10 YRS AGO FLAGSHIP: Keller & Powell discuss decline of Raw, Sheamus's second week as champion, League of Nations, Divas, Daniel Bryan, more

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Pw Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Killer Pro
Wrestling Podcast ten years ago. This week on the flagship,
Jason Powell from Pro Wrestling dot Net join me and
we vented with callers about the decline of WWE Monday
Night Raw, also Seamus's second week as champion, the formation

(01:59):
of the League of Nations, and more. There's a few
passionate rants from both of us in this Actually as
kind of passionate, Jason was a little calmer with words
of wisdom. Also, in the previously v IP exclusive after show,
we talked about the Divas en Raw, Daniel Bryan Wade Barrett,
Seamus Roman, Rains, NXT and more. This originally livestream don
December first, twenty fifteen, and it is today's Wade Keller

(02:22):
Pro Wrestling Podcast ten years ago flagship flashback for Sunday,
November thirtieth, twenty twenty five. Welcome to thep W Torch
Live Cast. I am Wade Keller, editor and publisher of

(02:44):
the Pro Wrestling Torch Weekly Newsletter. I launched in nineteen
eighty seven, rebuts to publish issue number one thousand, four
hundred and thirty four of the weekly newsletter this week.
It'll be online and TDF and all text format for
VIP members and also mailed out to print subscribers worldwide.
You can get the print newsletter by going to PW

(03:08):
Torch dot com slash print Newsletter by It is Tuesday,
December first, two thousand and fifteen, And because it is Tuesday,
we'll be joined momentarily by Jason Powell from Pro Wrestling
dot Net, and we'll be talking largely about yesterday's edition

(03:29):
of Monday Night Raw, but we're certainly open to other things.
The final sixteen brackets for the TNA World Title Tournament.
The EVA Marie versus Bailey match on NXT last Wednesday.
Any of the breaking news stories from the past week,
all of that is welcome, and we also welcome your
phone calls. Six five.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
The phone I'm gonna call is six four, six seven
two one nine eight too eight. That's six four, six,
seven to one nine, eight to eight. It's beginning to
look a lot, a lot like Christmas here at Torch Headquarters,
just outside of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Snow beautiful white snow

(04:07):
cover everywhere. And I know Jason Paul's I think, experiencing
the same thing not too far away from where I am.
And we'll bring Jason Pouel into the program right now. Jason,
welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Hey, good to be here.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Wait, how are you doing great? I want to start
off with plug for giving you a chance to plug
your membership, because I know you have a cyber sale
going on right now, and I want to have as
many of our listeners at the beginning to get to
hear this, because you don't run sales very often.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't and this one is not going to be
around long. It was started on cyber on Twitter at
Pro Wrestling Net.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
All right, very good, Let let's go and talk about Raw.
Last night a little bit, we had Roman Reigns getting yep,
we do. There's plenty plenty to talk about from the program.
Although again amazing poll results, the response on pro Wrestling
dot Net is hugely negative. I again, I'm never scene.

(05:00):
It's like a downward ski slope from from the In
terms of giving the show a good rating to a
bad rating, the number one choice among those voting is
awful show rating it in that f forty two percent,
thirty two percent giving it a D rating, which is
a disappointing show. Seventy four percent below average, sixteen percent average,

(05:23):
only eleven percent thumbs up. Three percent thought it was great.
Jason Wwe sent a pull out asking people on their
mailing list their Raw viewing habits. I'll be reading about
that in this week's Progresing Tords newsletter. The idea that
they can send out a survey and find out from
viewers that the reason they don't like Raw as much

(05:44):
it has something to do with the like whether they
have celebrity guest hosts. It's I I just shake my
head at this. I when I see a survey like that,
and there's a time for surveys. I mean, they can
be useful, but the questions they asked are not getting
to the heart of what's wrong with this program. Some
of it is out of their control, some injuries and
hiatus is all culminating at one time, but other things

(06:06):
they don't even know what questions to ask, And that's
the scary part. Yeah, what's your headline coming out of
last night's roy We don't have ratings yet, by the way,
probably will be a day late because of Thanksgiving, but
I'll keep an eye out for our source to see
if we get those Jason Pull results for Raw terrible.
The survey doesn't seem to ask the right questions or

(06:26):
even know what questions to ask. Talk a little bit
about what last night taught you about the state of Raw.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
At least there's some effort being made. I did see
some signs of not panic, but some attempts at trying
some different things. The return of Lana, even getting Rick
Flair on the show. Charlotte may or may not be churning.
I don't know what that was. Tommy Dreamer coming in.
You know, there's the faction forming. The problem is I'm

(06:55):
not enjoying it. I'm not really, I can find issues
with each and every one of those things that I
just mentioned. And I got to give a shout out
to Twitter follower Beef Smooth eighty three, who wrote, why
isn't there an option worse than an F rating on
the site for the poll? It's people are very frustrated.
We're I think we're getting into that at stretch where

(07:18):
TNA was so bad and you I would hear a
lot of negativity and that, and then you'd also get
some of the fanboy defenders. I'm starting to get that
with Raw now the usual why don't you watch something
else if you don't like the show? It's kind of scary,
just the parallels between poorly booked television shows from you know,
one company and now seeing it with the mighty WWE

(07:41):
as well. I mean, they're they're really in a rough
place right now.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
With we're going to take phone calls and here from listeners.
We want to know what you thought of last night's Raw.
Please when you call, though, we're not looking for a
three minute just exhaling and frustration. Why want you to
come to us with a solid concise point or.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
A will handle that yes, yes, or a U.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Or a real particular question that you uh that you
want us to address, our topic you want us to address,
So give us a call six four, six, seven, two
one nine eight two eight. We're gonna take a quick break,
come back after hearing from our sponsors and get right
into phone calls and uh yeah, here you vent or
here you defend. You're also, as I said at the
top of the show, welcome to call about the Bailey

(08:25):
Eva Marine match last week on NXT, or the finalizing
of the sixteen man excuse me, sixteen person tournament that
TNA has the brackets are all set, or anything in
the news. Give us a call. We'll be back right
after this. As a listener for everybody here at PW
torch send or excuse me, visit PW torch dot com
slash Amazon. When you click on the country link, we

(08:49):
get a kickback and that's their way of thanking us
for mentioning them on this program, So everybody wins. Thanks
for thinking about this as holiday season. Happy holidays too, everybody.
All right, let's go right to phone calls. Jason, if
you're just joining us, this is Wadekeller of Progressing Towards
joined by Jason Powell, of Pro Wrestling dot Net. I
suspect we're gonna hear quite a few calls about last

(09:09):
night's row, and we'll find out with our first caller
where we're headed. As far as that goes, I want
to verify a couple on home. My gosh, the phone
lines are filled up. I'm scrolling down the phone banks here.
Let's start with VIP member Timothy. Please confirm this as
you and where you're calling from?

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Him from New York?

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Excellent? Thanks Tim? Or what have you got for us today?

Speaker 4 (09:31):
That's just a quick question in regards to the way
the product has been presented. And I'm going to go
back to Survivors series. I was watching with my girlfriend
and there was a moments during the Dos Big wor
Tyler Breeze match where there must have been five different
camera angles within five seconds. It's atrocious. I can't watch it.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
No more is better. Tim Moore's better always, So you're
the just the actual just kind of bouncing all over
the place with the camera angles was disorienting. Is that
what you're getting at?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah, Like, I'm trying to watch a match and it's
cutting to the summer ringside, it's cutting to.

Speaker 5 (10:11):
One angle in the ring.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
It's cutting here, cutting there, and I'm trying to pay attention,
and it's just it's like I've been a wrestling fan
long enough that i know what's happening, but I just
want to watch a hard haam angle and that's it.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, well, you're not going to get one camera angle,
but I think that having two or three main camera
angles is good. Jason, I haven't noticed a enoughtick in this.
It wasn't my expectation to be the top complaint of
last night's show, but you know, there are issues with
WWE's production. Some of it is stale, and as Timothy
is saying, sometimes it seems like they're trying to use

(10:51):
They're putting their energy into production techniques when that's not
really where the problem lies right now. And then, as
Timothy says, sometimes you can spend a little too much
attention on it and it ends up hurting what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, you know, we're probably some bad people to talk
to about this, But I don't know about you, Wade,
but I always have the laptop in front of me,
and so I'm kind of bouncing my eyes from the
laptop to the TV, and so I'm sure I'm missing
some of these cuts. I know the one that gets me,
and today they've kind of toned down on it is
at ringside. They like to do this this camera shaking
thing when there'd be a brawl at ringside. It was

(11:26):
just like that went out with like the First Born
Identity or whatever the heck movie it was, and here
they are still doing it all these years later. But yeah,
I mean, it's certainly not high on my list of complaints,
but I will keep an eye on in a SmackDown,
because that's what I don't have the laptop right in
front of me for.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah. Yeah, all right, Well let's keep going through calls
because I don't think we'll have any shortage of them.
Now we'll go to Matt from North Carolina. Matt, sorry
about that previously. Go ahead and confirm this as you
and tell us what you got, what's on your mind today?

Speaker 6 (11:55):
It's me.

Speaker 7 (11:56):
I haven't I haven't watched any four raws and a
few weeks, but I've been tuning in FORO, like the
first ten to fifteen minutes, just to see if they're
going to try and do something different. And uh man,
I think the past two weeks have been brutal, Like
I keep hearing people say that they like The New
Day and they think they're funny and stuff. I do
not get it, Like I think that's like some of
the worst stuff they've ever done on television. Like their

(12:19):
jokes don't even land, they're not even don't even make sense,
Like hang Ussa's the us als. How's that supposed to
be funny?

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Or because one of them got hurt because one of
them got hurt. Oh, I got hurt and he missed time.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
I don't know how.

Speaker 8 (12:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (12:36):
No, Or like when when biggiet the stairs in the
camera with this blank look and swivels his hips like,
am I supposed to think it's funny? Am I supposed
to like? Not like him for that?

Speaker 1 (12:48):
It'sgy? It's edgy because it's edgy because his crotch is
moving and everybody's looking at the bulge and his tights
as he gyrates his hips. See, that's edgy. That's what
WWE he saw as deciding maybe is missing, As Vince
Russo suggested, USA Network is going to put pressure on
Raw to get more edgy because it's two pgs. So
big ee is quote grossing you out or turning you

(13:10):
on depending on how you feel about him, and that
that's why this is wonderful. I'm doing my best.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Matt.

Speaker 7 (13:17):
Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get I hear
a lot of people saying they like Nudie. I think
it's I think it's terrible. I think it's just terrible.
And uh, the first thing I thought of with the
Roman Reigns thing when he won the belt and Seamus
came out as I went, Holy cow, this is like
the same thing that happened two years ago, Daniel Bryan,
except for nobody cares about these guys, like they're really

(13:38):
just telling the exact same story from two years ago
with people nobody cares about that.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
I think that's a good observation, Matt. I mean Jason
Well first on New Day, Jason, I think that New
Day had some charm. They're put some time into what
they were doing. They were they seemed to feel joy
in a program that maybe lacked joy sometimes times and exuberants.
And I think the last couple of weeks they've either
run out of material, have gotten full of themselves, or

(14:07):
I'm hoping are intentionally not being funny but obnoxious and
abrasive because they've decided that they're going to keep them
heal and not turn them babyface. I'm hoping that's what's
going on. I'm not sure, but I said it in
my raw report last night. I do a typed up.
I took up a detailed raw report with a bunch
of analysis during raw for VP members on the VIP

(14:29):
website weekly and last night, you know, after that New
Day segment, I just said, I sure hope that they're
just trying to be abdoxious now because whatever was funny
about them want seems to be gone now. Jason, do
you think they've where are you on them? And are
they in a different place today than they were two, three,
four weeks ago?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
They are well. Part of it too, is they've been
over exposed, and they were in multiple segments last night,
that never ending segment in Nashville the week before. We
can go back to kind of the gloried week or
two of New Day when people are just really gushing
over these guys. And I was saying at the time
that they need to pick a direction. They can't be

(15:08):
It was at the same time they tried they had
them beat down John Cena and the other baby faces
and I'm like, you just can't be just badass heels
and do comedy. You kind of have to pick a direction.
And maybe that's what they're trying to do, but I
don't think so. I think they're still out there trying
to be funny and it's just it's not clicking because
they've been overexposed, because so the material just isn't what

(15:30):
it used to be. I got to admit I kind
of have a soft spot for the big egy rating,
but that's probably just me.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh no, all right, Well, Hey, I appreciate your honesty.
Anytime you're watching ww E Raw or SmackDown or aw
Dynamite in particular, send us an email if you've got
thoughts on the show, or a topic you want us
to address, or a question for us. Wadekellor Podcast at
pwtorch dot com, Wadekellor Podcast at peakw torch dot com.

(16:00):
If there's anything else going on in pro wrestling that
you want us to address on our main podcast during
our Mailbank segments, that same email applies Wade Keller Podcast
at PW torch dot com. We invite that interaction. Let
us know what you think of what we're saying. And
let us know what you want us to talk about
and ask us specific questions. Wadekeller Podcast at PW torch
dot com. Matt talking about the Roman Rains angle. The

(16:25):
storyline it is, you know, Stephanie and Hunter trying to
outsmart the lead babyface and stack the deck against him.
Seems to be kind of their their go to angle
right now. I you know NXT, you know, interject NXT
into it. I so enjoyed the stretch of time that
NXT had an occasional appearance from William or Eagle, But

(16:48):
otherwise the show was about the wrestlers and management was
there wasn't like a heel manager, heel general manager getting
in the way of things or trying to disrupt things.
It was about wrestlers fighting for titles, in letting the
wrestler's personality sell those feuds and sell those matches. And
Hunter and Stephanie just in going back to vincecuc Mann
when he was on TV a lot, they just can't

(17:08):
seem to get out of the way and do their jobs,
which is pick out, train and cultivate a good talent
roster and then stay off TV and book them in
a way where fans want to pay to see him,
and I don't remember that being an option on the
WWE survey. Maybe I need to read it more closely,
but you know, get rid of authority figure, get rid

(17:29):
of heel authority figures interjecting themselves in top programs, trying
to outsmart and outwit the lead babyfaces. I'm just I'm
bored with that. And Matt's right on. This didn't work
with Daniel Bryan, and the one thing that add an
emotion to the Daniel Bryan feud is missing, which, as
he said, as people caring about Romans. So yeah, and
besides that, it doesn't make sense they gave Roman a

(17:52):
title shot, he did not capture the title, and without
any kind of logical explanation, he just gets the same
title shot at Tea. See anyway, it's.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
The whole thing with the out smarting. I'm also looking
at this going. They have Seamus out there bragging about
winning in five minutes, taking the title away from Rains
in five minutes and fifteen seconds, and he's pointing out
that Rains would not have lost the title had he
been not been consumed with spearing triple age. These are

(18:25):
things that Rains can't come back. You can't fire back
on because they're true. They're hitting too close to home
with this. They're making Rains look like an idiot, and
it's just not healish, it's truthful, and that's really bothering
me right now.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Wade the fact that that it's bothering you, what, restate
that a little.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Bit because what Seamus is saying about Roman reigns is true.
If you're a Rains fan and there's talking about how
you know, he should have known that the money in
the bank was an option, and he should because he's
lost the championship at WrestleMania and the whole thing with
you know, the five minutes and fifteen. So it's just
they're taking jabs and Rains that Rains can't respond to,

(19:06):
and his fans don't have good answers to. There's not
that oh he you know, but they're not being fair
because this is being left up. It's all true.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
No, No, you're totally right. In fact, Michael Cole last night,
when Shamus brought up the beat him in five point
fifteen or or else, Cole was not on the spot.
And I wrote about this in my raw report again
for VP members last night I talked about in my
hotline in detail, Cole came up short in doing his
job to cover for what you're saying, Jason is very present,
which is Seamus won fair and square and what you

(19:38):
want to hear from a babyface. And again, this should
just come naturally to writers who aren't trying to find
the reference to, who aren't resting on their resting satisfied
that they found a way to work Anne Hathaway's pregnancy
into the show, but instead are thinking what would a
babyface do in the situation? If for trying to create
a wrestling show built around a baby face on a
quest to win a title, and I saw one of

(19:58):
the greatest stories ever. It culminated in an unexpected way,
but that was a rise of Hulk Comane in the AWA.
You know, I saw a master at doing this, Hulk
Hogan with a master interviewer in gene Oakerland and a
territory that kept authority figures out of the way but
built up a strong heel with a strong heel manager
Bobby he and Nick Bockwinkle, and Hulk Hogan was masterful

(20:20):
at saying at being so immersed in the situation that
he responded to what was happening to him that was
unfair in a way that made the fans realize how
unfair it was. Even if Nick Bockwinkle retained the title
by count out or by d Q or a technicality
because the ref Hogan threw Bockwinkel over the top rope.
It was ruled by Stanley Blackburn, but the ref didn't

(20:42):
see it. Hogan didn't go well, technically, Nick didn't cheat
because according to the rules, you can get intentionally counted
out and keep the title. So therefore I have nothing
to complain about. No, what hul Cogan said is fight
like a man. If you're the best in the business,
you don't need to get intentionally counted out or dq't.
This championship means nothing. If you hold it because of
the way that you're defending it, you're a disgrace. Now

(21:03):
in so many words, Hogan would point those things out.
Roman reigns, I don't think has a wrestling IQ to
do it, or he's turned his brain off. And as
he said to Sam Roberts, and I quote it all
the time because it's one of the dumbest things I've
ever heard somebody on the Rise in the business say
was I just do what I'm told and I hope
to get rich, and I get the idea that Roman
Rerains just thinks, well, the writer's hand me sheets, and

(21:25):
I memorize and I state it. And I think that's
part of the problem with RAW. Again, I didn't see
that on the questionnaire. Would you like to see wrestlers
even if they stumbled now? And then it said something dumb.
Would you like to see wrestlers speak from the heart
or do you like that they're in a tightly controlled
situation which somebody works with them behind the scenes for
word for word promos that they then memorize and recite
on the air. There's a reason in seventh grade speech

(21:47):
class you're told read from notes but look at the
audience and speak from the heart, as opposed to memorize
your speech word for word and like a zombie, repeat
it with fake inflection to try to make it sound
like you're emotionally connected to what you're saying when you're not,
because you're reading a statement. And that's one of the
problems with RAW. That isn't on their fricking survey, and

(22:08):
they don't know what questions to ask. But the whole
storyline with Roman is he should be pointing out, as
should Michael Cole, as a good announcer who's immersed in
the situation and understands that it does matter that in
the context of the show, you're treating it like it's real.
You're treating it like the title matters. I have yet
to get a sense, Jason, that Seamus gives a crap

(22:29):
that he won the title, other than to shove it
in Roman's face. There's no sense of what it means
to Seamus that he is the champion. He hasn't issued
some mission statement about, hey, you know, say something absurd
like my victory over Roman Reigns proves that I'm the
best wrestler in the world and I'm going to keep
proving it by taking advantage of, haha, every loophole in

(22:50):
the business, like they're just it's not even about the title.
It's just about, as our first callers said, Seamus dancing
with New Day and goofing off against Roman Rains and
goofing on Roman Reigns. So yes, Matt is right, and
Roman Rain should be saying, and Michael Cole should be saying, Seamus,
you won within the rules congratulations. But guess what that

(23:13):
loophole that the money in the bank winner gets you
took advantage of. I got wrapped up in my win.
I should have been aware that you were coming, but
I couldn't see through the damn confetti. And yes, you
beat me, and you beat me fair and square, but
guess what. I get a rematch, and I'm gonna kick
your ass because I'm better than you, and I'm gonna
prove I'm better than you unless the authority stacks a
deck against me some more. But you know what, I'll

(23:34):
fight through that again until somebody at the stupid board
of directors decides maybe this company shouldn't be run by
Triple Ah and Stephanie the way that they arbitrarily throw
around stupid rules week after week to take away arbitrarily
things that other people like Dean Ambrose and the ussos
have earned. This promotion is a joke. The setup is
a joke, and I don't even care. I don't even
know why I give a shit about this title anymore,

(23:55):
because I'm in a promotion run by people who create
a bunch of stupid rules that completely disqualifies this belt
from meaning anything that's speaking from the heart and that's
what Roman would say if he was connected to the
ridiculousness that we saw in Raw last night.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Life cast on the leash.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
See Austin said it was my brand, but I got
worked up. No, seriously, seriously they I mean, I'm like this,
this survey that they sent out, it's so freaking clueless
and there's no emotion. Somebody emailed about their issue with
the show last night and they talked about how it
was the big thing for them that stood out was

(24:34):
in fact, I'll read it. This is from Andrew from
the UK and Wales. He says, biggest culprit of failure
for me on Raw was Michael Cole. No emotion whatsoever.
When they showed the pre shot of Lanna and Russef
he reacted like the last twelve months hadn't even happened.
After Seamus had announced his new stable, the League of Nations,
who had just saved his title. Nothing the other ora
when they stood tall, nothing, not even a change in

(24:56):
his tone of voice. He acts like a narrator more
than someone who's emotionally invested in what's going going on
in front of him. I suggest he watches an old
WWE event where Jim Ross is commenting to gauge how
he should react to what's going on in front of him.
And I can't remember the last time Rod didn't have
a six man tag match. He signed Andrew from Wales.
Angry wrestling fan, I think a lot of wrestling fans, Jason,
are upset. I'm getting upset reliving what happened last night.

(25:18):
And I didn't dislike Row as much as most people,
but I really really really dislike how they're handling this
world title situation and the way the call as a
color brought up with wait, Matt brought up the way
that Roman Reigns has yet to show any kind of
passion that's going to connect a crowd to him. I mean,
there's a reason when he makes his video game comeback,

(25:39):
this practiced motion in the ring that he thinks is
supposed to make him connect with the crowd, because yay,
Roman's doing that thing in the corner where he huffs
and puffs and moves his arms and had a certain
way and yells every match. It's like, that's not what
made hul Coke and Hulk Cogan. What made Hulk Hogan
and Hulk Cogan during his prime is that there was

(25:59):
this connection he made with the audience on his promos,
and he cared passionately about the championship, and when he talked,
you felt that passion. You felt that you were there
to support him, to help him defeat evil. To do
what when a title that meant something in the context
of a promotion run by honest people who wanted an
even playing field to find out who the best wrestler was,
not get it? This is awesome chat and that's what's

(26:22):
missing from RAW And that's what's missing from that stupid
survey they sent out that just is ignoring what the
actual questions they should be asking themselves privately are.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Do you think Bace McMahon will even read the results
of the survey.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
I think he will, and I think he'll take it
as some affirmation that, oh see, it wasn't my fault
that we stopped having celebrities show up because people don't
care about that. I mean, the questions I asked in
that survey are just, so, how have your viewing habits
of rock change compared to the past. That's good, I mean,
that's something to know. I don't know if he's going

(26:55):
to read those answers to those questions and care. But
this idea of asking you know are legends? Do you
like when legends are in matches? Do you like celebrity
guests and matches? Do you like when wrestlers address the
fans for a more time or less time on a
given show. It's like, no, I don't want to go

(27:18):
to an eye doctor and have him go how do
you feel about the approach that I took a putting
eye drops in your eye before I did the pressure test.
It's like, no, you're the atomic you should know this.
You're the experts. You've been doing this for a long time.
Please just take me on a ride. Don't keep asking
me questions about how I want this ride to go.
You're supposed to know what you're doing, now do it.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I just with Vince, I don't think he wants to
know the answers. I think you get questions like this
because they're afraid of the honest feedback. They really don't
want it. My guess is this is his way of
justifying what he's doing. Maybe he'll take a little something
from it if people want celebrities, and maybe he goes

(28:00):
for celebrities. But that's about it. I don't the whole
idea of these fan things. I don't know what they
really get out of them, because they do load it.
It's like watching the old Cyber Sunday pay per views
or Taboo Tuesday, whatever it was, where they do all
the fan voting, and it was just like they're not
giving you real options. They're stacking the deck, and that's

(28:20):
kind of It's not the same, but it's along those
same lines with poles like these, and so every time
they put one out, I just gotta roll my eyes
going date. They don't care what anyone thinks.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, all right, deep breath, I'm going to go to
Brian for Minneapolis. You remember, Brian, Thanks for Colin, thanks
for holding Please confirm this with you and tell us
what's on your mind today.

Speaker 5 (28:37):
I've just taken my p breathway it is indeed me, Brian, Yes,
all right, I can see eat breath as you were ranting.
I can. I can steal a lot of your sentiment,
and I don't want to. I'm sure a lot of
everyone else is going to say it, so I won't
speak so much to Rob. But so the fact that
this last weekend me and my girlfriend got a chance
to catch up on New Japan Pro Wrestling on Access

(28:58):
TV where it's dug an American, it's in English and
they're doing Wrestle Kingdom nine or they just wrapped it up.
She saw Kenny o'mega come down to the ring and
join the Bullet Club and do his thing, and she
looked at me like, why don't why can't we watch
three hours or two hours of this on Monday and
then come Monday night She's looking at me with her
eyes like almost crossed, like what is this?

Speaker 9 (29:18):
Like?

Speaker 5 (29:18):
This is so I feel stupid for watching this right now?
Is a new daygo rambling on? And then what did
she do? She proceeds to go on to her phone
and she's not engaged in the product and the fact
that you just said it now, Vince doesn't care about
the ratings. They don't care about the engagement of the people.
It seems like on any level they just want to
make sure they can get that advertising money and just

(29:38):
kind of make sure the illusion stays alive long enough
so they can just keep making money for as long
as they can. Is that what you guys are saying,
I'm a little can can you go go a little
bit it's a little more in depth on that idea
that I'm asking for.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Go ahead, Jason, give me the You kind of watched
me there at DA I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (29:57):
I was sorry getting a little kid out of the door.
So some of you guys are talking about Vince McMahon
not caring about the ratings or I should say, the
ratings why people have changed their viewing habits of Rows.
So let's say people aren't watching USA Network, they're watching
it on Hulu the ninety minute version. Well, that effects
a lot of advertisers who are paying to have the
big raw audience on Monday see it. But you guys

(30:19):
are the sentiment, and I believe you is that Vince
and them really don't care how you see it as
long as they can somehow prove it to advertisers that
have people are watching Monday night Rosstille and convince them
so they can get those ads. Advertisers like Kay Jewlers
that they just picked up.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I think it's going to be a tough sell over
the long hauls is just simply because the numbers say
what they do, and that you can go into politician
mode and try to spin those numbers and say people
are watching on Hulu and there's commercials on that. I
know there's a non commercial option now, but there's ads there,
and then there's you know, yes, people are still looking
at our DBR numbers, which is if I'm an advertiser,

(30:56):
I'm going that's not a good thing for us. That
means everyone's skipping our ads ads, And I think there's
only so long that you can do the WWE politic
thing like you hear them do on some of the
conference calls, where they kind of try to spin these
things or neglect these things. But when push comes to shove,
I do feel like way their advertising rates are bound
to go down. I just don't think they're going to
be in demand. As long as the viewership and ratings

(31:20):
keep dropping the way they are, they'll get that. They'll
get that vump in January. But if somebody actually digs
deep and goes, okay, but how does this compare to
last year and the year before. If I'm an advertiser,
I'm probably not yet. I'm not going to want to
pay top dollar whatever people were paying last year at
this time for WWE. Going into January, I'm going to

(31:40):
be asking questions about why should I pay the same
rate when your numbers are what they are.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
If you missed it earlier, just a reminder, we're running
our second VIP sale of the year. We don't do
these often. Take advantage of it now. It is a
limited time offer. Take nine dollars off a VIP subscription
a one month, three month, or one year sub. It
brings the one month sub down to just three dollars
in ninety nine sense, the coupon code is Nov. Twenty
twenty five as in November Nov twenty twenty five, and

(32:07):
that takes nine dollars off When you check out on
our sign up form pw Torch dot com slash go
VIP gives you full details on membership benefits and links
to our sign up form. Well, USA Network's going to
face that USA paid flat fee for raw for years,
and WWE is in a position now where the next
time that TV deal comes up, if things keep going

(32:29):
in this direction, they're going to get a lot less
money for that deal. Now, Vincickmann has his answers to that. Well,
you know, we're across multiple platforms now. We're making money
from YouTube ads and from Hulu Plus ads, and obviously
the network is eating into raw because now people are
going to watch whatever they want, whenever they want to
WWE and a million people are are million plus people
are doing that, and so we're losing out on some

(32:50):
ratings because of that. They have all their excuses, but
the fact is Raw is a flagship live show where
everything that big that happens in WWE's universe has on Raw.
You know, I mean the few bones are throwing a
SmackDown now and then. So the interest in watching Raw
live start to finish is at the lowest point it's
been at in decades. And I don't care what kind

(33:13):
of excuse you make, you know, road Dog. Jesse James
was on Joe Rodot you Sam Brian James was on
Twitter just going, oh, it's an archaic measurement to It's
an archaic metric. It's like, no, it's not. Because the
TV industry lives and dies on that metric. They don't go, oh, advertisers,
come on, oh, American Idol. You know why American idols
have in their final season because advertisers don't want advertise

(33:34):
on the show for big money anymore. Because there's a
lot few reviewers now than there used to be. That's
not archaic. That's a fact if you're in the business.
If you're in a have a flower shop and you
used to pay have a budget of five thousand dollars
to advertise in the local newspaper going into Valentine's Day,
and the advertising department calls you and says, hey, Fred

(33:55):
at the Fred's Flower Shop, would you like to advertise
with us? Again? We have a good relationship going back
many years. He's going to look at the circulation it
figures and go, you know what, I see, your circulation
is down sixty percent from three years ago. I'm willing
to pay, but I'm only willing to pay sixty percent
less for that. And that's what USA is going to face.
And that's why NBC Universal will pay WWW less next time.

(34:17):
I mean, I'm not trying to like talk down to
or lecture Brian James because maybe in more space than
Twitter allows, he could explain himself better. And yes, WWE
network subscriptions ultimately is where WWE's most excited about growth.
But you can have your cake and eat it too.
You can have a growing network and people actually enjoying

(34:39):
the product of raw where you don't have to actually
send out a survey asking people since Summer Slam, what
do you think about the following How has Rob been
from start to finish? Providing unexpected moments, quality of mages,
level of entertainment, athleticism of superstars, divas, variety of superstars divas.

(35:00):
That's that's not going to tell them anything. I'm sorry.
It is like, oh yeah, I would like a larger
variety of superstars and divas. Oh well, you know, let's
pay Let's call Brad Maddocks and get him back on
the roster because he helped with variety. What the F
does that even mean? It's just it's it's somebody, it's
somebody in corporate typing up some questions. That's not gonna

(35:22):
help anything, because the problems should be solvable and apparent
to somebody who is clued in to what's wrong with
raw by actually sitting with the product. And yes, Brian
comparing it to what is done right with New Japan.
People watching NWA World CHAMPIONI Wrestling six oh five Eastern
TBS from the nineteen eighties that's on the network, they're
seeing the difference. Bruce Mitchell pointed out, Brian. He pointed

(35:46):
out Bruce Mitchell pointed it out on the Bruce mitchellatio Show,
saying that one of the big differences in that show
is that the wrestlers have confidence. There's a bravado, there's
there's a there's there's an outlaw feeling. And it gets
back to what I'm saying the cowboys. Yes, they're the
control freak WWE corporate atmosphere that Vincent, Stephanie and everybody

(36:08):
so proud of. It's so tightly controlled that there's not
Fans aren't connecting with these guys because they don't feel
that their characters have any authenticity to them, and it
doesn't help them. Coolfee confirms that on Raw last week,
Go ahead, Brian, closing words from you perfect.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
Two closing things. I just want to say that those
NWA episodes, I've never gotten a chance to see the wrestling,
just the old promos, you know, all the highlighted ones
and stuff. The actual building of the matches is the
best I've pretty much seen in wrestling. They had a
nice studio system. There's a little bit of a back
and forth where they followed the wrestlers and the across
the ropes when they bounced up and down, but not

(36:45):
too much it was. It was amazing to actually see
that in its entirety. I will be watching the series.
And now my last thing is is just a shout
out to a great magazine. It's the Tag Rope. Some
of my photos are featured in it. It's out of
the United Kingdom. It's a great magazine. Mine's about Dealton Castle,
my article I'm featured in.

Speaker 10 (37:03):
Thanks guys, have a great show.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Thanks Brian, appreciate it all right, Jason ban him real
quick to not authorize that advertisement exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
But my favorite question is this is tremendous. Do you
ever fast forward during recorded episodes of Rock? And if so, honestly,
is there anyone who's going to say no, never. I
watch all the commercials from start to finish.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
That's true. Yes, yes, And then they ask what are
some of the reasons? Are there superstars and divas you're
not interested in? What is a primary reason you fast forward?
Monday night football? Yes?

Speaker 9 (37:40):
No?

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Or in general? Do you watch football? And doesn't matter
who's playing? If you do? Oh, I mean I could ask,
I could. I'm trying to think of something I know
nothing about, and there's plenty in this world. Let's say,
being an electrician and I could walk into the biggest
electrician company town and go, let me help you find

(38:02):
out why your business is down twenty five percent and go,
you know, and ask a bunch of just empty, meaningless questions.
Do you find the truck that they drive up in
appealing or kind of creepy and blank and white? Would
you like our cars that we drive up into be cleaner?
Would you like our technicians who enter your house to
wear perfume or not wear perfume or cologonne or not

(38:23):
wear colonne? Like I could come up with questions that
maybe in some way might affect the experience that somebody has,
but that's not really understand The questions that I would
be asking would have no basis and knowledge about electricians
and how that business operates and why people would be
driven away from it or not because I know nothing
about it. The questions that they're asking in this row

(38:46):
segment are questions that somebody could come up with in
a corporate office who just got hired away from the
PGA tour. Oh, we have superstars and divas well, maybe
there's not enough variety. Let me ask that question. It's
like if you're in school and you don't know anything
about a subject, but you have to do a book
report on it, so you just have a bunch of
you just fill in a bunch of words. Trees. Trees
can be tall, trees can be wide, trees can be alive,

(39:06):
trees can be dead. Do I like trees mostly in
spring but sometimes in fall. It's like, I know nothing
about trees, but I just wrote a page of crap
about trees. This survey is crap. It's not gonna teach
WWB the pro It's not gonna teach them anything about
what the problems are that they have. But I don't
think they, like you said, Jason, I don't think they
even want the answers because they're so convinced sports entertainment

(39:29):
and in what they define that as is the future,
and that's not what's happening right now. I'm doing way
too much talking because we have like more than a
dozen people on hold. So let's keep rolling through calls
here and go next to aera code four seven eight
four seven eight. Please state your name and where you're
calling from.

Speaker 10 (39:47):
Dereel from Georgia, and I have three questions.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
I have a question for you, Durrell. I have a
question for you. Yeah, last night with James and Pat
when you called up with James, you quoted me saying
something that I did not say, and turn your please,
please turn your computer down. We're hearing me on delay.

Speaker 10 (40:05):
Oh I have no computer.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Oh okay, I'm hearing my voice back from feedback from
whatever you're calling on. Okay, sorry about that throw. Maybe
it's just for your phone or something. But anyway, you
said that I said that WWE. I don't even remember
what you said, but I just wanted to state for
the record. I don't remember saying what you quoted me saying.
I think it mout have been Bruce. Oh, I know
that the only people that WW is losing are casual fans,
that they're driving them away.

Speaker 10 (40:27):
Oh oh, no, I would say I was. I think
I said it wrong. I was stating with you were
when you were talking about you think w UIs you
were thinking that it's not the hard court. They shouldn't
think that it's the hard core fans they were losing,
that it's more casual fans that they were losing, and

(40:48):
I was just saying, I think that it's kind of
probably more hard core fans, and the decline is gradually
going week by week and for a long period of time,
more than casual fans. It's usually with casual fans lean
it's more of a big, bigger group of people that leave.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
I don't even know what the difference is. I mean,
I think we're using terms that don't even mean anything.
Because a viewer is a viewer is a viewer, and
they've gone from three point zero ratings to two point
one ratings. So whatever kind of fan they're losing, it's
a lot of them, and a very very sizable chunk
of them. And if WWE's going, well, we're only losing
this type of fan, and well, blah blah blah, try

(41:29):
to rationalize it. I just think that's irrelevant. I think
people who watch raw or choose who watch raw and
then choose to stop, they're neither casual nor hardcore. They're
a viewer who is now an X viewer. I don't
even know what it means to be hardcore casual. If
you watch RAW and now you're not, you're a fan
who was watching and now you're not. I don't even

(41:50):
get the designation. Like, it's not like a hardcore viewer
counts more in the Nielsen ratings and casual fans when
you engage them, become hardcore fans. Hardcore fans on their board,
become casual fans before they tune out. If you go
by just kind of what I think most people accept
those terms to me, and so yeah, I guess I
don't even understand the debate or argument.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
That much.

Speaker 10 (42:12):
Understandable. I just I was saying it because you know,
in this world usually we all are in the eyes
of big business, some type of label. So I was
just saying that, stating at that just to try to
get a question out there. That's all my bad if
I if I misspoke or I said that's right, I forget.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Take me a couple weeks to l I hold grudges
for about two weeks.

Speaker 11 (42:34):
Okay, I'm sorry, I just kidd but okay, my two
questions are and I'm gonna ask them like this. First,
Roman Raine last week he was Dane Bryant. This week
he was Dean Ambrose when he stole the title and stuff.
Who is his character? Who is he supposed to be?

Speaker 10 (42:54):
What is Roman Raine? That's what I would like to know.
Maybe if he knew who he would, he wouldn't be.
He would be probably over by Now, that's one question.
My second question is, out of all these years I've
been watching wrestling for over twenty seven years, I have
never heard a crowd so quiet, especially like in that
first segment. The whole entire segment, it seemed like you

(43:16):
could hear a pin drop. I think I heard Roman
range when he came in the ring and finished punch Shamus.
Have y'all ever heard that? And third question is is
WWE too big to fail? Because anybody else with how
everything has been going so far, woul a blue everything
up and try anything just to say if I fail,

(43:37):
I gave it all I could and try any tactic
to get back to a steady point or to a rise.
Do you think they're too big to fail? And that's
my three questions?

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Gotcha, Jason, So Roman Reigns and the crowd and too
big to fail? I'll just say the crowd, yeah, they
were dead from the beginning. I think one of the
reasons they were dead, Jason, is those fans bought those
tickets expecting to see Seth Rollins, John Cena, Randy Orton, Cizarro,
and they didn't get them. You know, I mean that

(44:07):
crowd did not buy tickets in the last four days.
I don't know what the wock up was, but most
of those fans bought tickets when they went on sale
months ago, and they showed up for a cold product
out of obligation, because well, they already bought the ticket.
I mean, what the survey I'm interested in is, had
you been what had if you had to buy your

(44:28):
ticket for this show in the last six seven days
since last week's Raw aired, would you be here tonight?
That's the survey WW you should be taking for fans
in the building. So I think they were a dead
crowd for partially for that reason. I've never seen less
of a reaction to a Babyface getting a top pushed,
Babyface getting a hot tag in a match that was

(44:50):
laid out well. The main event match was laid out well,
you know, get have a baby Face take a beat
down from heels. It's an unfair situation. Seven on four,
Milk Milk it, milk it. Finally, hot tag Roman Reigns
comes in place of the crowd, and I mean people
were looking at their phones, you know, planning their escape
route from the arena. I have I don't remember ever
seeing such a lack of reaction. I thought Roman seemed

(45:13):
affected by that. Looking at his reaction on the screen,
I think he kind of had a my god, what
do I have to do? You know, because I think
he doesn't get it, you know. And it's not all
about Roman reigns. It's not all about what he doesn't
have or is doing wrong. A lot of it is
and I think a lot of successful wrestlers in the
past would have been damaged by being dropped into a
promotion with this arrogant philosophy that WWW has right now

(45:35):
and has had for a while, not to mention a
three hour raw that burns out crowds, Jason compt the crowd,
or anything else.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Well, Roland Rains is in a very tough spot right
now too, because there are a lot of absences. You know,
He's he's trying to get over at the same time
that he's chasing Shamous for a championship and the flawed
logic that went into setting up Rain's first title reign
that lasted five minutes and fifteen and Shame is gloating
over it. And yeah, I mean the injuries are a

(46:05):
huge factor. But again it goes back to what we
talked about last week. And what we've really talked about
for a long time. It just it's actually affecting them now.
Is just the way they book the mid card, the
way they book the undercard, they lose these top guys.
They're not prepared for this, and that's why you're seeing
a faction consisting of a guy who wasn't with the
company until recently again and three guys who I believe

(46:28):
were in a six man tag kickoff show match not
all that long ago, or certainly very low on a
pay per view card working a six man tag. It's
just they're really paying the price for some of their
longtime mistakes. And as far as the crowd goes, it
was a quiet crown. I think they're going there looking

(46:50):
they're excited, they want to be entertained, and they're just
not getting enough. And when that show drags in three hours,
for three solid hours, it's tough. And then you have
the whole mess of the deepest division. You think Charlotte's
the baby face, she's not. I mean, it's just I
think they're trying to shake things up right now, and
it's just it looks like a jumbled mess because they're

(47:10):
trying to do too many things at one time. I
think they are aware there's some issues and now they're
trying to put the pieces in place and it's going
to be ugly as they do it.

Speaker 12 (47:19):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts.
Will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at Peter Retorts 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

(47:39):
for wrestling's past and the paradise too, and we've done
fun historical shows such as the We Love Liger series
celebrating the glorious career of Jusian thunder Lighter and our
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 pro Rest Paradise. Detailed pwof

(48:01):
Torch VIP subscription information on a list of all the
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And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast
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them directly from our ad free VIP mobile site. See
you in the Paradise.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
And that's Jason. Part of what you said there is
is why I wasn't as down on the program as
I think some other people were. Of course you wouldn't
know that from listening to me on today's program, but
I actually went into the show today thinking, you know
that I'm gonna be a little bit laid back, believe
it or not, and just wander from the callers and uh,

(48:46):
you know, let's let's let's hear people out. But I
mean it is it's like, well that that was probably
before I read over the survey before the show too,
which kind of got me going. But yeah, I think
there are some things that they're trying that they were
trying to do that they're doing right. I think there's
still some really fundamental things at the core that creates
such a headwind for that. Even when you do things
right like Roman Reigns milked the hot tag, have the

(49:09):
lead baby face get the hot tag, have the heel
stacked the odds against the heat against the lead babyface,
and have the lead baby face overcome, there's some broad
strokes that they're doing well, but they have an emotional
bankruptcy to what they're doing because of how tightly controlled
and scripted and put on it feels. And then you
just have you know, Adam Rose and New Day and

(49:30):
Heath Slater last week and these just awful what's that
Stah start Us and Titus O'Neil, these like just like
they almost it's like attempts at comedy that almost make
you angry because you're, like, I didn't tune into a
pro wrestling show to see this. This is the bad
SNL skit that doesn't make it out of the air,

(49:51):
or is the one that you watch to the very
end of SNL just to see what was better than
all the other ideas that got rejected, because usually that
last skit is awful, but it's better than some of
the others, you know, Like it's just by that time
of night with SNL Saturday Night Live, you're just kind
of like, all right, let's see, let's see some bad
comedy with people phoning it in ready to go drink
and do drugs and party. And that's kind of what

(50:11):
the less kid on SNL traditionally has been. That's kind
of what you get on raw. And I think people
tune into raw because human nature is they like to
see tough people fight tough people. So you put them
in a ring, and you give them a prize and
give them a reward for winning, and and you have
them be bombastic outlaw personalities with bravado and confidence who

(50:32):
get to say and do things that a lot of
people with desk jobs or working working the working man,
as Steve Boston talks about on his show, it's an
outlet for them and and that fun is gone. Vince
mac Man says, it's all about fun. Fun, isn't Watching
Titus O'Neill react to start ust hissing in his face.
That's not fun. That's not fun for a wrestling audience

(50:54):
of any size, of any magnitude. Doesn't in gender, it doesn't.
It doesn't encourage h a passion for a product or
brand when the product and brand is all about the
McMahon family and the corporate brand and their charity work
and aren't we wonderful? And hey, here's a press release today.
We're up for rewards for a charity work, charity work
that was done in Italy to build their brand, the

(51:15):
brand only counts if people care about the wrestlers who
are wrestling and Roman Rains who is Roman Rain? So
it's another question that Darrell asked, and that is a
good question on Yeah Yes. On Twitter, Thomas guccin said,
was it just me? Or was Roman extra smiley last night?
You know you can see Roman struggling like sometimes he looks,

(51:37):
you know, because I had said a few weeks ago,
at least like Lucer, pretended he wanted to show up
to work and smile and be cheered by the fans,
even if off air he just was collecting his paycheck
and trying to clock in and clock out and go
back to the gym. Roman kind of had that just
Oh God, I can't believe I actually have to work
for my paycheck. I'm handsome and tall, and I'm the
chosen one, and the McMahon said, I'm the next guy,
and I've got big time family members. Come on, let

(51:59):
me just show up, go through the motions, do what
I'm told, and get rich. I can't believe I have
to do more. He just seemed to resent the fact
that the fans didn't go, yeah, you get to be
the multi millionaire person who gets to be the next
big star.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. You don't
get anointed that spot. And Roman just seemed kind of
grumpy about it. So now, Jason, I do think that
observation is correct. He seems to be overcompensating. And now
he's all about I'm happy to be here, I'm running
in place, I'm warming up, I'm I'm happy to walk
through the crowd and have the fans smell me, and
I'm happy to get to the ring and make a comeback.
So now he's trying to be happy in the end, though,

(52:32):
being grumpy and resentful or happy and smiley isn't a
character and I think that is part of the problem
with Roman is he's part of a generation of wrestlers
who go, well, it's all fake anyway, so I can't
pretend like what I'm doing really matters, or if they do, pretend,
it looks like it's acting that's been practiced and rehearsed.
Where go ahead and watch NWA World Champion Wrestling. Heck,

(52:54):
watch NXT current shows. This isn't all about the past,
this is about doing it right. You can watch wrestlers
who are in the moment know their characters. I mean
Bailey the way she talks about her championship on NXT
that feels real. That connects the way Tolly Blancher talked
about being national champion, the way the Pride JJ Dillon
took and managing the Four Horsemen the way Barry Wyndham

(53:14):
talked about a big win or a tough loss. Those
are people when you watched, you believe that what was
going on was real. And with WWE, which you think
you're watching, is a corporate brand featuring capital s superstars
reading rehearsed lines from a writing staff and Vincent Mann
on top.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Rains, I think you may have stumbled onto something their
way because you mentioned he's happy, he said. We also
saw him crying at the Survivor series. Maybe he needs
to be medicated. Maybe there's just some manic depressive qualities
to roman range the character. Maybe that's who he is,
because I don't know, He's just a guy that goes
out there and does the spear and we don't hear

(53:53):
anything genuine from him. You know, we don't really know
who this guy is. If you only watch RAW and
if you listen to some the interviews that he does
now some people are going to like him, some people
are going to dislike him. As far as like off
air interviews, whether it's a radio interviews or whatnot, but
just non nonscripted interviews. They need to either figure out

(54:15):
what this guy brings, you know, what he has, what
makes him unique, what makes him endearing? And if they
don't have an answer, then they need to just go
ahead and give up on this and turn him heel
once the other guys get back. And because right now
you're trying to get him over, You're trying to get
Seamus over, and Seamus is a new band of merry
men over. You're just they're trying so hard to get

(54:37):
so many people over. I mean, how do you right
now to get Roman Reigns over when there's no one
for him to beat that people really care to see
him beat. Yes, they put Seamus as the obstacle, but
they also showed you last week there's Triple H glaring
at Roman Reigns. So it's like, okay, that's where they're
going with this. There's just there's not many mountains for
this guy to climb. You're not really invested in his

(54:58):
journey right now?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Oh, I think you sit Roman reigns down today and
you say, this championship means a world to you, and
you have your bosses as ridiculous as the premise is,
and please forgive us, but this is a reality we're
dealing with who are doing everything they can to keep
you from becoming champion. And this championship means more than
anything to you. And you gain power from the home crowd.

(55:22):
You gain power from the fans cheering for you. They
motivate you. You fight for them, You fight for ideals.
Your ideals are hard work and persistence pays off. And
have your chest wall out with pride. Why do you
belong here? Why are you the best? Figure out what
that is? And next week, Renee Young's going to hold
a microphone up to you and go, how do you
feel about what happened last week? And I want to

(55:43):
hear you speak from the heart as if you're a
son talking about one of your parents being wrong, or
a father talking about one of your kids being wronged,
or a brother talking about your brother or sister being wrong.
Talk from the heart, channel something, but make it about
what the WWW Championship and winning it means to you
and overcoming the odds that are being thrown against you.

(56:04):
And then go out there and talk from your heart.
And then we'll let you do that every week for
a while, and we'll see if you connect with the fans.
If you don't, it's your fault and we'll move on
to somebody else. But at least we'll have given you
a chance to make it on your own. That's how
you get Roman to connect. And then you have the
same talk with a bunch of heels and you tell
them you know you are Seamus, your this is your character.

(56:27):
You are almost as good as Roman, but not quite,
and you make up for it by cheating and by
taking advantage of the heel authority figures who are giving
you unfair advantages. You can't help but gloat about it.
You gloat about things that you don't deserve credit for.
Go out there and do it. But also, you have
an ego and you are delusional, and you think that

(56:47):
by cashing in money in the bank and blindsiding Roman
reigns and then retaining your title on a technicality in
under five minutes, in a situation that was set up
that where the odds are stacked against your opponent, you
are delusional and you think that makes you better than
Roman Reigns. Every fan watching is going to know that's
not true, but you are convinced that is true. So
go talk like that on the microphone, because fans will

(57:09):
get upset because they know somebody in their lives who
thinks that they earned what they have and they didn't,
and they think that their status, the size of their
house or the size of their inheritance that then led
to their bank account being big, that then led to
them having nicer shoes and a nicer car makes them
better people than somebody else. Everybody can relate to something
like that. Go channel that, or go bring that out

(57:30):
in fans so that fans want to pay to see
Roman Range beat you up. That's what it comes down to.
Not Hey, I have an idea. Let's throw a hand
halfaway joke in that's not writing for pro wrestling. Go
find a job somewhere else. And I say that to
the entire promoting and writing team at WWB. Go do
something else if you're not interested in promoting fights.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
All right, Next call wibble your hips famous. Swibble your hips?

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yes, yes, exactly, all right. Todd Drell had a third topic.
I don't remember what it is, but I kind of
want to move on to the college. Do you remember Jason.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
At the top of my head?

Speaker 1 (57:59):
No, okay, I'll call called Patmo. All right, six one six,
you're up next stuff. Thanks for holding six one six,
state your name and where you're calling from?

Speaker 4 (58:07):
The Grand Rappers.

Speaker 13 (58:08):
How you guys doing doing good?

Speaker 11 (58:10):
Eric?

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Thanks for calling? What have you got? Why?

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Why did they name?

Speaker 13 (58:14):
Why did they make a bigger deal of Rye Back
beating Rustaff? I just think right backctually pushed a little
more and I think he's lost in the shuffle, and
then and then second matches already matches between Nick back
week and bear Ground Rashkin. I was looking forward. I
couldn't find any thank you all right?

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Thanks the uh Nick and Baron. I assume there were.
I was just Baron came up to have been Yeah, yeah,
it came up. Was it Jim Brenzell's book that I
was reading? Try to think, and I'm drawing a blank
on that, but well, I'll look it up because I
did so many shows on UH on that. But I'm trying.

(58:50):
I mean, Nick is a heel Baron has made I
assume it had.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
I don't remember like a real program. Yeah, yeah, but
I would think they're half something out there at some point,
just I mean even later years where they were starting
to lose talent, those were a couple of the guys
that stuck around longer than most, and you would think
at some point in there they had to do some
stuff together.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
The ride back grusev finishes is a is symptomatic and
part of a pattern which is the whole even Stephen Booking,
it's you know, Tyler Breeze beats Dolf Ziggler two weeks
later or eight days later, Ziggler beats Tyler Breese because
everybody is on the mid card because WWE believes, for

(59:35):
whatever reason, I have my theories. I mean, I think
that they want everybody to be in the mid card
except for a few chosen people who they control and trust,
and it's just all about everybody staying equal and nobody
really rising or dropping, because if nobody's really important to
the if very few people are important to the product,
because everybody's just kind of even Steven, everybody's on edge,

(59:58):
everybody's replaceable, everybody's expect and it's this weird self defeating
thing that WWE has, which is, well, we want to
be the all powerful. We are the corporation. You're just
lucky to have a job. And by the way, any chance,
anybody from NXT or aspiring wrestler who's going to be
on breaking ground, if you guys want to talk about
what it is, how your dream is to have a

(01:00:18):
spot on the WWE roster, we'll film that in error
because we want everybody to know there's a long lot
of people waiting to replace them. And so the way
that WWE approaches it, whether it's conscious or sort of
a result of just this very corporatized way of thinking,
they don't want very many people over or gaining momentum
or having any kind of sense of leverage. And I
don't think they really understand the drawback. But and part

(01:00:41):
of it too is something completely different, which is everybody
knows it's fake. So we can't have anybody showing emotion
on the air over wins and losses and acting like
it matters, because even the announcers have been trained to
realize you can't trust that a win means anything because
it'll just be given back a week or two later.
It's that even Stephen Booking that numbs everybody to carry
to really getting feeling all that passionate about anything below

(01:01:03):
the top few programs, and they're lucky if people care
about the top two or three programs, but beyond that
it's total, even Stephen, and so it's part of that
pattern the announcers don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
I wanted to, I mean seriously wanted to turn the
channel after I saw Tyler Breeze lose that match to
Dolph Zigler. It's just everything I talked about earlier about
how the whole parody booking is coming back to haunt them.
They still haven't figured it out. They're still doing they're
still making the same mistakes with different talent on this roster,
on this same show, where the problem is just staring

(01:01:35):
them in the face that they've created and they're going
to chalk it up to injuries, and it really is
a result of parody booking and just not having anyone
in position to shine when the time came where you
could elevate someone. I mean, it's just now you're just
waiting for people to come back. You're waiting for people
to be called up. The fans get excited with Tommy
Dreamer pops up because it's just something out of the

(01:01:55):
ordinary and they have talented guys. I mean, why would
you look for of someone coming up from NXT right
now when you see what they're doing with Tyler Breeze.
And doesn't mean they're going to treat every guy that
comes up in the same manner. But he wins one,
he loses one, he loses a tournament match. It's just
there's there's nothing there. And it's not like, you know,
Dolph Ziggler isn't expendable. I mean, they're they're crazy if

(01:02:17):
they think they need to protect him at this point,
because they've damaged him to the point of, in my opinion,
no return at least as far as a baby fait.
Maybe they can turn him and get a little something
out of him, but the damage has been done. And
it's just it was like we go from New Day
and Seamus into that match and it just it instantly
just said and told me all right that they're still
going to do the same thing with the mid Guard.

(01:02:37):
Nothing has nothing to see here, nothing has changed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
If you missed it earlier. Just a reminder, we're running
our second VIP sale of the year. We don't do
these often take advantage of it. Now it is a
limited time offer take nine dollars off a VIP subscription
a one month, three month, or one year sub It
brings the one month sub down to just three dollars
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V twenty twenty five as in November and o V
twenty twenty five, and that takes nine dollars off. When

(01:03:04):
you check out on our sign up form pw torch
dot com slash go v IP gives you full details
on membership benefits and links to our sign up form.
They should be able to headline an hour with with
DLP Sigler and Tyler Brees. I mean they they should
be able to be There should be a journey that
both wrestlers are on in something as at Stake. They
should have announced it last week. They should have done

(01:03:26):
an angle on or had some promos or hype on SmackDown.
They should have talked about it at the beginning of
Raw or near the beginning of Raw. They should have
had a promo with Tyler Brees talking about how he
wants to show that he's better than Dolf Siegler. He
wants to go two to zero singles matches against him.
Should have Dolf Sigler talking about wherever his character is at,
and I don't even know where it's at, other than
he's apparently sleeping with Russev. And so have the wrestlers

(01:03:49):
talk about what this match means to them, and then
and then build anticipation so the fans when the belt,
when the ring announcement starting, the ring entrance begins, they
know what they're in for. You're right, Jason, When you
just present a match after the opening segment with an
no hype, no video package, no interviews, no one else
spent ahead of time, it defines it down as Okay,
now's when the wrestling fills in some TV time before

(01:04:10):
we get to the entertainment. I would say part of
the problem with WWW is they're phrasing. A huge part
of the problem with WWWE is revealed in their phrasing
in their survey again where they differentiate in ring wrestling
from entertainment, they're not different. Wrestling is under the entertainment
umbrella wrestling if you're promoting a WrestleMania, a world wrestling

(01:04:33):
entertainment program with its roots in the pro wrestling business,
and it still is despite their masking it with some
silly corporate term to try to trick advertises into thinking
it's something different when it's not, and no fan things
it's different. If they weren't doing that and instead having
the actually promoting it as a pro wrestling product, they

(01:04:53):
and having the wrestlers talk about it like the wrestling
is what matters, they'd be better off. But instead they
look at wrestling as some that fills time between the
segments that are quote the entertainment, And it just drives
me nuts because I think language matters, and I think
within that company they're like, all right, you told me
what the wrestling is going to be, Now tell me
what the entertainment's going to be. That's I mean it.

(01:05:13):
You can't help. But then think, well, the wrestling is
not entertaining to our viewers. The wrestling needs to be
the most entertaining aspect of the match of the show,
and everything you do needs to not be about entertaining people,
but about building up anticipation for the pro wrestling matches,
because that's why people tune in to be entertained by
pro wrestling matches.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
All right, absolutely, yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Oh okay, I'm just gonna move on the next call.
But yeah, okay, all right, so let's go to four
or two next dot four to two. State you name
and where you're calling from.

Speaker 14 (01:05:44):
It's Tony and am Tommy and Vermont A sorry Tony
and Omaha.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
I still couldn't hear where you're from. Tony. Oh oh omaha, gotcha? Okay,
go ahead, Tony, Sorry about that. What have you out, Frost?

Speaker 14 (01:06:00):
It was a little problem well being on the line.
It's brought all these topics. But what I've sintally called
in actually liked the forming of the League of Nations
last night. I mean, I think the biggest problem with
the product is, you know, getting a heel with heat,
even though it did start off rocky with the whole

(01:06:24):
first segment with Shamus in the New Day, but them
standing tall at the end with you know, actually a
goal for the Babyfaces to overcome these heels. I do
like that as you know a court storyline, it you know,
kind of does suck that they had to include you know,
Wade Barrett and Russa who was you know, in the

(01:06:45):
doghouse like last week, and you know they've taken already
like a pound of flash out of weight bear over
the last you know, eight nine years, but I do
like the attempt at trying to get some people hills,
even though you know, I wish we had, you know,
strong monster heels to actually get heat off of.

Speaker 15 (01:07:06):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
No, no, you like go ahead, Tony or go ahead Jason. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah. I was just gonna say, you like the formation.
I you just like these guys together because the formation
of it, there's really no explanation. They just happened to
be from different countries and for some reason they apparently
like the Seamus as the championship. You'd think they would
all want that championship. I mean, at least with Barrett
and Seamus, there was some past relationship in the storylines

(01:07:34):
where there really wasn't any. I mean, they teamed up
with Russip a couple of times, and I don't know.
Del Rio is just from mechs America, and I don't
know what he's doing. I want some goal. I want
some explanation for why these guys are getting together. Are
they being paid by the authority? Is at the idea?
If so? I mean it's not the greatest explanation, but
give me some reason why now that these guys are

(01:07:54):
getting together as a unit.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
No, I agree. I mean part of what makes because
I'm with Tony in that I think that there was
some underutilized talent on that roster, obviously Russev who's been
greatly damaged compared to a year ago and or even
eight six eight months ago, and Wade Barrett, who I
think has more upside than and has been defined down
and just kind of tossed about in the even Stephen

(01:08:20):
meaningless mid card, and del Rio really should be so
hot that putting him in a faction seems like a
step down, but he's just been ice cold since coming
back with a clunky mex American gimmick and a real
lack of any kind of defining promos from him, So
putting him together it's step one. But yeah, I would.
I don't feel like I'm on the cusp of hearing

(01:08:41):
those four stand out there and cut a promo that
has some of the same traits that we see watching
NWA World Champion of Wrestling six o five TBS and
WWE Network for the mid eighties, where each guy had
a bravado, this outlaw confidence, this this spring in their
step that said we are that we are great at

(01:09:02):
what we do, and you are privileged to watch us
and where fans are like, oh God, I want to
see a babyface knocks knock some humilia humility into them.
We're not going to see that from Wade Barrett because
Bart's the King, and we're not gonna see it from
Russev because he's the smitten love kitten, and we're not
going to see it from Alberto de Rio because it's
all about mechs America and soment some cliche ridden promo

(01:09:25):
that the writing staff wrote for him. We're not going
to hear them talking from the heart. But part of
it is that they're being dropped into a situation and
a formula and a structure that that almost can't work.
And that's where again Roman Reigns has a set of issues.
But a lot of people who are more equipped than
Roman Reigns to be a top babyface would be having

(01:09:46):
problems in this environment drawing and getting the crowd engaged
because of the such this tightly controlled, control free corporate
version that they call sports entertainment of what progressrestling should
be and needs to be to survive. And so there's
multiple problems all on top of each other that you

(01:10:08):
could deal with any one of them, there's a translucency
to any one of the problems. But like rice paper,
if you stack up four or five of them in
a row on top of each other, you can't get
any light through them. And I think that's kind of
where we are now. You just there's so many things
wrong with the WWB formula that even doing something well
formulaically or something structurally that should work, like a hot

(01:10:28):
tag from a babyface, or putting four heels together to
try to make the whole bigger than the some of
the parts and rehab the characters, I just don't know
that they're an environment where that where that actually has
breathing space to happen. Even though I think starting next
week with a different vision for the product and loosening
the control that they have over the scripted nature of
the wrestlers and the tone of the announcers, if you
had Jim Ross announce raw and you told the and

(01:10:51):
you had Renee Young and interview the wrestlers, and you
gave them no scripts and gave them a week's warning,
I think they could go out there and have an
amazingly more compelling program by just trying to get themselves
over on their own by carrying that responsibility into the
into Monday when they arrived at Raw for the show.
I think that if they entrusted wrestlers to do that

(01:11:11):
and the wrestlers felt they had something on the line
by making sure they got themselves over, Sure they'll be
a clunker. There'll be a boneheaded comment now and then.
But that's what Raw was named after, is it. It's raw,
It's it's live. Anything can happen, and you can correct
that course, but you can't fix this. You can't fix this,
this stale, antiseptic, pre determined sports entertainment world that WWE's

(01:11:33):
created that hundreds of thousands of people are rejecting month
after month and tuning out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
I want there to be I want to I mean
a bitch picman, really want to answers for what's going on?
Shit the writers down, stop you know, stop just being
so isolated city and you can a tripleations in the
room if you want to sit them all down one
by one and have them break down what are the
weaknesses of this product? Where do we need to improve?

(01:11:59):
And if you don't like your answers, fire that person,
because I honestly don't think they know what they have,
and in the writing staff member, I don't there's so
many of them. There's so many different ideas that I
would really I think they would benefit. They might get
some fresh perspectives and they might just find out, my god,
we have some really clueless people on this writing staff
who don't understand the wrestling industry or sports entertainment as

(01:12:19):
they like to call it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Yes, And I want to say there's probably some writers
listening to this on the flight home banging their head
against the airplane window because they're getting blamed for something
that they see the same way that we do. And
there are some smart, good writers who have come and gone,
who have been on the show and who are still there,
who have just given up. And because there's this guy

(01:12:42):
named vinsick Mann at the top who wants things a
certain way and a small circle of enablers who to
protect their job. You can see it come through with
BG James, you know, Brian James. It's like he is
and he's been accused of this. It's like he wants
that paycheck and he is going to toe the company live.
But ironically, ten years ago last month at t I

(01:13:05):
think it was TNA Genesis I think it was a
pay per view. BG James went out and ripped into
Vincic Mann did this very anti WWE Vincent Man promo
on a TNA pay per view. You know, It's like, so,
I just I don't believe that he's being particularly authentic
in his defense of Oh ratings don't count anymore. It's archaic,

(01:13:27):
like his reputation is. He knows his job is to
be a good soldier, and I think he's going on
Twitter saying that in part to score brownie points. I mean,
I think BG James is about brownie points right now.
You have people in that company who want to score
brownie points with the boss who they don't feel is
going away, and so you got to sound like you're
on the team and that you're with the program. And

(01:13:49):
that's not what WWE needs. They need somebody with credibility
who understands the business to speak truth to power. And
I just don't know who those people are who are
willing to risk their job security to do it right now.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
And that's that's the thing is Vicon in this scenario,
they need to just establish what you say, Please be honestly.
We know you think it's got to be you got
to say the corporate speak. I mean, he just needs
to be receptive and that's the thing. He needs to
be open minded, and I just don't know that he is.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
This is the PW Torch live cast. We're about an
hour fifteen minutes into the program. If you want to
listen to this program every day ad free on our
VP RSS feed. You can find out information on our
VP membership at PW torch dot com slash go. Go
back to the phone lines and go next to Ryan
calling the show again from from overseas. I'm Ryan. We're

(01:14:41):
hearing a bunch of feedback from you. I don't know
if you can minimize that, but welcome to the program.
And what's on your mind today?

Speaker 15 (01:14:47):
What can you hear?

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Yeah, go ahead and ask your questions.

Speaker 10 (01:14:50):
Just answer for.

Speaker 6 (01:14:50):
Wrestling, right basically, listen to your podcast about Nick bob Quinko.

Speaker 15 (01:14:57):
So I just did not watch and wrestle one bit.
I didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:15:01):
You don't know much about him, so I did some.
I did some history on him. Now, Jericho in two
thousand and eight and two thousand and nine took a
lot out of Nick Bogquinkle's character and put it into
his own in two thousand and eight, and that's this
established wrestler basically to find him to get more.

Speaker 15 (01:15:22):
Of a heel, so charactering, he looked back into the
past into.

Speaker 6 (01:15:27):
Into someone that was established and something that could get
out of it. So what do you think of these
heels today? Because today I saw all the heels from
russev Ware Barrett Shams the New days.

Speaker 15 (01:15:40):
Just I'm just not sold on him at all. So
when I look.

Speaker 6 (01:15:44):
At people like christ Jericho or people in the past,
do you think that a lot of these new guys
could look back make maybe, as I'll put it, is
make a remix on some sort of old type of
wrestler that put their own twist on it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Doing someone Absolutely IM gonna mute it now just because
we're hearing so much rustling in the background. Ryan, But
good topic. Yeah, I mean, I think Wade Barrett, had
he not been to fined down and damaged so much
the last couple of years, Jason instead of being a
clown wearing a king cave doing a gimmick that is
right out of the just kind of random grab bag
of copyright, a gimmicks that the ring master came out

(01:16:20):
of with no real connection to anything that Wade Barrett's
character really feels, and it's just this one dimensional character.
If instead he carried himself like Jericho and O Wade
or Nick Blackwinkle in the late seventies and early eighties,
Way Barrett could be over. But it's not about Wade Barrett.
It's about giving. It's not wayd Barrett's fault for not
doing it. It's WWE's corporate structure, the way the creative

(01:16:42):
is set up that doesn't allow breathing space for wrestlers
to even suggest that or carry themselves that way because
you have to have a character. You have to be
a goon or a dentist or you know. Steve Austin
was saying, it seems like WWE's regressing to kind of this,
you know, this this Preattitude era vibe, and it's just

(01:17:05):
not really working. You don't have to wait for the
way Keller Pro Wrestling post show to find out what
I thought of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week,
you can check out my reports that are updated live
throughout Raw and SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written
report will tell you what's happening in detail in case

(01:17:28):
you missed the show, and it will also analyze key
segments and give my random thoughts quips on what I'm
watching as it airs. So check it out every Monday
night and Tuesday night at pwtorch dot com. That also
applies to wwepaypreviews. I cover those live at pw torch
dot com with a detailed written report with star ratings,
and of course you can find other TV reports from

(01:17:49):
other contributors to pw torch such as nxt roh, Impact Wrestling,
and more. Check it out pwtorch dot com your first
stop for TV and pay perview written reports.

Speaker 16 (01:18:09):
Jason, I love the wrestling tournament when it's done right.
I hope they never do another King of the Ring
because I never want to see another just one dimensional
WWE king. Some have been better than others.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
This is King. Barrett is the worst one. They're trying
to get him over as part of this faction, and
it just blows me away that they can't go He's
Wade Barret. We give up on this King thing. If
WWE ever does another King of the Ring tournament, they
just need to stop with this silly King thing. It
reminds me of that thing. I'm tough enough. Where they
went into that thing with Seth Fallins and we're picking
out costumes. It's that bad. And yeah, I mean, you

(01:18:46):
can definitely borrow from guys in the past, for sure,
without question. But with Wade Barrett, he just needs to
be able to borrow from Wade Barrett, that leader of Nexus.
He was great.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Yep, you're right. I mean, go watch how he carried
himself there. If you're Vincement Mann and Dowe creative and wait,
bear it himself and rechannel that character all right? Up
next seven to one, eight to non decaded way three
two seven one eight. Please state your name and where
you're coming from?

Speaker 8 (01:19:13):
Was going on way to Jason Mike from Brooklyn? How
you guys hiling doing good?

Speaker 5 (01:19:17):
Mike?

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
What have you got for us?

Speaker 8 (01:19:20):
Quick thing?

Speaker 14 (01:19:21):
It's just a chime that excellent, excellent salt excellent salt.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
One.

Speaker 8 (01:19:26):
I'm done with it. I'm on a network. You got
World Championship Wrestling six oh five. They just uploaded Smoky
Mountain and they just put some miss out off. What
they need to do is get the whole writing team
and that should be their chill for the weekend to
sit and watch those shows back to back to understand
and comprehend how to cook and write a wrestling show.

(01:19:50):
They need to do that off the rid.

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
I think there's so much that and I think the
talent too. I think bray Wyatt should watch what it's
like to not come across as a wrestler rehearsing lines
like you're in community theater, but actually believing in your
character and taking it seriously and not coming across as
just slightly to put on and cartoonish and and flowery

(01:20:13):
acting and and actually be kind of scary and creepy
and and and unnerving and and not just come across
as somebody. It's like Triple H said, you know that's
spunk was a guy who who was good at pretending
or pretending to be a good wrestler, and and bray
Wyatt is good at and I disagree with that, but
with bray Whittet, I think it applies. He's good at
pretending he's a creepy, unnerving wrestling character, but I want

(01:20:37):
to believe he actually is that. So yeah, they could
watch some of that footage. Mid South, even Smoking Mountain
in the early nineties had some of it Jim Cornett
his attempt at at reviving regional wrestling. There was some
of that there, for sure. You get to see some
good Dutch Mantell by the way, when Dutch was still
in his prime as a as a talker, and yeah,

(01:20:57):
I mean just definitely I would be all for that.
And I think it's a good suggestion, Mike Jason. I
hope that everybody gets inspired by watching old wrestling that
was done well. And there's some good old wrestling that
was done well that if you add today's production values
to it. I don't believe that the world has changed
enough in the last thirty years to make what happened

(01:21:19):
that clicked with people that people loved about NWA World
championshipressing six o five Eastern on TBS in the mid
to late eighties. There's a recent people love that show,
and it was the characters that people believed in and
the Bravado and the outlaw aspects to them that that
is timeless and it's missing from WWE, oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
And there's some great content there with UWF as well.
Some of the mid stuff, mid South stuff that we
saw up here late in its run was just excellent
television and it would totally work today. But it's you know,
we can say the writers need to sit down and
watch it. I would say that Vince McMahon does, but
my fear is that he'd watched it, and that's that
rassling stuff. We do sports.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Entertainment well, and I mean the we could do a
much shorter show if we just said it's Vince mc
man's fault and he's not going to change. Well, that's true,
I mean because that, I mean, that is what a
lot of people in that company would tell us. It's like, well,
you can talk for ninety minutes invent and rant and
and you know, have all these specific suggestions, but the
problem is Vince McMahon any answers to no one, and

(01:22:20):
he's not going to change. Now. I don't believe I'm
not as fatalistic as that, because I've seen him change before.
But I haven't seen seventy year old vinsick Man change before.
I saw, you know, early fifties. You know, someone who
is near just past fifty years old change and reinvent
his product went under extreme darrests from WSW. So you know,

(01:22:40):
I don't know if seventy year old Vincent Man is
capable of recognizing and the need for change and then
steering in a new direction. That's that is a bit
of a scary part. All right, are going to try
to go rapid fire through a couple more calls before
we wrap up and move to the VIP after show.
Three five to two is next three five two? Please
state tournamement where you're calling from.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Hi, guys, this is Neil calling from Orlando.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Hey Neil, thanks for Colin. What have you got for
Jason to me?

Speaker 8 (01:23:04):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
Thank you? Yeah, first time calling here.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
A really great show tonight, guys, very thanks, thank you.
A quick statement and one quick question. I heard you
guys talking about the writers, you know, standing up to
Vince and how unsuccessful they seem to be. I think
there's two people that need to stand up to Vince.
One is Stephanie McMahon. I think she needs to have
a come to Jesus moment with her dad and really,

(01:23:28):
you know, tell her how she feels, if she truly
feels the same way that a lot of the fans do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
I don't either, Neil.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
I think Stephanie is in lockstep with Vince. I you know,
I have never been given an indication from what I've
seen with my own eyes and heard with my ears,
or what I mean, the way she conducts herself on Twitter,
the way she conducts herself in rare kind of mainstream situations,
and what I hear behind the scenes. Stephanie's hard to
heart with Vince's. The world is out to get us.

(01:23:57):
We need to put up a fight, hold your ground,
and Le's come up with excuses for why. You know,
why this isn't working Because we're royalty and we own
this industry and our way should be the way that works.
And we need to just take more power away from
our workers and tightly more tightly script things and do
more charity work. I mean, it's a slight caricature maybe,
but yeah, she's she's not the one who can do

(01:24:18):
the hard tart. But go ahead, Neil, I mean, I'm
with you in spirit. People do. But I think Stephanie,
I want to make real clear, is not sitting here
banging her head against the wall, going God. I just
wish I could speak up to my dad, but I
can't because I hear all the fans what the fans
are saying and want change.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
I don't disagree. I think.

Speaker 3 (01:24:33):
I mean, maybe if Shane was there, maybe it'd be
a little bit of a different story. And I don't
think Triple H has unfortunately the guts to go against
his wife, to go against you know, her father, So
I don't think that's going to happen. So I think
the other people who really could maybe make an impact
is I think that live audience needs to make their
voice heard. If you had five, ten thousand, fifteen thousand

(01:24:54):
people chanting fire vents like all Lah fire russo, which
I've heard many times when I sat in TNA crowd
and other crowds, I think if you had those crowds
channing fire vent or fire McMahon or this is boring
for three hours or multiple times throughout the night, maybe
just maybe he would start to get the point that

(01:25:14):
you know, something's wrong here.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):
Yeah, are we nearing that stage, Jason, where something like
that could happen where the fans instead of be and
to me, I think it's it's actually scarier that the
fans are just indifferent in quiet and not actually rebelling.
I think that they've lost a sense of ownership in
the product and a connection to the product, where now
they're like, well, we bought the tickets, but we don't

(01:25:37):
really want to be here or we're not feeling it.
But you know, I guess it's sort of cool to
get out of the house, but they're not like, yeah,
this is boring fire Vince. I mean, I've seen crowds
who were passionate about the brand and wanted change and
what's missing Jason and different now versus then why aren't
the crowds doing what Neil just said maybe would be
what it would take to change things.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Well, I think what you're getting now is they rally
behind fine certain wrestlers. They rally against certain guys like
Roman Reigns at times, for instance, for John Cena. I
don't think they're going to just target Vince McMahon. You
may hear some boring I could see that coming back,
but even you know you mentioned the fire Russo chance,
wrestling is filled with stubborn people at the ownership level.

(01:26:18):
I mean, how long did it take before Vince Russo
was finally shown the door permanently in TNA after all
those years of those chants, And I'm sure it would
be nineteen Vince was when he was at the NXT
show WrestleMania weekend and they were chanting, you know, better
than Mania during the NXT show. But I don't, you know,
It's just I don't think anything would really change there

(01:26:40):
other than just embarrassment and him feeling like he had
to do something different. But again, he's a guy with
a million excuses right now, you know, you're you're hearing
it through road Dog with the ratings aren't aren't the
same indicator they once were? Yeah, you know, and and
they have the injuries, and so there's gonna be and football.

Speaker 15 (01:26:56):
Season's almost over seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
So I just I think I really do feel like,
going back to what you said a little bit ago,
he's just sent in his ways and I don't know
that he's going to change. But last night at least
was a step in the right direction as far as
just seeing some degree of change occurring. Even again, even
though I didn't really care for any of it, it
just showed me that, Okay, it's not just business as usual.

(01:27:19):
They're at least trying something different.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
Yes, And that's where I say it doesn't come across
this way because I've been expressing my frustration with the product,
But there were some things. In fact, I think it's
actually more distressing that there were certain things they did
that were fundamentally sound last night that didn't work at all,
and we have to find out was that just the
Pittsburgh crowd or what. It doesn't have to do with

(01:27:43):
the fact that there's been some damage done that's going
to take a lot longer to fix. And asking people
the wrong questions on a survey is not It just
shows that they aren't actually even able to ask the
right questions, and that is even scarier, you know, do
you feel like?

Speaker 8 (01:28:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
I mean, I'll read about it in the newsletter and
talk about it later this week on the Keller Hotline
when I have more time to take notes and think
about it and we have more time to express myself.
But I'll go over the questions for VFP members that
I think, WW you should be asking people in these surveys,
because I don't just want to criticize the shallow questions
that they asked, but actually give some suggestions. Some will
be serious and some will obviously be questions they would
not ask their audience. But at some point this week

(01:28:25):
in audio format, I'll present that on a Keller Hotline.
So yeah, there the things that they did well last night.
Some of it might take a few weeks Jason to
start to show up. You know, Vince might be thinking, Okay,
December is a lost cause. We need to plan some
seeds with our current audience, try to win some people
back over. Then we'll enter wrestle Mania season. But we've learned,

(01:28:48):
you know what I want to get a sense of.
Is Vince going, Yeah, we learned a hard lesson. We
got a little carried away with some things. We need
a correct course. We heard you, we listened, and we're
going to go a different direction with some things. And
don't just don't even tell us, just do it, you know,
I mean, just show us that you're going to fix
some things up and do it that way. But again,
I mean, do you start by saying, well, Roman Reigns
isn't gonna work as a lead babyface? Well, then who's

(01:29:10):
his replacement? I did a Keller hotline this weekend with
with going in detail on one person in particular who
doesn't get talked about a lot that a VP member
brought up that I think is a prime candidate and
in fact I would choose him over Woman Reigns right now.
And I wanted a great detail on that, but I mean,
everybody has somebody that they rather have than Roman reigns,
unless you're as a held up the sign last week

(01:29:33):
or the week before saying we're not here to see
Roman reigns, and then in small print, but our wives
are and we don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
It's like, I mean, you know, of course there's Roman
range fans. There's some kids and some women and even
some guys, but the metrics are not there, you know,
I mean, nobody, nobody is singularly at fault for the
ratings being down. But Roman needs two good weeks, three
good weeks. He needs to win the week. He needs
to win more than one Monday. He needs to win
three out of four Mondays in a month, and he's

(01:30:04):
not doing that. He's not winning Sundays. And I mean,
you know, in the in the you know the way
that that term is used, you know, win the day,
and he's not doing that. And so you know, maybe
stay the course for Wrestlemanium. Maybe not, I don't know,
but if you're gonna stay the course, do a good
job and set them up with some heels who who

(01:30:25):
who fans will care about, and put him in a
situation where if he does have a chance to succeed,
he'll have a chance to succeed. If you missed it earlier,
just a reminder, we're running our second VIP sale of
the year. We don't do these often. Take advantage of
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(01:30:47):
coupon code is n O V twenty twenty five as
in November n o V twenty twenty five, and that
takes nine dollars off when you check out on our
sign up form pw Torch dot com, slash go v
IP give you full details on membership benefits and links
to our sign up form. Neil, first time caller, and

(01:31:08):
we're near the end of the show here, but go
ahead with any follow up. You have another question.

Speaker 3 (01:31:12):
Sure, I'll be quick. I'm going to be at the
Rumble in January. Do you think the Orlando crowd will
turn if things don't go their way the same way
the Pittsburgh and Philly crowd did. Do you think that
Orlando crowd, it will have enough of those smart fans
to act that way.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
That is a great question, and that is a question
for you. Can you tell me you think the Orlando
crowd living there is likely to rebel?

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
I'm not so sure anymore. I mean, I was at
that show when brock lesnar fought the big show in
the ring collapse, and that was by far one of
the loudest things I've ever heard in my entire life.
But that was what ten twelve years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
The last few times I've.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
Been almost every Orlando show, and the reactions are nowhere
near the same. I'm hoping with a lot of people
were coming from out of the country and out of
state for the Rumble, that maybe that reaction will at least,
you know, be positive or naked. I'm hoping it at
least will be loud compared to some of the last
previous shows.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. And I think the Rumble
feels like a world away right now. I think they've
got a lot to do between now in the World
Rumble in terms of figuring out where they're going to
go and what they're going to do, and they cannot
ignore what happened the last couple of years. I mean
they need to be fully fully aware of what is
likely to happen with certain scenarios and be prepared to

(01:32:34):
embrace it and not look embarrassed again. Because ben Ucmannon
has looked so disconnected and out of touch with his
own fan base too many times in the last few years.
He has a bunch of successes on the other side
of the ledger. I think that the growth of the network,
the WrestleMania crowds, the WrestleMania brand getting the recognition that
it's getting. WWE's press release they sent me today talking

(01:32:56):
about the chief brand Officer, Stephan McMahon. Six WWE superstars
and divas have been nominated for Do Something dot Org's
annual Celebs Gone Good List. There's things that Vince can
be proud of, but fewer and fewer people every week
are watching, are passionate enough about his product and care
enough about it to watch his flagship live program that

(01:33:18):
he just sold NBC Universal on being DVR proof. That
was their sales pitch. I listened to it, I heard it,
and I saw it on the press release. When when
when the deal was made? And it's not and and
so that's a problem, and it's a big problem and
he's got to deal with it. Neil, thanks so much.
Please call again. Good to have you on the show.

(01:33:38):
You bet, I'm gonna sneak in one more call here.
We've gone way over on time three one three. Please
state your name and where you're calling from.

Speaker 17 (01:33:46):
Hey, this is way from the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
Hey, Wayne, thanks for con What do you got for us?

Speaker 10 (01:33:50):
Okay, real Faz.

Speaker 17 (01:33:53):
You know, after seth Rollin's run of the Chicken Bleep
heel that people didn't think was really working, I'll found
it peculiar to have shame As wearing a suit and
you know, gyrating with the New Day. I think that
was a good opportunity to use him as a you know,
as a monster heel versus this silly heel with the

(01:34:15):
faction that he needs. And then also with the New Day.
I don't end I don't really get the New Day.
Why have them with animated T shirts just like you
know for kids in their heels? I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
Jason, what is New Day? Wayne's got a good point,
like there what what? Who is their market? Who is
is it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
People?

Speaker 4 (01:34:37):
Who?

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
I mean? I know there's podcasts out there of people
who just like to laugh at WWE, and they tune
in to kind of almost laugh at it. And it's
all about, well, if I'm entertained and I find something funny,
then pro wrestling is great. And I mean there are
people out there who just watch and they and they
watch it through a different lens than I do. I
watch wrestling through the lens of does this make me
care about a fight that that I am and the

(01:35:00):
masses are going to pay to see? That to me
is entertaining. I mean, really, it's not like jury duty,
it's not like an obligation. To me, the most entertaining
thing is to get sucked into a world where there's
a title that matters, an announcer who cares and believes,
by God it's real, and a bunch of wrestlers were
fighting on a level playing field to get ahead, and
there's people cheating that authority figure is trying to stomp

(01:35:23):
out the cheating, and there's a baby face who shares
my values and is living his dream and cares as
much or more than I do about what he's doing.
It's the Drew McIntyre promo, you know, I mean, Drew
is Drew Galloway is good at doing that. It's almost sappy.
But you know the promo on TNA last week, you know,
I came back to I came back home and it's

(01:35:45):
the longest stretch I've been home in ten or thirteen
years or whatever, he said. And everybody's got kids and families,
and people say when are you gonna get married? When
you gonna have kids? And he goes, well, my family
is pro wrestling, and this is what I care about.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
Like it's a little bit sappy, it's bordering on over
the top, and I love it because it's so a
contrast to WWE, where it seems everybody there is like
New Day. It's hey, I'm in character, but I'm sort
of out a character now too, and we're just trying
to sell T shirts and be entertaining. Jason, that was
a rant, not a question.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
Go Yeah, well you mentioned you asked about New Day originally. Yes,
And I think that's what they are. They're guys who
are getting over to with that segment of the audience
that just wants to laugh and they want to whether
it's they need a break from that, they want that
sports entertainment style break, or they just think it's good.

(01:36:34):
You don't normally see this on wrestling, and therefore it's
quirky and therefore it's funny. I mean, there's certainly been
times when I've enjoyed the heck out of New Day.
It just feels like it had a short shelf life
right now. Some of that is due to overexposure, but
I don't know what their market really is beyond that.
At this point, they again pick the rest of end

(01:36:54):
go for heat or or go ahead and turn and
then be fun loving, you know, comedy babyfaces to some degree,
but you just you can't have it. You can't have
it both ways, and it's not working for me. And
I think we're starting to hear after all the you know,
just the praise a New Day was getting not all

(01:37:16):
that long ago. Within the last couple of weeks even,
I think people are really starting to see that, Okay,
this is getting tiresome. It doesn't really seem to be
going anywhere. They're just humoring themselves. And that's the other
part of it there. The guys backstage love it, and
ww's falling into that trap. I used to point it
out with T and A. There's certain things that get
over with everybody in the back, and therefore it's great

(01:37:37):
even if the audience out there watching and is going
this isn't good.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
And the New Day are main event in main events,
and so I think they kind of have to decide
are they a comedy act or are they main events?
And then you kind of have to be one or
the other. You know, you can't really get away with
being both. And that's that's part of the issue too,
and they, I mean, overexposure is a real bad thing too.
I apologize to everybody on Hold UH one one one

(01:38:04):
international eight one three seven seven three three four seven
six one nine. Everybody on Hold who we didn't get
to apologize. Give Pat McNeil a call tomorrow. You can
check out Interview Thursday with a guest yet to be announced,
and then Friday Bruce and Travis Bruce, Mitchell and Travis
Bryant will be here. We're here every day Monday through
Friday and also Sundays after major pay per views. You

(01:38:25):
can listen to past shows, including last night's conversation with
James Caldwell and Pat McNeil. They talked for about raw
for about ten minutes, and then James took Well over
an hour of live phone calls from fans. So if
you're you're wanting to hear some other points of view
from two staff members, James and Pat, along with a
lot of callers, check out that show from last night.

(01:38:47):
You can find it again at PW torch livecast dot com,
follow me on Twitter at the Wade Keller, follow our
brand at PW torch.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Well you can. We do not do specials very often,
and so jump on Pro Wrestling dot need.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
Thank you Jason once again for your time. We ran long.
I didn't intend to. I think two thirds of it
was me ranting and I didn't plan to. But man,
I'll send a survey out to our listeners and I'll
ask them a bunch of your irrelevant questions so we
can find out if we're doing a good job. You
hope for that perfect, excellent, and maybe we can come
up with some of those in the VIP after show,

(01:39:23):
which VIP members who have been listening to us ad
free on our vs on our RSS VIP audio feed
and the dot net member feed. We'll now be able
to jump to the VIP after show and listen to
us talk about other things. We'll cover some other raw
topics and a little bit about some things going on
outside of raw. Thanks to our members, but of course
big thanks to our live cast listeners. Until next time

(01:39:45):
when Pat me Neil takes over the hosting chair on
the Wednesday live cast. This is Way Keller. Thank you
for joining us and signing.

Speaker 9 (01:39:52):
Off longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to
learn some wrestling history, don't miss the Nineties Past cast

(01:40:14):
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.
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

(01:40:34):
Pass cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.

Speaker 1 (01:40:58):
Jason, we're in the VFP after show portion the program. Now, Yeah,
I mean, we talked a lot about that WWE survey
and and the UH, it's just it's just disheartening because
I feel I feel like they're grasping for answers that
their audience isn't equipped necessarily to tell them. In some random,

(01:41:19):
large scale survey that they send out, you know, like
I just you know, I use the idea of the
eye doctor. It's like I want I don't want my
dentists to be surveying me on the core reason that
I go to the dentist. I mean, I guess you
can say, you know, was was the waiting room pleasant?
And was the dental assistant? Did she he or she
have good breath? And and make you uncomfortable with any questions.

(01:41:42):
I mean, I guess there's like some some questions that
you could ask, But in the end, you don't want
those questions. If you're if you're just not applying the
novacane correctly, and like you're poking people with needles in
the wrong places, and you're telling people before the novacaine
takes effect, and you're causing people's gums to bleed because

(01:42:03):
you're jamming them with that metal scraper thing, and you're
using the same cup for customers over and over, and
everybody can tell that there's like lipstick on the cup
that you're using to rints, like just stuff like that,
that just fundamental stuff you shouldn't be doing well asking
people if they like the magazine selection in the waiting
room really is oblivious to the larger problem. And I

(01:42:23):
think WWE's problems are so large. This survey does sort
of seem like a dentist who's you know, like killing
patients asking people if they would like more up to
date magazines in the waiting room.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Do you know that I have a cleaning schedule this month?

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Or what's that?

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
Do you know that I have a dental cleaning schedule
for this month? No?

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
But I would be I would I would be feel
confident that your dentist is probably better than WWE as
at their job lately.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
Yeah, he better be, no thought. I trust my dentist,
So if I was going to a new dentist, I
would be horrified by this. And I apologize anybody out
there who is, but yeah, I mean they it just
goes back. Do they really don't want to know the answers?
And it just feels like lip service to send this
thing out in the first place. And I don't I mean,

(01:43:12):
what reason do you think is it? Is this vincaying?
Let's let's try to find out what's wrong. Is this
just something they do from time to time?

Speaker 15 (01:43:21):
Why?

Speaker 2 (01:43:22):
Why?

Speaker 10 (01:43:22):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
I mean, there's obvious reasons why they should, but they're
not asking the right questions anyway. So why now.

Speaker 1 (01:43:28):
That's the thing. If if they're doing it now because
ratings are down and they probably want to have some
sort of meeting that a bunch of people are going
to go to, and they're going to try to sound
intelligent and make it look like they're earning their pay
by interpreting them, you know, using much corporate speak. We
have we have interpreted I don't even know the corporate
speak well enough to fake it, but you know, we've
interpreted the metrics. And here are the here are the
bullet points for causes of that, for points of action

(01:43:51):
that we're going to distribute to the various divisions in
order to round up the lapsed fan audience basis percentage.
I mean, there'll be some VS crap like that as
opposed to I think the the heart of the matter,
which I think we're touching on here on this program today,
and and that others are too, and and so yeah,

(01:44:12):
it's it's they're doing it now because the ratings are
down and somebody's trying to look and seem useful with
the technology that they have, but they have they should
know what their problems are. They're in their their wrest
If you have a job and you're in the position
to change creative or influence creative, you should know what
the problems are. And and I don't think the problems

(01:44:34):
are that hard to fix, you know, I really don't.
But as writers have said for years, the writing team
rights for an audience of one, the writing team rights
for Vince McMahon, and I watched that show.

Speaker 2 (01:44:45):
At the rate they're going, they really may be that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):
That is the line of the show so far. You're right,
Vince McMahon likes New Day. He was a fan of
Biggie even before he was a fan of Roman Rats,
you know, I mean that was his guy, Like, oh, Biggie,
he's going to be the next big star. Like you know,
the current events references, Oh, I need more, you know, more,
like I don't even know if it was in the survey,
you know, would you like more pop culture references in
scripted wrestler promos?

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:45:09):
Would you like more wrestlers to break character like Kofi Kingston?
Do you feel more connected to Kofe now that he
shared with you the real his real self last week?

Speaker 2 (01:45:18):
Yeah? Would you like to see more bras on receft.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
God, what what did the heck was going on with that, Jason?
Because uh, you know, somebody on Twitter said Vince McMahon
really wanted wanted, had the hots for Lana, and he
got really upset when she flaunted, that she got engaged,
and that his attempt to break them up through a
TV angle, which often works by the way, sadly backfired.
And so now he's going to take it out on

(01:45:42):
both of them with segments that actually is taking out
taking it out on the viewers. Any truth to that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:48):
I know people who subscribed to that theory, I'll just say.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
That, Yeah, I mean, it sounds outlandish, but we're dealing
with an outlandish person who has a massive track record
of dots connecting that you would think were just some
crazy conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
Yeah, the whole segment that they did, I mean, I'm
starting I'm watching this feeling like, Lord knows, there's TMZ
writers that love pro wrestling and maybe they want to
be WWE writers, and now the WWE writers want to
do TMZ style entertainment. And you know, the whole Anne
Hathaway line, and there was something else in there in
that promo as well from zeb that it was just like,

(01:46:24):
this isn't coming from Zeb unless he's really trying too
hard to feel relevant. But it's it's just it's bad.
I didn't like the Adam Rose thing at all. I
was open minded to it because I that's a guy
cheer for and you can't help it. Cheer for him
as a person. If you saw the sixty piece with

(01:46:45):
you know disn at home who has the issues and
he just you can't help it. You want the guy
to do well. This is not the answer, not and
it might be okay if they had better writers. This
is I mean, if this is the first one, you
would think they would come out of the gate strong
with this. There was nothing edgy in there. It was
silly Chris Jericho photoshop on the big screen material and

(01:47:06):
then just some weird joke about Dolph Zigler going both
ways or something that. There was nothing good about this.
There was nothing that made me want to see this
happen again. It didn't make me like or dislike Adam
Rose in any way. I just couldn't wait for it
to end, and I hope I never see it again.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
I enjoyed somebody on Twitter had said Wade ww so bad.
You need to stop making excuses for them and go
hard on them. The point where I'm not being accused
of being mister negative, but the people, the listeners and
the readers are saying I'm being too positive when I
don't think I've changed, is a real sign of how
disgruntled people are out there. And I mean, honestly, the

(01:47:42):
poll results in how much the people are rejecting who
are watching the show are rejecting what they're seeing is bad.
Because WWE, when they were on the ropes ratings wise
against Nitro had the better event, ended up having the
better show for months, but it took a while for
the ratings to catch up. When I see poll responses
and I see the type feedback through social media, I

(01:48:03):
just just it just sounds so bad because Dow says
it all the time, but through social media, I mean
the feedback anecdotally through that and our live cast callers,
I've never seen it like this, and I think it's
going to get worse before it gets better. And because
of the Thanksgiving holiday, we don't have ratings yet. I
haven't seen even viewership over night numbers, have you, Jason, No, they.

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
Were just they just got impacts out from last Wednesday,
and I saw they're like they're good through Friday now,
so I'm assuming that, you know, too late in the day.
We'll get those probably tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a bad football game,
so that could work in their favor. But I just
I think things could get worse before they get better.
I mean, there's sort of this idea, well, you know,
they might dip a little below, they might go a
little up, but they've kind of found a new water level.
I just think these last two weeks of RAW have
led to a number of people being on the brink,

(01:48:53):
who were on the brink, throwing in the towel for
a while and saying I'll check back in January if then,
you know, if that so, I'm not ruling out a
number that doesn't begin with the two. And that's scary
because I mean, six months ago, we're saying anything out
of two point five is scary. I mean, it actually
seems plausible Jason on a non holiday raw and RAW

(01:49:15):
doesn't follow on any holidays this year because Christmas and
New Year's are all right late in the week, so
there's not going to be any of those Christmas Eve, Christmas,
New Year's Eve, New Year's Day excuses. I think, notwithstanding that,
there's a chance. I'm not saying I'm putt my money
on it, but there's a chance we see a one
point nine to six or something like that. The way
people are reacting, I'm with you. I thought there were
some good things on the show, some fundamentals that were

(01:49:36):
executed well, but they just don't have the atmosphere and
the characters who are over to make it work. You
mentioned Jericho. Let me get to our first email question.
This is from Francis from Ireland. Hey, Wade, as wondering
what's your take on the WWE possibility of bringing back
the draft? Is there a chance that could happen? And

(01:49:56):
my second question is when do you think we will
see a follow up to the Dean Ambrose Chris Jericho
T's a few months back? Two good questions. Have you
heard anything about a draft perhaps an anticipation of Smack
dumb moment to USA.

Speaker 2 (01:50:11):
Like a roster split again. Yeah, I don't know how
you could right now, because it's just if they were
to trim an hour away from raw. Yeah, okay, maybe
you could, but I think they're almost better off being
episodic if they win, it's done right, and trying to
carry people over from some raw to smack down and

(01:50:32):
then doing things to set up raw. I mean, it's
over exposing the talent. But you can also control that
the same, you know, by just limiting how many times
a guy appears on these shows. I mean, there's there's
parts of the draft that I like, but again, as
long as raw as three hours, I don't know that
you can really start taking stars away from them, especially

(01:50:52):
when there's you know, there's probably like three real stars
right now that are active.

Speaker 1 (01:50:57):
Yeah, And the thing is is if they do a
draft in January, if they were to do something like that,
when do they ignore the draft WrestleMania season. You know,
that's when everybody's on every show and it's all super show.
So yeah, I mean, if you do a brand split,
you gotta show, you have to expand you have to
get more guys over, deepen the roster cut rot of
two hours, and then plan the draft for the Monday
after Wrestumania or maybe eight days after WrestleMania. Make an

(01:51:19):
anti tradition, but then do it right, and that would
include I would argue having Vincent Man go, all right,
I'm gonna put smack Down in the hands of a
different vision, and I'm going to keep my hands off
of it within certain parameters, very loose broad parameters, and
go proof that there's another way to do it that'll
work better than my way. But you know, I don't

(01:51:40):
want to spend a lot of time on it because
it's not gonna happen. Chris Jericho Dean Ambrose. Jericho is
an X factor in there, Jason for adding a little
little extra something to WrestleMania. I think Jericho's smart to
stay off TV. I think one of the strategies of
wanting to be off TV is that he doesn't get overexposed,
but he stays in shape, stays connected with the fans,
makes some extra money on the road. But it's not

(01:52:01):
worth the TV paydays to be on TV and overexposed,
because you want to save yourself for when the big
payday comes that makes up for all the TVs that
you're not on, which is having a prominent match at
WrestleMania and with seth Rawlins and Randy Orton and Cesarro
for what it's worth out past WrestleMania, perhaps probably Daniel
Bryan Jericho does become valuable. Heck, if Rock and Austin

(01:52:23):
aren't gonna wrestle and ron A Ralsey's not gonna be
on the show, I mean, Jericho might end up being
in a prominent spot. I think he can do better
than Dean Ambrose in terms of a match at WrestleMania.
No shot at Dean as a performer. Just Dean slotting
right now isn't high enough. But they did drop that hint.
Where do you think they're headed with Jericho?

Speaker 2 (01:52:42):
I wonder with him because he is a guy that
in past years there have been times where he avoids
WrestleMania because it gets too crowded and he doesn't want
to be that guy that comes back and then has
completely overshadowed three segments later because somebody else returns. You know,
with so many because of the factors you just mentioned
with them missing people that you know, the people, we

(01:53:02):
just guys who are unlikely to be there. This probably
is a Jericho at WrestleMania year, even if they were
planning Ambrose in Jericho at one point, and that's why
we saw that tease. I mean, I just think they're
going to reevaluate everything I think they need to them.
There's reports out that that they're they're doing that. I
really question whether they had anything set in stone anyway

(01:53:23):
in the first place. I mean, they may have had
a couple of top matches set, but the idea that
they had more than that, I'm just skeptical of. Not necessarily,
and I shouldn't say that they didn't have it, but
I just think it would be so loose. Knowing the
way Vince McMahon operates, for him to set six six
WrestleMania matches or whatever the reports have said all those
months in advance, it's just I don't take those seriously,

(01:53:46):
aside from maybe the top two or three matches, because
he will, I mean, he changes things on the day
of a pay per view, you know, for match finishes.
So is he really going to stay married to six
WrestleMania matches and we're already seeing no.

Speaker 1 (01:53:59):
I totally let's go in the next email wayde and
Jason have a couple questions, Oh, John Jonathan from Rockford,
Illinois emailing. First of all, there's all this talk of
WWE rebounding come wrestle Ania season, and that the ratings
were bumps back then at this point with a lack
of interest, how much of a ratings bump do you
foresee them getting. Do you think it's possible they don't
get back up above two point five come Rumble season,

(01:54:19):
We'll start there. Jason, Is it possible that between the
first round January and the day after WrestleMania Rod doesn't
go above two point five?

Speaker 2 (01:54:31):
I say no, I do think it gets back to
that level. You're going to have some people you know
coming in for many a season, whoever they are. You're
gonna have John cen and returning. I do think they
get over that mark.

Speaker 1 (01:54:43):
And it was that Jason, we just debated. You just
debated and had to talk yourself into and explain why
you think they'll probably probably get up to a two
six or better in Wrestle Anya season. I mean, that's
how bad things are right now.

Speaker 2 (01:54:57):
It is. Yeah, they are bad, and it's they're not
getting all of their injured stars back by then, and
that that hurts. But I think seeing it makes a difference.
You know, the bowl games, we can't get overly excited
about early January because they usually face some sort of
bowl competition there and some of those turn out to
be games that do take away from WWE. So I
don't know that just automatically as soon as the first

(01:55:19):
show in January kicks in, they'll have that success. It
may take a little bit longer, but I think as
we go forward, as we get closer to WrestleMania, as
long as they are giving people some things that are
going to generate some excitement, then and then I think, naturally,
yes they will. They're not going to have that football competition.
And really, I mean, I have my set shows on

(01:55:40):
Monday night way, but I mean, is there any other
is there like a Monday night network show that that's
just a huge, huge ratings wrong, I'm not thinking of Netflix. Well,
is it like Dancing with the Stars?

Speaker 1 (01:55:53):
Oh? Yeah, I know, I don't know. I don't pay
attention to I don't pay attention there's nothing that. I mean.
The shows that I watch are either on Netflix or
Hulu like Fargo or or you know.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
Oh, season two is so much better, by the way
than season one. A Fargo had to sneak day.

Speaker 1 (01:56:09):
Oh good, Yeah, I liked season one a lot. Yeah,
and or it's you know, the shows I watch are
the Sunday night AMC FX Showtime, well not really Showtime
much these days, but HBO type programs, and so, I mean,
I I just don't watch any commercial television programming much

(01:56:29):
other than maybe a couple sitcoms here and there. I've
stuck with Survivor CBS Survivor. But for the most part, yeah,
I know, I don't even know. I mean, I probably
should pay more attention to like what Ro's competition is
and how they're doing. I guess I see it in
the Twitter rankings, you know, I kind of know what's
up against RAW based on when we report on the
Twitter activity, which was terrible for RAW last week, which

(01:56:51):
you know, I don't know that the Twitter social activity.
Social media activity means a lot, but I don't think
it's a good thing when it just goes dark, and
it was the worst of the season last week for RAW.
We are running our second VIP sale of the year.
You want to take advantage of this. If you've thought
of going VIP or let your sublaps had to step

(01:57:12):
away for a while, it's a good time to come back.
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(01:57:34):
dollars off. That brings a one month sub down to
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(01:57:57):
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News bulletins that come in three formats, a PDF that's
great on a tablet or a laptop screen, an all
text version which is great to read on your phone,
and a podcast version. These run about sixteen minutes in
terms of podcast length, and it is a new feature.
I'm running two three four times a week. I'm going
to try to increase that as my schedule adjust to

(01:58:18):
this new feature. So check it out. Pw Torch dot
com slash go VIP coupon code n OV twenty twenty
five to take nine dollars off a one month, three
month or one year sub. Okay, let me look at
the question again. My answer is, yeah, they'll be above
two point five between January and April. I don't know

(01:58:38):
that they'll hit three point oh.

Speaker 2 (01:58:40):
I'd probably see that's a tougher question.

Speaker 1 (01:58:42):
Yeah, that is, and I would say the odds are
against hitting three point oh. But the thing is, I mean,
they could do some things right in the next eight weeks.
I think you can. I think you can turn things
around quite a bit in eight weeks of doing things
right where it creates some buzz because you have some
new stars, and you loosen up the reins on the
scripted promos, and you shake up the format of the show,

(01:59:03):
and you start building matches two three weeks ahead of
time for raws so that by the time they happen
you're excited to see. I mean there's a lot of
just I mean, there's a checklist like twelve things that
I think you could change literally in time for next
week and have it make a difference. In the ratings
eight weeks from now. But I'm not sure how likely
most of those things are that Vince does, but something
he might and so I think, I mean, I think

(01:59:24):
you could absolutely be back to three point zero and
hit that on a regular basis in March and April
if you did things right. I don't think they're that
far gone.

Speaker 2 (01:59:32):
Well, and just jumping back to last night show as
far as the ratings are concerned, I'm really curious to
see what the drop Isn't that third hour again, because
they gave away the range match, you know, around the
top of the third hour, and had really nothing else advertised,
And it's just like, you give people what they thought
was the main event, and I mean, it wasn't satisfying

(01:59:53):
in any way, and I don't think they made me
really want to see that new faction get what they
had coming to or anything. I was just like, oh God,
this is bad. And I just wonder how many people
at that point flipped over. And it's like, you know,
that Monday night football game doesn't look good on paper,
but it's a lot closer and maybe I have a
fantasy player going or something. I just decided to watch that.

Speaker 1 (02:00:13):
Oh yeah, games like last night's are where fantasy football
helps the NFL.

Speaker 2 (02:00:18):
Oh for sure. Yeah, and for the love of God, ESPN, Really,
you're that obsessed with Johnny football that you really thought
that was going to be a compelling game come week twelve.
I want that job. I could do so much better
at the beginning of the season. And I think again,
most fans could of just picking out decent Monday night games.
And I know it's not like they have the pick
of the litter, but there would never be a scenario

(02:00:40):
where I would go Cleveland Brown's Week twelve is going
to be a red hot game. No, they just did
it because of Johnny Manziel and he didn't even play it,
and he was the third quarterback or the the starter
got hurt and they still went to the other guy.

Speaker 1 (02:00:54):
Yes, all right, back to Jonathan. Secondly, I know Kernan
Angle has been pretty much written offy WW at this point,
namely Triple H Evince, But with all the injuries, do
you think there's any chance they would give Kurt a
call for WrestleMania. I know, I, along with many others,
would love to see him get one last short run
before hanging it up. Thanks guys, have a good one,
have a great show. You know that. I mean, he
is It crosses my mind, you know, on Impact last

(02:01:17):
week he kind of made that retirement announcement on the
UK radio show that they aired. He's you know, done
some longer promos. I if it would be a desperate
move and going against their better instincts, and he would
have to Kurt would have to pass a physical to
actually wrestle, and if he can't pass a physical, they
could induct him in the Hall of Fame. But then
there's that then that. But it'd be great, Jason, because

(02:01:39):
you know on NXT when people come in from TNA,
it's like, uh in international, well traveled veteran, you know,
like yeah, I like they'd have to, you know, with
with Kurt, they'd be like, you know, Kurt, great career
in WWE, and you know, but I don't blame them
for not wanting to say the letters TNA. I mean
I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:01:57):
I don't think it's chilly now. I mean there's no
threat whatsoever. I know they're internationally t ANDAs from television,
big deal. They'll mention Combat Zone Wrestling and Ring of Honor,
but they won't mention TNA on Table for three, it's
just silly.

Speaker 1 (02:02:10):
Well, look how Vince's attitude to a thring about a
change when they were on Destination in America being seen
by like, you know, one hundred and twelve people a week.

Speaker 2 (02:02:15):
But oh, they're still mentioning them in those Table for
threes and they won't mention t and A. It's like
it just doesn't exist. I was, you know, wrestling elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (02:02:23):
Yes, well, but to Kurt angle himself, what what circumstances
would it take for him to end up on WWBTV
and part of wrestling any weekend?

Speaker 2 (02:02:31):
You know. I think he he tried last year. I
think he really wanted to go back to WWAM and
he put it out there publicly that he was interested,
and they didn't bite. And I don't know that. I
just don't know that it's going to happen now that
maybe that they are kind of in a tough situation,
it may at least come up. I don't know that

(02:02:52):
they're going to change their mind and bring him in.
I think it really does come down to the physical
them not having tremendous faith in him, you know, and
just his personal life, and maybe that's improved. Maybe you
can win them over there, but from the physical standpoint,
I just don't know. I mean, I do think he
goes into the WWE Hall of Fame at some point,
but to get him back at WrestleMania is a question mark.

(02:03:13):
Even though I think had they done it right Russef
against Angle, it would have written itself. I think that
would have been a lot of fun. But I mean,
Russef doesn't even know what country he's from anymore, and
he's smitten, and Lana's just out of control now, and
she says she she somehow Wade was last night was
more annoying than she was when she was with Dolf Ziegler.
I that was her return, that was it. Wow, what

(02:03:39):
it's so flawed. I mean, I think people were more
excited about Tommy freaking Dreamer returning than they were Wanner.

Speaker 1 (02:03:45):
That crowd wasn't excited about anything, including Tommy Dreamer, especially
once they started wrestling. But yeah, Jason, Yeah, if kurd
Angle were to come back, I would say, you'd almost
have to do like an amateur match where he didn't
take any bumps and it was just a completely different
type of exhibition and not having him take take a
bunch of bumps and toper at moonsalts and doing suplexes,
you know, and because I just I don't know that

(02:04:07):
I even want to see it, you know, with Kurt.
I mean, I just I don't want. I didn't like TNA.
Was it at Bound for Glory? I'm trying to think
what show it was? Where they where they tease that
Kurt got Kurt even played into it, you know, he
got badly hurt. You know, I don't like when he
plays that, Oh my hand is numb, because I don't
know if it's a work or a shoot, and it's
a shooting he's pretending it's a work that's pretending to
be a shoot, or if he really is that bad
that every time he wrestles his arm goes numb. But

(02:04:29):
I don't want them to be playing on my fear
in discomfort every time I watched Kurt, by watching him
sell like he just damaged his spine and his feeling
tingling and paralysis. Once you get to that point, stay
out of the ring. I'm not rooting for Kurt to wrestle.
I mean, yes, in a storybook way, be nice, but
the human being, you know, he meant it just decent
human being, and he doesn't want to take the chance
on him hurting himself. Even though he's managed, although he's

(02:04:52):
come across as kind of brittle at times in the
way that he moves compared to his his just greatness
in his early years, he's managed to to work his
way through a lot more matches than I think people
predicted five years ago would be the case.

Speaker 2 (02:05:06):
Well for sure, but I mean, and this is the
guy was saying that he's now I think if WWE
caam call, unless he just has something signed, shield and delivered,
there's going to be occupying his time that he's not
putting out there. He's saying he's taking a year off
from pro wrestling. He's going to be forty seven years
old here eight days. I mean, so he's going to
take a year off and come back when he's forty
eight and do what And.

Speaker 1 (02:05:27):
I mean it was just a couple of days after
a surgery. But when I saw him in person in July,
he I mean, and again he was turning. He would
turn his head and he had to turn his whole body,
you know, because he had had the next surgery and
he had the scars and he is all glassy eyed.
It's just like you know, from the travel and the stress.
But he really, I mean, he had missed one other

(02:05:48):
Hall of Fame ceremony and the organizers were like, Kurt,
you can't stand us up again, no matter what. You know,
I don't care that, you know. I mean it was
like the impression I got is I don't care that
you had surgery. You need to be here, you know,
you owe it to this whole fame to be here.
And he did. And I mean obviously he really couldn't
made it. They would have forgiven him, but they made
it clear, you know, surgery is not an excuse to
bail out on us. And he showed up and he
was great, but physically he he didn't look like somebody

(02:06:11):
who should be in the ring. And I don't want
to over overplay, you know that, because he did just
have surgery and a tough travel day. So but yeah,
I just I wasn't, and put it this way, I wasn't.
I didn't look at him and go, oh, yeah, this
looks like an athlete who could still go, and you
know Dan Gable did. So so anyway, let's I want

(02:06:32):
to do because we have more emails. I want to
do true rapid fire Jason. I want to see if
we can from this, So let's try to hit these
questions rapid fire fashion. Anthony from Australia says, do you
think some of the talent in WWE recognize how beyond
awful and dreadful last night's show was? Or are they
just happy to get paid and they're afraid to rock

(02:06:54):
the boat?

Speaker 2 (02:06:54):
Oh? They know? But yeah, I mean who I'm that
roster right now could rock the boat? Who has that
kind of cloud that's actively wrestling you know? I mean,
because the guys that have any kind of stroke at all,
John Cena, whatever seth Rawlins has garnered. I mean their
sideline is even Roman Rains. I mean, they're pushing him
at the top and I don't you know, you alluded

(02:07:16):
to it earlier wrestling iqwise, I don't know if he
has that kind of stroke. But yeah, guys know, they're
just not in a position where they can do much.

Speaker 1 (02:07:23):
I think some guys know. I think a surprising number don't.
That's probably true. Yeah, I mean I think there's some
people who've come up through the system and they grew
up watching the Monday Night War era where a bunch
where wrestling promoters got away with breaking a bunch of
rules that would not work in any other context other
than nWo Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rock, the adrenaline
rush of the Monday Night Wars, in the the coming

(02:07:46):
together of all these stars from a really hot era
territory era in the eighties having their last run on
top with any meaning, and all that came together. And
then what happened is a whole generation of people thought, well,
that's how you promote wrestling, not realize that a bunch
of things that they did that worked actually in some
cases created a headwind to drag down the product and

(02:08:06):
other cases will not work except in those very specific
late nineties circumstances that never before and perhaps never again
will present themselves. And so I think there's a group
of writers and a group of wrestlers who grew up
growing Well, it worked for Nitro, so let's do it.
Or hey, this would be a good angle like what
they did on XT last week, where we have a
heel referee come in and the network or the corporate

(02:08:28):
is sending this in and they're trying to you know,
the layer upon layer of being too smart for their
own good. In so complex, nobody feels any emotions by
the end type booking. I think there's a bunch of
people in that company, wrestlers included, who don't even know
what it means to be a wrestler who draws. Sometimes.
I think it's even multi generational wrestlers who have completely
lost touch with it. I don't know. I think there's

(02:08:50):
probably people watching that show going that was entertaining. We
got a laugh, we got it, this is awesome chance,
and if we didn't, it was one of those dead
crowds and they make excuses for it. Up next, he
says it's looking more and more like WW, we won't
let Daniel Bryan wrestle again. Could you see him ousting
the authority and being a babyface GM. He only gets
mentioned on Ron now as Brie's husband Jason. I don't
think Danny Briyann would be a good GM, in part

(02:09:13):
because Daniel Brian on TV as anything but an active
wrestler in the next four years is going to be
a bummer. Now when Danny Bryant's gray haired and old
and he's a nostalgia act and if on the merit
of being a good spokesman who can come out there
and give authoritative, well spoken rulings on occasion on a show.

(02:09:34):
If he can do that, then do that. I don't
think that's his personality. I don't think he seems like
somebody who likes, you know, being confrontational and setting rules
and all that kind of I just don't think it's
his personality. But even if it was, I think he's
got to take four or five years off because seeing
him is a bummer, because people want to see him wrestle,
not stand there and talk. I think that's been the
case with other people who played GM before too.

Speaker 2 (02:09:55):
We saw him as the guest GM for that one
show and he was terrible mo work into that. So
I know, let's just have a neutral authority figure. And
I'm not saying Brian couldn't be there, but he just
I just wanted to be some stuff suit type like
Jack Tunny was back in the day, and I just, yeah,
I don't need it to be some celebrity, my wrestling

(02:10:16):
standards authority figure.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
I'm with you all right. Up next to Nelson for
the Bronx says he's a VIP member and dot net subscriber.
Have two quick Questions number one, Am I the only
one who thinks that Roman range is going to get
screwed for the million at the time at the TLC
pay per view event, the league nations are going to
interfere and cost Romani's chance to win the belt If
that happens, is this going to cost Roman credibility to
be the baby face or the excuse me, the face
of WWE and a believable champion down the road? This

(02:10:42):
is screaming Lex Lugar two point zero to me. Question
number two, what do you guys think about ww ME
network ADDINGWA Mid South Smoking Mountain shows? I'm thrilled, but
my complaints are that the shows need to be in
order and how about adding a WA shows? Thanks keep
up the great WORKQ and the staff always do take
either of those in either order, Roman getting screwed or
the network nditions of the lack of AWA.

Speaker 2 (02:11:02):
Roman getting screwed. Initially I thought he'd win it at TLC,
and now I do think they're gonna wait until the Rumble.
I think you'll see the Wrestlemanni Maine events that at
the Rumble itself. I do think there's a screw job
there at TLC and then the other one. They should
be in order there. I don't know why, if there's
something where they're missing some shows or whatever, but if

(02:11:24):
there's any way to put them in order, I certainly
hope they do. And I also hope that they have
access to some of the good AWA stuff. I just
don't know that they do.

Speaker 1 (02:11:33):
Wait, yeah, I mean the AWA from eighty eighty. I
mean really, I mean, the peak of the AWA product
would have been earlier, but it's so out of touch
with what today's product is. The context of the show
start to finish, what would feel weird. I think that
I think Mid South and the TBSWW show age better

(02:11:54):
than the AWA does, even though the WA would have
some great context because the ABA TV shows were they were,
they were different. It was a monopoly and with squash
matches in great promos, so in a way, I'm not
even sure there's that much episodicness of the A W A.
And by the time they went to the showboat, you know,
and it was Larry Nelson jumping up and down with
the match in the ring, and you know, eventually Jam
and Mitch snow. I mean, I don't know, I mean,

(02:12:17):
I'm not really sure what AWA content that actually was
saved to videotape is all that good, you know. Unlike
Mid South and WNWA World Champion Wrestling, the AWA had
peaked and started to fizzle by the time the mid
eighties kind of territorial national syndication boom took place the ESPN.

(02:12:37):
The ESPN AWA shows were never even from AWA fan perspective.
It showed that people really were all that excited about
But yeah, show should be in order. I mean, come on,
that's that just should be a given. That's ridiculous If
they're not, give yourself a reason to look forward to
going to the mailbox each week with a PW Torch
newsletter paper copy subscription detail at PW torch dot com

(02:13:01):
slash paper Copy. It's twelve pages every week, packed with
my TV reports, along with exclusive features such as my
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pay per view roundtable reviews from the Torch staff, exclusive
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Alan Coonahan, and Zach Haydorn, Torch Talk transcripts, the latest news,

(02:13:22):
and more. PW torch dot com slash paper Copy. Take
a break from screen time and settle in every week
with a megadosup wrestling news and analysis with a Pro
Wrestling Torch newsletter paper copy edition. In the year twenty
twenty two, you can get a full year of home
delivery for just ninety nine dollars, or try US four

(02:13:42):
an eight week trial subscription pw torch dot Com slash
paper copy Roman. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, honestly,
I thought there was a chance for who was gonna
win the belt last night. I thought, Vincent, did you shot?
So I'm I'm not I would be just purely guessing
at this point, and I'm glad. I mean, I don't
want to know, and I'm not even sure there's a

(02:14:03):
one right way to do it. You know, there's multiple
ways they can do it, and each of those ways
has a chance to work or not work based on
other factors. I don't think you can just lay your
foot on a go. They cannot have it, win it
until the rumble, or he must win it at this time.
That's not like the top three factor of whether it
works or not right now.

Speaker 2 (02:14:20):
I just say, I just see them going through the
trouble of putting this faction together, and that's what makes
me feel like, yeah, you know, I don't know they're
going to take it away from him thirteen days later
after just assembling this faction. You know, he's probably premature
at the rumble if you really had any belief in Shamus.
But I don't think they do.

Speaker 1 (02:14:34):
I meant to mention this earlier. I want to say
right now, please WW and I wish this was on
the live cast because more people would hear that from WWE.
But please don't let Wade Barrett take off his crown
in his cape and throw it on the ground and
stomp on it and go, I am not King Barrett.
That is a gimmick. I am Wade Barrett, and I'm here,
you know, like, I don't want to have one of those.
You know TNA was famous for that, you know. Delo

(02:14:56):
Brown shows up, He's like, oh, I'm tired of the
writers tell holding me back, and I'm tired of being
held back, and I'm tired of being told what to
say and read. I don't want any of that stupid crap.
Wade Barrett, if he wants to come out, he can
be King Barret, or he cannot be King Barret. He
can wear the crown he cannot be the Crown. That's
not He's not gonna get himself over. And I mean, yes,
there's gonna be some people like, oh my god, that
was a shoot. I can't believe Wade Barrett just broke script.

(02:15:19):
Oh yeah, yay, he said bad things about the King gimmick.
Now I'm into WWE again. There's gonna be some people
like that. But it's pandering and it's not the answer.
The answer for Wade Barrett, King or Wade. The version
of King or Wade is Channel. The Nexus version of
Wade Barrett act like an alpha, not a guy who's
worried about sneeze into the wrong direction and getting fired,

(02:15:40):
or who's winding down his career after losing hope and
faith and his spirit being broken. Be that hungry Nexus
guy where the world was his oyster and he was
going to take over that. He was going to take
over the wrestling of the straight. Channel that guy and
show up as him, with or without the King gimmick.
I don't care.

Speaker 2 (02:15:58):
Yeah, I don't need an explanation.

Speaker 1 (02:16:00):
Right, Oh that's exactly it. Yeah, just to show up.
We don't need these awkward transitions. Just start doing the
right thing, you know, if you're in a relationship and
you've been an asshole and you decide I'm not going
to be don't give a long speech about how you're
not going to be anymore. Just do it and have
it be noticed in three or four weeks from now
where someone goes, oh wow, this is cool. You know
he or she didn't just tell me that she was

(02:16:22):
going to be better, but she actually has been. Oh okay,
there's a track recorder like that's what I want to
see from WWE. The's hotshot. You know, we're gonna reset
the show and take a week off and come back,
and we're gonna know, save the speech. Just do a
good job next week and then the week after and
the week after in the week after, and that's what
we'll build an audience up. David from West Virginia. As

(02:16:42):
I was watching last night's Raw and the whole five
to fifteen stipulation, it done on me. It might be
cool to see Dean, Ambros and the ussos rush the ring.
At the five minute mark, Dean hits Roman, get Seamus DQ,
and then the League of Nations hits a ring to
aid Seamus. Dean explains that they had to do that
they had to do it as a last resort to
keep their own title matches. You could still have the
same postmatch promo, the intro of the league, and main event,

(02:17:04):
but i'lso give a few more options as the story
goes with Dean that hustle's in Roman too complicated. Yes,
I don't like it at all, Jason.

Speaker 2 (02:17:10):
Yeah, I mean I think they accomplished whatever it was
they needed to. I thought it was a little complicated
last night, but once they explained it was okay. So
it just seems like a little too much trouble to
get to the same place.

Speaker 1 (02:17:22):
Yeah, and yeah, I don't like somebody hitting somebody who
isn't trying to hurt them, but it's just trying to
in a convoluted way. State to me, that's a storyline
that's chasing a bad concept and making it perhaps worse
in a convoluted attempt to explain something that's unexplainable. Just
as what I just said was so, yeah, I was.

(02:17:43):
I was actually just fine with what they did. I mean,
I don't I think what they did is better than
this in the sense that that it gave Roman a win.
Because also, you don't want to spend the Dean Ambrose
turning on Roman card right now, even if it's a
fake out, like you just you don't want to do
the dry wrong. It's it's like it's like Bruce complains
about Shield Reunion, you know, it's like, save that for
when you're really going to do it and accounts, right,

(02:18:05):
not because you're you're insecure and panicked over your own
crap booking that's led to dropping ratings and you're trying
to hotshot. So yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying,
but I think the fact that you know, David came
up with something that like that is more an indictment
of the booking situation and the STIPs that they presented
in the first place. Brian twenty fere pros and toward subscriber, says, hello, friends,

(02:18:26):
what would you do with a character of Becky Lynch?
She's at least No. One of the four horse women
and hasn't had any character development. She had losses the
page Sasha and Charlotte. Would you turn her heels, stay
face or lurk in the middle as a solo act?

Speaker 2 (02:18:38):
Jason, Well, at this point, she looks like she's the
only babyface other than Natalia, you're a mid list.

Speaker 1 (02:18:47):
You're kind of lamenting the lack of baby faces.

Speaker 2 (02:18:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's well, I'm guessing they're setting up a
triple thread because I think they realize there's nothing with
Paige and Charlotte. It's just kind of damaged on a
number of levels. And so I but the whole idea
of turning Charlotte, I mean, they've they've screwed themselves with it.
I'm just kind of at that point where it's like,

(02:19:09):
you know, I don't think this is the right move.
I wouldn't have thought this was the right approach to
take with Charlotte, but you've screwed it up so badly
that you know, what, go ahead. Maybe they're setting up
things up for Bailey to come in, is what I'm wondering,
or Sasha to turn by the way, team bad. That
the whole unity thing too cute to stop being the

(02:19:31):
you know, it's like, are you the female New Day now?
Just just don't But yeah, I Becky Lynch, we don't
know her. You know, she kind of she was a
sidekick in a lot of ways throughout most of her
NXT run and she just started, you know, she had
that very memorable match at NXT and then she got
called up probably I think sooner than most people expect.

(02:19:53):
I think they would have thought Bailey would have come
up first, and so we don't know much about her.
I think she does have the potential to be a
good baby face. I'm hoping she's not going to be
like the lackey for you know, the sidekick like she's
been for Charlotte as a heel, or for Page as
a heel or whatever the heck Page is supposed to be,
because maybe she's been right all along other than the
Red Flair comment. God only knows. But yeah, they need

(02:20:18):
to just establish her personality. They need babyfaces, so I
should go babyface with her.

Speaker 1 (02:20:22):
Yeah, I just I think she's fine where. I think
she's fine where she is. I don't think you can
establish everybody at once as a top, top level dive.
I talked on the Color Hunting yesterday about what I
think they could have done differently with the with the
Divas segment, just to enhance what they were trying to
do with Charlotte and Becky. But yeah, I mean Becky
just can you know they kind of have her pegged

(02:20:44):
as a little bit of a free spirit. I guess
Page thinks she's not as good good of a girl
as as she claims. I mean, there's some seeds planted there,
but she's not the primary focus right now of what
they're doing. And I don't think she's going to be
anytime super soon. So I think she's kind of, you know, fine,
being in the mix, having some good matches, but not

(02:21:05):
quite being at the top level yet. And then when
the time is right, elevate her or sent her away
for a couple months annexet so she comes back kind
of fresh. Okay, I don't have I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (02:21:16):
Baron Corben just worked a dark match this SmackDown taping,
so for whatever that's worked that I sneaked out.

Speaker 1 (02:21:21):
Now somebody held up a sign on ROS saying call
it Baron Corbyn. So Vince is listening. I was on
raw That's what did Yeah, Vince like, Oh listen to
the fans all right. Stephen VERTZVTPM ever Glasgow, Scotland says,
I emailed roughly six months ago asking whether you thought
that Seamus was the type of superstar w W would
continually try to push until something stuck with him, similar
to Triple H in the late nineties. I'm sure Hunter

(02:21:42):
loves you for that.

Speaker 15 (02:21:43):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:21:43):
There have been mitigating circumstances that have led to Seamous
winning the title. Do you believe that this is indicative
of such a notion regarding him? Given that the tournament
could have easily elevated a new talent to made event status,
Vince appear to be more comfortable with the typical WWE
prototype superstar. It's by Chamous never being able to get
over as a top talent despite multiple world title reigns,
the roll rome for victories and a King of the
Ring winner. Jason, I think Seamus happened to be Money

(02:22:04):
of the Bank winner. He's big and strong and has
the resume of being a former champ, and he thought
he's good fodder as a bridge to get me to
rumble season for Rains to fight. And I think pushing
somebody new just did did Vince Fiad didn't think there
was enough time to do it, or give them their
just due or get them over. So no, I don't

(02:22:27):
think this was like, oh, finally we have we have
the room to push Seamus the way we want. I
think it was more circumstantial.

Speaker 2 (02:22:32):
I do too, bench like Seamus, but I mean we
saw what was happening with I mean, he was teaming
with with Wade Barrett. They had nothing going with either
one of those guys. And I don't even think he
was the plan. Everything I've heard, he wasn't even supposed
to win money in the bank. It's just Bench decided
that giving it to Rains was too predictable and made
a last second change there too. So I mean, I

(02:22:52):
guess you can look at that is. But to keep
going back to him, I mean, I think they'll try to.
He's not going away or anything like that, but I
think that once this run is over, they're going to
have a very difficult time keeping him near the top
of the cart. I just there's something missing there, and
right now, I think it's the approach. I think somebody
mentioned it earlier and I feel the same way, go

(02:23:13):
straight forward with him as just an ass kicking type.
He's not a comedy guy, and until they figure that out,
I just don't think Seamus is going to get over.

Speaker 1 (02:23:22):
And ask kick a guy who is so full of himself.
You hope Roman's tougher than him. And in the end,
if they're going to commit to Roman, have him get
a victory over somebody who counts, which is an ass kicking, badass, intimidating.
Oh crap, he's better than we thought he was, shamous
and then Rains wins in the end. That's better than
gyrating comedy.

Speaker 2 (02:23:42):
Well, and I want this guy to be gloating right
now as he is, but not pointing out things that
like Rains has no comeback for, but just taking credit
for something that he didn't really accomplish, like, you know,
making it seem like this match proved he was the
best in the world, and we're not getting that, you know.
It's just now he's out there being your usual WWE
seth Rollins type heel where they just they won't give

(02:24:05):
the they won't make the heels too strong. They always
have to have this uh just almost it's just a
I'm strong for the word, but they don't want it.
It's like they don't want them to be Rock Lesner
and there can only be one Brock. I get that,
but they just shouldn't always be that chicken bleep type heel,
which is what he came across to me as last night.

Speaker 1 (02:24:28):
Yes, okay, Steven also wants to know there have been
rumors of an inminute announcement regarding a working relationship between
p WG and r H. Do you have any information
on this? He also wants to know about the latest
on rh contracts. I will just point him to your
Dottinet Weekly from last week, which you plugged earlier in
the live cast.

Speaker 2 (02:24:44):
You'll find your answers to both in there. PWG and
the contracts. Absolutely all right? Cool.

Speaker 1 (02:24:48):
So we're just so short on time. I want to
get to the last the last email that I marked here.
Brian says, I think we all agree Evan Marie is
not the greatest worker in the world. However, throughout rustling
history there have been great characters who drew money, especially
as heels, who are not great workers. I would argue
she has more heel heat than anyone in WWE, and
people woul buy tickets to see her potentially lose the
NXT title. The money is in the chase, after all.

(02:25:11):
What are your thoughts, Jason explain for people not watching
NXT what they're doing with Eva Marie and how much
of it is based upon what actually they they did
on Wednesday show last week, which is just overtly saying well,
we're just gonna own it. Yeah, she's management's choice because
she's beautiful, she has a reality TV exposure, and so

(02:25:32):
management wants her to be champions, so she's gonna get
opportunities somebody else wouldn't get. Is that do you have
to watch wrestling on the level of knowing that like
that kind of politics goes on. Or is she a
traditional heel in the sense of somebody who doesn't know
all that stuff just also would watch the push he's
gotten in t an NXT and say, oh, I just

(02:25:52):
want to see her lose.

Speaker 2 (02:25:53):
Right push right promotion. I think if you brought her
up to the main roster, those same NXT bands would
be all over her right now. But I don't, you know,
I don't think she'd click on the main roster nearly
as much as she is as much, you know, as
far as the keat goes, as far as her being champion.
I you know, if it's a quick thing, okay, I

(02:26:15):
don't want to see it. I really like what they've
established with NXT and just how great some of these
workers are. But I you know, I mean it works
because those fans know how awful she is, and they're
not afraid to call her on it. I just say,
do what you're gonna do at NXT. I would give
up on the idea of her being a wrestler. She
is terrible at it, and I would make her a valet.

(02:26:37):
I don't know why they feel like every woman needs
to wrestle. I don't think they did Maria Knelis any
favors back in the day by by putting her into
that role when she was doing just fine as a
non wrestler. And even Maria's just shown no in ring ability.
Someone is going to get hurt if she doesn't improve.
So stop. If you can have her, you know, you
can take advantage of her deeve total divas and her

(02:26:58):
beauty and all that by may her a ballet with
the right person.

Speaker 1 (02:27:02):
Is her gimmick though she's terrible and everybody knows it.
But she's sleeping with the boss or the boss has
a hot sport like. Is that what they're trying to
communicate to everybody.

Speaker 2 (02:27:13):
I don't know, you know, it is.

Speaker 1 (02:27:15):
Her gimmick, not that she's that bad.

Speaker 2 (02:27:17):
I think it's kind of a read between the lines thing. Yeah,
I mean it's I don't think that's what they're trying
to establish that she's sleeping with the boss. I just
think it's they know that NXT crowd is going to
be all over her, and they don't really have to
come up with the reason. They just kind of put
her out there and let them do their thing.

Speaker 1 (02:27:37):
Yeah yeah, did you watch last Wednesday show?

Speaker 2 (02:27:40):
That's the thing I mean, and that episode behind just
because of the holiday animals.

Speaker 1 (02:27:44):
Yeah. Yeah, Well we'll talk about that next week. I'm
guess what the follow up is on that too, Jason.
I went twice as long as I planned. I don't
know why you do this to me, no matter what
my plan. I'm blaming you because I'm exhausted and two
and a half hours of ranting and ray and trying
to be fair and constructive at the same time. I
hope on some level I've succeeded. I thank the callers,

(02:28:06):
I thank our emailers. Good range of topics for Tuesday,
with the topics that are out there right now. Jason,
thank you as always, my pleasure. All right, thanks very
ready for joining us. Thanks of course dot net members
and VIP members for listening to this part of the
live cast live if you missed it earlier. Just a

(02:28:33):
reminder we're running our second VIP sale of the year.
We don't do these often, take advantage of it now.
It is a limited time offer. Take nine dollars off
a VIP subscription a one month, three month, or one
year sub It brings the one month sub down to
just three dollars in ninety nine cents. The coupon code
is n O V twenty twenty five as in November
Nov twenty twenty five, and that takes nine dollars off.

(02:28:55):
When you check out on our sign up form PW
torch dot com slash go VP gives you full details
on membership benefits and links to our signup form. Invite
you to email the show with feedback or questions or comments.
That email address is Wadekeller Podcast at petwtorch dot com.
That's Wadekeller Podcast at PW toorch dot com. Also welcome

(02:29:16):
your feedback on Twitter. You can follow us on Twitter
at PW Torch and follow me at the Wadekeller That's
at PW Torch and at the Wade Keller.

Speaker 2 (02:29:27):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me.
Jason Powell host them the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom
podcast each week, he'll hear the latest news and analysis
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 Itunestitcher, downcast, and

(02:29:49):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 1 (02:29:58):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:29:59):
Did do you know?

Speaker 1 (02:30:00):
We also have a website PW toorch dot com. Daily
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day to keep up on breaking news and more. That's
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Speaker 12 (02:30:22):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts?
Will come join me Alan forel Over in the Progress
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or Mexico. There's always a place for wrestlings past and

(02:30:43):
the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows such
as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious career
of Jusian thunder Lighter and our I Was There When
shows where our guests will join me to talk about
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love variety and you expect lots of it at the
Progress Paradise. Detailed PW tors VIP subscription information on a

(02:31:06):
list of all the VIP benefits is available at PW
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or you can stream them directly from our ad free
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Speaker 1 (02:31:25):
One way that you can help us sustain our schedule
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Speaker 18 (02:32:02):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 19 (02:32:18):
Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT Talks
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the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
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Speaker 1 (02:32:31):
A PW Torch VIP membership doesn't just give you add
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(02:32:55):
top newsmakers in the nineties, and also our podcast library
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(02:33:18):
and special format podcasts that we've done throughout the years.
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