10 YRS AGO - FLAGSHIP: Keller & McNeill assess Triple H Power Trip angle dominating Raw & SD, where do Bryan, Orton, Big Show, go from here - Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(02:13):
Wade fifty to get fifty percent offnow pw Dorgan Spreaker bring you the Wade
Killer Pro Wrestling Podcast ten years ago. This week, Head McNeil joined me

(02:38):
on the play ship and we talkedabout Lah's Power Tripangle dominating Raw and SmackDown.
We talked about what to do withDaniel Bryan Ran Rton, Big Show,
and others. We took live callsand emails on a wide array of
topics for nearly two hours, Sojump in the time capsule and listen to
what we had to say about everythinggoing on ten years ago this week in

(03:00):
pro wrestling. Here on the tenyears ago Flashback edition of the Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast for Saturdays, aWelcome to the p Wtrch Live Cast.
I am Wade Keller, editor andpublisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter since
nineteen eighty seven and also pwtorch dotCom since nineteen ninety nine, the PW

(03:24):
Torch Apps since two thousand and nine, and host of the two thousand and
eight and hosts of the PW TorchLive Cast since the very end of two
thousand nine. I usually host onTuesdays and Fridays, but this week we've
shaken things up and I am hostingboth today and tomorrow. Tomorrow. My
guest is going to be former ECWHeavyweight Champion, former honorary Click Member,

(03:49):
the the Click Pledge, the onlyClick Pledge I believe in history, justin
Credible. He is also the newestmember of the Ask PW Torch All Star
Panel. If you are an ownerof a smartphone or tablet or a newer
Samsung Smart TV or Blu Ray Player, you can get the free PW Torch

(04:12):
app downloaded and exclusively access on ourapp. The second version of our daily
SPW Torch to PW Torch staff answersquestions exclusively on our website every afternoon and
the All Star Panel, a nameborrowed from mister Pet McNeil's Wednesday All Star
Panel that he has occasionally on hisshow. The All Star Panel version of

(04:32):
Ask Torch is an app exclusive availableevery morning, So if you like what
we do at PW Torch, besure to visit us both on the web
and on your smartphone device. We'vegiven you incentive to visit both formats of
PW Torch on both types of devicestwice each day. Just Incredible is joined
by John Piermarini x ww E creativeteam member on that All Star panel,

(05:00):
along with Greg Oliver, who wason the PW Torch livecast last Friday.
He is a historian, a Canadianwrestling expert and a reporter with Slam Wrestling
and former editor of a competitor ofPro Wrestling Torch, The Canadian Wrestling Report
in the late nineteen eighties. AlsoGeorge Shire, another author historian, Minnesota
wrestling expert, but his knowledge spansvery wide beyond the Upper Midwest and a

(05:23):
WA Along with mccarsh, former wrestlingannouncer actually current wrestling announcer, former Pro
Wrestling Towards columnist back in the latenineteen eighties, and he has been an
announcer for virtually every major national companyexcept w W, ETNA and w CW,
but he was on ESPN with aWA and many startup groups over the
years and many international groups along withJohnny fair Play. He's also on the

(05:46):
panel, a reality TV contestant onmany shows, most famously Survivor, also
frequent PW Torch live cast guest anda former TNA on air personality. And
that is and Brian Fritz of theBetween the Ropes podcast and Yahoo Sports is
also on the All Star Panel.Plus our Torch website contributors chime in from
time to time and add their commentson some of these topics. So it's

(06:10):
a great new feature. We juststarted it a week ago and it's already
exploded our app traffic, so weappreciate everybody supporting that and everybody keep going
to the app every day. Finalnote on this, and then we'll bring
our today's co host in the conversationand get to our wrestling calls. The
VIP members enjoy the benefit of beingable to access both versions of ASPW Torch,

(06:33):
ask PW Torch, the staff inSPW Torch the All Star Panel.
They're able to access both versions everyday on both the app and the website.
So it's just one more reason toshow support for what we do here,
the entire team at the Torch bygoing VIP. As always, you
can get full details on everything thatcomes with a VP membership at Pwtorch dot

(06:54):
com slash go vi IP. Butwe were excited to bring Just Incredible on
board to the All Star panel,beginning with today's Ask PW Torch All Star
Panel. Okay, now we've shakenthings up. This week. It was
normal with Bruce and Travis, butJames and Greg James Caldon Gregg Parks,
who normally hosts on Thursdays, hostedon Tuesday because Jason Powell and I were

(07:15):
on our way to Target Center towatch the SmackDown TV pay Things. Yesterday
was normal. Pat McNeil hosted withRhino as his guest, and tomorrow will
be normal with my interview Friday formatwith the previously mentioned Just Incredible. However,
today Pat McNeil joins me. Thisis a rare special pairing of Wade
Keller as host and Pat McNeil asco host. Pat, Welcome to the

(07:40):
show. I don't remember the lasttime that we did a live cast together.
I think we have to go backmore than two years. I think
you're right, Hello you people.It is good to be on Thursday.
I can't I can't remember the lasttime I've done a Thursday show. So
so you're right, this is avery special occasion. Are are we ready?
Are we ready to talk about myplans when I take over PW Torch

(08:01):
too the Deuce? Or is thatsomething we're staying in for twenty sixteen?
We're still taking out the fonts.Okay, we have to have a useful,
irreverent counterculture font to distinguish PW Torchto the Deuce. Yes, and
I have to pick out my leatherjacket. So yep. We we were
bidding with uh ESPN for Keith Obermanto come to U PW Torch the Duce,

(08:26):
but ESPN one out? Does that? Did that start this week?
Pad? Or is that next week? I think that's already started at least
at least this podcasts have started.Well. He said he got a show
on ESPN now or ESPN two?Is it every night at like eleven?
Yes? That one. I haven'tseen that yet, but I'm curious.
Get back in the Sports World.Has he alienated half about half of the

(08:48):
audience who won't even listen to himtalk about baseball, even though he knows
a lot about baseball. That's that'strue. I mean, I think it'll
be good for my Yeah, heknows, you know, whatever I've said
about Keith Oman and in the past, he knows plenty about baseball. And
it sounds like from an article Iread, he's taken up some yoga and
breathing exercises and an ego reduction workshopand he may actually be slightly tolerable to

(09:11):
be around if you're his producer orco workers. He may have well,
we'll see, we'll see how longthat lasts. He is a volatile personality.
He's extremely talented, but somewhat tormentedwhen it comes to getting along with
others in the jobs that he hashad. So, yeah, that's that's
a great idea. I might haveto take up yogas as I keep doing
the live cast. Yes, yes, all right, well, our phone

(09:33):
numbers here six pour six seven twoone nine A two eight six four six
seven two one nine two eight.Also, we are always interested in your
emails, or at least we saywe are, and usually we need it.
You can send your emails too.We will sort through if you send
it to the cmailocks. We'll sortthrough the spam for led lights and SEO

(09:56):
trials and all that stuff. Butyou can send your email questions or topics
us discussed on today's show two PWTorch livecast at gmail dot com. Uh,
Pat, do you want to givea plug to the Rhino orteb yesterday?
It sounds like it was a goodone I have. I was on
New Footo Deadline last night, didnot have a chance to listen to a
live I was the first time Ithought about it was a little bit late.

(10:18):
I didn't see my email reminders,so haven't a chance to listen to
it yet. But what what whatdo I and other listeners who missed at
having stored for us? Well,you know, it was different because of
course last time we were on Rhinogot no discussion about what it was like
to shower with Michael Egan. Butuh, you know, I think we
covered some I think we's covered someground. He talked about Chris Jericho,
he talked about, you know,working for the McMahons, and he talked

(10:41):
about what he's doing now he isUh still very active on the NB scene,
and they're at least he has atleast three, you know, relatively
big indie shows coming up that wewere able to discuss. And uh,
you know, I mean, Ithought he did I thought he did a
great job. I wish you'd beenable to stay for the full hour,
but you know, sometimes things don'twork out that way. I wasn't sure
if I remember a face of awrestler lighting up more when I met him

(11:07):
for the first time than when Imet Rhyano. I was. I was
surprised by that. As the JerryLynn retirement show. I don't think we
had run into each other over theyears. Otherwise he doesn't make it up
to Minnesota all that much. AndI think the ECW shows I went to
was prior no. I guess Iwent to one in the Saint Paul pay
per view, but I didn't meethim at that one. But anyway,
it was, it was. Itwas great to meet him. He was
super nice guy. He and BlueMeani were at that Jerry Lynn retirement show

(11:28):
and I got to chat with withboth of them, along with some others,
and he was a We were talkingabout him having him on the Friday
show one of these days too.But it's it's great that you had him
on. He's he's a interesting guyand had a lot to say. What
it give us a quick teacher onwhat he had to say about working with
Jericho. Well, he's obviously he'sobviously a fan of Chris Jerichos Yeah and

(11:50):
yeah, so so yeah, Imean, you know, I think we
I think we covered a lot ofground. I'm trying to remember specific stuff
that we talked about, but hewas very personal and he talked about his
great level of Reese's pieces, So, you know, very good. I
invite you to email the show withfeedback or questions or comments. That email
address is Wade Keller Podcast at pewtorchdot com. That's Wade Keller Podcast at

(12:16):
pwtorch dot com. Also welcome yourfeedback on Twitter. You can follow us
on Twitter at PW torch and followme at the Wade Keller. That's at
PW Torch and at the Wade Keller. All right, well, let's let's
go ahead and shift the phone callshere. We did get some notification from

(12:37):
some PfP members who are going tomove to the front of the line for
today's show. This is open phonelines. It's not like normally when I
host on Tuesdays where it's very rawdriven, because it's the next day.
It's not an interview Friday where we'vegot a guest and the calls are focused
on them. Just it's open phonelines. We've had a few days to
digest Monday night raw. I didattend the SmackDown tapings on Tuesday. I

(12:58):
will knocket into a ton of spoilersabout SmackDown, but I can't promise that
there won't be some, uh somecomments that I guess would be a slight
previews or teasers, because I thinkit does play into what we may be
talking about today pat with our callers, which is this uh you know,
Triple H power trip that's going onwith the wrestling roster. I had a
spirited discussion with the number of peopleon Twitter yesterday about this. Was very

(13:22):
active at my Twitter account which isat v Wade Keller, thg W A
D E K E L L Er X POX. Sean Waltman was involved,
A Melzer was involved, A lotof readers were involved. Today.
Court Bauer, former MLW promoter,former WW creative team member, friend of
the live cast. He was,he was involved in discussion, so people
can take a look at that.Uh. This week's Progressing Torch newsletter just

(13:46):
came out today with a long coverstory with my case for why to coin
a phrase the Triple H Power Tripis bad for business. Pat, I
assume you've been i'd have plugged intothe pros and cons of this discussion.
Where do you come down on theTriple H Power Trip right now? And
where do you think that the payoffwill make up for some of the downsides

(14:09):
that we've seen early on? Imean, I think, you know,
I think we can all guess whatthe payoff will be, which will be
at some point, possibly at WrestleMania. You know, Daniel Brian will have
a match with Triple H and andyes, and yes, Daniel Brian will
go over that. Uh. Youknow, in between that we're going to
be exposed to about six months ofTriple H, Triple H, Triple H

(14:31):
and more Triple H. And Uh. I'll give you a political analogy because
I know, because I know howmuch everybody in the audience loves those You
know, back in the day,there was there was an argument show on
CNN, probably the first one calledcrossfire, and usually the pairings were Michael
Kinsley and Pat Muchannon. Neither oneof them I agree with now by the

(14:52):
way that uh, you know,i'd see, I'd see people who every
argument you have to agree with oneof the other because we know it's either
one side or the other. Yes, there's definitely not a third choice to
any art never, No, absolutelynot anyway. So I read an article
by by one of the by aliberal writer who got very upset with Michael

(15:16):
Kinsley, not because he disagreed withhis arguments, but because, you know,
but because Buchanan was one of thoseguys who originally was one of the
great guys being on message, whichmeant he made his argument, you know,
Kinsley would. Kinsley would object tosomething, and then he would re
explain his argument in detail, includingstuff that he left out the first time.
So at the end of this story, all you were here, all
you were remembering is, you know, whether you agree with it or not,

(15:39):
is Pat Buchanan's argument and how manytimes he reinforced it? Yeah,
And I think that's guy. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good analogy
for for what we're going to gethere. We're gonna remember a lot of
the Triple H stuff, and andyeah, maybe we'll remember that that Daniel
Bryan scored a victory over Triple Hat the end of the at the end
of the field, such as itmay be, of are good, We're

(16:00):
we'll delve a lot more to thatstoryline as the show progresses here today,
I believe. But I do wantto go to our first phone call the
day, and this is VI IP. Number Matt from Eric God five
six one. Matt, Thanks forcalling. What do you out for us
today? Hey, I'm from NorthCarolina. I guess that's pretty much the
big topics that you guys have beentalking about, which is the whole Triple

(16:22):
interesting. I feel like the pastcouple of weeks, like when it first
happened on us watching the pay perviews, I was kind of open minded
about it, you know, aboutthem uh taking down Brian and put them
forth belts on Orton. So it'slike a week to attitude. But Sam,
think we've been on like a justa weeks long. These would happened
at Summer Slam, and I justthink that they should have just tempered it.

(16:45):
If they wanted to go this waylike here, they should have given
them the belt, and then theycome up every week and then it's Brian
trying to like keep the belt andhold on to it or they should have
uh you know, Orton take thebelt, but then have Brian kind of
feeling to be Austin thing. Thiskeeps out Barty, I'm meeting getting closed,
but to take the belt and thento crap at him every week,

(17:06):
it's like it's just too much.I'm just losing interest in the whole thing.
So it's quite a few year thoughtthough, Uh yeah, Pat,
what do you have to say?What do you think? You know?
I was thinking about this the pastcouple of weeks and Steve Auston's a good
analogy. I was sitting there,I think last week, just waiting for
Daniel Brian to drive a soy milktruck to the ring and take out the
giant hose and spray down triple Ageand all the bad guys with with the

(17:29):
soy milk, which is you know, I mean, it was it was
a joke when when Kurt Angel didit, and it was you know,
and it was funny the first timewhen Steve Auston did it with a beer
truck, but you know, something. I mean something something where where Daniel
Brian gets to you know, getsto be, gets to be the guy
who shows up the boss. Andyou know we've seen I think, uh,
we've seen weeks both on Rod SmackDownof Daniel Brian getting laid out by

(17:55):
by Triple Age and Randy Orton andwhatever you want to call this, the
this new heel faction. And Ithink, I mean, if you're a
v IP number, I think youshould read Bruce Mitchell's column about it,
which he wrote this this week,uh you know, quick plug, and
I think he's covered it. Hecovered his thoughts on it very succinctly,
and I'm I'm with that historical perspectivesprinkledon, which I think is really valuable.

(18:19):
Well, yes, he's he's ateacher, so yes, that's that's
what That's what we get. Yes, and the U to me though,
the problem that I have, andI have a lot of problems with the
storyline, but the problem that Ihave isn't as much with what's going on
with Daniel Bryan and Triple H.I think it's all the collateral damage.
I think we can we can havea reasonable discussion, A reasonable people can

(18:44):
disagree about what's going on with DanielBryan getting beaten down and not having a
chance to get revenge yet and allthat, and and that we can have
a discussion about and and it is, you know, way the most important
goal of this everything that's going on, is trying to create heat between you
know, head on Triple h ThoughDanny Bran could get revenge, I get
that, but there's a lot ofways to accomplish that, a lot of

(19:06):
ways to build up heat, buildthat anticipation for when Danny Bryan finally gets
his hands and Triple Ager finally getsa one on one, you know,
even Stephen match with Randy Orton.There's a lot of ways to go about
that. But the way that they'regoing about it is unprecedented and and I
would argue just really bad for businessbecause they're destroying and taking away the manhood

(19:30):
of the rest of the roster.And that's what I wrote about in my
Keller's take on the website yesterday andon the app, and what I expanded
on and really put a lot oftime into, which was this week's two
page cover story on this subject.Pad I just I can't remember at any
time wrestlers having their pride stripped fromthem. In my column, I compared

(19:52):
wrestlers now too. When you goto a circus and you see that elephant,
and the elephant is is its spiritsbroken. You know, it doesn't
want to do it doesn't want tobe a circus performer, but it's out
there and it knows it has tootherwise it's gonna get whipped and it won't
get food, and it just doeswhat it's told and it's completely against its
instincts, but it's trapped because theelephant won't be able to have food or

(20:14):
shelter and unless he does exactly whatthe circus ring leader does, and it's
cruel and it's awful for the poorcircus animals. And that's what these wrestlers
are coming across as they're coming acrossas as whipped circus animals who have no
job options, because that's what StephanieMcMahon has told us, and Triple H.
You know, they'd be pumping gasand you know, if nothing else,

(20:37):
and they have no job options,and they have they have to follow
exactly the orders of the mighty MightyKing of King's Triple H. And and
if they cross the line, they'regonna be fired. And they showed it
off with Cody Rhodes who Cody didn'tgo, well, you know, I
this sucks, but I'm young andbright and have a lot of talent,
and I can earn a living asa wrestrom any of the places. None
of that. It's oh my god, how am I going to support my
wife? It's like every wrestler isbeing portrayed now as these pathetic, sad

(21:00):
SAPs who have no option but todo what the great ring leader Triple H
tells them to do, no matterhow humiliating and dehumanizing. And I've never
seen a wrestling promoter so tunnel visionfocused on their own heat. Triple H
wanted to get his own heat.Stephanie wanted to get their heat. That's
all they're thinking about. How dowe get heat on ourselves for being awful

(21:21):
people without stepping back and seeing thetype of collateral damage that's being done to
the virtually the entire roster of Russer. Shamus is lucky he's injured. Seampunk
is has the the get out ofAngle card that he gets to use because
he's you know, Seampunk, andhe and Paul Hayman are kind of on
a different universe. John Cena's injuredand an undertakers just not around full time.

(21:44):
It's about the only four being spared, pat from completely being stripped of
any type of dignity and pride.And at the SmackDown tapings on Tuesday,
the day after Big Show, sobbedand cried and was defined as a guy
who literally has no options but tojust grovel for his job and stand there
like that elephant at the circus.When he came out, the crowd saw
raw and they looked at him andthere was like the spattered applause and discomfort.

(22:08):
It was this tepid response. It'slike they just looked at him as
kind of this pathetic creature, nota superstar that they were still privileged to
be able to watch perform in frontof him. I just so to me,
the discussion about is this good tobad for Daniel Bryan and the Triple
H Daniel Bryant Field. That's great, but that's like page three or four
to me, page one and twoof this story is what are they doing
to the rest of the roster.Yeah, that's true. I mean,

(22:32):
you know, I mean people hateit when you compare WW to UFCED,
But you know, I can't imaginea situation where, you know, where
where Dana White has the entire UFCroster out and there's dressing him down,
and there's treating him like you knowkids and telling him they can't find a
job. And you know, peoplepeople watch wrestling to see tough guys fight,

(22:52):
or you know, to see tosee various personalities fight, and these
guys are not fighting back. Theythought that big show was going to get
some say after what happened, youknow, after he knocked Daniel you know,
Daniel Bryan out, but I meanthe moment he actually did knocked Daniel
Brian out, everybody, you know, people turned on him. They chanted
you sold out because they have beenconditioned by watching. Oh I don't know,
you know fifty years of wrestling wherewrestlers are the tough guys. Searching

(23:19):
for more great pro wrestling talk,then join me Jason Powell host him to
three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom podcast.Each week, he'll hear the latest news
and analysis for me and my teamat pro Wrestling dot Net, along with
other pro wrestling media members, plusThe Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast features long form
interviews with notable names in the prowrestling industry. Subscribe an I team and

(23:40):
Stitcher, downcast and all your favoritesecondary apps, or visit us directly at
pwboom dot com. Once again,that's pwboom dot com. Alright, very
good, Let's go back to uhvisit matter, James. I'm confused by
your email. I don't want toI think it's Matt. Oh, it's

(24:02):
it's it's mad Okay, cool,yeah, Matt, So what any any
follow up on that or do youkind of say what you want to say?
Yeah? I just think I justthink that overall, like everybody's kind
of coming out looking bad with it, and it's triple ates. Like I
remember the night after U, youknow, Summer Slam. It was like,
come on out, Daniel Brian,we won't hurt you. And he

(24:25):
comes out like a dope, andthey chant for him and play his music
and they say we won't beat youup, and then they kick his ass
and put him in the ring.It's like and it just keeps happening.
They just make him look stupid overand over again, and the rest of
the rocks and stupid and the onlyperson who's coming out smelling good to the
whole thing is triple lates really,And I don't know. I'm just I
was so excading with summer. Samgot called the show a couple of times,

(24:45):
and I'm like, oh man,I'm really into it right now,
but I'm kind of losing interest.It's just kind of lame. Cool.
Yeah, well, I appreciate yourcomments that I don't think you're a loan
in those thoughts at all. Justgot an email from somebody listening to or
discussion, Pat. This is Chrisfrom Oklahoma, the team member. He
said, I was thinking about what'swrong with a big show angle they're doing,
making him, like you said,look like a circus animal. I

(25:07):
honestly think that Kane would be amonster for this role if he weren't doing
the wide angle in a way fromTV. But honestly, I think Kane
would be a monster heel and thenbig show. Considering the history with Brian
and Team, hell no, whybuild up a friendship with Brian that no
one has ever seen. I thinka build up of Kane versus Brian to
get or to get to Orton wouldbe great. Yeah, Pat, just
I guess we'll use that as aspringboard. Kane is somebody else who I

(25:29):
didn't mention, who's out of thepicture. It's hard to imagine if Kane
weren't involved with the Whites right now, the type of damage that would be
done to Kane if he also stoodthere like a circus, you know,
a whipped circus animal whose spirit wasbroken, just standing there, not crossing
the line to help Daniel Bryan.I think it's fortunate that he is also
on that very short list of peoplebeing spared from this angle. Yeah,
he's lucky. I mean, hismovie doesn't even hasn't even started filming yet,

(25:52):
doesn't start for a couple of weeks, so you know, I mean,
he'll be he'll be pretty much anafterthought through through most of the fall
season. Very good. I dowant to say our next caller, Carmine
from Brooklyn, not that he's gonnabring up Breaking Bad. We have a
rule for the live cast during BreakingBad season, and I've had some requests
for this spoiler alert warnings. Onehundred percent of the time, there are

(26:15):
people who are not who are notbeing able to watch it, or they're
watching under Layer whatever. And it'sa big show, it's a big deal.
It's coming to the end. Ijust ask everybody to kind of respect
that. If you're gonna bring upBreaking Bad, give a spoiler alert warning
as far as uh, you know, discussing any developments in recent weeks.
So with that, with that note, we'll go to h vi IP member
Carmen. Uh Carmine from four onesfour Carmen, welcome back to the show.

(26:41):
Go Wait, what's going on?Buddy? Not too much? Appreciate
your VIP membership first of all,and what have you got for us today?
Okay? So should I start withthe Breaking Dad theory? I got?
I got just okay? Okay,Rupe on the Breaking bed? No,
I guess this is kind of spoileryish for the people Warren caught up
in that really too much? Butsince you know the show as good as

(27:03):
I do, you know from hearingof the audio, I know you're you're
pretty in tune. Know what's goingon now? With Walt calling Todd,
are calling him and saying yea atthe job for his uncles, you know
what I mean? That one lastjob? Yeah? Do you think that
Todd has a gun on Jesse?And then Walt emerges and takes out Todd,

(27:30):
saving Jesse and giving the viewers thatfinally that father and son moment between
Walt and Jesse. As crazy asthat sounds, that they at this loving,
beautiful moment after another romance. Headgets blown off. But do you
see you see that how Walt couldredeem itself in the viewer's eyes, Like,
okay, he is in the devildoesn't have a little shred of dignity

(27:52):
and love? So what do youthink on that theory? And then they
got two other wrestling related things?That's that sure? Yeah? Real quick.
Oh it's interesting. I've been listeningto Breaking podcasts and and uh Breaking
Bad Insider and Breaking Good especially,and it's been fun hearing a lot of
different theories on where things are goingto go. That's interesting. I am
not sure I'm convinced yet, likeyou, that Walt has given up on

(28:14):
winning over Jesse. I think thatthere's a bond there that that will be
explored through these last several episodes.And yeah, I mean I could see
a possibility of Walt wanting to showJesse that I am that I'm willing to
take out the guy who did theworst thing that you were witnessed too.
And you know, taking out theinnocent bystander in the in the previous season,

(28:37):
so that's possibility. Anyway, let'sgo ahead and shift the wrestling.
What are your two wrestling topics?Carmen, Okay, yeah, real quick.
One is some I heard that themerchandising people are being told to kind
of volunce to overdrive on a marketingride back. And I know everybody ates
ride back, but ride Back hasbeen my dude since day one. I
love his energy and intendency. Ithink right Back to the cool character.

(29:02):
But I heard that they're, youknow, telling the merchandise people to go
into overdrive to come up with newslogans and things for right Back. Do
you think this could symbolize even beit as it made? The heel word
has been terrible, But do youthink they will flip them back to baby
face and maybe have them be likea Daniel brian Ish savior and this whole
bullying thing. You know, Daniel'sgetting bullied. He said he don't like

(29:22):
right Back, don't like bullies.So do you think they could flip it
that he comes out to save Brian, thus creating that superstar like you spun
it on the Killer high Line withWade Barrett. You gave that optom like
fantasy booking of Wade Barrett. Whatthey could do. Do you think that
they could do that or right back, especially with the you know, the
merchandising people being told to like mcarmack. Go ahead and I'll give us

(29:44):
your second point. We'll just coverboth of them. Uh right one after
and the last word, you're thequick question that you can answer. I'm
the last. The Pieths are thefocus radio, the last radios radie said
with Dave Meltzer, I felt supersad because I'm like, oh, I
felt bad for you because Dave said, all they're looking to give Jim Ross
this show on kt a end,and I was wondering, like, damn,

(30:07):
since this is way Glass show,did he get bumped because of Jim
Ross? Oh? Yeah, andno, that didn't happen at all.
They did carry the Jim ros show, but that was a Saturday night show
and my show was always a Saturdaymorning or Sunday morning show. And no,
it had actually nothing to do withit. I I the following week
after my last show, I hadnotified kfan that I was going to be

(30:29):
going to SummerSlam because I traveled tosee SummerSlam in in Auburn Hills, Michigan,
so I couldn't do a show thatweek. In the meantime, another
radio station in town had shown interestin the show, and I was pretty
frustrated, as you could tell ingeneral with kfan management at that time,
in the lack of communication or lackof a commitment for the new fall season
with football coming up, and Ifelt that I had kind of earned after

(30:52):
two years, a little more noticeand a solid time slot. So I
ended up negotiating with another radio station. Things didn't work out because we just
couldn't get to a time slot thatworked well for me and end them.
But you could kind of tell evenin the first hour of that last pros
and Focus show how I was prettytired, and I think in the second
hour I began by saying, youknow, I'm going to be at you

(31:15):
know, half speed. I wasonly at quarter speed, and by the
third hour it should be good.I was kind of being self depastating about
it. I just I kind ofafter the two year run and the way
that the station was not really prioritizingthe show even though we're bringing in a
lot of viewership. I was kindof ready once I got that week away
at Summers Slam. It's kind ofready to have weekends to myself again because
I was working long hours anyway.So as much as it coincided with Jim

(31:37):
Ross, it had that that situationone had ended up having nothing to do
with one another, it would havebeen a good cross promoting opportunity actually for
the station, So I know itkind of came across that way, but
but no, that didn't have anythingto do with my leaving. I gave
my notice to the station in partbecause they just weren't committing to a time
slot and they didn't even tell meon my last show. They didn't give

(31:57):
me a time slot to tell thelisteners when I would be on two weeks
later, and that really upset mebecause I had asked for it, and
you know, their priority was aMinnesota Vikings and I understand that, but
if I didn't feel the least bitwanted, I just decided, you know,
I could spend my time, youknow, running, you know,
building up my own business with thetime I'm spending on the show. So
anyway, that's the story there,well for for listeners who don't know.
And then we'll go, Carmine willgo to your right back question. The

(32:20):
Prosing Focus Show I hosted at onKFA and Radio the Top, you know,
the major the only major sports stationof the Twin Cities at that time
in Minnesota for from nineteen ninety onethrough nineteen ninety three and the the show
had over around one hundred episodes andall of them are available if you sign
up as a VIP member. Allof them are available in the Progressing Focus

(32:40):
section. Now from start to finish, we put up all the shows with
all the callers, all the guests. Bruce Mitchell was a frequent guest,
Mark Madden, Dave Meltzer, alot of wrestlers were on, Paul Hayman,
Jim Cornett, h Bill Watts duringhis run as w W vice president,
really really fun, a ray ofguest, Jesse Ventura, on and
on and on. Eric Bischoff calledthe show a couple of times, I

(33:02):
believe at least once or twice.So anyway that that show, if you're
a VFP member, you want togo back to hear our Torch Dollar coverage
with some of the familiar names thatyou may know. About twenty years ago,
uh we covered wrestling in a muchsimilar way, and you can hear
those shows as a VFP member.Head let me throw to you on Ryback.
Is there a way for WWE toswitch to switch Ryback for being the

(33:23):
bully behind the scenes and somehow effectivelyhave him pivot to perhaps saying well,
yeah, I'm a bully, butI've never seen bullying like this this is
Is there a way to do that? Yeah, I'm sure there is.
I don't think they're gonna be focusedon it for a while, you know.
I think I think maybe they youknow, maybe they should turn him

(33:44):
back and then they could, uh, then they could make him the twenty
first century lex Luger. If yougo to the WWE shot dot com or
whatever they call it, there area bunch of rye Back merchandise and packages
packages on clearance, So that mightbe one reason why merchandising is focused on

(34:04):
him. They need to get thisstuff out of the warehouse. VP sale
Alert, we're running a sale goinginto all in and all out as we
conclude the summer, and you canget nine dollars off any v IP subscription,
which brings a one month subscription downto just ninety nine cents just go
to pwtorch dot com slash go VIIP. Choose a traditional VFP membership, so

(34:24):
don't do a Patreon membership because acoupon code does not work on Patreon.
And you have a choice between threecoupon codes. If you think MGF is
going to come out of All Inas a heel, use coupon code MJF.
If you think Adam Cole is goingto come out of the all in
event as a heel, choose couponcode Coal CLI. But if you think
they're going to remain friends coming outof All In, then use coupon code

(34:45):
Friends. So the choices are MGFF, Friends or Coal And when you enter
that coupon code, it'll activate ninedollars off one month, three month,
or one year subscription. Again it'sa grant total of nine dollars off,
so it'll bring a year subscription downto ninety dollars or a one months up
down to ninety nine cents. Pwtorchdot com slash go VIP that will include

(35:08):
are All In Post Event v IPExclusive Roundtable on Sunday. It'll include the
All Out Post Event Roundtable a weekfrom this weekend, and you can also
catch up on our VP exclusive SummerSlim round Table. Plus you get all
our free shows with the ads andplugs removed and a ton of other content.
And that also includes my forty minuteKeller Conversation VAP exclusive with Sean Waltman

(35:30):
this week talking about Terry Funk,who he wrestled ten years ago, by
the way, at an indie showand also was on shows with him early
in his career and grew up afan of his. So again, that's
pwtors dot com, slash go VIPand then enter coupon code MJF. If
you think he's turning heel, Coleif you think he's turning heel, or
friends if you think they stay friends, all right, very good. Yeah,

(35:57):
Carmine, I'm not crazy about theidea of turning right back because I
just do not believe in almost anycircumstance turning people twice within a three year
span. I just I think youneed to commit to the characters and keep
them the role that they're in fortwo three years minimum, and otherwise I
think people just start looking at themlike they did Curt Angle in the early
two thousands, like Lugger in thenineteen nineties AJ styles always you just you

(36:22):
need it for turns to be effective. It had it. Really, there
has to be a real culmination ofcircumstances that changes them. Otherwise it just
seems like hot shot booking. AndI just think there's better options. You
know, Wade Barrett's been a heelall along. I put up a scenario
on the way Keller hotline last night, and also in my backpage editorial on
this week's Proposing Torch News whatever weput up earlier today in PDF format and

(36:45):
all text format for our VAP members, just laying out how I think we
could abandon ship on this angle prettyquickly and and reset things and create a
new outlaw baby Face Star and WadeBarrett. I laid out the details on
that. VFP members can check thatout either in format or audio format.
Yeah. I just I don't likethe idea of turning right back, and

(37:07):
I just think he's been such ajerk. I don't think people would believe
that he was offended by what Replateswas doing and come to the Daniel Brian's
aid, it just wouldn't ring trueto me. It would kind of feel
like a hot shot booking angle.I guess all right if you're just joining
us. Pat McNeil, normally hostof the Wednesday PW Torch Live Cast,
is my co host today on thePW Torch Live Cast, and I'm hosting

(37:29):
on Thursday. Normally James Caldole andGreg Park posts, but they hosted on
Tuesday. I encourage you to checkout James and Greg from Tuesday and also
Pat McNeil's interview with Rhino yesterday.Let's get back to the phone banks.
Our phone number is six four sixseven two one nine eight two eight six
four six seven two one nine eightto eight. We will go next to

(37:51):
Eric code eight six five. Stephensfrom Tennessee is calling us. Another VPP
member, Stephen, Thanks for Colin. What have you got for us?
Hey? What's going on saying today? Doing great? A quick question here
actually make decent us. See awaitedon the Killer Hotline for to ask the
editor. But since I was ableto get you today, I thought i'd

(38:13):
asked us with the rise of Mand May and I'm showing and put him
and they showing particular that body stylesor body types don't really mean that a
guy can't perform. I just kindof curious to get your view of what
that's gonna mean for the w wE as a color. A couple of

(38:34):
weeks ago talked about with the SeeingPunk and Brock Lesner, how see him
Punk looks so much smaller than Brockand that seeing function should bump himself up
and then help him get a push. And so I'm just kind of curious
to see do you all think withHunter coming into control, do you think
that he'll start in the offending Evans'sview of all the bodybuilders? Are its

(38:58):
gonna draw more or just realize Ithink you know guys that are built like
let's say Inn Anderson Silva, whoaren't that big, but they still go
out and perform and alform anybody fora good while. I just kind of
want to get off to us onthat. Uh yeah, I unfortunately think
Triple H might even be worse thanvisick Man when it comes to the body
fetish for being big and muscular guys. Wrestlers tend to defend and be advocates

(39:23):
for wrestlers who are their size.Big guys tend to when they are in
a position of power and wrestling promotebigger guys. Jared Jarrett was a smaller
guy. He's a wrestling promoter,He's promoted smaller wrestlers. It's just a
triple H has showing no indication thathe has open minded in the least to
looking on the bright side and pushingmultiple sizes of wrestlers without drawing attention to

(39:49):
it. I made that point inmy Kelly State yesterday on the website,
in the app, and in mycover story. Uh No, wrestling fans
WWW fans are not obsessed with,concerned with, or bothered by the that
Daniel Bryan is under five foot tenby you know, several inches, a
couple inches. Nobody cares about that. They liked Daniel Bryan because he's a
scrappy underdog who fights hard, lookstough, and is likable. And when

(40:14):
Daniel Bryan was tearing down tearing downthe house with which on c NAT Summers
Slam in that great match, nobodywas thinking, yeah, this is a
great match. Well except for thefact that Daniel Bryan's five eight. If
he was only five eleven, I'denjoy this. No buddy's thinking that ten
years ago. AJ Styles this lastweek had a one of the best matches

(40:35):
of Raven's career. It was AJstyles against Raven on a TENA pay per
view ten years ago last week,and in the audio roundtable that Pet McNeil
and Bruce Mitchell and I did tenyears ago that we just put up for
VPP members yesterday or the day before, I had mentioned that during that match,
nobody was thinking about AJ Stiles onlybeing five eight, you know,
they were just caring about the factthat it was a really good match.
When you draw attention to something,people start thinking about it. That was

(40:59):
my attitude of about the PG era. It didn't make any sense to me
that that w w E and itstill doesn't when they draw attention to the
fact that, well, we're aPG show, so I better not say
this or oh sorry, I knowwhere PG. I shouldn't have said that
they should stop mentioning their PG becausefrankly, they're not really all that PG.
I mean, when you look atwhat's happened to Daniel Bryan the last
few weeks, that's not exactly somethingyou'd see on a PG show or in

(41:20):
a PG movie, that kind ofgang beat down. So if they'd stopped
saying their PG, people would stopobsessing over all the things they can't get
and then instead would be focused onwhat's cool about what they do get,
and that's how I feel about size. I just think they don't need to
be talking about it. But TripleH is needlessly in a bad for business
way to coin his to repeat hisphrase, it's bad for business for him

(41:42):
to continue to draw attention to it. Same Athensic man Pat. I just
it's frustrating, But let's be honest. There's there's less hope, probably than
ever, based on things Triple Hhas said publicly and what I've heard he
said privately, even about aj styles. With this contract situation with TNA,
I think it was very little chanceand maybe less than ever, of WWE
taking any cues from MMA and saying, Yeah, the audience out there is

(42:07):
open to different body types, they'reopen to different heights. Let's let's embrace
that and expand the range of peoplethat we promote to the top without all
the needless apologies like they do withDaniel Bryant. Well, no, that's
not the mindset way, and ithasn't been for some time. I think
with Daniel Bryan and before that wouldsee him punk, they're they they see

(42:28):
these guys and they go, well, this guy's this guy's getting over with
the crowd. We're not exactly surewhy because he's he's so short or so
puny or whatever, but you knowwhat, what the heck, let's let's
go along with it. But Ithink, you know, I think they
believe in punk and and and Brian. But ideally they'd have John Cena out
there twenty four seven. Yeah,And ideally they like John Cena to be

(42:51):
three inches taller than he is andright back to be three hours tall as
I mean, it's just it's such. It's the size obsession with Triple H.
Is is disheartening and bad for business, in unnecessary. It's always been
there. I mean, he andStephanie went to bodybuilding shows. Triple H
always tried to be as big ashe could, even if it meant that

(43:12):
it contributed to some of the injuriesthat he's had. He's always he's always
been a better wrestler and I thinkmore marketable when he's been thinner and less
muscular. When you look at himback at the beginning in uh W CW,
before he went to WWF, hepractically had Anderson Silva's body, and
I think that that's that would havebeen the proper, the ideal body type
for him to have throughout his career, but he was always end up looking

(43:35):
as thick and full of water weightas he could. And I thought it
was detracted from his gimmick and didn'tadd to it. But it is.
It's it's an obsession of Vincent Tripleach. It's one of the reasons they bonded.
And it's a disservice to to thewrestling industry and wrestling fans, I
think, and unfortunately a lot ofpeople in that way. Yeah, I
mean, Triple H knew what youknow. When Triple H arrived there,
he knew what w W, whatw W was looking for, so as

(43:59):
I know, yeah, yeah,and I don't think he was dray,
kicking and screaming into it. Intwenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental
system and ultimately the brand you seetoday. On the Torch VIP podcast NXT
Eight Years Back, we'll be takinga weekly look at this page in NXT's

(44:20):
early history. Join Kelly Wells andme Tom Stout from PWT Talks NXT every
Saturday as we go eight years backto the day to track NXT's rising talents
and why they did or didn't workout exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.
Let's, uh, let's let's goto some more phone calls here and we'll

(44:44):
go to ER code seven H sixnext seven or six. Thanks for holding.
Please state your name and where you'refrom. How was going? Gentlemen?
James from Columbus, Hey James,thanks for Colin. What do you
got for us seeing one? Doyou think they're seeing Punk would be better
for this storyline with the machine againstthe machine, because, uh, it

(45:06):
just seems like with his you know, ad time establishment uh attitude and just
kind of like no love laws forTriple H and everybody else, And it
seems like you would have more tosay in that scenario than Daniel Bryant.
I mean, I like what Ilike Dankie Bryan. I love where you're
going, and I know where they'replanning on going with this, but it
just seems like, well, I'mnot trying to compare it either one of

(45:30):
them the Stone Cold, but itseems like seeing Punk kind of fitched the
build more so as an anti establishmentfigure than Daniel Bryantow. Next, let's
I would like to, uh's kindof bring up the whole thing with a
well what is the payoff with thewhole Big Show angle? It's like,

(45:51):
you know, they dust off theh H B K jbl angle. Stephanie
kind of confused the Big Show withire and every like, you know,
Monday and Tuesday Big shows crying.So do you see a heel turn happening
or if he's gonna get his heatback somewhere down the line, or because
he just seem it's very distracting fromthe Daniel Bryan angle. And you know,

(46:12):
part of me is caring more aboutwhat VIC Show is gonna do than
you know, what the Daniel Bryanis gonna do. And uh, lastly,
uh do you think that I thinkthat Daniel Brian kind of accomplishes more
than see him Punk in the SummerPunk, because you know, you had
to see him Punk go against seenUs and out of all of their bounce

(46:35):
they had against each other, Uh, see him Punk never actually got a
one hundred percent clean victory without eitheryou know, a distraction or bad officiating
or you know this alt right interference. Also, he lost against Triple Age
and he never quite got well,he never got his WrestleMania main event.
Do you think that David Bryan doeseverything that see him Punk wasn't able to

(46:59):
do well passibly minus the main events, because I don't foresee that in the
next two years. But do youthink that he accomplished these days to force
them punk? You know that's allI ask? Great, we got top
three topics for there, yelp,so uh perfect, Yes, very perfect.

(47:22):
I'll tackle one of them and I'llthrow a pad. I'll go to
the first one. See him punkIn this angle we get and so many
things to say about it, butI'll be brief. I'll be brief and
quick. We're sprinkling sentiment on apile of crap. If we start talking
about hey, see him Punk,would you be better in this horrible,
awful storyline that's completely taken away themanhood of all wrestlers. It should be
see I'm punking out Daniel Bryant.This is not an angle we should be

(47:45):
trying to tweak with different people init. It's an awful idea. As
Cort Bauer said on Twitter today thatit's this is just the most extreme example
that shows it's probably time or let'snot even hedge our words for sure,
time to get people off television andwho are being authority figures and put the
focus back on the wrestlers. Andthat was the case. One of the
things that I that I really pointedout in my long cover story and the

(48:07):
Promising Torch newsletter today, Daniel Bryanand Randy Orton are two dream wrestlers and
incredibly hot in his prime underdog scrappy, well liked, fresh baby face act
and Daniel Bryan who the crowd isgoing crazy for. And Randy Orton arguably
arguably the best wrestler in this countryright now in terms of being well rounded

(48:29):
and arguably and probably without much dispute, the best heel you could possibly have
fresh off of a relatively long babyFace run, So he's a fresh heel.
Triple H needed to stay out ofthe f and way of these two
and let them do their thing.The idea that he felt he was needed
here is is just it's the Itis the epitome of egotistical self tunnel vision.

(48:53):
I Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton didnot need Stephanie McMahon and Triple H
to spice up the fut And they'regetting in the way of two people in
their prime who are great at whatthey do. Who can talk on the
mic doing it. So instead ofsaying, hey, here's the way to
make the Triple H power trip moreeffective, Seampunk would better. And I'm
not getting on you James for askinga question, because you're right. The

(49:15):
character would fit better for Seeampunk inthis case. But the timing doesn't work
at all because Punk is in themidst of the feud with Hayman and they're
not going to abandon that to dothis. But let's stop trying to fix
something that's a big pile of crapby sprinkling some cinnamon on it or you
know, putting some whip cream onit. Triple H in this power trip
angle is completely unnecessary, counterproductive,and bad for business, and there's just

(49:37):
no way to continue with it whenit's taking away from Daniel Brown and Randy
Orton, who did not need him, and it didn't need Stephanie, and
they didn't need all this extra stuffto make their feud interesting. Daniel Brown
peaked as a wrestler in that twothree minutes after he beat John Cena Clean.
That's when the peak of his popularity. Since then, it's been distractions

(49:59):
and vats and pointing out negative thingsabout them. It's just all that stuff
is unnecessary. Daniel Bryan doesn't needit. Rand Orton certainly doesn't need to
be standing behind Triple H at holdingthe title as a surrogate champion. Essentially
for Triple H, it's just let'sit's not about trying to fix the power
trip. And yes see, I'mPunk personality wise is better, but Daniel

(50:19):
Bryan works fine. So that's metackling the first one. Pat you can
talk about that, or you cantalk about the big show payoffs or the
comparison between Debray and Punk and howthey're moving forward. Well, I think
I'm gonna try to hit all threeaway. Yeah, please tell me if
I if I get off track,ye okay, yeah, I mean the
things with Triple H is well,Triple H has to be an important part

(50:40):
of the storyline because at some point, you know, maybe two months from
now, four months from now,six months from now, Triple Hi is
going to have a match as partof this and I'm I'm assuming it's with
Daniel Bryan. Maybe I'm wrong aboutthat, So of course we need we
need these six months of build upto set up Triple H. Is you
know one one appearance. Yeah,I mean that's yeah, I'm mean that
that way. That way you needyou need triple hs to have heat,

(51:01):
and that's that's very important, soyou're forgetting about that. Secondly, I
think there's an actual reason why DanielBryan is in the spot and CM punk
is not in the spot because CMpunk might accidentally get hold of a microphone
during his feud with with Triple Hand and and Punk is uh so we
say, more effective of scoring pointsoff of Triple H than than Daniel Bryan,

(51:24):
who's who's a good little soldier wouldbe. Yeah, I think that's
one reason that's happening. I'm tryingto think of a good payoff for the
Big Show storyline. Okay, okay, I got one. Uh, okay,
you've seen the guy on FCW excuseme, on NXT, Alexander Russev,
Big big Russian you know, uh, you know, weightlifter guy.

(51:49):
I'd say you bring him in,you make him Big Shows protege, and
you have him lumbering and you know, and he's he's working in the corporation.
He's lumbering along behind Big Show andand and Big Show makes a liking
to him. And they become theybecome good friends. And then something happens
several months from now, and uhthey do they do The Big Show as
Dumbo's mom where you know, BigShow goes nuts and you know, and

(52:13):
and attacks everybody and they have toput him down with a trank gun and
throw them out in the dumpster orsomething, and uh, you know,
and Russev becomes the you know,Russef is so angered by this that he
takes up the mantle and goes aftera triple h and and Randy Orton on
the shield and god knows who else. Pat I'm I'm with you in the

(52:34):
saidset. I don't see it obviousa Big Show path and moves come up
with creative booking hiss and but no, the The Big Show. I won't
say he's ruined, but I won'tsay he's not. They made him out
to be. You know. It'slike it's just because you can cry on
cue doesn't mean that's the best thingfor you. Like if Big Show was
good at juggling, I think evengo, well, then we have to

(52:58):
have you juggle along camera off horsebecause you can juggle. It's like,
no, you don't just because hecan jungle doesn't mean Big Show should be
jugling it. Just because Big Showcan cry doesn't mean he should cry.
And and that's that's at the heartof what's wrong with this angle. Also
is this is how promoters talk aboutwrestlers behind the scenes. Over the decades,
they they they they have held downtheir pay and and and acted superior

(53:20):
and said, what are they gonnado? You know, if they can't
work for us, if they can'twork for for the syndicate, what are
they gonna do? They're gonna pumpgas? That's that was the cruel.
Uh. I'm trying to think aboutthe arrogant thing that promoters have said privately
behind closed doors to each other.No promoter has ever been dumb enough and
I'll just say it dumb enough toactually say that on the air. Because

(53:43):
when you start portraying wrestlers not asthese incredible superstars, these athletes that we
are privileged to be able to watch, and that WWW's entire job is to
simply create a stable organization where thesewrestlers who would be fighting in the bars
around the streets or competing in thearound the world, We've bought a wrestling
ring and we're renting the arenas andwe've got the TV show and we're simply

(54:06):
here to create a framework in anenvironment for these incredible athletes to do what
they do. That's not that that'sbeen while wrestling has been promoted for decades.
The McMahons are so wrapped up intheir corporate McMahon Royalty universe that they
actually think that they're the stars ofthe show that they're like, if Raw

(54:27):
was a TV series about a factorywith manual laborers, unskilled entry level laborers,
then maybe you could have the meansStephanie and Triple H being arrogant.
It's saying you have no options.You will work six days a week for
fourteen hours a day with no benefitsand no vacation. But that's not the
story. That's not the TV seriesthat Raw is. So it makes no

(54:49):
sense, zero sense. It's awfulfor business to be out there making the
show about the promoters. There's nothingabout Stephane Mcmanagriple H that's compelling enough.
That's where sacrif fighting the wrestlers andthough again being at the SmackDown tapings in
Minneapolis on Tuesday, I can't tellyou how much it just was driven home
when Big Show's music hit and therewas almost no pop and just tepid applause

(55:14):
and discomfort. People thought he waspathetic. People thought he was a sad
sap. They don't see him asa star anymore. And all the wrestlers,
Dal Ziggler and Kofi Kingston, allof them who's stand there with their
heads hung and their spirits broken,are being destroyed because Triple H has this
tunnel vision. I need to getheel heat on myself, and there's so

(55:36):
many ways heels have gotten heat withoutdestroying everything else. And frankly, as
a non full time wrestler in acompany that runs house shows every weekend,
he shouldn't be the number one heogetting all the heat. There's so many
awful things about this, and there'sso many ways without all this collateral damage,
they could accomplish the same thing patThey could have had Daniel Bryan and
Randy Orton in a feud for theWWB title with a mega over baby Face

(55:57):
and a newly turned heel who's atthe top of his game in his prime.
They didn't need to get in theway of this, And that's what's
so frustrating is they could have allthe things that are any positive without all
these negatives. If Triple H wasn'tprimarily trying to figure out how to get
his face and his mug on TVand uh and get and have the McMahons
be the centerpiece. It's not goodfor business, all right, I'm ranting
too much about it, but Ido feel strongly about it. Thanks to

(56:21):
their call, yes, you cansupport us on Patreon and get these shows
with ads and plugs removed, theweight Killer prosing podcast, weight Killer prossing
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(56:42):
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and you can also upgrade two othertiers and receive even more benefits through Patreon.
Let's let's try to get into aculture. Let's go to pixel one
so one thanks for rolling. Sevenseven three is on deck. By the
way, six oh one, pleasestay tr named and where you're from,

(57:06):
how you're going way, how you'regoing doing good? Sorry? What have
you got for us? I've justgot on the tail in And what you
say I think you you say wellwrong, you know, on the same
subject about is kind of getting old? About the same thing about Triple H
dominating the same when Daniel Bran gonnaget you come up? And then standing

(57:28):
tall old hand is getting kind ofold. So what's your question, Starge?
I'm we're hearing a lot of backrounnoise, But what's your question is
when will Danny Bryan get us comeup? And? Yeah, when he's
gonna come up in Yeah? So, Pat, when are they gonna get
the payoff such as it will befor uh, for for what they're doing

(57:49):
here? If I had to makea guess, I guess twenty fourteen.
Yeah, I mean, how dothey feel TV for that long? Is
is Daniel Bryan gonna be the onewho gets who gets the payoffer? Is
Daniel Bryan just a placeholder until JohnZeena can come back? Well, if
you're asking me, I think that, uh, I think that they're gonna

(58:14):
they're going to decide in a coupleof months that when the uh the ratings
aren't as good as they were thesummer, which of course happens every fall,
and they're going to blame Daniel Bryan. They said, well, we
need John Cena back as soon aspossible. He can't hold up his end
of this. And I do wantto say if this draws moderately decent ratings,
because people are, you know,watching this car wreck or hate Replates.

(58:38):
Its a big star, people arekind of curious, and people love
Daniel Bryan and they can't believe what'shappening to him. It's still like it,
it's like it still doesn't mean thatthis isn't doing long term, uh
needless damage, and that they wouldnot have done even better ratings focusing on
Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan without Replatesand Stephanie just crashing the party and and

(58:58):
and you know, we've got emailson this and and and we've had calls
on it and people on Twitter sayingit. Triple H just has this tendency
to glom on any act that's over, anybody who gets over. Somehow Triple
H finds a way to get involvedwith what they do. And there's just
this pattern, and there's this historypat of him. He's doing that and
it's it's like he brings them downa notch and sucks out a lot of

(59:22):
the what what kind of creates aheadwind to their momentum, but finds a
way to get involved and win inthe end. And it is a it
is a historical pattern with him thatthat is uh that that I think it's
frustrating. And you would have thoughtthat as he became a part time wrestler
and and and has a lot ofgood ideas and as very smart in terms

(59:42):
of what he wants to do behindthe scenes short of size fetish. It's
when he puts himself on TV,there's this giant blind spot and he starts
doing things that are good for himand bad for the company. And it's
just it's one of many, manyexamples historically of people completely losing objectivity when
it comes to themselves or their sonsor daughters, but usually sons. And

(01:00:05):
it's just best if you're in abooking or promoting position to have a rule
of keep yourself off television. It'sjust almost impossible because the human nature to
be objective about how what your roleshould be when on a TV show,
when your job isn't to get otherpeople over. But you start focusing on
yourself and we're seeing maybe the worstexample of it that I can remember.
Well, I mean, wait,you're not You're not seeing the big picture

(01:00:27):
here. I mean the people whoworks for WWA, who are the best
and the brightest, they're the onestelling, you know, Stephanie McMahon and
Triple Asian vincric Man that they're thestars, and they have lots and lots
and lots of of of evidence ofthat, and they're and they you know,
definitely, I mean they're very objective. They definitely wouldn't be saying things
like that, you know, justto please their bosses. They mean it.

(01:00:49):
No. In your you bring upa very valid point, which is
I don't know that Triple H inten years has had a truly honest,
genuine exchange with any in that companybecause nobody wants to piss him off.
I mean, people can't walk upto Triple H and say what you and
I Pat can say, or whatthe caller, what callers of the show

(01:01:09):
can say. He doesn't hear truth. Nobody can speak truth to power in
Triple H's world, in Stephanie's world, they might insist that people do but
people know better. People know thatwhen Triple HI doesn't, man say I
want to hear the honest truth,you'd speak your mind. They know that
it makes Vince and staff and TripleH feel better to say that. But
they also know that if they saythe wrong thing, if they actually speak

(01:01:31):
their mind and it rings a littletoo true and it hits a soft spot
and you know, it bruises theirego or touches on an insecurity they have,
they'll pay the price. So itjust isn't so. I just part
of me doesn't even I mean,I blame Triple H, but part of
me just thinks, for ten plusyears he's been insulated from anybody truly being
able to be fully honest with himabout how much he sucks the oxygen out

(01:01:52):
of the room and is overpushed.And I just think he actually probably is
starting to believe, you know,in a way his own press, so
to speak, not our press,but the internal press. Like you said,
all the people who work for thecompany going, yeah, it's so
great that Triple H is willing tosacrifices off days or or not just work
behind the scenes, but put indouble duty on the air and do what
he does so he works for ww A, so there are no off

(01:02:13):
days. Yeah, well that's truetoo. All right, let's get in
a couple more calls here before wego to the BF you after show.
We'll go to seven seven three next, and then after that six five Oh,
uh, seven seven three? Thanksfor calling. Please state your name
and where you're from. Seven seventhree, All right, seven set?
This is so something that sounds kindof like a horn I think would help.

(01:02:37):
That probably would to wake people up. Well, let's uh, why
don't we go to uh six fiveon n sixty five? Oh, you're
on the live test. Hello,Wade and Pat. I came in a
little late afternoon. First, Ijust want to quickly acknowledge the birthday of
Ray the crippler Stevens and stay stayyou Wade in fact, for saying what

(01:02:59):
needed to be said. I feelyour frustration. The triple H stuff is
terrible. Couldn't this have been accomplishedat Summer Slam? And forgive me if
this may already been brought up,could this not have been accomplished at Summer
Slam? In the following fashion,the match ends Brian in celebration. No
triple H involved at all is referee. Orton comes out, mocks fakes the

(01:03:21):
sort of ten second. Then theShield just simply comes out destroys Brian.
Barton gets the pen, and fromthere you have an alliance. Orton is
the featured character and the Shield arebasically his sort of like bodyguards without having
to use Triple H, Stefani orany of them. I know, what's
your name, by the way,Dante, I'm sorry Dante in San Francisco

(01:03:45):
was the cow Palace and Ray StevenageDante. We should have known San fran
just not not just from Airy Code, but the tribute to Ray to Crippler.
Yeah. I even like that betterthan the scenarrow that I drew up,
which you just stripped down a littlebit more, which was keep keep
Triple Ache out of the Summer Slammix and just have Orton, you know,
as Daniel Bryan is celebrating, Ihave Arton just come out and h
and hit Daniel Brown from behind witha briefcase in a heelish fashion, give

(01:04:05):
him a couple of rkos, youknow, one more than was needed,
and pin him, you know,I yeah, I mean if if the
fear as well, you know,fens are gonna cheer Randy Orton if he's
if he if he looks too strong, so we have to make him look
weak. So we have to havehim beat Daniel Bryan thanks to triple agious
pedigree. And then we have tomake sure that you know, Randy Orton
gets heal heat by just being subservientand you know, a background player to

(01:04:27):
Triple AGI. I mean, RandyOrton is essentially playing the role that cowboy
Bob Barton played to Roddy Piper.This is I mean, that's a little
overstatement, but and I say itfor effect, but clearly, when you
think about the power trip right nowon Raw, Randy Orton might do some
mic work, he might stand onthe ring alone and cut a promo now
and then. But for the mostpart, when you think of what's going
on on Raw right now, theheat is on. The heat with Daniel

(01:04:48):
Bryan is on Triple H. Eventhough Randy Orton is the freshly turned,
in his prime, stellar all aroundguy on the mike and in the ring,
who is going to be the guywho's fighting Daniel Brown And so Triple
H is absolutely not adding to this. I don't care what his legacy and
star power is it's Randy Orton wascapable of doing this without his help.

(01:05:09):
It's like it's like some kid finallylearns to ride a bike and dad just
jumps out a bike and says,here, let me ride with you,
and everybody falls over. It's likeRandy Orton's ready to ride the bike without
the triple H training wheels right now. He doesn't need him. And so
for all the things that are wrongwith the saying oh you're right, uh,
Dan, say that this absolutely wouldhave been better at Randy Orton's standing
there with a shield standing behind himas his thugs, bodyguards, hired help

(01:05:30):
whatever, and interplates his out ofthe way. I think we kind of
all agree with that. Pat.Well, yeah, but then somebody might
become a star and we might haveto pay them more. Well that's that's
that's I mean, I didn't evenget into that, but yeah, I
mean, part of this is weneed to make sure that the mcmah everybody
in the back understands that you're allexpendable, because as long as we're around,

(01:05:53):
we can put ourselves on TV anddraw ratings and uh and take you
know, some of the talent pay. We do not need you you're all
interchangeable cocks. Now. Promoters havethought that for a long time, but
none have been dumb enough to sayit on the air and let the fans
in on that dirty little secret thatpromoters think about wrestlers and patted it's just
it's it actually is kind of astoundingthat it's it's let me say this,

(01:06:15):
I'm interested to see if wrestlers aren'tstanding on that stage going, you know
what, This is how they kindof think about us in real life,
isn't it? And what we're doingis kind of stupid if we think about
the storyline because and I you know, drew the scenario up on the Kelor
Hotline last night and in my inmy back page editorial, you know about
Wade Barrett just you know, callingout the wrestlers and saying, hey,

(01:06:38):
you know what, you know what'sreally bad for business, Triple H if
we all quit and none of usare as desperate as you make us out
to be. It's pathetic that youwould, you know, drag us talk
talk down to us like we'd becompletely we'd be losers who would be unable
to support our family without the BlessedRoyal McMahon's family blessing us with these jobs,
because without that, we'd be homelesslosers. That's not us. We

(01:07:00):
can go make a living because we'retalented and the fans pay to see us.
They don't pay to see you talk. And I mean you if Wade
Bartt cut that promo and then said, so, I have a proposal,
we all stand united. You eitherget off television, rehire Cody Rhodes and
and give Daniel bryant Is one onone match against against Randy Orton, and
remove yourself from any position of powerand authority on this TV show, or

(01:07:21):
we're all walking out. And obviouslythat's bad for business, and that's way
more bad for business than anything aboutDaniel Bryan. But I wonder if the
wrestlers in any way have it runningthrough their mind pad in real life.
This is kind of how it's likefor us. Why don't we get together
and band together like we should bein the storyline, Why don't we actually
get together behind the scenes and andkind of let management know that we're not

(01:07:44):
as powerless as they're portraying us tobe on television, which essentially is based
on the true story of how promotershave looked at wrestlers for decades. Need
an extra dose of positivity in yourwrestling podcasts, will come join me Alan
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(01:08:06):
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There's always a place for wrestlings pastin the Paradise too, and we've done
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(01:08:30):
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(01:09:00):
Yeah, I think several years back. I wrote a story on the in
the newsletter. You know. Youknow, Jerry Jarrett used to say that
the wrestlers got twenty five percent ofthe gross when when he was winning his
territory, and people thought and peoplethought the payouts that Jarrett did we were
awful. You know. We wentthrough the www corporate uh corporate filings and

(01:09:20):
the number then was the wrestlers aregetting about nine percent of what goes into
WWE. Yeah, which is youknow, I mean, I'm not saying
it's not a lot of money,but you know, I don't I don't
think you could get to say theNFL players to go up, you know,
to take from the owners. Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna give you
players a total of about union nineor ten percent of what we're making,

(01:09:40):
right. I don't think that wouldwork. No, And that's that's what
I would find to be a kindof a hilarious irony in all of this,
is if this storyline caused the wrestlersto go, holy crap, this
is the simulation of how we're treatedand how we're talked about, and what
Stephanie and Triple A actually believe tobe true. That were these pathetic,

(01:10:02):
interchangeable cogs who have no options toearn anywhere near the type of money that
they pay us, and they treatus that way, And in this storyline,
the right thing to do would beto get together and stand united and
uh and do what every other groupof talented people do in this situation,
whether it's a stunt union and actorsunion, the football players you reference,

(01:10:26):
pat on and on and on,they got to get together and say we're
gonna bargain collectively because individually we don'thave power. And you've shown us in
this storyline, this awful, demeaning, dehumanizing storyline, you've actually kind of
woken us up to that this iskind of similar what taping as. I
would find it to be. Thiscrazy irony. If this is what led
to Dresser's unionizing or or at least, you know, collectively bargaining and using

(01:10:47):
their bargaining power together, I wouldI don't expect that to happen, but
I would find that pretty amazing ironyin all this. All right, I
can't Yeah, I don't expect iteither, No, but it the wrestlers
are not. I don't know.I've said enough, all right, let's
go to uh two two five twotwo five. Thanks are olding. Please

(01:11:09):
state your name and where you're from. Hey, Wade, my name's Urson.
I'm from Baton Ridge, Louisiana.Thanks for Colin Urson. What do
you got for us? Oh?Man, I really enjoyed the stuff on
Twitter last night. Does great andand just listening to the show Man.
God, my head is spinning rightnow with with tons of things. I'm

(01:11:29):
really glad that you've been a voicefor this over the past few weeks because
I remember after Summer Slam, Uh, I was I was very uh disheartened
about the future, and you seemlike you were kind of optimistic going forward.
But I don't think it was nearlyas as bad as we thought it
was gonna be, you know,uh the state that it's in now.

(01:11:53):
But my main question is about Iwanted to hear your comments on Triple h
is uh is tweet regarding to bea Star campaign. I don't know if
you saw that a couple of daysago. Uh, some people were you
know, calling him out for hiskind of hypocrisy about to hold be a

(01:12:15):
Star campaign and now he is,uh, you know, on raw uh
being a ball being you know,a bully, right right, and so
uh so uh. In response tothat, I don't remember, I can't
quote it exactly, but it wassomething to the effect of, uh,
he tweeted, uh o mg,uh, somebody just told me that darn

(01:12:41):
Vader is a character. I thoughthe was a real person hashtag be a
star and you know, I foundthat really, I found that whole thing.
And then JR came on to defendhim, and R said that anyone
who thinks that, uh that uh, you know, someone on in professional
wrestling is a real life bully ismisguided and I just feel it that's so

(01:13:05):
intellectually dishonest for them to say this. I mean, Darth Vader and Triple
H. If you held their picturesup in front of a ten year old
kid and said who's real and who'sfake, they're gonna say Darth Vader's fake
and Triple H is real because theshow is presented as being a real thing.
It's presented as being a real uhyou know, athletic competition. You

(01:13:30):
know, it's not presented as amovie. Right, Well, okay,
for them to come out and say, you know, I just want to
hear your thoughts. Yeah yeah,let me jump in because I'll surprise you
a little bit. So I'm probalygonna defense Tripleah more than you expect here
because I do. But I haveproblems with the way. I have some
problems with it too. But ifI'm kind of in the middle on this,
I do not believe that because WWEruns I'll be a Star campaign that

(01:13:54):
that means that in the context ofa wrestling show, they can that they
can't feature bullies because heels have alwaysbeen bullies, and I think that's a
device that they need to have opento them to tell their story. So
I don't find it hypocritical that Triblachis a bully on the air or that
Rybeck is a bully on the air, because they're both portrayed as heels,

(01:14:14):
as long as in the end thestory is bullies are awful people. They're
terrible people, and that it's honorablefor the baby Faces to stand up united
against the bully and not let thebully get away with being a bully.
And in the end, a bullywhen someone does stand up to them,
cowers like a lot of bullies do. Most bullies when someone stands up to

(01:14:34):
them cower. They are a bullyas a defense mechanism against their own insecurities
and fears, and when you standup to them, they back down.
That tends to be what bullies do. So I'm okay with Rybeck being a
bully in the midst of it bea star campaign. The problem I have
is with the nuance of the execution. Why does Ryebeck go unpunished? Should

(01:14:54):
there not be an announcement by MichaelCole or you can't do it right now?
Because the ww's run by these awful, horrible people to McMahon Royal,
the Royal McMahon dynasty, Princess Stephanieand the King of King's Triple h and
the crazy old man Vince McMahon.You don't have this sense of that there's
a governing authority figure with any kindof positive constitution, which is a huge

(01:15:15):
fatal flon the storyline. You know, hey, everyone support WWE, but
but it's run by these awful peopleand all your money goes to these awful
people who are portrayed as bullies.But of course it's all fake. But
we want you to get really madat us, so we can't at heel
heat. So you'll want to seeDaniel Brand beat us up. But of
course you're a fool if you buyinto it, because we're all just actors
and it's not really real. Butreally, we want you to be emotionally

(01:15:35):
worked up about it and buy ticketsand go crazy when Daniel Brand beats me
up, but remember it's all fake, and if you really get into it
too much, you're all marks andyou're all fools, and my god,
we're not. It's like, youcan't have it both ways like that.
It is so freaking stupid and confusingand contradictory the way that they portray it.

(01:15:56):
So I it's it's a complete mess. There is not a consistent narrative
to resting and it is It's likewhat Corpa was saying on Twitter today,
it's time to get rid of authorityfigures period on television. You anser can
just make announcements. The Championship Committee, the commission as commissioners said this,
and I'm relaying it to you.I got handed a note. It's you
know, the way Mike Taney doesit on TNA. We got handed in
a note. This was announced.Get authority figures off a TV. Make

(01:16:17):
the show about the wrestlers who canwrestle, who wrestle at house shows,
who sell the merchandise, to sellthe T shirts, they wrestle at pay
per views month after month. Makeit about them. Stop telling this authority
figure storyline. It's over, it'sbeen played out. It's bad for business,
and start portraying WWE as a goodorganization that's there to create an even
playing field for these spectacular superstar wrestlersto do the amazing athletic things that they

(01:16:40):
can do. And set up aring and set up a stage for them
to wrestle and compete, to findout who the best is and to settle
grudges. That's what WWW should beabout. The idea that they promote themselves
as this company run by these awfulpeople, and all this is done not
to be redundant, but all thisis done to create heal heat for Triple
Agent staff. You know most Tripleh But you're a fool if you actually

(01:17:01):
believe it. But my god,we hope you're worked up enough about it
to go buy a ticket and byNight of Champions. But if you do,
you're a mark. It's like it'sjust so stupid and ridiculous that your
head, you're right your head justspins thinking about it. That all said,
if ww we got rid of allauthority figures and they had if they
had any figurehead representing the company yetit's a baby face, likable figure or

(01:17:21):
at least just a new troll guywho clearly is in favor of fairness and
law and order. If they didthat and they had a bully on TV
who ultimately got beat up and lost, that's fine. You can have a
bully on your TV show. Buttriple h going you know, Oh,
you're such a fool for thinking thatI'm reliable because I play one on TV.
It's part of the problem with awhole the whole Twitter thing and people

(01:17:43):
you know, either in character outiccharacter. Butterson, you're right to most
kids. John Cinas John Cena,he doesn't play he doesn't play different people
when he goes. It's not likeTV characters who play different characters depending on
the movie they're in. He's usinghis real name. He's essentially playing himself.
He doesn't look a lot different onTotal Divas or act a lot different
than he does on WWE television.So this notion that, oh, it's

(01:18:04):
clear cutting, you're all just stupidfor buying into this. It's just it's
disingenuous and disheartening that even somebody likeJim Ross, who you know, who's
I guess the survivalist, would chimein and buy into this completely screwed up
narrative that pro wrestling has become.Give yourself a reason to look forward to.
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(01:18:27):
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(01:19:08):
or try us for an eight weektrial subscription pwtorch dot com slash paper copy.
Anyway, there's my renders and PatI'm curious of you have to say
about them. Well, I thinkyou made a lot of good points.
Wait, I just want to justwant to add something to it. You
know, they can they can talkabout how it's I mean, how the

(01:19:30):
B A Star campaign is is differentfrom WWE, from WWE having its heel
characters be bullies. And yeah,they have a point, but the thing
is it's all part of the sameshow. When Michael Cole, you know,
when when they go to a segmenton onto B A Star campaign,
Michael Cole said, hey, great, WW superstars have it out there promoting

(01:19:51):
B A Star and you know,and and they cut to it and it's
presented as part of the same show. It's not presented, you know.
I mean, it's not presented asuh, it's not something it's not public
service announcements they run during other showson the USA network or just stuff that
you see on the website, independentof independent of anything else of Raw or

(01:20:12):
SmackDown. It's it's part of Raw. It's part of SmackDown. I'm pretty
sure they don't pay commercial time forit, so I can see where people
would be confused. Yes, AndI think wrestling will draw better when there's
a consistent narrative and uh and andthey present themselves in a consistent way on
all platforms, and they don't makepeople feel foolish for buying into the characters.

(01:20:34):
Wrestling is different than Breaking Bad.It's it's nobody thinks that the lead
Brian Cranston and Walter are the sameperson. Nobody believes that. But Brian
Cranston hasn't played one character his entirepublic life named Brian Cranston who is shown

(01:20:55):
in a reality TV show acting justlike he does on his TV show.
They're just there's a huge difference,and and and and Erson, You're right,
that's that's what that's what's just kindof weird, I guess about Tripleation,
Jim Ross taking the attitude that theydo. It's like, once you
get really worked up and by ticketsand be all into it, but you're
just a complete fool in the markfor doing it, And come on,

(01:21:15):
it's just like, it doesn't workthat way. You can't. It's just
so contradictory and frustrating, and itdoesn't. It's it's it's was not this
complicated twenty years ago, Like itjust wasn't and it doesn't have to be.
And and that's it's it's it's aboutthinking that there's all these different types
of fan bases and they all wantdifferent things. And if we install Ed
Ferrara, the right the writer duringthe boom period of Raw with Vince Russo

(01:21:36):
you know, told me in aninterview going on ten years ago. Now,
well wait, you know, wecan't insult the intelligence of the Internet
fans by pretending it's real on theair. And you know, and I
mean, I like Ed and Iagree with a lot of the stuff that
he says, but I couldn't disagreewith more with that statement. When that
when the opening credits come on theshow, you you are not insulting any
type of fan, the meta marks, the smart marks, the insider fans,

(01:22:00):
the Internet fans, the sheet readers, whatever you want to, whatever
labels you have for everybody. Thebest show you can produce is one show
for everyone in which they're is aconsistent narrative from beginning to end. There
are good guys who you have reasonto root for because you share their values,
and there are bad guys that youwant to root against and see them
get what they've got coming because they'renot quite good enough. And it's in

(01:22:23):
the opening pages of the book thatare PW Torch All Star panels. Greg
Oliver co wrote, Jake Roberts wasgreat being quoted in that, and others
were and it's really well said.What a heell needs to be. A
heel is a guy who, inan even playing field, can't cut it,
can't keep up with the lead babyfaces, and therefore he resorts to
cheatings. And everybody can relate tothat. If you sit next to somebody

(01:22:45):
in a cubicle who's not as goodat their job as you, but they
use they kiss up to the bossor they or they cook the books,
or they sabotage your computer or theyyou know whatever. I mean. There's
all everybody can relate in life tosomebody he was as an underhanded tactic to
make up for their own shortcomings andthen lies about it. Oh, I
definitely feel I definitely feel that tripleh. You know, besides the fact

(01:23:11):
that he wanted to create this heatfor himself and create the seat for Randy
Orton, and you know he feltthe need for this. I definitely feel
that on raw and stuff like that. You know, he knows that the
casual fan of the audience is goingto do him, you know, and
he's gonna get the heat. Heunderstands that. But there's definitely been things
that in the past three weeks forhe is definitely saying things that's targeting people

(01:23:33):
that listen to your show. Internetfan, met a fan, you know,
whatever. He is. Definitely heunderstands his history was you know,
those fans, and he is definitelytrying to get heat from them. But
what he doesn't understand is, youknow, he's getting it for all the
wrong reasons because now, dude,at this point in your career, like

(01:23:55):
we just think you're stupid. We'renot doing you because you're the heel wrestler.
We think you're just kind of dumbnow for doing this. And and
Pat, and I want to addto this earth and thank you for a
call. Appreciate the topic and theconversation. Pat. One thing I noticed,
you bet one thing I noticed orsaw at the SmackDown tapings tiny spoiler
alert. They the opening segment asa tone hall meeting U Triple Ah standing

(01:24:18):
in the ring. All the restare standing on the stage, Triple H
invites them to air their grievances andit's an open form. You can say
what you want and I'm not goingto get in a ton of spoilers.
In terms of what happens after that. You can read my report on on
pw torch dot com and the PWTorch app if you want to get ahead
of the curve on that. Buthe did decide that as the evil,
nasty uh King of King's Triple H, that he was going to also be

(01:24:41):
a stand up comedian and go tothe you know, basically be what halland
Nash were at the n w OHand what he was with DX. And
it's about uh these this caustic senseof humor, this this let's let's tear
other people down. Because Triple CHis good at it, it's something he
was naturally born with. But justbecause it's like I said about Big Show,
just because he can cry, orif Big Show was a good juggler,
doesn't mean that he should go ontelevision and juggle and then cry.

(01:25:02):
Just because you can do something welldoesn't mean it should be part of your
character. And Triple H is goodat is quick on his feet at being
a prick carrying people down. Hewas when he told Chris Masters after Chris
Masters failed the steroid test, HeyChris, that suit's fallen off. Yeah,
what do you know? Whatever theline was, you know you gotta
you gotta get a tailor and hadthat suit a suit made to fits you.

(01:25:25):
He was mocking Chris Masters because hewas now following their wellness policy.
We want the most prickish thing.And yes, and and the line was
your neck looked like a stack ofdimes. I think, oh god,
yeah, thanks for yeah, youknow, it makes it makes me worse.
Well I could help. Yeah,thank you for helping. Bad So
Triple H is good at being aprick. I mean, I'm just that's
he can turn that on, whetherit's whether it's in character or contradictory to

(01:25:46):
his character. He seems to notbe able to help himself. But on
SmackDown against against Rob van Dam hesays, Rob, you know, Rob
stepped up and spoke and Rob saidhis thing, and afterwards Triple H said,
uh, Rob, and I've beenwaiting since. Oh you know,
you can imagine Triple as you know, Triple Chin is a smug self satisfaction
when he's about to deliver a funnyline that kind of takes the wind out

(01:26:08):
of the sales of the joke becausehe's his own biggest fan. As he
says, it's like or idea I'vebeen I've been waiting since oh, I
don't know two your two thousand tohear you call me dude. And it
was like, it's kind of funny, you know, It's like, yeah,
you know where Rob van dam it'skind of funny that he says dude.
And Triple H's like, you finallysaid it after all these years,
for thirteen years and all that.In the crowd glass they chuckled. They

(01:26:29):
were with Triple H on that Whyis Triple H deciding to be the funniest,
cleverest guy in the room when hisgoal, accord ostensibly is to be
the most despicable jerk you could imagine, why is he telling funny one lighters?
He's Slater, a comedy, lowlevel jobber, great at playing his
role. He Slater talked, andthen Triple H said, thank you,
he's Slater for emptying I believe theentire contents of your mind with that one.

(01:26:53):
And it was it was funny.He was saying, oh, he's
you're kind of an airhead, You'rekind of stupid. And that's about as
much as you know information as youcan store in your brain. It was
funny. So now the crowd thatshould be hating Tripleachi is going, hey,
this guy's pretty funny. It makesno sense for him. He's picking
on heels and baby faces being funny. It's not even like it makes no
logical sense. Now if somebody elsewas doing that, Pat and trip lachis

(01:27:15):
in the back, I've at TripleA should smugly be going what is he
doing? That's not good for hischaracter. We need to teach him the
basics of wrestling. He needs torain that in. But because it's him,
he sees this through this tunnel vision, and all Triplachi cares about it.
Can I be the funniest guy?Can I? Can I be the
star? Can I use all ofmy talents to entertain the people? And
that's what I felt was happening onSmackDown. He lost sight of what the

(01:27:36):
point of the Triple A character wasand it just hits one of his flaws
when he's on camera. And aswe saw, as we've known for a
long time, and saw on theGrant Light interview. There's a lot of
things he's really savvy about when itcomes to this wrestling in the story.
But I don't think in the areaswhere he's not polished, where there's some
some some room for changing his philosophyon things, that there's a person that

(01:28:00):
I don't think there's anybody out therewho feels they have room to tell him
what they think and to make theircase. And Triple H needs someone to
speak truth to power, and Idon't think he has that, and it
manifests in those moments like you'll seeFriday on SmackDown, assuming they don't edit
them out because it's bad for hischaracter. Yeah, I have I have
a question when I'm not a bigfan of this breaking bad show. I

(01:28:20):
don't. I don't watch it.You're not like you guys, do you
don't you don't dislike it? Theyhaven't gotten hooked on it yet. I
haven't gotten hooked on it yet.But but I have a question Brian Cranston
when he when he's on the set, does he does he has on the
side go up to the guy whoplays Jesse and what you know that haircut
looks stupid, You're a terrible actor. Does that ever happen? No,

(01:28:44):
I'm actually quite sure it doesn't,okay. Or does it go up to
Jonathan Banks and say, you know, you really ought to do something about
your face? No, No,he doesn't do that either. Okay,
okay, I'm just I get yourpoint. There are just there's things about
Triple H. And this predates thegrant Land interview that have caused me to

(01:29:05):
search my brain for the term thatapplies to his comment, his action,
and the term prick comes up alot. He is just a prickish kind
of guy on air and behind thescenes, sometimes in character, sometimes out.
It comes across and I and I'vesaid as a caveat all the time.
He can be a really good friendto his friends, and he's a
smart guy, and he can beengaging. We all have our flaws,

(01:29:27):
pat you do, I do?Uh not a news flash, Triple H
one of his flaws and it andit gets exaggerated and manifests itself in amplified
ways because he's in a position oftremendous power and there's no check on it.
His prickishness manifests and shows up waytoo often and or probably shouldn't wow
up at all, you know,except when he's trying to be a heel

(01:29:49):
in character in a way that's productive. So longing for some nostalgia or maybe
you want to learn some wrestling history, don't miss the nineties Pass cast every
Friday on the PW Torch Daily CastFeed. Alex and Patrick will transport you

(01:30:09):
thirty years into the past by takingyou through the Torch issue from that very
week. Follow news from the WWFand WCW and all the happenings from across
the wrestling industry in real time asThe Torch reported it thirty years ago.
That's the nineties passcasts every Friday onthe PW Torch Daily Cast Feed. Anyway,

(01:30:41):
I want to move to the VPafter show at this point, I
want to thank our callers. VPmembers. Stay tuned, and Pat and
I will dope into some other issueshere and some emails. If you didn't
get through on the show and you'relistening to us live and you want us
to address a topic, you cansend an email right now to PW Torch
Livecast at gmail dot com. That'sPW twrch Livecast at gmail dot com tomorrow.

(01:31:01):
Just incredible former ec W Champion ismy guest on the PW torch livecast
and he is also part of thePW torch All Star Panel. Don't forget
to check out ask PW Torch theAll Star Panel exclusively on the PW Torch
app on virtually all smart devices orand and also not or and also check
out asked the PW torch staff everyafternoon on the pwtorch dot com website.

(01:31:27):
You have to go to our appto read the All Star Panel and to
the website to read the staff version. And unless you're a VIP member.
As a VIP member you get accessto both on both formats. So it
is just one more really good reasonto go VIP in. The place to
go to go VIP is pwtorch dotcom slash go v I. P Pato
was fun and we got more funto come on the other side of the

(01:31:48):
music. Yeah, he just remindedme I need to come up with a
new name from my All Star Panel. So well, now are you?
Are you well? What about that? After the break? Are you flattered
that you and inspired you and AnthonyJesselnik inspired the name All Star Panel?
Or are you feeling like I kindof stole it out from under you and
uh and have put you in anawkward position of having to come up with

(01:32:10):
a new name. Oh no,I think it's a great name, and
I'm glad. You know. I'mglad you've chosen. I'm just thinking I
should have registered the trademark. Yeah, as well as a lawyer, Pat,
I'm not gonna feel too bad.It's my own fault. You're right,
yes, uh as. I alwaysappreciate all our listeners, even you
freeloaders from our v IP members.We say that affectionately, but we also
mean it. Don't be a freeloader. Show some support for us and we'll

(01:32:32):
give you a ton of bang foryour buck. Go check it out.
Become a VIP member today pwtorch dotcom flash, go vi ip and uh
check out ASP Torch in all ourgreat coverage of professional wrestling day in a
day out. I'll be aff ofPat Heal Waight Keller signing off every day.

(01:32:58):
You want to Hello, Hello,Hello, you can see you can

(01:33:21):
see all right? Thanks kids onBridges as always for supplying the facility Torch
live casts with their new music.New albums coming out soon. A band
out of the UK and you canlook them up on iTunes or on YouTube

(01:33:43):
and check out some of the foolmusic videos and other music. All right,
uh, Pat, let's move intothe VFP after show portion of the
show. We didn't talk a bunchabout the CM Punk, Paul aim and
Ale from UH Monday, But Iam curious where do you think Sam Punk
and Paul Haym go long term?Curtis Axel is not on fire. I

(01:34:04):
don't think he's a guy who weexpect will be able to carry goodbye.
I think we all kind of agreethat, you know, Curtis Axel's probably
not going to be that that atop surrogate for Paul Haman in the long
run. Where is this going togo? You know, I'm gonna I
don't remember which. One one ofour listeners on yesterday's show had a good

(01:34:26):
theory. He pointed out that wehaven't seen uh, we haven't seen Biggie
Langston around or even with a JLee and Uh. And his theory was
that Diggie Langston's going to be thenew Paul Haman guy, which would which
would make sense. I mean,they're they're obviously you know, they're still
high on Diggie Langston. They knowthey haven't found the right spot for him,
and and uh, I think aPunk versus Langston feud would would make

(01:34:50):
sense. They're you know, theyhave different styles, but I think their
their styles could compliment each other.You know, maybe not as well as
punk and lessners do, but there'ssomething there I like. Uh, I
like that. I think that,you know, I mean, yeah,
always talked about Matt Morgan or we'vetalked about why. I can't know,
I'm drawing a blank out his name. Who's the guy who left TNA?

(01:35:12):
Uh? Oh gee Bradley maybe whomight have left NA? Oh? No,
I no, I think the guywho was with Punk before. I'm
like totally blanking out oh Luke LukeGallows. Yeah, what's his real name
though, I'm that's what I'm tryingto Drew Hankinson, That's it. Yeah,
yep. And so you know,Pa, you know something like that.
I you know, we've talked aboutthat, but yeah, big he

(01:35:32):
is is on staff or on theroster already, and they're trying to figure
out what to do with him,and you know that would be a good
guy. Y is where are youon Curtis Axel? Path though, is
is this just kind of a lostcause with him? Or do you think
there's still hope? And and howdo you think w W feels about him
based on the way they've been portrayinghim. I mean, I haven't seen

(01:35:54):
anything, you know, from him, either in the ring or on the
microphone that makes me think he's morethan than Henchman Jo. Yeah, I
guess that's where I am. Yeah, that's kind of where I am too.
I just I'm not sure, youknow. And I hate to say,
because I mean, I'm a Igrew up with Larry. My first
wrestling show I ever attended was Mayof nineteen eighty one. Larry the Axe

(01:36:15):
Henning was a ringside for his son, Kurt the Young Thin Rookie, trying
to prove himself against the Brooklyn's ownAdrianadonnas. And if if Kurt Kurt didn't
have to beat Adriannadonnas, he justhad to last like five or ten minutes
in the ring with him, andif he did, if Adrian Kulin pin
him in five or ten minutes,then Larry the Ax Henning got to get
his hands on Adrianadonnas. And ofcourse Kurt Henning did last ten minutes and

(01:36:38):
Larry the X did get his handson him and the crowd went wild and
uh. And then later on Twitter, Larry the Axe called him all marks.
Yeah, yeah, uh and soI have a soft spot for one
to see Kurtis acts will do welland you know it just but it just
objectively speaking, he just doesn't havethat. Uh. There's just something there
that's not that's not where it needsto be, and it's it's unfortunate,
but I do. I do likethe Biggie the the biggie thing. Have

(01:37:00):
you? Are you totally up todate on Total Divas? I think I
am. I missed a week somewhere, but uh, and I will probably
miss you know, this week inany other week that conflicts with football season
at least I won't see it live. But yeah, I think I think
I'm up to speed. And yeah, do you see a path to that
show being incorporated into WWW storylines oris the timing of it just you know,

(01:37:27):
of the production and the delay andgetting the show's post produced kind of
prohibiting that. I think I thinkthat's part of it. And I think
they've done Yeah, I think they'vebeen wise and sort of making that is
to a separate universe from one ofthe better term than uh, you know,
it's it's a little bit of behindthe scenes about the wrestlers, and
it's you know, quote unquote realitytelevision. But it's not meant to reflect

(01:37:49):
you know, w W storylines.So I'm okay with that aspect of it,
although it does raise a good point. You know, it raised a
good point because you you ask how, you know, how WW could make
H, you know, could makeStephanie McMahon Triple H and the heels.
I mean, just do with themwhat you do with total divas, you
know, follow them around with acamera for a day and take their worst

(01:38:11):
stuff and edited out of context,yes exactly, or don't even or you
know what, or don't even addedout of context depending you know, well
that's true. You probably wouldn't haveto, you know, maybe I don't
know, is the show we hadsome fears, you know that while it's
kind of confused. I mean,we talk about the confusing narrative on Twitter
and Triple H, you know,saying well, you know, I mean

(01:38:34):
it was a great call that aboutyou know, Triple H and trying to
explain the bullying thing and why it'sseparate and all that, and it's so
confusing, but ye had total divasto the mix that has this whole other
separate universe. Has has it beenokay? Do you think there's been any
collateral damage from having, uh,John Cena dating and Daniel Brian dating the

(01:38:57):
Bellas at the time. That theBellas are not shown as being with Daniel
Bryan or John Cena on the WWWshows is to me. I don't think
fans are obsessed with it, butI think it. I still think there's
a negative effect because John Cena isportrays himself as John Cena and the Bellas
are still the Bellas. It's justI just think there should be a unified

(01:39:21):
format. I think any other TVshow, if you had two TV shows,
you would have If you had twoTV shows running concurrently with characters playing
different characters but using the same name, I think I think there's a problem
there. It's it's you know,if you had a reality show about the
filming of Modern Family, but they'reall the actors are going based on their

(01:39:43):
real names, but they were usingtheir character names on the TV show.
That makes more sense. But whenI don't know, and I guess They
kind of break from that a littlebit on the Total Diva show by using
their real names in some cases.But I don't think it's doing great damage.
But I just think it kind ofadds to the mock of the problem
with the consistency of the wrestling narrative. Well, I know, I know

(01:40:04):
what an old school guy like JimCornett would say. He would point out
that, you know, there area lot of John Cena has a lot
of female fans, and I don'tknow that I'd be so anxious to show
these fans that, hey, JohnCena has bounced back from his divorce and
he's now in a committed relationship witha girl that we're playing on television as
a total bitch. I don't knowthat I'd be going for that. I

(01:40:25):
don't know that that's something i'd do. No, I agree, I mean
I think I know. And yetat the same time, Total Divas has
turned into a good ratings generator forfor E Network and WWE, and I
got at this earlier, And Iguess my next question for you is,
what about what does success a TotalDiva So far? Ratings wise, they

(01:40:48):
did their second best rating on Funday. What does it mean for www network,
if anything, it means that theycan make the case that look,
look see we can you know,we can. We can put together a
reality show that that people will watchand and you know, could draw some
ratings. I mean, you haveto throw in the fact that they use

(01:41:09):
the reality TV production company that's madeall those MTV shows and has a has
a great track record with it,and maybe WWD doesn't hasn't had that great
track record exactly. Yep, Ithink it does. Frankly, that's about
it. But yeah, but canthey do enough to fill a network in
Is the audience very different between thetwo shows, because I think the audiences
are. But why I'm I'm Haveyou seen any stats out there about what

(01:41:32):
the crossover audience is between Total Divasand and WWB programming. No, I
haven't really, But you know,the when when Summer Slam aired, the
rating for Total Divas wasn't down thatmuch. I mean, and maybe that's
yeah, and uh and maybe that'sjust because you know it was down SummerSlam.

(01:41:53):
Yeah, right, it was down, but it wasn't down. It
wasn't it wasn't down like say rawgoes down on the HOLLI yeah, it
was just, it was just,it was just down. Yeah. Yeah.
The E network though, draws alot of draws a different crowd than
watches wrestling on USA Network, SoI mean, I'm sure there's some crossover,

(01:42:13):
but I don't think it's uh,I don't think it's. One way
that you can help us sustain ourschedule of putting out podcasts throughout the week
is by giving us a five starrating on Apple Podcasts. Just go to
Apple podcast and look for our weightKiller Procesing podcast and Weight Killer Processing post
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(01:42:38):
throughout the week. So take amoment out for us and do us favor
and give us a five star ratingand Apple Podcasts. That helps us on
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a few comments about what you likeabout the programs in the comments section.
Thank you so much, Twitting Gears, Jerry Email, and the Hey guys,

(01:43:00):
I was reading an article that hadan open letter asking for Dixie Carter
to step down as president of TNAWrestling. It got me wondering do you
guys think Eric Bischoff runs TNA morethan Dixie Carter? I mean, not
paying for medical bills, firing someonewho suffered a neck injury. To me,
it smells of Eric Bischoff. Also, what do you think of Dixie
being out a football game and notat Impact. Well, you know,
she'd probably had access to the scriptfor Impact and knew that she'd rather be

(01:43:25):
at the football game. Yeah.I don't think it's a big deal that
she goes to a football game andon Impact. I don't don't think that
should bee bepown out of proportion.But but if it was a habit,
if it happened a lot, Imean, yeah, she should be there.
She should also be at the frontoffice making sure that if the checks
go out on time and that contractsdon't roll over or don't expire. I
mean, there's a lot of thingsthat's president of TNAH she should probably be
more hands on about. So Ican understand people being sensitive to that Eric

(01:43:48):
is influential in TNA pat but Idon't think that the idea of Remember Dixie
Carter's mom and dad own Panda Energy, which owns p and a Dixie Arter
I mean, I guess she couldbe removed as are there pat are there
examples in mainstream sports of uh like, sons of owners running sports teams who

(01:44:13):
maybe shouldn't be That's a that's agood question, I mean, because I
think there's been a history of somebodybeing a son or a son or daughter
of an owner of a sports teamhaving a power position and being removed without
the team shutting down. So Iguess my point is I would think that
there would be a possibility that itsounds far fetched that Dixie could be removed
as president if Janis and Bob thought, you know what, we liked this

(01:44:35):
wrestling thing, but we have somethingelse in mind for Dixie that we think
she'd beat better. Rat But welike this Eric Bischoff guy, he ran
DEVI w Let's just put the responsibilityon his shoulders. Let's make the buck
stop with him. Let's give himthis budget, and let's get him two
years, and let's have this notbe something where maybe we only get a
half effort from Eric or a onethird effort, because you know he's subservient

(01:44:56):
to Dixie. Let's give Eric thekeys to this, to this project.
Let's see what he can do withit. I mean, I'm not saying
I know the relationship with Janison Bobenough to know that they wouldn't tell Dix
that they wouldn't removed Dixie from Power. I don't know that either way.
It's possible they wouldn't, but it'spossible they'd say, yeah, thinks you've
got something else for you. Let'slet's we got momentum with this wrestling thing.
We've come this far. Let's letsomeone else trying to take it to
the next level. Well, Ithink the idea that they have momentum of

(01:45:20):
any sort right now is kind offarm saying what they would say. You
know, we're on Spike TV,and we're going all these arenas, and
we have a million, million anda half people watching this every week.
Let's let's try to take this thisthis level that we have reached. Momentum,
You're right, would be kind ofa disingenuous fantasy word. But let's
we've reached a certain level, wehave a fan base, let's try to

(01:45:41):
build on it with somebody who's donethis before. Right. I mean,
it's possible, it just doesn't seemlikely to me. Yeah, I'm with
you on that. I guess justsaying it's possible, is uh someone who's
really The other email question is somebodywanted to know. I'm trying to find
the No. But I remember whatthey were talking about the writing people off

(01:46:03):
of television. There's a lot ofissue. There's a lot of people who
just disappearing from television, like youknow, Brooke Hogan. I mean,
they did a quick ride off withBrooke Hogan. But it's do you think
that there's been a break from Ithink the phrase was doing the honors?
Uh, there's been too much ofa break from doing the honors when it
comes to when talent leaves, likehaving kind of closure to their storyline.

(01:46:27):
Are we seeing too many examples latelyof that not happening? Just you know,
I wouldn't I wouldn't list Brook Hoganas an example because I don't know
that. I mean, maybe I'mwrong, but I don't know that there
there's that many people sitting at homegoing, boy, I wonder what happened
to that Brook Hogan. She wassaying she was a big part of the
show. But I know what you'resaying. Yeah that uh, yeah,

(01:46:48):
I mean that's yeah, that's agood question. I think that people you've
watched the wrestling for a while,assume that if somebody's off of television for
a while, they might not bearound anymore. But I mean, yeah,
yeah, I mean, well,I mean look at look at Devon.
Devon just uh, you know,Devon just did the job in the
way out. You can't really saythe t you know, you can't really

(01:47:10):
say that they didn't make the mostof him. Yeah, I mean I
think that I think that they're atleast thinking about that. I you know,
but I think there's there's obviously adisconnect of some sort going on between
the people, you know, thetalent relations department who are negotiating the contracts
and determining whose stays and who's goes, and the people who are in charge

(01:47:30):
of putting the show on week toweek. Had have you applied for the
TENA social media manager job that justopened up? Oh? You think I'd
be good at it? I don'tknow. I think it's it's like people
think teenad's going on in business,uh, and now they're hiring us.
I did think people are like,is that really the most important thing TENA
needs to be worried about? Butanyway, Well, have you have you

(01:47:51):
seen some of the things that havehappened in their social media department? You
know what that's true? I guess, Yeah, I guess. I'm I
guess that's a way of looking atit. You know, we're the problems
that we have bad pr Yeah,I guess it's just because it's not the
biggest problem to solve doesn't mean it'snot worth solving. I mean, I
guess that it's fair to say.Right, so they think everyone new grow?

(01:48:11):
All right? My final lot topicfor me, it's Jeff from Michigan.
He wants to know will there everbe equality and pro wrestling for women?
Could a j and an upcoming divaI know made events of pay per
view? Could Gail Kim and MickeyJames headline one for TNA? Well,
any match come close to the magicthat Leeda and Trish had on Raw?
Or if they given up on thatdivision? Already? State of women's wrestling?

(01:48:32):
Yeah, you know what I do? Remember this was back a while
ago that there was a there wasa w W women's title match that that
headlined Raw and I think they treatedas a big deal. Oh wait,
stephaniely McMahon was champion. You know, I think yeah, I mean,
I don't. I don't know.I think it's something that has to be

(01:48:53):
eased into because because you look atUFC, I mean, they treat uh,
I know, people hate it whenwe mentioned they treat Ronda Rowsy and
Mischa Teadismorton that you know, they'vemade it clear the majority of our fighters
or our guys. I think it'sI think it's something that I almost think
the solution is something like you know, what what Dave Kraizak's doing and Shimmer
or or you know or any ofthe other groups that have you know,

(01:49:14):
that are promoting all female wrestling andall female shows. Yeah, yeah,
getty quality. You need to bein a different universe. Now, there's
hope because triplets and Stephanie I thinkonly have daughters, right, that's true.
So maybe you know, like I'mkind of you know, I'm thinking,
what if Shane McMahon's son is kindof small in stature, you know,

(01:49:38):
it just happens to be small intesture. I don't think Shane's weiss is
particularly small, but who knows,you know, whatever, if their son
turns out to be five eight maybein twenty years, maybe you know,
I don't know how there's son theremaybe fifteen twenty years. If he gets
into wrestling and he's a junior heavyweight, a cruiserweight size guy, maybe that
will be enough to give give cruiserweights a chance to get a push.

(01:49:59):
That's about the any time, youknow, you know, I was thinking
about the daughters, and you know, they've they've made a lot of you
know, they've made a lot ofinnovations and that whole uh, you know,
and transgender is being more commonly acceptedthese days. So I wouldn't make
any guarantees there we go, Well, it's looking quite a way as ahead,
but yes, there's that possibility tothat may be what it takes.

(01:50:21):
So no, my answer to that, Jeff is is I would like to
see and I've pitched it and I'vewritten it, and I pushed it.
I said it privately and publicly Isaid about the X division, a cruiserweight
division. I said about the women'sdivision, the slot you are in it
can be a self fulfilling prophecy.And if they put the women in the
main event on Impact once every sixweeks, and if they had the women

(01:50:43):
headline, when they have two goodworkers like Yo Kim and Mickey James,
for instance, who can do apay per view caliber main event if they
actually main evented once a year apay per view, And granted it was
a little more palable when they hadfour or twelve a year rather than just
four, but even if they didone of the four pay per views and
they headlined with a women match,at first, people are like, oh
man, this doesn't feel like amain event, but then all of a
sudden they have a really good match, and the promotion wraps all the hooplah

(01:51:06):
around it and treats it that way. It's what USC did, and there
was some resistance and there still is. But you can actually create a kind
of a self fulfilling prophecy that peoplewould then take women more seriously because anytime
they're on TV, they would say, these aren't just mid card wrestlers.
These are actually part of the mainevent rotation. And sometimes you gotta put

(01:51:27):
the cart before the horse, orwhatever the cliche would work here. You
need to put the women in amain event even before they're precede a main
of entors, because that's a necessarystep to getting fans to precede them as
main of ventors. So it's acatch twenty two, but it can also
be a self fulfilling prophecy if theydo it. But it's probably not likely
to happen. But TNA is morelikely to do it than w w E,
that is without question, no matterhow big Total Divas gets, Pat,

(01:51:49):
I do not see one of themonthly paper views being headlined by a
deva's match. Well, I meanyou would need more than six women on
the TENA roster, and out ofthose, I mean six six female wrestlers,
and one of whom Last day Hoodwas pregnant. So yeah, there
needs to be some changes. Althoughthis is the weekend, as you know

(01:52:10):
why, Tomorrow is the premiere ofTNA one night only, the All Knockouts
pay per bill. Yeah, it'sgood timing, very good reference. Yes,
yeah, well you know what youdid. You can show support for
for the Knockouts and make your statementwith your pocketbook by buying that event and
sending ten A message that you wantto see the wind wrestling. That's one
way to go about it. Yeah. Well it's not available on direct TV,

(01:52:32):
but you can order it on YouTube. Yes, yes, okay,
that's roight, uh, Pat,any any anything else you want to talk
about before you wrap up today,any subject burning a hole in your wallet?
Well, oh no, no,no, nothing burning a hole in
my wallet. And fact that thankyou very much for for that thing we

(01:52:55):
don't talk about. And but yeah, yeah, no, see I'm trying
to thank you for anything important.It's it's football season. Which football season,
Pro football season America starts tonight.Which will you know, for one
of the better terms impact the ratingsof raw and uh impact and uh yeah,
and I mean college football occasionally impactssnackdown, but I don't think that's

(01:53:18):
very likely. But it's something thatwe're gonna be watching closely over the next
few months. It will be yep, and uh, Baltimore and Denver,
I guess, uh the rivalry thatcould draw and uh and yeah it could
hurt impact. Then it's just pentup NFL fan you know, pent up
fans, NFL fans all pent upenergy, wanting to see a football game

(01:53:41):
that counts, and the whole playbackplaybook being unleashed and all of that.
It it's gonna be uh, it'sgonna be interesting how it affects tenampact ratings
tonight. It will just like welearned a little bit, a little bit
from Total Diva's on Summer Sime Sunday. Well, we'll see once again what
that what the ramifications are of thaton TNA tonight. Although it's worth noting
that, you know, Kena's ratings, you know, usually stay pretty consistent

(01:54:03):
year round. So I'll say,well, that's and that's part of the
you know, part of it.Won't call them myths, but the factor
that people discount too much, whichis TV viewership overall goes way up in
the fall, and so there's alot more people to choose from to draw
to drawing assistant audience. Even whenyou have stiffer competition. People have come

(01:54:25):
back from their vacations and are goingoutdoors less and kids are going to school,
and it's just it's people get intoa different routine it and evolves more
TV. So yeah, you're right, it might not be a big blow.
Well, Pat, it's been fun. We'll I'm glad you're able to
join me today. I was kindof leaning towards going solo, and I
thought, you know, I haven'tdone a life cast with Pat in a

(01:54:45):
very long time, and it's alwaysfun to do. So yeah, I
appreciate you thinking of time and nowyou remember and now you remember why,
so right now, don't get Iappreciate I appreciate it. Wait, it
was a little weird not hosting becauseI you know, I'm going, I'm
reaching to push a button. I'mlike, no, no, I'm the
guest. No. I's always feelwhen James says yeah. James has hosted
a couple of times on Tuesdays andI've kicked back and Ben Ben the analysts,

(01:55:10):
And it is weird when you're notyou know, you're waiting, You're
waiting for some of the throw toyou and then U you know, you're
you're you're not having to worry aboutcalls and emails and deciding if you open
the chat room or not. Andit's, uh, it's it's good,
but it does feel it feels alittle empty. You feel like you know
you should be doing more. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

(01:55:31):
Yeah, very cool. Well,thanks to the VIP members as always
for joining us today and supporting whatwe do in Your individual paid membership is
what makes it possible for us todo all the great things we do at
p W Torch vi IP and wevery much appreciate your support. Pat,
thank you very much. Well,thank you win, and do you want
to do the sign off? Allright? Well, I guess I said,

(01:55:58):
uh this is uh so I waitto tell us Pat McNeil reminding you
to keep your feet on the groundand keep shooting for the stars. Good
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10 YRS AGO - FLAGSHIP: Keller & McNeill assess Triple H Power Trip angle dominating Raw & SD, where do Bryan, Orton, Big Show, go from here

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}10 YRS AGO - FLAGSHIP: Keller & McNeill assess Triple H Power Trip angle dominating Raw & SD, where do Bryan, Orton, Big Show, go from here