15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: Keller & Powell & McNeill talk early NXT, Carlito-TNA prospects, Nexus's credibility against Team WWE, more

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 3 (01:15):
Fifteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
This week I did back to back shows, one with
Jason Powell before usting dot Net, just as I did
earlier this week on the flagship, and then with pw
Toorch's columnist Pat McNeil. On the first show from July
twenty seventh, twenty ten, with Jason Powell, we took live
calls discussing the episode of Raw from the night before,
including the dissension within Team Sena, John Morrison's characters Future Wade,

(01:38):
Barrett and Moore. And then in the previously VP exclusive
after show, we spent about twenty five minutes on the
very latest developments in the TNA ECW angle from that
week's TV tapings, how the previous week's impact played out,
Tommy Dramer's new influence, and what happens next that is
included here for the first time for everyone. Then, on

(01:59):
the July two on eighth, twenty ten episode, I was
joined by Pat McNeil. We took live calls on a
wide range of topics, including early impressions of NXT, TNA's
increased talent budget which led to nothing, Carleitle's prospects of
catching on with TNA, Nexus is credibility against wwb's team,
and more. And then in the previously VP exclusive after show,
we discussed SummerSlam main events and possible match quality and

(02:23):
match outcomes and what might fill in the undercard. So
let's get to it. This is today's Wade Keller Pro
Wrestling Podcast fifteen years ago flashback for Thursday, August seventh,
twenty twenty five. Note O, Welcome to PW Torch Lack Cast.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
I am PW Toorch dot com editor and Pro Wrestling
Tourch newsletter editor Wade Keller, joined today by Pro Wrestling
Dot Nets Jason Powell.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
How you doing, Jason great?

Speaker 5 (02:51):
How about you?

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 5 (02:52):
It is that that was the appropriate way to start
off the show since yesterday Bruce had a ban on
James asking people how they were doing.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yes, by the way, I'm all for that. I it's
especially the way pata that gives bad a hard time. Yeah,
Like we'll be like, hi, Jim from New York, thanks
for calling, or please saink you do an't worry from
then then he'll be a Hi, I'm Jim from New York,
and I go, hey, Jim, what's on your mind? You'll
start talking and Pat I'll go, how are you Jim?
And so anyway, if we don't care how you're doing,

(03:20):
I know where Brus is coming from and James has
thrown for a loop since that wasn't covered in the
pre production meeting.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
Funny.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yeah, So anyway, if you want to call on the
show and not tell us how you're doing, the number
is six four six seven nine.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Eight two Waights. That's six four, six seven two Wight
got a lot to talk about last night's Raw full
of developments. I think we should.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Establish up front that we are not going to be
a spoiler free show today. So if you don't want
to know what happened on next week's Raw, don't just
you might I would say, don't listen. And I'm not
encouraging people to talk about next week's RO I'm just saying,
and I don't plan to go over the results overtly
or anything like that. But in the course of the conversation,
there may be something that comes out because because they

(04:03):
did tape RAW last night, they did a double taping
in San Antonio because they're going to be touring Australia
next weekend, so something slips out. I've warned you at
the beginning. You know, there may be some commentary that
includes some people who read the spoilers on p toe
torch dot com or progressing dot net since last night?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Did that fine? Jason works for me? All right? Cool?
By the way, I like to say this, it is Tuesday,
July twenty seventh, two thousand and ten. That's the episode
of the show you're listening to, Jason, just kind of
a It was interesting because yesterday in the live cast,
a Color called up and said, I don't know, it
just doesn't seem like the NXT team is really a

(04:40):
threat against this team Sena, you know, full of main
event wrestlers along with Brett Hart, And I was thinking
to myself, well, you know, Team Next you know the
answer that Team nextus have shown that they are a single,
singular unit. They all think alike, they're all on the
same team. And clearly the raw team are a bunch
of people who have problems with each other. So that's
one negative.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
And I don't really care considered Brett Hart the equal
of even you know, Justin Gabriel at this point, or
you know, I mean, he's he's retired, and it's not
like he's exactly shown that he's anywhere near.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
His physical prime. So I kind of look at it
as a seven on six match in that respect, and
the fact that they didn't get along was something about
But what they did last night on RAW I thought
was just brilliant. I mean, I really liked.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
The story they told on the show, which is, yeah,
Team Seena put together the stream team of people who
have been wronged by Nexus, but when it gets right
down to it, they can't. They're not on the same page.
And to pretend that they can be even the battle
Nexus is going to be a challenge. And I think
by the end of the show, and I'm not saying
everybody buys it, you know, some people might go, well,
nice try, but I think they did about as effective

(05:45):
of a job as you can establishing by Nexus dominating
the B team of Raw, and then all the infighting
among teams Sena that it really is not a foregone
conclusion that even with all these former world champions assemble
on one team and Jericho went in Hedge and Fena,
that this is that Nexus doesn't have a big advantage.
So that to me, that was that was the headline

(06:06):
of last night's show. Is WWA weaving a really good
storyline throughout the show and by the end of it,
Unlike Impact and frankly some editions of Ron's backdown.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
There was one thing you were thinking about above and
beyond anything else, and it made you It made me
more curious to want to see how the match played out.
A Summerslune, I boy.

Speaker 5 (06:24):
I mean, I certainly appreciate the story they told and
the setup. I just felt like it got very predictable
by the end. And even Jim Ross made that comment
on Twitter last night, which is summed up how I felt.
It was like, I get it, you know, I mean,
you don't have to continue to do this not to
I mean, it makes sense from this the storyline standpoint,

(06:47):
but it just kind of took a little something away
each time it happened. It was like, Okay, I know
exactly where you're going. I almost feel like they don't
have confidence in their own booking from the standpoint that
they've spent a lot of time Nexus over and I
don't feel like they think the fans see Nexus as
a real threat right now, so they have to have

(07:07):
all this turmoil on Team Ronick to compensate for that.
It was a good show. It didn't really live up
to my expectations though, after the really hot show last week.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't think it was the best Raw
in a while. The thing that stood out to me
and I liked it better than you did, and maybe
Jim Ross did. I didn't find it excessive. I felt
like it.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Was important to create discord on Team Sena in a
sense of chaos, because the storyline is if Nexus wins,
and John Cena said it, and you know, you don't
have to explain it any further than this.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Sometimes you can.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
Either overcomplicate it by over explaining things or assume something
that the audience isn't assuming. And I thought that wedwe
found a good middle ground with Sina's promo. Verresina said,
the more Nexus wins, the more power they gained, The
more power they gain, the more influence they have, and
the more influence they have, it threatened what WWE Raw
has come to be. That's good for most of WWE's audience.

(08:05):
That's just enough for a viewer to go, okay, now
I know what's at stake, and so to go from
there to the whole team disintegrating. It puts in jeopardy
the babyface side, and by having Nexus win the way
they did it, it made them seem better. It was
finally a chance for everybody to go in there and
at least show here's our signature moves in case you

(08:25):
weren't watching on Tuesday, which two out of three people
watching RAW at least you know prior three out of
four don't know who what these guys' signature moves are.
And it shows that collectively they can work. So I
liked it, Like I'm agreeing with you to an extent
that it was a good run, not a great RAW,
But I liked that singular element in that I think
there's times where the goal is to sell pay per views,
not have the best edition of RAW you could possibly

(08:46):
ever have. And I think sometimes impact bookers think we
got to make this the best impact ever. So let's
have the first ever Jeff Hardy versus Samo Joe match,
and let's let's have the k drematch that we just
had on pay perview. Let's have a rematch with me,
mister Kennedy and whoever. It's like, not every show needs
to be the greatest show ever. Sometimes you just want
to make it more than watchable, not just barely watching.

(09:07):
But we want to make it good.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
But in the end, have that hard sales pitch for
where you make your money. And I thought that they.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Accomplished that and if the ratings come in and the
ratings dropped throughout the show when people got this and chatted, well, wwe.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Probably took it too far, but I thought it was Yeah.
I just thought it sets the table nicely for that match.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
Get fair argument there. The one thing I will I've
got a protest though, is the fact that maybe people
don't realize what the Nexus wrestlers finishers are. That was
one thing that really jumped out to me last night
is when they were doing the beatdown, people just kind
of sat there because they've seen it all before so

(09:43):
many times. We know that Skiff Sheffield's going to do
the clothes line, we know o Tongue is finished, we
know Barrett's finisher, and we know as as spectacular as
it is, we know Justin Gabriel's finisher because they keep
doing it week in and week out. And I really
felt like that live crowd was kind of numb to it.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Okay, yeah, yeah, And I guess I just I disagree
in the sense that I don't think having I don't
think for as long as Nexus has been around, that
they could have done their finishers too much to the
point where fans will go, well, that's the only move
he's gonna do.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
That's all move.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
I think they almost because it's seven guys we don't
know very well. You almost don't want overcomplicated, and the
idea is, you know, keep it somewhat simple and that
these are their killer moves.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
And you know, we're not going to see Justin Gabriel
in a showcase fifteen minute match against seven born where
people go, WHOA, he's good. We're just not at that
stage yet for them as individuals. So you know, I
know where you're coming from, but I just I watched
it through a different lens or thought that for the
negatives that might exist, they still need to really reinforce
who these guys are and what they do for the

(10:47):
people who weren't watching NXT every week and have that
well established already.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
Yeah, I guess I'd just like to see him shake
it up a little bit, you know. I mean, it
certainly is important to establish those finishers, and Gabriel's finisher
is hot, you know, that's one hell the move. But
what does uh did the red Tyler guy do?

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Oh, don't start quzzing me. That's why, that's that's why
I'm not. That's why I wasn't bored us, because I'm like, okay, good,
Now I'm starting to memorize this guy's move.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Now I'm starting to memori this is the guy's move.
But I'm not even there yet.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
I don't know. I don't know what he Slater does
because it's it's pretty much the same three or four
guys that are hitting their finishers. Yeah, I'd kind of
like to see him working those other guys a little
bit here and there too, just just to shake it
up and make you feel like you're not watching a
repeat of the last beat down.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, well, good discussion. Let's bring the callers into it.
You can talk about last night's raw, you can talk
about impact anything you want. We will roll through calls
beginning right now.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Eric Codes that was my h Bruce Buffer mementation. Right now,
all right, seven one eight, you're on the show. If
we stay your name and where you're from.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Me? Yes?

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Seven eight, Hi, I'm Elliott calling you from San Francisco,
though I make my residence in Oaklands.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
And Elliott, unlike Bruce, I want to know how are
you doing today?

Speaker 5 (11:59):
Yes, Elliott, I am good.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
I can complain you guys, All right, go ahead, plus
on your mind, a few comments.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I usually usually think of a list of questions as
my first time calling, but I just want to talk
about what's been happening recently. Yeah, I think Jason got
a point in that the Life crowd probably listened them
to the beat down. I haven't seen Ry yet, I
can't tell, but just talking about it, I can imagine
the effect sequence they.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Went through in the next to people.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, but I think that you kind of have a
point as well. Weighed in that, like those moves, they're
really trying to get them over, and it's sort of
like those squash matches they used to have in Superstars,
where basically once you see them, once we see them
in the match against seeing as team the Celts and
Blue or whatever they called them yesterday, if they start

(12:49):
setting up for those moves, the crowd is probably gonna
start to react because they're gonna want to see if
seeing a team can escape it or if they can
survive them. So I think it might work come summer,
Stimer whenever each other.

Speaker 6 (13:01):
Yeah, and I have a question though it seems like
everybody's down on Waye Barrett for having a not so
stellar match with Mark Henry uh last or two mondays ago.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yes, but I want to know if there.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Is a single heel that's actually had a passable match
with a face Mark Henry.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
See, I think that he shouldn't be on white Bear.
Think he should be on the person who thought it
was a good idea to put white.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Beard against Mark Henry.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
And and I think the rationale was, well, Mark Henry
is really big, and it's and it's Wade Barrett beats him,
that's going to mean something. But really, you know, is
it really going to mean more than wayde Verret dominating
a jobber or dominating Yoshi Tatsu, or dominating somebody who
he can actually not you know, like look strong against
and not look relatively weak and that that botched move.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, okay, you.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Know, maybe Matt Morgan's got some heat on him for
for dropping Hernandez, and now Barret's got some heat on
him for for dropping Henry.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
It's it's it's I don't I don't know in every
circumstance if it's two people's fault, happenstance, or one person's fall.
But I think in the end it was it was
just the wrong It was just a bad choice to
put Barrett in there against Henry, because that's possible against
Mark Henry, and you're right, who does look good against him?

Speaker 5 (14:10):
What do you think, Kathon, Yeah, it's it really is
a blunder by w W to go with that match.
I just don't think the fans take Mark Henry all
that seriously. I think they know what his standing in
that company is. He's kind of a mid card guy,
and when you see him in there against someone like Barrett,
you just, you know, given the circumstance, I think most

(14:32):
people assume Barret's going over anyway. So I'm with you.
I'd rather see him in there with someone who can
really make him look good and hold up their end
of the match. And I think they were more concerned
about showing, look how strong this guy is. He can
pick up Mark Henry and hit his finisher, and we
saw it didn't.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Really work out that well, kind of backfired anything else. Elliott, Well, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Mean that's a good point. I mean it did serve
to expose wait guard. The reason why I think it's
like people are being a little bit too hard on
pa works performance is that just looking at the size
of them, like Mark Henry's like, I don't know what
is he three seventy three eighty now and he's almost.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Impossible to move.

Speaker 7 (15:08):
I feel like he's a little.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Miscasted as a baby face.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Although their baby face roster is pretty weak on row
right now, he works in for at least from what
I've seen over the years, he kind of works better
in the match where he's dominating and there are hope
spots for whoever he's facings, and he can't really do
that as a baby face.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, you can. You can make the argument that Mark
Henry is miscasted as a WWE superstar, But you could,
I would say Sony like Mark Henry, who's is limited.
You see how I waited there for you to laugh.
I was waiting for the laugh of hour. But I
think Mark Henry.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
Please, given Mark Henry and what he does and doesn't
do well, I just think he's one of those prime
candidates for a tag team division where you put him
with somebody who can actually work and it's kind of,
you know, a mismatch of styles.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
But he can be there for the hot tag and
the power spots as a baby face overheel, But I don't.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Rely on him to carry a whole match, whether it's
two minutes or twelve minutes. That's that's kind of my thinking, Jason.
Any thoughts on that.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
Mark Harry's a baby face, has two moves, the power
slam and the big smile. That's about it.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and he's not the world's strongest man, but
there's other people stronger than him. I have that on record. Anyway, Ellie,
had anything else before I move on to other colors?

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, I had a question, and I know you were
you goingly watched the Daily Show, but you may not
remember this. And I'm a member of the VITP forum,
so I might just post it in your in your zone. Yeah,
but there was a skit that John Stewart did where
he where there was a person who called the span
and he accused the host of like they should call
it black span or something like that. And I swear
to God that that was Caap white Bill watts.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Well posted in the vip Keller zone. I want to
I had just finished.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Sorry, I had just finished listening to your interview your
torch s talk with him and it was the same
exactly woe and his name the color theme was built.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Oh wow, Uh yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
It was really scary, but I think he would be
the one gable to help.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
But I swear it was a voice match. All right, cool, Yeah,
I definitely post that. Let's let's get the let's get
the subscribers in on judging whether it's go Walt or not.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Okay, And other than that, I just wanted to say
you to do a great job. I love to site.
I frequented a lot. I'm more at the forum now
just because of time, but this Lifecat thing, it's probably
been just keeping me a blow forever and I'm always
there for the Bruce Mitchell and Waite Tiller weekend arguments
fickering in the audio.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Thanks Allian, I appreciate it very much. Speaking of Bruce,
he's Jason. He's heckling up in the tad room.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
If you've seen when I when I asked Elliott how
he was doing, Bruce says, great show.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
So far, way to slow it down. So I don't know,
I care how our listeners are doing. Jason.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
Yeah, absolutely. I think Bruce is still just bitter because
he asked a question about oh god, it was it
was some who wants to see something, and I said, well,
I'd want to see that and when when he was
doing the show with James. So I was trying to
get even all right.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
But for the record, Ellie is the only the first
caller is the only recoller. We actually care how you're doing.
We really do want to keep the show moving, Wade.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
It was actually a who wants to hear a mister
TCD And I'm like, well, I.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Do all right? Yes, Well I don't know. Bruce is
asking whose side are you on or is he talking
about the chat room or me? Oh, he didn't say
the show was great so far. Bruce says, he didn't
say the show was great so far? You said good show?
I think we should Yeah, you don't care how he
isn't it ironic? Husflow in the show down now and

(18:32):
part all of comments in the chatroom. By the way, everyone,
I want to give a shout out to the chatroom.
If you want to join in the chatroom, those who
listen live can can go into the chat room.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
There's about fifty four people there right now, just interacting,
reacting to what we say on the show and talking
to each other.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
So it's kind of a fun feature to have for
the show. Here, I'll just state that we are available
live from five thirty to six thirty Eastern Tuesday through
Friday at blog talk radio dot com slash Pro dash
Wrestling dash Torch. If you are listening to us.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
On delay by iTunes or through some other RSS feed
or podcast feed and you want to listen to us live,
Tuesday through Friday is the time to listen to us
live five thirty to six thirty Eastern and Monday's we're
on the hour preceding Raw, so that's usually eight to
nine pm Eastern, same address, blogcock radio dot com slash
prodesh Wrestling desk Porch. If you think we're only available live,

(19:27):
that's not true. You can listen to us the free
portion of the live cast, the one hour free portion
by subscribing in iTunes or just going to blogtalk Radio.
I think we're the number fore most popular sports podcast
on the blogcok radio network with thousands and it's not
tens of thousands of shows, and the number six most
popular show on the blogcock radio and Evergram. Some of
the shows has been around for years, and like I said,

(19:48):
there's tens of thousands of shows.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
On the network.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
So I appreciate everybody in your support and helping spread
the word. And by the way, I don't say this
very often, but keep spreading the word. Let people know
we're here.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
If you're on a message board or you've got brands
who like wrestling, are you on Facebook, whatever, to spread
the word and let people know that we're here. Because
the more, the more, the more the better. Who are
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(20:18):
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(20:40):
Torch VIP and you can also upgrade to other tiers
and receive even more benefits through Patreon. Let's go back
to the phone lines. If you want to get in
line on the phone banks, the number is six four
six seven, two one nine eight two eight. That's six
four six seven two one nine eight two eight and
let's go to I think it's an international call for

(21:02):
four to seven is the beginning numbers. Please stay your
name and where you're from.

Speaker 8 (21:06):
Yes, Co, my name is Carlin Corlan from London, England.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Jason, do you want to think of call? Since you
were a good English accents?

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Oh, thank you so much for you to day.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
I didn't put your name. Tell me again, I was
prepared for my job.

Speaker 8 (21:21):
It's Carl.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Okay, Carl Jason. By the way, as there's something wrong
with Jason's hearing where he doesn't understand English if it's
an in an English accent, so I will be interpreting
your comments for him. Go ahead, okay, cool?

Speaker 8 (21:34):
And the first thing really is relevant topic related to
to w W.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
I'm with the current.

Speaker 9 (21:41):
Nexus angle and John Cena, the whole sort of Superman
angle sort of being set up. I'm dreading with the
elimination style match that is going to come down to
him and you know a gang to a.

Speaker 8 (21:55):
NEXTUS Guys.

Speaker 9 (21:58):
Fantasy booking here what I but like it's obviously a
hilt and from scene and I know that's not.

Speaker 8 (22:03):
Going to happen. But the current standing of Brandy Orton
and and his his.

Speaker 9 (22:11):
His development as as a fad character, you see that
as been a possibility obviously, maybe not now, but within
the next sort of twelve months if Brandy Orton continues
to develop.

Speaker 8 (22:23):
And find his you know, find find his what's the
word I'm looking for?

Speaker 9 (22:28):
Yeah, I find find that character that he is sort
of looking to established.

Speaker 8 (22:33):
Do you think that, you know, around you want to
become the top baby? Faith, that's a good ques.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Oh, go ahead if you want to. You had more?

Speaker 9 (22:41):
Dad, Well, no, no, just just you know, obviously I'm
not a big scene a fan Orton.

Speaker 8 (22:47):
You know, I think I think he's great.

Speaker 9 (22:49):
He's really really come on in the last sort of
you know, six months, the whole legacy thing, and I
just you know, I think if he continues gaining some steam,
I can see him that he's becoming you know, he's quite.

Speaker 8 (23:03):
Clearly established as the number two now. But is there
any chance you could knock Sina?

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Good? Good question, Jason, do you think there's a chance
that Sena could turn heel at SummerSlam? Because there's a
glut at the top with both Orton and Sena and
that they might actually go with Orton as the top
row baby face and try to see if turn in
Seena heel. Would one give Orton that free pass to
be the lead centerpiece baby face and two you know

(23:31):
at a twist to WWE by having Seena go'heel.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Any chance of that happening, Jason, I don't see it.
An hour later I should say, you know, an now
we're in the next twelve months.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
With Carl's question, well, I mean, I guess someday John
Cena is gonna turn heel and it's gonna make WWE
a lot of money, But I think right now they're
making too much money off him and merchandise to make
that move. It would surprise me because they don't have
that guy who can step in and cater to the
kiddies like John Cena does. Randy Orton's not that guy,

(24:00):
and Hunter isn't going to you know, he'll appeal to
some of them, but he's just not that kid friendly character.
And I don't think the storyline is in place right now.
There's really no reason for John Cena to turn He's
feuding with Nexus, and there's just doesn't look to me
like there's any seeds being planted for that. As far
as Orton goes, I think the sky is the limit

(24:24):
with this guy. But I don't think they've really found
a niche for him as far as his promo style goes.
He's a big believer.

Speaker 9 (24:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, I completely agree with that. That would
be my one sort of problem that I have at
the moment with the character.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yeah, And it just seems like they're they're they're trying
different things. Last week, we got, you know, the sing
along with the rock style where he tried to get
the crowd to say RKO with him and they didn't respond.
And you know, I mean, that can happen, and you
got to kind of drive that point home if that's
a route you want to go. But they didn't do
that last night, and last night kind of seemed I

(25:00):
guess this is more about Orton and Summer Slam. For me,
it's what I'm about to say, and that's that they
really haven't explained Orton's motivation. It's just he's in a
WWE Championship match against Seamus. You never hear Randy Orton
put over the WWE Championship and what it means to
him and why we should want to cheer to see

(25:21):
him win other than that he's going against Seamus, and
I think that's something they really need to address.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
I think Jason, you hit on a key point, which
is I think Grandy Orton has a baby face is
a work in progress, and I think Sena is at
a point where it's really tough to justify turning him heel.
I think John Cena is riding a certain wave and
I think he's important, very important to WWE right now
to remain a babyface. I just don't think it's that
time yet. I think we'll get a sense of when

(25:47):
that time comes, and I don't think it's now. And
I think that time will come either when he becomes
to get stale and ineffective in terms of merchandise sales,
attendance by raids, ratings, and when somebody else comes along
who we don't have to have this conversation about like
we do Orton. Is he ready, is he connecting? Are
the fans chanting his name? Has he figured out how
to cut a baby face promo that's still true to

(26:08):
his character? Well, there's too many questions about Orton right now,
as popular as he is and as much as he's
getting pops and as much as it's appealing to a
different demographic that might not be watching because.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
They're not into John Cena, but they will watch a
show with John Cena.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
As long as Randy Orton's also on it. We're just
not quite there yet, and I think that's that's that's
an issue that needs to be addressed before they turn
scene to heel. So no, I think the short answer
to your questions, I don't think Seen is going to
be turning heel at SummerSlam. Do I think as a
possibility in the next twelve months. I do, but I
would put it still well under fifty percent that this
will be the angle that leads to SEE the turning.

(26:41):
I think we're probably two three years away from that.

Speaker 9 (26:45):
Well, wishful thinking mind, just another couple of points, slightly
off topic, So I take up totty much on she
and I I'm a you know, I'm I I really
know what to say with the whole current product. At
the moment, I'm screaming out from from here in England

(27:05):
for Paul Hayman.

Speaker 8 (27:06):
To get involved. But that's that's another point. Homicide is
actually I wanted to bring up now when he was
part of LAX with Fernanda.

Speaker 10 (27:19):
I just think that with.

Speaker 9 (27:22):
The state of the tag teams in wrestling in general,
I think TNA that's the one good thing that they
are doing.

Speaker 8 (27:28):
I don't really agree with all.

Speaker 9 (27:29):
That the gimmicky matches, and with the best of five
series between Beer Money and Motor City Machine Guns, I think,
as you just let them go out there and tear
the place down without.

Speaker 8 (27:39):
The need for a cage or a ladder, something on.

Speaker 10 (27:43):
A puddle, etcetera, etcetera.

Speaker 8 (27:45):
So I'm just wondering, don't I know he's.

Speaker 9 (27:48):
Sort was a bit outspoken recently with regards to the
resume of whul covid than that, But is there any
chance Homicide could.

Speaker 8 (27:55):
Be joining up with Fernandez again?

Speaker 9 (27:57):
And just another point, I just want to quick, like
a quick point about minister Pastect put the world straft
on him and that's that's it, really and you could
leave me down hold and appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Sure, yep, thanks for call uh Carl. The question on
hening why did he never get the world title. He
has to look at the timing of when he was
the Icy champion and who the champions were at the time.
And part of it was Henning wasn't great on promos.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Part of it was Henning was always had some some
you know issues in terms of in terms of his drinking,
that type of thing. But it just never quite seemed
like if you live through it, you thought it would
happen someday. But there was never a point during Henning's
run in WWE where you thought, yeah, he's the guy
they should go with right now as a world champion.
So looking back on it, to seen somebody as talented

(28:49):
as him, it was strange.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
But I think following it as I did writing the
Torch newsletter at the time.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
I don't think it. I just don't think that it
uh that that time ever came where we thought, oh,
they should give him the belt. How about you, Jason, Yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Mean it was Hogan and Warrior and those were the
cash cows. And I just as much as I appreciated
Kurt hen and growing up, I never thought that, you know,
he should have replaced one of those guys. We get
to tall the jokes we want to about Warrior, but
it was it was a short run, but it was
a successful one for WWE in terms of dollars in
a lot of ways. I mean, they get it was

(29:23):
actually ice back up on that. It wasn't you know,
he didn't just step in and seemlessly Phil Hogan shoes
or anything like that. But you can see the thought
process that here's this guy that's got you know, Jack
to the gills just like Hogan, and I can totally
see what they were going for. I mean, in a
perfect world and no pun intended, yes Henny would have
had a title run. But you can't blame w w

(29:45):
EE for trying to stick with that formula.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
And as Bruce has said, when we've tackled similar questions before,
people who grew up since or not grew up. But
you know, watched started watching wrestling in the late nineties
on think that everybody who's good or really good gets
a world title run. That's a rite of passage, that
it's a it's a gold ring that you just get.
And that wasn't the case world titles. There's a lot

(30:07):
of really good wrestlers at Kurt Henning's level and higher
from the you know in the in the sixties, seventies, eighties,
and the early nineties who never got world titles. It
was only around the time of Vince Russo thinking it's
just a prople let's pass it around. And there were
other culprits at the time too, where World Time and
Vince mcmannony eventually ended up doing it, where the value
of a world title change got devalued incredibly. To go

(30:30):
back to the feeling you had when Hogan was champion
and Flair was champion in the late eighties and imagining
who is going to be the next person that they
give that honor to, it was a big deal. I mean,
it wasn't oh how many times, you know, like somebody
like Sena being a three or four time champion would
have been standard if he were part of another era.

(30:51):
The idea of him holding the title or triple Ah
holding the title as many times as they have and
winning and losing it and passing it around, that just
that was something that's new to the late nineties. So
in the early nineties when Kurt Henning was at his peak,
it wasn't it wasn't seen as something that, well, it
should be his turn soon because so few people relatively speaking,
held the world title in that you know, pre ninety six,

(31:12):
pre ninety seven.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
Era, and you know what, if nothing else Kurt Heading
was the last of the great AWA champions in my opinion, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
It was fun watching him up close in the late eighties.
Develop I mean he was He was the first wrestling
show I ever went to. In May of nineteen eighty one,
he was fighting Adrian Adonis and it was if I
remember right, and I could look.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Up George Shire's book for all the details to refresh
my memory, but it was a match where.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
If Adrian I think it was Adrian didn't pin him
within ten minutes, then he lost. It was one of
those matches where Heading was just, you know, this huge
underdog because he was the son of Larry the Act
and he was just new and thin, skinny.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
And raw and vulnerable. But then by the mid eighties
he really started to stand out as a tasteam wrestler.
And then in.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
The last days of AWA, unfortunately it was only you know,
kurtin Kurt Henning versus Greg Gania.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
It was really the only thing to watch the AWA
four at that point. But they had some good matches
and Kurt was clearly going to be a superstar if
you know, if he kept his drinking out of control
and stay.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
Focused on being the best he could be, and unfortunately
in WWE, it was just it was a different environment
and it wasn't one that where he his type of
wrestler was going to be the world champion that they
built around, and since they didn't past titles around like
they do today, it just wasn't that it wasn't seen
as like an insultous flight.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
But like I said, there's some certain things I think
with handing behind the scenes and on promos where they
felt like maybe he wasn't the right how to go
with anyway. The final question Jase Quick answering this Fernandez
and Homicide, any chance of them getting back together as
a takeingam I think there is.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
I mean that was the direction they were heading when
they did the injury angle with Hernandez where Matt Morgan
attack him. That's why they had Homicide run out to
check on his former partner. But Homicide has a long
history of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
He definitely gets himself in the doghouse, and Hernandez catches

(33:01):
a lot of that heat and they or at least
has in the past, and I don't know that Hernandez
is going to want to jump back into that situation
with him. They're certainly friendly behind the scenes, and but
you know, by all accounts, but that's uh, you know,
he just always seems to you know, because he's just
his His whole rep is to just say what's on

(33:23):
his mind and not think about the consequences.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
And if you know, Jason, he should be Dixie Carter's deputy.
He should be the one who watches the show and
looks at what people are saying.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
That's bs. This guy's kissing up few and it's bad
for business. That guy doesn't is being totally insincere and
he's just in it for the money, like he should
have somebody who speaks his mind, not he should be
punished for that.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
Yeah, I mean there's something to be said for that,
But I think it also comes down to professionalism and
just knowing when to make comments like that, and sometimes
going on satellite radio and burying the company you work
for probably isn't the best time to do that.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
There's some tag. That's why I say he should be
behind closed doors with Dixie, not on the radio speaking
for the on behalf of the company.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
So yeah, good point, And I think curnandus probably aspires
to you know, be a breakout single star, if that's even.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Possible in TNA to do that.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
You are listening to the PW Torch Live cast and
I am Wade Keller, editor of the Progressing Torch Newsletter
and PW torch dot Com. The latest edition of the
PW Torch Newsletter, issue one, thy one.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
And sixty one. We've done around some nineteen eighty seven
we put about but once a week was just put
up online and PDF format and easy in widescreens format,
actually not the easy and yet I'm still working on that,
but on the regular PDF format.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Earlier this afternoon, and it includes a cover story on
Vince McMahon and his interview with Connecticut Post investigative reporter
and my editorial analyzing what McMahon had to say on
Chris Penwa, drug testing, politics and more.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Jason Pouls, your page two Buzz column was there with
the latest scoops from behind the scenes in TNA and
Wwe also the part one of a two part Bruce
Mitchell the TNA Manifesto, where he is rebooking or relaunching TNA.
What should be done? It's not just it's easy to criticize,

(35:10):
very easy to criticize what's wrong with TNA if you
watch the show, but coming up as a plan to
rebuild it, to restart it, to reframe it, and and
set that foundation for success is what Bruce is doing.
He's writing a two part feature column on that. Part
one is now.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
Available for PW Torch subscribers, and it's a good one
and I'm looking forward to to him finishing up part
two for next week's issue. Plus stock columns from Greg Parks,
Brian Hoops, Sean Raddington covering the independence including ringa Bonner
evolved in d Regangate, and my reports on ron SmackDown
and impact. Plus the WDWE and TNA Torch newswires with

(35:48):
my newsletter exclusive analysis of a lot of the news
stories from over the past week. All that and more
available for PW Torch v IP members. If you're interested
in a VP membership, you can go to PW tor
dot com slash go VIP that's g O v ip,
powe torch dot com slash go vip and get a
full breakdown on VIP features and our pricing structure. We

(36:10):
give you a lot of bang for your bucks and
plus tons of archives, and we've redesigned the VIP site
and are adding a lot of cool collections of pets,
audio and articles on an ongoing basis.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
On our new format. So I encourage you if you have,
if you haven't been a VSP membery before or are
not currently, give us a try by going to P
to B torch dot com slash go VIP. Jason, You've
got your own website, Progrestling dot Net, which I encourage
everybody to check out on a daily basis. In fact,
i'd say probably twenty times today. It's a good amount
of time to check your site.

Speaker 11 (36:41):
Works for me.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
Yeah, there's a lot going on right now on that
members site.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, talk about it.

Speaker 5 (36:45):
Got the story on what's why Randy Orton was so
upset last night after he delivered the RKO on Miz.
Also details on some of the videos that P and
A has been shooting today for the hardcore US his
pay per view. Also details on a top TNA star
who got into at least team he yelled at Vince

(37:07):
Russo right in front of Dixie Carter, and a lot
more going on right now. Those are member exclusive at
this time, and if you want to get the first
look at those stories, all you have to do is
sign up for dot net membership. Head on over to
pro wrestling dot net. You'll find the sign up area,
and if you take the annual option, you can sign
up for as little as five dollars and fifty cents

(37:27):
per month.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
I hadn't read your story in Orton, and I know
I'm not allowed to read it on the air because
it's on the member side only, but I just read it.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Good stuff, Jason. People want to read that. Read that
story right now. Go to pro sing dot net and
click on the sign up page. And I'm looking forward
to the other member with the stuff you.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Just talked about. Cool. Well, let's get back to the phone.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Lines, Jason, and see if we can get in a
lot of calls here in the last twenty five minutes
of the show. And let's give the number out one
more time too, the number six four six seven to
one nine eight eight six. We got three people on hold,
so if you want to be fourth or fifth in line,
give us a call now. We'll certainly have time to
get to your phone call in just a few minutes.

(38:09):
Let's go to ericode nine to one. Oh, thanks for calling.
Please state your naming where you're from.

Speaker 12 (38:14):
Hey, how you doing?

Speaker 5 (38:14):
This is Hannibal?

Speaker 13 (38:15):
How you doing?

Speaker 1 (38:16):
It's good? A Hannibal? What's a your rye today?

Speaker 12 (38:18):
Okay, yeah, it's okay, I'll read. You know, it was
like about you know where you know where Paul Hamman
and Dixie Trda had that know that talk that time
you know, before the uh you know, the last paper view.
And then we'll say that Paul Hayman didn't like.

Speaker 7 (38:33):
The whole E c W invasion.

Speaker 12 (38:35):
They gonna make a statements, uh, you know, real blunt
towards up about you know, like you know, you know
he wanted to get rid of some of the old guys, old.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Guys or whatever. Is that true? Is it true that
Paul Hayman didn't want to be part of the E
c W angle?

Speaker 12 (38:50):
I mean, well, you know we're they're true that you
know that he sells stuff and in an interview they
had together, you know, we know that dixiees our mansion.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Oh no, I don't think it's a speakers of Paul
Hayman doesn't want to be associated as the guy who
every time he shows up he's trying to relive nineteen
ninety eight in the ECW brand Am I right, Jathan.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
Oh, yeah, he wants nothing to do with that pay
per view as soever. He will not be on that
show unless Dixie Carter maybe she delivers like ten million
dollars in cash. I'm sure you'd have to think about it,
but I don't see that happening, and he wants nothing
to do with it. Yeah. Absolutely, they've met. As far
as I know, they're still having discussions, but nothing's going

(39:28):
to change. It really just comes down to does Dixie
want to give in to his long list of demands
or does she want to go with the people she
has in place right now? Maybe add Tommy Dreamer, who's
certainly positioning himself as a guy who did a lot
more than he was giving credit for in ECW and
and is really in Dixie Carter and Vince Russo's a

(39:50):
year right now, and I think Dreamer is someone to watch.
I see this hardcore Justice pay per view as him
giving himself basically setting himself up with an audition, and
I think it's the worst possible audition for a booker,
just because this isn't anyone that's a part of you know,
team Well, I couldn't say anyone, but I mean it's
a promotion that he is most comfortable with. It doesn't

(40:13):
show whether he can build future stars or anything like that.
I think it would be a big mistake for TNA
to just turn over the book to him or even
you know, there's no harm in putting him on the
creative staff, I guess, but I just don't. I'm not
real confident in Dreamer's ability, and I certainly, if I'm
Dixie Carter wouldn't let one pay per view decide who's

(40:33):
booking my company.

Speaker 14 (40:36):
Me an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at Peter Resorts 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 US, Japan,
Europe or Mexico. There's always a place for wrestling's past

(40:58):
and the paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
such as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious
career of Jusian thunder Lighter and Our Eye Was There
When shows where our guests will join me to talk
about a classic bout that they were in attendance for
We Love Variety and you can expect lots of it
at the Progress Paradise. Detailed PW Torch VIP subscription information

(41:20):
and a list of all the VIP benefits is available
at pww torch vipinfo dot com. And yes, all VIP
podcasts are compatible with popular podcast apps on iPhone and
Android devices, or you can stream them directly from our
ad free VIP mobile site. See you in the Paradise,

(41:42):
Yeah yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
The only way Paul Hayman chills up at Hardcore Justice
is if he's there for a big angle where he
disavows ECW and cuts a promo saying.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
What ear is it? Seriously? Everybody time to move on?
Like if he could get some sort of anger where
he could give you a complete clean break from the
W brand in a real shocking way. But that would
just break, you know, Tommy Drimer's heart probably, and I
don't know, maybe Raven and Ptevie Richards would would snicker
about it. But and and on the odds of that happening,
our art so tiny, let's not even you know, don't

(42:12):
quote me on saying that's that's that's the possibility. But
he I it's much more of a possibility I greet you, Jason,
than him showing up and endorsing, you know, reliving the
ECW brand again.

Speaker 5 (42:22):
Absolutely, And I know he did, you know, made that
appearance one Geek Week Live and was asked about the
DCW thing, and he said he was flattered that the
crowd responded the way they did. You know that was
that was PC Paul. He's not going to come out
and bury this thing publicly, at least I don't anticipate
he will. But he's not going to put it over either.
And if you so, if you really listen to what
he said, he just kind of dodged, you know, explaining

(42:42):
whether or not he thought this was a good idea,
and it was again very pecy about it.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
I had about any closing comments before we keep all
rolling through calls here.

Speaker 12 (42:52):
Okay, yes, okay, you know I think I'm feel like
this though. Okay, you know he's saying me that you
know that they put in much you'll put an Excavision
title over the global title. I feel the global title
should be pure the X title.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
What's out thinking?

Speaker 1 (43:10):
What should the relationship be between the X title and
the global title? Well, you know.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
I mean, we did give a spoiler warning, so I'll
give another quick one here regarding Thursday's impact.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
The global title is I'm plgging my ears, I'm plugging
my ears.

Speaker 5 (43:24):
The global title is going away in turn, well at
least the name is, and they're going to call it
the TV title, and I think, you know, it's a
decent move. I would rather see them just scrap that
title altogether and hold a tournament for a new TV title.
But I think you know, X division is going to
be for the smaller guys. They've they've kind of they

(43:47):
don't really talk about the no limits anymore. It's just
kind of that cruiser glorified cruiserweight title. And I think
the TV title is probably gonna end up being more prominent,
if you know, if they're if they're serious about this, I.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Like to move. I mean, yeah, I just get rid
of the title if you're not going to do a
TV title right. But if they do the TV title right,
and it hasn't been done right since like in mid
stuleth Wrestling in nineteen eighty six, right, but if they
do it right, that I mean it is something that
I've been a proponent of, which is it gives you
an excuse to not have world title matches on TV. Ever,

(44:23):
but you can have a secondary title that is defended
on TV. But I'll say the way to do it
right is don't defend it on house shows. Don't even
I mean, if it's a TV title, have it have
its place. It's like the European Championship should have only
been defended in Europe and the TV title in TNA
should only be defended on TV. Don't make it out
show title unless you have cameras president, and you can

(44:44):
make a case that you're going to update it on TV,
but you know, follow that pattern. But at least now
maybe there's a.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
Title that you can build secondary feuds around and it
can be a seen as a steppingstone.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Like the Icy title, but it's actually defended on television
and it takes away that temptation to put other time
on the line on TV. So I'm okay with that move.
I'm mostly just glad that they're get rid of the
Global title because we've ranted about that on this show.
You know that what's bigger global or World? What's the difference,
what's the purpose? It's just never had a reason, especially

(45:13):
the way it came into being, which.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Was just Booker T creating a belt to carry around
so that he could claim it was champion, which was
just one of the dumbest things last year.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
And you know, and don't get me wrong, I like
the idea of a TV title, and it's for that
reason that the winning is just just so screwed up
and eventually people will forget if they do a good
enough job with it. But I just see that toy
belt and I immediately think that's Booker T's little red
toy belt, and that's all I think of. And I
don't think I'm alone in that. I will say I

(45:42):
think they did a pretty good job in ECW with
the TV title when Rob van Dam held that.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Oh yeah, good point.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Yeah, so there was at least one other example of
somebody who's done a decent job with it more recently.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
All right, Hannibal, thank you for your call. As always,
Let's now go to area code four. A wait, please
think to name it where you're from.

Speaker 15 (46:02):
This is Chris from San Jose. How you doing good,
Chris good? Okay, So I have a question about John Morrison.
Do you think that he might benefit from a heel
turn because he's been there for four months already on
raw and to me, it seemed like he's a natural heel.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
I mean with the John Morrison character, because last night.

Speaker 15 (46:25):
He kind of teased it and it seems like he
really wasn't trying to play a character. It seemed like
it was real natural to him to kind of want
to punch out our truth, you know, and it just
seems like he's trying too hard to be a face.
So I mean, maybe in the next four to six
months or something, do you think that he might benefit
more from that?

Speaker 1 (46:42):
What do you think?

Speaker 5 (46:43):
Yeah, I mean, even his friends will say that he's
a natural heel. He's just more comfortable as a heel
than he is his face. When you know, my big
criticism of him has been that when he's a baby face,
he tells really campy, cornball jokes. And I know we
did a lot of clown and around with the stuff
with the mizz that they did, but that click, she's
been a babyface. You know. I just keep seeing it's
like he's getting whatever material John Cena rejected, seems like

(47:07):
is the jokes that John Morrison is told, and over
the last couple of weeks, it looks like they are
starting to tweak that character in terms of look, you
saw him out there wearing jeans, and it seems like
a little thing, but it goes a long way. I know,
Jim Ross mentioned the stubble that he that he had
last night, so I think they are actually starting to
address that and trying to do a little bit more
with John Morrison.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
I thought last night was definitely a sign that really,
even the recent week three, he just hasn't been catching
fire as a babyface at all.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
It seems like they're coming to this conclusion his role,
his better role. It's going to be as a heel
if he's going to be anything at all.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
So or even just an edge of your baby face
would be fine. By mean, he just did not have
Ever since they've turned him face, he's had no edge.
He's just out there smiling and telling jokes.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, I agree, anything else, Chris, I just just a.

Speaker 15 (47:52):
Quick comment off that and I'll let you guys go. Yeah, yeah,
I just think that finally, you know, after he lost
the match and he was mad about it, I was like, wow,
he actually cares about losing a match, because before, when
you know, he just said, oh, I lost whatever, and
he just kind of solved for a few minutes and
the next thing, you know, he's doing his normal babyfacing.
So I mean, I think I think it'd be great
if he was a heel like down the road, because

(48:13):
at least, you know, shows that he cares.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Thanks for your call, Chris, Yeah, I think with Marson
one of the one of the reasons they turned a
babys faces. You know, he's he's real athletic, and it
was at a time when Michaels was being faced, you know,
was probably going to be on his way out, and
Jeff Hardy had left, and it's like, we need some dynamic,
athletic babyface. But and he's undersized, and so there's a lot.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
Of things about him that would make you think he's
better as a babyface. But I think he's just he
would benefit from being a heel for three to four
more years and as a higher level singles wrestler and
then turn and then turn babyface once he's regained credibility.
I think it's been a tough road for him to.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Be taken seriously as someone who's approaching the top tier
as a heavyweight. Based on the way he's presented himself
on promos and how he's been booked in the ring.
A quick news note.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Raw ratings are in for last night three point FVE rating.
They did just under five point one million viewers in
the first hour, just over five point three million viewers
in the second hour. I think that's a below average
jump from the first hour to the second hour, but overall, A, uh,
you know, we're solid rating for Rock.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Nothing nothing that I think we'll worry.

Speaker 5 (49:19):
Them, how about you, Jason, Yeah, yeah, that's that's an
increase so that that they should be pleased with that.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yep, they were up two percent among my men eighteen
to forty nine compared to last week, and uh, that's
one of their key demographics, so they're happy about that.
And they're also number one among men eighteen to forty
nine on cable television with five point two million viewers.
Must not have been too much competition last night in
that for that demographic. Our number here is six four

(49:46):
six seven nine eight two eight. That's six four six
seven ninety two eight. We have two people on hold,
so if you want to be the third caller, we'll
certainly get to three calls at least on this show.
You can call in now. Uh, let's go to Airy
code four zero. Please state your name and where you're from.

Speaker 16 (50:02):
Hi's Joey from Connective.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Hey Joey, what's on your mind today?

Speaker 5 (50:06):
Uh?

Speaker 16 (50:07):
Just been thinking about SmackDown. I don't know if you
guys have noticed, but they seem to be getting away
from the calling it Friday Night SmackDown.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Oh you know, I haven't heard that. That's an interesting.

Speaker 7 (50:17):
Pay per view.

Speaker 16 (50:18):
At the pay per view Michael Cole usually introduces Matt
Striker from Friday Night SmackDown. They only said SmackDown.

Speaker 7 (50:26):
Might be nothing. But I was wondering if if they move, when.

Speaker 16 (50:30):
They go to Sci Fi, which would be the best
day you would do it?

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Well? I think WWE has in set up to go
on Thursday night, you know, as a little receipt or
payback for Impact trying and failing to go against them
on Monday night. Jason, what do you think of that?
And is that something that you've you've heard anything about
the possibility happening.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
I haven't noticed it, and my guess is that they
stay on Fridays, if only because that first show is
on a Friday. The press release when they announced the
move to Sci Fi. It was still randed. It's Friday
night SmackDown. I mean, it's possible something changes. I think
they've actually they went and kicking and screaming. They weren't
happy when they were initially moved to Fridays, but I

(51:12):
think they clearly had enough leverage with my network TV
that if they wanted to go back there, they could
have done that already, and so I think they found
a home. I don't think they'll be moving. And one
other thing to keep in mind with that is that
the Sci Fi Network really shuffled their programming schedule to
accommodate wweek. Their big night for their original television shows

(51:34):
was Friday night, and now all those originals are being
moved Tuesday night to accommodate SmackDown. So I guess something
could have changed, But yeah, I mean, I just haven't
heard anything about it. So my guess is that it's
still going to be Fridays, and original night for Sci
Fi is going to be Tuesdays, which kind of leaves
NXT hanging out there.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
One of the benefits of being on Thursday night versus
Friday night is Friday's the big movie day, movie premiere
Day and there's a lot of studios that like to
advertise to the demographic that pro wrestling draws, and so
that's something that Impact benefits from. It's one of the
reasons Spike TV was hesitant to move Impact to Monday
nights because they lost that built in key demographic advertiser,

(52:19):
which is the movie studios. By moving a solidly rated
show to a different night, that was less likely to
get that big surge of movie ads. And that's something
that smacked down wold benefit from. They they get less.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
There's less competition on Friday night when they run on
Friday nights versus other nights in terms of primetime programming.
So you know, that's one of the advantages of being
on Fridays. They kind of can own that night more
than they would if they faced a lot more tough
competitions that some of the networks do kind of give
up on Friday night. So it's something to watch. I
haven't heard it, but I would say that even with
the show schedule for Friday, there's enough time to announce

(52:52):
a change that if they really wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
It, they could. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, we'll check on
that well less ground.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
And I guess one other thing you got to look
at you is days not the biggest thing in the world.
We'd have to work out a deal with WG in America,
also with Superstars airing on Thursdays.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yep, good point, Yep. Carry anything else.

Speaker 16 (53:11):
One other quick question, kind of weird question.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Actually we are okay with question.

Speaker 16 (53:17):
The rest of the shelter of the arena at noontime,
even though starts around eight or nine. I was just wondering,
you know, if I heard from my understanding most of
us of us don't choreograph matches.

Speaker 12 (53:28):
What do they do for hours?

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Now that's not a weird question. Oh, it's a good question, Jason.
Do you want to tackle that proof sure?

Speaker 5 (53:34):
Well, you know, TNA is the one that really comes
to mind because they do have their guys there very early,
and I guess WWE does too. But for T and A,
there's so many pre tapes that are done for Impact
on a typical week that they like to have the
guys there so that they if they want to do
any kind of pre tape they can. Sometimes it doesn't
get started right away, but I think it's, uh, you know,

(53:55):
it's just kind of we want to make sure everybody's
here and accounted for some of the bad and still
kind of show up when they please. But I'm here
in TNA's cracking down on that a little bit in
some cases too. So you know, as far as w
W EVE, same thing, you know they do. They don't
do as many pretapes, but they just want to make
sure everybody's there and and you know they're they're good
to go for the night.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
And and Jason, just to give you a chance to
plug again, members of your of your site progressing dot
net right now are reading about what's going on this
afternoon at the TNA tapings, so you can actually get
a concrete idea of what's going on, uh, you know,
mid afternoon on.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
A Tuesday at the tapings. In terms of pre tapes.
The what when you said that the rest of don't
choreograph their matches. They don't choreograph every move. You know,
rarely is it scripted out in every kind of move
or move spot for spots, but there is quo. I mean,
I've seen it backstage at indie shows and various pro
wrestling shows where I've where I've had the privilege of

(54:53):
being backstage and kind of watching that watching wrestlers work
through their match, and they literally do walk through some
of their moves in the locker room into the backstage area.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
At an indie show, I saw aj Styles teaching the
local wrestler he was facing later in the night how
to take the Styles flash. I've seen wrestlers in the
locker room and trance quarters and in more open quarters,
you know, walk through spots and say, okay, I'll.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Do this, and then you duck, and then you do that,
and then we'll do that. So they work out key
spots in the match. So part of the big transitional
moments in the match, the very beginning, the spot right
before a break if there if there's a commercial break
plan in their match. Certainly the finishing sequence, they all
work that out at a time. It's the stuff in between,
the filler that's more improvised and and that's where it

(55:38):
doesn't take a lot of pre planning. And a lot
of wrestlers don't like to talk much at all about
what they do before they go out there. Others like
to talk a lot about it. It really varies based
on where they were trained and and what their you know,
what their philosophy is.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
And what their comfort zone is, but there's a lot
to talk about in terms of promos, and part of
wanting everybody there at noon or or one o'clock, they
want to have access to everybody, even if they only
need access to twenty percent of the guys.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
They don't want to be stretched.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
Out that they need to know at you know, the
day four or at nine am, everybody that they might
need to talk to about something.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
So the idea is everybody get here and stretch.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
Stretch and be ready to do pretapes, be ready to
go over your match with your opponent when you find
out who you're wrestling. But a lot of it is downtime,
a lot of it is catering, a lot of it
is stretching. A lot of it is just you know,
call it texting friends and talking on the cell phone.
But it really, from an organizational standpoint, is necessary to
have everybody, everybody present for before TVs, you know, and

(56:38):
be able to work through a lot of the stuff
that does go into some of the more intricate matches
and promos.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
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(57:05):
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Speaker 4 (57:24):
Good question, Gary, appreciate the call. Please call again if
you want to join us here on the lodcast. We
only have one person on hold, so we'll probably get
some more than one caller. The number six four six,
seven two one nine eight two. Wait, let's now go
to aera code seven oh three.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Thanks for calling. Please stay you name and where you're from?

Speaker 11 (57:40):
Hey, Waye Jason is Larry from Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Hey Larry, Good here from you again. We'll send your mind.

Speaker 5 (57:45):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
I think the last time I called I talked over you.

Speaker 11 (57:49):
I'm so used to getting home link from work in
like the last five minutes of the show and not
having time to exchange pleasantry.

Speaker 5 (57:55):
So my apologies.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
That's all right, that's all right, no harm, no harm done.

Speaker 13 (57:59):
All right.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Well, I like hearing that song.

Speaker 11 (58:02):
Right as I got on, I heard you guys talking
about the change from of the global title to the
TV title, which is good. I want to throw another
good example of a TV title working well was stunning
Steve Austin's year plus run in w c W and
when he finally dropped it to Barry Windham, I think
on w W Saturday night that was just great and

(58:22):
and so I.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Guess my question related to that, you guys was.

Speaker 11 (58:25):
What's a good example of an of an undercard belt
really really clicking with a wrestler and sort of both
were elevated with that run.

Speaker 5 (58:36):
What do you think, Well, I mean, I guess if
you're looking at undercard titles, you gotta go with intercontinental title.
Is that higher than you're thinking, though.

Speaker 11 (58:47):
Larry, Well, I mean, I mean I'm sort of thinking
of an example where, you know, maybe an undercard wrestler
holds a belt and elevates the stature of the belt
and himself.

Speaker 5 (58:58):
Fair question. Wait time, I'm kind of drawing a blank here.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
Yeah, I mean one of one of those questions, right,
I almost have to kind of look at the history
of titles. I mean, let's go with something a little
bit more recent. Just it's an easy answer, but I
think miz has been elevated by holding the US title.
And he talked about this at Comic Con this past
weekend in San Diego when he was interviewed for a
newspaper and I wish I remember right off because I
like hiving credit, but I can't remember what paper it was.

(59:23):
But he uh, he talks about how when he was
ripping on John Cena last year that he got a
lot of TV time, but he wasn't ready and fans
diden perceived him as ready.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Oh it's IGN dot com. We've got the summary in
this week's Tortu newsletter and I just looked it up,
so IgA dot com has where he.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
Said this, and he said that, here's the quote. I
had six months where I ripped him to shreds in
my promos, just months and months of ripping him and
ripping him right up until the pay per view match
where he just killed me. And let's face it, I
wasn't ready for Sena. We all knew I wasn't ready
for Sena. But now, right now, I think I'm getting there,
and I think.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
One of the reasons is the US title. And even
he agreed with that, he said, once I got the
US Championship, people have started changing their minds and saying, oh,
he's never going to be future endeavored. He's too much
of a talent I had to build to that. I
can't everyone criticize me. So I think that's an example.
A good use of the US title is the way
that miz has has been portrayed with it, and I
like what they've been doing with the Intercontinental title. There's

(01:00:20):
no doubt that the icy title on SmackDown is not
for the very top guys, but it's for the guys
who are aspiring to get to the top. Dal Ziggler
will benefit from an icy title ride, Drew McIntyre is
benefiting from an icy title. Rue Kobe Kingston benefits to
be holds icy title because they're in that next tier.
I think it's perfect use of it. So that's a
very recent example of it. I'm sure there's a lot

(01:00:42):
of examples of it. Happening, Larry, I just I would
have to sit here and pause and have dead air
for twenty seconds to cut a watch.

Speaker 5 (01:00:50):
No, no problem.

Speaker 11 (01:00:51):
Well, hey, if I can get one more question in
there for both of you in your careers as journalists,
and maybe this is we're calling some stuff way back,
but what would each of you say is sort of
the moment when you thought you're really sort of getting
respect within the business for your work. Was it like
a big get for like an interview or anything, our

(01:01:11):
praise from a particular wrestler or anything like that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
In twenty seventeen, when Vincent Man announced his retirement from
WWE exclusively for progressing towards the cover story, no, go ahead,
Jason with that one, and then I'll follow up.

Speaker 5 (01:01:25):
You know, I guess it's hard to get into without
mistealing sources. But when you start hearing from people that
when you really just started out doing this, like when
I started working with Wade, I'm talking to people now
and even back in the Torch days that initially I
never dreamed i'd ever hear from. And I guess that

(01:01:47):
kind of gives you a boost and makes you feel
good about the product that people within the industry who
you've respected over the years are starting to take notice
of your work.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Yeah, that is behind this thing when you get that
phone call or the return call, or you get treated
on the phone a certain way by people. I mean,
there's there's times where I called the you know this
is you know, back in the nineties, the pre.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Internet, pre email, pre Facebook and all that, and there
were times when I was establishing myself and I'd call
somebody and I got to the point where they would
call me back and their question was how'd you get
my number? And that was about it. That one, I'll
put it this way. One one guy who's main evented
many WrestleManias, my my one and only conversation with him
was how did you get my number? Please don't call again.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
And another person, another multi time wrestlemaning made eventor. My
only conversation with him was Wade, I can't imagine how
I could you could possibly think.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I could help you on a story. But what is
your question? No, I can't comment on that. I've got
to go, and so I've gone. I mean that that's
happened to me over the here. But there there's that.
Those are the two cases I remember where I was
actually kind of the first guy was very reasonable because
he was very private about his number, and the second one,
it's just mostly kind of a prick. But the uh,
everybody else has been great, and it is That is

(01:03:05):
a good answer, Jason, because there comes that point where
you're talking to people and you get return calls, and
they talk to you as if they respect what you're
doing and your work, and they and they understand that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:14):
There's an integrity to ninety and the purpose to what
you do, and they want to help make what you
do better. They want to help you be more accurate
in the news, and they want to help you be
more insightful in your analysis.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
And so that was a movement. I mean, I think
when I was getting torch talks, when I was able
to put together my summer annuals where I put out
a book and I would I got you know, Jim
Ross and Gordon Solely and and a lot of announcers
in that era do my Announcer thend my Announcer Theme book,
And when I interviewed the legends Brino Sammartino and lou
Says and and Royce Shires and and and got return

(01:03:47):
calls and Nick Bockminville was able to interview them. That
was great.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Getting Jim Hurt at the ww sitting vice president to
do an interview with me was a pretty big deal,
especially because they didn't like me, but he felt that
it would do him good to get his name out
there and get his.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Point of view out there. That was another moment I
could go on. There was some pretty cool There's been
some pretty cool moments over the years in various eras.
So good question, Larry, Thanks for the call. We are
down to our final seconds, so Jason, thanks a lot.
It's been great having you as a co host again
on the Peter Weetors Love Cast. Jason, you and I
will be staying around here for five twenty minutes after

(01:04:21):
the show talking about other subjects exclusively for VIP members.
And you also carry this on your site, so members
of our site stay tuned.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
For the extended VIP after show. Jason, thanks again, and
thanks to all the callers for joining us, and I'll
be by with Ted tomorrow. All right, Jason good calls

(01:04:54):
on the show as usual.

Speaker 17 (01:04:56):
Let me near Jack with a quick copyright notice that
this VIP after Show is copyright Tdage Communications and is
not to be redistributed outside of the PW towards VIP website.
It is illegal to do so in any format in
any form on the Internet because this is copyrighted material
men exclusively for PW torch VIP members who are paying
subscribers to listen to this audio show. We thank you

(01:05:18):
for not redistributing this audio show and learning us if
anybody redistributes it illegally outside of pwwetorch dot COM's VIP website.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Thank you very much. Let's we talked a lot about
last night's raw. Let's talk a little bit about impact,
and I want to get your thoughts on what aired
last Thursday with the big ECW angle with Dixie Carter's speech,
Tommy Dreamer's speech. Where do you come down as far
as evaluating what you saw with your own eyes and

(01:05:47):
how that was edited?

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
Boy, I the last two weeks had been really let down.
All the hype coming out of those TAY things was
how good this angle played out? And I think they
have the best footage on the cutting room floor because
the Monday show that I know James Caldwell was at
that aired last or two weeks ago. I guess it

(01:06:09):
would be down. Almost two weeks ago. It was everything
after the Dixie Carter line about how she invited them.
There was this big brawl and people were raving about
how good that was, We've never seen the footage, and
then last week caring about how you know, I guess
I didn't have my hopes so too high when I
heard that Tommy Dreamer cut an emotional promo. Because the

(01:06:30):
guy cuts an emotional promo once a month if he's
on TV as a regular character. So that didn't do
anything for me. When I saw Dreamer out there trying
to get tears or as he claimed, trying to fight
him back, whichever it was, it didn't register with me
because I've seen him do this so many times, and
I found so many holes in what he said, the
big one being that he watched all of his friends

(01:06:52):
lose their job and for what, and then he you know,
and he finally had enough and left. It's like, no,
you left because they decided they weren't going to do
ECW anymore and probably weren't going to use you as
an in rings performer anymore, and you wanted to continue wrestling,
So you were with that company watching all of your
friends get fired, and if you really had a problem
with it, you would have left long before you did.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Yep, I saw the same hold than that I was.
I just thought, you know, I was about to be fired,
so I finally quit. And ECW stands for something, but oh,
when I needed a paycheck, I was willing to compromise.
It's not what he CW stood for. And also what
ECW stood for. And this is something that I'm going
to be putting up on the Torch PP website. Is
an interview I did with Al Snow I think it

(01:07:36):
was in nineteen ninety four, and this is before he
had any kind of national acclaim. And it was a
good Torch talk, and we got into some stuff on
USC because he was seconding Dan Severn to the ring
on these very early USC shows. But one of the
things he talked about was how we hoped to get
a break, and he said, if I ever get a break,
I hope I don't turn out to be one of
those guys who never wants to give up the spotlight,

(01:07:58):
never wants to step aside and let the next generation
have their.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):
Time in the spotlight. I don't want to be one
of those guys. Whether I need money or not, or
what kind of career have had. I hope that I'm
not like the people who right now are holding me back.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
And I just thought, you know, that's part.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Of what you know, Tommy Durmer and Dixie and all
them we're talking about with ECW is there's a certain
spirit to ECW, which was counterculture.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
They were the misfits. It was like the I think
it was Toy Story where the other misfit characters in
the backyard.

Speaker 5 (01:08:26):
Was that the right movie, Jason, Oh gosh, I don't
even remember.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
I think it's Toy Story one. It was the misfit
dolls who all kind of banned together. And that's what
ECW too, used that as their analogy. We were the
misfit wrestlers that the major promotions didn't want because we
were too short, or we didn't have the look, or
we didn't have the style, or we had attitudes or whatever,
and it was our chance to really do what we

(01:08:51):
wanted to do and didn't get a chance to do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
And I look at what they're doing now and it's
completely the opposite everything about TNA and ECW there, everything
about TNA now is so the opposite of what ECW
stood for It's so it's ironic that Dickie says, oh,
TNA is all about ECW. Jeff Jared would not have
gotten the push that he's gotten in ECW. Kevin Nash

(01:09:13):
would not have gotten the push that that he's gotten
in TNA. I should say, there's so many examples of
veteran wrestlers who are getting opportunity after opportunity at the
expense of the young wrestlers, who, in the true spirit
of ECW, would have been the headliners right now. They
would have been doing something new, not rehashing something old.
ECW wasn't about. Hey, remember back in nineteen eighty three,

(01:09:35):
how cool that was. Let's redo that. But that's what
TNA is doing now. I remember how cool WW was
back in the nWo era. Let's do that again. Remember
how cool the rock was, Let's try to do that again.
And now they're saying, remember how cool ECW was back
in the late nineties, Let's do that again. ECW the
original wasn't about going backwards and reliving a past with
the same characters who are thirteen years past their prime.

(01:09:55):
So I'm listening to Dixie say this, and I'm like,
I think she believes this, but it's so just an
excuse to give for people who don't really know how
to reinvent themselves and frankly, might their days might be
over being top guys. It's just an excuse to give
them another chance to be on TV.

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
Yeah, and let's I mean, this could be turned out
to be an entertaining pay per view. I've kind of
distressed that to people because I've heard some people going along, boy,
you're judging this pay per review before it happens, and no, no,
we're not at all. It's but you have to also
look at whether we think it's whether we think it's
a good idea for TNA to do this, and I

(01:10:34):
think we both agree there's a good chance that this
pay per view will outdraw the standard typical TNA pay
per view of the last six months. But what does
it do for this company long term to bring in
all these guys and just kind of shove everybody else
aside for one night? And I know they'll have some
TNA content on the show now that we're in the

(01:10:55):
you know, the VIP and member exclusive aspect, we can
talk a little bit about that. Yeah, they're going to
do there today, they were taping vignettes with a lot
of TNA talent and also some of the ECW guys
where they're talking about the old ECW and what it
meant to them and maybe bringing up specific wrestlers. And
I know there was some kind of a tribute to

(01:11:17):
Paul Hayman and Joey Styles that was among the things
recorded today. And I'm guessing, you know, maybe maybe there's
somebody that kind of plays that JBL role where they
step in and they're against the idea of an ECW
pay per view. I haven't seen it yet, but don't
rule it out. Who knows, But I mean, seriously, you're
shoving all this young talent that in a lot of cases,

(01:11:40):
a lot of the younger guys only get paid if
they appear, and if they're not appearing on this pay
per view and wrestling on the show, they're missing out
on a paycheck. So that a group of forty something
year old guys who in many cases haven't been doing
much other than you know, saying some of them don't
even really work regular India gates, and you're shoving all

(01:12:01):
that young talent aside for one night to promote a
brand that's not even yours. I still really wonder when
WWE is going to send these seas and desisorder if
they haven't already. And you know, obviously it's up to
the lawyers to determine what's legal and what's not, or
the judge. I guess it becomes to that. But there's
just so many things about this that are really head

(01:12:23):
scratching to me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:23):
Wade, I agree, I mean, I see the rationale of
why they think it's a good idea to do it.
What's missing is thinking the next logical step of why
it's not a good idea to do it. And there's
it can be a good show. It might be it
might even pop a by rate. And if this is
if this is like okay, let's take a deep breath.
Let's focus on ACW for six weeks or a month

(01:12:44):
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
And then we're going to relaunch, in essence, a new.

Speaker 4 (01:12:49):
Approach, and we're gonna not be doing this, this and
this that we've been doing, and we're gonna refocus ourselves.
And this is kind of a breather, it's kind of
a break. Instead of shutting down the promotion, we're going
to detour for this month and then when this is over,
it's over.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
We had fun.

Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
Dixie says, I gave the city of the guys what
they wanted, which was a nice ending and respect on
air to go out and do what you do, or
at least try to do what you do one more time.
But that's it, and then after that we're moving on
to do something different and that if that's what they do,
then in.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Retrospect, maybe they pop a virate, they take.

Speaker 4 (01:13:21):
A breather, they reassess things, and they come out of
the gate in the fall in September just ready to
ready to surprise us.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
With some new concepts.

Speaker 4 (01:13:29):
And if that's what they have in mind, I mean
that's possible, but based on their track records, they probably
don't have that in them. And I don't think people
look at Tommy Dreamer as this great booking mind. People
have been around him, talk to him, seeing him work.
There's no doubt that Tommy's like a big, a really
good booking mind. But he's angling to try to get
a permanent job on the writing committee or become head booker.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
And I don't know that.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
Being given control of ECW, even if he pops a
vibrate with it is evidence, and he's the right guy
then to go with as as the main booker deciding
what the main brand is going to be like the
rest of the time.

Speaker 18 (01:14:13):
I'm Kelly Wells, host of the Seven Star Podcast, the
new Ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
noteworthy events dictate.

Speaker 5 (01:14:25):
And I'm Chris Lansdell join us as we cover the
ever changing landscape of New Japan as they navigate an
era with no lack of talent, but I really need
to create some new stars.

Speaker 19 (01:14:35):
You can stream the new.

Speaker 20 (01:14:36):
Seven Stop podcast now from Pro Wrestling Talk.

Speaker 5 (01:14:49):
Yeah, exactly, And I mean that is the way I
see this thing. It's just Tommy Dreamer setting himself up
with an audition and getting some of his old buddies
one more paycheck. And in some cases, I know he's
telling these guys that you know, he's inches away from
getting the book and if this goes off, well, it
could lead to contracts, and I you know, frankly, I
don't want to see most of the guys bringing in

(01:15:11):
for this show for more than one night. There's you know,
there's some exceptions. I think there'd be a place for
Jerry Lynn is kind of that Randy Coteur like veteran
of the X Division. There's something you could do there.
And you know, there's a couple of other guys. I
still think Jim Mitchell, who I haven't even heard mentioned
for this show amongst you know the rumored names that
are that are going to be part of it, is
one of the best talkers in the business. And you know,

(01:15:34):
I mean, I think there should always be a place
for a guy like him and Tiena that can really
make sense of some of the irrational booking that goes
on via his promos. But you know, I don't think
it's going to be those guys. I think it's more
a popularity contest, not in terms of who the fans like,
but in terms of who Tommy Dreamer likes.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Yeah, yeah, who do we do?

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
You have a latest list of wrestlers who you think
are going to be on the favor View and what
the format is shaping up to Actually are they gonn
announce the matches ahead of time?

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
There was some talk of just saying it's hardcore justice.
These guys are gonna be on it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
We're gonna have a great show, tune in and not
really announce anything other than maybe RBD and Lynn if that.
Are we moving away from that and more towards a
solid lineup? And what are we hearing coming out of
the taping?

Speaker 5 (01:16:14):
You know, I think it's pretty obvious that they're going
to go with Raven versus Sandman or not. I'm sorry,
Raven versus Dreamer and Samman will be on the show.
He's at the tapings today. I'm told the probably the
final scene of the show is going to be a
big beer celebration, So Sam Man, I'm sure he'll be
involved in that. Jerry Lynn is at the tapings as well.

(01:16:35):
As far as I know. Those are the only two,
you know, former ECW guys that don't work for TNA
currently on a full time bassist that are there. And
you know, I don't think the rest of the lineup
is going to be established. I think they're going to
do an angle where Jerry Lynn challenges Rob Van Dam.
It's going to be a non title match because they
want there to be some mystery in terms of who

(01:16:58):
wins the match. But other than that, you know, I
know I'm talking to some guys who are going to
be on the show. They don't know what they're doing.
You know, they've they've been thrown out a few scenarios
of what might happen if they get certain guys, but
they don't know. And in some cases, you know, it's
the only thing they've really gotten is just show up

(01:17:19):
at this time, here's your itinerary, and they don't know
anything more than that. So I think they're part of that.
Might be they're still scrambling to put this together, or
it's just they you want to try to keep everything
hush hush.

Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
Do you think that there's going to be many spots
on that show with any four MotorCity between guns for Hernandez,
for like the court in Samoa Joe, the TNA people
who don't have a history with ECW. Will there be
an angle where they end up opposite of ECW ruths
Or is this going to be all XCCW versus XCCW
guys fighting each other.

Speaker 5 (01:17:53):
There could be an exception here there. I know the
idea is out there that Shane Douglas wanted to work
with Rick Flay. I don't know if that will happen.
I kind of get I think, by and large, it's
going to be e c W versus e c W.
I think it would be wise of them to just say,
you know, and just to make the show better, to say, hey,

(01:18:15):
Kurt Angle technically was in e c W the w
W E version, but he.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Was in it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:20):
Jeff Hardy's got that extreme rep and there's a way
to have Rob Van dam or Tommy Dreamer, Mick Foley
endorse those guys and come up with a reason why
they should be on that show. And I think it
would be better than watching you know, Balls Mahoney and
Axel Rotten and some throwaway tag team match. It's uh,
you know, I mean some of the there there's there's
scraping the bottom of the barrel and in some cases

(01:18:41):
with some of the talent you're bringing in here, I
can't say I'm really excited about seeing the Simon Diamond
and Johnny Swinger reunion, which which looks like we're going
to get on this show. There's a lot of just
low end talent that's going to be on this that
I don't think even the most rabid easy W fan
is going to be all that fired up to see.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
And sadly, and it's something that they didn't touch on
the program, understandably so, but it was still a dark
cloud hanging over the promo. Is some of the guys
who were a big part of a big part of
that promotion are dead. Yeah, I'll give him.

Speaker 5 (01:19:14):
The bene for the doubt. There's a chance that they
could do some kind of a yeah, and I hope
they do. I mean they should. You should not ignore
that part of it. So we'll give him the benef
for the doubt. Maybe they will do something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Yeah, certainly the public Enemy are the biggest names that
come a line.

Speaker 5 (01:19:31):
With Michael Bidelman as well, former acy W champion.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Yeah, but he was a little bit later in the
promotion and it wasn't at its peak, but he is,
you know, for sure one of the guys who would
deserve to be acknowledged also and and you know, and
there's just a lot of guys who just you know,
we're on the undercard and not you know, supporting players.
Have we heard of Mikey Whipreck being on it?

Speaker 5 (01:19:52):
You know, if there was a story out there, I
believe it was a PW insider dot com story about
how he was up for a potential job with WWE
as a trainer, and I know he did a radio
interview with somebody saying that he's not sure if he's
going to take it, So maybe he doesn't want to
be part of this. I guess it wouldn't shock me
if he were on the show. You know, one thing

(01:20:13):
I keep hearing with I'm curious to see what you
think about this, is that guys in TNA, you know,
they're they're starting to grumble now, even guys that have
guaranteed deals and get paid regardless, they're starting to grumble
about Dixie basically turning this this pay per view slot
over to Tommy Dreamer and the eas W crew. The
big complaint I keep hearing is that, you know, Dreamer

(01:20:35):
has been with this company now for what maybe two
months and Dix and he's already managed to get this
much stroke with Dixie Carter. What does that say about
Dixie Carter that she's just willing to let an outsider
come in and basically just you know, take so much control.

(01:20:56):
I mean, it's it isn't another Flavor of the month
of thing for Dixie where she's just kind of, oh,
I know this guy from WW even what do you
think it is about her? That's causing her just to say, yeah,
you know, here you go, Tommy, do you're saying?

Speaker 4 (01:21:12):
I think Tommy is the perfect type of person to
tug on her heartstrings just the way he is. He's
comes across as a very genuinely nice guy, very sincere,
you know, where's the emotions on us to leave?

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
And he's the type of person who I think could
influence die.

Speaker 4 (01:21:27):
I think I would be more alarmed if Tommy came
in and had this kind of control and was booking
the promotion as is. But I think you would have
to account for the fact that if you're going to
do the ECW show, if you're going to talk her
into it, it makes sense that somebody who lived through
it has some booking experience, has tons of ECW experience,
stays in touch with a lot of these guys, has

(01:21:48):
front office experience with WWE that he's got enough of
a resume and of enough of a legit history with
ECW that he would be the guy. If you're Dixie,
if not Paul Hayman, who you would want to book
the show, And if it is a one time thing,
then you have to go okay, if we if we
acknowledge that Dixie is saying, this is the one time
thing I'm gonna tell me do a thing for one month.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
It's going to be a break. What have we got
to lose? It's maybe it's a gamble we're taking. It's
not a gamble that I endorse. But I can see
her thinking, if we're going to do this, we don't
want to use our same booking crew, because, like she said,
we'd probably screw it up, which is either a dag
at Russo or a dig at wwwet screwing up the
brand themselves. So I don't have a big problem given
the specific circumstances that Dreamers has gotten this level of power.

(01:22:30):
The real question is going to be where has he come,
you know, Labor Day or you know, sometime in September. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:22:35):
I thought it was very sneaky of them during that
angle to have Dixie say that it has to be
done their way and turn it over to Dreamer like that,
because and I know that there's you know, I hear
from people in TNA that are are trying to be
to be coy yet trying to make it known, trying
to get it out there that Vince Russ is not

(01:22:56):
booking this and I think that's a wise move on
their part because there's I don't think there's a bigger
fan base. It would despise Vent Russo more than that
old ECW fan base. And so the last thing they're
gonna want to do is order an ECW reunion show
booked by Vince Russo.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Yeah, you know that's another thing too. If somebody says, well,
why is sixty handing so much power to Tommy Go,
do you really think if you're going to do the
ECW pay per view, you want to try to market
this as Vince Russo's ECW, right, right, So you're gonna
do it, maybe that's.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
The only way to do it. Whether it's true or not.
You got to say, at least Tommy's doing you know
that the sit of you guys are doing it. I
still think it's weird that they're treating this like a
Hall of Fame banquet. I mean, ECW was about people
who hate each other trying to kick the butt as
other people they don't like, all under the banner of BCW.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
It wasn't a team sport. It wasn't ECW versus the
Dallas Cowboys. It was you know, it was a bunch
of people who fought each other and now they're all
one happy family who wants to pay by a pay
per view to see one happy family have fake matches
for us and put on a performance. At some point,
I'd like to see this TV wise develop into Tommy,
you were supposed to make this about this, but you're

(01:24:01):
making it about this. I want to face you in
this match for that, and hopefully they go that direction
where there's actually some heat between the ECW wrestlers as
they actually wrestle each other. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:24:11):
And I think they tried to establish that last night
with Raven and Dreamer, and I know the main event
of tonight's show that they're taping it'll be the go
home show is Dreamer teaming with Rob Van Dam against
Abyss and Raven, and I think that'll spawn the big
beer celebration with Sandman as well. One thing that struck

(01:24:32):
me as odd is that they everything within TNA, even
from people who dislike the ECW concept, was that well.
The good in this is that this gives us a
chance to test out our theory that we have too
many pay per views. We've got it basically an extra month.
We're not going to turn over p and a Impact

(01:24:53):
and make it exclusively ECW content. We're going to continue
to do our thing. We're going to book our normal
programs and yeah, going to sprinkle some ECW stuff in
to hype the pay per view. But we're looking at
this as an opportunity to have a two month bill
to our next pay per view, the TNA branded pay
per view, And it looks like that plan is out
the window now because they're essentially hyping that they're going

(01:25:14):
to deliver a pay per view caliber lineup on that
first show after the ECW pay per view. Yeah, Yeah,
and they're going to feature and I know it's been
out there that it's going to be e CW talent.
That's not the case because as Ash Backwards is, TNA
can be at times, I don't even think they would promote,

(01:25:36):
you know, hype the hell out of this big special
edition of Impact that we're going to do featuring ECW
talent that's after the pay per view. I mean, that
makes no sense whatsoever. And I know a couple of
the matches that they're going to do on there, and yeah,
I mean one of them is Rob Van Dam and
he's going to face Abyss and yeah he's got EACW history.

(01:25:57):
But the other match that I'm aware of does not
feature any EASYW talent, So I don't think that's going
to be an easy W exclusive show because that would
be you know, just suicide for that pay per view.
It's like, got's keep the pay per view and watch
your ECW special a few days later.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's gonna be delicate how they promote that,
and it's it just seems kind of weird to do
a semi sequel right afterwards to try up operating based
on the it's almost like, well, probably no one's going
to buy this payer review, so let's try to ride
the ECW wave one week on pre TV afterwards.

Speaker 5 (01:26:26):
Yeah, that's that's not going to happen. I mean, like
I said, they'll probably be a few they'll probably be
some ECW talent mixed in. Maybe you guys stick around
for the tapings, but it's if it's you know, it's
not going to be built as you know, tune in
for the e c W special. I think if they're
going to call it the whole Fan Show and it's
a lot of Kunay talent on there and there, I
think it's going to be interesting because it's their positioning

(01:26:50):
this is we're not having vignettes, we're not having promos.
It's going to be straight matches. And I like the idea.
I'm curious to see how it goes, and more than
any I'm curious to see what Vince Russo's reaction would
be if this thing actually pops a rating and shoots
down his theory that you have to have a million
pre tapes and promos.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
Yeah. But what I'm worried about too, is they're setting
this up as the other extreme, because Vincruso likes to
go from one extreme to the other to to try
to prove.

Speaker 5 (01:27:17):
That he's right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
So he'll say, oh, people who think long matches work, well,
let's go out and let's have a two hour show
with five matches and they all go twenty minutes each
and there'll be no promos and no angle. See nobody
watched that. It's like, that's not the point, Russo, That's
not what people are saying. Nobody wants all wrestling. He
keeps saying people want to see all wrestling, and they don't.
So it wouldn't prove anything to anybody who's got a

(01:27:39):
brain that somehow featuring just a bunch of matches without
pre tapes and angles is the issue. It's about just
however you present wrestling, telling a good story, that's comprehendive,
that's comprehendible.

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean I've always said you got to
have the right mix. It's not just all about wrestling.
You have to have that right mix. And I get
so offended when Russo tries to put that label on
just writers and on the internet in general, because I'm
sure there are you know, their own segment of the
fan base that wants just that. But I think you know,
buy and large and the ninety nine percent of the

(01:28:10):
world doesn't want just straight up wrestling, and they don't
want a million pre tapes. They want that happy medium.

Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
I would take over what Impact has offered the last
several years. I would take a one match show and
give me twenty five minutes at the end of the
show and spend an hour and a half doing pre.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
Tapes, live interviews, angles, arm wrestling contest, bikini contests. I
don't care. But if they made me care about one
match per show, and they made it memorable and they
built anticipation for weeks leading up to it and ninety
minutes leading up to it, and we got something between
fifteen and twenty five minutes in the ring ideally, with
you know, only one commercials at most, and then a

(01:28:47):
little bit of fallout after the match was over, talking
about it just like a postgame show after a big
NFL game, you know, ESPN doing post UFC coverage or
post NFL Monday Night Football coverage, analyze the ramifications, interview
the wrestlers afterwards, treat it like a big deal. I
take that one match per show with the reci being
all you know, the pretapes and all that. It's not
my ideal format, but I'm saying I take that over

(01:29:08):
a bunch of short matches that just demean the whole
value of a match and treat matches that, if you know,
they're not that big of a deal and finishes don't count,
and you just can't wait for us to get through
this so we can get back to another angle.

Speaker 5 (01:29:19):
Yeah, I mean, it's just it's they always try to
cram so much in there, and and I know people
in TNA too think that we all three. If you
have to keep Vince Russo, Tommy Dreamer might not be
a bad addition, you know, you can be kind of
that buffer between Eric Bischoff and and Vince Russo. And
I just don't know that the people who are frustrated
with TNA are going to accept that, because I think

(01:29:42):
Dixie Carter has really raised the bar or raised expectations,
I should say, for Paul Hayman coming in there, And
you know, I just see Dreamer is kind of positioning
himself as the cheaper alternative, the guy who learned all
of Paul's tricks, and I don't see it that way.
And you know, I just don't think that it's going

(01:30:03):
to be successful with him going forward to p's the
guy or if he's part of that creative team. But
I'm in that that that's Dixie's a big thing. No,
you know, don't get rid of anybody, keep everybody happy,
keep it one big, happy family. And yeah, we'll make
some cuts if we have to. But I mean, for me,
it's just it it doesn't answer Tommy. Dreamer doesn't answer

(01:30:24):
all the problems with that company. Paul Hayman at least
has that solution in his mind. He's got a plan
to address other areas more than just creative. It's marketing,
it's branding. There's so many issues with that company that
adding Tommy Dreamer to your creative staff isn't going to change.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
Sathan. We will end on that note. I'm with you
on that, and thank you once again for joining me
here for the VP after show.

Speaker 5 (01:30:48):
Yeah, anytime. Looking forward to next.

Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
Week same here cool, Thanks everybody for listening. Until next time,
I'm be happy to Jason way Keller from P to
B Torch signing off.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
You don't have to wait for the way Keller Pro
Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Each week, you can check
out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written report will tell
you what's happening in detail in case 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.

(01:31:24):
So check it out every Monday night and Tuesday night
at pewtorch dot com. That also applies to wwepayperviews. 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 pwtorch dot com, your first stop for TV and

(01:31:47):
pay per view written reports. Welcome to the PW torch plodcast.
I am Progressing Torch newsletter editor and PW torch dot

(01:32:08):
Com editor Wade Keller joined today by Progrestling Torch columnist
Pat McNeil. How you doing, Pat? I'm fine?

Speaker 7 (01:32:16):
Way how are you?

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
I am doing great? And it's good that we've got
that established, so nobody needs to ask us during call
since it's become the theme of the week making a
big deal out of that doing great.

Speaker 7 (01:32:27):
We don't care how the weather is where you are.
Please just ask the question, and uh, pay your money
and move one step to the left and wait for
your suit.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
We are not here to make friends. We are here
to talk wrestling, all right.

Speaker 7 (01:32:40):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
All right?

Speaker 7 (01:32:42):
You established?

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
Do you want to join us today? The number is
six four, six, seven, nine eight two eight. The chat
room is also open, and so uh we welcome everybody
to dive in there and start talking about what we're
talking about. Pat, did you have a chance to watch
NXT last night.

Speaker 7 (01:33:00):
Unfortunately, Yes I did.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Okay, what did you think of Eli Countwood being eliminated?
Right decision at this stage in the quote contest unquote.

Speaker 7 (01:33:11):
Yeah, I mean he's he's not a bad talker, he's
very tall, but in the ring there's there's something lacking
right now. And I don't know, I mean, I never
know what they're gonna do with any of the eliminated guys.
I had no idea that we're going to do the
whole Nexus.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Thing, So yeah, I thought I thought the matching Cottonwood
and Morrison seem like kind of an odd fit at
the beginning, but when you kind of watch their dynamics
backstage talking and doing that skit about you know, I
got one word for him, and it's mustache, and seeing
Morrison respond to it and discussing strategy and misunderstanding each other.
Morrison kind of has a weird timing to the way

(01:33:47):
he talks, and I think people react to that kind
of negatively because he's kind offbeat and Cottonwood is in
his own very special way. So the parent turned out
to be I guess they're all right.

Speaker 7 (01:33:57):
I liked, uh, yeah, go ahead, what you could do
with Cottonwood is now that he's eliminated, and if Morrison
is turning heels, you can announce it Morrisons hired Eli
as a second or bodyguard or.

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
What have you.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
I like that. I mean, I I'm not real down
on Cottwood. I mean, in the ring he's not the
smoothest guy. But I think there's something there that stands out.
And I think he's kind of an example of what
we talk about on the show a lot and in
the in the newsletter. WWE has a certain body type
that they look for, and you know, it's it's somewhere between. Uh,
it's somewhere between like Miz and Shamus is like this

(01:34:34):
typical body. You know, you chop out the head and
there's a there's not a real wide range of difference
from the neck down. Conwood is kind of that offbeat
different he's got he's got in his face isn't symmetrical,
he doesn't stand symmetrically. He's tall, he's kind of awkward,
he's kind of gawky, but there's also this element that
he might be kind of tough if he could hone
in on that. And so I think there's I think

(01:34:55):
there's something there. I thought, Husky Harris cut a good
promo after being a eliminated you know just what. It's
what I like to see out of NXC because the
part that I don't like about NXT and I think
you probably agree with me here pat Is, I thought.

Speaker 7 (01:35:08):
Do you like eliminated?

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
Eli did? Oh, I'm sorry when I misspoke. I liked
the promo Husky gaves near the end of the show,
and he was after he was saved from elimination, but
he was in last place among the survivors. Thanks for
that correction. And and he was like he wanted to
make his case why he deserved to be ranked higher
than second to last or in this case, the last
of the survivors. And and he talked about what he
did in the rank you know he taught. He didn't

(01:35:32):
say I've been cutting great promos, or I won the
obstacle course, or I've got the best outfit or catchphrase.
It was with him, it just felt like speaking of
not having typical body types. He doesn't either, But he
was just saying, hey, I kicked the medics in that ring.
I think I deserve recognition for that. I deserve to
be higher. What what have I not done in order
to be higher, you know, higher in the rankings. And

(01:35:53):
I think that's the good part of NXC. The bad
part of NXC are obstacle courses. It's Matt Striker, you know,
the way he approaches it. It's just kind of smarmy.
And then the whole idea that it's like, oh, come
up with a catchphrase, you got to impress people. It's like,
how does that help you become world champion? I mean,
do we just let people on on raw or SmackDown
on the main roster because the fans cheer for them,

(01:36:16):
because I mean, Dame Cook can be a great heel
while he's not available. But you know, like somebody could
come out there and be a loud mouth, but that
doesn't make them a good wrestler. And I think that
theme is missing from NXT sometimes, that you gotta be
tough and you got to be skilled, and the idea
that you have a catchphrase or a good look really
should be not just secondary but just happenstance.

Speaker 7 (01:36:36):
Well, it's a well plus, it shouldn't be mentioned on
the show because you know, in theory, the show is
about finding your next super strong that should be some
guy who can you can beat people up and win
wrestling matches?

Speaker 5 (01:36:46):
Hih?

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And the other thing that really.

Speaker 7 (01:36:50):
Bothers me about the show is Michael Cole just, you know,
randomly burying people.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
Well, it seems like he goes after the who he
thinks the Internet darlings are, is right Brian Danielson Last
night when caval got revealed as the number two on
the Top five list last night, Michael Cole said what
he should have been last And you know, I'm hesitant
to react to it because the whole point of it
is to get us to react because we take it

(01:37:17):
too seriously, and we're gonna take Michael Cole too seriously.
The problem is is if we react, we play into
what they're looking for, so they think they succeeded. But
the problem is is it's just a stupid thing to
do from a business standpoint, because it doesn't fit Michael
Cole's character as the host of RA And most people
don't understand why he picks on on who he picks
on because they don't know who low Key is. They

(01:37:38):
didn't know who Brian Danielson was before he got to WWE,
and they kind of have to work backwards from Michael
Cole picking on him to thinking, oh, they were a
big deal before they got to WWE, and there's this
slice of hardcore fans that he's going after because they
picked on him for years as an announcer. I don't know.
I mean, I just don't think that's the kind of
thing that should be occupying any space on a you know,

(01:37:58):
on television.

Speaker 11 (01:38:00):
Well.

Speaker 7 (01:38:00):
Yeah, plus plus I noticed something during their you know,
during their video recap of Cabal and you have John
Morrison say he takes himself way too serious. Tell you
that a professional wrestler who's on a wrestling show who
wants to take himself seriously.

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
Well, and I looked at it, isn't that terrible? I
looked at it as it was either that or playing
off of his I don't like to do jobs. I
don't do jobs. The stuff that Drew gave gave some
Polsky nuts and ring of honor, the stuff that caused
T and A to just kind of wash their hands
with him and go, well, he's got a lot of talent,
but he's kind of hard to deal with. And I
was wondering if that wasn't a semi shoot comment about
how he really just kind of needs to loosen up

(01:38:35):
a little bit and and understand, you know that it's
it's you know, I don't know if it's a small
man complex and wrestling that if you do a job
then no one will ever take it seriously again. And
so you got to do the no job thing like
Seawan Michaels did, And there's other examples over the years
where there's just you know, Saboo learned it from his uncle,
don't do jobs, and it's like, well, who are you?
You know, who are you that you don't get that

(01:38:55):
you don't do jobs? But everybody else around you? Does
you know that that?

Speaker 7 (01:38:58):
Yeah, I think I've gotten over that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
He certainly has. This NXP season has taught him that.
I did like the exchange though, when Alex Riley and
and when they all cut promos at the beginning of
the show and Alex Riley said that that the fans
are the democracy of dorks. Okay, and that's fine, that's
good line for a heel, But then afterwards Josh Matthews

(01:39:24):
or or Michael Cole said, Hey, Josh, how'd you feel
about uh Riley's calling you in your in your Internet
Buddies a democracy of dorks, and Matthews shot back and
it was just this was good. Matthews just looked at
him just in disbelief, going, you're not a dork and
he's and then he just kind of lest he goes, Yeah,
everybody wants to hang out with Michael Cole, And so

(01:39:45):
I thought Matthew's comeback was great and it's it's felt real.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
It was good and that's kind of the good part
about it. Again, Michael col should be hosting Raw as
a straight man on Mondays and then just being this
kind of obnoxious, healish character on Tuesdays. I disagree with that,
but I did like that exchange, and I thought Josh
Matthews showed up Michael pretty well. And Michael seems to
have a sense of humor about it. I think he's
in on the joke.

Speaker 7 (01:40:07):
Well, yeah, what they should do, which of course they're
not going to because it would make too much sense,
is Michael Cole should be the street man, you know,
out front guy hosting it and then you could have
Josh Matthews and Matt Striker, and Matt Striker could be
doing everything that Cole is doing now except Striker as
an aeal commentator, but that would make too much sense.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
Yeah, yep. McGillicuddy ranked number one last night. If he
didn't see the show. Michael McGillicutty, the son of Kurt
Henning Caval former low Key number two. Cody Rhodes, in
the video package on him, said, if we lived in
a fair world, Kaval would be the winner, which I
thought was interesting. Alex Riley came in at number three,
and then Percy Watson number four. Lucky Cannon, who's kind

(01:40:47):
of to me off the radar a little bit certain ways,
came in at number five, and then the Husky Harris
was six, and Elec Connon would number seven. Percy Watson,
there's been a discussion on him in the VIP forum
this week for Vietnamong Viet members in the Waye Taelor Zone, Pat,
what's your opinion on the Percy Watson persona. The gimmick
is this lower card? Is this something that could really

(01:41:09):
actually move up to the next level with the typer
chrisma he's showing. Would you have to alter it to
get there?

Speaker 7 (01:41:13):
Yeah, he'd have to alter it to get there. I mean,
right now, what you have as a gimmick that you know,
I mean, it'll get him, It'll get him on television
and and you know, on a regular basis, and he'll
be covering somewhere on the lower mid cart. It's kind
of like Kope Kingston once once once he got sort
of away from the goofy gimmick and they rounded out
his character and he became somebody that could move up
the ladder. So yeah, I mean, I uh, the enthusiasm

(01:41:37):
is nice. But before U before before NXT wave, Yeah,
my wife and I were watching the TV Guide channel
the movie We, a movie we hadn't seen before which
is called a Mannequin from the eighties Kim Katrol, wasn't it, Yes,
And the main character had a still atypical African American
gay sidekick who was played by the Meshack Taylor. Okay,

(01:42:00):
and I and I just had Percy Watson flashbacks watching that.
For some reason, head on.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
That that would have been the last reference I would
have expected on today's show. So that's a good one.
I have been tricked into watching TV channel on occasion,
TD Guy Channel on occasion, unwittingly, when there's something on
the on the viewers guys that kind of catches my interest.
So on Percy Watson, John Cena took a shot in
and we have the story off at pbetorch dot com today.
If you are not visiting pw torch dot com on

(01:42:29):
a daily basis, you're missing out on a lot of stories.
James Calbo keeps up on the news and analyzes all
the stories, keeps up on what's going on out there.
If you listen to our show but you're not visiting
pdb torch dot com, you might want to consider doing that,
including catching and yeah, and you missed our blogs too,
right well, especially VIP members because I got my my
daily vip blelog started up that I've been doing. We're

(01:42:51):
not putting that on the free site right now. We'll
put some of them up, but they'll be all of
them will be on the VIP side, and they'll go
up on the VIP side first. We'll get to that
a second by because I want to talk to you
about that. That's the second thing on my agenda.

Speaker 7 (01:43:02):
But we're supposed to blog daily, no, no, I am.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
I started to do I've every day this week, I've
done one, so we're four in a row. So I'm
calling it a daily block, and so we'll see how
long that last. What I'm up to all May, all
of June almost align. I'm up to about ninety days
now straight of doing the Daily Keller hopp line without
a misday. So that's that's their See now, when.

Speaker 7 (01:43:24):
When you start talking about it is when there's when
we start having problems.

Speaker 1 (01:43:27):
Well, I know that's why I didn't. I didn't plan
to until you said, are we supposed to do a
daily blog? And then I went into it so occasionally
to Daily Keller.

Speaker 7 (01:43:35):
That's not the daily block.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
Never mind, go ahead, never mind, all right, it didn't
have to be difficult. So here's here's John Cena's quote
from our story in PW Torch dot com earlier today
that he twittered. He said, if Percy Watson, if Percy
Watson makes another one of those spaces, well I'm supposed
to think he's mad, but it looks like he's just
crapped himself. I'll eliminate him. He has gone downhill every
single week. Disappointing. He is really one hell of an athlete.

(01:43:59):
I think he may be offering from yep yep syndrome.
First of all, did I miss an NXT rule where
John Cena gets to eliminate rookies. Apparently there is Yeah, okay,
well thanks for ruling the universe John, second one, I mean,
did you.

Speaker 7 (01:44:16):
You actually think that your voice counted and eliminating?

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
Uh?

Speaker 7 (01:44:20):
And which guy's staying? Which guys go?

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
Well, I just didn't think John Cena had omniffed in
power to just strike Lightning down and say, I don't
care what the fan vote is, I don't care what
the pro vote is. You, Percy are eliminated because it
looks like you're pooping when you are trying to sell
a move. I mean, that's what he's saying. And I
just so anyway, I don't know. Twitter's weird, and maybe
Sena's setting up a storyline for later because he's a
huge fan of Percy and he's trying to set up

(01:44:43):
the storyline for later. I come down on the side
of liking Percy Watson. I think Sina might have a
point in terms of the face that he makes when
he's selling. You don't make cartoon faces when you're selling.
You can make cartoon faces when you're cutting a promo.
You can make cartoon faces when you're You shouldn't even
make cartoon faces when you're watching somebody else sell, you know,
I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:44:59):
The did you just say you shouldn't make cartoon faces
when you're selling. Yes, I'll trying to think of what wrestler,
one main event wrestler that described a.

Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
Very good introduction on my tongue. Yes, mister Sena himself
that that's actually a you know, I didn't even think
of the irony of John Cena's comment, because when you
watch John Cena selling move there's times then it has
to do partially with his phone structure in his face
and hubbing of the mouths and stuff. But when he sells,
it just sometimes looks very cartoonish, and he almost does.

(01:45:31):
It's a depot school of selling.

Speaker 7 (01:45:34):
Yeah, the argument for that is, Okay, it looks horrible
on TV, but you're but I mean, you're trained as
a wrestler. When you sell, you're playing to the you're
playing to the back of the arena. You want to
make sure everybody knows that you're in camp.

Speaker 1 (01:45:44):
Yes, well, when you're on TV and the cameras close up,
don't do that. And and I think Sina just I
just like I say, I just think that's the way
he just has a very expressive face. But with Percy,
here's the thing. I'm a fan of his. I think
he's got really good charisma. I think that there's a
connect into the crowd that you don't see with everybody.
You remember him, he's if he's kind of got John

(01:46:04):
Cena's physique. And I think there is some uh I
will go out, I'll say this. I think there's a
little bit of a rock type irreverent charisma to him,
and and I think that it does need to be
directed in the right way, but I think there's a
real there is something there that's that's definitely worth keep
an eye on. I don't look at him as a joke.
I don't look at him as somebody who's just you know,
embarrassing himself out there overdoing it. I kind of get

(01:46:26):
what he's doing and what he's going for, and I
kind of I don't know. I I give a thumbs
up to his character right now, not not unqualified, but
a thumbs up.

Speaker 7 (01:46:35):
I mean, I think part of the problem is, you know,
these these guys are on NXT when they're where they're
not really given a lot a lot to work with.
You know, they're not giving they're not giving storylines they
could sink their teeth into, and they're you know, they're
not gonna get They're not gonna be two dimensional.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):
Uh. One other thing before I get the phone calls, Pat,
Both you and I have written blogs today. Yours went
up on the Free Side, mind did not, but you
wrote about the the ideal lineup for Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:47:06):
Well, I'm just trying. I'm just trying to help that.
I don't know that. I don't know that it's the ideal.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
Lineup A viable lineup. Is that a better way to
put it.

Speaker 7 (01:47:15):
Yeah, I'm just trying to be helpful because you know,
I don't want them. I don't want them going out
to the last minute and not knowing what's going on
or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
So here's here's some of the matches. You've got. Savo
versus san Man, Stairway to Spell match with special guest
Refereekaz Rhyano versus Bubba's That Love Sponge, Brother Ray and
Devon and Brother Runs against Simon Diamond, Johnny Swinger at
C W Anderson not in a table match. I'm personally

(01:47:44):
not excited to see that. You probably aren't either two
Cold Scorpio and else know and Kid Cash against the FBI.
Uh and Tommy Dreamer against Raven with referee mc foley
and Rob Anam Jerry Lynn.

Speaker 7 (01:47:57):
Yeah, well that that's Tommy Dreamer versus Raven is probably
going to early RVD versus one YEA, which are probably
going to happen anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
Oh, An Axl Rotten against balls. Mahoney, did I say that?
I said it't And oh you.

Speaker 7 (01:48:09):
Haven't mentioned that one yeah, And yeah you haven't mentioned
stipulations either.

Speaker 1 (01:48:13):
Oh yeah, this is a thank you bat. This is
a special barbed wire thumbtack baseball batsing poor Caine, broken glass,
staple gun, roofing nail, full metal mayhem, tabasco sauce death match.
That's very good. Well, actually it just got up as
a transition Ian Rotten five years ago, actually five and
a half years ago. We just put up this back
issue PDF. I traveled out to Los Angeles and as

(01:48:35):
part of the trip, I got to see uh an
Ian Rotten booked or Ian Rotten headlined uh incredibly intense,
over the top hardcore wrestling show in Los Angeles. And
I've got crazy pictures of this and it's like seven
eight ten year old kids sitting at ringside, surrounded by
broken glass and blood and and I mean it was.

(01:48:58):
It was seriously over the top, way way more than
anything K and A has done. And so anyway, my
cover story on that is up right now, So if
people our new VIP members are doing or want to
reread that from back when it originally came out five
and a half years ago, check that out. It is
officially back issue Wednesday for Torch VIP members. We had
three back issues from three thousand and five and one

(01:49:20):
from nineteen ninety. The nineteen ninety one is from twenty
years ago with a headline story Kerry van Eric hired
by WWF. That's how far back that goes. So the
full issue as it originally looked in PDF format available
for VIP members, and then the five years ago back
issues include the Torch Talk with Terry Ronolds who has

(01:49:42):
some very interesting interview and some pretty good pullout quotes
that I saw on the headlines to remind me of
how good that one was. So lots of good stuff
there through VIP member be sure to check out our
latest two thousand and five and nineteen ninety back issues,
and especially since we're talking about it, the story I
wrote for my trip to LA and that whole Ian
Rotten headlined hardcore show. So back to back to your blog, Pat,

(01:50:06):
I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, given who's healthy
enough to wrestle, not under contract elsewhere, still alive, that's
a big thing and available and willing. Steve Kreneo's not
lamps Storm, isn't. I don't really want to see this show.
I mean, I wouldn't find RBD Glynn, but I think

(01:50:27):
it was probably gonna It was probably better ten years
ago than it will be now. Maybe they can prove
me wrong, but there's almost nothing there I want to see.
So that prompted me to write my blog, which was
if I could transport anybody from MECW during the nineteen
ninety five to two thousand prime of their career in
ECW and transport them by time machine to today to
take on anybody in TNA today as they are today,

(01:50:49):
so they'd be transported into twenty ten and pace. I
put my whole lineup together so that that's my blog,
and so VP members can read that, and we've got
some people reacting and giving their versions of matches that
they'd like to see. So I that's a much more
interesting show. Of course it's cheating, but it's it's it's
a much more compelling show. And I think there's a
pretty cool, cool potential match.

Speaker 7 (01:51:07):
And the fact that I was being completely sarcastic, of
course doesn't doesn't get her in there anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:51:12):
Oh well, I yeah, if people felt like I was
not if I was saying it was like you were
endorsing that. No, no, I'm not saying you're actually actually
i'd watch it. But yeah, as a great, all time
potentially great show, it's simply the best you can sort
of the best you can do with what's available in

(01:51:33):
the way that CNA thinks.

Speaker 7 (01:51:34):
How's that I would actually like to see Hadaka versus
Christopher Daniel. So I guess that's that wasn't sarcastic?

Speaker 1 (01:51:40):
Yeah, yeah, well against Baalzahoni in that match. I don't know.

Speaker 21 (01:51:52):
Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
your passion.

Speaker 19 (01:51:59):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?

Speaker 21 (01:52:04):
Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
is doing right? And what they could do to improve.
Then join me Joel and.

Speaker 19 (01:52:11):
Me Greg for the All Elite Conversation Club every Friday
on the PW torch Live Cast. Fee search pw Torch
in your podcast app and subscribe to PW torch Daily
Cast our streamer shows directly.

Speaker 21 (01:52:23):
From pw torch dot com. Find full details on the
PW torch Dailycast lineup at pw torchdailycast dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:52:39):
All right, so let's go to the phone lines. We
welcome your calls on last night's XT. If you're a
VIP member and you want to respond to and add
to some matches that would be ECW versus DNA with
the Time machine involved. We welcome that and any other
subjects that you want. Let's go to the phone lines
right now, eer code seven to one nine. You're on
with Wade and Pats. Please state your name and where

(01:52:59):
you're from.

Speaker 7 (01:53:01):
I am Daniel from Colorado and I'm doing fine.

Speaker 1 (01:53:05):
Great. What's up?

Speaker 12 (01:53:06):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:53:06):
Daniel?

Speaker 13 (01:53:08):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:53:09):
Actually I had a question about Carlito h since he
is a free agent now and he has actually talked
about t NA, do you think that he would do
well in TNA? Kind of like Ken Anderson has just
because you know, there there's no PG ratings, so he can.

Speaker 1 (01:53:30):
Go as far as he wants.

Speaker 7 (01:53:31):
You think of the mid carter for the rest of
his life.

Speaker 1 (01:53:35):
What do you think that.

Speaker 7 (01:53:37):
I know, I got the I get the vibe from
TNA that, yeah, they might bring Carlito in, but he's
not a priority right now.

Speaker 5 (01:53:43):
There.

Speaker 7 (01:53:44):
They want to get this, uh, they want to get
this whole ECW thing wrapped up first. I mean, you know,
he could sit in. I mean, really, it really depends
on Carlito. When Carlito came in, I mean he I
mean the first his first match, he was up to
beat John Seam, when the and when the US title,
and people thought, you know, people thought Carlito might become

(01:54:04):
a start at the same time that Seenham became a star,
and that didn't happen. I think it's up to Carlito
to sort of break out from that from that former
w W mid card pack.

Speaker 1 (01:54:18):
I don't think TNA is in the mood to be
hiring a lot of people right now. I think that
there's so many people being underutilized that should be pushed,
probably even ahead of Carlito. If you just start on
an even playing field and say teenage responsible for turning
them into a star. I think you have less baggage
with Hernandez or Matt Morgan the jobber of the month,

(01:54:40):
or or Brutus Magnus or I mean, I just think
there's people on teenag's roster that haven't been defined down
as mid carters like Carlito has. That you would have
an easier time pushing than trying to push Carlito as
a top guy when I think WWE fans who watched
TNA would would look at him making it in a
prominent position in TNA as a sign that doesn't have

(01:55:00):
very good wrestlers, or that they're desperate to push him
mid carter from WWE. That's the downside of coming over
in that position.

Speaker 13 (01:55:08):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:55:08):
I do think though there's potential for Carlyo to break
out on promos and to really show a side, show
more inspiration, But I don't know that, you know, I
mean d Loo Brown cut an inspired promo the first
time he showed up in TNA after being held back
in WWE. But then where did he go from there?
Right back to kind of you know, go along ill
on casual d Loo at that point now he's a

(01:55:30):
road agent but he really never broke out in TNA either,
even when TNA was supposed to give him a chance.
So I don't know if we need to go down
that road again. I'm not against it, but I don't
see it as as a sure fire, like strong addition
to the roster.

Speaker 7 (01:55:42):
I don't think TNA would be bringing him in as
a main eventor I mean, I don't think that others.
I don't think I even have a for him.

Speaker 1 (01:55:48):
Yeah, yeah, but you know, I don't know that he'd
want to go there and just be a mid carter
any follow.

Speaker 10 (01:55:54):
Yeah. Also there's something he said about his potential drug
which she said he didn't have one, and who knows,
just blowing it off, and and he really does have one.
Only he'll know, I guess. But uh, what I'm asking is,
we've never heard if TNA or any of the other
organizations besides w W has a drug problem.

Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
We've heard of w.

Speaker 10 (01:56:18):
W's, but we haven't really heard of anyone else's.

Speaker 7 (01:56:22):
You know, there's an incredible coincidence. This week way, one
of the back issues you've put up had me talk
writing about TNA's drug problem five years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
This week, Yeah, TNA's had plenty of drug problems. I mean,
I could, I could live. I have I have decent
knowledge of a lot of pot smoking that goes on
with a lot of certain individuals that would surprise a
lot of people. Not that smoking pod surprising, but the
people who do it, and it would surprise the people.

(01:56:51):
And and there's more serious stuff going on for sure,
among among several people today that I've heard of, and
probably more than I haven't heard of. So no, it's
it's pretty I mean, TENA doesn't have the same schedule
that WWE does, And if somebody is doing drugs in TNA,
it's generally the baggage that they create for themselves, not
this grueling schedule that TNA has put them through for
years and years and years without a break. But it

(01:57:13):
doesn't change the fact that TNA doesn't have the problems.

Speaker 4 (01:57:16):
And I mean you can probably look at a few
guys on that roster and imagine that the Sterey testing
isn't real stringent either.

Speaker 2 (01:57:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:57:24):
The problem with you know, talking about drug testing and
a wrestling promotion is unless you say, actually see wrestler
ex smoking crack, you know, during a rumor that they're
smoking crack, isn't really isn't really something that you could
publish without getting to right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
Yeah, I mean there's things you know to be true
that you can't prove to be true. And that's part
of being a journalist, is knowing when there's something serious
that you know to be true but can't prove to
be true. Do you really want to tell a lawyer
or a judge that, well, I know it's true because
I trust this guy totally. F it's this background, he's
never lied to me before, but I can't say who
told me me and no, I didn't see it with

(01:58:01):
my own eyes. Well, okay, so you're pretty confident that
it's true, but can you prove it now? And so
there's things that you know you just don't go there
with in terms of naming names, and one of them
is saying this guy was smoking crack with this guy backstage,
even though three people told you what was happening and
they have a history of doing it. So anyway, due
anything else.

Speaker 10 (01:58:19):
Oh, that's all, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:58:21):
All right, thanks, lo, I appreciate your call. All right,
let's go back to this bone lines Eric code five
O five. You're on the PETERBD towards live cast with
Wade and pass if they stay your name and where
you're from.

Speaker 13 (01:58:30):
Hey, guys, it's Benny from New Mexico.

Speaker 1 (01:58:32):
Maybe I'm gonna ask you a question, but heard.

Speaker 13 (01:58:34):
It from the top of the show. Hey, two questions
about the VP membership and an actual comment. My two
questions about the VIP.

Speaker 5 (01:58:41):
Is do we actually get paper dues letters through the mail?

Speaker 13 (01:58:45):
And the second of all is they're going to be
an Android app at any time in the future. I
do have Android fall.

Speaker 1 (01:58:49):
I'd love to have an app, yep, what we should
have had? Android actually out in May and then Google
changed there there. I got the technical language from the
developers and we're I've never heard it before, but essentially
they they upgraded and changed the programming foundation of it
or something like that, and so now we have our
programmers had to learn the new the new coding, and

(01:59:09):
it's in testing right now. So it's I've been assured
it could be out as soon as mid August, but
certainly within a couple months, I think. Is the game plane.
One of the one of the main developers who help
who's working on the project, then ran into his wife
having a child and he's taken a lead from that,
so there's been some weird delays on it, but yeah,

(01:59:31):
we're gonna be on Android. Second of all, with a
VSP membership, you actually have a choice to get the
print newsletter or not. If you sign up for the
monthly membership, it's ten dollars a month if you upgrade
to if you want to get just the print news letter,
that's also ten dollars a month. But if you get both,
it's only thirteen dollars. It's a three dollars up charge.
So if you wanted the VFP membership that's ten dollars,

(01:59:51):
you can upgrade for only three dollars. You end up
saving seven bucks and you'd get home delivery of the
paper copy.

Speaker 13 (01:59:56):
Also, okay, yeah, I signed up for the thirteen dollars
once with hoping I get mine as well.

Speaker 1 (02:00:02):
Yeah. Yeah, the fifty dollar one will get you newsletters
home delivery.

Speaker 5 (02:00:05):
Great.

Speaker 13 (02:00:06):
Great, am I comment really about that? The the TNA
pay perviews so far, as far as the two matches
that have been announced, I'm kind of excited about the agreement.
Raven just kind of go back a little, you know,
that nostalgic, So I'm kind of that person who kind
of likes to relive those days. But my question to
you guys is what what would you do? And you

(02:00:26):
guys did the VIP blogs on it, but what what
would you do for the three hour special that they
have coming on Thursday?

Speaker 1 (02:00:33):
Do you do you think it's a.

Speaker 13 (02:00:34):
Good idea for them to do that to kind of
see if maybe they could get rid of pay per views?
Do you think it's a it's a good logical step.

Speaker 7 (02:00:40):
For TEENA to do that.

Speaker 13 (02:00:42):
And do you think Jeff Party would fight Saboo as
far as Jeff Party's mystery guest opponent or mystery opponent
for Thursday, you think that would be.

Speaker 5 (02:00:50):
A good match.

Speaker 1 (02:00:51):
I don't know if would be a good mess because
I haven't seen Saboo lately, Pat have you?

Speaker 7 (02:00:55):
I have not seen Saboo. I have talked to people
who have seen Sadu and uh, it's my considered opinion
that might not be as good a match as you
think it would be.

Speaker 1 (02:01:05):
In my dream card, I had Jeff Hardy against Tajerry
because I thought that had the multipletent. Yeah, really good match.
And I had Saboo against aj Styles Sabo and his
prime against Aju Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:01:20):
Uh Benny, it's not going to be a three hour special.
At last I heard, it's it's just going to be
a regular two.

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):
Hours and I think, but but the idea of doing
and I talked. I talked about this with Jason on
on Monday. On Tuesday after in the VP after show,
we spent about twenty five minutes after the last task
talking about the latest in TNA and their plans for
the pay per view, and then also that that's well
afterwards basically for people who don't know what they're doing.
And Jason reported that in this week's Progressing Torch newsletter,

(02:01:45):
in the one page column that he does for me
every week, that that they're planning a they're planning to
do a different format for Impact without a bunch of
pre tape segments that is booked around the match matches,
and they want to do basically a paper caliber lineup
since the ECW pay per view means everybody the normal
pay per view matches that would be on Sunday, they're

(02:02:06):
not doing involving T and A wrestlers, So they're taking
two hours and they're gonna say, we're gonna give you
kind of a pay per view level edition of impact,
and we're gonna see how it does in the ratings.
I don't know that you're gonna get a real true
barometer of whether that could replace pay per views, because
I think for something to seem like a pay per view,
it's got to be live, it's got to be three hours,

(02:02:27):
it's got to be on the weekend, and you've got
to hype it for four weeks. And none of that's
gonna happen when it comes to this, So I don't
really think we can learn a lot from the rating
the Thursday after Hardcore Justice Pat your thoughts, Well.

Speaker 7 (02:02:38):
First of all, the most exciting thing about that special is,
you know, hypothetically, if the best of five series between
Beer Money and the Machine Guns goes to a fifth
and deciding match, that match would, whatever it is, would
be on the special, which, yeah, which is which is
interesting that I guess that's well, I mean, it was
gonna be on the pay per view originally.

Speaker 2 (02:02:58):
You know.

Speaker 7 (02:02:59):
My thoughts is, if they were going to if they
were going to give up on pay per view or
direct TV or in demand, was going to give up
on putting TNA on pay per view, why couldn't they
just do a ring of honors doing and go to
an internet to an Internet only formats because it's it's
cheap to do. You wouldn't need as many buys to
break even.

Speaker 1 (02:03:18):
Yeah, would you still need I guess you wouldn't need
satellite time in the traditional sense. The overhead would be less.
I think the reason to drop to drop pay per
views in to go to say Spike TV specials would
be you could make more money off of popping a
big rating with advertisers supporting you and giving Spike you know,
a boost in their overall monthly average rating or quarterly

(02:03:40):
ratings when they compete with other big networks. That might
be valuable to Spike TV, and they might pay you
more in programming rights than you can make off of
an off the internet or traditional pay per view because
they're by rates events so low.

Speaker 7 (02:03:53):
Yeah, but I think I think the whole the whole
Monday Night fiasco and the fact that they're still trying
to build up their their rating to where they were
before they you know, back in two thousand and nine,
it is why they're not going to do.

Speaker 5 (02:04:04):
It for a while.

Speaker 1 (02:04:05):
Yeah. Yeah, anything else, Benny, uh no, No, that's it.

Speaker 13 (02:04:11):
And really just two things to plug in. I did
see that they spent according to reports, they spent four
mil on Hogan RVD, mister Anderson, and I think someone
else there and just be Jeff Hardy, but Jeff, yeah,
Jeff Harty. And and another thing, I don't know if
you guys had seen. I don't know where I've seen.
I go on so many sites there during the day.

(02:04:32):
But they said that Paul Hyman did have a meeting
a conference call with Spike TV. Do you think that,
and that's my last question, and you guys.

Speaker 1 (02:04:39):
Put me on hole.

Speaker 13 (02:04:40):
Do you think that maybe Spike TV would have an
influence and maybe Paul's bay check if he were to
come to Spike TV and maybe do something with the network,
and of course with TNA, because I don't think they
have enough money to bring him in. Do you think
that that would be maybe a logical step for.

Speaker 5 (02:04:54):
Them to try to bring him in.

Speaker 1 (02:04:57):
Uh, definitely. I think the that Spike TV as has
had a hand in some big names clients before, and
they definitely have influence over what happens on TNA, sometimes
for better, sometimes for worse. Sometimes they're you know, they
marked out for the big names and and and don't
really recognize how to you know, because they're not wrestling people,
how to build a promotion the right way. And I

(02:05:18):
think Paul Hayman on the phone with Spike TV executives
would be very educational and I think it would, you know,
if he impressed them, they would not only have be
able to influence Dixie Carter and pulling the trigger because
what Spike TV thinks it's very important to Dixie Carter,
but they might even help out financially, but ultimately getting
points in the company, getting a part of the company
would be up to Dixie Carter, but Spike TV could

(02:05:38):
certainly twist her arm.

Speaker 7 (02:05:39):
Pat, what do you think, Yeah, I mean that That's
the thing I would worry about if I were the people,
you know, if I were the people currently in charge
of TNA creative is what if Spike TV. You know,
what if Spike TV says, hey, why don't you fire
your creative people and hire the shaman guy. Of course,
we don't know what they were talking about. Hayman isn't
has been involved in other projects, you know, and he

(02:06:01):
is you gotta remember he is the friends slash uh
business associate of the UFC Heavyweight Champion, which is a
big part of what Spike does. So I mean, I
don't want to jump to the gut, jump the gun
and automatically assume they were talking about TNA because they
do have other shows in their network.

Speaker 1 (02:06:16):
Uh. Good point. Although it's hard to imagine that it
went to come up, although well, I should say its
hard to imagine. I just think it's not likely it
didn't come up, considering you know, he's up for that job.
But good point, Pat, I mean, we you know it
could it definitely could have been other things and also
or only all right, Our number here on the Peterbdy
Torch Live cast is six four six seven one nine

(02:06:37):
two eight six four six seven two one nine A
two eight. We invite your phone calls. You're listening to
us live. You're listening to us on blog talk radio
dot com Slash Pro Dash Wrestling Dash Torch.

Speaker 2 (02:06:49):
We are here.

Speaker 1 (02:06:49):
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(02:07:12):
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(02:07:36):
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(02:07:59):
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(02:08:19):
week and more so comes that's also ten dollars a
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(02:08:40):
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if you're a VIP member, we don't want to profit
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we'll we'll basically throw that in at our cost. So
check that out at PW Torch dot com slash go VIP.
All right, let's go back to the phone line, think
thirty for calling. So far, we've actually only got two
people on hold. So if you want to get throw
on the lines today. We definitely will get to you

(02:09:02):
if you call now and get on hold in just
a couple of minutes. Let's go to area code four
eight zero. Thanks for calling. Please state your name and
where you're from.

Speaker 2 (02:09:09):
Hey, wait, they've had it. Zefferin from Tanis? How are
you good?

Speaker 1 (02:09:13):
How you doing him?

Speaker 5 (02:09:14):
Sorry?

Speaker 1 (02:09:14):
Sorry? Sorry? Sorry? I screwed up? What's on your mind? Difference?

Speaker 2 (02:09:17):
Oh man, I'm doing that? Thank you?

Speaker 1 (02:09:21):
Oh I'm gonna get punished. You shouldn't. You shouldn't be
yelling at me.

Speaker 2 (02:09:25):
I wasn't the one who made a Designing Women reference.

Speaker 1 (02:09:27):
To start the show off text, but yeah, that happens.

Speaker 2 (02:09:37):
My question, yeah, my question is about WrestleMania and Undertaker
Street and not so much who he's gonna face, but
who do you think can give the same aura of
this person? This may be the guy who may end
the streets like Shawn Michaels did this year. Everyone's just
John Cena. I don't think so. I think Undertaker just

(02:09:59):
takes him and in the goes on. Who do you
think can give him a run to where you know?
The mystery is there like it was this past year?

Speaker 1 (02:10:06):
Pat, What do you think right?

Speaker 7 (02:10:08):
Now, there's not much of anybody. I mean, I mean
assuming way. I mean, if Wade Barrett had a good
run between now in WrestleMania, that would be a possibility.
I'll grant you that. But I mean, the only other
guy after Seena is Randy Orton. And we've already seen,
you know, in this in the last decade, we saw
a whole lot of Undertaker versus Randy Orton. I'm not

(02:10:30):
I'm not sure that they would go that way again.

Speaker 1 (02:10:33):
Wait, I think Undertaker Streak is probably gonna be alive
beyond this year, unless he really does decide that he
wants to retire, if he gets really jealous of what
Seawn Michaels is telling him he's up to these days,
and how much he enjoys life and how money isn't
important and he doesn't miss a spotlight. And also Undertaker's like,
oh man, you know I'm getting old. I got a

(02:10:53):
lot of Miley's, I got bad hits, bet knees, bad olders,
beat everything. I don't want to end up with more concussions.
Maybe Undertaker just says, yeah, let's Vince, I'm calling a quits.
Let's make it this year the final year. If that's
the case, I still think he beats John Cena and
goes out on top with a street that never ended.
So I think the odds really, under either circumstance are
almost are way more likely that he wins next year

(02:11:18):
than loses. And I don't know, and we've talked about
this before, I don't know that I can pinpoint the
person who would be the right person to and his streak.
I mean, I don't think Sena gains anything from it.
I don't think Wade Verrett would be at that point
yet by next year where you would say, yeah, he
deserves that honor. Yeah, I'm just not quite sure who
that person would be who would benefit enough from it

(02:11:40):
to and also would avoid a backlash for being the
guy who did it, because I think there would be
to a certain degree a fan backlash.

Speaker 7 (02:11:47):
Well, I don't even think that's even the question. He's wondering.
Who would be, you know, who would be a matchup
that would get people wondering if the Undertaker was going
to lose, And outside of Sena and maybe Orton, the
only guy I can come up with would the top
Lesnar And I don't do that one happening.

Speaker 1 (02:12:00):
No, No, that's not happening either. I mean yeah, I
mean to me, by by not having take her cane
on Summer Slam, they might drag this thing out enough
where they're having a big blowoff match at at Mania
and people will think Thinker's gonna win, but they'll still
you know, the idea would be to pay to see
the match and how he does it. Yeah, I don't know.
No one jumps out of me after in terms of
who fans would pay to us. It's a good question.

(02:12:23):
Who would say do you think Maia talks?

Speaker 2 (02:12:25):
Do you think Grestel Mania Talk's already happening right now?

Speaker 8 (02:12:28):
Is wwe?

Speaker 1 (02:12:29):
Oh yeah. As far as that level of that level
of discussion that, I mean, that definitely goes on, you know,
or around. I don't think it's real frequent. I think
it'll become a little more prominent after Summer Slam. But
I think you know, when you start talking about what
matches to feature at Summer Slam, you almost have to.
It has to come up in a discussion do we
want to save that for Mania? Or if we do
that and then we do this in the fall, where
does that leave this guy at Mania? I think that

(02:12:51):
question gets asked a lot, And I think that's one
of the reasons manias is as successful as it is,
because they really do try to save the big storylines
for that or the big matchups until then, and then
work backwards at least the top three or four matches.
Vince doesn't really care about the rest of them, nor
maybe should he, because they tend to fall into play.
We're about to go to a commercial break. Why listened

(02:13:13):
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Speaker 2 (02:13:44):
One more thing, Yes, sure, I enjoyed the laugh caller
yesterday asking about when you guys had knew you had
made it in what you do. And so my question is,
do you ever have to take a step back and say,
wait a minute, I am analyzing this business or this
show way too much because I don't know what percentage

(02:14:04):
of people out there, you know, when they're done with
a show, like me or like you, you know, go
to the website, see what's going on, you know, get
the inside information. I think it'd be kind of fun,
like if I watched just the television the television shows
and try to stay away from the internet for the leak.
And I'm just wondering that, you know, do you overanalyze

(02:14:26):
and do you ever catch yourself when you're doing it?

Speaker 1 (02:14:29):
Let me jump in first on this. I just read
some of Malcolm Gladwell's books and he wrote like blank
and that's the last one that I read in a
few others, and he got into how there's professional tasters.
So I love his books. I love the articles that
he writes, and he got in all those professional tasters
who go out and they'll tell you why ahead of time,
why food a new cookie that that Nibisco is gonna launch,

(02:14:52):
will will work or not work? And they and they
can break it down and they can define it, and
they say, well, and they have words for it, the
words that aren't even ones that we use, you know.
They'll talk about sweetness and bitterness, and then there's something
about the consistency of it and all that they have.
They don't just eat cookies when they're hungry for a snack.
They study what which cookies have worked, which haven't, which

(02:15:14):
what new new product launches have been successful, which ones happen,
and why they balance the advertising budget with a packaging,
with a competition, with the taste of the cookie, with
all that, all those factors, and they play into it,
and they get hired by food companies to come in
and that they'll say, Okay, taste this new microa statis,
or taste this new hot pocket, or taste this new cola,
and they analyze and they break it down and they

(02:15:35):
do it because that's what they do for a living.
That's their job. Their job isn't to just gorge on
cookies and enjoy them because they're hungry and they got
it and they got they want a sugar spike. For
most people, whatever cookies in the cover is good enough
for them. But in the big picture, over time, the
better tasting cookies are going to be the ones that
people remember enjoying the most and buy over and over again.

(02:15:56):
So that as my preface. My job is to look
at what's being done and not say what makes me
happy in my free time when I want to flip
on wrestling and watch it and enjoy it. My job
for twenty plus years has been why, based on history,
based on context, based on competition, based on everything that's
available to the consumer, Why do I think what they're

(02:16:18):
doing now will work? And why?

Speaker 4 (02:16:21):
And as long as I'm doing my job, and that
is my job, it's not my job. Nobody wants to
hear what Wagekeller likes about a wrestling show based on
personal preference only. I mean, there's a place for that
in a certain context. But the reason that there's some
value beyond that of just this is one person's opinion
is I try to bring to it what some people
would say over analyzing, but I would say it's kind

(02:16:43):
of good to kind of know ahead of time what
might work and what may not based on what has
worked in history and why and how that fits into
what they're doing today in today's context. So that's kind
of a long explanation, but I just don't believe there's
great value in I don't like Eli knton Wood.

Speaker 1 (02:17:00):
Well, okay, you might not like him, but is that
the kind of heel heat at WWE wants or would
you pay to see him get beat up? Or when
you say you don't like them, you don't even want
to watch them? And if you don't want to watch them,
are you typical or not typical? That's just the personal
opinion and that's not my I mean, I get into
that and I talk about it, but I think our
job mostly is to look at what's done and go
the ratings went down, why could they have prevented it?

(02:17:22):
Or did we learn something new from it? So in
that respect, I can't really break from that because that's
where my mind is. Just like I don't think a taster,
a professional taster can go to a restaurant and drink
some coke out of a fountain and go that's kind
of and drive their family nuts by saying this isn't coke.
There's a wrong mix of carbonation, and it's too sweet
and it's flat. It's just you can't help it. If

(02:17:43):
it's your job, that's how you look at things.

Speaker 7 (02:17:44):
Pat you want us over analyzing wrestling. You'd need us
over analyzing wrestling.

Speaker 1 (02:17:52):
What pet I missed it?

Speaker 7 (02:17:55):
I think you got it, Okay, you know I don't.
I mean, it's not something I worry about it if
it's the uh, I mean, I kind of listen to
other people in their opinions, but you know, you have
to go with your gut instinct on analyzing the stuff. Yeah,
I mean, I mean, and you and your experience, and

(02:18:17):
you know those who don't learn from history are doomed
to repeat it or or screw up in the same
way or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:18:25):
Yeah, so I mean, epron, go ahead, yeah, go ahead
and follow up.

Speaker 2 (02:18:29):
I think Wait, okay, so when you say that, I
think you're frustration over over the direction of DNA shows
in your in your updations, this and that, and then
you can hear you can hear through your tone the
backstory of your experience. Fellow, and as a fan of me,
what does it say about how much I care about
CNA when I'm already looking forward.

Speaker 1 (02:18:51):
To WrestleMania right well, And I guess you hit on
it from the point of it. If if DNA sens
for million dollars and ends up with the same ratings
and they upgrade their talent, their their their talent budget
by four million dollars, and their ratings are flat. I don't,
you know, I don't. I don't mean to be like
overly blunt about it, but I don't really care if

(02:19:12):
if Steve Smith in Colorado really likes Impact. That's not
particularly particularly relevant to my job, which is how did
TNA spend four million freaking dollars and end up with
flat ratings. The fact that somebody likes it well good,
of course some people do, but not enough people do
for the money that's being spent. And my job is

(02:19:33):
to analyze why. And I get really good examples every
Thursday that I do enjoy talking about. It's frustrating as
it is sometimes because it feels like groundhog Day. There
are reasons that are repeated most weeks on Thursday nights
on Spike TV that that drive home why T and
A has been unable to get to that next level?
And yeah, it's not because I personally don't enjoy the show.

Speaker 5 (02:19:54):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:19:55):
My job is to look at it and go, what
is driving people away who sample this show? Why is
it not growing fite the incredible increase in star power.

Speaker 2 (02:20:04):
It's a pleasure to talk to you guys, and I'm
gonna plug your site one more time. I just finished
the ten hours of WrestleMania round Tables that you guys
have very nice, So thanks you guys for everything.

Speaker 1 (02:20:17):
It is all great different thanks. We really appreciate your
kind and good questions on the show here.

Speaker 7 (02:20:22):
And I know for a fact way it's really excited
about about doing the WrestleMania eleven round tables.

Speaker 1 (02:20:27):
So I am, I am. I'm feeling kind of caught
up enough and on these other things that easy to
get done that we might be able to dive into
that in the next eighteen months. See that's an open
ended promise that can't be held against me.

Speaker 7 (02:20:39):
Pat unless you don't do it in eighteen months.

Speaker 1 (02:20:43):
Anyway, go and I deserve it anyway.

Speaker 7 (02:20:45):
Is it time to do the rundown of the weekends events?

Speaker 1 (02:20:48):
Yeah, we better fit that in and then we got
through it. Four people on hold after that, Okay, I'll.

Speaker 7 (02:20:52):
Make it quick. WNW Superstars tomorrow night on WGN boy.
They went all out this mont and made them met
Wade MVP versus Javo Guerrero Take Anna Impact tomorrow night
on Spike TV. Match number three to five between the
MotorCity machine Guns and Beer Money. This one's a cage
match and in the main event of the Impact No,
I'm not making this up, It'll be Tommy Dreamer versus

(02:21:14):
of This Friday Night on My Network TV ww SmackDown.
The feature bouts are you know? Continental Champion Kopie Kingston
against Dolph Ziggler and a no disqualifications out between Ray
Massio and Jack Slagger. Friday night on MTV, It's Lucha
Libre Usa. The heavyweight title continues. That's all I know
about it. Friday Night in Recita, California, PWG's seventh Anniversary show,

(02:21:38):
PWG seven beaturing Scott Lost for retirelet match against Scorpio
Sky Or. For those of you who are who are
not familiar with Southern cal Indies the PWG title, it
will be Davey Richards versus Chris Hero Saturday Night, FIP
and Crystal River, Florida. FID is the developmental group for Evolved,
which is the developmental group for Dragon Aet USA. John

(02:22:00):
Loxley defends the FIP title against Bruce fan T and
Roder Strong versus Eric Stevens in the Cage of Pain
as that few continues, and of course Monday Night is Raw.
UH matches were taped after last week's were off. The
featured bouts are John Cena versus Chris Jericho and Randy
Orton versus them Maya's play.

Speaker 1 (02:22:20):
Thank you Pat. Let's go back to the phone lines
and go to an internet called duncke here on the show.
Please take your name and where you're from.

Speaker 5 (02:22:28):
Hey, what's up?

Speaker 7 (02:22:29):
This is Charles.

Speaker 1 (02:22:30):
You want to hear me? Yeah? We can trow just
I want to ask a couple of questions.

Speaker 5 (02:22:36):
I'm gonna be quick.

Speaker 1 (02:22:38):
Conson tell me, yeah, y'all two are in therestling game
and everything else. Can you tell me how could anyone
see Nexus as a threat when they get punked by
not warm but two reps and the money and bank
pay a view if you I saw on one? How
can I kick these guys in spread again?

Speaker 2 (02:22:57):
How?

Speaker 1 (02:22:58):
I mean?

Speaker 16 (02:22:58):
Ez the four horses stuff on the end of your hell,
I got.

Speaker 3 (02:23:02):
Even the new blood UH stood up with this craft
and yeah they just got puked by that one but
two Rex.

Speaker 1 (02:23:08):
Can someone tell me that maybe I'm crazy or something,
but I just don't see any type of threat from them? Pat,
what do you think.

Speaker 7 (02:23:16):
Well, I mean there's a point there. Of course, maybe
they don't want to be uh maybe they don't want
to be fired again because you know, find or suspended
for hitting a referee. But LO mean, what does it
say about the seven guys that got beaten up and
punked by uh by the Nexus Monday nights.

Speaker 1 (02:23:32):
I think they've done enough to offset that. I mean,
there are you know, certain consents, but yeah, I mean
I think I think I talked about this already this
week on the Lave cast, but I think that they
did a good job making Nexus seem like a threat.
I mean, they beat They eliminated all seven without being eliminated,
any of them being eliminated themselves seven. You know, the
B team of Rosso to speak, they needed to do that.

(02:23:55):
And and you know what, Nexus is a threat in
part because Team Sena is in shambles, and so maybe
in two weeks Bret Hart returns and you know, gives
everybody a raw, raw speech and brings everybody together for
one night and gives the fans a sense of hope.
But you know, Nexas don't need to seem like they're
individually able to beat any of the top guys on
the raw team, on the SENA team, they just have

(02:24:17):
to seem like collectively they've got a single goal and
they are all together, and there's been no hints, thankfully,
there's been no hints so far of dissension on the team.
Bendruso would have broken them up already, and they would
have had two of them form take teams, and they
would have exchanged three titles already, and then two of
them would have been, you know, feuding with each other
and in a deathmatch by now. But ww, he's been

(02:24:38):
smart to keep them unified and actually get your money
worth out of them actually being a unified team, so
that somewhere down the line, hopefully next year at the earliest,
when there's dissension and somebody splits off, it feels like
a big deal because they've gotten so used to them
being all together. So no, I'm like, what they've done.
I think they've done enough to make Nexus seem like
a threat given what they have to work with. I

(02:24:58):
think they've done the best they can back and down
to two referees. It probably has to do with what
I think they should do, which is I mean, I
can't if I spoke out against that, I'd be a
hypocrite because I believe that all wrestlers should not touch referees,
because no matter how upset an NBA player gets with
the follow call, he doesn't dare manheadle a referee. He
knows his career might be over at that point. Certainly

(02:25:19):
he'd be suspended without pay for a long time. And
I think that should be the rule in wrestling. You
can you can do a lot of things, but one
thing you can do is touch the referee who's simply
there to enforce the rules. And even the worst heels
don't do that. I think that that was a rule
that I think should be followed and had was followed
for many years with very rare exception for decades. All right,
let's go back to the full line for the final

(02:25:40):
few minutes of the show. Here, let's go to aera code.

Speaker 5 (02:25:44):
Where are we going?

Speaker 1 (02:25:45):
Here? Here we go, Eric code five h nine. You're
on the live past. Please stay your name and where
you're from?

Speaker 5 (02:25:50):
Hey, guys, Jerky Kenill Washington Here.

Speaker 1 (02:25:52):
Jared, what's on your mind today? Jared?

Speaker 22 (02:25:55):
Yeah, I got a really weird off the wall question.
I got another question to followup. But because I'm assuming
this will be a no answer. My mom watches that
Bacheorette show and she told me there's a professional wrestler
that was on there, and I looked the guy up.
I've never heard of him, so I didn't know if
you guys have heard anything about that.

Speaker 2 (02:26:11):
I have not.

Speaker 10 (02:26:13):
Do you have a name for this person?

Speaker 22 (02:26:16):
He called himself rated R justin That's what my mom
told me, So I don't know. I just thought that
was kind of an interesting guy in that I had
never made independent or something.

Speaker 7 (02:26:26):
I mean my guess.

Speaker 1 (02:26:28):
Yeah, I might have actually read something on some entertainment
site about him having a wrestling background something like that,
but I don't remember the details, and I don't think
he was. I mean, I think we can say safely
he wasn't a big name. I mean there's you know,
thousands of people who have wrestled on the indie scene
who can claim to be ex wrestlers who get into
reality TV shows. So yeah, I don't think he's anybody
you would recognize. If anybody in the chat room remember

(02:26:49):
knows differently, let us know. I've got my eye on that. Yeah,
Bruce Mitchell, Bruce Mitchell in the in the chatroom, just
said he's an indie guy, and someone else said he's
from Toronto.

Speaker 7 (02:26:58):
So I'm glad I first watches The Bachelor rete.

Speaker 1 (02:27:02):
Yeah, I'm glad Ruth is in the chat room. Yeah, okay,
any anything else shared?

Speaker 2 (02:27:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 22 (02:27:10):
My second question is I just recently picked up WrestleMania
twenty five and twenty six on DVD, and I noticed
something that I've noticed for years is sometimes to cut
stuff from the lax of live broadcast, like the Kid
Rock performance isn't even on the DVD, And I just
want to know, like what caused the situations? Like, I mean,
I'm sure in copyright issues, but why wouldn't you have
something in place before the pay per view airs to

(02:27:30):
be able to have an agreement for it to come
out on DVD? Because there he knows their DVDs are
gonna come out, So why would they have something that
they have are skeptical that they could release on DVD
on the live performance?

Speaker 1 (02:27:40):
I think they know they can't go ahead. Pat, you're
the lawyer.

Speaker 7 (02:27:43):
Usually it's to save money, I mean, because because you
you charge something, you know Kid Rock is gonna charge
something different from working WrestleMania, then he's gonna charge for
working wrestle Mania and have a DVD of his performance
released through WWA.

Speaker 1 (02:27:57):
And it's it's also like USC is able to use
real music for their ring interests, but I don't know
that on the DVDs that they're able to include those.
And somebody who's got the DVDs might be able to
correct me on that, but I think that there is
there there's a there's different levels of rights fees that
you pay also for UH for music to be distributed
on DVD, and that might even be a union issue,

(02:28:20):
you know, a music a music industry standard standard where
there's certain things you can do live, but you can't
actually distribute them in on a permanent format UH without
paying a very different set of royalties. And for WWE,
it's it's just not worth it, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:28:34):
I mean, granted, there's some people are gonna buy it,
and and and if you said and Kid Rock performing
live on the DVD box, maybe they'd be more aptify it.
But WWE price thinks that isn't enough people to make
it worth a price.

Speaker 1 (02:28:45):
I'd like to see. I think what that does is
I mean, I'd like to see WrestleMania uncut on DVD.
I mean when you buy a DVD of WrestleMania, I think,
you know, the spirit of it is you should be
seeing what everybody saw that night. So there's a downside
to it. I'm not saying I'm in favor of it.
I'm just saying business wise, I think there's the reason.

Speaker 22 (02:29:01):
Yeah, exactly, when I went to wrestling in nineteen in Seattle,
Limb Biscuit was there and I had the DVD and
they kept the performance on there. So I just thought
it was interesting to see, like one DVD, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:29:09):
Not well that much them for the best actually, and
the chat room says that on USC they do cut
the uh, the commercial music also from the DVD releases,
and music cuts are nothing new in DVDs for all genres.
So it sounds like any anything live once it goes
to DVD, the music ends up. Unless you want to

(02:29:30):
pay very different royalty fees. You really have to, uh,
you have to cut them out, all right.

Speaker 2 (02:29:36):
You got to do great job.

Speaker 13 (02:29:37):
Thanks for VIP.

Speaker 1 (02:29:38):
I enjoyed a lot, great Jared, thanks very much, appreciate it.
All right, let's uh, we've only got one percent hold,
so we might get the two calls. So if you
want to jump on the line. Sonile's contime to do
it six four six, Uh, Pat, you and I will
be staying by afterwards for the VP after show to
take mel Bay questions or question and uh and discuss

(02:29:59):
other events uh in wrestling right now. So VIP members,
if you're listening to us through the VIP section or
our RSS feed, stay tuned for that. Let's now go
to Erico nine one seven. Thanks for calling. Please stay
your name and where you're from.

Speaker 23 (02:30:13):
Hey, guys, it's Joe from Queen's I'm not going to
ask how you're doing because you don't like that.

Speaker 24 (02:30:17):
Joe.

Speaker 1 (02:30:17):
Oh, this is a new fund trend. Instead of asking
how we're doing, we just waste time saying we're not
going to say how we're doing.

Speaker 23 (02:30:22):
Yeah, yesterday, I got that's how you didn't want people
to ask that.

Speaker 5 (02:30:27):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:30:27):
No, I'm saying. I'm saying we have a new fund
trend for Bruce to be upset about, which is everybody
called and saying I'm not going to ask how anybody's
doing it. I don't want you that like that just
it's fun because they'll get under Bruce's skin because this
whole point of not wanting people to ask. That was
to keep the show moving. And whether you ask how
you're doing or you say I'm not going to ask
how you're doing, it's still inter uts to flow the show.
So to get under Bruce's right.

Speaker 23 (02:30:48):
Right now for example, right now exactly, okay, I'll make
it quick. What the the established our teamate question real
quick with the guys who are in TNA now, And
I'm talking about guys with I can see like the Hulk, Hogan's,
Rick Flair's, the Nick Foley's, even Eric Fischoff to a
certain certain extent, if DNA goes down the path like
we were kind of seeing from what they've been doing,

(02:31:10):
which is like a really lousy product. Who do you
who do you guys think will have the their legacy
affected the most by its you know, like when we
look back and go, man, you know, hul Covin really
took a hit by going to TNA or McK foley
or even Kurt Angle for that, And who do you
think is going to lose the most out of.

Speaker 5 (02:31:27):
The whole thing.

Speaker 7 (02:31:30):
I think maybe Eric Bischoff has lost a lot, because
you know, he's no longer seen as somebody who can
fix a struggling wrestling promotion. That's the other wrestlers. Really,
nobody's watching t NA, so I don't see how it was,
you know, I don't see how enough people would remember
it to have an affect the wrestler's legacy.

Speaker 1 (02:31:46):
And I was a listening to question ninety giving Bruce
a hard time because he in the chat room. So
retate your questions that nobody else called Joe, I got
time for you, Okay, no foubt.

Speaker 23 (02:32:00):
Of all the guys in TNA right now, like the
big name guys like the mc foley's and the Hulk
Hogans and the Eric Fishoffs, Now, who do you think
it's a teammate keeps going down the same road as
being just a really inferior project. Which guy's legacy do
you think it's affected the most that will look back,
you know, five or ten years from now and go, man,
you know when he was there, and I really can't

(02:32:21):
look back at him as beings.

Speaker 1 (02:32:23):
Yeah, I think I think.

Speaker 24 (02:32:25):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:32:26):
I think Bischoff isn't doing himself any good by being
part of a of a losing effort to take TNA
to the next level, and it has, without a doubt
and a losing effort. I think it hurts his legacy.
I think mc foley is hurt, but he was hurt
also in WWE UH the last time too. I think
he had a much stronger legacy before he played TNA
off at WWE in the first contract negotiations, before he

(02:32:46):
went back to WWE, And I think him coming out
of retirement like he has has really undercut his legacy.
So that's negative. But I think the biggest is Hulk Hogan.
I mean, he was so careful when he had money
not to put himself in this position and now that
he's pretty desperate forma and needs it because of the
divorce and the medical expenses for the stunts. Car Rack,
I think he's the one who gets to tarnished the most.

Speaker 23 (02:33:07):
Yeah, I what about Jeff Hardy, I mean that's another guy.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
I mean, Jeff Party third, I got to cut you off.
We'll cover that in the after show. Thanks everybody for
joining us. Great more, great calls, more great chatroom, Join
James and great tomorrow.

Speaker 25 (02:33:24):
Are you a nostalgic wrestling fan? Do you want to
hear about shows you haven't seen in ten, twenty, maybe
even thirty years. Well, I have the show for you.
I'm pwtors dot com contributor Frank petty Ani and since
December of twenty twenty, I've hosted Pro Wrestling Then and Now.
Together with a rotating chair of co hosts. We go
back and review old shows from top to bottom, talk

(02:33:45):
about where the wrestlers were at the time and compare
what's taking place now to what took place. Then you
can hear this along with other shows as part of
your PW Sorts VIP membership with exclusive podcasts just for
members compatible with the Apple podcast app. Is it pwtworts
dot com slash go vip for details and sign up for.

Speaker 1 (02:34:19):
I like that. We are now in the VIP acter
Fi portune of the program.

Speaker 22 (02:34:23):
Thank you for using blog talk radio.

Speaker 1 (02:34:26):
Goodbye, and caller brought up at the very end of
the show, oh CM twelve or four says a great
show again, so one of the past out a lot
of time if you're not looking at the chat. Thanks.
That's what Jeff Harty's legacy being tarnished. I think Jeff
Harty is tarnished. I think Stings is tarnished a little bit.
He's worth thrown into that conversation. Jeff Harty. I think

(02:34:47):
though his legacy is tarnished if he doesn't have some
good matches and gets more out of shape. I think
he's I think he's getting by right now. I think
what Party does is it hurts TNA's legacy, if that
makes sense, because people might say, well, if t and
A was we're only able to get one of the
truly top backs from WWE at their peak, not after

(02:35:11):
they were worn out, not after they were burned out,
but really able to get a top top baby face,
they would have been able to do it. That excuse
got taken away. They got Jeff Hardy in January, shortly
after he left WWWWE on top. And I think it
doesn't so much hurt Jeff Hardy's wrong power because I
think people knew his wrong power was based a lot
on the way WWE presented him. But I think it

(02:35:32):
shows that TNA lacks something and they weren't just one
baby face away from making it.

Speaker 7 (02:35:40):
No, they're not. I you know, I don't think Jeff
Hardy is really focused on professional wrestling right now. I
mean hes, I mean, he keeps pushing it back, but
there is this day of reckoning coming where you know
where he's actually going to be on trial, and then
you have to answer some questions in a public forum
or or you know, or have to present some sort

(02:36:02):
of a defense from the public for.

Speaker 2 (02:36:03):
Him to drug charges.

Speaker 7 (02:36:05):
And I mean, I mean, I would be surprised if
he was more concerned about DNA wrestling than what's going
on with the rest of his life. He seems to
he seems to sort of float through these float through
these matches, and that's part of the reason why he
has been uh he has been downgraded from me from
from being the w w champion to somebody who is
not even the main events player in TNA.

Speaker 1 (02:36:25):
And I think the I think with with Hardy not
taking it, not seeming to take it seriously, I think
that's actually part of a larger trend too, among wrestlers
who jump from w w B to TNA. I mean,
I really think there is a thought that, Okay, in TNA,
I'm here because I'm a big name. I don't need
to work hard. In WWE, you nobody puts up with that,

(02:36:49):
but in TNA you feel you can get away with
it because they're just so happy to have you there.
I think Bookert felt that way. I don't think Christian felt.
I think Christian was motivated. I think Team three D
have worked hard for the most part, art and seem
like they show up for work and they'll just phone
it in. Uh Mister Kennedy obviously is trying to resuscitate
his career. He's not phoning it in. But I think
there is among some of the bigger other names. I'm

(02:37:11):
not mentioning an at it along with Booker and Jeff Hardy,
the idea of you know, we're big names, we don't
need to work hard. You know, the uhould be so
happy to have me, and I think they get that
that contract signed and they just it's it's different working
for Dicktie Carter and Vincent Man in that respect.

Speaker 7 (02:37:26):
Well, yes it is, you know, they're not. I mean,
there's no correlation in TNA, at least, it doesn't seem
to be between how hard you work and how successful
you are. And whenever you're in a company like that,
whether it's wrestling or some other form of business, you know,
I mean, that's that's people are going to suffer. I mean,
the quality for work is going to suffer.

Speaker 1 (02:37:46):
All right, Pat, Let's let's shift to just talking about
SummerSlam and where we are today. With the lineup and
if we think it, if it looks like a show
that stands out from the rest, and where they might
go with it. Let's start off with the Nexus versus
Team WWE. That's how it's being referred to by WWE
nineteen Sina. How do you think this match is going

(02:38:09):
to sell? In reality?

Speaker 8 (02:38:10):
Is this?

Speaker 1 (02:38:10):
Have they done what they needed to do or do
they seem to be on a course They've got a
couple of rods left. Are they on a course to
make this match something that will pop up? By rate?

Speaker 12 (02:38:19):
I think they are.

Speaker 7 (02:38:21):
I think that I think you can see it and
that the ratings are starting to trend upwards. And and
you know, the focus has pretty much been on Scena
versus the Nexus over the past few weeks and then
setting up and setting up this match. And literally they've
been setting up this match since since The Nexus was
formed a couple of months ago, because you knew that
you I mean, they kept dragging it out and you

(02:38:42):
knew eventually that somebody was gonna have to The Nexus
was gonna have to get in the ring against somebody
or some group of individuals. So yeah, and they and
it's not like they're doing a Uh, It's not like
they're a promotion that's doing a bad job of setting
up a big match. I mean they you know, I
mean people, I mean people want you know, people know
that the Nexus are certain level. They want to see
if they're good enough to match up with with the

(02:39:03):
John Cenas in the Edge and Edge and the other
top WW guys. So yeah, I mean, I mean, plus,
the whole pay per view is you know, with all
due respect to Randy Orton and readmister and all that
the pay per view is pretty much built around this
KINGE Scena versus Nexus match.

Speaker 1 (02:39:22):
Yeah. I think that's a good point. I mean, I
think there is a feeling and I don't know that
they've papped into it yet, of because because I think
so many people feel that the NEXTUS team is Way
Barrett with a bunch of wannabes or maybe's, but haven't
proven it yet, haven't proven who they are yet, And
and WWE does want to play it up like find
out how many of these guys are legit Sunday at

(02:39:42):
Summer Flam, because you're playing into the weakness of this match.
So by not playing into that, I think at the strength.
But I think in people's minds. They're thinking that, they're thinking,
how will you know it is East later? Is David
O'tonga or is justin Gabril? Can they really hold their
own against top level talent like this? And I think
there's some intrigue about that. I just think that the

(02:40:03):
ride that they're taking us on by by by building
up Nexus and having seen it Team seen it in shambles,
was a good step this week. Next week we know
from the spoilers it's more the same the following weeks.
That's where I think Bret Hart shows up and kind
of rallies the troops, and I think that's and gets
everybody maybe gives a sense of hope that they're all
on the same page, with still some doubts, some lingering

(02:40:25):
doubts of whether Jericho and Edge and even Morrison are
really on the same page. And you want some lingering doubts,
but you don't want to give up all hope because
you want fans who want to see Team Sena win.
You want you want them to buy the show to
see them beat up Nexus. But there's supposed to be
that that grain of doubt. Do you think, how do
you think the match is gonna end up being book pet.

Speaker 5 (02:40:48):
I.

Speaker 2 (02:40:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (02:40:50):
And probably the biggest surprise I had coming out of
this was on was on Monday when they switch it
to an elimination format. I thought, you know, I thought,
with the doubts that they have about Nexus, it would
be much you know, it'd be much easier to do
a seven on seven match, and then you keep Brett
Hard out of the ring, you keep one or two
of the lower tier Nexus guys you know, on the

(02:41:10):
apron for the most part, And I mean, and you
could still have a long match and a you know,
and and a very strong match and everybody gets to
gets their spots in and and you know, and and
it doesn't hurt either side as much to lose. I mean,
there's only one guy who has to take the fall
instead of what we're gonna see, which is somewhere between
seven and thirteen.

Speaker 1 (02:41:33):
Do you think that's obvious which team wins?

Speaker 2 (02:41:37):
It shouldn't be.

Speaker 7 (02:41:39):
I would. I would guess based on what I've heard
and you know the fact that I mean, the house
shows after SummerSlam are still built around Sina and a
couple of guys fighting a Nexus team. I mean, I
would guess that Nexus either wins or or comes out,
you know, or will become some sort of incants has finished,

(02:42:01):
where when of nexas survives as a as a force
and a threat to w W. Yeah, of course there's
a possibility that that, you know, Chris Jericho will turn
heel or or edwill turn or Edgell turnon senor or
what have you. But you know, but yeah, I don't

(02:42:21):
think WW is gonna come out and beat next to
seven straight fall.

Speaker 1 (02:42:26):
Do you think that in the Nexus group that anybody
has stood out besides the way Barrett as being worthy
of a pretty high level match come WrestleMania next year.

Speaker 7 (02:42:38):
I you know, I really haven't. I really haven't seen
where any of the NXT guys could you know, will
put together a high level match. I mean, you know
there are portions where Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel looked
good and uh, you know, Skiff Sheffield has a has
a great look to him and he can but you know,
I worry about him screaming together a series of moves.

Speaker 1 (02:43:00):
I know, yeah, little Rob Terry fear there.

Speaker 7 (02:43:05):
Well, I mean I don't feel it's I don't like
a spare to compare them to.

Speaker 1 (02:43:08):
Rob Terry, but it probably isn't. But but I if
I can take the big at Rob Terry, I will.

Speaker 7 (02:43:14):
I mean, you know, I mean I know that before
before NXC started, you know, people in Florida were high
on Justin Gabriel, but I haven't really seen anything out
of him except you know, accept hitting that didn't have splash.

Speaker 1 (02:43:27):
Yeah, I mean, until we see them in full fledged
ten to twenty minute singles matches. I mean, even you know,
on a regular basis, it's it is tough to evaluate
them at this level. You know, can they hold their
own and look like they belong in the ring against
Morrison and our Truth much less Jericho Agencina And we're
just not at that stage yet. It is hard to tell.
It's going to be interesting to look back to look

(02:43:49):
back and hear from now at where these seven are,
because they've got a lot of valuable TV times, but
they've put so much.

Speaker 7 (02:43:56):
Behind these guys that they have to try and you know,
and they're going to be on how shows coming up
in a few weeks, you know, actually actually wrestling instead
of just just interfering in things, and and I mean,
you know, at a certain level, you know, you look
back over the over the history of the business that
we've covered, and uh, you know, are they I mean,
are are any two of the next Skuys really worse

(02:44:17):
than say, Brian Adams and Brian Clark. You know, it's
kind of hard to tell.

Speaker 1 (02:44:22):
Okay, let's look at the other matches on the show.
Bray Mythstereo against Caine, Kane defending against Ray. Do you
see any change in this match between now in Summer
Slam and what do you think of it?

Speaker 7 (02:44:33):
I I don't think they're getting the I think the
earliest the Undertaker gets involved is what's actually coming up
with Summer Slam. And you know some of the spoilers, well,
I mean, well no more after we get the spoilers
from from tonight's taping. But uh, you know, the spoilers
tend tend to lead us that way. And if the
Stereo is taking time off off after Summer Slam, it
wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to bring the

(02:44:54):
Undertaker in there and just muddle things up, right, and
they can yeah, I mean, plus you know plus an,
I mean, the Undertaker, he's not going to get upset
that he that he couldn't start his program right away
at SummerSlam, and he had to shove it back another month.

Speaker 1 (02:45:09):
I think Ray has done such a good job learning
to work a match against a bigger wrestler in WWE.
That's become a specialty. I think that's more of a
specialty now than being against a smaller guy who he
has a great four star match with, because he's broken
down enough that, you know, you almost it can almost
lead to a disappointment at this point based on his
reputation of what fans would expect. But what he does

(02:45:30):
do really well is play the underdog and make those
comebacks and sell for the big guy. And I think
this has a chance to be a good match. Kine
has come through with some good, good stylistic matches, you know,
for his style of match, and I think it's a
good fit for Ray. I think this is a chance
to be a surprisingly good formula match for these two,
just as rayin Swager was.

Speaker 7 (02:45:52):
Yeah, well, I'm just not expecting it to be as
good as Ray Swagger.

Speaker 1 (02:45:56):
But really, yeah, yeah, I don't. It won't be at
that level. I think it'll be different, you know, because
Kine is such a different creature than Swagger and his
resting style is different, but nevertheless, you know, it's it's
that style difference with somebody much bigger than Ray and Swaggers.
Swagger is not that different in size than Kane. I mean,
he's not filled that way, but he is, uh, he's
a huge, huge opponent. So I think that's something to

(02:46:17):
look forward to, all right. On the Seamous versus Randy
Orton match, is this?

Speaker 5 (02:46:21):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:46:21):
I mean Seamus is getting some cheers these days, Orton
obviously getting a lot of cheers, but hasn't quite solidified
who he is as a babyface yet. What's your take
on this?

Speaker 7 (02:46:31):
You know, they're they're getting some practice working together. I
think they're in fact facing each other at the house
shows this weekend, so well, I mean, I don't know.
I you know, what I saw when they finished off
with the World Rumble was sort of was sort of inconclusive.
I mean, I think that they I think that they
could have a really good match. You know, you're never

(02:46:51):
sure when you're watching Randy Orton, you know these days,
whether he's one hundred percent or not, or whether he's
nursing injuries. And I think that'll, I mean, I think
will be the differences whether it's a whether it's a
really good match or just an average match.

Speaker 1 (02:47:04):
How about the finish? Where do you think they should
go with it or where do you think they will
go with it?

Speaker 7 (02:47:09):
I I think Shameless. I mean, I think somebody in
WWE needs to have the title more than a couple
of months. It might as well be Shamous since they're
since they have a real interest in trying and trying to.

Speaker 1 (02:47:19):
Get him over.

Speaker 7 (02:47:21):
I you know, I suspect that, uh, that Shamus holds
the title for a little while, and then in a
few months, when when Triple H is ready to come back,
you know, something happens where Triple H shows up and
cost Shameless the title, and maybe maybe even the Mis
gets it, and you know, and Triple H and Seamus
can go off in field. I I'm not expecting to

(02:47:42):
see the Mis cashing his uh his briefcase of SummerSlam.
I I could be surprised by that, but I you know,
I would, I would drag this out a little bit.

Speaker 1 (02:47:51):
There's certainly by interjecting Miz into the mix with Seamus
and Orton suggesting that might happen. But yeah, I don't Yeah,
I don't see that either as a as something that
I necessarily want to see. I mean, I almost it's
almost mounting the waters. Little much else. Plus I just
want to see I just want to see miss carry
this briefcase gimmick for a while longer.

Speaker 7 (02:48:13):
And I would be okay if they if they did
something where Miz tries to cash in the briefcase and
fails and in a month or two he comes you know,
he just comes off and he gets a regular title
shot and wins it.

Speaker 1 (02:48:24):
Anyway, and what else do you see taking place on
the show? Anything jump out at this point that will
fill out the undercard.

Speaker 7 (02:48:32):
I mean the rum was going around way that it
will be Big Show versus the Straight Edge Society and
a handicap match, and I'm just saying, I don't want
to see that if that's the case, and nothing nothing
against anybody involved, but that's that's just not gonna be
my CPFT right now. I mean, they know, I think
we're almost definitely gonna see Kothie Kingston and Dolph Zigler

(02:48:53):
at some sort of in a Continental title match. And
I you know, I don't know what they're doing with
the Hart Dynasty. I mean, I don't know, there's really
aren't a lot of undercard feuds that's sort of that
are sort of popping out right now, and I think
WWE is fine with that. They don't need a huge
undercard for the show, especially if the domin events going

(02:49:13):
as long as I think it will.

Speaker 1 (02:49:15):
In fact, I got to leave on this note because
I know you love talking about it. Linda McMahon's opponent
Rob Simmons, and the Republican campaign has officially actively begun
to campaign against her. He's on the ballot. McMahon responded
by calling Simmons an erratic semi candidate. What's your take
on how this would affect the race going into the

(02:49:37):
Republican primary and the actual election.

Speaker 7 (02:49:40):
It only works if the republic If the Republican voters
are like, oh, Jeevez, yeah, we can't send lend the
McMahon out there, and then they vote for Simmons because
I think he's the closest thing to a viable opponent
that she has at this point on the Republican times.
I'm just sort of resigned myself to the fact that
Linda wins the primary and maybe if she's lucky, she

(02:50:02):
comes within double didges of bloominhal and Bloomenthal's and her
senator up there. And frankly, the fact that you know Connecticut,
the fact that Christopher does not going to be the
Senator from Connecticut, is it's good for America.

Speaker 1 (02:50:13):
I think so.

Speaker 7 (02:50:15):
So I'm well, I'm willing to go with that.

Speaker 1 (02:50:18):
I think the negative for for Linda's She's gonna have
to maybe spend some extra money to fend out Simmons
if he gets close, and that could hurt her funding
in the race. This fall for the Senate racing against Blumenthal,
and it can also it can lead to more mud
slinging by Republicans that can be used against her in
a credible way. Also this fall if if she does

(02:50:38):
indeed outlast Simmons. And what it also does is it
sends a message that Simmons, yeah, you might get some
meat for not living up to his word and bowing
out respectfully. And and you know, going by quote the rules,
even though I mean the rules are you can have
your name on the ballot. But it makes it seem
like Simmons doubts she has what it takes to win,
and he went to gotten back in the race if

(02:50:58):
he felt that he could that she would win and
basic Frankly, poll numbers shows you probably can't win. So
he's you know, making this last ditch attempt to say, well,
maybe I am the Republican's last best hope to be
Bloominhal because I don't have the baggage that clearly is
holding Linda back when it comes to inexperience in the
whole w W E connection.

Speaker 7 (02:51:15):
Yeah, I think, uh. I mean, you know, if if Bloomenthal,
bloomin Fal went through the thing where he was exposed
to somebody who had pretended to be in the Vietnam
War but wasn't, there's a name for those people. But yeah,
the fact that that didn't, that didn't really put a
dent in his campaign against when it's looking like him
against Wunda McMahon, that that's not a good sign for
the McMahon people. And you know, and I am worried that,

(02:51:39):
you know, I'm not worried that. I'm worried that they're
saying we have dirt on Bloomenthal and we're gonna and
we're gonna push it during the general election. Why would
you you know, if you do have dirt on him,
why would you announce it beforehand?

Speaker 1 (02:51:54):
Yeah, if it's not.

Speaker 7 (02:51:56):
I mean, if if it's a good dirt, why why
don't you just tell us?

Speaker 1 (02:51:58):
Now you know, we think their feared that they have
their they should stay quiet about it and say the
tradition is say this to the end, so there's not
time to respond. So that's the last thing. Fringe. Uh,
fringe voters, middle of the road voters remember, and they
haven't had a chance to digest it enough and forget
about it.

Speaker 7 (02:52:15):
The Yeah, but I think that's stupid bad there. I
think you can't go around waving the waving a little
bag and saying we have dirt. Agree, I just I
think that's foolish.

Speaker 2 (02:52:27):
Also, we have a listener mail question, right, Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:52:28):
Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 7 (02:52:30):
Okay, Fence Post eight from Columbus, Ohio. Right, whatever happened
to ODB? Is she still employed by TNA or not?

Speaker 5 (02:52:37):
Not?

Speaker 7 (02:52:37):
She has she has left the company? Uh, if you're
moving on, let's say, let's also actually realize they have
a lot of people on their roster that we haven't
seen in a while. Why do you think they still
have these guys? Or why don't they try to get
out their contracts to go elsewhere? Okay, assuming I understand
the question correctly. Why do they have people on their
roster who they don't use on television? You know, that's

(02:52:59):
that's something common to a wrestling company. Uh, they don't
use everybody at once. They have more wrestlers that they
can use on a on a weekly two hour show,
and some of those wrestlers are appearing on Explosion every week.
And uh, why do you know, why don't these guys
get other contracts and go elsewhere? Some of them can't
because of the way the contracts are written. I mean,
for example, Homicide I believe has tried to get released

(02:53:22):
by TNA several times from his contract and they they
won't let them go. And there are some who probably
don't want to. They you know, they they like being
they like being able to say that they're under contract
to TNA because it increases the amount they get charge
to appear on the NDS or they know, or even
though it's not a lot of money, they like drawing
their check from whatever they're doing on Explosion or whatever
appearances they make. So, I mean, there's a variety of reasons.

(02:53:45):
And wait, if you want to add to that email.

Speaker 1 (02:53:46):
I guess ODB, Yeah, she is not with TNA. She left,
and she's written about a little bit. It was just
kind of a kind of a mutual parting of the ways.
She is, by the way, officially listed. DNA's website is
still part of the promotion, which I think is hilarious.
But so is Sean Waltman, Scott Hall. H what was

(02:54:09):
the cask suicide?

Speaker 7 (02:54:12):
But oh no, they do have somebody else playing suicide.

Speaker 1 (02:54:17):
Oh who's plays?

Speaker 7 (02:54:18):
I believe Kyoshi is now playing the role of suicide.

Speaker 1 (02:54:21):
Okay, and he's been on TV lately. Well, they still
got shark Boy on the roster.

Speaker 7 (02:54:25):
Yeah, and the last time I heard of shark Boy,
he was one of the wrestler we're using on house
shows and and and rarely, and it has rarely appeared
as a wrestler for them.

Speaker 1 (02:54:34):
Yeah, so it's safe to say that stage isn't updated,
you know.

Speaker 7 (02:54:38):
Really, Yeah, that's probably one of the issues right now.

Speaker 1 (02:54:42):
Yeah, all right, Pat, that's all I've got. It's been
a pleasure. Thanks for joining me again here on the
live cast and after show on a Wednesday.

Speaker 7 (02:54:50):
We'll have to do it again next week.

Speaker 1 (02:54:52):
We'll have to do it again next week. Thanks VIP
members for for your support and for listening to us.
Just reminder that the v F the show is copyright
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Speaker 7 (02:55:08):
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Speaker 4 (02:55:16):
Thank you very much until next time on behalf up
at McNeil wad Keller signing out.

Speaker 1 (02:55:39):
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