Dominik Mysterio is a Star, TNA for Sale, Chance’s Drop, and Forbidden Door — WWE, AEW August 11-17

Brad and Tyler recap WWE's inaugural AAA Triplemanía, including standout performers and Dominik Mysterio's career turnaround. They also react to rumors of a potential TNA purchase, Sami Callihan's retirement at 'Emergence,' and more. Later, the guys make AEW Forbidden Door predictions and discuss HOOK's re-signing.

Other topics include:

• Chance the Rapper's Comeback
• NERF Birthday Party
• Paramount inks UFC

Follow the show for exclusive updates.

Social: @gipod19 
Web: gimmickinfringementpod.com, 19mediagroup.com
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0:00 Intro
1:36 Gratitude — School, Health, and Nerf Wars
9:04 Steph Watch
12:53 WWE — Dirty Dom’s Success and TNA for Sale
43:28 Hot Take Ty — Chance the Rapper’s ‘Star Line’
51:22 AEW — Forbidden Door
1:10:33 What We Missed
1:15:29 Closing

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
And now damage in Fringemen.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome everybody's the Gimmick Infringement Podcast. I am Brad Winchester
and with me as always as my tag team partner
Tyler McDowell Blank and Tyler mister McDowell. How are you
doing today?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Dang hitting me with the mister McDowell to start the episode.
That was completely unexpected. I'm doing well, Brad. It's great
to see you. It was a very positive week week
two of the school year. My goodness, we got through it.
We made it, man, lots of positive, lots of positivity,
lots of momentum moving forward. I feel good today, I

(00:40):
am grateful today, and I'm really excited for this episode.
We're talking lots of pro wrestling, we're talking pop culture.
We got aw for Bidden Door on the Horizon, Chance
to Rapper dropped an album. I watched WWE Triple A
Triple Mania last night. We're recording on a Sunday. We
got the return of Steph. This is gonna be This

(01:02):
is gonna be an amazing edition of Gimmick Infringement. Here
we go. How you doing, I'm good.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I I can't wait to hear your your thoughts about
this album because I had no idea. I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
That will be part of the conversation. Yeah, I actually
have at I actually have a hot take on all
of this. We will get there.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Wow. Okay, well that's that's great. I can't wait for that. Yeah.
It was a busy, busy week, but a really solid week,
and I'm thankful for a lot of it. So, Tyler,
we haven't done this in a while, but we wanted
to start out with a little gratitude. Play the music,
and now it's time for a little self reflection, So

(01:40):
think about yourselves or something, Tyler. I'm so grateful for
so many different aspects of my life, my job. Yesterday
we had a birthday party for Wafray as good friends.
What of your former colleagues, my current colleague, mister Cameron

(02:01):
Doser Dax's birthday, and it was a NERF birthday and
they had all of these inflatable like paintball cover setups
out in this giant field that a parked nearby, and all
the kids had NERF guns. So eight eight, nine, ten,
some of some older kids year olds running around with guns,

(02:24):
shooting each other with these NERF guns and just shouting
at each other. It was you know, teams, and then
capture the flag and zombies, and then it was parents
versus kids. Parents versus kids was awesome. So the adults
we were in vulnerable, we get shot, we don't care.

(02:45):
And then the kids, they get shot, they got to
run back and touch goal and then they could come
back out. And Freya came charging at me, Tyler screaming,
just ah feral, and I grabbed two guns. I had
the X shot that thing with six six nerf darts
in it. Thing kind of kind of terrible. I'm sure

(03:06):
it's a fine product. Did not work for me yesterday.
And then I had this ridiculous one that's like a unicorn.
I kid you not. I think it's called Unicorn Blaster,
and it looks like the last one you would ever
pick on that thing maybe I don't know, six hundred
feet per second, this thing would shoot. You get one shot,
but it's like that thing's coming out as an absolute heater.

(03:30):
And I took a shot from about twenty feet away
while Frey is charging at me, ready for the kill,
and it went straight on and then just sort of
up a little bit, got her right in the face,
hit her right in the face, got a big old
mark on our cheek. But I shot her and she
goes ah oh and then turned right around and ran
back to touch goal. Had to come back out just

(03:52):
like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
A couple of the kids shot me, and I was like, okay, okay,
up with dark and then I'm chasing after him.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
How do you handle Okay, what if I what if
I shoot a kid?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Oh, I'm tagging everybody.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Anyone can get it at that point.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Oh, absolutely so. So all most of the kids I
knew who they were. Some of the kids i'd met
for the first time. But like, there's a name that
I'm not going to toss out here that we could
talk about later that you excuse me, I might remember,
might know his kids were there, and it was It
was a lot of fun. I'd never met them, uh

(04:35):
outside of like they were there were probably babies the
last time I saw them, and now they're like in
middle school. So absolutely crazy, total, total mess. It was
so much fun. It was way too hot, but I
had a really good time. I'm grateful for them setting
it up and making sure everybody was taking care of
and had a good time. And I'm so grateful for
all of my students. Man, Like they I've been asking

(04:58):
them to do things that aren't the most fun on
things in the world, to do uh safety training, psychological
first aid certification, and just doing a bunch of cleaning
and organizing and making the place safe and setting it
up for the rest of our year to make it
a you know, effective, efficient space to work in and
learn in. And they have done it without complaint, with

(05:21):
an enthusiasm, with a readiness and eagerness to learn. It's
been awesome, man, really really cool to just have CTE
and not have to live just in content land all
the time. To have a CTE centric courseload, I guess
has been awesome. So I'm just so grateful for all
of those opportunities.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Well said, I'm also grateful for not only kids, but
these learning opportunities that we get. During the production meeting
before we jumps on the recording here, you and I
were discussing how in order to grow, you know, often
failing is a prerequisite. You have to make mistakes, you
have to come up short before you can learn, before
you can grow, before you can become that person or

(06:03):
that professional you want to. And in our chosen world.
I think of education in this professional context we're speaking of, Brad,
we can often be so self critical because we're taught
to think about what can go wrong, what can possibly
be an error here or there, And sometimes we don't
give ourselves the credit I think we've earned in terms

(06:25):
of how much sweat equity, creative equity, emotional equity that
we put into this thing, all in hopes of doing
good work for the community, for kids and families who
deserve nothing short of our best. So, like you, two
weeks into the school year, I'm grateful for these learning
opportunities that I've had. Some have felt large in scale,

(06:45):
some have felt smaller, but have led me to a
place where I feel like I'm starting to get more
solid footing and my goodness, Brad, if I didn't have
amazing parents, if I didn't have incredible friends, the best
co host west of the Mississippi, I don't know how
I would do this. So I am grateful for the
people I have in my life who make you know,

(07:06):
all this worthwhile, and including our audience for showing up
every Monday or Tuesday or wednesdayre whenever people check out gimmicks.
I'm grateful that we have this platform too. It's you
to have these conversations.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Totally agree man, Like there's I don't know, we have
so much to be thankful for. I'm thankful that it's
only in the nineties today too, And it was already
like I walked out and it's boiling hot. I gotta
tell you something, you know what makes me laugh? All
the news reports about the heat wave in the UK.
Have you seen these?

Speaker 1 (07:37):
I've missed those.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
I've had to do. Like this was like a week
or two ago. I saw This's like, oh, we're having
a heat wave. It's crazy here, heat wave, Like it's dangerous.
Make sure you're drinking, hydrating, all that stuff. And then
they drop the Celsiest number and I'm like, all right,
I gotta do some converting because I don't remember, you know,
eighty two degrees Tyler, eighty six degrees, eighty two degrees,

(07:58):
Like that's a that's fall weather, that's that's balmy, that's
that's downright wind break er time.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yet fall, let's fall break weather.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, I'm hearing like we got a heat wave over here,
and I'm going, oh, thank god, it's only ninety five
ten degrees hotter than the heat wave. And I'm like, oh,
it's nice outside today. It's it's cool enough, it's it's
mid nineties.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Listen, we love our UK audience. But yeah, that's that's
not the number I was expecting.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, I was shocked when I saw it because I
thought when I saw the number, I was like, oh man,
that must be like in the in the hundreds. It's
supposed to be getting dangerous there. And I looked at him, like,
eighty two. That's that's Florida spring break. That's what are
we doing?

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Facts?

Speaker 2 (08:41):
What are we doing with this the time? We got
a lot to get into, including forbidden door talk. I'm
sure we're gonna be talking about that car coming up.
I'm excited for for next week. We know those pay
per views, I always bring it. We're coming off of
a whole bunch of WW news. But I know before
we get into it, we we got we'll got the
two maybe the two most important words here on GI.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
You're a very humble man, Brad Winchester. There is no
way fans or butts about it. These are the two
most important words. It's time for our weekly update, not weekly,
I guess maybe bi weekly. At this point. We didn't
have Steph watch last week. There's no way we could
go two weeks without talking about La Primeira Stephanie Bacaire. Brad.
I don't know if I've shared with you, but I
love me some Stephanie va Kare, as do millions of

(09:30):
other fans. I saw on social media another great week
for Steph on social A picture with c on Punk,
a picture backstage in the makeup chair. Everyone loves La
Primera and this continues to fill my heart. Speaking of
filling my heart, this is a Steph slash Naomi watch.
On Raw last week, the advertised match between Naomi and

(09:51):
EO Sky was canceled. Instead, EO Sky battle Roxane Perez. Surprisingly,
the Prodigy got the win. I lost that match, but
I saw on social media. It has been announced that
Naomi will address the Raw audience this week, fueling internet
rumors that maybe she could be taking some time off, Brad,

(10:15):
We've seen this before. It could be a possible step
into motherhood. Maybe Naomi is announcing that she is expecting.
Hopefully it is not that Naomi is battling an injury.
We don't know what this could be. Maybe it's storyline
related maybe not, but it just seemed odd that the
match between Eosky Naomi would be canceled on the show

(10:37):
when arguably that was the biggest match on last week's card.
So we shall see what happens. Certainly, twenty four hours
after we dropped this episode will no definitively, but if
Naomi is taking time away, we know that the number
one contender for her Women's championship is stephaniebak Heir. If
Naomi is healthy and she's good to go and she
can fight Steph at Clash in Paris, I think it's

(11:00):
kind of a toss up. Personally, I could totally see
Steph winning. I think it may be a dash too soon.
I would pick Naomi in that match. But certainly, if
Naomi is not able to go, for any of the
possible reasons we mentioned, Brad, this could be Stephanie Baker's time.
Before you and I enjoy our fall break, Stephanie Vakaire
could earn her first singles championship on the main roster,

(11:23):
which that would be the biggest moment in Steph watch
history to date. We shall see what happens. Hopefully we
get clarity. Hopefully Naomi is healthy, I would hate to
see her title ring end so soon. She's doing the
best work of her career. I know you agree with
that statement. I also am excited for Stephanie Bacaire because
I think we're on the precipice of her doing the
best work of her career. So I'm excited for her

(11:44):
momentum to continue, and I think she might become champions
sooner than I expected.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
I saw a lot of rumors about what's going on
with Naomi as well, and I'm hoping that everything's good.
I think it was a report that Natalia was concerned
about her health, not concerned about her career or excited
for her health. I feel like that's a weird thing
to say, but like you know, usually people are like, oh, cool,
they're having a baby, that's amazing. If it's like, oh,

(12:12):
I'm concerned about what might happen to them, different story.
So I'm just hoping that everything's good, and if it
is a health related concern that it's a positive one,
like she's going to have a kid, that would be
that would be dope. It would be sad for me selfishly,
because I've been loving this run. So I think that
part would be the hardest part to kind of absorb.

(12:37):
But the return Pop's going to be awesome too, So
all of those things, so hopefully, hopefully everything's good there, Tyler,
we got to get into the rest of the w though.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
I have.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
So many thoughts about this week, not all of them
in the ring, but I'm ready for your question.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
So I seized this Earlier. I watched the annual spectacle
that is Triple a Mania or Triple Mania Trip from
Triple A, essentially their version of WrestleMania. Now, w w
WE owns Triple A as we know, so they streamed these
big events on their YouTube channel. They're being w w wee.
So Brad I checked it out, Omas returned. Natty looked

(13:18):
great in a losing effort. Lots to like about this show.
Mister Iguana and La Yesca faced off against Finn Balor
and Dimonito, which is the demon Finn Balor puppet there.
It was a fun show. I did enjoy it. I
think the biggest winner of the night is someone who
actually didn't even win at all, Dominic Mysterio. We have

(13:39):
to talk about this guy. He received arguably the biggest
crowd reaction of the evening. I was shook. I didn't
realize Mexican fans are in their feelings about VI Kingo
defeating the artist formerly known as Alberto del Rio to
become the Mega Championship. So when VI Kingo came out

(14:00):
and he was booed, I had so many questions. I
go online and find out this is backlash from him
defeating Alberto del Rio, who is incredibly popular in Mexico
still to this day, so much so that fans are
clamoring for him to pop up in this WWE Triple
A partnership. So Dominic Mysterio ends up getting pinned in

(14:22):
this fatal four way that main event of the show,
El Grande Americano portrayed by Ludwig Kaiser versus Dragon Lee
versus Dominic Mysterio versus the champ VI Kingo. Dominic Masterio
gets the biggest baby face reactions of the night, and
AJ Styles ends up interfering.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Funting mixed huge pop for him, and then it turned
on him kind of midway through him. Yeah to the
crowd and they're all booing because they know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, And I brad, I really thought halfway through this match.
Oh snap, Dominic Mysterio is winning this thing, and they're
just gonna ride his popularity into into the fall and
maybe even into the winter. Did not happen aj Styles
at the Styles Clash, VI Kingo hits the six thirty
one two three. But again, I want to talk about
dom here. How did we get here with Dominic Mysterio?

(15:15):
If we think back to twenty twenty twenty twenty one,
the beginning of his in ring career, partnered with his dad,
very polarizing debut amongst the IWC. Fast forward now five
years later and he has not only become an indispensable
member of the roster, but has become a fan favorite

(15:37):
cross continents across the globe. Two part question, how did
we get here with Dominic Mysterio? I think this is
one of the most impressive career turns in a long time.
What do you think, more specifically, is the biggest reason
for his success and where we're at today.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I think there's a formula if you go back like
you can go back to the rock with it. There's
a formula of going like, we're gonna make this person
a babyface and have them be a babyface, and you're
gonna like it because of legacy and all the other
things that we were all rejecting because we were like,
we don't care about this babyface. I don't I don't
care about this babyface. Like we watch Raymisterio earn that

(16:19):
and then you have you know, some kid that the
only thing we knew about him is that he was
in a custody match and then he had blonde hair.
That's it, and now he's wrestling and it's like cool,
we're supposed to care because of the feel good story,
but we only care because of Raymisterio and raymis Sterio's kid,
and that's it. Like that's Raymisterio's kid. That's not dirty dumb,

(16:42):
that's just child the end, and I think him turning.
We were also like, well he sucks though, Like he's
not in intimidating anything. He's not like, I don't know,
he's not really nefarious. He's just cowardly acting out child
who doesn't have a thought for himself because he's only

(17:03):
listening to people in judgment day and there's no way
to identify with this person, right, Like, how could we
possibly identify with this person? So I was watching this interview,
it was about writing and writing for actors for television
shows and having to keep their beats and their timing
and making sure you fit into the numbers and all this.

(17:24):
But they were like, how do you make these shows
where you can identify with a character? And I'm thinking
about it now, going like, okay, they were right, and
where did I see it go?

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Right?

Speaker 2 (17:35):
They were talking about trying to make somebody be mass
appeal identifiable, and you can't do that by making them
mass appeal identifiable. It never ever works. Ever. You cannot
connect with something that's just sort of generally a thing.

(17:55):
You need specificity, And I think simple little things about
Dom's character that became sort of these running inside jokes
made it a specific thing. If we went Dom's a
child and he eats kid foods, like we would be
we would be out. We wouldn't care. What's Dom's favorite food?

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Tyler nuggets.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
He's got nuggets and chicken tendy's, right, not tenders Tendy's,
So you got to call them chicken tendies.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
The actual answer there exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
The more specific, the more specific you can make it,
the more you can connect with a person. Because even
even if it's not about the ten d's or the nuggets,
and I didn't eat those things. You know someone who
had a nickname for a food or call them like
a little kid name for a food where you know,
like little kids add ease to everything because parents do

(18:46):
it too. So we eat some chippies, get some nuggies,
some tend's like we just put that on there and
I don't know cut defy it make it easier to say,
I'm not really sure what that is, but you know
somebody that has said that, or you can identify with
that thing, and now you've connected with that person, even
at an unconscious level, and you start to understand the

(19:06):
character a little bit more. You empathize with the character
a little bit more because we've all been in a
position where we're like, you know, in love in a
one way relationship, uh, or where you're like, I really
like that person, but they they're good or or whatever,
or or somebody somebody maybe you dated them or or

(19:29):
you wanted to date them, and they're dating someone and
you're just like, how is why are they dating that person?
Dom and Rhea dom and Live. It's it's like, there's
an easy way to connect with this character.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Sand Yeah, who is this guy?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
This guy, this is exactly this is crazy and it
doesn't make any sense, which is the the whole point
is we know these things without without acknowledging it, and
then Dom becomes like this, this dirty player that cheats
to win. Eddie started the same way. He's on the
Eddie Gurero track, not the Raymis Stereo track. And it's

(20:05):
awesome because we identify with this person, whether we want
to or not. He's just doing things that we want
to do, like cheat to win, get the girl that
you have no business getting. All of those things are
things that he's doing, and he's eating whatever he wants.
He lives on chicken, Tendy's and nuggets, and uh, of

(20:26):
course I'd love to do that, but like my guts
can't take that.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
So now with these lesson plans, plans are right in
terms of.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
In terms of I'm already thinking about what I'm doing
after this, So in terms of in terms of Dom
uh being over with a Mexican crowd, I think I
think all of those things are true. But you're also
getting this this Latin representation on the w w E
roster as a luchador who's in both worlds. He's, you know,

(20:56):
like he I think he was born and grew up
in San Diego. I don't think that's fake. I'm pretty
sure that, yeah, he reped San Diego, right yeah. But
he's also incredibly proud of his heritage, and so so
he's this like cool representation of both of those things.
He's local, labor libre, Latino, He's he's American, He's all
of this sort of like ideal packaged thing, and everybody

(21:21):
loves him because of of that. Why because they can
see themselves in him. We can see ourselves in him.
And I think it just goes from like, what is it,
what's the Cody line? It's what to undeniable?

Speaker 1 (21:36):
Right, oh yeah right, frondes.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Undesirable to undeniable. I feel like Dom did that same thing,
Cody did that same thing, Rock did that same thing,
because we force fed this thing into the system. When
this doesn't work, killed it dead, found specificity, and now
we're here. And I think when you can identify with
a character that has really no desirable tr rates, if

(22:00):
you want to break it down to find that we
also have those undesirable traits, that's pretty cool. Because Stone
Cold didn't go over for being a bad guy. Everybody
wants to punch their boss. Well not me like I
did at Walmart. I'm not gonna lie. Education is a
different animal. But like everybody's had that career or that

(22:21):
job or that thing where you're like, yeah, i'd like
to I'd like to hit him with a stunner in
the break group, like because you went like, hey, you
punched in one minute early and you're in trouble, like yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
It connected. It connected with the audience and in a
way that very few storylines had prior to that point.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Anyway. I think Dirty Dom
did doing the one to eighty there, and I know
people still don't like him. I still like his His
work is so interesting to me because when they zoom out,
it looks great, and when they zoom in, it always
feels super slow. And I don't know what that is,
but I think it's because he's so tall and he's
doing shor stuff, so it just feels slower than like

(23:02):
Fi Kingo, who's I think shorter than I am, So
everything looks way faster.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Definitely, Yeah, yeah, And I and I have moments with
Dom and I can't tell if this is just because
I'm a hater and and uh, you know he is
his character. Like you said, eat eats chicken, I keep
saying nuggets. That's that's my life, eats ten dyes, plays
video games, holds gold. It's gonna go from dating rear
Ripley and character rear Ripley to Live Morgan to ROXANM Perez,

(23:31):
the roxyam Peesz. So maybe it's just like, as a character.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Did I say live Tyler earlier? I feel like I
said that from Tyler? I hope not.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
I hope.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
I'm just being like, all right, let's.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Live Morgan Roxxan Perez. So
so maybe I just haveinishes with the character in that regard.
But I sometimes I'll watch Dominick Mysterio, especially in recent months,
and I'll think, to myself, Brad, is dominic my stereo good?
I mean, certainly better, He's certainly better than when you
start it. But I'll just have these moments where aesthetically,

(24:02):
in some ways he still reminds me of the original
dom you know, the pants, the swim shirt, that sort
of deal. But obviously the character is so much different
now and so much better the hair, the mustache in
line with a kind of a young Eddie Guerrero. As
you pointed out to me, there are two things. And
number one, you know, Dominic Mysterio working hard, I'm sure,

(24:23):
behind the scenes to really get good at this and
start to step out of the shadow of his dad's legacy,
which which you know is one of the greatest of
all time. Dominic Masteria was paired with great dance partners,
the ladies we mentioned most recently AJ Styles. You remember
that SummerSlam match with Seth Rollins. I think that was
Dominic Mysterio's very first singles match, certainly the first one

(24:46):
on a.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
P l E. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, So you know, if you're starting with Seth Rollins
and then here you are five years later, your one
day yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, because Bud, Yeah exactly. Seth
was whearing the Ray Mysterio set beat Dot Mic Mysterira,
of course, as he should. And then here we are
now when he's working with AJ Styles again, one of
the greatest of all time. I think Number one, it's

(25:08):
great dance partners. Well. Number one, Dominic Mysterial putting him
work to become better at this because he certainly is
in ring wives better than when he started Great Dance Partners,
and then third, as you alluded to, Brad, the character
development of who exactly is this character? And once it
was evident that Babyface Dom was not working, being able

(25:30):
to pivot, and then here we are now being the
face of the judgment day. One could argue so much
so that many fans want to cheer for him because
he's become such an interesting, unique, funny character. I just
didn't foresee this, and I think I was higher on
Dom than most when he first started, so it's kind
of ironic that I've shifted back a little bit. But

(25:51):
I saw the reaction at triple Mania and thought I
would have been completely okay if he left that match
as the new Mega Champion, And maybe that will happen
down the line. But it's clear to me that he's
become not only really unique character in WWE, but again
an indispensable member of that roster. And like you said,
he does bring something different, and he's going to be

(26:13):
a fixture on the summer Slams and certainly Survivor Series,
which is going to be in San Diego in a
few months. He's going to be at next year's WrestleMania
in a prominent match, just as he was here. And
it's been quite the transformation over a relatively short or
five years.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
One of the kids, at some point we're talking about,
like in psychology class, like what makes you? What is
attraction psychologically? What makes a person somebody that you're like, yeah,
I like this person? What's going on there? And one
of the kids, one of the girls, was like, I
don't know what it is, but there's something about guys

(26:49):
when they start chewing gum that makes them ten times
more attractive than when they're not. And I think Dom's
babyface run started as soon as he started bringing the
gum to the.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Ring, that's the thing. As soon as he started with
the orbit.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, you notice, like whatever he's out there, he's chewing gum.
But I don't think he did it when he was
with Ray. Suddenly he's in the judgment day and he's
a gum chewer and people are resonating with this person
for yes, Yeah, it's so strange. All it took was
him and Rhea showing up for Thanksgiving dinner and uh yeah.

(27:27):
Ever since then, absolutely wild man. So Tyler, there are
rumors abound about a potential TNA w W purchase. We
know that after Anthem purchased TNA that the plan was
to sell it or to get a TV deal. We
also know that Dirty Dom is over in Mexico and
people are not having Vikingo holding the title as much

(27:48):
as they were not having him beating Alberta to get it.
Out Of those two things, Tyler Dirty Don being over,
TNA potentially being purchased by WWB, which of those two
coming out of this week are the most surprising to you.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
I'm also surprised that Paramount is going to be the
home of USC UFC. It's one point one billion dollar
deal to acquire the rights to UFC, and apparently their
model is going to shift where obviously, now pay per
view is officially obsolete, UFC was the last major player
in it. Fascinated to see how Paramount is going to

(28:27):
build their identity now to go from this is the
home of ncis Big Brother Live feeds, and now we're
building our streaming platform around having UFC. So that's let's live.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
There for a second. Because we talked last week about
ESPN and WWE having that partnership. Where's the UFC's current
home ESPN, ESPN, Tto Sports owning both UFC and WWE
but only having a deal for WWB at ESPN and
Paramount getting the deal for t for for UFC seems

(29:01):
like weird timing to me where they're just switching brands,
and I don't know if it's because they didn't want
to make the offer. I don't know if it's because
they didn't have the capital to have two different brands
on the same network, both pay per view models not
being pay per view anymore. Because the expense if they
kept UFC instead of ww at ESPN, imagine would go
from the crazy thirty dollars asking price because of the

(29:25):
NFL package to probably like, I don't know, fifty bucks
a month at that point for NFL, UFC and WWE.
That would be crazy. But I was shocked that it
was Paramount. I thought for sure it would be HBO,
which has been a home of fights forever. HBO and
Boxing have been like a partnership for as long as

(29:46):
I can remember, So for that not to be like
WB MAX whatever, Warner Brothers Discovery making a move for
it says two things to me. Number one, they're in trouble.
I know that they've been looking at shopping around again
and trying to sell or merge again.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
And and number two, that Paramount still has a lot
of money behind it and being you know, nickelodeon CBS,
and uh, that's kind of it. Where's that money coming from?
That's crazy to me. Impossible was holding that thing together?
I think this should impossible. Sonic the Hedgehog, top Gun.

(30:28):
After that, it's old people on CBS, And that's kind.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Of right, right, shout out to the old people, I believe.
I recall hearing that ESPN was paying about five hundred
million dollars for UFC and so for Paramount.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
To come in to over double that heat check.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
And go over a bill for this and you and
I a few weeks ago, Broight on air, we're discussing CBS,
Stephen Colbert sky Dance, the Trump administration. It's fascinating to
me that we're still very much where Paramount being the
home of CBS. It's interesting. Okay, we're getting rid of
the Late Show, and we're getting rid of one of

(31:07):
Donald Trump's biggest critics in media. Oh and by the way,
we are signing his top henchmen in Dana White to
this deal to bring Dana White's company over. So I'm
not saying it's completely a work, but I'm starting to
connect some of those dots. It's fascinating to me. I
think for I think for Paramount Brass, this was what

(31:28):
do we do to stay relevant in the marketplace? For ESPN,
they need to reimagine and sort of redraw these lines
to how do we become the big deal that we
were for many years? And for Paramount, what were they
known for? Again? For me, it's big brother live feeds.
But that's about it. If you acquire UFC, even if

(31:49):
you have to overpay, at least you are relevant. At
least you are in the conversation. And now because they
flirted with combat sports before, I remember watching Kimbo Slice
and they would these live strikes. You remember that they
would have these live Strikeforce Specials or Elite X Elite
XC once in a while or quarterly, and that had

(32:11):
its moments, but never really had any staying power. So
now acquiring acquiring UFC and you're announced you're going to run.
I'm not sure if they officially announced it, if it
was just speculation, but I'm pretty sure it's it's it's
legit that they're going to run specials on CBS throughout
the year but then have additional events behind the paywall

(32:31):
where you have to sign up for Paramount Plus for it.
Fascinating move by t KO. Obviously financially they are doing
really well and I didn't even consider that UFC was
going to leave the ESPN family. That was really surprising
news for me last week. But I promise I'll answer
your question because I am. I am most interested in
the TNA aspect of this.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Okay, good, because I'm doing some research here. I'm trying
to figure out shareholders for former Viacom CBS that's the
current Paramount Global. There's people expressing concern, but I can't
find a lot of people in here that I can
point to right now, finding stakeholders, not shareholders. But I'll
do some more research on that because this is interesting

(33:11):
to me.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, at the possibility of TNA being purchased by WWE
that that wouldn't be shocking At this point, I'm really
eager to see who will be the future home for TNA.
Wrestling for Impact on on weekly, yeah, every single week.
Right now, it's yeah, right now, it's behind.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
The t honestly, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if they
backdoored in some language for TKO, for UFC to say
like and future TKO properties should something exist.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Fascinating. Yeah, yeah, they're there. I mean this could be
total speculation, but between you and I and and our audience,
you could mention the CW you could mention any number
of networks TN.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
On Wednesday nights.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Tyler, right, right, that was the only helps the WWE.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, that was the reporting as well as Okay, well,
maybe they'll transition from Thursdays to Wednesdays in a move
to further compete with with aew TNA. TNA fascinates me,
they have for years. You know, I'm a day one
fan of the company. I'm still upset at them for
not crowning Mike Santana in New York. I still i

(34:28):
don't know why I just didn't give up on TNA
right then and there. But here we are, and I'm
still watching. Their roster primarily is made up of a
lot of ex WWE stars, and a lot of their
biggest stars are either signed with w WE proper or
allegedly most likely will end up leaving TNA for WWE.
Joe Hendry right now is still in TNA, yet all

(34:50):
signs point to him solely but surely making his way
as a full time w member roster. Mike Santana could
easily be snatched up by w W whenever his contracts up.
You have Mustafa Ali, you have Ash Biel again startist
formerly known as Dana Brook. You have Masha Slama, but
so you have you have Leon Slater, by the way,
who I think TNA should go hard in marketing. I've
said that so many times on air because I think

(35:12):
he is just absolutely incredible. I'm really eager to see
who they're going to build their brand around, especially if
they get that weekly TV deal. But if it involves
WWE not only owning Triple A but also acquiring the
rights to TNA and this hypothetical this year, that would
be I suppose that would be good for business. I

(35:35):
know Carlos Silva, TNA president, has been giving interviews you know,
left and right to different organizations and speaking to how
important this media rights deal is and how you know
he has been enlisted with further ring the brand and
the business and the reach of TNA. You got Tommy
Dreamer backstage, you got Santino being the on character, on
screen director of authority character. I'm fascinated. TNA still holds

(35:58):
a lot of cachet form, and if WW were to
purchase it, I think that would be a way to
ensure that TENA will be relevant for a long time
to come. I just I want to be able to
watch their weekly product. And if TNA ends up competing
with a Dynamite or they end up going head to
head against AW events, I wouldn't want that because I

(36:20):
want to see everything. I want to see it live,
and I know we're in this era of competition is
what we need, especially on the same night when you
know NXT heat Wave is going up against Forbidden Door
and there's all this counter programming. I just want TNA
to do well, Brad. I want the members of those roster,
of that roster to flourish, especially starting with Leon Slater.

(36:40):
I could totally see a world in wich WWE acquires
the rights to it, for sure, And in fact, if
that happens, isn't it kind of obvious that maybe that
was the play this entire time when they started in
business together.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, not until Anthem got involved, right, Like there was
some stuff with what was his the name, Brett Lauderdale, right, yes,
so so I think he was still there with the
initial I know for the Mickey James stuff, but I
think the initial Jordan Grace crossover, he was still there.
Oh oh we thinking of Scott de Moore, Scott Timore, Yeah,

(37:12):
Scott to Moore, Yeah, Lauderdale GCW and Scott That's why.
And that was also yeah, when they went through that,
when they went through that transition, Brad, they got rid
of Scott the Moore, They act Gail Kim yes reportedly
to beloved figures behind the scenes, and they were still
good and business was as good as efforts it's please
please continue. But that was something where it was like, oh,
is this a sign of a decline in TNA that

(37:34):
they got rid of to two figureheads to bring in fads.
I think I think it felt like, we want to
be able to move without business getting messy. So if
we get rid of people that love this place enough
to get messy, and it won't get that, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
And peep this, We're going to bring in Tessa Blanchard
and you marks are still going to watch and buy
tickets to the live shows.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Experience on the.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
I'm the Mark, Yeah you are the Life experience. We
got to see the Hardy's, we got Setrick Williams, we
got to see Masha and le Yane. It was great.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
But you got to see people that aren't in the company.
And that's and that's where it's it's starting to feel
t t and a n XT is starting to feel
if they buy it, that's to me, the equivalent of
a w R O h uh doing the weird crossover
stuff where it's like, all right, it's NXT, it's TNA,
it's AW, it's R O h which one is it?

(38:30):
We got titles everywhere bouncing around in the companies. There's
no door that's forbidden at all, Like what is happening
around here? And people are like, I can't wait to
see this cross company stuff and it's gonna be awesome.
It's like, it's not cross company if they own it.
It's it's just not like if if ww owns Triple
A and owns TNA, you can't be like these interpromotional No,

(38:51):
it's the same company. It's weird, Like you know, it's
kind of like going and buying laundry Detergent and you're like, oh,
this is for Ree's brand. This is crazy. How'd they
do this collaboration? And it's like all Procter and Gamble
or whatever giant conglomerate owns all that crap. Anyway, So
TKO would have so many brands in their portfolio that

(39:14):
I don't think they'd be able to be stopped as
an entertainment chuggernaut.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
They're getting into the boxing space as well, yes, and everywhere, and.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I would love to see I'd love to see some
other things that we can save that for later. I think.
I think the TNA thing was more surprising to me.
It was shocking to see the crowd booing if I
king go. I had no idea that they had feelings
about Alberta like that, but here we are. But it
was the TNA thing was shocking to me for a

(39:46):
few reasons. And now I'm wondering about, well, the pay
per view Sammy Callahan hanged it up like he boots off,
put it in the ring, and the way he rolled
out of the ring, like the way he moved, I
was like, yeah, I get it. It like he looked
like he was struggling a little bit and maybe it
is time, but it also strikes me too. As you know,

(40:07):
I've watched a little bit of his work over the years.
He feels a lot like the Mark Briscoe of T
and A. And in the sense that I don't know
that he would be a safe bet to have on
a WWE card. I would love to see. He would
have fit in the nineties perfectly right, Sammy Callahan would

(40:27):
have been a huge megastar during the Attitude era in WWF,
which is why I think just for two reasons. One
with his style doesn't fit with w W anymore and hasn't.
And And to his size, I don't know that he's
got a presence that makes him feel a lot bigger.
And then you see him get in there with somebody

(40:47):
big and you're like, oh, this is not a big
dude at all, Like he's he's not very tall. I
don't know what his actual height is and all that,
but I just he's got this presence that just feels enormous,
and his promo work is excellent, his character is awesome.
And all I could think was like, is this because
he knew what was coming? Or is this because he

(41:09):
had to? Because Alberta is not on TV because of
this partnership, allegedly because even Raymisterio when they were chanting
for Alberto, when he was talking, you saw this, right
I did. He said like, just give me time. We'll
get him back, just give me time. I was like, ooh,

(41:30):
all of it, just all of it. So very interesting timing,
very interesting time for wrestling. I wonder what it means
for Tony Kahn and future AW partnerships. And I will
say I think it's awesome that, aside from like referencing
wanting to quit and stuff, MJF seems to be the

(41:52):
only one that has carte blanche to talk about whatever.
Aw has been pretty silent about all of this WWE stuff.
Right before Tony Kahan, you know, would take to socials
and complain about it and we're gonna do it anyway
and all this stuff, and instead it's like, we have
a really good card, We're proud of what we're doing.
We're totally locked in on our stuff because ultimately, that's

(42:14):
all you can do, is like everything else is noise.
If they want to counter program, you can't change that.
So you just do your best with what you got.
And I think it's paid off. Because the show's have
been excellent. I just can't believe how much wrestling we have.
There's so much content. Man, I'm starting to like If
WWE buys out TNA, all that means for me is

(42:36):
I got to figure out when I'm gonna squeeze that
into the calendar too, just because now I'll have more access,
no pun intended access to get into being able to
watch this stuff. So really really interesting, very surprising, shouldn't
be surprising, but I was shocked that it just sort
of appeared suddenly that oh yeah, we're definitely looking at

(42:58):
buying it or buying the rights for them on their
behalf as part of the partnership. It's kind of unclear
how level this is gonna work, but I think this
side of the business is as exciting as anything else
because it's as unpredictable as some of the matches. Well
said so Tyler. We teased it earlier on I have
no idea what this album is. Dare I say I'm

(43:21):
taking a chance on this. Now it's time play the
music for Hot Take Tie. Let's get into.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
It, and now it's time for Hot Take time.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Sportes Brad. We got to discuss this Chance the Rapper
is back after a multi year album Hiate, the hip
hop star from Chicago, released his second official studio album,
star Line, last week. I listened to it. I thoroughly

(44:11):
enjoyed it. My favorite track so far as a joint
called No More Old Men very good. The vibes are
the vibes are back. Man, We've been wanting a Chance
project that made us feel a way. This is it. However,
my hot take is that Chance the Rapper is still
fighting the ghosts from his underwhelming debut album twenty Nineteen's

(44:33):
The Big Day. But I remember the Chance the Rapper
coloring book era, the project where he has the three
had yep, the sort of red, that pinkish red, the
pinkish red. I had the poster in my classroom for
many years. It really became iconic. I remember twenty fifteen,

(44:57):
twenty sixteen when he dropped this how.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Much Spotify right, that was only Spotify, only place you
could access it.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Independent new artists coming up, people of all ages and
backgrounds were locked in and really enjoying this.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I remember it vividly to this day. Again, that was
twenty fifteen, and then in twenty nineteen he releases this project.
He entitles it The Big Day, and it is one
of the biggest debut album flops in a hip hop history.
I hate to comfort for a brother like this, but
it's just facts that it was just critically just this. Yeah,

(45:37):
it was bad. And around this time, there was a
lot of media backing of Chance. He appeared on the SPS.
You couldn't let's do that hockey exactly that era. Yeah,
you couldn't not turn on the TV or go on
on Instagram and not see Chance the rapper. So he
had the media backing. He was a media darling. He
had a lot of grassroots support. And then he just

(45:58):
released a project that wasn't good and it totally flopped.
And now here we are six years later, and I
would argue without the same amount of fan fear or
nowhere near the amount of publicity he dropped. He dropped.
He drops this album. Star like, yeah, I shook you
with it. You were like, oh, yeah, I guess he
released an album. That's it.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
I just added it, just added into the playlist.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
I'm glad you did. It's a good project. Seventeen tracks.
It clocks in at just under an hour and ten minutes.
Tons of guest appearances from Jamilla Woods on the aforementioned
No More Old Men track, which is a total bot
that I loved. There are other features from bj the
Chicago Kid Vic Mensa. This is probably the most well
known track Brad the Highs and Lows featuring Joey Badass.

(46:41):
They released a video for this, I want to say
last year. It's been out for a minute. Of course,
Lil Wayne pop ups on their SMO, so on and
so forth. So lots of really great collaborators for him. Again,
I enjoyed this project, but to me, the hot take
is around I believe that the flop of the Big
Day has really stunted his growth and will continue to

(47:03):
do so. I don't know what it is about that
project or about that era that is so hard for
him to reclaim where he was. But like the sports
teams we root for, Brad, you have a window. Often
the Phoenix Suns had this from about twenty twenty one
to twenty twenty three. Again, teams people we root for,

(47:26):
even even wrestlers we root for. You have that rye back.
Let's say you have this window these years the specified
time where you can be the person. In this case
you can be the guy. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.
Chance miss that window. I'm glad he's back. I'm glad
he seems to be healthy and doing well. I really
enjoyed this project, but I don't think I don't think

(47:50):
it's near the magic of coloring book. And I am
worried as a Chance fan that maybe he just missed
his window and there won't be a project to get
him back there. But this is a step in the
right direction.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Well, you never know, like there's there's there's time periods
where things happen and then I mean, look at Eminem's career.
It's so interesting. You look at his discography and it's like, Okay,
Huge out the Gate, his sophomore follow up Huge. After that,
it's like a little less good. But he but he

(48:22):
had eight Mile in the middle of that, and then
it was okay, this isn't good. This has one good song,
and it's just like I don't know. And then suddenly
he comes back and it's like, Okay, he had an
album this year. He's gonna be a grandfather and he
had an album this year and it was a pretty
good album. You never know, like at least there's really
good stuff on it, and stuff that I appreciated because

(48:47):
Chance is the one that made me go okay, I'm
I forgot how much I enjoy a hip hop. I gotta,
I gotta get back into this because I got sucked
into like folk music for ten years and nothing else
like I just turned up. I can't stand listening to
things on popular songs now were so garbage that it
just sounds like formulaic bs from a producer. And I

(49:10):
did something today on the way on the way home
I haven't done in years, and that was listened to
Lincoln Park Uh, and I forgot how good some of
the stuff was. Even though they're crazy formulaic, crazy formulaic,
it's good formulaic and hearing how they change it up
and what they're yeah, it's the whole thing. But Chance

(49:31):
made me go, okay, this is really cool. That's how
I found Childish Cambino. Like there there was a whole
era in there where it's like, okay, I got that,
and then I have Frank Ocean, and then I got
there was all kinds of stuff that that opened it
up for me.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Just sixteen are.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, there was like a year, four year, five year
run in there where I was like, okay, Kendrick and
Jake Cole and all these people that I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
So Chance was right there though he was he was
on the prescipit completely different than can j Cole.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
But because on this public it is yeah, his fame
and publicity maybe go I have to go check this
guy out.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
I have to.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
It was it was again undeniable. I had to go
check it out, and I was like, this is really good. Okay,
I hate Spotify. Why am I on this stupid app?
I have iTunes not Apple Music? I have iTunes, damn it. Uh,
It's funny. On that note transition out, I was asking
for iTunes to be installed on my all the computers
in the auditorium. Yeah, iTunes isn't a thing. So it

(50:31):
felt felt good being that old that I'm asking for iTunes.
So we installed. We installed Apple Music because that's the thing,
Apple Music, and it kept filming to install. I'm like,
there's no Apple Music on this thing. I did not
know that on at least Windows platforms, not Mac. Apple
Music just takes you to the website and you can
log in and stream your library from there. Had no

(50:53):
idea yeah, Well, I still have iTunes installed on my laptop,
my work laptop for for polling music, and it has
been working very well. And I think I know why
now so really really cool that you could just do
it all on the web. But I was like, what
is happening, whise, what is this? Why I wanted to install? God,
I'm old, I'm old, Tyler, I'm old. I used to

(51:13):
have to just buy albums and not be able to
stream them when I wanted with a subscription model. On
that note, feeling old, get a little long on the
tooth in this episode, let's go into aw talk. Hit
me with your question.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Okay, aw, there is reason for hope. Aw Forbid Indoor
is this weekend, and you're right we shouldn't give up
on artists so soon. Chance is still a young man
and who knows what's ahead. But I still think about
the big day.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
And what I don't know, if forever reaching that now,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah, it was just a different time in twenty fifteen.
But this album is good. Check it out. Let us
know what you think. Let us know here in the
comments on YouTube. Hit us up at you I Pod nineteen.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Tyler Full Circle Aerosmith released a country album. So you
never know what happens.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
You go ahead, you never know, you never know. Never
No aw forbid indoor is this weekend? Brad. I Before
I ask you my ew Forbidden Door specific question, I
do also want to give a shout out to fight
Ful Select. They broke the news that Hook has re
signed with the company. I know you saw that vignette

(52:15):
set in New York doing the bad signal with the
Hook h the show that during Dynamite. At some point
we'll need to have a follow up conversation about Hook
and speaking of reclaiming fervor and and magic and momentum.
I don't think there is a more interesting character in
terms of what's next for them in the company than Hook. Brad.

(52:37):
You remember those first few matches when he appeared on
the scene and we were like, oh, this dude is
a is a future World CHAMPI you had that program
with Samoa.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Joe, tell me, okay, tell you that's the answer, tru
we go.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
But but congrats to Hook on resigning, re up and
with the company. I am I am again just fascinated
to see what is next for him as a character
within a w But just want to make sure we
note that here. Now here's my question though, for forbidden
to it this weekend. Like you said, the card looks incredible,
should be a very very fun show from overseas. Who
is in more danger of losing their title this weekend?

(53:12):
Kazuco O, Kada, Timeless Tony Storm or hang in at
him Page.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
That's a tough one. It's a really tough one. I don't.
I don't know that they pulled the trigger on Alkada
right now. Maybe, Man, that's tough. So I was looking
at the card. I have it pulled up here because
we have the steal cage match, we have the tag
team match, and we have Kadaver Swerve. I don't think

(53:41):
Athena will take it right away. I just I just
don't know if they'll do that. But if they do,
you know, I'm here for it. Where does Timeless Tony go?
Maybe maybe this is where maybe Mina gets involved and
turns on her. I don't know. Maybe that's a good
program going out of that. I have absolutely no idea.

(54:04):
I don't think there's any chance that MJF is beating
hang Man this time around. I just don't. I think
it's gonna be a great match. But I also think
that that page retains I just after that, you gotta
have them have a pretty good run here, and we
know that they're pretty good about, like you know, not
having a very short main title run, World championship run.

(54:26):
That being said, Athena Tony Storm is probably gonna be
one of the two best matches of the night. I
think Swerve Ocada is going to be a great match.
I don't think it'll be one of the two best.
I think it'll be top three, maybe four. I don't know.
It's hard to know. Danger Wise, I'd say it's it's
probably Okada being in the most danger, and then after

(54:49):
that it's it's Tony Storm. I don't know. Tony's had
such a long run. God, I don't know, man, I
don't know. My answer is coin toss between Athena or
Swerve winning.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
The vibe I get. The sense I get is that
all of the champions in this question will be favored
to win by the time Forbidden Door Day rolls around.
Kyle Fletcher for sure is retaining the TNT title. The
Hurt Syndicate probably are the leader for which champion could
answer this show and leave without their titles. Whether it's Brodido,

(55:26):
probably not FTR, but if Brodido beats FTR on Dynamite
to qualify, we've forbidden door. Could absolutely see Brodido winning
that match. They have a lot of momentum, they're super fun,
and they've really caught something special. The audience really really
loves those two guys. For this question, Brad, I agree
with you. Hangman seems like the locke out of these
three options to retain. They tease swerve battling, I think

(55:52):
a knee injury. They tease that during the segment between
Okada and him on Dynamite, So to me, that's maybe
a sign okaycation. You know Okada is going to take
advantage and win that match, and then, like you said,
you have timeless Tony Storm versus are forever ROH Women's
Champion Athena, And my thought is Athena would probably drop
the ROH Championship before she officially becomes AW Championship. I'm sorry,

(56:17):
the AW champion, right, Yeah, So I would say it's
Okata in this scenario, I would I don't think Ocatta
is losing, but I think he has a greater a
greater likelihood of dropping his title than Tony Storm does
on this particular show. And Athena has lost a lot
of big matches on AWTV, so I kind of near

(56:41):
that question of can we afford another major Athena loss?
But I have to believe at some point she will
be crowned. However, I think that'll be after her time
and Roh is done.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I just wonder if it's it's the right move to
have her win, take the belt and be a double
champ forever champ, aw champ. And that's the match with
Mercedes at all out and now we have multiple belts
versus multiple belts. That would be like, that's exactly it

(57:15):
the battle.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
On Dynamite, which is which is pretty fun that.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, which which would be an easy which would be
an easy turn right by the time we get there.
It's like that that would be so much fun because
it's like, I don't even know how you parcel that out,
but it's just like the Battle of the Belts is
just one match, and it's those two. I would be
so here for them closing that pay per view.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Do you I totally forgot to ask, do you think
Mercedes is dropping this weekend? In that four way match
Champ doesn't even have to get pin to lose. Do
we crown Alex Windsor.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
That would be the best way to do it for
her because it protects her unless she eats the pin.
I don't see that happening, but I don't know. I
don't know just who's the TBD. We don't know yet, right,
so it kind of it kind of just.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Fourth one.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Yeah, we have Alex Winzer Persephone and then somebody from
stardom and I don't know who that'll be the only
one on there that I can also say, like would
be kind of fun. Is Takahashi beating Kyle Fletcher and
having a run in aw for a while. I know
they've done that before. Didn't they do that with Shabbata
before he signed or Koto Bushi before he signed. I
can't remember. It was the early like maybe before leading

(58:25):
up to the first Forbidden Door. I feel like something
like that happened. Maybe they didn't win a title, but
they were around for a while. Zach Saber Junior had
that Roh run and he wasn't with the company, so
I can see them doing something like that. Yeah, that's
why I was so confused. I thought he was signed
because he was constantly on TV doing promos and it's like, no,
he's just just doing a thing.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Now that we talked out, there are a lot of
title matches on this card. Kyle Fletcher. Kyle Fletcher is
a lot to me. I don't I don't think he's
losing a match.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
First, No, I don't think so either. I think it
very fun. I'm just saying I don't. I don't think
he's losing. It would be It would be fun and
being realistic or things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I
think it would be awesome if could you imagine if
Nigel beats sax Aber Jr. No chance it happens, but

(59:13):
but well maybe there's a chance that it happens. I
think that would be ton That would be so fun
for Nigel towards the tail end here to be able
to go to New Japan and do some work. I
think that would just be super cool.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Are we sure MJF has zero shot of beating hangmap Page?

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Oh? Never, zero? Okay, just highly unlikely, I think. Okay,
I just feel like the Hurt Syndicate is gonna get
somehow involved in cost Max. Oh, because I also think
Max might end up costing the Hurt Syndicate.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Oh wow, okay, grit that story.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, you may as well, because they haven't had a
blowoff or anything. They just got the thumbs down and
not anybody.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Max Max is the Tide Max Max will Jacob Freedman's
type of character where he may seemingly forgive, but he
does not forget. Yeah, and I don't need someone's.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Getting because he hires some help because you know he'll
never trust anybody as a tag team partner ever. Again,
thinking that, yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Is this is this where we get Ward though back?

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yes, that's what I was saying.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Any possibility. This is the lingering question of every GI episode.
Is this an avenue for Wardlow to return? Is this
a storyline where wardlobe? Maybe we miss it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Well, we know he's ready, but he got pulled to
film something. So they're like, why I bring you back
for creative if you're gonna be doing American Gladiators And
that's totally get that. Man. I love this stuff. This
is so much fun to try to figure out. It's
like a big puzzle, but like it's like nine puzzles
scrambled together and there are a thousand pieces each okay,
straight up there and they're all just the ocean, all

(01:00:41):
of them. Okay, So my question for you, uh, con
bear with me. John Moxley showed up to Roah Tony
Kahan doesn't like the work reportedly of New Japan Star
Evil Forbidden Door came flying together and there are a
lot of AW only matches on this card. Tyler, how

(01:01:05):
forbidden are you feeling about this Forbidden Door?

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Not as much as I have in years past. That's
hilarious how you phrased that, By the way. I'm just
and I think I expressed this last year in the
lead up to Forbidden Door two K twenty four. For
a while, I just haven't been sure of what the
Forbidden Door show is, what it's supposed to be. I
remember initially it was very much the Supercard and New

(01:01:30):
Japan's Best versus aw's best. And to your point, now,
it's a lot of AW versus AW, as evidenced by
the three matches that I framed in my question, completely
AW versus AW. And then we get integration on some
of the lesser promoted matches, if you will, Although that
steel cage match should be epic and the women's TBS
title match should be fantastic as well, not as forbidden

(01:01:54):
as I have in the past. The card has come
together well enough for me that I'm invested and I'm
excited to see the show. But I've just had to
remind myself this is not This is not the same
idea forbidden door that we were presented at its inception,
And that's okay. As long as the storylines are good,

(01:02:15):
as long as the entering matches are gonna be fun,
I'm okay with that. I just shouldn't compare it to
what it was in its inception, when it was, you know,
the champ John Moxley versus a new japan star in
the main event and let's see who wins. And frankly,
at that point, a lot of those matches were easy
to pick in my opinion, So I don't know that
I love that either, because I knew John Moxy wasn't

(01:02:36):
gonna lose in the main event of the show versus Now,
for a lot of these title matches, granted I'm referring
to many of them being AW versus AW, I genuinely
feel unsure about who's gonna win. Mind you, I made
the case for Hangman to win and Okada to win
and Tony Storm to win, but there's always that little
seed of doubt where, well, you never know versus historically

(01:02:59):
when it's been a Star versus New Japan Star. My
vibe going in is, oh no, the AW Star is
going to win the majority of those ballots. So not
feeling as forbidden as I have in years past. But
I don't know that that's inherently a bad thing, because
the show has just evolved and has just been presented
in a different way than it originally was as this

(01:03:19):
again New Japan versus AW. Now we're also integrating CMLL
and which is great. Zach Saber is still popping up,
which is always a blast.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
I think it's all great. It's just again, this is okay.
You hear so much about filmmaking and people having superhero attrition,
and James Gunn I think encapsulated it really well. He's like,
I don't think we have superhero atrician. I think we
have like our superhero fatigue. I think we have bad
movie fatigue. If you make interesting movies, people will show

(01:03:49):
up to them. But if you don't, of course you're
not gonna want to see it. Just make good movies
and problem solve thinking about Superman and watching the back
behind the scenes stuff of just making choices and as
an actor and how do you convey this emotion? How
am I going to do this? And them kind of
arguing together on set, not in a your right, I'm

(01:04:10):
right kind of way, it's like a how do I say?
A collaborative effort to get to the right thing, and
they got there, and they both later on were like,
I think that was my favorite day with a director,
her favorite moment with a director, and it was like
a tense we got to figure this out and then
they got there and that scene was awesome in the film.
I think that that passion and making it good is

(01:04:35):
something that's really difficult to do consistently and all the
time when it's the blend of sport and theater and
an aw especially the pay per views more of a
reliance on sport and less of a reliance on theater
because it's the payoff of the theater along the way, right.
I think if you do too much of this surprise

(01:04:56):
part of it before Forbidden Door, having CMLL and New
Japan matches instead of CMLL and New Japan's stories leading
up to Forbidden Door, we end up with Forbidden Door fatigue,
and we get to this point where it's like, I
don't really care how it was built. I've seen it
and I've seen a lot of it. So when we

(01:05:16):
go like we're actually gonna have these promotions face off,
I think the first one they did a great job
of building it up slowly, of going like wow. And
also we didn't you know, if we weren't watching New
Japan regularly, we didn't know who these people were, these wrestlers,
these characters. It was like, Okay, I've seen Zach Saber
Junior pop up and promos, usually New Japan promos. That

(01:05:37):
was most of the way that I can see my
New Japan was like all the social media promo work
after matches and stuff. That's how I learned about switchblay
Jay White, who maybe he comes back, maybe he's healthy
for this, and that would make the most sense in
the world. I don't know. There's so many avenues here,
but I think because we got Roh was its own
thing during the first Forbidden Door, Tony Kh hadn't purchased

(01:06:00):
yet or was about to whatever. So Roh showing up,
that's a big deal. New Japan's a big deal. We
have all of these companies that have been working with
them all year. We saw a bunch of well I
did you left a bunch of CML matches at the
AW event R and CML after the main shows were over,

(01:06:23):
and it was awesome. But also, if we've seen them,
it makes it really hard to get excited to pay
for them. Even if the match is going to rule
and it's going to be different and all of the
positive things, I'm not excited to see those things because
I've already seen it. I'm excited to see the card
in the matches, but I'm less excited to see the

(01:06:44):
cross promotional part. If they just incorporate GCW or MLW
or PWG or any of the other number of smaller
promotions ASH, if they could get them to come up
on that card, imagine how cool that would be. Now
you suddenly got these characters that have shown up in

(01:07:05):
AW at some point more than likely. But Matt Cardona's
here representing something else. I don't have no idea. How
is he not signed anywhere, by the way, still baffling
to me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's I have no answer for
that he thought most fah Lei at TNA emergence. He's
been popping up on TENA programming consistently for the better
part of a year at this point. But yeah, there
have been times where I definitively thought, oh, he's gonna
stand with AW or oh, he's definitely gonna I mean,
how many times if you and I predicted he's gonna
pop up in the Royal Rumble and yeah, that he's

(01:07:36):
gonna be a mainstay because you know, his wifey Chelsea
Green is there and is flourishing, and it just hasn't happened.
It's it's very strange and brad to your point, We're
also living in an era in wrestling now where it
felt to me as a fan that AW was kind
of breaking new territory with that first Forbidden Door show.
I think you even got the poster for that show.
That was a great Yeah, that was a great pull

(01:07:57):
on your part. And then slowly, but WWE started doing
that in this new era of wrestling, and you know,
they brought in TNA and now with Triple A, they
announced the World's Collide Show in September. Triple A WWE,
it's gonna happen that the Thompson Max Center UNLV Jones,
So w W started occupying some of that territory in

(01:08:20):
terms of presenting the idea of a Forbidden Door show,
and I think in some cases even did it better
than ADW. Quite frankly, in terms of the bill to
the show. There have been some Forbidden Door pay per
views where I felt like, I don't know who these
wrestlers are. I don't know why I should care about them.
I know the match is going to be good, but yeah,
why should I invest in who they are? And in
some case AW has done much better, But there have

(01:08:40):
been some bouts where I felt a little bit, a
little bit not as not as excited as I expected
to be. But with that being said, Brad, let's not
forget I'm quite sure this was just Forbidden Door. Last
year in twenty twenty four, that show that card gave
us Stephanie Bacaer versus Mercedes money, Yes, and my life changed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Everything changed at that point, every everything sessional wrestling changed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
After the sun, the sun got brighter for me, the
the a in my background. Of course, everything changed at
that So there have been moments that have been seminal
to my enjoyment of wrestling from this specific show, and
for the reasons you said, this card looks looks pretty great,
and I think we're gonna get some big time moments
from it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
And I think it's cool that to your point, we
get to see the reason that I love this pay
per view is because they get to showcase talent I'm
not familiar with, and that makes it super exciting for me,
absolutely because we never we never know if we're going
to get another moment like a like a Stephanie. I'm
still convinced that like a w landed like an absolute
whale with with Tekla that people are just probably not

(01:09:49):
quite where I am right now. But I just think
that she's going to be a huge star for the company.
And she's already making uh making an impact both physically
and literally, you know, like figure satively and literally, like
she hits really hard the the Tekla JM Hater match
at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
I just for sure once once Jami Hater's back.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Yeah, I miss her, man, I just miss her. Wrestling
is not as good without Jamie Hater in it. There's
there's a hole in the TV shows and in my heart.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Me too, me too. Yeah, I can't wait to have
her back. She speaking of people who were at a
peak and now we're waiting to see them return to
that status I have. I have much more confidence in
Jamie Hater than chance to wrap her at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
How about that, Maybe maybe she kicks in that forbidden door.
We'll see, Tyler, what do we miss?

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
I have one item. It's going to be a little
bit different, Brad. I want to give a big shout
out to my former college advisor. When I was at
U of A and Tucson, I was blessed to meet
the amazing Renee Schaeffer Horden, a longtime journalist turned j
school advisor, and I would not have been able to
graduate college without all of her support, Brad. Now she

(01:10:58):
runs a sub stack, which I said ascribed to so
her words come out every Thursday. If you search Swing
for the Joy again. Her name is Renee Schefer Horden.
She put out a substack last week, so basically you
get kind of these journal entries or these long form
articles from writers on this substack platform, and this is

(01:11:19):
where Renee is writing. The most recent contribution from her
was titled what Long Love looks Like? Subhead especially in
the time of Trump, and so she reflects on her
marriage and how much she loves her husband, and how
they've been through different stages of their relationship, and now
what it's like to be in a loving marriage in
this age of lots of questions and existential worries. She

(01:11:43):
reflects even on her own health and how that's been
through various phases in the last few years. But Brat,
she has a part of this entry that really hit me.
And she reflects on technology, and she writes, quote big
tech wants us unhappy because it keeps us scrolling searching
for that tiny dopamine hit addicted, the addicted to the

(01:12:05):
computer in our pocket. Those in charge of big tech
know their products produce unhappiness because most of them will
not let their children have smartphones or social media before
the age of sixteen. And then she references a former
Facebook executive who told an audience at Stanford he has
quote tremendous guilt about he or she has quote tremendous

(01:12:27):
guilt about helping to build a social network and that
his children excuse me quote aren't allowed to use that shit.
Final point, tech oligarchs don't want their families to suffer
from the drug of quote not good enough, but they're
thrilled to make billions off our families addicted to the

(01:12:47):
comparison slash optimization drug. This is no big deal if
you're talking about weighted bests or ice cream makers, but
is far more critical when speaking of relationships. I love
me Renee Shape Reward, and I recommend everyone check out
her blog her substack again. It's titled Swing for the Joy,
and it made me just think about Brad continuously, my

(01:13:09):
relationship with technology and the work we do, and how
tech and social media has allowed us to begin friendships
and relationships with people we've never met before. But also,
I don't know if you're run into this, Brad. I
know I certainly do at times. It's really easy to
get into that comparison game. Yes, And how can I
just really just strip up joy, strip us of the

(01:13:34):
joy we find in our lives. So shout out to
Renee for those beautiful words, and I hope you you
all consider checking out her work, beautifully said Renee, and
I hope you're doing well out there. Go Katz bear down.
That's all I got, Brad, What did we miss?

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Well? Hopefully a confirmation email. I just signed up for
the substack.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
Let's go, Renee. We got you one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
We out here now we're going free. Okay, you know
I'm a teacher.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Okay, she appreciates that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Yeah, of course, Well we'll see how it goes. Five
bucks is fight full money right now. I don't have
a lot. I already brought it up, Sammy. Sammy Callahan
has called it a career. But I sent you the
I sent you the video.

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Dan Housen and CM Punk did a vlog together on
Dan Housen's blog. It is really interesting. I don't know
what that means for Dan Housen's contract with aw I
imagine that doing something with CM punk is fine, given
that they're they're kind of a lowed carte blanche to
do whatever. But that's the one that's the one talent

(01:14:35):
in particular that I feel like gets you cut. So
we'll see what happens there. I doubt he's going to
be back on aw r HTV anytime soon.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
They brought him back for a hot second and then
he disappeared, and I don't understand why. The only thing
I can think is that there's some like some bad
things happening with that relationship. It seems to be that's
what happened with several of the talent once once Punk left.
Worked out for him quite well, but I don't know

(01:15:05):
that it's working out for everybody else involved as well.
It's not like it's not working out for Ricky Saints,
but you know, we haven't seen Dan Housen in a
very long time outside of the one appearance, so so
I don't really know. But it's also the same with
Jack Perry, so I don't know. So outside of that,

(01:15:26):
I'm sure there's other things, but Tyler, I don't have.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Well. Please be sure to follow us at gipod nineteen
across the social spaces for exclusive show updates and much more.
We thank you so much for tuning into this episode.
We'll see you next week. Gimmick Infridgement is a part
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(01:15:50):
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