15 YRS AGO: Keller & Hoops talk Linda McMahon's Senate campaign, Jeff Hardy heel turn, Samoa Joe's TNA standing, WWE layoffs in 1995

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:06):
Now PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Fifteen years ago. This week, p W Torch nostalgia specialist
Brian Hoops joined me and we talked about a wide
array of topics with live callers, including the latest on
Linda McMahon's Senate campaign, Jeff Hardy's heel turn, where TNA
storylines were going starting on Thursday's Impact, Simojoe's standing in TNA,
WWE's week house show draw over the weekend, and why
they didn't draw on a major region like Los Angeles

(01:37):
Orange County. Plus, Patmaneil joined the show and gave his
event center with an update on what was coming up.
In the previously VIP exclusive after Joe portion of the show,
we talked more about TNA storylines, where Fortune fits in
with Team Hogan, Plus to twenty years ago Torch Newsletter
look back at WWF layouts that would be now thirty
five years ago, and covered over the other topics in

(01:59):
the VP after show too. This originally live streamed on
October thirteenth, twenty ten, and it is today's Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast Fifteen years Ago Flashback four Thursday, October sixteenth,
twenty twenty five. Well Go do PW Torch Live cab
i Am Pro Wrestling, Torch Newsletter editor and PW Torch

(02:19):
dot Com editor Wade Keller joined today by Torch nostalgia
specialist Ryan Hoops. How you doing, Brian, I'm.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Doing great, Wade, how about yourself today?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm doing real good. Just actually posted thirty seconds ago
the latest twenty years ago back issue of the Pro
Wrestling Torch newsletter for VIP members, and it includes me
in nineteen ninety October eighteenth to nineteen ninety cover story
my open letter or an editorial to WDWE is saying that

(02:49):
Brett Hart is the answer to their problems and that
they should take this mid card intercontinental tag team champion
wrestler who was undersized and undermuscled, and I made my
case why he would be a great world champion, So
Brett can send me the royalty checks for the great
career that he had, because that was a kind of
an outside the box thought in late nineteen ninety. This

(03:10):
was that the you know, this is during a time
when WWE was having some problems, and I believed that
Brett Hart was a better choice than Ultimate Warrior, who
was Vince's choice at the time for reasons you could
probably guess. So that's one of the headlines in this
week's twenty week twenty years Ago newsletter. Brian, We're going
to talk about this in the VIP after show, including
the headline story that week, Rick Rude quitting WWF, also

(03:33):
the second headline WWF Superstar Layoffs. Also headline number three,
Hulk Cogan's future in WWF questionable. Plus Bobby Heenet visits
WSW and the front office of philew And we'll also
talk about the Greensboro Coliseum World Champion Wrestling show on
October fifth. We had a live event report on that
and quite a bit more. If you are a VIP member,

(03:55):
you cannot download the PDF of that newsletter in its
original format. This hasn't been read or published for twenty years,
and you can see it online today for the first time,
all every page of the issue, with all the news
and editorials. And that's just one of many, many hundreds
of back issues that are now available for kW Torch
VIP members. So anyway, due to the timeliness of me

(04:17):
having just posted it, I thought it opened the show
with that quick plug.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
I wanted a pretty pretty neat pronostification. There were way
anything else for anybody else named Brett coming up here
in the near future.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
It wasn't a prognostication, it was a recommendation. I wasn't
predicting Vince would do it. I was predicting Vince wouldn't
do it, but I made my case for why he should.
And after Hogan and Warrior left and the stereoid scandal began,
there was Brett Hart. So it hasn't It's not like
a new thing, Brian for me to push for maybe
WW to push smaller athletic guys and maybe bring in,
you know, some fans and stave off some of the

(04:52):
negativity that Richard Blumenthal through at Linda mcmahn yesterday. Some
pretty amazing quotes in the debate yesterday. Have you been
following the back and forth of the debate and that
that political scene, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I've been watching it real close. I haven't actually seen
a lot of the debates themselves, but reading up on
it in the Torch afterwards, in James's wrap ups. So
you haven't been following as much as much as they can.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Well, a couple couple quotes that I think are worth
uh mentioning on on MSNBC on The Dilegant Dilegan, the
Dylan Radikin show, he portrayed the debate. I saw part
of the debate last night live, but not all of it.
But he said it was so contentious moderators had to
repeatedly step into control the crowd's booing and hissing. Here's why.

(05:36):
Then they threw to a quote from Blumenthal. This is
the Democratic opponent for the open US Senate See that
was that was vacated by Chris Dodd, longtime senator from Connecticut.
Bluementhal in last night's debates said he requires all wrestlers
to sign a death clause that absolves w WE of
all responsibility if wrestlers are killed in the ring and

(05:58):
if the company is at fault. They jumped ahead a
little tim saying there have been seven dead wrestlers since
she started campaigning for this office, and I would advise
some other policy might be advisable. An analyst after that
on MSNBC said she can't even say steroids are harmful
to your health because of legal liabilities. She's kind of
boxed in. They're not letting people anywhere near the campaign.

(06:18):
It's hard to take it into the realm of policy
when she's already made a mockery of her own campaign.
Then later, this was a few minutes ago on MSNBAC
live on the Chris Matthews show, blumen Thal was shown saying,
my opponent has not only marketed sex and violence to children,
but she actually paid hundreds of millions of dollars to
lobby in Washington against penalties for sex and violence marketing

(06:39):
to children. Then they aired a clip from Linda responding,
I think it's insulting to the millions of people who
watch WWE every week and are entertained by it to
suggest it's less than quality entertainment. Now, at this point,
the crowd started laughing, because you know, people who don't
watch wrestling don't get it, or they see it for
They see it for what it is and laugh at it.
We see it for what it is and enjoy it.

(07:00):
But Linda actually broke a little grin too, I think
when the crowd started laughing, and then she touted the
health and Wellness policy. Well, Blumenthal fired back, the wellness
policy isn't working too well. There had been seven dead resolutions.
She started campaigning for office well. In response to those clips,
Chris Matthews, who's a political junkie he hosts Hardball on MSNBC,
leans left of center. He said, what a choice, where

(07:22):
do you go to vote somewhere else? Can we vote
for Chris dot again talking about quality, sex and violence,
and he starts laughing, talk about a lack of shame.
These people are a piece of work. And he's saying
that about bloominhal too, because Bloomin Chris Matthews is really
upset with for having said that he served in Vietnam
when he did not serve in Vietnam. He served during Vietnam,

(07:42):
but he didn't go there in Bloomenthal once overtly said
he did, and multiple times kind of implied he was
part of that era in a stronger way than he was.
A couple analysts responded, there are major questions about the
way she's run her firm, and I don't think it
was out of bounds for her to bring up what
she did about that, and then the second adelist said, yes,
she is a terrible person in terms of a person

(08:03):
who should be running government. Obviously, her previous history with
WWE gives her no right to assert that. So I
was waiting Brian for this to heat up, for the
mainstream media to pick up on this, And it's not
that it's stealing headlines from the Tom Broca debate. Yesterday
with Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown in California. But it's
the second political headline of the day. They're going at it.

(08:26):
And I bring up the Brett Hart headline in part
because when you look at the debate and the heat
WWE is taking, Brett Hart was not part of what
WWE or what Linna mcmn is getting criticized right now.
He was in sex and he wasn't violence. That's not
what his character is known for. It was excellence of execution.
It was technical wrestling, and that's part of the case

(08:46):
that I made twenty years ago in the Torch newsletter.
And had they stuck with that, stayed away from the
Ultimate Warriors steroid muscle physique, you know, the action figure
bulked up physiques, had they stayed away from Mark Henry
being the sexual chocolate and stayed away from Edge and
Leda with their celebration, and stayed away from you know,

(09:07):
May Young giving birth and stayed away from obviously Katie Vick.
I just think Linda would be much stronger standing out
there right now defending her company and her track record.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Well, I totally agree with you on that, and I'm
a little surprised Bluenthal didn't bring up more of this
independent contractor status. I think that's one thing he could
really point towards. Linna McMahon had a direct control over
her company, how she ran it, and this one is
you know, obviously the debate is still ongoing and the
investigation is but you know, this is an area that

(09:38):
could really have a black eye to her campaign if
it was exploited. And I just think that Blumenthal has
not really done a good job of that of bringing
that to attention to the national media.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
You can support us on Patreon and get these shows
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(10:13):
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other tiers and receive even more benefits through Patreon. And
what's disappointing too, And that's a good point, and I
think in general anytime a serious issue is brought up.
And you know, we can look at the seven wrestlers
that Blumenthal is referring to and probably find that some
of them have no relation to WWE directly. But that

(10:34):
gets into the discussion that we've had here for a
long time on this show and in the Torch newsletter
and website over the years. At you know, WWE is
a leader of the industry. I mean, they do set
the tone for what do you need to do in
order to get their attention? What do you need to
do in order to be taken seriously? Even if you're
not in WWE, how do you get taken seriously? What
is a wrestler? What defines a wrestler? WWE sets that

(10:56):
and had WWE spent the last twenty years pushing people
more like Brett Hart more often at the top and
not defaulted to you know, and to some of them
are really talented, big muscular guys, but pushing that aspect
of it and the sex and violence aspect of it.
I think that ultimately they'd be in a better position.

(11:18):
But what frustrates me is that is that the mainstream
media is again and they get criticized us all the time.
MSIBC is guilty of it. A lot of people are
guilty of it, talking about the horse race and talking
about the tid for tatnity bait. But now looking at
the issue, nobody's sitting here saying, wait, is that true?
Have seven wrestlers really died since lend us started this campaign?

(11:38):
And then dissect the numbers and go, wait a second,
Blumenthal's playing fast and loose with the numbers. You know,
four of them were in their nineties, one of them
died in a car accident, and two of them, you know,
like two of them haven't worked for them for fifteen
years or never did, like break down the numbers. I mean,
the media doesn't seem to care whether what Blumenthal said
is true or not. I invite them to investigate it
and report on it and then decide is that something

(12:00):
Linda's culpable for or not. But I do think the
death clause in the contract is a good thing to
bring up. The independent contractor status has been brought up.
But I think from a political standpoint, perhaps they've found
people's eyes glazed over in terms of the swing voters
when they start getting into the minutia about you know,
tax law and and and the wrestlers, and so maybe
the death clauses, maybe it jumps out a little bit

(12:22):
more at people than you know, trying to avoid Social
Security taxes and not wanting to pay you know, medical
insurance by making them employees.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, you know, I think you're probably right as far
as their eyes glazing over or getting just too much
of it. It's it's hard, I think, to draw a
contradiction with the seven deaths in pro wrestling that we've
had since since she started her campaign, because, like you said,
some of them have been a little bit older guys.
None of them have been under a direct contact or
contract at the time of their death. But you know,

(12:52):
if you pointed a little bit more focus on the
independent contractors sets, that's something Linda has had direct control
over as president of the company and something she said
she has been able to foresee or oversee, and if
they've been in violation, you know that certainly would question
her ability to run a company or a state in
this case.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yep. Yeah, Well, Brian, let's go ahead and shift the
phone calls. We've got six people on hold already. If
you want to get in line to join today's show.
You can call six four six seven nine A two
wait if you want to sign up for a VIP
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(13:33):
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(13:53):
up for this week's newsletter. Brian, your column is in there,
Looking at the hacksa Jim Duggan KFA commentary d and
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Torch staff on Sunday's Bound for Glory, my cover story
looking at the pros and cons of some of the
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(14:16):
Page two Buzz with Jason Powell, columns from Greg Parks
looking at who won and who lost based on all
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of coverage of Sundays Bound for Glory in this week's
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available and tons more, including the VIP after show. After
most editions of this PW Torch live cast exclusively for

(14:38):
VIP members, go to our first phone call today area
code two eight one. Thanks for colling. Please state to
your name and where you're from.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
Hey, way, how you doing?

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Doing great?

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Good?

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Here for me again, Jay, I'll tend your mind all right.

Speaker 5 (14:52):
I want to talk a lot of DNA.

Speaker 6 (14:54):
You know.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
I heard that Nash and Sting the Leason yay he
got the part side. Yeah, I'll need years ago.

Speaker 7 (15:08):
I want to just talk about from show I heard
here uh back audio that Joe was always getting like
five hundred or seven fifty a show, and I was wanting,
is he still getting low ball like that?

Speaker 4 (15:21):
I mean, being a former world champion and the former
made part of guys are making one in here.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Joe was quite underpaid at the beginning that the TNA
had worked on a per show basis. I think Joe
has the ten A. Contracts differ for different talent because
some of them are are house show heavy, you know,
you get paid per match. Some of them get paid
kind of a flat fee with a minimum or a
maximum number of house show dates they can work that
TNA can ask them to work for their flat feet.

(15:49):
I don't know Joe's current salary, but I'm I'm quite
confident in thinking that Sampunk has lapped him. Now a
couple of times that comparison is brought up just because
they came up together and Ring of Bonnor a few
and shut it against one another has some match of
your candidates, some great matches. And then they ran at
a crossroads at the same time, and Punk chose to
sign with WWE and go through to their developmental system.

(16:11):
Joe signed with TNA, thinking maybe his body type wasn't
what ww look for. They'd give him a corny, some
Owen gimmick, and thought T and A is placed where
maybe he'll get a push, a better push sooner and
be able to show off what he does better, and
at first it looked like he made the right choice.
You know, Punk was stuck in developmental. It's kind of
a thin guy relative to WWE standards, not super tall,

(16:33):
didn't really have any singular attribute that would make you
think he's going to join the million Dollar Club and
SAMO Joe. Unfortunately, since then, though, has had kind of
an up and down push. Some of it is his
own doings, a lot of it isn't and and Punk
has certainly emerged now and and being traded to Raw
is a I think a big boost for him too.
I think I think that should be considered a promotion. So,

(16:55):
you know, what's Joe making right now? I mean he's
he's in TNA, he's making figures, but I don't know
that he's making well into the six figures like Seampunk
is now. And it's unfortunate because I still stand behind
the idea that Joe's different and and and the type
of person who have pushed in the right way can

(17:15):
draw Brian Joe. I mean, I don't want to say
that Joe's a throwback because some of what he does
is is is very you know, very modern style wrestling.
But he does harken back to the day when there
were so many different body types in wrestling, not everybody.
I mean, if you chopped the heads off of all
the wrestlers, and you know, if you photoshop the heads
off of all the wrestlers to put it less violently,

(17:37):
and you looked at all and lined up all their bodies,
I mean it's there's not a huge range of variation,
with the exception of a few outliers, you know, raymus
Berry or Orange Woggle, Big Show now Husky Harris, you know,
is a positive, but there's not a lot of variation.
And I would say there was way more variation and
body type without anyone thinking twice about it twenty twenty five,

(17:57):
thirty years ago.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think that's one three. Then why wrestling was more
popular back in the nostalgia territorial type system was because
he had a variety of different guys. You know, if
you if you had some promotion that you followed, and
you know, they brought in a different guy, he generally
would have some sort of different body type. You know,
to back in the day, these guys like Crush of
Lezowski or mad Dog Mishan and Jerry Blackwell, it didn't

(18:21):
matter their body types, those guys got over because of
who they were and how they cut promos and how
they wrestled. Today, a lot of those guys wouldn't be
given a chance. You know, mad Dog would be too short,
Blackwell's too fat, and Crusher doesn't have the right body type.
But those were major stars back in the glory period
of wrestling, you know, Yeah, You're right, Joe's kind of
a throwback in that respect. And you know, when Joe

(18:41):
made the decision to go to TNA, it was under
a different booking system of different book bookers. Entirely, he
you know, maybe was thinking that he would get a
different type of push, and I'm sure if he had
to do it over again, knowing how he would be
pushed and kind of this fifty to fifty booking where
no one gets over and pay per views are going
to be down, he may have made a different decision

(19:02):
and tried to break that mold of going to WW
and being a different body style than a lot of guys.
And I just really view that differences as a plus
and wrestling different promotions and so that you have different
styles of working, different guys that look different, wrestle different
as that variety is really I think what creates a

(19:22):
following or an interest in a wrestling basin that we're
really missing. We don't have those different promotions, we don't
have different territories. Everybody kind of wrestles the same style,
match looks the same, and so you don't have that
variety to keep fans interested because they're basically saying the
same thing on different TV shows, different nights, different pay
per views are all about the same.

Speaker 8 (19:49):
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Speaker 1 (20:36):
Jay anything else for us?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, yeah, with thousands, Joe.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
I believe that title ranks were kind of like, all right,
thet's still these guys a bone, Yeah, get the title rans.
I don't way they can say we can never appreciate talent.
And I think from here on out it's uh WW retirement.

Speaker 7 (20:53):
Club held on out.

Speaker 5 (20:55):
And I just want to know one more things. If
Joe Lee's when the contract is up and he goes
to the WW, how long do you think they would
punish him before they gave him an opportunity if they
ever did to work his way up to a world
title continue.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
You know, I don't think they would punish Joe because
Joe didn't leave, He didn't negotiate, He didn't negotiate in
a way that Chris Jericho did, you know, in terms
of well maybe ten as and option. Let me check
that out, you know, doing that as you know once
maybe twice. Mick Foley, you know, hey, Vince, I got
this contractor's what they're offering me? One last chance to
get me back old buddy Opal. You know, Christian you know,

(21:37):
goes to TNA, becomes world champion, wants to show that
he deserved a bigger push than he got. He comes
back to WWE, and a know one wants to kind
of see if he can he can achieve some of
the stuff that his buddy Edge has achieved. And vincemc
man looks at him and says, well, you know, he
doesn't say this out loud, but if I had to
read Vince's mind, I would guess that Vince is saying
one thing that I'm going to make sure Christian that

(21:58):
I do is proved that I was right all along.
And you're a mid carter, and and and and in
Vincent's mind, you know, it's he wants to prove that
he was right, not think, oh, you're a TNA World
champion and custom with great promos in TNA. You sure
showed me. Let me give you a bigger push now.
But what Joe doesn't have that situation. Joe did it.
It made a decision early in his career that I
don't think any that anyone in w W EV grudges

(22:19):
and and got a decent push in TNA. But I
think if if w WE got him rather than punished Joe,
I think they'd want to punish TNA by making Joe
a bigger star than TNA did. And and again he
doesn't fit the typical body type, so that works against him.
But but I think and and I'm sure they would
come up with a new name for him. You know,
it's Mojo is not the best name, by the way.

(22:40):
I mean, we all kind of accept it because we're
used to it. I remember the first time I saw
it back when he was a prelim guy in Ring
of Honor, uh starting to right through the rings, and
I just thought, well, that's a really bad name for someone.
Now he's just you know, he's Joe, He's Mojoe. We
don't think twice about it, but it's kind of I'm
sure WWE would make a pretty major change to him,
And I'm curious what they would do and what they
come up with. But I know, I don't think they'd

(23:01):
be punished. I don't think he'd be punished. I'm not
sure he'd move up in to the main event level,
But I think he's respected enough by his fellow wrestlers
that that, you know, Saampunk and a lot of the
guys who respect his work would would speak out in
his favor, and I think that would work in his favor.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
Yeah, With Kevin done there because I see all this
stuff like Kevin dunn is about Loox books, looks, and
then I hear it's so, you know, it's so funny
that he, of off people, would be so big on looks.
Do you think he would speak against Joe.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
I'm not sure that he would speak against Joe. I mean,
I'm kind of guessing here. Kevin Dunne has certain things
philosophically that I've heard over the years that I disagree with,
But I'm not sure that he is totally against having
a few different slots for a few different guys as
proven as Joe is. So I don't I can't say

(23:59):
that for sure. Haven't done work against m I got
plenty of problems with Kevin done, But I don't know
that he look at Joe and go now, we can't
push that guy. You know, his problem has a little bit.
I mean, he's got He brings some good things to
w W in terms of focus on the program, you know,
making sure that you know you only have two or
three things you focus on, and that you know eighty
percent of the show is focused on two or three items,
so that viewers by the end of the show remember
two or three things and the rest is just kind

(24:21):
of filler and support. So I grew that philosophically, and
I think he brings some good things to the table.
But when it comes to, you know, some of the bodies,
especially with the women, I think there's an overall a
philosophy in that company that that's pretty disturbing. But I
think there'd be a lot for Joe. All right, Jay,
thanks for call. We're gonna keep her all through calls here.
Appreciate it. I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon.
Let's go back to the phone line, Terry code nine
three one. Thanks for calling. Please state to your name

(24:42):
and where you're from.

Speaker 10 (24:44):
Hey, it's Insidency.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Hey, how are you doing? Good? Here for me? Good?

Speaker 10 (24:49):
You know you were plugging the VFP membership site. He
said that he didn't have a party for your twenty
third anniverse. Yeah, thinking it might have been a little
fun to tack on watching Bruce yell at everybody.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
To do what I'm sorry, just just the chance.

Speaker 10 (25:07):
For everybody to watch Bruce initial yell at everybody.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Oh yeah, by the way, I did.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
I listened to Monday Show start to finish today because
I had heard a decent amount of it on Monday,
But like I said, I was kind of scrambling before
Ron and Monday night football began to get situated. Yeah,
the final fifteen minutes, Bruce was Bruce was, I'm I'm
I commend James for keeping as cool as he did,
because Bruce was Bruce was on a roll and a
rant that whole show and kind of steam rolling. And

(25:34):
he started off on the VIP roundtable on Sunday night
right after the teen A pay per view with Pat
and me the same way. But yeah, that was that
was he was pretty overbearing. You know, James fought back,
which is good, but I wouldn't I would say that
maybe one third of that made for good radio and
two thirds of it was a little over the top.
But anyway, because we had a collar call from.

Speaker 10 (25:55):
Yeah yesterday, it kind of reminded me of an old
school saying that was I don't know the way he
was going. My my question was is can we get
a dick small bit of spoilers for SmackDown.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
It's a small bit now that you've given warnings, so
if people don't want to hear this, tune out for
thirty seconds.

Speaker 10 (26:14):
Okay, y well, I just read them and I saw
where Daval qualified for the bragging rights team, and then
out of know where, Tyler Rix challenged him and took
his place. I was wondering, did Raval do something because
Tyler Rix has been gone for months. Yeah, and he's

(26:36):
not really any good.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Yeah, I don't know, I have I you know, you
can bring up spoilers, but I haven't heard of anything
going wrong. And I did not read the spoilers because
I mean, anytime I can, unless it's just headline headline material.
I really think it's just like if you're a movie reviewer,
not knowing everything that happens ahead of time in a movie.
I kind of like to watch the show fresh. So
I can't speak to that, but it is it is

(27:00):
a question that we'll look into.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
He didn't even win as the match way to get
into the into the spot. He he lasted five minutes
with the big show and was about ready to lose,
but the time ran now, so he was kind of
awarded the last slot and uh, and then Tyler Rex
came out and beat him cleanly. So I don't know
that he did anything either to upset anybody, but you know,

(27:23):
it's sure not a very healthy way to push a
guy that I think has some potential in wrestling, and
certainly he's got a lot of a talent. A lot
of people thought so if he won the nxc A
season two.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, No, I mean, I you know, we talk about
things philosophically that I don't like about w W and
Kevin Dunne's really influential and the uh, the lack of
push for smaller guys or the way that smaller wrestlers
are treated and talked about. It's it's just it's really annoying.
I mean, it's it's bad for business. It's it's annoying
to watch. And you know, WWE should have a place
where they can push and protect smaller guys and they don't.

(27:57):
And I don't. I mean, Cavall is not an cavell
is bj Penn if you want him to be. And
it's just sad that WWE is quite out of touch
in that regard and doesn't get that mean anything else us.

Speaker 10 (28:10):
That's it, you guys, have.

Speaker 11 (28:11):
A good day.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Great, Thanks Ian.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Thanks Ian.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
All right, let's go to Eric co three one four.
Thanks for calling. Please state your name and where you're from.

Speaker 12 (28:20):
This is Dan from Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Hey, Dan, video for me. What's in your mind today?

Speaker 12 (28:25):
Not a whole lot. I just want to mention something
as far as this Bound for Glory show, was that
I don't know if Brian remembers it from four weeks ago,
that I called in and mentioned how I thought the
reason why they were to wane this whole tournament was
to give the delta Jeff Hardy in a way to
get around his whole, uh, you know, a drug drial
and hopefully.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Wait that out.

Speaker 12 (28:43):
And I just wanted to follow it up by saying
I didn't I didn't agree with that idea then, and
I even agree with that idea less right now with
the way they treated it.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Brian, any thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
What was it the idea to turn jet party heel
or to or or your idea on the tournament? I
can't remember that show.

Speaker 12 (29:03):
Oh sure, sure, I'll tell you. And it was basically
I thought that the reason why they were holding everything
off as far as who would give the belt to,
because it seemed weird that they made that tournament go
on for so long, and you know, to go for
two months and span two pay per views, and I
figured that was, you know, maybe the reason why they
were trying to get around that. I mean, you know,
in retrospect, it didn't really work out. I guess you
could say, yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
I didn't like how they you know, had planned to
do that all along. They took the belt off RVD
because they had to have a champion representing TNA, and
then they held off well, in fact, they did the
first round the tournament the next TV. Taving did that
right away, then held off any final matches or anything
the finals until RVD actually comes back from injury. So
it just didn't accomplish anything. And you know, they just

(29:48):
it's kind of classic Russo booking. They just don't treat
that belt or any of their title belts as anything
more than just a prop. You know, look what they
did with the women's title belt. It changed hands Sunday night.
That was a sixth time and six months and then
Monday night, right right away, Tara lays down and gives
a belt to Madison Rainback and you know, granted some
women's title, but you know, what does that say about

(30:08):
your title belts? Is just mean they mean nothing. They're
just meaningless at that point, and they just you know,
props on TV to be handed.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Back and forth. I think if T and A wanted
to do this, and again, like I said, I tried
to avoid the spoilers, and so I don't know what
they've done to explain this. But if it turns out
Eric Bischoff stripped Rob Van Dam of the title not
because he was an executive doing what he thought was
you know, letter of the law, following the world's doing
us specially the company, but instead to set up Jeff Hardy,
who was secretly with him, to become champion, and he

(30:38):
wanted to Screwbob Van Dam. If Fischhoff comes out and
breaks about screwing RVD and laughing about the people who
accepted his stripping RVD of the title when he was
you know, we can even laugh about He goes, how
ridiculous is it that I stripped RVD of the title,
and look, he was back before we even crown a
new champion. He can even mock the decision and that anybody,
including Dixie Carter, took it seriously and A loted to happen.
He can go, Dixie's such a you know, it's so naive.

(30:59):
She didn't even see the clue that was out there.
She thought it was smart to strip Argadia the title.
But I don't think Jeff Hardy being a heel if
he has real life legal issues with drugs is a
real good way to handle handling it because you can't
draw attention to it. And Jeff, you know, I mean,
Bruce makes a good case for why Jeff Hardy's not
going to make a good heel, and it's one of
the reasons the j styles doesn't make a good heal.

(31:22):
Maybe Jeff will surprise us, but style wise, in the ring,
both he and aj have a real tough time getting
heel heat because they do really flashy, athletic, dazzling moves
and it's so hard to dislike somebody when they're so
good and entertaining at what they do. And that's going
to be an uphill battle. But I don't think they
should do anything with Jeff Hardy's character like turning them
heel based on the fact that he had you know,

(31:42):
has spell any charges hanging over his head. We're about
to go to a commercial break. Why let's say commercial
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(32:04):
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Speaker 3 (32:20):
On on my blog I posted today Wade, there was
an article link to a story that Mike Wonyham had
in his Sunday column that talked about Jeff Party and
how great he was backstage interacting with this fan who
had a congestive heart condition and you know, he was
with with the kids the whole time and really took
care of him. And it really, you know, showed what

(32:41):
a you know, or portrayed anyway, what type of a
person Jeff Party was behind the scenes and taking care
of this young man. And it was this guy's goal
to meet Jeff Party, who was only twelve years old.
And you know, now you've got the hardy turning heel
and so what what way is his character he gonna
be is he's gonna be on TV A character one
way behind the scenes as he signed autographs for his
fans and taking pictures at the arena's. You know, one

(33:03):
of their big gimmickses at the arena shows is to
get fans into the ring for twenty dollars a pop
and have your picture taken with somebody you know styles
as a heel and Jeff Hardy's a heel. Are you
still going to get the pictures with Jeff party? Normally
that's reserve spot for some babyface to be in when
they come, when the fans coming in the ring and
get their pictures taken.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Well, and when Abyss in the same show that Abyss
was torturing people backstage and and and you know, had
someone him upside down and beating them up and all that,
they showed the video of come to a t and
a House show and experienced it in person, and they
showed a clip of a bit smiling and signing autographs
for fans. Yeah, you're right, they lose a tool here
with Jeff Hardy being a goodwill ambassador and you know,

(33:44):
you can break some fans hearts doing that. Now, the
same could be said for when Hokogan originally turned heel,
it wasn't drawing as a baby face. Jeff Harty's not
drawing as a baby face right now. It's not necessarily
was it? Just say they follow the Hogan back then
or Jeff Harty now, But they're not losing a ton
in terms of I don't think ratings or buy rates
are going to crash, like if if right now they
turned John Cena heel. I think there could be more

(34:05):
of a rebellion than a surge. But you lose with
you lose with You have Hardy some positive things with
him being a baby face, so when you turn him heel,
you've got to find someone other people to fill that
that kind of Hey, there's a panback stage he wants
to meet you role or the charitable role, because you
can't get over as a heel if you're you know,
if word gets out that you know you're backstage doing

(34:28):
charitable work with you know, kids who you know, you
know get in a wheelchair who just really wants to
meet you, or visiting fit kids in the hospital. So
it's it's a weird situation. I mean, it's gonna be
interesting to see play out any anything else for us.

Speaker 12 (34:41):
Dan h Yeah, I did have one other thing I
was going to mention. You're talking about people not being
good as a heel.

Speaker 11 (34:46):
And the Hogan.

Speaker 12 (34:47):
One of the other things I thought during this whole
big reveal at Mount for Rory was that I don't
see how anybody's gonna want to google Hogan. I mean
number one is one caller mentioned on Monday. He was
He's a guy who was looking like he was in
such pain just getting the and it's like, it's hard
to be a guy who, you know, looks like he's
hearing that, you know, almost on a deathbed with kind
of paints and especially in a promotion. We're in a

(35:08):
sport where so many people have died, you know, in
the last couple of years.

Speaker 10 (35:11):
I think it's kind of insensitive.

Speaker 12 (35:13):
But also the other thing I was going to say
about Hogan is that, you know, the impact zone is
going to be in Orlando or you know, I mean
in Florida, which is his home state, and they already
failed with one legend. I mean, as far as getting booed.
They try to turn Ric Flair bood and a couple
of weeks ago, you know, they were going to suspend him,
and the fans were booing Dixie Carter for wanting to
suspend them. So I don't you know, I don't see

(35:33):
Ric Flair how he really got the heat from the
crowd on the Impact zone. And I don't think Hogan's
gonna get booed in the impact zone either. Just throw
that out there.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
What do you guys think?

Speaker 1 (35:41):
What do you think? Brian?

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, I didn't agree with that. You know, when he
turned heel in ninety six, fans are already booing him
at the arenas when he was doing his you know,
real American character and the act was just old and tired.
I just don't see that the fans at this point
are going to really wanted to boo him anymore than
they've they've went after staying as a heel or aj
Styles effect Will Styles has gotten better at it, but

(36:04):
you know, Sting's never really embrace the character, and the
fans haven't embraced him, and it kind of looked the
same thing to happen with Hogan.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
And you have to have a promotion where doing evil
things is consistently considered, is consistently driven home as being bad,
and you have to have a promotion where doing good
things it is promoted as positive values. That's what you
should share. And you've got Ted as a color commentator saying, oh,
you know Generation Me. You know, they did what they
had to do to get ahead by taking out Chris

(36:32):
Saban and attacking him and injuring him. It's like, how
can you have a babyface announcer who and Ted generally
is defending Generation Me doing whatever it takes to get ahead,
while at the same time we're supposed to be upset
at Ari Bishop and Olkogan for doing what they think
it took, or Jeff Hardy doing what he thinks it
took to get ahead. There has to be a consistent narrative,

(36:53):
consistent voice in that company in the way that they
tell stories, and they're not succeeding at doing that right now.
And I think that's going to undercut the ability of
fans to be outraged at Hogan because I believe fans
go to wrestling shows because they want to play along.
You know, most fans know what's going on to you know,
to one extent or another. They don't think these guys
are really punching each other and never bruising, you know,

(37:13):
they don't really think there's not some co operation going on.
Everybody's seen an MMA clip or an MMA fight. They
know what a quote, real fight looks like, so they
want to play along, but they need a set of
rules so they know how to play along, and you
and TNA just doesn't do a good job with that
because they're so worried about being cool and trying to
be you know, counter tradition, you know, counter the tradition
and not bistodgy and not really getting that you have

(37:34):
to have that attention to detail and making sure that
there's consistency to how you promote, how you promote your characters. Dan,
thanks for your call, Brian. We now are going to
jump to a to a pre recorded conversation with Pat
McNeil and James Caldwell. We're trying to keep Pat, you know,
part of the show, even though his schedule right now
at least through this week, has precluded him from participating

(37:56):
live in the show. We like his event center, his
preview of upcoming weekend events, and also a little bit
of conversation about current events. So we're gonna jump to
that and then we're gonna come back and take more
phone calls. If you want to get in line. We've
got two people on hold, two or three people on
hold right now. We haven't gotten too yet. We should
be able to get to you after the break. The
number to call is six four, six seven two one

(38:19):
nine eight two weight. Now let's go to Pat McNeil
and the live event center for today, Wednesday, October thirteenth,
twenty ten.

Speaker 6 (38:27):
They're now joined by George Clomb as Pat McNeil for
the Wednesday Live event center Upstates for the week here
on the pn B George Live Cast. Before we get
to that, let's talk about the raw rating. On Monday,
the show dropped down below that three point zero level
to a two point nine, not quite as bad as
where they were earlier this month when they hit a

(38:48):
couple of year lows.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
What do you make of.

Speaker 6 (38:51):
This draft just distributed to the football game or anything
else going on the East side?

Speaker 2 (38:57):
I think, yeah, I think it could have been the
football game it could have and the event it could
have been, uh whatever, I forget what shows the other
networks have on during that time. Now, I mean all that,
all that is entirely possible, you know, and and if
that's the case, I'll tell you what, I will guarantee
that the vibratings back up to three point three next
week because the Money Night football game is Tennessee versus Jacksonville,

(39:21):
And uh, I mean those are two just average sort
of football teams and I you know, in from small markets,
and I I don't think America.

Speaker 11 (39:28):
Is gonna care.

Speaker 6 (39:29):
It doesn't have all the storylines and the twists and
the turns and the scandals and the Brett far Yeah,
it doesn't have all that. So yeah, how I got
much interest through in the John Cena story. I think
it'll if it goes back up, there's interests. If it
stays about the same, then then maybe they have a problem.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
And I think there's some I think there's some interest,
and then people want to see how is this gonna
play out. Then they saw how it was gonna play
out at the end of last week's around, and they're like,
oh okay, And you know, maybe they sort of checked
out once or twice during that during at football debacle
and know of whatever else they were gonna do, or
maybe they had just watched Bound for Glory and it
decided that they didn't want to see any wrestling for

(40:08):
a laugh. And I mean it wasn't average. It was
an average TNA show, and they've certainly done worse. I
think that Bruce saw Hull Covian and Eric Bischoff on
his television again and just doing the exact same storyline
that they did fourteen years ago, except this time nobody
cares about whole Covid and Eric Bischoff and Bruce just
lost him. All right, you wanted to do this.

Speaker 6 (40:28):
Let's go Love Events Center Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Let's seeho we have?

Speaker 2 (40:31):
How are you people all right to your live events
killing up this weekend and your TV events too? Uh?
Thursday night Tomorrow night, WW Superstars. I'm wg in America, James.
It's one of your favorite themes. It is nine of
the Divas again on WW Superstars, because you will get
classic matches such as Molina Perez versus Alisha Fox and

(40:52):
Layla in a non title match against Kelly Kelly. Oh,
isn't that exciting?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Those?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well? I mean I looked at the other matches and
I'm pretty sure that these are the important ones.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Also.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, also Pierre Impact on Spike TV this Thursday night. Boy,
you can't wait for the huge follow up for Down
for Glory. So I won't spoil it all for you.
I will tell you that the featured matches are Samoa
Joe versus Abyss and Rob Van Dam taking on Ken Anderson.
Then this Friday night, of course is SmackDown on Sci Fi.
Snackdown on its way up a huge one point eight

(41:24):
rating last week, up from one point seven. So this
is the courses Bragging Rights Night where they are going
to select their team for bragging rights through through certain matches.
So the matches you'll want to keep an eye on
on bragging Rights are Radio Serial versus Cody Rhoades with
the winner getting out to the SmackDown team and the
Edge versus the Intertatmental Champion Dolph Ziggler, and also Cana

(41:48):
and Paul there are going to be doing an interview
for those people who like that, I'd probably play that
never don't any house shows and this actually this is
a story, James, So you want to pay attention. As
you've noticed nobody wants to see a.

Speaker 11 (42:00):
SmackDown house shows in their hometown.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Get to the point where you know SmackDown house shows
are being canceled replaced with raw shows suddenly being turned
into Brett hart Knight at the gardens that.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Sort of nice.

Speaker 13 (42:17):
I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast, the
new ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
noteworthy events dictate and I'm.

Speaker 14 (42:30):
Chris Lansdow join us as we covered the ever changing
landscape of New Japan as they navigate an era with
no lack of talent, but a real need.

Speaker 7 (42:37):
To create some new styles.

Speaker 14 (42:39):
You can stream the new seven Stop podcasts now from
Pro Wrestling Torch.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
So now they're going to start with split house shows.
They are called the ww World Tour shows where you
get a mix of in SmackDown talent and the big
town gets the A show and the little town gets
the B show. For example, this Saturday night, the WWE
A Show will be in Denver, where people there will
get to see Randy Morton versus Seamus for the ww

(43:15):
title and a World title Rocky Mountain street fight match
between Cain and the Undertaker, both world titles defended in Denver.
The other house show will be in Kennelick, Washington. Would
you like to have it a guess? The main event
for that show.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Is ZENA on that one.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Doncia is on neither show. Don Cea is off this
weekend as part of the yeah he I mean he
needs this time off, he's out of the Nexus. Wouldn't
let him show it now? You're nadivating Kennellick Washington, that
does be planning to spend sixty dollars for your front
row seats for WWE World Tour, gonna show versus Sampunk
and on the undercard it'll be a battle. On the undercard,

(43:55):
golf Ziggler defends the Innercottental title against Kathie Kingston and
I'm where I would definitely assume nobody ever watches SmackDown
because if you have, you've seen it a bunch of times.
Your T and A House shows this weekend. TNA is
in Rockford, Illinois Friday night, racing Wisconsin Saturday night, The
Duke Debuke Iowa Sunday night, and Hoffman Estates Illinois on

(44:17):
Monday night, which makes it sound like they're having a
show in the back.

Speaker 11 (44:19):
Of some rich guy's house.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
So after the big doubt for glorid weekend, James, you
know who would T and A fans be excited about
saying at the house shows? You know, maybe maybe yeah,
maybe you Hogan or Bishoffer, Jeff Hardy or Rob van
Dam or how about none of them? How about your
main events that all four house shows on a this

(44:42):
versus mister Anderson, plus added the passions of EB two
versus Fortune in the form of Rhino versus Matt Morgan
and Madison Ran against Angeline a lot as your featured bouts.
That's an awful lot of entertainment for fifty bucks. I
can tell you that right now, all right, rin of
Iron House Shows, maybe this will improve Friday night right

(45:05):
of honor. Of course, in Dayton, Ohio, the big main
event is for the r H Tag team titles, the
Kings of Wrestling taking on Davy Richards and Christopher Daniels
and a homicide official return against Kenny King. R H
Champion Robert Strong and Ris TV Champion Eddie Edwards are
over in Parst Noah, so they will not be making

(45:26):
this weekend shows. That's why Saturday night in Chicago, Illinois
you will get the long awaited Davy Richards versus Christopher
Daniels match and the big I clip match between Colt
Cabana and Steve Carino. After the r H House Show.
This Saturday in Chicago. Your favorite Combat Drone Wrestling is
in Kingsboro, Massachusetts Saturday, with such classics as the Assyrian

(45:49):
Portal taking on Irish drive by and John Moxley defensive
CZW title against Nick Gage in an Ultra Violet something
or other match. I don't understand that. I have to
go to the CZW message to understand all the stipulations.
Ringabouna on HD MET Monday Nights before Rod. The main
event is Davey Richards versus Tyler Black and Tyler Black's

(46:09):
final appearance on Ringavanter television tapes before he departed for FCW,
And of course WWE RAW on the USA Network coming
to live from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where the webs the
official commercials for the show in Calgary are all implying
that Brett Hart will be there.

Speaker 11 (46:27):
This is probably new.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
This is probably this to Bett Hart, so you don't
want to make his travel plans. You know, an event
as we know Randy Orton and John Cena versus Husky
Harris and Michael McGillicutty. And if the rating does go up,
we know it's because of the football game probably and
w W NXT will be live on Tuesday and no
one gives a cramp. And that's you're a lot of
eventwork center report for this Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
All right, thank you Pat McNeil and James Caldwell for that.
It's good to hear Pat's voice here on a Wednesday,
getting us ready for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and next Monday.
We are now ready to go back to the phone
lines and go back to live callers, and we're going
to begin with area code four A zero. Things for holding,
please stay to name and where you're from.

Speaker 11 (47:12):
Hey, wait and Brian and Zeffer from Phoenix, how are
you great?

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Good here from me?

Speaker 3 (47:15):
I'm a going.

Speaker 11 (47:17):
I enjoy your nostalgia stuff because you know, I living
in LA when I was younger, WW at the Sports
Arena every twenty eight days, and I would save up
my allowance to standon Lions for the next show, which
they would advertise that night and say my sixteen dollars
for ringside and from w CW. That's all I remember,

(47:38):
is van Er all right announcing shows at the Omnion Holidays,
which I thought was weird. So I was look for
the stuff that I missed on the East coast.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Right, yeah, very cool, all right, very cool from when
Pat was talking about the Rocky Mountain area and I've
said Rocky Mountain Thunder was wrestling that borried me?

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yes, yeah, you could still be reeling from that. That's expected.

Speaker 11 (48:04):
And your senior columnist was on fire on Sunday and Monday.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yes he was, he was. That's one way to put it.

Speaker 11 (48:12):
I have some business questions and I'll hang up and
listen here. After seeing Hoto and walk down the uh
the ramp and crutches, I started thinking, you know when
his uh, when his contracts over, his marketability is marketability
is done? Where do you see Hope going from here?
In terms aside from like a WW ambassador as LDBD?

(48:35):
How uh how handcuffed is Jeff Hardy with the next
contract they offer him with all his legal troubles? And
number three, I heard that uh Anaheim has three thousands
for a house show in a Greater Rally County. I
would never ever spend my entertainment dollar in LA on
a w W house show where I knew it wouldn't matter,

(48:57):
and uh, what what are they thinking of going to
big cities like that? But especially LA with the house
show and not Telenight for that.

Speaker 6 (49:06):
Uh, thank you guys very much.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Amus off there great thanks every last question. First, I'm
not sure that that it's necessarily a tradition in wrestling
that you wouldn't go into a big market for just
a house show. The I mean, for a long time,
WWE's TV events were oftentimes in the Northeast for a
variety of reasons, in smaller buildings. This was for WWA

(49:29):
a Superstars and Challenge back in the syndication days and
even Raw and and it was really Nitro that changed
it and made made it seem like, well, if you
air live on television, you can still draw big for
a show that people could sit at home and watch
because they want to be part of it. You know.
It was such a happening. And obviously pay per views
started off prestigious, prestigious, and and it was you know,
once every you know, four times a year for a while,

(49:52):
was was the tradition. It was a big deal to
get a pay per view. But if ww stock going
to major markets, you know in La Area with and
only went there for a pay per view or a
rare SmackDown, I don't think they should have to concede
that they can't draw up with a house show. I
think the idea of being able to see a non
televised event that's exclusive to your market. WW shouldn't think

(50:14):
that won't draw. They should make house shows seem more special,
make sure people get their money's worth. So I'm not
sure I got that, but I mean they drew about
seventy five hundred people in Dallas for the last pay
per view. That's you know, that's a really bad number
for a major market for a pay per view. So
I think the house show you cited in an Anaheim
and even the seventy fox hundred figure in Dallas shows

(50:36):
that there's some problems. And Pat McNeil talked about it
in the event in the event center update, that they
can't even draw with a SmackDown brand itself. You know,
there's no identity to smack down the people. The majority
of people who watch WWE are watching raw. You give
them a house show with no raw wrestlers, I mean,
of course they're going to be less have to go.
There's a lot of issues in WWE right now, and
I think there's a certain inertia to the way that

(50:58):
they have done things since the money at work period,
and I think they only need to be re evaluated.
I think three out of four weeks having a raw
rating below three point zero, whatever the excuse is, that's
just unprecedented in the modern era. And I think looking
at how show attendance and looking at the buy rate,
I mean, SummerSlam had barely over two hundred thousand people
order it in the United States, barely over two hundred thousand.

(51:20):
It hasn't been that bad since I think nineteen ninety
seven or nineteen ninety eight. There are problems across the
board for WWE, and this often coincides with WWE getting
involved in outside projects, and you can look at them
promoting the movies and promoting their twenty four to seven
TV network, Linna McMahon running for running for Senate, on
and on. They get involved in other things, and I

(51:41):
think they just think, well, the main stuff's going to
work out. We're chugging along, it's on cruise control. Let's
start some other things. And I think the main product suffers.
And I don't know what it's going to take, and
I don't know what they're talking about internally, but there's
definitely talk within WWE that they have to really re
evaluate everything that they're doing. And I would not have

(52:02):
a problem. I know a lot of fans would would
miss having as much wrestling on television as they do.
But if if WWE in the next couple of years
contracts down to just a two hour edition of braw
once a week and and uh maybe one other hour
on cable somewhere else and it you know, and basically
they could call it, maybe call it SmackDown. But combine

(52:24):
the rosters again and and and cut back pay per
views to every other month or maybe even four times
a year, really make seeing WWE something that there isn't
an excessive supply of, and and and cut back on
how often the big starts appear and wrestle on television.
You know, you say, oh, that'd be crazy cut back
on pay per view. It's crazy to cut back on TV. Well,
it is when you're making a ton of money from it.

(52:45):
But I think it's always important to keep in mind
and keep in balance. W CW thought we'd be crazy
not to expend night short to three hours. We'd be
crazy not to have a show called Thunder on TBS.
We can make so much money from it, and a
lot of people who have looked back at WW and
you know, some evaluated and go, well, you know, it
would have been crazy to cut Nitro from two hours
down to one. It would have been crazy to cancel

(53:05):
Thunder because they lose so much revenue forgetting that they
were not taking into consideration that WW is not around
in great part because of that third hour of Nitro
and the two hours of Thunder. You can't sustain momentum
with this much overexposure of a product that isn't hot.
And so even though they're going to drag their feet,
kicking and screaming doing it, they have less to lose
now than ever if they do cut back on pay

(53:26):
per views and they do cut back on how many
hours of TV or on cable per week, and so
it's I mean, that's not the only answer. Another answer
is change up some other things, but keep the quantity
of products that they have right now, but try to
do different things to promote the products. So they're in
a tough situation right now. Anytime you're watching WWE Raw

(53:48):
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,
Wade Kellor Podcast at pw toorch dot com. Wade Keller
Podcast at pewtorch dot com. If there's anything else going
on in pro wrestling that you want us to address
on our main podcast during our mailbank segments, that same

(54:09):
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. You brought up
Hulk Hogan and and what's next for him, I don't know.

(54:31):
I mean, you know, it's a sad story, but for
a guy who's as a self as self focused, as
self centered as Hulk Hogan has been his whole career.
I've written many and many editorials in the newsletter over
the years, you know, critical of very specific things Hogan
has done that I thought were bad for business, that
were just shallow, shallow as heck. I just I don't

(54:52):
know now that I'm going to feel super bad for
the fact that Hogan, you know, is going to have
financial problems when Hulk Hogan to a fault, kept score
with money and stepped on people along the way. And
in my interview with him back in the early two thousands,
I think it was by two thousand and two when
I did the long Torch talk with him. I mean,
he basically defended it. He goes, yeah, I'm out for me.
Everyone should be out for themselves. And he defended his approach.

(55:15):
You know, yeah, I stepped on people. I mean I'm
not quoting him exactly, but paraphrase, he goes, yeah, I
stepped on people because this is a business where you
got to look out for yourself. Brother, And so I
just kind of think, well, okay, you know, you go
through divorce, you go through financial hardship. You know your son,
you know, screws up in a really bad ways. Other puts,
you know, the lives of innocent bystanders at risk because
he thinks, you know, he doesn't have a sense of

(55:36):
right and wrong, and that's speeding down a road that
fast could maybe cause serious problems. I'm not going to
sit here and cry, you know. I mean, Hogan is
getting kind of what he had coming in a certain way.
Certainly as part of the risks that he took. So yeah,
I don't know. I mean, what's next for him? I mean,
how about take you know, try to come away from
this with enough money to buy a nice you know,

(55:57):
two three hundred thousand dollars Rambler, pay cash for it,
and then figure out how I do charity work, you know,
for the rest of your healthy days, to get back
to the world a little bit for all that's given you.
That's not a bad life. And maybe that's what Ho
Coogan's destined to do. But he's so used to the
spotlight and so you know, intoxicated with being in the spotlight.
I don't know if he can handle that, you know,
not being on TMZ every day with the hospital update,

(56:19):
or not being talked about in the tabloids, or not
doing Rent to Center commercials. You know, maybe he can't.
Maybe his brain and ego just can't handle that. But
I'm not going to cry over the fact that he
can't be a megastar anymore because he's not entitled to it. Brian,
any thoughts to those two subjects, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know, one going back to what Pat was when
he was reading his rundown of the Events center coming up,
you know, he was mentioning from the SmackDown house shows,
Big Show against c M, Punk Undercards, Kobe Kingston against
Dolph Ziegler. No, those are matches you can see on
TV over the last three four weeks and see repeats

(56:54):
upon match upon match, same match. Why would you go
to a house show and pay, you know, thirty forty
dollars for a ticket to watch that matches you're gonna
watch on TV for free. And it's a complete opposite
of what when you and I were growing up in
the eighties for AWA shows or any other promotion in
the territory. In territories, they use TV as a vehicle

(57:16):
to get people to go to the house shows. You know,
you couldn't see the matches on TV that you're gonna
see at the house shows. You saw maybe squash matches
or maybe some a semi competitive match, but if you
really wanted to see the two big stars go and
battle it out, you had to buy the ticket and
go out to the arena. And that's a case with
WWE and TNA anymore. Is you can watch the same
matches on TV Thursday nights or Friday nights, Monday nights

(57:39):
that you're gonna see at the pay per view or
at a house show, So there isn't a lot of
differentiation in the product. I think they need to get away.
I mean, I don't want to go back to all
squash match type formats on the TV, but you certainly
need to have a set ground rules where you don't
have your two big main events on TV each and

(58:00):
every week and then repeated at house shows and repeated
at the pay per view events, because it just creates
a lack of interest in the product after a while.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah, and I think for a dozen years, the formula
it's had has made sense. It's been lucrative, and to
change to change it any sooner than maybe the last
couple of years, if they had more foresight, would have
been bad for business. It would have been a bad risk.
But the numbers are low enough now that I think
they need to look at everything. Everything's on the table,
every change possible. Vincok Man, you know, called me up

(58:29):
back at the beginning of the Monday Night War and
he wanted to get word out through through the torch
that you know, Ted Turner was being was putting at
risk WWE's very existence and being predatory by putting all
these made events on TV, and he made his case
to me that you can't put all these made events
on TV. And still it's everything you said, Brian, and

(58:50):
still expect to people to go pay for tickets or
buy the pay per views. And he felt that Ted
Turner was putting was willing to lose money by giving
away all these big free matches on television, forcing him
to then put all of his big starts in big
matches on television in order to compete, and then that
just to stay relevant on cable, and then by virtue
of doing that, people would stop attending househols and pay pervies. Well,

(59:10):
that turned out not to be true, and he ended
up even when WW went out of business, continuing with
the formula of putting your big stars on TV against
each other in big matches because that's what fans came
to expect. And frankly, business was really good and people
were willing to pay money to see in person the
stars that they watched in television, even in rematches, And
that is very different than the formula from the seventies

(59:32):
in the eighties that you and I grew up with, Brian.
But it worked, but now it's not and so I
think when things stop working, you've got to look at
everything on the table and say, you know, what worked
in the seventies, what worked in the eighties, what's different now,
and what's similar now? Can We don't have to do
things today the way that they were done in nineteen
ninety eight or two thousand and three or two thousand

(59:53):
and eight. We don't have to. We can if we
make money, but we don't have to. And again, you know,
I mean, I want wrestling to thrive. I want rest
to make money. I want the product to be entertaining.
It's progressing as an institution of the country and it's
a part of the fabric of Americana, aswinsick Mann would say.
But at the same time, I'm not going to sign
there and say they didn't cause this to happen. They

(01:00:14):
didn't have to raise their prices greedily to up to
forty five dollars for regular depth. We're now fifty five
dollars to watch it in high depth, which is almost
people watch most television these days. They didn't have to
increase their pay per views from one every four or
five weeks to a stretch of time where there's three
in a six week period, or even worse when they
split the brands up and started doing two pay P
reviews per month a lot of months they didn't have

(01:00:35):
to do that. I warned against it at the exact
moment they announced it. I wrote editorials predicting what would happen,
and it has happened. It was greedy. It was because
they wanted to have a quarterly statement that came out
that grew and improved on the previous quarterly statement. They've
done what they needed to do. They've been very successful
in other ways, and it made smart moves international expansion.
They found other revenue streams, but I don't think they
differentiate between good new revenue streams for a market that

(01:00:58):
wants it versus a bad revenue stream that's going to
burn out or create resentment in an existing market that
they already have. And I think they're paying the price
for it. I think there were a lot of people,
hundreds of thousands of people willing to pay thirty five
dollars a month, and even thirty nine ninety five a month,
but especially thirty four ninety five a month, every month,
twelve times a year, thirty five bucks on the cable
bill I can handle that. But when it started becoming

(01:01:21):
forty five or fifty five dollars times two also in
your capabill you get it and it says four hundred
and fifty five dollars, and you're expecting it to be
three thirty, or it says two hundred and fifty dollars,
and you're expecting it to be one forty, And you go,
what happened? And you look and you see, holy crap,
one hundred and ten dollars for two WWE shows that
I don't even remember. That happened to a lot of people,
and it's happened over the last several years, and I

(01:01:42):
just think it was a bad move. And I think
they've they've destroyed their own business to a great degree. Now,
some of this is the economy, some of this is
expanded availability of all kinds of great shows on cable
television in other ways. And part of it is MMA,
no doubt about it. I'm not saying it's a singular cause,
but they left themselves the most vulnerable they could possibly
be based on what they have done.

Speaker 15 (01:02:08):
Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to learn
some wrestling history, don't miss the nineties Past cast every
Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed. Alex and
Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
taking you through the Torch issue from that very week.
Follow news from the WWF and WCW, and all the

(01:02:28):
happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
Past cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
All right, let's go ahead and go to another call
here in the final minutes of the show and go
to aeric code. I want to try to take these
in order. Nine one four. Thanks for calling. Please state
your name and where you're from.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
How's going.

Speaker 12 (01:03:01):
It's Johnny from New York.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Hey, Johnny, good, hear from you. What's on your mind?

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:03:05):
You too.

Speaker 10 (01:03:06):
I think it's kind of ironic that the minute that.

Speaker 12 (01:03:08):
That Christian gets uh, you know, have turnser when.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
Edge comes to SmackDown.

Speaker 12 (01:03:12):
Do you think that the W is purposely trying to
like avoid keeping them together? And if so, you think
they're actually gonna you know, pump heads at one point.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
I don't think they would try to, you mean, try
to keep Christian at Edge apart.

Speaker 12 (01:03:25):
Yeah, like trying not to have them, you know, on
the same show at some time and when.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
But they did, I mean they had them. They had
There's a good promo where Christian and Edge kind of
went over their history several months back. They've crossed paths
on paper. I think there was that one backstage segment
where they cross paths and it was kind of a
big moment when Christian first came back. I just think
this is the case of Edge not catching fire on Raw.
And I think when Christian got hurt, they needed a

(01:03:49):
baby face. They needed to kind of reach up with
the baby faces, and they needed some fresh matchups for
for the heels, and Edge kind of feels like a
SmackDown guy. You know. It's just kind of it's like
there's certain people who just feel like they belong on
a certain brand and they're out of place when they're not.
And I can't put my finger on it. It's an intangible,
but I think I think they look at Edge as
as somebody who fits better on SmackDown wasn't catching fire

(01:04:12):
on Raw. And even more importantly, I think the straight
Edge society got kind of stale on SmackDown pretty quick,
and I think they saw Punk as somebody who could
give Ryan some better matchups than they were getting on
uh than they were getting out of out of Edge
on Raw. Thanks for the question. Let's go to er
code nine to one. Oh quick question or comment from
you please?

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
You know, yeah, So what's out thing about?

Speaker 11 (01:04:34):
You know, the Fortune and and what you call alone's
going on right now with a Hogan?

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
What do we think of Fortune and Hogan?

Speaker 8 (01:04:44):
Even?

Speaker 11 (01:04:45):
I think you have that at so fortant to the boilers.

Speaker 6 (01:04:47):
You know it's been going on with you know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
New Soul com.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Well, Hannibal. I think we'll be better off talking about
that after we see the show and how it plays out,
because I kind of vaguely know what you talk about,
but I don't want to get into the spoilers without
a warning. We're down a minute on the show and
we haven't seen it on are yet, So give us
a call on Friday and we'll react to it. Five
five to nine. Please seach your name and where you're
from in a quick question or comment.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Yeah, in California. I was just wondering why WWE is
still having John Cena come out and to his music
and with his colors and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Is it to set up for a deal journey? You know,
I think they're having him come out to his colors
to sell merchandise and to his music to keep fans
who are seeing a fanatics in the teenage demographic from
getting too depressed. I mean, I really think that's probably
what's going on. Seven seven three four two. Thank you
for calling the show. Please call tomorrow or Friday if
you can.

Speaker 6 (01:05:40):
A lot calls.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Brian and I are going to stick around here talk
for the VP after show. Thanks everybody for listening until
next time. Wad Keller on behalf of Brian Hoops signing off.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Thank you for using blog talk radio.

Speaker 10 (01:06:01):
Goodbye the calls.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Lots of good subjects. Brian. I kind of was hogging
things there during rapid Fire. We don't have I really
do kind of believe we should see what happens with
Fortune and Hogan on TV before we comment on it.
I will say though that I was curious coming out
of Bound for Glory in a general sense where even
when I was writing the cover story in the newsletter
this week, I was kind of thinking, you know, I

(01:06:25):
do I address Fortune, where do they fit in? Because
if you're gonna have this new heel faction, Hogan Bishop,
Jeff Hardy of Bits, Jeff Jarrett Fortune is getting a
lot of TV time, but some of the TV time
lately has been portraying them in a I think a
babyface manner. You know, the drinking and the smiling and
the partying and the josh and around and the high lifestyle.

(01:06:46):
You know, I don't know, it's just to me and
Christy Hemmy just looking at at Rick Flair as he
talks like she just can't wait to rip his clothes off,
you know, I just I didn't. I don't know if
it's incompetent pushing of a heel group or they just
don't care. They just them to be who they are
and let fans choose, which I think is a bad
way to book, or if they actually are kind of
planning to give them a foundation where fans maybe look

(01:07:08):
at them and go, I like those guys, so when
they do turn a babyface, if they do, fans are
more willing to accept them.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
I kicked buy into that theory. I think. You know,
when you've got Rick Flair, a lot of people really
don't want to boo him anyway. At this point, or
you know, make him into heal character. I think you.
I think you could easily make a transition for for
the Fortune group to become babyfaces and end up feuding
with Hogan's group here. I could make that easy transition.

(01:07:36):
I think it's it's a plausible storyline. You know, I'm
a little concerned about this booking regime and what direction
they're going. We've talked about that in the past. You know,
they turn Jeff hardy heel even though he's not the
best candidate to be a heel at this point. So
a lot of things they do don't make sense. They're
going for more of the shock value or the surprise
instead of what makes sense for business and for you know,

(01:08:00):
long term benefit of the company. So I think it's
a great storyline. It would have a lot of legs
and some interest if if they can follow through it,
it'd be disciplined. That's a whole nother question, because they
haven't shown much in as far as those qualities previously.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I want to shift gears and talk about the ten
ten years ago back issue that we just put up
this week. October eighteenth, nineteen ninety edition, issue number ninety one,
back when the Torch was four issues for five dollars.
I can't believe how little we raised our price over
the years. Now you can get you know, now you
can get almost two issues for five bucks. I don't
know anyway. One of the headlines was all the layoffs

(01:08:37):
in WWE. There were reported layouts at Jim Knightheart, Koko
will Be Ware, Superflnoka, nikolaibokof, Borzo Cop, Greg Valentine, and
honky tonk Man, some of those owing a team I
had just quit also, I think he working at a
confero or something. So I don't know how many of
those actually ended up being proven true at that exact moment,

(01:08:59):
but there or reports of a lot of layoffs, and
one of the reasons was the elimination of of c shows.
And you know, Pat McNeil talked about it in the
Live Event Center earlier, how WWE is kind of going
to WWE World Tour house shows where they plucks the
top names from both brands for a major arena, run
a smaller town with some of the you know, maybe
one big name like an Undertaker or Randy Orton, but

(01:09:21):
then fill out the rest of the card with more
mid card talent, and they figure, well, you know kind
of what Efforan's getting at when he talks about, you know,
don't bring a house show to the LA market. We're
not going to go to that. We need in LA
a show to be nationally televised with all the pagro
and that type of thing for people to attend. And
I do think there's a certain attitude towards that, and
I think that's more a problem with WWE not marketing
house shows well more than it is something that that

(01:09:44):
should just be. You know, they should throw their hands
up and give up on every drawing unless it's a
pay per view. But WWE back in the day twenty
years ago, was they were running three shows per week.
You know, they were running an ROH type arena or
you know, or a small t and a venue for
their see shows and it just wasn't worth their trouble
at some point, so they cut those out. I wonder though,

(01:10:04):
if WWE, with their name brand and running out of
all these other revenue streams, if it wouldn't be worth
their while now to say, you know what, you know,
maybe we can't make as much money and pay per
view as we used to, and we have to think
a little smaller when it can. You know, we look
smaller at what we're gonna do with movies now. We
don't think of them as big theatrical hits where you know,
they're virtually straight DVD now or straight to Walmart DVD.

(01:10:28):
I wonder if it would be worth their while to
consider running sea shows again, especially if they blow up
the brand format and they have enough talent on the
roster and a lot of them just need work, and
they need work in front of crowds. And I don't
know that it'd be great for Ring of Honor Or
or you know, some of the smaller indie groups around
the country. But they could run some of these established
smaller venues, especially in the Northeast, but really all over

(01:10:50):
the country and give some of their developmental guys some
work and give fans a chance on a small level
with a smaller ticket price in smaller towns to see
WWE stars in person, buy some merchant, and then maybe
have those memories and be more apted by pay per views.
I just wonder if maybe going a little grassroots won't
be a good approach to take twenty years after WWE
eliminated the grassroots approach because they wanted to shift their

(01:11:12):
focus to cable and pay per view.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
I think there's a lot of things that WWE could
learn from what they used to do twenty thirty years ago,
what USC is doing now, and in one respect, even
TNA is doing much better than WWE right now. You know,
t and a house shows are the best thing about TNA.
If you go to a house show, it's generally well received.
They have a lot of fan interaction, and you know,

(01:11:36):
they have a lot of stars coming out in signing
autographs and being really fan friendly. Your concept may work
real well if they integrate some of those type of ideas.
You know, have a smaller area that doesn't have a
pay per view ever, doesn't have very many house shows,
you know, once every eighteen months to come in with
us a little bit smaller type crowd. You're booking a

(01:11:58):
smaller venue, so you're looking for two three thousand type
event center and then have a real grassroots type of
event where the fans can interact to get autographs with
some of these guys who aren't the main real name
or big stars. And I think, like you said, you
could probably sell some merchandise, get some fan interest back,

(01:12:19):
and you know some of the smaller towns that I've
gone to where a TNA show has been that it's
actually worked out real well because some of these smaller
towns just don't have a lot going on in them,
such as some of the big towns like the Chicago
or LA where there's so many other things that can
take up entertainment dollar. Some of these smaller, some college
type towns, there isn't much going on, and this is

(01:12:40):
something different, something that only comes along once every year.
It may attract a lot of fans just casually.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Another subject we wrote about, or I wrote about in
the twenty years ago back is you Jim Cornet did
Jim Ross on his nine hundred Jim Ross is always
like to stir the pot a little bit, going back
to doing nine hundred hotlines back twenty years ago. He
blasted Jim Cornett in what seemed to be legitimate behind
the scenes heat between two people who are known for

(01:13:07):
the most part is being good friends. He accused Cornett
of whining about the way the promotion has been treating
he and his team the min at Express, and he
said Cornett, maybe if he stopped wanting for a minute,
would see the situation improve and management would listen to him.
Those are just one of most fun things that kind
of jumped out at me. You know, these two guys
who are aligned, but it doesn't mean they don't agitate

(01:13:27):
each other a little bit. And Ross can be agitated
and be an agitator, we know Jim Cornette can be
kind of a fun little insight into their long term
relationship over the years. And I think Jim Ross's experienced
some of that same frustration in recent years when he
wanted Jim Cornett to be relevant and wrestling, be it
in TNA or WWE, and he would go off on

(01:13:47):
these ill advised rants that really held him back from
being taken seriously in a more corporate culture. It looks
like Ross, even twenty years ago, was kind of try
to top Cornette down a little bit so that he
could use his talents and his energy in a more
productive way. And it does seem like something that's held
him back over the years. For over the last twenty years,
that's happened repeatedly. Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it

(01:14:08):
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Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
Yeah, I thought that was an interesting read as well.
I read through that, and my boy, that's saying something there.
Both these guys were on the booking committee at this
time for NWA or wcww on tournament. They were part
of a committee and and actually Rick Flair was heading
that committee during this Jim Herd era. So obviously there
was you know, some not everybody's gonna get along at

(01:15:07):
all times, and it's kind of interesting, you know, to
look back in history and see that these guys did
have a few because generally right now, you know, they're
They're good friends from what I can tell, and and
pretty you know, universally respected of each other.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Absolutely. Another thing brought up in the UH in the
news wire was the possibility that Demolition were gonna be
asked to wear masks and give up their makeup because
the l O d uh. The Road Wars came into
w W a people look back who grew up with Demolition,
and they when they first came in, you know, they
were looked at as Road Warrior ripoffs, and everybody kind

(01:15:42):
of grown when they saw them. You know, they came
out to this generic grinding, well it wasn't generic at first,
but this kind of you know, entrance music. It was
kind of meant to feel a little bit like Iron
Man with a guitar, with the with the special effects pedal,
you know, and and and then they were and they
didn't have the same muscular looker, the same attitude and
promos that the road Royers did, but they ended up

(01:16:02):
having a really nice WWE career and WWF fans actually
brought into them, and by the time the LD showed up,
it was almost like the Road Roriors were the sequel
to Demolition for a lot of fans.

Speaker 3 (01:16:13):
Right Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, I know
they never really got away from the makeup completely. They
did have some sort of a mass that they wore
to the ring. But you're right. By the time the
Road Warriors ended up going to WWF, which was in
ninety one, you know, they weren't as big as stars
as what they had been a few years earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
Interesting column by the late Ray Webby, one of the
original Torch columnists. His headline was Wrestling is changing, that's
in the current, twenty years ago, back as you were
looking at And one of the quotes he said is
when Matt Doug Veschan build a casket, it was believable
that he wanted to stuff it with his fall. When
Bruger Brodie came out with a mob on CBS and
said he would clean the joint up, I believed with

(01:16:58):
a mop, I believed him. When Bob Orton looked at
the camera promising to win over Bob Backland, at least
he meant it. So did Backland when he cried when
Superstar broke his belt, or Michael Hayes when he gave
a five minute lecture on freebrid Fantasia and Oly Anderson
never gave a threat one couldn't respect danger and believability
did help sell the product. Jimmy Snooker, Jerry blackwall A,

(01:17:19):
Dulu the Butcher, Terry funk Bridge, Brodi Rodey, Playper, Greg Bellententi,
Don Morocco, Stan Hanson, the Freebergs, Nick Bockwinkle and Greg
Gania all seemed sincere in their challenges. Then he cites
the Wrestling Wars of eighty four and eighty five through
that believability factor out the window when characters were created.
And it's an interesting quote because WWE has moved away

(01:17:39):
from the characters. We don't have as many outlandish, you know,
especially the ones that are based around, you know, an
IRS agent or or even the million Dollar Man with
Teddy Biasi Junior. They've kind of toned down for a
variety of reasons, and wrestlers now are trying to be
more believable figures again. But when you look at that

(01:18:00):
list and you read over it, it goes back to
someone we talked about earlier with Simoe Joe, Jimmy smoke At,
Jerry Blackwell, Abdulla, Terry funk Brewser Brody, Roddy, Piper, Greg Valentine,
Don Morocco, Stan Hansen, the Freebirds, Nick Bockwinkle, Greg Gany.
I bring up all those names and listen him again,
because there's not one body type there that's the same.
You know, there's such a variety even between Jerry Blackwell
and Stan Hansen and these are I'm looking at this

(01:18:23):
list thinking how many of these people would get in
the front door of ww today. You know, CM Punk
is kind of the exception, and Campunk is a great throwback.
He's a little bit roddy Piper. Frankly, he's probably on
his way to being a little bit Terry Funk, and
how he approaches things, there's a believability factor to him,
and I think, well, you know, like the shame is
Daniel Bryan thing was good the last this week, especially

(01:18:45):
last week. I was annoyed by it, but it made
shame as seem legitimately tough. And I would love to
see both WWE and TNA go back to doing that.
And when something happens, take it seriously consistently, don't you
move on to something else really quickly. Abyss was beating
people up, torturing them, hanging them upside down backstage. It
hasn't been talked about for weeks since when when Generation

(01:19:08):
Me took Chris Saban out. You can't have a babyface
announcer like task praising. I'm saying you do what you
gotta do. And even most recently, John Cena screwed out
of eliminating breaking up Nexus by two guys interfering, and
he doesn't seem to care about it. In fact, on
Ran Monday, he said, regardless of how I lost, as
a whole other story, I did lose, and the reason
that I blah blah blah, and then he went on
to other subjects. There needs to be more outrage when

(01:19:31):
people do act up so that when people do act up,
fans believe that it's something serious. And then when a
heel as ray Levy was writing about promises to do something,
fans are going to take it seriously. That's just you know,
when we talk about like WDW can do, I'll you know,
we think about big high concepts, or add more TV
shows or take TV shows away, or racist price or
lower that price or expanded this market or or or

(01:19:53):
or change change the logo or whatever. We sometimes it
just comes down to looking at how believable the characters
are and then when they do something how strongly it's sold.
And I think both promotions have some work to do.
But the shamest thing is an example of somebody looking
legitimately tough and believable. Wade Barrett is portraying his character,

(01:20:13):
I think, with a lot of integrity, but there's still
some some things lacking, such as John Cena reacting to
Husky Harrison, Michael Mcgilliacutty interfering.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
I think that's one big difference we have even today
between UFC and professional wrestling, is that just people in UFC.
You know, the fans of UFC generally believe that Josh
Costchek and GSP hate each other and they want to
kill each other, and they want to fight each other,
and the better man's going to have to win. You know,
I think that same thing can be if you look

(01:20:42):
at WW or TNA. There's there's no promotions, no feuds,
no anything that really generate any believability anymore. You know,
you've got injury angles like you mentioned Abyss. We've had
a lot of other guys be taken out or fireballs
thrown in somebody's eyes, and just there's no long term
effects of it, no selling, no attention to detail. It's

(01:21:02):
just move on to the next quick angle, and you
just don't have that believability anymore that you used to
have back in the days, like Ray Webbley was talking about,
when you had Greg Gunya cutting a promo even at
you know, two hundred pounds, you thought that he was
really going to go after Crusher Blackwell for hurting his
leg and putting him out of wrestling or whatever the
case was. You believe that this guy had real animosity.

(01:21:25):
You believe that these were two guys that really wanted
to hurt each other and they were going to sell
it inside the ring, and you just have lost that
some today's professional wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
I agree, Brian, I agree, well, put I encourage everyone
listening to this. If you don't usually do it, please
do check out the pdaof newsletter from twenty years ago.
That's just a sample of What's it Bill Kunkle's Potshots
column with the comics and his commentary is included. The
rest of Ray Webby's column that I just took a
snippet from is there, including another line saying, today it's

(01:21:57):
just too damn hard to tell the good from the bad.
They all talk Holor and wrestel the same. The only
way to tell I guess is to let the announcers
tell us that between pay per view plugs. And I
thought that quote jumps out of me too. It's like, no,
you can't even count on the announcers anymore because look
at Michael Cole, look at Taz. They don't even have
that consistent constitution where they can even tell you who
the good and bad guys are because they switch from
segment to segment. So anyway, check out that full column

(01:22:17):
for Ray Webby. Also mcarsh with his submission column. The
Quote Book a Ringsidebeat report including Sting versus Black Scorpion
as a headline match on a WCW show and the
WWF House show that report on is headlined by the
Legion to doomad Ultimate Warrior against Team Demolition. Shannon Rose,
who's still active in wrestling in Florida, sent us that report.

(01:22:39):
It's it's fun, Brian, You know you're You've been around
the wrestling insider community, the sheet community, the Internet wrestling
circuit for a long time and know some of these names.
And one of my favorite parts of looking back at
these old issues is is seeing some of the names
that show up in as correspondence or as people who
who contributed, you know, seeing a Crazac's name pop up

(01:23:01):
as a correspondent, and the tour sure Stevey, Oh, you
know who's a wrestling his story and the documented a
lot of wrestling results shows up, and just some old
names that I just haven't thought about in a long
time in the h in the Torch and the Torch
trading post section where people ask for It's such a
different world when you had to send me a letter
saying I'm looking for a roommate for a hotel for Halloween,
have a weekend? Can you post that? I mean, it's

(01:23:23):
just it's such a different world. But it's fun to
look back on and uh, it's a flight to wrestling
history looking at these back issues.

Speaker 3 (01:23:28):
Yeah, it's real neat because you get to see guys
like doctor Mike Lano, who's still doing you know, wrestling programs,
you know audio programs, and a guy by name Evan
Ginsburg is mentioned in this in in your newsletter this
time as well. I did a you know, a radio
program with Evan and doctor Lane Olds not too long ago,
talking about wrestling and wrestling Nostyllis. So these guys that

(01:23:51):
were fans of wrestling twenty years ago still actively involved
in the business today. You know, Nick Kars has got
a call him in here quite a bit and he's
still love with wrestling absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Brian, thanks so much. Been a pleasure. It's been a
little while since you when I got to host together,
so had a good time. Hope you did too, and
I hope all the listeners enjoyed it. Stay tuned for
tomorrow's live cast and I think I'm going to be
hosting tomorrow and The James will be hosting on Friday,
and we're still working out our co hosts for the
rest of the week. So thanks everybody on the VIP
site for your support and until next time. Wad Keller

(01:24:25):
signing off. Invite you to email the show with feedback
or questions or comments. That email address is Wade Keller

(01:24:47):
Podcast at pwtorch dot com. That's Wade Keller Podcast at
PW torch dot com. Also welcome your feedback on Twitter.
You can follow us on Twitter at PW torch and
follow me at the Wade Keller That's at PW Torch
and at the Wave Keller.

Speaker 14 (01:25:05):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell, host of the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Each week you'll hear the latest news and analysis from
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(01:25:27):
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Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Thanks for listening to our podcast. Did you know we
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Speaker 16 (01:26:00):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts?
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Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
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