November 11, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode, we discuss WWE Raw, John Cena's plans for the Survivor Series, what is going on with former WWE star Tegan Nox walking out on AEW, the Last Time is Now Tournament Bracket, Is John Cena the GOAT?, and Hiroshi Tanahashi's final opponent is revealed.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Sodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What What What? SI list podcast?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
That's what anything?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
They got the answers. I take the question.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Who who am you to to to Dolly ol Dan
because this guy is a serious profession.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
To Savage, that's not the thong wearing buddy. I w
(01:16):
W stand for.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Kick me Up.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I will never.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Require promotional consideration paid for by the following.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Hey, yo for a wrestling podcast. Listeners, Welcome to the
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entered into a drawing to also co host an episode,
just like my good buddy John down in Texas. John
and I working on some Patreon exclusive content coming soon.
John can't wait to get those out to the public
and get that out to our subscribers. Hello, everybody, welcome
to this episode of the Fluoresting Podcast. If you've got questions, comments,
something you want me to touch on on a future episode,
call me. Let me know the FRO Wrestling sound offline
(02:45):
two six seven six four two eleven sixty and I
will get to those questions or comments in a future episode.
It is a talk to tech service. Try to make
sure that you get in there, tell me what you
need to tell me, and like I said, I will
get to those as soon as possible. Got to react
to everything going on in the professional wrestling world. I
could jump into raw to start the show, but let's
save that for the end. Why not, It's some of
the most enjoyable stuff we have to talk about today.
(03:07):
Let's go into the conversation about new Japan Pro Wrestling.
Right now, we are closing in on Wrestle Kingdom that
will be in January, and a lot of people have
been waiting to hear who is Hiroshi Tanahashi gonna face
in his final match, and there was speculation that WWE
may be negotiating an opportunity for Shinsky Nakamura to be
Tanahashi's final opponent. There are other people who thought there
(03:29):
were several other talents that could be in the conversation.
Dave Meltzer is reporting from the Wrestling Observer newsletter that
there were actually three names legitimately in the running to
be his opponent. One was absolutely Shinsky Nakamora, and that
basically within Shinnakamora's WWE contract there is a clause that
allows him to work Japan, but that WWE would have
(03:51):
to agree to and sign off on the appearance. And
I don't believe that if this was that important to Nakamora,
I don't believe that they wouldn't have signed off on it.
But that is not the choice. The next choice, Tetsuya Naito,
longtime New Japan stalwart, left the company this year when
his contract expired. There was conversation by him coming out,
has had some legendary matches with Hiroshi Tanahashi, but at
(04:14):
the end of the day, if this is gonna be
Tanahashi's gu swan song, you put him in there with
his number one rival throughout the majority of his career.
Kazuchka Okada has been announced as his final opponent in
his retirement tour and will wrestle him at Russell Kingdom.
I suspect that that match will be the last match
of the evening. I hope it is. There is a
(04:35):
chance that the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship will be in
the final match. I think that's not necessarily a good idea.
I understand that in that way, you could send the
fans home with a high quality, high hitting, just a
great technical match. But people want to go home after
watching one of the greatest legends in the history of
(04:56):
Japanese wrestling leaving the business as an active competitor, staying
the president of nu japapar Arressi, but leaving as an
active competitor, and they want to celebrate his career. And
I think that by him headlining and main inventing Russell
Kingdom is about as big an honor as you could
possibly bestow on somebody in that situation. One of the
things I've actually been thinking about lately is WWE has
(05:18):
been much more open to inducting people outside of the
WWE umbrella into the Hall of Fame. And what would
it take for Hiroshi Tanahashi to be inducted into the
WWE Hall of Fame. I'm curious about that because his
career is every bit as influential, I believe as many
of the Japanese wrestlers of the past, including people like
(05:40):
the Great Muda. Let's be honest. In the American wrestling scene,
Muda was phenomenal in say eighty eight eighty nine. He
did some things around Florida with Dusty Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan,
but the majority of the influential stuff here in the
United States within the nwas the World Television Champion facing
Staying in a great series of matches leading all the
way to stark future shock. Muda left for a hot minute,
(06:03):
came back in a tag team tournament with mister Saido
Uh to face the Steiners at the end of a
tournament and another starcade, and then spend a significant amount
of time in Japan not returning until the end the
latter nWo part of w CW. So in a lot
of ways, Muda was not a huge factor in North
American wrestling, but is an absolute legend in Japan. It
(06:24):
did so much, and he is in the w W
Hall of Fame or or should be, I apologize, should be.
You have people like oh my goodness, Jusha thunder Liiger,
you have people like Antonio Minoki, just huge names, Shohi,
Giant Baba, who have all been Japanese stal wars who
have gone into the w W Hall of Fame. I
(06:46):
really believe in my heart that it would be a
wonderful thing to see Hiroshi Tanahashi at some point go
into that. That being said, I think in order for
WWE's Hall of Fame to really shift the narrative from
what it is right now, we've seen wrestlers I know
in the past when he was not on great terms
with w B. He obviously is now because he's in
(07:07):
the Hall of Fame now. But I remember when Scott
Steiner years ago used to talk about how it's not
even a hall of fame, It's like it's in someone's head.
And in a lot of ways, that's not an inaccurate statement.
The Hall of Fame is a theoretical thing, but there's
no physical building. I think WWE misses an opportunity by
not having a physical location where fans can go and
see some legendary stuff that I'm sure they have stockpot
(07:29):
and warehouses all over Stanford make it happen, especially since Stanford,
Connecticut is supposedly the hub of WWE for all those years.
It's where their headquarters were. Put it there. It's a
huge attraction. If you want to draw more people and
put it in Las Vegas, put it in New York City,
put it somewhere. But there should be a physical Hall
of Fame. But if and when there ever is one,
which I really do believe at some point there will be.
(07:49):
When there are some other hall of Fames, those who
are longtime fans of the show know that I did
an interview with Johnny Mantel, who runs the Pro Wrestling
Hall of Fame down in the American Southway. There are
other hall of Fames, but WWE having a physical location
for theirs would be incredible, and I think that's something's necessary.
And then somebody like a Hiroshi Tanahashi absolutely should be
(08:10):
considered for induction once he is fully retired. That being said,
moving on to other conversations of the day, One of
the controversial things that has been talked about quite a
bit in social media and on other platforms this week
has been former WWE starring Tiagan Knox Nixon Nouel, who
she and her partner Miranda Elise were scheduled to They
(08:35):
performed last week on Dynamite, losing effort against Meghan Bain
and Marina Shafir relatively quick match, and there was a
reason for that. It's because you know, Meghan Baine typically
teams with Penelt befored Penelt before it is injured, so
they wanted to put them over strong the fact that
they were teaming up Bain and Shafir, So they bring
(08:56):
in a team that has no previous record in aew
it's not gonna hurt their character because they don't have
an aw character, and they essentially squashed them, which is
exactly what they should have done, especially the way they've
built Meghan Bain to be like this force in wrestling.
Shaffir has increasingly become more and more aggressive and has
gotten involved with the men and things like that, so
it makes a lot of sense. But coming out of
(09:18):
that match, they were supposed to perform being Noel and
Elise on collision, and when they got to the location,
the initial report stated that they were frustrated with the
fact that they were going to lose and that they
walked out on the show because they were losing. Now
there has since been new information that totally debunks that
(09:39):
and says, no, it wasn't because they were going to lose.
They didn't have a problem losing. Their issue was that
they only wanted the match to go three minutes, and
that wouldn't have done anybody any good when you think
about it. The Meghan Bain Marina Shaffir squash match makes
a lot of sense because of the type of tag
team that you have there and what you're trying to
do in terms of accomplishing getting them over as potentially
the ones who runs through this tournament win those tag
(10:01):
team championships, and obviously Nixon, Noel and Miranda Lee's are
not going to be winning those tag ting championships, so
you can't put them in a situation where they look
strong against the team that's gonna eventually win the tournament.
Against Tay Mellow, who is who they were supposed to
face on collision. I hate to say it, but Tay
Mellow needed to go over strong as well because they
are an established team, They have a long long history
(10:23):
in a w and they deserve a strong victory heading
into the Tag Team Championship Tournament. That being said, they
were replaced, they had other talents come in and take
their spot instead. They were the word that they're saying.
They had like a twitch stream and they put out
that essentially they were told to go home. You know,
they didn't have to stick around, so they left. They
were taping and and two other talents were used in
(10:46):
that match and they you know, did the did the honors.
But word is is that, you know, as this falling
out has continued, there's even a report today that's on
Wrestling Inc. Where they talk about how Brian Danielson himself
reached out to the two of them, especially following their
live stream, and that there's a lot of frustration in
(11:07):
the locker room from the women in the aw Slash
Ring of Honor locker room, many women saying they would
love to get three minutes on the television program. I
believe it was Tayavakry said something with whether you get
one minute or one minute, five minutes or half an hour, whatever,
something of that nature, that you'd be thankful and you
maximize those minutes. And that's absolutely true. Coming from a
(11:28):
guy who has only had four matches in his professional career,
I can assure you my shortest match is one of
the ones I'm most proud of. The First time I
ever took a loss to Tyler Simms at Triple Wa
Quakertown's show, the guy squashed me in about three four minutes,
and you know what, it was wonderful. It was a
great experience. You take the opportunities you're given. And this
(11:50):
is somebody speaking of Nixon nouell or Tigan Knox, who
has complained previously about not being able to get opportunities
to be booked following her WWE departure, and then other
reports came out stating that there were independent companies that
had difficulty working with her as well, one company in
particular that goes unnamed in the report stating that the
(12:10):
one company absolutely will not work with her again because
of the demands she had and whatnot. That the other
party apparently they wanted her to get on a flight
within an hour, and she just couldn't feasibly make it happen.
And that's been corroborated. So there was two indie companies
that had an issue with her, but the one it
was obviously sounds like it was a scheduling concern, so
not something to go against her character, but it's certainly
(12:31):
something to think about in terms of, like what is
her plan going forward? Like, you can't in the wrestling business,
especially when you're right now relying on independent bookings. You
cannot put out the perception that you're difficult to work with,
and I feel like there's some of that going on.
I did think it was great that they advocated for themselves,
saying they had no problem putting somebody over it, but
they wanted more than three minutes. Now, can you go
(12:51):
more minutes than with Tay Mellow and still make them
look strong? Probably? But how much longer? Five minutes, six minutes,
How long do you go before you're like, Okay, we
got to put them over, and they got to go
over relatively strong because they're in the Women's Tag Team
Championship tournament, and we can't get too much stuff in
because then it takes away from their quality as a
tag team going into the tournament, a tournament that we're
not in so difficult situation. I hope they make better
(13:14):
decisions in future cards and future shows that they get
the opportunity to perform on. But at this point we're
gonna have to wait and see. Now let's get into it.
We have to the biggest news of the week. I
thought Triple h. Look, we can have endless conversations about
Mount Rushmore's about professional wrestling, Who's the best wrestler ever,
Who's the biggest draw ever, Who's the greatest of all time,
(13:35):
Who's the one who you know is the biggest superstars?
Best sports entertainer? And those are all very different conversations.
When you talk about sports entertainer or personality things like that,
you can easily come up with hul Kogan being at
the top of that list. But if you go with
in ring performers, people to often will reference like people
like Shawn Michaels, Rick Flair, Ricky Steamboat. If you talk
(13:56):
about best overall wrestlers, sometimes you get conversations about people
like Brett Hart and see him punk and the Chris
Jerichos and people like that Chris bin was. I thought
that the onset of Raw the Triple H did a
really good job of explaining the multifaceted nature of the
professional wrestling business, whether it's being the superstar outside the ring,
(14:19):
the ring technician, the person who's the big draw or
sells the most merchandise or does the most humanitarian stuff,
or all the different things he went through. I was
actually surprised he didn't put out all the make a
wish stuff that John Cena has done in his career,
but him putting over John Cena, and he kept using
the word objectively, objectively putting John Cena over as the
greatest of all time, And it really made me think,
(14:42):
what really defines the greatest of all time in professional wrestling?
Is it? Hul Cogan a guy who didn't always want
to lose when unless he wanted to lose a certain way.
At the same time, hal Cogan was the one who
made the call according to Eric Bischoff and hul Cogan's
testimony and Bill Goldberg's from my understanding that hul Cogan
was the one who made the call to have him
put over Goldberg in Atlanta in front of forty thousand
(15:05):
people on Nitro. So it's not that he never put
anybody over, but apparently it was also his decision about
the Giant in his first match getting put over by
Hulk Cogan in that crazy Halloween Havoc disqualification title change thing.
So you know, but that doesn't make Hogan the greatest wrestler,
and it certainly doesn't make him the best overall guy
because there were definitely complications with Hall Coogan, and I'm
(15:28):
not talking about the outside of the ring stuff when
it comes to Rick Flair. Even Rick Flair, who was
widely regarded because of the insane schedule he kept, you know,
seven days a week, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday,
some people even claiming three times on Saturday or Sunday.
That's insane. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of matches in
countries and cities all over the world, from Japan to
(15:51):
Italy to London to the United States affiliate Atlanta, Chicago, DC,
all over the place, in every territory, working with different
different people everywhere you go, and making their guy look
as amazing as possible, and that all sounds great for
Rick Flair. It makes the case why Rick Flair is
such an incredible worker he had on the mic and everything.
He was never as big a draw as hal Kogan.
(16:11):
He was never the biggest draw in some of the
biggest arenas in the world. And more importantly, when people
talk all the time about how he worked with other
talents in all different locations and how he could work
with anybody.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He could.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
But I will also I would also ready, I like
to play Devil's advocate argue that Rick Flair would oftentimes
have essentially the same match with all of those people.
You know, every Rick Flair match is gonna be certain
moves that you're gonna see him thrown into the turn buckle,
he's a new flip up over the top, climb up
to the other turn bucle, jump off the top, He's
going to go for the figure four a couple of times.
He's going to loosen up the leg on the bottom rope.
There's just certain things he was always going to do.
(16:45):
It's a lot easier to pull that off in every
town in the country when you do it in every
town in the country, whereas a we superstar, though they
also get to do the same thing in multiple different places.
I feel like many WWEE matches are vastly different, at
least the ones we get to see what we got
to see with Ric Flair. Ric Flair's televised matches were
almost the same match for all throughout his career, whereas
(17:08):
somebody like a Brett Hart very different matches depending on
who he wrestled. Shawn Michaels very different matches depending on
who he wrestled. So I think it's very open to
interpretation out what the knock on John Cena for me
is the five moves of Doom. I get it, but
it is five moves. I mean, that's quite a substantial
number of moves to say he only has the five moves.
He throws a lot of punches, he does a lot
of shoulder blocks, he does an AA, he does an STFU,
(17:31):
he does those types of things. I understand, but you
have to wonder, like, how many moves does he have
to do before? We don't just get hung up on
the five moves at Doom. So was he the best
in ring technician?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Clearly not.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I'm actually really impressed with everything he's done this year.
Could he have been better in the rank? Maybe? Would
they let him? Though, let's be honest, brock Lesner was
able to do some things at w B was simply like, yeah,
don't do that, that's shooting star press. At WrestleMania that
he almost broke his neck. The only reason he probably
almost broke it, almost broke his necks. He hadn't done
the move in years because they told him to stop
doing it. But back when he was in Ohio Valley Wrestling,
he did all the time. When you look at people
(18:04):
like Goldberg, who in WCW can wrestle a technical match,
could do some takedown holds, can do some martial arts,
and then you get b and you're just spearing a
jackhammer and people that's them holding you back. Even the
Big Show was much more athletic than WWE let him be.
Even WCOW you let him be at times in WCW.
If you remember, he's the seven foot giant who did
(18:25):
a kickup, kicked out of the perfect plex and kicked
up and finished a match like that's insane, that's phenomenal.
But you didn't see that INWE. Wwe seemed to get
really pigeonholed into like these guys are the muscle guys,
these guys are the technical guys. And these guys are
like whatever. John Cena checks a lot of boxes, and
I think if you look at it from the way
(18:46):
Triple H presented it, he checks more boxes than most
people in the history of professional wrestling. Is he the goat?
That is not for me to say, that's for you
to decide for yourself. Is he on my mount rushmore?
Of top four people ever in the industry? All around?
I would say I would have to agree with Triple H.
Absolutely he's in that top four. Is he number one?
Maybe hypothetically? Possibly theoretically, but if you're looking at all
(19:08):
those metrics, I would need to see more to be
able to be able to assure that. I mean, in
a lot of ways, The Rock could be at number
one on that list because he's the crossover attraction, the speaking,
the fan reaction, the merchandise. Probably a much better entring
worker than John Cena. Worked with a ton of different people,
But if you think about it, a ton of different
people he worked with, there was not a lot of
(19:30):
smaller guys. John Cena was able to work with people
like Raymisterio, whereas The Rock never really did a lot
of that. His stuff was usually guys similar in builder
bigger even, but not a lot of smaller guys. So
it's a very different perspective when you think about it.
So I don't know, I don't know where it falls
on that. I don't know how I feel about that.
But looking at them at the way they started raw
with Triple H coming out, beautiful introduction, John Cena came out.
(19:52):
I actually thought, because I saw the reports earlier in
the day that there was a plan for John Cena
to challenge for the Interconinental Championship. I thought that he
he was going to say the greatest of all time,
and Dominic Mysterio was going to interrupt him and talk
about being the greatest Intercontinental champion of all time, which
of course is nonsense, but that's what he's been saying lately,
and that would bring out John Cena. They did it
the opposite. They had seen it come out, and he
was doing his beautiful speech to his hometown crowd, which
(20:15):
I thought was amazing, the huge inner mark that I
am little emotional watching it. You almost saw the look
on his face when it sounded like his voice almost
cracked when he said in Boston for the last time,
which I think was beautiful and then when Dominic came out,
I'm going to tell you my favorite part of RAW
is Dominic Mysterio, because he came out and you had
(20:37):
to wonder how a young kid was going to perform
in such a high pressure situation. I think Dominic delivered
in huge spades on Monday Night RAW. I think he
was fantastic. He held his part, he played the role.
He sounded like a credible challenger to John Cena's legacy.
He sounded confident, It didn't shake him at all, the
(20:57):
crowd response, he talked his way through it. This was
some of the best work I've ever seen in Dominic.
And more importantly, I hear people joke all the time
about whether Dominic is one of the futures of the business.
That last night really made me believe that Dominic Masterio
could be the man going forward in for WWE at
some point. He absolutely has everything necessary to be a
(21:20):
top draw for a lot of years to come. So
congratulations to Dominic on that delivery. Now let's get to
the match itself. Fantastic shorter match than I expected, especially
with the title reign. As long as Dominic's Congratulations to
John Cena winning the Intercontinental championship. I think it's a
good move for him to go out by having been
a Grand Slam champion. That's something it probably shouldn't have
waited till now to do it. They should have done
(21:42):
it years ago given the IC title. But whatever, at
least they did it and in his hometown, which is beautiful.
So congrats to John Cena. I actually kind of expected
him to get jumped by somebody in the tournament after
the fact, like a returning Gunther or something that did
not happen, but super thrilled for him. I did love
the part in the back where he was like celebrating
with everybody, including Cody Rhodes. I thought that was beautiful,
(22:05):
really great stuff, and congrats to John c and I.
I know we only have a few dates left on
his retirement tour, but every one of them he's making
meaningful and I really appreciate that. The problem with this
all is is that the Damian priest Rusev match in
the Last Time is Now tournament was so fin The
match itself was fine, but the crowd response was flat
because they were just exhausted from the energy of seeing
(22:27):
John Cena. And you know, I don't know how you
do it differently. Do you have the promo early in
the night and have the match later in the night
to keep him high. I don't know, but it was
really a shame because the match itself was pretty well done.
The storyline of the match made a lot of sense.
Little disappointed that we didn't see Alistair Black get involved
and caused the issue with the eye. Russev taking advantage
of it and picking up a relatively I don't want
(22:49):
to say easy and clean win, but he kind of did,
was a little shocking to me. I almost feel like
you should have put Priest over, because Priest is a
guy who you even though he's at more of an
advanced aged and a lot of your younger stars, he's
still a phenomenal talent that had that World Championship run
and I think would be able to be re elevated.
But the more he loses and the more MiG Card
(23:10):
feuds he goes into, the less likely that's gonna be.
So Russev moves on to the tournament. After that, we
see the aj Styles Dragon Lee conversation in the back
where they're trying to figure out a tag team name.
I'm not really sure why that's going on. We had
the part where Maxine Duprie was talking to Adam Pearson
gets attacked by Becky Lynch. Solid stuff. I feel like
that keeps that Becky Lynch conversation going with Maxine Duprie,
(23:33):
but it doesn't further anything with aj Lee, which I
feel like we need to do, especially heading into War Games.
Then we hear from CM Punk and Sampunk is out there,
and here comes Logan Paul, who apparently has now joined
the Vision, or at least that's what's been implied. The
Vision come out, they surround the ring, jay Uso appears
(23:53):
and for a split second I actually thought jay Uso
maybe joining the Vision and would have super kicked Punk,
but he didn't. Uh, he defended him when things started
to break down. Uh, the the WWE Undisputed Champion Cody
Rhodes came out to make the save and and then
later on in the back we have that conversation with
(24:15):
you know, the three Babyfaces talking to Adam Pearson saying
that they have their team, you know, tell the Vision
to get ready, and then they had Regal come out,
William Regal and shout out war Games, which I thought
was awesome. I love that they it's almost like Ron
Simmons little shit, you know. Quote, you know, it's a
beautiful thing. I loved all that second championship match of
(24:36):
the night, Stephanie Vakia defending the WWE Women's World Championship
against Roquel Rodriguez uh Nikki Bella in Vikara's corner, Roxane
Perez in Roquel's corner, solid match, short match. It was alright, though,
you know, Stephanie Viccaras, I mean, she's she's premium talent
in the division. She really is. It's it's a shame
(24:57):
it took so long to get we but it's a
great thing that she's in w and I love that
they're pushing her so quickly because she can carry the ball.
I think everybody in the world knew this was going
to be a win for Stephanie v Kurer, but we
knew that the blindside was coming at some point from
Nikki Bella to set something up. I don't know if
we thought that it was going to be this this week.
I'm glad it was. Let's get it going. Nicky Bella
(25:17):
turns heel and attacks Stephanie va Kira and stands tall
with the championship so I'm okay with that. Next match
we get into is the Shinsky Nakamore a Shamous match
first round for the last time? Is now tournament? Uh?
Another one that like it was a good match. I'll
be honest, there were times where I really wasn't sure
who was gonna win this. I really thought Knackamoor had
a legit chance to win, and I almost think I'd
(25:39):
rather see nakamouras Scena than Seamus and seen again, except
somebody did point out that on commentary. I believe it
was Michael Cole, that John Seena's last match is on
December thirteenth, which is the same day that he lost
the World Championship to Seamus, and I was like, hmm,
that's interesting. You know. I was listening to Busted Open
and they were critiquing the people in the tournament, saying
(26:00):
how Shamous is not in the position to be a
big enough draw to be his final opponent. I don't
disagree with that. I think everybody knows my opinion is
it's gonna be gunther. But that little nugget made it
so at least there was a little bit of me
it was like, yeah, that would be kind of cool.
I would really love to see scene in Knackamore, though
I'm not gonna lie. That sounds like a really cool match.
I don't remember us ever getting to see I could
be wrong. Maybe they did and I just don't remember it.
(26:21):
But interesting stuff. But we do see that Shamus pick
up the win here relatively solid back and forth banger.
I thought it was a pretty solid match. Then we
get the announcement Adam Pierce draws the names Javon Evans
from NXT in the tournament taking on the returning Gunther.
So that validates what I was saying that obviously, I
(26:41):
feel like Gunther is the shoe and to win the tournament.
And then that solo Sokoa from SmackDown will be taking
on a secret opponent just like they did on SmackDown.
That tells us we have two surprises coming into this tournament.
So who are the surprises? Is it gonna be Chris Jericho,
Is it gonna be Edge, Is it gonna be Matt Card?
Is it gonna be somebody that we haven't thought of?
(27:03):
Can they break the entire wrestling industry and make it
Hiroshi Tanahashi, make it Kenny Omega? Can you imagine if
these companies just stop fighting all the time and put
their heads together to put together just the most insane
you know, once or twice or three times a year,
(27:24):
opportunities to see cross promotional stuff between WWE and AW.
I'm just saying how amazing that would be. But we'll
have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Better not be something like Omas. I don't want to
see that. I don't want to see it be Bracklesner.
That's a possibility also, well, I just have to wait
and see. I saw the thing with Our Truth last
weekend on Smack. I think that'd be kind of funny
doing the whole like Ron Seen a Thing versus John
Cena one more time, but obviously not winning the tournament,
but interesting stuff. Then we get to the Women's Tag
(27:53):
Team Championship Alexiblis Charlotte Flair versus the Kabuki Warriors for
the Women's Tag Team Championship. I guess at this point
we're gonna see the tag team of Lash Legend and
Naya Jacks be a thing. Now. I'm kind of okay
with that. They're they're almost like the Meghan Bain and
Marina Shafiro of WWE. Right now. I guess in some weird,
(28:14):
funky way, though they don't look anything alike. I mean
the way they're being being positioned is similar. The end
of the match, seeing those two get involved and costing
Charlotte and Alexa the tag team championship, making the Kobooki
Warriors a three time tag team champion. There's a four
on two beatdown leading to the the the return of
(28:34):
EO Sky to Raw. She comes out, she's doing very
well when she starts to get beaten down. Here comes
with the face mask, Rhea Ripley to one of the
biggest pops, the biggest pop outside of John Cena of
the night. And then at the end of the fight,
when they knock everybody out of the ring, that you know,
Ria Ripley takes the microphone and she calls out war
Games also, so obviously that's a team. Now it's four
(28:55):
on four in the women's side, three on three on
the men's side. So who's going to be added? Who's
to be a part of these teams? I think on
the women's side it's very clear they will probably add
aj Lee and Becky Lynch. That that I think is
probably what makes the most sense. Maybe they tease Maxine Dupre,
but maybe Dupre gets hurt on her way to the
ring and they have to replace her and aj Lee
comes out. I would be okay with that, setting up
(29:15):
a program for maybe Royal Rumble for aj Lee and
Becky Lynch. On the men's side, they have talked about
and theorize that Roman Rains would be a part of that,
But word is they want to keep Roman Reigns and
Cody Rhodes apart. Bodyslam dot Nets report claims that they
do not want those two men on camera together unless
they're gonna have another match, and right now there's no
(29:36):
match on the on the plans, and there's a lot
that they'd have to work through to make it happen.
I suspect both men don't want to be the one
to lose the rubber match, so they don't want those
two together. One thing that is being reported is John
Cena is expected to be a part of Survivor series,
possibly on a super team and possibly with Roman Reigns,
Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and Jay Usso not sure how
(30:00):
I feel about the Roman Reigns part because of what
I just said in terms of Cody and he being
on the same screen at the same time. I'm okay
with John Cena being involved. Then you look at the
heel side of things. Who joins the Vision's team. Is
Dominic in there because he just lost the intercontinental title
of the John Cena? Is Brock Lesnar there because that's
the kind of star power you need if you're putting
(30:20):
a super team together on the baby face side of things,
which I think that's the biggest problem for me, is
you've got to have a huge, huge name on that
other team if you're gonna have them go against this
super team of babyfaces. So I would assume Brock is
going to be number four. I think on the baby
face side it's John Cena. And then who is the
five for the five on five? That's where it gets
(30:40):
very difficult for me. There are people I think are worthy.
AJ Styles is worthy. La Knight is worthy, But word is,
there may be some backstage heat on La Night right now.
I don't know why, but that's a possibility I hope not.
Word is, Drew McIntyre is not factored in to the plan,
but he could always be the one on this SmackDown
side of things for a heel to go in which
(31:02):
would line up well with Cody being in the match,
but who is the other babyface? And I'm not sure.
It's really difficult, so we'll have to wait and see.
There's a lot still to play out on camera. Hopefully
we get to see some really cool stuff. But yeah,
it sounds like we're definitely headed towards a mega match
with some megastars coming out and being a part of this,
(31:23):
and I'm curious to see how it all shakes out
in the end. That's all the time we have for
this episode. Check back with us next episode we run
down to the latest wrestling news and rumors. Special thanks
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(32:04):
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take care everybody, have a good one, I'll say,
Sodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What What What? SI list podcast?
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That's what anything?
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They got the answers. I take the question.
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Who who am you to to to Dolly ol Dan
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To Savage, that's not the thong wearing buddy. I w
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I will never.
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call me. Let me know the FRO Wrestling sound offline
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two six seven six four two eleven sixty and I
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It is a talk to tech service. Try to make
sure that you get in there, tell me what you
need to tell me, and like I said, I will
get to those as soon as possible. Got to react
to everything going on in the professional wrestling world. I
could jump into raw to start the show, but let's
save that for the end. Why not, It's some of
the most enjoyable stuff we have to talk about today.
(03:07):
Let's go into the conversation about new Japan Pro Wrestling.
Right now, we are closing in on Wrestle Kingdom that
will be in January, and a lot of people have
been waiting to hear who is Hiroshi Tanahashi gonna face
in his final match, and there was speculation that WWE
may be negotiating an opportunity for Shinsky Nakamura to be
Tanahashi's final opponent. There are other people who thought there
(03:29):
were several other talents that could be in the conversation.
Dave Meltzer is reporting from the Wrestling Observer newsletter that
there were actually three names legitimately in the running to
be his opponent. One was absolutely Shinsky Nakamora, and that
basically within Shinnakamora's WWE contract there is a clause that
allows him to work Japan, but that WWE would have
(03:51):
to agree to and sign off on the appearance. And
I don't believe that if this was that important to Nakamora,
I don't believe that they wouldn't have signed off on it.
But that is not the choice. The next choice, Tetsuya Naito,
longtime New Japan stalwart, left the company this year when
his contract expired. There was conversation by him coming out,
has had some legendary matches with Hiroshi Tanahashi, but at
(04:14):
the end of the day, if this is gonna be
Tanahashi's gu swan song, you put him in there with
his number one rival throughout the majority of his career.
Kazuchka Okada has been announced as his final opponent in
his retirement tour and will wrestle him at Russell Kingdom.
I suspect that that match will be the last match
of the evening. I hope it is. There is a
(04:35):
chance that the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship will be in
the final match. I think that's not necessarily a good idea.
I understand that in that way, you could send the
fans home with a high quality, high hitting, just a
great technical match. But people want to go home after
watching one of the greatest legends in the history of
(04:56):
Japanese wrestling leaving the business as an active competitor, staying
the president of nu japapar Arressi, but leaving as an
active competitor, and they want to celebrate his career. And
I think that by him headlining and main inventing Russell
Kingdom is about as big an honor as you could
possibly bestow on somebody in that situation. One of the
things I've actually been thinking about lately is WWE has
(05:18):
been much more open to inducting people outside of the
WWE umbrella into the Hall of Fame. And what would
it take for Hiroshi Tanahashi to be inducted into the
WWE Hall of Fame. I'm curious about that because his
career is every bit as influential, I believe as many
of the Japanese wrestlers of the past, including people like
(05:40):
the Great Muda. Let's be honest. In the American wrestling scene,
Muda was phenomenal in say eighty eight eighty nine. He
did some things around Florida with Dusty Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan,
but the majority of the influential stuff here in the
United States within the nwas the World Television Champion facing
Staying in a great series of matches leading all the
way to stark future shock. Muda left for a hot minute,
(06:03):
came back in a tag team tournament with mister Saido
Uh to face the Steiners at the end of a
tournament and another starcade, and then spend a significant amount
of time in Japan not returning until the end the
latter nWo part of w CW. So in a lot
of ways, Muda was not a huge factor in North
American wrestling, but is an absolute legend in Japan. It
(06:24):
did so much, and he is in the w W
Hall of Fame or or should be, I apologize, should be.
You have people like oh my goodness, Jusha thunder Liiger,
you have people like Antonio Minoki, just huge names, Shohi,
Giant Baba, who have all been Japanese stal wars who
have gone into the w W Hall of Fame. I
(06:46):
really believe in my heart that it would be a
wonderful thing to see Hiroshi Tanahashi at some point go
into that. That being said, I think in order for
WWE's Hall of Fame to really shift the narrative from
what it is right now, we've seen wrestlers I know
in the past when he was not on great terms
with w B. He obviously is now because he's in
(07:07):
the Hall of Fame now. But I remember when Scott
Steiner years ago used to talk about how it's not
even a hall of fame, It's like it's in someone's head.
And in a lot of ways, that's not an inaccurate statement.
The Hall of Fame is a theoretical thing, but there's
no physical building. I think WWE misses an opportunity by
not having a physical location where fans can go and
see some legendary stuff that I'm sure they have stockpot
(07:29):
and warehouses all over Stanford make it happen, especially since Stanford,
Connecticut is supposedly the hub of WWE for all those years.
It's where their headquarters were. Put it there. It's a
huge attraction. If you want to draw more people and
put it in Las Vegas, put it in New York City,
put it somewhere. But there should be a physical Hall
of Fame. But if and when there ever is one,
which I really do believe at some point there will be.
(07:49):
When there are some other hall of Fames, those who
are longtime fans of the show know that I did
an interview with Johnny Mantel, who runs the Pro Wrestling
Hall of Fame down in the American Southway. There are
other hall of Fames, but WWE having a physical location
for theirs would be incredible, and I think that's something's necessary.
And then somebody like a Hiroshi Tanahashi absolutely should be
(08:10):
considered for induction once he is fully retired. That being said,
moving on to other conversations of the day, One of
the controversial things that has been talked about quite a
bit in social media and on other platforms this week
has been former WWE starring Tiagan Knox Nixon Nouel, who
she and her partner Miranda Elise were scheduled to They
(08:35):
performed last week on Dynamite, losing effort against Meghan Bain
and Marina Shafir relatively quick match, and there was a
reason for that. It's because you know, Meghan Baine typically
teams with Penelt befored Penelt before it is injured, so
they wanted to put them over strong the fact that
they were teaming up Bain and Shafir, So they bring
(08:56):
in a team that has no previous record in aew
it's not gonna hurt their character because they don't have
an aw character, and they essentially squashed them, which is
exactly what they should have done, especially the way they've
built Meghan Bain to be like this force in wrestling.
Shaffir has increasingly become more and more aggressive and has
gotten involved with the men and things like that, so
it makes a lot of sense. But coming out of
(09:18):
that match, they were supposed to perform being Noel and
Elise on collision, and when they got to the location,
the initial report stated that they were frustrated with the
fact that they were going to lose and that they
walked out on the show because they were losing. Now
there has since been new information that totally debunks that
(09:39):
and says, no, it wasn't because they were going to lose.
They didn't have a problem losing. Their issue was that
they only wanted the match to go three minutes, and
that wouldn't have done anybody any good when you think
about it. The Meghan Bain Marina Shaffir squash match makes
a lot of sense because of the type of tag
team that you have there and what you're trying to
do in terms of accomplishing getting them over as potentially
the ones who runs through this tournament win those tag
(10:01):
team championships, and obviously Nixon, Noel and Miranda Lee's are
not going to be winning those tag ting championships, so
you can't put them in a situation where they look
strong against the team that's gonna eventually win the tournament.
Against Tay Mellow, who is who they were supposed to
face on collision. I hate to say it, but Tay
Mellow needed to go over strong as well because they
are an established team, They have a long long history
(10:23):
in a w and they deserve a strong victory heading
into the Tag Team Championship Tournament. That being said, they
were replaced, they had other talents come in and take
their spot instead. They were the word that they're saying.
They had like a twitch stream and they put out
that essentially they were told to go home. You know,
they didn't have to stick around, so they left. They
were taping and and two other talents were used in
(10:46):
that match and they you know, did the did the honors.
But word is is that, you know, as this falling
out has continued, there's even a report today that's on
Wrestling Inc. Where they talk about how Brian Danielson himself
reached out to the two of them, especially following their
live stream, and that there's a lot of frustration in
(11:07):
the locker room from the women in the aw Slash
Ring of Honor locker room, many women saying they would
love to get three minutes on the television program. I
believe it was Tayavakry said something with whether you get
one minute or one minute, five minutes or half an hour, whatever,
something of that nature, that you'd be thankful and you
maximize those minutes. And that's absolutely true. Coming from a
(11:28):
guy who has only had four matches in his professional career,
I can assure you my shortest match is one of
the ones I'm most proud of. The First time I
ever took a loss to Tyler Simms at Triple Wa
Quakertown's show, the guy squashed me in about three four minutes,
and you know what, it was wonderful. It was a
great experience. You take the opportunities you're given. And this
(11:50):
is somebody speaking of Nixon nouell or Tigan Knox, who
has complained previously about not being able to get opportunities
to be booked following her WWE departure, and then other
reports came out stating that there were independent companies that
had difficulty working with her as well, one company in
particular that goes unnamed in the report stating that the
(12:10):
one company absolutely will not work with her again because
of the demands she had and whatnot. That the other
party apparently they wanted her to get on a flight
within an hour, and she just couldn't feasibly make it happen.
And that's been corroborated. So there was two indie companies
that had an issue with her, but the one it
was obviously sounds like it was a scheduling concern, so
not something to go against her character, but it's certainly
(12:31):
something to think about in terms of, like what is
her plan going forward? Like, you can't in the wrestling business,
especially when you're right now relying on independent bookings. You
cannot put out the perception that you're difficult to work with,
and I feel like there's some of that going on.
I did think it was great that they advocated for themselves,
saying they had no problem putting somebody over it, but
they wanted more than three minutes. Now, can you go
(12:51):
more minutes than with Tay Mellow and still make them
look strong? Probably? But how much longer? Five minutes, six minutes,
How long do you go before you're like, Okay, we
got to put them over, and they got to go
over relatively strong because they're in the Women's Tag Team
Championship tournament, and we can't get too much stuff in
because then it takes away from their quality as a
tag team going into the tournament, a tournament that we're
not in so difficult situation. I hope they make better
(13:14):
decisions in future cards and future shows that they get
the opportunity to perform on. But at this point we're
gonna have to wait and see. Now let's get into it.
We have to the biggest news of the week. I
thought Triple h. Look, we can have endless conversations about
Mount Rushmore's about professional wrestling, Who's the best wrestler ever,
Who's the biggest draw ever, Who's the greatest of all time,
(13:35):
Who's the one who you know is the biggest superstars?
Best sports entertainer? And those are all very different conversations.
When you talk about sports entertainer or personality things like that,
you can easily come up with hul Kogan being at
the top of that list. But if you go with
in ring performers, people to often will reference like people
like Shawn Michaels, Rick Flair, Ricky Steamboat. If you talk
(13:56):
about best overall wrestlers, sometimes you get conversations about people
like Brett Hart and see him punk and the Chris
Jerichos and people like that Chris bin was. I thought
that the onset of Raw the Triple H did a
really good job of explaining the multifaceted nature of the
professional wrestling business, whether it's being the superstar outside the ring,
(14:19):
the ring technician, the person who's the big draw or
sells the most merchandise or does the most humanitarian stuff,
or all the different things he went through. I was
actually surprised he didn't put out all the make a
wish stuff that John Cena has done in his career,
but him putting over John Cena, and he kept using
the word objectively, objectively putting John Cena over as the
greatest of all time, And it really made me think,
(14:42):
what really defines the greatest of all time in professional wrestling?
Is it? Hul Cogan a guy who didn't always want
to lose when unless he wanted to lose a certain way.
At the same time, hal Cogan was the one who
made the call according to Eric Bischoff and hul Cogan's
testimony and Bill Goldberg's from my understanding that hul Cogan
was the one who made the call to have him
put over Goldberg in Atlanta in front of forty thousand
(15:05):
people on Nitro. So it's not that he never put
anybody over, but apparently it was also his decision about
the Giant in his first match getting put over by
Hulk Cogan in that crazy Halloween Havoc disqualification title change thing.
So you know, but that doesn't make Hogan the greatest wrestler,
and it certainly doesn't make him the best overall guy
because there were definitely complications with Hall Coogan, and I'm
(15:28):
not talking about the outside of the ring stuff when
it comes to Rick Flair. Even Rick Flair, who was
widely regarded because of the insane schedule he kept, you know,
seven days a week, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday,
some people even claiming three times on Saturday or Sunday.
That's insane. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of matches in
countries and cities all over the world, from Japan to
(15:51):
Italy to London to the United States affiliate Atlanta, Chicago, DC,
all over the place, in every territory, working with different
different people everywhere you go, and making their guy look
as amazing as possible, and that all sounds great for
Rick Flair. It makes the case why Rick Flair is
such an incredible worker he had on the mic and everything.
He was never as big a draw as hal Kogan.
(16:11):
He was never the biggest draw in some of the
biggest arenas in the world. And more importantly, when people
talk all the time about how he worked with other
talents in all different locations and how he could work
with anybody.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
He could.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
But I will also I would also ready, I like
to play Devil's advocate argue that Rick Flair would oftentimes
have essentially the same match with all of those people.
You know, every Rick Flair match is gonna be certain
moves that you're gonna see him thrown into the turn buckle,
he's a new flip up over the top, climb up
to the other turn bucle, jump off the top, He's
going to go for the figure four a couple of times.
He's going to loosen up the leg on the bottom rope.
There's just certain things he was always going to do.
(16:45):
It's a lot easier to pull that off in every
town in the country when you do it in every
town in the country, whereas a we superstar, though they
also get to do the same thing in multiple different places.
I feel like many WWEE matches are vastly different, at
least the ones we get to see what we got
to see with Ric Flair. Ric Flair's televised matches were
almost the same match for all throughout his career, whereas
(17:08):
somebody like a Brett Hart very different matches depending on
who he wrestled. Shawn Michaels very different matches depending on
who he wrestled. So I think it's very open to
interpretation out what the knock on John Cena for me
is the five moves of Doom. I get it, but
it is five moves. I mean, that's quite a substantial
number of moves to say he only has the five moves.
He throws a lot of punches, he does a lot
of shoulder blocks, he does an AA, he does an STFU,
(17:31):
he does those types of things. I understand, but you
have to wonder, like, how many moves does he have
to do before? We don't just get hung up on
the five moves at Doom. So was he the best
in ring technician?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Clearly not.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I'm actually really impressed with everything he's done this year.
Could he have been better in the rank? Maybe? Would
they let him? Though, let's be honest, brock Lesner was
able to do some things at w B was simply like, yeah,
don't do that, that's shooting star press. At WrestleMania that
he almost broke his neck. The only reason he probably
almost broke it, almost broke his necks. He hadn't done
the move in years because they told him to stop
doing it. But back when he was in Ohio Valley Wrestling,
he did all the time. When you look at people
(18:04):
like Goldberg, who in WCW can wrestle a technical match,
could do some takedown holds, can do some martial arts,
and then you get b and you're just spearing a
jackhammer and people that's them holding you back. Even the
Big Show was much more athletic than WWE let him be.
Even WCOW you let him be at times in WCW.
If you remember, he's the seven foot giant who did
(18:25):
a kickup, kicked out of the perfect plex and kicked
up and finished a match like that's insane, that's phenomenal.
But you didn't see that INWE. Wwe seemed to get
really pigeonholed into like these guys are the muscle guys,
these guys are the technical guys. And these guys are
like whatever. John Cena checks a lot of boxes, and
I think if you look at it from the way
(18:46):
Triple H presented it, he checks more boxes than most
people in the history of professional wrestling. Is he the goat?
That is not for me to say, that's for you
to decide for yourself. Is he on my mount rushmore?
Of top four people ever in the industry? All around?
I would say I would have to agree with Triple H.
Absolutely he's in that top four. Is he number one?
Maybe hypothetically? Possibly theoretically, but if you're looking at all
(19:08):
those metrics, I would need to see more to be
able to be able to assure that. I mean, in
a lot of ways, The Rock could be at number
one on that list because he's the crossover attraction, the speaking,
the fan reaction, the merchandise. Probably a much better entring
worker than John Cena. Worked with a ton of different people,
But if you think about it, a ton of different
people he worked with, there was not a lot of
(19:30):
smaller guys. John Cena was able to work with people
like Raymisterio, whereas The Rock never really did a lot
of that. His stuff was usually guys similar in builder
bigger even, but not a lot of smaller guys. So
it's a very different perspective when you think about it.
So I don't know, I don't know where it falls
on that. I don't know how I feel about that.
But looking at them at the way they started raw
with Triple H coming out, beautiful introduction, John Cena came out.
(19:52):
I actually thought, because I saw the reports earlier in
the day that there was a plan for John Cena
to challenge for the Interconinental Championship. I thought that he
he was going to say the greatest of all time,
and Dominic Mysterio was going to interrupt him and talk
about being the greatest Intercontinental champion of all time, which
of course is nonsense, but that's what he's been saying lately,
and that would bring out John Cena. They did it
the opposite. They had seen it come out, and he
was doing his beautiful speech to his hometown crowd, which
(20:15):
I thought was amazing, the huge inner mark that I
am little emotional watching it. You almost saw the look
on his face when it sounded like his voice almost
cracked when he said in Boston for the last time,
which I think was beautiful and then when Dominic came out,
I'm going to tell you my favorite part of RAW
is Dominic Mysterio, because he came out and you had
(20:37):
to wonder how a young kid was going to perform
in such a high pressure situation. I think Dominic delivered
in huge spades on Monday Night RAW. I think he
was fantastic. He held his part, he played the role.
He sounded like a credible challenger to John Cena's legacy.
He sounded confident, It didn't shake him at all, the
(20:57):
crowd response, he talked his way through it. This was
some of the best work I've ever seen in Dominic.
And more importantly, I hear people joke all the time
about whether Dominic is one of the futures of the business.
That last night really made me believe that Dominic Masterio
could be the man going forward in for WWE at
some point. He absolutely has everything necessary to be a
(21:20):
top draw for a lot of years to come. So
congratulations to Dominic on that delivery. Now let's get to
the match itself. Fantastic shorter match than I expected, especially
with the title reign. As long as Dominic's Congratulations to
John Cena winning the Intercontinental championship. I think it's a
good move for him to go out by having been
a Grand Slam champion. That's something it probably shouldn't have
waited till now to do it. They should have done
(21:42):
it years ago given the IC title. But whatever, at
least they did it and in his hometown, which is beautiful.
So congrats to John Cena. I actually kind of expected
him to get jumped by somebody in the tournament after
the fact, like a returning Gunther or something that did
not happen, but super thrilled for him. I did love
the part in the back where he was like celebrating
with everybody, including Cody Rhodes. I thought that was beautiful,
(22:05):
really great stuff, and congrats to John c and I.
I know we only have a few dates left on
his retirement tour, but every one of them he's making
meaningful and I really appreciate that. The problem with this
all is is that the Damian priest Rusev match in
the Last Time is Now tournament was so fin The
match itself was fine, but the crowd response was flat
because they were just exhausted from the energy of seeing
(22:27):
John Cena. And you know, I don't know how you
do it differently. Do you have the promo early in
the night and have the match later in the night
to keep him high. I don't know, but it was
really a shame because the match itself was pretty well done.
The storyline of the match made a lot of sense.
Little disappointed that we didn't see Alistair Black get involved
and caused the issue with the eye. Russev taking advantage
of it and picking up a relatively I don't want
(22:49):
to say easy and clean win, but he kind of did,
was a little shocking to me. I almost feel like
you should have put Priest over, because Priest is a
guy who you even though he's at more of an
advanced aged and a lot of your younger stars, he's
still a phenomenal talent that had that World Championship run
and I think would be able to be re elevated.
But the more he loses and the more MiG Card
(23:10):
feuds he goes into, the less likely that's gonna be.
So Russev moves on to the tournament. After that, we
see the aj Styles Dragon Lee conversation in the back
where they're trying to figure out a tag team name.
I'm not really sure why that's going on. We had
the part where Maxine Duprie was talking to Adam Pearson
gets attacked by Becky Lynch. Solid stuff. I feel like
that keeps that Becky Lynch conversation going with Maxine Duprie,
(23:33):
but it doesn't further anything with aj Lee, which I
feel like we need to do, especially heading into War Games.
Then we hear from CM Punk and Sampunk is out there,
and here comes Logan Paul, who apparently has now joined
the Vision, or at least that's what's been implied. The
Vision come out, they surround the ring, jay Uso appears
(23:53):
and for a split second I actually thought jay Uso
maybe joining the Vision and would have super kicked Punk,
but he didn't. Uh, he defended him when things started
to break down. Uh, the the WWE Undisputed Champion Cody
Rhodes came out to make the save and and then
later on in the back we have that conversation with
(24:15):
you know, the three Babyfaces talking to Adam Pearson saying
that they have their team, you know, tell the Vision
to get ready, and then they had Regal come out,
William Regal and shout out war Games, which I thought
was awesome. I love that they it's almost like Ron
Simmons little shit, you know. Quote, you know, it's a
beautiful thing. I loved all that second championship match of
(24:36):
the night, Stephanie Vakia defending the WWE Women's World Championship
against Roquel Rodriguez uh Nikki Bella in Vikara's corner, Roxane
Perez in Roquel's corner, solid match, short match. It was alright, though,
you know, Stephanie Viccaras, I mean, she's she's premium talent
in the division. She really is. It's it's a shame
(24:57):
it took so long to get we but it's a
great thing that she's in w and I love that
they're pushing her so quickly because she can carry the ball.
I think everybody in the world knew this was going
to be a win for Stephanie v Kurer, but we
knew that the blindside was coming at some point from
Nikki Bella to set something up. I don't know if
we thought that it was going to be this this week.
I'm glad it was. Let's get it going. Nicky Bella
(25:17):
turns heel and attacks Stephanie va Kira and stands tall
with the championship so I'm okay with that. Next match
we get into is the Shinsky Nakamore a Shamous match
first round for the last time? Is now tournament? Uh?
Another one that like it was a good match. I'll
be honest, there were times where I really wasn't sure
who was gonna win this. I really thought Knackamoor had
a legit chance to win, and I almost think I'd
(25:39):
rather see nakamouras Scena than Seamus and seen again, except
somebody did point out that on commentary. I believe it
was Michael Cole, that John Seena's last match is on
December thirteenth, which is the same day that he lost
the World Championship to Seamus, and I was like, hmm,
that's interesting. You know. I was listening to Busted Open
and they were critiquing the people in the tournament, saying
(26:00):
how Shamous is not in the position to be a
big enough draw to be his final opponent. I don't
disagree with that. I think everybody knows my opinion is
it's gonna be gunther. But that little nugget made it
so at least there was a little bit of me
it was like, yeah, that would be kind of cool.
I would really love to see scene in Knackamore, though
I'm not gonna lie. That sounds like a really cool match.
I don't remember us ever getting to see I could
be wrong. Maybe they did and I just don't remember it.
(26:21):
But interesting stuff. But we do see that Shamus pick
up the win here relatively solid back and forth banger.
I thought it was a pretty solid match. Then we
get the announcement Adam Pierce draws the names Javon Evans
from NXT in the tournament taking on the returning Gunther.
So that validates what I was saying that obviously, I
(26:41):
feel like Gunther is the shoe and to win the tournament.
And then that solo Sokoa from SmackDown will be taking
on a secret opponent just like they did on SmackDown.
That tells us we have two surprises coming into this tournament.
So who are the surprises? Is it gonna be Chris Jericho,
Is it gonna be Edge, Is it gonna be Matt Card?
Is it gonna be somebody that we haven't thought of?
(27:03):
Can they break the entire wrestling industry and make it
Hiroshi Tanahashi, make it Kenny Omega? Can you imagine if
these companies just stop fighting all the time and put
their heads together to put together just the most insane
you know, once or twice or three times a year,
(27:24):
opportunities to see cross promotional stuff between WWE and AW.
I'm just saying how amazing that would be. But we'll
have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Better not be something like Omas. I don't want to
see that. I don't want to see it be Bracklesner.
That's a possibility also, well, I just have to wait
and see. I saw the thing with Our Truth last
weekend on Smack. I think that'd be kind of funny
doing the whole like Ron Seen a Thing versus John
Cena one more time, but obviously not winning the tournament,
but interesting stuff. Then we get to the Women's Tag
(27:53):
Team Championship Alexiblis Charlotte Flair versus the Kabuki Warriors for
the Women's Tag Team Championship. I guess at this point
we're gonna see the tag team of Lash Legend and
Naya Jacks be a thing. Now. I'm kind of okay
with that. They're they're almost like the Meghan Bain and
Marina Shafiro of WWE. Right now. I guess in some weird,
(28:14):
funky way, though they don't look anything alike. I mean
the way they're being being positioned is similar. The end
of the match, seeing those two get involved and costing
Charlotte and Alexa the tag team championship, making the Kobooki
Warriors a three time tag team champion. There's a four
on two beatdown leading to the the the return of
(28:34):
EO Sky to Raw. She comes out, she's doing very
well when she starts to get beaten down. Here comes
with the face mask, Rhea Ripley to one of the
biggest pops, the biggest pop outside of John Cena of
the night. And then at the end of the fight,
when they knock everybody out of the ring, that you know,
Ria Ripley takes the microphone and she calls out war
Games also, so obviously that's a team. Now it's four
(28:55):
on four in the women's side, three on three on
the men's side. So who's going to be added? Who's
to be a part of these teams? I think on
the women's side it's very clear they will probably add
aj Lee and Becky Lynch. That that I think is
probably what makes the most sense. Maybe they tease Maxine Dupre,
but maybe Dupre gets hurt on her way to the
ring and they have to replace her and aj Lee
comes out. I would be okay with that, setting up
(29:15):
a program for maybe Royal Rumble for aj Lee and
Becky Lynch. On the men's side, they have talked about
and theorize that Roman Rains would be a part of that,
But word is they want to keep Roman Reigns and
Cody Rhodes apart. Bodyslam dot Nets report claims that they
do not want those two men on camera together unless
they're gonna have another match, and right now there's no
(29:36):
match on the on the plans, and there's a lot
that they'd have to work through to make it happen.
I suspect both men don't want to be the one
to lose the rubber match, so they don't want those
two together. One thing that is being reported is John
Cena is expected to be a part of Survivor series,
possibly on a super team and possibly with Roman Reigns,
Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and Jay Usso not sure how
(30:00):
I feel about the Roman Reigns part because of what
I just said in terms of Cody and he being
on the same screen at the same time. I'm okay
with John Cena being involved. Then you look at the
heel side of things. Who joins the Vision's team. Is
Dominic in there because he just lost the intercontinental title
of the John Cena? Is Brock Lesnar there because that's
the kind of star power you need if you're putting
(30:20):
a super team together on the baby face side of things,
which I think that's the biggest problem for me, is
you've got to have a huge, huge name on that
other team if you're gonna have them go against this
super team of babyfaces. So I would assume Brock is
going to be number four. I think on the baby
face side it's John Cena. And then who is the
five for the five on five? That's where it gets
(30:40):
very difficult for me. There are people I think are worthy.
AJ Styles is worthy. La Knight is worthy, But word is,
there may be some backstage heat on La Night right now.
I don't know why, but that's a possibility I hope not.
Word is, Drew McIntyre is not factored in to the plan,
but he could always be the one on this SmackDown
side of things for a heel to go in which
(31:02):
would line up well with Cody being in the match,
but who is the other babyface? And I'm not sure.
It's really difficult, so we'll have to wait and see.
There's a lot still to play out on camera. Hopefully
we get to see some really cool stuff. But yeah,
it sounds like we're definitely headed towards a mega match
with some megastars coming out and being a part of this,
(31:23):
and I'm curious to see how it all shakes out
in the end. That's all the time we have for
this episode. Check back with us next episode we run
down to the latest wrestling news and rumors. Special thanks
is always out to souno AI for generating our music
and sound effects we use in our show. Today's shows
a sponsored in part by Beesel Games. Bring a new
friend to family game Night. It's easy with sketchy people.
Showcase your artistics side in this game from Beesel Games
(31:43):
by going to the gamecrafter dot com and picking up
your copy today. If you're looking for your next career move,
you're considering college your university life, maybe you need some
formal training for your next crew decision, go to our
website at Frolifeplanning dot com. For all your higher education needs,
as pro life planning is for today, for tomorrow and
for life with Fro life. I'm Fred Frolic, better known
as doctor fro. I want to thank you so much
(32:04):
for taking some time with us tonight. Until next time,
take care everybody, have a good one, I'll say,
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