Sound Off 925 - How TNA Became WWE's USEFUL IDIOT, Kross SHOOTS And TripleMania Thoughts! - Solomonster Sounds Off

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

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You got grown ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Come over here is that Pet Patterson? You have legs?
I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now, congratulations, who hasn't beat Daniel Garcia.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
It was a good week for the horror fan in me.
I finally got around to seeing Sinners, and I went
to see Weapons on Thursday, which was fun to watch
in the theater with other people. It's one of my
great regrets with Sinners. I wish I would have seen
it when it was in theaters. I do love me
a good vampire movie. Actually, both movies have comedic elements

(00:54):
to them. Weapons more so than Sinners. I love the
practical effect and the makeup that they use. But the music,
I have to say in Sinners, the music was awesome.
I do love the music they use in that movie.
It just gives it a whole different vibe. I'm actually
gonna say I think it makes my mount rushmore of

(01:16):
vampire movies. I think it clears the bar. I got
fright Night, The Lost Boys from Dusk Till Dawn, and
Sinners Now Weapons.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I won't give any.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Spoilers away, but it is absolutely worth seeing even if
you're not a horror fan.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
It's the kind of horror.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Movie that I think even a non horror fan would
be able to enjoy. I was expecting straight horror, and
it really was it. I wouldn't say it's scary so
much as it's creepy, and it's also funny in parts,
especially in the second act. There were a few scenes
where everybody in the audience was just laughing their asses off.

(01:57):
So don't get sucked into deep by the hype, Like
if you go into it with unrealistic expectations like oh,
it's got a you know, ninety five percent fresh rating
on Rotten Tomatoes or something like who gives a shit,
don't read anything about it, don't watch the trailer. Just
go see it and you'll enjoy it more. And it's
an original concept too, which I appreciate. It's got Julia

(02:18):
Garner and Josh Brolin in it.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
They're great.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I've been a fan of Julia Garner since I saw
her in Ozark. I mean, she was one of the
best parts of that show, Josh Brolin, I can't believe
I first saw that man in the Goonies and it's
the same person in No Country for Old Men, but
it is. They're already talking about a prequel film for
one of the characters too, so it takes a little

(02:41):
while to get going because they switch between character perspectives,
which is pretty neat because you get some backstory on
a few different characters as much as they can fit
into the runtime leading up to whatever the moment is
that they're up to at that part of the film.
Then they go back and here's how this character got here.
So it's that kind of thing. But I liked it
a lot. So I watched Sinners, I watch Weapons. I

(03:04):
watched In a Violent Nature, which some of you guys
first told me about last year. That was a recommendation
that you guys gave me. It's a slasher film, but
from the perspective of the killer, which is something you
don't see very often. So this is basically, if you
put a hockey mask on the guy, it would be

(03:24):
a Friday the Thirteenth movie, but with long, boring stretches
of Jason just slowly walking through empty fields. That's basically
what it is like if you were playing the killer
in a video game and had no idea where you
were going on the map, like you're just exploring the level.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's this movie. It is violent, though, I'll give it that.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
I mean, it's got violins in the title of the movie,
so I kind of knew what to expect. The kills
are on point. It actually has one of the most
brutal kills I've ever seen on film, the yoga scene.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
So if you know, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
But it got to the end with fifteen minutes of
dialogue in a car that I was sure was leading somewhere,
and then it led to absolutely nothing, and I was like,
what the fuck was the point of that? So I
was not a fan of that ending. But they're actually
working on a sequel. It goes into production next month.
Hopefully it's not as boring as the first one. But

(04:22):
one last thing here. I also watched the new Friday
the thirteenth short film on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
It's called Sweet Revenge.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's got a product placement in it for Angry Orchard,
and I think people were worried, Oh, it's just going
to be a glorified commercial. But you know, it runs
fifteen minutes, and they kept the product placement to a minimums.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
I mean, no more so than you would see in
any other movie.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
It's probably a less product actually not probably, it has
less product placement than you'll see on.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
A WWE show.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
I don't know if I'm just starved for Jason Vorhees's
content because it's been sixteen years since the Last Friday movie,
but I I know some people didn't like it. I
enjoyed it. I thought the music was on point, it
had some good kills. I see a lot of people
bitching that most of the kills came off screen, but
it's only fifteen minutes. I mean, what did you expect?

(05:14):
You know they needed time to set things up, so
I liked it.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
I know there's a.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Crystal Lake prequel TV series coming to Peacock. I hope
it comes out before WWE leaves for ESPN, because once
they do, I'm ditching the cock. I won't have any
use for it anymore. So that concludes the horror portion
of this week's show. This is episode nine twenty five

(05:40):
of The Solemn Monster Sounds Off, where the Solomn Monster
can sound off on anything he damn well pleases. It
is Sunday, August seventeenth, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
They may be.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Able to make a horror movie out of Charles Robinson.
Poor little natch. He's had a rough summer. First he
gets demolished by John Cena at Night of Champions. Then
he gets one of his ribs broken by Goldberg on
Saturday Night's main event. Brett Hard is not surprised, and
this week he landed in the emergency room at two
o'clock in the morning and got four raby shots after

(06:15):
being bitten by a bat. A fucking bat. My newest
fear has been unlocked. If he doesn't come down to
the ring wearing a cape and a utility belt, I'm
gonna be very disappointed. But if you want to make
a PayPal donation and support the show, you may do
so on theslom monster dot com ten dollars or more.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
We'll get you a nickname and a shout out.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Let's get through this roll call here, because we got
to give these people a shout out right up front.
Big b Bryant, Visara, thank you, the Diamond Dallas Dance Machine,
Harrison's Soap Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iicherd,
night Stalker, if Alsaphar Daredevil, Doug Lippert, Best in the Game,

(07:00):
Tray Porter, Killshot, Keith Hart. Welcome to Dirty Dirk McCullough.
Happy birthday to Chris in the UK, who turned thirty
seven this past Tuesday. He's been a sound off fan
out for the past twelve years. Here's to twelve more
birthdays five times over. I hope thirty seven treated you well.

(07:20):
Shout out to Polaris, who's a fan of the podcast
and also a filmmaker. He recently worked with Carl Fredericks,
formerly known as Eddie Thorpe on NXT Television two dive
into his feelings on walking away from his dream job,
where as he says, he played a stereotypical Native American character,
walked away from that in order to illustrate the importance

(07:42):
of leaving behind the right footsteps for future indigenous generations,
and Carl proudly identifies as a Northern Paiute Native and
was already thinking of leaving before he was released along
with his partner Dakota Kai. He has a short profile
on Carl and Dakota makes a quick cameo in it

(08:03):
as well. It's up on his YouTube channel right now.
It will not take up more than a couple of
minutes of your time. It's really well done. Just search
for the name Polaris Castillo on YouTube and his channel
should be the first thing that comes up. It is
the most recent video that he posted, so definitely give
that a watch. And the Hardys, Matt and Jeff, they

(08:25):
are returning to House of Glory right here in New
York City Friday night, October tenth. That's two nights before
their Bound for Glory match against Team three D. Also
that night, Amazing Rehd is wrestling the brand new TNA
X Division Champion, the new youngest X Division champion of
all time, Leon Slater. So that's the first time ever match.

(08:47):
Get your tickets now at hog Wrestling dot Net.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
We've got some other things in the works.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
I'll leave it at that, but before then, we have
our return to Philadelphia on Thursday, September fourth, and I
will be there.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
You should be too.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Again, you can get your tickets at hog Wrestling dot Net.
I also want to say thank you for getting me
to eighty eight thousand subscribers on YouTube. We hit that
mark this week and We are already well on our
way to eighty nine k, but I cannot get there
without you, So if you are not subbed, please go
ahead and subscribe on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
A quick programming note, These next two.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Weekends coming up are going to be a little complicated
because there are two pay per views pls, whatever you
want to call them. AW has Forbidden Door next Sunday,
and that show has I believe a one o'clock Eastern
start time. The following Sunday is Clash in Paris, which
has a two pm Eastern start time, so it's right

(09:45):
dead center in the middle of Sunday, which of course
is my recording day, and it makes no sense for
me to record a podcast on that day when I'm
going to be watching these pay per views and then
going live. So the plan right now is to get
the shows up day early each of the next two weekends.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
That's the plan.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's possible they go up super early on Sunday morning,
but my aim is to get the SoundOff up on
Saturday each of the next two weekends. So if anything changes,
I'll let you know, but just be aware of that.
I know everyone's a creature of habit. Everybody's got their routine.
They expect the sound duff to pop up on Sunday
at some point. I don't want you to miss out.
I don't want you to think, Oh, what's going on here?

(10:25):
Is it going up a day early? I have no choice,
just because they're running these Sunday shows right in the
middle of the day, and they happen to be back
to back weekends. So if the SoundOff goes up a
day early, there's a good reason for it. So just
keep your eyes peeled for that.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Now.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Last week I talked about the blockbuster WWE deal with
ESPN for the rights to all of its plees starting
with WrestleMania next year, one point six billion dollars over.
I got my pinky to my mouth as I say this.
One point six billion dollars over five years, which works
out to be three hundred and twenty five million a year.

(11:03):
One week later, that deal doesn't look so blockbuster anymore
compared to the megadeal that TKO struck with Paramount for
the US rights to UFC shows. TKO announced on Monday
that UFC is heading to Paramount in a mind boggling
seven point seven billion dollar deal over seven years starting

(11:26):
in January of twenty twenty six all the way through
the end of twenty thirty two, and the deal has escalators,
so the money is going to be less in the
first few years and much greater in the latter part
of the contract. The deal will see thirteen numbered events,
which are considered the big UFC shows, and thirty Fight
Night events coming to Paramount, plus the streaming service, with

(11:52):
some numbered shows being simulcast on CBS and just as big.
This officially marks the end of the pay per view
era for UFC, which started right from the very first
show they did in nineteen ninety three. They've been on
pay per view ever since. Mark Shapiro, the president COO
of TKO, told CNBC the pay per view model is

(12:14):
a thing of the past. What's on pay per view anymore?
Boxing movies on direct TV. It's an outdated, antiquated model.
I can't believe he didn't mention all Elite wrestling. I mean,
did he not watch all in Texas. Dana White then
said that pay per view was not dead and suggested

(12:35):
they could do a pay per view every now and then.
So one hand doesn't really seem to know what the
other hand is doing here. This all comes after well,
I mean, actually that much was pretty clear based on
what little bit of the interview I saw Dana White
give on Pat McAfee show. I think the day that
this was announced, he looked as surprised as anybody to

(12:57):
find out about this deal. But this all comes after
Skydance just closed an eight billion dollar deal to take
over Paramount, which includes all CBS stations and CBS properties,
Paramount Pictures cable networks like MTV and Nickelodeon and Comedy
Central and Showtime. They took it all over, and regulators

(13:21):
paved the way for the merger last month said that
they were assured by the new owners that they are
committed to unbiased journalism. For the people who are worried
what this means for CBS, you know, coming under their control,
that's a whole other bag of worms, and it's not good.
None of these big mergers are good when it comes
to that sort of thing. David Ellison is now the

(13:43):
men in charge. I don't know if he's a direct
client of Endeavors, but I know Endeavor has represented sky
Dance in past deals, and who runs Endeavor, Aria Manuel
and Mark Shapiro, the same men in charge of TKO,
which happens to own UFC. It all seems to come
back around, doesn't it. The deal made no mention of

(14:06):
the UFC library, so it looks like they're going to
be looking to make a separate deal for that, just
like WWE is likely to do for its library, since
that is not part of the ESPN deal, although the
chairman of ESPN this week said that they would be
interested in the library if and when it becomes available.
If you are a UFC fan who orders most or
all of the pay per views every year, this is

(14:27):
a great deal, right. Plus, they had to pay a
pay per view fee, Like if you were like a
hardcore UFC guy and you wanted to see all the events,
all the major events, you were paying a full blown
pay per view fee. I don't even know what it
was up to now. I mean it kept going up
and up. Like the wrestling shows were always fifty bucks.
I think the UFC shows are probably sixty or seventy.

(14:50):
You were paying that on top of your subscription fee
for ESPN plus every month. You will no longer have
to do that. So if you're a UFC fan, now
you're sitting up to one thousand dollars a year that
you would otherwise be spending with the WWE deal. It's
a similar thing where if you pay for Peacock, you know,
depending on which tier you pay for, and if you

(15:11):
have ESPN as part of your cable package or your
satellite package, you're not going to have to pay the
new ESPN streaming service fee. And that service launches on Thursday.
By the way, you're going to get those shows for free,
and unless there's some other reason for you to keep it,
you can just ditch Peacock altogether. Right then you'd be
saving money too, But again that's only if you're someone

(15:32):
with access to ESPN. If you're not and they don't
reach deals with your service before WWE migrates over, then
you would have to pay the twenty nine to ninety
nine a month, and then you're not saving any money.
So TKO is sitting pretty right now. I mean, between
the nearly eight billion dollar UFC deal, the one point
six billion dollar WWE deal with ESPN, and the ten year,

(15:56):
five billion dollar deal that WWE made with Netflix, that's
a lot of money coming in. And that doesn't even
include the NBC Universal deal for SmackDown and the CW
deal for NXT. Now, does this mean that the fighters
are going to see their pay rise? Dana White says yes,
but Dana White says a lot of things that doesn't

(16:19):
necessarily make it true. It may rise, but will it
rise enough? That's the better question, because without the fighters
there is no UFC, right, same with WWE. Without the wrestlers,
there are no shows. Will the average salary go up
for a WWE performer now with all this new media
rights money flowing in. I think it was Meltzer a

(16:41):
few years ago who said they don't really have downside
guarantees anymore, Like you would always hear about downside guarantees.
So that's like the minimum amount of money that you
would be paid in a given year, no matter what,
Like if you got hurt, you couldn't wrestle, you couldn't
work house shows and anything like, you had your downside.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
At least, right, that's what that is.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And I think it was a few years ago he
said they really are phasing those out and don't do
those anymore. A lot of talent are just paid an
actual salary, which sure sounds like that makes them employees.
I'm just saying so instead of a downside, which for
a mid card talent, I mean, it could be very low,
and then you would add in things like merch money

(17:23):
and bonuses. You know, they just pay you a salary
now instead of that. I'm sure it works differently for
the top talents, and I know that their pay has
gone up in recent years. But will that be the
case now? You know, that would be a good question
to ask at one of those post show press.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Conferences if they actually did them anymore.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
But this all segues nicely into the TNA media rites update.
It came first from John Alba of Sports Illustrated.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
With TNA coming.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Off the heels of its largest show ever in the
US last month, Slammiversary, it now has its site set
on a major new media rights deal. In a previous
conversation with the Takedown on SI, TNA president Carlos Silva
confirmed the company was actively seeking a new media rights partner,
estimating TNA's annual average value to be in the realm

(18:18):
of seven to ten million dollars per year. Since then,
rumors have swirled as to when the company, which has
leveraged its partnership with WWE to attain wider appeal, could
expect a new deal. Silva once again spoke with the
Takedown on SI and provided a timeline as to when
he believes a new deal could come together. He revealed

(18:38):
it's realistic to believe a new package could be brokered
by this fall. I think Bound for Glory is a
great stake in the sand in terms of us getting
everything together as we look to the twenty twenty six
year and season, and so I think August will be quiet.
It usually is in the media, in the media.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Will it was.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I feel like that's all I've been told talking about
the last two weeks, our fucking billion dollar media rides deals.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
It ain't quiet no more.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
It might be quiet for TNA, but he says, I
think August will be quiet, but hopefully we'll work through
a few things, move the ball forward a little bit
in August, and then I think in September and October,
as we get to Bound for Glory, that would absolutely
be the goal to try and get it done by then,
or certainly, if it's not done, have it agreed to

(19:28):
the first year TNA president acknowledged the legal process could
extend that timeline, but remained optimistic that a deal could
be reached by October. Rumors have attached networks like the
CW which hosts NXT and A and E, which airs
WWE produced documentaries that could get in on the bidding.
Multiple TNA sources have indicated that while linear networks are

(19:51):
being discussed, there are also streaming options on the table
as far as negotiations are concerned. When asked directly about
those two specific entities being potential landing spots, Silva confirmed
that they are very much in the running. Oh absolutely, yeah,
all of those and more. Where we have to navigate
all of these properties that have other properties and where

(20:11):
they are in their renewals. I mean, it's a chessboard
puzzle pieces when you're doing these deals, and so it's
about timing. It's about who's coming, who's going, and where
the slots are. And certainly, our job, and I think
we did it in such a big way at Slammiversary,
is to keep putting out a great product that creates buzz.
If it creates buzz, then properties are going to want you.

(20:34):
Multiple independent sources tell the Takedown on SI that there
have at least been discussions, and this is the key here,
that there have at least been discussions of TNA moving
to a WWE associated network, and that the company is
even open to shifting from Thursday to Wednesday nights to

(20:54):
go head to head with AW Dynamite. While it was
not directly indicated that the destination would be the CW,
it was expressed to us that the CW's interest in
the promotion is legitimate and that some WWE stakeholders would
like TNA to be part of the network. It is
not clear how far those discussions have progressed, and it
was stressed that nothing has been signed as of yet.

(21:16):
Multiple sources believe WWE has some degree of influence in
the TNA media rights discussions, with a potential partner involved,
but said WWE's relationship with TNA at this juncture has
not extended beyond the talent exchange and promotion that viewers
have seen throughout twenty twenty five. And so it begins

(21:37):
the talk about competing directly with Dynamite on Wednesdays, but
using t ANDA as a pawn to do so is
very on brand for WWE, because for all the people
who love to say well Tony took the first shot,
Tony called Nick con the con man from Connecticut, years
ago on TV and he called WWE the Harvey Weinstein

(22:00):
Pro Wrestling You wanted competition. Now they're competing. No, that's
not what they're doing here. Tony Khan ran his mouth,
and it's okay for WWE to punch him right back
in the mouth if they want to. That's fine, even
though people do seem to forget that Triple H is
the one that fired the first shot technically by calling
AAW a pissant company at the Hall of Fame. But

(22:22):
find me where Tony Khan ever counter programmed WWE the
way the WWE does to AAW. Find me any example
of Tony Khan going out of his way, even if
it is to the detriment of his own business, to
directly compete with WWE in a way that is intended
to harm the other company. Trash talking is one thing

(22:44):
that could be fun, right, that's fine within reason. Competing
for the same talent is one thing which is absolutely
what WWE and AW do and TNA and every other
major promotion. This is something completely different that we have
not seen since WCWD around And honestly, this is worse.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
This is worse. But this is a.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Company in WWE that behaves like it has an ax
to grind. It's either that or they feel directly threatened
by aw's existence. And I don't honestly believe that WWE
thinks they're in any real jeopardy of seeding their market share,
you know, in the industry, to Tony Kahn into all
elite wrestling, this feels personal. You know, when Dynamite first premiered,

(23:29):
Triple H had one job with NXT, which was to
extinguish the flame. That's what Vince McMahon wanted Triple H
to do with NXT when they went head to head
with AAW, extinguish the flame, and he failed. Vince McMahon
was not happy about that because it allowed them to

(23:50):
gain a foothold. And since they draw from the same
pool of talent, that meant that if they wanted to
retain some of their existing talent or to sign new talent,
they would have to compete financially, which is why you
ended up hearing stories about people like Fucking Dax and
Cash and the Good Brother, all these people being offered
you know, six figure deals that were in the high

(24:10):
six figures that otherwise, believe me, they would not have
been offered WWE was throwing money at people specifically to
prevent them from going to AEW. Okay, I've talked about
this before on this podcast. Around WrestleMania time, I talked
about this. Nick Kahn did an interview I Forget with Who,
and I brought up this very point. One of the

(24:31):
biggest things that aw did to really irritate WWE was
inflate the going rates for a lot of these wrestlers.
Remember the report that some people in WWE felt that,
you know what Tony Khan offered Swarb Strickland to re
sign him was more than his value. Right, Tony overpaid,
and therefore he was raising the going rate for other

(24:51):
talents to a point that just wasn't sustainable. I'm sure
that annoyed WWE greatly. With the TNA stuff, like, ask yourself,
why WWE is suddenly working with TNA after all these years.
TNA has been around for over twenty years, and there
were a lot of years where WWE would would take

(25:12):
their own little potshots at them. But all of a sudden,
WWE is working with TNA. Is it because they want
to help TNA flourish?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Of course not.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
WWE does not give a single fuck about TNA, not
unless TNA can benefit them in some way. So if
that means propping up a company to finally pull seventy
six hundred people for a show at the Ubs Arena,
something they were not able to do a single time,
not in this country anyway, in its previous twenty three

(25:44):
years of existence, they finally pulled seventy six hundred people.
If that's what it takes, then so be it. We'll
prop them up. We'll send aj Styles out there to
give our a rah ra speech and sell a few
extra tickets. We won't let them do a match, of course,
but we'll throw him a bone and will let him
break their attendance record. If that means propping up their

(26:05):
world champion on NXT so that he'll mean more when
they eventually sign him away, than hey, it's a small
price to pay.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
I love.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
By the way, have the same people who cried and
moaned and bitched about Joe Hendry only getting three minutes
with Randy Orton at WrestleMania, Oh, he got three minutes.
He got dropped with an RKO. He treated him like
a job or a lot of these people are okay
with him popping out of a fucking refrigerator on NXT
the other week. I find that very amusing. And if

(26:35):
that means helping TNA get a better cable clearance so
that they can move the show to Wednesdays just to
fuck with Tony Kahan, then hey, what are friends for?

Speaker 1 (26:46):
TNA?

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Is WWE's useful idiot? Believe me, if TNA was to
move Impact to Wednesdays on the CW, let's say, or
anywhere they were to move Impact to Wednesdays, First of all,
any TV deal that TNA is able to make is
going to be better than the deal they have now
with Access TV. It's going to get more eyeballs on
the show, regardless how many more eyeballs. That's the question.

(27:10):
I've been saying that for years. TNA will only grow
to a point unless they get a fucking TV deal.
What they have with Access right now it's better than nothing,
but they need a real TV deal on a much
bigger platform, a much bigger network or streaming service or
whatever it may be. But having said that, if TNA
was to move Impact to Wednesdays, it might take a

(27:32):
small chunk out of the dynamite audience, but it's not
about that. AW would still win the night. It's just
about weakening them at any cost, even if that cost
comes at TNA's expense, because I fail to see what
the benefit is for TNA in that scenario. If they
move the show directly opposite Dynamite like that hurts TNA,

(27:56):
It hurts TNA's ability to grow, That doesn't help them.
Like if you're looking at the schedule and saying, Okay,
we want to maximize the audience for this show, So
the first thing to do is to get them on
a better network that's number one, or again it could
be a streamer that's number one, that's priority number one.
But also we want to get them, you know, in
a time slot or on a night on a date

(28:17):
where they're not in direct competition with another wrestling show.
We want to maximize eyeballs on this show. But that's
not what this is about. This so this is not
about you know, helping TNA grow their audience as big
as it can possibly be. It's less about helping TNA
and more about hurting aw right because it might also
hurt aw It's okay, and that's really all the matters

(28:41):
to WWE. Just so we're clear, you know, there's nothing
illegal about what they're doing. They're well within their rights
to do so, so long as everybody understands what the
point of this partnership really is between WWE and TNA, Like,
don't be naive about this, And of all people, I
will give credit to Eric Bischoff for making a good

(29:02):
point finally, when he spoke to Ariel Helwani a while
back about why WWE is in business at all with
TNA all of a sudden, like, I do think there's
another reason. It's secondary to fucking with aaw But WWE
had to pay out a twenty million dollar settlement to
MLW to settle their anti trust lawsuit last year. So

(29:24):
it's to their benefit to play nice with TNA and
and you know, quote unquote partner with them and maybe
even help them gain a foothold on let's say, to
CW or on A and E to help their cause
the next time someone threatens them with any kind of
antitrust claim. This is like an added bonus for them.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
I saw Gail Kim on Twitter the other day. She
was responding to fans, and she was bemoaning the fact
that the reason TNA is bleeding talent is because management
doesn't give them any real reason to stay and be
loyal to the company right. Instead, their talent looks at
TNA as a stepping stone to WWE. It's because that's
what they are, and the more talent that want to

(30:07):
ultimately end up in WWEE it makes TNA a more
attractive option in the interim, which Carlos Silva and his
team no doubt are well aware of. And they're okay
with that. They're okay with TNA being looked at as
a stepping stone. They're okay with TNA effectively being an
arm of developmental Now that is a decision that they

(30:28):
made a long time ago. Carlo Silva has admitted that
they are not profitable. Anthem knows that TNA is not
a profitable company partnering with WWE to help get them
a better TV deal where maybe they can poll. I
mean again, I think it's ambitious, but ten million dollars
a year or partnering with WWE to sell a few

(30:50):
hundred or a few thousand extra tickets for their big
shows to them is worth it. And according to Dave
Meltzer in this week's Observer, WWE has an option to
buy TNA in their partnership agreement and has the right
of first refusal should there be another potential buyer.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Yeah, he says.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
The option is similar to when WWE had contracts with
the European indies years ago, like OTT and Progress. Now
that was for content for the WWE network. Remember when
they started airing indie promotions on the network that didn't
last very long because not enough people gave a shit
about it and so they didn't watch. But they had

(31:27):
the option to buy those promotions if they wanted to
buy them, They just never had a reason to do so. Yeah,
the end goal here is likely to buy TNA. I mean,
I would say it's worth it just for the tape
library if nothing else. There's so many people on their
roster right now who either came from TNA or passed
through TNA. I mean, they can make a fortune just

(31:49):
exploiting that alone. But right now there is no need
for them to buy TNA. They can get what they
want out of them without buying them. They can use
them as a pawn to fuck with aw and so
have a direct pipeline to their talent, and they can
grab them and snatch them up first. When they become
free agents before Tony kankad and all they have to

(32:09):
do is just prop them up a little bit. And
TNA is not any kind of serious threat to their business,
so they're cool with it. Now comes this report that
former UFC co owner Lorenzo Fertida might have an interest
in buying TNA, with the idea that anybody who buys TNA,
if it's not going to be WWE, they would do

(32:31):
so with the idea of being friendly with WWE. And
if they're not going to be friendly with WWE, then
they're not buying the company because again.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
WWE has the right to kill the deal.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
Lorenzo Fertida is a billionaire, So I mean that could
be interesting to follow, you know, if there is smoke
to the fire.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
It sounds like there may be.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
But another added benefit to all of these media rights
deals that TKO has been negotiating, and they're not negotiating
these deals just to spite. I'm not saying that, but
it definitely doesn't help Tony Khan's cause now.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Right now, AW is on solid.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Ground with Warner Brothers Discovery for the next three or
four years. You know, they're pulling in around six hundred
million dollars on their media rights deal. They are the
clear number two wrestling promotion in the country, if not
the world, between the guaranteed money that they're pulling in
and the time slots they have on TBS and TNT.

(33:26):
But when those rights deals come up for renewal three
years from now is a lifetime. There's no guarantee that
Warner Brothers Discovery is going to want to be in
the aw business anymore. I mean, hell, Warner Brothers Discovery
is being split off soon into two separate companies. You know,
Tony Khan is always glowing about mister David Zaslov, who's

(33:48):
the head of WBD, and what a great relationship they
have and all the wonderful people that he has relationships
with who work, you know, for the company there. But
if those people end up on the outs, what happens then, right,
what happens when it's time to renew What happens if
you get somebody in there who isn't a wrestling fan,
who isn't an AW fan, Paramount likely won't be an option.

(34:11):
Now with their UFC deal, ESPN is off the table.
I mean, if it was ever really going to be
on the table. To begin with. But ESPN is off
the table. WWE has deals with NBC Universal, they have
deal with CW. Where does that leave aw We'll see
where TNA lands. It limits the options that Tony Khan

(34:32):
has outside of WBD, and WWE knows this, You know,
Tony Kahn once said, and he now knows what it
must have been like for Jim Crockett when Vince McMahon
was counterprogramming all of his big shows and was trying
to sabotage his business. But he said, I've got a
lot more fucking money than Jim Crockett did. He said,

(34:55):
I'm serious, I'm not gonna sit back and take this
fucking shit. Those were his exact words. You'll have to
excuse the man. That was the same scrum where Muffin
Man had his meltdown. So Tony might have been a
little on edge that night, but he was not happy.
That was when WWE was first counter programming them that
Labor Day weekend, and I think also he knew about

(35:19):
or suspected that there was contract hampering potentially going on,
So he was not in a good mood and he
just went off. But if you remember, he also that
night said that if and when WWE brings the fight,
he'll bring the fight right back to them. And he
has a very unique way or he has very unique
ways of doing that because he has a lot of money.

(35:41):
He said, he has a lot of money to fight with. Well,
we have now reached the point where he's going to
have to put his money where his mouth is. I
have no idea what these unique methods are that he
speaks of, but if he has any, it may be
time for him to show his cards. And that's say
nothing of all the events the WWE has been running

(36:02):
up against him.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Like they did last month.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Now comes the announcement the WWE is planning a main
roster pl on the same night as All Out and
with a main event of John Cena Versus Brock Lesner,
John Pollock, and Brandon Thurston. Broke the news on Post
Wrestling on Monday that WWE will be adding a premium
live event in September on the same day as AEW's

(36:26):
All Out pay per view. Post Wrestling spoke with multiple
sources with knowledge of the WWE event schedule, who confirmed
that a yet to be announced ple will take place
on Saturday, September twentieth in Indianapolis, Indiana. The date represents
a first, the first time AWWE main Roster pl will
air the same day as an AEW pay per view.

(36:47):
We've yet to confirm the start time of the WWE
event All Out, as scheduled to begin at eight pm Eastern.
We have not confirmed the venue for the event, but
some recent main roster events in Indianapolis have been staged
at Gainbridge Field House, which seems to be a likely candidate.
Throughout this year, nxtpls have been scheduled on the same

(37:07):
day as aw's Double or Nothing All in Texas and
Forbidden Door shows. WWE is advertising brock Lesner for the
September twelfth and the September nineteenth episodes of SmackDown, which
all but guarantees that he's going to be wrestling that weekend.
I just love how they bring him back at Summer Slam. SummerSlam,
when he walked out there that was August third, and

(37:30):
they make you wait almost six weeks to see him
again or find out why he's back.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
This is why, this is why.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
They want to load that show up with the biggest
possible attraction, and it's not about siphoning fans away from
aw There is not a single AW siko who is
going to hear Oh Brock Lesner is wrestling John Cena
that night. I guess I can't watch All Out now.
That's not what this is about. It doesn't matter if

(37:59):
they they sway a single fan to watch WWE that
night over AW. I said this on TNT on Tuesday night.
It's about controlling the headlines. It's about controlling the social
media conversation. That's why they do it. They want to
dominate the headlines. They want to drown out AW that
weekend as much as possible.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
This is their way of doing that.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
All Out will be the better show, but Lesner and
Sena will be the bigger attraction because it hasn't been
done in ten years and this is likely the final
time that and Brock hasn't wrestled the match in more
than two years. Even just Brock being a part of
the show, even the people that hate that he's on
the show and they don't like him, like the conversation

(38:43):
will be about Brock. The conversation will be about that match.
The conversation will be about WWE. That is what they
want for better or worse, positive or negative press that
is what they want. Now we learn that WWE may
be considered airing John Sena's retirement match opposite the AW

(39:04):
World's End pay per view on December twenty seventh. Originally
they were looking at running December thirteenth in Boston, that
would be Saturday Night's main event. Either of these things
would likely be Saturday Night's main event. So unless they
can work it out with NBC to air the match
commercial free get ready for ads Galore for John Seena's

(39:24):
retirement match, December thirteenth makes more sense because Peacock is
airing an NFL game on the twenty seventh, which is
going to do millions more in terms of viewers than
any wrestling show is going to do that night. So
I mean that's going to hurt AW, but it's also
going to hurt WWE if they run that night. So
if WWE makes it, and this will be something to
keep an eye on. If WWE makes the decision to

(39:47):
run on December twenty seventh, the only conceivable reason for
them to do so is to hurt AW. That is
their goal. All of these things, these are all examples,
These are all happening in real time, right in front
of your eyes. Their goal is not to compete, Their
goal is to weaken them as much as possible. This
is just another in a long line of examples of this,

(40:08):
And it's one thing for them to willingly sacrifice viewers
for Goldberg's retirement match. To sacrifice potential viewers for John
Cena's retirement match shows the level of pettiness that we
are talking about here. If that is what they end
up doing, if that's the date they end up running,
it just really demonstrates the lengths to which WWE is

(40:31):
willing to go in this in this war, I mean,
if that's what you would even call it, to snuff
out any competition at all, whether it's competition for talent,
whether it's competition for media rights. If they could trip
their home alarm, they would gladly sneak into Aw's house,
put a pillow over its face, and smother it to death.
This is one of the key reasons why they're in

(40:53):
business with TNA, to use them as a proxy against AW.
Whether it benefits TAD in the long run is really
of no concern to them. It's more obvious now than
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(43:27):
for first three months only. Speeds may slow above thirty
five gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra see
mint Mobile for details. Carrion Cross appeared on the Ariel
Helwani Show this week, the same week that his new
documentary dropped on YouTube on his channel, which now has
been viewed, by the way by almost eight hundred thousand people.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I watched it. It was very well done.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
He's got a special connection clearly with his fans. That
really is one of the things that came through watching
the doc You can tell just based on all the
social media for him, and because a lot of what
he talked about overlaps with what he discussed with Ariel.
I'll just run through what he talked about on Ariel show.
He confirmed that his WWE contract expired on August tenth,

(44:13):
and that he has not signed a new deal with
the company. He said this is not a work even
though he understands why people might think it is. I mean,
given things that have happened recently with you know, the
r truth stuff and seth Rolins injury. He says he
was offered a new deal the tuesday before his contract expired,
at which point he asked how the company came.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
To the valuation that they did.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
He was not given that information, and then he was
told that he had twenty four hours to accept the
offer or it would be rescinded. So they spoke again
the next day, and when he asked that they had
that information that he had asked for, you know, any
metrics as to how they came to the number they
came to, they said, no, we don't, at which point
he said that he can't make an informed decision without

(44:55):
that information, and they pulled their offer. Want to know
how they arrived at their offer is a fair question.
It's probably not one that they get very often, but
it's a fair question. And if they don't want to
provide that information, and to put a twenty four hour
deadline on it like they're a fucking kidnapper is very weird,

(45:16):
especially after they had weeks. They had weeks, they had
months even before his deal expired, as they do with others,
to make an offer or to say, hey, let's start
having a conversation about this. It's coming up pretty soon, right.
They didn't do that. Instead, they wait until almost the
very last minute and they say, hey, sign this now
or else we're pulling it. Why the time crunch like

(45:38):
it sounds very shady. It would make me very nervous
to put my signature on anything if they're in that
much of a rush. He also says, wwe did not
make a contract offer to Scarlet, and when he asked
them why, he claims he was told, after we deal
with you, we'll deal with her now. Would they have

(45:59):
or did they want to get him signed, because really
they wanted to keep him and not her. Who knows
to me, Cross works better as a package with Scarlet.
But that's kind of what it sounds like to me.
I mean, maybe they only wanted one and not the other.
I mean, it's not like they ever did anything with Scarlet.
And I can never understand that she's wrestled before. It's

(46:19):
not like she can't work or take bumps. You know,
she was barely ever even given the chance to speak, right,
she has a mouth, she can speak, she can cut promos.
I mean, they didn't have her doing anything. He said,
there were people in the company who thought his post
WrestleMania forty one promo where he sat down with Sam
Roberts and Megan Morant. I think it was that there

(46:41):
were people in the company who thought it was a shoot.
That's how convincing he was. He was under the impression
the promo was okayed beforehand and that they all knew
it was a work. He found out later on that
Triple H apparently was not very happy about it, and
he had to go explain everything to him. So he understood,
and that right there help explain a lot of things,

(47:02):
because there was a lot of truth in what he
was saying in that promo, and it felt genuine. It
felt like a lot of what he was saying there
had been built up inside him for a long time
and it was coming right from the heart. And if
Triple H was not aware that he was going to
do it, which I find hard to believe, but if
he didn't, I mean it sounded like it was aimed

(47:25):
right at him.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, even if that wasn't his intent.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Triple H is the guy, right, He's the head of creative,
he's the puppeteer, So a lot of it was aimed
at him, and maybe That's how Triple H felt like,
Oh shit, this guy, he's taking aim at me. He's
making me look bad, he's making me look inept. He
crossed the boss, no pun intended. He crossed the boss right.
He made Triple H look like a fool talking about

(47:51):
being left off cards, having his time cut, being told
years ago by Bill Goldberg to be a good soldier.
So he was being a good soldier. And this is
what being a good soldier gets you. You ignored the fans.
I never asked to wrestle Randy Orton at wrestle Mania
this year. That happened organically, and you ignored it. You know,
nothing against Joe Hendry, but you ignored it. He mentioned that,

(48:16):
and this is what I'm talking about. Here is the
promo months ago that he cut. You know, in that
same promo he said, you know, when I got eliminated
from the Andre the Giant Battle Royal on SmackDown, the
crowd told you how they felt about me, and you
ignored it. And then at the very end of the
promo he said, guy in the suit and tie in
the truck.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Go fuck yourself. That's from Killer Cross.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
And then he stormed off and he did a hell
of a job convincing people that that was real, got
a lot of people talking. But like I said, even
if it wasn't real, even if the promo was a
work and he told people in advance that this is
what I'm gonna do, it's like cmpunk in the pipe bomb,
Like they knew cm punk was going to sit on

(48:59):
that stage that night in Las Vegas and cut that
pipe bomb. As I recall, I don't think Vince McMahon
even wanted to know what he was going to say.
They just had an outline for Okay, here's what you're
gonna do, and then at the right moment, we're going
to cut you off. And probably the anti bullying campaign
was probably the trigger, because that's when they cut his mic.

(49:20):
But I don't think, if I remember correctly, I don't
think he even wanted Vince to tell him what he
was going to say. But even though that was a work,
it was a work shoot because a lot of what
Punks said in that promo back in twenty eleven was
from the heart. Those were his real feelings. They were
just using it as part of the show. And you
can't tell me that A large part of what cross

(49:40):
If not all of what Cross was talking about in
that promo earlier this year was how he really felt
those emotions were one hundred percent real. But that's what
makes for the best promos, is when you blend fantasy
and reality. But if Triple H was upset with it
after and Cross had to go explain it to him,
that may have healed his fate right then and there.

(50:04):
He said he had a gut feeling all day at
SummerSlam that his match with Sammy's Ain might be his last.
He had a friend tell him, hey, you should do
something for the live crowd, like as you're leaving.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I don't know what that means. Maybe wave to them
or something.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
I give him some kind of a signal, But he
said he didn't want to take away from Sammy's moment
since the moment wasn't about him.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
It was supposed to be about Sammy.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
So like if Cross, even if the match is over
and Cross is leaving and he like waves or he
makes some sort of hand gesture or something to the
live crowd, like all of a sudden, somebody records that
on social media. They put it up on Twitter. It's like,
oh shit, look what Cross said.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Look what Cross.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Did is he leaving like the conversation automatically now shifts
over to Carrying Cross instead of Sammy's ain, But he
said big promotions have reached out to him since last Sunday,
but AW has not been among them. I've said this
many times my opinion, I don't think Aaw is a
good fit for Carrying Cross. I just don't see him

(51:03):
as someone Tony Khan is going to have a real
interest in pushing any more than WWE did.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
But here's the other thing. Okay.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
He was very open in this interview about wanting to
go back to WWE and still hoping that they can
restart a dialogue. He said, I'm not trying to turn
this into a game. It's not a game for me.
It's my life. I'm very big on loyalty, but loyalty
is a two way street. I'm very interested in trying
to recover what I think is easily recoverable, but it
takes two people to come together and talk about it.

(51:33):
I'm still here. The goal has always been to be
with WWE. My wife and I still want to be
with WWE. I'm still at the table for conversations. I
did not step out of the conversation. Now, imagine if
you're Tony Khan hearing that, why would he want to
sign carrying Cross like AW throwing its arms open for

(51:58):
him makes no sense. It doesn't make sense for them
or for Cross, Like, why would Tony Kahn sign someone
who he thinks is going to bounce the first chance
he gets if WWE shows even a mild interest in
taking him back? And for Cross, AW is the one
place that WWE doesn't play nice with. But for Tony

(52:20):
after everything with Alistair Black and Miro and Ricky Starks
and Penta and Ray Phoenix, Like, here's someone who is
openly admitting that he wants to go back to WWE,
and he never wanted to leave. Why would he push
someone like that? Like, It's why he said, if he
signs with anybody but WWE, TNA is the place that
would make the most sense. You want to go back

(52:41):
to WWE, you know, you go work for TNA for
a year and at that point that might be your
pipeline right back into WWE.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Now.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
I know he and Scarlett had issues there previously. It
was a messy split, but it's new management now don
Kallis is not there anymore.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
If you know about those rumors.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Don Kallis is actually in aw now, that could be
another reason for him not to go there. But I
think Cross is going to do well on the indies
for a while. He can take his time, you know,
maybe he and WWE start talking again. I don't know
why he would think things would be any different next time,
you know. I mean, if they wanted to do something
more substantial with him, they would have, and they would

(53:22):
not have waited until five days before his contract expired
to offer him a new deal. They already fired him
once before. Now they let him go. It's like you
smack me across the face twice. Why would I let
you do it a third time? But I get it.
You know, for some people it's their dream job to
work there. WWE is the mecha to them.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
I get it.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
But on the indies, I think Cross is going to
be able to show off more of his creativity when
it comes to his promos.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
You know, he's very good with that.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
It's too bad we never got to see more of
that on WWE television, in terms of his social media
promos and some of the stuff he was doing there.
I watched the TMZ special on Hulk Hogan that aired
on Fox. It's up on Hulu now if you want
to check it out. But there's really no reason. It's
as basic as you can get for the time allotted.

(54:09):
And you know, while they do cover the sex tape
stuff and the races rant, they gloss over so many
things from his career and kept it to mostly a
fluff piece. They interviewed a bunch of people for it,
including Bill Goldberg, Mick Foley, Mark Henry, Charlotte Flair, and
Jimmy Hart. But the one that got the most attention

(54:31):
and that they really promoted it around, they got Madame
Tusso's Wax Museum to loan them Vince McMahon for one
night to sit down for an interview, the first that
he has given since resigning from TKO last year. I've
seen open casket funerals with dead bodies that look better
than Vince McMahon looks these days.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
I thought he was.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
I thought he was going to ask doctor Gordon if
he wants to play a game.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Hullu, Doctor Gordon, woul game and don't sneeze in front
of me. I don't like it would people sneeze in
front of me fucking weirdo.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
You know what's sad. The man turns eighty years old
next weekend. If he would have just allowed himself to
age gracefully without all the work he's had done, he'd
probably look a lot less scary than he does right now.
But on the show, McMahon said that he was shocked
when he learned that Hogan died, comparing it to the
death of a family member. He said, you just don't
think about someone a family member or someone that close

(55:31):
to you, You don't think about them passing away. Terry
had kicked out, so to speak, of so many surgeries,
and you know, he overcame that.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
It was a tremendous shock. It was a blow to
my heart.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
And he was also asked about the Hogan sex tape
leaking in twenty fifteen, with Hogan literally calling.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Himself a racist to a point.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Got to include that in there, I guess because for
some people that makes it okay. But Vince said it
was unforgetable, and I was like, aghast, what happened? And
when those things occurred, that's not like him. What in
God's name is going on? As soon as it happened,
obviously the company didn't have anything to do with him anymore.
We took him out of the Hall of Fame. You

(56:16):
just don't do those things. And then he defended the
decision to bring him back in twenty eighteen, saying, I
knew he wasn't a racist. I've been with him for
so many years. He wasn't a racist. He said some
racist things and he should pay for that, and he did.
But in the end, I think everyone saw the real
Hulk Hogan Terry Boleya, and they felt, well, wait a minute,

(56:37):
this guy, he doesn't act like a racist. He's not
a racist. We all make mistakes. This was a big one,
but he wasn't a racist, so it was unforgivable. But
he knew Hogan wasn't really a racist, so it was
okay to bring him back and do business with him again.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Which is fine.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
I mean, that's a corporate decision, but you can't call
it unforgivable and then make excuses for what the man
is not when he is on tape admitting that he is.
They interviewed Mark Henry for the show, who said that
he was hurt badly by what Hogan said, and then
hurt again when he suggested they do a tour of
black colleges where Hogan would apologize and have an open

(57:16):
dialogue with people, and Hogan turned him down, saying that
he was advised to just not comment on it anymore,
as if silence it would be the solution here would
just blow over and be forgotten about. I guess Henry
felt by not doing anything, it would never go away,
and he never believed Hogan was sincere in his apology.

(57:37):
You know, whoever gave Hogan that advice gave him very
bad advice, because it was never going to just blow
over with some people. With some people, there was nothing
that he was ever going to be able to do.
Nothing he was ever going to be able to say
that was going to get them to change their mind.
But I do believe had he taken Mark up on
his offer, or had he approached things a little bit differently,

(57:59):
there are people who have forgiven him, not forgotten, but
forgiven him and maybe said, okay, you know what. He
seems genuinely remorseful over this. When the stuff leaked out
about the meeting backstage, you know when they brought him
back in twenty eighteen, and how it was more a
speech about not getting caught because you never know who's
filming you, right. That told people all they needed to

(58:20):
know about how sincere he was. I think people just
wanted to believe that he was being genuine with them,
but the man made a career out of lying his
ass off, even on the apology tour that he went
on in the media when he said that maybe it
was ingrained in him from a young age because of
the neighborhood that he grew up in in Tampa. Yeah,
that people use the N word all the time, like casually,

(58:42):
So he was brought up thinking that it wasn't this
greatly offensive term since people were using it all the time.
After he said that, there were multiple ex neighbors of
his who grew up in the same neighborhood as him
at the time who said they'd never heard that word
being thrown around at all, like it was some kind
of regular recurrence. They were like, we have no idea

(59:03):
what he's talking about. Everything the man says has to
be questioned. Vince was also asked about the segment earlier
this year in Los Angeles on the first Netflix raw,
where Hogan was booed out of the building while promoting
his real American beer, and McMahon said, I was angry
because we've known each other for a lifetime professionally and personally,

(59:26):
and setting up, so to speak, this larger than life superhero.
You don't just let him walk out there. He deserves
something very very special, more than anyone they owe him.
It's just like, Okay, here comes Hulk Hogan. I got
angry because that's not the way I would have done it,
and he deserved much more. First of all, way to

(59:46):
throw Triple H and the people running the show under
the bus. If he was running the show, that never
would have happened. That's what he's implying that if he
had done things the way that he wanted to, then
I guess in his mind, Hogan would not have been
booed that night. You could have rolled out the literal
red carpet for Hogan and shot off cannons for the
man with giant applause signs for the audience to follow,

(01:00:09):
and he still would have been booed out of the building.
I promise you there was nothing different that Vince McMahon
would have done that night that would have elicited any
reaction for Hogan other than the one that he got.
I just saw an item in The Observer this week
where Tony Atlas worked a show for Limitless Wrestling up
in Maine last weekend, and he tried to do a

(01:00:31):
eulogy on the show for Hogan, but he got booed
so badly he just gave up. Which is to say,
for those who think that he was only ever going
to be booed in La or in New York, there's
lots of places that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
He would have been booed. Not all of them, but
a lot of them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Goldberg and the Special said that he was appalled by
the fan reaction that night.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Now, of course he's sticking up for his brother. This
is his.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Brother in arms here. Goldberg has always been very complimentary
of what Hogan did for him. In WCW, Harvey Levin
also brought up the ten bells salutes for Hogan when
they paid tribute to him on Ron's SmackDown, and he
said that it was weird not having Vince there, and
Vince agreed, like you could just sense how mad he
was about not being invited.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I don't know why he would have thought he would be.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
The man is still radioactive, toxic sludge and shouldn't be
within one hundred feet of those shows. Let's talk about
Ron SmackDown real quick. The less time I spend on this,
the better. I actually would much prefer to talk about Triplemania,
which I will be doing momentarily. But one big name
missing from Raw this past Monday was the Women's World champion, Naomi,

(01:01:46):
who was scheduled to defend her title against eo Sky
last Monday. Hours before the show, we learned that Naomi
was not medically cleared to perform, so instead we got
Eosky against Roxane Perez, which ended up being a really
good match. It was the highlight of the show really,
but we still have no clarity on what is going
on with Naomi, and it has been almost a week.

(01:02:07):
She did a joint interview with her and her husband,
Jimmy Usso for Stephanie McMahon's podcast that dropped on Thursday,
but that was recorded last month, not long after Evolution
where she cashed in her money in the bank to
win the title, So we got no update from that
on what's going on with her now, whether it's an
injury issue, an illness, or something else. Altogether, A lot

(01:02:31):
of people are speculating that she may be pregnant. Maybe
Jimmy failed to proceed with caution. And she has spoken publicly,
even on Stephanie's podcast, about wanting to start a family
and how these days it's a lot easier to feel
like you could take time off to do that, whereas
fifteen years ago when she first started, it didn't feel
like that was really an option. Earlier this year, she

(01:02:55):
was on Nicki and Bribella's podcast. She talked very candidly
about realizing that she's thirty seven years old and her
biological clock is ticking away. You know, she can't continue
wrestling forever, and she admitted that she has only one
ovary and she just can't ignore it anymore. So naturally
your mind goes to that. And if it is that,

(01:03:18):
it comes at a time where she is on top
of the world career wise, she just won the world championship.
She's been nailing it with this heel character. She's been
very entertaining in that regard. So the timing is not ideal.
But obviously this other stuff with Trump, whatever she's doing
on a television show, that's a little more important. On
Busted Open Radio, Natalia said this especially for the locker room.

(01:03:43):
It's one of those things that, well, somebody will know
what's going on, but in this situation, like Naomi is
a really close friend of mine, but I just feel
like it's a time right now where she needs space.
So usually when something crazy is going on, I don't
think it's crazy in a bad way, but I think that,
like obviously it's private, it's personal. I feel like she

(01:04:03):
will talk about it when she's ready to talk about it.
But I know she would have loved to have wrestled
EO on Monday. Crazy in a good way and not
a bad way would seem to only amplify those rumors.
Whatever is going on, we're going to find out tomorrow
night whether or not she's vacating the title, because Joe
Tessitour said on SmackDown that Naomi will be on Raw

(01:04:24):
this Monday. Remember, Stephanie Vicaire has a guarantee championship match
coming to her at Clash in Paris at the end
of the month, So whatever that match is going to be,
they need time to promote it and they only have
a couple of weeks. So if Naomi does have to
surrender the title, I think the solution is very simple.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel on this. You
do EO Sky one on one with Stephanie Vicaire.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
EO is supposed to get a title match on Monday,
she didn't. Stephanie is owed a title match in Paris.
EO against Stephanie Boom done. There's no need for any tournaments,
There's no need for any multiperson match.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Monday was also the fourth straight week where the main
event match on the show ended in a disqualification. It
does not get any lazier than that. You talk about
lazy fucking booking year and Adam Pierce made it official.
For Clash in Paris, it will be Seth Rolins defending
the World Heavyweight Championship in a fatal four way against Si.
I'm punk La Knight and jay Usso. Now I understand

(01:05:26):
that jay Usso scored the winning fall for his team
at SummerSlam, but jay Uso does not need to be
in this match. He's in the match because they want
the Yeat entrance in Paris Remeber.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
They got that great visual for.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
It in Leone last year Leon France, so they want
to replicate that here. I don't even think he's in
there to take the losing fall. I mean, not that
any of this matter is because seth Rawlins is not
losing that World championship. But some people are like, oh, well,
he's in the match because he's gonna get pinned. Honestly,
I don't even believe he's in there to get pinned.
I think somebody else getting pinned. Yeah, that's what I think. Meanwhile,

(01:06:05):
we're probably getting Roman Reigns one on one against Bronson Reid.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Maybe he can get his shoes back.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Roman is supposed to be on Raw tomorrow night. I
believe they didn't announce him, but I know he's being
advertised locally in in Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
I think they're in Philly tomorrow night.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
He is being advertised locally by the Arenas for Raw
tomorrow and then Raw in England next Monday.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
So I would expect to see Roman back on the show. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
SmackDown on Friday was another very boring show. These shows
are somehow getting worse. I don't understand it. I really
don't mean. I'm glad it's back to two hours from
three hours, but in terms of the quality of the show,
it has not helped. I do not want it to
go back to the way it was, but it has
not helped. Collision is a better show than SmackDown. I'm

(01:06:53):
not even trying to be funny when I say that
Collision is a better television show than SmackDown right now,
I didn't see one comment, by the way, on YouTube
under the review. This is like a first because I
went in pretty hard on this show. You'll always have
people defending it. Oh, you're being too negative. The show
is actually really good. I didn't see one comment in

(01:07:14):
defense of that show, which is very rare, Like it's
got to be real bad or real boring to get
a consensus like that unanimously across the board. They just
completely gave up this week, and some people pointed out
that Triple H wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
He was away in Greece on a family vacation.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Blame road Dog, some people say, now, blame road Dog,
You blame everyone you think they're putting out a show
without Triple H approving of what's on it. I mean,
he may have literally phoned in the show this week,
but he could sail around the world for all I care.
He's not escaping responsibility for that show. And it didn't
help that there were so many big names missing from

(01:07:54):
the show. John Cena and Logan Paul are wrestling at
Clash in Paris. Neither of them were on the show.
Brock Lesnar obviously was not on the show. Roman Reigns
he's on I guess he's on the other show now,
so he wouldn't have been there anyway. Drew McIntyre was
like the biggest name on the show and Sammy's Ain.
Sammy's Ain has officially moved, by the way from Raw
to SmackDown, and I assume the same for La Night,

(01:08:15):
but they haven't actually articulated that, but it's pretty clear
he's on Raw now. So this is this is now
Sammy's Ain challenging for the United States Championship. He has
put his dreams of being the world champion on the
back burner for the time being. And yeah, there were
people pointing out and look, it's a fair point. I
didn't mention this because I kind of look at it

(01:08:37):
a little bit differently. But people were also like, how
does this make sense if Sammy's Ain, you know, was
being you know, offered the chance by Paul Hayman a
couple months ago to leave Raw, just leave Raw, go
to SmackDown, You'll have.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
A guaranteed championship match.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
If you go to smack then I've worked it out
where you can get a WWE championship opportunity if you
just agree to leave Raw, leave seth Rawlins alone and
go to smack that on Friday nights. And Sammy's Ain
rejected their offer and turned down the offer, and people
have been pointing that out the last few days, and look,
that's fair, but I look at it as yeah, look,
Sammy's Ain is like the ultimate babyface, right, and so

(01:09:15):
he's not going to take up Paul Haman on his
tainted offer. And this is something that he is going
to do on his own and not because somebody forced
him to, not because somebody somebody tried to convince him to.
And also in his promo on Friday, he thanks Solo
Soakoa for waking him up like he's been talking so
much about wanting to be the world champion, knowing he

(01:09:37):
can be a world champion, but it took Solo and
the MFTs costing him that opportunity in his match with
Russev on Monday night to wake him up to the
fact that there are other goals to attain. He's never
been a US champion before, so they at least did
take steps to try to explain that. I mean, again,
you can use that as a criticism if you want to,

(01:09:57):
but there's a reason I didn't bring that up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
And by the way, I should mention this here.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
John Cena, he was at Fan Expo Chicago twenty twenty
five this weekend and they do these audience q and as,
and there was an audience member who asked him if
he was upset about I don't know if it was
about his heel turn or about the reaction to that
initial heel promo when he first turned heel. Sina said

(01:10:24):
he wasn't upset with the crowd reaction to his initial
heel promo. He said, I wasn't upset. I failed. Ain't
nothing wrong with that. You can learn from failure, right,
I went up there and bombed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Shit happens.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
So he's talking specifically about that promo, But even John
Cena here in a roundabout kind of ways, kind of
telling you, like, you know what, maybe this heel turn
didn't quite go the way.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
That I had hoped it would.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
Yeah, yeah, I would say so it'd be very interesting
to get his thoughts and reactions on the heel turn
angle and everything that followed after he's done in the ring,
because he said he won't comment on it until after
he's retired, So after he's retired, he may be a
little more open about his honest thoughts about this whole thing.
And who knows, I mean, maybe he enjoyed the brief

(01:11:15):
time that he was able to be a heel. He
may be like, you know what, I enjoyed it because
I got to work with Randy and I got to
work with Punk again. And it may not have worked
out the way I wanted it to, but like I
hadn't been a heel in so long, and I always
wanted to try it out again. Like I, I could
just visualize the answer, But he's not going to comment
on that until after he's done. This is the closest

(01:11:36):
we're going to get to him criticizing the heel term,
which was a massive disappointment. The only other thing I'm
gonna mention about SmackDown, because it's not even worth spending
much more time talking about this show. The Women's Championship
picture right now on Fridays is dire.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
It is very, very dire.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
We had a backstage segment with Jade car Gill and
Tiffany Stratton, and we know Jade is going to be
getting a rematch soon. But then Naya Jacks shows up.
She's been spending the last few weeks on NXT. We
haven't seen her, I think, on SmackDown at all since
Tiffany beat her, which was that a couple months ago.
Now in that last woman's standing match, and there she
is in this backstage segment, and they sure made it

(01:12:15):
sound like we are heading towards yet another Tiffany Stratton
Naya Jacks match or something that also involves Jade Cargill
and Tiffany. Jade in a rematch is one thing, even
though Tiffany pretty much soundly beat her at SummerSlam Like
that's one thing. But now they're looping Naya Jacks back
into this and I don't give a shit how good
the matches may have been with her in Tiffany. The

(01:12:35):
fact that they have to fall back on this just
illustrates how fucking bad things are right now when it
comes to the state of the women's championship picture.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
On this show.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
And I'll loop and Julia in the US title into
this as well. As happy as I was to see
her win that US title, she's had it now for
all a little bit. They put Keana James with her.
Kana James is going around on these shows now, Julie
is not even around half the time, and Keana James
is passing out her business card. And I remember, I'll

(01:13:06):
never forget there was one person, one one fan. It
might have been in the YouTube comment section, or maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
It was a tweet.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
I don't remember who it was shout out to, whoever
the person was. When they first put Keana James with Julia,
I like the move. I don't think it's a bad
thing having Julia have like a representative on the show.
But their their take on it was, well, this is
like a death knell for Julia or for Julia as

(01:13:36):
the US champion, because this is not about promoting Julia.
They're going to use this as a way to really
get Keana James over more so than Julia. And I
was like, I don't really see it that way, but now,
you know what, I'm not so sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Now I'm not so sure about that, Like what is
going on here? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
Meechen is going around to talking about getting a US
title match.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
That problem is the next direction here.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
But you know, even with the US title, we're bouncing
back and forth between Zelena and Meechen, Meechen and Zelena
because you know, Chelsea's been out of the picture for
a while, and like nobody cares, nobody cares. It's really
really dire right now on the SmackDown side. Do you
know it's not dire? You know what the exact opposite

(01:14:24):
of dire is the Lucha lebra scene. Let's talk about this.
Lucha libre is super hot right now. Both major promotions
are doing very big business.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Lucha Blog said.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
The CMLL show on Saturday night, which saw MJF successfully
defend his CMLL Light Heavyweight Championship against Zandokin Junior, was
a sellout with sixteen thousand fans at Arena Mexico. They
have broken records this year at Arena Mexico that have
stood since nineteen ninety one. That's how hot business has been.

(01:14:59):
They were also sold last night with another fifty five
hundred fans at Arena Coliseo, which ran opposite Triple Mania,
and that show was sold out with nineteen thousand fans,
almost twenty actually it's almost twenty k. That's more than
forty thousand fans in two days, and all of those
shows took place in Mexico City, all within seven miles

(01:15:21):
of each other, so to say that that scene is
thriving right now would be an understatement. CMLL in particular
has been hot all year, probably the hottest promotion in
the world right now, and they might even outdraw WWE
for the year in paid attendance, which is wild. But
the Cubs Fan is a great source for Luca Libra

(01:15:43):
news and reviews, Cubs Fan and Luca Blog both and
one year ago this month, Cubsfan wrote this about Triplemania.
Triplemania Monterey was terrible because it featured a lot of
angles that fell flat and Triple A didn't bother to
book any pality matches. Triple Mania Tijuana was terrible because

(01:16:03):
it focused on a bunch of feuds that were not
over and didn't even seem to matter much to the
people of Tijuana. Triple Mania Mexico City was the worst
of the bunch because it made it clear there is
no hope, no reason to expect Triple A to get better,
and they prefer it that way. It's a dark, depressing promotion.

(01:16:24):
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Conen and Triple A creative.
It seems like every year Triple Mania ends up being
the butt of a lot of jokes online because of
some overbooked mess of a match or botches or technical
difficulties plaguing the show, like never forget Vampiro on commentary
was it five years ago? Six years ago? Vampio on

(01:16:48):
commentary for Triple Mania, responding to people on Twitter during
the show who were complaining about his breathing heavily into
the microphone and telling him to fuck off, It's not
my fault. Or when he farted so loud that you
could hear it through his headset. I mean it was
like a guttural noise, Like it was like, holy shit,
what the hell was that? Or when he was supposed

(01:17:11):
to do a run in this is this is the
classic moment right here. This is the video that went
around for weeks and weeks. He was supposed to do
a run and so he's sitting there at ringside. Actually
now he's standing and he's supposed to do a run
in on the heels in the ring, and I remember this,
Jeff Jarrett is in the ring, and Killer crosses in
the ring. All these people are in the ring and

(01:17:31):
they're all just waiting, and Conan is in the ring,
and they're all just waiting around for Vampiro to make
the save. And Vampiro refuses to budge until they play
his music. You got to play his music, you got
to play back in Black by ac DC, And he's
literally just yelling, please, for the love of God, play

(01:17:52):
my fucking music. And they finally play it, and then
he throws his headset down to go do the run
in like that was far more entertaining than any Triple
Media probably was that year.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
This year was different.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
No Vanpiro cursing or farting on commentary, that's one thing,
but also they have WWE production now, so they had
no technical issues. There was also a lot of WWE
influence on the card this year. I mean three of
the four men in the main event were WWE talents.
It felt like a WWE show. Now, whether or not

(01:18:28):
you think that's a good thing or a bad thing,
I will defer to the hardcore Triple H fans. But
what I say a few weeks ago Triple H Madia,
I think I accidentally called this show.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
He was there.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
By the way he was there, I guess he's back
from his Greek vacation. Him and Shawn Michaels were there.
They didn't show him on camera, but Undertaker was there
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
What a wild photo that was.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
Someone tweeted that out Triple H did I think maybe
tweeted that out before the show? Was a picture of
Triple H, Shawn Michaels, and the Undertaker posing on the
stage before Triple Mania. It's just a very weird timeline
that we live in right now. But again, whether or
not you think that that's a good thing or a
bad thing, I will defer to the hardcore Triple A

(01:19:13):
fans on that they took away the six sided ring
and the blood and stuff like that. But it feels
like they're trying not to stray too far from what
Triple A is so far. That's the key so far.
I watched the entire thing. I had a lot of
fun with it. It was definitely the best show of
the entire week. They had commentary with Corey Graves, jbl

(01:19:37):
and Conan, who at least sounded more lively than he
did at World Collide. He was inducted into the Triple
A Hall of Fame by raymis Stereo midway through the
show and gave a speech. Mysterio made some headlines during
that segment two when the fans started chanting for Alberto L. Patron,
who just wrapped up with Triple A and is still

(01:19:58):
very popular down there as a baby, and Ray told
the fans in Spanish. He told them something to the
effect of, I'll bring him in wait on me. So
that has a lot of people talking, you know. Was
he just trying to silence the fans or does he
know more than we do. But they had this Copa

(01:20:19):
Bardal match, which was a lot of fun. It used
to be just the Copa or the Copa. Triple Mania.
Bardall is one of their sponsors, so now it's called
the Copa Bardal. You'll see more of this coming soon
to WWE with the sponsored matches, mark my words. The
Mountain Dew Pitch Black match was only just the beginning,
and that was before TKO took over.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
But the Copa.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
Bardall it worked similar to a Royal Rumble. They have
entrances at timed intervals, and the difference here being that
they only had fourteen entrants instead of I don't know
why fourteen and not fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
I don't know if there's a.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
Significance to the number fourteen. And eliminations could take place
via pinfall or submission as well as over the top rope.
So basically the old Luca Underground Aztec Warfare match. The
only difference is in Aztec Warfare it was pinfall or submission,
only there was no over the top rope eliminations. And

(01:21:15):
they kept the old staples like the mini's and the exoticos,
including pimp Binella s Carlotta. And I saw Pimpinella s
Carlotta come out and I said, oh my god, this
has taken me back now to my days of watching
Luca Underground. I will never forget the first time I
saw Pimpinella s Carlota. Matt Striker is on commentary on

(01:21:39):
Luca Underground and he starts, you know, explaining the exoticos
and running through the history of effeminate wrestlers, going all
the way back to Gorgeous George, and I think he
may have mentioned Adriene Street and the Misz.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
And that got me. That that line got me. It's
stuck with me ever since. The way he threw the
mis in there. Otis is back.

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
Otis has been out hurt for a few months, and
he made his return at Triple Media of all places,
and he was already super over in front of those fans.
They even had him in Pimpy Neella do some spots
together and they tease the Pimpy kissing him. Taurus was
in the match. When Taurus walked out, I said, holy shit,
the Beast Mortos has jumped ship. Because Mortos used to

(01:22:28):
be Toy, he used to be Black. Taurus could not
use the name anymore in AW Triple A would not
allow it. They owned the name. But man, it was
a mind fuck watching this match. From the moment he
came in. All I saw the entire time was the
Beast Mortos, right down to the mask. Like how many
first time Triple A fans who only watched WWE and

(01:22:49):
A that well they would have to watch AW also,
But like, how many of those people were watching this
thinking the exact same thing, What is the Beast Mortos
doing here? They had Joaquin while than Cruise del Toro
in the match. The only real story of the match,
the only thing that really matters is Microman and the
return of Omas.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
Omas is coming off of what for him, was a
very successful short stint in Japan. He was working for
Pro Wrestling Noah. He was one half of the GHC
Tag Team Champions. He seemed to be doing well. He
was in attraction there, and then WWE pulled him. It
was so sudden, like he had to vacate the title,
like they had this urgent idea for him. Spoiler they

(01:23:33):
didn't because this was months ago, and since they brought
him back to the States they have done nothing with him.
So this was the first time they've actually used him.
I'm trying to think if he was even in dere
Battle Royal this year. I don't know he might have been.
I don't even remember if he was in there, but
if he wasn't, like legitimately, the last time they may

(01:23:53):
have done something with him on WWE television may have
been WrestleMania thirty nine when he wrestled Brocklesner. I don't
remember him doing a damn thing after that. So that's
how long it's been. So now Omas is back and
Microman is a three foot tall Mexican mini. Omas is
the exact opposite of that. He's not Mexican, and there

(01:24:17):
ain't nothing many about him. Evidently there's also no athletic
commission in Mexico City, because when you have a three
foot tall man standing face to face, face to the rights,
face to ankle with a seven foot giant, you ain't
got no commission. But that's one of the things that's
so great about pro wrestling. But that shot of Omas

(01:24:38):
as he's laying waste to everybody, and here comes Microman
and I don't know if he's shaking his leg or
hitting him in the leg, and Omas is he turns
around and he's not looking down, He's looking around like
what was that? And then the slow look as he
tilts his head down and he peers down with Microman

(01:24:58):
looking up at him is one of the greatest things
in wrestling all year. As was Microman hitting the bottom rope,
coming off the bottom rope and Omas mowed him down
with a mini boot. That's where the show peaked. It
was all downhill after that. But then Omas goes on
to win the bar Doll Cup. Now does that mean

(01:25:21):
they're gonna be doing more with him? Does that mean
they're going to keep him in Mexico for a while?
And give him a rundown there. I mean, I'm all
for it. First Japan, now Mexico. He could he could
do some stuff down there. Or for all we know,
they may you know, put him back on the back burner,
back in the you know, in the mothballs, and we

(01:25:42):
may not see him again for six months.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
I don't know. But this this was a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
They had Elihdel doctor Wagner Junior beating Messius to win
the Triple A Latin American Championship. My man Milimware tastes
almost fifty years old and still out there looking like
a beast. Well it's not the same though, with Dorian
rolled on in his corner in Na Katrina.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
It's just not the same.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
At Conan was on commentary, he was going off on
Wagner and his father the entire match. You know, his
father was in the front road rooting on his son.
Obviously there's history there that I am not aware of,
so I can't say that that did anything for me.
But the match itself was fine, with Finn Balor, JD
McDonough and Raquel Rodriguez with Roxanne Perez in their corner

(01:26:29):
against mister Iguana Nino hamburg Asa and Lola Wece in
a mixed tag team match. Lola is an NXT talent,
but they've had her wrestling matches in Triple A for
about a month now, and they were talking about her
on commentary like they sent her they were on excursion
or something. She's barely been down there like for like

(01:26:50):
a month. I don't think that's such a bad idea,
by the way, I think they should do proper excursions
for more developmental talents, you know, like they did with
Omas in Progress.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
Noah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
They did something similar with Josh Briggs and who was
it from the No Quarter Catch Grow Tavian Heights last summer.
They sent them down for that tournament, the N one
or whatever that tournament is in pro wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
Noah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
I'd like to see them do more of that sort
of thing. The story here was Ballor pulling out a
demon puppet at one point to counteract the Iguana puppets
to counteract Yesca, and he pulls out a demon puppet
that JBL somehow instantly knew the name of uncommentary as
if we had seen the puppet before, Demonito. People wanted

(01:27:39):
Demon Ballor back, you got Demon Balor it might not
be in the form that you were hoping for, But
there's your Demon Balor and Demonito ate Yesca, which is
mister Iguana's pet Iguana. WWE already has Demonito puppets on
sale on WWE Shop for a cool c note, if
you've got one hundred buck laying around that you'd like

(01:28:01):
to spend, I don't even think that includes shipping and handling,
so it's probably like one fifteen the factor that it for.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
A one hundred bucks. That thing better eat roaches and
spiders too.

Speaker 3 (01:28:14):
The match was entertaining, The finish was a little convoluted,
but no surprise. I mean the judgment they got put
over the guy in the Iguana costume and the guy
who started eating hamburgers in the middle of the match,
Los Garza. They defended their Triple A tag team titles
against Psycho Clown and Pagano in a street fight Angel

(01:28:35):
and Burtam and they have really stepped up their game recently.
And the question is will Triple H take note when
he gets them back on SmackDown. Probably not, but they
were great here and as far as the match itself,
I mean, just think of your typical WWE street fight
with kendo sticks and tables. This one had some barbed

(01:28:57):
wire involved, though barbed wire in quotation marks because I
don't know how barbed it actually was. There was no
blood here outside of some incidental blood on someone's back
I forget who.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
And it ends with Burdo.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
Getting wrapped in the barbed wire while he is standing
on the top rope and taking a Spanish fly from
Psycho Clown and Psycho Clown and Pagano or your new
Triple A Tag Team Champions. And then came the segment
in the ring with Raymisterio inducting Conan into the Triple
A Hall of Fame and Conan yelling at a fan
in the crowd to sit down and go fuck himself.

(01:29:34):
Apparently that was interesting. They also had someone doing the
English translation of his speech while he was doing his speech,
and the problem is like it was almost like in sync,
so they were trampling over what Conan was saying, which
I didn't understand because it was in Spanish, but the
person is trying to do the translation in English, but

(01:29:56):
it's at the same time it's like, dude, just wait
until the guy takes a breath or something. My god,
so I mean or put up close captions or something
that was that was kind of a disaster. They had
Lady Flammer retaining the Triple A Rena de Rahenas Championship
over Fabe Apache and Natty Knighthart.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
The tally is doing her Blood Sport gimmick.

Speaker 3 (01:30:17):
I would say that I would like to see her
doing this on WWE television, but then I, you know,
I kind of feared that it won't be as special
anymore because she'll just continue to lose every single match
that she's in, you know, on those rare occasions when
she wrestles, and it's not going.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
To mean anything anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:30:34):
I feel like her role on WWE television is kind
of solidified at this point. They use her when they
have a need for her to be in a match
and probably take the losing fall and put somebody else over,
and that's basically going to be their only use for
her going forward. So, you know what, she's got a
special thing going right now with this whole Blood Sport
Natty Gimmick. I wouldn't destroy it by bringing it to

(01:30:55):
WWE television right now, assuming they have no real plans
to use her. I think that's probably the worst thing
they could do. It won't feel special anymore. You know,
let her bounce around to these different promotions, let her
do some indies here and there and use that gimmick,
and I think that is what works for her.

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
She was incorporating more submission holds and she did a
double sharpshooter at one point at the same time, so
that was kind of cool. She wasn't special enough though
to win the title. Flammer retains the championship by pinning Natty,
doing so off of a fast count by the heel referee,
another Triple A special. The heel ref match was solid,

(01:31:36):
nothing special. Natty and Fabie Apache they got into it
after the match, so it looks like we'll be getting
a match between them soon.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
And the main event.

Speaker 3 (01:31:46):
Had Elijdel Vikingo defending his Triple A Mega Championship in
a fatal four way against Dominic Mysterio, Dragon Lee and
El Grande Americano. Americano came out with a mariachi band
sang his way to the ring, which the crowd loved.
They ate this shit up, followed by Dragon Lee. He

(01:32:07):
was wearing a dragon wings and there was a Chinese dragon.
They had drummers like it was a cool entrance. Dominic
came out. Dominic had a shirt wrapped around his waist
and he wrestled with it was wrapped around his waist
and it had Lived Morgan's face on it over Jesus
Christ and they followed VI Kingo from the.

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
Back for his entrance.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
He embraced his father back there before coming out to
the ring.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
It didn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
He was roundly booed from the moment they showed him
on screen to the moment he hugged his dad to
the moment he got to the ring, and all throughout
the match. Vi Kingo was booed. He continues to get
the John Sena late two thousands treatment from the fans.
And I'm pretty sure it started when WWE forced Triple

(01:32:56):
A to put the Mega title back on Vikingo and
take it off of Alberto. I'm pretty sure that's where
all the booings started. Alberto was super over as a
babyface there, and I think he had even beaten Vikingo recently.
But then Triple A moved in or WWE moved in
on Triple A, i should say, and suddenly they were like, okay,

(01:33:16):
we want the title on Vikingo. VI Kingo was going
to be kind of the face of Triple A right now,
so you got to get that belt back on him,
even though Alberto had just beaten him and it looked
like he was moving on to another challenger, and so
they just rushed it back on to VI Kingo, and
the fans resent him for it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:32):
It's not Vi Kingo's fault, but the fans resent him
for it. It's the classic case of WWE shoving something
down people's throats that they did not ask for, so
they take it out on the talent, even though it
isn't their fault. You know, they haven't done anything to
warrant the booze, but he's the scapegoat. But this was
all action from start to finish. Vi Kingo got put

(01:33:54):
through the English announced table the judgment day, came out
to distract Dragon Lee and held him in place for
a six y one nine. Americano, though broke up the
pin that followed the LWO ran out to even up
the odds. We had two more Grande Americanos run out
to assist Kaiser Americano and he almost won the title
off a blockbuster to Dragonly. Then he tried to load

(01:34:17):
the mask, slipped that metal plate under the mask. Le
Tho stopped him from doing so and then dove out
onto all of the interfering parties outside, and he then
hit operation Dragon on Americano. The Kingo broke up the
pin and then nearly got one of his own off
of a six thirty cent on. Dom then pulled or

(01:34:39):
maybe it was a four to fifty, but Dom then
put on his own Raymisterio Senior mask. He loaded it up,
He dumped the Kingo out of the ring. He head
butted Americano. He had butted Dragonly. He almost got the
pin on Dragonly after a frog splash, until another masked
man yanked him off. Well, let me rephrase that, what

(01:35:03):
are they doing down there at Triple A? Another mass
man came into this match and started yanking off Dominic mysterio.
Now there was another mass man who reached in and
pulled him. He pulled him off, and that mass man
revealed himself, My god, I'm so terrible, revealed himself to
be aj Styles, who got a huge pot when he

(01:35:25):
revealed himself, and he gave Dom a Styles clash which
allowed Viking Goo to hit a six thirty cent on
to get the pin and to retain the championship.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
They had El.

Speaker 3 (01:35:36):
Grande Americano in this match, but they allowed Vikingo to
pin the Intercontinental Champion. I did not see that one coming.
This was an excellent chaotic main event. First he had
aj Styles showing up at Slammiversary and now Triple Mania.
Plus he was on the WrestleMania card this year, so
that's a nice hat trick for aj Styles. I was

(01:35:57):
gonna say, I'm not sure anybody else has done that
in the same year, but Joe Hendry did it this year.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
You don't have to go back very far.

Speaker 3 (01:36:05):
Joe Hendry was at Wrestle Batia, Joe Hendry was at Slammiversary,
and Joe Hendry was on the other Triple Media show
that they did back in June. But this was a
fun time. I enjoyed this show. You can already see
a lot of WWE elements seeping into the product, mainly
on the production and you know, from the opening shots
of people walking into the building to the constant cuts

(01:36:27):
to you know, celebrities and influencers in the crowd. You know,
Triple A was something by all accounts Triple A was
something of a shit show as it was before WWE
came in and took over, So you know, the better
production value helps elevate the product booking wise. You know,
we'll see how things pan out in the months to come.

(01:36:49):
I know Jeremy Borash is helping out on that end.
Conan is still involved in the booking process. We'll see
how that pans out in the months to come and
how and if they addressed the situation with Alberto, because look,
there's a lot of baggage there when it comes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
To him, and he's been involved in.

Speaker 3 (01:37:09):
A lot of incidents, even in terms of just losing
his temper and you know, going off on fans or fighting.
There's all kinds of baggage that he brings with him
and I don't see him coming back to the WWE roster.
But would WWE bring him back? If you know, this
fan support continues to be there for him and people

(01:37:29):
are cheating, you know, chanting his name and they want
him back, would they bring him back to Triple A?

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
I mean Raymistereo look like he flat out said that
they might do that, So it's entirely possible they end
up bringing him back. You know, to be part of
the Triple A product. But WWE is airing these shows
on their YouTube channel. So do you envision a scenario
where they bring back Alberto L. Patron and he's in
a key match on a future Triple A show that

(01:37:55):
they're promoting on their YouTube channel. It's it's hard for
me to see them doing that, but you can't deny
that he is super popular there and people are taking
it out on Vikingo because he's no longer there.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:38:10):
They also announced the next World's Collide show for Friday night,
September twelfth in Las Vegas, with a ten pm Eastern
start time, which means it starts as soon as SmackDown ends.
So if you want to watch ball shows live, that's
five straight hours of wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
Good luck with that.

Speaker 3 (01:38:28):
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off for fifty percent off plus free shipping. Factor meals
dot com slash Solom Monster fifty off. Dynamite on Wednesday
was quite the show. There was a lot to digest
because there were only ten days left before Forbidden Door,
so they had to make a bunch of matches, and
because of that, they really rushed things instead of taking

(01:41:05):
their time with them. MJF being booted out of the
Hurt Syndicate is an example of something that was just
seemingly dropped when there was more meat left on the bone,
and that lends credence to the reports of someone not MVP,
but someone in the Hurt Syndicate not wanting MJF in
the group anymore. So they got their wish at the
expense of really giving that story a better conclusion, although

(01:41:28):
I am a little skeptical that it has reached its conclude. Well,
we'll talk more about that when I get to the
predictions later. But MJF is back on his own now,
and he has been trying to go Hangman Adam Page
into giving him an aw World Championship match without the
need to cash in his Casino Gauntlet contract to get it.

(01:41:49):
And as Hangman said, you know, MJF wants to know
that he still has that contract as sort of an
insurance policy, like if he loses, he could still cash
it in. But he wasn't taking the bait. He made
it very clear MJF would have to earn a shot
or cash in the contract, and I naively assumed that
MJF did earn a shot by beating Mark Briscoe, who

(01:42:12):
had won like three straight Dynamite main events, and fair
point to the person who commented, well, Mark Briscoe won
three straight Dynamite main events, how is he not in
line for a championship match? Fairpoint? Fair point. But evidently
that's not enough to earn a shot at the world title.
And I'm not sure why Hangman would even have the
authority to dictate who challenges for the championship, but I

(01:42:34):
guess he does. So their segment on Dynamite began with
Hangman vowing not to be goaded into giving him a
title match, and it ended with MJF being goaded into
invoking his contract for a shot at the world title.
Hangman got under his skin. Mjf's plan backfired. So that
is your main event for Forbidden Door. How they do

(01:42:56):
that finish is going to be very interesting because it's
too early to take the title of Hangman. But you
can't just have him beat MJF clean and move on. So,
you know, maybe Mark brisco gets involved, he costs MJF
the match. You know, it could be that MJF tries
using the Dynamite diamond ring. Brisco shows up to stop
him from using it, and that leads to a blowoff

(01:43:18):
match between MJF and Brisco.

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):
But it's a little strange.

Speaker 3 (01:43:23):
That we have both contract holders cashing in on the
same show and doing so in advance, and both of
them are heels. It's gonna be very lame if they
both fall short. Athena almost has to win the title,
by the way. MJF retained his CMLL Light Heavyweight title
at Arena Mexico Friday night, and after the match, MJF

(01:43:46):
dared Mystico to come out, which he did, and Mystico
issued a challenge for the CMLL Anniversary show on September nineteenth.
MJF at first he rejected the match, but then said
that he would accept if Mystico agreed to put his
mask on the line, and Mistico agreed and so the
match is now official. And then MJF got back in

(01:44:07):
the ring for a handshake. Mystico shook his hand, but
MJF laid him out with the title belt and then
he ripped off Mystico's mask. He had to quickly cover
up and shield his face, and then MJF gave him
a tombstone pile driver before draping the American flag over
his body. That's one way to get a heat. It

(01:44:27):
felt like that's where they were going to do this rematch.
I've been saying that for a while now, probably would
be the anniversary show because look, AW got the first
match right on Grand Slam, so now CMLL gets to
host the rematch. And since Mystico is not losing his mask,
that's another reason MJF is not likely to walk out
of Forbidden Doors the AW world champion. I don't think

(01:44:48):
Tony Khn wants his world champion getting pinned on that
CMLL show. Meanwhile, will Ospray is already back only a
few weeks after admitting that he had a neck injury
that he can quiet from AAW medical for ten months,
which is a hell of a thing to admit he's
got two herniated disks in his neck. But he also

(01:45:10):
said he hoped to be back in time for Forbidden Door,
which made absolutely no sense to me when he said that,
and it sounded very irresponsible if Tony con to allow
him back in the ring with an injury like that,
consider how important he is to the roster, how important
Osprey is to that company. Why would you allow him
to get back in the ring and risk further injury
instead of healing up from the injury he already has.

(01:45:33):
But there he was on Wednesday, and because John Boxley
didn't care to accept Darby Allen's challenge to a match
of Forbidden Door, Osprey had a proposal of his own
for a ten man lights out steel cage match. So
we are supposed to believe that John Moxley doesn't want
to accept a one on one match with Darby Allen,

(01:45:55):
but he's okay with a lights out steel cage match
against five other men, including Darby Allen. Ospray later said
he had a conversation with the Boss the Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi,
and he had agreed to be on his team, So
it would be Ospray, Darby, and Tanahashi in Tanahashi's last

(01:46:18):
ever match in the UK. And then two partners of
I guess Osprey's choosing taking on John Moxley and four
partners of his choosing, And they couldn't even wait a
week to flesh out the other members. They just threw
a graphic up on screen later in the show to
make it official that it will be Ospray, Darby Tanahashi,

(01:46:42):
Kenny Omega, and Kota Ibushi, neither of whom have been
seen or heard from since All in Texas and had
nothing to do with John Moxley previously. This is how
their return was announced. Kenny Omega's return was announced via
a match graphic code, and Bushie said on Instagram that

(01:47:02):
he didn't even know he was part of this match
until after it was announced. It came as a surprise
to him too. It came as a surprise to a
lot of people. It's just Will Osprey's gathering up his
friends and boom, there's the graphic. They'll be wrestling John Moxley,
Claudio Cassignoli, Gabe Kidd, who had to bow out of

(01:47:24):
this year's g One because of a knee injury. I
guess he's okay now, and the Young Bucks. I don't
even know how this match is gonna work with ten
men in the cage. It's not a blood and guts
match where you have two rings where you can spread out.
It sounds like it's going to be a complete shit show.
The direction was Moxley and Darby. Suddenly there's eight other

(01:47:46):
people who have no business being in the match that
are now part of this, but I guess Tony wants
to save Moxley against Darby for all out. I just think,
you know, treating a Kenny Omegakody and Bushie like this
like a throwaway almost, It's just such a short sighted.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
Thing to do.

Speaker 3 (01:48:07):
Then we have Adam Copeland and Christian Cage. They've been
teasing it for a few weeks, but I wasn't expecting
the actual reunion to happen on Wednesday, and you know,
happened in front of eleven hundred people like that, that
moment deserved the bigger audience. Not only did they hug
it out after Copeland's match with Stokely Hathaway, after which
FTR was about to spike Copeland before Christian came.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
Out for the save.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
Not only that, but they're already doing the in ring
reunion it forbidden door for the first time since twenty eleven,
Cope and Christian will be tag team partners. They're gonna
be wrestling Nick Wayne and Kip Sabian And at least
with that, I get what Tony is doing here. He wants,
you know, to first close out the patriarchy stuff with

(01:48:51):
Christian before he moves on to doing Cope and Christian
against FTR, and they should close out the patriarchy stuff.
But if they close it out of Forbidden Door with
this tag team match, and that's it, you know, to
never do a Christian Nick Wayne singles match is just ridiculous.
Everything was building to that and it would have been

(01:49:13):
a big deal for Nick Wayne. Now we may not
even get it. I mean, we'll see if Tony does
it as a TV match after Forbidden Door. There's still
a chance he'll do that. But Cope and Christian, you know,
that stuff just it felt super rushed. And now the
eventual match with FTR in Toronto, it has to be
for the tag team titles because you've now taken away
the attraction of seeing them back together for the first

(01:49:34):
time like that no longer is in and of itself
the attraction, you know, for the attraction. Now are the
two of them challenging for the tag team titles, And
since their beef is with FTR, it can't be Coping
Christian challenging the Hurt Syndicate for the titles. So I
kind of feel like that gives away the finish of

(01:49:55):
that match at Forbidden Door, because again, their issue is
not with the Hurt Syndicate. Their issue is with Dax
and Cash. You tried to end Copeland's career and FTR
is wrestling Brody King and Bandido this Wednesday in the
finals of the tag team tournament to decide who challenges
Lashly and Benjamin in London. So does FTR win and

(01:50:16):
get the match? Do we not get a winner and
they make it a triple threat at the pay per view?
I don't know, but the end result should be FTR
winning the tag team titles, regardless of what MVP may think.
Speaking of Forbidden Door, here is the current lineup for
next Sunday show is a week away and all throw

(01:50:38):
in my predictions for the show as well. Remember it's
an earlier start time, so eleven am Eastern for the
zero hour pre show should call it zero hours because
I think it's two hours. One pm Eastern is when
the actual.

Speaker 1 (01:50:51):
Pay per view starts.

Speaker 3 (01:50:52):
They will be live from the two in London. They'll
have over fifteen thousand people rocking that building. They'll announce
zero hour matches later this week, so right now I
don't have those, but we have Kyle Fletcher defending his
TNT championship against Hiromu Takahashi from New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Should be a very good match, but it will also

(01:51:13):
be a win for Kyle Fletcher. Nigel McGuinness won a
four way match last night on Collision to earn the
right to challenge Zach Saber Junior for the IWGP World
Heavyweight Championship. Some British graps between these two should be
quite good. Nigel's not winning the title, and I know
it's not two thousand and eight Ring of Honor Nigel McGinnis,

(01:51:36):
but this is really the perfect place to do this match,
and it's nice to see Nigel be able to right
the end of his own story, you know, with matches
like this. I'm not saying this is his retirement match.
I'm just saying that he would even be able to
come back after all these years. He's been able to
come back for a while. I mean, he's talked about this,

(01:51:56):
he just opted not to. It's not like he wasn't
medically cleared or or anything like that, but it just
it was looking like he may never step back in
the ring, and then he did, and now he's had
a few matches since then. Now he's going to London
to wrestle Saber for the IWGP title, and it's just
a much better, you know, kind of ending chapter for
his career than it would have been otherwise if the

(01:52:17):
last we saw of him was as you know, Desmond
Wolf in Impact all those years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:52:23):
So, I mean, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:52:24):
N Nigel invited Daniel Garcia to be in his corner
after he won the four way last night. Garcia was
showing frustration with the loss, but he agreed to be
there next Sunday. It makes you wonder if he might
be more of a sore loser than he let on
here and if he might play a role in that finish.
Mercedes Monet defends her TBS championship in a four way

(01:52:46):
against Alex.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
Winsa Love that name.

Speaker 3 (01:52:50):
Alex Winsa representing aaw Persephone will be representing CMLL, and
there'll be one more woman in the match, representing stardom.

Speaker 1 (01:52:58):
I don't know who that is. It does matter who
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:53:00):
Because Mercedes is not losing the TBS title. She is
retaining the TBS title. I know it's England. I know
you know Alex Windsor is in the match. Do they
give her a great hometown win? Windsor hasn't been established
enough yet on the roster to justify a move like that.
I mean, for as long as Mercedes has held that
TBS title.

Speaker 1 (01:53:20):
My god, it's like, if she makes it to October tenth,
I think it is, she will surpass Jade Cargile as
the longest reigning TBS champion of all time. There's no
sense in taking it off of her. Here, Adam Copeland
and Christian Cage will reunite in the ring for the
first time in fourteen years to take on what's left

(01:53:42):
of the patriarchy in Nick Wayne and Kip Sabian. If
you think Cope and Christian are losing their first match together,
if I ever end up on a doubles episode of Jeopardy,
I would not want you to be my partner. Really,
Nick Wayne should pin Christian here, That's what should happen.
But everything feels like it's in hyperdrive right now with

(01:54:04):
Toronto coming up, and if the ideas for Cope and
Christian to challenge for the tag team titles, which I
believe it is, wouldn't really make much sense for them.

Speaker 3 (01:54:13):
To lose, now, does it. So this will be Cope
and Christian for the win. In his very first defense
of the new AEW Unified Championship, Kazuchka Okada defends against
the former AW World champion Swerve Strickland. There was a
segment on Dynamite where Rene interviewed Swerve and they brought

(01:54:35):
up a knee injury. I don't know where that came
from or if it's legit or not, but then Okata
came out and called him a bitch and they had
to be separated and that was it. That was pretty
much the entire segment summed up in five seconds. It
was a complete waste of time. The match should be
really good, though, unless it's just Swerve selling a knee

(01:54:58):
injury the entire time, but the injury gives him an
out when he loses to Okata, which is what's going
to happen here. Okada retains and he should continue to
retain until such time that he steps into the ring
with Kenoski Takeshta, who has been absent from AW television
because he's been doing the g One. Takesha actually pin

(01:55:19):
the IWGP champion Zach Saber Junior to move on to
the finals this morning of the g One Climax against Evil,
who beat Yotasuji, one of their rising young stars, to
advance to the finals. Evil in the finals of the
G One is some evil shit. It's so bad that
Fightful had to put out a report debunking some bullshit

(01:55:42):
rumor that started on social media that Tony Khan had
some kind of control over the G One Final, and
they made it clear that even Tony Khan doesn't care
for Evil, which is why he never books him on
aw television or in Ring of honor. Even Tony's like,
don't blame me for this shit. People looking for any
reason to excuse Ghetto for his bad booking. But spoiler

(01:56:07):
got a little G One Final spoiler here. The G
One Final took place this morning, and the winner of
this year's G One Climax happily was not Evil. It
was Kenoski Takeshta, which means Takeshta will challenge for the
IWGP World Championship at the Tokyo Dome on January fourth,

(01:56:31):
or will he. After the show, Takeshta said that he
would like to walk into the Dome as the champion,
just like Zach Saber did last year. Now he and
Saber they traded wins in the g one. They're even
right now, one win a piece. So if that happens
and he wins the title before Wressell Kingdom, I could

(01:56:51):
see Takeshta dropping the title at Wressel Kingdom to someone
like Yotasuji.

Speaker 1 (01:56:57):
It's only fair. It's only fair with him losing to Evil.

Speaker 3 (01:57:01):
But I mean seriously, being IWGP champion is a full
time job. I know Takesha has three different contracts with
three different promotions, but AW is still his home base,
that's still his main spot. He's still an outsider in
New Japan, and I think having someone like Suji beat
the outsider to bring the belt back home would be
one way to go. The Hurt Syndicate Bobby Lashley and

(01:57:25):
Shelton Benjamin defend the AW Tag Team titles that they
have held since January against the winner of the Tag
Team Title Eliminator tournament, which will be either FTR or
Brodido Brody King and Bendito or both could always be both.
If we get a fuck finish on Wednesday, it should
be FTR winning the tag team titles, and I believe

(01:57:48):
it will be and FTR will leave London with the
titles and roll on into Toronto to Wrestle Cope and Christian.

Speaker 1 (01:57:58):
Timeless.

Speaker 3 (01:57:58):
Tony Storm ends the aw Women's World Championship against the
Ring of Honor Women's Champion for nearly one thousand days, Athena,
who is cashing in her Casino Gauntlet contract for a
guaranteed world title match. Athena still being the Ring of
Honor Women's Champion is just mind boggling to me in

(01:58:19):
a lot of ways. When she should be a permanent
fixture on Dynamite, she is spending more time on Dynamite
now than she is on Ring of Honor TV, which
is great, but so long as she has that ROH title,
it's just it's hard for me to imagine them actually
putting another title on her, especially when they already have
Mercedes doing the bell collector gimmick.

Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
Right, you know. I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:58:44):
They're also making it a point to say that Tony
has not had a lot of luck wrestling in the UK.
She lost it all in Wembley in twenty twenty three.
She lost again to Mariah May at all in Wembley
in twenty twenty four. I think she finally gets that
big win in London and Tony retains. I just feel like,

(01:59:05):
you still need to have at least one of these
contract holders if they're cashing in win a title that night.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
But it's just.

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
I mean, if it were up to me, Athena would
win the belt. I just can't sit here and tell
you I think that's actually gonna happen. They're doing a
tag team match on TV this week, though Mercedes and
Athena are gonna be partners. They're teaming up to take
on Tony Storm and Alex Windsor. That'll be on Wednesday
in Glasgow, Scotland. They have a ten men, five on five,
lights out steel cage match with Will Osprey, who has

(01:59:39):
two herniated disks in his neck, Darby Allen who always
has a death wish, Hiroshi Tanahashi who can barely move
on those knees, Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi, each of
whom have had their own injury issues. They're taking on
John Boxley, Claudio Castignoli, Gabe Kid who's barely recovered from

(02:00:03):
a torn meniscus, and the Young Bucks. This will be
Tana Hashi Swan song in the UK. I guess you
can always look at it another way and say that
maybe he's better off in a multi person match where
he doesn't have to carry the load. And also, you know,
he gets to work with a bunch of different people,
possibly for the final time, instead of working just one

(02:00:25):
person Tana Hashi. You know he can be hidden in
a match like this, he doesn't have to do too much.
Now watch this fucking guy do a high fly flow
off the top of the cage. Now that I said that,
it doesn't even matter who wins this, honestly, I mean
I don't even need do.

Speaker 1 (02:00:40):
I even need to make a prediction here?

Speaker 3 (02:00:41):
Like it doesn't matter, it really does, and it's just
gonna be mass chaos. Ten men in one ring, one cage.

Speaker 1 (02:00:49):
I don't know how that's gonna work.

Speaker 3 (02:00:52):
Yeah, unless it's like a giant hell in a cell
style cage that sort of envelops the entire ringside area,
that might be a little bit better. But I just
hope everyone makes it out of one piece. I'll go
a team Osprey for the win, but I just hope
everybody makes.

Speaker 1 (02:01:06):
It out of one piece.

Speaker 3 (02:01:08):
And in the main event, Hangman Adam Page defends the
AW World Championship against MJF cashing in his Casino Gauntlet contract.
I don't know what they're going to do for a finish,
But I do think Hangman retains. Maybe we see Mark
Briscoe make a cameo like I said earlier, to stop
MJF from using the Diamond Ring as a weapon. It's

(02:01:30):
hard to see Hangman losing the title in his second defense.

Speaker 1 (02:01:34):
Yea.

Speaker 3 (02:01:35):
I know a lot of times the chase is better
than the actual rain, but once the rain starts, you
got to give it a little bit at time before
you put the man back in chase mode. Now, if
they wanted to give us a big swerve in the
main event, it would be the Hurt Syndicate helping MJF
win the title and him being kicked out was all

(02:01:56):
just a ruse. It was all part of a master
plan hatched by MVP. But it would be like the
seth Rollins fake injury, where you know, if you really
stop and think about it, like what was the point,
like put your kfabe glasses on, right, It didn't really
need to happen. Rollins didn't need to fake anything. He
could have just cashed in after a CM Punk's match

(02:02:17):
at Summerslim exactly the way that he did here. If
the Hurt Syndicate really never kicked MJF out of the group, Like,
what difference would it really make? He still cashed in
his contract for a title match. You know, whether Lashley
and Benjamin show up to help him or not. Him
being kicked out before him doesn't really change anything. It's
all very silly, but you know that's wrestling. Wrestling is

(02:02:40):
very silly. I just reviewed a show where I had
Microman and Omas having a stare down. Okay, that's pro wrestling,
but I'm sticking with Hangman. I think Hangman is going
to retain the championship. I just leave open that possibility
that maybe MJF really is not out of the Hurt
Syndicate and they just want you to think so. But
I'll be lying when the show is over. Again, it's

(02:03:01):
a one o'clock Eastern start time. We know how long
these aw shows can be, so my guess would be
probably looking at a five point thirty six o'clock Eastern
live stream. Whenever it's over, we'll go live on YouTube
with the full review and probably get the podcast out
a day early because it's fucking with my weekend. That's

(02:03:23):
how it has to be, all right. I got a
few questions here to go through in the mail bag.
Not too many, We'll save some for next week here,
but if you have questions you could email me the
solom Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name
and where you are from when you write in. We'll
start with Rayhon from Hanover, Germany. We know John Cena

(02:03:47):
was injured just before his Last Man's Standing match against
Randy Orton at No Mercy in two thousand and seven.
Was the plan for Sena to retain the title or
lose to Randy Orton? Also, if Sina had not gotten injured,
how would things have gone for him heading into WrestleMania
twenty four. I don't think it's ever been stated with
any sort of clarity what was supposed to happen. They

(02:04:08):
may not have even had that confirmed before the injury happened,
But I think Orton what I think would have happened.
I think Orton would have won the championship that night
anyway from Sina. Sena had been the champion for over
a year by that point, something like thirteen fourteen months,
and they could have had him, you know, some shenanigans,
and he would have been able to lose without being

(02:04:30):
pinned in a last man standing match, so Orton wins
the title. Now I know for a fact that Jeff
Hardy was scheduled to win money in the Bank at
WrestleMania the following year. That's when they were still doing
the money in the Bank ladder matches at WrestleMania. I
think his brother on his podcast some years ago, confirmed
that the plan was for Jeff, or at least that's
what Jeff was told, that he was going to win

(02:04:52):
money in the bank before he got suspended on a
wellness violation and that went down the drain. Honestly, I
think think that if they follow through on that plan,
if Jeff wins money in the Bank of WrestleMania, I
think we still get the triple threat match that night
that we got with John Cena Randy Orton in triple
h and maybe they even closed the show with it

(02:05:13):
instead of closing with Undertaker and Edge and Jeff Hardy.
After winning money in the Bank earlier in the night,
Jeff Hardy cashes in on Randy Orton. After Randy Orton retains,
so Orton wins the triple Threat. Jeff Hardy comes out,
he cashes in Money in the Bank, wins the championship,
to close out WrestleMania twenty four and Jeff Hardy not

(02:05:36):
seth Rollins becomes the first person to ever cash in
their contract at WrestleMania.

Speaker 1 (02:05:42):
That's what I think would have happened, Mike from Chicago.

Speaker 3 (02:05:47):
Between Lex Luger being inducted into the Hall of Fame
and Brett Hart recently complaining about not having enough rivals
when he first became World champion, it made me think
about the Brett Lex rivalry that never was. That that
made me think more about the championship runs that never were.
So I want to pitch a buy or sell between
mister Perfect and Lex Luger as WWF champions. For Perfect,

(02:06:10):
I would put him in that spot that Sergeant Slaughter
got in nineteen ninety one, beating the Ultimate Warrior at
the Royal Rumble and holding the belt until losing to
Hogan at WrestleMania and remaining the top heel for the
rest of the year. For Luger, I would put him
in the spot Bob Becklan got in nineteen ninety four
in which he turns on Brett sometime after SummerSlam, feeling

(02:06:31):
like he got cheated at WrestleMania. Lax essentially restarts his
narcissist gimmick where he says he looks like a real
champion as compared to Brett's smaller physique. Luger beats Brett
at Survivor series with interference from Owen and holds the
belt at least until the rumble. If not WrestleMania, which
would you buy or sell? I would buy on mister

(02:06:55):
perfect in the Sergeant Slaughter spot, because you can't say
Sergeant Slaughter.

Speaker 1 (02:07:01):
Had you know, the size advantage on mister perfect. I mean,
he may have been.

Speaker 3 (02:07:06):
He may he may have been a couple of inches taller,
he may have weighed, you know, twenty five pounds more,
whatever it was, but it's not like he was some
hulking figure. And this is why they put the belt
on him. They put the belt on him because of
the freaking, you know, desert storm angle and to try
to get heat, and that whole thing was fucking lame
and Slaughter. It was so weird because Slaughter was still

(02:07:29):
doing the whole Iraqi sympathizer thing long after that conflict
had ended. It was like Vince said, we invested in this,
and damn it, we're gonna see it through to the end,
and it ran all the way through the summer, and
it was just very lame and very stupid, you know,
the whole triangle of terror thing. Give that spot to
mister perfect man. Let mister perfect have a proper heel

(02:07:49):
runs as champion, even if just for a few months,
and then be the top heel through the summer or
through the fall. I think that would have been great
to buy on.

Speaker 1 (02:08:00):
That I'll sell on.

Speaker 3 (02:08:01):
Luger and Jimmy from Forest Hills, Queens. You got to
question recently on one of your live streams about great
babyface turns in wrestling, and thought, since people always talk
about great heel turns, I wondered if you had a
list of your favorite baby face turns. So that's a
good one, and I do. I jotted down the ones

(02:08:23):
that would be on my list, so I can only
rank the top three, so let me do those first.
I gotta go with the Steve Austin Brett Hart double
turn at WrestleMania at thirteen. That one is just iconic
and the impact that it had outweighs any of the
other ones on this list. Like, I can't think of

(02:08:44):
a cooler way to turn babyface either, by just being
a tough son of a bitch who refuses to quit
and has blood pouring down your face, Like it doesn't
get any cooler than that. The next one would be
Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania at eighteen against the Raw and
really the fans turned him babyface. Yeah, but then he

(02:09:05):
did the respectful thing and he shook hands with the
Rock after the Rock beat him. But that Hulk up
in the middle of the match is just such a
great classic moment and two five star matches. By the way,
I consider the Austin Brett match and the Rock Hogan
match two very different matches, but in my book, they're
five stars all the way, and they both yielded the

(02:09:28):
two greatest babyface turns of all time. And then third,
I have Macho Man Randy Savage WrestleMania seven after his
match with the Ultimate Warrior. It was a career ending match,
which I mean, fucking lol, I know, but you know,
the Warrior beats him, Savage is left laying there, Sherry
is livid. The woman is beside herself, she just lost

(02:09:49):
her meal ticket, and she just starts kicking the shit
out of Savage. All the while they cut to a
shot of Elizabeth, his former love, sitting in the audience
watching all of this play out, until she can take
no more, and she hops the barricade and she rushes
the ring and she throws Sherry out of the ring,
and Savage gets up. He almost strikes her because he
didn't know it was her in the ring, and then

(02:10:10):
they lock eyes and Savage doesn't know what to do,
and when they finally embrace, I mean, you had people
crying in the crowd, right Either that or their shoes
were too tight, as Bobby Heenan said. But then Savage
puts Elizabeth up on his shoulders and then he holds
the ropes open for her, which he always made her

(02:10:30):
do for him, and he exits the ring the hero.
After walking into that arena being booed, he is cheered
on his way out. That is how you do a
baby face turn. One of the greatest of all time.
And honestly, you can flip the order for any of
those three and I wouldn't even argue it as long
as they're in the top three. After that, you could

(02:10:52):
put them. I'm gonna give you some more. Put these
in whatever order you want. Maybe they're in your top three,
but I've got the Old Stone Cold, returning on Raw
before the Invasion pay per view in two thousand and one.
Now it lasted less than a week and it turned
out to be a hoax, but man, I mean, in
that moment, it was one of the all time great
just like cool turns like it was just such a

(02:11:15):
badass moment. Sammy's Ain at the Royal Rumble in twenty
twenty three, putting that share right in the back of
Roman reigns and finally breaking free of the bloodline that
deserves to be on the list. Mister Perfect on Primetime
Wrestling in nineteen ninety two, accepting Randy Savage's invitation to

(02:11:36):
be his tag team partner at Survivor Series against Rick
Flair and Razor Ramone and them pouring a pitcher of
water over Bobby Heenan's head. That was a show long
angle too, because you know, Perfect hadn't wrestled the match
in over a year. He had been out with the
back injury and collecting that sweet Lloyd's of London money probably,

(02:11:57):
but like he and Bobby were still together and they're
on that panel. That's when the Primetime was a studio
show with Vince at the head of the table and
then they had four guests, so like you had Perfect
and Bobby on one side of the table, those are
the heels, right, it's the heel side, and it just
builds throughout the entire show, where you know, you have
Savage via satellite. If you remember the setup to this,

(02:12:20):
the reason they even had to do this angle in
the first place, there was no build up to this
at all. And the reason is they fired the Ultimate
Warrior and they needed a replacement in a pinch, so
they decided to turn Curt handing baby face. And it
started with the Savage proposal, and you know, Heenan's laughing
it off like.

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
He's never going to accept that, right, but he.

Speaker 3 (02:12:43):
Starts making these comments that are really offending mister Perfect,
until finally Perfect just grabs Heenan and again pours water
on his head and he says, you know what, Savage,
I will accept.

Speaker 1 (02:12:54):
I am going to be your tag team partner.

Speaker 3 (02:12:57):
And it was just this great even though there was
no build up, it's just this great, this great turn,
this very memorable turn. I gotta throw Daniel Brian in there.
From Raw in twenty fourteen, Daniel Brian sheds the skin
of the Wyatt family after the cage match that night
it was Daniel, Brian and Bray Wyatt against the USOS.

(02:13:20):
And I cannot say enough good things about this. Just
what an awesome, awesome segment that was. The crowd was
electric for it. I'm trying to remember where they were
that night. I want to say it might have been Providence,
might have been Rhode Island, I don't remember exactly, but man,
the crowd was on fire for it. And you know,

(02:13:43):
it's it's stretching it a bit because this was in
the middle of the Yes movement. The fans already liked Brian.
It's not like he was like a real heel. He
was sort of just under the spell of the Wyatts
and then he finally broke free, finally woke up. So
was it really a babyface turn.

Speaker 1 (02:14:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:14:04):
He was aligned with the heel faction though, so I'm
calling it a babyface TN. Whatever it was, it's one
of the greatest segments in raw history. Nikita Koloff, My god,
this has to be near the top one of the
all time gray baby face turns. Was Nikita Koloff coming
to the aid of Dusty Roads, coming out to the
ring with Dusty to tag with Dusty against the Horsemen.

(02:14:25):
This was in Jim Crockett promotions. It was supposed to
be Dusty and Magnum Ta, but this is around the
time that Magnum had the car accident that ended his career.
They needed a replacement, and Nikita was the giant Russian heel.
He was the kind of prototypical foreign menace heel. So
seeing him walk out arm at arm with Dusty, like,

(02:14:47):
the shock of it and the pop that it got
was just unreal. And the explanation they went with was
Nikita explaining that after all the wars that he and
Magnum had, he had gained a measure of respect for
him that he felt he had to to pay back,
So that worked.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):
I thought that was a.

Speaker 3 (02:15:04):
Pretty good explanation for it, and they had to come
up with something, and Nikita was the guy, and it
worked just such a great angle. I wasn't even watching
Jim Crockett promotions at the time, and I was very
young when the angle happened, But being able to go
back and watch it and what built up to it,
what came out of it, makes me wish I was

(02:15:24):
a fan of the product at that time, so I
could have enjoyed it in real time and been a
little bit older. The Batista thumbs down in two thousand
and five is another great turn. He won the Royal Rumble,
he had a decision to make about which champion he
would be challenging at WRESTLEMANI at Triple H and Rick Flair.
They tried to steer him away from them as much
as possible, and Batista gave the thumbs down on which

(02:15:46):
contract he was going to sign and chose Triple H.
And that was the end of Batista in evolution, in
the beginning of his big baby face push. And I'll
throw one more in there. This is a personal favorite
of mine.

Speaker 1 (02:16:01):
It may not have the.

Speaker 3 (02:16:01):
Impact of the Austin turn, it may not be as
memorable as Batista or Nikita, but Virgil turning on the
million Dollar Man at the Royal Rumble in nineteen ninety one,
that was a great angle, and it had been building
for years. You talk about long term storytelling here. Virgil
was Ted Dibiassi's man servant, basically his bodyguard, and Debasse

(02:16:26):
would talk down to him and mistreat him, and finally
it came to a head at the Royal Rumble. It
was Debiasse and Virgil as a tag team against Dusty
and Dustin Rhoads, the same Dustin Rhodes, by the way,
who won the TNT Championship last month, Like, holy shit,
he's been around for a while. But Dusty and Dustin
they were on their way out. They lost the match,

(02:16:49):
not before Virgil nailed Dbasse by accident, but they won
the match anyway. And then after the match, Debasse's not happy.
He gets on the mic and he calls Virgil stupid.
You know, need I remind you about your family, about
your mother, and how I found you and everything I
did for you. Basically I brought you up to where

(02:17:10):
you are today. Now wrap that million dollar belt around
my waist. And Virgil is just having this crisis of
conscience until finally.

Speaker 1 (02:17:21):
He wrapped it around them all right.

Speaker 3 (02:17:23):
He walloped Debiassi upside the head with the belt and man,
the reaction, it was a thing of beauty, Like they
got the reaction that they were looking for, and Virgil
was a free man at a babyface great stuff. And
I like their Summer SLIG match too, and Virgil won
the million dollar belt. So those are my favorite and

(02:17:44):
in my opinion, the best babyface turns and wrestling. Feel
free to chime in if there's any I missed or
where you would rank some of those, or if you
have other ones you want to throw in there. We'll
get some more of your questions on the podcast next week.
Keep emailing me the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com.
Please follow me on x at Solemn Monster. Any updates
to the recording schedule and when the SoundOff is going

(02:18:05):
to drop, I'll keep you guys posted, most likely on
there more so than anywhere else. Again, I'm planning each
of the next two weekends to drop the sound off
a day early. It might even be the night before,
I don't know. It definitely won't be earlier in the day,
so if they drop on a Saturday, it would be
sometime in the evening. But just keep your eyes and

(02:18:27):
ears peeled for that. That's just the way things have
to be with these pay per views coming up these
next couple of weekends. Otherwise, I'll be live with you
tomorrow night for the Raw Post show on YouTube. I'll
be live with JD on his channel Tuesday night for
Tuesday Night Titans. I believe we're up to episode one
oh seven, and we've done so many of these things

(02:18:47):
at this point it's hard to keep track. Wednesday night,
I'll be live for the Dynamite post show on my
channel then, and that should be a good show actually,
just I think for the fun of it being in
front of that crowd in Glasgow, they should have a
very lively crowd. They should have a decent crowd there.
Friday night, I'll be live after SmackDown for the SmackDown
post show. And that's okay. That's the other thing I

(02:19:08):
wanted to mention, So SmackDown. You know, aaw is going
to be in Glasgow for Dynamite on Wednesday. SmackDown is
going to be in Dublin, Ireland on Friday, the first
time they've ever done TV from Dublin. I am assuming
if I use my Trustee VPN and log into my Netflix,

(02:19:29):
that SmackDown might be airing earlier in the day, that
I could watch it earlier in the day, like I
did for the European tour back in March.

Speaker 1 (02:19:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:19:38):
I don't know that for a fact, but if I
am able to watch SmackDown live much earlier in the
day in a different time zone, I will do so,
and then I will go live a lot earlier than
usual for the SmackDown review. I don't know what time
that's going to be. I don't know if it's going
to be before dinnertime. If the show wraps up by then,
I don't know if I'll just wait until after dinner

(02:19:59):
and then go live at like eight o'clock when SmackDown's
coming on TV here. But if I have the chance
to watch the show earlier, I'm gonna go live earlier.
So just be aware of that. Try to keep you
guys posted on that as well.

Speaker 2 (02:20:11):
Man.

Speaker 3 (02:20:11):
There's so much going on here. Man, all these international shows,
what's going on? They all kind of crept up at
the same time here. Be well, stay safe, have yourselves
a great week. I do hope you enjoyed this podcast.
We covered a lot of ground here, so it helps
to share and retweet and leap comments and reviews. I
do appreciate it, and I will see you guys back

(02:20:32):
here at some point next weekend for episode nine to
twenty six of The Solo Monster Sounds off until then,
take care, guys. The Solomn Monster Sounds on July twenty first,
with Stephanie Vicaire and EO Scott.

Speaker 1 (02:20:47):
That match ended in a disqualification.

Speaker 3 (02:20:48):
Then you fast forward to July twenty eight, we had
Jay Uso against Bronson Reid which ended in a disqualification.
August fourth, you had seth Rawlins one on one against
La Knight for the World Heavyweight Championship in a match
that ended in a disqualification. And then we arrived tonight
and see I'm punk in La Night against bron Breaker
and Bronson Reid, And wouldn't you know how did this

(02:21:09):
match end? It ended in a disqualification. As a match,
it was fined. It was a good main event until
we hit the finish and then I realized, Boy, I
feel like I have suffered from deja vous. It almost
feels like I've seen this before. It's almost like I'm
watching a rerun. Jamis comes out. He talks about Banger
after banger. We could talk about DQ after DQ after D.

Speaker 2 (02:21:28):
The Solo Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
and X The Solo Monster.

Speaker 1 (02:21:42):
I Love you so long.

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