Sound Off 929 - BREAKING NEWS On Andrade's WWE Release, WrestleMania In Saudi Arabia And More! - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is episode nine to twenty nine of The Solemn
Monster Sounds Off for Sunday, September fourteenth, twenty twenty five.
It's been a rough weekend. I spend most of my
day yesterday at the hospital. A close family member, really,
one of the only close family members that my brother

(00:20):
and I have left an hour immediate family circle, at
a very bad accident at home and is paralyzed from
the waist down.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
She's in surgery right now.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's a very risky twelve hour operation that they started
last night. It might give her a fighting chance to
regain feeling in that part of her body, but right now,
I just want her to make it through okay. And
there's not a whole lot for us to do other
than wait for an update. So this will be a
way for me to take my mind off things for

(00:53):
a bit. And there was a lot of news this week,
even in just the last twenty four hours. We got
to talk about Dropped Gone from WWE, WrestleMania coming to
Saudi Arabia, Wressell Palooza predictions, How ridiculous does that sound?
Wressell Palooza predictions, Warner Brothers Discovery could soon end up

(01:14):
under new ownership, what that could mean for Ae w
Wardlow already injured, all out predictions and more. If you
would like to make a PayPal donation and support the show,
I do appreciate it ten dollars and more. We'll get
you a nickname and a shout out over on the
Solomonster dot com. I want to say thank you to
the Portland pop star Paul Hamilton. Paul, that was very

(01:36):
generous of you. Thank you, my friend Big B Bryant, Messera,
The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soepp, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray,
The Chicago Slayer, Willie Eicherd, Knight Stalker, n f Alsafar,
Recon Russell Bullwaar, The Georgia Nightmare, Timothy Tillis and Killshot

(01:58):
Keith Hart. Thank you, gentlemen very much much. Also, I
want to mention if you are a channel member on YouTube,
specifically a Legends tier member, first time at a long time.
But I'm trying to circle back around to these and
getting these up. The lost episodes of the sound off
between two thousand and seven and two thousand and nine,
which are not up anywhere. It's probably about the first

(02:21):
eighty four episodes or so the first thirteen that I
ever did are up. They've been up for a while,
but now episode fourteen is up from February tenth, two
thousand and eight. So if you want to go back
in the time capsule see what was going on in
the world of wrestling, get my thoughts on that. Episode
fourteen is up right now for Legends Tier members on YouTube.

(02:42):
There are more to come, so if you are not
already a Legends Tier member, you can go ahead and
jump on there. I think you may enjoy that little
trip down memory lane. Saudi Arabia is getting next year's
Royal Rumble for the first time. We already knew that,
but they are not stopping there. That was the big
news of the week. For the first time, WrestleMania will

(03:04):
be held outside North America. Sorry UK fans, you're gonna
have to wait because it's re odd season WWE, where
every season is riodd season. But Saudi Arabia will be
hosting WrestleMania forty three in twenty twenty seven. Remember that
WrestleMania eight press conference. They had Hogan and Savage and

(03:27):
Piper sid Undertaker. They were all sitting around Jack Tunney
as he announces who will be wrestling Rick Flair for
the World Championship, and Sid starts to stand up, thinking
that it's him, But then they announced Hogan and Sid
sits back down.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Oh man, he's ripping his papers up. That's what I.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Pictured in my head as I was watching that press
conference on Friday, Like if you could even call it that,
I mean, there were no press, there were no fans
actually in the room for this announcement, But it made
me think of that, like the UK was Sid and
Saudi was Hogan. Saudi might want Hogan to wrestle on
that show. Who wants to tell him? Who wants to
break the news to them? During the week, there was

(04:09):
an Arabic press release that leaked early announcing that WrestleMania
would be heading to Saudi in twenty twenty seven. It
was quickly yanked. Whoever the poor soul was that leaked it,
I certainly would not want to be that person. So
the announcement got spoiled a few days early. Then on Thursday,
Triple h tweeted that at three pm Eastern on Friday,

(04:31):
they would be making an announcement that would change the game.
I'm still waiting for this game changing announcement or the
game changing part of this announcement. They've been running Saudi
shows since twenty eighteen. They're running more international shows now
than ever before. They've already announced the Royal Rumble is
coming to Saudi for the first time on January thirty.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
First.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
WrestleMania being hosted outside North America might have been a
game changer ten years ago. Today if it's just another
cash grab, you know, a long line of cash grabs,
and that's fine, it's what they do. They go where
the money is fair enough. But there's nothing game changing
about any of this unless you consider the price tag,

(05:15):
and that's not anything that they would announce publicly. So
I'm still left wondering exactly how this changes anything out
of the ordinary. Joe Tessitur hosted the event in Las Vegas.
They had a whole event, actually, I described the WrestleMania
eight press conference.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
It was kind of set up like that. They had
a stage.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Joe Testitour was at the podium Hosting Vegas, of course,
is where everybody was on Friday for the Canelo Alvarez
fight that TKO was hosting this weekend, and WWE was
hosting the Triple A Worlds Collide event there as well,
so he brought out Sewn, Michaels and the Undertaker. Live
Morgan was there, Charlotte Flair, Bianca bell Air, Logan, Paul Seth, Rawlins,

(05:55):
and then Triple H for the announcement. I have seen
hostage videos people look happier than the wrestlers did here
standing in the background. They did not want to be there.
They also had the head of the General Entertainment Authority
in Saudi Turkey, Al al Shek, the man responsible for
bringing all of these events over to the kingdom. He

(06:16):
spoke and he even invoked the name of Vince McMahon,
which I'm sure thrilled them to no end when he
was talking about Vince being part of the conversations on
day one that started their relationship in the first place.
It will remain a two night event, although they did
not announce what the actual dates would be. Mike Johnson,
a PW insider, says the amount of money that the

(06:37):
company is being paid for the event is mind blowing.
Meltzer says it's in the nine figure range, said to
be well over one hundred million dollars. Oh I would
bet it's a lot more than one hundred million dollars.
If they're getting fifty million per show right now, I
mean for shows like Crown Jewel or King and Queen

(07:00):
of the Ring. If they're getting fifty million dollars for
one of those shows, I mean they may be getting
one hundred million for the Royal Rumble. For WrestleMania, it
could be more than twice as much. Dave also says
the Saudis pushed heavily for the show in twenty twenty seven,
even though WWE wanted to do it there in twenty
twenty eight. I don't know what they would have done

(07:22):
for twenty twenty seven, probably gone back to Vegas again.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
But they still owe New.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Orleans a WrestleMania since they announced it publicly and then
they yanked it away from them out of nothing but
pure greed. But the Saudis wanted it for twenty twenty
seven because that coincides with the country's three hundredth anniversary
celebration since it was founded in the year seventeen twenty seven,
and they wanted a number of special events that year.
WrestleMania was going to be one of them. Now there

(07:49):
was a rumor floating around that maybe they would do
two WrestleManias that year, you know, with the idea of
taking the Saudi money and doing one there and then
another one in the North America market. I'm glad that
turned out to be just a rumor, because that would
be a fucking terrible idea. Can you imagine too, WrestleMania
is in one year. We already have that anyway, basically

(08:11):
with SummerSlam. They call it the WrestleMania of the Summer.
They do them in giant stadiums. Now, they're two nights,
just like WrestleMania. What the fuck do we need a
second WrestleMania for? That would be awful. I got a
question once, not that long ago, but well, what if
they were to do it WrestleMania two style, and you
have one night in Saudi and you have one night

(08:33):
in the States. First of all, there's a reason they
haven't done that since wrestle Media two. Okay, that was
in nineteen eighty six, and they have not done anything
really like that on that scale since then. I mean,
WrestleMania now is on such a bigger scale.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
But that's a logistical nightmare. Number one.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Number two Saudi Arabia is not paying two or three
hundred million dollars for half a WrestleMania, so that was
never gonna happen either. But the plan is to build
all of the usual events around this one, including SmackDown
Raw the Hall of Fame. They were also encouraging during
the event. They were encouraging American citizens, all their American

(09:14):
fans to fly in for the show. And I'm sure
there are some who will, most will not. A lot
of fans may not even be able to afford it.
Can you imagine how much those ticket prices are going
to be Wait until I talk about that later. What
Mark Shapiro had to say this week about ticket prices.

(09:35):
It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.
But look, none of this is surprising. They have been
in business with the Saudis for seven years now. They're
said to be pulling in fifty million dollars for every
show that they do there. They just opened an office
in Riod. This was the next natural progression of the relationship.

(09:57):
And I'm happy for my Saudi listeners who get to
go to a rect Maia for the first time.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
You know, whenever there's like a big Saudi show.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
There's a handful of people like correspond with You've seen
some of the sound up sides that some of the
Saudi shows, So they have some hardcore fans over there,
and so for them, I'm sure they're excited to get
a WrestleMania for the first time. And at least I'll
be able to cover the show a lot earlier in
the day than I normally would.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
That's a plus.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
What is that going to be a one o'clock Eastern start?
Probably that's usually around the time those shows start over here.
But I am already dreading the stories about what big
stars they're going to try to coax out of the
retirement home for this show. It's already starting. Meltzer says
the Saudis are pushing for Dwayne the Rock Johnson to

(10:44):
wrestle in one of the main events against either Roman
Reigns or Cody Rhodes. I guess Meltzer's got those sweet
Saudi connections, because he says the negotiations with Rock are
advancing and they believe the deal is close to being finalized,
although he admits he's not been able to confirm any
of this with those in WWE, but The impression that

(11:06):
he got is that the final payment for the show
would be affected by whether or not they get Rock
in the main event for that show, and he would
be paid, and I'm sure he would be multiple times
that of any pro wrestler for any event in the
history of the world. Now, the general entertainment authority is
said to want a packed show with megastars, so naturally,

(11:28):
there's been talk about a lot of big names. He's
been talk about The Undertaker wrestling. There's been talking about
Sean Michaels wrestling. There's talk about Stone Cold Steve Austin
wrestling on the show. He'll be sixty two years old
by that point. Austin doesn't strike me as the kind
of guy that's coming back just for the payday. His
pride will not allow it if he doesn't think that

(11:49):
he can go in there and have a good match.
And maybe he does, but I get the sense with
him it's about more than just money. He spent nineteen
years in retirement before they finally convinced him to get
back in the ring, and even then they wouldn't announce
the match in advance. You don't think he could have
made untold millions of dollars during those nineteen years for

(12:10):
a comeback match against somebody like a CM Punk or
a brock Lesner, and he chose not to. They were
right outside his home this year in Vegas and all
he did was ride his ATV to the ring and
nearly kill some people. So I don't know if he's
going to have a match on that show or not.
I'm sure there are fans that would love to see
him in CM Punk in a match after all these years.

(12:32):
Sewn Michaels, he just said that he's getting both knees
replaced in about a month. He's getting ready for that
sweet Saudi pay day. Point is we don't need to
be going backwards and flooding the card with old guys
who don't need to be in the ring anymore. So
you have a lot of fans upset for a variety
of different reasons, all of which have been documented at

(12:54):
nauseum over the years. Again, this is not new. I
mean they've been working with the Saudis and having events
there now for over seven years. Like I said, this
was the next obvious progression of that relationship. I think
where I think is really sad is that it really
does now more so than ever when it comes to

(13:14):
an event like WrestleMania, it really just does come down
to the dollars and cents. I liked it when there
was some more variety. You spread WrestleMania around to other
states and places, and there's plenty of states here in
the US that have never gotten to WrestleMania before, and
so you bounce around from place to place, and now
it really just comes down to the almighty dollar and

(13:34):
nothing else. That's why they literally announced the show for
New Orleans and then yanked it so they could go
back and run Vegas for a second year in a row.
A pure cash grab money play, nothing else, like, nothing
else factored into this decision. That was the only reason
they did what they did. And it makes you wonder
if they're being blown away by the money that they

(13:55):
are being paid for this Saudi show in twenty twenty seven.
Let's just say Saudi Arabia said, you know what, we
want WrestleMania again in twenty twenty eight, or we want
it back in twenty twenty nine, and here's how much
we're gonna pay you.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
We're gonna up, We're gonna up the offer.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
We're gonna pay you another fifty million dollars on top
of what we paid you last time.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
What do you think TKO would do?

Speaker 1 (14:15):
They would drop everything and say, sure, we may get
you know, Saudi Mania every other year going forward, and
that would be terrible because I think that there should
be more variety in it. Obviously, there's gonna be a
lot of fans over in Europe and over in the
UK who were very upset after they were teased a
few years ago at the Prospect by John Cena money
in the bank, standing in the middle of the ring

(14:36):
and telling the fans, let your voices be heard if
you want WrestleMania to come to London for the first time.
And those people went nuts. They did exactly what he
told them to do. They let their voices be heard.
Your voices don't matter. Your voices mean shit unless you're
gonna cut them a check for two hundred and fifty
million dollars. Your voices do not matter, is what they're

(14:57):
telling you. And I think that's sad. But I'll tell
you what this does do. It opens up a huge
opportunity for someone like aw to step in and run
their own show that night. Now that WrestleMania is airing
in the daytime hours. Here right, here's Tony kN chance
to do a little counterprogramming of his own and plan
a big event stateside over WrestleMania weekend, not head to

(15:20):
head because that would be obviously suicide for them, but
in the space where WrestleMania would normally be airing, and
do it here. Now, he's not going to be able
to steal headlines away from WWE because it's going to
be all about WrestleMania for the first time coming to
Saudi Arabia, and it's still WrestleMania at the end of
the day. But whatever fans would normally attend WrestleMania that

(15:45):
won't be that year. I'm not saying all of them
would come, but there's a lot of fans that would
attend a big wrestling show that weekend. And if he
wanted to bring other promotions in on the fund, then
so be it, because this is going to have a
negative effect on all of those into pened promotions that
typically build their events around WRESTLEMANI a weekend conventions like
wrestle Con This is where AW can step in to

(16:07):
fill that void and make some money of their own.
I say AW because there's really nobody else, you know,
that could scale something up that big, and that includes TNA,
although if they did, I could see WWE helping TNA
run something stateside to counter that. Yeah, there's no way
they would let them run something that weekend without countering

(16:27):
it somehow, and fair play if they do, you know,
whether it's a TNA event or an NXT event. I'm
just saying, what would normally be a very lucrative weekend
for these other events and these other promotions suddenly isn't
going to be there in twenty twenty seven. So there's
an opportunity for someone else to step in and try
to fill that void even better if they did it

(16:48):
in New Orleans, wouldn't that be something?

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Now.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
The other big news of the week, and this one
came out of left field. This was surprising, was Andrade
being gone from WWE. He is done. Fight Ful was
the first to report the news on his exit, and
sources within the company confirmed Andrade was released and that
it was the company's call and it was not part

(17:14):
of a mass group of cuts that we hear so
often about. Usually when it comes to WWE cuts, they
usually come in batches.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
That was not the case here.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
John Alba of Sports Illustrated later reported that it was
not a mutual decision. He had not been backstage at
TV tapings for nearly a month, and multiple talent were
being told Saturday afternoon that he had been let go
and he has already been moved to the alumni section
on WWE dot com. Again, we don't know what we
don't know, but they're making it clear from these reports.

(17:49):
This was not a case where this was just an
Andrade call where he's like, you know what, I don't
want to be here anymore, let me go. This was
something that was initiated by the company, something they felt
that they had to do for some reason, and we
might have some insight into why that is now. Bodyslam
dot Net said that there have been creative and booking
differences between Androde and WWE since his return at the

(18:11):
Royal Rumble in twenty twenty four. Not only that, but
Androde had been unreachable for several weeks before this when
WWE tried to make contact with him.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
That is not good.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
We haven't seen Androte on television. We haven't seen him
at all since SummerSlam. He and Ray Phoenix were part
of that TLC match for the WWE Tag Team title.
The belief is that he and Phoenix were in line
for the spot against the Wyatt Six that ultimately went
to the Street Profits at Clash in Paris. Because it
was very strange how coming out of SummerSlam, all of
a sudden, this new team they had put together a

(18:45):
few months before, they just vanished. We didn't see Androti
on TV. We didn't even see Ray Phoenix on TV.
I don't believe since this past Friday he had this
tremendous US Title Open Challenge match with Sammy Zain that
was the highlight of the night on smack Down this week.
Phoenix is another one who I would completely understand if
he was frustrated by the way he's been booked in WWE.

(19:08):
But looking at Andrade, I mean, you look at this return.
He came back to the company at the Royal Rumble
last year. He was in last year's Money in the
Bank Ladder match. He was in this year's Money in
the Bank Ladder match. Didn't win either one, but he
was in both of those. He had that great best
of seven series of matches on SmackDown with Carmelo Hayes.
That led to nothing, no title, no big program, nothing

(19:30):
coming out of it. Those two were carrying SmackDown there
for a while. Then he won the speed title, which
I mean, who the hell cares about that? And then
we got the random pairing with him in Ray Phoenix,
another talent that has been underutilized the past few months.
And the problem for Ray Phoenix is that he burned
a bridge with AW on his way out, Andrade did not.

(19:52):
He actually ended things on respectful terms with Tony Kahan.
Tony was the one who actually announced his contract was
expiring during one of their media scrums, and he thanked
him for his work. He said he hopes he could,
you know, work together with.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Him again one day.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
One would think the door would be open for a return.
But is it worth it for Tony Khan?

Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know?

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Andrade is a tremendous talent, but he also strikes me
as someone who will never be fully happy unless he
is either the focus or that he is at least
in that top top mix. And that's just not going
to happen in WWE. And it's not going to happen
in aweither, not with the wealth of talent that they
have over there. You know the way his WWE run

(20:32):
just ended. I don't know why Tony would think a
second run in aw would end any differently than it
did the first time. I also think, and look, I
can't get inside the man's head. This is all still
very fluid. This news only broke yesterday. We haven't heard
from Andrade. We don't know why he ghosted them and
did what he did. But if you remember, he was

(20:53):
one of the Hispanic talents they trotted out there behind
Triple H WrestleMania weekend when they announced that they were
buying Trip and I wonder if he may have also thought,
you know, I could see my future here. He's looking
into his crystal ball and he sees his future. They're
just gonna use me on those shows. They're gonna use
me as one of that core group of talents to

(21:16):
try to break into that market. That's how they see me.
And I don't want to be a part of that.
I don't want that to define my run here. I
don't want that to define who I am. I'm better
than that. Would not at all be surprised if that's
how he honestly felt. And as I am recording this,
I am seeing here that John Albajis posted a new

(21:37):
update on the Sports Illustrated website, So I'll just read
to you from this here.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
This is just minutes old.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Multiple sources indicate to the takedown on SI that Andrade
had at least one wellness policy violation during his most
recent WWE run. It is not known how exactly he
was in violation of the policy, or whether or not
he in fact tested positive for a banned substance. It
is also not clear if it directly led to his release,

(22:06):
but it was noted that he was suspended without pay
as a result of it. Initial reports noted that he
had not been backstage at SmackDown as of late and
was not listed on internal rosters. The takedown on SI
can add that he was told to leave a taping
last month and was escorted out of the building. A
high level source asserted this dismissal from the building was

(22:27):
in relation to his most recent suspension and that it
affected major creative plans for his tag team with Ray Phoenix,
which would go to what I mentioned before about them
being in line most likely for a tag team championship
shot body slams. Corey Hayes reported on Saturday Night that
WWE had tried to get in touch with Androde for
several weeks but had been unsuccessful. The takedown on SI

(22:51):
cannot confirm that this at this time, though the incident
at SmackDown was said to have occurred in the middle
of August. While sources indicated that there was at least
one wellness policy violation this year, this would not be
his first with the company. Ww announced in January of
twenty twenty that he was suspended for his first violation
of the policy, which resulted in a thirty day suspension.

(23:13):
He would leave WWE the following year jump ship to
AW where he would perform until December of twenty twenty three. There,
he also faced disciplinary action following a backstage incident with
Sammy Gavara. He would return to WWE in twenty twenty four.
It should be noted that WWE has not published any
potential wellness policy violations publicly since the TKO merger in

(23:36):
twenty twenty three. As a result, it is unknown how
many there have been, if there have been any outside
of this at all, so that changes things a bit
as far as who to put the onus on here.
If this is true, because if they were having disciplinary
issues with him, and there may well have been creative
frustrations as well, but if they were having disciplinary issues

(23:58):
with him again, if he disappeared on them, and if
he failed a wellness test. Now the first violation is
thirty days, so if this was his second, that would
be sixty days, most likely without pay. So I'd be
very interested to know the timeline of that when that
was being served, If it was in August, if that
was earlier than that, that sounds like it would have

(24:19):
been last month. Then obviously that's not good and you
can't put that on the company if this guy is
failing tests and being suspended. You know, if they have
a policy in place and you violate that policy, then
you're going to get popped. That's the way it works.
So it just it sounds to me like this was
just a combustible relationship in so many different ways, and

(24:43):
we could get into, you know, as far as the
creative aspect of this and where WWE may or may
not have dropped the ball, because in many ways they did.
You know, he's been back for a while now, it's
not And if this stuff has happened relatively recently, it's
not as if they've taken full advantage of what they
had in him prior to this. I mean, if you
look at the run that Andrade has had in WWE

(25:06):
this second time around. Again, you know, as far as Andrade,
I talked a lot about him when he first came
back and how I thought it was a mistake to
not put a mouthpiece with him. The most successful run
that this man had in all the years he worked
for WWE, because he was in NXT for a number
of years before he ever got called up to the
main roster, and on the main roster he held the
US title during that first run. That was basically the

(25:28):
highlight of his run. But the highlight of his WWE
run overall was that run from NXT Black and Gold,
and they had him paired off with Zelena Vega, and
they made a great pairing and he had some tremendous matches.
He was the NXT champion. He felt like a big
fish in a small pond. It was that kind of situation,
but he was the top guy, and I think in

(25:48):
his head he probably envisioned something like that on the
main roster, where eventually he would be the champion. He
would be the guy, because again, it was built around
him there for a while in NXT, and it was
a very successful run. It was a very successful pairing.
I don't know, for the life of me why they
did not attempt to recreate that on the main roster.
You had Zelena there, You could have done it with Zelena,

(26:08):
you could have had somebody else in that role. But
to just kind of send him out there and again
on the microphone. His verbal skills promos, it's not his
strong suit. He still struggles with that. That's a very
important quality in WWE. They put a great emphasis on that.
Look at all the people that are on top right now,
by and large, By and large, right they're able to

(26:30):
go out there and cut promos. There's a lot of
back and forth on the microphone. That's not his strong suit.
That was why I said, pair him off with somebody,
and they never did, and I think that was a
big mistake. So there's a lot of blame to go
around here. You could absolutely blame WWE for not doing
more with him, for not finding better ways to utilize

(26:51):
him on TV. Absolutely, But it goes both ways here.
And if these stories are accurate, and you've got one
story saying he was UNREA for weeks. You know, if
your employer can't reach you, and then you know these
other stories about him failing a wellness test and being
escorted out of the building, and it's a disciplinary thing

(27:12):
ultimately that falls on the talent. You know, you can
talk about all the ways WWE should have done this
and should have.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Done that and dropped the ball. It doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
If you have somebody who is having disciplinary issues behind
the scenes and failing tests and getting suspended, that supersedes
everything else that falls on the talent.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
That doesn't fall on WWE. But this just.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Sounded like a toxic relationship that was not going to
work out. You cannot be ghosting your employer. You cannot
be you know, failing tests or causing issues behind the scenes.
And that's actually a great point from earlier. I forgotten
about that backstage incident with him and Sammy Gavara and
aw so, I mean it's not as if that there
haven't been some issues with him in the past. But yeah,

(27:56):
you can't be doing that stuff and expect the company
to under the rug or ignore it or push you
at a high level. If let's say he is unhappy
maybe with his spot on the show. All of these
things can be true. By the way, he could have
been creatively frustrated, but also be failing a test or
you know, having other problems that necessitated that the company
you know, send him home, Because I mean, everybody's got goals.

(28:19):
Everybody you know has an ego to an extent, some
more than others. You know, he obviously is very proud
of his work, as he should be, and he's a
tremendous wrestler. But this is all sounding more like an
Andrade thing than anything else.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
And I'm not.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Sure that if he were to go back to AW
and Tony Kah welcomed him back with open arms, I'm
not sure why anybody would believe that things would end
up any differently than they did before. And if he
doesn't go back there, I don't know where else he
would go. You know, I don't know what his goals
and aspirations are. I don't know, I don't know where

(28:54):
his head is at on this, So it'll be very
interesting to see if he comments on it and where
he does end up. The WWE's first ever Wrestle Palooza
is coming up this Saturday from the game Bridge Field
House in Indianapolis. It'll be the first pl to air
on the new ESPN Unlimited service, not on the main
ESPN linear network. At least as of now, it is

(29:16):
not set to air on the actual ESPN channel, although
future shows might at least part of them, with the
idea that for the last hour or two you would
then have to switch over to the app to watch
the rest of it. They've got ten thousand tickets out
for the show so far, but they're not sold out.
They've even cut the prices of the least expensive tickets
from two hundred and twenty two dollars per ticket to

(29:38):
one hundred and ninety two dollars per ticket. Not a
huge decrease, but the fact that they're cutting prices at
all is very Unlike WWE IT shows, they're not moving
as quickly as they would have hoped. They're currently set
up for over twelve thousand according to wrestle Tics, in
a building that fits more than seventeen thousand for basketball,
and I'm sure they'll end up getting twelve or thirty

(30:00):
teen thousand one game day. And on the subject of
ticket prices, Mark Shapiro, the chief operating officer for TKO,
made some news this week with his comments at the
annual Goldman Sachs Communicopia and Technology Conference, saying the WWE
is not where the UFC is yet.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
On ticket yield. We have work to do there.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
He says, Yes, they don't believe ticket prices are high enough.
They may be going even higher soon. He said, we
know we have a lot of room there because Vince
McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn't totally
focused on maxing the opportunity there. Now that we've seen
what we can do with UFC, we're replicating that in

(30:41):
terms of ticket yield and holding back and advanced sales
when it comes to the WWE side, and it's working
out really well. I was not familiar with the term
ticket yield. It is a pricing strategy that takes into
account multiple factors that affect pricing and demand, and it's
basically it's a measure of the average revenue generated per

(31:03):
ticket sold with the goal of selling all inventory for
a given event at the right mix of prices. So basically,
you divide the total income from ticket sales by the
number of tickets sold, and that gives you your ticket yield.
Shapiro has said previously that TKO sees tremendous upside in
increasing ticket prices, and an example that he used on

(31:25):
Wednesday was UFC shattering previous records to become the highest
grossing event in the history of Chicago's United Center site.
Fees continue to be a key focus of TKO, which
Shapiro's saying that they need to sell out their inventory
of UFC numbered events in addition to wwepls before moving
on to UFC Fight Nights, WWE Raw and SmackDown events.

(31:49):
He said they are talking to Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, London, Paris,
and that there are no shortage of countries that want
to see them bring their show to town. He said
that they will continue to maximum those opportunities with both
in kind deals, goods, and services, but that the most
important to me, he says, is cash, cash kills. He

(32:10):
also had a warning of sorts for places that are
successful when WWE or UFC come to town, especially for
the smaller events. Using UFC Fight Nights as an example,
he said, if we have a Saint Louis going up
against the Des Moines, Iowa, and you want us back there,
and you've broken records and sold out both your arenas.
You have to pay for us to come back, or

(32:30):
else we'll take it to another town. And that goes
for nxt raw and SmackDown on the WWE side. You know,
it's not often that someone says, Vince McMahon, the man
who stomped out countless territories when he was expanding nationally,
wasn't ruthless enough when it comes to business. According to Shapiro,

(32:51):
Vince wasn't pricing his tickets high enough because he wanted
to keep it affordable for families. And that might be true,
but also keep in mind wwea not doing the kind
of business that they're doing now. Three or four years ago,
when Vince was still in charge, they were doing well,
but they weren't doing this well. Given the chance to
charge more, if the demand was there, I don't think
he would have hesitated to raise prices at least a

(33:13):
little bit. I don't think he would have lowered them,
but I do think that he probably would have been
more cautious about pricing people out of coming to a
WWE event. TKO doesn't care about that. All they care
about is maximizing the hear and now what they are
doing is they are pricing out a generation of fans
who are simply going to stop going to the shows,

(33:34):
or they won't ever start going to the shows right
when they otherwise might have because the cost of attending
these shows is too prohibitive for them. And I've talked
about this in the past. You know, for all the
fans who have fallen off or are going to fall
off as a result, or maybe they'll watch, but they
simply won't pay for tickets anymore because they either just
can't or they just can't justify some of these prices.

(33:56):
I'm very curious in the next five years, three to
five years, how different, if at all, the WWE audience looks.
I think their audience, just in terms of who is
paying to come to these shows and what kind of
fans they are, is radically going to change. I think
the fan base is going to look different if they

(34:18):
continue down this path. And maybe for them that's a
good thing, but I think it's just whether you think
it's a good thing or a bad thing is a
subjective thing. But I think it's going to be very different.
I think that's going to be a bad thing, but
obviously for their bottom line they feel differently.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
But there is a risk.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
That the more they play around with these prices, you're
going to take it one step too far and you
are going to chase away a lot of fans. They
obviously haven't reached that point yet. They're still selling a
ton of tickets. But the dam is going to burst
at some point, and when it does, the ones on
the hot seat are not going to be Ari Emmanuel

(34:53):
and Mark Shapiro. It's going to be people like Paul
Leveck and Bruce Pritchard. I wouldn't even say Nick. I
think it'll be the ones who were sitting at the gorilla.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Position every week.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Those are gonna be the first heads to roll. Because
if you're Triple H, you know, people talk about how
WWE is overdoing it on the moments and the return pops.
It's just about the returns. Right this year especially, it
really is all about the moments. Now, well, eventually you
burn through all of those moments and there's no one

(35:24):
left to trot out there. But it makes sense why
Triple H would be doing it so much, because it works,
and because he's probably under a lot of pressure to
keep delivering on those moments and keep those buildings packed.
You know, But when the car starts to slowly roll
back down the mountain in reverse and you run out
of big moments, what happens then? Right, he must feel

(35:45):
like he's under the gun in a way that he
never was before, because this is no longer a family business.
This is a TKO business, and the minute business begins
to falter, he's gonna find himself on the hot seat
as the one responsible for turning things around because he's
the chief content officer. I don't know that they see
him as indispensable and the way that they see Dana

(36:07):
White as being indispensable for the UFC. Dana White and
UFC are synonymous. They are one and the same in
the way that Vince McMahon was always one and the
same with WWE, and he still would be one and
the same with WWE. He would still be running WWE
if he wasn't such a sliine ball. But Dana White
is clearly who he is trying to model himself after.

(36:27):
He's trying to be to WWE what Dana White is
to the UFC. That's why he's front and center all
the time on these big shows and on WWE Unreal
and he just did Tony Hinchclip's show, Kill Tony. You know,
he's really putting himself out there. The more he does
stuff like that, the more he sort of becomes one
with the company. But you talk about ruthless, these people

(36:51):
are ruthless. And Triple H is not Vince McMahon. The
minute he slips up, the wolves are gonna circle. I'm
not saying it's gonna to be an instant thing, and
I don't even know who you would replace him with,
but there's always a scapego Remember that this bubble is
bound to burst at some point, and when it does,
he'd better watch out. But when you listen to these

(37:14):
TKO people, one thing that is very clear to me,
and this is true of WWE in general, is that
they take their audience for granted.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
They do.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
They take the fans for granted. And when you take
the fans for granted, and you think that they'll always
be there no matter what, you end up pushing too
hard and suddenly a lot of them won't be there
anymore in the way that you thought they would be.
At that same conference, Shapiro also said they hope Wrestle
Palooza is an annual, recurring franchise for the company and
one that is both on par with two of their

(37:46):
notable annual ples and becomes part of their Big four
events of.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
The WWE year.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
He said, Hopefully Wrestle Palooza is a winner and we
can bring that back annually. That could be a marketing
bonanza for us if we do that right, adding that
Paulovec is spending day and night creatively making what we
think it can be another wrestle Mania or another Summer Slam.
He said, the Royal Rumble is just below that level
and they feel wressel Palooza could be in that quadrant.

(38:14):
So all the people making fun of the wrestle Poloza name,
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(38:35):
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(40:28):
As for the Wrestle Palooza card itself, We've got five
matches official so far, with one raw and one SmackDown
left to go as I am recording this, so they
may add one more. This being a big show for
them and all. I thought maybe aj Styles challenging Dominic
Mysterio for the Intercontinental title might be a possibility, depending
on what happened at the end of World's Collide. There

(40:50):
was no indication of that happening. I did see the
End of Worlds Collide. I have not had a chance
to watch anything more than that from that show given
everything that's been going on this weekend that I mentioned earlier,
But we'll see again. We'll see if they add one
more match. I think a six match card sounds about right.
But we have the USSOS taking on Bronson Reid and

(41:11):
bron Breaker. This will be the first match that the
USSOS have had together as a tag team since March
against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller. That was the night
that they advertised that Jay was going to have a
mystery partner, which just ended up being his brother. I
don't know why they didn't just advertise and usso's reunion
in advance if that's what they were going to do,

(41:31):
but they're doing it now and Jay has been at
war with La Knight. The two of them just do
not get along. Night actually came to their aid at
the beginning of the show on Monday, but then at
the end Jay speared him the ungrateful prick that he is,
and now that he's made an enemy out of La Knight,
I think there's a good chance that he gets involved

(41:53):
here and factors into this finish, which then leads to
a win for the Vision Breaker. And Reed lost at Summerslim,
they should not be losing here too, although if he does,
you know, if he does get involved between Jay attacking
Night on Monday and getting some booze and that if
Night cost the USOS the win here, that gives the

(42:14):
win to Seth's crew, which is not going to make
the fans happy. Both these guys are going to come
out of this less over with the crowd than they
were before, So I don't know that that's very helpful,
But that's where I think this is headed. Eosky and
Stephanie Vicerre they meet one on one to crown a
brand new women's world champion. The title has been vacant

(42:35):
for a month now. It's been longer than that since
Stephanie had stepped into the ring. She has been a
ghost on these shows really ever since she won that
Battle Royal at Evolution. She only wrestled three times on
TV after that, nothing for the entire month of August.
All of that was in July that Dave Meltzer reported
that the reason for her absence is that she was

(42:56):
out dealing with a minor injury. But in an Inner
You with Adrian Hernandez this week, she said that she
sees things on social media sometimes that aren't real. No injuries.
I'm ready for raw next Monday, So no, no injuries.
She didn't exactly deny that she was dealing with an
injury before, only that right now there is no injury

(43:19):
and she is ready to go. Clearly she's ready to
go because she's wrestling on NXT this Tuesday. I'll get
to that in a little bit. But she missed the
contract signing segment last Monday. There was supposed to be
a contract signing with her at EO. Adam Pierce told
EO that it was canceled because Stephanie was unavailable. Was
it a case where she was unavailable because they decided

(43:39):
to do one tomorrow for another match on the pl E.
I don't know. We'll find out tomorrow. But she's good
to go now. That's all that matters this right here,
this could be the sleeper match of the night. In
this match, we all win. That's how I look at it.
But I think EO Sky should win the title back.
I think she will win the championship back. Stephanie has

(44:00):
just missed too much time, you know. Whatever the reason was,
they have not been able to adequately build her up
for this moment when she wins the championship. At some
point she should be more established, and I think to
throw it on her here would be a mistake. Now,
the wild card here is Osca, who has been beefing
with anybody who even comes near EO, including Rhea Ripley,

(44:22):
including Nikki Bella, and Oscar says that she will be
in EO's corner or she's gonna watch her back in
some way for this match, even though EO has said
I don't want your help. I don't need your help.
If Osca is out there or Osca comes out there,
this could tilt either way. As far as the outcome,
this could tilt either way. It all depends on what
they want coming out of the show. Do they want

(44:44):
Oscar to accidentally cost EO the title? I mean that
would really give them a reason to feud. Or do
they want Osca to help EO even though EO said
I don't want your help. I could do this on
my own, and they use Osca's interference as an out
Stephanie when she loses. That's what I think they're gonna do,

(45:04):
and EO Sky will be the next Women's World Champion
c Im Punk and aj Lee against Seth Rollins and
Becky Lynch. How do you continue the Punk and Rollins
feud without doing another singles match? How do you keep
it fresh? You call in the wives. That's what they've done.

(45:25):
Aj Lee's return on SmackDown was one of the last
big return moments that WWE has left, certainly on the
women's side. It was a big deal. And then she
returned to Raw for the first time in ten years
last Monday. She had the Intercontinental title with her that
she stole from Becky the previous Friday. Becky wanted it back,
Seth tried to get it back for her. Punk came

(45:47):
out and this all led to aj offering to give
it back if they agreed to this mixtag team match
at Wressel Palooza, and so here we are tomorrow night.
They're doing one last face to face with all four
of them in the ring. This is one of the
two big attractions for this show. One of the main
selling points is aj Lee's first match in over ten years,

(46:09):
and I think she wins her first match back by
pinning Becky Lynch. That's how you keep the Punkin Rollin stuff.
Alive for another match eventually. And also how you get
to AJ challenging Becky for the Intercontinental title at Crown
Jewel next month, because if she pins the champion here,
then she should be next in line.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
For a title shot. That's how it should always work.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
So I say the Vision gets the win over the USOS,
but they lose this one. You know, after Punk got
cash in on at SummerSlam, this should be his revenge.
It's time now for him to come back and get
one over on Seth, even if it's his wife who
does it ultimately. But it's smart too because as someone
that hasn't wrestled in a decade, AJ in a tag

(46:53):
match means that she doesn't have to work the entire match.
They can build, you know, to her spots. I'm looking
forward to this one. I think it just it makes
the dynamic a lot more interesting than it would be
if it was just another Seth in Punk match. I'm
curious what AJ is going to look like in the ring.
Becky's had some really good matches this year. I think
this has the potential to be an excellent match. I

(47:15):
am looking forward to this, but I have Cimpunk and
aj Lee going Over. Cody Rhodes is back. He's defending
his WWE Championship against Drew McIntyre. As expected, Cody came
back at the end of SmackDown on Friday. After Drew
beat Randy Orton, Cody said he would see McIntyre at
Wressell Palooza. The only question now is do we see

(47:38):
Randy Orton involved here in some way, shape or form.
Does he play some kind of role in the finish
of this match. You know, Cody won the title back
from John Cena at Summerslim. This is his first title
defense and it's only his second match since Summerslim. He's
coming off a month long absence. I'm not opposed to

(47:59):
shaking and doing a title change here, but I just
don't think that's realistic. I don't see WWE doing that.
So I'm gonna say Cody Rhods retains. Maybe they do
the finish in a way they should do the Actually,
they should do the finish in a way that Larrence
a rematch at Crown Jewel and they run it back
one more time. So maybe Cody doesn't win, but maybe

(48:21):
Drew doesn't win either. They could also do some sort
of a no contest type finish, which I think they
could get away with because this match is not closing
the show. Normally, the WWEE Championship match would be the
main event. That is not going to be the case
on this show, so they could get away with some
sort of non finish if they wanted to then build
to a rematch a Crown Jewel because Drew McIntyre as

(48:43):
number one contender should not be a one and done.
You have to extend this to at least one more match.
But I just don't see Cody Rhods losing here. And
in what has been confirmed as the main event of
the show, John Cena goes one on one for the
fire time with one of his greatest rivals, Brock Lesner.

(49:05):
They brought Brock back at SummerSlam to randomly attack Sena,
which he did again last week. He gave him two
more at Five's on Friday, there was no John Cena,
but Brock showed up again looking for Sina. You know,
Brock really is one of those Neanderthal caveman types, because
if he was smart, he'd have known that Sina said
on SmackDown last week, which by the way, Brock was

(49:27):
there too. If he had paid attention to what John
Cena had to say. Sina was very clear when he
said that was his final SmackDown. So without Sena there,
Brock came out and instead he did comedy with our Truth,
and then he split his pants at the end of
the segment, and then he danced a little Irish jig

(49:47):
and he slapped hands with the fans on his way
out while he was laughing. This is how they chose
to build their big main event on ESPN. Now it's
John Cena against Brock. Lesner get that they don't feel
like they have to offer any explanation as to why
Brock attack them. Scene is going to be on Raw
tomorrow night. Maybe he can deliver a home run go

(50:09):
home promo to really sell this on his own.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
It's just lazy, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
I miss the days where when they would build to
a big main event on a pay per view, you
would actually see the wrestlers on the show every week
building to that main event in a fun way. You
don't get that with these part time players, and that's
also a big part of why these weekly shows are
so dull most of the time. Now, the match itself,

(50:35):
I liken it to their extreme Rules match in twenty twelve,
where I think it's going to be a spectacle more
than anything else. Sena is coming off two banger matches
in the month of August, one against Cody and the
other against Logan Paul. The history with him and Brock
dates all the way back to that OVW class of
two thousand and two. You know, they're very familiar.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
With each other.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
A lot of history there, not all of it great.
Lesner and Sena did not get along back in those
early days. That was more so from the Lesnar side.
He did not like John Cena. He even went so
far as to bad mouthed him to Vince McMahon. So
there's history there, you know. I used to do a
segment on the show called match Anatomy many years ago,

(51:18):
and I did one on their Backlash match from two
thousand and three. It's on episode two fourteen if you
ever want to go back and check that out. They've
had many matches over the years. That was their first
really big match, but this being their last dance together,
I think they're going to go out there and lay
it all on the line, whatever they've got, whatever they've
got left in them. I think we'll see it here

(51:39):
and in the end, Brock Lesner is going to win.
With Brock, you never know what you're gonna get. You
could get an epic battle or you could get a
very boring one. You know, those matches with Bobby Lashley
were very disappointing, but his last match with Roman Reigns
was one of their best. And his very last match,

(51:59):
which was a Cody, was great. I think this one
will be closer to that. By the way, with the
announcement that Sina will only be appearing on Raw from
here on out, it got me thinking about just how
loaded up that Raw roster is right now. Just look
at this, like, this is what Raw has right now.

(52:20):
John Cena. No, granted, John Cena only has limited dates left.
If he even wrestles a match on Raw, maybe he
wrestles one. It's not like he's a full time member.
But he is now a Raw guy for the rest
of the year. So you got John Cena, Roman, Rains,
cm Punk, aj Lee Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Eo Sky Rhea, Ripley,

(52:42):
Live Morgan when she gets back, Stephanie Vquire Gunther, the
usso's La Knight bron Breaker, who is like looked at
as the heir apparent and aj styles are all on
Monday Night Raw. There is a serious imbalance right now
between the two rosters, and I didn't mention guys like

(53:05):
Seamus Russev Ilya Dragonov, who is said to be ready
to come back. They're just trying to come up with
a way to reintroduce him and Perbodyslam dot Net. One
idea they've been discussing internally is a program between Dragonov
and Russev as a way to bring him back to TV.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Sign me up. I think those could be some fun matches. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
I'll be watching Wrestle paloues A live and covering it
live on YouTube Saturday night, so join me there. I
mentioned Stephanie Vekera is gonna be wrestling on NXT this Tuesday.
She's not the only NXT alum wrestling on that show. NXT,
for those who don't know, is presenting its homecoming show
from Full Sale University this week. I do miss those

(53:48):
Full Sale days. It was like the closest thing to
a modern day version of Superstars. It really was like
forty eight minutes in and out. You know, it could
be a mix of good and bad, but I was
most entertained, so those were good times. Carmelo Hayes made
a surprise appearance this week, backing up Trick Williams against DIY,

(54:08):
but also making it very clear the two of them
are not friends again, so the two of them are
going to reunite for a match with DIY this Tuesday.
Then later, after Tavion Hides beat Ethan Page in a
flag match, Tyler Breese made an appearance, coming out to
his old music and wearing his old outfit, the furry
boots and everything. He just looked like he had stepped

(54:29):
out of a time portal from twenty fifteen and right
down to the selfie stick. He laid down in the
ring next to the Page and took selfies, which sets
up a North American title match between the two of
them this Tuesday. Went away by the way to set
up a title match.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
I was appalled by the lack of reaction for Tyler Breese,
just an appalling lack of respect in the PC for
this man. I was a big Tyler Brees mark when
he debuted that gimmick and then he got called up
to the main roster and that was it. That was
all she wrote, they killed him dead. Then at the
end of the show, Jace Jane was upset with Fallon

(55:09):
Henley and Jasmine Nicks for failing to become number one
contenders for the women's tag team titles, and she was
berating the two of them until Stephanie Vicaierre came out,
then Tiffany Stratton, and then Rhea Ripley after Jace had
declared herself the greatest NXT Women's champion of all time. Yeah,
it's a good thing that three former NXT Women's champions

(55:30):
just so happened to pull up in cars outside the
building at the same time.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
You know that she said this. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
So all three women hit the ring to take out
Fatal Influence to close out the show, and that match
has been made. It will be Fatal Influence against Ripley, Stratton,
and Vicaire at full Sale. It'll be a fatal funeral
at full Sale for jac and her team. Beyond those
three matches, they're also doing Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss
against Tatum Paxley and Izzy Dame for the women's tag

(55:59):
team time and a Grayson Waller Affects segment with Obafemi
and Ricky Saints, and they're also teasing more old names
may be appearing, maybe a Bobby Rude, William Regal. I
think they show Triple H in the commercial. Not a
lot of storyline progression with these matches, but it looks
like it's meant to be more of an anniversary show

(56:20):
than anything else. Now, I got some news here on
a WWE Hall of Famer in one Jerry the King Lawler.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
This comes per TMZ Sports.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
On Thursday, Jerry the King Lawler was forced to pull
out of a scheduled appearance after suffering a stroke, but
the good news is that he is already on the
road to recovery. According to TMZ Sports, Jerry's daughter tells
us that he experienced the medical issue in Florida last
Friday at one of his homes. He says his daughter

(56:52):
is taking him back to his primary residence where he
will rest up for a few more weeks before getting
back to normal. Lawler was set to appear at Horror
Hound Weekend in Cincinnati starting on Friday, but organizers announced
Monday that he would not be attending due to some
personal matters. Now, there was a subsequent story from the
Fox affiliate in Memphis that he suffered a minor stroke

(57:15):
at his Florida condo that affected his right side. So
his last stroke affected his left side. This one affected
his right side and impacted his vision slightly, although he
is able to walk and talk, according to his caretaker,
and he has since been released from the hospital and
is convalescing at his home in Memphis. That stroke in

(57:35):
twenty twenty three was much much worse. I mean, that
was a massive stroke that he had, but it also
wasn't his first. That came in twenty eighteen. This week
was actually the thirteen year anniversary of what the TMZ
story called his heart attack during an episode of Raw
back in twenty twelve, where he basically died for twenty minutes. Technically,

(57:57):
it wasn't a heart attack. Everyone always says that it was.
I've said that in the past two But what it
was was his heart just stopped beating. Call it a
cardiac episode, but it wasn't actually a heart attack. And
he also got hit with a twenty thousand dollars hospital
bill for that. I remember Lawler complaining about that in
an interview once because they were in Canada. He thought

(58:17):
Canadian healthcare was supposed to be free. What a crock
of shit. It's like, yeah, well it may be if
you're a Canadian citizen who pays taxes. There you're not
a Canadian citizen, Jerry, no free ride for you. Actually,
he did get a free ride since WWE paid the bill.
So anyway, that's his third stroke in seven years. That's

(58:38):
not good. But you know, he's also seventy five years old.
He has obviously a history of health issues, and unfortunately
stuff like that is going to happen for a guy
who had the gift of gab and spent so much
of his career running his mouth and using his words,
and that's how he made money. You know, that last
stroke really did a lot of damage. He was unbusted

(59:01):
open Radio in June and you could tell the toll
that the stroke had on him. He was struggling to
remember people's names that he shared the ring with. At
one point he said, oh my gosh, I just can't
think of their names. You know, one of them is
one of the top heels or baby faces right now,
and Mark Henry had to help him, you know, find

(59:21):
the name, which was CM Punk and he said, yes, yes,
it was CM Punk and then he was talking about
his past rivals and couldn't remember Terry Funk's name, and
Bully Ray said, that must have been one hell of
a stroke if you can't remember Terry Funk's name, And
Lawler said, it's true. I can't remember, like I know
his name, I just can't bring it up.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
You know.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Stroke strokes are very scary. They can hit you at
any age, but the older you are the worst. These
things are going to be switching over to the aew side.
This comes from the New York Times, although it was
the Wall Street Journal that broke the story. That's behind
a paywall, though, so this the Times version. David Ellison,
the media mogul who took over Paramount just last month,

(01:00:05):
has already set his sights on another blockbuster deal. He
wants to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. Mister Ellison is planning
a bid for the company which owns HBO, CNN, and
the Warner Brothers Movie Studio. According to three people with
knowledge of the plans, a merger of the two Hollywood
giants would reshape the media industry, putting some of the

(01:00:26):
most renowned news and entertainment brands under the same roof.
It would unite two of the biggest movie studios and
two of the most influential news networks, CBS News and CNN.
Warner Brothers Discovery is already reorganizing its media business. The
company said this here that it would split its cable
networks rather from its streaming and studio business, following a

(01:00:49):
similar move at Comcast. Mister Ellison is interested in acquiring
the entire company, in line with his strategy of doubling
down on both streaming and traditional TV. The people would
not doledge of the plan said the bid would be
made mostly in cash. A deal to acquire Warner Brothers
Discovery would be costly. The company is worth forty one

(01:01:09):
billion dollars and has thirty five billion in debt, remnants
of the twenty twenty two merger that brought it to life.
But the Ellison family has the means. His father, Larry,
is co founder of Oracle and one of the richest
men in the world, with an estimated net worth of
three hundred eighty three billion dollars. Mister Ellison has moved
quickly to transform paramount. To succeed, he will need to

(01:01:32):
persuade the board of Warner Brothers Discovery and its shareholders
that they are better off selling the company now than
waiting for its prospects to improve once it is separated
into two companies. News of the potential bids sent Warner
Brothers Discovery's stock soaring twenty seven percent on Thursday. Once
the split is completed next spring, the company that includes

(01:01:55):
the screaming and studio business, to be called Warner Brothers
could be entice to a wide variety of bidders that
includes tech companies like Amazon and Apple that are trying
to expand their own entertainment businesses. Indeed, some people in
Hollywood say the goal of splitting up WBD is to
set up a bidding war. So what does this mean

(01:02:16):
for AEW Any shakeup like this could have major consequences
for their future on cable TV. You've got UFC content
coming to Paramount. They made that ridiculous seven billion dollar deal,
almost eight billion dollar deal, and then AAW obviously is
tied to Warner Brothers Discovery. I wouldn't think that it

(01:02:37):
would affect their current deal, but it could absolutely affect
a possible renewal if Paramount is in bed with TKO,
which obviously they are I literally just answered a question
about this in the mailbag what two or three episodes
ago about Paramount possibly buying Warner Brothers Discovery, And at
the time it was just a rumor that was floating around,

(01:02:58):
and I said, I didn't think it would happen right now. Now,
you know, maybe in a few years, but not right now.
And it looks like Allison is serious about doing this asap,
and I could see why he would be. I mean,
like I said, then if you combine their streaming subscribers,
it would make them the number two streaming service in
the world, only behind Netflix. I think aw is safe

(01:03:23):
for now unless the bottom really were to fall out,
or a Warner or in this case, Paramount, if you
know they owned, it felt like they were no longer
getting a return on their investment, you know, and they
clearly don't feel that way right now. For all the
noise on social media that says otherwise, they clearly don't
feel that way right now. If they have certain performance

(01:03:43):
benchmarks that they're no longer meeting, then they're going to
be in trouble regardless of who the owners are. You know,
the relationships that Tony Kahan has on the WBD side.
Those may help him, but only to a point. You know,
I think their current deal is safe, but it's twenty
twenty seven when they have to worry, and that's so
far off it's kind of pointless to even be thinking

(01:04:04):
about it right now. What's happening a lot sooner is
Warner Brothers Discovery is splitting into two, right That is
what was mentioned in the article. That's supposed to be
taking place in April. Now, if this were to go through,
maybe that ends up not happening, but as of right now,
the company is supposed to split in April of twenty
twenty six, and there's talk of a new TNT sports

(01:04:27):
subscription service because we don't have enough of those, and
then moving sports off of HBO Max and putting it
on there. AW is said to be of the impression
that the deal they signed was specifically for the product
to be on HBO Max and that would be through
at least the end of twenty twenty seven. So even

(01:04:47):
when the company, or when and if the company splits
into two, it should not have any negative effect on AW.
But you're talking about splitting a gigantic media conglomerate into
two parts, like if there are any changes in leadership
between now and then, meaning the people who help craft
the aw deal are suddenly no longer the ones in charge.

(01:05:09):
That could be very bad, but right now there's no
indication of that happening, by the way. David Zaslov, the
head of Warner Brothers Discovery, in an interview with a
Hollywood reporter, said HBO Max is expected to reach at
least one hundred and fifty million homes worldwide next year,
and that because of the high quality of the company's films,

(01:05:30):
TV and streaming content, HBO Max plans to raise its
subscription prices over time. He says the service is currently
way underpriced and that price increases will be gradual. Get
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We got an update on Wardlow, and it's not good
Wardlow who just came back to aw after a year
and a half away healing from injuries and he was
filming American Gladiators. So now he finally comes back at

(01:08:24):
Forbidden Door, he joins the don Kallis family. He attacks
Swerve Strickland I Prince Nana, and in so doing he
hurts himself, Wardlow is injured. He is officially part of
this unlucky triad of what I like to call Wardlow,
Adam Cole, and Jay White, three men that have been

(01:08:45):
besieged by just injuries at the worst possible time in
their career and just seem to have the absolute worst
luck in the world. Probably none more so than Adam Cole,
because for him it may be career ending, but they are.
They are a faction together that I don't think anybody
wants to join. Fightful Select reported that sources within AAW

(01:09:07):
are worried the former three time TNT champion may have
suffered a torn peck, potentially putting him out of action
for some time. The report states that he may have
sustained the injury during his return angle at Forbidden Door,
where he attacks were of Strickland and aligned with the
Kallus family, although that isn't confirmed. Again, this is the
original report from earlier this week. Wardlow had just finished

(01:09:29):
filming two seasons of American Gladiators at the time of
his return. Filming took place in France this summer, and
the show will air on Amazon Prime with no release
date yet announced. Wardlow has not wrestled since the March thirteenth,
twenty twenty four episode of Dynamite, if you remember, that
was their Big Business episode in Boston, where he lost
to Samoa Joe in a match for the AW World Championship. Later,

(01:09:54):
in another report from Fightful Select, they revealed a big
change to what the original plan was for the AW
World title match at All Out. They reported that Wardlow
was originally going to challenge Hangman Page, not Kyle Fletcher. However,
that had to change after Wardlow tore his pectoral muscle
at Forbidden Door while delivering a clothesline. He did make

(01:10:17):
an appearance at the subsequent Dynamite after Forbidden Door, but
has not been seen since. Yeah, he made an appearance
as a stick figure in the background. Basically, I don't
know why Tony Kahan thought that it would be a
good idea to have Wardlow's first match, or or first
big match anyway in eighteen months beat for the World Championship,
especially when the last match he wrestled eighteen months ago

(01:10:39):
that he lost was for the World Championship. I don't
really understand that, but it doesn't matter anyway, because now
it's not happening. If this guy didn't have bad luck,
he would have no luck at all. I don't know
what else to say. Obviously, I wish him the best.
I hope that the tear is maybe not as severe
as it sounds like it is, because if it's a

(01:11:00):
you know, peck tear, if it's bad enough, I mean,
that's six to nine months right there. Doesn't mean that
he can't be back on TV earlier than that, but
he won't be able to get physical, So I don't
really see the point in trotting him back on TV
until he's ready. So that's another long layoff in you know,
a list of long layoffs, whether it was for injury

(01:11:21):
issues or or you know, booking issues. There's certainly been
some booking missteps with him over the years, but injuries
have also played a role. It's just been one thing
after another, you know, And I feel bad for the guy,
But I think we've reached a point now where while
I hope he can come back and he can be
a productive player for them on the roster, I don't

(01:11:44):
really see him ever being at that level that I
think a lot of people thought he could one day
be at. I don't see that happening now. Enough time
has gone by and there's been so many issues, and
you know, then it becomes an issue of you know,
can you trust him in that spot or something else
gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
I don't know. I don't really.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
I can't sit here and tell you that I see
Wardlow being that big player for them that I thought
he would be. Hopefully I'm wrong. I just hope he
can come back and just have a productive career. At
this point, I don't really have any other expectations for him.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
I hope he gets well soon.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Let's talk about this All Out card coming up from
Toronto next Saturday. By the way, the Dynamite numbers rebounded
this week from four hundred and seventy two thousand last
week up to five hundred and eighty four thousand this week,
still tied for the third lowest total.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Since May, but it's an improvement.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Now here's the card as it currently stands for All Out,
brody King and Bandido. It will be defending the aw
tag team titles in a four way ladder match. Why
because why not? They're holding three qualifying matches for the
other spots this Wednesday, with the Young Bucks against Juice
Robinson and Austin Gunn. That'll be a win for the Bucks.

(01:12:59):
Lucasaurus and he keep saving against jet Speed, which should
be a win for jet Speed, and top Flight takes
on Josh Alexander and Hetchesero representing the don Kallis family
and they will almost assuredly be winning that match. So Brodido,
the Bucks, jet Speed and the Callous Family looks to
be it. And I've got the Young Bucks winning the

(01:13:22):
tag team titles, and I think from there, I think
we get Cope and Christian eventually when they do win
the titles, and they will, they win them from the
Young Bucks. Eddie Kingston is coming back. He returns one
on one against Big Bill. Eddie has not wrestled since
May of last year against Gabe Kid. That was where
he broke his leg. He tore his acl he tore

(01:13:43):
his meniscus. I mean his leg and his knee basically
were just destroyed. He also revealed this week that the
day of the surgery, his insurance company, which had told
him they would cover it, all of a sudden the
day of they said, you know what, We're not going
to cover it, which is a wonderful thing to say
to somebody On the day of their surgery, when they're
already stressed beyond belief. Not the first time they did

(01:14:05):
that to him on the day of a surgery, he said.
It happened three years ago, the day he was supposed
to have hernia surgery. But Tony Kahn stepped in this
time to take care of it, even though he got hurt.
You know, technically in a New Japan ring and not
in aw ring. How many people does this happen to
on a daily basis who aren't lucky enough to have
a billionaire step in to pay for it. The healthcare

(01:14:28):
system in this country is infuriating. The setup for this
match wasn't infuriating. It was just a very random way
to get Eddie back in the mix. It's a way
to get him back and get him a win. You know,
Big Bill randomly called him out last week on Collision
as a fellow New York guy, and that was it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
That's how we ended up here.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
But then again, you know, look, many years ago, a
young man named stone Cold Steve Austin started randomly calling
out Brett Hart on television when Brett had been gone
for months and months, and they ended up having a
classic rivalry I don't think Eddie Kingston and Big Bill
are going to have a classic rivalry, but I do
think Eddie Kingston is going to get the win here too.

(01:15:10):
I think that that's probably the easiest prediction to make
on this entire show. Actually, no, the second easiest prediction
to make on the entire show, because we also have
Mercedes Monet defending her TBS Championship against ReHO, who did
not look great in that tag match on Wednesday. It
was her first match back since July of last year.

(01:15:32):
Riho is wrestling Robin Renegade on the September to Remember
episode of Dynamite this Wednesday, which is actually a three
hour block from eight to eleven PM. Years ago, Mercedes
said that she would love to form a faction with
the Renegade Twins, and here we have one of the
twins wrestling Riho. Maybe this is the start of that faction.

(01:15:56):
Faction or no faction. Sydney Sweeney has a better chance
of beating Mercedes for that belt than Rijo does, so
more than Eddie Kingston and Big Bill. I think the
easiest prediction to make here on this card is that
Mercedes is going to retain her TBS title. The Hurt Syndicate,
Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin and MVP take on Ricochet and

(01:16:17):
the Gates of Agony. You know, there were reports previously
about MVP and the Hurt Syndicate not wanting to lose
the tag team titles to FTR, and there were certain
names floated that they would be willing to lose to,
and the Gates of Agony were on that alleged list. Well,
time to put your money where your mouth is and
this is a big opportunity for the Hurt Syndicate to

(01:16:39):
put these guys over in a major way. So let's
see what happens. I'm going with Ricochet in the Gates
of Agony for the win. Here, MJF takes on Mark
brisco In. What Briscoe said last night on Collision is
going to be a tables and thumb tax match. Tables
and tax. There's something we haven't seen before in eight boy,

(01:17:01):
I haven't seen one of those in a while. MJF
is defending his CMLL title this Friday at Arena Mexico
against Mystico. He will lose that championship and then the
next night he will or the next day, I guess
he will redeem himself here MJF will beat Mark Briscoe.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
I forgot to mention that this is now a three
pm Eastern show, so I assume that means that the
Zero Hour is starting either at one or one thirty.
But it went from an eight pm Eastern start time
to a three pm Eastern start time for all the
obvious reasons. FTR takes on Adam Copeland and Christian Cage.
This is a match that has been on the radar

(01:17:42):
and I think fairly predictable now for many months that
it was building to this. The build has been very weird,
no more so than on Wednesday. Cope and Christian were
not on the show. They had to pull Apart Brawl
the previous week, which was fine, you know, standard stuff.
They weren't there on the show on Wednesday, FTR was.

(01:18:02):
They came out with stokely hath theway. It was their
last night on as far as Dynamite goes at the
twenty three hundred Arena. They wrapped up their residency with
their taping the next night. But they came out and
the segments serve no real purpose other than just to
try to make them look like tough guys and put
heat on them by trying to pick a fight with
the fans, like they thought that they were transported back

(01:18:26):
to the ECW Arena of old in nineteen ninety seven
and they were the Dudley Boys, except they're not the
Dudley Boys in the ECW Arena in nineteen ninety seven.
But there you had Das getting up in you know,
fans faces, and they're trying to start something. Then they
ended up beating up the cameramen and his assistant and
it's like, okay, he's beating up production crew members. I
don't know how this is supposed to put more heat

(01:18:46):
on their match with cop and Christian. This was just
a very bizarre segment here. I don't know what the
hell that was. So they got one more night on
Dynamite tomorrow. I think they're having a face to face
and let them go out there and cut promos on
it each other. That's really all you can do at
this point. The match itself should be very good, and
I see no reason for Copeland and Christian to lose here,

(01:19:08):
So I have them going over on FTR for the win,
and then inevitably it all comes down to just what
event he wants to do it at but they will
win those tag team titles, and I think it'll be
from the bucks. I don't know if it's a full
gear thing. I don't know if that's, you know, a
world's end. Maybe he wants to save it for the
end of the year. I don't know, but I think

(01:19:29):
that's where this is headed. Kazuchka Okada will defend the
aw Unified Championship in a three way match against Kenoski Takeshta,
who beat Anthony Bowen's last night and the winner of
the match this Wednesday between The Beast, Mortos and Mascarroderrada.
Okada beat Michael Oku last night on collision to retain

(01:19:51):
his title and advance. Yes, you heard that right. The
champion was in the tournament in a title match. I
don't make the rules. Don't look at me. Yes, it's dumb,
don't look at me. I would assume we're looking at
Mortos joining the other two should be a great match.

(01:20:13):
Mortos is going to be in there to take the
losing fall when Okada retains. It's the only reason that
he or Derata. But I figure it's going to be Mortos.
Literally the only reason they're in this match, which then
spares Takeshta from a direct loss while preserving him for
a future singles match with Okada where he then wins
the title. Timeless Tony Storm defends the AW Women's World Championship.

(01:20:38):
So again, you look at this card. Here, they turned
the tag team title match into a four way ladder match,
they turned the unified title match into a three way,
and we have another four way. We have two four
ways at least on this show. This time it's Timeless
Tony Storm defending the AW Women's World Championship against Jamie Hayter,

(01:21:02):
Chris Statlander and Tecla. And as with the unified title match,
as with the tag team title match, you look at
all the talent in there, certainly you know should be
an excellent match. Not how I wanted to get Tony
Storm and Jamie Hater in the ring for the first time,
but you know, I'll take it. This is a chance

(01:21:22):
for them to shake things up. This is a match
where I think that Chris Statlander should win, and I
think she's going to win. I'll make a bold prediction here.
I'll go against the grain because I do think there's
a really good chance it could happen that Chris Statlander
is going to win the Women's World Championship. They've been
teasing lately that she might join up, she might link
up with the Death Riders. We just saw Daniel Garcia

(01:21:44):
join the Death Riders. Especially if they follow through with her,
this would be the place to have her, you know,
go over strong and win a championship and bring the
title into the Death Riders. Not that I'm saying I
want her to join the Death Riders. I greatly dislike
that idea, but I'm going with Chris Statlander to win
the title. Nothing wrong with shaking things up a little

(01:22:07):
bit and doing a title change here. Statlander is great.
John Moxley is going to be wrestling on the show
against Darby Allen in a coffin match, and I don't
think this is the end of their issues together. I
think John Moxley is going to win this coffin match
and they're going to continue to play this feud out

(01:22:28):
for a little while longer. And Hangman Adam Page defends
the AW World Championship against the TNT champion, Kyle Fletcher
in a match where only the AW World title is
on the line. It's also a match where Fletcher has
guaranteed that no member He's given his word that no
member of the Don Kallis family will get involved. That
this is coming off an episode of Dynamite where Ricochet

(01:22:50):
had a gentleman's agreement with Shelton Benjamin that the Gates
of Agony would not get involved in their match on Wednesday,
and then they did because they're heels and heels cannot
be trusted. But we're gonna have to take Fletcher at
his word here. You know, he said no member of
the Kallus family would get involved. That doesn't necessarily preclude
someone else who's outside the callous family from getting involved

(01:23:12):
in this match, although other than MJF I'm not sure
who that person would be. It doesn't matter though this
should be a great match. Hangman Adam Page is going
to retain the championship. Kyle Fletcher was not even the
first choice to be in this spot. Again, Wardlow was
reportedly going to be in this spot and isn't only
because he's hurt, so they slotted Kyle in there. So

(01:23:34):
Kyle has even less of a chance of winning the
championship that he did before.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
We read about the ward Low injury.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
Anyway, I'll have coverage of All Out with my full
thoughts as part of the sound off next Sunday. That'll
be episode nine thirty. Some other news and notes. All
Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference on Friday to
announce the death of twenty one year old star Tyshian Nagau,
who passed away after being hit by one of their

(01:24:01):
tour buses back on May thirty first. This is just
an awful story. On Friday, All Japan representative director Suyoki
Fukuda and director Toshiki Toeda were on hand at the
press conference to provide details of the incident that led
to his death. Now this comes from Monthly Pro res
with a hat tip to the account Mera Wrestling on

(01:24:24):
x for the English translation. It was revealed that the
tour bus that struck Nogao did so in a narrow
alley near the AJPW dojo. As the incident is still
under investigation by the police, no further details were given.
Nogao had been in the intensive care unit since May
thirty first due to traumatic shock from abdominal compression. There

(01:24:46):
was hope that he would recover following numerous surgeries on
September sixth Nogao's condition took a turn for the worse.
He passed away on September seventh from Sepsisnigao was cremated
on September tenth, with all all japan wrestlers attending to
pay their final respects. Dave Meltzer had more information on

(01:25:06):
this in this week's Observer. He said the situation was
addressed in vague terms by the company, but everything was
largely kept secret from everyone, including the talent. On May
thirty first, the tour bus was to leave for a
trip for a show in Sendai. He was outside behind
the bus and the driver didn't see him and ran
him over. The talent on the bus were in shock

(01:25:26):
and had to lift the bus off of him, and
many thought he was dead for sure. They administered CPR
until the ambulance came. On June twenty first, the company
stated that Negau had suffered abdominal compression resulting in traumatic
shock from being hit by the bus, and it was
said he was receiving treatment in the intensive care unit
and was in a critical closely monitored condition. On July

(01:25:48):
twenty second, they said he was in critical condition in
intensive care. The company then announced his death on September seventh.
Nogw was seen as a very promising rookie, having just
debuted last October. His job was to tell the driver
left right stop, et cetera, when pulling out backwards. It
was a rainy day. Suddenly the driver in backing out

(01:26:10):
ran over him. The goal slipped on a puddle and
fell down. The driver didn't hear him nor see him
because of a blind spot, and people heard a terrible scream.
Some thought that it was the bobcat that hung out
at the dojo that the boys leave food for when
they heard the scream. Everyone heard the screaming. The gal's
upper half of his body was stuck between the bus

(01:26:31):
and the sidewalk and he was bunched up against a
cement wall. His face was purple. The wrestlers lifted the
bus off of him and moved him to the grass.
The All Japan doctor was there with defibrillator pads. He
stopped breathing at points, and some thought he was dead.
The doctor was just trying to do whatever he could.
Everyone kept things quiet, but the original report was that

(01:26:52):
he had internal bleeding and would need surgery, and they
thought or perhaps hoped that he would be okay. Talent
was never a lie out to visit him. He was
in a coma and the belief is that he never
woke up from it, and finally the decision was made
to remove him from life support. The driver was fired.
Those close to the situation said the driver felt horrible.

(01:27:13):
All Japan later hired a professional bus service transportation system
with two drivers at all times. He was said to
have great promise and picked up on everything very quickly.
A memorial service is set for September fifteenth for him
at Corrikan Hall at the All Japan Royal Road Tournament event.
And that wasn't the only wrestling related death this week.

(01:27:35):
Independent start Jonathan Ekavaria, better known as Jaka, who was
well known on the Northeast independent scene. He had been
wrestling for almost twenty years. Only thirty nine years old,
he had suffered a heart attack after his match for
Boca Ratone Championship Wrestling on August thirty first, and had
been in the ICU in critical condition ever since. He

(01:27:57):
died last Sunday. A lot of wrestlers I know we're
very broken up about his passing, very close to him.
His sister had set up a GoFundMe to help pay
for his medical bills, but now any and all donations
will go towards paying for his funeral expenses and there
will be a service held for him in Florida tomorrow.
I pulled a bunch of your questions and went through

(01:28:19):
all your emails here. We got a big batch of
them to get through. You can always email me for
the mailbag, the Solo Monster at gmail dot com. Please
include your name of where you are from when you
write in. I got a nice email from lt that
I thought I would share with you. He said, I'm
a soldier in the army who listens to your podcast.
There are plenty of times where my day is so

(01:28:40):
busy and long that I can't watch any sports before bed.
When I finished the day, I usually just want a shower,
spend time with my family if possible, and then go
to bed and do it all over again. Your recaps
are great because they're thorough and insightful. I could listen
when driving home or getting ready for work. I appreciate
what you do. Thank you for sending that and that

(01:29:01):
means a lot. And thank you for your service. Michael
from Long Island. What did you think about the dumb
comments Ronda Rousey made about Alexa Bliss. So, Ronda was
on the Lapsed Fan podcast recently. I didn't get a
chance to talk about this last week. I didn't hear

(01:29:23):
the entire thing, but I heard enough of it and
then I read the rest. She also did an interview
with Yahoo's Sports and said that she has no reason
to go back to WWE. She accomplished everything she wanted
to do based on her last run there. We're all
better off without her being there. She also said that
she wasn't invited to take part in this year's Evolution show.
Not that she turned it down, she just was never invited.

(01:29:47):
And again that Evolution show is one of the best
shows WWE is done all year. Where would Ronda have
even fit on that card. She could have showed up
and just waved to the crowd. It would have been
a waste of time for her. But on the Lapse Fan,
when one of the hosts suggested that Ronda should have
squashed Alexa Bliss when she won her first world title
in twenty eighteen, Ronda said, the fact that they had

(01:30:11):
me fighting Alexa Bliss at all was fucking ridiculous. And
you want to know why they had me against Alexa
Bilists because she had the most merch sales at the time, Like,
what the fuck that's your decision making process. I'm not
sure Ronda Rowsey understands how pro wrestling works, even all
these years later. Promoters go with those who make them
the most money. Not only was Bliss one of their

(01:30:33):
top merch sellers, she was the raw women's champion. So
it's not as if Ronda had a lot of say
in the matter. If they wanted to put the title
on her. Bliss was the champion. Therefore she had to
beat Alexibilist.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
To win the belt.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Now, if they wanted her to be, you know, the
brock Lesner of the women's division, she was no brock Lesner.
But I mean, they could have pushed her like that
if they wanted too. Sure, Alexa Bliss was only going
to get so much offense in on Ronda Rowsey, but
the way she is so dismissive of a lot, like
who the hell is this girl? Yeah, she was pushed
for a reason because she was and still is very popular.

(01:31:07):
This is something Ronda Rowsey doesn't understand. If anyone had
a reason to complain. It was Alexa Bliss who got
concussed not once, but twice working with Ronda Rowsey because
no one bothered to clue Ronda in that wrestling was
a fucking work. Apparently, not only does she can cuss
her twice, she can cussed her twice on the same move.
It was a headlocked takeover, drove her head first into

(01:31:29):
the mat. That's why Alexa didn't wrestle on that first
Evolution show. She was stuck standing at ringside because Ronda,
who clearly has suffered one too many concussions of her own,
pulled a Bill Goldberg and injured her. Ronda has a
very high opinion of herself. You know, she accomplished a
lot in a relatively short period of time in her career,
but she comes across very badly when she makes comments

(01:31:52):
like the ones that she made in that interview. Chris
from North Jersey, I can't say I'm surprised, but I'm
a little sad after hearing about Mark Shapiro's interview where
he states and WWE has a lot of work to
do in regards to ticket yields in comparison to UFC.
You have to be an adult to attend UFC. Every
ticket is bought by someone who can afford to buy

(01:32:13):
a ticket because they're adults. WWE is family friendly and
ticketed as such by Vince. I'm afraid a lot of
fans will no longer afford to go to events in
the future, let alone now they are going around the
world now for all events, including WrestleMania. I'm glad I
got to go to my fair share with my kids,
so I don't have the itch to go to shows
much anymore. How long until the fans retaliate, maybe fans

(01:32:36):
go to AW, which is affordable, and TKO is forced
to change this. Well, that's not going to happen. You're
not going to have such a groundswell of people migrating
over to AW that Mark Shapiro looks at this and says,
oh my god, we've made a mistake.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
We have to go back.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
You're not wrong when you say that it is an opportunity.
It certainly is an opportunity for an aid and I've
said this before. AW if they were smart, they would
take advantage of this. And I don't know what the
average AW ticket goes for as compared to WWE these days,
obviously there's a big difference, but I would focus on affordability,
and I would really you don't even have to mention WWE,

(01:33:15):
but really, you know, focus on affordability when it comes
to promoting these events, not that they're cheap, right, you
never use that word. You know, they're less expensive, they're
more affordable. You never use the word cheap. But there's
an opportunity there for them to absolutely try to claw
some fans away and just let them know, Hey, if

(01:33:36):
you're looking to go to a wrestling show, not necessarily
a WWE show, but a wrestling show, and you're coming
to town, give us a chance, right, give us a shot.
If you've never been to an aw show before, we're
going to give you, you know, more bang for your
buck or however they want to promote it. So there's
definitely an opportunity there. There will be some fans maybe

(01:33:57):
who who go over. But you know, you mentioned that
Vince McMahon was more interested in making the product family friendly. Well, TKO,
they have a different way of doing things. They're not
so interested in focusing on just that. They see that
there is a market for tickets to these events, these

(01:34:20):
premium live events, premium prices right for tickets to these
premium live events and other events, and they don't really
I don't think they care so much about who the
audience is that pays for the tickets. As long as
they know there is an audience that will pay those
prices for those tickets. If it was just adults, right,
then so be it. That's going to be their focus.
They're going to go where the money is. I think

(01:34:41):
they're less concerned about the makeup of their audience and
just making sure that people are willing to spend that
kind of money, and that's the most important thing to them.
And that is sad, but that's just the difference between them.
That's just the way it is, and not a whole
lot that we can do about it, other than certainly
people could just stop watching. They could stop buying tickets
to the events.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
I don't even remember the.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Last time I went to a WWE event, you know,
I'm glad I went to the WrestleManias that I went to.
Probably never will again, but I went to about eight
WrestleManias in a row, so that was enough for me.
It is an experience I think that people if you've
never done it before would enjoy, but I could see
we're for a lot of fans now it's just way

(01:35:23):
too expensive and as far as twenty twenty seven, a
lot of fans are not going to be flying to
Saudi Arabia for that one. So I look, I had
my phil I'm good, you know, but there are a
lot of other fans who are going to be shut
out unfortunately, because it's just the way things are now,
you know. It's just they have to prioritize, and it's
just too expensive. If you have a family, if you

(01:35:46):
have a kid, if you have two kids, three kids,
I mean, whoa what must that cost? If you're going
to fly to a WrestleMania you have airfare, hotel, food, tickets,
if to take out a set mortgage in your house
just to afford a wrestle media trip. Aaron from Cape

(01:36:07):
Girardo personally watching WWE in this current triple TKO era
is getting tougher and tougher between all of the DQ finishes,
the predictable outcomes, the NonStop ads, sky high ticket prices,
to focus on celebrities and storylines that feel half baked.
It's wearing thin. So it got me thinking, what's been
the hardest era or year of wrestling for you to

(01:36:29):
sit through. And you have you ever gotten so frustrated
that you almost gave up on WWE completely? I feel
like I get this question once every few months. For me,
it was the year nineteen ninety five. The product was
just very dead. They were going really all in on
these just ridiculous, over the top gimmicks. I mean, they

(01:36:52):
always had gimmicks, and there have been some fun ones,
but I mean Vince just went on some weird acid
trip that year with all of the different characters, and
they lost so many big names. They were trying to
push a new generation of talent. So you had that
core group of like Brett Hart and Razor Ramone and
Diesel and the Undertaker was there and Shawn Michaels. They

(01:37:14):
were in a rebuilding process and it was just a
very down year. And there was a period in early
ninety five where I was I was bored enough that
I came close to just giving up because all my
friends had stopped watching.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
I was the only one left.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
You know, they all used to watch and then they
stopped for various reasons. You know, oh it's fake, or
you know, maybe they didn't care about that, but then
they got bored or they just grew out of it,
and I came very close. But beyond ninety five, you know,
I can't say in more recent years because this is

(01:37:50):
what I do now, I'm still a wrestling fan in
my core, even when I hate it for various reasons,
because I know it could be so much better. Now
this is what I do, So it's a little bit
different now.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
I rely on this now in a way that I
didn't have to all those years ago. There was definitely
a period though, in the late twenty tens, you know,
certainly with WWE, where I wouldn't say I almost gave
up on it completely, but it was very, very difficult
to sit through those weekly shows. Absolutely, it's just bad television.
There are people who get off on watching bad television

(01:38:24):
and then ranting and raving about it because that's just
what they do, or because it sells or whatever. And
I can promise you if it were up to me,
these shows would be fucking great every week. You know,
I wouldn't be like, oh, I want the shows to
be bad, like there might be some gold in there.
You know, when you have those bad shows, you get
those great rants right. But that's not why I do this,

(01:38:46):
because at the end of the day, will people might
find that fun every now and then, I still have
to sit here and watch these shows every single week.
I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time.
And there was definitely a period of of RAW, specifically
around twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, where it was very hard
to sit through those shows every single week, and many

(01:39:08):
of you were watching those shows right along with me.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
And I always used to say.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
People would ask me, well, why do you used to watch,
and other than the fact that I do a podcast,
I would say, it's the two h's habit and hope.
I watch out of habit and I hope it's going
to get better. You try to be optimistic about it.
That's all you can do. Dak from Saint Paul, Minnesota.
I'm writing this before Friday SmackDown, so I obviously won't

(01:39:35):
know the outcome of the women's title match between Tiffany
and Jade. On NXT, we saw Tiffy, Rhea, and Stephanie
coming out and confronting fatal Influence and setting up a
six woman tag for the following Tuesday. My question to
you is does this match seem completely illogical and ridiculous?
Why would Tiffany care about FI when she has a match?

(01:40:00):
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Why would
Tiffany care when she has a title defense on Friday?
Why bump the world title signing from Monday and then
have Stephanie's show up for NXT. It just feels hard
to be invested in this match when there feels like
zero logic to it. Maybe I'm just stupid and don't
get it, but what do you think about the match
and how they went about setting it up?

Speaker 2 (01:40:20):
Now, you're not.

Speaker 1 (01:40:21):
Stupid, But as I said earlier, this is just a
special anniversary type show that they're doing from Full Sale,
so they're trying to pop a rating and they're going
back home right to Full Sale University, and so they're
just trotting out a bunch of old names to put
together a special show that won't really have a whole
lot of influence on the week to week storylines. So

(01:40:43):
it's out of nowhere, But it's not because it's all
tied into where they're going to be on Tuesday. If
they were just doing another random episode of NXT from
the PC and all of a sudden, these three women
are teaming together. Then yeah, that would be fucking weird.
I don't read into it any more than that, though,
Dominic from Connecticut, I wanted to get your honest thoughts
on Seth Rawlins. Well, I know you respect is in

(01:41:05):
ring ability and longevity. I have noticed that you are irritated, bored,
or apathetic with a lot of his segments and work,
Especially recently. You have made comments such as the less
Seth on TV, the better, and that you like him
in small doses. Do you think he is undeserving of
the top spot that he is currently in. Is there
a version of Seth that you prefer over the others?

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Actually there is.

Speaker 1 (01:41:28):
I still maintain that Shield Seth Rollins was the best
Seth Rollins, especially in ring, like when they win, Babyface
and Rollins would get like the Babyface hot tag, and
there was nobody better at.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
It in wrestling. At that time. He was fucking great.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
And that's not to say that he's not great in
the ring now. He's just you know, he's ten years older,
he's had injuries, and you know, you're not going to
be the same that you were when you were ten
years younger, so me being sort of apathetic towards Seth.
I've never liked this character that he's done where he
comes at and calls himself the visionary, the revolutionary, and

(01:42:10):
he you know, hums to his song and every like.
That character has always irritated me. I mean, for him,
it's the perfect heel character, I guess, but yeah, I've
never liked this character.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
I don't know what he's supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
You know, he was coming out of the funny outfits
and everything, and I just I wasn't sure that he
even knew exactly what he was trying to be. So
I just don't like the character. And I do think
that when you have an overload of a lot of
people on TV, that could be a bad thing. Unless
you are just that special of a performer and just
that entertaining, then you can make it work. You know,

(01:42:44):
Prime Rock in the late nineties, early two thousands, If
you put him in half a dozen segments on the show,
I guarantee you all half a dozen segments would probably
be pretty great and pretty entertaining. Seth Rollins is not
that guy. He's not the guy that I want to
see plastered all over the show show. I do think
he's better in small doses, especially when he's on the mic.

(01:43:04):
I just, you know, so many times, like when he's
in there with Punk where he gets that one guy
that he's really angry with, like he could turn out
some really great output on the microphone. But a lot
of the times it's not that, you know, it's just
him doing his stick, and I don't find it entertaining.
I don't think he's undeserving of the spot. I think
that he probably is the male MVP in WWE so

(01:43:25):
far in twenty twenty five. So you know, when you
hear me make comments like that, I don't want you
to mistake it for hatred of Seth. It's just that,
you know, when you get too much of him, I
think too much of him makes for bad TV, and
I think in smaller doses he is better.

Speaker 2 (01:43:41):
I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:44):
Josh from Minnesota Believe a Blaine, Minnesota. When aj Lee
came back after fangirling super hard and having her theme
stuck in my head all of Saturday, I started thinking
of possible matches and scenarios for her. I wanted to
get your opinion on two. Do you think that they
would have aj Lee hold the WWE or Women's World

(01:44:05):
Championship before WrestleMania, or even have her potentially win the
Royal Rumble. I feel like she may be a top
favorite to win the Rumble now that she's back. Well,
of course she's gonna be a fair she's automatically a
favorite to win. I don't think she's going to. I mean,
we're still very early out yet from the Rumble. I

(01:44:25):
still think if liv Morgan can make it back in time,
she would be my favorite to win the Rumble next year.
So I don't see aj winning the Rumble, but she's
gonna obviously be in that top five. If you have
to make like a top five list of I think
of the favorite names to win the Rumble, she would
be in the top five. She might even be in
the top three. As far as the championship holding it

(01:44:46):
before WrestleMania, I don't see that. And also, after thinking
of possible matches that she could have, one that came
straight to mind was her in Roxanne Perez. But if
they do that, what do you think of them doing
maybe a double turn and having a baby fit Roxanne
take down a heel aj Lee for either the Intercontinental
or Women's World title. Not a fan of her doing

(01:45:07):
that as a heel anytime in the near future. She
just came back. She's a massive babyface. CM Punk's a babyface.
I think it would be hard to turn her heel
and have Punks still be a babyface. She signed a
multi year long term contract though she's back full time,
so could she turn heel at some point maybe a
year from now, two years from now, sure, but there's

(01:45:30):
no way that you turn aj Lee heel anytime in
the next six months, eight months, Like, I just think
that would be completely ridiculous. Her and Roxanne, though, that's
a natural match. I think that's a natural program, especially
given how big of a fan Roxanne was of hers
when she was younger. I think Roxanne could be the heel.
I think that's fine. She doesn't have to be the
babyface in that program. June aid from England. With John

(01:45:54):
Moxley being one of the top guys within AW and
someone who Tony Kan has relied on to steady the
ship during uncertain times, it got me thinking, what if
John Moxley had stayed in WWE, how would his career
have looked if he would have stayed, how would he
have played into the bloodline angle, Cody's return and everything
that went down to Wrestlemany of forty with Seth being

(01:46:14):
Cody's right hand man. How would Dean Ambrose be booked
under a Paul Levek WWE? And how would aw look
without one of their top names? And who do you
think fills that spot? That's a lot of what ifs.
I don't know who fills that spot. I don't know
who that person is. I mean, Jericho was kind of
that guy for a while. He was that WWE guy
they brought in who had a name, who really helped

(01:46:36):
get them established. So I mean Jericho, maybe they would
have relied on him a little bit more heavily. You
know what Dean Ambrose's career would have looked like in
WWE under Triple H. Honestly, I think he would have
been firmly planted in the mid card, like mid card,
upper mid card, with the occasional main event program, very

(01:47:00):
much in a Kevin Owens type role. Kevin Owens is
a main event guy, but he has not spent the
majority of his time in the main event in WWE.
He's been in and out of the main event. That's
how it would be for Dean Ambrose. He was always
the odd man out when it came to all three
Shield members. Moxley had to leave.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
He had.

Speaker 1 (01:47:20):
He left because he wasn't happy and that was not
going to change under a triple h because in leaving
he also got to embrace the style of wrestling that
he loves working, and it's a style that he never
would have been allowed to work in WWE. Patrick from Montreal.
Ever since Mercedes Monet won Nine Belts, I noticed she
receives a lot of criticism from legends. Jim Cornett says

(01:47:43):
she sucks now, Dutch Mantel claims that she was never
that talented in WWE, and Stevie Richards claims aw has
exposed her weaknesses because she no longer has the WWE
machine behind her. So a couple of questions, are some
of the miserable former WWE legends with podcasts adding way
too much fuel to the toxicity and tribalism in the IWC,

(01:48:06):
And if Mercedes was in WWE right now with nine belts,
would she get the same hate Because the only problem
I see with her is her MIC's skills, but her
matches rained from pretty good to amazing. Now she's got
a great body of work in the ring. Look at
some of the great matches that she's put together ever
since she joined AW. Nobody can doubt her in ringwork.

(01:48:28):
Do I think that the you know, the wrestler hosted
podcasts who go in on her all the time the
way they do.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Add to the toxicity. Of course they do. Yeah, they
feed into it for sure. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
My knock on it is that she walks around with
nine belts, most of which don't mean anything. So her
having nine championships in and of itself does not make
her great. I think it's her in ringwork that makes
her great. I think she's a great performer. But there
are people who just aren't fans of of her wrestling,
or aren't fans of her you know, verbal skills on

(01:49:05):
the microphone. They don't find her interesting. She had that
segment a few weeks ago where she had all of
her belts laid out across the table and was celebrating,
and it's like, I've never seen somebody on TV with
nine belts just be so uninteresting. So there are fair
criticisms of her that you can make without you know,
making them personal. Do I think that she would be
getting the same level of hate if she had nine

(01:49:27):
belts in WWE. She would still be getting some hate.
It would not be as vocal as it is. That
much I can say, because a lot of it also
comes from people who are just generally vocal about anything
outside of WWE, and specifically Tony Connen aw So a
lot of those same people. If Mercedes were to come

(01:49:48):
back to WWE and had a bunch of championships, then no,
they would not be as vocally against her as they
are now. That is absolutely part of it. Speaking of Montreal,
we have it is from Jose in New York City.
I wanted to get your thoughts on my opinion about
the best wrestling cities both domestically and internationally as part
of my Mount Rushmore. Domestically, I have Chicago, New York, Philadelphia,

(01:50:13):
and Boston. Internationally, I would choose London, Paris, Montreal, and
San Juan Puerto Rico. Well, right, First of all, I
have to say San Juan Puerto Rico would not technically
be considered an international location, so you have to scratch
that from your Mount Rushmore and add a different one.
I'm not going to do the Mount Rushmore thing. But domestically,

(01:50:35):
when you say best, I assume you mean the loudest.
We're not talking about drawing power here. We're talking about
like just this loud, energetic crowd New York, which can
be hit or missed. But I think by and large
New York and definitely Chicago. I would actually put Chicago
at number one. New York and Chicago were at the

(01:50:55):
top of the list, and you know who I would
throw in there, Seattle. I feel like Seattle is generally
pretty loud whenever they visit. Montreal is another. So internationally,
I mean most of the crowds are loud. I mean London,
they were just in Paris. You heard that crowd leone France.

(01:51:18):
I guess I'll just say France. But as far as
like a whole list, I mean, I don't know. Those
are the ones that come to mind for me. Big
Zeus from Washington, d C. I was wondering if there's
any truth to the story that Shawn Michaels used as
backstage stroke to win the European title off of Davy
Boyce Smith. As I've heard it, Davey wanted to dedicate

(01:51:40):
the match to his sister, who was battling cancer, and
he was originally going to go over by d Q,
but Sean being Sean, convinced Vince McMahon to put the
title on him to generate heat, which Davy reluctantly went
along with, only for Sean to fingerpoke drop it to
Triple H a few weeks later. Was that the plan
all along? Or did Sean screw Davy? It was definitely

(01:52:03):
not the plan all along. He did finger poke drop
it quote unquote finger poke to triple H. It was
actually a couple months later, but yes, that's exactly what happened.
Davy Boy was supposed to win. The finish was set.
He did dedicate the match to his sister, who she
wasn't just battling cancer, she was terminally ill. She was

(01:52:23):
dying with cancer. Not only did he dedicate the match
to his sister, his sister escorted him down to the ring.
I think his wife was supposed to Diana. I've heard
her say that the agent for the match, and she
would never say who it was, but she claimed the
agent didn't like them to begin with, didn't like Davy,
but he didn't want her out there like escorting him

(01:52:47):
to the ring because Princess Diana had just died only
weeks before this, and the agent felt like this Diana
looked a lot like that Diana, and so I guess
it would have been in poor taste send I don't
really understand the logic there, but they wanted some model
to escort a Davy instead to the ring, and Davy said,

(01:53:07):
I'm not coming to the ring with a random model,
so he took his sister with him instead. But Sean
got Invince's ear. That's what happened and triple H two.
I'm sure just like he did with Montreal, because he's
a snake, and suddenly the finish got changed. This is
what happens when you let the inmates run the asylum,
and you see what ended up happening. I'm sure Sean

(01:53:27):
got in his ear and said, hey, let me win
the belt here and the next time we come back
to the UK for one of these pay per views,
and I think they came back it was the following.

Speaker 2 (01:53:38):
April.

Speaker 1 (01:53:39):
I think that was that Mayhem and Manchester show that
they did. You know, when we come back, I'll drop
it back to Davy. Meanwhile, by that point Davey was
gone and Seawan was gone. Right after WrestleMania, he went
away and that was back during that period where he was,
you know, popping more pills than a pharmacist. His back
was wrecked and he wasn't wrestling anymore. But whatever explanation

(01:54:01):
he gave to Vince, Vince went along with it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
It was terrible. Jack from Jacksonville.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
You recently mentioned that the cmpunk situation was easily aw's
darkest day. What do you consider to be some of
WWE's darkest days. I would say the night Vince McMahon
stood in the middle of that empty arena and announced
the death of Chris Benois and his family is the
darkest day in WWE history, and the night that Owen

(01:54:28):
Hart fell to his death in the ring. Those are
the only correct answers. Nothing else even comes close. Christian
from Las Vegas with a buy, sell and rent question.
I've always appreciated when a wrestler has a standout performance
where they lose a high stakes match but their heart
and performance get them more over despite losing.

Speaker 2 (01:54:52):
Well, I mean, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:54:53):
Sort of the whole point of the Brett Hart Steve
Austin submission match or Wrestle Many at thirteen, but he
says rent and sell on these three matches were one
wrestler loss but got more over due to their performance.
Kazuchka Okada against Kenny Omega at Wressell Kingdom eleven, Gunther
against Seamus at Clash at the Castle twenty twenty two.

(01:55:17):
Undertaker versus Jeff Hardy on Raw in a ladder match.

Speaker 2 (01:55:20):
Two thousand and two.

Speaker 1 (01:55:23):
So I'm actually gonna buy on Okata and Omega at
Wressell Kingdom e eleven. That was the match that made
Omega as far as I'm concerned. This was their first
match together and it opened a lot of eyes as
to what kind of star Kenny could really be. So
I gotta buy on that. I'm gonna rent on Undertaker

(01:55:44):
and Jeff Hardy. I might have bought on the Jeff
Hardy match if it had led to a big run
for him, but Jeff was dealing with his personal problems,
and I think it was less than a year later
he was gone from the company. But people still talk
about that moment or you know, or Undertaker, who was
a heel, put him over at the end, and I
think he helped him to his feet. Maybe he shook
his hand. Whatever it was, I'm gonna sell on Gunther

(01:56:06):
and Seamus. I'm a little confused on why you would
include this one because Seamus at that point he was
already very well established.

Speaker 2 (01:56:12):
I don't know that it got him more over.

Speaker 1 (01:56:14):
I think Seamus was already as over as he was
going to be at that point, so I don't think
it got him more over. I just think they had
a just a great classic match. I thought it was
the WWE match of the year that year, and that's
really it is a great match. I couldn't even really
tell you what they did after that with Seamus, so

(01:56:36):
I wouldn't say it got him moreover. He was already over.
Steve from Virginia, what are your favorite uses of foreshadowing
in pro wrestling? Oh, that's a good one. Well, the
earliest use of foreshadowing that I can remember as a
fan would have been Macho Man looking at Hogan every

(01:56:59):
time he would elebrate with Elizabeth Right, they were foreshadowing
that the Mega Powers explosion was coming months before it happened.
Stone Cold in the sit down with the Rock before
their match of WrestleMania seventeen, when he said I need
to beat you Rock, I need more than anything that
you could ever imagine. Right, And then what actually happened

(01:57:19):
in the match, right, that was a great use of foreshadowing.
And then you know, honestly, it may not have been intended. Right,
Nobody at the beginning of the year could have predicted
what would happen at the end of that year, not
even Vince McMahon himself, but Brett Hart going around for
almost a year bitching about being screwed right from the

(01:57:43):
moment he came back at the end of nineteen ninety
six and he got that first championship match. It was
the month after that first match with Steve Austin and
Brett wrestled sid at An in Your House, and Shawn
Michaels was ringside for that match on commentary and Sewn
ended up getting in and they collided on the apron
and Breck up power bombed and pinned. They screwed me.

(01:58:05):
They screwed him out of the title when Shawn Michaels
interfered in that match. They screwed me out of a
Royal Rumble win.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:58:12):
Steve Austin then screwed him out of the title when
he lost the belt. To sid on Monday Night Row.
They screwed him again when he lost the cage match
to Sid on Raw. That was the night that he
shoved Vince McMahon down on his ass. One screw job
after another, only to lead to a very real screw
job at Survivor Series. Like, if that isn't some eerie

(01:58:32):
foreshadowing of life imitating art, I don't know what is,
and I didn't even realize it until just recently. I
was watching the match again when WWE uploaded to their
YouTube channel as part of their fifty Greatest WrestleMania Matches countdown.
They uploaded Brett Hart and Stone Cold WrestleMania at thirteen.

(01:58:54):
There's a moment in that match where Steve Austin tries
to put Brett in the sharpshooter but he can't get
it applied, and then Jerry says, oh, that would be
the greatest thing ever right for Brett Hart to have
to submit to the sharpshooter, and Vince McMahon just goes, Hey,
it could happen. Then you think about what happened that
night in Montreal. I that's just wild Neil from Chicago

(01:59:19):
with a non wrestling buyer cell and we'll end with this.
I'm throwing a curveball asking this, but I would like
to know buy or sell on who you enjoy or
enjoyed watching more John Candy or Chris Farley.

Speaker 2 (01:59:33):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:59:33):
I loved them both, both gone far too soon, two
comedic geniuses. Farley and Tommy Boy in Black Sheep was great.
Beverly Hills, Ninja not so much obviously, he was great
on SNL. I love Matt Foley, but I got a
buy on John Candy here. I mean Spaceballs, Home Alone,

(01:59:56):
Armed and Dangerous planes, trains and automobiles. I try to
watch that every year around Thanksgiving. Uncle Buck is a classic.
He did a movie it's not as well known. I
liked it called Who's Harry Crumb? It's It's really a shame.
He was just far too young when he passed to
what was he forty three? Maybe when he died. I

(02:00:16):
know Farley was even younger than that. Anyway, Thank you Neil,
Thank you everyone for all of the great questions. Keep
him coming. It should be a regular schedule this week
with all the live streams. Wrestled Baluza next weekend and
then sound Off nine thirty next Sunday. But everything is
just sort of up in the air right now with

(02:00:37):
what's happening on the personal front. I'll try to keep
you guys posted. Thank you for your understanding, be well,
stay safe, and I will see you back here next time.
Until then, take care, guys. The Solemn Monster sounds off
John Moxley, in case you couldn't tell, it's still the
aw World Heavyweight champ. That means we have another month

(02:00:58):
of this death writer's bullshit and I can barely stomach swarm.
Strickland is going to Dinas. He will challenge John Boxley
for that title and he better fucking win. He's the
right man for the job. Honestly, anybody would be the
right man for the job. The Maytag man would be
the right man for the job right now. The Orcan
man would be the right man for the job right now.
I could walk out my front door, right now, I
could go five blocks down the street.

Speaker 2 (02:01:19):
First fucking guy.

Speaker 1 (02:01:19):
That I see, maybe he's got a bottle of beer
in a brown paper bag, whatever it is, I'll grab him.

Speaker 2 (02:01:24):
He would be the man for the job.

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):
I would have preferred the rizzler come out and sign
his name to that contract.

Speaker 2 (02:01:30):
And pin John Moxley to win the AW World title.

Speaker 1 (02:01:33):
I would have taken Big Boom Aj as the AW
World Champion.

Speaker 2 (02:01:40):
Can you imagine the.

Speaker 1 (02:01:41):
Heads that would explode if that happened. Anybody but what
they're doing now, Anybody but Moxley, anybody.

Speaker 2 (02:01:47):
But the Death Riders stuff. We need to move on
from this.

Speaker 3 (02:01:50):
Well. Solom Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
content for subscribers, and follow this monster on Facebook, Instagram,
and X The Sola Monster.

Speaker 2 (02:02:05):
I love you so long.

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