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October 19, 2025 125 mins
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It was a busy week with LOTS of news about Andrade's vanishing act from AEW and how he may not be free from WWE's clutches just yet... Seth Rollins INJURED and OUT of The Vision, with a major angle on Raw last Monday, why this can be a great thing and where things may be headed next... Jacob Fatu ALSO INJURED with conflicting reports about how long he may be out for... plus a FULL REVIEW for AEW WrestleDream, which was a strong show not without its flaws... news on Ridge Holland's release, A.I. usage in the WWE writer's room, the things that were BETTER under Vince McMahon than TKO and how Bret Hart's WCW debut SHOULD HAVE been booked.

***
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Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's business time.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Baby.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to solo monsters sounds off. I love
you so mama monster, dude, I want your soul.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Woman, you got grown ass wrestlers in the back going
on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Come over here? Is that pet patison? You have legs?
The week I was ninety nine percent positive it was
just chessed up. Now, congratulations. Who hasn't beat Daniel Barcia
Eight more weeks ago until John Sena's final match. He

(00:37):
reiterated it again this week. He met what he said
in July of last year when he said that he
would wrestle his final match at the end of twenty
twenty five. You know, it feels like we're saying goodbye
soon to a lot of faces from that turn of
the century period. John Sena is retiring. Aj Styles insists
that he is finishing up in twenty twenty six. He

(00:57):
just had a nice send off in Japan on the
tour that WWE just wrapped up. Rhea Ripley got her
nose broken on that same tour. You know, it's wargame season.
When Riea Ripley breaks her nose, it's time to break
out the mask again. But we know Hiroshi Tanahashi is
finishing up at the Tokyo Dome on January fourth. Shinsky

(01:17):
Nakamura is now teasing that his career may be drawing
to a close soon. The Dudley Boys, right, or at
least Devon, They just put a period on their career
bound for Glory last weekend. Christopher Daniels retired this year.
Mako Sadamora retired this year. Bill Goldberg retired this year.

(01:39):
Samoa Joe says that he thinks his in ring career
is over when his current aw contract is up. Brian
Danielson's career is more or less over. I mean he's
doing commentary now. And there's talk of Chris Jericho coming
back to WWE next year for a retirement tour in
a Hall of Fame induction. Good luck letting this regime

(02:00):
book your retirement tour. He'll be lucky if they don't
use chat GPT to do it. Actually, he may be
better off having chat GPT book his retirement run. It's
the end of an era, my friend. You know who's
not retiring next year, even as I enter my eighteenth
year of doing this show. This guy right here, I'm
not going nowhere. This is episode nine thirty four of

(02:23):
the Solo Monster Sounds up for Sunday, October nineteenth, twenty
twenty five. I did watch Russell Dream last night. I
did not have a chance to go live, so I
actually got to go to bed a little bit earlier
than I otherwise would have because it was another marathon
show and I've got a lot of thoughts on that
pay per view're gonna get a full recap from me

(02:45):
here on the show. We got news to get to
as well, involving Androtte, involving seth Rollins, So we're gonna
talk about it all. But first I want to say
thank you to all of our PayPal producers here for
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(03:05):
Ten dollars or more, we'll get you a nickname and
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Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, Recon Russell Bullwaar, The Georgia Nightmare,
Timothy Tillis, The Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord Knight Stalker, and

(03:29):
if Alsafar and Killshot Keith Hart and also The Patriot
by Az Kabir. Check out Pinfalls and Playbooks on YouTube
where they discuss weekly sports and wrestling recaps at Pinfalls
and Playbooks and at Pinfalls Underscore Playbooks on Instagram, so

(03:51):
make sure you check them out. One of the major
stories this week, this is gonna get right into it here.
I mean Seth Rollins being the other one, and I'm
gonna get to him a little bit later. It's nice
to have actual real news to discuss, even though it's
bad news. But one of the major stories this week
concerns the status of Andrade l Edolo in aw Andrade

(04:13):
the first man to go from WWE to AW, back
to WWE, and then back to AW but now technically
back to WWE before he ultimately ends up back in AW.
And if that sounds confusing, it's because it is, and
nobody seems to know what the hell they're doing. Now,

(04:35):
let's take it back. Okay, the last time we saw
Androde in AWWE ring with SummerSlam. That was in that
TLC match for the tag team titles. He was tagging
with Ray Phoenix. After that, he vanished and we didn't
know why. And then it was reported that he had
multiple wellness violations this year and that he even ghosted
the company for a period of time where you know,

(04:56):
they couldn't get in touch with him, which is a no, no,
you can't do that. What he failed for, we don't know.
A wellness violation doesn't mean he failed a drug test necessarily.
It can mean any number of things, right, none of
them good. You would assume that means he was unhappy
with Creative, but we don't know anything for sure, and
Andrede hasn't spoken about it, right, But it did show

(05:19):
us that WWE is no longer reporting on wellness failures
like they used to, because this is the first that
we heard that he had failed anything, and it supposedly
happened multiple times. So WWE decided, you know what, he's
not worth the headache, and they fired him. And it
was said that he had no noncompete clause because when
they fired him, you know, outright, and they weren't paying him,

(05:41):
he was free and clear to go. Elsewhere. You know,
when you have a non compete, there's a period of
time usually in WWE main roster anyway, it's ninety days
where you are not allowed to work anywhere else and
they will pay you your downside for whatever that period
of time is. Right, so you're technically still under contract
with them, and that didn't appear to be the case here.

(06:02):
And then on October first, it was the six year
anniversary episode of Dynamite. The lights go out and when
they come back on Andred is in the ring and
he attacks Kenny Omega and then he becomes the seventeenth
member of the Don Kallis family. Now, it wasn't surprising
that he would end up back in aaw was surprising
that he was allowed to show up on TV as

(06:22):
quickly as he did, and then as quickly as he returned,
he disappeared. Now it's been three weeks and he has
not been back on TV. They haven't even mentioned him
on commentary. You would never even know that angle happened, right,
It's very very strange for someone to come back and
attack one of the biggest stars in the company. And

(06:43):
it's as if they used the men in Black tool,
you know, to wipe everyone's memory. Brian Alvarez was the
first to report that he is not injured, but something
was holding him up with his non compete clause with WWE.
Right he did wrestle for the Crash promotion on October
third in Mexican he won their World Championship, but then
nothing since then, and he was scheduled to wrestle La

(07:06):
Park on an indie show in Georgia next Sunday, but
he got pulled from the advertising. I believe he was
the post to wrestle in Puerto Rico this weekend, he
got pulled from that as well. So then Mike Johnson,
a PW insider, chimed in and he said that while
the initial belief in WWE circles was that since Androte
was cut outright, he was not going to be paid
his ninety days and therefore he was free and clear

(07:26):
to wrestle elsewhere, now he was told that after making
those appearances for aaw and for the Crash, WWE clarified
to Androde that even though he was not going to
get his ninety days pay, he was still subject to
a period where he could not wrestle anywhere else. And
one WWE source told Johnson that the company was not

(07:47):
going to have a system where someone could theoretically leave
due to violating their policies and then wrestle somewhere else
the very next day. So then we heard this from
Fightful Select that they spoke with sources who said that
Andrade has a good lawyer and could fight WWE's expiration period,
but it's unlikely that it would be resolved in the

(08:07):
two months left on a ninety day window, especially if
he's not being paid. Though I should point out it
has not been confirmed whether he is or is not
being paid still, you know, by the company. The belief
is that he is not being paid, but we don't
know that for sure. Then later that same day, per
Mike Johnson, he said, the word making its way around

(08:28):
Lucha librace circles is that Andrade could be kept out
of the ring for a hell of a lot longer
than ninety days. It could be up to a full year,
and you know, due to the breach of his deal,
I mean, just showing up on Dynamite would constitute a breach,
you know, forgetting any wellness violations. And so then Brian

(08:50):
Alvarez chimed in again and said that it's been confirmed
through multiple sources on their end that the new TKO
contracts have a clause where if you are fired, there
is a one year nine compete. The older contracts apparently
had this, but now it's standard, and this is the
hold up involving Andrade. I wonder if that was something

(09:11):
they instituted after they released Jeff Hardy a few years ago.
Remember when everybody thought that he was intentionally trying to
get himself fired, and then a few months later he
ended up in AAW. What was that twenty twenty one.
I think he's claimed that he wasn't trying to get fired,
but he did end up in AW as soon as
his ninety days were up. So I don't know if

(09:31):
that was something that stemmed out of that incident or
if it goes back further than that. Sean ross Sapp
later found the specific language in WWE's contracts about the
four cause extension if you're fired four cause, I'm just
going to read it straight to you. I mean, this
is a lot of legal ease here, but this is
what it says, upon termination of this agreement by promoter

(09:53):
for breach of the terms hereof wrestlers shall not work, appear,
or perform in any capacity for any professional wrestling, sports, entertainment,
mixed martial arts, and or ultimate fighting organization, promotion, or
entity not owned or controlled by the promoter, for any
affiliated or subsidiary company hereo in the United States, for

(10:15):
a period of up to one year from the date
of such expiration or termination, as specified by promoter in
the notice of termination, provided however, that if no lesser
period is specified by promoter in that notice of termination,
such periods shall be one year. And then there's also
a quick follow up that says, in no circumstances whatsoever

(10:39):
shall either party to this agreement be liable to the
other party for any punitive or exemplary damages, And all
such damages, whether arising out of the breach of this
agreement or otherwise, are expressly waived. You cannot fire someone
for cause or any other reason and restrict their ability

(11:01):
to work somewhere else while at the same time not
continuing to pay them. I just don't see how that's enforceable.
So they are either still paying him through next year,
or he needs to be on the phone with Frank
the lawyer yesterday and fight this. I mean, this is
also ridiculous when it comes to classifying these talents as

(11:23):
independent contractors. I mean, we already know what a farce
that all is with all these companies, all of them
that make these guys sign contracts. You know, working independently
and booking your own shots, that's one thing. But if
you work for WWE, or you work for AAW, or
you work for TNA, you know, classifying these people as
independent contractors is something that they've gotten away with for

(11:44):
years and they always will because not enough big names
with any real juice have the desire or the guts
to actually challenge this in court. But the real issue
here is keeping this man from working in his chosen
at least in the US for up to a year,
especially if he is not being paid during that time.

(12:07):
I just don't see how any court is going to
enforce that if he wanted to challenge it. I don't
care if you say, oh, he breached his deal. One
year is excessive, three months is reasonable, But you still
have to pay the person. And if you don't want
to pay the person, then cut them and be done
with it. Like I was gonna say, if WWE feels

(12:29):
that he breached his deal, they could always sue him.
But you know, based on the language I just read
in that contract, it says neither party is liable to
the other for damages of any kind. So I guess
they couldn't do that. And how do they dictate what
constitutes cause? Right, they may well have legitimate cause in
this situation for firing andrade. I'm just asking the question,

(12:52):
how do they define such a thing? Because, in theory,
if someone was being problematic and they thought they might
end up working for aaw or they knew they want
to go work for another company like aw right, let's
just say they could fire them, you know, for cause,
just to restrict them from going to work there for
an extended period of time. I mean, it's not as

(13:13):
if these companies are above being petty. I mean, the
whole thing just sounds shady as all hell. But someone
would need to seriously challenge it, and a lot of
wrestlers they won't do that because they don't want to
burn that bridge, right, and or they don't have the
financial resources for a long drawn out court battle with

(13:34):
a billion dollar company because these things cost a lot
of money. Now, there have been other instances over the
years of WWE talents getting out of their non competes.
I mean, brock Lesner was the highest profile case. He
wanted out of that company in the worst way, so
much so that he willingly signed a release that carried
a non compete through the year twenty ten. This was

(13:58):
in two thousand and four when he left the company.
That's a pretty long non compete. I couldn't remember if
it was for ten years or if it would expire
in twenty ten, but I found an AP story that
said it would have expired in twenty ten. So even
if it was six years, that's still a long time
and he would not be permitted during that time to

(14:20):
wrestle anywhere else or do any sort of combat sports
like That's how desperate he was to get out of
that company. And if social media was around then the
way it is now, you'd have the same idiots saying, well,
he signed the contract, so deal with it. He signed it,
even though a non compete that long is completely outrageous
and would never ever hold up at a court of law.

(14:41):
I mean, it's indefensible. Oh, but he signed it, so
it's enforceable. According to the way these people think, WWE
could have had brock Lesner's sign a release for him
stating that if he wrestles anywhere else in the next
ten years, they get to send a posse over at
high noon to kidnap his wife and burn down his house,
and that's okay because he agreed to it. No, No,

(15:04):
you imbeciles. When you push the limits of what's reasonable
and what is not reasonable, eventually someone is going to
tell you you can't do that. It doesn't matter if
the other person agreed to it. That's not the point,
you know. With Lesner, he and WWE eventually settled out
of court and the non compete was voided. Same situation

(15:27):
or similar anyway with Alberto del Rio, you know, when
he was fired in twenty fourteen for slapping that social
media guy for a racial slur. They reached a settlement
and he was able to wrestle somewhere else. I think
like a month later he was wrestling in a couple
of different promotions. Of course, they settled. WWE does not
want these types of cases litigated in court. They would

(15:50):
rather settle them quietly and not make an issue out
of it. But the person has to first challenge them
on it. If they feel they're being wronged. I don't
know if that's what on Dry is going to do.
I mean, no one looks good in this story, not Androdde,
not WWE, not AW because it seems like Tony Kahan
and the AW legal team they simply took this man

(16:12):
at his word without doing their due diligence. And maybe
Androtte really didn't know. Maybe he didn't realize and he
thought there was no noncompete. But when it comes to
stuff like this, you would think that this company and
all the money at their disposal and all their legal
eagles that work for them, that, I mean, this is
what they're there for. Right. You shouldn't just take the

(16:34):
guy at his word. He could be lying or he
may not know. Right. They would have their lawyers verifying
these types of things, one would think before they put
these people on their television show. I'm just not sure
how something like that happens. You know, with a man
in Tony Kahn, who has publicly chastised WWE in the

(16:54):
past for contract temporary, he was well aware of the
controversy around this man's release. And you know how WWE
is when it comes to these noncompetes, like if you're aw,
how do you not check that out first before throwing
him out there so quickly like that. You know, we
have him booked for House of Glory next month, which
is still a little ways off, and we're also in

(17:16):
a holding pattern right now until we find out more.
But to rush him out there on television like that,
I just I don't understand it. This was Tony Kahn's
answer on the Wrestle Dream media call on Thursday when
asked about the Andrate situation, and it's what you would expect,
he says, Well, I would echo sentiments that I said
at World's End twenty twenty three when Andred initially left,

(17:40):
and I would say that I have a ton of
respect for Andrad l Edelo. I think he's an amazing wrestler.
I think that when he left in twenty twenty three,
it was on a very high note. Just to reiterate
everything I said at his departure a few years ago.
And I still feel that same way. And I think
Andrade is a great wrestler, and I'm excited to see
what's next for him. And I would leave it at that. Yeah,

(18:03):
he's got nothing else to say, because it's an embarrassing
situation for him. And let me say this for some
of the people I saw on my ex timeline bringing
up names like Ray Phoenix and Ricky Starks and the
remember the Free Ricky movement. The main difference between what
WWE is doing here and what Tony Kahn did there

(18:25):
is that Tony Khan was benching people and intentionally not
using them because he thought they were headed to WWE
as soon as their deals were up right, It's not
in apples to apples comparison here. Androde was being used
by WWE. He was even said to be in line
for a tag team title push with a Ray Phoenix
against the WYAT six that was going to be the
match supposedly at Clash in Paris. So it's not the

(18:47):
same thing. Both promotions have done these things when it
comes to holding people to their deals that pushed the
bounds of what I would say should be acceptable, you know,
And I understand them wanting to protect their interests. They
want to protect their investments and contracts exist for a reason.
That's true, you know. With the Rape Phoenix and the
Ricky Stark stuff. My attitude is, if you have no

(19:10):
plans on using someone at all on TV and they
have so much time left on their deal. You know, yes,
he was still paying them, but work out a deal
to part ways amicably, even if it comes with some conditions.
I just don't see the point in keeping someone like
that under contract if you don't plan on using them,
or if they're going to be a malcontent on social media.

(19:31):
In this case, there are a lot of judges out there,
I'm sure who would look at this and say this
is not enforceable. And if they rule that way, that
could be a major headache for WWE and for AEW
and for TNA and any other promotion that might have
noncompete language written into their contracts. And if he fights this,

(19:52):
it may take some time. But I mean I doubt
very seriously that Andrade is not going to be wrestling
in the United States or not going to be back
on aw television, you know, very soon. I mean, I'm
sure he will be. I don't know how long. I
don't see him sitting out for a year. This is
gonna end up being worked out in some way. But
even if they do pay him, a year is too excessive.

(20:14):
And if they're not paying him, I just don't understand
how there are actually people out there defending this bullshit
online to their dying breath. Like if AW pulled this shit,
I would feel the exact same way, but then you
would have the AW fans leaping to their defense. Right,
it's just against this tribalism that takes effect, and I
think it takes a hold over people's brains. So now

(20:36):
we're getting into language of what's legal by the letter
of the law, and what's reasonable and actually enforceable. We
may soon find out. I just got done talking about
non competes last month when the FTC abandoned its move
to ban noncompete agreements, which you knew was coming once
the new administration moved in, Like you knew that shit
was dead on arrival. Right, that rule would have covered

(20:59):
not only in playployees, it would have covered independent contractors.
And even if the rule had gone into effect, I'm
sure wwe would have found their way around it. There
would have been some kind of loophole. You know, they
would have done with AW does and just not release people.
They would hold onto them until their contracts expired, even
if they didn't want to use them anymore. Yeah, But
my favorite part of that whole story the FTC story

(21:19):
was the new chair of the FTC at the time saying,
instead of a blanket national ban on non competes, We're
going to send enforcers out looking for like bad non
competes that violate the Sherman Act. Yes, they were going
to send people out to do this, a force of
fourteen hundred employees to police the entire US economy for

(21:41):
bad non compete agreements. They were going to go hunting
for non competes like their fucking Elmer Fudd hunting bugs
Bunny during wabbit season now. Also on that wrestled Dream
media call Thursday, Tony Kahan was asked about the possibility
of two blood and Guts matches next month, and without
saying one way or the other, it sure sounded like

(22:01):
he's leaning towards doing one for the men and one
for the women, and not just one for the women,
which is what I figured. He was also asked about
the Coda Ibuschie injury. He suffered a broken femur in
his return match with Josh Alexander last week, and he
underwent successful surgery, but he Bushie now says that he
was told it will take a year for the leg
to heal and then two years before he could possibly

(22:22):
get back in the ring, and Tony said that he
did plan to use e Bouschie on the Wrestle Dream
card and they had to make some changes. I take
that to mean that Kenny Omega was originally going to
be wrestling on last night's show, tagging with Eboushie against
Androde and Josh Alexander, or if not Androtti, then I
guess Josh Alexander and Hetchesero. But the Androde situation Andybushi's

(22:45):
injury messed up those plans. Now. Tony also revealed, I
mean this was wild that Lou Thez was on his
AOL buddy list when he was twelve years old and
they used to talk wrestling together. He said. One of
the greatest champions ever in wrestling, and certainly one of

(23:05):
the greatest figures in Saint Louis is luth Thez. I'm
honored that I believe the wife of the late great Luthez,
Missus thes will be in attendance at Wrestle Dream. I
had some correspondence with Charlie Thez. I have so much
respect for Lou's legacy. When I was a really or
when I was really young, and he wrote a book

(23:26):
called Hooker. I was twelve years old and I used
to talk with Lou on AOL a lot, and he
was very insightful. I learned a lot talking with him.
Last night at Wrestle Dream, they had Lou's widow, Charlie
in the front row. I'm looking and I'm like Jesus, like,
how old is this woman? Like Luths would have been

(23:46):
one hundred and nine years old if he was still alive.
So I checked, and apparently there was a thirty year
age gap between him and his wife. He was fifty
seven when they met and she was twenty six. I
did not know this. I just I saw her and
I thought, hey, she's looking good for her age that
She also did an interview backstage where she said, unlike

(24:07):
other old timers, Lou would have loved what aw was
doing to perpetuate the heart of professional wrestling. The same
Luthez who once called WWF and WCW circus wrestling. I
think he even said that about New Japan at one
point he called it circus wrestling. I mean, I know

(24:29):
it's his wife at all, she knows him best, but
I find it very hard to believe that if he
believed that about those companies, that he would be so
progressive about the AAW product. I don't think Luthez would
be tuning in to Dynamite every single week, let's just
put it that way. But you know, as crazy as
it sounds, it's not out of the realm of possibility

(24:50):
that Tony was actually corresponding with Luthez. Mike Johnson says
that THEES was part of the Old Grandstand Wrestling Area
on AOL, which and I remember that well, and he
said that Lou had a folder on there where he
would answer fan questions. Now I don't remember his folder,
but there were definitely wrestlers that were on there, like
even with RSPW right, remember all the rspw rewinds that

(25:12):
I did. Going through different posts in that news group,
I would come across posts from wrestlers that were on
there as well, like Mark Merrow is one of them.
I think he's even admitted that he used to post
on there. He was very fan friendly and he would
post and he would ask questions and answer questions. And
I know to prove that it was him once on TV,

(25:32):
and this would have had to have been in WCW
when he was doing the Johnny b Bad gimmick. He
wrote high RSPW on a frisbee and he flashed it
on camera before he tossed it into the crowd. So
all that to say, it's at least possible that he
did interact with Luthez. I'm trying to picture a young
Tony Kahan pitching his idea for Hologram on AOL messenger

(25:55):
to Luthez. What I wouldn't give to have been in
the room with Luthez when he heard Tony Kahan's pitch
for Hologram, because Tony's been waiting to do Hologram since
he was a little boy. I mean, with Hologram now
being down with an injury, I'm surprised Tony doesn't put
the mascot himself and fill in for him until he
gets back. But Wrussell Dream was the usual Marathon AW

(26:18):
pay per view, but I started it late, so I
was able to cut through certain parts of it, some
of the entrances and whatnot. That helped shave off a
little bit of time for me. It also saw Darby
Allen force John Moxley to say the words I quit
They closed the show with that match and not the
AW World Championship match with Hangman Page and Samoa Joe,

(26:42):
And why did they do that, Because this feud dates
back over a year. That match last night is the
match where Tony Khan probably wanted Darby Allen to win
the AW World Championship and be the savior of this
company against the Death Riders. And it goes back to
the Owenhart Tournament and the final between Hangman Page and

(27:02):
Well Ospray. And you remember those reports that came out
about Hangman pushing for Osprey to win behind the scenes,
and then Ospray, No, no, no, Osprey wants Hangman to win,
and Tony Kahn being undecided about who he wanted to
go over in that match until very late in the game.
And if those reports are to be believed, that tells

(27:24):
me that he didn't really want to change the title
at all, in that it almost didn't even matter to
him who was in that spot. He made a late call.
He went with Hangman, but he wasn't committed to either
one of them being the one to beat John Moxley.
But he recognized that on their biggest show of the year,
A globalife field in front of a twenty nine that no,

(27:45):
I'm sorry, twenty one thousand people stand corrected. He needed
to give the fans a happy ending, and with Darby
having just climbed the mountain, literally, it couldn't be him,
So Hangman got the title instead. That's what that tells me.
But you look at this run that Hangman has had
so far, and it hasn't been very inspired. There's a

(28:07):
reason for that. What Tony Khan really wanted was for
Darby Allen to be the one to beat John Moxley
for that title, and if he hadn't climbed Everest he
would have been. So instead we've gotten this half hearted
Hangman run so far and a main event last night,
one year after Moxley beat Brian Danielson to win the title,

(28:27):
where if Tony had his way, Darby Allen would have
won the championship. Thankfully it didn't work out that way
because I could not stomach another three months of John
Moxley as champion beating other random challengers. But it sure
felt like that match last night. Had Tony gotten his way,
that it would have been for the title, and it
would have been the fall of the death Riders. That's

(28:48):
why it got the main event spot because it was
the blowoff and it also featured the return of Sting.
We got old Man Sting making a cameo appearance with
his magnificent goateee, so we got the usual good wrestling
on the show. We had the ops turning heel seemingly

(29:08):
unless this ends up being some kind of tweeer gimmick.
They went heel on Hangman page after his win over
Samoa Joe, which give them a reason to run it
back between them at full gear next month. So it's
not a one and done between the two of them,
which is the way you look like to me. And
that's fine because nothing seems to matter until MJF comes
back to cash in that contract, which I figured would
be a world's end anyway. So what do you do

(29:30):
between now and then, if you've got one more pay
per view to do? You know what? Instead of starting
another you know, random feud from scratch, let's just extend
this out for one more match. Right, we know Hangman
is not losing the title at least until MJF comes
back and Mercedes Monett. She collected her eleventh championship in

(29:51):
comical fashion and by the time you listen to this,
she will likely have twelve belts because she's wrestling Jody
Threat in Winnipeg Pro Wrestling to time night for their
women's championship. Yeah, it's one thing for her to win
belts in these independent promotions. It helps the promotions sell
some tickets, and then you hope that she's going to
pay it back eventually by committing to come back for

(30:13):
another date and drop the belt. But the title that
she won on this show last night like just hilariously bad,
Just hilariously bad. Now, the main show is four and
a half hours long. I could not possibly care any
less about the pre show that brought it to five
and a half hours. But I did see the new
conglomeration tron for their entrance and the new theme song

(30:36):
that Mikey ruck Is composed. This is his homage to
Beverly Hills nine h two one OHO. I mean that
sound is unmistakable when you listen to that song. Their
tron video is done like the opening video of a sitcom.
It's actually one of the better things I've seen them produce. Honestly.
That in the Darby Allen John Boxley jail scene from
Dynamite on Wednesday. That was tremendous. And also I'd want

(30:58):
to give a shout out to Zane Day. I believe
he was the one responsible for that great Hangman Page
documentary they posted to their YouTube channel the other day.
I think it's about half an hour long. That's a
great piece of business that you should check out. Zaying
has done a lot of great work for the promotion
over the years. But they tried something different here at
the beginning. They let the last pre show match overlap

(31:21):
into the start of the pay per view, so they
actually opened the pay per view with a match already
in progress between FTR and Jet Speed, which is definitely
a different way to open a pay per view. I
don't see how that match specifically is going to lead
to any late buys whatsoever, but if it does, then
it may be something worth trying again in the future.

(31:43):
Like you could try anything once and if it works,
you do it again. If it doesn't work, then you
don't do it again. So I mean, I didn't hate it,
it was just a different way of going about opening
the show. The Pyro going off in the middle of
the match as they're slugging it out, you know, as
the pay per view itself opened. That reminded me of
some of those old Monday nightro shows where they would

(32:05):
shoot Piro off in the middle of a match when
hour one would end and they were about to begin
hour two, and I forget who it was. They were
in the middle of a match once and I think
it was Bambam Bigelow and someone I forget who the
opponent was. But they transition from hour one to hour
two and they don't just shoot Pyro off, like there's

(32:27):
Pyro on the stage, there's Pyro over the ring. They're
shooting flames out of the fucking ring posts, and like
Bam Bam just has this confused look on his face,
looking around, like what the hell is going on here?
Like this guy's just trying to have a match, and
it's like World War three broke out in the middle
of it. But Jamie Hater beat tech Led. This was

(32:48):
technically the show opener, not very often that we got
a women's match on these pay per views, but no
titles on the line. There was nothing on the line.
The only stipulation is that everyone was barred from ringside.
And it was hard hitting, as you would expect from
these two. You got to build Jamie back up to
where she could challenge for that world title again at
some point, and we know that she's going to be

(33:09):
leading the charge into the first women's Blood and Guts
match next month. Queen Ami Nada came out after the
match to celebrate with her, while Julia Hart and Sky
Blue they just stared angrily from the stage. I mean,
that's five of the ten women right there. You know
that you figure are going to be in Blood and Guts,
assuming it's five on five. So this was good stuff.
Jurassic Express beat the Young Bucks to win five hundred

(33:33):
thousand dollars cash and what ended up being an excellent match,
as ridiculous as it was seeing Jack Perry of all people,
kicking out of a spike package pile driver into a
BTE trigger, I mean that was just ridiculous, and it
was only the second match of the card to be
doing all of these false finishes, but you just sort
of expected on these shows. I mean, what you know,

(33:55):
you know what you're dealing with here. I love the
Bucks opening tron was a screen with a digital expense
report slash account balance, and it listed out all of
their expenses. So suits and sneakers, pyro and music. You
know it said party fifty three thousand dollars, virtual reality

(34:16):
one hundred thousand dollars, casino ninety seven thousand dollars, total
expenses four hundred and ninety nine thou nine hundred and
sixty seven dollars, current balance thirty two dollars. And then
I said insufficient funds transaction denied, and the robot voice
repeated this over and over again in sufficient funds transaction

(34:39):
divide in sufficient funds transaction deide. That was basically their
entrance music as they made their way out, and the
lower third on the screen read the thirty two dollars
seventeen cent bucks. They could really use this win, and
I figured the bucks we're gonna win here, because what
would be the point of Perry and the Dinosaur winning
the money?

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Right?

Speaker 1 (34:59):
But the one good thing about them losing here is
that it keeps the broke buck stuff going a little
bit longer. It's one of the more entertaining parts of
the shows. So I don't mind them, you know, dragging
that out longer. But Jurassic Express wins it. I'm still
not sold on Jack Perry being fully babyface there's something
very fishy about this whole thing. But they won, and

(35:21):
it puts them right in the mix for the tag
team titles, and all of a sudden, you know, we've
got a real division again. And I talked about this
a few weeks ago. You know, what was once their
greatest asset, what was once their greatest strength in this company,
really became one of their greatest weaknesses. And I blame
a lot of that on the introduction of the trios titles.
But now they've got Brodido, and they've got the Bucks,

(35:42):
and they've got Jurassic Express back together. They're trying to
get the Acclaim back together. They got the Hurt Syndicate,
the Gates of Agony, Jet Speed and FTR and the Outrunners,
like they've gotten it back to the place where it
was four or five years ago. So Kenny Omega comes
out to make the safe for them after the match

(36:02):
when the Kallous family attacks, and the Bucks they walked off,
so they weren't even gonna help, And Omega meets him
in the island and said, well, if you're not gonna
help them, then I will. So he seems to have
forgiven Jack Perry for his past sins. He was very
skeptical of him a week ago, but all of a sudden,
now it's like they're best friends. And Omega would have
been wrestling on this show with Cody Aboushi against the

(36:23):
Kallous Family had Eboushi now broken his leg. We had
the Hurt Syndicate putting the nail in the coffin of
Ricochet and the Gates of Agony. They take the series
two matches to one, not counting the regular tag team
match that they had where Goa won, which has already
forgotten about. This was contested under Tornado rules. But doing

(36:44):
a straight match like this, I mean, more or less
a straight match coming off of a street fight was
very backwards. I don't know, you know why we got
the street fight and then they did this. But there
was a cool spot where Shelton Benjamin German supplex Ricochet
out of the ring. I mean that looked pretty crazy
as a brawl. It was fine, nothing terribly special, but

(37:05):
it was fine. And the Hurt Syndicate now are the
number one contenders for the trios titles. They're going to
be getting a title match on Dynamite this Wednesday where
they go with Ricochet and goa Now, I have no idea,
but one thing I will tell you. Ricochet, even though
now he's got his own posse, is colder than he
was earlier this year, coming out of that feud with

(37:25):
Swerve Strickland. He's actually in a worse position now than
he was before. Kyle Fletcher he beat Mark Briscoe to
retain the TNT Championship. No surprise. There would have been
way too soon for the title to come off of Fletcher,
and they had a very good match. I didn't think
they needed twenty five minutes for it on a show

(37:46):
that was already bloated. They could have shaved even just
five minutes off and kept it to twenty and that
would have been sufficient. But it was still very good.
Chris Statlander and timeless Tony Storm. They got their one
on one match and the outcome was the same as
it was for Tony. It all out a win for Statlander,
which she needed to cement the fact that her title

(38:07):
win was not a fluke. This was a decisive win
for Chris Statlander, and the crowd was quieter for a
lot of it than you would want them to be.
I think because they they didn't know who to cheer
for right. They liked both women, but like the previous match,
this was very good. And then out comes Mercedes ten belts,

(38:27):
and a dark cloud settles over Chris Statlander's head because
you know what's coming. She comes out with all of
the fratthouse geeks dancing at ringside holding her belts. She
congratulated stat on her win, but told the world champion
to get the hell out of her ring, and in
response to this, Chris Statlander obliged. Speaking of geeks. Now,

(38:53):
she did come back out after the match was over
the following match to go after Mercedes, but still, your
world champion backing down like that did not do her
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(41:42):
So we had Ultimo Monet. That's the name that she
is trademarked because she just tied Ultimo Dragon's record of
holding ten titles concurrently, which only lasted for like a
week back in the mid nineties. Ultimne would have been
a better choice, so they're going with Ultimo Moo. And
she also just passed Jade Cargill as the longest reigning

(42:04):
TBS champion of all time. And she throws out the
challenge here to any champion in the back, not just
any woman, any champion in the back to put their
title on the line against her TBS title. It's an
open challenge, and her saying any other woman back there
with a belt kind of gave away that it would
be someone from Ring of Honor, because I mean, what

(42:24):
do they have other random women's champions from other promotions
just hanging out backstage. She may have to start fighting
the men soon. She's going to run out of belts
to challenge for. I was terrified that Statlander was going
to put her title on the line right then and
there on the spot and drop it to her. Instead,
we had Mina shi Kawa come out the current interim

(42:45):
Ring of Honor television champion because Red Velvet has been
out since June, and Tony doesn't want to interrupt her
reign by vacating the title, which is exactly what he
should have done months ago, because it's the Ring of
Honor television title. Who gives a shit like Athena. I
can understand. Athena was said to be banged up. I

(43:06):
think coming out of Forbidden Door, she may be hurt.
That's why we haven't seen her. She hasn't wrestled I
think since the end of August. Otherwise this would have
been a great spot for her to come in and
take the title from Mercedes, right, I mean, I know,
I know, I know, but we can imagine, right, but
she's been Ring of Honor Women's World Champion for over
a thousand days. I can understand if she ever got

(43:26):
seriously injured, you would have an interim champion. Fine, but seriously,
why the fuck do they need an interim television champion
and Ring of Honor And so that's what she was
fighting for here. She's getting into interim belts now and
the crowd was kind of meh for this, but it
kicked up late in the match when Mina kicked out
of a Mona Maker she went for another one and

(43:48):
Mina avoided it. Mercedes got a backslide and she got
a foot on the bottom rope to steal it and
win her eleventh title. She is collecting these things like
infinity stones. So she wins an interim title from their
sister promotion, a TV title, an interim TV title, an
interim TV title for a promotion with no actual TV deal,

(44:13):
so she gets the confetti celebration. Statlander comes back out,
she avoids a right hand, she drops Monee with a
Samoan drop, and the new champion scurries away. And then
later on backstage, Mercedes issues the challenge for full gear.
It'll be Mercedes Monette against Chris Statlander for the aw
Women's World Championship. So there it is, and it's very

(44:36):
easy to think that that's gonna go the way that
all of her other matches go, except she already challenged
for the world title once before, and she lost to
Tony Storm. If they put the world title on Mercedes
at full gear before she starts dropping all of her
other belts that she has. I don't see why Tony

(44:59):
Kahan would elect his world champion to go around to
all of these other promotions, losing match after match after
match like you do that first, then you win the
world title after this woman has hit rock bottom. That's
what this needs to be. Now. What it needs to
be and what it will be maybe two completely different things,

(45:21):
but it's the only way to make the Monetue character
the least bit interesting at this point. She needs that
downward spiral. She already beat Statlander at full gear last year,
and then she beat her again at World's end. Chris
is Oh for two against this woman. Having her go
oh for three would be a colossal creative failure. Colossal

(45:43):
and the TBS title does not need to be added
to that match either. She loses and then she begins
her descent from that point forward, and once she's beltless,
that's when you build her back up for another run
at the world title. Meanwhile, in the back, later, Renee
approached Tony Storm, who was sitting in the corner almost
catatonic after her loss, and when she was joined by

(46:06):
an equally destraught Mina Shirakawa, and Tony said they lost everything,
and Mina gave her a hug, tears in her eyes
and said, no, we still have each other. There are
your first AW Women's Tag Team Champions right there in
case you're wondering. In case you're wondering where Tony Storm
goes from here, that's where she goes. Brody King and Bandido.

(46:30):
They retained their AW Tag team titles over Kazuchka Okada
and the brand new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Kenoskate Takeshta.
He beat Zach Saber Junior for the title this past
week at the King of Pro Wrestling Show. That's three
different titles this man is held this year, the IWGP title,
the never Openweight title, and the AW International title. Plus

(46:52):
he won his first G One Climax and before this
year is over, he may well win the continental title
as well. Hell of a year for that man, and
well deserved. And you also can't well pin him right now.
So the biggest surprise for me was seeing Okada take
the pinfall loss for the Kallus family in this one,
But it was the only move to make if they
were losing this match, it had to be Okada. But

(47:15):
this was a great fucking match. It suffered from the
same problem as the Fletcher and Brisco match, where they
did not need that much time. This got almost half
an hour and they still had the two main events
left to go. But this was my favorite match of
the night. King and Bendido they do this thing now
where they break out into a little macarina dance in
the middle of the ring during their matches, but Okada

(47:37):
cut it off here and we got Okada doing a
middle finger macarena, which was just amazing. He's just such
an asshole. Late in the match, Takeshta Ate, an accidental
rain maker from Okada who had the biggest grin on
his face after clabbering his partner. You had Bandido with
one good arm trying for the twenty one plex, not

(47:59):
able to get it. But there's Brody King. He's encouraging
his partner, He's cheering him on. You can do it,
you can do it, and he did it. He had
a one arm twenty one plex and he pinned the
Continental champion to retain the tag team titles in a
hell of a match. They announced that Okada will now
defend his continental title this Wednesday on Dynamite against Bandido.

(48:21):
They're not even waiting for full gear to do it,
and I think that that may be because we are
getting Okada against Takashda at the next pay per view.
I think they may do that first match there. I
think they may have to Kesh to lose, only to
come back in the Continental Classic and work his way
to the finals for a rematch with Okada and he

(48:42):
wins the title there. I think that may be the
play because otherwise, I mean, why not do a match
like Okada against Bandido, who, by the way, is also
the Ring of Honor World Champion. Why not save that
for the next pay per view unless you've got a
bigger match that you plan to go to on that show.
Hangman Adam Page retained his aw World Championship over Samoa

(49:07):
Joe and the Comine. I figured they weren't closing with this,
and why would they. I mean, Darby and mox is
the match with the long term story here that and
they wanted the happy ending, and there was no happy
ending here for Hangmen. Even though he retained his title,
I thought it was a good defense for him. I
wouldn't call it a great match. It was a good match,
with Hangmen nearly going out in the Kokina clutch, but

(49:30):
he came back to life. He avoided a muscle buster attempt,
and he finished Joe off with three buckshot lariats. I mean,
who does he think he is? Cody Roads, only Cody
hits his finish three times to finish somebody off. And
then they shot an angle big angle after the match
where the Ops came out and it looked like Joe

(49:51):
was paying respect to Hangmen in defeat and then he
levels Hangman with a clothesline, and then Hobbs and Shabata
they put the boots to Hangman Paige. So it wasn't
a Samoa Joe Heal turn. It was a turn for
the entire group. And Joe tells Hangman that he's not
worthy of being the champion. He blasts him in the
head with the belt, and then he puts Page down

(50:12):
with a musclebuster onto the belt. So that was unexpected.
You know, the Ops spent months backing up Hangman against
the Death Riders, only to turn on him, like the
Ops are like wrestling fans turning on their favorite wrestler
after the struggle is over and they finally win the
big one, like they're as fickle as the fans are.

(50:32):
But now they get another match out of it with
Joe and Hangman, and it just buys time until MJF
is ready to come back, because all roads lead to
worlds end. As far as I'm concerned, the same show
where MJF lost his Triple B two years ago is
going to be the same show where he wins it back.
And they closed with the I Quit match between John
Moxley and Darby Allen, the real main event that Tony

(50:56):
wanted all along for Darby to win the title, but
Darby wanted to go play near so there was no
title on the line here. You know, with all the
use of fire by Darby leading up to this, I
thought they were going to make this match an inferno match,
and I was surprised when they made it and I
quit match instead. And if you saw their coffin match

(51:16):
back at all Out, you had to be expecting a
really bloody, really violent affair. And even though we got
crowd chants of this is fucked up during this match, Okay,
that may be the first time I've ever heard wrestling
fans actually chant this is fucked up for something in
a match. Even with that, this still was not nearly
as violent as I feared that it was going to

(51:38):
be or bloody, and the reason for that I imagine had
to do with them being in Saint Louis and Missouri
has a state Athletic Commission that does not allow for
a lot of things like cutting people open and suffocating
them and all the things that John Moxley and Darby
Allen loved to do to each other. It's written in
the bylaws. It's not allowed. It's not permitted. Although we

(52:02):
did see John Moxley try to drown Darby inside of
a fish tank, apparently that was permissible, but the other
stuff we didn't see, I would imagine it's because they
were not allowed to do so. I actually think them
toning things down a bit from the bloodbath that I
was expecting made for a better match, which is not
to say that we didn't get some six shit in
this match. Moxley took a bamboo skewer at one point

(52:24):
and he drove it underneath Darby's fingernail, which is something
I did not need to see. Darby would not quit.
Darby choked him out over the top rope with the
aw flag that he brought with him to the top
of Mount Everest, and Moxley started to panic, just like
he did when Hangman did the same thing to him
at all in except he had a chain around his neck,
but Moxley was able to gouge his way out of it.

(52:46):
This time we had Darby spraying lighter fluid all over Moxley, Wheeler,
Yuda and Daniel Garcia. They sprint out, they got sprayed
in the eyes. I mean, those two were just completely useless.
There was a frutal paradigm shift by Moxley through a chair.
Claudio and Pack they were out there. Claudio guerrilla pressed

(53:07):
Darby over his head and got a running start and
tossed him out of the ring and onto the announced
desk and Darby bounced. He bounced off of it like
a ball. And then Moxley hit a paradigm shift off
the apron through two tables that were outside, right next
to each other. I mean, I'm saying this. This was violent,
but still not as violent as I thought these two
might take things. And then we had a first. They

(53:31):
brought a fish tank into the ring, and they were
not looking to feed the fishies. They brought it into
the ring. They filled it up with water and Moxley
placed Darby's head in the tank multiple times. He submerged
this man trying to drown him more attempted murder on
these shows, trying to get Darby to quit, but he

(53:54):
would not quit until the lights went out. When the
lights came back on, who was in the ring but Sting,
old man Sting in his bomber jacket with the white
goat tee and the white hair and the white face paint,
and he's standing behind Moxley with a baseball bat. It
should have been white to complete the look. He used

(54:17):
the bat to send the other members of the Death
Riders to the floor, and then he choked Moxley with
it before tossing the bat to his son. And as
Sting was leaving, Marina Shaffer got in his face that
he picked her up over his shoulder and carried her
to the back. Darby hit Moxley with the bat in
the ribs. He hit him with the bat in the knees,
and he smashed the aquarium so there were pieces of

(54:40):
glass everywhere. There was a giant puddle now in the
middle of the ring. As Darby wraps the aw flag
around Moxley's throat, he hits a scorpion death drop. He
follows that with a coffin drop, and then he applies
a scorpion deathlock in the center of the ring, in
the giant glass puddle, and John Moxley quits. And if

(55:01):
it felt like an anti climactic way for Moxley to
quit and for the match to end, it did. It
did feel that way a little bit. I imagine the
idea though, is that without the Death Riders there to
help him, John Moxley is a coward, right. He talks
a big talk, but he can't back it up without help.
How many times did he retain that title with help
from the Death Riders when he was champion? Right, A

(55:23):
couple of baseball shots to the kneecaps and a leg
lock is all it took, with no one there to
help him, for John Moxley to show his true colors
and who he really is. Right, he's all talk. This
should be the beginning of the end of the Death Riders.
I know. I said that after all, and I'm saying
it again now. I thought it would be coming out
of that match, but now you know, he's lost a hangman,

(55:46):
he's lost to Darby. I see no reason why these
men would stand behind this guy and do whatever he says.
I mean, they should all beat the shit out of
him on Wednesday. But Tony Kahn may not want the
comparisons to the vision Angle just did on Monday and
all the tweets that would follow of him copying them,
So maybe he won't do it, but that's what he

(56:07):
should do. That's what needs to happen. The entire Death
Rider's story arc goes back to him winning that title
of Wrestl Dream last year and doing what he did
to Brian Danielson, who interestingly was not there last night.
I don't know where he was. But that parting shot
of Darby posing with the aw flag that was always
meant to be the end of this. This needs to

(56:29):
be the end. The Death Riders overstayed. They're welcome a
long time ago, but now there is no need for them.
But they told a good story between these two and
they didn't need gallons of blood spilled to do it.
You know, Moxley tried to break Darby and Darby bens
but he does not break. And if they were going
to bring back Sting, that was the right moment for

(56:49):
them to do so. If anything, I think they didn't
spend enough time on Darby celebrating and taking it all in,
you know, when the match was over, because they ran
so fucking long, which is another reason why shaving off
five minutes here, five minutes there would have helped. Right,
it felt like they rushed off the air, because of
course they did. I think it was twelve thirty in
the morning. They could have allowed that moment to linger

(57:11):
a little bit more, but they had no time left.
So it was not my favorite pay per view of
the year or anything. I thought it was a strong
show with the right end to the story. In the
main event, they had a big angle coming out of
the world title match. They had a tag team title
match that stole the show, and there wasn't anything egregiously
bad outside of the length. You know, I will say

(57:34):
I think they have enough heel factions though in this
company as it is now that the Ops appear to
be heels. That's in addition to the don Kallis family
and the Death Riders and the Demand and who am
I missing LFI right, their heel group. Maybe they use
this as a way to get Eddie Kingston and Hook
involved with the Ops, right, I don't know. We don't

(57:55):
need any more heel factions though on this show. So
on Wednesday we have a sokata against Bandido for the
continental title. We have the Ops defending their trios titles
against the Hurt Syndicate, and they are going to reveal
the brackets for the women's tag team title tournament over
to WWE and the main Angle on Monday Night. Raw

(58:17):
as well as plans for War Games and beyond, has
been turned upside down after an injury to the World
Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins at Crown Jewel. It happened on
the Coast to Coast headbutt that Rollins delivered to Cody Rhodes.
Rollins landed very hard on his shoulder. He was favoring
his arm for the remainder of the match, but he

(58:37):
still won and then celebrated after like nothing was wrong.
Rollins was later spotted walking around Perth with his arm
in a sling. This is the same Seth Rollins who
walked around for weeks with a brace on his knee,
hobbling around on crutches, selling a knee injury that turned
out to be phony. He was very committed to the bit, okay,
so I can understand why people would call bullshit on

(58:59):
this one. Shame on you fool me twice shame on me.
Nobody likes to be conned once, let alone twice. So
on Raw Monday night, he came out and he was
gloating about his win, but also he made it very
clear he didn't need bron Breaker, he didn't need Bronson Reid,
he didn't need Paul Hayman. Right, he did it all

(59:19):
by himself. He didn't need any of them. He chose
them and they chose him. So the signs were there
from the opening segment. The seeds were being planted for
the Vision to turn on its visionary after WrestleMania. I
don't think anyone was expecting it to happen that same night,
but after the main event, which saw CM Punk beat

(59:40):
jay Uso in La Knight to become number one contender
for the World Heavyweight Championship, the Vision pounced and Rollin
stood over Punk's dead body doing some more gloating until
he turned around and he got speared by bron Breaker.
And the way they did this was brilliant, where they
put the producer credits up and the copyright box the

(01:00:00):
signal the show is over, It's coming to an end,
like they do every week. Another typical Vision ending to
the show and then they hit you right between the
eyes with the swerve in the best possible way. Bronson
Reid looks surprised. Paul Hayman looks stunned, like, what the
fuck are you doing? And Breaker walks up to Read
and he tells him, you're either with me or you're not.

(01:00:23):
Make your choice. And it doesn't take long for Bronson
Read to make his decision. He drags Rollin's over to
the corner he squashes him with the tsunami splash. Hayman
is shielding Rollins from further damage. He's begging them to stop.
Breaker grabs him and lets him know, you're either with
me or you're not your choice, and it's Paul Hayman,

(01:00:44):
so naturally, Paul Hayman is going to make the decision
that best benefits Paul Hayman because he's all about self preservation.
It's how this whole partnership started with Seth Rollins earlier
this year, not out of any real loyalty, but to
save his own skin right, to save himself from getting
his head stomped in. He chose Seth Rollins over his

(01:01:05):
tribal chief. He chose Seth Rollins over his best friend,
Paul Hayman has turned on more men than Margo Robbie.
He goes whichever way the wind blows, and now we
have a new vision with Paul Hayman firmly aligned with
bron Breaker and Bronson Reid. Mike Johnson, a PW insider,
on Tuesday, said those within the company believe that Rollins

(01:01:27):
is headed for either shoulder surgery or rotator cup surgery
for what is a very real injury. Dave Meltzer last
night on Observer Radio said he is one hundred percent
having shoulder surgery and they won't know how bad the
damage is until they open him up. But WWE is
hoping that he is back in time for WrestleMania. I mean,
they could hope all they want to until they go

(01:01:50):
in there, they don't know. And a cruel irony it
is that he spent weeks lying to people selling a
fake injury only to end up with a very real
one that is going to end up derailing his world
title run. The surgery rumor hasn't been confirmed. Johnson says
even people in the company remained skeptical after what they

(01:02:11):
did with Rollins a few months ago, but Chad Gable
had rotator cuff surgery in July and he still isn't back.
I mean, it really all depends on the severity of it,
but at the very least, it spells the end of
his run as World Heavyweight Champion. It puts him out
of action for the rest of this year, and it
likely means that he is possibly going to miss WrestleMania
next year. Rollins has probably been the wrestler of the

(01:02:34):
year in WWE this year. He beat Roman Reigns and
See I'm Punk in the WrestleMania main event. He let
his own heel Faction the top Heel Faction on Raw.
He won money in the bank, he cashed in to
win the World Heavyweight title at Summerslim. He beat Cody
Roads last weekend to win the Crown Jewel Championship, And
for his year to end this way sucks. It does,

(01:02:56):
and I feel bad for him. But with the injury
comes opportunity, and my immediate reaction when that show was
over on Monday was excitement. Right. That's why I was
giddy when I came on the stream on Monday night,
not because Seth Rollins got hurt, but because, Okay, this
is going in a totally different direction now, and I'm

(01:03:17):
with it. I'm behind it. I want to see where
this goes. This now shakes things up on the Ross
side in a way that can make the shows more
fun than they otherwise would have been. This now forces
them to strap the rocket to bron Breaker and launch
him to the top, which was always the plan with
the Vision. The Vision was never designed to push Seth
Rollins so much as it was to push bron Breaker
as their next big superstar. That's what it was always

(01:03:39):
all about. What Evolution did for Dave Batista, the Vision
should have done for bron Breaker. Except now there's no
waiting for WrestleMania. There's no waiting for the Royal Rumble.
The time is now. The plan had supposedly been for
Breaker and Reed to eventually win the world tag team titles.
I don't know why they didn't already put the belts
on them. The judgment Day's doing anything with them. Bron

(01:04:03):
Breaker does not need to be tag team champion. He
was already tag team champion once remember the Wolf Dogs.
He doesn't need to be tag team champion. Bron Breaker
needs to be fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship. That
rumored Seth Rollins Roman Reigns match for WrestleMania next year.
That match now should be Roman Reigns against bron Breaker,

(01:04:23):
and boy is it a good thing they didn't go
to it at Crown Jewel and they stuck with the
Bronson Reid rematch because it'll be that much bigger when
they meet for the first time. This is an opportunity
for Paul Levek and the creative team to push a
youth movement in this company with bron Breaker leading the
Vision Austin theory. He was rumored by Meltzer last week

(01:04:44):
to be on the heels side and the men's Wargames match,
which seems completely fucking random. It's like, how do we
get there? I presume he would have helped Seth beat
Punk at Saturday Night's main event next month and join
the Vision as the newest member. He still can. There
are other names from NXT that can and should be
called up to the main roster. You could even add

(01:05:04):
one of them to the Vision and make it a
foresome led by Paul Hayman. Right Oba, Femi should be
on the main roster right now. I don't think he
needs the Vision. I think SmackDown could use him more.
But imagine Oba in that crew or Trick Williams or
Ethan Page. Right, these are just ideas. Some of them
I shared with you on Monday when I talked about

(01:05:25):
it a little bit. Some of them have been kind
of going through my head all week long. But I'm
excited to see how they pivot with this. They have
to make a decision about how to proceed with the
world title, right, do they shoot an angle with CM
punkin seth Rawlins. They already announced that Adam Pierce is
going to have an announcement on Raw Tomorrow night addressing
the world championship situation. You know, does Rollins relinquish the

(01:05:45):
title this Monday? Do they substitute someone for Rollins against
Punk one on one or do they turn it into
a multiman match with La Knight and Jay Uso, even
though they already lost and maybe bron Breaker, right, maybe
a fight to crown a new world heavyweight champion. If
it were up to me, I would be putting that
title on bron Breaker right now. Like sure you could

(01:06:09):
put it on Punk, you could put it on La Night.
I would love to see La Night have a proper
run with the world heavyweight Championship, but it's not going
to be a proper run right At best, he would
be a transitional champion anyway, and I think it ends
up on bron Breaker regardless. Put it on Breaker and
have him lead the charge into war Games against Punk

(01:06:30):
and Roman. You could do La Night, you could do
the usohs. Jacob Fatu was rumored for the Baby Faced Team,
but now he's out. They just wrote him off television
Friday night before his match with Drew McIntyre. Maybe they don't,
you know, go with the vision at all for Wargames.
Maybe they're actually considering And I said this on Friday,
and I hope I'm wrong. Maybe they are actually considering

(01:06:53):
a Wargames match this year with the MFTs and the
Wyatt six, which sounds like an awful idea. Two heatless
factions that haven't even touched yet, and you're gonna put
them in Wargate. You talk about going from zero to sixty,
we'll put them in Wargames. Shout out to the Knight Tyrant.
On my stream the other night, he reminded me that

(01:07:15):
when they first brought Wargames back in NXT, it was
three on three on three. So in theory. They could
have the MFTs, they could have the Wyatts, and then
who would that third team be. I mean, I figured
the Wyatts could recruit Samy's Ain to be on their team.
But if you did three on three on three, you
could actually have Sammy z Ain leading his own team, right,

(01:07:36):
that would be a little more interesting. Maybe if you
get Sammy partnered up with some of the men that
he has wrestled in these open challenges, like a Ray
Phoenix or a Knaka Moro or maybe an Ilia Dragonov
who just came back and beat Sammy on Friday to
win the US title, Right, that would be a little
bit better. But I still think the vision ends up
on the heel side of wargames. And look, you know,

(01:07:57):
injuries may have ravaged their plans, it just presents an
opportunity for other people to step up. And it's still
early enough that they haven't locked in their WrestleMania plans yet,
so this is not the disaster that it might seem
to be. It doesn't have to be. You continue to
build the vision. But with New Blood, I was shocked

(01:08:18):
by how many people I saw complaining about them doing
the angle with Breaker turning on Rollins on Monday Like
this was also before we had a better understanding of
this being a real injury. But even people who figure
that it might be real, they were criticizing them for
doing this. Oh it's six months too soon, it's a
year too soon. What are they doing? Yes, we all
know this was the eventual destination, and the Vision has

(01:08:38):
not been around for that long. They didn't even have
a fucking name until a couple of months ago. But
bron Breaker has already gotten over to a level where
there wasn't this great need to wait until six months
from now or nine months from now or a year
from now. Before they did the predictable turn. We all
saw it coming. The injury forced their hands. They went

(01:09:00):
to it early. Now they get to take this whole
thing in a completely different direction, and I don't know
where it's going to end up, you know. Whereas before
I saw a Breaker as the breakout star of this group,
if bron Breaker is now leading the Vision, right, it
could be somebody else next year when the time comes,
who actually ends up being the breakout star. It's also

(01:09:21):
a chance to see bron Breaker in a leadership role
instead of the mostly silent enforcer that he's been. It's
a chance for him to show off more of his personality.
It's a chance for him to level up. I don't
see what there is to be upset about here. I've
said it before. Triple H tends to play things a
little too safe. Here. We have a grenade that just

(01:09:42):
got dropped and blew things up, and I don't think
that's such a bad thing. That ending on Monday is
the kind of angle that made Raw Must See all
those years ago. It's been a long time since we've
had something like that. Too long. That's a cliffhanger. That's
a reason to tune into the show next week to
hear those first words from bron Breaker and find out

(01:10:03):
where this thing is going and what they plan on
doing with Punk in the world title situation. That Raw
Show tomorrow is Must See in a way that it
has not been in a very long time. And let's
just say, let's just say, for the sake of argument,
that this does turn out to be a giant ruse.
I don't believe it is, but let's say it's another

(01:10:24):
seth Rollins hoax to deceive CM Punk heading into Saturday
Nights main event and Austin theory does join as the
newest member of the Vision and they all have a
good laugh about it. After that would be very lame.
I would hate that because we just saw them do
that same angle with Rollins in July. To shoot a

(01:10:45):
similar angle so soon after that would be very stupid,
not to mention unoriginal, and I don't see what the
real purpose of that would even be. But to go
back to Jacob Fatu for a second. Bodyslam dot Net
first the news earlier in the week that Fat Ti
has a non wrestling related injury of some sort that

(01:11:06):
is expected to keep him out of action for an
extended period of time, said to be well into twenty
twenty six. But now we hear from Mike Johnson, a
PW insider, that the word going around among the talents
It's SmackDown on Friday is that Fat two is recovering
from a dental procedure, which would explain them doing an
angle where he got his teeth knocked out and he

(01:11:28):
was not yet medically cleared to wrestle, but the hope
is that he will be back very soon. And then
Brian Alvarez is now reporting that WWE expects Fat two
to be cleared by December. That's very different than him
being out well into twenty twenty six. But he cautioned
that he has not yet independently verified the dental story.

(01:11:48):
Mike Johnson said he has not independently verified the dental story,
only that many of the wrestlers were claiming that to
be the issue. But that would be great news if
he's not going to be out for a long time,
because if he was boy with that suck and it
would be a blow to SmackDown, which is already in
need of some fresh faces on top, and that main

(01:12:08):
event mix. As his music was playing for him to
come out for his Number one Contenders match with Drew
McIntyre on Friday, there was no fa too, and all
of a sudden, we see a camera in the back
and they're rushing to find him trapped under a metal
cart of some kind and he's got blood and teeth
all over the floor. Now he was conscious, It's not

(01:12:29):
like he was out cold or anything, and they had
to like stretcher him out, but he was clearly hurt
and clearly very upset. And on Friday I talked about
how if he was going to be out for an
extended period of time. They have a hoo dunn It
angle ready, right, they have a Whodunit angle ready and
waiting for when he comes back. And by the time
he comes back, wouldn't it be something if we come

(01:12:51):
to find out that the culprit wasn't Drew McIntyre, who
already denied having any involvement here. It wasn't him, It
wasn't so Lo Soucoa or somebody obvious. What if it
was the man who stood to lose the most if
he had to wrestle Jacob Fatu. What if that man
was Cody Rhodes. What if by the time he comes back,

(01:13:14):
they are ready to turn Cody heel and they do
it in an angle where Fatu gets to chase him
to get revenge as the new top babyface on SmackDown.
That Cody, desperate after losing to seth Rollins a crown Jewel,
was looking to eliminate the competition. Now that's an angle
that I could get behind. That's an angle that could

(01:13:35):
really be interesting, And that's how you get heal Cody.
That's just the thought. I mean, there's any number of
ways you could get to heal Cody Rhoads. Eventually it
can involve Randy or I mean again, there's a million
and one ideas, But if he's only going to be
gone for a month or two, I don't see the
sense in doing it. But as with the seth Rolins injury,
it presents them with an opportunity to integrate some fresh

(01:13:58):
faces and some younger talents into the mix. Ilia Dragonov,
he's back after a year on the shelf with a
torn acl He beat Sammy Zain in a hell of
a match on Friday to win the United States Championship.
Go from we go from the Canadian to the Russian
holding the US title. I just I'd find that amusing

(01:14:18):
and I saw where there were folks on cagematch dot Net.
They rated that match between Dragonov and Zaane like nine
point three out of ten, which would put it in
the top twenty matches of all time in WWE according
to cage match ratings, which is why you don't put

(01:14:38):
a lot of stock into cage match ratings. Okay, as
great as that match was, imagine thinking that it's in
the top twenty or the top twenty five of the
best matches in WWE history. But Dragonov is a great
addition to the SmackDown roster. They could use him more
than raw Caan right now, even though I was looking
forward to more battles with him and Gunther, We'll have

(01:14:59):
to save that for down the road. But they could
call up talents from NXT like Obafemi or Trick Williams
or Ethan Page. And that's to say nothing of any
of the women. They could call up soul Ruka, Jordan
Grace lash Legend her name is rumored for the women's
Wargames match right They would all be welcome additions to
the show. This week's episode is sponsored by Green Chef.

(01:15:21):
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I'm looking ahead to their menu for Hallowe Week. You
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free dairy free option like me, they've got blackened telapia

(01:17:09):
bowls with black bean and corn rice or buttery lemon
garlic shrimp with bacon. Oh my goodness, I see it
comes on a bed of spaghetti. That's if you're looking
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(01:17:31):
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(01:17:53):
free shipping. That's code fifty solm Monster at green chef
dot com slash fifty Solomon and we got a Vince
McMahon update on his traffic case. This comes per the
New Haven Register on Thursday headline WWE's Vince McMahon gets
special probation in Merritt Parkway reckless driving case. Ah, you

(01:18:17):
don't say. A judge on Thursday granted an application from
Vince McMahon, co founder and former CEO of WWE, for
a pre trial probationary program in his reckless driving case.
McMahon appeared briefly at the State Superior Court in Stamford
on Thursday before Judge Gary White along with his attorney,

(01:18:37):
nearly two months after he applied for the accelerated rehabilitation
program in connection with the July twenty fourth crash on
the Merit Parkway. In the accident report, Connecticut State Police
said the crash happened in nine twenty two in the morning.
Police said McMahon was driving his twenty twenty four Bentley
Continental in the right lane of the parkway, also known

(01:18:58):
as Route fifteen, when he collided with the rear of
a BMW and then the median. A Ford Fusion driving
on the south side of the highway, hit some debris
that had been projected over the center median, and it
then struck the guardrail on the northbound side. There were
no injuries, and neither of the other drivers were in
court Thursday. Or objected to McMahon's application for the program. Sherman,

(01:19:19):
his attorney, said that he sent apology notes on behalf
of McMahon to the other drivers. Oh maybe he offered
them some free tickets to WrestleMania too. I mean those
are expensive these days. Deputy Assistant State's Attorney Eileen or
Noowski said McMahon was driving in excess of ninety miles
an hour at the time of the crash, but did

(01:19:41):
not object to the program since McMahon was fully covered
by insurance. The judge granted the program for a period
of one year on the condition that McMahon make a
one thousand dollars charitable contribution and only drive if properly
licensed and insured. Charges of reckless driving and following too
closely will be dismissed on October fifteenth, twenty twenty six,

(01:20:04):
if McMahon stays out of trouble. McMahon did not speak
in court. He did not speak with reporters, but pause
briefly to sign autographs and take pictures with fans before
going into court and again after leaving, before he was
led to a waiting Cadillac suv Ah. The things that
money can buy you good lawyers for one thing. All

(01:20:25):
you merit parkway drivers out there, good luck. Ridge Holland
was released by WWE. He's currently out with an injury
and he will not be coming back. In a statement
posted to his social media on Monday, Holland revealed the
WWE has informed him that his contract will not be
renewed when it expires. WWE will still be paying for

(01:20:50):
his injury rehab, but his guaranteed pay will end on
November fourteenth, when his deal runs out. He said, I've
been informed the wa WE will not be renewing my
contract when it ends on November fourteenth. WWE are still
going to cover my rehab from injury, but my guaranteed
pay will end. Quite frustrating to say the least, as

(01:21:10):
I cannot work for another six months due to the
aforementioned injury with a family of five to support. My
career with WWE has been blighted by misfortune, but I'm
still thankful and grateful for the opportunity and the experience.
The shining light that has always kept me going is
the huge support from a handful of special human beings.

(01:21:30):
Thank you. I am unsure what lies ahead of me
in terms of wrestling, but going forward I will be
working hard to heal up and in that time I
will be launching my own online coaching business, So stay tuned.
So he suffered a foot injury. Specifically, it was a
Liz Frank injury, which is the same foot injury that

(01:21:51):
aj Styles dealt with. That was very frustrating and was
very painful. But he suffered the injury while he was
wrestling Moose at a tnning in September, and then he
had surgery at the beginning of the month to repair
the issue. Now Fightful had a follow up on this
and said Ridge Holland was not paid beyond his WWE

(01:22:12):
deal for the TNA bookings that led to his injury.
He had signed a one year extension in November that
was about two hundred thousand dollars less than what he
had previously been making, which makes sense because he was
on that main roster money. You know they say the
main roster deals. I think the minimum is like three

(01:22:32):
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So then they knocked him
down to NXT and evidently he wasn't making main roster
money anymore. That's a lot of money. That's a big downgrade,
they say. Holland is now without guaranteed pay while he
heals up for the next six months. His WWE release
while injured has caused significant concern for the roster and

(01:22:54):
has left multiple names universally disappointed that he is not
being paid while injured. One veteran talent in WWE feels
that it would never have happened pre pandemic. Oh no,
you don't think so. I mean, there's probably a better
chance of it happening under TKO because they don't give
a shit. But to say that, oh well, there's no

(01:23:15):
chance of that ever happening a pre pandemic, Yeah, I
don't know about that. You know, they have tacked on
injury time for people before. It's not as if they
couldn't do that again here. You know, even if only
to pay the man while he's unable to work and
then let him go if they don't want to use him.
Like I'm not saying they're obligated to bring him back,

(01:23:35):
but the idea that he suffered this injury working a
TNA match for them, and he wasn't even being paid
extra to go work those TNA matches, But he got
injured in a TNA ring while working for WWE. And
it's great that they're paying for the surgery or the
rehab or whatever, but the idea that this is an
injury that's going to sideline him from what he does

(01:23:56):
for a living for six months and now he's he's
got to figure out how he's going to pay the bills.
It's pretty fucking ridiculous, but it also illustrates that, hey,
this is what happens when it's every man for himself.
I mean, it's not like there haven't been having been
conversations over the years about what a wrestling union would
look like. It's all pie in the sky. It's not

(01:24:17):
something that would be impossible. It just sounds impossible because
the wrestlers have no real desire to band together in
any way. And fortunately now they're in a situation where
these are the types of things that are going to happen,
and they're not really in a position to do anything
about it because most of the people who work for
that company are probably making really good money. You know,
nobody wants to rock the boat, so there's certain protections

(01:24:41):
that they might otherwise have that they don't have, and
then you end up with shit like this. It's disgusting
now that there was a story that Dave Meltzer mentioned
in The Observer this week. They got a lot of
people talking, and now Meltzer is saying that it's been
misinterpreted by people kind of turned into a joke, although really,

(01:25:02):
I mean, there's not a lot that's funny about it
if you think about the way in which this could
be used. But it's about the introduction of AI into
the storytelling aspect of WWE. Little did we know what
they meant when they said that WWE was giving Road
Doug some creative assistance with his SmackDown writing duties. Now

(01:25:22):
we know why SmackDown has been an improved show over
the last two weeks. But this comes per The Observer.
I'll just read the item straight. This is how it
was written. Cyrus Cawsari, that's his name. Cyrus Cawsari was
hired last month as the new senior director of Creative Strategy.
He had previously been a producer for BuzzFeed from twenty

(01:25:44):
sixteen to twenty twenty two and for one the MMA
Company from twenty twenty two until last month. He was
introduced to the creative staff by Paul Levec. Introducing him,
Levec said that Cawsari would lead WWE's transition to AI
based storytelling and integrate AI into creative services like video

(01:26:05):
and graphics. He said that this shift is inevitable when
it comes to creative and pro wrestling. Kawsari said that
he would both manage AI storytelling and be a liaison
to the White House as Leveck is taking on more
duties in politics. In some form. WWE has a contract
with Writer AI, a platform which has already been fed

(01:26:27):
WWE content. Thus far, the AI software has come up
with what one person with knowledge of the situation called
absurdly bad storylines. They pitched a storyline where Bobby Lashley,
who I guess AI thought was still with the company,
could come back as a wrestler who was obsessed with
Japanese culture and history. See now just picturing him coming back,

(01:26:52):
and this would totally happen to Vince, We're there. He
would be coming back at like a Samurai outfit. We
would get like Samurai. Lashley or Vince would give him
a sword because that's what you do. He would have
fucking symbols, you know, for his entrance music. Where the
fuck did it pull that out of? I mean, Bobby
Lashley coming back to the company as a wrestler obsessed
with Japanese culture and history. The report says the feeling

(01:27:18):
is once the bugs are worked out, that AI will
begin to have major impacts on storyline direction. We are
aware that another promotion previously tested out AI for creative
help and suggestions and found that it could not understand
pro wrestling and storylines. Now Meltzer is saying that this
story has been misinterpreted and it's more right now about

(01:27:40):
using AI tools to kind of streamline things in terms
of plugging in information that could be useful to consider
when coming up with storylines and matches to have and whatnot.
You know. A couple of years ago, Tony Kahan admitted
to c NBC that he tried messing around with chat
GPT to write an episode of Dynamite. So this is

(01:28:03):
what he said back then. He said, it's not insane.
I've definitely messed around with chat, GPT and AI a
decent amount. One thing about them is they take criticism
and feedback very well. When I first messed around with
chat GPT and asked it give me your best version
of Dynamite, it has limited knowledge of world events since
twenty twenty one, so its presentation of AW. Then you

(01:28:26):
found that it was really looking at AW from a
couple of years ago, people who are not in AW
or are not here now. One thing was giving it
an updated roster. Another thing I thought was interesting was
asking it to write a ten segment wrestling show with
nine breaks that is two hours long, trying to format
it out. It did the same thing everyone does when

(01:28:48):
they first get into wrestling, and what all fans would do,
and ideally it's a great thing, trying to put too
much in versus what you actually get done in two hours.
I saw the chat GPT like a human being, was
trying to stuff too much into the show. But this
is rich. I just got done reviewing a four and
a half hour fucking pay per view last night and

(01:29:09):
he's talking about chat GPT trying to stuff too much
into the show. He says, I retrained it. It took
the criticism well and then came back with alternative ideas.
It had some solid thoughts and I could see the
merits of people utilizing it to check their work or
come up with ideas, and in all seriousness, I mean,

(01:29:29):
that's really where this could be useful, right, But obviously
people are very upset and very scared of the idea
of AI kind of in a more broadway taking jobs
away from people. It is a very real concern and
it's a very real thing that is playing out right
now across multiple industries. It was one of the sticking
points in the Hollywood writer strike a few years ago,

(01:29:52):
and the deal they reached set limits on the use
of AI, and it put it in the hands of
the writers as far as like how and if AI
is uses a tool, you know, not to replace them,
but to complement the work that they do. At least
that's my understanding of the deal that they worked out.
And then you have Guermo del Toro, it is screening
for his new Frankenstein movie the other day saying fuck AI.

(01:30:14):
So I mean that makes it very clear what he
thinks about it, and probably a lot of other people
in Hollywood. I think there's a middle ground where it
could be very useful but not used in a way
that simply replaces people in mass Right, it's finding that
happy medium because this technology is not going away, and
there are tons of people who use it every single day,

(01:30:35):
even in just like an office setting. You know, so
whether you're working with a chat GPT or you know grock,
or you're working with a co pilot, you know Microsoft
co Pilot, these types of AI platforms have a lot
of really good practical uses for people that can help
make them work more efficiently. You know, it could help
speed up their day, or if there's something they have

(01:30:56):
to do and it's like, man, do I spend hours
on this When I no, I have to work on that.
I'll just plug something into copilot or whatever and it'll
do it for me, or it'll find what I'm looking
for a hell of a lot faster than I will. Right,
I don't see any issue with that. Any way that
you could help individual people work more efficiently in the
course of their day is a plus. And this technology

(01:31:17):
is always going to be evolving, right, It's not going away.
But it gets scary when you think of the possibility
that it could get so advanced and so smart that
it just starts to replace people outright, or you look
at something like these AI videos and everyone laughs at
them now on TikTok and ig, and they think it's

(01:31:38):
funny to see Bob Ross beefing with mister Rogers and
bashing him over the head with his paint palette. But
I find it to be very scary, like how real
It looks like it's getting to the point where I
can't tell real from fake when it comes to some
of these videos. If it wasn't for that Sora watermark
right in the corner of the video, I might not
be able to tell in some of these cases. I mean, obviously,

(01:31:59):
I know it's not fucking Bob Ross and jay Z
and fucking Tupac in these videos, but you could put
anybody in there. Theoretically, you could plug anybody's likeness in
their dead or alive. But that's just video. I bring
that up because I've seen these videos come up out
of nowhere lately. It's all over my fucking timeline. That's
just video. The idea of it happening in wrestling with

(01:32:22):
the writers is a very real thing, and I can
see where if you're a writer there maybe there are
some people who are afraid when they think five ten
years into the future, afraid of their job. Sure, right
now it could be very useful to them. Man, this
can make our jobs a lot easier. It could recommend
some ideas and then we can kind of take it
and play with it and whatever. But then you look
ahead to where this may be headed, and you could

(01:32:46):
see where people might be afraid for their job. But
I also see the benefit in plugging in some terms
and seeing what it spits out. And maybe it spits
out three or four storyline ideas, not Bobby Lashley becoming
obsessed with Japanese culture, but it spits out three or
four storyline ideas, and then you have the writer's room
batting around some of the ideas and saying, hey, you

(01:33:06):
know what, this one is actually not so bad, so
we can work with this. Let's take this idea or
parts of this idea and come up with something on
our own that borrows from it that I don't really
see an issue with. You know, where it can be
complementary to what you do. But it's a slippery slope
because we all know TKO cares about its bottom line

(01:33:29):
above all else. And if there is a sudden downturn
in WWE's business. And you're already starting to see things
softening a little bit with some of these houses that
they're doing. They're not selling out everywhere like they were
earlier in the year, right, And those prices, I'm sure
have a lot to do with people not being able
to come out to these shows because they just can't

(01:33:51):
afford to come out. But let's say things take a turn,
and again we're looking a few years down the road here,
creative gets the blame. Who's to say they won't look
save some money by laying people off and cutting their
team in half and utilizing AI to help write their stories.
Because right now it might not be perfect, but in
five years it could be a hell of a lot better.
In three years, in two years, it could be a

(01:34:12):
hell of a lot better. It's learning every single day.
And do you think TKO gives a shit? They don't care.
If a computer could do their job for half the cost,
they would do it in a heartbeat. It's like Dusty
said all those years ago, you could apply AI the
same way that you would if you go back and
watch that Hard Times promo. Right, a computer took your job, Daddy,

(01:34:35):
that's hard Times. It's hard times for a lot of
people out there, and it will be in the future
Deaf Rebels days with WWE may be numbered. Per bodyslam
dot Net. Sources indicate that Deaf Rebel are currently on
their final contract with the company, but no timetable has
been given regarding when the contract expires. Another source indicated

(01:34:56):
that the company is also expected to do some work
with outside artist when it comes to music in the future,
as they have recently with the likes of Mega Ran,
Adam Jones and Incendiary Talent have been frustrated with not
having much input regarding their music, so it seems WWE
maybe finally listening to squash that frustration. I don't know
what took them so long. I don't know how ironclad

(01:35:19):
must that contract be, that it has taken this long
for them to possibly make changes and they're still there, Like,
we don't even know exactly when their deal is up,
if they're going to be renewed. I mean, there was
talk earlier this year or late last year whenever it
was that they were actually going to be using them
on the UFC side as well, that like TKO wanted

(01:35:40):
to use them more, not less. So I don't know what,
you know that situation is, but the idea that they
may finally be out the door soon is a breath
of fresh air. I mean, you look at some of
these wrestlers lately that have gotten back their old themes
and the excitement that fans have had to hear. You know,
Kyrie saying on Monday came out to her old pirate

(01:36:01):
music or Babyface pirate theme. The Street Profits got their
music baction, Sky Nakamura got his music back, and maybe
there'll be more, you know, in the coming weeks who
get their music back or get new music. I always
think of Bailey, we talk about the music and how
fucking awful her music is. I mean, there's any number
of them that would benefit from you know, new music

(01:36:22):
or makeover. I again, I like the idea of utilizing
mainstream songs more often, but like in the way that
aw does. I'm not saying everybody needs to use like
a real song, right, but what Tony Kahn will do
occasionally is he'll spend money on a song to get
the rights, even if it's only for a few appearances.
And we've seen these great moments where like Brian Danielson

(01:36:45):
is able to come out to you know, Final Countdown,
and now Jack Perry and Luca Lucasaurus they're coming out
to you know, Tarzan Boy, and then we've seen him
do this with other people as well, you know, Orange Cassidy.
I would like to see WWEE you know, break open
their wallets every now and then, to do that for
a major entrance. They really don't do it. But then

(01:37:06):
to also bring in outside artists, maybe collectively and rotate
out different names to help produce new tracks for WWE tallons.
It doesn't have to be one group or one person
even like Jim Johnston back in the day, who controls
all the music in this company, Like you could have
multiple bands or multiple individuals. Who are you collaborating or

(01:37:27):
working together? But like music is such an important part
of the presentation, and it's been so such an awful
situation for some of these wrestlers. You know, Rhea Ripley
might be able to come out to a cool song.
Roman Reigns might be able to come out to a
cool song, but they're already made people, you know what
I mean. Like there are other people on the roster
right now who you can barely even identify who they are.

(01:37:49):
When the music begins. It is a very important part
of a wrestler's presentation in a company and on a
show where there is a premium put on present Haitian.
That's why they have five match pls in this company,
because they spend twenty five minutes on entrances. You're gonna
tell me theme music is not important. So this is

(01:38:11):
a step in the right direction. But we're not there yet,
but hopefully we will start to see some real changes now.
Last week NTNA had its Bound for Glory pay per view.
I did a full review. It is up on the
channel right now. I pushed the audio out to the feed.
You missed it, go back and check it out. I
actually enjoyed the show, but there was a match on
the show, and it's an excellent match, even with the

(01:38:34):
bullshit finish, Easily the best match on the entire show,
one of the best matches of the entire year for
the X Division Championship between Leon Slater and Javon Evans
and hopefully not the last time that we will see
these two in the ring together. But a lot of
complaints about the way they did that finish because the
finish bucking sucked and it deserved all of the criticism

(01:38:55):
that it got. They did a false ending to build
to them adding five minutes on and get people all
excited to see five more minutes between these two, just
to go right back and give us a non finish
again with Dark State getting involved. And I said it
even before this report came out from John Alba and
Sports Illustrated. I said, this is what happens when you

(01:39:18):
have WWE working together collaboratively, which is a good thing
with TNA, but what happens in these types of situations
is one side doesn't want their person to lose and
the other side doesn't want their person to lose, and
so you run into this situation where okay, well, what
kind of finish can we come up with here? And
this is what they came up with because WWE did

(01:39:40):
not want Javon Evans to lose to Leon Slater, and
we hear this week that in fact, WWE had significant
say in the booking direction for that match. This comes
courtesy of John Alba and Sports Illustrated on Monday. Now.
The match ended in a twenty minute draw after what

(01:40:01):
was supposed to be a five minute overtime. It got
marred by interference from Dark State, and Alba noted that,
according to TNA head Carlos Silva, creative is a shared
process for wrestlers which they share like Joe Hendry, for example,
but sources have indicated the WWE especially has a lot
of pull when its talents are utilized on TNA programming.

(01:40:25):
And he wrote that even before the finish, it was
expected that the two of them would have a rematch,
possibly at NXT Halloween Havoc. I don't believe that's happening
at Halloween. Halloween Havoc is coming up this coming weekend,
so I suppose there's still time to make that happen.
I don't know if it's going to happen on that
show or not. I do hope they rematch them. I
do hope we get a proper finish. But to do

(01:40:47):
a match like that on what is supposed to be
TNA's WrestleMania, supposed to be their biggest show of the year,
and you have these two guys in the ring, and
it didn't like once they realized the kind of reaction
they were getting, it didn't even matter, like the decision
had already been made. So like anybody's saying man, they
should have changed their mind. They should have called an
audible and you know, had a clean winner. The match

(01:41:08):
was going so great, you can't do that. Like, what
is TNA going to do in that situation, right, WWE
wants the finish to be done this way? Oh but
the match is going so great, Fuck it, We're gonna
call an audible, right, have a Leon Pingevon Evans. Yeah,
that would be the end of the TNA partnership with WWE. So,
I mean, once they went out there, there was nothing

(01:41:29):
they could do. But the fact that that was the
idea they came up with in the first place is
just atrocious. So sure, if it leads to a rematch
with a decisive winner, that's great, But to do it
the way they did it last weekend, it just wreaked
of WWE having a lot of sway and a lot
of influence over the direction of that match. You know,
I didn't even need to read the report to know

(01:41:50):
that this was WWE's fingerprints all over it. And it's
a shame that a match that great ended that way,
because it truly was, even with the non finish, one
of the best matches and most fun exciting matches that
I have seen all year, and then we'll end with
this terrible story and then get into some of your questions.

(01:42:11):
But a referee for Rossiolgawa's Marigold promotion, a long time
wrestling referee, was mauled to death by a bear in Japan.
This guy also ref for all japan women back in
the nineties. But this comes courtesy of the Asahi Shimbun,
which is a daily newspaper in Japan. A search party

(01:42:34):
on October seventeenth found a severely mutilated body believed to
be a hot spring in worker who was attacked by
a bear while cleaning out in an outdoor bath. The
search and rescue team shot and killed the adult male
asiatic black bear about one point five meters tall near
the wooded area in and I'll just say, you know

(01:42:56):
local prefecture instead of trying to pronounce this he was found.
The sixty year old worker was cleaning the rotin burrough
outdoor bath a single at a single inn hot spring
resort along the Getagawa River by himself from around ten
am on October sixteenth. The inns manager noticed the worker

(01:43:19):
was missing and contacted the Katakombi police station at around
eleven fifteen. When officers arrived, they found cleaning tools and
the man's glasses and slippers scattered around the outdoor bath.
Animal fur was also discovered, as well as smeared bloodstains.
My god, this sounds like something out of a horror movie.
The outdoor bath is located on a cliff a few

(01:43:39):
meters above the Getagowa River and is enclosed by a
one meter high fence. Bloodstains were also found outside the fence.
The missing worker was identified as Katsumi Sasazaki, who had
a long career as a referee for various professional wrestling organizations.
Believing Sasazaki he had been attacked by a bear, police

(01:44:03):
along with city officials and a local hunters association, began
a search with a team of about thirty people. However,
they were forced to suspend the search after just thirty
minutes due to bad weather. From the morning of October seventeenth,
the search resumed with a team of about forty people,
and at around nine am, the body was discovered in
a wooded area on the opposite bank of the Getagawa River,

(01:44:26):
about fifty meters northwest of the Hot Spring inn known
as Katsumi Tiger. The stocky. Sasazaki had refereed for a
women's professional wrestling organization until recently, and also worked as
a bus driver transporting the wrestlers. According to Hideo Arai,
president of a Yokohama based entertainment production company, as a

(01:44:48):
renowned referee, he was a pillar of many ring events.
He had a gentle personality and approach matches with a
sincere attitude. I knew he had retired and was working
at a hot spring, but how could this happen? On
October eighth, an other men was found dead in a
mountain forest about two kilometers west of the of the
site actually where this happened. He was picking mushrooms when

(01:45:10):
he was apparently attacked by a bear. Police and city
officials are investigating whether the same bear was responsible for
both attacks. That's like a serial killer bear on the loose.
That's terrible. Now, that's a horrible way to go. But
I read that story and it was like, man, it's
like something out of a movie. It's awful. It's take

(01:45:33):
your questions and you could always email me the Solemn
Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name of
where you are from when you write in. We'll start
with Marlin from Memphis, Tennessee. What are your thoughts on
the Rock booking John Cena's final match or having influence
over it, because that's what the Rocks said this week.

(01:45:53):
He claimed he had a little bit of influence on
John Cena's final match or final opponents. I don't know
if that's true or not. I mean, look, he he'll
always have some degree of influence. I think people took
that story to mean that, oh, he's involved, and I
didn't really take it that way at all. I mean,
I think he was just kind of put on the
spot with a question and it was kind of like, yeah, theoretically,

(01:46:14):
I have a little bit of influence over this, But
he says I like the idea as I honestly feel
Triple H has sabotaged John seen his final run. Quite frankly,
I think he's done an absolutely terrible and unforgivable job
considering sena status. While I'm not John seen as biggest fan,
I disliked most of his career from two thousand and
five to twenty sixteen, I've really come to appreciate him

(01:46:37):
and everything he has accomplished. What are your thoughts on this?
I personally feel the Rock would handle it a lot
better and would have managed the heel turned and seen
his final year in the ring much more effectively than
Triple H did. Oh yeah, sure right, yeah, Well, just
like the Rock has some great influence with his involvement
earlier this year, keep him far away from this and

(01:46:58):
hindsight being what it is, Triple H far away from
this too. I don't know who. I would have book it.
I would force John Cena to actually, you know, book
his own retirement run. I know he's always very deferential
to everybody else. Ah, you guys, come up with it.
I trust you, guys, you guys do it. I'll do
whatever you asked me to do. I would have forced him.
I would have requested that he provide some feedback about

(01:47:19):
what he envisioned his retirement run being in a best
case scenario, and maybe even just kind of spit out
a handful of aimes, kind of like, AI, just spit
that information out of us. We'll take it and we'll
run with it, and we'll put together the best run
that we can. I don't get the sense that that's
what they did. We got Carlos from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

(01:47:43):
I don't want Vince McMahon to ever return to WWE.
I have nothing positive to say about him, and I
think he became a negative creatively to the company. I
think WWE under TKO is doing quote unquote better both
creatively and financially, although I don't tune into the show
weekly and their financials don't affect me one bit. My
question to you is what were some of the things

(01:48:06):
that were better under Vince McMahon. Well, you probably would
think that I'm going to sit here and say nothing,
but I can't say that. There's actually a few things,
the biggest one being affordability. Affordability. Affordability affordability. It was

(01:48:26):
far more affordable to attend a live show under Vince
McMahon than it is today with TKO running the show.
Another thing is we didn't have this level of commercialization
that we have today now. I do think eventually he
would have acquiesced because he would he just would not
have been able to turn down the money that was
being offered. But it's just so heavily prominent in the

(01:48:49):
product now, and under Vince it just it wasn't this bad.
It wasn't at that level. He also allowed there to
be more than five matches on most plees, and I
don't want much more than that, but this need to
keep the number to five on all of these shows,
right save for the big ones like Mania and SummerSlam,

(01:49:09):
which are two nights. I'm not a fan of doing
it all the time the way that they do. You know,
some of these five match pls end up being excellent shows,
but there are shows that can absolutely accommodate an extra match,
but they just won't do it because then jay Uso
can't yeat as much on his way down to the ring,
and we can't have twenty five minute intermissions between all

(01:49:30):
the matches. And I'll throw one more at you. The
WWE Network. The WWE Network was truly one of Vince
McMahon's greatest creations, Like we didn't know just how good
we had it at that time. I missed the network greatly.
I love the Vault channel on YouTube. I think it's great,
but having that one centralized place for the library, plus

(01:49:52):
some of the original shows. They had Legends House, they
had The Edge and Christian Show, those Legends roundtables like
that's from the early days. Those were the WWE twenty
four to seven days I think even before the network started,
twenty four to seven was like a twenty four to
seven service that predated the network that was only available
on certain cable services. Mine was in one of them,

(01:50:17):
although I was eventually able to see the Legends, roundtable
shows like original content like that coupled with the library
and access essentially free access to the pay per views.
You put all that together in the WWE network like
it was the perfect blend. And now they've sold off

(01:50:39):
pieces of their soul to different bidders, right to the
highest bidder, and we still don't even have a dedicated
home for the Monday night Raw library if you want
to go back and pick out a specific episode. All
of those things were better under Vince McMahon. And still
there is not a day that goes by that I
sit here wishing that that man was back in power.

(01:51:01):
I don't ever want to see him back in power
ever again. Kyle from Saint Petersburg, Florida. What are some
of Jeff Hardy's greatest singles matches that we would not
consider extreme as in, no tables, no ladders, and no chairs.
Well then you end up with no match. You know what?

(01:51:23):
I can't think of too many of them that didn't
involve plunder of some kind. One that jumps out of
me was the No Mercy title match that he had
with Triple H. I want to say that was back
in two thousand and eight. It had to be, because
it was a few months before he won the WWE Championship.
And that one too, I'll throw that one in there too,
although I think there was a chair that was involved

(01:51:44):
in that match, but that was Triple H, Jeff Hardy
in Edge. Yeah, I know that there was definitely a
chair involved in the finish of that match. I don't
know if you would count that. It didn't have any
sort of like extreme stipulation though, but that was a
great match. And there was a match on Raw that
year where Jeff Hardy actually pinned Shawn Michaels. Imagine that

(01:52:07):
back then they were giving away Shawn Michaels against Jeff
Hardy for free on TV. So that one was really good.
But honestly, like all of his greatest matches involved extreme stipulations,
like all of the TLC matches, the Ladder match on
Raw with the Undertaker, the Hardcore Title Ladder match, he
had its Summer Slam with Rob Van Damn. I remember

(01:52:29):
liking that one the cage match on SmackDown before he
left last time when he wrestled cm punk, the false
count Anywhere match that he had with Umaga one Night's Stand, like,
they all involved stipulations of some kind. Vince in Fredericksburg,
Virginia when Brett Hart went to WCW, do you think

(01:52:51):
WWPS mentions of him by Shawn Michaels and the Vince
McMahon Brett Screwed Brett interview caused WCW to rush his debut?
If so, what would have been a better way to
debut him? So I get this question or a variation
of this question every now and then, and I know
I've answered it before. First of all, I wouldn't say

(01:53:12):
they rushed it. You know, he debuted in mid December,
right before Starkade, so they let a month go by
before he ever showed up on TV. He may not
have been contractually available to show up on TV before then,
because I do remember that one of the ideas that
was discussed when they were trying to figure out how
to handle this whole Montreal situation was why don't we

(01:53:32):
know do A I think it was a four way
match on the In Your House show at the beginning
of December, right the month after Survivor Series, and then
he would drop the title there. So contractually he may
not have even been available to WCW until mid December.
But he didn't show up until, you know, over a month,
like four or five weeks after the Montreal screwjob. But

(01:53:56):
the way they debuted him was completely ludicrous, right, They
debuted him as the special referee for an Eric Bischoff
match of all things, like that's how you debut the
man that you're paying three million dollars a year two
and I rebooked his entire first year once in WCW.
When I answered this previously, what I would have done,

(01:54:18):
I'll just run through this quickly. What I would have
done is I would have saved him as a surprise
for Star Kaid, So I would not have put him
on Nitro and had him come out and say, oh,
he's gonna be the referee for Eric Bischoff's match, because
the whole thing was like Bischoff thought he had it
in the bag, right, Oh, I got Brett. We just
gave Brett a big fat contract. He's gonna you know,
he's gonna be on my side here, and then Brett

(01:54:40):
tells him, I'm calling it right down the middle, right,
and Bischoff looks like he's gonna shit a brick. But
that's how they debuted Brett on TV. I wouldn't have
even put him on TV first. I would have saved
him as a surprise for star Kad, their biggest show
of the year. He comes out to ward off the
nWo when they get involved in the Sting Hogan main event,
and it leads to Sting winning the Champiionship right, which
he did anyway, and Sting is in the ring and

(01:55:03):
he's celebrating with the roster and then Brett comes back out.
All the WCW guys in the ring, right, they just
sort of like part the Red Sea. They don't know
what he's gonna do. And Brett puts his hand out
and the two men shake hands to close the show,
and Brett raises stings arm and from there Brett makes

(01:55:23):
it his mission to bring down the nWo. You know
from within. Now he's part of WCW. He's going to
bring down the nWo with the help of some of
the big WCW names like Sting and Rick Flair like
that's his mission statement, and Hogan gets the belt back
so that he can drop it to Goldberg in ninety eight,

(01:55:44):
just like he did. And that way you got Goldberg,
you know, white Hot, as the champion, while Brett is
fighting the good fight to try to kill off Hogan
and kill off the nWo once and for all. And
we get that first big Brett Hart Hollywood Hogan match
on pay per view, not on a random nitro like
they did in ninety eight. And if I remember correctly,

(01:56:07):
I think Brett went heel at the end of it
like that. I don't even want to talk about it,
Like the way they handled him just in general was
just such a fucking disaster. But I remember him and
Hogan having that first big televised match and the way
it ended was just ridiculous. So instead, you do their
first match on pay per view. You get a double
main event out of it at Halloween Havoc. So you
got Goldberg defending the belt against DDP in the main event,

(01:56:31):
and you have Brett beating Hogan and that ends the
nWo at least that incarnation of the nWo. Brett goes on,
he wins the World War Three Battle Royal in November
comes down to him in Sting, and we get Brett
Hart winning the Battle Royal, and then we get Brett
Hart against Goldberg Yes at Starcade, one year after Brett

(01:56:53):
made his debut and one year before the two of
them actually ended up wrestling at StarKid and we all
know what happened there. But you have that as your
main event at Star Kate in ninety eight, and Brett
cheats to win the title, with the story being that
he masqueraded that entire year as the savior of WCW,
like as if he gave a shit. He didn't give

(01:57:14):
a shit, He never cared. It was always about becoming champion.
It's what drives him right. He was never beaten for
the belt up North, so he was here to take
what he felt was rightfully his. And now you head
into nineteen ninety nine with Brett as the heeled champion,
and you can run through a whole bunch of matches
with him defending against their top babyfaces and then ultimately

(01:57:36):
he drops the belt to Sting, because that's how this
all started. He came in in ninety seven to help Sting.
That's how Stark ended in ninety seven and Sting is
the franchise of WCW, so it kind of comes full circle.
And so this way whatever Brett lacked, you know, in

(01:57:56):
star power in WCW, like people knew who he was,
but he wasn't the biggest, the biggest star when he
came in. He had a lot of buzz around him
after what happened in Montreal, but you know, he wasn't
bigger than Hogan or anything like that. That's why you
give him that first year to really build himself up
and position himself as someone who wants to, you know,
take down the evil Empire, only for him to reveal

(01:58:19):
his true colors in the end. And as great as
that Heel run was for him in ninety seven, we
get another version of it heading into ninety nine. You know,
I mean, hell, maybe he even tries to you know,
put the Heart some version of the Heart foundation back together.
You see, Bischoff could have done all of this, but
he was always up Hogan's ask so much that he
couldn't see what was right in front of him. But

(01:58:41):
by all means, throw nine million dollars at the guy
to book him like a mid Carter that's a great idea.
Martin from Nairobi, Kenya. I had a question come to mind.
During Roman Reigns's Crown Jewel entrance, I noticed Michael Cole
mentioned that Roman was wearing two Oula follows in honor
of his father Sika and his uncle Afha. This made

(01:59:02):
me wonder, are there more wrestlers from the dynasty of
Office Side that we might see in the future. When
I did a quick Google search, I found Office son Manu,
who was briefly in WWE. I honestly don't remember his run,
likely because I was too young at the time, since
he's only slightly over forty, and given WWE's recent tendency
to bring back veterans like Carlito for nostalgia runs, I

(01:59:25):
was wondering, if you think there's any chance they could
bring Manu back for a short storyline. Well, I mean
the difference is they brought Carlito back because he was
over and Manu was not. But Manu's run there was
very brief. I mean they made him a member of
the Legacy faction with Cody Rhodes and Ted d Biassi,
and maybe they were called Legacy at that point. I

(01:59:46):
think Randy Orton came in later. I don't think he
was with them initially, but then not long after that
they booted him out. And then they fired him, and
supposedly the reason was because they didn't like his appearance,
like esthetically in the group, they didn't like his physique,
and Jim Ross even alluded to it in his Ross Report.
He said the Ross Report blog back then, uh oh,

(02:00:09):
he you know, he needs to watch his eating, he
needs to drop some weight. You know, he could have
a big future ahead of him. You got to remember
that was the era of like you had to look
a certain way or else the old man would sour
on you. And you know, he himself has said in interviews.
Manu has that the reason they got rid of him,
he claims, is because he wasn't aggressive enough. So that's

(02:00:33):
what they told him. Maybe they told him that to
avoid any kind of discrimination claim like, hey, we're letting
you go because you know, you look you look too
fat and these guys are thin. I don't know, but
he said that it was frustrating because, you know, he
did an interview with Steve fall I believe it was
a few years ago, and he said they told him
to slow it down he was being too aggressive like

(02:00:54):
on the house shows. So he did. He took their
advice and he started to slow things down a little bit,
and then evident he slowed it down too much because
they fired him and they told him that he wasn't
being aggressive enough. Like what a mind fuck. It had
to be working for that maniac back then. But as
far as bringing him back for a short storyline or
any storyline, like, I know, like, I don't see the

(02:01:16):
point he adds nothing, Like what would he add to
the show? Nothing? You know, there was video of him
on an independent show last year shooting on this poor
guy for costplaying as a samoan. He said, he's talking
all kinds of shit and he's taking liberties with the guy.
There's probably a good reason that he's not on TV anywhere.

(02:01:36):
Le'll just leave it at that. And then Russell, who
were your top ten most underutilized wrestlers in history or underrated? Ah,
that's two totally different things. So for the benefit of this,
we'll go with underrated because the names you mentioned here,
I would say there were more underrated in some cases

(02:01:57):
than underutilized. Because he mentioned Scott's Steiner Raven, Christian Roddy Piper,
Rye back Booker, t Shelton, Benjamin Bam Bam Bigelow, Arn Anderson,
and William Regal. I don't have a top ten, but
you know, funny enough, two of the names that come
to mind for me were actually tag team partners for

(02:02:20):
a long time, Tito Santana and Rick Martel. I don't
think they're rated high enough, you know, for all the
people who rate them very high, I still don't think
they're rated high enough. And it's sad that a lot
of the newer fans, because you don't see them in
video packages, they don't come back to make cameo appearances
like some of the other legends do, like Hacksaw, Jimmy

(02:02:43):
Hart and people like that. I think they've been I
know they have among newer fans anyway, they've been lost
to time. You know, there's some of those legendary names
that have been lost to time, and the hardcores and
the longtime fans may remember them, but I don't think
enough people do. I definitely don't see Roddy Pipers underrated.

(02:03:04):
Christian sure, and I think his aw run opened a
lot of eyes to the point where I probably would
rank him ahead of Copeland even I would certainly consider it,
but then as far as any other names that come
to mind, as far as underrated, Big boss Man, you know,
for a bigger guy, he lost a lot of weight,

(02:03:26):
but still like for a bigger guy, he was pretty agile.
He was actually pretty fun to watch in the ring sometimes.
And then Kenyon. I think of Chris Kanyon. Chris Kanyon
was very talented, but things didn't work out well for him. Anyway,
keep emailing me the Solo Monster at gmail dot com.
I have some other questions here that I will try

(02:03:47):
to get to next week and incorporate into that batch.
But I am just way behind here, so just keep
emailing me. You can follow me on x at Solo Monster.
Subscribe on YouTube Solo Monster Sounds Off. That's where you
can find multiple times throughout the week and especially with
Halloween coming up, right, that's what is it next week? Right?
Not the end of this week, the end of next week.

(02:04:08):
I think we're doing a SmackDown stream on Halloween. So anyway,
subscribe to me there and keep supporting spread the good word.
I appreciate all the love. I will be back with
you next Sunday. It will be episode nine thirty five
of the Sound Off. So until then, be well, stay safe,
have yourselves a great week, and I will be back
with you next Sunday for more SoundOff. Until then, take care, guys.

(02:04:32):
The Solemn Monster sounds Off. I said, you know, boy,
it's a good thing that EO is one of the
best wrestlers in the world, which she is, because Hollywood
is definitely not in her future. People really didn't like that.
I said this on Twitter. Go watch aw we're the
best storytelling and matches are where it's attens. I was
told this by someone with the name baby Oose says,

(02:04:53):
proceed with caution now. As I told this person directly,
I've screenshot at this for their therapist because they're going
to need to add this to this guy's file. I
was called a nerd by someone with EO sky fan
account in their bio and a photo of EO as
their avatar. This person said, you're such a nerd. If
you want to see acting, go watch a movie. How
dare you talk about acting on a television show? Fucking freak.

(02:05:17):
But evidently you're not allowed to give your opinion here
on social media unless you're willing to bathe in this
woman's bathwater. The IWC folks truly the dumbest collection of
characters on the face of the planet.

Speaker 2 (02:05:28):
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 acts.

Speaker 1 (02:05:41):
The Solo Monster. I love you so long.
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