07/19 Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast With Jason Powell (Episode 268): Rich Fann on WWE, AEW, NXT, ROH, and more

The new edition of the Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast with Jason Powell features PWTorch.com columnist and podcast host Rich Fann on the idea of AEW expanding its PPV schedule and adding a third hour to Dynamite, WWE SummerSlam, AEW Collision, ROH Death Before Dishonor, NXT Great American Bash...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, welcome to Jason Powell's ProWrestling Boom podcast. Hey, production of
Pro Wrestling dot Net. Get readyfor the latest news, analysis and interviews
featuring big names from the world ofpro wrestling. Here comes the Boom.

(00:35):
Thank you, Paul and when radioBoys from the ministert of Viking shutdown Paul
Sports Talk radio show at kfan dotcom. My guest today is a returning
guest. You know him from pwtorchdot com and elsewhere. I believe he's
the one the only Rich fan.Welcome back, Rich. Thanks Jason,
appreciate you having me on and Ilove that we've kind of made this a

(00:57):
little bit more often before football seasontakes me away for a while. Yes,
and just let's get the plugs outof the way, because I said,
I don't know if you I thinkyou've mentioned you do some work elsewhere
in the pro wrestling world too,so I just wanted to make sure that
we have at all the bases coveredand you your plugs out of the way
to start the show rather than doit at the end. Yeah. Sure.
So I'm on Twitter at Rich Underscorefan fan n. I'm also on

(01:22):
threads at Rich Underscore fan Underscore becausesomehow, yet again, I got beaten
a freaking rich Fan, and soI work primarily at the Torch. I
do everything with Rich and Wade,which is a Torch VIP show where we
kind of go over the week's eventsand break things down. I also do
everything with mail Bag. We haven'tdone that in a while, just because

(01:44):
life has been crazy for me.Additionally, the East Coast Cast on Wednesdays
with Travis Bryant, where we talkabout comics, life, wrestling, everything
in between, and of course theDeep Dive with Rich Fan and Will Cooling
where we talk we talk little transatlanticallyabout what's going on in our borders and
in politics and all this fun stuff. Additionally, I do Moonlight now over

(02:07):
at Post Wrestling, and I dohim. Yeah, that's fun. I
know. I have instead of theforbidden door, it's the permitted fence.
I just over every now and again, you know, hang out with Way
wh and the guys over there.John has been really awesome, So I
do what they call MCU later everyThursday. We have on their Patreon review
of Marvel's show. Right now,I'm the guest host and hosting with wh

(02:30):
Park Secret Invasion, which is currentlyevery Wednesday on Disney Plus, and so
I do that as they need me, because a lot of times, especially
one season, Way might be alittle overwhelmed with review in the g One
and having to watch that stuff.Me and wh are good friends, and
so it's a good opportunity for meto kind of spread my wings there.
And that's really it. Any othertime I show up, it's because a

(02:52):
friend asked me to be on theirprogram. A lot of times Daniel Palmer
will have me on his on udpod over on the MTR network. But
yeah, for the most part,I'm a torch dude. Well, I
am happy to have you back.And we have to start today with the
most important thing in the entire worldof pro wrestling, dom Dom. It's
a champion, rich fan dom domdominating America. He's the champion in North

(03:13):
America. And as an ex con, I'm really glad to see him rehabilitated
like this. If anything, thisshows sometimes the prison system can work.
It does. Yeah, I mean, and Tony di'angelo clearly they worked at
him last night. That they havea mutual friend that they apparently meant behind
the prison walls, and it reallyit should feel good for anyone who's been

(03:34):
incarcerated over the years, that domhas managed to just turn his life around
and not just become successful, butto become the champion of all of North
America. And he has a wonderfulgirlfriend and Riha Ripley. Dom's just you
know, you can say what youwant about the way he treated his father
rich, but clearly this has allworked out for him. Yeah, and
ultimately for him, Judgment Day hasnow added another champion in addition to Senor

(03:58):
Money in the bank and the wW Women's Raw women's champion. So all,
all's well, that ends well there. I just hope that he doesn't
backslide and he has a firm kindof support system because if he has to
go back to the old hymn,I don't think NXT particularly is ready for
that. That's true. Finn balorloser like he's the only one who doesn't
have something. I think he's heisn't a loser. He's a person who

(04:21):
hasn't won yet. I'm gonna I'mgonna kind of use some of Dominic's you
know, motivational speaking that he's kindof been parted to the people on Finn
in that regard now if he losesfor a third time to seth rawlins,
I think there might be a problem, especially if say he loses and then

(04:41):
you have Damian priests cash in andwin it. That would be especially troubling.
And do you expect that to happen? I think so, And I
also think he's gonna do. It'sgoing to be the issue of he's going
to cash in or try to cashin, and Finn's gonna stop it because
he's still a little embittered. Andso we may see Finn kicked out of
the Udgment Day and so he becomesthe baby face and then you slide in

(05:03):
his slightly larger headed version of himselfjd mcdonnah. They don't even need to
change the T shirt. Maybe makethe head a little bit larger. It's
like it's like the Austin. It'slike, I'll call him mini me.
Just just bring JD. In's likeyou're the newest member, the congratulations you're
the newest member. I mean,shoot, they just had on Instagram today.

(05:24):
I guess it was a year agoeither today or yesterday, where Tom
joined Judgment Day and they still beatthe crap out of Ray. So maybe
we see this in a year fromnow, we're talking about how JD mcdonnough
is now one of the lynchpins ofJudgment Day. An XT doesn't get as
much discussion for the obvious reasons asyou know, main roster, W W

(05:44):
E and AW. How do youfeel about that product these days? I
think it's a good mix. It'sstarting to turn around. I joked last
night talking away that I would lovefor a like early football season when the
Ray He's gonna go down anyway,so you can experiment and get a little
crazy. I would love a chaseyou versus Alpha Academy school like showdown of

(06:10):
some sort. I don't know how, but I just really feel like those
guys can make it work. I'dlove to see THEA Hale just leading the
charge and then having to have Maxineto pre learn moves like she's cramming because
Thea's coming. She's bringing, She'sbringing the A game, so to speak.
And you know, I just thinkthat the characters they have on an
XT, they have a good mixtureof folks who are in that two point

(06:33):
zero color fade era where it waskind of cokey, but they needed that
time to be on television and kindof learn their way. I think looking
at someone like a bron breaker,him being on television now seems normal.
I think it's time for him andCarmelo Hayes and some of the other guys

(06:54):
to move up to the main rosterand allow some of the other folks to
get chance to breathe. For instance, Grayson wall going from NXT to the
main roster. He's the same dude. Clearly he's recovering from an injury.
But I love everything about Jason Waller. I'm sorry Grayson Waller in a way
that I dislike so much about misteratown Down. Yeah, and so hopefully

(07:16):
Austin theory can turn things around.One of the rebuttals I saw that was
making this round on Twitter two nightsago was as a heel, his moveset
has been diminished and so you don'tget to sea as much excitement. But
it shouldn't just be about the moves. And I'm sure we'll talk about that
with some other people later, butthe moveset shouldn't determine whether or not you
like a wrestler. It should bethe whole package. I didn't need Jake

(07:39):
Roberts to do fifty moves short onClothesline DDT punches and people still reacting to
those moves today, as we justsaw last week on Dynamite exactly the man,
I gotta say, going back tothat whole NXT two point out there,
and I always like to call itNXT Bob Ross with all the colors
they had when they introduced Chase,you and just Andre Chase, I'm like,

(08:03):
really, we're doing a Bobby Nightcharacter in twenty whatever, Like this
is ridiculous, And I've just dugmy heels in and slowly but surely,
they just kept slowly dragging those heelsout. It is damn fun to watch
those Uh, they're all heavily investedin what they do. I don't know

(08:24):
if there's anyone who is just moreall in with a character than THEA Hale
is. It's not like it's it'srequiring her to do acting like the Usos
and Roman or you know, youknow, just a different type. But
as far as like, she justhas that character down and she goes all
in every single time, and it'sit's just a pleasure to watch. Yeah,

(08:45):
And we talked about it a fewminute minutes ago. When you have
DeAngelo and his crew that started assuper hokey good fellows adjacent and I was
the same way Heels were, Like, I thought it was a great wrestler
that got a really kind of stereotypicalgimmick, and then he's turned that around
and everyone's just done, you know, so much to have fun with the

(09:07):
role. And you look at Carmeloand him and Trick have really turned what
could have been something that was veryproblematic into a really cool set of characters.
Yeah, it's an enjoyable watch mostweeks. There's some weeks where they
go a little too campy for mytaste. I just have we all have
a kind of limit for that sortof thing. Some people it's none,

(09:28):
some people they can't get enough ofit. I'm somewhere in between, probably
closer to I want more serious witha little bit of camp worked in as
long as the campiness is fun,and more often than not, that's what
you get there. There are someepisodes where they go a little too crazy
with it, but yeah, it'sa good show, and I find myself
looking forward to the Great American Bashcoming up at the end of the month.

(09:52):
Do you think dom Nam is defendinghis title on that show? Because
they'd already advertised most of all Leeagainst Wes Lee. They're just going to
turn that into a triple thread ordoes Dom drop the title quickly? I
think it's a triple threat, andI think I get my wish where he
becomes twenty twenty three's Mikey Whipbrick,where he is winning by hook, crook,

(10:13):
chicane ory, other events happening aroundhim and by the time he gets
a chance to have a good seriesof matches and lose it. We've seen
him as an established champion. Areready to see him do more. Let's
talk a little. We're gonna bounceall over today. You're used to that,
You're the everything guy. Yes,So, aw Tony Kahn did his
media session or discussing the Ring ofHonor the death before this Honor show coming

(10:37):
up on Friday. I'll be doinglive coverage of that at dot net.
And among the things that came upduring this conversation, Tony was not a
quick no. There was no no. When it came to the idea of
a third hour of Dynamite. Hefamously rejected that proposal at one time when
the network wanted it. I don'teven know which regime it was, and

(11:00):
that's I guess kind of legend hasit, that's how rampage came to be.
And now even though we still haverampage and we have two hours of
collision, he did not say no, and in fact seemed like he's intrigued
by the idea of a third hourof dynamite. Rich I mean, it's
going to presumably add more money.Is they say? Good move? If

(11:22):
they fall through this, I thinkabout the third hour of Raw on The
argument I incorrectly argued to wait asa listener at the time was that it
would help fund the performance center.Not all money's good money. I think
in this case it especially isn't,because you already have two hours of dynamite,

(11:43):
hour of rampage, two hours ofcollision. If you're not to mention
the marathon sessions with ring of honor, if you're atting this third hour,
Raw is over the million mark withan hour they're hovering, but between seven
and nine hundred thousand, how muchare you going to dilute your product,

(12:05):
especially right right now when WW hasseen is the hotter product. When you
add that extra hour, you havethe roster for it. That is clear
in fact, I might argue theycould do with not having as many people.
I don't want folks to lose yourjob, but I also don't want
people to be paid not to dotheir job and then wither on the vine,
because then they're mad that they're notgetting those opportunities. I think a

(12:26):
third hour isn't the smartest play becauseyou don't have the infrastructure for it.
We're just now getting, you know, the updated memo of what too and
not to do, which you hadseveral things that either key EVPs or people
who have the power but not thetitle of EVPs would participate in. And
so if they're going to go tothat third hour, you better have a

(12:46):
clear reason as to why other thanthat the dollar signs because again not worth
it, ultimately not worth it.Could they possibly do three hours at the
pace they do Dynamite? I justthink trying to cover the show, my
head would explode, like literally justexplode during sometime during the third hour.

(13:09):
Well, look at what happened onSaturday with Collision. Collision is so different
than Dynamite. It's very meat andpotatoes, very like nineties WCW, very
early two thousands. Impact or ringof honor and then the third hours Battle
for the Belts, and that wasvery much going back to the dynamite style.
The numbers showed that less people watched, maybe not a lot less,

(13:31):
but less on a Saturday night,and there's always going to be diminishing returns.
You don't want to see year overyear with this steady decline because you're
burning people out. And I thinkthat's what they're doing. I mean,
look, last night, courtesy ofWrestlenomics, an XT did seven forty six

(13:52):
thousand viewers. That's really good forthem. They are on the uptick.
Just to jump in with the comparison, the week before it had six hundred
and seventy one thousand, and theywere only up a tick in the demo
they did point two over the weekbefore. But still, I mean that's
for a I guess developmental show thatdoes have some main roster stuff sprinkled in.

(14:18):
Those are good numbers. I mean, they're seriously approaching viewership wise with
seven forty six. There have beendynamites, a low end dynamites I think
that have done similar numbers at leastmaybe not in the demo, but certainly
in viewership. Yeah, and thatreminds me of the old school Wednesday Night
Wars episodes of NXT at not thistwo point oh Bob Ross edition as you

(14:41):
mentioned, where it was kind ofa rebuilding team and you kind of just
had to take the record you gotthe old NXT was loaded, and you
still had the numbers go down.Because again, people, if you want
to watch five you know, okay, I don't want to go star crazy.
If you want to watch like afour star matchup, get it on
some channel every week in twenty twentythree, Yeah, people want And the

(15:07):
thing we should learn from say thebloodline or dom because Dom was the biggest
act that was advertised for last night. Dominic draws. Dom Dom draws,
and I mean that's that's helpful.The storylines draw. You can't just say
come and watch this wrestle. Eventhough I love great wrestling, it's not

(15:31):
always going to work for you.And I think when it comes to a
w having that third hour invites injuryoveruse. You just saw what happened with
your lead guy when Moxley was overin WWE and he was the champion.
He was working you know, threehundred days or two hundred and eighty six

(15:52):
days in a year and then finallyhis body broke down, like sets broke
down, like romans broke down.That you for every extra segment you're giving
them, it's another opportunity that theycan get hurt. Why are you doing
it? And I don't want tosound from a position of like fearmongering,
but I also want to stand inthe position of sometimes you can give someone
too much cake, don't give ustoo much cake. The counter argument to

(16:18):
that would be, we have sucha they have such a loaded roster.
It's so deep that even with collision, even with rampage, And I do
wonder, by the way, I'llsneak this in, if they were to
add an hour to Dynamite, wouldthat be the end of rampage? I
would certainly hope so. But theroster is so deep that they're not going
to be putting extra reps on theother on the wrestlers we see now,

(16:38):
it's just going to open things up. Same excuse we used to hear about
three hours of raw do you buyno now? Because it's an economy of
scale, The amount of money ww'sgoing to pull in on their next contract,
even with the current strikes going on, it's going to be you know
planetary size. I think aw's goingto do well, but you can't compare

(17:00):
yourself the w W numbers wise,if they were to do that, I
look at the partner they have currentlywith Warner Brothers. They have not shown
to be a good faith actor whenit comes to doling out large sums of
money in the last calendar year.No. And that's where I get a
word, because if you're going totrust that they're going to give you a
competitive offer, you already are goingup against in WWE, because clearly we

(17:25):
see whether it's the dates like goinginto Labor Day, you know directly in
competition picking the same day and havingshows the same day, you have between
Ari and Nick con two of thebiggest agents in the history of television and

(17:45):
entertainment working towards television deals, andthat means they're working against you. You
do not want to just hit yourstar to Saslav and Warner Brothers Discovery if
you're going to get squeezed. That'swhat's the reason, because if they know
they're the only show in town,as they're offering you those deals, then

(18:07):
as much as you're saying all thisgood will and as much as you're offering
all these things they're going to treat. If you currently have folks out picketing
and they're cutting trees to make surethey can't pick it with it not being
one hundred and ten day agree withoutshade, what do you think they're going
to do to you once they realizethey can get you at costs instead of
maybe repaying the loyalty you're showing themduring a time where they're going to need

(18:29):
to fill up their television. Becausethat's ultimately another reason I think this has
happening. If it is going tobe a third hour, it's because they
anticipate that the strike is going tolast well until maybe twenty late twenty three,
early twenty four, and this isa nice, inexpensive way to fill
that time. I want to touchon that, the whole idea of a
Warner Brother discover and it's just whatSorry, I'm getting a message from somebody

(18:53):
about these NXT ratings pointing out thatlast week's said Dynamite did eight and twenty
five thou and yeah, only seventynine thousand different in the viewership from NXT
to last week's Dynamite, which reallyis something. But so if we all
kind of look at David Jaslowfice likethe evil dark lord of the executive world

(19:15):
right now, as far as televisionis concerned, any concern at all that
that that Hollywood reporter piece that didan expose on him, I mentioned that
he forced power Slap on the air, much to disagren of other network executives
within Warner Brothers Discovery because he's sotight with Ari Emmanuel. I mean,

(19:37):
does that give you any red flagthat okay, things are okay, they
seem to be, but until thatnext pen, you know, until the
pen has put the paper on thatnext deal. I mean, do you
rule out anything as far as like, hey, wwa's deal's coming up and
yeah, hey, Warner Brothers Discovery, what's going on? Yeah, it's

(19:59):
called a Das special And so hewanted Discovery to invest in that. And
if no one wants it except forhim, and you're now putting in a
guy who's a direct competitor to thewrestling company you're in bed with. That
doesn't seem like a good idea.But he doesn't have a lot of good
ideas allegedly because you know, youlook at the GQ story that talked about

(20:25):
how he wasn't necessarily seen as anice boss, which got pulled within you
know, like a day of itbeing published, because they went to the
editor and basically leaned on them.Yeah. That like it's because that story,
what you're talking about was part ofthat story and then it had to
be extricated out because the writer refusedto put their by line by because the

(20:53):
editor changed it without their permission,and then they put up on their social
media here's what I really wrote.Wow, I mean, is there any
fear that Not that it's all uhhato villains sitting around Nick Cohn and David
Zaslow, we're plotting against more Tonycon right now, Not that that's happening,

(21:17):
but is there any concern that Okay, as much as Warner brother seems
invested in AW that you know,there's no long term commitment there in WWE's
deal is coming up, and therehave been reports that Warner Brother Discovery executives
have some interest in WWE. Doesn'tmean they're going to end up with it,
but I mean, do you worryat all that that is a possibility
that all of a sudden they getpart of the WWE package and Aw's left

(21:41):
going now what. Yeah, Ithink that could very that can be a
very real opportunity. I think aboutwhat happened with the Batgirl movie. Because
they wanted to do purchase accounting towrite the movie off. They not only
can't the movie before the co directors, who were brothers, they were at

(22:06):
their family's wedding. They wipe thehard drives before the guys could get back
to their servers to get what wasleft to the film. It's like when
he does things, it is insidiouswith the amount of speed and lack of
sympathy he shows a lot of oneperson's quoted in this LA magazine article I
have up. I feel like he'sruined half of his friendships in the last
six months, and I hear frompeople about the toll that's taking on him.

(22:29):
I can't help but think that thelast great day of his career was
the day that deal closed. Everyday since it's been a shit show.
Pardon I forgot this, Oh you'refine, okay. But I tie that
to what he's doing with Turner classicmovies for those people who who remember,
you know, like Billionaire Ted andall that fun stuff. One of the
things I do want to give TedTurner credit for is when he created Turner

(22:51):
Classic, he created a house forold movies to be saved in the way
they were created. One of thethings people had issues with was colorization,
etc. But he still saved theoriginals. With Zaslav and the new Plan,
they're getting rid of a lot ofthose classics and they're replacing them instead
with things he finds to be neededas a streaming opportunity, and so again

(23:12):
you're removing the history of film.These are things that people thought were bedrocks,
that Warner Brothers would do. Thisis old Hollywood Warner Brothers. I
think we forget about it, butI'm a kid of the eighties and nineties
animaniacs. You think about those oldWarner brother lots, like when they would
do those jokes. That's it.This is almost one hundred year entity and

(23:33):
he shaken it to its core.And it's amazing. Because you cancel Batgirl.
That had a trouble freeshoot and itwas in post production, so it
was almost done. You fight toothand nail to keep Flash, which has
already been told by the new showrunnerA gun James gunn that is not going

(23:53):
to be a part of his Universe. You still put it out there.
It loses the most money in thehistory of a comic book film, and
you're supposed to be trusted that withthe wrestling company, you're going to do
right by them, right. Idon't. I absolutely don't. Same thing
with you know, shutting down CNN, plus using Chris light who replaced Steff

(24:15):
Zucker at CNN and saying we're notin the fair and ballast business, We're
in the TV show business, likeso so fundamentally changing what CNN looks like.
And it's it's just too much.It's too much the changes he's making,
the things he's doing during this strikeright now, he's he's had removed
or people close to him have hadit removed, allegedly all of these cartoons

(24:41):
and things where that was the onlyway the writers were getting residuals, and
so he's just stopped publishing them.The Cartoon Network is likely gonna be kind
of just absorbed into Warner Brothers Animation, so all of the fun things you
might remember about Cartoon Network. Ican remember being in college in the early
two thousands, like being up atthree am and all of a sudden,
some absurd thing would pop on andI'd be like, what between two ferns,

(25:04):
would like Zach Galvanak, and thenit would be gone. And it's
like, did I dream that thatstuff's gone now? Even between two ferns?
Yeah, wow, that's not cool. That's a phenomenal. That was
a phenomenal thing that Galvinakis did.And to be fair, it's still places
you can find it, but he'sremoving not only the ability to find it,

(25:26):
but the creativity to create it,and that is that. It just
boggles my mind how he's mantling whatwas an easy w for him with this
merger. Well, okay, Iknow we're kind of drifting a little bit
outside of wrestling. We'll get backto in a second. Why did they
buy this? They had a goodthing going with Discovery. Why did they

(25:47):
take this on? If they justwere gonna have to cut everything under the
sun, and well, they didn'tknow how much debt they're was like,
yes, you do, you doyour due diligence on this. There's no
way they didn't Listen. Jason,you're touching on a point. Even though
you said we're moving far a fieldof wrestling. I want people to understand
this is exactly what we need totalk about with wrestling because in many ways
it is pro wrestling and that youknow, don't pay attention to the guy

(26:10):
moving his hands, pay attention towhat's under the cup as she's spinning.
And also these are the same questionswe need to ask when TKO finally is
online, because what does that meanwhen Emmanuel and McMahon and this new company
get together and make this baby,are they going to do the same cost
cutting? Are we going to seeWWE wrestlers out of jobs? Are we

(26:30):
going to see executives out of jobs? Are we going to see people resigned
at rates commensurate to their ability?Because just like with UFC when it was
brought into the Endeavor family, thefirst statement was we bought this company because
the obada I'm sorry, you know, Brandon isn't here to slap me and

(26:52):
how I mispronounced it. But basically, revenue as a mention of stat like
salaries for the player so to speak, when it comes to UFC, is
like less than ten percent. Sowhen you have that little put into your
workforce, you can create a profitmargin that pays off the largesse of debt
you're accumulating. But with WWE Romanreins isn't taken a pay cut. Randy

(27:17):
Orton, you know, Randy Ortonis a person I thought about from an
endeavor standpoint. They could cut himand say it's a cost cutting measure because
we need to get x million offthe ledger by end of year to show
profit, because that's the big thingwith all of this stuff. And this
makes me start running to the hillsand like want to tear my headphones off

(27:37):
and howl at the moon. Theywant a billion dollar profit every year.
And if you want a billion dollarprofit every year, that is unsustainable because
you're not always going to get there. But if you want it to look
at look like you did get there, you can do these monetary shell games
and these pro wrestling fades and fakesand make people think it. And that's

(27:59):
what we're running into right now.That's really what this strike is right now
with the writers and the actors andand you know, the big Hollywood companies.
It's a microcosm of what CM punksaid. And again this all comes
back to pro This is exactly whatCM punk said when the WW network was
created. How do I get myresiduals if you're putting the shows on this
streaming service, and no one gavehim an answer. Yeah, and that

(28:22):
was a time where everyone had thesame question, and he was one of
the only I think he was theonly one who actually wanted to ask,
at least publicly. And there mayhave been some people that had better relationships
with the mcmann's behind the scenes wereasking privately. But yeah, that was
that was a big story. AndI don't think they've ever bothered to explained
that sense, have they. Nope, they didn't need to because and when
you think from the exact side,because you know Trip Lates, Steph and

(28:45):
the like, when they have theirperformer and their executive contracts. First,
they got bonuses based on the amountof eyeballs and amount of people watching and
engaging with the network when it wasstill standalone. Then they got bonuses based
on the amount of profit and revenueas a result of the engagement with said
product. Then they got bonuses whenthey changed the numbers, and they got
rid of the original Wilson in Companywhen they merged with Peacock and sold it.

(29:10):
And now they're getting bonuses with theacquisition and merger with this sale,
so they're always making the money Butat no point do you see say Natti
Ninheart getting paid for the hours andhours of foot as she has on there.
And I picked her because she's awoman. Where they just gave her
a Guinness Book of Walt record forthe most matches as a woman in wrestling

(29:32):
in WWE, I don't think shehas a paycheck commensurate to that or any
sort of residuals, just like Idon't think Steve Auston and The Rock or
Oha Hogan or the Estate of theMacho Man are receiving stuff commensurate to the
way they are given or the amountof what people watching what they put on
the screen. When you talk aboutthe cutch that could come as part of

(29:56):
this endeavored thing, whether it's beforeor it becomes official or certainly, I
would think there's going to be someon the office side when it becomes efficients,
because you're gonna have departments said,uh, you know, basically do
the same job in different companies,So it's likely to happen. But when
it comes to the talent, that'swhy it's so key that there is a

(30:18):
strong number two. And that's whatI mean. As long as they get
their next television deal with the pockets, you know, the deep pockets at
the Khan family has. This isn'twell if if they were to get rid
of a Randy Orton or know someonelower, you know, way down in
the card, there's nowhere for themto go. That's where they're going to
make anywhere near that at least nowthere's the talent have some sense of leverage

(30:44):
with AW being there, and alTony can only hire so many people.
While I say that, and thenhe just keeps adding with that roster.
But I mean that's I think thebiggest key right now. If all of
a sudden AW were to go away, and you're looking at like, well
I can go to if I getfire today and go to Impact or MLW

(31:07):
or you know Bill in your company, oh boy Rich. So it is
vital to the talent that AW Iremain a strong challenger brand, as Tony
likes to label it. Yeah,this challenger brand is essential, as you
just mentioned. And when folks lookat who they're up against, you got

(31:29):
to realize with r Emmanuel and NickCohn, these are not dudes that want
to play nice. They've played that. Nick, especially Nikkon, he's played
nicer than I thought he would I'vehad Mark Blupman and some other folks.
Mark is a writer Emmy Award winnerfor a ghostwriter on Apple plus a wrestling
fan. He's friends with RJ.City. Just a great dude, great
human being. Kylin Furlow was kindenough to introduce me to him, and

(31:52):
he comes on undese stuff with meon the torch every now and again.
And a lot of folks in Hollywoodsee Nick Kahn is kind like like Bobby
Yaga, like basically the John Wickof agents, like, you don't mess
with this dude. And so havingWWE have him as their negotiator was very
smart when they got their television deal. It was even smarter to sign him

(32:12):
and make him their president when theydid, because now you have one of
the biggest sharks in Hollywood working withyou. As you get this deal,
you add in R. Emmanuel whowas his competitor at the time, back
when you had William Morris. Againthis is Hollywood history with rich William Morris
and CAA Creative Artist Agency were likekind of like tooth and Nail. Theyre
the WCWWWE of agencies, and likeentertainment. You have them together now and

(32:36):
those two guys working together could playnice, but they could choose not to.
And like we just talked about withthe example of power slap, if
they tried to squeeze and push aw into a deal that's convenient for the
for the WWE endeavor model and notfor Tony Khan and his family, that
could be very problematic. And Idon't think Tony would take that line down.

(32:57):
We saw during the one press conferencewhen he lost, when he was
like, I'm not taking this crapanymore, like he was he was fed
up with w W disrespecting him andhim turning a you know, the other
cheek and allowing people to do theirdocumentaries and that not being reciprocated. And
so imagine now if they just startthrowing one off WWE pay per views during

(33:21):
every aw pay per view I'm sorry, premium live event during every w W
pay per view. Yeah, andit's the same thing. And so that's
why I talk about that third hour, going back to that, or I
think about collision, or I thinkabout any of these other things. At
some point, you can only boilthe frog so much. You've you've gotten

(33:43):
to the point where there's just toomuch. And when that happens, and
that happened last time. They triedto do that with Michelle Wilson and Barrios
with the idea of let's have themwatch so much wrestling and have these shows
so long that we kind of tirepeople out and we can just burn them
out before they move to the competition. That's not going to happen. What's

(34:05):
going to happen is they're going toburn out completely on wrestling and need to
take a break, and that isn'tworth it for the people that want to
pay for that stuff. If you'reif if they're going to see the return
of their investment bang for their buck, if you will, pun fully intended,
isn't what they feel like it's worth. Another thing that came up,

(34:28):
and Tony's not denying there's a lotof talk that they may expand their pay
per view schedule and that this issomething that is also being pushed by Warner
Brother Discovery looking like, you know, probably twelve annual kind of a thing,
and there's no hint yet that thisis. It's like, oh,
they're they're moving to Max and it'sgoing to be a streaming thing and people

(34:51):
are going to just have to payor fifteen whatever whatever max is up to
these days. I'm sure they havedifferent tiers and they'll be fine. It's
all inclusive. Then, like peacockis it sounds like traditional pay per view
And I guess let's start with isthis a good thing for Tony Kahn and

(35:13):
company to be doing? Not theconsumer per se, but is this.
Do you look at this and thinkthat there's some real positives to them going
to twelve rather than their current Iguess five with the forbidden door. Yeah,
I mean twelve a lot man,and the turnaround. The thing for
me is five. I'd even goto seven. I think seven's a safe

(35:34):
number for them because most of thetime, if we're being honest, going
into a pay per view, wehave maybe one or two matches and then
the week of we get the restof the card. If you're doing that
every month, again diminishing returns.At some point the brand aid W isn't
going to drag people into paying fiftybucks a month for a year. Yeah,

(35:59):
you're looking at literally six hundred dollarsa year to be an aw fan.
If you want to watch all thepay per views, and that's that's
it might be a bridge too far. Yeah, yeah, for some fans,
I think it will and there's completeut out there. I've been this
way with other things over the years, that if I can't watch it all,
then I'm just I'm ruling it out. I'm moving on. I I

(36:21):
like to be a completest in someareas, or I find out that,
like with the Wild, there wasa time where I would try to watch
every game, and I would startmissing some hockey games and it just became
easier to miss regular season again,like, oh, I don't really feel
like I'm missing as much. Andthat's not the case of these days.
I love my Wild, but therewas a time when it just was I've
missed some games, and I reallydon't miss it as much as I thought

(36:44):
I would. Doesn't mean I stoppedwatching alltogether, but I watched a lot
less. That could happen. Butcan it From a creative standpoint, I
know you're talking about how the currentapproach, which I think is really stubborn,
that they've just this is how wedo this, and they don't experiment
with anything when it comes to tryingto start to build sooner, announced matches

(37:06):
sooner. But could it force them, not even force but could it lead
to them making some changes and youknow, if all of a sudden you
have to build monthly and you havethat built in structure that Okay, we've
got to turn the page after thispay per view. We only have three
four weeks until the next one.We got to start to build to those
pay per view matches. Could thatactually end up being a positive for them

(37:27):
like it seemed to be at onepoint for Impact Wrestling? Yeah? Impact?
I mean, how many times canyou do say something is like a
lot impact wrestling and think of itin a positive That's the first question to
your to answer your question, AndI think the second is you need a

(37:47):
little bit more struct Like I thinkfor aw in the Back, you're gonna
want to have a firmer structure withthe storylines and the arrangement of things,
because that's a lot for Tony toturn around. In addition to Ring of
Honor, in addition to Collision.If you're are they gonna have branded,
I think that might be the safestthing. Half of them are Collision,

(38:08):
half of them are Dynamite or I'msorry, a third Collision, third or
Dynamite, A third like a bigones. You're all ins. You're all
outs your blood and not blood andguts. You're forbidden door, folk gears,
etc. Forbidden doors. Those areall hands on deck, but then
some of them are brand specific.I think that would be a safe way
to do it, and I thinkas a righteous rage on Twitter had mentioned

(38:30):
a couple of weeks ago, andpeople jumped down his throats it's time for
us to talk about the dirty elephantin the room. That Ring of Honor
is really the what was dark anddark elevation? Oh yeah, yeah.
Colin McGuire had a piece saying thesame thing this Monday on dot net that
it's just and it's it's true,that's what it's become. They have death

(38:51):
before this Honor on Friday. RichThere's only so many hours in a day,
and as someone who covers this industryfor a living and works hard to
try to keep up with as muchas I possibly can, I gave up
on the Ring of Honor weekly showlike three weeks in. Sam Robinson does
a great job of covering it forthe site. I just don't have the
time, and if it was likethis red Hot show, I'd make the

(39:13):
time. It's a lot of matches. There are some weeks that are.
You know, I think they're kindof I think they may be learning their
lesson. It seems like they're trimmingit up a little bit. But I'm
going into this pay per view going, Okay, yeah, the matches even
ounced look fine. But I'm goinginto this with that mentality it's all about
the matches because I don't even knowthe storyline build and then just falling along

(39:36):
with Sam's reports there is no storylinebuild. So this is very much a
test of just how many of thesepeople are that, how many folks are
out there that will just literally orderanything Tony conserves them. We're going to
find out. I really feel thatway about this pay per view because there's
no buzz about this. They're justscrambling to put this card together. And

(39:57):
I know there've been some obstacles alongthe way, but that happens. But
there's just like, I don't evenknow why Ring of Honor exists and White
still doing pay per views, Butif they end up doing a good number
on Friday, then I guess I'mgonna find out, like, oh,
because there's enough of an audience thatwill literally pay for anything this man serves
him. Yeah, And for Tonybeing proud of that is great. I

(40:20):
think that's a really cool thing tohave under your belt. Yeah, but
there has to be a line withlike how much you're doing because again this
is going on currently his soccer team, his star striker, you know forward,
you know, best scorer, hasbasically gone on strike and said he's
not playing because he wants to goto Saudi Arabia because they're gonna pay him

(40:40):
probably about five times what his salaryis now in London. And so he
asked that the window closes like rightbefore September, actually right before all out
if memory serves and you have youknow, he said he's usually done with
the Jaguars when it comes to theanalytic stuff. Wants the draft done.

(41:00):
But you've got a lot of otherstuff going on at the same time.
You need people to help you makegood decisions. If it's a Jericho,
if it's a Danielson, that's great. Are those folks having Tony's best interest
in mine? Or are they havingthis guy's kind of kind be so not
distracted but so split that this ismy ability to help. And sometimes help

(41:24):
is a positive, but sometimes helpcan be I'm helping, but I'm also
helping me at the same time.Yeah, there's definitely a lot of that.
Tell me about a little bit more. I know we're bouncing all over,
but yeah, Tony has been prettyaggressive when it comes to his comments
about WWE doing business in Saudi Arabia, and good for him for that.

(41:45):
But this player situation is, arewe at risk of seeing Tony potentially takes
some money from the Saudis for thisplayer. Yeah, right now he's set
fifty two million pounds and I wantto say that's close to sixty million,
sixty one million US as the pricetag for Alexander Mitrovic as his price that
is, you know, right nowthey've offered up believe forty million, and

(42:08):
so that's ten million away. Ifthey go fifty fifty two, they probably
get him. And if he atthat point, the question is, and
for those who don't follow soccer,the way it works in Europe is you
have a salary and instead of tradinga player, you have to buy like
that value to the player. Youhave to agree a new fee and contract
with the player and then agree afee with the team. Right now,

(42:31):
Al Hallaal is one of the fourteams in Saudi Arabia that the basically the
Kingdom have designated as their farm leagueteam, so they have their own league.
They've gone around and hired a lotof middle management or like near retirement
players that could be marquee names likeRonaldo. People recognize him, you know.

(42:52):
And and so they're going after Mitrovichbecause they want a guy like they're
going after the middle class of thePremier League in England because you can't get
the big names. The big nameswant to play in the World Cups,
the big names want to compete forChampions League, Premier League, etc.
But if you can get the middlenames and pay them, well, so
right now Mitrovich is making about youknow, let's call it six seven million

(43:14):
a year, they're offering twenty fivemillion a year. That is money that
can fundamentally change his family for therest of his life. For a guy
like Metrovich, when you look atif you want to look him up,
he has some really good stories aboutlike him and his family when he was
growing up, and that is lifechanging money. And so a lot of
times I've said that to Wade,you know, I appreciate on I want

(43:37):
to say it was it the SouthBeast sessions or was it just the regular
Dan Lebatar show. I can't remember. Tony was on and talking about the
Southeast and talking about blood money.I don't know what I would do if
someone offered me that amount of moneyfor a short period of time to be
in a place I wouldn't want tobe, because I think about my best

(44:00):
example for this, Jason has beenSammy saying Sammy is one of the smartest,
most heartfelt wrestlers I think I've everseen been around. He is not
a stupid man. Nors Kevin Owens, they know who and what Vince McMahan
is. They take his money andin the case of Sammy, he builds

(44:20):
places to get water to kids inSyria. I would argue, Sammy Zane
spends Vince McMahon's money better than VinceMan ever could for a better purpose.
And it's it's I struggle with thatpersonally, like if I was in that
position, like, Okay, I'msetting my family up for life. I
can do so much good with thismoney after I'm out. Can I hold

(44:43):
my tongue for three years with thisregime. It's a tough one, Rich,
because I think the big difference hereyou and I are not already making
the six million. I think yousaid this guy's mate, which is life
changing money for us and that player. You know, you could sit here
and say, well, you know, shame on him, and I can

(45:06):
listen to that for sure, butit is, you know, it's a
huge jump, and he's not playingwith the same money that Tony Khan is.
So I think it's easiest for companieslike WWE and companies like hey W
to say no. You know thatthey have all these billions and they're not
going to do it. We've seenWWE already has taken the money, and

(45:28):
with Tony Khan, the fact thathe's been vocal about them, you know,
he's not running a show there.But if he starts taking money for
this player in exchange, how muchheat do you think he catches for this?
Do people start calling him a hypocrite? I think it depends because it's
one of those games where currently inthe Premier League, a lot of teams
like Chelsea they're a team that gotsold from Abramovich, who was a Russian

(45:52):
oligarch will in the team. Hesold it to an American hedge fund,
and that hedge fund spent six hundredmillion pounds year in transfer fees. What's
easy? What's more evil? Theoligarch or an American HESH fund. But
that's a trip that is man,Listen, it is. It is like
depending on what side of the fenceyou're on, because a lot of people

(46:12):
look at it and they's like,oh, the oligarch. It's like,
well, the oligarc isn't the personthat's gonna like calmly tell you how they're
going to starve people out the get, you know what, the same thing
done for the same little pittance ofmoney that we all only have blue marble.
So it's yeah, it is.It's six and one half dozen of
the O. So that that groupis like, just like we were talking

(46:34):
about with all this other eyeballs deatin depth, they are you know,
kind of underwater in terms of theirexpenditures to income. All of a sudden,
they get about one hundred and fiftymillion or so in between salary and
transfer fees from Saudi Arabia and playersthat other people might not want because they're
on the end of their career buton high wages. They're taking them on
and paying them even more to cometo Saudi Arabia, so now they look

(46:57):
better and this is happening all overthe place. So if Tony's the only
person that doesn't do it, heis both seen as a man of his
word but also a fool. Butif he does it, I don't think
the aw fans are going to callhim a hypocrite. I think the only
person that would if they were sochoke would be Tony. Sure. Yeah,

(47:20):
and it may make him pull backgoing for I mean, he's got
to have this in mind. Thoughhe said it was a recent jab that
he took it w W for runningin Saudi Arabia, so he knows,
you know, this is happening.So he's got to have in the back
of his mind that he one wayor another, either he's going to do
business with him or he's not.Yeah, it's a tricky one. I
don't know how that's going to workout, but certainly one to keep an

(47:44):
eye on. How do you feelabout death? Before Dishonored, I've I've
kind of said, like for me, it's just it's it's it's more matches,
and I'm sure there'll be good matches, but I get my film with
matches and I can't sit here,I can't tell you that I'm not going
to enjoy the show. Obviously Iprobably will, but I can't sit here
and tell you I'm excited about iteither. It's just like another three hour

(48:06):
show filled with matches, matches andmore matches, and how it will probably
be a four hour show. Wecould they like to load up a zero
hour with four more matches. Yeah, like right now. Thanks to the
power of Wikipedia, which is funnybecause I don't know if you would wait,
I told Wade, but I don'tknow if you knew this. But
a lot of Wikipedia when it comesto card stuff is archive, dot net

(48:30):
or torch like reports. Thank youWikipedia. Yeah, so so like this
card is actually when I look atYeah. This is a courtesy of pro
listen dot Net July sixteenth, twentytwenty three from Sam Robinson. There you
go, there you go. Goodjob, Sam. Wikipedia has has found

(48:52):
you and it will add you tothe list. See you have Claudio versus
TBA. Because of the injury tomister Briscoe, you got Samoa Joe Dalton
Castle with the Boys. Spoiler alert, Oh crap, I'm sorry. By
the time most people hear this,yet basically they're watching it on delay.

(49:13):
I'm sorry, folks, I didnot mean that. I'm oh, I
feel so bad. If you wantto mark this for editing, justesn't,
man, it's just super fans.Come on, they already know anyway.
If you're spending that kind of moneyevery month to watch a two hour block
of Ring of Honor matches, youalready know who won that match. You're
not fooling me. There might beten Honor Club subscribers who are are listening

(49:34):
and going on, damn it.The rest of them, they knew they're
reading the spoilers, so Samojo versusx Catsiorishoboto versus Daniel Garcia Athena Willow and
then Tony actually talked about this duringhis media call the Lucha Brothers. I
don't know if you've heard that,Jason or you are listening at the time.

(49:54):
You mentioned that the Lucha Brothers werenot both available on Saturdays. That's
why they haven't been on Ring ofHonor tapings or collision. And my first
response was why should they be onRing of Honor? They I love the
Lucha Brothers, but they they they'recalled to a higher thing than this,

(50:15):
and I'm sure for Penta, becausewhile Tony was very polite, only one
of the Lucha Brothers was on TripleA Television every Saturday, and it was
Penta, So it was like,hey, buddy, here's your income stream.
We're taking that away. So they'retaking on the Kingdom and best friends
in Aussie Open. I think thisis the best example of what we were

(50:37):
talking about earlier. If you toldme there would be a time where I
would see those four teams put togetherin a match and I am not overly
excited for it, I would havecalled you a liar. Until now I
I'm too tired. Jason Athena Willowis honestly, as much as I'm got
yours, Shabata Mark, as muchas I love Samoa, Joe Athena Willow

(51:00):
is probably the only match I wantto see, and everything else I'm kind
of like I will see a versionof that in the next six months.
Yeah, And it's weird because obviouslythere's fans out there that pick and choose
and so to that they may beway more excited about this than you and
I are. But I was gonnasay it. I get why Tony's defensive

(51:22):
when people call this their developmental show. When you go through those matches,
those are veterans and there's not awhole lot of developmental workers in there.
So I understand that. But thenthe question is, then what is Ring
of Honor if it's not for developmentalI mean, I just don't know why
this exists anymore rich other than Ibought this and I don't know what to

(51:43):
do with it, so I'm justgoing to keep it going. It's like
he doesn't want to just admit likes. We have too much content and there's
really no purpose for Ring of Honorright now. Yeah, and there isn't
a person who's willing to stream itto give me money for it. So
I bought this thing, and nowI have this thing, and I can't
use this thing. And you know, Ring of Honor makes me also angry

(52:07):
because I think about Jape Briscoe andI think about the fact that you couldn't
have the memorial show on Dynamite likeon television. Yeah, but at the
same time, your CEO allegedly ispushing for slap fight after seeing Dana White
slap his wife in Vegas on infour K. Right. Yeah, it's

(52:32):
that's the stuff that makes me thinkwhen I'm like, hey, Tony,
easy with these guys, because that'sthat's a problem. Oh for sure.
I mean, I mean, weknow jas Lamp is a trip, but
do you really think it's all thatdifferent if you go to the other major
networks. I mean, I don'tthink they'll care, that's the thing.
Yeah, I don't think the othernetworks would have cared, that's true.

(52:57):
I think about like, and ifWade's listening, wait, I'm sorry because
I already have an article I'm writingfor this month about like my journey through
Samoa Josim punk matches and how it'skind of been like from college to like
adulthood to now like more like middleaged adulthood, I guess. But the
other thing I'm thinking about is awis very much like Christopher Nolan and that

(53:21):
aesthetically like you have coming out Oppenheimer. He's like, you have to see
it in I'm actually have to seeit in seventy millimeter, even though there's
like ten ten theaters in all ofthe United States that can handle a seventy
end of a meter film. Andthat's like aw right, like, and
then on the other side you havea ring of honor where he's treating it
like this is my like you stillneed to see it, but it's on

(53:45):
this like it's like he made inceptionand it's only available on like three channels
in the United States. Yeah,are you watching this, yew? I
am not. I don't blame it. I don't blame anybody anymore at all.
For you. If you just can'tkeep up, Lord, I can't.
I'm gonna tell you what I do. Because this is g one season.

(54:07):
I'm gonna have to get up earlyto watch some of the g One
because I know, looking at thecard there's some things on that night I
want to see. So I'm justgonna go to bed early and get up
early and watch that. My wifeand son are going to be in Toronto
for hang out with one of hisbuddies who's had a camp up there,
and so I'm gonna have the houseto myself and the last thing I want

(54:28):
to do, actually, you knowwhat I'm gonna just put. I'm gonna
go see the Barbie movie and I'mgonna go to bed. Now. Are
you seeing it in a special seventymillimeter film showing it? You know what
I was going to do, Barbenheimerand even me I'm a I'm a I'm
gonna cent aphile, as you allcan hear. Like, I love movies
as much as I love wrestling.I love football in movies. But the

(54:49):
one thing I've also as I gottenolder, realized, just like with pro
wrestling, my taste are not everyone'staste, and so I don't need to
be a snob about stuff. Sofor me Oppenheimer, I would love to
do that, but I don't wantto spend I don't want to say waste,
but I don't want to spend themoney to travel to the like here
in Pittsburgh. There isn't a place. There's a place I know that's actually
in the middle of nowhere near Iused to live in northeastern PA. It's

(55:10):
like six hours away. I'm notdriving six hours to watch a three hour
movie. That is absurd. Iwill watch Oppenheimer in my own due course.
And honestly, watching someone create thenuclear bomb is not exactly something I
want to like spend a Saturday dueling. It's not It's not one of our
best times in history. Like,hey, we don't know if this thing's

(55:32):
gonna work, but we're gonna dropit on people, and it might kill
us all. That's Barbie, theexistential crisis of a doll realizing what happens
if we die like that is absurd. And I love Ryan Gosling being the
final form of Ryan Reynolds being abeautiful idiot in this movie. Like that
is just that. That's that's rightup my alley. That's what a Ring

(55:55):
of Honor is for me. Ithere's only so much good stuff you can
watch. Before we started recording,I told Jason there's a new Justified series
on right now. I love Justified. I love Waylan Given. I love
saying we Dug Cole together. Ilove seeing Boyd Crowder. I cannot watch
that right now because I haven't finishedseason two of The Bear. I have

(56:15):
not started on Netflix season three,Part one of The Witcher. I haven't
finished episode one of Miracle Workers seasonfour, where they're doing like a mad
Max motif, Like there's too muchon and that's just entertainment. When it
comes to wrestling, we're about toget into the five Star Grand Prix with

(56:37):
Stardom, We're already into the gOne. We're gonna do the End one
champions Carnival, and that's just Japan. I'm tired, Jason, I'm tired.
It is just overwhelming how much contentthere is. Will you watch the
Bash? Yes, I will maketime for the Bash. Part of the

(56:59):
reason it is is year for meanyway. And tell me if you feel
differently, is that when I watchan NXT Great American Bash show, I
know that I don't have to sitthrough an hour of matches on the pre
show that you know, I'm physicallytired by the time it's over. Somebody
covering the show and I can alsoand John Moore's probably covering the show anyway,
but still point the point is likeit's probably gonna be like two and

(57:21):
a half hours where I don't knowwhat the hell time. Tony Khn just
has a more is more Ed Mooreis better approach to everything, But it's
not. It's very much the Legomovie Everything is awesome. It is like
sometimes not everything is awesome. Let'sseeze up a little bit. You know,
I look at this card right now. You compare to death before Disna.
Right now you have five matches.You look at the Bash five matches.

(57:45):
Those five matches will be far shorter. And I'm looking forward to Dominic
mustaf Ali Carmelo versus Ilia Gallas versusthe D'Angelo family. Tiffany Tiffany Stratton.
I the fact that we have somuch wrestling going on, she's getting lost
in the sauce. Is one ofthe rising Like I can't say most improved

(58:07):
because she really didn't have time toshow what she had before she had the
injuries and had to go away fora little bit. But I think she's
one of those stars that they havein their back pocket that when other folks
age or injure or contract out,they can elevate her and not miss a
beat. But they got to getthat character down. It is such a
cartoon character. It's just so onedimensional right now. But here's the thing

(58:30):
that one dimensionality. As long asPrince McMahon is remotely in power, he'll
work with that before he'll work withsomeone like we like like thea Hale.
Sure, oh yeah, and thenI get it. I mean pay Tiffany
Stratton is a future megastar in thatcompany. She has women's main event of
WrestleMania written all over her. Andthen you look at Roxy and Blair Davenport

(58:51):
and they're two different women on thesame track of being another one of those,
you know, you think about whathappened with either. I'm trying to
think of a like let's say Baileywith EO Sharai. That's a EO Sky
I'm sorry. Those two women canbe the additional, young, plucky addition

(59:15):
to someone on the main roster andwork their way into being what they need
to be. I think Blair hasa really good future. She's creepy.
They got to figure out how tomake her creepy and cool because she does
it at times on NXT. ButI think not if they lost toxic attraction,
they're still trying to help her findwhat she is outside of toxic attraction.
And Roxy's got so much time.I mean, she is like Renee

(59:37):
Dupree without being a scumbag. Nooffense Renee, I guess all the defense
to Renee room because he was anoted scumbag. You can't have someone that
young on the road and not bea good citizen. If they're a bad
citizen, it's going to show andwhen your play favorites. That was the
lesson with Renee. I think theylearned with Roxy. You could have her
have enough time on this roster,age up a little bit and then by

(01:00:00):
the time this isn't start him,this isn't Joshi pro. She doesn't have
to be a teenager wrestling on themain roster, and i'd actually speaking to
teenagers. I want to cheat andjump back to AW for a second.
What do you think of the situationthey're doing right now with Nick Wayne?
So I was just fine with Imean, I think they should have backed
up and started the video packages sooner. And I'm almost hesitant to say it

(01:00:22):
because I'm just happy we got anyat all. That's just not something at
AW does well. But they didone the week before we got there and
one on the same show. Notenough. I do more with that.
I really set the table for it, but they did something, So I
credit them, and I'm fine withhim losing that match because I don't know
what their creative plants are. Butif it were me, it's okay to

(01:00:45):
lose to Swerve and I build too, not only his first win where he
finally and I'm not saying he needsto go on a hundred match losing streak
or anything, but I take mytime and have him lose to some credible
people and then eventually get that firstwin, and then I think you can
also build him getting his first awwin anyway overswerved separately if you want to.

(01:01:07):
So I think you get two differentthings you can do with him.
Yeah, and I Wade mentioned theidea of Sean Waltman engine for him because
my thought is he's their first quoteunquote young lion as much as Tony is
an ec W New Japan guy,Like that's a very easy thing to have.
Or I think about Chris Chetti whenhe first came into in the ECW,

(01:01:29):
like he was just the guy thatlost, and eventually he built into
a little bit more than mean.Oh, by the way, he's related
to Tas, which then dissolved myentire fiction. In my head, the
Taz was a light, skinting blackdude from Red Hook. But that is
his conversation for another day. AndI know there are more people like me
out there. There are dozens ofus. I believe Ron Simmons was one.
There's a remember hearing a story aboutthat. I actually I went to

(01:01:49):
one of those, one of theI think it was I want to make
sure I get are. I thoughtit was a starcast where I ran into
him and I was like, sir, I am glad that I am associated
with you in some way, andthis is the yes. That was one
of the greatest wrestling related moments forme because they had Ron Mark Henry was
asking questions and the media scrumbs.They were real media scrumbs. They weren't

(01:02:14):
like the organized thing they have now. It was like, you get your
question, Mark Henry will hit thebase. Everybody else was shut up because
he was there for Busted Open.I was like, I'm not talking over
Mark Henry. I'm not kidd Andthen I wound up doing an interview with
Stan Hansen after having already talked toKenta Kobashi, who was like at the

(01:02:35):
other end of the exhibit, andthey didn't know they were both in the
same area, and so I gotto explain that, and then Stan Hanson
walks with me down to kind ofGoobashi and they just hug and talk and
I'm just sitting there and my eyesare bugging out of my head as they're
talking about how much they enjoyed wrestlingeach other, and I'm like, what
world did I enter this strange?You know? Conk I was like,

(01:03:00):
this is when Conrad got me.I got Conrad pilled on that day.
Now I know you. I thinkyou mentioned in your latest to everything that
you maybe Waterloo bound next year.You know, Stands are regular down there,
or at least he had been.I don't know if he still is.
Yeah, well, my man,my man, mister Keister. Dan

(01:03:21):
Keister had always asked me. Iam currently moving. I'm leaving after like
fifteen years my current job to anew adventure and going into that new position,
it's going to afford me more timeoff where I wouldn't have to work
as much, like at night oron the weekends, and so Waterloo definitely
becomes a stronger possibility. The onlything for me with Waterloo is football.

(01:03:42):
But if that's the only issue Ihave over a summer, it's a lot
more manageable than some of the otherstuff I've been dealing with over the last
like seven years. Say so,yeah, I definitely want to go to
Waterloo. One of the other things. I'm making a trip at some point,
but the summer's over down the NorthCarolina to see my good friend Bruce
Mitchell and see what he's up toget some comic book tips, because I
feel like on this travel at somepoint I'm gonna go to Minnesota and see

(01:04:04):
you guys. But I can't gowithout my wife because she says them all
of America must be experienced again byher. So I don't know what that
means. I am scared. SoI hope this new job is lucrative.
Then Oh, she's a lawyer,so she's got the money. Oh good,
Okay. I am firmly I alwaysjoke. I'm firmly in the Kevin
federline part of this relationship. Iwill have a houseboat like step Brothers in

(01:04:28):
my backyard and happily, happily damnright, God bless you for that one.
Hey to close, and we don'tneed to spend a lot of time
on it. And we've gone anhour, but I already have the headline
written and I don't feel like changingit. Talk to me about Summer Slam.
Yeah, summers Slam. I mean, god, brock Lesner might kill

(01:04:48):
it, might kill a dude likethat. That's that's my start and finish.
So I joke with Wade, ifin the world of pro wrestling,
when you have the music hit andpeople just stop whatever they're doing, Cody
and as if it Wisdom stopped hugginghis mother. I would huddle my mother
tight. I would hold her andnever let her go. Because if brock

(01:05:10):
Lesser's running towards me, I thinkthat might just be it. That might
be the last you seeing so himand Brock. I hope Cody gets a
dusty rhodes As blood bath where hesurvives this, you know, Nikita Coloff
times three like stacked on top ofeach other, Seth and Fenn, bitter

(01:05:30):
Betty versus the sassy Champ. I'mhappy it's like an episode of Golden Girls
Gone Wrong Judgment Day. I don'tknow what's going on there, but I
think, like I said before,Senor money in the bank may decide to
cash in and lead defend being alittle you know, feeling some kind of
way Dom. I'm hoping after Bashis able to defend his pristine North American

(01:05:54):
title against someone looks like we're clear, your money in the bank better stay
away from that title. He betternot if he knows what good for him,
and I think he does. Hehasn't been to jail like Dom has.
He's like he can't handle that life. Prison life does not suit Damien.
He wouldn't last a day in theyard like he did. No it
seems we can see it in hiseyes. He does, he's not real.

(01:06:14):
It's okay, we'll get it.We'll get to him later. I
think the Ronda Shana match, eventhough their friends and they want this,
is booked poorly because you're leaning intoRanda's worst tendencies, which is talking.
I don't know. That not thenicest way to say it. But Ronda,
the more rope you give her whenit comes to waxing philosophical, the

(01:06:36):
weirder it gets. And that's whywhen Becky called her a little weirdo because
she was comparing her finisher to hera penis like, like, who who
thinks of that? Like sometimes Ronda, I feel like she's sitting there and
she's like the lost member of theroy family reading good tweet, black bad

(01:06:57):
tweet and just laughing at the onesshe should be mad at. And that's
not good. And so Shana,I don't know if she's being served by
this. First of all, theydidn't start with Shana Basler. When they
took away her awesome theme song fromNXT that was a pretty ba theme and
felt like she was a hard woman. It was like awesome. Now it's
this generic bleep bloor crap that Iam not with. But yeah, and

(01:07:18):
then the tag titles, I'm assumingboth the men's the men's sectile won't be
defended because time I feel like Sammyand Kevin may get a match, but
with it be in Summer Slam.Maybe it's a Sammy, Kevin and someone
else in a sixth man or somethinglike that, because I feel like every
week we got a tag match betweenthose guys, or they do the SmackDown

(01:07:39):
special. With the show being heldwith the on the go home show,
it seems like they kind of loadedup. Yes, this could have been
on the show, but there's notroom, so we're putting it here and
that makes a lot of sense.Clearly, Jay and Roman that's going to
be another top of the card matchand any chance I think, No,

(01:08:00):
I don't think Man of Venuso doesit. I still think Cody. I'm
still sticking with Cody. Yeah,story will be written in Philadelphia. His
daughter's name is Liberty, so Libertyraising the title in Philadelphia next in the
Liberty Bell like whatever that augmented realitything they create, I think that is
going to be the moment we have. Speaking of Cody's family, where was
Brandy on Monday, Brandy, Cody'smom was there, the whole family was

(01:08:26):
there, but no Brandy. Ithink we're not ready for her yet.
I think she's in the lab.I think she is working with QT and
everybody else at the at the school. And I would not be surprised in
twenty four if she comes back andwrestles. Oh boy, I'm ready.
My body is ready for it.The only thing. Look, I'm fine
if Brandy returns to wrestling, butonly under this condition. Okay, once

(01:08:49):
Cody turns here, then she hasto be part of that. Yes,
yes, yes, and she hasto come out almost like aunt say Andrew,
you know, like the equivalent ofUncle Sam, like Still America.
It out to the gills, butit's like, you know, Homelander,
like Code Lander, like he wason the way out in in aw where

(01:09:09):
it's just absolutely just the worst.And I think that works for him.
I'm assuming Gunter is going to havea match because he's one of the flats.
Would have been like their lynchpins.I mean, it's all it seems
like it's almost a facial him andDrew MacIntyre. Yeah, and and depending

(01:09:30):
on what the contract, you know, especially you know they've been very quick.
I know you and way to mentionthis when you did the last time
you did the Flagship like, theywere very quick to show, Oh you
guys right and were wrong. Clearlythere was never anything to work out.
Even had mentioned we were working thingsout. He just went away for reasons.
And if his contracts up and he'snot resigned, which I'm assuming based
on reporting, is still the case, this is just a good rehab for

(01:09:54):
him and Gunther and Gunter can keepit moving. I really liked on Monday
the win, the title win,because it moves the ladies into separate zones.
You don't have to worry about LiveMorgan being and yet another tag team,
and you can have Rachelle Rodriguez goup against Riha Ripley, which I'm
assuming is going to be the nextstep for her SummerSlam. And it puts

(01:10:18):
two women who i think need moretime on TV. I'm unabashedly a fan
of Team tough Enough. I thinkthose those two women need more time.
They don't talk about it at all, but they should now. I didn't
even think about the Tough Enough connection. That's great. Yeah, though they
were the two because they were thetwo. Towards the end they were locked

(01:10:39):
in together. Chelsea had already beenwrestling and then I can never remember her
real name, but she had comeout and she was one of the people
supported her on the show, andhoek Hogan get to be there, and
I'm still would grip my teeth everytime I saw his face. And you
know, one of the reasons wealso mindlocked that is because the other guy
that was on the with them iskind of like he doesn't exist anymore,

(01:11:02):
mister Clark h that was that year. So I think all of us collectively
just throw it in the vault bottomof the sea, never to remember again.
A little bit of wrestling sense thentoo, yeah, and a little
bit you know, at some pointwe'll figure it out. But I think
with those two as tag champs,it's clearly you know, I'm not saying

(01:11:26):
that at the level of Bailey andSasha, but I think they have a
chemistry. They work well, andthey have a good odd couple vibe.
But it's not a nod cup whenthe team of convenience where you're going to
turn on each other. It's I'mthe person that's more like Samantha, You're
a person that's more like, uh, the leather jacketed girl from Facts of

(01:11:48):
Life, Joe. They would go, I knew I wasn't going to forget
that Samantha. And so who's SamanthaSex in the City. Yeah, Samantha
from Sex in the City and ShoeWell, I don't even know how to
hopped out. I mean, wecan just stand here. You just made
a section of shitty and Facts ofLife combo reference. Listen. I try
to do it with the whole likeBechtel scale in mind, Like I don't

(01:12:09):
want them to be a thing whereit's like a guy's tied to them.
I think those two women are reallyfun and I think you've earned it,
especially with the stalker crap that youhad to kind of like deal with and
everything else. They kind of hadderailed some of those start and stop pushes,
But now I think you know,the sky's the limit. Was it
a baby face turn? When Riaheadbutted Live Morgan? I feel like it's

(01:12:34):
entien. I can't help it.I know there's people that just love her,
and I'm like, I don't getit. The thing for Live is
I don't know if you saw this, because after they lost to Sonya and
Chelsea. It made me think aboutit. She was at a Knicks game
and there was a guy sitting nextto her and talking to that great and

(01:12:56):
I watched it in real time andthey didn't know who she was, but
they it's like she does not careabout what he's talking about. And I
was like, oh my god,this left Morgan. Why why why would
you do this guy. It's kindof like that meme of the dude that's
talking to you, also a blondewoman in the meme where he's talking and
she's clearly like not there for it. I man, I never want to

(01:13:19):
be that person. It's like thekisscam and the person is actively trying to
get away from you. That isa level of embarrassment that should just allow
you to change your name, likefake your death, move somewhere else and
start over. He gets those occasionalproposals in front of the stadium and she
says no, oh god, andthen yes she said no. She said
no. It's like, oh no, no, no, no, no,

(01:13:39):
no, I don't need that.I'm sure you know. If you
have like my circle of friends,I rich they would bring it up every
day. If they're the rest ofmy life, just to torment me about
that. I wonder how much thathappens with these poor schmucks. Oh and
then you pretend like you're tying yourshoe just to get to the person.
It's like, oh, ye,don't want to do that about you around
you start, buddy, yeah no, no, no, no no no

(01:14:00):
no. The anxiety alone, I'mhaving anxiety for any of the people that
have experienced this already. It soundslike I sound like one of those lawyers
that are doing a class action inview or someone closes you have experienced well,
I'm not knowing everybody. Thank youso much for listening, Thank you
Rich for joining us, and we'lldefinitely be doing this again. Live coverage
coming up of I don't know asas Rich would say on his Shaw everything.

(01:14:24):
Thanks Gang,