all looked
the same. I mean, the ones from Trump Plaza. They
had a different look to them because that was a
very unique venue, But a lot of the other WrestleMania

(01:40:51):
is they all just looked the same. WrestleMania eight the
year before, had sixty thousand people in the Hoosier Dome,
even though it was it was he papered. I mean,
a lot of those sixty thousand didn't pay to get in,
a lot of freebies given out. But as for the
look in the feel of the show, it was very bland.
You know, this was something unique that they created from scratch,

(01:41:13):
and you could tell they had a lot of fun
making it. Vince McMahon has featured a good amount not
new footage obviously, but just you can't avoid it, you know,
you can't really do a documentary like this and show
all this old footage without using the footage with him
in it. He was obviously intimately involved in the planning
of the show, but I do wonder if not having

(01:41:35):
access to him today played a part in how little
time they spent on What I was looking forward to
the most and what I thought would be the most
interesting part of the entire documentary, which was the decision
to go with Hulk Hogan at the very end, getting
the surprise win over Yoko Zuna and transitioning the title
over from Brett Hart to Yoko to Hulk. They covered it,

(01:41:57):
they didn't avoid it. I mean they covered it, but
they avoided any real discussion about what went into the decision.
You know, ultimately it was Vince McMahon's decision. You know,
Brett has said certain promises were made to him and
he was backstabbed. You know, that's his story. Hogan has
his version of events, which it's Hogan. So right off
the bat, I've been conditioned to not believe anything the

(01:42:19):
man says. Because they didn't have Vince sit down for this,
we couldn't get his perspective on what went into the decision.
Like of all the people, all the talking heads in
this documentary, you've got Bruce Pritchard, and you've got Basil DeVito,
and you've got all these people, these these current and
former WWE executives and people directly involved in the planning
of this show. And it was great that they were

(01:42:40):
able to get their perspective. But the number one guy,
you know, if he even remembers a lot of this stuff,
I mean, who the hell knows he almost eighty years
old now, but would have been Vince right, because this
was Vince's show, and so he would have known why
we did this and why we did that. Obviously, they
were never going to get him sit down for an
interview for this for obvious reasons. But we were missing

(01:43:03):
that perspective, you know, as far as what went into
that decision. How far back was the decision actually made.
Was there ever really a plan in place to do
Brett Hard against Hulk Hogan at SummerSlam in ninety three,
Because there's been a lot of conflicting stories on that,
you know, over the years. It was disappointing that they
didn't dive deeper into that. Instead we get kind of

(01:43:25):
like bits and pieces from different people to basically say
it came down to business, which I'm sure it did.
I mean, at the end of the day, that's really
what it comes down to. So, I mean we could
kind of piece it together ourselves, you know. Was it
simply a case of Evin's falling back on his tried
and true to try to give the business a jolt?
Was it Hogan playing politics to get the belt back

(01:43:46):
or else he wouldn't work the show? You have undertaker
in this saying there was a lot of politicking going
on behind the scenes, but we don't get any further
discussion about it. You know, is that something he was
aware of or is that something he heard like, we
don't know. The other thing focus a lot on is
Hogan's black eye that he showed up sporting the day
of the show, and how he got that black eye. Now,

(01:44:09):
Hogan claims it was a jet ski accident, the urban
legend has always been that he got punched in the
face by the macho Man, Randy Savage. Savage and Hogan
were not friendly during this time period. Savage's marriage to
Elizabeth had fallen apart the year before, and he blamed
Hogan and his wife for it. Yeah, because they would
invite Liz to come stay with them when she wanted

(01:44:31):
to get away from Randy, who was an insanely jealous husband.
I don't know the inner workings of their marriage, but
you hear enough stories and look, I love the macho man,
but the guy was a lunatic. You know, he would
lock her in the dressing room. It shows when he
had to go do something to make sure that she
couldn't leave. And none of the other wrestlers could talk
to her like, this isn't normal behavior. There was nothing

(01:44:55):
normal about Randy Savage. Whatever her reasons were, Liz would
leave and she would go spend days at a time
with Hulk and his wife, Linda, and wouldn't tell Randy,
you know, where she was going, and he wouldn't know
where she was. You take someone who's paranoid as it is,
and I'm sure it's enough to drive them even crazier.

(01:45:16):
You know, Hogan told the story once and it's Hogan,
so again, take it for what it's worth. But it
would have been around the time of this show, maybe
maybe a little before, and she went down to Miami
with Hulk and his wife. I don't know if they
were staying at a resort or where they were. Phoned

(01:45:36):
Randy Liz did and told him to get a lawyer
because she wanted a divorce, and he panicked and he
flew to Miami to go find her. Only, as Hogan tells,
at the hotel they were staying at, he had seen
Liz go into her room earlier with another man, a producer,
guy that Hogan was friends with. Savage shows up looking

(01:45:59):
for her, and you can his reaction when he knocks
on her door and the producer opens the door. Long
story short, you can see why Savage would have blamed
Hogan for manipulating his wife into thinking that she could
do better and that she should leave Randy. Now, is
it plausible that he would have punched Hogan in the eye. Sure, absolutely,
it's plausible. The guy was fucking crazy and he didn't

(01:46:22):
like Hogan. But I never really bought the story that
Savage did it. Like, even if you believe that Savage
did it, and Hogan maybe kept it a secret from
Vince right and concocted the jet ski story not to
get Randy in any trouble. You know, boys will be boys,
don't be a snitch, that sort of thing. There's footage,
and they didn't show it in the documentary. I thought

(01:46:44):
they would, But there is footage of when Wrestlemannie and
Nine went off the air that night of Savage climbing
into the ring because he was at ringside doing commentary,
and he climbs into the ring to raise Hogan's hand.
And this was after the show went off the air.
This is not something that aired on TV. This is
you know, Vince, I want you to go in the
ring and I want you to celebrate with This was

(01:47:06):
Randy just going into the ring and he's raising Hogan's
arm and he's celebrating with him. I just can't imagine
Savage doing that. If he was so angry with Hogan
that he would punch the guy in the face. I mean,
he wouldn't want to be within ten feet of this guy.
And if Vince did know what happened, he did know
the real story. I can't imagine Hogan not telling Vince

(01:47:27):
what he got to the venue. Hey, I'm not going
out there. If he's out there now, I want him
off commentary from my match. It's not like Hogan wouldn't
have had the stroke to make it happen. I mean.
In the documentary, Scott Steiner is one of the people
interviewed because he wrestled on the show, and Scott Steiner said, well,
you know, I didn't see it myself, so I can't

(01:47:48):
say for sure, but he claimed Randy told him that
he did it. He punched Hogan, he got Matt Bourne
Joink the Clown, has said that Randy did it, but
Matt Bourne also said that Doink was going to be
Hulk Hogan's original opponent for WrestleMania nine, so Matt Bourne
may not be the most reliable source on this. Somebody

(01:48:08):
asked Eric Bischoff the other day on Twitter about the story, though,
the whole jetski story, and Bischoff said that it was
definitely a jet ski accident because he was negotiating with
Hogan at the time when it happened, and that he
heard immediate first hand accounts from people who were involved. Now,
no one is more in love with Hulk Hogan than

(01:48:30):
Hulk Hogan himself, but a close number two would be
Eric Bischoff. Bischoff, on his own podcast two years ago
said that he first became executive producer for WCW in
either February or March of ninety three, okay, just before
WrestleMania nine. And he said, and this was two years ago.

(01:48:51):
He said that it wasn't until ninety four that he
started talking to Hulk Hogan. Now he claims he was
negotiating with Hogan in ninety three, right before wrestle Mania.
I don't believe him. I don't believe that man. That
timeline makes no sense. What do I think happened? I mean,

(01:49:13):
hell if I know. I mean, I've never been in
the camp of Oh Savage definitely punched him. I feel
like it's a myth that's taken on a life of
its own over the years. Hogan did claim that his
eye was so bad he would never be cleared by
the doctor to wrestle because Nevada was a commission state.
So he lied to the doctor that day by telling
him that Savage had punched him as part of a

(01:49:34):
storyline that they were starting, and that it was all
just makeup, and the doctor rolled with it and he
signed off on the physical, so Holpe was able to
wrestle that night. I wonder if it's a case where
he really did tell that story to the doctor and
maybe some other people, and over time it just became
accepted as you know, Savage punched him for real. You know,

(01:49:55):
I don't know. I don't know, and we're never gonna know.
None of the people involved in this, trustworthy Savage himself
obviously is dead. You're not gonna get Vince to talk
about this, right, they weren't gonna interview him, so and
everybody else involved here. Again, I don't trust the word
out of their mouth, but I would like to believe
that Randy Savage really did haul off and punch him

(01:50:16):
in the face. I like that story better than the
jet ski accident. Like even the way Hogan describes the
accident here in this documentary, it just sounds so phony,
like he pushed the wrong button and he got thrown
over the jet ski and then it came down and
hit him in the eye. Like he'd be fucking dead
if that happened. Okay, he was knocked out, he was

(01:50:39):
floating unconscious in the water. But when he came to,
he told Jimmy Hart, I'm not missing WrestleMania, brother, because
he's from the old school, and you make your towns,
you don't miss your shots. Give me a break. One
thing I liked that they did is when they interview
these people. They interviewed a lot of stars in this,

(01:51:01):
you know, most of whom were involved in the actual show,
so Hogan, Brett Hart, Undertaker, Lex Luger, Shawn Michaels. They
had an iPad and they would be showing them clips
that they had never seen before and then getting them
to comment on it. So that was cool. I like that,
you know, kind of to see their reaction in real
time to this stuff. They interviewed Colin Cowherd for this documentary.

(01:51:25):
Like what the fuck? That was my reaction as soon
as I saw him on screen. I'm like, why is
this guy being interviewed for this? And then I see
that he used to work as a sports director at
a TV station in Las Vegas, So I guess there's
the Vegas connection. That's why Colin Cowherd, the guy who
once called all wrestling fans booger eating nerds on his show.

(01:51:47):
You notice when WWE got back in bed with Fox
a few years ago and he works for Fox, all
of a sudden he changed his tune. You ever noticed
that he became a big wrestling fan. It's funny how
that works, isn't it. Anyway, he offered nothing of value
in this documentary. We got to see floor plans for

(01:52:08):
the show again. This is one of the cool elements
to this. I lovec and stuff like that. Their goal
was to do a million dollar gate, which they did
with a top ticket price get this of two hundred
and fifty dollars all the way down to twenty five bucks.
They said it was very important to keep that twenty

(01:52:29):
five dollars price point so that people still felt like
they could attend the show. That's what's lost with WWE today. Like,
for two hundred and fifty bucks, you might be able
to get a seat up in the nosebleeds. And that's
by the time they add all the taxes and fees.
They have completely priced people out of going to their shows,

(01:52:50):
especially if you have a family, if you have a kid,
if you have two kids, I forget about it. Yeah,
obviously some people can afford it. I mean people can
afford it, But some people look at it and go,
I'm not going to spend my money on this. Like
you just get to a point where it's like it's
not even worth it. It's just very difficult. And they

(01:53:11):
can get away with it because the product is hot
and they can still sell those tickets. So long as
people are willing to pay those prices, they have no
incentive to change their strategy. Hey, people want to spend
five hundred dollars for a shitty seat, then hey, you know,
we're not going to stand in their way. But when
I saw that top ticket price for this show, like

(01:53:31):
it really drove home just how much things have changed.
And after eight days of tickets being on sale, Basil
DeVito sent a memo to Vince McMahon letting him know
that they had only sold two thousand tickets and he said,
not bad, but not great either, And that had a
lot to do with why they went back to hul
Cogan because Hogan was not advertised for this show. This

(01:53:54):
was going to be the first WrestleMania without their biggest star.
Last time we saw Hogan WrestleMania eight and he had
to go away, and they didn't talk about why he
had to go away. They talked about always making TV
shows and movies and okay, sure, yeah, that's true, but
they didn't really get into why he had to go away.
There was a lot of heat on Hogan with the

(01:54:15):
steroid stuff, and it was just a bad look, and
it was agreed upon that it would be best for
all involved, probably to just let things cool down a
little bit. Hogan's gonna go off and do his own thing,
which is what happened, and so he hadn't been seen for,
you know, a very long time. They were off to
a very slow start, and so what do you do

(01:54:37):
in that situation, right, you go back to your tried
and true. I loved all the footage of them setting
up their little Roman colisseum. It's it's pretty wild to
think that they were. There was a WrestleMania held in
a parking lot, like the first Indie mud show. WrestleMania
was WrestleMania nine. They talked about Brett Hart against Yoko

(01:54:59):
Zoo being the WrestleMania main event and how they were
unproven in that spot and there were concerns about that. Yes,
that's why you go with Brett Hart defending against Randy Savage.
Savage had just won the world title the previous WrestleMania.
Now he's sitting at ringside doing commentary. Why not have
Savage in there? He's been to the dance before. If

(01:55:22):
you're worried about these guys being unproven in the main event,
Savage has been to the main event a few times before.
Have him put Brett over in a passing of the
torch moment to give Brett some more credibility, right beating
one of the big stars of the WrestleMania era, like
it was right there. How do you not have Randy
Savage in a match on this show main event or not? Like,

(01:55:43):
how do you not have him in a match on
this show? Especially when you're trying to sell tickets. But
business is business, and the call was made to go
back to Hogan. They had sixteen thousand seats to fill.
Hogan was still a name and a name that had
been gone for a while, so they can make money
off the chright, the return of the Hulkster. The other
side to that is that you have a roster of

(01:56:04):
full time guys and new talent that are trying to
get over and here they're bringing back someone from the past.
That's exactly what the Undertaker said in this and that's
pretty rich coming from him, of all people, the guy
who the last seven or eight years of his career
was built around coming back once a year for WrestleMania. Like,

(01:56:25):
my eyes rolled back in my head almost as far
as his used to. There was a part where they
show Howard Finkel in the ring during rehearsals as Finkus Maximus,
and someone off camera shouts, hey, Howard, Pizza, Pizza, and
I laughed my ass off Like that was the funniest

(01:56:47):
part of the whole documentary for me, Like I got
the reference. You have to be a certain age to
get it, but I got you know, I got it
immediately because they used to have commercials for Little Caesars
with the little mascot guy that would go Pizza, Pizza
at the end of every commercial. I don't know why.
I probably laughed more than I should have, But to me,
that was the funniest part of the whole documentary, watching

(01:57:08):
the camera crew walk around filming guys and yeah, that
was cool to see the Undertaker just shooting them a
death glare, Like what the hell is this for? Yeah,
because he was so protective of the gimmick for so long,
especially back then, it's weird to see grey Glove Undertaker
out of character like that. They had footage of his
entrance rehearsal with the giant Vulture. He said that it's

(01:57:30):
all he was thinking about. This bird's gonna shit on me?
Is this bird gonna shit on me? He was not
thrilled about this, Like, imagine the bird shitting on him
during the show, and there's just nothing he could do,
like he would have to no sell it and there
it is just like dripping down his shoulder. But they
also had the brilliant idea to carry Yoko Zuna to

(01:57:52):
the ring, and they very quickly realized that this is
not going to work, so they scratched that idea. They
showed clips of the dark match the day of the show.
It was Tito Santana against Papa Shango. Papa Shango. He
was thrilled about, you know, just being on the show
because godfather lived in Vegas, so he was just happy
to get a match and his friends and family were there.

(01:58:14):
You know, if you count that match, even though it
didn't err on TV, if you count it, Hogan is
not the only one who worked the first nine WrestleManias,
so did Tito. Jim Ross made his debut on this night.
He had to wear a toga. Hell of a first impression.
Here we had Bobby Heenan riding a camel backwards to
the ring where Bruce Prichard is talking about it. He

(01:58:37):
says that was Bobby's idea because Bobby thought it would
be funnier. And then they went kind of match by match.
We had some highlights and they talked about the matches
on the show. What they didn't mention is that Bam
Bam Bigelow and Kamala were supposed to have a match
on this show, but it got bumped for time. Sean
Michaels defended the Intercontinental title against Tatanka, and they didn't

(01:58:59):
focus on Luna Vashan in sensational Sherry's involvement in this match.
This was the last Mania that Sherry ever worked. I
have this as the best match on that show, even
with the disappointing shitty finish that we got. They did
a count out finish here. You know, the best match
on this show on any other WrestleMania would be right
in the middle, but on this show, it was the

(01:59:21):
best match. The second best match is the tag team
title match. It was the Headshrinkers and the Steiner Brothers.
They didn't show the spot where Scott Steiner almost died.
I think the spot was supposed to be a stun gun,
but he went flying too far and the top rope
got pulled down, and man, I mean he took a
header out to the floor. He is a very lucky

(01:59:44):
guy because you can't see how he lands. The camera's
not on that side. You just see him go over
at an angle that looked like he was about to
spike himself into the floor. How he didn't get hurt,
I'll never know. But the Rick Steiner power slam spot
off of fat two shoulders to Sam mood. That was cool.

(02:00:05):
Razor Ramone and Bob Backland. They had a nothing match
Crush against Doink. I mean, I maintain Evil Doink one
of the greatest gimmicks they've ever done. The double Doink
finish was very clever. It was the only good thing
about this match. Hogan and Beefcake against Money Inc. For

(02:00:26):
the tag team titles. They dubbed this one half of
the double main event, because if Hogan's on the show,
he's the main event, and if he can't be in
the main event, then you got to make it a
double main event. Actually that's what they did the year
before too. WrestleMania eight had a double main event. Hogan
actually closed the show and it wasn't the title match,
but they were billing it as potentially his retirement match.

(02:00:49):
So I mean, when you have a star as big
as Hogan, if it's possibly his last match, then you know,
I understand it. But this was the second year in
a row with this double main event stuff and Brutal.
He says the goal was just to get through the
match without dying. Hogan had his eye, Brutus had his
broken face. This had another lame finish with money Ink

(02:01:10):
retaining by disqualification. This was an issue up and down
the card, all the bad finishes. I mean, there were
so many bad ones. They so they head to the
back after the match is over, and Jimmy Hart, who
was also interviewed for this, says that Hogan gave him
a heads up said, I might be doing something else
tonight too. Gee, I wonder what that could be. They

(02:01:34):
had Lex Luger against Mister Perfect, who could barely speak
straight in his promo before the match. He was tripping
all over his words. Lex says, Kurt must have been
over caffeinated that day. Yeah, that or he was on something,
because once the bell rang, he grabbed Lex in a
headlock and he asked him what are we doing? Like
he forgot the entire match. He had no idea what

(02:01:54):
they were supposed to do. So Luger had to be
the ringleader and lead him through the match. Match and
it was not a great match, but they got through it.
It was okay. It was not at the caliber of
what you would hope a Mister Perfect match would be.
Then there was the Undertaker against the Giant Gonzales, My God,

(02:02:17):
one of the worst matches in WrestleMania. History and yet
another shitty DQ finish, just so they could run it
back at Summer Slim and have another shitty match and
then and that's all I have to say about that.
The less said about that match, the better Undertaker did
what he could, but I mean, there's only so much
you can do. And then came the other half of

(02:02:39):
the double main event, Brett the Hitman Heart in his
first WrestleMania main event, defending the title against Yoko Zuna.
I like this more than I like their WrestleMania ten match.
I think that this is the superior of the two matches.
Brett in the past has blamed Yoko Zuna for cutting
out or forgetting a bunch of things they were supposed

(02:03:00):
to do late in the match, basically all of Brett's
big comeback spots. He was pissed at Yoko for it,
like even here in the documentary he said it was
Yoko getting tired and they hit the ending sooner than
Brett wanted them to. Even mister Fuji, like when Brett
has Yoko Zuna in the Sharpshooter, Fuji wasn't ready with
the salt yet, so Brett felt like he was holding

(02:03:21):
him there forever, just waiting for Fuji to pull out
the salt and throw it in his eyes. Bruce Pritchard
on his podcast years ago said that Vince McMahon made
the call mid match to cut their time, and it
was communicated to the referee while they were in the
ring wrestling, because they were very worried about running out
of time, Like if you weren't off the air, I
think it was like five minutes before the top of

(02:03:43):
the hour, the pay per view companies would just cut
you off and the fans wouldn't be able to see
the finish. I don't know if Brett knew that, because
he still blames Yoko for the finish being rushed, but
he gets hit with the salt. Yoko pins Brett and
he wins the title. And here comes Hulk Hogan to
cash in his money in the bank, and how do

(02:04:05):
they get there? They get there with mister Fuji challenging
Hogan to get in the ring and wrestle Yoko Zuna
the champion. After a hard fought match, wins the title
and then issues a challenge to the challenger to get
in the ring and fight him for the championship. Yoko
should have dumped Fuji right then and there, like a

(02:04:26):
bad habit for doing that. And it all sounds so stupid,
but you can't say the fans in the building didn't
buy into it, because they went crazy for the finish.
It was still Hulk Hogan back after a year away, right,
giving them the happy ending they weren't going to get
if they would have just gone off the air with
the Evil Foreigner, you know, stealing the title from the

(02:04:48):
not so evil Foreigner. This is the finish that would
put the smile on everybody's face, right. And I also wonder,
you know, they were in Vegas and tickets were not
selling great initially when they were advertising all the other
stars on the show. Once they advertised that Hogan was
coming back and Hogan was going to be there, obviously,

(02:05:08):
tickets started selling a lot quicker. I do wonder what
the percentage was of people in the building or in
you know, the building, in the little makeshift stadium there
of actual like regular WWF fans or like hardcore WWF
fans and people who were either casual at best or

(02:05:28):
not even wrestling fans so much as they were in
Vegas and they were looking for something to do and
they saw that Hulk Hogan was going to be there,
and they bought tickets. Like there has to be a
decent number of people that are in the stadium that
night who really aren't big WWF fans, and they probably
didn't even know who some of these guys were, but
everybody would have known who Hogan was, So I'm sure

(02:05:49):
there was a little bit of that going on too.
But yeah, I'll tell you, as a kid, you know,
and I wasn't super duper young at that point, but
as a kid, it was an exciting finish. Was it
a dumb way to get the belt onto him? Yes,
it was. You know, both of those things can be true.
It was an exciting moment, and it was very dumb.

(02:06:10):
Hogan said, he got a lot of heat for it.
He said, Savage was pissed, and Savage said, why don't
you give him the tag belts too? Why don't you
give him the whole show? You know what. I'm surprised
he didn't get the tag belts that night. He could
have been a double champion, but then that just means
he has to do two jobs instead of one to
drop them all. Luger says there was some eyebrows raised

(02:06:31):
in the back by that finish. Sean Michael says, they
felt they were moving to a new generation, and Brett
was very upset that day. He let them all know
that he was very upset, and they were all in
agreement with Brett. Undertaker says he sees both sides. He
sees the drawing power of Hogan, but he also sees
the side of the guys who are working to be
the next hul Cogan and Brett said it went against

(02:06:53):
everything Vince had told him up to that day. Vince
told him, Look, it's just a change of direction. Hogan
says he pitched the idea of Vince, but he notes
that Vince wanted him to pass the torch to Yoko Zuna.
So the idea was for him to win it at
WrestleMania and then drop it back to Yoko at the
next pay per view. Now, remember that, if what Hogan
says is true, this was all laid out well in advance,

(02:07:15):
right him winning the belt so that he could then
drop it to Yoko Zuna at the King of the Ring. Okay,
what they did not get into here is what Brett
has said happened after the match and he talked about
this in his book. Brett says, in the back Hogan
came up to him and he thanked him and he
told him he's I'm not going to forget it, and
that he would return the favor. And Brett says, he

(02:07:38):
looked him in the eye and he said, I'm going
to remember that, Terry. Fast forward to the end of May.
I believe, Brett says, Vince McMahon calls him and tells
him that he was going to get the belt back
and Hogan was going to be used more as a
special attraction. Ten days later, Vince tells Brett that Hogan
was refusing to put him over and he decided that you, Jokozuna,

(02:08:00):
will get the belt back instead, and Brett would work
with Jerry the King Lawler at SummerSlam. Now that's a
very different version of events than the one that Hogan gave.
And Brett says, you know, he showed up at the
King of the Ring in a very bad mood. He
drew a cartoon because Brett Brett's actually a very good illustrator,

(02:08:21):
and he would do that back then, like in the
locker room, he would do these drawings and you know,
leave them up sometimes. So he got to the building
and he drew a cartoon of Brutus beefcake with his
face buried in Hogan's ash cheeks, with the caption be careful, Brutus,
you don't want to loosen the screws in your face
speaking of screws, and he says he felt bad because

(02:08:45):
he was taking his frustrations out on beefcake, which wasn't
the right thing to do. Hogan did an interview a
number of years ago with Peter Rosenberg, and in that interview,
he claimed that he made a deal to drop the
belt to Yoko Zuna, but Vince told Brett that he
was getting the belt, and when Brett confronted Hulk, Hogan
says that he told he told Brett, look, it's not

(02:09:06):
that I don't want to drop the belt to you,
which just not the deal that I made with Vince,
and he says that they both met with Vince and
McMahon told Brett this is according to Hogan, Now, McMahon
told Brett, you getting the belt is what you thought
you heard, And he said, oh, Vince had asked me
to drop the belt to Brett, I would have done it,

(02:09:28):
you know. No questions asked, but since he asked Hogan
to drop it to Yoko, Hogan felt, well, that's what
had to be done. I love it. It's like it
was some blood oath that he made that just could
not be changed. Hogan defending against Brett at SummerSlam and
then passing the torch there. That was the play, especially
if Hogan was leaving anyway. But there's no way he

(02:09:51):
ever would have gone for that, because there's always been
rumors about there was a photo shoot for I think
the magazine during that period. It was either in the
spring or the early summer. They did a photo shoot
with Brett and Hogan doing a little tug of war
over the championship. I don't think it ever saw the
light of day. There may have been solid plans for
the two of them to work against each other at Summerslim,

(02:10:12):
That's what I mean, Like, I wish they would have
dove a little bit deeper into it, talked to Bruce,
talked to I don't know other people who may or
may not have heard things at that time. Again, you
can't get Vince, so it's tough, but that would have
been the play, that would have been the biggest match
that they could do. You know, was Brett the star

(02:10:33):
of this new up and coming you know era here
in the WWF taking on the biggest star of all
time and the star of the past era. But the
idea that Hogan would actually go in there and do
a job for a guy like Brett, like a smaller
guy like Brett, there's just no way not back then,
and it honestly would not have hurt Hogan one bit.

(02:10:57):
But there's no way he ever would have agreed to that. Like,
I cannot stand Brett being upset and feeling like he
was screwed. You know, there's that word again. Brett's been
screwed so many times. He should have been a light bulb.
But here's the reality of the situation. Okay, And I
say this as a Brett Hart fan. He had every
right to be upset and feel blindsided when Vince told

(02:11:17):
him the night before what they were gonna do. You know,
you get this huge opportunity, all this pressure is, you know,
put upon your shoulders, and now you just feel like
a fucking failure. You know, there's like a shame to it.
I wasn't good enough. That's why you're taking this away
from me. But you look at every single WrestleMania before
this one, every single one of them ended with the

(02:11:40):
Babyface or babyfaces celebrating. It was a Babyface territory. Vince's
mindset was, we have to send the fans home happy
at the end of the show. He didn't want Brett
beating Yoko, so Yoko had to win. But then how
do we give the people the happy ending? Right? This
is what he came up with. Can you add to
that how business was doing at the time, which was

(02:12:03):
not great, Like, I don't think it's fair to lay
all of this at the feet of Brett Hart just
because he was the champion, but he was the champion
at a time when business was down and him on
top was not doing enough to change that. Vince tried
to build for the future without Hogan in ninety two
and it didn't work, and so he felt he needed
Hogan back or else WrestleMania was going to be a

(02:12:23):
dud like a lot of the other pay per views.
They were not doing as well by rate wise, they
as they did with Hogan on top, and he was
very worried that the same thing would happen to WrestleMania.
You know, they were having trouble moving tickets. Once Hogan
was announced, tickets started to sell. The buy rate was low,
but not as low as they expected it might be.

(02:12:44):
You know, Hogan may not have been the draw that
he was in eighty six in eighty seven, but he
was still a draw and he was still the biggest
name in wrestling. And Vince made a business decision. You know,
Brett looks at it like a personal offense to him.
It wasn't you know. It came to down to dollars
and cents, like how can we make the most money
on this thing without losing our shirts. This is different

(02:13:05):
from what happened to Montreal, where you know, Brett had
creative control written into his contract and he was flat
out told, like even the day of the show, like
what the finish was going to be, and they double
crossed him. That's a very different situation. Like Vince never
told him here that he was going over at WrestleMania nine.
I mean Brett may have assumed that he was, but
he was never told that. Brett Hard in nineteen ninety

(02:13:27):
three was not the draw that he would go on
to become, and even the draw that he would go
on to become. He was never the draw that hul
Cogan was. And when you're a promoter and business is down,
you fall back on your top attraction. It may not
be the most popular move. And I think Hogan is
a selfish asshole who didn't give a single fuck about

(02:13:49):
helping build new stars. He was interested in keeping hul
Cogan strong. Yeah, he didn't care about what the WWF
roster was going to look like in the future because
he was leaving anyway. He wasn't sticking around. But as
a business move, I understand why they did what they did.
What really would have been best for business would have

(02:14:09):
been to have Hogan put their next big star over clean,
whether that was Yoko Zuna, whether that was Brett Hart. Yeah,
he lost to Yoko Zuna. He put him over, but
only after a camera exploded in his face. That's who
Hogan is. Had he stayed, the new generation that followed
never would have been able to climb the mountain the

(02:14:29):
way they did with Brett Hart and Sean Michaels and
Diesel and all of these guys. Hogan never would have
allowed it. Never. He had to leave so that a
new era could could thrive, and it didn't happen right away.
It took several years. There were some lean years there
during the New Generation period fucking nineteen ninety five, Like,
there were some tough times. But the best thing that

(02:14:51):
ever happened to Vince McMahon during that period, outside of
being acquitted, was Hogan leaving, which sounds kind of weird,
but it's true, Like he probably didn't feel that way
at the time, but look at everything that followed, like
even Hogan going to WCW, in forming the nWo. All
of that played a role in the eventual rise of
stars like Stone Cold and The Rock. They were getting

(02:15:14):
their asses handed to them. They had to create new stars.
They were forced, they had their backs against the wall.
The company could have gone under. They had to create
new stars. Imagine if Hogan stuck around, do you have
people like Austin on the Ascent? Do you think he
would have allowed Stone Cold to get as big as
he did. He had to leave. But I enjoyed this

(02:15:34):
and if you're into the behind the scenes stuff you
will too. There's some of the usual fluff, but I
think they kept it to a minimum. Again, WrestleMania nine
may be the worst WrestleMania when it comes to match finishes.
I mean, there's so many terrible finishes on the show,
but I can't call it the worst WrestleMania of all time.
Even the bad stuff, it's never boring. There's nothing worse

(02:15:55):
than a boring WrestleMania. There's some bad stuff here, but
it's never boring. The solemn monster sounds of John Moxley,
in case you couldn't tell, is still the aw World
Heavyweight champ. That means we have another month of this
death rider's bullshit and I could barely stomach swarm. Strickland
is going to Dinas. He will challenge John Boxley for
that title, and he better fucking win. He's the right

(02:16:16):
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 wristler come out and sign his name

(02:16:39):
to that contract and pin John Moxley to win the
AW World title. I would have taken Big Boom Aj
as the AAW 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. The Solo Monster

(02:17:01):
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 Solo Monster. I Love you so long.

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