WWE RAW POST-SHOW (4/28): Keller & Adams discuss odd crowd reactions with on-site correspondent in KC, plus McAfee shines, Becky explains

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Give yourself a reason to look forward to. Go into
the mailbox each week with a PW Torch newsletter paper copy.
Subscription details at PW torch dot com slash paper Copy.
It's twelve pages every week packed with my TV reports,
along with exclusive features such as my cover story on
the top story of the week, our pay per view
roundtable reviews from the Torch staff, exclusive feature length columns

(00:21):
from Greg Parks, Rich Fan, Sean Radikin, Alan Coonahan and
Zach Hadorn, Torch Talk transcripts, the latest news and more.
PW torch dot com slash paper Copy. Take a break
from screen time and settle in every week with the
megadosup wrestling news and analysis. With a Pro Wrestling Torch
Newsletter paper Copy edition. In the year twenty twenty two,

(00:43):
you can get a full year of home delivery for
just ninety nine dollars, or try us for an eight
week trial subscription. PW torch dot Com Slash paper Copy.
Now p W Torch brings you the Wade Keller Pro

(01:06):
Wrestling post Show. It's time to talk this week's WWE
Monday Night Raw. Well, this is the raw after the
raw after Mania Chris where we get the new play
of the land, and it is centered right now in
great part around Paul Hayman, Seth Rollins, and bron Breaker.

(01:29):
They were advertised as addressing their actions their new group
we got, you know, affording some storylines angle to close
out the show with in a match with Sammy and
bron Breaker. Seth as the most vocal spokesperson for the group,
but act in the same way, dressing the same way,

(01:50):
talking the same way to the same music, with the
fans still singing his song not only when the music plays,
but at the end of the match after he beats
up Sammy. So I got mixed feelings on this. I'm
not blown away by week one of the new Hayman
Alliance kind of being the centerpiece of raw. How about you.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm not blown away by it. I'm intrigued by it.
I think the thing that is most exciting to me
right now is Paul Hayman feels the most different of
the three. He's you know, performing in a way that
I think is a bit more or less snibbling than
he was with Bloodline adjacent stuff. But again, that could

(02:26):
just be anecdotal. I'm with you, I'm mixed.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Where it's going. I'm open to it being awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah. So the Sammy did I am I frozen?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
You frozen there?

Speaker 1 (02:42):
That has never that has not happened on this competer.
Maybe I'll come back, but you can look good. Yeah
it's not. It's not the worst freeze frame. It could
be worse. Well, at least you can hear me. We'll
see if if it comes back on its own or else.
I don't know what to do, but uh yeah. So
the story we throughout the show was Sammy being tempted

(03:05):
or offered, the temptation to go to SmackDown and get
a world tittle match that Hayman negotiated for him. What
what did you think of that offer?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I mean, I thought the offer was was an enticing one,
but it was also clear that that that was not
what what Sammy was going to be doing. I think
Wade's gone, so is it just me he's back? He's
coming back there.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
I was so hoping you just talked through that while
I hitcht oh good good. I'm glad that worked out.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, so you know, I knew he wasn't going to
take the offer right the way they set it up.
They've been too easy. I'm also though, I'm ready, I
think for Sammy to stop talking about being in a
world title picture and WWE either you know, pulling the
trigger on it or or hey, let's move him on.

(03:55):
So maybe maybe it comes back around. Because they did
tease that through the storytelling of the match. It felt
it felt like rinse and repeats sort of to me
in some ways the discussions with Sammy, so I wasn't
too sold on that.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
And I'll say my take is a little bit different
than yours in that I liked what they did. What
I didn't like is what they didn't do Like I
for one, I mean this is just me. I was
kind of excited to have like a third or fourth
member teased. Maybe that will still happen. Yeah, I mean,
Russev seems kind of ruled out. He's got his own agenda.
Becky Lynch kind of doing her own thing. No hint

(04:32):
that she might sign up. I speculated Sammy might turn
and join them. That seemed emphatically not in the plans.
And that's fine. I mean, I'm not I didn't have
anything specific in mind that I was just married to.
I need this to be what happens. But the speculation
was there, you know, like a Jeff Cobb showing up
and being a guy in a suit standing UX to Hyman,
protecting him. But then bron Breaker came out in a
suit standing X to him and looking like he's gonna
play the role of the guy protecting right. So at

(04:53):
this point, I mean, until there's a reason to think otherwise,
I mean, then I know it was all over. You know,
the seo was all over. You know who will do
the Hayman Alliance, the New Dangerous Alliance, nothing like that.
I didn't mind the story with Sammy, and I get
what you're saying. You know about Sammy the ongoing quest
for a world title, but they needed something to offer
Sammy as a vehicle that would seem believably tempting for him,

(05:15):
and also that Seth and Hayman would think would not
only tempt Sammy but be something Sammy won't feel too
bad about accepting. Sammy wasn't abandoning a friend if he
went to SmackDown. He was simply going to another brand
to avoid bron Breaker. That's fine. To get a world
title shot, he could. I think it's believable and plausible

(05:37):
to think that Seth and Hayman would think that was
an offer that would legitimately tempt Sammy, and they needed
something like that. They can't just go Sammy, run away
from bron go to SmackDown. You needed something in enticement.
So that worked for me. I think Sammy did a
great job on the microphone, yeah you know. I mean
he's you know, go to hell, Paul Haman or Seth Rollins,

(05:58):
you know, yelling at him and all that. So I
didn't buy the angle. I just it was the absence
of sort of Hayman taking the lead with a mission
statement is good of a talker as Seth Rowins is.
I'm not sure how many people want to hear the
exact same Seth Rawlins in the same outlandish outfits, with
the same music and the same sunglasses and the same
tone of voice, now just with Hayman, with Hayman standing

(06:20):
behind him saying nothing.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
No.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I know, Hayman got a backstage scene with Sammy, which
is really well done. But to me, what I was
and again this is my disappointment, is more what I
imagined might happen that I wanted to see happen. That
does not define a bad angle. I mean I got
news to people. If what you want doesn't happen, it
doesn't mean the angle's bad. It just means, you know,
you might be personally disappointed. So I'm not judging it's
it is, yes, So I'm not in that sense judging

(06:45):
this as a failure or bad. I'm just saying I
was kind of hopeful that we'd get a refreshed, remade
seth rawlins that would be including by the way, and
I know it's difficult to give up because the communal
experience is part of why people are paying hundreds of
dollars for bad seats at WW events in ten thousand

(07:08):
plus packed packed arenas you know, ten thousand and eleven
thousand tonight again in Kansas City. They're paying top dollarcs.
They want to be part of, chanting stupid things like
one more time to a heel or this is awesome,
which is fine, but it's not exactly being engaged in
an outcome of a match. It's kind of grading it
as it's happening, or making it about you. I'm enjoying this,
this is keep going, this is awesome, instead of being

(07:29):
into the story being told. And you know, if you're
making a movie and you want people to be crying
or laughing, and all they're doing is great movie, keep
it rolling.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Great.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
May be like yeah, as a director, you think you
failed because they're thinking about their experience watching a movie
and how they want it to go on and how
great it is. That's after the movie, not during it.
During it, you should be caught up in the chase
scene or the jeopardy that the protagonist is in. So
I think WWB is continuing to enable a destructive tendency

(08:01):
and direction in terms of crowd response to their product,
and I think fans think they're showing support for the
cause that is WWE and this brand that they're loyal to.
It's not a peak experience. A peak experience. I'm sorry
for Peed myself, but it's the Sami Roman Montreal thing.
It's Cody on his on his journey. Those are the
that's peak experience that I'm pointing to for the past
couple of years. There's been many, many over the decades,

(08:22):
and not just in WWE. So I think Seth keeping
the music just around it tonight is encouraging a continuation
of what we saw tonight. Sammy couldn't have performed better.
But at the end, the crowd's saying one more time
to bron Breaker and singing Seth's song. They cheered Seth
and boots sea I'm Punk in the opening segment. I
don't know what was up with that, or at least
they were sort of numbered in their response to punk.

(08:43):
Same thing with Romans. So yes, Hayman is a popular figure,
but Hayman needed to I think take the microphone and
lead that segment in a way that Seth isn't capable of.
And that's not at this disssts. That's a really, really
good performer. But when I mean capable, is Haman's the
one who's capable of taking a crowd and steering them
in the direction he wants. He can grab everyone by

(09:05):
their proverbial shoulders and go, if you're pointed this way
and feeling this way, point this way instead and feel
a different way, and I'm going to talk you into it.
I wanted that tonight from Hayman, and I want them
to stop singing Seth Soong Seth. I want new music.
I want a new outfit for Seth, and I want
a feeling of a fresh start. And I didn't get that.
So again, it's kind of like I said, I like
what they did, but I don't like, buy a wide

(09:26):
margin more what they didn't do, and I see a
bad trend.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Chris, all right, so you gave me a lot, and
I agree with almost all of it. The first thing,
I'll say, the glasses. I could deal with the jacket.
I actually kind of liked the jacket and white suit look,
but the glasses that he wore in the opening were
egregiously distracting, the ones that had the eyeballs outside. So

(09:52):
couple that with the music, with the cackling, and I
think the cackling in particular is in iccative of the
kind of joker mischievous esque aspect of the Seth freakin'
rollins right standing next to bron Breaker in a suit,
which is a tiny bit of evolution, but a suit, right,

(10:14):
I mean a little bit of progression, Paul Hayman, affecting
a different kind of character. Seth had zero evolution, right,
So in that sense, you've already failed his character because
he's not progressed at all to your point, right, the
same old stick. I want to circle this in with
the j Uso logan, Paul build that they initiated today

(10:38):
and to Carrie and Cross's promo from WrestleMania Weekend if
you remember it. There seems to really be a trend
towards viral moments because WWE is aware of how many
views they get, engagement views, merchandise money, right, and so
it feels like creating these one more time moments to

(11:00):
feed the crowd, to do that so they can blast
that on social media. I think that that is an
aspect of how they are crafting their storytelling in a
way that detracts from the long term build, detracts from
the engagement in the story. Again, to your point, it's
a failure of the storyteller to get your people more

(11:21):
excited about the experience and the feeling than being locked
in with the characters themselves, allowing yourself to go on
the journey.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right Yep, Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's not a great thing that they're doing.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
And I don't know if they think it's a problem,
and if they do, I don't know that they've shown
any indication they know how to fix it. So and
it's going to take some work. It's it's not an
overnight thing. But honestly, dumping sets music and outfits and
having a new theme song and having Hayman take the
lead on the microphone would have helped. You know what,

(11:57):
if let me pause and we'll introduce ourselves, and then
I want to read some chet comments about the conversation
we're having. Most agree with what we're saying, but well,
you know, they have their own way of framing their
feelings on tonight, and and certainly we'll get into other
topics as you touched on. We had a you know,
Becky Lynch promo, We had the Caring Cross segment. We
had the Pat McAfee speech, which won me over. I'm

(12:17):
a Pat McAfee fan.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
That was great.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was great.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Actually he could have he could have, you know, run
for office and made some I don't know, I mean
that was I mean, if if he can back all
that up, you know, he's going to get a lot
of votes from from from people. He seemed like a
good guy doing good things for the world and stood
for the right things. The loyal leader friends and and
giving to charity and remembering your roots.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
LGBTQ shout out yes, w w t D. I mean, yeah,
we shouldn't have to celebrate it. But it's worth celebrating.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
No, totally, I mean honestly everything he said. And you know,
it's like, where was that last October? You had a platform,
and you might want to just kind of decide the
obvious difference between two people and what they stand for
and maybe maybe not sit on the sidelines or play
neutral for the sake of your pocketbook or your ratings,
but because bigger things are at stake. But that's politics,

(13:09):
and I don't want to turn a good speech into that.
But it crossed my mind listening to that, like where
was that last fall? It's that's so you really feel
like it is pretty obvious what you were choosing between
and and so. But hopefully it's a sign of, you know,
things to come. I'm I doubt he did that because
Douby's a little worried about their image. You know, he's
talk talking about how, you know, since Target capitulated to

(13:30):
the to Trump on the DEI like, their foot traffic
is down and black preachers and churches are saying don't
go to Target, and oh yeah, Costco said we're not
backing down, and their foot traffic is way up. I
mean it, and I say that because it affects business.
It affects businesses when you because you can't separate politics
and w W has not. It's not me bringing politics,

(13:51):
and it was sort of this with the McAfee thing,
but I could have avoided it, is, I guess a
fair way to say it, but I'm not. But they
should be cognizant of the fact that they have injected
politics because Lenn mcmhn's and the Trump administration and they've
got I mean, I won't go through the whole list,
but it was a rough week. It was a rough
couple of weeks for them when it came to public statements,
and they don't have anyone saying the other view other
than see, I'm punk at this point. So I don't

(14:14):
know if McAfee's speech was meant to make you feel
warm and fuzzier. It's just what he would have said
any time, regardless of the world. But I think for
do to be fans who agree with a lot of
what he says, and what kind of person are you
if you don't. That was a I mean, seriously, it
was a great babyface promo and a great Babyface just
speech in general. And I'm sold, but I know I'm

(14:35):
getting ahead of things. I'll just say this and then
we'll expand it later. He needed to not make it
seem like he's Shane matt against kurde Angle. I got
a shot because I'm Shane McMahon and I take glom
everybody's finishers and no one no one has to sell
for me or I don't sell for anyone else, and
everyone sells for me because I'm the boss's sun and
I'm oblivious to it. It was a total NEPO wrestler
living out his fantasy wrestling camp. I hadn't had a chance

(14:56):
to a Shane rant in a while, never bought the
idea that he could go till to till with an
Olympic gold medallist. It was freaking absurd. McAfee's not pretending
to be Shane. He's like, I'm gonna get killed. I
might be dead, but I'm fighting for my friend. I'm
fighting for my friend, and it's like I'll bin into that,
I'll bind it.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
I can appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, we're about to go to a commercial break. Why
listen to commercial breaks when you can go VIP and
experience our shows with the ads and plugs removed. PW
torch dot com slash go VIP that's PW Torch dot
com slash go VIP for full details, or go to
Patreon Patreon dot com slash PW Torch VIP rate start
as low as four dollars in ninety nine cents to

(15:34):
remove the ads and plugs through Patreon. Full VIP membership
starts at nine dollars in ninety nine cents to treat yourself
to a streamlined, ad and plug free listening experience with
a VIP or Patreon membership. Okay, So to set the
show here, This is the Way Keller Pro Wrestling post
show following RAW Monday, April twenty eighth, twenty twenty five,

(15:57):
and I'm Waykeller, host of the show. I am the editor, publisher,
founder of the Pro Wrestling Torch brand. As we say,
it started as a newsletter, still is a newsletter. I've
got one sitting around here somewhere. It's still paper copy
newsletter being mailed out to subscribers. And I started it
in high school. Moved on, of course to all the
different media advancements over the years, including launching PW Torch

(16:21):
dot com a website in nineteen ninety nine. So we
just celebrated twenty five years since our launch a little
while back, and also podcasting effect. We're doing podcasting. As
I always say, before podcasting was a word, It's true
going back to two thousand and three. We call them
audio shows and we still kind of do old habits
die hard and also did a nine hundred number for
a while in the nineties, which is the only way

(16:42):
to get breaking news quickly, true news to people before
the Internet was in everyone's home. So yeah, we are
here covering professional wrestling, and now we're on YouTube doing
our live shows throughout the week. I host Monday, Wednesday
and Friday after wrote DOWNAM and SmackDown live on YouTube
and then it gets distributed as it has been for
fifteen plus years on our podcast feeds. Search Wade Keller

(17:03):
in your podcast app if you have not subscribed yet,
and then also just search PW Torch on YouTube and
subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also you can also, by
the way, on the podcast I think search pw Torch
in addition to Weadkeller and you'll get all of our
free feeds on your podcast app. We're compatible with Apple, Spotify,
Android apps, iOS apps, So yeah, search weight Keller subscribe

(17:24):
to the Red and Blue shows. The Blue Show is
our regular podcast rather than our postial format, and tomorrow
Jason Powell from prowosting dot net joins me on our
weekly flagship edition. He joins me every three weeks, and
we got a lot to talk about Tomorrow. We'll talk
some TNA rebellion, pay per view results too, and Joe
Henry and all that. So if you have questions by
the way for the Flagship tomorrow, email now Wadekeller Podcast

(17:48):
at gmail dot com. We answer a broad array of
questions in that format. CJ asked on Friday and get
a chance to respond to him in the chat. Whether
we ever do a show where we answer general questions
and the flight is that format. So if you don't
want to just react to a TV show but want us,
want to ask us about history, broad topics, things off
the beaten path, whatever, or just react to what we

(18:10):
say in the post shows, that's the way to do it.
Weait Keller podcast at gmail dot com. Please, if you're
watching us on YouTube, either live or on demand, like
this show and comment below just a quick comment on
anything we say during the show. That ten seconds can
make a real difference for us, and also subscribe to
our channel. Those are all indicators to YouTube and their

(18:31):
algorithm that we're doing good work and that can help
us grow. You can also set an alarm to be
alerted when we go live in case you forget or
there might be a show we do live that isn't
on a regular schedule. So do all those things for us.
And if you're listening to us on the podcast side
of things, give us a five star rating in whatever
app you're listening to us, and some kind words if
you feel their merited. And if you don't, you can

(18:52):
email me anytime. Weightkelerpodcasts at gmail dot com. Give us suggestions,
point out our mistakes or if we overlook something, or
if you just disagree with us, if it's you know,
if it's a US in comment leaving in the comments,
but if it's about the show and you have some
suggestions or or critiques or criticisms, or there's a particular
co host you never want to see again, just drop

(19:13):
me a line. Weadkeller podcast at gmail. Chris, I wasn't
aimed at you. I wouldn't stay out in front of you
if I was aimed at you. That's first, someone else
who I won't mention it. Someone else is actually a
few of them. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
One question I did have. It doesn't cost any money
to like, comment and subscribe, does it.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
It's totally free, right, No, it doesn't. That's a great point.
It's a freeway that you can do. You can do
whatever the links for us. Finally, by the way, if you,
if you do, want to expand your support for us
and more importantly, expand the array of things that you
can receive from us during the week, a VIP membership
has a way to go pw torch dot com slash

(19:53):
go VIP will give you details on all the perks
of VP membership, thirty five plus years of archives, almost
two thousand back issues of the newsletter on hundreds of
retroa shows from the nineties on demand, over twenty years
of podcasts on demand. Our podcast feed that is customizable.
It is compatible with Apple podcasts. You can also sign
up through Spotify or Patreon. Just search pw torch VP.
You got a seven day free trial. But again, full

(20:14):
details on all the options on how to sign up
and all the breakdowns of perks at pw torch dot
com slash Go VIP. You deserve the best wrestling coverage,
and you deserve it with the commercial break skipped right over.
So you get all our free shows with the commercial
breaks edited out. And then you also get VP exclusive
programs on our podcast feed again compatible with Apple Parplay,

(20:35):
Apple podcasts, and many and most actually iOS Android apps. Okay,
So the co host who you've heard his voice, if
you're on YouTube, you've seen his face. It is Chris Adams,
a PW Torch contributor and also a PW Torch VIP podcaster.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Christ Yeah, Hey, thanks a lot, and thanks for letting
me get get on with you talk wrestling. It's it's
I mean, like I said, I'm nothing if I'm not earning,
and this is a highlight for me. So thanks for
having me back on.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
It's awesome to have you on. Let's tell people about
your new VAS show.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Talk about it.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Catching the culture with Conscious Kirk Kirk Cadet, who I
think was on Friday Night with you did the Friday Show.
You've heard him and read him, he writes the He
does a few trackers for Monday Night Raw. He and
I were on the acknowledging WWE show for a couple
of weeks when Haabier had to step away and we
had such a great time, and Wade invited us back

(21:31):
to have a weekly show. So now we have a
show called Catching the Culture where we explore current wrestling events,
current especially WWE events, and then what we do is
something I think that's pretty cool. We look at historical
wrestling matches, moments and time and compare them with pop
culture events happening at the same time, really trying to
get a sense of was wrestling shaping the culture, was

(21:54):
being shaped by culture and what's that connection? I mean,
we saw it play out in WrestleMania with Travis Scott
making his way down the ramp. So we have a
lot of fun talking about wrestling and culture. So it's great.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, go VIP check it out. I'm so excited with
this format. You and Kurt are great together and Kurt
gave a good plug for it on Friday. You gave
a good plug for it right now, another reason for
thee to check out VIP membership cool and from time
to time, by the way, we offer sample free samples
of VIP shows and we'll probably do yours next week
on the free feed that you can find if you
search pw Torch in your podcast app, you'll see a

(22:30):
charcoal colored logo. And we're inconsistent, but we try to
do every week or two a free VIP show. That Also,
you don't have to use native Apple podcast app to
get the free samples, but if you do within the
podcast app on your iPhone, you can upgrade to a
VIP feed using your Apple account with just your fingerprint
or your face. Is like, it's as frictionless as it gets.

(22:50):
If you want to support us and you just want
to get all the all the all the content we
offer on the podcast side of things in one convenient
feed with the commercial free versions of our free shows
and all the VIP shows that it's a really good
way to do it. So search p to pw torch
in your Apple podcast app or any app and get
some free VP samples. Like I said, I think this
week we'll put Catching Culture up as a free sample. Okay,

(23:11):
of course, yes, thank you. All right, So if you
want to be on the show, if you're a VP
member Patreon supporter, you know the routine. You can find
the link in my raw report on pw torch vp
dot com or on our Patreon page if you're a
Patreon supporter. Otherwise, you can join us in the chat.
We're keeping in on the chat room. We're going to
get to that in just a minute here, and we
also offer the email option to participate Weight Keller Podcast

(23:34):
at gmail dot com. All right, let's go to the chat.
I start some comments here. I threw them up on
the screen, but I want to want to read some
of them. I'll go through a rapid fire before we
comment on some of them. You'll see a pattern here.
Mike good too, So the final same that was good,
but the crowd messed it up and let's see. Oh yeah.

(23:59):
Standard Deviation says the misaligned crowned reactions reflect months of
muddying the moral waters for so many characters. As on
contrasting voice that Seth in his reaction, we're perfect tonight.
Let the fans cheer whoever who cares. As On, I
care because I think it's bad for business. I think
I think the restler's in the ring care. And if

(24:20):
you care about the restlers in the ring, you ought
to care. They're getting they're getting a different reaction than
they expect. They're getting a different reaction than they want.
And there's a reason for it. I'm not saying arrest anyone.
I'm definitely not saying deport anyone. I'm saying there WWE
is doing something that is causing fans to react in
a way that's incongruent with the intentions of everybody behind
the scenes and everybody on camera in the ring. So

(24:43):
when you say let the fans cheer, I'm not stopping them.
I'm criticizing WWE for leading them in a direction that
they think is being helpful and it's counterproductive. That's what
I'm saying. So when you say let the fans, I'm
not stopping them. What I'm saying is WWE hot to
steer them in. And as Standard Deviation said, they reflect
months of muddying the moral waters for so many characters.

(25:08):
So Chris, you your thoughts on that. I'll throw a
couple other comments up to it.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, First of all, I appreciate your humor so much.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Man.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Finding people who are SYMPATICO is nice. I think there's
something to the kind of moral ambiguity piece. I mean,
people are morally ambiguous. We're not, to quote Alistair Black's
theme song, We're not totally evil and We're not totally good, right,
We are complex people, but in terms of storytelling, the
way that tends to work best and most compellingly on

(25:42):
broad strokes is by keeping things fairly simple, good versus evil. Right,
That's a very primal motivating thing that we do and
how we construct entire systems of belief. It works the
same in wrestling, and by constantly breaking that. It was
my critique about this whole idea that John Cena's deconstructing wrestling.

(26:02):
It only works if you reconstruct it and sort of
to break it and to leave it broken just leaves
your toys broken. And I think that's kind of what's
gone on right now.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah. So a few more comments from the chat, we'll
put south of. Version three says the crowd is awful. Man,
I can't believe there are people that prefer this over
the euro crowds. They're both awful. I'm kidding, John, I'm
getting in trouble in so many ways. John Polisi said,
the crowd completely roomed the moment all night. They were
just doing what they wanted. They were doing what they wanted,

(26:34):
and it's not their fault for doing what they wanted.
It's WB's fault for steering them in a direction to
do these things and wanting to do these things. And
again fanshom go to the arena, going, let me abide
by WWE's wishes, and dutifully do, but they tell me
it's not what I'm saying. What I want is I
want the stories to be immersive enough that fans naturally

(26:54):
react to a heel attacking a beloved moral babyfaces from
moral standing in Samy's ain and get wrapped up in
the moment the way you do when you're watching. When
I watch the pit, I know it's I know the
guy doesn't really have a broken leg. I know that
family isn't really morning the death of their son. I
know that she didn't just have a miscarriage. Sorry for
all these spoilers, But it's in the our room, you know,
or in the r you know these things are happening. Yeah,

(27:16):
But I'm when I'm watching it, I'm like absorbed in
it and I'm emotionally moved by it. But if you
pull the camera back and you show the sets and
you have announcers going, we hope we entertained you with
our acting. Did you like that directing choice? It's like
I want to be immersed, and there's there's too there's
too many things that Dodeby is doing that I do
think is leading to fans thinking they're the fun of

(27:38):
going to a dow event. Is that communal being part
of let's go see a SCENEA sucks. They're not even
thinking of what they're saying. There's chanting both, it's not
a it's not a dueling chant between half the guys
and deep voices and the kids and the women. It
used to be not just people doing it because it's fun.
Same thing with one more time, get the tables. This
is awesome, but the one more time is especially bad.
And singing sess song and being for him that's bad.

(27:59):
So yes, But as Kyle Feestl says, I'm old school.
I like clear heels and clear baby faces. I don't
think that's old school to say that, because otherwise the
Sammy Montreal thing want to happen, the mission, the Cody thing,
I mean, wwwe is doing it. They're just not doing
it consistently enough. And I think, you know, again, it's
a theory that Paul Lavac wants to put a stamp

(28:21):
on things and reinvent things, or you know, we have
to change with the times, and it's like, no, you're
in charge of You've got your hands on the steering
wheel if you want to, and you can steer the
fans in the direction of responding the right way. But
you need the right announcing, which Joe Tessitour does. Michael
Cole's inconsistent, and you need to have You need to

(28:41):
cast the baby you need to cast who the baby
faces are, not by forcing it on fans like with
Roman Arrains and John Cena, people have this aversion of
babyface and heel because Vincent Man's bad choices, then the
dorkiness of Sina and the unreadiness as Roman Rains has
admitted for that role. But if you cast people astute
lee smartly in line with people's feelings, you're gonna get

(29:02):
cheers and you're gonna get booze and then emphasize that.
And part of it too is this propensity now with
with Leveck to not book finishes. People now don't go
to see who wins a match. They don't get wrapped
up in the sports like experience. They get wrapped up
in I want a chance, I want to sing. They're
not wrapped up in that match, outcomes are gonna even
happen because I mean, since when does a match end
because the wrestlers hurt. I mean unless his bone is

(29:25):
unless his leg is you know, like said, you know
when he jumped out the top room his leg's broken
and dangling, or bone is sticking out breaking speaking of
the pit, or or you know, someone literally is paralyzed.
I mean, the whole goal is to hurt somebody and
then throw them in the ring and pin them. Why
are they covering him up to protect him?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, it would totally grate off called it a chao
victory or something, not that a kao but like a
tko or something.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
But miagraments don't even do that. Count him out or
let Broun pin them, right, I mean, it's it's only
a three count if Bron's will let a pin m
let him pin him. Now, this is the thing if
Braun and this this is old school. But old school
doesn't mean expired. It means it was done right in
the past and we've lost our way. That's what old
school means to me most of the time, not all
the time. There's you know, there's things that are old
school that should not be brought back. So I think

(30:10):
the term is used too broadly. But what hasn't expired
is the idea of a heel like Bron Breaker beating
up Sammy Zay to the degree that he covers him.
The ref counts too, and he lifts his head, doesn't
let the three count, and there us like stop it,
and Bron goes, I'm not done yet, and then he
does get then he attacks him some more, and then
he pretends to pin him, smiles, lifts his lifts his
shoulders and the count of two and the ref says

(30:32):
not again, and then Bron does it again. The ref goes,
that's enough, I'm calling off the match. I get that.
That's cool, but they skip.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
They've had of Guter do that several times in the
last two years.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
Yes, at least that.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
I can remember.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, that's what I grew up with. I mean, it
was done constantly, right, you know, heals King Kong Bundy
demanded a five count, you know, I mean, there's different
ways to tell tell that story.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
But lifting up a limp bodied head just looks terrible,
I mean yeah, and cruel and and grotesque in a way.
And they, yeah, you're right. They missed that moment. They
missed that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
But what you need is an announcer who's prepped, who's
either has the autonomy with the instincts to say the
right thing, or the announcer on heads or the promoter
like Paula Beck in the back on headset to understand,
you need a Joe tested tour going. This is outlandish.
The goal of wrestling matches not to maim an injure
beyond recognition your opponent. Your goal is to get a
three count or submit your opponent so you get a win.

(31:25):
This is about wins and losses. It's not about destroying careers.
And when if you have a chance to get a
three count and you choose to not take it, you
have left the bounds of why we are here in
this ring, Bell de Bell trying to win matches and
earn championship matches. You've now made that, You've now taken
things outside the bounds of why we're all here. Shame
on you, Shame on your actions. And you know what

(31:46):
I mean, there's a you know, je testator is like,
you can do that better than I'm just winging it here.
That's his profession. But you need you need that voice
and then you want people to get into it in
that way.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
So need an extra dose of buzz activity in your
wrestling podcasts. Will come join me Alan frel Over in
the Progress Paradise at pterbo Torch VIP as we mask
on the bright side of wrestling and focus on some
of the great matches and shows from around the world,
be it the US, Japan, Europe or Mexico. There's always

(32:18):
a place for wrestlings past in the Paradise too, and
we've done fun historical shows such as the We Love
Liger series celebrating the glorious career of Jusian Thunderlighter and
Our Eye Was There When shows where our guests will
join me to talk about a classic bout that they
were in attendance for. We love variety and you can
expect lots of it at the Progress Paradise. Detailed pw

(32:40):
Torch VIP subscription information and a list of all the
VIP benefits is available at pterwrew torch vipinfo dot com.
And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast
apps on iPhone and Android devices, or you can stream
them directly from our ad free VIP mobile site. See
you in the paradise.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
All right. So the first time I can really remember
this one more time happening, and the last recently was
when Bronson Reid was doing it to seth Rawlins right
the six tsunami splashes. That was the first time I
thought to myself, at least thought to myself, weird, we're

(33:25):
cheering the wrong guy here. It was awesome, I mean,
it looked cool. But then we started having more of those, right,
more of those one more time, one more time. Do
you think there's also a part of it where people
are paying so much money that there is also, at
the same time, like a you're walking in slightly annoyed

(33:48):
at how much you've already had to pay and you're
going to get what you want one more time, one
more time, one more time kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
I don't, okay, I'll say I think if somebody got
a free I think if somebody got a free ticket,
they'd be just as likely to go with a flow
the flow. And I mean remember when there was that
is I don't know, I have no sense of time
for this sort of isolated incident three four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine years ago on social media, wwe said endorsed doing

(34:16):
the what chant in a social media house and there's
all this outrage, justifiably, So why is WWE's social media
have somebody working for it who doesn't understand that that
is the bane of the existence of every intelligent wrestler
who goes into the ring. They don't want that you're
not doing wrestler favors. And why is someone on social
media so oblivious to how destructive that is to what

(34:37):
wrestlers are trying to accomplish on promos? But that is
symptomatic and revealing that even someone working at WWE social
media thinks that's what w is about. It's about the
communal experience of chanting and singing and doing things that
you saw on TV. And now I'm part of it,
and aren't we having fun? It's not the rocky horror
picture show in WWE. It's a challenge, but WW I

(34:57):
think needs to kind of rein that in and part
of it is changing Seth's music. Standard Deviation says the
crowd singing Seth's song subtracts from the potential for the
storyline to feel fresh. It's an old gimmick. It's not
the future. Totally agree with that, and so again, this
is not an overnight thing. It is something that's got
that's I think getting out of hand in a way

(35:19):
that should alarm WWE. They would go, well, look at
our attendants. It's going great. Yeah. No, I mean no
question about that. But is are you? Is it something?
Are people showing up because it's the cool thing to
go and be part of the w experience, But they're
not at the end of it having the peak experience
that I talk about that comes from what I'm feeling

(35:41):
when I'm watching my favorite NFL team go in the playoffs,
like it's that rooting interest in an outcome and feeling
it matters, and it's part of something I think that
would be culturally as the culture of their presentation needs
to get back to that. And I actually think they
have to sacrifice and stamp out the communal experience feedback
loop that rewards man and I haven't put a lot
of thought out how to do that other than stop

(36:02):
doing change Seth music. It's tough to give that up.
I understand it. But Sess a new character now he's
not a babyface whose song people like to sing. He's
now in a heel faction that's going to be the
centerpiece of Raw. It's a huge deal. It's key to
getting the most out of Paul Hayman and bron Breaker.
Now is the time to really go. Do we need
to do that because it can be a big It's
like Jericho drop in Judas when he turns babyface, I

(36:24):
mean his head. Maybe he never will in aw again,
he won't have the moment. But if he does, hearing
that music again after years not hearing it is supposed
to be the key to him having another Babyface run
an aw. So they took the music away. I think
you can do the same thing for Seth when bron Breaker.
Maybe and it could be the other way around. But
if Braun and Hayman turn on Seth, Seth coming out
to that music again will be a great moment two
and a half years from now. Or give it to

(36:44):
you know whatever that is.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
That would be cool? Do you think, well, beg of it.
I have a fear that the way WWE is creating
this like new style k fab thing that seems to
be happening where they're allowing us back into the storytelling
aspects but then fueling this is it real?

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Is it not?

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Stuff? So we don't know what the drama is this
WWE unreal show that's coming out on Netflix. That's that's
sort of like the director's commentary for DVDs right as
awesome as Network that was. That seems to me that
that's just going to perpetuate the idea that we don't
really need to get caught up in the characters because

(37:25):
we're always constantly made aware that they are performers, and
so we're just going to cheer the performer that we like.
I feel like this is just going to keep perpetuating
that problem.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Nope, it is, and it's like second layer booking. And
Paulawyck talked about it on the Ander Schultz podcast a
couple of weeks back that you know, he said and
as as as a features as something he's proud of
that there's fans who are more casual, they watch our
show and they react to what we're doing. But then
there's the fans who are and as he says, you're
one click away from experiencing WWE on a second level.

(37:58):
That's second we booked to the second level when there's
a ruckus with Tiffany and Charlotte that's real and reporters
pick up on it like I did, and go, hey,
I'm here and there. You know this is legit tension.
It's not just made to look bad. If you trust
my reporting, my ability to decipher trusted sources from misinformation,
I'm telling you, I'm passing along what I believe is
the truth, which is these two really don't like each other,

(38:19):
and that leaked out on TV in a way that
was unscripted. We don't know at what point it went
from scripted unscripted, but it did, and so at some
point you got to kind of gain trust of reporting sources.
And then when that happens, any guess or some people
just look and go it's obvious, you know something is
different there, and they run with it. Well, dobe By
plays into that. Then they're like, hey, now we have

(38:39):
this whole second layer fan base, and it's substantial who
are online all the time, hitting refresh, listening to podcasts
like this. Those committed fans who are want to just
dive into everything and catering to them completely separate from
the narrative structure of the TV show can work. I mean,
I don't really have a big problem with that. I

(39:01):
understand it. It's kind of a it's not a totally
new thing. I mean, it's been going on for twenty
some years really, I mean actually longer. I mean there's
been references to the sheets on TV and you know
what I've been doing and Meltzer's been doing for decades
going back to the nineties. But obviously it was social
media the reaches in this new generation. People grow up
in social media and see ww clips. They don't watch

(39:23):
Saturday Mornings syndicated TV to discover wrestling. It's it's clips
on all their social media accounts, so they know that
audience is there and they're playing into it. I don't
think that that second layer style of engagement of intentionally
trying to engage fans necessarily conflicts with aligning wrestlers as

(39:47):
babyfaces who fans are going to be are going to
cheer for, and doing everything you can within the narrative
structure to support that, and finding out who are the
wrestlers who people don't like or what traits does this
wrestler have that we think if we amplify people won't like,
cheer for the blues, and then create a support structure
around them to make sure they're not cheered but instead booed.
I think you can still do that and fans will
play along. I mean fans will play along. But it's

(40:10):
again I don't have all the answers right here. I
just know tonight was another example of things falling apart
a little bit in that way. Derek Mitchell in the
chat says, I agree with you, Wade. One of the
many problems with WW from the Nitro days, NWBO was
portrayed as a cool guys. Well, WW is fighting for
their survival and portrayed as the ineffective baby faces. You
need to have strong, cool babyface. One of my theories

(40:30):
on Cody getting booed, and there's a lot of them,
and I think it's a confluence of a variety of things,
but one of them is he just didn't stand up
to Rock soon enough. He was left hanging for weeks.
And I talked about this on the Way Kellor hotline
for VP members. I've done by the Way did a
Waykellor hotline. It's like twenty minutes give or take every
day last week, month through Friday and again today. It's
a good way for VIP members to kind of get

(40:51):
my take on the top top level news items of
the day in a compact way, and if you don't
have time to listen to every show that I'm on,
it is a way to kind of get if you want,
the heartbeat of what's on my mind and my reaction
to the headlines, and also just keeping you up on headlines.
And I talked about this last Monday, the Cody, the
Cody reaction, and I think one of the reasons is
he went from the alpha centerpiece to a guy who

(41:13):
was portrayed by Rock as and it was kind of
a story they were telling a little bit, but that
he wasn't going to last. It was too much. He
might be having second thoughts. He's away from his family
and I can make you rich and famous and give
you a lighter schedule. And Cody didn't go screw that.
I love my life, I love my job, and I

(41:33):
love my fans, and I stand and what I stand for.
It's what Sammy did tonight. They didn't give Cody that
up doing it because Cody was not sure where the
storyline was going to go, because Rock really wanted him
to turn heel and Cody ultimately's given a choice to
turn it down, and he did, but for those couple
of weeks, fans are left hanging going is he thinking
about this and why hasn't he said no emphatically? And
I think it took away a lot of coy Cody's
character's moral standing that we nobody stands for, and I

(41:56):
think that hurt him. And so that's an example of
why I think you have to be steadfast. And again
this is Rock has the power, as he reminds everybody
every time he talks. He's friends with the higher ups
at TKO and endeavor. When so many metals, it can
screw things up. And I think people are frankly pretty
upset behind the scenes in ways that won't go public
about how they screwed with Cody, and they are. They

(42:17):
do have a mess on their hands. But I think
that hurt Cody. So that's an example of protect your
baby faces, make sure they stand for something. And I
think that's what they do with Sammy tonight. That's why
it don't I didn't dislike what they did tonight. I
just on a personal level, doesn't make it a bad angle.
I was I was expecting some sort of master revelation
of this group being different, presented differently, and maybe expanding.

(42:37):
So it's a lot Chris, you can go ahead and respond.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Nah, that's skilling. I mean that's why people listen to
your show, all right. So thinking in terms of the
kind of babyface breakdown, the Cody piece, the you know,
losing our moral compass thing, I think the reason why

(43:00):
morality plays work is because they give us things that
we can aspire to, even if it's on a subconscious level. Right,
you don't have to be watching these shows and be
consciously thinking I want to be better like Cody. But
that's how that stuff works and encodes meaning on us.

(43:20):
And like that, by stripping that away, you're actually you
end up preventing us from engaging with it on a
deeply empathetic and emotional level, which then is what convinces
us to invest our lives and our money in it. Right,
what's going to end up happening by satisfying the kind

(43:41):
of clickbait viral moment or.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
The ephemeral sugar rush of a social media feedback?

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Loup?

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I mean that, like brain science tells us that that
people are just going to get tired and move on, right,
and if they don't have stuff to distinct their teeth
in two. I'm interested to see what happens with Cody
when they come back. I mean, he looked extraordinarily weak
to me coming out of that match. I know people
are trying to say that that match in particular was

(44:10):
John Cena's ruining wrestling. I think that's total BS. I
don't think WWE is intelligent enough to pull off an
angle of deconstruction like that. I think it was just
bad and it looked bad, right, And so yeah, all
of that wraps into seth rollins tonight. We got this
whole idea that they are quote the vision for the future,

(44:34):
but what does that even mean? Those were very nebulous
terms that felt like they were a buying time a
little bit to figure out what exactly they're going to say,
how they're going to articulate this, You get what I'm
saying right there? Like that just felt hollow to me.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, well we'll go back. Well kind of this kind
of ties in a comment from a teachers talking's going
back to the chatty ur grid Jared to some degree,
it costs so much. It seems like people are going
knowing what they want to do and not letting the
story dictate what they say or do people aren't going
for the moral morality play. And you know, and and
I don't think people want to go to something that

(45:10):
is seen as a morality play. But the idea is
deep down we when we are rooting for somebody, we
want to root for people for the reasons that Pat
McAfee laid out, Like you want to root for somebody
who who stands on a desk, stands up for friendship
and loyalty to his friends and says how he wants
to be remembered, and he says these earnest, altruistic things.
I know there's like a you know, all right, bro

(45:33):
culture that's like be selfish, screw that, you know, blah
blah blah. Yes, that's that's out there. But I don't
think that's a pro wrestling audience. And I think the
progressing audience goes and they're they're they've been wildly cheering
for jay Us samy'zay, Cody Rhoades and Riea Ripley when
they thought she stood for something, wildly cheering for them

(45:53):
for for a for a reason, which is they stand
for something that makes us feel good, and we want
to see them triumph. It is as you've talked about
out of a a vicarious experience that you get joy
out of, and I mean we are like, well are
there are sports teams we make enemies out of the
other team, and we look past the voibles and cheap

(46:13):
shots at some players on our team. Like I'll watch
another sporting and I'd be like, how can anyone's here
for that that away team at that player did what
he did. And then I'm like, all right, but there's
that player in my team that did that a couple
of games ago, but I'm still away from my team. Yeah,
but you know, so we have to rationalize, but progressing
doesn't have to deal with that. The home team is
everyone's home team and the away team is everybody's away team.
So yeah, I mean that that's the crowd is not

(46:38):
going because they're rooting now for a certain outcome.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
They're rooting for.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
An experience where they're part of the show. And you know,
I mean the europe crowds were not the problem, but
they were a different kind of amplification of it, because
you know, American fans are thinking, hey, every time they
go to Europe, the crowd's the story. We want to
be that too, And I think that plays plays out too,
so yeah. Interesting. You don't have to wait for the

(47:11):
way Keller Pro Wrestling post show to find out what
I thought of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week,
you can check out my reports that are updated live
throughout Raw and SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written
report will tell you what's happening in detail in case
you missed the show, and it will also analyze key
segments and give my random thoughts quips on what I
am watching as it airs. So check it out every

(47:33):
Monday night and Tuesday night at pewtorch dot com. That
also applies to wwepayperviews. I cover those live at pw
torch dot com with a detailed written report with star ratings.
And of course you can find other TV reports from
other contributors to pw torch such as nxt roh, Impact
Wrestling and more. Check it out pwtorch dot com your

(47:53):
first stop for TV and pay per views written reports.
All right, Well, could stay on the subject and keep
talking because I think it's a really interesting subject. I
don't have it all worked out of my head, i am,
but I know that what I would like to have

(48:15):
seen and I think what WWE for sure would have
rather had happened tonight is Hayman, Seth and Breakers standing
in the ring and mentioning Sampunk's name and fans going
f you Seth boo Sampunk, Cyampunk, Sampunk. And they didn't
get that, and even Seth seemed relieved when he waited,
and then there was a little cmpunk chat like, Oh
that's more like it. That's who I think you people are.
They're trying ah in the ring to steer things. I

(48:38):
think it's time for everyone in that company, all the
top people sit down and go, this is a problem.
It's like the whole John Seena thing. Oh as long
as he's I mean how people in company sets, as
long as he's getting reaction, it's good. Well, yeah, it's
better than no reaction. It's better than no reaction to
get a mixed reaction. But you know what your goal
should be to get the reaction that.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
You're aiming for, just to get you want.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, don't resign yourself to because the problem is is
that these promoters and bookers and wrest are like, this
is what we wanted. No, it's not. You're rationalizing this
is what you wanted. You're rationalizing this is better than
a dead crowd and an empty building. Yes, this, what's
happening now is better than a dead crowd in an
empty building or a dead crowd in a full building.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
It is.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
But there's something better to go for, and that that
peak experience, and there's things that are just kind of
and and we get in in other ways, you know,
I mean, it shows up in other places on these shows.
So it's not like it's out of reach. It's just enough.
Top storylines are not experiencing the types of crowd reactions
that they are truly aiming for. They're not aiming for this.

(49:40):
So let's let's go to CJ. Are you ready for
us to be our first caller? It's been a while
since we got to you soon enough, so I don't
know if you're still awaken there. I don't see your
camera on. Okay that no, that's fine there ya Hey, CJ,
welcome to the show. What's in your mind? Good to talk?
Good tonight?

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Hi hear me?

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yeah, sure can very loud and clear. What's up?

Speaker 3 (50:05):
So let's talk about the Becky segment?

Speaker 5 (50:09):
All right?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Oh yeah, yes, do you first?

Speaker 6 (50:15):
Do you think do you expect them to keep Bailey
out to the pay per view.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Oh yeah, but well if you mean, does she show
up on like the week before the pay per view
if it's going to be a Becky Bailey one on
one match, Yeah, I mean I don't know. She could
show up before then in that sense. Yeah, what do
you think, Chris, I mean, do you think it's inevitably
get Bailey Becky at Backlash?

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Er?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Is it a longer story arcing?

Speaker 2 (50:39):
I think I think Backlash would be too soon for
those two. I think we're getting Becky Lyra at Backlash
for the yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think, what did
they book for neck? Yeah, that's not for Ron, So.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Becky Becky and Bailey's is inevitable.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
So Bailey could show up in support of Lyra and
be at ringside for her before Backlash, or be at
ringside for her at Backlash. Yeah, I think there's I mean,
I don't know, I think there's a cee. Are you
able to be patient? Like you understand, she's alive and
she's well, and there's a lot of other wrestling to enjoy.

(51:19):
Her name is being mentioned on TV. She's part of
a storyline You'll be okay if if it takes a
little longer for her to be back on TV.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yes, but I still think it from her come.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
They could have started this angle the night after they'd
have to take the Mania match away from her.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
She didn't want the Mania match. She really wanted to
be home. She had a wedding to go to. I'm
making all that up, but I'm just trying to tell
you possible she's okay with it.

Speaker 6 (51:47):
Do you expect Tom to be the exact same Bailey
or do you expect there to be a little tweak
in their character.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
She's obviously gonna be the baby face here.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
What do you think, Chris talk about that, talk about
Bailey's involvement in this, but also use this as a
chance as CJ is bringing up this promo with Becky
and how you feel about it as a follow up
because it Yeah, I mean, she had to explain herself.
How'd you feel about it?

Speaker 3 (52:13):
First thing is I'll.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Say I feel vindicated because on the WrestleMania post show
that I do with Brandon, I floated, Hey, I wonder
if they're going to pull Bailey is the one who
took Becky's the one who turned took out Bailey like
Naomi did Jade. Oh no, no no, and then when
it happened to night, I felt vindicated. Second, I think

(52:35):
what we'll see with Bailey is something different. She's She's
been on this sort of weird, strange journey since WrestleMania
forty had the weird music We've talked about, a sort
of less defined character. I'd like to see a revamp.
I'd like to see maybe something with a bit more
not not edge and like a gothy edge lord since,

(52:57):
but something perhaps a little bit for around the edges
than what this last presentation was. A bit realer maybe,
is what I'd say. Uh so, yeah, some refreshment.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
What would you what would you like to see stage
in terms of what you think would be good for
Bailey's character. If she like what Chris is saying, it's
like what we said for Seth like it has impact
if you come back and there's feels like there's something
different about you, so people look at you through a
fresh lance.

Speaker 6 (53:26):
I think she could use a bit more of an edge,
But what she really needs is a good plan out storyline.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
Again, like I.

Speaker 6 (53:37):
Hear, everything was booked so crappy, like a week or
two in advance. There's no real story to it. I
know if it was just because other people were injured
and there was a little bad situation there. So I
won't blame Triple H too much about it. But I

(53:59):
think with a good planned storyline that fans can sink
their teeth into.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Because a lot of people are Bailey, I'm not the
only one. Okay, she could really get going again. Why
don't you agree?

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, Bailey's talented. I mean, she's Scott goodwill built up
with fans, She's a good wrestler, she's likable. You know,
she's good at playing a heel, good at playing a face.
And obviously there's criticism of Levex's booking of the women's
division in general. I don't think Roxanne Press fans are
happy with how she's been presented, just sort of this
weird start stop, you know that. I don't think there

(54:37):
was a lot of passion in the match at the
top of the show tonight, you know, with three Ripley.
I mean, the crowds like, well, we like Ria, but
we don't know a lot about rex Anne, and there's
mixed signals as far as who she is and what
they did last week wasn't enough to cement my viewpoints
on her. So, you know, whatever they do with whatever
they do with Bailey, I just I hope it's you know,
like you do, CJ. It's a good storyline that's well
thought out. I don't I don't think Bailey should be

(54:59):
the top priority of WWE. If you were in charge,
you would make her the top priority. I get we
all get that. Come on, yeah, well I gotta play
into that a little given.

Speaker 6 (55:10):
I wanted to do Russell Mania Man's away from her,
that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yeah yeah, So J C Scooby. CJ says Bailey needs
to get better in the ring. She's been sloppy since
her return from surgery two years ago. You know what,
I'm not gonna validate or and validate the framing of
it because I don't think it's super relevant. I think Bailey,
regardless of how you feel about her promo work and
earn ring work, what matters is that she has this

(55:35):
legacy relationship with fans, and let's say she is sloppy
in the ring, that is not an excuse for her
to not get to push Because one I'm not even
necessarily agree with that. Let's stipulate to that as a possibility.
That doesn't stop a lot of wrestlers from being over
And so the idea with Bailey has put her, as
CJ advocates, in a storyline that people can get behind
a character that is clear how we're supposed to feel

(55:56):
about her, whether it's a heal Ora face and Becky
might be a good person given their background to to
you know, feud with it. If Bailey's come to the
aid of lie right, you know, that's again that's kind
of like mcavie coming to the defense of Michael Cole.
It feels like it's a it's a good vibe. So
CJ lets thoughts on Bailey and then bring up anything
else you want then we'll keep rolling here.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
But yeah, I completely agree with you. She could use
a little more edge and maybe more Little Bear theme music,
but to be fair, that could be said about like
ninety percent of the roster. The music has been better
in the past, to say it nicely.

Speaker 6 (56:35):
Yeah, And then with rock saying kind of goes with
Bailey like it looked like they were going in that
direction and then they just dropped it after the elimination chamber.
Do you think the high triple h and the higher
up Saar Elimination Chamber went, hey, you're not quite ready

(56:55):
for prime time? Or was it maybe NXD wasn't ready
to give up a little bit of ball?

Speaker 3 (57:02):
What do you think, well.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Mike Stephan the chat say is really doing a disservice,
doing Roxanne disservice with her lack of direction. Now she's
teaming up with Julia for no particular reason. I think
that in Chris, tell me what you think that Levek
just is intending to enough. And it's not just the women,
but the women are not the top four or five things,
and I don't think he's giving enough attention. And I

(57:24):
think if we sat down and charted it out, probably
it might be a pattern that it's more a higher
percentage with the women than with the men, even after
the top three, four or five programs. But there's just
not a real attentiveness and consistency to the undercard. And
I mean, it's a tough job or so many a
season is busy, but he's got a whole staff, a
whole crew, and I think he should be able to
just delegate and go, let's do a better job with this.

(57:45):
But yeah, what do you think about CJ's question about
the timing of everything.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Since the Chamber, there've been a couple of things that
have felt like they've dropped. I mean, I know the
Alexa Bliss of the Why sixth thing is due to injury,
but that also was weird to bring her back and
then to not have her even get like kidnapped off camera.
So they're they're doing these things that are strange where
where there It feels like they've tried to fire some things,

(58:09):
maybe not out of desperation, but thinking that you know,
stuff's gonna pay off, and it just doesn't.

Speaker 7 (58:15):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
It feels like this period really is a reset, you
know that. I mean, it's post WrestleMania, so hopefully we
see some developments. But wait, I do tend to agree
with you. I think the poor development of the women's
undercard has in particular made these new titles seem almost
meaningless upon arrival. Particularly Lyra's Intercontinental built, so it's got

(58:42):
to be tightened up. Yeah, you got your muted there where.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Up?

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Still muted?

Speaker 1 (58:52):
I double clicked my mute button, double unmuted, im mute
to myself. Well, the streak, the streak lives, I think
or I restart. It's like wordle I think, oh no,
I did miss yesterday, right, it's a new streak, CEJ
anything else besides Bailey, you want to talk about.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
One last.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
One last Keep her with.

Speaker 6 (59:14):
Lyra or do you think she's just gonna help Lyra
beat Becky and then move on with that?

Speaker 1 (59:21):
And then that was that's a good question. I mean,
I think she should come back obviously involved in Lyra's storyline.
I mean, and so I think they could maybe form
a team, you know, like stick together as a team
as Becky moves on to other things. But yeah, I
don't know. I mean, I honestly, I don't. I don't
think it's a I think it can work either way.

(59:43):
I don't think like, I don't think you want Bailey
to be like Christian Cage and in a w or
it's like a player coach like I think she already
kind of had that a little bit in the last Faction.
I think that you want her to either be in
a tag team with someone where you just go their friends,
they're loyal to each other and they're gonna this way
for a while, or just go their separate ways and
she gets in another program. Chris do you have a

(01:00:04):
preference or leaning.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I think I'd prefer to see her do some really
cool tag tag team stuff for a while, have a
well defined tag identity, work on tandem moves right like
increase her bag or repertoire. That could be a fascinating
way to move forward and one that would be really
fun to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
I think i'd see to anything else.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
Yes, do you see seeing Punk being champion this year?

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Good question. I'm not ruling it out, Chris, you're shaking
her head, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Jumping Well, my sadness, my guests say, is now really
i'd like to see.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
I just so?

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Do you say that? Because Jay, like, I mean, I
don't know what kind of shake up there's gonna be,
if there's going to be a draft or not where
people are going to shake out. But if if Cody lose,
if Sina lose, is a title, I think it should
be to Cody, but it could be to Punk. If
Jay loses a title, it's not going to be to

(01:01:03):
see him Punk, but it could be a transition Goonther
to Punk or some other heel first to Punk. I
don't know. If Punk wants the secondary world title, he
might rather wait and have a Wrestlemaniam moment winning the title.
But I mean, I won't rule it out to you, J.
I mean, I really think Rock messed up a lot.

(01:01:27):
I mean, the Cody was supposed to be footing with
somebody else right now, like as a babyface defending champion
going in. I don't know for right now, but some
like this summer that just isn't going to happen now,
you know, from what I've heard, Like I mean, the
Seena turning heel and then winning the title, and the
retirement tour going the direction it's going has displaced other plans.
So yeah, I don't I don't know if they even
have it locked down at this point, CJ. Because I

(01:01:49):
think there's enough up in the air show.

Speaker 6 (01:01:52):
You definitely don't think she Randy Orton beat in Sina
at Backlash.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
I think the OWDs are super low. I think they're
super low. I don't think the right guy to do that,
But I mean I think they did a job introducing
the idea of Orton chasing Sena's record. You know, I
can make Sena and rage, but I don't think they're
gonna do it. I think it's just a it's a
B level pay per view. If they were going to
do that, I think they would saved Ring for SummerSlam.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Again.

Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
One thing really quick again, think every time I hear backlash.
I don't know about you, but I always think of
that Joey Styles shoot promo and was it like O six.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
I'm not good enough to call backlash?

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
You remember?

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Yeah? I can't get it out of my mind. But cool?

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Thanks thanks to too, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:02:40):
Ed.

Speaker 8 (01:02:44):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 7 (01:03:00):
Joined Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT talks
NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
did or didn't work out exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
All right, cool, Let's bring Sean from c into the conversation.
Sean plitchto what's going on. It's been a while, it happens,
man good. I was sure I said something to upset you.

Speaker 5 (01:03:26):
Finally, No, well Waite, I wanted to talk about something
real quick, real fast. I want to just say, because
Chris is on here, and Chris, you did a great
job with Brain and you know, I wanted to apologize
to you, Wade, because I'm not because obviously I'm not
a contributor to your site.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Obviously talk about this off air, because this is this
doesn't need to be on the show. Yeah, okay, because
I don't. I think you're going to a wrong direction anyway.
But yeah, just it seems like in house business, what
you're saying sounds like you're reading into something, isn't there.

Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
I wasn't trying to No, I wasn't trying to do anything.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
I was just trying to well, then go ahead, finish here.
I'm being I'm talking you go ahead to make your point.
I've wasted more time I probably would have taken you
to No.

Speaker 5 (01:04:02):
I was just gonna say that I didn't. I didn't
you know, we didn't really ask you beforehand. And I
just wanted to say, if I'm gonna be on a
show like that, even though I enjoyed being on the show,
I just think I should be a contributor and that
I should do what you you know, have said. You know,
you're a contributor. I just wanted to bring that up.
And that's all I enjoyed doing the show is the
brand and they were fun and all that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
They were great. I told I told Brandon that too.
I know exactly where I was driving when I was
listening to your uh the first the first show that
you did with him going in depth on everything. I like,
I loved it so in really, I mean, I just
Brandon's like, hey, Sehn volunteered to do this. I'm like, great.
We hadn't arranged for anybody yet. That doesn't mean I
don't want to rotate other people in right for sure.
And and I didn't take it as you were thinking
it was a permanent slot for you. So that's you

(01:04:43):
have nothing to apologize for.

Speaker 5 (01:04:45):
No really funny. So I just wanted to bring that
up real quick, and that was all, yeah, cool. Because
so going back to what you said, the thing that
frustrated me more about Seth when he came.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Out was and Sean, by the way, I didn't want
to bring up all those texts and emails you sent
saying why is Chrissana not me? I wasn't going to
bring that up, but I did just choose to ignore those.
And I thought it was a little weird that you said,
especially Chris, and you've got into certain reasons and I
don't want to bring him up here.

Speaker 5 (01:05:09):
But at wait, Chris Adams, Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
There's only room for one bald guy. Yes, right, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
How larger in the chats is. This is awkward.

Speaker 5 (01:05:20):
There's nothing awkward about this at all that there's a
lot of things way more awkward than this. I promise you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Just wait till the next hour. Oh we're an hour
to wait till later this hour.

Speaker 5 (01:05:30):
So with Seth, he like especially when he's you know,
slapping hands coming out and then he's you know, wanting
them to say his name, Seth freaking rollins. It's like, no,
that's exactly what you said. Way, that's what we're not
wanting to do. And sometimes I'm willing to let it
play out and say, Okay, maybe he's going to get
into this heel shtick in a different way, but it
just he kept going for the face stuff and I'm like, no,

(01:05:52):
that's not what we need. We need you to be
a heel and that's what you should be, and that's
a heel and all the way not fifty percent forty.
There's a good gray area, but that's not it. So
I didn't like that at all. I mean, I love
Sammy's promo. I loved where they ultimately went. But again,
you know, like you said, the crowd is gonna do
their thing, because says letting the crowd do what because

(01:06:15):
he's not really a face, not really a heel, He's
just kind of is what he is right now, and
so they need to change that. They need to change
it quick. And then going back to Roxanne, but I
wanted to say this with Stephanie too. I like, I
want Roxanne and Stephanie on www main roster television. I
think they're both really good characters. But for Stephanie, especially

(01:06:39):
the matches she's had so far, been fine, been really good.
I just if you're the NXT champion, I just wish
she would stay on NXT television until you're you're officially
like not in the because I just want I know,
they try to like, oh, she's the NST champion, this
is a way to get her on the main roster
and kind of show what she can do even but
I just I want them to be properly defined. Okay,

(01:07:01):
you're not the NFT champion anymore. Your time to be
on a main roster. Let's give you some video packages
to show who you are and then build you up
to the main roster and not just have you on matches,
but then you go back to NXT or back to
w B. I'm not a fan of that. What do
you guys think?

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Yes, I wish that there was a clear idea of
what we should be thinking it means and what it
does mean to be an NXT wrestler who shows up
on Raw or SmackDown and we don't have a clear

(01:07:36):
idea of what that means. Is it a moment of celebration?
Is it a moment of transition? Is it a visit
that may or may not last? What dictates what y
ANFC wrestler shows up on Raw or SmackDown if they're
at both places, does that continue? Is there a real
for it? Is there some structure for it? I think
it's really sloppy, and I think it there should be
a a grand entrance and read like with Praxium, I

(01:08:02):
was complimentary on Friday about it that that the way
Joe Testator phrased it, they had a setback, but they
have a chance. And he had a great phrase on
on Smack Done. He's really good with his words, and
I'm sure he's got help on some of the stuff
because it's very cool. You know, they've got their their
their lines that they feed to their announcers too when
they want to frame things a very particular way. And
he's pretty new. But whatever the context of it, he
just he said, you know, they have a chance at
up a fresh start, you know. And it wasn't a

(01:08:24):
promotion or a demotion. It was they had a long
title rain. Again, I talked about this in the way
Color Hotline too, or maybe it was on the Smack
the Yeah, the SmackDown review I did on that show
that I think it made sense to the way that
they phrased it, which is, you can have a title
rain for a long time in NXT and when you
lose it, it might be you've long belonged on the

(01:08:46):
main roster, but you were a reigning champion in an
NXT so you got to keep the title. But the
moment you lose it, then you get now, no, you
get rewarded. You know, it's like now you get rewarded.
It's like having a great college career. But when it
comes to an end, you know that. I mean, we've
got a there's hockey players who play college hockey and
then when their season ends, they go right to an
NHL team that has their rights, like the next week,

(01:09:06):
and they finish out the NHL season or debut on
the playoffs, and and so that happens. But it should
be framed in a certain way. And I will say this,
I haven't said this in a long time, but I
don't I've never gotten the impression. In fact, I go
out in the oppose impression that Paula Back is a
sports fan. He liked, you know, bodybuilding shows, he liked
pro wrestling, But I don't. I never got the sense

(01:09:27):
like he he followed sports, so that you know that
that's part of the culture of I think most go
to B fans, not all, because there's definitely people who
like wrestling and aren't into sports. But I think there's
wrestling is a simulated sport, and there should be an
adherence to how sports has a structure to it, you know,
and you get called up from the miners and there's
rules to it. You don't play for the minor league

(01:09:48):
team and the major league team, and in fact, there's
a dip okay you there is like the G League
in the NBA where you can get called up if
there's an jury and it gets sent back, but there's
an explanation for it. There's someone injured and they could
do that. They go this raymistereril is injured. That's open
up a roster spot. We're calling this rustler up of NXT.
But they're only here as long as Ray is out,
you know, something like that. So I just I think

(01:10:09):
people like structure, and I think this chaos and randomness
is taking some of the joy and the fun and
anticipation away from call ups. Because now NXT fans who
watched that show, and it's a pretty substantial portion of
the raw audience by the way, are like, what's going
on here? I am I supposed to be happy? Is
this permanent? Is it a visit? There's no structure to it. It
feels like they're randomly filling a two and a half
hour show. It's a bummer. Chris, you want to add

(01:10:31):
to that, Yeah, I say.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
This is like a super fan of Stephanie Vacuier. She
doesn't belong on the show. Walking out with the belt
booked in just a regular old match, right, there was
nothing spectacular about it. That being said, I think it
was even stranger having Julia do a run in because ostensibly, they,

(01:10:57):
like everybody in Gorilla, would have seen her. Right within
the story, you have this person whose home bases Orlando,
who works in Orlando, who trains in Orlando, who is
not on tour, showing up interfering the match that you've
booked and you've planned for on TV. That feels a
bit sloppy in that sense, and and maybe not necessari well, yeah, sloppy.

(01:11:21):
It just feels poorly thrown together trying to figure out
what works. And then embarrassingly enough, my wife pointed out
Julia's weave was almost falling out, so it was just
an all around bad look for her tonight unfortunately. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:11:37):
Yeah, and with U and especially with you know, Riha
and Rock saying, it's like, I am getting sick of
non finishes and on WW television, I'm getting sick of it.
I mean, it was why are we like, you know,
I'm not going to go on my soapboss because I
can do what Wade does and he does it really well.
Why are we going fifteen minutes when we know we're
not going to get a finish, Like, why.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
You know what I did tonight am? I written TV
report unrop as I tried to put an end to
this in case Levek is monitoring my TV reports. I
called that the Tony Kahn specialty, and I figured that
would totally get Levec to stop doing it if he
thinks it's something to Tony Kott has been criticized for
where you have this long match where everybody knows the outcome,
but it's still this long, this long, long match and

(01:12:19):
there's no suspense and who's gonna win?

Speaker 5 (01:12:21):
Yeah, right, and again it just hurts rocks Ain't even
more because we expect she's gonna lose. But then it's like,
but stop putting on TV to lose, Like, get her
off of NXT television, Stop having her have a main
match with care on NXT television, get her up to
the main roster and start putting her in something whatever
to get her sink her teeth into the main roster television.

(01:12:42):
Stop going going back and forth. It just it's wishy,
washy weird.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Nobody watching Vicaire and Ivy Nile wrestle for ten minutes
thought that anyone but back Vicare we're gonna win, and
nobody watching Rhea and Roxanne. I mean maybe a little more.
I mean maybe the people are really in a rock stand.
I think, hey, there's an upset and they're telling some story.
But I mean very, very small percent, a little bit
bigger than Ivan Nile because I mean, now it's not

(01:13:07):
someone who's going to beat the care I think that's
obviously even a more novice casual viewer. But yeah, you
just doing a long match where you know the outcome
is an aw specialty in the In Tony Khan's mind,
it's as long as it's good wrestling. People want that.
But that was a criticism even go back to the
early years with Cody and he'd have these long matches
with people you know Cody's gonna win. How engaging is
it when you one hundred percent know the outcome but

(01:13:29):
they just, you know, don't go on and on and the
ideas well, if the wrestling is good, yeah, maybe that
mitigates it. But the suspense isn't there, and you want
you want some suspense or you want to keep it
short at least most of the time.

Speaker 5 (01:13:41):
Yeah, yeah, and uh, going back to the liar, we
didn't talk about her at all, and I'm kind of surprised,
so we talked about the Lira's intercount title doesn't really
mean anything, right, Well, so Becky turned on her to
and and I've been in the minority and I probably
will be. And that's fine, you know, I want to
be in the minority and some things, but I you know, Becky,

(01:14:03):
I think the ultimate thing with Becky turning on Lyra
was to try to get some life out of Lyra.
She's not very good in the character department, Like we
don't really know who she is. She's not very defined.
And I think they did that. And I think Lyra's
promo was good tonight. I thought fired up. It showed
some fire from her that we haven't seen.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
I didn't praise that. It was totally. It wasn't great.
It doesn't need to be great. It was good. It
was like I liked her, you know, like she seemed
like a you know, she seemed like a regular person.
She wasn't jumping off the screen as like well, but
she doesn't need to just let her show people who
she is.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
She's her vocal inflections tonight too, which I notice is like, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
I think he wanted to me. Yeah, it's what it
needed to be. It's what it needed to be. It
that it hit that threshold. I agree with you, Sean totally. Yeah,
And I think and I think this is good. It's
now what I'm worried about.

Speaker 5 (01:14:56):
You know, we talked about the Bailey because Bailey Becky's
going to happen, and and that's fine, but I would
really just like to see because I think in this
part of Becky's career, she's already done everything she needs
to do in WW She's one of the biggest stars
we've ever seen in the women's division for a good reason.
She was awesome. Yes, she got punched and broken nose
to do it, but she did it and it was awesome.

(01:15:18):
She could put Lyra over If Lyra beats Becky, which
I think she should in a clean match, this could
be a pushboard for Lyra to be someone if she
keeps doing the promos that she did tonight and keeps
developing that part of her game. I think there's something
really there. Is she gonna be the biggest star ever?
Probably not, but I think there's potential for her, and

(01:15:40):
I think we should see it play out, and everybody's
just you know, I know a lot of people that
you know, I talked to, like she's got the character
of a cardboard, and she did. But I think she
showed something tonight. There's something there with her to get
out and I think she did that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yep, I agree, Yep, I agree. I think she was
good tonight. And they sometimes it takes little work, a
little practice, and there's nothing wrong with that. There should
be voice coaches, there should be acting coaches, there should
be promo coaches, and you know, work with people. I mean,
if you're gonna put him on the national TV in
front of millions of people, spend some time. They've they've
got the funding. Yeah, they've got they have the resources

(01:16:14):
to make everybody the best they can be at what
they do when they're on cameras. So people aren't on
social media, you know, going this person. I don't I'm
not connecting with them. I don't know who they are.
And there they look cardboard and all that. There shouldn't
be anyone put on TV who who has put out
there to fail. You know, you want to put people
on when they're ready to go. I shot on anything else.

Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
Yeah, just real quick. You know, Russ obviously had the
little promo, you know, the little backstage vignette thing. I mean,
I want good things for him because he was he
when he was in WB before, I mean even without
I mean Lano, you know, helped them at the beginning,
but by himself, he was really really good as a
you know, crusher, and I thought, you know him is
seeing I had some good fews. I thought they did

(01:16:53):
some good stuff. Like where do you think his where
do you think his ceiling can? Because I don't think
he's ever gonna be I mean, I think he could
have a main event title match, but I don't think
he'll ever win a main title Like do you but
do you think differently? Do you think what's what's the
ceiling for him? Since with coming back to.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
W B, What do you think Chris?

Speaker 6 (01:17:13):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
I think your ways find a two year contract is
what I heard. So, I mean I imagine there's just no
way they're they're building him into some massive program. Starting
a program with otist does not bode well for one's
world title uh, you know, prospects. But I could totally
be wrong. I kind of liked what I heard in
the promo. I thought it was interesting making a veiled

(01:17:39):
reference to AW is the abyss Ye, which was a
shot if there ever was one, My god, But I
actually kind of like, I liked the idea of somebody
going away being reformed coming back, and it seems like
what we're going to be getting is like Miro with
the name Russev.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
This is this is a he is himself now and yeah,
he became a little bit more himself or better or
for worse. I think there's a curated version of him
that would have been better in a w with a
little more guidance, but yeah, would be provides that just
like Cody, Cody's a better version of himself than an
AW where you know, his best instincts, where his instincts

(01:18:20):
were rained in a little bit in certain ways, and
it's it's worked really well for him. But yeah, I
liked I mean, I thought it was fine. I mean,
do you think there's a mystery coming out of it,
whether he's going to be going after bad guys and
be a good guy so to speak?

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
I know it felt muddy. I don't know, and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
I'm okay with that. I'm okay with a little mystery
for this week and next week, but not beyond, you know,
like get to a point where we know, you know,
don't make it indiscriminate. But yeah, I felt like his
wording was intentionally shot, I think, ambiguous, and maybe to
lead people to think he's going to be trying to
take out people with big egos who are full of
themselves and all those other things he said, but in reality,
he's going to be aiming at good people in his

(01:19:00):
view of morality and who are good and bad people?
Is is flawed?

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Suah? Yeah, I mean, and I've television three sos, I
assume he's a heel if he's facing otis, so yeah, yeah,
I mean that's a pretty good indicator. I mean, I
think there's enough indicators. But I think the wording was
meant to create a sense that he might look at
things differently than we do.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
Chaotic neutral is how we would describe him in the
D and D world.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Yeah, anytime you're watching ww E Raw or SmackDown or
aw Dynamite in particular, send us an email if you've
got thoughts on the show or a topic you want
us to address, or a question for us. Wade Keller
Podcast at PW torch dot com. Weadkeller Podcast at pewtorch
dot com. If there's anything else going on in pro

(01:19:48):
wrestling that you want us to address on our main
podcast during our mailbank segments, that same email applies Wade
Keller Podcast at pw torch dot com. We invite that interaction.
Let us know what you think of what we're saying,
and let us know what you want us to talk
about and ask us specific questions. Wade Keller Podcast at
PW torch dot com. Drell in the Chat, by the way,

(01:20:09):
says Russo's promo is good for a step on hopefully
a journey he should be on, and he doesn't need
to be put in something big first. Let him build
up who he is and what he is about. I mean,
there's a chance he'll face Otis and it'll turn out
there'll be some heels who come out and mock Otis
and Russa will come to his defense, and you know,
I mean, like, I'm not ruling out the possibly that
Otis is actually a portal to get his character into

(01:20:30):
a baby face role. But I don't know, I mean,
I'm just maybe.

Speaker 5 (01:20:36):
Yeah, So two quick things, Wade, this is not a
spoiler because there's no game tonight, but I hope you
guys crush the Lakers because I can't stand Lebron. You
know this on forty I'm too tired, Like, stop with
that bull crap. He's one of the best players they
ever play the game. If he's not too tired, stop playing.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
Or get a new coach. He's done that before.

Speaker 5 (01:20:55):
Oh gosh, yeah, don't. Okay, So I just wanted to
say that, and then New Day war Raiders again. No, no,
And I like the war Raiders. I think they're fine.
New Day was great on Commentary tonight, but I don't
want that match for an eighteen billion time? Do we
really need to see that again?

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):
What if you think of that?

Speaker 5 (01:21:13):
In that craziness? I just didn't understand that at all.
I know there's a baby facing heel. I mean, I
get that, but I just, man, do we need to
see it again?

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
And the match they had tonight on Raw was better
than the WrestleMania match that that New Day and war
Raiders had.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
Yeah, I'm enjoying New Day on Commentary's heels, but yeah,
I mean, it'd be nice tests afresh some truly, but
maybe Praxium as a start. We'll see Sean, we do
have our anti corresponding Kansas City ready to join us
now just called in so.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
JP.

Speaker 5 (01:21:41):
Everybody, thanks for having me on. Always always fun talking
with you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
Awesome, Thank you Sean. All right, so let's uh, let's
bring on our on site correspondent DJ, who is a
fan of something called the Chiefs We're not familiar with.
Is that is that a team? Is that like a
local high school team?

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
See there?

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
There there?

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
Pop? Warner?

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
M hm?

Speaker 3 (01:22:10):
Oh did I hear me?

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
Literal league football?

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):
Wade?

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Okay, well, welcome, welcome to the show. Tell tell me
what what your top takeaway was from from tonight. We've
been talking about the crowd, the crowd reaction being more
into the communal chants and and it's kind of surprising
booze and cheers some of the night. What what do
you what do you think?

Speaker 3 (01:22:33):
Yeah, no, I I agree with that percent. It was
one of those. I mean, I've been been a w
W fan since I was, you know, eight years old,
So this has been going on for you know, thirty
five years, and I've been a fan, and especially in
recent times, exactly what you've been preaching and preaching for

(01:22:55):
weekend and week out about a lot of gray area,
a lot of you know, everyone's a little good, everyone's
a little bad. It does make for an experience. I
was really confused a lot of the times, especially like
you were guys talking at the very you know, with
Sammy and Broun the one more time, one more time,

(01:23:17):
and I'm and the people that are sitting to the
right of me, I can hear them starting that, you know,
one more time, like what what do we what are
we doing? So it was it was very confusing in
the arena, you know, when when they're streaming, you know,
Seth's song, singing along and again I'm just so confused

(01:23:40):
as as I thought, you know, communally we love Sammy,
and then what Seth and bron is doing is not
so cool. I don't understand the need to. I'm just
gonna blurt out stuff because that sounds fun or sounds
you know, it's novel, versus being immersed in the story
and attention to what's going on. So it was. It

(01:24:02):
was very strange, very very strange. It was a good show.
I do apologize I missed the first twenty. When I
got there, it was literally in the middle of Riha
in rock Sannes match scratches my next question. Okay, yeah,
so if something happened at the very beginning, I do
not know. Uh so I definitely apologizes running and running

(01:24:23):
late some work and having to come home and get
the kid and get out there. But it was it
was a very weird show, you know. I was really
when I saw the date, I didn't put two or
two together. I was initially excited we got the raw
after Mania, and then I looked, I think I'm a

(01:24:44):
week late.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
I was a week late, got after Mania.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Yeah, which was you know, it was? It was? It was.
It was a good show. I enjoyed myself, my my
my eleven year old enjoyed himselves. But there are some
some pieces of a show that I was, like I said,
I was dumbfounded. I didn't understand as a as a
crowd what we were doing. It was so weird.

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
I throw this in so I don't forget, and then
I want to follow up on that. Sean Blitch just
says the ticket prices are getting ridiculous. He went to
the show and now he has to file for bankruptcy.
And there was a sign at Mania that'said I will
never financially recover from this. The ticket prices are so
high and people are paying them in WWEC is that
as validating and they ought to They earned this goodwill

(01:25:30):
with fans and the wrestler. And when I say WWE,
I don't just mean corporate higher upsuits in Paula back.
I mean the wrestlers have worked their ass off to
get over and connect with fans, and I mean it's
been a team effort and they have it. But you
don't want to screw it up. So I want to
throw it back to you, DJ. Do you think the

(01:25:52):
crowd experience being weird affected your enjoyment And do you
think it's a minority of fans that are messing it
up for theory or do you think the majority are
just there to quote have fun and kind of be
part of the show. Like there's fans who react to
things hoping they are noticed by the director and put
on television, and you got these over the top reactions

(01:26:12):
to things crowds are so yeah, I'm loading on my
question here, but like I think some croach just want
to be hurt. They want to be a national TV
being part of the show. Instead of reacting to it.
So is it the majority, the vast majority, or a minority,
and elaborate more on what felt weird as you as
you answered that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
Yeah, I would definitely. I want to say it's a minority,
the minority of the quote unquote disruptors, and at least
here it felt like you would have that minority kind
of start something up and everyone else is more or
less just planning along like, oh, well, they're screaming this
is awesome into a you know, Ivy Nole Stephanie match,

(01:26:51):
which I'm not saying it was bad, but in my
brain that's relegated to legit, you know, awesome you know performances.
And again not poo pooing on what Stephanie and Ivy did,
but I think it's one of those things that I
think we can all understand what I'm trying to say
as far as the price point in ceiling of if

(01:27:16):
it's weather, I'm paying this money and do what I want.
I mean, I'll divulge. We sat on the floor right
behind Michae Cole and pat off to the left hand
side two rows back, so literally I was pretty right
in front, and we paid from me and my sun seats.
I pay like six something, so about three hundred bucks

(01:27:38):
a pop for those seats, and I've gone before that.
I'm sitting on the barricade and me and my best
friend now Grant. This is also during uh, this was
like very post COVID, so like when they were really
starting to run back up again. We paid two hundred
bucks to sit on the barricade, so it relates to
what they cost now, Yeah, they are a lot more.

(01:28:00):
But I don't think that would that that is something
that gives people agency of going out and kind of
somewhat going against the grain and kind of just blurting
out whatever. I think it's a minority of people that
kind of start things up, and then as a community,
everybodys like, well that sounds pretty fun, let's do that.

(01:28:22):
So it's a I think it's a mixture of both.
I don't think it's the I don't think it's the
normal or the majority of people. I think this is
a small minority of people as we've seen in this
That's something I was gonna say, Yeah, that's based on,
you know, of what's going on in the country, and

(01:28:44):
you get a minority of people that just won't shut up,
and then next you know you haven't done them anyway.
Back to your question, Yeah, well so I think it's
communal in a sense of that minority gets things go.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
So a couple things. One I don't want to get.
I don't want to couple too too much. The ticket
prices and the crowd reactions. It was more of equipped
than a side that if you pay that much money,
you're like, I'm gonna I want to be part of
the show. I feel like I've earned the right to
be disruptive or whatever. But that's it's it's sort of
separate because one of the defenses for the ticket prices
being what they are, well, the obvious one is people

(01:29:20):
are paying it. They're filling these buildings up. That's capitalism,
that's it just makes sense if these I mean, these
wrestlers are putting a lot on the line, and if
this means their pay is going off, then it ought
to be, you know, hopefully. Or the other side is
they're getting so much more per show now that they
don't have to wrestle as often, and their bodies aren't
going to be as beat up, and they're gonna be
home with their families more. And that's something we had
the Torch have been advocating for for decades. If you

(01:29:42):
go back to the nineties and you listen to or
you listen to our old radio shows or the early
two thousands, and especially read what we're writing. We were
advocates for mandatory timeout for wrestlers, and we predicted all
the so many deaths, not specific names, but like that
this was gonna this was gonna be a problem as
restle aged. We're against chair shots of the head and

(01:30:02):
indiscriminate use of steroids and lack of attention to concussions
and lead to suicides and families breaking up and broken
down wrestlers and all of that. And we really advocated
for systematic mandatory time off in some form or fashion,
even during the host show era. That's what' saying we've
been really pushing for for a long time. We have
that now. You know, wrestlers want time off, they get it.
They're not punished for the most part. I don't haven't

(01:30:24):
heard of any exceptions to that. And the schedule is lighter.
Paulovich talked about that, others other wrestlers have talked about it.
It's a much better schedule now because they're running these
big stadium shows, and the paydays are bigger, and the
gates are bigger, and they're running fewer TV shows, but
they're charging more money per tickets. So it's good for
wrestlers as long as all the corporate people at the
top aren't taking all the profits you want the wrestlers obviously,

(01:30:46):
and if they don't have a union, they don't have
collective bargaining. It's up to management to treat them well
and pay them really well, so they don't even think
that they're not being treated well enough that they have
to collectively get together and bargain. So all that said,
the ticket prices are what they are because what was
happening is when WW sold a ticket that's now three
hundred dollars for one hundred and twenty, it was selling,

(01:31:08):
people were buying it and then reselling it to people
who were willing to pay three hundred, and it was
the reseller who made hundred and sixty dollars minus you know,
the brokerage fe or whatever. So the ticket price is
going up for concerts and entertainment in general is in
response to monitoring what the actual demand and what people
were willing to pay was, and the concert promoters and

(01:31:28):
the wrestling promoters, they just said, and sports team's owners
sports leagues just said, why are we letting a bunch
of people buy cheap tickets and resell them for a
profit when they've done nothing to contribute to the product.
All they did is buy a ticket quickly, they study
the market, they put the ticket up for bid, so
they know what people are willing to pay and other
money's going to them. So that's why defense of it,
and I do think there's some merit to that, So

(01:31:51):
that's let's set that aside for a second. The idea though,
of this being a communal experience but it's a minority,
is really interesting, and this is why I like to
talk to people like UDJ and I encourage more people
are attending these shows to let us know. Wade Kellor
podcast at gmail dot com. If you're attending raw Dnavitor SmackDown,
let me know if you can do what DJ is
doing and call us up after the show and talk
to us. I want to get more of a sense

(01:32:12):
when you're in the building. Is it a minority who
are really loud? Years ago I talked about the Bellweather
fans like that. There's a committed hardcore ardent fan base,
whatever you want to call them, who kind of set
the trend for the rest of the audience, who are
kind of followers, And you know, it's human nature, like, oh,
there's this pocket of people channing something that looks like fun.
They know what they're talking about, Let me join in.

(01:32:33):
And so if that's what's happening, then it's I don't
know if it's more or less of a problem, if
it's more less manageable, but it helps you understand what's
happening better, and maybe it's more manageable, but still you
still have these influencers in the crowd who are influencing things. Chris,
you're at your thoughts on any of this, then we'll
go back to DJ me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
You're right, and that capitalism is created the environment in
which we're going to keep paying more for the things
that we really love because they figured out we really
love them, right. I'm with thinder deviation in commoned below.
I'm kind of surprised to hear what you said that
it wasn't so much w w's greed is recognizing that's
what people were willing to pace. Of course they ought to.

(01:33:16):
They got to take care of it. I mean, with
with the economy going the way it is, these prices
are going to have to plateau or we're going to
see shrinking attendance. I think that that's an.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
Effort and then the lower the prices, I mean it
is applied. I mean, it's just so econ one on
one Chris. You know, if if if you can get
away with it, you do and if you can't, if
you're if you I'm learned from e conclass c ogs
cost a good sold, if you if you everything above
cost of good sold is is I'm dumbing this down.
But but it's it's profit, you know, and and so

(01:33:49):
you know with you know, there's some flexible overhead and
all that, but what are your cost of good sould?
And then what can you charge above to make a profit.
I am not worried about rests who are making six
million dollars or three million dollars or two million dollars
having their pay drop by forty percent. If that's the
way the market moves, it's too bad for them. I'm
not rooting for it, but they're still fine. Same with

(01:34:10):
these sports, it's like get all these baseball Oh, the
value of the team's going to go down. Let's do
a whole sports talk show. Worried about the owners the
value of these teams going down. I'm like, I'm not
worried about millionaires and their there, you know how they
keep score. What I worry about, though, is the fan
experience for the people who are making it all work
and if it's a minority who are screwing it up.

(01:34:30):
WWE has the power, but it takes some thought, and
it takes it and agreed. It takes an acknowledgement that
it is a problem. And I don't know that they're
there yet.

Speaker 9 (01:34:37):
Chris, I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast,
the new Ongoing Torch show covering the world of New
Japan pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows
and noteworthy events dictate.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
And I'm Chris Lansdowe.

Speaker 9 (01:34:57):
Join us as we covered the ever changing landscape of
New Japan as they navigate an era.

Speaker 6 (01:35:01):
We've no lack of talent, but a real need to
create some news staves you can stream.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
Then you seven stop on cars now from pro wrestling Talk.
I think the last time we had somebody who called
in an on site correspondence said a similar thing that

(01:35:26):
that what we heard as loud booze or loud distracted
chance were in fact much less in presence. So this
seems to be a recurring thing. Yeah, it's frustrating, I
would think to be sitting there, especially if you've spent
all that money to have the experience hijacked by people
who are probably a couple of drinks into their fun time,

(01:35:51):
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
And if there's a kid who like, really likes sammy'
z ain and the crowd chanting one more time, I mean,
it's kind of a dick move to be, you know,
an adult saying one more time and the you know,
the ten or nine, ten, eleven, twelve, it's gonna be
a little confused, and then they're going to be followers
and start doing that too. It just I mean, again,
I'm not saying they need to police to crowd response,
but I'm saying, if you're w WE and you're the wrestlers,

(01:36:12):
there's a certain response you want, and I think you
should try to diagnose why it's happening and try to
steer things in a different direction. And you know, singing
to that song is fun and it was fine as
a baby face. It made him seem more over than
he was. I don't think that was the entirety of
his popularity. I think he's earned through good matches and
loyalties at the brand and all of that a lot,
and I think there's a charisma and an appeal to him,

(01:36:33):
but the song was really big. I think with Jay,
the reaction to him was not just the eating and
the song. I think was more more than with Seth,
an actual affection for him as a person and being
with him in a Sammy's and Danny Bryan way on
his in terms of appreciating his journey and rooting for
him in a way that isn't there with Seth. But
when you turn heel get rid of the damn song, right,

(01:36:55):
I mean, like Shinsky Nakamura had a great song, they
changed it and made it more ominous and took away
some of that kind of so sammy' z ain you know,
started to have a few notes of his music to
get the pop and then it changed so well, that
was kind of different. But nevertheless, like there's things, music
has been tweaked and changed based on the character, and
I think they should consider that, starting like on the

(01:37:16):
edit of tonight's clips. Nope, at least starting next week.

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
I have a question for DJ. Was was Broun Breaker
as Bronze in person as he was on screen?

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):
Yeah, most definitely he was. Yeah, I thought he was
one of my brothers, Like, man, this is out there.
He and m jeff not.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Don't you share a Netflix password? They also share a Tanning.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Slong Passerah, oh my god, I haven't here all the.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
Week, folks. Actually I stole that from the chat. I
think uh chat said that, well scroll up and give credit.
I would scroll up in your credit, but I don't.
I don't have time. But congress, whoever it is, restate
it with your name and we'll give you credit. So
oh oh so okay, So I want to deta. I
want to get some some some more details on the reactions.

(01:38:08):
We have people in the chat wanting to know where
the crowd reactions line up, such as Becky Lynch and
her character. Were the fans booing her? Was that was
that effective?

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, there were definitely there was a lot
of booze for Becky. It was not it wasn't like
there was a want to cheer. It was more or less.
Now that was especially after she of course admitted that
the you know, the injury done the Bailey was by
her hands. I mean that's when everyone pretty much was

(01:38:42):
like okay, even if there was any murmurings of a
couple of claps, it was like okay. After she she
made that announcement, it was kind of yeah, she was
pretty much dead on arrival after that. Surprisingly, and I
think Chris Is mentioned it earlier, someone mentioned it early
or uh. The pop for Liry was a little surprising

(01:39:04):
because I know she has seemed like a little lot
of very lukewarm just about everywhere she she's been popping up,
So this one was felt like it was a genuine hey,
I think we ye what Becky did? She she was was
pretty terrible, so we're gonna kind of side with you.
So I really I really enjoyed that. And the funny

(01:39:25):
thing about the Becky thing is I was actually at
the show when Naya broke her nose, and when she
was running up the stairs, she was about three people
away from it, and of course she does it this
time when she's running away behind the barricade and she's
literally right next to me, and I couldn't get my

(01:39:46):
camera out fast enough. But it's just very strange. Me
and Becky keep crossing that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
So talk talk about the reaction to Rhea Ripley also
in that arena. She has had I think a rough
couple of months she's been called I think accurately that
she's been acting like a child, I'm going to sign
the contract that's legally binding and us treating you a
sky like less than a person. And she was, and
she's unapologetic about it. I think she should be contrived

(01:40:13):
to be like, yeah, I got lost in my hatred
for might getting worked up about that, and she hasn't
yet She's still getting cheered. So talk talk about the
crowd direction from her and if it seems any different
than any of the crowd directions that you might have
been present for with her, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:40:25):
Yeah, most definitely. It's it's it's definitely cooling down in
relates to you know, of course, the pops she was
getting even when she was you know, technically a heel
with dom and Judgment day, she was getting massive pops.
Now it's it was more it's more muted, if not

(01:40:45):
as as favorite as it was you know in past.
But the contrast that is with Io when she came out,
you know, the crowd exploded you know, and it's it's
really strange to see how fast people you know, the
pendulum betweing for for someone and literally a blink of

(01:41:07):
an eye. It was just it felt like it was
two days ago everyone was, you know, losing their mind
over Rhea. Now again it's still there, you know, the
whole mommy chance and all that stuff during the match.
So it's not that I don't think she's losing popularity.
I just stink she's just losing that that massive brown
swell that was happening in the past. But that's pretty

(01:41:28):
much anybody. It's you know, if they're on the chase
or there, you know, has an actual clear goal, most
people can get behind them. But seem like somewhat Riea's
somewhat floundering. It's, you know, is she going to go
after EEO again, which I'm sure she will. It's hard
to put my finger on it, but I don't think

(01:41:48):
she is losing popularity. She's just losing that that's fire,
that that was behind her. Yeah yeah, there you go,
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
That's actually really good. It's not that people are booing
her or not d to her. It just feels less
intense it's burning less. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. The NXT women,
I don't know if we still call them that, Roxanne Prez,
Stephanieva Kerr, how what level of recognition was is there
for them at this stage of their time on the
main roster of a care knew her a little bit

(01:42:20):
more defined. Roxanne has been kind of all over the place,
but maybe they're trying to find a lane for her now.
So yeah, any any thoughts on her observations on how
they were received and recognized by the fans.

Speaker 3 (01:42:30):
Yes, definitely can be on raw right now, going for
going for a title step she was the pop for her,
the performer she put out. Yeah, she is one that
out of everyone they've brought up recently and I know
she's really really recently. People love her there behind her Roxanne,

(01:42:55):
I don't know, like her and Julia. I like when
Juliet came out, it wasn't even it was that much
of an acknowledgement. It was just like, oh, there's a
lot of more or less who was that? Who was
that of me? I watch NXT as well, that is
as frequently, but I know who people are and definitely
if someone that just watches strictly wrong on SmackDown. Yeah,

(01:43:21):
they have no clue who either want to rock sound either.
You know, she's had her couple of stints here, go Away,
Come back, Go Away. She's been playing double dutch with
NXT and RAW. I don't, I don't. I don't know
what she would need or either one of them would need.
I know there's been some mention of, hey, you know,

(01:43:43):
turning Bailey again and giving her another faction that I
think that's way too soon. Bailey needs to stay off
of TV for a while. I probably wouldn't even bring
it back to Social Lam. But no, the nx T
women that they're calling up, I like all of them,
but I think Stephanie is at the top of the

(01:44:04):
heap right now.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
level with a VIP membership. Get shows like this, the
Weaykiller Prosing podcast, Weykiller Prosing Post show, and the pw
Torch daily casts on our pw Torch VIP podcast feed
with ads and plugs removed from the shows for a
streamlined listening experience. And also hear the VIP exclusive shows
that I host with Rich Fan and Todd Martin. Everything

(01:44:28):
with rich fan and the fix with Todd Martin signature
VIP series that you're missing out without a VIP membership.
So go vip here in twenty twenty two and enjoy
all the benefits, all the bonus content and the ad
free listening experience. Pw torch dot com, slash go VIP.
One other big topic question from the show, and then

(01:44:49):
I'll throw to Chris for anything else before we probably
wrap up soon. Let you go, DJ. But Pat McAfee
stood on that announced desk. I praise that promo. I
thought it was a quintessential Babyface promo. I'm stand for
everything good. I give all my money to the best charities.
It felt earnest to come grew up without much, and
now I'm recognizing every state. My dad was a trucker.
We didn't we didn't weren't privileged in what we got.

(01:45:11):
But I'm going to take my success and pass it
on to my friend's family and community. For people didn't
see the promo, he said he gave back a lot.
He gave millions to his community, including children's hospitals, military foundations,
homeless shelters, LGBTQ communities, which got the biggest pop of anything,
which was sweet, nice to see it, and public school foundations.
He said he hopes when he's dead they'll say he

(01:45:32):
was a loyal mfort and he got bleeped. And then
he talked about standing up for friends and how important
that is and Michael Cole's a good friend and he
will even though people said it was dumb because Gunther
is a beast, he can't. He will stand up for
Michael Cole even if it kills him. So, yeah, first,
did it surprise you LGBTQ got the biggest reaction? And
then talk broadly about the reception McAfee got and if

(01:45:52):
you felt moved or inspired or affected by him.

Speaker 3 (01:45:55):
Yeah, well he was. Yeah, I was going to ask
you guys, how much of that of the F bombs
she got in the A holes and because he dropped
a bunch of them.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
We got the holes. We didn't cut the F bombs,
they got the leap.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Oh yeah, yeah he was. And of course we all pop.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
It was it's Netflix, and you can hear those words,
but nobody tunes into w we expecting that at this
point they need to be really clear if they're not
going to leave them.

Speaker 3 (01:46:19):
Yeah, yeah, that was again my my Levey or not
that you know, I'm a Satan, I'm a I'm a marine,
I have a i have a tendency to go. So
not that he's never heard of those things, but it
was definitely was a shock. I did not expect that
to come out. But even when he when he stood up,

(01:46:42):
because did they make an announcement. Again, I haven't watched
the playbacks. I don't know what was commercial, and I
know there was a lot of commercial Netflix and what
what you guys got, But essentially as soon as the
light hit them and you can see him taking off
the headset, I mean, the crowd started to pop as
soon as he got on top of the of the table.

(01:47:03):
But he I think his speech was one of those that, like,
as you mentioned at the top of the show, where
was this in in you know, September October Man, this
is the counter that counteract all the other you know,
Alpha Brogue podcast anyway anyway, but yeah, it was one

(01:47:24):
of those speeches that yet you would as a you know,
as Michael Cole sitting there as a friend, you would
love to hear. And I'm glad, you know, I got
somebody like that that has my back and it was believable.
He made it, you know, personal, and it's one of
those type of it's vading the promo coach, that's your
coach right there, because that's how you can get uh.

(01:47:47):
And it wasn't very long, it was clear, it was concise,
it was to the point done there. I want to
fight you, and it's and I'm having the back of
my friends because that is who I am on the inside.
I'm a person that love the people that I love.
I love unconditionally. Here's all the things that I love,
Here's all the things I like to support, and that again,

(01:48:09):
that's that's how you get uh, get a baby face.

Speaker 1 (01:48:14):
Who doesn't want a friend like Pat McAfee. Now, I
mean I can, I can't even ractice his obsession with
statological references. If he's going to be that loyal to
me and beat up throughout my behalf, I get.

Speaker 5 (01:48:25):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:48:25):
I don't consume a lot of Pat McAfee's show, like
if it's not wrestling related. I'm like into my local
sports teams. I don't listen to much national national analysis
or podcasts. Just don't have time. And there's good podcasts
and radio shows here that I that I'm fans of
and when I have time for it, that's what I
listened to. So I don't know a lot about McFee.
The Aaron Rodgers thing was a turn off.

Speaker 3 (01:48:47):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
I don't believe people of privilege, even no matter where
they came from, should just be a platform that says
famous people can say anything without being fact checked and
you just nod along. I think that. I think Joe
Rogan was damaging. I think he had the Joe Rogan
had the resources for years and years to hire a
fact checking crew, and when he brought people on and
they spewed nonsense and anti science crap, he just nodded.

(01:49:12):
He just kind of nodded along, like, oh, interesting, who's tever? No,
if any of the stuff is true, like it could be,
and tell me more. For three hours it sounds good
and there's there's no follow up. But he had disproportionate
influence and revenue compared to what every other news entity
at his scale of revenue in the past had the

(01:49:36):
other This is a media this is a media studies
thing for some college court. But like the newspapers, magazines,
TV shows, radio shows, when they had the resources, they
didn't give a platform to every kook and treat them
as legit. They they they would come prepared. They brought
them on to push back on things that are that
are knowable. And I'm not a big consumer Joe Rogan,

(01:49:58):
so people can correct me on this, but as I've
heard about him, I think I'm generally in the right realm.
Is he gave a relatively equal level of open minded,
long form open minded listening to anybody, whether it was demonstrably,
provably bold or not. And it it validated conspiracy theory.
It made for entertainment and at a small scale without

(01:50:20):
the resource, but if you can just come prepared to
go this is just factually not true. This is something
that's been debunked and it is not up for debate.
And I have the resources with my team to put
this in your face until you stop saying it because
it's not true. So this relates to McAfee. My impression
of McAfee was he was kind of doing that like, oh,
bring on sports athletes, but there are celebrities and I
just want to be the fanboy who who goes, oh,

(01:50:42):
you've got views on things other than sports. Tell me
about him, and I'm not going to fact check you
fair or unfair. That was my sample size of McAfee.
Other people says, oh, I listened to had every day.
He's different than that way, and I respect that. I'm
my opinion is based on little snippets of things, and
I think they are worthy of being judged in isolation
as not a shining moment for him, but it doesn't
define him. But to me, this was a tremendous version

(01:51:05):
of Pat McAfee. That brings me back to why I
really liked him on SmackDown initially, you know, and then
I think he got a little follow himself, didn't know
all the product as well, took some shortcuts baited about him.
This was a great babyface promo. Final point I'll throw
to you Christ and back to DJ. I love heal
being suspended by an authority figure rightfully so and the
baby face going please don't leave him suspended. I want

(01:51:27):
to get my hands on him in the rank. Yeah,
that is timeless old school that did not expire. It
is the right way to do things. Bad bookers and
bad promoters lost their way. That is a timeless application
of what you should do. There should be a structure,
There should be rules when you violate it. There should
be somebody in charge who doles out consequences, and then
there should be a babyface going I don't want that consequence.
I want my consequence. Let me get my hands on him.

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
Goody, Chris, Well, I think your point is proven by
how immediately the crowd was like, yes, we want to
see this most dangerous man come back in for what
will should be a bloodbath, right, uh, and then to
have it turned down.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
So so you're you're you're proving the point that that
kind of storytelling gets people in and it brings up
the emotion and then when we are denied it, we
feel it immensely right, So that crowd let us know
that that was right. A question for DJ when at
the end of the war Raiders bit and in Pina,

(01:52:28):
what what were the war Raiders doing when Pina was
on screen, because it seemed like everybody forgot about that
match and just was there for Pinta.

Speaker 3 (01:52:36):
Yeah, yeah, uh they were. So when he stood up
on the table and he was walking, they were in
some of them off camera on the on the ground,
like standing on the barricade, so they were just they
were literally just standing there. Uh. Yeah, it really it

(01:52:56):
really felt like, yeah, the the Raiders won, but it
was Pension's moment. It was it was very I feel
bad for him, but it's like I think Sean was
saying it earlier, is another War Raider New Day match.
It's kind of like, okay, whatever, they're going to wrestle again,
New Day is going to war and move on. But yeah,

(01:53:18):
this Pension's got a He's another one that he me
came in. I know they put a lot behind him
and they he pretty much came in guns to blazing,
but he is he is definitely it felt like he
was definitely over and the way his reaction was or
the way we reacted to him. So I don't know
where he came from. Again, where I was sitting, I'm

(01:53:41):
looking at the ring and then I just look up
and I see a mask. I was like, what, I.

Speaker 1 (01:53:46):
Don't I don't think they showed where he just showed up.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
I couldn't tell you because normally, because where we were sitting,
you can see where they were bringing in. You know,
somebody else was the under the ring or hiding. I'm
right there. I never saw him past me. Uh So
it was he's an injured for real.

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):
I guess cool DJ open question to you what else
stood out? Was there anything off air or likely off
air that you can pass along to us, or any
other altervations that Chris and I haven't prompted you to talk.

Speaker 3 (01:54:14):
About somehow, But again, that's nothing. I don't think it's
exclusive to hear. But somehow Chad Gables has mastered to
be in a heel and a face at the same
time because people love El Grande Americ Hunt. It's so strange,

(01:54:35):
and they hate his guts and it's of course we
all were playing into it, but it's really fascinating to
watch how people love that ridiculous luchador and they can
despise of child gigble. It's kind of like when Kevin
Owen was losing his mind about the Eli Elias and

(01:54:56):
we all get it, but it was just so fun
to watch him react. And it's fun to watch Tad
Gable being just a phenomenal athlete. And I think he
is one of the most underused miscast wrestlers they have
on the roster right now that that dude is super talented.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
They're still trying to figure him out. You know, I mean,
I have to best use him. You know, I mean,
I guess yeah to totally. And I mean I think
the idea is he's a lovable heel, you know. I mean,
I don't think they're going for legit, hardcore heat with him.
I think they know he's super talented, but you know,
they they tested pushing him in a more serious way

(01:55:38):
and it just felt like it's Chad Cable, we can't
take him seriously. He's really good, but he can't cut
a serious heal promo like Eric Jong has shown range.
But for a while it was like, I don't know,
once he was a good guy, can you really take
him seriously as a back guy? And he's worked really
hard and I think somewhat effectively, maybe you know, maybe
very effectively, you know, moving back and forth between those things,

(01:56:00):
there was more a more rough, sinister side that he
was able to channel. I just don't think Gable has
that in him. So I think they see him as
really talented and fun to have around, but in a
category of his own that, like you djsay is fans,
you know, booing him with a smile, but they would
be super nice to him outside the ring and or
cheering him or choosing depending on whether he's wearing a

(01:56:23):
mask and having fun with it.

Speaker 3 (01:56:26):
You've ever said it?

Speaker 10 (01:56:31):
Are you a nostalgic wrestling fan? Do you want to
hear about shows you haven't seen in ten, twenty, maybe
even thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:56:38):
Well, I have the show for you.

Speaker 10 (01:56:39):
I'm pwteworts dot com contributor Frank petty Ani, and since
December of twenty twenty, I've hosted Pro Wrestling Then and Now.
Together with a rotating chair of co hosts. We go
back and review old shows from top to bottom, talk
about where the wrestlers were at the time and compare
what's taking place now to what took place. Then you
can hear this along with other shows. It was a

(01:57:00):
part of your PW towrts VIP membership with exclusive podcasts
just for members compatible with the Apple Podcasts app is
it pwtorch dot com, slash go vip for details and.

Speaker 3 (01:57:11):
Sign up for.

Speaker 1 (01:57:17):
Anything else DJ you want to add.

Speaker 3 (01:57:22):
No, I think that's that pretty much wrapped it up.
I was bummed that A didn't get punk today, but
you know, it's how it is. But other than that,
I think it was a good show. I'm not you know,
I know the I can't I can't speak for all
Kansas Citians, but we we we have problems. It's okay,

(01:57:44):
But it doesn't seem like this is exclusive to us.
It seems like this has been a somewhat of an
ongoing trend with the crowds kind of just being so
wishy washy and not clear concise. But again, like you
like you've been mentioning, it's not so much the crowds
fault as it is the you know, you know, Trivila's

(01:58:05):
not making that clear cut this way that way. You
can have that one blue Moon character that can be
that ambiguous, but it needs to clearly be Hey, you
know these are the good guys. I will never cheer,
as you also mentioned, I will never cheer for the
writers a day in my life. Up the Broncos. It's

(01:58:27):
just it's Chiefs one percent. And I can't wait to
be in a super Bowl again to make everybody mad again.

Speaker 1 (01:58:34):
I love it so yes, I and I talked about
this on the Fix VP show Todd Martin last week.
I like, I think people confuse like I'm against baby
facing heel tunnels, Like I don't think there should be
a tunnel. Baby tunnel heels come out of it. I'm like,
I think some people dumb down, like my argument and
that of others who are for the face heeled dynamic,

(01:58:55):
but it's not the nineties version of it. It's not
the eighties version of it. It's an updated version of it.
And I think bookers sometimes get confused. They're like, well,
if we tell people to do cheer for whoever you
it's a modern era. It's supposed to be every man
for himself shades a great and I don't think they.
I just don't think they actually fully grasp what people
who are advocating for a face heel system mean in
a more modern way. It's just if a wrestler's popular,

(01:59:16):
amplify what people like and push them against someone who
is unpopular, and you amplify with people don't like about them,
and you ninety six percent of the time match shields
against faces, and you don't make a big deal out
of it. It's not They don't come out separate tunnels
and not everybody's on the same team. They don't wear
t shirts and identifying or ribbons identifying you know, what
tribe they're on, like in Survivor, or what brand they're on.
They're just they're individual wrestlers and you just naturally match

(01:59:40):
them up. So the fans have an inclination where they
want to cheer for on who they don't and don't
money avoid muddying the waters except for a very special
circumstance like Hayman with Roman, Seth and Punk. There was
a legit thing with with Roman and Punk that was
you could But if that's the only thing they did
in the last year, and certainly the only one on
the same show where there's any ambiguity, I don't have
a problem with that, But it needs to be the exception.

(02:00:01):
It needs to be a good reason for it that
as a means to an end, or it's just going
to draw a lot of money, you know. So yeah,
that's what I'm for. I'm not for. I don't need
everybody to be as as wholesome and charitable as Pat
McAfee expressed. I'm okay with babyfaces having shades of gray
and not always living up to their own desires or

(02:00:23):
having the same moral standard so to speak. As me.
I can still end up thinking they're cool and I
want them to beat some other guy who's worse. But
I think Levecka is letting it get out of hand.
And I think there's people in a circle who don't
think that's important either. It's all about the experience and
the vibe and unpredictability and let the fans choose. And
I mean, when the revenue coming in the way, it

(02:00:44):
is no matter what you do. You might think you're
doing things really well and everything is right, but a
lot of companies have ignored warning signs and their peak
period drops and it's too late to change things. The
momentum is there?

Speaker 5 (02:00:57):
Cool?

Speaker 1 (02:00:58):
Yeah, Chris, you want.

Speaker 2 (02:00:59):
To Oh, you know, in simple terms, right, Superman and
Batman are both babyfaces. They go about how they handle
their business very differently, but they have a line that
they both won't cross, right, and and that you know,
we're not. I love Superman obviously, but like asking for
everybody to be Superman, right, no one needs to do that.

(02:01:22):
But give us someone we can love. Yep, that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:01:26):
Yeah, DJ, thank you so much. I would tay go Chiefs,
but you've had enough in time for the vikings.

Speaker 3 (02:01:34):
I mean, we can, we can meet you guys in
the I'm fine with that. We need to rematch. I'm
fine with that.

Speaker 1 (02:01:39):
I'll take I'll take us to visit.

Speaker 2 (02:01:43):
Yes, backlash is coming up right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01:46):
Yeah all right, DJ, thanks appreciate it. Yeah you good night,
Yeah all right, cool, all right, Chris, I got to
wrap up in like two minutes or three minutes. Anything
you want to sneak in. I didn't get to emails
because I just did time the show out well, but
I want to keep the streak alive of coming in
under two hours.

Speaker 5 (02:02:05):
Here.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):
My producer thanks me for that because he stays up
late to get the show ready on all our platforms
in the middle of the night.

Speaker 2 (02:02:11):
So we covered a lot. Yeah we really did.

Speaker 1 (02:02:14):
Yeah, okay, So if you don't have anything else and
I have a miniature to spare, I'll read JJ from Apple.
JJ from Apple Valley, Minnesota says, after listening to seth
Rowlins mentioned Ceampunck and Roman range to virtually zero positive reaction,
I'm worried about the w B crowds derailing everything. He
sent this in before we started talking. This is not
this is this is this is someone who sent that

(02:02:35):
in at nine ten pm, half hour before it went
out of the air's central time. I'm worried about the
Adobe crowds derailing everything. Granted, Dotoby is doing little to
help things by not changing music and having rollins continue
with this. I did not write this email and continue
with this sad phrases. What I'm wondering is if the
European likes of the two are good for Dowdby Stories
as a whole. I feel like there have been several
times in the past decade where European fans have changed

(02:02:55):
the way Americans, the American fan based reacts to the show.
Eventually it goes back, but with your becoming a more commonplace,
will this be the norm? How can WW begin to
fix this? It's an interesting topic. I mean, Europe europe
is does it differently than the American fans are. And
I don't blame them. I don't blame them directly for
steering American fans in the wrong direction, but the crowd

(02:03:17):
becoming clearly more a part of the show. I think
my carry over to American crowds wanting to be in
Canadian crowds wanting to be more part of the show.
Congrats to Canada tonight. By the way, spoiler alert, the
good guys one that's wild?

Speaker 2 (02:03:33):
Yeah, I mean, do you have like another minute can
tell the wild story?

Speaker 1 (02:03:37):
Yeah, no, no, if it's if it's if it's like three,
it's about true fandom plighting in the battlefield in Rwanda
when I was at a soccer match.

Speaker 2 (02:03:48):
So I'll save that for the next time I'm on cool.

Speaker 1 (02:03:51):
Okay, then I'll read this from Zach Barber. He says,
here's some clues that I particularly heel turn was ill
advised the person, and they turned on as getting booed.
They cut their promos screaming like a banshie for no
reason other than their heel. Now they uncharacteristically dodge a fight.
They go for the cheapest heat by attacking the city.
Becky Lynch simply has no business being a heel fans lover.
It doesn't generate heat, It just generates apathy, and Library

(02:04:13):
doesn't have the juice to help get any heat. I'm
not sure Bailey does either. Quite frankly, this seems like
a bad idea. Already thumbs up her thumbs down to
this stage of the Becky Church. He wasn't like Super
Pop one hundred percent getting cheered on her last stint,
so that could be part of what played into this.

Speaker 2 (02:04:30):
Oh you're asking me to do a thumbs up.

Speaker 1 (02:04:31):
Yeah, Yeah. Do you think it's okay they did this
less to lose than the first time they turned that.

Speaker 2 (02:04:37):
They did it? I think I agree with the idea that, okay,
give us something more than an attacking the city, give
us something more than the chicken shit heel roll out
the ring all the time, give us something more. I'm
intrigued to see where it goes. I actually hope that
she joins the stable. That could be cool. So I
don't know, necessarily ill advised.

Speaker 1 (02:04:58):
JB from Detroit says, I'm not a fan of Becky.
He'll turn starting up with attacking the fans. We've seen
that way too much lately, and frankly, it's been beginning
to feel like a crutch. I also think it's notable
for Becky to try to get certain people over during
her turns, but I'm not sure that she's the best
at deciding who is the most value in being put over.
So it's part of the reason she turned last time. Yeah,
you know, I'm told it, just Oh, if I'm going

(02:05:18):
to do this, let me try to get some people over.
I do think Sammy'd be a good fit for him
and Stable. Sammy always has been at his best with
an earnest edge like when he was in the blood Line.
I pray that the war Raiders New Day feud ends
at Backlash. I think that Logan Paul is a weird
pick for Jay's first feud. Is Champion Paul certainly good
at what he does in wrestling, but it's very one note.
It's the same feud every time, and he and Jay
have had very little interaction previously. I was hoping for

(02:05:39):
a bit more bang for a buck to keep Jay hot.
It was very weird seem punk god boot during seas
Prolo tonight, as I always loved the show in go VIP,
so we didn't talk about Logan Paul j so yes
and also, I mean, just give me your short.

Speaker 2 (02:05:53):
First thought was it looks like Jays has been bulken
up to go with the World Heavyweight title, so he
looked a good going in the ring. I still think
that they're going with this sort of viral pop that
can happen when you have Jay Uso the meme wrestler
and Logan Paul the walking meme right like there's I
think there's there's an intentionality there. Do I think it's

(02:06:17):
the best approach. I really don't logan.

Speaker 3 (02:06:21):
Paul is great.

Speaker 2 (02:06:22):
I could go the rest of my life and never
seeing him on WWE screens again.

Speaker 1 (02:06:27):
Yeah, very good. Chris, thank you so much. Everybody, Go vip.
I feel like what we do. Powtorch dot com, slash
go vip, check out Chris and Kurtz news show and
a lot more cool content. Thank you everybody, and don't
forget the flagship tomorrow. Send your questions to Weight Color
Podcast at gmail dot com or streak of not going
past two hours continuous. Thanks everybody, aren't I correspond everybody

(02:06:48):
else with podcast Invite you to email the show with

(02:07:21):
feedback or questions or comments. That email address is Wade
Keller Podcast at petewtorch dot com. That's Wadekeller Podcast at
pw torch dot com. Also welcome your feedback on Twitter.
You can follow us on Twitter at pw torch and
follow me at the Wade Keller That's at PW Torch
and at the Wade Keller.

Speaker 11 (02:07:43):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me.
Jason Powell host them the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom podcast.
Each week he'll hear the latest news and analysis for
me and my team at pro wrestling dot need along
with other pro wrestling media members, plus the Pro Wrestling
Boom podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and

(02:08:04):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 1 (02:08:13):
Thanks for listening to our podcast. Did you know we
also have a website, PW toorch dot com. Daily news updates, editorials,
and my live TV coverage covering Raw, Dynamite and SmackDown
and my live pay per view coverage for WWE and AEW.
Create a tab or bookmark make it a daily stop.
Visit us throughout the day every day to keep up
on breaking news and more. That's pw torch dot com.

Speaker 4 (02:08:37):
Meet an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts.
Will come join me alanforel Over in the Progress Paradise
at pdbrew torch vip as we mask on the bright
side of wrestling and focus on some of the great
matches and shows from around the world, be it US, Japan, Europe,
or Mexico. There's always a place for restlings past and

(02:08:59):
the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows such
as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious career
of Jusian thunder Lighter and our I Was There When
shows where our guests will join me to talk about
a classic bout that they were in attendance for. We
love variety and you can expect lots of it at
the Progress Paradise. Detailed pw tors VIP subscription information and

(02:09:22):
a list of all the VIP benefits is available at
pww torch vipinfo dot com. And yes, all VIP podcasts
are compatible with popular podcast apps on iPhone and Android devices,
or you can stream them directly from our ad free
VIP mobile site. See you in the Paradise.

Speaker 1 (02:09:41):
One way that you can help us sustain our schedule
of putting out podcasts throughout the week is by giving
us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Just go
to Apple Podcasts and look for our Weightkeller Pressing podcast
and Weightkeller Processing Post show and give us a five
star rating. We hope you think we've earned that score
with our fast turnaround times and our quantity and quality
of wrestling analysis throughout the week. So take a moment

(02:10:03):
out for us and do us favor and give us
a five star rating and Apple podcast that helps us
on search returns and helps us grow. And if you want,
you can add a few comments about what you like
about the programs in the comments section. Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (02:10:18):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 7 (02:10:33):
Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT Talks
NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
did or didn't work out. Exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.

Speaker 1 (02:10:47):
A PW Torch VIP membership doesn't just give you add
free access to these shows and a ton of other
VIP exclusive podcasts throughout the week, but you also gain
access to our unmatched vast library of wrestling history, our
contemporaneous week to week coverage through our progressing Torch Weekly
newsletters dating back to the late nineteen eighties, along with
streaming and download access to hundreds of retro radio shows
from the nineteen nineties, including some of my interviews with

(02:11:10):
wrestling's top newsmakers in the nineties, and also our podcast
library dating back to the year two thousand and three.
There's no larger, longer spanning pro wrestling podcast library than
that that comes with a PW Torch VIP membership. Now
we're approaching twenty years of podcasting. Go VIP and dive
into our post pay per view roundtables are covered with
some of your favorite eras of wrestling, top name long

(02:11:32):
form interviews, and special format podcasts that we've done throughout
the years. Pw torch dot com slash go vip. We
have a streamline sign up for me and you can
pay with PayPal or directly with your credit card or
debit card. In one or two minutes from right now,
you can be a VIP member and diving into our library.
Pw torch dot com slash go vip

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.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;}WWE RAW POST-SHOW (4/28): Keller & Adams discuss odd crowd reactions with on-site correspondent in KC, plus McAfee shines, Becky explains

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

WWE RAW POST-SHOW (4/28): Keller & Adams discuss odd crowd reactions with on-site correspondent in KC, plus McAfee shines, Becky explains

Stuff You Should Know