10 YRS AGO FLAGSHIP: Keller & Powell react to Austin's interview with Brock Lesnar, Raw a sinking ship creatively paying price in viewership

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:05):
Now PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Ten years ago. This week on the flagship I was
joined by Jason Powell Pro Wrestling dot Net. We reacted
to Steve Austen's podcast interview with brock Lesner went into
detail on that also reacted to the previous nights Raw
and the breaking news of ra's rating. We also fielded
phone calls from live listeners and a variety of primarily
WWE related topics, and then in the previously VIP exclusive

(01:37):
after show, we answered email questions about Global Force Wrestling,
the Caine Seth Rollins pay per view match, a bold
declaration from me regarding Seth Rollins TNA in India, and
more so, Let's get to it. This is the Wade
Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast ten years ago Flakeship Flashback for Sunday,
October nineteenth, twenty twenty five. Welcome to the pw Torch

(02:07):
Live cast. I am Wade Keller, editor and publisher of
the Pro Wrestling Torch weekly newsletter published and mailed worldwide
in print editions and also posted for VIP members as
a PDF and all text edition, and we've been publishing
it since nineteen eighty seven. This month marks twenty eight
years in business providing insider wrestling news, perspective and interviews

(02:30):
to wrestling fans everywhere, and we thank everybody for your
support of the Torch over those years. We're also celebrating
a special marker, a twenty five year anniversary of Torch
senior columnist Bruce Mitchell writing columns for The Torch and
also for a very long time, now over ten years,
providing the weekly Bruce Mitchell audio show that I usually

(02:54):
host with Bruce for roughly two hours per week. This
past weekend was a fun change of pace. I did
Part one with Bruce Mitchell. We talked about an hour
and a half about all the big top stories in
wrestling that week the previous week. And then on Sunday,
former Pro Wrestling Torch columnist Mark Madden who went on

(03:15):
from The Torch to join the WSW Hotline and then
worked his way to w W Nitro color commentary and now,
as he made perfectly clear six or seven times with
Bruce Mitchell on Sunday, he is now paid more than
Dolf Ziggler is to be a full time drivetime sports
talk show radio host in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also made

(03:39):
it clear that even though it's a mid market, mid
size market, that it is his home and that he
would conquer any market, no matter how big, if it
was his home. So Mark and Bruce go way back.
They're good friends. Mark and Bruce were regulars actually on
my Pro Wrestling Focus radio show on KFAM, the second
all sports radio show station in the country, I believe,

(04:00):
and I had a weekly show on there in the
early nineties from ninety one to ninety three, and Bruce
and Mark Roffin guests with me on that show, talking
just like we talk here on PW Torch Live cast,
and I am here Tuesdays and Thursdays, although our show
was on five days a week. Last night, after Raw,
James Caldwell talked about Raw with you and got your

(04:22):
thoughts on last night's program. While he was doing that,
I was busy watching Stone Cold Steve Austin interview brock Lesner.
By the way, Pat McNeil joined James yesterday too, so
you can get Pat's view at the top of the show. Also,
Pat a going on really fifteen years as a close

(04:42):
to fifteen years now. It's a PW Torch columnist and contributor,
so check that out. And I'll be joined in just
a moment here by Jason Powell from prog Wrestling dot Net,
and we'll take your calls and talk about Raw and
that Lesner interview, and then tomorrow it's Pat McNeil speaking
of Pat with the Wednesday edition of the pw TIS
Live cast. Not sure I've got word from him on
his guest yet. And then Thursday at seven Eastern again

(05:05):
a special later start time to accommodate the assembly of
people for that program we are going to have for
the second out of three weeks, and this time with
a hard phone line connection. WWE former WWWF and WWF
champion Bob Beckland. He was the long term champion for years,

(05:28):
the bridge between the Bruno sa Martino era and the
whole Cogan era. And he just wrote a book, a
excellent book on his history in professional wrestling, and he
will be joining Bruce Mitchell and me for a discussion
on that book and his career. I thought there's some

(05:50):
interesting I talked about on the Keller Hotline last night
for VIP member some interesting parallels between the personalities of
Bob Eckland and Brock Lesner, believe it or not, even
though there's some very very differences. Also and his co
author of his autobiography, Robert Miller, who joined Bruce in
me last Thursday for a long discussion on the writing
of the book in Backland's career. He'll be joining us again,

(06:12):
so it's going to be four of us on Thursday,
Bob Backland himself, and he has his schedule cleared. He's
going to be at home. In fact, he's going to
be at home because he has to because they're delivering
a bunch more books to him that he's going to
bring to more of the book signings that he's been
doing around the country, and he'll be on a hard line.
We'll have a good connection. His schedule is clear locked in.
He'll be with us for the fulderation of the show

(06:33):
along with co author Robert Miller, and Bruce Mitchell will
be joining me once again. Very interested in talking to Bob.
He followed his career in real time. But Mark Madden yesterday,
going kind of full circle back to that, Mark joined
Bruce Mitchell and hosted part two of The Bruce Mitchell
Otdio Show, and Mark saw a lot of Bob Beckland
matches during his title reign, so a really interesting discussion

(06:53):
with Mark. Mark comes on the Bruce Mitchellatdio Show once
a year roughly. It's just kind of a reunion of
two friends who still talk a lot to this day
and are really good friends, but they don't do a
lot of audio together, and so it is a It
was a real fun show, and we've had some people
calling for more of Mark and Bruce together after hearing

(07:15):
Sunday show. If you're not a VIP member, PW torch
dot com slash go VP is the url. You can
also just go to our brand new, shiny, completely redesigned
from the ground up pw torch dot com and click
on the VIP sign up link that's always there in
the upper right corner. There's a separate link for former
subscribers you ever subscribe. All right, we are back here

(07:36):
at the PW Torch Livecast. I'm Wade Keller, editor publisher
of the Progressing Torch newsletter, PW torch dot com, the
PW Torch Apps, and hosted this program on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
including Bob Backland coming up this week on Thursday at
seven Eastern. Bob Backland, big Name, Big draw transitioned between

(07:57):
the Brutos Ammartino air more than a transition, a long bridge,
six year bridge between Bruno and Hulk Hogan, and he'll
be on the show to talk about his new books.
So mark it down on your calendar, set a calendar
alert for seven Eastern on Thursday. Send email questions right
now to PW Torchlivecast at gmail dot com. And better yet,
download the book online or buy it at a bookstore

(08:18):
and read some of it before Thursday show and you
can ask even better questions of Bob Beckland. We'd certainly
like to get more questions than just stuff from the
nineties when it comes to his career, because certainly ninety
eight percent of what he did that mattered was late
seventies early eighties. All right, Jason Powellfropossing dot net. Jason,
Welcome to the live cast.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Hey, good to be here, Wade, good to have you.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Wow, what was Roder? Just like one hot shot after another?
Just a cavalcade of big names? Did did? Do you
think that would have happened had Rob Ratings been hovering
in the two point six range the last month?

Speaker 3 (08:53):
You know, I do, because I mean, the big names
have been advertised for a while, and you know so
I think that they were going to load up this
show for hell want to sell and as far I mean,
is it really hot shotting? When you have Rick Flair
on the show all the time anyway, Sean Michaels doesn't
feel I mean, it's still cool to see him, but
it doesn't feel all that special anymore. And Steve Austin

(09:16):
was the big one, and they kind of kind of
advertised him kind of, didn't, you know. Initially they did,
and then Austin said no, I'm not going to be
on the show, and then they didn't feature him in
the photos, and I think they wanted it to be
a surprise, so I guess if you know, that felt
like it. But we you know, Taker and Brock were
going to be there anyway, So the one real hot
shot didn't have anything to do with the legends. It's

(09:37):
kind of putting the shield back together.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, I think had they not put the shield back together,
it might not have felt collectively like a night of
you know, hot shots. But you add that to the mix. Yeah,
that Steve Austin had said he would be on the show,
and then he makes us a first appearance in over
four years in a ww E raing live on Raw
at least, and then you know, you do it Michaels
and Flair, and it started to feel like Vince was

(10:02):
you know, swinging to grab people's attention again, and hey,
not to mention undertaker brock Lesner and Paul Hayman. A
lot of things kind of converged some by chance, I'm
maybe some in an attempt to get ratings up. I mean,
everything that I'm hearing is Vince is downplaying the ratings
as part of a larger downward trend in cable shows,

(10:23):
and that it's just something that you know, the water
levels drop for everybody. It's not our fault, it's it's
not anything he's doing wrong. And what matters to him
is that Wall Street's happy stock price is high. Network
numbers are good enough that he doesn't seem to be
freaking out about him. But we'll find out with the
next quarterly statements, and that, you know, and his TV

(10:43):
deal is kind of locked in in terms of the
rights fees. He doesn't get a smaller check every month
if your worship is down. He doesn't run a week
to week business, and when it comes to the TV
revenue side of things that way. So you know, I
think he's kind of talked himself into think and yeah,
let's just wait this out. We took us, you know,
we're taking a step back a little bit because of
cable trends in general that are out of our control,

(11:06):
and that, hey, it's not Russemania season, it's not SummerSlam season.
And so I'm not sure that last night's show was
the result of Evince being panicked. But I can't help
but think reuniting the Shield seems like something more than
what you should do the way that they like. That
should have been a bigger deal then to throw it

(11:28):
out there because Seawn Michael's on a whim decided to
do it so that Seth Rollins could be made to
look like a child again.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, for sure, that's the part. I mean. I enjoyed
seeing it as a viewer, but I really kind of
scratched my head and questioned the approach they took. I
think even if you take the approach they did at
the end with Rowlins dropping off the ring apron and
not basically walking out on Rains and Ambrose, that's still
something you build up to for a couple of weeks minimum.

(11:56):
You know, you plant seeds if this could happen, and
you can still go in this direction, but you get
more out of it than just advertising it. What an
hour two of the show and then thinking that's the
thing that's going to keep people watching that third hour,
and then you see the third hour number and it
did not keep people watching the show. Again.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, what what do you see? As far as raw
data for ratings this week or viewership.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
The viewership numbers are that they did their up overall
three point three five six, up from three point two
eight four. Our one did three point six million viewers
OUR two to three point three four seven, and that
final hour back down to three point one two three.
So even with the Reunited Shield, they still couldn't keep
the viewers. And I wait, I guess I just don't

(12:44):
understand when you have Rock Lesner, and in this case
you had Lesner and Undertaker. I get the idea of
getting them out there before the Monday night football game starts,
but is there some unwritten rule that they can't do
something to hook viewers with them and have them on
the show in another segment later. I just to try
something in that opening segment to keep people watching.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, we want to talked about it last week too.
I don't think there's a rule against it, although after
watching Brock with Austin last night, maybe Brock does charge
twice as much to walk to the ring twice, because
remember he said in that interview he's made, he's built,
he's hardwired to be in the ring. But traveling from
ring to ring isn't fun. Now, I assume that meant
rental cars, airports, airplanes, hotels, but maybe he just meant

(13:29):
literally walk into the ring is like what really bugs me.
So maybe he just only watched the ring once per show.
Thanks for laughing, Jason, that's very generous. So I don't Yeah,
I mean, I'm with you on it. I sort of
feel like there's I get maybe the rationale that it's
a little bit over exposure and you're gonna have diminishing
returns if either or both of them come out twice.
And I think maybe they're looking at those first Hoar

(13:51):
ratings and saying, we want to have as many people
possible see this segment before football starts. Let's just give
it all away and then have a video package later.
I'm not sure, you know, I mean to front load
the first half hour of forty five minutes with Lesnar,
Undertaker Hayman, The New Day, the Dudleys, and John Cena.
That's given away a lot in the first you know,

(14:14):
thirty forty minutes that you don't have to play with
those next two hours. But it does seem like the
reuniting of the shield should not lead to a drop
to you know, three point one million viewers. You would
think that would peak ratings, but it just does seem
that there's a fatigue factor kicking in when it comes
to our viewership. You can support us on Patreon and

(14:35):
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(14:58):
can also upgrade to other two and receive even more
benefits through Patreon. Jason, I don't want to get too
deep into the weeds on that, so I want to
get your quick thought on Austin Lesner, and then we
can move to phone calls and bring callers into the
conversation from did you get to see the whole thing
start to finish.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
I absolutely did. Yeah, I covered it live as it
was happening.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Oh cool. Yeah, So what is your takeaway? Did you
learn anything surprising about brock Lesner? And I do want
to preface it by saying, if you had previously misunderstood
brock Lesner and now understand him better, he does not
care that you misunderstood him. He made that very clear.

(15:41):
I kind of popped for that, because I think there's
people get too worked up, like there's certain wrestling personalities
to get way too worked up about people on Twitter
misunderstanding them or overreacting to some troll or just or
ignoramus whatever happened to him by the way on Twitter.
So I enjoy just Brock going. I don't got die
for that. Who cares? But anyway, what'd you learn about brock?

(16:03):
If anything?

Speaker 4 (16:05):
You know?

Speaker 3 (16:05):
I don't know they had learned anything about brock Lesner.
I mean because I've interviewed him. I've seen him interviewed
numerous times, read interviews with him. He's pretty protective. I mean,
Austin didn't even bring up his marriage, for instance, and
he doesn't talk about his kids. Really, I was hoping
we'd hear a little bit about his view on his
relationship with Paul Hamm. And we kind of hear Paul

(16:26):
Hamm inside a lot, but I was hoping we'd hear that.
So that was a bit disappointing, But otherwise I really
enjoyed the interview. I kept looking at the time, thinking, oh,
they must be nearing the end. They crammed a lot in.
You know, it must have been twenty minutes left in
the interview, and I'm like, oh, wow, cool, there's still
twenty minutes. Yeah, so it never got I never was bored,
even though I think by the end we started to

(16:47):
see a little bit of cranky Brock Lesner. I think
he was ready for.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
It to it was a long night. Well, the last
three minutes were just awkward as hell. I mean, Brock, yeah, no,
it's like, don't cut go to promo mode at the end.
You know, it's just like don't do don't break k
fave for fifty five minutes and then and then suddenly
expect Lesnar after talking about how it's all entertainment and
we work stuff out and and all, and then to
have him you know, go on, there's gonna be carnage.

(17:11):
It just it just felt uncomfortable. I did think we
learned why Brock uh needs to be scripted when uh,
you know, we talked about, you know, wrestler should be unscripted.
What's the worst second happened with the line you know
about you know, why don't you do promos yourself? And
he's going and he goes, well with Paul, you know,
you got to feed the Jew, Gotta feed the Jew,
and he looks off camera, and then I think his
reaction wasn't the uproarious laughter from you know, people off

(17:34):
camera that he was expecting and he and Austin looked
a little shit off camera?

Speaker 3 (17:38):
What's that that he would be getting it if he
were off you know, if he weren't on camera, he
would be getting that laughter sadly.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yes, yeah, So I mean it just was sort of like, yeah, no,
you know, you just kind of gotta you just kind
of got to watch that. I mean, it's something that
Hayman himself is very open about talking like that, and
I think Brock just kind of, you know, his guard down.
But without that context, it really is just kind of
sensitive territory you just kind of want to maybe keep

(18:06):
off camera. Or leave it to quote the Jew to
make the jokes, but not Lesner. But I at least
there was no there was He meant no malice or
anything with the comment. But still, yeah, I thought the
show got off to a shaky start. Twitter was a
little worried in general terms at the beginning that they

(18:27):
were never gonna get around to talking about wrestling. But
I thought it was smart of Austin, not not even
like it's some secret strategy, but just conversationally. Obviously, Lesner
very much keeps to himself. Austin the biggest star perhaps
ever in this industry. Make your argument, he's in that conversation,
wants to go hunting with Brock and he can only
get like a text message response. It's not like these

(18:50):
two have ever even talked about that big moment whilst
and refused a job to him, which I love that
got brought up, and I loved Lesner's response to it.
But yeah, you had this this dynamic where Austin was
actually going Finally, I've got this guy cornered for an hour.
I get to talk to him about stuff that I
love and I want to express to him and get
him to understand we share some things in common, and

(19:11):
I thought Austin genuinely wanted to know about Lesner and hunting.
He genuinely cared about what Kari drives like. I don't
think Austin was doing it to patronize him or anything.
I thought Austin really kind of wanted to warm up
to him in a non wrestling way at first, and
I thought it largely worked, even if some viewers got
a little impatient.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
I thought it was strategic though. I think those are
things that he would normally in a normal interview. He
would go there, but would probably be late in the
interview and when once they kind of started getting into
a little more casual mode. And I think it's smart
strategy if that's what he were, if that's what he
was going for, because it is Lesner, he doesn't like
doing interviews. He get him loosen up a little bit
talking about the things that he enjoys, and he's at ease,

(19:52):
and so you know, who knows. I'm not sure if
maybe Austin didn't wasn't looking at it strategically, but it worked.
It just got Lesnar to come relax a little bit,
and I think he got better answers out of him
for some of the questions that came up wrestling wise
after that, and then the guards seemed to go up
a little bit as the interview went on, or just
maybe the rock and mood swing occurred as the interview

(20:15):
went on a little bit late. He just there were
a couple of times where I think he just was
you could tell like he's ready for this to be over.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yes, yes, he wants to go back. Drive back to
his home, which is fortified with eight foot fences and
a gate that closes behind him, because, as he puts it,
he doesn't like people. He doesn't want to see his neighbors,
and God bless him.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
I believe me, if I could afford an eight foot
fence around my house, I would have one.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yes, that's the thing.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
I was like.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
I found his just honesty charming. I mean, there's all types.
There's people who just want to be left alone and
they don't need human interaction. They don't need the poker
games and the card games and the joshing around and
the jocular stuff that comes with pro wrestling and in life.
There's people like that, and that's fine. Know, there really
is a wide range of personalities, and I like that

(21:03):
Bracas is comfortable in his own skin and that respect
and doesn't try to pretend he's something he's not. I
like at one point too, he goes, I, you know,
we talked about how we acts behind the scenes in WWE. Well,
you know, I try to be nice to people, you know,
like it's this effort, you know, like I strategically that's
the one time that I try to be something I'm not,
which is I try to be pleasant, you know, to

(21:25):
people behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
So good.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I would definitely recommend watching it. If you don't care
at all about Mopar and Dodge versus and branding brands
of binoculars, you can probably skip the first fifteen twenty minutes.
But really, these are two fascinating figures over the past
twenty years in this industry. Lesnar are mostly in the
last you know, twelve fifteen, But to see them together

(21:49):
clearly with certain things in common, but having never really
spent that much time together talking, I think it's it's
must viewing if you just kind of want to understand
two really big names better. And I thought Austin got
a little a little flustered a couple times early on
and then got into a Groove two with him. He
could tell Austin was so excited to talk with Brock
about the no show when Austin refused the job to Lesner,

(22:12):
and I think it was such a relief for le
for Austin to hear Lesner say, well, you did the
right thing, but maybe it didn't handle it the best way.
But you know what, maybe the other side didn't handle
it the best way either, which is absolutely true. I
still think Austin has nothing to apologize for when it
comes to what he did there, even though he apologizes
a lot for it these days.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Well, and I can tell you from interviewing him prior
to his fight with Heith Herron, I brought that question
up to him about the Steve Austin walkout and it
was basically the same. I mean, he laughed about it.
And keep in mind, at this point Brock is out
of the business. He didn't close the door completely, didn't
you know. He basically took to never say never approached,
but he was very much in UFC mode and so

(22:53):
he had no reason to play a political game. He
was not bothered by it at all. He thought it
was funny. He didn't blame Austin he knew it was
just business.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and Rock was smartened up early on. It sounds
like about the business. I don't I'm spending so much
time on this, And I talked all about this on
the Keller Hotline for actually about I don't know, forty
eight minutes yesterday, So if VIP members didn't check that
out yet, gave my thoughts on every single segment, every
single conversation, every single part of the conversation in great
detail on the way Keller Hotline sign up at petalotorch

(23:23):
dot com. Click on the button the upper right corner
to sign up. But one of the things that I
will not here briefly Jason is I thought it was
really interesting that he said what he said about the
Rock Duane Johnson about how very early on, and this
is before Rock was a mega movie star, Rock taught
him be selfish, lookout for yourself. It's about you. It's
not about you know, being a mark for management or

(23:44):
a mark for the cameras and all that. I thought
that was really telling or confirming basically what I've been
saying for a very long time about Rock. He's you know,
very friendly, very charismatic, but his reputation in wrestling is
that there's a there's a barrier in a layer that
people didn't really get past that. Some people saw his

(24:05):
phoniness or aloofness, where I think Rock was always somewhat protective,
not only of himself just kind of personality wise and
getting involved in the politics too much, but also in
terms of putting himself out there to get injured. And
one thing that Rock really did not like to do.
And I'm not saying you can't pinpoint some exceptions where
he got carried away. Maybe there are, but Rock was

(24:28):
very particular about what moves he would do and taking chances.
He didn't want to miss ring time. He didn't feel
it was worth doing big spots if there was a
big risk if something went wrong that he'd be hurt.
And Lesner, you could tell with that spot of the
moon Salt with Kurt Angle at Night Restmating in nineteen
that Austin brought up. Lesner really looked back on that
and thought that was dumb. I shouldn't have done it.

(24:50):
Austin cheered him for that, and I think that's a
lesson for a lot of younger wrestlers out there. Know
what your lane is in this business and where your
strengths are and what your character is and how that
character would fight and stick to it. Don't do risky
moves that don't have a really big effect and you

(25:10):
don't get a lot out of it. Be efficient, be safe,
and stick to your lane. If your Neville, your lane
is doing a bunch of high flying moves. But if
you're Lesner or Kurt Angle, I'd even argue it's not
doing moon salt, so don't do it. And I thought
that was that whole conversation with the rock be selfish
and Lesner regretting doing that move even when he was
pushed into it really interesting.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
You know, it's funny to bring up Angle because that's
what I thought too. It's like, I wish the other
guy in the match would have learned that lesson along
with you, because we have seeen Kurg take so many
unnecessary chances. But how great would it have been if,
after all the haunting talk, if Austin would have just
so tell me about fishing and just kept going there
the entire time.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
It would have been fun, a fun rib, I guess,
but probably not not real fair. I think actually Austin
would have taken heat for it, but I think then
after a night's sleep, people would have said, I bet
Lesner just insisted on it or something. But anyhow, I
could go on and on. I thought that was a
fascinating interview. A lot happened on Raw. Weird show. To

(26:08):
have the final hype for your world title match not
include the challenger on the show, that was strange. I
know they got thrown. There was kind of a twist
in the road with Randy Orton with his shoulder injury,
unable to be on the latest tour and now on Raw,
and they had to write him out of the pay
per view, so they kind of weaved into conversation a
few times during commentary that mostly with the announcement when

(26:30):
they were on camera the announcers were on camera, but
then later in the show they alluded to it or
mentioned a couple of times that maybe the Wide family
took Randy Orton out, so Orton expected to get some
tests and try to figure out what's going on with
that shoulder that he recently reinjured. So that's what's going
on there. Jason, you're ready for phone calls?

Speaker 3 (26:47):
I am absolutely very good.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Just want to say we got a lot of people
on hold. Please be ready with what you're gonna say.
Don't act like we surprised you, like we called you
and you were taking a nap. To try to get
right to the point. If you have a point to make,
that's fine, And then hit us up with one or
two questions. Try to limit it to one or two,
and we'll try to get to as many callers as
we can.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
And we're doing great.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
What's that?

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yes, yes, yes, now I get it. Yes, you don't
have to ask what we're doing. We're pretty good about
We're pretty good about depression right past that?

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, when people do that?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
All right, So let's let's go ahead and begin with
Eric code five seven oh five seven oh, thanks for holding.
Please state your name and where you're calling from.

Speaker 6 (27:30):
Hey, this is Jerry from Reading, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Hey, Jerry, thanks for calling. What have you got for us?

Speaker 7 (27:35):
Hey?

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Just two comments.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
I've listened to you guys for a real long time
first time caller last You guys mentioned right off the
top about the hot shouting last night, and.

Speaker 6 (27:45):
I couldn't help not being interested.

Speaker 8 (27:47):
Maybe it's just the lack of what are it like
the overall.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Promotion, Like, what are we promoting? Like, bring Shawn Michaels out, great,
but the end of the day, Sunday, what does it
really matter? And second comment was.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Looks like his phone dropped off. Oh yeah it did, Sorry, Jerry.
Jerry called back. We'll we'll look for We'll look for
you on the switchboard. Jason. I think it's kind of
cool when stars from the past come back and and
stop in and you get to, you know, see what
they look like, and you know, how are they doing

(28:26):
and how do they react to things? But as far
as how Sean Michaels was used, Jason, do you think
that he served a worthwhile role? Did you like especially
kind of the the happenstance meet up with the authority
treating Seth again like this child, and Michael's just kind
of sort of innocently suggesting or feigning innocence at least

(28:50):
that hey, maybe we put Seth in there and that
way Reins and Ambrose won't get hurt in a three
on two situation. And then the way that Seth got
talked into it again made Seth just seem like this
kind of gullible manchild. Did you like Michael's role in
it specifically and then broader did you like that use
of him in that skit itself?

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, the backstage stuff I definitely could have done without.
But what I liked was him and Seth kind of
going back and forth in the ring a little bit.
Because my expectations for Shawn Michael's appearances are so low
these days, because he just comes out and he's kind
of zany Shawn Michaels and they just move on. You know,
there's really no substance to it. This one, at least,
it felt like we got to see a little bit

(29:30):
of a glimpse of the old Shawn Michaels as he
was going back and forth with Seth Rollins. I thought
they played off one another well, and unfortunately it left
me looking forward to seeing a match that we'll never
see between Shawn Michaels and Seth Rowlins. But yeah, I
would say this was better than what we usually get
for HBK appearances.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, I've never been a fan of zany Triple H
sidekick d X version of Shawn Michaels. I like cocky, brash,
show stop er, show stealer Shawn Michaels, Mister WrestleMania. I
liked that version of Shawn Michael's better. And I don't
know why he always resorts to the a shuck zany

(30:10):
Mi persona, but he must think it works or it's
where his comfort zone is. But yeah, I think he
provided some use. And I do, like I mean, I
just noted when Michaels and Seth are standing next to
each other, we have to remember where Seth Rollins was
a year ago or two years ago. He wasn't a
guy that it would be a big deal for him
to share the stage with a Shawn Michaels with, especially

(30:31):
with the fan base that has carried over from the
Shawn Michaels showstopper era, it does help to have big
stars in the past kind of connect and interact with
the star the wrestlers you're trying to elevate today into
being big stars. And so as long as I mean again,
we can easily criticize the way that Seth is portrayed
as just this manchild, gullible goofball who's easily outsmarted but

(30:56):
and loses all the time, even though he's world champion.
But yeah, I think it benefits him to be in
a position where sharing the ring with Seawan Michaels.

Speaker 9 (31:04):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at Pterboo Torch VIP as we mask on the
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(31:24):
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(31:46):
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Speaker 1 (32:09):
All right, let's go next to three five through five.
You're on the pod Torch Life Cast. Please state your
name and where you're calling from.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Hey guys, DJ from Miami, Hey DJ, what have you
got for us? I got two questions.

Speaker 10 (32:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
My first thing is that I really like how uh
the announcers one the one the Wyatts came back to
the y it came back and like, oh look the
Whyatts back and that was it. They didn't you know,
it wasn't no build up, no nothing. It was just
like turn around and they said one thing and then
that was it. They never brought her up again where
he came from also, you know, nothing. It was kind

(32:42):
of strange how they did that.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yeah, Eric Rowan showed showed up kind of in the dark,
shadowy Ringside area with the Wyatt family for their first
segment where Roman Reigns was talking to them, and you know,
it was very much under the breath when Roman Rains
went to Ringside to get a Michael Cole I think
it was cold just under his frescals. Look, look who's
that is?

Speaker 11 (33:04):
That is that Eric Rowan?

Speaker 1 (33:06):
It was just like, well, either it is or it isn't,
and it is, And yeah, they just kind of wanted
to slip him in there, Jason, did you think Eric Rowans.
I mean, I've been talking on this show that the
target date that I heard for his return was November.
You know, he's beating it by a few days basically
because next Sunday he'll be in that match. Did you

(33:27):
think that Eric Rowan's character deserved a bigger a bigger
explanation for him now rejoining Bray and being back.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
I think the viewers deserve it. I think there should
be some You don't have to spend a lot of
time on it. He's not a major player, but the
last time we saw him, I believe it was he
and Harper were together, but they weren't with bray Wyatt
and they were having issues still. So it would just
be nice to have that backstory, and it's not something
you need to dedicate more than probably know ten seconds

(33:57):
of a bray Wyatt promo too. And I think people
would be satisfied with him just talking about the sheep coming,
rejoining the flock or something along those lines. I just
I don't like when they don't reward viewers for they
just kind of leave them hanging as far as well,
why is he back and why is he with him now.
I mean I had to stop and correct myself because

(34:17):
I was like a Harper's out there with them in
my live report. It's like, oh wait, that's Eric Rohan.
I mean I didn't even hear Michael Cole say that.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, no, I figured it was very easy to miss. Yeah,
the way that it was, Uh, it was brought up. Well,
go ahead, DJ, what's your second topic or follow up?

Speaker 2 (34:36):
My second thing is when the Owen Hart DVD comes out?
Do you really think they're gonna put him in the
Hall of Fame in this year? Because the DVD's coming out?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, Jason, what do you think is this going to
be Owen's here?

Speaker 3 (34:50):
I tell you I wouldn't do it unless the family
and Martha the widow specifically, or the children were up
for it. You know, I don't know, have to be
adults by now, and if she still has an issue,
but the children are okay with it, okay, you know,
because she if she's not okay with it though, I

(35:11):
do think there's going to be some backlasher. You're going
to get some bad publicity for it. But at least
you didn't say, Hey, this is what the children wanted,
this is what Brett and other members of the family want.
I don't know that it has to be in Texas, though,
I don't know that this has to be his year necessarily.
He's just one of those guys that he can go
in anytime they see fit, and so if he's not

(35:31):
in this year, I wouldn't worry about it as far
as long term other than well, are they going to
listen to the family's wishes?

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Right? Yeah? I mean I would be just speculating, but
I think the fact that they're going forth with the DVD,
it's a chance for them to put to rest the
questions about why Own's not in the Hall of Fame.
I mean, the career that Owen Hart had was at
best borderline Hall of Famer. But when that career is

(36:00):
cut short from getting for sure Hall of Fame status,
which after Brett left, Owen was in a position and
I wrote about it back then and talked about it
back then, I think wwe had a chance to turn
Brett into a bigger star or Owen into a bigger
star than Brett was after Brett left, after the whole
Survivor series sing and they kind of messed up on
that front, and no one had some some limitations in

(36:20):
terms of charisma and and interviews, in terms of what
Vince looks for. But I thought Owen had a chance
to really become a bigger star than he had Ben
as kind of the little brother in Brett Shadow. But
that tragedy in Kansas City stopped that from happening. So
I think when you have a career that Owen had
that gets cut short in the line of duty, as
questionable as that duty was that he was asked to do. Yeah,

(36:43):
I think he is a Hall of famer, And I
think when you die in when you die in the
in the line of the in the process of doing
your job, that absolutely puts you out a position where
you should be in that hall of fame and honored
for your for your ultimate sacrifice. The politics of his
of his widow obviously plays into it, as does wwe
just not wanting there to be a bunch of links

(37:05):
to past stories or you know, it just brings up
what we're talking about right here, you know, discussions about it.
I talked to Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara in depth
on their role in the Owen Hart death on the
Ultimate Insiders DVD about ten years ago, and and you know,
they had a lot to say about Russo, especially about
the role of that. I remember ed Farra by the way,

(37:25):
to his credit when when the proposed topic list came
out for the DVD on the back of the DVD
and Ferrara, who was the co writer with Vince Russo
of those Monday Night War era roz the top rated
roz ed insisted that that a reference to Owen Hart
not be on the DVD box because he didn't want

(37:47):
to look like he was exploiting what happened to sell DVD's.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Oh good for him.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah, And so it is. It's a sensitive topic
and wwe, I think in a way sort of feels like,
you know, we have to go there eventually, We've had
an excuse not to, but maybe we want to do
that and do the right thing. And also just kind
of like with Randy Savage, you know, get something that
everybody thinks should happen out of the way. All right,

(38:13):
let's uh, let's go in and go uh go back
to the phone lines here, DJ, did we tackle too, Yeah,
we tackle two of your topics, right yep, okay, cool,
appreciate that. All right, So let's go next to four
seven eight four seven eight, Please state your name and
where you're calling from, the.

Speaker 8 (38:30):
Real from Georgia.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Ing.

Speaker 12 (38:34):
Okay, My first question is.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Doing that they're doing?

Speaker 12 (38:38):
Just seeing an open challenge on the show, and they
said that's a mystery opponent through some names or some
guys that y'all might think that would be a mystery opponent,
somebody big enough to win the.

Speaker 8 (38:51):
Title off him.

Speaker 12 (38:52):
And my second question is is is this super uh?
I know we here super scene that if this super Roman?
How he'd been plowing through people the past two weeks?
And those are my questions.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
I appreciate it to real. Thanks again, right to it, Jason.
Who's on your short list for sena US opentitle challenge opponents?

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Sadly big show? You know, just someone on the main roster. Well,
it doesn't have to be him, but I I mean,
I guess it could. It could be a Luke Harper.
It just could be somebody that doesn't have a match.
The reason I say that a let's see what they
do tonight on ESPN News when that segment with John
Cena airs if they play it up in a big way.

(39:36):
Last night just didn't seem like they were pushing it
aggressively like it's going to be a big deal. And
so if it turns out to be someone that is,
they really they dropped the ball. I think you want
to raise expectations if you have something that's going to
live up to them, but if you're going to just
go out there, and I wouldn't have taken this approach.
I guess if you didn't have someone, wait, if you

(39:57):
don't have a surprise, I mean, Carlito has been roomed,
is they've had some interest in him? Alberto del Rio
has been rumored as a guy they've had interest in,
So I mean, you know someone like that. I think
it's one of those that's not anytime you throw out
a mystery partner, you give people a little bit of
time to think about and they come up with their
list of favorites. And if let's say it's not Alberto
del Rio that that's on their favorite list, are going

(40:20):
to be disappointed. But still, he's a big enough name,
he's a former champion. If it's someone like him, they
really should have played this up last night.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Am I wrong to be rooting for it to be
Samoa Joe?

Speaker 13 (40:32):
No?

Speaker 3 (40:32):
I don't think so. No, I'd love to see that.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Do you think we'll let him kind of play out
in NXT a little more?

Speaker 11 (40:38):
Do you know why?

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Why have him kind of playing double duty with the
Finn Balor storyline and everything going on there. But I
don't think it's premature, and I think we're seen it
taking time off bringing a ready made veteran in or heck,
a James storm I mean, I'd vote for a James
storm too. I think sometimes it's got to pick somebody
who's ready or close enough to ready, you know what
I mean. It doesn't be you don't have to have
every every smudge off their skill set before you can

(41:03):
put them on main television. But yeah, like a James
Stormer smoch, you'll come in and win and then adds
that new like, hey, somebody just came in here because
of the open challenge and did what Kevin Olds essentially did,
which is make a name for themselves instantly, and now
you have something else of interest to fill a key
segment on Raw for the next two months.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
I think it would be great. I would love to
see that. I'd I'd like to see Joe B. Johnson
as opponent at wrestling, and maybe this is a way
you get there. I mean, hey, Joe and Balor's a
big deal theanic tea level. There's no reason they can't
continue to do that. Maye we see Kevin Owens, for instance,
his work some of those shows, and Sasha Banks certainly

(41:42):
has so you can do both. People may see it
as a bit of a that might be showing their
cards by having Joe on the main roster already by
the time he works for Ballor, But you know, I say,
get over it. You have to take care of your
main roster first, and if that's the best they can
come up with. And I like it more than some
you know, the guy outside the company that I named,
I'd love to see it, but I also want to

(42:02):
see them do it right.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Totally, totally great. I think Joe has enough of a
history with Sina that it would be fun, you know,
just starting out out in California. It'd be interesting if
they pulled that from the archives as kind of a
backstory aspect to it to make fans go, Okay, you know,
now I understand why this guy's here. You know, he's
kind of the Kevin owned story. He's been around a

(42:24):
long time. He certainly Joe's been on more national television
than Kevin Stein was and is more well known, but
still is a fresh face to most WWE fans, probably
at this point, so you'd have to give a little backstory,
but it might make sense. Super Roman Obviously Romans getting
a surge now in a push. He got to be
the co presenter of the charity segment two weeks ago

(42:48):
on Raw. He is certainly being featured more. He got
the in ring promo in Chicago. Obviously. Part of this
is he's, you know, hell in a cell match with
Bray on Sunday, so of course he's gonna get more time.
That's just part of it. Is there something more happening
here though? Jason beyond pushing one of the top three,
four or five matches on the pay per view on
Sunday you can slot at three, four or five, Probably

(43:11):
is there something more going on?

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Oh certainly, yeah. I mean you could tell when he
was out there with John Cena and the Breast Cancer
Survivors for the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month that
they see him as the number two baby base and
the likely air apparent to John Cena. I don't think
it's working right now. I thought last night it worked
better than it has so far this month because that,

(43:34):
you know, the long promo they gave him was him
recapping his history with bray Waatt, which no one wanted
to hear in the live crowd. Let him know that
they just they don't do a good job, you know.
I think some of it is they don't do a
good job with him and some of his he should
be a heel and it's just not really clicking right
now with him. But it definitely looks like there's a
renewed emphasis on getting him over. I don't know if

(43:56):
he goes into a program now with Seth Rollins and
that's what we see at Survivors, or if that's something
they're waiting on until WrestleMania. But if they wait, if
they were going to go with him against Seth Rollins
at Survivor series, I know he dropped off the apron
last night and screwed both guys kind of, but it
wouldn't you think it would be Range that would be

(44:17):
trying to make the hot tag and Rollin screws him over.
If that's where they were going next instead of Ambrose,
who yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Mean, unless they're just thinking well, we got a you know,
Dean is a guy who's got to take the bulk
of the beatdown because we're protecting Roman, and that took precedence.
You know, they didn't want Roman to be in there
in that long chin lock that Bray had on waiting
for relatively long. It wasn't that long, but it was
clearly he was sitting there in a chinlock waiting for
the queue that they'd gone to the overrun, and then
that's when Dean's comeback began, right when they went into

(44:43):
the over end after the third hour ended. Maybe they
just didn't want Dean Roman to be in that position
that could be Yeah, all right, thanks trop let's go next.
Oh you know what, Jason, let's take a moment to
give you a chance to plug your website and the
membership option that you offer.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Yeah, absolutely on the main page right nowtions at all.
Hit me up on Twitter at Pro Wrestling Net.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Excellent, Jason, thank you very much. We're about to go
to a commercial break. Why listened to commercial breaks? When
you can go vip and experience our shows with the
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That's pw torch dot com slash go vip for full details,
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VIP ratestart as low as four dollars in ninety nine

(45:28):
cents to remove the ads and plugs through Patreon. Full
VIP membership starts at nine dollars in ninety nine cents
to reach yourself to a streamlined, ad and plug free
listening experience with a VIP or Patreon membership. Let's move
back to the phone lines and get some more callers
in here on the program. We'll go to six one six,
and then after that eight one three six one six.

(45:50):
Please state to name and where you're calling from. This
is a Hey Eric, thanks for Colin. What have you
got for Jason to me?

Speaker 10 (45:58):
Can I let you buy back on question? But I
want to ask my first question first? Do you see
that with Cina and Orton? With Cina leaving Orton her,
do you see them turning at heel be? Do you
think a Heel's going to turn baby face anytime soon?
And my bought back on question would be did he much?
Did Andrew ever get title chefs against Backland? And I
just think they could have made fins and Jay McMahon

(46:18):
could have made a lot of money with that. And
that's all I got.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Thanks, Thanks Jason. I just got ratings in So I
was sort of half paying attention to Chris there, can
you or excuse me, half paying attention to Eric? So
can you answer that or restate it for me? And
then I'll break the race?

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Well, I missed. The only thing I missed was who Backland?
Who we thought we was asking work, whether we worked
with Backland or not, But so we could find that out.
But the first part of the question was if they're
going to turn a heel with John cen and Randy
Orton being away, if they'll turn somebody baby base, And
you know, I don't know. It's a good question. I

(46:57):
think it's a very interesting time. I'm talking with somebody
about it today and somebody that it's been in the company,
and they're they're excited about it because it's just there
is this open spot now where before maybe it would
have been Randy or when John Cena goes away that
they rely on. He always seems to be their fallback plan.
Now that he sidelined, it's unfortunate for him, of course,
but it kind of forces their hand. And yeah, I'm

(47:18):
sure some of it's going to be Roman reigns, but
they're going to need to focus more on someone else.
And maybe that's someone else is as simple as Dean Ambrose.
Who knows, But there's still there's an opening there, whether
they yet or some would.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Joe, Yeah, he might be a heel. They could do
Joe's a heel or face if he came in and
beat Sena. Joe could come in there and just be
seen as old pal. They have a quote scientific match,
a totally fair Joe wins, and Joe's a baby face
for a while. You know, they could actually have Joe
and Sena bet pals and eventually have Joe turned heel
on him or vice versa, but most likely the other.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Yeah, and I would love to see. You know, Joe
makes sense if they want to write John Cena off
television because he can believably beat the holy hell out
of John Cena and take the title. You know, he
doesn't have to do it fair, you can cheat before
doing it, but it would be a great first impression
on the the main WWE audience if this guy comes
in and not only beats seeing it for his title,
but puts him on the shelf for a while.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Let me go back, Derek, Eric, Ahead, I apologize for
that I got. I just got the ratings in, so
I'll cover that next Bote. You ask about Bob back One.

Speaker 10 (48:20):
Yeah, no, I said, I just wondered why the McMahon
Vincent Vinci J. McMahon never did he ever do a
how come? How come he never did a program?

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Is?

Speaker 10 (48:27):
Andre? Just just wondered if he trusted Andre or not.
That's all I got. Thanks, What do you Eric?

Speaker 14 (48:31):
Eric?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Eric?

Speaker 1 (48:32):
What do you mean did a did a proc with who?

Speaker 10 (48:35):
You mean?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Andre versus one?

Speaker 10 (48:37):
But yeah, but yeah, bad versus Andre? That I know
it's faith, He's the Faith.

Speaker 12 (48:41):
So I don't know.

Speaker 10 (48:42):
But it's a super stud big game title chef. I'm
not I'm not familiar with wrestling from the mid seventies.
So that's all I got.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Okay, sounds good. What I'll do is I'll table that
for Thursday because we're gonna have an opportunity to talk
about that with the players involved, and I think it'll
be uh, you know, an interesting to you Andre on, Yeah,
that would be quite the news. Bob Backland and the
co author and Bruce Mitchell, who knows Backland's career as
well as anybody and that era of wrestling, and Eric

(49:09):
tune in on Thursday because I have an answer, but
we'll save it for Thursday, and we're gonna have a
good discussion about it. I mean, in short, you know,
how do you get out of that match you ended
up doing to connot finish and it's just not the
way that they really utilized Andre. But we can talk
about that as kind of a lead into a interesting
conversation about how Andre was used during that era by
Vince Senior and how he related to Bob Backland. So

(49:33):
we'll take care of that. Our ratings are in and
viewership was up, but ratings were down, yeah, which which
can happen because the viewership is how many people watch
at least a little bit of the show and they
get counted as a viewer. But the rating is more

(49:54):
of a of a water level average for you know,
how many people grant what percentage of people who have
access to the show chose to watch over the course
of the hour, So it gets a little in the weeds.
But the rating comes in at two point two one,
which is actually a significant drop from two point three

(50:15):
to three last week, so it's to drop a point
one two, so about a five percent drop from last week.
Monday Night Football up thirteen percent, in great part perhaps
due to the teaser of the Star Wars trailer. They
did just under fourteen million viewers. Although that's pretty normal

(50:37):
actually even with a Star Wars teaser. It's pretty normal
rating in viewership number for a battle between two teams
a caliber of the Eagles and the Giants. And so
now the question is flair Michaels unadvertised sort of unadvertised
Austin because I talked about him on the interview of
Lesner undertaker Lesner Hayman all that two point two Jason,

(51:01):
you just I mean, I know the viewership was up,
so that's gonna offset barely but a little bit up.
So that might offset a little bit of what should
be concerned here. But it just keeps getting worse.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I you know, I can't say these numbers stunned me.
Viewership going up, I did expect it to a little bit,
but I was kind of going into this little bit
nervous for them just because of the competition, and I
mean New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, not exactly tearing it
up on the field, but still very much in contention

(51:36):
and a weird NFC East, but more importantly to big markets.
And then you have the World Series game and you know,
I'm or the I should say, the ALCS game last
night between the Royals and Blue Jays, and they're lucky
it wasn't the Cubs. I mean, my god, I can't
even imagine if you would have had the New York
Mets playing the Cubs the same night as the Giants

(51:56):
and Eagles, it would have been even worse for them.
But it's just there. I don't think it's so much
last night's show as it is the recent quality of raw.
And then you combine that with what we're seeing, you know,
offered on ESPN and from MLB, and it's just it's
they're they're in for. They're in a tough spot right now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Absolutely, I'll be breaking this down more in the Way
Keller Hotline for VP members and in the newsletter this
week too. But there you have it. We have our
first two point two rating in at least eighteen years,
and I'll have to check the records. Uncharted Territory and
to put it in perspective just for the moment, And

(52:39):
James Caldwell will definitely put this in perspective in his
news story at the all new, completely redesigned pw torch
dot com. So check that out. Uh, if you're listening
to this, he'll have a whole breakdown to put it
in perspective. But a year ago Rod at a two
point seven five ratings this week and I know that
there's been you know, people cut in the cord and
it's hard to grab an audience all but this is

(53:00):
a sharp decline. They were at the two point seven
arrange the last two years this week and so they're
down dramatically to a two point two to one. And
it has in the last year. It hasn't been this
just crazy sharp change in the TV industry. It can
explain a drop to you know, two point six or something,
but not not down to a two point two. So

(53:20):
this is very much a rejection of by a lot
of fans of what WWE is producing. I think it's
part of the overexposure issue. It's part of having a
world champion who's treated as a manchild, gullible, sad, but
of a joke. It's part of the break you can
only beat Rye back. It's part of the it's part of,

(53:41):
I think an abstract but clear feeling that viewers have
that the brand counts more than the wrestlers, and that
WWE you're supposed to support the brand, and we'll just
put wrestlers in slots and we hope you cheer for them,
but it's all about the brand and putting the brand ahead.
I think the charity stuff has been too heavy handed.
I think there's this you know, it's it's you know,

(54:02):
death by a thousand cuts in a way. I don't
think that there's any one thing other than that lack
of Roman Reigns being like this big breakout star. And
certainly there's a little bit of John Seene of fatigue,
I guess, kicking in as maybe his fan base outgrows him.
But yeah, it's just there's a lot of things that
they've been doing wrong and we've chronicled it on this show.

(54:23):
And the lack of a Daniel Bryan type underdog baby
face who you just love and connect with, a lack
of a you know, Sammy's aint getting hurt, I think hurt,
the ability to kind of reposition him as that a
lack of kind of an anti corporate rebellious approach that
maybe cmpunk well, that Seampunk was, and that maybe Paige
and Dean Ambrose had a chance to be. But of

(54:45):
course the last two weeks we've seen them, or last
week we saw them in Payday commercials or paid spots
on Raw and SmackDown. It's really hard to take Dean
Ambrose seriously as an anti authority rebel who's hard to
control when you have him in a clearly scripted skin
for Payday candy bars last week on SmackDown. So it's
just it's it is. It's death by a thousand cuts.

(55:07):
And you would you would think this would be vincent
man maybe opening himself up to a little bit less
blowing off people, thinking maybe there needs to be some changes,
and maybe he we say this every week, but things
keep getting worse, so the odds go up of him listening.
I would think maybe he'll start listening to some consent
dissenting voices within the company.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Jason, I sure hope so. And then you know that
you ran through a long list here, and I think
a big one also is that we passed the point
of you know, today's viewer is stuck watching their older
brother's favorite wrestler and they're watching their dad's favorite wrestlers.
I mean, it's we really are at that point. It's
these guys who were a huge deal in the nineties

(55:48):
and certainly beyond that, but it's been going that long.
They just overshadow all of the younger wrestlers. They're just
put in positions where, unless your Roman reigns are maybe
Dean Ambrose, you don't meet as much. I mean, Stein
comes back. Now we've got Taker headlining this pay per
view again, and I you know, Haker coming back still
means something. He's an exception, but you have Caine all

(56:09):
over this show. I mean, there's just way too much
of that going on. And then the younger guys that
I think the younger viewer would relate to are just
putting these roles where they're just spin their wheels and
they don't really matter. And I think there's a little
bit of verne Gania in Vince McMahon right now.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I do too. I mean, really history, history has a
way of repeating itself unless you try really really hard
to avoid repeating it.

Speaker 8 (56:32):
And it is a.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
I think it's an indictment on Vince McMahon and and
a lot of things. I mean, it's just it's it's
gonna take some, uh, some humility on Vince's part to
maybe admit that the approach they're taking is wrong. I mean,
I mean, really, if they had a big breakout star
or two, it'd make up for a lot of the
mistakes they're making, and it would make it just you know,

(56:55):
a great quarterback can make an offensive coordinator look good,
a great offensive line can make a running back look
good better than they are. And I think a big
star or two can make bookers look better than they are.
And you could argue Russo and Farra benefited from that.
I think one of them, maybe both would agree with
that to a certain extent. But when you don't, when
you have three hours and ten minutes a Raw and

(57:17):
two hours of smack Down and a ww ME network
you're pushing and you know, not just monthly pay per
views but live specials, and then you have the NXT
brand taking some of the some of the cool cachet
factor away from what WWB tries to do with the
main brand. It's tough the overexposure of Raw three hours.
It took a few years for it to really really
kick in. But I do think they never leave fans

(57:40):
wanting more. I mean, obviously there's a few fans who
are like, give me four hours or every week. I'm
not saying there are an exceptions, but the vast majority
of fans are not left wanting more, and whether even
if they like all three hours of the show, Jason,
I think they just get so many big name matchups
between so many big name stars every week. There's no
there's no anticipating things, there's no delayed gratification. You got

(58:01):
to see the Shield reunite last night in a big thing,
and it's just kind of a you know, it's just
something that probably won't be really talked about for, you know,
in the next week or two unless they, you know,
decide to make it some sort of a focal point
to start a new feud. There's just too many things
like that.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
Oh, there definitely are. There's no I mean, that's the
thing is you look at the WWE roster right now,
there's I can't really think of, man, I can't wait
to see this match because we have seen it and
you have to go to NXT, you know, you have
to go to Samoa Joe and Finn Valor and different
people like that to really get excited because they don't
protect any feud. They don't think long term. This is

(58:39):
all in effect of Vince McMahon just booking on a
whim and just booking the days of shows, and that
art really has to change in order, in my opinion,
before anything is going to get better for them creatively.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
He's gotten away with it for a long time and
now we can't and it's time to decide if at
age seventy, he wants this bad enough, because if he does,
he needs to get out of the comfort zone he's in.
He needs a disruption in the way of doing business.
And it needs to happen at the root level of
planning and how he operates his shows, because it will

(59:15):
reverberate into the product itself. And I just I don't
know with the cronies that he surrounded himself with, if
any of them, I don't know that Ed Costi's going
to just have a you know, as they come to
Jesus moment with Vince, and you know, I don't know
who has the power to even you know, Kevin Dunn,

(59:36):
I don't think even recognizes the changes that need to
be made. I think Hunter would absolutely love to make
some changes. But I'm not sure that there's even a
short fix where somebody who got in Vince's ear and
Vince listen to them. I'm not sure that you're not
eighteen months away from being able to see any positive changes,
you know. I think I think there's enough damage that's
been done to the foundation that you almost have to

(59:56):
have a really smart eighteen month plan that you believe
in to get back to what you just said, Jason,
which is having some matches we haven't seen between stars
that are over that fans want to see wrestle each other.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
And boy, they better have Dwayne Johnson lined up for
Wrestle MANNYA this year. I really worry about Wrestle MANNI
at thirty two right now because the main roster guys
they have don't mean much. And I think you're going
to start seeing the stars that come home are going
to be smaller in numbers just because they're getting older.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Well, they spent a lot of money probably last night
on Austin and Michaels and Flair and got a two
point two one rating, you know, And when I say
a lot of money, I mean local for Michael's local
for Austin relatively speaking, but still, you know, Vince's like,
why are we bringing all these old names back if
they don't make a difference. But you wonder what the
rating would have been without them, you know, I mean,
you have to you shudder at that thought. What if

(01:00:47):
Helen sel was two weeks away? And what if last
night was just like last week's show? Because this week's
rating was a reflection even though Cole plugged at the
end of Raw last week, It's going to be Sean, Michaels,
an Undertaker, and Brock Lesner and you know I mentioned
all these big names were going to back. This week's
show is a reflection of how just absolutely god awful

(01:01:07):
the last two weeks were, I think to a lot
of viewers. I mean, I'm just I'm I'm not guessing,
isn't the word, but I'm sort of assuming, based on
a lot of anecdotal feedback and just watching the damn shows,
that the last two weeks did not inspire people to
be really excited about the product. And I think they're
feeling the effects this week from how lousy the last

(01:01:30):
couple of weeks were. Because I just honestly don't think
people want to tune in to watch Cain in a
world title storyline at this point, no matter how quote
good he is at playing those dual roles.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Oh we had that. Yeah, That's a big part of
the problem right now is just how much they've shoved
Caine down the throats of viewers. And it really so
you know, it started off fairly creative the first time
they did it, and then they just kept repeating the
joke over and over again. It was like, make him
go away, make this stop. And I was so happy
last night when they announced the corporate Kane was suspended.
I was waiting for Demon to show up, and I

(01:02:03):
was happy he didn't show up either. I'll wait, they
can't go with this at sur Vivor series again, can they.
They can't be thinking, oh, we'll do a screwy finish
here and we'll go back to Kane and rawlins a
Survivor series. I hope.

Speaker 15 (01:02:16):
Not 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 Torch Daily Cast Feed. Alex
and Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past
by taking you through the Torch issue from that very week,

(01:02:40):
follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the
happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
pass cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast feed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
I hope not, I hope.

Speaker 7 (01:03:04):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
We have some good callers. We've got eight people on hold.
We'll get to as many of them as can in
our many minutes here. Let's go to eight, one three next,
and then two one. Oho is on deck eight one three,
Thanks Rolling steat you name and where you're calling from from? Paul.

Speaker 6 (01:03:16):
Hey, guys, Jay from Tampa. I'll be real quick. I
have a comment in two questions. My comment was the
podcast was well with Brock. I know we were saying
a lot of things about not really caring. So I
was just wondering, is is it any feelings about the
Street being invested in someone that doesn't seem to care
so much about the business but making business?

Speaker 14 (01:03:38):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:03:39):
Probably not even seeing on the Taker match from start
to finish.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Came up?

Speaker 8 (01:03:45):
Were the US?

Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
Is it possible that we could see a US title
match with Sammy Zan as a follow up if he's
I don't know if his condition at the moment, question was, uh,
do you see any equity and any aside from Sina
like the likes of Cain, Big Show, Mark, Henry Orton
being able to even give anybody a rub at this point,

(01:04:09):
And that's all I got.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Cool. I think that's three questions, but he called it
two questions in a comment. Will accept it either way. Thanks, Jay, Sure, Jason,
go ahead with your thoughts on the Rock in the Streak.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Yeah, Well, the whole idea of brock Lesner not caring,
and you know, it makes it clear. He punches in,
he punches out. That's what people do in their day
to day jobs as well. So a lot of the
people out there, a lot of the wrestling fans who
just can't comprehend how brock Lesner can have this attitude
need to look in the mirror because chances are they
do the same thing in most cases, not everybody, but

(01:04:43):
he's successful and when he punches in, he busts his ass.
This guy, it's not like he doesn't care and he's
just going out there and phoning it in and getting
by on his physique like we used to see with
some guys in the eighties. When he punches in. He
does his job, and he does it extremely well. He
doesn't have to be a fan of the business to
be effective. He's selling tickets, he's selling network subscriptions. That's

(01:05:06):
the only thing that matters. He doesn't have to be
super marked for the pro wrestling industry in order to
be effective at his job. And I think there's just
fans out there that can't comprehend it. They see it
as a slap in the face to them, a slap
in the face to the company that he has that
he takes this approach. I'm not bothered in the least
by it. He's paid, he's compensated to do what he does,

(01:05:27):
and if he wants to work limited dates and they're
willing to give him that deal, good for him. I mean,
that's that's what every wrestler should aspire for. I mean,
I also have respect for the guys that live and
die for this. Don't get me wrong, but I don't
think anyone, any fan out there, should be bothered by
the fact that brock Lesner, he just openly admits that
he's punching in and he's punching out and he's not

(01:05:48):
sitting around obsessing about wrestling when he's at home.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I liked when he made fun of Austin for knowing
Wrestlmenia nineteen was against Kurdagle Resmania twenties against Goldberg and Brocks, like,
I don't know any of this stuff, and I, well,
you know, I was in the match, so it had
to be a big deal and I did some research
for this. Also was almost apologizing for his wrestling knowledge.
And you know, Steve's a guy who you just you
can talk about wrestling for, you know, twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week, other than when he's

(01:06:11):
sleeping and he's happy.

Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
So you have two very different people, and I think
Steve might have been taken it taken aback a little
bit at it. But at the same time, there is
kind of a level of just like, yeah, this guy
is so immune to being taken advantage of by management.
In fact, we put up on pw torch dot com
the latest h Bruce Mitchell column, and every single day

(01:06:34):
in the month of October, we've been putting up a column,
one from each year that he's been a columnist, and
yesterday we put up a column from two thousand and eight,
and it was right after Brock won the UFC Heavyweight Championship.
For any Courtur and Bruce wrote about, you know, the
leverage that Brock has and the approach that he takes

(01:06:55):
to the business and Brock really is immune to being
a mark of the business. In fact, Bruce Mitchell and
Mark Madden, I thought, did a good job talking about
this on Sundays Bruce Mitchell Audio Show too about and
they were, you can imagine, rather blunt about it, because
neither you know, mince their words when it comes to
there's strong feelings on this, and they're just like, there's
just too many wrestlers out there who are who wear

(01:07:17):
it as a badge of honor, that they're in the
business for the art of it. And and I think
there's a place for that. I mean, I'm not as
I'm not don't come to I don't go as far
as Mark and Bruce do in in scorning that, but
there is something about proclaiming that that leaves you vulnerable
to being taken advantage of by the wrestling promoters. And

(01:07:40):
I think Brock's interview should almost be must viewing for
anybody who aspires to be a top guy. There's some
guys who just they don't they'll never be a top guy.
It's not I shouldn't say never, because you know, people
said that about Mick Foley and probably Daniel Bryan, so
you should have, like any kind of prescribed stereotypes. But
there's likely who who is the local restler Jason who

(01:08:01):
Brock mentioned who took a bunch of bumps for him.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
Oh god, I don't even remember.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Yeah, I feel bad that I that I forgot his
name too, but he he talked about. You know, there's
there's guys who just in all likelihood are never going
to be top, top top guys. And but if you
think you might be, you know, look at what Brock
said about how he approaches things so much as a business,

(01:08:30):
because there really is an advantage to letting promoters know.
As Brock said, here's my price, here's what I'm willing
to do, and you can take it or leave it.
You know, this is my price, or we can negotiate.
But I don't need this so badly that that that
I'm just willing to do absolutely anything to get to
get this job. I think I think that when I

(01:08:53):
I when Brock said that, I thought good in a way,
good for him, because what matters most is what draws
the most money, and it doesn't draw You don't draw
money because the fans know you care or don't care
if you do your job really well. In a sense,
it really shouldn't matter. And I thought of times that
I've seen actors on talk shows where they've talked about

(01:09:15):
how they have it they don't watch their own movies,
and I kind of thought, man, Dan Jesser. Dan Jesser,
by the way, is the wrestler that Brock mentioned that
he took a bunch of months for when he was
with Brad Ringins at rings Camp trying to get better.
But I think that when actors say, yeah, I don't
watch my own movies and I don't, you know, have

(01:09:37):
any interest, it does bug me a little bit. I
gotta say, like, I kind of want my lead actors
who are in movies to like be into it, Like,
you know, do you want Harrison Ford to go yeah,
Star Wars? Yeah, kind of when I see when I
see a when I see a commercial Ford, or if
I go to you know, if I drive past a
target and I see a big, a big billboard up
going Star Wars vergand I hear a kind of Eah,

(01:09:58):
doesn't mean anything to me, you know, like you kind
of yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. But I think that you
kind of want the people who star in the show
that you have a passion for to care. And so
I do understand people maybe holding that a little bit
against Brock. But then there's two sides of the scale,
and you have to say, well, if that's who he is,

(01:10:21):
do you then go? Because he doesn't appreciate it or care,
he should not even if he's the right choice otherwise
be the guy to end the streak. And as much
as Brock said he doesn't care what people think about him,
he did a two or three time seem to want
to make his case for his perspective on things. And
one time was, hey, is there anybody with a background

(01:10:41):
and the credibility to end the streak?

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
That you know?

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Does anybody have the resume that I have who's credible
in ending the streak? And the answer is no. And
I have yet to hear a really compelling case for
a third option. Some people think Taker's streak should be alive.
Others say no, it's good Lesnar edit it. It gave
him a boost and is a tool that they've used
since then. Maybe not ideally, but it's certainly something I
could have used better. And so the fact that they

(01:11:05):
used it poorly doesn't mean it wasn't something that could
be done well and should have been done. It just
means you have criticism of the way that they handled it.
But the third option be give the win to somebody else,
and Jason, I just don't know who that someone else is,
So I don't really know that there's a credible option
out there to have ended the street. So I kind
of do agree with Brock in his argument of you
know what I mean, I don't need to care or

(01:11:27):
love the industry to be good at what I do
and enhance your viewer your enjoyment viewing it. And if
I'm the guy that finsic Man thinks can draw the
most money, I don't think my interest in wrestling or
my knowledge of it coming into being a star in
the industry should be a major factor in whether he
gets utilized in a top spot.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
No, I mean, I just think the guy does his job,
and he does it well. I thought Austin could have
dug a little deeper a point because Brock was just
so bolt blunt about that and kind of tapped into,
or at least brought up the fact that, yeah, but
when you punch in, you obviously have some passion for this.
You were going out there and tearing it up and

(01:12:09):
having these great matches, And that would have given Brock
a chance to explain himself that, yeah, you know, he
he does have passion for this, but he's not that
guy that needs to just you know, eat, drink, sleep,
pro wrestling twenty four hours a day. It's very much
a job to him. But once once he's on the clock,
he's very passionate about it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
Yes, and that's the thing, when you were clocked in,
does he bring it? Does he do what he's told?
And does he do it excellently? And I would say yes,
he does.

Speaker 14 (01:12:37):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
All right back to the.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
Full lines, he had a couple more questions.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
I think US title Sammy's Ain. If Sam's Ain were
ready with Samy's Ain coming back and winning the US
title be good option. I'd say yes, I'd have him
on my top five list for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
Yeah, I want to see I'd rather take that. You know,
we talk about it with Bailey. I think I'd rather
see a little bit of a journey with Sammy rather
than just coming in and winning it. It's one way
to do it. I think I just prefer the other
where we kind of get to know Sammy a little
bit before. But if he'd been around this time, yeah,
for sure, very good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
And then as far as whether Big Show, Randy Orton
or Caine can give her up to anybody else at
this point, sure yeah, I think they could. I mean,
I think if if if finn Balor came in and
Randy Orton turned heel, and Finn Balor worked program with Randy,
and then the end finn Balor won, looked good, had
some good matches, really brought out the best in Randy
on the mic and in the ring and in there

(01:13:31):
in the end. One, Hey, that's a rub for finn Balor.
So literally, yes, somebody the stature of Orton has it.
Caine and Big Show I'd say less. So I don't
know that either of them. I mean, I guess if
if somemo Joe came in and pinned Big Show, you know,
and they actually had a feud and some Mojoe came
in and just outpowered, out maneuvered, and uh and you

(01:13:52):
know got a submission over if I get a Big
Show to tap out. I mean there's some rub there,
not as much as there should be, but there's some
So in a way, I guess my answer is, yes,
there's somewhere up there, but not as much as there
should be. With two out of well really all three,
but especially Big Show and Orton I'm Big.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Show and Kane No and the Guy, they should be
getting something out of right now, you know, they've kind
of positioned Mark Henry is like the designated job guys.
He's not giving rub to anyone, and the way they
have him slotted, there's no reason that he can't still
mean something, be winning some matches and doing select jobs
and putting the right people over. And instead they just
have him lose every week and no one gains anything

(01:14:27):
from that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Right, Yeah, Okay, we covered his question, So let's try
to get two a couple more colors here. We're not
going to get to everybody. We'll go to two one
O next on deck two seven zero two and oh,
please state your name and where you're calling from.

Speaker 16 (01:14:41):
Uh, yeah, this is Eric from San Antonio. You guys
pretty much basically covered most of stuff I want to
talk about. I just want to say that for me personally,
I would have Sammy Zay number one, then Tyler Breeze,
then Finn Balor. But if you haven't already, if you
can clear up just real fast, like why is seen
as leaving? How long he's gonna be done? And do
we know for a fact that Sunday or Monday is

(01:15:01):
going to be his last days?

Speaker 8 (01:15:02):
And that's it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
Okay, good question? Uh, Jason, what's the latest on on
Seena's leave of absence?

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
Yeah, he's we know he's filming something for Fox something
I don't know exactly what it is, but it's not
the main reason he's leaving. It sounds like he's going
to be a way about six weeks I think is
the idea. And as far as Monday is concerned, you know,
it can change. But he's not advertised on their live

(01:15:28):
events page for Monday show. And even like watching the
video trying to figure out if he's a dark match today,
he's not even shown on the video for Monday Show.
So if he's there, it's you know, I think it's
just maybe them hitting the panic button a little bit
because it's not like it would be a surprise for
him to be there, so it looks like he's going
to finish up on Sunday at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
All right, Zane Breeze balor Yeah, I mean Tyler Breeze
coming in and upsetting John. I just don't know. I
like Tyler Breese, but I don't know that he's a
guy that you spend us title upset and win over
sena on. I'm not sure that that's the that's his
character and that's the way to introduce him just with
a title win. I think Breeze is a guy that

(01:16:11):
you kind of warm up to, but I get you
warm him up by giving him a chance to get.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
His character over. I agree. Yeah, I like Kyler Breeze
a lot, but I mean they kind of treat him
as that stepping stone guy in NXT. I don't know
that they're going to bring him into WWE and try
to make a big splash with him.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Yep, they're good. All right. That covers that, So thank
you Eric for your call. Seven up, seven eight is
up now, and then on deck we'll go to seven
three to two seven one eight. Please state to name
and where you're calling from.

Speaker 8 (01:16:42):
Life from Brooklyn doing good.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Thanks for calling, Mike.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
What have you got for us?

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:16:47):
Pretty clear. I mean, like you said, he's got a
cob doll basis ugly with you. I feel like this
should be either Joe wolfin Dala you know who comes
up and take the titles and John First question, do
youse guys think the Dudley's win set Sunday Night or
do lou Day go on? Pretty much?

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
That's it all right, thanks Michael, Dudley's or New Day Jason.
Do you have an official pick you're willing to divulge
on that big matchup?

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
Yeah? I mean I haven't put a lot of thought
into it. I really thought they might have the Dudley's
win at MSG, and then when they went went with
the DQ count out there. I just don't think they've
really built any momentum for them, So if they do,
it looks to me like it's just something they're doing
on a whim, more than like building to this moment
where they finally get the tag title, so you know,
you never know is Vince McMahon. But I lean toward

(01:17:39):
New Day.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
Yeah, I lean a New Day too. I don't think
it helps that Ratings go down when the Dudley's come back.
I mean, and I'm not saying I blame them, but
you know that Vince is just looking at this going God,
I thought if I brought the Dudley's back first time
in ten years on RAW, you know that maybe they'd help,
you know, bring some of those those fans back, who
they'll lapsed fans as they call them. Of course they

(01:18:02):
haven't like bubb a talk and that's his strength. He
can talk people into watching. And it's got to frustrate
him to know when that he gets like almost no
mic time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
Jason, Oh, it's absurd. I don't know why. I mean,
that's that really, And it's not like he's just a
guy that couldn't talk before when he was in WWE
left and suddenly got better. He's always been a good talker.
I mean, he's certainly he's upped his game, but he's
always been a good talker. And I just for whatever reason,
I don't think Vince McMahon sees it. I don't blame

(01:18:32):
those guys at all. I think their push has been
awkward at best. I don't they're starting to feel like
the older guys returning They didn't they didn't, you know,
they always obviously they came in as veterans and they
were pushed as former you know, ten time champions or
whatever it is. But they felt fresh to me when
they came in, and now just because of the way

(01:18:53):
they've been utilized, they kind of feel like they belong
in that cane mix of guys. That's just I feel
like they're pastor prime, and it's too bad because they shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or AEW Dynamite
in particular, send us an email if you've got thoughts
on the show or a topic you want us to
address or a question for us. Wadekeller Podcast at pwtorch
dot com. Wadkeller Podcast at pwtorch dot com. If there's
anything else going on in pro wrestling that you want
us to address on our main podcast during our mailbank segments,

(01:19:25):
that same email applies Wadekeller Podcast at pwtorch dot com.
We invite that interaction. Let us know what you think
of what we're saying, and let us know what you
want us to talk about and ask us specific questions.
Wadkeller Podcast at PW torch dot com. A lot of
people right now reacting to raw ratings on my Twitter feed.

(01:19:46):
You can check that out at the Wadkeller t h
e w A d e K E l l e R.
You can also follow our brand at PW torch. Don't
forget check out the new PW torch website custom for
your desktop or laptop, and we also have a mobile
site for your tablet or smartphone. But really we're pointing

(01:20:09):
you to the new desktop site. If you have been
to pww torch dot com before, it's a vast improvement.
If you have not, it's still definitely worth checking out
bookmarket making a daily part of your routine. A lot
of good stuff up there. James called Will put up
his top five list. He ranked how the Legends were
used on raw last night from best to worst. Who
is most effective and least effective in terms of how

(01:20:32):
they were utilized on raw? Lots of good stuff up
on PW torch in terms of exclusives are A Collectible's
column by Michael Moore takes a look at every week merchandise.
This week vintage T shirts that are fetching big bucks
on the collectibles trading scene. Also, I cannot push you
harder enough to absor to absorb the Bruce Mitchell columns

(01:20:57):
from the past twenty five years that we are putting up.
It has just been so fun looking through these Bruce
Mitchell columns and pulling and it's been difficult, but pulling
one from each year to feature for everybody to read
for the first time on the free website. These were
originally only in the Progressing Torch newsletter he started writing
for us in nineteen ninety and many of these have

(01:21:18):
never been online before for free. All of them have
been on the VIP website and accessible. But the selections
that I'm picking out showcase what he is all about
and why he is for twenty five years in counting
Progressing's most respected and renowned columnist. And yesterday brock Lesner
Bruce's take right after he won the title the day

(01:21:39):
before that, and this is so must read. Anybody who's
in creative in wrestling on the indie scene through WWE
please read this column a guide to the proper use
of stipulations and gimmicks. It's so obvious to me, yet
so it feels like it's this lost inherent. It should
be inherent and obvious, but it's so lost and I

(01:22:00):
think it's actually sort of eye opening that the way
that Bruce wrote this column, it's stuck with me when
he wrote this back in two thousand and seven, it
is stuck with me. I think it is so well put,
so well stated, I think irrefutable, and he just explains
the history gimmick matches and why they should be used
in a certain ways. So check that column out. Before that,
it was the fifteenth Annual Year in Review Quiz, a

(01:22:23):
kind of a gimmick column that he did that is
certainly different than a normal quiz. It's not really quizing
your wrestling knowledge, but you have to read it to
get it, but you'll get the sense of it. And
there are many more of those up on the VIP website.
If you enjoy the Bruce Mitchell Annual Quiz, just absolutely
you have to read it. I mean you're either gonna
shake your head and go, I don't get it, or

(01:22:44):
you're gonna read it six times. It's one of those things.
The day before that a review of Dusky Rose's autobiography.
The day before that, day fifteen was the Real Rick
Flair Autobiography. A review of that. Before that, the Culture
of Death in Wrestling, a major cover story from two
thousand and three that Bruce wrote on the culture of death.
This was even before things got worse, because obviously things
got worse for the next five years, and really a

(01:23:07):
landmark column in the Progressing Torch newsletter online for free
for the first time ever, The Culture of Death, Day
fourteen of the Bruce Mitchell column series. The day before that,
his column on the flop that was the renewal the
revival of the nWo in WWE. That column back in
two thousand and two, the title of it hung over again.

(01:23:29):
Must read. All these are must read. I mean, there's
so many good There's so many good columns brusus written
over the years. The day before that, The Free Bird Way,
on the week that Terry Gordy died, Bruce wrote a
fantastic column on the legacy of the Free Birds, what
they stood for, what they accomplished, insight into their partying,
their place behind the scenes and on camera. Before that,

(01:23:51):
the year two thousand, Day eleven of our March through
Mitchell columns, The Death of Hardcore. In the year two thousand,
Bruce declared the death of hardcore and he makes his
case for it as ECW was on its last legs
and WWE was doing its best. In WWF at the
point a time, it was doing its best to basically
make fun of what hardcore was and diminish its its
entire value. Anyway, you got to read the column to

(01:24:12):
totally soak up what Bruce was saying there. The day
before that, children was the title of the column, talking
about Vince Wickmann and his marketing to children or his
kind of childish approach storylines. You kind of have to
read it again to kind of get the theme. Before that,
the case for Rick Flair as the greatest of all time.
Before that, Fritz van Eric and world class tragedies. This

(01:24:34):
was the week that Fritz fan Eric died. Bruce wrote
about what fritz his contributions were to the resting industry,
but also the price that his family paid for his ways.
Before that, a column on wrestlers jumping between raw and Nitro.
This was in nineteen ninety six when it was the
heat the kind of the peak of that starting to happen.
Day before that, Bruce's first trip to E c. W Arena,

(01:24:59):
and that was a hell of a column, and Bruce
had a great experience there very positive column there, So anyway,
a lot to check out. I just wanted to give
some attention to that, because this really, really, really is
a reason to go to the brand new PW torch
dot com, settle in and read these Bruce Mitchell collumns
it is. I just can't stress enough he is a
phenomenal writer and the contributions he has made to these

(01:25:21):
big topics are huge. And if you like what you read,
you can read hundreds more in the archives of the
PW torch website. At our new PW Torch VP website,
it's it's better laid out, easier than ever. All our
VP archives are are available, uh so many of them
now are are just rings so true today with some

(01:25:42):
of the things that are going wrong, and is a
real uh real education and and ah an entertaining version
of it. It's very lively the way Bruce writes about it.
It's definitely worth checking out. PW torch dot com. Slash
go v i P is the page where you want
to go to uh to sign up up and if
you forget about that, if you forget that, you can
just go to PW torch dot com and there's a

(01:26:04):
button for new VP sign ups in the upper right
corner of every single page. All right, let's go to
seven three two next, seven three two, Thanks or holding.
Please state your name and where you're calling from.

Speaker 4 (01:26:14):
Hey Waite, Hey Jason Scott, VIP member James verg New Jersey.
How are you today?

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
Doing great? Scott? Thanks for calling. What have you got
for Jason?

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
To me?

Speaker 4 (01:26:22):
I just want to start wishing you a happy Bruce
Tober because Wade covers of all the wave of Rus's
columns is so wonderful I can't even keep up dating
so great. Excellent new website to Wait, excellent work. Congratulations
on it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
My two questions guys real quick. First one, you know
I have to heard much. What's the timetable on Today
with Tommy? Could he maybe be someone who's surprised everyone
on Sunday Night coming out in the US titles the
Open Challenge? And my other question real quick, guys, is lead.
I've been riveted by all your discussions about pop back
on VIP and I'm a live cat was wondering if

(01:27:01):
you've talked a lot about them building up opponice for him,
did you how long would they build guys? Up to
be set up the bob back the three months billed filled.
It's very interesting how they brought all these people in
a thanks so much, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
Thank you very much, Scott. Again, let's let's because we're
just short on time here, we're running long at ninety
minutes here, let's save the backland discussion for Thursday. So
call back or I'll just make a note of of that.
Go ahead. Jason with part one of his questions.

Speaker 3 (01:27:32):
Though I missed who the person was that he that
he was oh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
Today with Tommy Oh, I.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
Don't think he's healthy. I don't think I don't believe
he could do it, and I wouldn't think that can
be a weird introduction. I know he was in the
Battle Royal at WrestleMania, but no, I wouldn't go there.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
I wouldn't either. Yeah, I mean it's another name you
know that you can pick up and go, hey, here's
an option, and I think, you you it's worth bringing up.
And then I think it's also we're saying, it's just
it's not the right way to introduce him in that context.
I don't think so, all right, I apologize to other
callers for not getting to you. But give Pattick call
tomorrow and Bruce and Travis, by the way, we'll be

(01:28:13):
on b BY on Friday, of course at seven eastern,
so join them. If you want to hear more discussion
about Raw and you missed it, check out James Caldwell
and Pat McNeil. James Caldwell PW Torches since an editor,
Pat McNeil going on fifteen years as a Torch columnist
and audio contributor. They discussed Raw last night. That is
available right here at PW Torch live cast dot com. Again,

(01:28:35):
please go check out the Bruce Mitchell column series. You
will understand why he is renowned for the work that
he has done over the past twenty five years. It's
a great selection of columns up there, and it's just
it's another level of writing and I think you owe
it to yourself if you're a fan of the show,
and hopefully we bring a good level of a good

(01:28:56):
high level discussion of the progressing industry from a business perspective,
fair mind and also but also hard hitting and objective.
But you don't you won't understand until your Readrus's columns
the influence that he has had on the tone of
the torches coverage over the decades that he's been part
of the Torch, and he's a great writer on top

(01:29:17):
of it, and definitely we're checking out. So I pushed
it enough, but hey, it's twenty five years of writing.
He deserves a heap of praise on our most listened
to program here, the Tuesday PW Torch Live Cast, and
I wanted to give him a big dose of that.
So again, PW Torch dot com is a website. MMA
torch dot com is our MMA website. A lot going

(01:29:38):
on in the world of MMA, by the way, including
today feedback in the MMA world from what brock Lesner
had to say on the Steve Austin podcast. So I
recommend you check that out too. MMA torch dot com,
by the way, totally redesigned. That was probably the worst
of our websites, by the way, needed to redesign more
than any and it was first in line. It got it.

(01:30:00):
Check it out, fast, loading, visually pleasing, very well organized it. Finally,
the format lives up to the writing and the reporting
and the points of view on that site and the
live coverage of UOC events. Our sister brand, Jamie Pennock
and Company Sean Ennis at Charter Contributor, so many great
articles up there. Check out MMA toorch dot com full
time coverage of MMA every single day with columns, analysis, features,

(01:30:23):
and breaking news you won't find anywhere else mmatorch dot com.
Of course, we ran the plug for PW Podcasts earlier
way to keep up on everything going on in the
podcast world with Jim Ross and Taz and on and
on and on. It's tough to keep up with all
the podcasts out there, but we give you timestamps to
even let you know what's being talked about. Whens, you
can jump to the points of the podcast that maybe
you really want to hear, even if you don't have

(01:30:45):
time to sit down for an hour or two and
listen to them all. So pw podcast dot com is
your source for in depth written summaries, recaps, analysis, commentary
on all these big name podcasts that are out there.
On top of that links to the show, so if
you want to listen to them, we give you a
direct link to download or stream the show. So pwpodcast

(01:31:06):
dot com new content up almost every day, so check
that out. Sometimes three four five new podcast Summerason one
day there tends to be a big flood midweek because
that's when a lot of the new podcast drops, so
a lot of our content out there within the Torch family,
and of course Jason Powell of Pro Wrestling dot Net
my guest on Tuesdays. Jason, give a plug to your
website again, your podcast, and your Twitter, and we'll sign

(01:31:27):
off on that note.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Yeah. Absolutely check out the main page of Pro Wrestling
dot Net. Tomorrow, Haydenlieb we'll have a actually a blog
stemming from what he took from brock Lesnar or some
of those comments he made that we were discussing earlier.
You get Hayden's take on that on Wednesday afternoon. But
hoping to get WWE SmackDown spoilers tonight. I'm sure we
will at some point or another, but I'd love to

(01:31:49):
get live updates if anybody's going at dotnt. Jason at
gmail dot com is where you email me, and of
course hit me up on Twitter at Pro wrestling Net.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
Very good. Thank you everybody once again for joining us
here at pw towors livecast dot com. And tomorrow Pat
McNeil with a special guest Thursday, Bob Backland.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
This is big.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
He was a huge star late seventies or early eighties,
the bridge between the Bruno si Martino era and the
whole Cogan era. He just wrote a great autobiography, four
hundred plus pages of behind the scenes insights and fascinating
stories on big, big names that he worked with and
worked around, including insight into the way Vince Senior operated

(01:32:31):
and transition to Vincic Man Junior, what he thought of
whol Cogan behind the scenes before it was clear that
Hogan was going to be his replacement, and so much more.
It's a really fun book, really good book. I absolutely
recommend it. We've done the last two live casts the
last two Thursdays on this book, and you can listen
to Bob two weeks ago for about twenty five minutes
with us before his phone gave out, followed by a

(01:32:51):
really good discussion by Bruce Mitchell on Bob Eckland. And
then last Thursday, the author of Bob Beckland's book joined us,
Robert Miller for the full show to talk about the
writing of the book, working with Bob and stories from
that era and now Bob on Thursday joins us, and
then Bruce and Travis on Friday, Bruce Mitchell and Travis
Bryant on Friday. By the way, check out the East

(01:33:12):
Coastcast at eastcoastcast dot com. Travis Bryant tomorrow will be
We're talking about all the happenings of the week in wrestling,
and he has a big following at his sister show
to this live cast, the PW Torch East Coastcast. It's
on a separate feed because it is not family friendly.
It's not PG rated, so it's on a separate feed.
But Travis, welcome to your calls. You can listen live

(01:33:34):
or listen on delay. Check them out at eastcoastcast dot com. Okay,
until next time, Way Keller thinking Jason Powell and all
of our callers at Apologies again to the callers we
did not get to until next time. Waitekeller signing off.

Speaker 17 (01:34:04):
I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast, the
new Ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
Pro Wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
noteworthy events Dictate.

Speaker 11 (01:34:16):
And I'm Chris Lansdowe. Join us as we cover the
ever changing landscape of New Japan as they navigate an
era with no lack of talent but a real need
to create some news starves. You can stream the new
seven Stop podcast now from Pro Wrestling Talk.

Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
All right right now. In the vat You after show
portion of the program, this is Wade Keller, of course,
along with Jason Powell from Pro Wrestling Dot in the
VATA after show, I've had a few minutes for it
to sink in, Jason, I guess not a day or
two yet, but a few. It's that two point two still.
It's just, I mean, this is really really amazing what's

(01:35:08):
happening right now, and it's kind of scary the lack
of interest now in the flagship show of Raw.

Speaker 11 (01:35:15):
You know, can we really can't say we didn't see
it coming, though, I mean maybe not to this level.
But I mean, it's just been this sinking ship creatively,
and I think they've been able to mask it to
some extent by having good, memorable Wrestlemanian Summer Slam shows

(01:35:36):
and by giving some good pay per view main events.
On paper, you know that even sting Rawlins was something
that was intriguing and unexpected, even though it didn't turn
out to be all that great. But it's just it's
been this downward spiral creatively outside of bringing back brock
Lessard and Undertaker and the stars coming home from WrestleMania.

(01:35:57):
It's really just this the way the neglect of the
active roster wrestlers, you know, buy and large with the
exception of John Cena and seth Rawlins, and even with
Rawlins again they pay attention to they don't do a
good job with and so, I mean this has been
it's been building up for a long time, the fact
that they head into every football season and you wouldn't

(01:36:18):
know they're going up against Monday night football competition. They
just take this business as usual approach. And the thing
that scares the hell out of me is listening to
you talk earlier about Vince's mindset, what you're hearing about
Vince really having the business as usual approach. I mean,
I don't know what it's going to take for him
to wake up and realize what he is doing. It's broken.
The whole system is flawed.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
Somebody on Twitter, a guy who happens be named Jason
Jason D three eighteen says, if WWE would have said
no to the extra hour, would that have upset USA
Network and Wall Street? Is it all Wwwe's fault.

Speaker 11 (01:36:52):
Well, I think if you can, because you have a
good relationship with USA network, you can tell them no,
and maybe they're upset, but you don't let Wall Street no.
You had that opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
Yeah, yes, somebody else on Amazon said or on Amazon?
On Twitter? I said Amazon because his name is the
twenty fifteen Amazings, and Amma was right there amazed. So
that's why I misspoke. All right, who cares? He says
two point two? I thought I just saw like a
three point six. No, it was not a three point

(01:37:22):
six rating. So viewership three point six million rating very
different than that. Although, as somebody said also on Twitter
soon sorry, well on Twitter here, but there's some good
response to our live cast here. Richard l said. One
bright side is WWB consume say that fifty percent of
their audience are network subscribers. Oh wow, so there is

(01:37:45):
a bright side.

Speaker 11 (01:37:46):
Well we'll find out next week even true. And I
don't know what kind of number they're going to be
dishing out next Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
I just do not know that there's any hot shot
left short of a John c Heel turn, and that's
not gonna happen, I mean not not in the near future.
So I and I don't know that that would even
do enough. I mean, I think if you're gonna, first
of if you have to do a John Cena heel turn,
and I don't want to spend a lot of time
on this again or at all, but you don't do
it as a desperation hotshot move. You build up to

(01:38:16):
it so that when it does happen, you have a
bunch of people ready to take advantage of a heel
John Cena for him to play off of. And you
don't play that hand until you're absolutely prepared with a
backup lead babyface or two. And obviously a uh some
opponents lined up for Sena who for sure work again.

Speaker 11 (01:38:36):
Yeah, and Roman Range isn't that guy, you know, because
what you're all the people that are booing Roman Range
now a lot of them boo John Cena, and they're
gonna cheer johnsene In once he's here, especially if he's
going against Roman Range.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
Yep, yes, all right, let's uh, let's go to the mailbank.
We got a question from Kylon who says, what is
the real story with blue Pants and n exed he Jason,
have you seen and heard what I have in terms
of her Some attitude issue, some out of ring stuff
that just led to things going to her head, just

(01:39:12):
kind of in general that they just felt like she
was a bad fit for the locker room and not
really worth worth keeping her out.

Speaker 11 (01:39:18):
Yeah, that's what's being reported. I can't. I can't. I
can't back it up on my own unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
Yeah, yeah, and I have. I've seen that multiple places,
and it seemed like in my mind, even though I
didn't make a mental note where it was because I
didn't report on it. I didn't intend to report on
it right now, but the question came in, So I
can't credit the source right off. But that is the
story that's going around. So that's what we've heard. Seems
to make some sense that it would explain. It fits

(01:39:45):
the narrative of what happened in that story. But as
far as Kylin's second question goes, why is T and
A hyping a tour of India in their current situation
with their US TV partner, Well, because they're going to
make some money on the India tour, why not you know,
I mean, they to get another TV clearance, Jason, and
in the meantime, they'd obviously like to make some money

(01:40:06):
with giving their guys who are still with them, some
work on the Indian's who are Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:40:09):
I mean they really feel that Sony six is a
strong partner for them over there. I'm guessing that, you know,
they're they're they're broadcasting one of the shows live in India,
so I'm guessing that that's going to turn into a
television taping for everywhere else. But yeah, I mean, why
not if you can make a profit. And obviously they

(01:40:30):
weren't going to with those Louisiana showed, so they scrapped those,
pretended they never existed, just didn't even address the fact
that they'd canceled their shows. They just disappeared from their schedule.
But Dixie did tell us about Old Miss Football, so
we're good. They're it's yeah. I mean, you take what
you can get if you feel like you can make
some money, and with those, I guess they feel like

(01:40:50):
they're going to make some money. And who knows, I
mean there's been rumblings that maybe that becomes a new
television taping home. If somebody is willing to pay you
a bunch of money to go over there and make
it worth your while, then why wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
You, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, especially because they're not
they're not folded in the tent yet, So why not,
you know, God, I mean, for the sake of the wrestlers.
If there's a payday here, let them have it. Let
them have it. His third question, is Global Force Wrestling
any closer to a TV deal? What a tough landscape
for Jeff Jarrett to be shopping around with these raw ratings.
I mean, you know, if you want to, if you

(01:41:20):
want the narrative to be in the TV industry, pro
wrestling is dying. There's some people cooperating on the ww
ME and TNA side trying to back that up. It's
a little bit scary for somebody like Jeff Jarrett trying
to pitch and Mark trying to sell a show when
TNA has been essentially dumped by Spike and has been

(01:41:41):
enough of a flop in the perception of some people
on Destination America certainly haven't held up there unto the bargain.
Viewership wise, they came close to it, but not quite
and certainly didn't grow. It's tough for Jeff Jason. It's
a tough sell.

Speaker 11 (01:41:54):
Yeah, I mean, they're taping more television on Friday talking
with somebody about it today, that there's no one knows
of Jeff having anything any kind of real commitments for
within television. He's kind of hinted that this is going
back a while in some of the interviews that he
was doing. They all kind of run together, so they

(01:42:17):
have even been with me. But he was kind of
hinting that it might not be your traditional television deal.
It might be some sort of a different distribution model.

Speaker 2 (01:42:26):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:42:26):
I think Netflix would be high in this guy. If
he could get that, it'd be pretty amazing. But you know,
something along those lines. I just I kind of fear
when he talks about that that it's because he doesn't
really know where this is going to end up, and
he's hoping that, okay, TV is not working, maybe there's
another way to do this. But I mean, at this point,

(01:42:47):
why we know they have the overseas distribution company, that
it is what it is, and there's been no t
deals announced yet. It's even overseas, so I hope he
knows why taping these I kind of fear that there's
a lot of taping happening and they may or may

(01:43:07):
not see the light of day. I kind of fear
that this is going nowhere. I hope that's not the case,
but I am fearful of it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
Well, I and Bruce and Bruce and Mark Jason on
the Bruce mitchellide show on Sunday, you Know, talked about
how Bruce disagreed to Jim Ross, and Jim Ross said,
you know, yeah, support Bound for Glory, order the event.
It's good for the boys, it's good for the industry.
Support the show. And Bruce disagreed. He's like, no, only
spend your money if they're doing a good job. And
I think that's a really important lesson. I don't think

(01:43:35):
you helped the wrestling industry by propping up bad products
by showing support for something out of charity, which is
not but it's not a show that attracted you otherwise
to order it like you. WWE and t and A
and ultimately Global Force should earn your business through providing
a compelling product that's worth your time and in many

(01:43:56):
cases worth your money. And if it's not, don't support them,
because then, in theory, good wrestling will succeed and spread
up the indies. Well, your money should be spent on
a good ROH show or a good evolved show if
that's or New Japan and their subscription service, if they're
producing a wrestling product you like better, and sometimes it
can take a couple of years or more than that

(01:44:17):
to kind of cycle out bad and cycle in good ideas.
But I'm with Bruce and Mark on that one. Nobody
deserves your charity, and I don't know that Global Force
has created enough of a hook in the product that
they're presenting where you go, all right, yeah, there's a
spot for them, there's a real niche for them. I
just don't think Jeff's doing anything all that different. And
this idea that prog wrestling needs to be reinvented is

(01:44:40):
also I don't want to sound like I'm endorsing that,
because I actually think it's kind of going back to
what has always worked and more of the fundamentals and
let the wrestlers and the restling characters tell their stories
in the ring is all that you need to do.
And maybe that's what Jeff is ultimately trying to do.
But it becomes harder to sell yourself when you can't
really explain your and it's your reason for existing, and

(01:45:01):
that's always been a challenge for TNA and Ike Stixy
Carter that a couple of years ago on the live cast.
You know, what is your point for existing? What is
your hook? If somebody wears a TNA T shirt and
I go up to them and say why are you
wearing that and not a WWBT shirt? What do you
want their answer to be? And I don't think she
had a good answer because I don't think it's something
that TNA ever focused on. And I'm just not sure

(01:45:21):
what the mission statement of Global Forces Jason.

Speaker 11 (01:45:24):
I don't I'm not sure. I mean, he made it
seem like they want to do more online content and
storytelling in that way. Yeah, I know, and I you know,
just looking at what they're doing at these tapings. Obviously
I haven't seen the footage, but for all this reinvention talk,
it looks like he's just recreating TNA with the six
sided ring and next Gen instead of X Division and

(01:45:47):
kind of using a lot of the same recycled talent.
And maybe that will change because he's not going to
be able to afford the same recycle talent. We might
see some different faces on these shows. I mean, hey,
I hope it works out. I'm hoping we actually get
to see this footage. But it's it. I just wonder
way it's just his money, you know, I mean there's

(01:46:07):
been rumors about a lottery ticket winners money. It's just
not like Jeff to go out there and spend a
bunch of money without having a good feel that this
is going to work for him on some level, that
he's going to get a return on that investment.

Speaker 1 (01:46:20):
What was the Jimmy Hard, Hulk Hogan, Kurt Henning Tampa,
Florida based promotion that was?

Speaker 11 (01:46:25):
Was it the XW The was an X in there something?

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
Yeah, of course there was. That's already got an exendit. Yes,
it was. I'm just I'm just thinking gfw ampt. It
just doesn't roll off the tongue at all. Yeah, it does.
It does emulate the XWF. Jimmy Hart, Hulk Hogan, k
henningle was part of that. I'm trying to think of,
you know, the Nasty Boys, they're just the usual crew.

(01:46:49):
And it was just such a money mark thing.

Speaker 4 (01:46:51):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
It's just like, here's a guy with money wants to
play fantasy promoter, rolling the dice, big names. They tell
them what they want to hear and do it. I
hope that's not the case with Jeff. I hope that
if there is a financial backer that you know, there's
a genuine belief by Jeff and excitement to make this
work and it's not just well, if it doesn't work out,
I walk out of it with you know, one hundreds
of thousands of dollars of UH management fees and and

(01:47:13):
you know, so far, I'm not seeing any fresh new ideas.
But if just strategy is well, TNA is vulnerable and
I'm going to swoop in and replace them when they collapse,
And I need to lay a foundation for a year,
year and a half so that we've got some history
to us and some shows in the can so when
the opportunity comes, we're ready to move quickly. Then that's fine.
If he thinks he can do things better on his own,

(01:47:35):
then TICKSI did with TNA.

Speaker 11 (01:47:37):
Yeah. I just don't understand the idea of all, you know,
having multiple television taplings. At this point, you want to
do one so you basically have a pilot ready or
even a season ready. Yeah, okay, but I if there's
no guarantee that they're going to end up anywhere, why
are you doing multiple you know, they've already have one batch.
I believe it is in the can and now here
here we go again on Friday and bring some sort

(01:48:00):
of a shocking announcement of a TV deal. I just
I don't really understand what purpose they serve.

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
No, I know, I'm with you, all right, Seamous Devitt
is back, he goes what's going on? The WWE champion
actually won a TV match after being booked as the
biggest jobber in the company for months. It was bizarre
seeing Rowlinds going to win, and a clean win at that.
It has led to fans online wondering if Ryeback has
heat backstage, which says it all when losing to the
heavyweight champion on Raw is so out of the ordinary,

(01:48:28):
it seems like punishment.

Speaker 11 (01:48:30):
I think I'll jump in there. I think it's partly
because now, I mean, I don't think there's anything to
the heat, because they made sure Ryback got his moment
later in the show by power bombing Kevin Owens. But
it's funny that Ryeback is also the last guy that
set Rowlins beat on television.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
Ah yeah, thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to
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(01:49:08):
VIP exclusive shows that I host with Rich Fan and
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two and enjoy all the benefits, all the bonus content
and the ad free listening experience. PW torch dot com
slash go VIP, so, he says, speaking of Rolins, do

(01:49:31):
you think he'll get a clean victory over Kine on Sunday?
After all, unless they're continuing this feud, it makes zero
s or just even say that it makes zero sense
to protect a near fifty year old cane in twenty
fifteen by having a screen finish. He is there to
put over new talent, which is fine, but every single
rounds macdonne, he has made a fool of Rowlins. So
will they actually book Seth credibly? Do you think, do
you think considering they have it up to this point,

(01:49:52):
and can we please not have Rains against Rawlins yet?
Rains isn't ready Have the Rock come out on Rod
after Helena sell in San Diego and go on to
challenge Rawlins. It's Iber Series Triple H screws Rock, setting
up potential Rustlemania match. It'd be huge for Rollins while
also protecting the Rock.

Speaker 11 (01:50:08):
I can't say that last scenario grabs me a whole lot.
I just so he wants Rock and Rollins in the
main event.

Speaker 1 (01:50:16):
Yeah, Rock comes out and challenges Rawlins to a match.
Its Fiber Series Triple H screws Rock.

Speaker 11 (01:50:21):
Oh well, I mean, well, okay, yeah, that's sure if
you can get the Rock to work a match at
Survivor Series. Actually, why not other than you're kind of
hurting him a little bit his value a little bit
for Wrestledania. But I think anytime you have access to
Dayne the Rock Johnson, you probably take it. At this point,
but I think it's a little pie in the sky.

Speaker 1 (01:50:41):
Yeah, yep. Oh Kane prediction for Sunday.

Speaker 11 (01:50:46):
I I mean, I do fear they're going to try
to milk this out, but I'm hopeful that Rollins just
goes over clean. It's not the way they book Seth.
Rawlins though, It's very rare that he beats anybody, so
I'm guessing look for some sort of nonsense with him
sheeting or something. If corporate Kine comes out, then Rawlins

(01:51:09):
probably wins Lean. But if it's the demon came like
it's supposed to be, I can just see Vince feeling
like he needs to protect that character somehow, some way.

Speaker 1 (01:51:18):
Yeah, I'm boy. You just I know Kane wasn't part
of this, you know, record low show, but.

Speaker 11 (01:51:25):
Man, but he played his part leading up to it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:28):
Yeah, that's the thing. I just think this week is
a reflection on what they've been putting out there in
recent weeks, and I just think he's got to look
at this Kane thing and say, maybe this is a
sign that investing. I mean, I'm at a point where
I think Seth is damaged good enough we shouldn't even
be talking about Seth in main event matches right now.
I mean I haven't said that before, I haven't said

(01:51:49):
that till now. I just think when Seth is a
centerpiece of this rating slide, I think symbolically you need
to send a message to the to the viewership. We're
going a whole new direction. And I'm I've been a
huge advocate of Seth. A year ago was asked, you know,
roughly year ago, you know, if you could only keep
one guy from the Shield, who would it be? And
I said, Hey, I'm not saying it's not a tough choice,

(01:52:09):
but it'd be Seth. I think he's so damaged and
so diminished that I would write him out for a
while and just find other people to push because I
think he has become It's sort of like when I
think about the dying days of w cw WW Nitro,
there's a stench. There's a stench on Mike Tenay and

(01:52:29):
Scott Hudson. There's a stench on Jeff Jarrett. I think
to this day even Booker t and certainly some of
the mid carters of that era, you know, I just
the guys who have kind of stuck around and been
around and were and tried to re establish themselves afterwards.
When you were part of that just awful, awful, awful,
terrible WW Nitro and thunder product at the end, there

(01:52:49):
was a stench. And I think there's a stench right
now on Seth rollins n Kine a level of blame,
although the writing is I think mostly responsible for Seth's situation.
But I'm a thinking you just almost want people to
tune into RAW and go, hey, wait a second, I
don't recognize anybody here. You know, it's like when SNL
just dumps everybody on the cast and brings all new

(01:53:09):
people in. There's an adjustment period, but you hope that
it leads to a whole new glory era and it
can be kind of exciting for people to see a
whole new generation, a new mix of people. Jason, is
it bad enough that you almost want to write off
like five six guys from TV for a while and
bring five or six other guys in and just give
the show a really fresh look, even if you have

(01:53:29):
to take another step back to build it up in
the future.

Speaker 11 (01:53:32):
I'm all for it, and I think there's a it
goes me on just the super fan that watches NXT
in their mind. You know, there's a youth people are
attracted to the youth movement on that show. It's not
you have your Simoa Joe'sho's in his thirties, but it's
not like he's been exposed on WWETV valors in his thirties,
but they feel youthful because they're new to a lot

(01:53:54):
of the viewers, or at least you know, in some
cases they've seen them elsewhere and they just haven't been
run through that main ros Ringer. People want to see
the talent rolins. You know, he's starting to feel like
Jeff Jarrett minus the guitar. You know, he doesn't win
in clean ways. He always just if he does win,
he cheats by and large in a meaningful match. It's

(01:54:16):
like when he got the win over Dean Ambrose. They
made it seem like it was a big deal because
he did it on his own. If you really think
about it, they both fell and Rowlins happened to end
up with the title, so it wasn't even a convincing
win there. It's you don't Yes, you can have a
vulnerable heel champion, but you're not going to make major money.
You can't have big showdown matches with that vulnerable heel champion.

(01:54:39):
It just Vince always tries that and it doesn't really
go anywhere. I think the stronger your heel champion is,
the more meaningful it is. When a guy like Roman
Rains beats him and that's where the money is at.
Is just a strong babyface finally beating the strong heel
and you're not getting that with Seth Rollins right.

Speaker 1 (01:54:57):
Yes, No, I know, I know. I'm It's a big
thing to say because I've been a big fan of Seth,
But I think everything. Yea, I laid out everything you
laid out. It's a case for change, all right. Final
question emails step from Bristol UK. When are the Bells
going to go away? It feels as if they're one
of the main reasons the women can't be taken seriously
yet is Nicki scheduled to take time off alongside Sina.

(01:55:20):
I don't think Nicky's taking time off Jason.

Speaker 11 (01:55:22):
Not that I know of, But I feel the same way.
I've been pushing for it for the last couple of
weeks in my reviews and hit lists that it's nothing
against her, respect the fact that she works as hard
as she does, considering she could have coasted non tootal divas,
and because of who her boyfriend is, she really has
worked hard to improve. But it's time to go away
for a while. It's just the bellas They're always positioned

(01:55:44):
as the smartest divas unless Stephanie McMahon is around, the
act is tired. I don't like watching Nicki at like
a powerhouse when she just doesn't look the part. It
just disappeared for a little bit. Take Alisha Fox with
you and let some of the other divas get over.

Speaker 1 (01:55:59):
Yes, yes, and it does feel like the dev I
could see. I could see Vincent Man looking at the
Devas Revolution as part of the blame for the ratings
going down, not accepting that he screwed up the Devas Revolution,
and that scares me too. You know, you have you
could have the women and Seth get blamed for even

(01:56:23):
though there are two answers to the problem. But the
way they've been booked in and portrayed by Vincic Mann
in his vision, he could I could see them being
blamed for his own shortcomings and promoting them.

Speaker 11 (01:56:33):
That's the Vin's way. You know, it's never really his
fault at least, you know, he's just got so much
bravado even if he thinks it is. You're never going
to know, but I yeah, I think you will see
some people being blamed for this that shouldn't be taking
the blame he needs to be. He needs to look
in the mirror and just change his ways. And I
just fear at seventy years old, it's too late for that.

(01:56:56):
I don't know that he's going to wade.

Speaker 1 (01:56:58):
I know, I know I don't either, But man, if
there's a rating that's going to get his attention, I
think we're I mean, is it two point two or
do we now need to say no, it's going to
take a one point nine to get his attention. And
at that point is he going to tell himself a
story where then it's a one point five that's going
to get his attention? I mean, I you know, Bruce
had talked about over the weekend, okay, ROZ found its
water level, and in a way, it has because viewership

(01:57:20):
went up a little even though the rating went down,
And that's just the quirkiness of how the statistics are
generated for viewership compared to ratings. Overall, it really is
more of the same. But symbolically the two point two
is a big deal. I mean, it's I thought being
under two point five was a big deal. Being under
two point five multiple weeks in a row is a

(01:57:40):
big deal. Symbolically, two point two just feels icky. It
feels bad. It feels sky is falling, you know it
more so than two point three or two point four
two point five did. And so you know, and it's
coming the week before pay per view with a bunch
of big stars without a bok for next week other

(01:58:01):
than what happened with Brock and Taker, which, by the way,
you can find out this thing called the internet, So
that's ayhook anymore. So Yeah, I don't know, it's uh,
we live in interesting times, but it's it's uh, is
it the beginning of positive change, the impetus for positive change?
Or do we just all curl up in a ball
and watch an hour of NXT and some New Japan

(01:58:23):
and uh, you know, whatever else you're you're kind of off.
The main highway brand is that you're into and and
just kind of hope at some point somebody nudges you
and says, hey, TNA and wwe got better.

Speaker 11 (01:58:37):
Well, let me ask you should in retrospect, should they
have advertised in Boston? I mean they kind of did
in a press release, but with Austin downplaying it and
saying no, it wasn't going to happen. I mean, you know,
on the photo on the website yesterday had Lesnar and
Taker and Flair and Michaels and did not have him.
Would that have been a difference maker?

Speaker 1 (01:58:56):
Yeah. My hunch is Austin said I'm not going to
be on because he wasn't asked to be on, he
wasn't paid to be on, and he was sending them
I mean, I'm guessing here they just sending a message
to management. I'm not doing raw unless you pay me.
I'm doing a podcast, you know. So I think what
might happen is it was maybe a last second idea
to do it that either Austin agreed to and then Vincent,

(01:59:17):
I'll forgive you for not doing a job to Lesner
if you you know, if you come out and introduce
under whatever I don't know. Yes, if they knew ahead
of time and it was agreed to ahead of time,
they should of course advertise de boss ahead of time.
They should advertise everything big a week or two or
three ahead of time.

Speaker 13 (01:59:40):
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relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
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Speaker 14 (01:59:47):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
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Speaker 13 (01:59:52):
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Speaker 14 (02:00:00):
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Speaker 11 (02:00:27):
Yeah. I mean, I the only down part, the only
because the negative I think would have been people get
their expectations up, and what Austin did was cool as
a surprise. But you know, if you'd been hearing that
this was happening for a week, it wouldn't need to
have been more than what he did, right.

Speaker 1 (02:00:44):
Yeah, Oh that's true too. Yeah, you get people's expectations
up and then they're like, wait a second, that's all.
But I guess I'll if you're WWE, you'll just take
viewers right now, you know, I mean, you just you
want some viewers. So I wonder when the cable industry
press because I haven't seen it. Maybe you have Jason
as a case industry press talking about the fall of
the empire of Monday night USA network. No, not at all,

(02:01:07):
because it seems like that's a story that should be written.

Speaker 11 (02:01:10):
You'd think. But I mean, I think everyone is probably
of the mindset that Vince apparently is, which is, well,
it's Monday night football and it's the world or the
baseball playoffs, and I'm guessing people are still making excuses.
What I want to find out is next Thursday when
they have the quarterly conference calls, what's Wall Street thinking?

Speaker 14 (02:01:29):
What?

Speaker 11 (02:01:29):
You know, what are these people that call into the show?
Are they going to bring it up? Because I'm guessing
that they're going to dance around the ratings and not
make a not point to them, and just point to
all the pros that they usually do. But will one
of them be said, or multiple callers that are allowed
to call in for those will they bring it up
and push Vince a little bit on it, Because that's
the most potentially interesting part about that, right there, with

(02:01:53):
the network numbers. If somebody brings that up, and what
does Vince McMahon say, is he just very nonchalant about
and it's just a seasonal thing, or you know, does
he actually admit some vault and and and say the
changes are coming. I'm very curious to hear what he
has to say come next Thursday.

Speaker 1 (02:02:11):
Well, I'd say this. I think WWE, if they've evaluated
the stock is worth twenty dollars and thirty one cents,
which is how closed today, which is I believe a
let me look at the chart here, it's almost a
one year high. They were so amazing, yeah, I mean
they peaked back in August in that freak, that freak surge.
I think the stock market also just went way up

(02:02:33):
at that point and that that was why they went
to twenty three. But otherwise it's at you know, basically
the second highest it's been other than that about three
weeks stretch or two weeks two or two or three
stretch in August was higher. But and when you look
at the five year max, other than the hysterics of
thirty dollars and ninety four cents that it peaked at
when WWE was saying, oh, we expect to have three

(02:02:56):
million and we're gonna get you know, triple the money
that we used to get for a tea deal and blah,
blah blah. All these crazy forecasts were irresponsible in my
estimation and unfounded. Oh yeah, we're gonna get you know,
one out of three homes is a WWE household, and
we're gonna get two out of three homes to be
as labs fans pays ten dollars a month to watch
old wrestling. It's just like, no, you're not. Nobody believes SATIS.

Speaker 11 (02:03:19):
I think they believed it.

Speaker 1 (02:03:20):
I think they tucked themselves into an internally because I
think there's a bunch of corporate people who don't understand
wrestling running this company, meeting Vince McMann a bunch of
things that he wants to hear. So here's my stock
plan to get rich. If Wall Street values WWE at
twenty dollars and the and and there's solid news of

(02:03:42):
solid ww ME network subscription numbers and that they either
go down only a tiny bit or they go up
a little bit, then stock price will probably hold steady
or go up a little bit. And I think it's
worth buying at the price it's at until in, until
you get a sign as a savvy wrestling fan that

(02:04:03):
WrestleMania looks like a good lineup or a bad lineup,
and once you get that feeling. If it's a good lineup,
hold onto the stock until after the WrestleMania conference call,
and then sell. If it looks like a bad WrestleMania lineup,
hold the stock until you get that feeling, and then
sell it then. But I don't think under any circumstance

(02:04:26):
that you should buy WWB stock and keep it for
longer than six or eight months, because I think there's
a chance a couple quarterly returns will will be enough
to get Wall Street to go a little bit higher
and you might make you know, ten twelve percent or
something on the stock, and then you sell. But the
position they're in right now, the way that they're being
led by physic man until I hear that there's some

(02:04:49):
signs of change deep on the inside about how they're
doing things and different people with different ideas, I just
think this stock is going to be in trouble in
two three years.

Speaker 11 (02:04:57):
You know, I'm certainly no financial guru. I'd be a
little concerned heading into next week because if number, if
the number does dip, and it's so hard to say,
I mean, his nonchalant approach to this maybe because like
you say, the number is okay, But if it is down,
I think that's when you're obviously you know, price will drop.
But then I think people do start looking more at Oh,

(02:05:19):
and the ratings are way down too, and I mean
there could be some panic selling, you know, come next
Thursday when that financial report comes out. So I'd be
a little bit leery of it right now myself. But
that's just me speaking and not advising anyone on anything.

Speaker 1 (02:05:34):
Well, and I will I will say it's your money,
spend it how you want and uh, but don't buy
until the quarterly statement comes out. That's my thinking, is like,
don't buy your sell I mean, just wait till you
get that. And then if the news is moderately good,
then I think it probably will go up. If Russemania
looks big because of the symbolism of Dallas, Texas and

(02:05:56):
whatever Vince has planned and all that. But if it
looks like Russemani is gonna flop out, well you can't.

Speaker 11 (02:06:01):
Or even you know, soll the day before they have
the post wrestling you know they're coming out of wrestling.
Any when they announced the number, if you feel like
that might be the peak for the year, so things
look good, Yeah, I mean, I don't think you're going
to make a huge killing off this, but just something
to think about.

Speaker 1 (02:06:14):
But like gambling in general, you know, it's you're it's
there's too many variables to you know, put any money
other than play money at at stake here, this is
not a long term sound investment strategy trying to Outgas
Vince McMahon and the I think stupidity sometimes of what

(02:06:35):
Wall Street Judge's stock value on. I mean, I get
that there's numbers they plug in and it's and there's
a rationale and all that, and it's kind of this
this collective opinion on where they're headed. But people who
know numbers don't understand what you and I, Jason understand
what our callers understand, and that is there's a product
on the air right now that is not showing that
that is not going to get better before it gets worse.

(02:06:58):
That is it's it's like with when it was on
the rebound with Steve Aouston and that exciting year with
Shawn Michaels and Mike Tyson and all that and Vincent
Man going heel. The ratings are still behind Nitro, but
everybody said ratings are down, but this is a buy.
You know, you want to buy into this company. They
weren't public yet, but you want to buy into this company,
and you would want to buy stock if because you're
out of the curve, you're following the product. You can

(02:07:18):
tell they're on the cusp of big things. Maybe ww
ME in eight years is fine because you look at
NXT and the team Triple Ah is assembled and you think, hey,
you know, I'm gambling that Triple Hill have more control
than Vincent eight years. So I'm going to buy now
because I think it'll be better off then. And then
of course you're at the women of the economy and
the stock market in general too. But looking at the
product now, na, I mean, there's just you know, you
can gamble to try to get ten percent in six months,

(02:07:40):
but it's a gamble. And that's why I say, keep
an eye on whether this Resumania looks like there's an
interest in it, or there's going to be some cancelations
among the network or the next big surch you know,
maybe there'll be another big surge and subs. Anyway, Jason,
thank you very much. We're practically well, we're over two hours,
so I had a lot to talk about today, and
it was fun talking with the Lessner Austin thing upfront

(02:08:01):
and these raw ratings certainly a conversation piece once again, and.

Speaker 11 (02:08:04):
Just remember it's just like Netflix, only better.

Speaker 1 (02:08:07):
Thank you, Thank you VIP subscribers and of course dot
m members for joining us too here on the after show.
Patmangildamar on the live cast and then bought back one
with me on Thursday. I'll be back with Jason next
Tuesday on that Notewig Keller on behalf of Jason Powell
signing off. Invite you to email the show with feedback

(02:08:34):
or questions or comments. That email address is Wade Keller
Podcast at pewtorch dot com. That's Wadekeller Podcast at pw
torch dot com. Also welcome your feedback on Twitter. Even
follow us on Twitter at pw torch and follow me
at the Wade Keller That's at pw Torch and at
the Wade Keller.

Speaker 11 (02:08:54):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell host them the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom podcast.
Each week you'll hear the latest news and analysis from
me and my team at Pro Wrestling dot need, along
with other pro wrestling media members, plus the Pro Wrestling
Boom podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and

(02:09:16):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
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 covering Raw, Dynamite and SmackDown
and my live pay per view coverage for WWE and AEW.
Create a tab or bookmark make it a daily stop.
Visit us throughout the day every day to keep up
on breaking news and more. That's pwtorch dot com.

Speaker 9 (02:09:49):
Meet an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at pewtorch vip as we mask on the bright
side of wrestling and focus on some of the great
matches and shows from around the world, be it the US, Japan,
Europe or Mexico. There's always a place for wrestlings past

(02:10:10):
in the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
such as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious
career of Jusian thunder Linger and our eye was there
when shows where our guests will join me to talk
about a classic bout that they were in attendance for.
We love variety and you can expect lots of it
at the Progress Paradise. Detailed PW tors VIP subscription information

(02:10:33):
and a list of all the VIP benefits is available
at pww torch vipinfo dot com. And yes, all VIP
podcasts are compatible with popular podcast apps on iPhone and
Android devices, or you can stream them directly from our
ad free VIP mobile site. See you in the Paradise.

Speaker 1 (02:10:53):
One way that you can help us sustain our schedule
of putting out podcasts throughout the week is by giving
us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Just go
to Apple Podcasts and look for our Weightkeller Pressing podcast
and Weightkeller Prossing post show and give us a five
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with our fast turnaround times and our quantity and quality
of wrestling analysis throughout the week. So take a moment

(02:11:14):
out for us and do us favor and give us
a five star rating and Apple podcast that helps us
on search returns and helps us grow. And if you want,
you can add a few comments about what you like
about the programs in the comments section. Thank you so much.

Speaker 18 (02:11:30):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in.

Speaker 7 (02:11:43):
NXT's early history. Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout
from PWT Talks NXT every Saturday as we go eight
years back to the day to track NXT's rising talents
and why they did or didn't work out Exclusively for
PW Torch VIP.

Speaker 1 (02:11:58):
Members, PWT Sords VIP membership doesn't just give you ad
free access to these shows and a ton of other
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(02:12:19):
from the nineteen nineties, including some of my interviews with
wrestling's top newsmakers in the nineties, and also our podcast
library dating back to the year two thousand and three.
There's no larger, longer spanning pro wrestling podcast library than
that that comes with a PW Torch VIP membership. Now
approaching twenty years of podcasting, Go vip and dive into

(02:12:39):
our post pay per view roundtables are covered with some
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