15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: One of worst Impacts in a while, Hogan rumor, Carlito news, Heenan, Jim Ross's future, Summerslam

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

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Today's Way Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. We jump back fifteen
years to two of our live cast call in shows
from July twenty ninth and July thirtieth, twenty ten. First up,
James Caldwell hosting with Greg Parks to talk about with
live callers a random Hulk cochain rumor that day, also
TNA Impact, the free TV pay per view on Impact

(01:36):
after Hardcore Justice, whether the Impact Special could help boost
ratings long term, the latest on Paul Hayman's future, TNA's
ranking system, ross spoilers for the following week, John Cena
ripping Percy Watson, WWE's rogy On storyline, Nexus's Higher Power abysses,
they the Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett, Tangled web of convoluted,

(01:58):
confusing storylines, and more. Then, on the July thirtieth episode,
James Colt was joined by PW Torch nostalgia columnist Brian
Hoops to talk about t and AMPAX some more, the
introduction of a TV title, what TNA has a Chance
to prove introducing that new title, Eric Young randomly back
on Impact doing comedy, TNA's lineup for the October twelfth
Impact Special, potential expectations for Hardcore Justice, Breaking news analysis

(02:21):
during the show of t and a Impact viewership, breaking
news analysis of Carlito being booked for MTV two tapings,
potential w Hall of Fame inductees, when Shawn Michaels could
be in the Hall of Fame, Bobby Heenen's health, Jim
Ross's future as an announcer, and more loaded show. Also
in the previously VIP exclusive after show, they discussed the
SummerSlam pay Pero lineup, whether it's a strong enough lineup

(02:42):
for a Summer Slam, what to do with NXT season
two rookies, and more so two loaded shows. Let's get
to it a flashback to what was in the news
just over fifteen years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
This week, you are listening to the PW tors Live cast.
This is PW toorgs assistant editor j called Well hosting
today on Thursday July twenty second, and I'm joined by
Torch calumnist Greg Parks. Greg, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3 (03:08):
I'm doing well, James?

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Thanks? How are you.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
A little bummed out? A little baseball news today with Yes, yeah,
ending a ten year run with the Astros, dashing, my
dashing my college years, so kind of bummed out. So
if you're listening, you're gonna call it today and ask
who I'm doing. The answer is gonna be bad, So
I'm just going to give you that standard answer. Greg.

(03:35):
We had an interesting story that came out of nowhere
today on hul Coogan. I have no idea where this
came from, and apparently someone started a room that he
died and Dixie Carter makes a comment on Twitter that
he's alive, and well, have you heard anything more about this?
I mean, I have no idea honestly, where it came from,

(03:55):
where it started. It just kind of came up about
three thirty or four thirty Eastern.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
This Yeah, that was the first I had heard of
it as well. I, like you said, I don't know
where she's getting this.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
I assume.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Someone in the company had read it somewhere and had
contacted her about it and she felt the need to
post it. But it certainly wasn't something to my knowledge
that was floating on any of the major sites out there.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Because we certainly would have.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Heard of it by now. So, yeah, that was She's
kind of bizarre that that came out to this afternoon, right.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
It was like someone wanted to play a game to
see if it could get all the way to Dixie
Carter or someone high up in TNA, whatever, the game.
Was it succeeded? I mean I heard nothing them out
until her tweet on Twitter. So interesting story to kind
of break a break up. A kind of a slower
news day today before Impact it comes on today. They

(04:55):
takes this week's show on Monday in Orlando, wanted focus
on the hard or Justice pay per view, a little
bit of focus on some other TNA storylines going on,
such as, you know, the best of five series with
machine guns and beer money, Rick Flair making an announcement,
let's think Matt Morgan and mister Anderson continue in their feud, Gregor,

(05:17):
what's kind of your impression of what we're gonna see
on tonight's Impact as they continue to build up to
that pay per view in two Sundays.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, I haven't checked that any of the spoilers yet,
but I would expect that most of the TNA storylines
will continue with some ECW stuff thrown in there for
the Hardcore pay per view, whether it's an actual matches
announced or wrestlers announced, who will be a part of
that pay per view. A teenage in an odd situation

(05:47):
with this, because they've still got to build up, you know,
the feuds that are going on, but they're not going
to be. They're not building them up to the pay
per view. One could argue that they're building them up
to the Impact special that will air the week after
the pay per view that TNA is sort of treating
like a pay per view that will air as a
special on Spike TV in lieu of having a t

(06:10):
and a pay per view this month. Since Hardcore Justice
is going to be pretty much based around the ECW wrestlers,
so they establish it somewhat as far as figuring out
what to do with the storylines that they've been building
and not being able to pay some of them off,

(06:31):
as you would expect it a pay per view that's
coming up this month with the special that they're going
to have on Spike TV, so it should be I
would expect pretty much business as usual with some things
te for the Hardcore Justice pay per view. They don't
want to give a lot away beforehand. I understand that
they probably want people to tune in and be surprised
by either some of the matchups, some of the people

(06:52):
they see on a pay.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
Per view, or whatever. But I will.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Assume that there will be some announcements or some angles
taking place tonight and with guys who've seen whether it
be Tommy Dreamer, Raven Ryano, or the like.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I've kind of mixed
on on having a quote unquote pay per view on
Free TV the week after this hardcore Justice pay per view.
I mean, obviously either pretty much two different themes, one
of an East Sevy pay per view and one on
Free TV is more of a TNA theme pay per
view with mainly TNA wrestlers involved in, you know, your

(07:29):
basic TNA storylines, and I just I don't, you know,
I'm not sold one way or the other. Whether it's
a good idea or a bad idea, I just don't
understand the logic of doing it. When you could stretch
out your current TNA storylines to the September pay per
view and make that September pay per view seem like
the culmination of two solid months of TV build up. Instead,

(07:52):
you're kind of giving away a Clash of the Champions
type event on free TV and then you have some
fans to kind of turn around and pay for or
essentially the same show on pay per view in September. Well,
the key is the.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Key is a TNA keeps a TNA doesn't compare the two.
Perhaps the you know, normal TNA viewer may not even
may not see that similarity between a pay per view
and what they're getting for free on that special.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
You know, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I do think that, yes, if they were, if they
had done things maybe correctly or with hindsight or more
of a long term look, that they could have stretched
things out to September. But you know, TNA is all
up up of that rating man, And if they can
get this special to pop rating, we know, Impact hasn't

(08:48):
been doing spectacularly in the ratings lately, so they've got
to they gotta have something to hang their head on
as of late, because the ratings right now are not
doing it. So if they can get this special to
uh to really pop a halfway decent rating, that's something
that TNA management can look toward as you know, something

(09:09):
positive in the company after the hardcore Justice pay per view.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
And it's almost like a three hour raw or a
draft special or a both brands on the show type deal.
I mean really worn that out this year. I mean,
they had way too many of those uh special episodes
of raw. They haven't had one in a couple of
months now, and last I checked, that went through the
entire USA Network schedule until September. I didn't see it

(09:34):
on the schedule. So it doesn't look like WW and
USA Network are going to have any more of these specials.
TNA really hasn't had a major episode of impact since
you know, perhaps RVD winning that that world title that
on that that that Monday episode in that believe was April.
Uh so they have I mean, Tina hasn't really worn

(09:55):
that concept out, So I think, like you said, it's
a way to get U so perhaps artificially boost viewership
for a wrestling heavy sort of mini pay per view episode.
The key is what I mean, the follow through. It's
one thing is that let's say they draw one point
two with a special and then the next week they're
back down to zero point nine. You know, I don't

(10:18):
really see that pretty much benefit other than well, we
need to have a strong show at some point just
to kind of, like you said, hang your hat on that.
I just I see him in very short sighted and
you know, I'd like to be approved wrong on that
and that this will actually build some momentum but to me,
it just seems it just seems like an artificial attempt

(10:39):
to boost the rating when you need to be more
focused on getting this roster over. I mean, I saw
on last Thursday's Impact a TNA Robster that's not over.
Nothing was over. They gave away Joe and Hardy and
it's just another match beer money and machine guns. That's
been such a great feud. But three matches in ten
days a little bit watered down. It's a little it's

(11:01):
a little bit more fresh for tonight's show with the
titles on the line. But this last week's show, that
Rock Show is not over. It just nothing was. It
was all about the ECW vinch and just everything else
seemed like it was just all a mesh of just
a mixture of angles that just aren't important.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
I'm kind of surprised that WW doesn't have another three
hour show coming up, because I think they have a
nine hundredth episode of Rock coming up in August, So
I guess it surprises me that that's not a three
hour show. But you know, this could be interesting. What
kind of ramification is this pay per view quote unquote
special is going to have for TNA? And I know

(11:45):
I've read this before about this special, is that this
is going to be a wrestling heavy TV show. It's
going to be don't like a pay per view. And
we know Vinceroso's philosophy about writing TV as far as
short wrestling matches, lots of backstage stuff, lots of angles. Now,
if this special pops a big rating, I mean, what

(12:07):
if Vince Trisso uses his defense here because these would
be longer than normal pay per view length matches on TV.
Presumably you know, we're we're speculating here a bit, but
because it's supposed to be a pay per view like special,
we're kind of assuming it's going to resemble a pay
per view. So if the matches are that long, cut
down on the angles, cut down on the backstage stuff,
you know, if that pops a good rating for TNA,

(12:30):
that's you know, Vince Tristl's philosophy. I mean, granted it's
a one time rating, and but still, I mean, that's
got that's gotta alarm bells have to go off in
TNA and is saying, well, we have our head writer
who is of the exact opposite philosophy of the show
we just ran. If that show is doing. It did
a higher rating than you know, any of the shows

(12:52):
we've been in the last how many months? If that,
if that happens, that's something they need.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
To look at, indeed, and they do. My my concern
is that if they just present arrest and I've heard
about this and I've seen it written uh the Jason
in the page two Buzz and this Restor newsletter, Jason
tallon a detailed review of what the initial plans are
for that show. It seems like a very wrestling heavy show.

(13:17):
But is that going to make the matches mean more
than what they are? Right now? They're just kind of
giving away matches? Are they going to I mean, to me,
it's not about Okay, we're gonna present two hours of wrestling,
it's can you make your wrestling important? And team doesn't
do that right now? And you know it is given
away six favorite quality matches with no backstory and no

(13:40):
promos hyping the matches. Is that really gonna make a
difference or is that going to make it seem more
like the wrestling is just filler and we're just gonna
give you two hours of filler. And you know it's
sure it's risen to watch out people just you know,
people don't want to watch this wrestling. They want to
see angles and storylines and that sort of thing. My
argument is that people want to see wrestling, but it's
to mean something and two hours, just a two hour

(14:03):
block of wrestling is not going to mean something. You know,
it depends on how they present it and that you
know that remains to be seen. But it's just to me,
it's just Teenae doesn't get it. It's not about two
hours of rustling or two hours of storylines. It's making
your content mean something and making the matches mean something.
It's not Joe Hardy with no build up in an

(14:25):
Eric Mishell phone call in the middle of the match,
and it just shows they don't get it. And to me,
a two hour block of wrestling with no backstory to
the matches means they don't get that part either. In
russo I forget. You know. Russell's argument could be, Okay, well,
let's say there's two hour block of rustling pops rating.
Let's say that does at one point two and the

(14:47):
next week gets back down to the zero point eight
or zero point nine. He would sit there and say, oh, well,
look get that. It take look at the viewers for
the next show. See Rustling doesn't hook viewers, and that
would be his sort of his sort of fall plan.
It is sort of ways to make it seem like
he's valued and needed as well. We need storylines, we
need angles that keep people interested in actuality. It's just no,

(15:09):
you need to make that wrestling seem like it's important
and it has a backstory and there's a reason for
a match happening, and TNA has been done that. It's
why we have Joe Hardy being thrown away on free
TV with no anticipation, hype, irrelevance. That's my ranks on that.
Did you have no thoughts on that? Greg Well, I
was just.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Gonna say TNA didn't have an idea to make the
matches seem important. That being the top ten rankings, and
conceivably every match that involves someone in the top ten,
even not in the top ten, has some sort of
value because they're fighting to get into that top ten
ranking so they can you know, get to the number one,
be the number of contender and fight for the title.

(15:49):
So with that, I think the unset message of the
matches that we see is supposed to be you know,
if there's nothing that the announcers can talk about it
if you're tell backstory here. The backstory is that they're
fighting for a spot in the top ten. You know,
it's not just strung up there these guys are.

Speaker 4 (16:08):
That's that's ultimately what they're fighting for.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
I don't think that's been emphasize enough.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Tell I agree, Yeah, I mean they just you know,
every month, after these fake review they just throw out
the latest rankings and they don't establish you know, why
did this person move up, why did this person move down?
Why did this person enter the rankings? They don't do that.
They just sort of throw it out there and they
try to use that. They say, okay, we have we

(16:32):
have a number four ranked Samoa Joe, number two ranked
Jeff Hardy. Well, what does that mean? I mean, what
happens if one guy wins, one guy loses. Does that
have any effect on next month's rankings? Does that person
get a title? Shows? They just throw around, threw on
her Christians.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
We know backstory in the last the last top ten
rankings they unveiled. They did it as quickly as possible
at the top of the show, and very little was
said about it. The rest of their way, and I mean,
you know, I understand that they're trying to do this
to make matches means thing, Yet like everything else on
the show, they never come back to it. They don't
emphasize it enough. They don't take the time to make

(17:08):
the viewer understand that this is a big deal.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, exactly, And you know, if you're doing this in
a month to month basis, the best way to reinforce
this ranking is show a graphic every week saying, okay,
Samoa Joe in this series of rankings, he's you know,
one one and one. You know, he's won one match,
he lost the match, he had a draw with Jeff Hardy.
They kind of show what guys have done and that

(17:33):
month period. It makes it seem like there's actually somebody
keeping track of these matches and these matches I actually
means something rather than just fill it on TV. And
they haven't taken that step, and I mean, I don't
know if they are going to take that step, And
perhaps you know, we should cut them some slack and say, oh,
they're just introducing this and they're gonna do something with
it down the road. But it's consistent with TNA, not

(17:55):
reinforcing what they introduced, exactly what you just said, Greg,
They don't revisit it, throw it out there, then they
move on. And that's what they did with this ranking system.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
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(18:29):
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Speaker 2 (18:37):
Let's go ahead and let's grab some phone calls. I
think Reg and I've kind of set the stage for
some t and a discussion if you want to call
in about that. Of course, WWEE with SummerSlam plans a
lot of TV being taped this week, so there's a
lot of spoiler discussion that could happen. But if you
want to talk about some spoilers going on, go ahead
and fore warn us so that the listeners have fans

(19:00):
to tune out of that part of discussion. So that's
just a fore warning for callers calling in, and of
course we'll talk to TNA. The number to call up
and join us is six four six seven two one
nine eight two eight. Let's go to our first caller today.
Let's go to the four one five area code four
one five. Welcome to the show. Please state today and
where you're from. This is Jonathan from San Francisco. Guys,

(19:23):
what's going on? Oh Jonathan, what do you have for us?

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Fit just got uh just like two questions. One is
why is Men's McMahon like kind of the villain in wrestling,
Like he takes like a lot of heat for a
lot of the wrestler's deaths, like whether it's from the
eighties and you know on up until this point and

(19:46):
to this day point and a lot of and there's
been like wrestlers that wasn't even associated with the wwfor WWE.
And the second question is why why though, well this
is a spoil alert, Why though Malina you know on
like do the tapment for Malina for next week? You know,

(20:07):
her big comeback and everything when they could have did
that after they came back from you know, the tour
that they're going to do in Australia and all that.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
So if you guys can answer that, that'd be appreciated.
Good question, Jonathan, greg Do you want to start with
the Vincent Man topic of why he gets a lot
of heat for I mean just a lot of health
issues that have gone in the rest in business the
last twenty five years.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah, you could write a book on h of this
this topic really yeah. Uh, to make it as short
as possible, this is Man is the industry leader. He
is the WWE is so far and above the most
visible pro wrestling and slash sports entertainment products out there

(20:53):
in the mainstream media that you know, when you think,
if you're a reporter, you think wrestling, you think Bence
smuck Man. A lot of people think that he has
the power to change things if things changed in WWE
unions or whatever. You know, cheer shots to the head
is something they've recently done. If things changed in WWE,

(21:15):
I think a lot of people think there would be
a triple down effect that would happen in you know,
whether it's the P and A or some of the independents.
I just think that he has, like I said, he
has the power, He has the money and the status
in pro wrestling to affect the change within the industry

(21:37):
or to be an industry leader in change, and he
just doesn't seem to be interested in doing that. And
I think that's why he gets a lot of the heat.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
I think that he has developed a reputation and I
think it's well earned for putting business ahead of people
and people's health and his wrestler's health. I mean, both
time scheduled that should have been something that should have
been addressed ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Just having a
mandatory offseason. I don't know why in twenty ten we're

(22:09):
still talking about ww does not have an offseason. It's
just it makes no sense. It's decisions like that that
are I mean, that's just one example of why McMahon
takes a lot of heat for a lot of wrestler
health issues in for wrestling. He's had the power to
change for a long time. In is sort of the

(22:32):
phrase that comes to mind is WB's reactive when they're
kind of forced into a corner and they're not really
that proactive historically proactive making changes when necessary or at
least when quite obvious to everyone except for rightman in
his inner circle, and he's maintained, I guess, a stranglehold

(22:53):
on an industry where he puts business ahead of people,
like I said, and he has that power for gooder
for the better or of the worst. McMahon has power
to make change or like you said, Greg set the
tone for change in this industry, and too often he's
just sort of he hasn't taken that responsibility. I mean,

(23:14):
he wants to have his cake and either he wants
to have the power to control what pro wrestling looks
like in twenty ten, yet he doesn't want to make
the necessary changes to protect the health of the wrestlers,
and that's why he takes a lot of flax. So yeah, Greg,
like he said, they can we can talk about this
for hours, just going back through the eighties and nineties

(23:34):
and today. But I mean that's kind of a summary
of it. On the Malina topic, I don't know why
they went ahead and did that at the TAKEE show
and didn't save that for a big surprise either at
Summer Slam or the Raw. I guess they have one
more live rob before Summer Slam, or why they didn't

(23:54):
do it on Monday when they had a live show,
or at least a relatively live show. I think it
was an hour delay. Craig, what's your take on the
way they introduced Mona on that tape show on Monday
that's gonna air this Monday? Uh? From San Antonio.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
I just don't think wwecs the Divas is something that
people would specifically tune in or would find a giant surprise,
uh if she returned. And I kind of got to
agree with him the way the Divas have been portrayed
that they're not that big of a drawing card where
people would say would watch raw and say, wow, I'm
glad they saved that Molina return for the non tape show.

(24:33):
I just don't think it's that big of a deal.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
You know why they didn't do it live on Monday.
Maybe that wasn't you know, where they were in the storyline,
or they felt that they were ready to uh have
her return. Maybe they they didn't feel that they needed
they needed to build another chapter in the story between
Morrison Debiassi before she returned, so that it could be
something as simple as that. But I don't really, I think,

(24:59):
of all the Thames to complain about, I think that's
really pretty low on the list of having her return
at a tape show. I just don't think the effect
of her returning out of tape show versus a live
show is really worth any kind of long discussion.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
No good points exactly on how they treat the Diva's division.
It's an afterthought, you know. Right now. The emphasis is
on that team seen in team next to the storyline
and Randy Orton and Shamus that those are their two
big selling points for Summerslams, and perhaps they want to
mix in Malina in a title match with Alisha Fox
had SummerSlam, and this is the way they thought would

(25:35):
be the best way to do it. So yeah, good
points on that, Greg. It is sort of low on
their priority list. On cal Molina is reintroduced, even though
I mean she's been off TV what seven months since
January the end of December, so I mean, you know,
I understand what Jonathan stand is that you want to
have a sense of anticipation or I mean, I guess

(25:55):
more of a surprise in this case. Now you get
the anticipation for a week, but if you're being Malina
or Davis fan. But I understand you want that surprise
that somebody comes back from an injury seven months later.
You want to kind of be surprised as you to
come back. But like I said, Greg, not not a
big priority was for item for w E. John Dean

(26:16):
is given any other question or.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
Follow Yeah, Like, next question is for the NXT season.
For this season their ratings is like, is like relatively
up from last seasons? And what do you guys think
for that reason? Is because you know, it's pretty much
like I guess there's more of entertainment value this season

(26:38):
than last season with the characters and stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
And why did John Cena go on his Twitter and
just pretty.

Speaker 5 (26:44):
Much bury Percy Walkins, like literally in front of all
his fans and pretty much the entire w W universe,
making a seem like he's literally to end all the
all when Johnsena is pretty much probably can like can't
even wrestle on the level of Percy Walker and that
they actually got in the ring together because Percy Watkins
is like literally ten ten times an athlete and John

(27:06):
cenas it's a it's.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
A good question, and Greg, I'll give you the n
next t one in a second. I'm gonna start with
with Percy Watson and Seena's comments. I think perhapsa sees
something in Watson and and he wants to sort of
light a fire under him. It's almost a reverse psychology. Uh,
let me go ahead and criticize him him openly because
I want to. I want to push him a little bit.

(27:30):
And I agree with what Tina said. What is that
Watson has really dependent on that? Oh? Yeah, neat. I
mean I didn't even do it right, but the catchphrases.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah, it's kind of like the man. I think that's
how I say it. Anyways.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, that's really good, Greg. Actually, I think it's you know,
I think Cina sees something in him, and he sees
somebody could be a strong entertainer on WWTV. They just
doesn't want to see him rust and as well on
his well or I can't even I never can say
that word. I don't know why I tried. Uh, the
sort of you know, just sort of do what he's

(28:08):
doing basically, which is the gimmick and the glasses and
the catchphrase.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
I think Cinnamander should try to let him fire under
him and call him out a little bit and say
you can do better than this, You're you're you're more valuable,
You're potentially more valuable to the w V than what
you're doing right now, which is just depending on that gimmick.
It was a little bit harder his criticism, but I
think it will help Watson if he really takes that
that criticism to it sort of applies it to how

(28:35):
he how he carries himself going forward, Greg, what do
you what do you attribute to you know, relatively decent
uh TV ratings for m x T in the last
four or five weeks consistently higher than season one. Is
it some of the program to cast the shorter season?
What do you what do you think it is that?

(28:55):
It's tough to say.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Because at this point I don't see a lot of differences,
which I mean season one season two. They're doing a
lot of the similar things, the eliminations, the the they've done,
the obstacle course, they've done, the Talk to Talk challenge,
They've done a lot of the similar challenges that they

(29:18):
did in season one, and there isn't a lot that
has changed between the two seasons. So I'm not really
sure what to attribute it to other than the fans
have a little more power in voting this season, and
I don't know if that's brought some fans around who
wouldn't normally watch if they wanted to watch to see
if the man they voted for surviv or not. The

(29:39):
other thing is the necess angle. That's the only other
thing I could think of that maybe drew more fans
in the season that the stands are seeing that the
NXT season one crew has such a vital role and
playing such a vital role on Raw, that perhaps a
lot of the Raw fans or SmackDown fans are tuning

(29:59):
in to NXT season two in the hopes that you know,
they see some of the big stars, like the ones
that are on NEXTUS now before they get to be
the big stars on Raw or SmackDown.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
That's a good point. I agree with that as definitely
a potential reasons. I think lay Cool perhaps is a
reason just drawing drawing in a different audience. I mean,
there was there one no female pros or rookies last season,
and perhaps lake Cool was drawing in some fans. I
think what you said, with the strength of the next
to the storyline on Raw, I think it's had more

(30:31):
of a caregiver effect, to see the next night, perhaps
to see who might be next, to go up to
go uh, to move to Raw and perhaps see part
of that storyline, or just to move to Raw in
general and sort of be part of that story before
they moved to the bigger brands. So yeah, I would say,
you know, it's probably a combination of a lot of

(30:52):
different factors, but it is a good sign and perhaps
that will get them a third season. It's just an
improved I mean, the overall TV viewership so far through
eight weeks, I believe it was one point three one
million viewers. Last season averaged about one point two six million,
So they're up in the average. They're up consistently a
week to week, and and that's a good sign. I

(31:15):
don't know where they're gonna end up if they new
end up having a third season. I don't imagine Sci
Fi once three hours of WW program in a week.
It does help their their their network average, that certainly helps,
but I don't know what the status of season three
is yet. That's kind of fascinating to see what happens
after the season. Let's go ahead and move on to

(31:37):
another caller. Let's grab the uh seven to one nine
Area code seven one nine. Welcome to the show. Please
stage name and where you're from. Daniel from Colorado, Hey, Daniel,
what do you have for a say?

Speaker 6 (31:51):
Hey?

Speaker 7 (31:52):
I read way BUSKNA Mtack Report And it's kind of
funny because he said about the whole h Jeff, Jared,
Kevin Nash like interview spot saying if anyone could explain
in five hundred words or less what this is about,
I'd like to hear it.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well. I don't think this is a spoiler word.

Speaker 7 (32:15):
This is more like a prediction. But I think it's
basically Jeff Jarrett, with the help of Eric Bischoff, got
fully fired, and I think that's where they're going. I mean,
what do you guys think?

Speaker 2 (32:28):
So Nash is suspending fully is that? Is that your theory?

Speaker 7 (32:33):
I think he just accidentally happened upon that information. He
was just you know, complaining about that he wasn't getting used,
and then all of a sudden, Jared came out and
then he like somehow discovered it. And I think it's
a really it seems like a simple storyline. It's just
they they took forever, They're they're taking forever to get

(32:58):
to the point they're asking the same question every single week.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, Greg, what's your take on what Daniels said? And
also just the current state of that Nash and Jared
storyline an impact.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Well, the timing would work out because Nick Foley just
returned a few weeks ago, so it would make sense,
and the timing, the timing standpoint of it, I just
don't think we've really seen anything hinted at that. I
think this is more maybe about Nash, Hogan Jared that
that circle than fully being involved. But that's just my opinion.

(33:32):
I mean, it's just so mundy. It's the same with
the same thing is no one can speak clearly and
say what they need and explain something without you know,
using metaphors and getting into convoluted explanations and.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
That kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
And it's so frustrated to watch because you can tell
TNA's trying very hard to make this interesting and to
you know, keep you guessing, but in doing so, they're
spinning an unnecessary web of complicatedness that really makes you
lose interest and not even care where they're going with it.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, that's that pretty sums it up. The complicated web
of unnecessariness.

Speaker 8 (34:17):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I have honestly no idea what I mean, even kind
of reading the spoilers for the next couple of weeks,
I still don't quite get what they're doing or who
they're trying to involve and how they're trying to trying
to involve them. And perhaps when they present it and
the announcers sort of hit some some talking points on
tonight's show and next week's show, it'll hopefully make some

(34:40):
more sense. But you know, trying to keep track of
these players and their past storylines and their past feuds
when there have been seven cents the previous ones, you know,
I mean, seeing thing's been off TV let's say what
two months now, and there's been probably three or four
different storylines that have come up since then, and you're
trying to keep track of what sing was doing before

(35:02):
that and how we can possibly be reinvolved in this.
And then yeah, make Foley he was fired and you
have to go back in your mind when he was
fired and how that's would play into this. So it's
just it's overly complicated for the sake of trying to
seem cute and we're smart and we want to hook
the audience on this story, but we really don't know
how to make it sense. We don't know how to

(35:23):
make it make sense yet if it's tangled and Daniel,
your theory is just as good as any other theory
I've heard, and how they could make this make sense.
So I'll give you credit for that. You gave us
an explanation that potentially couldn't make sense. And because I
don't know what else flipped, but did you even any
other question or follow up on that angle?

Speaker 7 (35:45):
Well, kind of a comparison. I mean, I do like
what they're doing with Nexus and everything on w w LEE,
but there is kind of a comparison with the mysterious
general manager and how they're.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Constantly teasing and asking the same.

Speaker 7 (36:01):
Question every week, Well who is he?

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Is he?

Speaker 7 (36:04):
Triple H?

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Is he? Roddie Piper? Is he?

Speaker 7 (36:06):
You know, it's it's gotten to the point where that's
become just as stale. It's not as bad as the
Derrick Nash thing, but it's it is becoming stale in
my opinion.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
I you know, when you said that, I thought about
what I mean. When that raw GM angle first started
be a it seemed like everyone's trying to guess, like, Okay,
what are his motivator or what are his or her motivations.
But let's say this person books so and so on
a match, does that mean that he or she's trying
to favor Nexus or trying to favor Shamus or trying

(36:38):
to favor Sena. And it's gone on so long where
you can't keep track off of and I'm not even
sure WWE is keeping track anymore of who this person
is favoring. I mean, I went to that house show,
the Raw House Show on Friday, and it just seems
like the raw GM is sort of a prop used
to set up, you know, different situations and bookings in

(37:00):
a different way of booking matches. It was, you know,
first it was the Mayors is going to defend the
US title against Mark Hennery, and that's how they first
used a raw GM on that house show. And then
the raw GM booked Nexus as Lumberjacks for c Uni
versus Shamus, and and you kind of lose track of
what this first time off as, which was, let's track

(37:23):
the motivations this GM might have. Who is he favoring,
who is he not favoring, Who is he trying to
screw it? Who is he trying to you know, sort
of give the benefit to it. And now it's just
so it's so tangled that you're just sort of waiting
for w just to reveal it. And and Greg, is
that kind of where you are? And I mean, are
you still trying to keep track of what the motivations

(37:43):
could be based on decisions made week to week or
are you just kind of taking it as well it's
a prop on raw until they reveal who that person is.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
I think because WWE doesn't even know who is going
to be at they've been trying to keep the GM
neutral because they don't like on to you know, end
up having a babyface be the GM be revealed as
the GM, when you know, they kind of showed heelish
tendency at the beginning favoring nexus. I think once we
get to a point where the GM starts maybe favoring

(38:15):
one side or over the other babyface or heel over
the other, I think that's when we can put two
and two together and think.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
That, Okay, maybe WWE does have an idea.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Now on who they want the big GM to be,
because like you said, you know we and I fully
expected you know it to be someone who you know
was on the heel side and was going to favor Nexus,
and it's the it's the GM thing is almost similar
to Nexus itself in what is their goal? You know,

(38:46):
Wade Barrett has kind of alluded to it on Raw
the past few weeks during these interviews about you know,
they have a mission, yet they're not telling anyone about it.
And when you try to track what they've been doing,
who they've been attacking every week, and trying to figure
out what they're out for, it gets very difficult. It
gets very kind of eluded, and you just kind of

(39:09):
forget about it and kind of put it out of
your mind or don't make it.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Out to be a big deal.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Unfortunately, when when and if it is revealed, it certainly
lessens the impact because you lost interest so long ago
because the hints they were giving didn't make any sense
or you know, they weren't giving strong enough hints.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Or whatever like that.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
So it's a very difficult situation and in all three situations,
I think, unfortunately, with all three, we're probably gonna be
disappointed by the end result.

Speaker 9 (39:42):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts.
Will come join me. Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at Pine Torch VIP as we mask on the
bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the
great matches and shows from around the world, be it US, Japan,
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(40:03):
in the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
such as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious
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love variety and you can expect lots of it at
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(40:26):
a list of all the VIP benefits is available at
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Speaker 2 (40:48):
And you also have they in TNA with abyss and
who they is or they are whatever.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
See I was never really intrigued about that at the beginning,
so that I can't be disappointed by that.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, that's probably a good idea, Greg, set low expectations
for that one. It could be the Prince Brotherhood Justice
League or whatever, or Shark Boy with with with the
with the Wade Barren thing, you know, Like you said, Greg,
they allude to this bigger picture, the sort of higher
power perhaps, And you know, it's one of the things

(41:21):
where are they trying to be you know, are they
just trying to blow this up out of proportion and
be just histrionic about it and make it seem like
there's some really big storyline coming down the road. Aren't
we supposed to raise expectations for it? Or is it's
sort of like John Cena going out there and cutting
the promo and saying, oh, you know, if we don't

(41:41):
conquer Nexus, they're gonna take it over the entire show,
and and Dodobe's gonna be, you know, burned down to
the ground. And you have Aran Anderson saying, oh, you know,
Nexus could take down the entire company. You know, it's
so hard to separate what is, you know, what is
authentic in these storylines, what is what's important and what
sort of just history onics where you're like ah, that
doesn't make that that's realistic, you know, And when they

(42:04):
do that with so many different elements of the story,
the audience just kind of sits there and they don't
emotionally invest because they don't know what they're supposed to
think seriously and what just seems like such an over
blown story that you just throw your hands in there
and you say them and I'm not gonna care until
they tell me what's going on. And when you have
too much of that happened at the same time, viewers

(42:25):
lose interest right now. They're not Radians are really strong
for Raw right now, I think mainly because the Nexus
angle and just sort of the how they stretch this
out over time. And you have Randy Orton just a
really hot babyface right now, so that's helps, so they
had that going for them. But I think over time
they've got to reveal one or the other, either a

(42:46):
bigger authority figure for Nexus or the Raw GM, and
it kind of get that out of the way and
move on. So you're listening to the ped B Torch
live cast. This says Peed to Me Torchy and editor
James Caldwell, joined by Torts Calmis, Greg Parks, down to
the last twenty minutes or so of the show's going

(43:06):
and jump on the follows and give us a call
to talk about WWT and a anything else on your
mind that I'm going to call is six four six
seven two one nine eight two eight. Let's go to
the five six two area code five six two. Welcome
to the show. Please station name all you're phones.

Speaker 6 (43:24):
Oh, it's Ray from Lambea TI. You guys doing today?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Get away? How are you doing?

Speaker 6 (43:29):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
I Uh, I was laughing this morning, Uh because I
got that Twitter room or I saw you guys on
your app, on your PW twych alf with our hotel game.
And then my friend texted me right in the morning goes,
yeah he did die, his career did.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
And then.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
We thought it was because I mean, I love Paul Koching.

Speaker 6 (43:46):
Don't get me wrong, I'm fretty dude fan, but I mean,
you have next is pulling in on the show, pulling
in five million reviewers.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Four five million viewers. I know it's not all.

Speaker 6 (43:57):
About mixes, but for the most part, this boy and
you got a guy who was once the leader of
the NWOL, leader of the WWS the old the eighties,
and he's only pulling in like, what, two million ratings,
you know what I mean, two million viewers at a time.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
I don't.

Speaker 6 (44:16):
By less than that.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 6 (44:19):
I'm just making up numbers at this point. But you know,
right now, have you guys even noticed that, you know,
instead of you know, I noticed the twenty five I
called the eighty three the eighty babies like us. I
don't know how the guys are, but the eighty days
eighty babies who grew up on the WWF are now
kind of understanding that now you know, these guys are

(44:40):
running the show now, Orton's son and the hard family,
these people are still we're still seeing the same names.
But I mean, are you guys see now that even
the people that we grew up liking, like holding that
are like all these guys, but they're just not We're
just not watching them anymore. That we are watching these
new names, even though some of them are the same.
I mean, but you guys noticing that we are now

(45:02):
watching these new people now, like at a higher rate
that we're watching Hogan Dholp all the people who are they?

Speaker 2 (45:09):
But yeah, I think right. You know, part of it
is it's TNA's platform that they just they don't have
exposure or awareness. I mean you can do I mean
you could. You can put John Cen on Impact and
they would probably just bump up the ratio a little
bit and go back down. That's just TNA does not

(45:31):
have the awareness, the platform, the consistent TV product to
draw interest. I mean, they brought in Hogan and they
popped the rating for a short period of time, and
now they're back down to the end result and you know,
in the middle of twenty ten is they're doing ratings
and viewership they were doing in No. Seven and O eight.

(45:52):
I mean, part of it is, you know, they have
a lot of older stars, but you can still have
older stars involved in the interesting storyline if you surround
them with the right type of booking, the right type
of mind to know what they're doing running the wrestling promotion,
and some younger stars that people will want to see
do something new greatly. What's your take on, I mean,

(46:14):
can you sing about Hogan as one of the main
reasons why TNA. I mean, for all intents and purposes,
they have they've come below expectations so far. In twenty ten.
There's just no two ways about it. They're off Monday nights,
they're doing ratings from seven to eight. What's your take
on how much you attribute that to Hogan and his
sort of crew of you know, WCW and nineteen eighties

(46:35):
type wrestlers.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
I wouldn't attribute a ton to it. I think, like
you said, Jay, it's more of TNA's platform. TMA just
isn't a well as well known brand as WWE and
hul Cogan. You know, whether teammates thought that or not,
was not going to add three million viewers a week
to TNA consistently enough to make any kind of difference

(47:00):
in their ratings as far as getting closer to what
WWE does on Monday nights. And at this point, WWE
could put on you know, just could have put it
on a show full of developmental guys, and they'll still
pull a rating with a ceiling higher than TNA's highest
because their WWE Monday night row people are just used
to watching Raw on Monday nights, you know, no matter

(47:22):
what is on there. So you know, on one hand,
but it is kind of funny to look at, say
a group of nobody's who have never done anything in
their wrestling business. Are leading a show that is whooping Impact,
which features guys established stars like Van Dam and Hogan and.

Speaker 10 (47:38):
Guys like that.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
But when you when you add in all the variables
that go into the ratings for these two shows, you
kind of look at it and see, Okay, well, yeah
Hogan is on here, but he's not wrestling much, so
there isn't that kind of attraction to it. They're you know,
TNA is still as far as they've come, and it's

(48:00):
come very far. It's still a name that is not
known to the majority of mainstream fans the way WWE is,
and they just don't have you know, they'd have their
core audience like ww is, but it's nowhere near WWE's lowest.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
You know, yeah, definitely. I like the analogy we had
on the ceiling. I mean TNA has a ceiling of
probably I mean, their highest rating ever I think was
where one point five about their about one point five.
That's that's as high as they've gone, and they've never
really come close to that on a consistent basis. I mean,

(48:35):
I think the most consistent ratings they ever did were
about a mid one point three over about February of
last year. I think they did about one point three
one point four for about five or six weeks, and
and that's one point five is pretty much their ceiling,
I mean gonna be you know that they've kind of
capped off where their audience is. But like you said, Gregor,

(48:57):
they could put a lot of different young guys on
their main show like we see in Nexus and make
it work. It's all about to be presented and who
you're surrounding those guys with, and can you mask the
fact that, yeah, these guys are young and inexperience and
they don't have championships. They weren't on TV during the
Attitude the era, they didn't headline pay per views, they've
never been on pay per view in a match. But

(49:18):
if you can market it as something new, interesting and
different and something that you want to be part of
and you want to watch, then yeah, it could work.
And TNA just hasn't been able to hit their stride
on getting an audience to be part of something consistently
that's hot and happening, then you need to be part
of it. It's just it hasn't been there consistently this year. Ray,

(49:40):
we appreciate that Paul, We're gonna move on to another caller.
Let's go to the nine to one to Oho area
code nine to one. Oh, welcome to the show. Please
say trn't know where you're from. Oh, yes, Hannible, I
don't want good handler. Are you doing good to hear
from me? Everything's going okay?

Speaker 4 (49:55):
Okay? You any think all day?

Speaker 2 (49:56):
This from the offspite TV Conford real power naming yet. Yeah,
that was sort of in the news from Comic Con
that Spike and Hayman we're talking about some project. I
don't remember the details or specific ton it. Greg, Do
you remember anything anything more on that or you write
anything more about Hayman and Spike possibly working on something?

Speaker 4 (50:18):
I haven't.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
No, That's not something I've come across lately, so I'm
not sure you know if if there are any updates.
I have certainly ever heard any.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, I heard something just very I just kind of
came across something. I haven't really looked much into it
since I came across it a couple of days ago,
so I need to look into that. Uh, Handimon, do
you have any other question or follow up all on
Hayman or Spike?

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Okay, I guess I mean, you know, I mean, have
got heard the information by that converteen him and Die Collector.
I heard it.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
You know that Paul Hanman was like, you know, bashing
the product and all that he will do a real
button the Chicado.

Speaker 10 (50:55):
He was saying that he wants to set up far
off with developing new talent.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
He want to put you know, up and coming talent
and the main you know off thought of the company,
you know Goodcording.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
To what I read on I think roughly it is
not a pulse with have site.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
I think we're with Hayman. I mean basically what he
said in that interview with Dave Meltzer and Brian Elbas
on their observer, the interview that he said during UFC
won sixteen week and is pretty much what he said
to Dixie Carter, that that sort of I don't know,
unofficial job interview or strategy session or strategy plan. Now

(51:29):
he's gonna be critical of that product. I just don't
think that Dixie Carter is ready to accept or or
willing to accept criticism on the product. She is strongly
backing Vince Russo. I mean she has done that for
five years now, consistently back to Russo. Whenever there's been
issues with creative, whenever Jim Cornett was there, she backed Russo.

(51:51):
Whenever there's been any hint of dissension, she has back
to Vince Russo. She's not willing to accept necessary change.
It also extends beyond. It's also production. It's marketing. It's
how you shoot that show, and it's how you're presented,
how you market it. I had an entire column on
that and last week's sorts newsletter for the PDF version

(52:11):
for Torch v IP members. After being in Orlando and
seeing their tape show versus what they produce on TV,
it's just it's different, and not in a good way.
They don't take advantage of what they tape at their shows,
and I think that hurts their product as well. So
there are changes that need to be made in you know,
key areas of creative and marketing and production, and they

(52:34):
have not been made. And Paul Haman expressed that, and
it Phil Dish thinks that or is led to believe
or believes for herself that changes need to be made.
You know, Hayman is not going to come in. I mean,
Hayman wants pretty much full blown controls and to make
those big changes like I just identified, Greg, have you
heard anything more this week about Hayman and TNA and

(52:57):
are they close to a deal or do you think
they're more distant than they ever were before In the
last month or so, I'm.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Guessing it probably hasn't changed a lot. The one thing
to keep in mind is, you know, with with Dixie
Carter steadfastly standing behind vincerew So, I think to keep
in mind is vincerou So from reports that we've read,
is someone who is willing to step away from creative
and take the role elsewhere behind the scenes, whether it
be in production or whatever. So, you know, keeping Vince

(53:30):
Trusso around, which is clearly something that Dixie Carter wants
to do, it is not a from what I understand,
is probably not a barrier to entry for Paul Haman.
I mean, he could just simply be reassigned and woul
probably like to be reassigned elsewhere in the company. So
you know, even though she is wanting to keep vincecru So,
that may not necessarily keep Paul Hayman out.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
That's true, that's true. Good point. So Greg, let's go
on and grab another phone call handim. We appreciate that call.
Let's go to the four O two area code four
oh two. Welcome to the show. Please stay your name
where you're from. I know it's real, that's who it is.

Speaker 10 (54:10):
And there you go.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
I finally got you. What do you have for us today?

Speaker 10 (54:16):
Well, first of all, James, if I remember correctly, you have.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
An iPhone, right, I do have an iPhone. Do you
every time you watch wrong.

Speaker 10 (54:25):
And the GM goes off, do you automatically think you
got a text message?

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Every single time? I'll tell you a funny story because
my wife and I both got iPhones at the same
time when we up created our phones, and she has
a raw GM buzzing sound as her text messaging sound,
and so every time she gets a text ring raw,
I look up to the TV and then all of
a sudden I see her texting. So, uh, it's it's

(54:53):
just it's every I mean, it's consistently. We've had our
iPhones for about, I guess two months now, and it's
I guess the raw GM thing has been going on
for about almost just that long. So I mean, honestly,
every single row episode I look up and middle the
show because I think the raw GM is doing something.
So if recappin it says if I'm reading your recappin

(55:14):
and it says row GM, never mind, I know what
it is. I actually almost did type that. Once I
had to I had to delete it. I started to
type rog gim, I wait and that's my wife's soone. Yeah,
so yes, that has happened to me many times. Yeah.
Did you have anther any other question or comment? Real?
I do. Sorry, don't worry about some story I like

(55:36):
to share other than that. I was wondering both you
guys opinion on this.

Speaker 10 (55:41):
I was thinking today about Scott de Moore. I know
he used to be in TNA, and I if I
remember great that he did have some backtap le TNA
as well. Would he be a viable option for taking
over booking if things will Paul Hayman.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Paul through Greg, what do you think about where the
more could fit in with with TNA if he didn't
come back to that company.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Well, I will say I think that the first time
I ever ever heard of sentence start with I was
thinking today about Scott DeMar That's that's what that was
frightening to.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Hear at all.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
I I don't think i've ever found myself in that
situation where I've just been sitting thinking about Scott Tamar.
But aside from that, I do feel like his time
booking Tam and he's got the experience, he's He's been
around a lot of the wrestlers who are still in
TNA from the time when he had a book before

(56:37):
Vince Ruso got there. Uh, and from what I recall,
Histon wasn't terrible. Uh. I don't think. I don't know
that he's an option because I don't know that Dixie
Carter would be looking for somewhere else unless Vince Rusolle
stepped down. I think it's it's t it's Paul Hayman
or write out Vince Russo until you know he just

(56:58):
can't take it anymore, involuntarily ups down, which sounds like
it's not something he is one hundred percent prepared to
do right now, he's willing to do it. It sounds
like if you know, someone comes along that that can
really shake things up. But I don't know that he
was step beside for a guy like Scott the Moore,

(57:18):
But you know he is he is something somebody could consider.
He's not someone that's going to revolutionize TNA the way
that a lot of people think Paul Hayman can. But
you know, he's somebody.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Who could probably take the book from.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
From Vince Russo and things wouldn't change a whole lot.
I think he should see some change in some things,
but you wouldn't get the drastic change like you will
get with Vince. With Paul Hayman.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, I think the more you know, I don't see
a TNA or DIXI card giving the more you know
sort of booking control like she would Paul Hayman. I
think Paul Hayman comes in with a lot more reputation
for you know, he's just he has the reputation for
being able to run a promotions booking aspect of these
of you. The more you know he has less booking experience,

(58:03):
I think he'd be a fresher. I mean, let me
say this, I don't know what Hayman's big idea for
TEENA would be, So I don't know if he has
fresher ideas that the more would have. Who's never really
had a major hand in booking a national promotion. He's
never really been given an opportunity. I think Christ Jericho
talking about that. In an interview this week where he
was asked, there would be your fantasy bookers if you

(58:26):
want to start a promotion, he listed guys who really
haven't had a chance to have a major stay in
a national promotion. He listed, you know, predictably lists of
Canadians Don Callas and Lance Storm and Scott the Moore.
But those are you know, those are three names that
really haven't been given a major opportunity to book a
national promotion. I think it would be I think it

(58:46):
would be interesting to see what Damore could do with
some other people around him and hopefully not lead to
more Team Canada stuff. I don't think he'd do that,
but you know, the more is interesting, and he's kind
of doing the Canadian independent scene right now. But I'd
like to, you know, I'd like to see that. I'd

(59:07):
just like to see what he has to contribute. I
think it'd be interesting.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
So thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the
next level with a VIP membership, get shows like this,
the Way Killer Prosing Podcast, Weight Killer Prosing Post Show,
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(59:33):
Todd Martin, Everything with Rich Fan and The Fix with
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slash go vip.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Well, do you have the announce seconds?

Speaker 2 (59:56):
No, no, not at all. Actually, thank you guys, answer
the lush all right, we appreciate that, and a good
proplet for the iPhone story. I'd like to share that story.
So we're down to the last minute or so of
the show. We'll get out some final plugs for p
tob Toorch dot com. In our live coverage of TNA
Impact tonight as well as ww Superstars coming up in

(01:00:19):
an hour and a half, I'll be covering the epic
matchup of MVP and Rabo Camara. Second, we also just
posted the NXT roundtables, Greg, you just posted those from
our Torch staff. Also the whole Coagan rumor we talked
about the top of the show, Linna McMahon back in
the news. We look talking about dat in regards to
her send an opponent. Gregor and I were talking about

(01:00:40):
that in the VIP after show, as well as some
other topics in the news. And Sean Michaels is back online.
I guess he never really was online to begin with,
but he is online now with a new YouTube video.
You can watch that on p tobtorch dot com. All
kinds of good stuff for the Torch VIP members for
this week's Towards newsletter. Actually just got the hard copy
in the mail today. I've been reading the hard copy

(01:01:01):
version of our online Torch newsletter that's available for p
B Torch VIP members. All that good info is available
at pdb torch dot com slash go vip. Greg you know,
I guess the live cast coming up in about ten seconds.
Thanks everyone for joining us today and we will talk
to you tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Thank you for using blog talk radio.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Goodbye, all right by you and are now in the
VIP Actors Show. A portion of today's show, I wanted
to bring up to you the lin McMahon news from today,
which is that it seems like there's been a shift
in the Republican battle for that Senate seat in Connecticut.
It seem like limit Man pretty much had that race,

(01:01:55):
the Republican nomination, and that race pretty much to herself.
It was like she was just gonna run, run with
that nomination. All of a sudden, Rob Simmons is back
in contention with the leading the leading newspaper in the
state endorsing him today. And then you also have you know,
Richard Blumenthal down down the road for the actual race
in November. And then you have Peter Shipp, the the

(01:02:17):
third party in this Republican race, Uh, you know, sort
of releasing an interesting attack. Adam McMahon, What do you make, uh,
whether macmon has anything to really worry about when it
comes to the the nomination process in August or do
you think that's you know, this is sort of sort
of a bump of the road and to make things

(01:02:38):
interesting for the polling uh coming up in August.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
I think it's much more than a bump in the
road Rob Simmons to get uh, the the nod by
the Hartford Current, which is and I it's leading newspaper.
Over McMahon, I think that's a that's a pretty big blow.
It's just it's shocking that, you know, she has spent

(01:03:05):
so much money and I think a record for a
for a Senate campaign.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
At least in a state.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
It's just she's still looking like she's way behind Bluementhal
correct me if I'm wrong. Last time I look, she's
she's pretty far behind him and the Quinnipiac polls that
have been released, and now she's got to deal with
Simmons back in the race again, who initially dropped out.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
I mean, you know, oriinally does.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
An opponent who drops out and then comes back in
still get the nomination. I mean a lot of questions
you got to answer there as far as as far
as if they're in it for the long haul, and
you know why he quit in the first place. So
it's something that she's going to have to deal with.
It's more than another bump in the road for her.
It's more like another giant speed bump. And I really

(01:03:52):
do not like her chances come November. And you know,
there was a time, really early on I thought that
she had a really.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Decent chance and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
Was surprised at how well she was doing despite her
lack of political background. But now it's just it's not
looking good in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, I want to read what The Current wrote about
about McMahon. She said that they when they sort of
announced the editorial decision to endorse Simmons, and I mean slightly, man,
I mean, they pretty much just slighted her even though
she has a nomination. I don't know if it was
you know, sort of politically motivated to say, you know,
we're not going to endorse someone just because they have

(01:04:34):
money and they haven't proven themselves, which you know, in
McMahon's case, she really hasn't proven that she has the
political jobs yet. I mean, she's depended on her her
hired campaigners to sort of clean up any messes and
also to help her. She's gotta help guide her and
walk her through a lot of these sort of campaign
issues and how to address you know, hot topics and

(01:04:58):
in political circles. And they sure really hasn't shown the
ability to stand out on her own. Plus what you
know what the heart for Current road And I'm just
gonna read what they wrote. She said, missing we clearly
has leadership skills in business, Moxie. She has the ability
to definitely handle rhetorical fastballs that's amazing, amazing phrase there.

(01:05:20):
But if they strike against her that she won't she
won't test her capacity to withstand hostile questions in additional
debates with the rivals. I think that's a response to
McMahon turned down a debate with I think Simmons and
Shift today. I think it was going to air on
Connecticut TV today and she turned down the debate. So
perhaps that's what they're talking about there. They continue further

(01:05:44):
doing to be schlocky, off color content is not everyone's
cup of tea. As one of her ads that fits
to the extent that voters believe unfailure, not that the
content or her business enterprise reflects her values. It distracts
from her campaign. There's a big picker. Likewise, any new
width of scandal could damnage her candidacy, as if they

(01:06:07):
haven't been enough already from her past history. So, Greg,
what's your reaction to what what the currents said about
why they kind of endorsed Simmons hesitantly and what they
said knocking McMahon in their in their statement.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Well, mc manner refusing to participate in their debates says
two things to me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
It says.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
She doesn't feel that she's uh got enough political experience
to go toe to toe with these politicians.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
You know, she's painting herself as not a politician before.
But you know, in debates, a lot of it is
very you know, how you handle yourself in debates to
something politicians just know how to do. And I don't
think Linda has that kind of experience where she feels
comfortable with that.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
And the other thing is, I think a.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
Lot of people don't really know her view of the issues.
That could have been an opportunity for in the debate
to really give her view of the issues instead of
just being Linda McMahon, the lady from Rustling who's running
for Senate, which I think is a lot of how
people view her. But I think the the big phrase
to me is that, uh, the extent that voters believe,

(01:07:19):
unfairly or not the content of her business enterprise reflects
her values, it distracts from her campaign message. And I
think that is that it is true, and I think
that is a bigger reason why her campaign is struggling
right now.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Yeah, you make a great point on that we don't
know what she stands for. I think there's really been
maybe two interviews or at least news stories where she's
identified what she stands for, what her political views are,
other than you know, she's conservative physical fiscally, she's fiscally conservative.
And I believe she said that she's pro choice, uh,

(01:07:53):
but I think only only uh but she's anti anti
She she does than to approve of same sex marriage,
I think was how she appraised it. But those are
really the only two interviews I can remember where she's
kind of talked about her political views and what she
would bring to Washington the rest of the time.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
And you know, you know what scary Jeeves is you're
somebody who that's all these articles with Linda mcmannon them.
I mean to post them on the tarsh You anytime
there's an interview with Glinda comes out, you know you
you read it and you post it. So if there's
anyone who has read all of these articles, all of
these interviews with Linda, it's you. And for you to
be only to be able to name a few of these,

(01:08:34):
it's very telling about what she has revealed in these interviews.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
It's true, I've had to read you a lot of
crap stories, and the stories, well, that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Also, Yeah, it's man, you hear, That's that's how it is.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Yeah, And some of the stories that are written, they're
just like, I mean, are you still in the eighties
where you're still the baby, whether resens real or not.
I mean, some of these mainstream reports so ee rolling that.
You know, that's part of my job is to sift
through a lot of this stuff. But yeah, I mean,
like you said, I get pretty much everything out there
on Nimahn the last I mean, what nine months she's

(01:09:10):
been a campaigning her stuff. Probably more than that, it's
almost been a year. I'd say, maybe more than a year,
I don't know, or at least in the race. But
everything is sort of her background in wrestling, because that's
the only thing you can write about because ay, she
doesn't think it really express what her political views are
to an extent of where you know, where she stands
on every major topic. And b she hasn't owned up

(01:09:33):
to her past. You know, they wouldn't be writing all
these stories about her wrestling past if at the very beginning,
from the start, she addressed all the main issues that
would be coming up. And still here we are, you know,
almost a year later, and she's still in denial mode
about a lot of the past wrestling issues, and if
she just would have owned up to it from the

(01:09:54):
beginning and say, you know what we made mistakes in
the past, and how we did it, how we handle business.
A lot of my money came from some of these,
some of these poor decisions. But I believe that I
can contribute to Washington. I believe I've learned from a
lot of the mistakes I made in how I handled business.
I learned from how we let this culture of wrestling

(01:10:15):
get out of control, where we had too many deaths.
Even if we had only five, that was five too many.
You know something, some sort of talking point that would
that would really resonate with viewers. Instead, it's just been denied.
I mean not viewers, voters. It's been denied. I deny, deny.
We have no culpability, we have no blame. You know,
we're passing the buck on everything. We wouldn't be in

(01:10:37):
this position. She could be talking about what her view
is on VP or on Wall Street, or you know,
financial messes or crisis or foreign policy, or what she
would do in Washington didn't clean it up. Instead, we're
still talking about wrestling because she hasn't known up to it.
It's amazing here we are a year later and she
still is in denial mode. I guess it's gone on

(01:10:58):
so long that she can't go out now and say, oh, yeah, well, yeah,
I'm sorry. I guess these things happened in the past,
and I've learned from what from the mistakes. She can't
say there were mistakes made because she's been denying that
for a year, So she's kind of trapped in this
corner where she can't avoid the issue because she didn't
own up to in the beginning.

Speaker 8 (01:11:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
So, like you said, Greg, I'm really interested to see
if this materializes and it's something where it's more than
just if it becomes something that affects her candidacy for
the Republican nomination, not even looking ahead of the general election,
and whether it affects the August election. I'm very interested
to see how it affects it. With all this maneuvering

(01:11:42):
by Rob Simmons last two weeks or so, Greg, let's
talk about a couple other topics in the news. Sean Michaels.
He's been a big topic with speculation on whether w
B is sort of trying to avoid using his likeness
on TV, whether they're at OZ with Michaels he gets

(01:12:04):
the left early, or he was upset with Brian Nangelson.
Thing my inclination on this is that, you know, I'm
sure that w W would like that Michael's back. I'm
sure they would bring him back if he made himself available.
I don't see there being any tension or any issue.
They're obviously that they're featuring him with the Undertaker for
this WrestleMania special on NBC next month, and then he's

(01:12:30):
he kind of has his own presence online now with
the launch of his YouTube and the Twitter and in
the website. What's your take where Michael stands. Do you
anticipate him coming back to TV in the foreseeable future
six months from now, perhaps Hall of Fame next year,
perhaps never coming back until a later Hall of Fame induction. Uh.

(01:12:51):
Once you're taking where Michael stands right now with WWE.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
I think he said it best is that you know,
if he wanted to return, WWE would take him back
in a heartbeat. But I think from WWE's side, there's
a sense that, Okay, well he doesn't want to come back,
we'll turn the page. We'll move on from him, and
we'll kind of just you know, not mentioned him for
a while because you know, what's they're gonna do. I mean,
it's just going to remind people that, oh, yeah, I

(01:13:15):
remember when Sean Michael was here, he was good. Why
did he leave again? And they'll kind of distract from
what they're trying to do. So I don't know if
this is much a malicious thing. Maybe a little petty
on WWE's part for you know, him leaving and still
still it's kind of not necessarily at the top of
his game, but near the top of his game certainly,
And I think there might be a sense that WWE says, Okay,

(01:13:38):
you know, if he doesn't want to be here, we
won't acknowledge him, and we'll just move on from him
and kind of focused on the stars of the next generation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
I agree with that. I mean, that's that's what I been.
It's perhaps been interpreted wrong that you know, the interpretation
is from some reports that you know, to be like
man Man Michael's are sort of at odds with each other.
But properly you just said, Greg, it's they're turning the
page on the past and they're turning the page on

(01:14:10):
that generation and they're trying to focus more on Nexus
and NXT, and you know, there are other younger stars
on SmackDown, and it's been interpreted as a negative when
you know, I think it's a good business move. You
can't hold onto that pass so that person's not gonna
be around, and if that person's not gonna make money
for you've got to focus on who you have and

(01:14:32):
make the most money with those people. So I'm more
of interpreted, like you said, Greg, that it's definitely moving on.
Michael has contributed a lot to that company and now
they have to turn the page and kind of move
to the next chapter. So yeah, I'm in agreement with
you on that final topic, and we'll wrap it up
for today. NXT on Tuesday, they eliminated Eli Cottonwood, and

(01:14:56):
I bring this up because I just came across this
very interesting story the River Falls Journal. I'm not sure
what state this is in Wisconsin, Ah, that that makes
sense because it's about Eli Cottwood. I think he's from Wisconsin.
They have a story on Eli appearing on NXT and

(01:15:18):
his quote is I haven't been voted off yet. We
haven't vote coming up this week, and I had we
have five weeks remaining or we have five weeks left,
so obviously it's a dated story because he was voted
off this week. So poor Eli. He counted his chickens
before they hatched. But it's something that leads into too
NXT this week. What's your take on Eli being eliminated

(01:15:41):
and were you surprised? Was it who you thought would
be eliminated at What was your take on this week's
elimination show?

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
I thought he should have been eliminated first, so I'm
certainly not said to see him, though I certainly don't
disagree with the decision to eliminate him here, depending on
whether or not the voting is is up to snuff
or not. And maybe this is me being naive thinking
that as the actually is, but I thought they would
have kept him around a little longer because of his
size and because of his unique look and his ability

(01:16:13):
to differentiate himself physically from a lot of the other
competitors on NXT.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
So I thought, if it was truly.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Fixed, I thought he would have lasted a little longer.
But I don't know who they would have gotten rid
of it in his stead, perhaps lucky Cannon. I think
Husky Harris is a guy they seem to see something
in and certainly I do too. His match, his entering
work is it's not that it's bad, it's just that

(01:16:44):
he looks so lost at times in the ring. It's
hard to watch, and you know, you see there's a
nugget of promise there, but he's got a look he
still got a long way to go to look like
a natural and look like he feels comfortable in the ring,
I think is the problem. So I think he's a
guy they kind of like, and obviously being Microtunda's son
does not hurt him. Uh So, you know everybody above that,

(01:17:07):
you're Alex Riley's, your Caval's, your Michael mcgilli cutties. They're
obviously guys who are going to have a big impact
in my opinion in WWE after an XT, whether they
win or lose. So you know, they kind of cut
the fat at the bottom with it with the Titus
O'Neills and the Eli Cotton was and presumably in the
next few weeks, Lucky Cannon, maybe Husky Harris, but it's

(01:17:31):
gonna come down to the final few weeks. It's really
going to be interesting to me because I think there's
it's a kind of a top heavy show at this point,
with about four guys at the top, we could all
have a chance to win it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
Yeah, you're exactly right. I think, you know when you're
talking about I kind of made my top four who
I think will last to I mean really hell really
dow to finish, whether it's the final four or they
get it down to three guys or two guys. I
think Riley and Hitting and caval And and Husky Harris
are probably gonna be do those last four guys in

(01:18:04):
this mix? And you know, last year was very clear
cut it was either Wade Barrett or Brian Danielson I
was gonna win the contest. And this year, like you said,
I think it's four guys who have legit chance to win,
depending on how it works and how the voting works.
Like you said, we don't know if it's on the
up and up or if it's something they just kind
of make up and loosely defined based on a vote

(01:18:26):
plus you know, the pros and sort of an an
online vote plus the pros and however they come up
with their votes, so it's very loose and sort of
open to speculation on exactly how they come up with
these rankings, but just kind of, you know, you kind
of get a sense of what they're trying to do,
and those would be my four that I would see. Yeah,

(01:18:48):
I was gonna surprised to got run to Eli a
little bit, just because, like you said, they could have
done some more stuff with the big man little man stuff.
And then of course they would be likes to have
guys of different shapes and size on their program. Now
all the guys are kind of, you know, other than
Husky Aris, who's got that you know that that that
bigger size, everybody else kind of looks about the same size.

(01:19:11):
Everybody's about, you know, five to nine to uh six
one about two fifty two thirty in the weight department.
So I don't know. I thought they would have kept
him around for just for some different looks of their
talents on that show. But at least you're kind of
down to more of who the really talented guys on
the roster, or at least on the NXTD show. U.

(01:19:33):
I imagine Lucky Cannon's probably next. I think he's next
to go. I don't see him laugh in past an
ext elimination whatever that is. So regge any other across
in NXT or or did you cover all you wanted
to say?

Speaker 3 (01:19:47):
I don't think we got it on UH if you
folks who are listening are still hungering for our opinions
further on NXT. Like James said during the UH during
the live cast, the act round tables are off on
pow torch dot com for your perusing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
There you go, good segue there, Greg clost to those
right before we came on the air. So our NXC
around table evaluations, going more in depth on the show
is in print form on p tw b torch dot com.
So Greg, I think we've about covered on the big
news of today and we'll definitely look forward to seeing
what happens on Impact tonight and seeing that first or

(01:20:23):
I guess that next round of heights for the Hardcore
Justice pay per view. I guess the first official height
for Hardcore Justice since it was just hard Justice last
week's Impact, so that should be tonight yep, MVP. Yeah,
so all the casual TV fans are in for a

(01:20:44):
big shock when they changed the name of the pay
per view. That's a last week's show, So TN A
there you go. Yeah, alright, Greg, Yeahna, all right, Greg,
appreciate you joining me today. We'll also check out your
coverage of SmackDown on Friday, Big show coming up tomorrow,

(01:21:04):
so we'll see your coverage of that this weekend on
pbetorch dot com. So for Greg Parks, this is James
Caldwell signing off.

Speaker 11 (01:21:18):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT eight years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 12 (01:21:33):
Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT Talks
NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
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Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
To the PW Torch Live cast. This is p TOW
Torch assistant editor James Caldwell hosting today on Friday, July
of the thirtieth, and I'm joined by Sports Nostalagia columnist
Brian Hoops. Brian, how are you doing today?

Speaker 4 (01:22:06):
I mean I'm doing great. Glad that it's a Friday
and we're getting close to the weekend. How's it going, James,
It's doing well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
The sun's out, there's there's no TNA today, so it's
one of the good stuff going on today. Brian, I
want to kind of jump on the first topic today
being TNA impact. Last night a show that might have
been one of the worst in a while. I think
it is put in it nicely. I just the first

(01:22:34):
hour we're had like no redeeming quality or value to it.
What was your take on the overall show and in
some of the angles that that played out on last
night's show?

Speaker 4 (01:22:44):
Well, in agreement with you, I thought it was one
of the worst episodes that we've seen in a long time.
And there is, you know, some major glaring problems with
this company, and that was associated last night.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
With the with the broadcast.

Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
You know, if you want an example of why fans
are tuning away from wrestling and moving into a sport
to like MMA or some other sports, do they want realism?
I mean, look at that angle with Eric Young and
Orlando Jordan. I mean, that's that's not an angle in
my opinion that if you're a wrestling fan and somebody

(01:23:19):
walked in the room, saw you watching TV. You'd be
embarrassed to have the TV on and watching wrestling, because
you know, that's just something that's just just terrible. And
I just hated it, and there's nothing good to be
coming out of that angle whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Agree. I mean, that was one of those embarrassing moments
with NA that I thought at the very very least
they had kind of gotten away from that and especially
Eric Young's character, that they moved away from those silly
mannequin type skit where it's just it has no value
on a wrestling show, and they brought it back. And
one of the other complaints within that complaint is the

(01:23:57):
use of palat Samoa Joe was a featured act on
last week's show. This week, Samo and Joe was nowhere
to be found his match with Jeff Hardy on last
weeks show and no follow up. This week. We get
Eric Young and Orlando Jordan just randomly inserted into the show.
There was no context to their backstage segments where all
of a sudden, Eric Young is, you know, it takes

(01:24:18):
a buff off the head and he's got a concussion
deal going on. Why was that there? Why did that happen.
There was no explanation for that. And then you have
you know, Eric Bischoff randomly returning Hukog and randomly returning
like I said, no Samo and Joe, no follow up
on any of their big matches recently. It's a mess.
It's a total mess. And you know, it's so consistent

(01:24:43):
in TNA, where we'll have a series of shows that
will feature at a certain set of talent and the
very next set of shows will have a completely different
set of talent, and it'll it'll feel like Night and
Day had just two different promotions in two different shows.
It's almost like a Ron and SmackDown brand from week
to week. And you can't build an audience that way,

(01:25:06):
you know, Brian, It's it's frustrating. It's just watching that
show and that product.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
Maybe it was a good thing that Tamojo wasn't on
that show last night. He came him away.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Yeah, it just amazes me. I mean that that first
hour was one of the worst hours of TV from
any rust in promotion this year. I mean, you know,
I mean w B had w B probably had the
worst show of the year when the Nexus angle started.
They had that three hour show you know, sort of
Santino and Cosloff doing the comedy and they had the

(01:25:41):
voting and the fans were supposedly voting on matches like
Taboo Tuesday, and that was you know, that was three
hours of horrible programming followed by the start of the
Nexus Angle. And it's, uh, it's amazing what a difference
that promoted that that the Raw brand has had just
kind of it was just such a true transition from
a lot of filler comedy craft to this Nexus angle

(01:26:05):
that world had taken off and here TNA, I mean,
just an absolutely horrendous hour of TV to start that
show from One of the other elements of that was
a random announcement of Beer Money joining Fortune with Rick
Flair and the random announcement that hey, we're gonna drop
the global title introduce the TV title with aj Sealth
serve of announcing that, and I thought the crowd reaction

(01:26:27):
was so appropriate for that announcement. There was no no backstory.
It was just we're gonna drop the global title and
here's the TV title, and the crowd was Dead Quiet,
the easiest crowd in wrestling. The TNA Impact Zone was
Dead Quiet's announcement of a title, change the name of
the actual title, mainly because title is not mean anything
in TNA. Rob Van Daming, you won't even know that

(01:26:51):
he's a TNA champion. Based on last night's show, you
wouldn't even know that there is a TNA title. It's
just one thing after another with that show last night.
That was a complete disay faster and brid what's your
take on them introducing a TV title and dropping this
this global title, which there's a lineage back to when
Booker T just introduced a Legends title just because he

(01:27:14):
felt like in the storyline context he puts. Your take
on the TV title.

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
Well, you know, we've talked about making that thing into
a TV title, so maybe maybe they're listening to live
cast because we've talked about it several weeks in a
row that that would be the smart thing to do,
was to make it into that. But you know, look
how this this title is introduced in the first place.
First it was a Legends title with Booker T introducing
it and no other support or story behind it. And

(01:27:42):
then you've got renaming it the global title. Now, who
gives aj Styles the authority to rename it whatever he wants?
You know, why can't Rob Van Dam renamed the world
title into anything else as well? I mean, so, you know,
proud reaction, nothing to it whatsoever, Nobody cares. I think
it's you know, overall, it's probably a good move to
go away from Global into more of a TV title.

(01:28:04):
Hopefully it'll be defended on TV and nowhere else at
a house show or even a pay per view.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
Doesn't need to be defended on there.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
It needs to be defended just on TV. Keep it
on TV. But I just was the thing that struck
me when when I watched that is, you know, why
does Aj Styles dictate what he wants to call the
belt and why does TNA go along with recognizing it
that way?

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
I agree? I mean, I mean, did TNA actually ever
recognize the Global title? I guess they did because they
listed Styles of being sort of the Grand Slam Champion
of the company, So I guess they did recognize that title.
But so if TNA is quote unquote recognizing the title,
like you said, Ryan, what gives Styles the authority to

(01:28:47):
change the name of the title. I mean, it makes
no sense. And then he says he says, I'm going
to defend on every TV and every pay per view,
which goes against exactly what you just said, which is
that that belt should be reserved for TV. It should
be a prestigious title that is saved for the weekly
TV show, and there are people actually fighting for an

(01:29:08):
opportunity to face style for that belt, and the way
they introduce it in such a random segment on last
night's show, it gives me no confidence that that belt
is gonna mean anything on TV. It's it's mind boggling
the proroduct that this company has, and the logic holes
and the flaws that are weekly and monthly and over

(01:29:30):
a period of time, yearly exposed and just consistently. It
was such a maddening show to watch. So and then
you know, Brian, they have this special on August twelve,
the I guess what they're gonna have on pay per
view in August. They're gonna have seven I guess pay
per view quality matches. I'm not sure how that's different

(01:29:52):
from a TV quality match. I guess I know with
Joe Jeff Party is is TV quality match? And yet
never mind, but in any event, they had this August
full special after the Hardcore Justice pay per view RVDYA
versus Abyss in the World title because some other big
matches like Angle in aj styles. What's your take on

(01:30:13):
on this special and why they're doing it and why
didn't save it perhaps for just the September pay per
view and stretching out a bunch of good matches for
September and just kind of having an off month from
a regular pay per view with this EACW pay per
view in August.

Speaker 4 (01:30:31):
Well, my understanding is they went with this pay per
view or TV special because this is what the matches
were supposed to be for August, and then they came
up with the idea to do the Hardcore the Hardcore
Justice pay per view. So these matches pretty much got
scrapped and now they're given away on pree TV. But
the question, the big question I think you have is

(01:30:51):
how do you differentiate this type of a big special
from one of their normal TV specials. You know, if
Thatt're right about this column here, an Upcoming week is
back in the you know, in the eighties and nineties,
WCW had Class of the Champions as their TV specials,
but those came in months they did not have pay

(01:31:11):
per views, and those are actually built up as special events.
Saturday Night's main event is the WWF equivalent of that.
They did not run those events during times when they
had a pay per view event. They reserved those for
Saturday nights, but also ran some main events specials, about
five of those during the eighties as well, and those

(01:31:32):
were matches. We didn't have a lot of high quality
type matches on Superstars or TVF Saturday night wrestling shows.
You have mostly some sort of squash jobber match and
then you would maybe have one competitive match. But these
matches were all competitive, so they did feel special. It's
something that you didn't see every week on TV. Now.

(01:31:53):
Like you mentioned, we've seen Samola.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
Joe and Jeff Party no build up a couple of
weeks ago, just thrown in the first hour of a
TV program with no hype, no build We've seen aj
Styles and kurd Angle on TV. We've seen all these
matches pretty much on TV. They haven't saved anything.

Speaker 4 (01:32:12):
So why is this special? Why is this a special
t and a product that they're putting out there? To me,
it's going to come across as just like any other
TV show because they give away all these matches, all
these cage matches and any other type of matches away
on TV anyway. So there's there's no speciality to this
event whatsoever, and they're just given what it could be.

(01:32:34):
You know, the September pay per view, they've just given
that away for free, right.

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
I'm interested to see what kind of rating that special does.
I imagine it'll do a decent rating, but I guess
decent you got to define decent, probably a little bit
above what they've been doing since their return to Thursday Nights.
That they have not been doing well since their return
at Thursday Nights. They're just at a one point zero
average since in May. I think the May thirteens is

(01:33:02):
when they return, so from May and soil July and
the end of July. We haven't seen the ratings for
last night's show, but from the n and May and
so July to the average at one point zh so
I imagine they'll do slightly above that for the special.
But after that, I mean, where are they going to
go after that?

Speaker 13 (01:33:20):
That?

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
They've been focused on the ECW theme for a month.
The roster is not over, and last night's show captured
many reasons why the roster it's it's not being promoted
very effectively at all. The emphasis is on the ECW guys.
Another company's brand is being promoted over your own company's brand,

(01:33:43):
your own roster. So when the AW pay per view
is over and most of these guys kind of disappear
from TV's a little bit, and some of them stick around,
you know, like your team three D and and you
know you're Raven and Rhino perhaps and you know sort
of the regular Tea and rustlers are going to stick around.
All of a sudden, they're back into these quote unquote

(01:34:04):
TNA storylines that don't have the audience interested, that aren't
being effectively promoted. So after this big special on August twelve,
you're left with nothing. You have nothing a past because
this roster is it's been deemed unimportant by virtue of
all this emphasis on ECW. So what do you get

(01:34:26):
to doing to go back and rebuild? Go ahead?

Speaker 14 (01:34:28):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:34:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:34:29):
One of the bigger problems that they have had and
continue to have is that they have no stars of
their own making on the show. So, I mean, you
could look at what is what is Vince Russell's idea
of creating star Is that what he's doing with Orlando
Jordan and Eric young with this stupid mannikin gimmick. I mean,
go back to to Wade's blog video road I think

(01:34:50):
it was yesterday. It was an excellent blog and it
was really about how to build up a star when
he talked about Rob Terry and having him squash most
of most of the ross. Sure, but yet Samoa Joe
is one guy who he doesn't meet, who's protected and
then is able to defeat him. And that's exactly how
you tell a story over a period of time of
how to build and create stars. You create Rob Terry,

(01:35:13):
and you create and he becomes a star, but you
also create Smoojoe into a bigger star because he's able
to beat Rob Terry. And right now TNA doesn't have
any idea of how to create any of their own stars.
And in fact, most of the people that they're bringing
in that are stars, like Harvey d or Jeff Harvey,
Jeff Hardy are less of a star today than what

(01:35:33):
they were when they came in the door. You look
at Christian Cage, he was a much bigger star when
he came in when he left the company, Or you
could say the same thing about Kurt Angle and certainly
Sting you know, he had legendary status at one time.
Now nobody, you know, the crowd just doesn't take much
of him. So it's it's a case of up booking
in the decision making, but also no idea on how

(01:35:55):
to capitalize and create stars. And you look at what
is really driving the pay per view events, it doesn't
you know, their by rates are through the roof on
pay per views. It's because they have stars like brock Lessner.
They've created new stars like Shane car Went. We have
a Kale Son and Anderson Silver fight coming up next weekend.

(01:36:15):
Those guys are stars, and that's what's carrying your event.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
You know, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:36:18):
I can't. I follow UFC, but I can't tell you
more than one or two matches on each pay per view.
But it's those stars that are that are creating the hype.
And that's one thing that TNA is really failing and
doing at this time.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
Yeah, I agree, I agree, And they have so many
stars on that roster who they could elevate and it's
just they're they're being washed away by the booking and
ECW emphasis. Then I'll go ahead and introduce some breaking
news here we have. I don't have the TNA impact
ratio for the last night, but I have the viewership number.
They did one point six five million viewers. That was

(01:36:53):
porting my spreadsheet, the most viewers they've had on Thursday
night since since returning on Thursday nights. Then the most
viewers they've had since February twenty fifth, so actually, uh,
actually February eighteen. So that's a good sign that I
attribute that more to a lot of the older EASTW
fans perhaps tuning in to see what this ECW hype's

(01:37:15):
all about, rather than anything having to do with that rockster,
which we just talked about. It's not it's just not
presented as being important right now. So I imagine, uh,
this boost in viewership to one point sixty five million
viewers likely due to interest, probably short term interest, very
very short term interest in the ECW angles and the

(01:37:36):
ECW presentation. Brian, what's your what's your quick analysis of
the viewership being up? It looks like about fifteen percent
compared to last week, and also their highest viewership since February.
About February eighteen, so the middle of February. What's your
analysis of that?

Speaker 4 (01:37:55):
Well, you know, it's a nostalgia type draw, and nostalgia
can draw in a small because in your mind you
have these stars and you know it's like this Integrade
Legends Fan Thefts that's coming up this weekend. There's stars
there that are gonna be there that they are gonna
be drawing cards, and people are gonna come around from
around the country to go there. They've had people from
forty four different states attend the Legends Fan Thefts. But

(01:38:18):
if you had it every week, nobody would come or
very few people would come. It's not something that's a
draw that that can be done more than once or
maybe twice a year. And that's the problem with TNA
is the ECW reunion and the Legends that they're bringing in. Yes,
it's gonna draw, They're probably gonna do a decent VIY rate,

(01:38:38):
but you know where they can't be sustained by doing
this exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
The sustainability is not in TNA's favor right now. That's
my biggest concern. What was the status of the regular
TNA roster and the emphasis on ECW. So, yeah, it's
a nostalgia pop and I'm sure it'll lead to a
decent Y rate more then what TNA usually draws. From
hardcore Justice. But after that, where did it go? And

(01:39:04):
that's that's what's gonna be the story lookout for. We
want to give off the number to call to join
us on the live cast today talk. We talk a
lot about TNA, of course, we'll also talk w to
THEE and anything else on your mind pro rusting related Today.
The number to call is six four six seven two
one nine eight two eight. Let's go ahead and grab
our first caller today from the eight six five area

(01:39:27):
code A six five Welcome to the show. Please stay
training where you're from? Hey, what's going on?

Speaker 12 (01:39:32):
Guys?

Speaker 3 (01:39:32):
To Stephen from Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
How y'all doing? Just shaven? How are you doing? Hey, Stephen?

Speaker 6 (01:39:37):
Thanks man.

Speaker 3 (01:39:38):
A couple of quick TNA quins I want to ask first,
I know they kind of explain Eric Yon going back
to like his old first son.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
I went from like smacking his head or everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
My question is why did they get from him as
a semi mid card like heal to bringing him back
to where like he's like crazy, to getting like he's
acting like how long before we start team in the
superhero ginnck again.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
Again?

Speaker 4 (01:40:00):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
I mean? Eric Young? Is Eric Young He's not a
main event level star, and that's what Tiena was trying
to do with and I mean paulin Nash, he was
involved with him, and when when the outsiders of the band,
when that group was featured on TV, and then go
back to when they were in that six man cage
main event an Impact a couple of months ago, and
how far away from that they are. I just I

(01:40:22):
think they realized that Eric Young is sort of a
mid card player and they did not give him proper
build up for that that serious turn. They just all
of a sudden said we're gonna make him serious, and
the audience said, well, this guy's been a comedy figure
for two years or probably you know, five years, going
back to Team Canada. Uh, he was kind of that
runt figure. But I just think they realized that he

(01:40:44):
doesn't work as a serious character, and they didn't put
the legwork in to make him serious, and now they're
going back to what they know with him, which is
kind of that that comedy routine. He's kind of that
that comedy fair, that Santino character. That that's where he
is in t and A's eyes. But final, what's your
take on what to do with with Ey and why
they kind of went back to this this comedy angle

(01:41:05):
for him a comedy character.

Speaker 4 (01:41:08):
Well, yeah, I think they wanted to break him away
from Nash for one thing, because that angle was going
nowhere and they needed to just split them up again.
I think with El Snow coming in, he kind of
had a little success with his his Mannkin gimmick or
you know, the head gimmick, and I wonder if that
was part of why they with Eric get Young with
this and didn't want to Cavia completely came with with

(01:41:28):
a different idea. I think it's it's a terrible idea,
just as disaster and you know, there's no money in
it whatsoever. You know, you're not going to find anybody
that's going to want to h to pay to see this,
So I think it's it's a poor idea and at
this point, you know, God bless Eric Young, but he
needs needs to get off the TENA working dependants come

(01:41:49):
back at some point down the road with Fresh as
a more realistic character.

Speaker 1 (01:41:56):
Anytime you're watching w W E Raw SmackDown or a
W Dynamite in particular, send us an email if you've
got thoughts on the show or a topic you want
us to address or a question for us. Wade Keller
Podcast at PW torch dot com. Wade Keller Podcast at
pew torch dot com. If there's anything else going on
in pro wrestling that you want us to address on
our main podcast during our mailbank segments, that same email

(01:42:20):
applies Wade Keller Podcast at pw torch dot com. We
invite that interaction. Let us know what you think of
what we're saying, and let us know what you want
us to talk about and ask us specific questions. Wadekeller
Podcast at pw torch dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Yeah, they've damaged his character a lot in the last
couple of years. I mean just they's seem to be potent.
I mean there's always potential with Ey. I think he's
he's a good decent worker. He's just not a star
level worker. He's not a main e bit level worker.
He's a good guy to have in your ronester if
he use them right, and TNA consistently has misused him

(01:42:55):
and that's why he's back to where he is now. Steven,
did you have another TNA quest or follow.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
Up on y.

Speaker 3 (01:43:02):
I had another quick ten A question. Do you think
now with this being with the global title mount being
the TV title, do you think that they should by
starting off with what they're doing with an ad Style
someone that's they're called it the Grand Slam Champion that's
known for tena and then start growing it down to
guys that's say say like and Eric Young. Are never
guys need to start building higher. I mean that's what

(01:43:23):
ECDD David Rock Bandanna thought. He became so well fan
because with.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
His you know, like a year long title ring with
the title. Yeah, I would hope that that. I mean TNA,
I mean WW two goes in this category of being
so dependent on on hot shouting title changes. I mean,
WW has watered down the value of both of their
main titles. CNA at least have been consistent with RBDS Champion,

(01:43:48):
but they hadn't really focused on him as a champion lately.
But I mean, do you, first of all, do you
anticipate TNA giving Styles a lengthy rain and do you
think that's a good that to I guess there re
elevate Styles as one of the feature acts on their
TV show or is there is this not going to

(01:44:09):
work out because of the lack of value to the
TV title or hand styles add value to the TV
title with the lathy rains, Well, you know what.

Speaker 4 (01:44:17):
They need to do is build up Styles again. Build
up that the title has mean something so that each
and every week that it actually means something to not
only do Styles, but to the company, and so that
the fans will also believe in it. At that point,
if you can get that established in the title meaning
something again, then you can go back to where you
can use that to elevate some younger guy. You have

(01:44:40):
a thresholf the roster to give him the rub. He
beat more aj Styles. He's now the new champion and
he's the one descending on the belt on each and
every week on TV. But it's got to the belt's
got to mean something style. It starts with Styles. He's
a good person to hold it and build that credibility
back to the TV title. But if they're going to
make this anything more than just a job or type

(01:45:02):
title or a ridiculous prop like Russoll likes to treat
it as it needs to be something that's valued and
treasured by Styles. He needs to have some sort of
a lengthy run with the belt and then lose it
cleanly to somebody and establish them as a star in
the process.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
Yeah, and that's gonna take time. I mean that's a
and then that's a six month to a year. I
mean probably longer than six months. That's probably a nine
month to a twelve month project. Is to really emphasize
that belt has styles, not drop that beat. I mean
it's almost impossible to hold off that long if it's
a fitting it every week. But there's a way to

(01:45:42):
do it and make that belt elevated and elevate that
belt and styles in the process, and like you said, Brian,
make a star once that belt tied, whether it's sty Lethal,
whether it's Eric Young you know, nine months from now,
whether it's Orlando Jordan, whether it's Rob Terry again, whoever
it is. They've got to be disciplined with this and
have a long term vision for what they want to

(01:46:04):
do with this title. And DNA doesn't have a reputation
for that. So I'll be looking to see if they
can be they can surprise us and show that they
have discipline with this new title. It's a fresh start,
and you know, teenage track record isn't very strong in
this area, but it is a fresh start. So we'll
see seven. Any other question or follow up for us?

Speaker 3 (01:46:27):
One of then just kind of puffed in my head
really quick with WrestleMania being in Atlanta and then the
rumor mail being you know that it's gonna be a
cod V C W teamed at least, I just.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
Kind of a quick thing.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
What how long did you take it to the before
we see UH? Sean some Michael's going to the Hall
of Fame?

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
Good question, Brian, what do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:46:46):
You know, I think it'll be UH within a couple
of years anyway, you know, he's serious about being retired
from UH from wrestling and doesn't come back. They're so
low on may even type star power wrestlers to head
the UH the Hall of Fame induction ceremony that will
They'll be right back after him within a couple of years.

(01:47:08):
I've heard they've already contacted Ultimate Warrior about coming into
Atlanta because they need that main event level guy.

Speaker 2 (01:47:14):
You know, at some point, I would.

Speaker 4 (01:47:15):
Expect the bridges to be mended with Randy Savage and
he'll be put in and then you know, after that,
you don't have a lot of main event level type
guys to uh, you know, to carry that load, and
Shawn Michaels would definitely be a guy that would do that,
and they're gonna have to go to him within a
couple of years because your next guys are you know,
guys like the Triple H and Undertaker there a few

(01:47:35):
years away from even retiring.

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
Right. It's going to become a thing where, you know,
five years from now, the main event and the so
called main event headline the Hall of Fame inductees are
going to be raped for from this era. I mean,
Edge popped in my mind and he's talked about retiring
in three years. You know, Chris Jericho, depending on when
he retires, he's a guy that be a Hall of
Fame inductee, you know, five or six or seven years

(01:48:00):
from now. And the Undertaker, obviously Sean Michaels, Triple H.
I said, I mentioned Edge. I mean, uh, you go
down the list of current stars and those are the
those are the guys that are probably gonna be your
headliners for the next you know, five to eight years.
It's just that they've gone through most of the available
options for top stars to be inducted into the Hall

(01:48:22):
of Fame. And you know, who knows that if we're
sim Martin will ever be inducted in the Hall of Fame.
We will who knows that if he's ever going to,
you know, allow that to happen. But that's kind of
what they are right now. It's sort of they can
get by this this current year, this upcoming year, they
can get by with a w W themed induction in Atlanta,

(01:48:42):
and then after that it's probably gonna be you know,
Sean Michaels and the Triple A or preps Undertaker and
the Triple h uh, you know, Edge Chris Jericho, so
that that's probably who you're looking at as your future lineup,
Seawan Michaels. I imagine probably two years from now, probably
twenty eight. Perhaps that's when Undertaker has his sort of
Rustlemania retirement match as well, unless these stretches out there

(01:49:04):
to to twenty wins, and that might be when Michaels
goes into the Hall of Fame. But that's way down
the road, so we'll see. It's an interesting time. They
don't have a lot of big names that can induct
other than who's currently in WW right now. We'll see.
Of course, he got TNA guys too. You have sting,
you know, Kevin Nash is available down the road, got Hall.

(01:49:26):
So those are some other names. They're in TNA right now,
Kurt Angle as well, down.

Speaker 4 (01:49:30):
The road, so which I don't con consider those the
main event type level guys. You know, they're you know,
certainly not Kevin Nash or Scott Hall. You know, those
those guys are aren't big enough names to headline. You know,
maybe a Kurt Angle is, especially if he comes back
to WWE and make some ends. Randy Savage is a
big enough name that could be your headliner, uh, you know,

(01:49:50):
on on a class of a main event level Hall
of Fame induction, but probably don't stings unless you get
to the last run of his career with with w W,
so there were running short on names, and that's why
they they've asked Warrior to come back, and I certainly
think they'll tell men's senses with Savage at some point
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):
You also have the Rock. You know, Rock's kind of
floating out there, you know. I don't know when when
WDE and he would kind of come together and say, okay,
let's let's make this year the Hall of Fame induction.
I don't know if that's you know, Wrestlmingia thirty that's
Wrestlemingia thirty five, forty five. You know, who knows where
where you kind of slide the rock in and that's
kind of when they get to that point of Okay,

(01:50:30):
we really need a main event. A main event. Guy
probably haven't adducted the rock yet. Let's go ahead and
bring him over. So he's another name's kind of floating
out there, you know. Listening to the PV Torch live cast.
This is P to B Torch Assistant editor James Caldwell
hosting today alongside Torch Nostalgia columnist Brian Hooks. Is going
to join us in your live cast discussion today talking WDE, TNA,

(01:50:54):
anything else on your mind in wrestling. The number to
call is six four, six, seven, two one nine, eight
to eight. Let's go to the three one four area
code three one four. Welcome to the show. Please stay
training where you're from.

Speaker 8 (01:51:09):
Hey, thanks Cas for taking my call. This is Dan
from Saint Louis.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
Hey, Dan, what do you have for us today? All right?

Speaker 8 (01:51:15):
Hey, I got a couple of comments. First off, I'd
like to join a quick plug for the VIP membership.
I've been remember for about like three four months, and
I just have to say, you know, it was a
great decision. Uh really will see round tables for the
pay per views and I'll become a huge fan of
the East Coast Audio show recently.

Speaker 2 (01:51:32):
Those guys are great. There you go. Yeah, I think
it's probably about a week. Every week now we get
a plug for the East Coast Audio. So if you're
not towards the VIP member and you want to listen
to the East Coast Audio, they breakdown NXT every week
as well as SmackDown an occasionally that they'll breakdown a
pay per view and audio form very entertaining show, and

(01:51:53):
we believe you'll get hooked on on on Travis and
Barjory pretty easily after a couple listened. So that there's
a plug for the East Coast Audio share that Dan,
go ahead with your plug or your question.

Speaker 8 (01:52:03):
We're coming Okay, sure, my question about the regarding the
TNA situation right now. I've always wondered why it is
that Raven doesn't get more of a look at, you know,
as being possibly like a booker or a backstage mind,
like I don't think he's anywhere near the performer that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:19):
He once was.

Speaker 8 (01:52:20):
I mean, you know, facts, facts, But I do think
though that he really does have a brilliant mind, and like,
you know, seeing him do the Guest Booker series where
he rebooked BCW and also when he did the Secrets
of the Ring series with Ring of Honor where he
tried to give advice to new and upcoming wrestlers, it
just seems like there's a lot of creative ideas there,
and it seems like he's kind of being wasted, you know,

(01:52:42):
being put in the ring as opposed to being you know,
a backstage.

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
You know, hand sports. Yeah, Brian, go ahead. What's your
take on Raven and where he might sit in as
a booker?

Speaker 4 (01:52:52):
Well, I think he comes along with some baggage as
well that me frown and they make a company back
later upon putting him in such a high level or
position of power, you know, Scott Hall, of the same
arguments being made. He's got a great mind, some great ideas,
but he just had that baggage and just undependability, and

(01:53:13):
you know, maybe it'd be better if he wasn't inside
the ring, and in some cases it may be worse
because the pressure is going to be more to perform
and with those type of issues. You really can't afford
to take a chance in putting somebody, you know, in
the position like that because it is because it is
a high stress job, very hard, very demanding, and you know,

(01:53:33):
you really have to have your personal house in order
if you're going to be able to perform at that level.

Speaker 2 (01:53:38):
Yeah, I think the baggage is the main thing holding
Raven back. I mean, that's that Secrets of the Ring series.
I remember watching that, reviewing it probably five six years
ago or four years ago whenever it was released. Very insightful,
I mean, a very good shoot interview style interview talking
about a lot of what he just kind of stilling

(01:53:59):
out a lot of what he has in his mind
about wrestling. So I reckon in that series. I think
Riha Moner sells that on their website. It's sort of,
you know, watching I'll just kind of relate this to
William Regal, and you know Regal has two strikes against
him and in WD for that wellness policy and is
in regal second strike was when he was in the

(01:54:22):
middle of a a pretty strong run with that King
of the Ring sort of label, and he was one
of the featured acts on Raw and then he got
that second strike in the wellness policy and he was
off TV for sixty days and ever since then, they've
never really given him a major opportunity. It could be
some other reasons, but I mean just watching Superstars last

(01:54:43):
night and watching himself for Santino and the Cobra and
looking at how much more potential Regal has on TV.
I just wonder if that's what's holding him back. And
if w D doesn't want to give him another major
opportunity because he has two strikes in the third strike,
would he he's gone? So that might be once holding

(01:55:04):
back Raven is that people are afraid to give him
an opportunity to be a contributor even it's called like
you said, Brandon Scott whole thing where he's got such
a great mind for wrestling, yet is he dependable? Well,
the track record isn't very good for that. So I
think that's what's holding him back. And I think it
sort of parallels with with wirem Regal and WWE and

(01:55:26):
why he's used the way he is. They could be
the reasons, like I said, but that's kind of my
impression of that. Uh Dan, did you have another another
question or follow up on those topics on Ravens.

Speaker 8 (01:55:39):
Uh no, that's it, really, I didn't really think about
the baggage, but yeah, that is a good comparison with
the good Halls that you never really thought of it
that way. But yeah, that's it. Thanks to taking my calling.

Speaker 2 (01:55:48):
You guys have a great weekend, all right, we have
the cold damn things. Uh, let's go ahead and grab
another phone call. Let's go to This is mister showtime Sam.
That's what's showing up on my switchboard. Though. Sayle, if
you know where you're from.

Speaker 14 (01:56:02):
Where you're calling from, Hell, it's Aaron from the United Kingdom.

Speaker 3 (01:56:06):
Sorry if it sounds a bit loud, that's okay, Alan,
What do you have for us today?

Speaker 14 (01:56:10):
I just wanted to say I did watch TNA last night. Sorry, guys,
didn't hear me.

Speaker 2 (01:56:17):
Yeah for here, you're good whatever.

Speaker 14 (01:56:19):
Oh sorry about that. My mycropriends just seems well cut
off some trend reason. But anyway, I just watched CNA
last night and it was a complete waste of my time,
to be quite honest with you. You know, I was
just watching the whole thing and it was like halfway through.
I eventually changed the channels. So thank god for that,
But anyway, I'm not less. I'm more concerned about what's

(01:56:40):
happening get in the future with Hardcore Justice. You know,
I'm a big fan of ECW. Before I watched w
w E or WCW, ECW was the thing that was
the main event for me every single Friday night because
everything was out on Friday and not on Monday. But
you know, it's kind of concerning me because one thing,
Paul Hayman is not in charge of the thing as

(01:57:01):
far as I'm aware. I'm not saying that Raven and
Tommy Dreamer and all the other guys to do a
good job. But you know, in regardless to people missing
out of this, Mikey Whibraker said he's not going to
be getting involved, and it's a few other guys have
also turned the event down as well. You've got some
people who have died unfortunately, and some people who have

(01:57:23):
moved on from wrestling and retired. So I don't know.
I'm gonna be watching Hardcore Justices with an open mind,
but I'm not really expecting too much, to be quite
honest with you, because I think after Easy there'll be
a one night stand and Hardcore Homecoming and various other events.
I really doubt Hardcore Justice is really going to stop.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
Yeah, Alan, you make some great points there. That's you know,
they haven't announced the lineup for the pay per view,
and perhaps that might be a good thing because I mean,
look at the three guy. I mean, they've saved this
announcement for After Impact to announce three more names for
the pay per view, and it was you know, Axel
Rotten and uh Mike you not Michael Went but uh

(01:58:06):
Johnny Swinger, and it's just like that's that's all. That's
all you're gonna announce. You know, you say this announcement
for After Impact, and they just they don't have a
lot of names out there. It's five years since you know,
the we send off. It's five more years of bumps
for a lot of these guys. It's five more years
of aging and the effects of that attitude era, in

(01:58:27):
the ECW era affecting a lot of these wrestlers who
might be available. And then you have, like you said, Alan,
wrestlers who turned down, uh the invite. So you're left
with I mean just look in the ring on Impact.
On last night's show, you had Team three D, which
which I mean they're not in the best shape they're
I mean they're bulging out of their shirts. Tommy Dreamer too,

(01:58:49):
Rhino can barely fit into his jeans. I mean, Stevie
Richards is a is a health freak. So I imagine
you could have a good match, But make Foley, what
can you do? I mean, I believe he's gonna be special.
Un so you're left with and he's to have a
product and east to show that. I mean, I don't
know what expectations you go into that pay per view

(01:59:09):
with Brian. What's your take on kind of where they
are trying to do this pay per view five years
too late?

Speaker 4 (01:59:18):
You can't have much certain way of in rank expectations
for all the reasons that you mentioned there already. James.
It's it's one that I think people are gonna be
curious and they want to kind of relive those glory
days of the nineties when they saw there, you know,
the guys wrestling. But it's it's not gonna be pretty,
we know that, but there is that nostalgia factor that
they want to relive it and relive some of the

(01:59:39):
memories and see these guys again and what you know,
And that's really all you're going to get out of it,
it's it may get a decent buye rate, probably can't
do much worse.

Speaker 2 (01:59:48):
Than what they've been doing.

Speaker 4 (01:59:50):
But again it's it's a one time novelty type act.
And then after this is over, where do you go
from there? You know, one of the things we're hearing
is coming Toms gaining power. And if this does a
good BY rat or TV ratings, which it looks like
it probably will, he made Aim even more power, and
I think that's not a good direction for them to
go in. You know, when he booked ov W, it

(02:00:10):
was one of the some of the worst TV shows
that we've ever seen. So you know, he's not the answer.
I don't think for the long term of TNA either.

Speaker 2 (02:00:20):
And it's uh, And I can see how Dreamer is
getting that power. I mean, it's he he's charming, and
he's he's charm the right person, that right person at
Dixie Carter. You look at last night's impact, everything was
we're so thankful for and look across to Dixie, for
Dixie had given us the opportunity, and then we're so

(02:00:40):
thankful for and and Dreamer looks right at Dixie and
they cut to Dixie and she's got that twinkle in
her eye and she's like, Oh, I'm a star, I'm
on TV and they're they're talking about me, and you know,
she's being charmed by a very smart group of people
who know how to charm the right person. This entire
show last night was for an audience of one, and

(02:01:03):
that entire first segment with whole COVID involved talking about
Dixie Carter. That was for an audience of one. And
it's not for the it's not for the fans. It's
for Dixie Carter. That the entire show was for was
to make her feel like she's part of something that's
supposed to be important, and she's part of something that's
supposed to be vague.

Speaker 4 (02:01:24):
So, you know, if she can't get Paul Hayman to
come in, Tommy Dreamer's probably sitting there telling her that
he learned everything from Paul, he was his right hand
man in E c W and and he's the next
best thing at a much cheaper price. And she's figuring,
you know, why not take take Tommy on if I
can't get Paul.

Speaker 2 (02:01:41):
Yep, yep, that's that's very good. Yeah, I'm sure that's
what you know, and you know, more power to him
if he thinks they can do something with this, do
something better than what TENA has been producing, and go
for it, you know. I mean the regime has been
has come well blow expectations and well blow performance levels

(02:02:03):
that would be acceptable for national TV promotion for five
years now. It's just where they are. It's not where
they should be. So if dream of things you can
do it and go for it. We'll see what you
can do.

Speaker 10 (02:02:16):
So that's up.

Speaker 2 (02:02:18):
We have a story to watch over the next couple
of weeks, in the next couple of months if he
does get more creative input and potentially eventually controlled, so
we'll see.

Speaker 13 (02:02:36):
Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
your passion.

Speaker 12 (02:02:42):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?

Speaker 13 (02:02:48):
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 me Greg for the All
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live cast feed search PW Torch in your podcast app
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(02:03:09):
the PW Torch Dailycast lineup at pw torchdailycast dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:03:23):
Alan, did you have any other any other question or
fall up on the on.

Speaker 14 (02:03:26):
The ECW stuff and tn A, Well, no, not really
much else on the ECW stuff. One thing about the
Hall of Thame though, is that I can't believe at
the moment of his talk about the Ultimate Warrior being
inducted possibly into the whole of Thame, I'm gonna hold
I'm gonna d d on my shelf. The whole reason
of why Ultimate Warrior should not be in the Hall

(02:03:47):
of Fame produced by WWE itself. So I don't understand
this whole talk about it, To be quite honest with you,
it is fascinating.

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):
WWE kind of riched his entire career, and so what
does that say about the Hall of Fame? Is there
in the Warrior is one of the top stars. Yeah,
that's a good point out.

Speaker 8 (02:04:04):
Ryan.

Speaker 2 (02:04:05):
What's your take on that aspect of Warrior potentially being
inducted into W's Hall of Fame?

Speaker 4 (02:04:11):
Well, you know, they tried it this last year and
he turned them down, and they're they're right now trying
to get him to come in for Atlanta for next year,
and so far he's turned that down as well. You know,
they've made the DVD, they've knocked him, and there's really
hard feelings on both sides, but it does come down
to money and WWE is using his name to try

(02:04:33):
and draw money and sell the DVDs, and you know
they need a big name player, big name talent to
main event that, and he's one of the biggest out
there right now. So actually he's got a lot of
leverage over the WW when you think about it, and
Bruno San Martina would have huge leverage, r Andy Savage
would probably have some some leverage as well, and and
Warrior has some so he can play his cards and

(02:04:58):
see how things turn out. But they're they're dea going
after him, trying to get him to come in and
do it.

Speaker 2 (02:05:03):
Yeah, it is fascinating how they they've turned. They've turned
around and went from releasing that DVD to wanting to
bring him to the Hall of Fame. Uh So, let's
see how that plays out over the next couple of months.
Al a good call. We appreciate that. We're gonna go
on to another caller. Let's go to the four to
oh two area code four oh two. This is real,

(02:05:23):
I believe it is. Let us know how you're doing it,
what your question is for us? Again, it is indeed real.

Speaker 10 (02:05:29):
How are you guys going good?

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
I have your number memorized now, so I'll give you
a call sometimes.

Speaker 4 (02:05:35):
Hey, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (02:05:36):
Let's hang out some time or not that far Texas
and at that far? Yeah, Brian, it's probably closer Nebraska
than I end though.

Speaker 4 (02:05:44):
Yeah, I think I know we're real link in Nebraska.
How far are you from?

Speaker 2 (02:05:48):
North Fork? Oh, you are asking a long question.

Speaker 10 (02:05:54):
I think it's I think a couple hours away.

Speaker 4 (02:05:58):
Okay, there's this. I know there's a big know there
next weekend in North Park on Saturday night. So I
don't know if you're close enough you could go to
that or not.

Speaker 2 (02:06:07):
Yeah, that actually might be this Saturday, coming the.

Speaker 4 (02:06:11):
Seventh of August, so a week from tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (02:06:14):
Week from tomorrow. Actually that might that's sound. Think it
actually might be fun. I might have to actually check
that out. There you go, we got to do an
indie show. There you go.

Speaker 10 (02:06:23):
Hey, I will be happy to cover Nebraska area of
Indy Wrestling for you guys. That's not a problem at all.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
Yeah, yeah, we we'd like to have your reports. But yeah,
let us know, what do you.

Speaker 13 (02:06:37):
Have for us?

Speaker 2 (02:06:37):
Say real this week? Yeah, no, we lost we lost real.
We had all that conversation. We lost them. So we
all go in and give us a call back when
you when you get back on the line. Uh, is
that ever gonna calls? Go to join us on the
live cast in the last fifteen minutes or so of
the show is six four, six, seven, one, nine, eight

(02:07:01):
to eight. We the phone lines are open right now,
so you can go ahea and jump on the last
fifteen minutes or so and give us a call. Yeah,
let's go ahead, let's bring a rial back on the show.
We got him back on the phone line. We all
go ahead and we lost it there. But what do
you have for to say? Sorry about that?

Speaker 10 (02:07:17):
I was listening to the VAT After show earlier this
week and there was a discussion about, you know, as
far as the ECW Show or Hardcore Justice, there was
going to be some sort of well, there should be
some sort of remembrance of the ECW Westlers who would
have fallen. Yeah, you know the guys who aren't with
us anymore. Do you if they were to do something
like that, would TNA acknowledge Benlaw.

Speaker 2 (02:07:42):
Brian Benlah. Do you do you think he would be
part of a remembrance package or video or statement from TNA.
I don't.

Speaker 4 (02:07:51):
I don't think so, because he wasn't. I mean, he
was there, but he wasn't a major player in ECW.
When you think about you know, the ECW major guys,
he's not in the name that pops up right away
to me. But even though he was there, I don't
see any benefit if they did something like this. I
don't see any benefit in bringing up his name or
his image's likeness or anything to TNA and doing so.

(02:08:14):
They're they're you know, they're going to create a lot
of controversy and maybe you create you know, more talk
if you do it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:21):
Then if you don't.

Speaker 4 (02:08:22):
But if you're you're doing it for the right reasons,
and that would be you're gonna remember those guys who
were there, who who've died, like a Chris Candido Brian Pillman.
You know this isn't the setting to remember Chris van Law.

Speaker 2 (02:08:35):
And yeah, yeah, I don't know what kind of raction.
I mean, it kind of have to be what how
do they present it? You know, do they sort of
does somebody do a dive in headbud and then do
a throat flash that woulds gonna be in a really
bad taste. Do they put together a classy video package

(02:08:55):
and sort of kind you know, kind of what what
the Academy Awards does every year and they list sort
of do a still shot of all the sort of
entertainment or movie actors who have died over the last year,
and they're kind of doing a very classy way. They
introduce it very well. Do they do that and they
sort of mentioned the ECW wrestlers who came before them

(02:09:16):
that you know, there might be a way to pull
that off and have it be classy. But anything else
I would say, just don't mention him. And same with
Eddie Guerrero. I think I kind of wrote about this
this week. I think one of the best ways to
honor the past ECW wrestlers, the wrestlers who are either

(02:09:37):
dead or crippled or just aren't on the show, is
to not do that style of barbaric hardcore wrestling or
at least not depend on them. Don't depend on the
chair shots to the head. Don't even use any chair
shots to the head. Don't depend on that garbage style
of wrestling that has led to so many broken bodies

(02:09:58):
and broken families. The best tribute to this paperent you
could have to the fallen wrestlers is to not do
what led to them having the broken down bodies in
the deaths. Don't do uh these giant you know spots
where somebody goes through a table on a concrete floor
on the outside, I mean the classic Mike ausome in

(02:10:19):
tat Tanaka spots. Uh this is Tetanaka. Might been mixing
up the name, but to the mic awesome spot, just
the power bombs to the table, unnecessary spots, unnecessary bumps.
Don't let that be the story of this, this sort
of east of your reunion. That's the best way to
pay tribute to that talent roster, I believe. So we'll see,

(02:10:39):
we'll see if that happens. Rihanna Jivy another question or
follow up on on Binwall.

Speaker 10 (02:10:47):
I mean, I agree with you, I just you know,
I I would hope that no one would go for
ahead button approach.

Speaker 2 (02:10:53):
Slack. That would just be ridiculous.

Speaker 10 (02:10:56):
However, I have a hard time in TNA or someone
in TEENA would actually do that. You know, I do
have another question though, actually went for Brian I uh,
I grew up kind of in the h I grew
up in the nineties era of Dodo the or go
to the FN. As far as very storyline, very, you know,

(02:11:18):
personal issues soap opera driven wrestling, my question is have
has there is I'm trying to think of how the
word is sorry, What historically has done better for companies
having storyline driven main event feuds were more so actual
champion versus challenger driven main event feuds.

Speaker 4 (02:11:41):
Well, I think when when the belts were over and
and that and then everything it became personal and that
became the storyline was not only did you have two
guys who who didn't like each other or hated each
other wrestling, but but then when you they didn't like
each other and were for the title, that is what
really drew your money. And you can go back and

(02:12:04):
look at USC as a really good example of that.
You know, Lesner and Carlin didn't hate each other, but
they were going for the title unification, and that threw
a huge pay per view numbers, whereas you get Lesner
and Frank Muir to guys who hate each other that
also drew big numbers. And and then you threw a
title in on top of it, and you had you know,

(02:12:24):
the highest grossing USC pay per view event at that time.

Speaker 2 (02:12:30):
So you know, it's a combination of goals.

Speaker 4 (02:12:32):
But if you can add that title on top of it,
that's just another you know, piece of the puzzle that
that helps out that y rate. And and uh, you know,
anytime you can you can find that mixture where guys
have a realism to it, guys really hate each other
or perceived that they really hate each other, or that
there's a title involved in it really means something to them.

(02:12:54):
That's when you're going to get.

Speaker 2 (02:12:55):
Your biggest buy rate out of it. Real. Any other
questions or follow up today, I want to go them out,
I think them out. Question as always. All right, we
appreciate that call real, thanks for calling in on a Friday, Brian.
We're down the last ten minutes or so of the show,

(02:13:16):
so I'm going to give out the number, and then
I wanted to you to talk about what you have
in the podcast this week on the in the Torch
wet the audio section the Nostalagia podcast. You want to
jump on the phone line in six four, six, seven
to two, one nine eight two eight. Uh, Brian, talk
a little bit about your podcast this week, what you
guys talked about with you and George Shire and what

(02:13:37):
you have on the the Torch newsletter this week with
your Nostalgia news and notes.

Speaker 4 (02:13:42):
Yeah, several things we talked about were that were really interesting.
We talked about the Steiner brothers are being inducted into
the Bay City, Michigan Hall of Fame. Uh this I
think it's in October, and uh talked about their wrestling
career because they were good amateur wrestlers. Both placed the
highest of second place in the Big Tan Wrestling Conference.

(02:14:05):
Rick was a little bit older than Scott, and Scott
actually placed six's freshman year and then second in the
one hundred and ninety pound class three consecutive years, and
then Scott also ended up going onto the National tournament
and placed sixth that year. In fact, interesting fourth place
finisher in his weight class was Mark Coleman, who's now

(02:14:25):
a UFC Hall of Famer. But there's a several other
guys in that tournament that have gone into UFC, and
Rick Steiner was pretty much, or Scott said's the only
one who went on to be a pro wrestler. But
we talked about how their amateur background, their professional accolades,
if that would qualify him for the luth As George
Tragel's Hall of Fame and what certainly does. We also

(02:14:48):
talked about Marty O'Neill, who's receiving the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall
of Fame honor, and George had some personal interactions, some
very interesting stories with Marty O'Neill, who was somewhat like
a father fa you're tell him. When he was only
seventeen eighteen years old, Marty O'Neill, who was a broadcaster
and announcer for the AWA, invited George to ride to

(02:15:09):
the matches with him and that's how George got started
going to a lot of small town spot shows and
throughout Minnesota, was right in front seat with Marty O'Neill
talking wrestling, and you know, just a real great story
that George had to share with us. And I talked
with Greg Price this week as well. This didn't appear
in the Torture. He's this week will be next week

(02:15:30):
about his NWA Legends fan Fest convention that's coming up
next weekend. And you know, real sad to report about
Bobby Heenan following this last week and injuring himself and
he will not be a part of that NWA Legends
fansst So he's had just such terrible health problems in
the last five years. And you know, I think when

(02:15:51):
anybody goes through as much chemotherapy as he's had to
go through, it weakens your immune system, that weakens your joints,
and no doubt that breaking your hip, your publics, and
and your shoulder. It had to be a result of
all the quemo therapy that he's gone through.

Speaker 2 (02:16:07):
Yeah, it is a sad story. It's you know, jam
Ross kind of blog about that today on on Jr's
Barbecue dot com. You know, you know, it's for for
a lot of for a lot of wrestling fans who
grew up watching Bobby Heenan and and he's kind of
part of he was part of a late seventies generation,

(02:16:30):
in an eighties generation and a nineties generation as an announcer,
and and to kind of see where he where he
is right now, it's sad for a lot of wrestling
fans who grew up watching him in some era, either
as a manager before that, as as a wrestler, and
and most recently as an announcer you know, during the nineties.
So yeah, it's just it's just a sad story, you know.

(02:16:53):
It's kind of a sad note for the nw A
Legends fan fest to not have Heenan And I believe
that his last major appearance was the TENA Lockdown fan
Fest when TNA got him, I believe there with I
guess Hogan and Steing and Flair, and it was you know,
it was good to hear that he was able to
make that appearance. But it sounds like he's probably not

(02:17:16):
gonna be able to make many more of these appearances,
and it's kind of was gonna be his last, maybe
possibly his last major UH fan fest appearance. Do you
think that was that was right, Brian? Do you think
do you think that's right?

Speaker 12 (02:17:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:17:28):
I think there's not going to be very many more
that he's gonna be able to attend, and most likely
it's because of health issues and reasons. You know, he
loves to be out and outdoors and go to Tampa
Bay Rays baseball games and go to spring training. He
was finally able to attend some spring training baseball this year,
and you know, it's just sad to hear that he's

(02:17:49):
had so many problems. He did do some traveling, like
you said, he was in Saint Louis, and he obviously
he won't be able to attend.

Speaker 2 (02:17:57):
Many more events.

Speaker 1 (02:18:00):
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Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
Just got an interesting breaking news story with lucob Usa,
the promotion that has their show on MTV two, including
the show tonight, They have signed Carlito for their upcoming
live event at on Saturday in Last I'm sorry, Saturday,
August seventh in Las Vegas. So Cohliedle has been added

(02:18:55):
to that lineup. I guess it's a let's see where
what is released two months ago, a month and a
half ago. It's I guess it's been about a two
months though, Okay, he could be I guess it was.
You know, the no compete would still apply to Lucia
Leeber because it is on cable TV. Uh So it'd
be interesting to see if he's kind of part of
that show trying to get off the ground. You know,

(02:19:18):
I wasn't a fan of their first show. I haven't
caught their second episode of the air last Friday. They
have their third show today. But they need a little
something and they need something to make it stand out
for the audience. And carlin would be kind of a
good addition. Not a major star, but he's a name
and he has the main value. So they add him
to that regular series of TV shows, that could be

(02:19:39):
a good thing for them. So just an interesting news
I didn't have passed along about Carlino. Brian Jim Rossi
also talked about his announcing in term of a It
seems like every month or so they'll say something about
announcing to get to get people talking and say, oh,
you know, I go back on the road and do
a w W RAW off the off to him, even

(02:20:00):
you know, there is not in a position where they're
going to, I guess reassign Jim Ross to an announcing role.
That's just I mean, Ross have made it pretty clear
that's not going to happen. But what's your take on
what Ross said today about you know, yeah, I go
on I'd go on the road. Obviously, the answer is yes,
if I would accept a reassignment to Monday night Raw

(02:20:22):
or pay per views. He said, I'm a team player.
Whatever the decision is or how to contribute is simply
the way that it will be. I don't look to
go back on weekly TV, but making a cameo here
and there is a remote possibility. Uh. What's your take
on on where Jim Ross is coming from with these
comments and whether you've seen w D giving him a

(02:20:43):
TV role either on Raw or SmackDown or just on
the monthly pay per views.

Speaker 4 (02:20:49):
But I think there's no doubt he misses it and
wants to be part of that again. You know, it's like,
you know, Rick Flair will be wanting to be a
performer inside the ring. He misses that adrenaline rush, wants
to do it, still believes he can and since the
ross is still the best that there is, and so
he misses it and wants to be involved some way
in it. I certainly think that if Oklahoma University got

(02:21:11):
their sports networks set up like they want to in
the next twelve months, he would be part of that.
He would definitely want to be doing the football announcing
and broadcasting. He's done some. He did the Atlanta Falcons
football I think in nineteen ninety two or three. He
was one of the announcers for Atlanta when he was
living there. And I think he would jump at the

(02:21:32):
chance to be an NFL or a college football announcer.
But he wants to do some sort of announcing, and
he's keeping his name out there in circles in the media,
and you know, which is smart on his part. And
I think if WW would offer him something, which I
don't think they will, he'd jump at it. Or if
he could get one of these other you know, something

(02:21:53):
done with HD net or Oklahoma University, he'd jump at those.

Speaker 2 (02:21:58):
Yeah, I'm very interesting to see where he ends up
because I don't anticipate his broadcasting career is over. He
hasn't really mentioned M and A recently on his blog.
It's kind of been a while since he brought that up.
Perhaps by the seconds he's working on something behind the
scenes he's not gonna mention yet, so it is sort

(02:22:19):
of interesting to see where he might end up. I mean,
it seems like TNA is out of the picture, so
it's down to sort of going into sports or going
into MNA, or perhaps waiting to see if WU reassigns
them on TV. And there's also of course ww TV
network coming up. I mean, I guess it seems about
a year. They're probably a year away, and that was

(02:22:40):
kind of the target was summer of.

Speaker 14 (02:22:42):
Twenty elevens second.

Speaker 2 (02:22:43):
So Robbs could hold off for about a year and
perhaps be involved in TV projects with that with that
WTV network. But we'll probably get a much clearer picture
of that next week. I believe ww reports their second
quarter twenty ten earnings next Thursday, if I have the
right If I have the right date in my mind,
so we'll probably get more info on that TV network,

(02:23:05):
and I imagine that Ross will be part of that.
They are gonna have to have twenty four hours of programming,
so I imagine that Ross will be part of some
original programming that they're going to present on the network.
So he's got options. I imagine we haven't seen the
last of them on TV, either for Sports or MMA
or WWE, and it's just a matter of where he

(02:23:27):
ends up. So that's a story to look out for. Brian.
We're down the last ten seconds or this joke. I
want to thank you for joining me today. Thank you
everyone for listening this week and join us back on
Monday at eight Easter for the raw preview show.

Speaker 6 (02:23:55):
Thank you for using blog talk radios.

Speaker 15 (02:23:57):
Goodbye.

Speaker 2 (02:24:00):
All right, but where now is the idea? After show
portion of the show, Well cover a lot of the
topics in the news today. During the live past, we
want to touch on some some w topics. We didn't
really get to talk much w D with a lot
of TNA discussion and rightfuick. So with that show they
had last night, SummerSlam is uh. I would say it's

(02:24:21):
shaping up, but they have three matches announced so far
and based on what they taped in the sort of
the Bonus TV tapings this week. It looks like we
might get something with Big Show and the Straight Edge Society.
But raw Ron's lineup is pretty said. It looks like
with Seamus and Randy Orton as well as Team Sena
versus Team Nexus. Uh, are those two matches strong enough

(02:24:46):
to sell this taper you line up on? Dude? Do
you think they need to maybe add a little bit
something else on an undercard just to make it seem
like it's a it is a Summer Slam worthy lineup
or are they strong enough where they are right now?
This top two matches?

Speaker 4 (02:25:01):
Well, yeah, you're right, those are the top two matches.
I think they're they're looking at the main events as
rob versus Nexus, that's the big Angle Maine event. You know,
Orton and Seamus underneath I think will be okay. They'll
probably do something with the stereo and the title underneath,
and that'll be okay as well. You know, maybe they
even build some sort of a three main way match

(02:25:22):
with Debasi and Morrison t easing some dissension with our troup.
So I could see those three having some sort of
a match as well. I think they'll they'll round out
the card and it'll be pretty good once they get
it all figured out here, but they're going to need
at least three top matches to really push and build
that's going to catch the public opinion. Otherwise, you know,

(02:25:44):
the show could be a little bit soft in the ratings.
You know, that's coming up after a pay per view
last month that was really good and had a lot
of reviews, especially for high match quality.

Speaker 2 (02:25:56):
Right, And you know, I think that SummerSlam can be
old on one or two matches. I think most w
pay per views should be sold on one or two matches.
It's the UFC formula. You pick your you know, your
your top two matches. You have brock Lester and Shane Carlin,
and you build an entire pay per view around that match,
and you get people interested to see that and hopefully,

(02:26:18):
you know, there's someone that stands out in the undercard
and the audience says, oh, I like that guy, and
I want to see him in the next pay per view,
and you can make that guy your main venture for
you know, two or three or four or five pay
per views down the line. So I think that Orton
Seamus is a good main event for the title Stena

(02:26:38):
versus NEXTUS, of course, is the culmination of you know
four it was eight weeks now, you know, two months,
eight weeks about worth of TV build up. So I
think those are two good matches. They just got a
final way to fill out the rest of the card,
and I, like I said, Brian's probably a three way,
probably involving dBase, so there's some potential there. Of course,

(02:26:59):
you had a miz. They got to find a way
to put the mis on that show beyond just hey,
I might cash in the briefcase. So there's there's some
potential there for the US title and of course the
Intercontinental title on SmackDown. So we'll see how it fills
out the rest of the way. You know, like you said, Bryan,
it's a little bit soft. It does feel a little
soft right now, perhaps because Nexus is so unproven. We

(02:27:22):
haven't seen them in a major matchup. We haven't even
seen them on pay per view yet. We haven't seen
them in any sort of I guess position to where
they have to be the emphasis of a major matchup.
We've seen Wade Barrett one on one with with Mark Henry.
I believe on this coming week's Raw and we'll see

(02:27:44):
Wade Bart with Edge, but there haven't been too many
matches involving the Nexus on Raw TV yet, so I
mean that could be a good thing to not stay
opposing in the audience too much, you know, before the
pay per views. So we'll be interesting to see how
Sumer saying take shape. It's an interesting time for the
Raw brand with a program that's very strong for TV,

(02:28:07):
but you know, has them been tested as whether it's
a pay per view draw? And then that's going to
be kind of the story of the buy rate for
SUMMERSAM this year is are people willing to pay money
to see next that's involved or they just kind of
interesting to see them on free TV where there isn't
really a money match involved. That that's kind of an
interesting story for this summer when we get those buy

(02:28:28):
rate figures after the fact, right.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
You know, one match that we didn't talk about from
Impact last night, when the one positive thing was the
steel cage match. I thought that was just a tremendous
match with the deer money and the machine guns. So, yeah,
a terrible show, but that on one match was worth
watching and going out of your way to see.

Speaker 2 (02:28:52):
Yeah, it was. And the unfortunate thing is that it
was just another segment on the show. They didn't really
hype it. They just sort of threw it out there.
And plus, you know, may overdue stipulations and gimmicks and
cage matches and ladder matches and they're just you know,
street fights and they've overdone it where Okay, well it's

(02:29:14):
in a cage, man, That's that's all right, you know,
not a big deal when that really should be a
big deal. And so I'm glad you brought up that
match because it was one of the few highlights of
last night's show. And I don't think it really stood
out though, because a we've seen it four times in
the last month, and also it was in it was
in a cage, and that cage doesn't mean anything anymore,

(02:29:36):
especially for TNA. So's it's an unfortunate byproduct of how
their booking is. It drags down the good stuff, you know, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:29:44):
I mean that's like the fourth match, fourth time they
we've seen that match, and in less than two weeks.
I think I'm not exactly sure the timeline there, but
that's what it seems like anyway, is every time you
either turn on a pay per view or the TV.
Those guys are having a match. It's you know, I
remember when Nikita cole Off and Oh Magnum Kia had

(02:30:06):
their match in eighty six. It went from about April
all the way through August of that year that they
had their best of seven series, but it took four
months to do it in and Booker t and Ben
Wah had their series and it lasted a long time.
But he didn't book a best of five series match
to be over within a month. But that's what TNA
is doing.

Speaker 2 (02:30:27):
Yeah, Yeah, I wanted to talk about one of the
topics before we wrap up today. In the NXT Season
two guys, we talked a little bit about Nexus during
with the the Summer Slam pay per view lineup. Brian,
where do you see them incorporating the NXT season two
guys after the show? Is that a thing? We're going

(02:30:48):
to go a different route and kind of split them apart,
and you know, Alex Riley goes to SmackDown and Raw
and caval goes to SmackDown and Raw or do you
see them maybe go throwing out some of the current
X season one guys from Nextus and introducing some of
the NXC Season two guys and their place. I mean,

(02:31:08):
is it, you know, is that a logical extension of
this storyline to keep it going, or do you see
the NXC Season two guys being completely separate from season one.

Speaker 4 (02:31:19):
I think they're gonna be separate guys, or they at
least should be treated separately. They're going to run into
a problem and I hope they have an answer for
where we're going with this is you know, after SummerSlam
match or the seven on seven match, it almost feels
like that's gonna be kind of a blowoff to this,
and you might have and really, at best, you could
expect one or two guys to become stars out of
this group and spin off and actually become something that

(02:31:42):
you can watch and build around. And when you get
these next to season two guys coming out of that,
you know there's probably one or two guys that you
could do something with. You can't go down the same
road as season one because that's just gonna be a repeat.
You're gonna have to come up with something big for
their for their directions. You could certainly see Cabal doing

(02:32:03):
something and having some feuds, but I think he's gonna
have to go to probably the SmackDown brand to do
that where he gets involved with you know, Gray in
Mysteria would be an obvious feud with a guy with
similar size.

Speaker 2 (02:32:16):
Yeah, I tend to lean toward they're gonna split them
off and do something different. I can see. I can
see Husky Harris being added to that group. He kind
of fits that. He fits the Nexus group probably more
than anybody else. I mean, Percy Watson with Nexus, now,
that's that's not a good fit. You know, Alex Riley,
I think it's too good to stand to be part

(02:32:37):
of a group, and I think he stands out better
on his own. I mean, the main, the main reason
to me why they did the Nexus angle was because
a lot of those guys just can not stand out
on their own, and they were better being in a
collective unit or they can be introduced as a group
and then perhaps find some find some stars in that group.
I think season two of NXC had a lot of does.

(02:33:00):
I mean, they already eliminated two of the dud uh
and they have some potential stars who could stand it
on their own and have shown that the ability to
stand out. Cabal Al Riley, Percy Watson, for a time,
Husky Harris at times as well. So I think they
have more individual stars than guys who need to be

(02:33:20):
in a collective unit to stand out and be utilized.
So uh, I think it's I think it's kind of
two different themes to the first two seasons of NXT,
and we'll see. We'll see if that's consistent or if
they do kind of incorporate some of the season two guys.
But I didn't agree with you, Brian. Split them off,
kind of let them do their own thing for a while,

(02:33:40):
and then if you want to maybe fill with th
out some of those NXC season two guys season one guys,
then you can. You can do that with some of
the remaining other guys. So why I think we've we've
hit most of the high points in the news this
week and anything else you think we need to touch
on before we wrap up today.

Speaker 4 (02:33:59):
I think that that's all I add on my notes.
So we covered it all.

Speaker 2 (02:34:02):
James, Yeah, of course I'll go ahead and play again.
Check out Brian and George Shire with the weekly Nostalgia
podcasts and the Torch VP audio section from earlier this week.
You can check that out as well as Brian's News
and Notes and the Torch Newsletter the nostalgia section of
this week's Words newsletter. So definitely check those out on

(02:34:24):
a weekly basis. And uh yeah, I think we have
covered everything today, Brian, appreciate you joining me. It seems
like a regular thing on Fridays now, you and I
kind of wrapping up the week and talking about the
big stories of the week and TNA the previous night good.

Speaker 4 (02:34:39):
Or bad, good good deal.

Speaker 2 (02:34:42):
Yeah, I'm kind of do this on Fridays. So for Brian,
who appreciate you joining me. As always, visit is Sports
Assistant editor James Bodwell. Sign it up.

Speaker 1 (02:35:08):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: One of worst Impacts in a while, Hogan rumor, Carlito news, Heenan, Jim Ross's future, Summerslam

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: One of worst Impacts in a while, Hogan rumor, Carlito news, Heenan, Jim Ross's future, Summerslam

Stuff You Should Know