Hogan’s Character, Late Night Bribes, A Triangle of Madness, and SummerSlam — WWE, AEW July 21-27 - Gimmick Infringement

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
And now Campage and Fringemen.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome everybody to the Gimmick in French with podcast. I
am Brad Winchester with me as always as my tag
team partner Tyler McDowell. Blank and Tyler. It is Sunday.
Next week is a very big week for the both
of us. How are we doing?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah? Man, it's the last GI of July. It is
back to school season in full effect. I'm grateful, I'm excited.
I'm excited for all that to come. We got a
lot going on. We are just gonna start our days earlier.
I gotta be on campus at seven thirty in the
morning every day, not like leaving, but like actually like
on site, ready to talk and listen at seven thirty.

(00:45):
So it's gonna be an adjustment. These are good problems
to have. I feel blessed, I feel grateful and them.
I'm really excited for this particular back to school season.
How were you moment?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
You know, I'm doing really well. I'm physically, I'm I'm
very tired. Mentally, I am probably more tired than I
want to admit. And there's a long road ahead, but
I'm really excited. I was looking in the production meeting
I was. I was checking my rosters because I haven't
seen him since they got re re re updated. This week,
as registration happened at the school, there were a couple

(01:19):
of kids. I was like, Hey, this kid can't be
in my class. You got to move them out. They
put him in my three four, but they'd never taken
one two things like that, and I was like, I
really like that kid. I don't want to kick him out.
And also they were an ap psych they don't really
need to take the intro class. But you got to
make things work right, So there was there was a
lot of like who is coming and how many kids

(01:40):
do I have? And did my numbers go up or down?

Speaker 1 (01:43):
And do I have enough desks?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah? Do I have desks at all?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
These are important questions.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Those are those are those are real questions. Will the
sync work? All kinds of things that that we have
to question. And for those of you who are going
like why why would you have a sink in a
psychology classroom? Rest a shirt? It's not in there, it's
it's elsewhere. But this is a big week man, they

(02:10):
say that's coming three. You know, we get it. We
get him in threes. The first one was a was
a was a definitive blow to my childhood. Malcolm Jamal
Warner passed and that one, that one hit me, That
one hit me. I don't know how you took that one,
but that one was like a oh man, I can't
believe that. And then Ozzy. We lost Ozzy Osbourne shortly

(02:31):
after the Ozzie concert and it kind of felt like,
you know, this is this is it. I'm gonna go
do this one last thing and then I'm I'm ready
to call it quits. I get to be with my family,
my friends, the the the entire you know, musical world,
and and then he's gone. And then for us here

(02:52):
at GI a wrestling centric pod, we got to talk
about the passing of one Hulk Hogan. You know what
happened last week. And people have talked about this ad nauseam,
people that knew him, fans of the business, given their
opinions about the person. But with Tyler, I'd rather spend

(03:13):
the time talking about Hall Cogan, the character, the character
who was much less problematic than the person. The character
of Hull Cogan. Probably, I don't think there's there's much
of an argument here to be made. Had the biggest
impact on the wrestling business of anybody ever. You know,
you could maybe go Stone Cold, you can go The Rock,

(03:35):
but I don't know that we get to that without
a Hull Cogen being in the mix, especially considering that
that Stone Cold and The Rock were sort of a
response to Evil Hull Cogan over in WCW. So those
things just all kind of perfect storm together. But we
don't have what we have today without Hull Cogan and
Hulcamania and the leaning into the over the top character

(04:00):
gimmick being transcendent of just the wrestling business. My my,
you know, early memories on what was it called. It
was like Saturday Superstars or something that would air after
the cartoons were over, we'd have like Looney Tunes and
obviously reruns. I wasn't born in the forties, but we'd
have Looney Tunes, and then we'd have like Tom and

(04:22):
Jerry or or whatever else. And and then after that
we'd either have like a like a sports show. It
would be like the Weird Triple Threat cartoon show, or
we'd we'd end up seeing a mad Rashad or we
would get wrestling. And I can't remember what came at

(04:42):
what time but that's that's the only time we had
wrestling content before before we had the Monday night wars.
Because we didn't have Monday night shows, we had the
Saturday morning interviews, and then if we were lucky, we
got to see it super late Saturday and some random
channel out in the ether, maybe it was TBS, but
we didn't have cable, so we would catch what we

(05:03):
could in the morning and it would be Mean Jean
interviewing Hull Cogan, and we'd always wait for the interview
with Hall Cogan to come on, or up Breathless Macho Man,
Randy Savage to do an interview, and maybe we see
Jake the Snake or or who have Junkyard Dog or
you know, all these great characters from the eighties, but
you know, the only one that really really stood out

(05:24):
and it was like I walked away from that was
hul Cogan. I wanted to rip the shirt, I wanted
to get the bandana, the whole thing. And then seeing
him and Rocky was like, oh my gosh, who is
this This this guy is a wrestler. Though I saw
him on Saturday morning, it was just so cool. I
was definitely a hulkamaniac. Tyler, what are your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
So, my more formative memories watching Hulk Hogan were after
he turned when he showed up at Bash at the
Beach and aligne with Scott Hall and Kevin and Nash.
He was third Yeah, he was the third man. I
was obviously aware of Hulkamania and that Red and Yellow era.
I loved the theme song and of course totally bought
into saying your prayers and eating your vitamins and all that.

(06:10):
But really that Hollywood Hogan and WO character, that's when
my love of wrestling really started. I have so many
memories watching Nitro with my dad and Hulk Hogan and
the nWo of course being the centerpiece. But in terms
of the pop culture influence and how like you said,
only was Hulk Hogan in Rocky three and in commercials

(06:32):
and in other less successful movie projects. That character was
just so ubiquitous. It seemed like he was in so
many aspects of pop culture in the eighties and nineties
and even yes, and then even into the two thousands,
again when my love of wrestling really started blossoming. When
I think about Hulk Hogan specifically, the character element wrestling

(06:57):
perhaps not unlike education a field and I know, well
or any other career fields that are our audience, you know,
possibly works in Brad. There's this element of you having
to be chosen. So Vince McMahon and the powers that
be chose Hull Hogan, helped craft this character and selected

(07:19):
the person who would be the vehicle to really launch
the company and wrestling. As you pointed out, my friend
launched wrestling into a new stratosphere. It's not this weird
thing that some people are into. It became super mainstream.
So I also think about the power of being chosen
and how usually there's a boardroom or there's one figurehead

(07:39):
who decides who is going to get that proverbial push
at a workplace, and it happened to be that the man,
the person, Terry Boleya was given the hul Cogin character
and was given that push and just given all the
resources of the company on his back and thus had,
as you pointed out, one of the more storied careers

(08:03):
in professional wrestling. You said it, well, I don't know
if we would get to the point where we had
a character like a stone Cold had we not had
the influence and the success of the big business of
the whole Cogan character. They're still selling whole comanium merks.
They were still before his passing, before the tributees, they

(08:23):
were still selling Hull Hogan. Church Brad, I'll tell you
at our new teacher onboarding for our district, they he'll
be proud of me for this. I quickly, I quickly
became the wrestling guy in the new fifty teacher cohort.
Of course, he says, yeah, I quickly became that person,
which is actually kind of a badge that I wear

(08:45):
with honor. But I had several colleagues who asked me
about Hull Cogan's passing last week and said, hey, are
you going to do something to honor Hull Cogan with
your students in the coming weeks or how do you feel?
Are you? Are you at all?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Look like I'm just I'm thinking about like what would
you be? Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
They were the aesthetic of the classroom. And and there
was one there was one gentleman who's some a well
known basketball coach in the area. He did just pe
and we were in the hallway and he said, hey,
did you hear about Hull Cogan. I was like, oh, yeah,
yeah I did, And he goes, oh, man, the Hulkster
like this was. You know, he clearly a pro Hulkokan
guy and clearly, like us, has childhood memories of watching

(09:28):
this person. It's interesting to me that either people aren't
aware of the outside of the ring it's that transgressions,
or maybe, as you and I discussed I would say,
pretty on a quarterly basis here on gimmick infringement, the
do we separate the artists from the art conversation? Because
I had many people this speaks to what you said, Brad,

(09:49):
the way Hulk Hogan resonated and his reach and entertainment
across the globe I had. I had several different people
last week ask me about Hulk hoaging ass from my thoughts,
and the vibe I got was they remember him pretty
positively as a character and thought that I would have
more of a visceral reaction. But I didn't. You never,

(10:13):
you never, you know, wish wish someone's life to end?
Of course not, but he and we're speaking specificly about
the character. But you and I both sometimes find it
hard to separate the two. There is no doubt, which
my colleagues validated last week, the characters reach in a
pop culture and certainly in a pro wrestling sense, it

(10:35):
is undeniable. And the whole Colgan character was one of
the most successful acts in professional wrestling. There's there's no
denying that.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
I think. I think to your point, it's it becomes
really difficult to separate the art from the artist when
the artist uses the gimmick to make money and promote
things and do that. It's like Terry Belea didn't go
to the Republican National Convention, Hulk Hogan did. And that's
that's one of those things where it's like I just
simply would never do something like that. You know, if

(11:06):
if The Rock we're going to promote something, he'd probably
go in there to promote it, if it's not something
he owns or something like that, probably as Dwayne Johnson
or Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and not just the Rock
because now you're associating a character with with something else.
But especially the older time, you know, like the the

(11:27):
old time he wrestlers. I guess we'll call them people
that probably had their heyday in the eighties. Though those
folks seem to sort of live the gimmick, even though
you know the way that Sergeant Slaughter interacts on Twitter
is as Sergeant Slaughter, not as I don't know you
didn't even know his name, Steve Johnson, Like I have
no idea what his name is. But like these these people,

(11:49):
these these men and women are ultimately they're they're they're
they're actors. But it would see from the as we
see from the the Rick Flair, I think it was
the thirty for thirty, his his life became kind of
blurry where it's like, well, where does Ric Flair, you know, start,
and where does Rick Fleer stop? And uh, where do

(12:10):
those where do those people become characters? And are they
characters or do you just end up accidentally method acting
your whole life? And I don't know that that's not
the case with with hul Cogan, who I think just
sort of became hul Cogan. And it's interesting. I think
I think, I think professional wrestling is this unique space

(12:34):
where you know, if if you were out in a mall,
let's just say you're out at a mall, if those
exist and you're you're walking around and you see Mark Hamill,
you were You're gonna be like, holy crap, I just
saw Mark Hamill. But you're not gonna be like, I
just bumped into Luke Skywalker. You're not gonna make that mistake.

(12:55):
You're gonna, you know, like your your favorite actor in
a movie. You're not gonna call them by their character
the name. You're gonna be like, oh, that's that actor.
You know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be like,
I can't even think of anybody right now, but oh,
there's there's Tony Stark over there. Not Robert Towney Junior,
the person, the human being. But I think, almost unequivocally like,

(13:20):
nobody's going to be going, hello, mister Lopez to seth Rawlins.
You know, it's just gonna be that's no, that's seth Rawlins.
And I think wrestling is this unique space where the
person and the character become intertwined, and then the culture
has a hard time separating those two things. I don't know,
the Rock might be the only one to successfully sort
of separate those things out. I can't really think of

(13:42):
another example of a wrestler being able to do that.
John Cena, maybe he's done a pretty good job. He's
doing press for her peacemaker now and and doing that
and when he's not talking in a wrestling capacity. He's
pretty good about going like, yeah, the heel run has
been fun, and we're just doing a lot of good
work being a bad guy and all this stuff. And
it's like, oh, man, I can hear the wrestlers from

(14:05):
the past getting real mad right now, but being able
to separate art from artists. I don't know that you
can with Hull Cogan all that well, if you go
past his wrestling career.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
I also wonder about the seeds the messages that were
planted by the hul Cogan character for us impressionable youth,
especially the young men, about two topics about masculinity and
about Americana an American pride. You know that those two

(14:38):
elements were central to Hulk Hogan. You are muscled up,
you want to become the world champion, and you love
your country. Right. I also think about and you're.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
A person of faith, do you say your prayers?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
And you say yes? And and up until his last days, Definitely,
like you said, Brad, a lot of the the T shirts,
if they weren't Comania related, they were very much religious
and Christian based. And it's when we're talking about this
because I found myself last week when I didn't give
you this answer earlier when people were asking me my

(15:14):
thoughts on whole cochin and in real time in person, unprompted,
I found myself going to the Yeah, he has a
complicated legacy, but are we using that terminology to cover
up saying he's a multi time racist champion of the
World who also slept with his friend's wife and you know,

(15:38):
so it's even it's it's unfortunate that, as you pointed
out Terry Bullaya, the person really hindered the whole Cogain
character's legacy, whether it's Jesse Ventura's accusations of union busting
and just all these transgressions right that we could review
and sift through. But it's unfortunate that that ended up

(16:02):
unfortunate for him and his legacy, that that ended up
really impacting how a lot of fans view hold Hogan.
If there is no other evidence than the January sixth
WWE raw launch on Netflix, right, we spoke about it
on air thatt Man and Jimmy Hart sadly.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, poor Jimmy took a streke.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Poor Jimmy is the sadly got booed out of Inglewood. Yeah,
I loved it. I think it was even a candidate
for Gutbuster of the Week byby gut Buster Baby gut
Buster of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it was hilarious.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
But perhaps this is also a I don't want to
say a warning sign because that's very much like, hey,
don't get caught on camera. Brother, got to watch out
for the cameras. But it's really a warning to anyone
in the media space or any celebrity where your life
is documented now and the way you treat people, the

(16:55):
way you seek redemption or maybe you think redemption is
not or yeah, or it's a good tagline, but I'm
kind of living my life the same way. You have
to be extra careful and bless thing I want to say, Brad,
you so astuteley pointed this out. Blessed with the best
co host there is, obviously, Terry Bullaya. The man was

(17:16):
still using Hulk Hogan the character in his public appearances.
There's Hogan's Hangout, his restaurant in Florida. There's the Hull
Hogan Shop also in Florida, I think in clear Water.
His infamous appearance at the Republican National Convention last year.
As you said, it was in the Hulk Hogan character.
He cut a promo on the biggest political stage. You

(17:38):
did the t shirt ripping and all that. So Hulk
Hogan was in the zeitgeist for maybe a record amount
of time, and as a fan watching him as a kid,
it's really unfortunate that the man revealed himself and showed
himself in such a way that it hindered my fandom

(18:01):
of that character. I think you're a fandom as well. Yeah,
and a lot of Yeah, a lot of other wrestling
fans because he for many folks is on the Mount
Rushmore still is, but he's not online. But the character man. Yeah,
it's all the money that was made, all the tickets
that were purchased. The Sea Hull Cogan simply body slam,

(18:22):
Simply do a lay drop, simply clothesline, and then also
provide these messages to impressionable youth about what it means
to be a man and what it means to be American.
There could be a whole dissertation on the marketing, the career,
the placement of these messages. Say your prayers, your vitamins,

(18:42):
saying your prayers. Inherently, we're a Christian country that's inherently
kind of embedded in a lot of what we do
and who we are as a people. It's fascinating to me,
it's absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
And to your point, for those of you that don't know,
that are listening or watching that don't know what Tyler
was referring to with the the apology, the insincere apology,
it was after the sort of the racist diatribe leaked
and went public, there was an opportunity, which which is
just saying something. Vince McMahon gave Hulk the opportunity to

(19:15):
speak with the crew to set the record straight and
apologize and really, you know, fix the relationships. He broke
back there by by saying these things, especially to the
black talent, well really only to the black talent. And
he didn't. He he apologized basically for getting caught and
and and said, you know people are listening. Just assume

(19:36):
everybody's listening. You don't want this stuff to get out.
Instead of saying like, yeah, I made a mistake and
I won't say this kind of stuff. It's you know,
and then put in the work. He didn't do any
of those things, not apology.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
That's part, yeah, that's the part that was lacking.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
There's I can't remember his name. There was a there
was a NASCAR driver that it's very similar circumstance that happened.
I think he's still racing and you know, grew up
in this mouth and it was like pretty common around here.
And I think you just used it, got caught in it,
and then went out did a sincere apology, ended up
starting a foundation, has put in a whole bunch of work.

(20:12):
I think he's learned from it and grown from it.
But like you got to put in the work, and
you have to know that not everybody's gonna forgive you.
And none of that happened with Hulk, and I think
ever since then, forget the Gawker thing that was that
was wild and and fairness to him, like he was right,
like that was nobody should be like new should not

(20:34):
be publishing stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
It was. It was simultaneously the rise and led to
the fall.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy, but but I think for
for him, you know, sending mixed messages of the Christian
thing and the say your prayers and take your vitamins
and I'm a real American buy my beer, by the way,
I'm going to get hammered in front of a camera
and say, who wants to see me body slam a woman.

(21:03):
It's it's that kind of stuff where it's like this
is just this is real bad.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
And you're also taking peds And that's a whole separate
episode of GI How do we feel about athlete to
do that?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
And it was flatly lyne.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
It was a different time. But I can go. I
can go to my local La Fitness all I want,
but there's no way that I'm going to look like
you and have the twenty eight inch pythons or twenty
four whatever. Remember he said, if you have the advantage
of on the side, you are also taking steroids.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Look looking at him as peak Haulcamania, right like when
he originally I was there. They were showing clips the
other day of his first walkout to Real American and
when he wrestled Randy and he's like he's like biting
the thing he's got like the towel and he's got
the bandana on. He just he looks awesome. He's just
so big and swollen. And then you go ahead, not

(21:56):
that many years after that, I'm sure it's probably like
a decade, but seen his debut in w CW where
he's like half of that, still an enormous human being,
but like half that size, like a normal sized person.
And then all the well, yeah it never took stair rhids,
Come on, get out of here. With all of that.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
It was a different era, we get it. But yeah,
and whatever, Still the deception, the deception is right. Yeah,
and and Brad, I don't know that I really did
this justice with the nWo talk. It is impressive that
you go from this whole Comania act, huge deal, one

(22:36):
of the biggest acts in the history of wrestling, and
then your next move is Hollywood Hogan nWo, which even
supersedes the Red and Yellow ho Comanian obviously Hollywood Hogan
being the face of the nWo. Yes, ud Scott Hall,
Yes you had Kevin Nash, but we need a figurehead,
We need the silhouette that everyone will recognize.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
There were the outsiders and he was the inside, right,
Like that's what makes exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
People are still writing books. Shout out to Mark Ramandi.
He shouted us out on X. I got the book
from my dad. My dad really enjoyed the book. How
the New World Order Changed America. There are still books
being written about the nWo. You and I have seen
this firsthand. There are still people wearing nWo merchandise. There

(23:23):
are so many podcasts that have the nWo font, The nWo.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Is esthetic so many.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
And the nWo has The nWo has not been active
in north of twenty plus years. That's also interesting to
me that the nWo arrived at such a critical time
and culture and still, somehow in twenty twenty five is
still very much present and by my last account, still
does well on the WWE shop in terms of merchandise sales.

(23:54):
People are still people still love themselves the nWo, that
whole counterculture id in. Would the nWo have reached that
level of popularity and been that iconic if the whole
koking character turning villain is was not the figurehead of it,
I don't know that it would. It was an epic moment.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, I think it would have been good, but it
I mean it would have been it wouldn't have been.
There's no comp The closest thing that you could even
come to is The Dark Order without Brody Lee.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, there's there's no Companies have tried to replicate some
of that magic, but the nWo was just lightning in
a bottle.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
But as a trios, those three would have been fine
on their own. The problem happened when they just blowed
it up and it was like three quarters of the
roster was in the nWo and then they had to
split that, and it was supposed to be a brand
split and we're gonna have an nWo show in a
w CW show and I and it just never happened.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
And you don't you don't invest in younger talent. You're
just focused on propping up these three guys and you.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Meat Glacier wasn't going to do it for you, right.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Okay, Right, It's fascinating disco disco.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Shane Helms though though he was there, Hurricane Helms loved
him there, loved him a w W Bill Kidman. Yeah,
there was, there was Rave raymis Stereo. There's a lot
of talent there. Uh, de Malenko unfortunately, you know how
people leave earlier. Dean Malenko, Crispin wa Eddie Cuero all
came out of w CW, but they all w CW.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Pre Women's Division.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Perry Saturn, Yeah, very Sadden.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Of course. Sometimes I look back at those cards, or
I'll watch it on Peacock and I'm just shocked at Wow.
Thankfully we've come so far and we get multiple women's
matches on bigger shows because.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
And matches, matches, putting matches. It's John panties matches. Yes,
like actual women's matches that are awesome, often better than
the men's.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well said Well, complicated legacy, for sure, but we also
have complicated politics in America. Tyler politics not politics. Maybe
it's budget cuts, pal, I don't know, but we're going
to get into it. It's time for what happened here?
We'll call it CBS Slash Paramount Edition played the music.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
What happened here? Brad Winchester, What is happening with the
CBS network? Paramount, the network's parent company, settled the lawsuit
with the Trump administration earlier this month. He mad for
written about this, agreeing to payout sixteen million. That's what

(26:53):
the Capital m sixteen million dollars following the President's criticism
of alleged malpractice when editing an interview with then presidential
candidate Kamala Harris for cbs' signature Sunday program Sixty Minutes Now.
The network has also announced that the Late Show with
Stephen Colbert will end next May. What's happening here, Brett

(27:16):
Number one.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
The part that I think is important is that Paramount
made a public statement before doing the settlement that we're
in the right, we stand by what we did, we
did nothing wrong, we will not waiver. And then they settled.
They settled as the sundance agreement for the merger with
Paramount is going through right now and it has to
be approved federally before it can happen. This is absolutely

(27:40):
a bribe. This is the most bribe obvious thing in
the entire universe. It's a bribe. And what's one of
the conditions that could easily be associated with the bribe?
Get rid of Colbert. Colbert has been critical of me
and my administration the entire time. Get rid of him.
I wonder what happens next, what happens with The Daily Show,
John's Stewart and Comedy Central. Now John Stewart's comments about

(28:03):
the Late Show, which I have thoughts about in a second,
the Late Show, he is completely right about having, you know,
the Late Show, the highest rated show on the network,
the one of the most longest, one of the longest
running shows in the world. It's been on for almost

(28:25):
thirty years since Letterman took over or started it, and
it's just going away. And the reason that the valuation
of the company part of it is it was built
by shows like The Late Show, and financially, the Late
Show has two hundred staff members. They lose a lot

(28:45):
of money every year to make the show, so it
really is a financial drain to produce the show in
an era where we don't have to tune in life
and there are other options, but like clips and doing online,
things do really well. And that's where I experienced most
of the late night TV stuff. I see clips after
the fact that never I haven't tuned in live to
a late show in years.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I was gonna ask about your relationship to late night TV.
Did you ever have so?

Speaker 2 (29:10):
I absolutely, Tyler So. I did not like watching jay Leno.
I thought Jay Leno is overrated. I thought he was
formulaic and boring.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I thought that was my mom's favorite. I grew up watching.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Uh okay Ja. I was gonna say this, it's fine,
it's fine. He had good segments. He had jaywalking, he
had jaywalking, he had the little uh like newspaper clipping gimmick.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, that was my childhood.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
I just couldn't stand though, like, here, I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna put my hands in my pocket, even though
if I've been performing, you're not supposed to. Here was
a little joke and Bob's head. I just did something
like get that out of here. I hated that stuff
so much and just watched him going like this guy
just seems fake all around. Flip the channel over, uh,
and like maybe this is all sullied because of what

(30:05):
that man did to Conan.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
My guy, Cony, that's right, that's right, You're a coning guy,
a huge.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
So like the whole Tonight Show thing to be like,
I'm getting out of the way. Conan O'Brien deserves this.
I'll never get in the way of this. And then
him taking a show and wanting to move the They're like, cool,
we'll give you eleven o'clock. We're gonna shove the Tonight
Show down half an hour, Like.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Brad, do you remember how big of a deal that was?
That was? That was feud of the year. Of course,
I and Late Night just does not matter nearly in
the same way no as it did back then. It
was a launching point for a lot of comedians now,
the Shane Gillises and yeah, yeah, other other people in
that space who are emerging. I don't know that there's
a desire to even do lean it anymore because Special

(30:50):
on Netflix and pop off exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
The Tonight Show was like, I don't know, Jimmy took
over and it was really good. I just don't I
don't care about it. I haven't really cared about Tonight
Show ever. I was excited when Conan took over because
I was like that guy who had carte blanche with
the Late Show. Oh wait, no late Night, excuse me

(31:13):
late Night. So Conan had Late Night after Letterman. Letterman
had the Late Show, So David Letterman got the Late
Show after you know, Johnny kind of talking to David
about taking over for him at the Tonight Show, and
the plan was always going to be David Letterman to
the Tonight Show, and then it just didn't happen. They
gave it to Leno and Letterman was gutted. So CBS

(31:37):
created that show for David Letterman to be a direct
competition with NBC's Tonight Show. It's the only reason it exists.
So after that show, they added the other one. There's
been The Tonight Show, and then they had I can't
remember what the name of it was, which was more
of a semi serious, sit down interview show that went away,
and then it became The Late Late Show with Craig

(32:01):
Ferguson to start off with or excuse me, Craig Kilbourne,
and then Craig Ferguson. Craig Kilbourne the original Daily show
host before John Stewart. So Conan was there doing totally
different things, completely different things. And the thing I loved
about it was that it seemed like the people that

(32:21):
were there as guests were free, and in the other
shows they all felt kind of buttoned up and like, oh,
I gotta do this thing. I gotta and I just
love the freedom in that. I always thought Conan would
take over for Letterman, but Letterman was still going at
the time, I believe when the Tonight Show opened up
and they were like, yeah, we want to get you
over there. So they played Surrender as Conan's intro show

(32:47):
and running from New York to la it was great
and six months and they were like, get out of here.
The ratings aren't good. And it's like that was around
the time you know, like Jimmy Kimmel had started up
Carsonal Carson Daily was following the Late Show or Late
Night excuse me, went Late Show, Late Night I think,
and then Carson or it was Late Late Show, and

(33:10):
then Carson I can't remember what channel he was.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
On, and then TBS eventually struck that deal with Conan
and it was like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna build this.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, after he wrote so the letter writing thing from
Conan O'Brien is something that I still use in the
classroom on occasion. Well I did when I was teaching English.
It's Dear People of Earth is how we structured it.
And was like, I'm not gonna sabotage the time slide
of the Tonight Show, which has been set forever to
capitulate to this. I'm just gonna bow out. They can
just have it back. And that's what happened. He left.

(33:39):
It sucked that he left, but he eventually went to TBS,
and I loved I love Conan, and I thought that
show was pretty good from the stuff I watched and
never watched it. I was kind of done with Late Show,
Late Show's at that point anyway, just because streaming was
starting to take off and there were just other options,
and I just it's like I wasn't watching it more.

(34:00):
And I think seeing the death of the Late Show,
from Stephen Colbert being guest host on Daily Show, to
the Colbert Rapport after the Daily Show, which lots of
people didn't know what satire, to him taking over Letterman's
old show, to Jimmy Fallon who took over for Conan
eventually going to the Tonight Show, Like all of that

(34:23):
has been just so interesting to me, the dynamics and
all of this, But the war is over. There's no
war for late night anymore because nobody cares. And I
think that sucks. If they did an in studio show
on a streaming platform that was new every night, kind
of what you know John Oliver does once a week

(34:45):
and can do it on Max and people can watch it.
It's a once a week show that's a late night
talk show essentially. That feels like probably the move from
here on out where you do a Graham Norton thing,
but over on the BBC across the pond you have
that there's there's one or two other options, but it's
like it's not like here there's just too much going

(35:07):
on here. So I got a lot of feelings about it.
I'm sad for Steven. I'm sad because that part that
show was just going away after you know, thirty years.
And last thing I'll say, because I've been talking forever,
is I used to in the summer, especially on days
like today when it was really hot, I would sleep
in my basement and downstairs in my basement. This is

(35:29):
high school college. First couple of years, we didn't have
air conditioning, so it was like ten to fifteen degrees
cooler down there, muggy and damp, and pill bugs probably
on the ground and stuff a little roly polis everywhere,
but whatever, dude, a pillow, a sleeping bag, and an
old TV that had an antenna and the turndial for

(35:50):
channels one through thirteen, and I could turn it on
channel three and I could get CBS really clearly down there.
So my summers were spent watching Letterman and and Conan
until the like three bars came up after the national
anthem would play until like programming later on. That's just

(36:13):
how I ended my evenings in the summer. So it
was like a huge formative part of my life. It
probably informed a lot of what I think is funny.
Paul Schaeffer on Letterman is why I don't like fake laughs.
There's there's just like a lot of that stuff that
just sort of became embedded into my whole being. So
seeing Stephen Colbert treated kind of like this, maybe it's

(36:37):
a bad product of timing. Maybe maybe he just said
the wrong thing at the wrong time, or maybe he
said the wrong thing in its punishment. I don't know. Well,
we probably won't know ever, but it sure seems like
he's punished, and the whole show was punished for this
for budget cuts, Pal, there's too many things happening with

(36:58):
the federal government. There's no any oversight because the Supreme
Court got rid of it because people voted for a
giant federal government under the guise of small federal government.
Which is crazy to me that the federal government has
all this power now brought to you by the party
a small government. And I don't really know where this goes,
because it's like systematically removing free speech as we look

(37:22):
at it under the well, you can't be critical of this,
it's like, but it's free speech. That's how this works.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
So I don't know that is how it works. Conspiracy
tie is also in full effect. The right to a
free press is such a foundational element to all of
this and to our society. And CBS, I'm fascinated to
see how the rest of this year and even into
twenty twenty six, certainly when The Colbert Show is going

(37:50):
to be ending heading into that summer, how this is
going to play out for them as a network, because
even to this day, Brad CBS is viewed as really
a bastion for solid to great journalism. This network is
host to Face the Nation every Sunday with Nora O'Donnell.
I'm sorry, no, with Margaret Brennan, my apologies, who is
one of the sharpest journalists you know covering politics. And

(38:14):
I think all the networks are thinking about this, but
particularly with CBS and settling this lawsuit. Like you said,
even though them standing on, we don't believe we did
anything wrong, but we know that this is just a
means to a greater end with the FCCM, with Skydance.
I'm just eager to see how this plays out for

(38:35):
CBS and more over, what this means for journalism. As
a former journalism student, I remember these lessons we would
learn in class and really how the nuts and bolts
to how to do this work. But more over, this
understanding that here is this responsibility maybe not unlike teaching.

(38:55):
Here is this larger societal responsibility you have as a journalist,
which in summary is to hold those in power accountable
to the people. And if that's potentially being eroded, that's
something that I really care about and think of. And
I have previous classmates who are still in the industry,

(39:17):
and CBS is going to be a really really huge
litmus test for what does journalism look like over the
next few years.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
How do you think what do you think the reaction
fallout if anything, because there's been nothing. I think Stephen
Colbert took the bullet for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
I think here yes, because my guess is that there
was an a scathing text or email that ended up

(39:48):
going to Paramount Execs about the South Park episode that aired,
which was just Chef's Kiss. It was. It was really
funny because people were like, I can't believe that would
allow this. Why didn't they vet this and do all
this stuff? It's like, did you not see? Like was
it six days to error, eight days to air or
whatever it is. Have you seen that documentary, Tyler?

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I have not, No, No, I've been following the headlines,
but I've not seen it myself.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
So I believe it's on I want to say it was.
Maybe it's not on Netflix anymore. But it's about how
they create episodes in South Park, and they do it
in a couple of days. Each episode is like written, drawn, animated,
recorded all of it in a week, like one week
from start to finish. They do all of it in
one week. So people like they had this grand plan.
Like even the season twenty seven trailer that Paramount asked for,

(40:38):
they made a trailer in like a couple of hours
with all this stuff happening in it, and they're like,
we're not doing any of that stuff. They needed a trailer,
so we just made a bunch of stuff happening. It's
nothing to do with any of the episodes, because it's like,
we don't do that. We do it right away, so
we have instant, immediate relevant content when we make an episode.
So that's why it's like this thing can happen and

(40:59):
then they can immediately pivot into here we go. We're
gonna take big shots at this person.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
We even thought about it with our whole coging conversation. Yeah,
in the production meeting, we were thinking, Okay, this is
days after Hulk Hogan's passing, how do we how do
we handle this? But then also think about the immediacy
and making sure people can access our thoughts and yeah, yeah,
it's I did. I didn't know all of this about
Parker and Stone in their calculus, the immediacy is a factor,

(41:28):
of course.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
And that's your point. That's that's the point. It's like,
it's it's immedia. It's not planned. It's not like they
had a premeditated, year lung plan to create art that
will target something that just happened. That doesn't make sense
unless they're you know, pre cogs over there. This is
this is one of those things where I don't know
that Paramount can do anything. And I think it's called
sky Dance Sun Dance earlier, because that's going to be

(41:49):
a mistake I make forever. I think. I mean, it's
come on too many dances. I think if they react now,
they're reacting after the fallout of Colbert, and it's going
to be like further fuel for the fire of no,
you're just capitulating, right, So if they react negatively towards

(42:09):
South Park, it's going to be a bigger public backlash.
If they do nothing, then it becomes kind of clear, like, oh,
you're only doing this because and then it's like right,
and it's screwed because of this?

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Does this affect viewership in any way for CBS one
of the big historically it has a big banked Big three,
Big four networks. You still have from CBS Brass you
still have or we still have very valuable properties on
the network Big Brother. All this has not stop my
love for tuning in for Big Brother. You have Survivor.

(42:43):
Of course, you have the network television shows, which I
don't really mess with as heavily, but Big Brother, Big
Brother is my jam every summer. So as a network,
is this a sign of where CBS is heading into
the future or is this going to be a situation where,
you know, during the the next three years of the administration,
maybe they're a bit more calculated and careful. What does

(43:06):
this mean for the future of sixty minutes, You've had
staff of CBS openly leave due.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
To the head of one of that creative had sixty sixty.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Minutes, right, which has been the journalism program for decades.
So it's all fascinating to me, Brad. I'm really eager
to Yeah, I'm really eager to see how CBS if
this ushers in a new era for the network with
some of their budgetary decisions and their vision for what
programming looks like, or if it's going to be business

(43:36):
as usual. And as you pointed out at the start
of our segment, we had to get this done, but
we still stand ten toes down on reporting truth and
holding those in power accountable, even though the sixteen million
dollar check perhaps doesn't align with the business we claim
to stand on. I'm super eager to see where all

(43:59):
this goes. I'm glad we at a j school moment
because sixty minutes, like we in school used to study
this as being this is the program that we look
to in the I don't write like the exempt the
program for generations for me when I was in school, Brad,
for my parents. I wonder if we're ever going to
reach a stage where sixty minutes is on the chopping block.

(44:19):
I'm not ready to say that, but I never You've
never even imagined that it would be in question. We
shall see.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, it's strange because the complexity of the networking stuff.
Now CBS is CBS paramount. You know, even ABC is Disney.
It's it's Disney, it owns ABC, ESPN, who lou all
all that stuff? And even they, I guess, have been
financially struggling, are looking for buyers and merging in with
other companies. You know, you go to HBO Max is

(44:51):
now HBO Max again instead of Max. Thank god. This
just always bugged me about it, Like I like calling
it an HBO, but HBO is an HBO anymore. HBO
is part of Warner Brothers Discovery. It's not even its
own thing. It's just an entity. So is CBS really
even CBS? Who's controlling that now? And if sky Dance

(45:12):
takes over? Do they pivot? Do we? Do we get a?
Does UPN become the CW does? Does does TNA pivot
to impact? Is CBS going to become some other thing?
Because you know those letters don't really mean anything anymore?
The title does the logo does CBS to me? Does?

(45:33):
Does a fifteen year old care about CBS, NBC, ABC? Fox?
Maybe Fox? Because Fox is a word and not an acronym,
you know.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
So I don't.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
I think that's what also did in the because because
we have a few different branches to this conversation, going
back to what you said about late night, I think
that's also what did in or what is doing in
late night television. Is that the demographics for the audience.
I don't believe it's skews younger anymore. Brad and celebrities,

(46:03):
you remember when we were growing up and when a celebrity,
when a movie star was going to go on to
press run to promote the movie, the most important stop
was late night. It was it was Letterman, it was Kimmel.
I know, Trevor Noah obviously emerged in this space as well.
And now there's just such an influx of podcasts and

(46:24):
alternative media that simply didn't exist in two thousand and five,
or even wasn't nearly as popular in twenty ten as
podcasts are in twenty twenty five. So even the necessity
you got ones ever, absolutely can make infringement. The necessity
we are available, our dms are open at gipod nineteen.

(46:47):
The necessity the vision for late I was pretty good,
right for late night television, A production team, yeah, police
production team. It's completely shifted, and there are still talented
people in late night. And then really think about, as
you pointed out, the staff that are affected, right, you
mentioned two hundred people on staff for Late Night Stephen Colbert,

(47:09):
we assume is going to be fine.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Yeah, at least land On, Yeah, it'll be great, one
hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
He was had a million, multimillion dollar contract for his staff.
You know, I don't know that we always speak to
what does this mean for folks when a team leaves
a city, when a show ends. Okay, we're thinking about
the star players, you're thinking about the host, but what
about what about the staff behind the scenes. I know
that's close to your heart with the work you do
in theater, think about all the people that make productions

(47:36):
and make shows happen, So of course thinking about them
and obviously hoping those those talents land on their feet too,
and that we protect journalism because I think it's really important.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
So I'm looking at this. I believe there was the
writer's strike, and then I think when I can't, I
can't remember if it was when he moved to Late night,
Conan paid for his staff to move and paid for
his staff throughout the writer's strike out of his own pocket,
just to take care of those people. I imagine Colbert is
thinking about these things. Granted they have an entire year

(48:09):
to figure it out. That's entire year to find a
new landing spot and hopefully bring a lot of those
people with him. I'm sure all of that is on
his mind and on the cruise mind, and the writers
and all of those other things will figure it out.
It'll be fine. Last thing I'll say is, like, you know,
the networks. I do think there's a cachet with these networks,

(48:31):
especially when there's history attached to it, or we wouldn't
care about what Tony Shavani says about the first time
on TBS or the first time on TNT or whatever.
This week, in fact, when he brought up on this
very network about hul Hogan debuting and changing the landscape
of professional wrestling, I thought what he said. I meant

(48:52):
to put this earlier, but I was thinking about it
in terms of a network. Him talking about the landscape
of professional wrestling changing forever because of TBS, t n T,
because of Turner networks being able to broadcast shows. We
got Nitro. We got, you know, to a lesser extent,

(49:13):
we got thunder, but we got we got, we got
the Monday Night Wars.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Yeah. Still to day.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
I can bring up glature again if you want, take
taking that the time to say, like, hey, remember you
know people are complicated and and he he said everything
we were talking about without saying it at all, And
he brought up his family. Our thoughts are with the family.
You have no idea what they're going through right now.
And you know, watching people publicly dunk on Hogan or

(49:45):
or more in his passing, or just have conflicted thoughts
about him going out. I don't know that seeing Tony
Shavanni for me, uh, somebody who grew up watching it
on that network, on a three letter network, Tony sav say,
you know, are our best wishes, our thoughts, our prayers, whatever,

(50:05):
go out to his family for what he did for
the business, sitting behind the seat with those letters in
front of him from where it came from. I just
hope those letters matter. And Paramount has done a damn
fine job of making those three letters not mean anything,
and I hope that. I hope that changes.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Well. I think it's time for us to pick up
the vibe of the show, Brad. And there is one
way for sure that I know we can do this.
The two most important letters letters. No, that's not what
I want to say, the two most important words here
at GI. I can make it forringement. You know what
time it is. Let's get to it. We're just building suspense.

(50:47):
We are, we're gonna I think the computer's buffering.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I'm not really sure what's happening.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
But why always the buffering at the most important stuff. Okay,
here we go, Brad.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
And it's just it's just going on loop down, it's
just playing. Maybe that's what happening.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Maybe that's what we did, Brad. You know how we
you know how we do it around.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Trying to play it, Tyler. This is egregious production.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Are we embracing the mess? Lunch? Okay? Later, you heard it.
I heard it, the people heard it. It's time for
Steph watch. We saw the highly anticipated rematch between Stephanie
Bakair and EO Sky on Raw last week. I was
not ready for it, Brad. I had no idea this

(51:36):
was going to happen. Awesome match.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Totally missed it.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Okay, damn Predictably, once again, there was no decisive winner
due to interference from Chelsea Green. I did see that. Yeah,
that's expected, but at least we got and then they
got EO and and Steph got time as well. I'm
sure we're going to have a third match for them,
hopefully with the decisive win. They're at some point, but
as of this recording, La Primira does not have a

(52:04):
match at SummerSlam. I predict that will change. It's giving
maybe a tag team with Nikki Bella, maybe a six
woman match. One can hope we will see what happens.
All signs point to vakre versus Naomi, assuming Naomi wins
this weekend at SummerSlam, which we'll get to at September's

(52:25):
clash in Paris, I'm sorry, not September. At wwwe's clash
in Paris on August thirty first. Hopeful that happens. We
know either way, La Premira is the number one contender,
but hopefully we get her on Summer Slam's card, and
hopefully we'll see her as soon as tonight on Monday
Night Raw Brett, I want to talk WWE. Are you

(52:46):
ready for my question?

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I am ready.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
We're gonna get right to the point how would you
assess the build to the first ever to Night SummerSlam,
More specifically, which match or furthermore, which matchups are you
most excited for this week? And it's a really big deal,
is it not?

Speaker 2 (53:06):
It is a big deal, And I don't know that
I have a specific match that I'm most excited for
right now. I have to actually pull it because this
too many events. I feel no, I think no, I
truly so much. I mean this, there's there's so many events.
We just came off of a three show weekend for WWE,

(53:27):
with an aw event obviously in there too. But when
you have a three show weekend and then it's only
is it even four weeks? It doesn't feel like it.
Maybe it is, and I'm just crazy, but like it
feels like it's three No, that was at this point.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Maybe I was just gonna say that that was July twelfth,
that's Saturday. So we're recording on July twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
And and we're going into this and it's like, I
just feel like they they didn't have it planned out
where let me rephrase it, they had two nights planned
out and that's what they have out, and that's kind
of that's kind of where it ends. So we're getting
some of the fallout from that, Like we have winners challenging,
you know, Jade and Tiffany. That's because of what happened earlier,

(54:12):
and we have some other stuff. But like, I don't
know how up you are for Randy Orton and Jelly
Roll against Drew and Logan Paul.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I had a.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Feeling no interest.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
I have no interest in that. I am. I am
hurt for Drew McIntyre that he has the team with
Logan Paul. I have zero interest in that match.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
I'm the only one that's really been building forever has
been Sammy and Carrion like that one's been an ongoing
thing for what feels like six months. I'm curious to
see how that goes, because every time he wrestles, people
crap on his wrestling, and like, I don't I don't
get why, Like you know what he is, you know
what he's gonna do. He's not in there to do
flips and stuff. He's in there to be a killers.

(54:59):
Think name was Killer C for God's sake, Like not
not flippy cross, not not like uh poison run across,
like you'll need that. But I think that might be
a really fun juxtaposition in styles, and it's Sammy's aye,
so it's probably gonna be awesome. I'm the most curious
to see what happens there. I don't know if it's

(55:21):
the match I'm I'm I'm looking forward to the the most.
I'm not really looking all that forward to Johnson and
Cody Roads. I don't care. I've seen it Gunther and
see him punk, however, that one, I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
See him punk, see him punk leaving Jersey as champ.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I kind of hope not. But I also like, what's
this run been for Gunther so or at all? Since
he's been really been champion's viewed with Jay for eight
months and then win the title, beat Goldberg, and uh
now he's fighting him punk. I don't, I don't. I

(55:59):
feel like they've forgot how to book Gunther as soon
as the Intercontinental title was off of him. It's like
they that level of booking and presentation was like, like
he's an unstoppable force. It was Miro level TNT run
unstoppable Force, and now it's just he's a guy and
he happens to have the title and he gets some

(56:21):
big moments, but it's not whatever, but I think Seampunk
and Gunther are gonna put on a good one. Johnson
and Cody Rhodes will be It'll be fine. It's a
street fight, so it's gonna be a bunch of outside
of the ring bs, Tom Fleury, stuff Solo so a
Co and Jacob Fatu is probably the one, uh, outside

(56:42):
of the Triple Threat Tyler, It's got to be the
Triple Threat, Naomi Ria Eo. It has to be that one.
It has to be. It's the It's the one for me.
But I am really looking forward to seeing Punk and Gunther,
and I'm curious to see what happens with Sammy z
Ain and carry across.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
This could be a case of my expectations being so
low for this show.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, it's rough man.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
That there's nowhere to go, but that we may be
here next weekend. We dropped record on Sundays, drop on Mondays,
shout out to us, and I am going to be
much higher on SummerSlam because I don't feel very excited
it is. We have some rematches you mentioned tonight, Booty

(57:25):
is crazy. Uh, we saw Cross Insane just wrestle on Raw.
If I'm not mistaken, great great look for them to
be on this card. Happy for both guys to me,
like you said, the people's main event for sure is
Naomi versus Eo versus Rhea, Cody Rhoades versus John Cena.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
The money saw it though, Like I feel like that.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yes, the Money match of the weekend needed the stipulation
they're wrestling in a street fight. If I'm not mistaken, Yes,
it needed that stipulation because there was no way you
were running back a simple in ring contest between Sena
and Rhodes. Based on how WrestleMania concluded, we could get
a Travis Scott reappearance. Dare I say the Rock could

(58:13):
show up to do chance that I'm not gonna get.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
We're gonna have Travis Scott with no explanation show appearance
with the belt that doesn't make sense to the same
song on repeat again and then it's just like just kidding.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
If I don't make it to g I next week,
you you you know why can't? Something I'm thinking about
is a question that's swirling around in my mind. I
can see him punk afford another big loss.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
This would be another title match. I I I'm gonna
just say with my chest, Brad, I think Gunther is
beating CM Punk if CM Punk becomes champ in WWE,
I see him taking the big belt. I see him
with that title Cody's holding. I don't see him in
all respect to Gunther. I don't see see him Punk
being that champ. What is it the world World Heavyweight Champ.

(59:03):
I see see him Punk having the belt with a
big w on it, undisputed champ. Jones yea, But I
also don't know if we're gonna live in a world
where see him Punk loses another big championship match on
a huge stage. I'm gonna pick Gunther to win. I'm
gonna pick Cody to get his title back into dethroned
John Cena. I'm just not looking forward to the majority

(59:26):
of these matches. And when they announced the first ever
two night SummerSlam, I thought we were gonna be so up.
I thought this was gonna feel like the second biggest
step WB show of the year, and it just doesn't
for me.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Not at all for me either. I was looking at
it going like, all right, if it's backlash, but two nights,
it's just it's given me like any other pay per view.
But I think when you're like, let's just rat a
tat tat off a bunch of events. Let's let's shoehorn
Evolution two in there with a short announce spent cramming

(01:00:01):
in a weekend where we're already doing something to somethings.
And then also we got this Triple A thing going
on with El El Grande, Kaiser Kano going out there,
and we got all this we got all this stuff
happening around here. I don't know what what's what's going on.
There's just so many events that I feel like they're

(01:00:21):
they're over extending themselves and they're not focusing on their
core product and maybe their third biggest pay per view
of the year, right, like this is this is three.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
And then it's at worst it's three.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Right, it's to me, it's it's rumble Mania, not Mania Rumble.
But I like the Rumble better. Uh that's for me.
But but in in in the top two have to
be the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, and I will not
hear an argument. Summer Slam is after that for me. Wow,
And then Survivor Series I don't know, it's the next

(01:01:00):
oldest one but I don't know if.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
I would say Money in the Bank has surpassed survived Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Probably, Yeah, it take supportance because I don't care general
Row versus SmackDown or whatever we're doing there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Like I just but they're also running Survivor Series at
the San Diego Ballpark, so business wise, they didn't run
Money in the Bank at a baseball stadium. So we'll
see what they do with survivorcy it used to be
the massive field, it's got the name Cache. I would
put Money in the Bank ahead of it in terms
of fan investment.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Yeah, I agree, But it's a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Yeah, but it it It just depends on the book,
and it just depends year by year on what the
match card has been the hearts of fans. I think
Money in the Bank has at least equal Survivor Series,
if not surpassed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
It now in fairness, lots of injuries, so true, you know,
Live in Sath being the two I think.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
And good pivot to Rock Sanne and Raquel being champs.
I'm actually excited for uh Rock with Kellen Roxanne current
TAC team champs to take on Charlotte and the election.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
That'll be good. That'll be fun. Yeah, and the total
for those two to do something different.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Yes, the total switch up generally from the w WWE universe.
Easy for me to say. Towards Charlotte Flair, I think
it was a perfect combination of we haven't talked about
this on air, but that really really thoughtful Players Tribune
article Charlotte Flair wrote about her career, about self worth, about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
People coming down that yeah, about.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Health, and about the moment with Tiffany Stradden reflecting on
Charlotte's divorces. I think it was that with just an
overall recognition that these stars we root for are real people.
I know that's really hard to conceptualize sometimes because they're popular,
they're powerful, they X, Y and Z, but they're real people.

(01:02:57):
And for that article, for it to have the courage
to write that article as really a reminder of fans
that the people were watching on screen are paying money
to see and do have lives outside of here, do
have real insecurities. I'm grateful that Charlotte Flair is really
working as a performer right now for the audience, and
I did not expect her to have this epic baby

(01:03:18):
face run in twenty twenty five. I think her and
Elects are going to beat Raquel and Roxham. But regardless,
I'm excited for that match, and I'm really enjoying the
work that Roxanne in particular is doing. I'm glad she
has a spot on this card.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
Yeah, it's a great point in between the art and
the artist. It's like, Okay, Charlotte, the flair, the character
is out there, see what you want. But when people
start commenting on how you physically look very publicly, then
it becomes like, Okay, now that's not a character, that's
my body, and now people are commenting on me the
person and her case Ashley. So it's like this whole

(01:03:52):
it's very complex. I don't think there's anything else like
pro wrestling for oh character.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
And no offseason we talk about when we're thinking about
how to construct the show and when to drop and
how to drop content. No off season for pro wrestlers
and quickly. But I just want to bring this up
because you mentioned it. I totally forgot to respond. With
Naomi having cashed in money in the bank, we could
legit see Jake Cargo beat Tiffany Stratton this weekend and

(01:04:19):
become champ sans immediate cash and so that's also a
big look. I know a lot of fans aren't necessarily
super high on Jake Cargo's in ringwork. She's obviously still learning,
but you and I were super stoked when she signed
with w W.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
You and I proudly I can't be talking about Hulkamania exactly. Yeah,
let's be criticizing ring work.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I love that. Yeah, I love that for you, I
love that for us.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Yeah, let's easily be the let's keep it female black
Hulkamania that we truly deserve.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yeah, helk, you want a body slam cum, how about
Jake Cargill? Good luck with that? Hits you with the
jaded how about how about we just how about her?

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Her boot has always been maybe the most devastating move
and all of wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Jade Cargo potentially becoming champ is something I'm very invested
in this week, and to want to give flowers to
her and that I think it's gonna happen. I think
she beats Tiffany.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
I think Jelly Roll is gonna do well. So Tyler,
I'm conflicted, Okay, On the one hand, I don't want
to LWOFI the triple A partnership. On the other. The
pop that Dom got I know, I sent you the
clip this week from the Triple A audience was just unreal. So, Tyler,

(01:05:36):
I'm sure this will help draw even more eyes. I'm
I'm sure it will. But but are Dom and whatever
version of Al Grande Americano they're getting. Are those two
what you see as long term interactions with Triple A
or is there some other path for their partnership.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
I may surprise you here, I do. I do see
them being long term fits. I was shook when you
send me that clip. Dominic mysterio may not hit with
me as a fan, but I'm clearly in the minority
statewide in Mexico. He is a big deal. The pop

(01:06:18):
you got, the clip you sent again, it was deafening.
It was clear that this dude has really worked himself
into being a star, and shout out to him for that.
I definitely see him, especially with that last name, and
if we're getting closer and closer to his pops, you know,
winding down a historic career, Dominick really carrying on that
family legacy in a completely different way aesthetically than his

(01:06:41):
dad did. I for sure can see Dom being a
staple in Mexico and then El Grande Americando with whether
it's Chad Gable or this very strange but I guess
so far successful version of Ludwig Kaiser portraying the character.
I would say that has less longevity than Dominic Mysterio

(01:07:02):
in Triple A, but clearly it's it's effective for now.
I could definitely see both both working and then eventually
us getting mister Iguana back in a w W re production.
Maybe maybe as late as The Royal Rumbull, but I
for sure see both of these guys working. I would
argue that dom Rick Mysterio has more longevity than the

(01:07:26):
elk Rende American No character.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Well, let me let me try to rephrase it, because
I think I phrased the question, poor lab how do
they not l WI this part? You did? You did
so well? I said, I don't want to see it,
but but I guess. But that's the way that I
asked it. Very much sounded like will dom work out
in Triple A? Of course he's going to work out
in Triple A, and I think it's gonna be great.
Brodie Americano not so much, but it's a great, great

(01:07:50):
heel character with that right, But how do you not
l W Are they reserving? Are they ever gonna send
John Cena to wrestle Triple A talent? Are they ever
gonna send their top people to go wrestle Triple A's
top people. We're getting banger matches. We got you know,
Gable and VIKINGO. But are are we going to get

(01:08:11):
you know, Cody Rhodes versus somebody from from Triple A? Yeah,
I think I'm just gonna send our lutable wrestlers down.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Yeah. I would like to think WWE is more self aware.
I could be proven wrong on this, brat. I would
like to think the company is more self aware, even
just from a business sense, that if you send Cody there.
I mean, we've watched Cody Roads for the past three
to four years since he signed with WWE or you know,
moved over to w from ADW. Cody is just over everywhere.

(01:08:40):
It doesn't matter where they go. Globally, people love the
American Nightmare. I could definitely see that, even if they
don't necessarily have the the social prowess to realize, okay,
we should really maybe mix it up and not just
have this look of like you said, the lwofying. I
would have to think from a business standpoint, that would
be an uber success. So yeah, I think I think

(01:09:03):
they're gonna be much more mindful of that. What I
will say is I've also seen Lola Ice making dates
in Triple A and she's been popping up in Mexico.
So hopefully they thread that needle of you know, we
want to highlight some of our Hispanic some of our
Latin talent that would be a great deal with Triple A,
but also not have it just be exclusive to that,

(01:09:26):
because again we've seen when we have Hispanic talent in WWE,
they're often pigeonholed into just being able to either be
a part of this faction, the Latin World Order, or
they got a feud with the faction. I would like
to think folks are more aware, and again, especially from
a business perspective, we'll realize, Okay, if we send Cody

(01:09:46):
Rhoades there, we send you know, name the non Technically
he's like cubid Okay, thank you, No, I'm tripping. And
I even I even listened to thed you will be
proud and me I listened to his interview on what
you want to talk about with Nikki Bella and he
bring that up. That was a part of their conversation
was their respect and identities. Thank you so much for
bringing that up. This is why you are amazing. You're

(01:10:08):
absolutely right, Code, he does have Cuban roots. So you know,
name another talent on the roster that doesn't have those roots, yes, one,
whether it's La Knights or again, name the talent and
who could do well and get people to buy tickets.
I would hope that they have the self awareness and
if they don't, they know what makes money clearly because

(01:10:29):
business is good and record gates are to be had. Yeah,
I have hoped that they'll they'll make that work. How
about you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
I'm worried about it because it's like, is okay, Lolo's
a great point, I think, and you know, honestly, it's
it's it's something that would be I think anybody going
to in a Triple A events, seeing somebody that's from
the WWB, that's representative talent and and all of those

(01:10:57):
things would be great for the Triple A crowd. How
do you get eyeballs to the Triple A crowd from
the WWE crowd though, if all you're doing is sending
Latin talent and it's it's I don't want to say
I'm not trying to diminish anything, because Dom is like
a megastar no matter where you look. Right now, it's
crazy how he's blown up. But I feel like in WWE,

(01:11:18):
if you wear a mask and your name is not Penta, which,
by the way, that entrance, holy bleep, that was that
was their tag team title style entrance right there when
they were in AW So I my fear is that,
let's say we get a Latin talent that doesn't work

(01:11:38):
a lucha style. Okay, are they going there? If they're
a top star, if they're in a Seth rollins, I
don't know what that. I don't know what his real
background is. I just know if your last name's Lopez,
it's probably not because you're Irish. So I also know
he's from Iowa. So does Seth go with the title, Like,

(01:12:00):
let's say he's champ. Do you send Gunther down there
as a chance to wrestle something. It would be a
great look and I think people would want to watch
what happens with that. But again, I'm not trying to
diminish anything. But if we're going to send NXT talent
to Triple A and that's all we're doing. We're not
going to send the top roster guys to go work
in Triple A to go work TNA guys to do that,

(01:12:22):
Like we sent aj Styles to DNA. We're doing good.
He didn't wrestle or anything, but he was there to
talk to well, not a TNA talent. So it's just like,
what are what is the goal here and how can
they actually increase eyeballs outside of the social media views
that are beneficial for both companies and the long term

(01:12:42):
growth of both companies, because because otherwise you're just going like, nah,
this is the thing we do in Mexico, and maybe
that is their goal. Maybe we just want to have
it a different show for a different audience. But then
if you try to bring that in here, I don't
know if people are going to care. If they're not
watching what's happening in Triple A. People that are watching
everything are are gonna be like, oh, if I can go,

(01:13:03):
it's gonna wrestle, right, Like that's gonna be nuts. And
a whole bunch of people got introduced to him for
World's Collide, But if that was it and that is
done now. And outside of having an iguana puppets show up,
where else does that go? Because they are loaded with talent.

(01:13:24):
But if people weren't going there to find out about
that talent, nobody's gonna care if they show up at
the Rumble to Silence. And that's the stuff that I
think about long term, is like, you know that they're
engaging business by reaction from the crowd and by merch sales.
So if you have somebody that's really talented show up
and the thing goes off and until the triple A

(01:13:44):
logo pops up, people don't know what's going on. Because
that happens in aw Sometimes we're like a song will
start playing and then the pictures the face comes up
and it says New Japan. You're like got it or CMLLL,
and you're like, oh, that guy's here, got it because
you're like, I don't know these entrances. I don't know
this music. How do they like do that? I don't
know what the long term solution is. I'm glad I'm

(01:14:04):
not running this thing. I just don't want to see
really successful people get pigeonholed into just being one thing,
because that's been a problem with WW forever, and now
that they basically own an entire promotion, that is this
one thing that they've always had historical problems with. I

(01:14:25):
just don't want to see that happen at a larger
scale because also, what do you would do with the LWO?

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Is the LWO even a thing since Triple A emerged?
Because you don't really need it?

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
No, No, Selina branched off with her her tie to run,
She's going to get that rematch with Julia, and then yeah,
tag what like, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Just don't remember it ever being anot It's just sort
of not And then people got released and like Harley's
it was in it that he was in Judgment Day.
Now he's just not in the company, and it's just
there's just it's just strange.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
I think it'll rule if they can figure it out.
I just hope they figure it out in a way
that's great. I thought this is a great start, Don't
get me wrong. I thought this was a really big
look for them and for those talent to be able
to go like I get to go in and be
representative and I'm in this huge company trying to help out.
It's really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
And if we're speaking of talents we'd like to see
over there. I mean, I want to see Obami wrestle
anywhere and everywhere. Imagine Oba Femi versus A the King.
Go No. I would need Oba Femi to win that match,
but you could just.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
No, no, no, I gotta go raymisterial giant killer. That's
a unique That's what I make him.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Yeah, I just don't want to boo me to lose. Ever.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Viking Goo versus Omas is there?

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
There you go, There are to your point brand, there are.
There's just so much talent right now in w w WE,
and now that they've expanded and they you know, they've
they've they have the NXT not even partnership right. NXT
is a kind of a separate product within their programming.
It's its own brand. You bought Triple A, you have.

(01:16:00):
You have such an incredible group of performers, many of
them with Latin backgrounds. The possibilities are endless. But as
you brought up, and as we spoke about in our
last topic FORWWE, when you have so much going on
under THEWE umbrella right now, and you have so many
events pulling back on how shows but adding all these
premium live events. The creative is really important. How do

(01:16:23):
we not just rush into these shows? And to your point,
from a creative standpoint standpoint, how do we really treat
this with Karen not just lump in seemingly a group
of people with similar backgrounds or similar skin tones into
this kind of other part of the card and then
it seems like they're just stuck there for months on end.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
It's important, and I guess the final thing is I
don't know how the talent feels about this. So ultimately,
if the talent are super excited about it, then who cares.
If they're pumped to go and they're pumped to do that,
who cares. They get to wrestle, they get to have
a big moment, they get those crowd reactions. Dom's not
really you know, he's not headlining SummerSlam, So for him

(01:17:07):
to go there and get that reaction cool, and he
gets to do that while getting paid to go do
it awesome. Like I think that part, that part of
it is really cool. We're not there, we don't know
optics wise, it's not a great look. If it's like
all we got in Triple A event coming up? What
Latin talent can we send down? Is all I can think,
is like, man, it's just don't what talent can you

(01:17:28):
send down?

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Is all?

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
I really want be purposeful about which of your superstars
can go and feud. And maybe you've got a Champ
versus Champ thing that you do when you send down,
you send down one of your heavyweight champions to wrestle
whoever theirs is. Right now, I think it's still Viking Go,
So that would be a fun match, and you do
it kind of like a Survivor series match where it's
Champ versus Champ. I think that could be a lot

(01:17:50):
of fun, especially if it's goother versus Viking Go, because
that would be a ton of fun. That match would rule.
I want to know how I can go with sell
A chop Okay, I don't know if you would. He
might his chest my cave in, Tyler. On that note,
our show is steadily becoming a double feature. But we

(01:18:12):
have a GI at the movie's double features to play
the music, and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
Now it's time for GI.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
After a move, Tyler, I said this to you earlier
in the week, and one of the things that is
funny about this is I was thinking that maybe this
is a someday when we have when you have kids.
Because as much as it was a gi at the
movies and I got to watch this film, it was

(01:18:42):
also because I was held hostage, I didn't have a choice.
So there was a day I was working on some
stuff and I walked in and I was in and out,
in and out, in and out. Jesse and freyer watching
this movie and I just heard this music in the
background and I was like, oh, musical came out. I
don't even know it, like like a kid's musical, you know.
And I said, what are you watching? And they hit
me with a oh, we're watching k Pop demon Hunters.

(01:19:06):
That was a sentence. It was like k Pop demon
Hunters is what she just said.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
No, I was not, so I was like, I'm not
watching that. I'll flit in and out because I was like, oh,
the art styles were really good, it's really great. The
animation is beautiful, really good stuff. The music's good, and
just walking around and I just kept going about my business.
And a few days later, this girl popped up in
this Korean game show that was singing one of the

(01:19:33):
songs from this movie. I didn't know what it was from
the movie at the time, but I watched her reach
up for these notes that I don't even know how
to describe to you how difficult vocally that level of ranges,
but all the contestants in the room with her sure
understood it. There were dudes in the back putting their
hands over their face, and the girls were sitting there

(01:19:55):
with moutha gape, couldn't believe what this woman was doing.
And then I found it was from the movie. And
then I found out same creators of Across and into
the Spider Verse, and I went, all right, just is
out of town. I told Prey i'd watch it with
her at some point, so she was kind of doing
her own thing, and I just loudly turned Netflix up
and hit play, and then she leapt off her chair

(01:20:16):
and came running into the living room and we stay
seated the entire time watching this movie. It was awesome.
I really enjoyed this movie, Tyler. I knew going into it,
I'm watching the kids movie. I know I'm gonna be
watching something that's like probably not going to be winning
Academy Awards for writing at any point. But I had

(01:20:39):
so much fun. I can't say it was super formulaic
or anything. But I kind of knew how a lot
of it was gonna go, and I was dead on
with a lot of it. Very hero's journey, very discovering yourself,
and it was really good. The complaints I heard online
or saw online were sad ending. Now I think some

(01:21:02):
of these folks might be mood YouTube to films and
movies because what it definitely had a happy ending. Sometimes
things need to go that way. I can't say it
without spoiling it, but I was like, oh, that's awesome
because I was like, this is really great. Then it
happened and like, look over, make sure your Phray is

(01:21:23):
doing okay. She's like yeah, and it's great. It was great.
I can't recommend it enough. Really catchy music. Some of
it's pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. I've listened to
two songs quite a bit in the car on the
way to work and back. Shout out to Golden and
shout Out to Takedown. Both of those have been in
the rotation pretty heavily. But it's on Netflix. It's worth it.

(01:21:47):
Check it out. But I also know that I will
be tuning into Netflix tonight to watch what You're about
to give US two.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Oh great transition. Yeah, I saw a happy Gilmore too.
I don't know that I would call it great, but
it was entertaining. So, in case you haven't heard, there
are a ton of cameos in this film, I will
attempt to reveal the ones that you already know about.
Mjfaw star Maxwell. Jacob Freeman plays Adam Sandler's eldest son,

(01:22:21):
Becky Lynch plays a villainous golfer, and I'll just give
you a few more. Kelsey Plum, Bad Bunny, Travis Kelcey
and others have parts in this film. There are so
many positive reviews. I was not prepared for the slew
of pro happy Gilmour takes that there were and that

(01:22:45):
there are out there. But people really enjoyed this. It
goes back to what you're a big believer in, Brad.
You know what you're signing up for when you check
out movies like this Adams. I'm really fascinated by the
lore that Adam Sandler has developed and this kind of
special place that he holds in Hollywood. When you go

(01:23:06):
on Netflix and you're checking out an Adam Sandler movie,
it feels like it's its own product. You judge it
by its own and let me know if I'm tripping.
You judge it by its own, separate scale. I think
for a lot of us, myself included, it's kind of
more of a comfort watch, yeah, than it is any
leading to any sort of artistic critique. So he has

(01:23:28):
a lot of his friends and a lot of familiar faces,
not only from Happy Gilmore, but also just the Adam
Sandler universe. Again I mentioned some of those celebrities and
famous athletes who pop up in this movie. Adam Sandler
is on his own island, playing in his own sandbox.
This movie was enjoyable, especially for our audience members who

(01:23:49):
like golf. You are really going to enjoy the messages
in this film and kind of the larger critique of
the golf industry. I won't spoil that, but the cameos
are fun and the film is entertaining enough that I
recommend you check it out, especially if you saw the
first one. I think you're gonna enjoy this movie, Brad,

(01:24:09):
and you are definitely not alone in that potential potential
feeling you may have. It was entertaining.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
Oh I can't I can't wait. There's there's stuff I
was listening to. Of course, I was listening to a
podcast while I was working the other day and they
had Boban on there, so I already know we's in it, yes,
because the character I believe he's reprising the character. Don't
spoil it yet, but the person who originally played that
that part has passed unfortunately. So I heard that he

(01:24:37):
was in it and that he's like really good friends
with He's like he said, he claims that Adam Sammer's
like his best friend right now. I think that's because
I have an affinity for for Bo Ban as well.
It's kind of hard not to, but I'm excited for that.
I already had one cameo spoiled for me. Somebody said
it sent it to me and I was like, why
would you, I haven't seen it, like they they never

(01:25:00):
give us warnings on Netflix, and this one's like, yeah,
you probably shouldn't watch it if they're under thirteen. Uh,
it's PG thirteen, but maybe not for anybody under thirteen.
Let's keep it at thirteen. And I was like, oh,
I don't know what's in it that. I got to
stay away from the Freya stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
So I think Freya will be fine. I'm biased toward Freya,
Profreya everything all day.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
Now she's gonna find out today we're going too fastic Shell.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
She'll be fine, and you got Fantastic four. So we're
gonna be at least two weeks of GI at the movies.
Did we have a G at the movies last Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
I think I don't remember last week or two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
Yeah, we've been a big summer for us.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
I think it was Did I think it was Superman
last week?

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
Or two weeks ago, I don't know. I don't know.
Let's hold the let's hold the audience hostage while we
figure it out. Uh, Tyler, Uh, it's it's uh, it's
time for some ae W talk finally at a buck
twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Let's get into it. What are your initial thoughts on
AEW's newest trio, this time a new trio in the
women's division. Yes, I'm referring to the trio of Julia Heart,
Sky Blue and the Toxic Spider Tecla, now known as
the Triangle of Madness.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
Well, Tyler, my thoughts are, how dare you, sir? How
dare you?

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
You were going to ask about that too?

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:26:22):
Was?

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
That's my question. So, I love it. I think it's great.
I think if you're gonna go lean into the dark
in the and the like the Julia Heart dark spooky
and sky Blue being more like sky dark Blue, she's
been doing that for you know, like she left, came
back and she's still sort of leaning into that character.

(01:26:44):
Decla makes a ton of sense there. So the toxic
spider being in the spooky group makes makes a lot
of sense, and I think it's it's great for everybody involved.
I feel like Julia Hart and sky Blue have improved
year over year, They've gotten better as time has gone on.

(01:27:04):
They it's it's so much fun to watch them grow
in a sand where Tekla has been like she's she's
kind of elite in the ring already, and it's the
other part that maybe she needs to to work on
a little bit more. So, I think this is a
great mix of different talent and I'm excited to see
where this goes. My initial thoughts of my question for

(01:27:25):
you since we're here is when or do you think
this leads to Trio's titles or tag titles for the women.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
The latter tag titles I have to believe free Bird, Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
that could That could certainly be an option. I have
to believe that by this time next year we are
going to have women's tag titles, if not sooner. My
thought is what would be Is there a meaningful dynamite

(01:27:57):
on the horizon, or would it make sense to have
this announcement at a pay per view let's say for
AW because I know Tony Khan is very cerebral about
the timing, and you know sometimes we've been present for
this in the building. Tony Khan has a major announcement.
Aw' is getting its own reality TV show, and we
thought it was gonna be.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
We thought we were getting Sasha, but we got big
business as cousin to Boston, and it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
Seems to me we've gotten much much less of that,
which I'm grateful for. There have been these these proverbial
breadcrumbs of we're seeing the foundation of a women's tag division.
I won't rehash that. We spent a lot of time
on air, especially this summer, going over all the potentially
great tag teams. You have to start a division. I

(01:28:44):
believe that a tag division is much more likely than
a trio's division. I haven't even considered the possibility prior
to the Triangle of Badness, I haven't even considered the
possibility of a women's trios division. In AW they don't
even prioritize the men's trios division, So I don't know
if we're if we're ready for a women's trio because
if it's established, we want them to actually we want

(01:29:05):
there to be an investment in the division and for
the men's you know, the trios hasn't felt important since
dare I say, House of Black Word Champs probably going
on two years ago, which makes me very sad. But
tag titles Julia Hart Skyblue, we've spoken about how they
can be a pillar for a women's tag tag title division. Tecla.

(01:29:27):
We could go free Bird City, we could go Tekla
being a single star. I'm very hopeful. I My desire,
Brad is that they won't be directionless, because I think
that's unfortunately what we fall into with a lot of
wrestling companies, and ADW certainly been guilty of this is
you you have a few weeks or a few months

(01:29:47):
of a sustain push, but then what happens Diana Parrazzo
and Taya Valkyrie the Vendetta, Oh, this could be an
awesome tag team, but either they're in our age, which
a lot of the fan base doesn't happen, he says too,
or we just have to check out the indies if
we want to see them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:04):
Siana like to actually work where she Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:07):
She was wrestling at a ballpark for GCW against Jonathan Gresham. Awesome,
but we just don't get to see her consistently on AW.
So I'm hopeful that not only do I trust in
the talent and the progress of the three ladies in
the triangle, as you pointed out, but also hopefully this
gives them a direction. If neither of the three are

(01:30:27):
going to be an immediate title program, because not everyone
can be in a title picture, at least hopefully this
gives them a direction and we see them consecutively on
television sky Blue, Julia Hart, they're awesome. They should be
a contender for future tag champs. And then Tecla, like
you said, has really presented something different aesthetically entering wise

(01:30:49):
for the aw audience. And I think these three are
going to work really well together. I do.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
Yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Man, Well,
we hit an hour and a half. Tyler, what do
we miss?

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):
What did we miss? I am gonna end with a
wrestling note, TNA Slammiversary. I was really excited for the
show and my heart was broken, Brad. Mike Santana did
not win. Trick Williams fated and injury, got back in
the rain and defeated. He pinned Joe Hendry, but thus

(01:31:22):
defeating Joe Henry and Mike Santana. The decision to not
crown Mike Santana in his home state of New York.
If we're gonna wait to do this in Lowell, Massachusetts,
no disrespect to throwback, but if we're gonna wait to
crown Mike Santana in Lowell at Bound for Glory instead
of Slammiversary, when the arena is adorned with fans carrying

(01:31:46):
the Puerto Rican flag, it really left a bad taste
in my mouth. Masha Slamovich also lost. So your two
main champs, Trick Williams and j. C. Jane not contract
to TNA Talent, but thus they're your two main champs
heading into what many would argue was their biggest show
of the year for Bound for Glory, I have questions

(01:32:06):
even if TNA Talent end up dethroning these two at
BFG and Lowell Brad. I still don't think this was
the right move. I think Masha should have retained. I
definitely think Mike Santana should have left Slammer Versary with
the title. So I'm concerned my investment in TNA. I
don't want to say it's fully wavering yet, but I

(01:32:27):
did not watch Impact out of protest because I am
still upset at the booking decisions that were made. Most
of a Ali is still killing it there. I still
think the show is worth checking out for various reasons.
Leon Slater was crowned at Slammiversary AJ Styles I did
see that yet, and then AJ Styles put him over,
probably the best thing to come from that show, and

(01:32:49):
Cedric teared it up as well. But Leon Slater's there,
He's the face of the X division. That's a win.
There are just lots of question marks on the rest
of the car, so we'll see what's in store for TNA.
But it was a big accomplishment for them to sell
nearly eight thousand tickets, their largest North American attendance in
company history. We'll see what the partnership with NXT and

(01:33:10):
Duswe brings heading into the fall. That's all I got.
What say you, I don't have a lot. I just
wanted to shout ut pabulatory finds out. I know he
I think we brought it up. Last week he broke
some of the NFLPA investigation open that ended up leading
to the president of the NFLPA stepping down. As there's

(01:33:32):
an investigation, there's a broader one to in multiple markets
and multiple leagues, so we'll see how that goes. But
I've also really enjoyed his work.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
There was a great one today about the Yankees, your
Yankees and an infamous nineteen seventies wife swap that occurred.
I had no idea about any of this and it
was It was wild. And then a few other episodes,
including one he dropped earlier in I Believe June about
hul Cogan, Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone and the infamous NBA

(01:34:04):
Playoffs kind of build toward their match for WCW, which
is crazy, but it's a conspiracy and worth watching, especially
if you're a wrestling or basketball fan, or if you
just remember that event being nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
Yeah, that was a we were talking before we started recording.
That was a whole era man similar so seminal to
our lives and who would have thought, all these years
later we'd have a podcast together talking about this entertaining,
crazy business that's nuts. Well. I believe we are worth following,

(01:34:39):
so if you are interested in doing so, please check
us out at gipod nineteen, particularly on Instagram, on Facebook,
and on the artist artist and formerly known as Twitter,
we post exclusive show updates and more. We thank you
so much for joining us on this edition of Gimmick
Infringement and we will see you next week. Gimmick in

(01:35:01):
Fridgement is a part of nineteen Media Group. You can
listen to us on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you
find podcasts. You can also find this on YouTube via
the nineteen Media group channel. Please like, subscribe, comment and share.

All Episodes

Hogan’s Character, Late Night Bribes, A Triangle of Madness, and SummerSlam — WWE, AEW July 21-27

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hogan’s Character, Late Night Bribes, A Triangle of Madness, and SummerSlam — WWE, AEW July 21-27