10 YRS AGO - FLAGSHIP: Keller & Powell on whether Bryan's eventual title win mean much, new Heyman Guy, Raw and Night of Champions fallout - Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Wade fifty to get fifty percent offnow. Pw Dorgan Spreaker bring you the
Wade Killer Pro Wrestling podcast ten yearsago. This week, Jason Powell for

(02:38):
Pro Wrestling dot Net and the ProgressingBoom Podcast joined me on the Flakeship.
It live streamed originally on September seventeen, twenty thirteen. We took live calls
and emails on a variety of topics, including the fallout from Night of Champions
and Raw. We talked about whetherDaniel Bryan's eventual title win will end up
meaning much. Also with tena goback to the Impact own, will there

(03:00):
be a new Hayman Guy? Andmore so, let's get to it.
This is the Waight Keller Pro WrestlingPodcast ten years ago. Flakeship Flashback for
Wednesday, September twentieth, twenty twentythree. Welcome you people. It is
Tuesday. I can't do it.I can't introduce it like Pat only Patting
Neil can introduce a live caap likePett and Meal. This is Wade Keller,

(03:23):
editor and publisher of the Progress andTorch newsletter since nineteen eighty seven,
and also pwtorch dot com our mainwebsite and our pwtorch apps available on pretty
much every smart device in the entireuniverse to search pwtorch to grab it or
and also host of the pwtorch livecast. We are on five and sometimes six

(03:43):
days a week on pay per viewweeks. We're here Monday through Friday,
Mondays in the hour before raw andTuesday through Friday at five thirty Eastern for
an hour or so. This islive. We are live, although most
people listen to us on delay,which is understandable and just fine with us.
But we are ready to take yourphone calls and talk about last night's
row on all the news in wrestling. Our phone number is six four,
six seven, two one nine eightto eight that is six four, six,

(04:08):
seven, two one nine eight twoeight. And also we'll take your
email questions at pw Torch Live castat gmail dot com. Right now,
I oddly am showing absolutely nobody wantsto talk to us with a lot of
people on hold, so we mighthave a problem with our switchboard, so
we'll keep an eye out on that. But anyway, let's bring into the
program our Tuesday co host of theshow just about every Tuesday, Pro Wrestling

(04:31):
dot Net's very own Jason Powell.Jason, welcome to the show. Hey,
great to be here. Wade Nighta Champions on Sunday Night, an
eventful show and then a sad beginningfor Danny Bryan fans, but a happy
ending for Danny Bryan fans on RAWon Monday. So we have a lot
to talk about regarding that. Also, right back now, teaming with Paul

(04:51):
Hayman, Paul Hayman kissing him onthe cheek and saying he owes his life
to ry back. A change indynamic from a Paul Hayman guy who Paul
Hayman personally selected to now someone whokind of selected Paul Hayman. That's an
interesting talking point for today's show.Also, first though, Jason, I
want to talk about the breaking news, which is the ratings for RAW.

(05:13):
I think wwe should be happy withthis. The only caveat being you would
expect ratings to be up the dayafter a pay per view. But your
first reaction to last night's three pointzero rating when you round it to the
tenth, it came in just anotch under three point zero. When you
bring it out to the one onehundredth spot two point nine six rating,
that is up from the two pointnine one last week and the two point

(05:33):
eight five the week before. Yourquick thoughts on that rating kind of more
of the same. I mean,they didn't go against a doublehead or they
went against a single game, andthey managed to go up a little bit.
It wasn't you say? It wasSincy in Pittsburgh playing and it's a
decent attraction most years. But it'skind of a down year for the Steelers,
So I don't know that. Ihaven't seen the Monday Night Football rating

(05:55):
yet to see if their viewership wentup or not, but I don't WW
coming off a paperview, I they'llprobably take that number. Yeah, there's
nothing to celebrate. About though.Yeah, you're a little more sober about
it than nine. But that's probablybecause I just I still see this three
hour raw and just keep waiting forDuring football season, the rating routinely dropped
to two five, two six,two seven. Sure. Anything above that
I see, I think is awin for them, just based on the

(06:17):
fact that I think it's kind ofamazing that they can get on average four
million people to watch for three hours, you know, and that they haven't
burned out the audience a little bitmore, you know. And I go
back more than a year and kindof thinking this three hour raw was going
to end up being, and I'lladmit it more of a ratings disaster than
it's turned out to be. Ithink it probably has some negative ramifications on

(06:38):
other aspects of their business because Ithink people just get a little burned out
on the product, you know.Is it a bit of a negative though
that they were question marks regarding thetitle with the fast count coming out of
the pay per view and they didn'tgo up more. You know. That's
if you buy into their whole theorythat, oh, social media is going
to be going crazy for twenty fourhours, and social media is going to
drive a rating when I just don'tthink there's evidence at social media it drives

(07:00):
ratings. I'm not against social mediaengagement. I mean, you do it
on Twitter, and I do youknow we do it here at the Torch
on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube forthat matter. It's not really social media,
but but I mean we believe inthat, you know, I believe
in it. I think it's anet positive. But I don't think you
should be booking finishes or expecting differentratings based upon doing one thing on a
Sunday night that will lead to asocial media buzz that will then result in

(07:25):
in a noticeably higher rating. Idon't believe that. I need some numbers
to show me a compelling evidence thatthat happens. So I think social media
is in net gain Jason, butyou definitely should not be booking around booking
a pay per view finished thinking oh, this social media will be a buzz
and we'll improve the audience because ofit. Well, and I also you
have to wonder most people I thinkjust kind of assumed there's gang of Ryan's

(07:47):
not coming away with the championship oneway or another. Yeah, And you
know, I don't think that helpedtheir cost. I was stunned on Sunday
when they wait until the pay perview starts to announce that no one can
interfere in the main event. Itwouldn't that be something you do on leading
up to the pay per view onraw and make a big fuss over that
you're going to find out who thebetter man is, rather than waiting until

(08:09):
everyone who's going to buy the payper view has already bought it and then
make that announcement. It makes itseem like they're booking on the fly.
And I think world title matches especiallyshould not be given that feeling. It
should feel like you don't change therules on the day of the game.
You know, you wouldn't change therules on the day of a big game
or a big fight in real sports. And I just think it's the kind
of shoddy I think one of thethings we see about Triple H is that

(08:31):
we're seeing about Triple H and I'myou know, giving him more credit and
more blame. Things go, well, I'm giving him more credit than two
years ago, when five years agoobviously, and same thing with blame.
You know, he's going to havemore accountability and his face is on TV
and when he speaks now, notonly is he a co boss along with
Stephanie and Vince, but he can'tsay, well, I didn't look at

(08:52):
that script or I would have saidit differently. So when he's out there,
he's not only the performer Triple hnow, but he's the one of
the three heads of the wrestling productand really more involved in Stephanie by his
own words in the Grant Light interview. So he's one of the two people
most in charge. So when hedoes something on camera, I pay real
close attention, and I think it'sworth reading into every layer you can about

(09:15):
the choices he makes when he talksabout when he presents a storyline, and
so I think we're seeing some goodthings from them, some bad things on
them. One of the bad thingsis, yeah, changing it on the
fly. The other thing that Ididn't like about that is every single world
title match without a special stipulation inall of history was interference is not allowed?

(09:37):
Right? What world title match?Was the presumption outside interference is allowed.
Never that is not the presumption.The presumed rule is outside interference is
illegal. So Triple Ach actually didn'tchange anything. Every title match. If
somebody interferes. It's a dq well, of course, but when Triple A
is the one making the rules andis willing to send people out there to

(10:00):
screw Daniel Bryan over, I mean, I get what they were trying to
do. Again, I just thinkyou make that announcement leading into the pay
per view, and I don't evenmean on the pre show, I mean
on raw, and I think youshow more paper view. I think they
left some I think some buyers skippedthis show thinking now they're just gonna screw
over Daniel Brian all all the wayto brill on to sell. Maybe he
gets it there, And I totallygrant you your point, totally agree with

(10:22):
it, And I mean, Ithink that's a good point, and they
should have planned had enough to doit. I still I'm just kind of
a separate plane. Still have anissue with that. He needed to explain
better how this is different than whatevery wrestling fan should have assumed the rules
were in the first place. AndI think what you're saying is, well,
he's Triple H. Because he's TripleH, his rulings make more of
a difference. But if I'm backstageand Triple H is proposing that and I'm

(10:46):
someone who's allowed to speak freely tohim without ramifications, and he goes,
hey, I think I'm gonna announcethat no interference is allowed. My follow
up question would be, but everyWorld Title match interference isn't allowed, So
you need to explain what that means. What happens to someone interferes. It's
just a DQ. Well who cares? I mean? So so there it's
a DQ. I wanted to hearmore detail from him, and that's kind
of where I'm leading what happens ifsomebody defies you? Because since when it's

(11:09):
WWE full of people who follow therules, wrestlers are known for kind of
being out allowed to do their ownthing, except for when they're told not
to cross the line on a stage. So I want a Triple to explain
to me more, how is thisruling by you different than every single World
title match in all of WWF history, where there, I mean, interference
is always illegal. So I neededsomething more tangible to tell me there won't
be interference, not just because TripleH said it's illegal, but what were

(11:31):
the ramifications of someone does That's justa little attention to detail that Sometimes I
think he's kind of sloppy on.Oh, they're very sloppy and a lot
of little things these days. It'syou know, and I thought Night of
Champions was their worst show of theyear. I don't even think it's close.
It just was a throwaway pay perview. They didn't do anything to

(11:52):
make anyone think going into the showthat they were going on a Daniel Bryan
walkaway with the championship swerve. Theyactually did, and then no one thought
it was going to stick anyway.It just Sunday Night was. It left
me with a really bad tage inmy mouth. And I think they're really
lucky they had a good, livelycrowd in Cleveland last night. It just
made everything feel a little more importantthan it did and certainly the night before.
Yeah, I'm with you. Ithought the whole first two hours and

(12:16):
two and a half hours was throwaway. I mean throw away in the sense
that you could have seen it onyou know, you could what tape the
next three weeks of main event onWednesdays and have three hours of wrestling.
That's probably pretty equivalent from a newsworthystandpoint and a quality standpoint. You know,
just some okay, some okay,someone that's okay and a few okay,

(12:37):
and a couple of good matches thatreally just go poof. And I
think part of the problem, andI don't know if people will ever kind
of catch on to it annually,but not a champions is a prequel to
the pay per V three weeks laterand then another one three weeks later.
That's a climax. So we kindof bought a pay per view that was
almost an episode of Raw. Youhad the big interview segment at the beginning,

(12:58):
some filler match in a main event. I mean, it felt more
like a row throw when the factthat they actually aired commercials during the pay
per view and it really almost waslike a RAW. Oh it was,
yeah, should as Triple H cameout. I mean, I think my
buddy Pooch was joking about it beforethe show, right before that, you
know something with Triple H, andwe just cracked up when he came out.
It totally was row yep, yep, and so and by the way,

(13:20):
w W, we might think,hey, every little bit helps,
let's add some revenue, you know, if we can, if we can
get an autoparts chain to give ussome extra money to put a commercial on
the show, you know, isit really going to matter. It's I
think it's going to matter to somepeople. I think people when they order
a pay per view, it isa thirty year tradition right now, it's
a thirty year tradition. When youorder a pay per view, you'll accept

(13:41):
something wrestling related, you know,you know, it's kind of just a
buffer. It's fifteen thirty second spota buffer. But when you start advertising
an autoparts chain in the middle ofa pay per view, people take note
of that, and I think itshifts away at some of the good will
and I think people get offended bythat. And I mean USC has run
into that. People hate those movietrailers that they put on pay per view.

(14:03):
It's probably you know, it's notenough, and you'll see if there's
a big fight that someone wants tosee to say no to it. But
I just don't know that that tradeoffis worth it. It's just one of
them. It's like WrestleMania going upten bucks this year. They keep pushing
the envelope in every way to makejust to get a little bit more money
everywhere, and pretty soon stands startto feel more like it is what WW

(14:24):
is. But you want to hideit. It's they feel like they're a
consumer who's just there so ww wecan make money off of them. And
while that's true, you want tomake that not seem like it's the case.
And I think that commercial chips awayat it. It does. You
know, it's one thing if youwant to just say not a champion sponsored
by filling the automatoor. Yeah,when you run the actual commercial, it

(14:45):
is a turnoff. They're They're numbingme to it though, like as I'm
just getting used to it, andpart of it is, you know,
I hope. Yeah, And becauseI see every pay per view and I
have to I don't have to sitthere and judge whether or not that's enough
of a turnoff. Then I'm goingto say, sure you next time I'm
may be on a pay per view, but I'm sure there are some people
out there that they do get tiredof that. I'll just think, you
know, when you sit down,here you go, man, it's Sunday

(15:07):
night. I'm kind of excited tosee what happens in two or three of
these matches, and I know ifI sit down, I'm going to just
see three hours of good wrestling.You know, if people kind of sense.
On pay per view, the matchesare a little more prestigious than on
SmackDown on Raw, our main event. You know, there's a little more
historically significant. We remember them more. They come out on DVD. Raw
doesn't. It's just everything about ithas a little more prestige. And there's

(15:28):
all I think. There's just thisyou know, unconscious checklist of eight or
ten or twelve things that make peoplewho are on the fringe that makes a
pay per view a failure or asuccess that group of people, and they
have a checklist in their head.They don't go over it explicitly, but
there's something that tips them to buyingit and something that tips them from not
buying it. And I think whenWWE adds a commercial, you know,

(15:48):
an actual third party commercial I havenothing to do with wrestling, it takes
away something that makes people feel likethey're getting something special for their money.
It's like it's like if you buya first class plane ticket and you it
down and everybody in first class isstreeted the same way as the people back
and coach, It's like, yeah, there's a couple of things a better
you know better, the seats arebigger, But if everything else is the
same. You start going, well, maybe I don't want first class anymore

(16:11):
because I wanted that hot towel,or I wanted that that dedicated flight attendant
as opposed to the one who justworks back both the back end the front.
And that's all I'm saying is Ithink pay per view should be a
first class experience, and I thinkWWS be careful about it. But anyway,
thanks for listening to our podcast.Did you know we also have a
website pwtorch dot com daily news updates, editorials, and my live TV coverage

(16:34):
covering Raw Dynamite and SmackDown and mylive pay per view coverage for WWE and
a EW. Create a tab orbookmark make it a daily stop. Visit
us throughout the day every day tokeep up on breaking news and more.
That's pwtorch dot com. We gota good number of email questions already in

(16:57):
including a VIP members letting us knowthat they're calling into the show. And
Uh, speaking of which, Jason, why don't we move into our first
call of the day from a VIPmember And uh, this is uh christoher
Oklahoma City, Chris, appreciate yourcall. Just confirm your name and where
you're from. And uh, let'sknow what you're telling about. Uh Chris

(17:18):
from Ratlos City. Oh, sorryabout that. Cool? Now it's okay.
I have two questions, real fuss. One of'em is it already
making us want to Cheaterbilts because theway I see he's he's pretty hill,
but he's for the pop and it'smaking me confused and what they're trying to
pull on that. And the secondquestion is have they ran out ran the

(17:44):
gas out of fans considering they've hadtwo finishes where Davie Brian supposedly won to
Tible and he used to taken awayfrom him, So our fans going to
buy when he does, I'm sureAnd Chris don't go it was your question.
Is Triple H playing a heel?Yeah? I mean I got you
know, that's the only part Ididn't here. I heard everything else.

(18:06):
I just want to be sure Ididn't answered. Yeah, that's okay,
Jason, I'll throw you first onit. The we'll go backwards two finishes
with Daniel Bryan. We saw thiswith the Road Warriors and it's it's a
famous moment in Jim Crockett promotions history. I think it was. I think
it was at ninety eighty nine,could have been a little earlier. But
the Road Road Warriors against arn AndTally, they were going to win the

(18:27):
take. They won the take teamtitles, and it was a dusty finish
where one ref count of the pinand the other ref said, no,
I d I dqued the champs earlier, and so the Belts go back to
arn and Tally and it killed Chicagofor Crockett, like it was one time
too many that the fans celebrated andit had the rug pulled out from under
them and the dusty finish. Forpeople who don't know, Dusty Rhodes was

(18:48):
booker of Crockett Promotions for years andwhen he what what he liked to do
is give the fans a sense thathey, the baby Face one and got
pinned, but there would be aref bump a few minutes earlier. But
the ref who got knocked out sawnin fraction. But the referee was knocked
out and couldn't call for the belland call for the DQ, so a
second ref comes out. The matchcontinues for seconds or minutes, and the

(19:10):
baby Face gets a pinfall and asannounce him as a champion, he celebrates
and then the original ref comes toand tells the old other f no,
no, no, I got knockedout, but I was about to disqualify
someone, so no title change.So the rugs pulled out from under him
on the celebration that is known asa dusty finish. What they're doing with
Daniel Bryan is not that far offfrom that, Jason, How big of
a concern is it now two monthsin a row that they're doing it.

(19:33):
Are they're more positives than negatives?I don't think they're more positive than negatives.
I don't care if Daniel Bryan winsa championship again. That's the effect
it's had on me. I sawhim do it at SummerSlam. I saw
him do it on Sunday night,and I really didn't even have a desire
to see him. I just kindof settled in Gonka, there's going to
be a screwy finish whatever, andthen he wins, and there's it wasn't
just oh say it was. Thecrowd is kind of like, did that

(19:56):
just gonna happen? Oh? Yeah? There was kind of like a lull.
They just sat there waiting for thatother shoe to drop and it didn't,
and so I mean people were happywith it. But whenever the time
comes, assuming that he actually doesget a real run with the title,
they've deprived themselves from a strong reactionfor that. I mean, they can
set this up, Helen a cell. No matter what happens, it sticks,

(20:17):
We're gonna find out once and forall who the better man is.
And they can do something with TripleH and Shawn Michaels to guarantee that it's
gonna stick, and they've still deprivedthemselves. I didn't even like giving it
to him in the first place atSummerSlam, I didn't think I thought that
was a foolish decision, and Ithink this is certainly another one. I
just don't know how people can beall fired up about the idea of seeing

(20:40):
Daniel Brian win again. What doesit mean? Even I'm with you,
I think it takes something away fromit now. Now to counter that,
though, what about the fact thatat the end of Raw, it was
just this great scene, crowd goingabsolutely nuts. The mid car locker room
and lower card ran out made thesave. They weren't scared for their jobs
because apparently Tripleah didn't get around tosaying you're fired if you run up the

(21:00):
stage this week like you did afew weeks ago and Danny Brown celebrating and
it seemed like three hours later.The crowd it's not like they don't still
love Daniel Bryan. They're going nutsfor him. So how does that play
into the argument it's Danil Brown reallypopular, but you're just saying, hey,
the title switch aspect of it iskind of watered down. Now.
It's watered down now, I doworry. I mean, I'm starting to

(21:22):
feel like Daniel Bryan's act is gettinga little repetitive. I mean, this
is a guy that we've seen himRing of Honor and do a million different
things, and we know what he'scapable of. In WWE, he's hitting
like two suicide dives per match,throwing about eighty five kicks per match,
running drop kicks, and then theguest lock, and I guess the need
of the face now it's getting heI want to see a little more variety

(21:44):
from Daniel Bryan too. When we'reseeing him wrestle in almost every television main
event right now, it's I'm startingto just feel like it's repetitive and I
you know, I don't know ifthey average fans are he's still super over,
but I do worry they're like,if they keep doing this, they
keep exposed him working this same styleof Max so much it's going to have
a negative effect. That's interesting too, because it's kind of what happened with

(22:07):
Ray Mysterio. You know, RayMasterio had this just incredible, incredible array
of moves in Mexico. I wentdown to Tijuana, Mexico and some work
at the Bowl Ring down in Tijuanaback in the early nineties, and it
was just you know, and allthe videotapes that I got before I ever
saw him live and in person.And then he went to ECW briefly,
and then WCW just totally brought upthe athletic cool quotients of Nitro with the
type of moves that he was doingand Ultimo Dragon and Eddie Garreo doing his

(22:30):
thing. I just I'm such afan of athletic wrestlers who do things athletically,
who are positioned in a somewhat meaningfulspot. You can make it.
You can make an impact doing athleticmoves and not being positioned as it being
important. But it means even moreexponentially when you're part of something that matters.
And British Bulldogs in the mid eightieson Saturday Nights made events on NBC.

(22:52):
When I'd watched them against the DreamTeam Greg Melentine and British Peatcake or
the Heart Foundation, I just wasamazed. I had at that point in
my life seeing Dynamite kids work withTiger Mask in Japan yet. But I'm
a big fan of people who,let me say put my personal taste.
I believe is good for business whensomeone who's athletically gifted is allowed to showcase

(23:12):
that. So when Ray Mystereo decidedto kind of go more WWE style,
and ww style is you don't throwa bunch of you don't throw every move
in you have, Like you justnamed him, probably six things you're known
for. Every fan can say,here's six things that I look forward to
in his match. Philosophically, that'swhat they do. But I think when
somebody as specialist Daniel Bryan comes aroundyou and you have him featured as often

(23:36):
as they do, not on televisionagainst so many people, it's important and
I agree with you, Jason,to have him take advantage of being able
to shake it up more. Raywas later in his career than Daniel Bryan
in terms of physically being broken down, and I kind of understood Ray kind
of go into some signature spots andtrying to lengthen his career because he was
so beat up. Daniel Bryan,I don't sense is close to that stage

(23:57):
yet, So I'm with you andJason. The main event on Night of
Champions was a good match, butI was touting it beforehand. Does a
potential match of the Year candidate andBrian are going to come out try to
tear the house down because it's afirst pay per view that is just there's
no big gimmick match and there's noJohn Cena. That doesn't happen very often
over the years in recent years.I thought they were going to just try

(24:17):
to go out there and make fansgo a non John Cena headline pay per
view Without a big gimmick concept match, you miss something special and instead we
gotta just a decent, you know, less than twenty minute raw main event.
You know, it didn't feel likethey tried to make that special,
and part of it is I thinkwhat you said that it felt like we've
seen this all before. Yeah,it was the same style match we've seen

(24:37):
him work on television Whitely, whichseth Rawlins and Dana Ambrose and the list
goes on. It's you know,I get why they have the w W
E style, why they do limitthose moves. They really understand that.
But like you, I think whena guy like Danian Bryan, just because
he's on TV so much, there'sjust no reason when he has the repertoire
moves that he does that you can'tturn him a little bit, turn them

(25:00):
loose a little bit more and seeon pay per view definitely, And I
would even say on television two.I think you could make that part of
his gimmick is that he's able todo all of these other things. There's
got to be a way to phraseit where it doesn't make everyone else seem
inferior, but it actually makes himseem special that he's pulling these moves out
that people don't expect from him allthe time. Rather, I mean,
I think they're just so into hethrows a kick in the crowd. Chance,

(25:23):
yes, because it's you know,they're seeing him twice a year,
maybe that oh this is great,and if you're a regular viewer of the
product. I do think it justit starts to run its course quicker than
it does for you know, thatlive crowd that just wants to be there
to yell yes twice a year,yep, exactly. Yeah. And that's
that's the thing too, is Ithink wrestling promoters go, well, look
at how the crowd reacted. Itmust be fine. You know, we

(25:45):
must be in great shape. AndI think a crowd reaction is important.
I don't think a great crowd shouldbe I think the best crowds can make
you think you're doing a better jobthan yard, and I think the worst
crowds can make you think you're doingworst than yar. And that's why I
don't think you should overreact too muchto any one week's crowd. But I
think every the last six crowds,you take out the best crowd and the
worst crowd, and then look atthe middle four. How are those middle

(26:06):
four reacting, and kind of averageit all out. I think that's a
good judge of how over your productis. Because some cities are just going
to be hungrier and routier and morecooperative, and some are just going to
be drab and doll and law forall kinds of reasons, so that can
be a judge your product. Butthe people who you're really catering to is
are the TV viewers who see youa week after week, and that's where
I think TV ratings are more importantthan the live crowd reaction. And I

(26:29):
don't disqualify the crowd reaction. I'mjust saying it's less of a factor when
booking, and you're right, DanielBryan being over it's because fans live once
or twice a year, first timein their lives for a lot of them
to throw their arms in the airand do the Anthony Robbins yes, yes,
yes, bit that Diego Sanchez popularizedand Daniel Bryant picked up on rather
organically. I don't think it's acopycat thing. But but yeah, the

(26:51):
crowd's going to do that, butit doesn't necessarily mean your ratings of your
by rate are going to be up. So I think you have to look
at each category and put human brainpowerinto it, not just think the numbers
tell the whole story or the decibellevel, and one crowd tells a story.
So I agree with that. Howabout his other question, Jason Triple
h is he trying to be aheel? That's the other thing in my
At the beginning of the show,I said, there's things about Triple H

(27:11):
that are really worth studying because he'snot he's the co promote, the one
of the two top influential people behindthe scenes. But we get to see
his philosophy on air. You know, what kind of attention to detail does
he have? How good is heat explaining his own booking rules or his
own booking How does he execute hisown booking ideas? And you know,
there's mixed signals and I'm not Idon't think that our caller Chris and I

(27:34):
are the only ones thinking why ishe putting himself in a position for us
to go to have to choose betweenhim and Paul Hayman. You know,
Bruce Mitchell and Pat McNeil on theroundtable on Sunday night, the VIP roundtable
we did right after the pay perview for over an hour, didn't think
that was a big deal. Youknow, well, you know it's fence.
You know, it's not a bigdeal. They didn't seem like to
think it was as a big ofa deal as I did. I think

(27:55):
when you're trying to get Triple his trying to get himself over as a
just the most evil heel authority figure. And you've got Triple Paul Hayman in
this other universe who you're trying tosell tickets because you want fans to want
to see see him punk destroy him. Those two shouldn't be sharing a screen
together because you don't want to putfans in a position to search for the
more sympathetic of the two figures,right. And I'll add to that by

(28:18):
saying, I think Triple hs aregetting too cute. I think he's On
Sunday night, it was there,he's gonna make it seem like he's doing
giving people what they want. Andon Monday night it was, oh,
I really want to do the rightthing, but oh that referee with the
fast count, I just can't.It's it's too cute, you know,
I don't think there's he's trying to. On Sunday, it didn't leave me.

(28:41):
It just left me wondering, like, are they hitting the reset button
on this? As he turning faceand I assumed it was now there's you
know, they're just gonna do thetitle switch on Monday. But I mean
that just shouldn't be the way peopleare thinking. I think, if you're
going to be a heel, bea heel, stop being so cute.
I mean stephan and McMahon right nowis not being cute, but she being

(29:03):
Yeah, she's being cold and ruthless. And I think that's how Triple A
should be. I agree, Ireally do agree with that. And some
people say, well and breaking badthough there's still people who like Walter White
after all he's done, and I'mlike, Raw is not a show where
there's fourteen episodes or sixteen episodes ayear, fifteen minutes long, carefully crafted

(29:23):
and meticulously scripted, built around fouror five main characters, with the top
writers in the world. It's it'sa show that has to come up with
six hours of material fifty two weeksout of the year, year after year
after year, with an ensemble castwith some stars, but but a much
deeper roster. It you can't havethe same nuances in wrestling characters that you
do on the very top shelf TVshows. So and I think sometimes there's

(29:45):
there's been a bad influence of thesegreat era of TV dramas on these premium
cable stations off broadcast network. There'sbeen a negative influence on wrestling because I
think now people think, oh yeah, it's all about new wance, it's
all about there's a bad guy,but there's a bright side. There's a
bad guy, but he's funny andyou laugh at him. In wrestling,
I really think the formula works whenyou're consistently not challenged on whether you like

(30:11):
this guy or don't like this guy. It's just it's a genre and a
it's a formula that it's a genrethat needs that formula of consistency. And
you're right, Stephanie has it down. If she had never been on television
before. And finally Vince's daughter madeher debut, and this is what she
was, Like, My god,what a awful, horrible, evil person

(30:32):
she comes across as now and withTriple H, you're kind of waiting for
that funny one liner that makes youremember why you loved X. I'd rather
see her in his role. I'drather she would just shove Triple H to
the side. And I think itwould feel fresh because Triple H and stuff.
You know, we've we've been downthat road before. One other thing
I didn't care for last night,Wade I mean, I'm happy they got

(30:52):
to the point where the baby Facesdecided to stand up for themselves. I
think they could have played this alittle bit differently, because right now it
looks like Daniel Brian and all thoseother baby faces, where if one guy
had been the first one to standup and do the right thing, I
think that guy would have gained somethingfrom that, and then another guy does
the same, and then you getto the part where everybody else jumps on

(31:14):
board with them. I love thatpoint. I didn't I didn't think of
it last night, but it's it'sa great point that if something truly significantly
positive was going to come from whatI think was an awful, shortsighted tunnel
vision decision to emasculate almost everybody onthe roster, on the baby Face in
some heels, even standing on thatstage. Do not cross this line if
you're going to get something out ofit. It was the way for Triple

(31:37):
H to say I told you soto the critics like us of that decision.
To do that. The way todo that is to come out of
it with one person who would nothave been over, who's now over for
really stepping up and being that guy, and you're right by having the whole
mid car to run out. It'slike, I mean, Justin Gabriel is
as much a hero as anybody fordoing it. It was okay, let's

(32:00):
all run out, so you know, and I just I wrote in the
Torch News on a couple of weeksback, they could have turned way Barrett
baby face and he would have beenkind of that badass, ruthless street fighting
guy from the streets who's got kindof that that kind of that level of
credibility. Had he said this iseven too much for me, You're too
much, fans would have gone like, yeah, he's a jerk, but
he's our jerk, and I believehe can stand up to Triple because he's

(32:22):
ruthless enough, and he could havegotten himself over as a baby face.
It's just one of half a dozenscenarios you could come up with that would
work. But this is not theidea. One of the group running out
for the reasons you said, soa great point. Yeah, and even
Cody when he ended up, youknow, having his issues with Tripleach and
Randy Orton, it was almost likehe said the wrong thing and was kind
of regretful. No, say thewrong thing and mean it, you know,

(32:45):
get under their skin, say it, say it with purpose, and
then people see you as a rebel. Yes, yep. Well, put
v IP sale alert. We're runninga sale going into all In and All
Out as we conclude the summer,and you can get nine dollars off any
VP subscription, which brings a onemonth subscription down to just ninety nine cents.

(33:05):
Just go to Pwtorch dot com,slash go Viip choose a traditional VP
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(33:29):
But if you think they're going toremain friends coming out of all In,
then use coupon code Friends. Sothe choices are MGF, Friends or Coal,
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(33:50):
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Go VIP that will include are allin Post Event v IP exclusive round table
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(34:12):
and a ton of other content.And that also includes my forty minute Keller
Conversation VAP exclusive with Sean Waltman thisweek talking about Terry Funk, who he
wrestled ten years ago, by theway, at an indie show and also
was on shows with him early inhis career and grew up a fan of
his. So again, that's pwtorgedot com slash Go VIP and then enter
coupon code m JFF if you thinkhe's turning heel, Cole if you think

(34:34):
he's turning heel, or friends ifyou think they stay friends. By the
way, if you want to letpeople know, we're basically are going back
and forth with callers, and we'regonna take emails to talking about certain things
on Sunday Night to Night of Championsand last night's Raw if you are not
a paid member of what we do, and we do the show because we

(34:54):
love talking about wrestling, but it'sa way to promote how we make our
living and are able to put thetime in that we do to this product
full time, and that is throughsubscriptions. Jason has his membership side at
pros and dot net PW Torch asa VP membership PW Torch v IP members
on Sunday night got to hear veryshortly after the pay per view ended two
different well the VP Roundtable Show withtwo columnist Bruce Mitchell and Pat McNeil joining

(35:17):
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including an in depth breakdown of theridiculous polls that they did and that was
put up the same night as apay per view, and so whether you're
up late or getting up the nextmorning, you've got some voices, you
know, people who've been covering thisindustry in some cases for twenty and twenty
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(35:38):
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wait until Tuesday and and getting thatimmediate response. Also last night, after
Raw, as soon as Raw wasover, I recorded close to forty minute
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So that's just an example of oneof the reasons for two dollars and
fifty cents a week ten bucks amonth, but you know, less than

(36:01):
two fifty a week you get youget tons and tons of purchases at the
IP member, including that ability tohave that after show. Right after shows
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Torch, just go to Pwtorch dotcom slash go vip. That's Pwtorch dot

(36:25):
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sense that there's a lot that wedo that you can get for free,
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(36:45):
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go to our back issue section,select the year, select the month,
select the issue number, and readmy cover story written on it. Bruce
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has been together for a long timeand writing about these stories. Bruce Mitchell
goes back to nineteen ninety I goback to when I launched the Torch brand

(37:07):
in nineteen eighty seven. There's tonsand tons of archives plus new stuff besides
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three page in depth article on TNAand how and we're gonna talk about that,
jetson two TNA and changes that theycould make in order to become sustainable

(37:32):
in the long term, and there'smany scenarios. Once again, into the
specifics, you lose some people becausethey're like, oh, I don't like
that little detail. I don't likethat little detail, but I put it
out there. I put out avery detailed, specific plan about what I
felt TENA could do to differentiate themselvesfrom WWE, so those comparisons were no
longer there because they'd be so different. Dixie Carter would have a good answer

(37:52):
to the question I asked earlier thisyear, which is when someone chooses to
be a TENA fan instead of aWWE fan or first and foremost a TENA
fan, what is it? AndI had spixy card of this, what
is it that you would expect TNAfans to say defines why they're more of
a fan of tnaan w w E. And her answer wasn't particularly good.
It was our wrestlings better. AndI don't think most people would say that.

(38:13):
I think they'd say the best TNAis in the ballpark of the best
WWE. So my cover story lastweek, three pages in depth, breaking
down, and I've got a lotof compliments on Twitter. You can go
to my Twitter page and read whatpeople have had to say. About it
in depth analysis of that. Theweek before, I did a very in
depth breakdown explaining my stance on whythe Triple H Power Trip was bad for

(38:34):
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of reasons. Go vip. Ifyou like what we do here, I
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flash, go vip is the placeto go, Jason, why don't we

(38:54):
get our plugs out of the wayand you can pick up and talk about
what you've done since Sunday's pay perview and how people can become dot net
members absolutely forty five minutes on WWERaw Last Night, Exclusive form members ninety
seven minutes Chris Serean I got togetheron Sunday Night review WWE Night of Champions
both I'll be able exclusively to ProWrestling dot net members if but let's also

(39:17):
tell you what's on the site itself. We broke the news regarding Mickey James's
contract expiring We also have a reportup earlier today we broke the news regarding
when Hulk Hogan's contract expires. Alsoa lot of talk that we also had
the story that we broke regarding thisserious consideration that's being given to taken PNA
Impact off the road, finding apermanent home for it similar to and maybe

(39:43):
even the Impact Zone. Again,those the stories are all available at Pro
Wrestling dot Net. Those are upthere for everyone, so to check the
TNA news section for that membership.I talked about the audio. It's an
AD free version of the website.There's a form with a really good group
of people that you can correspond withduring the pay per views. We also
have the v Bookie bettings that wedo on all of the WWE and TNA

(40:04):
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we can have some fun with that. And again it's an AD free version
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You just want to try us outfor a month see if it's If it's

(40:25):
right for you, that's cool too. That's seven dollars and fifty cents.
All the details available right there onthe main page at pro wrestling dot net
and if you have any questions,hit me up on Twitter at pro wrestling
Net. Just leave the dot outof that one at pro wrestling Net.
And one of the highlights of thedot net membership, of course, is
the dot net Weekly Thursday show whereyou might have you talked about several stories

(40:45):
you broke on the website, butdot net Weekly, Jason and correct me
if I'm wrong, But my experiences, that's place where something's been on the
website and then or maybe not yet, but oftentimes it has been. But
in dot net Weekly, you givemembers some extra details that may be you
weren't able to provide on the websiteor did not provide on the website,
so that they feel they're getting moreinformation and obviously sometimes you also sometimes they

(41:06):
are little things like just don't evenmake a website story, but they're really
cool things as a fan to knowand kind of share with with your buddies
or something that you know, alittle bit extra something about behind the scenes.
So I always like that show becauseI'm always waiting for you to kind
of throw that stuff in there.Yeah, it give me an example of
that. The potential of taking tand a impact off the road is something
we've been talking a bit on thatshow for well, not this last Thursday,

(41:30):
the Thursday before, we've been talkingabout that possibility and did a little
more work on it and we gota little more rarification on it and nothing
official there yet, but it suresounds like that the wheels are in motion.
Yeah, very cool. All right. So with that said, let's
go back to the full lines andI had the steam member on hold.

(41:51):
We've only gotten one call so far, but he had two really good questions
that we had a lot to diveinto there. But let's see if we
still got four and four with us. Nope, lost Carmen, Carmine.
So Carmen, if you get achance, call us back. Let's go
next to three one three and thenafter that six h nine three one three.
Thanks for holding. We state yournaming where you're from, Tay,

(42:12):
This is a landsome surey who fromDetroit? Wayne? Oh Wayne, of
course? Yeah, Hey, Wayne, thanks for calling again. What do
you out for us? No problems. I've may be eating it seeking,
we don't allow that. We donot allow inn it picking up a lot
of death. You know that verywell, No, go ahead, We're
all about it. It may noteven be it may not even be talent

(42:34):
to the storyline, but it's justsomething that bothered me about the whole Nighted
Champions main event and the follow upon Row. Now, it was determined
to be storyline that Daniel Brian andthe referee word in cahoos and that you
know, he uh, he conspiredwith the referee to do the first count.

(43:00):
Thus that's the reason why Randy Ortonlost because he cheated. So when
Triple H stripped Daniel Bryan of thetitle, he held the built up and
said, you know, there's notgoing to be a new champion. I'm
holding the built up. So thenwhen Triple H, you know, saw
Randy Orton, Randy Orton said,hey, give me my title back,

(43:23):
and they said, well, no, you're not getting the title back because
you're not WWE you know, theface of the company material. I don't
understand how they can make that assessmentof Randy Orton if the reason why he
winked winked lost in the main eventis because Daniel Bryan and the referee conspired

(43:45):
to, you know, to cheathim out of the title. And I
think it's just a lot of thelazy writings that WWE does, because Triple
H's usually could have said, youknow, well, you shouldn't have been
in that position anyway to even getyou know, in a paying position to
Daniel Bran or anything. So itdoes really bothered me because it didn't make

(44:06):
sense, you know, why theywouldn't give the pill peg to ord.
Yeah, Jason, what are wesupposed to think? Because I kind of
imagine myself again going back to usat the beginning of the show, Imagine
if you're somebody when Triple H iskind of running down the show. You
two people around the table going andhe wants heat. And I would hope,
I would hope that anybody who's kindof booking their own angle or being
very involved in his own angle likeTriple H's would sit down and go,

(44:29):
all right, I want someone totalk truth to power. I'm powerful here,
but I want the truth. Doesthis make sense? Is there a
way we can fix this? Isthis too complicated? Am I missing something?
What can make it better? Andthat that's the lens through which I
watch wrestling. You know, Iwant the goal of wrestling is to draw
the most money, and I thinkthe way you draw the most money is
by having fans understand what you're doingand have an emotional reaction to it that

(44:52):
involves you being more engaged in thefeud in the matches, and when you
have a storyline where you're more caughtup trying to figure out the logic of
the character and his motivations, insteadof having a reaction emotionally of wanting to
see that character get shown up orin another case, get revenge or or
or get get justice. I thinkit's bad for the product. Does this

(45:12):
pass that test? Jason? WhatTriple H did on Monday with holding up
the title and then the situation withRandy Orton not being ruthlessly aggressive enough apparently
for the mcmah family to be tobe given the title back, you know,
and I thought about that today.With Randy It's like they Okay,
they drew that ruthlessness out of him, but at the same time, he
still comes off like a puppet becausethey had to draw it out of him.

(45:36):
Yeah, yep, and man,everyone is beneath the mcmahs. You
know, it's it's just that's howit is on television right now. And
no, it doesn't. It doesn'tpass with cash Wade. Yeah, because
people say, oh, why youknow, you just sit back and enjoy
it. You know, I willhear that every once in a while.
It's just kind of an I don'troll my eyes very often. Whenever I
see someone say that, I rollmy eyes. I think rolling eyes should

(45:57):
be reserved for teenage girls, butevery once in a while it's fit for
an adult male. And I romizewhen someone says, oh, just sit
back and enjoy it, because that'snot our job. Our job is to
look at it and go, whatwhy am I not? Why am I
more distracted than engaged or confused thanmotivated to watch this feud get settled?
And I think sometimes angles get toocute. Randy Orton looks like when he's

(46:22):
on screen with Triple H that he'sa kid going to the principal's office.
And that's not how you get fansto want to see Randy Orton get beat
up by Daniel Bryant. Your topheel should not be walking in looking like
he just failed a wellness test andis going into talk to human resources about
it. And there's something about RandyOrton gets scolded by Stephanie and Triple H

(46:43):
that is kind of the word ofthe month, emasculating. And I think
Triple H and Stephanie through the tunnelvision of wanting to get themselves over.
Sometimes Triple H wants to be heel, other time he wants to be a
stand up comedian. But trying toget himself over through whatever means they're losing
sight of how they need to giveequal attention between their own egos and their
own purpose, which is get overhis heels. They need to give at

(47:06):
least equal attention to the people they'resharing the screen with and that they're influencing,
and they don't. And Randy Orton, you're right, Jason looks like
he's kind of a scold, thechild trying to earn the approval of Stephen
Hunter. And I you know,that's what I wrote from the beginning on
this. The most over Daniel Bryanever was was the top between the high
Needed John scene and the three countand when Triple agis turned took place that

(47:28):
might be the peak of Daniel Bryan'scareer. Everything since then has shifted the
focus from Daniel Bryan being what fansenvisioned him to be, and now he's
the guy who gets screwed over andgets you know, and is not really
the leader of the brand, andin fact he's the guy that you know,
people don't think should be the faceof the company. Same with Randy
Orton. Randy Orton had triple hnot been the special referee and had not

(47:51):
been in that match, and hecame out and he beat Daniel Brian with
an RKO, but did enough otherthings to be healish to turn the fans
against him, such as what hedid them, is that kind of thing
he would be moreover, But instead, when I think of Daniel Bryan and
I think of Randy Orton, myfirst thought is, well, let me
check in with Triplachian staff and howthe interaction that they've had with them.

(48:12):
I don't think that's the way tomake the most money out of Daniel Bryan
and Randy Orton. And I don'tthink Triplachan Steff add enough to make up
for what they take away from thewrestlers who are actually wrestling, and Stephan
trip Laches are not wrestlers who areactually wrestling. Their TV characters well shod.
Thank you. Do you remember whenHulk Hogan shocked the world of formed

(48:35):
the New World Order, or whenstone Coat Steve Auston passed down on the
Sharp Shooter to break the hit ManHart. I'm Torch contributor Frank Petty Any
and I've reviewed these shows and manymore for my exclusive VIP podcast, Pro
Wrestling Than In Now. Together witha rotating chair of co hosts, we
go back ten, twenty, eventhirty years, review pay per views from

(48:55):
top to bottom, talk about wherethe wrestlers were at the time, and
compare what took place then to whatis taking place now. You get exclusive
access to these and other podcasts aspart of your Pwtrch VIP membership, which
is compatible with the Apple Podcasts app. Visit pwtorch dot com slash go vip
for details and sign up for allRight, let's go to our next caller

(49:27):
here six o nine and then onDec. Two eight one to nine,
seven, six o nine. Pleasestate your name and where you're from.
Hey, this is Metrius from NewJersey. Yeah, go ahead, to
meet it. Thanks com. I'mthis majority of for the first hour and
a half of Raw because I've seenthe pieces movie, Riddick and domin wondering

(49:50):
you think that when and I'm sayingwhen I'm pretty Sumatisto one day will come
back, do you think you'll beeven more? It's like, I'm mean
a retson like brock Lesner, where'sbla lig that? Or you ever seen
become a champion and you seeing himeverything a Hall of famer And have two
other questions as well. Sure,Jason, what do you think mister we'll

(50:12):
call him mister five percent? Imean, I think Batista is going to
be a Hall of Famer in amo one. I think when he comes
back. He is said in thepast that he wouldn't come back for a
one off, He'd rather have arun. His Hollywood career may change that.
If he comes back, they willposition him as certainly a top guy,

(50:34):
whether fans see him as a Hollywoodtype, you know, rock like
or a real special attraction like brockLesner. I think kind of hinges on
the success of his upcoming movie.I mean, I know he has Riddick,
but this next one is the onethat really sounds like is the big
role for him the Guardians of theGalaxy, the Marvel movie. If that
then takes off and he's as bigof a part of it as it sounds

(50:57):
like he is, that could reallybe a game changer for his career even
in WWE. Yeah, yeah,I agree with that. I call him
it's for five percent for those whodidn't see the paper, because I think
he got five percent of the votesof the greatest world champion ever. I
think he was the lowest ranked contemporarywrestler. Jason, a guy who you
know, Bubble Brazil, I mean, got two percent of the votes.
But for a guy who was astar in the last five years and a
main eventer, I was actually somewhatsurprised, assuming all the poll results are

(51:21):
legit, and they weren't. Youknow, Oh, I know one of
them that I don't think was what'sthat book or T Really, I don't
know. There's a shame because listento the crowd reaction when miss puts on
the figure four. Oh sure,I know what you're saying. Okay,
it took me a second because Idon't even think a miss and flare together
because it's so preposterous, right,I know, I know, like I

(51:44):
just I didn't know watching those ifI'm supposed to think this is what people
who who? And it is acertain part of the w w E audience
that has access to the app.You know that they're sitting around with technology
in their hands that that involves downloadingthe app. There's a certain age demographics
that greater than another. And thenobviously people who are watching a current product
aren't going to know about the historyas much. But I was. I

(52:06):
just thought that was weird. Andwhen you think about the politics of everything,
if somebody told me, Wade,for a fact, we manipulated all
the all the voting results. Wecan't go on record saying it, but
all of them were faked. Thatmakes more sense to me than somebody said,
who I trust saying Wade, thoseare legitimately the results we got.
Because I could see they're wanting tostick at the TNA a little bit,

(52:28):
maybe plant the seed of Hogan andSteing coming back at some point, so
have them get some some attention,because they could have easily just left them
off the pole and Flair, youknow, he kind of got in trouble
for the video game expo thing andled to Jim Ross being fired, which
we haven't it or not being fired. I'm sorry, Jim Ross deciding to
retire and we haven't talked about that. We'll probably do that in the aftershow.

(52:50):
It's just like it's ever the results, sit the politics, Like Fatista,
I'm curious if that was If thatwas faked, what did they try
to say about Batista by having himbe so low on the world title pole?
You know, it doesn't surprise methat he was that low. I
don't remember who all was above himon that list. I get. I
mean, is he's obviously done goodthings in his career. I did that

(53:12):
one. I just kind of chalkedup to out of sight, out of
mine. I guess, you know. I mean, it makes more sense
than you know, because book orT being on TV every week and being
kind of a cool guy and youknow all that. I mean, I
guess that's that's enough. Anyway,A good topic to Metrich. Did we
cover your question enough or did weveer off? Yeah? And my other

(53:34):
question was hold on, Well,here is one of mine. Someone brought
us up on YouTube, kind oflike when Dolph Ziegler was kind of like
jobbing so much. It was likeit seemed like they were kind of punishing
him for doing like for saying somethingwrong in interviewing interview thank something that,

(53:57):
and it's just kind of someone broughtup like you know, see the grown
men in a company, and youknow, they just kind of stroll them
out there and humiliates him on TV. It's like they found to Zoe boring,
so they have them yodel and like, and a Rose is on the
a stob Sport and I said,I you know, I don't watch Breaking

(54:21):
Bad, but I'm sure if BrianFrance has been just like set them wrong
on the seat, I don't thinklike thrust them up in like a suit
there would have them dance like aNimby on me. It was just like
kind of give a mental finger.Yeah yeah, I mean I think it
was there was They should probably doit, just kind of take them off
TV. And you know, becausethat's all the boring people want to be

(54:43):
on TV. They don't want tobe like just just to be humiliated.
It seems kind of childish because inany other business people wouldn't do this.
I know it. Well, well, go ahead, run that into question
because I want to get to othercallers too at their time. But I
get where you're going. Yeah,I think I had another pleasure. Might
not have forget, but it's somethingto me. Then had you come back

(55:05):
and you answer that question? Okay, yeah, Jason. I mean this
is how WB tends to operate,you know. I mean they they have
a secret code, and if youbreak the rules, they may not tell
you broke the rules, but they'llmake you wonder what you did wrong for
four or five months, or they'lltell you you broke the rules and then
they'll you know, do their wayof kind of saying, look where the
boss and we're going to show youwhere where the boss is. Dolp Siegler

(55:28):
getting punished because he got more overthan his push, and they're trying to
make sure that if he eventually getsover that they can say it's because we
got you over, it's not becauseyou got yourself over. Or did he
do something wrong because that's one ofthe big question marks and people don't seem
to have an answered that right now. See, I'm guessing he did something
wrong because I never felt like hegot over more than his push. He

(55:49):
got cheered when he was a heelbut it was by you know, that
five ten percent of the adult malediehard wrestling fans had seen. It wasn't
like suddenly every one of those arenaswas going crazy for Dolf. Even when
he turned baby face, it seemedlike he was getting that same reaction.
Maybe maybe you know, I adda few percents to it with now that
it was okay for just your casualfan to cheer him. Yeah, yeah,

(56:14):
but it does. What Demetrius isgetting at is it's kind of uh,
it's just it. I don't likethat approach. I don't like punishing
the fans and punishing the wrestlers.I just think, you know, and
like you know, Randy Orton daredto say, you know, a year
ago, I think it was abouta year ago. Yeah, I think
wrestler should have some some time offto you know, rest cover, you

(56:35):
know, and then all of asudden's pushed one way down. And I
doubt anyone ever walked up to himand said, we're punishing you for speaking
your mind. You know. Butbut there's there's these correlations doesn't mean correlation,
doesn't mean causation. But when youlook at things that are said publicly
in an interview that goes against thecompany line or might create waves. Oftentimes

(56:55):
there is a correlation between a pushgoing down, And I don't even know
if management would admit that's why theydo it, maybe they'd sit in the
back and they really do go wegotta keep this guy, Lyne. Let
show him moose Bossle's punish him andhe can figure out why. But it
does seem like a rather cruel anduh, just odd way to go about
running a business and not just tellingpeople, well there. Do you think,

(57:16):
though, Jason, have you heardthere was an edict to not comment
on Jim Ross because it seems likealmost nobody on social media did that.
I haven't heard that, but itwouldn't surprise me, Yeah, because you're
right, I mean, it's not. It was basically Stephanie Hunter Vince and
I'm struggling to think that there wasanother one too said something. Well,
that doesn't surprise me. I don'tthink, you know, he's one of
those guys that he's just going tosay what he wants and if there's,

(57:37):
you know, some kind of falloutfrom it, he'll know, he'll he'll
take his medicine whatever. But itdidn't. I just assume there would have
been a lot more. Yeah,I know, most people on the roster
I thought would have said something,So I'm guessing it was either officially said
or people just kind of figured out, yeah, I better not go there.

(57:57):
It's a little bit of a sensitiveissue. Yeah, I know sometimes.
I mean, I think that's whatmanagement wants. They want wrestlers too
on their own decide no, that'sprobably not good for my career to comment
on this, and I think managementjust wants it. And I don't blame
them for wanting a headache free corporateenvironment, but they got it. They're
in the wrestling business. And well, did let me I did Michael Cole
ever say anything? Not that I'veheard seeing that makes me think it's Yeah,

(58:22):
I guess it doesn't really definitively answerthe question. But you know,
if Michael cole jbl though those guysaren't saying anything, then it really does
make you wonder if they were.Everyone was told yeah, I don't go
there. I know. Yeah,Well, let's see where I could look
at his feed right now. ButI'm trying to host the show, so
I'll I'll keep doing it. Letme do a search for that's delicious to

(58:43):
my friends Michael Cole, j C. Layfield, Jerry Lawler, who called
that a champion Sunday, have funand bring the big game. Feel Yeah,
Jim, I mean Jim, JimRoss is handling this well, and
I mean, yeah, yeah,and oh go ahead. I'm sorry.
I was gonna say, he didAriel Hawani show and was asked about it
in a couple of different ways,and he's not throwing them under the boss.
She just making it seemed like,yeah, it was time to go,

(59:04):
you know, the timing worked out, and I was gonna say,
is he tweeted that, and thenMichael Cole retweeted it. Okay, all
right, But as I searched forthe word Ross on Cole's Twitter, I'm
not seeing JR or Ross show up, So you know, I mean,
yeah, this is weird. Somebodywho was with that company that long leaving.

(59:25):
You'd think there'd be more people commented, Yeah, all right, our
phone number six four six seven twoone nine two eight. We'll get in
a few more calls before we movedto the VIP exclusive part of the show
that is just for paying members ofProgressing dot Net. Jason Paul's website and
pwtorch dot Com my website. Justto note that the sister brand of PW
Torch is MMA Torch, and thatof course stands for Mixed Martial Arts Saturday

(59:50):
Big John Jones Title Defense UFC payper view. We've got coverage already on
that. Plus they're starting to loadup the big anniversary show in November.
And there's a lot lot of newsregarding a lot of different things right now
in the last several days in MMA. If you're a casual or hardcore MMA
fan, we've got you covered atmmatorch dot com. A great team full
time editor Jamie Pettock and part timecolumnists give you a wide range of opinions,

(01:00:15):
roundtable discussions on top stories of theweek. Cool new feature, especially
it's cool for hardcore fans, butespecially for casual fans are trying to kind
of keep track of the biggest starsand the biggest names. There's a new
feature every single day that looks atone division, one weight division in USC
looks at the top ten fighters andtells you what was their most what's their

(01:00:37):
next upcoming fight, and what ourMMA Torts writers saying about them, and
what is their recent record. Justa little little update on you know,
because you're thinking, when's the lasttime GSP fought, when is his next
fight, what's going on with him? And so it's a cool feature.
You can just get an overview eachday from one weight division. So it's
a reason to check in every daybesides the news and the roundtables and the

(01:00:57):
editorials and the polls. A coolfeature that kind of checking in with each
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We'll have live coverage during the payper view on Saturday night and then a
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Torch is also an app, justlike PW Torch. It's available on almost
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(01:01:23):
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I think you'll like our coverage.All right, let's go next to
Eric Code two eight one and thenon deck nine seven and two O one

(01:01:45):
two eight one. Please state yourname and where you're from. Yeah,
it's Justin from Dallas. Hey,justin. What have you got for us?
First of all, once, butthanks for letting those CMLL results go
up. That sent in the coupleof nights to get kind of did the
best I could have for kind ofdoing that spurt moment kind of deal.
But thanks for letting those go up. Hey, thanks for sending him,

(01:02:07):
No problem. But my question kindof relates in that department. Do you
think that one of the bigger internationalcompanies such as Triple A, CML or
New Japan could possibly land like aTV deal on a major network in the
space more than just kind of aregional thing like with Galllevision and CML on
they're off and on kind of relationship. It's been talked about for years.

(01:02:30):
I remember twenty years ago John orI mean Ron Scholler trying to get together
with the IWC, the International WrestlingCouncil before the Internet Wrestling community took over
that those letters the IWC INTERPLA triedto work together with Conan and tried to
get a you know, more ofan American presence of the Luta Lieber style,

(01:02:51):
Jason, is there room for astyle of wrestling that is so different
culturally than what people in the countryare used to that would expand beyond Gallivision
in and the Spanish specific networks.Well, I mean, I know Triple
A wants to try, but Idon't know that they're going to have success
as far as I mean, Ithink they have a network partner in mind,

(01:03:13):
it's going to be geared more towardthe Hispanic audience, but still,
you know, they want I think, I want to say, they're going
to try to have an English broadcastoption. Also, I just don't know
that anyone, a Japanese or aTriple A. I don't think any any
of them are going to have anyluck convincing a major network that this would

(01:03:35):
sell. Yeah, you know ifif given the chance, I mean,
we see, if it's on theright network. You know, you see
what numbers TNA does. I mean, I don't know that the Japanese or
Mexican promotion could come in and matchthat. I'm not saying that. I
mean, but wrestling does bring viewersif it has the right network partner.

(01:03:58):
But I just I'd be shocked atthe if they were given that opportunity unfortunately.
Yeah, yeah, all right,very good. Anything else for us?
Jason Jepson, Sorry, thank you, justin Sorry, that's just ye.
Invite you to email the show withfeedback or questions or comments. That
email address is Wade Keller Podcast atpewtorch dot com. That's Wade Keller Podcast

(01:04:20):
at pwtorch dot com. Also welcomeyour feedback on Twitter. You can follow
us on Twitter at PW torch andfollow me at the Wade Keller That's at
PW Torch and at the Wade Keller. Cool. All right, let's go
to nine seven on Next nine sevenzero. You're on the livecast with Wade

(01:04:41):
Keller and Jason Powell. Please stayyour name and where you're from. Hey,
guys, thanks for taking my call. This is a Porch v I
P member Chris from Screenings. Hey, Chris, thanks for calling. Thanks
for being a VP member. Sure, no problem. I sent a couple
of quick questions from you, guys. Yeah, the other day I was
listening to the Bruce Mitchell audio showover the weekend. Wade, you were
talking about the financial projections for wbeing revised downward in the wake of their

(01:05:05):
WrestleMania numbers, and I observed whatI felt with a really rare instance of
over simplication on your part. Yeah, now that you're said it was rare,
I'm on your side. Well,I mean, but truly, I
mean, you guys, I mean, there's usually no stone left unturned on
Bruce Mitchel Audio Show. But Isort of it was like taking it back

(01:05:26):
for a second, because I feltlike there was a strange sci put sport
that wasn't necessarily necessarily the case.Basically, what you guys said for those
in this the Bruce base of Audioshow was just that. Probably, and
there's really no way of knowing,but probably because of the unintangible aspect of
the nature of the question. Butprobably it was either the seven dollars buy
rate or the elements by price ofthe event, or the fact that the

(01:05:50):
Big Mark Ye stars, the SpecialAttraction stars didn't draw. And I would
respect at least the misterfiederation that there'sprobably a third answer, which which would
be that no know what, holdon, hold on, Chris, If
there was, Bruce and I wouldhave thought of it, So thank you
for calling. But there's no waythere's a possibility that Bruce and I didn't
can a go. I'm sorry,I just wanted through because I would listening

(01:06:12):
to it. No, it wascool. I was listening to it and
I was like, well, butcouldn't it if people wanted to see started
they just wanted to see them freshexciting matchups. I mean, like,
as someone who tended WrestleMania, yeah, I felt like the people. But
the people who were there, well, first of all, I would say
that I was incredibly disappointed by thecard. I mean I bought the tickets
in November and it was I wasthe least excited about the WrestleMania, probably

(01:06:34):
since I don't know nineteen are It'sfunny. So it seemed like the people
that were there wanted to have agood time. I mean, the punt
match was over. I missed theLesbon match because I was all but even
the main event and people wanted tobe into it. But it was there
even in the crowd, and Ihave to imagine people who were buying event

(01:06:56):
probably looked at it and said,you thought seen the Rocks, We saw
you bol And even the punk thing, which was a fresh matchup, it
felt kind of gikey with you guyslength about it, so I just wanted
to kind of it out a littlebit. No, you know, I
mean that's a fair criticism. Ithere there was a lot of that leading
up to WrestleMania, you know,people saying this card it feels like a
rerun, it's not a fresh matchup. They're on fresh stars. And you're

(01:07:16):
right. I heard enough of thatleading into leading into Restumania twenty nine that
if a by rate comes in disappointing, that should still be something that we
consider. You know. My reactionwas, Rocks a big star. Johnson
is a big star. They've onlyfought a singles match once before. It
was the it was the most successfulWrestleMania ever the year before. It makes
sense to do a rematch. Hunter'sa big name, Rocks a big naw.

(01:07:39):
I mean, you can sit hereand do what I did, And
it was honest. I was beinghonest. I think they put the biggest
name stars in the biggest match asthey could. But I think you're right.
It is absolutely worth mentioning the strongpossibility that there is a percentage of
fans out there who wanted to havea feeling they weren't seeing a sequel to
the WrestleMania twenty eight or a sequelto something that's seen on another pay per

(01:08:00):
view, and too much of thatlineup felt that way. I think Seampunk
an Undertaker felt different enough. Butnow you're starting to get lower on the
card to find anything even remotely oryou know, original or new. So
I think there's some some validity tothat. I would, yeah, I
would say that deserve mention. Cool. Okay, can I actually edge one
more question? Yeah? Absolutely,Okay, I thought this is kind of

(01:08:25):
common way. I do agree withJason's point earlier in the show that the
big run in by all the midcards faces just didn't feel earned, you
know, in the way that itprobably should have, or would have if
they had done what he suggested andmaybe had like one or two guys starts
to make that decision to turn andthen that kind of build momentments from there.
But I also was kind of laughingat myself because it seems like every

(01:08:45):
year, or just about it,every year for the last or five years,
this is about oh nine, Itdoesn'tely it occurs to wwe have this
great big fall pay per view wherethey have these these like these huge actions
of wrestlers squaring off, and it'slike and they always have some awful shotty
craptemick packer view they want to doit on and it's like, you know,
I have to wonder, like doesn'tit occur to them they have Survivor

(01:09:08):
series right there and every year thatyou're bragging rights or a battleground or like
something else. So I just it'slike they forgot that they already have that
on this, like come up withthe idea. Here has a notice as
well. Yeah, yeah, Jason, I'll let you come out on that.
We lost Chris a little bit atthe end, but I think you

(01:09:29):
probably got the gist, I think, so, I mean, I just
I don't know what they're doing atBattleground. I mean I might guess is
that it's organ against Brian for theheld up title or whatever word that they
used last night that I still I'mnot quite sure how to say, but
you know, I think because they'realso it seems like they're setting up a
rematch with Dolf and challenging for theUS title. Look like the tag match

(01:09:51):
may have been set, So Idon't know that this is going to be
your big four on four or fiveon five style of main event here.
Sure, okay, that was justmy inference, based on based on based
on the title of the pay perviews. Could just one thing I would
just I would like to tell yourlisteners, all the free listens out there,

(01:10:12):
don't listen to Wade trying out forten dollars a month ago. Write
at pwtwars dot com, say onehundred dollars getting a cancel s description You'll
never regret it. And that's allI've got for today. Color of the
Day. We'll take that. Eventhough you said I missed something, but
no, no, great. Iappreciate the endorsement, Chris, and appreciate
your membership very much. Very cool. I'm trying to find that word that

(01:10:32):
translates use last night. I don'tthink it was a word, Jason that
had been previously used in uh everby Triple H. Certainly like that was
that was a it's like damaged thorax. You know, I don't word.
I think it was a bayanch abay. Yeah, it was held up
in a bayance. Yeah. Yeah, that's just that's a bench word.
You know what it is? Yep, Because Vince has this thing where yes

(01:10:58):
a so no, the title isis up in a state of abyance.
And I had to look that oneup too. I didn't even know what
he said the first time. Good. I thought I was really stupid,
But you know, it's but Ithink it is one of those words way
that maybe we haven't heard before.But now we're going to hear it like
three or four times this week.Yes, that's right. Yeah, we'll
be listening to talk radio and they'llbe like someone talking about the Monday night
football game going. Man, whenthat quarterback threw that ball, the ball

(01:11:21):
seemed to be in a state ofa bands for much longer than normal.
Exactly. It's like when you're ifyou're looking for a new car and all
sudden that cars everywhere. You know, you know, you just start noticing
things that would have Oh like whenI bought mine and noticed it across the
street two doors down. The neighborhas the same one yup yup. So
it's funny how that works. ButI actually don't think we'll hear abyance again.

(01:11:42):
Except but Vincent Matt always liked usingbig you know, being ten dollar
words or one hundred dollar words.I guess with the counter inflation. It
just was one of his things Isaw the while back announced the announcer,
one of the w W to beannouncers. I saw his sheet of words
that they're incurred to use in placeof more common words, you know,

(01:12:02):
so like there was angry, andthen there was literally list of like,
you know, eight or ten wordsthat are w W E provided their announcers
to use in place of that tosound, you know, to add variety
to the broadcast. I don't thinkit's a bad move, but I was
kind of comical looking at that sheet. I didn't get to take it with
me. I would have loved to, but I got to actually see the
sheet from all the announcers, andit was just like, wow, that's

(01:12:23):
where these words come from. It'sit's literally in their folder at at their
desk. So somebody, somebody's jobis to find cool, big words that
make wrestling sound a little more highbrow. I guess we all have to
pay the bill somehow. Hopefully thatperson's not struggling like Dusty having, you
know, poor Dusty having to scrapetogether all that money to pay for the
lawn service and rental car. Yes, he's like an out of touch politician.

(01:12:45):
What the hell was that? DustyRoad is no longer the common man.
I don't know. I don't know. Well, well, we'll talk
a little about Dusty in the VPafter show and that whole segment. And
I got a lot to the VPPafter show. So let's get a couple
more calls in here and we'll playthe music and go to the VIP part
of the show for our paying members. Two oh one, though, I
promise would go to you. Soyou're on deck and please state your name

(01:13:09):
and where you're from. Two ohone, going once, going twice.
All right, let's go to nineone seven instead, and then on deck
seven seven three, nine one seven, please state your name and where you're
from. Hi, my name isOmark from Brookley. Hey, Olmar,
what have you got for us?Hey? Uh so I have like about

(01:13:34):
I guess fifty years of kinds ofwrestling, frustration with the Triple H.
I thought you're gonna say you havefifteen questions and I was like, wow,
I need to play the I needto play. Pet mcneils. Three
is a magic number from you?That's like the ten thousand dollars membership.
I think, yeah, that's whatthat's what Bruce. That Bruce always jokes

(01:13:54):
about that that we should have onthe VIP VIP tier, We're for like
twenty bucks a month. You getto like just have like ten minutes like
events, asking all the questions youwant, and that we'll have that all.
We'll explain all our inside jokes thatwe try not to do too often,
but every once in a while we'llsay something and we can't really go
into detail on it. But anyway, you're questions about my personal ast two

(01:14:16):
but so so so it's the thing, by the way, you guys like
are like super awesome play go ahead, so on a daily basis, I'm
thinking about like really signing up forthe membership, Like you're making it really

(01:14:36):
harder harder not to do it,so I might push over to the other
side im sooner or later. Butanyway, if we just get into my
points into a trick, I mean, this guy has been killing kind of
like wrestling momentum all the way backinto the Attitude Area era. And I'm
sure that I'm not the only onewho fakes this. But as soon as

(01:14:56):
him and you know, Stephanie kindof did that marriage, that was i
know, the official end of thefreshness of the Attitude era. And if
you go all the way back toyou know, that first title defense that
he had against Jericho where Jericho wonon raw and the crowd one absolutely nuts
and then they reverse the decision.It's kind of reminding me of there's like

(01:15:17):
Daniel Bryant stuff. And then evenif you want to go back to two
years ago with you know, thesummer of Punk, you know, once
he entered the picture, he killedthe feud. It says, it's every
time there's like a new superstar.The only one that it hasn't happened to
is with Cina that is like aboutto kind of you know, go on
the scene and really have this likewrestling defining moments. He somehow works himself

(01:15:42):
into it and kind of destroys theirtheir you know, their momentum. And
I honestly think I know it punkcastlike he held on to the title for
a year, but I think thatwhen she when she has that matric Pucket,
that he got the victory over him. As great as Punk was,
you know, as his Punk istoday, I think it's still kind of
put him on a level where Punk, you know, has that opportunity to

(01:16:05):
break into the mainstream like unlike anybodysince you know, like Austin or you
know, the Rock, even becauseI don't think Scena has done that,
even though I think Sina has had, you know, the most success of
Zia and all this for a guywho, honestly, in the attitude era,
I wouldn't put him in the pipetop five of his you know,
of of his you know generation.I mean, you know, the only

(01:16:26):
thing I can remember that he didnotable in that time was his match against
well, I guess, his matchagainst the Rocket and Folly and then that's
it. Your thoughts on that helpme on your side. I picked up
what you said in groups, butrounded into a question for me to tackle
because I could go a lot ofdirections with what you said. Sure,
I mean, is this something?Is this just like the same old triple

(01:16:47):
age that we're we're kind of getting, always putting himself in the middle of
someone's like gigantic kind of momentum andlike this kind of crushing their push and
kind of change. See omark,you made that so simple because, unlike
a lot of answers, you actuallyasked a yes or no question and the

(01:17:08):
answer is yes, it is thesame ultraple a. I mean, honestly,
you've said it all in your question, and I'm confirming it's true.
Triple H has a tunnel vision whenit comes to anything he's involved in,
and it's and it does become kindof comically all about him, and he
just kind of there's collateral damage alongthe way. He gets very focused on

(01:17:29):
getting himself over and there's I don'tknow if it's if it's sloppiness or arrogance,
or insecurity, or an overblow anego, or just his philosophy on
the business that if it's good forTriple H, who cares what else happens,
it's good for everybody. But Jason, am I overstating it? I
mean, I think, as Omarpointed out, this has been going on
a long time. And every timeyou think Triple Ach is a big star,

(01:17:49):
he's got this history with fans,Get him on TV, it'll help
the ratings, that will help theproduct. We all just seems like every
time he gets absorbed in something hedoes, he does or set something where
you go, man, whatever goodhe did just got mitigated by that needless,
self centered, to egotistical thing thathe just did to undercut somebody else.
I don't think you know the differencenow is I don't think he's not

(01:18:13):
competing with anyone. He's not tryingto make sure to preserve a spot,
He's not trying to take someone spot. So I think what we're seeing,
I think they sincerely believe that whenthe baby faces start, you know,
when the time comes, they're reallygoing to make these baby faces, they're
gonna take their lumps now. Butit is those comments, it is you

(01:18:34):
know, there's things along the waythat just conflict with that. So I
mean, I think he really Ithink they mean well, but he also
can't help himself. That yes,he can't help himself. That's that's another
way to put it. I mean, whatever you want to prescribe, whatever
the motivation is, it's like hecan't help himself, and it's frustrating because

(01:18:56):
it's this, if he could helphimself w W e'd be better off for
it. And I think he'd bebetter off for it. And what I
guess, I mean, it's justodd right now. We had a question
earlier, is he a heel?If he is the main heel force in
WWE right now, shouldn't we knowthe answer to that? I mean,
I don't think someone who watches watchingor cares is passionate enough about the product

(01:19:18):
to be calling this show. TheyI'm sorry, they shouldn't be confused.
And it's not the caller's fault.I think a lot of people are asking
that question. It's just when there'slike when he when he's about to say
something that he thinks is going tobe funny, he kind of loads up,
like he's holding back a burb.It's like, what's like, whom
about to day? Someone thinks,everyone prepare, the funniest smart ass in

(01:19:40):
the room is about to speak.Everyone be silent. You're gonna find this
really funny. Like he says allthat in like a split second right before
he speaks, but he loads up. Just watch him next time he says
something like I've been waiting since ortwo thousand to hear you call me dude
or hey, He's later just emptiedthe contents of his entire brain, like
and he did. He did thaton the with Paul Hayman too. It's
just like he's such a fan ofhimself or he can't help chopping the legs

(01:20:05):
out from somebody in front of himthat whether they're a heel or a face,
whether it helps the big picture ornot, he can't help himself.
He is so enamored with his cleverness, and he is, he's clever.
There's a way to make that workas a baby face, and there's a
way to make it as a heel. But he needs to discriminate and edit
the things that undercut hit his beinga heel and not do that when he's

(01:20:28):
a heel. And sometimes when hewas a baby face, he was a
prick and it made you not likehim as much, or maybe you know
it cheered him, but you're kindof uncomfortable, and it was kind of
bullish. It's he just doesn't discriminate. He has a skill set that needs
to be edited a little bit tofit his current character. And so I
mean, seriously, that next timehe's next time he's about to say something
funny, watch him. He justhe becomes his own biggest fan for a
second as he loads up and thenlets it out, and he's just he's

(01:20:51):
used to people liking that. Butfor a dozen years at least, he
hasn't had anyone speak truly, trulyspeak true to him. I mean,
I don't I think his acquaintances,his friends, his colleagues, they're all
scared because they know he's a niceguy. It's not like he's this evil,
horrible person. I'm not saying that, but when you're in a position
of power, people want to makemoney and keep their job and be in

(01:21:12):
good standing with you. And Ithink after a while, you lose sight
of the fact that the jokes aren'tas funny as the laughter in the room
from all the people whose livelihoods dependon you not being offended by the fact
that they didn't laugh hard enough atyour jokes. And so I think Triplach
also thinks he's a little funner thanhe is. But I don't know.
I mean that all at all manifestsand it's one of the reasons when Triplach
is the center of a storyline,we all kind of brace ourselves. There's

(01:21:34):
going to be some good, butthere's going to be some needless bad,
and we're seeing a good mix ofthat. Longing for some nostalgia or maybe
you want to learn some wrestling history, don't miss the Nineties Past Cast Every
Friday on the PW Towards Daly Castfeed. Alex and Patrick will transport you

(01:21:56):
thirty years into the past by takingyou through the towards issue from that very
weak follow news from the WWF andWCW and all the happenings from across the
wrestling industry in real time as TheTorch reported it thirty years ago, that's
the nineties, Pass Gass every Fridayor the PW Torch Daily cast feed.

(01:22:26):
And I think the main difference inthis one. My belief is that at
the end of this the finale ofthis program is Triple H putting over Daniel
Bryan, and I'm sure in hismind he thinks that's enough. It's just
he's doing so much damage along theway. Yeah, yep, And you
know, you just there's there's ascale of the collateral damage along the way,
and then at the end will thewill the other side of the scale,

(01:22:48):
when Daniel Bryan gets with revenge beenough to make up for it.
That's one way to measure it.And the other thing is, let's say
it is enough to make up forit. Let's say at least a huge
by rate when Daniel Bryan wrestles TripleH. If that happens or whatever the
situation is, they do great business. You still have to look at the
other side of the scale and gowas all that other stuff necessary, because
if it wasn't, it just tookaway from the product on the journey to

(01:23:11):
the big payoff. What if youcan have the payoff without all the collateral
damage, And that's what I'm advocating. It's let's eliminate the collateral damage that
you don't need in order to stillhave the payoff at the end. And
I would say Triple H being completelyaway from Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan is
better because Randy Orton and Daniel Bryanare so good at who they are and
what they do that Trip Lachi isstuck in the oxygen out of the rooms

(01:23:33):
and needlessly interjecting themselves and hurting theircharacters in the process. And that's my
criticism of this angle. Doesn't meanthe angles a complete disaster. It just
means it's worse off because of TripleH. And some people are being hurt
along the way, But Daniel Bryan'sstill over because he's Daniel Bryan. I
don't think there's a lot Triple Hican do to kill off all of his
momentum, but he's hurting some ofit. And I think the scary thing

(01:23:56):
is who's benefiting from this whole thing, and they believe all the bay Facist
will and because of what I saidearlier, with everyone coming out at once,
I don't think any of them reallygained much. I think the guys
who gained something from this, orDaniel Bryan, who they've already done some
damage too, because they've killed myinterest in seeing him really win the championship
and did show at some point otheryou know, he and maybe there's enough

(01:24:18):
damage with him blubbering all the timethat people just kind of rolling. I
still think they're gonna pop big whenhe finally snaps, so he's getting something
out of it. I would arguethat Randy Orton would be more over right
now Triple H was out of thepicture. Had it just been Randy Orton
cashed in, took in, tookthe title away, whatever, there was
a way to do it where youdidn't need Triple HI, you didn't need

(01:24:40):
stuff. It's just Randy Orton stolethe championship, and he'd be more over
right now. For those who wantto see I've put a lot of time
into a two weeks ago. Ifyou're a VFP member and haven't read it,
it's the two weeks ago newsletter.If you aren't a VFP member but
you're thinking of signing up, andyou do sign up, go back two
weeks to the cover story on TripleH and a lot of stuff. Jason
just said, I agree, andI did a real in depth kind of

(01:25:01):
breakdown of where I'm coming from thatexpands on what I'm saying here why the
Triple Aged power Trip is is badfor business. Jason made great points along
the way there too, And andsometimes people go, oh, Daniel Bryan
still getting cheered, So you guys, boy are eating crow And it's like,
no, you're just you're not reallylistening or reading our stuff. If
you think our argument is that binaryand that's simple, it's not. And

(01:25:24):
there's room for criticism even if DanielBryan still gets cheered throughout all this nonsense.
So anyway, and we'll talk tothe after show to Jason about big
show a little bit. Let metry to get in one or two more
calls, because we had a coupleof later rivers here who maybe join us
at the beginning, and this istheir first chance to call in. So
let's extend the show a couple ofminutes here and go to three five two
and then seven zero two three fivetwo. Thanks for holding. Please state

(01:25:45):
to name it where you're from threefive two anyway, this is Eric from
gasof Looting. Hey, Eric,thanks for colling. What do we got
for us? We'll actually I sentyou an email for the uhiat uh mysel
just go ahead and do it now. I'm here called call you. Yeah,

(01:26:11):
I was listening to the act.You're Eric, Eric, You're you're
You're acting like we called you upand said, hey, do you have
a question like notre someone in byemail. It's like you called us.
But fine, since you called,since you a called, I guess I'll
ask it all loud on the show. All right, go ahead. I'm
sorry for getting it hard time.I don't mean to be triple h here
cool. You know you can suchyour your anyway. I'm listening to was

(01:26:39):
listening to Bruce's show this weekend.You guys were talking about a j and
her tattoo and all that, andI usually uh do not disagree with a
whole lot of what Bruce says,but I thought he was real off face
with how he he came at herfor forgetting that tattoo. Oh yeah,
I'm it. Yeah, we all, I was a DA title. In

(01:27:00):
relation to the business, I mean, it's it's nothing, but for a
woman in the business, it's theculmination of their career. There is nothing
bigger for her in the wrestling businessthan the Duas title right now. And
you know, we've all seen thevideos of Aha when she was twelve years
old meeting Leader. We know she'sa lifelong wrestling fan. And maybe she

(01:27:20):
even kind of marked out for herselfgetting that tattoo. But you know,
for someone as a kid who grewup wanted to be a wrestling fan or
wanted to be a wrestler, andthat was her dream and she reached the
culbination of her profession, how canyou be mad about that? Even if
she did kind of mark out alittle bit for herself. I mean,
she's not one of these uh,you know, models or you know whatever

(01:27:42):
that picked up and just decided todo it. She was a wrestling fan.
I just I didn't agree with whathow he approached that, what he
said, Yeah, Jasin, whatdo you want to say on that?
I know you're jumping exactly what hesaid. I agree with her because I
think Bruce's thing was, well,you know, hey, if it was
like the WWE Championship, and eventhat he'd be pushing it. But she
can't win the w w A Championship, and God help us if they ever

(01:28:05):
tripped her two in the w wA Championship. So yeah, I mean,
yeah, the devis title. It'sa butterfly belt. It's silly.
But everything he said is when Iwas listening to Bruce say that, that
was running through my mind too.Or it's like, well, a big
deal, you know, this issomething that she takes pride in and then
she got a tattoo on the backof her neck for it. I didn't
think it was because it is thatthe peak that she can get to in

(01:28:29):
that division. Well, okay,maybe she's taking it more serious than bruce
Wood, but the same time,maybe so maybe Vince sees that she takes
it this serious, and the fansmore importantly, see that she takes it
this seriously, and they start totreat the title belt a little bit.
You know, maybe fans take thetitle a little more seriously. Eric,
did you think I was on Bruce'sside or that I tried challenging him.

(01:28:51):
I think you tried to challenge alittle bit, but not as much as
I would hope. Yeah, that'sthat's what I hope you'd say, because
sometimes I just get fatigued, soright, you know, I get there's
times where Bruce is so is sosure about something, and I know,
you know, and it's great thathe's got opinions and I agree with them
more than I disagree, for sure, but there are times where and I

(01:29:12):
tried to say, but it's youknow it for I think by analogy was
like when you're especially a newer fan, you know, when you're in your
first five ten years of being afan, especially the first five years,
you know every champion, you know. I mean, you can name the
city and the date. And maybeit's different for today's fans, or certainly
it was when there were more rapidfire title changes. They're better about it
now, but I mean growing beinga fan, growing up from the late
seventies when I first started watching wrestling, and especially through the eighties before I

(01:29:33):
started the Torch. I mean,I like, that's all I thought about
on the bus ride home from schoolor on a rainy day sitting board.
It's like, okay, now letme do the US champions backwards by Dayton
City. You know, let melet me do the a w A World
title backwards, and I try togo further back, you know, And
each time that I studied it andtried to know more, And even then
you thought Sting was the greatest USchampion of all times. Now I didn't.

(01:29:56):
When we talked about that on theon the pay per view VIP Roundtable
Sunday night at length. So ohand oh, by the way, was
it Steve Austin with Rick Flair whosaid something about how polls aren't scientifically aren't
statistically significant, but they're interesting,which is exactly what I was trying to
tell Bruce on Bruce Mitchell on theRoundtable on Sunday, and he'd have none

(01:30:19):
of it. To him, itwas either statistically significant or completely not interesting,
or we're talking about it was likea ridinary. There was no middle
ground. I'm like, what areyou talking him? That's kind of it's
all with J. But I thinkfor AJ, I think you make just
a great case for it, Eric, and I think today's fans you want.
I argue this all time for whetheror not the title means a lot

(01:30:42):
in real life to drawing money orthe money you make even or your biggest
payday. I still think you wantthe wrestlers to convey to fans that this
means the world to them. That'swhy I love the way Cumpunks celebrated his
title wins. It's why I lovethe way that some of the divas have
celebrated their title wins. It itreally does seem like an amazing moment.

(01:31:03):
I thought that, and I wroteI talked about it on the Kelor Hotline
and wrote it for my news letterreport on Raw this week. When Daniel
Bryan was standing in the ring atthe beginning of Raw, Jason, I
was like, if somebody tuned into wrestling and they're just slipping channels.
Nobody does that anymore. They goto the channel guide and choose their channel.
But if they're really flipping through,and also they stumble upon this crowdful
of people cheering Daniel Bryan, They'relike, oh, what this guy do?

(01:31:25):
And then they realize it's WWE,They're like, wait, I thought
everybody knew it was scripted. Nowwhy are they cheering. I'm like,
he accomplished something, you know,He's just scripted. It's such a weird
genre. I mean, it's avery weird genre that a crowd of fifteen
thousand people are going to sit thereand cheer somebody who did what he was
scripted to do as if he actuallyaccomplished something. If you break it down
like that, it is weird,but that's for people who don't get it.

(01:31:47):
For people who do get it,it is an accomplishment first of all,
to get to the level where apromoter will give you the belt and
you're over enough to have the fanscheer you. And the fans do somewhat
pick who the guy is going tobe. They're part of picking the guy
they want to see in the mainevent having the great matches, so they're
basically fans are celebrating the fact thatthey help pick a guy that they love

(01:32:08):
to see do wrestling. They'd loveto see him perform. So it's cool.
Yes, it's a lesser scale withthe Diva's title, but I think
we need more people and that's whatEric you're saying. We need more people
like aj who do care enough totattoo their neck, even if they take
it a little further than maybe mostpeople would, or that you would even
recommend someone. Do you want morepeople like that than the ones who consider
it just extra baggage and a painin the ass, and all they care

(01:32:30):
about is their paycheck. I thinkit's good for wresting that people that care
that much. I also get whatBruce said though, that it's it's it.
Maybe a removable tattoo would have beenbetter for somebody in her early twenties.
It's on the back, it's onher neck, you know. I
mean it's it's not like on thefront where it's always going to be visible.
I mean she has to hold upher hair to see it. That's
a good point, ye seconds.One quick area where I agree with Bruce

(01:32:54):
is as much as I agree withEric on nich he, Bruce is right
when he says when mcmanage or anotherpromoter see something like that, they have
that wrestler right where they want.Oh that I know. Yeah, And
I think that's eric I'd say,and Jay's great point. I'm plaly said
that because Eric, I think that'swhere Bruce is coming from is he sees
what Trip Lachi is doing with thispower trip angle and it's somewhat not somewhat,

(01:33:15):
quite a bit reflective of how managementin real life wants wrestlers to just
know their role behave themselves. Ithink when Bruce sees that, he's thinking,
oh, you know, he doesn'twant wrestlers to become marks for belts
at the expense of looking out forthemselves when it comes to paychecks and when
it comes to you know, theirwelfare and the schedule and all that kind
of thing. And so maybe he'sreacting to that somewhat along with the fact

(01:33:38):
that, you know, the Diva'stitle for the most part hasn't been positioned
as a money title. But Eric, I'm with you. I think you
want more people who have wanted itforever and treat it like a big deal,
because I think it helps fans thenthink it's a big deal. And
when you treat title seriously, fansare more likely to pay money to see
it defended. So cool, Eric, appreciate the call. Any quick follow
up, well, actually just twatthings. One was a retort to what

(01:34:00):
you just said. I mean,he said, uh, he doesn't want
wrestlers to become marks for the expenseof their pay days and whatnot. Yeah,
what else are they going to doright now? So we haven't anywhere
else or do anything. I know, I decided to become as defended.
Yeah, well, yeah, Iknow that what story they tell, isn't
it, because yeah, and oneof the do you have any idea where

(01:34:23):
what the criteria was for these poolsthat they in its pay per view because
not only well, Rick Flair notwinning the world title thing was ridiculous,
but even in that they selected werecompletely I mean, I don't know how
does thin you can get on thatlist when you've got people like Harry Raised,
and Rick Flair and and and guysin the past that you know help

(01:34:45):
the US title that you know actuallydid something with about when it men's Yeah,
all right, Eric, We're gonnasay that for the VF after show
because we're nine minutes into the freeshow here, and I did want to
talk about that in more depth,but I'm glad you I jotted down on
my notes and uh to cover moreof the pulse because I do want to
talk about that more. I'm gonnareal quickly here squeeze and seven or two
because I promised, and then we'llanswer a quick and go to the bapp

(01:35:05):
after show seven or two. Thanksfor holding. Please state your name and
where you're from. Yeah, hey, this is the means I'm calling from.
Las Vegas. I enjoyed, Uhyeah, I enjoyed Rawle last night,
but you know, I'm disgusted Wadeand Bruce. Most of the excitement
now I'm discratched for Daniel Bryan.Yeah, I mean most of the excitement.

(01:35:28):
In fact, almost all the excitementI've had for Daniel Bryan the past
few years was basically flushed down thetoilet last night. And my question to
you is with the fans cheering DanielBryan, yes, yes, yes,
and everything else because we love him, but you know how I don't feel
like I would cheer him anymore.But you know, I'm starting to get
bored. How do you think thefans will continue to you know, get

(01:35:51):
behind Daniel Bryan after all this crap, because I mean, like you know,
Bruce and I completely agree. Also, I have lost all's all excitement
for, you know, having himgain the championship again. This is just
it's I can't even believe that theywould destroy the biggest thing they've got the
past few years. I mean,it's just very irritating to me. So

(01:36:13):
yeah, I just wanted to saythat and thank you very much. Give
yourself a reason to look forward togo into the mailbox each week with a
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(01:36:38):
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(01:37:00):
home delivery for just ninety nine dollars, or try US four an eight week
trial subscription pwtorch dot com slash paperCopy. Me before you go, Before
you go, how have you?How do you think Bruce has done on
today's live cast? Do you thinkyou've liked his insight? Well, I'll

(01:37:23):
tell you what. Yeah, Imean, I give him about a four
out of ten, but ouch,but it's better than usual. It's better
than Bruce usually does, right thanI usually do? All right, I
was I was gonna say, Imean usually at two and a half of
three. All right, means Iappreciate it very much. Yeah, thanks

(01:37:45):
for the call. Yeah, youknow I talked about with a Road Warrior
and the dusty finish earlier. Atsome points, at some points, fat
not, at some point. Fansalways need to think that there's some even
in the fake world of professional wrestling. And I use the word fake like
three times here, but you know, because there's better words than that.
That's just such a buzzword. Butin the fake world of wrestling, you
have to have you have to givethe fans of sense continuably that there is

(01:38:08):
a structure in place that is aimingto have an even playing field and where
justice prevails the better person wins.If you don't have that, nothing else
matters, Because what does it matterif there's a pinfall, if it's going
to be taken away? What doesit matter if there's a big finishing move
that's executed that can knock out theheel, If that isn't good enough to
lead to the baby face getting atitle and you can do it a little

(01:38:30):
bit and it builds up frustration.But when you stretch that too far,
the snapback effect is so great.You just it's just eventually the trust and
the promotion and people people's willingness toinvest emotionally and something is taken away when
it's not there anymore, when thereward isn't there anymore, you know.
I mean, there's only so manytimes when you're hungry and you open the
refrigerator that instead of seeing food,it's it's a full of dirty socks.

(01:38:57):
Pretty soon you're gonna stop going andopen the refrigerator. Well, same thing
with wrestling. Pretty soon you're goingto stop popping from your falls and stop
cheering your favorite wrestler and winning atitle. If every time you score the
pinfall or wins a title, somebodytakes it away, and so it's it's
it's a tool that you have touse very very carefully and rarely. And

(01:39:17):
I think we're getting a sense hereJason on the show, and it's common
sense to believe it'd be the case. Can they do this another two shows
in a row and not have alot more people like the me's, you
know, start losing interest. Ithink that's a very valid concern. Now
I don't think they can, andI guess at one little thing to go
down Triple H conspiracy theory boulevard.That I worry about is that they've they're

(01:39:40):
doing this thinking, well, ifyou know, if he the world title
is one thing, the real moneyis in Daniel Bryan beating Triple H.
And if that's their mentality on this, they couldn't be more wrong. Yeah,
all right, very good. Followme on Twitter at v Wade Keller
th WA d E K E LL e R Another mind or matorch dot

(01:40:01):
com our website right now. Tonsof coverage leading into USC on Saturday,
and a lot of other interesting storiesgoing on in the MA world right now,
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(01:40:24):
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(01:40:46):
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(01:41:09):
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So access to both versions of Sputorchon whatever device you use the most.

(01:41:31):
And again to go VIP pwtorch dotcom, slash go vi ip and
Jason Powell has been my co hosttoday as almost always on Tuesdays, and
Jason Paul's website is pro Wrestling dotNet. You can also download his apps
on your smart device. Just toa search for pro wrestling one word and
it should pop up right at thetop of the search returns Jason any other

(01:41:55):
plugs before we wrap up here asa music place, I hit me up
on Twitter at Pro Wrestling Nets excellentv FP after show coming up next dot
net members and t W George BFTAmembers. Stay tuned some on TNA Talk
and some funny polls from Night AChampions and more coming up after the welcome.

(01:42:16):
All right, music is over.That's kids on bridges. Look them
up on iTunes. Do you liketheir music? Let's move into the VP
after show portion of the show.Jason, Yeah. The polls on Night
of Champions, it isn't so muchthe results that I think are as interesting,
although I think they are interesting,as I tried to point out to
Bruce Sunday, but it's the choicesthey made. It was like they were
trying to pick somewhat randomly wrestlers fromdifferent eras. And then you could see

(01:42:41):
some wrestlers to me excluded due topolitics, others because while they were in
this poll, so we're not goingto include them in this one. But
the whole thing was so much ofkind of a fiasco and so nonsensical that
even Michael Cole at one point nearthe end just said, and folks,
because it must have been blown upon Twitter, Folks, this is just
a sample of some of the veryvalid people. This is not a definitive
pole. It's the sample of someof the qualified names. There must have
been a backlash on Twitter. Iwasn't following it enough to know, but

(01:43:04):
it was pretty silly. I mean, some of the sting held the US
title ones nobody thinks of him asUS champion, that's not something, and
yet he people voted for him.It's like, greatest US Champion ever should
be somebody who's known for their UStitle reign and either had a lot of
them that mattered or a really longone that made a difference. And when
you see that result and then yousee book or T beating Rick Flair,

(01:43:26):
it's just nonsense. I mean,it's just it's just the selection. The
options were worthless and the results theselections made the pole worthless, but the
results were just weirds. It kindof reminded me of something I'd learned from
you early in my Torch days whenit came to formatting, like reader feedback
and making sure like you know,hey, if there's typos going and fix

(01:43:48):
it and then clean everything up.Basically, don't make your readers or in
their case, your audience looks stupid. So yeah, and I almost feel
like this they're even if those werelegit poll results, that's when I gimmick
them. My God, Flair,Steve Austin, is that far behind Hole

(01:44:11):
Cogan? No, we got toclose this gap. Rick Flair didn't Book
or T one and not Rick Flair? What we got to this, you
know? And the Hogan one thatit really wouldn't surprise me if that's legit.
I mean, I do think there'sstill but it kind of goes against
then if they did. If allthose people voted for Hulk Cogan, well
that's a different era two, soit would they really vote for book or

(01:44:33):
t over Rick Flair. I meanthat right there tells me the Book or
T one was a joke. Idon't know why they I think they just
wanted to. I think they're angrywith Rick Flair and this was their way
of having some fun. They easilycould have if they're that angry, they
could have just left him off ratherthan making a mockery of their own poll.

(01:44:53):
Yeah, yeah, I like itis weird though, that today's fans
would vote for Hoko again in thosenumbers, ahead of Hook I'll get ahead
of Steve Boston. Like, Istill can't wrap my brain around that.
Well, what's odd they left Whyisn't the Rock in that poll? Because
the Rock is a movie star andhe supersedes all of those things, do
you know what? Because they didn'twant to put Rock on a poll that
he'd lose. I don't think theywanted to put I don't think they wanted

(01:45:15):
to include him because he would havewon. Yeah that's and he shouldn't,
you know. I mean, Irocks great, and there's a lot of
great things about Rock. I don'tthink of him as the greatest w W
A champion of all time, right, Yeah, it's just it was if
I like defining the terms and solike to me, it's yet it's fun
to say it's night a champions let'sdo a poll. But when you put
an intern in charge of randomly drawingout a name from the two thousands and

(01:45:40):
the nineties and the eighties and thepre eighties, and you just throw some
random names out there, it's likeyou need to have somebody who really understands
wrestling history and also fully understands allthe politics and all the ramifications and all
the egos and all that to comeup with the list. And then even
then it's so hard to do becauseit isn't statistically significant. And that's what
Bruce was trying so hard to getas it's like, it's it's a it's

(01:46:00):
a sampling of fans who are bigenough fans today to have ordered a pay
per view, an off brand payper view, and not off brand,
but a non marquee top tier payper view, and who are have a
smart device in their hand during apay per view and know how to download
an app and I've done so,and care enough to launch it during the
pay per view, and then careenough to vote in a poll. I
mean, you're really getting down there. You're splicing the audience smaller and smaller

(01:46:24):
and smaller down to the put itbluntly a not particularly educated cross section of
the pro wrestling industry's fan base.So you've got that problem. But the
better thing to do is to maybetighten up the poll a little bit and
go who are who are the greatestWho's the greatest world champion in w w
E history of the last dozen years, so the last fifteen years, you

(01:46:45):
know something where you're not including thenineties and the eighties, and that that
preposterousness of it, And it's justthere's a way to do the poll and
have fun with it, but havethe results mean more. And but it's
I still found it interesting that today'saudience, that that that's slice of a
slice of a slice of today's wrestlingfans voted for Hulk Hogan that much ahead

(01:47:08):
of Steve Austin, for instance.And there's a number of other isolated names
you can pull out like that.That jumped out at me, Rob.
Yeah, I mean the polls wereabsurd, They really were. I almost
feel like we spent too much timetalking about them because they were so absurd.
I know, I agree, TAnd a real real quick did did
Bret Heart makes? Did he makewhat the Heart Foundation listed? Is that

(01:47:30):
why they felt okay? Not havinghim in the world title or intercontinent where
the Heart Foundation listed, I knowthe Bulldogs where I can't remember the par
Foundation. Yeah, I don't don'tknow if they were. I guess that
would be the one exclusion that Iwould take note of them if they didn't
list the Heart Foundation or Brett inany of the polls. It's like,
Okay, what's going on this week? Yeah, and I do love that.
That's fabulous. Smoola was a Diva'stitle holder, you know, well,

(01:47:50):
I mean Hulk Hogan was w wA. That's true. That's true.
H ten Let let's go into thewaiting to talk about on the main
show. Very much Dixie Carter earlyin the year, and a lot of
optimism. We're cutting back from twelveto four live Sunday night pay per views.
We're gonna go on in the road. We're gonna expose the TENA product,
bring it to the fans. You'vepass for it, we responded,
and they're not drawn good at thesearenas. It's crippling them financially. Jason

(01:48:15):
I indorsed the move, but Iendorsed the move because I felt like TENA
was willing to financially absorb the cost. And I also when she said six
seven hundred thousand dollars, and Ithink that's the first time that number got
out there. It's been repeated alot since then, but I think she
said it on our show for thefirst time, that it is seven hundred
thousand dollars per taking all expenses andyou know, taken into account. That

(01:48:38):
jumped out to me as if that'show expensive it is. Maybe this was
a wrong move to make now thatthey're looking at, seriously looking at going
back to you know, home baseone location they just weren't ready for yet.
What went wrong And wasn't a mistaketo even try it? You know,
I also indorsed it. I thinkfrom a visual standpoint, it does

(01:49:00):
make the company seem bigger, itmakes the talent seem moreover. But I
also didn't have access to the figuresand if they knew going into this,
this is what these are, whatthe figures are, and this is what
we make from Spike TV. Andthey actually thought we're going to do so
well that big. The gate's gonnabe so big it's going to offset any
losses. They're crazy that, Imean, it's so it's it's easy for

(01:49:24):
us to sit on the outside goinghead, it's it definitely belongs on the
road. It's gonna, it's gonnavisually, it's going to help the product.
It's good for business, maybe notfinancial business, but you know,
we don't have the access to thatthey do. I mean, I don't
know if they convinced themselves a wholecogen in such a big name that will
sell all these tickets, or whatit was they convinced themselves. But when

(01:49:45):
they have access to these numbers,and then what did you six seven hundred
thousand is what you said? Yeah, and you know, I mean the
rumored Spike figure for a while.I have no idea what they're making from
Spike per episode, but I thinkthe rumored figure for a while there was
north two hundred thousand episode And you'rebasically going into this losing money even though

(01:50:05):
you're taping bi weekly, you know, and you're not going to make that
up at the gate. I mean, I also expected them to do more
to promote their shows. They've donea little bit more. They'll have like
I think in Saint Louis, forinstance, they had one guy on one
radio station all week long, andmaybe there's some other stuff, you know,

(01:50:26):
the newspaper, but they don't.They're not aggressive in marketing themselves.
They're not. They don't go intotown and just they don't, you know,
I mean even hell, even astreet team as outdated as the concept
of teams would be beneficial to thembecause they don't do any marketing for their
shows. I always tell the storyabout going to that show, I think
it was Saint Cloud and we gota little bit lost going through town trying

(01:50:47):
to find the venue. Didn't seeanything about TNA anywhere in that town.
Got to the venue, didn't seeanything about TNA on on the marquee or
anything like that. Get inside,pay for the tickets, walk, have
to around the corner to go intothe venue. Oh there's TNA posters everywhere,
like what And I'm you know,it's it's a venue that I'm sure

(01:51:09):
was used for other things, sopeople who went there may have seen it,
but that's I mean, their houseshows. They just put it on
the the I think it's the venueor you know, they just kind of
leave it up to everyone else todo their work and wonder why they can't
grow their business. Need an extradose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts will

(01:51:30):
come join me Alan fell Over inthe Progress Paradise at Peter Retort VIP as
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(01:51:53):
the glorious career of Juician thunder Lighterand I was there when shows where our
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(01:52:16):
VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcastsapps on iPhone and Android devices, or
you can stream them directly from ourad free VIP mobile site. See You
in the Paradise. It's part ofthe carryover of the ww air there's so

(01:52:38):
it's just like they were. It'slike TNA was built on ancient burial grounds
of w CW, and the ghostsof WW just haunt them. They brought
over way too many of the samepersonnel and a lot of the same incompetence
and personality too, just you know, and I think Dixie thought, oh,
but Eric Bishop had such a runof success, and I believe him
when he tells me in the air, it's a great Eric Bishop from way

(01:52:59):
that's very convincing. In what madeNitro come to life is Eric Fishop's ability
to persuade. And when Eric hasa great idea and things are going well,
Eric can make things happen. Buthe also can tell Dixie Carter,
none of these problems a w Wand my fault. You know. I
did the five hour interview with them, and it was I really enjoyed the
interview and I learned learned from it, and I think it was great to
get him on record for that lengthof time talking. But there wasn't that

(01:53:20):
that that that willing to step back, be introspective and say I take responsibility
for these three major things that hadI done them differently, could have changed
the course of things. Eric juststands by that AOL time Warner merger made
W s w's demise inevitable and Idon't buy that, and it even if

(01:53:42):
and even if it's true, atsome point, as a credibility to builder,
Eric needs to acknowledge the obvious thingsthat everybody else sees that that went
wrong with W s W. Thathad he and he had the power to
stop him from happening, would haveput Stub in a position to make the
difficult decision much much much more difficultfor the corporate side to cancel the programs
and sell it off for scraps.Dixie's getting the charm and credibility of Eric

(01:54:08):
Bischoff and Hulk Hogan and Bruce Pritchardwhen he was there, and who she
to disagree with them? Hulk said, the last thing we need, the
last magic thing is is going liveon the road. You know it was
being live and it was this andit's that. And you know Dixie's she
brought him on board. If they'rethe experts that she hired, you can't
really blame her for listening to thembecause she doesn't know enough to know better.

(01:54:30):
And that's what Hulk Cogan said.So to me, the failure of
this to work and I'm curious whatthe excuse is lies on the people who
told her now's the time, thisis the time, it will work.
And I wonder what they're telling hernow, or I wonder if she stopped
listening to those people. You know, I can't let her off the hook,
Daddy. Usually, I don't knowthat Hulk Cogan, she's their numbers.

(01:54:51):
I don't know that he has accessto their books. I don't know.
You know, if now, ifwe find out Hogan and Bishop they
knew exactly what the expanse were andthey said this is going to work,
then absolutely, But she still bearsshe deserved part of the blame because she
ultimately signed off on this. It'sher company and she you know, it's

(01:55:15):
whether it's been Vin Trusso, Jeff, Jared Dutch, Mantell, whoever.
You know, it's just the differentpeople who have been in power at different
times in that company. She isstill the boss, and she's been doing
this now for over a decade,and I just I don't have that much
sympathy for her. Yeah, no, you're right. At some point,
No, you're right, at somepoint, she can't be this this wide
eyed nubie who's just getting bad advicefrom people who should know better. And

(01:55:38):
I mean, I've said it foryears. If I'm Dickey Carter and I'm
running a wrestling company and I'm whoeverher boss is, and her boss happens
to be Bob and Janice, herparents, I want to know, and
I mean this, what have youdone to increase your understanding of the history
of this industry so you don't makethe same mistakes? And what are you
doing to increase your knowledge base sothat you can ask the right questions to
the people that you hire to influencethe course indirection of this company on a

(01:56:00):
business and creative level. And Iwant to know what wrestling books she's read.
I want to know which people whodo not have a dog in the
fight are that she's leaning on privatelyfor advice. And I know that there's
some smart people who have offered togive her advice off the record, and
I don't think that she's taken themup on it or listen to it as
often as she could over the years. And I've heard know of a number
of instances where there's people who justsaid, if you need a sounding board,

(01:56:23):
you can come to me. I'mnot looking for a promotion. I'm
not looking for the job that thesepeople have, but I'm willing to tell
you the tricks that they're, thetricks they played in the past, and
what to look out for. AndI just she hasn't seemed to be savvy
in that way or hard working enough. And I think there's a lot of
little things that that company has donewrong where the buck stops with her,
and you know, the paychecks beinglaid and this, I mean, it's

(01:56:44):
just it's there's been enough fiascos inhistory that you don't look at Dixie and
go executive of the year. Youknow, you've never thought that about her,
and at some point you're you're absolutelyright, and we can't say you
know, it's on Hulk for sayingdo this, but Dixie. Dixie should
at this point be smart enough tocrunch the numbers as the right questions and
perceive whether it really is the righttime, because nobody has access to more
information than she does. I stillthink that, again, I don't know

(01:57:09):
the numbers, but when Paul Haymanand Jim Ross separately were interested in taking
over that company and basically being generalmanager, Dixie would be essentially out of
power. She'd still have her positionin name, but they would have a
budget. They would have to workwithin that budget. I mean, they
just kind of delayed the inevitable.With that, Dixie still has control now,

(01:57:32):
and I think that's what my guessis. It was more about her
wanting to run her business her waythan it was you know. I mean,
Hayman asked for a lot, clearly, he asked for a percentage of
the company and different things like that, and I understand if they weren't willing
to give that up. And Idon't know what Jim Ross asked for financially,
but I mean the approach both guyswere taking was, you know,

(01:57:57):
they wanted to basically get things inorder financially first, get rid of the
deadweight, do all of these thingsthat they're doing a few years down the
road. Anyway, I just say, I really think it was a mistake
to not if the financial numbers fromHayman or Ross made sense, they should
have pulled the trigger, because Imean, it's it's easy to say when
it's not your company, just what'sbest for business is to hand it over

(01:58:21):
to someone else. It's tough,it'd be a tough to be in her
position, but it's the family that'skind of running the show, and instead
they go with Hogan Bishop, AndI really think the reason that they that
they ultimately went with those guys isbecause they weren't They were savvy enough to
not ask for total control. Yeah, and you know, so they get

(01:58:44):
I'm sure they're being paid very handsomely, very generously, but they didn't ask
for control. She still has controlof that company, and I really think
that was the deciding factor as towhy Hogan and Bishop got in there and
took as much power as they didcompared to turning things over to Jim Ross,
Paul Hayman or Paul Hayman. Ishould say a lot of sports analogies
in that, you know, asports team with Jerry Jones type owner who

(01:59:05):
wants a coach who's not going toovershadow me, don't want to Jimmy Johnson
anymore, and somebody who's gonna bemore Maybe Jimmy Johnson played the game well
enough. And I don't know,but you know, when there's a big
personality owner, a big personality generalmanager, and they don't want a coach
who's going to come in and rufflesfeathers and so that it's kind of like
that, Yeah, I mean,did Dixie want her investment to lead to

(01:59:26):
her getting credit for success and nothaving someone else go? Well, Dixie
ran into the ditch and she finallyhired someone to drive it out, And
did that get in the way.She just might not have had confidence that
she could differentiate between somebody who woulddo better than Hogan and Bishoff would do,
you know. I mean, shejust might not have had that knowledge
base. And that's right. Ijust think, if you're gonna do this,
you've got to dive in and spendhours and hours and hours on the

(01:59:47):
phone with people. And that's whatI did in the early years of the
Torch And to this day, I'mstill learning, you know. I mean,
I'm still trying to figure this thingout. Steve Auston says the same
thing on his podcasts. He knowsa lot, but he wants to learn
more, and he's such a youknow, here's a guy who was on
top of the on top of theworld, made eight and ten million dollars
in his best years on top,and he gets wrestlers on and he's like
he's like a kid on the firstday of class, asking questions of people

(02:00:10):
who have had different experiences in theindustry than him. Yeah, and he
wants to know more Dixie. Iwant to know, has Dixie ever sat
on the phone for three and ahalf hours with somebody and just picked their
brain about this industry? I justdon't know that she has that wasn't blowing
smoker per ass and tell her youknow, everything's great and at the same
time wanting to desperately draw a paycheckrummer, Yes, yeah, exactly.

(02:00:31):
So all right, let's do somerapid fire emails in our final minutes for
Jason, because we've got a numberof emails in and we'll just do rappid
cause I ask you one quick one. Yeah. Yeah. Hogan's deals up
two weeks from now. Yep,do you resign him? And keep in
mind Spike TV is probably flipping,you know, if they may just say
no, we're not interested, butif they're willing to do what they did

(02:00:53):
last time and pay for a portionof his deals, do you keep all
Koger No, me neither. Yeah. I think we've I think we've we've
learned what Hogan's drawing power is andit's not significant enough to make a difference.
I mean, I would be it'dbe hypocritical in me. I guess
to say resign Hogan after the coverstory I wrote in the newsletter last week.
I don't. I just know thefewer big names they have, the

(02:01:16):
better chance they have to look different, like they don't just have the castops
at WWE doesn't want. I thinkwhen there's a big name and he's not
in WWE, fans go, well, I'll wait till he gets w w
E, because that's when what hedoes will matter. And I just think
Tenna needs to go a different direction. But even if they stay with the
same course and try to be essentiallywhat they have, then I think they're
better off without how Cogan at thispoint. And it's unfortunate to say that,

(02:01:40):
but I mean, he's had athree year run, right well,
I'm part two of that. Doyou think se that way? Do you
think she will resignan that? Youknow what I don't know and that I'm
really curious about now. She maywant to resign him and its price might
be too high, or Spike mightnot come to the come to come to
the table with enough this time,or she may not want to sign him
and maybe Spike TV says, no, we really need him to be part

(02:02:03):
of our portfolio, right, Well, you know, we want Hulk Coogan's
space to be attached to this becauseit helps us seem like a network that
has some iconic faces as part ofour programming profile and portfolio. So,
I mean there's I'm sure Eric andVerry Corporates could very condescendingly tell us why

(02:02:24):
that is so important. And youguys don't even know what you're talking about
because you're just caring about what fansthink and what ratings. But we have
all these other corporate things to worryabout. But the thing is is he's
right a lot of the time.I mean, he's right. He could
say it in a nicer way sometimes, but he's right. There are things
that make absolutely no sense that shouldnot that don't impact this potential profitability or
success of a wrestling company that executiveshave to take into account. Dixie may

(02:02:46):
be in that position. But myhunch is that Dixie had maybe likes Hulk,
but maybe feels like she's taken alot of his advice, a lot
of it hasn't worked out. Whenhe's not on the show and is on
the show, there's not a bigdifference in ratings anymore, and maybe it's
time to tighten, tighten their belts, spend less money and see if they
can't build it without some of thosebig names. I don't think she'd think

(02:03:09):
of it this way, but kindof sucking the oxygen of the room,
casting a big shadow over a lotof other people who who they think can
actually wrestle at house shows and drawmoney. Right, there's my non found
by an answer. No, I'mwith you when it comes to Dixie.
I just don't know what she'll do. And I Spike TV is a huge
factor, and I don't think toomany people take that into consideration. They're

(02:03:31):
they're more hands on than I thinkthe average fan realizes there's things they want
and they and they make it.They kind of force their way into They
kind of forced TNA into doing someof those things at times. Both you
and I have been reporting that foryears. I mean, right, it
was it was somewhat of a novelthing to say when we first started saying
that a few years back, thatyou know, there's decisions being made that

(02:03:51):
you have to look at Spike TVas the emphasis behind it. Whether it's
they're tipping in a lot of money. And I'm not just pulling that out
randomly. When I say they wantcertain stars to be part of the profile
of the network, you know,they want Sting and Hogan because and it's
part of it is the profile ofthe network, the portfolio the network,
and the stars on their shows.Part of it is there were just people

(02:04:14):
holdovers from the Monday Night War eraand executive positions who were like kind of
marking out for the fact that hey, we got a wrestling show with these
big names on it, and there'sall these intangibles that play into it.
But I'll get people one quick exampleof that. A lot of the times
when we've criticized them for you know, not you know, they'll they'll have
ay we would have on their twelvepay per views per year, you'd get
the whatever the show was, youget the cheap finish on the paper V

(02:04:35):
and then you'd see the title changeon impact that Spike TV's influenced they.
I mean, I know of oneexample where they were doing a bit with
a title that they were changing,you know, a couple of times in
the weekend basically one of those wherethey don't even I don't even remember if
they acknowledged it on TV. Wasjust the champion dropped it and then regained
it the next night. Well,the Spike execs were there when the champion

(02:04:56):
dropped it, and we're livid thatit didn't take place on their television show.
Wow. Wow, all right,let's do emails rapid Fire Carmine who
dropped off. He had to goback to work, but did have two
questions. One strip Lachs the onlyman in wresting history who's been the top
heel and the top baby face atthe same time. It's very nice.
Yes, he did sign his ownhe did at l l at the end

(02:05:18):
of his own line. But youadded that yourself so god like that.
Yes, number two. I guessthat's rhetorical number two, even though well
maybe it's not. Has there everbeen I don't know. Maybe defensick man
is treaded in that water, butno, probably not. I'm sure some
people would say Steve Austen, butI heard what you said recently one of
the shows about you know, Stevewas Steve was he was a rebel standing

(02:05:40):
up to a corrupt authority figure.It wasn't like he was standing up to
this you know, really nice authoritygroup he was, he was fighting.
It was never until Steve turned heelat the end when his neck was bad
and the Attitude Era was on itslast legs and all that, and it
was just a mess, you know, the whole Alliance thing and all that,
that was just a jumbled I feelbad for you, Blue, Like
look back at that, you know, two thousand through two thousands was shocking.

(02:06:03):
And oh, I mean I'm like, I'm dubbing my VHS taste to
DVD and that's like, that's kindof at the bottom of my stack.
I've been kind of doing them inorder, like, O, well,
if there's a flood, which onesdo I really want to preserved DVD first,
you know, And like now I'mkind of to the bottom of the
stack, which is a good feeling, but it's like right underneath the two
thousand to two thousand two air onmy TNA pay per views. But I
figure those are out there, youknow, like those are going to be

(02:06:24):
out there accessible probably at some point. But yeah, I'm near the bottom
of the stack now and I'm likeI'm watching these in the background and it's
like, oh my god, wasthat bad. That's not a bad Arab
pruson. I talked about that onBruce mitchil Audio show, like the worst
eras ever. And I just thinkthat that post ecww SW buyout, there
was just this stench where it's likeeveryone exhaled and the attitude ARA had kind

(02:06:45):
of had its run and it waskind of derivative and desperate and was going
on and creative at that time.What's that? What was going on and
creative around that time? Well,you tell me. Stephanie McMahon taking over,
that's what I yeah, and Huntergaining some we No, you're right,
Stephanie taking over and the new writerscoming in I think absolutely primary And
I've said that too. You know, this early Stephane McMahan era was a

(02:07:10):
really dark time. I think partof it too, is it just was
that to hangover from the party andthe Monday Night War was this huge adrenaline
rush and there was a huge adrenalinedump and when ECW was gone and w
stub was absorbed and they just itjust it was a mess and it was
awful. But nevertheless, that wasn'tSteve Boston's best time. But when Steve
was a baby face, he wasnot a heel, and I he was.

(02:07:31):
He was an absolute baby face whowas edgy and would use certain tactics.
But when Steve started giving stunners toac Keebler and and you know,
the once the what thing happened,And Steve defends that more than I think
he should. Rick Flay even triedto trip him up on the podcast with
that, and Steve just kind ofkept kept going because but anyway, that
was a fun dynamic. Now,Steve, Steve defends that era more than

(02:07:54):
he should. Absolutely, And hesaid he had fun being a heel and
it was good, and that's goodpride. He had fun because it was
a comedy heel. There there wasno heat there, right, Who did
he? Who's he talking to aboutthat? It was somebody who I heard
it and I can't remember. Oh, Trish Tristratus. Oh yeah, okay,
I remember exactly where I was.I was on a bike ride in

(02:08:15):
downtown St. Paul. I'd takena bike ride through Saint Paul on Summit
Avenue and along the river, andI remember exactly where I was. I
was in the middle of downtown whenhe was talking to Trish, and I
was at a stoplight and I headeddown to the to the river bank and
downtown Saint Paul. When Trish saidher favorite thing was to be a heel,
and then Steve interjected and said metoo, that was my favorite time.
And I was like, wow,now I'll be talking pre Austin three

(02:08:37):
sixteen heel. Absolutely, Yeah,Well he wasn't think I don't think he
was, and me don't. Iremembered wrong because I was worried about getting
run over by a bus or something. Then I would stand corrected. But
I think he was talking about thethe two early two thousands era and he
just said he had a lot offun. But yeah, there's just been
having fun and you at your best. And that's sort of the thing too,
you know, going full circle,Triple H Triple ch has fun.

(02:09:00):
When he thinks of a funny oneliner, then it can chop the legs
out from under somebody. He enjoysdoing that. That's part of his personality.
For better for worse, all right. You know, we can psychoanalyze
why, but that's that's his thing. But having the most fun it's not
always best for business. And youknow during the Mondnight War Haul and Nash,
it was good for business to acertain extent, but there was a
time to follow, you know,follow Some tried into rules and that's when

(02:09:22):
things went out of control. Butnevertheless, Steve Auston was not a tweener.
I like it drives me up topeople. Wow Stone called Steve Auston
as peak. He was a tweener. It's like, no, he was
the most he was the biggest,most definitive baby face ever. Just because
he gave a middle finger didn't makehim a tweener. Just because he said,
you know, borderline swearer didn't makehim a tweener. He was an

(02:09:43):
absolute baby face at his core.He was about justice and peace in the
American way, you know, oryou know, just dealing out justice to
people who added coming. And ababy face is who give is a guy
who gives jerks the justice and comeup and that they need. And that's
what that character was all about.There's nothing about Austin that cheated for the

(02:10:03):
sake of cheating to make up forhis own shortcomings. That's what hell is
and he never was that correct.You don't have to wait for the Weight
Keiller Pro Wrestling post show to findout what I thought of Monday Night Rod
SmackDown each week. You can checkout my reports that are updated live throughout
Raw and SmackDown at pewtorch dot com. My written report we'll tell you what's

(02:10:26):
happening in detail in case you missedthe show, and it will also analyze
key segments and give my random thoughtsend quips on what I'm watching as it
airs. So check it out everyMonday night and Tuesday night at pewtorch dot
com. That also applies to WWEpay per views. I cover those live
at pwtorch dot com with a detailedwritten report with star ratings, and of

(02:10:48):
course you can find other TV reportsfrom other contributors to pwtorchs such as nxt
ROAH, Impact Wrestling and more.Check it out pwtorch dot com your first
stop for TV and pay per viewreports. All right, well, our

(02:11:13):
rapid fires are going while it's fire, all right, Carmine. Even though
this current corporation storyline has its negatives, would you agree that it's one of
the best in recent memory. Whenit comes to getting almost everyone on the
roster involved, it's usually whatever Johnscene and see him Punk are doing everything
else that irrelevant. This has involvedeveryone from the God arresting himself to replaced
all the way down the card toJustin Gabriel. If this story is good
for anything, I think it isthat. I disagree with that, Jason,

(02:11:35):
I don't think so. How aboutyou, well, I mean,
okay, it has them involved,but you mentioned it earlier. I like
that the top guys that ran outto help Daniel Bryan, they, you
know, Justin Gabriel was just asmeaningful in that as they were, and
so nobody I yet to see otherthan you know. I thought they were
gonna do more with Dolf and thenhe kind of got pulled from this thing,
and so it's just it's Daniel Bryanbig Show on the baby face,

(02:12:00):
and then everyone else is kind ofplaying the same role. I don't see
that as a good thing. Bigshow too, I mean, what how
does what happens? I mean,do they really think people are sitting at
home going, ah, shucks,that poor big show. If I was
in a similar position at my job, I'd punch my best friend in the
face to save my job, right, I'd punch a sixty some year old

(02:12:22):
man in the face because it's becauseI'm so pathetic and sad, because I
made such bad financial choices, andI have nothing else I can do.
You know, when people are sayingat home going, go get a freaking
job on the assembly line putting somethingtogether, and go live in a small
Go live in a small house withyour family and make ends meet like I
do, without punching your friends orold men in the face. Like there's

(02:12:45):
there's not a person in the worldwho's watching that empathizing, like empathizing with
or with big show going. Yep. If I was in that position,
I'd punched an old man too.It's like, who is so sad and
pathetic, with such low self esteemand so worthless that they can only do
one thing in life And if theycan't do that, they're willing to punch

(02:13:05):
people with their hands held behind theirback to keep their job. It's just
it's like such a weird, illconceived storyline for a hero, like,
you know, for wrestlers who aresupposed to be you don't want to portray
them as these pathetics apps of nothingelse going for them. You could write
a TV trauma about somebody who hadone, you know, one scale and
it was really good and the bosswas mean and he put them in this

(02:13:26):
position and you know, and youcould maybe make that case if it's somebody
in a more entry level position.But when you have an level of expertise
at doing one thing, I thinkthere's a presumption you could probably shift that
intellect and drive and hard work intosomething else and probably make ends meet where
you don't have to go around punchingyour best friends in the face with their
hands tied behind their back. Well, you may not be able to pay
for the lawn service though, yeah, yeah, exactly, So, I

(02:13:50):
just I don't like this. Idon't like the big show thing. It's
just and I don't think the crowdreally is I mean, are you and
not Cancels Judge one crowd, Butwe were there for SmackDown two weeks ago.
It's just, you know, rightafter this first happened, the crowd
just kind of looked at big showlike, m that's your hows feel about
you? Dude? Now? Yeah, I think they'll be there, will
be a pop when he finally doessnap, But I can't say that other

(02:14:11):
than getting more television time. LikeDaniel Bryan's not more over today than he
was when they started. I wouldsay it's it's probably even maybe even less
that's tough to gauge. Big show. He's getting more camera time, you
know, and and maybe you knowthey once it plays out, maybe the
end result and things will be betterfor him. But I haven't seen that

(02:14:31):
yet either. And I don't thinkanyone any other baby Face is more over
today than they were when this thingstarted. I think a lot of guys
fans are looking at in a differentway, in a negative light, because
they won't do what's right and standup for themselves. Well, let's let's
take an email question related to whatyou just said. Any if you remember
since July twenty eleven from Chicago says, I'm glad to see the baby Face

(02:14:52):
flock room emptied at the end ofRon fought the Shield in Orton. I
just don't get why they did.What changed from the previous weeks? What
changed from an hour and a halfearlier when four guys around and then attack
call the fame of Dusty Rhodes,Oh, I mean Virgil Runalds, because
this storyline is definitely Oh I hatedthat added too. That's what that's what
you know it going back to thevery beginning show. That's another little thing
that makes me lose faith and tripleh that, like you want somebody who's
taking over to get that. Thatis bad for business. It's bad for

(02:15:16):
business to make one thing a littlemore real than something else, especially when
it's so Russo esque. It's sodated and sad and proven to be ineffective
to try to cater to the Internetfans by winking and nodding going we're not
trying to put anything over on you. You're with us because we're gonna acknowledge.
You know, his name's not DustyRhodes. No, everybody calls him

(02:15:37):
Dusty. Everyone calls him Dream.It's it's his stage name. It's it's
not like insulting to call him Dustyrod. It's just you know, it's
like, oh, this is areal moment because he's talking about being a
dad to his kids. He canbe Dusty Rhodes and talk about being a
dad to his kids. Yeah,he had it come out and said hey,
I'm you know because I like whenhe came out and he didn't do
the big phony smile that I justassociate with his WWE character. So I
was excited about that. But nowwhen he said Virgil runalds At just washed

(02:16:00):
me. Just say I'm not doingAmerican and justice, so I'm not doing
you know, it's not an Americandream in the night. It's Dusty Roads
talking to you as a man,and that would have been gone exactly this
Dusty Roads talking about talking to youas a man and as a father.
Leave the whole Virgil thing all right, and part of its just it's been
done so many times by bad bookersin bad storylines. You know. The
only thing Thissen was and that's ashoot brother exactly. Yep. Okay,

(02:16:22):
so Andy says, I really likedthis storyline when it started, and still
if it ultimately ends the way Ihope it does, I will be happy.
But with a heavy handed trip lateand Steph and awful plot holes and
character damage to others, I'm havinga hard time enjoying it and I'm losing
interest. I still think this storyhas to stretch until Wrestomania, but I
don't know how. I don't knowhow I can hang in there. One
hundred percent of the story is thisshoddily put together and no attention to detail

(02:16:43):
is paid, And I think thatis the issue. Jason. It's like
they had this idea of we're goingto be these ruthless jerks being you know,
just being so mean to everybody atthe roster, and we're gonna be
the boss that all the all thewrestling fides at home can relate to that
hating your boss because he doesn't understandand he has these rules and he makes
you do bad things you don't wantto do. It's like, that's fine,
but that's the broad stroke, butyou've got to fill it in with

(02:17:07):
things that makes sense and don't dodamage. And I think there's a decent
number of people like Candy out therewho are going to be losing interest.
And like you said, does DannyBrown's titles win eventually? If it ever
happens and he actually holds it forlonger than a minute or a day,
will people care? And you getto the point where they're not going to
believe it until it's too late,you know. And I saw that firsthand

(02:17:28):
with all Cogan and Nick Backwinkle.When Holkamania broke out, it wasn't a
visct Man invention, hope. Ithappened organically based out of Minneapolis in the
WA or Saint Paul really in theWA territory, and vern Ghani was a
promoter and Houlkamania happened right here,and the heel champion was Nick Bockwinkle and
his manager, Bobby Heenan was abig part of that, and it Burne
just wasn't willing to pull the triggerand put the belt on Hulk, and

(02:17:50):
for variety of reasons, which hasbeen documented. Well, so fans kept
getting Hulk winning by DQ or winningwith a dusty tie finish, or winning
and the fans think he won,and then there's a ally Cargo comes out
and says Nope, nope, wehave to take the title away because of
this or that, and pretty soonit's just there's been so many false finish
there's been so many false moments thatit's like Daniel Bryan, it's just you

(02:18:11):
just kind of your spirit's broken andyour faith has gone. And I think
this ankle is one of those.Well, I'm with you, No,
I was actually thinking of Hogan bachWinkle when you're talking earlier, way earlier
in the show about all this.Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that
was a dusty finish before there wasa dusty finish, that's for sure.
And well, yeah, exactly,all right, big show comes off like

(02:18:33):
such an FN something and then hesays, house can you wear it?
It's a mass fanatic? What ajoke? Calling him Virgil runnelds everything else
on the show was fake. Well, yeah, we cover that, wegrew
Is that all right? That's pivv IP member saying he's on hold,
So that's needed since Jason Paul's ontoday and he broke the story. Health
serious is TEENA about going off theroad? Was it just the simple suggestion

(02:18:56):
or legitimate possibility for twenty fourteen thatcomes from j Peter. I think it's
a very I think it's very serious. I mean it sounds well one person
that seems has some knowledge of thesituation made it seem like February because I
asked, you know, timeline,when do you think something like this could
happen? Nothing is set in stone, but I just don't see how that's

(02:19:16):
not. You know, when youmentioned the figure that she quoted earlier.
If you're cutting costs and this isthe thing that really puts you over budget,
well of course you have to explorethat. You have to you have
to go back and take a look. And I mean that should be those
You can't do it immediately, butit should certainly be something you're planning to
do as quickly as you can andto get back to one location where you

(02:19:39):
know what your budget is every week. And so it's not just something that
somebody suggested, they're serious about thiswell, and not only that it hasn't
made new stars, it's fully helpedthe TNA regular seem like bigger stars that
they're at arenas. I mean,I think that is a benefit that has
happened. It's one of the reasonsboth you and I think endorsed the move
because for TNA to create eight newstars, people watching on television have to

(02:20:01):
think they're not TV studio wrestlers,that they're actually drawing crowds and it's a
big show atmosphere. That's what makesit so disappointing that the twenty thirteen was
about Hulk Coogan and Broke Cogan andBully Ray right, because it helped make
Bully Ray maybe seem like more ofa star that he's at these arenas.
But and maybe maybe that's helped Magnus, you know, during his during his
emerged push. Maybe it's helped misterAnderson not seem like a guy who dropped

(02:20:24):
off the map into some weird.You know, theme park studis in time
for him to drop off the mapagain. Exactly right. That's what's a
shame about all this is taking theshow on the road would have been better
to correlate with stripping away all thebig name talent and saying we But then
they'd say, well, but we'renot. We're not going to draw the
crowds. You know. We needHulk Cogan and Mister Anderson and Bully Ray

(02:20:45):
and all these names and Jeff Harneywhatever to draw. So it's kind of
a catch twenty two in that way. But yeah, that the challenge is
going to be if they do it'smister Anderson and Hulk Cogan and Sting and
whoever are gone and they're trying tobuild new stars, but it's studio wrestling
again. Will that work? Youknow? And that's going to be the
challenge, And that's you know,it's it's a tough situation. Any it's

(02:21:07):
gonna say something else about that,but I can't remember. Every Sunday Night,
Cash Wrestling Night in America on PwtorchDailycast dot Com, hosted by me
Pwtrch columnist Gregg Parks. Each weekI'll welcome a co host from the Torch
family to discuss the big shows inpro wrestling, taking your calls and emails.

(02:21:28):
You can listen live most week's beginningat eight pm Eastern on Sunday nights
with a WWE or Impact pay perview, we go on the air.
At the conclusion of that pay perview, you can listen live, but
of course, the full show isavailable for download on demand anytime shortly after
it airs. Visit pwtorch Dailycast dotcom and click the live stream link to
find the next scheduled live show link. Search Pwtorch and Apple Podcasts or your

(02:21:50):
podcast app to subscribe Wrestling Night inAmerica every Sunday, Pwtorch Dailycast dot com.
Let's another question from met fanatic.Do you guys believe the result of

(02:22:11):
the beating mister Adison received at theend of Impact will result in a baby
face turn or his being written outof TENA because he decides to resign with
a hefty if because he decides notto resign with despite a hefty pay cut.
Jason, what's you're reporting on this? I think it depends what his
options are with w w WE.I mean, this is a guy who

(02:22:33):
they sent packing because they deemed himan in ring rish to others. Well,
Jason, let me jump in realquick. On the Colt Cabana podcast,
mister Anderson said he thinks ww's notan option, and that was a
year ago, roughly give or take. But he kind of was thinking,
no, I want to. Ithink he was exploring Hollywood, and I
think he sounded to me like somebodywho had been in his own had planning

(02:22:58):
a shift away from wrestling as hislivelihood. That's that's what I picked up
from that interview with him. Goahead, I just want to throw that
in. Yeah, And I justdon't know if enough has changed since then.
I mean he's had yet. Idon't know where things stand with he
and Paul Haymond. They were prettytight at one time, and with Haymon
obviously gaining some influence. We justdon't know how much in w W E
could Hayman who could use frankly evenanother Haymond guy beyond right back, you

(02:23:22):
know, could he bring him in? Well, you know Punk and mister
Renderson where you saw there Indy showsat the grassroots level, you know,
the edit Yer shows and the samePaul Arey mister Anderson sampunkle way back.
I don't know how tight they stillare, do you know, Jason,
I mean, could Punk and Hayman? Would Punk be someone who would go,
yeah, I want to work withAnderson? Or do you think,
yeah, he's a friend, buthe's not a friend I'd vouched for to

(02:23:43):
come in and work a money programwith. Yeah, I don't. I
really don't know where their relationship isPunk and Anderson. I don't know where
Hayman and Anderson are. That's theonly way I see him getting an offer
is if one or both of thoserelationships are wrong enough that somebody goes to
bat for him. Frankly, Imean, I would think he would take

(02:24:05):
it, But I can't even sayI know for sure that Anderson would want
to go back. He's talked aboutHollywood ever since he left w WI.
Yeah, and and for some reasonhe moved to New Jersey at one point,
and maybe and may still live therefor all I know. And he
was talking about how it was forhis acting career, or at least,
you know, partially inspired by that, which seemed odd. I don't don't

(02:24:28):
think of too many actors moving toNew Jersey. I think it's not like
we're seeing Ken Anderson pop up andmovies and things like that. So I
don't know that acting is a majoroption for him. I know there's some
online things he talked about in thatcold interview that he wants to explore,
and that's cool. So I thinkif unless he just finds a job outside

(02:24:50):
pro wrestling, I wouldn't be surprisedif he does take whatever they're reduced offer
is as long as it's, youknow, semi reasonable. I know his
stock went up within t NA.Yeah. I was talking with somebody about
it this week. That you hadbefore his recent run with Bully, they

(02:25:11):
would have said absolutely not, neverresigned this guy. But now that he's
had this and the fans were reactingto him and he went out there and
he had a good brawl with BullyRay, the same person goes, oh,
you have to resign, And Idon't even know that I agree it.
To me, it seemed like Andersonwas on cruise control for so much
of his run, and I don'tknow that I would be fooled by one

(02:25:31):
good, good month for Yeah,you know, that's something I'd really have
to sit down and if I wasthe one making decision. Really probably talked
to Anderson just to get a feelfor where his head's at. Yeah,
all right, let's go. Nextquestion from Matt Fanatic in retrospect way,
do you feel your too heart onJohn seen in the past for his gay
jokes since it was revealed in Passingthat's of all topon on Sunday's Total Diva's

(02:25:52):
episode that his oldest brother is gayand as a partner and no, no,
I changed nothing that I thought aboutI was touching with Johns said on
the air. I don't. Iwasn't judging where his heart lies. I
was saying he said some things thatdid not that came across like there was
something wrong with being gay and it'ssomething that we made fun of. And
the whole thing with Ian Rock Ithought was off kilter. I mean,

(02:26:13):
I don't think because Chavo Guerreau isHispanic, it disqualifies me from being critical
of his playing stereotypical Hispanic roles.It's just because somebody is playing a role
or that that and they're okay withit doesn't make it less racist. And
just because John Cena has a gayolder brother doesn't mean some things he said
about gays didn't give the wrong impressionor didn't, you know, reinforce a

(02:26:35):
belief that otherwise the corporations trying topush push back on. So no,
no, what John Cena said onthe air, and my comments on it
were about what he said on theair, So what you know, whether
he has it's like the old line, Oh, I got black friends,
so therefore I can possibly be racist. It's like, right, no,
you know, you know, ifyou got a gay brother, but you
say something that makes it seem thatdemonizes being gay to especially it's a teenager

(02:26:56):
adolescent fans who think John Cena's youknow, basically you know, justifying the
bullying on playgrounds with the loue mightbe gay or r gay or unsure what
it's just thinking. No, Imean what Jancina said, he said,
okay. He also says on theBruce Michelia show, Wade you referred to
miss Elizabeth as they muscled up Elizabethduring the end of her life. Did
she really look anything other than anolder woman who regularly goes to the gym.

(02:27:18):
I was reading the torch and don'trecall reading anything about her looking like
Asia or having a drug problem whenshe was in w W. Yeah,
one hundred percent stand by my comments. I just saw another clip of her
on those on that era of wsW where she and Lex Luger were you
know, near the end of theiryou know, wus near the end,
and she she had very much musculardefinition and was I mean not Asia,

(02:27:41):
but seriously, one hundred thousand percentshe was she was muscled up. By
saying muscled up, I don't meanthat it has to reach the ASIA standard
to be considered muscled up, butyeah, that one hundred percent. Have
that image from just a couple ofdays ago in my head over the weekend,
and she absolutely positively had muscular lacherthat was that would be defined as
muscled up. Who was Elizabeth?Oh wow, I guess. I mean

(02:28:07):
when when she and Lex near theend of her run and w W she
was wearing sleeveless you know, likesleeveless shirts and showing off her biceps in
her arms and she I mean shewas you know whatever, I mean,
it was muscled She was muscled up. That was something that she was into
for a while. So and hishe left the word out of his next
brother question, but we're doing hesaid, also, do all three these

(02:28:31):
guys really more muscled up than anyoneon the current w w W roster,
with a few exceptions. Don't understandthe question, but all I'm saying is,
I'm looking at this w W stuffnear the end of w w's run,
and I mean, seriously, almosteverybody on that w W roster from
the the what was always the groupbattling the n W. I mean you
look at Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrettand Kevin Nash and Booker t and the

(02:28:52):
Stevie Ray and then the Mike Sanders. What was the group called, oh,
the natural born, Yes, thenatural born thrillist. That's what I's
trying to think of, Like serious, I mean, I'm just watching it
passively in the background, and it'slike almost everybody, I mean, like
eighty percent of the roster at wW at that time was more muscular than
all but ten percent of the WWWroster today. Russ roughly stated that is

(02:29:16):
definitely covering my ground. And I'mnot sure that you could find five people
or four people on ww's roster whoare more muscular than again, eighty percent
of the w W roster, whichis the exceptions being people who weren't muscular
characters. It's really really when you'restaring at it watching it on TV and
you haven't looked at it for twelveyears, you just your eye just goes
back to the screen, going,holy crap. Were they was catering just

(02:29:37):
a bunch of steroids? I mean, you know, it's it's it's really
stark. And I'm glad that wedon't notice it today because this is what
we wanted, you know, wewanted two or three guys to really stand
out who had the natural genetics thatthat makes it possible for them to look
really big, and everybody else it'smore even doubt. And I love that
Daniel Bryan and CM punk and andAlberto del Rio and Damien Sandow are the

(02:30:05):
standard. And I'm not saying they'reclean or not clean. I'm just saying
their standard for musculature is reasonable.It's athletic. They're walking down the street,
They're going to be one of themost muscular people you see walking down
the street or walking down a beach. But it's not like a bodybuilding competition.
Just let out, it's not freakish. It's not freakish, right,
And and that's a good place tobe and then he Mattis wants to know

(02:30:28):
if the Viking's planning on winning afootball game this year. Oh, he
waits until after the Packers win agame. Cute. Yeah, yeah,
well's typical Packer fans. He probablysaid nothing after the forty nine Ers beat
them. But now that the Vikingsare on two and his team is one
and one, suddenly, now he'llcome out. I see how this works.
Yes, all right, we'll moveon from my Matt. Thanks.

(02:30:52):
Mattis always Jerry from Illinois, whichtriplate holding the title in obeyance? I
like that it's he spelled it differently, but he's spelled phonetically but in abeyance,
and even says my spelling is probablyrung on. That does this mean
that technically trip late holds the title? The fact that he had the title
in his hand last night scares me. Yeah, that's true, Jason.
You know, if you know,it's like if Danny Brand's not champion and

(02:31:13):
Randy Orton's not champion and possession isa nine tenth of the law. I
think Triple H right now should bein the record books. You know,
the champion of the w w Bchampion right now, Well, he's just
been trying to catch Rick Flair fora while, so don't give him any
ideas. Yep. It scares methough. I had a Q and A
question a couple of weeks ago fromsomebody that's like, any chance that Triple
H takes the title himself? AndRandy Orton turns baby face and I think

(02:31:37):
it was I want to say itwas before Survivor series or before maybe it
was before Mania, and either way, I was just like, no,
that's way too soon. And thenyou see all this play out where Randy
Orton is like, you know,in the dog house already. It's like,
oh, dear Lord, maybe maybemaybe the person's right exactly Stephen from
Tennessee. Next next email up goeswait and Jason, Unfortunately I won't be

(02:31:58):
able to catch your lives. Hopefullyyou guys answer my question through the email.
The storyline was for Blach vacating thetitle along with a fast count.
Is reminded me of the time whenJericho or bat trip Lach was the title
due to a fast count by EarlHebner. This was in the middle of
the McMann Helmsley era. So TripleH orders Jericho strip to the belt and
Hebner reversed the decision and then firedHevner. I bring this up because on
Jericho's DVD it was said that itwas a bad decision to not keep the
belt on Hi due to how overhe was with the crowd. Is this

(02:32:18):
history repeating itself with Daniel Bryan that'sten years in will, ten years from
now we say it was a badcall not to keep the belt on Brian,
creating a star who was very overwith the crowd. This is way
more history repeating itself than probably we'vegiven credit sure talking about this, and
I mean the you know, Dustygot critsized because he did something that he
did once. He just kept doingover and over, and there's so many

(02:32:41):
ways to tell the story. Itis sort of like best of you know,
this is the Mcmanhelmsley best of era. And I use that word in
quotes because I don't think there wasmuch good about the Mcmanhelmsley era. People
who were fans for the first timeat that point, who missed the Attitude
era, didn't see wrestling being donereally well before that, and that's what
they find them. They're being afan. Okay, well, you know
that's fine, But in the largerscope of history that is not looked on

(02:33:03):
by people who have watched for decades, a lot of diverse products during hot
runs and cold runs. That's notconsidering a hot booking a hot booking run
that was considered a really bad errorfor WWW with a lot of bad stuff
going on politically and just bad bookingideas. And yeah, we are seeing
I mean, and you see itin the in the snarky way Triple H
talks about Daniel Bryan. It's thesame way he talked about Chris Jericho off

(02:33:24):
air and on air, and heyou knows, it's only it's the cousin
of Kevin Nash calling Eddie Guerrero andChris Benwave and Ella Midget's, you know,
just a cousin of it. It'sjust it's the same group of cool
kids at the cool lunch table withpower who were born with height, knocking
down the little people who they seeas unworthy of being on top of their

(02:33:46):
profession. One way that you canhelp us sustain our schedule of putting out
podcasts throughout the week is by givingus a five star rating on Apple Podcasts.
Just go to Apple podcast and lookfor our weight Keiller Prosing Podcast and
weight Keiller Prosing Post and give usa five star rating. We hope you
think we've earned that score with ourfast turnaround times and our quantity and quality

(02:34:07):
of wrestling analysis throughout the week.So take a moment out for us and
do us favor and give us afive star rating. And Apple podcast that
helps us on search returns and helpsus grow. And if you want,
you can add a few comments aboutwhat you like about the programs in the
comments section. Thank you so much. You know, I think history is

(02:34:30):
probably going to remember it that theymade a mistake in not keeping the title
on him, And it's partially rightbecause once you go there, yes,
they should keep the title on him. I will try to remember this.
I'm bad with that remembering things,but I'll try to remember what I'm feeling
now and that it was too soonto put the title on him there.
You didn't need to go there yet, right, Yeah, but you give

(02:34:50):
it to him and pull it awaydamage it's done exactly yep, So that
transition is nice. Into VIP memberDavid from Emphis. A couple of questions
from Ron, what do you thinkabout a one night tournament for the w
WW title at the next pay perview. Like Survivor Series ninety eight Deadly
Games, this still stands out asone of my favorite nights, and I
love that WWE thirteen recreated it.My answers, No, tournaments don't draw,
you don't You're not able to sellspecific matches to the public. Wrestling

(02:35:13):
is about one on one main events. There's a reason WrestleMania four it's the
last Restomania tournament you saw. There'sa reason vinsct Man doesn't do King of
the Ring anymore. And uh no, I don't see that happening. And
I don't think it would be abad move. I think there's a certain
fan base that likes it. Butif you're looking at it strictly from a
business perspective, it just doesn't sell. I would yeah, I would like
to see the tournament personally, Whatis it the right move for business?

(02:35:37):
No, I mean, I don'tknow that WWE Battleground is going to sell
no matter what they do. Andyou know, with the with the landscape
the way it is, they shouldchange. It's a battle bowl and they
should have a random drawing of abunch of random tag teams and then they
fight each other and then the winningtag teams enter a battle royal and then
no, no, and then haveDon West explain it. There you go

(02:36:00):
like a good tournament, I do. I think if things were set up
there's it could be okay for theB level tape review. However, who
would you put in it right now? There's because it's it's Daniel Bryan,
CM Punk and everyone else, yeahon the baby face side, and then
who's going to be credible on thekeel side even because all those guys go

(02:36:22):
out and stand on the stage twoAnd not only well, no exactly,
and not only that, but abig in addition to it is tournaments are
generally held because the undisputed top championgot injured, right suspended or something.
But you don't need to have atournament. You have the most deserving number
one contender and the other most deservingnumber one contender exactly, you have the

(02:36:43):
X champion and sort of the Xchampion or the ground champion or the dethrone
champion who got dethroned unfairly, becauseas the commentators pointed out last night,
it sure looked like Grandyrton Shoulder wouldhave been down with three slow seconds,
not just three fast ones, soyou don't need to have amanco storyline wise,
what makes sense is Danny Brian versusRandy Orton. Winner takes the belt
and let's get rid of the Shenanigans. So and they are, by the

(02:37:07):
way, they're killing all credibility withit, whatever they had in the broadcast
team and be the only people thatdidn't recognize the quick count and then never
even bothered. You know, they'renot. It doesn't even seem like they're
suspicious. The Triple H is upto something with Scott Armstrong. It's it's
really bad, I know. Yeah. And then on the flip side,
Michael Cole's the only guy who apparentlycan voice negativity about Triple H. The

(02:37:30):
first week he did it, I'mlike, oh, he's taking a pedigree
or something. R koh. Andhe just keeps doing it, and there's
there's it's it's so they're just notconsistent. Part two of David from Memphis's
question do you see comparisons in thecelebration at the end of Raw to the
Lex Express Summers flam ninety three finish. Both matches ended in decisively but at
least in Lex's case and not winningnot winning the title really killed his momentum.

(02:37:52):
Do you see Brian being hurt ina similar way. David sent that
in before we started the show today, and I think we've definitively said yeah.
I mean, I think some damagesbeing done in Danna Bryant. No,
if Daniel Bryan is cheered next weekby a bunch of fans in the
next city that beez Ron, it'stheir first chance to go yes, yes,
yes. That doesn't mean this isn'thurting Daniel Bryan. It means people
paid their money for the ticket andthey want to shout yes, yes,
yes. Despite the storylines. What'sgonna show whether this works for Daniel Brown

(02:38:15):
or not is does he in amonth? In two months? Are the
byrate numbers coming in? Are theTV quarter our ratings coming in? As
a house show attendants coming in?That indicates Daniel Bryan is drawing as well
as we think he would have hadTriple H left his hands, kept his
hands out of the storyline and kepthis nose out of Daniel Bryan's business.
And when Daniel Bryan was mega overafter he pinned John c ni Clean with

(02:38:37):
a high knee, It's just itwas a situation that didn't need messing with
and so, but you can't judgeit based on yeah, crowds cheering next
week. I feel I need tosay that because like people don't seem to
understand, we're not saying crowds atrow won't love cheering for Daniel Bryan.
There's more to the wrestling industry thana crowd having their one chance to shout
yes in a crowd. Will theypay to seed the next time he challenges
for the title that he's won backto back months, That's the thing.

(02:39:00):
Yeah, all right, Brian,and we're almost done here with email and
then we'll wrap up. Are thereany potential suitors for TNA if they do
decide to close down, would ww WE purchase them? I mean they
I would assume that they would havesome interest in the tape library to actually
buy TNA. And do you knowa w c W like Invasion Angler.
I don't think so. I don'tthink they viewed TNA that way. I

(02:39:22):
don't think they like that they're Imean, I think they're being finnicky when
it comes to this edict. Theyseem to have that they're not going to
bring in TNA free agents. Rightnow. I mean they have with Rob
van Dam. I'm sure they wouldwith Hogan and Sting. They find a
role for those guys. But youknow, if it's if they're sincere in

(02:39:43):
this that it doesn't matter who theycut. We're not you know, Aj
Styles, we're not finding a spotfor He's just a spot monkey. And
they have excuses like that for everyone. I think they're being way too finicky
about it. But it also tellsme that they don't see these guys as
being strong enough to anchor an invasionangle. I mean, look at how
the WCW invasion angle went and abig part of it is they couldn't get

(02:40:05):
the top guys. But I don'tthink they're going to look at these guys
in TNAS as they need to invadeand people are going to take it seriously
because TNA has never had the visibilitythat WCW did. Yeah, I am
first of all, I think thefact that they're thinking of taking the tapings
off the road means the're probably gonnabe around for a while. I just
don't think it would be maybe reallyyou think they could, Well, no,

(02:40:26):
it's nothing, I know, Imean, it's still I want to
see them actually resign someone for alength of time. I mean it sounds
like aj Styles got like a threemonth contract extension. You know. It's
it's just an awkward time because,yeah, they're going to quote unquote lowball
people when it's really they're trying togive them contracts that are fair in their

(02:40:48):
minds, contracts they need to givethese guys, not overpay. And so
anytime you cut someone's pay that thatperson's going to feel like they're being lowballed.
But if that's what the market is, that's what the market is.
So it doesn't surprise me that theyhaven't been able to reshign anyone long term
yet. But until I see thatthere's it's still gonna be in the back
of my mind that well, maybethey're just riding this shout until there's play

(02:41:11):
TV contract ng you know. SoI really want to see them actually get
someone some proof that yeah, theyplan on being around for the long haul,
because there's is there anything inconsistent?This is not proof, but it
helps us not exclude it. Isthere anything inconsistent with Jenison? Bob say
we are done, and when theSpike contract's done, we are done.

(02:41:33):
This is it? You knew thisis your last chance. Going live on
the road did not increase TV ratingsto make up for the I mean,
because it was this, they couldsay, go and live with their hail
Mary. You know, Dixie saysto the family and to all the people
she has, she's accountable too.We haven't gone on the road. Hulk
says that if we go on theroad, we're gonna look major league.
We're gonna obviously increase our ratings twentyfive thirty percent, and we're going to

(02:41:56):
really be able to build some momentum. We put this much time and money
into it. Let's at least trythat. They try it. Ratings do
not go up. In fact,they go down a little. It's it
just doesn't work out. The plugis pulled, and now they say,
let's write it out. Let's letall these contracts expire, because we've got
to pay them anyway, and we'regonna have to pay these contram but let's
let them expire as expire, runit as cheap cheap, cheap cheap as
we can, and just run itout while Spike continues to pay us.

(02:42:18):
And we absolutely, with almost noexception, have made the decision to pull
the plug. Is there anything goingon in consistent with that possible scenario.
Inconsistent. No, No, there'snot. That's what I mean, that's
what that's what I don't think that'swhat's happening. Yep. But I can't
rule it out either, That's what. That's My point is, nobody should
look at this and say there's evenone thing that goes against the doomsday scenario

(02:42:41):
for people who want to see TNAbe around. That said, this also
looks like a promotion that's trying totighten its spell and get back to making
a little bit of money. Andthey've got a good TV partner, they've
got a built in fan base ofa million plus viewers every week, and
they crunch the numbers and they go, you know what, if we can
draw ninety percent of the audience,we'd right now by cutting eighty percent of

(02:43:01):
our budget, we can make moneyand Spike would still be happy with us.
If that's a scenario. Everything they'redoing is consistent with that. Also,
yeah, and I would One otheris they're positioning themselves for a sale,
so true. Yeah, maybe there'sa suitor or they want to,
you know, put themselves out thereand they hope that Spike TV or somebody

(02:43:22):
else will look at one year ofprofitability. Twenty fourteen is a year of
profit and so they shop around lookingfor a suitor to buy it and say,
we got a profitable company who doesn'twant to buy a profitable company.
And if you think you've got theresources and the and the smarts to to
take us to the next level,we're ready to get out. We gave
it a good shot. Now it'syour turn. I mean that was going

(02:43:45):
back a while when Red Mcolmbs ownedthe Vikings. I mean that's they started
getting rid of some bigger contracts,and it was that was kind of the
first step that people are like,al, he's trying to sell this thing.
Yeah, all right, Jason,super long show. But sometimes we
do that, especially forty eight hoursafter pay per views. So yeah,
a good discussion, good stuff onTNA. Also good work reporting on that

(02:44:07):
stuff. This week. I willwrap up on that note and get to
the other stuff on my to dolist here, But two and a half
hours flew by. It definitely did, unlike when I do Bruce Mitchell audio
and it's just like, oh mygod, scaring enough. It's only been
twelve minutes. Are you kidding me. I'm so happy that it. Bruce
is normally a two or whatever itwas, at least on a four.

(02:44:28):
I'll take that. You're one anda half better than Bruce, but you're
still under five. Yeah, andas long as I'm better than Bruce,
I will gladly take that. Butyou know, he probably thought you were
an eight. But he's like,but Bruce is normally a two and a
half, so it must be anillusion. I'm only going to give him
a four. I'm like a sheminus guy. Yeah, exactly, all
right, Thanks that members, ThanksTorch bad members. On that note,

(02:44:52):
I be half of weight Keller.No biking talk, but we'll wait for
a one to talk about him.This is weight Keller's finding out v IP

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(02:46:46):
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10 YRS AGO - FLAGSHIP: Keller & Powell on whether Bryan's eventual title win mean much, new Heyman Guy, Raw and Night of Champions fallout

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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 & Powell on whether Bryan's eventual title win mean much, new Heyman Guy, Raw and Night of Champions fallout