15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: Best WWE Match Ever, Triple H-Booker feud, Flair-Hogan in '82, TNA ridiculous booking decisions

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

Speaker 1 (01:15):
On today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, we jumped back
fifteen years to a doubleheader of PW Torch live casts
that I hosted, first with PW Torch and nostalgia specialist
Brian Hoops, followed by Bruce Mitchell, Pro Wrestling Torch columnist.
In the first episode from August nineteenth, twenty ten, we
talked about the Triple H Booker t feud, Awesome Kong's future,

(01:35):
the Rick Flair Holkogan nineteen ninety two potential feud, the
best WWE match ever, the lack of selling big moves,
and more got to brace ourselves for that not going
away the lack of selling a big moves. Also in
the previously VP exclusive after the show, we talked about
Nick Bockwinkle and Rick flaher comparison between those two, and
also honesty by wrestlers in interviews. Then the August twentieth episode,

(01:59):
with Bruce Mitchell's co host, we talked about the previous
night's TNA impact, including a long list of ridiculous booking
decisions made by incompetence, low wrestling IQ and ulterior motives.
And then the rest of the hour contained mostly venting
from frustrated TNA viewers. In the previously VP exclusive after show,
more analysis of other aspects of impact from the night before.
So let's get to it. This is our doubleheader fifteen

(02:21):
years ago Flashback four Thursday, August twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Here we go, lot Oh, welcome do the PW bard livecat.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I am Way Tellor, editor of Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter
and PW Torch dot Com. I'm joined today by Brian Hoops,
THEPW Torch dot Com nostalgia specialist who writes a full
page feature column in every edition of the Pro Wrestling
Torch Newsletter, usually a PDF exclusive looking at nostalgia news,
what's going on with retired veterans, some where are They Now? Columns,

(02:56):
and an update on DBD interviews with old time and
fan conventions. So anytime Brian Hoops is on, if you've
got a question about wrestling's past or where are they now? Question,
we love to have those questions on Nostalgia Thursday. When
you're on Thursday's Brian, we call it nostalgia Thursday. How
you doing today?

Speaker 4 (03:15):
Oh, I'm doing good? How are you Wade?

Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm doing great. Hey, we got Brett Farv So the
Vikings are gona win the Super Bowl. The Twins are
five games up on the White Sox and beating them
head to head shattering any chance at them winning a tibreger.
So we're winning the World Series. You know, Michael Beasley
could be the MVP, and the Wolves are gonna be great.
I'm not sure about the Wild. I'm more obxious about
the wolves in the wild.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
Right now, you're pretty optimistic this afternoon.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, so sports sports sports world's good here in Minnesota,
even though we're already at the end of our of
our eight week summer.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
So maybe the Golphers will win the Big ten, I know.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, shout out to Howie. We got a long time
Torch reader and friend. Howie was a involved with the Gophers.
So anyway, that's that's enough. We've covered local sports and
weather in the opening forty five seconds of the show,
so we got that out of the way. If you
want to get through on the phone lines today, the
number is six four six seven two one nine A
two eight. That's six four, six, seven nine two eight.

(04:12):
We definitely invite your calls on any subject, not just nostalgia,
but today's definitely the day to call in if you
want to talk about wrestling's past or what some wrestlers
show in the past are up to. These days. Also,
we've got a chatroom up and running, so if you're
listening to us live here from five thirty to six
thirty Eastern on Thursday August nineteenth, twenty ten, join us
in the chat room. We've usually got fifty people or

(04:35):
so hanging out in there talking about what we're talking
about and other things. And also you can email us
if you're listening to us live or on delay if
there's a subject or question you want us to answer
and you're just not able to call in the show
live to ask your question. That email address is PW
Torch live cast at gmail dot com. Certainly some interesting
things in the news, obviously, you know SummerSlam Week, Impact

(04:56):
Tonight not the whole Life and show back to the
regular format. More reaction mostly disappointing raw I think most
people would agree on. And also some interesting blogs this
week with Eric Bischoff, McK foley, Paulayman, and Jim Cornett
have had some things to say, especially Hayman and Bischoff
contradicting each other with the over forty wrestling argument. So

(05:18):
lots of cool stuff to talk about. We'll let the
callers lead the way. Brian, do you just want to
jump into calls and see how many we can get to.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Whatever you want to do. I think there's plenty of
news to talk about all kinds of stuff today making headlines,
from homicide being released of course, the impact tonight starting
their eight man tournaments.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Which can right around the time, which will end right
around the time. Rob van Dam is healthy, which I
find hilarious.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Well, and maybe he'll have some more dates to work
by then.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah. Brian Danielson, by the way, I was happy to
see this recommitted to a date with New York City
Independent Wrestling Group that he had had to pull out
over felt he had to pull out of I was
critical of this in the permacing To newsletter that went
up a couple days ago online in my newsletter exclusive
analysis of that story, because I felt that if Danielson
commits to an indie date and it's within six weeks

(06:09):
at least, he should keep it. And people say, oh,
but ww, you can be at MSG, he can be
making more money in front of these crowds and all that.
But the thing is to think about the poor indie promoter.
He puts his deposit down on a building that he
may have rented because he felt he could draw with Danielson,
and Danielson's a big enough name with what's going on,
even bigger now, but let's say an income back for SummerSlam,

(06:30):
he was a big enough name to draw, especially in
the Northeast. That I think is something WWE should have
frankly insisted on when they called him and told him
come on back. I think they should have found out
what his schedule was and said, now, the honorable thing
to do is to make your dates, and we hope
that you'll do that, and then we'll get you on
the road full time afterwards. And so I don't know
that he's coming back for all dates, but I did

(06:51):
see that he told the New York Wrestling Connection that
he is back on for the Never Back Down event
September eleventh at the Sports Arena in Saint James, New York.
He had he felt terrible about canceling at first, and
I'm sure he did, and so I'm glad to hear
he's back. So I wanted to just give a thumbs
up to Danielson and WWE for making sure that happened.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Well, I totally agree with your point. Their way is,
you know, back in the old territorial days, when a
guy would leave the territory, he'd give his two weeks notice.
He'd usually end up his program or his few, do
a few jobs on the way out, and move on
to his territory. And that all changed when Vince McMahon
Junior took over and went nationally, you know, and he's
on the AWA legacy to be produced saying that he

(07:36):
never told anybody not to miss their dates or doesn't
remember doing that, And Hulk Hogan canceled, and then Jesse
Van Turrett canceled all their dates and no show that
and it really hurt a lot of these smaller territories
as stars would be in the midst of their program
and literally leave overnight, leave mid South, they leave Jim
Crockett or mid Atlantic promotions of the AWA and go

(07:59):
to New York and really made those promotions look bad
and suffer. And you know, Vince McMahon, there's no wrestling
more anymore. Go ahead and let Danielson finish up these dates,
let the indie promoters do what they were going to
do with him as they agreed upon, and let's let's
just move on, because WW isn't going to miss Danielson
that much that he can't work these smaller independent dates.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
I agree. And you know, when you're a really big company,
you might think, well, you know, talent comes and goes
all the time. That's that's we have to deal with it.
But you know, with an indie promoter, it can make
or break their year if you if you put them
in a position where they book an arena, they just
can't they can't draw in without Danielson. And so I
again I apply that. I hope it. I hope he's
able to make all his dates, or like I said,

(08:41):
at the very least whatever he was promised in that
he would that he would earn for his match. If
he makes more than that with WWE for his match,
he should give the difference to the indie promoter. And
I mean that seriously. You know, if you're going to
take more money than you were going to make with
your prior commitment, then then give the difference to the
indie promoter. So at least he under you know, there's
an expression of good will that just says, hey, I

(09:01):
want to do a little something to make up for
the rent that you're you know, the fewer fans that
you're drawing, and I'm sure there's other ways to go
about it too. One and Danielson is you know, everybody
says he's got character and it's not. You know, this
isn't meant to be a huge rip job on him
just being greedy. It's just it's an awkward circumstance, you know,
having aw come knocking on your door again and saying
or ringing your phone again. It's hard to say, well,

(09:22):
I'll come back. Accept I'm worried about this guy losing
a few hundred bucks, you know, so he's got to
look out for the big picture and I get that.
It just it seems like they're working towards the right thing.
And that's a great example Brian for the past. All right,
let's dive into the phone lines. We got seven people
on hold already. We'll begin with Airy Code two eighty one.
Thanks for calling, Please stay your name and where you're from.

Speaker 5 (09:43):
Hey, guys, this is a Jay out of Houston.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
I have a question about the Bookert Triple H dynamic. Yes,
oh okay, Let's let's travel back in time to WrestleMania nineteen,
where Booker T was going for the World Heavyweight Championship
and they had the pseudo racist, snobbish.

Speaker 7 (10:04):
Triple H givings.

Speaker 6 (10:05):
Yeah, and as you guys remember, Triple H went over
clean as a whistle in that match.

Speaker 8 (10:11):
Now, all that's fast forward a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Some white power.

Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yes, yes, I am a black guy. So it was
a little weird thing. Okay, Okay, someone slam In two
thousand and seven, rolls were reversed. Booker T was a
snobbish king Booker and Triple H was a baby face
returning from injury, and Triple H went up with Booker
T in like ten minutes. Now, I was wondering, what

(10:40):
was that issue? What was the issue Triple H had
with putting over Booker T at nineteen And was there
any legitimate heat between those two from that?

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Okay, you're going back a few years. Nothing jumps out
at me as legitimate heat between them. I know Batiston
Booker obviously had some, and that came later. I mean,
I as iver, excuse me, as I remember it. I
think that it just was a case of Triple H
not thinking Booker was at his level and that he
should go over. And I think to a degree, getting

(11:12):
inside of the way Triple H operates, I don't think
that there was a connection between the prickish way he
decided to promote that match. And I used that term
because it's accurate and I like the literations now and then,
but also I just I just think that he felt
he was above Booker, and if you go back that
many years, I mean, that's where Triple Ah really was.
Maybe someone can correct me from wrong. I don't think

(11:33):
he was losing very often, so it's not like he
was trading wins with everybody he feuded with. But I
don't think they ever quite got to the point with
Booker where WWE, including Triple H felt that he was
a top top tier guy. You know, he kind of
hovered at the bottom of that top tier, you know,
where there's that that that feeling and a pinch you
could go with him and headline pay per views with him.

(11:54):
To me, that's what defined someone in the top tier.
Doesn't mean the lever headline pay per views, you know,
on a consistent basis, but in a you could go
with them. That's how they're positioned. And I don't think Booker,
in WWE's mind, ever reached that level. So I think
the decision for Triple Ah to go over on him
had more to do with the perception that Booker is
visiting the main event, but he's not someone that we're

(12:15):
going to just go with as a centerpiece like they
have for instance with Batista and obviously John Cena or
Undertaker Sean Michaels. They just didn't see him at that level.
And I'm not sure that they were wrong, you know.
I mean, I think I think Booker got about the
career that he deserved in that he made some real
good money, headlined a lot of matches in a pinch
in ww Who's a World Champion, And I was one

(12:37):
of his biggest backers. As you know, there was a
time where rock was emerging in WWF and Booker and
ww and I wrote articles just saying ww needs to
look at what WWF is doing with the rock and
do it with Booker. You know, they were both emerging
stars with a unique charisma connection with the crowd. But
I think when he got to WWE and then certainly TNA,

(12:57):
you know, he was older. He was an older main
eventor to begin with, in the sense that he got
his break late, and I think he was starting to
slow down a little bit. And I think age not always,
because we see it with Batista, it's not the case,
but I think sometimes age plays into how much WWF
wants to invest in someone. So, Brian, do you remember
about and there could be something obvious I'm forgetting, but
do you remember anything legit heatwise between triplation Booker.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Well, from what I remember from that angle is Booker
T was kind of being portrayed as the former WCW
champion and that's where he was getting his credibility from
for a title match at WrestleMania, and Triple H was
downplaying that by talking about how that former champions included
guys like Vince Brusso and David Arquette. And I think

(13:42):
that's what I remember anyway, That's where they were dealing
with this angle, was that Triple H was above Booker T.
Booker T was never really a true world champion because
WCW and it was a joke and that the company
folded and this was just a couple of years after,
you know, they went out of business and Nickmahon bottom out.
So I just think it was a case where Booker T,

(14:05):
who was booked to be at a level for low
Triple H. And I don't think there was any real
legitimate heat between the two guys.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Any follow up JA.

Speaker 6 (14:16):
Yeah, yeah, I almost agree with that because that's that
is where it started, and when he when he threw
Mayblan into the ropes, then he tied him up, and
then they had the scene where where Booker t was
probably hey, hey, honey, you got something to say to me,
and then triple a su a dollar at him like yeah,
give me a towel. That's I was like, uh, I'm
a little uncomfortable with that, but.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
I don't blame it.

Speaker 6 (14:37):
I don't blame it, Like I did feel that Booker
wasn't at that level yet.

Speaker 7 (14:42):
I do feel Booker.

Speaker 6 (14:43):
Wasn't at that level yet, but I think he should
that line to know for instead of JBL.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, I mean JB. I thought JBL worked out okay
in a lot of ways. But I think you're right.
I mean, you could look at you could look at
Booker at that time. I mean, I don't think in
every instance Booker got every break he deserved. I just
think he got a fair share of breaks, considering nobody
gets all the breaks they deserve. But you can definitely
point to a few times early on in w W
or I thought they could have gone with them quicker.

(15:10):
They went with them, you know, in WW after a
lot of guys were injured, you know, after Goldberg was
gone with a contract dispute, Sting was injured, Hogan and
Nash were out of the picture for whatever reason, Hall
was out. They kind of ran out of main eventers
that they had been pushing right after the Russo Ferrara
regime kind of, and it was given a premature ending,
and all of a sudden, it was just the Jeff
Jered Booker t Show for a while. And I think

(15:32):
they should have gone with Booker sooner and had him
more in the mix, and I think he would have
meant more then when they really needed to go with him,
which is a bit there's a big lesson there, you know,
protect protect that second layer of potential main eventors, because
when your top guys go down or retire and get hurt,
get movie offers whatever, you want, fans to be perceiving
the people at that next level as main event worthy.
But yeah, I don't know that it was super personal

(15:54):
with Booker. There's times where that comes up. But this
probably has more to do with a little bit of WW.
As you brought up Ryan and H and just Booker spot.
You know it's just a notch below, just a notch
below triple H. And thus the finishes we were that.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
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Speaker 3 (16:41):
Jay, thanks for the call, any any other followup for
two week move on here?

Speaker 6 (16:46):
No, no, thanks to lot a great show and just
keep up to do work.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
Appreciate it. Thanks Shay, keep listening for going and also
to everybody out there. I don't see this very often,
but spread the word about the show, you know, I
mean obviously with social networking. You guys have a lot
of out there. We've got thousands of people listening to
us every day, but that can exponentially increase. And obviously
we would love to tell the more the merry or
listening to the show and calling in, so you know,

(17:10):
spread the word on wrestling facebook pages, your your Facebook page,
message boards, whatever, let people know that we're here, include
the link to blogtalk radio dot com, slash Protash Wrestling
dash torch, and let people know when we're on. We
continue to have increases in our in our listenership and
and you can help accelerate that. All right back to
the phone lines aera code eighty six five. Thanks for

(17:31):
calling to you to make your name where you're from.

Speaker 9 (17:35):
Hey, what's going on, guys, Steven, Steve, what's moving on?

Speaker 3 (17:38):
It's good? Hey Steven, what's up?

Speaker 4 (17:41):
Nothing much?

Speaker 10 (17:41):
Man?

Speaker 11 (17:41):
I just wanted to call and get a couple of
quick questions and if I can, my first one being Babe.
I think you mentioned this on the Prege roundtable for
Summer Slam, but I just kind of wanted to know, like,
what do you guys think about them, like the fession
now with the concussion thing going on, or at leaves
with Chris Berney Winsky's slammer on Lindon m A man

(18:03):
with not really selling like thing that should make look
at him the injuries like this given case that's looked
at a summer slam with one intto the Shamans and
Randy Orton and situation where Randy Orton ended at r
K r KO ing Shamans at the table, and then
Shamus had to end up like having medical health to
get on his fat and carry him away. Then the
phone out on Monday, he ran down like nothing was wrong,

(18:24):
and then he gets stacked with a terror his back
a few times and once again he had that medical
health carry him out, and then sought is the biggest one.
As you know, Sena and their match got dpeat on concrete,
which I think should have been the end of the match,
and then you know he made the records come back.
There's the super Senia thing in on Monday, walks up
nothing is wrong with him, Yeah, just kind of wanting
to get you up feeling the mat.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
I think Senor should have sold that DDT like Ricky
Steamboat did in nineteen eighty six for Jake Roberts and
been out for several weeks and and built it up
to a main event match that maybe you know, take
a day of pay per view, maybe even summer or
Virus series with Way Barrett, and that would have been
his comeback and retribution. And I certainly don't think he
should have been just out just for you know, two

(19:08):
or three minutes and then come back and get the victory.
I thought that was really poorly handled. And you know
what you bring up about chair shots to the back
and selling injuries, I really think guys need to take
more time off and you know, worked angles are a
great way to do that if you can work it
into your storyline where a guy takes a bump through
a table, the table breaks, you know, letting be out

(19:29):
for a week or two, take him off the house
shows to sell that and let them legitimately try and
heal up some injuries that they have and work that
into part of your storyline. I think if you had
more long term booking, more long term planning, you could
do some of that and it would actually be more effected.
You know, less less is more when you have somebody
go off TV for a couple of weeks or off

(19:50):
shows for two three weeks because they at injury Angle,
the next time that that happens, that it'll make it
more important, more meaningful.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
And it's not a perfect example, but Abyss on Sunday
at Hardcore Justice landed on his own gimmick, the subtext
in the Broken Glass, and then got up and just
kept wrestling, and there wasn't a lot of long term selling.
But and I just think that's terrible, especially when you
do with your own gimmick. It's bad enough when someone
else know sells your gimmick, but when you sell your
own gimmick, I just think there's a wrestling IQ factor
that's really negligent. I think I think it's a job

(20:20):
as Terry Taylor and Simon Diamond and Elf Snow and
Delo Brown backstage because they have the authority to do it,
to pull a this aside and go, what are you
thinking when you pull out that bag, that black bag?
You want fans to think something, something gruesome is about
to happen whenever you do that, And now you just
killed it. Now what they think is you just pulled
out a bag that means about as much as a

(20:41):
body slam if it's executed. And so I think there's
a weakness in that I think a WWE, they don't.
They're more disciplined relative to TNA. Sometimes it makes them
look better than they are simply because TNA has set
the bar solo for wrestling IQ when it comes to
booking and this type of and efficiency that WWE looks
like geniuses relatively speaking. But I think there's certain moves
that that should be sold a lot more. WWE is

(21:05):
sensitive to selling the idea of concussions. They don't like
to build into their storylines things that are that they
don't even want other people talking about. And for instance,
when John Cena had u you know, was I can't
remember what the angle was, but he was updating his
his his work, his work injury, and he said something
on Twitter about a mild concussion and it was like

(21:26):
a matter of hours later he retweeted and said, oh, nope,
I guess I didn't have a concussion after all, but
blah blah blah blah blah, still some you know, bruises.
And what he was doing there is he didn't want
to have a he didn't want an instant in an
indication where he had a storyline injury and came back
quickly from it and wrestled again, because that would make
it look like, you know, wwe knows the line has

(21:47):
blurred between reality and fiction, especially with mainstream writers, and
they would say there was this one time where John
Cena said he had a mild concussion but wrestled four
days later, and and they don't want that. So Sena
had you know, went and corrected and said, Nope, no concussion.
And I kind of chuckle that that going. Yep, they're
managing you know, which injuries actually storyline wise, they acknowledge
in which ones they don't. Steve anyways, we said a

(22:07):
lot and he follow up Stevens, well.

Speaker 11 (22:09):
I just want to thought, like I agree with Sad.
I think first like the sur line wise, it would
have been better for the next if you know or
even John Tina can't stop the next what's gonna happen?
And so the injury said with that couldn't name with
then et good name. He's had neck problems, but couldn't
day in the long run, kind of like well he
reiterated his neck again or something like that instead of
saying concuss.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah. Yeah. There's ways to change to finesse the language
where you stay away from a buzzword, but in general,
they absolutely need to be need to be doing a
better job selling long term low There should be certain
moves that mean something and it and I know, I
know it's different than it was twenty five years ago.
In a superplex off the second rope was Brian you'll
know this, the long Riders, the Irwin Brothers, they're finishing

(22:50):
hold with the super plex off. The second rope that
was Scott Hogger wins big finisher and now it's you know,
it's crazy to think that that would be a finisher.
A bulldog, you know, used to be a finisher and
now it's a trans move in the middle of a match.
So I get that we progressed, but it doesn't mean
that whatever moment in time that we're in that we
shouldn't have a set of moves that are protected and

(23:10):
a set of moves that are by design storyline wise
communicated to viewers as being worse than others, hard harsher
than others. And I think there's room for improvement, and
I think there's great rewards for doing that, because then
it means you don't have to go more and more
extreme in order to get the same reaction, right.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
You know, the wrestling business has changed in a lot
of ways over the last twenty thirty years, some for
the better and some definitely for worse. And you know,
you remember back twenty years ago, the pile driver was
banned in Memphis wrestling because it would cause such a
devastating injuries. And that's how Jerry Lawler would disqualified and
prolong his viewed and he'd hurt somebody and they'd have

(23:47):
a big angle out of it. And once in a
while you'd see he'd give a pile driver to road
Warrior Hawk, and Hawk would talk right back up and
no sell it. And it was a big deal at
the time because nobody could no sell a pile driver
except talk, and just made for a unique environment. And
we've gotten away from that now. A pile driver is
you know, one or two kickout and the guy who

(24:08):
took the took the blow or took the move right
back on the offense just a few seconds later.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
All right, let's go back to this online day code
seven one nine. Thanks for calling. Please state your name
and where you're from.

Speaker 12 (24:21):
It's Daniel from Colorado.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Daniel, what's up today?

Speaker 7 (24:25):
Hey?

Speaker 12 (24:25):
Uh, what a coincidence? That it's Nostalgia Thursday because uh
this yeah, this week on Netflix. Uh, what became available
is the Elimination Chamber box set, which I've actually never
seen the Elimination Chamber because well I never ordered it
because I everything's so expensive that I pick and choose.

(24:50):
But after watching it, it's definitely, Uh, you understand when
they say yeah because of the injuries over the years
that people like Chrispinois has had, He's had types of
dementia because of it. Well, and I know that probably

(25:15):
not just that injury. But what I wanted to ask
was a couple of things was that would did the
Elimination Chamber cause some major injuries over the course of
the years. And if you and I know, the Elimination
Chamber is money to Vince McMahon, but how would you

(25:37):
explain it to Vince McMahon to try to talk him
out of using it again because.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
It's so dangerous A Brian, go ahead, And when you
talk about injuries to the Elimination Chamber, you're talking about
a real injury or a storyline injury.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
No, No, I mean real injuries.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Real injuries. I think you know the probably the most
famous help type match was Nick Foley and Undertaker, which
was King of the Ring ninety eight, I think, and
you know that was certainly a physical match between Folly
and the Taker where Fully got thrown off the cage

(26:16):
through the announced desk, came back on top of the cage,
went through the cage, hit the ring, and the chair
fell and get him in the face. And so that
would be one that stands on my mind where Fully
was legitimately injured with separated shoulder, knocked some of his
teeth out of the concussion. You know, that one's for
sure is one of the biggest ones that a guy remembers.

(26:39):
And I'm sure there's been others where there's been a
lot of a lot of minor type accidents. I can't
think of anything where a real major injury occurred other
than that one.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, And I think what I mean, I'm not against
the elmination chamber as a match because I don't think
it inherently has to create real injury. And part of
what I think has been lost in wrestling, And it
started around the time that ECW started to take off,
and it also started around the time that USC came
into existence. And I think there's been a dangerous trend

(27:08):
and in fact, even Batista, and I'm kind of I'm
a little bummed out by it. Batista, although it doesn't
surprise me. Batista has even said, well, I want to
be seen as a real fighter, you know. So I'm
getting an MMA, and I know it's kind of late
in my life, but I want to get an MMA,
you know. I want to be seen as a real fighter.
And he at the same time, he did say, hey,
the travel in wrestling is tough, and the training is tough,

(27:29):
and being able to be in one place for three
months to train or ten weeks to train as a
dream come true. And I mean he acknowledges that wrestling
is really tough. I just but but what I think
wrestling has, what wrestlers have in some promoters have had,
but especially wrestlers, is a little chip on their shoulder.
They used to be seen as tough guys. Even if
people said the sport was fake, they knew they were tough,
you know. And most wrestlers are pretty tough in a

(27:50):
bar fight over the years, or certainly a lot of
them are, enough of them are. So I think what
happened is UFC came around and all of a sudden,
we found out what tough really was. Legit way inside
a ring, two people, one on one, not many rules,
it's just it's basically real professional wrestling. So all of
a sudden, wrestlers started saying, well, we got to earn
our reps. So besides taking a lot more stiff chops

(28:11):
to the chest, now we're gonnake stiff chair shots to
the head. We're gonna bleed more, We're gonna take crazy
bumps through tables. And that's the way we'll offset people
thinking we're fake, because we'll stop, we'll stop the illusion
of being real, and we'll start actually hurting each other.
And there's been a whole chain reaction of bad things
that have that have happened as a result of that.

(28:32):
And so when you look at the elimination Chamber, and
I'm not saying WWE has this chip on their shoulder
as much as some other people other promotions that have
in the last ten fifteen years, But you don't need
to actually hurt each other to give us a convincing,
dramatic example of an illusion that you are. And so
the whole point of professional wrestling is and always has been,

(28:53):
and should continue to be to make it look as
real as possible without it being real at all, you know,
And there's so many ways you can tell the story
in the ring you don't need. There's not one piece
of how you tell the story in the ring that's
real that you need in order to have a good match.
You do not need a stiff chair shot to the
head without your hands in the air. Undertaker puts his
hands up and it's not that tough. You get a

(29:15):
really loud noise out of it. It still looks like it
hits your head, but in fact your hands are spread out,
absorbing a lot of the impact. I don't think any
lesson Undertaker. I don't enjoy the match any less because
he does that, and that's the way to do it.
And so I think there's a way, within the confines
of the elimination chamber to have a very violent looking
match that lives up to the hype without anybody actually
getting any more hurt than in a regular match.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
I actually enjoy matches less when a guy will take
a stiff headshot or a chair shot to the head
if unprotected kind of case in point. You know, the
TMA Tayer view from a couple of weeks ago when
Tommy Dreamer did all the shots and right in front
of his cats in the blood. It really, I thought,
took away from the match and lessen my enjoyment of it,

(29:59):
which I didn't enjoy it old much anyway.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
will come join me Alan forel Over in the Progress
Paradise at Pterbo Torch VIP as we mask on the
bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the
great matches and shows from around the world, be it
the US, Japan, Europe or Mexico. There's always a place

(30:23):
for wrestlings past in the Paradise too, and we've done
fun historical shows such as the We Love Liger series
celebrating the glorious career of Jusian Thunderliger and our eye
was there when shows where our guests will join me
to talk about a classic bout that they were in
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of it at the Progress Paradise. Detailed pw Torch VIP

(30:45):
subscription information and a list of all the VIP benefits
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Yes All VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast apps
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directly from her ad free VIP mobile size See You
in the Paradise.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
I da way follow up.

Speaker 13 (31:12):
Yeah, actually, I had a question about Awesome Kong and
how she premiered on Lucha Libre this week. And I've
always been a huge fan of hers because I thought
that she brought something different to the table, But seeing
her this, I actually always wanted to see her.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
In w W lee.

Speaker 13 (31:36):
I'm not she doesn't look like a stripper, so I'm
not sure if this would ever hire her, but she's
definitely got a real aspect to her, and seeing her
on Lucia Libre was actually a shock, and it was
kind of I thought her worst match seeing her was
her last match in TNA, But now she seems like

(32:00):
she's gained more weight. She looks like she's more winded.
She she could barely move. Do you think that she's
passed her prime or do you think she just needs
to lose some weight because she's not that old.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
I I don't think she's passed her prime. I don't
know the exact circumstance if in terms of how beat up.
She might be right now, that might be splown her down.
I mean, I think she's got a lot left, a
lot left. I yeah, I think that if she's if
she's hurting, and that's and that's affecting her her performance.
You know, she should be able to heal up. Brian

(32:35):
anythink that.

Speaker 9 (32:37):
I haven't.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
I haven't seen the show. I haven't seen her and
haven't heard much about.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Okay, Yeah, and I mean I'm a bit I'm with
I'm with you, Darryl. I'm a big fan of Bostam Kong.
I think her body, her her look, her body type,
her persona is the type of diversity that either women's
division needs, and it's one of the reasons the Knockout's
Division work. I thought sometimes she she got like when
she'd kind of do the bug eyed I'm crazy, I'm
a crazy Amazon woman. And sometimes it seemed too cartoonish.

(33:02):
It seemed too much like gorgeous ladies and wrestling from
the late eighties or mid eighties, and I didn't like that,
and I thought that was a fault of the directing.
You know. I just think sometimes she's produced poorly and
told to do something, and she doesn't have the coaching
to say no, no, that looked a little cartoony, let's
tone it down, let's do this. And frankly, she's like
this really nice lady. I mean her like, well, Bubba

(33:22):
the lovestponge would have a different opinion of it, because
you you know, well, but I admire her for taking
a stand, but she really is like her demeanor and
I've met her, I mean, she's just a very very
well spoken, nice woman, and so it maybe it's a
little tough for her to come across as some crazy
woman who's gonna lose control. But obviously with Bubba we
found out that side of her is in her. But awesome.

(33:43):
Kong is a good worker. You know, she actually can work,
and she's she's an athlete. She's not not the top
fourth of all women workers I've seen or anything like that.
But she played her role for the most part in
the ring really well, and she and Gail Kim had
a really good chemistry with each other. And I think
that it's nice to see that kind of that kind
of diversity in a women's match. I mean, part of

(34:04):
the problem, it's not just the way that women look.
They all wrestle so much the same too. You know,
when you see two divas come out for a match,
it almost doesn't matter who it is. You know, you
chop their heads off or you or you blur well,
let's not say that, let's blur their heads on the screen.
It's the same match every time. There's very little differentiation,
unless it's Lazy von Eric, in which case there's a
lot of mismoves.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
Oh anyway, Yeah, that was one thing that TNA really
could stand out. When you had Gail Cam, you had
Awesome Kong, you had a couple you know, dB was
a different character as well. Now they're all gone and
there's there's everything's pretty cookie cutter in TNA anymore, as
far as women's division, Darrel.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Any closing words before I move on?

Speaker 13 (34:46):
Uh yeah, and by the way.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
My name is Daniel, but okay, thanks, sorry about that.
That's my I can't even my own handwriting.

Speaker 13 (34:54):
So I've been called worse.

Speaker 9 (34:57):
That's all right.

Speaker 13 (34:59):
But but yeah, with Awesome Kong, I think that I'm
wondering if she heels up and if she drops some
way and gets some better ring shape, do you think
that there's ever a chance of her coming to WWE,
Because I'd love to see her take on Vet Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah, I think there is. I think she's gonna have
to prove herself and get a good reputation, just rebuild
her reputation a little bit. You know, there there was
some drama with her in TNA besides the Bubba stuff
that that was of concern to WWE, and and you know,
most people who interacted with her on a day to
day basis loved her. But it doesn't mean that she
did have a reputation for a little bit of drama

(35:39):
in certain areas. I don't think it's I don't think
from what I heard, it's enough to disqualify her in
any way from consideration. And I mean, I'd like to
sear against almost anybody in w W because it would
it'd be a different matchup than looking like it just
looks like a video game where they use the same
body for everybody. And I know there's some variation, but
I mean, you know, Mickey James gets you know, Mickey
James had some variation and she's gone, Gail Kim is thinner,

(36:02):
Molina's got more curves, but you know, you look at
a lot of them and it's just it's a it's
it's an eight percent variance either way, you know, and
I want some really big differences in how these women
look and even more important, how they wrestle. All right, Uh, Dwayne,
thanks for your call. You're not laughing, Daniel, thanks for
your call. All right, I got it? All right? Cool?

(36:26):
Well again, Daniel. All right, let's go back to the
phone lines and who's air code? Four one five? You're
on Peter Beetword's live cast with Wayde Keller and Brian Hoops.
Please stay to your name and where you're from.

Speaker 7 (36:37):
What's going on?

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Guys with Jonathan from San Francisco?

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Hey, Jonathan, what's up today?

Speaker 7 (36:43):
That much?

Speaker 5 (36:45):
Do you guys have any any like clue if you
guys are gonna do a show where the callers are
gonna guest host, what you guys are is that just
you know, lead that to the other podcast to do.

Speaker 7 (37:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I mean, I think we're I think we're a pretty
caller centric show as it is. I mean, I'm pretty
proud that we've stuck with this format, which you know,
other than sometimes we do ten twenty minutes of talk
at the beginning when there's big news, but a lot
of times we go right to calls, and frankly, I've
got people on staff and contributors and a few people
who are longtime hosts of other podcasts who are lined

(37:21):
up to co host. And this is no offense to
the listener, But I'm not sure that I have time
to analyze which ones bring enough to the table and
have the skill set to sit here for an hour
and add more to the show in a way that
is more than either our staff contributors who we try
to give time to the or the or having a
variety of callers. So I'm not I mean again, I don't.

(37:42):
This isn't a meeting callers. Just the realist, realistically speaking,
giving everybody a chance to call in and ask a
subject and talk about it, I think is something we're
pretty good at. But I'm not sure there's a real
real desire from our listeners to have one of the
callers co hosts a whole show. And honestly, what would
impress me as if somebody went out and started their
own show, did it for a few months and got

(38:04):
really good and got a following, and and then then
there's a room for some price, some cross promotion in
terms of having you on, if you if you as
a co host brought something real special to the table. Jonathan,
any any thoughts on that? Are you mad?

Speaker 10 (38:18):
Now?

Speaker 5 (38:20):
Actually that's what That's pretty much what I thought.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Okay, is in reason?

Speaker 7 (38:24):
Do you think we're a contest? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (38:27):
I mean obviously, I tell you what, if there was
if there was, if there was something we could do
for charity that that would lead to there being some
sort of a contest where it would lead to a
benefit to a charity and somebody got to co host
a show, I'd be out for that. So I mean,
if if and let me put this way, if you've
got some if you, if anybody out there, including you,
have ideas, send it by email, because you know, I

(38:48):
want to talk about wresting on the show, not not
show format too much, but send me an email with
some ideas and we'll look into it. Because if somebody
else can benefit from that, absolutely we'd hand over co
hosting for an hour to somebody else.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
Ooh sounds great. Do you guys have any any like
talks with ESPN to uh, pretty much get you guys
show on the ESPN networks, because the shows that's on
the ESPN radio shows, Guys between the rope they're really
not good, and I think you guys could bring a
more realistic view of you know, a respectable view because

(39:23):
that PWR show. I can't stand that show. And I
think you guys would do ten times better than that
show ever do well, and I don't. I don't know
how they're number one.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Well. ESPN's great company, but I'm not sure that we
I mean, we're right there in iTunes with them, you know,
in terms of in terms of our placement on search
returns and UH and ranking in the top two hundred
sports category. It's not like there's a real huge advantage.
They're on a local, local ESPN channel that carries the
ESPN letters, and then they're also a podcast. I mean,
I wouldn't rule anything out. I mean, I did a

(39:56):
show at Kfan Radio for a couple of years in
the ear early nineties and had a blast doing it.
But from from a pure time standpoint, driving into driving
to a radio station for maybe a one hour or
two hour show with a bunch of commercials. When I
can you know, host blog talk radio and do it
on a daily basis, you know, I mean, I'm not

(40:18):
saying I'm not saying it's I'm not open to it,
and and certainly there would be a possibility that would
be you know, hard to turn down if it was
carried nationally on weekends or something like that. But I'm
real happy with the blog talk radio setup we have
here and are promoting of it on our website and
through our app and tor iTunes. You know, Apple's great
and giving us, you know, the iTunes gives us a

(40:38):
chance for people enter WWE and search in iTunes or
pro wrestling and we're right there and so a lot
of people find us that way.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
That's how I found you, guys, and every time I
found you, I listened to the show every single day.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
So Jonathan saying, do you guys think that.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
The Undertaker and Kane is going to have a good
feud and do you guys see it lasting for all
the way up into the rest Mania where where Kang
calls it quits, because I think Kane deserves a WrestleMania, uh,
you know, a WrestleMania send off. And now you guys
can put me back on hold and I can enjoy
the show.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Great. Thanks thanks a lot, Johns appreciate your kind words
about the show. Bruce Mitchell in the chat room, he's
back from his vacation. Just said, Uh, Wade's admitting he's
lazy because I don't want to drive to the radio station.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
So thanks, Bruce.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
I can always count on you for support.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
The chat room's pretty good today, Wade. I'm sitting here
reading it and it's you know, it's a pretty good
discussion going on.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, I've got it in front of me too. I'm
glancing at it. Of course, the callers have my undivided
attention as always, and as as do the co host Brian.

Speaker 4 (41:40):
I didn't weren't you on with dark Star a couple
of years ago? But I don't think you've been on
kf an for since that time.

Speaker 9 (41:47):
Have you.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
I've done guests. I've been a guest on kfan a
number of times over the years, but it's been it's
been years now. I can't remember the last time I
was on with Dan Barrero or chat Hartman or or
there or you know, other shows too. But but yeah,
I did Dark Star on a semi regular basis on
w CCO for a while and I can't remember what

(42:09):
got in the way of that happening. I think we
got prempted a couple of times for like election coverage
or something like that, and then it's just kind of
fell by the wayside. But yeah, I mean I do
guest shots on other I do get shots on other
radio shows, another podcasts at times, and definitely enjoy doing that.
I mean I've done that. I've done w fa N,
you know, a dozen dozen times over the years, and
a lot of other radio shows. So you're welcome, Bruce,

(42:29):
to continue the chat room question. All right, the question
on Caan and Undertaker from Jonathan. I think they have
a chance to have a decent feud, and and it's
not We're not talking, you know, Eddie grow versus Dean
Malanco style matches. We're not even talking Randy Orton against

(42:50):
John Ceno and their better matches. We're not talking Motor
City machine Guns against Beer Money when it comes to
match quality. But Caine and Undertaker have both have both
surprised me in overperforming at times, including Kane against Batista.
I think they had some matches early on, a couple
of matches that were clunkers, dreadfully boring matches, and then

(43:13):
they turn it up and actually told a nice story.
And I think Kine's been having some good stories. I
think Kane is a smart worker. He's somewhat limited athletically,
but he's smart in terms of knowing his character and
telling that story. And so as Undertaker, Undertaker is one
of those guys who can have a five star match
with Sean Michaels twice and blow you away with his
athleticism and then pay the price afterwards. You know, he

(43:34):
puts a lot into it. I do not begrudge at
all Undertaker and Kane when all the backstory they have
as characters deciding to go and have a feud where
they have matches that aren't lea where there's not going
to be a ton of athletic movement in the ring,
and it's more about the story that they tell. So
I think it'll be okay. I mean, I think it'll
satisfy WWE fans. It's a slot on the card. I
would not want a whole card full of Kane versus

(43:55):
Undertaker matches. WWE should not fill a roster full of
Kane and Undertaker people. But you know what if it's
if it's a match that culminates at WrestleMania, or culminates
in three months at Survivor Series or something like that,
and it's you know, second from the top, third from
the top, even the top match on a show with
a good undercard. I'm fine with that, Brian.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
Everyone answer on that, Yeah, I would agree with you.
You know, it's not going to be a wrestling classic.
These guys have a lot of mileage on their bodies,
and but I think they've learned and gained enough experience,
especially Taker working with Michael's, that you can do a
lot in outside the rank that can you know, further
your feud and build it over a couple of months time.

Speaker 9 (44:33):
We're not gonna have.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
Anything great inside the ring, but we can have some
good angles, some good interviews, good psychology, and and have
a memorable run here between these two guys.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
And Bruce Mitchell is with me on the h is
with me on the analysis of Canaan Undertaker. Right, Brian,
you got an email with a nostalgia question before we
go down to the collar. Why don't you go ahead
and ask what that question is?

Speaker 4 (44:57):
All right? One of our guys in the chat room
email me and wanted to know if Flair did the
match with Lex Luger at the Bash nineteen ninety one,
would Luger still have went heel and would his reign
have been a better success. And what he's referring to
is Jim Hurd Air right at the dying end of Heard,

(45:18):
he wanted Flair to take a pay cut, significant paycut
from his contract. Flair and Heard ended up having shouting
matches fighting about the contract situation, and Heard ended up
firing Rick Flair about thirty days before the nineteen ninety
one July Great American Bash with Flair as champion, and

(45:38):
Flair went home with the belt and they made a
match between Luger and Berry Wyndham for the title, and
Luger ended up going heel on this match. This is
when Harley Race was inserted with Luger to help him
turn heel be his manager, and Luger went over and
ended up winning the belt and having about a six
six to seven month run with the title. I don't

(46:00):
think Luger would have went heel at this point. You know,
if if they would have kept the belt on Flair,
he would have had probably the best hope they would
have had at the time staying with heel. But really
it almost would have been irrelevant with the way that
Jim Hurd and Rick Flair would have been at each
other as far as fighting. And you know, actually Flair

(46:22):
was part of the booking committee back in eighty nine
and nineteen ninety until he ended up quitting in nineteen
ninety and and went off the booking committee completely, so
they were really at each other and could never have
any direction whatsoever. I don't think Luger would have went
heel and he wouldn't have been given the belt either
at that time.

Speaker 10 (46:40):
Rame.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
You can support us on Patreon and get these shows
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(47:03):
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Speaker 3 (47:13):
All right, thanks for the question. Let's go back to
the phone lines. Eric code a too eight. Thanks for
your patients. Please state you name it where you're.

Speaker 14 (47:18):
From Hey, this is Keyon from North Carolina.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Hey, Keon, what's up? Yeah? I actually had.

Speaker 14 (47:25):
Two nostalgia questions. I may save one for next time.
K three run short on time. I did want to
make a quick comment. The first caller kind of got
me thinking along these lines. I think the fact that
Seamus is the first Irish born WW champion is irrelevant.
And Michael Cole pushes it every time and promotes it
over and over. I mean, I think it's irrelevant. Like

(47:48):
I can see, like a Randy Ordon, he's the youngest champion.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
That's something to promote.

Speaker 14 (47:52):
But what are they gonna do when they finally have
a black champion? Are they going to say this guy's
our first black champion?

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Yeah? Probably probably will Yeah, I mean, I mean, I yeah,
I mean I get where you're coming from. I think
vincik Man is some Irish in them, so this maybe
just played at the events a little bit. Obviously, Seamus
very much plays up being Irish. This could be a
certain extent a play to the European fans to if
they stress that a lot that helps them in Ireland,

(48:19):
it also can help them with him as a heel
in other areas. Of Europe, or you can play play
up they can play up the European you know, nationalistic rivalries.

Speaker 7 (48:27):
You know.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
I mean, it doesn't bother me a ton. I mean,
it's been a long time since being Irish. I didn't
Maybe I'm wrong here, but it's been a long time
since the Irish are have been looked at the way
that they were when they first you know, uh landed
in uh in Manhattan Island, you know, hundreds of years ago.
So I'm not sure that they're doing it in a

(48:48):
way that in any way seems offensive to me other
than maybe it's just a Michael cohlism that maybe we
all get a little sick of hearing over and over. Right, Yeah,
well I quoting me in the chat room. Now that's
really productive person, all right.

Speaker 14 (49:04):
Actually, do you think that they would comment when they
finally do have a you know, full blooded black champion.
Do you think they would ever acknowledge that that, after
these many years, that this is our first black champion
or do you think they just kind of just go
along with it.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
I think they can. I think Rock counts, and I
think he should count. You know, I mean, do we
want to get into I mean Jesus, what if we
look at the lineage and go, oh, this is our
first black champion, except his great great grandfather may have
been white. Like you know, it's like, I mean, Rock
kind of was so in a sense, I think we
probably already went there, and it might be offensive to

(49:39):
a lot of blacks, a lot of people who are
half black, and Dwayne Johnson himself if they started saying,
you know, I mean, if if Obama's our first black president,
Rock was the first black.

Speaker 14 (49:47):
World champion, I personally agree with you. But Booker t
himself had made a comment years ago that they have
never actually had a full blooded I forgot the word
he I don't think it was made to I don't
think that's appropriate.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
I'm not I don't remember. Yeah, but yeah, I mean yeah.

Speaker 14 (50:05):
But moving on, I had a question that I've wanted
to know forever what exactly happened at the main event
for WrestleMania eight. I vividly remember the press conference. I
was like eleven or twelve at the time, and Rick
Flair was made the number one contender, and I guess
this was ninety two. Hogan versus Flair in ninety two
would have been huge exactly what happened there.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
That's a that's a long answer, Brian. Do you want
to give a relatively short answer to that.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Yeah, the quick answer. This was in the midst of
the early days of the steroid scandal, and they were
not going to go with Hogan as champions, and there
were thoughts of him leaving the company. Around that time,
guys were starting to be tested for steroids, and if

(50:55):
you remember, it wasn't too long after that that David
Bloke Smith was let go from Warrior let go, and
they were going in a different direction, mainly because of
the Doctors of Horian indictment that came down in ninety one,
So they were doing steroid testing. They didn't go with
that match because they didn't want Hogan to be the
champ and they were going in the direction with a

(51:16):
Savage and player.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
All right, Ken, we're just gonna keep rolling here cause
we got some people. I'm in to hold forty five
minutes here because we had a long line. Yeah, absolutely,
give us a call next. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Well,
keep going here to air codes seven to seven eight.
Thanks for holding so long. Please stay your name and
where you're from.

Speaker 15 (51:36):
Hey, is it Jason for Vancouver?

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Hey Jason, how you doing good?

Speaker 16 (51:41):
Good?

Speaker 15 (51:41):
Hell you guys, good.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
What's up today?

Speaker 9 (51:44):
I got a couple of.

Speaker 15 (51:45):
Things I want to talk about. I got a question
for you guys, But I got a comment too. I
went to a couple of weeks ago, Hogan and friends
came down here and I went to the little show
they had and we were, you know, guys were asking
them questions and stuff. And then after we ended up
going to the casino, we ended up seeing Holy him there.
He was in the VIP lounge. We talked to him
for a bit and we all was asking him stuff

(52:06):
about TNA, and even we want to talk about TNA.
All he wanted to talk about was WW and how great,
how great Orton was, how great Sina was. And I
find it kind of contradicting because when he first came
into TNA, all he would talk about was AJ and
Angle and how good these guys were. And now I
found him talking about the WW guys. And I kept thinking, Man,

(52:27):
this guy doesn't even care about TNA. He just getting
ready to go back to WW sooner or later.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Well it's like the and it's kind of funny. You'd
say that as an anecdote, because we just got a
report from Hogan on a little Rock Arkansas radio station
earlier today talking about TNA, and he's knocking WWE for
going PG, saying TNA is what wrestling should be. He
said his favorite wrestler is Rick Flair. His favorite opponent
now is Curt Angle. He said that, you know, other

(52:51):
negative things about WWE. So you know, maybe you got
Hogan off the clock, and what we hear on radio
is Hogan on the clock. Honestly, you know, doing this
for twenty three years covering wrestling full time, there aren't
many moments where I look at listen to Hogan and
think there's a true moment of sincerity that isn't that
isn't massed or or or completely influenced by politics. I

(53:12):
don't even know if Hogan knows what he thinks anymore,
but you probably in that circumstance, have a better idea
of what he's really thinking sitting around drinking and gambling
than you probably do when he's doing a promotional interview
for TNA.

Speaker 15 (53:27):
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Yeah, Yeah, any else I got a question?

Speaker 15 (53:32):
Yeah, go aheadays, because it's a nostalgia and Brian's there.
I want to ask you guys. You guys are like
you guys are old school fans, and I just wanted
to ask you guys from Russlemania one all the way
up to now, what's your guys' favorite WWS match? It
doesn't have to be a Rustlemania match, but what personally
is your guys favorite match? I always liked, you know,
I always like the great technical rustlers. I always liked

(53:53):
the Brett Hartstawn Michaels Russelemania twelve match. But I always
wanted to wonder what you guys are favorite mats would I'll.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Jump in first. I was not as much of a
fan of Brett Hart and Sean Michaels as I've been
in times. I didn't think they had the best chemistry
that we hoped for out of them, and I don't
think their matches hold up really well over time, in
part because Sean did not have a real diverse amount
of matt wrestling, and we're talking about technical wrestling. I
think Michaels is much stronger with some of his other

(54:21):
opponents that he's had big time matches with. I thought
he and Brett sort of offset each other a little
bit and almost exposed each other's weaknesses. I thought their
marathon match was a snoozer at during a lot of
it where it felt like they were trying to fill
time because they didn't have enough, because they just didn't
have enough material to work with. So I'm a little
bit cold, was a little bit cool on Michael's and

(54:43):
Brett overall as not living up to their potential. And so,
I mean, my memory is long, is my memory is
quite long. It's not perfect, but I had known as
to go back very far. I mean, I just think
Michael's undertaker the last couple of years, maybe their first
one stood out a little bit more, just because I
think it might have been slightly better and it was
the first time even though Michael's retirement match had a

(55:04):
lot at stake there, I think that's probably my favorite match.
I mean there's other there's others on the list where
you know, even I mean Hogan against Ultimate Warrior live,
watching it live and in person, had that feeling that
you get when you watch UFC where even though I
mean obviously UFC's real and Hogan Warrior wasn't, Hogan never
did jobs and Warrior's future wasn't known at that point,

(55:25):
so that was just such a monumental match of two
babyface headliners who didn't job facing each other at WrestleMania.
That was a real big moment in WrestleMania history. You
go all the way back to Steamboat Savage. I mean
that predated by a few months me doing starting the
Progressing Torch newsletter, and I watched that over and over
and over again. I love some of the British Bulldog
tag matches in the late eighties against a Dream Team

(55:47):
and the Hart Foundation because it was a style of
wrestling and a level of athleticism I hadn't seen before.
There was some great WWE matches with Chris Benois that
obviously really stand out. Some Brett Hard against steam Bass
is right there with Michael's undertaker. I mean, gosh, I
could go on pinpointing one. I don't think I could.
I would need that talk for an hour and a

(56:08):
half with and have the top one hundred in front
of me to really give a fair pinpoint. And you
know what you'd asked me three months from now, might
I might give you a different one so one doesn't
stand out. Heads and tails about the other. But those
are some highlights, and I've left off the other half
of my highlights. Brian.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Yeah, you know, I'm in agreement with you, Wade, and
a lot of those matches you said I would totally
agree with. I think the Undertaker Michael's Number one from
two years ago was the better of the two, and
that was one of my all time favorites. And I
don't think you can leave out when Sean, excuse me,
when Brett Hart wrestled British Bulldog SummerSlam ninety two for
the title. That was I thought a great match. Even

(56:44):
though it wasn't the best match of that year, it
was a really really good match.

Speaker 9 (56:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Otherwise, I just echo kind of what you have said here.
I really did like the Brett Harden and Steve Austin match.
I thin because WrestleMania thirteen when they did the double
two from a psychology standpoint yup.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
And I'm trying to think of other ones, and I
can think of a lot of other good ones, but
nothing else that I think is just egregiously left off.
I mean, the early to mid nineties it was kind
of a dry period to a certain extent for you know,
it just wasn't really late eighties. Frankly through the through
the mid nineties, it wasn't a time when WWS trying
to put out these these fantastic shows stealing high end
five star matches. So all right, let's go to the

(57:26):
next call. Aer Cood nine one seven, Please state your
name and where you're from.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
Hey, guys with Joe from points, How you doing to
that good? How you doing jump the yod man? I'll
make it quick. Two questions. One, as far as the
retro question, I have a question about Sean Michaels in
Polk Hogan when they met like four or five years ago.
I don't remember watching that match, and there seemed to
be a ton of I don't know, like Seawn Michaels
was kind of like ribbing Hogan with like overstelling to

(57:53):
the point of where it was just crazy. I'm not so,
I'm not sure if you guys remember him, but it
was just so over the cop it was just like ridiculous,
And I just want to know if there was anything
going into that match that made Sean just overspell like
it was Joe.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Great, great question, and it's a great opportunity to plug
the VIP website because yesterday I just put up the
latest edition of the Progressing Torch newsletter, back issue from
five years ago. First time it's been read online in
five years, and first time it's been completely put online,
first time ever in PDF format. So this is new
content online. And our cover story is on the politics

(58:29):
of this match going into it, and we've got news
items about how Sean wanted to practice with Hogan beforehand
and what Hogan's reaction was to that, and the games
that were being played. My suggestion, I wrote a full
page editorial suggesting what Shawn Michael should do if he
wanted to become infamous in some things he could do
to show up Hogan in the match. You could judge
for yourself whether he followed any of those ideas in

(58:49):
that full page editorial. Some time hadn't happened yet five
years ago, because this year it was early in five
years ago, a little bit later in the month, But
the next couple of weeks we're gonna have a lot
more on that match, and we had a lot of
good insider information what was going on behind the scenes
regarding that situation. So in the interest of time, because
if you had called an hour ago, and I know
that's no consolation to you. I could probably talk about

(59:09):
that for you know, several minutes. But if you are
a VIP member, go look for that latest back issue.
If you're not, that's a good incentive to go give
us a try. There's a ton of content for ten
bucks a month or less if you subscribe longer term,
get a ton of Someone just posted a direct link,
by the way in the chat room to that issue.
We've got a ton of content to sign up. You

(59:30):
can be signed up within a minute, and you can.
You don't need a PayPal account. You can work your
way through PayPal with a credit card and not even
be a PayPal member. But you can sign up. It
takes two minutes if you've got your credit card or
a PayPal count front of you. And the place to
go is pw torch dot com slash go VIP. That's
pw torch dot com slash go vip. Tons of great content,

(59:50):
audio archives and new stuff. We have the new edition
of the prosing Torch newsletter up this week with nineteen pages,
a lot of first run material that nobody else is reading.
So to check that out. If you're not a member,
why not give us a try. It's a good time
to join, especially with Joe. Your your convenient way for
me to plug the five years ago back issues. The
short answer is yeah, there were some games being played

(01:00:10):
on both sides, and in the end I thought Michael's
was was was quite good in what he did. In
the end, he behaved more than I thought he might
because there were some ideas to misbehave even more okay.

Speaker 9 (01:00:23):
And then real quick, my last question is this it's
just being or does it seem like whenever someone gets
into a confrontation with Randy Ordan in the ring, like
his push gets kind of them, Like, for instance, like
a couple of months ago, I'm sure we all remember
when he yelled at Kofe Kingston for I don't know
what the problem was, but he yelled at them in
the middle of the ring. And then like it seemed

(01:00:44):
like Kofe's push just when went nowhere. Then there was
the whole and Anderson thing before what happened, and then
just recently two weeks ago, I think Niz with him
with Randy Orden. He yelled at Niz for something in
the ring, and it seems like it seemed like this
was really hot and ups going been like a week
and a half.

Speaker 10 (01:01:01):
Two weeks.

Speaker 9 (01:01:01):
But it was like Nis was hobbling around Seamus, and
it was looked like it was gonna be like a
three way kind of rivalry between the three of them,
and then all of a sudden that incident happened, and
and now Miz is like not really doing the money
in the bank things more or less. I guess he's
gonna go with daniel'brien more. I'm just wondering if you
think something has to do with that because of Orgon,
you know, yelling, I haven't.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Cool. Great. I just put you on a hold earlier
than I anticipated. Sorry about that, Joe, appreciate your call.
Good question. I don't think missus push is diminished. I
think feuding with Daniel Bryan is a perfect thing to
occupy him at this point. I don't know that you
wanted to build every week around him trying to catch
in the money in the bank, and some fluke prevents
him from doing it. You are onto something, though. I

(01:01:43):
do think Randy Orton has some influence. I thought it
was interesting Sean Michaels in his long interview with ESPN's
website last week that he said with that, he said
that he thinks Randy Orton takes things too seriously sometimes,
and he relates to that because Michaels was similar to
many back then and having a temper, being a perfectionist
and having really Michaels gonna put it this way, but

(01:02:04):
in some ways a lack of maturity and being forgiving
of other people's mistakes. And I always thought about how
Brett Hart always said that, you know, he never wanted uh,
He that he always felt his job in the ring
was to never hurt anybody and and that that was
job number one. And I agree with that. And it's
a shame, you know that Goldberg kind of recklessly hurt Brett,

(01:02:25):
but it was Owen Hart, you know, who ended up
paralyzing temporarily and leading to a premature end of Steve
Boston's career. And you know, you just got to be
careful how how much perfection you expect out of somebody else,
because mistakes are made. And so I think with Randy,
you put you set yourself up for such a level
of having to be perfect yourself when you when you

(01:02:45):
freak out over that, it's not if it's based on
someone being lackadaisical and you're taking your job too seriously.
There's a way to handle that and do it in
a more professional manner, and I think most people agree
Randy still as a little it could could make some
progress in that area. What do you think, Brent?

Speaker 7 (01:02:59):
I think right there's nothing there.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
You know, something with where happened with Kophe Kingston, something
happened with mister Anderson, and we've kind of heard the
explanations about that. But I don't think I would view
a program with Brian Danielson as a diminish roll or
anything like that. I think it's a great program, a
money program for them to follow up on.

Speaker 17 (01:03:21):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell, host of the free weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Each week, he'll hear the latest news and analysis from
me and my team at pro wrestling dot Net along
with other pro wrestling media members. Plus, the Pro Wrestling
Boom Podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe an iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and

(01:03:43):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
pw boom dot com. Once again, that's pw boom dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
All right, let's go to Eric code seven to seven. Oh,
please state your name or you're from and a very
quick question or comment.

Speaker 9 (01:04:00):
Ah man, uh, I'm Larry from Atlanta.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Let me ask both of you guys.

Speaker 9 (01:04:05):
You've both interviewed a lot of and I want to
know what you guys think about when you look back
at interviews years later.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
For example, Matt we see it seems like he did
some some more drugs possibly and wasn't quite.

Speaker 7 (01:04:17):
Honest with himself being clean.

Speaker 13 (01:04:19):
What do you guys think about how.

Speaker 7 (01:04:20):
Often you might be worked in interviews?

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
And who did you bring up, Matt we See?

Speaker 7 (01:04:26):
Luther Rings?

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
Oh gotcha?

Speaker 9 (01:04:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Okay, well, yeah, I think there's definitely uh times that
I don't know if I mean, the term work is
over you so much. You know, if you ask a question,
you need to get an answer. Are you being worked?
Or is a person just lying?

Speaker 7 (01:04:41):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Sometimes I think we use the wrestling terminology a little
bit into the situations where if there's an unverifiable fact
that somebody wants to lie about themselves, I'm not so
sure that's working someone as it is just not being
honest in the interview and maybe it'd say it's I'm splinter.

Speaker 4 (01:04:55):
Hairs and seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Anyway, Larry, I know we ran out of time for you, Brian,
and I gonna stick around for the yet you have
to show. Thanks everybody for listening. I'll be by with
Bruce Mitchell tomorrow. All right, Brian, gots I go bad.
We left a few callers on hold who we didn't
get to, but we got I think the eight collars

(01:05:18):
during the hour and had some good questions and good comments.
What do you think of the interviewing thing? Is interesting
and you've watched the evolution, Brian, of interviews over the years.
I mean the going back to the seventies with fanzines.
You know, if a fanzine got an interview with the wrestler,
it was you'd maybe talk to him on the phone
and take some notes or record it, or you would
send them like a letter with questions on it and

(01:05:39):
then they'd type some questions back. You know, it's very
primitive and very surface level. You know, you know, are
their TV shows you like? Or you know, do you
have a family, what's your favorite opponents? You know, that
kind of real general stuff. And then the magazines kind
of evolved into you know, with the progressing Illustrated Family
into and I don't have no problem with this that
they were. They were a program that I look at

(01:05:59):
them as a program that enhances wrestling as if it
were real, if this world, if this world of wrestling
were real, what would a magazine look like? And they
stuck to that narrative, But their interviews were works. Sometimes
they were based on a real conversation. Other times the
wrestler just trusted them to make it all up because
they'll take the publicity and they would make up quotes
that fit their character. And then it evolved to you know,

(01:06:20):
the Torch Talks, which I think we're the first. I mean,
I know they're the first series of insider interviews that
were ever done on a regular basis, with long form
interviews where wrestlers broke from broke away from overt k fabing.
But there's no doubt that wrestlers have their own agenda
when you do interviews with them. You know, you just
interviewed Buff Bagwell and he's talking about this high end

(01:06:41):
reality series with ESPN, and you know how many times
can you ask him? Who can I verify that with?
You know before he's just like ah, come on, you know,
could calling me on it. I know it's an obvious lie,
but at least let me have my moment to lie
about this. My life doesn't have a lot more else
going forward right now. Let at least two or three
people believe this.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Yeah, you know, and George Sire and I have talked
a lot about, you know, different wrestlers, and I've interviewed
much more than nostalgic type guys and guys that are
current like Buff Bagwell is probably the youngest guy that
I really sat down and talked with or interviewed. And
I guess the point that Georgia was making is, you know,
a lot of these old time guys, if you ask
him a question, they're not going to lie to you,

(01:07:20):
but they just may not remember the facts as accurately
as what actually happened because it happened a long time ago.
They're not the ardent fan that we may be taking
notes or writing results down or that sort of thing.
They were on the road doing the wrestling and just
never had the time to, you know, remember what date
they wrestled this guy on and what type of finish

(01:07:42):
it was. They were just too busy on the road
and so it's not so much for guys or trying
to be dishonest. It's just that they don't remember, you know,
just just time and the fact that they were not
as committed to putting things down in memory as what
a lot of us are.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
And let's be honest, sometimes every time, if it's a
story they called before. Every time you tell a story,
if you're an old time wrestler and the story is
meant to entertain, not document an important moment in wrestling history,
but your goal is to entertain someone. I mean, I'm
not encouraging embellishing, you know, I mean, but at the
same time, it's a reality. You're gonna get some embellishment.

(01:08:17):
Someone's going to enhance the number of guys that the
Crusher and Verse are beat up in that barfight, or
they're going to leave out a detail that would drag
the story down a little bit. You know, maybe the
cops did't show up, maybe it was just a bouncer
said get out of here, but the story is well two,
you know, two, three cops showed up and then they
had to call for backup. You're going to get that.
I think the question, the specific question that Larry has
two has to do with with drugs, And honestly, when

(01:08:39):
you when you're talking about drugs, marriage affairs, and money,
you just you have to if you're going to ask
about things that are that personal, that either are illegal
or just deeply personal or in private, if you're going
to go in that territory, you have to understand that
not only is the person does a person have the

(01:09:00):
right to say no comment, but if they answer, they
may have a real good reason in their own mind
to not tell the truth, to exaggerate or downplay something.
And the fact is is, I think the reader knows
that you know. And there's certain areas where you asked
a question over and over again until you get the
right answer, or you challenge somebody with a fact if
you think that they're lying. But when it comes to
something as personal as you know, there's times I've interviewed

(01:09:22):
people and I say, you know, I do random names,
you know, like, okay, tell me what you think of
this person, this person, and this person. And of course
in that list, I'm going to include some friends, and
I'm going to include some people that maybe, oh this
person had an affair with that person and it went bad,
and I throw that name in there because I'm curious
what they'll say. And occasionally you'll get a no comment

(01:09:43):
or they'll say something nice to cover up. But you know,
you kind of hope that they will tell you something,
but you don't expect them to spill the beans on everything.
So if Luther Raines had a major thing going on
in his life that he didn't want to talk about
and that subject came up, I mean, I don't think
he should necessarily provide evidence to prosecution because he agreed
to do a torch talk with me.

Speaker 7 (01:10:02):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
And I when you talk about a guy saying no comment,
I think about the brock Lesner Countdown special that I
think he did before the Frank Muir fight, the second
one where they sat down did an ESPN three sixty
story with him and they asked him if he had
ever done steroids, and he got mad and wouldn't answer.
And if you think about it from Lessard's perspective, if

(01:10:23):
he says yes, a lot of what he's doing as
far as credibility probably goes out the window because they're
going to say his size, his physique, his strength, to
speed of his jaility all attributed steroids and discount any
natural abilit he had. If he says no, are people
going to believe him anyway? You know, they're probably just
going to say, well, he's lying, he's a wrestler, he's working,

(01:10:44):
or that sort of thing. So his answer was not
to answer the question, and he just refused to answer it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
So, you know, I thought, Scar arms what what's the biker?
Not Scott Armstrong?

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
Landformstrong?

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
Thank you? I thought, I started thinking a wrestling name.
I thought Lance I'm Strong on a on a talk
show once, and I don't know if it was Leno
or a letterman or maybe even it was just a
Larry King setting or something, but I remember they asked
about steroids and he just looked like he gave him
that look you you kind of described it there, Brian,
where it's like I can't and even said I can't

(01:11:17):
win no matter how I answer this. So and he
got pressed on it and the interview said, well, come on,
I mean, did he take steroids? Do you think that
helped you win? Was that fair? And he's just like,
you know, I just I just don't even like to
talk about this anymore because there's just no way to
win now. I'm not saying that I the interviewer should
ask him about it, because there are times where it's
absolutely appropriate to ask it. I think there's times where
if you'd ambush somebody when they think they're doing an

(01:11:39):
entertainment interview, you know, a Leno esque type interview, they're
there to promote something and have a friendly environment, and
you're going to lose the ability to have guests on
if all of a sudden you start bombarding them with
things that are scandalously written about them. So I think
there's a setting where it's appropriate, but it is understandable
when somebody doesn't want to be entirely for rite about something,

(01:12:00):
I hope they are. There are times where I mean
Sean Waltman raising, I've done Kevin Nash, I've done interviews
with guys who I think have honed up to a
lot of stuff that a lot of people wouldn't. Now,
you also have the game that gets played in interviews
where sometimes someone tells you sixty percent of the truth
so that they gained credibility for being forthright, when there's

(01:12:21):
the other forty percent is really damaging and they want
credibility to deny it, so they'll say, oh yeah, boyd.
Did I cheat on my first wife in fact, with
a lot of girl, with a lot of women, But
I would never cheat on my second wife, my current wife.
And what they're doing, you know, building up credibility that hey,
I didn't met if I had an affair, and I
definitely I have not had an affair since I got
married the second time, you know, so you can apply

(01:12:43):
that to a lot of things. Same with steroids I tried.
Jesse Mantura told me I tried to use steroids and
the day experimented with them. You know, well, did you
experiment with them for three and a half straight years
without cycling off, or did you experiment them by maybe
taking two shots and you didn't like the reaction you got?
You know, So sometimes they use people will use vague
language in order to in order to try to just say,

(01:13:04):
all right, I gave you an answer. The truth is
in there somewhere, but I'm not going to refine my answer,
and if you try, you're going to get the same answer.
So it's just, you know, it's part of the game
that you play with interviews.

Speaker 9 (01:13:14):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
John Cena did the same thing when he when he
made the comment that when he was asked about steroids,
he said, I've never failed a steroid test. Yes, you know,
the truth is in there somewhere. Maybe he's never actually
failed it. Maybe he's never taken a test.

Speaker 9 (01:13:27):
We don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
He never elaborated any further.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
Well, and here's the thing. You know the games that chance,
I mean I have, I've published them before. These are
my questions that I want John Cena to be asked,
Do you take steroids?

Speaker 7 (01:13:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Well no, Actually don't even start that week because you
don't want him. You want to give him a chance
to say face. The first question you ask is do
you consider pure testosterone a steroid? And then see what
kind of tongue twisting answer he gives to that. The
second question is, would you have a problem admitting that
you were on testosterone if it was prescribed by a doctor,
would you reveal that because there would be no shame

(01:13:59):
in it. If it's subscribed correct, that is correct, it'd
be no shame in it. Have you been prescribed testosterone?
Let him answer that. If his answer is yes, then say,
have you been prescribed in amount of testosterone that you
think was medically justified? That has been an exception on
WWE's test that led to you not failing even though
you tested positive for raised levels. And if his answer
was yes to that, then the final and fourth question

(01:14:20):
is has that raised level of testosterone that you have
had ostensibly for medical purposes and justified for with the
doctor prescription that allowed you to not quote fail a test,
do you think that has helped your muscle enhancement. That's it.
Those are the four questions, and it's not a game
of gotcha. It's just a game of let's be honest.
If you're going to go out be a spokesman about

(01:14:41):
how I don't take steroids, I've never failed the test
or this that or the other thing, or I work
hard and I don't want you say and I take shortcuts.
My whole character is about not taking shortcuts. And if
you're going to preach about that and be a role model.
And John Cena is not a mid card wrestler, He's
not Edge who's a main inventor but isn't marketed as
a role model. John Cena is marketed as a role model.
And he's the best PHYSQ in WWE. And I'm sure

(01:15:02):
he appreciates hearing that. If he's listening. He also because
he's marketed as a role model and a hero to kids,
and he preaches about a lot of things moralistically on
his t shirts, hustle, loyalty, respect, I think out of
respect to his audience, and out of loyalty to his audience,
he ought to be asked those questions and answer them honestly.
And if he has no problem with testosterone and thinks
that's not a steroid, even though it's a steroid, but

(01:15:24):
if he thinks it shouldn't count to the steroid, make
your case, make your best case. You've got time, we
got all the time in the world. Give us the answer.
Why should that not be a stigma used against you?
If you've taken testosterone to an answer physique And I
don't know that he has. But what I do know
is I don't know because people don't ask the right
questions of him. They say, if he seems with those
wording right, And even if you ask the wrestler if

(01:15:46):
he's taken testosterone, maybe he hasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Maybe he's taken Decca or a nanindrol, or stands a
ball or trendon bowline, anything of any of those other
steroid products. Those are are you know, are are areas
that they can you know, gray areas that they can
shift the identity to. You know, maybe I haven't taken testosterone,
but I've had injectable stanozol.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
Well. But the thing is, Brin is they usually flip
it around and they say testosterone isn't a steroid, as
the term is commonly used, testosterone is pure. It's not.
It's not it's pure testosterone, it's it's a synthetic substance
the body naturally makes. Where they think steroids that we
test for. All the ones you're listing, Decca, they're the
ones that should be tested for. They're the ones we'd

(01:16:30):
never touch. Those are synthetic, you know, those are those
are things. Those are variations on what the body naturally produces.
But what we heard during the Chris Benwa thing, I remember.
I can still see the look in my mind's eye
of what Jerry mcdebit's reaction was when the results came
in that it was testosterone found in Chris Benwat's home.
When he was told that he this big smile, see
no steroids, no stereois was home. Only only enough testosterone

(01:16:52):
to treat the entire aging population of Florida for low
testosterone for low T levels. You know he had enough
enough your rights in this house to treat everybody for
a few weeks in Florida who has low T. But
somehow that was a victory for WWE because of the
way they spun it, because it wasn't a steroid the
way they chose to define it, which is not how
any place I went on the Internet to find it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:14):
Yeah, and technically corterzone is a form of a steroid, yep,
And you know that's that's legal on your NFL guidelines.
Brett fires can get a corterzone shot for his bad
ankle and not sail a drug tests in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or AEW Dynamite
in particular, send us an email if you've got thoughts
on the show or a topic you want us to
address or a question for us. Wade Keller Podcast at
pw torch dot com. Weadkeller Podcast at pew torch dot com.
If there's anything else going on in pro wrestling that
you want us to address on our main podcast during

(01:17:53):
our mailbank segments, that same email applies Wadekeller 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. Wade Keller podcast at PW tours
dot com and.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
I one thing I had a problem with. I didn't
plan to go down this road with you in the
after show, but we might as well hit another point
of this because it's topical. Linna McMahon regarding Lance Kid, said,
we're not responsible for that, you know, anymore than than oh,
who's in the Joker in the latest Batman?

Speaker 4 (01:18:27):
He's Lesure.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
Yeah, I kept thinking he's later there. I go, see,
I can't even remember a celebrity name because everything just
either starts or ends with a wrestler name in my brain.
So yeah, he's Ledger.

Speaker 7 (01:18:37):
He died.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
Linda brought him up and said, see, can't blame the
movie studio for that. I'm like, you know what, I'd
blame the movie studio for that if in order to
perform wrestlers over the years or I'm sorry, actors over
the years repeatedly worked through injuries year round without extended
vacations built into their schedule, knowing that it was going

(01:18:59):
to happen and it wasn't, And if the studio had
a long pattern of actors dying while working their specific schedule,
with a few more than a few, maybe a lot
of wrestlers saying this is an issue the way that
we have to look good in our underwear. We have
to look muscular, we have to have a certain aesthetic
look wearing our wrestling tights, and we have to be

(01:19:19):
on the road, and when we're home, we're either unpacking
or packing unless we're injured. And we do that year
after year after year, and there's no end in sight. Well,
you know what, that's a little different than telling Heath Ledger, Hey,
you just got back from a four month tour of
Europe with your family. Now we'd like you to spend
six weeks being the joker for a Batman frickin' movie. Yeah,
of course, the movie studio is not to blame for that,

(01:19:40):
because they borrowed him for six weeks. They don't own him.
WW wrestlers own WWE owns their wrestlers. They're classified as
any pedic contractors, but they can't actually work other dates
for other promotions. They don't actually if they got a
better oct to go work at TNAM and event that's
never happened. They didn't if they get a better octor
to go work in New Japan super show, that has happened.

(01:20:01):
So this, this comparison is so flawed. And it's Linda
McMahon says it because she believes the media will never
call her on it. And you know what, she's for
the most part, right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
She is, because they won't ask the right questions. They'll
they'll let her say it. And now I asked the
right to all those questions.

Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Yep, yep. And and you know I mean vern Gan.
Yet let's tie it into that Brian, because vern actually
had off time for his wrestlers. She was one of
the rest promoters who actually was known. And as we
read about the history, they had a WA In various books,
whether it's Tenan's bio or George Shire, there were off
periods for wrestlers in a WA. I mean they actually
had time to Oftentimes they chose to work for another promoter.

(01:20:37):
But if they needed time off, if they wanted to
go to Disney World with their family for three weeks,
they wanted to sit at home and get fat for
three weeks and eat greasy pop buttered popcorn and then
spend three weeks getting back into shape. They had that
prerogative and they knew what was coming up, and that's
not you know, I do know of other promotions right
off that that had kind of just based on the
winds of the of the region and the tradition had

(01:21:00):
kind of built in time off.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Well, I can't think of too many other ones. I'm
sure there was some, especially in the Maritimes in Canada.
You know, maybe Portland had some time off, you know,
based on the season orality and a lot of times
that's the way the aw A was is because of
the summer months, you know, didn't get it the outside
in the winter, and also during the summer you want
to be outside doing other.

Speaker 5 (01:21:24):
Things and that's kind of when the AWA really.

Speaker 4 (01:21:26):
Slowed their schedule down. And really that was the thing
that kept Nick Bockwinkle from accepting the nw A title,
was the fact that he could take a lot of
time off, especially in the summer, go fishing and boating
and still make the same amount of money he would
have worked in the fol schedule grew. Yeah, the grueling
schedule of the NWA.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
Champions Do you think Didnick buck Quick will ever say
he regretted that decision at all, not having an NWA
championship on his record, because since the a w A
title did not survive, the lineage doesn't isn't still in
existence in any in any reasonable way over the years
since you know, obviously around the very nineties.

Speaker 9 (01:22:01):
Yeah, yeah, I talk with him about that.

Speaker 4 (01:22:04):
Yeah, he he doesn't ever have any regrets that he
didn't go and worked that schedule because he felt he
would have just been beat up physically and mentally, and
he wanted to have a family life, and so he
doesn't regret any of that. I think, you know, there's
probably at times that you know, his legacy or resume
maybe didn't quite stand out as much as you know,
Dorry Funk Juniors or Jack Briscos, there's somebody that had

(01:22:26):
that nw A title because he's he would have been
right at the peak of the prominence of the NWA.
He would have been a chance to hold that title.
But I don't from according to him, he doesn't have
any regrets.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
Had Nick Bachwinkle held the n WA title during his
peak years in the AWA. Let's say he had an
exclusion from the AWA where for six months or two
years he held the NWA title, and who would have
been his who would have been the opponents you would
have liked to have seen him faith that he'd never
got the faith in an n WA title type situation.

Speaker 4 (01:22:56):
Well, I think there was some, you know, some pretty
classic matchups waiting to happen there with either one of
the Briscoes, Jack or Jerry. He did say Terry Funk,
but I think on a more of an on an
NWA type scale, Terry Funk would have been a great
opponent for him. Danny Hodge would have been tremendous opponent,
you know for backlinkll You know, I tend to think

(01:23:18):
he did a lot for the AWA by branching out
a little bit further than what Ghania did. He went
down into the AWA territory, and he was a much
better I'm sorry, the Memphis territory was a much better
opponent for Jerry Lawler than what Vern Gania would have
been trying to go into Memphis and wrestle l Lawlor.
He had the right type of personnelity to go against
the local baby face. And you know, I really think,

(01:23:39):
you know, Nick opened up some doors that Vern was
trying to open that he wasn't able to get into
territories that Nick was able to get in during his
run from about seventy five to eighty.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
Because it helps too to be the time. I mean,
you think about how Rick Flair carried himself when he
would enter world class champship press and to take on
David or Carry or Kevin, and there was there I'm
an outsider, and I'm better than all you people, and
I'm better than your local hero, and he would carr
himself out. Nick would have been perfect for that. Like
if Nick had been it, if his peak years were

(01:24:12):
eighty to ninety, I mean, he could have played that
role really well too. As an NWA champion and places
a flair. You know, you can imagine Nick coming in
and cutting the similar promost, put in the Nick Bockwickell style,
piping up a match at Texas Stadium with Kerry von
Eric and having a similar type of match with him,
you know, I mean they each had their own style.
But in general, Nick, when you look back at Nickbockwigle matches,

(01:24:32):
he is such an underrated bumper.

Speaker 4 (01:24:35):
Oh, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
People give him you know, people think him as kind
of scientific and crafty, but the bumps that he took
and his peak years are I mean better than Sean Michaels,
because Seawann Michaels and Kurt Henning sometimes get credits at
but they I think sometimes got a little too cartoonish
with it. I thought they went overboard. Nick walked that
line really finely, but boy did he take hard, hard,

(01:24:58):
flatback bumps where there was just so much movement. It
just it made it seem like the babyface just completely
obliterated his brain self. And yet he did it in
a way that seemed believable within the context of the
match at that time.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
And he was much better talker than Michaels was, I thought,
much better than Kurt Henning as well. So he really
was the total package in that respect. And he, you know,
would go into Memphis, and he would go into Houston
for Paul Bosh, and he would go into Saint Louis
for Mushnik and wrestle and sending those promos ahead of
time talking about how he was the heel and he

(01:25:31):
was better than the champion, and he could defeat anybody,
and he would either bring in the AWA title and
defend it against the local hero a lot of times
down in Houston would be somebody like a junkyard dog,
while McDaniel, who was down in that area a lot
or he you know, he could go into Memphis with Lawler,
he could go into Saint Louis and really opened up
a lot of those doors that you know verne Gania
tried and maybe wasn't quite as successful an opening.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Yep, I mean it was. I don't know how much
credit he gets for influencing Flai if at all, because
their careers were overlapped just enough where it wasn't a
situation of a protege and a mentor that type of thing.
But Backquinkell and Flair had some similar roles that they played,
but you know, more five years apart. Yeah, yeah, And
I have.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
A few matches in Winnipeg. They did have a few
matches in Winnipeg, a w A versus NWA champion that
went to a double count out that was about oh,
I'm gonna say seventy nine or eight, must have been
around eighty eighty one somewhere in that time frame.

Speaker 3 (01:26:27):
Yeah, And I do wonder if Nick, we're younger and
made it a couple of different career choices, but he
was five years younger. It'd have been interesting if they went.
It's interesting topic for Bruce too, although we saw a
little bit more Nick and Bruce Mitchell saw a little
bit more Flair. But it had been interesting what kind
of debate there might have been internally in the NWA
about how good Nick was at that role you described
he played in the late seventies and whether he would

(01:26:48):
have been the person of choice to play that over
Flair once Flair started emerging for sure in the early eighties.

Speaker 4 (01:26:53):
Yeah, he would have been a little bit too old
at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
But I'm thinking if he was five years younger, that's
what i'm out of the case. I'm making five or
eight years younger, then he would have been, you know,
still in his prime. And if they were similar in
a little closer in age, that would have been a
tough choice.

Speaker 4 (01:27:06):
It would have been tough because he was a great
interview and great bumper bump taker.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
Like you like you say yep, he made he made
the locals look good, and that was Flair's forte yep exactly.
Brian's been a pleasure, it's been great. It's been a
while since I've done a Thursday with you so great,
great show and great conversation. Effwords.

Speaker 15 (01:27:22):
Yeah, thanks Lade, A lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
Everybody. Check out Brian Hoops Weekly Nostalgia column and the
PW Torch PDF newsletter, or click on Hoops Nostalgia. There's
a library full of his articles. If you want to
catch up on a lot of where they now on wrestlers,
just go to the p B Torch website and click
on Brian Hoops. It is in the PW Torch VIP
column libraries on every VFP page. It's got Keller Mitchell McNeil,

(01:27:46):
radickin Parks. Hoops is right there. Check out his columns.
You can get a whole listing of them all at once.
And also he and George Shire host the Weekly Nostalgia podcast,
So if you like this and you want to hear
more of it with George and joining Brian, be sure
to check that out in the VIP audio show section.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
Brian got a yeah, well I was gonna say. We've
got an interview with Nick Backwinkles O two street months
ago on the site, so you can check that out.
And last night I talked with Danny Hodge for about
oh sixty seventy five minutes or so, so that'll be
up on the torch here, coming up on the site
in maybe a week or two.

Speaker 3 (01:28:22):
So fantastic. Is it better than buff?

Speaker 4 (01:28:25):
It much better than it doesn't take much to beat
that interview. But yeah, Danny uh gracious with this time
last night.

Speaker 3 (01:28:33):
So that was a lot of fun looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Everybody checked that out, both in audio format and the
Nostalgia podcast or the UH and also of course and
hopefully we'll have some excerpts.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
Of that in the newsletter too. All right, interview excellent,
Thanks Brian, Thanks everybody for joining us. Until next time.
I'll behalf Brian. Oops, I'm thinking everybody for joining us
and reminding you that this audio show was VIP. After
show portion is copyright Tdage Communications and is not to
be reproduced outside of the PW Torch VIP website without
express front permission for me Wade Keller. We have not
given permission to any other website to redistribute these audio shows,

(01:29:02):
so if you're hearing them outside of PW torch dot
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So oh and if you want to go if you've
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(01:29:23):
you want to go legit, you can go to pw
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and a list of benefits. All right, until next time
on behalf Brian Hoops Wade Keller, thanking you for listening
and signing off.

Speaker 18 (01:29:39):
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Speaker 19 (01:29:47):
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Speaker 7 (01:30:26):
No, I mean Beyond Wrestling out of Wooster, Oh right.

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Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
Welcome to p W Torch Live Cast. I'm Wade Keller,
editor and publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torchweekly newsletter and
PW torch dot Com. I am joined today by Bruce Mitchell,
senior columnist for Pro Wrestling Torture Newsletterer PW torch dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:31:14):
Bruce, how you doing today, well, Wade, today was the
first day back at school for teachers. So we had
this long meeting, and as teachers will want to do,
particularly as female principals will want to do, you have
this kind of let's get everybody up and energized kind
of activity. And so they divide. They told you to
pick a pick a little object out of a box,

(01:31:35):
and so we did. And for some reason, the theme
of this thing was the Wizard of Oz. And well,
after fifty years, I found out that I was a
friend of Dorothy. So that was kind of that was
kind of shocking.

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
And I'm not quite I don't quite.

Speaker 7 (01:31:50):
Undervo, but anyway, so great, Well, good night. You could
be a scare. You can be a scare for a person.
You can be a cowardly lie. And the locast show
that turned into a fring of fourth, which is very
unnervous after all these years.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Well, it's good to have you back. You were on
a rare and well deserved family vacation and you were
well rested and ready to come back. You saw impact
last night.

Speaker 7 (01:32:15):
Oh yes, I did. I saw an impact last night.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
So we've been talking all week, and not that we won't,
but we've been talking all week about SummerSlam. We have
not had a chance, either on the VIP side or
here on the free live cast to talk to you
about Summer Slam or Raw, and I definitely want to
get into you with that, if not here on the
live cast, in the VIP after show, and two hours
more of our discussion coming up this weekend in the
VIP after show. So we had a lot to catch

(01:32:39):
up on because you've been away, and I am eager
to talk to you about all this stuff because I
haven't even gotten your opinion on things. But let's start
with the most timely and that which we have not
discussed yet here on the live cast, and that's last
night's impact. It's post whole lefl show, and it's the
air Bishop makes the announcement that Rob van Dam has
been stripped of the title. My question is, if they
can get the first round out of the way in

(01:33:01):
eleven or fourteen minutes or fifteen minutes of interring action,
why can't they get the second and the second, the
semi finals and finals done next week and then they
get a champion again. What is all this talk about
having to wait until two months from now until October
tenth to crown a new champion, you know, pretty much
around the time Rob van Dam will be healthy again.
I just among several things, that was kind of the

(01:33:22):
headline absurdity for me.

Speaker 7 (01:33:24):
Well, I mean that's as rousarch thing to me. Champions
never never win their title, so you don't get excited
about seeing that or even pissed off not seeing that.
They cheat them win their title and they never lose
their title. Just something sort of seems to happen, like
they get you know, they get murdered, and then they
have to give up the the title. I thought you

(01:33:45):
said you kind of wandered around what I was thinking,
which was Rob van Dam will be back from this
murder attempt before they finish having this tournament, which case,
why don't you just give it back to him? It
is he didn't do it, he didn't deserve to have
it exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:33:59):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (01:34:00):
No, that's the reason. It's not like he's laying he's
gonna be laying in the hospital bit for the next
you know, for the definitely for the next year or so.
So I mean it's just classic, let's have a tournament
because tournat's are good TV, or they'll get righting the
Urnlets never never do Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:17):
Yeah, they're not good TV. And and it I mean,
like I said that we can pick out several agitating
things that make no sense about last night, but stripping
RVD at the title because we don't know when he's
gonna be back after after we consulted with and which
I love that it was Eric bischoffolcoc and Dixie Carter
and Mike Tiney consulted with the doctors. Who in the
heck is Mike tone to be consulting with doctors about
a title switch? Either announced that he's on the championship

(01:34:38):
committee and make it formal or else Why is the
announcer there? But that was kind of a weird slip up.
I think I don't know, but that.

Speaker 7 (01:34:45):
Was a lot of te I just imagine r v D.
You know, he's laying in the hospital, but blood still
all over him, because that's how it will be YEA
and they go, you know, bleach your eye twice if
you think if you think just okay to have a tournament,
he policies at twice. Okay, Well, I'm Ben Davila Cruz
and so you know, we'll go ahead and we'll go
ahead and do it now.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
That was that was annoying. What what what's your headline
out of last night's impact? What what jumped out to
you other than what we talked about.

Speaker 7 (01:35:13):
Actually, I really enjoyed the back and forth, at least
the first half of the back and forth between Fortune
and EV two. The and in the Fortune EV two
segment that I didn't quite enjoy I got. I got
a kick out of her. I was laughing about because
it was you know, it was that, you know, they
gave that, They gave that Todd Gordon moment to Dixie

(01:35:34):
Carter to to you know, this is I owned this
house well firing and I fake the balls out of It's.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
So crazy, you know, you you follow this industry as
long as we have decades, I mean decade after day,
thirty thirty plus years and covering it professionally and having
to kind of look through the eye of how am
I going to write about this? What let's gonna be learned?
What can we what what can I pull from this?
That's kind of the lesson of what happened or what's
what's really going on behind behind the surface level. And
this is just fascinating because they are totally unabashedly playing

(01:36:04):
Dixie Carter right now. I mean, I mean, like, to me,
the most absurd thing on the whole show wasn't stripping
Rob Bandama the world title. It was Jeff Jarrett asserting
to sting in Kevin Nash that they're just jealous because
the young guys are getting the push. If you look
at it, I wrote, and I wrote this in my
I wrote this in my impact remember your thoughpers. I

(01:36:25):
wrote this in my impact report last night. I don't
know how all those Douglas Williams is, so I'm not
one hundred percent from this, but I think he's younger
than Kurdanng. And so in every single match on that
television show, except for the women, I don't again, I
don't know their ages, but every other match, the older
wrestler won, the younger wrestler lost, just just as a
stage setter. And then if you add up the amount

(01:36:46):
of mic time that was given to each person on
that show, I think the only person under age thirty
eight that got any mic time was aj Styles unless
you count the video segment with the machine guns, you know,
the video package, but standing in the ring centerpiece long segment,
I bet the average age because remember this included Rick
Flair late in mid sixties, practically Eric Bischoff late fifties, HAULK.

(01:37:09):
When you add up Stinging in Kevin Nash in their fifties,
you had this up. The average age of the person
who got extended Mike time was at least in the
high forties. And they're sitting here proposing to us that
the young guys are getting a push. They're not. They're
getting jumped out and getting no TV time. But if
they say it enough, maybe Dixie believes it.

Speaker 7 (01:37:25):
Go Aheaderson, No, I mean that was when he said that.
I was like, well, doesn't mean like Glido and Tony
wamah luke. If that's the young guys they're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Like Tommy at thirty nine or forty, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:37:37):
And these guys you got to add like, I mean,
how many you gotta plus ECW years into that. I mean,
it's like the opposite of dog years.

Speaker 3 (01:37:44):
I mean, and it's yeah, dude, you can take that
in the other way. If you don't even include Mike time,
you just include who who had camera time. I mean,
you got Mick Foley out there, and I mean Stevie
Richards isn't isn't a kid, He's not you know, this
isn't you know, a young twenty seven year old machine
gun or something like that. I'm I mean, the the
stuff that they said with a straight face last night
blew me away. But it's all if you watch the

(01:38:05):
promos and you think the either subconsciously or overtly, the
wrestlers are giving their promos to Dixie Carter in order
to protect the status quo that benefits them or lead
her to do things in a way that benefits the
power structure and the old wrestlers. Even more, if you
look at if you watch Impact with that in mind,
you will see the games that are being played by

(01:38:27):
very savvy people to play Dixie Carter more than I
think any money mark has been played before. It's the
biggest dangers when the when the owner or the booker
ends up on TV, then you're in trouble. And when
when I mean, and that's what's going on, it's just
it's it's seriously. Next time you watch Impact, watch it
thinking Eric Bischoff or Claire J. Kogan, Kevin Nash thing
everybody is talking to Dixie Carter, because then you get it,

(01:38:50):
then you understand why the things that don't make sense
don't matter to them because they're not playing for ratings
and they're not playing to viewers for entertaining show. They're
trying to convince Dixie Carter keep paying us and keep
the status. Bo don't change anything. Things are great, and
you are revolutionizing the wrestling business and doing exactly what
you want to do, which is being a good person
for the people who deserve it most.

Speaker 7 (01:39:09):
Yeah, and it's all fake. But I meant also that point,
it just kind of made me laugh. To the Jeff
Janick Kevin Nash up was just terrible. But I mean
the Jeff Jarrett tell Sting all these silly games you've
been playing, like he's been whispering in somebody's ear. You
term people, he's an attacking people with a baseball bat.
He broke your shoulder. It's like, is that what you

(01:39:31):
would say? After that? It's well, you know, well it's
all fake, so it doesn't matter. You know, it's all fake,
so it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):
But that and I love how it heals. And again
maybe by the end of the segment, maybe we found
out why Sting and Nash weren't acting quite as heelish
as you would expect heels in the situation, or because
Nash is like, I do what I do not for
the money, but because I love this business and I'm
watching that going that's a heel promo, I mean, because
clearly they're presenting themselves as heels against Jarrett Hogan, it seems.
And then Sting is like, you know, Dared says, do

(01:39:58):
it like a man, don't drop that back. So Sting,
you know, no heel does this, says, here have my weapon? Well,
how do you dow a guy who gives up his
weapon and gives it to the opponent, And man's up
like that. So then it turned out, though it seems
like they're all did that.

Speaker 7 (01:40:10):
It came across like Sting thought this was a bunch
of crap and like the whole thing, I'll throw it
away because this is all, you know, a horse maneuver.
I mean, it was just I.

Speaker 3 (01:40:21):
Mean I understruct and and and then in what happened though,
I think is in the end Fortune beat down all four.
So what we might be getting is, you know, ev
two get blown off in a month at the next
pay per view, and then the big match is found
for glory with the main event with all the young
guys Kevin Nash, Sting, Jeff Jared and Hal Coogan in

(01:40:42):
an eight man against four members of Fortune with the
EV two gang on the undercard, because this is the
way to manipulate the top top guys into that top mix.
Mc foley can be of course comin eventing the undercard
match against a couple other Fortune members with someone who
can actually work, you know, it would be Fully and
we go in a take match or something so that
Fully doesn't have to take bumps but can still get

(01:41:03):
the main event pay Day on the Big quote Big annually.
So I don't know, I don't know what cames are
going on there, but it's it's it's weird.

Speaker 7 (01:41:10):
And well, I mean we did believe that. One other thing,
I really I thought Flair was great. I mean it
was like it was like a focused Rick Flair promo.
And I think, like the one thing about about this
EV two thing is there is an issue. There's an
issue to fight over, which is Fortunate hates them and
beat them up and now now EV two wants their revenge.
Pretty easy to get into. But it was I mean,

(01:41:31):
I've seen my share of Rick Flair promas. I would say,
I've seen more than most people have, and it's the
only it really stood out for me for one reason.
And it wasn't that it was good. I mean, and
most of them are good, very good. But I've never
seen him give a promo where he didn't put over
the opponent as a worthy opponent. I mean, no matter what,

(01:41:53):
no matter how he did, it got no matter what
it was. And sometimes it was real subtle, you didn't
even know he was doing it, but he always would
put over the opponent first. Then he would say, I'm
just that much better. This was Rick Flair, This was
Ric vill You want to know what Ric Flair thinks
about a guy who was broken into the business at
the top level of this with Verne Gagna and was there,

(01:42:14):
you know, talked that there there were things about the
business that you do and you don't do. And how
he would look at guys hitting each other. He hit
these hitting each other over the head with garbage hands
and and smashing each other with full shot chair shots
and not selling it, and the stuff that went on
in ECW went against what he was trained to do.

(01:42:35):
And and now to see it and to see these
guys and you know, and the guy that like prided
himself on being a good athlete and wanted more than
anything to be to be seen as an athlete at
the level of a major league athlete, to see guys
on the level of Tommy Dreamer make a name for
themselves by doing doing something else, by doing the opposite,
and by doing stuff that he thought was garbage. And

(01:42:57):
it was like and so you saw this was I
don't like this, and I'll participate in that. You know,
I like to seeing you guys get beaten up. And
also there's the line of hey, you know he did
you know, he was blood and guts wrestling more than
these guys were. You know, he was hardcore and when
it meant something more than you know, bring bring a

(01:43:17):
grocery car to the ring and do this stuff. Because
the truth was, you know, they talk about that the
isle of lost toys in the misfits, What why is
a lot of the CW guys and these and the
ones in ev too, And I mean they were there
exceptions of the guido and their excessions. They couldn't work
in any kind of real sense. They could they could
take punishment, and that was, you know, and that opens

(01:43:40):
the door to that opens the door to all kinds
of people getting into the business that, in Rich Flair's mind,
wouldn't be allowed into the business. And so that was
like the one promo I've ever seen the guy do
out of thousands of thousands of them where he just
degenerated his opponents and seemed to glory and doing it.
So that was I mean, that was I mean, it

(01:44:02):
was very entertaining, and it was very you know, it
was like you got the feeling that I mean, I
definitely got, you know, and he turned it into that
we're gonna have a real fight. But the truth of
the matter is that he's gonna end up, you know,
he's gonna if Tommy Dreamer has his way, he's gonna
be end up bouncing around for Tommy Dreamer and dream
of pinning in. And why not, because that's what every
that's what everybody wants to do.

Speaker 3 (01:44:23):
So Tommy's an MMA fighter now he's got the MMA
gloves and in the martial arts boots and the loose
fitting pants that try not to cling to his body anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
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(01:45:00):
with Todd Martin's signature VIP series that you're missing out
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com slash go vi IP.

Speaker 3 (01:45:16):
All right, Hey, Bruce, we got We're going to talk
for a couple hours later today and this weekend on
the Bruce Mitchelladio Show. A couple of things that I
that I want to go into in more detail on
on those two shows because I want to get the
callers here now we're fifteen minutes into the show. Is
scanneract Bar in his career because we scanneract Bar died yesterday.
And then the Mickfoley Block, which I think we could

(01:45:37):
spend a whole hour on in dissecting this fully, the
fascinating personality very much has been what's the word not
consumed but eaten? What's the word that's if you get
eaten by an animal? His ego has just like completely
consumed him and the Mick Foley from the mid nineties.
You know, I don't even know how much of him

(01:45:58):
has left. This was a very weird for forty four
hundred word blog that I think was a real window
into his mind these days. Did you have a chance
to read the blog yet?

Speaker 10 (01:46:07):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
Absolutely, and just give a short answer to it, because,
like I said, we'll take calls and maybe we have
some questions on it, but well, I think we'll spend
at least a half hour kind of going over at
point by point in the VIP Breus Mitchell audio show
this weekend.

Speaker 7 (01:46:18):
So what do you what we do on?

Speaker 6 (01:46:19):
Sorry?

Speaker 3 (01:46:19):
What would you? Would you? In a nutshell? What if
you only had twenty seconds to answer a question about it?
What was your thought on it?

Speaker 19 (01:46:25):
You know?

Speaker 7 (01:46:26):
I just I Nick Foley does not want to be
critically appraised anymore, and it makes him mad. And that's
I think best part. I mean, I think the best
part of it. I mean I've kind of heard that
for a while, but I think that's really what it was.
And he's he does not get affirmed. He wants to
be affirmed and told that everything he does is is

(01:46:48):
really you know, is really good and he and he
takes it to heart when he doesn't hear that, but
not in a way that he changes or does these things.
And I think that's part of the team a culture,
and I think some other things are going on with that.
And I also think there's some some qualities. It happens
to people, some qualities that are not so pleasant sometimes
come out later on, and I think that's that's part
of it. This is a real when we talk about it,

(01:47:10):
there's a lot going on with us. I don't have
twenty seconds with it. I also thought you, I will
say this, I thought you mischaracterized Dave Meltzer because I mean,
I am telling you Dave Meltzer is enthusiastic about good
pro wrestling product, whether it's you know, I mean, he
sees all this as one umbrella. But whether it's MMA
or W or any dat or whatever it is, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:47:32):
But in fairness, the characterization that you're reacting to is
a little bit more. I thought in the VIP forum,
somebody characterized what fully said, and when I read the blog,
I thought our reader expanded a little bit more and
read into a little bit more than what fully said.
And I think you're actually responding to what that reader
thought fully said more.

Speaker 7 (01:47:51):
Not really, I mean no, no, not really, because I
think I'm not to go.

Speaker 1 (01:47:53):
Back we bully didn't say anything about it. I don't
think fully said anything about Melzer being so much more
into MMA and he doesn't even buy you know, he
doesn't wrestling just gets in the world.

Speaker 7 (01:48:00):
No, no, no, I didn't say. That's not what I That's
what I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
Not saying of that reader's claim, responding.

Speaker 7 (01:48:07):
To what that's not want to respond to. It's trying
to make it clear that he's that Dave Meltzer sees
pro wrestling is everything that anything. The promoters try to
get a fighting style with exceptional boxing. Anither promoters started
to get a fighting style over and and characterized stars
fighting each other in manutulate I have to to make
a book and that includes w W.

Speaker 9 (01:48:28):
And includes everything else.

Speaker 7 (01:48:29):
But but when when Dragon Gate has has a great
match and he's just seen it, I hear about it
and he's enthusiastic about that. So it's like, I mean,
I'm just saying that someone who can buy shine a
light on that that's not true. I mean, that's just
simply not true. All Right, We're going to go anywhere
we'll get it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
We're gonna go into phone calls because we we will
have a lot to say about Nick Foley. And uh,
it was, it was it was hard. It was hard
to read that. I mean, but there's a lot to
talk about with Fully, and it was I was sad.
I was actually sad reading it, because I mean, I've
known fully since early ninety two, one of the great
early Torch talks, and it's just I don't know if
it's the chair shots or just aging and insecurity, or

(01:49:06):
he just has been totally consumed by the gratification of
the attention and he gets from fans, and I don't know,
but he just doesn't have a real good self perception
of his promos right now. And even worse still was
his obsessive breakdown of how many good promos he had
in which year and how much acclaim he should have
gotten and downplaying the other people and comparing it to

(01:49:28):
when I have a dream speech by Martin Luther King.

Speaker 3 (01:49:30):
It was just it was just bizarre. All right, full
lines if you want to get in line today Friday,
August twenty twenty ten. I'm Mad Keller and Bruce Mitchell
and we love to talk wrestling with you. The number
is six four six seven two one nine eight two
eight six four six seven to one nine two eight.
We got five people on hold and we'll begin with
aera code seven one. I'm sorry, seven seven eight. Please

(01:49:51):
state your name and where you're from.

Speaker 15 (01:49:54):
Hey, this is Jason Levancouver.

Speaker 3 (01:49:55):
Hey, Jason, good here for me again. What's up today?

Speaker 15 (01:49:59):
Nothing much, I just had a comment and a question.
My question was about your guys VIP site. I was
thinking about trying it out for a month and you
guys don't do.

Speaker 3 (01:50:08):
It as a scam. It's a scam. Don't do it.
Oh just take for ten bucks and you never get
a password. I'm sorry, I I heard about that.

Speaker 15 (01:50:16):
I heard about that, But yeah, I was asking. I
want to ask you, since you're the one running at
would you guys have a lot of the reviews and
columns from like the nineteen eighty nine Summer Slam when
Hogan and Zeus spot because that was when I kind
of started watching wrestling as a full time fan, and
I remember that Summer Slam pretty k clearly and I

(01:50:38):
kind of got bond memories of it. That's like kind
of the first one I watched. I'm just wondering if
you guys would have like a full coverage of that
on there.

Speaker 3 (01:50:44):
I am going right now to the nineteen eighty nine
back issue set, and it looks like we have the
entire year of the Progressing Torture Newsletter from nineteen eighty
nine online and it took me three seconds to get
to it. So every single issue from covering the entire
year of nineteen ninety nine the Progressing Towards is available
in PDF formats for download for the IMP members. So
that would clearly include the hype leading up to in

(01:51:05):
any event itself and the fallout.

Speaker 15 (01:51:08):
Okay, cool, cool, I'll definitely do that. And my comment
I wanted to make was I wanted to compare TNA
and and WW in a way with the with the
backstage agents because they seem to have a lot of
influence on the show and the wrestlers. And if you
look at ww's agents, you know they got you know,
double A's back there, steamboat. I think Debasi was doing it. Uh,

(01:51:29):
they got Irs and a couple other guys. And these
guys have all like either been you know, in the
main events of the World titles either hell, the World
titles have been in that scene for an a long
period of time. And then you go to TNA and
you got you know, the Red Rooster, you got Leaf,
Cassidy Simon, Diamond, d Loo Brown and all the respect

(01:51:49):
to those guys, but those guys never drew any money,
never you know, did anything with it. And it's like,
those guys are the agents, and to me, it doesn't
make sense if you can how can you be an
agent if you never really drew any money?

Speaker 3 (01:52:00):
Bruth think that?

Speaker 7 (01:52:02):
Well, I mean, you know, I think that. I think
the guys in TNA and you know, help the teen
A Rustlers execute the vision that the creative team has
for them, and they you know, there's a lot of holes,
a lot of things that are messed up with that.
But I always think of baseball managers. You know, Ted
Williams was one of the great baseball players of all
time and really a natural at it. And I think

(01:52:24):
of Michael Jordan as.

Speaker 9 (01:52:24):
A coach too.

Speaker 7 (01:52:25):
It's like the Michael Jordan and the NBA as a
coach too. When you're a natural at it, you don't
necessarily know all the little ins and outs and tricks
that someone who's a utility player needs to know that
and and things that can make you get the most
out of what you have. And so those guys, the
Delo Browns of the world and the Simon Diamonds of
the world, there's sort of utility players, and Terry Taylor definitely.

(01:52:48):
But I mean, but the job of an agent in
today's wrestling isn't as much. Isn't as much put together
the best matches for people and teaching them all the time.
A lot of times the job of an agent is
to self perpetuate your job. And that's what Terry Taylor
is good at now. And so that's, you know, that's
kind of what happens. But I don't think that I
don't think that being a great wrestler makes you a
good coach necessarily. It might help, it might not, But

(01:53:11):
I think and I don't think that being a mediocre
one who who worked hard to hold on to his
place to break in just qualifies you either. It can
so that that's kind of how I see it.

Speaker 15 (01:53:22):
But you can, you know, you can.

Speaker 7 (01:53:23):
And it's hard to say who's doing what in TNA
because you know their their focus or their vision of
what they want to do. It's so cracked, it's so
it's so wrongheaded that a lot of those guys know
better and they do it that they do it, you know.
But but where they're getting, where they get paid or
maybe move up, is how how comfortable can they make

(01:53:44):
the powers that be that are doing these cracked things?
Not how can we fix this or how can we
do a better job? Or maybe they're more qualified than
some other person is in doing the creative. It doesn't
work that way.

Speaker 3 (01:53:57):
All that said, Verth, I take WWE's agents in the
second old agents. I agree with here in principle, but
I think ww you guess their pick as a letter
and and you know, there's I think I think in
this case, you know, and what you're saying is true,
But I think there's something to be said for the
place that some of the WWE agents have been compared
to the place that you know, the place in the

(01:54:19):
experience at Delo Brown and Simon Diamond have had, you know,
I mean and and and as you said, Jason, it's
not you know, it's no disrespect to what they what
the agents of TNA have done, they bring a lot
to the table, but it's just no comparison to what
Aren't and Steamboat have done. But like you said, Bruce,
just being great at what you do doesn't mean you're
a great communicator or a great mentor, or or a
good or good at recognizing what finish works in this situation,

(01:54:40):
or what would what to tell arrestler to do. Less over,
more of a lot of that is is just it's
who you are. It's not where you've been or how
high in the card you were. But in this case
I'd still take you know, in general, there's some points
to be made, but in the specific WWE's agents are
are in heads and tails above t and a's right
now when it comes to I think a lot of
key things and part of it is just being part

(01:55:01):
of the machine that WWE is. It's you know, they've
been around longer and a lot more gets passed down
and there's a greater system in place where the teenageents
probably get frustrated by the system they're in at times. Jason,
thanks you go ahead, Jason, you were gonna.

Speaker 16 (01:55:15):
Say, yeah, I had one more comment. It's if you
don't mind, Yes, I wanted to talk about the knockouts,
which last night. It looks like they're going to do
a Babyface Angelina and Velvet Sky reunion, and I'm good
for seeing those two together, but I really prefer Angelina
as the heel. Just you know, watching the match yesterday,

(01:55:36):
I wasn't really a good match. No that they didn't
have a lot of time, but in Angelina, her style,
her character, it just seems to be better off at
the heel, and Velvet really seems as better as a heel. Anyway,
I'm just wondering, how do you think those guys would
do as a as a Babyface tag team.

Speaker 3 (01:55:51):
It doesn't matter. They'll be heels next week and broken
up the week after, but then they'll be reunited in
four weeks, so then we can talk about it again.

Speaker 7 (01:55:57):
I'm so completely dibstracted by that motorcycle helmet whenever that
that is the dumbest, hampiest You're just like, take that
thing off or someone go pull it off her head
and they act like it like oh god. It's like
it was like, you know they're just used to it.
It's like, well, here she comes with a mothercycle helmet,
and it shouldn't. I mean, I just waiting for a
head about somebody or something. It's just it's the dumbest

(01:56:19):
thing in the world. I'm so I'm so distracted by
I'm agree's way. I mean, in two weeks ago, you
know it'll be a sore or something, but it's it's so,
it's so mad. Rus.

Speaker 3 (01:56:28):
Part of the booking of the Knockouts division is ludicrous
that the pacing of the turns and the person out,
you never have time to get invested enough with these characters.
It's either heel or a face to have any kind
of emotional reaction to a reunion or a breakup or
a turn. It's just it's It's one of the many

(01:56:48):
examples of how freaking clueless TNA's bookers are when it
comes to how to tell a story. You just there's
such progrest link and being able to turn somebody that
is such a valuable to in the booker's toolbox. But
you don't do it indiscriminately because you think it'll help
ratings for one quarter or one two minute segment. It's
it's so inefficient. It's like having a winning lottery ticket

(01:57:10):
in your hand and using it to light a grill on,
to light a bonfire, to get or to get a
grill started. It's like, yeah, it's served a little bit
of a purpose. It helped you start the fire, But
was it really worth giving up one hundred thousand dollars
that it was worth? They just it's just it's so crazy.
What how they book? And I have stopped caring about
the characters the knockouts because they have no constitution. There's

(01:57:31):
no core aspect that drives any of them. It's just
constant whimsical turns and disputes, and it's added up to
meeting nothing. To Jason's specific question, I like the beautiful
people as heels more than babyfaces, but I think they'll
be fine as baby faces. A lot of it matter.
A lot of what matters is who are they going against?
How good is Madison Rain as a heel? If that's

(01:57:54):
the main heel they're feuding with. But I just think
they've destroyed one of their top ratings straws. Speaking of
which some ratings information is in. I don't have the
final number. I don't have a final number for TNA,
but I did get a note here by email that
it is definitely below a one point zero rating this week.
It may round up to a one point zero, but
it's definitely below. It was not in the top fifty
shows for the night in total viewers. Definitely a drop

(01:58:16):
off from last week. And the eighteen to thirty four
demo was under point four two because that's the lowest
number that's charted and it's not even on that list.
So it's going to be interesting how how this gets
fun by Eric Bishoff and TNA because the key demos
that' Spike TV likes which is eighteen to thirty four

(01:58:37):
and eighteen to forty nine, the lowest it's been in
five weeks. So whatever buzz they got out of the
EV two angle and whatever they thought they were going
to get out of this monumental angle with RVD getting
led on the Wholefvel show last week, it turned into
a downturn in the viewership and there was no big
competition on cable. I mean, Jersey Shore hit a high

(01:58:59):
note with adult viewers, but USAY network was down a
little bit. I mean, it just wasn't There's no obvious
explanation out there for it. So, Bruce, what's your take
on the fact that that big, whole effon show and
the big angle at the end with all the blood
actually led to people not watching this week compared to
the previous five.

Speaker 7 (01:59:16):
Well, I wondered if if the blood had anything to
do with people kind of getting away from it. But also,
I mean they did they did a hot shot angle,
whether they basically told you that these these old stars
were much bigger deal than the people that they had
there already, and you got to see the you know,
there's the novely of seeing them as there's that's the
thing about hot shot angles. You get that novelty thing

(01:59:37):
and you go, oh, this was this is all right,
But then there's a downturn and it's just it was
gonna come and we'll see. So, I mean, you know,
they got they got what sort of a ratings boost,
and I don't know what I mean. I suspect they
got something off of pay per view, since there you know,
you have to say, you know, their bar was set
so low for pay per views buys that they probably
got a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:59:58):
Yeah, Well, and I was just for perspec if it's
a blow one point oh this week. Last week it
was one point one five the week before, one point
two to one the week before, one point two two,
week before that, one point oh seven, week before that,
one point oh nine, week before that one point one four.
Then that's all that I got charted in front of
me from the last eight weeks. But it's under one
point oh They haven't been under even one point oh seven, So,

(02:00:18):
I mean, this was not a good a good week,
not a good follow up, and you know they got
I mean, clearly some people came around for the for
the ECW thing, it seems, but yeah, they're not sticking
around even though ECW the EV two crew is still around.

Speaker 20 (02:00:38):
Are you a fan of the AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
your passion.

Speaker 10 (02:00:44):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?

Speaker 20 (02:00:50):
Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
is doing right and what they could do to improve?

Speaker 10 (02:00:55):
Then join me Joel and me Greg for the All
Elite Conversation Club every Friday. PW torch Live cast.

Speaker 21 (02:01:01):
Feed search PW Torch in your podcast app and subscribe
to pw torch Daily Cast our streamer shows directly from
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Speaker 3 (02:01:24):
All right, one phone call in a half hour, Bruce,
we got to beat that pace. So let's go to
Eric code do two eight one. Thanks for calling. Please
state your name and where you're from.

Speaker 8 (02:01:33):
Hey, guys, it's Jay out of Houston and jasm let
me say that.

Speaker 3 (02:01:37):
Oh I'm sorry, go ahead, I said, thanks, Jay, what's up? Sorry?
I pulled the Pat McNeil. I said, hello, we love that.

Speaker 8 (02:01:44):
Okay, Let's let me say this, Bruce.

Speaker 7 (02:01:47):
You are the truth.

Speaker 8 (02:01:48):
I love your commentary is very honest. And let me
just say this, for as far as Jeff Jarrett, Nick Foley,
Tommy Dreamer, to quote Kennedy, those guys.

Speaker 6 (02:02:01):
Fit one word, and I think you all know what
that word is.

Speaker 10 (02:02:06):
Man.

Speaker 8 (02:02:06):
Ka is really frustrating right now, really frustrating. There's so
many people trying to stretch Dixie and use.

Speaker 7 (02:02:15):
Her, and God, why don't you guys get.

Speaker 6 (02:02:19):
On the next U shoot she does. I would love
to see you are just tell the truth about these guys.

Speaker 8 (02:02:25):
Because their stuff is horrible.

Speaker 6 (02:02:27):
I hate what they've done with Samoa Jill.

Speaker 8 (02:02:30):
I absolutely hate how they put them so much on
the bag. Barner aj Sous was completely frustrated, obviously by
the interview a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 6 (02:02:40):
What do these guys need to do to get their
opinions in and get the company going back in the
right direction to the young guys.

Speaker 3 (02:02:46):
You know, you know what I'm curious about to it?
Is this related to what you're saying Jay, And the
last thing we talked about Bruster ratings is I wonder
how many people watch Eric Bischoff at the beginning announce
trump Pandamn had been stripped to the title and went
me and then flip the channel because because of the
stupidity of it, just what why why would you surm
on the title and why is this tournament gonna take
eight weeks or seven weeks? But also how many people

(02:03:08):
were watching and liked rab van Dam and Tena just
advertised he's done for a while. You know, he's hurt.
So I wonder how many people thought, oh he jumped
back to WWE when they heard that. I mean, it
was just you know, you just think about the ways
to drive people away and and TNA did that last night,
Bruce your thought so on on Jay's question.

Speaker 7 (02:03:23):
You know, I was so distracted by the fact that
Eric Bischoff said that people in TNA would be held
accountable for their actions that my you know, my eyes
kind of went blinde there for a second. And I
love that because then they said that you know this,
you're gonna you know, you're you know, we're gonna take
care of you. And I think he even said tonight
and the bus was just still wandering around. He killed
the world champion, put him in the hospital, done all that,

(02:03:44):
you know, attacking with a baseball bat with with you know,
with a bat with nails in it and or whatever
that thing's supposed to be. And Joseph, you know, whatever
her name is. And and he's just like wandering around like,
you know, why did he do it? You know, we're
gonna get you and I don't know, but anyway, yeah,
I mean, they could have been it could have been
now will say. I thought I thought the message that

(02:04:05):
he delivered was crap. That's thought Eric Bischoff acted like
his acting was really good there. I mean I thought
that that was you know, his performance of it was
pretty good, so I mean I was kind I kind
of enjoyed that, but it was just like and then
the great you know, there's a tradition in this visit
when someone falls out of the sky and gets killed,
we still go on with the shows. You know, guys
want to still get that world champion, and it's like, oh, bother,

(02:04:27):
so here we got so yeah, I mean it was
you know, you often it was one of those TV
shows to me from the moment it started when we
were just off in the nutty races. Yeah, yeah, you
know that was and he and he let it off,
and then Hogan wanting to clip o and.

Speaker 3 (02:04:43):
I love how that's not really a topic of discussion
the rest of the show. You know, to me, like
that he's dropping on Hogan telling his girlfriend or he
said I love you at the end, and I thought,
is he's really kissing up the Dixie that much? But whatever,
whoever he's signing to whatever, that This is what TEENA
doesn't get. You actually can build it show around that,
like you can have a couple enhancement matches, you can

(02:05:04):
have a TV title contender match, and you can have
a big promo with mister Kennedy later in the show
and build around all that is kind of mid level
stuff that keeps people's interest and paces nicely say we're
gonna have a video highlighting the Great Tag Team, the
Great Tag Team Best of five series with some the
first words from the motor Stand machine Guns. You can
build around stuff like that and then make the main event.

(02:05:25):
Hulk Hogan's thinking of quitting because if you're gonna throw
that bombshell out there, because in the context of TNA,
that's a bombshell, you don't just have it out there
and then not really talk about it and not follow
up on it, and then have them later in the
show come out and just clearly not have quit. It's like,
you got to have a reason when you do. You've
got to have a reason for throwing those bombshells out
there and not just ignore that they happen. So, I mean,
it's a broken record. I mean, it really is, and

(02:05:46):
it's just it's astounding. And Dixie Carter's clearly, you know,
just doesn't have the experience or the wrestling IQ to
see what's going on. And the people in power have
found ways to keep their power, and there's gonna be
a million people or so who are gonna watch and
be happy enough watching it, and and that's fine, but
they're not They're not going to grow like they should
with this payroll and this roster and in this time slot,

(02:06:06):
in this station. So Jay, anything else before I let
you go?

Speaker 6 (02:06:11):
Uh yeah, Bruce, just keep on telling the truth about
these guys, truth because it's like foreshadowing everything. Next thing,
you know, Tommy dreamovs and fingers cross was hope that
doesn't And I'm signing up to have vi IP because
I got to get that Bruce Mitchell audio show.

Speaker 3 (02:06:28):
Thanks, Thanks, Jay, appreciate it. PW Torch dot com slash
go vi I P. That's a sign up page. We
appreciate all of you who are letting us know that
you're signing up from listening to this live cast. I mean,
we love doing a live cast, and obviously we have
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(02:06:49):
week that's included with a ton of exclusive content and
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torch dot com, slash go vip throw some financial support
for this free love cast that you love so much
if you afford it, but we'll make it worth your while.
All right, plugs over. Next caller, uh six fy one?
Thanks for calling. Please state your name and where you're from.

Speaker 15 (02:07:08):
Heyway, this is Mike from what Berry calling to day.

Speaker 22 (02:07:10):
How you doing good?

Speaker 3 (02:07:11):
But we're not talking about the twins today.

Speaker 12 (02:07:14):
That's fine.

Speaker 22 (02:07:14):
I don't want to talk about I don't want to
talk about the twins after last night.

Speaker 7 (02:07:18):
I know they got just smeared like something like eleven
to two or something.

Speaker 3 (02:07:24):
That I think it was eleven and nothing.

Speaker 7 (02:07:27):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, what's just about Brad Childress. Nobody
thinks he can coach, and all the players think he's
a joke, and no one thinks that he knows you
think about his offense, and he's an offensive specialist.

Speaker 4 (02:07:40):
And I didn't even know that I heard, Oh man,
that was all over sports yesterday.

Speaker 7 (02:07:46):
Yeah, So anyway, I don't want to I don't worry
of any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:07:51):
And up such you guys, we were one mistake away
and a and a bad and a couple of fumbles
from our superstar running back. Any one of like eighteen
things that could it would have been different, either in
that Bears game or in the Saints game, would have
completely change and we'd be this, we'd be super Bowl champs.
So I say every team should be cursed with Brett
Shoulders's lack of coaching ability if we're super Bowl contenders again.

Speaker 3 (02:08:11):
But anyway, well it's not I don't care.

Speaker 7 (02:08:15):
Oh, I know you'll you'll be back when when they
win the super Bowl. We've had this discussion before, your
fairweather fan.

Speaker 22 (02:08:21):
Go go ahead, Mike, uh Well, I really like the
vintage Bruce audio that you posted last month talking about
the review of rick Players autobiography. Uh I said you
a question to answer about that. Whether it gets answered
or not ever, I whatever. But one of the things
that was mentioned on that was talking about uh Brett

(02:08:42):
Hart and Rick's opinion of Brett Hart, and I've about
gotten a car accident listening to it when you mentioned
that Brett and Owen didn't have the best relationship, and
I had never heard anything of that sort.

Speaker 16 (02:08:56):
And for as much as stink that Brett put off a.

Speaker 22 (02:09:00):
Against Vince and the WWE after Owen's death, I thought
that they were just like tied together the hips. So
can you give me a little insight on on Brett
Noen's relationship.

Speaker 3 (02:09:12):
Well, they come from a big family with a lot
of brothers and sisters and and the I think the
context of our comment was they weren't like best friend brothers.
I mean, there's brothers who are best friends. They know
everything about everybody's each other's life. They eat dinner all
the time, they share their life together their friends, they
share a lot in common. Brett no One weren't that way.
They just they just kind of I mean, they didn't
dislike each other. It's just everybody would tell you it's
like Brett has better friends than no One, and no

(02:09:33):
One has better friends than Brett. You know, Matt and
Jeff hung out more than Brett Noen did. I mean,
I guess that's kind of the point. But when your
brother dies and it's done, it happens with a promoter
who you felt really harsh feelings towards based on what happened,
you know, a couple of years earlier. I mean I
think that I think that's I think Brett had every
right even if he didn't feel like he was super
close to his brother. You know, I mean, if you

(02:09:55):
grab a random ten brothers and rate their relationship on
one to ten, I mean, I don't know where they fell,
but it was private five or under. They weren't like,
you know, eight or nine best friends. And I think
that's kind of the point. But it's not like in
it love his brother or care about him and spend
holidays with them, and and wasn't outraged at what happened.
Is that fair, bruth?

Speaker 9 (02:10:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (02:10:10):
I think so?

Speaker 22 (02:10:11):
Yeah, Okay, was just the opression I got was that
they had a serious rivalry and and and didn't get along.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
So I don't think I was elaborating on that.

Speaker 3 (02:10:20):
Yeah, And I don't think I ever heard that. If
we gave that impression, I think that was probably mistaken
because I don't think there was ever a huge heat
between members.

Speaker 7 (02:10:28):
No, not usually, but there was some competitive stuff that
went on, and there was you know, Brett had already
established himself and Owen. Owen was kind of you know,
there was a time when Owen was really looked at
as wrestling's next great star and then that the great
worker of the whole family, and so that there was
some stuff back and forth of that and and and
it worked his way into that feud in certain ways,

(02:10:50):
but it was you know before that there there was
that that kind of thing. So it's it's an odd
if you know a lot, if you know a lot
about that family, it's an And they do have They
very much have their rivalries, They very much have their
their things back and forth. They very much have their
times when you just think why they sticking together, and
then they will stick together.

Speaker 1 (02:11:10):
So and the things about listen to the things that
agitated people about Brett Hart, you know, the the his
his house being a museum to his career and photos
himself all over the place and and taking it, you know,
I'm I'm a Canadian hero and taking himself real seriously.
Like Owen was more lighthearted, He was less wrapped up
in his own ego, in himself, and I think Owen
kind of sawed Brett's weird, you know, kind of quirkiness

(02:11:31):
in that way for what it was. And that probably
you know, was part of the dynamic too that Owen.
You know, Brett took himself so seriously and Owen was
more easy going prankster and that just wasn't Brett. You
know that wasn't Brett, so they had different personalities.

Speaker 3 (02:11:44):
Anything else, Mike, No, that'll do it.

Speaker 15 (02:11:47):
Guys, have a great rest your weekend.

Speaker 3 (02:11:48):
Great, appreciate it. Thanks for calling again.

Speaker 4 (02:11:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:11:51):
The number here is six four six seven two one
nine two eight six four six seven to one nine
two eight. If you're worried about being on hold forever
or we've only got well, we got three people on hold,
so you before the line. Now's your time to jump
in because we should get to at least four or
five more calls here. Let's go to Ericode nine one seven,
Please stage name and where you're from.

Speaker 9 (02:12:08):
Hey, guys, great, good for me, Joe, what's up? Hey,
not much, man. I just wanted to just harp on
the whole TNA fiasco like we do every Friday.

Speaker 1 (02:12:17):
It seems like last two years.

Speaker 9 (02:12:21):
I gotta say this, you know, I love it how
Eric Bischoff tries to come out and he talks about
how he tried to dumb it down, like acting like
the Internet, and then the wrestling fans are like stupid
and he's like mister TV executive, and I just love
to I just hate that because last night, you know,
the impact they shoot this whole little hot angle in
the beginning when they got Hardy fighting with the best,

(02:12:42):
and of course it's pre tape, it's not really in
front of too many people. They are going through the
whole impact and throughout the whole thing, I couldn't help
but see the blur on Jeff Hardy's butt crack, and
it was just so annoying to me. Like when they
were blowing it out, I kind of up, you know
what you're in TV when you're pre taping anything, where's

(02:13:04):
like the field producer going, hey, guys, uh, you know
Brett Hart's asses hanging out right now, so let's tape
this again real quick so we don't have to blur
it where it becomes a distracting. It just was a
distraction to me. Last and I don't know if you
guys spelt the same way, Like just the blurring of
it was just annoying. It was like and I just.

Speaker 11 (02:13:20):
Kept on my fuck going, you know, this is TNA.

Speaker 9 (02:13:23):
In a nutshell, Like no, you know, attention to these
these aw whatsoever. Just just just stupid stuff. And I
just hated that whole thing at the end, and it
was just so distracting. And I don't know, I just then.
It was just the epitome of it. And my second
point I'll hang up with you guys, is just how
the hell can you have an angle with four guys,

(02:13:45):
the old guys, Jarrett and all these other Jared Hogan
National Sting when they're just fighting, when they're constantly fighting
about the future of P and A, when there is
absolutely no one involved in the future of TNA with
their storyline. There's no like young guys, I think the
Rod or whatever you want to call up and say, Okay, yeah,
this guy's my boy, so he's gonna be the future.
He's just four guys fighting over the future. Well there's

(02:14:08):
no future there, and it's just it's just so stupid.
I didn't I don't even know what to do anymore
about this.

Speaker 7 (02:14:13):
I know why I watch.

Speaker 3 (02:14:15):
Well that's that's well, that's what we're here for is
to sue you over a little bit, uh Ron Emmanuel
there with your last comment, sue you over a little
bit and give you a chance to bend, because that's
what we're here for. It with with TNA, it seems like.

Speaker 1 (02:14:29):
I think, I think you're definitely honest something. I mean,
I think, why are they talking about the future of TNA.
You're right, it almost you know.

Speaker 3 (02:14:35):
I think the larger question is why do they think
any of you wher cares about the future of TNA.
You know, honestly, this isn't This isn't the Vikings Packers
rivalry to play, you know, to talk about that. This
is TNA isn't competing with WWE. You know, the whole
brain trust in TNA. They're still stuck in this idea
of everyone thinking about ro versus nitro and it's a war.
It's like rod nitrol. It's never about ro versus nitro

(02:14:56):
except for people covering the industry. The vast majority of fans.
It was about Goldberg versus the nWo. It was about
Stone Cold Steve Austin, about Vince McMahon. That's what the
Monday Night War was about. It was about the hardy
boys against Edge and Christian It was about raymis Stereo
against Psychosis or Ultimore Dragon. That's what the Monday Night
War was. To Jeff Jarrett, yeah, it was when did

(02:15:17):
the ratings come in? How did we do it? Rince Russo, Yeah,
it was a ratings. To Kevin Ashyatt, was the ratings,
But that's not what the viewers ever cared about. And
if you go back and watch the money n at Wars,
except for Eric Bischoff firing those salvos at the beginning saying,
you know it's pre taped stuff. This is a better show.
You know. There was a brashness and a bravado that
I love when I look back at those tapes, and
that was the right thing to do at the time,

(02:15:38):
but later on it became. But even during those days,
it was about Brian Pillman against Dushan Leiger. It was
about likes Luger's here, he wants the world title? Is
he with or against Sting? That's what drew ratings. And
so when these old guys come out and start talking
about talking about we're against WWE or as if people
care about the future TENA, that's where I say what
they're saying is playing to Dixie, because I think they're

(02:15:59):
smart enough in most cases, not all cases, to know
that that's not how you draw ratings. But if you
continue to make it a battle between us and them
on the air, they're playing to Dixie. They're keeping her
involved in that level of competition because she understands it.

Speaker 1 (02:16:18):
You don't have to wait for the Way Keller prog
Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can check
out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written report will tell
you what's happening in detail in case you missed the show,
and it will also analyze key segments and give my
random thoughts quips on what I am watching as it airs.

(02:16:40):
So check it out every Monday night and Tuesday night
at pewtorch dot com. That also applies to WWE pay perviews.
I cover those live at pw torch dot com with
a detailed written report with star ratings, and of course
you can find other TV reports from other contributors to
pw torch such as nxt roh, Impact Wrestling and more.
Check it out pw torch dot com your first stop

(02:17:02):
for TV and pay per view written reports.

Speaker 7 (02:17:13):
Ruth, Yeah, And the other thing about it is there's
no clear way they're going. You know you're gonna do this,
You're gonna do that. There's no there's no way for
Sting to win control of T and A or or
you know, or Kevin Nash to do it or whatever.
You know, there's no alliance where they're gonna go. There's
nothing that, there's nothing to be gained, there's you don't know,

(02:17:34):
there's no instrument or thing to be obtained or or
way to get what they want. They're just out there
yacking about nothing. So there's nothing there and it's like, oh,
we're gonna fight there, We're going to fight. And then
I do think I do think Number one Jeff Party's
ascrat hanging out the way it did, it's one of
those details just takes you completely out. You spend more

(02:17:54):
time going there it is again than you go, oh,
look they're fighting, no matter what kind of fight they're having.
And then they don't really you know, they didn't really
go back to the rest of the show, and you
know that's part of it. And then you've got that
thing whenever Hogan does that just ridiculously fake. He got
beat down. The lights go off and he's laying down.
You're just reminding this guy is really broken down, he's

(02:18:15):
really old, and so are the rest of these guys. Yeah,
you know, that's that's what happens. There was like so
much less for that beat down. I think, because there's
sometimes the details just take you completely out of it.
And really, I don't want to say it's sad, but
Hogan can't compete right now, and any kind of can't participate,
not compete, but you can't participate but anything it takes

(02:18:38):
any physicality whatsoever, and they don't know that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:42):
And as far as the ask Gret Quat, I was,
I was watching and going did they do that on
purpose to make it seem like it was unplanned? Because
in my mind I was debating, would they have thought,
let's make it seem so unplanned that Jeff Hardy didn't
even get dressed properly before this happened, And I was like,
I hope not. But then the alternative is just as bad.
Jeff Hardy couldn't cover up his butt for a big

(02:19:02):
aangle Like what's going through your head when you're wearing
not wearing underwear, but you're.

Speaker 7 (02:19:05):
Wearing You're distracted, but you're not thinking about that. You're
thinking about all the issues surround and it's exactly instead
of all the issues that you should be taking about
between of this just killed the world champion and Jeff
Hardy's trying to get revenge for his best front.

Speaker 3 (02:19:18):
All right, we're forty five minutes into the show. This
is just flying by. We should do a three hour
show some time, I bet we, especially the day after
a bad impact.

Speaker 7 (02:19:25):
Joe, any other God no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (02:19:27):
Well, no, no, Bruce for one hour and then and
then you know Greg would do an hour, and then
you know we'd we'd we could do four hours and
just rotate hosts and co.

Speaker 7 (02:19:34):
Hosts and keep about g and about a bad ge.

Speaker 3 (02:19:39):
Oh no, no, no, but I mean I'm we could,
but I'm sure we'd take calls on other things too.
By the way, chat room's open, I was a little
I was a little late. I mean it's been open
for a long time, but I was a little late.
So if you thought I wasn't going to get to
it because we've got fewer people in there than usual,
go ahead and jump in for the last uh for
the last fifteen minutes, all right, Joe, any any follow
up before we get to other colors?

Speaker 22 (02:19:56):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (02:19:56):
One real quick. You guys just reminded me of it,
And I'm going to hang up right now. With the
whole Bischoff thing. Like this week, when he came out,
he pretty much defended old wrestler. You know, the one
thing that someone needs to tell him is that the
reason why the old wrestlers worked and WCW was they
came up with a really good, compelling storyline with the
nWo storyline, and that's why it worked at that time,

(02:20:19):
because right now they're pretty much just rehashing all these
stupid invasion angles that have been done before, and no
one wants to see that. And if you're going to,
you know, be a big wrestling historian like you know,
like you should be if you're a promoter, you know,
just look back at the demise of WCW and the
biggest reason why it fell apart was because they did

(02:20:40):
not push you while the WWE did and they produced
new stars, and you know that that was the downfall.
And TNA will never ever get, you know, above a
one point two ever, because they're pushing the same people
year in and year out.

Speaker 3 (02:20:55):
Thanks, you appreciate the comments, and I gress said Eric
Brischell's comment about the about how you know threty plus
yr old's work, and let me show you why. Look
at our demographic ratings the last few weeks, which, yeah,
let's break them down this week, Eric, and see how
that goes, because this was the most aged crowd you'll
ever see in terms of dominating a show, and the
rating went down. But even more so, there's a reason
WWE did really well with Batista Sewn Michaels Undertaker and

(02:21:17):
Triple H because of their Batista, Triple H Shawn Michaels
an Undertaker. I mean, with all due respect to TNA
forty and overcrew A sting in, Kevin Nash and Jeff
Jarrett and Hulkogan are not in any way, in almost
every single category anything close to us as current and
durable and useful as four legit manuvendors who can all

(02:21:40):
for them can have four star matches. I mean, even
Batista Kent have a four star match, and you go, well,
ratings don't matter. Well, they do in the sense that
they can tell the story. They can tell the story
in the ring in athletic fashion. That seems like a
worthwhile payoff to weeks and weeks of hype leading up
to the big match on pay per view. You've got
to be able to deliver, and the fact is is
Kevin Nash, Paul Cogan, Sting and Jeff Jarrett can't. In

(02:22:03):
descending order, probably, you know, or in in ascending order.
I mean, Jarrett and Sting have a little bit left
in him, but they're all way below Batista, who's at
the bottom of that force them in WWE. So it's
not just the age that matters. It's the quality of
the forty five year old that you're using.

Speaker 7 (02:22:15):
And it's not only that too. It's not only that too.
And you know, and what I didn't like about this,
and I thought that that Foley was doing this too
in his argument. What they're arguing things the argument's sake
argument that misrepresents with what people are saying about about
older Russell's And you know, yeah, Undertaker is very useful.
Undertaker has been protected. All those guys were protected in

(02:22:38):
booked in ways that were logical that that also show
and they could perform at levels where you've got your
money's worked every time, and they built up credit by
doing that. But what happens in TNA they get somebody
from WWE who's at a lower EBB and then they
seek them even further because they don't They don't. They
may have a good match, but it doesn't mean anything

(02:22:59):
in the context or anything. They don't book them, right,
And so the messages, the messages, the message is very
much in TNA. That just the place where where wrestler's
and w who have nothing left go to make an
easy paycheck. And you don't get the same thing. It's
why and you don't. You look at Jeff Hardy, you
look at Rob and dam you look at you look
at any of them, you don't get the same quality

(02:23:20):
product because they don't know how to walk at them
correctly or and and and they screw it up. So
it's not how old you are, necessarily and no one's
you know, it's it's that's why. To me, it's like,
you should get rid of I'm with, I'm with Paul Haym.
You should get with all those guys. Maybe you one,
And that's it because they are. The only message they
send now is this is where the cast offs go.

(02:23:42):
This is where the washed up guys go. And you
want that. That's not what you want your your promotion
to be known for.

Speaker 3 (02:23:47):
And that's what fully didn't get either when he started
talking about we got to be known at the place
where if you if you still like whatever Burger King
Burgers or whatever he was thinking, Old Americana, you can
still get it here and then maybe we'll expose them
to the young guys. And it's like the formula isn't there.
It doesn't work that way. And what you said, Bruce
is right on. When people see the glut of old guys,
you know, the Nasty Boys and Mick Foley and Kevin Nash,

(02:24:09):
and it's just on and on and on pretty soon
that it just dominates the product and there's just not
a balance there. And it's it's so many things. It's
what I said, it's what you said, and really it's
other things. And that's why we can spend an hour
on it. And there's an hour's worth of things wrong
with what Eric Bischoff said on that blog. I wrote
a VIP blog, by the way, on that. If you're
a vipmem I haven't checked it out, click on the
VIP blog section because I did respond to Eric Bischoff.

(02:24:30):
I've been doing blogs almost every day exclusively for the
VIP section. We usually preview it on the free site
most days, so you can get at least a taste
of what I'm writing about there. But vapim members go
check that out and then comment on it in the
comments area. Because I read those comments and we get
good discussions going after I bring up the subjects. And
I also wrote a blog about Mick Foley, but that
had to do with another subject that he should be

(02:24:50):
talking about, which Bruce will talk about in the Bruce
Mitchelladio show this weekend as when we do a lot
longer discussion on Mick. Back to the full lines area
code eight six five. Thanks for holding Uh, state your
name and where you're from?

Speaker 9 (02:25:03):
Hey, what's going on?

Speaker 23 (02:25:04):
Guys?

Speaker 11 (02:25:04):
And Stephen from Tennessee?

Speaker 7 (02:25:05):
How y'all doing good?

Speaker 3 (02:25:06):
Bed for Stephen? What's up?

Speaker 18 (02:25:09):
Uh?

Speaker 11 (02:25:09):
First thing, I want to real quick if everyone's tired
of K and AM like my buddy Chat and Houston's
were out and stay check out Ring of Honor. There's
only different products from the other two.

Speaker 22 (02:25:18):
Uh.

Speaker 11 (02:25:18):
I have two quick questions if you guys don't mind
if we can squeeze it in. My first one being
is Dixie Carter like just that and Dad? But she
hasn't recognize that for the four guys in the semi
finals for for the ten A War Tile are not
her homegrown stars? Is that a Samlo Jaron ay d Styles?
All four of these guys got noticed in and yet

(02:25:40):
well now because the wause w e but that with
the executive Pope because he got very little time, and
and Libby Lee is like a birth. But I mean,
none of these guys are homegrown people, Ruth.

Speaker 7 (02:25:53):
You know the homegrown people aren't home grown either. I mean,
I don't you know, I don't know. I mean, I
don't think it's I think that. I just think that
those guys that did do all that work, I mean,
I know they are, I know they're really frustrated and
they've got to be angry right now. But I just
don't think it matters. I mean, my my mouth was
open to some of that. I just thought that Jeff
Hardy match, I just thought it was just awful. And

(02:26:15):
then why was you know, Jay Lethel all those years
of being Randy Savage having a program with Rick Flair
or Rick Flair where he beats Rick Flair with a
figure four, and he's out there exactly the same place
that he was when he when he walked into the company.
After all these years, I just thought, good lord, I mean,
you know, you know that homegrown.

Speaker 3 (02:26:37):
You know, it doesn't matter if you're homegrown or not.
I mean when it comes to making money and giving
Dixie Carter's job, her number one job, and I think
she even agrees with this, is give the best wrestling
product to the most wrestling fans possible. I mean, that's
her job, and I think she would agree with that.
I don't think she can test that. So if you
have access to a mister Anderson, he's not homegrown. I

(02:26:57):
mean I watched him on the dy scene here in Minnesota, Wisconsin.
He was going up through the ranks with CM Punk
and you know some other local guys who have made
it on a lesser level, Austin Ares and he worked
his way up. Yeah, and he made a stop in WWE,
But now he's in TNA. It doesn't matter that he
stopped in WWE when it comes to deciding whether to
push him or whether to push the Pope. And okay,
well the Pope may stop int WW two, so bad example,

(02:27:18):
whether to push him or or Jay Lethal, who hasn't
been a WWE You push the people who have the
most talent, the most merit, the most upside, who you
can rely on the most. So are the best connection
with the fans, who can cut promos and fill a
slot on your roster that you need. Those are the
just rattling off the Whether they work for WWE for
a year or two years or four years and got
a push or didn't get a push, that shouldn't matter.
Their Q rating doesn't matter. What matters is what story

(02:27:40):
can I tell with them this week that will make
people want to watch next week and then go buy
a ticket or watch watch them on pay per view.
And that doesn't always have to do with the fact
that somebody would know if they walk past a poster
or them at a comic book store and they say, oh,
I know that guy. That doesn't matter. What matters is
what can they do for you today in telling a
story that will draw viewers and money, And so the
homegrown thing, it's nice, it's something to be proud of,

(02:28:02):
but it's not the primary objective of what should happen
on any TV show or who should get pushed. All right, Stephen,
you city had a second question.

Speaker 11 (02:28:11):
Oh yeah, that's a good point. By the way, I
was actually in the bookstore this past weekend and I
fell into the book of the twenty Greatest Robberies. And
one thing I want to ask you, guys, I guess
it's a skip part of it. One is do you
think that's something that's missing and wrestling, Jason Nail, Every
sport has the rivalry or whatever has the rivalry, and
now Baseball or Yankees, Red Sox and what have you,
do you think that's something that's missing and make the

(02:28:32):
realism of wrestling, you know?

Speaker 7 (02:28:33):
And then two, what are you guys?

Speaker 11 (02:28:35):
What are your guys' favorite rivalries and wrestling?

Speaker 3 (02:28:38):
I think we get rivalries in wrestling. I mean, I
think grand Yorton and John Cena had a real rivalry.
I mean, John Cena's had some good, sometimes overly long
rivalries with whether you know Edge he had along feud
with just grabbing big names. I think we you know,
machine guns against beer money feels like a rivalry right now,
going back in time, Steve Austin had had some great rivalries,

(02:29:00):
you know, going way backward. Flair obviously did thing flare
with a great one. So I would disagree with the
premise that we don't get those rivalries and progressing that
we do in through competitive sports.

Speaker 7 (02:29:09):
Truth.

Speaker 19 (02:29:10):
You know.

Speaker 7 (02:29:10):
The one thing I'd say though, is right now, just
because they've raised the stakes in the books them so
much and people so desensitized everything, now we're having these
rivalries with one huge group of guys versus another huge
group of guys, where there's nexus with WWE or ev
twobe versus fortune or whatever it is, to get people
to make it seem like it has impact. They've hot

(02:29:31):
shotted so much it's just like they're not even trying
to have one guy versus another guy, and when they do,
it just doesn't seem to have that impact that it
should have. And that comes from desensitizing people by just
raising the stakes and then not paying off the stakes constantly.
Where you know, you get attention, you've got you know,
it used to be to get attention if you beat
up the if you tack the number one baby face

(02:29:53):
from behind, that got you all the heat in the world.
Now it's you got to go in there tear up
the ring. You know, you gotta go in there and
tear the ring down the end of the show and
beat up the whole company, and then and then people
will kind of and then people kind of go, oh,
this is this is important. So I think that I
think there's a little bit of that there, But no
wrestling should be built on rivalries between personalities and fires.

(02:30:15):
That's what that's what the whole primus.

Speaker 3 (02:30:18):
Is yep, I agree, I agree.

Speaker 24 (02:30:26):
Be 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

(02:30:47):
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 3 (02:31:06):
All right, got I think so called Steven. Let's go
to our next caller aeric code four one five things
so calling? Please stay? Can name? And where you're from? God?

Speaker 5 (02:31:14):
Go too quick? Questions, what do you guys think let's
get Sheffield being injured and who should replace him as
the big bad you know guy that you know.

Speaker 13 (02:31:22):
The enforcer of the group.

Speaker 5 (02:31:23):
And when do you guys think m v P will
ever get a push? Because I'm tired of seeing them
on Superstars.

Speaker 3 (02:31:29):
Okay, uh, Bruce, you want to tackle both of those.

Speaker 7 (02:31:34):
You know? I think they're down to five. I think
that's gonna be an interesting thing. And I'm wondering whether
they're going to start kicking off nextless numbers and they'll
just play this if he got hurt and there's not
a replacement for him, But maybe Tarver is the only one,
the one that kind of comes to mom when I
when I when I watch it. And as far as
the MVP, Yeah, NVP, it's just natural that if you've
got seven new acts, even if they're built, is you know,

(02:31:55):
one act together that that's gonna push some people out
of the spot wise, and NVP seems to see to
be one of it. I think that. I think it
depends on you know what, It depends on what plans
they have. And the MVP kind of pushing his way.
He's got a he's got a reputation not always working

(02:32:16):
as hard as he could, and maybe that you know,
does he take this as a challenge. He just plays
out of cards?

Speaker 23 (02:32:21):
All right?

Speaker 3 (02:32:22):
So for the call, Jonathan, let's go to the final
call of the show, probably area go two and five? Please?
They came? And where you're from?

Speaker 10 (02:32:28):
Hey?

Speaker 16 (02:32:28):
How you doing?

Speaker 15 (02:32:28):
Is there from Philadelphia?

Speaker 3 (02:32:30):
Eric? What's up?

Speaker 7 (02:32:32):
Hey?

Speaker 15 (02:32:33):
I just wanted to get your sails on it.

Speaker 7 (02:32:34):
I just tune in a few minutes ago.

Speaker 5 (02:32:36):
But uh, can you tell me if bills are not
the ugliest thing you ever seen any life on a roll?

Speaker 3 (02:32:44):
You know, I didn't. I didn't mind him. I'm curious
what other people thought think about him. I thought they
were they were quite different, and I like that they
looked different from every other tape up we've seen. I
thought they looked classy. Bruce, what was your first reaction.

Speaker 7 (02:32:56):
I'm just not a doulpe guy. I mean, you know,
I'll pop for the old n W a belt a
giy Brisco and Holly Rice carried around. But as long
as just loose on a dolt, I don't care. I mean,
it really doesn't bother me.

Speaker 3 (02:33:07):
When the other what didn't you like about Himeric, Well,
it just looked below indies, you know.

Speaker 7 (02:33:13):
I mean, I'm an indies worker, and it just looked
like something my company wouldn't even buy.

Speaker 16 (02:33:16):
You know, it just looked it just looked the woral
bare bone to me, kind of like the old ECW title.

Speaker 1 (02:33:22):
Yeah, I mean I guess it's you know, it's it's
personal preference. But I honestly I saw them and I
thought they look kind of high end, So go figure,
you know, I guess, I guess in that way.

Speaker 3 (02:33:31):
Anywhere, we're totally out of time. Stay tuned. VFP members
Bruce and I are going to talk more about Impact
on the after show and then go two more hours
talking about all kinds of other stuff on the Bruce
Mitchelladio Show. All right, Bruce, we're in the VP after

(02:33:57):
show portion of the program. I mean, we talked a
lot about Impact already, but I figure since we got
the Bruce Mitchelladio Show coming up, we will just do
a little bit more here on Impact and then wrap
up in just a few minutes here and go go
ahead and record part one of the Bruce Mitchelladio's Show.
We talked about the announcement with Eric Bishop at the

(02:34:17):
beginning stripping RVD. You talked a little bit about, you know,
the mentality of tournaments are good and all that. It
still blows my mind. They did the entire first round
of the tournament and one night we're down to the
semi finals and finals and somehow that's going to take
them seven weeks. My jaws still dropped at the logic
that goes into this. I don't understand why they don't
have the semi finals next week, in the finals the
week after, and then we have a champion. How do

(02:34:38):
they possibly rationalize this in some storyline way that they're
going to be without a champion for seven weeks. And
second part of that same question is would you like
to see in these situations when they want to do
this angle? And I agree it should be scarce rare
almost never, but when they do. UFC has had some
success having an interim title where the champion is injured,

(02:34:59):
can't defend it or thirty days, so they don't strip them.
They have an interim champion and that leads to the
battle between the two. Do you think that would be
an approach promotions in general? And Pretz Tna and the
situation could do. And then you kind of have that
main event coming up where the two belts are on
the line against each other.

Speaker 7 (02:35:14):
You know, when you're USC and you've got a reputation
of several years standing, if you do matches, one guy wins,
one guy loses, you go down. You know, you go
down most of the time. You go up or down
the card based on your wins and losses, and nobody
really and people understand that when there's a number of
champions because someone got hurt and it comes up every

(02:35:35):
once in a while, that's okay. But when you're TNA
and you're a mess, the last thing you need as
a hot mess is another belt based off of fake
injury that you have and then you bring them back
together and have belt versus belt when when you know
you're right about this turnament, I guarantee you what happened
was they said, okay, what do you want to have
the finals?

Speaker 5 (02:35:54):
The ternament?

Speaker 7 (02:35:55):
Okay, well let's not rush it, so we'll make it
in two months. And then they said, well, let's have
a people And then they didn't think that the first round.
You know, it's like the NCAA tournament for basketball, like
the first round is is thirty two games and thirty
two teams go out. So they said, listen to eight guys.
Will there'll be four guys And I guarantee you didn't
even dawn on them that then you'd have two more

(02:36:16):
weeks of matches. Because I don't think any of these
people like are sports fans. And I know that Russo
is a baseball fan and that doesn't come into play.
But I just think it's a lack of detail, it's
a lack of planning, it's a lack of of pride
in what you're doing. You know that leads to these
kinds of situations for them. But no, I think for them,

(02:36:38):
you know, they're the ones that have that global that
legends belt in the terms of the global belt, the
terms of the TV title that you know that doesn't
get defended on two hour shows, So it would just
add another something else for them to keep up with,
and they can't keep up with what they already.

Speaker 3 (02:36:55):
Got and what blows well, there's a lot of things
that'll blow my mind about what they did. But when
Rob Terry comes out and they start acting like, oh,
it says something about Rob Terry's progression as a talent
that he's in this considered by the Championship Committee one
of the top eight contenders. Really, your semi long running

(02:37:17):
and TNAT and TNA time frame, your semi long running
global champion who destroyed almost everybody in his path, has
been ranked in the top ten I think, semi regularly
on the list for the months of the few months
they've been doing it. It shocks you he'd be in
the top eight. I mean, what about Rob Terry's character,
not real life, not what people really think of, how
green he is and how limited he is and all that,

(02:37:40):
but how he's portrayed on TV to the average you know,
Mark so to speak, you know, the average viewer out there,
their target market, who's not analyzing work rate, They're just
looking at how he's pushed and his win loss record.
What about him is in top eight? How can their
announcing be so inconsistent with the world that they've created
with Rob Terry as as a former global champion, Like

(02:38:03):
I don't again, it's just one of those things where
it's just like my job drops one. I'm just like,
they don't even have a.

Speaker 7 (02:38:08):
Wh that's all that fake stuff, and nobody takes seriously.
Everybody knows that he's a clutch. You can see it
when you watch it, so you know that's nobody takes.
Nobody takes whether he had some delt seriously or whether
he had you know, whether he had a win streak
or a losing streak or whatever. No one cares about that.
And you know, let's put him in there and and
the other thing. The other thing about that, I mean,
I know that's their attitude. And then the other thing.

(02:38:30):
The other thing about that is you don't put Rob
Terry in there with Jeff Hardy. It's a you're bound
to have a terrible match. Their styles don't fit together.
Jeff as sloppy as he can be right now, and
and Terry is green. And you had a three minute
match that was about as bad as three minute matches.
You're gonna get a national promotion.

Speaker 3 (02:38:52):
And and so what they could have done with this tournament,
getting back to the timing of this, is they had
a three minute match, a three minute match of five
to mention a fourm in a match. I mean you're
trying to put over the idea that these are the
top eight contenders.

Speaker 7 (02:39:06):
And in the man epic it was real epic, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (02:39:09):
Yeah? I mean world titles on the line, and the
announcement by Bishop has made you know, at the beginning
of the show, there's no brackets, it's just you know
who whose opponent be, what well the matches be? And
like again I say this constantly, but it's so inefficient.
How do they not say, let's the next four weeks
of TV are mapped out, Actually the next seven it
would make sense to have seven weeks of TV leading

(02:39:30):
the bound for glory, because this week we're going to
have the first Really it should be next week, you
should quote give wrestling.

Speaker 7 (02:39:36):
It should be next week. This week is the announcement. Yep.
Next week is next week. We'll find out who's in
the tournament. You talk about it for an entire two
hours to date people back and forth. Then they come
out with they come out with eight guys or maybe
more than there, maybe sixteen guys with eight guys, and
you have reasons why they're all in there and reasons
why the community's off of this guy, and you do

(02:39:58):
it and you're dramatic. We lead up to a seven six, fast,
four three, two and one, and you have a reason
why why people are placed in that tournament. You have
some people talking about their hopes they get in. You
have some people mad that they didn't get a chance
and thinking they deserved it. And then you you've done
two weeks of a story building it up is something important.
You have people that are ecstatic as they got in,

(02:40:21):
and you have you know, you have.

Speaker 4 (02:40:22):
The jels and you can and you can then whether
you have the first round and then and.

Speaker 3 (02:40:27):
Then when you had your first round matches. It's one
per week. You know it's a big enough deal. It's
one per week. You have one first round match, and
if it's Jeff Hardy and Rob Terry, then okay, so
be it. But that's that's one of your two main
events on that week's show. Doesn't have to be the
last match show. It can be in the middle of
the show. There's two spots from Maine events at the
end of the first start of the second hour, in
the end of the second hour. If that's the format,
which typically Raw usesn't smackdowne US, this is a pretty

(02:40:48):
good format. You you build up to it in that way,
and then the following week is the second tournament match,
and the following week is one after that, and you
can also have the top six contenders, and you could
next week have two wildcard matches where you qual it
five for the tournament to earn positions seven and eight
in the bracketing, and you go based on the top
ten rankings. The top ten rankings should mean something. There's
a great opportunity from the top ten rankings to mean something.

(02:41:10):
They promised both last week by the way they'd announced
the top ten rankings this week. They didn't last week
because of the WHOLEFN show format, we did not get
what Mike Today promised, which was the revel which was
a reveal of how last week's wole leven show affected
the top ten. This week, all we got was a
listing of here's a collection of eight people who are
considered one through eight. But it didn't address where kurd

(02:41:30):
Ankle fell or I'm sorry, didn't address like where kurd
angle fell in that list of eight. It didn't address
who just missed the top eight because we didn't get
to find out who number nine and ten were. We
don't even know who number one is. And because they
couldn't explain it because isn't there is abyss in there?
Why are we excluding? Why are we excluding aj styles?

Speaker 13 (02:41:48):
Now?

Speaker 3 (02:41:48):
There's no logic to it other than the people in
the tournament are people that we want to be in
the tournament because they're not busy doing something else. They're
just you should be tied down to following logic. And
it's a amazing when you are tied down to following
your own logic, how much easier storylines get because everything
fits in an EBB and a flow that fans aren't
buying into and so everything means more by definition, it's

(02:42:10):
it's it's graaty.

Speaker 1 (02:42:13):
We're about to go to a commercial break. Why listen
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(02:42:33):
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Speaker 7 (02:42:46):
Well, it's it's, you know, they have a tradition of
I mean, I'm trying to think of I mean, when
their titles change hands, except for you know, in one
nine RV didn't you get in that title shot at
UDJ stops. Usually the titles just passed on or something.
You know, it's just there's some sort of mess and
they have some sort of and they just you know,
something like this happened. So I mean they might everyone

(02:43:08):
sall do it on the pay per view, but it's
their mess and that's just you know, and all that
hard work. It's like they just don't pay. There's nobody saying,
let's really work this out, and if you work it
out one week, then it's a little easier to work
it out in the second week. And instead they're just
they have a mess one week, and they have another
mess and next week and what they can remember they
did and whatever excuse figure come up with what they're doing.

(02:43:31):
And now it's not they're not putting there. You know
clearly that put their detail work into this tournament. They
put their detail work into How can we involve Dixie
in way Dixie Carter in ways that make her seem
like she's really confident and the fans love her and
she's doing what we want her to do, that she's
getting that she's getting gratification. You know, that's that's the.

Speaker 3 (02:43:54):
Creating her like a third or fourth grader. I mean,
is this how is this how you the way they
talk about her, treat her, manipulate her. I mean, is
this what somebody does when they're trying to pat on
the head a second third fourth grader. For probably it's
probably more like first through third grade, not fourth. I
think by fourth grade you would see through this, But
Dixie Carter's not.

Speaker 7 (02:44:13):
That's a that's a very interesting evaluation of my job.
But I mean, you know, but you try, well, you're
trying to scaffold and build people's talents in a real
you know, kid's talents in a real way. You're not
trying to fool them into you know the location, and
you really don't. You don't know anything about it. But
we're gonna, we're gonna pass. You want to give me

(02:44:36):
some money.

Speaker 3 (02:44:37):
But if you were to try to manipulate a third grader,
let's say the third grader, you know, had something you
wanted or they had control, they were you know, some
rich kid who had control over over something, you would
manipulate them like they manipulate it. I just think they
they think of Dixie Carter as about an eight year old.

Speaker 7 (02:44:54):
Well let's think of I mean, there's a parallel between
Dixie Carter and Todd Gordon. But I always felt like
I understood Todd Gord. Didn't always like Todd Gordon, but
I always felt like I understood, you know, wrestling fan
with a business, you know, you know, with a family
business that gave him some money and wanted to participate
and wanted to you know, I get that. I've seen
people like that and you know, wanted to be a

(02:45:15):
star and wanted to feel like he was a part
of what was going on around him.

Speaker 3 (02:45:18):
And she might not have ever been the populas lord
and this is a chance to be the popular kid.

Speaker 7 (02:45:22):
You know, and maybe but it was like, it's pretty understandable.
But there's a story with Dixie Carter and the Carter
family that I don't know what it is, but I
would be I just I would love to like sit
down and find or find somebody that's known her her
own life and talk to them about it and to
see what's what really is going on here, because there's
you know, why she got involved in us and why

(02:45:44):
she's you know, I mean Jason Powell had in this
week's torch, in this page two stuff that she was
a static about that ecw Why at a woman that's
forty five years old, that's run her own business, that
has been it has been in wrestling for years now.
It wasn't quite going you know, this was you know,
I thought this was a good show. But we had
a good time. But you know, it just doesn't seem

(02:46:06):
to be walking this way. And you know, why isn't
she calling a meeting on Friday night? Going what happened
to this? Writing? Are we about to? Because we go
down below one? Too far down below one? We can
lose Fike and and if we lose fight, this company
is over. I want to know what's going on, you
you know, and and and really looking at things instead
of and so if I don't want to be on
TV and you know that classic oh no, no, no, no,

(02:46:27):
I don't want to be on TV. Oh okay, you
think you think?

Speaker 3 (02:46:32):
Do you think Dixie Carter? There's a level of conscious
aware there's is there an awareness? And she's just kind
of going along with it. You know, we say that
about like Wives of Wrestlers or the rest where the
man cheats on the road and the life knows it.
But this kind of goes unstated that that's the price
they pay for the for you know, people have speculated
that's what Hillary and Bill have, you know, just the
understanding and I don't even talk about it. Just don't

(02:46:52):
embarrass me. Is there something with Dixie where she kind
of gets that they're playing to her and gets that
they're just trying to make this Dixie's fantasy wrestling promoter
camp and make her feel good, and in the back
of remind you thinks she knows she's being played a
little bit, but it feels so good that she's okay
with it, or do you think she's totally oblivious and
she is just really just isn't isn't trying to not
be mean about it. I mean just not you know,

(02:47:14):
savvy enough there's a good word, savvy enough to kind
of understand what's going on at all.

Speaker 7 (02:47:20):
I mean, I you know, I'm not a therapist, but
I think the second I mean, I think because I
think that when you started with the I'm going to
Twitter and boy, I just like talking to the fans,
but I only want to talk to the fans that
were nice to me, and I'm will get positive vibes.
And it's like she got drawn into it pretty quickly,
and there's no real you know, when you're out there
saying what she said, this is my you know, this

(02:47:41):
is my house, and you know when you're giving that
line and you you know, you give it you know,
and you don't and you don't go, oh, come on.
I mean, you know, I'm not saying that. I mean,
if you're really being played, there'd be some things that
you go, No, I'm not doing that. It's one thing
to put me out there. I want to see, you know,
like she's going to see how much of comment they
are before she runs mouth or something.

Speaker 17 (02:48:00):
No.

Speaker 7 (02:48:01):
I think I think she's I think she doesn't understand it.
And I think she's out there in high heels. I think,
you know, she's you know, it's just you just wonder
what I don't know. I mean, is there you know,
she empty headed? What's the deal? But and you know,
I mean most people don't get that kind of schmooze.

(02:48:21):
You know, most people don't get that. And then you're
getting recognized and all that. And we live in a
culture where you know, everybody wants to be and I say,
this is like it seems like everybody wants to be
a celebrity, and it's very seductive. It's something that's valued
in our culture more than it should be. And you
know she's and it's been more valued in the last
ten years than ever. So I mean, yeah, she's I

(02:48:43):
just think that she's just falling forward, and you know,
and then Tommy Dreamer is like writing, you know, getting
these speeches for himself that are so self serving too.

Speaker 3 (02:48:52):
So well, we'll talk about that in Tommy Dreamer in
mcfuley speech, which I do want to spend time on,
or the mcfully blog. One more thing though, related to impact.
This could have been our headline because it was a
It was the headline match of the last pay per view,
or the co headline match the intense, intense, intense personal
feud that we bought the pay per view on. It
was the one match we knew. It was Raven against

(02:49:13):
Tommy Dreamer. Lifetime, a lifetime of a pent up anger
by Raven towards Dreamer stealing his girl, and that those
kids should have been my kids, and that mother of
your children should have been the mother of my children.
And I finally picked my spot to get revenge on you.
And then they go out there and they have a
just total hardcore bloodfest, weapons anger, beat each other down,

(02:49:36):
no hugs afterwards. Two weeks later, a week and a
half later, they're sitting together backstage as if nothing happened,
as if it was a little spat over who should
clean up the mess after the keg party the night before,
and now they're just Raven and Dreamers sitting around talking
like old pals. There was no conversion other than I mean,
they would argue, Well, the conversion was enemies are brought together.

(02:49:58):
You know, people who are common enemies make strange bedfellows,
and so they would say, well, no fortune is much
worse than what they did was much worse, so that
brought them together. Well, let's see that segment again. I
feel like I missed a month of television in that storyline.

Speaker 7 (02:50:11):
No, I really didn't like. And it was like the
part where he was and it was later on on
the Reaction Show, Tommy Dreamer goes, but you know we
really He's like talking and he's looking at Raven and
he goes, you know we do that. He's doing the
ywreck flair Haytes and he's like, well, you know, we
do what we do to entertain those fans. I mean,
we hit each other and that's what we're there for.

(02:50:32):
And even Raven and I and like we had this
big you know, we tried to kill each other, but
really we're just laying it all out for the fans,
and it's that that crap. I mean that you know
that that thing of it's fake. So really, what we're doing,
and we're just admitting because we're honest, really what we're
doing is taking these painful things because we will do

(02:50:53):
anything to make the fans, you know, to make the
fans like us and be entertained. And I just I
have I think that, I just think that doesn't work.
It's so inefficient, it's so it's just crap, and it's
just this justification for not learning, you know, And I
know this is where pols say, you wouldn't you wouldn't
have to do that if you know how to work,

(02:51:14):
if you knew how to draw people in, if you
knew how to use your facial expressions, if you know
how to use your body, knew how to work together,
if you knew how to do stuff instead of just
you know, when you see people take it. You know,
the first time you see someone take a chair and
bang it over, somebody said, you go, oh my god,
I can't believe I saw that. Oh my god, I
can't believe he did a some ressault flip backwards into
a subsum and it's like, you know, at least Raven

(02:51:37):
like gave that backstory. Tommy Dreamer never seemed to really
even buy it. He attacked Raven, but he never like
gave you know, he never gave the a Geordier speech.
He never, he never, He never bought into the storyline
with his promos. He was too busy kissing up to
Dixie and crying and talking about how we do it
all the fans. We want to do it the right way.
That was his story was, let's put on another E

(02:51:58):
c W ship.

Speaker 3 (02:51:59):
Yeah, yeah, all right, Bruce. Well, let's wrap up there
the VPP after Show here. We're going to jump right
over to the Bruce Mitchell Audio Show, and I want
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the lookout for that. Thanks for joining us. As always,
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(02:52:21):
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Speaker 1 (02:52:49):
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(02:53:12):
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